Morning commute edition

Denverites prize their mountainouse backdrop just as the serious Urban Outfitter shopper prizes a vinyl-coated wall mural. An epic wall piece will spruce up the most forlorn piles of scatty mail, old banana skins and discarded underwear; similarly, Denver's Front Range provides a welcome distraction from the unceasing mattress warehouses, evangelical churches and DMVs that huddle across Denver's landscape.

I love the brief view I have of Mt. Evans on my morning commute (long ed.) while crossing I-25. It is pleasing to find myself out in the wind, puffing life into my pillow-imprinted face, while the poor souls below fiddle inside their SUVs with disagreeable coffee (espresso so disagreeable they invented the Americana - who waters down good coffee?) and the haranguing of drive-time radio and traffic.

To my earlier point, though, about Denver's no-frills infrastructure, the serene bike loop I pedal on early mornings needles its way through a tight corridor of greenery along the Platte, skirting the back-end of industrial factories, warehouses and construction sites. Above, the raw beauty of the Platte is offset by high retaining walls and thick traffic on the arterial routes. To me, it is richly evocative of the scungy Venice Beach canals, and it is difficult, blinded by sunrise, to tell if the river is concealing bodies, plague, dead fish, or merely a spot of trash or vandalism.

I do get a nice view of the Denver skyline on a little ways though (close in, the Capitol can be seen), replete with the spires of numerous abandoned power lines and old billboards.

Above, a mysterious purveyor of gases trades nearby the perennially on-sale Cal Spas hot tub outlet ("New! Salt water hot tubs"). The gas shop has a flashing display that alternates between the current temperature, time and "We sell nitrogen." Presumably the flashing call-sign was designed to pull cars off I-25 in pursuit of bargain liquid nitrogen at wholesale prices. To date, though, I have never seen more than a single truck parked outside the establishment, and have reached the conclusion that, like an old missile silo, the bottles of pressurized gas have been left to integrate with the landscape.

I like the idea that factories have been assembled purely on a whim by any spare bits and pieces nearby at the time. I imagine that were you ever to take one apart, no one would ever figure out how the pieces all go together again. This example, located in close quarters of Mile High Stadium, appears to have been constructed from old takeaway chopsticks, broken-down tractors and IKEA filing cabinet kits.


And my favorite, a view I title: "Six Flags Refinery at Dawn."

Holy shit

I just landed here.

An excerpt:

Dear person in charge of new punctuation,

I have invented a new punctuation mark, and I am writing to ask you to consider introducing its usage into the American Punctuation Lexicon.

I would also like to check up on the status of the interrobang (also known as the "quesclamation mark"). You may not remember it, but it was the combination exclamation point/question mark invented by ad executive Martin Spekter to help us with such sentences as "WHAT did you just say to me?!" and "Lindsay Lohan's suing WHO?! Over WHAT?!"

I have thusly been forced to meet my creativity of ills head-on, and to examine the paltry, derivative fluff that pads out this blog, like adobe mud layered on adobe mud year after year. A promise to the non-existent readership: Things of which I shall not write again:

1. new punctuation
2. Scott Baio

Each of these has been effectively covered by my peers in Internettia.

Summitbagger: La Plata Peak edition

Once again the wagon headed west, bound for frontiers unfathomable.

Actually, I have fathomed La Plata Peak, Colorado's fifth highest at 14,336 feet, many times this summer, plotting my triumphant straddling of the kitter litter streusel atop the Sawatch Range. This weekend the window opened up, framed by aspens crisping to tater tot gold beneath a lacquered blue sky.

An agreeable dusting of snow from earlier in the week informed out quest as far more rugged and extreme than was the reality. Much like blonde highlights, a few streaks of white laid into high ravines and crags will do an excellent job of highlighting the "dimensionality" (in Loreal parlance) of Colorado's majestic mounds. Our campsite, above, was at a secret locale known only to ourselves and four or five other RVs, four other dogs, and a broad selection of granola tent-dwellers - in other words, a few thousand people, tops. It looked over the Twin Lakes southwest of Leadville, and was nestled into the navel hair of Mt. Elbert's lowest approach.

