Pushing Pedal Pushers

Those of you who spend time with me are aware of my fondness for rolled up slacks. I get the occasional confused look and I thought I'd set the world straight. Like Morty Seinfeld's beltless trenchcoat, I consider rolling up pants to calf length something of an invention and certainly a fashion statement. After all, who doesn't want to look like a pirate or a beachcomber?

For a fashion statement, pedal pushers are abysmally practical. I arrived upon the idea while working at Albertsons. I had amassed a collection of khaki pants for the job and with summer's onset I found my acquisitions unsuited to cart duty on hot summer days (in Dana Point this means the low eighties). When I returned to air conditioning's frigid embrace, my slacks easily reverted to their intended conformation. The following summer I did a fair amount of yard/handiwork and found that unlike shorts, pedal pushers provide serviceable knee protection.

While accumulating slacks I had let my shorts dwindle, so roll-ups filled a role soon necessitated by the Davis heat. Perhaps more importantly, the switch to bicycle transport made "pedal pushers" a foregone conclusion. Even in winter the threat of a gear snag mandates at least one leg be rolled up.


So in Davis I am not the only one with rolled up pants. The style has come to distinguish the ever-widening fixie circle. However, fixed-gear bike riders have an unnatural relationship with shoes and so my gears, backpack and especially my sandals mark me an outsider to the trend. Personally, I think sandals lend pedal pushers an elegant visual effect.

On Philosophy

A friend of mine recently asked me what I had against philosophy. Had he known me better he would have suspected me a hypocrite in addition to suspecting me ignorant and hostile. In fact, judging from my blog, it would seem that I either think very much of philosophy or very little of you the reader.

I have long been a slave to curiosity. Though it breeds wisdom, it is a blessing and a curse. I have found in my life that the more I know the farther I find myself from answers. Philosophy, politics, life choices, no matter the subject, if a question is worth asking the search for answers will inevitably disappoint.

Our society suffers from having renounced old ways of thinking. Common sense and faith have been trampled to our own detriment on our quest for a universal morality. I believe that any proper search requires an appreciation for the grace that existed in simpler paradigms. Ignorance, after all, is bliss.

Ray Bradbury, in writing Fahrenheit 451, burned his fair share of books by indicting old ways of thinking. Though his was an impermanent eradication, it nevertheless illustrates how "moving forward" has merely opened one door and shut another. Never mind that our present door opens to a larger room with a better view, we should be able to have our cake and eat it too. Only once we learn this may we have a chance to truly understand.

Because conflicting paradigms cannot coexist in a logical mind, opening multiple doors requires a partitioning of thought. Though this might seem impossible, the tools already exist within each of us. We humans partition thought unconsciously. Sometimes it merely separates chess from checkers. Sometimes it maintains the delicate balance of self-delusion required for daily life. The trick is to do so with your ego at the helm.

This has been a project of mine for many years and I can assure you it is neither a simple nor an easy solution. It requires a strong ego to wrestle one's knowledge into stupidity, but it is possible-- and worth the effort. With mental compartmentalization, we can live the bliss of ignorance while possessing and acting on the wisdom of the world.

The Number One Hundred

The Dilettante passed one hundred unique hits today. I think the occasion merits a bit of retrospective.

The naming of my blog was the first subtle joke on the blog and the first of many to be largely missed. When I created my blog I figured it wasn't obvious enough and too few readers would even know what the word meant, so I provided a definition immediately below the title. What I should tell you beforehand is that I love to simultaneously use disparate definitions of a word, especially historic ones.

With a cursory knowledge of the word or a glance at the caption it should be apparent that the title is self-deprecating. Ha ha, it's funny cause it's true, etc. Clever enough for some. Read a little deeper and you will realize that the historic definition had a very positive connotation. Dilettante used to mean someone who loved learning for its own sake. It sums up the blog's philosophy as "Yes, I know dabbling is bad for me but I'm gonna do it anyways cause I like it and then I'll share my joy with you."

Imagine how happy I was with myself when I arrived upon a one-word title that was funny, subtle, and summed up the blog's entire credo.

What the Heck is a Parkway?

