home is where your skis is

Champion Angels

2012-01-30T11:59:00.005+01:00

I turned off the music about noon on the 7th of January. We--the two dogs and I--were about halfway up the route. I wasn't exactly worried but with new snow on the ground, a mix of rain and snow falling from the sky, and low visibility I just wanted to be sure I could hear everything around me. The The's "This Is the Day" turned on in my head and I continued to climb. That's strange, I thought, where did that song come from? I checked on the dogs. They appeared content, confident, and eager as always to spend a day in the mountains.

Soul Mining is a classic album of my youth. Part of my life's soundtrack, Soul Mining has played countless times in cassette, vinyl, and CD formats. I haven't listened to it or any other Matt Johnson album in years. As the three of us made our way into the narrow, rocky chute, the song's chorus repeated itself between my ears. I interpreted it to mean that after three years I would finally make it to the top. I know now my interpretation was wrong.

This is the day, your life will surely change.

The The: This Is the Day

The light faded in and out and revealed different parts of the chute at a time. Too steep to skin, the skis were thrown on my back. After a series of intense snowstorms a spell of warm weather consolidated the snow and made for excellent kick-stepping. It wasn't what I expected; my original thoughts were only to check out the early winter snow conditions but the stability and ease of the climb propelled me forward.

For three years I wanted to ski the chute that I was about to climb into. I saw it first while skiing around Le Reculet, a popular touring destination and second highest summit in the Jura. The skiing to Le Reculet was fine enough but very busy and the landscape marred in every direction with the tracks of others. Later, a reconnaissance trip exposed a small pocket of European-style wilderness completely devoid of ski tracks. This, I decided, would be my secret country.

I don't know what exactly attracts me to this corner of the Jura Mountains but I have hunches. I've taken two parties there and neither seemed overly impressed. In the time it takes me to drive there I could drive to the Grands Montets in Chamonix instead and ski 2,000-plus vertical meters of off and on piste at a time. Of course I would also compete for space with countless other skiers.

I'm also reminded of favorite ski spots from back home in Idaho and Nevada, quiet places that make up for their lack of other skiers with an abundance of wildlife like elk, pronghorn antelope, moose, and, in this case, chamois. But topping out at only 1,500 meters (4,920 feet) the low elevation means the window of opportunity for skiing is relatively small; best to explore mid-winter, I think. Also, the difference in elevation is only about 750 meters (2,500 feet) which is next to nothing compared to many places in the Alps. No, I don't exactly know what I like about the area, but I do. It's peaceful, pretty, steep enough, big enough, and not well-known, and I guess those are good enough reasons as any.

Not well-known but like anything in Europe it is not unknown. Known and mapped. And named. There is a name for the area and Les Avalanches may explain the absence of other skiers. The route is also published on a French ski-touring website with photos from similar viewpoints and locations as I've taken. Of course none of that meant anything to the three of us that day. As usual no one else was around. I couldn't see well but the snow was good so I led us uphill into the unknown.

We reached a shelf and not knowing whether the ridge was to the right or left were forced to stop. We weren't at the ridgeline but bad visibility, steep slopes, and heavily drifted snow told me I shouldn't push things. Right or left, I knew the ridge wasn't far. I declared our trip a success and prepared to descend. One more tick off the To Do list.

Going up is always easier than going down. Hazel and Annabelle didn't want to go down. They were suddenly nervous and paced along the shelf while I scraped my way down the icy first section. When I felt safe to stop I called to them, their brown heads peering over the ledge at me. I skied down a few more meters and called again. For me the worst part was over. The skiing wasn't good but it also wasn't as dangerous. I stopped to call for them again before the shelf disappeared into the clouds. They didn't follow.

There have been times when for whatever reasons the dogs did not like my chosen path down. In these cases they simply slipped to the side and picked their way down something more suitable. I would ski down, they would work their way down, and we would meet somewhere below. As the chute narrowed to a cliff face and access to the ridgeline or out of the rocks was indeterminable I wasn't sure if this was even possible. There was little I could do but continue to call them, ski down into more open country, wait until nightfall, and make plans to return the following day. In an instant my life had surely changed.

The following day was the same warm mix of rain and snow, flat light, and poor visibility. I made better time to the shelf, not stopping to enjoy the scenery or solitude. I was thankful not to find Hazel and Annabelle on the shelf. I also knew a larger, more complicated chapter was about to begin.

Hank answered the phone the following evening. He asked the caller to speak English because he couldn't understand French very well. A minute or two passed before he gasped and handed me the phone. I knew what she had to say before I ever heard her voice. She had Annabelle's collar. Her husband brought it home after taking her body off the highway and placing it in some trees. He found her body sometime around 7:00 A.M. Monday morning while on his way to work. Annabelle made it all the way out of the mountains only to be killed by a car down in the valley.

I picked up the collar and the husband, Guy, drove me to the grove of trees where he placed her body. On Wednesday I buried Annabelle Lee. I took her to the Jura just above the house, to the general area where we would go on morning runs. I found a small meadow away from foot or car traffic and buried her on her bed with a small steak bone she kept around in the yard. The thought of her of next to a highway in an unfamiliar part of France and exposed to the elements was too much for me. I had to bring her back home and make her comfortable. It was good to see her again and touch her fur one last time.

I wish we could take every path,
because I hated to close the door on you.

Joanna Newsom: Baby Birch

Annabelle Lee was born into a world she did not deserve. From the mean streets of Guadalajara, Mexico she came from a long line of forgotten, neglected, abused, and otherwise invisible mixed-breed perros de la calle. Walking home one day in 2002 Annabelle appeared out of nowhere from the weeds and trash of an abandoned lot. She was tiny, little more than two giant ears and a coat of fur entirely covered in mange that draped over her skeleton. She pounced at Hazel and coaxed her to play. Until that point Hazel was uninterested in other dogs but Annabelle persisted and eventually Hazel dropped her defenses. I walked them to a nearby park and they chased each other and wrestled for an hour before I walked the two of them home.

Back at the house Annabelle ate three full bowls of Hazel's food, all while Hazel sat and watched. As soon as the last pieces were finished Annabelle collapsed by the bowl and slept for the next two hours. She had found a home and she knew it. Several trips to the vet later, many more bowls of food, and a crash course on pack behavior and hierarchy and Annabelle was a legitimate family member. She grew fast and she was healthy.

By the time we left Mexico Hazel and Annabelle were inseparable. Other than a few scuffles here and there over food and pecking order there were never any problems. I think the reason for this had to do with their almost identically opposite personalities.

Hazel, the older alpha female, is timid. Who knows what happened to her before I gave her a home but it wasn't good. She trusts few people; dislikes thunder, fireworks, or any loud noise; has had bouts of separation anxiety; and is submissive almost to a fault. She's also loyal, gentle, quiet, highly intelligent, and seems to live in a world where her sixth sense runs in overdrive.

Annabelle Lee, on the other hand, was none of that. She liked everyone, could sleep through a tornado, and always challenged Hazel's alpha status, though also always acquiesced. She was undisciplined. She was our traviesa, or little trickster. She, too, was gentle and never wanted anything except to be part of a loving group.

I suppose our whirlwind life of continent jumping probably helped build a strong bond as well. The transition from places like Kazakhstan to Chile is formidable enough for a human; I can only imagine that it helps to have another familiar furry friend alongside to ease into the changes. Dogs adapt but they never complain.

The real difference between Hazel and Annabelle is their instinct to survive. Both survived difficult first years but both survived in two very different ways. Hazel's instinct is to hunker, settle in, and stay. It took the Elko Animal Shelter three days to bring Hazel in from the desert. She would hide, she would run away, and she wasn't fooled by their traps. Annabelle, on the other hand, was social and would befriend anyone, especially if it included free love and food. She liked her family but we always had the feeling she would like any number of other families if they were willing to take care of her.

Hazel and Annabelle made it off the cold, snowy shelf at the top of the Jura and I'm pretty sure they made it off almost immediately after seeing me for the last time. Annabelle's body was found on the opposite side of the range, out of the mountains and forest, not far from the Swiss border and Geneva. It makes me feel better to think that she was on her way home and that her street sense would have taken her to a kind person who, in turn, would have called us to pick her up and bring her back. And she was almost there; and she almost returned home. And it's terrible to think about what almost happened.

I hope that I find what I'm reaching for,
the way that it is in my mind.

Waylon Jennings: Dreaming My Dreams with You

I buried Annabelle Lee on a Wednesday, four days after I last saw her alive. There was still no sign of Hazel. On Thursday I scoured maps and satellite images and guessed at Annabelle's route out of the mountains. I thought Hazel might have traveled with her on at least part of the journey and if I could narrow the area I might have a chance of finding her. On Friday I returned to the Jura.

I drove to the commune of Choudans, drove as high as the snow would allow, then started to hike and ski-tour from there. I entered unknown country and my expectations were low. Looking at maps, however, I noticed several chalets and other outbuildings used by herders in the summer. If Hazel wanted to hunker, any one of those places potentially could provide for some shelter and food. Up I went, out of the fog and clouds, for the first time in a week. The sunshine was a relief.

I skied to the top. I found the spot on the ridge directly opposite of where we climbed six days earlier. I found the shelf where I last saw the dogs. I did not find Hazel.

What I found instead was a sense that I covered the bases, returning to the place where we separated and returning again from the other side, the side I knew Annabelle descended. I could post notices in every commune in the area, I could call animal shelters, I could contact village mairies, or town halls, but not until then did I completely resign myself to the idea that Hazel, like Annabelle, would live or die according to her own instinct. I could not stop cars from racing on highways just as I could not stop Annabelle from searching for help. Likewise, if she was out of range of my voice or sight, there was nothing I could do to pull Hazel out of a warm bed of old hay or a safe hole in the ground to look for me.

Ultimately, the word 'pet' doesn't do them justice. They might be domesticated, cherished, and indulged but there is an element of ownership in the word pet that doesn't work. Given the option, an animal will choose to live, no matter how attached or loyal it is to its human companion. Annabelle did what she could to stay alive and her instinct almost brought her home. Hazel, I knew, was alive. She would also rather go feral than trust another human to take care of her. I was preparing to leave when I saw her walking along the ridge toward me.

Our lives are buried in snow.

Alela Diane: White as Diamonds

Her paws were sore and she had lost some weight. She spent the next three days doing little more than sleeping and eating. She survived and she survived because she did exactly what she knew. She lost an adopted sister and companion of ten years. She found her way back home.

In an instant they were gone and in another instant everything changed again. What happened in between is anybody's guess. We will miss Annabelle Lee for a long time to come and we are grateful Hazel Dickens has returned to the family. These lives we lead are fleeting at best and for me the only meaning found from it all is inferred from the people, places, and things that consume my time and energy. Of course the great mystery is that any of it happens at all. The great question is, Why?

I like to think that pure luck has more to do with it than anything else--a random series of events that we only ever participate and possibly determine but never control. We are lucky and we are all lost. Embrace what you have within reach because anything else is speculation. Time to celebrate. Your life will surely change.

Among all you angels is a champion angel.
Amidst all you devils there's a free soul.
Up from the disenfranchised the engine cries,
Up from the circle there's a hole.

The Low Anthem: Champion Angel

Der schöne Traum

2012-01-19T09:15:00.046+01:00

For our last Christmas in the Old World we decided to return to the land of Christmas or somewhere thereabouts. Though the Stubai Valley felt less Christmasy than Christmas in Berchtesgaden 2009, that in and of itself was a welcome relief. No Christmas markets, no nightly fireworks, cannon volleys, or black powder rifles. Not much Glühwein. Few lights or decorated trees. In fact, apart from the candle-lit cemeteries and New Year's Eve noise there was little to distinguish it from any other near-perfect, snow-filled, action-packed ski week. Good.

Before mid-December snow conditions all over Europe were meager at best. It was reported that the month of November was the driest in something like 65,000 years. By the time we hit the road, though, everything changed. Christmas was white and there was plenty of it. The little person was deposited into ski school, the snow began to fall, and life turned exceedingly swell.

The Austrians proved themselves excellent and very friendly hosts; all except one, that is, and unfortunately he married into the family that owned the old Hotel Greier now converted into apartments and the place where we stayed. Franz is his name (of course it is) and because of his inhospitable ways I cannot and will not recommend spending hard-earned money there. On the other hand, the heir to the Greier estate, Gerta (naturally), is lovely if not a bit dingy. Something tells me that Gerta knows well enough of the callousness displayed by the hanger-on she calls her partner. Nevertheless, she keeps a pretty cool place that added plenty of charm to the week.

Of course traveling from inside an apartment is not really traveling. Besides skiing, good food was what we were after and an abundance of it is what we found. The Austrians are masters of soup and few meals passed without a starter bowl of one, usually a knödel suppe of some kind accompanied by a clean and cold Grüner Veltliner.

Other meals included more knödel, Christmas Eve pheasant, New Year's Eve venison, and the kind of picture perfect (if not slightly gaudy) desserts Austria has built a reputation on.

Then there was skiing. The Austrians are interesting skiers. In general the abilities of the Austrians are good to excellent. After all, nearby Alberg is "the birthplace of alpine skiing." It's just that they display some particular curiosities when it comes to the how, where, and when of skiing. For example the hordes of Austrians who make it a daily routine to ski from the bottom of resorts to the top. Seems like an awful waste of mind-numbing energy to me. Then again I don't ski in spandex or on 160 cm skis.

Skirting around their somewhat rigid ideas offers excellent snow conditions four or five days after a storm. In places like Chamonix or Verbier you are lucky to find untracked snow during the storm let alone an hour or two after the snow settles. So for most of the week I did just that: found untracked snow before, during, and after storms. As one able-bodied Austrian put it as I finished an especially powdery run through some small chutes just above a piste that took a measly ten minutes to hike to: "Yes, good, but that's dangerous too." Right-o, Franzy!

Even better skiing was available with short, one to two hour tours into higher cirques, made easier with well-established skin tracks. As usual, the skin tracks, punched into the snow by the same boys and girls who raced up 1,500 meters of groomed pistes, always lead to prominent markings, like the ubiquitous cross or the obvious pass. That leaves plenty to the imagination for those who possess imagination. Like scrambling up cliffy, rocky things and skiing back down them.

That particular day I was not alone. I caught up to a couple of new-skoolers, thirty-something-ish splitboarders who also scoffed at the skinny skin tracks and gorilla turns of the old guard Austrian skiers. Turned out we had the same couloir in mind (how's that for imagination?) so I followed them down a slippery slope. Nice guys. We said our goodbyes on the saddle and in an instant I was alone again with no one but the Tyrolean Alps for companions.

The next tour was even more solitary as it coincided with the near white-out conditions. Not surprisingly, Austrians don't like skiing that much when you can't see. A three-inch long core shot and several falls later when I couldn't see the Earth drop out from beneath me I wasn't sure if I did either. I think I found what I was looking for, though, and it sure was quiet.

The following two days were spent back at the resort. The sky opened and dropped somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 to 18 inches (30 to 45 cm) of snow and the skiing turned from very good to incredible. Short steep drops just to the sides of pistes and long runs through trees that were only recently wind scoured and hard packed turned fluffy, bottomless, and effortless. No time for pictures during a gold rush.

I must admit that as much fulfillment and inspiration as I find from climbing and skiing around snowy, rocky places, I've found equal satisfaction and wonder while skiing on the most gentle and tranquil places with Hank. His confidence on skis has grown immeasurably within the last three years in Europe and with that his excitement. To follow him through bumpy ski trails that wind in and out of glades, or to sail with him across the flats, or to straight-line over rolling hills, all the while listening to him yell, laugh, or sing, is nothing short of a complete, crystalline celebration. Watching him and skiing with him reminds me of myself skiing at his age, but more so it reminds me of why he and I--and, apparently, a whole bunch of others--enjoy sliding on snow with two sticks attached to your feet. It's a flight of fancy and it feels like a dream.

We left Austria in an extended dream state after visiting friends in a city of our youth. We experienced Christmas without much thought. We listened to the pops and bangs of 2012 while lying in warm beds in a cold, dark hotel. We escaped the rituals of a holiday season by participating in the rituals of a family. For ten days in the mountains in the heart of Tyrol we celebrated almost nothing else except the intimate act of togetherness. Wake up, ski, eat, enjoy. Repeat the dream.

A Child's Christmas

2011-12-14T04:34:00.031+01:00

Our last Christmas in the Old World. At least for a year. The first two Home Is Where Your Skis Is holiday editions (2009, 2010) featured music from back home. That fits the holidays away from home theme that we've pretty much been living for the past ten years. Since we're now headed back home it's time to reflect on Christmases not only here in Europe but in the even older worlds of places like Kazakhstan. And for that I would like to focus with what is and forever will be the ultimate romanticized narrative of holiday memories from a time long gone and quite possibly from a time that never really existed.

Dylan Thomas started what eventually became A Child's Christmas in Wales in the early 1940s, probably not an especially pretty time for Christmas in Wales nor anywhere in Europe for that matter. This, of course, points to the romantic imaginings of its author--is there a better reason to pine away for simpler times that to be stuck in the middle of a World War? Thomas worked on the story throughout the war and in 1950 eventually sold a version of it to Harper's Bazaar. Two years later Thomas headed for New York City, was asked to record some of his poems by a couple young women who just created the Caedmon record label. Though it wasn't planned, Thomas wanted also to read one of his pieces of prose. He chose A Child's Christmas in Wales.

The 22 February 1952 recording was Caedmon Records' first release. I dug out my copy, a scratchy, seventh printing version from 1958, marked with the initials H.M.K. and a price of $4.98 that undoubtedly I found at a Deseret Industries in Utah or Idaho or at some other junk shop along the way. I've listened to Thomas's distinct voice--decorated with all the pops and noise of a piece of plastic now 53 years-old--three times already and I will probably listen a few more times before we travel to Austria for the holidays. It is beautiful. Yes, A Child's Christmas in Wales is romantic and sentimental and probably over-simplified but I accept that during the last month of the year these emotional responses are justified.

Dylan Thomas: A Child's Christmas in Wales

I know what I think about our time spent far from home, I wonder how Hank will remember these years. My memories of Christmas as a five, six, or seven year-old are blurred and somewhat lost but I know where I was, I was in a part of the world I can call home. Where does Hank call home? I do not know but I'm afraid it amounts to little more than any place with a roof over his head. He was born in Idaho but left after twelve weeks only to return occasionally here and there for a few weeks at a time. I know, too, that at seven he has seen and experienced more than many ever do in a lifetime. This is significant. And important.

