SICK - January '98
(January 21, 1998)
The weird thing about today's fast-forward culture is that you can be living in a moment and reading its eulogy at the same time. Thus arrives (Sick) A Cultural History Of Snowboarding (Buy it here), like the sun coming up on a party you aren't ready to have end.
In Sick, you get as close to the full story as I can imagine being assembled in one place. From snowboarding's roots in skiing (yes skiing...Sherman Poppen didn't even get on a snowboard until 1996) and surfing, to the skate-influenced, new school revolution of the early '90s (the year punk broke), author Susanna Howe has done a wonderful job writing a fluid history of the meteoric rise of a sport and lifestyle that has really come full circle and has only one place to go from here. Like a soft-baked pretzel, this is best consumed while it's still hot.
Presumably, the most challenging aspect of putting this account together is that history is not linear, even though we want to view it that way. But history, and particularly pop-culture movements, comes all at once from every angle and doesn't bother tidying itself up for the historian. That's why documentaries are replacing history books - film better records the dimensions. To Howe's credit, though, Sick is rich in detail and layered in context. You don't get too distracted by the who, what, why and where, but you do come away with an overall understanding of how it all got to this point. Not much is missing and all your heroes from Burton, Sims and Barfoot to Kelly, Palmer, Haakonsen and Lynn are given their place in history. And since chicks dig it, there's a full chapter dedicated to the ladies.
The ripple effect of snowboarding on pop culture has been much greater than the initial splash would have indicated. Howe has written its story with a firm grasp of this and also with a sense of romance and relevance that can only come from a true fan who also happens to be a smart cookie.
My small complaint is that for something as "visceral" as snowboarding, the book sometimes sways to the academic side. I realize it had to be academic in order not to feel dated immediately, but the layout could have been more exciting and less like a text book. But don't get hung up on that. This is must reading for anyone whoever felt attached to the entire body of snowboarding and not just the act. Sick is a fine epitaph for the way it was.
Tennis, anyone?
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