Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Germans

Noel Coward:

John Derbyshire has had better things to do than follow politics of late. Politics' loss is very much our gain. He and Odious seem to court the same muse.

Thursday last, Mrs. P's employer treated us to attendance at an event in that notorious naval of northern New Mexico, Taos. As a native of the state, I must say I'd greatly prefer the world to associate us with Los Alamos and atomic weapons than with the far more pernicious, if metaphorical, energy that radiates from Taos. Remember the scene in Easy Rider when Fonda and Hopper wind up in the New Mexico commune? Dirty, filthy hippies grovel about, awkward looks are exchanged, Fonda and Hopper get the Hell out. Well, that place was purchased and given a makeover by filthy-rich Texans, and Taos is what remains.

Don't believe me? We were put up at one of the town's highly prestigious resorts: to protect the guilty I'll call it the Monte Chingado. The place encapsulated what I'm talking about. Antlers and turquoise, that's the Taotian spirit:

Presiding over our room:

Ooh, can we brand the dressers?

Yay, a turquoise pillow! Thing weighs about twenty-five pounds: you could smother a spouse with no hands. Our armadillo likes it, though:

Oh, good: art. Zombie horse seeking delicious brains, above our mini-bar:

Really, this place is where both virtuous Texans and sinful New Mexicans go when they die. It wasn't all trashy. There were actually some very nice touches in the conference rooms, dining areas and other classier sections. The water feature was pretty good. The bar had an enormous snake effigy over it. But everything was just wrong, wrong, wrong. This was amply demonstrated when we came back to our room and found on our pillow not a chocolate truffle or other such welcome offering, but a rose quartz. With a pamphlet expounding its vibrational effects on our circulatory, mental and reproductive systems. But I must observe that a lodging that offers healing crystals in a room full of antlers and cowhide is unclear on basic New-Agery.

Again, that's Taos for you.The next morning at a coffee shop, Mrs. P found a notice which pretty well encapsulates the whole town:

Will trade therapeutic body work for firewood.

One more illustration? How about some more art? Also from our room:

The inscription at the bottom:

Details not provided.

Life Imitates Art, Art Imitates Jokes at its Expense

Curators of modern art have such complicated problems, the poor things. Give me a good rousing performance of 4'33" any day.

Speaking of the Alps, here is some historic Alpine poetry:

To the Matterhorn

Thirty-two years since, up against the sun,
Seven shapes, thin atomies to lower sight,
Labouringly leapt and gained thy gabled height,
And four lives paid for what the seven had won.

They were the first by whom the deed was done,
And when I look at thee, my mind takes flight
To that day's tragic feat of manly might,
As though, till then, of history thou hadst none.

Yet ages ere men topped thee, late and soon
Thou didst behold the planets lift and lower;
Saw'st, maybe, Joshua's pausing sun and moon,
And the betokening sky when Caesar's power
Approached its bloody end; yea, even that Noon
When darkness filled the earth till the ninth hour.

--Thomas Hardy

Hardy likes these grim, elliptical finishes that set you down with a hollow thud. I'm still debating whether this one does anything for me. But mountaineering poems aren't that common, particularly if you don't count free verse in the Telluride Mountain Gazette as legitimately belonging to the genre. (Yes, I know, the lines seldom reach the right edge of the page. Nevertheless...) The four and seven refer to Edward Whymper's first ascent of the peak in 1865, with its four fatalities on the way down. As the saying goes, "The summit is optional, but descent is mandatory."

From John Derbyshire's Readings page, always worthwhile if you crave a spot of verse.

Update: Here's some mighty fine Matterhorn for you.

A well illustrated and pretty readable account of the first ascent of Kang Nachugo in Nepal this September. I like the notion of "the 'Fairbanks Belay' – if you fall off one side, I’ll jump off the other." And the scale of the snow fluting and cornices on these giant mountains always blows my mind.

In other news, we alpinism nerds can look forward to Nordwand. Someone on SummitPost claims it's slated for U.S. release in December; I hope that's correct. I'm not aware of any other mountaineering movies that depict a substantially earlier era of climbing. Hob-nailed boots, wool, rope around the waist: I also hope to see some English-language articles about the making of this one.

Goodness, I've been gone long. I've been immersed in the winding path of modern tax law, et il y a une anguille sous toutes roches, as they say. Possibly.

Peculiar and jack were good enough to remember me with Stephenson's Anathem, and since I have yet to comment on the last book they gave me (Sayings of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Short version: I find your concern for the relations between goats and men disturbing), I thought I would jot down a few thoughts on this latest.

It's not his best. At the center of all his better books is a giant idea--often an idea in the Kantian sense, as something too big really to get a hold of. At this center of this book is a lot of philosophastering. To be fair, the main character and most of the others are all the sort of people who do have conversations about deep philosophical issues and then try to answer their questions with explosives, but there's only so many paraphrases of the Meno you can read before you want to shake the author and say, "I get it."

This is true. Unkind, but true.

And the science is... not good. The basics are acceptable, but his grasp of larger issues in physics seems comfused.

In its favor is the fact that even Stephenson's lesser stuff is more intelligent and engaging than just about anyone else out there. The book also offers the only convincing portrait of an active Temple of Reason I've read.

Anathem also drives home just how rare the ability to follow an argument is, and how much training it requires. The sense of when a point has been proven is a rare one, and needs much cultivation before a taste for truth (which is above all an acquired taste) is identifiable.

Finally: worth one's time, absolutely, but no Diamond Age. Which is praising with faint damns, of course.

A man eager to climb famous mountains must have the patience to follow a winding path. A man eager to eat bear's paw must have the patience to simmer it slowly. A man eager to watch the moonlight must have the patience to wait until darkness falls. A man eager to see a beautiful woman must have the patience to let her finish her toilette. Reading requires this patience also.

--Feng Zhenluan, Commentaries on the Strange Tales.

Exploring a 3,100' cave shaft in China.

"Doc, we're losin' him! He started out playing Irish, slipped into bluegrass, and now it's sounding like Nashville!"

Man plays banjo during brain surgery.