It’s just like Napster.

Music was the canary in the coal mine for digital disruption and now it’s the canary in the coal mine for vaccination requirements. In both examples it’s about demand, people want their music and their shows.

So Napster was facilitated by two things, high speed connections and the small size of music files. It was only the young and savvy who had high speed connections, at their colleges, broadband wasn’t even available in most homes. And MP3s were only a megabyte a minute. So…you could download them quickly. And there was a technological breakthrough, Napster itself, using a new technology, peer to peer, i.e. P2P, and the Luddites, the institutions, the elders, at first ignored it, then questioned why anyone would need it and then tried to shut it down, unsuccessfully.

You can’t stop the future. Impossible. Your best strategy is always to get in front of the public and have people come to you. Which is why Spotify was so successful. It was beyond what people understood and thought they desired. They no longer had to download files, with copy protection from the iTunes Store, or illegally from lockers, there was no issue of viruses. It was instant. And the cost was de minimis. The iTunes Store was just a way for people who weren’t stealing to pay for music. The P2P acolytes continued to employ unauthorized technological strategies to get their music. But Spotify solved all these problems, you could get everything you wanted for one low price, it was easy, and desirable.

Of course even at this late date you’ve got anti-Spotify people, although almost all of them are baby boomers, behind the times. They’re laden with disinformation, believing you have to have signal to hear your music, which is patently untrue, you can sync thousands of songs to your device. Or they talk about the songs that are unavailable. And that is true, there are some cracks in the firmament. Then again, investigate the building you’re now occupying, if you can’t find imperfections, you’re blind. Nothing is perfect. It’s all about good enough. Which gets better. And then kills the old paradigm. That’s straight out of Clayton Christensen’s “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” not that you’d expect a Luddite to read it.

So right now people want to go to shows. They were gone during lockdown and are back up today. But there’s this issue of Covid-19 transmission. And the truth is you can’t have unvaxxed, unmasked shows, it’s a recipe for disaster. So what you’ve got is two sets of people, the advanced and the behind, and like I said above, you always want to bet on the advanced, the future.

The advanced know the score. They’re hoovering up information 24/7, and they’re not afraid of change. They’re unafraid of vaccines the same way they were unafraid of viruses back in the P2P era. They were savvy, they knew what to download and open and what not to. As for those who were afraid, they never downloaded anything anyway, too scared of a potential flaw to even deal with it. Never mind the Luddites not having broadband connections and not knowing how to use any software other than AOL. Download a new program to their computer, figure out how to use it with no instructions? Kids were used to this from video games, oldsters were still afraid of their devices, never mind not knowing how they worked or how to fix them.

So you’ve got a huge swath of the population that has gotten vaccinated because they’re up to speed on the future. And they want to go to shows. The scaredy-cats who are afraid of their own shadows, who’d rather die than be inoculated, want to go to shows too. But they’re not gonna be able to. It’s sweeping the nation, vaccine requirements to attend concerts.

The future and the past only coexist for a very brief window. P2P killed CDs and Spotify killed the iTunes Store. So the concert business opened and everybody could get in and then for a few shows you needed either a vax card or a negative test and now you need a vax card or a negative test at most shows and soon only a vax card will suffice. We’re in the middle of the transition, and it’s happening fast. And if you base your business model on the afraid, stuck in the past, you’re screwed. He not busy being born is busy dying. Do you still use your old Packard Bell? Do you even use an iPod? Do you even use a six year old iPhone? The computer companies stop issuing software updates. And eventually, everybody buys a new device, which is superior, that they love, they don’t bitch about price or planned obsolescence, they’re happy. And, once again, there will still be people who will bitch. Michael Eisner said ten percent of the public will never pay and to FORGET THEM!

So, you need to be vaxxed to go to the show.

You don’t need to go to the show, but if you want to…

You didn’t need to download Napster. You didn’t need to buy an iPod. But ultimately there was a mania, everybody wanted to be involved. Never underestimate the desire of the public to be hip, to be included.

So, once we make each and every concert/show vax only, people will start getting vaccinated.

