Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
|
|
|
Jun 12, 2007 - 03:18am PT
|
In the psychedelic 1960s, when we were all mad and fooled around with various substances, I went to Split Rocks with Roger Briggs. He took a few drags off of a joint and suddenly got out of my '52 Chevy and could climb anything. He was laughing and running up and down the rock, and scooting down hard face climbs, and back-scooting up 5.10 face climbs, while laughing in amazement. He was doing really -- in terms of physics -- impossible things, as I sat in the car and watched, stunned and in awe. He was my protege/student at the time, and I'd never seen such a display of climbing. He literally transcended reality. I began to wonder if indeed one could go through some door of perception or if indeed all we see is but an illusion, etc. I had never witnessed or ever would witness such a thing again. Nor would he be able to repeat such a thing, even in his prime -- which came in his phenomenal and sober era, years later.
|
|
Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
|
|
|
Jun 12, 2007 - 12:17pm PT
|
Good one Oli!
Sure beats throwin' up on that gal's pillow.
Briggs is another hero.
I hope you realize I was completely pulling your leg upthread, talking about the California/Rockies superiority complex: I was playing the satire forward in jocular fashion bro.
As you say, some of us really did think that stuff!
Musta' been high...
Alas, I have not taken a drag off of the "rag weed" of provincialism for some time.
|
|
Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
|
|
|
Jun 12, 2007 - 08:34pm PT
|
Well I hope it was clear I have all the respect in the world for the Californians. Many of them are my dearest friends. I admire their abilities. I just have had this feeling all through the years that when you live in such a remarkable place as California and Yosemite you can't help but develop a sense of grandeur, a vicarious grandeur probably flowing from the grandeur of those great walls and climbs themselves. It was always the tendency for people there to feel a little bit superior. Certainly my Royal was that way, and he learned some good lessons going elsewhere, such as when he climbed the Diamond in a day with Kor in 1963, a breathless insight. There always have been incredible climbers everywhere, and you know 5.12 first came to the Needles, with Gill. 5.11 was in Colorado and Utah (Greg Lowe) a couple years before it hit Yosemite, and then the first 5.11 was done not by the Yosemite-ites. Guys such as Henry or Moffat later came cold to the Valley and showed they were capable of doing most anything they wanted. Likewise the master Bachar and others could visit other areas and pull off amazing things. I still love to think about Billy Westbay's bold runout crack on the Diamond -- probably the boldest, most frightening pitch on the entire wall. Bachar told me it was desperate to follow that one... I just like to give credit where it's due, rather than be provincial in the way we recognize people. It takes a little more courage to acknowledge people rather than feel threatened by them, or some such... I'll stop waxing philosophical.
|
|
Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
|
|
|
Jun 13, 2007 - 12:38am PT
|
Malapropisms? Could you give an example? I'm unaware of using any. I always write incredibly artrickulately.
|
|
john hansen
climber
|
|
|
Jun 13, 2007 - 12:55am PT
|
Pat's always write's pretty good stories,,,he climbed with the older generation and it's an honor to hear his tale's.
Just dont get him started on Layton Kor ,or frieght trains...
or,, playing the piano... and Karate,,, and beautiful women.
I'm actually hopeing Pat will post some of his current thoughts on these particular subjects.
Malapropisims aside..... Lets hear some more stories man!
|
|
Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
|
|
|
Jun 13, 2007 - 08:35am PT
|
You know, I really never thought of the Stonemasters as being a Californian clique. I always included the best climbers in the Valley (when I hung out there from 1974-77) and Meadows as being Stonemasters, regardless of where they were from. I know that most were from SoCal or the Bay Area, but I never thought it exclusive to that.
As far as pot goes, I partied with a number of people in C4, including Stonemasters, and they all smoked the evil weed… oops, that’s cigarette tobacco, I mean Mary Jane. But then maybe they were just a figment of my stoned imagination and that in reality SMs never indulged in drugs.
Riiighttt
|
|
Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
|
|
|
Jun 13, 2007 - 12:26pm PT
|
it was a magnet for attention and a dead giveaway
You sure got that right, though I got more hassle from tools outside the park that in.
