Rather than forcing a post, I'll just mention a couple recent enthusiasms.
I went to the Vans Park Series this past weekend at Parc Olympique, just up the street from my house. It's easy to forget how hard skateboarding is when the main way you consume it is skate videos, where everyone is landing tricks. Seeing it live reminds you that each video is only the tip of the iceberg, and behind each 5-second clip of someone skating a rail is two days worth of slams, roll ups, breaks to smoke joints, and screaming at yourself in frustration. I haven't been able to skate since late April when I got hit by a car (listening to this song after seeing them live the night before), but at the comp, I was feeling inspired and bought the new deck I've so sorely needed for the past year or two from a local shop, Empire.
Something that I've always valued is how insular skateboarding can be, in a good way. The true heads protect the community and fight against big businesses and brands that try to move in and get a piece of the industry. Supporting your local shops and building communities around this thing that we all love is always valued. Thinking about those things made it extra special when I was buying my first pro deck from Hogtown (RIP) in Toronto and seeing how different it felt from something like West 49. That's why I wanted to get a shop deck and why I'll always ride shop decks. Stay local.
On that note, here's a brief, but sweet doc about a shop in Austin from Thrasher. These places are everywhere if you look for them.
This past year at TCAF, I bought two books.
Wage Slaves is an autobiographical comic (or am I supposed to call it a graphic novel to give it that extra esteem?) by Daria Bogdanska about organizing your work place and fighting for more from your employers. Black and white autobio comics are like catnip for me, but this one hits a lot of spots for me, as it touches on issues I care deeply about and the characters listen to the Modern Lovers a lot. The book is a valuable look at what you can accomplish if you try. Speaking from experience this year, organizing is possible if you work at it. It will be hard and it won't go as you expect and you might not get exactly what you wanted, but it will be better than it was before. They're scared of you caring. Don't forget that.
On the other end of the spectrum, BTTM FDRS by Ezra Clayton Daniels and Ben Passmore is a sci-fi comic about gentrification and issues of race. It's equally influenced by 80's John Carpenter and Atlanta, and is a head on collision between two artists with similar tone in their writing but completely different visual styles. I'm not finished yet, but can already tell it's one of the best comics I've ever read and is incredibly prescient in the way it weaves together class and race while making it thrilling, funny, and thought-provoking. I saw the two artists/authors give a panel at TCAF and they mentioned that the book has already been tapped to become a movie or TV show, and I swear that everyone will be gushing over it when that happens.
While we were unpacking, I found the above zine. Not much to say other than if you know, then you know.
