We love print
Ten ways to escape the internet this Summer
While it’s true that we live on the internet, we are fools for print. Magazines, zines, pamphlets, flyers — we love them all. In fact, if I suddenly became a zillionaire, you can bet I’d be hiring all my friends to make the coolest fucking magazine ever.
In the meantime, we’re your besties, the fools, living here in your phone. It’s nice in here. We like it.
“The two girls grew up at the edge of the ocean and knew it was paradise, and better than Eden, which was only a garden.” — Eve Babitz, Sex and Rage.
But it’s always good to escape the internet. Among other things, it’s hard to see your screen at the beach, which is a super vital consideration during the summer.
With that in mind, we have gathered a few fun print things we’re enjoying right now — some old, some new, we don’t really do things in an organized kind of way. We just do them.
• Canvas Magazine
I love a good indie mag, and launched in July, Canvas is a love letter to surfing. It’s fun, beautifully laid-out, and full of heart. Surf photos on paper will always look amazing, and I am such a sucker for this kind of thing. Put together by a small crew, Canvas is about friendship and surfing — and the beautiful places where we find both of those essential things. canvas.zine.bigcartel.com.
• Sex and Rage. Eve Babitz.
If you’ve never read Eve Babitz, she’s the party girl punk to Joan Didion’s cool modernism, which I’ll confess has never really been my favorite. Sure, Didion wrote that famous sentence about the Santa Ana winds, and she perfectly captures the combination of alienation and escape that driving the freeway system involves in Play It As It Lays. By contrast, Babitz is loose and playful and her Los Angeles is hazy and dreamlike. When Sex and Rage opens, Jacaranda lives in Santa Monica, where she surfs, falls in love, and makes so many bad decisions. bookshop.org.
“Surfing is either the best thing ever or the worst thing ever.” — Anna Gadauskas, The Surfer’s Journal. Issue 34.3
• The Surfer’s Journal. Issue 34.3.
Yes, I am promoting myself here. It’s my job! But also, relevant to the subject at hand. You know about TSJ, because you do not live under a rock. But did you know that an actual fool got to write a story for them? Read my profile of world traveler and surfer-adventurer Anna Gadauskas in Issue 34.3. “I like the exploration factor, and going places that haven't been completely charted and figured out. I think it's cool that there are still paces like that.” — Anna Gadauskas. “Surfing is either the best thing ever or the worst thing ever.” Also, Anna. surfersjournal.com.
• Welcome to Paradise, Now Go to Hell. Chas Smith.
If you’ve never read Chas’s signature account of a winter on the North Shore, what are you even waiting for? Welcome to Paradise, Now Go to Hell is a fabulous satire of the surf industry, featuring assorted cameos from all the people you know, and some you wish you didn’t. It’s as though all those glossy surf magazine images were a lie — or at least, a very pretty eliding of the truth. At his best, Chas is a hilarious writer, and in Welcome to Paradise, he is easily at his best. bookshop.org.
Impress your friends with terms like littoral drift and your new understanding of how sandbars form.
• Surfer Stories. Claudia Lebenthal.
Twelve profile stories comprise this cute, turquoise book edited and designed by Claudia Lebenthal, who has worked as a photographer and art director. In each case, a surfer writes about a surfer they admire. For Santa Barbara friends, the conversation between Tom Curren and Chris Shiflet of the Foo Fighters is a lovely, nostalgic ramble around town and an exploration of the tensions that arise from turning an artistic pursuit into a profession. Most of all, though, I loved Salema Masekela’s piece about Black South African surfer Michael February. Masekela writes movingly about Mikey’s importance to him as a Black surfer who grew up with few role models and about his father, a jazz musician in apartheid South Africa. chaucersbooks.com.
If you haven’t watched Caity’s masterpiece from this past winter, what are you even doing? Watch for the left barrel in La Jolla, in particular. Essential.
• Waves and Beaches. Willard Bascom.
“Who knows where the wind comes from?” says one of the characters in the 1976 film Big Wednesday. Dip into Willard Bascom’s Waves and Beaches, and you’ll end up knowing quite a lot, in fact, about the wind and the waves it creates. Impress your friends with terms like littoral drift and your new understanding of how sandbars form. Not sold? Y’all, this thing has pictures. “The two combatants — waves and beaches — are the heroes of this book.” — Bascom. Find the original paperback on abebooks.com or pick up the shiny reissue from Patagonia Books. patagonia.com.
When he published the book, Duane was dismissed as a kook by the established surf writers, which the kind of bullshit gate-keeping that we hate around here.
• Golden Ride Magazine.
A women’s outdoor magazine, Golden Ride publishes a surf edition each year. Based in Germany, they produce each issue in both English and German languages. This means they’re way smarter than me, because I can only write in one language, not two. They also cover mountain biking and snow sports, if you’re into those sorts of things. goldenride.de.
• Caught Inside. Daniel Duane.
Caught Inside is Daniel Duane’s earnest memoir of learning to surf and discovering the culture and magic of our weird, wondrous past time. When he published the book, Duane was dismissed as a kook by the established surf writers, which the kind of bullshit gate-keeping that we hate around here. These days, Duane surfs winter swells at Ocean Beach, SF. Suck it, haters! The wide-eyed innocence of Caught Inside lends it an appealing authenticity, and Duane’s accounts of driving the coast around Santa Cruz searching for waves beautifully evoke the place. bookshop.org.
The plot is loose with some pretty significant holes, which I encourage you to overlook.
• Surf Session Magazine.
Surf Session is a beautifully designed French surf magazine. Do you need to read all the words to appreciate a surf magazine? I’m not sure that you do. There are photos to enjoy and a paper book to hold in your hands while you sip an espresso at your favorite coffee shop. I do not think we need to make this whole thing all that complicated. I have enjoyed a number of their previous issues, and perhaps you will, too. no. No. 397, Summer, just dropped. surfsession.com.
• Same Time Next Summer. Annabel Monaghan.
I love romance novels, I can not lie. Surfing runs through Same Time Next Summer which mostly takes place in a beach town on Long Island. I have never been in the ocean on the east coast, so this element was enjoyable! The plot is loose with some pretty significant holes, which I enourage you to overlook. Among other things, the story hinges on a character remaining extremely ignorant about something fairly obvious for longer than I could entirely believe. But the vibes — the vibes are immaculate. An excellent escape. bookshop.org.