I believe in the idea that a place, a home, is a collective of experiences and developmental steps that centers us and allows us to cultivate an individual, a foundation of sorts that might be as located as a specific city or as large and open as the Great Basin. To date, Hank's place ranges over four continents with as many countries, languages, sets of friends, and groups of memories. I appreciate this and I think he will too. I would also like him to know someplace specific and I think he will as well. Soon.

On his 1973 album, Paris 1919, John Cale describes something closer to what I imagine must be Hank's version of A Child's Christmas in Wales than the one written by Dylan Thomas. Here memories are in transition, they are constantly moving and rooted in their movement. The prayers are many; the flags of ownership and walls are falling down. Though surrounded by the same good neighbors, we quickly leave the mistletoe of Wales, eat all the Christmas fruit, leave the remains scattered on the ship's deck, and strike next for the land of Halloween. Above all, "We have no place to go."

John Cale: Child's Christmas in Wales

With mistletoe and candle green
To Halloween we go
Ten murdered oranges bled on board ship
Lends comedy to shame
The cattle graze bold uprightly
Seducing down the door
To saddle swords and meeting place
We have no place to go

Then wearily the footsteps worked
The hallelujah crowds
Too late but wait the long legged bait
Tripped uselessly around
Sebastopol Adrianopolis
The prayers of all combined
Take down the flags of ownership
The walls are falling down

A belt to hold
Columbus too, perimeters of nails
Perceived the Mamma's golden touch
Good neighbours were we all

Uprooted, shamed, weary, and possibly lost, but in the end, I think, Cale's version is the more hopeful. From its triumphant major key chorus to the feeling that though they might never make it to the Promised Land at least they won't make it there together, as a group, as a team, a family. In that recognition there is strength and immeasurable beauty. As an adult you tend to wish to remember and that wish and those faded memories are often at odds with each other. As a child you have no memory, or at least your memories aren't as attached to meaning as in adulthood. A child's life is centered, or placed, around trust and all those people, places, and things audible and discernible in the present.

The narrator in John Cale's "Child's Christmas in Wales" is a child, a child with eyes wide open and full of possibility. The past and future mean less to the narrator than the herds of cattle from all corners of the world who stand next to him and are kind. The narrator in Dylan Thomas's A Child's Christmas in Wales is an adult, one that may or may not remember exactly a past that may or may not have been quite so warm and inviting. But the details are so vivid and crystalline that they are able to invoke specific feelings and emotions long forgotten over time rather than worry too much about exact actions, characters, and scenes. In this sense, the wonder in Cale’s narrator, in his ability to describe perfectly the scene on the boat fills the gaps of Thomas’s narrator who “can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.” The two are ideal compliments. They both make me happy and in my mind they are both near-perfect pieces of art. This state of emotion, this place of awareness, is a good place to reside for right now. It promises only to improve with time.

Happy Holidays!

And while you're at it be sure to pay homage to the skier's best friend, Little Sandy Sleighfoot. The link to the song is now fully restored.

Photo credits:
Running Children
Dylan Thomas LP

Literary Skiers 17

2011-11-27T11:45:00.002+01:00

From the high ridges right down to the level of the road, there was snow all over the Ruby Mountains. "Ugh," said Deffeyes--his comment on the snow.

"Spoken like a skier," I said.

He said, "I'm a retired skier."

He skied for the School of Mines. In other Rocky Mountain colleges and universities at the time, the best skiers in the United States were duly enrolled and trying to look scholarly and masquerading as amateurs to polish their credentials for the 1952 Olympic Games. Deffeyes was outclassed even on his own team, but there came a day when a great whiteout sent the superstars sprawling on the mountain. Defffeyes' turn for the slalom came late in the afternoon, and just as he was moving toward the gate the whiteout turned to alpenglow, suddenly bringing into focus the well-compacted snow. He shoved off, and was soon bombing. He was not hurting for weight even then. He went down the mountain like an object dropped from a tower. In the end, his time placed him high among the ranking stars.

Now, in the early evening, crossing Independence Valley, Deffeyes seemed scarcely to notice that the white summits of the Ruby Range--above eleven thousand feet, and the highest mountains in this part of the Great Basin--were themselves being reddened with alpenglow. He was musing aloud, for reasons unapparent to me, about the melting points of tin and lead. He was saying that as a general rule material will flow rather than fracture if it is hotter than half of its melting point measured from absolute zero. At room temperature, you can bend tin and lead. They are solid but they flow. Room temperature is more than halfway between absolute zero and the melting points of tin and lead. At room temperature, you cannot bend glass or cast iron. Room temperature is less than halfway from absolute zero to the melting points of iron and glass.

"If you go down into the earth here to a depth that about equals the width of one of these fault blocks, the temperature is halfway between absolute zero and the melting point of the rock. The crust is brittle above that point and the plastic below it. Where the brittleness ends is the bottom of the tilting fault block, which rests--floats, if you like--in the hot and plastic, slowly flowing lower crust and upper mantle. I think this is why the ranges are so rhythmic. The spacing between them seems to be governed by their depth--the depth of the cold brittle part of the crust. As you cross these valleys from one range to the next, you can sense how deep the blocks are. If they were a lot deeper than their width--if the temperature gradient were different and the cold brittle zone went down, say, five times the surface width--the blocks would not have mechanical freedom. They could not tilt enough to make these mountains. So I suspect the blocks are shallow--about as deep as they are wide. Earthquake history supports this. Only shallow earthquakes have been recorded in the Basin and Range.

"At the western edge of Death Valley, there are great convex mountain faces that are called turtlebacks. To me they are more suggestive of whales. You look at them and you see that they were once plastically deformed. I think the mountains have tilted up enough there to be giving us a peek at the original bottom of a block. Death Valley is below sea level. I would bet that if we could scrape away six thousand feet of gravel from these mile-high basins up here what we would see at the base of these mountains would look like the edge of Death Valley. I haven't published this hypothesis. I think it sounds right. I haven't done any field work in Death Valley. I was just lucky enough to be there in 1961 with the guy who first mapped the geology. I have been lucky all through the years to work in the Basin and Range. The Basin and Range impresses me in terms of geology as does no other place in North America. It's not at all easy, anywhere in the province, to say just what happened and when. Range after range--it is mysterious to me. A lot of geology is mysterious to me."

--John McPhee, from Basin and Range, 1980

The Waiting Game

2011-11-22T12:06:00.013+01:00

Apparently, Switzerland is experiencing the driest November since 1921. Grey clouds below me, above me only sky. It's a long, long while from May to December.

Ian McCulloch: September Song

Idahome

2011-11-08T17:43:00.028+01:00

Apparently change is good. It better be because it's about to happen again. Three and a half years in Switzerland, three in Chile, a year in Kazakhstan, two in Mexico, a couple other places scattered here and there, and come this July all roads will point back home, or at least a version of home in a part of the world I know the best. In July 2012 this piece of property--its physical walls, floors, and ceiling, as well as its history and the stories, people, places, and things that have passed through its doors--will constitute my work for at least a year's time.

Part restoration, part documentation, part research and fieldwork, part exhibit, the project will focus on a 19th century homestead in a remote part of south central Idaho. The project will provide the framework, the daily schedule, for a year. Beyond the project, the year spent in a place, area, or region that I can only generally describe as home will help to redefine and reacquaint me with what I think I know and also don't know about myself. I will have a job to do next year, and a limited time to do it, but the secondary function of next year will be to sink my feet deep in a landscape and culture that for a good ten years has existed only as memories.

Living abroad has taught me many things, maybe most importantly are the reasons I love the country and place where I was born, both as a physical and ideological space. However, reasons, though hopefully based on sound judgement, can be ephemeral. Reasons distort over time, change over time, even sometimes prove false over time. Do I love the place where I'm from, am I still connected to it, or am I in love instead with an idea I have formed after living apart from it for so long? Will the idea stand up to the reality? Probably not entirely. Will I be capable, then, of adapting to the reality? Hard to tell.

It's the whole Thomas Wolfe "you can't go home again" syndrome not uncommon to expats and others living far away for long periods of time. In the novel of the same name Wolfe writes:

You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, back home to romantic love, back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame, back home to exile, to escape to Europe and some foreign land, back home to lyricism, to singing just for singing's sake, back home to aestheticism, to one's youthful idea of 'the artist' and the all-sufficiency of 'art' and 'beauty' and 'love,' back home to the ivory tower, back home to places in the country, to the cottage in Bermuda, away from all the strife and conflict of the world, back home to the father you have lost and have been looking for, back home to someone who can help you, save you, ease the burden for you, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time--back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.

You can't go back home. You can't go back to a place that once seemed permanent, unchanging, and, in its permanence, meaningful but which, in fact, was "changing all the time." Maybe. Maybe I'll sink my feet and not feel comfort. Maybe I won't recognize that which I thought I knew. Once uprooted, maybe the only way to survive is to graft onto something else and hope that some other rootstock is capable of supporting another life. Luckily, for me, I'm interested enough in this idea that I'm willing to experiment, give it a shot with the consequence that at the very least the change will offer yet another series of experiences in a long list of speculative adventures. Ultimately, why not?

Andy Friedman & the Other Failures: Idaho

I look forward to it. I look forward to seeing friends and family I haven't seen in years. I look forward to open spaces, dry air, and endless expanses of sagebrush. I look forward to daily runs to the top of Kelly Springs or up the East Fork. I can't wait to ski Lizzie's Bowl, Buck's Choice, White Wine, or off the backside of Pine Mountain again, places where you're more likely to ski with antelope or elk than you are other skiers. And I already envision fishing my favorite spots on the... well, let's just say on some of the lesser-known rivers and streams surrounding the area. No need to disclose too much information.

Home might be more a state of mind than a fixed place. Maybe home represents a collective ideal of place, relations, history, landscape, culture, occupation, and any number of other factors. Maybe home is a single ideal and maybe it's a series of ever-evolving memories and wishes. I don't really know. Right now, all I know is that within a year I will leave, once again, a place I could never consider home and return to another place that in ten years, in many ways, I never left.

When it Grew Dark

2011-10-31T12:28:00.006+01:00

~~The Mercury Theater on the Air featuring Orson Welles: Dracula~~
(1938)

Quiet Joys

2011-10-21T08:47:00.012+02:00

~~Richard & Mimi Fariña: Quiet Joys of Brotherhood~~
(Memories, 1968)

~~Fairport Convention: Quiet Joys of Brotherhood~~
(Liege & Lief, 1969)

~~Sandy Denny: Quiet Joys of Brotherhood~~
(Sandy, 1972)

The Sound of Sight 30

2011-10-05T12:10:00.004+02:00

~~The Cartwright Brothers: Get Along Little Dogies~~

On the Road to Find Out 5

2011-09-21T09:09:00.010+02:00

(Continued from Part 4.)

The end of the summer travels could be summarized as the tale of three passes: the Col du Grand-Saint-Bernard, the Col du Petit Saint-Bernard, and the Col de l'Iseran. To make a week-long trip out of crossing those three mountain passes was not my intention. However, all of my intentions failed and I need something to call a success.

As two-thirds of the family up and left for Idaho I found myself with some time to kill. If I couldn't be back in some of the places I love the most I decided that what I should do was try to experience some of those activities from summers long ago right here in the Alps. I set out with the dogs and a car full of camping and fishing gear for a week-long European road trip that, I was certain, would rival anything we used to do through Montana's Bitterroots, the Idaho and Canadian Selkirks, or Utah's Henry Mountains and surrounding desert.

I knew secluded, private camping would be difficult to find and there is very little information about trout fishing the rivers and streams that flow from the glaciated peaks of the Western Alps. Still: see some new country, catch a few fish. How difficult could it be? It's the Alps. If worse came to worse I knew I could find an organized campground or hotel room for a night, and if the fishing was bad I figured I could go for a hike or a run or hang out by the river and read a book. I packed the car, loaded the CD player, and hit the ~~highway~~ autoroute.

~~Cliffie Stone: Silver Stars Purple Sage Eyes of Blue~~

Stage One was to head toward Martigny then up the Vallée d'Entremont toward the Grand St. Bernard Pass. I thought I would try to fish the Entremont River before going up and over the pass into Italy. Then I remembered that my pal, Silas, has told me at least twice now about his food experiences at La Clusaz, a restaurant and inn just over the border in the Aosta Valley. The fish could wait.

Crossing the pass was uneventful save for the beautiful day and nice views. The area around the hospice was crowded with tourists and souvenir stands and I wanted nothing of that. I passed through, pulled over farther below to let the dogs out, took a couple quick pictures, then down the road. It was noon and lunch was served.

Silas was right, La Clusaz was fantastic. Everything was locally grown or produced and reflected the specific cuisine of the Aosta Valley--though through a slightly more elevated and less rustic lens than what is typical. It's easy to while away two to three hours of eating and drinking when every bite is a learning experience. At just over two hours from our house (maybe less if I was to drive through the Mont Blanc tunnel), lunch at La Clusaz will be remembered as one of the better meals during my time spent here.

In addition to the food, lunch sparked a new love affair in the form of the Prié Blanc. Indigenous to the Aosta Valley, the Prié Blanc has grown for a millennium or so on vines trained on the Roman style called pergola bassa, or low pergola. Arbors are linked together by stone pillars that serve the purpose of strengthening the pergola as well as retaining heat. An example of pergola bassa at Caves Cooperatives de Donnas near the village of Pont-Saint-Martin:

Most of the bottled Prié Blanc comes from the two-commune, awkwardly named DOC Blanc de Morgex et de La Salle. At 1,200 meters (4,000 feet) and about 12 kilometers from the Mont Blanc Tunnel, the Prié Blanc grown between the communes of Morgex and La Salle are the highest vineyards in Europe. The weather is extreme in this area--snows come early and stay late. The low pergola system reduces direct exposure to the elements, protecting them from both the wind and snow, as well as maximizes contact with the fleeting sunshine.

The Prié Blanc has adapted well to this climate. The grape ripens early, grafting is almost never necessary, rootstocks last up to 100 years and average about 60, and because of the long, cold, hard winters, pests like phylloxera are a non-issue. Produced from these grapes are clean wines redolent of the minerals that flow in the streams from the glaciers above. Add to this the addition of delicate wildflowers that bloom for a short period in the high alpine meadows. This is mountain wine in its most clear and refined expression. I left La Clusaz with a half bottle of Piero Brunet's excellent example of Prié Blanc and a giant smile on my face. A great way to kick off a road trip.

~~The DeZurik Sisters: The Arizona Yodeler~~

And then the struggle began. At three o'clock on a Friday afternoon I knew the weekend traffic would soon pick up and I had best find a place to pitch my tent soon. I spent the next two hours driving up and down the Buthier River above the village of Valpelline looking for anything that resembled a flat, cleared plot of earth away from the road and somewhat out of sight. I finally settled on one that was spotted previously but occupied by a couple of Italians making-out in their underwear. On the second pass they were gone and I took their place.

It was hot so I tucked the remaining half bottle of wine in the river to cool immediately, loaded the fly rod, and took off casting. The water was fast and cold and still a touch cloudy from either snowmelt or a high concentration of minerals. Within five minutes I caught my first European brown trout on a small, hare's ear nymph. The trout, too, was small, but no matter; it was healthy and pretty and it capped off a good day. I hadn't arranged for a license yet and wasn't sure what kind of regulating system to expect while fishing small, cold streams in the Italian Alps. I wasn't even sure they had a regulating system in Italy. For that matter I'm still not sure.

The next morning I set out to answer a few questions of mine about Italian regulatory systems before I threw any more bead head hare's ears into streams. Generally, a tabacchi, or a tobacco/newspaper shop is the place for info. Not only can you find books and maps from the region but these mini-convenience stores sell bus tickets, stamps, snacks, and, apparently, fishing permits. Fishing permits, yes, but for a fishing license I would have to go down two doors to a bar, buy the general license, and then back to the tabacchi for the day's permit. Why both required documents aren't sold at the same place I do not know.

Buying a general Italian fishing license allows you the permission to fish anywhere in the country. In order to throw a hook in the water you must buy a day's permit for whatever region you would like to fish, in my case the Aosta Valley. I opted for the tourist license at the bar and a three day permit at the tabacchi.

I was asked if I would like to fish the reserve just outside the village. Reserve? The reserve is a section of the river designated "no kill," or catch and release, and available to fly fishing and artificial lures only. Hearing this made me recall the Silver Creek Preserve and the fat, savvy trout that inhabit those waters. Sure, I said. That'll be an additional 18 euros per day, I was told. After already approaching 60 euros for my three-day privilege to fish in the Aosta, I reconsidered and declined.

At that point it was approaching noon so I decided to hightail it toward the other side of the Aosta Valley and fish bigger waters. On my way out I passed by "the reserve." This stretch of river, no more than a kilometer long and defined by an upper and lower bridge and a few ragged signs posted to trees, differed from the rest of the river only by its proximity to the main road (a little farther away) and the slope of its decline (a little more gradual). Unlike, say, the Silver Creek Preserve, which is special because it protects the headwaters of the spring-fed creek and accounts for a unique ecosystem of flora and fauna, the Buthier River reserve, to my eyes, appeared to offer nothing more in terms of brown trout habitat than the sections of river directly opposite either side of the boundary bridges. I drove away confused and slightly frustrated and would remain in a similar state of frustrated confusion for pretty much the rest of the trip.

~~Jimmie Revard & His Oklahoma Playboys: Lose Your Blues and Laugh at Life~~

Next stop was the Vallée de Cogne and fishing on the Grand Eyvia. First I had to drive through the town of Aymavilles which, as luck would have it, is also home to the beautiful vineyards of Les Crêtes. It was lunch so the tasting rooms were closed. That didn't stop the dogs and I from picnicking among the vines on their property. The castle of Aymavilles, Cave des Onze Communes production facility, and some of the Les Crêtes vineyards:

Syrah plantings and famous tower on the Côteau la Tour vineyard:

The day was hot and I still had a campsite to find. I was lucky and spied a faint, overgrown road just off the highway that turned down toward the river. It was perfect and I felt like I had accomplished something. I grabbed the fly rod and hit the river in search of both fish and a nice swimming hole. Annabelle anticipates the payoff:

Though picture perfect, after beating the river for a couple hours, I had no reason to believe that a single trout swam in those waters. Dry fly, wet fly, upstream, and down, I fished hard and well (or so I thought) but saw no sign of life. I ditched the fly rod and swam for a while before the clouds began to build and roll over the peaks.

