1. I think every airport ought to have the words DIGNITY and ELEGANCE printed in simple font on placards dotting the terminals. I believe that before every taciturn airline employee and dopey TSA agent assumes their post, they ought to repeat these words as a personal mantra.
2. On my way to Texas I order a double espresso and pay $2.17 for it. After finding out my plane is delayed an hour, I order a single espresso from the same counter and pay $2.17 for it, receiving the exact same amount of dry tasting Illy coffee as the first order.
3. I happen to be in Austin during the SXSW tech week, an eyerollingly embarrassing happenstance for my normally tetchy take on group-think. So many strivers, connivers, and thinkers and even more wanton hangeroners, hopeIgetluckiers and uselessideasquatters. It is all so blatantly, gratuitously, corporately dorky, everyone with their brightly colored, creative-classified laniards displaying their earnest intent. I can sit and judge from afar because I'm here for another reason, but the fact is, it's not all cringe worthy. These same jolly herds produce a collective smile of social submission that somehow conjures a whiff of desire for the better. I can't fault that in the end.
4. The ubiquity of Tillandsia. One of the most lovely, astonishing things in all Texas.
5. We sit in a chain restaurant to the left of a clinical smelling Marriott in Commerce, 20 minutes from Athens, Georgia but we don't know that as we haven't bothered to check the map, unconsciously settting ourselves up for a needless Applebees v. Ruby Tuesdays Decision 2016. Ruby Tuesdays is approximately 45 footsteps closer and wins the pole thanks to geographic merit. We wait five minutes to get our hands on a menu, another ten minutes to take a sip of water, a further five minutes to receive our beers (and order) and another twenty minutes to dig into our "simple, fresh American food." No less than three waiters and waitresses have attended to us on a night where one can only make out a two-top, a couple four-tops and three stragglers at the bar. From the moment we start eating to the moment we walk out the door, we are approached no fewer than seven times with abject apologies for the lack of service. "I'm really sorry! It has been craaaazy tonight." Commerce, Georgia has an alternate definition of craaaazy to the one which we're accustomed.
6. Jefferson, Georgia is the birthplace of anesthesia. It has a Lee Street and two commemorative statues for their brave Confederate boys in grey. Sometimes I wonder if they actually wore grey. I text my father the news and he responds, "Sounds like a sleepy town."
7. My borderline paranoiac fear that someone might overhear a personal conversation makes me a terrible long-distance lover. This psychosis takes conversationally warm phone calls out of my interpersonal repertoire. Instead I fill my texts with dumb observations (like these) and bad selfies. This is admittedly thin fare.
8. Glenn McDaniel moved from Atlanta to Seattle in the mid 80's, inserting him (and his family) into our lives in that gracious, entertaining way that Southerners can muster from the moment they pop out the womb. The first topic of conversation I remember (the only topic, really) was The Varsity, a one of a kind hamburger and hotdog joint plopped down in the middle of Atlanta. A sort of Georgian Dicks as far as my mind could understand it. And my mind tried to understand it, transforming tales of this spectacular drive-in into myths and legends that would haunt the periphery of my life's goals. In fact, I've never wanted to visit Atlanta for any reason other than giving the epic grease a go. This is a quest I repeat to anyone who'll listen during my two days in Georgia, eliciting a hundred enthusiastic bits of ordering advice. The gaffer: "Get the Frosted VO!" The stylist: "The Heavyweight!" The second AC: "Go All The Way!" After our shoot we hustle back to the big city, drop our bags and head out into the warm Southern night in anticipation of gastronomical debauchery. My mind ponders the instagram photo I'll take to record my dream fulfilling triumph as we race down the highway in an Uber, ignoring grumbling from the back seat. I scroll through my notes on proper ordering phrases, missing the growing protestations from my comrades. Just as I settle on the burger/dog/onion ring/frosted orange spread I'm going to set myself up with, Adam the cinematographer startles us suddenly, "we're going the wrong way!" I look over at the rotund lady behind the wheel. She looks confused, harried. I look back at my cohort. They look crestfallen, fearful. I look at the dashboard clock. 10:20. "Wait, The Varsity closes at 10:30... right?" The driver looks at me, shame in her soft eyes. I look at the back seat. My producer checks Apple Maps, the photographer Waze, the DP Google Maps. We miss two more exits, make three more u-turns, change our plan of attack four times. Pulling up, tumbling out, sprinting wildly towards the light. 10:31. Protestations. Pleading, begging, storytelling, and finally, consigned silence. As we hang our heads I start to laugh. We all start to laugh.
