Read.Eat.Listen: Deception

Oh Lance, did you have to? What an ugly story Armstrong's has turned out to be, especially for those of us who love the sport of cycling. I hung up my bike racing shoes more than a decade a go, but having been double-dipped in the sport for a time, I'm at once fascinated and revolted by Lance's 'coming clean' on Oprah (or 'Doprah' as the Twitterverse deemed it). I was racing bikes and working an editorial job at VeloNews in Boulder, CO when Lance won the 1993 world championship and signaled what a powerhouse (albeit now exceedingly tarnished) of the peloton he would be for the next 12 years. When the finish line photos came in, we all poured over them in awe. The world couldn't help but be thrilled and impressed by his achievements. And even long after I'd stopped riding competitively, I kept track of Lance and his victories.  I'd learned enough from those in the know that the accusations had merit before this week's Oprah 'event' ...but the depth of his lies is truly astonishing and oh-so-disappointing.
READ: The Secret Race: Inside Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups and Winning at All Costs
EAT: Crow? Nah, will stick with something real, but deceptive in it's own way (i.e. no dairy about the cream, no white sugar, no cooking) ala this raw triple chocolate cake recipe.
LISTEN: Miles Davis - Deception-Davis

Powered by mp3skull.com Big news for SF music lovers is that the new SF Jazz Center is opening January 21. Located in the heart of Hayes Valley, close the the symphony and ballet, it's exciting and accessible.  NPR will be streaming the big opening night concert which is star-studded and, alas, SOLD OUT. Thank you NPR!

Artist Interview: Liz Bucy's Bicycle Ballet

I met Liz Bucy many years a go during a bike race in the Rocky Mountains. I was having what would be my best season while Liz was just returning to cycling and we somehow connected mid-pack. High on endorphins, we 'cooled down' by pedaling up Vail Pass chatting about it all and a friendship was born. Over the next several years, which saw Liz go pro and me concentrate more on my writing, I learned that in addition to being a great athlete, she was a true artist. A Francophile with a love of music and a background in ballet, Liz possesses a unique and clear aesthetic that combines old Europe with movement, beauty and decay. Now living in Santa Fe where she maintains a bodywork practice, I caught up with her as she prepared to make a movie based on a bicycle ballet of Giselle over Halloween weekend.

Q: Has anyone done a bicycle ballet before? How do you go about choreography and how does your early training in dance & years as a bike racer come into play?

LB: I've found some clips of people doing bicycle ballets [which] gave me lots of good ideas. This is going to be a bicycle ballet — each character will have a bicycle and everyone will do a very loosely defined form of ballet. Actually, what I hope will happen is that the inner ballerina in everyone will just manifest in all-out biker goofiness. Oh, but wait, Giselle is really melodramatically serious. But since it is in B/W, I think it will all be perfect.

Some ideas I have for choreography are slightly elevated views of the dancer/bikers doing a couple things in formation — zig-zagging around the cemetery, doing floral patterns, sunbursts patterns... The main idea I have is for Giselle to go down with a broken part (omg, i meant heart! Freudian bicycle stuff!!) , spiraling away from her bike but not letting go until they both meet the ground and are at rest in a beautiful curvy "S" shape. ... stunning!

As far as my bike racing years coming into play here, I think that my joy of riding came from the days where I felt like I was simply flying, and "dansant sur les pedales," which happens when you are out of the saddle a lot, climbing hills, using your entire body, upper and lower, and there is a real sense of grace. To give a dancer wheels is to create magic. It just seems natural to me that bikes and ballet should be together.

Q: What films are you looking to for inspiration? Would you count anyone or thing as an inspiration for the piece?

LB: Hmm... somebody told me that I should watch the modern day Romeo and Juliet to get the sense of anachrony. I have not yet seen it. It's great because things people post on Facebook sometimes help me —I have started noticing details in other films lately and storing them in the vault for the filming [coming up].

As far as counting anyone or thing as an inspiration for the piece... My friend Trice comes to mind. He is the person who got me into bike racing when I was 16. We trained together and did our first race together (in which we got dropped at the starting gun, rode a few miles and then turned around laughing cause we were kinda tired anyway!). Trice got killed on his bike when we were just going into our senior year in high school... I might have been predestined to the slightly morbid side of things anyway, but after that, October has always been challenging and slightly heart-breaking for me. Death, bicycles, beauty... grace and feeling the spirits of people you've known all around, still talking to you and with you. Wheels spinning... Giselle really is tragic because for one, all the bad shit happened because of a misunderstanding on her part... But also tragic because love just found has become love lost almost instantly. The finality of death is heart-wrenching, but then the magic that can continue between souls is deeply inspiring, even if we don't get the earthly creature comfort of that person anymore.

Q: What other artists/musicians have been feeding your muse of late?

