A discursive bit of ranting

But the greatest change we need to make is from consumption to production, even if on a small scale, in our own gardens. If only 10% of us do this, there is enough for everyone. Hence the futility of revolutionaries who have no gardens, who depend upon the very system they attack, and who produce words and bullets, not food and shelter.
--Bill Mollison, Introduction to Permaculture

It seems a bit uppity to begin singing the praises of growing your own food when I have yet to actually grow anything, but our general detachment from the source of our food has bothered me for years. So many of us living in the developed world quite literally cannot feed ourselves. If all the Stop 'n Shops, Whole Foodses, and sketchy bodegas of the world suddenly disappeared, I might be able to survive, but more likely I'd just starve. This is something I am determined to change. It seems completely ridiculous to me that in regards to satisfying the most basic necessities of life I am essentially helpless.

Of course, I am a product of my world. There's no need to get upset about the fact that I would be hard pressed to survive without the public water system, because it's simply never come up. I'm not saying I want to get all "Man vs. Wild" on you, just that it's time to move in the direction of more sufficiency.

I recently saw an Exxon advert that featured Exxon engineers extolling the virtues of their new gas-extraction techniques. In the ad, one fellow states that "One way to put downward pressure on energy prices is to make more energy available." As in drill baby drill. This company and its employees were paying good money to put an ad on TV telling me that their solution to the energy crisis is to pour gasoline on a burning house. Beyond the obvious preposterousness of this concept (So you're addicted to crack, hmm, how about if we make crack cheaper? Yeah, that'll get you straightened right out), what most struck me about this ad was the focus on new technologies as a key to a brighter future. This fetishization of technology is something that I thought a lot about during my brief stint in the alternative-energy industry.

The fact is, we already have the technology to be constructing significantly more efficient buildings. Some of this technology isn't even "technology" at all: the orientation of a building, the thickness of its walls--these make huge differences in the indoor climate. Why are we building huge uninsulated boxes with no windows to simply then pump them with huge amounts of fossil fuels? The means already exist to reduce our energy consumption by an order of magnitude. Eat a little bit less meat, grow a little bit more food: you're making an impact.

So, well, none of us are likely to be building an Earthship anytime soon (though it sure would be sweet), but we can put a pot of tomatoes out on the scraggly side yard at our apartment. And maybe we can start composting and building up that scraggly side yard with yummy compost. And maybe in a year or two we can move somewhere a bit more rural and get some chickens. And a Skystream. And maybe a few dairy cows and some cheese making equipment. And an outdoor wood oven for the wholesale bread operation. And a hoop house for the microgreens...

Anybody want to come along?

In praise of pre-ferments

This is what your poolish looks like when it is ready to be used. It started as a gloppy batter, and over the course of 8-10 hours, rose to a puff and then just started to fall--you can see the creases in the face of the poolish that indicates it has just started falling. This is the time to pounce.

What's that? What's a poolish, you say? Why, I'm so glad you asked! I poolish is just one of my favorite pre-ferments. A pre-ferment, also referred to as a starter, is essentially a very short-term sourdough. Mixing a small portion of a bread recipe's ingredients and allowing them to ferment before actually starting the bread adds another layer of flavor to the finished product. There are many different types of pre-ferments, all variations on the same theme. A poolish is a goopy mixture of around 1/3 of the total amount of water and flour, with a small fraction of the yeast. A sponge is a batterlike substance incorporating 1/3 of the flour, half the yeast and all of the water. Then you've got your pate fermentee, aka scrap dough, which is pieces of fully kneaded, salted, and fermented dough. There are also bigas, the Italian version of a poolish, which are stiffer and more doughlike.

You can add a pre-fermentation step to any bread recipe. The easiest way is Rose Berenbaum's sponge method, as follows:

Mix together all of the water, 1/3 of the flour, and 1/2 of the yeast (and any fat and sweeteners), in a bowl with a whisk until well beaten. The mixture should be a medium-thick batter; scrape down the sides of the bowl. In another bowl, mix together the remaining flour and yeast, and gently scrape this mixture on top of the sponge, so the four-yeast mix covers the sponge like snow on a frozen lake. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let sit for at least one but up to six hours. You can also put it in the refrigerator overnight, but take it out one hour before mixing to allow it to come to room temperature. Then mix until it just comes together, autolyse, add the salt, knead, and off you go.

