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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Nov 22, 2006 - 02:13pm PT
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Munge--
Obviously I'm slacking off at work today because: My immediate project is done, and two, I'm skipping out to go riding in an hour, and three, I feel in an expansive mood, which makes me dangerous and prone to windy bullshitting. But that never stopped me so here goes:
I think of Jean-François Lyotard more as a poststructuralist than a po-mo dood. He also approaches "metanarratives" using the Bible as the archetype. Hence, his issues with metanarratives are not with the basic "big themes" that I've talked about (basically, mortality, and what comes up in a person locked in a great epic), which are incontrovertible, but rather, what such metanarratives are purported to mean in an objective and universal sense. In other words, Lyotard balked at the implied claim in many metanarratives that they had somehow organized reality into neat, objectively true schema. I would agree that such a one-size-fits-all schema, or breakdown of existence, is overreaching and exaggerated. But he's a philospsher, not a literary figure, and here, I believe Lyorard has overreached himself.
A metanarrative needs not lay claim to having solved and sorted out human existence by providing answers to age-old questions. And if this is indeed impossible, it doesn't signal the death of metanarratives, it only means that they can't, or shouldn't claim such narratives have solvbed, once and for all, the mysteries of the human condition.
The greatest matanarrative will always be adventures into the hear of the human mystery--not to solve it, but to live it as fully as possible. It will take more than a morose French Canadian to ever put such a story out to pasture.
JL
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The Wretch
Trad climber
Forest Knolls, CA
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Nov 22, 2006 - 02:42pm PT
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I suscribe to several climbing magazines. I read them the day they arrive, often in half an hour. There is much in them I dislike or ignore but also much in them that takes my interest. Yet I find the good outweighs the bad. Similar to threads in this forum. My biggest gripe in the magazines is the over promotion of some sponsored climbers. How many times to I have read about the latest effort of Tim and Beth? I also cringe when I read what seem to be to be contrived climbing terms like "sending" or "authoring" a route. This, no doubt, is further proof of what a curmudgeon I have become.
I used to read every word of the Amnerican Alpine Club Journal. Now it seems to be just too much for me. There are climbers I do not know climbing routes unfamiliar to me on peaks I have never heard of. Now I am a niche reader.
First post.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
one pass away from the big ditch
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Nov 22, 2006 - 05:31pm PT
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JL,
no doubt. There is something there, isn't there... about how substantive and non-shifting the climbing persona in a general sense is? Heroes and battles fought on the field of honor. In another thought-thread that seems to apply here; the question came up, why is that everyday co-workers can seem so vacuous and hollow, yet climbers are ever vibrant and tangible? Exceptions exist, but for the most part I spend my spare time with climbers because of that difference. They "Know" the story.
/me shooting down Tangent St.
Cheers, and a good weekend to all.
RB
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
one pass away from the big ditch
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Nov 22, 2006 - 05:32pm PT
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Rokjox, i hear ya. It's a bummer that the soy ink smears when I hold the magazine with sweaty hands. meh, better than lead based I supposed.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Nov 22, 2006 - 07:20pm PT
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I'd wait for the new Mountain to show up
it can't...
...with every issue of Mountain new places, new things, new ideas would arrive, usually starting off with the cover picture. The climbing universe was new and had expanses beyond imagination. And Mountain charted those expanses and mapped the "terra incongnita" of climbing.
We live in a climbing universe which is largely known. It is truely amazing to me, really, how different the world is now than then, routes that had been developed in a small area south of Nashville in the '70s are accessible to me as a destination... I didn't know about them back then.
I have a picture topo of routes in the East Fjords of Baffin Island, and a telephone number of an Innuit guide who could get me there and pick me up. I can call a number of a lodge in the Northwest Territories and arrange a trip into remote peaks of Canada... and even more... I am probably not more than a couple days from any place on the face of the earth, if that place is not liquid, and I have information that describes in words and images what I might find there.
If Mountain were published today, it wouldn't do it for me like the old days, when the world was young, when it was our door to the unknown.
