Hands-on: perfect vehicle, long ride – and working on it.

[belfastguzzi]

A number of years ago there was discussion of Melissa Piersons's PERFECT VEHICLE book.

Amazon has alerted me to her current book, looking at

being on the ride

forever

and ever...

 

The Man Who Would Stop at Nothing: Long-distance Motorcycling's Endless Road

Melissa H. Pierson

 

I had mixed views of the Perfect Vehicle. Anyone read this new book? I'm sure it will be an interesting and worthwhile read. I have attached some text clippings, below.

 

 

 

The book I'm looking forward to reading now is

 

The Case for Working with Your Hands: Or Why Office Work is Bad for Us and Fixing Things Feels Good

Matthew Crawford

It was originally published in the States with the title of Shop Class as Soul Craft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work

 

Product Description

It's time to rethink our attitudes to work.

For too long we have convinced ourselves that the only jobs worth doing involve sitting at a desk. Generations of school-leavers head for university lacking the skills to fix or even understand the most basic technology. And yet many of us are not suited to office life, while skilled manual work provides one of the few and most rewarding paths to a secure living.

Drawing on the work of our greatest thinkers, from Aristotle to Heidegger, from Karl Marx to Iris Murdoch, as well as on his own experiences as an electrician and motorcycle mechanic, Matthew Crawford's irreverent and inspiring manifesto will change the way you think about work forever.

About the Author

Matthew Crawford is a philosopher and mechanic. He has a Ph.D. in political philosophy from the University of Chicago and served as a postdoctoral fellow on its Committee on Social Thought. Currently a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, he also runs Shockoe Moto, an independent motorcycle repair shop.

 

Maybe it's been discussed here before? I reckon it should chime very much with many of us here, connecting with a moto guzzisti ethos.

------------------------------------

 

[belfastguzzi]

On the same theme, there was a marvellous book that really affected me at the start of the eighties.

It was by Melbourne born Alistair Knox, considered to be the originator of the Australian environmental building movement, which relied on the use of traditional materials (often recycled), largely unskilled workers and a minimum of machinery, factory-made components or expensive finishes.

 

Alternative housing : building with the head, the heart and the hand / Alistair Knox

 

"Knox, born in Melbourne, is regarded as the leading figure in the Australian environmental building movement both as a thinker and practitioner. Inspired by a visit in 1940 to the adobe buildings of Montsalvat, the artists' colony at Eltham, Victoria, he became a leading designer of mud-brick houses. His participatory building process and the alternative lifestyles of his artistic clients complemented the earth-building tradition of Eltham and the surrounding areas, which was to blossom in the late 1960s and 1970s."

 

As well as conveying the importance of building with the heart and hands as well as the head, in writing, the book had lots of inspiring, heart-gladdening colour and b&w photos. I bought a couple of copies and gave them to friends. Money was tight and unfortunately I didn't buy a copy for myself. I have often thought back to this book. It's not available anymore (and I think that Knox died a couple of decades ago). If any of you Aussies ever come across it....

[Skeeve]

On the same theme, there was a marvellous book that really affected me at the start of the eighties.

It was by Melbourne born Alistair Knox, considered to be the originator of the Australian environmental building movement, which relied on the use of traditional materials (often recycled), largely unskilled workers and a minimum of machinery, factory-made components or expensive finishes.

 

Alternative housing : building with the head, the heart and the hand / Alistair Knox

 

Buckminster Fuller had a different point of view. Why do we persist in building housing [a commodity good] in the same fashion as we have for thousands of years, as a one-off luxury item. Virtually every house is built as a custom effort. Wrapping your head around this helps explain why the military loved (loves?) Quonset huts so much for so long, despite all their limitations.

 

As an aside:

Everyone has bemoaned Steve Jobs' passing as the "death of a genius." Steve Jobs was smart enough to surround himself w/ genii, and he was able to synthesize their effort into a larger whole [typical entrepreneurial behaviour, btw.] Good on him, and good for all of us non-geeks that he did: if it wasn't for a Mac, I'd still be writing everything long hand & pounding it out on a typewriter 'cause it was more efficient than learning obscure WordPerfect typesetting arcanery... So, Steve wasn't a genius: he was an entrepreneur, an industrialist, a captain of industry, [All good things, AFAIC] but not a genius.

 

Bucky Fuller was a genius, yet his passing barely made a blipvert on the evening news...

 

Back to the topic at hand:

 

I read The Perfect Vehicle, and liked it for the most part. Got a little frustrated by her refusal to learn the 1st thing about maintaining her own ride, but that's a typically female attribute in this society so I came to terms with it. Definitely made me a bigger fan of the small blocks than I was before reading it.

 

I think the new title for Shop Class as Soul Craft will help it be a bigger seller, as it seems to deserve: have heard nothing but good reviews of this book, and look forward to reading it myself one day, as soon as I can clear some space in my reading schedule [too many mags coming in right now, & the next couple titles in the Game of Thrones series since that @!#%% awesome TV show got me hooked... ]

 

Ride on!

