"We live here!"

The term is over and I survived. I think I did ok, considering how desperately unfamiliar everything I learned was. The sleep deprivation has caught up; every time I sit down I start dozing. I know they do this deliberately- cram everything possible into us as fast as possible and intellectual comfort be damned- but I'm not sure I'm wired to learn well this way. I certainly know I need to spend a good part of the holiday break re-learning a bunch of programs I only scratched the surface of.

Here's my digital final-- I absorbed just enough to realize I don't know anything. But the dresses were fun!

The dragon was fun too

And here are a couple of rug designs that I was quite happy with:

The formal one

The not formal one

I'll upload a video about all the products if I ever figure out how to do that. Each product has to be accompanied by a video, and that took forever. I know nothing about videos, and my cat wouldn't even cooperate when I needed him to look confused. There's another thing to work on over break! (filmmaking, not confusing the cat. He's confused enough by life). 

And here's my final display, almost done: 

It occurred to me that these are the colors of the house I grew up in

I think what kept me going is the sense that this work is actually going to pay off. There are jobs and opportunities out there for people with MIDs, and this could all be building up to a consistently interesting career. That sense of possibility was completely absent in art school. 

I went to Philadelphia twice (planning weeks in advance so I could spare the time off, and it still meant an extra late night or three) and each time the knot of tension that I carry behind my sternum quietly melted away. It was so nice to see my friends and the dear, calm, unpretentious city. I miss riding only a mile or two to anywhere I like, and I miss having a network of bikey nerds, I miss house shows and late nights spent NOT working. Since the past three months have been spent buried in the studio I have not had a chance to fall properly back in love with NYC. There's another thing to do before Spring term...

After the last final, crammed into a taxi with a bunch of colleagues on the way from one celebration to another, I saw Manhattan rising splendidly across the river. And all of us, from our many corners of the world, were struck with a sense of amazement. 

"We live here," we said, wondering and smiling. "We live here!" 

Isis

Industrial Design Is Hard

....But damned if it isn't fascinating.

It's a little embarrassing that I have been working my tail off for the past 5.5 weeks and don't have too much physical evidence for it. Even my brain feels about the same size, just moshier. But here's a few things I've made that look cool:

My hardest class by power of 100 is Digital Ideation, which is basically Maya with some easier programs mixed in. I'm not very good at it. In fact, I am kind of spectacularly bad at it. But there's not really an option to fail, so I keep plugging away, often til 3AM. I did print some abstractish shapes out on the 3D printer, and all but the Viking ship came out really well:

The little guy in front is a dragon

And here are some lamps:

I did an animation of one of them waking up with a hangover and puking. I'll post it when I figure out how. 

For all his assigning 15 hours of homework a week, the prof is pretty inspiring and into new materials, programs and technologies, so I enjoy that part. I'll eventually get better at the ideation part, but I already know that the digital world is never going to be easy for me. 

Another hard class, surprisingly, is drawing. I did so much of it in art school, still lives and portraits and such, but damned if I can draw a straight line. Again, since failure isn't an option, I'm improving. I made up a car:

It's based off that little Messerschmitt. The Messerschmitt is my favorite car. 

It was only after I turned it in that I realized the blue one doesn't have a rear window, taillights, or a trunk. I still want to go into transportation design! 

Today I did a better one:

I hope the prof agrees. That's my midterm. 

Another work-heavy class is ID Tech, which involves a lot of field trips. This week we had to make barcode scanners (complete with ideation boards and videos) and made a trip to Motorola's depressing campus in Ronkonkoma. Here's my model:

Blue foam, suckaaaas. It lit up, too!

I also made my first video ever. Here it is:

100 thanks to my wonderful colleagues for being actors

I'm gonna set ALL my videos to Lady Gaga until someone tells me to stop. I'm also gonna use lighting next time. 

And if I could spend my days making models and silly videos I would be very happy. 

Another thing I thought I could never, ever do was make neat, clean stuff. I've always been a messy bugger, and my artwork is a little messy and my room is really messy and I've never kept a desk clear for more than a day or two. But for 3D class I made a neat thing:

After 25 years. 