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Dragon with Matches
climber
Bamboo Grove
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Nov 24, 2006 - 01:04pm PT
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Not sure if it's in the US or not, but I recently picked up a newish looking rag called "Vertical" issue #2. Anybody seen it?
It's mostly Euro-centric, but more adventure oriented than I'd expected. Good photography, some decent text, old-school history and modern alpinism, plenty of big-wall action, and surprising ethical position considering its continent of origin (and the fact that it's simul-published in French). Quite more interesting than any other Old World monthlies.
Side note - that Manolo dude is a f*#king hardass.
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Nov 24, 2006 - 03:06pm PT
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Interesting POV Ed. The world is shrinking, and along with it the ability to surprise. But our imaginations are still here and I can still feel it when that funny bone gets dinged.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Nov 24, 2006 - 08:43pm PT
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I let all Climbing and R&I expire because both rags should have renamed themselfs RAD BOGUS BOULDERING AND CHASEING THE NUMBERS............
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ha-ha
climber
location
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Nov 25, 2006 - 11:14am PT
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steelmnky,
i don't work for any of "the mags", though i have sold a few photos to Climbing. nor do i know anyone who is associated with them. in the interest of full disclosure, i am building a house down the street from Duane Raleigh's yurt, but i've never met him.
my post was merely a satirization of what i hear regarding the mags. funny how worked up people get on this forum of "hardcore" climbers.
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Flex
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
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Nov 25, 2006 - 07:41pm PT
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It's great to hear the many varied opinions on this subject, but it seems that there is some consensus as to the general dissatifaction with the mags.
1) People are tired of all the big number routes getting all the attention.
2)The mags are like a soap opera following all the current activity of the handfull of "household name" climbers.
3) The general lack of adventure in the writing.
After catching up on this thread I went and checked my collection and noticed that I didn't have any issues of Climbing or R&I from the last few years, yet I have nearly every issue of Alpinist published.
Almost all of my issues have been purchased for ~$2 at the local used bookstore, and all were purchased for a reason-either a particular article I was looking for, or an area I was researching prior to a visit was profiled.
I realized what I wanted from the mags was info-real life beta on a place, or route that I intended on ascending. Sure it's neat to read about some mega-hard project while I'm straining to squeeze one out after the AM java, but all that sh#t could be covered in 1 or 2 pages, about the length of time it takes for a leisurly crap.
I may not be very old (at least I don't think so-born in the mid 70's)yet for me the most interesting reading material is long since out of print. I snatch up every issue of Ascent I can find, and would much rather hear about a real old-school grovel than some sponsored folks on yet another trip to Rifle, Hueco, Joe's Valley, etc.
The biggest reason I avoid the mags is the price for what you get - shitloads of ads, thinner issues, posed and artificially lit photos, and fewer "palm sweating" articles.
The single best article I've come across in years is a 1 page story, sans pics by Dean Potter in Alpinist 9 about him surviving a botched BASE jump. After reading it I threw down the mag violently, jumped up and nearly vomitted. To me that was the essence of adventure writing and clearly illustrates the ever-widening gap between the mainstream mags and Alpinist.
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James
climber
A tent in the redwoods
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Nov 28, 2006 - 12:27pm PT
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Can you say that in English John?
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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Jarhead City, CA
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Nov 28, 2006 - 12:38pm PT
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Well said, Flex.
And I hope that you'll actually subscribe to Alpinist, because AFAIK they are still on somewhat shaky ground financially. I'd really hate to see them fold up shop for want of subscribers (especially since I've got another two years worth of my sub pre-paid).
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Melissa
Gym climber
berkeley, ca
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Nov 29, 2006 - 01:54pm PT
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Do any of the magazines make their content (apart from the odd promotional freebee) available online to paying subscribers?
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dirtineye
Trad climber
the south
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Nov 29, 2006 - 02:04pm PT
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I recently got some free copies of R&I and Climbing, and I have to say R&I looked a lot better.
But still, neither do much for me.
So it's stil lthe diff in a big runny POS and a small hard one, I guess.
Want to have some fun? Take what someone else mentioned get rid of guides, and then write your own little guide. While climbing in hte "white areas" that guy was talking about.
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