Bangkok: I Spent A Week There One Wednesday...

Amid all the insane anti-bike rantings it's all too easy to forget that the the downright zaniest form of bicycle-related prose is the review, as I remembered while reading this one:

Actually, for a bike review it wasn't all that zany--apart from this:

Balanced but not overly confident in extreme situations

Are they talking about a bicycle or someone who's applying for a position with the Secret Service?  How exactly does a bicycle lack confidence?  I suppose it can be less than confidence-inspiring, but then again, as Desmond Tutu or Ronald Reagan or somebody like that once said, "If you're a wuss you're a wuss," and no amount of bicycle is going to change that.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Jernel is now tempering its anti-bike blather with what it thinks is subtlety, and instead of getting some crazy old bat to ramble on about totalitarianism and "begriming," they're now implying we should all shut up because at least we don't have it as bad as Bangkok:

'

Though the only thing I took away from the article was this:

When Mr. Surong protested, the motorcycle driver got angry. "I heard his friends shout, 'punch him! punch him!'" Mr. Surong recalls. Then the man kicked his bike. Mr. Surong shouted "I will remember you," and rode off.

The next time I have a negative encounter with a motorist I will raise an index finger skyward, cry out, "I will remember you!," and disappear into the night.

But enough about bikes.  Let's talk about towels.  Have you ever thought to yourself, "Sure, my towel may be balanced, but it's just not overly confident in extreme situations"?  Of course you haven't.  Nevertheless, Outlier, the company who makes bike-friendly clothing for the sorts of people who read design blogs, have officially announced a designer towel that you'll be proud to swing between your legs and floss your taint with:

So here's the problem with your current towel--you know, the problem that didn't exist in your mind until they made it up:

The problem with towels today is that they're either fat, fluffy sand magnets or skimpy, stinky microfiber rags. We wanted a towel made from a material that not only felt and performed great, but also packed away clean and compact. We found the answer in a grid woven linen and like magic, a product was born. The Grid Linen Towel.

Grid Linen Towel?  If you say that fast it kinda sounds like "Grundle Towel."

Anyway, the big selling point of this towel seems to be that it doesn't get sandy at the beach, which is indeed a huge problem if you can't be bothered to take the three seconds to shake yours off before returning it to your beach bag.  Then again, take a look at the typical Outlier customer:

I'm guessing what happened was he went out to Rockaway, failed to take note of the wind direction before shaking out his towel, and then got beaten up by one of the locals.  Thus, the inspiration for the Grundle Towel was born.

So how much for this piece of functional art?  Well, it's $75 for the large, but you can leave it to your progeny:

As much as we love high tech fabrics, here at Outlier we start our searches in the history books. We found a surprising answer in the form of linen. Linen has the remarkable ability to absorb moisture while remaining dry to the touch. It is also one of nature's strongest fibers; it gets softer and softer over time and when treated properly can be handed down through generations.

Here are the words I plan to speak on my deathbed:

"Son, I want you to have my Grundle Towel.  Treat it properly.  Maybe one day you too can hand it down to your son, and eventually it will bear the 'frumunda' of a thousand generations."

Then, suddenly, I will sit bolt upright, point my index finger skyward, and cry out, "I will remember you!" before finally expiring.

Oh, also, you'll need a compatible washing machine:

A note on handling linen properly:

Linen has many times the lateral strength of cotton, which is why it was once used to make ropes; however it is significantly less flexible. In day-to-day use this doesn't make much difference, but in certain conditions, particularly those found in top loading washing machines, it can become a problem. So wash yours in a front loading washer on a gentle cycle and you should be all good.

So yeah, if you have a top-loader at home you'll have to replace that.  Maybe the Grundle Towel should also come with a Maytag discount coupon.  Also, hopefully the gentle cycle is sufficent to remove the skid marks from your Grundle Towel after you use it to vigorously dry your ass:

(He's getting way in there, you can tell.)

This is going to be the bestest and most foppish summer ever.

But how will your friends and you and your payload of fancy towels get to the beach?  Well, by ShamanCycle, of course!  So what is a ShamanCycle, anyway?  Why, it's "a giant 10-person eagle bicycle with beautiful metal wings and flaming eyeballs:" 

Also, shamans are messengers--but not the trendy kind who model Outlier clothing:

"Shamans are messengers.  We unite the human and the spirit worlds."

Though sometimes the spirit world is uncommunicative, which is when they use computers:

Of course, everybody has a job on the ShamanCycle, and the most coveted one is opening and closing the tail feather:

Meanwhile, the hardest job is crafting lines like this:

"The shaman cycle is a monument to the reality of the imagination and the medicine power of big art."

It's also the final "loogie" on the grave of the Native American culture, which has been officially reduced to three food co-op members tickling each other with feathers in a Park Slope backyard:

(I have no idea if these people are actually from Park Slope, but for the purposes of this blog, they are.)

This is the ceremony you're supposed to perform when you're refinancing your brownstone:

As for the concept behind the ShamanCycle, well:

"The idea for the ShamanCycle came to me in a dream:"

Having a dream about something doesn't mean you should do it in real life.  Actually, it usually means the opposite.  You know that dream where you show up for jury duty naked?  Well, you're not actually supposed to do it, nor should you launch a Kickstarter to build a gigantic 12 person jury box bakfiets--even if a "beautiful eagle" tells you to:

"A beautiful eagle came to me with an axle in her claws and said, 'Phoebe?  Build a bicycle for your people.'"

By "your people" I assume she means the people of Park Slope, a noble tribe called 'The Subaru' who are as powerful in numbers as they are of wallet.

"'I will shield them from the sun with my wings, and my flashing eyes will search the land for where my eagle medicine health is needed.'"

Oh, also, you gotta ride it naked:

Looks like somebody needs a Grundle Towel.