Monday Afternoon at OPEN (or, How my Winter Bike Represents the Meaning of Life, in Three Parts)
Sometimes things break. Something shifts in the grander scheme of universal continuity or the seemingly inexhaustible runs out, and you may find yourself with a object or plan or relationship that doesn’t function as originally designed. Sometimes your visions outstrip the constraints of our material reality/collective dream/cosmic hologram. Often times the fix is simple- you can assess the situation, dig up some tools, tangible or otherwise, and sit back in not-too-smug satisfaction as the 2-part epoxy sets and the old becomes new (or new enough) again. Other times you write and re-write the future, delete and revise dead-end scenarios, obtain unsatisfactory alternatives, or demo it all back to the studs and start over again. What I’m getting at here, (in a roundabout manner) and hopefully without animating the Pied-Piper zombie of Horatio Alger, is that efforts are enough, provided you have the right visionary vector. The act of the well-guided attempt will prevail over the acts of the armchair philosophers, economists, and the army of politik-ers gagging on silver spoons. Just theory + determined praxis = the shining path.
Long-term function involves dirt, wear, repair, replacement, bloody knuckles, surprise, anger, surprise at being angry, bouts of weariness, joy running through you like electric current, disappointment at your self and others, new friends, lost love, lost faith, coffee shakes, sudden returns of steely-eyed determination, over-long conversations, inexplicable happenings, tearing things up only to find something beautiful, fixing things up only to find it looks like shit, forgetting what you are doing, searching for reasons to do what you are doing, and doing what you are doing.
Yes, that’s pretentious French Situationist graffiti on my bike. It means, loosely, “Stop fucking around.” OPEN is moving, to a smaller shop with more room for our future. The trip to the Carib that I promised myself last year is canceled, the beer budget got doubled, and my friends are starting to suspect that I’m a deluded monomaniac. They’re sorta wrong, if short-sighted: OPEN is about Union Square and Somerville and Boston, clean air, purposeful yet lazy rides with picnic lunches, sexy calves, quadriceps cramps, and the belief that utopian life is possible right here and right now as long as you don’t dwell on the utopian part of the whole thing too much.
I think it’ll work out. We won’t be launching any “collabos” with international designers or hip hop artists from NYC anytime soon. I spent the money for the tradeshow booth on dinner for my friends. It turns out “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” is highly effective as a doorstop. I’d rather we be big in Lower Allston than big in Los Angeles. I still believe in revolution, but there aren’t any black bandannas, epic State overthrowings with orchestral soundtracks, or bomb-lit trench-side romances in my dreams. What will make significant working social change possible is precisely that it becomes an everyday phenomenon. What makes all of the personal transformations you imagine at night possible is precisely the sum of those half-tubes of adhesives, work-around bits of wire and string, early-morning brainstorming sessions, all the gypsum dust in your hair and the aches in your arms.
Is all this ambiguous and seemingly unrelated? If so, it’s because it’s not about me, or OPEN. Its about our community, its about your day at work, it’s about your dreams and friends and the things you’re planning on building. We’ve got some bike tools and some Quickcrete and a half-bottle of rye and lots of crazy ideas; stop by and we’ll excitedly help out.
