Yesterday morning, on the tail end of one of my jogging loops through Griffith Park, I ran past a crow sitting on top of a chain link fence. The sight gave me pause because the crow was oddly close to the road, so close that it seemed like most birds would have flown away when some gangly human and his jangling, equally gangly dog ran by in a huff. But the crow stayed put.

I slowly—with Owen (the dog) obediently sitting farther off behind me—approached the crow and, still, it didn’t make a move to fly from the fence. And on closer inspection, it just seemed slightly…off.

I let it be though, assuming it was just momentarily dazed, and ran on down the street with Owen.

Then, when we were a block down, two gardeners came into the yard next to the crow’s fence in all their weed-whacking, lawn-mowing cacophony. As the lawn-mower approached the crow, we watched from down the street as the bird reluctantly and sluggishly took flight, immediately, erratically dipping down in the air back toward the lawn before jerking upward again and then corkscrewing wildly and violently, smacking head-first into the asphalt of the road.

We ran back up to the crow as it gained enough composure to sit upright in the middle of the south-bound lane and were able to wave off the oncoming cars before scooping the crow up and bringing it to the side of the road to better evaluate. Whether it was the crow’s overall affliction or the head-first dive into the street or both, it was out of it, scanning wildly all around and weakly flapping its wings. Carefully, I wrapped my hands around the poor thing and walked it the rest of the way home, over the crest of the hill that divides our canyon from the next one over.

Once home, the crow—who we decided was very lady-like and most probably named Evelyn—settled into a little cave of plants on the embankment by our outdoor office space along with a dish of water and vegan dog food (which she actually ate a bit of). I spent the rest of the day guarding Evelyn from neighborhood cats, checking on her from time to time to make sure she was doing alright, and trying to get through to the California Wildlife Center.

Despite my personal fascination with ravens + crows, I’d never seen or dealt with one this close up and, despite myself, far-fetched fantasies of nursing the crow back to health and having it visit us regularly for treats and little inter-species pow-wows circled through my mind.

In the end though, Evelyn died in the back seat of our car nine or so hours after me first finding her. We were sitting in front of the home of the very kind CWC Animal Care Coordinator who’d offered to take her in for the night when she…just stopped moving. Denys, from CWC, said it was most likely West Nile Virus, which is transmitted via mosquito bite and seen a lot in large birds this time of year. It attacks the central nervous system and wares them down from there. He thanked us for caring and we brought Evelyn’s body back to our house.

We just buried her in our front yard, with a little flower on top and seeds scattered all around her headstone. I’ve got no moral, no advice for anyone else who finds animals in need of help other than: Help. I wish I could have helped more, as always. But maybe there’ll be sunflowers there one day.

This Friday, Katie + I are hosting a longtime friend in the vegan scene at MooShoes Los Angeles—NYC’s Joshua Katcher, editor + founder of the ethical Web journal, The Discerning Brute, adjunct professor of fashion at Parsons The New School, and founder + creative director at Brave GentleMan, a high-end, sustainable, and ethically-made men’s collection offering a fusion of future-textiles and centuries-old production methodology. Joshua will be holding a pop-up at the store from noon on Friday, featuring men’s suiting, outerwear, and more and we’ll be holding a cocktail reception afterwards at 7PM. You can find out more and RSVP via Facebook. In the meantime, we wanted to sit down and catch up with Joshua about the strides he’s made in men’s ethical fashion in the past years, the movement in general and how it’s changed, and challenges he’s faced in bringing all this work to bear.

raven + crow: Alright, first off, for those of us who don’t already know, how and when did you start Brave GentleMan? When you + I first met, you were just doing the Discerning Brute. That seems like quite the leap, from commentator on and appreciator of fashion to actual producer of it.

Joshua Katcher: One led to the other! While I was writing about fashion, I started to realize that there weren’t any brands out there making the styles and quality of garments and accessories I would like to purchase. When I reached out to Novacas to see if they’d collaborate and they said yes, I was thrilled! It was a dream come true to be able to take the ideas in my head and see them created in physical reality, and people responded so positively! Brave GentleMan customers are awesome. They are smart, creative, and willing to invest in something that is better quality because it lasts longer, it finances a value chain that they want to see flourish—from fair labor practices to innovative and sustainable vegan materials.

So the spark was mostly a simple lack of ethical, sustainably made high-fashion for men in the market as it existed then.