The hike into La Plata Peak does a good job of building to a crescendo of thigh-crushing switchbacks over increasingly unstable rock. Above, we scaled a track that beat its way up to the northwest ridge of La Plata, glancing all the way at the impressive outline of Grizzly Peak (an almost fourteener at 13,988 ft). We passed no one until late in the hike, but could see hikers silhouetted high above the rising sun. Much like Shoeless Joe, they bid us into the upper realms where vegetation and sediment seem to explode open against themselves, looking either to take off or plummet to the bottom of La Plata's central gully.

We were accompanied by three load-free dogs, each of whom possessed an endless thirst that quickly dwindled our royal supplies of water. Note that they were all kept on leash, per forest requirements, and all eagerly yanked the leash forward, bringing their steward into awkward ankle-crunches over the mish-mash of steps, gravel, dirt and boulders.

The terrain got sketchy enough that after 2 1/2 hours of climbing, and enough progress over sketchy scree-fields while thinking "how will we get down?" with the dogs, we reached this friendly balcony and paused for a photo-op. Bringing the dogs up the last few hundred feet of gain was unquestionably a recipe for disaster (Gaston later admitted he had walked through the mental possibility of having to bury one of his dogs on the mountain after a calamitous misstep), so we debated leaving one person behind to mind the three dogs while the other two of us bagged our summit. Leaving one person on a boutique-sized plateau at 13,800 with three dogs for an hour seemed a poor decision, though the pull of summit-bagging was strong as ever. Rather than become "those dickheads" who were suckered into a summit campaign only to become shredded to pieces in an avalanche chute and mentioned briefly in the Denver Post the following Monday (Denver man falls off mountain), we made the prudent decision to invest instead in a couple of great iPhone pics. As the photo above proves, a non-summit bag will often make for a far more impressive souvenir pic than will actually standing on the summit. If you peruse the halls of internet summit-bag photo-ops, you will notice that they all look the same: two people, cold, against a blue screen, with some pebbles under foot. On the other hand, a gnarly summit will advocate the hiker in foreground with low growl of topographic contrast: "Ten contour intervals to go, biatches!"

Here, you will notice my dog taking the wussy dry-foot option for the river-crossing, faithfully following his master. Neither dog nor human is too disappointed at chalking up a summit attempt. Indeed, in the trailhead log, I note "Karen and Irene" of Denver whose destination was "until we get tired :-) " Likewise, my response to such a question is always "Up! Then down." To the mountains!

What's cooking - Urban Grl Food Blog

I'm bypassing the cute anecdote. You want to know what I cooked today? Fucking Anzac biscuits. I only cooked them about 20 minutes too long in a scorching hot oven. Their flavor is nuanced with a delicate dash of ginger and cinnamon, and they have a potent and defiant soot aftertaste.

Introducing the quexclamation mark

Unveiled today by PirileePirilee amid much hype, the newest member of the punctuation family is designed to underscore moments warranting both exclamation and a call for clarification - excitement and confusion, absurdity, vexed wonderment. The "quexclamation mark" has been mulled over in the Pirilee studios for a month now; the germ for the production of a more flexible punctuation symbol was an increasing distaste for the visual stamp of a question mark and exclamation point used together (!?) in emails.

While the creator, the illusive J. Self, was perfecting the lines of concurrent enthusiasm and query, Self came across the failed "interrobang" symbol, designed by Martin K. Speckter in 1962 to advance the cause of rhetorical questions in copy.


According to Wikipedia, "The interrobang failed to amount to much more than a fad ... It has not become a standard punctuation mark." What did Speckter lack? In the opinion of this author, a willingness to step outside the bounds of traditional architecture was lacking in Speckter's lopsided attempt to revolutionize punctuation. Speckter may also have brought a new punctuation symbol into a hostile world simply unready for such radical typographical advances. Indeed, little occurred on the typographic timescale between 1962 (was the interrobang doomed by the backlash from the First Annual Swiss & Wielder Hoop and Stick Tournament of the same year?) and the dreaded emoticon plague of the 1990s - an indication that change in the field of punctuation is fought slow and hard won.

Is the quexclamation mark superior to the interrobang? It has several benefits: 1. Symmetrical design. 2. Lends itself to running writing and serifs. 3. Its physical character indicates the tension and excitement of two emotions competing to pull the reader in one or the other direction. Assuredly, the quexclamation mark is highly compatible with any number of fonts. The interrobang, in contrast, remains only in a few, including Microsoft WingDings; a sure sign of its obsolesence.

