The Syntax Of Traffic Regulation

Sometimes I have to wonder what, exactly, this city's Department of Transportation is trying to accomplish?  Are they trying to make this city more or less "bike friendly", whatever that means?  More specifically, are they trying to encourage or discourage bicycle commuting?  Or do they want to do both?

I mean, they decide they don't want us to use certain bridges or walkways--I think.  At least, that's the message--the literal one, anyway--I get from this sign:

So why am I so uncertain as to the DOT's intentions?  Well, for one thing, the sign was placed in a spot most cyclists (or pedestrians, for that matter) won't see:  in the corner of a retaining wall that takes a sharp turn away from the path of pedestrians and cyclists.  It almost makes me think someone in the DOT was ordered, but didn't want, to put up the sign.

What makes the intentions of the sign even less clear, though, is that the sign imposes another, seemingly unrelated, prohibition against taking pictures.

Or does it?  Take a look at the last line:

"Use of cameras prohibited and strictly enforced."  As I understand, "prohibited" means "not allowed" or "barred".  But I take "strictly enforced" to mean that people will be compelled or forced to use cameras. 

Now, I'll admit that my knowledge of some things is a bit rusty.  So maybe I've forgotten the part of some class in which the instructor explained how something can be forbidden and mandatory at the same time.

Or it may be that, as an acquaintance suggested, that I've been teaching so long that I know English grammar too well for my own good--or my own sanity, at any rate. Or, at least, I know so much that it interferes with my bike riding.

For the record, the issue in the sign is not one of grammar:  It's one of syntax.

Whatever that sign was trying to say, I may or may not have been in violation:  I took the photo with my cell phone, not a camera.

The Mysterious Syntax Of A Road Sign

Some people seem to believe that writing or speaking grammatically is elitist or simply fussy.  Then there are those who are convinced that those of us who do are conspiring against them in some way or another.

Now, I don't pretend to speak (or write) with perfect grammar all of the time. I think I do it often enough to be understood, at least most of the time. If nothing else, I know how poorly constructed sentences with unclear phrasing can lead to misunderstandings--and keep lawyers busy.

Hey, proper punctuation can save a person's life. If you don't believe me, look at this:

Rescind order to execute prisoner.

Now, tell me:  Does the prisoner live or die in that sentence?

If we add a comma, the intent is clearer:

Rescind order, to execute prisoner.

If that sentence was in the governor's memo, the inmate in question would be choosing his or her last meal.  However, another kind of punctuation, placed in another part of the sentence, gives us an entirely different outcome:

Rescind:  Order to execute prisoner.

Now, there aren't such drastic examples (to my knowledge, anyway) in the world of cycling. However, in an earlier post, I showed how a poorly-phrased sign can say something different from--even the exact opposite of--what was intended.

Today I saw another sign--on the RFK/Triborough Bridge--that doesn't convey what I believe the Department of Transportation is trying to tell us:

So, the graphic part of the sign is saying that graffiti isn't allowed.  Then the first four words of the text say it's a crime.  So far, it makes sense.

But what does "camera enforced" mean?  Is crime "camera enforced"?  Perhaps the person who wrote the sign speaks another language and, while composing the sign, his or her brain flipped from English to whatever, causing a change in syntax. A "camera enforced crime" would be a "crime camera enforced" in French, Spanish, Italian or a lot of other languages.

Hmm...Maybe the city didn't want to spend the money to print the sign in both English and Spanish.  

Or is the sign trying to tell us that graffiti is camera enforced?  Now that would be interesting, if in an Orwellian sort of way. 
 

"Where Are You Riding Today?"

Sometimes, when I’m about to mount my bike, someone—almost invariably, someone who doesn’t ride—will spot me and ask, “Where are you going to ride?”

Sometimes I have a specific destination in mind.  But, as often as not, I have no particular itinerary, let a landmark toward which my trek will be directed—when I lift my leg over my saddle.

