For a long time he watched her.
When she was lost to sight, he was almost a little moved.
“But that’s life,” thought Death.
Tag Archives: Karen’s Pick
The Epiplectic Bicycle
Have you heard about our Bike into Spring event taking place at the Dufferin Clark library? It’s taking place Saturday April 29th, which is in just over a week, so mark your calendars! Bring your bike and helmet for a bicycle-filled day of games, DIY workshops, stories, an obstacle course, and a whole lot more! The event starts at 1pm and ends at 4pm, and there are going to be lots of community participants there, including the York Region Cycling Coalition, Pedalheads, velofix Mobile Bike Shop, and more from the City of Vaughan & York Region.
Now, if your biking style is anything like Embley and Yewbert from The Epiplectic Bicycle, I don’t know whether to be envious of or worried for you. If we were looking at it as a regular story, I’d say that the two aforementioned are the two protagonists, but this is no regular book, so arguably, there are actually three protagonists – Embley, Yewbert, and the Epiplectic Bicycle – and the former two go on a trip using the latter, around… I’m not really sure around where, to be honest. Just around. (One might even say it’s not that the two take the third for a ride, so much as the bicycle takes Embley and Yewbert for a spin.) They go here and there, and (as Victoria pointed out to me) they explore so many things outside of the scope of this book that Gorey cuts out entire sections of their journey altogether, as you can see by the skipped chapters throughout. They even meet an alligator, who – on second thought, I won’t spoil it for you. The only way you can find out is if you take your bike around to try to meet that same alligator, or if you go and read The Epiplectic Bicycle!
Ernest and Celestine
Ernest is a poor bear down on his luck (and money. And food) and Celestine is a dentist-apprentice/page mouse who doesn’t really like her job all that much and doesn’t care that Bears are supposed to eat Mice and that Mice should be scared of Bears. Once caught by Ernest the hungry bear, she lays out her case for why he shouldn’t be eating her, and – wouldn’t you know it? Ernest puts her down. They become friends. Then they get into trouble rummaging for food and bear teeth (baby bear teeth are used by dentist mice to give rodents a new set of teeth when their own pair gets worn down). Which gets them into trouble with their respective societies, who behave in startlingly similar ways: vociferous rejection of even the consideration of the possibility that a Mouse (because they weren’t really considering Celestine, per se) and a Bear (because they weren’t really considering Ernest personally either, really) could be friends.