Looking Sideways: 10 Things
A Skim City wrap up, my Ed T chat, and the story behind Take On Me (yes, really).
1. Happy to see all the great responses to my latest podcast with legendary skater, artist and photographer Ed Templeton. Here’s an extract, above, in which I asked Ed whether his grandfather, who brought him up, ‘understood’ his success as a skateboarder.
Listen to our whole conversation below:
2. Our Icebreaker Skim City pond skim event at Tower Bridge went right off. My old pal Johno Verity came along and made this Reel; we’re also going to do a podcast on the bikes in the next few weeks in which we’ll discuss Johno’s second life as London’s foremost cycling history influencer.
3. Among my Insights community, there’s a lot of talk about the imperfect process of creativity, and how necessary prolonged periods of experimentation can be. That was certainly a theme of my recent chat with Thomas Campbell about Yi-Wo, for example.
And it’s one reason I absolutely loved this Song Exploder episode on A-ha’s Take On Me. Which, it turns out, went through some truly shonky versions before the lads finally struck 80s pop gold.
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4. The last WTF episode featured (inevitably, in hindsight) Barack Obama. It was a fittingly gravitas-heavy chat, although I do think his answers to Maron’s ‘are we truly living in a fascist era?’ prodding were a bit meh.
5. My pals Jen Sherowski and Tricia Byrnes have been hard at work on a new snowboarding history podcast! The first episode is released on October 21st - in the meantime check the trailer and give ‘em a follow.
6. This is great: legendary Philly skate spot Love Park has been recreated in Malmo.
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7. Zoe Scaman on ‘the networked world order’ is a valiant attempt to understand our current head-scratching geopolitical reality, and a highly recommended read. This to Caroline Keylock for sharing that one.
8. I was already pretty hyped about interviewing Oscar-winning film director Orlando von Eisiedel at Kendal Mountain Festival. Then I read the brilliant reviews of his new film Cycle of Love. Get tickets for our exclusive live conversation here.
9. The final line-up for Thursday’s Outdoor Connections event at Kendal is in - check it in full on the PDF below, and get your tickets here.
10. Like the good English Lit. grad I am, I’m pretty excited about the new Frankenstein coming out next week. This BBC piece is a great primer on why Mary Shelley’s classic is so frequently misunderstood.
Thanks for reading and supporting Looking Sideways! If you have any thoughts about any of the stories I discuss this week, let me know:
Great piece on Frankenstein. I'm really looking forward to the new adaption as well!