Suburbanization Sonnet

Suburbanization’s Corporate Welfare

Highways out of cities carry money

That America’s government once shared

Amongst all citizens much more fairly

Highways & subsidized “public” Parking

Stole money from people outside of cars

To benefit “modernity’s new thing:”

Automobiles (that drive us apart far)

Driving past humanity isolates

Man from man, woman from woman, people

See “others” as abstract, & as ingrates

That interfere with’th speed worship steeple

The car you love so intensely costs you

Ability with others to commune

Subsidizing Suburbia: A forgotten history of how the government created suburbia

Fate/Faith #Haikus

20. Another big day/
With important tasks to do/
(like ev’ry other)
#haiku

21. Savor the mundane/
Revel In tribulations/
For it’s all we have/
#haiku

22. We’re alive today/
Here for some special reason/
That needs no knowledge*/
#haiku *understanding (incomplete)

23. The organism/
We are little cells within/
Needs all our actions/
#haiku

24. The complex machine/
We are tiny parts within/
Works better with us/
#haiku

25. Flat tire is the sign/
I was searching heaven for/
Patience is virtue/
#haiku
(@ Icon Enterprises) [pic]: http://4sq.com/QzejWz

Flat tire is the sign/ I was searching heaven for/ patience is virtue/ #haiku (@ Icon Enterprises) [pic]: http://t.co/YsAPuhH9

— WesternQueensLand (@wqueens7) June 29, 2012

26. I’m climbing my fate/
Pushing more effort up there/
For what I don’t know/
#haiku
(@ New York City) [pic]: http://4sq.com/KHGPRx

I'm climbing my fate/ Pushing more effort up there/ For what I don't know/ #haiku (@ New York City) [pic]: http://t.co/rSZBzktg

— WesternQueensLand (@wqueens7) June 29, 2012

27. Perfect surprises/
Align symmetrically for/
Those who look around/
#haiku
@ Midtown Comics

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Perfect surprises/ Align symmetrically for/ Those who look around/ #haiku @ Midtown Comics http://t.co/3B55VI2S

— WesternQueensLand (@wqueens7) June 29, 2012

*FATE

Kiko Rides Some More

There were two men delivering oversized sandwiches on bikes that day, a convoy!

It was a really rough two weeks teaching two classes. I have some exciting, but demanding, administrative work, but I am not really clear on how I feel about all of it.  I should say that I am so tied up in things to do that I cannot see the “meta” of my life.  Or, if you prefer, I can’t see the forest for the trees.  But here is the latest on Kiko, and I did a good hour, or two paragraphs at the end, where he has won the race and some observations. (it started here, and was last published here)

That weekend, when Mike and Kiko rode Croak wasn’t there but Kiko was stronger and more able to use the bike Mike was lending him.  The brakes, gears, ride and fit all became more and more comfortable.  In fact Kiko now realized what a bad fit (and bike) he had on Sra Choi’s bike that he had been riding out to Jamaica and back every day for the last few months.  Bent over the impossibly light “bicicleta de papel” as he had named it in the awkward carnero cuerno (ram-horned) handlebars week after week became more comfortable.  He could feel the resistance that his upright work-bike had been subjecting him to and he looked forward to bending down out of the wind.

One weekend, so convinced of the superiority of the lowered position, he went back home and took the handlebars off of a kids’ “racing bike” he found in a vacant lot and replaced the mountain bars on his bike.  Where was a whole sunday of problems to solve concerning the basket, brakes, grip-shifters, but when he had finished they all -,ore or less- worked.  Of course it looked like the eccentric 3rd world piece of engineering that it was, but Kiko was proud of his handiwork and excited about not having to fight the wind everytime someone wanted bacon and eggs delivered to their home.

That same Monday Croak rolled up with his bolsa mesengero pulled tight across his chest like un bandolero de Pancho Villa and laughed at Kiko’s handiwork. “Man look at that, you look like you’re gonna ride back into the 70s with that time machine!”

