If you’ve been following this blog then you probably noticed a considerable slow-down in activity. In between trying to launch a new business and make another profitable I’ve been putting a lot of thought into how to maintain this blog in its present form and have an outlet for broader discussions. Ultimately it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense to inject a more personal strain of posting into the stream of skateboarding, music and art that this site has been about since I started it last year. I love writing about those passions of mine but having this internal conflict left me at an impasse as to how to proceed.
Enter Critical Studies Magazine.
Its clearly not up and running yet but its on the move. I’ve wanted to start a magazine for awhile, well, forever and this looks like the answer. My writing on art, design, music and of course skateboarding will now happen there but it will also feature the talents of other reporters and place more of an emphasis on editorial development.
In the meantime jnamdevhardisty.com will begin to reflect more of my everyday concerns which is basically the art of making things and making a life from those things. If you’re still interested I’m glad to have you on board.
Habitat Footwear’s upcoming 2010 line has started to make the rounds and like the first line it looks sick. While a few of the initial offerings looked like typical skate shoes, at least they looked like really good typical skate shoes. I’m definitely digging the new designs for 2010 especially these boatshoe inspired Charters. (I’m backing this boatshoe thing for as long as it lasts…) The tonal black is beautiful.
©2010 Habitat Footwear (via You Will Soon)
The Timbo-inspired Alex Davis colorway of the new Vireo looks hot as well.
©2010 Habitat Footwear (via You Will Soon)
See the rest of the line at You Will Soon.
This Is Not Here exhibition flyer. © Yoko Ono
I was trolling through my Delicious looking for some design to blog about when I instead found this—Yoko Ono’s Flickr.* I don’t know why I’m still surprised when I see something like Flickr used by a celebrity/famous person/etc and actually used well. Maybe its just because its wierd to me that Yoko Ono and I can be Flickr contacts. Even though she would have to do nothing for this to happen and I would just have to click a button so there’ s no actual connection.
Yoko Ono: “Yes” at Indica Gallery, 1996. You probably know the story but the piece is still great by itself.
Regardless of whether Ono and myself will be commenting on each other’s family vacations, this is a pretty amazing resource. If there were contact info on the profile page I would say she wouldn’t even need a website. There’s so much to get lost in—her written work (which is such a weird and great use of Flickr), interviews (especially cool are the late-60’s interviews with her and John Lennon with amazing Lennon quotes like “The establishment doesn’t exist. All that exists are old people, and when young people get through and change it, they will be it. They will be the Establishment.”), art and event documentation and cool stuff like John and Yoko visiting Niagara Falls.
John Lennon and Yoko Ono visit Niagara Falls, Canada, June 4 1969. ©Yoko Ono.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yokoonoofficial/
*Said bookmark that led to this finding—Northcoast Zeitgeist.
Omar Salazor, Melbourne, 2006. Photo ©Huntfilmwork LLC
Skate film legend (Mindfield, The DC Video, Sight Unseen to name a few) and OG Stereo rider (only one part in Tincan Folklore but oh what a part it is) has a new website collecting his film and photo work over the last 15 years. It clearly is meant to function more as a professional portfolio than an archive so its neither deep nor exhaustive but what is there makes it worth a trip—Heath’s “Mindfield” part, Danny Way’s Mega-ramp part from The DC Video and legend of legends John Cardiel from “Sight Unseen” are all there in Quicktime rather than stutter-y streaming video plus some other photo/graphic goodies.
Huntfilmwork.com
Hunt’s currently working on a video for Analog Clothing. Here’s a pretty cool little teaser they did earlier this year.
I once worked for a guy who had no shortage of ways to dismiss your work and make you feel really small. But he had one line that I always loved and I’ve tried to remember to use it on my own work ever since.
“Too tricky.”
That was all he said and all he needed to say. I don’t know if I’ve used that line with any of my students yet but I can imagine it. “So I’m going to make a book, the whole thing will be screenprinted on canvas and each number of the edition will be a different color and the color corresponds to a date in my journal thats been converted to a hexidecimal color and I’m going to design a new typeface based on my experiences as a—”
“Stop. Too tricky.”
Click image to view large
I saw this a month or so ago as an animated gif and thought it was amazing, so I’m glad to see it as proper Krooked ad. Mike Anderson long-ass FS lipslide to nose-blunt slide. How fast do you have to be going to pull this off? I hope there’s footage of it in the next Krooked video. On a related note, other Krooked am of great potential Brad Cromer also had a web ad at this spot. I think he backlipped the whole thing? Someone should confirm in the comments. I think the world really needs another Krooked video—the ams are just too good to go much longer without new parts.
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Maja S.K. Ratkje “Cyborgic” front cover
The Last Record Company is a new project from Norwegian record label Rune Grammofon. As if Rune Kristofferson wasn’t uncompromising enough with the high standards he set with Rune Grammofon, TLRC definitely takes it a step further. Each TLRC release is vinyl only limited to 500 hand-numbered copies housed in a thick gatefold sleeve with a 16-page art booklet. Like Rune Grammofon’s relationship with Kim Hiorthøy TLRC only works with one designer, former Grandpeople member Magnus Voll Mathiassen new studio MVM*. The design guidelines for TLRC are even more strict—there is no information anywhere on the sleeve or vinyl and the art has no direct correlation to the music. Ultimately it is about a sound object co-habitating with an art object. The first three releases have all come from the RG family and though it is a record label “designed to die” so far its future looks bright.
Ultralyd “Rendition” front cover
Stian Westerhus “Galore” interior spread
*Yes, I agree that an MVM/MVA collaboration should probably happen. Possible titles: AMMMVV; MMVVMA; MVMMVA.
A Decade of Change
January 17, 2010
©2010 Chocolate Skateboards
While waiting for an oil change today, I read the cover story “10 Skaters Who Changed The Decade” in the new Transworld Skateboarding today (which is pretty great, by the way. Though what the hell do they print it on? After looking at The Skateboard Mag and then Color, TWS feels like its printed on toilet paper.) at Barnes & Noble. It features interviews with pretty much exactly who you expect based on the title—Marc Johnson, Koston, Danny Way, Appleyard, P-Rod, Andrew Reynolds, etc. TWS seems really into these features on influential skaters, a move I’m all for.
The real highlight for me was the MJ interview where he talks about the development of the Fully Flared combo-ledge trick aesthetic. He mentions Mike Mo telling him that he had an “MJ” trick—the FS tailslide to FS bluntslide that became his Fully Flared ender (that is his ender, right?) and that him, Guy and Lucas Puig would throw tricks out at each other.* But the thing that caught my attention was MJ talking about tricks from early 90’s videos that never really caught on and mentions one of my personal favorite clips ever—Danny Way’s FS boardslide to FS noseblunt slide in Questionable (plus he gives Henry Sanchez props for the switch boardslide to FS boardslide). Its one of those things that makes you appreciate his skating that much more, that its aware of its own history and re-looking at stuff that was so ahead of its time that it disappeared. I’m reminded of Danny Way’s FS noseblunt slide to 360 shuv-it out (also from his Questionable part); who knew tricks done once on curbs in 1992 would come back so hard?
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