Regular lurker here, one who hasn't posted in many years..These are just random reflections, so don't hesitate to scroll by.
This whole thing brought up some long submerged thoughts. I relate to Mark's attitude. As a 34-year-old guy who majored in creative writing more than a decade ago, I feel for his approach. He is full of energy, creative, gifted, and without child. Since he doesn't seem to revel in booze or smoke and the like, and he comes off as a bookish loner, he seems unnervingly focused on the totality of this project, including its pre-planning.
When I was in college, before I was injured, trying to pay rent in the Bay Area, and less quick to reach for a beer, I mused about how overly thought out a skate part could be. On one hand, there are classic parts that feel perfectly spontaneous and free form. It's easy to compare such parts to a masterful jazz arrangement. A great example of this, to me, would be Mark Gonzales in Video Days as he skates to the music of John Coltrane. There are many a beloved detail in that part, aside from the big tricks, where he seems to melt into his surroundings with a carve, a kickturn, or a little ollie on the fly. All depending on what the moment calls for. The unplanned activities taking place around him inspires what he does next, with wild yet directed unpredictability as a result.
Some modern pros such as Evan Smith openly echo this approach. When asked about a trick list on The Bunt podcast, Smith laughs derisively, mocking the notion, and maybe makes fun of those who do such things? I could be wrong about that.
Every skater who puts themselves out there can't not embody some form of style, of course. All the choices they make, from the tricks and spots to the ferociousness of the push. The effortless day dream lines through strangely vacant elementary schools of Danny Garcia, juxtaposed by a Jason Adams, pushing like an unleashed pitbull towards a curb in a busy parking lot to slappy it as if it were coping on a soon to be torn out pool.
There are subtle and overt distinctions in style between every skater, which is one reason why I and many others love to watch and partake in the thing. Every skater produces their own aesthetic, even if their approach isn't meticulously planned out in advance.
But that isn't to say there haven't been others like Mark Suciu. While I enjoyed Jenkem's (
http://www.jenkemmag.com/home/2019/10/03/serious-review-mark-sucius-serious-verso/ ) deep dive on Verso and agree that the part is brilliant, I disagree with the implication that Mark was the first to plan this deeply, to care this much about the artistic wholeness of his part. Others have pointed to Marc Johnson in comparison, but I was reminded of Daewon. Each one of his parts feels like an album from a band that successfully changes its sound over time. There is a calculated and consistent aesthetic that defines most of his parts as individual pieces. From Skate More to Round 3, he has eras, and you can clearly see the planning, requiring multiple people to set up picnic tables slanted off roofs and the like, that had to necessitate many of the tricks. There is also Ronnie Creager, Dennis Busenitz, a lot of tech guys and gnar folk alike who have talked about how long they planned something for a part. Staring down a tower gap for years, scoping the perimeter, casing the security guards' schedule until they know they can make their move. I think the author overly emphasized Mark's uniqueness in this case, and could have looked at the lineage of pros who have obsessed over their parts to better understand where he was coming from.
In the Jenkem article, the author points out the chiasmus idea in Mark's part, defining it as a term used in poetry and rhetoric. Since Mark discussed the mirroring aspect of the part beforehand, and there is an obvious illustration of chiasmus with the "ABBA" on the piece of glass, it makes sense that the author would spend some time analyzing this.
It's interesting how people who write about skateboarding often compare it to other forms of art. This also makes sense, since skating is a very young thing in relation to most art forms. You often hear people talk about its connection to surfing, visual art, and in the Jenkem article case (which you don’t hear very often), poetry. Or rhetoric. Or some kind of literature. There's another article where Mark talks about skate part enders in relation to novel “enders."
If I had to compare Verso to an art form outside of skating, I would probably go with dance. The endearingly described ‘fourth movement’ is based around tweaked symmetries, lines that repeat and reflect one another but in some cases progress in reverse order. I wish I knew more about dance styles and dancers to give more examples, but I once heard that the ancient Whirling Dervish dance as performed by some Sufi practitioners is meant to reflect the spinning of the planets around the sun.
As pointed out by others, Mark’s twists and counter-rotations within individuals tricks themselves, let alone the ones that can only be seen from a distance after viewing all the lines meant to mirror one another, are pronounced. The pretzel spin might as well be a salsa dance flourish. His quick feet hopping chains and curbs with lighting crackles could just as well be those of a coked out tap dancer on the streets of Manhattan. The epitome of a skater’s style, beyond everything else, comes down to the way they move. Sounds like dance to me.
I had a hard time making skate dates with skate friends after high school. College was a depressing time for me; full of loneliness and searching. I lost my group of skate friends, and I had a hard time making new ones. There were parties and non-skate friends, but I continued skating, oftentimes alone, all the same. Riding a bus to some distant spot, the more secluded the better. A backpack in the seat next to me, containing little more than a novel and a notebook on most days. I wanted the community of fun loving scamps that I used to have. The fellas who hooted at the landing of a new trick, no matter how sketchy. Skating alone made me weirdly self-conscious about the whole activity. But still, I was addicted. Skating alone is a time for thinking and zoning out. Making plans and getting weird. I imagine someone else in a similar head space…
Mark chose to film his complicated dance moves in strangely clean urban areas. Angular, vast, modern looking slabs of marble, surfaces polished either by wear or design, are his preferred canvas. City skylines move above him, not much higher than his head thanks to the fish, as he plants tricks with the force of fresh architectural foundations being laid. There are few hollers from the homies, no tussles with security guards or high fives from hobos. This is because he doesn’t so much glide into the vibe already taking place in each city—rather, he stamps his proofread imprint into the hard surfaces that make the place. You can hear it when his wheels clap the ground in unison: “MARKMARKMARKMARK." Except all at once.
That was a whole lot of cheesin, I’d be a fool to not see as much. But loners are allowed to cheese on. God help me for this rambling rant. Bless your hearts, Slap city. Thanks for the timeless part Mr. Suciu, and for waking up the inner creative writer who wants to go outside and make some art.
Topic: Mark Suciu 'Verso' (Read 246727 times)