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One Night in the Bar by Lito Tejada-Flores
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Mountain Gazette Library
One Night in the Bar by Lito Tejada-Flores
Hello and welcome back to the Mount Gizet Library. I'm John Booster and this week, join us as we immerse ourselves in opera's ski culture, exploring the depths of ski philosophy and camaraderie in a cozy, low aesthetic. Mount Gizet Library is proudly presented by Steel, designed, developed, and tested at the base of the Tetons in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Steel was founded to inspire connection with the outdoors through premium technical apparel for the epic and every day. Learn more at steel.com, stio.com, steel, let the outside in. The Mount Gizet Library is proudly presented by Gordini. Based in Vermont and family run, Gordini has focused on the same mission since 1956 to keep you outside longer. Our gloves, socks, and goggles aren't merely accessories, there are critical pieces of equipment that are built to last season after season. We take our commitment to people and the planet seriously and build that into every detail. From introducing the first-ever down mitts to knitting quilted dual-layer socks, innovation is always done in the spirit of progress. Learn more about what drives our passions and products at gordini.com, g-o-r-d-i-n-i.com. Mount Gizet Library is also proudly presented by Visit Idaho and Visit Sun Valley. Discover where adventure meets style in Sun Valley, Idaho. Welcome to America's pioneering mountain town that veers off the beaten path. Explore five distinct mountain races, over 200 miles of single-track mountain biking trails, a myriad of bifacial waters, exciting events, and inviting dining options. Find your summer escape at visit sunvalley.com. One night in the bar, written by Lido Tejada Flores for Mountain Gizet 3. One night in the bar, the brass eagle atop the espresso machine squinting down at Oprey Skeed Out Couples, nestled in dark horsehair sofas. The dance band half asleep in subdued windows, brassiers outside windows with giant snowflakes frozen in the anti-gravity glare of the lodge floodlights. Drifts of midnight powder piled up beneath invisible trees while the cocktail waitress slipped like a shadow between drowsing tables. One night in the bar, sitting with my friends in the depths of the red plush corner alcove, immersing the iridescent colors of our drinks in the dusty light of a dying fire. Feet still tired from a long day and tight boots, halfway between the memory of the last nonstop 430 run down the mountain and velvet dreams of an endless powder morning. One night in the bar, too tired to talk listening to my friends. Ginger, the last of the ski-bumps, hottest of the hot. Lori, his chick, blonde braids trailing down her pale blue jumpsuit. Jean-Jacques, the young French coach with big grey eyes that had never really noticed a mogul. Eyes that flickered from Jean to Joanne, her sister, the two of them just off duty from the lodge restaurant. Their mini-skirted uniforms eliciting oolalas. And Martin, the mad instructor, well, with a couple of his clients, a family of powder hounds from the coast. One night in the bar, listening as they searched for words to explain the inexplicable, sifting through snowy memories, talking once again, for the millionth time, about skiing. But look, what's wrong with making as many turns as possible on a given slope? That's not the point, Ginger. In the first place, it's all a priority. You stand up there on top of the north bowl and say to yourself, "I'm going to make at least 200 turns down there, and tight ones, too. And what's the result? When you push off, you aren't really skiing the north bowl at all. It's an imaginary slope, 200 turns long, that only exists in your head. You get to the bottom and you feel pretty good, but you still don't know what the north bowl was really like. So, are you saying that no one really skis a slope unless he just skis into it blind? Just reacts spontaneously to whatever he finds there? That's a pretty narrow conception of skiing, isn't it? Well, yes and no. I mean, anything you can wrap up in one sentence is going to seem narrow, right? But it isn't a question of rules and principles for skiing. Christ, we have enough rules to deal with back in the city. It's a question of means to an end. To what end? What are we doing here? That's what you ought to ask. Don't we have anything better to do than act out the script for a little skit that's been stored inside us all week? Those 200 turns down the north bowl? Or did we come up here to discover something new, something unsuspected? We don't know what. But I do know that if I make up my mind about every turn before I push off, I'm not going to discover very much while I'm skiing. You're too much, Martin. What do you mean by "discover" something? You sound more like a mystic than a ski instructor. And by the way, how do you manage to keep your job with such long hair? I thought a ski instructor's image. It's changing, it's changing, no image lasts forever. But