I just happened to pick up TSJ #15.3 today and came upon three quotes I want to share.
"In a time when the dehumanizing effects of corporate domination, with its mass production and consumption continue to proliferate, the beauty of surfing on a handcrafted board represents a potent source of deep play, individual expression, and union with nature that is becoming increasingly rare in today's world." Richard Kenvin
"There's an underground of kids who aren't buying into all of this bigness. Surfboards have evolved into widgets- a Wal-Mart mentality. But the kids won't buy into dorkiness. They'll make their own if it comes to it. They'll make their own music, they'll make their own anti-fashion, and they'll make their own boards. And those people... I'll support them until the end. Some of them will fail, but some of them will succeed. And they're the interesting ones, the bohemians that have always driven surfing." Peter St. Pierre
"It is with great sadness that I watch out little industry totter at the brink of the black hole of globalization. Once sucked over the event horizon, some of the best things about our unique culture and lifestyle will be gone forever... All the many breakthroughs and refinements in surfboard design, from Tom Blake's hollows to Simon Anderson's thruster, were created on the cheap in humble environs by surfers who only wanted to get back into the water the next day and surf better. I see these innovations as as being the intellectual property of anyone who cares more about the bottom turn than the bottom line. Yet our heritage of cut-and-try tinkering is pillaged for profit by those who have contributed nothing to the surfboard but a logo and an advertising campaign... The major labels, of course, will continue on their merry way, shaping without dust, designing without surfing, refining the thruster into sterility, and shilling their logos in four-color ads." Dave Parmenter
A call to arms. Boycott. Educate your friends. Make your dollars count. Shape a board yourself- at least once. Learn to bodysurf, well. Take your leash off for a few waves- at the reef. Ride an old board and fix a ding or two. Hoot for the kooky dude. Teach someone to surf and about surf etiquette. Reclaim the authenticity, joy, and singular peculiarity of surfing!
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4 comments:
Where to begin...?
First off, diggin' the new look. Second this is a great post. The quotes are spot on and your words are equally insightful. Lastly, thanks for hipping me to the "smorgesboarder".
Word.
Dave Parmenter is the last person on earth who should be decrying the end of hands-shaped surfboards. It is he who is one of the partners in C4 Watermen, which has its odious standup boards made in China.
Anon-
I think you are spot on. The fact is that he wrote those words and now doesn't live according to them. Hypocrisy is a hard pill, but doesn't discount the points he raised. I'd love to simply call him one of the bad guys, but I try not to categorize anyone definitively. Rather, I'll say he's a talented shaper and thinker who has left the path of most purity and appeal (in my eyes) and is floundering in what he once censured. Pity.
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