Holy shit, hiking in a suit jacket. I wouldn't have believed it without photo evidence.
You know, after seeing that photo, red-state complaints about out-of-touch East Coast elites make a bit more sense.
As Americans -- especially here in the West -- like to say in lieu of actually laughing, "that's funny."
Yeah, thats almost as funny as Nixon on the beach. Dorkiness knows no political boundaries.
the poor lad's going quite bald there isn't he?
I suggest we take up a collection to send MY (or another blogger of equally stereotypical citification) to Boulder Outdoor Survival School, for the sake of all that is good and comic:
Wow. Someone must educate that man. And then there's the apparently astonished comment "This woman was actually carrying her daughter on her back throughout a mile-long trail." Dude, it's only a mile, and it's Bandelier -- it's not like it's particularly strenuous.
The label "Where Weevil hangs." on the photo of the PCH is redeeming.
Sausagely can already afford it. If we're going to raise money, it should be to send Ben.
8: No, no! That comment is golden! Let's have more young men notice how much lifting and schlepping and attending to children women do. Especially young men who have political voices. Then maybe we can do away with a lot of bullshit.
Dude, it's only a mile, and it's Bandelier
This, on the other hand, let's have less of. Agreed--I've toted PK a lot further than a mile on more than one occasion--but just because we do it all the time doesn't mean that it isn't worth noting.
Is the name of the monument an alternate spelling of "bandolier"? If so how did such a name come to be associated with this pile of rocks?
Every time I think about back-packing I think how much fun it was to do when I was a kid, and wish I could figure out how to get back into it. Ellen has ruled out her participation in such an activity so I guess the thing to do is wait until Sylvia's 9 or 10 and go on some father-daughter trips. Backpacking alone doesn't really appeal to me, at least I think it doesn't.
"Courage, mon ami -- women suffer much worse when they give birth."
12: This, on the other hand, let's have less of. Agreed--I've toted PK a lot further than a mile on more than one occasion--but just because we do it all the time doesn't mean that it isn't worth noting.
Fair enough; I didn't mean to belittle the effort. I was just taking MY's comment to be another display of unfamiliarity with the outdoors (national parks in particular), having seen many parents (women and men) toting children over much longer distances in much more rugged environments.
13: It's named after Adolph Bandelier, an archaeologist who studied the Indian groups in the region.
15: Agreed, and fwiw my thought was, shit, I toted PK over a mile during the March for Women's Lives. Even in D.C., you oughta be able to see women carrying kids not infrequently, I should think.
"And then, the pair stopped, and the mother fiddled with the straw (it came in some kind of wrapper) as she inserted it into the juice box for her offspring. I hope tomorrow to observe more wondrous sights."
We kid because we love. That suit jacket's going to need some serious cleaning.
I give it about a week before he'll be off guarding the border with the Minutemen.
We should praise women whenever they find something they're able to do.
I like the attitude. "It's a walk in the woods, not some kind of emergency -- what should I need to change clothes for?" Of course, why he's wearing a suit jacket at all outside of a jacket-requiring office, I'm not sure.
Has anybody here seen this movie?
Even in D.C., you oughta be able to see women carrying kids not infrequently, I should think.
In either New York or DC, I could easily go days without seeing small children. We went to the zoo last weekend and it was like "OMG! Where did they all come from?! Get them off me!!"
21 -- does Saiselgy work in an office which requires jackets? Somehow I didn't think of journalism as a dress-up-y profession.
I was all set to be sympathetic -- morning temps can be lower than planned for -- only to see the picture where a guy's ordinary mustache is called 'preposterous.'
Glass house, man.
Yeah, preposterous moustache meet beard scraggle.
First - did he somehow miss every piece of writing on the west from Mark Twain on? It's this giant part of the country with hundreds of millions of people in it.
Second - I think my favorite caption is "A gulch? A ravine? A dry river bed?" Hm. I'd say it's kind of a wash.
Hee hoo hoo.
25 -- he says "I don't know if you can see it" -- what is preposterous about the moustache is its monstrous assymetry on the right sid of his face.
Asymmetrist. It's not as if his beard isn't monstrously asymmetrical on the bottom half of his face. (Don't know about assymetry. Maybe ask heebie.)
Bandelier can be pretty serious hiking. There are many, many miles of trails and incredibly steep canyon walls. Some trails go up one side and down the next.
Some decades ago, when I was doing search & rescue, we went in for a hiker who'd been caught by a late spring snowstorm. Found him by following the vultures. He was quie dead, of course.
And hats. At that elevation one really should wear a big brimmed hat, to avoid malignant melanomas.
30: Was he wearing Brooks Brothers?
31: I don't think so. My recollection says shorts and t-shirt, but my recollection has been known to be wrong.
Perhaps a Brooks Brothers coat would have saved him. People do die with distressing frequency in our various parks and monuments. most are not wearing Brooks Brothers. Film at 11.
why he's wearing a suit jacket at all outside of a jacket-requiring office, I'm not sure.