“I liking the drop bars so I get me some,” explaining with pride, “the gears and brakes they no fit so well, but I make them work just fine, like new as long as I pull forward when I turn.”  In order to get the new handlebars working he had turned the basket sideways, modified some of the hardware with washers, nuts and bolts, used zip-ties in other places.  The handlebar tape that covered the wires from the ill fitting twist shifters and mountain bike brakes was silver.  Kiko had cut the strips in half so that they wouldn’t gather and bubble, but this had caused lots of threads to form like dashboard  hula dancer’s skirt or science fiction cobwebs.

Croak rode with Kiko until his delivery weaving in and out of traffic.  They rode side-by-side in some cases and one or the other would zip in front when they needed to go single file.  Who would take the lead and who would follow was communicated and agreed upon silently with little more than muscle tenses and shrugs.  In these short rides Kiko learned about drafting and pack riding in ways that years in a club pack can never teach.

 

The Measure of a Man

1. Inside Champions/
A magnified reflection/
Of human spirit/
#haiku

2. True champions win/
Each and ev’ry day they try/
To complete their tasks/
#haiku

3. The external race/
Is for mere humanity/
Real champs win within/
#haiku

4. Public accolades/
Are the mere recognition/
Of the outside world/
#haiku

5a. The “world’s accolades”/
Like children’s shiny trinkets/
Lack moral value/
#haiku

5b.The “world’s accolades”/
Like children’s shiny trinkets/
Lack any real worth/
#haiku

5c. The “world’s accolades”/
Like children’s shiny trinkets/
Mean nothing to G_d/
#haiku

Kiko Learns Pack Procedure

Here’s more of Kiko’s Tale.  He’s back, our delivery guy, (if only your intrepid scribe was as dedicated and regular as Kiko). Here Kiko meets another aspect of the City Cycling world, a singular character named Croak. There’s more the pipeline.

And of course, if you want to start from the beginning, go here.  IF this link doesn’t work you can search “Kiko” on this blog and feel yourway back to the beginning by hitting “previous entries” two or three times.

“Kiko, this is Croak,” Mike said gesturing to the chest of the hard 40-something man there by the side of the highway. It was a strange place this road between leafy houses and the trench the LIE was in, and it seemed stranger with Croak there. They all hopped on their bikes, Kiko having locked up Sra Choi’s bike and taken off the baggy jeans and t-shirt he’d worn over the kit. With his street clothes removed Croak and Mike both saw the broad chest and shoulders of Kiko’s Indian ancestry looking like a barrel of muscle barely contained by his mule-like ribs.

The three of them set off with Mike leading to start. As they hit the city limits in about 20 minutes Croak took over and it was not so easy for Kiko to keep up. Mike pulled 20 inches off their line and pedaled more slowly so that Croak and Kiko passed him and he fell back into their slipstream. Croak , a narrow man, rode hard and pulled them at a pace that Mike had not. Inside of Kiko there was a smile on his heart because he was finally being challenged. Kiko dug deep and kept up with florescent advert without much trouble, but he was riding harder and he knew that they were covering a lot of road in a little time. The smile in his chest was his pride at going so fast and working so hard as a team.

20 minutes alter Croak jumped out of line, fell back two places and clicked back into the line like a safe’s tumbler. Kiko kept the pace, maintaining his rhythm and cadence in perfect tight circles. He felt the extra resistance of being in front so he dropped the gear one level and spun away. After a time he felt he was spinning too much and he shifted again, increasing his speed. He didn’t know this but behind him mike had to dig much deeper to keep up and Croak’s face broke into an ear-to-ear grin as he clung to mike’s wheel for every jewel of energy savings that Mike’s big Irish draft offered.

Happy New You

 

12/31/07 05:35:55 AM

Where has the year gone? Has it gone into the trash heap or the archives; I’m not sure which. Into the archives is another beautiful year with a wonderful family. We’ve just moved into an apartment which seems to fit us better. We, for the first time, are in a home big enough for all of us (the second bathroom is key).