And like I said, music is the canary in the coal mine. Other enterprises will start requiring vax cards. Not only offices, but businesses, even grocery stores. This is how you solve the problem, not by addressing the past, but the future. Not by catering to those unwilling to change, but those who are!

The music industry was bitching about Napster. And what did all those college downloaders have to say? NOTHING! They just went on using P2P, ignoring the ancient behemoth that refused to see the writing on the wall.

Just like the concert business should require vaccinations and forget completely about those who want to come who aren’t vaxxed. Don’t even address the issue, you can’t win. It’s not like the music industry was compromising. It proved Napster was copyright infringement and thought it had won. It then could have authorized the future, licensed Napster, but the industry felt there would be a return to baseline. Wrong! Then we got KaZaA, which circumvented the flaw in Napster, the central database. It became an endless game of Whac-A-Mole until Spotify. Meanwhile, the music industry suffered, and once Spotify was licensed, recorded music revenues went back up, significantly, as did the value of the labels themselves!

That’s what happens when you embrace the future.

Never underestimate the power of music. People want to go to the show. And if their friends are going and they can’t, they’ll get vaccinated. When their favorite acts won’t play the state, they’ll get vaccinated and lobby the government for change.

Music is the carrot. People employ their own sticks.

It’s not about being nice to the unvaxxed, figuring out how to talk to them, rather you ignore them completely, like the students using Napster at the turn of the century. They didn’t have time to waste on those who didn’t get it.

And confront the obvious. During the battle twenty years ago labels would have focus groups, do studies, asking irrelevant questions like what kids thought an album was worth. It was irrelevant! One, people were never honest in their responses, two, music was now free and it was incumbent on the labels to own this and authorize new ways to monetize it that squared with the age.

As for those complaining about the quality of MP3s and streaming music… Now Apple and Amazon both stream lossless. If you have the right equipment, you can listen in better than CD quality! Those silver discs you keep revering, throw them away. As for your files… Try opening Microsoft Word 1.0 on a computer today, even the files are gibberish. Do you really think an ancient technology like MP3 is forever? Don’t make me laugh.

The future’s so bright you’ve got to wear shades, assuming you’re talking about the future and ignoring the past.

You’d be stunned who wants to see music. Make it so they can’t and they’ll be pissed and complain, but you’re not listening, because there is an option, they can get vaccinated, and they will, especially as the number of places they can go to without being vaxxed continues to dwindle.

Yes, first it was music. Then everything was digitized. Movies… Hell, people bitched that Netflix was going to streaming, but then when they tried it they didn’t want to bother with discs anymore. Furthermore, people got high speed connections just to download music and stream movies! Come on, who do you know who is on dialup today?

This is a glass half-full situation. It’s just a matter of perspective.

All venues and promoters, and they’ve got all the power, because you need a place to play and an entity to pay, should instantly require a vaccination for attendance. Right away! Stop debating this in the news, you’re not gonna convince the Luddites, we saw this movie twenty years ago, people were only enlightened when they used the new technologies, before they were afraid, thought they were the end of the world, and after employing them they couldn’t stop testifying about how great they were!

As for the theoretical negative effects of the vaccine… As more people get them and there are no deleterious effects, more of the rest of the Luddites will dive in.

This is not a hard problem to solve. It starts with music. And it starts with looking forward and ignoring the past, latching on to a better way and amplifying it.

Ladies and gentlemen…START YOUR ENGINES!

https://www.benjerry.com/flavors/americone-dream-ice-cream

I couldn’t stop eating it.

I know Ben & Jerry’s is caught up in a political kerfuffle, I know Ben & Jerry don’t run the company anymore, that actually it’s part of Unilever, which squeezed Ben & Jerry to sell just like Amazon did to diapers.com, but that does not mean I’ve stopped eating the ice cream.

Ice cream… There was always plenty in our household. And it was not the three-flavored Neapolitan. You’d go to someone’s house and they’d serve you vanilla, if they had anything at all, and all I can say is UGH!

