WARBLES

CLOSING IN ON FUN

2009-08-16T11:45:00.001-07:00

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Some close-up crops of a sequence of Ryan Burch on the finless Nine Lights open-face-comp-sand experiment inspired by Alaias. The sequence is from the "pretty damn fun" session posted at Hydrodynamica blog.
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The handmade "Fauxlia" is EPS foam with a Poplar wood deck. More info about it at the Nine Lights blog.
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Sequence grabbed from video shot by Matt Shuster.
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BS! (BURCH STOKE!)

2009-08-13T10:32:00.000-07:00

I'm stoked there's some shots of Ryan Burch in the film BS! A couple on the White Pony (Burch on White Pony clips are available to view on the Hydrodynamica Blog) and a couple on one of Burch's self shaped finless boards.

Went down to Encinitas last Friday morning to visit with Burch and Cyrus Sutton. A high level of creativity goin' on in both Cyrus and Burch's yards. Jack McCoy was at Cyrus' documenting. Jack also brought a laptop into the yard and showed some clips he shot of finless Derek Hynd that I'll dare to say are Litmus level inspiration. This Surfline article is a good peek into Jack and Derek's visit with Cyrus and Burch while filming for Jack's forthcoming film A Deeper Shade of Blue— Definitely keep an eye out for its future release.

In the afternoon, Burch and I, along with cameraman Matt Shuster, met RK and Lucas down at their stomping grounds to pick up shots of Burch for a possible extra feature on the deluxe DVD release of BS!

Burch recently shaped a 5"7". The board is Simmons Planing Hull inspired in its foils, and Stubby inspired in its outline and single fin box that he usually rides with a 9" Greenough fin. On the Friday session Burch decided to see how it performed finless.

Here's a full sequence of frame grabs, shot by Shuster, of Burch on the board's first finless session:

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BS! is currently available on iTunes.

This September: A free DVD of it (without extra features) will be inserted into Surfing Magazine.

This November: DVD with bonus features will be available in Surf Shops.
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BS! (BOGUS SCIENCE!)

2009-08-11T13:11:00.000-07:00

As most know, Last Thursday, August 6 marked the day the Atomic Bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. And last Sunday, the 9th, the day Nagasaki was bombed.

Here's an Einstein-Mushroom-Cloud-Morph that I spent some time drawing between the days of August 6th-8th in 1995— the 50th year after the bombings (click image for enlarged detail):

In 2004, at a used bookstore, I found a book of art and writings by Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombing survivors that retold their memories of the aftermath. Here's a few pages of that book (click for enlargements/easier read):

Below is a sequence of frame grabs (they also enlarge with click) from the surf film BS!:

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BS! (SUMMER LOVIN')

2009-07-24T12:27:00.000-07:00

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Big thanks to all the people that came out last night after a day of "Surf City, USA" contest bullshit to make the theatrical premiere of 'BS!' a smashing success...

Blackball's Bullshit!

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"They've condemned the pier, Jack. You'll be livin' under the ¡$#*! foot of the lifeguard state! They're already taking over the point. I won't be able to make your boards anymore. I've gotta start goin' and livin' like an inlander."
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—Bear (BIG WEDNESDAY)
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(1986 pics of Op Pro riot & HB Surf Theatre by Irlocal)
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BS! HAS TAKEN OVER MY LIFE...

2009-06-25T10:36:00.000-07:00

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Here's a trailer for the film project that has kept me on a nuts schedule lately:
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USA PREMIERE DATES OF BS!

WEST COAST
-July 23rd Newport Beach, CA @ Lido Theater
-July 28th San Diego, CA @ La Paloma Theater
-July 29th Hermosa Beach, CA @ Spyder Pier
-July 30th Santa Cruz, CA @ O'Neill
-July 31st San Luis Obispo, CA @ One Way Boardshop

EAST COAST
-July 24th Lavallette, NJ @ Ocean Hut
-July 25th LBI, NJ @ Farias
-July 26th Ocean City, MD @ The Pirates Den
-July 27th Virginia Beach, VA @ Hotline
-July 28th Nags Head, NC @ OBBC
-July 30th Wrightsville Beach, NC @ Surf City
-July 31st Murrells Inlet, SC @ Village
-August 1st Daytona Beach, FL @ Maui Nix
-August 2nd Melbourne Beach, FL @ Da Kine Diego’s
-August 3rd Jupiter Beach, FL @ Ocean Magic

HAWAII
-August 1st Lahaina-Maui, Hi @ at the Volcom Store (Fr. Street)

PUERTO RICO
-July 25th Aviones, PR @ Willito's Pinchos

WARBLED WEEKEND FUNNIES: The MALL Seeing Eye

2009-06-20T11:38:00.000-07:00

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WARBLED WEEKEND FUNNIES: OPEN SEASON (What Do You Get When...)

