Various on March 1
March 2, 2010
We shot the Smile Train video and they probably won't take it, meaning I probably won't get the part. We're shooting for $25K in donations, as you may or may not know. I think 90 of you have donated something (with several double and a few triple donations.
You know the deal:
http://www.smiletrain.org/
It is a good deal. You donate, you get credit here, and for every $250, a child with a heck of a nasty defective mouth gets it fixed, so he or she can eat, drink, talk, and hang out with other kids. Just have a look, and then here's other stuff---
We're working on panniers. Had some before, are doing them again, updated and ultra spiffy. But not, like, ______ spiffy. More modern and slack, natural and detailed. Nothing against some, and you might not like ours, but we're going to like them. Bags: No matter what you do, somebody's going to tell you, or at least think, that you barely missed the mark.
You know who hits too many marks? Topeak. Ever seen a Topeak multi-tool or trunk bag? The guy must be a genius, but it's toooo much. It's too indoorsy, too fretfrul, too spreadsheet-checklist, and fiddly. A bag or a widget needs a little room for change or improvement, and not in the god-fearing way of oriental rugs, or the Japanese way of wabi-sabi, but more like a fine boot in mud or something basic, that anybody can do without an emperor or king or duress or enlightenment as part of the picture.
There's that old-and-often requoted quote from Antoine de Saint Exupery, the guy who wrote The Little Prince and Wind, Sand, and Stars, which was much better if you ask me, but longer and less famous. I first saw it out of context in the Chouinard Equipment catalogue in 1972. I borrowed the same quote for a Bstone catalogue, and I think somewhere along the line in Rivendell's history we put it up someplace. Since then, I've seen others use it, including other bike companies. It's fine, dandy, it's a good, thought-provoking quote that warrants the circulation, but I wonder if it can be improved upon. Here it is (by memory, honestly, so I may get a word wrong....although my memory for such things is famous among those who know me well):
"In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there's no longer anything to add, but when there's no longer anything to take away....when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness."
That's pretty close. "Attained" might be "achieved, and I"m not sure if the word "down" is in there, and there might be a "left" missing between "anything" and "to."
"The "stripped down to its nakedness" always seemed to take away from it, because it makes you picture a nude, and the quote is supposed to be about objects. So from that point of view at least, the quote could have stopped after "away." But everybody always included the nakedness part, always.
I've always seen it with the elipses (the three dots . . .) that usually indicate unquoted text, but -- I can't find my copy of Wind, Sand, and Stars to verify this, but I think the original passages in the book had those there, too, in which case there was no missing text, but it was just the part he wanted you to pause on. It was a good book and he was a good writer and that was probably the style of the day, before M-dashes, the long dashes we use now in place of semicolons sometimes. M-dashes don't show up in these blogs, something to do with how the program works. They're ignored like they aren't there at all and the words just run togetherlike this. I put an M-dash between "together" and "this" there.
Back to the quote and the message behind it----- (that's how I simulate M-dashes here); It's one thing to appreciate the idea of getting rid of junky stuff and all, but if you take the quote close to literally and live and shop by it, you might end up with pocketless pants, and a house full of Shaker furniture (which I don't put into the same category as pocketless pants, I'm just making a point), and there's no flourish or decoration anywhere, because, you know, it's just non-functional.
No bike would have a head badge, no lug would have any undemanded curve, it would be against the rule to hang a picture on a wall, and we'd all live lives of extreme violation and debauchery --- from that point of view.
This relates to bags, a lot. No matter how much you may like a bag, you can probably think of some way to improve it. The bag of ours that gives you the most for the least amount of money----hard to say, but maybe the Sackville SSS. One strap, one pocket, no provision underneath it for lashing it to a rack, and it's only $105.
But, you could say it ought to have a kangaroo pocket on top, like the Medium and Large do, or that it should have a cell phone pocket inside, or something. But then it might cost $120, or $130, and it wouldn't be such a good value. It's where it has to be, and it holds a tremendous lot for what it is.
The new panniers will be here by June----is the target. We may do a vegan version also. I'm testing a new other kind of bag, which started as a copy of a Swiss Medic bag, which, if memory serves, Albert Eisentraut's children used as a lunch bag in school for a few years. He saw me with one once and told me that. I've used them on rides for 30 years or so, and the new GrabSack is bigger and way more useful, and I really wonder how it'll go. We do these things becasue we like them, and hope there are others who will, too.
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In a month we'll have a new garment, a commercial version (MUSA) of something I made up thirty years ago. It is a simple, cheap, super useful thing for cold or cool weather, and I can't believe nobody else makes anything even close to it. Some of you will figure out what I'm taking about, but it's coming soon, and we're getting only 100 of them. They're made from remaining fabric from other stuff that somebody else, not us, had made in red, orange, and tangerine (reddish orange). I used the sample tonite, and I'll see if somebody else at work wants to try it tomorrow and the next day. It's not the kind of thing that'll sell itself, but it is the only thing like it in the world, I think.
One of the guys reads a guys magazine, not sure if it's GQ or not, but he brought in the current issue with an article about cell phone dangers, and wi-fi dangers, and now we're all taking that seriously. I predict there will be lead-lined cell phone holsters within the year.
We're going to do another seersucker. They''re always popular, and nothing beats them for hot-weather riding. It's tough as heck to find fantastic seersucker fabric. Ninety nine percent of it is thin pastel stripes, which are fine, but not unique enough for us. So we're working on a modified Dress Stewart tartan, but instead of the white, it would be a soft blue, with a grey tint. These shirts cost us $40, we have to buy 300 of them and we'll sell them for $65. Not enough. Those are the lowest clothing margins in the universe, but I personally want to have four of these shirts, and we do get requests. Please consider buying one. They're made in the US, which is unusual, and they're seersucker long-sleeves, which is almost freaky (but super functional), and they're a unique variant of a classic tartan that will never, ever be duplicated again. Plus, they have two-not-one chest pockets, each with a button. Details, USA made, unique.....and we gotta sell them.
OK.....back to Smile Train. Did you know that a botox treatment costs about $400 per shot, that most people get shot in five spots on their face, and that it lasts 6 months?
That's $2,000 for half a year of tinier wrinkles. A cleft surgery costs $250 and lasts a lifetime...and the results are more dramatic, too. Click on the link (here again) and see if it makes sense. I know times are hard. We're almost at $25K, which is enough to fix a hundred mouths.
Here's a good page with answers to lots of questions:
http://www.smiletrain.org/site/PageServer?pagename=donate_faq#5
http://www.smiletrain.org/
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