Jimmy Page's Sweater Vest

2K on the Surly

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Beaujon) — Sat, 17 May 2008 13:25:00 +0000

This past October, a month after my second son was born, I bought a new bike. The Bianchi was a great start, but I wanted more and finally settled on a touring bike. I didn't know much about the mechanics of bikes at the time, so I decided to buy a complete bike. I thought about the Trek 520 and a couple others, but I finally decided on the Surly Long Haul Trucker because my bike shop actually had one in stock to try. Most touring bikes you need to special order, and then if you don't like it, things could get awkward.

I love the Surly. It has 26-inch wheels, so when you load it up with panniers or a kid in a seat or a trailer or what-have-you, it feels even better. Under the tutelage of my coworker Darrow Montgomery, I've moved away from what I guess you could call an REI aesthetic (hideous rain jacket in this photo aside) to one more informed by people like Chris Kulczycki at Velo Orange, who sells bike parts that invoke a golden age of touring cycles. That may or may not be real; I'm always suspicious of nostalgia but the important thing is that he sells really nice stuff.

One frustration with the Long Haul Trucker is its extreme geometry. I bought some fenders a few months ago from Wallingford Bicycle Parts, and they're just beautiful, a key component of my transformation to gentleman cyclist. And I cannot get the goddamn things on to save my life. I've spent God knows what on brackets, etc., and countless hours trying to get them right. I know a lot more about how bikes work and can perform basic maintenance but these freakin' fenders were way beyond my weight class. I should have just bought the plastic ones from Rivendell, but now pride is involved and I am going to pay someone to install them.

Last weekend I changed the handlebar tape to cork, which I whipped with hemp twine at the ends and then shellacked. It came out pretty nice.

And yesterday I rode my 2000th mile on the Surly. You can see here the beautiful spot where this occurred.

I ride pretty much every day, no matter the weather, though I make exceptions for snow and ice, which I'm not comfortable with yet, and high winds, which are depressing. Since I started riding a year and a half ago, I've lost weight, developed legs like bridge cables, and started eating better. It's the best thing that's happened to me since I met Ewa and the births of our two kids.

In the next year I hope to start doing some long-distance touring. My buddy Mark Nelson and I have talked about riding to Richmond next time he's back East, and I'd really like to ride from one end of Britain to the other. Time, time, time. Maybe someday. But the corollary of time is distance, and at least I can achieve that, albeit in 20-mile bursts.

The Long View

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Beaujon) — Thu, 01 May 2008 01:43:00 +0000

I hate working late. Unfortunately, I've chosen a career that often requires me to be at work at unreasonable hours. Fortunately, I ride my bike to work. And some nights I remember to stop after I cross Memorial Bridge and take in the view. It's really quite remarkable to see this vista every day. I hope I never stop appreciating it.

(I mostly blog at work these days. Here's where to find me.)

Red Dirt

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Beaujon) — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 14:33:00 +0000

I went to Texas and wrote about a music festival. You can read about it here.

Sony TCM-359V, 1995-2007

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Beaujon) — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 15:47:00 +0000

DIED, this morning at 11:17 a.m. of unknown causes, my trusty, longtime companion, the Sony TCM-359V, or "my tape recorder," as it was affectionately known. It was used to record and transcribe hundreds of interviews in the years since it first went into service, as a gift from my parents upon entering the field of journalism.

On the recorder's back is an all-access pass from a dEUS/Mano Negra concert in Nice. Despite the TCM-359V's owner's policy against keeping work souvenirs of any kind, this sticker, with the words "Tous Acces," seemed like something worth keeping at the time.

It will be replaced not by a digital recorder but with another Sony cassette recorder, the TCM-200DV, whose microphone I can only hope is as uncannily adept at zeroing in on soft-spoken subjects in noisy rooms.

It leaves behind a looming deadline, an eight-pack of Energizer AA batteries (with free Shrek the Third Ogre-Vision Viewer) purchased in the vain hope that it was my batteries that had collapsed, and a man more bummed out by the loss of an inanimate object than seems appropriate.

Two thousandth mile

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Beaujon) — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 00:40:00 +0000

I have a bike that retails for $300. I bought it almost exactly a year ago. This spring I committed to riding in to work, 10 miles each way, as long as it was arguable that I might get in. Fortunately I live in an area that has pretty good weather, despite the odd freak summer thunderstorm with raindrops the size of babies' heads.