So for all the exhaustion and frustration and withdrawal from the world, and missing my gentleman-friend so much it hurts, I can't imagine a better thing to be doing. 

Now back to my epic animation of a bunch of kitchen appliances getting drunk and dancing (to Lady Gaga of course). Are you sensing a theme? 

--Isis

Fire and Rock I'm Coming Home To You

(AKA, The Sad Romance of Punk)

I've been listening to a lot of punk lately-- the driving rhythm keeps me moving, and the ragged sound reminds me of Philadelphia and the life I used to lead. While I'm so very busy, buried under dozens of digital shapes and looming deadlines and a skillset that I've absolutely no experience in, it's good to have music that's simple and anarchic and idealistic.

I think I mentioned that I like Mischief Brew before-- they're a ratty, DIY band that goes on about anarchy and the punk scene and like that. I take a certain pleasure in riding in to school early in the morning singing,

There's MUD ON MY BOOTS!
And BLOOD ON MY JEANS!
I'll take those pretty dresses
TEAR 'EM AT THE SEAMS!
Open up the gates of hell... Ah please
And I'll be back-
IN YOUR DAUGHTER'S DREAMS! 

Even if I remembered to put my face on, and my messenger bag is clean and my bike is upright and my hair is parted straight, songs like these keep a part of me in the world I loved so much-- the gentle souls with their community gardens and giant bike piles, kitchens full of drying herbs and cats and trashpicked art. Maybe I'm romanticizing. Here's a song about it:

Wish you were here. 

Not that there's anything wrong with Brooklyn, but I have no time for adventuring and riding out, and I don't recognize any faces on the road. I suppose it will take time, and until I'm not at school twelve+ hours a day I won't be able to make a community for myself (aside from my colleagues, who are generally wonderful). 

One of these colleagues drives along my rout, and informed me that I'm always riding behind the same guy. So now I expect some dude to wheel around and say WHY ARE YOU STALKING ME? I am really unobservant in the morning.

I think the one thing I object to about Brooklyn is a poorly calibrated sense of irony. People make such an effort to be coolest of the cool, so over everything, and then you get things like this: 

What happens when a mushroom gets stuck in the tubing?

And this, a bike powered steampunk carousel that combines everything young, wealthy, ironic Brooklyners like:

I'm actually ambivalent about this. Part of me thinks it's pretty neat.

I really need to go to a punk show. And a bike co-op. Wish I had time. I haven't even got time for laundry or groceries. Christmas break is gonna be very sociable... 

'...And its not long

Before I start to roam.
Seek out the patches on the punks,
Maybe a band I know.
I bet you in five minutes time,
We find that we know all the same
People, places, and roads.'

But damned if this city isn't beautiful. 

Off Governor's Island

Next post will be about industrial design! Today I made some scanners...

-Isis

A Fish that Walks and a Dog that Talks

Brooklyn is definitely having a good effect on me. I get up with more than 10 minutes to spare (15) so I have time to play with the cat and paint my eyebrows on. I've been following traffic rules. I always have two lights on me and I haven't forgotten them yet. And I am always astonished by something when I ride out...

Nope nope nope nope nope!

 I'm working harder than I ever have in my life.

It's astonishing how much my attitude has changed since undergrad. Then, I wanted easy classes and I wanted to excel and that was about it. Now, the one easy class I have makes me ragey-- this is really expensive and I need to get really good pronto! Make this harder! That was an inconceivable attitude three years ago. Now I have a clear goal in mind, a clear set of tasks I need to do to achieve that goal, and damned if I'm not putting every bit of energy I have into it.

I think undergrad was as much about growing up as it was about learning things. Now I'm more or less content with who I am as a person, I can really concentrate on being a person with a CAREER. That barely entered my mind in 2006...

