It suddenly struck me last week what an amazing period I'm living in. Within a span of a few months, four of my favorite living authors (three of which go for years between finishing books) have or will release new novels.
A Dance with Dragons, of course, came out this summer. The new Neal Stephenson book, REAMDE, arrives September 20th (just over 2 weeks from now!). Terry Pratchett's latest, Snuff, drops on October 11th. And as a strong finish, Haruki Murakami's long-awaited 1Q84 will be in my eager hands October 25th.
The day after REAMDE goes on sale, Neal Stephenson will be in San Francisco, giving a talk at the Swedish-American Hall under the benevolent auspices of Booksmith. Have I mentioned lately how incredibly fortunate I am to live in the Bay Area? I realized that almost exactly three years ago, when Stephenson's Anathem came out, I was also able to hear Stephenson speak (and listen to some really unusual chant music) at a similar event; not only that, but it was around that time that I fulfilled a lifetime wish to hear Murakami, when he gave an interview at Zellerbach Hall at UC Berkeley. Given how little these men travel and speak, I feel especially blessed. (No word yet on whether Murakami will be doing publicity for the English edition of 1Q84, but I imagine that if he does anything in the States, he'll make an appearance in the Bay Area.) At that event, Murakami had announced that he had just sent his latest novel (which became 1Q84) to his publisher; it has taken three years and two translators to bring it across the Pacific to us.
I'm really excited about Snuff as well. This will be the first book featuring Sam Vimes, almost certainly my favorite of Pratchett's characters, since Thud! in 2005. (Vimes is such a large personality that he makes an appearance in virtually all of the Discworld books set in Ankh-Morpork, so we've gotten to see him in books like Making Money, but it'll be great to have him be the focus again.) Terry has suffered from Alzheimer's for the last few years, and I'm amazed and honored that he continues to write; from what I hear, he's no longer able to hold a pen or type on a keyboard, but he's been dictating this latest novel to his assistant. That's incredible devotion, and great evidence (as if we needed any) about how deeply Terry loves his work.
I'm deliberately staying away from knowledge about all three books, as this will be my one chance to read them relatively spoiler-free. That said, the latest issue of the New Yorker has an excerpt from 1Q84, titled "A Town of Cats." (That link will probably go behind a paywall in a few days, so print the article if you'd like to hold on to it.) I still know nothing about 1Q84 or how that story relates to the larger novel, but AToC is a remarkable piece of work. I think that it's the clearest statement Murakami has ever made on his writing style and the mode of his fiction; appropriately enough, this is something that would be impossible to convey within an essay, but that becomes beautifully clear within a story.
Sunday, September 04, 2011
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Conspiracy
"Welcome to the NHK" may be one of the most discomforting pieces of fiction that I've seen through to completion. It isn't discomforting due to violence, or sex, or ideology, or the other standard levers of edginess. Rather, it's discomforting by shining an unwavering spotlight on the many neuroses and flaws that can make up our lives, and particularly in my own life.
I haven't watched a whole lot of anime lately. I've started a few series since Death Note, but have only made it through two. I stumbled across Welcome to the NHK while reading some online discussions about Serial Experiments Lain. NHK and Lain have almost nothing in common; I suppose that they've both set in modern times, and deal with themes of alienation, but in profoundly different ways. They also have very different sensibilities. Lain felt like a dark, sinister psychological thriller. NHK is... strange. I suppose that it's a psychological drama/comedy? It's a humorous look at a profoundly depressing situation.
Welcome to the NHK stars Satou, a hikikomori in his 20s. "Hikikomori" is a Japanese social phenomenon that has been concerning people for several decades: men (it seems to always be men) become extremely socially isolated. They will retreat to their rooms for years at a time, not emerging for social interaction, or food, or work. A related term is "NEET", based on the English for "Not in Education, Employment, or Training" - that is, someone who isn't a student, in professional school, or working.
When I first heard that description, my immediate thought was of the "slacker" phenomenon that started in America around the same time in the 90's. However, they're quite different. A slacker doesn't have a job and doesn't seem to have any interest in improving their lives, but they can still be quite social; the stereotypical slacker hangs out in coffee shops, or couch-surfs, at the bottom of society but still moving around and making connections. On the other hand, the hikikomori is completely cut off from society. Uncharitable people might think of both as leeches, but the hikikomori seems (at least to me) to be in a sorrier state, devoid of companionship or real connection.
MINI SPOILERS
The first few episodes of Welcome to the NHK are probably the funniest. Satou has been living by himself for years, and his mind is starting to become frayed. He hallucinates lightly throughout the day; he talks to his appliances, and they talk back to him; he fantasizes about the characters singing the bishoojo anime that plays loudly next door. His overactive mind also assigns blame for all that's wrong with his life at the feet of the NHK, one of Japan's largest TV networks. He decides that the NHK (which, he realizes, must ACTUALLY stand for Nippon Hikikomori Kyookai) is the leader of a vast conspiracy, all designed to trick Satou into pursuing his miserable life: watching television, eating instant ramen, smoking cigarettes.
It actually would have been interesting to see a whole (though probably shorter) series try to stay locked in that room. Satou is unbalanced, but not really psychotic, just at an elevated state of stir-crazy. And I do love hallucinations. However, the series is actually about Satou gradually working his way outward, reconnecting with old acquaintances and making a few new ones. He isn't ever "cured," which I liked; he's still sad, and angry, and antisocial; but he's far more functional at the end than in the beginning, and it feels worth every agonizing step he took.
And it is agonizing. Usually, when I like a series, I'll start devouring it, watching multiple episodes a day as I try to get through it. Here, even though I liked the show and what it was doing, I often needed to wait for days or a week between episodes, just because of how painful it felt to watch. The show had many, many scenes and themes that uncomfortably resonated with my own life. Now, I don't think I'm Satou; but I recognize a LOT of tendencies that are pretty deeply ingrained within me that constantly tug me in Satou's direction. I'm capable of going out and socializing with friends, or talking with strangers, or visiting a new place; but I also feel a profound comfort on rainy Saturdays when I realize that I can stay inside, turn on the computer, play video games or read books, and not see another person all day. I also know that if I stay in that mode for too long, I'll start to feel really crummy and crabby, which is why I make myself get up and get out; but it takes a fairly constant force of will to do so.
So, in the big perspective, NHK made me uncomfortable because I could see how easily I could fall into exactly Satou's life. Just as bad, though, were the many specific aspects of Satou's life that echoed those from my own. We both have a habit of treasuring memories of awkward events from our past; we can't let them go, and instead will fuss over them for years and years. We both obsess over decisions that we made in the past - or, even more heartbreaking, decisions we DIDN'T make, gestures we didn't make, people we never touched. The longer ago a failure occurred, the more ingrained the memory becomes, so instead of being less affected by distant events, they're the ones that define us most.
Does that sound depressing? It should be, but again, NHK is a weird show, and more often than not it comes across as a comedy. The show sympathizes with Satou, and at the same time it gets as much mileage as it can out of him: his awkwardness, indecision, ignorance, and reactions are all comedy gold to the writers. The show has almost nothing in common with The Office except for that essential link between discomfort and humor.
Also, as noted before, the show starts pushing Satou out into the world. He reconnects with two friends from his school days, which felt very realistic to me; I find that in my own life, it's easiest to restart relationships with people from my childhood. One of the funniest discoveries is that for nearly a year he's been living right next door to an old friend, but since he never left the room they never met. Yamazaki is a good foil to Satou; in any other anime Yamazaki would be the hopeless nerd at the bottom of the social order, but this is the one show where he's paired with someone even lower than himself, which lets him take the lead... and man, that's a scary sight. Yamazaki is hard-core otaku, obsessed with bishoojo anime in general and, in particular, a spectacularly inane piece of fluff called "Pururin." That said, Yamazaki, while a loser, is a loser inside society, while Satou is a loser outside society, and so Yamazaki can induce Satou to crawl a little out of his hole. Eventually, he and Satou start to collaborate on creating a galge, a simple romantic adventure game. Yamazaki is clearly more skilled and capable than Satou at, well, pretty much everything, and he makes sure to let Satou know it.
Yamazaki is the closest thing to a peer that Satou has. The heart of this show, though, unquestionably belongs to Misaki. She's an incredibly sweet, cheerful, giving girl who mysteriously decides to make Satou her project: she will do anything in her power to rescue him from his hikikomori lifestyle. It's very hard to get a bead on just who Misaki is and what she's doing, and Satou puzzles over it just as much as we do.
Misaki provides some much-needed structure to Satou's life, setting up daily "classes" that meet in the park at 9PM - presumably this is to make is as easy as possible for Satou to attend, since it's dark out and he won't need to see any other people in the deserted park. The classes themselves seem odd; she has prepared lectures, and notes, and lesson plans, but she doesn't seem to know the material all that much better than Satou does (her grasp of psychology is enthusiastic but shallow), and the subject matter varies widely from session to session (often explicitly addressing hikikimori, but just as often dealing with topics that seem almost totally unrelated). Now that the show is over, I suspect that her plan wasn't so much to teach Satou through the content of these lessons; rather, just having the lessons themselves were a crucial part of his "recovery." They gave him something to look forward to (or to dread, or to be annoyed at) each day, required him to engage with another human being, and offered a sense of continuity that unfolded outside of his apartment.
