Away!

Imma go here.  Imma do this (sorta).  Back in a week!

Dam.

In the lochs of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River, China.  I seem to recall spending the night in this boat stairway.  Water goes up, water goes down.  Very. slowly.

Not with a bang, but a whimper.

This is how your trek ends...

...if you are unfortunate enough to come down with Acute Mountain Sickness.  We saw this tableau many a time, with the tourists in varying degrees of distress.  The best-off came down on their own feet, in a stumbley sort of way, leaning on porters or guides.  Then came the horse-loads, like this guy, heads bobbing in semi-consciousness.  And for the worst of all, a seat in a helicopter evacuating the dangerously-ill to Kathmandu; a constant stream above our heads.

Pumped!

Today I finally sent a route that I had been working on for a couple of weeks.  A fairly wussy one (although it hit my weak spots...hence the projecting) and in the gym, but I am feeling very pleased with myself, noobness and all.  Thus, you get a climbing picture- Wizard @ Birdsboro, cleaning a 5.12a.  Enjoy.

Island life

Some friends of mine are in St. Lucia right now...

Jerks.

Meanwhile, I went down to Occupy Philly and was aggressively hit on by one cop and about ten drunk homeless men. Oh, and there was some protest action too.  Not action-action, a la Oakland or PDX, but the somewhat more civilized kind.

Oh, and this picture is from a trip to St. Croix (guess I can't complain too much...), taken on film and somewhat shittily scanned, hence the grain.  Still, I find it a soothing image. 

Dog fight!

Two healthy-looking strays play fighting as we entered Namche Bazaar, in the Nepali Himalaya.  Mountain air does a doggie good!

The Mountain Cat's Ear

Two social commentary pictures in a row?  Crazy.  Now, here is a flower.

Liliaceae Calochortus Subalpinus, the Subalpine Mariposa Lily, taken near the beginning of a circumnavigation of Mt. Hood via the Timberline Trail, with my bro.

The other half

Destitution, Xi'an, China- but it could be anywhere on Earth.  Its a good day to be thankful for what you have.

Occupy: Sedan Chair

Everyone loves an aggressively obvious visual metaphor, non?

Seriously though, I find the expression on this guy's face as he is being portaged up some very steep stairs to be pretty evocative.  Epic smugness.

Street(non)meats

There are rice pyramids in these bamboo leaves.  They looked so good (and so benign and un-intimidating relative to the average East Asian streetmeat), but they were just a bit too blandly sweet for me.  Muslim Quarter, Xi'an, China.

Stone Idol

Swayambhunath, Kathmandu, Nepal.

Dew

Sunrise dew on the bushes outside my tent, Dolly Sods, WV.

Fiery Apparition

Swarms

This isn't really great photography or anything, it's more of a Halloween post.  You see, swarms of anything gross me out in a creepy, Halloweeny way.  Doesn't matter if it's rats or people crawling all over each other, it's stomach-turning.  So you can imagine my consternation when, on a winter hike in the Poconos with boyfriend, I came upon an area of snow pocked here and there with holes FULL of swarming insects.  These are big holes, about a foot across, and there were at least a dozen of them.  That's a lot of bugs.  And they were all wriggling and squirming.  It's snow, bugs!  It should be pristine and pretty.  Stop making it gross.

Anyway, Happy Halloween.  May your snow be free of weird bug spawns.

The horror, the horror...

Today, I am going to the Exhumed Films 24-hour Horror Fest.  I went a few years ago (was in Nepal last year, poor me!), and it was pretty bonkers.  Its 3am, you're hopped up on candy, and you are watching some true, delirious insanity unfold on the screen in front of you.  Its usually an eclectic mix of movies, from the actually good (Cronenberg), to the classic (Suspiria), to the classic B-movie (the original Piranhas), aaand to the apeshit, shot-on-a-shoestring, Indonesian, cannibals-kung fu-special forces-orgiastic-pagan sacrifice-zombies whatthefuckery.

