# fail
A few years ago, I had about twelve bicycles that I wanted to purge and distribute into Wicker, Logan, Uki, Bucktown…I placed a handful of them on CL and they all sold really quickly. One of the bicycles, a red vintage Puch with a coaster brake on it with huge riser bars from the seventies built like a tank, was the last one I posted. It was heavy but crazy stable and I listed it as “crazy sturdy single speed vintage with rare coaster brake set up.” Talked about how it had no scratches on it, how I had never seen a coaster mechanism which works as smoothly. The type of post that a handful of snobby collectors would jump on and want to see. One reply said the following: “Is this bicycle suitable for one handed operation? I would love to come see it if it is.” Of course, this instantly would be the first and only person I would reply to. Was he some mysterious one armed man? Was he someone who wanted to use his other hand for holding his guitar? Was he just some hipster collector who was being a smart ass?
I answered the door and he was standing there. A young slinky 21 year old Asian kid fresh out of college. One hand holding his helmet, the other in a sling with his entire arm.
“Stanley”
“Mike, nice to meet you.”
“Shit, I get it now, sorry about your arm”
“Ahh, how it goes. How it goes.”
“I hear that. I got hit last year and had no use of my hand for a month. I feel you. Let me just tell you, when you get that off you’re going to feel amazing again.” *insert foot in mouth here*
*Hesitant smile* “Uhh, its not really like that. I won’t really ever be getting my arm back.”
“Permanent?”
“Yeah. I pretty much destroyed it in an accident.”
“Shit, i’m sorry. If I can ask, what happened?”
“I was running on Ashland. I just like to run a lot. And it was at night and the driver wasn’t really looking when I was crossing the street and caught me good.”
“Whoa.”
“Yeah, my arm got stuck on his rearview mirror and i got pulled then he slammed the brakes and I flew. Every muscle in the socket got ripped out and I was unconscious for a few days.”
“That’s crazy.”
“I spent a few months just depressed and stared out of a window.”
“Can you get a robot arm or some prosthetic or something?”
“Haha. Yeah, I thought of that too and I think that’s one of the first things I asked when I came to.”
“Heavy.”
“Yeah, in order to do that you have to have the muscles in the shoulder socket. All of mine were entirely destoyed. They said I could just take the entire arm off or leave it in this sling for the rest of my life. I figured I’d rather at least look normal, you know.”
“Yeah. How’s it been for you?”
“Well, your post actually. It was interesting. I see a lot of people on bicycles. I was depressed for the past six months and recently just realized it might be a good way to get outside. You know, something I could do with one hand, maybe get some groceries, maybe just get some exercise, some sunshine. I wanted a single speed but I wouldn’t really be able to use a hand brake safely.”
“Yeah, bicycles are good for that.”
I ran upstairs to grab the 40 lb. bike and he smiled when he saw it. I pulled it to the center of the street for him, smiled and handed it out for him. With is one hand, he popped his helmet on and was struggling to clasp the helmet on. His hand slipped twice and he let out a sigh.
“Things are a lot slower now. I’m sorry.”
I leaned the bicycle on my hip and reached over and clasped him into his helmet. Perhaps one of the more tender moments I’ve ever had with another Asian man. Felt in many ways like I was standing in front of myself a decade ago.
He grabbed the bicycle and stepped over it.
“Well, let’s see how this goes. It’s been a few years.”
I stepped back and he pushed the bicycle forward, took one pedal a half cadence forward and fell off and caught himself from falling with his leg. He did that about three times, finally made a full candence before completely falling off the bicycle and landing on his sling side therefore not being able to catch himself in the way that all of us would. He shook his head and got back up and tried it again, a few missteps then he figured out his balance. He rode about fifty feet and turned around real slow while still riding it, rode back and stopped in front of me.
“Seems alright. Will take awhile but I think this could work.”
We went back to my stoop and talked about what its been like for him the past few months, his job, my job, the east coast.
“So i’ll take it. 275, right?”
*pause* “Dude, seriously, you can have it for free. Keep your money. Yours.”
*longer pause* “You know, I appreciate that but. But I don’t want to live the rest of my life with people feeling sorry for me. If it’s ok, i’d like to pay you in full if that’s cool.”
Friday, April 20th. 6:43pm on Division Sitting at Alliance as he was riding by. He saw me while he was approaching. Letting go of his hand, riding with no hands, he waved. I waved a return and nodded.