Yes, in 2008 most of the ethical/sustainable lifestyle market was geared toward women (which is another issue we could discuss). And there was a stigma that ethical and “eco” clothing was an aesthetic, and that aesthetic was hippy-dippy, crystals-and-incense. The fact that classic menswear aesthetics can be made with ethical and sustainable materials and methodologies was confusing to some people. So yes, there was a lack and I hope to be filling that void.

You’ve termed many of your material things along the lines of ‘future-wool’ or ‘future-leather’ or ‘future-suede’—it’s a beautifully optimistic sentiment, to think that the future of the world’s textiles would not involve killing and abusing animals for their skins and wools. Do you sincerely think these animal-friendly materials really are the future of textiles or is it more positive thinking than predictive?

The scientific reality is two-fold: On one had we have to come to terms with the fact that industrial animal operations—whether it’s wool or leather—are the single greatest cause of the worst environmental problems. We are reminded of this every year by leading experts from the United Nations. We will be forced to find better ways of making everything.

On the other hand, we have the most visionary, exciting innovations in materials happening in the realms of biofabrication, culturing, biosynthetics, bioplastics, recycled materials, and high-tech, high-efficiency, closed-loop synthetics. Scientists are now able to grow most animal materials in the laboratory, and the future for materials looks more like a beer brewery than a cotton field or factory farm. And the best part is that these materials will be superior in every way: Endlessly customizable, far less ecological impact, no animals bred and confined or trapped and killed. There are already materials like biosynthesized spider silk being produced at scale, ready for market without spiders involved in the process. The future is bright and the fashion industry, while deeply entrenched in relationships with old-fashioned animal material suppliers, will either change or become irrelevant when replaced by these visionary innovations.

Can you speak more to the environmental sustainability of animal-free products as they exist now? We encounter people often who take issue with faux leather or the like because they’re worried it’ll sit around in a landfill after they throw it out. Likewise, animal cruelty notwithstanding, others claim that it’s more sustainable to buy one pair of boots made from animal flesh that’ll last them a lifetime than it is to cycle through a pair of cruelty-free boots every few years. What do you say to those particular arguments.

This is a really important question, but requires a long answer! People who think modern synthetic textiles have more of an environmental impact than animal skins are simply wrong, and they are likely victims of really expensive marketing and lobbying from the powerful livestock industries. I find that there are five major misunderstandings with those who take this line of reasoning:

1. Assumption one is that animals are “natural” and therefore, the turning of their body parts (that would otherwise decompose) into textiles is “natural”. The truth is that the livestock industries represent the single greatest cause of the worst environmental problems and that’s a fact backed by a lot of respected scientific research coming from places like the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization. So that means things like wool and leather are responsible for the most major ecological and climate impacts before you even get to the tanning, dyeing, shearing or milling processes.
2. The second assumption is that animal industries don’t use petroleum and synthetics themselves, when in fact, they use tons of the stuff. A leather boot usually still has a synthetic sole and many wool, fur and leather garments are lined in synthetics like polyester. There was a time when leather was tanned with urine, feces and brains, but with modern day tanneries, especially those where most of the worlds’ leather is produced, like those in Bangladesh, the sheer amount of solid and liquid waste full of dangerous chemicals that are dumped into waterways is mind-boggling. During the tanning process at least 660 lbs of chemicals (lime, salt etc.) are added per ton of hides. Bovine leather alone results in roughly 4.2 billion lbs of tanning chemicals used annually. That’s the weight of almost six Empire State Buildings of chemicals. Tanning results in large volumes of effluent contaminated with toxic compounds including aluminum, chromium sulphide, and caustic soda. Most of these are used in countries with very poor and unenforced environmental regulations (which is why it can be made cheap), but it takes a devastating toll of the people, animals, and especially the local waterways. Skin was designed by nature to biodegrade. Synthetic chemicals preserve it.
3. The third assumption is that things like leather are a “byproduct”, when in fact it’s a co-product. This is a really important distinction, because these tanneries aren’t simply making use of something that would otherwise be thrown away. They’re capitalizing on one of the most profitable aspects of the livestock industries, a co-product without which many cattle operations would lose serious profits and go out of business.
4. The fourth assumption is that things in the past were better when it came to turning animals into clothing. But even in previous centuries, the demand for animal materials for fashion had massive impacts, driving many species to extinction like the Huia and Carolina parakeet, hunted to extinction for the feather trade; the toolache wallaby, sea mink, Quagga and Great Auk who were hunted to extinction for their pelts; and the Falklands Island wolf and Tasmanian tiger who were exterminated as “pests” to protect sheep herds.
5. The final assumption is that synthetic is bad. This is simply marketing. Synthetics will continue to get more efficient, more sustainable, more customizable and more biological, while raising animals for materials can’t change that much aside from cramming more and more animals into smaller and smaller spaces and chopping them up faster. Scientists in Japan figured out how to make lycra from waste molasses and poly from bioplastic or mechanically recycled bottles. Synthetics will always be getting more visionary and this isn’t 1970 where PVC and other crappy, toxic products define “synthetic”.

