11/22/63 by Stephen King

I have this friend named Stephen King. OK, I've never actually met the man, but he's told me lots of stories and I'm fond of the guy. I've realized lately that I think of him as a friend, a buddy, a guy I like to hang out with.

Here's the thing about Steve. A lot of people don't like him. "Your friend Steve," they say to me, "He's weird. He thinks about horrible things. He writes about horrible things. And Christ, when they make movies of his stories, they really tend to suck." All those things are true, some times. Maybe most times. My pal Steve has written some stories that are way too gross for me, some stories that just don't work and some things that go on way too long. And some horrible (not just horror, but horrible) movies have been made with his name attached to them. But then there's "The Shining" and "Carrie" and "Misery".

Here's the deal about my buddy Steve: the man can tell a story. He makes me care about the people in it. This doesn't happen every time, with every book of his, but when it does, BAM! he's got me and I'm along for the ride.

With his book 11/22/63, Stephen King got me. I resisted for a while, the book's a monster, damn near 900 pages, but Amazon had it as a deal on the Kindle version. What the hell, it's lighter to carry and that buy button is too freakin easy.

Three days. I slammed through the book in three days. I stayed up late, I got up early. I loved this book.

You can read the blurbs on Amazon or somewhere else. Time travel. A guy goes back in time to stop the Kennedy assassination. You may be thinking, not my kind of thing. Or "I hate Stephen King" stories. I hope you'll think again.

The master stroke in this book is the voice of Jake, the narrator, a 35 year old English teacher. I believed Jake's voice from page one. I cared about what he cared about. I was as incredulous as he was when we first encounter the time portal, but I had to try to figure out how it worked, what could be done. Who cares about Kennedy, can I use this to help my friend?

Page by page, I did care. I had to care. I had to know. I didn't know if Jake could change history, but I knew he had to try. I knew I had to try.

Yes, it's a Stephen King story. There's some gross stuff there. There's a little bit of scary stuff there. But there's a whole lot world there, with people you'd risk everything to save.

11/22/63 is one of the best books I've ever read. It's a long book that doesn't feel long, it rockets along and then it lingers in your mind. It's a magic trick and a time machine. It's a puzzle of a story where big things happen but it's the smallest things that matter.

Try it. Get a few chapters in. If you can stop, if you don't care, walk away. It's not your thing. Nothing wrong with that, not all stories are for all readers. But I think you'll stay.

My buddy Stephen King has written a masterpiece. It's called 11-22-63.

Horns by Joe Hill

If you can handle some language that's crude and some situations that are not nice at all, then Joe Hill has one hell of a story for you. It's called Horns. This is the story of Ig Perrish, who wakes up one morning with a terrible hangover and hazy memories of "doing terrible things." As he rubs his aching temples he finds that somehow he's grown horns. Honest to God (well, maybe not God!) horns.

Ig has been demonized long before the morning of the horns, by a night a year before when his girlfriend Merrin Williams was raped and murdered. Everyone in town believes he is the killer, even though no charges were ever filed. And Ig, until now, has been powerless to clear his name, to find the truth of what happened on that horrible night..

But Ig is no longer powerless, the strange horns come with a strange power: anyone who sees Ig's horns is compelled to tell the truth. And whenever Ig touches someone, he knows their darkest secrets.

From this fantastic premise Joe Hill weaves a tale of mystery and sin, of cruelty and love. It is a story where you cannot help but develop sympathy for the devil.

I really enjoyed this book. It's tightly plotted, very funny at times, very dark at others, and always engaging.

This is the first Joe Hill book I've read, but it certainly won't be the last. Joe Hill is one hell of a writer. And Horns is one hell of a tale.

