Toward a Total Theory of the Messenger Bag: From the Specific to the Universal (The Timbuk2 Classic Messenger)

In late 2015 (!), I had tried and failed to follow a huge, somewhat clunky but infinitely endearing messenger bag, the Jandd Hurricane Iniki, with a sleeker, more stylish number, the Timbuk2 Especial Claro. The style didn't work, but the way the company stood behind the failure made me interested in another of their options, so I ended up with the Timbuk2 Classic Messenger, in Medium, all black.

(The most basic, and basic black, bag around: the Timbuk2 Classic Messenger in Medium.)

I used it daily for more than a year, before putting it into a rotation with the Defy Strapped, and later mixing in the Jannd Shana (link tk). (As I review these receipts, I'm shocked that it only had something like fifteen months of unchallenged No. 1 status.) It's a nearly ubiquitous bike-bag option: in the Bay Area, it's still nearly impossible to leave the house (when you can leave the house) and not see one across somebody's back. It is I think, utterly nondescript, in a way that I kind of enjoy. While it's not wildly appropriate for every office environment, I work in California, so its ubiquity and nondescriptness add up to it being more or less invisible.

A very well put together read on a similar bag by Timbuk2 is by David Pouge at the Strategist. While his is not mine, a couple points he makes seem to me to apply perfectly. As he says:

There’s no corner of Timbuk2 bags that hasn’t been nerdily, almost hilariously sweated over

bigger inside than they look outside

(lengthy, detailed breakdown of his version's pockets, which are different than mine, so not relevant, though still fascinating)

Almost everything about this bag is just ... correct. If you have used any other bag, and thought about it, this bag will impress you as having made the right decision in almost every particular. (NOTE: according to some recent reviews, a lot of the things I will praise may have been phased out, so emptor your caveats and all that.)

Materials

(Cordura on the outside, TPU [whatever that is] on the inside.)

Materials are nearly perfect. The outside is the extremely standard Cordura, but a small, tight weave that holds up beautifully to knocks and dings, avoids snags, and doesn't seem to chafe wool or other materials unduly. The inside pockets are on a fabric panel that's made from a nice, light-colored (grey) smooth "packcloth" I guess they call it that isn't hard to wipe clean and is hard to stain, both of which, in my life, are great. There's also a "TPU" liner which helps keep things waterproof, and is even more wipeable. And only after five years has the TPU started to crack at all.

(Minor cracking of the lining after 5ish years.)

Straps

Not a ton to say here. Shoulder strap: you never notice it. This is good! If you notice a shoulder strap, it's probably because it's binding or chafing or pinching or something, or too slick so the bag slides around too much (like the Defy strap), or made from a wide enough weave to get torn up by the available velcro, like the new Jandd strap. This shoulder strap has none of those problems. It's just there, it's got a little pad on it that keeps pain from happening, it all just works.

There's a quick-adjust flappity that I'm less impressed with, as I routinely thwacked it out of place while under load, which causes the bag to hurtle to the end of the strap length, before jolting harshly, which: unpleasant. Only thing you can do is try to avoid thwacking / flicking. Probably good advice in general, and I honor this bag for teaching me a profound lesson.

The cross-body strap isn't as great: it doesn't easily stow out of the way when you're not using it. When you disconnect it, it's going to bang around your knees, which nothing on a shoulder bag should ever do. I bought a small retaining clip from Jandd, which helps when it works, which is some but not enough of the time. I don't know what would be better. Magnets, maybe? Seems like magnets might help.

There's also a strap that's sewn to the bag with a clip on the end to use as a key fob. People seem to like it. I have never used it, as my paranoia does not allow me to be happy with the idea of keys I own being in something that might not be touching my body at all times.

The straps connecting the main flap to the body of the bag are correct in two ways: the buckles are on the inside of the flap, which looks better and is no less usable than when they're on the outside; the body straps run all the way under the floor of the bag, allowing compression, and enabling stuffing something between the straps and the outside of the bag. (This is one thing I miss a lot when I'm using my Rickshaw Sutro Messenger.)

There's a grab handle, which is also correct. It's very simple, just a flat strap across the top of the bag, but it's usable and essentially invisible, which makes it nearly perfect. Since I tend to carry too much, I routinely worry that the velcro will fail to keep the whole thing together, but I don't think the hook/loop magic has ever actually failed me.

Pockets

Essentially perfect. It is deeply annoying to me that no bag reviews ever give enough detail on the pockets, as a bag just is a pocket, so pockets in pockets are obviously of grave importance. Gravest.