LB: Tori Amos is always inspiring. Today, her rockin song Lady in Blue is with me... my housemate and I just synced up our iTunes last night and so I am totally totally psyched to have an entire new music library with lots of Cure on it!! I lost all my vinyl Cure, so I am really really content today. Music is so important. I have also recently been listening to a local group's CD — they are called Medjool and are Santa Feans. Great gypsy-type music. One of there songs, I have visions of people stomping and dancing, a sweet riot — maybe I can use that in Giselle for the happy times scene with the campy teenage villagers! we'll see.... I've also been really taken by Lhasa de Sela's music lately. A friend posted a really cool video of hers and I was completely mesmerized. I went to sleep that night feeling completely electrified, content and so excited that I’d had the good fortune to discover this woman and her music that touched me so deeply!! I woke up early the next day and Googled her immediately to find... that she had passed away eight months earlier on new year's eve after fighting breast cancer. She was only like 40 years old. This affected me dramatically. It's all in keeping with the Giselle thing — love found and lost pretty much immediately. I have been listening to her a lot since then and though I’m sad that she's not really on the planet anymore, I have learned a ton from her. If you don't know her, check her out!! C'est sublime...

Q: Why Giselle? & why shoot on Halloween/Day of the Dead?

LB: To film a B & W bicycle ballet of Giselle... I wish I could remember when this first came to me. In 2001, when my son was one year old, my then-husband and I had moved to Carlsbad, NM, to open a bakery and cafe. I think it was there that the idea came to me, in October. I had a Super 8 Camera and loved to shoot film. We got a lot of folks together and went up on the one hill in Carlsbad one beautiful fall evening in the Chihuahuan Desert and filmed Giselle. It was an other-worldly sight, all these ghostly figures running around with cactus and a setting sun... amazing images. But unfortunately, that was not to be. My sweet little toddler had pulled the Super 8 off the shelf one day and it took a tumble, but seemed all right. It sounded all right and all the lights were working... the film was engaged... but when the people in Hollywood sent it back and said there was nothing on there, I knew the camera was malfunctioning. Good thing some people took pictures of the filming!! That's all we got. So in two weeks, this will be 'Giselle: Take Two.'
Halloween, All Souls Day, and Day of the Dead is the time when the veil is temporarily lifted between our physical world and the world of those who've gone before. Connection with those who've gone before is easier and stronger, just as it still is during the weeks and months right after someone dies. And that is what Giselle is about — the prince goes to the cemetery the night she is buried and spends all night fighting the Willis and the Queen of the Dead so he can have a few more precious moments with Giselle before the sun comes up and she is gone to the other side. Well, actually, that is implied. We don't really know if the prince kept going back night after night, month after month, year after year... He could have had that connection with her....

Q: Where would you like the film to go post-production?

LB: I have never made a movie before, so I am starting with this, a short film, probably 5-10 minute silent film...[maybe]... a short film festival! Facebook, most definitely — I understand its technology, it's easy!... But really, my dream would be to take it to Marfa, TX, if they have a short film category. I drove through there last May and it was neato.

Giselle: The Bicycle Ballet films Oct. 31 in Santa Fe. For more information, contact Liz @ ebucy@yahoo.com

it's all...yoga

Growing up somewhat rural & somewhat isolated, gave me both a huge appreciation for wide open space... and an ancillary hunger for connection, which led me to study ecology, which led to cycling, which led to writing & publishing, both leading me to yoga, which led me to music, which led to studying Buddhism and now has found me working in online media. Sometimes, I have a hard time linking up these seemingly disparate chapters and interests; however, they are all, when everything is said and done, about connection.
If the first part of my life was about rural living; the latest chapter has been about learning to embrace urbanism. I don't race bikes anymore but I still own my 10+ year old race bike. Likewise, my yoga practice of late has morphed into a complement rather than a compass for my days. But I've been channeling both my old bike racer and my somewhat lapsed Ashtangi by riding with the rag-tag packs of urban cyclists to work in the morning. Drafting, staving off buses and creating loose commuter groups with other cyclists riding down Market St. is yoga I realized this morning. Just like playing music is yoga when it's going well, or working is yoga, when everyone is focused and grooving on a project. Yes, I know, the simplest things are the hardest to really get.
I am miles away from the little kid who sat at the edge of the driveway with my brother, waiting for the periodic logging truck to pass so we could pantomime pulling on a horn to make the driver honk at us and give us our link to the world beyond our road. But I still live for those moments — musical, professional, athletic or otherwise — when I see separation for what it is: a myth.

shine your light

I'll be volunteering later for SF Bicycle Coalition along with the Municipal Transportation Agency to distribute free bike lights tonight. Come on by one of these stations between 5-7 pm, on your two wheels and ride safely:

• Market St. @ Duboce
• Howard St. @ 8th
• Valencia St. @ 17th
• Valencia St. @ Cesar Chavez
• McAllister St. @ Webster
• Polk St. @ California

The Bike Light Give Away corresponds with the end of Daylight Savings Time.

shut in with the 'wagon at velo rouge

Velo Rouge cafe straddles the line between restaurant, coffeehouse and club: they've a bike hanging from above the doorway plus a cup full of energy bars on the counter, Blue Bottle Coffee, wine and beer, a weekly prixe fix dinner,and live music on Friday nights and Sundays. The result is one of the more comfortable places to hang out and listen to music-especially if your friends are playing. I gave Emily (fresh off her band The Whoreshoes' turn at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass)a call when I read Mario's email announcing that his band, Mariospeedwagon, was sharing a gig at the Rouge along with The Shut Ins. Mario's has been a good songwriting friend since I first happened into the Bazaar Cafe several years ago; I knew Emily sometimes sat in with the Shut-Ins. Both bands specialize in songs with a high degree of goofiness ( "Macho Maria" from the SI's and the 'wagon's "Dot.com Blonde" give you an idea), played well, and provide the lesson in not taking yourself seriously that some of us have have to relearn on occasion. That said, Mariospeedwagon quieted the washboard, trumpet and banjo to do a fine rendition of my favorite tunes, Mario's "Tree," with only guitar, drums and clarinet, to cap the evening.

On the Litquake (the Crawl is tonight) front, Karen alerted me that friend Suzy Parker will also be reading. Check your programs! I'll see you at the Laundromat on 22nd St.

Critical Mass 15th Anniversary

Allegra sent some shots from the party on wheels a couple of weeks ago-our pack Greg, Chris, moi, Allegra, Emily pre-ride and mid-mass...

treats

key purchase for the shorter days ahead: A Beamer Planet 5 White LED Bike light from Mojo Bicycle Cafe, my bike shop of choice (conveniently located across from the Independent) for Bontrager care. Thanks Remy (a fellow UCSC alum) for taking a break from the cafe to set my bike up.

key treat: cacao nib dark chocolate bar from Miette Confiserie

Great NY Times Magazine cover story about the Todd Haynes movie “I’m Not There,” yesterday--figuring out when to see it. From Haynes' pitch to Dylan to make the film: "“If a film were to exist in which the breadth and flux of a creative life could be experienced, a film that could open up as oppose to consolidating what we think we already know walking in, it could never be within the tidy arc of a master narrative. The structure of such a film would have to be a fractured one, with numerous openings and a multitude of voices, with its prime strategy being one of refraction, not condensation."

more cycling news

SF Chronicle reports today:

"San Francisco is one push of the pedal closer to offering residents and visitors a bike-sharing program in an effort to ease traffic congestion and to promote health through exercise....."

Are you a San Francisco Bike Coalition member?

Cornelia Parker @ De Young, etc.

I was happy to see Cornelia Parker's "Anti-Mass" was recently acquired by the De Young during my latest visit yesterday. I caught her exhibit at Yerba Buena a couple of years ago. Only wish they placed the work in the center of the room (the photo is from a previous show). Must have been hell to install....

also talked to singer/songwriter/jazz gal and pal Jean last night who just wrapped up some sessions in L.A. She's playing a "soul-lo" show as she puts it next Sunday at Bazaar Cafe. I may do a guest turn on a song or two...

According to three sources I made the KRON news Friday night and during a Sunday rebroadcast representing the peaceful Critical Mass participants. I was interviewed while I was waiting for the event to roll off. I was glad the quote that survived the q&a was "I believe cyclists and cars can co-exist."

Critical Mass and the Blues

After work on Friday, I met up with friends at Justin Herman Plaza* for a happy hour of social cycling: it was the 15th anniversary of Critical Mass on Friday, the controversial monthly bike ride which puts rush hour traffic at a standstill to give bikes the right of way. The event gets a bad rap but it's generally a peaceable party, really a parade to celebrate two wheels rather than four. And for every aggressive cyclist there may have been (I didn't see any), there were a dozen or so unofficial marshals, dedicated to communicating to the pack about pedestrians and safe-guarding potentially dangerous cars. It took Allegra, Chris, Emily, Greg and I an hour to pedal with the mass down the Embarcadero and back up Market St. to my doorstep where I bid adiu as they continued on down Octavia Blvd. After 15 years of calling attention to urban cycling concerns, cyclists now number 30,000 in San Francisco and the city leads the country in bicycle signage (how can you not love a "Sharrow"). The San Francisco Bike Coalition is one of my favorite causes.

*earlier at the Plaza I attended a noon-time kick-off concert for the San Francisco Blues Festival.

Listening to: a remix of Feist's "My Moon My Man"