Bernard Moitessier: A Philosopher of the Sea

I first met Bernard Moitessier in the pages of Peter Nichols' astounding true tale of adventure, A Voyage for Madmen. Nichols' recounting of the 1968-69 Golden Globe single-handed sailing race around the world is one of triumph, tenacity and tragedy, a story of men facing the wildest parts of the world and the deepest depths of their souls. I can quote the words the publishers chose to promote the book, for they actually give nothing away and are not "spoilers" to the story:

In 1968, nine sailors set off on the most daring race ever held: to single-handedly circumnavigate the globe nonstop. It was a feat that had never been accomplished and one that would forever change the face of sailing. Ten months later, only one of the nine men would cross the finish line and earn fame, wealth, and glory. For the others, the reward was madness, failure, and death.

I strongly recommend A Voyage for Madmen to anyone who hasn't read it. The best part of the book for me was that the parts dealing with Bernard Moitessier made want to seek out the books of Bernard Moitessier. And those books are great treasures. Even though Moitessier is a man of the sea and I am certain that I am a man of the land, I consider Moitessier a kindred soul. He tells fine stories that reveal a deep understanding of the world.

Bernard Moitessier's memoir Tamata and the Alliance is a recounting of his life and his wanderings in the world. Here's a brief excerpt. Moitessier is about 19 or 20 years old and on his first long sailing trip...

I had picked a star that was closest to my heading to steer by. As it gradually slipped to the left across the sky, I adjusted my course a finger's-breadth to the right from time to time. That is what Phuoc's father had taught me, when I went out with him during the fishing season.

With Phuoc's father, you had to work hard in the sun, store the hundreds of fishhooks in their shuttles as the boat returned to the island, then labor until nightfall cutting the rays and sharks into strips and frying them on the stones of the beach. And then you had to set out again before dawn to put out the lines, with your eyelids still sticky with sleep. I used to think constantly about Alain Gerbault's trip around the world, about Eric de Bisschop on KAIMILOA, and especially about Henri de Monfreid, sailing the Red Sea among smugglers and fishermen on their Arab dhows. All of them, even Monfreid, used a compass. And one day I brought a compass to show Phuoc's father. It was the first time he ever saw such an extraordinary thing, a needle that never changed direction. It was the greatest gift I could have given him.

Crouched on the beach, Phuoc's father spent the whole morning with that marvelous device, turning it in his hand, fascinated by the trembling finger that always pointed the same way, as if showing something hidden far beyond the horizon.

He didn't say a word for the rest of the day, and I could tell that his entire mind was on the compass. He thought of nothing else as he prepared the lines and checked to see that I had correctly put forty-nine hooks in each shuttle. But the next day, before taking me fishing with Jacky and Xai, he was his old self again, and he gave the compass back to me.

"You need light to use this thing at night," he said, "and that blinds you. But with the stars or the direction of the waves or the wind, you can always tell where you are going, and your ears stay open to hear what the sea is saying."

Sailing by night in that apparent darkness, while knowing where the island was... it was magic that renewed within me my alliance with the universe. The stars were speaking, as were the sea, the wind, and the island cloaked by night. And in their way, they were all saying the same thing.

...

I hitched a line around the tiller and TITETTE continued on a nice straight course next to my chosen star, responding to tiny adjustments and half-spoken conversations between me and her. Though I was alone on deck, Phuoc's father was near me, and I could hear him clearly say: "I don't regret the pains I took to teach you all this. And one day, when you have a compass, the dragons of the sea will have had time to become your allies."


In his book The Long Way, Moitessier shows that Phuoc's father's lesson has taken root in his being:

When I was sailing with the fishermen of the Gulf of Siam during my childhood in Indochina, the taicong would tell me, for example, 'Keep the swell two fingers off the quarter, and you should always feel the wind behind your left ear, looking forward. When the moon is one big hand plus a small hand from the horizon, or when that star is one arm from the other side (in case the moon is hidden by a cloud) then the sea will become a little more phosphorescent, and we will almost be in the lee of the island to set the first lines.'

There were no compasses on the Gulf of Siam junks, and I did not want it used during my sailing school cruises in the Mediterranean. Instead of bearing 110 degrees from France to Corsica my crew had to steer with the mistral swell very slightly off the port quarter. At night, it was the Pole Star one small hand abaft the port beam. And if there was neither distinct swell nor star, we made do with whatever we had. I wanted it that way, because concentrating on a magnetized needle prevents one from participating in the real universe, seen and unseen, where a sailboat moves.

