Rambling 'round Brooklyn

Around 3.5 million people live in Brooklyn, making it the most populous borough of New York City. Yesterday, many of us took to the streets and parks to enjoy the most Spring-like day in weeks. Everywhere were runners, walkers; bikes, skateboards, strollers; horseback riding lessons and long-line kiting; short sleeves, long sleeves, hats, scarves, shorts; soccer, baseball, cricket, football, frisbee, handball. It was the kind of day when everything seems cut from glass, even the break and especially the sky where it is occluded along the edges of rooftops, water towers, steeples. Edward Hopper light in all directions. In celebration of wheeled freedom and temperatures in the 50s, I wandered, by bici, through various quilted sections of Brooklyn.

Red Hook along the waterfront of reclaimed warehouses, container cranes silhouetted, soon-to-open Ikea, sprawling Fairway grocery, main drag Van Brunt lined with oddities and antiques, early season baseball practice next to a series of giant grain towers – from the little I watched, the winter ice has not quite melted on throwing arms and creaky gloves.

I continued on through South Slope, past historic Green-Wood Cemetery (final home to, among others, Samuel F.B. Morse and Boss Tweed), into Sunset Park and up onto the eponymous hillcrest park: Walt Whitman, in his days with The Brooklyn Eagle, may have sat just there and imagined his yawp sounding across the rooftops in Brooklyn, across the East River above the beating financial drum of colossal Metropolis, and on to the rest of the world.

After winding back through Windsor Terrace - a pocket of columned-porticos, stalwart Farrell’s, lipped on the freeway - I visited an old friend, Prospect Park. Lying in the sun, I could almost convince myself that I needed sunscreen.


A few parting lines from that sweaty-toothed madman:

What is it then between us?
What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?

Whatever it is, it avails not - distance avails not, and place avails not,
I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine...

On steel horses we ride

On Friday night, I attended the Bicycle Film Festival in Milan. An international festival, it may be coming soon to a city near you. Occhio! If you like bicycles and bike culture, you will find it right up your alley. I heartily enjoyed the black hoodie sweatshirt and rolled pant scene, guys with scraggily beards and thick frame glasses, girls with beautiful fixed gear bikes and small-brim bike caps. Good movies, too. This was a crowd favorite: a group of Oakland kids waxing ridiculous about their tricked out “scraper bikes.”

Wendell Berry, one of my favorites, writes beautifully, thoughtfully, and passionately how we can improve the health of our families, communities, and the natural world all around us. Those who have read his essay “Why I Am Not Going To Buy A Computer” will agree that the bicycle fits many of the criteria he uses for technological innovation:

1. The new tool should be cheaper than the one it replaces.
2. It should be at least as small in scale as the one it replaces.
3. It should do work that is clearly and demonstrably better than the one it replaces.
4. It should use less energy than the one it replaces.
5. If possible, it should use some form of solar energy, such as that of the body.
6. It should be repairable by a person of ordinary intelligence, provided that he or she has the necessary tools.
7. It should be purchasable and repairable as near to home as possible.
8. It should come from a small, privately owned shop or store that will take it back for maintenance and repair.
9. It should not replace or disrupt anything good that already exists, and this includes family and community relationships.

I love bicycles. I love riding them, looking at and photographing them, reading, writing, and talking about them, extolling their numerous virtues. I am more and more convinced that the bicycle is one of the best technological advances we have made (the knife, the bowl, the pencil, the printing press, the camera, the surfboard, the ski, and musical instruments are also excellent, among others). As I've mentioned before, Italy, while not on par with Denmark or the Netherlands in bike culture, is definitely more bike-friendly than the United States. I am frequently impressed by the feats of balance (two people on the same bike is a common site), style, and function that Italians manage a bici. Riding in the rain? No problem. Here are some other photos I have taken over the past few months of le biciclete italiane.

