"I’m used to it now, the waiting. An incomplete, unhurried emergence of understanding, sitting with questions that are sometimes never answered." from Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood
January 2024
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Books read:
The Road Home by Jim Harrison
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed by Carl Honoré
Trails walked:
Fowler and Rattlesnake Gulch trails in Eldorado Canyon State Park (Jan 9th)
Paint Mines Interpretive Park near Calhan (Jan 17th)
Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs (Jan 17th)
Shanahan Ridge near Boulder (Jan 23rd)
Song(s) of the month – Laufey
Like the Movies
Best Friend
From The Start
Let You Break My Heart Again
Promise
California and Me
Scientist Spotlight – Roberta Tuurraq Glenn-Borade, Geoscientist
January Summary:
It is January 31st and we drove down to Taos today because our daughter and her fiance are having their first baby (and our first granddaughter)! As of this moment she is in labor and on her way to the hospital. Will the baby meet the blog deadline tonight? I plan to update this post as events occur. Our poor daughter has been in labor now for 18 hours and counting. She's gonna be exhausted. It could be a long night. And it was. Our warrior daughter was in labor for 34 hours and produced a 7 pound 10 ounce little mini warrior girl, our first granddaughter. Mama and baby are healthy and tired! Our son-in-love did yeoman's work last night helping her through while keeping communication links up with all the people that wanted to know the status. It's now February 1st, welcome to my January blog!
As Elizabeth Stone famously said: “Making the decision to have a child — it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”
We had what's called an "arctic blast" of cold weather here in Colorado this month. I didn't have a blast. We've been here 4 winters now and this is the first time I've felt that it was too cold. For nearly a week the temperature didn't rise above freezing and one day the high was hovering just around zero degrees. That's no degrees at all. The lowest it got was minus sixteen which is way less than no degrees at all. My heat pump couldn't heat the home sufficiently so I had to revert to my backup gas furnace and even it struggled. I don't know how my scientist of the month does it (see below). Luckily the weeks that followed were sunny with highs in the 50s so I'm slowly forgetting my cabin fever and glad I don't live in Utqiaġvik, Alaska or even Fargo, North Dakota. I managed to get in hikes on the days just before and after the week of anti-hell so that helped my brain reset back to nature. My hiking this month was mainly in the foothills, but also in the eastern plains to visit an otherworldly spot. My reading included a follow up to a great book I read last month, a 20th century classic, a fun tale from one of my favorite authors, and a book on slowing down.
Scientist Spotlight: Roberta Tuurraq Glenn-Borade, Geoscientist
When I read Robin Wall Kimmerer's brilliant Braiding Sweetgrass in April of 2021 I thought, yes, this is exactly what this world needs: A braiding of science and indigenous beliefs. I think it’s the perfect mix to provide the best understanding of our changing ecosystems and how to fix them. So when I read about what Roberta had done for her master’s thesis I had to share it.
She grew up in Utqiaġvik, Alaska (formerly Barrow) where her father was a whaling captain and a sea ice scientist; and where the average HIGH temperature in March is minus six degrees. Her father would take her to places where visiting scientists were using instruments to measure things that the people there already knew about: the melting permafrost, the loss of sea ice, etc. I guess all of this sparked something inside her because for her master’s thesis she created what she calls a story map of the impact of climate change along the Alaska coast where she is from. The story map combines scientific measurements with voices from the native communities on their observations over generations. It’s brilliant and you can view it here.
According to High Country News, she is currently “…the project coordinator and community liaison for the Alaska Arctic Observatory and Knowledge Hub, a partnership of communities in Arctic Alaska. The hub gives observers in several villages a platform to share their observations, knowledge and expertise on Arctic environmental change with each other as well as with other scientists.”
Can we please have more Robin Wall Kimmerers and Roberta Tuurraq Glenn-Borades!?
photo by Gus Philippas, PR
Song(s) of the month:Laufey
Full name Laufey Lín Bing Jónsdóttir, she is an Icelandic jazz and classical musician and singer. Her father is Icelandic, and her mother is Chinese. I ran across her while watching one of the many great NPR Tiny Desk Concerts which I highly recommend. The concerts feature all genres of music and show the true and raw talent of the musicians in this intimate setting with no digital means to cover up any flaws.
Laufey (pronounced LAY vay) has been playing piano since aged four and cello since aged eight. Trained in classical music, she was drawn eventually to jazz. She was a finalist in Iceland’s versions of both The Voice and Got Talent and graduated from the Reykjavík College of Music and then later graduated with a presidential scholarship from the Berklee College of Music in Boston in 2021.
When I first listened to her without knowing anything at all about her, I thought, wow, she’s Taylor Swift for the jazz crowd! A much much smaller crowd than the pop crowd. Then I read about her and discovered that her many influences include Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Chet Baker, Taylor Swift, Norah Jones, and Adele. She told Russh Magazine this year that “Taylor Swift has done for pop and country what I hope to do for jazz.” Maybe she'll start dating a professional football player....One distinction between her and Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday: Laufey writes all her own songs.
