Archive for the ‘Surfing Equipment’ Category

Wednesday, April 30th, 2008

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Bunker Spreckels: Surfing’s Divine Prince of Decadence

Tuesday, April 29th, 2008
Bunker Spreckels: Surfing's Divine Prince of Decadence
$39.99   Bunker Spreckels: Surfing's Divine Prince of Decadence
Product Description:
The libertine: The wild, brief life of a surfing legend and international playboy The tale of Bunker Spreckels (1949-1977) reads like a pitch for a movie to rival Boogie Nights: The stepson of Clark Gable is a privileged Los Angeles party boy who is heir to a multimillion dollar fortune; passionate about surfing, martial arts, guns, and women, he lives the life of a debauched international jet-setter before succumbing to his excesses at the tender age of 27. Born Adolph B. Spreckels III, heir to the Spreckels sugar fortune, Bunker became a famous surfer as a teenager, but after his inheritance came along, he began to slip into a life of pomp and excess where surfing took a back seat to drugs, sex, and wild road trips. So remarkable was his lifestyle that he created an alter-ego who invited photographers and documentarians to trail him, piecing together a tell-all epic of his own rise to fame and fortune. Before the project, known as ?The Player?, could be completed, Spreckels suddenly died.

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No Tech Hacking: A Guide to Social Engineering, Dumpster Diving, and Shoulder Surfing

Monday, April 28th, 2008
No Tech Hacking: A Guide to Social Engineering, Dumpster Diving, and Shoulder Surfing
$49.95   No Tech Hacking: A Guide to Social Engineering, Dumpster Diving, and Shoulder Surfing
Product Description:
As the cliché reminds us, information is power. In this age of computer systems and technology, an increasing majority of the world’s information is stored electronically. It makes sense then that as an industry we rely on high-tech electronic protection systems to guard that information. As a professional hacker, I get paid to uncover weaknesses in those systems and exploit them. Whether breaking into buildings or slipping past industrial-grade firewalls, my goal has always been the same: extract the informational secrets using any means necessary. After hundreds of jobs, I discovered the secret to bypassing every conceivable high-tech security system. This book reveals those secrets, and as the title suggests, it has nothing to do with high technology. As it turns out, the secret isn’t much of a secret at all. Hackers have known about these techniques for years. Presented in a light, accessible style, you’ll get to ride shotgun with the authors on successful real-world break-ins as they share photos, videos and stories that prove how vulnerable the high-tech world is to no-tech attacks.

As you browse this book, you’ll hear old familiar terms like “dumpster diving”, “social engineering”, and “shoulder surfing”. Some of these terms have drifted into obscurity to the point of becoming industry folklore; the tactics of the pre-dawn information age. But make no mistake; these and other old-school tactics work with amazing effectiveness today. In fact, there’s a very good chance that someone in your organization will fall victim to one or more of these attacks this year. Will they be ready?

Dumpster Diving
Be a good sport and dont read the two D words written in big bold letters above, and act surprised when I tell you hackers can accomplish this without relying on a single bit of technology (punny).
Tailgating
Hackers and ninja both like wearing black, and they do share the ability to slip inside a building and blend with the shadows.
Shoulder Surfing
If you like having a screen on your laptop so you can see what youre working on, dont read this chapter.
Physical Security
Locks are serious business and lock technicians are true engineers, most backed with years of hands-on experience. But what happens when you take the age-old respected profession of the locksmith and sprinkle it with hacker ingenuity?
Social Engineering with Jack Wiles
Jack has trained hundreds of federal agents, corporate attorneys, CEOs and internal auditors on computer crime and security-related topics. His unforgettable presentations are filled with three decades of personal “war stories” from the trenches of Information Security and Physical Security.
Google Hacking
A hacker doesnt even need his own computer to do the necessary research. If he can make it to a public library, Kinko’s or Internet cafe, he can use Google to process all that data into something useful.
P2P Hacking
Lets assume a guy has no budget, no commercial hacking software, no support from organized crime and no fancy gear. With all those restrictions, is this guy still a threat to you? Have a look at this chapter and judge for yourself.
People Watching
Skilled people watchers can learn a whole lot in just a few quick glances. In this chapter well take a look at a few examples of the types of things that draws a no-tech hackers eye.
Kiosks
What happens when a kiosk is more than a kiosk? What happens when the kiosk holds airline passenger information? What if the kiosk holds confidential patient information? What if the kiosk holds cash?
Vehicle Surveillance
Most people dont realize that some of the most thrilling vehicular espionage happens when the cars aren’t moving at all!

