the Adventure Lifestyle magazine

BEST OF BLUE contributors:: STEVEN KOTLER When he's not writing for blue, Wired, Details, The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Outside, Men's Journal or Art and Auction, Los-Angeles-based writer and self-professed lousy surfer Steven Kotler spends his time skiing, surfing and exploring. In "Surfing with the Spirits of Nusa Dua," first place winner in the best surfing category, Steven taps into a dimension that all surfers understand, but few can express. In addition to writing about Indonesia, Steven has covered the disappearing Galapagos, North American ski culture, and sand boarding Morocco for blue. His first novel, The Angle Quickest for Flight, was released in paperback this spring. Steven's next trip is a search for bears and kayakable waters in Alaska. TIM PARR Tim Parr founded the bastard-child bike-clothing brand, Swobo, and, nine years later, orphaned it off to Santa Cruz bicycles. Since Swobo, Tim has helped other companies birth their own bastard children with his new company, Parr, Goldman & Byrne. For blue Tim has critiqued car culture (see "Decide to Ride") as well as action sports in his treatise "Fly Fishing Beyond Purpose." He'll be writing a book as soon as he can figure out a creative paradigm where commerce and art both adopt the same highway. Until then, he'll pleasantly skate to where the puck has been, and not to where it's going. There are just fewer people there these days. LAUREL A XEN Brooklyn-based photographer Laurel Axen often sees the world through a lens, but is sensitive enough to put her camera away if the local vi be isn't conducive to documentation (which is what she found on a recent trip to El Salvador). Laurel's photography of surfing in Sri Lanka won blue's best photography award. Her work has also been published in Surfer, The Surfer's Journal and Planet. Laurel is currently working on a master's degree in traditional oriental medicine (acupuncture and herbs) and dreaming of her next adventure. BRAD WIENERS Neither the warning, the possible $2,000 fine, nor the six-month jail term scared freelance writer and editor Brad Wieners from climbing Manhattan's bridges to capture the perfect urban adventure story, "Gargoyles Over Manhattan," first place winner in the climbing category. Brad has worked as a senior editor at both Outside and Wired. In 1996, he co-wrote Reality Check: Here's the Real Future, "the first bathroom reading for the digerati," and in 1997 co-created Burning Man, a photo book with essays on the desert arts festival known widely as "the Woodstock of the '90S." This year, he's added ink from customs agents in Australia, Fiji, the Solomon Islands and Norway to his passport. JAMIE BRISICK Jamie Brisick has always had his priorities (love, travel, work and surf) straight, and tries to incorporate them all into the course of each day. His creative talents have brought him fame in the blue office where, when faced with a tough situation, we ask not what JC would do, but rather what would JB do. Jamie writes and shoots and recently produced a book about the traveling lifestyle: We Approach Our Martinis With Such High Expectations. This spring he and Brazilian filmmakers Gisela Matta and Carlos Gama collaborated on a short documentary film entitled NY Surfers. He is currently working on a video documentary about David Carson. GERALD FORSTER Photographer Gerald Forster roams the world in search of beauty-in all its incarnations. His work on the Light Years Project (www.lightyearsproject.com). an ongoing documentation of infinite beauty and diversity, has led him from Kathmandu to Machu Picchu and from Ethiopia to Mongolia. He is a recent contributor to The New York Times Magazine and Esquire. The Light Years Project collage (winner of the best photography award) gave faces to the blue world. NEIL SIMON Writer photographer Neil Simon returned from the Amazon happy to be alive after getting lost for two days at the mouth of the enormous river trying to document the rare phenomenon known as a tidal bore. "After I watched the first of our two boats flip and sink into the murky water, I knew we were in serious trouble," says Neil. He was later found by an 86-year-old indigenous man who fed him salted capybara meat and offered a spare hammock in his one-room house. Neil's article "Blue Vision: Diving Beyond Limits," about the controversial expe- rience of deep diving, won the award for best diving feature. His paintings, images inspired by adventures in nature, are being shown in two upcoming solo gallery exhibitions in New York (www.nsimon.com). YEARS

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