Category: Cultural critique
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In praise of the mundane
I started taking blogging seriously this summer. One conspicuous byproduct of this is that I began gathering/paying attention to statistics associated with my work here: who reads what, how often, when, and so forth. Some of it isn’t surprising: Monday and Tuesday are by far the biggest traffic days, Saturday and Sunday the least. Some…
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Enduring
What matters in life? A redundant question, as thinking that something would matter outside of life (which is to say, existence) not only makes no sense, but is quite unthinkable. Life is an echo chamber, where meaning is discovered like a skier in a whiteout: unable to see anything, the skier yells out, listens, and…
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How I got the best job on earth
I spent all of August online, looking for vacant places in organizations. Companies that would pay me to do something enjoyable. Right around the autumnal equinox I drove up here, to NW MT, and did a neat trip and interviewed for a job. The trip amounted to a necessary and sufficient evocation of the fates,…
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Adventure film-making after Youtube (Banff World Tour review)
I’ve been lucky enough to see the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour three times now; in LA in 2008, Missoula in 2009, and here in Kalispell last night. Even in that short time the dynamic of the films showcased seems to have changed. The world tour makes a wide selection of films shown at…
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Packrafting defined
St. Mary Lake from 500′ up. 50 mph winds and oceanic swells. I was introduced to boating and skiing early in life, in the normal ways: canoeing, whitewater rafting, downhill skiing in area, XC skiing on track skis. All were fun for short periods, but none resonated especially well. Until the last few years, that…
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Fear and Trembling (in praise of the off-season)
“He had faith by virtue of the absurd, for all human calculation ceased long ago.”-Soren Kierkegaard Glacier National Park was called the Alps of the Americas not only to lure rich easterners away from Europe, but because the high peaks that make up the crown of the continent hold forth with a singular aesthetic. Unlike…
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Cynicism
I try to not give in to it, if for no other reason that in my line of work a rosy view of the world is a prerequisite for sanity. Today of course, doing that is difficult. Up here in the Flathead Valley the electorate is pretty conservative. Whitefish (the Aspen of Montana, and home…
Bedrock & Paradox 
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