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.