Pleasure Island

Last weekend was Halloween, as I'm sure everybody in the States already knows. After all, you had to find a costume, attend a party or two, and maybe get some candy from the neighbors. In France Halloween is not that big of a deal. There were some costumes, but in general the holiday was just another reason to go downtown, drink a lot, and stumble around medieval streets all night. Which brings me to my next point: this place is like Pleasure Island. Remember Pinocchio, the Disney film? Remember the part where all of the boys were smoking cigars, drinking huge mugs of beer, and throwing bricks through church windows? That's Southern France, except instead of throwing bricks they pee on buildings, and instead of being boys they're grown men in designer jeans.

I have seen police officers here. But I've only seen about six, and they never seem to be doing anything. For a semi-socialist state, I certainly haven't noticed any real social controls in France. Nothing like in Bozeman, anyway. Not that I'm complaining.


In other news, I went climbing this past weekend, first at Collias on Saturday then at Thaurac on Sunday.

On Saturday I was one of the stronger climbers and ended up setting up topropes. Here's an awful picture of one of the cliffs:
If you look kind of close you can see a Parisian joker scrubbing his way up the cliff on toprope. I set that rope up, because Dominique decided he wasn't up to leading the last two bolts of a 4b. What you can't see is another toprope about four meters to the right with a hot-shit gym climber flailing around the first bolt, behind the trees. I set that one up too, for the same reason. To be fair, it was pretty sandbagged. The topo said 5a, I say 5c+, 6a. That's basically the same as calling a 5.10a/b a 5.7.

On Sunday, however, I went climbing with a number of stronger climbers, many of them women, which was humbling. Climbing 6a is only a big deal when surrounded by new climbers. When everybody around you climbs 6c (5.11b-ish) hacking your way up a mid 5.10 isn't so impressive anymore.


Here's some extra photos from a bike camping/squatting trip in September:

Montferrier:

No fires allowed:
Sleeping arrangements in a paintball bunker:


And finally, music.

This week on the Anarchy Breakfast podcast,

Songs About Jesus That Don't Suck

1 Head Rolls Off - Frightened Rabbit - Midnight Organ Fight
2 Jesus - The Welcome Wagon - Welcome To The Welcome Wagon
3 To Be Alone With You - Sufjan Stevens - Seven Swans
4 Jesus - Page France - Hello, Dear Wind
5 Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam - The Vaselines - The Way Of The Vaselines
6 Jesus Wrote A Blank Check - Cake - Motorcade Of Generosity
7 Christ For President - Billy Bragg & Wilco - Mermaid Avenue
8 Jesus And Tequila - The Minutemen - Double Nickels On The Dime
9 I Saw God - The Black Lips - 200 Million Thousand

Link here

More news & music next Wednesday.