The Iditarod starts today. Or Tomorrow. Depending on how you look at it.
The race has a ceremonial start in Anchorage today. Mushers and "Iditariders" go 11 miles through downtown Anchorage and out into the woods on ski and bike trails.
About 15,000 people come out to watch the mushers live. It's packed shoulder to shoulder downtown, but if you move 10 blocks away the crowds are much more spread out. And if you go into the woods where the bike trails are and the locals hand out cookies, hot dogs, and pastries, you can go a few hundred yards in between clumps of fans.
There's a lot you might not be to know watching the event on TV. The first thing is the total will and concentration of the dogs -- their controlled bursts of energy and the quiet intensity of their breathing.
The second is the complete and total joy of the mushers. (As much as this comes through on TV, it's a million times more intense to see it live.)
The third thing is how happy the crowds are. Yes, this is a weird event with its own customs and rituals, but it's also an event that fans can feel is theirs. Mushers mingle with fans freely in a way that's unimaginable for the top competitors in any of the larger professional sports.
Today is just for fun.
No one keeps track of today's times because they don't really count.
The real race begins tomorrow in Willow (about 70 miles away) and the winner will likely arrive in Nome 9 or 10 days later.
It's hard and it's cold and it's long. And the people and dogs who run this race are amazing and disciplined and tough.
Not Willow from Buffy, Although We've All Had Those Dreams
In the 1970s, anticipating the cash that would rain down upon them from the not-yet-built oil pipeline, the good citizens of Alaska voted to move their capital city. They wanted a capital city that could be reached by road (unlike Juneau, where you had to fly in or arrive by boat), but didn't want to move the capital to Anchorage, the state's largest city (and home to more than half its residents).
This fueled a lot of land speculation as investors prepared for the wealth that would come when the new capital was built.
But a funny thing happened on the way to that future. Despite planning commissions and architects and schemes of various types, Alaska never moved its capital. So you still have to fly or sail to Juneau (which still is not on the road system).
The investors were stuck with land that quickly plummeted in price when it became clear in the early 80s that not much was going to be built in Willow beyond a few stores and gorgeous houses on lakes.
Today, Willow is probably most famous as being the start of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race. Technically, there's a ceremonial start in Anchorage, but it doesn't count. The real race begins the next day up in Willow, population about 1700. It may never be the state capital, but for one day a year, it's the dog mushing capital of the world.
At some point while Alaskans were contemplating moving their capital, my father was offered a job in Anchorage. He turned it down for a lot of reasons. And I find myself thinking a lot these days about how different life might have been if my family had moved to Alaska from New York.
I posted this song before -- but I have a related announcement coming in a few days, so the time just seemed right to post it again.
For the past few years, Jane Siberry, whom I've written about here and here, has made her music available on a "pay-what-you-want" basis on her website.
This week, she announced she's discontinuing that practice because of frustrations with PayPal.
"My music is now free," she announced. "Please download with great enthusiasm. Take good care of the music. Fill your ipods. Send it everywhere."
(If you're not sure where to start, I'd recommend Jane Siberry for stark folk with huge vocals, No Borders Here for great songwriting and tentative electronica, The Speckless Sky for gorgeous synth-based pop songs, The Walking for haunting melodies and longer cinematic songs, Bound by the Beauty for the pure exuberance of not-quite-folk/not-quite-country, and everything for great songwriting and amazing harmonies.)
I don't know how many miles we traced across the snow -- maybe a thousand.
We were hundreds of miles off the road system.
In a tiny village of 400 -- augmented that day with several hundred volunteers: trail breakers, trail sweepers, vets, pilots, dog handlers, cooks, and general workers.
Dozens of journalists trekked down to the checkpoint, watching on the GPS and speculating when the first team would come through. The VIPs from the corporation that would give a prize to the first team came by in the late afternoon. And we waited.
The sun went down. The temperature was already ten below and it just kept getting colder. There was light snow on and off, but no real accumulation.
Someone built a small fire. And we waited.
Sometime after dark, someone called out "dog team on the river." And we flowed outside. The Mayor was there and more than 100 villagers. When the headlamp finally became visible, everyone started cheering.
