Colorado

After a somewhat disappointingly small selection from California, we have a more typical, for the western states, large number of places to visit in Colorado, and not all of them National Parks either, though those are certainly wonderful. 

1. Mesa Verde National Park, in the southwest, about thirty miles from Durango, on U.S. Route 160. "Most notable and best preserved prehistoric cliff dwelling of early man in the United States."

Approximately 560,000 annual visitors. The largest archaeological preserve in the United States. Tremendous history. There is also a lodge, as well as multiple restaurants within the park. And camping, of course. 

2. Rocky Mountain National Park, in north central Colorado, 23 miles north of Boulder, on U.S. Route 34. "One of the most magnificent sections of the Rocky Mountains, with 65 peaks more than 10,000 feet high."

4.6 million visitors in 2019, the third most visited national park. Pretty much the classic national park experience, it's got mountains, it's got forests, it's got lakes, it's got wildlife. It's even got tundra at some of the higher elevations. The nearby town of Estes Park, located just outside the gates of the park, looks to have some bars. 

3. Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument, in west central Colorado, about 10 miles north of Montrose, on U.S. Route 50. "Awe-inspiring canyon; the deepest in Colorado; its sheer walls rise 3,000 feet at their highest point."

308,000 visitors in 2018. This is a no frills, you get what is advertised kind of natural site, noted especially for its narrowness, darkness, and dread." Sounds kind of cool actually, the sort of place we (we referring to my imaginary troop of congenial spirits) should all be going to more often. It looks like its in a pretty isolated spot, with fairly sparse facilities and tourist entertainment options.

4. Colorado National Monument, in the west, six miles west of Grand Junction, on U.S. Routes 6 and 24. "Sheer-walled canyons and caves filled with huge stones, strangely shaped." 

375,000 annual visitors. This place sounds similar to the Black Canyon above, and is somewhat near it (76 miles by road), though this one seems a little more famous and the formations look more familiar, though perhaps they merely resemble other formations such as the ones in Utah and Arizona that are really iconic. The town of Grand Junction appears to have a lot of places to drink, including breweries and vineyards, to which one might earn a visit after a full day of hiking or horseback riding (though not merely driving and taking in scenic views, you can't party on that alone).

5. Dinosaur National Monument, in the northwest, partly in Utah, 35 miles north of Rangely, on U.S. Route 40. "Fossil remains of giant reptiles, and other creatures of past ages; magnificent deep gorges."

304,000 visitors. Another remote place, so much so that personally I think I would find the presence of a U.S. government agency there almost reassuring. Looks very family-oriented, with a lot of artifacts to see and learning opportunities, we like those. It does not appear one of the more party-oriented National Park areas. 

6. Great Sand Dunes National Monument, in south central Colorado, about 31 miles east of Monte Vista, north of U.S. Route 160. "Among largest and highest dunes in the United States, deposited over thousands of years by winds; visible for seventy miles; colors of the sand change constantly with the light."

Upgraded to a National Park in 2004. 527,000 visitors in 2019. You have to walk across a creek to get to the dunes, though it is never more than a few inches deep. These are the tallest sand dunes in North America. Other than camping, there is no accommodation within the park. There are a few basic hotels and rustic cabin type places just outside the gates, as well as one restaurant. Everything else in that line is around 30 miles away, which I suppose is nothing out west, though in the east I at least would feel left out of whatever scene was going on around the great tourist attraction if I had to stay that far away. But I always feel that way anyway. 

7. Hovenweep National Monument, in the southwest, partly in Utah, 28 miles west of Cortez, west of U.S. Route 160. "Four groups of remarkable prehistoric towers, pueblos, and cliff dwellings."

Just 39,000 visitors in 2017. This place is extra isolated, and most online reviews, while extremely positive, make a point of exhorting any potential visitors to be sure to "bring lots of water." It looks like a cool place to visit. I would like to go and study at some leisure at the actual sites how these ancient peoples managed to live for centuries in these remote and barren locations that even the most voracious, antisocial, or ingenious westerners do not appear to have any interest in inhabiting. 

8. Yucca House National Monument, in the southwest, 10 miles south of Cortez, on U.S. Route 666. "Unexcavated ruins of large prehistoric Indian pueblo."

