John Ravitch – People + Places

New York City

We are deep inside the crackling neon canyons of Times Square, an immense outdoor palace of cultural wonder. It is 29 degrees on this black and frigid night. I am looking down into a sea of rhythmically pulsing advertisements trying to make sense of it all. Feels like a Hieronymus Bosch scene – a writhing…

Osaka

We are just a few days into our month-in-Japan adventure and it already feels like forever and ago since we left Santa Fe. Having an incredible time so far, brimming with so much anticipation that we completely forgot to be jetlagged. Correspondingly, coffee is surprisingly good here. Green tea is my friend. Sidewalk hot/cold refreshment…

New Mexico it is

Recently home from two years in Australia – easily the most vivid chapter of our adult lives. Living in Oz was beyond our wildest hopes – and the new friends we made will be with us for a long time. Yet with the pandemic, Adisa and I chose to return and shelter-in-place in SF ->…

Tokyo Immersion

I made a quick 5-day solo drop into the beating heart of the future metropolis. Life changing. Design is everywhere there, especially in the details: everything is right-sized to the specific need – no excess. It was a gorgeous deep summer there – and there was no sleep to be had. Too much to see…

Aussies in Action

A smattering of our damn-good-fun Oz friends for you here. Their down-to-earth optimism, humor, and genuine curiosity is my personal benchmark for the kind of people I seek to have in my life. These snaps speak to their life force.

Dark MoFo

The awe-inspiring Dark MoFo festival in Tasmania is a vivid mash-up of Burning Man, Brothers Grimm, Heath Ledger b-movies and the Venice Art Biennale. For over a century, the Tasmin capital city of Hobart has been the port of departure for risky Antarctic expeditions. It is now transformed once a year into an edgy arts…

G’day

A warm hello from that other hemisphere where I am living Down Under with Adisa. Australia is both wonderfully familiar, teaming with culture and yet quite different. Hard to briefly sum up this new life – it feels like a mash-up of my 19-year old ‘first trip to Europe’ student-self with a life-experienced Bay Area…

The Church of Speed + Flow

I have spent the last 15 years racing skateboards down long steep hills in search of speed and the podium. Some days it all comes together like this one against one of the fastest men around – Jonny ‘The Thriller’ Miller of ABEC 11 wheels who is an ambassador of speed, highly creative, caring dad and…

World’s Most Livable City

Though few Americans visit – Melbourne is one of the world’s most livable cities. Rich in the arts, music and especially coffee. Sydney gets the press, tourists and crowds, wherever Melbourne is more livable a few times over. Here are some snaps I took along the way. This is the best place to learn more about the…

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”

My favorite quotes in life always come from the same source – Anais Nin