My program crams four years of industrial design undergrad into one year of grad school, so the workload is kind of staggering. I can just barely keep on top of it, and my mind is always skipping ahead to the next thing that needs to be done, planning, allocating time. I expected to be more stressed, but so far, while there is stress, I've been uncharacteristically calm and peaceful. And whenever I do get jumpy there's always a nice spoiled Pratt Catt to chum with.

Meet Winston. He is chummy. 

And I do miss Philadelphia and my dear friends and sandwiches not costing $10 and everything being close and only having to ride four miles to my gentleman-friend's house. I miss the rivers and the space and the lazy long evenings in company. But it was time, past time. And I seem to be wired for new things and striving, rather than comfort and consistency.

 I DON'T miss subpar bagels though. And the light here has been extraordinary:

I just about fell off my bike.

Speaking of bikes, this Saturday is the Brooklyn Bike Jumble so if you're in NYC you should go. And if you're selling bikes two of my classmates need 'em-- a 50 and a 55ish respectively. I am not allowing myself to buy anything! 

I was singing this as I rode home tonight, making up verses when I ran out of real ones. It's been in my head all day:

Tomorrow's the day my man's gonna come...

Is it bad that I like her version better than the original?

We'll see how long this good mood lasts. Ask me again at finals! 

Isis OUT. 

The Land of Bixi

What I learned about Montreal:

There is a certain aggressive vigour* in the city's view of itself- here is the founder of McGill, for example:

Onward!

It's particularly clear in the behaviour of the cyclists, who all ride like maniacs. And there are so many of them! Everywhere we rode (and we rode a lot) there were scores of fit, reckless people on bikes zooming by and jamming up the intersections. They have a beautifully done and very well used bike share programme, and everywhere you look is another rack of public bikes (or Bixis):

SO MANY BIXIS

The fact that each Bixi weighs about 50 pounds does not deter Montreallers from riding them TOP SPEED in all directions. I have wistful fantasies of NYC getting to that point eventually, but we'd need some serious bike lane restructuring. Montreal's bike lanes make sense, go where you want to go, and are often protected by concrete curbs on BOTH sides. It was really nice. 

There was also lovely architecture and landscapes and some really dedicated surfers flopping around in a slightly turbulent section of the Saint Lawrence. There was a Biosphere,

One of the weirder world fair relics I've seen, though I think Knoxville's Sunsphere still wins

And the Highest Inclined Tower in the World,

We went up in a funicular

And an Octopus,

Previously sighted in Portland

And an unexpected screening of my favorite Swiss 80s art film which OH MY LACK OF GOD is on YouTube! Aaaaah!

I liked wandering around and not rushing at all, and it was lovely to spend time with my gentleman-friend. We tried to speak French, but couldn't quite shake a sense of ridiculousness even if we KNEW we were saying the words we meant to say. The bizarre Quebecois accent doesn't help. A friendly youth hostel employee informed us that Montreallers are all mean, much meaner than New Yorkers, but  Philadelphians are the meanest of all. It's a shame that everyone's perception of Phila appears to be based on It's Always Sunny. 

I stopped in Phila on the way back to Brooklyn to collect my cat, and while sitting in the Rocket Cat and trying to get my brain together after a 15 hour train ride and inadequate sleep I felt a great sense of homesickness. Mostly because the flyers pasted to the windows were so much cooler than the ones I'd find in an analogous Brooklyn cafe. I might just be going to the wrong cafes, but Phila has a lovely sense of community and I don't think this big, anxious city can replicate it. 

Dorian don't care, though. He was nervous for about an hour, then decided he was above it all. 

This is after having his way with my lovely new curtains

It's only been 24 hours and my cat is already cooler than I am. 

Orientation starts tomorrow. I am not gonna be a snob! I am not gonna be a snob! I am not gonna be a snob! Much. 

-Isis

*Spelled in Canadian to honour and humour our neighbour's flavours.  

Bells

Looks who's an authentic NYer! I rode from my house to Williamsburg twice and the second time I only got lost once! WHY does Brooklyn have so many different grids?

