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In Conclusion

by BikeSnobNYC, June 11, 2010 10:39 AM

Today is Friday, which means my stint here at Powell's is drawing to a close. I plan to take the weekend to collect myself and my thoughts, after which I will embark upon my next "guest blogging" appearance at the Martha Stewart Living website. I don't want to give anything away, but I'll be focusing on making macaroni art.

I'm also looking forward to appearing at Powell's on Sunday, June 20th. I should mention, though, that the 20th is also my first-ever Father's Day, and so I can't promise that I won't spend at least part of my appearance crying into a World's Greatest Dad mug. I only hope that my new son and I still recognize each other when I return. "They grow up fast," everyone keeps telling me, and I'd be pretty creeped out to get home and find the kid has grown a beard during my absence.

Of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention my book at this point, seeing as how this is a bookstore website and if you're reading this, you're almost certainly interested in books. (Either that, or you were doing an Internet search for "babies with beards" and you wound up here.) While in many ways my book grew out of my blog, it was important to me not to simply reiterate it in book form. Instead, I wanted to express how cycling, or really anything you love, can be a path to understanding yourself and the world, and ultimately to happiness — assuming, of course, that the thing you love is valid, which I think cycling most certainly is, despite what this guy has to say.

What a complete fruitcake.

Anyway, I will leave it to readers to judge whether I've succeeded, but judging from this comment on a recent article about me in the Philadelphia Inquirer, anticipation of the book has reached a fever pitch:

Sounds like someone is a buddy of Weiss. Why else they be plugging a book that no one else has heard of? I won't be buying it. Weiss and his snobbery are something I deal with from them on a daily basis. Weiss won't be getting richer off of my $16.95

I am honored to be the object of an economic boycott.

Thank you very much for reading, and I hope to see you on the 20th.

— BSNYC/RTMS

Books mentioned in this post

Bike Snob Systematically & Mercilessly Realigning the World of Cycling

BikeSnobNYC

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4 Responses to "In Conclusion"

BikeSlobPDX June 13, 2010 at 03:12 AM

It's a shame that Philadelphia based architect Louis Kahn's visionary redesign of the city - eliminating cars & most other motorized traffic from the core was never adopted In his Rational City studies (1939-48) he saw the need to make an explicit distinction between the architecture of the "viaduct" (Le Corbusier's "Ville Radieuse") and building at a human scale. In his plan for midtown Philadelphia he attempted to press the forms of Piranesi's Rome of 1762 into the service of the modern city. In this, expressways were thought as "rivers" and the traffic-light controlled streets as "canals." Kahn was conscious of the profound antipathy between the automobile and the city and of the fatal link between consumerism, the suburban shopping center and the decline of the urban core. He proposed a "dock" solution (1956) comprising a 6-story cylindrical silo housing 1,500 cars and surrounded on its perimeter by 18-story blocks that was deprived of elements at a human scale. His son Nathaniel's introspective biographical film "My Architect" describes the plan and relates how his vision was ridiculed & rejected by local mainstream architects.

dwainedibbly June 11, 2010 at 02:14 PM

Sorry we're going to miss you on the 20th. We're not driving from FL to move to PDX until the 21st. Drat! Will Powells have any extra autographed copies of the book?

Nettie June 11, 2010 at 01:36 PM

I myself subscribe to the odious ideology of anti-obesity extremism.

anonymous June 11, 2010 at 10:53 AM

As to the anti-bike guy, who starts off his rant with "There is something profoundly wrong with a nation where more adults ride bicycles than children." I must've been cut off from the newer hipster trends, cause I don't know any adults that ride children. Need to Google that ASAP.

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