A few random comments

I lay in bed for a long time this morning, trying to suss out the difference between de rigeur and apropos. They both generally indicate correctness, but in what manner each? The best I could figure (aka convince myself of) was that when something is apropos it is fitting for an occasion--appropriate, if you will. Whereas de rigeur seems to me to be more strictly correct. For example:

"Jimmy, wearing a tuxedo to the prom would be apropos. Wearing trousers, however, is de rigeur."

Of course I could easily, and in less time than it took to type out these musings, look up the actual definitions of these words and be done with it. But I shan't! Nay!

*****************

The garden is already sprouting weeds, volunteer garlic from the neighboring plot, and strawberries. I spent some time in the morning sunshine finding rocks and logs to build out the perimeter of the plot. I'm picking up a truckload of composted horse manure on Sunday, and plan to pile it on as deeply as possible. Granted, I also plan to share the compost with whomever helps unload it, so I've a bit of an internal dialectic going between wanting a deep rich layer of compost on my plot and wanting help shoveling it out of the truck. Helpfully, I did buy myself a shovel. It's my first non-snow shovel, and I couldn't be more proud.


*****************

Last night I braised some pork spareribs Laura and I picked up at the Pawtucket (pronounced "p'tucket") farmers' market. They were so delicious I've decided to write down the recipe. As always, quantities are approximate.

Cider-Clementine Braised Spareribs
Serves 2

2 lb Pork spareribs (about six ribs), cut into two-rib segments
1 c Apple cider
3/4 c Clementine juice (from three clementines; feel free to use oranges)
1/2 c Soy sauce
1 Small onion, diced
1 1/2 tablespoon Asian chili-garlic sauce
1 thumb-sized knob of ginger, peeled and sliced into rounds
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon coffee syrup


Preheat the oven to 275. Heat a little oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high until shimmering. Pat the pork dry and season with salt and pepper. Brown pork, two minutes per side, in batches if necessary, and remove to a plate. Lower the heat to medium-low and saute the onion until translucent. Add the chili-garlic sauce and ginger, and continue to saute for another minute. Add the cider, juice, soy sauce, sugar, and coffee syrup and bring to a simmer. Return the pork to the pot, put the lid on, and place in the oven for 1 1/2 - 2 1/2 hours, turning every 45 minutes, until the bones slide out of the meat.

Remove the pot from the oven and remove the pork from the pot. At this point you can let everything cool and refrigerate for up to two days, and/or proceed. Skim the fat from the braising liquid and strain the remaining liquid. Return the braising liquid to the pot and bring to a boil. Reduce by 1/2 or until thickened. If necessary, make a slurry with 2 tablespoons cornstarch and water in a bowl and whisk in to the sauce to thicken (I had to). Season to taste.

Return pork to the pot with the sauce and toss to coat/warm. Garnish with sliced scallion.

Sowing seed

It's Spring, people. Spring is one of my very favorite things. Like, at all. It's definitely in the top three. And while it's been chilly outside these past few days, I can feel the wind has less bite. The sun is reasserting itself. 26 degrees feels more like 32, and 32 feels like 40. The trees are budding, the piles of dog poop on the street are starting to wilt. Spring!

I started my hot pepper plants today. On the advice of the nice lady at Pezza's garden center, and the seed pouch, I'm starting them indoors in adorable little seed starting pots. The pots are made of peat themselves, and can be placed directly in the ground when the seedlings are ready to be planted outdoors.

After reading way too much material about how to start seeds indoors, I became discouraged by the need to find a location in our apartment that is warm (the seed packet says "very warm"), sunny, and inaccessible to our pack of marauding felines. In the end, I chose very sunny and sorta warm. Once they sprout I'll move them to less-sunny, less-warm, but totally cat-free lodgings. Following the recommendation of a few sources, I covered the box with plastic wrap, which I hope will both help keep in moisture and generate some more warmth.

I bought a bag of organic seed starting mix, which smells wonderful, and piled it into the seed pots. Then I opened the bag of pepper seeds and, pouring them onto the counter, thought to myself, "Why, they look just like pepper seeds!"

After I finished with the sowing, I sat down to a breakfast of leftover homemade General Tso's Chicken and bit down on a hot pepper seed. I took the seed from my mouth and examined it. "Whoa," I thought, "I could totally, like, plant this."

I can only hope that this gardening experience will be full of such beautiful and humbling realizations.

Chow Rhode Island, Episode 3: Coffee Milk

Of the 27 states that list an Official State Beverage, 12 of them claim milk. Milk. I can see that in the big dairy states, but, well, I suppose I can't name all the big dairy states. A quick consult with my Secretary of Agriculture (aka Laura) was inconclusive. So I'll refrain from ragging on all you milk-guzzlin' states. Indiana, sensibly, selected water. Nebraska: Kool-Aid. I'm not even touching that one.