There's a laptop pocket across the back. It's padded on the bag side, but not on the wall side. It fits even my ridiculously large laptop (barely, with some stuffing / shoving and visible stress placed on the fabric), which is rad; a minor scourge of the bag design world is the sense bag designers seem to have that the only laptops that exist are Macs.

There's two water bottle holders. One mesh, one smooth. Both fit a small / 16 oz. type Nalgene bottle fine, but not the standard / 32 oz. size. These are pretty helpful, if only because verticality is a nice thing to impose on a liquid-carrier (and because it's nice to not have your bottle go sideways and start poking you in the back).

And then there's the front wall, a dense city block of pockets. Across the inside front wall: wide pocket; narrow pocket; narrow pocket; wide pocket. The wide pockets are wide and deep enough to hold a hard-sided glasses case (a necessity for me), or two iPhone 6s or similar mid-sized phones. Most bags don't bother to have something that comfortably fits a glasses case, and most bags suck for that reason. The narrow pockets hold two sharpies. Probably could fit three narrower pens, but that would be fussy and insane. Who would do that?

(Detail on the inside pockets under load.)

Behind the front wall, a zippered pocket that doesn't quite run the width of the wall, nor quite to the bottom of the front wall. I believe it should. But it's still a super good place to keep a backup handkerchief, maybe a smaller / thinner notebook. It's not quite deep enough for a typical Moleskine, nor tall / wide enough for my big Baron Fig notebook. But a memory card, a lighter, tampons, or whatever, it's all real good for this pocket.

On the outside of the front wall, a zippered patch pocket (with that little key fob) riding a top-loader. These pockets are bracketed by two vertical strips of the hook side of the hook-and-loop fabric. It's a great way to minimize the amount of this destructive material, but it's still exactly and precisely where a man's sleeve will go most often, thereby getting snagged. The top-loader could stand some pen slots, probably, but I never lost any sleep over it. These two are separated by just a little bit of packcloth, which finally got a bit shredded by the pointy types of cargo I tend to carry here (knives, jacks, throwing stars, etc.). Behind these is my favorite name for a pocket ever: the Napoleon pocket, a side-loader that runs wider than the two square pockets and is a perfect fit for a small tablet (7" say).

(Outside front pockets detail with Napoleon pocket.)

(You knew I was going to show you the damage done by the hook side of hook-and-loop fasteners: check out that fraying! That minor fraying after five years of use.)

Size

This bag has a nominal capacity of 21 liters (1,282 in³). This isn't huge, and the bag certainly doesn't look terribly large, but it always feels as though you can hold Just One More Thing (the bag version of moreishness).

I think it's the depth of the bag that really does this: it's listed as 18.1 inches wide (top, 14.6 inches wide at bottom) which are nothing particularly large, but the 7.09 inches of depth allow a LOT of frank stuffage. Check out the image: that's a bag with four tallboys, a laptop, a coffee mug and a water bottle in it and the bag looks essentially empty. Incredible.

(A bag with a lot in it that doesn't look like it's got a lot in it.)

Historical note on size: After the Jandd, it was very difficult for me to adjust to anything under two-cinder-block carrying capacity. I destroyed the Especial Claro by being unable to pivot to a different strategy. When I traded the Claro for this Classic, still in the shadow of the Jandd Iniki, it wasn't immediately obvious to me that that the Classic was big enough. Since 2015, though, I have tried out the Defy Strapped (nominal capacity unavailable), the Jandd Shana (nominal capacity 1,338 in³ / 22 liters [but I absolutely don't believe this, details tk]), and the Rickshaw Sutro (nominal capacity 905 in³ ~15 liters), and without seeming bulkier than any of these, it just carries more than any of them.

Carrying

Times have changed since I first started thinking about this stuff. Amangst other things, I changed jobs, and my new job (smashing capitalism) required me to buy a car (there are some contradictions)—see here my recent obsession with grab handles—so I don't always remember to stress out about how it goes to stuff in / yoink free a U-lock or two from a stuffed messenger bag, but two features of this bag make those tasks more reasonable: the main compartment is big and deep not small nor shallow, and there's a layer of foam running across the laptop pocket. This foam helps avoid the ol' U-lock kidney strike-&-massage, which is a good thing. I have noticed that it's pretty common to scrape out the pens from the inside wall when pulling out a lock, which is annoying. Mostly it all works real well! All that said, at this point, when I need to carry my locks, I mostly just hang the locks off the shoulder strap.