It's been a strange week, half riding out in all directions and half being comatose and waiting for things, like utilities guys to turn up with the internet. My new neighborhood is largely Caribbean, so it smells amazing and the bodegas have fruits and candies that I can't identify. It's near Prospect Park, so I've been diligently riding out on the little bike loop every day. I like it a lot more than Central Park, less crowded, less manicured. Just as many manic-faced roadies in Kissena jerseys, though.

AND THERE'S NOWHERE TO PARK.

People are a lot nicer than I expected. They say hello to me and smile (after the sort of up-and-down size-up that seems to be a New York thing). I got a giant bell and furiously ding at anyone who gets in front of me, and they say 'I like your bell!' which is disarming. 

Replace the constant squeaking with DING DING DING DING DING...

Since everything is so far away from everything else I am gonna be getting Champion style legs pretty soon. 

I made a point to make my room nice; it'll be good to have a sanctuary from the inevitable school-related stress. Packing half a three story house into a third of a three bedroom apartment isn't so easy, but NYC has closets which are deeper than six inches, so there's that. The house mojo won't be properly set until my cat and the housemate's cat move in (also, the housemates). I miss having a chubby little pounce monster wrecking my curtains. 

And I miss Phila a lot, or rather I miss the people in it. It's going to take a long time to build up a community as amazing as the one I enjoyed there. I did visit Time's Up, which is a bike co-op not unlike Bike Church in Phila. And everyone was super nice and welcoming and unsnotty and that made me very happy. Bike people seem to be marvelously similar no matter where they are, and it's immensely comforting to find a space where I feel automatically at home. I've never dealt with design types before, and it's been a long time since art school. The social aspect of grad school is scaring me out of me tree going to be an adventure. 

Tomorrow I and my gentleman-friend are checking out a small-boat club where we may keep our sailboat (WHICH FLOATS!!!!!!) Is there a way to talk about your boat without sounding like an entitled twitbag? If you say 'I'm building a boat' everyone says 'Cool!' but if you say 'I have a boat' everyone thinks,

Wot? Me?

At some point I will write about the boat's maiden voyage. It was.... memorable. 

There are a lot of churches in my neighborhood. St Francis of Assisi rings its bells at 15 minute intervals (not quite on the dot). It makes me acutely aware of time, and how much (if any) I am wasting. This whole city seems very much concerned with time, at least no one appears to be loafing. I'll quit loafing the minute school starts, but at the moment flaneur-ing my way about Brooklyn feels very strange. 

Qua? Moi? Oui!

And on THAT note, I am off to Montreal for a week. 

Hello, mad city?

-Isis

Young Werther Syndrome

I quit my job at last and have been trying to get my entire life shrunk to the size of a third of a smallish Brooklyn apartment. I made a pile of give away/donate clothes, and it is three feet high (with the cat on top). I have no idea I had so much crap in my closets, and its a lovely light feeling to get rid of so much. But you can tear my Musketeer suit (which comes complete with a mustache) from my cold, dead hands.

I went to Chapterhouse for a break and a coffee the other day, and started rereading the Sorrows Of Young Werther. I distinctly remember the first time I read it-- in the tiny Art Student's League library when I was around fourteen. The cover had this insufferable pudgy guy on it, looking Intense. I'll never forget him:

KLOPSTOCK!

Even then, at my most insufferable and Intense stage of life (though not the most pudgy) I recognized it as being a bit silly. It's Sturm und Drang* at its most unabashed, overwrought, thunderstorms-and-heaving-bosoms best. Very briefly, Young Werther falls in love with a spoken-for lady who likes him back but not quite enough and winds up marrying her intended anyway, whereupon Werther shoots himself in the head after a great deal of whining. 

Most of the book is taken up with Werther rhapsodizing about stuff. He gets excited about dewdrops, cows, his own excellent artistic ability, common people, pretentious poetry, etc.  He's pretty terrible, but so relatable. After I read the book the first time I happily diagnosed Young Werther Syndrome in all my younger male friends, and myself. Had I been a little older, I might have agreed with the previous owner of my current copy: 

Yup.

