Endless Beauty

Exercises Inspired by Each Part of Sci-Fi Fantasy's First Full-Length Video

Sci-Fi Fantasy is a skateboard and apparel company owned and operated by legendary skater and photographer Jerry Hsu. A few of my readers will know that I wrote about Jerry a little bit in 2020, in an essay for n+1 about Mark Suciu and the skate video canon. Five years later, Sci-Fi Fantasy has just released Endless Beauty, its first full-length video, featuring all of the members of a team that now includes nine of the best skaters in the industry.

I don’t write about skateboarding very often, but this video is an event for anyone who cares about the culture of skateboarding at all. To commemorate the video’s release, I decided to write a series of exercises, one inspired by each skater’s part. I recommend watching the video above to put the writing below in context, and also because it more than lives up to its name.

Joa Field

Q: Riddle me this: there’s one thing every skater must do, but once he does it, he can’t skate anymore––what is it?

A: Focus.

Akwasi Owusu

Akwasi
Knows
Walls
Are
Sideways
Islands

Only
Wizards
Understand
Such
Utilities

Zak Anders

Once the wheels are rolling up the pipe, or the bank, or the wall, it doesn’t matter what happens at the top. Stall, grind, flip in, flip out, whatever. All that matters is that the wheels roll back down again, and keep rolling. Too often we focus on the trick, rather than the make––after all, for all of us, there will be no end of tricks, but precious few makes. Think about it. After so many tries, does Zak even know which trick he is trying once he finally makes it? No. All he knows is that he rolled away clean. What goes up must come down. One must imagine Sisyphus skating.

Max Garson

…no joke dude I am about to manny this riser but I’m not even thinking about it because I have like ten other tricks to make today and honestly it’s what like two in the afternoon I haven’t even had lunch or anything yet so maybe if I just ollie this gap and roll away I can bomb this hill and then hit I don’t know a McDonald’s or something I mean I’ve been skating like three or four hours already and I’ve already stacked like what three clips so maybe I’ll just bonk this pole in the parking lot and then I don’t know I guess I’ll get back out there but come on what does Jerry want from me a switch nollie heel 5-0 give me a break man…

Gabbe Eliassen

Where street be prose
Transition verse
So Gabbe goes
Where others curse

As ramps of old
Gave way to spots
Rhyme is the mold
That time forgot

Jerry Hsu and Arin Lester

                                                                                     Srorrim erew ereht erofeb…

…there was the rain.

                                                                                     Gnitcelfer sloop tfel mrots yreve…

…the flipside of every face.

The line divides the face from the flipside…

                                                                                     …sloop gnitcelfer otni mrots eht dna.

Arin will be there…

                                                                                     …enog si yrreJ nehw.

Ryan Lay

Only when the curb runs out at the bottom of the incline, only when there’s no next segment of the ledge to slide across, only when the rail has extended past the set’s bottom stair, when he’s covered all the distance there is to cover, when he’s kept his balance for longer than your inner ear will let you keep yours, when you’re absolutely sure he’s about to slide out and slam hard enough he won’t be able to catch another clip for at least a year, only then do his feet finally catch the bolts.

Corey Glick

Rotation, revolution, resolution, resonance, consonance, assonance, assurance, assertion, exertion, execution, elocution, eloquence, elegance, elevation, levitation, levity, brevity, bravery, brashness, rashness, radicalism, eradication, deracination, derangement, depravement, pavement.