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

[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.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I'll look into that, although I must say I instinctively resist what seems to be Alexander's main message,

'The rules governing the growth of neighborhoods and cities arise from fundamental laws of nature. Alexander has discovered the process that governs the growth of a successful city -- which is the same process by which organic and inorganic forms evolve. Surprisingly, the law concerns the process; not the form or plan. This whole approach might seem unfamiliar to urban planners who think in terms of static images, though biologists will immediately recognize it. These universal laws apply not only to "traditional" cities -- they apply to all cities, in every age and in every culture, that enhance human activity.'

This sounds like a disturbingly totalising line redolent of numerology, Natural Law, the Golden Mean, Platonism or even monotheistic fundamentalism. My position is that diversity is the thing, and diversity of structurations is good. We as humans invent structures, and should apply them and abandon them with a certain lightness and humility, keeping in mind that they're our own creations. We will probably never know the 'fundamental laws' of nature and a possibly universal template probably does not exist. But if we don't know, we also don't know that we don't know.

(Also, Alexander's book has a fuddy duddy and authoritarian jacket design. What is it, The Bible?)

[imomus.livejournal.com]

possibly

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Also, since Alexander seems to be a mate of Prince Charles (http://www.math.utsa.edu/~salingar/Charles.html), perhaps we should add 'The Divine Right of Kings' to the list alongside Natural Law, the Golden Section etc.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

From that Prince Charles website:

'Many people instinctively recognize the timeless and universal validity of these principles, which is why Charles is fervently supported by non-architects.'

You know, blah blah blah. Alexander called in to demonstrate timeless and universal validity of Charles' views on architecture. Whutevah, dude.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Reading more about Alexander, I was struck by Eno parallels -- Alexander champions an amateur, incremental long-term ('traditional') approach to design, and puts process above individual creativity. Eno has apparently been a fan since the late 80s, and has given copies of Alexander's books to many friends:

http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/calex2.html

I have to say I've found some conservative ideas creeping into Eno's interviews of late. For instance, in relation to the Long Now project, he's been talking about the beams in Oxford chapels having their replacements planned hundreds of years in advance. And he's talking about church bell music as something that no creator makes, no composer composes. Systems music. It really is a short jump from this interest in process, community and continuity to a reactionary stance in which creators and innovators are discredited. It's a fine line we all walk when we champion folk design.

[sparkligbeatnic.livejournal.com]

I vaguely recall that Eno is a friend of Paul Allen, who financed that Mausoleum of Rock, the Experience Music Project.
The "Long Now" Clock just seems like another Mausoleum. Wouldn't be surprising if it shows up on a future Pink Floyd Album.

But we can tolerate a little ambiguity/diversity in Eno's (or Alexander's) opinions and choice of friends?

[jermynsavile.livejournal.com]

I agree. Eno occasionally appears on Question Time on the BBC(a politics forum with studio guests asking a panel - usually made up of various party hacks - questions about the current affairs issues of the day) and he is always a tonic. No sign of his becoming some kind of sclerotic reactionary there. I'm it's Eno's obsession with systems generated change that leads him down this path - but then why not take a pick'n'mix approach to theory (I too have surfed the post-modernist sea with pleasure without ever feeling that I'm a member of the club)? It also explains his admiration of Stewart Brand's How Buildings Learn. A rather more egalitarian-spirited look at architectural development.

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

Well, and there goes my defense.

However, it could be noted that Bowie has also claimed he was primarily interested in process over results.

[jermynsavile.livejournal.com]

The link is offputting. The Royals are forever seeking validation of their own status. It seeps through all their activities and cultural choices. Their daft obsession with horseracing wouldn't have anything to do with thoroughbreds and breeding would it? I'm surprised the Queen doesn't turn up at Crufts each year.

[sparkligbeatnic.livejournal.com]

Yes I admit these problems. Still it's worth a look. Not trying to convert you or anything - I enjoy a bit of Deleuze and Derrida myself now and then.

A certain amount of hype surrounded the publication of this
series of books. I think of it as analogous to the outrageous
claims that were made about Steve Wolfram's "new theory of nature". Maybe it was fashion in amongst publishers a few years back.

Actually I'd recommend a look at "A Pattern Language" first, it was put together by a large-ish team of people and a basic premise is that it is not reducible. Probably Alexander's book on Turkish carpets is the most beautiful of the series.

The association with Prince Charles is strange. I suspect that it has something to do with the fact, after a brilliant early start, Alexander has spent most of his career as a pariah of the architecture world. He may be needy for support from any influential quarter. If Prince Charles starting suggesting the British public listen to more Momus songs, how would Momus react?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I'd make a record recommending the British public to chop off his head and see if he had the courage of his convictions!

