Simulated Flight

I remember sleeping through a 4.2 quake when I was six. I woke up briefly from dreaming of being in a cradle when my father scooped me up and carried me out of the house, he told me not to worry, so I fell back asleep more soundly in his arms. I guess that with the foreign perspective and the news reports with staggering death tolls it's hard to watch youtube clips of students laughing as their possessions fall about them, telling his roommate not to worry because they're on the 6th floor and proudly video documenting the quake. But I remember living through what would seem like horrible disasters from the outset, and not really caring or understanding how bad it really was until the next day when you see it on the news.

Back in year 7, I remember my host mother once tried to go out on the balcony to hang some washing when a typhoon was sweeping across the little town of Nagoya. She quickly came back in, dusted herself off and said "it's quite windy today". The next day we took a walk around the town and trees were uprooted, billboards crashes houses and cars were piled up alongside the quiet streets.

Right now my cat's sleeping in a really cute position, clutching my foot and making odd noises, so I'm going to concern myself with my immediate world.

***

Many a nights were passed the last week with me looking up skateboarding videos. The hypnotic fluid lines and the bulge of the fish eye lenses sending me into the usual late night restlessness, and eventually sleep.

It began like this. My Name Is Earl is nearing the end of it's third season, and I've always held much love for Jason Lee, despite his mustachio'd mistakes like Underdog or Alvin and the Chipmunks. While I was waiting for an episode to download early last week (an episode guest starring a specially delicious looking alyssa milano), I got antsy and started wikipedia-ing Jason, his pre-Earl days, his Kevin Smith days when I thought he was rather scrummy. The pedia told me he used to be an eminent street skateboarder, and imdb trivia confirmed this. He was mentioned in the Tony Hawke autobiography three (3) times! I was on fire, I needed youtube proof, I HAD to see Jason Lee looking like one of those kids on a Gus Van Sant film. I found the proof, and it was beautiful.

One clip led to another, and soon I was looking up more videos, more tricks, and one name kept popping up, Jerry Hsu. An Asian?



It was mesmerizing, as I laid there in bed a few thoughts came to my head, a few vaguely academic thoughts, things that read like essay topics and subtitles. Unwilling to expand on any of them, here's what's left, verbatim:

simulated flight and the street skateboarder:
maintaining velocity and fluidity over constructed obstacles, freedom leaps across youth culture.

reclaimed surf culture, almost always simulated through video culture and therefore more immediate, readily acceptable into the youth mind frame.

lighting and fisheye camera, out of necessity carving out a niche look and feel

the urban cool of the unpretentious (postures and gestures)

muted rebellion, socially alienated and yet 'safe' subcultures.

Hell if I wasn't going to write essays that I was going to be marked on, there was no way I was going to blog one. Jerry Hsu as it turns out also take pretty darn good photos, for Vice magazine. These are worthy people.