I’ve been reading and have almost finished Jan Heine’s latest book, a big fat one, on Rene Herse.

It’s 9.5 x 12 x 1.75 x 424 pages and six-and-a-quarter pounds.

These days, to some who are familiar but not super familiar with Herse, his bikes seem frou-frou, more show-less go, but the book makes it clear how wrong that is. Herse bikes are proof that beauty doesn’t have to mean stupid. In fact, that it can’t. His bikes were smart first, pretty next, a perfect mix. It’s a book of bikes, and lots more. A respectful and useful way to show off the beautiful bikes is in perfect studio photos, and the book has plenty of those. It would be a weird book without them. But most of the photos are gorgeous black-and-whites of the bikes and riders in action, and these photos—to my way of thinking— show the bike at their best, in use. As good as the photos are, the best part, remarkably, is the text. What Jan does, probably what he intended to do, is teach you about the designer, builders, and assemblers behind the bikes, and then some of the riders.

Another thing remakable is Jan’s role in the book and his writing style. A book like this could easily have come off as heavy on the hero-worship and shame on anybody who’s out of the loop, or even look at me for knowing so much. Instead, Jan is respectful of the reader and if anything under-represents Herse’s contributions, so in the end you figure it out yourself. It is clearly a labor of admiration and love, and has countless fantastic photos and fascinating insights and interviews with those who were there at the time. Rene Herse is an educational, attitude-changing, enlightening, fascinating, detailed testament to the man who contributed more useful beauty to bicycles than anybody else. If Jan hadn’t written it, nobody would have, because nobody could have. and if nobody had, then we just wouldn’t know.

Way to go, Jan.

It costs $86, a bargain. We’ll have some by March 4, but I want to make it clear that our selling it has nothing to do with me liking it…except of course I wouldn’t sell it if I didn’t. What I’m saying is that the possibility of selling came way after the liking. You can buy from Jan or us or anybody else. Here’s Jan’s site:

http://www.compasscycle.com/

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Bike Show Bikes

There are bikes I think of as “doily” bikes that bring out the worst in me and lead to thoughts of self-criticism for feeling that way, because it’s just a bike, which is true, but the accolades heaped on crazily designed and nearly dysfunctional bikes at bike shows bum me out anyway. Not all show bikes are like this; only most.  When you see city bikes with skinny tires that skim the frame and fork and the same bike has a long, low stem and handlebars, and it all costs so much for what?, it’s hard to be mellow. Maybe it comes down to the question of whether bikes are metal-art, shock-art, or functional art or some other kind of art or avenues of personal expression, and when you say they can be all of those things, then there’s really no foundation for scoffing.

Some bike designs seem to be driven by a need to be different and to get votes for originality, rather than to be good. Originality isn’t inherently good, and when it’s the result of intentionally avoiding existing designs that a lot of thought went into originally and a lot of refinement went into subsequently, then “original” can be construed as disrespectful, ego-driven, or just foolish. Whatever the case, “original” usually means “hidden influences,” or “never combined just that way before.” Every seemingly original or at least exclusive design here comes from somewhere. The Noodle handlebar was inspired by a Modolo with a slight retrieve and flattish ramp. Ours is better because I have better taste, but it’s basically a copy. The Moustache H’bar came from Japanese schoolkids bikes, and those bars were first seen as early as 1907, or at least a variation of them. I got my affinity for lowish bottom brackets from Richard Sachs and Marc Muller. I learned to like steel from Ritchey, who still likes it,  no doubt, but the segment of the market his company operates in dictates other materials. I learned to like lugs from seeing Bridgestone’s tests, and then (again) Richard Sachs was influential. Fattish tires I came to from riding, and I think anybody would do the same. The list could continue but I’ve made the point, at least in RIV’s case/my case.

When industrial design students go about designing bikes—and they seem to do it every year in some part of the world, usually northern Europe—they go after the city bikes, since they’re more accessible in some ways than are racing or mountain bikes. The presumed buyer —- it seems to me—-must be a harried executive parent shopper multi-tasker with a tiny apartment, and yet rich and avant guard, who wants the kind of bike nobody has ever exactly seen before, and ideally it will be the only one in town. That is my impression, anyway.

