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David Knopp
Trad climber
CA
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May 18, 2016 - 12:36pm PT
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Wanted to second Jefe's recommendation of Kem Nunn-both of Dogs of Winter and Tapping the source capture some of the weirdness around CA surfing.
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Rick A
climber
Boulder, Colorado
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May 18, 2016 - 12:58pm PT
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It is a really excellent book and one of my most enjoyable reads I’ve had in quite a while.
I can’t find it now, but there is a wonderful passage where Finnegan describes surfing somewhere where the water is so transparent and the waves so perfect that he almost loses touch with reality.
Also memorable is a passage where he and his girlfriend spend the summer working through, and admiring the writing in, a stack of old New Yorkers someone left in the house they are staying in. To later end up writing for the New Yorker shows that dreams do come true.
However, I guess nobody, even a New Yorker writer with a Pulitzer Prize, is perfect. How this climbing metaphor evaded an editor’s pencil, I’ll never know.
I even let him [Mark Renneker] preside over primordial moments, his Mephistophelian cackle providing a lifeline from the yawning space of my fear in big waves to some rock face where the psychic crampons held.
Made me wince like the sound of crampons on rock :)
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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May 18, 2016 - 03:39pm PT
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I remember that one, too, RickA... that was painful.
Whenever I'm talking about Ocean Beach with Leavitt, I always make sure to add the caveat, "yeah, you know, the real Ocean Beach." I really hadn't heard much about it when I moved up here in 2002. Rude awakening, it was. Having grown up surfing in Ventura, Santa Barbara, and Goleta, it completely reset my frame of reference for consistent and big. And scary. I figure I'll stay up here until I'm too old to make the paddle out, then move back down south for the twilight years.
I'll third the Kem Nunn books. Enjoyed them, although nowhere near as much as Barbarian Days.
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StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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May 18, 2016 - 03:47pm PT
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Definitely going to check this out.
Went to school at UCSB. I remember a couple of trips to Jalama when freight trains were pouring in one after another, just as sun was setting and it was getting dark. They were some of the best and scariest moments of surfing ever. The sound they made as they peeled toward you was otherworldly.
I surfed at Pigeon Point a few times. In the fog it was really weird. After I saw the picture of an abalone diver's wetsuit bitten in half on the news (the day after we were there), I lost my nerve.
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dfinnecy
Social climber
'stralia
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May 18, 2016 - 11:21pm PT
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Drljefe, thanks for those recommendations. Dogs of Winter sounds great, I hadn't heard of it before. Captain Zero and Now Go To Hell have been on my list for awhile and I'll have to actually get into them now.
This excellent excerpt from Captain Zero was what originally brought it to my attention:
http://www.outerknown.com/journey/an-excerpt-from-a-weisbecker
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hobo_dan
Social climber
Minnesota
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May 28, 2016 - 04:11pm PT
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Just finished it. Heavy with honesty- very great sense of presenting what it feels like to just be out on the hang.
I liked as he got older and the world changed, his reflections on it all.
I'd recommend it for sure. My favorite was the south pacific stuff
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KristenB
Social climber
Jefferson City, MO
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Jun 26, 2016 - 07:07am PT
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I was in the airport on the way to City of Rocks for the Get together and found myself in front of the book section at the news stand. I scanned the shelves and saw Barbarian Days and remembered Greg's recommendation of it. What is better than a book about surfing to read on a vacation rock climbing in the desert?
There are parallels between climbing and surfing and although I am a marginal climber and have never surfed-I don't think boogy boarding once in San Diego counts as surfing -I enjoyed the book very much.
There could have been a diagram of a wave on the inside cover- unobtrusive and decorative but very helpful to those of us who are unfamiliar with the jargon.
Thanks for another worthwhile recommendation Greg!
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Contractor
Boulder climber
CA
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Jul 13, 2016 - 12:55pm PT
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Half way through and loving it- yes the parallels to surfing/climbing are stark.
Pursuits, in personal context, (I can't bring myself to call sports) that tend to, if not weed out, at least expose frauds when applied with vigor and integrity.
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micronut
Trad climber
Fresno/Clovis, ca
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Jul 13, 2016 - 01:36pm PT
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Headed to Idaho for a vacation with my kids rafting the Salmon river for a week.....looking for a good book for the lazy mornings with coffee on the river. Headed to Amazon to click "buy it now!" as we speak. Thanks for the recommendation.
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BooDawg
Social climber
Butterfly Town
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Jul 20, 2016 - 09:05pm PT
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I just finished the book and, never having been a surfer, I have been struck by the parallels between climbing and surfing. Yvon had it right in so many ways (and waves). More to come...
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Darwin
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Nov 15, 2016 - 06:32pm PT
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Just a bump for the book. I'm about 80% through it and just love it. I should shut up until I finish, but for now the book works spectacularly on many levels. I see: a perfect narrative of *THE BEST SURFING SAFARI EVER* (no shit); to criticism/commentary on the range of culture and privilege; and a really interesting, understated and honest(? so far) reflection on how male surf bums interact with females(mostly mates).
Ok, I'm extrapolating there.
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Fuzzywuzzy
climber
suspendedhappynation
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Nov 15, 2016 - 10:35pm PT
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Great read.
Best renderings of water I've read in a long while.
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Gunkie
Trad climber
Valles Marineris
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Nov 16, 2016 - 06:58am PT
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I thought it was a good read that was worth the time and effort, not a great read IMO. Maybe it was jealousy setting in that culled my love of the book?
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le_bruce
climber
Oakland, CA
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Nov 16, 2016 - 10:18am PT
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Best renderings of water I've read in a long while.
Hell yes. The way he writes on both the mechanics and the poetics of the sea and on the energies and idiosyncrasies of waves/breaks: irresistible. We don't have a writer in climbing with those chops (imo + that I'm aware of). His writing (on water, not necessarily true about the whole book imo) is lean as a knife, uses no crutches.
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crusher
climber
Santa Monica, CA
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Nov 28, 2016 - 02:00pm PT
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I read the excerpt that was in The New Yorker before the book came out and meant to get it as soon as it was published. Fast forward, I saw this thread and remembered just how much the part in The New Yorker moved me; I bought the book this last weekend while traveling and haven't been able to put it down.
It's written beautifully and takes me right back to my own experiences of many years spent in Southern California's ocean and sometimes in Hawaii's and Mexico's...swimming, body surfing, windsurfing...that often transcendent state as well as moments of pure terror and awe.
I can tell I'll be bummed when the book is finished!
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COT
climber
Door Number 3
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Feb 24, 2017 - 10:53am PT
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Loved the book. Toward the end some of the surfing description fell on my deaf non surfing ears, but didn't diminish my overall experience.
The parallels to climbing especially to alpine climbing were very striking to me. Unlike rock climbing where you can become very proficient in climbing gyms,alpine climbing proficiency require time outside with the actual medium.
I could relate to the danger, challenging environmental conditions, suffering, fickle nature of the medium, secrecy of special places, the dedication of time and effort, the excitement in the search for new flows/waves, the unique language the camaraderie the ebb and flow of a lifelong pursuit and the mortality of it and life in general.
Awesome
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Gunkie
Trad climber
Valles Marineris
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Feb 24, 2017 - 11:18am PT
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'Barbarian Days: A Sufing Life' is so much better than the drivel I'm working through right now, "For a Few Perfect Waves: The Audacious Life and Legend of Rebel Surfer MIKI DORA"
Bleh...
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