My route is mostly on bike paths. I take the Mt. Vernon trail, which I pick up a little more than a mile from my house, then cross Memorial Bridge, then take the Rock Creek Park trail up to Woodley Park, and then it's a quick jog to my office in Adams Morgan. It's one of the best parts of my day.

The trails are crowded when the weather's good, so I almost prefer when it's really hot, or lightly raining, or a little cold. Mostly I think cyclists and runners get along fine on the trail, though I must confess I get a little frustrated with the walkers, simply because so often they're not paying attention. You know where's an excellent place to amble slowly with your shirt off, your sunglasses on the top of your head, and a cell phone glued to your ear? The side-WALK.

For the past couple of months, the National Park Service has done everything in its power to ruin my commute, changing the course of the trail on a weekly basis to make it easier for its workers not to do any construction. There's an official detour through Georgetown, but that keeps changing, too, and I've found it's better to take as little of the detour (which calls for riding the wrong way up 31st Street, a one-way street, which is generally not a problem for the Venezuelan diplomats whose embassy is around the corner, though, in my experience, they're usually driving in reverse) as possible.

My bike wasn't made for this kind of use. It's a town bike, meant for getting around campus, say, or running quick errands. With the rack that holds my son's bike seat, my two water bottles, my "rack trunk"---holds my clothes---and my lock, it's laughably heavy in serious-cycling terms. Still, I'm gonna ride this thing till it falls apart.

Today I rode my two thousandth mile. I stopped and took a photo with my camera. I tried to get the Washington Monument in the background, but it was too bright to see the screen very well. I think it came out pretty well.

Blowing the dust off

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Beaujon) — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 18:40:00 +0000

Not dead, not too busy, but doing most of my blogging these days at work. Check there first.

The snooze world

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Beaujon) — Thu, 10 May 2007 18:36:00 +0000

Wow, I'm incredibly shocked that tickets for the Jamestown 400th-anniversary celebrations aren't selling. It's almost as if pinning the economic hopes of a region on a historical commemoration--glassblowing! talks! geneological research!--was a completely freaking stupid idea.

Here's the best part:

So far, about 37,000 of the available 90,000 single-day tickets have been purchased, the vast majority of them by Virginians, said Kevin Crossett, a spokesman for Jamestown 2007, the state organization coordinating the event.

When I lived in Richmond, the Jamestown anniversary was touted as impetus for all sorts of Springfield monorail-type projects. The one I got involved in was a proposed performing arts center that, despite the handicap of its organizers constantly lying about how much money they'd raised to built it, planned to use this anniversary as a sort of rebirth party for Richmond, with a gleaming arts center at the center of an event that would draw people from around the world. Seriously.

Well, that didn't really work out as planned, and I'm proud to have played a small part in that saga. I don't really have a lot of time to follow how things are going down there now, but I understand that the city's getting involved in reopening the Carpenter Center. I've got mixed feelings about that, not least because the phrase "Richmond government involvement" doesn't exactly engender feelings of confidence.

In a sick way, I think the smoking ruins of that plan are a good thing for the city--the hole in the middle of town (the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation's oh-so-poetic legacy) should remain there forever, a monument to the jackassery that created it as well as a reminder that history, while not an especially great draw, does have a few lessons to teach.

Image taken from Mountain City Elementary School, Mountain City, Tenn.

My once-a-year nod to the Advanced Theory

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Beaujon) — Wed, 09 May 2007 01:17:00 +0000

Idolator's post about Killing Joke today, in addition to letting me rock out to "Requiem" at work, made me wonder whether this band was Advanced from practically the beginning of its career. Some evidence in its favor:

Initially mistaken for fascists
Entire band relocated to Iceland to wait out apocalypse
Fluid membership (including, for three days, a former member of the Smiths)
One member went on to become a sought-after producer
Singer's solo album embraced, among other genres, rap, and he delivered a lecture defending this album and subsequently retired to a tiny island in New Zealand
Litigiousness
Original lineup reunited and got back to basics

Over to you, Jason.

