Mortality on Crown Mountain, British Columbia

Posted on August 15, 2014 by McPhedran

I did West Vancouver’s Grouse Grind in 52:20 – a straight-up climb of 2800 feet – and was ready for more.

Goat Mountain

We carried on over Dam Mountain and then around Goat to the steep descent to the Lynn Valley Saddle. And then It was time for the climb up Crown. That’s when it hit me. I was flagging, bumping into branches, tripping over roots. I was stopping, looking up, thinking too much about the daunting journey ahead, psyching myself out, getting more and more exhausted, staring at my sweat dripping onto the rocks. I had to stop again and again, seriously considering turning back, Micaela far ahead, waiting. I thought I might not make it but moved my foot ahead, toiled on, step to step, dragging my inert legs over root ledges, and at long last made it to the top. I sat, mute, only able to think about the long descent and that horrible climb back up Goat and realized that this might indeed be the last time I would be here on this mountain.

Peak of Crown Mountain

I ate and ate – something I had stupidly neglected to do on the way up – and we began our long return, which amounted to a lot of slips and half falls through the labyrinth of exposed rock and dirt. We devoured our final batch of chocolate and attacked the ascent back up Goat. It wasn’t as bad as I expected. Not at all. It was almost a game again. We were going to make it after all. I was elated to be back, whole, in the parking lot and then in the fair city of Vancouver with a cold Steam Whistle in my hand.The next morning was not so joyous. My knees were done. I had suddenly degraded to a state of gimpy and old. I glowered across Burrard Inlet, at the distant mountain top, and wondered when I would return. Soon, I promised myself. As soon as I could.

Combat Fishing in Campbell River

Posted on August 12, 2014 by McPhedran

I just returned from a salmon fishing excursion to Campbell River, British Columbia. I had expected to be quietly drifting along the coast, maybe even catching a few of the 45 million salmon reported to be running up the rivers.

Instead I found a gaggle of 60-70 boats going back and forth in a narrow, in and out of each other, fighting for the fish; it’s referred to as “combat fishing” by the guides.I didn’t fish so much as have the rod handed to me by the guide when there was a bite and then just reel that in as best as I could. (I batted .500)It was an odd experience, complete with one boat even running over a seiners’ nets, not like my childhood memory from many years ago, sitting there in the cold with father, hanging on to my rod and staring down into the infinite blue, catching mostly dogfish. I did however catch more fish this time (4 times as many); I’m still trying to understand if that makes it all worthwhile.

“Say Peynir, Please.”

Posted on July 19, 2014 by McPhedran

I don’t like taking pictures of people in public when I’m on vacation. It feels like I’m an anthropologist studying their habitat.

I made an exception on my recent visit to Istanbul. I gave this street musician a dollar, and he seemed happy to pose for the picture. Whatever the success of the image, it still feels like I molested him.

Ruins Throwdown: Termessos vs. Ephesus

Posted on July 16, 2014 by McPhedran

I know nothing about antiquity. Let me start with that. I cannot distinguish between Hellenistic and Roman architecture, let alone Doric, Ionic and Corinthian columns. But I do know what I like about these ancient sites: the wonder of a place lived in so long ago and the time to imagine what the times might have been like to experience. Ephesus, on Turkey’s west coast, is heralded as second only to Pompeii in its magnificence as an entire city almost left intact; however instead of conveying wonder, it has been obscenely reconstructed and is awash with tourists. Termessos, a ruin a few hundred miles to the east, is not so well tramped and is a place for the imagination to run wild. Straddling a low mountainous pass, the Pisidian city offers a remarkable necropolis complex, colonnade and theater, to say nothing of unparalleled views for miles around. Yes, it was hot – almost 100 degrees – and steep, and our water ran short, but there was an abundance of solitude and silence, allowing this long gone world to almost open, even if just a crack.

Jose Saramago Updates “Cain”

Posted on July 3, 2014 by McPhedran

Cain and Abel were, according to the Old Testament, two sons of Adam and Eve.
Cain is described as a crop farmer and his younger brother, Abel, as a shepherd. Cain was the first human born and Abel was the first human to die. Cain committed the first murder by killing his brother. Interpretations of Genesis have typically assumed that the motives were jealousy and anger. Jose Saramago offers a different story in his final work, Cain, stating that Cain killed Abel because he couldn’t kill God. Saramago’s Cain states: Our god, the creator of heaven and earth, is completely mad.

Only a madman unaware of what he is doing would admit to being directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and then behave as if nothing has happened, unless of course it’s not a case of real, authentic madness, but evil pure and simple.

(Photos: Istanbul, a 2600-year-old city of 14 million people and many old things.)

Fromaggi d’Estate

Posted on June 30, 2014 by McPhedran

Another great thing about summer is the cheese.Si, la mozzarella da buffala, il gorgonzola, la fontina, il parmigiano, l’emmenthal. And forgetting about things like the cholesterol.

The Being That Exists is Man Alone

Posted on March 30, 2014 by McPhedran

We alone exist.
Nothing else is. Not rocks.Not trees. Not hares. These things are just ideas in our heads.

We is it.

(A loose translation of Martin Heidegger’s Man Alone Exists.)

Here is Where You Aren’t

Posted on March 28, 2014 by McPhedran

It’s always where you’re not. You try to find it, knowing it won’t be there. Or maybe it is there, an instant, through a crack, sudden and clear. And then it isn’t. Like music. You remember and think. You dream of getting back there to how it once was. It’s a disease like that. The only trick is to forget.

Philosophy Dictates

Posted on March 26, 2014 by McPhedran

Philosophy dictates that we must continue down the same path, always the same, down, wanting more, knowledge perhaps, consuming, further ensconced in our depravity. This dictum is written in our genetic core. So they say. When you think about it, you might realize that you aren’t supposed to think for yourself.

When you think about it, you might want to remember what you have done.

When you think about it, you could remember who you are. And not be so trite.

What if I want to stay as I am. no further down, maybe even returning, clearer, more of what I was? When I think about it, I could do that.

Grief: Not News.

Posted on March 25, 2014 by McPhedran

Conjecture on missing Malaysian Flight 370 might make for a good story, even if the cable channels bleed it dry.That said, relentlessly filming grieving relatives is not news. Nor will it ever be.

If these ambulance-chasers really want to get to the bottom of this kind of misery, all they have to do is read Agamemnon, indeed any Greek tragedy. Failing that, they could kill each other – or go missing – and their relatives could be interviewed instead.The problem being that no one in their families would care, knowing the disingenuous and self-serving nature of these jabbering shits.

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