It's the new hip thing, all the cool kids are doing it. I wore a suit jacket at the Dismemberment Plan show last night. I will wear one again tonight.
the new hip thing
In 1984, y'mean?
That was before I was born, so I'm allowed to be retro.
Why not just wear an all-out suit? (Serious question.) It would have to be well-tailored.
Has the blazer not made it to America? It's quite the finest garment for those occasions when you want to wear a jacket, but don't want to a) wear a suit or b) look like a cunt wearing a suit jacket.
As a lad I had a succession of dashing Brooks Brothers blazers.
Why not just wear an all-out sut?
For hiking?
37 is some of that dry British humor we hear so much about.
I personally only go hiking in my club blazer.
Why not just wear an all-out suit? (Serious question.)
I suppose I could wear the pants too, but I prefer jeans.
I do own a blazer, and wear it all the time. I was in a pinstripe mood, I guess.
Jeeves: There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter.
How does one differentiate between a "blazer" and a "suit jacket"? Besides that a "suit jacket" usually comes as a component of a "suit" I mean. If I were at the thrift store leafing through the rack of men's jackets and I wanted to know how to categorize them. Are there other things on that rack besides members of these two categories?
43 is awesome. Guess you cut your hair since that video we were looking at the other day, Sifu?
Ben w-lfs-n is so old, when I told him to act his age, he died.
45: May my recent googling benefit you as well.
I dispute their assertion that pinstriped suit jackets do not work well on their own.
Ah, so there is no difference.
I await the full-body shots in which his spats reveal which of London's clubs he belongs to. My guess is Boodle's.
The first time I heard that line, Matt, I laughed so hard I kicked a slat out of my crib.
Pinstripes are for the man who craves punishment for his secret crimes.
34: I don't know him IRL, but I doubt Matt F. is wearing something which resembles The Big Suit. Also, since you linked Stop Making Sense, I'll add a link to the all-important DVD extra from that disk, the David Byrne self-interview. You have not lived until you've seen it. And then sang a love song to a lamp.
Thanks, w/d! I have not yet lived. But soon I shall have.
(Assuming I feel inspired, after I watch the interview, to sing the song to the lamp.)
Alas! w/d tricked me; the video is No Longer Available.
Okay, I'm now officially a crabby old crazy guy: after looking at the pictures and reading the captions, I think #2 above understated it. That's more than merely "out-of-touch East Coast elites". Rock pile? Scrubs? flat mountain? That's an appalling display of arrogant ignorance. You kids get off of my National Monuments.
And then sang a love song to a lamp.
"sang" s/b "sung".
Don't mock, Ben; I'm in mourning over w/d's betrayal.
How does one differentiate between a "blazer" and a "suit jacket"?
The cut is somewhat different, and blazers are never double-breasted. I am trying to think a way of rephrasing the unhelpful sentence "a blazer looks like a blazer while a jacket looks like a jacket" and only coming up with the practical test that if a given garment looks like you would look really twatty if you wore it with jeans, it's a jacket. This is not to endorse the horrendous practice of wearing blazers with jeans btw, or for that matter wearing blazers at all.
Matt: do you know who is wearing pinstripe jackets and jeans in his latest television series? Gordon Fucking Ramsay. nuff said.
Leisure suits. Get ahead of the trend, guys.
33: I'm horrified. My high school years are long enough ago that the outfits all the boys I knew looked goofy in are the new hip thing. Bleah.
(Actually, I was also wearing a mens blazer with jeans at the time, but I had no fashion sense and was desperately, hopelessly in love with its pockets. You could walk around with more crap stashed here and there in that thing and have it disappear completely.)
Man, I used to love pockets so much. I'd find clothes with the most pockets I possibly could, just in case I suddenly needed to stash 47 categories of random crap on my person. Boy was that a weird phase.
66 -- did you wear parachute pants?
67: Truthfully? Military fatigues, kung fu jacket (big pockets!), another vaguely tactical jacket with I think something like 22 pockets. Much of my free time was spent sneaking around places I wasn't particularly supposed to be, and/or planning to sneak around places I wasn't particularly supposed to be. Boy was that a weird phase. I had a super hot girlfriend at the time! What was I thinking?
Ah, youth.
I had weird mannerisms back then too, but no girlfriend. So I get a pass, or something.
I shouldn't talk. I wore a black-and-white poppy-patterned wrap-around skirt hiking all throughout the SouthWest, and as the NYC contingent can probably attest, I wear the same (with heels) in the city.
Okay, having looked at the rest of the photos, I'm even more appalled. The jacket was bad enough, but to wear it with basketball shoes?
Would have looked perfectly normal on a 17 year old boy in 1986. I'm not sure if that's an excuse, or an additional indictment.
He dresses like the host of Double Dare. How do you make excuses for that?
71: If it's cotton or twill, you can probably get away with that.