Then again, I’ve come to treasure vanilla. Once I had the super premium version of it. The breakthrough came in the the mid-seventies, with the arrival of Häagen-Dazs, which opened a dip shop on Barrington Avenue in Brentwood that we went to seemingly every night. I remember that summer walking in the fading sunlight and heat the three blocks back to the apartment eating chocolate chocolate chip and smiling, those were the good old days. When super-premium ice cream exploded.

Of course there was Frusen Glädjé, available in stores just like HD but in slightly better plastic packaging, but the king became Robin Rose, in Venice, they had RASPBERRY CHOCOLATE CHIP ICE CREAM! Now that was a treat. But then frozen yogurt came along and killed the whole paradigm, never mind that frozen yogurt is not the diet dessert it was billed as, never mind that no frozen yogurt can compare to ice cream. There’s this place on Olympic, at the intersection of Westwood Boulevard, named the Bigg Chill, that serves the best frozen yogurt I’ve ever had, and unlike most frozen yogurt shops it still exists, but it’s still not ice cream.

So my father found locations for Friendly’s. You’ve got to know in the sixties, Friendly’s was considered not only upscale ice cream, but an upscale hamburger place. They had the Big Beef, which was a thick hamburger long before the Mickey D’s Quarter Pounder that was stuck between two pieces of toast as opposed to a bun, and the meat even oozed blood, back before people thought that burger meat was naturally gray, and it was SCRUMPTIOUS! And of course there was the Fribble. Previously called the Awful Awful, as in Awful big and Awful good, they had to change the name when sued by its originator but in any event, it was the best milkshake you could buy, it was thick, it had a lot of ICE CREAM! But this was before Friendly’s was sold so many times as to ultimately become a joke and nearly disappear.

So my father would bring home half-gallons. He’d go to HQ in Wilbraham, Mass., or be at a store, and he’d come home with three or four. Never ever vanilla, my absolute favorite was chocolate marshmallow, and then there was toasted almond fudge. We never ran out, and you could have as much as you wanted. Kids would come over and it would blow their minds. We’d get big bowls and load them up. There were rarely toppings, the ice cream stood on its own.

Not that my father was only loyal to Friendly’s, he loved, loved, LOVED Carvel. He’d take us to downtown Fairfield on a hot night and we’d get it, and also during the winter. Dairy Queen would close during the winter, but not Carvel! At least I don’t remember it so. Then again, I was so high on sugar who knows!

In the seventies, Baskin-Robbins appeared. And despite its ugly color scheme of pink, brown and white, which I just found out represented cherries, hot fudge and whipped cream, their ice cream was quite good. And they pushed the envelope of the Friendly’s paradigm, the flavors had many elements, they were outrageous. And some you had to get right away, because they’d go on vacation, others would always be available, thank god.

But then BR was superseded by HD, which was then superseded by Ben & Jerry’s.

Ben & Jerry’s was…Ben & Jerry. Two Jewish dudes who couldn’t do anything else who learned to make ice cream via a correspondence course and then opened a dip shop in Burlington, Vermont which then expanded into an empire. The factory is still in Waterbury, on the way to Stowe, and it’s one of Vermont’s top tourist sites. I remember going there in the eighties when they lowered a bucket down to the factory floor and brought up some not quite frozen butter pecan and I’ve loved it ever since, whereas I never wasted my bites on the flavor before.

So, the breakthrough Ben & Jerry’s flavor was Cherry Garcia. And it’s okay, but far from my favorite. I prefer Phish Food, which is now my number one even though for a while there I was hooked on Chunky Monkey. Phish Food, first and foremost, is CHOCOLATE ice cream, the king of flavors, nothing else comes close. And then there’s that treasured marshmallow. As for the caramel, I used to say I could take or leave it, but it’s grown on me, I’ve always loved hot fudge more than caramel, and still do. But the piece-de-resistance is the chocolate fish. Every bite of Phish Food is an adventure.

And even though Felice got hooked on Pistachio Nut, which is simple yet delectable, she started buying Phish Food again and I couldn’t resist. I try to resist, I’m trying to live beyond tomorrow, but sometimes I just can’t hold back.