In the beginning they could not understand my insistence on getting away from the compass, that god of the West. But in exchange, they began to hear the sky and sea talking with the boat. And when the blue-tinted land appeared on the horizon, looking as it did to mariners of old, all nimbed with mystery, a few of them felt that our rigorous techniques should leave a door open to those gods which the modern world tries so hard to exclude.

In another book Moitessier writes:

"Anyone who has sailed in the high latitudes knows they can be extremely hard on equipment, and considers the technical preparation to be of major importance. I will not venture to give advice, as I have too much yet to learn. I will only describe what I noticed, the way I solved various problems, and my observations and thinking at the present and considerably limited state of my knowledge. The sea will always be the sea, full of enigmas and new lessons."


I like the fact that a man who could build a boat from scratch and then sail it solo around the world would be hesitant to give advice because he knew he still had much to learn.

In his final book, A Sea Vagabond's World, Moitessier fills the pages tips, drawings and practical advice and defines his philosophy with these words:

I tell everyone pretty much the same thing. Don't needlessly complicate your life. Give top priority to the essentials. Firmly put aside anything superfluous. Given a choice between something simple and something complicated, choose what is simple without hesitation; sooner or later, what is complicated will almost always lead to problems -- needless expense, loss of time, waste of energy.

The philosophy of simplicity has guided me like a guardian angel ever since I first set sail. Make due with what you have, and don't have eyes bigger than your stomach.

Bernard Moitessier died in 1994, but he left the world these wonderful books filled with words to guide us. And he also left this final bit of wise advise:

"Make use of the experience of others, but without ever imitating them. You won't become accomplished that way. And even if you could succeed by using someone else's style, it wouldn't be any good. It wouldn't be you."

Moitessier was very good because he was always Moitessier. He was guided by the stars, the wind, the waves, and the wise sailors who taught him to listen to the universe. Those lessons live on.


Kent Peterson
Issaquah WA USA

RIDE 2: More short fiction about bicycles

Just about a year ago, a story I wrote was published in a book calledRIDE: Short fiction about bicycles. If you're a regular reader of this blog you probably know this because I wrote about the book when it came out and I've shamelessly had a link to the book on the right side of this blog ever since. While the book hasn't sold in numbers to keep Stephen King awake at night (which hardly seems fair since Stephen King books have managed to keep me up late on several occasions), the sales of the book have bought me a few cups of coffee which in turn have kept me awake. Since I'm up, I might as well write something.

This is how blog posts happen. This is also how stories happen and another one of my stories made it into another book. This book is calledRIDE 2: More short fiction about bicycles and like Ride, it is edited by Keith Snyder. Keith is a damn good editor but he's not exactly original when it comes to picking titles. So it goes. BTW, a friend of mine on Twitter noted that when men get gushy and rave about something the word "damn" shows up a lot. Damn right. My own story, Made with Extra Love, which you may have read in an earlier version on this blog last spring, wound up being a lot stronger and tighter thanks to Keith's editing. I'm sure if I'd given Keith a crack at this paragraph, there would be fewer "damns" in it and it'd be a damn sight better. He's that damn good.

Any collection of stories by different authors is going to have various voices, tones and tales. Not every character is admirable, not every story is a beacon of hope. But the tales run true, which is the ultimate test of fiction. You can tell in the reading that Eric Neuenfeldt knows urban bike shops and bike polo, Jan Maher and Barb Goffman understand the dynamics of families and S.J. Rozan knows love and loss. And Keith Snyder's entry, which I was wary of since it is both poetry and "Part 1", shows that yes, the man knows how to make words behave on a page. Don't let the poetry and Part 1 scare you. And by the way, Jon Billman knows a hell of a lot about the dirt roads of Oklahoma, the line between this world and the next and the importance of a good breakfast.