Wow. Thank you. Even for someone already in the fold, so to speak, that’s all quite enlightening. Back to Brave GentleMan and your mission for the company, can you speak to each facet or product a bit? Its’ definitely evolved and grown over the years, in terms of products you offer.

My goal for BraveGentleMan is to become a full lifestyle brand that continually—but of course with high editorial standards—expands into more product categories. For now we offer ready-to-wear (RTW) suiting, shirting, outerwear, shoes, boots, soap, hats, belts, and wallets.

What’s the most exciting product you make now, for you?

I love our suits. That was my original dream, to make a vegan suit, and it’s still my favorite thing to do. Suits are a complicated thing!

I can only imagine. Speak to the challenges you’ve encountered in creating and growing Brave Gentleman over the years. It’s got to be quite the task, for instance, to deal with materials factories in Italy for the first time or even just communicate the desire to people outside of the vegan realm why you don’t want sheeps’ wool or animal hides involved in your products.

I’ve heard, “Vegan clothing? What are you going to eat your shirt?”

OH MY GOD, we get the ‘So you can eat the shoes…heheh’ thing CONSTANTLY at MooShoes. It continues to get even older.

People think vegan means food, and that’s just evidence of the larger problem that fashion is not taken seriously in academica, politics, or elsewhere. It’s seen as trivial, but has massive, global impacts on workers, animals, and the environment.

Where to begin though?! I stopped working with a tie-maker because he absolutely refused to understand that I would not use silk or wool, no matter how patiently and clearly I explained it (and I’m a educator, so I know how to communicate). Then I had about five consecutive suit factories tell me I’d never be able to make vegan suits, and I should just quit now because even cotton and linen suits have wool interlining, silk thread, horsehair canvas, and other things that they were not willing to take the time to replace for me. I spent years doing research and development, endlessly searching for sustainable, vegan fairly-made materials that would make superior suiting. At this point I even have to make my own custom shoulder pads from recycled poly batting, made from soda and water bottles. The people who are the most confused, however, are the people who don’t understand that I am not willing to use a foreign sweatshop or cheap, toxic materials in order to decrease my costs and increase profits. I have two bottom lines, one is financial and one is ethical, and I have to work at making both of them a priority.

Well-put. Not to date ourselves, but you + I have been doing this for a while now. How have you seen the vegan scene change over the years, both in terms of food and the like and in the larger realm of fashion itself.

I love getting older! I’m 34 and I’ll be 35 in October, and I’ve been vegan since I was 18. I think what’s changed the most about the vegan scene is that now it’s not just an “alternative” for avoiding things, but it’s become aspirational from the standpoint of aesthetics and taste. I mean that in the sense that some of the most exciting innovations in cuisine, fashion, and the arts are coming from a value set that is vegan. Vegan is being redefined and equating to high-quality, and that’s a really major transformation.

So true. Like you said, it’s no longer hippy-dippy crystals and hemp, it’s finally being (more) recognized as a product of values and something that can be done with ethics and taste. I know, you’re serving as an Instructor of fashion at Parsons The New School these days. How did that come about?

I’ve lectured at several universities on the topic of fashion and animals; when I spoke at Parsons, an existing professor there recommended me and I was hired as a part-time instructor. I ended up becoming an expert on this topic and I am almost done with my book about it!

That’s very exciting. Anyone who’s been vegan any amount of time has done their fair share of educating others on the whole how, why, what…how is it for you, serving the role of educator more formally now?

It’s really exciting and challenging to continually be refining the way I’m communicating these ideas to students. I’ve learned more from teaching than I have from anything else, about being effective.

That’s excellent. And, in addition to having a Brave Gentleman pop-up at MooShoes LA while you’re in town, you’re also part of a larger panel that’s happening tonight on vegan fashion and sustainability. Can you tell us a little bit about what you all will be discussing there and who else is involved?