Listening to this 24-year-old (!) I feel transported to some small jazz club in Paris post World War II. So grab your beret and a glass of red wine and listen to this young woman croon like Ella and Billie. Where did this old soul voice come from!?
Like the Movies – Who doesn’t want a love just like in the movies? Well, maybe not the movie Blue Valentine, but you know what I mean. This could have been part of the soundtrack to When Harry Met Sally.
Fowler and Rattlesnake Gulch trails – I decided to head outdoors before a 5-day arctic cold front hits. Of course, this also meant it was gonna be windy with the weather pattern changing. Temps were in the 40s with maybe 20 mph winds, so I bundled up and needed all the layers. These trails are in Eldorado Canyon State Park which is a very narrow canyon south of Boulder that is popular with rock climbers. I’ve hiked in the northern section of the state park to Eldorado Falls but had never been on this southern portion. The Fowler trailhead is at the end of state road 67 just before you enter the funky town of Eldorado Springs with its spring-fed swimming pool that once was boasted as the largest in the country. Ike and Mamie Eisenhower spent part of their honeymoon here.
The Fowler trail begins on an old dirt road and less than a mile in I spotted some very large bull elk in a meadow…it was gonna be a good day! The views of the steep canyon walls and of the Flatirons get more impressive as you walk and at the two-mile mark, I headed up the steeper Rattlesnake Gulch trail which had between 2-6 inches of snow from a previous storm. I didn’t need spikes nor snowshoes however because the footing was good and there wasn’t enough snow for snowshoes. At around 3.5 miles I reached the ruins of what was once the Crags Hotel which operated from 1908 until 1912 when it mysteriously burned to the ground. One interesting aspect of this hotel that I learned from an old timer I met on the hike was that the funicular that took hotel guests up from the road was gravity/water powered. I had found the water tunnel just before I ran into this guy and asked him about it, and he told me the story. I guess it was fairly unique for its time.
In another half mile I reached what is called the Continental Divide Overlook, but clouds were covering up the big mountains on this day. I continued the climb up the Rattlesnake Gulch trail (around 1,800 feet up from the trailhead) to where it came fairly close to the still working railroad line high above the state park that eventually takes you through the Moffat Tunnel towards Winter Park. It’s mainly used for transporting coal and freight, but I recently read that Amtrak’s California Zephyr uses this track. I’m gonna have to look into this because I would LOVE to take a train through this area and under the Rocky Mountains towards Winter Park. From this point nearest to the tracks it was all downhill back to the trailhead. The elk were still there and this time there were 4 of them bedding down for the night. Another beautiful day before the big freeze comes with it’s possible minus-15-degree temperatures! Bundle up!
Sun lighting up the red rocks
Tree at the end of the tunnel
Snowy rock slide
Lots of climbing walls in this canyon
Mouth of Eldorado Canyon
Remnants of the Crag Hotel
Sweeping views but the big mountains were cloud covered
Only one other group had been through here
Wind swept train tracks
Snowy roots
Old water tunnel used to move funicular up and down the mountain
Red, white, and blue....and green
Snow art
Big bull elk hunkered down
The Road Home by Jim Harrison - Last month I read my first Jim Harrison novel (Dalva) and loved it. I couldn’t believe I’d never heard of nor read anything by Jim Harrison. In researching his work, I discovered that 10 years after publishing Dalva, he published a sequel called The Road Home. I jumped at the chance to keep reading about all of these fascinating characters. The Road Home is in the form of a memoir by 5 of the characters whom we’d met in Dalva. It starts out with Dalva’s grandfather John Northridge describing his life as he nears his death. This was the strongest part of the book as his life was full of adventure and turmoil and his descriptions of all of this are brilliant. Next comes Nelse who was the baby that Dalva had to give up when she had him at 15 years old. Nelse is now nearly 30 and is looking for his birth mother. Nelse’s adoptive parents were good to him but their desire for him to lead a somewhat normal life of college and a job didn’t suit Nelse’s wandering spirit and curious mind. He leaves college, just one semester short of getting his degree and proceeds to travel around North America studying nature and writing about it. He gets odd jobs working to fund his travel but is also receiving $600 a month from Dalva’s grandfather, an arrangement Northridge made when finding a home for his then 15-year-old granddaughter's baby. Nelse’s section started out a bit less interesting, but his story really grew on me over time. His meeting with his birth mother and grandmother were special moments in the book. Then there were three other shorter sections by Dalva’s mom (Naomi) and uncle (Paul) along with a final and sad culmination by Dalva herself. I’m gonna miss spending time with these characters, all of whom share with me a love of nature, reading, and learning. Here are some lines:
I have come very late to the pleasure of sitting still with little or nothing on my mind.
