30 Variations and a Microphone
Glenn Gould has little to do with surf culture; even when it was warm, he wore “an overcoat, a beret, a scarf and gloves.” Nonetheless, the publication of an essay about Gould’s 1955 recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations merits your attention, not least because its author is Paul Elie, who published a wonderful prosopography of American […]
The Onjuku Surf Shack
Designed by Japanese firm Bakoko, the Onjuku Surf Shack was built for an international couple who loves to surf. It can be opened to the ocean breezes and is located in a coastal fishing village approximately ninety minutes from Tokyo. Click through to The Fox Is Black to watch a two-minute video demonstrating the house’s […]
2012 World Savers Awards
Beginning several years ago, Condé Nast Traveler magazine has given out annual World Savers Awards. This year’s finalists and winners have been chosen. A description: They have planted 366,100 trees in 2011 alone, from Australia to Thailand and South Africa. They have helped educate 96,298 students in Kenya, India, and the United States and provided […]
Study Suggests Leatherback Turtle Decline
From Yale Environment 360: A warming climate could exacerbate threats facing leatherback turtle populations in the eastern Pacific Ocean, creating conditions that could trigger a 75 percent reduction in turtle numbers by the end of the century, a new study says. Even under existing conditions, turtle births ebb and flow each year, researchers say, with eggs and hatchlings […]
Surfers Against Sewage, “Protect Our Waves”
The UK-based group Surfers Against Sewage has launched a new campaign called Protect Our Waves. It is meant to raise awareness about the environmental hardships faced by surf spots on that side of the Atlantic. Here’s a further description: The campaign aims to protect surf spots from unacceptable levels of environmental impact, degradation of surfing […]
Barry McGee retrospective at Berkeley Art Museum
One week from today the Berkeley Art Museum will open the first exhibition surveying the art of Barry McGee. “Throughout his career,†writes Alex Baker in the exhibition catalog, “Barry McGee has continued to surprise and contradict expectations.†Including rarely seen early etchings, letterpress printing trays and liquor bottles painted with his trademark cast of […]
The Italian Surf Academy
Growing up in Italy, guitarist Marco Cappelli had little exposure to surf music, but what he heard he liked. As the Wall Street Journal notes in a profile of Cappelli, he learned mostly from the scores to spaghetti western films. “It was not very systematic, my approach,” said Mr. Cappelli, who is 47, last week by phone […]
Timothy “Speed” Levitch and the Art of Guiding a Tour
None who have seen the 1998 documentary The Cruise can forget its funny, eccentric, chattermouth star, Timothy “Speed” Levitch. He was a Gray Line tour guide in New York City who elevated the job to a form of avant-garde art, and his romantic monologues on art and sex and violence and depression in the big city […]
Marfa Dialogues
The Ballroom, an art venue in Marfa, Texas, has just announced the program for its annual weekend-long program of talks, called the Marfa Dialogues. This year the events address the issue of environmental sustainability. Keynote speakers include Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food, among other books, and Rebecca Solnit, […]
California State Parks and “The First 70”
Last year, California governor Jerry Brown announced that due to budget constraints the state would be forced to close many of its beautiful state parks. The good news is that a few weeks ago state politicians passed a budget that allowed for most to stay open. Here’s an announcement from the Surfrider Foundation, which had […]
Saltwater Buddha
Mention that you’ve visited a surf mecca in Costa Rica, and a surprising number of people in your life reveal their own connections to the ocean. Yesterday someone I know mentioned that the best book he has read this summer is Jaimal Yogis’ Saltwater Buddha, which was published a few years ago. Here’s a review […]
Bruce Chatwin’s “The Songlines”
I have lately spent much time thinking about travel writing as a genre, and was therefore pleased to discover the New York Review of Books has published a portion of Rory Stewart’s introduction to a new edition Bruce Chatwin’s The Songlines. I’ll allow him to explain the significance of Chatwin’s book: The publication of Bruce Chatwin’s The […]
