February 2012
11 posts
If I could find it in myself to hide
the world within the world then there would be
no place to which I could remove it, save
that brightness wherein all things come to see.
—from Itinerary by James McMichael
“Chaplin and Keaton are still the best. They know that there is nothing more serious than laughter, an art demanding infinite work, and that as long as the world revolves, making others laugh is the most splendid of activities.”
—Eduardo Galeano
When I was in the 1973 World Contest in San Diego, I thought I surfed pretty good, but I finished in last place. My girlfriend at the time said I didn’t win because she said I didn’t do anything. But that was kind of my style; I kinda stood there and let the wave do everything. The small waves didn’t do much, so I didn’t do much either. At the Ala Moana bowl, the wave did a lot; I could just...
January 2012
16 posts
Last night I went up on Beacon Hill and rose into the clouds. Everywhere was beautiful, full of colour and life. There were bulging clouds and little fussing ones, light and shadow clouds and blue, blue sky between. The broom was a wonderful green. The sea, too, was mysterious and a little hazy. There were two bright spots of gold peering through a black cloud and sending beams of light down. I...
Watch—Mark Cunningham at Cloudbreak
When snow blankets the sleeping earth with white a magic transformation occurs, and a new untouched world is spread before you, a new world in which to seek adventure and to explore.
—Ellsworth Jaeger, 1945
Weekends don’t count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless.
—Calvin & Hobbes
December 2011
10 posts
You have to get vulnerable. It’s a scary thing to do, but the payoff is enormous. People get bossed around by the fear. The fear of your vulnerability not being reciprocated. Non-reciprocation can be painful, but giving in to that fear is how we bond as people. That’s when we feel faith in humanity. Those warm moments of colour in the tepidness of status-quo life. Whether you’re...
November 2011
13 posts
Eastward the sea absorbing, viewing, (nothing but sea and sky,) The tossing waves, the foam, the ships in the distance, The wild unrest, the snowy, curling caps — that inbound urge and urge of waves, Seeking the shores forever. —Walt Whitman
Surfriding also carries enough built-in danger to give one a healthy respect for those beautiful waves. They can strike back, sometimes with death-dealing force, if the rider commits too great an error, becomes careless in the judgment of their hidden power. So it is in dealing with our fellow men. That same principle also applies to our life: Respect the rules and guidelines and enjoy the ride;...
Anything that’s good you always want to own yourself, to be able to have it and see it again and again. That is, until you really think about it. It’s taken me a long time to learn that anything marvelous—all those things that produce an emotion in your throat—why, I own those things already. The eyes take title and the mind possesses. That’s not just writer’s rhetoric. The...
