April 2013
3 posts
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The Crest →
I just want to put this out there to my millions of dozens of ten or twelve followers. This kickstarter seems like a really cool project. It won’t save anybody’s lives and it won’t change the world, but it will tell a fascinating surf story from a unique time and place. Surfing is often portrayed as American’s travelling to exotic locales and eating tacos from around the world. But this, though...
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Surfer Girls in the New World Order →
2013 Surfer Girls in the New World Order by Krista Comer (Duke University Press: 2010) Reviewed by Stewart Sinclair, Loyola University New Orleans
Last December, I reviewed Krista Comer’s ethnographic study of surfing, Surfer Girls in the New World Order, a fantastic analysis of surf culture and the role women occupy within that cultural space. The cultural studies journal Interstitial,...
“Man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free.”
– Jaque Cousteau
February 2013
1 post
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January 2013
5 posts
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MY Writing Life Outside of the Breaks →
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Here’s a link to my latest op-ed in the Loyola University Maroon. I offer my take on what should be considered in the gun debate.
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The Virtual Surfer's Ecology: an Introduction
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Screenshot from Hironobu Sakaguchi’s iOS game Party Wave
Any research into surfing video games will likely yield one of two results: a history of surf games, or the mystery of their disappearance from the market. Regarding the former, several people have created informative and entertaining chronicles that can be found here and here. Within these...
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“Surfing, a California sport par excellence if there ever was one. No longer a...”
–
Zizek, Slavoj. The Ongoing Soft Revolution. Critical Inquiry (Winter, 2004).
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November 2012
4 posts
3 tags
Ventnorian: Movie of the week: Big Wednesday →
the-ventnorian:
Big wednesday is one of the most iconic surf films of the 70’s and boy can you tell it’s a 70’s film! the hair, the cars, the clothes, not least the actors looking extremely young and robust compared to their rather withering older bodies now!
Big wednesday was one of the first surf films i’d…
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“I have never seen snow and do not know what winter means.”
– Duke Kahanamoku
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Chasing Mavericks: The Techne of Jay Moriarty
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Poster for Chasing Mavericks (2012), the ninth lowest grossing box-office mass released film in history
While I watched the latest big-budget story of Jay Moriarty I thought about David Foster Wallace’s essay How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart. The essay is his reaction to and review of tennis legend Tracy Austin’s sports memoir. Summing up his supreme disappointment with the book, he...
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Surf the Vote
Surfing and politics are two things that I am passionate about. Because of this, I’d like to take a moment to address the election, and the vote. I am re-blogging my Op-Ed recently published in Loyola University New Orleans newspaper “The Maroon.” while my argument has nothing to do with surfing, I guarantee that surfing is political. Perhaps more so than any other sports. Ours...
October 2012
1 post
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September 2012
2 posts
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Brendon Thomas Chickens Out
The October 2011 issue of Surfer is titled FEAR. The word is superimposed over a speck of a human trying to glide across the surface of a wallowing tube. The guts of this ‘zine will inevitably be stories of monster waves and rocky breaks, but the first article tackles the often uneasy to mention possibility of facing your fear: chickening out.
In his editorial, The Fear Compass, Brendon Thomas...
9 tags
Dead Sea
The surf drought that has plagued the California central coast for most of the summer hasn’t kept me out of the water. It has a cold bite, even in July. Here in the silence of an un-undulating coast, I float. My board hardly stirs a ripple at Surfer’s Point. It’s times like these when a surfer can actually reflect on the cultural white-wash about how we experience peace and...
July 2012
3 posts
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WatchBig wave surfer Laird Hamilton discusses what it means to be a big wave surfer; considers global warming a plus.
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Hydroplaning
The terminal: an isolated biome of circulated air pumping through the rafters of expansive atriums; where baggage carriers glide across the precisely laid out tarmac; a placeless place devoid of what we typically call nature.
There’s no surf in this place.
Today the baggage handlers are wilting like safety-orange flowers under New Orleans’ hot hot sun. Outside it feels like...
June 2012
1 post
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Shark Repellant
I feel obligated to say something about this clip, and there is, truly, a lot to say. But I don’t know where to start. So for now, consider this clip a curious peek at what you might find when you google 1960’s surf scenes.
May 2012
1 post
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Ironclad Surf Origins
Oxy-acetylene spewed between my father’s teeth when he spoke. His pink welding cap’s brim turned backward poking out of the back of his protective black mask. Rod struck iron and an arc hot as the sun spouted up. Torrents of sparks like salamander tears. He drew the bead with love, my father.
I played the floor is lava and other games while I ran around the shop. I had favorite places. There was...
April 2012
3 posts
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Sound Waves and other Sonic Resonances Pt. 1
This is part one of a three part examination of surf rock and the music associated with surfing…
What’s amazing about sound is how incredibly fast it travels, approximately 768 miles per hour in dry air. It moves in invisible waves that become apparent as soon as they make contact with an open field, a hanging tuft of hair, or your delicate and precise personal eardrum. There...
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Adam Knox: Surfing at its Core
Adam Knox has seen the world from every surfable coast. This week The Deep Water Breaks had the opportunity to get his take on surf culture. Knox gave us his thoughts on everything from the fundamentals of surf to his relationship with the late, great Andy Irons. DWB: Do you feel like surfers are pro athletes?
KNOX: Yes and no. I consider myself a professional athlete but not in the same...
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Back to the Basics
March 2012
3 posts
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The Problem with Malamalama Board Shorts
Surf iconography isn’t going anywhere. Considering how few people actually participate in the activity, it’s astounding how flexible the image is. When one of my professors sent me a screen-shot of the Delta Airlines website I was encouraged to think about an interesting use of surfing: marketing and advertising.
Photo courtesy of Dr. Christopher Schaberg, author of “The Textual Life of Airports”...
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No Longer Constantly One Step Ahead
Look at the surf movie[1] posters of the sixties and seventies and two motifs easily stand out: One or two surfers walking toward the ocean; or a lone empty wave curling on itself, devoid of an inhabitant[2]. This is just one representation of the surfing mythos. Surfers are at once in awe of nature while simultaneously attuned to it.
Movie Poster for Endless Summer (1966)
The Morning of the...
February 2012
2 posts
4 tags
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Mussels are Made to Be Drowned
The spray from the whitecaps breathed through the planks of the pier. Rainfall burst against the boards. Between the beams the ocean surged and plunged: a pneumonic lung. The sea was cobalt—mercurial. I walked slow and stayed behind Travis.
“What if my board snaps?” I asked.
“Don’t land on top of it. Toss the board away from you.”
“Yeah, ok. But what...