While "Welcome to the NHK" is a serial, most of the episodes after the first four, up until the finale, seem more or less interchangeable. Satou's condition gradually improves, as can be seen by the way he leaves his apartment, leaves town, goes on trips, meets with people. It's not a redemption story, and it's filled with setbacks. In one sequence, we learn that a seemingly friendly person is actually trying to financially profit from him, and we worry that this sour experience will drive him back into isolation. There's also a pretty amazing diversion into a FFXI/World of Warcraft-ish MMORPG, which is one of the funniest and most painful things I've seen in a while.
MEGA SPOILERS
And then there's the ending. Is it just me, or do more things happen in that last episode than in the entire series before it? It was interesting to see Satou finally leave his apartment and get a job; I feel like we got a strong foreshadowing of this in the episode where the class president got arrested and her brother became a bicycle delivery guy. In that earlier episode, the hikikomori seemed totally redeemed by work; in a few days, he was transformed from a sniveling, helpless blob into a cheerful, energetic young man. Satou's own transformation isn't quite as dramatic. I was kind of happy to see him out in the world, but he himself doesn't look particularly happy. Those scenes also made me think a lot about Japan's social compact and economy. One of the things people often notice about Japan is the seemingly useless jobs some people have, and the main example they give is exactly what Satou ends up doing: waving a stick to let people know about road construction. From the outside, this seems like a pure waste; why on earth pay a person (and it's actually often multiple people) to do a job that can be done just as well by a sign? Well, after 23 episodes of NHK, we know why: because people NEED work. Because having a job isn't only about money, it's about having some sort of meaning to your life. Even the worst job is better than nothing, and it's better for the society to subsidize peoples' work than to subsidize their laziness.
This does obliquely get around to addressing the main question people have about hikikomori, and slackers, and NEETs: is it actually a disease? Or is it just something that happens to lazy boys with money? If you're poor, you never have the opportunity to become a hikikomori: you'll find work or you'll starve to death. Only people who can leech off of parents, or the state, have the leisure to become socially withdrawn.
So... what are we to make of that? Should parent cut off their children, and the government implement welfare-to-work programs to achieve 100% employment? I dunno, and I don't think the show does either. We're seeing how these decisions affect Satou's life, but it's hard to say if it should be read as a policy endorsement.
The main point of that final episode, though, is obviously about Misaki and Satou. How sad. How very, very sad. Now, I was never too sure of my own feelings for those two - she's obviously quite a bit younger than him, and I couldn't tell just how young, which would help determine whether their relationship would count as odd or as creepy. That said, there is a certain sense to it; Satou's hikikomori tendencies bloomed in his 20's, but started in his adolescence, and there's a certain case to be made that they're emotionally at the same age - he has arrested development due to his neuroses, and she is dealing with her own trauma. He needs saving, she needs to save. It's asymmetric, but the pieces go together.
The ending doesn't make it totally clear exactly what happened on that day... but I think we can make a very confident educated guess, especially given the last snatches of audio we hear.
END SPOILERS
Welcome to the NHK is funny, but not exactly fun. I can't really compare it to other fiction I've encountered, anime or not. It's a character study of a profoundly alienated person, who both does and does not want to reconnect with a larger society. It's got a lot of funny stuff, built on top of a very sad backdrop. If that sounds interesting to you, it's worth checking out; I doubt we'll see its like again.
Update: Heh heh... whoops! After I finished writing this, I realized that, um, there are actually 24 episodes in the first season, not 23. And, yeah, the 24th episode does change the overall feel of the series. (As a side note: a really interesting thought experiment is to imagine chopping off the last chapter of a favorite novel, or the last episode of a favorite series, or the last five minutes of a favorite play or movie. I suspect that, more often than we might think, the result would end up being more powerful than the original.)
MEGA SPOILERS AGAIN
So, Misaki does not die! That certainly makes the series WAY more cheerful. I was pretty happy with how they unwound everything in the final episode... it didn't feel like they waved a magic wand that made everyone suddenly happy, but it felt like they stayed true to their characters while showing them a way forward. It was touching to get glimpses of Yamazaki and Senpai's lives; again, this was something that resonated with me, as I often feel that mix of affection and wistfulness when I hear about old school friends building happy lives farther away from me.
Did you catch the call-back from the cliff scene to the opening of the first episode? I'm kind of surprised that I remembered it; it's been a LONG time since I started this series.
I also really like the tone on which they leave Satou's and Misaki's relationship. It isn't romantic, which would have been creepy, but it's closer than friendship. They like each other, and they need each other, and simultaneously are helping each other become more independent and diminish that neediness. It's a great note on which to end the series.
OK NO MORE SPOILERS FOR REAL THIS TIME
I haven't watched a whole lot of anime lately. I've started a few series since Death Note, but have only made it through two. I stumbled across Welcome to the NHK while reading some online discussions about Serial Experiments Lain. NHK and Lain have almost nothing in common; I suppose that they've both set in modern times, and deal with themes of alienation, but in profoundly different ways. They also have very different sensibilities. Lain felt like a dark, sinister psychological thriller. NHK is... strange. I suppose that it's a psychological drama/comedy? It's a humorous look at a profoundly depressing situation.
Welcome to the NHK stars Satou, a hikikomori in his 20s. "Hikikomori" is a Japanese social phenomenon that has been concerning people for several decades: men (it seems to always be men) become extremely socially isolated. They will retreat to their rooms for years at a time, not emerging for social interaction, or food, or work. A related term is "NEET", based on the English for "Not in Education, Employment, or Training" - that is, someone who isn't a student, in professional school, or working.
When I first heard that description, my immediate thought was of the "slacker" phenomenon that started in America around the same time in the 90's. However, they're quite different. A slacker doesn't have a job and doesn't seem to have any interest in improving their lives, but they can still be quite social; the stereotypical slacker hangs out in coffee shops, or couch-surfs, at the bottom of society but still moving around and making connections. On the other hand, the hikikomori is completely cut off from society. Uncharitable people might think of both as leeches, but the hikikomori seems (at least to me) to be in a sorrier state, devoid of companionship or real connection.
MINI SPOILERS
The first few episodes of Welcome to the NHK are probably the funniest. Satou has been living by himself for years, and his mind is starting to become frayed. He hallucinates lightly throughout the day; he talks to his appliances, and they talk back to him; he fantasizes about the characters singing the bishoojo anime that plays loudly next door. His overactive mind also assigns blame for all that's wrong with his life at the feet of the NHK, one of Japan's largest TV networks. He decides that the NHK (which, he realizes, must ACTUALLY stand for Nippon Hikikomori Kyookai) is the leader of a vast conspiracy, all designed to trick Satou into pursuing his miserable life: watching television, eating instant ramen, smoking cigarettes.
It actually would have been interesting to see a whole (though probably shorter) series try to stay locked in that room. Satou is unbalanced, but not really psychotic, just at an elevated state of stir-crazy. And I do love hallucinations. However, the series is actually about Satou gradually working his way outward, reconnecting with old acquaintances and making a few new ones. He isn't ever "cured," which I liked; he's still sad, and angry, and antisocial; but he's far more functional at the end than in the beginning, and it feels worth every agonizing step he took.
And it is agonizing. Usually, when I like a series, I'll start devouring it, watching multiple episodes a day as I try to get through it. Here, even though I liked the show and what it was doing, I often needed to wait for days or a week between episodes, just because of how painful it felt to watch. The show had many, many scenes and themes that uncomfortably resonated with my own life. Now, I don't think I'm Satou; but I recognize a LOT of tendencies that are pretty deeply ingrained within me that constantly tug me in Satou's direction. I'm capable of going out and socializing with friends, or talking with strangers, or visiting a new place; but I also feel a profound comfort on rainy Saturdays when I realize that I can stay inside, turn on the computer, play video games or read books, and not see another person all day. I also know that if I stay in that mode for too long, I'll start to feel really crummy and crabby, which is why I make myself get up and get out; but it takes a fairly constant force of will to do so.
So, in the big perspective, NHK made me uncomfortable because I could see how easily I could fall into exactly Satou's life. Just as bad, though, were the many specific aspects of Satou's life that echoed those from my own. We both have a habit of treasuring memories of awkward events from our past; we can't let them go, and instead will fuss over them for years and years. We both obsess over decisions that we made in the past - or, even more heartbreaking, decisions we DIDN'T make, gestures we didn't make, people we never touched. The longer ago a failure occurred, the more ingrained the memory becomes, so instead of being less affected by distant events, they're the ones that define us most.
Does that sound depressing? It should be, but again, NHK is a weird show, and more often than not it comes across as a comedy. The show sympathizes with Satou, and at the same time it gets as much mileage as it can out of him: his awkwardness, indecision, ignorance, and reactions are all comedy gold to the writers. The show has almost nothing in common with The Office except for that essential link between discomfort and humor.
