The August Slump

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Photo by Emilio Cuilan

August is always slow. Having three Monday Links posts on the front page isn’t really a good look though, so hopefully stuff starts happening soon :(

Seattle is taking a step in the right direction with regard to more progressive thought than “skaters = skateparks.” Except the thought is a bit better than the execution, because the “skateable sculpture” they built looks absurd and not a good way (it’s designed by a snowboarder…and Torey Pudwill.) Unsurprisingly, even when not making full-fledged skate plazas, the Germans are ahead of the curve with the whole multi-functional skateable sculpture thing.

Skate Spot Porn: Architizer rounds up some works of modernist architecture that happen to be unintentionally perfect for skateboarding.

Get weird with the Juicy Elbows “Summer Trip to New York” montage. Here’s last year’s edition in case you missed it. And if you didn’t know by now, there’s a Venice curb and flat bar at the Fat Kid Spot now.

Watch Raffie Gordon’s part and Karim Callender and Alejandro Batista’s shared part from Belief Skate Shop’s Ever Upward video. Anyone who does a trick at the two-second bust plaza outside of the F train on 42nd Street deserves a pat on the back.

Skaters aren’t the only ones obssessed with the VHS format. Is it safe to say that unlike straight-to-VHS B-movies from the eighties, most skate videos initially released on VHS that are worth saving have already been preserved on new mediums?

Speaking of formats, here is this week’s edition in our search for the new VX1000.

J Kwon / Radio Korea is singlehandedly bringing a nineties plaza vibe back to L.A. skating, a la the USC, Santa Monica Courthouse, or L.A. County days.

This Carlos Iqui guy is keeping the switch push alive.

Brian Anderson skates the B.Q.E. spot and talks about his new shoe, which has been getting some heavy praise from the older, “I only skate in one shoe”-stickler crowd.

A new old NJ Scum clip.

Someone (not Ian Reid) uploaded Ian Reid’s Video to YouTube.

R.I.P. to the Instagram sensation Bushwick Bump.

*BONUS* QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: The NBA season is two-and-a-half months away, so here’s White Chocolate with a bounce pass to alley oop in a Taiwanese exhibition game from this summer. FYI: Derrick Rose returns in a season opener against the Heat, and the Knicks’ second game is in Chicago. Also, the Knicks play the Thunder at MSG on Christmas (their last meeting was a good time.)

Quote of the Week: “I hate hearing people drive by blasting that ‘Ain’t Worried About Nothing’ song when I’m worrying about landing a trick.” — Lurker Lou

Our statistics reveal that the past six months have coincided with a 30% rise in traffic from Brooklyn visitors. Does this mean we need to reformat, relocate and cut back on the Lovely Day jokes?

#TeamSweatpants

Germany doing cool things with skateboarding is becoming a common theme on QS.

The FTC Book blog has been posting snippets / mini-interviews with various people in the lead up to the book’s release this fall. Huf on his song in Penal Code 100A, Aaron Meza on filming for Finally…

A clip of the Palace and Polar jam in Leeds this past weekend, featuring Danny Brady, Pontus Alv, Benny Fairfax, and…Shawn Powers.

An interview with Manolo, the guy who painstakingly re-dubs sounds and researches the depths of skate video history for all those “Best of” tribute mixtape clips.

Iron Claw Skates with a disco-tuned Daniel Stone in New York mini-part and a trip to Baltimore. The fact that people are editing 4:3 iPhone fisheye footage alongside VX1 clips furthers the equivalency theory. Also, VX1000s are just stupid.

In anticipation of his first work of erotic skate fiction, Roctakon started a Tumblr for his musings. RT if you want to read so the publishers know…

Elijah Cole’s standalone part in Cathode, in which he does a 10/10 hardflip on flat.

Some historic reading for your afternoon: The story of Nimbus skates, the New York company that existed between Shut and Zoo York, and Zoo co-founder, Eli Gesner on skateboarding in New York in the eighties and nineties for Dazed Digital’s 1993 series. (Though this is the far better Gesner-written article on the same subject.)

This was uploaded in 2010, but has been re-making the rounds on Tumblr for the past week: Skateboarding in Brooklyn, circa 1989.

The second teaser for Colin Read’s video, Tengu, which will be premiering later this month.

Spot Updates: 1) The final remodeled version of Bubble Banks = Two two-up-two-down manual pads, and some wooden benches that are going to get knobbed, but that you could still ollie over. 2) One of the few spots in lower Manhattan that you had a chance of not getting kicked out of is, in the best case scenario, not going to be skateable for a long time.

Quote of the Week
Inquisitive Gentleman: “How are you doing?”
Torey Goodall: “Good. Pretty bad.”

Weird, 2:16 P.M. is also the best time to show up at the T.F.

Proper Pissed Links

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Monday links on an unseasonably cool Tuesday. After happily spending two weeks away from a computer, some of this might be “old” by today’s internet standards. Bear with us as we get up to date.

Back from Europe. Congratulations to Torey and Ellie. We didn’t skate much out there, but this happened, which is better than any skateboard trick.

All outstanding webstore orders will be shipped in the next 24 hours. Shipping is back to normal. Buy some stuff, so the QS travel budget could begin to recoup.

Apparently, in our absence, a body got found in Tompkins, a new TF box got built, and some bar that people seemed to really like closed.

A large part of the reason we are contractually obligated to report Corey Rubin sightings is because he’s the only person we know who could murder a bowl in a QS shirt, thus fulfilling the website’s transition skating quota.

Frozen in Carbonite on the underrated Green Apple videos and “the Canadian Gino.”

Here’s Cathode in its entirety. Parts from Elijah Cole, Mike Powley, Bill Pierce and others. (Also, any info on when Solo Jazz goes online / for sale? Missed the premiere due to a wedding where the bride came out to Future “Turn on the Lights.”)

12th & A resurrected in bare bones form, the first pair of jeans that are possibly more bleached than Kalis and Wenning’s in The DC Video, and an insane boardslide down the Sunset Park 5-flat-9 rail (in the rain) in this Mango Milic and friends “Summer Trip to New York” clip.

One day, there will probably be a 5,000-word post on what “the new VX1000” really is, but an iPhone with a 4:3 fisheye seems to be the leading candidate, minus the bi-monthly $500 repairs, obvs.

Some unearthed footage of Andre Page skating New Jersey in the nineties.

Red Bull Music Academy has a cool article about the making of Zoo York’s Mixtape. Though it’s a lot of standard “the nineties were the golden era” fare, there are some good interviews and tidbits in there.

Joe Cups found these skate photos from the eighties in the trash at RISD in 1997. One man’s trash is another man’s blog post.

Not sure how old this is, but Galen pointed out a cool skate theory article about spatial appropriation ‘n stuff 4 da nerdz who are into that sort of thing.

Contrary to a hasty, Instagram-sourced initial report, the BQE spot is not completely done. Here’s an updated video report.

Quote of the Week: “The weed fucked up his generics.” — Shawn Powers on Slicky Boy


P.S. WhitePeopleNamedRickRoss.tumblr.com