Rhode Island, my new home, chose to take on the traditional milk, but with a savage twist. My friends, I give you..


Subject: Coffee Milk
Aliases: None
Major Features: Coffee syrup, milk
Minor Features: None

At some point "back in the day" clever soda jerks began experimenting with different flavorings. Being a former soda jerk/bartender myself, I can empathize with the desire to try something new (beer frappes!). Eventually, sweet coffee syrup became fashionable, and after a few corporate mergers, the Autocrat brand emerged as the ne plus ultra of Rhode Island style coffee syrup. Despite living less than an hour from Rhode Island, I had never seen Autocrat, which also makes regular coffee, until I crossed the border. Maybe there are parts of Connecticut--or Attleboro--where you can get this stuff, but it seems to be pretty well contained to the Ocean State. Well, then, what is coffee syrup? Mostly, it's our good friend high fructose corn syrup.



Assessment: The recipe from the syrup bottle calls for 8 ounces of milk mixed with two tablespoons of syrup. Prepared thusly, coffee milk looks, smells, and tastes like a melted coffee frappe. There is a slight corn syrup mouth-coating finish. The coffee flavor is slight but good.

Conclusion: I'm not entirely sure when you would drink this. Personally, it just made me wish I were drinking an actual coffee frappe, or an actual cup of coffee. It definitely tastes coffee-y, and coffee milk would be an excellent gateway drug for coffee. If you're tired of your daily chocolate milk, or want your kids to get a taste for java, coffee milk is an excellent choice. I may explore other uses for the coffee syrup--or I might just throw it away. If I wanted to make coffee milk, I'd just brew some coffee and add it to a bunch of sugar and milk. But that's not the point of this exercise, now, is it?

Lappy 486

My new used computer arrived yesterday. It's a MacBook 2.4gHz, black. Blacker than the darkest night. Blacker than the black market, the black Visa, and Ultradark Material. I've named it Strindberg.

Setting up this computer is reminding me of how integral (pernicious?) computers can be to the home life. Currently I'm syncing my iPhone, calendar, contacts, all that stuff. Earlier I set up the external iTunes library, the MIDI controller, the wifi. Imported Firefox passwords. I still have to do the printer--but who prints these days anyway? It's remarkable to think about how much stuff we have that is now dependent on the computer. I don't listen to cd's anymore.

Telling Strindberg to find the iTunes library on my external hard drive has given me the opportunity to poke around my mp3 collection. There's the usual "oh I haven't listened to this in years" but also the occasional "oh lord no need to own this anymore". My favorite is discovering music I didn't know I owned. There's Ani DiFranco in here? And when the heck did I get six Tortoise albums? The Erykah Badu album I'd forgotten even existed ("Worldwide Underground"). An entire Tom Waits album that, because the tracks didn't have an album name listed, never appeared when I sorted his music (probably "Swordfishtrombones"). Harry Potter 1, 2, 3 & 6. A single INXS track ("Suicide Blonde"). What the heck is Hollertronix?

Now I'm excited to dig through my photograph library. What bizarreness will I find there? "Hey what's in this grainy old shot? Huh... looks like some sort of grassy knoll..."

FYI

This stuff is F-ing terrible.

A few photographs of Providence

There's a lot of interesting stuff in this town, so I'm starting small. I took my camera on a stroll down Washington Street, and back up Broadway. Here is some of what I encountered. I'll upload more of these to my flickr page.

An orchid blooms in the window
Washington Street, West Side

Waiting for the bus
Broadway, West Side

Washington Street, Downtown

Partial renovation
Washington Street, Downtown

Cathedral Square

Chow Rhode Island, Episode 2.1: Return to Jonnycake Mountain

Why? Why didn't you tell me? The secret to jonnycakes is boiling water.


Starting with boiling or near-boiling water precooks the cornmeal, giving the jonnycakes bold corny flavor and mouthfeel. By adjusting the amount of water, you can make hearty thick cakes or lacy tender crisps. Sugar is good too. Boiling water makes the difference between dry bland mealcakes and tasty, interesting jonnycakes. Unlike my first attempt, the second batch of jonnycakes I made were actually something you'd want to eat.

Vance's Rhode Island Jonnycakes for two
1c cornmeal (preferably stone ground)
1.5c boiling water
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp sugar

Mix together to form a smooth paste, adjusting amount of water to preference, and spoon by the tablespoonful onto a hot lightly oiled skillet. Cook 3-5 minutes on the first side, flip and cook another minute. Eat promptly.