Also, as noted before, the show starts pushing Satou out into the world. He reconnects with two friends from his school days, which felt very realistic to me; I find that in my own life, it's easiest to restart relationships with people from my childhood. One of the funniest discoveries is that for nearly a year he's been living right next door to an old friend, but since he never left the room they never met. Yamazaki is a good foil to Satou; in any other anime Yamazaki would be the hopeless nerd at the bottom of the social order, but this is the one show where he's paired with someone even lower than himself, which lets him take the lead... and man, that's a scary sight. Yamazaki is hard-core otaku, obsessed with bishoojo anime in general and, in particular, a spectacularly inane piece of fluff called "Pururin." That said, Yamazaki, while a loser, is a loser inside society, while Satou is a loser outside society, and so Yamazaki can induce Satou to crawl a little out of his hole. Eventually, he and Satou start to collaborate on creating a galge, a simple romantic adventure game. Yamazaki is clearly more skilled and capable than Satou at, well, pretty much everything, and he makes sure to let Satou know it.
Yamazaki is the closest thing to a peer that Satou has. The heart of this show, though, unquestionably belongs to Misaki. She's an incredibly sweet, cheerful, giving girl who mysteriously decides to make Satou her project: she will do anything in her power to rescue him from his hikikomori lifestyle. It's very hard to get a bead on just who Misaki is and what she's doing, and Satou puzzles over it just as much as we do.
Misaki provides some much-needed structure to Satou's life, setting up daily "classes" that meet in the park at 9PM - presumably this is to make is as easy as possible for Satou to attend, since it's dark out and he won't need to see any other people in the deserted park. The classes themselves seem odd; she has prepared lectures, and notes, and lesson plans, but she doesn't seem to know the material all that much better than Satou does (her grasp of psychology is enthusiastic but shallow), and the subject matter varies widely from session to session (often explicitly addressing hikikimori, but just as often dealing with topics that seem almost totally unrelated). Now that the show is over, I suspect that her plan wasn't so much to teach Satou through the content of these lessons; rather, just having the lessons themselves were a crucial part of his "recovery." They gave him something to look forward to (or to dread, or to be annoyed at) each day, required him to engage with another human being, and offered a sense of continuity that unfolded outside of his apartment.
While "Welcome to the NHK" is a serial, most of the episodes after the first four, up until the finale, seem more or less interchangeable. Satou's condition gradually improves, as can be seen by the way he leaves his apartment, leaves town, goes on trips, meets with people. It's not a redemption story, and it's filled with setbacks. In one sequence, we learn that a seemingly friendly person is actually trying to financially profit from him, and we worry that this sour experience will drive him back into isolation. There's also a pretty amazing diversion into a FFXI/World of Warcraft-ish MMORPG, which is one of the funniest and most painful things I've seen in a while.
MEGA SPOILERS
And then there's the ending. Is it just me, or do more things happen in that last episode than in the entire series before it? It was interesting to see Satou finally leave his apartment and get a job; I feel like we got a strong foreshadowing of this in the episode where the class president got arrested and her brother became a bicycle delivery guy. In that earlier episode, the hikikomori seemed totally redeemed by work; in a few days, he was transformed from a sniveling, helpless blob into a cheerful, energetic young man. Satou's own transformation isn't quite as dramatic. I was kind of happy to see him out in the world, but he himself doesn't look particularly happy. Those scenes also made me think a lot about Japan's social compact and economy. One of the things people often notice about Japan is the seemingly useless jobs some people have, and the main example they give is exactly what Satou ends up doing: waving a stick to let people know about road construction. From the outside, this seems like a pure waste; why on earth pay a person (and it's actually often multiple people) to do a job that can be done just as well by a sign? Well, after 23 episodes of NHK, we know why: because people NEED work. Because having a job isn't only about money, it's about having some sort of meaning to your life. Even the worst job is better than nothing, and it's better for the society to subsidize peoples' work than to subsidize their laziness.
This does obliquely get around to addressing the main question people have about hikikomori, and slackers, and NEETs: is it actually a disease? Or is it just something that happens to lazy boys with money? If you're poor, you never have the opportunity to become a hikikomori: you'll find work or you'll starve to death. Only people who can leech off of parents, or the state, have the leisure to become socially withdrawn.
So... what are we to make of that? Should parent cut off their children, and the government implement welfare-to-work programs to achieve 100% employment? I dunno, and I don't think the show does either. We're seeing how these decisions affect Satou's life, but it's hard to say if it should be read as a policy endorsement.
The main point of that final episode, though, is obviously about Misaki and Satou. How sad. How very, very sad. Now, I was never too sure of my own feelings for those two - she's obviously quite a bit younger than him, and I couldn't tell just how young, which would help determine whether their relationship would count as odd or as creepy. That said, there is a certain sense to it; Satou's hikikomori tendencies bloomed in his 20's, but started in his adolescence, and there's a certain case to be made that they're emotionally at the same age - he has arrested development due to his neuroses, and she is dealing with her own trauma. He needs saving, she needs to save. It's asymmetric, but the pieces go together.
The ending doesn't make it totally clear exactly what happened on that day... but I think we can make a very confident educated guess, especially given the last snatches of audio we hear.
END SPOILERS
Welcome to the NHK is funny, but not exactly fun. I can't really compare it to other fiction I've encountered, anime or not. It's a character study of a profoundly alienated person, who both does and does not want to reconnect with a larger society. It's got a lot of funny stuff, built on top of a very sad backdrop. If that sounds interesting to you, it's worth checking out; I doubt we'll see its like again.
Update: Heh heh... whoops! After I finished writing this, I realized that, um, there are actually 24 episodes in the first season, not 23. And, yeah, the 24th episode does change the overall feel of the series. (As a side note: a really interesting thought experiment is to imagine chopping off the last chapter of a favorite novel, or the last episode of a favorite series, or the last five minutes of a favorite play or movie. I suspect that, more often than we might think, the result would end up being more powerful than the original.)
MEGA SPOILERS AGAIN
So, Misaki does not die! That certainly makes the series WAY more cheerful. I was pretty happy with how they unwound everything in the final episode... it didn't feel like they waved a magic wand that made everyone suddenly happy, but it felt like they stayed true to their characters while showing them a way forward. It was touching to get glimpses of Yamazaki and Senpai's lives; again, this was something that resonated with me, as I often feel that mix of affection and wistfulness when I hear about old school friends building happy lives farther away from me.
Did you catch the call-back from the cliff scene to the opening of the first episode? I'm kind of surprised that I remembered it; it's been a LONG time since I started this series.
I also really like the tone on which they leave Satou's and Misaki's relationship. It isn't romantic, which would have been creepy, but it's closer than friendship. They like each other, and they need each other, and simultaneously are helping each other become more independent and diminish that neediness. It's a great note on which to end the series.
OK NO MORE SPOILERS FOR REAL THIS TIME
Monday, August 29, 2011
The Stupidest Angel
I've returned for more Moore. "The Stupidest Angel" is the shortest and quickest read yet from him, and it's hilarious as always. (Well, as almost always.) It's sort of a stand-alone and very twisted Christmas story, but it's also a kind of celebration of his work up to that point, including characters from quite a few of his previously unconnected novels (some of which I haven't yet read). It's all very silly, and all highly amusing.
I keep trying to figure out the best way to describe Moore's appeal to other people. I'll start sentences like, "It's really about his characters..." or "It's really about his goofy analogies..." or "It's really about the way he makes crazy things happen in real places..." or "It's really about his plotting." The truth, of course, is the sum of all these things. He has a great gift for writing dialog; he's able to quickly establish his characters' personalities and then start playing around with them; he always has just enough plot to make things interesting without overwhelming the jokes; and he's really a very skilled writer who uses his considerable talents to amuse you.
MINI SPOILERS
The Stupidest Angel returns to Pine Cove, the scene of Moore's first book, Practical Demonkeeping. It's a fun setting; the bucolic natural surroundings and the quirky town inhabitants provide a nice backdrop to whatever action occurs. In the first two pages, Moore perfectly nails the oddities of California Christmases: we feel the need for holiday accoutrements, like Santa and reindeer, but it's all just kind of wrong without the weather to back it up.
I don't want to give away the plot, even in a mega spoilers section... but there's a murder pretty early on in the book, and things just kind of go downhill from there. Let's just say that this ends up being a pretty classic parody of a movie genre, but that genre isn't the Christmas movie genre.
END SPOILERS
More than anything, this book makes me want to go back and read the other books before this one, to get to know the new characters that it introduced: Island of the Sequined Love Nun, the Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove, and Lamb. I just want to be careful to not exhaust this trove of humor too quickly.
I keep trying to figure out the best way to describe Moore's appeal to other people. I'll start sentences like, "It's really about his characters..." or "It's really about his goofy analogies..." or "It's really about the way he makes crazy things happen in real places..." or "It's really about his plotting." The truth, of course, is the sum of all these things. He has a great gift for writing dialog; he's able to quickly establish his characters' personalities and then start playing around with them; he always has just enough plot to make things interesting without overwhelming the jokes; and he's really a very skilled writer who uses his considerable talents to amuse you.
