There is no surf in England but someone made a newspaper on surfing anyway. What a Kook!
An extraordinary newspaper landed on my mat the other day, a paper that I anticipated as being one that would not end up in the recycling bucket or as a plate for fish and chips.
Issue 01 of KooK, printed on pink recycled paper, is a creative newspaper with a quirky design and layout laden of diamonds with some subtle reference to something intelligent or other.
Be prepared to put your thinking cap on when reading, take out some Amber Oolong loose leaf tea (as recommended in the KooK by Shayne House from the Tea Appreciation Society), get your thinking twat cap (a neoprene hat for cold water surfing) and indulge in some thought-provoking musings and surfing theory. Alternatively, flick through the pages, laugh at the little cartoons and admire the still photography which is a far cry from the perfectly clear Hawaiian photos of Carve and Wavelength.
“Kook” is a derogatory term applied to surfers who are either rubbish at surfing, don’t surf enough or get in the way of non Kooks. I am a Kook. This is a sidelong look at people who think thusly. It says we are all Kooks in someway and we should be happy to laugh at that. I definitely don’t surf enough, I definitely get in people’s way and I try to laugh at myself.
But though the name is quite inclusive, there is a lot to live up to in order to be the kind of Kook that adorns these pages. For a start, there’s a long profile on the guy who has sold me most of the coolest things I own, Revolver Surf shop owner John Isaacs who the KooK “wrought tightly in the class structure that still binds these British Islands, [which] acounts for Issac’s obsession with all things tweedy, retrogressively styled and somehow locked to the defining field of coolness”.
My kinda paper, a spread with photos and white space
The editor, Dan Crockett has been producing little pamphlets, magazines and even books for as long as I’ve known him. Back at university Dan and I managed to be on the one degree with a surfing lecturer.
We both wrote dissertations on different angles of surfing, searching through old journals for the four or five academic references that mentioned surfing and producing long theories on the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ of the sport we love.
KooK is half academic journal and half magazine in a newspaper format. It reflects the rich blend of surfing itself: part theory, part artform, part sport.
It is a raw, textured and subtle paper. If you’re a Kook in the traditional sense or addicted to the drug of surfing, buy it from the This Rich Tapestry or their facebook page.
And if you don’t surf or are learning, Florian Carlo puts it well: “It is not how your board looks on the beach, it is not about how cool you are when you surf. It is about speed, glide, and curves. It is about the thrill you get when you suddenly start flying on the wall, as if defying the laws of gravity.”
Laurence Jarrett-Kerr
