East Bay Booksellers and Gilman Brewing partner to host an evening of readings and conversation for the release of José Vadi’s new book of essays! Featuring Cole Nowicki and Nina Renata Aron.

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CHIPPED: WRITING FROM A SKATEBOARDER’S LENS

José Vadi – Soft Skull Press

Chipping a board—where small pieces of the deck and grip tape break off around the nose and tail—is a natural part of skateboarding. Novice or pro, you’ll see folks riding chipped boards as symbols of their stubborn dedication toward a deck, a toy, and aging bodies that will also reach their inevitable end.

In Chipped, José Vadi personalizes and expands upon this symbol. Written after finishing his debut collection Inter State: Essays From California, Vadi used these essays to explore his own empathy in aging, and to elaborate on the impact skateboarding has had on culture, power, and art. From tracing a critical mass skater takeover of San Francisco’s streets to an analysis of visceral ‘90s skate videos and soundtracks, to the solace found skating a parking lot during a global pandemic, Vadi expands our understanding of the ways skateboarding can alter one’s life.

Vadi acts as an “ethnographer on a skateboard,” writing, living, and animating an object, likening the board and skate ephemera to the fear of being discarded, wanting to be seen as useful, functional, and living. These essays analyze the legacy of seminal texts like Thrasher Magazine, influential programming giants like MTV, and skateboard artists like Ed Templeton. They imagine jazz composer Sun Ra as a skateboarder to explore sonic connections between skateboarding and jazz, obsessively follow bands, chronicle tours, and discover the creative Bermuda Triangle Southern California suburbs have to offer. Chipped is an intimate, genre-pushing meditation on skateboarding and the reasons we continue to get up after every fall life throws our way.

JOSÉ VADI is the author of Chipped and Inter State: Essays from California. An award-winning essayist, poet, playwright, and film producer, his work has been featured by the Paris Review, The Atlantic, the PBS NewsHour, Free Skate Magazine, Alta Journal of California, and the Yale Review.

Nina Renata Aron is a writer based in Oakland. She is the author of Good Morning, Destroyer of Men’s Souls, a memoir and cultural history of codependency. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Guardian, Poetry Foundation, The New Republic, Jewish Currents, and elsewhere. She writes a newsletter about books called Dollface.

Cole Nowicki is the author of Right, Down + Circle (ECW Press, 2023), Laser Quit Smoking Massage (NeWest Press, April 2024), and writes Simple Magic, a weekly newsletter about skateboarding, the internet, and other means of escape. His essays have appeared in The Walrus, Catapult, VICE, and elsewhere.