Like tonight.

I didn’t need it, but I wanted it. I DESERVED IT! I’m still quarantined, I found out this week I still have no B-cells, and I’m home alone in the house when everybody else is at the beach so I opened the freezer to find…AMERICONE DREAM? Huh? Why did Felice buy that?

Oh, there was a tiny bit of Phish Food left, and ultimately I ate some of that, left a chunk for Felice, but first I broke off the plastic seal and dove into Americone Dream.

Stephen Colbert’s picture was on the outside. Why? I couldn’t see a direct connection between the comedian and an ice cream flavor. And then I read the description…”Vanilla Ice Cream with Fudge-Covered Waffle Cone Pieces and a Caramel Swirl.”

Sounded kind of boring to me. I mean I dig the caramel now, but that’s just an added flavor, almost the equivalent of MSG. And vanilla? Well, new vanilla is better than old vanilla, but I still wasn’t excited. As for the fudge-covered waffle cone pieces? Yada, yada, who cares.

Waffle cones. Were unknown as a kid. Sugar cones were thick and crunchy, but we preferred the foam rubber Dairy Queen ones. And as I aged I understood sugar cones, but for me it’s really about the ice cream, when super-premium came in, just serving it in a cup was good enough.

But then came the high-end waffle cones. The ones baked in the shop. Sometimes covered in chocolate. You didn’t even need any ice cream to enjoy them. Then again, were they made fresh or had they been sitting around? The fresh ones always killed. The pre-made ones? Too firm, nothing exciting. Like I said, I’m a cup man.

But I dipped my spoon into the pint, which appeared almost all white except for some brown land mines, and I raised my spoon to my lips and partook…WOW! You see those mini-crunchy waffle cone pieces had exactly the right firmness, they didn’t immediately squash and crumble like the foam rubber of Dairy Queen cones, yet despite being encased in pre-frozen ice cream, they were not rock hard, they had a crunch, but there was no risk to your teeth.

And then there was that caramel…

Well, I decided I’d only work my way around the top, leave most of the pint for Felice, who’d ordered it after all. But another key to super-premium ice cream is what Häagen-Dazs refers to as the “bouquet.” The truth is you’re not supposed to eat super-premium right out of the freezer, you’re supposed to let it soften, in order to have the flavors released. And this is true! But oftentimes I can’t wait. But as one eats, the edges of the pint start to soften and you can’t let those go, you’ve got to scoop them up with your spoon, to refreeze them would be a crime.

Of course I could put the pint in the microwave. My father was the first person I saw do this. He’d be in the kitchen, standing in front of the microwave constantly cooking up the ice cream five or ten seconds at a time, to get the right softness, to release the flavor. And I’ve tried this, but I can never get the timing right, it’s easy to turn the ice cream into soup, not that I won’t drink ice cream soup.

And after eating the corners…well, I couldn’t stop there. I needed another hit of that fudge-encased waffle cone.

And then I was on a high. You know the feeling, when you feel so damn good you don’t care what the consequences are. Orgasm passes briefly, and even though it’s the peak human experience, others not quite as good can last longer, like eating ice cream.

And I’m sitting at the kitchen table, looking out at the darkening sky, thinking how the summer is fading and I’ve missed it, and I keep spooning up Americone Dream and all is right in the world. I don’t care if someone is vaccinated or not, I don’t care about 1/6, it’s all about me and the environment, I’m in harmony with nature.

Well, at least in harmony with Americone Dream.

How did this happen? Who knew such excitement and satisfaction was contained in this pint I was pooh-poohing? How’d they manage to keep the cone part fresh? And since it’s Ben & Jerry’s, it’s not like Cracker Jack, there isn’t only one prize, the mix-ins are big and plentiful, you get something with almost every bite, it’s so SATISFYING!

Eating Americone Dream was the best thing I did all day. IT WAS WORTH IT!

https://amzn.to/37LkiGJ

This is a Nazi book.