For an interesting examination of the power and efficiency of bicycles, I recommend these excerpts from Ivan Illich, published in 1978 and even more salient today.

If you are looking for some inspiration on world traveling, or if you would like to read about an amazing adventure from your arm chair, I can recommend checking out Heinz Stücke, “the Bike Man.”

The parting words I leave to Queen.

Wait. They eat those too?!

"Contrary to what Weston asserts, the habit of photographic seeing - of looking at reality as an array of potential photographs - creates estrangement from, rather than union with, nature." - Susan Sontag

Susan Sontag may not have actually written this. In fact, she probably did not. Mark Danielewski did, put her name on it, and included it as an epigraph to a chapter in his mad, maddening book The House of Leaves. I don't know about abandoning hope, but definitely tread carefully if you enter there. Having just finished the book, I can tell you that the estrangement is real.

So are the following photos. I can vouch for their authorship. They require neither doctoring nor, in some cases, explanations. Together and individually, they highlight aspects of the Italian nature around me. Some are estranging, while some are merely strange.

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Maybe this refers to some other sport. Or a place. Or maybe it's a rare error and is worth more. Or spelling is not what it used to be. [Clothing differences could be a whole series, with Italian t-shirt slogans and the like occupying multiple volumes.]

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"Watch out for the man in the low-rider bulldozer!"
Or maybe: "Be excited! The man in the small, open cockpit bulldozer is coming!"

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Airline ticket, Chicago to Florence: $750.
Rental car for one week: $280.
Rick Steve's Italy 2007 Guidebook: $14.95.
Delicious lunch for two of wild boar proscuitto, angel hair pasta, and local red wine: $60.
Suggested donation at quaint, historic churches in small Tuscan hillside towns: around $3 total.
Going home from your Italian vacation with a replica Confederate flag: priceless.

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An example of Italian ingenuity. Like with climbing skins, wooden clogs and sushi, I at first found the practice strange and am now a convert.

As this photo illustrates, many Italians lean their kickstandless bikes on curbs or steps to keep them upright. Sometimes, people leave their bikes like this on busy streets, in say downtown Florence, creating traffic issues, but that's another whole can of bachi. My question is, do you need to do this when your bike already has a kickstand? From my initial surveys, the answer would appear to be a resounding yes. The bike-pedal-on-curb technique must be used at no times less than all.

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Lastly... fill in your own punch line.

Blog Action Day

Today I learned that it is Blog Action Day, an international call to arms focusing on the environment. [Thanks to Michelle at bleeding espresso for alerting me.] My mind staggers when I consider the task at hand... How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. One bicycle, one appliance, one letter, one tote bag, one light switch, one song, one clothesline, one conversation...

To return once again to Robert Frost, three more things I am sure are true: books, our connection to the natural world, and the possibility for change. Unfortunately, the first can be hard to read and may be an endangered species in some areas; the second is tenuous and frayed for many of us; and the third is often convicted without a fair trial. Thankfully, the first can also be dangerous and empowering; same goes for the second and third.

Rocky Mountain Institute - Thanks to my friend Dan for the thoughtful link. Much like the words to Imagine, the recent speech by Amory Lovins included on this site is naively optimistic and quixotic by some standards. Is this man crazy to profess that we can solve our problems? Was Lennon? Dr. King? RFK? Having just finished watching Bobby, a powerful movie about the day of Robert F. Kennedy's assassination, the spectors of fallen visionaries loom large before me. I am my parents' son, and their characters were forged in large part during that turbulent time. Over the weekend, they saw a production of The Man of La Mancha; my mom reminded me that we can still dream the impossible dream. We can. For a start, we should be tilting at oil derricks and putting windmills in their place. And riding bicycles.

