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What are you reading right now?

If you've had an especially good (or bad!) experience with a surf product or service (i.e. surfboard, wetsuit, surf camp, shaper, video, etc), share your opinion with the rest of us. Nobody really cares, but knock yourself out. Registration is required.

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Postby Fish » Thu Jul 27, 2006 5:23 pm

OK, I was under the impression that before the mast meant on a sailing vessel in military service. cool.

Gills is like smart or something. Egghead! Isn't it funny how Americans make poke fun at smart people and call them derrogatory names? "You are a goddam John Kerry, you know that!"
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Postby Foul Pete » Thu Jul 27, 2006 5:27 pm

'Potrait Of An Artist As A Young Dog.' NIIIICEEEEEE ONEE Dylan... pint a stella for you, innit?
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Postby navier-stokes » Fri Jul 28, 2006 4:56 am

Fish wrote:OK, I was under the impression that before the mast meant on a sailing vessel in military service. cool.

Gills is like smart or something. Egghead! Isn't it funny how Americans make poke fun at smart people and call them derrogatory names? "You are a goddam John Kerry, you know that!"


I am under the impression that they do it here in ireland nad the uk to.....it almost seems to be a western tradition to be distrustful of those who seem smart....
upgrade your grey matter, 'cause some day it may matter
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Postby gills » Fri Jul 28, 2006 11:56 am

Fish wrote:OK, I was under the impression that before the mast meant on a sailing vessel in military service. cool.

Gills is like smart or something. Egghead! Isn't it funny how Americans make poke fun at smart people and call them derrogatory names? "You are a goddam John Kerry, you know that!"


More like I'm a ship geek...I have plans...big plans....to get myself, my lady and my dog on ship bound for nowhere but surf and warmth. It'll be doable in ten years....then, I'm gone...
gills
 

Postby Fish » Sat Jul 29, 2006 12:40 pm

keep me informed. I always wanted to fall off a yard arm and crack my dome.

Was talking with Wilbur about this recently. I came to the conclusion that I would be that guy. Either that or the Jonah.
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Postby gills » Thu Aug 31, 2006 3:48 pm

Fish, have you read Life of Pi? think it would be up your alley. Has to do with boats and big ideas.
gills
 

Postby Doc » Thu Aug 31, 2006 11:17 pm

I thought the Life of Pi was kinda obvious...

Fast read tho...

Right now reading:

The Black Douglases (of Scotland fame)

Just finished:

The Great Shame (on the development of Irish nationalism)

Always reading:

Ulysses (Joyce)
A Distant Mirror (Tuchman)
Gravitys Rainbow (Pynchon)
120 Days of Sodom (seriously f'ed up...de Sade...my wife hates that this book sits out and makes me put it on the bottom of the pile)

I just leave 'em by the toilet and turn to a page...
"If you don't surf...don't start".
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Postby Fish » Fri Sep 01, 2006 1:14 am

Life of Pi goes on the list.

Pirate of an exquisite mind. Explorer, naturalist and buccaneer: the life of William Dampier bye Diana and Michael Preston.

jsut startedit
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Postby gills » Fri Sep 01, 2006 8:20 am

Doc wrote:I thought the Life of Pi was kinda obvious...
Fast read tho...
Ulysses (Joyce)
A Distant Mirror (Tuchman)
Gravitys Rainbow (Pynchon)
.


Read Life of Pi in one sitting whilst in Nicaragua while a Hurrican was blowing the hell out of El Salvador and making surfing impossible for a week. I don't agree with the author's conclusions about metaphysics vs. the physical world, but I'm a big fan of Richard Parker and what he represents. Also like that Martel wrote this as a dish washer amidst periods of low bagging around the world. Very rarely do we get 'hungry' novels anymore. Most of it is the senior thesis of MFA creative writing programs BS, written by kids who have never really love, never really lost, and never really lost their shhit.