I’ll tell you what a good city bike is, but my description won’t be revelatory.

A good city bike has these qualities

• High  handlebars for an upright position, because guess what? The busy streets are not your raceway, and you need to be comfortable and to see what’s up ahead. No high bars, not comfy, and you can’t see.

• Wide tires, at least 38mm wide—-minimum. So you can inflate them hard or soft, as you like and as the street surface warrants. Even if you ride 38s, it should fit 40s at least, and with a fender.

• Tough tires that are hard to puncture and stand up to no to low maintenance and inspection. Of course we always recommend daily pre-and-post ride tire inspections. Right.

• A city bike without fenders works only if you ride only on dry streets and dry weather.

• Ways to carry stuff front and back. Might as well have carrying capabilities in front and behind you, because city riding means shopping or carrying stuff to and from someplace, and the room is good. If you fill up a bag or basket in back and you have an empty bag and basket up front, no harm done—but at least you’re riding within the cushion, should something else come up. It’s better than being maxed out.

• Easy mounting and dismounting. This doesn’t mean it must be a mixte, because that depends on how your hips and flexibility are. Boys bikes do well for boys and girls; girls bikes do well for girls and boys. Bikes are gender-neutral, but everybody carries some imagery baggage with them, and that’s something I can’t address.

• Kickstandable. These trackbikelike city bikes with no kickstands…ohmy. Here’s a kickstand tip: When your option is a pole or air, use the kickstand. When you have a wall to lean the bike against, wall trumps kickstand. Anyway, city bikes that are made for the city and not for the auditorium will have kickstands.

Bike categories are so weird, anyway. I’ve told the story before so will make it short: When Bstone introduced the XO-1 in the Fall of 1990, it didn’t have a category, and eighty percent of the bike dealers who saw it wanted to know what KIND of bike it was. Mountain? No. Road? No. City? Not exactly. You could point out the inherent versatility and even the expandability with the help of racks or different tires, but what they wanted was a category, and it had none. Everything in the world has categories, but you use a thing, not the category it falls in.

The Betty and Sam versus Prize-Winning City Bikes

We don’t call them city bikes, but when you outfit them with racks, fenders, baskets and bags and higher handlebars and reflectors and lights, there you go.

The most underutilized upfix for any bike and any city bike is reflective tape wherever it’ll go. First, at least, on the spokes. You can be visible without it, but semi-permanent visibility things have an edge over lights you may not have with you or on, or even my favorite, the big Triangle, that you may forget to wear.  The silver 3M Scotchlite tape we have shines so bright. If your pedals don’t have reflectors, put some on the back of your crankarm.

Anyway, here’s an over-the-top (show bikey?) version of a Sam Hillborn.

It is pretty enough, but is stuffed with smart function. This is a bike that’s nearly too intentionally decked out for my taste—a basket on the front would help—but all that means is it’ll look better when it’s got some wear on it. Purely from a looks perspective, as horribly superficial as that is, does the fact that there are a hundred or two of these bikes out there make them seem less pretty or less special than a no touch one-off?

This doesn’t look bad no matter where or when you are.

Same with this.

—————-

These are some beautiful little beetles. The colors are so good.

They aren’t as colorful as these:

You can’t really pit one against the other. Both good, I’d say! The bicycle connection is that one of our customers showed these to me. He works in the American Museum of Natural History.

Thin Gripsters Back In Stock

Get ‘em while you can.

RIV CHICA WARRIOR-WEST ? and a horseshoe story

A few years ago Liesl Chatman of Mpls rode her Riv and chased down a bike thief and apprehended his sorry whatever, thus earning the moniker RIV CHICA WARRIOR.

Now, last Friday the 18th and while riding her 2tt 59cm A. Homer Hilsen on her way back from the post office, packer-shipper Jenny has another sort of similar story, and tells it:

I’m certain  any of us here would’ve done the  same thing— I just happened to be the one who saw it all happen.  All in a day’s work, I suppose, but I’m just glad everything worked out the way it did.

Shortly after that we snapped this picture of Jenny against a white backdrop:

—————-

Tough work if you can get it. But…fairly manly.

