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hist
Novice climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 12, 2002 - 06:28pm PT
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Muir never put any food on my plate. He didn't invent anything, and he never brokered any major peace agreements in the world. He sure wasn't no war hero. Muir, yea right.
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hmm...
Novice climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 12, 2002 - 06:38pm PT
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are radical and coppertop the same person...? yes, a chat room would be quite nice indeed...
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Eye No
Novice climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 13, 2002 - 03:15pm PT
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Copperhead is not radical - but he is quite SICK...
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lucy
Novice climber
oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 13, 2002 - 04:50pm PT
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If you are a lover of John Muir, a must read is Kindred and Related Spirits, edited by Bonnie Gisel. It is correspondence between John and Jeanne Carr who was a mentor. They were both very Bible based in their beliefs and had a tremendous respect for God's creations. A little sensitivity is required to appreciate the book, so you maqy have to set aside macho climber attitudes. They were both instrumental in seeing that Yosemite was recognized as a special place. Enjoy. Praise Jah!
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Novice climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 13, 2002 - 04:55pm PT
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Thump.
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Jason
Novice climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 13, 2002 - 06:41pm PT
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Lucy, I'm 100% sure it was one of those suggestions that put me to sleep. An the sensitive side of if was probably what did it. Didn't he write some pulp or science fiction or something? I'm a gen X, action junkey, I need to read more John Long I guess.
Anyone ever read the short story "Requiem for Ronny" by John Long? True or fiction (I don't know), great tail. One of the best! Thanks John for that one.
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Novice climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 13, 2002 - 08:43pm PT
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I don't care how hard he climbed. I could have kicked John Muir's ass easy. I would have knocked him on his tree hugging butt.
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Old Guy
Novice climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 13, 2002 - 10:09pm PT
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..on a semi-related note....
it WAS John Long who once wrote the Stonemasters of the early 70's were equal parts John Muir, Olympic athlete and Dobie Gillis....? Tho I think ya'll were a bit more like Maynard (scruffy, social inept, loved the rasta tobacco....)
What's that make climbers of today like?
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C
Novice climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 14, 2002 - 12:47am PT
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...t...
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C
Novice climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 14, 2002 - 01:58am PT
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He's got an attitude and can't even see straight. That's pretty funny (and pathetic). What do you expect from a rummy?
...somebody better clean off all these empties before we get busted...
Climb the Muir Tree!!! The more adventurous, the better.
Trivia: Has anyone ever bivied in the Muir Tree (modern times; the entire night)???
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1 i'd
Novice climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 14, 2002 - 02:14am PT
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huh?
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John Long
Novice climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 14, 2002 - 06:43pm PT
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Hey:
The short story, "Requiem for Ronnie," was, action wise, a composite of various river running stories/lies I heard over the years. The character of "Ronnie" was based on a guy I met while working (age 15) as a slave and pot scrubber for rafting outfits on the Colorado River during summer break of my sophomore year in high school. It (the story) was never meant to be a historical or journalist piece, but a "story" in the literary sense.
Many folks in the outdoor adventure world hold that a good story must be "true," or factual. I contend that writers such as Borges, Hemingway, Conrad, et al, wrote many good stories that in fact were entirely fictional, though usually drawn from personal experience. In a sense, magazines like Outside and the like have ruined the literary adventure tale by encouraging only factual accounts. It's an interesting argument, but an argument totally separate from the tale itself, which lives or stands on its own merit.
JL
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nathan
Novice climber
sltMany folks in the outdoor adventure world hold
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Sep 14, 2002 - 11:07pm PT
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>I contend that writers such as Borges, Hemingway, Conrad, >et al, wrote many good stories that in fact were entirely >fictional, though usually drawn from personal experience.
And Melville. Let's not forget Melville. Their granddad.
>In a sense, magazines like Outside and the like have >ruined the literary adventure tale by encouraging only >factual accounts
And National Geographic. And Krakauer. Journalists. Not story tellers.
Write us a novel John. Please. Grisham can do it. He even makes lawers look heroic.
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Mr. L
Novice climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 15, 2002 - 03:28am PT
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Hey John,
I've enjoyed your stories for years, but became somewhat disappointed about a dozen years ago when I started to meet and become friends with some of the real inhabitants of your stories. I guess my belief at the time was that writers of fiction blend together details from their reading, experience, thoughts, etc. to create original characters, plot, etc., but I thought that if a story used real names it should be factual.
At the time I was dismayed to find out that Steve and Hugh hadn't actually hit golf balls off the Dawn Wall; only talked about doing it. I started to realize that many stories were a mix of fact and fiction. For awhile I was ambivalent; on the one hand I had to admit I enjoyed the stories, but on the other I felt there was something wrong with this confabulation.
After spending many more summers in the valley and other areas I've come to understand the need to write just the way you do. If I want facts there are plenty of sources, but if I want enjoyable storytelling about people like the ones we all know, then there shouldn't be any rules except that they be entertaining and true, but only in the sense that the stories capture the reality and the absurdity as a whole.
