Making Friends With The Neighbours

Pretty smooth clip. Post by Mpora .

(Oreo art by Tisha Cherry. Via Lost at E Minor )

This is a great story, and this girl, Quincy Symonds, is one hell of a person. (Via the wonderful, spectacular, government-funded, nationally available, Australian Broadcasting Corporation ) A small surfer makes big waves from ABC Open on Vimeo . From the online article: “It just doesn’t make sense to me, how she’s able to do what she does,” says Jake [her dad]. “I’m amazed by it. I’m really proud of it but, to be honest, I can’t comprehend how she does it.” “She has no fear,” offers Quincy’s coach Anthony Pope. “And she just doesn’t fall off. She has incredible balance and her ability to judge the conditions and adjust is at a level I’ve never seen in someone her age.” When the waves were too big for her to surf, Quincy took up skateboarding. As you’d expect, she took to a board on land just as deftly as in the surf. Looking over the edge of the 12-foot skate bowl as I filmed one of Quincy’s skating sessions, I felt immediately uneasy. But there was Quincy with her back f...

Um, WHY have I never heard of this song before? Did it do the blog rounds last year when it was released and I wasn't paying attention? Having missed this song, I feel... inadequate. Not that the song is great, but conceptually... AMAZING! And the photo Jimmy Buffet is talking about is real and here it is! And here is a bonus Einstein sporting shorts and a devil may care attitude! Now, LYRICS!! With the obviously winning lines being 'Cause the universe was his home break/And we’re still all paddlin’ out'. **** There’s a photo of a genius Standing by the ocean In a pea coat and cool hat In 1943 On a beach in Santa Barbara He’s looking quite contented His world is only matter And energy Past the Channel Islands Out into the cosmos There are worlds in motion That only he can see He’s smiling as he’s thinking The harbor lights are blinking He’s the smartest cookie Ever was, ever will be Einstein was a surfer ...

I just wrote a really long post about the focus on the small-scale production of bespoke items in surfing culture at the moment. There's a pretty solid niche brand, handmade, homemade, up-cycling vibe in surfing culture at the moment, and it's great and I see lots of lovely things and I even purchase some of these things (especially swimwear). A lot of the time, this is about owning something unique or individualised or local, which is based on the use of small-run or second hand fabrics, many of which are sourced from jaunts to second hand stores. I wrote how great this is - financially, ethically and aesthetically. I was trying to set a tone for my point which would reflect that I like this DIY-esque approach, while allowing me to admit that I've got a bone to pick about one aspect of it. But instead of dancing around the issue, I've decided get straight to my point, which is this: Can everyone please stop cutting up woollen blankets to make surfboard covers.  ...

This second line about writing from Ernest Hemmingway just made me laugh out loud: "No matter how good a phrase or a simile he may have if he puts it in where it is not absolutely necessary and irreplaceable he is spoiling his work for egotism. Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over." Love, love, love it. Also, I reckon I might be pretty guilty of this. Hemmingway would have hated the way I write.

I’ve been really, really wanting to go surfing. The days when it’s been sunny and nice, I’ve had to work and the days that I’m free and willing, it’s just a bit too wild for me on my longboard at these unknown breaks where I know no-one. Maybe I should feel shitty about not wanting to take such risks – maybe I’m meant to step up - but I don’t really care about any of that stuff. I don’t care if people think I’m lame or afraid or a wuss. I’ve got nothing to prove on that front. The other day I looked and was dabbling in the idea of paddling out. It was wild and big and cold, but the fuller wide ones looked manageable and would keep me away from a total pounding on the inside. There were quite a lot of crew out there, and double that number standing on the sidelines watching – the place is like an amphitheatre, which is a bit daunting. I sat on the rocks and watched and wondered and hesitated. If I’d been with a friend, I wouldn’t have wondered at all. I would have gone out. My friends...

One of the things I love about the sea - well, about the world really - is the way it simply defies containment. We can make boundaries of and for things, but unless we work hard to keep them as we wish, they simple crumble away, or grow over, or spill out, or flood. That idea makes me think of parts of Robert Frost's poem Mending Wall : Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,  That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,  And spills the upper boulders in the sun;  And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. ... Before I built a wall I’d ask to know  What I was walling in or walling out,  And to whom I was like to give offense.  Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,  That wants it down. The shifting, changing nature of the sea - where the water line will be each day, each month, each season; the shifting sands; the currents that bring weeds, bluebottles, whales, warmth - all of it is far beyond my control, and t...

I saw these images on Facebook the other day and couldn't stop staring. They're the work of artist Samantha Keely Smith  and they're beautiful.   You can see more of her work over on her website , and if you're in the USA (and in the region of the gallery over on the NE coast), you might want to check out her exhibition .

Clips like this make me think I might have missed my calling as an astrophysicist - Carl Sagan , Neil deGrasse Tyson , Brian Cox *. But then I remember how much maths is involved (blergh), and I know I made the right choice. But holy crap, astrophysicists, way to put things in perspective. This too. *Yeah, Cox isn't technically an astro physicist, but he's awesome and I'm counting him here anyway.