I'm glad Werther led me on to Steppenwolf and Narcissus and Goldmund and other better Romantic German Books. There is something fatally, inescapably attractive about the sense of dreadfully overwrought oblivion all these characters share. 

Speaking of oblivion, much of the final pages of Young Werther are taken up with him translating Ossian, who was an Ancient Gaelic Poet. It's mostly vague emotional exposition with some mist and bogs thrown in. I looked up Ossian, and discovered that he was an invention of an eccentric Eighteenth Century Scottish politician. Its oddly fitting that Werther should be pouring out his self-involved soul in the words of a hoax. Goethe didn't know this of course, and was merely hopping onto the already highly popular Ossian bandwagon. Ossian (or rather, his creator MacPherson) certainly taps into the wistful yearning and wanderlust and cliffs so dear to the romantics, but the poems themselves really aren't very good. 

And now, apropos of nothing at all, may I present a hillbilly dancing with a raccoon:

CHAIN CHAIN CHAIN!

That totally made my day. 

Isis

But I Will Never Wear a Bimbo Shirt

Yesterday I went to my first professional soccer game. It was fun! A bunch of impossibly buff guys ran around in circles and fell over and writhed in apparent agony until some call or other was called, whereupon they leaped to their feet and continued scooting around with renewed vigor. Not that they weren't impressive! I can't so much as run around the block and they maintained a level of absolute sprightliness for an hour and a half. I must say though, the Philadelphia Union has a branding problem: 

They look thrilled

I was impressed that the swarms of bros swarming the stadium were happy to wear their Bimbo jerseys with a complete lack of irony. The look in this guy's eyes at the sponsorship party though...

....

They do make an effort to get English speakers to stop snickering....

But I snickered.

I liked how non-gross the fans were-- compared to hockey fans, who are kind of violent and terrible, they just yell useful advice and clap politely. 

The weeks are flying by, and it's astonishing to me that I'll be leaving Phila in a month. It's getting more bitter than bittersweet, really. I'm gonna miss everything.

It's not bitter to donate all my cool weather work clothes, though-- one of the reasons I'm going to grad school is that I want to work somewhere that doesn't leave me encrusted in half an inch of filth every day. Not that there aren't a lot of cool things about working in a metal shop, but looking like a scruffball every day for three years taught me that I don't like looking like a scruffball. 

With that in mind, here's how to not look like a scruffball on really short notice if you happen to be one (inspired by a conversation with Miss Laura who never looks as scruffy as me). 

Rayon is your friend. You can scrunch a rayon dress or top into the bottom of your messenger bag and it will emerge looking just fine. 

Also, make sure that anything wet in your messenger bag is sealed hermetically. Also, things that can become wet. You try getting melted chocolate out of a light blue blouse. 

Don't worry about clean pants. If your jeans are a mess but your top is obviously expensive, it's chic.  Somehow you don't get the same effect the other way-- a grimy Cinelli t-shirt and a shantung silk skirt looks weird. 

By obviously expensive I mean it has a fancy label and you got it for five bucks at AIDS Thrift. 

The awl on your Swiss Army knife is great for de-grubbing your nails. 

Slightly beat is scruffy. Really, really beat is hip. Don't ask me why. I had cloth mess bag in college that looked drab and shabby and made me feel broke. A girl I knew had an identical bag (ten bucks from the army-navy store) and it was covered in paint, mud, dust, grime, slime and mold, and made her look like a gypsy bohemian. So if you can't make something better and you don't want to chuck it, make it worse. 

Don't ever wear white. 

No matter how nuts your hair is, if your part is straight it will look like you did it on purpose. 

There is no reason to wear crappy, itchy, pilly fabric. Even to a metal shop. Ever. 

If it's cool enough for a scarf, wear one and wear a nice one. If it's bright and eye grabbing no one will notice that the rest of you is covered in bike. But take it off around power tools that spin. 