Punchline

Two thousand words later, on this one bag, this bag that's the most generic thing out there anywhere, after thousands of other words on the specifics of my totally individual needs ... I discover that what works best for me, is the thing that works best for everybody.

David Pogue (and Timbuk2's own marketing copy) is correct: the Classic Messenger is basically a perfected object, with years of lessons incorporated and snags smoothed out. If you can get the one I got, and the reviews on the site right now suggest you may no longer be able to, it's difficult to imagine you wouldn't be happy with it.

(Detail on the inside pockets without load and zipper pocket open.)

Previous entries in the total theory of messenger bags megathread:

• Volume 1: Jandd Hurricane Iniki Messenger Bag
• Volume 2: Timbuk2 Especial Claro
• Volume 3: The Israeli Paratrooper Bag
• Volume 4: Defy Strapped

On Hooks and Loops

Up late the other night, reading reviews of four-hundred-wing-wang backpacks I am absolutely not going to buy, as one does, I finally found someone who agrees with one of my longest-standing Bag Design Gripes: setting up a layout that rubs the hook side of hook-and-loop fastener against Cordura, or any other fabric with a woven texture, ensures that the fabric will get chewn up by the hooks.

As he writes:

One thing was disappointing; the extremely large, long panels of velcro on the flaps of this bag catch and pull at the nylon used on the borders at the top of the slash pockets and the very edge of the foam back-panel. This makes these parts of the bag look fuzzy with extremely thin loose threads.

However, this pioneer hero far surpassed my humble efforts by not merely diagnosing a vexing problem but actually then sallying forth and essaying a by-god solution: thus

I painted the edge of the slash pockets with Silnet silicone sealer; looks awful, but it’s not showing any signs of wearing further than it has. Functionally, it’s fine, but aesthetically, it’s a knock.

That solution is a tiny bit upsetting, in that it involves slathering hundreds of dollars of equipment with some kind of ... bag chapstick. A previous solution I have seen a few places, probably most notably from SF's own Rickshaw Bags, is to cover the hook-and-loop fastener with something, so that it can't snag stray fabric. Nor, in that case, can it ... fasten, which seems a fairly difficult trade to agree to. But, in Rickshaw's case, they employ strange and troubling magic the spooky action at a distance known as "magnetism" to substitute at least some attraction in the absence of the covered fastener's presence. Witness:

This of course will be nowhere near as strong a closure. Another, then, imperfect solution to the problem of hook/loop material. Perhaps the true solution, as no less than Margret Atwood has suggested, is to be more careful with one's relationship with hooks and eyes:

[you fit into me]

you fit into me
like a hook into an eye

a fish hook
an open eye

—Fat, who wishes to sacrifice zero more sweater sleeves unto the power-hungry maw of front-of-bag hooks

More Great Urinals (of the Pacific Northwest) (And Toilets, Too!)

For some years now, our own redoubtable Tinzeroes has devoted himself to the documentation of our great land's more notable stand-up pissoirs, as one can review, thus.

Thus it was my foundations were rocked by a care package from a Vancouver-based podcast listener who sent along not only a Canadian-flag pin (which rode my bike bag all through Paris last year) but also some cool records and a couple old free weeklies, which ... contained ... the following: Vanpooper: rating the best (and worst) of Vancouver's public toilets by Michelle Hanley.

(Am I saying that Michelle Hanley has been reading this blog since its inception in 2006? Yes, clearly I am saying that Michelle Hanley has been reading this blog since its inception in 2006.)

Beneath this paragraph are more zoomed-in pictures, in case you want to do deeper into these great toilets. (And beneath the waves, an ocean!)

(Honestly for an airplane bathroom this one doesn't look that bad.)

(Non-flushing chairs in bathrooms always exude a powerful and frightening energy. But I'm heartened to see a place of business with an actual open-to-the-public facility. Living in the East Bay and occasionally visiting San Francisco, I'm more familiar with the brutal and inhumane practice of not allowing customers or others have a clean private place to excrete.)

(False Creek? That's a name that makes me want to know a story! Obligatory link to Expo '86.)

Precautions on Zipper Use

Precautions on Zipper Use

On vacation, carrying a second-hand roller bag, my ritualized carrying-too-much approach started to impose negative consequences as the bag began to degrade. Day one saw the top handle detach from the bag's body. The last day, pulling a zipper closed, the part I was pulling came off in my hand.

