CON GAMES: Ghosts of Aspens Past

October 31st, 2007 at 07:10pm Michael Conniff 2

Who can know the truth(s) to be beheld in a ghost town?

For there is this town, you see, our town, hidden away in a valley, a box canyon, a place where no one can find us. And in this town our is an event once a year in which no one is quite as he or she appears. And instead we see ghouls and goblins, and Pebbles and Poison Ivy--and creatures beyond description.

Nobody does Halloween quite like the town in a box. But there's a reason for that. Aspen is of course the one place in America that is nothing more than the land of make-believe. Money buys illusion, but in Aspen money is grossly overrated and overstated. Money is only part of the mind-set of Aspen, where reality is a sometime thing.

How can that be?

In Aspen, you see, people are always in costume--in the brand-new togs of the privileged, or the old clothes of the olden days. No one can embrace a costume quite like Aspen, and not just on Halloween. Aspen puts on a costume every day of our lives.

Now this is not automatically a bad thing, because Aspen also lets you put on any costume YOU want, though in local politics, the powers that be also like to play pretend--to act as if they are in costume when the fate of the city is at hand. They want a town that's a playpen, with play as defined by them. They want the grownups to pay for whatever they need: housing, bikepaths, ski lifts, and the like.

You get to wear whatever you want in Aspen. You get to play pretend like nowhere else. And you never have to ever grow up. 

What's not to like about that?

The only problem is this: if every day is Halloween in Candyland, then after a while your teeth will fall right out of your head. One day Aspen will have to dress up as a dentist and start to plug the cavities.

Entry Filed under: Politics, Aspen, Colorado, Pitkin County, The West, United Post