Insight on Fairbanks

Peter and I have been have been growing more and more positive about Fairbanks these last few weeks. Trying to place why, I have blamed it on all that wonderful light. Even though it was -34 when I woke up this morning, I was happy to wake up here. Blogger Subarctic Mama has something to say about why this may be, and you should read about it HERE. She's dead-on, and her piece was recently (and rightly!) picked up and produced by our local NPR station.

In other Fairbanks quirkiness, there is a comic strip that appears in the local free paper that I've been following with some amusement. It's called Freebird, and follows the misadventures of a middle-aged woman who, in the midst of a midlife crisis of sorts, decides to drive north until her car stops running. It stops running, as you may imagine, here. Although only some of the panels work well as stand-alone pieces, and the punchlines frequently lean towards 'inside joke' for those living here, the archives are worth a peruse if you have some time to kill. From a gun-toting, militant shack-dweller to a subsistence ramen graduate student squatting in an old bus to the technology-steeped punk children of grown-up hippies, this writer hits Fairbanks on the nose. [Permanent link in the sidebar now, and I've started the archives link at the start of the strip. There is a beautifully drawn but melodramatic prequel in comic book format on 'previous' pages.]

For the record, Peter does not think Freebird is worth your time. Actually, the quote is "Freebird is dumb," but he didn't want to come off sounding like a jerk. In all fairness, I think Mitch Hedburg is dumb. To each his own, I guess.