Other languages have wonderful expressions that don't quite translate into English, but are vivid nonetheless.
One, from French, is pedaler dans la choucroute.
Pedaling through sauerkraut? Avec ou sans la moutarde?
Yesterday I contrasted the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" with the speeches of the Republican National Convention, which ended the night before.
Speaking of dreams: One of mine has long been to have indoor, or at least protected, bicycle parking at museums. Well, that dream has just come true--for a while, and at one institution, anyway.
Today the Metropolitan Museum of Art is, like the Statue of Liberty* and a few other New York City museums and landmarks, re-opening to the public. Visitors must purchase tickets and schedule their visits in advance. Upon arrival, their temperatures will be checked and anyone who is 38C (100.4 F) or higher will be asked to visit on another day.
Some visitors, however, will be treated like VIPs. From today until 27 September, "the Met" is offering valet bicycle parking at its Fifth Avenue plaza, just north of the steps to its main entrance. An initiative by Kenneth Weine, the museum's vice president of external affairs, resulted in a partnership with Transportation Alternatives that brought about the parking arrangement.
Weine, who describes himself as an "avid biker," routinely rides from his Brooklyn home to work. The museum has tripled bike parking capacity for staff in an effort to encourage more cycling to work. Weine lauds the city for developing more bike lanes and says that "if we can be one extra link in that chain" by "offering an additional way for people to come to the museum, we're happy to do it."
In other posts on this blog, I have said that cycling enhances my perceptions of art, and that some art should be seen only after riding a bicycle to reach it. I wonder whether Weine, or other museum administrators or curators, feel the same way.
Today is the anniversary of Martin Luther King's Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech.
It's a sad irony (How many times have I used this phrase in the past three years?) that it comes the day after what seemed like a bad drug trip that lasted four nights. I'm talking about the Republican National Convention, which featured more gaslighting than Angela Lansbury's first film.* Dreaming--more precisely, exhorting your audience to envision and follow your dream--is an invitation to a journey toward a better place. What happened at the convention is the exact opposite: Speakers imputed sinister motives, words and actions to their enemies and hellish conditions to places that had been doing well (or, at least, improving) until the COVID-19 epidemic.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the tone of the convention, given that Trump has not only vowed not to ride a bike, but has jeered cyclists. On the other hand, MLK was known to take a spin. And, like Einstein, he looked so happy in the saddle!
*--Like many people, I thought Gaslight was a Hitchcock film until I saw it. George Cukor, in fact, directed it.
