The Triceps will Inherit the Earth

Simply Sublime

A guide to the lesser known photographs of Ansel Adams:

1) "Moonrise Over Marmot"

A marmot is seen peering over a rock. A crisp, silver moon rises behind the marmot such that a halo, or a piece of fine white china, seems to hover behind its head. The marmot looks saintly and introspective, like a dog sitting in the kitchen on Thanksgiving as the turkey is removed from the oven, or a beauty school student completing her thesis on sideburns. A granite boulder roosts in the foreground. A shadow is cast upon the boulder. The shadow looks like the facial profile of Spiro Agnew.

2) "Half Dome on the Solstice"

A man is sitting at a table outside an In-N-Out Burger joint on Hiway 99 in Manteca. His hands hold a burger, and his elbows are propped on the table. The burger is a few inches from his mouth. The man is balding, and his forehead has a domed and bossy appearance. The skin across the scalp seems stretched and tight, like Saran wrap. It glistens, thereby implying that the day's heat stored in the asphalt must be escaping now that dusk is near. The man's eyes look at the camera and seem to express his gnawing discomfort and awareness that his head is too big for his body. Three boys sit at the table and shove fries into their mouths. They are smiling. A girl and a woman also sit at the table. The girl, apparently the oldest child, glances at the boys and sports a subtle scowl, her nostrils barely flaring and her eyes squinting as if there is unseen dust in the air. The woman (the mother?) empties a ketchup packet onto her plate. She is stunningly beautiful and ethnically ambiguous, as if she is Portuguese (or Burmese?).

3) "Yosemite Falls at Midnight"

This photograph is completely black, like someone smoothed tar over the confines of the photograph's frame. It is stark and sublime and invokes primitive emotions, like the emotions you might feel when you put away the dishes from the dishwasher then realize the dishes were actually never cleaned. Now you realize you don't know which dishes in your cabinets are clean and which are dirty. You then must spend your entire day washing every cup, dish and piece of cutlery you own. This photograph is best viewed in a darkened room or with your eyes closed, thereby heightening its emotional impact.

4) "Mirror Lake"

Yosemite's Mirror Lake is in the foreground. The sheen across the lake surface reflects Half Dome rising skyward. A family of deer nibbles grass in a meadow near the lake. A deer with antlers looks at the camera. His jaw is askew, as if he is chewing his cud, or chewing gum (it is difficult to tell). The male deer wears a bemused expression, as if he has never seen a camera on a tripod or he really enjoys Trident sugarless gum. A dogwood and an oak are near the meadow. Like all oaks described in literature, this oak is hoary. It is sublimely hoary.

5) "Wanda Lake in Winter"

Wanda Lake is shown with patches of ice floating over its dark, foreboding surface. So powerful is the image that gazing at it makes you feel physically cold. It is not unlike the feeling you get when you swallow ice or you step into a cold shower. (It is not recommended that you swallow ice while taking a cold shower while gazing at this photo). There is a group of hikers in the background wearing Sherpa style backpacks and snow shoes. They are bulging Michelin Man style with what I suppose is several layers of clothing (or inflatable longjohns). You can tell it's an old photo, because the hikers all have beards and walrus-style moustaches like the guys on baseball cards from the 1890s or like my neighbor, Chad Stiles, who is severely allergic to pronouns.

Join me next week when I review little known writings of John Muir, like his "Home for the Holidays" cookbook, his "Classic Opening Chess Moves" for chess aficionados and his gluten free haikus.

Pressing and Burning

Turkey Tetrazzini Pete & Celerina
Descending Mt. Langley
08/24/2006

That was a good day, that day we climbed Mt. Langley, a good day to lean on my hiking poles and suck air, a good day to let the sun and the wind dry the sweat off my face, a good day, as my cross-country coach used to say before the big races, to "press and burn." Yes, he would say, I want you to "press and burn."