Morning brought intermittent rain and cooler temperatures. I sighed. Then I made coffee. European dirtbag camping at its finest:

I found it hard to believe that there were no fish in such a beautiful river so the dogs and I drove upstream toward the village of Cogne to fish a different section. The results were the same: not a fish, not a strike, not a ripple in the water, or the slightest tug on the line. It occurred to me then that I was a stranger in a strange land, a Pisces flailing in foreign waters. I needed local help. To Cogne I went.

First to the tourist office where in my most desperate French I pleaded, "Who can tell me about fishing around here? No. I don't need a license. I need to know how to fish the rivers." I was sent to another bar to find signore someone-or-other who is the head of the local fishing something-or-other. Off I went.

I found the bar, found signore someone-or-other, and, again, in my most desperate French, pleaded my case and asked for his expertise. In his most confident and helpful French-Italian he asked to see my flies. I gave him my primary box, the one with all my favorites: hare's ears, prince nymphs, pale morning duns, and elk hair caddis'. "No," he said. "These are all too small."

I opened my second box, the one with the oddball collection of grasshoppers, ants, spiders, stimulators, and goofy, ugly things with elastic legs, faces, propellers, and neon colors. Flies you buy at a truck stop in Kansas or Chateau Drug in Ketchum. Flies that you never intend to use because 90 percent of the time a prince nymph or elk hair caddis works like a charm and the other 10 percent of the time you would just as soon sit under a tree with a cold beer and a good book than work too hard to stir the trout. "Sì," he said in Italian. "Ces. Comme ça," he said in French.

He pulled out an olive woolly bugger and a big black and red mess of a thing I've never used and wouldn't know what it's pretending to imitate anyway. A drowned tarsier? "You need something big,” he said. “These others are too small. Something like a streamer. The fish are at the bottom of deep holes. They are small fish and they stay on the bottom. You need to fish downstream and sink the fly as deep as you can."

"Where have you fished," he asked. I described the sections to him. "And you haven't caught anything? Ah, it must be the weather." Yes, it must, I thought.

"Where are you from," he asked. This always forces me to go through the Now and Originally routine. "Right now I live near Geneva," I said. "Originally, I'm from the Rocky Mountains: Colorado, Utah, Idaho."

"Ah," he said. This was accompanied by a fairly typical European hand gesture that seems to signify something like, I get it, I understand, or of course. "There is wonderful fishing there. You won't find fish like that here." I figured as much. I thanked him for his time and turned to leave the bar. "Buona pesca," he said with a smile and a wave.

By the time I returned to camp the clouds settled in for good. A steady light rain fell. I took an hour to try the pools again. I could feel the big black and red mess of a thing scrape along the bottom of the pool bumping itself on rocks or tree limbs but never trout. The dogs and I surrendered under a tree to focus on the classic European dirtbag dinner.

The night was long and wet and the rain didn't stop. I took a mid-morning break in the weather to pack the car. It was time to go. Better to move during bouts of bad weather rather than to waste days sitting in a tent. Leaving Italy meant forfeiting my last day's permit but wet, tired, and staring at a river that should but wasn't, I didn't really care. If the French Savoie produced streams that bulged with trout then nine euros wouldn't mean much. Of course there was the issue of negotiating another fishing license but at that point my interest was coffee and the highway. Goodbye, old Paint, I'm a-leavin' Cheyenne.

~~Hylo Brown: Truck Drivin' Man~~

To reach the French Savoie, the most direct route was to go up and over the Col du Petit Saint-Bernard. This would constitute the second significant mountain pass crossing of the trip and place me above the Tartentaise Valley. Less than two hours from camp to pass, the drive should have provided a range of views looking back down into the Aosta Valley, across the valley toward the Grand Combin in Switzerland, and farther up the valley near the Mont Blanc massif. Instead, I saw raindrops on the window and grey fuzz outside. The benevolent Saint Bernard and the gateway to France:

Drop straight down through the ski town of La Rosière and further still to Bourg-St-Maurice. Take a hard left turn and you follow the Isère river toward its headwaters somewhere near the multi-plex ski resorts of Tignes and Val d'Isère. From Val d'Isère there is no place to go but up and the only way over is the Col de l'Iseran, the highest paved mountain pass in the Alps. The rain did not quit.

The summit and the sturdy Col de l'Iseran chapel:

The nice thing about bad weather in the Alps is that the steep vertical relief tends to trap storm systems and hold them in place. It is not uncommon to experience whiteout conditions in one valley only to cross a crest into another valley and see nothing but blue skies. While this wasn't exactly the case, as I crossed into the Maurienne Valley the clouds lifted, rain ceased, and I could finally see just how steep the country was below me and just how narrow the road I would drive. I listened to music, took my time, and imagined what an incredible ski tour it would be to take the lifts up from Val d'Isère to the Col de l'Iseran then ski the valley on the Maurienne side all the way down to Bonneval-sur-Arc.

Besides the thoughts of giant ski tours, the memories of our last trip into the Maurienne Valley kept me happy, healthy, and on the road. The skiing was fun then; this time I was after trout. And I remembered them because I could see them; and if I had a fly rod back in April I would have caught them. So I drove down thinking I would complete my story.

But I was getting ahead of myself. First I had to find a campsite, then I had to buy a license. This would require a return to a confused and frustrated state of mind, this time in France, which is nothing if not a confused and frustrated country.

Finding a place to camp was easy. The area between Bonneval-sur-Arc and Bessans is famous for its 80 kilometers of cross-country ski trails. Many of the winter trails are dirt roads that meander in and out of the forest and along the river. A small, secluded pullout came quickly. Even without a license the allure of the river was too hard to resist. At dusk I tucked myself into a section out of direct view and within minutes came up with my second brown trout, about the same size as the first, and on the same hare's ear fly. I did not want to press my luck so I called it quits for the day.

The next morning the process started all over again. First to the tourist office in Bessans where I could buy a permit for the day but would have to possess a French fishing license beforehand. Could I buy that at the tourist office as well? No. Could I buy it somewhere in Bessans? No. Where could I buy it? "I don't know," I was told by the smiling attendant. "Maybe you could try the tourist office in Lanslevillard."

Lanslevillard is down the valley, only about ten kilometers away but twenty minutes on the curvy road. "Oh” she said as an afterthought. “Where would you like to fish?" On the river. "No, ce n'est pas possible," she said. "Only the ponds are open to fishing." I can't fish on the river? Why? "I don't know," she said. "Maybe there is a reason."

Twenty minutes down the canyon I walked into the tourist office in Lanslevillard. Yes, I was told by the younger, smiling attendant, I could buy a permit to fish around Lanslevillard but I would need a fishing license first. Yes, she knew where I could buy this: at the Hotel L'Auberge Do Ré, five minutes down the canyon in the village of Lanslebourg-Mont-Cenis. Are the rivers open to fish? "Um," she said. And with a cute but confused French look on her face she added, "Yes, I think so.” Then, “Pourquoi pas?"

Five minutes down the canyon I walked into the bar at the Hotel L'Auberge Do Ré. Yes, I could buy a fishing license. What kind did I want? I had no idea. Both the bartender and waitress tried to explain all my options but the conversation stalled when I tried to ask questions about fishing on the river or only in ponds. By this time, ten-thirty in the morning, I attracted the attention of the three brandy-drinking customers at the bar. The bartender turned to one of the customers for help. "Je ne sais pas, je ne suis pas un pêcheur," he said. He didn't know. He wasn't a fisherman. "Attendre," I was told, and the smiling waitress disappeared behind the bar.

Five minutes later my answers arrived in the form of a tall, barrel-chested Savoyard whose breath also smelled like brandy and a bit like cigarettes, too. I don't know if he was a fisherman but he had patience and he explained to me what I needed to do in order to throw a legal fly in the rivers of the Maurienne Valley. For this he took out a piece of paper and a pen.

He drew a squiggled line diagonally across the page and wrote "l'Arc" to signify the river Arc that I wanted to fish. "You need a license," he said. And I knew that. "Then you need a permit." That, too, I understood. At the top of the diagonal he drew a small circle and wrote Bonneval-sur-Arc. Spaced evenly across the line he drew five more circles to represent the sequential villages downstream of Bonneval-sur-Arc: Bessans, Lanslevillard, Lanslebourg-Mont-Cenis, Termignon, and Sollières-Sardières.

In a tone that seemed to indicate waning patience he said, "If you want to fish around Bessans, you need a permit from the commune of Bessans. If you want to fish around Lanslevillard then you buy a permit from Lanslevillard. You want to fish here in Mont-Cenis? I can sell you a permit. Comprendre?"

"Oui," I said. "Je comprends." I understood that within a twelve mile stretch of river, six communes each play a part, at least on a superficial level, of managing and regulating sport fishing within their tiny dominion. How much management each commune is charged with I don't know, though it appears at least to be some, for example, Bessans and their ability to close their section of the river for unknown reasons.

I thought about six distinct communes in a short stretch of river playing the game of fisheries management and I cringed. Then I understood that my increased state of frustrated confusion was directly related to my decreased chances of rewarding days throwing flies. I purchased my license and left the hotel. "Bonne pêche," I was told, and I thought I would first need better luck.

I opted to fish the area around the village of Termignon. Why? Because the smaller Ruisseau River flows into the Arc at the village of Termignon and the ability to fish a second river might help my odds. Also, just below the village is another mysterious "no kill," catch and release section. This I was told by the cutest of the three tourist office attendants I visited that day. And, unlike Italy, the catch and release section was available at no additional cost. "Bonne pêche," she said. And by noon I was ready to fish.

Though the day was as sunny as it had been in three days, the temperatures were significantly cooler and a cold wind whipped up canyon. Casting was a challenge. So was catching fish. The upriver limit of the no kill zone is positioned curiously at some sort of masonry mill and I can only imagine the industrial fallout, not to mention the disruption of the riverbed, that flows downstream. I spent two hours beating the water without a single strike.

Back at the car I ate lunch and tried to think what it was I was doing wrong. Another fisherman approached, the first I had seen the whole trip. He was French, a French fly fisherman, in fact. He asked how I was doing. "Très mal." He laughed. He asked what kind of flies I was using. I showed him the usual suspects of mostly nymphs. "Yes, those are good," he said. "Must be the wind."

"Where are you from," he asked, and I could sense the recurring pattern.

"Ah," he said. "There is wonderful fishing there. You won't find fish like that here. The rivers in France are very poor." This last sentence he spoke in English and though syntactically awkward made precise sense. I sighed and drove up the Ruisseau.

Another series of perfect pools; another stretch of pretty water that should by anyone's account hold plenty of small to medium-sized trout. Instead, it was another two hours of failure. By that time the wind turned cold and the sun's warmth was blocked by the peaks to the west. I was tired and more than a little disappointed.

Back at camp I could feel a chill coming on and my body start to ache. I needed to warm up and I needed to rest, so I laid in the remaining sunlight and tried to nap. Not five minutes passed before another one of the Savoyard types (barrel chest, short and stout, square head like a steer) burst into camp. "Bonjour," he said. In Western Europe, no matter how much trouble you're about to find yourself in, you can always count on a formal and polite introduction.

From there the conversation degraded. I couldn't understand everything but with enough hand gestures, a raised voice, and what French I know I surmised that he wanted me out of there immediately and that what I was doing was illegal. I asked why and he said something about a communal forest. I thought that if camping wasn't allowed maybe there should be a sign that says as much. "Oui," he said. "There is one." And he waved randomly off into the forest. Well, no, there wasn't one because before settling on my spot I drove along the roads looking specifically for signs to tell me I couldn't do what I wanted to do. I didn’t see any of those signs and there are plenty of those or other similar signs in Europe.

There was nothing I could do or wanted to do. He kept slapping his wrist and talking about calling the police and I assumed his wrist slap symbolized handcuffs I would wear as I was escorted to la prison. I didn't argue but stood up slowly and prepared to leave. He stomped out of camp, told me he'd be back in fifteen minutes, and drove away in his green Forêt Communale van. The scene was ridiculous but to argue would not have helped.

~~Roy Rogers & the Sons of the Pioneers: Blue Shadows on the Trail~~

My trip was over. I entertained the thought of staying, scrambling around for some hole-in-the-wall dugout. The Maurienne Valley was probably on high alert for a rouge camper by then and anyway I was beat, defeated, tired, and on the brink of some sort of sickness. I felt I had crossed a psycho-physio threshold and even the possibility of turning things around and somehow catching a bucketful of trout the next day held no interest for me. By eight o'clock that evening I was on the road home. By midnight I was asleep. The next morning I had a fever and body aches.

There are times when my life seems to roll by at breakneck speed. The weeks and months prior to the last trip of the summer felt that way. Times that you would like to slow down in order to savor the moment. Times that move so fast that you don't have time to realize you are not savoring the moment. Times you wish you could repeat again.

The Franco-Italian fishing and camping trip was not one of those times. The clock pushed forward at an alarmingly slow pace. Every movement, every bend in the road, every cast of the fly rod seemed like a moment stuck in time. This summation tells me that I worked awfully hard for very little reward and if it felt like I wasn't getting anywhere it was because, in fact, I wasn't getting anywhere. Every hour felt like three and the action-packed rejuvenation of college-era road trips I wanted to relive never materialized.

I wouldn't say I regretted the trip. I traversed (by car) three significant passes, caught three fish, ate one excellent lunch, tried several new wines, traveled through unknown country, and listened to music that always leaves me satisfied and happy. I swam a memorable river and I spoke in a different language about fly fishing to total strangers. Apart from the car and the tent I spent almost an entire week outside. I appreciate that. I also appreciate that I've camped and fished in some of the most beautiful and empty places in the world. The fly rod and the tent are back in the storage den and they probably won’t be used for some time to come. I will appreciate the next time I'm able to break them out for a good reason.

~~Tex Williams: That's What I Like About the West~~

Ten Years and a Day

2011-09-12T09:07:00.003+02:00

~~Joe Henry: God Only Knows~~

Ten Years After

2011-09-11T09:01:00.001+02:00

~~Radiohead & George W. Bush: The Gloaming (DJ Shadow Remix)~~

On the Road to Find Out 4

2011-09-06T12:00:00.003+02:00

(Continued from Part 3.)

"Are we going hiking again?"

"No Hank, we're not going hiking."

Only three days after returning from the hinterlands we packed the car again and hit the highway. Far from the maddening mountains, away from cattle and cane, this time we were headed for sunnier shores. We were to meet friends of ours traveling from Chile at Lake Como. They had been skipping around Spain and Italy for three weeks and had worked their way up to Lombardy from all points south. Though los padres were traveling sin niñas we haven't seen them for almost three years. Como was the place of choice to reunite.

The place on Lake Como to meet was a place called Bellagio. Now, I've been to the Bellagio casino in Las Vegas and it seemed strange to me that the Italians thought to replicate something like that in their own country. I always figured them to have better taste but I guess I'll have to reconsider.

As it turns out, they didn't even copy it very well. I mean, I guess the natural lake mimics the nine acre, manmade pond that taps water from an aquifer that was once used to irrigate a golf course in the middle of a desert. Fine. I didn't see a single giant water fountain, though, that dances to the music of Whitney Houston, Lee Greenwood, Celine Dion, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. In fact, there wasn’t much noise of any kind. And I don't know where they tucked the Eiffel Tower away but it was nowhere in sight for our entire trip. Nope, from the start I could tell this was going to be a different kind of vacation, one without gambling or prostitutes or gold-plated stretch Hummers. As soon as I reconciled I was ready to enjoy myself.

~~Indian Bingo: Dream Away~~

We've been in these parts before, Italy, that is, not Vegas, and without either the Chileans or a seven year-old. Also, not exactly Lago di Como, but two lakes to the west at Lago Maggiore. Back in 1995 we hitchhiked through the area and I pulled out the journal to find out what I thought of the place.

30 April 1995

Cannobio, Italy

A definite negative aspect to hitchhiking is never having any time to read or write. You're always moving, always busy, always active. Apart from that, you can't beat it.
--------------------

So we left Switzerland headed for Northern Italy. Our first ride took us from Sursee to Luzern; nice man, friendly. Our second ride turned out to be a whole day's experience in itself. We were picked up by Gabrielle, a 23 yr. old construction worker from the Ticino area of South Swiss, who enjoyed punk rock (original punk), driving incredibly fast, and new experiences. He drove us about an hour and a half to his city. He didn't speak German; the people of this area speak Italian, French, sometimes German. Wendy spoke in Spanish to him the whole way. I tried to understand and threw in a few bad French phrases here and there. We had a great time. We laughed a lot and really enjoyed the company. We exchanged beers at his town before he dropped us off.

It took us another four rides to reach the town of Cannobio. We are camped close to the Lake Maggiore, a huge lake in both Switzerland and Italy. It's very beautiful.
--------------------

Last night we ate the obligatory pizza and drank red wine. While mine was not quite what I had in mind--a combination of black olives, capers, some very salty, very fishy, sardine-type thing, and garlic. It was too strong and not very satisfying. We walked around the modified cobblestone streets, walked down by the lakefront, walked through the town.
--------------------

It rained all last night. The American Camper held up adequately enough but it was still frustrating to know that the tent, parts of our sleeping bags, and various other things would all be soaked the next morning. Wendy couldn't sleep because of this frustration. I don't know if a better tent would help or not. It is pretty depressing to feel drops of water on your head only an hour after the rain starts. We chose to stay here again tonight. I feel like I could spend my whole life in a small Italian town like this.

Tomorrow we head southwest toward France.

What is that proverb? The more things change the more they remain in a constant state of change? Something like that. For the record, I am now completely sold on olive, caper, garlic, and anchovy pizzas. It's still beautiful there, Lake Como and Lake Maggiore. Still rains from time to time and whether you have a cheap tent or a cheap hotel room you can still find yourself a little wet.

~~The Flaming Lips: It Was a Very Good Year~~

To hitchhike in your twenties assumes that you do it because while you want to travel you really can't afford to, so paying for transportation isn't an option. It's true that 16 years ago we had very little money but a big desire to see as much of Eastern and Western Europe as we could on something like twenty dollars a day. We slept in a cheap tent bought at an American military PX in Germany, ate very little food, traveled by our thumbs, and accepted anything offered to us from the kindness of strangers. As a payoff, we now own a cache abundant with vivid stories and memories.

To travel in your forties with a small family assumes that you can afford a roof over your head and a decent meal now and again. In Italy, even without much money you can easily find good food. Throw a few more euros into the pot and the quality to price ratio increases substantially.