Hillborne rider Earl Craig of Montana makes horseshoes and I THINK is also a farrier, but of that I’m not sure. No doubt he can shoe a horse in a pinch, at least. He was here recently, and since we have horseshoes hanging around here (literally) and as heel-lo-k-tors for our PBH measuring station, Craig felt compelled to talk about horseshoes, and … I really like horseshoes and talking about them, and so it went. Then a few weeks later (yesterday), we received in the mail a photo-book of the horseshoe-making process, shown below, with captions his:

The straight-bar shoe is a therapeutic shoe. Its purpose is to protect a damaged hoof. This shoe also dissipates load over a greater bearing surface, which can be beneficial.

The classic scenarios, though, are bad hoof cracks or cracked coffin bones.

This shoe will be made out of 15 1/2-inches of 5/16 x 7/8 inch flat stock. Forge welded (no modern welding equipment used).

The smithy (looking, for some reason, somewhat skeptical) selects some bar stock

With the Sam Hillborne sitting somewhere off in the corner,

THE TOE BEND IS MADE

Now one of the “hockey sticks” is forged. This will form half of the bar. Molecules are getting packed. In blacksmithing, this is called “upsetting.”

Back in the forge. (This is a coke fire—-coke is coal with most of the impurities removed.

Second hockey stick is now forged.

Now a branch bend is initiated over the horn.

Half the shoe is there.

Some scarfing of edges is done to prepare for the weld, and the edges are overlapped. A bit of flux will be applied and then it’s into the forge for a white-hot welding heat.

The weld is done with a hammer. (This can be done, by the way, in a gas forge as well, but it’s better in coal or coke.

Some more work done on weld over the tip of the horn.

At this point the fullering (grooves) and nail holes have been done —- my photographer disappeared for a while {damn guy!—G} 

Nail holes are stamped to depth, then pritchelled through.

Time for a quick break. (Tea time without the tea.)

The finished shoe after some rasp work and wire brushing. (Also treated with beeswax.)

THE END.

Closeup

Now it’s above the door. Nobody take it, please.

Video, Catalog, February Frame Deadline

Lance. I find myself more sympathetic than most, including Betsy Andreu, but it may be easier from this perch—than from her’s, especially—to be kinder toward Lance. Still, it seems to me that if you go into a pool and there’s a sign saying No Cannonballs, and everybody’s doing them and there’s a splash-making contest going on with full bleachers and cheerleaders and prize money for splashing—it might be hard not to splash. I know that’s not a perfect analogy. It doesn’t address the lawsuits and attacks and all, but at some level, Lance’s racing life and No Cannonballs (please ignore cheering and prizes) have something in common.

It is also not a great thing to do, kick somebody when he’s down.  It’s not admirable, at  least. It is tempting, maybe, since Lance isn’t a world class sympathetic figure, but he IS one of US, and to see the same people who egged him on and cheered him/encouraged him now berate him is a little weird. In the big picture he got caught in a trap, a web-of-deceit, and was flailing in different ways at different people to keep it all afloat. Coming clean in the middle of it could be seen as something honorable, but it also could have been seen as betraying his accomplices and teammates. Better for them, I’d think, that he didn’t do that then. And imagine what they’d have thought—-“what the f—, Lance?! What are you DOING? I thought we had a deal…”

It’s hard to even think straight about it. I’m sure I”m not, but I am sure of this: Lance is a complicated guy who’s living a life none of us can imagine but all of us find easy to judge. I totally understand the rage, but I don’t, personally, feel it. I want him to deal with the stuff he has to deal with, and then grow on and lead a decent life. Part 2 tonite, maybe I’ll flip flop.

———

It’s been a while, sorry—-unless saying “sorry” suggests more interest in this than is —— warranted? Something. Here’s what’s happening, or not; a mix of boring, interesting, personal, business, observation, trivia, bikes, and whatever else. Some you may know about already.

Price Changes, Frame Availability.

Don’t forget about our February 1st Frame price adjustments from the last Blug post. Important info about delivery. Orders must be in by January 31st to lock in current prices, even on bikes months out. Read it here.

Sam Hillbornes

Sam Hillborne news: We got a bunch of 56 Sams in, but they were supposed to have cream head tubes and didn’t, so we’re taking care of that locally, and in the meantime have some greyblue-head tube Sams that are catching on here, and for a little less money.