Web Surfing for Stories on Surfing
My blogging colleague Lauren has posted several highlights from the time we recently spent in Costa Rica. I’ve savored looking through my holiday photos, but when I need an extra shot of fantasy-getaway images, I’ve taken to looking up the “surfing” tag on travel websites. Here are a few to whet your appetite for an […]
Learning to Surf in Queens
Some New Yorkers have long known there are good surf spots within the city limits. Now that knowledge is spreading, and the New York Times reports on surf lessons at Rockaway Beach, a small corner of Queens that has also become something of a hipster summer hangout. I knew people surfed in the Rockaways; I just […]
Robert Macfarlane, “The Old Ways”
Between the appearance of my last post and this one, I have traveled from New York to London. I browse bookstores everywhere I visit, but doing so in England offers a special thrill: the ability to purchase (English-language) books not yet published in the United States. In advance of this trip, I’ve had my eye […]
Reclaiming Travel
As I prepare for back-to-back international trips, I have been reading about travel. Here, writers Ilan Stevens and Joshua Ellison consider what it means to leave one’s surroundings: George Steiner wrote that “human beings need to learn to be each other’s guests on this small planet.” We usually focus on the ethical imperative of hospitality, […]
The “Busy” Trap
The writer and artist Tim Kreider recently published an essay in the New York Times on being “busy.” As the scare quotes suggest, he believes we make ourselves seem busy, and that our compulsion to do so is rather needless: If you live in America in the 21st century you’ve probably had to listen to a […]
Joni Sternbach
A review by Vince Aletti in the New Yorker alerts us to Joni Sternbach’s exhibition of surfer portraits at Rick Wester Fine Art. Aletti writes: Sternbach’s photographs of surfers, taken in the past six years in Malibu, Montauk, and Australia, look as if they could have been made any time in the past half century of […]
Ron Church, California to Hawaii
First published in 2007 and now a rare collector’s item, photographer Ron Church’s California to Hawaii, 1960-1965Â documents “the last moments of a small and innocent brand of west coast surf culture before it became swallowed up by today’s wave jockeying, plastic surfboards, and manufactured surf wear.” The book was co-published by T. Adler Books and […]
Thomas Campbell, Slide Your Brains Out
Later this summer, Um Yeah Press will release Thomas Campbell’s Slide Your Brains Out: Surfing in General, 1997-2012. Here’s a description: Growing up in southern California, artist, photographer and filmmaker Thomas Campbell was raised on the DIY aesthetic of the early 1980s skateboarding culture. Photography tips came from like-minded fellow photographers employed in the skateboarding […]
V-E-N-U-E
For several years Geoff Manaugh (of BLDGBLOG) and Nicola Twilley (of Edible Geography) have examined the landscape from unconventional perspectives. Now they have teamed up with the Nevada Museum of Art and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation to create VENUE, a sixteen-month collaborative project. Manaugh describes the project as being […]
Shops for Urban Surfers in New York
My last post mentioned the new surf-themed exhibition at Partners & Spade, a shop in New York’s Nolita neighborhood. Yesterday, the New York Times‘ “Critical Shopper” column browsed Saturdays Surf NYC and Pilgrim Surf + Supply, two surf stories in the Big Apple. Surferesqueness was the order of the day, for staff and customer and […]
M.Nii at Partners & Spade, New York
Partners & Spade, a shop in New York City, regularly hosts exhibitions. “M.Nii” has just opened, featuring found pieces and art by Mark Cunningham. It’s all about the culture of surfing, and features surfboard fins, vintage surf books, barnacled watches, swim trunks, and the like. See more pictures at the blog The Fox Is […]
Carl Safina’s “The View from Lazy Point”
Carl Safina, a MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant”–winning ocean scientist, recently published The View from Lazy Point, a lyrical, evocative, and humane story of mankind’s relationship with nature. The book opens with fifty pages describing the change from winter to spring at Safina’s home on the North Fork of Long Island, then continues with journeys in the […]
