Adbusters has an interesting piece about how Nike, once distrusted by skaters because of its enormous bulk, financial clout and marketing savvy, insinuated its way into the skateboarding subculture. Midway through is a pertinent passage about the sneakerhead’s — he or she of 14-35 years of age who appropriates kicks less out of an athletic or (sub-)cultural impulse but rather for the pure material/aesthetic pleasure of having the product itself — role in burnishing Nike’s street bonafides.

[Thanks JB!]

 

Snowboarding whiz Shaun White (winner of the gold at Turin earlier this year) does a composite-heavy — no green screen! – spot for HP.

[link via Motionographer]

Red, the most goofy and whimsical of the generally amazing Adicolor motion shorts … Brought to us by The Directors Bureau (aka Roman Coppola and Andy Bruntel)

And if you, like me, spend a lot of bloodshot hours staring at Flash in a general state of despair and hallucinatory disorientation (debugging actionscript at four in the morning is AWESOME), then you will find this animation most amusing. For it poses the question: as bad as you have it, how do you think Flash feels? Check out Animator vs. Animation here.

(Those in the know will recognize and appreciate this clever updating of Osvaldo Cavandoli’s iconic La Linea cartoons …)

 

As the torch is extinguished in Torino, the story of speedskater Joey Cheek’s donation of his prize money to the charity Right To Play (with money earmarked for children from Darfur, Sudan) will, at least for me, linger for a while longer.

‘The Olympics, in general, and athletics is a very selfish pursuit,’ Cheek said. ‘I wake up every morning and as I get ready for the day ask myself how can I focus all my energies on what I can do so I can be the best in the world.

‘After years of this and years of people sacrificing so I can be the best in the world, I feel that it is imperative for myself and also for anyone else who’s able to reach a pinnacle of their career — or whatever they’re striving for — to reach out a hand and help somebody else.’

***

Cheek was asked again what the Olympics meant to him:

‘It becomes very easy when you start having to sell stories and sell the Games like this prepackaged thing, it becomes very easy to make it a mockery of itself, mockery of what the ideals are,’ he said. ‘I look at sport and competition as something that has been personally enormously beneficial to me. It’s helped me create life skills.

‘And if we carry ourselves with grace and dignity and try our best — even when we fall on our faces, as will happen sometimes — then I think people will see that. And that will be the message of sport and the Olympics.’

Damn. What a swell bloke …

Read Mike Wise’s Washington Post column here.

As we slide into post-Olympics depression, we await the Next Big Thing with bated breath. The question is indeed existential — what will we do with all that time not spent staring at the tv for hours on end (equivalent to four hours a night for two weeks straight!), oblivious to the dissonance of watching world-level feats of athleticism while planted on our asses, eating takeout? What type of filler will pad the crater of meaning in our lives?

For all the spasmodic sportsfans (like myself) out there, a mental note: the World Cup begins in four months …

 

As a zealous Olympics junkie, I watch whatever NBC decides to feed me every night between 8pm to midnight (even though by then, Torino being 6 hours ahead, I already know the results of each competition well before NBC airs them). I even watch figure skating, though I never enjoy it; there was always something about the sport that unnerved me more than it inspired. I never really thought about the causes of this distress, but then this article came along and hit the nail on the head:

It’s astounding that figure skating maintains its self-image as an art form in the face of so much flopping. According to the rules, an athlete must display flow, finesse, and an “effortless movement in time to the music.” She has to skate with style and clarity, “according to the principles of proportion, unity, space, pattern structure, and phrasing.” In other words, she can’t just jump and spin — she has to dance.

A dancer sweeps you away with her grace and flow, and hides her sweat with a flourish. A world-class figure skater, on the other hand, pulls you into her own anxiety. She performs just barely above the limits of her skill, trying jumps you both know she can’t always land.

The stress of these make-or-break moments overpowers whatever artistry a performance may have. What should be a choreographed composition becomes a series of near-impossible leaps strung together with idle tootling. Skaters fill up the dead time with gratuitous arm movements as they catch their breath and get in position for the next jump. Meanwhile, the announcers expect the worst. Shouting over the music, they frantically set up each risky move — Here comes the triple toe loop, this is big! — and then sigh with relief when it’s over — Ohhh, gorgeous. That was huge.

As an aside: was this sadistically bitchy or what??

 

There was always something about the Winter Games that seemed cool and pristine … You think more of the slick, effortless gliding over of ice and snow (after all, which winter sport doesn’t involve this dynamic of slipperiness?) while the Summer Games evoke more grueling, sweltering, sweat-drenched associations. The Winter Games always seemed leisurely somehow, while the Summer Games always seemed like work. So what if you dug beneath this shallow, aesthetic comparison? Would you not find an ugly socioeconomic reality?

So argues Paul Farhi in the Washington Post:

‘Never mind the usual puffery about what this month’s Winter Olympics are all about. Sure, there’s the beauty of sports, the spirit of friendly competition, the dedication of great athletes and all that. But the Winter Games are about a few other things as well: elitism, exclusion and the triumph of the world’s sporting haves over its have nots.

What the Winter Games are not is a truly international sporting competition that brings the best of the world together to compete, as the promotional blather would have you believe. Unlike the widely attended Summer Olympics, the winter version is almost exclusively the preserve of a narrow, generally wealthy, predominantly Caucasian collection of athletes and nations. In fact, I’d suggest that the name of the Winter Games, which start Friday, be changed. They could be more accurately branded “The European and North American Expensive Sports Festival.”‘

Farhi is still a little on the strident side for me, too much a killjoy; call me sentimental, but the Olympic Games, be they Winter or Summer (their ego-driven dramas, idiotic doping scandals, and commercial taints aside), still represent for me one of the few embodiments of Spirit left in our modern — and my grown-up – age, now that Santa Claus and World Peace appear to have been ruled out. Nevertheless, its an argument that holds heft and it’s one I tuck under my hat.

Against the drab backdrop of Farhi’s cynicism, though, it’s lovely to see gems like these shine.

• Shani Davis, who grew up poor in gangland South Chicago and became a speedskater, is the first black athlete to win gold in the Winter Olympics.
• Joey Cheek, another speedskater (he won the silver to Davis’ gold — they are both pictured above), gives his bonuses for both gold and silver medals (totaling $45K!) to Right To Play, a charity that gives disadvantaged kids across the world a chance to play sports they would otherwise not have access to — a direct intervention against the economic disadvantages Farhi points out.

[thanks Meredith, for the ALDaily link to the Post article]