Editor’s Note: Merry Christmas!

Jack Shaw dropped by the office last week. He’s a long time Jackson resident, now a visitor to his home turf, taking up residence in Verbier these days. With generous amounts of snow falling in the Alps this year, and Jackson being pretty thin at the time of his visit, I don’t think he was missing the place much.

While chatting with him about his latest gig, kicking off a new travel/guide business called Epic Europe, he noticed the new copy of The Ski Journal sitting on my desk. I hadn’t quite made it cover to cover through issue #2.4 yet, and he pointed out a story he’d written about how a tiny group of ex-pats, including John Falkiner, Ace Kvale, and Mark Shapiro, changed the face of skiing from a tiny Swiss village called Clambin. Having known the names, but not the history, it was a great read with dozens of timeless images from the lens of Shapiro and Kvale.

As I get a bit older, and think back to the days of jeans with gaiters, ski straps instead of brakes, and T-bars and rope tows, I’ve become more of a connoisseur of ski history, rather than being that interested in where the next huck jam is taking place. In its short two year span, The Ski Journal hasn’t failed to deliver on those gems of ski history and culture that I superficially thought I knew about, but hadn’t even scratched the surface.

And the latest issue doesn’t disappoint. A quick hit with Greg Stump on his upcoming “Legend of Aaahs,” a tribute to the original ski bum filmmaker, Dick Barrymore who left us early this Fall. Rich feature stories include “Denied,” the struggle of female Nordic ski jumpers to get their sport into the Olympics; an encounter with the original ski culture in “The Road to Shambhala;” an inside look at Simon Dumont’s rise to X Games Gold in “Simon Shreds;” and rounded out with a coffee table book equivalent of stunning photos.

If you’re looking for a quality Christmas, New Year’s, holiday gift that supports independent publishing, pick up a subscription for family and friends.

August 12:
Very hot in the morning.
In the afternoon sudden thunder-storm & very heavy rain.
About 50 yards from the gate the road & pavement flooded a foot deep after only 1 1/2 hours rain.

Blackberries beginning to redden.

The Orwell Prize, Britain’s pre-eminent prize for political writing, is publishing George Orwell’s diaries as a blog!

For the next four years, the group will post one diary entry each day exactly 70 years after it was written (from August 9, 1938 to October 1942).

And why should we, in our little mountain towns, care about this?

1. While at first blackberries may seem mundane, readers can see how Orwell’s attention to detail in regular life translated to bigger issues. Any Orwellian fan - or critic - should be interested to learn the thoughts and domestic life of the man who gave us the prescient 1984 (50 years before its time) and poignant phrases (Big Brother) that have integrated themselves into our 21st century vernacular.

2. Everybody blogs these days. The most successful are those who do it daily, constantly. I spend a ton of time surfing the ‘Net, reading about other people’s comings and goings. I’d love to add one of my favorite writers to the mix. His will likely be more interesting than most. (Bonus: His blog is in WordPress, same as ours!)

3. Mountain town folks can relate to the broad spectrum of Orwell’s subjects - plants, animals, woodwork, traveling, government control. …

I just wonder what the man who brought us Big Brother would think of The Matrix that we’re all willingly plugged into, addicted to. What would he think of all our blogging and updating (Big Brother doesn’t even need to watch us, we’re broadcasting ourselves constantly.) And what would he think of people from London to Jackson Hole reading the words he scrawled privately into his diary?

Lauren M. Whaley tries to emulate Orwell by writing every single day and paying attention. She learned about The Orwell Diaries from Syndicated Columnist and photographer David J. Swift