It's been years since I last reread it, but "The Monkey Wrench Gang" is still one of my all-time favorite books. I discovered it a decade after it had first been published, and bitterly found it still relevant. Abbey wrote about the defilement of my home in the Southwestern Desert, using humor to convey the tragedy that comes with reckless development in a fragile ecosystem.
Fast forward to today. I have that damn Numa Numa song stuck in my head. This would be the video of the Round Guy with Webcam lip synching to the Romanian pop hit Dragostea Din Tei AKA the Maya Hee song. I pulled up the lyrics and found that the singer says, Alo, Salut, sunt eu, un haiduc. Which if you don't speak Romanian means Hello, hello, it's me, an outlaw.
A Hayduke is an Outlaw? Why yes, that's exactly what Wikipedia reports. A haiduc is a real word that means a Robin Hood style outlaw, just like Edward Abbey's protagonist George W. Hayduke.
Brilliant.
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2 comments:
I loved that book as well.
I lived until I was 10 in the inland California desert - outside of Escondido. There was NOTHING there at the time.
I find it sad to go back there now. The open spaces I used to play in are now part of the vast San Diego exurbs.
I did more or less the same thing you did. Do you think Abbey knew?
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