When we die we are only stories in the minds of others...
To the white people, among whom I helplessly number myself, life is a very long and high set of stairs, but to my (native) mother life was a river, a slow and stately wind across the sky, an endless sea of grass.
I managed to look at her fully and at the moment thought that everything in my life was at stake.
For Adelle the difference between all and nothing was very close.
I was reminded again how the men who start wars invariably live through them to justify the behavior that has left millions maimed and dead.
My Zen girlfriend used to say that we paint our own lives to which I replied that there are lot of hands on the brush.
Maybe a single life doesn’t amount to much but perhaps it should at least drift toward the common good.
Obsessions don’t seem extraordinary if it’s just the way you are.
In college I was obsessed with the beauty of studying the morphology of rivers but then all of the jobs in this area were with the enemies of rivers.
J.M. said she wanted to teach because nearly everyone she had met in her life was dumb, a direct enough motive. Nelse said primates in general only learned enough to feed themselves which irritated J.M. and she asked him to go a whole month without using the word “primate".
We sat there on a grassy bank for nearly an hour with her arm around my shoulder, saying virtually nothing because the sound of the red-winged blackbirds in a nearby marsh and the sound of the river flowing were quite enough.
Paint Mines Interpretive Park near Calhan - After finally exiting from the big freeze where the temperature didn’t rise above freezing for nearly a week (and got as low as minus 16!), I was ready for a walk. But I was tired of being cold, so I didn’t want to head to the mountains where the wind was still howling. I’ve had my eye on this park for some time after seeing photos. It’s a two-hour drive to the park which is just south of the small town of Calhan, about 45 minutes northeast of Colorado Springs. There are several sections in the park where clay has formed from when the area was a tropical forest some 55 million years ago. The clay takes on several different colors due to oxidation and chemical content. This colored clay was important to the native people that had lived here, starting nearly 9,000 years ago; it was used in making colorful pottery. Also, the washes in the area were used to funnel game (deer, buffalo, pronghorn) towards their demise as hunters with spears awaited at the (literally) dead end.
There are four miles of trails throughout the park, and I walked them all. Although I enjoyed all of it, the highlight was in the southwestern corner where most of the major formations reside. It’s possible to view these formations on a much shorter hike but I enjoyed the other sections of the park where I spotted lots of deer, rabbits, and raptors, all trying to make a living out here. It’s also a nice change of scenery to walk along the plains with their tall grasses and forever views. I was the only one out hiking the four miles of trails but there were around 10 or so people gathered near the formations, exploring all the hoodoos and mini canyons that make this place such a wonderland. Since I still had plenty of daylight I decided to take advantage of being so close to Colorado Springs and headed over to Garden of the Gods….
These rock formations would suddenly pop up out of the prairie land along the way
Soldiers storming San Juan Hill?
Deer against the sky
So many interesting colors and formations
The snow added to the effect
Bushes, rocks
Happy little mushroom
A jumble of rock and color
Stretching to the heavens
Lookouts
Inspecting the troops
Likely some hobbits hiding in there
Enter the maze at your own risk
Windmills lit up by the sun
Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs – I arrived here at around 3pm after exploring the Paint Mines hoping to catch some sunset views of these incredible rock formations. I had been here before, in April of 2021 after climbing the Manitou Incline. I only walked around the central garden section then as I was tired from the Incline, plus the sun was still high in the sky and the colors weren’t as interesting as they would be today in the dead of winter near sunset. For today’s hike I started at the Visitor’s Center along the Gateway Trail, then headed up the Palmer Trail to check out the Siamese Twins rock formation (very cool) and then hopped on the Scotsman’s loop back to the Gateway Trail. That was around 4 miles which got me back to my car just as the sun was setting over Pikes Peak. It was windier here near the mountains than it was on the plains today, so I picked up my pace to get the blood flowing. So, in addition to adding this pretty area to my day, I also got in a nice little workout. I did see one pair of rock climbers on this windy day, and I imagine they were cold. And the rocks are definitely prettier when the sun is lower. I would love to come check it out in the early morning sometime to see the sun shining on both the rock formations and Pikes Peak at the same time. A nice day of rock formations in the plains and foothills of Colorado.
