Sick Suzerain

Rethink, recycle, reuse, reinvest in what's sustainable. Eventually, you scrub not only the dirt away but surface, too, and what's beneath. Nothing lasts forever. Been seeking Zero Carbon Footprint for a decade: darned difficult and negligibly effective. Must target enormous populations and processes to influence global issues. Yet must quit relationships with things once they outlived their purpose, too. A car is not a pal, pet, or protege carrying on your legacy. Cars are comfortable, masculine, but temporary vehicles struggling through liquid air and solid traffic, period. Cars are too complex to last; simple methods persist. Alternatives already exist that don't burn petroleum, but comedians are already ridiculing electric plug-ins as effeminate.

Biggest budget busters are fuel, insurances, taxes and transportation. To afford, Americans collectively fritter away enormous effort, resources, and time: 300 billion work hours plus 50 billion driven hours. Maintaining roads costs upward of $100 billion every year and increasingly marginalize cyclists. Protecting nation against enemies created by evil corporations or foreign jealousies costs $900 billion/year. Smoking is a net loss (after profits) of $150 billion a year. Thousands, both traffickers and users, die annually because narcotics are illegal. Cardiovascular diseases from overeating and using lazy ways, both mere choices, kill more people than anything else. After cancer, the third biggest killer is car accidents. More have died in collisions in the last century than in wars. Motoring is war on multiple fronts with enough collateral damage to infect society with insanity.

Earth is so vast that human vermin teeming along ocean shores seem an insignificant irritation easily neutralized by hurricanes and tsunamis. Yet they're reporting Greenland's permafrost melting this winter and record high temperatures down under this summer. Is there another reason? Ozone depletion? Sun irregularity? You might drill down to root causes, but what do you ever make of evidence? Bike&Chain instead skips self serving conclusions and sticks with is-ness. Freedoms do increase proportionally with responsibilities assumed. But you don't need some fussy suzerain ruling from afar or sick writer waxing moralistic who knows nothing of your customs or desires telling you what to do. Embracing technological convenience will always cost more; just makes sense. But "more" could mean mammals become extinct. Inevitably, insects and simple microbes will inherit earth, but sooner if mankind lets them.

Frozen Migraine

You only get one chance to make a good impression. Oops! Too late! What if you just don't care? When you're not selling anything, not trying to attract admirers, you can express whatever you want, even lay down a zero lie zone where bullshit is intolerable. But clearly nobody but a forensic investigator cares about truth; unless easy profit or satisfied hormones are unequivocally dangled, forget about holding anyone's attention. Anyway, as soon as you chronicle current events, deviate from fiction, or name real names, you suddenly find yourself amidst denial and prevarication. Everyone runs away from authenticity, won't even admit to the guilty pleasure of puzzling over paradoxes.

Books on bikes aren't needed. Pedaling itself is too dull to recount, as is an intractable issue with a soft rear tire. Anyway, after last snowstorm which left and inch of ice across streets have weeks to mount winter wheelset before next round of rides.

Bookblog was intended as a rambling nonfiction compendium that rejected typical fiction and nonfiction narrative, and so shares something in common with the Whole Earth Catalog rather than your usual encyclopedia. It defied every bit of advice from Aristotle to present on how books ought to go together. There is no rule that mandates one form over another except salability; never imagined it could be sold, so made it open source. Landmark historic works of science that changed all lives on earth were more like lab notes than novels. What you focus on is what first presents itself, but what dreams motivate existence? The urge to collect every related item is so 18th Century, but you can never derive facts without considering exceptions. Truths occur to writers in intuitive flashes and never so often as when bored by bicycling. Some say you can’t be effective unless you are guided by principles, but you can easily waste a lifetime pursuing wrong principles, like Ahab chasing a certain white whale or Titanic barring blacks and racing whites across Atlantic irresponsibly in a vain attempt to be best. Begrudging, burning vengeance is not necessarily a good principle to follow, but what of a sincere desire to imagine something new?

