Pied

photo by drdiatom

In some versions of the famous musical fairy tale, the legendary Pied Piper gets a bad rap for spiriting the children of Hamelin away with his magical flute.

This seems unfair. 

After all, he’s simply responding to the treachery of the town’s mayor, who's promised him a bag of gold for clearing the town of rats.

And nobody ever talks to the kids themselves, who obviously prefer following and gamboling to the Piper’s dulcet tones rather than continuing their lives of boredom and drudgery in the uptight medieval burg of their birth.

Some things never change, do they?

Here in the 21st century, the strategy still works, as the inner children of half a hundred putative adults willingly pedal along in the wake of traveling music and pretty soon find themselves in a land by a lake where all one’s cares and woes are forgotten—and in more than a few cases, where one’s bike is parked and where one’s pants have been left slips the mind, as well.

The route to the familiar provisioning stop was unprecedented and delightful, affording participants an awe-inspiring panorama of the lingering late summer sunset and, even more thrillingly, innumerable moments of glee as the rolling audio caravan ignited one more individual or group explosion of booty-shaking on the part of pedestrians and bus-waiters as it passed by.

It may not be, as Meghan Trainor claims, “all about that bass,” but the sub-woofer sure helps, as something about the phenomenon of so much sonic extravaganza emanating from a two-wheeler encourages people to partially disrobe and start shaking it with impressive alacrity.

Of course, the fruity cocktails don’t hurt, either.

Some people collect stamps; others nerd out on tying flies or putting ships in bottles; all cool hobbies, sure, but as Joby pointed out when discussing his own avocational interest in electronic high-fidelity, they rarely result in pants-off dance parties al fresco—not since the days of the original Pied Piper, anyway.

Faith

photo by joeball

Sometimes, when faced with what seem like two equally plausible options, you’ve got to trust whatever remnant of naturally-endowed wayfaring ability remains in your consciousness and boldly opt for descent, accepting the possibility that—if you’re wrong—it means slogging all the way back up the canyon in the dark.

At the same time, it’s quite a relief to live in a day and age where satellites and plastic can provide much-needed guidance after you’ve taken the plunge and ended up lost at the far western edge of things when it’s actually the northernmost land mass you’re seeking.

Because it forever remains a miracle to propel oneself through silent overgrown pathways and suddenly happen upon shoreline revelry with numerous human beings, copious amounts of stimulation, and—even though summer’s tenuous grip on evening the makes it a boon rather than a requirement—plenty of fire around which to congregate and bloviate or just bask in the implausible reality of it all.

Some parts of the physical, (and for that matter, immaterial) universe are really only accessible by bicycle; perhaps one could arrive on foot (or by boat) but no one, not even rail-riding hobos would; and certainly, the height of levitation that’s achieved would be unachievable without the assistance of human-powered two-wheeling.

Remarkably, you find you’ve pedaled up to a place where, just around the corner, and only for as long as the rising tide allows, is another whole mystery laid out for your pleasure, complete with tent-shaped driftwood and clattering castanets as smooth rocks wash in and out.

And you realize—given the current arrangement of atoms in our dimension—that none of this, especially all these carbon-based sacks of mostly water arrayed cheerfully about, would be manifest without the invention and manufacture of the velocipede.

So, I guess it’s the least you can do to carry your bike all the way up the steps to get out—given all it’s enabled you to get into.