The first time I heard my coach bark these instructions before a race, however, I misunderstood. I thought he had said, "I want you to caress and churn." No wonder I finished poorly in that race. I thought my coach had given me a riddle to solve. Caress? Caress what? Caress my hamstring? That's weird. And churn? Churn what? Where's the butter? I remember stopping mid course and scratching my head in total befuddlement. "Out of the way, you idiot!" a runner from the other team bellowed.


I walked across the finish line in last place with my coach standing there, arms in angry akimbo, whistle 'round his neck, staring me down. It was a long ride home.

Now, years later, I press and burn in all my endeavors, whether I'm making cookies, ironing or doing the Sunday Jumble.

The Tondo Doni

Tondo Doni
The Uffizi
Florence, Italy










The Tondo Doni, Michelangelo's depiction of the Holy Family enjoying a picnic while a gaggle of naked guys loiters in the background, graces a grand, high-ceilinged room in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy. Tondo refers to the round-styled painting, and Doni refers to the man who commisioned the work.


Many aspects of this painting may garner your attention. Joseph looks old, like grandfather old, and he's really bald. He looks like a chemistry professor, which is not a bad thing. My grandfather was a chemistry professor, and hey, his name was Joseph, too. The Joseph in the picture appears to be taking Baby Jesus as if Mary had requested, "Joe, take the boy. He's getting into my hair, and I need to make the sandwiches." Joseph seems attentive and concerned and a little anxious; earlier he made sure everyone had applied adequate sunscreen.


Mary is tan, robust and healthy. She exudes a gentle and perfect piety but also seems practical. I suspect she's the one who changes the light bulbs and balances the checkbook back home in Nazareth.


It's an overtly human, domestic scene; any parent can relate to this captured moment. Only John the Baptist, the child on the right who looks at Jesus, seems to understand the full import of this scene: the infant Jesus is, indeed, fully human, but He is much more. Time will tell, John understands.


And the naked guys in the background who appear to be discussing the chariot race results from the previous weekend? Art scholars and theologians agree that the naked guys reveal that in God's eyes, we are all naked (and apparently, rather buff).


Finally, and I suspect you who are art historians will get all worked into a lather, the painting prooves that Michelangelo had been to Yosemite. I know that doesn't sound historically accurate, but he could have sailed from Italy to the New World in the early 1500s on the Nina, the Pinta or the Santa Maria and headed West to California on some camels.


Examine the two pictures below. The picture on the left is a close-up of the Tondo Doni (hey, one of the naked guys seems to be grabbing a robe!). Pay particular attention to the granite mountain in the background. Now look at the picture on the right, the one with the two young women in the foreground (woo-hooh!). The mountain in the background of this picture is Lembert Dome in Yosemite. Compare the Tondo Doni mountain with Lembert Dome. Look closely at the outline of their summits. Are you with me?

Coincidence? I don't think so. In my next blog entry we will discuss Leonardo da Vinci's The Mona Lisa and how the lady in the painting looks exactly like the carving of Thomas Jefferson on Mt. Rushmore.

Strikingly Beautiful

Cirque Peak, Foxtail Pine
Cottonwood Basin
Southern Sierra Nevada

Don't get me wrong. Thunder and lightning terrify me. I have sprinted like Usain Bolt through many a high altitude Sierran meadow, jettisoning my pack and water bottle and all common sense as lightning strikes around me and the air crackles with the dry, sandpapery smell of ozone. I become primal at such times and rather stupid: do I run towards that lone Foxtail Pine or away? Do I run uphill or down? Do my metal hiking poles conduct electricity? What exactly are eggs Benedict? Yet once I am safe and sound and sheltered in my tent, please let the show begin. Let me feel the earth shake beneath my Thermarest. Let me roost like a sparrow in a kettledrum.

I understand that lightning strikes planet earth 70 times every second. That's a lot of current! That's a lot of curly hair! Many people are struck by lightning; few live, and those that do can speak only in italics. What follows is the remarkable true story of a lightning strike survivor...

