Mark Suciu 'Verso'

[silhouette]

Suciu is Bob the Builder of skateboarding.

[formula420]

So is habitat dope again?

[GAY]

The music was terrible. Air make beautiful music but Jesus H that section really destroyed the energy and the way the song was edited to just have the one quick lyric and then silence made it feel like I was in church. This video is so long and has so many cuts of music that the music because a DJ set and this DJ really blew it. It crossed over into "offensively cool" which only serves to isolate your audience. This part deserved so much more.

[VHS ERA]

The music was terrible. Air make beautiful music but Jesus H that section really destroyed the energy and the way the song was edited to just have the one quick lyric and then silence made it feel like I was in church. This video is so long and has so many cuts of music that the music because a DJ set and this DJ really blew it. It crossed over into "offensively cool" which only serves to isolate your audience. This part deserved so much more.

Yep. Amazing skating but was not feeling the 3 songs and way it was edited.

[jakeumms]

The Village Psychic interview has been mentioned in this thread but I'm not sure if it got linked. Sorry if I'm reposting.
http://www.villagepsychic.net/blog/rules-of-skateboarding-13-mark-suciu
The day before Verso came out I was reading Fat by Raymond Carver and was pretty dumbstruck by the last few paragraphs. Totally thought of it like an ender at the time. It's cool to hear Suciu's thoughts on lit enders and how they related (or didn't) to his thought process. I don't really agree that lit works don't have enders because I've read plenty of them but I do enjoy having the conversation.

[ice nine]

[cheetahsheets]

The music was terrible. Air make beautiful music but Jesus H that section really destroyed the energy and the way the song was edited to just have the one quick lyric and then silence made it feel like I was in church. This video is so long and has so many cuts of music that the music because a DJ set and this DJ really blew it. It crossed over into "offensively cool" which only serves to isolate your audience. This part deserved so much more.

I feel like fit his aesthetic well. I feel like he took some part of the symphonical structure in the sense he broke it up into 4 parts like that. Looks weird with how music naturally progresses in modern day. I liked the fact the music fit him. Not my favorite music or what I would listen too, but it fits mark. I enjoyed the symphonic feel to it as opposed to a traditional skate video. The two Beirut songs felt thematic in the sense it sounded like a symphony changing a theme in a later movement. this boy just dropped the David Lynch movie of skating, like every detail, shit hes even for the haircut.

[Willie]

I ignored this thread after page 1 and just watched the video a minute ago. Vaguely aware that there was a snooty, high falutin’ premier.


I don’t get any of the hate. This was great.

[mongopushingmallgraber]

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Did he name his part after the publishing house?

[close]

After watching that part I want him to put his Verso in my Recto

[dpelevator]

The Village Psychic interview has been mentioned in this thread but I'm not sure if it got linked. Sorry if I'm reposting.
http://www.villagepsychic.net/blog/rules-of-skateboarding-13-mark-suciu
The day before Verso came out I was reading Fat by Raymond Carver and was pretty dumbstruck by the last few paragraphs. Totally thought of it like an ender at the time. It's cool to hear Suciu's thoughts on lit enders and how they related (or didn't) to his thought process. I don't really agree that lit works don't have enders because I've read plenty of them but I do enjoy having the conversation.

I don’t have any friends that still skate. I Would love to have some to just discuss “ended theory” with for hours. Interview made me appreciate what a skate need he is that he gives that much thought to these things and how back noseblunts by their very nature will always be good enders. Just that kind of discussion you can only have with other people who have been pouring over skate videos since their brains were still forming. Ugh, I’m so lame, but I would love to read more shit like that.

[Gray Imp Sausage Metal]

Is it bad that I liked the backlip kickflip out more than the noseblunt?

[jimstolz]

nah, that shit was rad too

[honey island]

someone watch this projected on a wall, re-film it using a hpx with max zoom on feet and face, and edit it to burzum please

[jakeumms]

Satanic Versos

[CorneliusCardew]

I don't think anyone mentioned that switch backside flip backside grab...