About an hour from Hovenweep, which is practically across the street in this part of the world. Annual visitors: less than 1,000. This blog post makes the argument, and not unpersuasively, that this is perhaps the worst National Monument in the system. I can imagine my wife and most of my children arriving at this place as part of my itinerary after a four day's (or more) drive out west and launching a mutiny on the spot, it's happened before. 

The inviting gate at Yucca House National Monument

9. Cave of the Winds, in central Colorado, 8 miles west of Colorado Springs, on U.S. Route 24. "One chamber of the cave is known as 'Old Maid's Kitchen'; legend has it that if a girl leaves a hairpin here she will be married within a year; thousands of hairpins are heaped against the walls." 

This place in 2021 has been turbocharged into a family-friendly adventure attraction charging $23 per adult and $17 for children 4-12. There appear to be rides and rock climbing like activities as well as cave tours. It looks a little more aggressively commercial than I usually like (unaggressively commercial I am OK with). It is located in what looks like quite a touristy area, with Pike's Peak and the well-preserved historic village of Manitou Springs, as well as the lively and prosperous city of Colorado Springs itself all nearby. The Old Maid's Kitchen is not hyped at all on the current website or other promotional material, and I wonder whether the tours include it anymore. I can only find one modern-looking picture of it on the internet, so I think it must still be there, but people are out of the habit of leaving wishes for husbands (or probably wishing for husbands at all).

10. Buffalo Bill's Grave, in north central Colorado, on Lookout Mountain at Golden, on U.S. Route 6. "Grave of William F. Cody, Indian fighter."

Over 400,000 annual visitors. There is a small museum (with a huge gift shop) at the site as well, charging $5 for adults and $1 for children. This is the kind of unaggressively commercial place I like that I was referring to earlier (if I can be modestly entertained and get out for $5 if that's all I want to spend I consider that acceptably unaggressive). 

It is of course worthy of note that Buffalo Bill, the legendary showman and character of the Old West, is identified here by the sobriquet of "Indian fighter", as if this were a source of pride, though he probably exaggerated the extent of his personal role in subduing the unruly natives. He was also highly renowned for having shot over 4,200 buffaloes, or bisons, during a two year period when he was 21 and 22 years old, though I would not be surprised if this carnage was not somewhat overstated also for dramatic effect. All of this would make him a good candidate for King of the Deplorables nowadays, but in his own time and for a half-century afterwards, he was regarded as something of the embodiment of the frontier spirit that was a major element in propelling America to greatness. Interestingly, in the present cultural reckoning he seems to be somewhat off the radar of the main academic and activist protagonists, perhaps because he is mainly regarded as a vulgar entertainer of little enduring importance, I don't know. Supposedly he thought well of Indians after his own fashion, and employed many native performers in his show, though always presented in the most stereotypical way possible--indeed probably a number of the most egregious of these stereotypes, if they did not entirely originate with this show, owe their persistent hold on the popular imagination to it. 

11. Million Dollar Highway, in the southwest, part of U.S. Highway 550, south of Ouray. "This section of the highway has gold in the gravel that covers the surface."

  

Regularly ranked in the top five of both the most beautiful and most dangerous drives in the United States, this doesn't seem to be very close to anything else anyone passing through that part of the country with limited time might be going to see other than mines and mountains. The section from which this road really derives its name is also only around twelve miles long, and if you are the driver you can't spend too much time taking in the view since there are no guardrails and the side of the road is lined by steep cliffs. Modern commentators take a skeptical view of the legend that the highway is paved with any actual gold and consider that the origin of the name lies in its, at the time, astronomical cost to build.

12. Mount Evans, in north central Colorado, 36 miles west of Denver, east of U.S. Route 6. "Highest automobile road in the United States; leads to the top where Cosmic Ray Laboratory of the University of Denver is located; highest laboratory in the world (14,260 feet)."