Obviously, once we were on the train, I needed to look up zippers so I would know what their parts are called. I was more or less hoping for a zipper enthusiast site, something like Ian's Shoelace Site, but for zippers. What I found, however, was a full-on brand experience brought to me by YKK. Turns out the part that was in my hand, and no longer attached to the zipper, is called the "pull-tab"! Mission more or less accomplished.

But once you get locked into a powerful vein of specialized information, it can be difficult to pull yourself away, and that's how I ended up on a page entitled "Precautions on Zipper Use". As a clumsy man, with a penis, I'm well aware of at least one major zipper precaution that I would recommend, strongly, to anyone who finds themselves described in this sentence, but that precaution, involving tucking and double-checking, was not to be found on this page, and that lack is literally the only thing wrong with the page.

From "Rough Slider Operation" to "Proper Laundry Procedure", this page will likely teach you more or less everything you need to know about zippers and will almost certainly leave you muttering "STOP. SAYING. 'ZIPPER'" after a while. Some of the warnings will be familiar to the real zipper freaks amongst us—who doesn't at this point know that you rub a candle on a sticky zipper to thereby introduce a lubricative coating?—but it's nice to have everything compiled into a single (re-)source, so you know how to wash, iron, protect, and use your zippers and the fabric around them. Plus the art is really cool. Here's a taste.

(Some art from Precautions on Zipper Use. Note the extremely cool box-outline that shows what the important part is.)

And here is some of the text. I particularly like the style here. It's masterfully clear, and it's so dry it might as well be being narrated by Fred Willard.

Pulled Out Elements

Trying to forcibly close the zipper of an overfilled bag will cause element and tape breakage due to the excess load on the elements.
Reduce the burden by reducing the content of the bag and by bringing both sides of the chain close to each other before closing the zipper.

Fabric Caught in Slider

A slider may catch the fabric, hampering its operation.
Avoid forcing it to move or it will worsen the problem.
Slowly move the slider while pulling out the caught fabric.
Please allow enough room for the slider to move smoothly when sewing the zipper onto the fabric.

Anyway, zippers are good and cool and should be treated with care and respect, whether they are true YKK zippers or not. Please, if you are a real citizen of our fair Reviewiera, act always in accordance with the teachings revealed unto us and curated into our consciousnesses by the good folks responsible for Precautions on Zipper Use.

PEN 15 Club 2: more on the Sharpie(r)|Pen., questions posed and answered

Well, I knew this would happen. When you say something as controversial as I did yesterday—"the Sharpie®|Pen. implement is pretty okay for writing things with" was merely the felt tip of my offensive offensive—you're going to have to expect pushback. And pushback I have from Pen Internet and elsewhere received.

Occasional contributor and life partner Pierre Idiot Trudeau, perhaps predictably, mounted the fiercest assault on my position.

I'm confused as to how these Sharpie Pens are different from the Sharpie fine and Ultra Fine markers. Is there a ball or different ink release system? I know that you've used those others I've mentioned, so I'm curious as to what makes it different/more pleasing.

Later, a pervert calling him-or-herself "Unknown"* continued the savage pile-on.

*Likely fucking story, friendo.

I have a bunch of conflicting emotions about pens. My trusty Micron is great for small missives, but if I truly want to make a statement I have a Sharpie in a holster. I tried the double tip dueling fine point/regular Sharpie, but hardly used the fine point. Turns out, I only use the Sharpie for making signs or responding to analog social media. There are a number of other instruments in my pen-theon which I will leave until another entry on which to elaborate.

"Pen-theon" is pretty good, though, so kudos for that. To address these wild accusations: I did not explicitly compare the Sharpie®|Pen. to the more common Sharpie "permanent" marker, for two reasons. First, I am a MarksALot man**, and brand loyalties are important***. Second, I mostly write on paper, and people who use Sharpie markers to write on paper make me uncomfortable (nervous, irritable). I have tried this, under the occasional influence of one disreputable brute or another, from time to time, and the overwhelming experience is one of bleed-through, of paper more ruined by ink than (ad-)dressed by it. The hand feel of a Sharpie marker is also completely vile: chub-stubby and slick—no, thank you!!

**No, I'm not.
***No, they aren't.

Recently I uncovered a smallish cache of the small-tip Sharpie markers, and attempted to deploy them to label presents. Stolen from work a job ago, they had all gone dry, nestled patiently in my art silo. The metaphor is, of course, clear.

