CX References

Yikes! A week has gone by, and in the meantime we had some fun at the Wirth "Classic" Cyclocross race, didn't we? Not sure what makes it classic, other than the fact that it was the 2nd Annual (though Geno tells me there used to be a semi-regular outlaw cross race there back in the day), that the course made zero use either of the annoying new paved path running through the heart of our beloved singletrack, nor the singletrack, that it contained three too many 180-degree hairpins in loose hummus (or was it babaganoush?) that the roadies simply could not negotiate, but geeze I sound like I'm complaining, when in fact it was an awesome good time, and a fun challenge -- especially the stairclimb up out of Bareass Beach, which finally made me feel like my absurdly long stair repeats at MHaHa make some sense. To top all of that, I finished about mid-pack (granted, in the C race for biggest loser) and that's more soothing to my fragile ego than finishing last in the B race, plus racing for 30 minutes -- while admittedly being totally gay -- was awesome. Plus, most excellent ride Miss KellyMack.

That all said, I wanted to post this funny Times typo. Given Michi Kakutani's vicious nose-holding flush of Jon Lethem's new novel "Chronic City," it seemed a most delicious Freudian slip. Bye Bye, indeed. When will we see another novel as good as Fortress of Solitiude, or even Motherless Brooklyn? I mean, I was willing to forgive "You Don't Love Me Yet" as a placeholder, but it looks like Lethem is well past sophomore slump with nothing to show for it.



I do feel sorry for him. But I feel more sorry for myself, because Fortress was one of my favorite books of the last 10 years or so.

Dude looks a bit like Paul Westerberg, dunnee? Let's hope this nasty review doesn't drive him to the same level of agoraphobic underachievement.

(That would be mean, if it wasn't coming from an agoraphobic underachiever like myself.)