And in the spirit of this event and this holiday, here is one of many carcasses we saw piled along a half-mile stretch of the Bishnumati River in Kathmandu- an urban water source.  That is true horror.

Pensive Piety

A congregant at the Great Mosque of Xi'an.

In his house he waits dreaming...

Fancypants spider of unknown species (genus Aranea!), Kathmandu, Nepal.

Burned out

Undergrowth rebounding after a controlled burn in Mariposa Grove, near (in?)Yosemite.

Ama Dablam

Egregious gap in mountain pictures!  Too many goons on rocks- gotta step back and get the whole boulder.

Everest gets all the press, but Ama Dablam, just south of the big man in the Khumbu Valley, is easily the most arresting and beautiful of the peaks in the area.  Also one of the most visible- it is one of the few mountains that you can see from a variety of points in the valley.  This was taken from Dughla, just across the river from the end of the Cho La pass.  I wanted so badly to get some quality alpenglow shots on this trip, but was each day foiled by the relentless march of late afternoon clouds.  This was the closest I ever got- within about 10 minutes those clouds had rolled up to envelop me.  Still, I think this came out quite well.

The Wizard(s)

Back to Birdsboro!  In truth, only one of these guys bears that nickname.  Can you guess which one?

I can tell you who is not a wizard though- me.  Yesterday, for the first and last time, I got my hair stuck in my ATC while rappelling off a route I cleaned.  No danger, if anything I was more secure due to some unplanned shimming of my belay device, but I did think I was going to have to give myself an impromptu haircut.  With a knife (both life-saving rope and life-giving carotid in close proximity!).  While dangling in midair.  While my head was pretty much cranked down on my shoulder.  After about 10 minutes of finagling and some aid from the ground, I managed to free it.  First and last time.

On the plus side, feeling progressively stronger and I can climb fairly hard two days in a row.

Salt of the Earth

Salt formations (don't tread on them!), Death Valley, CA.

Through a Chinese Doorway, Three

A little slice of secret garden in heavily urban environs, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province.

Through a Chinese Doorway, Two

Back alley courtyard, Hong Village, Anhui Province.

Through a Chinese Doorway, One

Inside the Temple of Buddhist Virtue on Longevity Hill, the Summer Palace, Beijing.

World Fucking Champ

This man, my amigo and former teammate, is the Masters Track World Fucking Champion in the Scratch race.  That's pretty impressive.  Oh, and he did it by lapping the field.  That's extremely impressive.  Rainbow jersey, represent!

"Joseph Wentzell (USA) made everyone sit up and take notice as he won this category's title by lapping the field on his own.

It was quite an aggressive race, with lots of breaks going but nothing was sticking until Joseph Wentzell went on his own. By the time the others realised how strong he was, Wentzell had taken a lap." -VeloUK

(Pictured here a few years ago- fit, but no where near what the level of hardman he achieved this year.  This is also the race that boyfriend went rubber side up and broke his hip.)

A Gentle Eye

At a horse farm in the Poconos.

Sending It

Two amigos on a decidedly easier bouldering problem than yesterday's post (easy enough for me to do!).  Bouldering is a tricky thing- you're not roped, you never go much above 10 feet, and yet I am just as aware of a potential fall as I am when leading.  You're not falling far, but you're guaranteed to deck and it doesn't take much to fuck yourself up on a pile of rocks.  I guess that's why smart people bring crash pads.

Bouldering tends to be more technically difficult or, rather, the ratings start at a higher level, and great boulderers can put up some truly awe-inspiring moves.  One of the films shown at the fest was about this girl, Ashima Shiraishi, a 9 year old Manhattanite who is one of the best climbers around, of any age- in her trip to Hueco Tanks, TX, the centerpiece of the film, she was working on a bouldering problem that has yet to see a completed ascent by a woman.  She apparently sent it three times (!!), but remains without a valid ascent because each time her feet swung out and briefly hit a tree.  That's gotta be hard on such a wee one.  But if puberty is good to her (physically and mentally), she will likely become...I don't even know.  She's already phenomenal, I lack an appropriately strong superlative.

