Norlos

This is the cautionary speech that I heard on my first day as a bicycle messenger. It’s kind of over the top and you might laugh at it, but by following the rules set out in this briefing I’ve only been seriously injured once riding a bicycle in New York.

(and the one time i was hurt, it was because a pedestrian clotheslined me.)

There’s more about this here.

Breakaway has its issues, but they’re serious about safety. I remember one day riding through Union Square when a messenger was hit by a car. The call that a cyclist was down on 17th street went over the police lines and Ed, my dispatcher, immediately got me on the horn to ask whether it was one of our riders.

It wasn’t.

The Awl has an interesting essay about the limitations of considering rap/hip hop as poetry. There are a lot of interesting links in the essay, such as an NPR interview with a poetry critic who read the raps before he heard the works, but, for the purposes of Norlos, I was really interested in the link to the wikipedia entry on “Mary’s room.”

What struck me was the fact that ammonia is described in the entry as a smell. As we all know, our dear friend Jebus cannot smell, but I remember him talking about how he can detect ammonia because it isn’t a smell…it’s a different physical reaction.

Does this affect the philosophical quandry presented by C.D. Broad?

A short list of the various NPR shows that Mike Birbiglia has appeared on:

This American Life (multiple times)

(if you haven’t heard the story of Mike’s sleep disorder, listen to this episode. it was my introduction to him and formed the basis of his one man off-Broadway show Sleep Walk With Me.)

The Moth (multiple times)

Soundcheck

The Sound of Young America (multiple times)

Selected Shorts

Fresh Air

These shirts popped in Hong Kong about two months ago. Any clue what they refer to? Google tells me there’s a “Smoking Crows” KC barbecue team, but I have no idea whether they’re connected.