On that note, have a nice assortment of coats and jackets. Then if you have to look nice immediately after looking scruffy you can just keep your coat on and sweat in the name of sleekness. Also, hug your cat goodbye BEFORE you put your coat on in the morning (I can never remember to do this. Next coat I buy will be Dorian colored). 

Don't try biking in flowy wraparound skirts. They will unwrap. 

Anyone have any more suggestions? Pretty soon I'll have to present a reasonable facsimile of an efficient, sleek design-y New Yorker. I draw the line at Ray Bans, though. Why does everyone have Ray Bans?

And finally, the Tour opened with a team bus getting stuck under the finish line with the riders only 12k away:

They eventually let down the tires.

You can't make this up. 

--Isis

Stop the World

Many months ago a guy called the shop I work at to see if we could make him a special bicycle. I happened to get the phone and we got to talking. He told me he was stationed in Afghanistan, and planned to devote himself to helping kids with muscular dystrophy on his return. I think he mentioned having a relative with MD, but I could be wrong. The bike was to have a seat in the front so he could take kids riding with him. I told him that would be no problem, and booked the bike into our build queue.

He called fairly frequently after that, to talk about his bike or just talk. That bike seemed to symbolize the civilian life he was looking forward to so much, and he said he thought about it all the time. Once I asked him what it was like in Afghanistan. He was quiet so long I thought the connection had broken, and then he just said that you get used to it. I always wished him luck when he rang off.

We finished the bike, but there was no word from him. He'd said he was sometimes hard to reach, so we just hung the bike up and waited. But weeks turned into months and I got concerned. I googled his name, but it's a common one and I felt like a creeper and stopped.

Then today I read an email from him. He'd been severely wounded and implied that he didn't expect to ride again. He asked if we could sell his bike for him. 'It sucks, but that's war.'

I had to hide my face in my arms for a minute. It's easy to dismiss the military as jingoistic and bloodthirsty, especially with all the news about sexual assault and brutality against civilians. But one forgets (I forget) that these are just young people like myself, with passions and idealism and dreams that they cling to to get through hard times.

I'm glad this guy survived. I hope he does manage to ride again.

No pictures or goofiness today. I'm just feeling weary and sad with the world, that sends its young to get blown to bits and lets its wealthy and powerful commit extraordinary crimes.

This world is too much with us late and soon...

Isis

Never mind, a picture: if you happen to be in Pennsport and you meet a hairless cat, he needs to go home.

Goodbye Mad Industry: Le Cirque du Cyclisme

I'm being a very bad blogger; between my own distractibility and the Great Kitten Emergency the last thing on my list is blithering on about things I do. For the record, the Great Kitten Emergency is under control and everyone is safe and well (and out of my studio). A marketing major told me that the best way to get readers and money is to put up cute cat videos, so here's a cute cat video:

SO FUZZY! Also, where's my ten grand?

Anyway!

Last weekend I went to Le Cirque du Cyclisme, which is a classic bicycle rally. A lot of vintage bikes show up, and a lot of vintage bike fans. Some framebuilders come too, to show off and socialize. Now, as much as I gripe about the bike world, the lack of money and organization, the egos and the inefficiency, you will not find nicer people anywhere. The first year I went to the Cirque I hadn't even graduated college, didn't know a soul and had a wicked case of bronchitis, but I managed to make several friends and buttonhole my current boss and get him to give me a job.

Le Cirque happens in a Best Western in Leesburg Virginia, which is one of those heavily curated small towns with historical log cabins and artisan cupcakes. There's also a nice long rail trail I rode on for a bit with other Cirque attendees, and apparently some lovely rolling hills that are just great for riding but I din't find out because all the group rides left at 7.30 AM which is completely barbaric. Everyone (except my lazy tail) rides out in the morning, dorks out over each others' bikes and listens to seminars in the afternoon, and eats and drinks too much in the evening. There's stuff like this:

Drillium!

And modern stuff:

The finest lug

And a swap meet:

Old n fancy parts yo

And for lots more pictures you should check out this guy. I never take enough pictures of anything. 