For hours, it was like a party. Teams would come in and be met by camera crews, veterinarians, dog handlers, the Race Marshall, and various well-wishers. Most teams stayed no more than a few minutes before heading back out onto the trail.
By 3am, the villagers had gone home. The camera crews were sleeping somewhere warm. The VIPs were gone.
Now it was quiet.
Now it was still.
And someone ran inside to tell us: "dog team on the river."
So we went outside. The temp had dropped to 30 below. It hurt to breathe.
The snow had stopped. And everything was quiet.
So I waited with two vets, the lead checker, and four others. We huddled by the fire.
This time there was no cheering crowd. Just the stillness.
And then a light. Visible from far off, slowly coming towards us.
And a sound: quiet paws pushing off cold, fast snow. The gentle breathing of 16 dogs, athletes acting at peak efficiency.
The guy on the sled called the dogs to stop. And they did. Immediately. He pushed a heavy hook deep into the snow. The vets carefully looked after each dog. The checker talked to the guy on the sled. Like most of the others, he wasn't going to stay. Moments later, he pulled the hook and the dogs took off.
"Gee, Gee!" he called and the dogs banked right, down a chute, and back out onto the river. A moment later "Haw! Haw!" and the dogs turned left. "On through."
The others went inside, but I walked down the chute to the frozen river. The sound of paws running over snow carried in the cold night air, long after I could no longer hear the dogs breathing.
I stood alone, watching the light move off into the distance. Until it was gone.
All was still again, a stillness that was so complete and total that it felt like the world had frozen and nothing could ever move again.
And I was alone, in the middle of nowhere, in a wild motionless expanse of snow and ice.
But if I closed my eyes and concentrated really hard, I could swear I could feel someone singing:
And, yeah. Part of me never went home after that night.
The race had a ceremonial start in Anchorage today. Mushers and "Iditariders" went about 10 miles through downtown Anchorage and out into the woods on ski and bike trails.
About 15,000 people came out to watch the mushers live and tens of thousands more watched it live on Alaskan TV.
No one kept track of times today because it didn't really count.
The real race begins tomorrow in Willow (about 70 miles away) and the winner will likely arrive in Nome 9 or 10 days later.
Like far too many events in life, this all started with a visit from Elvis.
Costello, not Presley.
He came to me about a month ago in a dream.
"You need to reclaim your name," he said, playing up his English accent and enunciating like he was in the Royal Shakespeare Company. I asked what he meant and if he saw the irony since he got rid of his own name more than 30 years ago.
And he looked at me and said "I'm sorry. That message wasn't for you. Can you pass it on to her, the one with the cow?" And before I could ask him when he was finally going to get around to recording an album of duets with Joe Jackson, he was gone.
I woke up confused (which is not so unusual) and uncertain about how to relay the message (which is much more unusual). Plus, who the hell was the "one with the cow"? And how would I find her? (Link for Gmail subscribers).
Years and years ago, we had tickets to see Jane Siberry (whom I wrote about here). She was doing two shows and both were sold out. The second show, our show, was supposed to start at 10:30. By 9:45, the sidewalk outside was packed. By ten there was a huge line stretching several blocks. But the early show hadn't gotten out yet. So we waited.
And waited.
People finally trickled out around 11:20.
This seemed like a bad sign. Our show would start more than an hour late. And she'd be tired. She'd want to sleep. She'd be travelling the next day. We'd picked the wrong show -- surely she'd cut the second show short.
I'd seen Jane Siberry years earlier when she had a full band and nearly all her songs were based around synth washes. But this was different. Her, a guitarist, and a piano player.
She came on a little before midnight.
And performed for more than two hours. It was amazing. Magical. Mesmerizing.
Her voice soared, swooped, and bounced around that wonderful back room that had seen so many amazing concerts over the years.
And she was funny. She joked and told stories. She sang an unreleased song that started with her boyfriend leaving, matured into a sobbing list of reasons she couldn't live without him, then morphed into a litany of complaints about him that built to a crescendo of vitriol, culminating in him returning home, saying he'd just gone out for smokes. Like many Jane Siberry songs, it was part music and part performance art -- weird, wonderful, and unique. (The song later appeared on a k.d. lang album, but I've never heard a recording of Jane Siberry singing it.)
