Captain Stag, erotic communist's prick

[imomus]

Cars may be made by fewer and fewer -- and bigger and bigger -- companies worldwide, and those companies may be taking fewer and fewer risks with their design and naming strategies. But just about anyone can set up as a bicycle manufacturer, and make a zero emission vehicle with a zany name redolent of communism and sex. That's because bicycles are redolent of communism and sex. They're erotic as hell, and they're the future.



Bicycles come in all shapes and sizes and have the oddest names. Sure, I told you that I was driving a car called a Daihatsu Naked in Japan this summer, but as a bicycle rider I could have been having so much more fun riding a Captain Stag, an Erotic, a Communist or a Sprick. Like my new album 'Otto Spooky', or like the Shinto religion of Japan, bicycles have some earthy sexiness about them. They make everything they touch -- your body, the environment through which they pass -- better, healthier, greener. They're diverse, divergent, egalitarian, pluralistic, good for you, sexy.

On your bicycle you're rushing along at a comfortable yet exciting 25kph, and it feels like you're flying through the air. If you're in Tokyo or Berlin -- bicycle-friendly cities -- you're safe on the sidewalk or in a dedicated bicycle lane, and there are many other cyclists all around, a democratic mass. Two wheels good. As you pedal (and pedalling a bicycle, like walking and fucking but unlike driving a car, is a rhythmic activity, a pumping motion with a rising trot and its own systolic-diastolic interval) you're listening to your iPod. Track two of 'Otto Spooky' is coming up to the chorus:

Gaelic runes and harvest moons
Shinto dogs at the phallic symbol
Mustard seed and dandelion
A time to live, a time to die
Meet me in the waving leaves
The question mark in the scarecrow summer
Meet me out by the lemon trees
Pull me down, and pump me dry

'Ah,' you think, 'I must remember to pump up the tires soon! Gotta keep 'em hard...'

The green bicycle at the top right of my photo is a classic British Moulton (there is still a British bicycle industry, although British cars are for the most part a thing of the past) in the studio of graphic designer James Goggin, who is at this moment finishing two sleeves (the US and UK sleeves are quite different) for 'Otto Spooky'.

The photo below that is a glimpse of cultural commentator Reyner Banham pedalling his Moulton through the streets of London in the 1960s. I haven't shown you the whole photo -- which is superb, Banham with his full beard looks quite the groovy, cranky boffin as he pedals along -- because we're using this photo half-toned inside the CD sleeve, under the transparent panel behind the (crash hat hazard yellow) CD itself, and I want to keep it under wraps for the time being. But it's worth saying that Banham -- who wrote a great deal, in his book about Los Angeles, about cars at their most flamboyant, and yet remained, himself, flamboyantly bicycle-oriented to the end of his days -- has become, in a way, the personification, totem or mascot of Otto Spooky. It's 'Otto Spooky as played by Reyner Banham'. Reyner is right there on the sleeve. And 'the historian of the immediate future' is riding a Moulton.

Comments

[sparkligbeatnic.livejournal.com]

I've long felt that one of the most erotic things about Kyoto is the elegance with which the young women ride bicycles. There's nothing like it anywhere else in the world.

Copenhagen, and anywhere in Holland, are also good. Recently I made a measurement of the girl flux (http://www.livejournal.com/users/sparkligbeatnic/5230.html) at the Niels Bohr Institute.



Someone should do a book of photos of girls on bicycles in the civilized cities of the world. Unfortunately such a book would have to exclude most of North America.

The bicycle is one of the best examples we have of what Heidegger meant by a "poetic technology." It's time it were taken more seriously by town planners and leaders everywhere.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Ah, that's very interesting! I have a personal measurement of the liveliness of any given city or district, which is the event/second. How many events are there per second? I even choose my seat in a cafe or restaurant according to how many events per second I'm likely to get a view of. And it goes without saying that my favourite 'event' is a female one.

[sparkligbeatnic.livejournal.com]

In that case you might enjoy Christopher Alexander's book "The Nature of Order vol. 1: The Phenomenon of Life" which contains a deeply thought out set of heuristics for measuring the "life" in artefacts, like carpets or buildings, or urban settings.

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

Why is Heidegger so hated by mainstream philosophers?

[(Anonymous)]

Because of his Nazi-ism?

[sparkligbeatnic.livejournal.com]

I think it may depend on the country and department. Philsophy studies in Japan basically means Husserl and Heidegger. I understand one can get a PhD just for analyzing a small passage of Heidegger.

[(Anonymous)]

And Kraftwerk are cycling along beside you. I love that their futurism ended up on the humble two-wheeler. Their 'Tour de France Soundtracks' is the perfect rendering of the ultimate man-machine fusion.

[mcgazz.livejournal.com]

I kinda wish I could ride a bike, not so much because of the environmental plus points, more because Ralf Hutter did. But I've no co-ordination (which is why I can't play any musical instruments either).

