It's pretty rare these days that EMERGE discovers a print magazine that gets us excited. Last night, though, was one of those moments.

The Journal is a quarterly arts magazine based close by EMERGE HQ in the far reaches of the East Village. Housed in a funky space which used to house the Issue Project Room, The Journal also serves an art gallery showing works by the likes of photographer Tim Barber and skateboard legend Mark Gonzalez.

All credit to the Gonz in fact for enabling our discovery of the Journal. We made our way to East 6th Street to check out his latest art show, a collaboration with fellow 80's skateboard icon Christian Hosoi which opened last night. While the show itself was nothing totally mindblowing, it was great to discover that a publication exists which explores the more erudite fringes of contemporary culture, art, music and skateboarding.

The show coincides with this fall's issue, which is guest edited by Gonzalez, who wrangled contributions from a heavy weight set of folks including Gus Van Sant, Tony Hawk, Terry Richardson, Ed Templeton, Spencer Sweeney, and Rita Ackerman. In addition there are some really incredible features including a photo essay about Egypt, a tour diary of the band Wetnurse, and the poetry of GIa Coppola.

All in all, the Journal makes for a pretty engaging read. Visually exciting and dense with the energy and personality that have long distinguished the arts community and the skateboard scene from the mainstream, the Journal manages to convey a very grown up point of view without resorting to artspeak or pseudo-sociology. And it's refreshing to find content of this type in a magazine that isn't "lifestyle" in the conventional sense; there are no fashion spreads here. The Journal is not a some hipster's dispatch from the intersection of art and boardsports, but rather a statement of intent from the folks standing at that crossroads.

Very cool indeed.

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