Most of my favorite writers can be grouped together on a stage, or better in a tent, or better yet on a ridge labeled "Nature/Environment." Thoreau. Edward Abbey. Jack Kerouac. Gary Snyder. David James Duncan. Annie Dillard. Wendell Berry. Bill McKibben. Some of them might not get along with each other; others were downright anti-social. Individually and especially collectively they are dangerous, possibly in the way Don Quixote's tales of chivalry were dangerous. One thing I can guess: if Abbey saw me typing this, he'd probably guffaw and tell me to throw my computer at something and get on with it. If you haven't read any snarling writers recently, maybe you should. I should.

One book I would pick up tonight if I had it with me is Poets on the Peaks by the photographer John Suiter. It is a beautiful book about Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, and Jack Kerouac, their friendships, and the time each spent as fire lookouts in the North Cascades in Washington State. I have long wanted to serve as a fire lookout, but I don't know if I will make it. I can live vicariously. Whalen, in a letter to Gary about his explorations of Buddhism, wrote:

Personally I feel the need for the Mahayana kind of deal - coming back to the village with gift-bestowing hands, as differing from the Vedantist and Hinayana kind of solipsism. But I don't say that their kind isn't needed; the world needs more sages than anything else right now. More prayer wheels, more visions, more poems, more magic.

Amen, Phil. In order to understand what you're saying, I have some more research I need to do, some more bites I need to take, but I second that.

The greatest earth on show.

La bici

"There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats." Mole, The Wind in the Willows



A few words on the title of this blog, bici vecchia. Old bike. Those who have visited Italy know that, like many places around the world, the bicycle has a much more central place in society here than it does in the United States. If we can judge the scale of popularity based on coverage in La Gazzetta, Italy’s all-sports daily newspaper, cycling here ranks just behind motor sports in 3rd place for popularity, ahead of basketball, track and field, rugby, hurling, caber tossing, and of course baseball. While thinking ahead to living here, I looked forward to riding la bici as much as anything else. Luckily for Mark, the irascible groundskeeper for his team lent him an old, rusted, beat-up piece of junk. Which is to say, the perfect bici. Luckily for me, Mark works in Milan and leaves the bicycle for me.

La bici is small – my knees almost hit the handlebar when I pedal. The seat is too low and probably unadjustable. These two factors make it difficult for me to pedal very efficiently – think of riding a stationary bike while reclining in a La-Z-Boy. Yesterday, for example, I had trouble making progress into a modest headwind. La bici is old – my sources say it may have been used by la Resistenza during World War II. One of the brake cables flops in the wind, unattached and unhelpful in any way other than aesthetic (late 1930s insect is what we’re going for). The front tire light, a bottle dynamo, works more like a strobe powered by the gyrations of a sloth [for those with an mechanical/engineering bent (JCH), here is a technical comparison of various dynamo lights].

It was love at first sight.

While I have no qualm with Mole, I would offer that simply messing around on bici is at least half so much worth doing as messing about in boats. Especially around here where lanes and roads and trails and paths lead out into the country, through small towns and villages, past neatly rowed corn fields and tree farms, along irrigation ditches flush with frogs and grasses bowing with the current. Yesterday was a grand day to mess about on bici and I explored some new areas, farther afield than I had gone before: Cornovecchio, Caselnuovo, Chiesiolo, Reghinera, and Cavacurta – towns too small in some cases to support even a single store or cafe, let alone traffic lights or a library. The day was as clear as it has been since I arrived, thanks to recent rains and the onset of early fall’s crisp days and cool nights. I could see high ridgelines on two horizons – mountains and hills calling to be rambled.

I often feel like Tolkien and his Inklings companions, who used to go on walks into the English countryside, stopping at pubs for refreshment and finding their way home in time for dinner. Given the intervening, globe-shrinking years and the vagaries of British/metric conversion, I sipped not a pint of Bass but instead 33 mL of a fine German weissbier. A fine substitute.

My next exploration? Perhaps Pizzighettone, past Maleo and across the River Adda. Still ‘round the corner there may wait a new road or a secret gate...

Veni, vidi... ?

