Ice Cream Headaches

Book excerpt: Little known to many who live there and to the throngs of tourists who pass through each year, New York and New Jersey are home to a diverse and vibrant cold water surfing community. Ice Cream Headaches captures a snapshot of this often overlooked facet of America's most dense metropolis. Over a span of four years, writer Ed Thompson and photographer Julien Roubinet have logged more than 5,000 miles from Eastern Long Island to Cape May in South Jersey to interview and photograph forty surfers, surf board shapers, artists and documentarians of the culture personally. From local legend and Montauk fisherman Charlie Weimar to Pulitzer-prize-winning author William Finnegan and professional surfers with global followings such as Quincy Davis, Mikey De Temple and Balaram Stack, this new monograph highlights surfers who experiment with new forms, materials, ideas or surfing styles. Across 192 pages, the book features four essays rich with quotes and anecdotes, over 150 photographs, and a foreword by iconic portrait and surf photographer Michael Halsband. Ice Cream Headaches takes the reader inside the surf breaks and stomping grounds of the surfers who call New York and New Jersey home, surfers who are willing to pull on a 5mm wetsuit, wade through a foot of snow on the beach, and battle thirty mile per hour winds for a few fleeting moments inside a yawning barrel.