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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
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Just got in from a very fun (last minute plan) weekend in Montreal riding bikes at Un Tour La Nuit (8000 people), Le Tour De L'Ile (20,000-30,000 people), and our own self-directed jaunts around town (6-7 people). Lots of cycling combined with sitting in the park. Perfect in every respect. Montreal has no right turn on red which lowers the stress level considerably. It also has lots of accessible public space and a culture that accomodates 'hanging out' with gusto. The top image is the intersection where Maison des Cyclists is located, a bike community centre/store/cafe that functions as a hub for both activism and recreation (everyone that you can see in the picture is on a bike except the guy on the steps who's bike is parked in the huge, 1/2 block-long bike racks).
A friend of mine has been feeding me Lawrence Lessig media. I know this is old hat for most of you, but anyone wanting a refresher, reminder, or (as in my case) introduction to his lucid inspiration on free culture should take time for this graphically-enhanced lecture. Lessig's book is available here in PDF. Below is an excerpt from a section on blogs and democracy (pg. 42).
[For] most of us for most of the time, there is no time or place for “democratic deliberation” to occur. More bizarrely, there is generally not even permission for it to occur. We, the most powerful democracy in the world, have developed a strong norm against talking about politics. It’s fine to talk about politics with people you agree with. But it is rude to argue about politics with people you disagree with. Political discourse becomes isolated, and isolated discourse becomes more extreme. We say what our friends want to hear, and hear very little beyond what our friends say.
Enter the blog.The blog’s very architecture solves one part of this problem. People post when they want to post, and people read when they want to read.The most difficult time is synchronous time.Technologies that enable asynchronous communication, such as e-mail, increase the opportunity for communication. Blogs allow for public discourse without the public ever needing to gather in a single public place.
But beyond architecture, blogs also have solved the problem of norms. There’s no norm (yet) in blog space not to talk about politics. Indeed, the space is filled with political speech, on both the right and the left. Some of the most popular sites are conservative or libertarian, but there are many of all political stripes.And even blogs that are not political cover political issues when the occasion merits.
The significance of these blogs is tiny now, though not so tiny.The name Howard Dean may well have faded from the 2004 presidential race but for blogs.Yet even if the number of readers is small, the reading is having an effect.
I used to be quite involved in a zine called Chicks United for Nonnoxious Transportation which a bunch of other girl cyclists in Toronto. I did most of the cover art, and wrote something for almost every issue. I was excited to discover that my piece "Cyclists Need Education" is online in the zine archives at messengers.com. It's wrongly attributed to Be Smiley who actually did draw the cartoon illustration that you see below. I am re-posting the piece here because, while it is undoubtedly the cruellest thing I ever wrote, it just might also be the best thing I ever wrote.
Cyclists Need Education
(written for C.U.N.T.zine, summer 1996)
To be perfectly frank, I don't like most cyclists. I'd rather hang out with respectable car drivers. Guys who know what they want and know how to get it - adult men, y'know what I mean? Guys like my Dad. What a great guy ol' Dad was - always taking us kids for rides in his Buick. Dad never liked cyclists either, said they belonged to the 'lunatic fringe'. Well, Dad, not all of us do! Some of us are respectable men like yourself, guys with a firm hand-shake who obey the law and proceed in an orderly, vehicular fashion.
Some cyclists want to change everything. They have silly ideas about making roads safer for cyclists by getting politicians and planners to take space away from cars. This proves that they belong on the lunatic fringe. They have to grow up and face the fact that cars and air pollution are here to stay. We aren't ever going to get respect from car drivers if cyclists keep acting anti-car. What driver would respect someone who said he was creating pollution? These issues are really very complex, a little difficult for emotional people (like women) to understand. The best thing for cyclists to do is get educated about how to behave in a vehicular fashion. That way they will win respect from car drivers.
All cyclists need to get educated about John Forrester. He wrote a book called Effective Cycling. John Forrester is a great, great guy. My Dad would've liked John Forrester. They'd have been friends. If my Dad knew John Forrester he'd have invited him over to dinner and they'd have played squash together. John Forrester knows that there is a right way and a wrong way to do things. He knows that certain cyclists, like me, know how to behave and get respect. Other cyclists need to get educated and stop acting stupid and doing wrong things.
When I'm riding I try to set a good example for other cyclists. Sometimes I see foreign cyclists and they don't know the right way to ride. Often women cyclists don't know how to ride because they're too scared. This kind of cyclist just needs to get educated by someone like me who knows the proper way to do things. Then drivers will stop hating cyclists and treat us all with respect.
If I ruled the world I'd make all cyclists ride like me - that way no one would ever get hurt. I'm never going to get hurt. I ride in a predictable manner that commands respect. As cars whizz by me I know that each and every driver is tipping his cap my way, "Now there's a fine cyclist," they think to themselves, "why, that fellow must have spent as much money on his shorts, fanny pack, whistle, helmet, cycling shoes, jersey, air horn, and handlebar pack as I spent on my car! And look at the fine vehicular way he rides. Such a respectable cyclist, not like those other scofflaws I see with long hair, dirty clothes, groceries and big butts.
When a car passes too close to me I know its a sign of respect. The driver can tell that I'm a very experienced cyclist and I can handle it. One time I met a driver who was really great and treated me with lots of respect. He didn't see me, poor guy, and hit me from behind when I was making a left turn in a vehicular fashion. He was really embarrassed when he saw how expensive my bike was. He told me that I looked like a really serious cyclist, not like those other scofflaws he's seen riding through stop signs and wearing dirty, old clothes. He was a great guy. He had a firm handshake like my Dad's. It was a pleasure to meet him, eventhough I did sustain a head injury.
I have one more thing to say, stay off the sidewalks! I spent a lot of money on my bike and my gear so people would take me seriously and treat me with respect. All you cyclists acting stupid are making me look bad.
On Saturday night, a big bunch of Toronto cyclists watched The Triplets of Belleville under the moon and stars in Trinity Bellwoods Park (a Bike Week screening by CBN). Because of the bikes-and-film connection, it was good to see Cinecycle's Martin Heath and bike courier/filmmaker extraordinaire John Porter in the audience. It was chilly, but most of us had blankets and beer. People sitting nearby made popcorn on a parafin stove.
My favourite image in the film is this strange machine, a sort of pedal operated mini-cinema projecting film of the road, with three cyclists staring into it, pedalling furiously and thereby powering the image that captivates them. At the climax of the film the whole contraption takes off and a car chase ensues, but the cyclists remain oblivious to anything but the film in front of their noses. This weird hybrid sailboat/bed/platform trundles along the city streets, glowing in the night. It's a very unusual yet oddly familiar image. There are certainly a lot of resonant connections between bicycles and film. I often think about this odd passage by Marshall MacLuhan from Understanding Media, the chapter titled, "Wheel, Bicycle and Airplane":
"...the movie camera rollsup the real world on a spool, to be unrolled and translated later onto the screen. [...] ...the airplane rolls up the highway into itself. The road disappears into the plane at take-off and the plane becomes a missile, a self-contained transportation system. At this point the wheel is reabsorbed into the form of a bird or fish that the plane becomes as it takes into the air. [...] Unlike wing or fin, the wheel is lineal and requires the road for its completion. [...] The bicycle lifted the wheel onto the plane of aerodynamic balance, and not too indirectly created the airplane."
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Levittown (again)
Tom Moody has just written an excellent post on art, war, and USA. It's here.