Art in the commonplace
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Monday, February 20, 2006
The Syriana Syndrome
By Jim Kunstler
(This ran as an op-ed piece in the Albany Times-Union)
Anyone who sees Syriana, the new George Clooney movie about political hugger-mugger in a Middle East oil kingdom, will not come away with an enhanced understanding of the global oil predicament. They'll see a dark, brooding, and impressively restrained story with one brief car chase, few explosions, and barely a bullet flying. They'll sense several layers of intense paranoia that seem to suggest almost no one in authority here in America can be trusted about anything. They'll see a foreign culture depicted as (to crib a phrase from Winston Churchill) a riddle, wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in a hairball.
In the movie's most terrifying scene, they'll see George Clooney's character, Bob, a washed-up CIA agent, receive an extremely severe manicure, so to speak, from an al Qaeda type sadist.
But they won't get any clear ideas about the implications of our sick dependency on Middle Eastern oil for life in United States. In fact, one of the unfortunate results of this otherwise not-stupid movie, is that it will cater to exactly the kind of paranoid fantasies that will be least helpful for Americans facing a bewildering future and needing desperately to take measured collective action to preserve living standards. Sure, there is plenty of greed and bad faith out there in the big leagues of geopolitics and corporate life. But the global energy predicament is foremost a geological problem.
Despite the claims of those who believe that the Earth has a creamy nougat center of oil, the supply of this critical resource is actually finite, and we are at very dicey moment in our brief history with it. There is good reason to believe that the world is now passing over the tippy-top of its all-time maximum peak oil production and starting down the gruesome slope of irreversible depletion. Meanwhile, discovery of new oil has been practically nil in the 21st century, and you can't produce oil that hasn't been discovered. The shorthand for this conundrum is Peak Oil, a subject lately growing in the public's awareness.
The great problem, therefore, is not that we are immediately running out of oil, because at peak there will still be a lot left. The problem is that the first half was the lightest, sweetest crude in the easiest-to-reach places, including Texas. It was cheap to get and refine. The remaining half is mostly harder-to-refine heavy, sour crude, or tar sands, or oil shales (which aren't even composed of oil, by the way, but of an uncooked organic precursor called kerogen), and these things can now only be gotten in forbidding arctic terrains, Amazonian jungles, deep under the sea, or in unfriendly countries. The remaining oil is distributed inequitably around the world. More than two-thirds belongs to the nations of the Middle East. It does not come cheap, either in monetary terms or in geopolitical costs.
Syriana is about some of those geopolitical costs. The movie was loosely based on Robert Baer's gripping 2004 account, Sleeping With the Devil, of his career as a CIA agent operating in Saudi Arabia, and much of the book is devoted to the stupendous corruption, greed, and incompetence of the al Saud royal family - as well as the behind-the-scenes string-pulling by the Anglo-American interests scheming relentlessly to do what's necessary to keep the oil flowing.
Flowing into American gas tanks, that is. And that is the more precise context of the problem we face over Peak Oil: we have poured our postwar national wealth into an easy motoring suburban sprawl living arrangement that cannot possibly operate without continued reliable supplies of cheap oil. Perhaps even worse, our economy has insidiously shifted from manufacturing to sprawl-building (otherwise known as the housing bubble). Having made such massive misinvestments in the infrastructure for a way of life with no future, we are trapped in a deadly psychology of previous investment which prevents us from even thinking we can do things differently.
This was all neatly encapsulated by the remark widely attributed to Vice-president Dick Cheney that "the American way of life is non-negotiable." Whatever you think of the remark, it is probably an accurate representation of how most Americans feel - that we are entitled to 3500 square foot houses, all the cheap gasoline we can burn, and supernaturally easy credit because we hold the torch of freedom as an example to the world.
Thus, we are dismayed when other people in the world scoff at our torch-bearing while they blow up our soldiers, because they know - as the characters in Syriana know deep down somewhere - that it's all basically about our desperate addiction to their oil. It would be unfortunate if our dismay turned into unbridled wrath, because that kind of political rage is just as likely to turn inward.