[(Anonymous)]

Kraftwerk's futurism was always going to end up on the humble two-wheeler. That's because it's essentially retro-futurism, ie the future set out in the 20s by the constructivists, Bauhaus, the Futurists, Le Corbusier etc. Kraftwerk are in fact the opposite of futurism, they're nostalgia. And the gleaming bicycle was the symbol of the bright emocratic future around the turn of the century. See also HG Wells, whose time machine has a saddle and is basically a bicycle.

H.

[(Anonymous)]

Last time I saw them, they weren't using too many steam-powered oscillators, though.

[paletree.livejournal.com]

i never learned to ride a bike.

bikes

[mononad.livejournal.com]

I had a second hand mini moulton as a child.. the type that didn't fold up. It was about the uncoolest bike you could have at the time. I noticed recently that new moultons are extreamly expensive and considered the rolls royce of the brompton style bike.

Two wheels good

[xyzedd.livejournal.com]

I've never seen a bicycle which isn't beautiful to me. Learning to ride one was as important to discovering a sense of individual freedom and sheer joy as was learning to swim not much later. Since the age of five or so I've never been without a bike...

Over the last dozen years I've collected, not meaning to, four odd bikes (mostly from yard sales): a 1965 Schwinn Suburban, a very girly pink Okinawan ten-speed, a posh English Pashley postman's, and most recently a cherry-red Giant semi-recumbant. They are all of the female persuasion, ar at least androgynous. I only need the scooter-like Giant, but I can't bear to part with any of my family!

Thanks for the lovely photos, suitable for framing. And, everyone, keep biking!

Re: Two wheels good

[xyzedd.livejournal.com]

Recommended listening:

Richard Lerman's "Travelon Gamelan: Music for Bicycles" on Folkways, made up entirely of the sounds of bicycle wheels, gears, brakes, etc. Imagine that gear-shifting sequence from "Tour de France" or the warning bells in Queen's "Bicycle Race" symphonically amplified. Too bad I gave my only copy to a bike-racing friend of mine who probably never listened to it.

[(Anonymous)]

I have 4 bicycles in the cellar: one without a seat, a lame one that doesn’t belong to me, one for when I’m old and weak, and one, seriously injured after my last accident. After reading this entry I had a deep though about possible connections to my sex life. What if I had them all repaired!

[loveskull.livejournal.com]

nothin beats the "chopper" but

I bet the bikes not the only thing that's all steel.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

[mini-snape.livejournal.com]

Does this mean we in Holland are living in the future?
Pray not. I do not really enjoy bikes. They hurt. I would like a bike called Captain Stag though.

[ex-ebb439.livejournal.com]

I miss my bike. It's sitting in my father in law's warehouse currently, as I do not have adequate storage space in my apartment. The really sad part is that I do not drive - don't even own a car, so I walk everywhere. I would love to ride my bike some days, but this area is not terribly bike friendly and it would surely be stolen or vandalized were I to lock it outside. This seems to be the case in most American cities and towns (unless you live in a small town). The bike in America is barely seen as an alternate (or even viable) form of transportation, instead it is regarded as a form of recreation, and you will see people driving places on the weekends to ride. Sad, sad, sad! It is illegal to ride bikes on the sidewalk here too - but there are rarely any bike lanes, so you run the risk of being mowed down by some jerk in a Hummer.

Would you mind if I posted a link to this post in my non_drivers community?

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Some cities and towns are more amenable to bicycles than others. I hear Portland is rather hospitable.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Be my guest.

[buckminster.livejournal.com]

Davis, a university town in California's cental valley, is about the only Bike friendly city I can think of in this state. Woe to those who would try to ride in LA or San Francisco (hills) or any of the car-assuming suburbs in the California Bay Area.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Yes, college towns seem to be better for bicycle traffic.

There is a 25-mile path along the old canal that runs parallel to the Delaware River, northwards of Trenton. Lovely scenery--lush foliage and river vistas. I'd been planning on a 'bicycle regatta' this autumn, but the weather has not cooperated.

W

Captains Stag et al

[fibdemetics.livejournal.com]

I've had the pleasure of tooling around on a Captain Stag. It's quite dangerous!

Here's a full gallery (http://www.momovelo.com/momo_archive.html) of these techno-poetic wonders, courtesy of a local bike shop.

My favorite:


One could say in Heideggerian terms that to Japanese bicycle manufacturers, English and French words are nothing but technological 'standing reserve,' pure raw material applied to their mass-produced objects without regard to craft or any kind of traditional aesthetic sensibility. There is thus a certain irony to the poetic charm of these bikes whose use and function is in so many respects opposed (so we hope) to a technological mode of engagement with the world...

[spoombung.livejournal.com]

Bikes are sexy because they are built for ONE (excluding modifications) and people are at their very sexiest when they are undiluted by the presense of another.