Alpinist Dead! Long Live . . . Us!
Posted on Friday, October 24th, 2008
Lauren and Michael and David have it covered re: the sudden defunding of Alpinist magazine. Further, DG puts into context what the Alpinist-centric lifestyle means at this precise national moment. (In short, it’sall about the thinner air and the flushed-out blood veins and the firmament humbled at our feet — not the moolah.)
To me, Alpinist magazine is a stack of glossy bound volumes next to the futon, phat pages of sweet up-high dreams and exquisite laughs, stark word-pictures and beautifully stark picture-pictures created by the canny fearless and the successfully crazy. What a body of work.
Marc Ewing wanted to be a successful publisher. As a consolation, he will be forever an admired patron of the arts, contributing as much to literature as to mountaineering. What sport has produced as fine a pile literature as mountaineering? Well, alpinism — mountaineering’s zen-master subset — has, probably for this reason: you don’t spectate alpinism without being fully committed, either by design or misstep.
Christian Beckwith landed in Jackson Hole the way hungry climbers do. Instead of “looking for work” he arrived with a preternatural good-editor conscience fully formed. The power of a good editor on society is a well kept secret. Good editors lead a community’s philosophical arc. CB put a finer point on the inner life of outdoors junkies, polishing countless tales of competence for its own sake.
Ironically, Alpinist was an antidote to what kilt it: consumer gluttony, hollow dreams bought on easy credit, phony money made purely of pixels on a spreadsheet.
Ironically-er, Alpinist’s demise is an odd omen. When archaeologists sift through the remains of our culture — we shall be known as The People With All The Stuff — that stack of Alpinists will confuse researchers. “The downfall of the Stuff People is curious,” the thesis will read. “Its most competent citizens took pleasure in performing the impossible and the ridiculous, away from crowds and for reasons other than financial. It appears that the less competent were more compelled to demand unrealistic comfort, fealty from the masses, amuse themselves with undue authority, and made up for their lack of mountain time by starting wars.”
Oh well. Tonight, The Gathering Not Unlike The Event Formerly Known As The Alpinist Film Fesitval (formerly known as the Barry Corbet Film Festival) brings the tribe together once more.
The kids will be all right.
Photo: Swift captures former Alpinist interns and employees fawning over Alpinist Rock Dan Long.
Editor’s Note: Talented photographer, writer, filmmaker, columnist, adventurer David J. Swift has a new debate-based blog about movies.
Beautiful eulogy! Glad the clan is hanging tight and still dreaming. Keep positive!