There is a whole set of intelligent responses to America's oil predicament that we ought to be talking about now. These range from restoring the nation's passenger rail system, to supporting local agriculture in earnest, to rebuilding local networks of retail trade and economic interdependency for the time ahead when the Big Boxes die of oil starvation, to setting legal limits on new suburban sprawl. These are the kind of things that will help us through the Long Emergency of the post-cheap-oil world we are entering. The temptations of paranoia will only make things worse.
___________________________________________
James Howard Kunstler is the author of The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century (Atlantic Monthly Press). He was movie critic for the Albany Knickerbocker News in 1973 - 1974.
(This ran as an op-ed piece in the Albany Times-Union)
Anyone who sees Syriana, the new George Clooney movie about political hugger-mugger in a Middle East oil kingdom, will not come away with an enhanced understanding of the global oil predicament. They'll see a dark, brooding, and impressively restrained story with one brief car chase, few explosions, and barely a bullet flying. They'll sense several layers of intense paranoia that seem to suggest almost no one in authority here in America can be trusted about anything. They'll see a foreign culture depicted as (to crib a phrase from Winston Churchill) a riddle, wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in a hairball.
In the movie's most terrifying scene, they'll see George Clooney's character, Bob, a washed-up CIA agent, receive an extremely severe manicure, so to speak, from an al Qaeda type sadist.
But they won't get any clear ideas about the implications of our sick dependency on Middle Eastern oil for life in United States. In fact, one of the unfortunate results of this otherwise not-stupid movie, is that it will cater to exactly the kind of paranoid fantasies that will be least helpful for Americans facing a bewildering future and needing desperately to take measured collective action to preserve living standards. Sure, there is plenty of greed and bad faith out there in the big leagues of geopolitics and corporate life. But the global energy predicament is foremost a geological problem.
Despite the claims of those who believe that the Earth has a creamy nougat center of oil, the supply of this critical resource is actually finite, and we are at very dicey moment in our brief history with it. There is good reason to believe that the world is now passing over the tippy-top of its all-time maximum peak oil production and starting down the gruesome slope of irreversible depletion. Meanwhile, discovery of new oil has been practically nil in the 21st century, and you can't produce oil that hasn't been discovered. The shorthand for this conundrum is Peak Oil, a subject lately growing in the public's awareness.
The great problem, therefore, is not that we are immediately running out of oil, because at peak there will still be a lot left. The problem is that the first half was the lightest, sweetest crude in the easiest-to-reach places, including Texas. It was cheap to get and refine. The remaining half is mostly harder-to-refine heavy, sour crude, or tar sands, or oil shales (which aren't even composed of oil, by the way, but of an uncooked organic precursor called kerogen), and these things can now only be gotten in forbidding arctic terrains, Amazonian jungles, deep under the sea, or in unfriendly countries. The remaining oil is distributed inequitably around the world. More than two-thirds belongs to the nations of the Middle East. It does not come cheap, either in monetary terms or in geopolitical costs.
Syriana is about some of those geopolitical costs. The movie was loosely based on Robert Baer's gripping 2004 account, Sleeping With the Devil, of his career as a CIA agent operating in Saudi Arabia, and much of the book is devoted to the stupendous corruption, greed, and incompetence of the al Saud royal family - as well as the behind-the-scenes string-pulling by the Anglo-American interests scheming relentlessly to do what's necessary to keep the oil flowing.
Flowing into American gas tanks, that is. And that is the more precise context of the problem we face over Peak Oil: we have poured our postwar national wealth into an easy motoring suburban sprawl living arrangement that cannot possibly operate without continued reliable supplies of cheap oil. Perhaps even worse, our economy has insidiously shifted from manufacturing to sprawl-building (otherwise known as the housing bubble). Having made such massive misinvestments in the infrastructure for a way of life with no future, we are trapped in a deadly psychology of previous investment which prevents us from even thinking we can do things differently.
This was all neatly encapsulated by the remark widely attributed to Vice-president Dick Cheney that "the American way of life is non-negotiable." Whatever you think of the remark, it is probably an accurate representation of how most Americans feel - that we are entitled to 3500 square foot houses, all the cheap gasoline we can burn, and supernaturally easy credit because we hold the torch of freedom as an example to the world.