As they say at the Brickyard, "Start your engines." And we're off. Or at least I'm off, into the wild green-white-and-red yonder of Italy. I have now been living in bel paese for one week and the international clamoring for some informazione (See? Isn't learning Italian easy and fun?) on my where-abouts, how-abouts, why-abouts, and so forth has been deafening. As many know, I rarely turn down an opportunity to tell a story, so...


I am in Codogno, Italy, in the province of Lodi in the region of Lombardy. I am living with Mark, aka Lango, a friend since kindergarten, who is playing professional baseball in Italy's Serie A2 and working full-time in Milan, 45 minutes to the north.

To extend the metaphor, if this adventure is to be an Indy car race - colorful, loud, exhilarating, enervating, at times stomach-turning but usually captivating (notice I didn't add "fast") - then for the past week I have been weaving back and forth on the track, warming up my tires.

Despite a whirlwind of moving, packing, good-byes, and good riddances (for those who bemoan the Disneyland-ification of New York City, fear not: rodents of reputation yet roam free), I managed to find myself at JFK, early and with my head screwed on straight. Muchas gracias to Dan, Sara, and Jim for hosting my little hurricane; muchisimas gracias to Lorena for so generously driving me to the airport. After a pleasant flight next to a jet-setting cosmopolitan theater director who makes Jason Bourne look positively settled, I blundered my way from the Milanese airport to the train station. Weighed down like a one-man nomadic village, I wandered towards that venerated Italian eatery, McDonald's, to meet up with Mark. Dropping my bags, I noted that I was dirty, tired, and definitely in Italy.

A tap on my shoulder and a voice, "Excuse me. I'm looking for Ray Finkle - and a clean pair of shorts." It could have been me looking for a clean pair of shorts as I was surprised to beat the band. David H., a friend from high school who now lives in Geneva, had come down to surprise me and succeeded. Ah, Europe. Together we left our bags with Mark, explored some of the highlights of Milan, and bought lots of designer shoes.

Happy hour found us meeting up with Mark, some of his colleagues, and one of his teammates from the baseball team. In the large Italy v. USA battle upon which I am sure to comment with frequency and wit, Italy wins stage 1: the bar offered aperitivo, which translates loosely as appetizer but here usually means a spread of free food put out by the bar to attract drinking customers. Salmon, various pasta salads, grilled vegetables, bread - no peanuts and stale cheese puffs this.

Saturday, Mark, David, and I spent the day and evening in Parma, where Mark spent two summers andwhere I visited him in 2004. While justifiably famous for the foods of its region, Parma seems under-visited, especially when compared with its bigger sisters Bologna and Florence. It is a charming city and often ranks high in national ratings for its quality of life. After wandering and eating and sipping espresso and snapping a few photos, we drove out into the country outside Parma to a birthday party for one of Mark's former teammates. As is usually the case, I was heartened to see some familiar faces from my first visit to Italy. Because of Mark's four summers here playing on two welcoming and hilarious teams (about whom you'll here much more in the future), he is greeted by many like a prodigal son across the region. That also has to do with Mark, and I get to ride his coattails. Generous and gregarious friends, tables of food, coolers of drink, karaoke, stars in the sky (or was that my eyes?).

Sunday, Mark, David, and I went for a run on a local road that wends out from town into the countryside. Here is a video Mark posted on his blog this spring that will give you a sense of my new favorite running route. The fields are now mostly full of corn and the air smells like growing.

The rest of the week I did what most Italians are doing this month: I relaxed. For the first time to such an extent, I have more time than I know what to do with - it has taken some getting used to but I think I am improving. I read, I go to the piazza to sip espresso and watch the world go by, I try to read the newspaper, I go to the grocery store, I nap, I wonder when offices and stores will open again, I sip espresso, I nap, I explore on bicycle the town and countryside, I take photographs.

Oh, and now I write a blog. Stay tuned for more.