Yes!
I didn’t know about the Sunday concert (We Are One-The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial) on HBO, I just happened to walk by the TV at the precise moment that Bettye LaVette walked onstage and started singing. “I was born by the river…” of Sam Cooke’s A Change is Gonna Come. I was riveted. And then what happens? Out strolls Jon Bon Jovi, who I’ve never seen before, and what a voice! The duet was gorgeous. “A change is gonna come, yes it will…” It made me cry. All these years of darkness and greed, can it be true that the sun is going to shine on this country again?
I love getting out of California, but I love getting back. From a Southwest Airlines flight, here is a view of the Rockies as we head west. Then, later, some only-in-America gorgeous canyon lands.
As we pass lake Tahoe and get to Sacramento, my heart skips a beat as I see the gentle green hills of California: with all her faults I love her still.
Bob’s house is at 7000′. The first day up in the mountains with him, I felt like I had cotton in my mouth. But the next couple of days I felt surprisingly good. It was probably the elation of being out in the powdery snow, with the blue skies, the cold clear air, so different from California. After falling a few times I got the knack of snowshoeing.
On the 3rd day we went up with Bob’s friends Larry and Billy. It was a beautiful Rocky Mountain morning. Bob leads the way, he’s like a coyote following animal trails. He keeps his pace down so we can keep up. Larry and I discover common interests is Native Americans, Baja, and wild animal skeletons and I’m so excited I forget to be tired.
We’re up in the hills for almost two hours and on the way back discover these mountain lion tracks. This was a big cat. You can almost see him, bounding through the snow, fwump, fwump, fwump.
Yesterday I got up at 2:30 AM to catch a 6 AM Southwest flight to Colorado to visit my longtime friends Bob and Jean Anderson at their home in a small town near Colorado Springs. They are the authors of our best-selling book Stretching and the purpose of my visit was to work on our forthcoming 30th anniversary edition of the book. Their home is on the eastern edge of the Rockies, where the mountain range tapers down into the plains going toward Kansas. Bob is a mountain runner, cyclist, hiker, snowshoer and explorer, and spends maybe 10-15 hours a week in the mountains. Each time I visit, we go out in the mountains for a workout. We invariably stay way longer than I would on my own, and it’s always an exhilarating experience. Yesterday an hour after I arrived we went out snowshoeing (my first time) in the powder snow along with Bob’s dog Martin. The terrain in the photo at left is a lot steeper than it looks. Bob took me along secret trails, pointing out mountain lion tracks in the snow.
This building is on Broadway in Oakland. I drove by it earlier this morning. They don’t make ’em like this any more. Look at all that lovely turreted work at the top. Would any architect do something like this these days, strictly for (non-functional) beauty? No way, José!
From https://boingboing.net/:
Kevin Kelly reports the exciting news that all the Whole Earth-related publications from the last 40 year are scanned and online at wholeearth.com.
“One could read back issues if you could find them. I had the privilege of producing many of the issues of CoEvolution Quarterly and some of the Catalogs, so I had my own personal library of them. (Therefore you should also discount my enthusiasm for them.) I can’t tell you how many wonderful evenings I have spent sitting in my reading chair re-exploring the fantastic worlds captured in these back issues. It is impossible to pick one up and not be mesmerized, thrilled, amazed, and informed by at least two stories or reviews. There is a timeless nature to this work that is due to their anti-fashionable status. The Whole Earth Catalogs and CoEvolutions were idea-based journalism, rather than event-based. Instead of reporting on top of things, they liked to get to the bottom of things. These issues zagged while the rest of the culture zigged, only to zag later.
The good news is that all this goodness is now online. Danica Remy and the last holdouts of the old Point Foundation, publishers of the Catalogs and magazine until its last issue in 2002, have given a second life to this gold mine of material by arranging them to be scanned and posted online. The entire 35-year archive of Whole Earth Catalogs, Supplements, Reviews and CoEvolutions are all up and ready to be studied. You can read them for free, or download them for a fee.”
-Kevin Kelly
The Whole Earth Catalog Archive
A message for you guys: at age 70, it’s a different ball game. Harder to stay in shape. Excuses more finely honed. Too cold to get in the water. Too late to take a run. Not enough time to work out. There’s also the fascination with my work right now, and the long hours at a keyboard/monitor necessary in putting together books and running a business. I’ve never been more excited with my work and consequently never had such a hard time breaking away to work the body.
Over the last year I lost a lot of ground. My last book was so time-consuming I got to a low in the physical activity department. My running dropped way off; less surfing and paddling meant loss of upper body strength. When the book was done I got a wake-up call. Use it or lose it. So true.
I’m pushing myself to get out there. Even if it’s just running a mile or two. Or like earlier today I decided to go for a paddle and the lazy guy on my one shoulder said, the water is so cold, you can work at the Mac a while longer, then go in and sit by the fire. But the healthy guy on my other shoulder said get in the water dude, you know it’ll make you feel better. Sure enough it did.
I find this again and again. Trying to push myself to do something physical, whatever form it takes. Maybe just walking around the block. Jumping in the creek. A run way scaled back from my serious training days. Don’t neglect the body. As stretching guru Bob Anderson says, “You never hear anyone say, “I’m sorry I worked out.'” I guess I’m writing about it because at my age it’s so easy to give up and every time I grab hold of myself and propel myself out into the physical world, my body and my mind feel infinitely better.
Beniamano Bufano’s Peace statue at the newly refurbished Timber Cove Inn, about a 2-hour drive up the Pacific Coast from San Francisco. The Timber Cove Inn was built in 1960 by Richard Clements, on a beautiful stretch of the Mendocino coast. ( In the early ’60s I had an agreement with Clements to cut redwood shakes out of windfall trees on his property.) The Inn was a destination place, but over the years it got worn down and worn out. I’d heard that it had new owners and had been fixed up, so I stopped in for a beer (oat stout on tap) and hamburger last Sunday on my way home. The place sparkles. It’s a wonderful (2-1/2 million $) renovation. Bufano’s statue is out on the rocks to the south. There are 50 rooms, all with ocean view. Food seems great. Rooms seem to start at $180.
This is an elegant design, but there are also a bunch of dreadful huge winery buildings that are tasteless and clueless in this beautiful valley.
Yes!