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Maui Trailblazer: Where to Hike, Snorkel, Paddle, Surf, Drive

Sunday, April 27th, 2008
Maui Trailblazer: Where to Hike, Snorkel, Paddle, Surf, Drive
$15.95   Maui Trailblazer: Where to Hike, Snorkel, Paddle, Surf, Drive
Book Description:
A guide for families and outdoor adventurers alike, Maui Trailblazer 2006 covers all of the island, and includes day trips to the neighboring islands of Molokai, Lanai, and Molokini.

Clear directions and concise descriptions lead to all of Maui’s well-known attractions, as well as to hidden discoveries that Trailblazer readers have come to expect.

137 different hikes and strolls to tropical rain forests and remote valleys, coastal bluffs and lava caves, Haleakala crater and the Hana Highway, cascading waterfalls, beaches, ridgetops, towns, whale-watching perches, historic sites, and archeological ruins.

Among the 44 snorkeling spots are hike-to coves and the secret places that tour boats go.

Kayakers can pick from about 20 put-ins.

Surfers can select from 38 beaches and decide whether to boogie, board, or body surf. Onlookers will find the best places to watch the surfers, windsurfers and kite-boarders ride the big ones.

The text is complimented by 10 maps and 240 photographs. Driving tours-nine of them-take readers to all the attractions, natural wonders, and historic sites.

A Resource Links section provides numbers for free visitor information and recreational outfitters, as well as hand-picked accommodations and local restaurants to suit every budget and taste bud.

A Best Of section lets you pick the right activity to suit your mood and the day. Appendices include free hula shows, farmer’s markets, what to pack, climate, history, fauna, and a Hawaiian glossary.

This new and completely revised second edition for 2006 includes a Trailblazer Kids section for adventuring families.

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Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman

Saturday, April 26th, 2008
Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman
$16.00   Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman
Amazon.com:
Like the carefully engineered dies which created his company’s first products–steel pitons and carabiners which climbing enthusiasts would recognize as primitive forerunners of today’s sleeker gear–Yvon Chouinard is if nothing else an original. How many other shy French-Canadian boys become surf-and-climbing bums, then blacksmiths forging their own play tools, and eventually founders of world-renowned sports equipment and apparel companies like Patagonia? How many other heads of multi-million dollar enterprises open their memoirs by stating bluntly, “The Lee Iacoccas, Donald Trumps, and Jack Welches of the business world are heroes to no one except other businessmen with similar values. I wanted to be a fur trapper when I grew up.” The proverbial mold from which Chouinard was cast got broken.

In Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman, readers get a fascinating look inside the history and philosophy of both Patagonia and its irascible, opinionated founder. From its beginning, the book shares a sense of Chouinard’s strong-willed personality and his love of the outdoors. He recounts a mostly happy childhood spent in a still-unspoiled southern California, climbing, diving, fishing, and surfing. The narrative soon moves into Chouinard’s early entrepreneurial efforts, which were less focused on market-share domination than on earning a basic living to finance his own sporting habits. As his company’s first catalog noted, delivery could be slow in the summer months, when Chouinard typically left the “office”–a dilapidated shack converted into an ironworks–for climbing adventures across the American West.

Eventually, though, the story settles into a pattern familiar to business audiences: Patagonia grows rapidly, takes on more employees and product lines to sustain hungry demand from customers, but overreaches with over-ambitious expansion plans and suffers a hiccup in its adolescence. This make-or-break juncture of a business’s development often contains the most interesting material, and here Chouinard and his beloved company are no exception. He describes a series of wrenching decisions through which he and Patagonia management team navigated in 1991, as sales growth stalled while capital and operational expenses sprinted ahead. From this crisis emerged Patagonia’s first-ever layoffs, affecting a hefty 20% of the workforce, and a serious re-examination of the business’s core principles and methods.

