Toward a Total Theory of the Messenger Bag: Volume 3, the Israeli Paratrooper Bag

Years ago—12 or more—I had many special needs. I rode my bike everywhere, with a 12-mile round trip to work, regardless of Portland weather, and I didn't spend a lot of time at home outside of sleeping and (rarely) bathing. This all meant: I needed to carry layers, for rain, for stench and a hat to keep the sun out of my eyes and rain off of my glasses; I needed to carry entertainment (reading material [Moorcock paperback?], music, my beloved pink handheld, maybe a DS, one or another notebook); I needed to carry bike locks; I needed enough storage space to pick up a sudden Gundam or Stikfa, or wedge in a thrifted Dreamcast; I needed somewhere to tuck my travel mug; at the end of my idiot nights, I often needed a six-pack of tallboys and a Totino's party pizza.

I had two bags at that point. One, my college LL Bean Turbo Transit backpack, big enough that I once lived out of it, travelling, for six weeks, magnificently ugly, but not strong against rain, and not convenient for getting into / out of without taking it off. Two, an early model Timbuk2 messenger bag, modified by its previous owner to use a length of seat belt material as its strap—a bag I adored, but found too big for some summer nights.

Thus it was that Tinzeroes and I betook ourselves to the local surplus store, where I first encountered an item listed as an "Israeli Paratrooper Bag". My first reaction: "Wow, evidently Israel's paratroopers need to do a lot of paperwork, because this bag is like 80% pen slots." My second reaction: "I really like this bag's look, feel, size."

Besotted with notions of kit-bashing and customization, and at a surplus store, I bought a couple strips of hook and loop fastener, a big buckle, and a length of wide, thick strapping. Once home, I grabbed a case of dental floss, my sewing kit, my pocket knife, and an X-acto blade from my model-building set.

I added the hook and loop to close the bag's flap more easily, and replaced the shoulder strap, sewing in as much strength as I could with floss. I added an attachment loop for a blinky bike light, and heat-sealed the straps where I'd cut them with my pocket knife, held over the stove's burner. The X-acto knife cut out one of the two main compartment's dividers, freeing up space and lightening the bag a bit (but I think it was mostly just doing something for the sake of doping something).

Even for summer use, it was never quite big enough. With anything at all in it, it was a little too full for much more than a six-pack, and even the most wadded-up hoody would more or less fill it. And since I hadn't tested where to put the velcro, if the bag was too full, I couldn't close it. Rainy season ruled the bag out entirely for outdoor use: the thick canvas wasn't waterproof, or even really colorfast.

But I loved it. The experience of customizing it had only taken an evening, but had bonded me to it as securely as the shoulder strap was bonded to the bag's side wall.

The size was too small (14" wide, 11" tall, main compartment 4" deep), but every force that constrains my overpacking is welcome. The material wasn't waterproof, but it didn't promote gross back sweat as badly as a plastic bag on longer summer rides. Plus, the canvas was strong without being stiff or rough, meaning that it didn't tear up things it came into contact with (sweaters, for example) or wear through where it creased, with the exception of this one spot, after substantially longer than a decade.

The organization options weren't incredibly robust, but the flat pocket at the back wall was always a good spot for a U-lock, and the front pouch pocket always seemed to accommodate more than I'd expect. And a big empty main compartment is a must no matter what your needs are.

I still have the bag! I throw it in a larger bag sometimes if I'm flying somewhere I expect to be walking around a lot. It's also good for those late-night "need beer" rides. Most of my special needs from circa 2004 are no longer, but a good bag is a good bag. This is a good bag.

Previous entries:

• Volume 1: Jandd Hurricane Iniki
• Volume 2: Timbuk2 Especial Claro

Mother London

by Michael Moorcock (1988)

Mother London is Michael Moorcock's valentine to London - his childhood there, his youth there,neighborhoods and streets and boroughs he has haunted, people he has no doubt known and no doubt despised, memories of British movie stars and cheap pulp adventures, the ebb and flow of his own life reflected in chapters which invariably feature at least one sojourn to a London pub. And, of course, that distinct Moorcockian politik delightfully shot through the whole thing - sometimes a quick jab, sometimes in longer prose.

The novel charts the course of three survivors of the London Blitz - David Mummery, Josef Kiss, and Mary Gasalee, although not always at the same time and not sequentially and not exclusively. Notably, however, all three survived the Blitz: Mummery pulled heroically from the flames by the Black Captain; Gasalee and her newborn daughter surviving the destruction of her home and death of her husband in a bomb shelter (although Gasalee falls into a coma-state for several years after); Kiss can read minds, and is a hero of the Blitz as he could locate survivors.

All three are a bit off. Mummery is a crypto-historical geographer of London. During her coma Gasalee lived in the land of dreams, populated by 1930s movie stars, and did not visibly age at all during the long period of her sleep. Kiss shuns his gift and seems more the washed-up vaudeville performer than anything out of the comics, and is also haunted by the lament of his divorced and long unseen wife and child. Gasalee has also been the lover of the younger Mummery and the older Kiss. The social circles of all three overlap, and there is a host of secondary characters who step in and out of the narrative-perspective to provide peep-holes into specific chapters of London's past (1940 to 1985).

My Moorcock bibliography is, like most, steeped in Elric stories, plus some of his other Eternal Champion stuff and the first two Oswald Bastable books. Astute readers will know these are all thin paperback volumes, usually maxing out at about 200 pages. I read the considerably longer and meatier Gloriana, or the Unfulfilled Queen in the summer of 1997, I think. The descriptions of that fantasical alternative reality London are still with me (a heavy Peake homage by Moorcock, there, I think - the city described as almost one giant sprawling building). All by way of saying (with the exception of Gloriana) my Moorcock was limited to the lighter, more (let's just admit it) juvenile fare. Mother London is my first adult Moorocock novel, read by me firmly in, as it so happens, adulthood.

And here's the thing. After reading Mother London and the slightly related King of the City, I went back and read the Elric novel Stormbringer. That core Moorcock sense of politics? It's in Stormbringer, too, albeit mostly under the surface.

So, with me loving the politic in Mother London, and noting the politic under the surface of Stormbringer, read and consumed in my childhood, I realize that I am in fact an intellectual child of Michael Moorcock.

-d.d.