Images

Okay stop.
Okay start.
And please me, I don't care how.

- Behave, Frightened Rabbit

Forces of the universe - cosmic laws, such as fate, time, inertia, and gravity, are quite difficult to ignore. Equally unavoidable, though arguably less biblical, are the countless images we encounter each day. These are the simulacra of a postmodern epoch, the copies of things that can define or erase us. We cannot call these representations malicious, but we can call them ubiquitous in whatever way they manifest (occasionally associated with a humiliatingly repetitive musical jingle). They can be found hanging on the wall of your living room, in the worn fabric of a tired recliner, within a industrially-lit hallway, through the click of a search engine, the proclamation of a vintage ironic T-shirt, on the visual procession of a NFL half-time show, resting open on a coffee table, in the back seat of a yellow taxi cab, or splayed across the surface of an indefatigable airplane banner (old school). You get the idea. Look left - a suavely dressed gentleman confidently exits his Gulfstream jet to meet his lady, eyes locked, legs open, on the fine Italian leather seat of her Mclaren supercar. Look right, a billboard, ironically enough, proclaiming that Big Brother is watching. Straight in front of you, televised snapshots of a helicopter flying over the impossibly rugged mountains of Afghanistan. Behind you that field just outside of Boulder, a toss of the hair, hands on the hips. Right again, and you notice stored memories of that week in the Bahamas - you remember - the vacation wherein you may or may not have repeatedly climbed up and down a spiral staircase, only to lose grip at the last possible moment (or so it seemed), falling dramatically onto the four stove burner beneath you resulting in a reverberating bang, followed immediately by a complimentary clang!

Decorative staircases aside, consider the palette of this visual circus act. Vivid greens, dark reds, fair blues. They blend in infinite ways. The results are eye catching and they sustain us to some degree. But a billboard is tacky while a photograph can be intimate in a way that is hard to express. A Russian-born author once wrote that images have the ability to send a shiver through the body, a brilliant flash, a sudden, heavy impact of passionate recognition. But then it remains, why is the billboard of poor taste while a simple, poorly focused black and white photograph can set the heart ablaze?

Tuesday morning

Here, I suppose, is a place for expression, and a place to put things that dont fit on my bookcase.

Rinse, Rinse, and Repeat

Rinse, Rinse, and Repeat

16 Jul, 2009

Besides devising evil plots and cunning schemes, used extra conditioner and oil treatment after swimming.

“You have to shower.”

“What?”

“You have to shower.”

“But I don't want to shower.”

“That doesn't make sense.” (cue plate throwing)

I have considered contextual remarks like the former to signify some inherent, regrettable flaw of character. Something along the lines of Richard III, but less terminal. Prompting reactions along the lines of, “you, you... get out of my house right now, right this instant!” or on certain barometrically challenged days, large plate and champagne glass throwing, the perpetrator ducking frantically behind an armoire with a look of shock and confusion.

Fine, fine - in reality, such outbursts are often simply treated with a concerned (though significant, I assure you) shake of the head and sympathetic pat on the shoulder.

But back to the matters at hand - the ocean is salty, or it breathes salty, or something to that effect, and nine out of ten scientists, migrant workers, and late night talk show hosts would agree, the ocean is worlds different than your local pond. Its bigger, sure, sure, and has sharks that will eat your face, but its also much saltier. The implications of this, beyond the grand scientific/biological, paradigmatic ones that many of us fell asleep during biology class learning about in high school, are that after swimming, surfing, snorkeling, water polo, diving like a wild porpoise, etc etc – and once one dries off – you are left with a caking of salt over your body, on your feet, in your hair.

Likely to only dip his toes in the water(while still wearing his flip flops), and you can guarantee a prolonged and extra soapy shower afterwards.

Strangely, many people, even those who have grown up near the ocean in whatever localized, geographical manifestation of which they are a part are driven at the first opportunity that presents itself to wash the salt off their bodies, out of their hair, and down the drain. Helena Bell comes close to some sort of cosmic heresy when she decries the awful sensation of salt on her skin and offers her solution when she says, “I hate salt water, can’t stand the stuff. And why shouldn’t I hate it? Is it too much to ask for the oceans to be filled with fresh water?”

Good heavens woman.