Fence shadow path with a giant hand blocking the way
Rock blades
Arrowhead cloud
Siamese Twin formation watching the sun set
So tall and thin
Bold climbers on this windy day
Rocks holding the moon
Looking west from near the trailhead
Pretty sunset
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison – Not to be confused with The Invisible Man by HG Wells, this Invisible Man is a 600-page tour de force of imagery that I won’t soon forget. Ellison became the first African American writer to receive the National Book Award, which he won for this, his debut novel, in 1953. It took him seven years to write. Look at just about any list of best 100 books of the 20th century and this book will likely be on the list; it’s probably why it was on my reading list. Published in 1952, this book about personal identity and race in America in the early 20th century could have been published this year and it would still be relatable. The narrator/protagonist begins his tale while hiding in a basement cellar in a whites-only apartment building and begins telling us the story of his life as, what he deems to be, an invisible man. The story begins 20 years prior while in high school. A speech that he writes wins him a scholarship to an all-black university and gets him an invitation to present his speech at a rich white man’s club where he discovers that he must first participate in a “battle royal” before he can make his speech. This battle royal, which is something that really did used to take place, is basically a multi person brawl with the winner/survivor earning a prize while others look on and perhaps wage bets on the outcome. His description of this battle is insane and it’s just one of many unforgettable scenes in the book. I’ve heard Invisible Man termed as Kafkaesque. At one time I had no idea what Kafkaesque meant until I read Kafka’s The Trial and Metamorphosis a few years ago. Now I have a pretty good idea of what it means. Scenes like the battle royal which seem almost surreal or nightmarish in which the protagonist has little control or even an idea as to why this is happening. So yes, there are many more scenes like this in the book including one memorable day while he was in college, chauffeuring a rich trustee around campus and they somehow end up in a bar containing mostly prostitutes and mental patients; a fight breaks out, the trustee is injured, and the protagonist gets kicked out of school. He ends up in Harlem and gets involved in a social cause called The Brotherhood which seems to be a group of black and white people that want to make the world a better and more equal place for all. But it turns out to be not quite what it seems and by the end of the book the protagonist (he has no name in the book) ends up in the middle of a huge race riot in Harlem where people are looting and getting killed. Other Kafkaesque scenes: The poor black farmer explaining how he happened to impregnate both his wife and daughter in the same night due to a dream; the Jamaican Black Nationalist riding a horse through Harlem in an animal fur wielding a spear; the scene where the leader of The Brotherhood pops out his glass eye in a searing argument; the scene where residents of a rat infested tenement building burn their own building down to prove a point….and many more. Among all of these scenes is the story of a young black man in post-World War II America trying to find his identity. It's a great story with many fascinating interactions among the characters. I felt at times like I was in Harlem in the late 40s watching all this unfurl before my eyes and wanting to tell the narrator: “watch out, don’t go there!” Here are some lines:
I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.
music is heard and seldom seen, except by musicians.
These white folk have newspapers, magazines, radios, spokesmen to get their ideas across. If they want to tell the world a lie, they can tell it so well that it becomes the truth; and if I tell them that you’re lying, they’ll tell the world even if you prove you’re telling the truth. Because it’s the kind of lie they want to hear
Then at the street intersection I had the shock of seeing a black policeman directing traffic—and there were white drivers in the traffic who obeyed his signals as though it was the most natural thing in the world.
“…sometimes the difference between individual and organized indignation is the difference between criminal and political action,” he said.
There is nothing to put the people to sleep like dry ideology. The ideal is to strike a medium between ideology and inspiration.
He was a cop. A good citizen. But this cop had an itching finger and an eager ear for a word that rhymed with ‘trigger,’ and when Clifton fell he had found it. The Police Special (handgun) spoke its lines and the rhyme was completed.
“…we know that the policemen didn’t care about Clifton’s ideas. He was shot because he was black and because he resisted. Mainly because he was black…If he’d been white, he’d be alive. Or if he’d accepted being pushed around …”
Shanahan Ridge loop near Boulder – Little did I know that I’d be reading about a 1902 murder that occurred up here, but more on that later. Our daughter is due to have her baby any day now, so I didn’t want to stray very far, and I also wanted to stay in cell phone range. So I picked this loop south of Boulder and north of Eldorado Canyon. I’d never been in this section of the Boulder Open Space before. The Shanahan Ridge trailhead is in a neighborhood on Lehigh Street and there is only parallel parking along the road here. I got the feeling that this trailhead is mainly a neighborhood access as there were only a couple of cars parked. I combined seven (!) trails to form this loop (that’s more trails than miles): Lehigh Connector, North Fork Shanahan, Mesa, Upper Big Bluestem, Lower Big Bluestem, Bluestem Connector, and South Fork Shanahan trails. This is a nice aspect to the Boulder Open Space; you can combine any number of trails into any length of hike you can imagine. There are over 155 miles of trails in this open space. I may one day hike most of it, as opposed to the trail runners around here who probably cover that in a week. There were lots of trail runners as usual and a few dog walkers and hikers. It didn’t feel crowded at all. The trail was its normal mixture of ice, slush, mud, and dry dirt this time of year; I only used spikes for a half mile of frozen section on the Mesa Trail which is the main north-south artery along the front range here. All the trails were nice except for the Lower Big Bluestem and the Bluestem Connector trails which were in a cow pasture. I’ll avoid those next time.