Luz Lapitas was a simple woman. She lived alone in the Oakland Hills with her taxidermied guinea pig. She enjoyed macrame, People Magazine and visiting wax museums. She bought slurpees at 7-11 on hot days and poured them over her head when she returned to her car. She was a knuckle-deep nosepicker, but only when she listened to NPR on her car radio. She worked in Human Resources for the animals at the Oakland Zoo and once spent an entire year settling a meerkat strike (They unionized and decided to stop acting cute until their grain supply increased by several bushels).

Everything changed for dear Luz Lapitas during the storm of November, 2005, when the barometric pressure fell, the tides went haywire and the moon waxed instead of waned. It was also the night of the time change (Spring ahead, Fall back) and the 1,000th episode of Sabado Gigante on the Spanish channel. It was the recipe for the perfect storm (as well as the recipe for bouillabaisse). Poor Luz didn't know this, however. She had watched the weather reports on the Weather Channel, but regrettably, she had watched the Weather Channel reruns which she had TiVoed from the previous Summer. While everyone else hunkered down in their basements with candles and their rosaries and extra batteries, Luz was out walking on the fire trail listening to Glen Campbell's Not So Greatest Hits on her iPod.

She didn't notice the approach of rumbling thunder, the sky becoming thick and dark, the stampede of rodents running for cover, and finally, she didn't notice the hair on her forearms standing at attention and the static-like smell in her nostrils. She was singing "Like a Rhinestone Cowboy" along with Glen and just loving life as she summited a rocky prominotory.

The bright light came quickly and caught her by surprise, like an irritating relative with a flash camera at a family gathering. She felt a searing, electrical pain enter her right ear and exit her left foot. It was similar to stepping on a hot thumbtack, just 1,000 times worse. "This is not pleasant," she thought, and for an infinite moment she felt shish-kabobbed and somehow connected rotisserie-style to both the heavens above and the magma within the earth beneath her. Her life flashed before her eyes: the operation where the doctor removed the mole from her neck, the time she tried chewing tobacco and thought she would die, the time she put the spiders in the microwave...

Then, all went white. I know that sounds strange, but for our protagonist, Luz, all certainly did go white. She heard a voice, a man's voice. "Luz," it said gently. It sounded soothing and welcoming.

"Regis, Regis Philbin?" Luz asked. She wasn't sure if she said it out loud.

"No," the voice said, "I am not Regis." He laughed as if he had heard a mildly amusing pun.

"What is required of me?" Luz asked, trying to see from where the voice came, but again, all was simple whiteness without any form.

"It is not your time," the man replied. "Luz, " he continued, "Remember, all is mystery, and all is not nothingness, but somethingness. Return from whence you came, do good works, love your enemies, seek my face, keep the thermostat set at 60 degrees when you leave the house and machine wash warm, tumble dry."

Then her mind went blank.

Some hikers found Luz on the trail in the morning. She was unconscious but breathing. Her hair was frizzy and course like a brillo pad. Her skin was diffusely blistered and tomato red. When the hikers removed the iPod from her ears, they noted that the device seemed to be stuck, and the line Riding out on a horse in a star spangled rodeo from Rhinestone Cowboy was playing over and over. Luz convalesced for several months, during which time The Oakland Tribune ran a front page story about her which uncharitably read: "Nut Survives Bolt."

Once fully recovered, Luz's life changed in many ways. Now she could fold socks correctly after laundering them. She could predict college football scores. She could communicate with turtles. At nighttime she loved reading a good book while wrapped in a blanket full of static cling. She started a used lightbulb collection. And inexplicably she loathed Glen Campbell and became vertiginous when she heard his songs. But mostly, she now enjoyed simple pleasures like a beautiful sunset, a child's face, volunteering at the soup kitchen, and, for the first time in her life, using fabric softener.

Ointment for the Rash

Mt. Langley over Cottonwood Basin

Like a shark, I was born with extra teeth. Indeed! Rootless, undeveloped cute little baby teeth rattled around in the boney spaces of my face and sinuses like barley grains. I was a walking maraca. In the dental community this condition is known as supernumerary teeth. It is a flossing nightmare. Also, it is often associated with other maladies, including loss of hair (a condition known as baldness), fear of clowns and fabric store knees (a sudden weakening of the legs upon entering fabric stores). Luckily, I suffer from only two of these related conditions, thanks be to God.