How can someone create, from whole cloth, a fictional Yosemite with fictional characters and fictional misadventures and still capture the feeling of it all? Difficult if not impossible. Most writers of fiction create their own little worlds out of their experiences, but our little world of climbing is too small and strange to change much without losing much more. Truth is stranger than fiction, but quite often truth can be improved upon.
Cheers,
SL
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Mr. L
Novice climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 15, 2002 - 04:35am PT
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After going through the "R&I...mags in general" topic I wonder if I've been trolled, and trolled hard. Has JL ever really visited this site(vivalargo@aol.com)? Oh well, fact or fiction my post stands, and btw I am the real Mr. L whoever the f*ck that is. vivalargo@aol.com???
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dissed
Novice climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 15, 2002 - 10:34am PT
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me too- me too! vivalargo@aol.com has not produced a response. Someone somewhere is probably laughing at all of our emails sent to our hero.
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Largo
Novice climber
Venice, Ca
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Sep 15, 2002 - 03:53pm PT
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Dear SL:
I feel like a slacker working the Net on a Sunday--with all my buds out cragging--but my shoulder is buggered up so there.
You raise an interesting point about using particular names (per Hugh and Steve in the story, "Wall Rats"), but you have, IMO, misconstrued the liberties I took with what they actually did (re: hit golf balls off El Cap). The process you put forth is actually the reverse of what I did, which is to doctor the "facts" not to hop the story up, but to tone them down. If I always provided genuine scenarios (especially about Hugh and Steve) few would believe them and many would bash them/me for gross misbehavior and crimes against mankind. Such as the time we (Hugh, Steve and I)were cooked on mushrooms and were motoring back into the Valley and out junker car ran out of gas by the golf course down past the park's south entrance. Solution? We vandalized a Curry Co. truck and boosted the gas tank. And that was just the start of that particular fandango. That was twenty five years ago but those are the bare facts. Rather than put that into the story, I decided on the toned down version of the golf balls, which got the spirit of the guys across without citing the shameful crimes we so often committed. Nowadays I would just tell the "true" story, with all the bark on, but I wasn't so bold ten years ago. That's why it always seemed amusing to me to get branded as strtching the "facts" while most of the time I was serving up a sanitized version of some pretty terrific tomfollery.
Fact is stranger than fiction, and in the old days when I'd serve up the facts, the mags would reject them outright and we'd setle on a lesser version of same.
Also, since this is a thread about Muir, there is a story about JM hanging out in a tall tree when a storm suddenly descends. Can't remember the title, but that story is a keeper and a must read for Muir fans.
Ciao!
JL
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radical
Novice climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 15, 2002 - 04:56pm PT
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Jason, "The Wilderness World of John Muir" is a must read. A smart guy like you just has to read this book.
If you haven't read any Muir, it will surprise you to read what an amazing inventor, explorer, and naturalist he was.
After this book there are some great books that concentrate on specific area's, like specific journey's, or tales of his many mountain adventures.
If you are still interested you can read about his final journey in the book I originally posted about.
Just reading the preface and forward of "John Muirs Final Journey" blew me away. It gave me new insight into the shallowness I, and the world, understands almost everything.
My bro copperhead, ya might know the guy who wrote this book. "Michael P Branch, Associate Professor of Literature and Environment at the University of Nevada, Reno"
radical
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radical
Novice climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 15, 2002 - 05:22pm PT
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I've read almost everything John Long has published. Some of the stories I've read 10 times or more.
I would be very surprised if most of what has been written under JL is not JL.
If it isn't John Long, he or she is a very smart person, and that person is a pleasure to have around.
I shared a rope with JL once in the gym in Santa Monica. I belayed him on the wall and he did the same for me on crack. I tried to get him on the 11.b crack, which I had wired, and he saw me for the idiot I was.
Burnt me off in about 2 seconds ....smart guy..wish he would write more..
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old guy
Novice climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 15, 2002 - 11:30pm PT
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boys,
let's stop wondering.. it ain't Memorex..
think we got the real deal here. El Largo hisself...
the only climbing writer with vividly Genius Pathos .....
(echos of Hunter S Thompson, Jack Kerouac and maybe even Ken Kesey..plus John Muir and Dobie Gillis)
now I suppose I could ask him some sorta trick question to verify .. ? but .. might not be fair.. .. we're talking near 25 yrs ago? To wit- John- I tagged along with you and the Keith Cunning crew and we all gangbanged a first ascent (standard JT procedure..). crack out near Jumbo Rocks.. route you had eyeballed previously.. looked like a teepee- hence the name Nottahogen (think that was your pun? "Not a hogan..."
I've no idea of the thing ever saw light of day in a guidebook. Now- you had said you'd already done 50 FA's that season, so a relatively insignificant one probably slips the gray matter.. but the trick question is..... who led the thing?
Now- I have to admit - being a novice climber with maybe 9 months under the belt, getting keelhauled up a FA 5.10 w/ J Long.... (hand crack to flared wide roof chimney? requiring chicken wing arm bars ~~~yikes) . pretty exciting stuff..
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