[childhood]

Shoutout to Billy Rohan for doing bs noseblunt to fakie on blubba like 14 years ago, even though it was kinda sketchy

[puff daddy]

better than verso

[DotGuru]

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I'm lost at the Beirut criticism. People are treating them like they're Nickelback. I was legitimately unaware that Condon's music inspired such derision.

[close]

I didn't mind it--I think it felt right with the European vibe and abundance of Euro spots.

I'm not sure about why others don't like him, but for me it's that his entire sound is made up of cultural appropriation. It's unoriginal and he writes lyrics about struggles he's never had (no, he didn't grow up in the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War, but the lyrics sure make it sound like he did). It may be different now--I only listened to the first album and a little of the second one before I gave up on him. He has talent for composition, but the obvious disingenuity ruins it for me.
Maybe Suciu could have used some real Balkan brass and people wouldn't be so grumpy about it--or maybe they just wanted something more modern sounding (or less ethnic sounding?) in general. I thought it was a good fit and doesn't ruin a thing for me.

[close]

It also sounds like warmed over Neutral Milk Hotel

Maybe playing with Jeremy Barnes left an impression on him? I saw Barnes once as A Hawk and a Hacksaw. Dude had drumsticks duct taped to his hat so he could play drums with his head while the rest of his limbs were occupied.

[GeorgeCostanza]

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Man I really can't stand kyle beachy's writing. This paragraph:

"Since at least 2011, Mark Suciu has desired a seriousness from a practice that has historically positioned itself against the serious and scholastic. Verso wears the labor of what went into making it. He is an uncommon talent, an artist who creates by way of discipline and cunning, a virtuoso. Modern skateboarding is made richer by Suciu’s thoughtfulness and deliberateness, for his pretentiousness, if that’s what you’d like to call it."

The part itself is not all that pretentious, as he says it is thoughtful and deliberate. The pretension comes from fuckwits like him having this notion that skateboarders are "positioned against the scholastic" and therefore the part needs to be explained to them.

This is a serious review for serious intellectual skateboarders, but hey, gatekeeping is a massive problem in skateboarding right?

[close]

kyle's writing is awesome, and some skaters are absolutely positioned against academics, they don't need the part explained to them but the patterns are there if you want to look, which is exactly kyle's point later in the article if you cared to read, which you obviously don't.

I copied over the second last paragraph in the article, clearly I read the whole thing. My issue is his holier-than-thou approach which posits what suciu is doing against skaters historically "only caring about dopeness" - whatever that fucking means. My problem is that (despite the last paragraph) he comes across as saying "the patterns are there if you want to look, but you probably wont."

Here's an attempt at some Kyle Beachy nonsense and you tell me what you think:

Watching Suciu twist and contort his body across the world, we are offered brief glances of cityscapes that ultimately blend together; reminding us yet again of why Benedict Anderson referred to the nation as an "imagined community" in the first place. However, it is not the nation-state alone that we can think of in these terms, as Anderson's ponderings can be applied to the tired clichés we are used to hearing as skateboarders. An "imagined community," the idea that if you are a skateboarder you are "one of us", that you are free from judgment (whether it be race, gender, sexuality, etc.) from your peers as long as you part-take in the activity we love. Ask Suciu, and he will tell you that this idea is a platitude. Somewhat of a tortured genius, isolated from the skateboarding world through a search for perfection and a desire for his skateboarding to be understood in his own terms. In Verso, he reinterprets the skateboard part into something that the layman "Chicken Bown Nowison" viewer may not comprehend - or even be aware of - but for us is profound.

[GeorgeCostanza]

And this, ladies and gentelmen, is how you get yourself in history books

Funnily enough, so is this.

[doublesteveburger]

love this dork

[listentoaheartbeat]

There is so much beauty in how the video ends.

The struggle—he committed to the concept, he committed to releasing the video, and he came through with the trick despite the all the pressure.