The show was one of those rare moments when everything flowed, everything clicked, and everyone left energized and rejuvenated by the power of music.
Years later, I found out they'd recorded that show. There were plans to release it as a live album. But the executives who championed her at her record label left and the new guys weren't interested. Years later, she tried to get them to let her release the live album herself, but they claimed they had the rights to it and wouldn't let her. (Link for Gmail subscribers.)
I started thinking more and more about that concert recently. How my expectations were so high (and then much lower when it started late) and how amazing it is when a performer exceeds your high expectations with humor and a quirky grace.
And a few days ago, I got an email from Jane Siberry, known for the past several years as Issa. She was reclaiming her name and going back to performing as Jane Siberry.
Cynical folks will say she probably had trouble getting bookings as Issa and changing her name back was a financial consideration.
Some will wonder what's in a name (enunciating clearly like they're in the Royal Shakespeare Company).
But I know the truth. Elvis must have finally found a way to get through to her after all.
Jane Siberry Always Seemed Like She Came Unstuck in Time.
The best music usually does. And the music of Jane Siberry always sounded like it had one foot rooted firmly in the past and one foot in the distant future.
So, starting at the end and working backwards:
In 2006, Jane Siberry gave away all her house and all her possessions (except for a single guitar) and changed her name to Issa. She's still writing songs, recording, and touring (including giving university lectures on creativity).
Throughout the 1990s, Siberry continued recording, releasing a series of albums (on Reprise and then on her own label) that never did much for me -- including an album consisting entirely of songs she'd written in her teens (which I bought but only listened to once or twice). I saw her live in the mid-1990s in a very disappointing show that concentrated on new material. Much as I admired her for following her own muse, it wasn't taking me anywhere I really wanted to go. Somewhere along the way, she started a website and pioneered the idea of "self-determined pricing" for her music.
Her 1989 album Bound by the Beauty dispensed with synths and returned to simpler song structures and more direct songs. I saw her tour behind this album at a show recorded for possible release as a live album (that never came out). The show was a late show that was supposed to start at 10, but the early show didn't get out until 10:45. We all assumed that meant that the late show would be shorter (and would probably suck), but she put on an amazing show and played until well past 1:00 am. I'd still love to hear the recording from that show.(Link for email subscribers).
Reprise signed her on the strength of her third album and she released The Walking in 1987. The album was complex, bizarre, surreal, and wondrous, filled with long songs (2 clocking in at more than 9 minutes) that turn around on each other like Mobius strips. I bought this on vinyl and it took years and years to grow on me (probably because I literally had no clue what most of the songs were about. (Link for Gmail subscribers).
Her third album The Speckless Sky came out in 1985, consolidating and building upon that went before. Her concerts became a synthesis of performance art, insanely captivating improvised poetry, and pure pop music. (Link for Gmail subscribers.)
By the time of No Borders Here in 1984, Siberry had largely abandoned her folk roots and was playing strange and wonderful music based around synths (and dozens of tracks of her vocals). "The Waitress" seemed like a classic the first time you heard it, fusing past and future in a goofy synth-pop confection that included the line "And I'd probably be famous now if I wasn't such a good waitress." But the album's tour-de-force is "Mimi on the Beach," a 7 and 1/2 minute evocation of life, death, teen angst, and Jesus that seems more like a great movie than a great song.
Her first album Jane Siberry came out in 1981 and channeled late-60s folk, then twisted it through the prism of an alien from a distant future with off-kilter songwriting that put Laurie Anderson, Joni Mitchell, and Kate Bush through a sausage grinder, then added some bizarre spice that you can never quite identify. Her songs were weird and vibrant, geeky, and wondrous, then sugarcoated by her vocals, usually multitracked to sound like an amazing choir of angels -- just what you'd expect from an overachieving Canadian with a degree in microbiology.
Someone built a small fire. And we waited.
The best music usually does. And the music of 
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