Month: July 2009

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Bicycle Wheels

bicyclewheel1.jpgA few days ago, I was looking for an online image of a bicycle wheel that I could use as a Twitter icon. Talk about having a high purpose.

I happened upon a Museum of Modern Art image of “Bicycle Wheel,” a found or “readymade” art object by French artist Marcel Duchamp. It’s a sweet and goofy construction: a bicycle wheel and fork mounted upside-down on a tall stool. Many aspects of a bike lend themselves to wonder and introspection–everything from the the double-triangle frame design to the bearings and races in a hub–but the wheel ranks right up there at the top with its combination of fragility and strength. Duchamp is said to have enjoyed spinning his stool-mounted wheel and is widely quoted as saying, “”I enjoyed looking at it, just as I enjoy looking at the flames dancing in a fireplace.”

The MoMa site has a nice picture of one of the three Bicycle Wheel constructions Duchamp is said to have made The first of the three Bicycle Wheels, dated in 1913, was “lost.” The MoMa wheel is dated 1951, is said to be the thirdand features a classic raked-forward fork. The way it’s presented on the site, there’s no question it’s an objet d’arte. (The version pictured here appears to be the same sculpture; it’s uncredited and found here. I’m seeking permission to publish the MoMa’s image here; we’ll see if I get it).

Below is another another Duchamp “Bicycle Wheel” that appears (with no copyright notices) here and there on the Web (this image is from Wikicommons). The source says “replica,” but I believe that refers to the fact it’s a Duchamp copy of the lost original.

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What I love about dipping into something like this is the impromptu museum tour that happens. “Bicycle Wheel” in MoMa: check. Another version in some other exhibition: check. The next stop is (if picture captions are to be believed) is Duchamp’s studio a few years after he first put wheel and stool together.

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There it is, the object pre-veneration, the wheel askew, apparently just part of the disarray in an artist’s quarters. You can appreciate the inspiration and the execution–and the suggestion the creator didn’t take it too seriously.

All of which brings us to our final display: the continuing life of “Bicycle Wheel” outside the gallery. For starters, we have the creation of “The Duchamp,” a found musical instrument. And this alternate take on the concept. And finally: Duchamp Reloaded, by Ji Lee, an artist who liberates “Bicycle Wheel” to experience the life of New York’s streets.

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(Photo: Ji Lee, “Duchamp Reloaded.” Used with permission.)

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Tour de France: Versus 2009 Theme Song

[Details on the Versus 2008 Tour de France theme song, Paul Weller’s “Brand New Start,” here. Details on 2010’s featured song, “Kings and Queens,” by 30 Seconds to Mars, here.]

Last year, Versus featured a song about “getting clean” for its Tour de France coverage. It was part of the network’s attempt, along with its embrace of clean-cycling missionaries Garmin-Chipotle, to position itself as a leader of the clean cycling movment (though perhaps ironically the ratings were better in the dirty-cycling years).

For 2009, Versus doesn’t have a Tour theme. But it does have a nice two-minute ad it’s playing that highlights some of the sports and events the network covers: pro cycling, bull riding, cage fighting, Formula 1 racing, killing large animals, and pro ice hockey among others. The ad features a voiceover by John Doman. If the name’s not familiar, think Rawls, the hard-bitten, cynical (and gay) deputy police chief in “The Wire.”

The music in the ad is an ethereal, ringing instrumental called “First Breath After Coma,” by a band Thom introduced me to a few years ago, Explosions in the Sky.

Here’s the YouTube version of the ad:

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Summer Rainbow

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I’ve long been a fan of photographic panoramas. Once a long time ago, we went to the farm near Dyersville, Iowa, where “Field of Dreams” was filmed, and I took a series of shots of the baseball field from the farmhouse porch. When I got the pictures back, I spent a while creating a mosaic of the shots, then had them mounted and framed as a present for my dad. I think he’s still got it hanging on his wall. One of the unexpected artifacts in the pictures was a guy who was walking along the right-field and first-base line; he appears in several shots in the “panorama.”

Nowadays, I’m sure there’s some sort of really good software that helps you stitch together digital pictures. Me, I have an application for the Mac called DoubleTake that does an OK job. One of the first things you realize when using it, though, is that it can’t really give you a seamless rendering of more than two shots. Not that I mind–I’m not a pro and I’m taking pictures with a pocket-sized camera.

But every once in a while, I wish I had the equipment, the knowledge, and the other wherewithal that would knit together with my enthusiasm for wide-angle scenes. Case in point: This evening just before sunset, we got an exceedingly rare July rainfall. The sun was below the edge of the clouds, and as soon as the rain started falling–very lightly–I knew we’d see a rainbow. And in a few minutes, there it was: a full arch and a full “double” image. The colors on the descending legs were so bright they appeared fluorescent. I ran in the house and got the beat-up Casio and shot away. I shot away knowing that I wouldn’t capture the real brilliance of the light and that I’d need three shots, minimum, to get the full expanse of the rainbow.

So that’s where that image up there comes from (click for a larger image–the full size is 2400×900-some pixels). To make the rainbow look continuous, I compromised on the bottom edge of the pictures, where you can see some strange things happening with trees and houses.

On to the next experiment. (And if you want to check out a panoramic picture system, take a look at this.)

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Crime+Fashion=Fashion Crime

Dedicated to bringing our dozens of readers only the highest-quality deep insights into the workings of the Tour de France (or TOURdafrance, as Frankie Andreu likes to say), we turn now to podium fashions. Specifically, the migraine-inducing outfits sported by the models condemned to presenting the daily trophy knick-knacks to the leader of the King of the Mountain competition. As the whole world knows, the KOM leader wears a red-on-white polka-dot jersey. Here’s renowned Tour non-winner Michael Rasmussen, without the jersey …

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… and with it:

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We’d start our fashion advice to Michael with an urgent plea for god’s sake keep your shirt on. But he’s not the focus of today’s essay. No, it’s the apparition below we want to address.

