AIG, Lehman Bros., Citibank, Alpinist Magazine…

Although I’ve been indirectly witnessing the spiraling downfall of the global economy from the mouth of wolf blitzer through the lights and sounds of my 1980s Panasonic, I‘ve still felt close to the situation. It has been a rather frightening reality to be living in such fragile times, especially as I am in a country far removed from the securities of home. Even so, I haven’t felt the crisis really hit me until I this past Sunday when I received an email from my somber brother-in-law alerting me of the closing of Alpinist Magazine. “Holy crap,” I probably whispered to myself as the tears dammed up inside my eyes. I can’t be sure if any single tear escaped, but I’m sure that I do not regret it if it did. $2.4 trillion dollars of losses in two weeks? Swept to the side of my mind. Giant portfolio losses among the blue hairs? Sad, I guess. Loss of thousands of jobs worldwide? I do feel sorry for their families….but for some reason I’m most pissed (so far) about Alpinist. Alpinist has brought me so much joy the past couple years that has not been matched by any amount of Halo, Simpsons, Batman, ESPN, New York Times, JBU Advocate, Wes Anderson, Andrew Bird or any other media in the world. Why was it so important? First, it provided the one outlet for adventure dreaming without the corporate BS of other publications. There are other climbing magazines, but none so purely captivated the essence and purity of the mountain like Alpinist.

The other magazines are chock full of advertising, littering every other page and turning the beautiful, pure, simple sport into a greedy commercial enterprise. Alpinist stayed away from this bastardizing endeavor and gave their loyal readers exactly what they wanted - a pure magazine that felt tantalizingly close to the purity of the mountain. The publishing world has lost a beautiful piece of its tapestry, and it’s all your fault AIG. Not totally, just mostly. - Micah