I’ll be on a fashion panel that PETA has organized along with Leanne Mai-ly Hilgart (Vaute), Stephanie Nicora (Nicora Johns), Rebecca Mink (Mink Shoes), and will be moderated by Taryn Hipwell (Ecodivas, FIDM). The topic of discussion is Vegan Fashion + Sustainbility and it’s at the Pyo Gallery LA, 1100 S. Hope St., #105 (near the intersection of S. Hope Street and W. 11th Street), in Los Angeles. Doors open at 6:20 p.m., program from 6:40 p.m. to 8 p.m. Only 100 people can fit in the space, so people should RSVP on the FB event page quick!

Done and done. Thanks so much for talking with us, Joshua—see you soon!

Below, the Brave GentleMan Tweed Moto Jacket, on of the many items Joshua will have on-hand at the pop-up Friday. He’ll be at MooShoes LA from noon on Friday to 6PM, followed by an after-hours evening reception starting at 7PM and featuring specialty cocktails from Mateo Hoke, Chief Cocktail Editor at Millennium Restaurant in Oakland and selections from Los Angeles’ Vromage vegan cheese shop. RSVP via Facebook.

Photos of Joshua above + to the right by Julia Cawley.

Late last month, I received a cryptic text from Mud Hen Tavern co-owner, Chef Kajsa Alger: “Hey Troy! We’re opening a new thing. Wanna send you an invite….”

Well, I like new things AND invites, so that was an easy sell.

This evening, Katie + I experienced a preview of that very new thing—Blue Window, a new take-out window adjacent to Mud Hen that will offer up quick gourmet take-out food at non-gourmet prices (everything’s seven bucks or less), with menus + cuisine rotating every six months. First up, Blue Window: Asia.

For anyone who remembers and misses Mud Hen’s previous incarnation, Susan Feniger’s STREET, Blue Window is an exciting addition to Los Angeles’ already vibrant restaurant scene, essentially taking STREET’s rich street food concept and condensing it into this new, modular, bite-size format. The Blue Window team expands on the idea in their press release for the new venture:

“As avid travelers and global cuisine addicts, co-owners Susan Feniger and Kajsa Alger have been keeping their eyes open for a new opportunity to bring international street food back to their neighborhood. As time went by, they realized that the best way to do it would be to bring it back to the kitchen where it all started…a small take-out window from their original restaurant, STREET. A tiny window, a counter, and all of those addicting little street bites that everyone craves. With a menu that only lasts six months, Blue Window is all about getting your fix in while you can.”

We love Mud Hen’s menu, embodying the more neighborhood pub-like, less global street cuisine interpretation of Susan + Kajsa’s cooking, but we’ve long-missed many a STREET menu item. Blue Window promises to bring some of those favorites back, starting with the BBQ bao, which, in its vegan version, exists as a light, puffy steamed bun filled with barbecue-soaked jackfruit and topped with peanut hoisin sauce.

And the bao’s not alone in its vegan incarnation—every single menu item at Blue Window is veganizable or has a vegan version, from the gochujang hot sauce wings (which swap in vegan soy chicken) to the albacore tuna poke (which employs a pickled daikon instead of fish) to the vegan version of the banh mi sandwich, with its grilled bread, pickled vegetables, green sriracha aoili, and marinated jackfruit.

All of it’s absolutely delicious, believe us—not only did we try nearly every single item on the menu, we were also literally the first ones in line Friday evening. That damn New York timeliness hasn’t quite been bleached out of us by the Southern California sun, it seems.

Blue Window opens officially Monday, with weekday hours from noon to 10PM. The concept will change after February 2016, so get this goodness while you can.

For anyone interested in hearing more about Blue Window’s forebear, STREET, you can read a 2013 interview we did with Kajsa, focusing on the strong vegan predilection that restaurant shared with this new concept.

Below, a couple shots of the legendary BBQ boa; a couple the excellent grilled bank mi; Blue Window’s menu (which can be seen in full on Mud Hen’s site); Korean potstickers with red yam dipping sauce; the gochu soy chicken wings with vegan scallion cream; blue nails for a blue window; stuffed tempura—another favorite of ours, full of beautifully tasty shiso leaf, kabocha squash, shiitake mushrooms, and chile thread; the vegan version of the albacore poke; and Katie enjoying the very first official bite of Blue Window. Very much.

Oooh—and not pictured but very much worth the six bucks—Thai iced tea, with the Window’s rich, house-made condensed coconut milk.

Finally, finally, finally coming to fruition—our long-awaited (by us, at least) shirts based on the wallpaper + prints we did for MooSheos NYC + LA.

More on them later, once we’ve got them available for sale online and in-store, but we’re excited!

The new single from Los Angeles indie heroes Silversun Pickups has been burning up the airwaves of KCRW of late, and we have to say, we’re fans.