A week ago Caius, Brandon and I went for a trip up the American River Parkway, which is the long way of saying we went on a bike trip. The route goes from Sacramento to Folsom via parks (hence the parkway) along the river for about thirty miles. The path is well-maintained and winds through gorgeous country. Along the way we discovered some logistical issues of extended bike rides. Caius discovered that borrowed mountain bikes go half the speed and take twice the effort of the road variety. I discovered that shorts chafe really badly.


I decided that wearing a backpack would be too hot, so I improvised a satchel from a sheet to hold our provisions. It worked pretty well. Here I am with the Maiden, satchel and camera case, in white.


To our utter surprise we came upon a miniature golden gate bridge in the middle of nowhere. My dear roommate insisted his photo be taken on it.


We hopped off the trail for a deli sandwich and a beer. Another cliche's logic irrefutably validated.

On our way back the men in red regaled me with French lessons. They both happen to be more or less fluent speakers and they've been happy to drill me on the language until it extrudes from my ears. The only problem is that they periodically forget my novice status and get into lively discussions on the obscurities of French grammar.



So we made a round trip of about twenty miles, covering a third of the trail. Next time we'll attach bike racks to avoid satchels and make road bikes mandatory. Next time we are going all the way.

A Century of Art

The definition of high art has been passed down from Europe's classical age. High art was that made by serious, trained minds for appreciation by the noble classes. This was in contrast to popular art, "popular" then having a negative connotation.

Since that time, the industrial revolution has caused the unprecedented growth of the middle class (and democracy). The monetary potential for mass media began to attract talented individuals as an increasingly educated population demanded increasingly intelligent media. Popular art quickly came to aspire to high art, first with Duke Ellington in jazz and the Beatles in rock and roll. Motifs were developed, tonality was explored, lyrics with complex ambiguity were written and records became thematic opuses.

Meanwhile, classical music became increasingly academic. The nineteenth century trends of adding instruments and dissonance were carried on toward their natural conclusions during the twentieth century, ensuring that high art continued to be out of reach for a majority of the middle class. This formed the avant-garde of modern art.

Popular music continued to pick up innovations from the high art community, with avant-garde movements springing up in both jazz and rock. Yet the stigma of popular music continues. I won't forget my music professor describing Radiohead as his favorite "pop music"; that qualification being contrasted with "serious music", a pejorative shockingly ubiquitous among composer-academics.

While the many breakthroughs of the avant-garde movement cannot be denied, a cursory listen reveals that it has ceased to resemble classical high art. A legacy of elitism has combined with a philosophy of progress to make it an unwieldy animal. Modern composition has sufficiently lost its way that I predict it will fail to attain classic status. Instead, the music of the middle class will lay down the impressive legacy of America and the twentieth century.

KDVS has taken a different route in its treatment of twentieth century music, finding its own elitism in the underground. KDVS DJs hold a consensus that true art comes from the soul rather than from monetary incentive. They call music made for self-gratification and little or no money "folk", and there are few greater complements within the station than to call an artist folk. Consider this though, think of your favorite artists and count how many of them did it for money. Bach, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, The Velvet Underground, Led Zeppelin, the Sex Pistols, Sonic Youth, Metallica, Beck, etc. Now count how many didn't.

Partly, this is because it takes money to pay for art education, equipment, production and distribution. Partly it's because these are extremely talented people working hard who expect to be compensated accordingly. Personally, I think we should applaud those who refuse to compromise their artistic ideals for money, but I think we should applaud still more those who can have their cake and eat it too. Self-gratification is always a slippery slope and money provides for better treatment of music.

I BUI

Caius and I were drinking beer on a rooftop at one of my friend Elisa's backyard folk shows and Caius suggested, "Let's go for a bike ride before we lose our buzz." That got me to thinking.

I have always happily biked home from a party with a slight sway to my ride. In winter it guards against cold and in spring against boredom, but I have always thought of biking under the influence as a practical measure. Better than to sleep it off or walk, the act endangers neither myself nor others. Wait-- that's not actually true. Normally I tone it down when I'm returning by machine, but on one occasion I hopped on after more than a few or four or five. At some point one's coordination starts to break down completely and I was perched on just such a precipice, narrowly missing light posts and laughing maniacally all the way home. It was not an occasion to be repeated.

It has occurred to me that biking drunk isn't just pragmatic, it's downright fun. This brings me back to the subject of nightrides. The nightride on which the term was born was fueled by a couple glasses of sherry. The scattering effect of a buzz, the speed of a bike and a peaceful night make a perfect combination. I realized that I have long enjoyed riding home from parties without being conscious of why, and now I know. So drink moderately, ride on bike paths where possible, make sure you have a light and discover the wonder of the recreational BUI.

Davis Farmer's Market

Farmer's markets are a wonderful thing. My first encounter with them was in French villages and the piles of vegetables, homemade foie gras, massive rounds of cheese, gnarly hand-sculpted olive wood bowls and etched faces of French farmers added up to make an intimidating point of comparison.


I have attended American farmer's markets in Louisiana, Wisconsin and San Clemente and I am here to tell you that the Davis Farmer's Market is the one to see. There is always live music and a wide variety of stalls hosted by farmers, bakers and restaurateurs in the city's central park. A significant portion of the town attends and more come from Sacramento and other areas. Local politicians chat up constituents at the far end and families sit in the grass listening to music and playing in the fountain. It is among the town's most revered institutions and in the summer, of course, it is at its peak.


The produce prices range from fair to expensive, but there are always a few amazing deals to be had. Right now melons are in season and Saturday I found a stand selling ambrosia (like cantaloupe) and orange-flesh honeydew for a dollar apiece and the reddest watermelon you've ever seen for three. I got four peppers for another dollar and two bags of summer squash, paying a dollar for each. I decided to make ratatouille so I got some Japanese eggplant too. I sampled the peaches from a dozen stands before I bought the sweetest, juiciest ones and for a second time in a row, the best were at the last stand I tried. I have stopped buying finicky produce from grocery stores because there is nothing like free samples for quality control.

Allons-y! The Vidrine Travel Plan

My dad has told me that, provided I get a fellowship or the like for grad school, he will buy me tickets to Europe as a graduation present. We Vidrines are a traveling kind of family. We are in fact travel savvy. I guess it comes from practice or more likely, from my late grandfather. Nine years ago my dad, sister, grandfather, aunt, uncle and I went to France. It was the greatest trip of my life.


There are many ways to travel. You can get a package deal where planes, buses and hotels are managed by an agency. These tend to be built around seeing as many famous sites in as little time as possible, like the telling "seven countries in twenty days" European travel package. As somebody related to me once said, "You don't get the feel of any of the countries." Many people plan trips along similar lines to travel packages, staying in American-style hotels and spending their time hitting major tourist draws. This too, robs the traveler of the cultural experience that is so central to great international travel. College students travel through hostels and trains. I will agree that that is a better way, but besides the main attractions for which Europe is famed, college students like to hit London for the pubs, Germany for the pubs, and Amsterdam for the legal pot. Like you can't smoke and drink underage to your heart's content stateside.

Though Vidrine travel plans vary depending on finance, we have a definite aesthetic. We make a point of spending more time in less places. We stay away from Americans and Americanized things. We thoughtfully make our own travel plans, except when in the interest of keeping our twenty-plus family members together at once. Ideally and frequently, we use local friends as tour guides. That said, we definitely hit the major attractions in Paris and enjoyed McDonald's after starting to miss familiar food.

On our first full day in France nine years ago, it was my birthday. We spent that day on a marathon tour of Paris. The elevator in the Eiffel Tower was broken, so we only got to the second level. I had one of the worst steaks I have ever tasted (I was learning the Vidrine method by trial and error too). For my birthday dinner, we had a snotty waiter. This merits a digression concerning the reputation of the French.

First of all, when people say the French are rude, they mean Parisians. Most Americans reporting have only spent significant time in Paris anyways. Secondly, most of this rudeness has to do with that thing most precious to all Frenchmen, their language. Americans know that most Europeans speak English, so the first question is usually, "Do you speak English?" Innocent sounding enough, but because English is the worldwide lingua franca, it hits a nerve with the French. The phrase itself originally meant the french language, because French was the international language when France dominated Europe culturally and militarily. So by expecting them to speak English, we are rubbing their noses in the fact that we have replaced them. Americans consequently come off as rude towards the French because we take such little interest in other languages. The English don't have this problem because they do take interest and they neither feel nor seem privileged. The third reason the French have a reputation for being rude is that, well, they are a little. But not too much. We met intensely nice French people everywhere we went and especially in the countryside. It helped on my trip that my dad and grandfather were native speakers. So don't judge France by Paris, try to speak French (believe me, it will be appreciated) and roll with the punches. France is a very traveled place in spite of their reputation for a reason, after all.