Proper Fridays as a reminder. “It wasn’t meant to be a playground; it is a place of memories, a silent, healing place, in which to gather one’s forces.” -Henry Miller
Susan
[video]
Fiction:
On the table are six smartphones and three tablets: a 4s, two Galaxy II’s, a blackberry bold 9930, some janky palm pre rooted, an evo 4g, a new ipad, a transformer prime, and a samsung tab 10.1. Four of us are arguing over keystroke dynamics, the perks of facial recognition, the downside of behavioral patterns (facial, iris, hand geometry, fingerprint cadences) on security algorhithms and app management. There are three giant pizzas from Piece pizza. I brought a little tupperware of rice and beans but was pleasantly surprised by the pizza.
The eight people who are all planning to be at the table to discuss the limitations and consequences throughout the day:
Douglas Aitken-Contemporary mixed media artist
Shelby Knox-Feminist advocate and former roommate of Gloria Steinem
Thakoon Panichgul-Artist
Esperanza Spalding-Musician
Sara Driver-Filmmaker
Tamara Mumfod-Mezzo Soprano
Rineke Djikstra-Photographer (Netherlands)
Susan Cain-Writer on introversion
Non-Fiction:
Session, meeting, session, session, session, meeting, pack for Los Angeles. It’s 85 today in Chicago.
Gloria Steinem, 1970. Feminism incarnate.
Poor Perfeito
Laptop? Book? Journal? Naa…Sewing machine
[video]
Sitting on a bench off Lake Michigan south of North Beach and watching a 75 year old man play chess against a little teenager with a bright neon yellow backpack on. Why good players give so much love to their bishops I don’t understand. Cross generational. Being that I haven’t won a game of chess in a few years, my comments hold zero weight. As a clumsy seque, 740 million pilllows were sold in 2010. There is a $990.00 pillow made out of Siberian down in German silk damask that I would like to get a night or two with. I’m putting money that my 8 dollar ten year old busted pillow is more comfortable. Was all downhill with pillow overuse ever since Westin’s heavenly bed in 1999.
Checklist of things that I need to talk about with someone this week:
Recovered bones in Cheng Du
Hypergamy
Andaman Islands
Joanna Coles of Marie Claire
QR codes on wedding invitations
Those five black teen ballers from the Bronx getting backlash by locals in VT
The psp vita lounge in Wicker Park
Fast forward to Spring
My eighteen year old self is sitting in front of me on the other couch with his little nerd smally to his side. I don’t remember rockin such an ugly sweater but the lanky is the same, scratching pencil notes in Hobbes’ Leviathan same, janky lefty handwriting same, self-consciousness on how level the acculturation rides same. Sadly he has no idea what the Rodeo swap market is, what its like to have to leave it all behind, how many facades it takes to look polished, when freestyle and skinny jeans were hand in hand. I want to like the kid, i do, but i mostly just want to throw him in the ditch and kick him in the face a few times so he can figure it out sooner than I did. And dude’s little mustache bugs the shit out of me. Four wrinkles, three folds, one sincere apology for not documenting it all for him.
Advocates getting people legs and arms and hands. Very positive
Work spaces for artists and writers with giant bookshelves (The oracle club via NYC). Maybe that would work here in Chicago. *Look into it*
Should a company be able to trademark a color? No
Names I should know more about:
-Ellsworth Kelly and his abstract spaces
-Craig Finn (What’s his writing process?)
-Wendy Whelan and her memories of ballet on when it was going through its own paradigm shift
-Danah Boyd’s current research and how she feels about the possible pitfalls of social networking
-Umit Benan Sahin and whether or not he has shit to say other than his nice idea on military chic
-Daniel Arksham and his new creative installations.
-The man whose wife died two months before their 25th anniversary and he just sat there crying while watching their wedding ceremony decades before while his sons passed the living room not wanting to impose yet feeling horribly sad for their father who was lost in the saddest parts of himself
-Kurt Gutenbrunner’s food and why he has so much love for vintage chairs from Amsterdam
“There’s a point where your childhood catches up with you.”
There’s a woman somewhere who just rooted her phone to ice cream sandwich and its not working minus her bluetooth and some shitty apps that she has absolutely no use for. She misses putting her hair in a pony-tail and she stopped dating some random guy because he was entirely different than her father. Perhaps I need to discuss with her the perks of those failures.
Sounds like a horrible idea.
On William Gibson after his father passed.