Rilke, Tolstoy, and travel...

your house is just
this side of great distances

Of course this has to do with bikes and books ... but first, I figure about half of you out there use Internet Explorer to view Bicycle Diaries. Microsoft's nefarious product doesn't load it very well. It often center justifies the posts putting the right sidebar all the way down to the bottom of the page. Try instead Mozilla Firefox as your browser. It's FREE, only taking a few minutes to load. It also has a great reputation in contrast to the Windows-based Explorer.

Someone who wants to run Windows on servers should first be made to show what they know about servers that Google, Yahoo and Amazon don't know.

Paul Graham

You'll not only see my blog as I intend it to be viewed. You and your computer will both be very happy. Firefox is more secure against viruses and hackers as well as less buggy than Explorer.

Speaking of explorers, I've been wanting to post one of my favorite poems about travel.

Entering

Whoever you are: step out in the evening
from your room where all is known to you;
your house is just this side of great distances:
whoever you are.
With your eyes which, exhausted,
barely free themselves from the worn threshold,
you raise up, slowly, a black tree
and place it against the sky: slender, alone.
And you've made the world. And it is vast
and like a word which ripens still in silence.
And as your will begins to grasp its meaning,
your eyes release it gently.

In 1900 Rainer Maria Rilke, a rather restless traveler, sought refuge with Leo Tolstoy at his ancestral estate, Yasnaya Polyana. Rilke, only 25 years old, already had an impressive array of publications to his credit. Unfortunately, this had done almost nothing to help his anxieties about writing. He shared them Tolstoy; later describing their conversation in a letter to friend,

I still lack the discipline, the being able to work, and the being compelled to work, for which I have longed for years. Do I lack the strength? Is my will sick? Is it the dream in me that hinders all action? Days go by and sometimes I hear life going. And still nothing has happened, still there is nothing real about me . . . .

To which Tolstoy gave a completely unexpected response. With neither sympathy nor pity, he simply said, Write!

Tolstoy could have easily said, bike! At the age of 67, he started teaching himself to ride. Visitors to Yasnaya often commented rather humorously on the sight of the aging anarchist rolling around his estate. Tolstoy was as brief in his response to them as he had been to Rilke.

I feel that I am entitled to my share of lightheartedness and there is nothing wrong with enjoying one's self simply, like a boy.

A smashing success!

Saturday,
23 January 2010

The BBC's
Cozy Hearth Tweed Ride
from Aaron Bussey
on Vimeo

Passeo Guernika

journey of discovery
Part II

I wrote, back in November, about my new journey of discovery in the Boricua neighborhoods of the West Side. My intention was to start a series of posts focusing on interesting things I discover on my daily commute to and from my new job at North Avenue & Rockwell.

My first discovery, so far, is this community mural along the viaduct at Rockwell & Bloomingdale. I have no idea who or what organization might've painted it but it's a beautiful adaptation of one of my favorite Picasso paintings, Guernika. I first viewed the original in Madrid at the Museo del Prado about eight years ago.

All along the wall opposite Guernika there is long and wide, light blue smudge about three feet from the floor. When I asked a guard what it was, he replied wryly smiling, blue jeans. It seems that so many people lean their asses against it, lost in contemplation, that they've left a faint, collective reminder of their awe. I won't belabor Guernika's history or meaning here. There are plenty of links that already do that quite well. Suffice it say, I appreciate the personal connection it creates with my new neighborhood .

Darkness...

the cure?

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went--and came, and brought no day

Lord Byron

Tweed in the 21st Century!

by the
Vulgar Lad

Heels on wheels

Beauty and the Bike

Directed by Richard Grassick and Beatrix Wupperman, the film follows a group of English teen girls from Darlington as they rediscover cycling via an exchange programme with German teen girls from Bremen. They trial a bike pool made up of Dutch-style sit up and beg town bikes.

Tour de Farce

by
Stoney Emshwiller

I agree with your comment 'bout bad cycling clothes
(Frankly I'd rather wear pink panty hose).
Please design bike-wear both aero and chic.
(And helmets that don't bring out everyone's geek).

As for bikers and stop signs: I do sympathize
But, indulge for a sec in this mind exercise:
Suppose when your Yugo was brought to a stop
you had to unclip from the brake pedal's top
throw open your door, slam your foot on the ground --
Wouldn't you tend to instead just slow down?

I know it's not right, but lets cool the grandstanding.
Not asking forgiveness -- just more understanding.
Illegal on sidewalks, un-welcome on streets,
urban biking is not the most stress-free of feats.
If I had a nickel for every close shave
with some cell-talking douche in a big Escalade . . .

Don't forget that for every damn bike you see out there
there is one less Corolla polluting the air.
One less commuter car riding your ass,
and one less fat dude in your gym's spinning class

So please give a break to us crazy bike riders.
It's scary as shit sharing streets with you drivers.
If you stubbornly want to play chicken instead,
Note: Your car might get scuffed, but we bikers get dead.

Space cowboy?

a little
Thanksgiving blessing!!!