MINI SPOILERS
The Stupidest Angel returns to Pine Cove, the scene of Moore's first book, Practical Demonkeeping. It's a fun setting; the bucolic natural surroundings and the quirky town inhabitants provide a nice backdrop to whatever action occurs. In the first two pages, Moore perfectly nails the oddities of California Christmases: we feel the need for holiday accoutrements, like Santa and reindeer, but it's all just kind of wrong without the weather to back it up.
I don't want to give away the plot, even in a mega spoilers section... but there's a murder pretty early on in the book, and things just kind of go downhill from there. Let's just say that this ends up being a pretty classic parody of a movie genre, but that genre isn't the Christmas movie genre.
END SPOILERS
More than anything, this book makes me want to go back and read the other books before this one, to get to know the new characters that it introduced: Island of the Sequined Love Nun, the Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove, and Lamb. I just want to be careful to not exhaust this trove of humor too quickly.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Pescaderoooooooooo
(Imagine the title being said by Mr. Bill.)
My recent reconnection with cycling was really driven by a desire to do more hiking. There's a particular trail that I most often hike these days, starting at Sneath Lane and crossing over Sweeney Ridge, then down to Sharp Park and the Pacific Ocean. It's a great hike, but (I reasoned) it could be even BETTER if I didn't need to drive the ten-fifteen minutes to the trailhead. Walking would technically be feasible, but would require me to devote an entire day to the endeavor. But, what if I could ride my bike there? In fact, since the trail is paved, it would even be possible to ride from my home all the way up to the top of the ridge, to the missile silo site; then, I could stash my bike, and do the dirt trail to the coast and back, then coast all the way home. And, if I started on wheels, then maybe I could even do a true bay-to-ocean thing by working in a brief loop out to Bayview Park or something.
After a few attempts, I decided to give up on it; I just wasn't able to easily scale any of the ascents up to Skyline from here. However, as I kept searching for better ways up the ridge, I eventually discovered Crystal Springs Road in San Mateo and, well, that's been the gateway to everything else I've ridden since then (not counting the commute). My rides each extended on the ones before, taking climbs that I knew I was capable of and had done a few times, and adding on an extension that seemed within my abilities.
The latest iteration of this was my first-ever ride to Pescadero. I'm not sure when the idea first popped into my head, but there's a nice inevitability to it. Pescadero is my favorite place on the San Mateo coast, a small hamlet with an absurdly strong and broad food lineup: world-famous olallieberry pie and cream of artichoke soup at Duarte's Tavern; California's best fish tacos (per the New York Times) at the local gas station (!); and two bakery/groceries that put out great food. Keep in mind, all of this is in a single block that, to the untrained eye, is the entirety of Pescadero. Most times that I have visitors out here, we're able to work a trip to Pescadero in at some point, and despite a dozen journeys by now I've never gotten sick of it.
I love destinations, and there seemed to be more sense in riding to Pescadero than in the more-or-less arbitrary intersection of Old La Honda and 84. From my recent riding, I knew I'd be able to make it to Pescadero - the challenge is getting over the range, which I've done before, and from then on it's primarily downhill. My only concern was getting back home again. Could I climb from sea level to the mountaintop twice in one day?
I poked around a bit online and found some good resources from people who'd previously done the ride, and often had amusing stories to go with it. I played around with Google Maps and tried to visualize the trek. Given the destination, what would be the easiest way to do a first ride there? I'd initially assumed that it would make the most sense to cross over Skyline on Old La Honda, go down to Pescadero, and then return the way I came; the OLH summit is only about 1700 feet above sea level, while Kings Mountain summit is well over 2000 feet, so my net elevation gain would be lower. However, while studying the elevation profiles on one of the web sites, I saw that the descent from Old La Honda actually contained two noticeable peaks. Returning back up Pescadero Road would require climbing, then descending, then climbing again (repeated a few times). In contrast, the ascent I was worried about, Tunitas Creek, was a straight climb - that sounds like a bad thing, but I tend to be attracted to those, since I don't feel like I'm "wasting" a climb by recovering from a descent.
Given that all of the routes I'd seen did it as a loop, and adding the fact that I do love loops, I nervously decided to give it a go. And so, the morning of, I rode out at 7:30 in the morning. I had slightly modified my equipment. In addition to my standard water bottle, water refill, energy bars, spare tube, and tire tools, I also tossed in my Kryptonite lock, only because I couldn't clearly remember what kind of bike facilities were in Pescadero. I knew that I was a bit short on food, but that was the whole point - in Pescadero, I'd get GOOD food, FRESH food, and then I'd eat it!
I rode normally into Woodside, continuing on Canada past Roberts Market. I kept going straight on Mountain Home Road. This is the reverse direction of one of the loops I enjoy doing; I hadn't done the ascent before, but it went well, it has a nice reasonable grade and light traffic. I took this road all the way to the end, where I turned left on Portola, then right on... well, technically, I guess Portola, but I think of it as Sand Hill Road. I was now on uncharted territory. This section of the road didn't have the wide-open expanses of the lower part of Sand Hill, but it's just as bright and wide, which is nice. (Woodside really is a great town to ride in, if for no other reason than the strong variety of environments you get to ride through.) Soon I came to Old La Honda and started climbing.
I was a bit surprised at how much auto traffic was on this road. Granted, it wasn't much - maybe a half-dozen cars over the half-hour or so it took me to ascend - but that far outpaces the total of two cars that I've seen in the six or so times I've ridden the other side of OLH. Fortunately, everyone's pretty careful and calm. You have to be - the road is barely one lane wide. After I got farther up, I started really enjoying the atmosphere. There are more homes on this side than on the ocean side, and some folks were out walking their dogs. Plus, I had finally broken through the clouds and fog, and was enjoying my first direct sunlight of the day. Oh, and this is also where I stopped for my first break. I usually force myself to stop, eat something, and have a drink at regular intervals, starting at about 90 minutes and then repeating every hour. On my standard long trip my first break is usually at the Country Store at Kings Mountain and Tripp; for this, there was an entrance to a youth camp a little ways up from the start of OLH.
The climb was challenging, but probably easier than Kings Mountain. Which, again, makes sense, as it's several hundred feet shorter. At the top I stopped to sip some water and check my stats. I'd gone almost exactly 25 miles from home, in a bit under 2 hours. Not too bad! I crossed Skyline, and did the descent, still in sunshine.
At 84, I took a breath - this was my last chance to turn around and stick to a challenge I knew I could handle. Instead, I turned left, and started spinning down 84. This was a great descent - very fast, but much less curvy than the other side of 84, so I had a better feeling of control. I got passed a few times by both cyclists and cars, but for the most part it was quiet. At one point I ran into construction, where they close down one lane and use signals to control the other lane, and was delighted to finally have an opportunity to press a pedestrian crossing button to ride my bike through.
It took longer than I expected to reach La Honda, which seems to have some nice spots for refueling. I kept going farther and farther down. It was still sunny, but impressive cloud banks farther west were hiding the ocean from me. Still, I was loving the scenery - it's so green!
I finally reached Pescadero Road. It isn't very clearly marked, but there are so few intersections that it isn't hard to figure out what it is. I turned left, then went through a series of climbs and short descents. Finally, after cresting the last peak, I was ready for the race down that awaited me. The auto traffic had thinned out again, and there weren't many turns for me to worry about, just an exhilarating fast-but-not-scary zoom down to the ocean, under the bright morning sun.
I started passing farm houses and cottages as I approached the Pescadero city limits, including one very striking pink-accented home. I eventually re-entered cloud cover as I got near the coast, but there wasn't any fog this low. After riding past the Phipps Farm, I scooted over to North Road for the approach into town. I hadn't previously seen this part of Pescadero, and it was quite nice; this seems to be where everyone actually lives, and it's where some of the more town-oriented businesses are (nurseries and dairies and such). North drops you out on Stage Road just north of the "downtown" block, above the businesses and below the church.
I turned left and pedaled a few yards to Archangeli Grocery Store, where some cyclists were just leaving. I rode out to the back of the store, where there's a very nice picnic area by a creek. I propped my bike up against the fence, then walked (some might say "hobbled") into the store. I'd had in mind a banana and a pastry; they didn't have bananas, but I did pick up a ripe peach and two pastries: a raspberry croissant and a bear claw. (Ever since seeing the last season of Archer, I've been semi-obsessed with bear claws, but rarely have a sufficient reason to indulge. This was one occasion to do so.) I went back, sat at a picnic table, and devoured the peach and half of the croissant. I rarely get hungry during rides, so I wasn't able to finish it, but I knew that I'd be happy for more later, so I wrapped up the bag and stashed it away. I made use of the port-a-potty that they have there - that may not sound exciting, but on these roads, you can ride a LONG time without seeing anything that looks like an opportunity for relief.
I checked my statistics. I had ridden about 45 miles in a bit under three and a half hours. This immensely cheered me - when I'd laid out the route in Google Maps' cycling layer, it had predicted almost five and a half hours, which had seemed long to me but which I had been prepared for. The longer time would have meant getting home sometime around six-thirty - still within the span of daylight, but a really massive commitment. Now, I was on track for something much more reasonable. (I'm not totally sure how Google calculates their cycling times, but it's certainly got to be more challenging than auto times; you can usually assume that people are driving more or less the speed limit on a car, but on a bike, you have a huge range from casual riders on mountain bikes, through serious wannabe racers. Plus, add in extreme elevation gain or loss, and I can imagine their algorithm just throwing up its hands and saying, "I dunno, that seems hard!")