We have cream head tubers, and green web specials too.

The 48s do not move, and it’ll be a cool evening down south before we make those again, so if you’ve had your eye on one, anytime….

The new Sam sizes, arriving in May, are 51, 55, 58, and 62. No more 64 Sams. The 51 is the only 650B’er, and the 58 and 62 will have the second top tube. Same color forever now: Greyblue with cream.

Betty Foy

We’re doing one last run of 47s, and from then on it’ll be 50-55-60. The Betty, expected to be our worst seller, is now our second best seller behind the Sam. It should be, but it’s still surprising.

Six Fifty Bee/ Twenty Seven Fiver

Hunqapillar

A guy was riding a lightly ridden Hunqapillar on a woodsy or gravelly road, when all of a sudden KA-RUNCH and assorted chaos behind and below him, and presumably continued pedaling through it, and two seconds later the dropout ripped in half and several spokes had snapped.

He was disappointed in the bike, and we are “accommodating” him, fine, but we get to get a lesson out of the accommodation, and the lesson is this:

• New things can get wrecked as easily as old things
• Noise coincides with contact, and sudden unfamiliar noises mean stop pedaling and stop the bike.

In this case, the wreckage is an impartial witness to what happened.

Something, maybe a stick, somehow got flipped through the spokes and onto the lower part of the chain and dragged to the derailer. It jammed there, and continued pedaling forced the rear derailer backward and upward, leveraging it against the dropout. Continued pedaling ripped the dropout in half. The evidence for a sudden rip, as opposed to a fatigue failure that grew over weeks or months, is that the broken cross-section is crystalline and sharp although, with no evidence of smoothed-over, burnished areas that have rubbed against one another for a while.

Plus, the derailer tab is bent, and has scar-marks that could only have been made by something harder than a twig, but probably not much thicker, so maybe a spoke.

That’s the limit of my after-the-fact/I wasn’t there analysis skills, and I might be stretching them some at that. Maybe the derailer had been bent or otherwise just shifted into the spokes and then got pulled up by the spokes. (So, maybe no object-from-the-road).  The point is, something strange, unusual but not unheard of happened, and it made a noise immediately, and ideally the pedaling would have stopped before the mayhem ran its course. Were earbuds involved? We don’t know and at this point aren’t going to ask.

Although we have no policy, we try to come to your aid when something wacko hits you.

Japan elected out a government that liked keeping the Yen strong to make its many millions of retirees flush in travel money, and elected in a more reasonable set of rule makes you see that in the big picture, an economy that is based on exports and manufacturing needs to be more export friendly, which means a weaker Yen. The Yen – stay with this now – needs to be weak to allow importers of Japanese goods to wholesale them to retailers who sell them to you at a reasonable price. For that to happen, a dollar needs to buy about 150 Yen. Bstone got worried at 130, morose at 125 (break even point, why bother?) and quit, gave up, at 110. I started Rivendell at 110, and within a year it was 82. That was laughably low, except that it wasn’t, and yet for the past year and a half a dollar has been worth about 78 Yen, with a low of 75.5 or something.

New Riv Vid

Joe Appaloosa

The Funny Long bike is officially called the Joe Appaloosa, a fitting name suggested by local Finn Taylor, after I and we were drawing blanks. It’s a fitting name, not to overanalyze it, but here goes: Bikes are like horses, and Appaloosa is a kind of horse. The defining characteristics are spotted lips, often with other spots but always the lips, which—-maybe when the bike comes out we’ll supply it with spotty decals to be used or not. Appaloosas came from Spain, but were famously bred and developed and rose to fame as the horses of Nez Perce (“pierced nose”) Indians. Want to read more about the breed? Here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appaloosa#Nez_Perce_people

I’ve always liked Indians, the lore, the lifestyle, the weapons, the look—-pretty much everything about Indians is right down my aisle, although I’ve never been a fan of the look of the long pipe-smoking Tecumseh (he did good things, but looked the wimp). Growing up as I did wanting to BE an Indian, I’m not one who’s quick to cry foul when I hear somebody not refer to them as Native Americans. I get that they were the first to inhabit where most of us are now, but they were immigrants, too. I think they got the royal shaft, no qualifiers there. It is our eternal shame, and just one of those things that——-well, we can’t own all past infractions, but let’s own some of this one, since it happened so recently.