So ever since my dad told me about my graduation present I've been thinking about what I want to do. First on the list is going to the very top of the Eiffel Tower and to the Louvre, two things I missed on my eleventh birthday. Also, I think I've convinced Caius to come with me. He's got family contacts throughout Europe and hopefully we can stay with his grandmother in Romania for a while. I can't wait to see German villages and Vienna on the way. I'll be busting out my own family contacts, so between the two of us I think we'll have most of our sleeping accommodations covered. Obviously I want to stay in a hostel once, but I think I'll try to fill in the rest of the gaps by couch surfing. In addition to the significant money concerns (the cheaper I live the longer I can afford to stay), couch surfing's philosophy fits perfectly with the Vidrine aesthetic. As my grandfather always said, and particularly so in France, allons-y!

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

I just signed a deal with the megacorporations. I agreed to plug for their brands on my internationally famous blog in exchange for all of the moneys. Thus, I declare my undying love for the following.

Coca-Cola- There's a reason this is America's biggest culinary export. Coca-Cola is so good it beats most high end sodas to a pulp, and remains the finest cola I have ever tasted, especially if you can find the cane sugar incarnation they still make a few of.

Reed's Ginger Beer- This is definitely a high end soda at around a dollar per bottle, but you have never tasted ginger ale like this. Don't buy Regular-- get either Premium or Extra, depending on how much kick you want.

Pabst Blue Ribbon- The best cheap beer available, I just can't get past the the taste per dollar ratio or the fact that drinking like a pauper can be made bearable. Does anyone else taste apples in it? Someone suggested I was tasting metal shavings. Whatever, it's delicious.

Bacardi Superior Rum- This is a college standard because it's good and it's cheap. It isn't perfect, but it makes a great mixer.

Orville Redenbacher's Microwave Popcorn- We haven't bought this for a long time because of our crappy microwave and shoestring budget. Instead we make popcorn from scratch. Though I highly recommend making popcorn from scratch and as amazing as it will taste, Orville Redenbacher's will taste better.

Valrhona 71% Dark Chocolate- Back in my senior year I methodically tasted all of the "superdark" chocolate brands and this came out the clear winner. Under two dollars at Trader Joe's, this is a luxury even college students can afford from time to time.
UPDATE: Undoubtedly due to the buzz created by this post, the price of Valrhona has more than doubled in recent years to four dollars, a figure which more accurately reflects the quality of the chocolate but unfortunately lofts it above my financial reach.

Horizon Egg Nog- Completely unaffordable at over four dollars per quart, Horizon's egg nog is equally unsurpassed in sheer quality. Chalk another one up to Mr. Speidel.

Marachuan Shrimp Flavor Ramen- So cheap and easy and delicious. Infinitely better than the inferior chicken and beef versions.

Frescheta Frozen Pizza- This isn't the cheapest frozen pizza unless it's on sale, but this is the best pizza in the grocery store and tastes better than most pizza places. Who said eating out tasted better or was more convenient?

Blood, Ash, and Hard Pews

During my junior year of high school while in Calculus, a girl once asked me, "Are you Christian or Catholic?" At first I replied "Catholic", but then the logical error hit me across the face. I said, "You mean am I Protestant or Catholic?" She replied, "No." Me: "You know that Catholics are Christians too, right?" Her: "No they aren't." This escalated into a heated, fruitless argument that continued for the next few minutes until the bell rang. By the time the class let out I was seeing red. It is easy to forget that such ignorance continues to exist in the world.

My relationship with Catholicism is a strange one that extends back to elementary school. At that time I was a self-proclaimed atheist. My parents weren't much of churchgoers, but around fifth grade my parents (aka my mom) started taking us to Mass semi-regularly and sending me to CCD in preparation for my confirmation. CCD stands for Catholic Child's Dungeon.

By this time my atheist zeal had settled down and I approached the classes with an open, if skeptical, mind. I asked a constant stream of questions that were sometimes hostile, othertimes curious, always trying to give my teachers a run for their money.

With my parent's breakup and the nasty fallout that ensued, my mother turned to religion. Because I recognized the solace of believing in a higher purpose and because I wanted to be saved on the off chance that Christianity was correct, I came to want very much to believe. I approached religious things with complete respect. I made the sign of the cross, I prayed, I went to confession and I seriously contemplated the readings and sermon. I almost convinced myself that I believed in God. I certainly told people I did when it would smooth things out.

