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.