In addition to food, traveling on less of a budget means that along with a decent meal you can afford a decent drink of wine served in its very own bottle. One of the smartest things I did on the trip that I'll take complete credit for was to walk into the cave (both the hole in the ground and storage cellar type) of Aperitivo. Browsing in the back room I managed to dig up a mini-flight of Cà del Bosco Curtefranca Bianco.

Cà del Bosco is in Lombardy, the same geographic region as Lake Como, but specifically in the Italian wine appellation of Franciacorta. Wines made in Franciacorta are mostly of the Champagne-styled bubbly type and Cà del Bosco is the undisputed leader in Italian sparkling wine. In fact, Cà del Bosco is so good at their craft that in 2002 the influential Italian food and wine journal, Gambero Rosso, named Cà del Bosco winery of the year.

Cà del Bosco also makes still wines and what I uncovered was a small stash of a seemingly simple Chardonnay and Pinot Blanc blend called Curtefranca. For whatever reason, Aperitivo was holding a couple bottles each of the 1993, 1996, and 1997 vintages. I'm a sucker for good white wine and I'm little crazy for white wines with the ability to age. While Chardonnay fits that requirement Pinot Blanc is not especially known for its aging abilities, but for 35 euros I had to give one a try. Crisp, a pale to straw yellow, and with plenty of acidity to sustain it, at 15 years old this wine could easily pass for aged Chablis. Delicious. Aperitivo's inventory of these wines is now down to a bottle or two. Thank you, me.

~~Lotion: Fly Me to the Moon~~

I suppose there is more to life than food and wine but at the moment I can't remember what they are. Ah, yes, children and friends! They seemed to do well on the trip, too.

Henry kept busy and happy directing tourist boats and swimming whenever and wherever he could.

Los Chilenos kept busy and happy by taking a trip to Milan to visit family from the Old World; taking boat rides across the lake to other villages not so influenced by Las Vegas; demanding that I drive them to Lake Como's capital, Como, on a hot Sunday; and otherwise indulging me in my whims to duck into wine bars and eat long, expensive lunches. They're good people, those Chileans.

The welcome party in Varenna:

The Monumento ai Caduti in Como, a monument to Italian soldiers killed in World War One, and an example of Rationalist-Fascist architecture:

Another nice, albeit mellow trip. No, there was no hiking and very little rain. No prostitutes. Not even George Clooney for that matter. Just several pretty days surrounded by good friends and family, nice scenery, and enough activities to keep stomachs satiated, heads light, and bodies content. More reasons to be thankful we live where we live, do what we do, and are cognizant enough to take the time to enjoy it all. In that respect, it doesn't get much better than Lake Como. Maybe Las Vegas could learn a thing or two from a place like this after all.

~~Swell: I've Got the World on a String~~

(Continue to Part 5.)

Photo Credits:
Fake Bellagio

On the Road to Find Out 3

2011-08-31T10:14:00.005+02:00

(Continued from Part 2.)

With only a few days to spare after returning from Lucca, the family--this time the whole family including Hazel Dickens and Annabelle Lee--hit the road again. The itinerary was short and fast and would eventually turn a bit intense. We were to drive to Luzern and overnight with our long-time friends Monika and Christen. From there we would take the train to Engelberg, the bus to the Luftseilbahn that would take us up to the Fürenalp. From the Fürenalp we'd hike a few hours up valley and stay overnight at the Blackenalp. The next day we would continue up the valley and cross the Surenenpass which would take us along a lengthy ridgeline to the enclave of Brüsti. From there, natürlich, we would take a cable car back down to Attinghausen, bus into Altdorf, and then take a train back to Luzern. Kein problem! Genau.

Saturday was perfect. The day pretty much summarized everything that you imagine as Switzerland: blue skies, a few puffy white clouds, green alpine pastures and valleys, melting glaciers, blonde children, happy dogs. Fresh milk. That sort of thing.

~~Akron/Family: The Alps & Their Orange Evergreen~~

For the most part the day progressed as planned. We were excited for Hank who, though he has been hiking for a few years now, hasn't been on an overnight backpacking trip, albeit a backpacking trip without much in your backpack as well as the benefit of a roof over your head, full meals, and a bar waiting for you at the end of the day. We meandered, stopped for a picnic, and spent the first day at a leisurely pace.

At about the halfway point we heard a kind of scream, a maniacal yell of sorts, that finally and completely took our minds and bodies off the busy streets of Luzern, away from the hordes of tourists in Engelberg, and even far from the beer-drinking, sausage-eating crowds who would venture no farther than the restaurant at the top of the Fürenalp. The maniacal yell sounded something like this and was followed by the sound of a giant zipper opening above our heads and for the next 36 hours or so contemporary Switzerland would remain 3,000 feet and at least a hundred years below us.

What sounds totally bizarre in fact is totally bizarre but is also an example of traditional Swiss alpine customs and practices still in action. Turning our heads upward revealed the source of the zip noise: a long cable rising about 1,000 feet from a grassy knoll to a higher, less accessible notch of a pasture at the top of a cliff band. Hovering above us, riding the cable down to the knoll, was a hand cut bale of hay. The maniacal yell was a fairly typical call of an alpine herdsman used, in this case, as a warning that a new hay bale was being released from above.

Another two hours brought us to our destination for the night: the Blackenalp. An alp is a remote working farm used primarily in the summer by a herdsman and his helpers. It also doubles and triples as an inn for trekkers as well as a place to find a hot meal and a cold drink. Included with the price of a bed is dinner and breakfast the following morning. Switzerland and the rest of the Alpine countries are so dotted with these inns, chalets, huts, and/or refuges that it's possible to link up an entire summer of crossing up and over high altitude passes and country borders without ever dropping down into the valleys to stock up on supplies. It's a great way to experience the (semi) solitude of backpacking without packing quite as much stuff on your back.

The Blackenalp consists of a barn equipped with milking stalls--used twice daily--a main building with upstairs room for maybe thirty travelers, a large dining room, large kitchen and workspace for cheese and butter production, and a partially buried cellar for all things dairy. Separated from the main buildings on a grassy knoll is a small chapel (room for twelve) whose bells are rung every night as a show of appreciation for the day's work.

The smell of rich, grassy milk permeates the Blackenalp and, indeed, is the reason for its existence. Though the herdsman watches over a total of about 500 head of livestock, split between cows and calves, steers, and sheep, the profits from milk, cheese, and butter go straight into the his pocket. Income is also generated through money collected from trekkers for room and board and additional sales of food and drink. The bulk of the herdsman's income, however, is paid to him by a local cooperative of livestock owners who hire him to tend their animals for the summer. The Blackenalp itself is under the ownership of the cooperative who, in turn, lease their high valley pastures from the State. Not a money-making proposition--at least for the herdsman and his assistants--but this is also why so many traditional customs, practices, and rituals still persist.

For example, there are few things more traditional than the food the alpine herdsmen eat and for our night's stay at the Blackenalp we were treated to the most traditional of traditional meals: Älplermagronen and fresh Apfelmus!

What else could a person who is surrounded by fresh, flowing milk afford to eat and feed his help that wouldn't significantly cut into his profits? Pasta, potatoes, onions, cheese, butter, and sour cream, of course. Smash a whole bunch of apples that were hauled up on the last supply run and you've got yourself a meal that will fill the belly and knock you down for the night. Wake before dawn, eat a bunch of fresh cheese, butter, and warm bread, wash it down with instant coffee and head out on your four-hour romp around the entire valley to check the livestock. Return to milk the morning cows, work on projects around the property for the afternoon, then leave again for a second four-hour trip around the valley. As soon as the second check is completed the evening cows need milked. At dusk the Älplermagronen and Apfelmus is placed on the dinner table, devoured, and followed by more instant coffee and a glass or two of schnapps. The day's work is done; the life of a Swiss herdsman is a series of ancient rituals.

The next morning we said goodbye to the Blackenalp under cooler temperatures and a changing sky. Within a half-hour a light mist fell and it appeared that we wandered out of Switzerland and straight into the Scottish Highlands.

For the rest of the day the clouds and rain would not lift and would only grow in intensity once we crossed over the Surenenpass and walked toward Brüsti. Pretty, but with a seven year-old to keep happy and positive, constant rain quickly loses its appeal.

Two hours of climbing took us to the Surenenpass. It was here, less than halfway through the day, when the skies opened up in earnest. We took a quick break in the Schutzhütte before launching into another three hours of non-stop rain.

~~The Lovin' Spoonful: Rain on the Roof~~

I kept the Lovin' Spoonful on a constant loop in my head. This helped keep the bad spirits away. But it wasn't me I was worried about. Hank did well going down off the pass and even for a while on the long ridgeline to the Brüsti. Five hours of walking in the rain is a lot to ask of a seven year-old--hell, it's a lot to ask of a 42 year-old. Without a tree in sight, without any more huts to take shelter for a while, moods inevitably deteriorate. And they did. And it was difficult.

Persevere he did and eventually we made it to Brüsti and the Berggasthaus Z'graggen was open and the tears stopped falling. Henry drank the two best hot chocolates of his life, his parents and friends drank eight or so Kaffee fertigs (coffee and schnapps), and we rested an hour before the cable car took us back to the lowlands.

In Altdorf we waited for a bus (in the rain) in the city's main plaza. Altdorf is home to the great Swiss patriot and assassin, William Tell. William the brave. William the bold. William the expert marksman. William who broke the rules and was forced to shoot an apple off his son's head for doing so. He did (natürlich!) and was sent to jail for his feat. In a storm on Lake Lucerne he escaped his captors and returned to assassinate the tyrannical Austrian overlord, Albrect Gessler. William's defiance and bravery started a rebellion in the Canton of Uri that eventually led to the formation of the Swiss Confederation. Pretty dramatic stuff though a distant memory from the quiet as a mouse, passively aggressive Switzerland of today.

As is the case with any good legend, the legend of William Tell doesn't quite match the history records. William Tell could have been a real person; he also could have been an amalgamation of several people. The William Tell legend belongs to a group of mostly German, Scandinavian, Danish, English, and even Balkan folk legends that the folklorist Stith Thompson gathered together in the famous Motif Index under the title "Skilful marksman shoots apple from man's head." What this means is that legends with different characters and place names but similar in that they all contain the "apple-shot" motif had been circulating orally for hundreds of years before surfacing in central Switzerland with William Tell as the hero and the Austrian Habsburg overlord as the villain.

Does that mean that William Tell didn't exist? No. Does that mean that he didn't perform the actions according to the legend? No. What it usually means is that over time, starting in the mid-15th century, at least some if not all of the storyline has been altered or modified to meet the cultural, political, and social values of the Swiss citizens. The fact that a statue stands in the middle of Altdorf and stories continue to circulate demonstrates that the legend of William Tell is still a narrative depiction of Swiss values and effects the way the Swiss view themselves in relation to others.

No matter. At five o'clock on a Sunday evening, soaked to the bone and with the rain still falling, even I wasn't that interested in how a 500 year-old legend still determines the value system of a small European country. All we wanted was a warm shower, dry clothes, and a hot meal. In three hours time those tasks were complete. In five hours we were driving back to Geneva.

At some point along the way, Fred Neil played from a compilation CD I had in the stereo. The weather had cleared (natürlich) and in front of us the last brilliant sliver of bright orange hung on to the far western tops of the Jura Mountains. It was a bright, deep, rich orange, the kind of sunset that only appears after an all-day cleansing of the atmosphere. The rest of the family, including the dogs, had long since passed out and I was left alone to the end of a beautiful day and the voice of Fred Neil.

~~Fred Neil: Little Bit of Rain~~

(Continue to Part 4.)

On the Road to Find Out 2

2011-08-23T09:10:00.030+02:00

(Continued from Part 1.)

Lucca. Lucca, Italy. Lucca, Italy is in Tuscany. Tuscany is pretty. Like most cities in Italy, Lucca is an old city. Lucca is also a walled city.

That's about all I knew about Lucca before dropping down that way and about all I know about Lucca now. But a two week flurry of activity passed after visiting the Beaujolais and I knew we needed a break. Two weeks of the end of school year busyness and, for me, the end of a job that should have been wrapped up a month earlier. The end of June culminated with a storm of schedules and commitments and obligations and I wanted none of it, so in a period of about 36 hours the decision was made, an apartment rented, the car packed, and Hank and I headed for Lucca.

~~Burt Bacharach: Come Touch the Sun~~

Lucca was chosen almost randomly. Some friends of ours chose Lucca as a place to stay for a week after some sort of giant birthday bash they threw for each other up north in the Piedmont. The possibility of seeing friends, an apartment with a pool, and a New York Times article about how Lucca is the epicenter of Tuscan cuisine were enough reasons to fill the gas tank and go. And in a long and groggy blink of an eye we arrived.

Dad's tired feet and one happy swimmer:

With the first plunge out of the way we settled in on finding some Lucchese cuisine. Instead, we found pizza and a wine bar that served cold appetizers and wine from the tank. Close enough.

The food experiences continued positively but nothing like the Piedmont, Rome, or even meals I've had in the Aosta. With a seven year-old in tow I knew I couldn't expect too much; three-hour meals don't sit well with a boy who has difficulties giving a slice of pizza the time and focus it deserves.

I wanted to dedicate at least one lunch to eating well so using the New York Times article I chose La Mora, the best of the best. With map in hand, Hank and I drove out to Ponte a Moriano, a small commune about 15 kilometers from Lucca. The day was hot and when we arrived the town was deserted. I knew we were running late though still ahead of the two o'clock closing hour for lunch service. But the doors to La Mora were locked, the blinds drawn, and I feared we'd be eating the ubiquitous doner kebabs back in town. Luckily, just down the road from La Mora, the doors of the Antica Locanda di Sesto trattoria were still open. Lunch was saved.

The meal was excellent: house raviolis stuffed with truffles and walnuts; marinated anchovies with white beans; sheep's milk cheeses from the region; even Hank's spaghetti pomodoro was "the best ever!" The family run trattoria operates within a building that dates back to 1368. In addition to the restaurant, the Barattini family makes their own olive oil, small batches of wine, sheep's milk cheese, and cured meats. Plus, they couldn't be friendlier.

As for La Mora, its story is not as positive. I was informed that after a difficult period two years ago that saw several changes in chefs, the celebrated and beloved owner took his own life somewhere near the quiet river that flows close to town. Lamberto Barattini told me it was a shock and great tragedy for the entire community. La Mora will not reopen.

~~Cilla Black: Alfie~~

The following day, the proprietor of the villa, a stocky, handsome Sicilian, pointed out some deer grazing in a lower meadow. "Sometimes," he said, "you also see wild boar running through there."

"Wild boar," I said. "Those make for good eating."

"You like eating boar? Would you like to eat boar? I could make you a reservation at a restaurant very close to here. It is an honest place and not so expensive. You can eat wild boar."

An honest place. I wasn't totally sure what the Sicilian meant by that but I liked the idea. I also liked the idea of eating boar.

Later that day I was given a hand drawn map to the honest place. This consisted of two lines that formed an upside down 'y' on the page. The short end represented the road that led to the villa. At the intersection was an arrow that pointed off the page toward Lucca. The long side squiggled up the page and ended at a small box that read Mariano. This was the restaurant. The squiggly line signaled a drive up a winding road in the foothills until you saw the restaurant. "There is a sign along the road," said the Sicilian, "you can't miss it."

By a single squiggly line he meant a single road with many opportunities to take wrong turns at other junctions not represented on the map. By a sign he meant a small, hand-painted board tucked into some brush at a bend in the road that you could easily pass. By a restaurant he meant someone's backyard with enough altitude that it faced the other side of Lucca's hills toward Viareggio and the Mediterranean Sea. Perfect.

The light was blinding, the day's heat waning. At 7:30 pm we were only the second table but by the time we left at 10:00 the backyard was full.

The tables were the green plastic kind and off-kilter. The wine list consisted of a white and a red made somewhere on the hilltop and served in large carafes and heavy water glasses. The entrance to the kitchen was the back entrance to the house and doubled as a workspace for the garden. You could hear the dishwasher running and the conversations of the women inside while they cooked the night's meals and cleaned up afterwards. It was an honest place.

The food, like everything else, was sincere and generous. It will never compete for the one Michelin star left after the demise of La Mora but it will never pretend to, either. It was the kind of food you would expect to eat while relaxing in someone's backyard in the Tuscan foothills watching the sun go down on the Mediterranean. Probably most things were grown, raised, hunted, and foraged within close proximity to the restaurant. The tomatoes were some of the reddest and richest I've ever eaten. The limoncello was neon green from the fresh laurel, oregano, and sage infused into the drink. Everything reflected sunshine.

The next morning we found our only neighbors, a Dutch family who has spent the last seven years staying at the same villa for three weeks at a time. They had a son two years younger than Hank and a daughter of the same age. Thus began the summer love affair that included rescuing tiny frogs every morning that fell into the pool, shared art projects, and making do with different languages.

From the parents I learned more about the city in 30 minutes than I had the entire 36 hours of planning our vacation. For example, Lucca holds an outdoor Summer Music Festival every year in the center of the city. Yes, Martin thought, the festival should have started already. A quick search on his computer-phone-communicator thingy told us that, in fact, there was a concert the next day. Burt Bacharach. Would I like to go? The week was sealed.

~~Chuck Jackson: Any Day Now (My Wild Beautiful Bird)~~

I like Burt Bacharach's music. I didn't hesitate to buy tickets. I never thought about seeing Burt Bacharach live and, truth be told, I wouldn't have gone out of my way to see a show. He's a composer and not as well known as a performer. But of course we went. It was Burt Bacharach playing with a full band and three singers in the middle of an ancient Etruscan city. Yes, we went. No, they didn't allow cameras.

In short, Burt was great. Burt is old but his songs don't age. He started with a few medleys and I was worried for a Las Vegas-style revue. Then gears changed and the three vocalists--Josie James, John Pagano, and Donna Taylor--took turns fleshing out full songs. The vocalists then took a break while Burt and his band played a half-hour's worth of film music. The vocalists returned for another hour or so and an additional two encores. In total, Burt (I call him Burt) played for close to three hours, not bad for an 83 year-old.

There was a point toward the end of the concert when Burt played the piano and sang, without any other accompaniment, the sweetly philosophical "Alfie." Though his 83 year-old voice struggled in the higher register, the song, both music and lyrics, was delivered with wistful and delicate beauty. Sitting in Lucca's Piazza Napoleone under the clear, warm, July sky, with Hank falling asleep on my lap, I couldn't have imagined a better way to experience the relief of contentment.

