Skate Jawn 80

Skate Jawn 80 drifts through the strange poetry of skateboarding with features that feel pulled from road trips, back alleys and half-lost conversations shouted across city blocks. “Life After Shorty’s” digs into the afterglow and wreckage of one of skateboarding’s most iconic eras, while Simon Volpoet and Nivsy bring the kind of loose, instinctive skating that perfectly fits Jawn’s raw atmosphere. The issue folds together underground skate culture, photography and weird humour with pieces on the Legaña video, Rob Erickson’s photography, and “Behind the Photo,” giving readers a look at the people documenting the chaos as much as the skating itself.

Elsewhere, “Daly’s Famous Chili” and the completely absurd “Product Review: Cats” keep the magazine gloriously unpredictable, balancing serious skate documentation with the kind of offbeat energy that makes Skate Jawn feel alive. FTC NYC appears as another chapter in the mythology of skate shops as cultural landmarks, while Jake Johnson’s switch nosegrind photographed by Frank Verges closes things out with that classic Jawn mood: rough terrain, effortless style and the feeling that skateboarding still belongs to the outsiders wandering the edges of the map.