 

[belfastguzzi]

Surely not?

Game Of Thrones, seriously?? Is it... any good, really?

I haven't watched it, but it's made here on my doorstep.

I can't get many of the people who would normally work for me freelance, because they're all working on the Game Of Thrones production. Long, long days, but big, big money. There's no way of competing with the film industry rates. The local government here throws millions at HBO to have them here. The production is in the Painthall Studio, where there is a huge indoor soundstage. Tom Hanks and many other names have used it. The building was originally used for painting huge ship assemblies, when it was part of the Harland & Wolff shipyard. It's right beside the slipway where the Titanic was built.

 

Surely yes!

Bucky? Of course I thought of him in exactly the same moment that my mind turned to A. Knox.

I'm sure the 2 of them would have been perfectly 'at home' with each other.

 

Er, do you watch Sons Of Anarchy too?

[jrt]

 

Bucky Fuller was a genius, yet his passing barely made a blipvert on the evening news...

 

 

Well, there was at least a Nobel prize for the allotrope of carbon known as buckminsterfullerene (or simply fullerenes).

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1996/illpres/carbon.html

 

Not as noteworthy, but one of the longest answers I ever had to a homework problem (as a grad student) had to do with the molecular orbitals of fullerenes.

 

Back to the topic at hand:

 

sorry....

[belfastguzzi]

molecular orbitals...

 

...tools of an artist

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjAPNx5BogU

[gstallons]

How do you find this stuff ?

[Skeeve]

Surely not?

Game Of Thrones, seriously?? Is it... any good, really?

 

Yeah, it's pretty fun. The story rocks along in the books: the tv-movie adaptation was really well done but necessarily had to simplify the plot somewhat to keep it from being impossible to follow & far too long to profitably turn out.

 

I haven't watched it, but it's made here on my doorstep.

I can't get many of the people who would normally work for me freelance, because they're all working on the Game Of Thrones production. Long, long days, but big, big money. There's no way of competing with the film industry rates. The local government here throws millions at HBO to have them here. The production is in the Painthall Studio, where there is a huge indoor soundstage. Tom Hanks and many other names have used it. The building was originally used for painting huge ship assemblies, when it was part of the Harland & Wolff shipyard. It's right beside the slipway where the Titanic was built.

 

Sounds good for the local economy. If all your freelancers have been sucked out from under you, what's the odds of putting your regular biz on the backburner & freelancing for HBO short term yourself?

 

Er, do you watch Sons Of Anarchy too?

 

Don't watch much tv at all. Caught part of one episode of SoA and thought it looked pretty good for a nighttime soap-opera, but that's not my viewing taste: real life has enough drama so what's the point of watching them ham up more drama on tv? Never understood the soap-opera mentality...

[belfastguzzi]

If all your freelancers have been sucked out from under you, what's the odds of putting your regular biz on the backburner & freelancing for HBO short term yourself?

 

Don't think I haven't thought about it!

 

But sure they'll move to Korea or somewhere in a year or two: wherever is cheaper at that point and will pay more for them to come and be there.

[belfastguzzi]

How do you find this stuff ?

erm, I can't find anything!

 

But some stuff just comes to me. I think it's because I'm a V.11Forum Moderator and so have partial super-powers (and a computer).

[gstallons]

How do you find this stuff ?

erm, I can't find anything!

 

But some stuff just comes to me. I think it's because I'm a V.11Forum Moderator and so have partial super-powers (and a computer).

 

 

Wellllll, I have a computer.

[Baldini]

.....tools of an artist...

 

Hey BFG, thanks for posting that. Made me think a bit.

This got me off my arse when I started:

"Looking for something to inspire you to work is an escape from taking action. The decision to take action is the only way of seeing". Terry Frost.

Now I work solidly but there's always something perched on my shoulder telling me "that's not good enough". I turn the music up but I can still hear it. It's a real pain.

I used to spend hours in the shed making bits for the bike etc, very satisfying time. Now everything's a rush, no time for anything that's not earning to pay.

I haven't read the books you mention but will look them out. Thanks.

 

KB

[Orson]

I enjoyed reading The Perfect Vehicle. She did a good job of conveying that intangible something that makes riding so appealing.

 

I had read that Melissa H. Pierson was no longer into motorcycling and had moved on to horses.

 

Maybe the pull of a Guzzi twin was too hard to resist

[belfastguzzi]

I enjoyed reading The Perfect Vehicle. She did a good job of conveying that intangible something that makes riding so appealing.

 

I had read that Melissa H. Pierson was no longer into motorcycling and had moved on to horses.

 

Maybe the pull of a Guzzi twin was too hard to resist

She's a big animal person (oh! be generous in your interpretation of that careless juxtaposition of words).

She's a Dr Dolittle dog and horse expert & writer.

[belfastguzzi]

.....tools of an artist...

I used to spend hours in the shed making bits for the bike etc, very satisfying time.

I'm envious

 

 

This site doesn't embed vimeo movies, so follow the link > here for something gorgeous.

 

 

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