Doc, in college I was in a group that read one page of Finnegan's Wake a week. Then I gave up. Joyce, though a darling of the Irish and the literary establishment in general, was an elitist prick.
gills
 

Postby Nasty » Fri Sep 01, 2006 8:34 am

Proofing the GSA Schedule for my company.
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Postby The Landlord » Fri Sep 01, 2006 8:52 am

West of Jesus: Surfing, Science, and the Origins of Belief
by Steven Kotler

From Publishers Weekly
After surviving a battle with Lyme disease, Kotler finds himself searching for a reason to live and turns to his love of surfing. The novelist (The Angle Quickest for Flight) and journalist travels to Mexico, where he hears a story about a magical being called "the Conductor," who controls the surf. Having heard the same tale eight years earlier while surfing in Indonesia, Kotler decides to seek out the legend's source while researching the inherent mysticism of surfers and their sport. Detailing his journey and findings, Kotler creates a work that combines the most compelling elements of memoir, travelogue and scholarly abstract into an accessible tale of physical and mental adventure. Up for anything, Kotler seeks out big waves, bungee jumping and a risky helicopter ride. He also delves into far-flung topics: surfing's history, Joseph Campbell's work on myths, Jungian psychology, Zen Buddhism, government "weather modification" experiments and the religious beliefs of islanders like the Maori and Hawaiians. The book reaches its peak when Kotler focuses on the inner workings of the human brain. His reasoning of how genetic and biological factors combine with physical and emotional experiences to create the spiritual "funkytown" feeling unique to surfing is both enlightening and inspirational.
Shall we roll it Jimmy?
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Postby SnowSlider » Fri Sep 01, 2006 2:06 pm

My buddy just gave me "Under the Banner of Heaven" by Jon Krakauer. Has anyone read it yet? He said it was good but I haven't started it yet.
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Postby smithgrind » Sat Sep 02, 2006 1:12 am

I'm reading "A Death in Belmont" by Sebastian Junger, "The Perfect
Storm" author. No special reason, come to think of it. All the publishers
send free books to my station thinking we might do some free pub for them. Usually I nip the books as they lay around on co workers' desks and sell them to powells for drug money or what have you. Round the holidays most of my christmas shopping is complete with nice hardcovers of Dr. Phil's latest twangfest or Marlo Thomas reflecting on a life's journey through washed up SoCal glory days.
Junger's latest book is kinda interesting since it deals with his infantile brush with the Boston Strangler. Crazy serial killers are always in vogue and I'm a sucker for them so this book didn't make the trip to the city of books.

As the Mighty Bob Seeger once crowed "Turn the page...."
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Postby freckleface » Tue Sep 05, 2006 9:05 pm

I'm deeply involved in JG Ballard's The Day of Creation, who also wrote Empire of the Sun (the book) and Crash (the book) and many other books that I will start reading after this one. I can hardly put the idea of the book into words--it is a story set in Africa of a man's obsession with discovering another Nile, but it is so much more than that--it deals with the gentle slope into crazy, with politics and corruption, with the inner workings and desires of man.

I just read the Da Vinci Code in a couple of full reading days (have I mentioned I am unemployed?). This was right before I began JG Ballard. The writing is horrible, but it was entertaining, I guess. I think I was doing that thing where you have something you want to eat for some reason but it doesn't taste that good, so you just swallow it whole.

The Royal Ghosts is a collection of short stories by Samrat Upadhyay. I love good short stories. That is why I also constantly leaf through and re-read Telling Stories--An Anthology for Writers, collected by Joyce Carol Oates. There is something for everyone in there.

Veggie Revolution by Sally Kneidel, Ph.D. I like to read these books about the meat industry every once in awhile because if I don't, I forget about the disdusting reality and start enjoying my meat too much.

The Measure of Reality--Quantification and Western Society, 1250-1600, by Alfred W. Crosby. It discusses the shift from a qualitative view of the world to quantitative and how it shaped science, math, business practices, and even art and music. I have only read about 30 pages of this one so far--I really need to be in the mood to concentrate on every word.

I am reading another one--but it is upstairs on the bed table, and I can't remember what it is since I got drunk on Friday night and camped all weekend.

I took some notes on other books, and look forward to getting through these so I can start some more!

I won't read all of the Veggie Revolution--just enough to get me riled up.
freckleface
 

Postby Foul Pete » Wed Sep 06, 2006 7:32 am

just started 'ishmael' i don't know why. it was on the toilet floor. i picked it up. a gorilla started talking about the end of the world. i shat one out.
Foul Pete
 

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