Hallowed

If you think about it, everyone is always already wearing a costume, and that includes even the bellicose fellow trying to impress his Tinder date by getting aggravated at a group of cyclists standing nearby in a public park, so you can cut yourself a little slack if you’ve arrived at the traditional meetup location on the traditional costume-wearing evening sporting your traditional daytime garb; at the same time, however, you have to admire the pluck of colleagues who arrive bedecked in gladiator garb, or Burning Man-approved onesies, or with reference to hobgoblins from foreign cultures, or sporting a ghost on the back seat of their tandem, and commend them for carrying on the traditional nonsense in the traditional ways at the traditional time.

Hear-hear!  Huzzah.

Eventually, the assembled arrived at the spooky outdoor living room with the nearly-full moon illuminating the spindly autumn trees in all their skeletal glory; a cheerful fire in the unbricked-in fireplace crackled like a witch’s voice while the voices of those in every costume rose and fell and rose again in spite of admonitions by the usual wet-blanket to keep it down, why doncha?

Apparently, the holiday has mostly been cancelled, at least for little kids wanting free candy, so it’s heartwarming to note that, in some form or another, treats and tricking carries on, in spite of it all.  

Putative grownups still clamor for their own preferred goodies and continue to enjoy the opportunities for clamor; I’m sure the indigenous spirits and the spirits of whatever settlers settled in the spots we settled in for a time had their own ectoplasmic dances going on, as well.

Who knows what the near future may bring, right?  It’s possible—well, always possible, but even more so now—that we could have seen the final two-wheeled shenanigans of our lives just then; if so, the loss will be deeply mourned but not as much as the events themselves are celebrated.  

In costume, inevitably.

Mature

“It never gets old” says the three-story tall video billboard outside the strip club on First Avenue.  

And while I don’t know about that—honestly, I do think “making it rain” for live nude girls is something that does get old pretty fast—it’s clear to me that certain aspects of bicycle riding on Thursday nights with a small platoon of cycling miscreants has greater staying power, evidenced by the fact that it still hasn’t seemed to get old yet after upwards of a decade and a half of doing more or less the same sort of things, including:

• Riding down a nearly-deserted Second Avenue, hitting all the lights, to the heart-breakingly beautiful vocal stylings of Whitney Houston as she belts out her signature “I Will Always Love You” from the powerful speakers of Dave the Pedicab Guy’s beefy tricycle pedicab.

• Peddling around the industrial wasteland along the Duwamish River, looking for a place to burn palettes and being convinced by something like the voice of reason time and again to keep looking elsewhere until the more pyromaniacally-inclined among the assembled insist on ignition, inspired by what could be a burnt-out husk of a car, but could have been an art installation, we’ll never know.

• Drinking beer, anyway, at spots that you would never find yourself in unless it was on a Thursday night with fellow bike riders, enjoying the less-than-perfect spot for all its perfect mix of industrial waste and bright quarter moon smiling at a particularly rusty-looking Mars.

• Being shocked and amazed at how what once and not too long ago was a relatively deserted riverside spot for hobo-style fires has now become a huge encampment of motor homes and tents, home to way more residents than cyclists, prompting a quick turn-around and departure from said two-wheelers.

Things keep on changing, not always for the better, but as long as some semblance remains, it’s good.  

We may continue getting older, but this never gets old.

Exemplar

According to the ethical theory known as “virtue ethics,” a view that, in Western philosophy, we trace to Aristotle, the question, when it comes to matters of right and wrong, isn’t, as with other theories, “What makes right acts right?” (“And wrong acts wrong?”); it’s “What sort of person should I be?”

Virtue ethics is concerned with the development of a virtuous character.  The idea, basically, is that acting ethically is a matter of training and habit; a person should develop the proper dispositions to do the right thing, at the right time, in the right way.  Thus, the virtuous life is the happiest life, because the virtuous person takes the most pleasure in behaving virtuously.

