The last deeply subversive voice in climbing……

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Mick Ryan

Trad climber
The Peaks
Topic Author's Original Post - Jun 23, 2016 - 09:40am PT

The last deeply subversive voice in climbing……

John Readhead in full rant mode.....

<<<but is Llanberis now fit-city that I remember Boulder in Colorado to be? I laughed then at how ludicrous and mono-cultured it seemed, as if a plague of neurosis had spread from health-food shops, therapy and self-reflection groups, and clever advertising. Costumed with labels of fitness, sport, and a neat package for the new religion of the masses! Whatever, Llanberis has changed, it is a gluten free zone… >>>

Here we go... I can translate (Spar is a 7-11)

http://footlesscrow.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/sinking-like-stone.html
Mick Ryan

Trad climber
The Peaks
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 23, 2016 - 09:46am PT
In a good way Dingus.

He really is a voice in the wildness, an important one.
JimT

climber
Munich
Jun 23, 2016 - 12:04pm PT
Hmm, John still wibbling on?
A man who never worked out the triviality of the pastime we do and the even greater triviality of pretending to think "deeply" about it.

For US readers;- you should know John is well known in the UK for his views and ignored by almost everybody.
JEleazarian

Trad climber
Fresno CA
Jun 23, 2016 - 12:22pm PT
If nothing else, he remains entertaining to me.

John
healyje

Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
Jun 23, 2016 - 05:23pm PT
<<< but is Llanberis now fit-city that I remember Boulder in Colorado to be? I laughed then at how ludicrous and mono-cultured it seemed, as if a plague of neurosis had spread from health-food shops, therapy and self-reflection groups, and clever advertising. Costumed with labels of fitness, sport, and a neat package for the new religion of the masses! Whatever, Llanberis has changed, it is a gluten free zone… >>>

And that was 1975...
DanaB

climber
CT
Jun 23, 2016 - 06:34pm PT
Oh, yes. Of course, all of us Americans know about John Redhead. And we really like him. And then we don't. It depends - who said what last? But of course that could change any second now.
rgold

Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
Jun 23, 2016 - 08:14pm PT
Hmm, John still wibbling on?
A man who never worked out the triviality of the pastime we do and the even greater triviality of pretending to think "deeply" about it.

I'm entranced..."wibbling?" WIBBLING? I love it. Why did I never know this term?

As a professor, I belong to the wibbling class. My job is to stand in front of a bunch of students and wibble on for an hour or so three times a week. Except when I scribble my wibbles on paper, with titles such as "Half-transitive wibbles on asymptotically stable wibble boards are nowhere dense in the wibble topology," and then try to publish them in such esoteric journals as Advances in Wibbling, or Annals of Wibbling.

Everyone knows that nothing clears than dance floor quicker than admitting that you are a mathematician. But I'm a social outcast no more, for now I can proclaim with pride, "Madam, I am a Wibbler."

By god, it even makes me want to think deeply about climbing. So much more approachable than "what is mind."

clinker

Trad climber
Santa Cruz, California
Jun 23, 2016 - 08:21pm PT
Poor guy has a forehead like a large gas planet.
Ghost

climber
A long way from where I started
Jun 23, 2016 - 08:35pm PT
The last deeply subversive voice in climbing……
John Readhead in full rant mode.....

I'm with Tami on this one.

Don't know the man, but after watching/listening to his thoughts on Indian Face (on the Stone Monkey video), his disconnect with reality in this rant isn't surprising.

He may or may not be a good "artist" but as a climber he suffers from severe tunnel vision.

Edit to add: And this comes from someone who is totally with him on the "tromping through the swamp in a rainstorm to pretend we're climbing" thing.
ecdh

climber
the east
Jun 24, 2016 - 12:07am PT
a good read, chunky thoughts put down well.

but deeply subversive...? hmmmmm...id say healthily disgruntled middle aged white guy. i think Bridwell does it better.

my personal vote for last real subversive voice in climbing id have to give to Messner - and hes not all that recent - but he did rant against making things too easy or comfortable.
climbings not BASE or skateboarding, theres just not much subversive about it. getting strung out about the way things are is hardly confined to climbers.

i note Crowely in the sidebar. theres a better contender.
Josh Holmes

Trad climber
UT
Jun 24, 2016 - 06:17am PT
Crowley, while definitely not for everyone, surely had a grasp on the core of the Alpine experience.