This was my last chance to follow my original plan of retracing my steps up Old La Honda, but by now I was feeling good about this new route, so I pushed onward. As one of the website writers had put it, "Sure, you could ride along Highway One, but why?" This next stretch was along Stage Road, which was just amazing - even with the heavy cloud cover, it was very pretty. This is definitely agricultural land, and I kept seeing snatches of bucolic scenes: a shepherd shearing a flock of sheep, while an Australian Shepherd lay with its head between its paws and watched; cattle grazing in a pasture; fields of hay and other crops.
This section is somewhat hilly; definitely not as severe as the stretches over the mountain, but with some nicely steep climbs. I don't think I passed a single car on the whole ride up to San Gregorio, just a bunch of bicyclists and one motorcycle.
In San Gregorio, I crossed Highway 84 and saw yet another cyclist gathering spot, a grocery store with a dozen or more riders clustered around outside. I kept heading north, and did one final climb before merging into Highway One.
I often drive on Highway One, and always see at least a couple of cyclists. My reactions range from "That looks exciting" to "That looks incredibly dangerous," more often trending towards the latter. However, this is one of the sections of the coast with a nice wide shoulder; even though traffic is doing 55, there's enough separation that it doesn't feel oppressive. Other than one or two parts where trees were overgrowing into the shoulder, I could mostly just relax and go. As a nice bonus, this stretch is entirely downhill, at a good grade (steep enough that you can go fast, but not so steep that pedaling does nothing).
I crossed a bridge, and then immediately turned onto Tunitas Creek - this is another intersection that isn't incredibly well marked, but where it's still fairly obvious. From my earlier research, I knew vaguely what to expect: a flat first third, followed by a very steep and long middle third, followed by an easy final third. The flat portion goes past some farms and houses which all looked quite nice; there was even one farm with a stand that was advertising fresh fruit, drinks, and picnicking. That looked like another nice cycling stop. I kept going inland, eventually leaving the clouds and rejoining the sunshine. It was coming up on 4:30 ride time, so I stopped and devoured the remaining half of my raspberry croissant.
The signs of habitation thinned out, the road met the creek, and the climb started in earnest. It was quite challenging; I think it's as steep as Kings Mountain Road, but since it's much later in the ride I had a bit less energy, plus it goes on for longer. This only makes sense; Kings Mountain Road starts after I've already been climbing for about 90 minutes, gradually working my way up from sea level, eventually reaching 2100 feet. Now, I was reaching that same elevation, but this time starting from sea level. That meant... well, a whole lotta climbing.
That said, other than the steepness it was about as good a road as I could ask for. The page I'd seen online had commented on how long it's been since the road was paved, but the surface seemed fine to me, without real noticeable cracks or potholes. The presence of the creek lent a nice soothing noise and environment. Very few cars were driving along the road. And, the heavy forest was providing some welcome shade now that I was entering the hottest part of the day.
My main goal was simply to make it to the top of the mountain in one go. I didn't care how long it took, and I didn't mind that I'd be in my very lowest gear for pretty much the whole way; I just didn't want to walk my bike or take a break. I felt like pooping out at a few points, but was pretty good at settling into a rhythm - to the untrained ear it might sound like gasping for air, but I was steadily performing and just letting my body go on auto-pilot. Mentally, I was either counting out numbers - "One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand..." - or else running through snatches of music in my head; this day's bizarre collection of earworms included "A Prayer for England," the inane "Pururin" theme song from "Welcome to the NHK", and (briefly) Toad the Wet Sprocket's "Walk on the Ocean."
Eventually, I realized that I wasn't working as hard as I needed to before. It was still mostly uphill, but I did get one or two rare flat or downhill stretches, and even the climbs were much more reasonable. I was also getting passed much more often, presumably by riders who had been less damaged by the climbs and could switch their turbo back on. I contentedly pedaled along, happy in the thought that I would accomplish my goal.
Altogether, the climbing portion took me about an hour. I finally emerged at the intersection of Tunitas Creek, Skyline, and Kings Mountain Road. I always see at least one or two groups of cyclists clustered around here when I ascend from Kings Mountain, and I could tell better than ever before why: it's a good stop after Kings Mountain, and a necessary stop after Tunitas Creek. I found a shady spot, got out my bag, and devoured half of my bear claw. Mmmm. Rawr! Bear claws!
I'd felt my phone buzzing a few minutes from the peak, which surprised me, since I had turned it off before starting my ride. (Obviously, my route takes me through a lot of places with poor or no cell signal, which eats up the battery. I always bring along my phone, but keep it turned off so it'll have juice if I need to use it.) I guess the jostling must have powered it on. Anyways, I read texts from my brother and sister (sis had just landed in San Diego at the start of a half-week trip), replied to her, and packed my stuff back up. I was more than halfway done with the trip, and from here on out, it would MOSTLY be downhill.
The first hill to go down: Kings Mountain. This was a total blast. I've climbed up it quite a few times over the last several months, and it's always the most challenging climb of a ride. I see lots of other riders struggling up, and a few lucky ones sprinting down, going by in a flash. It felt great to be a flasher for a change. It's steep, and fast, and curvy, and woodsy, and all in all just a great time.
On the way down, I tried to decide whether I should return back to Woodside so I could stop at Roberts Market and pick up some more supplies, primarily something like gatorade and maybe a banana. I decided that I'd be fine - I had a full water bottle left, and half a pastry, plus an emergency Clif Bar. So I continued on my way, doing the reverse of my normal ride: down to the bottom of Kings Mountain, past Tripp and the Woodside Country Store. I had to keep my eye open for Albion; I'm used to coming out of it, but wasn't used to approaching from this perspective. I managed to spy it, turned left, and worked my way back along Manuella and Olive Hill. It was fascinating to do the ride from this direction, and it felt like I was seeing totally different scenery. This is basically a cutoff to the standard Canada - Woodside intersection that most people take; it's quieter, goes by some really pretty estates, and lets you avoid two stop signs and the attendant Woodside cops.
After a left turn on Canada, I was back on autopilot for the rest of the ride back; even the last couple of climbs I need to do (Ralston Bike Trail, Crystal Springs, and the last mile of Sawyer Camp) breezed by. I reached the southern entrance to Sawyer Camp right around 6:30 riding time and polished off the rest of my bear claw. By the time I made it home, I'd traveled 89.28 miles in 7:17 riding time; counting all my stops, the total clock time was almost exactly eight hours. I can't even begin to guess how much total climbing there was... but it must be many, many thousands of feet. The ride was tiring, thrilling, exhilarating. I'm sure I won't forget it. I can hardly wait to go again.
My recent reconnection with cycling was really driven by a desire to do more hiking. There's a particular trail that I most often hike these days, starting at Sneath Lane and crossing over Sweeney Ridge, then down to Sharp Park and the Pacific Ocean. It's a great hike, but (I reasoned) it could be even BETTER if I didn't need to drive the ten-fifteen minutes to the trailhead. Walking would technically be feasible, but would require me to devote an entire day to the endeavor. But, what if I could ride my bike there? In fact, since the trail is paved, it would even be possible to ride from my home all the way up to the top of the ridge, to the missile silo site; then, I could stash my bike, and do the dirt trail to the coast and back, then coast all the way home. And, if I started on wheels, then maybe I could even do a true bay-to-ocean thing by working in a brief loop out to Bayview Park or something.
After a few attempts, I decided to give up on it; I just wasn't able to easily scale any of the ascents up to Skyline from here. However, as I kept searching for better ways up the ridge, I eventually discovered Crystal Springs Road in San Mateo and, well, that's been the gateway to everything else I've ridden since then (not counting the commute). My rides each extended on the ones before, taking climbs that I knew I was capable of and had done a few times, and adding on an extension that seemed within my abilities.
The latest iteration of this was my first-ever ride to Pescadero. I'm not sure when the idea first popped into my head, but there's a nice inevitability to it. Pescadero is my favorite place on the San Mateo coast, a small hamlet with an absurdly strong and broad food lineup: world-famous olallieberry pie and cream of artichoke soup at Duarte's Tavern; California's best fish tacos (per the New York Times) at the local gas station (!); and two bakery/groceries that put out great food. Keep in mind, all of this is in a single block that, to the untrained eye, is the entirety of Pescadero. Most times that I have visitors out here, we're able to work a trip to Pescadero in at some point, and despite a dozen journeys by now I've never gotten sick of it.
I love destinations, and there seemed to be more sense in riding to Pescadero than in the more-or-less arbitrary intersection of Old La Honda and 84. From my recent riding, I knew I'd be able to make it to Pescadero - the challenge is getting over the range, which I've done before, and from then on it's primarily downhill. My only concern was getting back home again. Could I climb from sea level to the mountaintop twice in one day?