Yeah, I know. It was yesterday.* And yeah, I know this video is not new, but it's awesome. Stephanie Gilmore really does have a lovely, smooth approach to waves that is a pleasure to watch. If there is anything specific I would like to acknowledge this International Surfing Day, it's the much improved visibility of women as surfing participants in the water and in the culture that I've noticed over the past few years. So great! Dear Sylvia, love Steph. from Morgan Maassen on Vimeo . *So was UNHCR World Refugee Day , which I feel horrid adding as a footnote to this post. I don't really know what to say about that, except that all Australians should read the first and last chapters of Nam Le's book The Boat . Also, here is something I wrote when the boat of refugees smashed  apart on the rocks at Christmas Island. Almost 50 asylum seekers died in this truly terrible and avoidable incident.

As I told you, I’ve just moved across the sea to a new home in a new country. In many ways, it’s not such a huge change; English is widely spoken, we have a similar recent colonial history set against a significantly longer past, and the north island has a lot of environmental similarities to my own home country. But there’s a lot that is different as well. For example, I know so little of the Maori history, people and culture, the cold is something new to my way of life and thinking, I don’t know where to get anything (what shops sell what?), and the coastal places on this wild west coast are very different to the powdery white sand and the clear, warm water, of the sub-topics I grew up. Here the sand is black, the water a chalky green, there are a lot fewer people (the beach I run on is often empty), and the beaches are buffered by looming hills and cliffs. It is incredibly beautiful and I’m blown away, but it’s still not in my heart. Not yet anyway. So right now, I’m givin...

I know everyone is posting this clip of Benji Brand in Namibia, but it really is so, so beautiful. The colours, the mist, the pace... None of it has any resemblance to my surfing life, but quel gorgeousness!

This awesome person became an Australian citizen today.  (Photo by Nathan Oldfield ) So bummed I wasn't there to celebrate with her. But so, so happy that now she gets to vote in elections (especially since she votes for the same team as me). xx

I have been meaning to write here. I have been meaning to write here about my move to New Zealand. About my little cabin overlooking the sea, about the black sand, the green water, the tides, the moon, the sky, the feather-duster plants, and my embarrassing hesitation to get in the water. I've been meaning to tell you about the day the swell was about 10 foot and no-one was out, about the days it has been tiny and crowded, about how I've already found women to surf with here, how they encouraged me into the sea, and about how I went negotiating a left-hand point break for the first time. And did I mention getting to watch the sun set into the sea from my window almost every afternoon? But despite all my intentions, I've not yet managed to get words on a page, so this little entry and these images will have to do for now. But will some one please bug me about this - I clearly need a push!

(Mostly because I have similarly long arms.) Greta Gerwig is just so cool - despite my reservations, I really loved Frances Ha - and this Arcade Fire song is great to run to. Especially when you mentally practice about the dance moves you could be doing instead...

So are you watching the Fiji Pro? The solid waves of Fiji are back on the WCT for the women, and it's really turned on for them! I'm supposed to be working, but I'm thoroughly enjoying  watching it live here . And I don't even really like competitive shortboarding! (Update: Um, why are there no women commentating, interviewing, assisting, etc? Are there women judging? I can see them serving drinks in the bar, but so far, no-one is involved in the representation of anything in this broadcast. Seriously though, is this still happening? Oh hang on... Rosie Hodge just interviewed someone. She is so much better at this gig that Laird Hamilton. Ugh. I guess that comes with experience, which she is gathering after having done this for a while.) (Update again: Did you see that awesome little marketing clip where one of the women says 'Why are we here? Because we frickin' rip and we deserve to be here!' Awesome. Despite this, there is still comment on this from...

I have written many, many times about how almost all the swimmers I wear come from one lady - Sarah Kearney of Gypsy Jacket . Sarah and I met through our blogs, actually, and developed a friendship via our words and my love of Sarah's swimmers. Then we had the luck to meet in the sea through a mutual friend and now we are actual, offline friends as well. And I just love her. This little video by Ashley Beer gives you some idea of what a lovely, thoughtful, open-hearted woman Sarah is, but if you get the chance to be in touch with her - or to own one of her lovely creations - then you'll find out she's even lovelier than this film can convey. GYPSY JACKET from Ashley Beer on Vimeo .

I'm a lover of the sky, the sunset, forests and the sea. I'm a fan of panorama and things that make me feel small and insignificant. But I forget that sharpening my focus and looking into things can make me feel just as small, just as insignificant. So this is what a drop of water from the sea looks like when it's magnified 25 times. I'm not clear on where this drop was taken from, but you might want to think of it next time seawater is streaming out of your nose, eyes and ears after a surf. (via Lost at E Minor .) And this? This is a grain of sand.

Bronwyn Adcock has written a great piece over at The Daily Life about why the ' Rip Curl Pro at Bells Beach finally realises sexism is bad for business '. You can read it via this link . In 2012, while researching a story for the Griffith Review I spoke to surfing administrators and promoters to figure out why such a retro, Puberty Blues-esque approach was warranted in this modern era. The ASP seemed rueful; of course they'd like to give the girls a better go, but they had to think of the sponsors, and the sponsors didn't see a market for women's surfing. A promoter told me the problem lay with women and girls themselves – girls don't want to grow up to be athletes he said, they want to be bikini models, that's why there's little investment in the "sport" side of women's surfing.  The problem with the arse-trumps-athleticism "logic" though is that following it wasn't working for the sport, and the ASP was struggling to ma...