The historical part of Chouinard’s book largely ends at this point, and gives way to an exposition of philosophies which emerged at Patagonia during its dark moments in the early 1990s. The rest of the book serves as a kind of primer to business, the Patagonia way: one chapter each on product design philosophy, production philosophy, distribution philosophy, image philosophy, financial philosophy, human resource philosophy, and so on. Fans of Patagonia can revel in the company’s working details, as can those who support or want to build businesses with self-consciously cultivated soulfulness. Readers who enjoyed Gary Erickson’s story about Clif Bar, for example, should definitely find this a welcome addition to their bookshelves. –Peter Han

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Kauai Trailblazer: Where to Hike, Snorkel, Bike, Paddle, Surf (

Friday, April 25th, 2008
Kauai Trailblazer: Where to Hike, Snorkel, Bike, Paddle, Surf (
$15.95   Kauai Trailblazer: Where to Hike, Snorkel, Bike, Paddle, Surf (
Book Description:
The latest edition of the Sprout’s top-selling guide is packed with new and updated activities, dozens of fresh photos, and a special Trailblazer Kids section for families headed to Hawaii’s “adventure island.” Popular among independent and active travelers, Trailblazer guides are known for their user-friendly format, readability, and sharp graphics. You’ll find all the mountain ridges, tropical gardens, beaches, coves and lagoons, jungles, rivers, historic landmarks and cultural sites, coral reefs, ancient ruins, and coastal bluffs-all the places to get wet, muddy, and have fun on Kaua’i. Less energetic visitors will appreciate the book’s driving tours, which hit the headliners along with the island’s out-of-the-way charms. The authors have spent years exploring Kaua’i, and it shows. A Resource Links section gives visitor information and cultural contacts, recommended recreational outfitters, museums and attractions, Hawaiiana shops and hula shows, as well as a! hand-picked list of restaurants and places to stay. Safety precautions and traveling tips are not to be overlooked, and a Best Of section lets you select among activities to suit your mood.

119 hikes and strolls to mountain ridges, tropical gardens, beaches, jungles, coves, reefs, historic landmarks and ancient ruins, swamps, craters, forests, coastal bluffs and tide pools, towns, canyons, waterfalls and river valleys

- 68 beaches, including 22 reachable only by trail - 42 snorkeling pools, both the island favorites and hidden coves - 61 mountain bike rides along forest, coastal, and countryside trails - 27 kayaking waters: 13 rivers and streams, 14 bays and lagoons - 36 surfing spots - a special Trailblazer Kids section - 10 maps and 175 photographs - 4 driving tours, featuring heiaus, wildlife sanctuaries, cultural and historical sites,tourist attractions and natural wonders - Resource Links to recreational outfitters, stables, golf courses, camping, transportation, accommodations, local-style eats and shops - Appendices of Hawaiian words, place names, movie locations, hula performances, farmer’s markets, weather, flora, history

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Body Surfing: A Novel

Thursday, April 24th, 2008
Body Surfing: A Novel
$14.99   Body Surfing: A Novel
Amazon.com:
The beach house in New Hampshire which figured in Anita Shreve’s The Pilot’s Wife, Fortune’s Rocks, and Sea Glass is once again featured in Body Surfing. This time, it is the summer home of the Edwards family, Anna and Mark and daughter Julie. Mrs. Edwards has great hopes for Julie, who is “slow,” so she hires Sydney to tutor her, in preparation for her senior year. There are two older brothers, Jeff and Ben, whose arrival changes the household dynamic considerably.

Once again, Shreve revisits the minefield of love and betrayal that she has explored so well in her best novels. Sydney is 29, twice married, once divorced, and once a widow. She is floundering, not sure she wants to go back to school, accepting whatever job comes along and then moving on. She answers the ad for a tutor and finds herself in the Edwards household, where she discovers that Julie has undiscovered artistic talent. Mrs. Edwards dislikes her instantly, is dismissive, and treats her like a servant. Mr. Edwards befriends her, shows her his roses and talks to her about the history of the house, giving the reader a rundown of the role the house has played in prior novels.