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Yes, the model is comely as all get out. She almost pulls it off, even with the thing that’s been stuck to her head. But in the world of high cycling fashion, as in the world of cycling, almost doesn’t cut it. Why? Let’s face it, outside a measles ward or a drunken company picnic, polka dots are always a tough look to carry off. But even if the mass of red spots doesn’t put you off, the lady cummerbund tied in a flouncy red bow and the parachute-style skirt should. Maybe you can only appreciate this work of fashion after seeing the podium models trying to manage it in a 20 mph wind. After watching the presentations this year, we theorize that the women presenting the King of the Mountain tchotchkes are guilty of something–maybe shop-lifting from Carrefour, the store chain that sponsors the KOM competition–and this is their punishment.

[Note: All three pictures here were uncredited and are used without permission. In order from top to bottom, they were found here, here, and here.]

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Tour de France: Stage 7

Without being excessively Twitterish, I’ll just say this about Stage 7: Check out the course profiles. A lot will be decided, and a lot will change. (Steephill.tv’s Google map of the stage makes that finishing road look like a tiny, little twisting thing.)

Here’s the course profile. (I wonder how Mark Cavendish will like the stage.)

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Below: The final 10 kilometers.

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Journal of Self-Promotion

I’m filling in as morning assignment editor at KQED Radio News–that in addition to my usual duty as PM news editor. So yesterday, someone mentioned that a member of the Assembly from Berkeley was holding a press conference. She wanted to talk about how online retailers who are not required to collect sales tax are affecting local business. Her particular interest, besides the fate of constituents: She had sponsored a bill to start collecting sales tax from Web retailers who have relationships with affiliates in California–people who advertise for the retailers and send business their way in return for a fee. Anyway, we live a mile from where the press conference was being held, and I had a recording kit at home, so I ran over and covered the event. I wrote one story for another reporter to read yesterday afternoon, and another that I recorded for air this morning. You can find it here: http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R907090850/b. Get ready for dulcet tones.

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Journal of Self-Promotion

I’m filling in as morning assignment editor at KQED Radio News–that in addition to my usual duty as PM news editor. So yesterday, someone mentioned that a member of the Assembly from Berkeley was holding a press conference. She wanted to talk about how online retailers who are not required to collect sales tax are affecting local business. Her particular interest, besides the fate of constituents: She had sponsored a bill to start collecting sales tax from Web retailers who have relationships with affiliates in California–people who advertise for the retailers and send business their way in return for a fee. Anyway, we live a mile from where the press conference was being held, and I had a recording kit at home, so I ran over and covered the event. I wrote one story for another reporter to read yesterday afternoon, and another that I recorded for air this morning. You can find it here: http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R907090850/b. Get ready for dulcet tones.

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Long-Distance Riders

I’ve meant to note for the last couple of days that this is the week of the Gold Rush Randonee. My explanation of a randonee usually prompts a reaction combining puzzlement (why would someone do such a thing?) with horror (you mean people really do that without being forced?). Here’s your basic randonee: 750 miles in 90 hours, with a series of checkpoints on the way to make sure you’re moving along smartly and not taking shortcuts.

So far, you’re just quizzical: “Yes? Hmmm. That’s a long way.”

You are correct. In ballpark numbers, 750 miles is a distance akin to San Francisco to Seattle. If you’re very motivated, you can probably do that drive in 13 hours up Interstate 5. On a bike, you want to build up to the adventure. Nice 50-mile increments would be pleasant. Take a couple of weeks to enjoy the scenery. Or maybe you’re a cycling animal and you do a 100 miles per diem, a century a day for eight days.

Here’s where curiosity encounters fear. “Ninety hours? How many days is that?”

Three and three-quarters. So to do your 750 miles in that time means pedaling a cool double-century a day. Yes, people actually do it. I can bear witness. But I won’t detour into some of the odder realities of the randonee–the night-time starts, the all-night rides, the naps in the ditches, the slow descent into an often less than coherent or rational frame of mind.

Still, you can’t help but ask: “How do you sit on a bike seat after all those miles?”

I just wanted to note the Gold Rush riders are out there, toiling from Davis, at the southwestern corner of the Sacramento Valley, across mountains and high desert to Davis Creek, just below the Oregon border on U.S. 395. They left Monday at 6 p.m., and the first rider of the 117 who started will be back in Davis in two hours or so — only 54 or 55 hours on the road. I’d like to know how much that guy slept. I know several folks on the ride, and it’s been fun to follow their progress in the Davis Bike Club’s updates. My friend Bruce, who will turn 63 this August, seems to be several hours ahead of his pace four years ago. Amazing, really.

Anyway, check out the proceedings:

Gold Rush Randonee ride updates

Gold Rush Randonee rider times

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Tour de France: Timing Rules

More on the timing rules:The previous post raised the question of how Armstrong was placed second overall after Cancellara. The answer, suggested by commenter Paul (from the Netherlands) and confirmed on Bicycle.net (here) is that the judges go back to the results of the first individual time trial (Stage 1, which was not a prologue because it was longer than 8 kilometers). As Bicycle.net explains it:

In the event two riders tie for first place in the race for the yellow jersey, their times in the race’s two individual time trials would prove crucial. In such an event the fractions of seconds from the individual time trials – which are usually rounded up to the nearest second – are employed by race officials and added to the riders’ overall time to separate them.