I did my usual Thanksgiving dinner in Ohio on UffdaDave's farm. Sharing my love for all things Firefly, his son, Nate, turned me on to this wonderful snippet from Castle. It's the show Nathan Fillion landed in after playing Mel in Firefly! I just love how he drops into character ...

Disraeli Gears

cycledelia

This second album by British blues-rock group Cream was released in November 1967. It reached 5the place on the UK record charts. It was also incredibly popular in the States, becoming a massive seller in 1968 and reaching 4th on the American charts. It features the two singles Strange Brew and Sunshine of Your Love. But its title is based on an inside joke between Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker.

They were discussing Clapton's idea of buying a racing bike when a roadie, Mick Turner, commented, it's got them Disraeli Gears. What he actually meant was derailleur gears rather than the 19th Century British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli. Both thought this was hilarious, deciding to make it the title of the band's next album. Had it not been for Mick, it would simply have been entitled Cream.

Chicago seen

really seen
by Vivian Maier

She looks rather dour, this French immigrant who came to the States sometime before WWII. After a brief stint in The Big Apple, she settled in Oak Park, working as a nanny for a solidly Windy City, suburban family. Her immigrant story would've remained rather ordinary if it weren't for her photographic work (consisting of 20,000 negatives and about a thousand rolls of undeveloped film with 12-14 images on each) and John Maloof who bought it at a local estate sale. You can see here what he's gleaned from the vast collection. And you can read the story here of his attempts to meet her; she died days before he finally discovered her whereabouts, and then his efforts to discover who she actually was.

Though her life's details are spare, I think you can get a sense for Vivian from the sheer humanity (and sometimes humor) of her photography. It also reminds me that once upon a time, not all that long ago, The City of Big Shoulders was mostly working class folks little more than a generation removed from The Old Country.

She definitely had the eye for the great contradictions of our Prairie Metropolis. The photos of monumental buildings always include the human beings they supposedly served. More often then not, the foucs is tight, filling the scene with on the margins of successful, rich America in the 1950s and 1960s: the kids, the black maids, the bums flaked out on shop stoops.

It's a shame her artistry lived in obscurity. When I showed Vivian's photos to a co-worker here at Bickerdike, she mentioned that they would have made wonderful visuals for Studs Terkel's Division Street. As he wrote,

The nomadic, transient nature of contemporary life has made diffusion the order – or disorder – of the city….I guess I was seeking some balance in the wildlife of the city as Rachel Carson sought it in nature.

Bicycle wheels

by
Ugly Kid Joe

Life is to be lived on the positive tip
Never lose the ground
You never gonna slip
If you never lose the ground Always draw the line
Never wear the frown

Should've got myself some bicycle wheels
Should've got myself some bicycle wheels
Should've got myself some bicycle wheels

On the wings of steel
There's dinosaur's in countries
Everyone that I've seen
There's dinosaur's in countries
If you know what I mean
I always keep a watch on the ever changing future

Doing what I want
And you could do what suits you
I said throw your hands in the air
I like to see your armpit hair
Throw your hands in the air
I like to see your armpit hair

Life is to be lived on the positive tip
I'll never lose the ground
You know I'm never gonna slip
Never gonna slip, cause I never lose the ground
Always draw the line
You know I never wear the frown

Everything you wanted to know about Cricket

...but were afraid
to rap!

Thanks to San Francisco Tweed, here's the latest track from a new album from the chap-hop sensation. On the mean streets and cricket pitches of Surrey, Mr. B, the Gentleman Rhymer, reveals the strength of his cricket knowledge.

3 cheers for Dutch vélopunk

five minutes
in heaven

With Stardust Memories
by
Artie Shaw

Chicago bikewinter approaches

and with it
our 10th Anniversary

To get things rolling, we're aiming to encourage ALL fair-weather bikers within our propaganda's grasp to stay in the saddle through the longest, coldest nights. We'll meet on Tuesday, 22 September, 7 p.m. at the newer Billy Goat - 309 W. Washington (a nod to BW winter meetings of the past), directly following the One Million Less Cars Rally.

Les bicyclettes...

de Belsize

Odes to a bicycle bell

you only exist
as sound

Thanks to local Pittsburgh artists, Eric "Erok” Boerer and Teresa Foley, you can now have a bike bell ringtone. It's free and according to Erok, I’ve noticed that bike bells tend to bring smiles to people’s faces. No matter what happens, when you ring that bell, people get a kick out of it. It's also the most popular ringtone - 300 downloads and counting - on Foley's new website, Locally Toned. With a $1,000 grant from the Fine Foundation as well as support from other Pittsburgh-based art groups, it offers a great selection of novel ringtones with a local connection that is essentially an experiment in creating public art.

And while your waiting for the ringtone to arrive by text message, check out this simple little ode to the bike bell over at Copenhagenize: The bicycle bell/beams, happy/and round, a little/brain without power:/touch me, please touch/you only exist as sound.

Keeping your balance

w/Albert Einstein

Dulce et Decorum Est?

no, no ...