Faces of Concentration

This is my favorite climbing photo I've yet taken.  Don't know what this bouldering problem was rated, but a bunch of us tried it and, man, it was a bitch.  No one finished.  Well, except that random guy who came walking shirtless down the path and flashed it with no apparent effort.  This, however, is not that guy, as you can tell by the...effort, quite apparent.

The Top Roped

Another Gunks shot, this time of your humble bloggerer.  This is the first time I've appeared here, I believe, except as a five-year old silhouette.  Milestones!  This, obviously, is a guest photographer.  And no offense to any of the people that have commandeered my camera while I'm on the wall, but I really need to bring someone that knows what to do with an SLR one of these times.  Would love to have some solid pictures of myself climbing!

Anyway, the Gunks have no sport climbing; only trad, which I have not the experience to lead.  Thus I mooched mightily off of the skill (and gear) of some of my excellent friends, who rigged top ropes for us less-badassers.  I did, however, learn how to clean routes.  One step further!

Gunkstravaganza!

Took a trip with a pile o friends to the Shawangunks for some climbing and the New Paltz Climbing Film fest.  More pics and details to come!

American Dream

Abandoned homes along Highway 395 in California.  The first one is actually in the ghost town tourist attraction of Bodie, CA (a goldmine boomtown of the 1870s-80s), but the second two are modern-day abandoned homesteads at the foot of the Sierras.  Plus ca change...

Bones

Yak vertebra at the edge of the receding Khumbu glacier, which we saw while crossing it more or less at random (trails are for...pussies?).  There were quite a lot of bones scattered around in the grass, enough for several yaks.  None of the cool ones, though.  Skulls probably get snatched up by tourists before all the flesh is gone.  (Gross)

Cryptid

Abstract statuary, somewhere in Hong Kong.

Uncomplicated

It's just pretty.  Sunset, Half Dome, Yosemite.  About as idiot-proof as photography gets.

Screaming across the sky

In that last post about Gravity's Rainbow, I mentioned little meerkats of brilliance poking their heads out of the subterranean warren of symbolism and digression that make up the bulk of the 900 pages.  One of these shining rodents of authorship is the longest episode in the novel (no chapters, here we have "episodes"), and is almost a stand-alone short story.  It focuses on a character, Franz Pokler, who had been mentioned maybe once before, and the history of his involvement with developing the dreaded 00000 Schwarzgerat as the holocaust occurs in the background.  I know that's just blahblah to those who haven't read this book.  I won't really try to describe the plot, but it's a case where all of the oblique symbolism and allegory and general verbosity of Pynchon come together into a story that is both thought-provoking and poignant without being heavy-handed (how many short stories about the holocaust can say that?).  It's by turns amusing and horrifying and ends in great sadness.  In the simplest terms, its about the manufacture and manipulation of innocence.


The picture is from the holocaust memorial in Berlin- relevant!

Taste the 'Rainbow'

It's a bird!  It's a plane!  Fuck, it's a V2 rocket!

Gravity’s Rainbow, Pynchon’s opus and my determined literary slog for about the last four months, finally completed last week.

For those that are unfamiliar, here is a handy equation:

Gravity’s Rainbow =

Catch-22(Dhalgren x Ulysses)^hardcore pornography
William S. Burroughs + Kafka

It is nearly 900 pages. There are over 400 named characters, many of whom appear only once, while others might be introduced early and then left for hundreds of pages, only to become integral near the close. Dozens of distinct voices providing narration. Whiplash-inducing tonality changes; from technical engineering or mathematical discussion, to philosophical digressions, to mythology/analogy, to horror, to comedy, to some truly hardcore, straight-up porn, and back again.  It encompasses an enormous pile of themes- free will vs destiny (celestial/divine and man-made), Pavlovian conditioning (sexually murderous octopi!), science and the limits of human control, sacrifice, psychology, extinction, sexuality and transgression, paranoia, insanity and self, obsession, mythical pig-heroes, immortal light-bulbs, kazoos...