More Alexander:

'One tenet of the book series is that beauty is objective. That is, given two design choices that build different structures, one is in some sense "better" than the other. This is traditionally held to be a subjective matter. But Alexander maintains that most people will usually choose a given design over its lesser counterpart, and that the choice is experimentally objective. He also notes that these experimental judgments correlate to the presence of about 15 properties such as strong centers, graded variation, local symmetries, etc.

Design, then, is the process of intensifying centers...'

I couldn't disagree more. Beauty is not objective. Psychological studies of highly creative individuals show that they have a strong preference for asymmetry over symmetry. In other words, they don't like this thing about 'intensifying centers'. I can see why Prince Charles would, though.

[sparkligbeatnic.livejournal.com]

I'd still recommend having a look at the books themselves before drawing a final judgement.

Beware that the views expressed by one of Alexander's most fervent prophets, Nikos Salingaros, whose web site
contains much of the easily accessible material available online about Alexander, tends to exaggerate the importance of objectification, simple bilateral symmetry, and quantitative
measures. Salingarous also seems to have a hobby-horse about post-modernism and French thinkers in general. On the other hand Salingaros' essay on the 9/11 attacks (the "End of Tall Buildings") is well worth a read.

I agree, there is too much emphasis on simple bilateral symmetry, (not to mention 'averageness') in 'objective' discussions of beauty. By contrast there is, at least traditionally, a wonderful admiration for asymmetry in Japanese aesthetics, including asymmetries of the female face.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Gregory Taylor has a good discussion of the relationship between Eno and Alexander here (http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/calex2.html). Imagining that Eno would object to Alexander's later writing because of its Essentialism, he pins my problem with this kind of writing exactly. Eno is an even bigger fan of Richard Rorty, whose concept of Contingency states:

'You begin by recognizing that there is a kind of contingent character of the context of any kind of inquiry. As a consequence, you're not so much "discovering" truth in inquiry, but "making" it, using the tools you have at hand (those given you by your frame of reference).'

From the sound of it, I might be able to stomach the early Pattern Recognition book, but nothing later than that. Alexander seems to have got swollen-headed and Essentialist after that. (I wonder what William Gibson thinks of him, since his new book is called Pattern Recognition (http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/)?)

[sparkligbeatnic.livejournal.com]

Haven't read that one yet, though I can't say it's high on my list. I kind of lost interest round the time of Mona Lisa Overdrive. I'm reading David Mitchell's "Cloud Atlas" and enjoying it, though there's a bit too much English buggery in it for my tastes (wonder if that's what you need to write about to be Bookered).

Out, cheerio.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

One last thought on Alexander -- the reason alarm bells are ringing in my head the moment I read about his friendship with Prince Charles is that this combination of Essentialist philosophy with power is the worst of all possible worlds. An Essentialist remote from power is a crank who might stimulate interesting conversation. An Essentialist close to power (and let's assume for the moment that the British monarchy actually has some, because there's no constitution to protect us should they decide to exercise the ancient powers they do still, in theory, possess) begins to resemble Savonarola in league with King Charles VIII of France (http://www.imomus.com/thought011001.html). It's one thing to propose that a universal pattern of 'objective' good or beauty might exist; it's quite another to team up with a power which can persecute patterns which deviate from your view of nature's template.

[fibdemetics.livejournal.com]

An 'natural philosopher' close to power is at least preferable to a neo-Hegelian (http://right-web.org/ind/fukuyama/fukuyama.php).

[sparkligbeatnic.livejournal.com]

That may be, however despite the excerpts youve chosen from Alexander I don:t think hes more complex than the Essentialist you paint him to be.

One of the reasons I am interested in Alexander is that it presents an interesting critique of 20th century architecture and urban design. The patterns are heuristics not meant to be taken as axioms or rules. As for his attempts to formlize his ideas in the more recent books, I think it is an interesting, and stimluting, system of thought, but like any system of though is limited and not to be taken overly seriously. For example, David Bohm:s theory of wholeness (which has roots in Goethe:s philosophy of science) figures importantly in Alexander:s theories.

[sparkligbeatnic.livejournal.com]

Another thing about Charles, is he really close to power in any sense? Not to defend him, one of the few shreds of my Celtic background that persists is a dislike of English aristocracy, but isn:t Charles a bit of a black sheep of his family? All that stuff about slow life, real food, etc... and his statement that much of contemporary urban design and architecture stinks is not far off the mark.

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

Also not having read the book, I would have to say it sounds as if he is describing the positive diversity you mention, by focusing on the process over the plan. Fully unplanned chaos is infinitely diverse. Perhaps instead he is suggesting a program of merely observing change from a distant enough remove that the reliable patterns -- which become discernable, perhaps in spite of aesthetic taste -- emerge on their own.

Reality mocks all attempts to control it, but this doesn't mean one should not select their own eyeglasses.

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

There is a whole series of his books in this edition which sport the same cover design.