September 27, 2004
#231 :: Scale Motorcycle Model
(Penance round, for repeating myself last night): What matters is not that this is a precision 1:24 scale model of a 1942 Harley-Davidson "knucklehead" bike, in black and chrome. Nor that every tiny detail - from the leather seat rivets to the clutch-case bolts was hand-wrought on (probably) an Asian assembly-line by meticulous craftspeople with sable-hair brushes, religiously following a wholesaler's paint chart. No, what matters is that I can park the thing on my desk, pick it up to tinker with it and spin the wheels every hour or so, and enjoy it without the whole dodging-traffic-astride-a-raucous-unreliable- widowmaker-of-a-conveyance-that-could-leave-me-a- quadriplegic-vegetable-and-my-kids-orphans-because-some- tweaker's- too-busy-futzing-with-his-cellphone-to-pay-attention bit. Then the other half of me says, "Shut the fuck up and save your bucks or you'll never ride anything remotely this wicked before you die."