2009-05-23T09:25:00.000-07:00

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As it should be, Memorial Day weekend is a time to honor those who've lost their lives in the service to others. Of course, in So Cal, it's also the weekend that officially kicks off the one beach season, more than any other, that tests the patience of even the best natured man.
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Click images for enlargement.
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EVERYBODY AT THE BEACH!!!

2009-05-13T12:20:00.000-07:00

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THE HOT SEAT: Where People Loved Arguing for Argument's Sake

2009-05-03T12:45:00.000-07:00

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@ 3min 12sec: USA Alternate National Anthem
@ 5min 15sec: Timothy Leary
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On the flipside of 80's TV programming was Wave Watch w/ PT. This was the only episode I could find online:
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Anyone got a beat on other W.W. episodes?
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END OF ARGUMENT

2009-05-01T10:44:00.000-07:00

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We can all disagree all we want over disciplines and devotions that fall outside the realms of our individual belief systems/preferences, but the best versed theologians recognize an undeniably unifying thread between all books...

GOOD is GOOD:

Ryan Conder, Thruster, Malibu, Spring 2009 (photo: Zamora).

Ryan Conder, Displacement Hull, Malibu, Spring 2009 (photo: Bill Parr).

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THE BIG 'HUMP DAY' PROPHECIES: Comedy... Tragedy... Comedy/Tragedy...

2009-04-29T00:10:00.000-07:00

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Matt Johnson: "What time is it?"

Jack Barlow: "It's about 5... I haven't got much time left." [before he leaves for Vietnam War].

Leroy The Masochist: "I gotta go throw my paper route."
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Leroy: "You know I'm not the sentimental type, but you're goin' so far away I feel... I really feel funny."

Jack: "Be good to yourself."
Leroy: "Alright..."

Matt: "Alright, buddy..."

Matt: "Been a hell of a party."

Jack: "You take care of these people."

Matt: [Silent, Burdened]

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Jack: "Hey, down behind the wall. Get up. There's a county ordinance. You can't sleep here overnight. Get up and..."

Jack: "... Ma... Matt? Is that you? I didn't even recognize you. Get up here..."

Matt: "Stuff it LIFEGAAUUURRRRDDDDD!!!!!!"

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Jack (to Leroy): "Heh, What are they doing to you?"
Baster #1: "Yee-ah, we're gonna roast The Masochist."
Leroy: [Silent, Smiles]
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Related Notes:
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RYAN BURCH... CAREFREE VORACITY

2009-04-25T10:08:00.000-07:00

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Ryan Burch also did some Alaia riding, pictured above, on the day posted about below. And appropriately hooked up with Richard Kenvin two days ago, in San Diego proper, for a little Alaia session of carefree Tasmanian Devil-like voracity.
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RYAN BURCH and the WRONGALD JUMBO SHRIMP OPEN FACE SAMMY

2009-04-21T04:11:00.000-07:00

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20 year old, RYAN BURCH, on Sauritch thruster shortboard above, is one of the most surf stoked, open-minded, design inquisitive, d.i.y.'ers that I've come across. Among other things, he makes his own Alaias on a shoestring budget with relatively inexpensive Douglas Fir wood he glues up himself into shape-able planks.

Last March, a few days before Ryan left for his month in the Southern Hemisphere, I met with him in the Encinitas area for a surf. Here's some shots, by Matt Shuster, of Ryan riding two boards I brought down for him to check out, and his self-shaped "Wrongald" finless, along with a few quotes taken from the impressions he shared about each board after riding...

I. NINE LIGHTS, 5' 6", Solid Foam Core/Balsa Wood Skin, Open Face Composite Sandwich Construction:

"I've never really ridden a twinny like this that has a little trailer... It was so fast and loose... It's so light, It's right there with, like, when I hold a shortboard under my arm, it's got that same good weight to it... you could really feel it... projecting. This is something like I've always wanted to make. I admire the craftsmanship, for sure. It's like the ultimate board for fun everyday California surf."