Because ethics, then, becomes a matter of character, not principle, developing a virtuous character involves, at least at first, emulating the behavior of truly virtuous people.  On my road to becoming a better person, I should follow the lead of my moral exemplar, or what is sometimes known as my “paragon of virtue.”  

When faced with a question about how I should behave in a given situation, I should ask myself, “What would my paragon of virtue do in this case?”  By following their lead, I will train myself to develop a kind of moral “muscle memory” so that, eventually, I will automatically choose to do the right thing is such situations—and I’ll take great pleasure from doing so.

All of this is to explain why I advocated for visiting the newest Seattle city park along the north side of Portage Bay last evening.  “What would Moira do?” I asked and the answer was obvious.  This paragon of virtue when it comes to riding bikes would have led us to a new public space, I’m pretty sure, and she would have, as we did, taken one of the least efficient ways to get there, with as many hills as could be built in as possible.

See how fun virtue is?

 

Seventeen

Strangely, one of the things you miss most during the pandemic is strangers.  Not being able to strike up a conversation with someone you don’t know represents a real loss.  

Consequently, it’s delightful to run into a loquacious new acquaintance on the east, (not west, as I mistakenly described it) side of one of our fair city’s toniest neighborhoods, and hear her complain proudly about her 17 year-old son, all the while holding on to the leash of her dog, Gary, who seemed to enjoy sniffing out a gaggle of aromas new to himself, as well.

Seventeen was something of a watershed year for yours truly: I took my first philosophy class and was wowed by Descartes’ Discourse on Method.  I had my first serious girlfriend which resulted in, sometime in the summer of that year, the loss of my so-called innocence at last.  I started journaling with regularity, a practice that has continued to this day and which, to no small degree, helped set the course of whatever it is one might call my career.  And, of course, I rode a bike—a Raleigh Record, to be precise—all of the city of Pittsburgh, which also, in its own way, has helped define a good chunk of my life, such as it is, to this day, as well.

Come to think of it, many of the best parts of my life today are the same as were back in those halcyon days of 1974; venturing through alleys and tossing beer cans to neighbors, smoking weed and admiring the view, chatting up strangers in city parks, reading and thinking about philosophy, loving one’s loved ones, and, of course, tooling around the city on a bike with friends and by oneself, turning the pedals and seeing what rolls up.

The son of our garrulous new acquaintance probably doesn’t know how good he has it, but if he keeps going through 2066, he’ll have it as good as me.

Remains

I heard on the news that the port of Seattle is calling on the public to submit new names for a handful of Duwamish river parks.

That’s cool, but it’s too bad that Jack Perry Memorial Park is not one of them.  I would submit that its name ought to be officially changed to “Bread War Park” in honor of the time Joeball almost lost an eye after being clocked in his peeper by a ciabatta roll. 

Last night, there weren’t such dangerous shenanigans afoot despite the presence of a hazy full moon, the first of two this month, impressive in its full glory, albeit probably not as special as the bloody blue one coming up on Halloween.  Nevertheless, a good time was had by all, as we sat aside our city’s industrial core and reminisced and reflected upon global capitalism and its mighty tools.

It’s hard to believe that is was just—or maybe only—11 years ago when, of a summer day, the charming Bicycle Belles performed in this selfsame spot.

Time passes slowly for, and along, the river; images of yesteryear dance again in our heads and the moonlight.

I was reminded again, in conversation, how fragile life is and how fortunate we are to be able to do whatever we do and so, we embrace all the risks in spite of themselves.  You thank your lucky stars that you can thank your lucky stars and pay respect to whatever gods or goddesses help you through the night (and day), especially out on two wheels in the naked city.

Getting older’s not so bad, in fact, it’s pretty swell when it includes the chance to reach across the decades and feel younger than you were way back when.

Every minute you spend riding your bike adds a minute to your life; as long as you keep pedaling, you need never go gently (or not so) into that good old night.