Still the highest paved road not only in the United States but all of North America (5th in the world--maybe--there is a surprising amount of dispute with regard to what exactly qualifies as "paved" or as "a road" in these matters), though it was closed all of 2020 due to you-know-what. There was a restaurant and gift shop at the summit from 1941 until it burned down in 1979. The cosmic ray laboratory appears to have ceased operating in 1972. That same year however the University erected a considerable telescope in the former laboratory building and finished construction of the Meyer-Womble Observatory near the summit in 1996, which was until 2001 the highest optical observatory in the world. "Citing a lack of funds and interest, the University of Denver began decommissioning the observatory in 2018. The facility will be razed and the site will be abandoned" according to Wikipedia. Yikes. The scene at the top appears at present to be in a state of flux and some decline as far as facilities go. 

13. Air Force Academy, at Colorado Springs.

This is the chapel, which appears to be the signature architectural attraction at the Air Force Academy.

This list was made at a patriotic time--West Point and the Naval Academy also appear among the recommendations for their respective states--and its makers imagined their readership would be keen to see the training grounds for the nation's officer corps, or at least some of the good use to which their tax dollars were being put. While there is a little more involved in visiting all of these places than there used to be, this Academy is still billed as a major place to visit when in this part of the world, and its own website claims that the aforementioned chapel is the #1 manmade tourist attraction in the state of Colorado. I think it would be, could be, reasonably stimulating to drop by there. 

February 2021

A List: H. D. F. Kitto--Form and Meaning in Drama...............................................146/337

B List: Waugh--Brideshead Revisited.......................................................................125/351

C List: Carlyle--French Revolution..........................................................................650/727

I said I would finish Carlyle eventually, and I will. It is good. The gruesomeness of the Reign of Terror I at least did not always fully appreciate, on the one hand because the overall number of deaths was dwarfed by those the genocides of the 20th century, on the other because I imagined that the victims were almost exclusively politically combative and generally disagreeable middle aged men, not that I find their torturing and executing each other en masse to be an edifying spectacle either. For a while anyway the fury of the times descended into much more awful atrocities than I had realized went on. 

When I saw the H. D. F. Kitto book coming up on my list, I supposed him one of those forbidding German/central European genius scholars who came to the United States during the war and took over a humanities department at some university. He was actually British (H. D. F. stands for Humphrey Davy Findley) and taught at the Universities of Glasgow and Bristol. He lived from 1897-1982. He was a serious guy. In his book he analyses six Greek tragedies plus Hamlet. He expects you to bring your Greek with you while he spends 40 pages breaking down Philoctetes. It's never bad to go over these plays with a great scholar, especially if you have some familiarity with them, though this guy burrows so deep sometimes in his ruminations on the text, including lines he suspects may be missing or incorrect, or the poet's motivations not merely in presenting the great themes of his play, but on dozens of fairly minor details, that the overall points of his essays can be hard to hold in any kind of coherent view. Of Antigone he writes that "the human race...has unsuspectingly accepted this ill-contrived structure as one of its greatest achievements, without realising that it does not really make sense." To be honest his own writing has something of the same quality.    

Another month passes. I do have some nice winter pictures. 

On one of my walks, along the Contoocook River. This past week it's gotten really cold (this looks cold but this day wasn't that bad) and I haven't gone out.

6th birthday party.

The traditional birthday picture holding that from the previous year.

This blue house on the hill does not look that menacing here, but at night and in autumn especially it gives off that American old spooky house feel. 

My daughter getting hold of the camera during a snowstorm.

My older daughter made this. I like the smiley face. It's positive.

My wife gave me this reading lamp for Christmas. We don't usually introduce such modern looking things into the house, but I really needed some more light so I appreciate it. 

Another picture I took on my walks. My wife went to elementary school in this building. 

The Christmas tree came down, but the winter tree goes up so we can still have some cheery lights.

We went over to Vermont one weekend to find one of the birch trees blown over in one of the storms.

One of the birthday cakes. There are three of us with birthdays in January.

This was a beautiful place in Plymouth, NH called Rainbow Falls. It was about half frozen, and you see the water running in the creek under a thin top layer of ice. 