Ballpark District graffiti adheres strictly to Roman alphabet in subversive call to arms

If you found the cry of the subaltern somewhat underwhelming here , you are not alone. The above graffiti has, however, inspired in me the desire to do an "installment" on a local warehouse wall, wherein I will inscribe placeholder text across the length of the facade: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. And so on. The defiant sprays of pidgin Latin will at once underscore man's inability to adequately communicate, forced as he is to use the imperfect written signifiers of the Roman alphabet as a medium, as well as the shallowness which with his words - now assembled into hopeful phrases - do wash over and by his fellow man, who wonders if "i'm" [sic] should have been capitalized, or if the lack of capitalization was a deliberate and cunning refusal to accommodate "the rules."

The past-time of 50,445

This week is remarkable for little other than repeated formatting issues in MS Word, and misbehaving printer settings in Excel. I did, however, attend a Rockies night game down at the old ballpark, like a good, Tornadough-eating, light-beer swilling Yankee.

Of course we did not actually consume any of the $10 food items for sale on premises, despite the agreeable vendorship of rainbow snow-cones and "cheese cups." Instead, we chipped away at the five-pound bag of peanuts our friend had brought (at games' end, his feet were partially buried under the shells, the detritus clambering up his ankles like two anthills).

Balls were hit and caught, missed sometimes, and players went for brief runs between the bases to the delight and admonition of the crowd. The outing provided an opportunity for me to shuffle my thoughts on the sport; one I have long considered as bringing out the most endearing qualities of Americans. Following are the aspects of the sport I find most curious:

1. "The wave." Known in the U.S. simply as "the wave," the wave is referenced internationally as "the Mexican wave," and enjoys high popularity within both the National and American Leagues. For a full-stadium wave to occur, there must exist one seating section intent on little more than standing up, arms raised, multiple times while "woo"ing enthusiastically; much like an old lawn mower, this seating section must crank the starter through the "wave and woo" maneuver many times before it "takes" to the rest of the crowd, and must sacrifice their attention to, and enjoyment of, the game in its pursuit. Their collective hopes then ride the crest around the stadium, invariably heartbroken when it disintegrates around the expensive seating sections with good views of home plate. Members of the greater crowd will acquiesce the approaching wave with a half stand or throw up of the arms almost without thought, they way they might pass ketchup from table to table at a crowded sports bar. Oddly enough, when asked to recap a game they have attended, Americans seldom mention a memorable wave in which they partook.

2. The multimedia distractions peppered throughout the innings. Each stadium has its roll of "boredom alleviating devices" which they will insert between innings to assure the public that progress is being made - no surprise when you consider that 18 half-innings stand between Joe Citizen and his comfy chair at home. Downhearted and distracted, the most apathetic fan has been known to perk up at the sight of the "watch the ball" hat-switch game or the third inning "tractor race." In fact, fans that were catatonic just moments earlier will reanimate in the interval between innings to crow for the purple tractor, or to register their "song choice" (Bon Jovi always wins) via hollering indiscriminately into the ear of the person in front of them. By the time the first ball of the new innings is in, their behind will be firmly rooted in the bucket seat, and roused by little less than a tie-breaking homer.

3. Jumbo-tron moments. Late in the 8th or 9th innings, when all pitchers have failed, and an emergency pitcher is being prepped to "close," fans get most ancy. Before the advent of the jumbo-tron, fans were left to throw pizza at one another, and make period insults: "Your behind is wetter than a liquid lunch." Today, however, win-challenged teams like the Kansas City Royals have succeeded in almost completely distracting fans from the presence of a ball game via an oversized digi-screen of stats, pictures, replays and useless information designed to obscure the location of the score. During the latter stages of a ball game, fans are encouraged to shake their booties or kiss one another or flex their muscles in return for a semi-second of jumbo-tron fame. The palpable excitement seen on their faces as they realize they are on the big screen, part-way into their feature, is priceless: like a good "funniest home video" of a child totaling their tricycle, it can be guaranteed to solicit laughs from the crowd; similarly, the moment is snatched away from the micro-celebrity as quickly as it has been granted. Side note: Coors Stadium utilizes Bob the Builder's (DJ Otzi?) seminal dance hit "Hey baby (I wanna know if you'll be my girl)" - otherwise known as "the song that makes everybody dance like a moron." Other stadiums have also kept their fare to outdated dance or country numbers: "Cotton Eye Joe" gets a good turn at Coors, while Garth Brooks provides the seventh inning stretch distraction at Royals Field.

