Mark has been responsible for some amazing innovations in snowboard media and events over the past 20 years and now he’s going to put those skills behind some product.
What may be most important is that Mark comes to Rome with a true passion for snowboarding and an excitement for where snowboarding’s headed. With a combination of experience, creativity, and a great work ethic, Mark is a great fit for the SDS family. . . If you’d like to come visit Mark, feel free to swing by the Rome office, where Mark’s taken up temporary residency in the Rome parking lot living out of the “Pow Explorer 2” during his transitional period from living in Idaho to becoming a Vermont resident.
We seriously can’t think of a better fit. Congrats, and good luck. [click to continue…]
Those fucking geniuses at the fucking Burton Corporation are fucking all over the fucking Fuck It promo vid with even more fucking products with the fucking word “fuck” on them. They just fucking released a fucking T-shirt that fucking says “Fuck It” right on the fucking front of the fucking shirt. How fucking rad is that?
They also have a fucking hoodie that says “Fuck It” right on the fucking shoulder. But the best fucking part of this whole fucking thing? They’re releasing a fucking limited fucking edition fucking snowboard with a big fucking hand on the fucking base flying a huge fucking “Fuck You” to the whole fucking world. Fuck.
“There,” Chris Brunkhart says, jabbing his index finger into a proof sheet from his new book and sliding it across the table. “Blue sky.” Someone had rather impolitely asked Chris if his new collection of 1990s era snowboard photography How Many Dreams in the Dark included even one blue sky image. Chris seems relieved to be able to point one out so quickly. And technically, he is right. There is a bit of blue sky. But it is a Brunkhart version of a blue sky. The sun nearly set. Sky darkened to almost black as snowboarder Matt Donahue blasts one more method through the lengthening rays of an already winter-shortened day at Washington’s Steven’s Pass.
In snowboard photography, where bright colors, blue skies, and white snow sell covers, ads, and editorial, Chris has always been a bit of a dark star. He loves shooting his Lecia. And he prefers black and white film. In the early 90s, when most pro photographers would only get their cameras out on cloudless, full sun days, Chris had no problem shooting black and white photos during the biggest storms of the season. While some of that had to do with the realities of weather in the Northwest, he also seemed to prefer it. As a senior photographer for both Transworld Snowboarding and Snowboarder magazines Chris traveled the world shooting snowboarding, yet, some of his best images are of snowboard heroes falling away into the shaded throat of some Mt. Baker powder slot with nothing but snow-laden trees, or a cliff line to frame the action. Though his photos ran in all the major magazines, some of his favorites were never published. That’s one of the reasons he is excited about his new book.
How Many Dreams in the Dark, marks Brunkhart’s return to snowboarding. After what Chris describes as a “falling out sort of” over Frequency Magazine in 2001, he disappeared from action sports media and spent several years working as a car mechanic and a finish carpenter—working with his hands and loving it. But with How Many Dreams he says everything has come full circle. The photos may be from the 90s, but for Chris this is a new beginning. Frequency Magazine is a sponsor, along with Volcom and Burton Snowboards, and everything seems to be right back on track.
Kingvale, one of smoothest little park-only mountains in the world, announced this week that they have lost the lease on their property at the side of Highway 80 near Northern California’s Donner Summit. They explain on their blog:
Today is a SAD SAD Day for Kingvale. We have lost our lease on our current home. Our landlord and us just can’t seem to get along. We are left with no other options than to pack up our circus and try to find a new home. We have too much equipment to list, but we are completely turn-key all we need is some dirt/snow to put it on. . . If you have a spot that might work to be the new Kingvale please email us at info@railbuilders.com. We will answer all questions to come. In the future we are just trying to save our DREAM. Please bare with us.
We know a lot of people in Sacramento, Auburn, and Grass Valley who are going to be seriously disappointed. Spots like Kingvale help introduce snowboarding to thousands of kids who otherwise could not afford snowboarding and we hope Kingvale can find a new home.
. . . a totally re-designed and enhanced version of the content from the mag that’s fully interactive. The image display is super vivid, its got exclusive embedded video, and the content flows like you’ve never seen in print. Navigation is simple, urging you to dig deeper into every issue. . . Swipe left and right to move among stories. Swipe down to read more. Jump between sections by swiping with two fingers, or through the pop-up Contents panel—just push up with two fingers at the bottom of the screen to access Contents and Issues. Tap the screen to make the text disappear and focus solely on the big, beautiful images. Tap it again to bring the text back.
The iPad is still too big and heavy for out tastes and you know what we think about magazine apps, but if there’s an iPad at your house, be sure to load this up and let us know how it looks. Issues are only $2.99 a piece, or nearly four times the price of a Zinio subscription to the same mag.
“The addition of Grind Networks to our portfolio demonstrates our corporate strategic commitment to finding and investing in the right partners who have the vision to deliver targeted content, across multiple platforms, to our enthusiast consumers,” said Michael L. Sullivan, Chief Executive Officer of Source Interlink Companies, Inc. . . With this move, former Grind Networks CEO Erik Hawkins will oversee all digital sales and marketing efforts for the new group; President/COO Greg Morrow will direct all technical and digital product development aspects of the business. The two founded Grind Networks in 2005 after serving as executives at Yahoo!, CitySearch and Launch Media. Both will report directly to Norb Garrett, Senior Vice President and Group Publisher of SIM’s ASG.
It will be interesting to see what magic ASG’s Norb Garrett can work with these sites as none (aside from Newschoolers in ski and Ridemonkey in MTB) have yet to have gained any authentic traction with either advertisers or readers. And while the domains snowboarder.com, motocross.com, and skateboard.com obviously have potential, this whole deal seems like a rather complicated, expensive way to upgrade a couple URLs.
My colleague Nicole Kobie has a defunct Nabaztag rabbit sitting on her desk. . . Nevertheless, it’s a distinctive product and one that Goggles should have no problem identifying. Should. Inexplicably, it returned a search result for Burton snowboards. Verdict: miss.
Wonder what kinds of strange Google tricks Burton has been playing lately?