9. The next morning on an Uber to the airport we retell the story of our failure to the driver, a tall, trim middle aged black man in a tie. He laughs softly, sympathetically and adds, "To be honest, I think it's overrated." He is from Detroit and refers to hot dogs as Coneys. "After Coney Island?" "Yep." Pat chimes in that Norwegian Coneys are overrated as well, to which Kaia the Norwegian takes offense. Adam declares that Chicago has the best Coneys and our driver agrees. I offer that Coney Island Coneys are overrated and everyone goes quiet.
Saturday, March 19, 2016
Sunday, March 13, 2016
Long Beach Long Island, Seminal Surfing Symposium
I don't know what it says about the importance of these spots that I've lived near and/or frequented and/or regularly surfed in the close vicinity of five of these ten spots over the last 20 or so years... it certainly doesn't bode well for the idea that these breaks generate top quality talent. But it's neat the Long Beach gets a bit of due. Click le pic.
Friday, March 11, 2016
Thursday, March 10, 2016
Sunday, March 6, 2016
Another Week In Not Surfing
1. I watch the Eddie in London and get that rush of excitement that comes with tuning into a live surfing match over the internet. I am a sucker for streaming surf contests. It hits a pleasure center buried deep in my brain I couldn't have figured was there. I can watch for hours. But unlike, say, NFL games on Sunday, I have no interest of "having it on" in the background just to soak in the sounds to set a festive mood. Maybe it's just the WSL guys though. The commentators who talked over the Da Hui Shootout a month or two back were cracking me up.
2. What did someone say? Underwear can be worn five ways? Outside out frontwards, outside out backwards, inside out frontwards, inside out backwards and the way you've forgotten you've already worn it?
3. My shower has two bottles on a ledge: “Shampoing” and “Après Shampoing.”
4. At 40+ years of age, perhaps you should not find yourself at an underground techno party off the Champs Elysees at three in the morning. But maybe you should, and this is where I find myself pulled along by my Dutch crew after wrapping our shoot. The bouncer tries to expel me from the bottle service section, an area that sounds posh but in fact suffers from the same sloshingly slick floor, flailing arms and friendly-strange hugs as the rest of the place. He is massive, far over six foot and weighs likely 250 pounds. When he yanks my arm, I move. To my startled protestation, he lowers his eyes to me, then to the Dutch, then to me again. Smiling faintly, he lets go of my shoulder, winks and moves off, like an enormous octopus drifting through seaweed.
5. I turn the corner at the Gar du Nord fiddling with my camera, not paying attention. From the immediate distance I hear, then see, the angry African approaching just in time to duck my contraption and keep him from snatching it out of my hands. As I shift my shoulder into his chest we are in a sort of bro hug as my friends pull him away. His spittle on my shoulder, he screams about not filming, and something entirely unintelligible. We point to the soccer ball, point to the camera and back. He doesn’t care. We don’t care. Fifty feet on we start filming again.
6. The odd, burping series of mumbles and laconic gestures that become my standard French Interpersonal Communication Method starts slowly as Brain One reaches back into Brain Two, scrounging around with a naked hand in a knife drawer, looking for those early French lessons my parents inexplicably gifted me. It must have been an experimental era of proactive parenting that somehow didn’t stick. They would rarely engage in that sort of overt forethought again, my subsequent way found unfettered in the easy, sheltered nook they’d carved. But I've always treasured that abortive attempt at teaching me something useful. Between that and the concurrently laborious piano lessons, I have an enduring ear for the language. Or at least an enduring ability to contextualize three words in a basic sentence of eight or more and nod or shake my head appropriately. Last night the couscous, mergez sausage, mint tea and baklava at Chez Omar just happened to be the perfect thing to agree to.
7. I’m not sure how many times I’ve been to Paris. Five? Six? Usually for at least a week, but that is not enough. Men of a certain age and sensibility wear capes in Paris. Not superhero capes, but classic, heavy, weather ready capes over their smart trousers, relaxed blazers and Mr. Rogers cardigans. Paris has more bookstores and movie theaters than anywhere else I’ve been. I’ve heard Buenos Aires has more bookstores per capita than any city in the world, but Paris must surely be second. The amount of bookstores dedicated to photography alone must outnumber the regular bookstores in any other vulgar, plebeian city.
