...Illustrative Friday Fun

This is to give you an idea of some of the art I've been checking out recently. Good stuff for the most part...

You may have noticed that I've started to put forth at least a minimum of effort in citing images and work on this blog. While I'm personally of the mind that things like art and technology are created 'pro bono' as they say in legal parlance, and are for common benefit, credit should be given where credit is due.

I've been slow to accept the garish 'colorways' that seem to dominate contemporary painting, graphic design, and illustrative fields; but I knew one day I would chance upon something that would pique my aesthetic sensibilities more than the crap the 'stream poops out.

(image used without permission from Francoise Nielly)

(image used without permission from Matt W. Moore)

(image used without permission from Gianluca Fallone via thecoolhunter.net)

(image used without permission from Kenji Hirata)

...oh no (and other things)

I recently stumbled across this frightening news about an amendment to bicycle road-use law in England. Apparently, due to the teeming British salmon populations, the government has relented and is allowing cyclists "to ignore no-entry signs"(aka ride against traffic) in an effort to promote cycling to people who are annoyed by having to ride an extra 500 feet to safely and legally arrive at their destination.

I have to say, encouraging cycling by allowing people to salmon is as good an idea as discouraging obesity by handing out free cocaine or promoting healthy eating habits by handing out fast food coupons.

My fear of bike-salmon, combined with the fast-approaching winter months, has led me to gain a considerable interest in Goldsprints. I always liked the idea of having a game to play or sport to watch when imbibing myself with booze at the local saloon, but never jived with the typical crowds at sports bars.

Thankfully, roller races and goldsprints offer marshmallows like me an opportunity to get wasted at a bar while watching a sport I actually give a shit about.

Here's how goldsprints typically look:

Goldsprints CMWC Tokyo from kymberly Perfetto on Vimeo.

Live-er than live coverage... Roller races can also be combined into strange indoor cyclocross races like this one Rapha put on a while back:

RAPHA Cross Roller Race - Oregon Manifest 2008 from RAPHA on Vimeo.

However, considering my aversion toward obstacles while cycling (which means cyclocross would only serve to piss me off) I might lash out in pavlovian fury when "racing" someone facing this scene:


Hey all you marshmallows! get outta the way, I'm trying to ride here!

Anyway, If you bothered to read through the article I linked above, you likely noticed that mention was made of bike-salmon appeasement in other European countries, which the English misguidedly took as a "standard."

Since New York City, Manhattan especially, is rife with euro-tourists possibly cycling, I feel it to be my duty to arm you with these handy phrases from some of our guests' native tongues.

• French: manière fausse, abruti!
• German: falsche weg, du arschloch!
• Spanish: ¡manera incorrecta, Baboso!
• Portugese: ¡caminho errado, imbecil!
• British: Kind sir, do try to mind the local traffic regulations; It would greatly please meh.
  

...the weekend madness (installment 11)

I'm not going to lie; aside from a swingin' good time at a friend's birthday party and ten token laps around Prospect Park, I really didn't do any good cycling this weekend...

Bike racers call all time on the bike not in a race or race-pace setting "junk miles". This apparently includes commuting, pleasure riding, running errands, etc... That in mind, I'm bummed to learn that about 70% of the miles I clock every week are "junk."

Of course, I take issue with the idea that any time spent on a bicycle could be junk - and by extension, worthless - especially when I'm enjoying a nice ride through previously unknown locales. That's why news like this makes my heart split in two:

Photo: Tom Reel, San Antonio Express News.

This is Kylie Bruehler, 7, at a memorial service for her parents. One day recently, they went out for a nice ride together on their tandem bike in Bexar Co. when they were struck from behind by a pickup truck and killed. The mother, Alexandra, died at the scene; and her husband, Gregory, died an hour after being airlifted to a hospital.

Ehh, I'm already getting a little choked up here.... read the "news story" about it here.

If you didn't bother to click that link you were about to miss the best part, but no worries, I'll relate it to you now:

Investigators say there are no charges on the driver. They believe this was an accident and that somehow the driver lost control of his truck.

One more time for impact "NO CHARGES ON THE DRIVER"

That's just salt on the emotional wounds this poor girl will carry for the rest of her life... Add insult to injury and this is what you get.

I'm not entirely sure how someone can either intentionally or unintentionally run down two people, drag them for over 200 feet, killing them, and get off totally free. 100 fucking percent blameless right? Maybe it's a Texas thing, though I'm not certain 'cause I'm from texas and I remember it to be a place fairly crawling with police, itching to issue citations for the most minor of infractions.

Maybe when it comes to something big or important they're left dumbstruck about what to do since they're too busy eating fucking donuts under overpasses waiting for someone to do 56 in a 55 on "their highway".

