Looking Sideways: 10 Things
This week's stuff to share.
1. I’m hosting a conversation with Yulex founder Jeff Martin and current CEO Liz Bui at the Finisterre store in London next week. I have some tickets to give away for paid subscribers - if that sounds like you, reply to this email and let me know, but be quick.
If you’ve followed me for a while, you’ll know I’ve been covering the ongoing story about the environmental impact of chloroprene rubber (aka neoprene) for about a year now.
If you’re unfamiliar with the story, start by listening to my interview with The Big Sea film-makers Chris Nelson and Lewis Arnold, above.
2. I’m always completely blown away by how supportive the skateboarding community is, something underlined by the incredibly generous response to my recent interview with Skin Phillips.
This post by friend-of-the-show Gerhard Stochl, above, is a case in point. Thanks to everybody who has shared the episode, or been in touch about it. If you’ve yet to listen to my chat with Skin, click here. It’s about much, much more than skateboarding.
3. I enjoyed this short documentary about Denise Joi, the first and only female wildlife pilot for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, which covers some weighty themes in its short run time. Watch it above.
4. Tonight in London! There are still tickets left here.
5. Rest in peace Neil Kulkarni, one of our finest music critics, who died this week at the absurdly young age of 51.
7. Carve Magazine has the latest on what’s going on in Imsouane in Morocco.
8. This Guardian piece on ‘eco-conscious skiing’ is really terrible. But it is good to see friends-of-the-show Re-Action being recognised for their quietly influential work.
9. Does Substack have a Nazi problem? This Bloomberg story is a good primer on the brouhaha that has been rumbling on since last November.
10. Finally, thanks for all the messages - some supportive, some not so supportive - about my Housekeeping Corner at the end of the Skin episode, in which I spoke about why I haven’t felt obliged to broadcast my view on Israel/Gaza to the internet. With that in mind, I found this even-handed take on the whole situation from, of all places, the Guardian’s Football Weekly podcast, an interesting listen.
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In the spirit of 10 Things I can heartily recommend the latest Surfer Journal Soundings podcast . Steve bulkey Olson is one of the original surfer skaters. Now common place to the extent they are not even a thing to attract comment, surfer skaters in my day were the zenith of everything that is looking side ways. To boot Mr Olson is a ‘card’ with an amusing story about almost everything.