Coursing #23 -- This Car Climbed Mount Washington

So yes, I finally earned my very own bumper sticker this week, the New England classic that seemingly adorned 3 out of every 10 faux-wood-paneled station wagons in my Boston neighborhood growing up.  Do not be fooled by the imposters -- only the original will do. 

The drive up the mountain is truly worth commemorating -- nearly eight miles long, averaging nearly a 12% grade, barely two car widths across for most of its length, no guardrails anywhere, various sections still not asphalt paved, ending about 30 feet below the actual rockpile summit that sees the sun less than one third of the time, 6,288 feet above sea level, the highest point east of the Mississippi and north of the Mason-Dixon line. By the time I got to the top, wandered around for a couple minutes, stared into the fog and rain, shook my head in bewilderment at tourists strolling around in flip-flops, and then drove back down, I was completely exhausted for the rest of the day.

Sadly, this photo is from the one and only Mount Washington Auto Road site.  My own car decided to start misfiring on one of its four cylinders a day before I made the climb, necessitating a trip to the garage on a Friday that wouldn't be completed until the following Monday... the handy rental was up to the task, but I can't deface it with my bumper sticker.

It wouldn't be Coursing without music, so here's the obvious tie-in:

• Damon & Naomi, "This Car Climbed Mount Washington" (Shimmy Disc, 1992)

(Dewplayer [*])

This re-recorded, Kramerized version is found on the album "More Sad Hits." I preferred the simpler version from the "Pierre Etoile" EP (Rough Trade, 1991), but that record is basically lost to the mists of time (or rather, the Rough Trade bankruptcy and liquidation) unless you're truly committed to purchasing 16-year old vinyl. In any event, the song captures some sentiments of the drive pretty well -- "and when we're halfway there, tell me it's the top" -- while also tackling interpersonal tensions and other confusions that are just under the surface so much of the time.

A 1997 issue of Ptolemaic Terrascope (print / web -- the two are now separately run) features an interview in which Damon and Naomi recount, once and for all, the breakup of Galaxie 500, the recording of the original (and unintentionally ironic) Pierre Etoile demos, and much that had transpired to that point.  And they're still at it today, with print publishing and their own record label as part of the mix. 

[*] "Dewplayer" is freeware courtesy of Alsacreations, with a polite nod to the sixty-riffic "Asi Se Fundo Carnaby Street" site for first making me aware of the functionality.  The player is lightweight and seems to work well, and it may well be my primary music encoding mechanism for the future (sidestepping some of those nasty unresolved legal issues around MP3 blogging), assuming it doesn't put my bandwidth numbers through the roof.