But of course, when the law abiding citizenry tries to curtail needlesss motorist/cyclist altercations by proposing a "safe passing distance law", and it passes both the house and senate with flying colors, you get dickheads like Rick Perry that'll just veto it because it's "unnecessary."

Score one for rednecks, now you can actually go all the way in running me off the road and not have to stop at screaming "faggot!" as you drive by... Don't worry, It'll be my fault that I was on the road you and only you pay taxes for, right?

Ignorance makes the bile flow upstream, like a salmon...

...Industrial Society and Its Future

My disdain for the social circumstances of the present were stoked today after reading through Theodore Kaczynski's Manifesto. Here is a quotation from the section entitled 'Surrogate Activities', which seems to me a remarkably apt appraisal of a cruel social phenomena that I had lightly touched upon in several of my unpublished posts. The desire (nay need) for purpose and the fabrication of goals as a sort of psychological security blanket. Enjoy:

41. For many if not most people, surrogate activities are less satisfying than the pursuit of real goals (that is, goals that people would want to attain even if their need for the power process were already fulfilled). One indication of this is the fact that, in many or most cases, people who are deeply involved in surrogate activities are never satisfied, never at rest. Thus the money-maker constantly strives for more and more wealth. The scientist no sooner solves one problem than he moves on to the next. The long-distance runner drives himself to run always farther and faster. Many people who pursue surrogate activities will say that they get far more fulfillment from these activities than they do from the "mundane" business of satisfying their biological needs, but that it is because in our society the effort needed to satisfy the biological needs has been reduced to triviality. More importantly, in our society people do not satisfy their biological needs autonomously but by functioning as parts of an immense social machine. In contrast, people generally have a great deal of autonomy in pursuing their surrogate activities.

I strongly encourage you to read this text in its entirety. It is my belief that this whistle blower is one of the most admirable personalities of our age. While I cannot condone the use of violent force as a catalyst for awareness or vehicle of revenge; Theodore Kaczynski is a hero of so-called 'modern' thought. It is my personal belief that his insight into the schizophrenia of industrialized peoples is on par with Martin Heidegger's Question Concerning Technology, and could be taken as a less academic expatiation on those principles.

...the weekend madness (installment 10)

Firstly, let me apologize for not keeping my promise of new posts every day. My "job" is slowly getting work and my time has luckily become more filled out with responsibility and purpose, which is good for me, at least, if not for this blog.

I've had a lot on my mind recently and spent much of this past weekend riding around trying to forget my worldly troubles, when in hindsight, I probably would've been better off going for a long ride out of the city somewhere to clear my head.

Friday night i met up with some friends at Coco66 for beer and pool. Here's a spy photo of yours truly sharking the competition (like famous people, vampires, and the Met, I have an aversion to flash photography):


Saturday rained on my plans to go cycling in the morning, so once it cleared up a bit I decided to ride around in Cobble Hill and Brooklyn heights before meandering to Bushwick to look at an apartment I'm probably not going to rent.

Here's downtown Brooklyn on that overcast day:


I really like to just lazily pedal around these neighborhoods, fantasizing that one day I may make enough money to afford even a closet in one of these magnificently overdone buildings that are so common around here:


I always thought you could tell the general level of wealth in Brooklyn neighborhoods by the density and lushness of the trees lining the blocks.


For some reason, vehicles always look better when photographed on moist pavement with cloudy skies. The blues are supposed to be indicative of my mood at that moment, but since many vehicles have expressive headlight-grille styling, these two appeared as though they were having a friendly chat as they waited which struck me as a charming way to suffer dour weather. I could've really used someone to chat with right about then...


Then I rode around some more and after checking out the apartment, I happened upon this (someone told me it's an art-supply shop) place in the no-man's-land betwixt Bushwick and Williamsburg. Nice Murals:




It always brings a gentle smile to my face when I happen upon works of art for public enjoyment such as this. I wish more of the dilapidated structures in this city would just allow graffiti or commission a mural from a local artist.

Then I cut through the heart of hipsterville to check out my friends' loft they've been busy building out, filling the space with a real beast of architecture. I lent a hand cutting a few pieces of wood here and there, but otherwise I think I was more in the way than helpful. To preserve their anonnymity (at least for now), I took a couple of ambiguous snapshots of some of the spaces within it:




I can hardly wait until its completed and inhabited by them; Its going to be really a special thing and a place where even more drunken debauchery and poor decision making can take place than already does...


Sunday I watched a rerun of the Tour of Switzerland and a Masters Golf tournament at another friend's place before retreating back to my own apartment to watch Vexille; which I assumed was going to be either retarded, uninteresting, or both. To my surprise, it was neither and was rather entertaining in a Children of Men X Gundam sort of way. Worth checking out....