Math jazz

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Beaujon) — Fri, 04 May 2007 01:39:00 +0000

I wrote a review of the Bad Plus' new album, and you can read it here.

It all depends where you stand

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Beaujon) — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 17:33:00 +0000

Hanna Rosin's article in Friday's Washington Post about Soulforce, a group of gay evangelicals who visit Christian colleges, had the following amazing quote from Patrick Henry College president Michael Farris, on learning a friend of his is gay:

David Hazard, a friend of college founder Farris who had edited one of his books, also told Reynolds he was gay. When Farris heard that during an interview in his office, his jaw fell open, and he stared for a long time. "Oh. I'm so sorry for David," he said. "I think he's deluded." The place for someone like that, he added, "is on their knees repenting of their sin."

Let's just enjoy that advice.

Unpopular rules

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Beaujon) — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 17:07:00 +0000

The missus and I were sitting under a giant sign for $1 frozen yogurt at Ikea, and we started to talk about unpopular rules--unlike, say, keeping your seatbelt fastened until the plane comes to a complete stop, the kind almost nobody thinks is reasonable. (I'm actually with the airlines on this one, but the symphony of clicks I hear upon touchdown suggests I'm in the minority.)

Anyway, here are our three; looking for more in the comments section.

You break it, you buy it
No free refills
Refunds for store credit only

Gong Hits for Jesus

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Beaujon) — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 20:49:00 +0000

I wrote a review of the Trees Community's The Christ Tree box set, just in time for it to go out of print. It's here.

Since you put it that way

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Beaujon) — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 02:43:00 +0000

Every morning my 2 1/2-year-old son wakes me up with a request. The other morning went like this:

HIM: I want a lollipop.

ME: (Groggily) You can't have a lollipop. It's 6 a.m.

HIM: I want a lollipop...and a beer.

Hard limit, a wall of love

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Beaujon) — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 00:44:00 +0000

Just over a year ago, I missed out on the perfect way to die. Seriously. Now I'm gonna have to have cancer or get hit by a car or something.

That happened as we were preparing to move to the D.C. area. Since then, my LPs have been in boxes--organizing them just never moved up the priority list. Until this weekend. Went to Ikea, bought some Ivar....

Well, I guess my old shelves were bigger. I still had three big boxes to unpack when I filled the top shelf. I was gonna just drive back down this morning, but then I thought that the still quite large number of albums that fit on this new shelf ought to be enough for anyone.

So I culled. Mercilessly. The easy stuff was the dupes and the joke records. Then a little friend rock. Then some stuff I never really liked but kept in case I might someday. And by the time I was done I had three boxes to bring to the thrift store, maybe 1,000 albums total.

Now my record collection is once again lean and awesome. Going through them brought back a few memories, such as the one about the French rock group Téléphone. I lived in France for a while when I was in high school, and Téléphone was the only decent band over there at the time. I bought every Téléphone record I could and was overjoyed when I returned home to meet a complicated guy in my English class named Kip who later went punk, not in the way that would be expected of someone who grew up in the D.C. suburbs in the '80s: No, Kip decided to emulate Billy Idol, wearing leather outfits with lots of zippers and spiky hair and mascara.

Anyway, Kip had a Téléphone record that I didn't (did I mention Kip was from Connecticut? I don't know if that explains anything). It was such an amazing idea that I still can't believe that it ever happened--someone thought it would be great if a band whose members barely spoke English rerecorded some of the songs from their breakthrough 1982 LP, Dure Limite, in an attempt to break the U.K. and U.S. markets.

It was, of course, a disaster, and not just because, as Wikipedia tells me, Lou Reed punched up the English lyrics. The problem was the group's Savoir-Faire accents, as well as the fact that the group's biggest hit, "Ça (ç'est vraiment toi)" was translated word for word, for the nonsense chorus "That (Is Really You)"--or, as it sounded, "Zat ees rrreally yo."

Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of Téléphone's English EP. As I recall, it looked like the French version of Dure Limite but with a different color in the background. I'd love to hear it again--it's the kind of thing I could even see making space for.

Ministry of Silly Names

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Beaujon) — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 11:48:00 +0000

This isn't possible, is it? (Thanks to Jeff, Jason & Scott for pointing it out):

"They did exactly as they should have done from start to finish and we are proud of them," said Air Chief Marshal Jock Stirrup, the head of Britain's armed forces and top military adviser.