Along the Upper Big Bluestem I explored some remnants of some dwellings that were a few yards off the trail. I didn’t know anything about these ruins so I went down a post-hike internet rabbit hole to find out. Turns out this property was owned by John and Maud Brammeier who had moved here in the 1890s from Iowa. They nearly didn’t survive their first winter here with their seven kids, two horses and a cow. As the century turned there began some sort of land dispute between the Brammeiers and the Dunns, an Irish immigrant family whose stone house you’ve probably seen near the South Mesa Trailhead (it’s mainly used for wedding photo ops these days). There were several Irish migrants in the Boulder area who had escaped the potato famine in the mid-1800s, including the Shanahans for whom Shanahan Ridge was named. The story goes that the Brammeier’s cows (I guess they had more than the one by now) were going onto the Dunn’s land. A fence was built (by both families together) and John Dunn told the Brammeiers not to trespass on their land and he threatened to close down the main road into Boulder because it was on his land. Evidently John Dunn spotted Fred Brammeier (one of the Brammeier children who was 20 years old at this time) in Boulder soon afterwards and knew he had used the road. Well, Dunn, who was in his early 20s got mad, like men in their early 20s tend to do, and ended up shooting Fred Brammeier in the back near what is today the South Mesa Trail. So, my little ruins exploration led me to this interesting little story of Boulder.
Obligatory dead tree shot
Most of the walk was through ponderosa forest
This trailhead was a bit south of NCAR
Pine tree sentinels
Sun peeking through the mossy, snowy forest
Sun lighting up this squirrel
Devil's Thumb
Ruins of the Brammeier homestead
Nice views along Upper Big Bluestem
A lone tree admiring the prairie view
Views from the cow pasture
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro – This is my fourth Ishiguro novel (Never Let Me Go, Remains of the Day, and Klara and the Sun), another author whose work amazes me every time I read it. He’s such a great storyteller. All four of these novels seem to explore the finicky nature of human memory. The Buried Giant ends up being a metaphor for burying past memories and the possible danger of dredging them up. The Boston Globe called it, “A profound meditation on trauma, memory, and the collective lies nations and groups create to expiate their guilt.” Set in mythological England just after the days of King Arthur, the novel tells the story of Axl and Beatrice, an older Briton couple who have been somewhat ostracized by their community (we never really find out why). Everyone in the village seems to suffer from a lack of long-term memory caused by a mysterious mist. Both Axl and Beatrice have fleeting memories of an estranged son and decide to go on a long journey to find him. Along the way they encounter ogres, sprites, a dragon, King Arthur’s nephew Gawain who is/was a Knight of the Round Table, a Saxon warrior on a quest to slay the dragon, a monastery filled with mysterious monks, death disguised as a boatman, a boy who’s been cast out of his village due to being bitten by an ogre, and many other fascinating characters. I couldn’t put the book down as poor old Axl and Beatrice made this arduous journey across time and space. Axl keeps glimpsing moments of his past and when both Gawain and the Saxon warrior seem to recall his face from somewhere he begins to think that he was someone of some importance in his younger days.
Big spoiler alert so stop reading this if you want to explore this great novel yourself. It turns out that the mist that creates all this forgetfulness is actually the dragon’s breath. Merlin had put a spell on the dragon many years ago to produce this mist so that the countryside would forget about the horrors of the war between the Britons and the Saxons. Because of this, the country had been living in peace. But the dragon is getting old, and his breath is getting weaker, explaining why glimpses of memory keep popping up. Axl and Beatrice end up at death’s door and want the boatman to take them both to “the island” so they can be together forever. But alas only one gets to go, the other must remain with more painful memories coming to them, not only of the wars but of serious discretions between the two in years gone by.
As the world suffers from two concurrent wars, this is a fitting novel. What will be the collective memories of the people when these wars end? Likely neither will forget the atrocities, so hatred, and wars, will endlessly continue into the future.
Here are some lines:
Axl could feel the mood of the crowd changing. The sense of awe and gratitude was giving way to some other emotion, and there was confusion, even fear in the rumble of voices swelling around him.
“Your Christian god of mercy gives men license to pursue their greed, their lust for land and blood, knowing a few prayers and a little penance will bring forgiveness and blessing.”
“Yet are you so certain, good mistress, you wish to be free of this mist? Is it not better some things remain hidden from our minds?”
“The giant, once well buried, now stirs. When soon he rises, as surely he will, the friendly bonds between us will prove as knots young girls make with the stems of small flowers. Men will burn their neighbours’ houses by night. Hang children from trees at dawn. The rivers will stink with corpses bloated from their days of voyaging.”
“Could it be our love would never have grown so strong down the years had the mist not robbed us the way it did? Perhaps it allowed old wounds to heal.”