that's exactly what I'm talking about, getting away from the images when we go skiing, getting into the skiing itself and getting rid of our preconceptions of what it's supposed to look like or feel like. Finding out how it really is. What the skis are really doing under foot, what the snow really feels like from turn to turn. I told you before, you're no better than a mystic. I thought ski instructors were supposed to be the big technique freaks, angulate just so, edge set just so, plant your pole 6 inches to the downhill side of your lower ski tip, all that jazz. A sudden glimmer in big franchise, somehow Jean-Jacques and Joanne have become a compact double silhouette on the far couch. No, that is not right, you know. It's the average skier, the recreational skier, Messier Tulemond, who is mad about technique, and absolutely crazy about ski technique, they believe many articles. I think, and you know why, they believe they're all looking for a shortcut. They want to become very good skiers, without spending years and years without training, without running gates. I tell you, you will think I'm as mad as my friend Martin, but I ask myself, how can anyone become a good skier without running gates, lots of gates, it's impossible I think. No, I don't think so, it's not impossible, but it's probably the best way anyway, just because it's the simplest, less thinking, less confusion that way. A minor explosion of red-haired indignation in Ginger's Corner. Wait a minute, hold everything now, you're being inconsistent Martin, what's the difference between trying to make as many turns as you can between the moguls, and going down a slalom course that more or less obliges you to do the same thing. It's not at all the same thing. In a slalom course, the discipline, the thought, the planning, all that is outside you, all you need to do is react. The game you're playing has been simplified, so paradoxically, the more you submit to the discipline of running gates, the freer you become. You learn to adapt yourself to the course, to the snow, and eventually to the whole mountain, instead of always trying to impose your predetermined image of good skiing on each and every slope. I'll admit, it sounds good, but frankly, I detect a couple of holes in your theories. A couple, I'm sure half of what I just said is pure nonsense, but then, I'm just groping around for a way to express what I feel, or think I feel, about skiing. It can't come out right the first time, but eventually, I'll have to try to pass it on to my students. So come on and tell me what you don't agree with, or should I say what you disagree with the most. Well, this thing of skiing with the mountain, for example, always adapting yourself, surely one of the most exciting parts of skiing is doing just the opposite, jumping where you ought to hug the ground, crashing into moguls in the wrong place, on purpose, and all that. In fact, Jean-Jacques here does that more than anyone. Despite all your racing background, you never seem to ski with the terrain, do you? I mean, you just go shooting off, making those enormous turns, completely disregarding the terrain or any poor moguls that get in the way, and, of course, we can't follow you. So how can we know? But it certainly doesn't look as though you're trying to adapt to the mountain. Yes, that is a fair question, but I still think my friend, LeFou, is right in a sense. Me, when I ski fast, you know, I still must react quickly and adapt myself to my circumstances, which are more, uh, I can say, more rigorous because of my speed and because I like to ignore the bumps. But you know, I don't care to ski perfectly, without mistakes. I'm all the time, also see. How can I put it? I'm being pardoned for one mistake, one horrible bump after another. It's exciting that way, don't you think? And sister, somewhat left out of the action with only a black russian in her hand, instead of a Frenchman's arm around her shoulder. Suddenly smiles and sits up from the depths of the cushions. A light bulb appears in the empty balloon above her short curly hair. I get it, you're really saying the same thing as Martin. If you care about skiing perfectly, then you probably never will. In other words, you're not trying to prove anything when you ski, like this thing of making at least 200 turns, that's why Laurie can out-ski the rest of us girls. She just doesn't give a damn, at least you don't look as if you did. You aren't trying to ski like a talented girl skier, in fact, I doubt if you can even remember your own name once you push off, but some of us just don't have it. Look at me, for example, when I ski, I remember every piece of advice from every boyfriend I've ever skied with. Aw, I never thought I was out-skiing anybody. Yes, that's true, Laurie, you're very good, but if you don't remember what you're supposed to do, perhaps it is a help. Because instructors, you know, are just the opposite, they never forget for a minute what they must do. And also, they ski too slowly, always in control. Well, of course, you must teach your students to control their speed, and so your instructors become