him. He lands on his feet, backwards on the granite, staggers back to catch his balance and then twirls on his heel, adjusts his cap and walks off toward some spectators who have joined the camera crew. A member of this crew catches the runaway board with his feet, and with a swift kick-like motion he propels it back up to the flying boarder, who overtakes it with his toe, tips it up and sideways with a smart crack, and catches it at his hip with his hand, never once breaking stride or looking down.

He goes back up to the starting point, the exit from the Gemälde Galerie where the courtyard’s slope begins. He works up his momentum, hops on just before he and the board reach theedge of the top stair, and flies off. But the board twists slightly and he lands without it, off balance, on the granite. He does a backroll, jumps to his feet and heads back toward the spectator row as the team down below shoot the board back up to him.

This scene is repeated twenty times or more. Each time, the boy—he looks about sixteen, he’s small and wiry, tattooed up both forearms, in a nondescript pair of grey sweats and a blue T-shirt with a big yellow banana on the front and a stylish visor cap that never falls off—leaps, the board flips and careens, jackknifes out from under him, he lands on the granite, he gets up again and walks away from the course.

Each time, the camera