|
|
Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
|
|
|
Jun 13, 2007 - 01:25pm PT
|
Those aren't malapropisms, if they do exist in fact, they would be typos, simple failures of spell check, or whomever proof-read the final draft (though a few of those chapters were first drafts). I have bad eyesight these days, almost lost it entirely when my blood glucose level reached 500, and it's hard to read the relatively small print. I know how to spell those words, but I gave each chapter to some writer friend to proof for me, for spelling. We're all human. I can show you typos in any book you want to name. Even the most celebrated writers in the world can't get away from them all. Most good writers and readers know this and don't worry about it. I wouldn't throw out Starlight and Storm because Rebuffat let a handful of mis-spellings creep in. A malapropism, though, is a ludicrous misuse of a word by an inept person. I hope I don't fit that description. As for my longer-winded style, one of the best poets on the planet, Edward Dorn, who died a few years ago, and who was a friend and teacher, once told me that my writing sometimes happened too quickly, that I didn't digress enough and didn't give enough detail or description at times, that it was too overt at times. I learned a lot from that comment, and my approach has evolved toward a slower pace, getting "there" a little slower and delving deeper, of course not always giving readers the big rush they might be looking for in more sensationalistic (and less reflective) writing, but those rushes come when they are needed, kind of at the critical moments... or in subtle ways a more adept reader will sense and appreciate.
|
|
James
climber
A tent in the redwoods
|
|
|
Jun 13, 2007 - 01:33pm PT
|
Pat,
I've never been able to write a sentence longer than a twenty words. I blame generational ADD. Besides, brevity is good; it gives the words strength. One of the most famous lines in the world contains only six words, none of which have more than three letters. "To be or not to be."
I'm sure my opinion on the matter will evolve as I mature. One day I'll write a long sentence like David Foster Wallace and feel capable of controling the meandering line. Until then I'll stick to the bouldering of writing.
Writing is rad.
|
|
eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
|
|
|
Jun 13, 2007 - 01:59pm PT
|
I always liked Archie Bunker for his great malapropisms. George Bush is pretty darn good too (can anyone say subliminable?). One of my favorites? Had a Palestinian boss who once threatened that if we didn't come through with the latest deadline that "NECKS WILL ROLL!" OK, off topic, I know...
|
|
Jaybro
Social climber
The West
|
|
|
Jun 13, 2007 - 02:03pm PT
|
When you come to a fork in the road ...
|
|
Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
|
|
|
Jun 13, 2007 - 02:19pm PT
|
What was the film where a foreign store owner with a heavy accent thinking that he was being robbed pulls out a gun and points it at the guy and yells, "I blow you!"
|
|
Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
|
|
|
Jun 14, 2007 - 12:12pm PT
|
There is always a critic, or someone who focuses on the little imperfections rather than give any sort of sunstantive, constructive criticism. I'm sure there's a chip in Michelangelo's David and of course that unfinished section in the Mona Lisa. I just read William Styron's "Darkness Visible," an insightful study in how delicately fragile the human psyche is, and I enjoyed the book greatly for its honesty, though it has problems. The author likes to impress the reader with his vocabulary, too many big hard words that would make the average reader stumble, and he goes awry a bit in his logic at times. I know what those words mean, but I don't think any avererage reader would know. That didn't stop him from winning the Pulitzer Prize. Dylan, in his latest album, Modern Times, has phrases that hurt our ears, such as "more frailer," etc., but who cares? He's not trying to be concerned too much about grammar. My worst sentence, or paragraph, is usually better than the best sentence or paragraph of most of those who would take note of the little typos. When ten or so of the best poets in the country tell me they find the book "morally profound" and "richly beautiful" and "total abandon of the heart," or "very significant and moving," etc. etc., and they are the type of people who are not afraid to offer criticism, because they know I thrive on good criticism, I feel I have done something of worth. If I were to be focusing solely on the spelling of words I would never get anything written. So I simply write, and it's adequately rigorous, in terms of grammar and spelling, certainly to a par with any book of which I am aware, as every book has a handful of typos. As for the pace of the book, people today watch too much TV and other instant gratification things. To cite "To be or not to be," as an example of short crisp writing got me chuckling, because it's merely one sentence of a very long play. You could take short sentences out of my writing and isolate them as well. But if you don't like my writing, or find it only "pretty good," toss it. I've found some incredible books at the local give-away bin at the second hand bookstore, books no one wanted or were the measure of...
And what does any of this have to do with Stonemasters?
|
|
Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
|
|
|
Jun 15, 2007 - 03:21am PT
|
Wow that last diatwibe sounded defensive. I'm just a beginner, trying to learn...
|
|
Jello
Social climber
No Ut
|
|
|
Jun 15, 2007 - 03:31am PT
|
Pat, I'm up late, like you. For a beginner, you're pretty far advanced. It's good to see how willing you are to see your own defensiveness, though. Human giants like you raoming the earth today make me hope there will not be a mass extiction of your ilk anytime soon. We need all the wise dinosaurs (hopefully that includes me?), to forge the path ahead.
Sleep well, old man.