Thus, we are dismayed when other people in the world scoff at our torch-bearing while they blow up our soldiers, because they know - as the characters in Syriana know deep down somewhere - that it's all basically about our desperate addiction to their oil. It would be unfortunate if our dismay turned into unbridled wrath, because that kind of political rage is just as likely to turn inward.
There is a whole set of intelligent responses to America's oil predicament that we ought to be talking about now. These range from restoring the nation's passenger rail system, to supporting local agriculture in earnest, to rebuilding local networks of retail trade and economic interdependency for the time ahead when the Big Boxes die of oil starvation, to setting legal limits on new suburban sprawl. These are the kind of things that will help us through the Long Emergency of the post-cheap-oil world we are entering. The temptations of paranoia will only make things worse.
___________________________________________
James Howard Kunstler is the author of The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century (Atlantic Monthly Press). He was movie critic for the Albany Knickerbocker News in 1973 - 1974.
Kunstler: A Short Emergency
February 20, 2006
Friday morning the sky went dark like a sudden memory of wartime, and a cold wind roared out of the northwest in a fury over my town in upstate New York. The winds picked up through the morning and pretty soon things were flying around outside my office window, including the trellis in the garden. Then trees toppled over. The trees crashed down across powerlines and at one-thirty in the afternoon the power went out in Saratoga Springs. It would stay down all weekend. I went out to take a look later on Friday afternoon. Many of the shops and bistros downtown closed by late afternoon. The yearly regional music festival called the Dance Flurry had to shut down.
Back home, the furnace quit working. Even though it burns natural gas, it requires electricity to power the igniters. People we knew were already heading up to the big box hardware emporiums for generators and kerosene heaters. I came across one neighbor trying to hook up a generator. He was very blue because he owned ten rental properties around town and he had no idea how he was going to keep the pipes from freezing if the temperatures really plunged as low as the radio was saying: single digits.
That night, my girlfriend was struggling to get back upstate from New York City on Amtrak. She couldn't reach me because our telephones were all cordless models with plug-in transmitter bases that didn't work with the power off. So she called our friends around the corner, who had a hardwired phone (which can run whether the electrical service is on or not), and I got the message.
They stayed at my place for dinner. It wasn't too bad. The gas stove was still working -- though not the oven, which could only be turned on via an electronic keypad -- and we had penne with mushrooms and a nice salad by candle light. I had lots of candles on hand, and a kerosene lamp and a battery-powered lantern and several flashlights. Lucky me. With the stove burners all lit, we were perfectly comfortable at the table.
Sally finally got home from New York around eleven. It was eerie coming into town with all the lights off, she said, and her seat on the train had been the only one in the car without a reading light that worked, so she'd already had a lot of practice sitting in the dark -- thanks a lot, Amtrak. I like sleeping in a pretty chilly room, so passing the night was fine -- apart from my normal insomnical tendencies. But the next morning, when the inside temperature reached 49 degrees, and the radio said there was no telling when service might be restored, we decided to make other arrangements.
We were lucky. We had friends two towns over who had power and a spare bedroom. On the way over there (about fifteen miles) I went past two gas stations with long lines of cars waiting around them, and people at the pumps filling up red plastic auxiliary cans. We turned on the local TV news late Saturday night to see what had transpired during the day and a there was a news report about a house in Saratoga that had burned down that night because the people who lived there had cranked up the fireplaces and the chimneys were not adequately cleaned. The address the TV news-reader gave was around the corner from us. It was not anyone I knew. They lived across the street from the couple I made dinner for on Friday.
Sunday afternoon I went back into town. The power was still down in my neighborhood. There were rumors that it was supposed to come back on sometime between noon and the dinner hour, but it was still down at 3:30pm. The people next door happened to be loading some stuff into their car when I came by. The temperature inside their place was 39, they said-- despite the fact that it was about 15 outside. Perhaps the water heater was keeping things above freezing. I went past the burned house on my way back to our temporary quarters. It was a Dutch colonial dating from perhaps the 1920s. The house was obviously totaled. The windows in the upper stories were blown out and you could see everything inside was charred black. They had got plywood nailed up over the first floor windows already.
