Site of the OK Corral.
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Snapped in 1995. My relationship with – and love of – Arizona goes back decades.
Leica M2, 35mm Summaron. Kodachrome 64.
Tombstone, AZ
Monthly Archives: May 2018
6am run
The best time of the day.
The merits of a 6am run on the old Airhead are many.
The croissants at the local parlor are warm and fresh, the roads are empty and the high desert air is cool and dense, much to the delight of the air cooled boxer motor and that of its rider.
Croissants, anyone?
The 900cc motor purrs harmoniously at 4000rpm – 65mph in 5th – and after 28 years of riding her I can make the shift from first to second in silence. 50% of the time. The other 50% is met by the most fearful crunch as you check the mirrors to see if maybe some of your ‘box has departed the machine for the highway. Getrag of Untergruppenbach (but of course) made this gearbox and to this day Getrag transmission innards grace everything from Ferraris to BMW Minis. The first-to-second crunch, rumor has it, is nowadays notable for its absence – the last Airhead was made in 1995, mine is a 1975 – but I count The Crunch as just one more of the secret delights of ownership. Especially when you accomplish that rare silent shift.
Gearbox longevity seems unaffected by the crunching and, absent a new clutch at 50,000 miles, the ‘box has proved to be perfectly reliable, having its own oil reservoir, as does the shaft drive to the bevel gear at the rear wheel. This is proper engineering design for it affords the opportunity of using dense oil/grease for the gearbox (80W/90) compared with the much lighter concoction (15W/50) indicated for the motor. Air cooled engines disdain modern 0W/20 witches’ brews. And the inevitable attention the old bike generates when you pull up anywhere is from a welcome collection of aficionados, not from the Harley set. Come to think of it, maybe that really is the best part of Airhead ownership?
iPhone6 snap.
Mise en place
Everything in its place.
German, the language of killing, would have that expression as alles in ordnung. The French mise en place adds charm and subtracts brutality with none of the functional coldness of the English ‘everything in its place’. The beauty of French is at one with the quality of their cuisine.
Mise en place is quite my favorite part of cooking a meal as it forces order without discipline, generating anticipation without apprehension.
Here’s the setup for mussels and clams with garlic and fettuccine – as simple as it gets; the red peppers add a touch of zest in the broth:
The charming end grain checkered cutting board at left comes from Vermont, the last repository of American craftsmanship.
The shaved Parmesan is absent here, as is the white wine in which the shellfish are cooked. A Benriner mandoline is the best way to shave hard cheese into paper thin slices – but watch your fingers! Japanese make fabulous cameras …. and cooking tools. As for the white wine, this is strictly a bottom shelf choice.
iPhone6 snap.
The New Hudson
1950s American automobile advertising.
As a kid growing up in London I learned two important things when visiting my dentist, whom I always thought of as the Kensington Butcher:
- Avoid British dentistry at all costs. Just look at their teeth.
- Americans bought a new car annually.
The first realization was brought home forcefully as immigration to the States brought with it access to proper dental care. It is unusual to hear American dental professionals excoriate a predecessor’s efforts, yet I heard that in abundance about the Kensington Butcher’s work.
The second came from the National Geographic magazines on display in the KB’s waiting room, waiting time in which made my many hours in US Immigration Offices pleasurable by comparison. Those Geographic magazines, despite their small format, featured beautiful advertisements for American cars and the clear sense was that an annual upgrade to the latest model was quite the thing for the aspiring economic climber.
That thought saw acquisition, many years later, of an amusing book of 1950s US automobile advertising named Cruise-O-Matic, which shows Detroit’s many creations of that wonderfully prosperous Eisenhower era. Photography was still a nascent force in car ads, meaning that most of the illustrations were beautiful air brushed paintings, the better to show off the special appeal of that year’s model.
Here’s one of my favorites, for a 1950 Hudson:
If the exotically elongated lines of this magnificent sedan seem too much to believe, they are. The artist has taken considerable liberties with the vehicle’s proportions as this contemporary photograph shows:
Cruise-O-Matic remains available in a reprinted version and you can buy it here.
Niko J. Kallianiotis
Fine images of urban decay.
WaPo just featured this photographer in a piece titled ‘Portraits of the fading American dream’ where he documents urban areas of Pennsylvania which have fallen into decay. That’s the great thing about the American Way. As industries and regions fade, Americans move to a better place, leaving behind those too old, too shortsighted or too unambitious to improve their lot in life. Natural selection, if you like. Americans have little sense of history or spirit of place.
Click the image for the article.
You can see more of Kallianotis’s work at his Instagram feed.