Sydney, Jeff, and Ben go body surfing late one night and Sydney is sure that Ben has tried to grope her underwater. She takes immediate umbrage at this and treats him coldly thereafter. Shreve’s other work has a steady narrative flow, but this novel is episodic and disjointed. There is the the arrival of Jeff’s girlfriend, her departure, an evening when Julie comes home drunk and won’t talk about it, and a liaison between Sydney and Jeff which leads to the complications that eventually define the novel. There is a twist at the end, involving the brothers, that is divisive, destructive and rather hard to believe.

While this is not Shreve’s best effort, because the characters are not well-defined, it is worth reading her take on what happens to people when they compete for love. –Valerie Ryan

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Can’t You Get Along With Anyone?: A Writer’s Memoir and a Tale of a Lost Surfer’s Paradise

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
Can't You Get Along With Anyone?: A Writer's Memoir and a Tale of a Lost Surfer's Paradise
$29.95   Can't You Get Along With Anyone?: A Writer's Memoir and a Tale of a Lost Surfer's Paradise
Product Description:
When Allan Weisbecker penned the last sentence of In Search of Captain Zero, most readers assumed the full scope of the tale had been told. But apparently, life had other plans. In his latest offering, Can’t You Get Along With Anyone? A Writer’s Memoir and a Tale of a Lost Surfer’s Paradise, Weisbecker chronicles the bizarre and convoluted circumstances that drove him from his adopted home in Costa Rica.

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In Search of Captain Zero: A Surfer’s Road Trip Beyond the End of the Road

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008
In Search of Captain Zero: A Surfer's Road Trip Beyond the End of the Road
$14.95   In Search of Captain Zero: A Surfer's Road Trip Beyond the End of the Road
Amazon.com:
In 1966, Allan Weisbecker “made a Manhattan run from the landlocked suburbs” to take in a siren-song movie called The Endless Summer, a documentary that depicted the carefree life of two beach bums who roamed the world in quest of the perfect wave. Weisbecker was hooked, and he became a hardcore wave rider, a fixture on the Long Island surf scene. With a friend, Christopher, he also undertook illegal ways to finance his passion, transporting drugs from exotic countries, a business only briefly interrupted when Christopher went off to Vietnam. There he took fire and came home scarred; something in him changed, and one day he simply vanished.

Weisbecker’s book, a sort of gonzo detective story blended with travelogue and peppered with hang-10 jargon, does many things, all of them very well indeed. It offers up a vision of innocent times brought to ruin by war and drugs; it recounts his search for his lost friend, whose life had gone from bad to worse far away from home; and it affords a look inside the strange culture of surfing, whose masters “understood, in a visceral and soulful and inexpressible way, the machinations of the sea, and, by subtle inference, the universe at large.”

Full of regret and exhilaration, Weisbecker’s memoir is a fine chronicle of a dream gone sour and a friendship redeemed. –Gregory McNamee

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All for a Few Perfect Waves: The Audacious Life and Legend of Rebel Surfer Miki Dora

Monday, April 21st, 2008
All for a Few Perfect Waves: The Audacious Life and Legend of Rebel Surfer Miki Dora
$25.95   All for a Few Perfect Waves: The Audacious Life and Legend of Rebel Surfer Miki Dora
Amazon.com:

Amazon Best of the Month, April 2008: Defining the life of legendary surf icon Miklos “Miki” Dora can be as elusive as the man himself. The self-proclaimed “King of Malibu” has been compared to trailblazers such as Bob Dylan, Jack Kerouac, and Pablo Picasso for providing the archetype of the counterculture surfer. Yet he was also a convicted felon who rarely missed an opportunity to scam even his closest friends. All for a Few Perfect Waves meets this conflicted figure head on, as David Rensin provides a rare look at the famously guarded Dora through hundreds of interviews with those who knew him best. The result is a portrait of a life wedged between hyperbole and vulnerability. His beguiling personality charmed many, but few relationships and situations were ever deemed off-limits to a con. Happily, any judgments are left up to the reader, as Rensin’s engaging narrative seeks only to explore the inner workings of a man who truly lived life on his own terms. –Dave Callanan