So, this was our little disaster of the year. The downtown merchants lost a pile of money with the Dance Flurry getting canceled, and the neighbor we didn't know got burned out, and we didn't hear yet what happened to the other neighbor with all the rentals. One house over on Spring Street lost a roof -- which blew off and landed in Court Street. Our little rented cottage is okay so far. The landlord ran a propane construction heater in there on Saturday and said he was coming back late this afternoon to give it another blast. The daytime temperatures tomorrow are headed back above freezing again. I suppose we'll be able to get back in tomorrow sometime (Monday).
The odd thing, of course, is that all the way back since Christmas we have enjoyed (yeah, strange word) supernaturally warm temperatures this winter. We've had whole weeks in the high 40s and even mid-50s. The lakes and ponds did not freeze this year. The ground is bare and we've had zero cross-country skiing. The winter carnival in town was all but canceled except for the chowder contest between the downtown eateries. I had been predicting back in December that a normal winter would get us into trouble with punishing home heating prices. The bills have been high, despite the mild weather, but not killing as they could have been with normal temperatures. And the market price of natural gas has sunk way down to the $7-8 range because demand has been so low.
The week preceding the storm was like spring up here. Personally, I liked walking the dog around town wearing only a sweater, with none of the slush and icy snard which is usually underfoot here all winter. But everyone is a little nervous about what this all means. We'd prefer winter, when all is said and done. We read about the Greenland ice caps melting and we put it together with what is happening to us, and the picture is not reassuring. Especially when it resolves into freak wind storms that are generated by very cold fronts colliding with masses of abnormally warm air, in places that they shouldn't be this time of year.
Being homo sapiens, we are not that good at thinking ahead. I wonder if any of my neighbors have imagined a March featuring funnel clouds and patio furniture flying through the air?
from www.kunstler.com
Friday morning the sky went dark like a sudden memory of wartime, and a cold wind roared out of the northwest in a fury over my town in upstate New York. The winds picked up through the morning and pretty soon things were flying around outside my office window, including the trellis in the garden. Then trees toppled over. The trees crashed down across powerlines and at one-thirty in the afternoon the power went out in Saratoga Springs. It would stay down all weekend. I went out to take a look later on Friday afternoon. Many of the shops and bistros downtown closed by late afternoon. The yearly regional music festival called the Dance Flurry had to shut down.
Back home, the furnace quit working. Even though it burns natural gas, it requires electricity to power the igniters. People we knew were already heading up to the big box hardware emporiums for generators and kerosene heaters. I came across one neighbor trying to hook up a generator. He was very blue because he owned ten rental properties around town and he had no idea how he was going to keep the pipes from freezing if the temperatures really plunged as low as the radio was saying: single digits.
That night, my girlfriend was struggling to get back upstate from New York City on Amtrak. She couldn't reach me because our telephones were all cordless models with plug-in transmitter bases that didn't work with the power off. So she called our friends around the corner, who had a hardwired phone (which can run whether the electrical service is on or not), and I got the message.
They stayed at my place for dinner. It wasn't too bad. The gas stove was still working -- though not the oven, which could only be turned on via an electronic keypad -- and we had penne with mushrooms and a nice salad by candle light. I had lots of candles on hand, and a kerosene lamp and a battery-powered lantern and several flashlights. Lucky me. With the stove burners all lit, we were perfectly comfortable at the table.
Sally finally got home from New York around eleven. It was eerie coming into town with all the lights off, she said, and her seat on the train had been the only one in the car without a reading light that worked, so she'd already had a lot of practice sitting in the dark -- thanks a lot, Amtrak. I like sleeping in a pretty chilly room, so passing the night was fine -- apart from my normal insomnical tendencies. But the next morning, when the inside temperature reached 49 degrees, and the radio said there was no telling when service might be restored, we decided to make other arrangements.
