Paul O'Connor's Blog, page 6

Halloween Skates Last year I posted a piece on how amongst all...

Halloween Skates
Last year I posted a piece on how amongst all festivals, skateboarding has a particular affinity with Halloween. What has happened since? Well, in short, it feels like this bond has blossomed and has become even more mainstreamed. Much less death metal and satanic photo shoots and much more costumed kickflips.
The Berrics is leading the ‘overkill’ of festivity with a Halloween Kills tie-in promoting YouTube skater Garett Ginner and The Hyphenate for a multi-video Michael Myers Halloween bonanza. When are the Michael Myers parts dropping… Halloween of course. 
The Berrics also not wanting to go easy on the Halloween leverage have a masked Koston driving around, avoiding shootings, scaring away solitary skaters, and asking everyone to do a kickflip. Perhaps none of this should be too surprising when we consider the penchant that both Koston and Berra have shown for dressup in the past. Cast your mind back to Steve Berra’s The End part. The sociophobics of skateboarding were a motif in this weird hybrid horror, conspiracy, MIB video part. But just how far have we come since?
Is this watering down of the bond a result of post Olympic, sportification? I’ve seen so many posts where there is an odd mix between a skateboard being part of the Halloween costume, or even the Halloween dressing up being part of the skateboarding costume? Am I perplexed, perhaps being too cynical. Maybe it is the result of being in the UK, a country that doesn’t really ‘get’ Halloween and has traditionally always been better at the more parochial November 5th celebrations scapegoating Guy Fawkes. Now it seems people are just a bit confused about both celebrations.
In all honesty Halloween is a plumb time to ham it up with buffoonery of all sorts. I am actually thankful that in light of the sportification and Gold medals, skateboarding is thriving in the jovial arts. Fun is fundamental.
There is plenty more nicely timed skateboarding content out there for your trick or treating. The BaKu offering of Deer Man of Dark Woods teaming up with Heroin boards. Thrasher also has a bloodsoaked video tie in with Christiana Means which is nicely put together and seems to land a hundred times better than the Berrics offerings. It has a culturally apt title in embracing Razor Tail and doesn’t take it self too seriously. Any glance at social media will also lead to lots of other skateboarding/Halloween crossover content.
Until next year, Happy Halloween.

New book: Skateboard Video, Archiving the City from Below By...

New book: Skateboard Video, Archiving the City from Below  By Duncan McDuie-Ra

It’s always a cause for celebration when a new academic tome on skateboarding arrives. Released now on the Palgrave site is the new title ‘Skateboard Video: Archiving the City from Below’. There are several reasons why I am enthusiastic about this latest edition. Firstly it is the second book on skateboarding McDuie-Ra has released this year and provides a strong compliment to his other work ‘Skateboarding and Urban Landscapes in Asia’. Secondly, this book contributes to two areas of skateboarding scholarship where we have long needed more discussion; Video and Asia.

I was fortunate enough to get a peek of this book in advance of its release so I share below my blurb from the back cover as it sums up my response succinctly.

“In this engaging and provocative work McDuie-Ra’s metaphor is powerful; here is a culture that documents itself ‘from below’. By adopting the video camera as a ritual item, skateboarders have created an informal archive of urban life and social change. In studying these videos, the author invites us to become intimately familiar with the overlooked corners of cities across the globe, presenting an informal index of development and austerity, and an extraordinary resource for academic study. This clear and accessible voice questions the central tenets of skateboard culture, showing that through video, skateboarders can be responsible delinquents, and inclusive elitists who cherish and honour their history. A remarkable text that urges the reader to reconsider the ways we archive urbanism, occupy space, and think of race.” (Paul O’Connor, author of Skateboarding and Religion)

