Adventures in Onionism

The original plan was for my forearm, but it seemed too big, blocky, and high-contrast for that, and the artist recommended against shrinking it because of the text, which might blend together. So it landed on my shoulder. "What Everett Ruess was after was beauty, and he conceived beauty in pretty romantic terms. We might be inclined to laugh at the extravagance of his beauty-worship if there were not something almost magnificent in his single-minded dedication to it." "The peculiar thing about Everett Ruess was that he went out and did the things he dreamed about." --Wallace Stegner

I finished reading Everett Ruess: A Vagabond for Beauty . For those who don't know, Everett Ruess was the Christopher McCandless of the Depression era. I'm guessing that definition doesn't help many people; if you know one you know the other. Ruess was a young aspiring artist that became somewhat of a legend after disappearing mysteriously in the canyons of Southern Utah outside the town of Escalante in late 1934, leaving behind his donkeys, a pair of "NEMO 1934" inscriptions, and no sign of his belongings. Krakauer mentions him in Into the Wild and Stegner mentions him in Mormon Country . Vagabond is a collection of Everett's letters home to his family and friends from the years preceding his disappearance. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that this book will only be enjoyed by a subset of those already infected with the wanderlust virus. Everett's letters are left to stand on their own for the most part, without much explanation or analysis. ...