“I realized so many stories or moments that I’ve lived don’t have photos to accompany them. I wasn’t equipped, equipment-wise or mentally, to decide, ‘This moment is a photo,’ and I need to go out of my way to get it no matter what people think.” The Slam City Skates blog has an interview with French photographer, Benjamin Deberdt, about coming to New York to shoot photos of Keenan, Huf and the Cardona brothers in the nineties. (He shot the above Huf photo.)
Sorry, sometimes the headline is too obvious to resist 💋
WOW2G is a new 22-minute video by Eighty Twenty, Hell World, and the Travel Skateshop family. Half-New York, half-Jersey spots. Aron Moloney (first full part) and Derek Thor (second-to-last part) both crush it. The pinches on those switch front crooked grinds!
And on that note, given that it’s cold, our streets are covered in ice + shit, and travel remains hobbled, let’s venture out to Europe for the first couple of links…
Usually the assumption on these posts is that you’ve already seen anything that Thrasher posted last week, but Jaakko Ojanen and Eetu Toropainen’s shared part is absolutely nuts. You’ll be hard pressed to find another recent part with this much mind-bending shit that still actually looks good. Nobody skates like Jaakko.
The world isn’t off to the best start in 2020, so you’d be well advised to watch this uplifting video about two Afghan girls who moved to Berlin from a refugee camp, and completely fell in love with skateboarding there. Lovingly put together by our friends at Place.
“Back then it was all a blur.” Yo these Bobshirt interviews are all so special. The latest installment is with Rodney Torres and is loaded with nineties New York nostalgia and stories, e.g it pretty much mentions three decades worth of skate shops in the city, and harks back to a time when New York coverage was limited to a montage here and there every couple years in a bigger video. (Also #lol on this YouTube comment.)
The youth has good tre flips. “Practice” is a very rad homie video by Cesar Fuentes featuring a bunch of up and coming skaters from The Bronx.
“But after you’ve finished a project the best sign is if people come and actually use the space, often in ways you hadn’t envisioned in the design process. Skaters are particularly good at this.” If this were a tired and wired meme, the former would be Malmo, and the latter Tartu, Estonia ;) Jk, but you should read this interview with the woman reshaping the northeast European country’s approach to multi-faceted public space.
Solo has an awesome interview with ledge GOAT Javier Sarmiento about the early history of skating in Barcelona, his Powell days, growing up in a situation where terror attacks are normal, Catalonia’s political situation, and a bunch of other stuff.
Hotel Blue has a new montage with a mini Juan Virues part at the end. Even after a decade of unrepentant “Summer Trip to New York” coverage at every possible spot in the Financial District, that “lump to pole” by Rector Street has to have one of the slimmest trick lists in all of Lower Manhattan. Front big spin was sick.
QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Maybe the second time a college basketball highlight has made Play of the Week, but yeah, what else. And for a Duke player, of all things! (Idk shit about college ball, just know that we’re supposed to not like Duke because everyone I know from North Carolina is a UNC fan.)
Quote of the Week: “I’m O.D. good at nunchucks.” — Andre Page