A bit of earth

My friends, welcome to my garden. The owners of empty lot across the street from our apartment lease plots to the neighbors, and I was lucky enough to get one. This plot is about 9' x 5' oriented generally East-West, and, aside from a few strawberries along the Western edge, currently uninhabited (save for the zillions of friendly insects and microbes). With Laura's help, and a bit of luck, I will grow things here... and eat them.

This will be my first attempt to garden--indeed, to grow anything aside from some spider plants and one hardy yucca tree. It is safe to say that I know exactly nothing about gardening. Laura and I received two books about this subject for our wedding: "The Urban Homestead", which, though it covers many fascinating things aside from gardening, is a great book and sparked my interest in growing my own food, and "Gardening at the Dragon's Gate" which I have just begun reading and so far is fascinating and terrifying (in that "oh my lord I have no idea about anything" way). I'd like to get my hands on a more basic gardening book at some point. But still, it's very exciting. Laura and I have already started strategizing about what we want to plant and, more perplexingly, when.

I look forward to an educational season. First step: get my hands on a truckload of horse-poop compost. Then: bean teepee.

Travel and technology

I'm off to Boston for the Celtics game tonight, and my computer is in the process of catastrophically failing. So, gentle readers, sit tight and I'll be back as soon as possible. In the meantime, annoy everyone around you with this amazing drum simulator.

Mentholatum and the passage of time

When our society has reached a point where we're giving out free antibiotics at grocery stores, maybe it's time to re-think our approach to healing. I'm not necessarily advocating a universal "walk it off" method of healthcare, but I do believe that we'd all be better off if instead of reaching for a prescription now and then we'd just rub some dirt on it.

This attitude might explain why I'm so attached to Mentholatum. Boasting nearly primeval ingredients of menthol and camphor, Mentholatum is the stuff you find on grandmothers' bedside tables, usually right next to the witch hazel. Although sometimes it has to fight the Bag Balm for a prime spot. Of course, what more accurately explains my affection for Mentholatum is that it's awesome. Goopy, pungent, sinus-clearing, this stuff is good for what ails you: chapped stuff, stuffed-up stuff, you name it. Mentholatum also has another characteristic not often found in consumer products these days: longevity.

I was in college when I bought my first jar of Mentholatum for myself. Following my mother's habit, I wrote the date of opening on the jar: December 18, 1998. Last week, I finished that jar of Mentholatum. One ounce lasted me just over ten years. This jar is so old that it has a metal lid. Nowhere on the label is a website. It got me wondering about what other two-inch-high objects I've managed to carry around with me--not to mention use nearly every day--in the ten often tumultuous years of college and post-college. I came up empty. I have a few t-shirts that are from the same era. Some pots and pans. The Cuisinart. But nothing I came close to using on a daily basis.

The Mentholatum company in upstate New York (USA! USA!) is still going strong, and last week I placed an order for a new jar of Mentholatum. This time I went for the big dog: three ounces. I got out a sharpie and carefully wrote "3/7/09" on its plastic lid. I might be 60 by the time this thing is empty.

Chow Rhode Island, Episode 2: Jonnycakes

My Nashville-born father raised me to disdain the cornbread us Yankees make. It's too sweet and cake-like; when I make cornbread I'll halve the sugar in a given recipe. Often, if I'm feeling zesty, I'll toss in some cheese or jalapenos. But that's beside the point. The point is that this Yankee-style sweet cornbread crap was always referred to in the Edwards-Orr household as "Johnnycake". Imagine, then, my surprise upon moving to Rhode Island and learning that us Yankees in fact do make something called jonnycake, but it sure as hell ain't sweet.



Subject: Jonnycake
Aliases: Johnnycake, Journey cake
Major Features: Corn
Minor Features: Water, milk, salt, sugar


Traditional jonnycake is made with stone-ground corn, milk and/or water, and some salt. The result is a thin gruel-like batter which, when applied to a hot skillet, becomes thin pancake-like flatbread. This is serious staple food here, folks. Wheat doesn't grow well here in New England, so people had to make do with corn--flint corn usually. You'd bring your corn down to the local miller (you DO have a local miller, don't you?), he'd take a percentage off the top and grind up your corn. Then--hooray--you probably won't starve this winter. What I'm trying to say is...

