A Parachute Jump From Wheels?

I love it when old bicycles get new life.  Whether it's a "period" or "showroom" restoration, or retrofitted with modern parts that suit the rider's purposes, I'm glad to see a nicely-crafted (or, at least, well-made) machine giving service and pleasure to someone.  At least it's not in a landfill!

I can't always say the same about old parts.  Some, I like and even prefer to new stuff.  But, really, unless you have almost any non-indexed SunTour derailleur, or one or two other "vintage" models I can think of, almost any modern derailleur will shift better--with or without indexing.  Used vintage cogs, chains, rims and spokes are often too worn or stressed for continued use.  And old tires, unless they've been stored properly, might be too brittle to ride.  

So what do you do with old parts?  Well, more than a few artists and crafts people make jewelry, sculptures and other objets from them.  Because there are so many such creations nowadays--many of which I like--I don't spend a lot of time writing about them.  But, every once in a while one of them will catch my eye.  

Jake Beckman made this 35-foot (11 meter) tall sculpture for the entrance to the Morgana Run Trail, which itself is "recycled":  It's built on a former Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway corridor in the Slavic Village neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio.  

Now, of course, you might be thinking Beckman's sculpture caught my attention because its color scheme is after my own heart.  That is one reason why, but I also couldn't help thinking about a structure I see in a place where I ride rather frequently:

I wonder whether Beckman knew about the Parachute Jump on the Coney Island boardwalk when he conceived of his totem.  

What If The Fish Is--Or Was--A Bicycle?

A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.

Gloria Steinem popularized that expression in the early days of the modern feminist movement.  Many people believe she coined it, though she has never taken credit for doing so.

Whatever its origins, sometimes it seems that every woman in the world has uttered it--whether out loud or to herself--at some time or another.  I am no exception.  In fact, I muttered it more than a few times--without irony or sarcasm--when I was living as a man.  

Of course, people have substituted all sorts of things for "A woman" and "a man".  After I read Nietzsche, I inserted "People" and "God".  Later, I would modify the latter to "religion".  

In this depressing election cycle, we could say "This country needs Hillary/Trump" (take your pick).   

All right, I'll stop preaching politics.  After all, you didn't come to this blog for that, did you?

Instead, I'll come back to the fish-and-bicycle dilemma.  Perhaps a fish doesn't need a bicycle.  But does that mean a fish can't be a bicycle?

Maybe not.  But a pike or pickerel  can be made from bike bits.  At least, French sculptor Edouard Martinet pulled off that feat:

He has also made birds and insects from bike parts and other objects he's found.  

Think about them the next time you toss out that worn chain:  A bird or a bug or a fish might actually need your bike--your bike parts, anyway!

So What Do Picasso's Handlebars Really Mean?

The Presidentiad is in full swing here in the US.  If you like to hear lies, double-talk, evasion, babble, euphemism and things that are just purely and simply ridiculous, you can be, in the immortal words of H.L. Mencken, "entertained as Solomon never was by his hooch dancers".

I couldn't help but to think that the Musee Picasso let some candidate's speech writer--or some candidate for some office somewhere--write the commentary for one of the exhibits:

The good folks at Musee Picasso very thoughtfully provided this translation:

When I read the French, the last two sentences caused me to titter, with my fingers covering my lips, in that very discreet Parisienne sort of way.  The English translation made me laugh out loud.  That, of course, gave me away as an American.

So, gee, maybe, just maybe, Picasso's goats were a stand-in for lust and sex.  Really, now?  My first art history professor--a gay man who devoted the last years of his professional life to explicating the homoeroticism in Caravaggio--would be shocked--shocked, I say!--to learn that.

Hmm...I thought--with all due respect to the man and his work--that everything about Picasso had to do with sex, whether in general or about his own lustfulness.  I mean, you don't even have to read two sentences in any biography of him to know that he was a horny guy.

Want proof?  Take a look:

Lest you think that is an isolated example, check this out:

Now you know what this is really about--and it wasn't about a charge at the end of a Tour de France stage!:

Chains Of Light

When I was in fifth grade, my class took a trip from our school in Brooklyn to an exotic land on the other side of a frigid, turbid body of water:  the East River.  We, of course, went to Manhattan.

In that exotic isle, we visited the Metropolitan Opera House of the  Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, which was then only a few years old.  I knew nothing about opera or classical music, but the place had me entranced in a way no amusement park ever could. 


 



What had me most enthralled were the chandeliers.  I'd never seen anything like them, and few things have ever fixated themselves in my mind as they did.  To this day, I don't know whether it showed that I had exquisite taste at an early age or that I was simply a magpie in a human body. Whatever the case, I simply could not take my eyes away from them.


 



I decided, then and there, that if I ever became rich, I would want such a fixture hanging over my dining room table.  

In the meantime, though, I might go for this:

Carolina Fontoura Alzaga constructed this masterpiece from  bicycle chains. Somehow it seems even more operatic and baroque than the ones in Lincoln Center.  I love it!