On Saturday my gentleman-friend and I skipped out and went to a boat festival on the Chesapeake. We're building our own sailboat out of a kit from these guys, and the Cirque happened to coincide with their Okoumefest.   There were boats on the shore,

Just as fancy as the bikes

And boats in the bay:

There was one patrol boat that might have been patrolling for amateurs overboard, or not. 

I haven't sailed in ten years and my gentleman-friend hasn't sailed at all, but the nice and harassed staff cheerfully shoveled us into various boats and watched us flounder around. There wasn't much wind for the first one (a twelve foot bathtub) or the second one (a skerry-- like ours! with a busted tiller) but by the time we got in the third one, a dory with a sloop rig, the wind had picked up and we actually got moving. Which was great! I remembered why I loved sailing so much, the sense of speed and adventure skimming over the water (or in this case wallowing, since the friendly staff had been helpfully installing the rudder and swamped us pretty good and didn't have a bailer). Then I noticed that the divot cut in the transom for the tiller was either in the wrong place or something wasn't installed right, because we could only turn to starbord. We made it in eventually and if anyone was laughing at us I didn't notice. 

OH MY LACK OF GOD I CAN'T WAIT TO GO SAILING FOR REAL!!

I noticed that the boat people and the bike people were more or less interchangeable-- iron grey hair, mostly male, eyes gleaming with zealous perfectionism. Those sorts of people don't often get to let their nerd flags fly quite as high as they'd like, so at events like Cirque and Okoumefest they are brimming over with enthusiasm and generous knowledge. It's the loveliest atmosphere. 

Once back, covered in Chesapeake, we sat around with a bunch of fellow framebuilders and chatted and complained. It's a shame that most independent bike manufacturers exist in a constant state of financial anxiety. Really nice bikes take a long time-- and the current market just does not allow most builders to charge what their bikes are worth. It's a lot like fine art and fine craft, I think, where even top tier artisans are barely making ends meet. I would love to see custom bike builders doing better and getting more for individual frames, but this does contradict my philosophy (and many of theirs' too) that bikes should be for everyone, and affordable. 

There is exactly one custom framebuilder I know who is doing really well for himself. I'm not going to name him, and he's not famous. He works alone and makes about 200 frames a year which is a huge amount for one guy. Once I asked him how he managed and he gave a deranged giggle and said, 

'I do 'em in BATCHES!!!' and that was all I got. 

So there you go, I guess. Do 'em in batches. 

I wish it was possible to do better in this industry. There is so much talent and creativity and good people who deserve the best. I feel a bit of a traitor for leaving, for entering industrial design and most likely not building bikes anymore. I'm going to miss the camaraderie, the people, the unabashed nerdiness. I promised to go back next year. 

Isis

Oh Brooklyn!

As I've said before, I am moving to Brooklyn at the end of this summer. Despite having grown up in the New York suburbs, I don't know Brooklyn at all-- except for its reputation and the art museum (I roll my eyes at the former and like the latter). And I know how to get from the Music Hall of Williamsburg to Grand Central in time for the last train. But that's about it.

So I spent much of Saturday puttering around on a Dahon seeing what I could see. Here's some preliminary thoughts (and goodness knows I'll probably prove myself wrong in all sorts of ways come August).

Fixed gears are still a thing. Except now they have  tiny gear ratios, cruiser bars and little porteur racks on the front. I guess the first wave of fixiesnobs all blew their knees out? Also, no one wears helmets. 

Speaking of bikes, the lane situation is really confusing. They are everywhere, but they're also all over the road. I've heard enough horrific stories about cops fining cyclists for putting so much as a spoke out of line, so I found myself yawing all over the road trying to stay between my designated stripes. And the cabs give a lot less elbow room than their gentler Philadelphia cousins.

Riding through Williamsburg I got a lot of censorious looks from guys in hats: at my bare shoulders and  midriff from the Hasidic guys in their giant fur schtriemels, and at my dorky little bike from the scrawny hipsters in Cinelli caps.

