You have to love it when actual experts embrace the Internet and decide to “give it all away”.  In the bicycle world, Sheldon Brown was the prime example.  Mark Bittman seems to be today’s cooking populist.  For harmonica, it’s got to be Adam Gussow.

It almost doesn’t matter what Adam is teaching.  His style is addictive.  Equal parts authority and humility.  Both inspiration and instruction.  His Youtube lessons are some of the best that I have received on any topic.

Does every little knowledge niche have an Internet icon?  If I hadn’t picked up the harmonica, I never would have “met” Adam.   He only exists to a tiny bubble of enthusiasts - that is, thousands and thousands of Youtube viewers.

Who else should I know about right now?  Who is giving the best lessons on the Internet – in any subject?

I don’t care how long your Mundo Cargo is.  Carrying a piano on your bike is a bitch.

That’s why it’s important for cycling pianists to find another instrument to accompany them on their adventures.  I auditioned five:

Kalimba: A sweet sound and rugged as can be – steel tines on a wood box.  It only measures around 4x6x1 inches and weighs nothing.  I bought the Treble version with a built in pick-up mic from Paul Tracey.  This is a wonderfully companionable instrument, but I just can’t get into it.  No matter what I try, I can’t find a style or tuning that really feels expressive to me.  Also, I’m not sure that I like the hand position when you play it.   It kind-of looks like you are thumb-typing on your Blackberry.  Is this cool?  I dunno.

Ukulele: Officially back in style for today’s crooners, the Uke can be very inexpensive.  We got one for $twenty-five at Buckdancer’s Choice.  They are a little large and fragile, however.  I’m not sure how long they will last in your pannier.  Or strapped under the saddle.

Melodica: A natural extension of the piano keyboard, these things are great fun.  Expressive and intuitive.  Honer makes a student version that cost $50 back in 2007 or so.  The sinking dollar may have changed that.  It comes with a case that measures around 12x6x2.  The only problem- no matter how many hipster bands use them, I can’t stop thinking about The Hooters.

Casio SK-1: The world’s first accessible sampler, this thing was everywhere circa 1982.  Now, thanks to Comrade Circuit Bender, they are really difficult to get.  I got lucky on ebay and landed one for $forty.  Now, I’m afraid to break it.  But really, any small table-hooter will do the trick.  Personally, I can’t get into playing synthesisers outdoors.  It just feels wrong.  Maybe I’m too old..

So, I am getting serious about my Harmonica again.  A favorite of hobos and superstars, this humble instrument packs a ton of emotion into a steel box the size of a stick of gum.  It’s comfortable at a campfire or in a bar-room.  Famously thrifty, for $thirty you can get a very good instrument and you will be picking out diatonic tunes instantly.  More money or more practice (your pick!) and you can bring additional musical keys into reach.

More Harmonica madness to follow…

J. Fink: Remember that really nice adventure we had?  By the waterfall?  It was sunny and not windy at all.  And we went sliding down all those hills…

Kid Fink: It wasn’t nice for me.

J. Fink: Well, okay.  We did get lost.  And your mittens were wet and cold.  But that’s what makes it an adventure!  Like when the Superfriends get stuck in a trap and have to figure how to get out.  We had to figure how to get out of the woods!

Kid Fink: It’s not very exciting.

Well, we do our best.  I can only hope that, on some primal level, he enjoyed it.

My advice to you:  Take close note of the junction where the trail from the trailhead joins the trail along the river.  It’s easy to miss the turn on the way back.

P.S.  Bikes are wecome on this trail.  That means you.

"We'll work it all out as we go along. Let our practice form our doctrine, thus assuring precise theoretical coherence."

Traditionally, mid-February is the time when I allow myself to begin daydreaming about spring.

Planning the garden, plotting bike rides, researching camping trips.  Trying to intuit the balance between my ambition and Kid Fink’s age.  And I do a lot of reading – hoping that it boosts my dubious Naturalist Intelligence for the coming season. 

Reading is a poor substitute for doing, I know.  But it passes the time.  Late winter in Maine isn’t its most stellar moment.  The snow is grainy, icy and dirty.  The glaciers in the neighborhood recede revealing three months of accumulated dog turds.  The sun teases and the wind freezes.

On a recent trip I read a collection of Edward Abbey’s essays and fiction.  Last year it was Colin Fletcher.  These guys write inspiring stories about the Southwest.  Fletcher is practical.  Abbey is subversive.

The problem is, I don’t live in the Southwest!  About as far from it as you can get.  Who’s writing good outdoors literature about Maine?

A quick survey of the Maine Literary Map gave me some ideas.  I should probably give Thoreau a try.  Carson’s “Sense of Wonder” sounds nice.  I liked “One Man’s Meat”, although it never really felt authentic.  A gentleman-farmer writing for the New Yorker?

