le tour & misc.
Lots of bike riding today, swooping beneath storm clouds just in time to not have to find an overhang to hide under. And lots of writing housekeeping, rather than actual writing, but sometimes you just have to prepare things to go out. You know? (I know you do.)
I mention the bike riding, one, because I didn't die and, two, because some of you may not realize how close the start of the Tour de France is... July 3. The competition is going to be quell fierce this year, and the pre-Tour bike races are exciting as hell. You could do worse than start monitoring Bicycling magazine's site, the TDF blog, and (my favorite) the Daily Peloton, which will no doubt soon start with its ladies-centric coverage of the men of the tour. I'm not going to steal Christopher's thunder too much here, for I expect him to start updating mercilessly and even more mercilessly (think Ling) talk about this race. But, I'm gonna put my favorite paragraph from this month's Bicyling's editorial, which is all about what bicyclists know because they ride...
You know better than to get worked up this summer when some obese sportswriter at a midsize newspaper writes a column saying that Lance Armstrong is great but that cycling isn't really a sport because anyone can ride a bike, so how hard can the Tour de France be, really? You know not to get worked up because this, after all, is a pronouncement from a man who decided to put his college degree to work by asking naked men to describe how they caught that little ball, who lives on press-box cold-cut spreads and who regularly gets his chops busted by Dottie in accounting for trying to sneak two Spectravision movies past her on his expense account.
I love that. Because invariably one or a dozen such sportswriters will say this thing or worse, a sentiment which can't be wholly unrelated to how so many people just hate cyclists altogether and want to run them off the road (or, around here lately, do run them off the road).
Anyway, that's that. In America made me cry several times, but I suggest you see it anyway. I liked it lots and thought all the acting marvelous and the two little girls even more marvelous than the rest. There's this moment that just blew me away where Djimon Hounsou's character seems to sense the girls' absent brother (who you find out in the first scene is dead, so that's not a spoiler) on the threshold of his apartment. And some of the best voiceover writing I've ever encountered.
You should also go read this thoughtful post at Special Agency responding to the article I linked to yesterday from the NYTimes on red and blue and hullaballoos. It's an excellent post which has left me with a lot more to think over than the NYT piece did.
Oh, and looking for something else today I happened across Pam McNew's excellent, chilling poem "Visiting Mama" from Snow Monkey. You should go happen across it too.
Night.
worm: "Slung Lo," Erin McKeown
check out: David Schwartz's excellent review of Richard Butner's new chapbook "Horses Blow Up Dog City and Other Stories"
namecheck: David "J" Schwartz
I mention the bike riding, one, because I didn't die and, two, because some of you may not realize how close the start of the Tour de France is... July 3. The competition is going to be quell fierce this year, and the pre-Tour bike races are exciting as hell. You could do worse than start monitoring Bicycling magazine's site, the TDF blog, and (my favorite) the Daily Peloton, which will no doubt soon start with its ladies-centric coverage of the men of the tour. I'm not going to steal Christopher's thunder too much here, for I expect him to start updating mercilessly and even more mercilessly (think Ling) talk about this race. But, I'm gonna put my favorite paragraph from this month's Bicyling's editorial, which is all about what bicyclists know because they ride...
You know better than to get worked up this summer when some obese sportswriter at a midsize newspaper writes a column saying that Lance Armstrong is great but that cycling isn't really a sport because anyone can ride a bike, so how hard can the Tour de France be, really? You know not to get worked up because this, after all, is a pronouncement from a man who decided to put his college degree to work by asking naked men to describe how they caught that little ball, who lives on press-box cold-cut spreads and who regularly gets his chops busted by Dottie in accounting for trying to sneak two Spectravision movies past her on his expense account.
I love that. Because invariably one or a dozen such sportswriters will say this thing or worse, a sentiment which can't be wholly unrelated to how so many people just hate cyclists altogether and want to run them off the road (or, around here lately, do run them off the road).
Anyway, that's that. In America made me cry several times, but I suggest you see it anyway. I liked it lots and thought all the acting marvelous and the two little girls even more marvelous than the rest. There's this moment that just blew me away where Djimon Hounsou's character seems to sense the girls' absent brother (who you find out in the first scene is dead, so that's not a spoiler) on the threshold of his apartment. And some of the best voiceover writing I've ever encountered.
You should also go read this thoughtful post at Special Agency responding to the article I linked to yesterday from the NYTimes on red and blue and hullaballoos. It's an excellent post which has left me with a lot more to think over than the NYT piece did.
Oh, and looking for something else today I happened across Pam McNew's excellent, chilling poem "Visiting Mama" from Snow Monkey. You should go happen across it too.
Night.
worm: "Slung Lo," Erin McKeown
check out: David Schwartz's excellent review of Richard Butner's new chapbook "Horses Blow Up Dog City and Other Stories"
namecheck: David "J" Schwartz
posted by Gwenda @ 6/13/2004 05:11:00 PM
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