Making Friends With The Neighbours

This morning, I listened to the key, daily current affairs radio program on ABC National Radio, our national broadcaster. They usually close the show with a lighter story related to the arts, sport, or popular culture and this morning was no different as they interviewed Phil Jarratt about his new book, The Immortals of Australian Surfing . I’d not heard about this book, and it’s not a book I’d take interest in, but according to the promotion material:  The Immortals of Australian Surfing celebrates our greatest ever board-riders. It takes the Immortals concept used elsewhere in sport and applies it to the surfing, choosing the best of the best from over 50 years of the local scene and the world tour. Renowned surfing writer Phil Jarratt selects his top 12 riders then delves into the careers of the true greats. Legendary riders selected and profiled include pioneers Midget Farrelly, Nat Young and Layne Beachley; the world champs of the seventies and eighties suc...

Although it happens less and less, there are still days when people will explain the continued absence of women in surf media as a reflection of a lack of interest in women’s surfing, or due to a lack of content created by women surfers themselves. These explanations are as frustrating as they are disappointing (and fury-inducing) because neither of these things are true. The high profile of women surfers like Stephanie Gilmore, Carissa Moore and Layne Beachley are simple evidence, but even more is the success of various media about women’s surfing. Films like Blue Crush  (2002) and Girls Can’t Surf  (2022) played to packed cinemas, Magazines like Sea.Together have endured and connected international surfing communities, reporting in Tracks by Kate Allman, Lucy Small and Selina Steele on sexism in women’s competitive sport was nominated for a Walkely award for Women’s Leadership in Media, and the 2020 all-women issue of Australian surf magazine, White Horses , went into rep...

I remember a time when I rolled my eyes at the idea of new surf films as they arrived on the scene. For so long, surf films told the same story over and over and over and over, and over and over and over. I stopped watching them. But that changed, and I had to start to eat my cynicism. Surf films got diverse. They got interesting. Part of this is the acceptance of new people as surfing's storytellers; letting surfing be more than men, more than sunshine, more than grunting descriptions of getting barrelled and feeling stoked, more than roadtrips, more than power turns, late drop ins and airs. New stories about surfing that suggested surfing was more than the worst of it. Well hello there, A Lunar Cycle . You might have heard about the latest offering in this new world of surf films, that was directed by Andrew Kaineder, and written by and featuring Irish surfer, Easkey Britton . If you haven't heard of Easkey, then you haven't been paying much attention to surfi...

Last night I took myself to see the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s (ACO) performance,  Mountain, which  I’d been looking forward to for months. I'm no expert on classical music. I still learning about the histories, personalities and bodies of work of various composers, but what I do know is that I love listening to this genre of music. Even more, I love attending the performances. Every time, I'm still surprised by those first notes as they float across the room - how is it possible that people are making something so beautiful?! Over the last few years, I've become fascinated by classical compositions about nature. About how it is possible to reflect nature and wildlife in music in a way that is recognizable, musically, literally and emotionally. This interest emerges from my research about surfing, but it's also in no small part a reaction to previous ACO performances and programmes.  Following the success and acclaim of their  collaborations wit...

I have come late to Finnegan’s celebrated book, ‘Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life’. It sat, unread, by my beside for months, and I was never sure what my hesitation was. Perhaps the singularly glowing reviews in the New York Review of Book, The New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal following his awarding of a Pulitzer Prize for Autobiography. A Pulitzer! For a book about surfing! Or perhaps it was the claim (I can’t remember where), that this book would change the surf writing genre. Books about surfing's past are a growing genre of non-fiction. As men who started surfing in the 50s, 60s and 70s head into their sunset years, the scramble to claim their place in the surfing past appears to have come upon them suddenly and absolutely. This genre has a big market. Thousands of surfers - like them, who knew them, or who admired them – love reading these stories to reflect on their own surfing lives and histories, while the current affinity for the apparent “golden era of surfing” a...

So last Friday night I went and saw  Out in theLineup , which was showing as part of the Byron Bay Film Festival .  Out in the Lineup  is that film about gay and lesbian surfers that you have been hearing about for a while now, and which I have been really looking forward to seeing.  From the film's website :  ‘Out in the Lineup’ uncovers a culture that has strayed from its foundation of freedom of spirit, open-mindedness and connection to nature. David [Wakefield] and Thomas [Castets] learn about the dominance of male rituals in surf culture and the way this has marginalised minorities. They also hear about the pivotal role sponsors and media play in maintaining out-dated stereotypes. On ground level they hear stories of fear, isolation and self-doubt, but they are also inspired by tales of hope, self-empowerment and transformation. Beyond simply exposing this taboo issue, this film seeks to affect change. It aims to confront the surf industry and the ...

You know pisses me off? Well, aside from the many things I've posted about on here, this ad pisses me off; Look, I know this ad is old now (it was released in July), but as you may have noticed I've been wholly without words lately, so allow me this indulgence it talking about what a disgrace this advertisement is. Also, I saw a full-page ad for this product in a magazine today. Basically, what I want to say is fuck you marketing. Fuck you marketing for saying that while it's good to be active and sweaty, you should only sweat in apparently invisible ways. That you should only sweat in certain places. That you should only sweat if it doesn't draw attention to your body. Especially to your lady parts! This stupid ad hits me on a personal level, because for a long time, I felt this way. I mean, I would totally have bought into this ad. For most of my childhood and adolescence I did ballet. I did ballet for 14 years from when I was about 3. I'm absolutely ter...

I went and saw Drift on the weekend.  I wasn’t going to, but a few trusted people had told me it was surprisingly good, so I thought I’d push through my reservations about the film and check it out. Let me show you why I wasn’t interested in going (from the director's Vimeo account); Based on true events, Drift is a story set on Australia's spectacular and rugged coastline in the early 1970s. It begins in a remote coastal town with the two Kelly brothers, who spend their youth searching for the perfect wave. Out of necessity the family launch a backyard surf business; re ‐ thinking board design, crafting homemade wetsuits and selling their new surf gear out of their van. Battling killer waves, small town conservatism and hard-core criminals, the brothers persevere, daring to dream of a world where they can surf to live and live to surf. A story of passion and corruption, deadly addictions and fractured relationships, Drift tells a tale of courage a...