~~Herb Alpert: This Guy's in Love With You~~

(Continue to Part 3.)

On the Road to Find Out 1

2011-08-18T10:13:00.024+02:00

This is a tale of a summer. It was a summer of many travels with several different stages. Five stages, to be exact. The five staged summer was a summer of friends, a summer of family, a summer of solitude. It's been a cool summer and I'm grateful for that. It's been less stressful, less heartbreaking than last summer, and I'm grateful for that, too.

It's been a long, busy, and generally good summer. As always, it taught me about expectations, as in trying not to have them. Also, I've learned a lesson or two about spontaneity, as in act that way more often. Up, down, back, and forth, it's been the summer of the road more traveled.

~~Cat Stevens: On the Road to Find Out~~

It started in the Beaujolais, a wine region I never thought much about before moving within three hours of it. Then, thanks to Roy Cloud and his company Vintage '59, I tasted the 2005 Domaine du Pavillon de Chavannes Cuvée des Ambassades from the Côte de Brouilly and all my wrongs were righted. There was none of the sweet, candy-fruited juice that makes its way over to the American shores in the form of Beaujolais Nouveau or the mass marketed Georges Duboeuf wines. This was a wine borne from the limestone and granite soil it was raised in and the soft sunshine that presses down upon its hillsides. It's pretty, it's elegant, its tannins are fine and chalky. It's versatile with food and, as the six year-old bottle attested, it's able to age. My interest was piqued, appointments were made, and so began the summer.

~~Merle Haggard: Little Ole Wine Drinker Me~~

Domaine du Pavillon de Chavannes couldn't see us so we made a cold call to another vigneron whose wines I've been digging: Clos de la Roilette located in the appellation of Fleurie.

Big, juicy, but fine tuned and earthy, these wines are excellent examples of the complexity of Gamay when left in the hands of an artist. Alain Coudert opened several bottles of the Clos cuvée (2007, 2009, 2010) two vintages of the Cuvée Tardive--a selected blend of old vines aged partially in oak foudres, or large casks--and an even smaller production and otherwise unavailable wine called the Griffe du Marquis, literally Claw of the Nobleman. The grapes for the Griffe du Marquis come from a single parcel, are aged in smaller casks, and exhibit an earthiness or sauvage more commonly seen in the big brother region to the north, Burgundy. Excellent, all.

Next we headed back to the Côte de Brouilly and the beautiful estate of Claude and Evelyne Geoffray at Château Thivin. Claude took us on a complete tour of the place before sitting us down at a table with bread, local chevre and sausage, and several vintages and different cuvées--the estate cuvée, Cuvée Zacharie, and Les Griottes de Brulhie.

More elegant, more pretty, and more structured than the wines of Clos de la Roilette, we probably should have tried the Thivin wines first. We still walked out of there with several cases under our arms (and a couple older vintage magnums!) and were ready to start the second part of the journey: the eats.

Night #1 took us to the decidedly uncrowded Les Platanes de Chénas in the village of Les Deschamps. Night #2 was spent at L'Atelier du Cuisinier in Villié-Morgon, a decidedly more crowded but no less delicious bistro where we dined on, among other things, bone marrow, snails, and frogs.

Walking and driving narrow country roads filled the rest of the trip. Not a moment was wasted. Technically, summer was still two weeks away when schools would empty and roads would fill. We jumped the gun a bit and were luckier for it. The villages were quiet with a looming air of anticipation. For the time being the Beaujolais felt like ours for the asking, which seems appropriate as it was a wine region I previously ignored. Not now and no more, however. We quietly slid away before the rest of the world descended.

(Continue to Part 2.)

The Sound of Sight 29

2011-08-13T10:44:00.004+02:00

~~Del Reeves: Looking at the World Through a Windshield~~

The Sound of Sight 28

2011-08-03T13:08:00.004+02:00

~~The Kingsbury Manx: Animations~~

Swissness

2011-07-31T10:43:00.001+02:00

Happy 720th birthday Switzerland!

My, my, you've come a long way. What have you learned in your 720 years? How is the Switzerland today different from the Switzerland of yore? Well, as the old saying goes, you can tell a lot about a country by reading their dress code manuals. The following was taken from the July 2011 issue of Harper's Magazine.

(From a forty-three-page dress code given to employees of Swiss bank UBS last year. Translated from the French by Anthony Lydgate.)

In general, a blouse is worn with a jacket. When it gets very hot and you have received approval from your immediate superior, you many wear just a blouse with pants or skirt.

The scarf must always be folded and tied with the knot oriented not down but, as much as possible, up and to the left.

Under no circumstances should the point of your tie enter your pants.

To improve your comfort, you may use "Party-Feet" silicone inserts, for example when you walk on hard surfaces.

Allow your shoes a respite equivalent to twice the time of their use.

The wearing of ultra-trendy glasses is not allowed. Also see to it that your jewelry matches the metallic color of your frames.

A man who wears a watch conveys reliability and a great concern for punctuality.

Light day makeup composed of foundation, mascara, and discreet lipstick goes well with the dress code and will highlight your personality.

The skin being our primary item of clothing, we recommend that you protect it by applying a nourishing, soothing cream.

Never massage an area where you have applied perfume, as this can destroy its molecules.

Studies have shown that a stylish, immaculate haircut considerably raises individuals' likeability.

Every little hair that grows on the body has a function. The eyebrows protect the eyes from sweat and the eyelashes keep out dust and little insects. Stray facial hairs, however, upset one's overall look and ought to be avoided.

Never wear shoes that are too small for you: there's nothing worse than a pinched smile.

Apparently, UBS CEO Oswald J. Grübel didn't read the manifesto. Maybe the UBS employees could pool some funds and buy Oz a larger pair of shoes.

To observe a country through their dress codes, though, is possibly too limited. I mean, not everyone in Switzerland is a banker, some are even lawyers, and you haven't seen racy until you've stepped into a Swiss courtroom. Maybe we need to widen our scope and look at the politics that run the country. Then we'll have a better idea of the current state of the nation.

The increasingly popular Swiss People's Party (SVP in German, or UDC in French) issued the following internet ad campaign late last year.

The ad is offensive on several levels but let's stick to the intended message: In 2010, Lake Zürich (Zürisee) is clean and pure and encourages white-skinned women with many different hair colors to rub their butts on its shore before standing hand in hand and wading into its water. If mass immigration isn't stopped, and I mean, like, today, in twenty years time Lake Zürich will transform into a filthy bathtub for countless overweight, Muslim, gypsy (Roma), and North African women.

An official political party only since 1971, the SVP's roots dig back to the early 1930s when it sought to represent farmers and other rural Swiss citizens. Until the 1990s (Wait, when was the war in the Balkans that produced the Yugoslav diaspora?) the party maintained a modest popularity percentage and minimal political influence. With the help of billionaire Christoph Blocher, the SVP is now the most powerful political party in the country, owning some 58 out of 200 seats in the National Assembly.

These days, besides giving the finger to the EU and trying to repeal the Schengen Agreement, the SVP builds higher and higher mountains (read: walls) around Swiss borders. Publicly, this takes the form of political posters that frighten, intimidate, and forebode the future of Switzerland if it continues to allow, among other things, loose immigration standards.

Examples include the fuzzy white sheep kicking out fuzzy black sheep:

Then there are evil black ravens that peck away and abuse the country (notice the Clear Channel company tag at the top of the billboard):

Next we have several beige to black hands freely grabbing highly desired and extremely difficult to obtain red Swiss passports out of a box:

Will Ivan the rapist soon be Swiss?

And the granddaddy of them all, the one that helped influence the 57% vote to ban the construction of new minarets:

On this last poster it's important to keep in mind that while Switzerland is home to about 400,000 Muslims, about the same number as in New Jersey but with a land mass of about twice the size, there is a grand total of four minarets. Four, and there will be no more.

Tricky times for a country as old as the hills. Problem is, for a country that would like to see itself as clear and clean as the water in Lake Zürich, that would like to convey "reliability and a great concern for punctuality," Switzerland is far from homogenous. With four official languages (German, French, Italian, and Romansh) and an infinite number of dialects, diversity has been implicit from the very beginning.

Switzerland claims the highest portion of permanent foreign residents in Europe (22%), two-thirds of whom come from other European countries. Islam accounts for the largest religious minority which is roughly one-twentieth of the total population. If ethnicity, language, and religious beliefs form the core of a unified country then Switzerland is less a nation in the geographical sense than a collection of citizens with similar values and assumptions living within a vaguely demarcated land area. Probably, the shrewd Schweizer would say just that: Yes! That is exactly what we are fighting for: Swiss values!

What, exactly, are Swiss values?

Back in 1291, members of three tribes from what are now the cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden met at the Rütli meadow and signed an oath of confederacy that eventually became what is known as the Old Swiss Confederacy. When the Federal Charter was created, I can't imagine the citizens had much in common with each other apart from their beards, love of all things lactic, and fear of Tyrannosaurus rex or whatever else hunted them. And in 2011, besides one of the strongest currencies in the world, what does an Italo-Romansh speaker in mountainous Ticino have in common with a Swiss-German speaker in agricultural Schaffhausen? The same love of dairy products? Definitely. A nice pension plan? Yep. The feeling of being surrounded by an increasingly hostile and out of control European Union? Loneliness?

According to a SVP flyer that appeared in the mailbox recently, what all Swiss citizens have in common at the moment is a problem with mass immigration. According to the flyer:

Nous avons néanmoins perdu notre autodétermination dans un domaine important: la Suisse a abandonné progressivement au fil des années passées le contrôle de l’immigration des étrangères et étrangers. Nous voyons et ressentons tous les jours les effets de ce développement: routes bouchées et transports publics bondés, difficulté croissante de trouver un logement et, partant, prix excessifs des loyers. Nombre de Suissesses et de Suisses ne peuvent plus payer des locations aussi élevées. La concurrence sur le marché du travail est de plus en plus rude. Les immigrants en provenance de l’UE évincent dans plusieurs branches les ressortissants d’Etats tiers qui tombent ensuite à la charge de notre système social. La criminalité étrangère et les abus dans le droit d’asile font partie du quotidien.

A rough translation tells us that Switzerland has lost its self-determination in one important area: the Swiss have gradually abandoned immigration control of foreigners and strangers. Every day, Switzerland sees and feels the effects of this predicament: clogged roads and crowded public transport, increased difficulty finding housing and, thus, excessive rents. Swiss citizens can no longer afford such high rents. Competition in the labor market is increasingly fierce. Immigrants from several areas in the EU displace third-country nationals who then become expenses of the social system. Foreign crime and abuse are part of everyday life. End of rough translation.

The story goes that the mountain people from Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden joined forces part and parcel to protect themselves from the Habsburgs running rampant through the countryside. In a sense, they formed their pact out of fear. Fear of being trounced by someone else and assimilated into something not within their own control. Today, the Swiss are asked once again to join forces in order to stop an outbreak of immigrants with, apparently, values much different than those of the multi-lingual, multi-ethnic nationals. Are the European Union and others not so unionized the Habsburgs of today? Is fear, then, the foundation of the Swiss value system?

If you were to summarize the messages in the series of political posters created by the Swiss People's Party which, of course, is the point of political posters--to pique or alarm the value system of the onlooker--then you might come up with a collection that includes the aforementioned categories of religious beliefs, ethnicity, language, and crime.

What a Swiss citizen wants, perhaps, is a country of Swiss people, a country of white things (either women or sheep), with no more than a few official languages, and maybe one or two religious preferences. You know, the way Switzerland used to be. In addition, there should not be people in Switzerland who commit crimes--crimes of abuse, theft, rape, or violence of any kind.

Those are fairly straightforward values, aren't they? And, you have to admit, if you're going to deal with criminals--and in one way or another we all deal with criminals--you might as well make some decent money off them. Why bother with petty gypsy pickpockets when Muammar Gaddafi, Hosni Mubarak, and Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali are part of your client base? Okay, conceivably a caveat of the Swiss value system is that they are free to pick and choose what value system they would like to value.

In the end, maybe it does come down to dress codes and the way others perceive the Swiss in public. Look good, stay fit, keep your tie out of your pants, match your jewelry with your metallic glasses, and the world won't notice the ripples you make as you wade into that chilly, glacial lake of your ancestors. Out with the burka, in with “Party-Feet”! Out with your minarets, but your bank accounts lend a sophisticated green hue to the pastoral landscapes.

Ripples. Never, never let them see your ripples. Repeat this mantra and there is no doubt that when it comes to raising the likeability of individuals, four sandy bums beat one Ivan the rapist every time.

Then again:

Happy birthday, Switzerland, may you quietly pass the world by for another 720 years. But watch out for that black boot behind you.

Credits:
Oswald J. Grübel
Swiss population statistics
All political poster photos came either from the SVP website or other news affiliations.

The Black Gold of the Sun

2011-07-20T10:23:00.029+02:00

Side A

~~William DeVaughn: Be Thankful for What You Got~~
Be Thankful for What You Got, 1974

War: Don't Let No One Get You Down
Why Can't We Be Friends?, 1975

Sergio Mendes & Brasil '77: After Sunrise
Primal Roots, 1972

Sambalanço Trio: Reza
Improviso Negro, 1965

Lucio Battisti: Anima Latina
Anima Latina, 1974

Billy Stewart: Summertime
One More Time: The Chess Years, 1966

David Axelrod: Holy Thursday
Song of Innocence, 1969

Rotary Connection: I Am the Black Gold of the Sun
Hey Love, 1971

Side B

~~Love: You Set the Scene~~
Forever Changes, 1967

The Zombies: Hung Up On a Dream
Odessey & Oracle, 1968

The Electric Prunes: General Confessional
Release of an Oath, 1968

Up 'n Adam: Rainmaker
Mind Expanders, Vol. 3, 1969

Jack Nitzsche: The Lonely Surfer
The Lonely Surfer, 1963

The Sandals: Theme from the Endless Summer
The Endless Summer OST, 1966

The Beach Boys: Surf's Up
Surf's Up, 1971

Taxi: Campari Soda
Campari Soda single, 1977

Love Unlimited Orchestra: Welcome Aboard [12" version]
CBS 12" Promo, 1981

Watching Windowpanes

2011-06-28T14:30:00.004+02:00

Side A

~~Mickey Newbury: I Don't Think Much About Her No More~~
Looks Like Rain, 1969

Arthur Lee & Love: Five String Serenade
Arthur Lee & Love, 1992

Nina Simone: Lilac Wine
Wild Is the Wind, 1966

Tim Buckley: The River
Blue Afternoon, 1969

Nico: Afraid
Desertshore, 1970

Rainy Day: On the Way Home
Rainy Day, 1984

Ólöf Arnalds: Innundir Skinni
Innundir Skinni, 2010

Nancy Wallace: Sleeping Sickness
Old Stories, 2009

John Cale: Andalucía
Paris 1919, 1973

The Instruments: Early Lights
Dark Småland, 2008

Side B

~~Fairport Convention: Eastern Rain~~
What We Did on Our Holidays, 1968

Joanna Newsom: Does Not Suffice
Have One on Me, 2010

Movietone: 1930s Beach House
The Blossom Filled Streets, 2000

Brian Eno: Some of Them Are Old
Here Come the Warm Jets, 1973

Broadcast: Echo's Answer
The Noise Made by People, 2000

Sam Prekop: A Cloud to the Back
Sam Prekop, 1999

Little April Shower
Bambi OST, 1957

Mulatu Astatqé: Tezeta
Ethiopiques, Vol. 4: Ethio Jazz & Musique Instrumentale, 1969-1974

Literary Skiers 16

2011-06-22T15:09:00.010+02:00

He told me that he'd spent the first twenty years of his life in Sweden, and often I tried to picture him against a crisp Scandinavian landscape. I tried to see him on skis, or living peacefully with his family in some cold mountain village. From the little he said of Sweden I gathered he'd lived in a small town and his parents had been comfortable people with enough money to send him to college in America.

He spent two years at NYU, living in the Village at one of those residence hotels that cater to foreigners. This apparently unhinged him. Once he was arrested on Sixth Avenue, he said, for pissing on a fireplug like a dog. It cost him ten days in the Tombs, and when he got out he left immediately for New Orleans. He floundered there for a while, then got a job on a freighter headed for the Orient. He worked on boats for several years before drifting into journalism. Now, thirty-three years old and looking fifty, his spirit broken and his body swollen with drink, he bounced from one country to another, hiring himself out as a reporter and hanging on until he was fired.

Disgusting as he usually was, on rare occasions he showed flashes of a stagnant intelligence. But his brain was so rotted with drink and dissolute living that whenever he put it to work it behaved like an old engine that had gone haywire from being dipped in lard.

--Hunter S. Thompson, from The Rum Diary, 1959

Photo credits:
Swedish Skiers
Sad Hunter

At the Top of the World

2011-05-28T12:24:00.003+02:00

Lee Hazlewood's last recording was a spoken word piece set to the music of the Icelandic band Amiina. It's a melancholy little song and Lee's grandfatherly, road-weary vocals are perfect. Not found on an official album, the song was released only as a single after Hazlewood's death and has subsequently gone out of print. Apparently, it was played in public for the first time at Lee Hazlewood's memorial service.

The video for the song is the real treat. It's beautifully filmed and mountain-y and snowy enough to be a permanent fixture at Home Is Where Your Skis Is.

The connection between the band and the man isn't quite clear. The original version of the song "Hilli" was recorded for Amiina's first album, Kurr. Hazlewood's lyrics to "At the Top of the World" somehow made it back to them where they re-recorded "Hilli" and added the vocals. In addition, Amiina recorded a version of Hazlewood's "Leather & Lace" from his 1970 album Cowboy in Sweden. All of it good, all of it deserves to be downloaded and put into constant rotation. Have at it and long live Lee Hazlewood!

~~Amiina & Lee Hazlewood: Hilli (At the Top of the World)~~

~~Amiina: Hilli~~

~~Lee Hazlewood & Nina Lizell: Leather & Lace~~

~~Amiina: Leather & Lace~~

Literary Skiers 15

2011-05-17T08:13:00.002+02:00

He couldn't pin down any specific reason, and didn't bother to repeat the official government line about preserving knowledge of ourselves. Instead, he offered: "It's something you can do where you can actually discover something. There aren't many ways to do that anymore." And that made sense to me. Alvin has fashioned a life that has supported his quest to climb new peaks, to plumb new caves, to ski new slopes no one else has tried before. It's his way of understanding the world, of ordering the universe. It's his religion, his science, his art, to orient himself bodily in places that reveal new views. Rock art sites provide him the opportunity to stand where others long past have been, and to see what they've seen in a time less obscured by civilization.