4. The seventh inning stretch. Not only do fast food vendors walk through the stadium to deliver fatty, synthetic treats to the fan too lazy to walk to the nearest kiosk, but the short duration of each innings encourages even the frugal fan to purchase beer at repeated intervals - many are well neigh sodden by the time the stadium goes "dry." Come the middle of the seventh inning, game organizers cunningly invented the "seventh inning stretch" to combat the extreme resulting atrophy, and ensure the safe departure and vitality of all patrons at games' end. At the behest of the announcer, the entire stadium will lumber forward onto its peanut-shell-littered feet, and bellow out "Take me out to the ball game" - a song only steps above the "Diarrhea" song in terms of sophistication. But the Yanks love it! Almost as much as they love Cracker Jacks. If only all public health policy was as easy as "Stand up! Just this one time! Okay you can sit."

This is a partial list.

Artist's response to fruit bowls

Well, bugger me if life hasn't painted itself again, courtesy of the iPhone and Photoshop. It hardly bears mentioning that the fecund soil of our rental property has given us a bounty of fruit, life's own gift to itself, so vast the tree must almost orgiastically heave and discard its expired pears into the post-coital winds of early fall as part of its daily ritual now. Yes, there is no need for rumination on the famine and feast of our very souls, in "these conflicted times." Sigh, the artist is not needed here.

Slow road skyward

Squaw Pass near Echo Mountain

Kenneth Graham-appropriated Fall catalogue hits TopShop

The Fall catalogue for TopShop has "dropped" at last, and was it worth the wait. Deriving from both the urban tramp aesthetic of recent seasons, and the trend toward looking like a crazy old bag lady, TopShop's Fall line is heavily redolent of game hunting, or olde timey homelessness, when well-dressed gents would sleep under bridges with the quaint charm only disenfranchised businessmen seem to be able to effect.

On second look, the provocative line began to stir my memory. It recalled the sentimental lawns of Kenneth Graham's "Wind in the Willows," over which strode the strappingly dressed Mr. Toad and his lesser friends during my formative years.

The bushy eyebrows in particular sparked a nostalgic longing for walking canes and monocles. Here, I thought, is a theme I can get on board with: the thick, coarse, weather-repellent hair of a polar bear, and a contrasting vest - both quite appropriate for Fall weather.

Above, Ratty and Mole take in the sights of a local pond, discussing literature, politics and the state of the human condition. Squint, and you could be looking at any two hipster pals practicing an ironic renaissance in Central Park on the rent-a-boats.

The above BBC production of "Wind in the Willows" features Matt Lucas and Bob Hoskins in a "handsome" revival. Note the overlap in fine tailoring, layering and highly textured knits between the BBC production and Britain's TopShop.

In fact, TopShop were not the first souls to identify the saliency of "Wind and the Willows" for an impressionable young audience. The girl pictured above right pulls off a winning combination of nautical style and animal or "furry" subversity - a cry to the "never grow up" crowd, and highly insightful from an anthropological standpoint.

And then there's this.

Anyone for Tennis?

I came across the delightfulness of Tennis yesterday via another blog. Tennis, I have learned, are a husband and wife team of musos who wrote their first album while sailing south down the east coast of the U.S. They sport that rendered crackliness of '50s records that is in fashion right now, and I guiltily lap up the faux retroness. Apparently these charmers will be playing in Denver tonight at the Larimer Lounge, and I'm going to make a bold prediction, so as to make it first ... Tennis could very well be the next Captain and Tennille.

For a listen, click here.

Meanwhile, yesterday's "day-ender" was what Yanks term a "trail-run" (but which every understated Australian knows simply to be a jog) out in Denver's foothills. The view up to Red Rocks was not too shabby.

And the tall roofs of Denver's downtown district, and ruckus of the Rio Grande, were about as close as I like them, visible here in extreme miniature.

Along the Castle Trail, I was accosted every 200 yards by a mountain-biking 50-year-old man. Evidently they were each on a reconnaissance mission for their own vitality and youth - mountain bikes are an excellent vehicle for recovering your virility, I hear, being as they are so burly. An excellent vehicle for recovering your youth? A race car bed.