Bzzzzzzz

I wasn't going to post tonight, but I've had a little bee buzzing around in my bonnet all day, and now I just read two other blog posts that seem to tie into it.

A friend recently turned me on to a severely sarcastic (funny but also disturbing) blog dealing with bikes, and - more accurately - fads surrounding bikes, particularly in this city.

The weird thing about reading a blog devoted to commenting on Bike Culture is that I had been blissfully unaware until very recently that there was such a thing.

That's not to say that I haven't noticed the Central Park roadie fashion show, or the tendency to one-upmanship within cycling clubs throughout the suburbs, or even the fact that track bikes are what the cool Billyburg kids are riding these days. But a Culture, and for that matter, a Couture surrounding bicycling just never entered my radar. And I think I wish it hadn't.

There's nothing that can ruin one's joy in something one loves so quickly as the feeling that one has to dress a certain way, or own the latest version of whatever it is, in order to be cool enough to participate in that love.

Honestly, I don't know what to make of it. Yeah, I'm more immune to this sort of thing than I used to be, but it still sort of makes me want to run screaming from the room and go hang out in a big field alone. Which is pretty much how I always reacted to that stuff when I was in school, once I recognized that I was never going to fool anybody into thinking I was one of the cool kids.

Anyway, posts here and here are very much worth reading, for a similar take on a different hobby. Franklin puts it with his usual eloquence, and in words I swear I've used myself before (though not here) - the idea that because we are unique, we are inherently valuable.

And don't come writing me asinine comments about Hitler being unique but not valuable. I don't give a good god damn about the logic of the argument; you know exactly what I mean.

PS. At least somebody still thinks knitting is cool.