World War II seems like ancient history, but in the sixties it was only twenty years previous. If you were Jewish you were still on guard, and ironically after the ensuing decades you are once again. There were trials and memorials and by time one hit the seventies there were even movies, like “Marathon Man,” never mind “The Boys From Brazil.”

And when they found Mengele, or at least his remains, back in the eighties, that kind of put the Nazi story to bed, then it became all about making subsequent generations aware of the history. Sure, we had the case of John Demjanjuk, but not only was the younger generation in the U.S. detached, but so was the younger generation in Germany. Although they have laws about hate/discrimination in Germany today, when I was there back in 2013, our young Jewish tour guide told us she felt safer in Berlin than she did in Israel, because of said laws.

But not so much today. Right wing racism does not only exist in the U.S.

But now the focus is less on the cost of the war, i.e. the Holocaust, and just Hitler himself, even though there have been so many movies that Bruno Ganz’s appearance in “Downfall” is still the underpinning of many memes. You see everybody keeps comparing behavior to that of Hitler, and Nazi Germany. And to tell you the truth, for a while there I thought I was safe over here, that we’d evolved, but not anymore, anti-Semitism is worse than at any time in my life. People make anti-Semitic cracks without penalty, they’re cheered on. Because after all, all of the world’s problems are caused by the Jews.

Then again, if you’re Jewish you wince whenever a Jew perpetrates a crime. You look at the name and… However today, as a result of intermarriage, the name is not definitive. But still…

So the best recent Nazi book is Erik Larson’s “In the Garden of Beasts,” from 2011. The book has no arc, typical of Larson, but the facts! Mind-blowing! Bottom line, the American ambassador’s adult daughter fraternized with all the heavy Nazis. And then you go to Berlin and you see the locations from the book… If you’re ever gonna go to Berlin read this book first. It’s Larson’s second best, after “The Devil in the White City.” And if you liked the feel of “Babylon Berlin,” you’ll love “In the Garden of Beasts” too.

Now the truth is “Stella” is translated from the German. And also in truth, the flow is not perfect, whether the flaw is in the original or the translation, but it’s only 139 pages long. That’s not much of a commitment, right?

So what you’ve got is a Swiss protagonist who moves to Berlin during the war and…

The perspective is unique, since Switzerland is neutral, all the draconian laws don’t apply to him. He lives his wealthy lifestyle almost unhindered.

But, he falls in love with a singer and finds himself hanging with Nazis and…

I don’t want to ruin it. But the truth is after you finish this book your jaw will drop. You’ll head to the internet and do research. It’ll stick with you.

I wholeheartedly recommend “Stella.”

If you like Nazi books, that is.

And in truth, baby boomers still remember the fear, and with fascism on the rise…

“The Third Pole: Mystery, Obsession, and Death on Mount Everest”: https://amzn.to/3COcMte

I read “Annapurna.”

I don’t know what caused me to read books in high school. Outside of school, that is. It appears that the world is split into two kinds of education. One in which you pay your dues in class, another in which you pay your dues outside of class. Now, too often, school is just a matter of steps, where what you learn is irrelevant. Unless, of course, it’s anti-Jesus or pro-minority, then people who tend to send their kids to religious schools anyway are up in arms. But it’s not only on the Christian side, where the story this week is about schools that don’t teach slavery, but in the Jewish yeshivas too, where the students only study the Bible, and not only are unaware of social studies, but have little education in math and other traditional subjects.

But when I went to high school in the dark ages, when the administration was still feared, there was still money for supplies and sports teams and extracurricular activities and there was a track system, based on schoolwork, and in my suburban town there was a huge emphasis on doing well, to get into a good college.

Then again, that was back when you could not go to college and still earn a decent wage. Now college is a glorified finishing school. I love that they’re allowing the athletes to get paid, if I ran the college education system I’d abolish all team sports, i.e. competing with other institutions. Club sports? All cool with me. But the truth is too many of the players you see on TV never graduate, and if they do they get a joke of an education anyway. As for all the b.s. about team sports teaching you how to get along in society, how does that square with all the individuals who’ve revolutionized the world in the past few decades? Used to be bros from Ivy League schools who employed their networks to run herd over not only the business world, but America itself. But being locked out of white shoe law firms, the Jews broke the unwritten laws of the bluebloods and opened up Wall Street and then techies who grew up with sixties values, like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, were individuals who couldn’t be told what to do, who needed to do it their way, and the fascinating thing is by ruling by fiat they succeeded. Jobs famously did no research, he trusted his gut. Can you imagine that at Procter & Gamble?