Sir Walter Scott--The Bride of Lammermoor (1819)

One Sunday a few weeks back, one of those gray, cold, muddy, flurrying sorts of afternoons that are common in January, a group of us took a drive over to Vermont, stopping en route at an antique market near Keene that is a collection of what look like disused long dairy barns crammed full of stalls. The primary object of this stop was for my wife to hunt for various of her current obsessions, among them doorknobs, lamps and light fixtures, and blue willow china (she did find an old doorknob to her taste). I mostly looked through the books and postcards and old sports and college memorabilia, though as is usually the case I didn't buy anything. I did remark, as I went around the various stalls, five or six copies, all in different editions, several of them rather handsomely bound or parts of smart looking collectible sets, of Ivanhoe by today's author, Sir Walter Scott, a book that no one I have ever met, that I am aware of, has ever read through to the end, or at least has ever found the experience worth mentioning or making reference to; yet at one time it was clearly believed to be a book to push on people aspiring to be well read, especially boys in whom one wanted to cultivate that enthusiasm. I remember, due in part to copies of it being ubiquitous even in the environment in which I moved, trying to read it myself once as a teenager. But I didn't get very far in it at that time, as I am pretty sure whatever was going on in the plot was unintelligible, and the manner of writing was one in which I did not have as yet enough practice in reading to appreciate, nor did the early chapters of the book generate enough immediate interest in me to begin trying to cultivate such an appreciation. So like pretty much everyone else has done for the past hundred years, I put it aside and thought little of Scott's works, apart from the occasional references to them that I would come across in other 19th century writers, for more than three decades.

Last year, when I was fifty, one of my lists that I pretty slavishly follow--I do keep three of them in an attempt to disperse the totality of the slavishness at any given moment by allowing for some possibility of variety to creep into my routine--finally brought me face to face with a Scott book, The Heart of Midlothian. While this book was somewhat overlong, the discovery that Walter Scott was a real writer with real big league talent was a revelation to me in my middle age. The Bride of Lammermoor, a shorter, tighter, broodier, more fantastical novel, is even better. The Romantic gothic novel has been done to death, but to read these books is really to drink from the original source. The clouds enshrouding the castle tower, the ancient servant with his candle opening the enormous heavy door on a stormy night, the melancholy of the impoverished Master of Ravenswood gazing on the fox hunt from afar, everything about the mood, the details, the emotions evoked, is just right. Though the descriptions and dialogue are in some degree purposely affected and exaggerated, compared with Scott's many later imitators, they seem unaffected and natural-sounding; as can be said of Flannery O'Connor, who may not seem at first blush to be an obvious comparison, our experience of life would be elevated greatly if people really did always act and talk, and the world always appeared to us, as they do in these books.

The Bride of Lammermoor is somewhat celebrated for its plot construction, which is good without for the most part ever forcing itself on your attention. It builds up leisurely, with the aforementioned hunts, dinners, visits, a few capers, some brooding, some backstory, and then when we get to the last 50-75 pages everything is set up and we are off to the perhaps inevitable but still dramatic and heavy conclusion. 

From the preface: "When the finished (i.e printed) novel was first put into Scott's hands, he assured (John Ballantyne) that he did not remember one incident, character, or conversation in it." It took Scott around eight months to write the book, from September 1818 until May 1819, during most of which period he was evidently wracked by violent pain. In other words, he was not your stereotypical tortured soul type of writer agonizing over every sentence. One wonders how that model of an artist ever gained such influence with us. Most of these really famous guys were prolific, highly focused professional writing and art-making machines. Yes occasionally an interesting and witty debauched poet will make fun of them, and make a few fair points as well, but in the end the prolific producers of copy seem to hold up generation after generation, and are certainly more widely read by every demographic outside of the Cool/Artsy and Wannabe Cool/Artsy 18-35 cohorts. Scott's output it seems to me was especially worthy of note. He started relatively slowly, writing poems at first, publishing his first volume at age 25, and adding eight more before the first of his novels appeared when he was 43. Between this date and the end of his life a mere eighteen years later, 31 more would follow, most of them full length novels (min. 300 pages) or even longer, around half of which are titles immediately recognizable today to anyone with a passing familiarity with 19th century English language literature. This was in addition to 8 more books of poems and 28 volumes worth of miscellaneous prose works, including a nine volume Life of Napoleon and a Lives of the Novelists, which used to be included in the Everyman's Library, from which series I got my reading copy of The Bride of Lammermoor as well. 

