I wander the streets of BH a couple of times a week.  I saw these lemon slices and couldn’t leave them behind.

n♥

I stared at two things yesterday.  I was mesmerized by ‘aged’ paper lanterns on the street and a K-Pop video in the grocery store.  Can’t tell you the group or the name of the song, so here are the lanterns.

N♥

nikki♥

marc johnson (image via chocolate skateboards)

I’m kinda into skateboarding.  I’m intrigued by how so many ideas and passions are interconnected through its culture.

I love a good skate doc.  I love a great story.  I need to know how it all started and I need to know why.  After a friend took me to a screening in NYC of Dogtown years ago, I had to see everything.

Netflix and I hung tight until I’d seen as many docs as I could get my hands on.  The good and the not so good.  I watched a lot of skaters**, but I wouldn’t watch the skate videos.  I wasn’t that into watching the action of it.  For hours.

Here’s one reason why.  I have this thing I might have told you about called secondhand embarrassment.  A component of said condition is the onset of freakish sympathy pains.  The last thing I want to see is some guy repeatedly not landing a trick.  It hurts me to watch folks come down on a handrail wrong or, I don’t know, see heads meeting concrete.

It’s not that I didn’t like the act of skating, I was just particular.  In Dogtown, they were able to capture, in still images and in motion, these moves that made it look like the entire crew had consulted the wind to choreograph this beautiful dance.  I hadn’t really seen that in other videos I, briefly, watched post-vert dominance.

Since moving to LA, I see kids skate all the time.  I guess I started paying more attention to the every day beauty of it.

I don’t remember the exact sequence of events that led Yeah Right! to the top of my Netflix queue, but I’m glad it was there.  The DVD is ancient at this point, but the timing of when I got it was perfect.  Because while watching it, somehow, everything changed.

After it clicked, all the guys were really interesting.  But, there was something about  Marc Johnson.  The way he skated was aggressive and graceful.  Not necessarily elegant, but aware.  Seriously, I could watch him skate all day.

The first two clips below are from Lakai’s 2007 masterpiece Fully Flared.  There’s an effortless precision where balance seems to be a post-trick afterthought.  While his presence is draped in skill and technicality, interestingly, Johnson reminded me of a dancer.  A tap dancer.  If the 70s era Surf/Skate kings (and Queen, Peggy, I see you) were ballet, than Marc and this generation of street skaters are following in Savion’s footsteps. Thumbing their nose at convention, using tradition and technology to forge a new landscape.

The Epicly Later’d below is, also, worthy of multiple viewings.  Because it’s interesting.  He talks about the pressures and challenges of his experience as a pro skater. (♥: Mmmm hmmm. ) Stop it.  There are clips from Wednesdays with Reda on The Berrics, too.

Okay.  I think I need to go look for more Marc Johnson clips.

Nikki♥

*Remind me to tell you about the last time I was actually on a skateboard and why the thought of skating goes out as quickly as it came in.

**I watched a lot of skaters because… they’re hot.  My kinda hot.  See, I said it, again.

MJ Fully Flared – Pt 1

MJ – Fully Flared Pt 2

Epicly Later’d – language, people. be warned.

Savion Glover – 2007 Channel 4 piece – London

It started out as a walk I took a few days a week.  It was mapped and marked down to the tenth.  Thankfully, it’s turned into something I, just, do.  I go hunting for hills, delightfully out of breath.  Every day is a neighborhood adventure.  Miles are involved, just not counted.

I’ve thought it might be fun to bring the old point and shoot and record some of the things I see along the way.

So, this is just a study in color.

N♥