Disportations

[rejectomorph]

Torelli's History of the Tour de France. I like the pages covering the early years best. Full of old black-and-white photographs of guys on bikes. Handlebars on the bikes and on the riders' upper lips. There's something ineffably charming about it, and yet there is a vague unease as well, evocative of that time when the ancient world lingered, as yet unvanquished, in the same landscape with the modern. The music of Erik Satie kept playing in my head as I looked at these pictures. The charm begins to dissipate by 1920s, though. And then, for some reason, there are few photographs on the later pages, and none at all for some decades. It's just as well, I guess. Seeing what it once was, I have no desire to be reminded of what it became.