So the only two books I remember reading in high school were “Cat’s Cradle” and “Annapurna.” Scratch that, I read “Slaughterhouse-Five,” but despite the hoopla and sales, “Cat’s Cradle” was better, an insider thing with irreverence, hell, the Dead even named their publishing company Ice Nine. As for “Annapurna”…

I’m not sure why I picked it up. It was originally published in 1951, before Mt. Everest was conquered, but that was already in the rearview mirror by the late sixties. But I’ve never forgotten the experience of reading it, being alone with the climbers at the roof of the earth.

The next mountaineering book I remember reading was Jon Krakauer’s “Eiger Dreams – Ventures Among Men and Mountains,” which I got as a favor at a fortieth birthday party. And I wasn’t gonna read it, but in a dull moment I picked it up and…

This was before Krakauer was heralded, before almost anybody knew him, before “Into the Wild” and “Into Thin Air.” I had no idea who he was. But the stories… About this guy who was climbing the Eiger and fell off and lived. And Krakauer needing to conquer a new climbing route and going to Alaska alone and feeling so detached.

The mountains.

It’s insanely hot this summer, but I prefer the cold. The cold is scarier on an every minute basis, but it’s also invigorating. You walk outside the door and you breathe smoke and one thing is for sure, you’re wide awake to the experience.

And I prefer the mountains to the ocean. Even though I did a lot of sunbathing earlier in my life, I just don’t see the point anymore. You toast your skin and risk cancer why? Oh, I still like going in the water itself, then again so many beachgoers never get their feet wet. But just looking at mountains changes my mood. It’s not a group feeling, it’s just me and the landscape bonding, as if the mountains knew I was aligned with them, even though Mother Nature cares not a whit about me, or anybody else. You learn this if you spend enough time in the mountains, you have bad experiences.

Especially prior to cellphones. Now you can call your loved ones from the top of Mt. Everest. You’re never alone anywhere. And this troubles me. Because I like the feeling of being alone, letting my mind drift, being connected to a source no one else is. Which is how I felt reading “The Third Pole.”

I’d never heard of its author Mark Synott, and I didn’t really think I needed to read another Everest book, but the reviews were good and…

For a while there, people were really into Everest, they were paying attention. Now, not so much. But prior to the 1996 disaster, chronicled by Krakauer in “Into Thin Air,” there was a much smaller coterie who followed climbing, and I was one of them, even though I’ve only technically climbed twice. Then again, they say that Everest requires no technical climbing, that it’s easy, but Synott contradicts this experiencing the First Step.

Yes, there is lingo, there are landmarks. And there was an early 2000s TV series about climbing the mountain called “Everest: Beyond the Limit,” focused on Russell Brice’s expedition company which I highly recommend, but that was still when most people did not summit. Now they do, even teenagers! Yes, that’s a big thing, plucking Indian teens from poverty and having them conquer the mountain. It’s all delineated by Synott, an Indian teen was the instigator of the logjam which you saw splashed all over the news back in 2019. Synott’s book is about 2019.

But Synott is climbing the north side of Everest, the Chinese side, while most people climb the south side. The south side is more dangerous, because of the constantly shifting Khumbu Icefall at the bottom, but ultimately the paths connect and it’s a dash, or maybe a slog, up to the top.

So, Synott is convinced to go to Everest to look for Sandy Irvine’s body. They found his partner George Mallory in 1999, but they didn’t find his camera, and the thought was he gave it to Irvine and if they could find Irvine’s body they could probably find the camera and a hundred year old question could finally be settled…did they make it to the top before they died?

There’s a lot of history about Irvine and Mallory’s attempt in 1924, and also some info I did not know, that Mallory might have been married to Ruth but he was communicating with a fan and…was he faithful?

