Sun Valley Symphony

The austerity of the scene bent toward a troubling monotony. I attempted to drag myself away from cynicism by focusing on the accelerating horns, the swell of the string section and blur of piano. In Sun Valley Idaho the scene at the symphony is one of brie cheese and wine, picnic baskets, sun hats, Sun Valley sweatshirts and all the trappings of tourists who live partially here. After two scheduled events for our public outreach program, that despite press releases, postering and all manner of advertising, managed to be entirely ignored, I was feeling a bit salty.

On the horrifically green turf of the pavilion lawn, the lavish scene spread out. Dogs, children and parents lay in the sterile grass, staring at the threatening clouds that bulged and descended like a group of gray scabs. Trout Friendly Lawn? Child Friendly Lawn? Not a chance. While the second movement skipped through festive moments I looked for any sign of a weed. I found near my feet the forelorn leaves of a young dandelion that had somehow survived the last round of 24-D, Sun Valley's agent orange. Irony echoed from under the canvass big top as the introduction speaker mentioned that as part of their "greening" effort, all unused programs should be returned to event staff rather than thrown out. OK. Fair enough. But while people handed their booklets away they sat on a turf, that like much of the valley, had been bathed in a soup of chemicals, some of which probably degraded in some vague way, some of which would make its way down to the aquifer, and the rest simply washing away to the river.

I couldn't help, watching over the crowd so enthralled by high society, thinking back to knocking on Portland doors, that one woman cradling her toddler, saying distantly as she shut the door - "I don't care."

Most people have no idea what is put on their lawns, or that the water they spray at varying intervals comes directly from an over allocated river, or that below Magic dam you can walk on a dry avenue of stones called the Big Wood River. So the bubble here seems complete, coddling the collective consciousness like a cocoon. And still I ride around town on my bike, giving presentations or attempting to lead the landscaping community down a road that promises business under the banner of green. My phone rings, my calendar is illegible. Yet I ride the Hwy. 75 stretch, sun cooking the ribs of browned rock, passing tanker trucks spraying some foul smelling liquid under the spruce trees and a parade of lexuses that have somewhere to be.