--William L. Fox, from The Void, the Grid, & the Sign, 2000

Photo credits:
Rock Carving Top
Rock Carving Bottom

No Yesterdays on the Road

2011-04-29T14:41:00.010+02:00

What you've done becomes the judge of what you're going to do--especially in other people's minds. When you're traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don't have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.
--William Least Heat Moon, Blue Highways

Apparently this winter has recorded some of the worst snow conditions in at least the last forty years. I've seen other articles that mention the worst winter in "living memory," "recorded history," and in the last 1,000 years. Not sure what all of that means, really; all I know is that while it was bad it still beats the winter I spent in Washington, DC, and that includes the winter I spent in Guadalajara, Mexico. So while it was bad, and while I sure hope it will be better next year, this year has provided many good memories, the latest (and maybe last for the ski season) came over Easter break in the Haute-Maurienne.

Where is the Haute-Maurienne? I'm not exactly sure. It's in France. It's in the Savoie. It presses up against Italy. Several little birds chirped to me that of the devastating winter the Haute-Maurienne was the northernmost region that was able to cash in on all the southern-tracking storms that evaded much of the Alps. So we packed the car, drove down to Chambéry, made a big left turn and headed for the wall of mountains that divides France and Italy.

We drove into the town of Modane and while I still wasn't quite sure where I was, I knew I had been equally lost there at some other point in my life. Then I saw the train station and a sign for a camp ground and then I knew. In early May of 1995 Wendy and I were bumming around Europe, hitchhiking and trying not to spend the few hundred dollars we made the previous winter while teaching skiing and running lifts in Berchtesgaden, Germany. The following is my diary entry for 02 May 1995.

Modane, France

I'm in France.

We left Cannobio and had a difficult time hitchhiking out. Our spirits grew weak. Our theory is something like this: the Italians are weary of everyone who is not Italian--and obviously we don't look Italian. Also, the Italians are very much into their own fashion, music, social scene; they are very aware of themselves. They're not quite as active as the Germans, Swiss, etc. so they might not appreciate traveling as much. Regardless how accurate our assessment is we found hitching difficult, so after we found a ride to Novarra from an African from Ghana we opted for the train. One train to Torino, one train to the French border: Modane. I'm in France. I'm happy to be here.

We found a campsite, very nice, clean, uncrowded, took showers, very nice, we're clean, found a not so cheap restaurant to eat not so great food. Wendy put it on her credit card. Remember: do something to pay her back.

The town itself is rather miserable. It looks like at one time it was prosperous: many shops, bistros, restaurants. Now, most everything seems closed or abandoned. The surrounding area, however, is beautiful. The town is completely surrounded by the French & Italian Alps, snow-capped and ominous. The mountains don't look quite as 'kept' as the Swiss, German, Austrian Alps.

Wendy needs to meet her friend Sonja in Aachen, Germany on the 9th, we have to go to Barcelona first, so I'm thinking these next few days will be a mad rush to Spain. I hope I'm wrong. I would like to spend more time in France.

And so it was that we were about to spend more time in France and, specifically, in a part of France where roughly two weeks and sixteen years earlier we felt a little bit lost but also full of wonder. This time, some birds hinted at decent snow, we now have a better idea of the wine and food of the Savoie, and, anyway, no matter what the weather conditions, when in the French and Italian Alps you're never far from something good. We had little to fear and continued to proceed up the valley.

We set our sights and kept our expectations at a controlled low. I really had no idea what kind of skiing to expect. The views from below, while beautiful, didn't look promising.

We chose the village of Bessans for no other reason than we found a good deal on an apartment that allowed dogs and that it was close to the top of the valley. In the winter Bessans is famous for its Nordic skiing and training grounds for Olympic Biathlon teams. At 1,700 meters Bessans and the valley floor were free of snow though spring had yet to break the surface. Temperatures still dipped below freezing at night and human life throughout the valley seemed at a standstill.

The first couple days were spent gathering information and hovering down by the rivers. The trout were fast and fat and the water seemed at mid-summer levels rather than spring runoff season. I grumbled for not bringing my fly rod.

We hiked, we climbed. We found rocks with strange formations, and explored their caves. And we ate well, too.

Rested and restored after a previously busy two weeks it was finally time to push higher and farther. I woke up early and alone. My job for the day was not only to get in a tour for myself but to check that the conditions at Bonneval-sur-Arc were worthy enough for a six year-old and his mom. I found the ski tour but did not find the pistes worth writing home about; at noon any slope mellow enough for a six year-old was sort of like skiing on a water bed. I also found that I forgot my camera and so determined that if I could acquire another free pass I would return to the same tour. Mom and six year-old found a public swimming pool at another village. Thus, I found myself with another free pass.

Bonneval-sur-Arc, designated as one of the "Plus Beaux Villages de France" sits at the head of the Maurienne valley and is squashed between the Graian Alps to the north and east and the Dauphiné Alps of the west and south. It is also hemmed in on the west and north side by the massive Parc National de la Vanoise and on the east and south side by the glaciers along the Italian border. A good prescription for fine ski touring. Directly above the pistes at Bonneval-sur-Arc is the Glacier Superieur Vallonnet and if anything promises to hold good snow it's a high altitude glacier. So up and away I went.

Access is pretty straightforward and easy. Just duck underneath a bunch of poles and wires and wheels and you're free and clear. It also helped to start out by following a guided group of five.

The first trick, especially in a low snow year, is traversing around the south facing Pointe d'Andagne. Looking back to the village of Bessans:

As soon as you stop traversing on the sides of your skis and feet, losing elevation to avoid exposed rock and avalanche debris, you turn straight up. Cresting a saddle, you finally feel like you've entered the ski tour proper and left the world of rock scrambling and ski slipping behind. The map labels this valley the ancient glacier Andagne (Ancien Glacier d'Andagne). I'm not sure what qualifies as an ancient glacier but it looked pretty good to me.

The far pass constituted the goal for the second phase of the journey so for most of the next hour I slogged up the ancient glacier with the Col de la Fourche as my destination. Here is also where I left the group of five far behind. Closing in on the Col with a different sort of twelve-step program in my near future:

Of course a good twelve-step program never really concludes; along the crest there was more traversing under the Pointes du Grand Fond with occasional peeks off the other side into the Crêt de la Terre and the Avérole valley. Somewhere at the bottom is the Refuge d'Avérole where skiers access the Glacier du Grand Fond, Vallonnet, and Glacier des Evettes from the south.

Winding around the Pointes du Grand Fond you eventually climb up to the Dôme du Grand Fond (3,460 meters) that overlooks the Col du Grand Fond and, at 3,637 meters, Albaron peak. L'Albaron and my traveling companions:

At noon I was less interested in losing 150 meters only to climb another 300 meters to gain the peak so I turned my attention down.

And down. And down. And down. Sixteen-hundred meters in all through a series of light, powdery snow to transformed spring butter to chunky, icy nastiness to a long finish of European sweet corn. In other words, the top was good, the choke was bad, the bottom run-out was good again.

With that accomplished (twice), it was time to turn back to family, food, hiking, and enjoying Easter break on much greener pastures.

I feel safe in saying that while now I have a better sense of what and where the Haut-Maurienne is, it also might take another while to return. There is something attractive about the sensation of feeling lost. Something is lost once you feel found; something of the adventure feels more routine and safe and familiar. When you're hauling kids and dogs and you're worried about logistical complications like apartment rentals and car problems the familiar is good. But with skis and snow and high places there is always the temptation of the new, the uncharted, the constant search for the hidden.

On skis, unlike, say, traveling across half a continent, time and space is reduced to a smaller scale--a single canyon or a traverse around a peak--so that you're able to soak up all that differentiates one landscape from another. That you've never been to the top of a mountain pass or down a great couloir is half the reason for the desire. It's the "because it's there" philosophy of living a life that is not unlike the reason for traveling great distances by way of your thumb or the cheapest, most uncomfortable seat on a train. The differences are slight and might be summarized only as a matter of scale: the time it takes to hitchhike and travel by train from Cannobio, Italy to Chambéry, France might be the same amount of time it takes to ski tour around the northeastern side of peak Albaron.

I don't know when I'll return to the Arc river valley or Bessans or Bonneval-sur-Arc. I know when I do, though, I'll probably do so without the need for road maps. I'll probably be able to save some time driving more directly and with confidence. The distance between point A and point B will shrink. While there, a new world will appear; I will feel more comfortable and eager to discover the unknown. Maybe next time I will fish the Arc River and seek out new landscapes below the surface of the water. Or, then again, maybe I will head up to one of the other high mountain passes I didn't make it to the first time. One thing is for sure, nothing will be the same as the first time I traveled through.

The Sound of Sight 27

2011-04-24T11:12:00.006+02:00

~~Hazel Dickens: Pretty Bird~~

~~Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard: A Distant Land to Roam~~

RIP Hazel Dickens

Literary Skiers 14

2011-04-20T09:00:00.002+02:00

Up in the Rockies, it was still winter. The slopes were open but the snow was receding. Kids begged their parents for a day off from school for one last boarding run. An Evangelical Christian junior talked her parents into letting her go the day before Mr. D's assembly. Cassie Bernall drove up to Breckenridge with her brother, Chris. Neither one had met Eric or Dylan yet.

--Dave Cullen, from Columbine, 2009

Photo credit

Pastures of Plenty

2011-04-13T13:26:00.003+02:00

14 March 2011

To celebrate the day I took the morning off of my usual Monday chores and headed to my local haunt for a few turns of the skis, the first time back in the Jura since early December. I knew the snow conditions were dismal and I knew they wouldn't improve much for the year, but it's always worth it for the views and a few hours of solitude. Anyway, the fourteenth day of March only comes around once a year. Best to indulge myself when I can.

~~Woody Guthrie: Pastures of Plenty~~

The sinkhole at La Dôle with the aviation radar and weather station above:

Up on top the conditions were better suited for grazing than skiing.

Three lines skied at the end of last May:

France or West Virginia?

There was exactly one short couloir to ski that accessed the east (Lake Geneva) side of La Dôle so I did and I found more pretty views on my way down. Not pretty snow, however.

Heaven-Haven: A Nun Takes The Veil

I have desired to go
Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail
And a few lilies blow.

And I have asked to be
Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
And out of the swing of the sea.

--Gerard Manley Hopkins

~~The Innocence Mission: No Storms Come~~

The White Mountain looking respectably more white:

The Crêt de la Neige, the highest point in the Jura, but not much deeper in snow:

More swishing around, more nice views, up and down exercise, and then back home to resume the day. Like the winter, the day was sort of there before it wasn't again. Unlike the winter, it felt right.

~~Vetiver: I Must Be in a Good Place Now~~

Literary Skiers 13b

2011-04-05T11:12:00.003+02:00

The standard Arlberg technique was used by Alf and Sverre Engen when teaching. I'd seen Sverre use the single dipsy in powder but Alf didn't use it in public because after all he was the head of the ski school! Junior Bounous, now the head of Snowbird's ski school, was an instructor under Alf Engen at Alta at the time we moved there in 1952. Junior refined the dipsy into what became the double dipsy--because the weight is on both skis. But there's still a definite bounce in it. Junior is the finest skier I've ever seen. He skis all techniques with equal facility. The tune he sings in really great powder is the old children's song: The worms crawl in, and the worms crawl out; they crawl right in and out of your snout. It's the perfect rhythm for steep powder.

~~Unknown Singer: The Hearse Song~~

~~The Pogues: Worms~~

--Dolores LaChapelle, from Deep Powder Snow: 40 Years of Ecstatic Skiing, Avalanches, and Earth Wisdom, 1993

Photo Credits:
Junior Bounous
Dolores LaChapelle

The Sound of Sight 26

2011-03-25T10:49:00.005+01:00

~~Deerhoof: This Magnificent Bird Will Rise~~

Literary Skiers 13a

2011-03-23T13:31:00.001+01:00

One of the men I skied with was Lefty Cormier, who had been in the Tenth Mountain Troops. He taught me the single dipsy. Few people could learn it because it violated all the skiing rules of the time. Those were the days of the Arlberg Technique, made famous by Hannes Schneider, in which the shoulders wrenched the skis through wide arcing turns. The single dipsy did none of that; but you did have to turn yourself over to the mountain in a way the skiers of that day couldn't handle. It turned out that learning this technique was the most important thing in my skiing life because it enabled me to turn where few could on steep narrow chutes between trees. Because of this rare technique I acquired a notoriety I didn't really want as a pulver schnee spezialist in Davos, Switzerland and later in Alta as the "best woman powder skier in the world."

-----------------------------------

Long before we ever got to Alta, way back in 1939, Dick Durrance was manager of the Alta Lodge. You must remember that at that time there were only two real ski resorts in the West--Sun Valley, begun by the Union Pacific Railroad to lure people to ride the train out west, and Alta. Durrance soon found that he could not ski the steep, narrow Alta chutes using the standard Arlberg technique; but because he was also a mountain climber and used to heeling down the steep chutes--that's the beginning of the single dipsy. Of course, through his winter at Alta he refined it some more.

------------------------------------------

To continue with the story of the single dipsy, the war had started in December, 1941, and the Mountain Troops were formed in spring of 1942. They trained at Camp Hale in a high valley near Climax, Colorado. Dev Jennings from Salt Lake, who skied at Alta, had learned the single dipsy from Durrance and he taught it to many of the men in his platoon the winter of 1942. My friend, Bob Swartz, who owns the Mountain Shop in Boulder, was in that platoon. In fact it is Bob who gave me the origin of the name "single dipsy." It's from an old popular song of the year 1937 called "The Dipsy Doodle." Another old climbing friend, John Devitt, a musician, wrote it out for me. It was sung by Edythe Wright on the original Tommy Dorsey record. Words and music were by Larry Clinton, a band leader.

~~Tommy Dorsey & Edythe Wright: The Dipsy Doodle~~

The song started out with: The Dipsy Doodle's the thing to beware, The Dipsy Doodle will get in your hair. A couple of other lines relevant to the state of mind of powder skiing are: It's almost always in back of your mind. You never know it until it's too late...That's the way the Dipsy Doodle works. It's got a very bouncy rhythm. You can easily see why those mountain troop skiers back in the early forties picked that up as the name for their skiing style.

--Dolores LaChapelle, from Deep Powder Snow: 40 Years of Ecstatic Skiing, Avalanches, and Earth Wisdom, 1993

Photo Credits:
Drinker Durrance Graphics

Fleeting

2011-03-18T13:01:00.059+01:00

When I moved here I was told by one of those wise local types that I would never ski first tracks at Chamonix. Seemed like a reasonable prophecy. I don't live in Chamonix, I live an hour and a half away. Skiing in Chamonix is expensive and you pretty much have to invest in a lift ticket to access anything of interest. Add to that French toll roads, European gas prices, family responsibilities, and a general aversion to competitive crowds and the wise local saw no argument from me. He still wouldn't. That doesn't mean I wouldn't try, either.

But first there were a lot of roads to roam.

Like through the first track train tracks and the fog dawn of Lausanne.

Through the impossibly steep vineyards of the Valais that rise above the blue hole of Martigny.

Two hours later and an elevation gain of 5,000 feet the roads become a little more white and a little more narrow.

Too frozen to ski and nowhere to go but up, the roads disappear and you take to your feet.

In Chamonix, as much as you struggle and as high as you go, someone or something has been there before you, even if it is for the purpose of blowing a high pressured gas mixture to clear the slopes of avalanche danger.

With Phase One below it's time to turn attention to Phase Two above.

The absence of roads, lifts, and Gazex tubes means that in Phase Two you enter a somewhat more natural world and are bound by a set of laws different from those that determine who finds first tracks or not. Sometimes those laws, and the physical compositions contained within those laws, prevent passage, so up turns back down and you compete with all that came before. There are worse competitions. Wind loaded, ice packed, razor ridges tend to trump human desires anyway.

As Townes Van Zandt said, "You don't need no engine to go downhill." Enter Phase Three and the road less traveled.

It continued this way for a while, the quest to find something that does not exist. Finally, though, at the bottom, I found them, all the tracks from all the skiers that came first, before me. I conceded as I was told to concede and my own tracks were soon lost to the river of lines that led to the bottom.

There are places where you don't or can't go.

There are places where everybody goes.

In between those two lines of demarcation is an abundance of fleeting moments of solitary wonder so perfect and pristine that the naked eye, fixated on limitations, is often blinded by their availability. Maybe it's like staring at the sun. You're not supposed to do it, right? Too much exposure will damage the something-or-other and you'll be blind for life. Look one way or the other but not, under any circumstances, directly at the object itself.

We all do it anyway, don't we? We all take a glance and hold it as long as we feel comfortable and then we close our eyes and turn away. But what happens in the liminal phase, that brief threshold between time and space when we close our eyes and open them up again?

It's there, I think, we experience a new vision. It's there that the black composite of the sun allows us to see what we couldn't see before. It's negative space and it offers not only complementary perspective but also opportunity.

When negative space is employed you are better able to see the hidden, the gray space between right and wrong, yes and no, or even Heaven and Hell. You begin to realize that a choice is more than a two dimensional proposition but rather an opportunity to open yourself up to a world of possibilities, even if that world is one of snow and your choice of where and how to leave your mark.

I haven't completely perfected this approach but I'm trying. Life is short and I believe the best moments are micro in size and scale compared to the overall production. They are the negative spaces in an epic drama that too often pass unnoticed. This brings me back to Townes Van Zandt who I think tried to adhere to a similar philosophy; at least he expressed it more eloquently.

Days up and down they come,
Like rain on a conga drum.
Forget most, remember some,
But don't turn none away.

Everything is not enough.
Nothin' is too much to bear.
Where you been is good and gone,
All you keep is the gettin' there.

To live is to fly
Low and high,
So shake the dust off of your wings
And the sleep out of your eyes.

Or, with words that engage the gray areas of choice:

Well, I come through this life a stumbler, my friends,
I expect to die that way.
It could be twenty years from now,
It could be most any day.
But if there is no whiskey and women, Lord,
Behind them heavenly doors,
I'm gonna take my chances down below,
And of that you can be sure.

