Dragons, Rescues And Purple Tulips

An early spring weekend of riding turned out to be a slalom:  I wove my way between bouts of rain and threats of rain, and among momentoes to death and loss and life's renewal.

First, to Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, the home of the Unisphere.  If you haven't been there, you saw it in "Men In Black."  I rode a route that took me through the park because I wanted to see the cherry blossoms.  The ceremony the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens holds was canceled this year, as it was last year.  It's still a great place to see the blooms because of the walks and paths lined with the trees, and the variety of cherry blossoms grown at the Gardens.  But those of us in the know will tell you that if you want to walk through a pink canopy without the throngs of selfie-takers, there's no better place in this city than FM-CP.

I think I might've been a bit early--or the trees might be blooming a bit later than they did last year:  The buds, lovely as they are, do not burst with color in the same way.  Like all buds, however, they are a visual reminder of hope and the future.  So, I can look forward to going back in a few days--I hope.

I did, however, see "Leo."

During the past few years, an inordinately high number of trees have toppled in this city's parks and on its streets.  Part of the reason is that once-in-a-century storms are striking every ten, five or even fewer years.  Another, as a park ranger told me, is that many trees are old and have been decaying from within for years.  

So, contrary to a rumor I may have just started, there isn't a dragon named Leo who knocks the trees down.  Maybe he's kept at bay by coolers of--Gatorade?  beer?--left for him!

My riding took me into Manhattan, the whole length of the island and beyond.  At its base, Battery Park--where you get the ferries to the Statue of Liberty and Staten Island--there's a memorial to members of the Merchant Marine who were wounded or killed in World War II.

According to the inscription, the sculptor was inspired by a photo.  I don't doubt it, but if said sculptor could also have claimed inspiration from something else:

I mean, can you imagine what the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel would look like had someone besides Pope Julius commissioned--or Michelangelo (one of my artistic heroes) painted it.  

(Fun fact: Michelangelo didn't want to do the ceiling.  He was at work on other projects and insisted he was primarily a sculptor rather than a painter.  During the course of working on it, he wrote poems, tinged with sarcasm, about his displeasure at working on the fresco.)

Another irreverent thought occurs to me:  Both Michelangelo's fresco and the sea sculpture can be seen as Rorsach tests of a sort:  When you see one hand reaching out to another, do you think the stronger one should grasp the other and pull the other up?  Or do you think the person being to whom the hand is being extended should learn to fend for himself?  Will the guy in the water start to swim and, if he doesn't, does he deserve help?  

At one time such a test would have classified me one way, and now it would reveal me in a different way.  All I'll say is that my days of writing editorials for libertarian publications are long past!

Anyway, near the monument is a cafe for tourists.  I must say that I was impressed with the garden around it:

With a setting like that, the cafe could serve sludge from the water and people would enjoy it!  Me, I enjoyed my weekend of riding, even if it wasn't high-mileage.

Acceptable Behavior During A Pandemic

As of today, the two countries with the most COVID-19 cases are...the United States and the United Kingdom.

Does that mean speaking English is a risk factor?*

Seriously, as some countries relax their restrictions and others impose new ones (or re-impose ones they'd just struck down), people debate about what constitutes acceptable public behavior during the pandemic.

Thankfully, cycling not been prohibited here in New York or, to my knowledge, any place else in the United States besides Puerto Rico.  Really, as long as we keep our "social distance" (two meters or 6 feet) and don't spit or fling our sweat, we really don't pose any more a risk than, say, someone walking a dog or pushing a shopping cart full of toilet paper.  

On the other hand, what's allowed in public parks or beaches--if they're open--varies widely.  One of the big debates in places like Florida seems to be whether sunbathing should be allowed. When restrictions were imposed here in the Big Apple, they included a prohibition against basking in solar refulgence.  At the time, they seemed academic because, well, March weather in the Rockaways is, shall we say, a bit different from conditions that prevail in Ormond Beach.  

Actually, our winter was quite mild right up to the end, with scarcely any snow.  Some of us have joked that just we can't tell one day from another, thanks to lockdowns, we also can't distinguish one season from the next.  

So how do you know whether or not to sunbathe, if it's allowed?

This woman seems not to care.  The funny thing is that while some people weren't keeping their social distance from each other, I am the only one who broke that protocol with this sunbather.

To be fair, she's reposing in an intersection near Court Square in Long Island City.  Not many people walk by and because it's near entrance ramps for the 59th Street Bridge and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, cars don't stop or slow down.  I think only I, in the course of yesterday's ride, stopped to see her.

She wasn't worried:  She knew I wouldn't admonish her for sunbathing--or social distance.  Perhaps she knows that cyclists aren't judgmental, except toward other cyclists who aren't wearing or riding what they "should".

At the end of my ride, I met with someone who prefers the warmth of a human body to that of the sun.

*--I ask this question in jest, of course!

