Machines

An idea I read recently, like the sad, ultra-realist antonym of cartoon belief:

Maybe inanimate objects become much more inanimate at night, when no one's looking at them.

Of course they do. When I'm not there, talking to my bike, it's just a bike. Metal, rubber, cold.

(Phenomenologists among you could expand this idea towards humanity...or just stick with the cartoon idea. Either way.)

Okay...run!

This morning I ran a half-marathon with no training or fore-thought or preparation whatever. Okay, no training is a slight exaggeration, as, yes, I have been doing my regular running routine. But just that, just the regular, no special half training.

But, yesterday, Allan emailed me to say, 'hey, wanna run the Salisbury half tomorrow?'

And I said, "Ok. Why not?"

We were late leaving the house this morning and were filling out our registration forms at 10.58am for an 11am start. We were pinning on our numbers when the gun went, and were officially the very very last starters. The crowd loved us.

And it was great! A race with no time to worry and no expectations. A race really, just for fun. It was great. And I felt strong and fast and smooth. And we were far from the very very last finishers.

Well, have you ever

I told all my students in all my classes yesterday that it was Canadian Thanksgiving. None of them knew. Now they all do.

To celebrate, my one other Canadian friend in this town and I made a pumpkin pie. From scratch. FROM A REAL PUMPKIN!

(You can't get pumpkin pie filling here, it turns out. But you can get pumpkins.)

Amazingly, it tastes JUST LIKE THE REAL THING!

Ahem. The 'real' thing.

Baroque bikes

Generally, I don't like poetry that opens with the line 'Dearest.' Phew. Talk about over-used and cliche. But, I'm going to cut this one some slack, as it so gracefully alignes my musical world with that of all my crazy cyclist friends/relations.

Machines
by Michael Donaghy

Dearest, note how these two are alike:
This harpsicord pavane by Purcell
And the racer's twelve-speed bike.

The machinery of grace is always simple.
This chrome trapezoid, one wheel connected
To another of concentric gears,
Which Ptolemy dreamt of and Schwinn perfected,
Is gone. The cyclist, not the cycle, steers.
And in the playing, Purcell's chords are played away.

So this talk, or touch if I were there,
Should work its effortless gadgetry of love,
Like Dante's heaven, and melt into the air.

If it doesn't, of course, I've fallen. So much is chance,
So much agility, desire, and feverish care,
As bicyclists and harpsicordists prove

Who only by moving can balance,
Only by balancing move.



from Shibboleth, 1998
Oxford University Press