In Praise of Slowness by Carl Honoré - My wife would say that me reading this book would be like Bruce Springsteen reading a book on how to write songs. I would then say, wow, thanks for comparing me to Bruce Springsteen! I had this book on my reading list because it came highly recommended by Shane Parrish on his excellent Farnam Street blog. Yes it's true that I've always tried to slow down in this world of ever increasing speed (just ask anyone who has driven with me). Although there was a time in our lives when we were both working and the kids were young that the speed of things was getting out of control...that's when I decided to quit and be a stay at home dad (my company offered an even better deal: work from home half time until you're ready to come back full time - this was waaay before remote working was a thing). Anyway, why would I want to read a book about something that I've been doing most of my life? I don't know, maybe confirmation bias? Probably mainly because it was on my book list and I want to read all the books on my book list (I may have to find a way to live until I'm 150 years old however to read all those books on the list).
In the "about the author" section of the book it says: "CARL HONORÉ is a Canadian journalist based in London. He has written for the Economist, the Houston Chronicle, The Miami Herald, and the National Post (Canada). He received a speeding ticket while researching this book." This now 20-year-old book of his was an international best seller and was inspired by the Slow Food movement that started in Italy when a McDonalds tried up open up a franchise in a famous Roman piazza in the mid 80s. I enjoyed Honoré's look into the history of time (One of his degrees was in history) and how since the 1700s people have been predicting that machines would eventually provide more downtime for people and less work, and how those predictions have been proven wrong again and again as the world continues to speed up. Now people are predicting that Artificial Intelligence will do all the work and people won't have anything to do....history shows that this likely won't be the case...people will likely be busier trying to keep up with AI.
Through out the ten chapters the author addresses how small groups around the world are finding joy and increased production by slowing things down in the areas of food, music, work, child rearing, medicine, education, sex, and in all other walks of life. He makes the point several times that he's not saying speed is necessarily bad, however he does believe that we need to balance some of that speed with methods to slow down a bit. He even references a topic that I've written about several times: The Fast Thinking Brain vs the Slow Thinking Brain and how they are both necessary for our survival. The fast brain gets things done and warns of imminent danger while the slow brain plans ahead and provides more creative solutions. The whole point of slowing down is to spur this inner creativity and to take a moment to enjoy our lives rather than continuing to speed along; and of course the quote that begins the book is Gandhi's famous: "There is more to life than increasing its speed." Here are some other lines:
With so much to do, and so little time to do it, the average American now gets ninety minutes less shut-eye per night than she did a century ago.
All the things that bind us together and make life worth living—community, family, friendship—thrive on the one thing we never have enough of: time.
This is where our obsession with going fast and saving time leads. To road rage, air rage, shopping rage, relationship rage, office rage, vacation rage, gym rage. Thanks to speed, we live in the age of rage.
Slow activists are not out to destroy the capitalist system. Rather, they seek to give it a human face.
To make efficient rail schedules possible, nations began harmonizing their clocks. By 1855, most of Britain accepted the time transmitted by telegraph from the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. In 1884, twenty-seven nations agreed to recognize Greenwich as the prime meridian, which eventually led to the creation of global standard time. By 1911, most of the world was on the same clock.
In Gulliver’s Travels (1726), the Lilliputians decide that Gulliver consults his watch so often that it must be his god.
Two centuries ago, the average pig took five years to reach 130 pounds; today, it hits 220 pounds after just six months and is slaughtered before it loses its baby teeth.
the word “companion” is derived from Latin words meaning “with bread.” A relaxed, convivial meal has a calming, even civilizing, effect, smoothing away the smash-and-grab haste of modern life.
“Computers are incredibly fast, accurate, and stupid. Human beings are incredibly slow, inaccurate, and brilliant. Together they are powerful beyond imagination.” - Einstein
“When you look at the scientific evidence, it is clear that children learn better and develop more rounded personalities when they learn in a more relaxed, less regimented, less hurried way.”
The toll taken by the hurry-up culture is well documented. We are driving the planet and ourselves towards burnout.
Fowler and Rattlesnake Gulch trails – I decided to head outdoors before a 5-day arctic cold front hits. Of course, this also meant it was gonna be windy with the weather pattern changing. Temps were in the 40s with maybe 20 mph winds, so I bundled up and needed all the layers. These trails are in Eldorado Canyon State Park which is a very narrow canyon south of Boulder that is popular with rock climbers. I’ve hiked in the northern section of the state park to Eldorado Falls but had never been on this southern portion. The Fowler trailhead is at the end of state road 67 just before you enter the funky town of Eldorado Springs with its spring-fed swimming pool that once was boasted as the largest in the country. Ike and Mamie Eisenhower spent part of their honeymoon here. 
