"Lots of us have read this book called 'Into the Wild'....We’ve all got this theory that we’re not just meant to be confined to buildings and work. And that guy was experiencing life. Real life. Social media and phones are not real life."

"When I got my flip phone, things instantly changed.... I started using my brain. It made me observe myself as a person. I’ve been trying to write a book, too. It’s like 12 pages now."

Said Lola Shub, a senior at Essex Street Academy, quoted in "'Luddite' Teens Don’t Want Your Likes/When the only thing better than a flip phone is no phone at all" by Alex Vadukul (NYT).

The founder of the Luddite Club, Logan Lane, 17, said she got so consumed by social media during the lockdown that she put her iPhone "in a box." She started reading library books. She wrote something she called the "Luddite Manifesto."

"Into the Wild Bus That Became a Dangerous Tourist Attraction Airlifted Out of Alaskan Backcountry."

New York Magazine reports.

[T]here were 15 costly search-and-rescue missions related to the bus between 2009 and 2017. In 2019, a Belarus woman died trying to cross the Teklanika River to get to the bus, and another visitor drowned in the river in 2010. “We encourage people to enjoy Alaska’s wild areas safely, and we understand the hold this bus has had on the popular imagination,” Feige said in a statement. “However, this is an abandoned and deteriorating vehicle that was requiring dangerous and costly rescue efforts, but more importantly, was costing some visitors their lives. I’m glad we found a safe, respectful and economical solution to this situation.”

"A Belarusian woman was swept away and died while trying to cross a fast-moving river in Alaska in search of an abandoned bus made famous by the book and movie 'Into the Wild.'"

"... At close to midnight on Thursday, Piotr Markielau, 24, called the Alaska State Troopers to tell them his wife, Veramika Maikamava, 24, had been dragged under the water in the Teklanika River, just outside of Denali National Park. A rope extended across the river is meant to help hikers get from one side to the other, but the water was rapid and waist-high... About 75 to 100 feet downriver, Markielau was able to pull the body of his wife, whom he had been married to for less than a month, from the river, according to Alaska authorities.... Some hikers come to the bus because of deep emotional feelings they have toward [Christopher] McCandless and his story.... The river kept McCandless from crossing back because it was too high... McCandless’s cause of death was thought to be starvation...."

WaPo reports.

Some people say that bus should be removed. It attracts pilgrims, some of whom, in their spiritual quest, like McCandless himself, take insufficient care of their earthly body. But the bus is a shrine. It means something to people. Don't destroy meaning.

The article quotes Eve Holland, who's written about pilgrimage to the bus-shrine: "I think that there are probably better ways to sort of honor the spirit of Chris McCandless. Finding your own adventure maybe, rather than trying to follow this very well-trodden path." Well, that is what McCandless did, and he died. Must people find more original ways to risk their lives?

This is a kind of travel that has a human individual at its center. People go to a geographic place not because of its natural wonder but because of what somebody once did there. You might say, stop idolizing human individuals. It's all in your head, this idea that some person who's gone is somehow here in spirit. But this is an attack on all spiritual journeys.

From Holland's article:

"I feel that at this point Krakauer has an agenda to prove that McCandless was poisoned."

"In his book ['Into the Wild'] he advances the theory that it was an alkaloid poison in a similar looking plant. Later, tests determine that the plant had no such poison. He then supposes that it was a toxic mold on the seeds, but Wiki says no mold was found his seeds."

From the discussion at Metafilter about this new New Yorker article by Jon Krakauer.

Another Metafilter comment, further down and much favorited:

I've done things a few things woefully underprepared where I drastically overexerted and overextended myself and skirted the edge of disaster before, and had the thought "fuck if I die doing this, it's going to look pretty stupid", but you know on the other hand those were some of the best times in my life....

It's kind of sad to see people here 20 years later on a silly web blog shitting on a young guy for trying to live life the way he wanted, and with a level of adventure and self-reliance few ever experience. He didn't force his story down your throat - go back to watching TV and working in an office and patting yourself on the back for living smarter and longer than he did.

By the way, it's "web log" not "web blog." Just say "blog" like a normal person and you won't need to remember this, but that commenter was going all righteous on Metafilter, which isn't a "silly" blog. It's a grand and awesome enterprise, going back to 1999.

This 99+-comment-long thread on McCandless is a testament to how unsilly it is, including this comment calling it silly.

"Milk" may be the best movie in all of the following categories:

1. Depiction of the political process. (Other example: "The Candidate.")

2. Blending recreated historical scenes with archival footage of historical events.

3. Recreating the look and feel of the 1970s. (Other example: "Boogie Nights.")

4. Making an implicit and effective argument for a political position.

5. Showing a character's emotions through his reaction to opera. (Other examples: "Moonstruck," "Slumdog Millionaire.")

6. Artistic representation of the moment of death.

7. Artistic representation of assassination.

8. A serious drama that creates surprising empathy for a character who doesn't deserve it and is not the hero of the story. (Josh Brolin was painfully brilliant as Dan White.)

9. Depiction of a formal debate in a political campaign. (The debate with Briggs about Prop 6.)

10. A character tells his story into the microphone of a tape recorder. (Other examples: Philip Baker Hall as Nixon in Robert Altman's "Secret Honor," John Hurt in Atom Egoyan's version of "Krapp's Last Tape.")(Not quite in the category: Ralph Fiennes in "The Reader." It's not in the category because — spoiler — he's reading books, not telling his own story.)