Sometimes I lie:  “I’m going to the park.”  Or the beach.  Or some other seemingly-plausible terminal or turnaround for an hour or two or more on my bike. But, other times, I tell state the undeniable fact: “Oh, I don’t know.  I’m just going to ride for a bit.”

Perhaps paradoxically, I am most likely to take a “pointless” ride when I have a set amount of time—say, an hour or two—to ride.  At such times, I simply want to use my legs as something more than props for keeping me upright on a chair or standing in front of a classroom.  Or I simply want to experience sun, wind, clouds, heat or cold, or the sounds of leaves opening themselves or tires hissing on pavement without the filter of a window or the barrier of walls.

 

Sometimes I have a vague idea of where I’m going to ride—say, a general direction.  But my ride is just as likely to be directed by things that have absolutely nothing to do with my conscious mind. 

Sometimes my itinerary has to do with the day’s weather or season.  It could also be determined by the day of the week or the time of year:  I might decide to ride, or not, toward the ocean because a lot of other people might decide, or not, that it’s the perfect day to drive that way.  Or I might ride in a loop that will take me into lightly-trafficked or well-lit areas because there isn’t much daylight left.  I have lights for my bikes, but I still prefer to ride in daylight whenever possible—unless the night is lit by a bright moon or is simply more pleasant than the sweltering summer day.

But there are times when my ride is determined by things even less concrete or more intuitive, depending on your point of view, than anything I’ve mentioned so far.  Sometimes it seems as if my bike, or the ride itself, is determining my route.  It’s hard to explain to people who don’t ride, unless they’re writers or artists or other creative people.  Then, I can draw on my own experience of writing: My poem or essay or whatever I’m writing might start off as a work that’s ostensibly about some subject or topic or another.  But, as I immerse myself in writing, the piece I’m writing takes on a life of its own and develops, if you will, its own will, its own wants and needs. An image or even the sound of a word—or the rhythm or syntax of a line or sentence—can take my work in a direction I hadn’t envisioned, let alone imagined.

Sometimes I write, or ride, simply because it’s what I want to do, and nothing else will do.  The destination and scenery don’t matter, only the journey does.

Cycling, Cubism, Computers And Commerce In Paris

I am certainly not the first cyclist to notice that pedaling enhances the senses.  We can see and hear more vividly, and whatever we taste or touch (or touches us) is more intense.  And we all know that our favorite foods and drinks taste even better during and after a ride.

Perhaps it's no coincidence that I found myself thinking about these phenomena as I pedaled around the Place des Vosges and through narrow streets lined with sandstone-colored buildings:  My morning's meanderings ended at la Musee Picasso.

So how are my ramblings and ruminations connected to the creator of Demoiselles d'Avignon and Guernica?

Well, actually, I started to think about the way we receive sensory details--on or off our bikes--on Saturday, while looking at an exhibit of Cubist painters in the Centre Pompidou.  The way Picasso, Braque and others dissected (visually, anyway), faces, objects and vistas, then re-assembling them in new ways, does not reflect the way our eyes see--or, at any rate, the way we are accustomed to thinking that our eyes see.  Rather, those artists were showing us how something besides our sensory organs--call it the mind, the intuition or the spirit (I mean that in a secular sense.) senses the world around us--which, of course, cannot be a re-creation of the object, the face or whatever we see.  

It makes sense when you realize that the words on this page, or any other words, cannot transmit the things they are supposed to communicate or represent.  All they can do is convey something--a code, if you will-- that the mind turns into an image or idea of whatever the words are supposed to convey.  The mind doesn't do that simply by taking in the sequence of letters that form the word; it turns them into something that the mind or consciousness, or whatever you want to call it, can use to portray an idea or essence of whatever that word is supposed to represent.  If you see the word "house", your mind provides you with an image of a house because it turns the letters of the word into something your mind can re-assemble into a visualization of some house or another.

I am not a neuroscientist, so I have been able to describe our conscious processes only in the language I could find in my own intuition, such as it is.  And I know even less about the way computers process data, so please forgive me if what I say next makes less sense than anything I've said before.