Assessment: They bland. I was really hoping for a nice rich--or even noticeable--corn flavor, but was disappointed. Even after doubling the salt, trying different skillet temperatures and volume of cooking oil, adjusting the cooking time, I couldn't get the things to taste like anything other than calories. Which, granted, they did very very well. After just a few of this puppies I was full up. I understand why jonnycakes are supposed to be good traveling food. Eventually, I gave up and started topping them with butter, which helped immensely. Laura skipped the "science" part and went straight for the maple syrup.

Conclusion: Well, now I'm confused as hell. I've just done some more reading and have come across a pretty wide variety of recipes, including this video on Kenyon's website of someone's grandma making jonnycakes with sugar and no salt. I'd been following Gray's recipe, which says nothing about boiling water. Er... this might warrant an Episode 2.1

They are attractive, though.

Chow Rhode Island, Episode 1: Hot Weenies

Welcome to the first installment of my newest feature, Chow Rhode Island, wherein I track down and consume as many Rhode Island-specific foodstuffs as possible. For a small state, Rhode Island boasts a huge number of local delicacies. I'd heard of a number of these items through Laura's Ocean State family, but looking at the remarkable list on wikipedia, it became clear to me that I needed to find these strange and wonderful things... and eat them. I'm on a mission from God. First up, Hot Wieners.



Subject: Hot Wieners
Aliases: Hot Weenies, Gaggers, Destroyers, Belly-busters, New York System Wieners
Major Features: Frankfurter, White bun, Meat sauce
Options: Onions, Mustard, Celery salt

Assessment: There's only one way to order hot weenies: all the way. You'll shortly be looking at a plate with two (gotta get at least two) small hot dogs, either steamed or off rollers, topped with a squirt of yellow mustard, a splash of meat sauce, a heaping mound of shredded onion, and a shake of celery salt. The dogs are tasty pork & veal, the meat sauce is less sauce and more meat, spiced with paprika, garlic, allspice, chili, and other things. The sauce is similar in consistency to taco filling, and not spicy. I was expecting something overflowing with goopy sauce, but there was a modest amount of meat topping. What was in abundance was the onions. Hella onions. The hot weenies were very tasty.

Within a one-mile radius of our apartment there are at least four establishments offering the New York System. We visited the famous Olneyville shop, figuring what's good enough for Tommy Caffee is good enough for us. Plus it's nearby. The New York System, a somewhat enigmatic name, seems to refer to the practice of hot weenie jockeys stacking the buns up their bare arms as they prepare the wieners. I'll admit it's a bit odd, but apparently also a key part of the dish.

Conclusion: I was apprehensive about eating a hot dog topped with meat, as it sounded gastrointestinally ominous, but after putting away two each, Laura and I report no ill effects. While I am unsure as to what the "hot" in hot wieners refers to--they were not remotely spicy, though warm in temperature--I can recommend that all carnivores in Rhode Island should definitely get their hands on a few gaggers.

Stay tuned for the next installment of Chow Rhode Island, where I shamelessly consume things to which I may or may not be allergic!

Stop 'n Shop, Cranston RI, 2:50pm

Wind Shown by Smoke Drift; the poetry of Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort

Yesterday morning I was lying in bed and looking at the barometer I have propped on a bedroom window. I'm a big fan of barometers, partially because I loathe tv weathermen, those cheery morons, but mostly because it gives you information that is simultaneously completely exact and fairly flexible. The pressure was rising, I noticed, so we'll probably have some sun. Then, shifting my gaze to the right, I looked out the window into a bright blue sky. Ahh, I thought, empirical feedback. This, naturally, led me to think about the Beaufort Scale.

In 1805, then-Commander Francis Beaufort devised a system for measuring wind speed. At the time, the British Navy didn't have anemometers on every ship (or, rather, at all), so young Cmdr. Beaufort came up with an empirical scale to gauge and log wind conditions. Numbered zero through 12, each station of the scale featured a qualitative description about how that specific wind strength affected a British Man o' War, the standard Naval vessel of the day.

Force Five: "Man o' War in chase will just carry royals and courses."

As the Man o' War fell out of widespread use, and to carry the system over into land-based measure, the Beaufort Scale was expanded with further descriptions. They are beautiful.

Force Two: "Wind felt on face; Leaves rustle; Vanes moved by wind."

It's completely clear--I can feel exactly what this wind would be. At the same time, it has a haiku-like quality. And they're all like this.

Force Six: "Small trees in leaf begin to sway; crested wavelets form on inland waters."

