Wild and Wonderful

Lets talk about adrenaline. The rush of a feeling. The feeling of excitement, danger and sensory overload wrapped into one package. Lets talk about whitewater rafting the Gauley River in West Virginia on a 115% release day.

Just a taste of the experience:
A motley crew of adventures is assembled by Rory Heim aka the King of Fun, piled into a car and roadtripped off for a night of camping and a day of rafting in West Va. Add in a rafting guide with 10 years of experience and more redneck jokes than Larry the Cable Guy. Add in the morning sunlight peeking through the mist rising off the water, just as the leaves are starting to turn orange and yellow. Add in whitewater and jutting rocks that resemble the only water entrance to hell. Add in an amazing hot lunch right off the grill and a flask of some of the good stuff to put some hairs on your chest. Finally, add in a GoPro and John Denver and here's what you get:

Localites

Places: spaces characterized by a combination of elements that tickle our internal axis' of harmony, enveloping us in a unique phenomenological experience. Everyone's got a place, that 'spot.'

My brother and I have one too. There is a field near our parent's house in Crozet. A swath of naked rolling hills provide a corridor down which you can gander. You can see the mountains from there. There are hay bails (you can run on them), bird swoops/calls, openings and closings of the day, a vine-mantled tractor - all there. Sometimes I wish I were too.

We call it 'the spot.' I would show you a picture, but then, it wouldn't be 'the spot,' would it...

Here's another picture though. There's an old ware house down near the River. Ruins, old structures, worn, that welcome new life, open to fresh constituents to distinguish it. It's all gnarled trees and spray art. I call it the Bad Lands. A place - it is. THE spot? No. Still an axis' though.

Gareth Hermann for scope

Classic

OK Go - This Too Shall Pass from OK Go on Vimeo.

Air

The greatest snowboarding movie ever came out. Get some awesomeness in this trailer.

Brain Farm - The Art of Flight Trailer from Brain Farm on Vimeo.

I think the quote "What the fuck kind of planet are you from?" pretty much sums this all up. By the end of the film, you'll be desensitized to mythological aerial gymnastics, as Travis Rice and his posse man-handle some monumental peaks, mountains that seem to have opposable thumbs. To watch this intuitively choreographed play between natures larges indexes, spines that invoke oblivion, feels like a watching a fairy tale. Add dubstep. Ignite. Folks, your faces are blown.

Think planet earth-esque ski porn. At one thousand frames per second. For scale: they can take one second in reality and stretch it into one minute of footage. Delayed gratification never felt so good. The cusp is moving in next door, so get get neighborly and civil, were in for the long haul.

Lunatic

The Mountain from TSO Photography on Vimeo.

Feel small. Let this one stroke you into a complete sensation of profound harmony, enveloping, in it's palm, the central axis from which your aesthetic sense radiates.

It's almost fall. We should look around more - places are doing cool things.

Entreated to recognize, to validate. Do so.

spiderwebs, veins in a leaf, a sheet of water (touch it), tree trunks, feathers, cracks in the sediments, planets - OH MY

Give the '80s a Chance

I laughed.

Grum - Through The Night from The General Assembly on Vimeo.

There's something about business-in-the-front-party-in-the-back mustached synth homo-erotic shenanigans that makes life less serious. Which I deem to be a wise lesson. Forget making it through the night, hopefully you make it through this video, that's the real test.

Children of the Gnar

It rained yesterday.

So we take it to the vaults, where old times play.

Yeah, we did Vermont. A bro-adtrip to end the summer. B-Alfukn Day, Huck Flinn, and the two Hermann miscreants. Verb-status in high order. Something like... "The 802 Sessions: Going H.A.M at full Bro-pacity"

A chapter of high impact, verses of water via rocks, wheels, fireworks (try a morter out a sunroof... no? no one?) p.a.r.t.y./r.a.v.e, hikes to panoramas, waterholes to more flight, shenanigans to all day everyday - and the book rambles on from here.

The pressure is on, as were pretty high up as it is - climax feels like an olden creed. So, maybe, this is a tribute to tomorrow, to the next jump, from even higher up.

Enjoyage.

Caught Red Handed

I like to take pictures. I like to make videos. But the imagination is an elusive damsel, to say the least, and capturing her in a raw, candid moment is freakishly difficult. Oftentimes I am left with something like a silver slipper in my hand, a hint of what could have been. When I first watched this video, not only did I come close to letting my eyes drool (crying is far beyond the boundaries of the 'bro' code), but I felt that it had captured what imagination, in the midst of its mystical creation, was. To you: feel free to let the tears flow, and also see how "Apricot" could be, maybe is, your perfect daydream.

APRICOT — A Short Film by Ben Briand from Moonwalk Films on Vimeo.

Country Boyz

K-Herms and I were in South Cackalaky for new years when Kevin captured this gem of Gabe McConkey brakin the wishbone of some cream topped yogurt. If you dont know what a "wishbone" is in this context then you should def watch the video and get some Nelson County eduMcation.

The Future was NOW

My friends older brother, Ted Day, and his cohorts recently created this from scratch up in NYC... soundtrack and everything. Retro, Futuristic, Detective, Violence, Love, New York City, Comic, Cyborg ... these keywords make it a "dude check this out" video for sure.