Part 3 – Death Ride Tapering I-II

More on this in subsequent posts, but as our friends have been arriving (Bill and the Israeli Army on Tuesday, Ann and Bob yesterday), we’ve been heading out for short, comfortable rides to keep the legs moving, but little else. On Tuesday, Bill, Caroline and I started by first catching Cadel Evans’s first Tour de France stage win on the computer, then heading off for one last trip up West Monitor Pass before DR 2011.

Then, yesterday, after we watched Mark Cavendish’s bunch sprint win in Stage 6 of the Tour, we met up with two Israeli Army members for a nice little 12-mile loop along gorgeous Diamond Valley Road. Ann and Bob arrived yesterday afternoon and headed straight out for what turned out to be a very short ride, as Ann snapped one of her shifting cables just a few miles in. We took her bike to the bike shop in Stateline, where they made a quick, competent repair while we enjoyed a lunch of salads and mimosas (bloody mary for Bill). We returned to the house for a dinner of grilled chicken and salad, then watched the animated classic The Triplets of Belleville before turning in. Today the bulk of the group are off to Blue Lakes Road for another quick tapering ride, while I plan a very quick trip up Pioneer Trail. More on all of that tomorrow, our final day before DR 2011.
7/5/2011 – Death Ride Taper I - West Side Monitor
7/6/2011 – Death Ride Taper II - Diamond Valley Road Loop

Part 2 – Death Ride Reconnaissance IV

We returned to the alps on July 2nd, a week before DR 2011, with plans to get in that 4-pass run we’d missed out on the week before. Our arrival in the Tahoe area was delayed by weekender traffic, but we took it slow, enjoying a nice lunch and browse through the cavernous antiquarian bookstore in Jackson. We made a late start the next day, Sunday July 3rd, for our final DR Recon ride, which covered 4 of the 5 DR passes. As a result, faced the east side of Monitor Pass (at 10 miles, the longest and most difficult DR climb) in temperatures over 100 degrees. Click below to see the data from the bike computer, but don’t believe the 1 RPM cadence number. After a ride like that on Sunday (88 miles with over 11,000 feet of climbing), we laid low on Monday, resting and recharging for the final stretch of short tapering rides we would do during the week.
7/3/2011 – Death Ride Reconnaissance IV - 4 out of 5 Passes

Part 1 – Death Ride Reconnaissance I-III

After slamming in rides totaling over 500 miles and 62,000 feet of climbing since the rains started to let up in May, Caroline and I made a reconnaissance trip to Markleeville a week before the Death Ride. The idea was to get a look at the passes beforehand and test our fitness at altitude. For those of you who enjoy data—things like how many miles we rode, how many vertical feet we climbed, and what kinds of temperatures we faced during the rides, the links below will show you the readouts from my bike computer. It turned out to be a bit of a surreal weekend, as our friend Bill, with whom we had planned to ride, had a strange incident at his rented house, where some vagrant apparently wandered in, started fixing him/herself a meal, then snatched Bill’s truck keys and ran out the back as Bill was riding up from his first ride of the weekend. This changed up our riding routine a little, but the bottom line was that we faced nasty winds we will not have to face this Saturday, and we fell short of our goal of riding the first 4 DR passes in one go. Not a concern, though, as we had rented a house for the full week prior to the DR, so we figured we could do that the following week. We rode all 3 days we were there, but because of Bill’s mishap, the last ride was the only one the three of us were able to do together.
6/24/2011 – Death Ride Reconnaissance I - Monitor Pass
6/25/2011 – Death Ride Reconnaissance II - Ebbet's Pass
6/26/2011 – Death Ride Reconnaissance III - West Monitor

Death Ride Journal - Introduction

Since this has been my major occupation in recent months, I figure it’s worth writing a little about. Caroline and I joined several friends in signing up for this Saturday’s 2011 Death Ride – Tour of the California Alps. When we signed up last fall, we had big plans to train for 4 months in advance and get ourselves ready for the grueling 129-mile trek through some of Alpine County’s most challenging mountain passes. But by the time Caroline had finished her last term at Santa Clara University (congratulations to her on her MBA!), giving us time to train in earnest, California had slipped into one of its wettest winters in memory. We therefore had lots of catching up to do in the last 6 weeks or so, which we’ve been working hard to do. So while we’re now settled into our rented house in Meyers, near South Tahoe, for the home stretch before the ride, the next several posts will give you a brief account of our recent reconnaissance and training efforts.

Dorst Delivers Deathly Surprise

I went to see Doug Dorst read when Alive in Necropolis came out, got my copy in hardcover, had him autograph it, and reminded him of who I was—a former student from his days at Stanford. “Bruce,” he wrote, “Keep it up – Can’t wait to read more of your stuff!” Doug's a good chap.

But then it took me a long time—could it be 3 years??—to finally crack this thing and read it. I had tried once, as I recall, but the hook didn’t get set. This time, however, no such problem. I was drawn in from the first scene.

