Aug 23 P. Carter, baseball, Hank, bells
Here's a story about a major Bob Dylan fan, fisherman, kind of a "fisher of men" too, and bicycle rider:
Baseball's big in Japan. Bigger than it is here, based on an enthusiasm:physical size of the country ratio.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/sports/japan-high-school-baseball.html
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I'm sorry to say, but happy for him, that GM Dave is leaving in a week or so to work for UC, where he'll make more money, get (even) more paid holidays, and have a five minute walk to work. Dave and Marcy are newish parents to Hank (Henry Richard) Schonenberg, who has spend most of his Wednesdays here, and we'll miss him as much as we miss Dave, but for different reasons.
Hank, ten months, is one round-headed baby. In the head department, his head makes Charlie Brown's look like Bart Simpson's.
Dave and Marcy are lucky to have Hank; he's lucky to have them, and we were lucky to have Dave and Hank here as much as we did. Hasta la vista y bueno suerte, amigo y su muchacho pequeno quien tienes un cabezo como un pelota! -- Apologies to people who actually speak Spanish, but given that I never have any call to, and I was a B-minus student in highschool spanish in 1972, that's good enough, I'm afraid.
We may need to hire a part-time bike packer, so Cory can work more with people; and we'll just have to figure it out.
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This is an interesting thing, this whole thing, pretty interesting if you like (or don't) reindeer, and if you don't either, just skip the whole thing, but it's not long:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/17/science/reindeer-carcasses-lightning.html
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on another science note, because, little known fact, I like amber like mad.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/science/beetle-amber-cycad.html
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This is a poem but at the end it will kind of be relevant, but not necessary. You can skip it, but I advise against that.
The BELLS
by Edgar Allen Poe
Hear the sledges with the bells—
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
II.
Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!
III.
Hear the loud alarum bells—
Brazen bells!
What tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now—now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling.
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells—
Of the bells—
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!
IV.
Hear the tolling of the bells—
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people—ah, the people—
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone—
They are neither man nor woman—
They are neither brute nor human—
They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A pæan from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the pæan of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the pæan of the bells—
Of the bells:
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells—
Of the bells, bells, bells—
To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells—
Of the bells, bells, bells—
To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells—
Bells, bells, bells—
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
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The first five or so times I tried to read that, I found myself thinking, "OK, I get it, they ring a lot, but is this a real poem? Gimme something I couldn't write myself," and I stopped about a tenth of the way into it. I came across it again during a time when I needed a break from more complicated poem. When you read it though, you get a deeper appreciation of bells than you had before, and mine was already pretty deep, which may be why I kept going back to this one.
Mark here isn't your typical "bell guy," he's sort of the Yves San Laurent to my Clem Kadiddlehopper, and that's most clear in the way we do bells on our own bikes. Mark's clever way, using a spring bell and the plastic clamp from a plastic reflector bracket, which comes with many complete bikes, including our CLEMs. I think John Law requires they be included. Here's his slick bell rig.
it goes under the grip, the hammer thing ready for your thumb-thing.
Clemmy clamp gone, replaced by the braket and wha appears to be an M5 bolt, but it might be an M4. I don't feel any need to find out which, because if you're a DIY-type bike guy, you shouldn't have one without the other, and you should have lenty of both around.
Mark's eye view of it, tucked in behind. Notice Mark's Dutch Paddle Grips.
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We're getting these in. Well, we got them in--two colors (silver and brass) and two sizes (1-inch, 1 1/4-inches). They look like we're trying too hard to be homey, but the jingle bell has a lot going for it. Easy to jingle, and it makes your bike sound friendly and noisy, as opposed to a sharp pokey ping--which, come on, is not that bad, but the jingle way is another way, and you don't have to love one and hate the other.
Sold as a bell with an 18-inch cord, and there are other ways to rig it, and other places. Roman hangs one off his saddle. Baskets would work. Then grip area gives you control over the jingling, but that's not always important. It's good downtown when you're riding on illegal sidewalks, a particular passion of mine.
Here's a LINK to the bells.
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Tarrifs won't affect us much. SOME, I'm sure, but Taiwan isn't China. It may be a "Republic of China," and shares a language, but governs itself. Trek looks to be screwed, and most other big bike companies...and everybody else, too.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/21/business/economy/trump-china-tariffs-consumers.html
This isn't good for us, just bad for them. The tarrifs won't bring back MANY jobs. There's not much manufacturing going on here anymore. The factories and staff aren't just on hold until they get the call again, they're gone. I know there are exceptions, but none who can do the volume and quality, and then there's what do you do about all the parts that aren't made here anymore, too? I wonder what $30M in tarrifs could do if invested in American bike factories. I'm thinking--it sounds like a lot, but it wouldn't go far, and you'd have to train workers and then in a few years maybe they'd unionize and want $60/hour, which all sounds great, but the big makers to to China b/c they can't afford Taiwan anymore, and I just don't know.
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G