8. There is an intellectual brutishness to a certain sort of bougie Frenchman. It is as if they, as a species, have borrowed from their father’s father’s father, moving that generation’s aesthetic heroism so far into the future, assuming the official mantle of “Overly Concerned But Over It.” A slack jawed, guttural consto-critique, pointing and opining and chewing food throughout. The air of indignancy is rote learned. The hair, to greater or lesser degree, bouffant, carries before them their impatience. But the true wonder of this sort of Frenchman is their eyes. Slightly drooping and pleading, asking to be noticed. He is, after all, the spiritual descendant of Descartes, Voltaire, Foucault, Sartre. Genet! Their harried pantomime is the primary weapon in their battle for relevance. Flapping lips, wiggling fingers and rolling pupils. One such Frenchie keeps me company a table over, having dinner with his disinterested partner. He is a one man score. A droning click track to my meal and an enjoyable sideshow I am grateful for.
9. After two weeks of shooting and traveling, we are spent. Johnny and I have friends to call, but we opt to have the easy night without heavy conversation and simply walk the city. There is a famous dance bar we know of, and standing in line a small group of hilarious looking Parisian youth saunter by. Johnny and I trade the knowing look that comes from working together on a tight production and step out to follow the cadre to wherever they end. We keep a safe distance, going five or nine blocks before they disappear into a hole in the wall. When we approach, the gorille gives us the look up and down and says the party is winding down. We laugh and say ok and head back to our original line which has grown twice as long. We wait, shuffling slowly and talking about Situationism. When we get to the door, the gorille looks us up and down and informs us we can’t enter without female companions. We have a good laugh with this gorille and head home in relief for a happy sleep.
10. I have Euros left over, looking for a gift when a t-shirt in a fashionable shop catches my eye through the window. As I hold it up I ask the shop keeper the gender. He ruins the destination but I buy it anyway. He asks where I’m from and I tell him. “You know, we have a shop there too. In Soho.” “Yes, but it’s more fun to buy things when I’m not in New York.”
2. What did someone say? Underwear can be worn five ways? Outside out frontwards, outside out backwards, inside out frontwards, inside out backwards and the way you've forgotten you've already worn it?
3. My shower has two bottles on a ledge: “Shampoing” and “Après Shampoing.”
4. At 40+ years of age, perhaps you should not find yourself at an underground techno party off the Champs Elysees at three in the morning. But maybe you should, and this is where I find myself pulled along by my Dutch crew after wrapping our shoot. The bouncer tries to expel me from the bottle service section, an area that sounds posh but in fact suffers from the same sloshingly slick floor, flailing arms and friendly-strange hugs as the rest of the place. He is massive, far over six foot and weighs likely 250 pounds. When he yanks my arm, I move. To my startled protestation, he lowers his eyes to me, then to the Dutch, then to me again. Smiling faintly, he lets go of my shoulder, winks and moves off, like an enormous octopus drifting through seaweed.
5. I turn the corner at the Gar du Nord fiddling with my camera, not paying attention. From the immediate distance I hear, then see, the angry African approaching just in time to duck my contraption and keep him from snatching it out of my hands. As I shift my shoulder into his chest we are in a sort of bro hug as my friends pull him away. His spittle on my shoulder, he screams about not filming, and something entirely unintelligible. We point to the soccer ball, point to the camera and back. He doesn’t care. We don’t care. Fifty feet on we start filming again.
6. The odd, burping series of mumbles and laconic gestures that become my standard French Interpersonal Communication Method starts slowly as Brain One reaches back into Brain Two, scrounging around with a naked hand in a knife drawer, looking for those early French lessons my parents inexplicably gifted me. It must have been an experimental era of proactive parenting that somehow didn’t stick. They would rarely engage in that sort of overt forethought again, my subsequent way found unfettered in the easy, sheltered nook they’d carved. But I've always treasured that abortive attempt at teaching me something useful. Between that and the concurrently laborious piano lessons, I have an enduring ear for the language. Or at least an enduring ability to contextualize three words in a basic sentence of eight or more and nod or shake my head appropriately. Last night the couscous, mergez sausage, mint tea and baklava at Chez Omar just happened to be the perfect thing to agree to.