The risk—the concept demands that he does the whole line, not just the trick. What if he hits a pebble approaching the 50-50? Just the thought gives me anxiety.

The determination—he does not blink an eye after making the trick and handles the line without hesitation. A remarkable display of self control considering that he has tried this trick for a year and the perfection he has been striving for is suddenly within arms reach.

The last trick—a 50-50 is the perfect trick to end the video. One the one hand, it is familiar and relatable to his audience, a gift we can take to our next skate session. On the other hand, he elevates the trick through the section's structure. It is inseparable from the mind-bender of a trick he worked so hard for. He absolutely needs to make it. And he does, effortlessly. To me, this makes it one of the most significant 50-50 grinds ever done.

The push—the PJ reference, the hint of an open ending, the flow. In hindsight, there is no other way to end this video. The antithesis of the ender-ender, the perfect release of the tension that he builds throughout the video. And it really makes me want to go skate.

[BALARGUE]

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Thanks to Jenkem:

In rhetoric, chiasmus or, less commonly, chiasm (Latin term from Greek χίασμα, "crossing", from the Greek χιάζω, chiázō, "to shape like the letter Χ") is a "reversal of grammatical structures in successive phrases or clauses – but no repetition of words".

In the part you can see it on 9:47.
And after it goes like this:

50-50 -> Nollie Fs Heel 50 180
Nollie Croock -> Nollie Fs Flip 50 180
Nose Grind 180 -> Fakie Bs Flip Nose Grind 180
Nollie 180 5-0 -> Nolle Bs 180 50 180
Fakie Flip 50 180 - > Nose Grind 180
Sw Bs Flip 50 180 -> Fakie Croock
Nollie Bs Heel 50 180 -> 5050

[close]

need to quote this guy

[close]

literally nobody cares about this dumb fugue

I swear to god... coming from a dude whose personality is defined by reading books yet only read novellas

this is some insufferable nerdy stuff

[close]

you are wrong

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Man I really can't stand kyle beachy's writing. This paragraph:

"Since at least 2011, Mark Suciu has desired a seriousness from a practice that has historically positioned itself against the serious and scholastic. Verso wears the labor of what went into making it. He is an uncommon talent, an artist who creates by way of discipline and cunning, a virtuoso. Modern skateboarding is made richer by Suciu’s thoughtfulness and deliberateness, for his pretentiousness, if that’s what you’d like to call it."

The part itself is not all that pretentious, as he says it is thoughtful and deliberate. The pretension comes from fuckwits like him having this notion that skateboarders are "positioned against the scholastic" and therefore the part needs to be explained to them.

This is a serious review for serious intellectual skateboarders, but hey, gatekeeping is a massive problem in skateboarding right?

[close]

kyle's writing is awesome, and some skaters are absolutely positioned against academics, they don't need the part explained to them but the patterns are there if you want to look, which is exactly kyle's point later in the article if you cared to read, which you obviously don't

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Should of been shorter, a great part but not worth the hype, it won’t stand the test of time like pjwhl or classic Rowley/Reynolds/Daewon parts for example.

[close]

oh, if you think we won't be seeing this part's influence in new skaters' parts you are incorrect

[close]

what is wrong with you?

[close]

guess i'm not as cool as you?

[close]

not you dude, the guy who wrote skaters are positioned against academics, lol

I put it in bold

well that's a fact
and that's one of the main reasons people are hating on Mark and why some are calling him pretentious. He's not, he's just better than you. It's very common to try to divert from your own mediocrity by calling other people pretentious.

you don't have to be a reckless school drop out to be good at skateboarding.

[DISTANT RUMOURS]

Hands down one of the best videoparts I've seen in years.
I'll take this over any 'gnarly' Nyjah stuff anyday.

To those knitpicking about the music:
Me and my friends sat through skatevideos where Chris Gentry rapped to his own videopart and we never complained.

Man up.

Peace.

