happy labor day

related: hallelujah, bum again

losing contact

They are so skilled in running that without resting or tiring they run from morning until night following a deer. And in this way they kill many of them, because they follow them until they tire them, and sometimes they take them alive.
...
Many times when we were with these people, we went three or four days without eating, because nothing was available. To cheer us up, they told they told us that we should not be sad, because soon there would be prickly pears, and we would eat many and drink of their juice, and our bellies would be big, and we would be very content and happy without hunger whatsoever.
...
And when the time of the prickly pears returned, we again gathered in the same place. Inasmuch as we had resolved to to flee and had set the day to do so, that same day the Indians separated us, and each one of us went his own way. And I said to my companions that I would wait for them at the prickly pear grounds until the moon was full. And this day was the first of September [1534], and the first day of the new moon.* And I informed them that if they did not come during this time as we agreed, I would go alone and leave them behind.

- Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca

* Cabeza de Vaca's references to specific dates six years after losing contact with Spanish civilization cannot be taken literally.

related: running after antelope &c.

Peavine Half~Marathon

Announcing: The Peavine Mountain Half~Marathon.

Where: Beginning at Peavine Road (which is just off of North Virginia St. in Stead). If you're going up N. Virginia it's an unmarked dirt road on your left, shortly after you cross the railroad tracks; if you get to the zoo you've gone too far. Here's a great little map from USATF, where you can zoom in and look around. We'll be running up to the radio towers on the summit--8,200 feet--and then back down.





When: Saturday, August 28. Meet at 7:30 am, running by 8 am.

How: However you like. I'm running. You can run it too. Or bike it. Or walk some. Or round up another friend or two to relay with you. Tag in and out of a support vehicle. Whatever. Peavine Road is leveled and improved all the way up so you could drive a sedan to the top. No high clearance or 4x4 required. No kidding. No race clock. No hurry.


Distance: 14 miles total

Cost: Free, or course. Plus: there will be snacks!

Also: Did I mention it's beautiful? The grade of road itself is pretty gradual: no terribly killer steep stretches. From what I can tell, the total elevation gain is about 2,000 feet, perhaps slightly more.

A little more about Peavine: You know Peavine. It's the mountain north of Reno where they keep the big R & N. The one that's all yellowed over with cheat-grass when you look at it from the south. But the approach from Peavine Road (north) is spotted with sage, mule's ear, then gets into forests of mountain mahogany, with even a few groves of aspen, willow, and pines.

Finally: If you've got any more questions, here's a very legal event disclaimer and FAQ (a la Gil Scott Heron, as usual) for you to sign off on. Otherwise, feel free to post any other questions (or just sign up!) in the comments section.

related: suit run, wasatch plateau marathons

Pyramid Lake III

Last week Kelly was in Wisconsin visiting her sister so I had a few days to pal around with Ash and Tom. I’d been up to Pyramid Lake a few times but never really made it that far up the east side, which is where the big pyramid lives.

I had some reservations about taking our two chicos truck-camping up a remote desert road in July, but figured if those poor slobs hauled a cannon out there with horses, we could probably manage well enough. Considering the engine overheated 10 or so miles in on the dirt road, and that we had to change a flat, and that Tom went tumbling over the tailgate at one point, and that both kids got acquainted with all kinds of nettles and spider bites, they were eminently good little sports.

related: where do mummies come from? & HWY 50

Pyramid Lake II

A lot of northern Nevada drains into this desert terminus called Pyramid Lake, about an hour north of Reno. The best description I can offer is something between the more arid side of Bear Lake and a miniature, less saline Sea of Cortez. What I mean is it’s phenomenally stark and beautiful. A long cerulean blue mirage that actually is water.

Here’s a photo a friend took up there last year.

Also, if you bought one of those new apple ipads you’ve got a sleeker and slightly doctored (check the exaggerated symmetry in the widescreen version) picture of the place at dusk, probably overlaid with a few desktop icons. All of this has left me wondering about our use of pretty pictures as wallpaper and pegboard for our digital carkeys, frypans, monkeyspanners, and hacksaws, along with all the psychological corollaries, subliminal or explicit, profound or superficial.

For example, how does the act of clicking and dragging my ehowitzer or other tacky virtual furniture across a flat, odorless, digital expanse like this effect my connection with or understanding of an actual desert lake at dusk, or an actual sunflower at close range, or, if you like, puppies, or Sting, or the plastic-silicone-heavy-metal-device itself? Or does this just look like a lot of handwringing and hoodia about ecoporn, commodification, and turning somewheres into nowheres? Maybe try putting your coat rack in front of your bay window, or spreading your T.V., roadmaps, walkman, mailbox and “recycle bin” out on the beach, and then post a report.