The tip question posed by Pierre Idiot Trudeau is easy enough to answer. The Sharpie®|Pen. boasts a standard protrusive cylinder felt-tip, no ball to be found, basically the same format as the Micron art pen. The Sharpie marker, of the small-tipped variety, does, I believe, incorporate a ball encased by a plastic cone (among its other failings)****, whereas the more common "fine point" marker is a thick, slab-like cone of felt.

(Note here the tip propaganda of the manufacturer, included so that we may better understand not what to think, but what we are wanted to think, by those who are not our friends.)

****I can't verify this, because I took all the ones I had and threw them in the fucking garbage, where I assume they remain, sucking shit. I took a long look at Sharpie dot com, and could not find the sort of pen I am remembering. After additional research, I have come to believe that I may have been remembering not a Sharpie, but an Expo Vis-à-Vis dry erase marker of some sort, or a Sharpie equivalent. I fail to see how this minor error in identifying the tool I was using could in any way invalidate anything I have said about the experience of using the tool. :(

(I don't even like looking at these hateful objects.)

Perhaps more important than the tip is what comes out of it. Standard Sharpie marker ink is, as I have hinted, not my favorite thing to apply to paper (except for wrapping paper, a task that comes up not very frequently, as I am an ingenerous clod), but the Sharpie®|Pen. issues forth something that, as the container indicates, "won't bleed through paper", which is cool. Using science, I have determined that the Sharpie marker and Sharpie®|Pen. do in fact have different inks: as the image below indicates, Sharpie markers can write on glass, whereas the Sharpie®|Pen. cannot, to its credit.

(Science!)

So. To recap, always a good thing to do with your pen:

• Tip differences: Sharpie®|Pen., a pleasing cylinder of felt jutting from a metal tube, like a tiny Chrysler building; Sharpie marker, a galumphing, turgid pile
• Ink differences: Sharpie®|Pen., a kind, gentle fluid optimized for gracing, indeed grazing, paper, whence good adults write; Sharpie marker, a harsh substance perfect for those who wish to "make their mark" on arbitrary surfaces (childishly)

Of course, Pierre Idiot nor his campaign were finished.

I have specific pen/marker/highlighter needs/opinions based mostly around the paper that's getting written on. I petitioned my boss - unsuccessfully - to allow us to buy the one step up paper that we used to buy because it "feels better to write on". This was met mostly with eyerolls, but a bit of sympathy from the very same people.

Indeed! Sadly under-recognized, except by the attractive geniuses who read this post, is the vast truth that: The Paper ... Makes the Pen. The barrel matters regardless of surface, but the pen's contents and tip are wildly at the mercy of whatever you're planning to rub them on! This is one reason an ultimate pen, much like an ultimate morality, can likely never be discovered. As for your boss, I recommend collective action and concerted activity. Be unwavering in your demands, unstinting in your efforts, and unquenched in your desire for total victory (read: slightly better office supplies). You might try framing it as a workplace safety issue, if you can. "Paper cuts are causing paper cuts" is a slogan I can hardly imagine meeting with anything but immediate boss capitulation.

Now, if you want to talk highlighters, this here is the gold standard. Smear Guard ®

I didn't, but thanks for the input.

That bit about "childishly" was a joke.

PEN 15 CLUB

Took a quick look at the last time I talked about pens, my mind aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor of invention, and had a discomfiting, disconnected moment. I could scarcely recognize the child I was, tho' the child ever is father to the man, nor credit the opinions he expressed.

Particularly alien I found the conclusion, in which 2017 Fat plumped for reaching in the main for the Pilot (Precise) V5. This bears essentially no relation to current practice, preference, or predilection. The (r)evolution has I think more to do with what I'm writing on than what I'm writing with.

(I found this pen in the bag of scissors / tape / pens / etc. I maintain for Xmas-present-wrapping operations. Man, I sure chewed on this one a lot.)

I've been working, with a kind of dogged, halting persistence, to refine my notebook approach, spurred by conditions both material (I have roughly a dozen Field Notes notebooks on hand) and ideological (I love those Field Notes notebooks, and the uniformity of writing things in identical containers drives a certain urge towards tweaking my approach to their filling, until I feel optimized, plus I have watched more than one video about bullet journaling). Details on all that to come. But with a striving towards consistency and perfection must come a desire for sameness—in this case, yoked to an/the ever-present lust for novelty, viz., I saw a new-to-me kind of pen when I was in a stressful situation and (therefore) in need of easeful consumption—and thus came into my life the stirring adequacy of the spartanly named Sharpie®|Pen., whose chubby, softish barrel is bleh at best, but inoffensive, and whose tip and ink please nigh-invariably.