[Burt Ward]

Hands down one of the best videoparts I've seen in years.
I'll take this over any 'gnarly' Nyjah stuff anyday.

To those knitpicking about the music:
Me and my friends sat through skatevideos where Chris Gentry rapped to his own videopart and we never complained.

Man up.

Peace.

I know right? At least Ty Evans didn't choose the tunes.

[Ocelot]

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Thanks to Jenkem:

In rhetoric, chiasmus or, less commonly, chiasm (Latin term from Greek χίασμα, "crossing", from the Greek χιάζω, chiázō, "to shape like the letter Χ") is a "reversal of grammatical structures in successive phrases or clauses – but no repetition of words".

In the part you can see it on 9:47.
And after it goes like this:

50-50 -> Nollie Fs Heel 50 180
Nollie Croock -> Nollie Fs Flip 50 180
Nose Grind 180 -> Fakie Bs Flip Nose Grind 180
Nollie 180 5-0 -> Nolle Bs 180 50 180
Fakie Flip 50 180 - > Nose Grind 180
Sw Bs Flip 50 180 -> Fakie Croock
Nollie Bs Heel 50 180 -> 5050

[close]

need to quote this guy

[close]

literally nobody cares about this dumb fugue

I swear to god... coming from a dude whose personality is defined by reading books yet only read novellas

this is some insufferable nerdy stuff

[close]

you are wrong

Expand Quote

Man I really can't stand kyle beachy's writing. This paragraph:

"Since at least 2011, Mark Suciu has desired a seriousness from a practice that has historically positioned itself against the serious and scholastic. Verso wears the labor of what went into making it. He is an uncommon talent, an artist who creates by way of discipline and cunning, a virtuoso. Modern skateboarding is made richer by Suciu’s thoughtfulness and deliberateness, for his pretentiousness, if that’s what you’d like to call it."

The part itself is not all that pretentious, as he says it is thoughtful and deliberate. The pretension comes from fuckwits like him having this notion that skateboarders are "positioned against the scholastic" and therefore the part needs to be explained to them.

This is a serious review for serious intellectual skateboarders, but hey, gatekeeping is a massive problem in skateboarding right?

[close]

kyle's writing is awesome, and some skaters are absolutely positioned against academics, they don't need the part explained to them but the patterns are there if you want to look, which is exactly kyle's point later in the article if you cared to read, which you obviously don't

Expand Quote

Should of been shorter, a great part but not worth the hype, it won’t stand the test of time like pjwhl or classic Rowley/Reynolds/Daewon parts for example.

[close]

oh, if you think we won't be seeing this part's influence in new skaters' parts you are incorrect

[close]

what is wrong with you?

[close]

guess i'm not as cool as you?

[close]

not you dude, the guy who wrote skaters are positioned against academics, lol

I put it in bold

[close]

well that's a fact
and that's one of the main reasons people are hating on Mark and why some are calling him pretentious. He's not, he's just better than you. It's very common to try to divert from your own mediocrity by calling other people pretentious.

you don't have to be a reckless school drop out to be good at skateboarding.

big yikes

[yapple dapple]

A masterpiece. I just got done watching it for the 4th time. Can't remember a part I watched twice. Stand outs for me were FS feeble BS 180 out, BS lip pop out to board, and my dream trick, SW flip to Gino grind revert.

[Ocelot]

Hands down one of the best videoparts I've seen in years.
I'll take this over any 'gnarly' Nyjah stuff anyday.

To those knitpicking about the music:
Me and my friends sat through skatevideos where Chris Gentry rapped to his own videopart and we never complained.

Man up.

Peace.

lol, nobody says you have to watch or like nyjah

& yes two beirut songs and a badly edited Air classic is not good music choices, although it's a step in the right direction

[ramplocal]

This shit was next level ansurd, absolutely best clip of the year imo

[dpelevator]

People on here act like music isn’t subjective. Did you want him to just pick a song that you personally liked? It worked with the skating, which is the point. This and the people who critique clothes from a skate part... Jesus.