Here is an outline of the biggies I can think of this minute:

New House

We love our new house and are looking forward to finishing moving in. Three bedrooms and two baths is the right fit for us. Mason has his own room and it is big enough to send him to. 🙂 Chandler and Lennox are working out the wrinkles in their new quasi-cohabitation. Generally permission is granted to cross the armistice line; especially since Lenna got her princess netting and pink rug. It is strange to be in a modern building and the view, as I look over the BQE and east into Woodside and Rego Park and watch the sun rise as I write this the sky and the contours of the land are enthralling to me. I love watching when the LIRR rolls out of Woodside on the way to Jamaica: a long silvery snake a half a mile on.

Family

 

I am still so in Love With Linda that it scares me. She is the model for everything beautiful and desirable in my life. I wish I could be with her more and, paradoxically, more like her. I am blessed to be chosen by her to spend these days together with her.

Chandler continues to thrive at the TAG school she’s in. She has a lot of homework and does it without complaint, though she looks at the confections of Cable TV as the just and right compensation for her work. At least is is mostly Disnified Pre-Tween Confections, though she will be a teenager on February 23^rd.

Mason and I survived the soccer season (he’s quite good) with me as coach, though he declined to play winter league indoors. Mason’s way with words continues to amaze Linda and I mostly because he is not the squeaky wheel. Out of -or out from under- the hubbub of the family Mason will make a wry comment that puts everything that we are all elbowing to the front to try and frame just so into context. He does so uproariously and seemingly without effort.

Lennox is growing up so fast in so many ways. Just like with her sister we are often fooled into thinking that she’s older because she’s so damned verbal. She is also sassy in a way Chandler can only dream of (and rue). So when she puts her hand on her splayed hip and rolls her eyes as she wipes stray locks out of her eyes explaining “whatever, duh!” we lose track of her age (5) and size (just right). We start trying to reason with the sarcastic teenager that she apes rather than the Kindergartener that she is. Needless to say we miss having Kindergarten across the street, but we’ll see how this move will effect our lives (passive aggressively I think the earlier wake-up and travel will be good for the family).

School Year

I loved my Fall 1 Classes and I am really enjoying the Lit Elective classes I am teaching. The Contemporary African American Fiction and the Black Lit Survey have been soul-expanding (as much as teaching a class can be). I love the students at LaGuardia CC. Teaching them is a dream come true. In many of their faces and papers I see myself struggling intellectually to come into my own. It is a humbling flashback when I see the same misunderstandings that I made in someone else’s paper. It is a merciful reminder of my current domestic bliss when I see the sturm und drang of youthful courting around campus. I look forward to working on my own intellectual and academic development this next year.

Amir’s Murder

The horror of Amir Hassan Reed’s murder this year has put a lot of things into perspective. I am so grateful to be alive, which I generally take for granted. I take life, mine and my beautiful family’s to be a given that shall continue along, but it “Ain’t Necessarily So.” I had taken it for granted that I would wake up to the same cast that I went to sleep with. It is rare that such a Cause Célèbre visits our lives, and I had often wished that my life would intersect with drama and fame. Sigh, I wish that I had marked my door with blood so this angel never came. What I found most annoying and titillating was the comments left on the SFGate site articles: people who knew the least seemed to make the strongest comments. This puts all of my “Willie-Neckbone-Expertise” into perspective: the more I think I know, the less I know.

48 Years

I turned 48 this December. I remember in 1974 thinking that it would be the year 2000 when I was 40. It seemed so abstract and distant (and of course I took it for granted that I would live that long). Well until this year I’ve held up well. During the spring my Achilles tendons started to act up (and I didn’t go to the doctor). In the Fall, playing soccer with Mason I tore up my ankle (and I didn’t go to the doctor). This December my ankle got infected and I went to the doctor. I will go to physical therapy soon because I really miss my morning runs through Sunnyside, Woodside, Maspeth and Long Island City. I’m feeling trapped by my infirmity in spite of the fact that I did go for a bike ride yesterday. Linda is sick this morning so I don’t think I’ll have that luxury.

Dreams

I still haven’t written the great American novel, but I have been working on a story. I haven’t published my dissertation, but I hope to. I want to do more original scholarship rather than just “willie-neckbone” out opinions on things I know little about. So I will continue to do as the Sanskrit Proverb suggests:

Look to this day
For it is life
The very life of life.
In its brief course lie all
The realities and verities of existence,
The bliss of growth,
The splendor of action,
The glory of power —

For yesterday is but a dream,
And tomorrow is only a vision,
But today, well-lived,
Makes every yesterday a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day.

