Altitude

Cumulus from the Bolt bus stop

I’ve been really busy at work this last week hence the absence of posts. I’m working on two quite labour intensive projects in preparation for all day client workshops in a week’s time. Despite the long hours I’ve found the experience rewarding in light of the fact each brand’s challenge is so diametrically opposed to the other.

Boulder is presently undergoing a slow but definite climate change in the run up to winter. The sun is still around but its easy counterpart the warm mountain breeze has given way to frequent cold snaps. The absence of humidity in Boulder means that the temperature fluctuations throughout the day are swift and severe and continually catch everyone out. On the plus side it does make for epic cloud formations in the sky that keep me entertained daily after work as I wait for the bus. Typically there are umpteen reticulated layers of cirrocumulus cresting the far off snow shrouded mountain peaks of the inter-continental range with smaller stratocumulus clouds unfurling just below. The light quality remains perfect and perpetually blinding.

Upon the recommendation of a guy I met in a bar last week I went to explore the nearby town of Nederland this Sunday just gone. I hitchhiked the short 15 mile distance no trouble at all and best of all I got a ride in the back of an old American pickup! Boulder is just over a mile above sea level whereas Nederland is approximately two meaning it’s an entirely different set of weather conditions up there. Within just fifteen minutes of leaving temperate Boulder I found myself is a small mountain town (one street, a post office and a bar) smothered in quickly falling snow. It felt very odd to be wearing shorts whilst marvelling at the alpine view and pond like stillness of Nederland’s reservoir. There was little option but to set up camp for the afternoon by the fire of the local pub. I kept up my spirits by ploughing through plates of smokehouse chicken wings and pints of local microbrewery moonshine.

Suffice to say it was a perfect Sunday and it has encouraged me to seek weekend adventures further a field than downtown Boulder. However the highlight was hearing about Nederland’s most famous celebrity. Some years back a Norwegian chap installed his recently cryogenically frozen grandfather on a small plot of land in central Nederland. At the time this caused uproar but it also had the unexpected side effect of briefly having put Nederland on the map so to speak. Literally tens of global news teams flocked to cover the story as their “and finally” news segment. The 'Iceman' remains there today in a tragically dilapidated garden shed structure given the overblown title of ‘Tuff Shed Cryogenic Mausoleum’. Now every year Nederland’s locals celebrate by throwing an Iceman Festival. This has to be up there with other great American towns’ claims to fame like ‘largest ball of twine’ (Cawker City, Kansas if you’re interested).



I’m also spending some time at the moment trying to record my thoughts on what the agency of the future’s structure might be. Obviously it’s a large question without a simple answer, but I feel it’s a worthy exercise and ultimately one of the principal reasons I wanted to come out here in the first place. I’m starting by trying to use the natural tensions observed between Republic and CP+B’s distinct but equally effective approaches to generating creative work as reference points against which to react. I don’t presently feel that either approach is wholly perfect. No doubt more to follow on this shortly.


View out towards Nederland across the reservoir