Alas, then, when I was 7 and a tender sprig, my parents brought me to an oral surgeon. His name was Dr. Gordon Rash. Honest as the day is long! I stray not from the truth. That was his name. Without surgeries, Dr. Rash told my fretting parents, the excess teeth would grow roots and mature and protrude from my nose and cheeks like burls on a tree. This would not get me dates, I realized. I would have a face only my mother could love. Without surgery I would spend my life in a dark closet. Or, I might join the circus. But then I would be around clowns all day. These were not good alternatives.

I would meet with Dr. Rash regularly over the next 10 years. Now allow me to speak candidly. Dr. Rash never exhibited the warm fuzzies. He must have missed that lecture during oral surgery school. He was as charismatic and emotionally engaging as a plate full of polenta. He seldom spoke, and he never laughed - not once, not when I joked, not when I asked if it would be ok if I spit before I swished. His baritone voice lacked all inflection; it echoed hollowly around the sterile, clangy exam room like a forlorn bassoon. He was like a milquetoast Darth Vader.

"You will require many procedures," he said. "Yes, many procedures." (He seldom used verbs or other words implying action).

That's what he called my surgeries. They were procedures: the administration of the medication which made me floaty and nauseated and disassociated, the meticulous digging with the galvanized tools as if my mouth were an archaelogical site, the taste of blood and novocaine, the gauze wrapped mummy style around my tongue, the whirring and stuttering of drills, the crunching, the bite block mercilessly propping open my jaw, the gritty vapor rising from mouth which smelled like electricity and burnt chicken, the masked face with the sunken grey eyes staring passively into my mouth, the distant voice behind the mask asking for more suction and commanding me to keep my hands still...

At one post-procedure visit I sat face to face with Dr. Rash. His cheeks were smooth and plethoric, like uncooked roast, and his jowels hung jello-like over his tight-fitting collar. He smelled like old coffee. He seemed spent, exhausted. Maybe he had disimpacted too many wisdom teeth. Maybe Mrs. Rash was angry with him and threw a plate at his head. Maybe he needed a vacation. I'm sure that was it. I told him I was going on vacation.

"Where are you going?" he asked, very much disinterested as he held my latest panoram xray and examined it in the light. I could see the extra teeth in the xray; they looked like glowing peas.

"Where am I going?" I answered. "I'm going backpacking. In the Sierras,"

He set down the xray. He stared into my eyes. I stifled a shiver. "What kind of gun will you be taking?" he asked.

"Gun?" I said, mustering an ounce of courage, "My family never takes a gun when we go backpacking."

"Well, you should," he answered.

"What for?" I asked.

He paused. "For protection. You should take a gun for protection." He placed his hand on my forearm and squeezed tightly. His hand, I noted, was white and hairless and glacially cold.

I whimpered internally and wondered if my mom could extricate herself from that article she was reading in Redbook Magazine out in the waiting room. I tried to communicate with her telepathically:

"Uh, Mom, a little help in here! Dr. Iceberg is coming unglued!"

Eons later I met my mom in the waiting room. She quietly tore a few pages from Redbook Magazine and placed them in her purse and whispered "I'll want to finish this article later. Good casserole recipes!" She then carefully placed the magazine on the shelf between a copy of The National Review and The Plain Truth. While driving home I asked my mom why we needed to take a gun backpacking.

"Oh for God's sake! Did Dr. Rash tell you that?" she asked.

"Yes," I answered.

"Well," my mom explained. "He's just very conservative."

What made someone conservative? I had no idea. I suspected it had something to do with turning off lights to save energy and storing lots of canned foods in the pantry. I wondered, then, why people who were conservative would take guns while backpacking. I wondered if all oral surgeons were conservative. I wondered if oral surgeons went backpacking.

"Mom," I asked, "Will there be any oral surgeons in the Sierras where we're going backpacking?"

"No," she answered. "Heavens no!"

"Phew!" I said. "That's a relief!"