Here goes: It occured to me, while riding afterward, that Cubism may well have been a prototype of how computers process data--and, in particular, how information is conveyed through computer systems and, in particular, across the Internet. As I (mis)understand it, what I am typing right now won't be posted directly to my blog:  It must be changed into a format that can be sent and re-assembled into the intended message or content.  And that format, as I understand it, bears no resemblance (at least in terms of logic or syntax) to the language we use and has to be rearranged in ways we never would (or could) do in order to convey our message.

So..Could the Cubists have been proto-computer scientists?  

Anyway, riding is always a great primer for looking at art, or almost anything.  And within steps, literally, of the Picasso there are two other museums.  I was going to go to the Carnavalet, but it was closed for renovations.  So I went to one I visited on my previous trip to Paris:  the Cognacq-Jay.

Like the Jacqmart-Andre, it was the residence of a wealthy couple who collected art and objects.  The collection was on display, but there was also an interesting exhibit about "l'art du commerce."  It shows how artists like Jean-Antonine Watteau were instrumental in bringing about what we might recognize as marketing in the 18th Century.

The convergence of a few factors made it possible. One was, ahem, colonialism, which gave France and the rest of Europe access to a wider variety of materials--and designs they'd never before seen.  Another was the means to reproduce the exotic objects that came from afar, mainly the Middle and Far East.  Then there was the development of merchant and middle classes --whose tastes and demands drove these new markets--and, last but not least, a group of artists and other creative people.  

This is the era in which, essentially, department stores and catalogues began. That is why artists like Watteau others of his generation were so suited for this development: They had sketch-like techniques developed for creating portraits of  merchants, bankers and other professionals:  the sorts of people (and their families) to whom marketing was directed.  So, in some weird way, you can thank (or blame) Watteau for Amazon--or, if you're of my generation, Bike Nashbar, Performance, Supergo and all of those mail-order shops that sold all of those exotic and unaffordable bikes and parts we couldn't find at our neighborhood Schwinn dealers.

Could it be that the bicycle developed from the draisienne to what we ride today because of the l'art du commerce?

Don't Believe Everything You Read On An App

Some students are never, ever convinced that I--or any other instructor--is grading them fairly.  There are the ones who think we have it in for them because of their race , ethnicity, religion, socio-economic background (of course, they don't use that term) or opinions that differ from yours--no matter that their sources are minimal or non-existent, their logic flawed or their syntax more tangled than fishing line in an inept angler's hands.  Or they simply think we're too old, un-hip or simply stupid to understand the profound things they're saying.

Then there are the ones who simply can't understand how, after how hard they worked and how they "did everything" they were "supposed to do", they got the grade they got.  Some, of course, don't put such time and effort in what they hand in to me or their other instructors.  But others do, and I genuinely feel for them:  I know that it's frustrating to put forth your best effort and not get the result you want.

There was a time, a dozen or so years ago, when I'd return students' essays and the sighs and shuffle of papers would be broken by some someone whining, "But I used Spell Check--and Grammar Check."   I would explain, as patiently as I could, that not everything they see on a computer screen is to be trusted. (I guess that's the modern version of "Don't believe everything you read!") "All machines have the flaws of the people who make them," I'd pronounce.

It's been a while since a student (well, any student of mine, anyway) has used "The Spell Check Defense," if you will.  But some people are still more willing to trust an electronic device over good, old-fashioned common sense.

One such person was a 26-year-old Jersey City resident who was delivering food on his bicycle in Manhattan.  Following a route suggested by a phone app, he entered the Lincoln Tunnel and pedaled to the New Jersey side.

When he arrived, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey police intercepted him.  He explained how he ended up in the tunnel and showed them his phone, "which supported his claim," according to Port Authority spokesman Joseph Pentangelo.

Bicycles and other "velocipedes" (Yes, that term is used) are prohibited in the Lincoln, according to the regulations listed in the Port Authority's "Green Book".  As there was no significant disruption of traffic, the man received only a summons for trespass.

And, I'm sure, he won't believe everything he sees on a phone app.