Happy New YOU, Love Stafford.

Kiko Rides Again

Here’s the latest installment of Kiko’s Tale, because I haven’t posted anything in a while. He’s back, our delivery guy, (if only your intrepid scribe was as dedicated and regular as Kiko). Here Kiko meets another aspect of the City Cycling world, a character named Croak. There’s more the pipeline, though if I don’t start getting some feedback… (It’s hard to keep going without hits and feedback, of course it is possible that it sucks.)

And of course, if you want to start from the beginning, go here.  IF this link doesn’t work you can search “Kiko” on this blog and feel your way back to the beginning by hitting “previous entries” two or three times.

Once The Blue and Gold Line had caught them Mike taught Kiko about riding in a pack, swapping places at the end of the line, and talking about how to figure out where the wind was coming from and how to fid the best place to draft off of people in the pack. By explaining, without actually executing, mike told Kiko the basics of working your way to the front, climbing the grapevine, and, again, holding your line in a pack, which took equal parts nerve and skill.

As they were breaking up for the day Mike, impressed as much by Kiko’s teachability as his natural skill and stamina, went to the van he had brought the bikes in and got Kiko a set of cycling togs, a pair of shoes (with pedals) and a helmet. He explained a bit of the rational for wearing tight colorful clothes, using the Blue and Gold Line as an example. He pointed out how the Jeans and T-Shirt made him look less able, and how “the kit” (the cycling term for uniform) would cut down on some of the resistance (social and physical), and asked him to come meet him the next week at the same place. 

When they met the next week Mike had a new guy with him. His name was Croak and he looked vaguely familiar to Kiko. He was thin and mean looking in spite of the affable smile that rode beneath the pencil thin mustache on his beige skin. Croak was obviously a black man, though his skin was the color of a paper bag and he had no hair to speak of. Kiko could just make out the outline of a receding hairline in the microscopically barbered hair that was left on his skull. He wore a faded Campagnolo hat that had odd creases ironed into it on the back of his head that reminded him of the soldier’s hats back home. His gaudy “kit” advertised an Italian banking concern in florescent colors from his shoes to his hat and gloves everything matched; the bike and handlebar tape even sang the praises of Tuscan-low-rate-mortagages.

Bike Racing Team

Here’s the latest installment of Kiko’s Tale, because I haven’t posted anything in a while. He’s back, our hombre duro de las bicilcletas, aand he’s going to peek into another world today. More observations of work in NYC, and not the kind for people who go to college. There is some recreation here too, and the kind for the Manhattan-Types. There’s more the pipeline, though if I don’t start getting some feedback… (It’s hard to keep going without hits and feedback, of course it is possible that it sucks.)

And of course, if you want to start from the beginning, go here.

The team of a certain Manhattan Bike shop, with their matching Blue and Gold kits that had passed them with a series of smirks eight faces long on the way out of the city had to work harder than they ever had to catch them on the way back across the golf course at the border of Queens. They figured it was ‘cause they were tired, in need of nourishment in the form of the food-like-stuff the team provided in little bottles and foil packets. They had no idea that this was the raw debut of something new in cycling, this was Kiko, unleashed.

Team Manhattan, the Blue and Gold Line, did catch them after about a mile of perfect drafting and flawless transitions of the lead. It was actually, were you there to watch, a superior act of teamwork: they looked like an iridescent blue and gold zipper with each rider taking his turn until he was completely shot and then falling back and catching onto the end of the line in perfect time and harmony. They had never, even I the race out at the old air strip Floyd Bennett Field where the exposure to the wind made teamwork paramount in their victory, worked so well together. At that race it was enough to clearly, convincingly, win, out here in their weekly “leave Manhattan” practice it was barely enough to reel in a guy in commercial togs and one in jeans. Had Marcal, the captain, thought to ask them to join it would have been a coup, instead their smirks just rode back to where Kiko had left the bike with the basket locked up.