The Road Home by Jim Harrison - Last month I read my first Jim Harrison novel (Dalva) and loved it. I couldn’t believe I’d never heard of nor read anything by Jim Harrison. In researching his work, I discovered that 10 years after publishing Dalva, he published a sequel called The Road Home. I jumped at the chance to keep reading about all of these fascinating characters. The Road Home is in the form of a memoir by 5 of the characters whom we’d met in Dalva. It starts out with Dalva’s grandfather John Northridge describing his life as he nears his death. This was the strongest part of the book as his life was full of adventure and turmoil and his descriptions of all of this are brilliant. Next comes Nelse who was the baby that Dalva had to give up when she had him at 15 years old. Nelse is now nearly 30 and is looking for his birth mother. Nelse’s adoptive parents were good to him but their desire for him to lead a somewhat normal life of college and a job didn’t suit Nelse’s wandering spirit and curious mind. He leaves college, just one semester short of getting his degree and proceeds to travel around North America studying nature and writing about it. He gets odd jobs working to fund his travel but is also receiving $600 a month from Dalva’s grandfather, an arrangement Northridge made when finding a home for his then 15-year-old granddaughter's baby. Nelse’s section started out a bit less interesting, but his story really grew on me over time. His meeting with his birth mother and grandmother were special moments in the book. Then there were three other shorter sections by Dalva’s mom (Naomi) and uncle (Paul) along with a final and sad culmination by Dalva herself. I’m gonna miss spending time with these characters, all of whom share with me a love of nature, reading, and learning. Here are some lines: 
Paint Mines Interpretive Park near Calhan - After finally exiting from the big freeze where the temperature didn’t rise above freezing for nearly a week (and got as low as minus 16!), I was ready for a walk. But I was tired of being cold, so I didn’t want to head to the mountains where the wind was still howling. I’ve had my eye on this park for some time after seeing photos. It’s a two-hour drive to the park which is just south of the small town of Calhan, about 45 minutes northeast of Colorado Springs. There are several sections in the park where clay has formed from when the area was a tropical forest some 55 million years ago. The clay takes on several different colors due to oxidation and chemical content. This colored clay was important to the native people that had lived here, starting nearly 9,000 years ago; it was used in making colorful pottery. Also, the washes in the area were used to funnel game (deer, buffalo, pronghorn) towards their demise as hunters with spears awaited at the (literally) dead end. 
Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs – I arrived here at around 3pm after exploring the Paint Mines hoping to catch some sunset views of these incredible rock formations. I had been here before, in April of 2021 after climbing the Manitou Incline. I only walked around the central garden section then as I was tired from the Incline, plus the sun was still high in the sky and the colors weren’t as interesting as they would be today in the dead of winter near sunset. For today’s hike I started at the Visitor’s Center along the Gateway Trail, then headed up the Palmer Trail to check out the Siamese Twins rock formation (very cool) and then hopped on the Scotsman’s loop back to the Gateway Trail. That was around 4 miles which got me back to my car just as the sun was setting over Pikes Peak. It was windier here near the mountains than it was on the plains today, so I picked up my pace to get the blood flowing. So, in addition to adding this pretty area to my day, I also got in a nice little workout. I did see one pair of rock climbers on this windy day, and I imagine they were cold. And the rocks are definitely prettier when the sun is lower. I would love to come check it out in the early morning sometime to see the sun shining on both the rock formations and Pikes Peak at the same time. A nice day of rock formations in the plains and foothills of Colorado.
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison – Not to be confused with The Invisible Man by HG Wells, this Invisible Man is a 600-page tour de force of imagery that I won’t soon forget. Ellison became the first African American writer to receive the National Book Award, which he won for this, his debut novel, in 1953. It took him seven years to write. Look at just about any list of best 100 books of the 20th century and this book will likely be on the list; it’s probably why it was on my reading list. Published in 1952, this book about personal identity and race in America in the early 20th century could have been published this year and it would still be relatable. The narrator/protagonist begins his tale while hiding in a basement cellar in a whites-only apartment building and begins telling us the story of his life as, what he deems to be, an invisible man. The story begins 20 years prior while in high school. A speech that he writes wins him a scholarship to an all-black university and gets him an invitation to present his speech at a rich white man’s club where he discovers that he must first participate in a “battle royal” before he can make his speech. This battle royal, which is something that really did used to take place, is basically a multi person brawl with the winner/survivor earning a prize while others look on and perhaps wage bets on the outcome. His description of this battle is insane and it’s just one of many unforgettable scenes in the book. I’ve heard Invisible Man termed as Kafkaesque. At one time I had no idea what Kafkaesque meant until I read Kafka’s The Trial and Metamorphosis a few years ago. Now I have a pretty good idea of what it means. Scenes like the battle royal which seem almost surreal or nightmarish in which the protagonist has little control or even an idea as to why this is happening. So yes, there are many