An Exclusive Q&A with David Rensin, Author of All for a Few Perfect Waves

When profiling an elusive figure like Miki Dora, the “why” is evident, but not the “how.” How did you manage to gain unfettered access to Dora lore?
Rensin: To gain access to people, stories and material like letters, faxes, emails, photos, and interviews, I had to first gain everyone’s trust - not an easy task when you consider that Miki spent his life mostly avoiding the press, complaining about it, telling his friends to not sell him about and not talk about him. And, when someone did break through and write about him, as I did for the August 1983 issue of California magazine - for a long time the only mainstream press story about Miki; the rest were in surf genre magazines, including interviews, and Dora’s own stories about improbable international adventures - he was likely to threaten a lawsuit. (But never win.)

I started with Miki’s father, who sent me to Harry Hodge, the administrator of Miki’s estate. Harry is from Australia, and he was head of Quiksilver in Europe, so we met several times when he came through Los Angeles. It really came down to the human connection. We hit it off. He told me what he thought a biography of Miki would have to entail: not trashing Miki, not whitewashing him, not sensationalizing. And the book still had to be warts and all - otherwise it would be seen as dishonest. I told him I could do that. I wouldn’t dance on Miki’s grave, but I also had to be totally independent. I would not let anyone control the story. My loyalty would be to the story, whatever I found.

I also told him that I thought an oral history, with some narrative connective tissue, would work best because I could gather 360 degrees of opinion about and experiences with Miki. I thought that was the only fair way to go with someone who had such a multi-faceted personality, who compartmentalized so well. If I took a side, I’d get strong reaction against it from some quarter. Better to be non-judgmental about a character about whom everyone was very judgmental.

This helped really put people at ease, and allowed me to get the best and most honest material. No one felt they had to defend a point of view. And though it might run counter to the classic biography, I didn’t want to figure out Miki, but to let his mystique remain.

Harry liked that and passed me back to Miki’s father, Miklos Dora, Sr. We talked, I told him the same. I knew I had to be absolutely authentic with him and he was authentic in return. He had read the California magazine piece and thought it had captured Miki’s character. He also told me I’d been “a little hard” on his son as well. I gave him some of my other books to read. He liked them and gave me the go-ahead.

Now came the hard part: finding people who knew Miki and convincing them to trust me to do a non-judgmental book that wouldn’t focus on the easy “outlaw” aspects of his life that landed him in jail for a short while, nor treat him only as a faded old celebrity surfer from Malibu. The idea was to do a portrait of the man, and in so doing, explain the myth. Harry had told me that when discussing the book with Miki over twenty years of lunches and dinners, Miki said he wanted to be thought of as more than just a surfer. As a journalist who had spent some years surfing, but not a surf journalist, I felt I could give him that bigger tableau.

In the end, the tone of my interviews, the questions I asked, the passion I shared, and my willingness to listen instead of try to fit the story to preconceived ideas won out and people trusted me and word spread. I got over one million words of interviews from more than 300 people on five continents.

I guess it worked.

How do you think the famously guarded Miki would react to this book?
Rensin: I was often asked how Miki would react to the book; would he even want it done? Miki had always emphasized how privacy was important. He supposedly hated the commercialization of surfing and his name. These were strong and authentic themes in his life. But they were not absolute. Did he hate being photographed? I’ve seen many, many snapshots of him. Did he hate surfboard companies and clothing companies? Not if they didn’t try to rip him off. Yes, there was a general discontent and desire to be left alone at times–and he wanted empty waves–but his actions were often situational, not carved in stone.

I think that publicly Miki would say he didn’t want a book, but privately he would want it. He had to be able to put it down, to always have plausible deniability. Part of what I had to do to gain access to interviews was prove that Miki in fact wanted a legacy. I could do that because I had the correspondence as evidence. He had talked with potential book collaborators and had done some interviews. He met with people who wanted to make movies of his life. It never worked out. Some people say he just gamed these suitors for money, and in some cases that is true. But not always. I think Miki never did his book/movie because had to live his life instead of write about it, and because he wanted too much to be in control. I respect that: the wanting to get it just how he wants it. It’s his life after all. He didn’t want anyone interpreting it. But he had difficulty trusting co-authors. I suppose he was simply waiting for the right person with the right point of view to come along, but as an experienced collaborator, I wonder how well he would have weathered the ups and downs inherent in that kind of working relationship. It’s never easy.