Seven Days at Alpe d'Huez

2011-03-11T11:57:00.022+01:00

The calendar that determines the ebb and flow of the European masses, otherwise known as Spring Half Term:

At some point between the end of January and the beginning of March every school child will receive, free of charge, one week off. This Get Out of Academic Jail card tends to impact the entire extended family who are more than eager to sign up for the Spring Half Term themselves. During this time period, every Citroën, every Smart, every Porsche Cayenne is packed full with life's essentials and heads for one of any number of European Alpine resorts. During this time, every chalet is booked full, every hostel is packed, every restaurant filled, and every piste dotted with the good, the bad, and the ugly of the European ski set.

Note that the United Kingdom is not listed on the calendar though they constitute a substantial population of the Half Term skiers. Switzerland doesn't appear on the calendar either because, well, apparently they're not European.

This year we chose Alpe d'Huez as our place to go a little insane for a week. Located deep and high in the Rhône-Alpes, Alpe d'Huez is probably more famous for the twenty-one steep and narrow hairpin turns on the road leading up to the village rather than the village itself or the skiing it provides. The road is a very popular stage in the Tour de France and its history boasts many a dramatic race.

As for skiing, Alpe d'Huez holds the respectable honor as the site of the very first Poma surface lift installed in 1936. These days there are something like 85 lifts and 250 kilometers of ski pistes. The place is huge. It also includes supposedly the longest black run in the world, the sixteen kilometer Sarenne piste. That, sadly, will have to go unconfirmed as the Sarenne was closed due to low snow conditions.

This brings me back to the matter at hand: our trip and the snow conditions. In a word: good. In two words: pretty good. In a more descriptive word: variable.

Like most of Europe, Alpe d'Huez has suffered from a decidedly dry year. The resort is fortunate, though, in that the relative elevation is high, maxing out at 3,330m/10,925ft on Pic Blanc, and it has invested heavily in snowmaking equipment. We were also fortunate to receive over the course of the week the first new snow in roughly seven for a grand total of about 25cm/10in. Not sufficient depths to warrant snorkels but at that point 25 centimeters felt like, and might as well have been, two and a half feet.

Day One, from the top of Pic Blanc, looking at the Aiguilles d’Arves:

Back down in the clouds, looking for some depth perception, among other things:

One of the goals of the year is/was to put the dude on skis as much as possible thereby making him more and more comfortable to slip around on snow. What this means was a week's worth of ski lessons, his second week of the year. And here at Hank's ski school is where the story begins.

With enough grommets to fill a football stadium the Ecole du Ski Français was bursting at the seams. Fifteen kids in Hank's class were paired with one typically crusty, rigid, and unforgiving instructor responsible for beating each and every one of them into French-style skiing submission. We resigned early to the idea that, in fact, we had not just spent a whole bunch of funny money to help Hank learn how to ski, but rather to be babysat until after lunch when we could ski with him and try to improve on everything he didn't learn during his previous lesson.

It is my new mantra to lose, to burn, to destroy any and every expectation that might surface before it influences my emotions. Without expectations I cannot be disappointed. And I wasn't. And if Hank learned one thing during the week at ski school it was to use his poles. And that was good enough.

So there were a few hours to kill in between the time Hank was dropped off at the babysitter and the time he was picked up. And with new snow, variable conditions, and a giant mountain to explore, the pleasure was all mine. Like the ski school, the hordes were thick. But as long as you could avoid places like this:

you had your pick of places like this:

I was surprised at how alone I could find myself. With a little effort the rewards were plenty.

The famous and very strange "Le Tunnel":

The tunnel gives you the option of (A) 300 meters of chest-high, hard-packed moguls or, with a short and high traverse, (B) 400 meters of open bowls, narrow gullies, and short but steep chutes. I chose Option B time and time again. And I was a happier skier for it.

But the Spring Half Term ski break is meant to be a holistic experience. A morning of hard, energy depleting skiing deserves a balance of warm food and cold drink. Like skiing, once you find that sweet and somewhat secret spot you should glean from it every last tasty morsel until it becomes, in effect, a part of your very being.

Andouillette baked in cream, gratin dauphinois, and a bottle of Apremont (made with my current fave grape, Jacquère):

Then after a tipple of the local digestif it was back up high for another round or two before sailing down the entire mountain to pick up the dude. Don't kid yourself: Chartreuse and piste hors skiing most certainly do mix. You just gotta know when to say when.

The cycle continued that way for a full week with only slight variations on the theme. A little sun here, a few clouds and fog there; some new snow, some pockets of old windblown; melted slices of cheese, cups of heavy cream; Chartreuse one day, Génépi the next. It was a good pattern, one that made for scenic, active days and tired, happy bodies.

I like Spring Half Term, crowds and all. As a gringo I like especially that Europeans carve long and frequent chunks of time into their equally busy schedules to spend with family and friends participating in specific activities that unify them not only as families and friends but also, I would argue, as nationals. When else, for example, would an enthusiastic family of skiers who have the misfortune to live in a place like Lincoln, Nebraska have the time, other than the Christmas holidays, to travel to a place like Colorado or Utah with the sole purpose of skiing?

The continent of Europe enables a mid-season road trip and I like that. I like that because I'm a skier and I like that because I have my own family of skiers. Mostly, though, I like that because I believe it encourages the cultural welfare of many different but united nations, a practice I also believe would benefit the all too often dis-United States of America.

Literary Skiers 12

2011-02-09T21:39:00.001+01:00

It's like Mother Earth threw a quilt of beauty.

--Henry Barton Hatcher, 17 Nov 2010

The Sound of Sight 25

2011-02-01T11:33:00.004+01:00

~~The Louvin Brothers: Gonna Lay Down My Old Guitar~~

RIP Charlie Louvin

(More Louvin Brothers songs here.)

Intermission

2011-01-23T10:56:00.032+01:00

And now a break from our regularly scheduled program...

Yes, there are barriers to a productive ski season and they come mostly in the form of that on which a ski season depends. So while the bise wind is petrifying whatever snow was able to survive the foehn wind, let us reflect on times of Mediterranean tranquility and high alpine bliss.

~~Serge Gainsbourg: Sea, Sex, and Sun~~

The ancient Greek word for Corsica is kallisté. This translates to something like "the most beautiful." That's a fair approximation. Granted the ancient Greeks hadn't seen Southern Utah, Northern Idaho, or the Great Basin, but for their time and place, sure, Corsica would probably take top billing. And so it was in Corsica that we found ourselves in late October, after all the Germans and Brits returned to their respective countries and the summertime crowds a distant nightmare.

Corsica is a small rock, and it's a rock that sits quietly in the Mediterranean just above the larger Italian rock of Sardinia. Mountains comprise two-thirds of the island. Monte Cinto is the highest of these mountains and at 2,706 meters (8,878 ft) the top of it was one of my goals for the trip. An early, cold storm brought heavy rains and high elevation snow two days before I set off for a day of climbing around Haut-Corse.

I knew the interior was rugged but I was struck by the aridity and resemblance to places I know and love, like the Rocky Mountains. The Corsican pine tree is beautiful and big and reminded me of a combination of the Ponderosa pine, with its long needles, and a Bristlecone pine, with its hardscrabble environment in which it thrives.

The day was long, cold, and quiet. In the end, though, the mountains won and I was forced to stop about 1,000 feet below the summit due to deep, drifted snow and soggy feet. The climb was very rewarding and included quite a bit of scrambling, rock-hopping, and route finding. Plus, new snow is always a thrill.

Under the summit of Monte Cinto and the turnaround point:

I decided to descend into a different valley to make a big loop out of the day. More solitude. More views. More waterfalls, Aspen groves, and pine trees. Good day.

With that accomplished, and because the other members of the party weren't interested in alpine scrambles on ice and snow, I set my mind to other pursuits: trout fishing! Trout fishing under the disguise of family picnics, of course. Cold, clear, fast moving water flows from those big peaks and native Brown trout make their home in Corsica's rivers, streams, and lakes.

Then there was the Mediterranean, where two-thirds of the party preferred to spend their vacation. Luckily, as a small rock surrounded by it, you're never too far from its shores. Even I admit it was pretty nice.

What else do you do in Corsica? You eat and drink well. The people on that rock take their food seriously. From fresh-caught seafood to wild boar, house-made pastas to sheep's milk cheese, the menus vary widely and reflect the Corsican pride in locally raised and produced products. The wines, too, with funky, indigenous grape varietals like Nielluccio and Sciacarello make for a new world of exploration. To eat and drink in Corsica is worth a trip alone.

Beyond that, driving in the foothills, staying in ancient villages, and doing a whole lot of nothing is good enough, isn't it? Corsica's own blend of Old World Europe--a little French, a little Italian, a little Portuguese--lends itself well to lazy, dreamy days.

All in all, a great way to spend a week.

There is skiing in Corsica, weather permitting. It’s better in the spring, apparently, when weather systems are more predictable and less violent. There are a few rudimentary lift operations and many backcountry touring possibilities. I came across a guide book called Corsica Bianca that details some routes and if I can catch another EasyJet flight for 300 CHF then spring skiing is a real possibility. At this point, and with these weather conditions, even skiing mid-winter on a small Mediterranean rock can't be much worse than the current state of the Alps. Bad snow conditions in the Haut-Corse? Go drink Vermentino and eat langoustines at a seaside restaurant for the day. In Corsica there doesn't seem to be too many reasons to fret. Life is good and slow. Kallisté. Then and now.

The Sound of Sight 24

2011-01-19T17:24:00.004+01:00

~~Broadcast: Winter Now~~

RIP Trish Keenan

The First Horseman

2011-01-14T11:47:00.032+01:00

Brothers and sisters, the Bible has it wrong.

In the Book of Revelation of Saint John the Evangelist the chapter describes the Seven Seals and how Jesus "Grabby Hands" Christ snatches the first four seals from God's right hand, opens them, and, thus, unleashes the wrath of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse onto us all. (Nice one, JC.) These not-so-friendly riders are depicted as Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death. Pestilence? What on God's All-Too-Green Earth is Pestilence? Whatever. I'm shaking in my Garmonts.

Albrecht Dürer, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
ca. 1497–98

For what it's worth, new translations of this horror story update Pestilence with Conquest. Big whoop. Not much scarier. The Mormons even interpret the First Horseman as "good," as in a moral conquistador, not a rape and pillage kind of guy. Isn't that convenient. No matter, they are all wrong.

Brothers and sisters, sinners and saints, the end must surely be near. Let me assure you, though, that the end will not come from a scourge of pestilence sprinkled over our fair land. It won't come from someone conquering us and it certainly won't be considered good. Ladies and gentlemen, the first of the Four Horsemen is upon us. He rides a pale horse and his name is Heat Miser.

With his destructive weapons like the Foehn, Favonio, Puelche, and Chinook among others; his capacity to produce flames from thin air; as well as his insidious ability to warm the whole damn globe, Heat Miser knows no boundaries and shows no mercy. But before I continue my tale of woe and suffering please turn with me now to Hymn #1 in the Holy Gospel of Country Music and sing along to this fine and appropriate tune.

~~The Louvin Brothers: Satan Is Real~~

To some, a warm planet is a happy planet. To a skier anything above 0°C/32°F might as well be the fiery pits of Hell. Take this season so far.

Everything started out textbook perfect. November produced two large storms that gave our backyard, the Jura Mountains, a healthy and stable meter or so of snow. This allowed me to escape the rigors of everyday life and float high above my earthly trials.

While I waited for the real big rocks of the Alps to be covered in the real big snows I could slip away for a few hours of heavenly peace and quiet knowing that I was doing the work of Ullr, and still be home in time to attend to my more secular duties.

It was a blissful existence, filled with short but steep secret treasures:

Visits with kind and generous neighbors:

Wealth and abundance typical of the region:

And a highly controlled system of heat replacement:

Yes, it was a blissful existence. Until he appeared.

The Snows of November turned to the Rains of December. The backyard washed away. Then it turned cold and the rain froze. Our White Christmas was a small dusting of mostly hoar frost that lasted until the temperatures rose again and the rain returned. By the end of the decade we faced a world that appeared pretty much the same as it did in late October: muddy, wet, and green. It was time to head for higher ground.

Though we knew Chamonix was under the same three-week dry spell the Heat Miser cursed most of Central Europe with, the elevation, and with that the snow depths, were higher. The hour and a half distance from home is a plus, too. As was the last minute steal on a half-priced apartment. Still, we were on a self-imposed mission and I insist all skiing was done in the name of the Lord (God of Snow).

The sacrifices were many. For example, we didn't ski powder. At best we skied only something that resembled two-week old, wind affected, heavily consolidated packed powder hidden in trees or the tightest of extreme north facing gullies.

Otherwise, we skied more wind-buffed, manky, crud. For the Lord.

We did not eat at a single Michelin starred restaurant. We ate only at humble auberges or creaky mid-mountain lodges.

We forced our young into a strict regimen of discipline, service, and respect and encouraged his higher calling.

In the end, though, all of our hard work, our sacrifices, our atonements were for nothing. More high pressure. More warm wind. More rain.

The First Horseman, the Heat Miser--his reign is almighty and encompassing and destructive and, seemingly, complete. He is punishing and cruel. And though you could easily pick him out in a crowd for his bad haircut, pointed ears, and sparkly outfit, he walks among us.

Let us turn once again to our hymnal and sing with conviction Hymn #10, "Satan's Jeweled Crown."

~~The Louvin Brothers: Satan's Jeweled Crown~~

Brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors, apostates and disciples, with this threat in our presence, this heinous rider that, at least in the short to mid-term forecast, shows no signs of retreat, how, then, will you choose to live out your End of Days? On the long white carpet of death? Or maybe something closer to home, like trail running? Think carefully, brethren, and remember this: The Heat Miser never wants to see a day that's under sixty degrees. He'd rather have it eighty, ninety, one hundred degrees! He's Mister Heat Blister, he's Mister Hundred and One. They call him Heat Miser. Whatever he touches starts to melt in his clutches. He's too much! Too Much!

The Apocalypse is near.

In Ullr's name we pray. Amen.

Image credits:
Albrecht Dürer
Heat Miser
The Louvin Brothers

Literary Skiers 11

2011-01-10T04:24:00.003+01:00

Baby's younger Englishman had been chaperoning the women down appropriate inclines and harrowing them on the bob-run. Dick, having turned an ankle in a too ambitious telemark, loafed gratefully about the "nursery slope" with the children or drank kvass with a Russian doctor at the hotel.

"Please be happy, Dick," Nicole urged him. "Why don't you meet some of these ickle durls and dance with them in the afternoon?"

"What would I say to them?"

Her low almost harsh voice rose a few notes, simulating a plaintive coquetry: "Say,'Ickle durl, oo is de pwettiest sing,' What do you think you say?"

"I don't like ickle durls. They smell of castile soap and peppermint. When I dance with them, I feel as if I'm pushing a baby carriage."

It was a dangerous subject--he was careful, to the point of self-consciousness, to stare far over the heads of young maidens.

--F. Scott Fitzgerald, from Tender is the Night, 1933

Thanks for the tip, Jeff!

Unknown print found here.

The Lost People of Mountain Village

2010-12-30T09:42:00.002+01:00

Is it better than Guffman? Probably not. It might tell a more relevant story, though. This came my way via a Telemarktips thread and I've wanted to post it for a while. Seems like the last day of the first decade in a new millennium is reason enough to watch a film about an extinct species of humans. Happy New Year!

More info about the film is available on this website.

There's a Tear in My Eggnog

2010-12-18T05:29:00.005+01:00

For the second annual Home Is Where Your Skis Is Christmas music compilation we're coming in off the sagebrush desert of last year and heading straight for the bar. The lucky number is thirteen and it's filled with tearjerkers and certifiable holiday classics. Hope you have your stack of quarters 'cause it's gonna be a long night. Have a honky-tonk Christmas.

~~Smiley Bates: Daddy's Drinking Up Our Christmas~~

George Jones: Lonely Christmas Call

Willie Nelson: Pretty Paper

Kitty Wells & Johnny Wright: There Won't Be Any Tree This Christmas

Terry Fell: Let's Stay Together 'Till After Christmas

Lulu Belle & Scotty: The Empty Xmas Stocking

Jimmy & Lisa Sara Martin: Daddy, Will Santa Claus Ever Have to Die?

Eddy Arnold: Will Santy Come to Shanty Town?

Tammy Wynette: (Merry Christmas) We Must Be Having One

Loretta Lynn: Gift of the Blues

Johnny Paycheck: Mommy for Awhile on Christmas Day

Del Reeves: Christmas Is Lonely

Merle Haggard: Daddy Won't Be Home for Christmas

And while you're waiting it out for last call be sure to pay homage to the skier's best friend, Little Sandy Sleighfoot. The link to the song is now fully restored.

I Washed My Face

2010-12-15T08:26:00.005+01:00

~~Tom T. Hall: I Washed My Face in the Morning Dew~~

Really, then, the question is whether Tom T. Hall imitates life or does life imitate Tom T. Hall?

Literary Skiers 10a

2010-12-09T08:33:00.000+01:00

They stopped for icicles to cool their drinks. Suttee clambered over a low stone wall and dropped into deep snow. Down the slope the firs stood black and brambly in their white shrouds and a fine mist of snow was blowing with a faint hiss like sand. He pissed a slushy yellow flower in the landscape, standing there with his drink in one hand, looking out on a wild white upland world as old as any thing that was and not unlike it might have looked a million years ago. Just when he would have said that nothing lived in these frozen altitudes two small gray birds flew. They came from a clump of snowbroken heather below and crossed the slope in a loping flight like carnival birds on wires and vanished in the forest.

He walked up the road, his shoes crunching in the packed snow. Under an overhang of icebound rock where sheer palisades of opaque crystal walled up the black forests above and he could hear the wind suck and moan in the trees. He reached to pluck small icicles from the rocks until he'd filled his glass with them.

Back in the cab she covered him with the blanket and rubbed his hands. You're icy cold, she said.

At Newfound Gap there were skiers, a bright group bristling with their poles and skis about the parked cars. They pulled in to watch them, goggled madmen in clouds of powder dropping down through the fir forests at breakneck speed. She clutched his arm, them standing there with their drinks and their breath swirling in the cold.

They went back in the early blue twilight, ghosting down the mountain with frames of snowy woodland veering inverted across the glass. They made love under the blankets in the back seat like schoolchildren and later she sat up and talked into the silent cabman's ear and made him promise not to tell what they had done and he said that he would not.