And then these people go and kick puppies. No, no, that may be hyperbole, but nevertheless this motivation is strange to consider – or rather, it becomes a matter of concern – for both parties. For one it is a philosophical quandary, the other, a more practical concern illustrated by a desperate pleading posted on the venerable chacha.com:

Q: “Should I shower after swimming in the ocean?”

A: “ Yes, you should shower after swimming in the ocean, the salt can make your skin itch and your hair sticky.” -ChaCha

Besides the clear existential or merely practical problems with A) asking for life advice on the internet and, more significantly I suppose, B) taking it from some non-corporeal entity named chacha - this is not particularly sound advice as it is painfully devoid of the abstract. But then the realization dawns, or falls on your head and almost knocks you into your kitchen cupboard - people who choose not to shower after swimming in the ocean have different motivations.

You don't even want to know what Helena Bell wants to do to these puppies

For those who choose to savor the feeling, and avoid the shower and the shampoo, and soap, and body wash, and are willing to even suffer a bad hair day at the expense of wearing the ocean for a time – there remains a contradictory feeling, a duality of sensation and emotion. It just feels right. For some, there is a connection between water, the sea, and the soul and everything else that makes us love and desire. It is one of those small things, defying proper explanation or definition, that keep us coming back for more.

Quick Fades

Quick Fades

07 Mar, 2009

At least hes looking.

There is a song by MGMT called Time to Pretend. Many of you have probably heard it, even if you tried not to.

If we are simplifying things to the point of exhaustion, it is a song about quick fades, fast endings and the beauty that can be found in between. And as it were, speaking of things fading, the snow in Eagle County (life at its peak tm) has been doing just that.

Vail, and Colorado in general, (if you have been following things at nws.noaa.gov) is in the middle of some desperate, I would rather stay home and watch home shopping network-type conditions. People on the street give each other that look, which, if you happen instead to be looking at that fantastic fur coat through the Bridge Street Boutique's window, is the look of utter defeat.

Fortunately though, all is not lost, hope remains in the valley. The other day, one particularly jubilant observer pleasantly noted, "Well, you know, March is statistically the snowiest month in Vail." You can't argue with hope. Or you can, but than you just look like a jerk... or Rush Limbaugh.

Anyways.

People around here, aren't too happy. But then you remember you are in Colorado, able most of the time, when you choose, to ski all day long, in one of the most incredible places on the planet. And then if you have any sort of moral compass, you mentally slap yourself for being so damn depressing. Colorado is a beautiful place. So beautiful even, that it is really damn hard to forget this when you are here. But it can be done. I am sure there are lots of places like this in the world - in fact I know there are lots more places like this in the world.

Costa Rica, the vast pacific, sand beneath your feet, salt in your hair, the saturated air after a rain storm, storm clouds on the horizon as the sun breaks through, and triple overhead sets rolling in. A fleeting glimpse of childhood wonder.

You are spiritually bankrupt if you cannot see this for what it is.

Amazing every time. And again, it's hard to forget (or rather it should be and I keep hoping it is) about that kind of beauty. But sometimes, still, we manage to. When MGMT talks about the weight of the world, it is just this - an observation of all of this around us, pressingly beautiful, and, yes, sometimes really, really terrible - But the beauty is always there to balance it out, even if you cannot see or feel it - or really, even believe it. And that's also why in Time To Pretend, the lead singer says, "...I miss the weight of the world." It can be lost, and sometimes, if you forget to keep looking, you can't ever find it again.

Sometimes, they know what they're talking about.

So although, here I am in Colorado, no snow, inside a stuffy apartment, a plastic box, with a number of Safeway croissants, and generic store-brand coffee next to me as I write... I know what's out there if I choose to look.

And as I stare out the window, cautiously optimistic, with eyes open, the snow begins to fall.

Holiday Weekends

Holiday Weekends

22 Feb, 2009

There are always the times when you reach the bottom.

Long turns. Deep snow. Bright sun. And then.

Below you, inevitably, you glimpse the lift line.

Throughout ski country, there are those of us who are lucky enough to ride on the weekdays. Mid-week, off-peak, away from the crowds and pandemonium that accompanies weekends and non-denominational holidays. But, every once and a while, each one of us, yes even you, gets stuck in the maze.

