Since the early 1980s, David Byrne, Talking Head’s frontman and star of “Stop Making Sense,” the best concert movie of all time, so says Rolling Stone, has been riding a bike as his principal means of transportation in New York City.
Two decades ago, he began keeping a diary and bike tour journal as he discovered folding bikes and started taking them with him when traveling around the world. The initial choice of bringing along folding bikes was made out of convenience rather than any political motivation. But the more cities Byrne saw from the seat of his bicycle, he says in his new book, “Bicycle Diaries,” the more he became hooked on this mode of transport and the sense of freedom, adventure and perspective it provided.
“This point of view, from his bike seat, became his panoramic window on urban life, a magical way of opening one’s eyes to the inner workings and rhythms of a city’s geography and population,” as the book jacket cover put its it.
As a serious bicyclist myself, recently spending a vacation traversing Stockholm, Copenhagen and Berlin by bike, I know that the best way to discover a city is by bike. Walking is good, but too slow ultimately to cover much distance. Driving, obviously, too insulated, putting noise, a windshield and 2,000 pounds of metal between you and everyone and everything else.
Bicycle Diaries chronicles Byrne’s wry observations and insights — what he is seeing, whom he is meeting, what he is thinking about — as he pedals through and engages with some of the world’s major cities.
In East Berlin, the former East German secret police and the film, “The Lives of Others,” come up in conversation as he tries to get his mind around the strange psychology of living behind the Iron Curtain. In Istanbul, there is talk of Middle Eastern art, belly dance parties, non-mainstream Western music, and a footprint from the sandal of the Prophet and the arm bone of John the Baptist, which are said to be kept in the Topkapi Palace.
Quoting the book’s jacket again, “places like Buenos Aires, Istanbul, San Francisco, and London, the focus is more on the musicians and artists he encounters. Politics comes to the fore in cities like Berlin and Manila, while chapters on New York City, and on the landscaped suburban industrial parks and contemporary ruins of such spots as Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Columbus are more concerned with history in the urban landscape. Along the way, Byrne shares about fashion, architecture, cultural isolation, globalization, and the radical new ways that some cities, like New York, are becoming more bike-friendly.”
A compact hardback - a good travel companion- it goes 279 pages with chapters mostly named after the various cities, Byrne visits, including Berlin, Istanbul, Buenos Aires, Manila, Sydney, London, San Francisco, New York. It’s all conveyed with a mix of relevant photos, architecture, drawings, humor, curiosity, and humanity.
In the epilogue, The Future of Getting Around, Byrne writes insightfully about the status of the car in society, the misguided biological imperatives that drive human beings to want more, to pursue ever greater status symbols at the cost of their own long-term well being, as well as the common good.
The appendix includes nine drawings – Bryne remember is a former Maryland Institure College of Art and Rhode Island School of Design student – of the iconic bike racks he designed for New York City streets.
I bought it for myself, but consider it the perfect holiday gift/stocking stuffer for the bicycle enthusiast in your family.
