What It's Really About

We've all seen the "On This Day In History" columns.  I like to look at them:  Sometimes I learn about people and events I never knew before.

For example, I didn't know that on this date in 1903, Ford Motor Company was incorporated, and in 1961, ballet star Rudolf Nureyev defected from his native Soviet Union.

I have long known, however, that quite possibly the most-commemorated events of this date never actually happened.  Yet they will be remembered long after most of the others are forgotten.

I am not talking about the fact that, one year ofter Henry Ford's motor company came to be, one of the most famous writers in history got married.  And he married the most unlikely of people:  someone who had no interest in literature and, when asked by a journalist what she thought of Andre Gide--on the occasion of his winning the Nobel Prize for literature, no less--said, "When you've been married to the greatest writer in the world, you tend to forget the little guys."

The literary spouse in question is Nora Joyce.  And, of course, she was defending the reputation of her beloved Jimmy.

And he wrote a book containing the people and events that are being commemorated today--far more than the founding of FoMoCo or the defection of a ballet dancer.  The events happened on this date in 1904 and, like the people involved in them, were creations of the man who set them down on paper.

Now, you all know no one ever called him "Jimmy".  (At least, I don't think anyone did!)  James Joyce wrote a book that did exactly what he said it would:  It's kept generations of professors, critics and scholars busy arguing over what it's "about".

The truth is (drumroll), his Ulysses is the Seinfeld of modern literature:  It's not about anything at all. At least, not really.  Sure, there are parallels between his characters and those of Greek mythology.  But the stories about the gods and demigods, like all tales embedded in systems of belief, are explicit attempts to explain the meaning and purpose of, if not life itself, then the world around us.  

I can find no such attempt in Joyce's book. When I say that, I don't mean it as a condemnation:  One could (and I have) argued that some of the great works of literature--including no less than Shakespeare's Hamlet-- really aren't "about" anything, except perhaps the foibles of the characters themselves.  

Now, of course, even with all of my erudition (ha!), you shouldn't take only my word.  I am even willing to consider (though not without a fight) that I could be wrong.  You see, the esteemed author of the "Cycling In The South Bay"--whose credentials are impeccable--claims that Ulysses is really a book about bicycling.

On what is this claim based?  CITSB's author offers the following evidence--13 mentions of bicycle or bicycling in the 782-page tome:

1. “They passed from behind Mr Bloom along the curbstone. Beard and bicycle. Young woman.”
2. “His eyes followed the high figure in homespun, beard and bicycle, a listening woman at his side.”
3. “Gerty MacDowell loves the boy that has the bicycle.”
4. “As per usual somebody’s nose was out of joint about the boy that had the bicycle off the London bridge road always riding up and down in front of her window.”
5. “W. E. Wylie who was racing in the bicycle races in Trinity college university.”
6. “But he was undeniably handsome with an exquisite nose and he was what he looked, every inch a gentleman, the shape of his head too at the back without his cap on that she would know anywhere something off the common and the way he turned the bicycle at the lamp with his hands off the bars and also the nice perfume of those good cigarettes and besides they were both of a size too he and she and that was why Edy Boardman thought she was so frightfully clever because he didn’t go and ride up and down in front of her bit of a garden.”
7. “His right hand holds a bicycle pump.”
8. “He smites with his bicycle pump the crayfish in his left hand.”
9. “Love on hackney jaunt Blazes blind coddoubled bicyclers Dilly with snowcake no fancy clothes.”
10. “He had sometimes propelled her on warm summer evenings, an infirm widow of independent, if limited, means, in her convalescent bathchair with slow revolutions of its wheels as far as the corner of the North Circular road opposite Mr Gavin Low’s place of business where she had remained for a certain time scanning through his onelensed binocular fieldglasses unrecognisable citizens on tramcars, roadster bicycles equipped with inflated pneumatic tyres, hackney carriages, tandems, private and hired landaus, dogcarts, ponytraps and brakes passing from the city to the Phoenix Park and vice versa.”
11. “of course hes mad on the subject of drawers thats plain to be seen always skeezing at those brazenfaced things on the bicycles with their skirts blowing up to their navels even when Milly and I were out with him at the open air fete”
12. “pretending to read out the Hebrew on them I wanted to fire his pistol he said he hadnt one he didnt know what to make of me with his peak cap on that he always wore crooked as often as I settled it straight H M S Calypso swinging my hat that old Bishop that spoke off the altar his long preach about womans higher functions about girls now riding the bicycle and wearing peak caps and the new woman bloomers God send him sense and me more money”
13. “can Milly come out please shes in great demand to pick what they can out of her round in Nelson street riding Harry Devans bicycle at night”

QED

Actually, I am rather willing (Is there such a thing?) to accept that writer's claim, especially after stumbling over this:

Jim Joyce, eh?  Well, even if he'd used a less-obvious pseudonym, all of those critics and professors and commentators he wanted to keep busy would have found him out sooner or later, don't you think?  ;-)

Ring Around With Bikesphere

When you're in the big city, it's all about being seen.