7. I’m not sure how many times I’ve been to Paris. Five? Six? Usually for at least a week, but that is not enough. Men of a certain age and sensibility wear capes in Paris. Not superhero capes, but classic, heavy, weather ready capes over their smart trousers, relaxed blazers and Mr. Rogers cardigans. Paris has more bookstores and movie theaters than anywhere else I’ve been. I’ve heard Buenos Aires has more bookstores per capita than any city in the world, but Paris must surely be second. The amount of bookstores dedicated to photography alone must outnumber the regular bookstores in any other vulgar, plebeian city.
8. There is an intellectual brutishness to a certain sort of bougie Frenchman. It is as if they, as a species, have borrowed from their father’s father’s father, moving that generation’s aesthetic heroism so far into the future, assuming the official mantle of “Overly Concerned But Over It.” A slack jawed, guttural consto-critique, pointing and opining and chewing food throughout. The air of indignancy is rote learned. The hair, to greater or lesser degree, bouffant, carries before them their impatience. But the true wonder of this sort of Frenchman is their eyes. Slightly drooping and pleading, asking to be noticed. He is, after all, the spiritual descendant of Descartes, Voltaire, Foucault, Sartre. Genet! Their harried pantomime is the primary weapon in their battle for relevance. Flapping lips, wiggling fingers and rolling pupils. One such Frenchie keeps me company a table over, having dinner with his disinterested partner. He is a one man score. A droning click track to my meal and an enjoyable sideshow I am grateful for.
9. After two weeks of shooting and traveling, we are spent. Johnny and I have friends to call, but we opt to have the easy night without heavy conversation and simply walk the city. There is a famous dance bar we know of, and standing in line a small group of hilarious looking Parisian youth saunter by. Johnny and I trade the knowing look that comes from working together on a tight production and step out to follow the cadre to wherever they end. We keep a safe distance, going five or nine blocks before they disappear into a hole in the wall. When we approach, the gorille gives us the look up and down and says the party is winding down. We laugh and say ok and head back to our original line which has grown twice as long. We wait, shuffling slowly and talking about Situationism. When we get to the door, the gorille looks us up and down and informs us we can’t enter without female companions. We have a good laugh with this gorille and head home in relief for a happy sleep.
10. I have Euros left over, looking for a gift when a t-shirt in a fashionable shop catches my eye through the window. As I hold it up I ask the shop keeper the gender. He ruins the destination but I buy it anyway. He asks where I’m from and I tell him. “You know, we have a shop there too. In Soho.” “Yes, but it’s more fun to buy things when I’m not in New York.”
Monday, February 29, 2016
This Other Half Week In Not Surfing
1. The Italian twins have asked Jeremy over for dinner to which he responds by bringing dinner. One twin cancels, leaving another Italian in her place along with her English husband. They are all artists. The replacement Italian comes from a Milanese family. She is currently working feverishly to produce a line of new scents for the family business of which she is fast becoming the creative face. One half the original Italian, a painter, is just returning to her work from having to do someone else's work. She complains about commissions. But only so much. The Englishman starts dour, hunkered in the corner staring at a computer screen, but evolves into entertaining stories about trapeze classes. I shuck kale and sauté garlic, jobs I am grateful for but also fill me with anxiety. Sautéing garlic in an Italian's home. Nothing could be more terrifying.
2. A consistent item on the menu of dinner conversations the world over is a bubbling stew called "Tales of Altered States, Homeopathic Remedies and the Upending of Expectation." The recipe rarely loses steam, offers anecdotal hilarity and allows for a soap box moment for every participant.
3. I witness the isolation of the displaced professional athlete. I witness the adulation of fans and the misplacement of hopes. I take four train rides. Up and back. Up and back. The English countryside looks identical three times. The fourth is at night.
4. I buy two books about Italian football. I eat at an Italian restaurant which isn't any good. I finish half my meal, half my glass of wine, pay, and go next door to another Italian restaurant and order a similar dish. I finish half that meal and glass of wine, pay and leave. Afterward I have a stomach ache.
5. I try to read one of the Italian books, an anecdotal history about great Italian soccer players, but it is awful. I have read many great books about the history of soccer, the utterly brilliant Soccer in the Sun and Shadow being my nearest hope for this flaccid drone. But, alas.