At a tangent, the arrival of new research on skateboarding is something I have no resistance in celebrating.  This summer saw another important release, that of Kyle Beachy’ s ‘The Most Fun Thing’, which alike its subject matter is ineffable; not neatly fitting categorisation or description. Also Sander Hölsgens released ‘Skateboarding in Seoul’ earlier this year. There are also new works touching on skateboarding from Becky Beal and Tyler Dupont ‘Lifestyle Sports and Identities Subcultural Careers Through the Life Course’ released 30th of September and  ‘Action Sports and the Olympic Games Past, Present, Future’ coming in November from Holly Thorpe and Belinda Wheaton. However, a few recent murmurs I have gathered seem to be sustaining an ongoing schism between ‘shut up and skate’ and ‘ponder and skate’. Just a week ago a post on #skatetwitter begged for no more theses on skateboarding. Perhaps this is not the best measure of public opinion. Yet, the critique of skateboarding intellectual reflection outpaces the resistance to a new video, company, magazine, photo series etc. If anything my concern is not with the number of academic, intellectual, and research focussed works on skateboarding but simply their inaccessibility. Too often paywalled at ridiculous cost, poorly promoted, and pitched at people who are the least likely to benefit from them.

McDuie Ra’s book(s), and for that measure the recent research I see from grad students and other colleagues alike, all point to the fact that there continues to be much to explore in skateboarding scholarship. This should not be surprising for such a rich and diverse culture. Simply put, there is much more to come.

"To cut a very long story short, his conclusion was that since the living body is primordially and..."

“To cut a very long story short, his conclusion was that since the living body is primordially and irrevocably stitched into the fabric of the world, our perception of the world is no more, and no less, than the world’s perception of itself – in and through us. This is just another way of saying that the inhabited world is sentient. It is not possible, Merleau-Ponty implied, to be sentient in an insentient world – in a world, that is, which has turned its back on its inhabitants, exposing only its rigid, external surfaces to perceptual scrutiny”

-

Tim Ingold Being Alive (2011) pg12

This short passage on Merleau Ponty is one I keep returning to. Ingold moves beyond many of the repeated summaries of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception. The typical conclusion is that the body is the fundamental source of perception. We experience the world through our senses first then intellectually later. What Ingold highlights here is much more provocative. That we only experience this sense of the world as we are in fact stitched into a sentient world and thus in truth we are the world sensing itself.

Skateboarding, Death and Spirituality - a new book by Michael...

Skateboarding, Death and Spirituality - a new book by Michael Brooke and Nathan Ho.

Over the last week I learnt of two deaths of old friends in Hong Kong. Neither was old. One in particular was the father of a kid I would regularly see at the skatepark. We were pretty much the same age and he would often lift my spirits by marvelling at my own meagre skills on the skateboard as if I were some type of magician. He didn’t skate, but he saw skateboarding for what it was and what it could be.

It is therefore quite timely that I have been sent this profound book by Michael Brooke and Nathan Ho. It takes an earnest look at the issue of death and explores much of this through skateboarding and reflections on skateboarders who have been lost. It is frank and broaches issues of suicide, remorse, and the simple caprices of life. It is also a reflection on spirituality and in making it a free download it is a gentle and poignant gift to the reader.

I never cease to be intrigued by the various ways in which my interests in skateboarding and religion connect with other people and the work they do. There is an ongoing dialogue unfolding about the meaning of skateboarding as a powerful and emotional guide. From Kyle Beachy’s tacit spirituality of skate to this very explicit exploration of life and death in skateboarding.

Interestingly enough I met Michael after he read my book and invited me on to his podcast. In my book I broach the issue of death in skateboarding, and explore how skateboarders ritualise and mark death through skateboarding. I also explore a range of books that look at skateboarding in a ‘self help’ frame and argue that many of these have unbalanced content. Too often skateboarding is used as a hollow motif in self help books, or there is no deeper spiritual exploration and it is just a memoir of skateboarding, or ‘how to do tricks’.

In short it is hard for many people to fuse the big life questions together with skateboarding. Death is probably the most challenging issue of all. Both Michael and Nathan do a good job of bucking that trend and producing something that is engaged with skateboarding, its practice and history, while also reaching to other places.

I would recommend checking this book out with an open heart. There is much here and it won’t be to everyone’s taste. However, as a researcher fascinated by the manifold ways in which skateboarding, spirituality and religion interact, this is a real gift. This is also a powerful move in facing issues of death, suicide, and grief squarely in the face.

