Dream for Sale
Silver machine, teal in colour, used twice
“ I just took a ride
In a silver machine
And I’m still feeling mean.
Do you wanna ride see yourself going by.
The other side of the sky
I got a silver machine.
It flies side ways thru’ time ’’
Hawkwind — 1973
The song ‘ Silver Machine‘ was written and performed by Hawkwind in the early 70’s, lead singer — Lemmy.
‘Silver machine‘ is inspired by the writer, proto-surrealist, inventor of Pataphysics, cyclist … Alfred Jarry.
Jarry was the the first Surrealist, he was a Surrealist before the Surrealists. He was the innovator.
He pre-dated the Futurists, Dadaists and the Surrealists. Jarry was walking his his pet lobster on a leash down the Champs-Élysées 30 years before Salvador Dali made his lobster telephone and over 90 years before Bruce Sterling in his novel ‘ Schismatrix ‘ talks of a cyborg character called Lobster.
Jarry’s 1902 novel ‘ Le Surmâle ‘ (‘The Supermale’) Is about “ perpetual-motion food “ and performance. Once the “ perpetual-motion food “ is consumed, all performance was massively enhanced. So enhanced that even after death from the compound one could still race the bicycle. The racers would enhance their bodies by taking a substance, making them more part of the machine. The alchemic compound was part of becoming a ‘ Man / Machine ‘ or a Lobster.
Le Surmâle no doubt helped inspire the 1914 novel ‘Locus Solus ‘ by Raymond Roussel and Jean de la Hire’s 1908 novel ‘L’Homme Qui Peut Vivre Dans L’eau‘ (‘The Man Who Can Live in the Water’). In the novel, Hire created a character called ‘ Nyctalope’. Nyctalope had a mechanical heart and was perhaps the first literary cyborg and superhero.
All superhero’ s (good or bad) are Cyborgs. They must consume a potion, be genetically modified or become part of a machine (all apart from Superman, Superman was from another planet).
Jarry was primarily a cyclist. His Clément Luxe track bicycle was a state of the art racing machine of its day which he described as ‘ That which rolls ‘. Jarry was compelled to ride ‘That which rolls‘. He wished to be at one with his bicycle. He wanted to be a Cyborg.
Jarry rode fast and hard on his fixed wheel machine. He had no to time for tourists “thinking themselves poets, and slow down en route to contemplate the view“. Jarry was known to ride ‘That which rolls‘ at full speed through the busy streets of Paris, brake-less, parting the crowds by shooting his two carbines in the air. He was obsessed with speed like the Futurists after him. He was a Motorhead, he was a Cyborg.
Jarry was not the first writer to think of ‘man / machine‘, that was Edgar Allan Poe in 1847 with “The Man That Was Used Up”. Fascinating that one hundred and fifty years later, disgraced bike racer Tyler Hamilton, would claim that while in the team of Lance Armstrong, the parlance for EPO (Erythropoietin) was “”Edgar”, “Poe” or “Edgar Allan Poe”. Were then, the racers in Tyler Hamilton’s team looking for “perpetual-motion food“, to be Cyborgs, Super hero’s?
Many artists were interested in Jarry, not least Pablo Picasso.
After Jarry’s death, Picasso, who was obsessed with Jarry, acquired Jarry’s weapons. The ‘Browning’ was used as a ‘Pataphysical weapon‘. He would load with blanks, shooting any critic of his work.
The revolver has become emblematic for so many artists since Jarry. The ‘Pataphysical weapon‘ was used to great effect by Hunter S Thompson and William S Burroughs to name just a few.
Hawkwind apparently, had enough of the lead singer of ‘ Silver machine ‘ Lemmy. Lemmy was a big user of amphetamines (speed), while the rest of the band was far more interested in a road laced with L.S.D. and Lemmy was cast out.
Lemmy went on and found fame as the hard core mustachioed front man of the metal band Motörhead.
I have met him a couple of times, I cant remember the details of the nights for the obvious reasons, however I do remember the first encounter.
I was a recently retired bicycle racer and an impressionable 20. This is how I came to a secret liking for the band Hawkwind.
With this finding of Hawkwind’s ‘ Silver Machine ‘ I also came to the understanding that the bicycle was inescapable.
I knew then that I could and would return to the bike. It would be a constant. I may spend a few years off the bike, then come back again, get real fit, ride and enjoy it for a few years, then get back off.
Jarry was fascinating and I wished to be like Jarry, but I could not do both at the same time. If I rode the bike the artwork would diminish and visa versa.
I wished the bike was to be a part of me, I wanted the bike to be part of my everyday working life.
The plan
The plan was to make a machine that would bring together my love of image, love of bicycles and the landscape I live in.
Where I live is the Pyrenees Ariege, very beautiful and an almost wilderness,
I don’t live in the high mountains, I’m at 1000 m and within riding distance of the Haute Pyrenees.
There is snow in winter here, a meter last winter… good for ski, but not for bicycles.
So the bike was made to carry my kit, cameras and tents, skis and pans.
A semi Fat bike based on the old French porteur. An ‘ Alex Singer ‘ of Paris on steroids.
The bike is teal colour not silver, but the maker Hartley Cycles inlayed solid silver parts, head badge, frame decals on top of the Reynolds stainless steel tubes.
The bike is a thing of beauty, looking at the past and the future, with its double triangle frame and plate fork crown. The drive train is sram 1 x 11 and the wheels tubeless with through axels.
Then late in 2015 -The Rupture
Psoriatic arthritis — A bone eating bastard.
I have had Psoriasis for over a decade. The standard run of the mill Psoriasis skin condition. It’s a bastard auto immune disease. I’m kind of attacking my self. The last few years it has has moved internal.
Psoriasis is cyclical, it comes and almost goes to varying degrees. Sometimes my joints would hurt. The late summer of 15 there came a huge wave. So huge the future possibilities were revealed to me.
I’m sure Jarry would have approved of the doctor’s advice of ‘ pain management’ until hip replacement. How ‘Man // Machine’ is that !? Replacing bone joints for machine parts.
This however, is where Jarry and I have to part company. The idea of spending a few years bombed out on a diet where codeine as the hors d’oeuvre is not something I relish.
The bike is bringing on the pain and joint wear even faster…
Riding the bicycle is no longer an option, the constant has gone and the mountain dream vanishing.
The way I make work and look at my work must change.
Where my gun touting metamorphic influences are left, I don’t know. The Morphius bike has to go.
Dream bike for sale, make me an offer:
