Happening : Halsband

One of New York's most celebrated surfer/artists. 

Happening Tonight : Cluster at ForgetMeNot

Surf videos have always skirted the line into the art film genre.
The sly voiceover, slide-show style morphing into LSD burnout color dial morphing into a slavish repetition with a jarring soundtrack, all set to the beat of strategically amateur-style technical quality with a high dependence on an insider cultural knowledge (or at least deep pockets of patience for self-important hijinks.)

Maybe that all sounds like churlish damnation, but in this I think the surf community actually offers up something of a last-bastion, or at least a current haven, for the art of the art film. (Well, the surf filmmaking community plus a good portion of art school undergrads, also an all-too-often maligned archival source of cultural translation.)

Anyhow, Kai Neville is among the vanguard of the current movement and his films offer a good dose of the ridiculous married to a fantastic dose of the sublime.
Tonight at ForgetMeNot at 138 Division Street.

 Go get inspired.

La Primera Ola

‘La primera ola’ es un documental presentado por VANS y CANAL+, producido por Jocántaro Films y dirigido por Pedro Temboury que recorre los orígenes del surf en España a través de las declaraciones y anécdotas de sus protagonistas, acompañadas de impactantes e inéditas imágenes de la época. Más de ochenta entrevistas a pioneros que nos cuentan de primera mano cómo fueron esos inicios, más de 3.000 metros de súper 8s inéditos de la época, cientos de fotografías y más de 10.000 km recorridos en busca de las historias más emocionantes, hacen de “La primera ola” un documento único e irrepetible. Nunca hasta ahora se ha podido documentar de manera tan exhaustiva los inicios del surf en España de boca de sus propios protagonistas. Será estrenada dentro de el Surfilm Festibal, en San Sebastián, el próximo junio de 2015. Posteriormente se emitirá en CANAL+.

It Doesn't Not Work Volume II

That's right folks. Numero Dos is on the hopper. In the hopper? Around the hopper? Well, it's hopping. Ty Breuer of SMASH and I are back on the trail for the weird, the ugly and the sublime at the Picture Farm Gallery.

WAX Magazine and Board Porn have signed up so far to help make a great event. The dates have been set for the weekend of April 24-26.

We're still settling on our run-of-show, but tune in and tune in to ItDoesntNotWork.com and submit a shape you'd love to discuss, or simply prepare your mind for the altering of good companionship.

And we're back...

Bungling Cyclones + Frothing Grommet + Camper Van

(not entirely sure what that all =)

The sum certainly of some amazing support from a surfing community dedicated to the next generation of global citizens. People like Baggu, Sundown, Token, Pilgrim, Allswell, Pull and an incredible group of people who pledged money via Kickstarter.

Today's Thought : Check It

A friend of mine is directing, or I should say, has been directing, this film and it needs an extra push. He's been telling me about it for the last year, and each story gets crazier and more interesting. A wild project. Check It out... here.

EBNY On Hiatus : The Boy's Journey Begins

For the next couple weeks we will be traveling up the East Coast of Australia making a travel & surf documentary following a father and his son as they road trip up the East Coast of Australia, surfing, meeting new people and learning what it means to be a responsible, inquisitive traveler.

Read all about it at www.TheBoysJourney.com

Leah Dawson Appreciation

Every now and again the world wide interconnected web of instant access and immediate communication algorithmically churns the digital dirt to uncover a gem of uncompromising quality.

And so somehow this style master were recently presented to me.
You can find more from her here.

I mean really. Ridiculous cum astounding.

Paul Strauch Interview

Pilgrim Surf Shop has been doing a nice job of updating their site with interesting material. The latest is this great interview with legend Paul Strauch.

Today's Thought

Respect

I didn't even know he was sick. How many amazingly great vibes and ready smiles did I receive 

as I received a pizza from his hands. 

Photo by Joshua Simpson

This Week In Not Surfing

In this week's inaugural February podcast of This Week In Not Surfing, Antonio and Toddy talk about life choices. And not surfing. Recorded in typical lo-fi fashion and predictably without editing.

A couple corrections: It's Dan Wozniak, not Steve Wozniak. and Ty Breuer is the fellow who was telling me all about the surf film archivist not Ian Hoff, who's told me about all sorts of other amazing people.

The Boy's Journey Family Surf Film : Robinson Shapes a Board! (Or starts to anyhow...)

This weekend Robinson embarked on the first part of his journey. Christian Boalt of Token Surfboards is so keen on our project, he's offered to shape (and teach us how to shape) surfboards for our film. I've rarely seen Robinson so focused.

Visit the updates section on our Kickstarter page to watch a little video of some of the day's journey.

Today's Thoughts

Happening: Matthew Fisher at Sardine


One of our favorite non-surfing, apparently surf inspired artists Matthew Fisher is having a show at the Sardine Gallery in Brooklyn coming up. One of his pieces hangs on our wall at home, and his fascination with the fluid design of nature and his semi-blocky, slightly-cartoonish, half-whimsical compositions have always had a kind of authenticity of vision to them.  


"Sardine is pleased to present Black Water Don’t Shine Like the Moon, a solo exhibition of drawings by Matthew F Fisher. It opens Saturday, Jan. 31st, with an opening reception from 6 to 9 pm. It will be open through Sunday, February 22nd. 

This show brings together a group of drawings that are the soul of Fisher’s artistic process. 
Completed over the past few years, they reveal a time when Fisher finds his voice amidst the elements of land, sea, and sky. Combining ink and collage on book pages with hand-made or found frames, the simplest forms become timeless deliberations on existence. With all the beauty and heart one can muster, real, ideal and everything in-between, exist simultaneously."