What do you know?  Any recommendations out there?

Riverbend Smelting Camp

We caught seven smelts.  And we ate them up there and then.

Through an unfortunate confluence of events, it happens that this was the first time in my life that I had reeled in a fish.  And, it boggled my mind…

Do you mean to tell me that, wherever you are, you can literally drop a line in the water and you might pull up a fish?  It turns out that, stripped of all its arcane knowledge and endless equipment, fishing is simple and beautiful!  Maybe not successful, but that depends on how on measure success, right?

For those hardy enough to ride a bike in the deep, dark, Maine winter, a smelting camp would be a great destination for a ride.  They provide everything you need for fishing -  lines and bait all housed in a wood-heated, sauna-like shack.  The fishing hole is inside the shack.  Like Mark says, “It’s a little like fishing from your living room.”

Let’s get small. These guys believe that everything you need to catch a fish fits in an Altoid Tin.  Or smaller.

Another goal for 2009.  Drop more lines.

Again, my bike-life has taken a back seat to my music-life.  I can only manage one ridiculous side-project at a time.  Hmph.

Not so for the new poet lauriate of these United States.  It happened like this:

In 1976 she finally realized that she could not escape the poet inside her. She had decided to ride a bicycle from California to Virginia in 80 days. Riding along the Hoosier Pass in the Colorado Rockies, she said, she felt an incredible opening up, “an absence of boundaries, an absence of edges, as if my brain could do anything.”

“Finally I can ask the question: Can I be a writer?” The answer came back as a question, she said. “Do you like it?”

“So it was quite simple for me. I went home and began to work.”

Nice going Rogues Gallery!

This fine purveyor of T’s has published a beautiful new bicycle map and are renting bikes from Percy Cycles.

I love it when bicycles escape from the insular little world of the bike shop and start flirting at boutiques and galleries.  So, I was very happy when Zero Station offered to host my turn presenting the Traffic Safety Seminar sponsored by the Portland Bike Commuter Meetup.  Join me, won’t you?

On my to-do list for this summer:  Try to get into the Prides Corner Drive-in on my bicycle.

What could be better on a hot summer night?  A seven mile dusky ride out past Riverside.  With a six-pack and a blanket.  A first-run double-feature for $7.  A late-night ride home.  It sounds perfect!

But will it fly with the ticket taker?  I don’t see why not.  They charge per person, not per car.  There are plenty of kids roaming around – it’s not like you need a vehicle to be safe in the lot.  The sound is broadcast over an FM station, so a small radio is all you need to tune in.

Has anyone tried this?  Am I dreaming? 

I have recently been reading The Complete Walker by Colin Fletcher.  Yeah, I know, I’m 40 years late to the party…

But, what a great book!  A wealth of information and a singular voice.  He gives equal time to the ineffable experience of travel and to the practical aspects of camping.  Here’s what Colin has to say about maps:

…I want to know roughly where I’m going but also want to conserve that titillating element of the unexpected.

Another way to achieve that end is to take along only an ordinary road map of the kind you can pick up at any gas station.  Between roads, these maps are mostly blank space.  At the most, the have some rather speculative hachuring – a light shading that indicates the slope and direction of hill and valley.  With such a map you can easily set yourself the vague sort of target that seems necessary to almost any kind of walk.  (As someone has said, “Every journey must have a soul.”)  You just find a big blank space that intrigues you, drive to the edge of it, park the car, and walk in and find out what’s there.  Such an expedition can take an hour, an afternoon, a weekend, or a week.  With a little experience, local knowledge, and luck, you may be able to burst clear not only of roads but of the last vestiges of any kind of trail.

Maybe this doesn’t have anything to do with bicycles.  Or then again, maybe the bicycle is the urban equivalent to the Walker.  In a world of pavement and asphalt, a bicycle allows you to explore the insides of a city with an agility unachievable in a car or on foot.

There are four editions of the book, the last one being published just a few years ago.  For the original, head to the Portland Public Library.

Like some sort of inverted road map, the Maine Interconnected Trail System gets more dense as it heads North!

I’ll admit, I don’t have a lot of experience with this network of trails.  My most recent attempt to ride from Standish to Denmark was a total disaster complete with mechanical failures, sibling arguments, mosquito madness and heat stroke.

But the thought of an entire web of trails that could take me all the way from my doorstep to the Canadian border is irresistible.  If anyone out there has real advice about these trails, let me know!

Curious?  Close to Portland, the Standish Sno-Seekers, Grey Snow Wolves, and Gorham SnoGoers have generously posted their local maps online.  And the Sebago Branch Duckers and Falmouth Snow Voyagers will send you a map for a few bucks!