Anyway, the Joe comes in NOT from Injun Joe of Tom Sawyer fame—-although there’s the Indian theme again, and I do like that—-but because our recent models have had people names, and with a long last name we needed a short first name. If it were strictly a women’s bike, maybe Jo Appaloosa, but it’s a unisex model, and so we follow in the tradition, good or bad, of defaulting to the boyish name for both. Here’s the headbadge:

(link)

The bike itself is probably a year away. We may have Nobilette make a run of 20 of them, but they’ll cost a lot, and this is a wonderful bike that warrants a bigger litter and lower prices…and yet the question remains, can we sell a hundred of them in a year? That’s what we’d need to do to justify them from Taiwan.

Cassettes

We’re now carrying IRD cassettes, 8-speeders and 9-speeders, made, we hear, by

Frame Schedule and Pricing for 2013

Important information for anyone thinking of getting a frame or bike in the next year. Lead times are getting longer. Up to four months depending on model and size. Prices are being readjusted for the year on February 1st, so if you plan on getting a bike from us in the next year now is the time to snag existing inventory, place preorders on American made frames, and lock in current frame prices.

Frame Prices for 2013

Are going up February 1st on all models except San Marcos Sam Hillborne and Bombadil. How to lock in old prices: Buy stock now or pre-order out-of-stock items with a 25% deposit by January 31st.

So the lineup is now:

San Marcos: $900

Sam Hillborne and Betty Foy: $1225

Hunqapillar: $2000

Roadeo: $2200

Atlantis and A. Homer Hilsen: $2300

65cm - 71cm A. Homer Hilsen: $2400

Bombadil: $3000

Frame Availability

Call to see if we have anything in your size before giving up, but when we run out of stock, expect long waits.

A shipment of Betties is due in April, but prepare for May. We have many sizes but our stocks are running out in all sizes.

Next Sams are expected May maybe June.

Homers, Bombas, Roadeos, Atlanti, Hunqapillars now have FOUR top tubes… just kidding, four month wait times. That’s all we can promise though we hope to have them in three if not sooner. They are made-to-order, so if you want one for summer, put down a 25% deposit as soon as possible.

How to lock in old prices: Buy or pre-order with a 25% deposit by January 31st. Give us a ring 800 345 3918. Representatives are standing by.

~Dave

Four new ‘dannas

Got some new colors of USA made bandannas.

and the winner is…

Liesl Chatman of Minneapolis, MN.

Congratulations Riv Chica Warrior!

Boxing Day Wool ‘rival.

Big shipment of wool arrived today.

New long sleeve Black zip tops.

Long sleeve crew tops.

Short sleeve crew tops.

Ever popular Not-so-tights.

New possum caps in grey..

Holiday Mixed Bag

OK, we got some new good things in. Maybe too late. This is not how Orvis does it, it’s how we so often do it. BUT—-we do have this:

Socks

Thin all wool grey sox for dressy stuff (boo) or just warm weather everyday and ridesox (yay). Now and then I’ll still wear my cotton monkey sox—-we may pick them up again in the Spring—but with these thin, even hot-weather woolies, there’s really no reason to. They don’t seem to shrink a ton.

Medium weight darkish blue possum wool sox. Dressy length, fuzzy, and as good for riding as any. Warmer and cushier than the thinnies, and dark blue. I recommend buying up a size, washing normallly, and not drying. They seem to shrink less than some other wool sox, including the Canadian blues we love so much and still sell, but everybody except kids should buy only in large and then wash on low to medium and never dry. Man, I love those sox, but for me and the way I wash them, as  opposed to the way I recommend you wash them, they are “shrink-to-not-fit.” Other than that—-a forgiveable offense —- they are so good. My favorites…although there are other things at play here, things that have nothing to do with sox. I like the idea of Canadians making sox the same way forever.

Head-hats

Bulbish Beanie: Much thicker and fuzzier, a possum-wool blend that can either hug the head and cover most of your ears, or be work higher. A better choice than the Mossy thin one for actual cold weather.