Kiko and Mike Ride (& great news)

So Sean FILED his Diss back at Berkeley.  Some very few of you know what it is like to have a dissertation from a prime piece of academic real-estate hanging over your head.  SEAN MAC, my main man, with whom I rode Northern California compulsively hiding from my own dissertation, finally filed.  He has a great story of bureaucratic fumbling and near-misses and the usual luxury horrors (he does have a Ph.D after all) that you’ll have to ask him about.

Holla at me. Here Kiko rides with Mike, which is VERY intimidating when it comes right down to it.  I want to speed up the pace, but I am mad-busy (don’t tell Mason I said that).  And of course, if you want to start from the beginning, go here.

Kiko, wanting to try this thin and expensive bike, to see what he could do if he had a chance on something that was good, docilely tried to understand Mike’s instructions, completely understanding the measure even if the theory escaped him.  He understood why his seat was too low on his work bike, and how the straight mountain bars pushed him up into the wind, slowing him down from Jamaica to Wall St. In Mike’s tontería Kiko found the answer to lots of questions he hadn’t thought to ask yet, and this made him trust the angloparlante.

Finally, once they had finished the adjustments and locked up the delivery bike, they set off towards the East.  The bike that Mike had brought for Kiko was a bit vintage, so the shifters were on the tube that ran from the headset to the crank and it took Kiko a while to be able to stay in his tuck, hold his line and change gears.  There were other riders out there in matching team kits, and they looked at Mike in an older Discovery Channel jersey from the Tour de France three years ago and Kiko in jeans and a t-shirt like the mismatched pair that they were. 

Mike was trying to make clear the theories surrounding shifting (“start easy, shift down once your cadence, RPMs are over 90 or a 100”), drafting (“if you stay right behind me there is less resistance, and you can rest”), sprinting (“you only want to thrash around site-to-side to keep people behind you, otherwise it is a waste of energy”) and, most importantly, pack behavior (“you want to keep going straight, hold your line, it’s like being in a band, the drummer doesn’t pay attention to what the guitarist does; keep your beat”).

They went out practicing these ideas to a bit past Old Westerbury, and on the way back they put them into practice.  It was a bout noon and the riders from Long Island who had looked at this odd couple on their ride in saw them firing on all cylinders on the way back.  Kiko was drafting off of Mike and then, when mike pulled out of line, he charged up and offered his draft to Mike, though he rode so hard and fast on that slim little bike that it was hard for Mike to hold on and keep his draft.

Kiko and Mike V

 

 Holla at me. Here Kiko continues to re-meet Mike, which is how things start to happen in a linear way again. I want to speed up the pace. And of course, if you want to start from the beginning, go here.

Second were the bikes hanging upside down in the loft, they were thin and light like Mike’s.  In fact, thinking back to where the egg white feta omelets go they were like spider webs floating gently over the thin strong woman who over-tipped him in that loft.  There was so little bike there that he thought that they probably floated up to the ceiling, rather than hanging there, Kiko thought.  But were those webs a trap for a fly like him, or the fairy-dragonfly wings spouting out of the back of the omelet-bicycle lady?

And finally, he wondered how he had beaten Mike, on his sick-slick-skinny-little bike and funny clothes, up and over the Queensboro Bridge.  Kevin had also asked how he went so fast.  Kiko just knew that he could ride well, but he had no idea that it was phenomenal, and Key-Vin and Bridge Mike’s attention just made him self-conscious and suspicious.

On Sunday, Kiko’s day off, after a fair amount of negotiation he agreed to meet mike and go for a ride.  According to Mike Central Park was too busy, so they met out on the LIE service road and rode out of Flushing towards Long Island.  It was there that Mike had a proper bike, “una bicicleta flaca muy bonita, Gracias.  Estás seguro?”

Reassuringly, “yeah, sure Kiko, this is one I no longer use,” as he took out an allen key set and adjusted the seat and handlebars to Kiko’s height.  Mike explained the mechanics of a proper fit on a bike in Queens English that went by far too fast for Kiko to understand: “The heel of your foot on the pedal when your leg is stretched out will keep you from rocking…  Bent over enough when in the drops to stay out of the wind while not interfering with your breathing… Head-up, shoulders down….”