--Cormac McCarthy, from Suttree, 1979

The State of Affairs

2010-11-27T21:36:00.008+01:00

~~Buddy Holly: It Doesn't Matter Anymore~~

There are two giant piles of leaves in the backyard that are now covered with snow and will probably remain there at least until spring. I haven't written anything of substance for months on end. Three cords of wood need to be stacked. There is a squeak from the front end of the car. I didn't make it to the top of La Barillette this year. We have no chicken stock. One thing is certain: tuning skis with a bottle of Marsannay and a wall of music can only mean that all things must pass and that it's time to turn and face the strange.

The 2010-2011 season begins tomorrow.

Thanks.

2010-11-25T08:16:00.009+01:00

Though living abroad, here at Casa de Hatcher we still pine away for Home Sweet Home, especially on the forth Thursday in November. Rome, Georgia; Athens, Texas; and Paris, Tennessee. More appropriately: Paradise, Utah; Bliss, Idaho; and Beverly Hills, Nevada.

Happy Thanksgiving.

High on a Mountain

2010-11-16T10:49:00.008+01:00

~~The Clientele: Reflections After Jane~~

To run in mountain fog is to dream while awake. To feel somewhat lost in a world so familiar. To sense the drifting weightlessness of the cloud yet to absorb the direct pressure of a larger weather system. To listen to music at once incongruous but also consistent. There is solace knowing that everything above you is white.

The Sound of Sight 23

2010-11-07T20:50:00.005+01:00

~~Fred Cockerham: Little Satchel~~
1965

~~Sam Amidon: Little Satchel~~
2007

I Put a Spell on You

2010-10-31T05:57:00.001+01:00

~~Screamin' Jay Hawkins: I Put a Spell on You~~

(Note: Apparently two days ago, 04 November, someone sent Blogger a complaint about this post. Blogger took the post down, put it in my 'drafts' folder, and told me they did this which, I suppose, is better than what they used to do: delete the post into oblivion. I assume it's because I put the Screamin' Jay Hawkins track up "without permission" and it had nothing to do with Hank's pictures that I also put up without his permission. A quick Google, Hype Machine, or Beemp3 search for other Screamin' Jay Hawkins tracks shows that they are readily available, ready to be downloaded, all, I also assume, "without permission." I guess the internet police haven't quite completed their rounds yet.)

The Sound of Sight 22

2010-10-16T17:21:00.004+02:00

~~Freakwater: Little Red Riding Hood~~

The Sound of Sight 21

2010-10-10T09:32:00.001+02:00

~~Beat Happening: Indian Summer~~
(1988)

~~Eugenius: Indian Summer~~
(1992)

~~Luna: Indian Summer~~
(1993)

A Good Woman is Hard to Find

2010-09-23T17:19:00.002+02:00

Some mornings when you wake up all alone.

There's not much room to go more crazy.

Why should my past keep haunting me all through the years?

Blood spilled out from the hole in your heart.

I'll dance at your funeral if you dance at mine.

The way toward the crop of gold is not far from the snow.

There are some mornings when the
sky looks like a road.

Being good isn't always easy.

You know I don't lie. Much.

Pleasant Valley Sundays

2010-09-10T11:49:00.009+02:00

It's been a busy summer though I feel I've done little more than nothing. Maybe that's the beauty of summer, a hibernation of sorts until winter. A summer spent outside. A summer of creatures. A summer of conflict. Alone and surrounded by others. A summer of food. Clouds. Resolve.

Sights and sounds of a summer wasting.

~~The Monkees: Pleasant Valley Sunday~~

~~Belle & Sebastian: A Summer Wasting~~

I don't know why but I spent a large chunk of time listening to old Belle & Sebastian and The Magnetic Fields albums. They're both depressingly summery kind of bands which is to say that they're summery in a breezy, wistful, major chord kind of way but dour and brokenhearted, like being stood up at a pool party.

~~The Magnetic Fields: I Don't Believe in the Sun~~

At times it seemed the heat wouldn't quit. And it came from all directions. When it won't the best you can do is to keep occupied, whatever it takes to keep your mind off temperatures.

~~Love: Bummer in the Summer~~

Food helps and there was always plenty of it to go around. Friends are good, too. The combination of both is a perfect prescription.

~~Chet: Every Night a Supper Wine~~

~~José Gutiérrez & Los Hermanacos Ochoa: La Bamba~~

Yo no soy marinero.
¡Soy capitán!
¡Soy capitán!

~~Rubén González: Melodía del Rio~~

Then there were clouds. And if there is one thing you can count on in Europe, it's a cloud.

~~Joni Mitchell: Both Sides, Now~~
(Version 2000)

So many things I would have done but clouds got in my way.

Something's lost but something's gained in living every day.

In many ways I wish this particular summer never happened. But that is naive thinking. In truth it was probably inevitable, just as it is true that next year summer will return. Better then, I suppose, to deal with it directly and get it over. Thankfully, we each come equipped with our own resources--like clouds and other things of profound beauty.

~~Fairport Convention: Quiet Joys of Brotherhood~~

And if and when things of profound beauty fall short there is always humor. Life is a Cosmic Joke best experienced without hesitation or guilt.

~~Roxy Music: Ladytron~~

The end is near and it couldn't have come at a better time. It's cooler now, and calm. It won't happen again.

~~Tom Rush: Urge for Going~~

Спасибо, Людмила, for pictures 5, 8-13. ¡Precioso!

Literary Skiers 10: An Autumn Wish

2010-08-29T10:32:00.001+02:00

That afternoon he crossed the watershed and started down through a dark spruce forest. Ravens flew over the vast high country, the slopes falling away all heather and gray weather wood into the clouds below. He made a fire beneath a shelf of rock and watched a storm close over the valley down there, ragged hot wires of lightning quaking in the dusk like voltage in some mad chemist's chambers. Rain fell, leaves fell, slantwise and wild, a silver storm blowing down the eaves of the world. He'd found a few wild chestnuts and he watched them blacken in the coals. He cracked and cooled them. All things contained of tree therein, leaf and root. He ate. He'd no food other and he thought his hunger would keep him awake but it didnt. He could hear the long wild sough of the wind in the high forest as he lay there in his blanket staring up at the heavens. The cold indifferent dark, the blind stars beaded on their tracks and mitered satellites and geared and pinioned planets all reeling through the black of space.

In the morning there was snow at the higher elevations, a fairyland dust on the peaks. He had bound up his feet with the crokersack and now he simply wrapped the blanket about his shoulders and went down along the ridge, a hermetic figure, already gaunted and sunken at the eyes, a week's beard. Going shrouded in his blanket through the forest beswirled about by cold gray mist, gray weather, cold day, moss the color of stone. The wind sharp in the dry bores of his nostrils. Down through the pale bare bones of a birch forest where the claw-shaped leaves he trod held little ferns of ice.

--Cormac McCarthy, from Suttree, 1979

The Sound of Sight 20

2010-08-27T23:02:00.005+02:00

~~Dirty Three: Ends of the Earth~~

The Sound of Sight 19

2010-08-16T09:43:00.003+02:00

~~The Delfonics: La-La (Means I Love You)~~

Living History

2010-08-02T08:45:00.017+02:00

The Brits at Lonely Planet describe Ballenberg as "Disneyland-like." My only guess is that maybe the intrepid travelers haven't really visited Disneyland, opting instead to circumnavigate the small world and allow its own reputation to precede itself. Disneyland is iconic and it almost seems unfair to compare anything to Disneyland except Disneyland. It's especially hard to imagine the horrors of Disneyland's long lines in blistering heat; oversized puppets that keep reappearing throughout the day like an animated version of The Hitch-Hiker; odors of stale soda baking on asphalt; and the sweat, the grime, and fiberglass to be "like" anything at Ballenberg. But I had my doubts.

When our Swiss neighbor was asked where he would take someone who had never visited his country before, he answered without pause. Ballenberg. He made it sound like a village with some distinct architectural curiosities surrounded by beautiful mountains. I referenced the Lonely Planet and read "Disneyland-like." I had my doubts. Upon visiting, my doubts were abated. The Swiss call Ballenberg an open-air museum. In the U.S. it would be called a living history museum.

Ballenberg is located in the Bernese Oberland near the town of Brienz, just above the Brienzersee, Interlakken's eastern lake. Spread across 160 forested acres Ballenberg displays the unique, varied, and traditional architectural styles found throughout the whole of Switzerland. All of the geographical regions are represented as are most of the cantons. Buildings are grouped according to their regional styles and a stroll between the clusters makes for a vivid contrast. In a country about the same size as Elko County, Nevada, but with four official languages, the differences between building designs are distinct and even severe.

In addition to the framework of the buildings--often saved from demolition and restored only when and where necessary for the integrity and life of the structure--rooms within the structures are recreated with furnishings from the appropriate time period.

An 18th century warming oven and bedroom from a farmhouse in Heitenried, Fribourg canton:

Dining room and child's toy from a Bernese Midlands farmhouse built in Madiswil, 1709:

As the name living history suggests, Ballenberg is also a functioning farm that features agricultural staples from the various regions of the country. Fruits and vegetables, herbs and grains, tobacco, chestnuts, corn, and grapes all find a breeding ground here. Crops are grown in the vicinity of the regions appropriate to the plants.

An alpine herb garden next to a 17th century grain storehouse from the canton of Vaud:

Our visit coincided with a gathering of vendors selling various homeopathic and herbal remedies made from wild and indigenous plants harvested throughout Switzerland. A plot of medicinal herbs from the Bernese Midlands:

Riesling vines from an 18th century vineyard owner's house in the canton of Zürich:

Corn drying racks from Ticino:

There are also four eateries within the park that serve food and drink from their respective regions like the wine, cheese, and cured meat bistro from the Vaud; the 19th century guest-house from the canton of Zug; or the 19th century Alter Bären inn from Rapperswil in the canton of Bern. We chose to eat risotto and sausages and washed it down with White Merlot in the 14th century Novazzano estate from Ticino:

No living history museum is complete without a collection of artisans whose work and machinery is associated with the place and time period. Switzerland is deeply rooted in its agriculturally-based products and handicrafts and Ballenberg is a perfect venue to highlight them. Each cluster of buildings features several craftspeople who work at a regionally-specific trades that emphasize both the industry from the area as well as the natural resources available. In many cases--watch-making, for example--the craft or art was borne out of a need for supplemental income and took place from within the same barns and storehouses that saw day to day use from farming operations.

Making cheese in an 18th century alpine dairy barn:

Two types of weaving machines. The first from within a Bernese Midlands farmhouse, the second from a house from Blatten in the Valais dated 1568.

Tool tree from a 19th century Bernese Oberland blacksmith's shop:

A basket weaving bench waiting for its basket weaver in front of the Wissämmeli farmhouse, Lucerne’s Entlebuch region:

A 19th century water powered sawmill from Rafz in the canton of Zürich:

A 17th century, 2.5 ton wine press from Fläsch in the canton of Graubünden:

Alpine trades: making charcoal in proximity to a lime kiln and resin extractor:

Bee house from the canton of Bern:

We entered the museum grounds just past 10 a.m. and walked out about 4 p.m. Though the parking lot was full we never felt rushed, pushed, overwhelmed, or crowded. We strolled leisurely, stopped often, and kept our own pace. We saw no large mice. There wasn't a single strand of cotton candy. In fact, other than the restaurants and the artisans, there are only two small gift shops at each entrance where you could spend any more money than what it cost to walk through the gates and these, too, were filled mostly with similar handcrafts produced within.

I couldn't call Ballenberg a theme park and even the word 'museum' offers a slight disservice. Ballenberg is alive and minus a few modern upgrades is not much different than the twenty-six cantons of Switzerland today. The country moves and grows slowly and it seems to believe in mastering a few skills rather than succumb to the jack-of-all-trades theory of global industrialization. Cheese, filigreed textiles, animal husbandry, metal and wood works, and all things agriculture play as important a role in contemporary Switzerland as they did in 1291.

History is alive and well in Switzerland and its living traditions demonstrate a country sure of itself and its place among peers. If anything, Ballenberg illustrates just how Swiss Switzerland really is. There are no fake Matterhorns here, just keep climbing up the ridgeline and eventually you will see the real one. There are no fanciful kingdoms, flying elephants, Caribbean Pirates, or visions of places that never were. In fact, even today you could probably ramble through any number of small alpine villages and experience a singular (rather than the concentrated whole) version of the museum. That is, without its residents opening up their doors to you. What you see is what you get and what you get is Switzerland in a highly cultivated nutshell then, now, and forever.

While often I feel that Switzerland's rule-based orderliness verges on socialist oppression I take comfort in the fact that it will be as pretty and utilitarian in the next 700 years as it has for the last 700 years. For better or for worse Swiss citizens work diligently to ensure this; it is their creed, and the idea of the sanctity of the whole--the all for one, one for all spirit--defines and determines their country's path. Not surprisingly, Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno (German: Einer für alle, alle für einen; French: Un pour tous, tous pour un; Italian: Uno per tutti, tutti per uno) is the unofficial national motto. It's a small world after all, probably best to do things right the first time around.

The Sound of Sight 18

2010-07-20T22:00:00.003+02:00

~~Goldfrapp: Oompa Radar~~

The Sound of Sight 17.2

2010-07-12T10:50:00.003+02:00

~~Lee Hazlewood: Paris Song~~

The Sound of Sight 17.1

2010-07-12T10:41:00.005+02:00

~~Lee Hazlewood & Nina Lizell: Hey Cowboy~~

The Sound of Sight 17

2010-07-11T12:12:00.003+02:00

~~Lee Hazlewood: The Girls in Paris~~

Sun Hot Meditation

2010-06-09T09:09:00.001+02:00

~~Jack Kerouac & Steve Allen: October in the Railroad Earth~~

It was the fantastic drowse and drum hum of lum mum afternoon nathin' to do...

in redbrick of drowsy lazy afternoons with everybody at work in offices in the air you feel the impending rush of their commuter frenzy

the people--the alley full of trucks and cars of businesses nearabouts and nobody knew or far from cared who I was all my life three thousand five hundred miles from birth-O opened up and at last belonged to me in Great America.

the keen little neons and also yellow bulblights of impossible-to-believe flops with dark ruined shadows moving back of torn yellow shades like a degenerate China with no money

out there always finding his solace his meaning in the fellaheen street and not in abstract morality

it's all a sea, I swim out of it in afternoons of sun hot meditation in my jeans

Blue sky above with stars hanging high over old hotel roofs and blowers of hotels moaning out dusts of in-terior, the grime inside the word in mouths falling out tooth by tooth, the reading rooms tick tock bigclock with creak chair and slantboards and old faces looking up over rimless spectacles

and across rains they've come to the end of the land sadness end of the world gladness

miles away across verdurous fields of prune and juice joy

and I hear far off in the sense of coming night that engine calling our mountains.

with faces like undersea

I look up at blue sky of perfect lostpurity and feel the warp of wood of old America beneath me

Photo Credits:
Fence and Clouds: Thanks Lyudmila!

The Sound of Sight 16

2010-05-26T10:55:00.005+02:00

~~Andrew Bird: Bein' Green~~

Surface Noise

2010-05-19T12:28:00.014+02:00

Happy spring? Not hardly. By my acute senses spring started sometime mid-February with two lightning strikes while ski-touring in the Jura. Using my own calendar, then, based on a combination of the Gregorian calendar, Farmer's Almanac, and a hodgepodge of folk beliefs, we're just about to enter summer. What better way to celebrate the change of seasons than with music?

The stereo is almost always on in this household, but something feels especially right about throwing open the windows and doors and filtering music into the yard and throughout the neighborhood. While in Switzerland this practice breaks all sorts of social codes and will certainly compel your Swiss neighbors to talk about you in private, it's also a great way to meet non-Swiss neighbors. For example, I am now much better friends with a British ~~neighbor~~ neighbour behind us who heard The Stranglers' "Bear Cage" issue loudly from ma maison. So with volume in mind I'd like to present a little present.

Intro
Inspiral Carpets: Keep The Circle Around
Joy Division: Love Will Tear Us Apart
Prong: In My Veins
Gang Of Four: To Hell With Poverty
Happy Mondays: Do It Better
The Smiths: Handsome Devil
The Chameleons: Perfumed Garden
Wire: Culture Vultures
Siouxsie & the Banshees: Hong Kong Garden
New Order: Truth
The Damned: New Rose
Extreme Noise Terror: False Prophet
Syd Barrett: Two Of A Kind
Buzzcocks: What Do I Get?
The Cure: Killing An Arab
Colorblind James Experience: Hey Bernadette
The Fall: Mess Of My
Amayenge: Munise Munise

I rediscovered this summertime treat while filtering through the bulging mass that is my CD collection. This compilation came into my possession while I served as the Music Dictator for the mighty K-UTE at the University of Utah. I made the unilateral decision to add this promotional disc to my own collection rather than submitting it to the K-UTE library where it was intended and I'm happy to say that I'm a better person for it.

The CD was sent to college radio stations in 1991 and was created exclusively for the Dutch East India Trading record label that brought early Peel Session albums on the Strange Fruit label over to U.S. shores. It is indeed a sampler of artists who cut Peel Sessions anywhere from around 1970 and up to the late 1980s. The sampler was recorded using vinyl versions of those sessions with John himself giving commentary before and after each cut. Liner notes are slim and consist mostly of a catalog of Peel Sessions that would soon become available to a U.S. audience.

Because the idiosyncratic voice of John Peel either begins or ends each track, unless a station wanted to play the entire disc, as a whole it is not conducive to an on-air format. (Here I am, nineteen years later, still trying to justify my actions.) The compilation was intended for a U.S. market and never released commercially. I've never seen this for sale.

But because the disc is filled with the idiosyncratic voice of John Peel it makes for a great listen. There are stories about the early beginnings of John Peel's 1967 show called "barely credibly" Top Gear. There are stories about recording Jimi Hendrix and The Pink Floyd in the late 1960s. There are snarky comments about some of the featured bands: "lords of the dance floor" (New Order) and "fearfully voguish and a teensy bit boring" (Wire). Plenty of classic quotes: "But life has surface noise!" Plenty of classic versions of songs--Siouxsie & the Banshees' early 1978 version of "Hong Kong Garden" and The Chameleons' "Perfumed Garden" are worth the price of admission alone. And an hour's worth of John Peel's indelible sense of humor. Basically, this is totally cool.

The music will be up for a short time for your summery pleasure. As the program flows from one track to the next without interruption I suggest downloading it and burning it on a disc in a format that doesn't add space between tracks.

Take it away, John...

Photo credits:
John Peel, 1969

The Sound of Sight 15

2010-05-17T11:26:00.004+02:00

~~Kraftwerk: Pocket Calculator~~