Oh look...

It's been a ridiculously long time and I haven't written anything. Why? Ultimately, because I am lazy. It's very nice to be so in tune with one's inner nature. Also, I've been trying to read several books at one time, which is not that conducive to doing anything else. Prominent among them was Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, which I finally finished and which was brilliant and reinforced my belief that Carolyn Adams is my hero. I also finally managed to finish House of Leaves. House of Leaves is a strange book - ultimately, it's about a filmmaker who moves into a haunted house with his family. Haunted isn't the right word to describe it. There is no spectre chasing anyone in the night. The house is simply bigger on the inside than on the outside. Eventually much bigger. And it keeps growing. Half the book is footnotes, and the several different narrators oscillate between the dubiously pretentious and the crudely vulgar. Nevertheless it's a great book.

Czechmate.

Much has happened and I haven't written about it. Originally, my plan was to write about seeing Mrs. Obama speak live, but as I have a tendency not to like to stand waiting for things, ever, I dodged the queue and left prematurely to go be a human catapult (more on that eventually, maybe). Hence, I stood deprived of a blog topic, until browsing online brought up an old photoshoot by Michael Thompson called Czechmate. I am not extremely into fashion, mostly because I tend to refuse to buy things. Today I spent an hour and a half searching for pants to no avail, and it was not a trendy, glamourous experience. However, sometimes there is that undefinable element of je ne sais quoi that cannot be bought at a department store which to me validates the art of dressing oneself. I think this photoseries exemplifies it. Also, being Czech, the little references add a bit of authenticity to it. I'm not going to put all of it up, but here are a few photos:











Tastes differ, of course, and the annoying white margins detract from some of these, but, at the risk of sounding frivolous, I think these are aesthetically perfect.

All is not well on the hippie front

As a kid, I always prided myself on being a mountain girl, both like and unlike Carolyn Adams. I grew up, for a major part, in what the locals lovingly called mountains but what on the other side of the Great Puddle might be rather more accurately described as hills. When I was little my ideals were wilderness people and wild things in general, with a certain aversion to mainstream society, and as I grew up, this never completely died. Certainly I became somewhat interested in clothes and films and art, but I also became a climber and a fan of transcendentalism. That said, mainstream movies about the wilderness always make me a little sad, because to me it seems like bringing a raw, fringe ideal to the middle of the road in shiny plastic packaging. Into the Wild, which I saw with friends, was no different. It was a good film, an aesthetically pleasing film, but I'm not sure it maintained the ideals that Christopher McCandless believed in, whether he would have been happy with mainstream America getting entertainment out of a glossy version of his dreams. Still, it's worth a view.



The title is taken from an Into the Wild movie quote my friends and I found comical for some reason.

Alta is for skiers!

Due to a break in life when I went to the west coast to go ski among Mormons, my blogging has been less than regular of date. I suppose it depends on whether someone likes mountains and skiing, so some people might not find these things cool, but I grew up as a mountain person and will always be one.

So here is Alta in the twenties:

The old Collins lift (with the difference of the single chair, it looks the same today):

Ski jumping is badass. Ski jumping in the forties is even more badass:

Doesn't she look the picture of casual, athletic elegance? I wish I looked that feminine when I ski:


And my own, exceedingly less cool photos:

The glory that is High Rustler:

This could have been taken somewhere in New England, not outside of a cheap motel room on the highway:

Upton the friendly brontosaurus, upon further perusal not a great photo because of the windshield. I noticed though that for an uberconservative, working-class neighborhood there were a lot of strange references. I went running on Hemmingway Street and Woodstock Road. Sinclair is just a western company I think, I saw them many places:

Mountains, Gandalf, mountains! (I just out-nerded myself there, I am sorry, I'll go play Magic:The Gathering by myself in a corner)

Alta summed up: