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Show PAGE 8 THE ZEPHYRMAY 89 SAYING FAREWELL TO EDWARD ABBEY from the other side of the world by Ken Sanders Edward Abbey died today. Here in Hong Kong where I am, printing my 1990 the Ides of March. A fateful calendars, its already tomorrow, March 15th day. Edward Abbey died today and here on the other side of the world, in a place Ed had never been (nor would have wanted to go to) already, Instantaneously, I know. The facsimile bearing the news was waiting for me upon my arrival at the printers this morning; it was there along with the proof an odd, fateful kind of coincidence. of the Western Wilderness Calendar Ed Abbey was the inspiration for my first calendar, the original Edward Abbey Western Wilderness Calendar, back in 1981. That first calendar was inspired by and based upon his writings, and the photographs were by photographers with whom Ed had collaborated on books Philip Hyde, John Blausteln, David in Southwest or of that he wrote about: the were Muench the places Basin and Range Colorado River Colorado Plateau .... Sonoran Desert I After that first year couldn't come up with another Abbey country. single author to follow Abbey; hence, every year since then I began using a dozen different authors, one per month. And Edward Abbey was one of those authors almost every year, save one or two, from then until now Including this years calendar with quotations from his fat masterpiece, The Fools Progress. An Honest Novel. Ed wasn't fond of the technology that enables me to learn of his death so quickly from so far away. Nor am I fond of the technology; less so of the I read the fax, over and over again, fax in one hand, tidings it brings. calendar proofs in the other. Stunned, I cannot really comprehend the meaning of those words, cannot accept their implication, and am unable to understand their significance. And so I write these words not so much for in to a but own feeble articulate and Ed, attempt my grief, bring personal meaning to the passing of a man who, in life was larger than it, and in death, transcends life. Edward Abbey died today, and Im here in Hong Kong, all alone, surrounded by six million people who are unaware of the passing of a legend. If the death of Buddy Holly was the day the music died, in like manner the death of Edward Abbey Is the day the passion died .... Not that Ed would have liked the analogy, he disliked rock music with a passion, preferring instead A JOURNEY HOME a sunrise memorial for Edward Abbey Bach and Beethoven, Bruckner and Wagner and Charles Ives and hillbilly music, He was a passionate man who aroused the passions of others. From his first novel, Jonathan Trov. in 1954, to his last, Havduke Uveal, the sequel to his classic The Monkey Wrench Gang, to be published In 1990, more than of years thirty-fi- ve words - wisdom.. Ideas.. Ideals truth-- wit- and above all else, passion. Passion for his friends and those he loved, and the things he loved; passion against those who would destroy him. Edward Abbey, the author, always spoke and always wrote the truth, whether railing against the entire complex (a favorite theme), or against a single injustice perpetrated against a solitary individual, or wild creature or wild place. He wrote about the last remaining wildness on our planet and the continuing onslaught against It: from Baja to Wolf Hole, from the Australian Outback to the Sonoran Desert; but Home to the man from Home, Pennsylvania was always the desert; the American Slickrock Southwest., the Colorado Plateau Canyon The Green River The San Country .... the Land of Standing Rocks Juan The Colorado....and the once living heart of that country, Glen Canyon. And, like Glen Canyon before him, Edward Abbey has now been taken from us. But his words live on. His voice still comes strident out of the for blank the wilderness, speaking spots on the map that have no voice; and so not by doing giving voice just to the wild country that was so much a part of him, but to all of us. His words raged off the pages of his books like the hot desert wind, and his passionate prose seared its way Into our hearts and our minds. "Growth is the ideology of the cancer ceil, he said, and we listened ...and we knew. joy techno-military-indus- trial Edward Abbey called us to arms with a clarion call that raced out of the arroyos and across the bajada with the vengeance and power of an August He thundered and flashed with his pen on behalf of the thunderstorm. mountains and the deserts and the rivers. He spoke so well for so long for so many that legion are the number of those of us who now mourn the passing of this one remarkable man one man who spoke with such passion and knowing that he articulated what we all felt, one man who gave us. all so much. Rave on, Edward Abbey, Rave on. Here in Hong Kong no one mourns the death of Edward Abbey, save one. But Ed wouldn't have minded; he wouldn't have lamented the demise of Hong Kong, either. Rather, he would have celebrated its passing. "Good News," Ed would have said, "we've lost another polluted tentacle of the techno-milita- ry industrial complex; good news." There are more things on sale here in Hong Kong than there could possibly be people on this planet to buy them. Entire shops and malls stuffed full of elaborate Ivory carvings, over-populat- ed, programmed need to consume, among other things, to satisfy our zombie-li- ke something, anything, at the price of the lives of the last remaining elephants on the planet, among other things. Would you wear a dodo or an auk knick-kna-ck or a sabre-toothtiger? Would you keep ones remains on your shelf? But alas, we havent lost Hong Kong, or Phoenix, or Tucson, or LA, or Salt Lake. Instead we've lost one of our heroes, one of our warriors, one of an American original, crying out for our best and most passionate voices the wilderness, from the wilderness. To my mind, not since the jungle novels of B. Traven in the 1920s has such passion been captured on the printed page. Not since the days of Henry David Thoreau has such complexity of thought and idea and emotion been expressed In such lean and simple prose, with such feeling, with and Intelligence. Like Joseph Hellers Catch 22. Edward Abbey's The Monkey Wrench Gang added new dimension to our language with foe. term monkeywrenching. terms to Monkeywrenching-ecotageecodefe- nse are now commonly-us- ed describe forms of environmental sabotage perpetrated against And like Hunter S. entities. bulldozers, roads an other non-livi- ng scum" Thompson's own unique contributions "greedheads" and "land-rapi- ng - our language, and our culture, and our planet are the richer for it And for those of us left, it's up to us to continue the good fight, to keep on speaking out for and fighting for the last remaining wild places and wild things on the planet, with the same ardor and passion that Edward Abbey Inspired In us alL The debt must be repaid. ed AM Saturday, May 20, 1989 7 followed by an open house at Pack Creek Ranch talks to be given by Ken Sleight Dave Foreman Doug Peacock readings by Barry Lopez, Wendell Berry Ann Zwinger, Terry Tempest Williams and others Follow old Hwy 160 to the head of Moab Canyon... Take the first dirt road on the right. ...you cant see anything from a car; youve got to get out of the damned contraption and walk, better yet crawl, on hands and knees, over the sandstone and through the thombush and cactus. When traces of blood begin to mark your trail, youll see something, maybe. The Public is Invited non-viol- ent On the long flight back from Hong Kong to LA, I am slumped In my seat, unable to sleep, not knowing whether Ifs night or day, or even which day It is, contemplating the death of a friend Jumbled recollections flashing bits and pieces of memory from days gone by For beyond through my mind the power and the passion of the written works of Edward Abbey, the author, more so than those faded spines and well-re- ad pages on my bookshelf, It Is Edward Abbey, the man, whom I remember now, and those memories make me feel his loss all the more keenly. Ed, you were a good friend to me over the years; I can only hope that in some small way I was as good a friend to you. driving across the desert In my old 54 Chev truck stopping to In In middle middle of the the the night of the desert piss howling at the moon while railing against the sinister silhouettes of the power lines that off into the dark night marched relentlessly .. somewhere in -s- omewhere the desert around Moab, hiking vast eroded slickrock the abrupt edge of a great precipice the sound of thunderous expanses crashes echoing off the cliff walls as giant boulders crashed Into the abyss that satisfied grin on his face-t- he sheer aOveness of his eyes My fondest memories of Ed Abbey, however, are on the rive- r- late Fall, October or November, down the Green and the Colorado. Id get a phone call - - - - - - - |