And of course you read about the insane outfits they climbed in back then, as opposed to the down suits of today. But, we still don’t know if they summitted.

So Synott talks about how his adventures broke up his first marriage…when you’re away that long it’s hard to sustain a relationship, just ask the rock stars. And he believes Everest is beneath him, but he’s convinced to go to look for Irvine, and then he gets summit fever.

Bad judgment and death.  They go together on Everest. And the mountain might kill you when you least expect it, like the avalanche that wiped out tents in this case.

But…

Synott takes us from New Hampshire to Connecticut and London to do research, and then he’s over there. And it turns out you can essentially drive to Mt. Everest today. The Chinese have forced the Tibetans off the land and into housing and traditional jobs and Chinese have moved there too and if you think a trip to Everest is still exotic, you’re going to be disabused of this notion as you read this book.

So, they go with smartphones and wi-fi and drones. And you learn about the Sherpas and… That’s another thing that has changed, the Sherpas have decided to make all this money for themselves, they own the adventure companies today, and they way underprice the traditional ones that charge 60 to 85k. But you get what you pay for. Still, they give everybody a Sherpa, but if you get in trouble…don’t expect to be carried off the mountain.

So, Synott has acclimatized back home, in a tent that mimics high altitude air pressure. There’s a company that has you acclimatize this way and gets you from home to the top of the world and back in a matter of days. Yup, now you can climb Everest and be back at work in two weeks instead of two months. And all this takes away from the exoticism of the adventure, then again, Synott and his team are there looking for Irvine.

So they don’t go up during the one window.

It’s all about the weather. And there are experts who divine it. Tell you when it’s clear and you can summit. And on the appointed day in May, everybody was up there climbing, the professionals and the barely experienced. And Synott sits in ABC, Advanced Base Camp, and watches through the glasses and is stunned at what is happening.

He tells the story of people dying. And the truth is you’re reading at home in comfort but somehow you feel that you’re there, you can feel the risk, you’re wondering about the outcome. And this ain’t no TV show, not everybody lives.

And then it becomes about politics and money. Synott’s team has delayed, but waiting for another window will they be allowed to climb, never mind look for Irvine?

There’s a slew of books about Everest, but most of them are not worth your time, because the people can’t write, never mind their story. “Into Thin Air” is still the best, because Krakauer is first and foremost a writer. He went to Everest in 1996 to write a story for “Outside” magazine, he had no idea there’d be trouble and so many people would die.

And Synott’s a writer too. He won’t like it when I say he’s not as good as Krakauer, but he’s head and shoulders above the rest. And he’s more of a climber than Krakauer, more experienced, which aids his viewpoint.

So it all comes down to do you want to read this book?

I think from the foregoing you know if you’re in or out. If you’ve got no interest in this kind of thing, forget it. But if you liked “Into Thin Air”…

I was tracking the 1996 disaster when it happened. But this was when there was only one website devoted to the climb and we were all on dialup. There was not that much information and it was still somewhat sketchy. Today Everest is a tourist site with full coverage. And truthfully, although I still follow climbing season, it doesn’t hold quite the fascination it once did. I was stunned when they actually found Mallory’s body, people had looked for it for seventy five years. But that was over two decades ago and what is there left to learn?

Well it turns out quite a lot, if you’ve got someone who can detail it in a palatable way.

What’s it like climbing Everest in the modern era? What’s it like compared to the old era? What are the business issues involved? Synott addresses all of these.

But ultimately it’s just man against mountain. These climbers are all individuals and there may be teams, but ultimately they make their own decisions and they’re all about testing the limits.

And once you’ve started, you cannot stop. Everest haunts you. There are other 8000 meter peaks. And ultimately it comes down to you, there’s no lift, no ride, not even much help, even if you can pay for it, even Sherpas are limited in the death zone. So it’s still primal, albeit with much better equipment.

If you’re under forty, you’ll think about going.

Or you’ll tell yourself you’d never go.

But Synott and his buddies did. And Mark tells us all about it.