- Blog
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“At times like this, I wish I had listened to what my mother said.” “What did she say?” “I don’t know, I wasn’t listening.”
As a kid, there were plenty of things that I swore — SWORE! — that I wouldn’t do when I became an adult. Unfortunately, I’ve forgotten what all of them were, so I’m probably doing them all the time. Oh, yeah, I remember now; I swore I’d never exclaim to my young nieces and nephews…
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“You call that a death ray? It doesn’t even slow them down!”
I took Wednesday off of work to help my dad and stepmother move houses, from Mount Airy, Philadelphia, to the house that’s just across the street and a few doors down. My brothers Oliver and Sam (my stepmom’s sons) are in town from Milwaukee and Albuquerque, too, and they’re busy working on the Benson Family…
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What other members of my family are making
So while I’ve been busy calumniating slender British motorcycle maintenance books, here’s what other members of my family have been doing with their creativity: (You can click any photo to go to Flickr) (from left): My brother Oliver is in town from Milwaukee; he and my other brother Sam are going to help my…
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Apparently, “Three Wrenches” Means “Abandon All Hope.”
I’m taking my 1977 BMW R100/7 out of mothballs this year. And, by “mothballs”, I mean “sitting outdoors under a tarp for a year”, which is the motorcyclists’ equivalent of starving your dog. However, having a baby seems to be the one circumstance when this kind of behavior is forgiven — once. As long as…
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Rem Koolhaas: Still a tool.
On a flight to Boston this morning, I read the new article about Rem Koolhaas in the New Yorker. In previous posts about this “great, horrible, pillock”, I’ve calumniated his good-for-nothing Prada store in Soho, and his headache-inducing EU flag concept. My dislike for his work is wide, as the sky is wide. My contempt…
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The Skule Comes Through
The Ultimate Water Gun came back from its trip to freshman orientation at the University of Toronto Engineering school a few months ago. In accordance with a (slightly batty) British tradition, students paint themselves purple. That’s the best kind of tradition, frankly: both Batty and British. Anyhow, frosh wear yellow hard hats and are subject…
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Gloria Steinem, Virginia Woolf, and German Motorcycles
Kate, Lydia and I went to a quilt show on Saturday. Boat shows, car shows, and motorcycle shows are held in carpeted convention centers; quilt shows are held in bombed-out ex-factory spaces with concrete floors and high-pressure sodium lights overhead. Which is not surprising, or anything: the day that skinny, mustached teenagers from New Jersey…
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Kate’s cooler than me, anyhow
20030826 006 Originally uploaded by tikaro. Since this is bragging week on tikaro.com, I will now brag about my wife, who is INCREDIBLY COOL. She’s a knitter, a quilter, a blogger, she can speak Russian to sled dogs, and she’s been prepping British race bikes since her head only came up to the top of…
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Blogging, Banjos, and False Modesty. And Amish pants.
Okay, okay, I’m going to have to come clean: I’m actually very proud of my banjo playing. Blogging is a lightweight medium, and heaping false modesty on its slender shoulders makes a train wreck: “Ooh, did I mention? I play the banjo a little; I’m very self-conscious about it HERE’S A VIDEO OF ME PLAYING…
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Loud + Rhythmic = good enough for babies!
I can play the banjo, some. Playing the banjo “some” is like playing the bagpipes a little: you need a wide-open space and patient, forgiving neigbhors if you’re gonna practice, since a banjo does not emit quiet noises. And it’s spectacularly unforgiving of mistakes, that is, if you care about mistakes. Part of the freewheeling…
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