Tanned Hides and The Cold Shoulder.

I spent Memorial Day in New Orleans celebrating our servicemen by almost going to the D-Day Museum only turned away literally mere feet away when an NPR report came on about how busy the place was with a "record-breaking crowd."  Instead I indulged in some pure old fashioned American consumerism which is probably just as good an homage to our brave heroes and the American way of life.

I started it off on Oak St., now a beautiful example of post Katrina resurgence. In my pre-hurricane memories it was a sparsely business-ed street book-ended by the great Rue De La Course built in the marble husk of a bank on the corner of Carrollton and a (word of mouth) popular Asian restaurant, Ninja on the levee end. I would spend beautiful Saturday mornings there with an easily bored LSU med-student girlfriend that, in spite of everything, I still cherish today. A good Saturday morning, a cheap one held in the afterglow filled with (beignets which are not offered at  Rue De La Course and) good coffee is a far sweeter and more romantic thing than any expensive hotel or exotic vacation. The street is better paved now, it's roughness gone the way of the high water mark lost to reconstruction; new drywall and hot asphalt. It feels like there are more businesses there now: a comic book shop, another cool new coffee shop (Zotz), a dollar store, a bicycle shop, etc. There are even new condos; and many of these things could pre-date the storm they just aren't in my memory of it. The street is now in possession of  its very own Brooks Saddle dealer, Wallingford Bicycle Parts.

I had never been to the store in my past wanderings on this street, but had tried before on two previous trips. It is a small unassuming white storefront with an oval sign you have to be on the look out for. I was reluctantly received and shown B17 specials in Honey, Racing Green and Black. I adored both the Honey and Racing Green colors but thought the green ill suited to the light blue of my Raleigh. If I owned a Surly Pacer however there would have been no question of my preference. I looked at some Swifts and Swallows too but found them prohibitively expensive. While I was there I could not help but feel I had inconvenienced them by walking in; it is obvious by the minuscule counter front customer space that most of their business is done online and the sole associate I had interaction with seemed pressed for time. I bought a B17 special in Honey to support them anyway. It must be said of the Brooks Saddle that it does come stylishly packaged.

Supplied with its own spanner

and a rain cover.

Ringing in the New Year in Glorious Monaural Sound.

I have not confessed this here before but I am a dedicated NPR listener. And somewhere buried deep amongst my life goals is the desire to one day have a story on This American Life; which is my favorite radio show (though I do also greatly enjoy Car Talk). I had been enjoying this pastime either listening in my truck or on a small digital Sony radio I had originally bought for the gym (it was also my sole means of news gathering in the days following hurricane Katrina which was a unique experience to share another day). Like all newer digital pocket radios it used the headphone wire as its antenna. Which for the TV FM-transmitters at the gym was just fine. For indoor talk radio listening, however, it was often too staticky and needed to be set at an unbearable volume to make any channel's speech intelligible. In search of better reception I spent an entire day researching antiquated radio technology and learned: that dipole antennas have the best FM reception but are apparently unavailable for pocket radios; that monaural radios are much better at reproducing speech than stereophonic ones; and also that I needed to invest either in a very expensive Sangean digital pocket radio or get a pocket radio with a better antenna (which in hind-site seems rather elementary). Then, I went shopping and found this amazing monoaural analog pocket radio still being made by Sony.

It was only $10 and with it's excellent reception, built in speaker and throwback style I have become quite enamored of it. I have not even bothered to listening to it by earphone yet as the built in speaker works so incredibly well. I just throw it in my shirt pocket and get on with my business. I have to also admit that even for music stations the monaural sound is wonderful, and for me a bit nostalgic. It reminds me of the radio in my first car a 1964 Mercury Comet, that was all mid-range. I do know that in many audiophile circles, where people still bother to listen to music on vinyl, monaural musical recordings are sworn by and I think now I know why. I was so taken with this radio that I wanted to protect it like the great consumers of old in our country. So I sought to make a carrying case for it like I had seen on transistor radios from many decades ago when they were so expensive they were expected to and needed to last. I bought some heavy vinyl fabric, made a template, and got down to it. Here is the end result:

I am not too ashamed of it as it is only my first try. I hope to improve upon it by switching to fabric snaps to fasten it rather than stitching it together and fastening it with a sewn on button as in this prototype. I also hope to fabricate more than one so that I may have some color/style to choose from. I will post any further accomplishment.

Apparently My Skills Still Need Work.

Round two of NPR's 3 minut fiction contest is over. I entered but didn't place. Here's my entry:

The nurse left work at five o'clock. She stepped out into rain steaming up from the hot asphalt that reminded her of home. The last time she had been there was just like this, walking down Oak street trying to decide between its two coffee shops. The street had been alive with bicycles and prettier girls in light summer dresses waiting for the next trolley to stop down on Carrollton Avenue. As she had walked a conversation drifted over the wall of a private courtyard attached to some expensive new condos. She couldn't quite make it out, but they sounded happy. That was the comfortable existence she had hoped to have, carelessly drinking ice-cold beer with the neighbors on Saturday in the soft humidity of southern shade where you sweat and sweat and feel so healthy. Sundays she would have walked to Audubon Park with some handsome boyfriend and picnicked in the grass on a cheap thrift store bed sheet illustrated with cartoon characters. They'd have laughed together, listened to the radio, and kissed very sentimentally. She'd have cooked for him always and they'd have been in an effortless lazy kind of love.

That life she had wanted now felt thousands of miles away and hundreds of thousands of dollars beyond her reach. Where had it all gone? After college she had tried so desperately to find work there, until there was nothing left. Until, after so many rejections, all her feelings of home and loyalty were worn away by bitterness and disappointment. It certainly didn't feel the same anymore. The realization had been sadly humorous, that she wouldn't be the New Orleans yuppie she'd hoped to end up. Like all of her friends became so easily. She had started to hate them a little. She was still polite, still chatted and joked with them, but she had started to resent them and the complacency that had slowly taken over all of their lives. Their lives became so stable and middle-class. She was the odd one out still struggling to find her place. She wondered if it could ever be the same. If she got a job there now would it all come back? Would all the pain and anger in her heart roll back and give her the feeling of safety she once had? Or would her job security be too fragile, a thin veneer over the certainty that it would all just fall apart again? She sighed. She was sure she couldn't go back home.

Now she was here, stuck in the town she hated most of all. Where she had grown up so miserable. Where she had run out on her parents so defiantly to go to school hours away down south. And where she had returned, having no other choice, back to her parent's house which she loathed even more now for being her last resort. Thinking about her parent's house made her walk slower. She wanted somewhere else to go. Maybe she could go out to dinner to put off going back there. She wanted to walk to some other life, but there was nothing else and there wouldn't be for many more years.

Trying to hone my skills.

I entered NPR's 3-minute fiction contest today.

The rules were simple: Submit a short story 600 words or less that must begin with the line "The nurse left work at 5 o'clock." Winner gets his or her story read on air by James Wood, literary critic for The New Yorker. And an autographed copy of his book, "How Fiction Works."

What I sent in was semi-autobiographical. If I win I'll link to it on the blog. If not I'll just post my entry here.