Vail, Colorado, my home for the moment, is a beautiful place. Idyllic potentially, and for some it is a height of some particular aesthetic (which now - if talking aesthetics and pop culture in Eagle county is presently concerned with a thirty-some thousand dollar town logo and the ensuing scandal, and has now become known, ubiquitously and unoriginally, as logo-gate). It is also home to incredibly expensive, but quite average breakfast sandwiches, absurd decorative animal pelts, free live-music, heated sidewalks, and voluptuously adorned Hellenic women - and then, of course (you already saw it coming) on certain occasions, notable lift lines.

The Vista Bahn, a high speed quad at the base of Vail Village, the genesis for many rider's days and also the terminus, becomes a portrait of chaos on holiday weekends. Stay well away from this place at all costs unless you prefer your socially awkward persona to be proverbially cooked. Look left, gentleman in an orange hat and stylish one piece. Right, and you will see another man sporting a tan suede faux hunting cap and a parka emblazoned with some obscure - but assuredly quite expensive - designers insignia. Ahead you notice the couple in the matching orange and green snowsuits. Behind, and this really does it, you have, only inches from your face, the frightening personage of the mountain mascot, Pork Chop the safety pig.

No you are not hallucinating, and yes, he is still standing right behind you

Now, stop the presses for a moment, there is something that needs to be noted here. There are, in this interesting, certainly partially crazy, and brilliant world, two primary ways of managing a lift line. The first, is what I will call the West Coast "oh just fu@& it" approach." Please don't let the implications of the vocabulary fool you. There is nothing inherently malign about this approach. It is actually quite civil and actually damn near meditative. In fact if a Shaolin monk were to one day decide to leave his remote mountaintop monastery and visit his nearest local Intrawest resort - he would undoubtedly choose this method. It consists of essentially, standing still and letting universal Karma shape the way of things to come. Lifties using the OJFI method tend to avoid the line-specific area and linger around the chairlift, where many many happy patrons await being whisked off to higher and better places. Sensible! You explain. Well yes, sure. OFJI lifites tend to be generally kind or indifferent but always just simply there in the best sense of the word. Say hi, and they know what to say back.

Well regardless you may have a nice experience while actually boarding the chair, but the scene before it...

What the f is going on here?

Well.

There is little rhyme or reason to placate the frothing crowd, besides a thin strand of dyed nylon line. People just go, and this is largely guided by both intuition and experience. Almost all possess the former, in some varied regard, and the latter of course is present in a fraction, and even then doesn't always agree with the former. Well as you can see, already the glow of the previous run through steep trees is wearing thin because the guy in front of you has, to be kind about it, limited intuition and quite positively no experience and is holding a trail map open (likely upside down) to examine his future options, while the word around him (ie other people in the line standing below this man with the outstretched map) waits...on him.

We have the solitary person who foregoes the ‘singles' line and enters the ‘group' line to cause unease and confusion throughout. I mean honestly.

Then there are the out-of-turners (conscious or unaware), the ski school, the random cutters, and sequentially challenged, all conspiring against you making your next run. An individual thrown into this recreational melee is quite easily compelled into issuing the occasional plea for divine intervention - preferably, in this case, divinity arriving in the form of a flying chariot with a ski rack.

But, you eventually get on the lift. And that's the point with the OJFI system: You will get there eventually. Things will work out. Try to enjoy this very privileged and graced time you are given.

Now beyond this celebrated, but often misunderstood scheme lies the "formulaic line management method." This system is so complex that Plato, Napoleon, and Einstein stand in wonder at its ethereal-like complexity (this may be an overstatement, but nevertheless is probably deserved if we stretch things a bit).

The liftie who practices the FLiMM - or rather, we should, and will, call him the technician, manages a lift line in such a way that you are absolutely sure, especially after your quadruple soy espresso, that this person graduated in at least the top 80% of some small rural community college's math program.

Orders, finger pointing, practiced smiles behind mirrored sunglasses, and probably some very complex differential equations are utilized. Think Goodwill Hunting Matt Damon writing things on a blackboard in a dimly lit, smoke filled room in the sub-basement (I'm afraid that floor does not exist, sir.) of some resort Marriott and uniformed lift attendants nodding sagely in rapt agreement. This is the kind of stuff that goes on behind the scenes with these guys.