I poked around a bit online and found some good resources from people who'd previously done the ride, and often had amusing stories to go with it. I played around with Google Maps and tried to visualize the trek. Given the destination, what would be the easiest way to do a first ride there? I'd initially assumed that it would make the most sense to cross over Skyline on Old La Honda, go down to Pescadero, and then return the way I came; the OLH summit is only about 1700 feet above sea level, while Kings Mountain summit is well over 2000 feet, so my net elevation gain would be lower. However, while studying the elevation profiles on one of the web sites, I saw that the descent from Old La Honda actually contained two noticeable peaks. Returning back up Pescadero Road would require climbing, then descending, then climbing again (repeated a few times). In contrast, the ascent I was worried about, Tunitas Creek, was a straight climb - that sounds like a bad thing, but I tend to be attracted to those, since I don't feel like I'm "wasting" a climb by recovering from a descent.
Given that all of the routes I'd seen did it as a loop, and adding the fact that I do love loops, I nervously decided to give it a go. And so, the morning of, I rode out at 7:30 in the morning. I had slightly modified my equipment. In addition to my standard water bottle, water refill, energy bars, spare tube, and tire tools, I also tossed in my Kryptonite lock, only because I couldn't clearly remember what kind of bike facilities were in Pescadero. I knew that I was a bit short on food, but that was the whole point - in Pescadero, I'd get GOOD food, FRESH food, and then I'd eat it!
I rode normally into Woodside, continuing on Canada past Roberts Market. I kept going straight on Mountain Home Road. This is the reverse direction of one of the loops I enjoy doing; I hadn't done the ascent before, but it went well, it has a nice reasonable grade and light traffic. I took this road all the way to the end, where I turned left on Portola, then right on... well, technically, I guess Portola, but I think of it as Sand Hill Road. I was now on uncharted territory. This section of the road didn't have the wide-open expanses of the lower part of Sand Hill, but it's just as bright and wide, which is nice. (Woodside really is a great town to ride in, if for no other reason than the strong variety of environments you get to ride through.) Soon I came to Old La Honda and started climbing.
I was a bit surprised at how much auto traffic was on this road. Granted, it wasn't much - maybe a half-dozen cars over the half-hour or so it took me to ascend - but that far outpaces the total of two cars that I've seen in the six or so times I've ridden the other side of OLH. Fortunately, everyone's pretty careful and calm. You have to be - the road is barely one lane wide. After I got farther up, I started really enjoying the atmosphere. There are more homes on this side than on the ocean side, and some folks were out walking their dogs. Plus, I had finally broken through the clouds and fog, and was enjoying my first direct sunlight of the day. Oh, and this is also where I stopped for my first break. I usually force myself to stop, eat something, and have a drink at regular intervals, starting at about 90 minutes and then repeating every hour. On my standard long trip my first break is usually at the Country Store at Kings Mountain and Tripp; for this, there was an entrance to a youth camp a little ways up from the start of OLH.
The climb was challenging, but probably easier than Kings Mountain. Which, again, makes sense, as it's several hundred feet shorter. At the top I stopped to sip some water and check my stats. I'd gone almost exactly 25 miles from home, in a bit under 2 hours. Not too bad! I crossed Skyline, and did the descent, still in sunshine.
At 84, I took a breath - this was my last chance to turn around and stick to a challenge I knew I could handle. Instead, I turned left, and started spinning down 84. This was a great descent - very fast, but much less curvy than the other side of 84, so I had a better feeling of control. I got passed a few times by both cyclists and cars, but for the most part it was quiet. At one point I ran into construction, where they close down one lane and use signals to control the other lane, and was delighted to finally have an opportunity to press a pedestrian crossing button to ride my bike through.
It took longer than I expected to reach La Honda, which seems to have some nice spots for refueling. I kept going farther and farther down. It was still sunny, but impressive cloud banks farther west were hiding the ocean from me. Still, I was loving the scenery - it's so green!
I finally reached Pescadero Road. It isn't very clearly marked, but there are so few intersections that it isn't hard to figure out what it is. I turned left, then went through a series of climbs and short descents. Finally, after cresting the last peak, I was ready for the race down that awaited me. The auto traffic had thinned out again, and there weren't many turns for me to worry about, just an exhilarating fast-but-not-scary zoom down to the ocean, under the bright morning sun.
I started passing farm houses and cottages as I approached the Pescadero city limits, including one very striking pink-accented home. I eventually re-entered cloud cover as I got near the coast, but there wasn't any fog this low. After riding past the Phipps Farm, I scooted over to North Road for the approach into town. I hadn't previously seen this part of Pescadero, and it was quite nice; this seems to be where everyone actually lives, and it's where some of the more town-oriented businesses are (nurseries and dairies and such). North drops you out on Stage Road just north of the "downtown" block, above the businesses and below the church.
I turned left and pedaled a few yards to Archangeli Grocery Store, where some cyclists were just leaving. I rode out to the back of the store, where there's a very nice picnic area by a creek. I propped my bike up against the fence, then walked (some might say "hobbled") into the store. I'd had in mind a banana and a pastry; they didn't have bananas, but I did pick up a ripe peach and two pastries: a raspberry croissant and a bear claw. (Ever since seeing the last season of Archer, I've been semi-obsessed with bear claws, but rarely have a sufficient reason to indulge. This was one occasion to do so.) I went back, sat at a picnic table, and devoured the peach and half of the croissant. I rarely get hungry during rides, so I wasn't able to finish it, but I knew that I'd be happy for more later, so I wrapped up the bag and stashed it away. I made use of the port-a-potty that they have there - that may not sound exciting, but on these roads, you can ride a LONG time without seeing anything that looks like an opportunity for relief.
I checked my statistics. I had ridden about 45 miles in a bit under three and a half hours. This immensely cheered me - when I'd laid out the route in Google Maps' cycling layer, it had predicted almost five and a half hours, which had seemed long to me but which I had been prepared for. The longer time would have meant getting home sometime around six-thirty - still within the span of daylight, but a really massive commitment. Now, I was on track for something much more reasonable. (I'm not totally sure how Google calculates their cycling times, but it's certainly got to be more challenging than auto times; you can usually assume that people are driving more or less the speed limit on a car, but on a bike, you have a huge range from casual riders on mountain bikes, through serious wannabe racers. Plus, add in extreme elevation gain or loss, and I can imagine their algorithm just throwing up its hands and saying, "I dunno, that seems hard!")
This was my last chance to follow my original plan of retracing my steps up Old La Honda, but by now I was feeling good about this new route, so I pushed onward. As one of the website writers had put it, "Sure, you could ride along Highway One, but why?" This next stretch was along Stage Road, which was just amazing - even with the heavy cloud cover, it was very pretty. This is definitely agricultural land, and I kept seeing snatches of bucolic scenes: a shepherd shearing a flock of sheep, while an Australian Shepherd lay with its head between its paws and watched; cattle grazing in a pasture; fields of hay and other crops.
This section is somewhat hilly; definitely not as severe as the stretches over the mountain, but with some nicely steep climbs. I don't think I passed a single car on the whole ride up to San Gregorio, just a bunch of bicyclists and one motorcycle.
In San Gregorio, I crossed Highway 84 and saw yet another cyclist gathering spot, a grocery store with a dozen or more riders clustered around outside. I kept heading north, and did one final climb before merging into Highway One.
I often drive on Highway One, and always see at least a couple of cyclists. My reactions range from "That looks exciting" to "That looks incredibly dangerous," more often trending towards the latter. However, this is one of the sections of the coast with a nice wide shoulder; even though traffic is doing 55, there's enough separation that it doesn't feel oppressive. Other than one or two parts where trees were overgrowing into the shoulder, I could mostly just relax and go. As a nice bonus, this stretch is entirely downhill, at a good grade (steep enough that you can go fast, but not so steep that pedaling does nothing).
I crossed a bridge, and then immediately turned onto Tunitas Creek - this is another intersection that isn't incredibly well marked, but where it's still fairly obvious. From my earlier research, I knew vaguely what to expect: a flat first third, followed by a very steep and long middle third, followed by an easy final third. The flat portion goes past some farms and houses which all looked quite nice; there was even one farm with a stand that was advertising fresh fruit, drinks, and picnicking. That looked like another nice cycling stop. I kept going inland, eventually leaving the clouds and rejoining the sunshine. It was coming up on 4:30 ride time, so I stopped and devoured the remaining half of my raspberry croissant.
The signs of habitation thinned out, the road met the creek, and the climb started in earnest. It was quite challenging; I think it's as steep as Kings Mountain Road, but since it's much later in the ride I had a bit less energy, plus it goes on for longer. This only makes sense; Kings Mountain Road starts after I've already been climbing for about 90 minutes, gradually working my way up from sea level, eventually reaching 2100 feet. Now, I was reaching that same elevation, but this time starting from sea level. That meant... well, a whole lotta climbing.
That said, other than the steepness it was about as good a road as I could ask for. The page I'd seen online had commented on how long it's been since the road was paved, but the surface seemed fine to me, without real noticeable cracks or potholes. The presence of the creek lent a nice soothing noise and environment. Very few cars were driving along the road. And, the heavy forest was providing some welcome shade now that I was entering the hottest part of the day.