Pyramid Lake I

We followed again a broad Indian trail along the shore of the lake to the southward. For a short pace we had room enough in the bottom; but after traveling a short distance, the water swept the foot of precipitous mountains, the peaks of which are about three thousand feet above the lake. The trail wound along the base of these precipices, against which the water dashed below, by a way nearly impracticable for the howitzer.
…
Having advanced only about twelve miles, we encamped in a bottom formed by a ravine, covered with good grass, which was fresh and green. We did not get the howitzer into camp, but were obliged to leave it on the rocks until morning. We saw several flocks of sheep, but did not succeed in killing any.
…
The next morning the snow was rapidly melting under a warm sun. Part of the morning was occupied in bringing up the gun; and, making only nine miles, we encamped on the shore, opposite a very remarkable rock in the lake, which had attracted our attention for many miles. It rose, according to our estimate, six hundred feet above the water; and, from the point we viewed it, presented a pretty exact outline of the great pyramid of Cheops.
…
The elevation of this lake above the sea is four thousand eight hundred and ninety feet, being nearly seven hundred feet higher than the Great Salt Lake, from which it lies nearly west, and distant about eight degrees of longitude. The position and elevation of this lake make it an object of geographical interest. It is the nearest lake to the western rim, as the Great Salt Lake is to the eastern rim, of the Great Basin which lies between the base of the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada.

-John Charles Frémont & Jessie Benton Frémont
January 13, 1844

Baron Von Bunsen's threatening shoal

[Baron Von Bunsen has a] threatening shoal of books, teeming with hypotheses on aboriginal nations. Egyptian, Indian, and disinterred Assyrian Semites; as also on the locality of Paradise, for which a map is already ordered of Kiepert. Maps on the opinions of people may range from the ship-binding myth on the seashore and the Himalaya to Ararat, and to Aramea Kibotos, even to the Mexican Coxcox; the fanciful productions of fiction, which are known also to the Bible of the Mormons.

-Alexander Von Humboldt
July 4, 1854
In the era of Crystal Palaces

RAD DAD

A couple weeks ago we were in San Francisco with some friends and I found a pretty great little zine in the little consignment corner at City Lights Books.

Cover art by Fernando Martí

It's been several years since I've picked up a 'zine, and even longer, if ever, since I'd read one cover to cover. But this one's all stories, essays, interviews, resources, and art about "anarchism and parenting," or more generally, about being a "radical parent." Thomas Moniz has been doing these for 5 years (17 editions) and there’s also a blog.

In other fatherly news: we’ve got Tom walking now, sort of. Ash is into rub-on tattoos and the A-Team.

¡recordando los alamos / remembering the cottonwoods!

yeah. hullo. hi. it’s been a while, right? let me start w/ a short update. a couple weeks ago we drove out to Utah to stay w/ my mom and visit the cottonwood canyons of our youth.

a couple highlights: trespassing through a big hole in the chain-link into the abandoned plant nursery up the road. Ash found some big concrete platforms for showing off her skills. Tom putting on the charm at the west bank of Bell Canyon’s lower reservoir. geese at the east bank.


otherwise, I’ve been trying to tie up the last of spring semester’s loose ends and get our garden in. today I think we’re about there. the books are mostly put away. and a couple hours ago I opened the fridge and drank the last half liter of flat coke left over from finals.

this is our first crack at planter boxes; our backyard is mostly stone and clay. the wood is mainly pallets that Ash and I scrounged from behind strip malls and stuff, some old fenceboards too. I’d been holding out for some free topsoil on craigslist, since buying dirt feels a little like buying zucchini (lonely), or bottled water (sucker). I was finally able to get some great composted horse manure from a friend in town, who loaded about a yard into our truck to take home.

here’s Ash and Dirtlips working on their garden. it’s mostly a milpa deal (corn, squash, beans), with some carrots in the corner. because, as Kelly pointed out, kids love pulling those long orange spikes out of the dirt.

when you get home you're really going to be funny about my own mask.
i wear it.
i'm crazy 'bout this.
this mask and i wear it.
i love you.
and i go sledding with it.

-ASH

madrugada: to Thomas Serrano, turning one & singing

from behind your bedroom door
in the dark of this too early morning
hooting, hissing, drumming the wall
with your heels, rolling

all your words come now:
dog. daddy. cracker. ball.
sssssssssssssssssssssssss
sounds we attached to things, and that you accept

air: just stuff we made up. not like before
when you would blow your wet speech
bubbles of curdled milk, painting
sleeves, pillows, her neck, everything

foamy white, like some insane depression-era comic
about a frustrated mime:

"howzat?"
"speak up kid!"
"lettuces? why din't ya' say so?"

flick'r

related: neighborhood killer

zeros & ones on donner pass

P.S. - check out Treeblog's festival of the trees 44, where this post is linked in the good company of 50 or so others.