I guess the short version is, Alive in Necropolis surprised me. For some reason, I was expecting something like a romp, with the living dead in some form or another appearing on nearly every page. But what I got instead was a multi-layered tale of love, longing, and belonging, set squarely in the very real modern world. That last one, belonging, is one of my favorite subjects in fiction, as it is for many of us who have struggled both to be a part of something larger than ourselves, and also to derive comfort instead of anxiety from that something when we find it. In Necropolis, the protagonist, Mike Mercer, thinks he finds that something in police work. As a member of the Colma Police Department, he is able to free himself from the wagging tail of his twenties by applying himself, as many young soldiers do, to something structured and demanding. He believes he has found himself, but finds to his growing consternation that love and meaning are also important, and in these arenas, he meets one failure after another. Against such forces, the structure and consistency of police work are no match, and Mike is forced in the end to look hard at himself, to be ruthless, to find and deal with the human connections—connections he had gotten into the habit of pushing away—that will truly give his life meaning.

Interestingly, while the dead are there in Necropolis, acting throughout the story as Mike’s antagonists and allies, their presence and the story within the story that they convey do little more than reinforce and complicate the real struggle, a struggle that could have and would have ensued with or without them. In the end, in fact, just as one is beginning to wonder whether they were ever there at all or just a figment of Mike’s imagination, the dead appear in a closing scene that seems designed to assert their presence and their role in the story—and, perhaps, their role in many other stories happening in and around Colma. A minor, minor character—one who has appeared only twice in the entire novel to that point—holds his girlfriend in his arms and waits for them. “He hopes they’re not bound for Boston,” Dorst writes, “because he likes having them here, and he can’t wait to share his discovery—his secret—with Mindy.”

Alive in Necropolis is a story of discovery, of love, of longing and belonging, but don’t shy away, because it’s also one hell of a lot of fun to read.

Interesting links:

Doug’s website

Penguin Books Reading Guide for Alive in Necropolis

Mark Costello’s review of Necropolis in the New York Times

Doug’s latest book, The Surf Guru – Stories, on Amazon

Robin Romm’s review of The Surf Guru in the New York Times

This Morning’s Reading

A clear winner in P&W’s litmag Q&A, and some thoughts on R. T. Smith…

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Looks Like We Should All Look Into n+1

The current issue of Poets & Writers has a one-pager titled “The Journals Agents Are Reading” (pg. 82)—an enticing bit of headline-writing for writers with better submission habits than my own. (Definitely something I need to work on.) Predictably, the agents interviewed, for the most part, demurred at choosing actual “favorites,” but exceptions to that rule produced a clear winner: Three of ten agents actually did choose a favorite, and it was the relatively new journal n+1.

Said Chris Parris-Lamb of the Gernet Company: “That would be n+1. There are other places I turn to first for short fiction, but n+1 is the only magazine I read from cover to cover.”

And Jim Rutman of Sterling Lord Literistic: “I think I will risk minor ridicule for pretension and go with the still young upstart n+1.

And finally, Anna Stein of Aitken Alexander: “I have to say, for now, n+1. They came on the scene only a few years ago, but they’ve introduced the kinds of writers that no one else would go near, and I’m talking about important literary writers who push the envelope (and whom we see six months later in the New Yorker…)

Of course, there are a lot of other great recommendations and insights in the article, but I think it’s safe to say that if you’re as out of it as I am and haven’t yet had a gander at n+1, now might be the time to do so.

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R. T. Smith Serves Up “Straight Shots”

One of my favorite litmags—one of the few I subscribe to and read cover to cover on a regular basis—is The Missouri Review. The current issue features a short piece from a writer I’d never read before, though I expect many of you will know him well: R. T. Smith has been published in Best American and the Pushcart Anthology, and has a number of story collections in print. But it appears his recent works—including this wonderful story, “First Meeting,” in The Missouri Review—have been short monologues from sometimes hateful, sometimes lovable, but always troubled characters. In “First Meeting,” we hear a despicable alcoholic’s lengthy monologue at his first AA meeting:

“Only a fool tries to get between a man and his story. Listen up, I am in constant search for His will on the questions of my future behavior and all other matters. I go down to the Maury’s snake turn, where the old dam left a spillway, and there I stare at the pure white water tumbling and parley with the Man Himself, as I understand Him, and He listens and gives me signs. It was not for nothing He let me be hauled back from the flames of Hell on three occasions, and I can tell by your scoffing looks and righteous sounds that you believe yourselves better than me, more in tune with rescue and the Higher Power, maybe based on some quota of meetings or agreement to forgive each other, though not a one of you has ever put a heel on the other’s neck.”

Smith compares these short pieces to traditional “stories” (even questioning whether they are “stories” at all), and concludes that, if a story is “a full pitcher of plantation punch meant to be savored gradually,” these short pieces are “more akin to straight shots, undiluted, brooking little restraint, down the hatch with full burn.” I would agree with that assessment, and would add that Smith has, with this one at least, achieved the story writer’s ultimate goal of packing a boxcar full of tense intimacy and emotion into an easy flow of words that can easily be consumed in 20 minutes time.

