Signs everywhere. They’re not blocking out the scenery, they are the scenery. No longer looking at them, looking through them, over them, around them, taking them for granted, a given, a premise, a baseline riff, on or off, left or right, one way or another.
In situ signs blend in with everything. Especially when moving in traffic at traffic speed. But when a bomb cyclone blew through Seattle in November, this one was torn off its sign post, making it easier to see in a new light, in another context. To get up-close, to get hands-on, to realize how big and reflective and heavy and awkward and over-built traffic signs are.
This sign is 48” x 30” the largest in the collection so far and it needs its own wall space. By the way, I didn’t steal it, I just picked it up off the ground after a 28 day observation period in which I patiently watched it get kicked from here to there propped up, knocked down and moved around. A month is plenty of time to plan for another context.
I’ve been curating a collection of arrows and arrow signs for several years. Ground-scores, thrift stores, gifts and yard sales.
I don’t follow the academic calendar, I just roll around in it. Doing the same routes every day, plus or minus 50,000 students, faculty, staff and what-nots.
Here and now falls in the midst of a break between quarters with lots of open spaces, locked-down empty buildings and a little more down time than usual. Idle hands, as you know, are tools of the devil. But in my hands I hold 400 pages of Rachel Kushner’s latest and greatest book, Creation Lake
When it first came out I read a blurb about it and forgot it. Secret agent “noir” books are not my style. Then a few days ago I picked it up at the library and took a closer look. This is not your average book. I’ve read a couple Kushner books in the past and she’s a real badass.
I’ve read 47% of those 400 pages but I can 100% fully recommend that you read this book.
So I went through the motions of doing my job until 9am and then rolled back to Bulldog for some coffee. When I strolled in the owner was there saying “the espresso bar is closed but we have drip coffee” and I smiled thinking this is my dream coffeeshop:
pilder’s coffee
order anything you want, all those foo-foo, poo-poo, shmoopy-poopy espresso drinks that people drink, with every possible fucked up labor intensive bullshit combination… …we’ll let you spit all that shit out and we’ll charge you for it, but you’ll get a cup of drip coffee, just like everyone else
people love us on yelp
The photo I’ve poached here is Nathaniel, a godfather of coffee and a godfather of the U-district. It’s old and it’s not mine, but I poached it because it speaks to me on several levels. I met Nathaniel 29 years ago when I worked at Kids Co and his kid was in kindergarten. He was an owner of Cafe Allegro. I was an aimless liberal arts grad about to get a messenger job for the summer before grad school. Now his kid has her own kids and he’s retired. But he’s still a pillar in the 98105. Allegro, Bulldog and Big Time are old school U district establishments and I like that, that old school vibe. Sincerely for real. Really. These days I see Nathaniel once in a while on the street or at Big Time and he's a rock star rocking on.
This academic calendar year my coffee-beer continuum has consistently been Bulldog <---> Big Time. Kicking off the day and then wrapping it up on the way back home.
Just the other day I do does did git got get a card from Shaggy. The latest in the C-n-V holiday series of high quality hand built small batch cards from Milwaukee.
Staring off into space in a sleep deprived stupor sometimes reading the New Yorker until I can’t no more. Somewhere between here and there a woman got on the train with her pristine new e-bike and hoisted it on the hook next to my single speed. For about seven seconds I tried to compare and contrast the two and make a mental list of all the variables that could fall out of place to make them each dysfunctional. Then I gave up because I couldn’t keep track of them all.
I ride parsimonious single speeds and Occam’s Razor utility bikes. My tainted biased point of view comes from a consistently constant continuous cost-benefit analysis. I feel fine talking shit about e-bikes. I don’t own one, I just ride one all day, and it’s not just an e-bike, it’s a $15,000 electric ass bathtub that kicks ass. The e-assist is what makes my job possible.
I don’t have to pay for it, or work on it, or call customer service with any questions about it. I just ride it, Mr McFeely like for real, really. While a guy named Alistair builds up the fleet of e-cargo bikes and keeps them all running and repairs all the little shit. All the while I remain blissfully ignorant of the nitty gritty e-bike mechanics, electronics and hydraulics.
As I’m riding in and around the 98195 I’m watching all the chuffers out there on their e-bikes and scooters and skeets wizzing all around me cluelessly. They don’t ride like cyclists. They ride like e-bike ipso facto assholes.
I looked up this WING e-bike and you can too. That integrated light top tube thing made me Van Moof in my mouth. As those in the know know that’s not a good thing and they also know this shit was probably made in the same old Van Moof factory.
My recurring Scattante dreams are going Van Moof.
A mail order e-bike, some assembly required, for $1500… What could possibly go wrong? The feel-good honeymoon lasts about 48 hours or less before things go to shit. Bolts finger tight. Everything half-assed. Then you’re on hold with customer service in China while your local bike shop says “go fuck yourself. Don’t bring that shit in here” and you're sitting on a pile of e-bike shit. Heavy and slow and annoying.
I suggest spending more money on a bike from a shop that will stand behind their product and be able to service it when issues arise. Perhaps you could get a Wombi from Davey Oil.
…the bartender makes a mental note, smirks and ponders the statistical significance, taking into account each patron's date of birth and residential zip code
for thousands of years mathematicians have run the numbers
twenty two divided by seven
for 43 years anthropologists, sociologists, economists, actuaries, scammers, scratch ticket buyers and coin flippers have been calling 867-5309
A book I had as a kid, a book I revisit sometimes, like today when it's 29 outside and I'm wearing fleece-lined action slacks cut off at the knee
these are not the $246 gravel bike shorts you've read about on the Radavist. These are $25 eBay pants. They get the job done. So well in fact I got another pair so I can Mr Rodgers out of my black work cutoffs into my grey home cutoffs.