Radar-Style Possum bill beanie: Our warmest beanie for truly cold weather. it has a band you can pull down to easily cover your ears, and a short bill for style and sun. Here’s the natural and grey versions of this cap.

Tops

We just got in MUSA long-sleeved crewneck superlight tops. They’re summerweight or layerable long-sleevers, really comfortable, the same girly-smooth wool as the short sleeve MUSA tops. Cut full but tailored. You can buy your normal shirt size.

Symbolism…or Cymbalism?

I had to finish Life of Pi because the fam may see it this weekend in the theater, and I was the only who handn’t read it. I wonder how the movie will be. I wonder why they made a movie of a book that seems so hard to make a movie of. How will they deal with the island and Richard Parker? I will find out. I am anti-symbolism. The word  “nauseous” was misused in the book, as it is on TV and in the News. Still, I couldn’t have written it.

I was thinking about the ’60s this morning, and mostly the early to mid-’60s, during which “My foot” reigned among all expressions of incredulity. But it seemed more than that. It seemed slightly aggressive, although not as aggressive as its big brother-come-lately, “My eye!”  I wonder whether those were localized to my area or maybe California, or scattered about, and were there foreign equivalents? Did they originate in a foreign language? I think, in some small way, “foreign,” to describe a language, is backwards these days. Why not just “another” language?

British writers say “towards”  with the “s” and American writers don’t, except for Ann Patchett, although in one of her books she had the “s” in there just once. Taft, I think, but I’m not sure. Maybe The Magician’s Assistant.  She knows the British-American rule, but started out without and just wanted to be consistent. I think that makes perfect sense. In America, I believe from what I’ve heard and my own experience, that 100 percent of kids include the S, and 80 percent of adults do, although it changes in writing. The S yes lingers longer in speech than in writing. My awareness of it is a source of confliction every time I say or write it, and it goes that way with “backwards,” too. I wonder if anybody says or writes one with the S but not the other. I wonder how tightly books are edited with regards to this rule, if it’s a rule. I wonder if “regard” and “regards” are in the same boat. They all have the a-r-d-(s), but the vowel sound is different in regards. When you sign off an email, it may be

Best regards,

but never

Best regard.

Sheldon Brown signed off, “All the best,” and I’ve seen this adopted by others, too, but I always assume a Sheldon influence. The first time I ever saw “Best regards” was about 18 years ago in an abbreviated form, just
BR.

I was email correspondence from my former co-worker, then friend, now co-worker again and Japanese guy Masa. I asked him what “BR” meant, and he told me. To me it sounded like the kind of thing a native Japanese (can one be “native” of a language?) speaker would learn in an overly formal English class, taught by an elderly person who dredged it up from America in the ’50s or something. But, not knowing how to deal with sign-offs and not wanting to sound harsh without one, I adopted BR, and now I go usually just to B, although I wonder whether (if?) people get it. I think “whether” beats “if,” because with the latter there’s the chance, even if remote, that “if” makes the wondering sound contingent on the getting. Sure, most people can figure it out, but that’s why I said “remote.” Somebody just learning English is more likely to be confused by (with?) if than with whether. Notice that I use quote marks and italics kind of interchangeably there. I don’t know what the Chicago Manual of Style says about that, but quotes seem more ordinary and italics seem more high-brow. Somebody will send me a link and tell me.

This is frivolous and indulgent in the aftermath of the shooting. Talking about the shooting is——something we generally leave to the pros and papers, because like so many other things, it has the potential to become a political discussion, and it gets complicated by the gun control or mental health? … not debate yet, exactly, but issue. I want to make it clear that Rivendell doesn’t have an official position on that, except that we all think assault weapons should be banned, and it should be harder to get-a-Glock than it is, and all people need to be reared with love and attention to their quirks and idiosyncrasies and predilections <———third try on that spelling….and it is so sad that so often it’s too much trouble to make a deal out of something that you hope is a phase or can write off as something else, and then when the teasing about the weirdness begins in middle school and goes unabated thru high school, the next thing you know that person is dangerous, fuming inside, resentful even if they’ve never expressed it that way.   

