Welcome back to Week in Review. We’re a day late, blame it on the Climate Strike. First up, another week, another culturally vital skate spot threatened with destruction. This time it’s Stalin Plaza in Prague. Dr. Paul O’Connor broke the sad news on his blog, Everyday Hybridity, and you can (and should) sign the petition here. Rumor has it that the plaza, which is now devoid of its namesake statue, will be renovated. Into what, no one knows, but it’s obviously hard for people who don’t skate to see why a big empty plaza around the long-since-gone statue of an evil dictator is preferable to condos. Normal people, of course, have never tripped out over a casually mind-blowing mid-2000s Petr Horvat part.
Words by Tobias Coughlin-Bogue
Arthur at Free Skate Mag did a really rad interview with UK tech wizard Dom Henry, who recently came out as gay. This might sound a little rich coming from people who just did an entire issue asking skaters about their sexuality, but it was really nice to read an interview with a queer pro in a relatively mainstream skate mag that spent more time talking about his skating than his choice of partners. But also not skirting around the issue at all! Congrats to Dom on coming out, and to Arthur on doing such an artful job of asking about it. (Bonus: Maybe it’s because I just bought a Cleaver deck at Ben G, but I also enjoyed their interview with Diego Bucchieri and Roberto Aleman about breaking into the US pro scene as two Spanish-speaking outsiders.)
Besides that, Pushing Boarders is the gift that keeps on giving, when it comes to weekly reading. SKATEISM contributor and generally awesome human Norma Ibarra did a series of mini-interviews with womxn attending the conference, all of which are now live over at Yeah Girl’s site. Our very own social editor Imke Leerink is in there, as well as a bunch of other interesting folks. Very worth a read. Thrasher also got around to doing a PB wrap-up, courtesy of Vent City’s own Ted Schmitz. Thanks for the kind words about our panel, dude!
Speaking of Pushing Boarders, which was held at Bryggeriet, Sweden’s famous skate high school, there’s a second one on the way, in Finland, according to PB attendee and doctoral researcher Mikko Kyrönviita:
First #skateboarding highschool in Finland – and perhaps second in the world after @Bryggeriet gymnasium in Malmö – most likely to start 2021 in #tampere Unique collaboration between skateboarders, @Tamperekaupunki and @hiedanranta bearing fruit! https://t.co/2ATAuKCBlF
— Mikko Kyrönviita (@Mikko_KY) September 26, 2019
ICYMI: (We missed it!) California’s ‘Equal Pay for Equal Play’ law is in effect, thanks to the amazing efforts of MAHFIA TV founder and Skate Like a Girl San Francisco Development Director Kim Woozy. No more gender inequity in prize purses, fuck yeah! Speaking of contest winnings, our dear friend Candy Jacobs, who had a great interview in Issue #3, took some home from Street League Rio. Sadly, she barely missed the podium, coming in 4th. The top three was Brazil’s dynamic duo — Pamela Rosa and Rayssa Leal, in that order — then Aori Nishimura, who is definitely Japan’s best hope of keeping the gold in Tokyo next year.
Clip of the week goes to an unlikely candidate: part two of Red Bull’s Africa tour. We might be biased, but anything involving Daddy Yann is worth watching in our book, and this clip involves a lot of him. Plus the crew actually engaging with locals at the Cape Verde slave forts, and learning a bit about the place’s history. Considering that Red Bull has actually taken steps to prevent slavery from being a part of their global supply chain, which is, sickeningly, still a thorny problem for manufacturers of sugary beverages, this is actually not cringey and very informative. Not words I thought I’d ever be writing about a Red Bull edit. Monster, sponsor of SLS Rio gold medalist Nigel Hudson, continues to ignore the issue. If you do drink energy drinks (why?), now you know which one to drink.
Our Chad Muska tweet for the week is actually, unironically good. Skateboarding around grimy city streets is great and good and all, but so is the occasional hike.
Go outside and connect with nature as much as you can.
— Chad Muska (@TheMuska) September 24, 2019
Have fun out there this weekend, whatever you do!
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Featured image courtesy of Candy Jacobs, shot by Pierro Cannini.