more scenes like this in the book including one memorable day while he was in college, chauffeuring a rich trustee around campus and they somehow end up in a bar containing mostly prostitutes and mental patients; a fight breaks out, the trustee is injured, and the protagonist gets kicked out of school. He ends up in Harlem and gets involved in a social cause called The Brotherhood which seems to be a group of black and white people that want to make the world a better and more equal place for all. But it turns out to be not quite what it seems and by the end of the book the protagonist (he has no name in the book) ends up in the middle of a huge race riot in Harlem where people are looting and getting killed. Other Kafkaesque scenes: The poor black farmer explaining how he happened to impregnate both his wife and daughter in the same night due to a dream; the Jamaican Black Nationalist riding a horse through Harlem in an animal fur wielding a spear; the scene where the leader of The Brotherhood pops out his glass eye in a searing argument; the scene where residents of a rat infested tenement building burn their own building down to prove a point….and many more. Among all of these scenes is the story of a young black man in post-World War II America trying to find his identity. It's a great story with many fascinating interactions among the characters. I felt at times like I was in Harlem in the late 40s watching all this unfurl before my eyes and wanting to tell the narrator: “watch out, don’t go there!” Here are some lines: 
Shanahan Ridge loop near Boulder – Little did I know that I’d be reading about a 1902 murder that occurred up here, but more on that later. Our daughter is due to have her baby any day now, so I didn’t want to stray very far, and I also wanted to stay in cell phone range. So I picked this loop south of Boulder and north of Eldorado Canyon. I’d never been in this section of the Boulder Open Space before. The Shanahan Ridge trailhead is in a neighborhood on Lehigh Street and there is only parallel parking along the road here. I got the feeling that this trailhead is mainly a neighborhood access as there were only a couple of cars parked. I combined seven (!) trails to form this loop (that’s more trails than miles): Lehigh Connector, North Fork Shanahan, Mesa, Upper Big Bluestem, Lower Big Bluestem, Bluestem Connector, and South Fork Shanahan trails. This is a nice aspect to the Boulder Open Space; you can combine any number of trails into any length of hike you can imagine. There are over 155 miles of trails in this open space. I may one day hike most of it, as opposed to the trail runners around here who probably cover that in a week. There were lots of trail runners as usual and a few dog walkers and hikers. It didn’t feel crowded at all. The trail was its normal mixture of ice, slush, mud, and dry dirt this time of year; I only used spikes for a half mile of frozen section on the Mesa Trail which is the main north-south artery along the front range here. All the trails were nice except for the Lower Big Bluestem and the Bluestem Connector trails which were in a cow pasture. I’ll avoid those next time. 
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro – This is my fourth Ishiguro novel (Never Let Me Go, Remains of the Day, and Klara and the Sun), another author whose work amazes me every time I read it. He’s such a great storyteller. All four of these novels seem to explore the finicky nature of human memory. The Buried Giant ends up being a metaphor for burying past memories and the possible danger of dredging them up. The Boston Globe called it, “A profound meditation on trauma, memory, and the collective lies nations and groups create to expiate their guilt.” Set in mythological England just after the days of King Arthur, the novel tells the story of Axl and Beatrice, an older Briton couple who have been somewhat ostracized by their community (we never really find out why). Everyone in the village seems to suffer from a lack of long-term memory caused by a mysterious mist. Both Axl and Beatrice have fleeting memories of an estranged son and decide to go on a long journey to find him. Along the way they encounter ogres, sprites, a dragon, King Arthur’s nephew Gawain who is/was a Knight of the Round Table, a Saxon warrior on a quest to slay the dragon, a monastery filled with mysterious monks, death disguised as a boatman, a boy who’s been cast out of his village due to being bitten by an ogre, and many other fascinating characters. I couldn’t put the book down as poor old Axl and Beatrice made this arduous journey across time and space. Axl keeps glimpsing moments of his past and when both Gawain and the Saxon warrior seem to recall his face from somewhere he begins to think that he was someone of some importance in his younger days. 
In Praise of Slowness by Carl Honoré - My wife would say that me reading this book would be like Bruce Springsteen reading a book on how to write songs. I would then say, wow, thanks for comparing me to Bruce Springsteen! I had this book on my reading list because it came highly recommended by Shane Parrish on his excellent Farnam Street blog. Yes it's true that I've always tried to slow down in this world of ever increasing speed (just ask anyone who has driven with me). Although there was a time in our lives when we were both working and the kids were young that the speed of things was getting out of control...that's when I decided to quit and be a stay at home dad (my company offered an even better deal: work from home half time until you're ready to come back full time - this was waaay before remote working was a thing). Anyway, why would I want to read a book about something that I've been doing most of my life? I don't know, maybe confirmation bias? Probably mainly because it was on my book list and I want to read all the books on my book list (I may have to find a way to live until I'm 150 years old however to read all those books on the list). 
Scientist Spotlight: Roberta Tuurraq Glenn-Borade, Geoscientist
Scientist Spotlight: Roberta Tuurraq Glenn-Borade, Geoscientist
