I've been getting some reader requests for less irony. So here's a moderately earnest post for a few of you to enjoy, and the rest of you to complain about.
A few years back, I was asked to compile a list of the best surf movies ever. I put "Rivers and Tides," a documentary about the non-surfing environmental artist Andy Goldsworthy on my list. Here's why.
One of the things I love about "Rivers and Tides" is that it never mentions surfing. Instead the film documents the work of environmental sculptor Andy Goldsworthy, who begins his creative process by immersing himself in an ecosystem and studying its workings. Then he creates ephemeral installations with natural materials, only to watch them disintegrate as they interact with the elements. In one scene in the film, Goldsworthy stitches together a long line of fall leaves, and then drops them in a stream. The leaves bring visual representation to the flow of stream, revealing unseen intricacies in the water's movement.
This was the scene that most reminded me of surfing - the way both acts trace the lines that already exist in nature. Take away the industry, the maneuvers, the concept of sport, and there is very little difference between Goldsworthy's work and ours.
It's generally a wank to intellectualize surfing. I liked the Goldsworthy film because it pointed towards the obsessive, transformational nature of surfing without ever mentioning surfing. Which made it much less of a wank. There's something inspirational about seeing this guy dedicate his life to playing with twigs, leaves, stones, and water all day long. I relate to him. What we do is equally as pointless and compelling.
The purity of water flow hooked you LS.
An old travel rule used to inspire…. ” follow the river to the sea and find your gift”.
Losing oneself in hydrodynamics is as compelling as any human endeavor. The moment you feel your board rise to plane as enertia pulls you and the bottom drops out. At that brief moment, nothing else in the world matters and muscle memory takes over. Pure instinct.
Yogi’s call that enlightenment.
i like this one, cool post!
Much respect. I had seen this film many years ago and was very influenced by this man. Have a good trip LS.
wow, great comparison between flick and surfing, but damn, how the hell did you find this flick.
Have fun trippin’ in Brazil. Now I know why you were so kind to the BRazzos in the last Power Rankings, cuz you’re going to visit.
Can’t get love if you don’t give it. GOOOOAAAAAAALLLLLL!!!!!!!
why is it such a ‘wank’ to intellectualize surfing? are we afraid that no one will have anything to say?
We got by for a long time with an energetic conception of motion, where there’s a point of contact, or we are the source of movement. Running, putting the shot, and so on: effort, resistance, with a starting point, a lever. But nowadays we see movement defined less and less in relation to a point of leverage. All the new sports - surfing, windsurfing, hang-gliding - take the form of an entering into an existing wave. There’s no longer an origin as starting point, but a sort of putting into orbit. The key thing is how to get taken up in the motion of a big wave, a column of rising air, to ‘get into something’ instead of being the origin of an effort.
–Gilles Deleuze
“Yawn” is apparently too short a comment to be permitted so i had to write this also.
More irony. This sucked ass.
Almost as good…. also twigs, rocks and ….. Lego?
@ Occy’s Mum says:
“Sucks ass.”
Actually this post was intended as an STD joke but the gay interpretation works, too. Thank heavens at least somebody here has dick on the brain, eh? Or who knows what connotations might slip by.
Nice catch.
(I’ll wait for your brain to catch up to that one)
Sick art…. really amazing. good find LS
Hey Lewis, completely off topic of this post, but I remember an epic post you made on the niceness blog years ago about David Eggers. I think you made a few other really great posts on that blog too. Do you still have any of those? If so, you should post them up on here. I remember them being some great reads.
Intellectualizing surfing is definitely a big wank. Just look at Sam George every time he get in front of a camera. He is logical, articulate.. but still appears a big wank, even to a surfing audience. Remember how he ruined Dogtown with his diatribes or Riding Giants? His brother is good at it too. Just watch Tsunami Diaries if you’re thinking of intellectualizing surfing.
I would say that %.05 of the surfing population is intellectually worthy. I fall within that class. You do not. You are a constituent of the other %99.5 capable only of extolling surfing’s virtues in the form of “Tubes, beer, chicks, & ‘That was so Rad Dude! ” Don’t fret; the top 44 are right there with you….bro!
Shit, I didn’t know you took requests?! Do you know any Sinatra tunes? And how about some emoticons to clearly illustrate your uses of simile, metaphor and hyperbole? The little one with the tongue sticking out would work really well for those especially ironic passages :P
If this post is “moderately earnest”, I really don’t want to read the fully earnest ones. Back to irony.
anyone who puts the % before the 99.5 is certainly not worthy of inclusion in the “worthy” class.
A positive and complimentary post from Lewis? Must be April Fools Day.
This film sounds like a bunch of hippy shit
It is a “wank” to intellectualize surfing, because no matter how good your explanation, you can never come off sounding like anything but a wank. Try explaining how you feel when you take off, the emotion when you’re sitting in the barrel, to a non-surfer and not have them looking at you like you’re crazed.
Or worse Jimmy Slade. Listen to a gaggle of surfers telling their post surf war stories over a couple beers.
Unrelated but astonishing: Barney Frank really is Elmer Fudd. How did this guy get on the Banking Committee? Funny to watch him.
what do we think of goldsworthy’s work in light of zizek’s comments that we need to alienate ourselves from nature? check out the ‘ecology without nature’ talk on youtube.
Rotmouth, how’s Orange County treating you?
Sorry, “Magnus P.I.”
Good flick… You should also check out Microcosm some time. Not surfing related unless you count getting high and watching movies surfing related. In my book, that counts :)
Cote - penalty box/ cynicsm
LS - smooth - goal!
“with great power comes great responsibility” - Stan Lee
Yeats, you’re no William Butler.
And knocking someone for being cynical to LS, when we read LS for humorous cynicism?