The track—titled “Nightlight”—is one of those songs that’s just jam-packed with melodica hooks; to the point of absurdity. I mean, beautiful, ear-worm absurdity, but absurdity nonetheless. It’s like, “Oh, here’s the hook. Nice…. Wait, no, that’s the hook. Okay, cool, I like it…. Wait, wait. THAT’S the hook.”

And then there are, like, three new vocal hooks. Followed by a new keyboard hook right after the first chorus. It’s crazy, I tell you; CRAZY! But awesome-crazy.

The video for the song is equally over-the-top in a very dramatic, extremely LA-noir-cinematic way. Directed by Mark Pellington and starring Meg Steedle, it’s got it all—dark city-scapes of Los Angeles; beautiful, nearly dressed women; random blood splattering; creepy hotels; weird contact lenses; you name it.

All jokes aside, it’s pretty cool. Give it a look/listen/shiver.

Silversun’s new LP—their fourth proper studio album, Better Nature, comes out September 25th and can be pre-ordered in all its various formats now via the band’s site. Silversun are touring now and likely hitting a venue near you; likewise, check their site for more details.

During our adventures in the American West last week, we visited the highly esteemed and oft-recommended Japanese-style mountain spa, Ten Thousand Waves. There, we enjoyed a day of lounging in the beautifully placed hot grand pool, moving every now and then from the warm water to their (very very) cold plunge pool, into the bamboo-and-teak sauna next-door, and back into the grand pool again, giving our bodies a relaxing, therapeutic run of the gauntlet  before checking into some much-needed massage sessions.

I know. Woe is us.

Best of all, in my opinion, at least, we got to visit the spa’s Japanese izakaya, Izanami, with its impressive views of the surrounding mountains, extensive list of libations, and vegan-friendly menu.

For anyone not already familiar with izakayas, they’re essentially Japanese pub-style restaurants that focus on drinks and drinking food; so, less sushi + formality, more quick, shared, rich dishes + fun. Which explains how the trend of Izakaya-style restaurants has spread so quickly in the State of late.

On our visit, we enjoyed some Japanese microbrew beers, a nice flight of rosé, and their daily sake special, which—as they promise on their Web site—trends to the more sophisticated palette with a deeper, less sticky-sweet taste than your common sake.

The vegan-friendly food centered around freshly made, simple vegetable-based dishes—like the chilled double soup of puréed carrot + sweet pepper (above); richly togarashi-marinated hot edamame itame; house-made  pickles of seaweed-mushroom, red cabbage kimchi, and saffron squash (below); and the vegan bento box with (below, clockwise from left) wilted spinach with ponzu-sesame dressing, vegetables with sesame-miso sautéed eggplant, additional house-made pickles of mushroom, seaweed, and carrot-burdock, rice, and vegan tofu dengaku.

The izakayu also offers a number of rice and noodle dishes, like the surprisingly delectable onigiri rice ball and their buckwheat noodles (both below).

I have no idea if the restaurant’s namesake is in fact Izanami-no-Mikoto—the mythical Japanese goddess of creation and death whose name means “she who invites”—but if it is, it’s very fitting; many would be happy to die after a meal at this inviting, beautiful  establishment. Definitely, if you’re planning a trip to the Santa Fe area of just looking for added incentive to plan a trip, Ten Thousand Waves + Izanami can offer you a lovely day of pampering and wonderful food + drink.

And yes, you can totally eat in your robe. Just watch your sleeve on the soup portion of the meal.

A fond farewell to Santa Fe and its surrounding environs. See you again soon.

Above, somewhere over New Mexico. Or Arizona. Turns out, those state lines are hard to see six miles up.

We traveled north of Santa Fe today to visit Bandelier National Monument, “over 33,000 acres of rugged but beautiful canyon and mesa country as well as evidence of a human presence here going back over 11,000 years.”

In addition to the wealth of natural beauty the park holds, it also boasts a rich history, much of which is evidenced to this day by way of ancient ruins, cliffside dwellings, and petroglyphs carved into the soft, sandstone-like volcanic tuff.

We took this shot from Alcove House, a ceremonial cave reached by climbing 140 feet worth of stone stairs and steep wooden ladders that was once home to 25 Ancestral Pueblo people.

Click the image to zoom in; you can see more images from our trip on our Instagram feed.

Moving light at night, shot with a Polaroid Land Camera 420 years ago in the Outer Banks, North Carolina.

Late afternoon amber light, as seen through a very lovely IPA.