I guess a career in the military is really the only reasonable course of action with a handle like that.

P.S.

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Beaujon) — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 02:04:00 +0000

Flicker user KarenAbad has some photos up of the conference; they're probably the only evidence of my terribly unfortunate attempt at a beard, which I shaved off last night, returning my entire head to its usual cueball-like state. I liked having a beard, but the missus HATED it, and I like to think I know how to pick my battles.

Plus I was terrified of getting food stuck in it.

Grand Rapids

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Beaujon) — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 01:56:00 +0000

I had a cracking time at the Festival of Faith and Music, and I very nearly became a Christian myself when I saw how many people showed up for my workshop. Thanks to Ken Heffner and the Calvin Kru for organizing this thing so well that my only complaint was how little sleep I got because I was having too much fun.

One wee point I want to make about my speech--when I was talking about Christians being too serious about music, I was talking about people at the festival, too. Searching for too much meaning in three-minute pop songs turns you into a weird old guy. Trust me on this one.

Festival of Faith and Music redux

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Beaujon) — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 03:15:00 +0000

This weekend I'll be speaking at the Festival of Faith and Music at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich. I'll be holding a workshop on Saturday about approaching Christian culture from a mainstream culture background, and later on I'm gonna sit in a panel discussion about criticism. Ken Heffner, the festival organizer, emailed me and said that they're expecting more than a thousand people this year, which is a huge leap from the last festival and a testament to the growing reputation of this conference. Should be fun....

VCU upsets Duke, T-D editors' slumber

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Beaujon) — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 01:57:00 +0000

Cheers to the kind of nimble, in-depth coverage only a hometown paper can pull off.

Purple City

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Beaujon) — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 00:44:00 +0000

I am in Winnipeg, without my digital camera. But I can tell you that this video seems to capture the place quite well.

Funny signs in the Edinburgh Botanic Garden

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Beaujon) — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 21:21:00 +0000

Wall of death, dude

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Beaujon) — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 01:29:00 +0000

It may be the second glass of wine talking, but this 2004 feature on Lamb of God turned out nicely, if I do say so myself.

Where has the money gone?

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Beaujon) — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 19:43:00 +0000

There are things I miss about living in Richmond. I miss good barbecue, for instance. I also miss living near Don Harrison, who tears the performing-arts fiasco a new one in today's Style Weekly.

I don't miss being involved in that fight, though--Jesus, it's dispiriting that this thing is still dragging on. 2007 was supposed to be when Richmond rejoined the rest of Virginia as a place worth seeing. But as usual, Richmond put a bunch of dopes in charge of the performing-arts project; they lied their asses off, blew a bunch of money, and produced...exactly nothing. In fact, they made the area of downtown they were tasked with rebuilding even worse--now, the blocks under the performing arts foundation's control are the worst-looking ones on Broad Street.

Worse, the National Theater, which VAPAF board members bullied performing-arts orgs into avoiding, is opening while the Richmond Symphony, as Don notes, is going begging. Great work, dudes.

But what I really miss about Richmond is Mayor Douglas L. Wilder. Now, I understand that many of my friends down there have a serious case of Wilder Fatigue, but I love the man. That's probably because I don't live down there, but it's hard to not look affectionately on his infrequent email blasts, which exude a weirdness that you don't often find in elected officials.

Even better, he commissions graphics for the fights he picks. Here's one from the latest newsletter:

It's a classic of the Wilder sensibility. If he can make a point with a dollar symbol, he will. Here's another good one:

And another:

But this one, from the most recent newsletter, is totally my favorite:

It's everything I miss and don't miss about Richmond in one graphic--as insane as it is germane. Rock on, River City.

A pirate looks at golf pants

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Beaujon) — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 03:55:00 +0000

Slate takes an unusual tack on Dave Matthews' birthday.

James Brown, Gerald Ford, Sadaam Hussein

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Beaujon) — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 18:24:00 +0000

When I worked at Olsson's years ago, we used to have an "In Memoriam" table whenever people whose stuff we sold died. The best death juxtaposition I recall was Miles Davis and Dr. Seuss. Anyone remember any other accidental poignancy?