ELIZABETH FLOCK

Made of Honor

ELIZABETH FLOCK — Wed, 07 May 2008 17:25:04 GMT

Scottish-related gags and other dumb stuff
Paul Weiland’s Made of Honor is not your usual formulaic romantic comedy: it’s stupid, its leading man is unlikable, and its jokes are unfunny and sometimes cruel.

Wheeling through history

ELIZABETH FLOCK — Wed, 07 May 2008 17:22:29 GMT

Vintage bicycles aren't just for lonely bike mechanics any more
Vintage bicycles, once an obscure subculture’s obsession, are gaining popularity as highly desired collectibles or cheaper, cooler rides.

MICHAEL KAPLAN has a basement full of balloon-tire beauties, some worth thousands of dollars.

Slideshow: MassArt Bicycle Bible Cover Submissions

In a cramped basement in Watertown, collector Michael Kaplan squeezes another box of parts next to his $10,000 1934 Schwinn Streamline Aerocycle. At a bike shop in nearby Cambridge, 32-year-old Cig Harvey, in search of a gift for her husband, checks out a 1971 Hercules three-speed, while a group of Harvard sophomores looking for a rad ride to school try to score a slightly rusted Raleigh for 50 bucks.

Vintage bicycles, once an obscure subculture’s obsession, are gaining popularity as highly desired collectibles or cheaper, cooler rides. Craigslist and eBay have made many hip to the trade in vintage cycles and created a national, electronic swap meet. Plus, with more people going green, more want to do it style.

A bicycle is considered vintage if it’s more than 30 years old. The range of brands, styles, and designs is seemingly limitless. “The interesting thing is that the industry has made so many different products,” says Cambridge Bicycle owner Kip Chinian. “And there’s a lot of aesthetic beauty in every bike.”

Collectors usually favor a specific bike or period. The Wheelmen, a national group of more than 1500 19th-century bike enthusiasts, for example, collect, restore, and ride only bikes produced before 1918.

“Pre–[World War I] bikes were the epitome of bicycle design,” says Wheelmen member Dave Toppin. “You rode up high, where it was smooth and quiet, no chains clanking. You can’t get that today.”

The majority of collectors, though, focus on 1930s balloon-tire models (bikes with low-pressure, fatter tires). “When Schwinn introduced the balloon tire, suddenly comfort and performance were upgraded,” says Kaplan, who collected such bikes for 30 years. “The bikes became stylish and streamlined. They were even made of aluminum.”

Part of the continuing attraction of balloon-tire bikes is due to their rarity. When consumer aluminum was recalled during WWII, many of these bikes simply disappeared into government salvage drives — ultimate destination, unknown.

After the war, bike production in the US and Europe skyrocketed — 50 million bicycles were made in the ’50s and ’60s — making post-war models easier to find today, but less precious.

Christopher Lier, who works at Broadway Bicycle School in Cambridge, rides a British three-speed from the 1950s. “They’re tough bikes that hold up like new, especially for commuting,” he says.

The Grand

ELIZABETH FLOCK — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:40:25 GMT

Painfully funny poker fanatics
Having followed this band of winners and losers as they sort out their cards and their problems, you may just find yourself caring who wins in the final showdown.

Doomsday

ELIZABETH FLOCK — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:47:06 GMT

Two-hour nihilistic melee
At best a reminder of doomsdays past, at worst a symptom of what’s ailing the genre today.

Roll on

ELIZABETH FLOCK — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:20:16 GMT

Skating toward a massacre
Space suits, pink leotards, and townie wear. Add roller skates and a scowl, and you have a Boston Derby Dame.

Space suits, pink leotards, and townie wear. Add roller skates and a scowl, and you have a Boston Derby Dame. More than 50 women skate for the three teams that make up the Dames’ local league — teams gleefully known as the Cosmonaughties, the Nutcrackers, and the Wicked Pissahs — all wearing uniforms as sassy as their attitudes.

Roller derby is not a complicated sport. Teams race around an indoor track on old-style quad (not inline) skates, pushing, shoving, and hitting one another along the way in full-bore attempts to lap the competition. A DJ spins, the women collide, and a crowd of more than 1000 cheers, boos, and catcalls. It’s pure spectacle.

But this is not the sport your mother grew up with.

Roller derby is enjoying something of a renaissance after being saddled with a bad rep as a “fake sport,” à la professional wrestling, back in the ’70s, when it was first broadcast on prime-time television. In those days, there were lots of thrills and physical contact, though the emphasis was on story lines, and winners were often predetermined.

“It’s different now,” says Cosmonaughtie Claire D. Way. “We’re athletes. We take risks and put our bodies in the way of real harm.”

Since 2001, the sport has been revived in a grassroots fashion by small, independent, player-owned-and-operated all-female leagues. Approximately 48 local leagues now operate under the umbrella of the nonprofit Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA), formed in 2004. And the sport is still growing. When the Dames launched their first season two years ago, they had just 10 players.

Each Dame has her own cheeky rink name — everything from Pussy Venom to Tootsie Pop — and corresponding persona, awarded by the league once she’s proven her abilities and dedication. “Receiving your name is a real rite of passage for a player,” Dame Eva McCloskey, a/k/a Evilicious, a member of the townie-inspired Wicked Pissahs, tells the Phoenix in a throaty voice. (She’s currently at home with 30 stitches in her face and a nose broken in four places, souvenirs of her last competition.) “It means you’ve solidified your membership in the league.”

The Dames practice four times a week and do their own fundraising. A standard bout, or competition, involves 60 minutes of fervent, full-contact play, controlled by referees who enforce a stringent, if minimal, set of rules. One of them: no biting. Still, that doesn’t prohibit grinding a player from New York City’s Bronx Gridlock into the floor.