Alexander Supertramp

So, as is probably the case with anyone who feels a bit "in the know" about something, I'm a bit thrilled and a bit bummed to see the movie adaption of the best-selling "Into the Wild" open today.

When I was working up in AK, my home was actually not far from the place where Christopher McCandless slowly, sadly died of starvation (and maybe a long poisoning) in a stranded bus used as a shelter for Moose Hunters. I knew a couple of guys who tried to see the bus. They couldn't get to it. The bus wasn't as easy to reach as you'd think. It had been towed back into the spectacular wilderness during some failed road project or something (can't remember the details exactly) and left to rot. The river -- the very river that killed McCandless by cutting off his exit route, in fact -- was up and they couldn't get to it. Still, their story of trying to find it had a "Stand by Me" quality to it that still gives me chills.

Anyway, later I read the book and passed it on to others. It is the fascinating story of a boy who rejects society and, under the name Alexander Supertramp, tramps across much of North America. And while I'm glad to see that it's going to get more exposure, at the same time I'm sad, as always, to see something that somehow felt private -- like "Friday Night Lights" did before the movie -- get boosted into the pop culture stratosphere (yeah, I know, both books were best-sellers, but movies just seem so much more... public). At least it appears to have been done well.