Meh-ster of Puppets: Trendspotting

("Give me a C, a bouncy C.")

Even though I recently moved my consciousness to Portland I often fantasize about moving my body someplace else, too. That someplace else would probably not be Portland, only because if I was going to drag my body all the way across the country I'd probably want to finally deposit it in some area where it wouldn't get rained on all the time. (In this sense moving from New York to Portland seems like moving your keepsakes from your drafty attic to your flood-prone basement.) Also, moving your actual physical person is a big decision, and like any there are pros and cons:

Pros of Leaving New York

--Better riding

--Better weather

--Better people

--Better everything

Cons of Leaving New York

--Learning a different set of TV channels

--?

Also, if I were to move I'd probably miss the endless procession of celebrities. See, to those of you who live in cultural backwaters, celebrities are larger-than-life people you only get to experience in movies and on the glossy pages of magazines. Here in New York, though, we rub elbows and sometimes even crotches with them on a daily basis. Not only do I live right next-door to the distant relative of one of the seventeen dogs who played Benji, but just the other day I stepped outside for my daily allotment of Brooklyn-style misery only to spy the four sweetest words in the English language. Those words, of course, are as follows:

1) Comedy

2) Ventriloquist

3) For

4) Hire

I shouldn't have to tell fellow fans of the age-old art of telling jokes while being elbow-deep in a puppet's posterior that this was indeed the vehicle of celebrity ventriloquist Kenny Warren:

If I were to leave New York, I would miss thrills like this deeply, and there's no telling what dreadful assortment of c-list ventriloquists I would be forced to interact with elsewhere.

The other option would be to move and then take both matters and puppets into my own hands by becoming a ventriloquist myself, and my first step would be to engage Craig Calfee to build me a handmade bamboo dummy. Soon, dummy fabrication would become the new framebuilding, and in a few years' time I'm sure there would be a North American Handmade Dummy Show, complete with a Don Walker-esque promoter whose schtick would involve having constant arguments with his little "mini-me" doppelgänger.

Eventually, the whole "ventro" scene would "jump the shark" with the advent of fixed-gear ventriloquism, in which the dummy never, ever stops speaking (it's a Zen thing, it's like you're one with the puppet), and before you knew it throwing your voice would become the new trackstand.

Speaking of new trends, yesterday I mentioned that bike lock you wear like a belt, and subsequently many people have informed me that fashion blogger The Senatorialist or whatever he's called has identified the waist-borne bike lock as being ripe for haute couture appropriation by Karl Lagerfeld (or, as one very astute reader put it in a turn of phrase for which I cannot take credit, "Haute Karlizing"):

Whenever I see these bike messengers with their big bike chain wrapped around their waist I always think about Karl and Chanel. I keep waiting for the day I see Chanel models racing down the runway sporting heavy chain belts with leather threaded through - a thicker version of a Chanel bag's chain. This messenger's look is just begging to be Karlized.

The rider pictured is of course local messenger, bike racer, and Red Hook Criterium winner Daniel Chabanov, and as you can see his ventriloquist dummy is stowed neatly in his backpack. By the way, in addition to bike locks, The Sensationalist evidently thinks radiation suits are also poised to come back in a big way:

There's something perverse about divorcing certain items from their context and then turning them into fashion accessories, especially when you consider the reasons people use these items in the first place. For example, no cyclist wants to carry a gigantic chain, it's just that we're forced to because if we don't then our bikes will get stolen. I wonder if The Stenographer experiences moments of similar inspiration in situations like this:

I can just imagine the post:

Whenever I see these bike commuters being stuffed into squad cars with those big handcuffs around their wrists, I always think about Karl and Chanel. I keep waiting for the day I see Chanel models racing down the runway sporting heavy chain bracelets with leather threaded through - a thicker version of a Chanel bag's chain - rendering them almost completely immobile as they are beaten by shirtless police officers in hot pants. The innocent victim's look is just begging to be Karlized, I think the bicycle crackdown is simply fabulous from a prêt-à-porter perspective.

Speaking of New York's increasingly surreal bicycle unfriendliness, a commenter on yesterday's post said:

alaskavetusmc said...

Think NYC hates cyclists, check out how much the State of Alaska hates them:

and then linked to the following article:

Well, as they say in the fashion world, "Yeah, as if. In New York City, ghost bike removal is like sooo 2010."

When it comes to baiting cyclists, no city is more fashion forward than New York.

Meanwhile, musician, bicycle advocate, and Aerospoke tester David Byrne recently settled a lawsuit with some politician who stupidly stole his song, and has part of the settlement the politician had to apologize to Byrne on YouTube:

I greatly enjoyed this, though it would have been even better if Byrne had also forced the politician to include the standard Byrne disclaimer:

I also sort of wish he'd delivered it in the manner of a ventriloquist:

Either way, a victory for David Byrne is a victory for cycling--inasmuch as David Byrne is cycling, at least as far as our local advocates are concerned.

Anyway, as a huge fan of the video apology genre of filmmaking, I'd also very much like to see one for what could be the most offensive eBay bicycle auction in the history of retrogrouchery:

A reader alerted me to this auction, and while it has now ended the item description included the following:

I BELIEVE THIS BIKE WILL INCREASE IN VALUE AS TIME PASSES. ESPECIALLY SINCE JAPAN HAS BEEN DEVASTATED BY THE EARTHQUAKE/TSUNAMI.

Wow. So while the the world watched in horror, evidently this guy was thinking to himself, "This is great, my Bridgestone's going to be worth a fortune now!" The sheer tastelessness of the statement aside, I don't even understand the logic.

He must be the Gilbert Gottfried of retrogrouches.

Posted in: cycling in nyc