We all agree that conversations about Instagram are an egregious insult to our short time on earth. Yet, we cannot help ourselves. How do we crack the algorithm? How do we attain #maximum #exposure? How do we make a million dollars doing not that much, or at least get a follow-back from @emrata to give us a reason for getting up in the morning?
“‘You had all these planners and architects in the 1950s and 60s saying cities need these grand, celebratory spaces — and they really didn’t.’ But apparently skaters did.” Curbed has an awesome feature about how some odious, post-WWII federal legislation ultimately lead to the creation of the sorts of public plazas that would prove to be the breeding ground of modern skateboarding.
“That might be a trick that’s been done, but it’s done differently…and with different pants on.” Vice has a video profile of Breezy and Una about growing up being two of the few girls skating in Vancouver.
The Finnish guys who made the Hard Water video that went live on the Free site last week actually also put together a trip to New York edit that we only now caught onto. Love a vacation edit when the trees are bare + everyone is still in hoodies, though I’m sure it’s warmer than Helsinki. Also impressed by their cobblestone deterrent that keeps your board from rattling down into Sutton Place traffic.
Maybe it goes through a vigorous off-screen sanitizing process — but one’s bed seems like a bad place to sort through street debris. Anyway, here is an eight-minute glimpse into the life of Bobby Puleo.
♥ A heartwarming story about a New York skate shop owner, a New York surf shop owner, Paris, and Mike Carroll doing a backside 5050 ♥
We rant about seeing the same spots in Big Skate City™ trip edits like anyone else, but just the right mix of people skating them, and all of a sudden, none of the nitpicky skate criticism matters anymore. Really wish this Insta edit of Max Palmer, Remy Tav and Sylvain Tognelli skating go-to spots in Paris was 4x as long. (Also funny how 2/3 of the people in it don’t even have Instagrams.)
And on that note, Victor Campillo’s ender for his Quota part is the first bit of recent République footage to really stick to the memory. (Starting to notice a trend when New York news is slow…we just post a bunch ofParisstuff. Can’t wait to get this satellite office popping.)
It had a brief run on the TWS site, but “Crop Circles Volume 1” is now online in full, and is one of the best post-Love Park / Philly survivalist videos yet.
“A typical day was waking up at 6:30 A.M., breakfast, heading to the construction site, working till 10-11 P.M., and having a late night crew that stayed up to 3 A.M. on some days.” Monster Children has the story about how a small crew with minimal resources built the first-ever skatepark in Angola in just 28 days.
“Did skateboarder’s hopes for a professional minimum salary level die along with Rob Dyrdek’s dreams for a skaters’ union? Does there exist a ‘rough cut’ of Nike’s commercial in which Kyrie Irving clowns Eric Koston for not having a video game character in the last 10 years’ worth of THPS titles? Is this commercial ripe for parody by the remaining aggressive inline rollerbladers, except where they’re barging Lance Mountain’s backyard pool?”
TWS put up Antonio’s tricks from Duets, which includes maybe the first-ever clip shot from the inside of a trash can? We’d add it to our ever-growing thread of trash-themed skate memes, but it almost becomes low-hanging fruit at that point…
QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: We don’t often showcase dramatic dunks on here (or 2019 Warriors highlights, for that matter), but that Demarcus Cousins dunk was straight out of the 1990s NBA. And we’ve honestly been far too exhausted with any and all developments pertaining to the basketball team who plays on 33rd and 7th this past half-decade to have any solid opinion about the Porzingis trade. It’s just all too tiring. We have shit to do.
Quote of the Week: “The vegan girl at the vegan restaurant was having a vegan crisis about her vegan Super Bowl party.” — Alex Mosley