Skate Shoes | Quartersnacks

It’s one of those “more words than videos” weeks :)

“But skateboarding’s worldview can often become so totalizing that commitment to it far into adulthood, past the age when it’s socially acceptable to ride around in a school bus smoking weed and listening to Slayer, can look like protracted adolescence. This is why skateboarding, for a large chunk of the country, will never fully outgrow its degenerate associations. And that’s fine.” It is notoriously difficult to produce a genuinely great piece of writing about skateboarding, but Noah Gallagher Shannon’s profile of Grant Taylor ticks all the boxes. Send it to your mom.

The cutest skate interview you’ll ever read: Skate Jawn spoke with Alexis LaCroix about life with his Instagram-famous cat, Rita.

Supreme has a quick Hi-8 Insta clip with Gonz, T.J, Rowan et al. for their upcoming collaboration with Spitfire.

“Love gave you this feeling, and I can’t explain it. Muni does not. At least for me it doesn’t.” Brian Panebianco checks in on a Love-less Philadelphia skate scene.

Sidewalk interviewed the mind behind Science Versus Life, and touched on the connections between New York and London skate history a bit. Your photo incentive check is in the mail btw ;)

With Ripped Laces effectively dormant in 2018 (no shade), The Hundreds blog has oddly been publishing some dece coverage related to the world of skate shoes: “Retracing the Strange History of Shoe Design” + a #listicle of five non-skate shoes that still became tied to skateboarding.

Stefani Nurding has an op-ed piece about how “Girls Nights” have bolstered the acceptance of femininity in skateboarding.

An interview with one of everyone’s favorites, Justin Henry, where he reveals that Lebron James does, in fact, have more J.R. Smith in him than he cares to admit hehe.

This goes a good deal more in depth than his Epicly Later’d, though he isn’t as amorous with nature in it: Jamie Thomas talks to Chad Muska for an hour.

A decent bit of New York footage in feel-good Rob Hall part.

Spot Updates — 1) As you probably caught on already, Skate Jawn built a box to go over the cobblestones at Blue Park. 2) Columbus Park will probably be fine. Fingers crossed. 3) The building moved the planters back in front of the ledge at CBS.

QS Sports Desk: More excited for the off-season, than we were for like, the entire second half of the postseason. And if you think Lebron is coming to the Knicks you need to move to Mars.

Quote of the Week: “Hell no I don’t watch soccer. A bunch of buddies kicking balls? I’m good.” — Meatball

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QS is perpetually giving 90% of skate video editors a hard time for their uninspired marriage to Big L + and this idea that basically all rap still needs to sound like nineties rap (how boring does that sound tbh?), but we’ll throw you guys a bone here because there’s a substantial chance you haven’t heard this one before, and it’s really fun:

(Click to enlarge. Thanks to Alex Dymond for the mags from which the scans come from.)

The gratuitous air bubble is an oft-overlooked entry on the “Worst Trends in Skateboarding” list.

It’s easy to get nostalgic for classic shoes from the past. We have fond recollections of the éS Koston 1s (one of the few times the air bubble “worked”) and the Lakai Staple (even if our memories tend to slim their bulky construction down a bit), but forget that they had to co-exist with some of the ugliest shoes known to man. More often than not, the prototypical late-90s / early-2000s moon boot began with an air bubble. The Osiris D3 was the most notorious of the bunch, but there are other equally hideous offenders that we tend to forget about.

This infographic is from a 2001 issue of Stance, which was Transworld’s short-lived shot at a “lifestyle” magazine a la Complex. It accompanies an article that breaks down Jordan Brand’s use of air bubbles in basketball shoes, and is meant to illustrate how “air technology” made its way into skateboarding.

Today, it provides an overview of just how insane the average skate shoe looked back then, not to mention clues as to why half of these companies aren’t around anymore. It worked for the Koston 1 and Reynolds 1, but it didn’t work for a whole lot of others. People don’t come to terms with the absurdity of most trends until long after they pass, so there’s nothing wrong with us admitting we were psyched on a few of these back when they came out.

Thank God there are kids comfortable with jumping down 15 sets in Old Skools and Janoskis nowadays, right? Without them, people would still think that air bubble has a reason to exist. Shout out to the Dunk / Jordan 1, the Half-Cab, and the Chuck Taylor.

Tag: Skate Shoes

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