Washers

I’ve suffered a serious bout of spring fever this week, and the only thing to cure what’s ailing me is a game of washers.

I was eight when we moved to St. Louis. That summer, we attended a small family gathering with some of my father’s cousins. Jerry had a washers set: a soup can nailed inside a wooden box lined with electric green astroturf. A set of brass and nickel washers set the teams apart. Everyone drank Budweiser. I drank Vess.

WasherPit.com

Missouri Washer Works explains the game’s rules:

The game can be played with two or more players, as long as the teams are even.

Boxes are placed 20 feet apart on a flat and level surface.
Players must stand behind the front edge of the box,
and toss each of his or her three washers (usually underhanded)
toward the opposite box. The next player then does the same.
The highest score wins the round.

Points are awarded as follows:
1 point for a washer that lands in the box
3 points for a washer that lands in the cup (a “cupper”)

Opposing washers in the box (or in the cup) cancel each other out.
Continue rounds until one player reaches 21 points.

In St. Louis, it’s as common to find a summer barbeque with a washer competition as it is to find a cooler full of Bud Light tallboys.

If you’re feeling handy, build your own. Otherwise, buy one built in The Gateway City from Missouri Washer Works; while you’re at it, pick up some custom washers, c/o WasherPit. I’m happy to take on challengers far and wide. I’ll bring the gear. You bring your game face.

Katin & Apolis, A Collector’s Dream

When Shea Parton of Apolis Activism first told me they’d collaborated with Katin USA to produce a vintage cut of board shorts, I flipped out.

My entire life, since my first book-full of scratch and sniff stickers, I’ve been an obsessive collector of one kind or another. For a time in college, I collected board shorts and old swim trunks, a peculiar and difficult collection to accrue in rural Indiana. “All the more reason to do so,” I thought. Among all the Sundeks, Hang Tens, and O’Neills, my prized finds are a pair of wool Jantzen shorts with a heavy brass zipper which I’m guessing are pre-war, a Magnum P.I.-styled pair of my father’s Lacoste jams with palm trees, coconuts and airplanes on them, and a hideous print from Quicksilver’s early days. Because Goodwill typically only stocks what’s in season, most of my collecting would happen in the spring. One spring morning – it was a Saturday – I stumbled into the Goodwill in Plainfield, Indiana, and hit the mother load: a pair of kelly green Birdwells that looked and felt brand new, a faded pair of Villebrequin with lobsters on them and a half-inch hole near the crotch, and a pair of canvas Katins. The Kanvas by Katins were the most well-worn of the three, and they were too small for me, but I held onto them. They were red. They were rad. As far as I can tell, they must have been an old pair from Nancy and Walter Katin’s sail shop in Surfside, California. From the little research I was able to do at the time, I learned that as early as 1962, they were using nylon to make these bad boys.

As with most of my vintage finds in college, these ended up in the laundry bin of a sorority house, another treasure lost on the road to winning a girl’s heart. Those Katins were too big for my girlfriend at the time, but she liked how they looked, slung low on her hips. They looked kind of baggy. Hot, but baggy. And because she wore them a lot, I let her keep them. I saw a pair made with nylon, the tag still in tact years later in a well-curated New York vintage shop; they were priced appropriately – high double digits, $50 or $60. I still have the Jantzens, stored away somewhere in my parents’ house, and the others suffered similar fates to the Katins. I think the Birdwells were left to perish on a vacation, hanged in a hotel shower.

The shorts are available at Context Clothing for $106. They come in three colorways: a Beach Clown blue stripe, shore guard yellow, and Baywatch red. They are made in America of top grade nylon, and as with everything Katin makes, these are built to withstand the harshest, gnarliest waves, as well as the tube slide at your local waterpark. They’re a solid investment for summers to come. Or, if like the Partons, you live in the land of the endless summer, these will never leave your sides.You can bet I will be rockin’ the reds all summer long, whether surfing in Montauk, strolling the boardwalk in Long Beach, or barbequeing in Prospect Park. All images c/o Katin USA and Apolis Activism unless otherwise specified.

My Camera

Inspired by Foster Huntington’s recent post on his Goodwill camera, I’m compelled to tell a story or two about my hardware. In high school, my father bought me a Yashica T4 Super D Weatherproof point-and-shoot at Creve Couer Camera, the greatest camera shop ever. This p-a-s has been called a classic by people far more knowledgeable than myself. Jam-packed with features, my favorite little addition is the waist-level viewfinder – perfect for taking shots on the sly. I also use it for overhead shots.

I remember running with my girlfriend to Wolf Camera at the Galleria Mall, excitedly shuffling through a fresh batch of photos, the ink swirling with each grubby fingerprint. Scarfing Lion’s Choice, we’d discard the junked shots in the food court’s trash cans. As a site devoted to the T4 notes, developing is the key to making this camera’s photos look good. The Wolf Camera shots were all serviceable, but none looked as crisp as my CCC-developed photos of time spent in Europe in 2004.

Taken while riding in a Venetian gondola, these display what a Yashica handles best: close-ups and motion shots.  In every photo I have of him, Ty is making that face. I remember my shock as the gondolier removed his hat and handed it to Ty; sacrilege. And when pressed, I could think of a better job than beer distribution boat operator, but that Guinness dinghy is pretty rad.

At a party a couple years ago, I turned, looked, and standing next to me was Terry Richardson, famed fashion photographer clicking away on a T4. I was too nervous to pull my camera to my eye and follow suit, but at some point later that night, he pointed to my wrist, “Hey! Same camera.” That was it. He was, not surprisingly, wearing a buffalo check. Here are two videos of Mr. Richardson at work. The first features model/actress Josi Maran talking about the camera, and the second, well, I admit I didn’t pay much attention to Mr. Richardson, but at one point, you can see he avoids the lag time on the advance by switching between two T4s.

If you have the desire, buy a T4 (Amazon, $200).

For more on the Yaschica T4 Super D, see Photo.net.
To make a remote for the T4, check out The Establishment.

In New York, I have photos developed by the fine folks at Duggal on 23rd Street.

For more on Mr. Richardson, see Terryworld, by Taschen.

T4 of The Last Magazine’s Magnus Berger. Image c/o The Selby.