The story, which is set in the late 1600s, is introduced by way of some old manuscripts and bits of doggerel poetry from that former age, I assume fictional, though I am not absolutely certain, which Scott claims to have come across in his researches. I had written some lines down which I found humorous at the time, but they don't have the same impact out of context. He followed this up by telling a story of a painter who had been a youthful friend who failed to achieve success and died the premature lonely impoverished death of such characters. "So ended Dick Tinto! a lamentable proof of the great truth, that in the fine arts mediocrity is not permitted, and that he who cannot ascend to the very top of the ladder, will do well not to put his foot upon it at all." Tinto has been introduced into this story because he once executed a sketch of the fatal climactic scene which inspired the novel, though the painting was never completed. This is all done much more amusingly and skillfully in the book than I am conveying here, Scott does not actually get to Ravenswood Castle and Edgar and Lucy Ashton and all of their friends and antagonists themselves until page 27, but I at least did not mind the delay, I rather enjoyed the roundabout means of getting there, which we did do in time. 

p. 42 The ferocious Lady Ashton, married to a wealthy lawyer and government official, but not a man of feudal warrior lineage such as Lord Ravenswood, contemplating the family's position and her daughter's meeker spirit: "Before ancient authorities, men bend, from customary and hereditary deference; in our presence, they will stand erect, unless they are compelled to prostrate themselves. A daughter fit for sheep-fold or cloister, is ill-qualified to exact respect where it is yielded with reluctance."         

There is a jolly ale story contained in a footnote that, in the mood one enters into while reading the book, seemed full of a conviviality and bonhomie of the sort that is so elusive in actual life, and which indeed does not exactly carry over in the same spirit to my copying it here. But I am going to do it anyway.

"It is a current story in Teviotdale, that in the house of an ancient family of distinction, much addicted to the Presbyterian cause, a Bible was always put into the sleeping apartment of the guests, along with a bottle of strong ale. On some occasion there was a meeting of clergymen in the vicinity of the castle, all of whom were invited to dinner by the worthy Baronet, and several abode all night. According to the fashion of the times, seven of the reverend guests were allotted to one large barrack-room, which was used on such occasions of extended hospitality. The butler took care that the divines were presented, according to custom, each with a Bible and a bottle of ale. But after a little consultation among themselves, they are said to have recalled the domestic as he was leaving the apartment. 'My friend,' said one of the venerable guests, 'you must know, when we meet together as brethren, the youngest minister reads aloud a portion of Scripture to the rest;--only one Bible, therefore, is necessary; take away the other six, and in their place bring six more bottles of ale.'  

This synod would have suited the 'hermit sage' of Johnson, who answered a pupil who enquired for the real road to happiness, with the celebrated line, 'Come, my lad, and drink some beer!'"

Prophecies operate as truths in books like this. I can never disbelieve in them though they have no part in real life.

p. 278 "He flourished much on generosity and forgiveness of mutual injuries, and hinted at the mutability of human affairs, always favourite topics with the weaker party in politics."

I should see what the overwhelmingly great white male hopes at the IWE have to say about it. "When Scott wrote this novel he was still using the pseudonym Waverley; and his creation 'Waverley' had become the world's most popular novelist. The Bride of Lammermoor is typical of the Waverley novels, neither better nor worse than the others. Its more lasting fame is due to the Donizetti opera Lucia di Lammermoor, based on it." Not the most ringing endorsement for a book on their own handpicked reading list, but that is one of the charms of the list. It is not always clear why any particular book has made it rather than some other one. Scott was evidently still considered important enough in 1960 that they felt they had to put three of his books on the list, the other two being the aforementioned Ivanhoe, and Kenilworth, which I think also reaches back to the middle ages and the era of knights, and was thought for that reason to be of interest to boys. This one (Lammermoor) is good though. It has real feeling, one feels a connection to the material, and to the author as a kind of clever and entertaining host at a dinner one attends, and wonders why he does not frequent such company more regularly. 

The Bourgeois Surrender Challenge

The notes on this generated an enormous field of which the qualifying group is pretty strong. Contenders with 600+ points have to go on the road in the first round.