11. Scene reflected in a convex mirror. (The fisheye effect.)

12. Scene shot through a window with reflections on the window.

13. Depicting the importance of whistles. (Here's the competition.)

14. Depiction of political apathy. (The first appearance of Cleve Jones, played by Emile Hirsch, who was Chris McCandless in "Into the Wild.")

15. Use of notes stuck all over the wall to create alarm about a character's mental distress. (Other example: "A Beautiful Mind.")

16. Recitation of (part of) "The Declaration of Independence."

17. Actors looking uncannily like the real-life characters they play.

18. Sean Penn movie.

19. Gus Van Sant movie.

20. Movie released in 2008.

Into the movie theater, "Into the Wild."

I saw the movie "Into the Wild" yesterday. This was only the second movie I've seen since arriving in New York in mid-August. (The other was "Across the Universe" — blogged here.)

Why don't I see more movies? 1. I don't like the physical constraint of committing to sitting in a chair for 2 hours. 2. I only go to movies I think I'll like and still don't much like the movies I see. 3. Few movies seem like the sort of thing I'll like. 4. I have no shortage of other things to do (which is the case for anyone who loves to read). 5. I don't find myself in social situations where going to the movies is what people do together (and I don't see why people want to spend their precious time together doing something that involves so little interaction with each other).

Why did "Into the Wild" overcome my resistance? 1. I wanted to take a cab to 27th Street and 11th Avenue to begin a walk that would take me through a bunch of art galleries...



... and then all the way back to Brooklyn Heights, and "Into the Wild" was playing at a theater on 19th Street and Broadway, so what I usually experience as noisome restraint would rest me up for the walk through downtown Manhattan and across the Brooklyn Bridge. 2. Having read the book "Into the Wild," I was interested in seeing a visualization of it. 3. Some of my very favorite movies are about men at the existential edge: "Grizzly Man," "Touching the Void," "The Pianist," "My Dinner With André." (I know André is just sitting at a restaurant table throughout the movie, but he describes a search for his soul through mountains, deep forest, the Sahara, and the inside of a grave.)

How did I like "Into the Wild"?

1. The actor — Emile Hirsch — who played Christopher McCandless, was cute — like the young Leonardo di Caprio — but he did not radiate emotion. Compare him to Adrian Brody in "The Pianist," whose character, like McCandless, is starving. Brody made me feel what was happening to him as he descended into the most desperate human condition. Hirsch couldn't do that, though he was supported by terrific actors (especially Hal Holbrook), profound landscapes, and that squalid little bus. He seemed like a really nice kid with a lot of idealism and enthusiasm who made a few unfortunate choices and so, sadly, never got the chance to grow up. Unlike the character in "The Pianist," McCandless made his own choices. He rejected society, but we can't see much anti-social edge in Hirsch's portrayal.

2. The photography didn't move me. The beach, the canyon, the desert, the mountains — these are all beautiful locations, but this isn't a travelogue. These things should be photographed to convey emotion, but they looked about the way they'd look if you went there and saw them for yourself. There are 2 key scenes where Hirsch climbs up a hill, acts enthused, and gets the old man played by Holbrooke to climb up there too. It reminded me of the scene in "Titanic" when Leo DiCaprio shows Kate Winslet how to live by getting her to stretch out her arms on the prow of the ship. It's a Hollywood cliché. (Too bad Hirsch didn't yell "I'm king of the hill!")

3. I nearly walked out about a third of the way in. Something about Hirsch and Catherine Keener romping on the beach and plunging into the ocean felt stupid and phony. We're told the character is afraid of water, and then Keener — the mother figure he finds to replace his real and too-distant mother — makes it possible for him to go swimming. I forced myself to stay, and I see the story arc this was part of. He leaves his inadequate parents. (They're excited about the idea of him going to Harvard Law School and haven't a clue why he doesn't want them to buy him a new car.) He goes on the road where he finds replacements for his mother and father (Keener and Holbrook). He interacts with water — gets caught in a flash flood, kayaks through rapids, plunges in the ocean, fords a stream — which are probably meant to symbolize birth/mother. And he encounters a rocky terrain and kills and butchers some animals — squirrel and moose — (squirrel and moose???) — which are probably meant to symbolize his struggle with death/father.

4. The movie raises but hardly explores the issue of celibacy. We're shown this attractive young man, who seems to have a feeling for other people, in the presence of sensuous females. Kayaking, he comes upon a bare-breasted woman, but she has a boyfriend and he has to run off. (He's running from park rangers). Later, a beautiful, sensitive girl throws herself at him, but she's 16, and he's upstanding about that. (He burns his money and Social Security card, he kayaks in violation of clearly stated rules, and he steals rides on freight trains, but he's rigorous about the age-of-consent laws.) So the movie shows us the path not taken — love from a woman could replace the inadequate parents — and the character is given pat excuses for not going there. Still, why did he forswear sex? In the end, dying alone, he writes in his notebook: "Real happiness must be shared." This is very affecting, and it is an important idea in the intellectual development of this man who reads a lot of books. But something is left unexplored. Why didn't McCandless want sex?

Did you walk all the way home?