Bed Stuy looks a lot like South Philly, if it were expecting a siege. Bars over everything. And no bars, to speak of. Or grocery stores. Or cafes. But plenty of hair salons. I might have just been going down the wrong streets.

The less bourgie areas have a layer of grime over them that is far more aggressive and permanent looking than laid-back Philly could ever achieve.

There is a bike vending machine!

PROOF!!

Brooklyn Bridge Park is stunningly gorgeous. I love rivers, bridges, and manicured parks, and this has the lot. I counted no less than five weddings. One of them involved a tandem bike, and reminded me to never try riding in a crinoline.

Red Hook is visually amazing too. There are giant fort-like buildings with gothic shutters along the waterfront. Out of sight of the river, it looks like Portland wants to look- so hip and quirky your teeth hurt. But at least it did it first.

It takes a kind of hiccup, a shift of perception, to see myself as a New Yorker again. For the first four years that I lived in Philadelphia I insisted on an outsider status- I wore black and walked fast and cultivated a superior attitude (in retrospect, I wasn't being a super-sophisticated New Yorker, I was being a hipster).

But then I fell in love and got a cool job and an independent life, and New York became the foreign place. Days flew by, happy, quiet days. I resented going to New York, almost, because it represented something I'd convinced myself I didn't need. But I got restless eventually, restless enough to give up the lovely, easy life I've led for nearly three years. And the other day, sitting by the river with the two great bridges overhead and the sun frying my black clothes, I thought 'I'm coming home.' 

--Isis

OH RIGHT, HEADLINE OF THE DAY!

Woman Finds Toad in Can of Beans

You're welcome.

Sorrow Fatigue and Eight Shiny Things

I spent too much of last week glued to the news- everything from Gawker to the New Yorker- and feeling a mixture of sick fascination, guilt for that fascination, and exhaustion.

Here's a good summation from Lindy West at Jezebel (Don't read if you're averse to cussing.) Incidentally, I've been reading her ever since she wrote for the Stranger and MAN has her writing improved. Smart, smartly evolving lady writers turn my crank in all kinds of directions.

Also, oh my lack of god, I wanted to name my cat Tamerlane. A good thing there was nothing in his goofy little face to justify the name of a hotshot historical warrior man/deranged Chechen yobbo.

So here are some things that are nice and not sad and that I think about to give my mind a rest from being miserable and anxious, which doesn't help anything but is impossible to avoid.

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1) The other day I was in one of those trashy South Street shoe stores buying their ONE pair of untrashy flats, and I noticed those giant neon heels and thought only a drag queen would wear those. And sure enough, there was a pretty dude trying them on. 'You look skanky!' his companion said. 'I know!' he said, and bought them. 'I'm always right,' I thought.

2) Chris Hoy, my favorite track cyclist, announced his retirement with extraordinary grace. While I'm sorry to see him go, it's unusual for an athlete to recognize he's done and not keep plugging on until he is embarrassed. Also, an excuse to post the legendary Hoy legs:

Eek!

3) The inimitable Bike Snob is doing a ride and book signing next month. Ya'll better be there! 

4) The simplest songs can be amazing: 

All you can do is do what you must.

5) If you can get through this video without tearing up a little, you're a cyborg:

6) France legalized gay marriage too! Also, who knew how many bigots conservatives there were messing up the boulevards? Well sucks to be them. 

7) The swallows are back! I saw them zipping around the Schuylkill when I rode out the other day. Soon the tubby fledglings will be popping their heads out of the nest boxes, gaping away. I love swallows. 

I think the one in the hole is an adult. Fledgelings are fatter. 

8) A blog post I wrote for work featuring my opinions on Claes Oldenburg's horrible paintbrush is creeping up the google results for 'Paintbrush drip Philadelphia'. It is number five. Let's make it number one, shall we?

AND, with that shameful bit of self promotion, I am out. 

Coming up will be a SERIOUS essay about writing about places that don't exist. I'm working on it, but the world keeps persisting to exist and it's getting to me. So it's taking some time. 

--I