II. THE WHITE PONY (#2), 4'11", Simmons-Fish Planing Hull, Hydrodynamica Project Board:

"It's insane how a board with this much volume, I mean there's no chippy part about this thing, but it rides insane, it's really sensitive... you can crank turns on this thing and keep it on a rail. You'd think that something this wide and bulky would always want to lay over, or bog out, or bob outa the water, just not do what you want it to do, but it was so responsive and so fast. It just jams everywhere... blown away.

III. WRONGALD, 5'7", Finless, Foam, Shaped and glassed by Ryan with Ronald fabric:

"One of my personal favorites. I think I'm just really proud of it 'cause I made it myself. It's Mr. McDonald, the Happy Meal... whatever you feel like callin' it. It has a step tail in it. I was originally making it as a board I could ride with fins... I was like, 'It'll work finless.' The first day it worked... 'cause I had ridden Alaias a lot... now it's just kind of the board you take out when it's small and butter around, slide everywhere, it's real fun! People can't take you too seriously when you've got Ronald on it. I was like, 'it's such a goofy board as it is ya might as well throw Ronald on there.' "

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COUNTERCLOCKWISE (A Round Trip Report from Ryan Burch)

2009-04-18T00:30:00.000-07:00

Ryan Burch (who can be seen on Alaias here) just got back from a month in the land where screwfoots rule and the johns flush counterclockwise. Here's what he has to share about it:

"I had a great trip. We got a ton of surf on the Alaia boards, and because the waves where so long and clean you could pretty much make the boards do anything. We got to surf one wave where we could actually get barreled on the boards it was insane. At the end of our trip we ran into a couple of Aussie guys that had brought over a bunch of Alaias and a Hot Curl board and a Keko'o which is like an Olo. They where insane boards made buy Sage Joske and his father. All exactly like the ancient boards in Hawaii. They where filming with Nathan Oldfield, and it was a treat to surf with those guys. Here are a couple of shots that I took none of which are me and most of them are on the day after the good days because I was surfing when it was good."

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MERCH TABLE MOMENT

2009-04-16T10:10:00.001-07:00

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More Nikonos II stills from the HELLA show at the Java Lounge in Olympia, WA, April 2003:
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Anyone who's worked an indie band merch-table knows this moment... Everyone has deserted the table to watch the band play... Sometimes it's welcome sanctuary from the mathematics of cash transactions... Sometimes it it can verge on brief feelings of loneliness. On this particular night it was a moment for Dan Elkan to nurse the Carpal Tunnel Syndrome that was painfully keeping him from his guitar for months on end.
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HELLA... 6 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK

2009-04-15T20:19:00.000-07:00

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The band that has had the single most creative affect on me in the last ten years is HELLA— probably easy for anyone to figure out considering I post more about them than any other band. The first time I heard them was at a small show they played in Grass Valley, CA in early 2002 during their two-piece era of Spencer Seim on guitar and Zach Hill on drums. I attended that show out of pure chance, and before Hella took the stage I was apathetically kickin' in the rear of the venue, but as soon as they started playing I was immediately drawn to the very edge of the stage.
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By stroke of fate, I became good friends with them and in April of 2003 flew up to Seattle to jump in their van to document on super-8mm their gig performances from there to Olympia, Portland, and San Francisco which was the final stretch of a couple month long tour of The States.
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I ran across this video of their performance of "City Folk, Sitting, Sitting" from the Olympia, WA show at Java Lounge, shot by someone in the audience. It's a fairly long song that has always been played with a slightly improvisational mid-section. The audio/video quality of this clip is crap, but it has raw beauty, and just as no surf flick can truly match the actual experience of surfing, no video of Hella, admittedly my documentaries of them (Concentration Face & Portals) included, can ever match the feeling of them live. It's also worth mentioning how much Zach gets out of a single pedalled kick drum— though hard to hear in the low quality audio of the Olympia clip below...
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HELLA, 6 years ago this week:
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And figured I'd add some of the stills I shot, with my trusty Nikonos II, revolving around that Olympia show:
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Flyer, by local kid, on Olympia street corner during pre-show walk around town. Zach, below, backstage shortly after their performance.
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Below, Spencer, Zach and friends hangin' out after the show in the front coffee bar area of the Java Lounge.
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The merch-table, run this night by Dan Elkan, who would go on to play rhythm guitar, vocals, and samples in 2005's 4-piece version of Hella, and currently in the band, THEM HILLS.
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Every touring band deserves to get a cut, but Dan will never understand what drives Spencer to buy some of the things he does with that money... back on the road the next day sharing cramped van space with thrift shop acquirement.
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Joe Meade, stoked designated van driver and merch-table mad man for most of the tour. And the doodling Zach was doing in the passenger seat when the above photo was taken.
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KNOT REALLY DEAD