I can be reasonable, but...

My trip to Washington for the Jon Stewart / Stephen Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear

At the Rally to Restore Sanity on Saturday, Jon Stewart led the charge for what he called “reasonableness.” He gave out “Medal of Reasonableness” awards, and the official rally T-Shirt was a take-off on the classic “I’m with Stupid” design, only with the “Stupid” crossed out and replaced with “Reasonable.” I know all this because I flew to Washington to be at that rally, but I’m here to say to Jon Stewart and his erstwhile partner in sanity Stephen Colbert,…

Guys, I can be reasonable, but…

Flying into Washington and having the screen on my flip phone go white?? Come on!

You realize how useless a phone is without a screen, right? Even a lame flip phone like the one I’m carrying even though pretty much everyone on the planet, including my sister who just moved back to the U.S. from Argentina and her five kids, all have smart phones. Send a text? Nah. Dial any of the dozens of numbers stored in my contacts list? Nah. Use it as a watch? Nah. (And no, I don’t wear a wristwatch.) Handicapped as I was, though, I pressed on, and…

I can be reasonable, but…

Sitting on a Washington Flyer Shuttle for two-and-half hours to get into the city from Dulles? Come on!

Seven other people on that shuttle, and I probably don’t even have to ask you how many got dropped off before I did. Foggy Bottom? Check. Downtown? Check. Georgetown? Check and check. Dupont Circle? Check. My father-in-law’s cousin’s place in Petworth? Oh yeah, that sounds like last place to me! Good thing the restaurant was only a block away, or I never would have gotten my pasta bucket inside the 10:00 closing time. That was all Thursday, so I had a full day to sightsee before rally day, and…

I can be reasonable, but…

Falling deathly ill in the International Spy Museum?? Come on!

When I got on the plane at SFO, it was seasonal allergies: runny nose, burning sinuses, a Victorian lady cough every now and again. When my friends Mary and Susan and I rode the Metro over and went into the Operation Spy experience, a little more nose-blowing, but still nothing serious. But then, a half-hour through the Spy Museum exhibits, it started to hit me, and a half-hour after that, it was chills, fever, shaking, weakness, a thrashing sore throat and a pounding headache.

I made a command decision to relocate myself from Petworth to Mary’s and Susan’s hotel, lay in provisions, and quarantine myself for the rest of the day and night in hopes of beating the dreaded thing into submission in time to make the rally the next morning, but then…

I can be reasonable, but…

Spending the whole damn day and night coughing and blowing, unable to breathe or sleep, swilling Nyquil to no avail, and then waking the next day no better off?? Come on!

I was in a hotel 2.6 miles away, about a 9-minute cab ride. I had my Rally cap and my Keep Fear Alive t-shirt. I had my Rally posse and the posse had a plan, and I had to tell the posse to go on without me because I just couldn’t move.

I can be reasonable, but…

Watching the Rally to Restore Sanity on a 15-inch laptop computer screen from only 2.6 miles away?? Come on!

It was 1:30 p.m. before I was ambulatory and conscious enough to get the computer out and open up ComedyCentral.com. And truth be told, I wasn’t sad, really, until I saw the crowd shot from the boom camera, until I saw the National Mall covered with the mass of people that I came to be a part of, people sick and tired of the culture of fear, people desperate for someone—some leader, some media outlet, some person or persons of influence somewhere—with the courage to just be reasonable.

I did see, on my 15-inch screen, as Jon Stewart took the microphone at the end and said, “We live in hard times, not end times,” and, repeatedly, “You go first, then I’ll go.” And those words and the message embodied in them kept resonating with me for the entirety of my trip home.

…Sitting in the bistro of the One Washington Circle hotel completely surrounded by Muslims, hearing the music of their language and seeing the joy and compassion in their eyes and their movements.

...Finding the bartender at the airport willing to learn as I taught her how to make hot toddies, and then enjoying the fruits of her quick education.

…Waiting on standby for two flights at Dulles and seeing the respectful gratitude of those who made the flights and the dignified resignation of those who didn’t.

…Smiling, all of them smiling, all of us smiling with each other. “You go first, then I’ll go.”

And those words still resonate with me now.

Yeah, sometimes it’s hard to be reasonable, but the fact is, for the vast majority of us lowly humans, it’s actually much harder not to be.

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My deepest, sincerest thanks to Mary Rich for not only hosting me on my one reasonably healthy night, but also braving that same DC traffic to transfer my stuff to my quarantine hole for me. Thank you, Mary!

And also, thanks to Mary Dateo and Susan Hill for raiding the local CVS Pharmacy in a heroic effort to get me well in time for the rally. Didn't work out, guys, but I got a lot better a lot faster for all your efforts and the various drugs and provisions you delivered.

Thanks to you all again for taking such good care of me!