Nobody wants to do same thing all the time. Specialization is important to efficiency, but only well rounded individuals live well. Human flexibility works better than inhumane rigidity. Principles are points of departure. Those who understand how things are supposed to work are better off than those who know nothing or only know rules. How and why are still important. Dyed-in-the-wool and iron-clad are stuck in past without options. Integrity might as well be shorthand for value-based decision making mired in corrupt practices that don’t include majority. Reactionaries usually demand integrity, by which they mean loyalty or prejudice. Complex personalities frighten. One dimensional people are easier to exploit. What do you do with someone unique? Leave them alone? Unique can serve as a defense mechanism as long as no threat is perceived. Keeping it apolitical, crazy, light and personal makes writing easy to dismiss. This is anything but, and so crawls within, takes up residence, and wears out its welcome.

The principle, the proper study of mankind is man, leads to studying behaviors first hand. Sex? Big motivator? Some believe it equally demotivates, especially when it doesn't seem forthcoming. Coy teases surpass carnal knowledge, but both will get you fired. Reality often disappoints. Promises are what they package instead of fulfillment. Among most people abstract ideals somehow exceed physical sensations. Yet whence ideals? Hopes are exploitable. Those you get to know closely will infect to you. Illness is bad business, but not completely without merit. You will certainly appreciate relatively good health all the more after being sick. You abide physicality and sports because you can; whenever you can’t, life seems ghastly and unsatisfying.

Dark are these dreams of late, but will nevertheless stay the course. Winter’s grip on icy streets and long nights will slowly relent. Done are days with entire commute in darkness. Every day is 1 minute longer, so as weeks pass commutes will again be fully sunlit. Neither is the darkest hour just before dawn; it’s darkest around midnight on a moonless night, and sky brightens considerably before sunrise. Dawn and dusk are good times to ride as long as ice and snow don’t impede and traffic doesn’t impose.

Unlike Gawain

Blogbook's intention has always been to inch along the edges of enigmas inside emotions, language and logic. Resembles mountain biking within broken crevasses or riding streets as if a rider suddenly miniaturized, which would render most of what humans endure impossibly hostile. But after this year's Christmas Massacre of Innocents, feel almost as unsafe on own couch watching countless repeats of that story where delusional boy covets a beebee gun; you'd think advertisers and lineup programmers would choose something less pathetic for a nation in mourning.

Fears can and will be exploited. TD Ameritrade's 'pataphorical ad with a bicyclist dodging beasts hopes to appeal to your intelligence (smart traders ride, right?) but makes no sense whatever (maybe instead dodge insatiable billionaires or pompous Trump). A for-once gratifying bike placement is the boy climbing to his mountaintop challenge on Quaker cereal, courtesy of iSpot.tv. Suppose such concrete challenges appeal more to Labann than mythical threats easily avoided by not investing in scams SEC still allows.

Writers go wrong at the first simile, succumb to self indulgence through metaphors, and work agendas with allegories. Readers are hardly aware they are so being used.

Among the venerable jewels of English literature is the medieval allegory "Gawain and the Green Knight", whose deadly challenge Sir Gawain shoulders for Camelot's sake but shows things are never what they seem. Set between successive Christmases and worth a reread, it's about man versus nature, opportunities for growth, and persistence to a respectable code of behavior despite temptation. The Green Man continually rejuvenates and so becomes an invincible yet merry foe expecting a bargain made to be repaid. His elvish evergreen, ivy and mistletoe may be thought subservient to Santa and taken for granted but do get job done. Hope springs eternally, and those who bring it deserve honor.

Labann knows legends of knights errant and their lonely quests of assumed responsibility get replayed during every outbound bike commute, right down to the exposed progress and uncertain outcome, especially among these coldest, darkest days. But all they do is impart lessons in loyalty undeserved by today's leaders. When they begin rewarding patriotism and showing good examples of fulfilling their oaths to majority, issues facing society will fade into history.

Beef Chow Mein

Would like to liken life to a blade upon which everything falls and separates bad from good, left across right, right beside wrong, but that's just a meaningless metaphor. People bounce off each other as if a hodgepodge of random particles. Even this blog defies any regular frequency or specific relevancy, which generally attracts readers, and gravitates toward any generic event, feast, or holiday when particles boil vigorously. There's little celebrating while pedaling alone, although day to day that's mostly what goes on. One expects consensus and natural laws to dominate and never make life incomprehensible, then things happen and you can't help but wonder.