In the end, Miki left the evidence of his life (letters, notebooks, etc.) that he could easily have trashed. He knew someone would inevitably do something. He called it the vultures picking at his bones.

Anyway, does it matter whether or not Miki would have wanted the book? I don’t think so.

How would he have reacted? He’d have said I blew it, that I could have gotten the real story if only I’d taken the time. But he’d have carried the book everywhere, showed it around and, depending on the situation, would have said he hated it or loved it. That’s Miki.

How was Miki able to reconcile the fact that he played such a significant role in rise of 60’s surf cinema? Considering that these films created the surfing population explosion that Miki loathed, it would seem that he made quite a complex bed for himself.
Rensin: I don’t think Miki played that big a role in the rise of surf cinema. The irony is simply that at a time when he was most loudly decrying the exploitation of surfing because Gidget and other beach party films had crowded his beloved Malibu, he was also taking money to be a stunt rider and technical advisor. Maybe his ego couldn’t let him stay away. Maybe it was the free lunch at the craft services table. Maybe it was his notion that he could subvert from the inside by acting weird as an extra in the background. Maybe he met some women he wanted. Maybe it was just fun, there was no surf, and he needed to do something that day. Later in life he realized that he had in some small way aided and abetted, but I don’t think he wasted much time with regret.

Miki has been compared to everyone from Jesus to James Dean. However, after reading All for a Few Perfect Waves, I found my own comparison: he was the Tyler Durden of surfing. Akin to the Fight Club character, surfers cannot always condone Dora’s antics, but we quietly support his pursuit for point-break perfection. Do you agree?
Rensin: I agree. Miki, like Durden, was that sage of harsh reality who made his own way, and the hell with the rest of you. Like Durden he was not completely a loner, and was willing to bring along new initiates if they attracted him with their own inner search. Often while writing the book, I kept thinking about Fight Club and how the rule never to talk about Fight Club was Miki’s rule for himself. Many of Durden’s aphorisms apply as well to Miki: “The things you own end up owning you.” “It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.” And my favorite, “Fight club exists only when fight club begins and when it ends.” Or, as Miki famously said: “When there’s surf I’m totally committed. When there’s none, it doesn’t exist.”

How important was Dora’s close and inflammatory relationship with Greg Noll?
Rensin: Dora’s relationship with Greg Noll endured fifty choppy years and I think it was an anchor, a familiar place to return to. Noll just didn’t take crap from Dora, yet he appreciated the rascal in him. Noll had it, too. They met as kids. They were of an era and mindset. Noll never wanted anything from Dora. When they made “Da Cat” boards, he endured the games Dora played. And he wasn’t afraid - after Dora would pay him a visit at home - to ask to check his suitcase for the silverware. He knew what Dora was about, and he let him know he knew, but he never shunned him for it. They could appreciate each other and that love, if you want to call it that, grew over time. Also, Noll is physically imposing. You don’t mess with Noll. Dora didn’t.

What is your favorite Dora story or experience?
Rensin: It’s really tough to come up with a favorite Dora story or experience. Overall, I love his audacity, his willingness to go against the grain, to not be bound by the rules, to so cannily manipulate an innocent surf media to his advantage after they’d helped rip away his paradise of empty waves. He was always pulling stunts like wearing a see-though plastic mask, or letting his groupies chauffeur him around, or having what he called his “party kit” (everything from a glass with ice cubes to a tuxedo, so he could crash Beverly Hills doings with ease), to various little cons and pranks (baby chicks in the lifeguard tower). There are too many to go into here. But I guess if I had to chose, a favorite would be Miki being baptized in the Mormon church when he lived in New Zealand in 1975. He played on the eagerness of two young missionaries and led them on a merry chase. I’m sure he was authentically curious about their vision of the universe, but I think he was definitely tongue-in-cheek. And best of all, he went through with the immersion. Dora was living theater. The idea, the best approach now and then, was to sit back and enjoy the show.

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