1. Jamie Glowacki--Oh, Crap! Potty Training............................................................6,715

2. Pay It Forward (movie--2000)................................................................................3,203

3. Ann Patchett--Bel Canto..........................................................................................3,113

4. Lynn Toler--Dear Sonali: Letters to the Daughter I Never Had.............................1,603

5. J. Edgar (movie--2011)............................................................................................1,559

6. Thomas Hardy--The Mayor of Casterbridge..............................................................876

7. The Duellists (movie--1977).......................................................................................659

8. The Office, Season 3, Episode 1 (TV).........................................................................620

9. Talia Hibbert--A Girl Like Her....................................................................................609

10. Lyndsey Faye--The Gods of Gotham........................................................................609

11. Edward Fitzgerald--The Rubaiyait of Omar Khayyim..............................................499

12. Gabriel Garcia Marquez--Of Love and Other Demons.............................................415

13. My Life is Murder, Season 1 (TV).............................................................................325

14. John Webster--The Duchess of Malfi........................................................................240

15. Nella Larsen--Quicksand..........................................................................................218

16. Arthur Conan Doyle--The Return of Sherlock Holmes.............................................190

1st Round

Mostly clearing out the movies.

#16 Conan Doyle over #1 Glowacki

Sorry Jamie Glowacki.

#15 Larsen over #2 Pay It Forward

#14 Webster over #3 Patchett

Bel Canto is a former winner of this competition that I thought was only so-so at best. Such books are eligible to enter the tournament and try to win again, though none have. Webster's classic Elizabethan era revenge tragedy probably just missed being on the actual IWE list itself, which would have made it ineligible. But it did not make it.

#4 Toler over #13 My Life is Murder

#12 Garcia Marquez over #12 J. Edgar

#6 Hardy over #11 Fitzgerald

This matchup between a pair of late Victorian heavyweights was the marquee attraction of the 1st round. I long thought that The Mayor of Casterbridge was an IWE selection as well and that that listed included 4 Hardy novels, but my memory deceived me, there are only three on it, and this one was the phantom.

#10 Fayes over #7 The Duellists

#9 Hibbert over #8 The Office

Elite 8

#16 Conan Doyle over #4 Toler

#6 Hardy over #15 Larsen

Quicksand is a 1928 novel by a black, or half-black (her mother was Danish) American woman who was part of the Harlem Renaissance. Naturally, not having much contact, even online, with the most attuned literary people, I had never heard of it, but it is available in a Penguin Classics edition, and it's probably decent. I went to Barnes and Noble last Sunday when it was too cold to do anything outside and while they did not have this book, they did have a copy of Nella Larsen's other novel, Passing, which I leafed through, and while you cannot tell whether a novel especially is any good or not by that means, the writing was not obviously weak in any way. That said, given that it is so new to me and I have not come across any reference to it in any other writing at all, let alone in such a manner as to pique my interest in reading it, it would not be quite consistent with my game for it to beat Thomas Hardy in the second round. So it was a hard fought game with some questionable refereeing and perhaps some bitter feelings as the combatants and their fan bases departed the arena. Nella Larsen has entered my consciousness at least, however.

#14 Webster over #9 Hibbert

#12 Garcia Marquez over #10 Faye

Final Four

#6 Hardy over #16 Conan Doyle

A pretty even matchup for these almost exact contemporaries (Hardy was about 20 years older but their careers overlapped). The books are even about the same length. Hardy gets the nod on seeding.

#14 Webster over #12 Garcia Marquez

Even though he tends to be read and gushed over by a lot of people I find annoying, I acknowledge that Garcia Marquez is a great modern writer and I enjoy all of his books. He would gotten the nod over Webster in a straight up game here, especially as I have not read this particular book. But Webster has an upset to knock out the only interloper from a non-British conference (Conan Doyle was from Edinburgh, and had Irish Catholic parents).

Championship

#14 Webster over #6 Hardy

Hardy had a brutal road to the final, Webster had upsets to spring, I need some shorter things on that c-list, so the stars were aligned for The Duchess of Malfi to prevail here.