We gotta give credit where credit is due: The strange and beautiful 1975 surfing movie called
Crystal Voyager was first brought to our attention by our good buddy
DJ Mental Feelings (aka The Mellow Legend aka Uncle Hammy aka Chris Smith of the
Espers). The source alone should tell you something here, and go ahead and judge the book by its cover:
Crystal Voyager is perhaps one of the world's 100 greatest psychedelic documents as well as a love poem to surfing itself. In the same kind of nature-film
ouvre as legendary surf docs like
Endless Summer,
Crystal Voyager follows surfing legend
George Greenough through his daily routine in Australia, where he builds boats, cameras, surfboards and anything else he may need to pursue the perfect wave. To be fair, a lot of what Greenough does is not exactly surfing it's more a form of oceanographic study. He mostly rides this strange little bodyboard thing (because for him, it's all about being
as close as possible to the wave itself), and the photographic contraptions he builds serve only one purpose: To photograph waves from every angle imaginable especially
inside. And not to be outdone, the final sequence of the film is an almost 3-D piece of a single wave ride, set to we're not kidding you "Echoes" by
Pink Floyd. If you haven't gathered as much by now:
Crystal Voyager is a HEAVY film, hypnotic even, leavened only by the beauty of the waves themselves and Greenough's own zen riffing on said waves. Quoth the Waveman:
You might be in there for only a few seconds---in real time---but in your head it goes on for hours. It is an experience that's hard to describe, riding inside of a big, grinding wave. Often you're riding so deep inside the tube, you don't make it out. You take a terrible wipe out. What matters is when you're in there, it's the time interval when you're inside the wave. Time enters space, a zone of its own. The only reality is what's happening right then.
We're really psyched to watch this under the stars at
Series 1021 on Hancock Street on Thursday night, and with the love of all that is bitchen, we invite you join us.
Crystal Voyager, Thurs., August 17, at dusk. Free. Complimentary popcorn and VitaminWater. Meet on the patio on the 1000 N. Block of Hancock Street in Northern Liberties. View map here. For more info, visit our Myspace page. Series 1021 is brought to you by Philebrity and Tower Investments.