A few years later, while recuperating after one of Dr. Rash's procedures, I propped myself on my bed at home. My cheeks were swollen and stuffed full of bloody gauze. Although I was pickled in percocet, I managed to focus on the coffee table book propped on my lap. It was a Sierran photo book. One photo showed the view from Mt. Sill, the Queen of the Palisades. "Mt. Sill Top" the caption simply stated. (Mt. Sill boasts the best summit view of any Sierran peak). I stared at the photo for minutes and hours and days while I nursed my wounds and sipped Miso soup.

Mt. Sill and the Sierra Nevadas leapt out of those photos and infused me with their beauty. It was healing like a salve, like God's breath.

I return there often lest I forget.

Catalogue Chatter

Great news! I now write for the REI catalogue! Most of you are familiar with REI, the outdoor equipment store which markets glitzy and over-priced outdoor items like the flossing compass, the edible trowel and Thermarest underwear. Now I get to review and do write-ups about all sorts of recreational equipment for the REI catalogue! And my dear reader, you are in for a treat, for here are some of my initial write-ups:

Sleeping Bags

The Mother Goose Bag, by North Face: North Face has taken a novel approach in their new sleeping bag design. The sleeping bag shell is filled with actual, live geese. The bag provides incredible warmth (while using this bag on an expedition to Mt. Aconcagua I slept commando style). However, be prepared for a lumpy and noisy night as the geese never cease bickering and honking and snapping at your appendages. One bonus: during the holiday season you can remove a goose or two for a nice Christmas dinner.

The Helium Bag, by Kelty: Kelty's new bag is filled with actual helium. It is airy and light as a feather and provides incomparable loft. Additionally, it has a nifty valve which allows you to inhale the helium and say things like "Luke, I am your father!" while you gaze at the stars. You need to be really careful with the Helium Bag, however. On a recent trip, my hiking buddy, Turkey Tetrazzini Pete, forgot to stake his sleeping bag to the ground. He fell asleep in Yosemite, floated over the Rocky Mountains and woke up at a truck stop in Casper, Wyoming. Also, the bag provides as little warmth as Ms. Stiles, my high school calculus teacher. She had the personality of a crock pot, and one Friday night we saw her out on a date with her overhead projector.

The Bag Bag, by Outdoor Designs: The Bag Bag has incredible specifications. It is one ounce and can be compressed into a thimble and carried in your pocket next to your chapstick. On a recent trip to Kings Canyon I set up camp and spread out the Bag Bag. My brother, Jay, commented: "That's it? That's your sleeping bag? It's just a black garbage bag! You ding-a-ling!" I examined the bag more closely. Indeed, it was a classic Hefty Cinch Sac garbage bag. The Bag Bag is truly the world's first disposable sleeping bag. In a pinch it also functions as a trash bag.

The Bacon Bag, by Eagle Creek: Eagle Creek's developers have designed a remarkable sleeping bag which smells like bacon. Prior to marketing, each bag is placed in an oven and slow roasted with several slabs of sizzling bacon. The aroma permanently seeps into the sleeping bag material. That way, whenever the sleeping bag is unravelled in camp, all of the backpackers can enjoy the smell of fresh-cooked bacon which permeates the camp like incense. The good people at Eagle Creek wished to create a homey, Sunday morning kind of feeling for backpackers who purchased the Bacon Bag. My friend Ferbs (not his real name) and I (not my real name either) used the Bacon Bag on a trip in Sequoia National Park. At a moment past dusk every animal in the forest, including the mosquitos, showed up in our campsite drooling and hyperventilating (yes, mosquitos can drool and hyperventilate). Rumor has it that the Eagle Creek research and development team is now working on The Waffle Bag and The Burnt Toast Bag, and for those who enjoy lounging around camp at noon, the crumbled gorgonzola bag.

Well, that's it for now. Please look for additional reviews in the REI catalogue coming out next month. In that edition I review inflatable toilet paper and the Trout-powered Stove. I also wrote an article entitled Granola: How it has Shaped American Politics. Stay tuned!