6. I travel to two Premier League soccer games on back to back days. The two teams are currently battling it out at the top of the table. Leicester City and Tottenham Hotspur. In both cases I find the palpable excitement of gameday offset by that peculiar English a) overt misery in the case of Spurs and b) blunt resignation in the case of the Foxes. But the cheering, the chanting, the singing and general grandiose chummy appreciation on display in both stadiums make me resigned and miserable to the right degree in the end.
7. At St. Pancras I spill my coffee. At St. Pancras they unpack both my enormous bags completely at the security line. I had expected to travel to India after Paris for another couple weeks of work but the job fell through and my bags have far more gear and varied clothing than I'd ever need for a couple weeks work in dour European winter weather. The security lady cannot understand why I have so many bags within bags full little cables. But I smile at her and she smiles at me and I repack my bags slowly.
8. All the attendants on the train to Paris are tall. The men are tall, the women are tall. The women are very pretty and wear blue uniforms that make them even prettier. The driver who picks me up in Paris was born in Israel and has two children. They are six, three and 11 months. He has a quick gait, wears a long beige trench coat on a sunny day with cool black Ray Bans and is very bad at maths.
2. A consistent item on the menu of dinner conversations the world over is a bubbling stew called "Tales of Altered States, Homeopathic Remedies and the Upending of Expectation." The recipe rarely loses steam, offers anecdotal hilarity and allows for a soap box moment for every participant.
3. I witness the isolation of the displaced professional athlete. I witness the adulation of fans and the misplacement of hopes. I take four train rides. Up and back. Up and back. The English countryside looks identical three times. The fourth is at night.
4. I buy two books about Italian football. I eat at an Italian restaurant which isn't any good. I finish half my meal, half my glass of wine, pay, and go next door to another Italian restaurant and order a similar dish. I finish half that meal and glass of wine, pay and leave. Afterward I have a stomach ache.
5. I try to read one of the Italian books, an anecdotal history about great Italian soccer players, but it is awful. I have read many great books about the history of soccer, the utterly brilliant Soccer in the Sun and Shadow being my nearest hope for this flaccid drone. But, alas.
6. I travel to two Premier League soccer games on back to back days. The two teams are currently battling it out at the top of the table. Leicester City and Tottenham Hotspur. In both cases I find the palpable excitement of gameday offset by that peculiar English a) overt misery in the case of Spurs and b) blunt resignation in the case of the Foxes. But the cheering, the chanting, the singing and general grandiose chummy appreciation on display in both stadiums make me resigned and miserable to the right degree in the end.
7. At St. Pancras I spill my coffee. At St. Pancras they unpack both my enormous bags completely at the security line. I had expected to travel to India after Paris for another couple weeks of work but the job fell through and my bags have far more gear and varied clothing than I'd ever need for a couple weeks work in dour European winter weather. The security lady cannot understand why I have so many bags within bags full little cables. But I smile at her and she smiles at me and I repack my bags slowly.
8. All the attendants on the train to Paris are tall. The men are tall, the women are tall. The women are very pretty and wear blue uniforms that make them even prettier. The driver who picks me up in Paris was born in Israel and has two children. They are six, three and 11 months. He has a quick gait, wears a long beige trench coat on a sunny day with cool black Ray Bans and is very bad at maths.
Friday, February 26, 2016
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
This Half Week In Not Surfing
1. Five harried travelers ahead of me in the security line one of the greatest right fullbacks in the history of soccer removes his shoes. My heart quickens as I am sure no one around me realizes this. My heart quickens at the thought of nicking a selfie with him. If I can just catch up. If this stupid line can go faster. That oaf hasn't got his laptop out yet. Yes! You have to take your watch off. Yes! The laptop goes in a bin by itself. Somehow, some way I nearly bump into the great player at the top of the escalator. He is fiddling with his phone. It is a moment of real conundrum for me. I take what I believe is the path of pride. The path of respect. "Excuse me. Thank you, thank you for everything you've done." I shake his hand. He smiles warmly, I imagine because he is grateful too. Grateful that I did not ask for a selfie. Will he be grateful if he catches the walking pneumonia I seem to be carrying around with me?
2. The lady besides me has black leggings. She is tall, from Manchester, covers herself completely with the red courtesy blanket and pulls her beanie over her whole face. When her chrysalis blossoms near the end of the flight, she explains she is heading to the Canary Islands to finish filming a sci-fi T.V. show about the end of the world.