We were lucky. We had friends two towns over who had power and a spare bedroom. On the way over there (about fifteen miles) I went past two gas stations with long lines of cars waiting around them, and people at the pumps filling up red plastic auxiliary cans. We turned on the local TV news late Saturday night to see what had transpired during the day and a there was a news report about a house in Saratoga that had burned down that night because the people who lived there had cranked up the fireplaces and the chimneys were not adequately cleaned. The address the TV news-reader gave was around the corner from us. It was not anyone I knew. They lived across the street from the couple I made dinner for on Friday.
Sunday afternoon I went back into town. The power was still down in my neighborhood. There were rumors that it was supposed to come back on sometime between noon and the dinner hour, but it was still down at 3:30pm. The people next door happened to be loading some stuff into their car when I came by. The temperature inside their place was 39, they said-- despite the fact that it was about 15 outside. Perhaps the water heater was keeping things above freezing. I went past the burned house on my way back to our temporary quarters. It was a Dutch colonial dating from perhaps the 1920s. The house was obviously totaled. The windows in the upper stories were blown out and you could see everything inside was charred black. They had got plywood nailed up over the first floor windows already.
So, this was our little disaster of the year. The downtown merchants lost a pile of money with the Dance Flurry getting canceled, and the neighbor we didn't know got burned out, and we didn't hear yet what happened to the other neighbor with all the rentals. One house over on Spring Street lost a roof -- which blew off and landed in Court Street. Our little rented cottage is okay so far. The landlord ran a propane construction heater in there on Saturday and said he was coming back late this afternoon to give it another blast. The daytime temperatures tomorrow are headed back above freezing again. I suppose we'll be able to get back in tomorrow sometime (Monday).
The odd thing, of course, is that all the way back since Christmas we have enjoyed (yeah, strange word) supernaturally warm temperatures this winter. We've had whole weeks in the high 40s and even mid-50s. The lakes and ponds did not freeze this year. The ground is bare and we've had zero cross-country skiing. The winter carnival in town was all but canceled except for the chowder contest between the downtown eateries. I had been predicting back in December that a normal winter would get us into trouble with punishing home heating prices. The bills have been high, despite the mild weather, but not killing as they could have been with normal temperatures. And the market price of natural gas has sunk way down to the $7-8 range because demand has been so low.
The week preceding the storm was like spring up here. Personally, I liked walking the dog around town wearing only a sweater, with none of the slush and icy snard which is usually underfoot here all winter. But everyone is a little nervous about what this all means. We'd prefer winter, when all is said and done. We read about the Greenland ice caps melting and we put it together with what is happening to us, and the picture is not reassuring. Especially when it resolves into freak wind storms that are generated by very cold fronts colliding with masses of abnormally warm air, in places that they shouldn't be this time of year.
Being homo sapiens, we are not that good at thinking ahead. I wonder if any of my neighbors have imagined a March featuring funnel clouds and patio furniture flying through the air?
from www.kunstler.com
"Corruption is how we win"
Prince Nasir Al-Subaai: What are they thinking, my brother and these American lawyers?
Bryan Woodman: What are they thinking? They're thinking that it's running out. It's running out... and ninety percent of what's left is in the Middle East. This is a fight to the death.
Danny Dalton: Corruption charges. Corruption? Corruption ain't nothing more than government intrusion into market efficiencies in the form of regulation. That's Milton Friedman. He's got a god-damn Nobel Prize. We have laws against is precisely so we can get away with it. Corruption is our protection! Corruption is what keeps us safe and warm. Corruption is why you and I are here in the white-hot center of things instead of fighting each other for scraps of meat out there in the streets. Corruption is how we win.
Plot Summary for Syriana (2005)
From writer/director Stephen Gaghan, winner of the Best Screenplay Academy Award for Traffic, comes Syriana, a political thriller that unfolds against the intrigue of the global oil industry. From the players brokering back-room deals in Washington to the men toiling in the oil fields of the Persian Gulf, the film's multiple storylines weave together to illuminate the human consequences of the fierce pursuit of wealth and power. As a career CIA operative (George Clooney) begins to uncover the disturbing truth about the work he has devoted his life to, an up-and-coming oil broker (Matt Damon) faces an unimaginable family tragedy and finds redemption in his partnership with an idealistic Gulf prince (Alexander Siddig).