The narrative of the main character, such as it was, ended over 100 pages before the novel did. Those last 100 pages provide total disintegration of plot, character, structure, hell, reality and the English language (I will grant you that these two things are not unrelated- those last 100 pages reflect the complete dissolution of that main character, among other things). The climactic action to which the main plotline was building is presumed to occur beyond the final page. Or not.

I will admit that this was at times an infuriating slog. However, however. Frequently you emerge from an eye-crossing passage of stream-of-consciousness or technical digression into episodes of pure brilliance. Laugh-out-loud screwball comedies, thrilling action pieces, beautiful instances of poignancy, bizarre wtf essays that still manage to be enthralling…and yes, some of those sex scenes were pretty damn titillating. 

I can’t even imagine what its editors thought when they read this thing- where even to begin? The consensus is that 99% of the original manuscript ended up published. Reviews were decidedly mixed. The Pullitzer fiction committee recommended it unanimously, but the full selection board opted instead to award it to…nobody. But there was also fervent praise like this, from the NYT’s reviewer: "If I were banished to the moon tomorrow and could take only five books along, this would have to be one of them."

Um…no. But I'm glad I read it.

AZ hearts DL

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BOYFRIEND!

I know your birthday is tomorrow, but you usually see these when they come to your email the morning after I post them- this way, it'll be sitting in your inbox all happy-like for your b-day.

I posted this picture, from the top of Gokyo Ri, because even when you're not with me, you're always in my heart (even if the reason you're not with me because it was cold and early so you wussed out and went back to your sleeping bag).  I love you boyfriend.  I think you are one of the most giving and generous people I've ever met, and I'm proud to share my life with you. :)

Enough sappy, let's go find you some steak frites!

The international language

Prepping for for KATHMANDU FOOTIE SMACKDOWN 2010: MONKS VS. LOCALS.  Sad to say, I do not know who emerged victorious from this cage match of death, as boyfriend and I just caught a lot of sitting about and desultory passes before we moved on.  But I can say with confidence that all parties were having a great time, cause duh, it's soccer.

Huntresses also rock the quarry

 

These two ladies both had their first-ever lead climb, inside or out, on this trip.  One of these firsts is depicted on the left side of this very image!

Unfortunately we are stuck inside this weekend, but there are no doubt more trips to be had before it gets all coldy.

The hunter and his quarry

From last weekend's excursion to Birdsboro.  Top, my usual climbing partner on a 5.9.  Below, a new acquaintance on a 5.10.  Or maybe 11?  I can't remember.

This was my first trip to Birdsboro, a disused section of a still-active quarry about an hour from Philly.  It had a nice range of climbs for scrubs like me (5.9s), and a big-boy wall (5.10+ to, I think, 5.14). My second time climbing outside, my first time leading outside, and all in all, a very relaxed, enjoyable day in perfect pre-fall weather.  The nicest thing about climbing outside?  My hands didn't seem to get as sweaty- maybe cause of all of that naturally occurring chalk ("dirt").  I was, however, much more conscious of taking a fall on lead- those rocks are shaaaarp!

From the wuthering heights

From low on the shoulder of Mt. Bierstadt.  If you subtracted about 10,000 feet, this could almost be the Scottish heath.

A wing and a prayer...

Back again.  More computer problems and silly Adobe left me with sans editing software yet again.

But here's some prayer flags, from atop Gokyo Ri.  May they keep me photo-bloggable evermore.

Shake it

Been a while since I tossed my dogger up here; this is a waterlogged version.  I like this image because I caught his head at an almost perfectly neutral point in the wild flailing, so it looks like he is just patiently enduring the hard and bewildering personal trial of having his body go apeshit on him.

Downward Spiral

 Two stairwells in the Basilica de la Sagrada Familia, Barcelona.