(You may be able to see that the tip is slightly bent, because I dropped it point-down onto a hard floor, almost immediately after starting to use it. This is vaguely reminiscent of using a pencil, and I kind of like it.)

Not as stable a platform as the light carbine of the Le Pen nor the fully functional Batmobile of the Micron ~Art Pen~, it hits much the same marks, but with waterproof ink and a less intimidating mien. I tried to use it exclusively in my most recent notebook, and except for the day I forgot it at work and had to press back into service one of my absolute favorite (green) Le Pens, I succeeded. Pleasing consistency!

That notebook (was) finished last night; the next follows. After a painstaking review of my Pen Situation and my Evolving Habits, I have decided to retire the Sharpie®|Pen. for the duration of that notebook (48 pages, usually around as many days), for reasons I will describe just as soon as they are clear to me.

(These are fine-tipped, 0.8 mm. I wonder what the Ultra Fine experience is like??)

More Notes on the Total Theory of the Messenger Bag: Defy Marketing (The Defy Strapped)

Sometimes, I am a complete sucker. This is the story of one of those times.

(The Defy Strapped, sejant.)

As should be clear, I do like to shop. And a man's craving for novelty can be real, and confounding. Thus it was that late in 2016, I took occasional respite from ... life, by browsing endless for that great passion of mine, the new messenger bag. Somewhere in there, a company called Defy arrived and began issuing pronouncements which intrigued:

• Materials matter: we have an intriguing sourcing model and are using elements others aren't, from recycled bike innertubes for trim, to truck tarp for the bag body, and to seat-belt webbing for strapping and pocketing
• Local, local, local: handmade in America (Chicago)
• Design is king: let's use our neat materials in novel ways
• It's expensive as all hell: so it must be good!

I should have understood what I was looking at. The company story—because isn't that what we're all interested in? the stories ... of companies?—was and is explicit: "I'm a marketer who has moved into making things." SPOILER: what the company is good at making is in fact marketing collateral; their bags are not great. Or at least the bag I bought is not great.

The main problem is the material. Defy—and other companies—are, reasonably enough, bored with the same old Cordura fabric that essentially every company uses to make messenger bags. To differentiate themselves, they try new stuff. Defy thought to try something they call "M35 Military Truck Tarpaulin Material". Here's what they say about it:

M35 Military truck tarpaulin vinyl/canvas is the same heavy duty tarpaulin used to protect US servicemembers in theater today. It's thick, matte, rubbery feel makes for an incredibly durable bag material which with use over time starts to soften & wear nicely taking on a different patina and character. While it's tougher than the vast majority of tarp material used by other bag companies with enough beating, use and life it can eventually show signs of wear. Those wear marks are a badge of honor! It's military tough as hell for sure, but nothing's indestructible even though it may look it!

If you don't want the material to crack and fray, don't, uh ... buy this bag.

The truth of course, is that the thick, matte, rubbery feel is extremely cool fresh out of the box. About a week later, the outside feels like plastic. (The inside still feels pretty cool.) "After enough abuse it will start to show wear" means that instantly the material will start to crease, and the bag's own hardware will immediately mar the fabric and leave visible scars. Anywhere the bag folds regularly will split and tear. In short, the material isn't strong enough to stand up to itself, much less significant "beating, use and life". To call it "incredibly durable" is at best puffery, at worst a lie. I had scarred it badly within five days of receiving it: it arrived on January 12; on January 17, I pinched the flap between the bottom of a seat at a movie theater and a bottle of wine I'd smuggled into the theater. Smuggling a bottle of wine into a movie theater is, to me, is basically the definition of "normal use", and five days of "normal use" should not permanently mark a bag. Using this material defies convention, to be sure, but no less does it defy usability.

Another major miss is the buckles. Defy is nutty for buckles. Their marketing consists mainly of impassioned praise of these crazy buckles they buy from Austria: supposedly they can hold 1,500 pounds or something, but, when the fabric they're sewn to couldn't possibly hold half of that, who gives a damn? And why would a person want to close their messenger bag that hard anyway? Anyway, all their bags feature these buckles, except for one, the one I bought, which is called the Strapped. First, it's Strapped because it heavily features seat-belt straps, as the shoulder strap, as reinforcing strapping, and as the business-card-and-pen holder. Second, it's for people who strapped for cash, because it's the same form factor as the more expensive Recon bag, but replaces the ridiculous buckles with buckles that are cheaper ... but still ridiculous.