3. I am shut out of a sauna and a banya. The banya has no room. The sauna is on women's day. I visit Isabel who has just made a surfy film with Jamie. We walk and talk from Shoreditch back to Clerkenwell. I tell her about a movie I like. She tells me about a movie she likes. I have included their surfy film here.
4. Five movies I like : Father Goose. Tampopo. The Castle. Of Time and The City. The Great Beauty. I tell Chris these movies are like jigsaw puzzle pieces inside my heart. Along with my children, my wife, the dogs I have owned, my friends, my anguish, my insecurity, my misconceptions and my memories, these films remind me of who I am. At dinner, over food curried from beneath heat lamps in a section of the restaurant grandly titled "The Carvary," I list this list to Chris.
5. The hotel room in the small Midlands city smells of exhaled smoke and the faint odor of human waste. The paint is chipping. The sheets are stale. There is mold. There is a gap between one wall and the other. Inside the gap is dark. I do not take my clothes off when I sleep. I wish deeply I still smoked so I can light up a cigarette and join in the air.
6. Dev shows us around Leicester. He shows us the house of the rich girl who, after dancing late into the night, would take him and his friends home to play snooker around her father's 12 foot table. He points out the bar where his buddy got hustled by a lady pool shark. He takes us to a Naan joint that is so devoid of any decoration it seems abandoned at first until three middle eastern men pop their heads out of the back room almost simultaneously. He tells us how the first letters of the names of the streets in one part of town spells out the name of the architect who designed the brick tenement housing. He shows us where he met his wife. He tells us about the love song he'd written her. He had studied engineering. He had built pools in France.
7. My trip to India is cancelled. The client balked at our numbers. I have never been to India and was looking forward to going to India. But between the lingering walking pneumonia, the nausea induced by the hotel room odor and the odd responses the goat naan has already produced in my stomach, I find plenty of reason to ignore the disappointment. A good month away from my family might have been a good break for us all. Maybe all of us except the children. And the dog.
8. When Chris cuts our stay at the hotel one night short, the man in the polyester vest asks him why. Chris runs down the litany of reasons. He does not hold back. When he is finished, the blinking man offers an apology to which Chris replies in genuinely the nicest way possible, " Oh you don't need to apologize. This place is awful."
Dictation Pidgin on a Wednesday Night in the Tub
Did you given moment at each given moment at each given moment I had multiple moments at multiple moments you are shamed. The inequities pile up. The small sandpaper the small grit the small the fine grit sandpaper her that his life chafingand chafing running away at your insecurities not rubbing them away button flaming them. Everything feels like a slight everything feels like it wasn't meant like it was meant and and even if it weren't similarities to great he cannot overcome them indignities that we Conger that one conjures that he conjures himself herself. Because in each corner at each step around each corner through that door crawling through that window always looking for the window because who wants to go through the front door that would entail too much honesty. There is no difference between the small things and the big things fine grit and the larger nubbly ones is all sandpaper sometimes it is a flame smoke burns the eyes the smell of burning hairof which he can only smell she can only smellThe indignities the first world problems the indignities The small aching pains the sharp poignant ones like when you stretch out your foot and becomes taught painful unresponsive tight stiff excruciating for a moment and then you please wait and then you place weight on it wait W EEI GH T on it and the pain subsides under the pressure of your body. They are first world problems the pain in the thought that spasm that rigor mortis the first world problem and you live and she lives and he lives in the first world so the problem is a problem. Ending Denny's in dignities our problem made he makes she makes he makes observed observed like a right right R I T E that kind of right. And observance and observance and AN observance they have it but you'll have been Chewalla ritual of the jewel habit habit habit habit she will have a bit she will have the jewel habitual yes habit habit habit. And addiction and AN addiction the small things pinpricks uncomfortable elbows bad bad bad bad Bad bad bad bad bed bed thank you. A bad BDBEDBEDB space East space D space. It is the small things and they heard not because they hurt but because you're experiencing because she experiences them because he experiences them because it is experienced as such pain suffering inconsequential ignored unappreciated besieged guilty very guilty and also terribly unrealistic festively unrealistic fast studious Festus Festus F a D a I ST a I DO US F a STE I DE I O US Festus Festus fast idiots Festivus fast it is fast idiots fast if ES fast odious fast if yes. Fast if yes fasted this. Pain is relative she knows she knows pain is contextual contextual and he experiences it hourly. On purpose with purpose without purpose not on purpose except for the day he decided that he wasn't worth it that no one thought he was worth it though not him early suddenly that no one thought he was worth it and he's never believed it since and he looks across the table at her and sees it in her two together her to TOL TOL TOL 02 they are not worth it he sees it a mirror of himself a mirror that says we are not worth it.