There's probably some causal relationship between 13 mass killings this year—among 61 in USA since 1980—and threat of apocalypse next week at the end of Mayan calendar on Winter Solstice. Fear and want create savages and terrorists. No less than NASA's respected astrophysicists debunked celestial doom occurring anytime soon. But emotions rule, not logic, and few totally believe academic or official sources eager to shape opinions to suit agendas. Basic survival, how to grow food, and what's best to invest in are not among ideas they rush to impart, so can they be trusted? Do they care for your welfare? If termination is imminent, why not go berserk? Anyway, enemies lurk around every corner. Extremists want you dead. Global warming is real, whatever the cause. Hope is fragile and irrational. Hurricanes increase in ferocity and frequency, 19 along Atlantic coast in this year alone. Pessimism dovetails with perennial doubts and takes no effort to peddle compared to calm optimism only the brave embrace. So all those end-of-days predictions seem all the more plausible.

Because news reporting has become efficient through space age communications, those who heed are too keenly aware of what happens worldwide. Even North Korea has a spy satellite. Foreign events could drive decisions at home despite fact no such thing ever occurs locally. Conversely, unique customs serve far flung communities quite well. A homogenous world isn't practical; you can't hunt polar bears in equatorial rain forests. Only arrogance expects social engineering to prevail over organic growth. But some commodities or recipes do resonate everywhere. Chow mein, for example, is an ersatz occidental adaption of oriental cuisine, an example of fused mélange that diners eye warily but taste anyway. Some of the best things combine exotic influences.

Talk vainly attempts to enlist you in someone else's beef, but unrelenting behaviors can be explained. If you decided to burn oil to stay warm, you've already installed a furnace and can't easily change to an alternative within a decade without forfeiting investment. Hybrid vehicles hold appeal when immutability of fuel sources gets unreal. Survival comes from natural selection, not of favorites but whatever exists in given moment. Should all else fail, you can always chop wood or go by bike. While options exist, hope endures.

Tin Panned Lane

About 6 decades ago comedian Max Miller (actual name Thomas Sargent) amused folks with tongue-in-cheek tunes like Let's Have a Ride on Your Bike, a 78 rpm single from Philips in 1953, another of those chestnuts that appear every year while recapping bike songs. Recent releases have nary a hit among them. Anyway, here's 2 dozen to consider:

Alanna-Marie Boudreau, Boy on the Bicycle, Hands in the Land, self, 2012
Andrew Page, Bicycle (piano instr.), Sketches & Suites, self, 2011
Ashley Theberge, Bicycles, Ba Do Day, self, 2009
Best Before, The Bicycle Song, Colours, self, 2011
Biruge, Bicycle and Sketchbook (J-pop), Bicycle and Sketchbook, self, 2011
Carlo Messanotte Jazz Quartet, Bicycles (instr.), Jazz Tales, Wide Sound, 2011
Dawn Kinnard, Bicycle, Wrong Side of the Dream, Montagu Music, 2010
Don Aliquo, Lower Burrellian Bicycle Loop (jazz instr.), Sun & Shield, self, 2011
East of the Wall, Horseback Riding in a Bicycle World, The Apologist, Translation Lost, 2011
Kerri Dopart, Bicycle (Built for One) [C&W], I Saw This Coming, self, 2007
Konnichiwa, White Bicycles, Visions, Rainbow Body Rec., 2011
Lianne Smith, Bicycle, Two Sides of a River, self, 2012
Libby Thomas, Boys and Bicycles, (single), self, 2012
Lord Ace, Bicycle (hip-hop), Elevator Musik, self, 2012
Michou, Growing Younger, Cardona, Green and Gold Music, 2010
New Orleans Moonshiners, Bicycle Bird, I'm Comin' Home, self, 2010
Nora and One Left, Big Red Bicycle Christmas (and other relevant titles), Bicycle, Rick Rowland, 2012
Pianism, Bicycle [piano], Memories, Music Mania, 2010
Requiem for Sirens, Bicycles and Aviators (deathcore), The Pride in a Sinking Story, Nyoncore Rec., 2008
Self Evident, Half Bicycle, We Built a Fortress on Short Notice, self, 2012
Siena Castañares, Bicycle, Yearbook, self, 2010
Suneaters, Bicycle, Suneaters XIII, Lotuspool Rec., 2012
Tasm Lab, Three Red Bicycles, Anthemunanthem, self, 1993

If you like bike related videos, somebody put together a playlist which features many of the songs this blog has previously mentioned.