This Outside article is a few years old, but after recently finishing the WONDERFUL Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, I had to sneak Wells Tower in here somewhere. And since this rag is all about the outdoors and such, this fits the bill perfectly. Read the entirety of “The Tuber” here:

Having constructed the greatest flotation device mankind has ever known, WELLS TOWER embarks on an ill-conceived, possibly insane crossing of alligator-infested North Florida via a string of seriously imperiled and incredibly beautiful rivers. (Yeah, it’s a tube.)

I started writing my own synopsis of this show, but the Wikipedia version does a pretty decent job. If you’ve never seen FWJ, go go go go go. Start with Tom Waits.

Fishing with John is a 1991 television series conceived, directed by and starring actor and musician John Lurie, which earned a cult following. On the surface, the series resembles a standard travel or fishing show: in each episode, Lurie takes a famous guest on a fishing expedition. Since Lurie has no expert knowledge of fishing, the interest is in the interaction between Lurie and his guests, all of whom are his friends. Nothing particularly unusual actually happens, but the show is edited and narrated in a way to suggest that Lurie and his guest are involved in dramatic and even supernatural adventures.

The guests featured are film director Jim Jarmusch, actor Matt Dillon, musician Tom Waits, actor Willem Dafoe and actor-director Dennis Hopper. The series ran for 6 episodes, each featuring a different guest and locale, except for episodes 5 and 6 which both feature Hopper in Thailand. Each episode has voice-overnarration by Robb Webb, which is sometimes bizarre and off-topic. The soundtrack is by Lurie, with several guest performers (see below).

Fishing With John originally aired on IFC and Bravo cable channels in 1991. The Criterion Collection has released two different versions of Fishing With John, one in 1999 and another in 2004.

Today marks the last day of graduate school for our bestest friend, partner in crime and Boston Baked Bean dining companion, Tom Bonamici of Archival Clothing. We’re all happy you’re sticking around the East Coast. To many adventures in the months and years to come…

Youtube: Justin Timberlake – Mirrors 

Hop In the car. Get Outta Town. Duded Up For Saturday Night. Spring Has Sprung.

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Friend of Cold Splinters, Anton Krupicka, has a new film coming out this summer. He explains In The High Country over at his blog, Riding The Wind:

Lots of people can wield a camera, a few more can work some magic in the editing room.  Not very many possess those skills while also being able to keep up on pre-dawn 14er missions and 5th Class scrambles with a 1000′+ of exposure, clinging ropeless to the rock with one hand and pointing the camera with the other. And then keep it up for a month, also dealing with my at-times obsessive and uncompromising personality. Without getting paid.

If you’re not yet hip to Wilder Quarterly, then you need to race out and get their latest and greatest, Wilder Winter 2013. It’s a little late hitting the shelves because of Hurricane Sandy, but that is neither here nor there. It’d still be worth buying if you found it two years from now in the dead of summer:

Wilder Winter 2013 explores the deep freeze with a trip to Iceland to see what survives the polar clime and coastal Maine to see the cold, hard realities of oyster farming. Chef Magnus Nilsson shows us the hiemal pleasures of the Swedish landscape and Alaskan native and songstress Kate Earl teaches us how properly to filet a salmon. We have plenty of deep reading for those long winter nights with a brief  history of tree-hugging and an interview with NY Times columnist Mark Bittman. We experience a mid-winter thaw with a visit to Vietnam to learn about international farm to table cuisine. Along the way, we delve into the mythology of the persimmon and figure out why everyone should love the praying mantis. We’ll help beginners get into vermiculture, share growing tips for every region and much, much more.

Thank you to WQ’s mastermind, Celestine Maddy, for taking the time and energy to put out this gem. We’re big fans around these parts.

From Clint to John Denver. Cause why not? Start the week off…soft.

MP3: John Denver – Back Home Again

MP3: John Denver – It’s Up To You

MP3: John Denver – Cool An’ Green An’ Shady

It’s the end of January and that can only mean one thing. It’s OR time. Cold Splinters is off to Utah today, so if you’re around for the show, get at me.

Tyrannosaurus Rex – The Throat Of Winter

Before Mildred Lisette Norman started calling herself Peace Pilgrim while walking across the country for nearly 30 years, she became the first woman to hike the Appalachian Trail. And while she did lots of amazing things that you can learn more about here, I think the AT part of it seems most appropriate for a Cold Splinters post. The following (there’s more after the jump that you should definitely read) is taken straight from the official Peace Pilgrim website:

Her sixth stage and final step, at which she arrived at complete inner peace, came in the fall of 1952, at the end of a long and extraordinary journey on foot. On April 26, 1952, Mildred Ryder began a 2,050 mile hike of the Appalachian Trail and parts of the Long Trail. She started her hike north from Mt. Oglethorp in Georgia, and headed toward Mt. Katahdin, in northern Maine. On the way, she made a 165 mile detour, and also hiked the northern half of the Long Trail in Vermont from the point where the two trails diverge mid state. She then returned to central Vermont and completed the remainder of the AT trek in October 1952. Completing this walk, she became the first women to hike the entire length of the Appalachian Trail in one season. At the end of this remarkable journey, she also achieved total inner peace and discovered what she was called to do.

She had been hiking for five months, living outdoors completely, equipped with only a pair of slacks, one shirt and sweater, a blanket and two plastic sheets. Her menu, morning and evening, was two cups of uncooked oatmeal soaked in water and flavored with brown sugar; at noon, two cups of double strength dried milk, plus any berries, nuts or greens that she found in the woods.

Life on the trail agreed with her. Hiking reinforced her belief in simplicity and confirmed her ability to live in harmony at need level

, for long periods of time, in all weather conditions. She felt her faith in God-as perceived through nature-strengthen and solidify as a clear and omnipotent source of divine inspiration. She became convinced that material possessions were simply a burden, and that to achieve a daily state of grace, she would need to maintain that simplicity after she got off the trail. The idea to become a pilgrim, walking cross-country for peace, came at this time in a vision. She wrote:

I sat high upon a hill overlooking rural New England. The day before I had slipped out of harmony, and the evening before I had thought to God: “It seems to me that if I could always remain in harmony I could be of greater usefulness – for every time I slip out of harmony it impairs my usefulness. And when I woke up in the morning I was back again on the mountaintop and I knew I would never need to descend again into the valley.

After that…there is a feeling of always being surrounded by all the good things, like love and peace and joy. It seems like a protective surrounding, and there is an unshakeableness within, which takes you through any situations you need to face….

I then saw in my mind’s eye, myself walking along and wearing the garb of my mission…I saw a map of the United States with the large cities marked – and it was as though someone had taken a colored crayon and marked a zigzag line across, coast to coast and border to border, from Los Angeles to New York City. I knew what I was to do. I will talk to everyone who will listen to me about the way to peace. I’m even planning to wear a sign, the back of which will read, “Walking Coast to Coast for Peace” and the front, “Peace Pilgrim.” And that was the vision of my first year’s pilgrimage in 1953.

R.I.P. California’s Gold.