‘I had done it myself and found not only that the pearl of great price was worth far more than I possessed, but also that the very peril and privations of the quest were themselves my dearest memories.'
-A.C. reflecting on his failed K2 expedition.
donini

Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
Jun 24, 2016 - 06:35am PT
There is no voice in climbing....if there was, no one would listen
clinker

Trad climber
Santa Cruz, California
Jun 24, 2016 - 07:28am PT
There are many voices in climber's heads though.
caughtinside

Social climber
Oakland, CA
Jun 24, 2016 - 07:58am PT
Everything is for sale.
Coach37

Social climber
Philly
Jun 24, 2016 - 08:32am PT
The whole concept of a "deeply subversive voice in climbing" makes me chuckle. The sheer grandiose pomposity of the phrase is laugh-out-loud funny. Leave it to the British to invoke unintentional comedy with their faux intellectualism.

It's farkin rock climbing, not a political movement. I saw a little documentary film on this Redhead fellow a few years ago. All I recall of the film was him terrorizing people in a public square somewhere by dressing up with a giant paper mache penis or something like that.
rgold

Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
Jun 24, 2016 - 09:00am PT
Well, I actually read the whole piece. Redhead's prose is like the garden of a zombie house. The owners have fled and the garden is overgrown with a vast and luxuriant combination of flowers, cultivated and wild, mixed with an ever-increasing variety of weeds and invasive species. You might momentarily catch sight of something quite beautiful in there, but then a zephyr caresses the forest and the image is gone. The lasting impression is of an incoherent jumble---bursting with life---but so untended as to be incoherent.

He doesn't seem to like "sports" climbing much, and somehow manages to find a terminal decline of the human spirit and the triumph of commercialism over spirituality encapsulated therein. Meanwhile, he's out there with a sledge hammer comfortizing the landing to his proj. I guess some weeds get into everyone's garden.
wbw

Trad climber
'cross the great divide
Jun 24, 2016 - 10:34am PT
Wow, if that was his description of Boulder from 1975, he pretty much described it to a (more or less) tee for 2016.

Hard to tell a true "subversive" without some type of perspective over time. One has to suspect that J.R. is the real deal. Mar"c" Twight on the other hand, not so much. We once believed that he was the subversive voice in alpine climbing in particular, and it turns out all that ranting and raving was simply a marketing gimmick to the world that he claimed to disdain. Ironically, without the development of alpine climbing as sport, Twight's place in the scheme of it all would have been much diminished. One doesn't get the impression that Redhead is benefitting from his "subversive" voice in the way that Twight did.

Colin Haley had some interesting comments about alpine climbing as sport in his blog about soloing the Infinite Spur. He readily admits that having done the route with a partner a couple of days beforehand took much of the adventure out of his climb, even though the sport vs. adventure balance was recalibrated during his descent. I find his perspective to be more mature than Twight's was during his heyday, and more nuanced than Redhead's.
healyje

Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
Jun 24, 2016 - 10:52am PT
'Modern' (low commitment) PNW alpine sport climbs - it's the latest rage...

http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1149619/Re_TR_Mile_High_Club_new_route#Post1149619
McHale's Navy

Trad climber
From Panorama City, CA
Jun 24, 2016 - 11:15am PT
Redheads, LOL......crazy f*#kers!
slabbo

Trad climber
colo south
Jun 24, 2016 - 02:25pm PT
crazy ? prolly...hot tempered ? yes..ego ? Yes and was a very brilliant climber

Sound familiar

Mysoginistic Discharge..now that's a route name to piss people off

or The Bells,,The Bells
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