Friday, November 17, 2017

Precarious

A “widowmaker,” I learned last night, is a term in forestry for a broken-off limb that hangs in a tree that’s about to fall or be cut down; according to the internetz, it’s also called a “fool killer,” which might be an even better term for the log that perched precariously above us during the forest revel component of the evening’s cycle revelry experience.

And fortunately, perhaps because of the old saw (no pun intended) that “the Lord looks out for babies and fools,” no significant other of any of the assembled fools was turned into a widow (or widower as the case may be) by the evil-looking tree trunk with the malicious chipmunk-face that was aimed like a bullet from above just outside the fire’s warmth but certainly right where it might have come crashing down on someone parking their bike or fetching a glove from their pannier.

Donovan (or was it Fancy Fred?) rightly pointed out that if it did fall, it would fall unpredictably, so surely discretion (something usually in short supply on Thursday nights) was the better part of valor for once, and no one, surprisingly, tried to dislodge the mighty branch with chucked rocks, hurled sticks, or even thankfully, a bottle rocket.

It seemed appropriate, somehow, to be in such proximity to imminent disaster, a situation that feels more and more familiar these days globally, and is, of course, a commonplace local state of affairs for anyone who’s ever followed a line of blinking taillights into the woods while under the influence of some, and soon to be more, of one’s favorite mood-altering adulterants.

Shining a light up into the canopy, you could see the rocking motion of the limb that held the widowmaker in place; a strong gust of wind was all that was needed to launch it earthwards.

And yet somehow, catastrophe was avoided (or perhaps merely postponed), but in any case, I’ll quite happily take it, thank you, my Lord.

Friday, November 3, 2017

Shout

There’s more than one way to skin a cat, as they say, and although I’m pretty sure I’d not be particularly interested in experiencing any of them, I do appreciate the sentiment and am pleased to draw the analogy with bike ride planning.

There’s certainly more than one way to (dis)organize a group of cyclists for a Thursday night of beer-drinking and pedal-spinning.  One possibility, for instance, involves a theme that is stuck to and played out in a variety of forms; another, for example, envisions a destination and figures out how to get there one way or another; still another, by contrast, depends on costumes!

But all, pretty much, as Shahan pointed out at one of the half-dozen stops on the route he more or less commandeered last evening, are mostly a matter of shouting the loudest.  Point83, whatever it is, is at least not a democracy, a form of governance that, if I recall correctly (and why would I), Winston Churchill called “the worst form of government…except for all the others.”

Perhaps we might refer to the way decisions are made, then, as “Shoutocratic;” the person who shouts the loudest makes the rules, a “Shoutacracy” if you will.

With that in mind, the chief Shoutocrat, Shahan, had a plan, which essentially comprised quick stops at half a dozen outdoor venues, one for each beer in your virtual (or literal) six-pack.

More than one was a pea-patch, although one of those was modified to be a well-timed respite inside the parking garage while a brief thunderstorm drenched the uncovered.  And a couple were spots I’d never been to, an eventuality that becomes less and less likely with every passing year (although soon enough, I’ll start forgetting where I’ve been, so eventually, it will get easier.)

We can think of this mode of organization as process-oriented; instead of heading somewhere, we did something; wherever we were, we’d already arrived then; I’d call it a very successful “shout-show.”