A corporate lawyer (Jeffrey Wright) faces a moral dilemma as he finesses the questionable merger of two powerful U.S. oil companies, while across the globe, a disenfranchised Pakistani teenager (Mazhar Munir) falls prey to the recruiting efforts of a charismatic cleric. Each plays their small part in the vast and complex system that powers the industry, unaware of the explosive impact their lives will have upon the world.
Avove info from: www.imdb.com
Start/Stop/Start
I always feel better after a swim, but today, I felt a little worse, after weighing myself, and then better.
I'm kind've shocked that after the exertions over the past week my weight is not inching towards the 80km barrier. Instead, my flab continues to float me up to 85kg.
Time to run I'd say, because cycling ain't shaking it loose.
Swim: 0:47
Distance: 2km
Best 250m: 3:34
Best 100m: 1:13
Weight: 85.5kg
Upstairs, doing some light torso work, I saw Bazil. Should have grabbed the chance when he asked for a swim coach because he has since signed up with another swim coach, Lydia, or someone in the morning. Will show more urgency and be more assertive the next time around. Sometimes when you expect something, you expect it to be right in front of you. Sometimes an opportunity sneaks up on the side, and then you let it go.
Watched NORTH COUNTRY with Susan. Very good movie, although I found it quite harrowing, which must mean Charlize put in a good performance - worthy of a nomination at least.
Someone told me it was predictable and someone else told me it was excellent. I suddenly, just before watching the movie, didn't feel like a movie about woman's rights. But there were plenty of details in the movie that are worth considering, and it was sufficient inspiration for me to consider writing a play. I even came up with a name for it while we were having coffee:
The Class Action and the Cantaloupe
Seems Cantaloup has no e if you're in America (see below).
A movie I am eagerly anticipating is called Syriana, with George Clooney. Usually I'd avoid a movie with a bafooney like him in it, except he seems to be taking this serious subject to heart - enough to make himself overweight and less charming and basically unrecognisable - he's slightly portly and covered in abeard. Took a while to realise it was him which is a good thing.
My mission is to spread the awareness of the approaching energy crisis. For all those who think I am silly, well we shall see. There is likely to be a lot of anger when the world changes, and the more people who are forewarned, the more likley the process is to be peaceful or at least fairly passive.
If you're expecting your girlfriend to fight with you you might be less antagonistic, and less reactionary. People today are both, and thus spreading the word on this topic might save lives, might save us from some unnecessary harm. Or it might not.
I wonder what Mr Kunstler will say about the movie. I must remember to ask him.
Meanwhile YOU, my dear readers, must ask me from time to time, how The Class Action and the Cantaloupe is doing. I also need to post a chapter a week of Half Full Moon. And must get more children's stories into the writing factory (of my mind).
I'm kind've shocked that after the exertions over the past week my weight is not inching towards the 80km barrier. Instead, my flab continues to float me up to 85kg.
Time to run I'd say, because cycling ain't shaking it loose.
Swim: 0:47
Distance: 2km
Best 250m: 3:34
Best 100m: 1:13
Weight: 85.5kg
Upstairs, doing some light torso work, I saw Bazil. Should have grabbed the chance when he asked for a swim coach because he has since signed up with another swim coach, Lydia, or someone in the morning. Will show more urgency and be more assertive the next time around. Sometimes when you expect something, you expect it to be right in front of you. Sometimes an opportunity sneaks up on the side, and then you let it go.
Watched NORTH COUNTRY with Susan. Very good movie, although I found it quite harrowing, which must mean Charlize put in a good performance - worthy of a nomination at least.
Someone told me it was predictable and someone else told me it was excellent. I suddenly, just before watching the movie, didn't feel like a movie about woman's rights. But there were plenty of details in the movie that are worth considering, and it was sufficient inspiration for me to consider writing a play. I even came up with a name for it while we were having coffee:
The Class Action and the Cantaloupe
Seems Cantaloup has no e if you're in America (see below).
