Ultramarathons on Mars
Among the time-wasting diversions that parade daily through my virtual life are updates from a site called "Trail Porn." TP serves up big glossy high-res images not of naked people doing naughty things on trails but of impossibly gorgeous locations around the world for running or hiking. People, naked or otherwise, are beside the point. Typically they are lost in the landscape like figures in Chinese paintings of terraced mountainsides. Sometimes the landscapes are empty, human presence implied only by thin ribbons of single-track snaking into the wild. Most TP images depict mountains or deserts. Space, solitude, and a red ochre color palate are recurring themes. Western States figure prominently--dunes in Oregon, canyons in Arizona, mountains in Colorado. Other locations are, for a North American viewer, more exotic. A curving passage through the Razorback in the Australian Victorian Alps. Or...