The FliMM lifite is the quarterback of the lift line. He doesn't tolerate any deviance, and quickly corrects for mistakes or aberrations in the line. Nothing, in the best case, escapes his attention - and anyways, you don't necessarily notice any of this at the time because earlier, finding yourself at the back of a very long line gazing across a sea of multicolored polyester and nylon, you look up from staring at the snow beneath your feet to see yourself seven back from boarding the lift.

Amazing.

Rosseau, of course, would have a strong distaste for these characters though; they're just too damn utilitarian. But in the end, you have to appreciate their finesse.

We return then to our regularly scheduled discussion of the Vista Bahn - say, 11am on a Saturday of Presidents Day Weekend (can anyone please explain to me what - I mean, just what this holiday is about?). Sunny probably and people everywhere.

Skiers and snowboarders, and a mountain biker, are milling around the bottom of the lift. We should not necessarily expect this to be a hostile environment, but our good friend ‘Jer', posting on the TGR forums, begs the skier stuck in linear oblivion to reason on their weapon of choice in a thread entitled, Knife fights in the lift line.

"Fixed blade or folding? Straight? Serrated?"

A legitimate question if you think about it, but really it belongs more to the Delta Force than to Sandy from Omaha, visiting Vail for some hot chocolate and cardio on a vacation from Microsoft.

Probably one lane over in the singles line. Don't piss him off.

In this case at least, lift lines are no longer a simple inconvenience. Now your very existence is at stake. The Vail Daily recently reported the story of a man who leaned over in a lift line at the mountain and -really, no joke here - his gun fell out. Yes, that's right, this man was packing heat while skiing Riva ridge. Let us just stop here please, for just a moment.

Here you are, fresh off the plane from sunny Boca Raton, and, partially attributable to your total lack of lift line experience, enter the rotation out of turn and cut this gentleman in line and then... well, let us just go ahead and say you can forget about your apres plans involving that duck quesadilla.

Method and madness are the name of the game here, but despite all of this, the next time you find yourself in a crowded lift line, look around - at the sky, at the mountains, and get ready - because you are almost there.

Everything Happens For A Reason

Everything happens for a reason

18 Jan, 2009

Star crossed and not a damn thing he can do about it

Of course there are better things to be doing, but we discount a moment, only to find fault with the next. And the next thing you know you have a VCR with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in it. So, fearing similar circumstances, I find myself heading for the mountains, at the Jetblue terminal at Logan International Airport. A place I would strongly suggest against spending your leisure time at.

A theme of constant motion pervades the place. Douses the walls even. But I am in the middle of it, and I'm trying to remain still.

This becomes especially difficult when one considers air travel compounded by the thoughts of one on the laundry list of French philosophers, Jean Baudrillard: "As for freedom, it will soon cease to exist in any shape or form. Living will depend upon absolute obedience to a strict set of arrangements, which it will no longer be possible to transgress. The air traveler is not free. In the future, life's passengers will be even less so: they will travel through their lives fastened to their seats."

So if I choose to pursue that existential conundrum I am screwed, or at least helplessly fastened to my non-exit row, coach class seat for eternity.

Conversations: A man in a black cashmere coat on a laptop. Immersed. The light reflected off a wing of a nearby plane. Friends meeting, hugs exchanged. Cleaning services brushing the metal railing to an incomparable shine. Ski boots over the shoulder. Sun off the pages. Light shines on a girl in a green sweater. Sadness or destiny - you decide.

Boarding pass in hand - blue skies outside at gate C32. This is easier than you think, but its just too damn short. Across the hall there is a photo. A rather large photo encased in metal trim. A baby with sunglasses stares cryptically out into the terminal. On this baby, a blue patchwork bonnet, and pacifier in mouth. Maybe this is something you have seen numerous times, to me it seemed rather strange, if not a bit absurd - but certainly there are stranger things out there. A stroll through your local mall would certainly supply you with a number of superior instances of weirdness.

Regardless, here you are staring at what clearly is supposed to be one cute, but clearly precocious baby. And beyond bonnet and eyewear, you find a tagline printed under the image. The tagline reads I will not be pacified.

This is one determined baby.

And if this toddler can rise up against his/her fate, or at least collaborate with it - than why cant I? Though I already know this, and don't require a vaguely disturbing advertisement to remind me.... so it goes.