My main goal was simply to make it to the top of the mountain in one go. I didn't care how long it took, and I didn't mind that I'd be in my very lowest gear for pretty much the whole way; I just didn't want to walk my bike or take a break. I felt like pooping out at a few points, but was pretty good at settling into a rhythm - to the untrained ear it might sound like gasping for air, but I was steadily performing and just letting my body go on auto-pilot. Mentally, I was either counting out numbers - "One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand..." - or else running through snatches of music in my head; this day's bizarre collection of earworms included "A Prayer for England," the inane "Pururin" theme song from "Welcome to the NHK", and (briefly) Toad the Wet Sprocket's "Walk on the Ocean."
Eventually, I realized that I wasn't working as hard as I needed to before. It was still mostly uphill, but I did get one or two rare flat or downhill stretches, and even the climbs were much more reasonable. I was also getting passed much more often, presumably by riders who had been less damaged by the climbs and could switch their turbo back on. I contentedly pedaled along, happy in the thought that I would accomplish my goal.
Altogether, the climbing portion took me about an hour. I finally emerged at the intersection of Tunitas Creek, Skyline, and Kings Mountain Road. I always see at least one or two groups of cyclists clustered around here when I ascend from Kings Mountain, and I could tell better than ever before why: it's a good stop after Kings Mountain, and a necessary stop after Tunitas Creek. I found a shady spot, got out my bag, and devoured half of my bear claw. Mmmm. Rawr! Bear claws!
I'd felt my phone buzzing a few minutes from the peak, which surprised me, since I had turned it off before starting my ride. (Obviously, my route takes me through a lot of places with poor or no cell signal, which eats up the battery. I always bring along my phone, but keep it turned off so it'll have juice if I need to use it.) I guess the jostling must have powered it on. Anyways, I read texts from my brother and sister (sis had just landed in San Diego at the start of a half-week trip), replied to her, and packed my stuff back up. I was more than halfway done with the trip, and from here on out, it would MOSTLY be downhill.
The first hill to go down: Kings Mountain. This was a total blast. I've climbed up it quite a few times over the last several months, and it's always the most challenging climb of a ride. I see lots of other riders struggling up, and a few lucky ones sprinting down, going by in a flash. It felt great to be a flasher for a change. It's steep, and fast, and curvy, and woodsy, and all in all just a great time.
On the way down, I tried to decide whether I should return back to Woodside so I could stop at Roberts Market and pick up some more supplies, primarily something like gatorade and maybe a banana. I decided that I'd be fine - I had a full water bottle left, and half a pastry, plus an emergency Clif Bar. So I continued on my way, doing the reverse of my normal ride: down to the bottom of Kings Mountain, past Tripp and the Woodside Country Store. I had to keep my eye open for Albion; I'm used to coming out of it, but wasn't used to approaching from this perspective. I managed to spy it, turned left, and worked my way back along Manuella and Olive Hill. It was fascinating to do the ride from this direction, and it felt like I was seeing totally different scenery. This is basically a cutoff to the standard Canada - Woodside intersection that most people take; it's quieter, goes by some really pretty estates, and lets you avoid two stop signs and the attendant Woodside cops.
After a left turn on Canada, I was back on autopilot for the rest of the ride back; even the last couple of climbs I need to do (Ralston Bike Trail, Crystal Springs, and the last mile of Sawyer Camp) breezed by. I reached the southern entrance to Sawyer Camp right around 6:30 riding time and polished off the rest of my bear claw. By the time I made it home, I'd traveled 89.28 miles in 7:17 riding time; counting all my stops, the total clock time was almost exactly eight hours. I can't even begin to guess how much total climbing there was... but it must be many, many thousands of feet. The ride was tiring, thrilling, exhilarating. I'm sure I won't forget it. I can hardly wait to go again.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
The Better Night
I recently realized that, despite being a Shakespeare nerd, I've never seen nor read one of his most famous plays, A Midsummer Night's Dream. That's kind of a funny oversight. I guess it was never assigned in either of the two high school or the three college classes (including "Shakespeare") where I would have had the opportunity of being forced to read it. I do sometimes pick up his plays on my own, but his comedies are my least favorite part of the oeuvre, so I'd re-read King Lear before picking up Midsummer.
Of course, anyone who's even vaguely tied into the culture will already know the most salient aspects of this play: fairies, Puck, enchantment. I was therefore intrigued when I heard of a new novel, "The Great Night" by Chris Adrian, that re-tells the story of Midsummer and sets it in Buena Vista Park in San Francisco. Intriguing! I love San Francisco, and I love Shakespeare, and I'd finally have a chance to experience one interpretation of the play. Sold!
By a serendipitous coincidence, this is also the year that my friend Erik's Shady Shakespeare troupe decided to perform A Midsummer Night's Dream as part of their annual summer Shakespeare in the Park program. As is our tradition, a bunch of former co-workers made the journey to Sanborn to have a picnic, drink some wine, and enjoy the Bard under the redwoods.
I was surprised by just how much I enjoyed it. Shakespeare is always great, but I am usually underwhelmed by his comedies. It isn't their fault - who would have thought that these jokes would still be told 400 years after they were written? - and it's impressive that they hold up as well as they do (have you tried watching old sitcoms from the mid-century?). This was a blast, though. The relationship stuff at the beginning doesn't occupy too much time, just sets the stage for future action. Once in the woods, Shakespeare's talent for cross-gender insults kicks into high gear as the lovers variously woo and abuse one another. The highlight of the play for me, though, is the Rustic Players, a sort of B-plot that takes over the play. They are, well, very untalented actors, led by a bad playwriter, and starring a deliciously pompous and vain leading man. Throughout Midsummer we see them rehearse, and squabble, and generally be unintentionally hilarious.
The main plot is the magical one, driven by Oberon and Titania, the king and queen of fairieland. Oberon is intrigued by the love triangle of mortals, and peeved at Titania's affection for a boy, so he enlists Puck to meddle in both affairs. Mistakes are made, hijinks ensue, and soon a Bottom with the head of a donkey is snuggling Titania. Oberon and Puck eventually set everything right, young lovers are married off, and we're all treated to the stupendous performance of the rustic players. For me, that final scene was the absolute highlight of the whole play - parody is great, and Shakespeare did a great job at essentially mocking the melodrama of plays like his own Romeo & Juliet.
So, that was awesome. I was glad to have that performance freshly in my mind as I finished reading The Great Night. TGN definitely takes a lot of inspiration and several characters from MND, but it's not at all a retelling.
MINI SPOILERS
The most important change here is probably in the nature of the fairies. Adrian uses many of the same fairie names as Shakespeare, most notably Titania and Puck, and they occupy loosely the same roles, but these fairies are kind of scary. These are the OLD fairies - if you've read any of Neil Gaiman's fairies, or Terry Pratchett's "Lords and Ladies," you'll be familiar with the concept. These are the beings feared by the old English, magical beings of great power and no morals, who would steal away children, cast glamours over mortals, and generally torment people for their own pleasure. Sure, they might occasionally help someone, but only when it amuses them to do so.
The fairies live in Buena Vista Park, under the hill. For the most part they isolate themselves from humans, but when the fancy strikes, they will venture out into the city to mess with mortals. Occasionally, they will steal back a human child, leaving a changeling in its place, and amuse themselves with it for a while until it starts to grow too old, at which time they send it back.
The action of the story takes place on, well, Midsummer Night. The main action covers a period of several hours, but most of the book is actually devoted to flashbacks, where you learn about the recent tragedy which had struck the fairie leaders, and the sources of grief in the humans' lives. These are scattered throughout the book, and not told in any chronological order, so there's an interesting kaleidoscopic effect, particularly among the humans, as you discover new aspects of each character. The most tragic is probably Henry, a gay man with OCD who had broken up with his boyfriend a year ago and still hasn't been able to get over him. Casting farther back, we learn about his difficult childhood with a melodramatic mother; eventually, he remembers the original source of his sadness.
The hardest character to track is probably Molly, just because the snapshots we get of her life seem so disparate. We first meet her as a sweet and shy shopgirl who lives a quiet life and is recovering from the suicide of her boyfriend. Later, though, we learn that she previously was practicing as a mainline Protestant clergywoman. And still later, we find out about her childhood, performing in a Brady Bunch-ish fundamentalist Christian family/band. It's all interesting stuff, but for me didn't cohere quite as strongly as Henry's story.
Will is the most likeable, and probably the least interesting, of the mortals. He's a tree specialist and aspiring author who cheated on his girlfriend Christine and got dumped.
MEGA SPOILERS
Only later in the book do we discover that all three mortals, who had never previously met each other, are all connected. I don't think that they every fully realize it, either. Molly's dead boyfriend Ryan had been captured by the fairies as a boy. Henry was taken by Puck as his own plaything. After he was cast out by Titania, Henry met with Ryan and a group of other boys under the protection of Mike, the oldest of all those to have been captured. Henry had managed to leave with an acorn, which quickly grew into a fairie tree. However, Henry later notified the police of the house, and all the boys were scattered and gradually forgot about what had happened to them.