A movie I am eagerly anticipating is called Syriana, with George Clooney. Usually I'd avoid a movie with a bafooney like him in it, except he seems to be taking this serious subject to heart - enough to make himself overweight and less charming and basically unrecognisable - he's slightly portly and covered in abeard. Took a while to realise it was him which is a good thing.
My mission is to spread the awareness of the approaching energy crisis. For all those who think I am silly, well we shall see. There is likely to be a lot of anger when the world changes, and the more people who are forewarned, the more likley the process is to be peaceful or at least fairly passive.
If you're expecting your girlfriend to fight with you you might be less antagonistic, and less reactionary. People today are both, and thus spreading the word on this topic might save lives, might save us from some unnecessary harm. Or it might not.
I wonder what Mr Kunstler will say about the movie. I must remember to ask him.
Meanwhile YOU, my dear readers, must ask me from time to time, how The Class Action and the Cantaloupe is doing. I also need to post a chapter a week of Half Full Moon. And must get more children's stories into the writing factory (of my mind).
Sunday, February 19, 2006
The Thin Thread
In the 100km cycle race, there are a couple of occasions where you are hanging on by a very thin thread. I mean, your heart rate is 174 or even higher, and the guy in front of you is slipping away, and your legs are getting totalled, and you;re just about at maximum. You're about to blow, and you're on an uphill. I think cycling, aspects of it, imitate life. If you can survive a crisis, if you can survive those occasional very tough stretches, then you're able to move elegantly and sweetly through the countryside, with strong people around you and the wind bouncing off your back. If you're not vigilant, and if you're weak and lazy, the wind gets in there and wears you down. Once it starts, it tends to get worse and worse, and you find yourself getting smaller and smaller on an expanding landscape. And you find yourself alone. That's a journey that teaches vigilance. I did that journey last week, on the bike. But I'm stronger now.I have some ideas. My father and I were talking about starting a modelling agency. What about calling it Alchohol. Because beautiful woman have the same intoxicating effect, the same power of addiction.
Had sore legs yesterday and felt utterly spent, but rose in the evening to go to dinner at Ruth. Delicious roast Lamb. Have been feeling lighter since eating smaller portions of meat and lots more fruit. Lighter and stronger.
Hanging on by a very Thin Thread
That feeling of fear and laziness, first thing in the morning, is the feeling you need to kill. You wake up, and the world's asleep. Outside the sky is in a bad mood. The roof above you is miserable, and dripping a little. There seems little incentive in leaving the cozy comfort of the mattress? But nothing heroic happens in bed.You still have mixed feelings, shaking off the webs of sleep, quietly prancing and tiptoeing about the house as you load up the cage with a water bottle, check the number of foil sacks. Inside each are precious resources of fuel, of gel.
The rain drips on you as you make your way, already almost late, and still half asleep, to the race. Each drop is a stinging slap in the face. With minutes to go you find no entry forms are left, and those that are are damp, and transparent on tables left out in the rain. You dab a pen at one, and it pulls the felt of the paper apart.
But finally, you've paid and the number is flapping behind you. The dark skies sit stiffyly above you, waiting to break.
And then, the riders unzip over the roads, like a grey suit opening to reveal the superman streak below.
Distance: 96km (Anton, who finished seconds ahead of me, his reading was 98km)
Time: 2:35:30
Average speed: 37km/h (Anton's average was over 38km/h)
Average time per km: 1:38 (best this year)
Energy Expenditure: 1653 kcal
Heart Rate: 156 average/176 max
You cover 100km in under 3 hours, a little more than twice the time it would have taken to drive.
You dash the last 200m after pushing your heart into the high heights.
You just beat out a rider in green for third in your group. You're elated, and then reflect that last year you were just beaten out into second. Already, you're thinking about next year, and when to break out of the slip way to lead the pack until the end.
You arrive home to find the same darkness and depression, weighing like a blanket, over everything. But the power and the fire within break the spell of this like a sharp red brick on a pane of glass.
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