Crested wavelets? I could eat that with a spoon. NPR's Scott Huler already covered this a few years ago--I like to cite my plagiarism, thanks--but it's always stuck with me. There's something universal about the scale's descriptions. When it comes to weather, even numbers can be vague. 40 degrees means different things to different people, but "Dirty mounds of snow melt by one-third; Cyclists show shin" is actually quantifiable. Maybe I'll try and come up with the Edwards-Orr Chill Index in the same vein.

Force Three: "Small dogs in sweaters; Struggle with the storm windows; Benign complaining"
Force Eleven: "Mittens rendered useless; Snot freezes"

Oh and that whole "chasing the dream" thing...

I haven't mentioned the purpose of this move recently. Namely, me getting myself a job at a bakery and learning to bake bread. When doing research about Providence bakeries, I usually found Seven Stars at the top of lists. Seven Stars has a retail location near our apartment, and since moving I have been enjoying their bread. I called Jim the baker a few weeks ago, before we moved, and he said encouraging things my plan. Specifically, the very heartening thing he told me was that they--and many other bakeries--prefer to hire people with no experience. At the time, Jim told me to call him after we moved to Providence and he'd show me around their production facility.

So I gave myself a week after we moved, to settle in and get progressively more nervous, before calling him again. I left a message yesterday and he called me back a few minutes ago. He didn't recall our conversation; they get numerous such calls per month. "But," he said, "we usually don't get a second call." Point to me. I re-explained my situation and he re-affirmed the desirability of hiring the tabula rasa type. Then he told me that Seven Stars is opening a third retail location this Spring (sorry if that was a spoiler), and that they might in fact be adding a new baking position. Soon. How about I come in and he and the production manager give me a little shakedown/interview/audition? How about Monday at 5?

And I thought I was nervous BEFORE calling him.

A note about the name of this blog

Some of you may be wondering why I chose to name this blog as I did, rather than use the more common slang "Rhody." Even just a few days into my tenure as a Rhode Islander, I've already been assaulted by this construction. Rhody Fresh milk, a product of Little Rhody Foods (good eggs too). Ask Rhody. Edible Rhody. It goes on. The Rhode Show (gag).

I decided not to go that well-worn (and possibly infringey) route, but instead to create a derivative of my own. In the cycling world, a "roadie" is one of those dudes on fancy ten-speeds in tighty-tight lycra. I am not exactly one of those fellows, although I do dabble. So: not quite Rhody, not quite Roadie; Rhoady.

I briefly considered going all medieval on y'all and calling it "Lil' Roodty" after 17th-century Dutch explorer Adriaen Block's name for the place, Roodt Eylandt. Some of you eagle-eyed readers may have already noticed another connection with Mr. Block. As in Island. And therein lies yet another tale...


Later: I buy an espresso machine and jack myself to high heaven!

Traffic, Part 1 of Ad Nauseam

I've just started reading "Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do" by Tom Vanderbilt, and so far it's been fascinating. Granted, I'm only on the second chapter, but already there's been a great deal of interesting material. Vanderbilt points out early on that traffic as we know it is a very new and very different type of social interaction than what humans have spent millenia perfecting. So much of the activity of driving runs counter to our social instincts. For example, when you're in traffic, the one person who most affects you--namely, the dude in front of you--can't see you. You're looking at his back. Think of the things that humans are really well adapted for: speech, reading body language, sending and deciphering complex and subtle social cues. For the most part, these are rendered useless when you're behind the wheel. You're mute. Is it a surprise, then, that we get angry?

A few years ago I had a job with the Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition. I became a certified League Cycling Instructor and started teaching bicycle safety classes--something I continue to do. I wasn't interested in being Harriet the Helmet Harpie, what fascinated me was the social aspect of riding a bicycle in traffic. Cyclists have--and, I'll admit, deservedly so--a terrible reputation amongst motorists as being reckless, ignorant/negligent about the rules of the road, etc. Among many folks in (and out of) the bicycle advocacy world, the emphasis can be on getting cyclists to obey, which is a good start*--but not enough. Simply following the arrows will only get you so far--and so safe. Whether on a bicycle or behind the wheel of a Hummer, you have to communicate with the people around you.

Traffic is a social system. It's a group of strangers who have to interact and cooperate. But hiding behind tinted windows, staring at someone's bumper, talking on your cell phone... that's not exactly playing to our strengths as social animals. So, what is happening out there? Let's find out.





*The great irony I enjoy whenever I teach classes is that my students--if they drive a car--already know what to do; it's the same set of rules. The complications are somewhat technical (where to position the bike at intersections etc) but mostly social.