Over at the BBC, the Today programme asked Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, to write a poem commemorating yesterday's burial of Henry Allingham. He was the last of the British survivors of The Great War.

The title of this post refers to WWI's most famous poem written by Wilfred Owen. They're the first words of the Latin phrase popularized in an ode by Horace. The words were widely understood and oft quoted at the start of the WWI. They mean It is sweet and right. The full line ending Owen's poem is Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori or it is sweet and right to die for your country. In other words, it is a great honour to sacrifice yourself for your country. Owen, a British officer, was killed in action at the Battle of the Sambre a week before the war ended, causing news of his death to reach home as the town's church bells declared peace.

UPDATE

George Simmer's Great War Fiction research blog just posted and analyzes Duffy's poem, Last Post:

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If poetry could tell it backwards, true, begin
that moment shrapnel scythed you to the stinking mud . . .
but you get up, amazed, watch bled bad blood
run upwards from the slime into its wounds;
see lines and lines of British boys rewind
back to their trenches, kiss the photographs from home —
mothers, sweethearts, sisters, younger brothers
not entering the story now
to die and die and die.
Dulce — No — Decorum — No — Pro patria mori.
You walk away.
You walk away; drop your gun (fixed bayonet)
like all your mates do too —
Harry, Tommy, Wilfred, Edward, Bert —
and light a cigarette.
There’s coffee in the square,
warm French bread
and all those thousands dead
are shaking dried mud from their hair
and queuing up for home. Freshly alive,
a lad plays Tipperary to the crowd, released
from History; the glistening, healthy horses fit for heroes, kings.
You lean against a wall,
your several million lives still possible
and crammed with love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food.
You see the poet tuck away his pocket-book and smile.
If poetry could truly tell it backwards,
then it would.

Rolling along

solvitur
volubilis

I thought I'd start today's post by brushing up on my high school Latin. I don't think any Roman or Catholic ever said this. My inspiration is a more famous Latin phrase that I've always loved: Solvitur Ambulando.

It is solved by walking was first said by Diogenes the Cynic. It's come to be an appeal to practical experience when confronting any problem. Diogenes believed that pragmatic reason rather than tradition is the only guide for living one's life. If folks don't use reason to guide their conduct it would be better to treat them like animals and lead them on a leash.

Diogenes was considered a royal- pain-in-the-ass by his fellow Greeks. His devotion to practical experience was an overt criticism of the herd mentality of conventional Greek society; so much so that Plato referred to him as a Socrates gone mad. Later, Diogenes Laertius, in his Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, described this approach to life:

Most people, he would say, are so nearly mad that a finger makes all the difference. For if you go along with your middle finger stretched out, some one will think you mad, but, if it’s the little finger, he will not think so.

It should come as no surprise then that I believe that Diogenes's words offer a good guide for rollers. I've been finding all kinds of examples of folks who have solved problems by rolling.

For example, between 1952 and 1953, Willem de Kooning, the Dutch Abstractionist, painted Woman and Bicycle. Art critics generally agree that this painting is an attempt to come to terms with de Kooning's inner conflicts over women. Some even believe that the aggressively angular image of the woman sitting on a bicycle is inspired by Freud's dream theories of sexual repression.

Like de Kooning, Charles Wilson Peale, America's first preeminent artist and all around renaissance man, was fascinated by the possibilities of rolling. He invented his own velocipede, Latin for fast foot, "as a welcome diversion from his arduous painting projects". As David V. Herlihy's writes in his book, Bicycle,

Whenever his back began to ache, he would take a few spins atop his velocipede in the salubrious air of his garden, and return to his easel thoroughly invigorated.

In our own century, many bikers have realized that it is solved by rolling. Setting out from his home in Nepal on 29 November 1998, Pushkar Shah circumnavigated the world over the next eleven years. Why? In 1990, the Nepalese government arrested him for participating in the country's democracy movement. When he was released, Shah decided to spread the message of peace and hope for his country and for the world. This mission was not about material gain or international fame. It was simply about spreading the message of peace.

Whether for peace or future opportunities or relaxation or psychological closure, solvitur volubilis recommends itself because the open road is where anyone can think and reflect on their life and times. Utility is certainly important. Many bike just for that. Nevertheless, it is solved by rolling opens us up to many amazing possibilities.

If I was a bicycle seat...

life could be
oh so sweet

When I was a little boy
My momma, she said to me
Son, When you get big grow up
What you wanna be
I said to my momma
Don't wanna be no doctorman
A politician, a movie star
All those things I can
There's one job I'd like to have,
You can never beat
To be bolted to a chrome frame and be a bicycle seat


Life could be oh so sweet
If I was a bicycle seat
Ride, ride limbo treat
sit on me, I'm a bicycle seat
No more hustles, no more deals
No more trying to sneak those wheels
No more cruisin' or cosmic raps
No more staring at ladies laps
No more eyeing little worms
No more chasing after bumms
No more would you like to dance
No more getting in their pants
Everything i really mean
Is riding right to the bumper seat
No more smelling good to waste
With you pressed against my face