2009-04-10T12:41:00.000-07:00

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Tyler Warren crossed paths with a marooned angel last weekend and shared a moment with it comparing notes on the subjects of fin templates and the inevitable...
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"This is not a tear, I'm knot really dead... just turning into something else..."

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Note: Looks like Paul Gross & Spencer Kellogg shared a similar encounter sometime ago as well.
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MAN ON A TRILOBYTE

2009-04-08T22:18:00.000-07:00

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I'm sure most have seen this by now...
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But, if not, there's 5 minutes of footy to check at: Hydrodynamica
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"MORONS... SIT IN... CARS." —THE GIRL ON A MOTORCYCLE

2009-04-08T11:07:00.000-07:00

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Came across the Marriane Faithfull post on Cabinessence this morn and it pulled images out of the 'ole memory bank of Jack Cardiff's 1968 film The Girl on a Motorcycle. Decided to throw these flick clips up as inspired supplement to the Cabin-e post:
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And the climax...
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"Typical, even when they get out into the country these morons have to sit in their cars."
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WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE BABY, YOU'RE GONNA GET PITTED...

2009-04-07T22:49:00.000-07:00

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"IT'S 'LIDDLE', DAMMIT!" (Little Flight of the Cali Condor)

2009-04-02T13:26:00.000-07:00

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Ryan Conder, not "Condor", not on a "Little", laughing at mock speed, I mean, mach speed at the "Original Perfect" Mushburger (click to read caption).
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DEEPER VISIONS II at SHELTER

2009-03-26T10:34:00.000-07:00

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A collection of odd things made by people will be housed at Shelter Surf Shop the entire month of April. Opening party is this Saturday night, March 28, 2009.
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MORE FUN THAN AN OPEN CASKET FUNERAL

2009-03-25T22:20:00.000-07:00

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This "mysto" sandbar is dead and gone, but was fun while it lasted... Here's an indulgent look back at the mid-month session that the PIPE ORGANS for THE IDES OF MARCH sequence came from.
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It was a tight fit of people on a small take off boil, but on this particular day it seemed everyone was buzzed and giddy enough from the special occasion of this temporary creation that it felt less like a jockey for position battle, and more like a party atmosphere in the lineup:
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Party Balls... Everyone got a turn at the spigot of strange brew...
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Always a gas watching friends getting tanked...
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And the rug pulled out from underneath 'em...
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Lots of weird, random, sloshers inbetween sets...
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Standing and stalling had its rewards...
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But a couple of the older, more experienced in the crowd proved that the best way to score with this little bitch of a wave was the more layed back, conventional approach of missionary position...
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R.C. on inflatable mattress:
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And Jason Hall sportin' his "Lil' Yellow Dode" (home foiled plywood) and...
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getting a deep little in/out on the thing:
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Intoxicated vulgarities, lost Dode retrieval later in the session...
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And back out for more full moon fever...
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CORROSION O.C.

2009-03-21T10:49:00.000-07:00

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Once upon a time... in 1984...
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Track 20) Cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Green Manalishi" @ 5:05 minutes into 17-20 clip.
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Corrosion of Conformity (C.O.C.) was formed in Raleigh, North Carolina by bassist and vocalist Mike Dean, guitarist Woody Weatherman and drummer Reed Mullin in early 1980s. Their hardcore punk-oriented 20-track debut Eye for an Eye—the only album featuring the vocalist Eric Eycke—was released in 1984 (later re-released by Caroline Records during 1990).
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WORLD'S BIGGEST NECKLACE

2009-03-20T06:35:00.000-07:00

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I was thinkin' about turquoise, I was thinkin' about gold
I was thinkin' about diamonds and the world's biggest necklace
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I said, "I got no money," he said, "That ain't necessary"
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— Excerpts from Dylan's "Isis"
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The richest of jewels await those who paddle when sky is still bruised by night. This one is for all the dedicated bruisers out there.
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