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
The Abbreviated EBNY Review : The Reef
Above is a picture, and a link if you click on it, to the NY Times review of Mick Sowry's "The Reef" which played at the 92nd Street Y on February 18th.
I was one who stood and cheered and not just for the orchestra, but for the film itself. Both stunning adventures into the heretofore (to me) unknown.
In the case of the music: a serious live application of classical repertoire and skill to a surf film.
In the case of the film itself: a kind of magical peeling back of the often decrepit cliches that govern the genre.
Sowry's (and Jon Frank's) abstract, probing, and at times sublimely alienating imagery and editing, pushed and pulled my expectations (and thereby emotions) twisting me into a state of constant surprise.
In our conversation after the perfomance/projection, Mick called it a sort of endless surf painting I think -or something to that effect- rather than a surf film per se. And while I think it is an apt sort of shrugging (either humble or something more realistic), it doesn't quite do justice to the fact that this film has opened a new door to surf filmmaking.
All odd ends and interesting bits, forward glances and backward thrusts, The Reef somehow breaks down the form and resets the conversation to some disturbingly entrancing elements.
It is not a perfect film, but one that is indelibly an act of evolution. And an inspiring, tantalizing one at that.
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Respect
One of the very first surf magazines I ever owned. At that time Brock Little was all over the mags. He was one of the first surf heroes I knew.
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
HAPPENING : THE REEF.
"After huge critical acclaim in 2012 and 2013 in Australia Richard Tognetti and crew have ‘revisited’ the original Reef project adding in exciting, new footage and re-invigorating the original score with new works to create an updated version of The Reef for 2016.
This performance is an illuminating and thrilling celebration of surfing, the ocean, landscape, film and music melded together."
This is a singular event. There will not be something like this happening for a long, long time and you'd best be on your toes to witness. Mick Sowry, Richard Tognetti, Jon Frank et al will be in New York showing this incredible sonic and visual collaboration at the 92nd Street Y on February 18th.
"The Reef is a celebration of surfing, film and live music by the Australian Chamber Orchestra.
ACO artistic director and lead violin, Richard Tognetti, collaborated with producer/director Mick Sowry and director of photography Jon Frank, to create an evocation of an epic stretch of coastline in the north west of Western Australia. Using a mythic day to symbolise our lives in all their trials and glory, The Reef music consists of twenty one individual compositions, some original, some amongst the greatest works in the classical tradition.
This preview features Vocalise by Rachmaninov and explores heroic failure - a simple yet beautiful representation of the inescapable part of our lives where all does not go to plan, and the honour in trying again and again.
The ACO performs The Reef (Revisited) in Sydney on 12 February before taking off for an USA tour that includes performances in Los Angeles, New York and Richmond, from 16 to 20 February."
The Surfer's Journal have already plugged it, and it ought to be smack in the middle of your radar. I have three tickets for Wifey, Primero and myself (Segundo gets the baby sitter) and we are returning from our winter holiday the morning of, just to make it to the performance.
If you can't get to the New York performance/screening, get there in L.A. or Richmond.
Because this film matters.
"Later in the day a flight across the dunes. A discovery and a near dream, Hypnosis is a new composition by Richard Tognetti for The Reef, with vocals by Satu Vanska and technical assistance by Joseph Nizetti. In performance the entire Australian Chamber Orchestra will add many layers to this already beautiful piece."
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
Thursday, February 4, 2016
Happening : Katherine Bradford at Canada Gallery
Bradford often refers to the humor in her paintings. In the past the subject matter pointed more obviously in this direction: UFOs with tractor beams, Superman, Skinny boxers with raised gloves and lonesome ocean liners were used to create a self-depreciating painterly pop encyclopedia. The work in “Fear of Waves” is Bradford’s most figurative thus far and holds pathos and humor in equal measure. A signature painting in the show “Fear of Waves” is a huge canvas bisected by an awesome chevron. On the left side there is a crowd of happy swimmers (including a naked Lady) playing happily while the right holds only the froth and fume left by a set of monstrous waves. This painting holds the key, the delicate balance of joy and fear.
Tuesday, February 2, 2016
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