And, really, how many people actually see this pacifier clad child on their way to the beaches of the Bahamas, the southwestern landscape of New Mexico (complete with Taco Bell) and Euro Disneyland? Do they consider it? And besides, I wonder, does anyone notice the irony here for heavens sake? Although the baby - eyes hidden beneath the ignominious reflection of his/her shades - is proclaiming its freedom/independence rather forcefully, it is doing so with...

The damn pacifier still in its mouth!!!!

So time will tell (hopefully very, very soon ) when I will stop writing about prints on airport terminal walls and start chasing more lofty goals. Things that matter, however, cannot be sought out like bread on a grocery store shelf.

Besides, things often fall where they will - particularly so if we listen to classical thought. We are all victims of the deity swooping down from stage left. Fate swinging on a theater cable and knocking us down or out with a mystically and expertly placed roundhouse kick to the head. And when confronted with our response of, "Hey! Now why would you go and so something like that?!", we are granted only an existential, Lebowski-esque shrug of the shoulders. Such is the way of things, and now we know why primetime television is so successful.

Fate - quite capable of ruining your afternoon plans

Now where does this leave us? Shakespeare's Romeo - the victim of being inconveniently star-crossed - suggested we are just waiting perpetually, anxiously, for our destiny: "My mind misgives / some consequence, yet hanging in the stars..."

So you may find yourself at a cocktail party or, maybe even in the living room of your ex-lover. Standing, arms crossed, or, possibly, sitting in a plush vinyl recliner - and you are presented the relentlessly opaque and empty posit, "All things happen for a reason" (given without a touch of irony and in a reluctant but sagely tone).

Although this is the type of statement that should cause music to stop, people to shuffle in their chairs, fine china to be dropped, and dogs to yelp, we can always makes the best out of what we are given. Ultimately, this is all we can desire. And with purpose we are left to focus intently, surrounded by all the beauty in the world - to see the most and the best in everything, and to always be able to say, This is enough...

Purity

Purity

This guy freaking hates helmet cams

And yet it was in some way if not as memory fabled it. A phrase, then, of impatience, thud of Blake's wings of excess. I hear the ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry, and time one livid final flame. What's left us then?

Joyce, Ulysses

The other day, I looked down from the chairlift.

Below me, there was a man standing with a video camera on his head. The device perched, ridiculously really, at the apex of his helmet. Depressing in an existential sort of way, but quite utilitarian nevertheless. Such is the direction of things.

A video of a day ripping the hardwood alleyways of Jay Peak with some super awesome soundtrack featuring Beyonce and friends is nice - especially with a suede couch and some beer and wine in which to enjoy the feature - but ultimately, it is nothing more than novelty.

A camera does not lie, and memory is famously (and romantically) unreliable. And so you see, therein rests the problem.

Coming soon to a hill near you

Just as we cannot go home again, as they say, we cannot, no matter how hard we try, duplicate experience. Once a moment has passed, it is lost - nothing left but an echo. Close your eyes and open them once more. The world is born again.

Outside of simulation and duplication are the moments in which we live (though, in our age it becomes harder and harder to separate the two - just ask Jean Baudrillard). And although tenuous in the extreme, the moments experienced in the present - within a single, deliberate turn through a still winter forest - have enough potency to touch the soul.

When we look close enough, and long enough, we find some unbridled sense of permanence, a glimpse at what lies at the end of our search. Something true. Each turn down the fall line after a storm kindles something. A shard of consciousness, which we don't necessarily understand, but we feel - like wrapping your arms around someone you love.

It is these things that matter.

Feeling then - suffocated by many, intentionally or otherwise, drowned in alcohol, displaced by constant motion, denied out of fear, battered by television - late nights at the office, teeth whiteners, sleepless nights. Emotional paralysis.

The places in which we live serve as a partial refusal of that destiny. We congregate in towns, the names of which provoke a frown, or the raise of an eyebrow. And we live. Riding the mountains that guard these towns, like sentinels, become our moments of worship.

This is our gambit. It is our move away from artifice towards the things that matter. But it is not supplication; it is a power struggle. It is the rider's finesse against the mountains permanence - this creating that moment of understanding, however brief it may be. Fleeting, like Blake's wings of excess but as powerful as the deepest recesses of imagination and memory.

So we end the day, often with satisfaction, a smile, desire having been quenched - and we are left to settle in the aftermath. And if you planned ahead, you may have filmed it from your helmet cam. Good for you. But then we look, and we wonder, and then - just like that - it's gone.