-OldManJello
|
|
Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
|
|
|
Jun 15, 2007 - 04:20am PT
|
Those are very nice words and touch my heart. We climbers should speak more gently and lovingly to one another. It has so much more power than the opposite (for which the climbing world, or part of it, seems almost famous).
Jello I haven't slept for almost two weeks, my friend. It's bad, and I'm losing touch with reality. I hope I don't blow the show I'm giving next Friday with you. But how great will it be for us to be together a couple days? Maybe we can find a great Italian restaurant in your neighborhood. Do you remember when we climbed my route Star Span?
About my book and where/how it was published, Rocjox. I had an offer from the University of Colorado press, a literary press, to do my book "Everything That Matters," and there were other places that would have done it, but I decided I wanted all the control this time. So I used my own little company, Two Lights. I've found more typos leak through with big publishers, such as McGraw-Hill which has done a couple of my books, and you can't trust promises from some of these people, such as Wilderness Press who promised on their souls they would put my history of free climbing out on high quality paper, for the sake of the 400 photos I'd spent a year gathering, and they freaked at the price and rolled it out on recycled paper... And they cut the text exactly in half in order to make it a manageable project. Can't fault them for that, I suppose. So I wanted control this time, no broken promises, and did it through my own little company and printer and for the more or less "cult" audience of devoted followers I have around the planet who I know will buy all my books. I figured if I could sell enough to break even on the printing it would be ok, and I did that the first week or so, selling three or four times the necessary amount, with no promotion whatsoever other than a simple email or postcard to those folk. It was, by any standard, a modest profit, but absolutely nothing in the way of real distribution. When the book distributor Alpen Books told me they want a 60% discount on all their books now, I said goodbye and best wishes. They would be making five times more per book than I would, and just for putting the name of the book in their catalogue. Chessler took the book in relative quantity, since he's never been able to keep a book of mine in his possession very long... and since he is a very generous man and good friend. It's a small little business I have piddled with for years, with small increments of profit, and always more a labor of artistic love than anything else... typos and all...
Enjoy these malapropisms for now, as I may one day again learn how to sleep and won't be up all night on super topo to watch the sky get slowly lighter... and sun come up. It has reminded me, though, of some wonderful bivouacs on mountain faces, where it was too cold to sleep much, like the time I took Roger Raubach up the Diagonal on Longs, and he was slow, and we ended up at a small ledge just left of the steep Broadway snowslope and no way to cross it in the dark. We sat there shoulder to shoulder without coats, at 13,000 some feet... I was so cold I could hardly move my limbs at all in the morning. Roger had to leave his camera for gas in Lyons... Those were the days.
Yesterday I bought some gorp, just to remember that taste and feel I am still a climber... All I have are my memories, and my three beautiful girls... who put up with the old, hopelessly nostalgic has-been.
|
|
Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
|
|
|
Jun 16, 2007 - 10:21am PT
|
Jeez, you guys are... "stoned, immaculate"
-Jim Morrison...
Any hoo, not to break the meaningfulthread drift:
Remember that bit Doug Robinson wrote about climbers being adrenaline junkies? I never quite swallowed the reductionist conclusions of that thought, because I always encountered climbing as such a rich and marvelous internal reckoning within its context of natural beauty. To say our vertical engagement hinged on the facet of adrenaline production was a bit of short shrift. -And I know besides that Robinson is not at all lost on the natural beauty of the rocks and trees and birds and the collusion with fluid movement, our dance upon the stone and all that, so there is for sure this component of adrenaline and I think that repeated habituation to a certain high level of stimulation is also what gives many a climber quick and frequent yield to the company of the demon weed, to getting stoned.
|
|
Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
|
|
|
Jun 16, 2007 - 10:29am PT
|
Second, I find that climbers are a restless lot, in many cases unsuited to the stable diet of modern life, they need more jazz, more juice and climbing helps cut through the available monotony and assists to congeal within the aspirant a strong sense of purpose and well earned feeling of wholeness. Patterns of drug use can willy nilly be an errant reach for similar ground.
|
|
Ricardo Carlos
Trad climber
Off center, CO.
|
|
|
Jun 16, 2007 - 10:58am PT
|
Oli
(Jello I haven't slept for almost two weeks, my friend. It's bad, and I'm losing touch with reality. I hope I don't blow the show I'm giving next Friday with you.)
Sir get some sleep and what show?
|
|
Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
|
|
|
Jun 16, 2007 - 11:09am PT
|
Oh please tell me that Oli and Jello will be performing Porgy And Bess at the Fruita Community Theater.
Porgy, of course, is the ideal role for Jello, and I can't wait to hear him sing I Got Plenty Of Nothing.
Where can I get tickets?
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!