My main difference between eastern and western dressing is that I don't wear heels in the west. Although I keep looking for a pair of those cork or fiber platform espadrilles that aren't ugly. Someone talk me out of this; I know it's an awful idea but I'm being seduced by their trendiness into thinking maybe it's not.
Although I keep looking for a pair of those cork or fiber platform espadrilles that aren't ugly.
These do not exist.
Yeah, I'm starting to think the same thing.
This snobbery from those of you anti-elitist elitists who have heard of this "Kit Carson" person is getting on my bad side. I'm proud to say I heard of him for the first time when the New Yorker reviewed that book about him earlier this year.
We learned about Kit Carson in elementary school in Missouri. He's in the triumvirate with Mark Twain and Jesse James.
Apparently he was similar to explorer/presidential candidate John C. Frémont, but shorter and less law-abiding.
I'm (apocryphally, at least) related to Kit Carson.
Do you have a coonskin cap in your possession? Bowie knife?
81 -- John C. Fremont is the namesake of my elementary school.
(The top posting on that page is from my 6th-grade teacher.)
80: He fought the Injuns. (That was the elementary school take-home lesson.)
The elementary school version I got emphasized Carson's trading, tracking, and exploring.* Only reading Bury My Heart in middle school that I learned the full extent of his participation in the Native genocide.
Fremont hired Carson, and made him famous.
* Of course, he was too young to have been at the Alamo, and was therefore little more than a passing curiousity in my elementary education. For those of you mis-education in other lands, careful study of world history shows that everything leading up to March 1836 is but prelude, and all that comes after San Jacinto but a pale shadow.
A snippet from the intertubes, about Navajo resistance leader Barboncito:
Barboncito led the resistance movement at Cañon de Chelly against Carson and the whites with the aid of Delgadito and Manuelito. Again, Carson launched a scorched earth campaign against the Navajos and Dinetah ["Navajo Land"]. Carson destroyed fields, orchards, and hogans - an earth-covered Navajo dwelling - and he confiscated cattle from the Continental Divide to the Colorado River. Though only 78 of the 12,000 Navajo people were killed, Carson's efforts crushed the Navajo spirit. By 1864, he had devastated Cañon de Chelly, hacking down thousands of peach trees and obliterating acres of corn fields. Eventually, a shortage of food and supplies forced the Navajos to surrender their sacred stronghold.
That same year, the "Long Walk" began, in which 8,000 Navajo people - two-thirds of the entire tribe - were escorted by 2,400 soldiers across 300 miles to Bosque Redondo, New Mexico. Almost 200 of the Indians died en route. The remaining 4,000 Navajos escaped west with Manuelito, who eventually surrendered in 1866 (two months before Barboncito). Barboncito was the last Navajo chief to be captured and led to Bosque Redondo. Once he found conditions there worse than imagined, he escaped and returned to Cañon de Chelly, but he was recaptured.
The "Long Walk" to Bosque Redondo was horrifying and traumatic for the Navajos. Disease, blight, grass-hoppers, drought, supply shortages, infertile soil, and quarrels with Apaches plagued the tribe. An estimated 2,000 people died of hunger or illness at the relocation settlement. As a ceremonial singer with knowledge of his people's ancient beliefs, Barboncito knew that it went against the wisdom of tradition for the Navajo to leave their sacred lands, to cross the rivers, or to abandon their mountains and shrines. Forced to do so - forced to become dependent on whites for food and other supplies - was spiritually destructive for the Navajo tribespeople and for Barboncito
1868 (when the Navajo were allowed to leave Fort Sumner) seems like a long time ago, but I've had meetings with a number of Navajo elders, and I can tell you that the trauma of the Long Walk is alive today. Very specific recollections of episodes and conversations on the Walk, and the return trip, have been passed down.
You've heard of the plague of locusts?
This has a great deal of detail also. Read the section entitled United States Military Conquest: The Long Walk and Fort Sumner Incarceration for a quick lesson in who we are.
Upon reflection I think it's cute that some people insist on wearing their (wildly inappropriate) quaint native costume when visiting foreign lands. I'm sure it helps them maintain their identity, their standards and self-image as a representative of civilization. It's reminiscent of the English of the imperial period visiting far continents and staying among their own kind in little English outposts in Africa or India. Rather like easterners visiting Santa Fe and Taos.
Wow, being a snide, stuck-up prig really is fun!
In CA, I remember learning more about Ishi than Kit Carson.
I'm going to head off any misleading misreadings here at the pass: gswift has never been in me.
Well, that heads off half of them.
Wow,that's interesting. I'd never heard of Ishi either.
96 -- don't be ridiculous man, we're in different states.
Ishi is, of course, connected to Ursula Le Guin through Theodora and Alfred Kroeber. The picture of Ishi in coat and tie does foreshadow MY at Bandelier.
re: 76 and 77
I am pretty sure my wife could supply you a hot pair, but you'd i) have to travel to the UK and ii) pay hundreds of dolllars.
my wife could supply you a hot pair
ATM