Here is the free link to download the book in full https://www.docdroid.net/file/download/eTyfv7Q/endless-wave-pdf.pdf

I sign off my post with some additional promotion text for the book that I received from Nathan.

Both authors have decided that rather than sell the book, they are asking anyone who reads it and finds it of value to simply pay it forward. Examples of paying forward include donating to a charity, volunteer at a foodbank or teach a newbie how to drop in or do an Ollie. 

It’s time for UK universities to take skateboarding seriously

It’s time for UK universities to take skateboarding seriously:

I wrote an opinion piece on the potential for skateboarding in Widening Participation strategies for UK universities. It also points to the capacity for graduate retention in connection to skateboarding initiatives.

Few things in life give me more joy the scrolling through the...

Few things in life give me more joy the scrolling through the Quatersnacks site a few times a week. This site is a touchstone of skateboard knowledge and skateboard smarts. So, to be included in their round up of skateboard summer reading is a buzz that will keep me smiling long into Autumn.

Making this whole affair all the more exciting is the good company that my book is discussed with. Dani Abulwaha’s Skateboarding and Femininity, and Iain Borden’s Skateboarding and the City. 

Adam Abada does a first class job in unpacking these texts. He generously and patiently explains some of the more academic ideas and sets them in context. I’m sure Adam also has a book in him, and one that he will enhance with his superb illustrations.

As an aside my book is currently being sold at a very decent price on the Palomino, another site that deserves wide recognition and support.

Now go browse Quartersnacks.

Times Radio on Twitter

Times Radio on Twitter

Skateboarding, Helmets, and Control: Observations From Skateboard Media and a Hong Kong Skatepark

Skateboarding, Helmets, and Control: Observations From Skateboard Media and a Hong Kong Skatepark:

Lots of people aghast at Olympic skateboarders not wearing helmets. I feel like I should mention that the original Panhellenic games were performed in the nude, so many of these skaters are overdressed if we want to keep in line with the real authenticity of the Olympics.

I make jest, but its poignant to see neuroscientists tweeting their concerns. 

So here I share my paper on helmets in skateboarding. It revolves around efforts to make a mandatory helmet rule at a public Hong Kong skatepark.

The Skateboarding Olympic QuestionsIt’s been pretty fascinating...

The Skateboarding Olympic Questions

It’s been pretty fascinating to watch the reaction to skateboarding in the Olympics. I spoke for just a couple of minutes on Times Radio and answered a handful of questions that sort of sum up the public’s reaction. “Will the public understand this?”, “Isn’t it a youth sport?”, “Isn’t it dangerous?”…

Surveying Twitter gives a curious, and of course tilted, insight into what non-skaters make of this new addition to the Olympic roster. The criticism is highlights the continued understanding of skateboarding.

Responses to the the official Olympics Tweet seeking to gauge the reaction shows the range of thoughts.

There is also lots of talk about skaters with headphones on, phones in their pockets, and lots and lots of falling off. Most importantly the critique serves to elevate the importance and pomp of the Olympics and serve to dismiss skateboarding. This is so fascinating because skateboarding is in essence fun, and nothing is more serious than fun. 

The reaction from skateboarders is largely ambivalent with some mild pleasure in the way in which skateboarding continues to be represented largely as it is; a relaxed fraternity unfazed by the grandeur of the nationalism at play. As Kristin Ebeling reminds us ‘never stop hopping fences.’

Skateboarding in the Olympics: A Collision of Two Incompatible Physical Cultures? Drs Brian Glenney & Paul O'Connor (Pt1) - Meaningful Sport Series

Skateboarding in the Olympics: A Collision of Two Incompatible Physical Cultures? Drs Brian Glenney & Paul O'Connor (Pt1) - Meaningful Sport Series:

The first of two episodes where Brian Glenney and I discuss “When Myths Collide” our paper on the meeting of the Olympic and Skateboarding narrative. It was a pleasure to talk with Noora Ronkainen of the Meaningful Sport podcast and blog.

We had a really enjoyable chat and broke off on many tangents. Brian at the beach in LA, Noora in Helsinki, and me in Devon.