Getting Their Wheels Back

Use the words "bicycle" and "sculpture" together and, for many people, two things will come to mind:  Marcel Duchamp's "Bicycle Wheel" and Pablo Picasso's "Bull's Head," made from handlebars and a saddle.

There are many other lesser-known bicycle-based sculptures all over the world.  Some are in public places.  Unfortunately, securing and maintaining them isn't a high priority in most places.  Even if municipal officials don't appreciate bicycles, bicycling or even art, they should be sensitive to what the work means to its creator--and for at least some members of the public.

Greeley Sweethearts

I was reminded about that after Wes Cackler's "The Race" disappeared from it spot in a Palm Coast, Florida shopping mall.  Now I've learned that another sculpture "Greeley Sweethearts", lost its wheels.  Whether they were taken by the wind or a thief, no one seems to know.  But now the artist, Amos Robinson of San Diego, has sent replacement wheels to the city of Greeley, Colorado.  According to city staff members, the wheels will be installed when weather permits.

And the "couple" will once again "enjoy" their "ride" in Josephine Jones Park.

They're Gone!

A couple of friends are gone!

On Thursday,  I rode by the City Market Place near my parents' home in Palm Coast.  During my past few visits to PC, I've stopped by the Market Place to see an old friend:

but I found this:

an empty lot where they "rode"!

I am trying to find out what happened to Wes Cackler's "The Race".  I'm guessing--and sort of hoping--that it was knocked down in recent storms and will be reinstalled on that same site, or somewhere else.  

It's About Time They Took Control Of Those People!

There was The Look.

It was knowing and hateful--with a healthy dose of fear mixed in.  The giver wanted to instill fear in the receiver. But the receiver had already done the same:  Something in his walk or demeanor said, "Don't F- with me."

I know it well because I was the intended recipient of The Look.  And I was getting it because I had wrapped myself in psychological barbed wire.  The person who gave me The Look wanted to sell me drugs or his or her body.  Or lure me into a "theatre"--or an alley. Or try to suck or force me into some other scheme or scam to part me with my money and leave me part of the sidewalk or pavement, at least for a moment.

What I have described was an experience of walking 42nd Street from the Port Authority Bus Terminal to Times Square about thirty years ago.  That stretch of "The Deuce"--the street's nickname--was, of all New York City thoroughfares, the one in which a person had the best chance of being the victim of a crime.

Today Times Square has been turned into a cross between Disney World without the rides and a shopping mall.  Fresh-faced families flock to the same sorts of chain restaurants and stores they could find in their home counties--with higher prices.  And, instead of pimps, prostitutes and hoodlums, costumed street perfomers and "painted ladies" accost tourists and ply them for cash.  Some of those performers are even more aggressive than those old denizens of the demimonde I remember from my youth. 

At least, they seem more aggressive. Or, perhaps, they are because they can be to those fresh-faced families, who have no experience in walking by people they have never seen, and never will see again.  They do not have the ability to wrap themselves in psychological barbed wire and be unaffected by The Look.

Now the City Council is scheduled to vote on a measure to regulate those ersatz Batmans and Wonder Women, and all of the other costumed characters who terrorize Times Square.

I used to fancy myself a libertarian. Sometimes I still do.  But I know when regulation is necessary, or at least beneficial.  This is one of those times. I mean, do we want people running around the fashion capital of America looking like this?:

 

A Ride To The Dancing Girl

Most of you will probably never see me dance.  Consider yourselves lucky.  Trust me.

Of the things I can't do, dancing is probably the thing I most wish I could.  An actual dancer may beg to differ, but I always had the impression that dancers come closest to creating a jeu d'esprit with the human body.  

Probably the closest I come to that is when I ride my bicycle, however gracelessly and (these days) slowly.   

Dancers. as we know, often perform solo.  However, at their best, they're always dancing with someone or something.  Often, I think, it's with the audience, at least figuratively.  Also, they're performing duets or in concert with their surroundings, their memories and the temper of their times. 

The other day, I danced with Arielle.  We traipsed across bridges, rolled through tenement valleys in the Bronx and waltzed, it seemed, across fields and woods that lined the roads just beyond the suburban sprawl of Westchester County.  It also felt as if we were leaping across brooks and streams and along the coastline of Long Island Sound.

I had no destination in particular, but about three hours later, we ended up In Stamford, CT.  Look at what welcomed us to the city:

 Stamford sculptor James Knowles created Dancing Girl in bronze.  In 1987, a local businessman and his wife donated it to the city,where it was displayed in front of the Old Town Hall for fourteen years. Fourteen years later, it was "temporarily" removed for a renovation to the plaza.  For the next nine years, the girl languished in captivity, I mean, storage.  Finally, three years ago, it was re-dedicated.

Who says art has no effect on anything?  I felt lighter as I started to pedal home, even though I was, within a few minutes, making a fairly long (though not particularly steep) climb.  Oh, yes, I had a breeze at my back.  But I think the girl was guiding me and Arielle, in spirit.