Advantages of Auditing in Aspen

When I was in Aspen, I audited several sessions of the Aspen Writers’ Conference. I had intended to pay the tuition and go to every lecture and workshop, but Kurt Brown, who began the Writers’ Conference 15 years ago, called me after I wrote a letter asking about becoming a student.

He said that I had obviously written a lot and that I wouldn’t fit into any of the groups. I had every intention of becoming one of those earnest women who wear India prints, high-top black shoes and long straight hair. And if you believe that, you haven’t been paying attention for years.

Anyway, they wouldn’t take me but, happily, they didn’t take my money either except for the minimal amount charged for each auditing session.

I met a pleasant, feet-on-the-ground woman named Barbara Bauer from Columbia, Mo. She is a police psychologist and so is her husband. She has written three novels which are great, I’m sure.

Halfway through the two weeks the students read portions of their work aloud to their classmates. Bauer had written a delightful bit of satire about Aspen. Her tongue-in-cheek picture of the yuppie town that has come a long way from the silver mining town it was, is accurate. She doesn’t even tell you that from any place in the valley, you can see the huge gaping wound on the mountain on which will stand the 55,000-square-foot house being built by Prince Bendar, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States. That’s 55,000 square feet under one roof. Bendar must have loads of drop-in friends.

Here’s Barbara’s wickedly accurate sketch:

“There are no short dogs in Aspen. Newfoundlands, golden retrievers, huskies. One had the body of a greyhound, a caricature of a dog cut out of particle board, all height and length but no width. I saw one dachshund, a sleek little tourist with a two-inch ground clearance. How would a six-inch-tall dog lift his leg after a 12-inch snowstorm?

“There are no poor in Aspen and the middle class is sent home at night. The waiters, chambermaids, store clerks commute 10, 15, 30 miles from towns with strong, pioneer names. Basalt, Red Stone, Carbondale, Rifle. There are no pioneers in places named after trees.

“There are no fat people in Aspen but there is an abundance of thick-calved sinewy, lean people who walk tilted slightly forward as if they were perpetually climbing a mountain.

“Trash is not allowed in Aspen. Each morning a machine scrubs the streets free of credit card receipts, champagne corks and programs from the chamber music concert. Birds do not sing here.

“Restaurants have names like Syzygy, Charlemagne and Mezzaluna. McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken have been tastefully disguised by brick facades, apologetically present to accommodate the tourists with children. There is no Ron’s Country Boy with State Fair Blue Ribbon Biscuits, sausage, gravy and eggs for $1.98. Umbrellas over sidewalk cafes bear the white Perrier logo but there are no neon signs blinking Budweiser. There is Haagen-Dazs but no Dairy Queen. There is Nonny’s Furs but no J. C. Penney’s.

“This is a town where the cops wear long hair, running shoes, earrings and shorts that end the same place as the gun in their holster. Seventeen security system consultants advertise in the Yellow Pages and another seven offer guard and patrol services. Aspen has more art galleries than it has dentists. The Aspen Daily Times advertises office hours for J. D. Ellenby, consultation for aesthetic plastic surgery.

“The city map has south at the top. There are plexiglass gondolas to take you to the top of the mountain where you can inhale the view through the window of an air-conditioned snack bar and drink a $3 glass of ice tea. The storefronts are made of used brick salvaged from old mining buildings and farms. Like the orphan who married the millionaire and went from feed sacks to silk, the fur and jewelry inside is incongruous with the outer covering.

“Aspen is a Hollywood set where no one is ugly, wrinkled or poor. Buildings don’t decay nor do teeth. The only thing allowed to be run down is the mountain. The only funeral parlor in town has been turned into a restaurant. Like elephants, the residents had the good taste to go somewhere else to die.”