(When the buckles are big.)

See, there is simply no reason to use two two-inch buckles to close a bike bag flap. It looks cool, but is pointless overkill. And, since they're simply difficult to use one-handed, they're less functional than they should be. The whole point of a messenger bag is easy access to the contents, balanced with being able to secure them quickly. This bag fails on both counts. On material and hardware, Defy allows visual appeal to outrank functionality.

This trend—good visuals, poor use—continues when we examine the pocketing and storage options. The slash pocket across the back of the bag does fit a slim laptop: my work Mac fits there, I think my old work Windows machine did as well, but my beautiful boat anchor from Zareason decidedly does NOT fit. (That most bags are designed for the smallest laptops on the market is a sad fact.)

I'm not the best writer, editor, or management stooge. But I AM a man with a very, very large laptop. pic.twitter.com/WHA8rZO4RK

— Chris Collision (@cfCollision) March 14, 2015

The front pocket is okay. It's quite tall, though very shallow. A quick-access pocket like this is always going to have more of my stuff in it than is reasonable, so I can't blame it too much for not being thick enough, but it's worth noting that my glasses case alone is basically enough to make it bulge. (If I had one message to all bag makers, it would be: always include one pocket that fits a glasses case; there are people with prescriptions in this world, after all. My first Jandd had this, as did one of my Timbuk2 bags, and for my needs, this is, essentially, essential.) It's probably too flat/shallow, if I'm being fully critical, and arguably too tall, because small things are inevitably at the very bottom, under my glasses and earbuds, so it's tough to get my chapstick or whatever. But whatever, it's fine. It's fine.

(If the pockets you make are too short for a pocket notebook, the pockets you make are too short.)

The internal pockets, riding on the front of the back slash pocket, are a different story. It's not clear to me why they are the size they are. I.e., what the hell is supposed to go in them? They're too shallow for the Mac power brick they're a half-good fit for, and they're too short for a tablet or even a small-sized pocket notebook. What's up with these? In the event, I stuff them full, with my knife, my brush and comb, my little notebooks, and other crap I need to find more or less quickly. They're bulgy and everything in them scruffs out over the top unappealingly, but they're there, anyway, and you can (sort of) put (some) things in them.

The main compartment is intriguing, in that it is simultaneously too big (it's incredibly tall and quite wide, call it 13.5" tall and 15+" wide at the bottom, wider at the top) and too small (it's preposterously thin, something like 5.5" when it's sitting, thinner when lifted/carried). The general experience of using it involves the top 3 or 4 inches being filled with air, and whatever you want to pull out of it being underneath something else and difficult to get. This bag is wildly not meant to be used like an actual messenger bag—swung off the back to the front, the flexible flap pushed easily aside, the cargo quickly in hand and the bag just as quickly flapped closed and pushed back out of the way—the flap is too stiff, and the bag doesn't yield its treasures without some wrangling, because its top is narrow and a good couple inches higher than it needs to be. For office use, its obvious intended function, though, it's basically okay.

Keen-eyed observers will have noted that none of the pockets close in any way (except the main compartment), which is a sop to two purported failure points or annoyances: first, zippers are held to be fragile; second, velcro hook and loop fastener is held to be annoying. These are both more or less true. Things have slipped out of the internal patch pockets, probably because they're too short, but I don't think anything fell completely out of the bag at any point, and the absence of fasteners is something I came to find quite appealing.

Overall storage is not great. With most bags, you're buying a system as much as a bag, and here, there's just not much in the way of a system: no way to mount other carrying options, nor anything interesting in the way of internal bags to add. To organize my belongings, I ended up using a congeries of Jandd ditty bags and a few options Noodles, TWBGITW, has sewed together for me over the years. And since the Strapped's effective carrying capacity is so small, I started carrying a second bag for my lunch and leaving my dopp kit and spare clothes in the car, instead of being able to carry them with me. Probably good for my discipline, in that it helps teach me not to overpack, but inconvenient nonetheless.