The common thread in these tales, besides humanity, is bicycles. The machine is more than tubes and tires and chain. In each of these tales, it is the bicycle that takes the character and the reader on a worthwhile journey.

Yes, I'm totally biased but I'm also extremely proud to be sharing the pages of Ride 2 with the other authors whose tales fill this book. I hope Keith keeps this series running for a good long time.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson
Issaquah WA USA

Review -- Free Country: A Penniless Adventure the Length of Britain

George Mahood is the sort of chap you'd like to have a beer with. Actually, I think he's the kind of fellow you'd find yourself buying a beer for after just the briefest of conversations. I say this having never met the man but I feel like I've just had the adventure of a lifetime with my new pal after having read his very funny and surprisingly inspirational book Free Country.

Free Country tells the true story of two young men, George and his friend Ben, who decide to cycle the length of Britain from Land's End to John O Groats. While this ambitious journey has been undertaken by many others, none have done it in quite the same way as George and Ben. Because, you see, they begin with nothing. Well, not quite nothing, they each have a pair of Union Jack boxer shorts (and George later confesses, a camera, a notebook, a pencil and stack of cards containing the words "I am OFFICIALLY a very nice person.")

Over three weeks in September, with a vow to spend no money, they wander their way north like the maddest of monks on the most quixotic of quests. What they find along the way is a country filled with very interesting people, a great number of whom are very nice. Ben and George manage, through charm, wit, fast talking and willingness to do tasks ranging from cleaning, to loading onions, to singing for their suppers, to acquire clothes, food, bicycles and someplace to sleep every night. It is a wonderful adventure and very, very funny. George is a great observer of life and a very witty writer and he and Ben bicker throughout the journey in the way that only true friends can. A few quotes will give you the flavor of this delightful book:

‘Yeah. There’s a place called Neilston in another ten miles.’ ‘Ten miles? Are you kidding me?’ asked Ben. ‘Err, no. It doesn’t look like there’s anything else before there anyway. We’ve done really well today. I reckon we’ll have done over 90 miles.’ ‘WHAT? My god, you are such a slave driver. If I’d known we had done anything near that much, I would have stopped for the day ages ago.’ ‘I know. That’s why I didn’t tell you.’

-----

Before eating the sandwiches we tried a rendition of Silent Night in German that I could still remember from primary school. A guy on a bmx, in his mid thirties, approached with a small paper bag from Greggs. ‘Hi guys. You can have these two donuts if you promise to stop singing.’ ‘You’ve got yourself a deal. Thanks, mate,’ I said.

-----

The descent from Kirkstone Pass was undoubtedly the fastest I have ever been on a bike. It was possibly the fastest that man has ever travelled, in any form of transport. If The Falcon had had wings, I swear she would have taken off. It was one of the scariest, but most exhilarating things I have ever done. Braking wasn’t really an option for me, as The Falcon’s brakes only had any slight effect when travelling at a ridiculously slow speed, or uphill. I just gave in and let The Falcon do what she was best at doing - not stopping.

-----

We explained our challenge and asked if there was anything we could do in exchange for some free food. ‘Oooooh, what do you reckon, Jan? Should we give these two strapping young lads any food?’ she said to her colleague. ‘Yeah, why not. If that one with the skimpy shorts shows us a bit more leg,’ she laughed. ‘That’ll be you then, George,’ said Ben. This was a new low. I was being made to flaunt my body in exchange for food. I felt used. I felt cheap. I liked it. I lifted up the side of my skimpy blue shorts, and exposed my flabby white thighs. ‘Phwoooooaarr,’ said both ladies...

-----

If a nutritionist had analysed what we ate during the bike ride, I think they probably would have concluded that we should not be alive, let alone fit enough to cycle. I read somewhere that beige food is bad for you. Almost everything we ate was a shade of beige; bread, pasta bakes, chips, pasties and bananas. Anyway, all I’m saying is that peas and carrots taste unbelievable if you only eat beige food for 17 days beforehand. Give it a try.

-----

Free Country is one of the funniest books I've ever read and it is a book that celebrates the tremendous kindness that exists in the world. George and Ben completed their journey thanks to the kindness of strangers, but after reading the tale of their journey, I feel that I owe them much more than the meager cost of this book for the laughter and wisdom I've found in its pages. George and Ben, if you ever make it to Issaquah, look me up. I'll make sure you've got a good meal and a place to stay.

Kent Nerburn: Road Angels

I believe in serendipity. This belief of mine, that good things can and do come upon one unexpectedly, is an optimism born of experience. I am a fellow who finds duct tape in the middle of nowhere at the moment when it is most urgently needed. While I still endeavor to be cynical and cautious, and my upbringing and independent nature will always prevent me from counting on the kindness of circumstance, I cannot ascribe evil intent to the universe or the vast majority of my fellow human beings. I've seen too many good things in the world and had far more than any good cynic's share of fine interactions. As Bob Dylan wrote in a wildly different context, "I can't help it if I'm lucky."

I have learned over the years that just as water will flow past a full cup, fortune finds no gaps to fill in a life too precisely planned. And thus I wander, at least a bit every day, with vague intention and no clear destination. Not knowing what I'll find, I tend to find things. Very often they are wonderful things.

Which leads me to Kent Nerburn, or more precisely, his books. A few years ago, with no particular plan or urgent need, I strolled by a shelf in my local library and glimpsed, out of the corner of my eye, my own name. My first name, that is Kent, which is not a common name. I do not know if the Steves and Marys of the world stop when they see or hear their own names, perhaps it is too common an occurrence for them to bother with, or perhaps they are less egotistical than I, but I seldom see the name Kent in print and so the name Kent Nerburn called to me from the shelf and that is how I found a book called Neither Wolf nor Dog. It is one of the best books I've ever read. This story is not about that book.

This story is instead about another book of Mr. Nerburn's, a book I'm reading now called Road Angels. Road Angels called to me from another shelf, a few years after I'd read Neither Wolf nor Dog. I was not looking for Mr. Nerburn or this book, I was randomly wandering past a shelf of some old books in a book store that was new to me. Road Angels found me.

This a book on serendipity, a mediation on roads less traveled by, a wandering journey by someone prone to telling little stories and perhaps to thinking too much. It's wonderful. I'm one hundred pages in and I've been stopping to read passages to Christine. Just when I would say it's not about bicycles and this is a bike blog and I shouldn't burden my readers with something like this, I find this passage where Nerburn finds himself in Seattle near the University of Washington:

Since I'm near the university, I decide to poke around. University neighborhoods are especially dear to my heart. However, they all share one common curse: they're anathema to automobiles. If you live near a university, the best thing you can do is burn your car. Or, at least, that's the decision that was come to by a friend of mine at the University of Minnesota.

He owned an evil Volkswagen bug that defied the efforts of every mechanic to solve a recurring electrical problem. Time after time it would stall for no reason at all, always with no warning and always in the most inconvenient circumstances.

He would have it towed to a mechanic, spend money he didn't have, be assured that the problem was finally fixed, and within a week find himself stranded on another freeway or busy city street with a car that once again refused to start.

He would dutifully call a friend, who would dutifully come over and pull the beast back to his house. Then he would dial up the mechanic, who would shrug his shoulders and offer to try again for more money. My friend would get angry and curse the mechanic, then drag the car to a different shop, and the same process would begin all over. The only thing that changed was the balance in his checkbook, which had been almost nonexistent in the first place.

One winter morning he awoke to find the curbside in front of his apartment peppered with signs announcing that all vehicles had to be removed by eight o'clock so the streets could be plowed. It was already seven forty-five.

The Volkswagen, of course, refused to start.