Still, I like my mother held reservations about some of the more dubious teachings of the church. I remember on my only religious retreat, when they separated the girls from the boys and the deacon explained how masturbation and sex before marriage were sins and how he and his wife did not use contraception, but instead only had sex at certain times of the month. The abject silliness of not using contraceptives but timing sex to avoid having children resonated with the Catholic Church of the history books. I had recognized the contradictory nature of Catholicism.

There were glaring logical impossibilities in many aspects of the doctrine. For example, that we are only free of sin immediately after confession, but if we die with a mortal sin on our conscience (a few of which I committed on a routine basis) we are condemned to hell. So if we die on our way home from confession we go straight to heaven, and if we die on our way to confession we go straight to hell. More famous is the Trinity paradox in which God is held to simultaneously be one whole God and three separate entities: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Catholicism is not a rational religion, and I came to respect that. I understood that things don't always have to make sense to be true. It allowed for a more perfect separation of religion and science. It taught me to separate my modes of thinking into compartments. I could put on my Catholic cap and think in terms of rites, sin and redemption and then I could put on my science cap and think of religion as a product of people's tendency to believe in magic.

Coming to terms with Catholicism was among the most important formative events of my life. I recognized that many of the rituals made sense on a humanist level, even if completely backwards and superstitious on a religious one. I understood that Catholic theology was the product of a long line of brilliant thinkers with tremendous human insight. I saw that Catholicism possessed the wisdom of millenia.

In my sophomore year I imbibed European History. With it came a host of new modes of thought. The most important of these was Nationalism. I applied Nationalism to Catholicism and then mentally tore Protestantism to shreds as we studied the Protestant Reformation. Not that I disliked Protestants, I just arrived on why their religion was an inferior expression of Christianity. I came away with a complete intolerance for Protestants who looked down on Catholicism.

During high school I shed my religious pretense. I was eager to go to church with my mom or stepmom, I prayed occasionally and I still wanted to believe, but I no longer tried to delude myself into belief.

So I am still Catholic in a sense. I owe a lot to the religion and I have an affinity for the culture. Watching my roommate lose his faith was sad for me, but I understood it was inevitable. Untempered rationalism and religion should not cohabitate, unless you're Mormon and then everything makes sense.


Protestants are pussies for using unadorned crosses.

My thanks to Blaise Pascal for his wager.

Road Bikes Rule

I have never understood Davis students' (or people's in general) love affair with crappy Kmart mountain bikes. Granted, I got my bicycle for free, but there is no getting around the logic of buying a bike worth riding. I see the reasons people don't to be thus:

1. People are cheap and will choose the cheapest option set before them whether or not it is the best buy.
2. The exception is that people refuse to buy used. New, road bikes start around five hundred. Used, they start around one.
3. People don't want to be aware of the road. First of all, feeling connected to the world during travel scares them and seems a nuisance because they are used to cars. This is the same reason manual transmissions are so unpopular and one of many reasons for motorcycles' rarity. Strange as it sounds, most people don't like feeling connected to the road. In my opinion this is indicative of poor upbringing.
4. People don't consider where they live when buying a bike. Different bikes are better suited to different terrains.
5. People don't ride fast enough. Bikes are meant to go 15-20mph, not 5.

Max's reasons why you should buy a road bike:
1. Pedaling is easy and the bike is lightweight.
2. This allows you to go really fast.
3. The ride is smooth and graceful yet sensitive to the pavement.
4. In Davis, where the land is flat and everything is paved, mountain bikes don't make any sense.
5. Road bikes go really, really fast.

Kids in Davis who have the crappy Kmart bikes are much less likely to ride places because riding is hard, slow and ugly. Therefore the advantage that was gained in price is compensated by the fact that they don't use their bike. Did I mention these bikes weigh twice as much as road bikes?

PS. I'm not a huge fan of standard racing "hook" handlebars. As cool as they look, they're not very comfortable.

PPS. I respect people who ride cruisers not because they're "my type" but because they obviously made the conscious decision to purchase a bike that suited their needs. They may be sorority girls with one arm on the handlebar and the other on a cellphone, but they're not brain dead.