I never understand trying children as adults just because the crime is serious. I remember a few years ago there was a 6- or 11-year old who was being tried as an adult. Why?  At what point in development does a person cross the line dividing—-well, the dividing line? If you talk of age in numbers of days rather than numbers of years, does it seem more arbitrary to call somebody an adult at 6574.5 days than at 18 years? In an old Bob Dylan song there’s the phrase, “..bent out of shape from society’s pliers,” and it forces you to acknowledge the environment’s role in it all. To say it has no role…is ridiculous. It would make everything genetics and free will, and then there’s the question of whether we choose to have free will or not, or how much we exercise it (choose to exercise it?) and that’s a free will thing, too. So it becomes circular logic, an explanatory fiction.

The problem is that while people acknowledge the environment—which in the Lanza kid’s case, was different from YOUR environment—they have a hard time attributing everything to it, because of this thing called “free will.” But can you have one without the other? Does it make sense to make an imaginary line or a point in time when free will takes over, or is that a societal convenience that allows we normal people to not think about it anymore, just lets the laws take over so we don’t have to deal with it?

This last many days has been so sad for everybody, not just the ones directly affected, although them the most, of course. But it really is reaching to everybody, and the holiday season goes on, but we’re all confused—none more than me, clearly—-and although life going on doesn’t seem just right, at least for us it can, and so it does.

I am a socks and soap person,  and I have no problem with socks and sandals. I wear sandals most of the time and i love, love, sock—so I’m not going to deny myself the pleasure of both just because sox-with-sandals is a no-no to —-well, even if somebody knows nothing about fashion, that person knows that, right? I’m not into it that way.

I was at a cocktail party last Saturday night and it came up in a conversation I had with a writer-editor—a subject-verb agreement thing, like sox-with-sandals is, as opposed to sox with sandals are. She said when you group singulars you treat it as singular. I wasn’t sure.

The neck gaiters and scarves. They’re so good.

I don’t understand why half-mitts only trickle out. They’re my everyday hand-thing. I wear them with and without wool gloves. The best combination is wool gloves with the fingertips snipped off, but not the thumbtip. Nobody’s going to do this, but it works.

In too many days to work for Christmas unless you—oh, the Calendar Gods are being mean to us and you this year. Look at Christmas eve, on a Monday. Thanks a lot, man. So we lose Sat and Sun as shipping days, and we have lots of stuff we’ll get in on the 26th and 27th.

Look—we have those socks and hats and scarves, and half-mitts. Put the half-mitts in a stocking. Too anticlimatic in a box with wrapping and a bow.

We hope you all have good holidays. Good, low-carb holidays, if that’s possible. There’s the meat. Nobody eats salad at Christmas, do they? “Christmas” comes more easily to me than “Holidays.” Kids don’t say Happy Holidays To You and Yours. Have a fantastic Now-To-New Years, and beyond.

The Clove soap and the Anise soap. Mix them with the Pine Tar. Soo good. I never smell.

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Here’s an interesting Holiday Question:

About 14 months ago at a garage sale we sold a Worksman (made in Queen) folding bike. We have a few Worksmans around here, long story, and we sold this one for $50 or so. A guy bought it. Shortly after that, several of us notice that it was parked at the local BART station. That’s fine—it’s kind of a lousy general commuter for any number of reasons, but it is a perfectly good folder, and you’d think it would be ideal for taking ONTO the BART train, not just park it outside.

Until about 8 months ago it had a saddle and seat post, but then somebody swiped them, so now the bike is like this:

Thar she blows, right there. It’s locked with one of our ABUS locks, and clearly is not being ridden. You’ve got to wonder whether the owner died or not, or exactly what happened, but now I’m thinking I want the bike back. I could probably somehow manage to arrange to get it back, but would that be stealing IF I left a note, laminated for weather resistance, that the guy can have his bike back if he comes and gets it here, and that we just didn’t want a real thief or vandal to get it? Note it still has the plastic axle-protector (more like box-protector) stuck on the rear axle. I rode this bike 15+ miles around Marin County once, and I guess it was on the whole time, because nobody here would have PUT it on. We don’t have them lying around.

Lying vs Laying: You….well, here.

But about the bike—-I worry and wonder about it. I could mention it to BART agents or the BART police and say hey here’s who I am and my business and here’s the story on this bike, so—-can I get it? I might have to break the lock, but there are ways, and then if the guy came back, I’d owe him a new lock, too.