The Glendorn Diaries (Part 6): Coming Down the Mountain (One of Many Children)

06/13/2010

The Glendorn Diaries (Part 6): Coming Down the Mountain (One of Many Children)

The top of the mountain was littered with broken logs, placed haphazardly in the grass like corpses after a battle. There was a ruined quality to the scene, which (i.e., the ruins of nature, and in contrast to the ruins of humanity) are never very appealing.

I was more taken with the view of the blue mountains of Pennsylvania.

There was a hut nearby, which was for the most part unmaintained, although it wasn't falling over, either. I wondered what it would be like to live here, and knew that I would only last a few hours. The modern era is all about specialization and I have no ability to survive in the forest, despite some ability to hike through the trees.

I started walking down the mountain, and thought about the Jane's Addiction song of the same (or similar) name; in college when they were just getting big, I was obsessed for a little while. I saw them in concert at the University of Maryland after their second album came out; to get tickets my friend Steve and I had to pay $60 each to a scalper, which at the time seemed exorbitant, the most I had ever paid to see anything. But it was worth it: the band was at the height of their power, and displayed a kind of decadent authority that to my mind recalled Led Zeppelin in the 1970s (not that I had seen them, of course). I remember how in the first song I fell into the mosh pit and someone (accidentally) kicked off my glasses; luckily I was able to reach down and pick them up off the floor before they were broken. After this, I tied them to my head with an elastic band so that they wouldn't fall off, and jumped back into the most pit with renewed (aesthetic) fury: it was probably the best mosh pit I ever experienced, a tide of bodies surging back and forth with a certain violence but respect, so that you felt tethered by the music to those nearby as you crashed into them, but never threatened or injured, as sometimes happened in the worst kind of mosh pits, where the rules of engagement dissolved into a more harrowing anarchy.

The path down the slope was steep but beautifully lit.

I paused to examine the rotting, moss-covered stump of a fallen tree.

I didn't stay too long, though: the bugs were attacking, prodding me to return to the path that would take me back to where I wanted to go.

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Music: Death Culture at Sea and Saturnine

Listen or download songs and records from my indie-rock past with Saturnine here and Death Culture at Sea here.

Music Video: Remembrance of Things Past

Watch the rock opera Remembrance of Things Past written and performed by Saturnine and Frances Gibson, starring Bennett Madison and Sheila McClear.

Video: The Chaos Detective

The Chaos Detective is a series about a man searching for 'identity' as he completes assignments from a mysterious organization. Watch the first episode (five parts) on YouTube.

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06/13/2010