Looking Sideways: 10 Things
Undiscovered Nick Drake, a Big Sea critique, and a lovely solstice reminder.
1. Out next week - episode 250 of Looking Sideways! To mark the occasion, I had a brilliant conversation with Jeremy Jones about politics, risk, family life, and what snowboarding means to Jeremy today.
Jeremy is the perfect guest through which to connect the past and present of Looking Sideways for this milestone episode: especially as he’s been such a supporter of my own work in recent years.
Here’s an extract, in which Jer talks about how watching his son take on ever-more dangerous lines has redefined his own relationship to risk. Full episode next week.
2. Big Sea writer Chris Nelson was on Nick Carroll and Hannah Anderson’s We Shouldn’t Be Friends podcast.
It’s the first time I’ve heard anybody in surf media flat out challenge the film, although the critique made is the same essentially semantic argument that the wider surf industry has been making since the first cut did the rounds a few years ago.
To wit: you’ve used wetsuits. So why are you criticising wetsuits? The connection isn’t made explicitly enough for us, therefore there’s nothing to see here, and surfing doesn’t really have a case to answer. And also have you seen how widespread neoprene use is elsewhere? So why are we focussing on surfing?
Presenters Hannah and Nick make much of their own reporting chops, and the importance of journalistic rigour - but then gloss over or fudge important facts in their episode intro; and present a list of attempted gotcha questions that have been debunked or covered ad infinitum elsewhere (such as: but what about the impact of natural rubber? Isn’t it like palm oil?)
Of course, one of the most interesting things about The Big Sea has been how quickly the wider surf community and none-endemic media has grasped the importance of the message, in stark contrast to the ‘Yes but what about…?’ response of trad surf media and the industry itself.
What ultimately came across in this exchange is how emotionally-invested surf industry lifers are in the traditional idea of this behemoth and all its trappings. Especially, for some reason, wetsuits.
3. It’s fair to say that Sea Lanes in Brighton changed my life for the better, so it’s not surprise to see other cities decide they fancy a bit of that outdoor swim action for themselves. Portsmouth are next in line - more here.
4. This documentary about Charles Ponzi of Ponzi scheme fame is very good, although I found the acted reconstructions a bit laid-on-with-a-trowel.
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5. Mehdi Hassan debates 20 far-right American conservatives. This clip should come with a blood pressure warning, so be warned (His appearance on The News Agents is also really worth a look).
6. Ed O’Brien from Radiohead presents a wondrous new Nick Drake documentary, which features Drake playing many of his most famous songs for a pal while at Cambridge University. Just what I needed this week.
7. The Wave saga rumbles on. Wavelength had the latest round up last week.
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8. Is ‘good taste’ one answer to the coming AI revolution, asks this Atlantic article?
9. Photographer Mat Arney and film-maker Bella Rosa Bunce have collaborated a film about Mat’s dawn solstice practise, and it’s really lovely thing.
10. Finally - an interesting Unherd piece on the meaning of the Salt Path brouhaha.
Thanks for reading and supporting Looking Sideways! If you have any thoughts about any of the stories I discuss this week, let me know:
Horrified, but not totally surprised, by the “hand selling” revelation in the UnHerd piece. Nothing is sacred, eh?