He cranked and cursed and enlisted the neighbors to try to jump the battery, but nothing worked. After almost inducing coronaries in three out-of-shape passersby who he conscripted to try to push-start the car, he shoved the beast into neutral, pushed it into the middle of the street, and began yelling, "If anyone wants this car, they have fifteen minutes to come and take it." But no one emerged to take him up on his offer. Perhaps it was because he kept referring to the Volkswagen as "the piece of shit that has ruined my life."

At any rate, the fifteen minute deadline came and went with no takers. So he did what any reasonable man would do. He set the car on fire.

By the time I stopped by later in the day, it was only a charred carcass resting by the side of the curb. The firemen had come and put it out, and he, like Peter, had denied any knowledge of its ownership. His wife, who was expecting a child, was ready to divorce him. The kids in the neighborhood were ready to canonize him. But in his own mind, only one thing mattered: he was free. He bought an old black bicycle, too wretched to be stolen, and proceeded to ride it through, one of the snowiest Minnesota winters on record. He was a happy man.

Nerburn continues down the coast, telling small bits from his past, meeting people and the land, finding more stories and more ways people make their way in this world. It's a road well worth a wander.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson
Issaquah WA USA

Bike Talk: Bike Maintenance Books?

Jeff from Portland writes:

I'd like to know your recommendations for learning more about bicycle maintenance. Are there books you'd recommend, online resources, etc?

Jeff, if you're from Portland, Maine I think I understand your question, but if you're living in Portland, Oregon, I'm a bit confused. Didn't they issue you a set of Park Tools along with the reusable coffee cup when you moved there? I thought that was part of the Portland Human-Powered Welcome Wagon Package. Check the chicken coop in the back yard, the tools are probably hanging up in there.

Of course tools won't do you much good if you don't know what to do with them, so to get serious about Jeff's question, a great starting point for learning bike maintenance and repair is the Park Tool Big Blue Book of Bike Repair. Written by Calvin Jones, the Big Blue Book is a great guide to repairs and the tools you'll need to get the job done. The book has lots of pictures and simple, clear instructions. Yeah, the book will probably convince you to go out and buy a bunch of Park Tools (unless you've found some in the chicken coop out back) but Park makes good tools and good tools and the knowledge of how to use them are good investments.

A couple of other good bike maintenance books are those written by Lennard Zinn. Zinn and the Art of Road Bike Maintenance or Zinn and the Art of Mountain Bike Maintenance go into more detail than the Park book, are quite up-to-date and are packed with good illustrations and exploded views of parts.

I'm going to digress for a moment (shocking, I know!) and talk a bit about the whole "Zen and the Art of SomeDamnThing" books out there. In general, "Zen and the X" books are bad. The original book, Eugen Herrigel's Zen in the Art of Archery was a wonderful look at both Zen and Archery and that book is a little gem. Robert Persig played with Herrigel's title in his own Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, a big, great, flawed book containing some terrific stuff and virtually no information about Zen. As Pirsig notes, "it's not very factual on motorcycles, either." I can forgive Persig for the bloat of that book, but I mostly curse the mass of "Zen and Dreck" books that are more litter than literature. I'll let Zinn slide because it's OK to make a pun on your name and Ray Bradbury actually wrote a lovely book called Zen in the Art of Writing but most "Zen and..." books are horrible things like Neville Shulman's dreadful Zen in the Art of Climbing Mountains.

Returning the subject of bicycles, there are a couple of great online references. The one I hit most often is Sheldon Brown's massive storehouse of bike info at www.sheldonbrown.com. Whether it's odd wheel size info or bottom bracket threading or the strange code I need to calibrate a cycle computer, the odds are Sheldon has that info tucked somewhere on his site.

Sheldon's site can be a bit overwhelming, so I often point folks to another handy site, Jim Langley's Wrench site at http://www.jimlangley.net/wrench/wrench.html. Jim has a wealth of info and practical advice on his site and it's well worth repeated visits.

I hope this helps. In addition to the books and websites I've listed here, check with your local bike shops and see if they know of or offer bike repair classes. Bikes are fun machines and learning to maintain and repair them can be part of that fun.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson
Issaquah WA USA