hypnotized by control. Well, not Mona me. Martin, he is lucky that he likes to go fast, but you know what it's like in the ski school. It's very formal, and the instructor loses the magic of skiing very soon. He's not astonished anymore, he's never frightened, almost never excited. It's sad, I think. Over by Martin, a big sheepskin coat flaps wildly. His client has just swallowed a mouthful of scotch the wrong way. He sneezes, wipes his face. Sad hell, it's downright ridiculous, but it isn't just instructors. Here, I've spent half a season in the hell of a lot of private lessons trying to learn this of all mon stuff. I really believe I used to have more fun just backing my way through the bumps any old way. Now, I can sneak through as slow as I care to, but is it worth it? Well, for this of all mon business, you must take bumps very seriously. Of course, every now and then, you meet a bump so big that you just must make bumps so important, just pretend they aren't there. They are, perhaps, only in your mind. A rippling wave of subterranean laughter sweeps across our corner from left to right and recedes, leaving ginger, doubled up across a soft, powder blue lab, gasps for air. It's too much. See what you're doing, Martin? You're turning Jean-Jacques into a bloody mystic, too. Two of you on the same mountain. It's going to be too much. We should have a rule. No more talking about skiing. Too late now, we're here and we're hooked. Besides, talking about skiing is the next best thing about skiing itself. Apropos of which, before anyone tells me that sex is better, to which I'd have to agree. Have you noticed what's going on outside the window? Fat City, tomorrow morning. Thank God for powder. Powder, at least, is so far out that we don't get involved in all these various games of technique and personality. It's pure than the rest of skiing. I guess that's what you're talking about, too. We really do forget ourselves when we ski powder, don't we? I know you're going to call me a snow-crazed hippie and say it's just another variation on the "peace, love, hurry, Krishna" theme, but nonetheless, that's what good skiing is all the time, not just in powder. It's a sort of self-transcendence trip. No, don't laugh. In other words, all these years, all these turns, all these different ski techniques, all this time. We've been concerned with what we have been doing on top of our skis. Comma position, circular projection, whatever. Look at me. My shoulders are just like steins. My knees are together at last. All that. Then, one day, you've just had a fantastic run and suddenly it hits you. It's the skis. Only the skis count and skiing is simply where the skis go and what they do on the snow and the skier, you. The guy with the big ego and bright clothes that rides along on top of those skis, you're just a helper, an assistant, an afterthought, and you realize that that's why you've just had such an unbelievable run. For a moment there, you forgot yourself and became totally identified with your skis. Watching those tips fire over the crest of a bump and down into the next trough, feeling how they cut big clear arcs across the flat, all of a sudden, your technique just clicked into place and why, because you got out of your own head, that's why. You were right when you called yourself a snow-crazed hippie, Martin. In fact, you're even worse, you're starting to sound like a snow-crazed hippie guru. I really don't want to take you seriously, but I'll admit there's something. Hmmm, I think I'll sleep on it. A general awareness of the hour sinks in, the band has already sneaked off to sleep, and only the snowflakes outside haven't slowed down. He generalized movement to find coats and stray gloves and sous. Yeah, me too, but don't forget, Martin, even if you're right, you can't hip someone to all this just by telling him about it, or by laying a joint on him either. Look, even the ritual purification of running slalom gates doesn't necessarily lead to enlightenment, so there you are, you just have to feel it. That's all. Don't worry, tomorrow we'll all feel it. Look at that snow out there, still coming down, and the temperature still dropping. Powder, instant enlightenment, well, good night, you all. Our corner empties and we realize that there's no one left in the bar. The fire is out, and the bartender is eager to close up. Our footsteps separate, recombine, separate down the long, carpeted corridors of the sleeping lodge. Back in the deserted bar, the brass eagle on top of the espresso machine turns his head sideways to look out the window, where already, in endless shadowy drifts, dream skiers are beginning to trace impossible figures through the weightless snow. Mountain Gazette Library is produced by Mountain Gazette. Executive produced by Mike Rogue, produced and hosted by John Bousdart, Austin Holt is our marketing director. No part of this podcast or the magazine can be reproduced or used to train large language models without express written consent from verb cabin LLC. That means you, OpenAI. To learn more about Mountain Gazette, please visit us at mountaingazette.com. [MUSIC]