random juggernaut

Last year my classes at Maine West and Maine South worked together to give some amazing gifts to people in Africa through UNICEF. This year i am trying to repeat that same thing with my students here at WEsthill in Stamford.

Give a bike… they save lives.

I spent two weeks in Copenhagen back in 1999 and I still can’t get it out of my head. The infrastructure for public transportation is excellent there, bolstered by a 100% tax on cars and a population of which 35% ride their bikes daily to work, play and the pub. Not surprising that they have consistently ranked at the top of the “happiness scale” for the past several years.

Last year I was living in Chicago and refound a love for the bicycle and I have tried to keep that love growning here in Connecticut. The infrastructure for cycling in Chicago is one of the best in the nation, rivaling Portland for top-billing. Keep it up, Mayor Daley.

And for the public works commissioner in Norwalk, expect to be hearing from me today.

With love from Haven Skatepark…

and on a different tip…

Heaven on earth? Thanks from Copenhagen Cycle Chic.

So my new bike frame came last week… steel, carbon fork. simple. black. It was to be the home for wayward components that came off of the fixed gear permutation of the Salsa Casseroll that I found my way around Chicago on after the relatively auspicious hit and run and then RUN DOWN that occured last year around this weekend.

Anyhow. Frame came Saturday, after I skated Stamford for a while in 25* weather with another old guy, Brent… when I was supposed to meet Joe in the city, which didn’t materialize because of factors in both his life and mine. I did some custom paint on Sat night while hanging out with Paul and watching some old surfsploitation films, realized they were lame and ended up watching Creature’s “Born Dead”. Bike was together by 10am and a few spins around the neighborhood christened it well. Finished multiple papers for school. Got the academic side of STOP&FLOW conceptualized, spent time reading and stealing quotes from books at Barnes and Noble and got in about 20 lame miles of riding on a fun new bike.

School came and went. Teaching was ok. Super behind on grading, but whatever. Had tuesday off to finish project and present paper in NYC. Rode to train in greying skies. Gave paper. Had fun. Learned lots, Shared stuff. Got good feedback. Talked a lot about the urban environment as a paradigm for media and how it might serve as a way to get closer to our own understanding of modern communications… talked about how the infrastructure is all wrong and how that might show that our media infrastructure is all wrong as well… ironic, considering what happened later that night…

I took the train out of the city. Everyone in the class ran away… no one ever hangs out to talk or BS afterwards and thus I leave my first semester at the New School with barely more than a few faces and names. My fault? Guess so. Sucks. I’ve never finished a class since HS when there wasn’t at least someone to go for beers or coffee with afterwards. A NYC thing? Maybe. Maybe I have the wrong haircut or they all hate skateboarders.

So anyhow, I had my beers on the MTA with strangers. Two. And read a ton more of Suburban Sprawl, a great book I’d suggest to anyone. Anyways, I’m greeted by about an inch of snow on that new bike of mine that I left at the station. No fenders, so I’m a little damp after a block, but no problem. I’m starving, tired, exhausted mentally and just want to get home… and a little weary of CT drivers on a low-visability night… and then I remember that there is a new bike trail nearby… so why not take it?

Why not? I’ll tell you why not… because instead of a ramp from the street onto the trail there is a six inch granite curb. There is no light. There is no marking that there would be a curb there, only poles to keep people from driving down the bike trail… if they could get over the curb that I flew into at 20mph, exploding front rim (36* reflex wheel), and BENDING brand new steel frame.

Arg. The suburbs, and their crappy urban planning communicated to me loud and clear last night…

Yeah, so I’m trying to actually use this blog thing a little bit more, and make it actually worth checking out every so often.

I’m teaching The Hollow Men to my seniors now, and trying to get my own master’s program together at The New School… and you’re owndering what the two have to do with each other… well, I’m learning more about film than i’ve ever known before, and its interesting to me to put all of the philosophy i have studied through the years to a specific application.

My final project for my Media Studies: Ideas class is called “Stop&Flow” and it will be the first time I will attempt to make a film in YEARS, and while it will be more documentary in nature, I eventually want to try and develop it into some sort of Web-based ‘program’ for analyzing behavior and physical communication in an urban environment. I’ll be concentrating on pedestrian and human-powered movement through film and still footage of 14th and 6th street. My buddy Joe will be helping me shoot and hopefully helping me edit this weekend too. Keep an eye out. The idea is great, I just hope that I can execute.

Daggers for life? Really?

So I stumbled upon this when I should have been working. OK? It was linked off the Deadly Nightshades website, which I also found when shouldabeenworking.

And… well.. it makes me want something else too…

So I am home sick and I wanted a grilled cheese. I also wanted a nap. I didn’t want to set off the fire alarm.

My grilled cheese was burnt to hell, so it looked nothing like the photos.

My buddy Joe Iurato was my pick for the show this December at DayOne skateshop, the gallery/skateshop I have curated/designed for in Bridgeport, CT for the past almost four years.

The primary work he showed were amazingly intricate stencils. You can see some of them on his website, but here is a couple I stole.

My wife was also featured on Summer’s blog about fashion and design, she recently threw out an entire wardrobe of clothing and spent a ton of cash, but she looks really good and is as happy as her new jacket is yellow. Happy wife, happy life? Good looking wife, good looking life? Sure, sounds fair! And Summer, give me my photo credits!!!

Brian Crumlish, Mike Endicott and Chris Weaver at 4Seasons in Milwaukee, WI.