CHIPPED

An essayist, poet, and filmmaker expounds on his lifelong love of skateboarding.

Vadi, author of Inter State: Essays From California, began skateboarding in 1996, around the start of what some would call the industry’s creative and economic boom.” Soon after, skateboarding became a vital part of the author’s life, redefining how he saw and related to public spaces and, later, seeing him through the isolation of the pandemic. In his second essay collection, Vadi details exactly how deeply skateboarding has affected him. For example, he considers how the soundtracks to some of his favorite skateboarding videos created an unexpected connection with his immigrant parents, who “initially viewed skateboarding as a materially disruptive, potentially cop-attracting activity that I shouldn’t be doing.” In other chapters, the author imagines the visionary musician Sun Ra as a skateboarder, compares “chipping” a skateboard to the inevitability of aging, and examines the way Black skateboarders responded to the Black Lives Matter movement. Central to the entire narrative is Vadi’s obsession with public space. In describing his aversion to skateparks, he writes, “Many skaters don’t even use the regulated skateparks designed and legalized for their convenience….Why skate there when you can take your board and hit the streets, basking in the temporal ownership you feel as you repurpose underutilized public space, knowing an unmarked, red-painted curb first grinded by you and your board is somehow now ‘yours’?” At their best, the essays are poetic, compassionate, and vulnerable, drawing rewardingly original connections among a host of seemingly disparate topics. Unfortunately, Vadi’s language is often densely laden with jargon, and he sometimes gets lost in esoteric details that feel unnecessary. Still, Vadi clearly takes great pleasure in the vocabulary and syntax of skateboarding; at times, this pleasure feels contagious, even for non-skaters.

Occasionally off track, but a largely illuminating collection about skateboarding, race, and relationships.