Years later, Ryan grew up and bought the house. He was very sad, because he'd never be able to return to fairieland. Molly helped, but she couldn't replace what he'd lost, and he eventually killed himself.
Then, Ryan's sister Christine inherited the house. By now the tree was dying; it wasn't meant to exist in in the mortal land, and it no longer had even the remnants of fairie magic to help its growth. Will and Christine's love helped give the tree some more life.
The large tragedy hanging behind everything is the fairie one. Somehow, Titania and Oberon managed to actually feel true affection for one of their stolen children, The Boy. They don't just amuse themselves, but actually love him. Sadly, The Boy starts dying of leukemia, and while the fairies' magic is powerful, they've never had any experience with human illness or death. The Boy is sent to UCSF Medical, where Henry is the attending physician. He dies over a period of months. Grief-stricken, Titania and Oberon retreat under the hill; eventually, Titania drives Oberon away, and then regrets it. Desperate to bring him back, she finally unleashes Puck, who used to be known as The Beast, one of the most dangerous fairies ever. Puck is ready and capable of destroying the whole world, but Oberon's residual magic leaves him trapped in Buena Vista, along with the mortals who are wandering through on their way to a house party in the Upper Haight. So, everyone's grief comes to a head, and the big question is whether Puck will be stopped.
Hands-down, my favorite part of this book was Adrian's reinterpretation of the Rustic Players. Here, it's a group of homeless people who are putting on a musical based on the movie Soylent Green. Throughout the novel we catch snatches of them blocking out the dance numbers, rehearsing the songs, rewriting the script, and doing everything they can to make it as powerful as possible. In the book's climax, Titania (who, in a nod to the original play, has been cursed by Puck to love Huff, the bum who started writing the musical) lends her magic to the play, and all the fairies join in, transforming it into a resonant cultural event. "People... people who eat people... are the loneliest people in the world!"
END SPOILERS
Altogether, Great Night is an intriguing book. Adrian made a good choice in taking inspiration from Midsummer without staying too devoted to it. On balance, it's a much sadder and darker tale than Shakespeare's comedy, but it has some truly inspired funny parts, and the combination of setting and characters makes it a very memorable novel.
Of course, anyone who's even vaguely tied into the culture will already know the most salient aspects of this play: fairies, Puck, enchantment. I was therefore intrigued when I heard of a new novel, "The Great Night" by Chris Adrian, that re-tells the story of Midsummer and sets it in Buena Vista Park in San Francisco. Intriguing! I love San Francisco, and I love Shakespeare, and I'd finally have a chance to experience one interpretation of the play. Sold!
By a serendipitous coincidence, this is also the year that my friend Erik's Shady Shakespeare troupe decided to perform A Midsummer Night's Dream as part of their annual summer Shakespeare in the Park program. As is our tradition, a bunch of former co-workers made the journey to Sanborn to have a picnic, drink some wine, and enjoy the Bard under the redwoods.
I was surprised by just how much I enjoyed it. Shakespeare is always great, but I am usually underwhelmed by his comedies. It isn't their fault - who would have thought that these jokes would still be told 400 years after they were written? - and it's impressive that they hold up as well as they do (have you tried watching old sitcoms from the mid-century?). This was a blast, though. The relationship stuff at the beginning doesn't occupy too much time, just sets the stage for future action. Once in the woods, Shakespeare's talent for cross-gender insults kicks into high gear as the lovers variously woo and abuse one another. The highlight of the play for me, though, is the Rustic Players, a sort of B-plot that takes over the play. They are, well, very untalented actors, led by a bad playwriter, and starring a deliciously pompous and vain leading man. Throughout Midsummer we see them rehearse, and squabble, and generally be unintentionally hilarious.
The main plot is the magical one, driven by Oberon and Titania, the king and queen of fairieland. Oberon is intrigued by the love triangle of mortals, and peeved at Titania's affection for a boy, so he enlists Puck to meddle in both affairs. Mistakes are made, hijinks ensue, and soon a Bottom with the head of a donkey is snuggling Titania. Oberon and Puck eventually set everything right, young lovers are married off, and we're all treated to the stupendous performance of the rustic players. For me, that final scene was the absolute highlight of the whole play - parody is great, and Shakespeare did a great job at essentially mocking the melodrama of plays like his own Romeo & Juliet.
So, that was awesome. I was glad to have that performance freshly in my mind as I finished reading The Great Night. TGN definitely takes a lot of inspiration and several characters from MND, but it's not at all a retelling.
MINI SPOILERS
The most important change here is probably in the nature of the fairies. Adrian uses many of the same fairie names as Shakespeare, most notably Titania and Puck, and they occupy loosely the same roles, but these fairies are kind of scary. These are the OLD fairies - if you've read any of Neil Gaiman's fairies, or Terry Pratchett's "Lords and Ladies," you'll be familiar with the concept. These are the beings feared by the old English, magical beings of great power and no morals, who would steal away children, cast glamours over mortals, and generally torment people for their own pleasure. Sure, they might occasionally help someone, but only when it amuses them to do so.
The fairies live in Buena Vista Park, under the hill. For the most part they isolate themselves from humans, but when the fancy strikes, they will venture out into the city to mess with mortals. Occasionally, they will steal back a human child, leaving a changeling in its place, and amuse themselves with it for a while until it starts to grow too old, at which time they send it back.
The action of the story takes place on, well, Midsummer Night. The main action covers a period of several hours, but most of the book is actually devoted to flashbacks, where you learn about the recent tragedy which had struck the fairie leaders, and the sources of grief in the humans' lives. These are scattered throughout the book, and not told in any chronological order, so there's an interesting kaleidoscopic effect, particularly among the humans, as you discover new aspects of each character. The most tragic is probably Henry, a gay man with OCD who had broken up with his boyfriend a year ago and still hasn't been able to get over him. Casting farther back, we learn about his difficult childhood with a melodramatic mother; eventually, he remembers the original source of his sadness.
The hardest character to track is probably Molly, just because the snapshots we get of her life seem so disparate. We first meet her as a sweet and shy shopgirl who lives a quiet life and is recovering from the suicide of her boyfriend. Later, though, we learn that she previously was practicing as a mainline Protestant clergywoman. And still later, we find out about her childhood, performing in a Brady Bunch-ish fundamentalist Christian family/band. It's all interesting stuff, but for me didn't cohere quite as strongly as Henry's story.
Will is the most likeable, and probably the least interesting, of the mortals. He's a tree specialist and aspiring author who cheated on his girlfriend Christine and got dumped.
MEGA SPOILERS
Only later in the book do we discover that all three mortals, who had never previously met each other, are all connected. I don't think that they every fully realize it, either. Molly's dead boyfriend Ryan had been captured by the fairies as a boy. Henry was taken by Puck as his own plaything. After he was cast out by Titania, Henry met with Ryan and a group of other boys under the protection of Mike, the oldest of all those to have been captured. Henry had managed to leave with an acorn, which quickly grew into a fairie tree. However, Henry later notified the police of the house, and all the boys were scattered and gradually forgot about what had happened to them.
Years later, Ryan grew up and bought the house. He was very sad, because he'd never be able to return to fairieland. Molly helped, but she couldn't replace what he'd lost, and he eventually killed himself.
Then, Ryan's sister Christine inherited the house. By now the tree was dying; it wasn't meant to exist in in the mortal land, and it no longer had even the remnants of fairie magic to help its growth. Will and Christine's love helped give the tree some more life.
The large tragedy hanging behind everything is the fairie one. Somehow, Titania and Oberon managed to actually feel true affection for one of their stolen children, The Boy. They don't just amuse themselves, but actually love him. Sadly, The Boy starts dying of leukemia, and while the fairies' magic is powerful, they've never had any experience with human illness or death. The Boy is sent to UCSF Medical, where Henry is the attending physician. He dies over a period of months. Grief-stricken, Titania and Oberon retreat under the hill; eventually, Titania drives Oberon away, and then regrets it. Desperate to bring him back, she finally unleashes Puck, who used to be known as The Beast, one of the most dangerous fairies ever. Puck is ready and capable of destroying the whole world, but Oberon's residual magic leaves him trapped in Buena Vista, along with the mortals who are wandering through on their way to a house party in the Upper Haight. So, everyone's grief comes to a head, and the big question is whether Puck will be stopped.
Hands-down, my favorite part of this book was Adrian's reinterpretation of the Rustic Players. Here, it's a group of homeless people who are putting on a musical based on the movie Soylent Green. Throughout the novel we catch snatches of them blocking out the dance numbers, rehearsing the songs, rewriting the script, and doing everything they can to make it as powerful as possible. In the book's climax, Titania (who, in a nod to the original play, has been cursed by Puck to love Huff, the bum who started writing the musical) lends her magic to the play, and all the fairies join in, transforming it into a resonant cultural event. "People... people who eat people... are the loneliest people in the world!"
END SPOILERS
Altogether, Great Night is an intriguing book. Adrian made a good choice in taking inspiration from Midsummer without staying too devoted to it. On balance, it's a much sadder and darker tale than Shakespeare's comedy, but it has some truly inspired funny parts, and the combination of setting and characters makes it a very memorable novel.
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