This week, I get excited and long-winded over a pretty standard PR statement, the virtual triumphs over the real, an important question about Phantom Ganon, and more. www.simplemagic.ca/life-and-dea...

Showed up to the spot dressed like the bus, smdh

At the gym, watching a guy lean his phone against a water bottle to film his set, thinking how wack that is, before suffering an aneurism when the countless memories of leaning my phone against a water bottle to film my little tricks at the skatepark all come rushing back at once

Zohran next Thursday

Some supplementary reading about SLS's presenting sponsor, Stake www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

Today, it's Simple Magic’s 5th annual year-end sports and culture gambling column, where you’ll find the world's most trusted skateboarding-related futures predictions and betting odds. Brought to you by SimpleMagic Sportsbook. www.simplemagic.ca/ive-got-5-ca...

Year in review, in loving memory of D’angelo. With help from the homies including @colenowicki.com

New ink

Brickbanklunchbreak 2025 A year of skating this brick bank-to-curb (mostly) on my lunch break, presented (pretty much) in order from January to December. Features fellow brickbanklunchbreakers, Will, Simon, Stew, Stefen, Joe, Mark, and Corey. www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeCA...

Still watching... ?

If this doesn't make skateboarders want to commit Butlerian Jihad, I'm not sure what else will.

I just ping ponged El Toro

Last Brickbanklunchbreak of the year… ?

For the afternoon crowd

i'm in here!! 🛹

It’s the fourth annual SSOTYs (Skateboarding Stories of the Year), an effort to catalogue and celebrate some of the best skateboarding-related writing in the year that was 2025. Happy reading. www.simplemagic.ca/ssoty-skateb...

The Skate Board Association blocked me on Instagram today for, I assume, previously reporting on them, but before they did, I saw that they announced their "team franchises" this week, an announcement which includes the strange affirmation "No theft."

My Skater of the Year take, lukewarm, days removed: I think it's a positive that someone with the worst slate of sponsors, many of them likely insolvent, can still win.

Feels like their hearts aren't really in it anymore

The battle continues (unless we just count it… ?)

Some pals made a video and it is very good www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-Zk...

Yes, this might be a 4,500 word piece on old skateparks, archaeology, memory, and meaning, but there's also nudity in it

From Glasgow to Greenfield to West Vancouver, a big, long piece about a series of old skateparks, the people who love them, the efforts made to preserve them, and why they matter. www.simplemagic.ca/a-world-wher...

Spot check @bysameng.com

Consider this my marketing strategy. bookshop.newestpress.com/products/las...

What they don't tell you when you publish a book is that you'll receive AI-generated book marketing email scams, multiple times a month, for the rest of your life

This week, some big-time OTY stunts by people and trains, a beanied boy cries wolf, Tony Hawk stumps hard, and more. www.simplemagic.ca/gooooooaaaaa...

Mikey Taylor celebrating his mayoral victory with a ShreddER News screengrab. An auspicious start.

He did it twice. Impressive.

Shouting "I tre-flipped El Toro" after tre-flipping El Toro in case you forgot that you tre-flipped El Toro

Folks, I'm hoping to go to the NDP leadership convention in Winnipeg in March to cover it for The Orchard. In order to do so, I need 16 new paid subscribers by the end of the year. Who's gonna help me? www.readtheorchard.org

Open the schools

This week, a SOTY-related rumour, a lovely man taking brain-rattling slams, a Transworld-ass skater's dream, and more. www.simplemagic.ca/a-new-better...

So, here’s a bolted-shut glass enclosed room in the back corner of a casino in Atlantic City where people are playing live casino slots from their own homes. Did we know this was happening?

Genuinely very cool to honour Gailea Momolu like this engage.ottawa.ca/gailea-momol...

Once more for midweek: An essay about life in the desert and distributing 1,800 skateboards to Diné youth. www.simplemagic.ca/being-there/

One of the trickier thought experiments I've attempted, tbh

Great words from @kylebeachy.bsky.social about the Navajo Nation, the desert, and skateboarding.

For the afternooners

I wrote about traveling to the Navajo Nation and helping to distribute 1,800 skateboards, which more or less changed my understanding of what a skateboard is. Also, what the desert is.

A great way to start the week: @kylebeachy.bsky.social on being there, Good Medicine, and the branching paths of 1,800 skateboards on the Navajo Nation. www.simplemagic.ca/being-there/

Was defeated by today’s Brickbanklunchbreak. Dedicating my life to exacting revenge.

After an ode to the skate photo, Cole summarizes slash-and-burn outrage farming very well: www.simplemagic.ca/steve-caball...

This week, things are getting stupider, including me, who mispelled Antonio Durao's name twice in this newsletter (since updated). www.simplemagic.ca/steve-caball...

I wrote a very serious book about the world's least serious thing and I am more proud of it than anything else I've done. Phenomenology! Performance theory! Anatheism and even some William Gass!

The Stupiding of Steve Caballero's Mind

approved despite over 600 speakers signing up to speak to the budget, with all but a tiny number strongly opposed, and following a public engagement survey that found the majority of respondents supported a property tax increase to avoid cuts.

For the afternoon's spiritus mundi

You should always read this series when it comes up. Christian’s close reads will come on after the Ted Barrow Radio Hour on Skate NPR someday.

@cnkerr.bsky.social is back with another beauty, this time stepping into the gyre of W.B. Yeats' "The Second Coming." www.simplemagic.ca/waxing-poeti...