Riding the front of the bag are my favorite features by far. By sewing a length of seat-belt strap to the wall, they are able to make a business card holder and three pen slots. The pen slots need a thicker pen, and one with a clip: my Le Pen (pictured) has been knocked through and gone missing several times, but it's just such a cool way to make a pen slot, I can't stay mad at the bag. Similarly cool is that little business card holder. The D-ring and the snap ring are also excellent, and that they're attached with scraps of recycled innertube is functional, thrifty, and unique. Across the front of the bag, in other words, is Defy at its absolute best: interesting materials used in unusual ways to good effect. If everything about the bag were designed and made this well, this would be the best bag on the market. Or anyway, would be a much better bag than it is.

The inner color, and this must be mentioned, is actually beautiful. My second-favorite feature most days (and my favorite, on the days the pen holder fails to hold my Le Pen). Sadly, this green material is even softer than the outside fabric, and can be scuffed or scarred even more easily. The bag's own hardware scratches it, and a USB stick plugged into a laptop did the same.

The shoulder strap is okay. It's wide and comfortable, but not grippy. When thrown over a shoulder, instead of cross-body, it's constantly causing worry that it's going to slip off. There is a grab handle. This seems like a small thing, but it's as easy to put one on as it is to leave one off, and the incremental convenience it adds, when compared to the cost/benefit of not having one, makes it a practical necessity.

In a very frustrating move, if you want to ride a bike with this bag, you're going to have to buy an extra strap, which is going to add something like 25% to the cost of the bag. This hidden cost is a really annoying way to do business.

Costs in general seem a little high, compared to the value received. While the bag does come in a lovely bespoke cardboard box sealed with Defy-branded tape, this isn't something that helps me fit my laptop, nor does it take the edge off the experience of watching the fabric disintegrate under normal use.

In the end, it's a decent bag sold as an outstanding one. If you saw it in the store, you might find it appealing and want to take it home. Its design is essentially identical to the Israeli Paratrooper bag (main compartment, slash pocket behind it, pouch pocket riding the front with mad pen slots, not much else), which presents a blend of more or less adequacy and more or less elegance. It does have a terrific look, and if it hadn't been so relentlessly oversold by Defy's marketing collateral, it might be an easy bag to love. But it was relentlessly oversold, so my experience with it was mostly a disappointing one. Failures of design—poor materials choice, pocketing decisions made according to appearance rather than function, ill-conceived hardware—overwhelm the Strapped's virtues, and that these failures so closely correspond to what the company claims as its strengths leaves the buyer feeling betrayed, or even cheated.

It's worth noting that Defy may have independently come to similar conclusions as mine: the Strapped is no longer available on the Defy site; the tarp material doesn't seem to figure as centrally in their messaging; the new version of the bag is less tall, and deeper. These are all positive moves. One hopes that their evolution continues to blend functional considerations into the mix that produced a Strapped that was overwhelmingly concerned with appearance.

Previous entries in the total theory of messenger bags megathread:

• Volume 1: Jandd Hurricane Iniki Messenger Bag
• Volume 2: Timbuk2 Especial Claro
• Volume 3: The Israeli Paratrooper Bag

Previous entries in being a complete sucker:

• The U-Turn Audio Turntable Debacle

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

Today in Romance Comics (#4)

Could be worse

Today in Romance Comics (#3)

Important questions are posed but not really answered...

Today in Romance Comics (#2)

Still not sure where this going...

One Off

The Frank Frazetta Feet Phobia Feature

Frank Frazetta started out as a comic book artist doing jungle books and such but then one day someone asked him to do a movie poster, and he purportedly made more on that single commission that he was making in a whole year doing comics, so he gladly went over to the commercial art field where he did a lot of book covers and posters and such featuring lily white topless women and about three poses of be-muscled beefcakes hefting a sword or an axe (no offense he was a good illustrator but the formulaic and repetitive nature of his work gets to you when you have to go through it like I did for this).

But the real gold standard of his work is his ritualistic avoidance of drawing the feet of his subjects.  Over and over and over and over again (see below), the feet of his figures are conveniently behind an object in the foreground, off the edge of the panel, or shrouded in shadow.

 

Since becoming aware of this I have noticed that a fair share of current and former comic book artists do the same "cheat" so FF is by no means alone in this regard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The below is one of my faves: her feet aren't quite in shadow - they just sort of blur out...

 

 

 

 

Hey here's a foot! Although it could easily also be the bottom of a really dirty sock - doe that guy have two giant toes?

 

 

 

Three, maybe even four feet in this one below!  The one in the dead bottom center is pretty weird looking...

 

 

 

I guess the sky light people in this one have feet?

 

 

 

 

This last one: WHERE ARE HIS BALLS??

 

-d.d.