I'm not talking about the paparazzi spotting you in a trendy Meatpacking District bar or along a Paris boulevard--although I could be.  Rather, I am referring to cycling along a city's streets and byways, especially at night.

These days, most of us are using "blinkies" attached to our helmets, bags or bikes.  On most urban thoroughfares, brighter is better, as you want to stand out among the streetlights, neon signs and other sources of ambient urban light.  Many of us have also taken to wearing reflective vests over our clothing.  There are also all sorts of other accessories made of reflective materials we can use.

Now Michelin--yes, that Michelin--has come up with a new and possibly better way of making us more visible to drivers and others.  

Its new "Bikesphere" is a "smart" device that attaches to the handlebars.  It has light and proximity sensors that analyze what's going on around the cyclist.  If a car approaches, it laser-projects a red ring of light around the cyclist.  As the car draws closer, the projection intensifies and is more visible to both the cyclist and motorist.

This beacon is meant to show a "safe" distance between the motorist and cyclist.  According to Michelin, more than t 20 percent of drivers don't honor this distance--usually because they don't realize how close they actually are to a cyclist--and cause more than 5000 avoidable crashes every year.

In daylight, and in good-visibility conditions, Bikesphere saves its batteries and activates only its shining "position lights".

Bikesphere is the first product to come out of Michelin's Trendy Drivers movement, which crowdsources ideas and provides funding for them.  Currently, Bikesphere is not available for sale, and Michelin has not yet given as to when it might be.

I Am A Robber And A Loser. But Do I Deserve This?

I'm all for trying to reform and rehabilitate offenders--until, of course, the offense is against me.  Then I want to throw the book at the offender!

All right, that's an exaggeration--but only somewhat.  Even the most fervent advocate of capital punishment does not believe it should be used against, say, thieves.  (At least I hope and assume that's the case!)  But, hey, when someone steals from us, especially something we love and depend on--our bikes,  that person becomes Jack The Ripper, John Dillinger and Willie Sutton all rolled up into one.  And we want to see that person punished--and get our bikes back.

Now, of course, we have different ideas as to what constitutes appropriate punishment for a bike thief.  A relative of mine believes that "we should do like they do in Saudi Arabia" and cut off the hands of thieves.  

(By the way, that practice, as barbaric as it is, actually isn't as common as my relative and others seem to think it is.)

Of course, I don't advocate anything like that.  At least, I haven't favored it since I calmed down from the last bike theft I suffered.  And there are some punishments that I think are too extreme even for bike thieves:

Now, I don't read Portuguese, but I understand enough French, Spanish and Italian to figure out that the 17-year-old boy's forehead tatoo reads something like, "I am a robber and a loser."  The AP translated it as "thief and loser", but the tatoo artist fancied himself as a bit of a poet:  "ladrao" rhymes with "vacilao", which is why I chose "robber".

The "branding" was indeed done by a 27-year-old tatoo artist, one Maycon Wesley Carvalho dos Reis. (Say that three times fast!) His friend, 29-year-old bricklayer Ronildo Moreira de Araujo, caught the boy trying to steal a bike in a city near Sao Paolo, Brazil.  When de Araujo and dos Reis were arrested, they said they were trying to teach the boy, and all thieves, a lesson.

The boy has been unnamed because Brazilian law prohibits the press from identifying minors.  Jurisprudence in the land of Ordem e Progresso also defines torture--the charge against de Araujo and dos Reis-- as a "heinous" crime, meaning its perpetrators cannot be released on bail. 

They were caught thanks to someone who captured them on a cellphone video when they apprehended the teenaged would-be thief.  As for that boy:  Volunteers have set up an internet funding page to raise money for his tatoo removal.

Now, I think what those men did was just a bit much.  Just a bit.  And I suspect that I'll feel that way--at least, as long as I don't lose another bike of mine to some thief! ;-)