:: Saturday, October 19, 2002 ::

I'm going to a bike race tonight.

It's an alleycat race, which means on open streets. The course is downtown Chicago, under the loop El tracks.

I'm quite excited because this is my first race ever.
:: Ira 4:57 PM [+] :: [comment/respond]
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Looking out my second story windows at eight o'clock this morning, it was like the whole cityscape had been colored by a depressed desiger who used bright, cheerful markers on the trees and storefronts and people but then, because he hated humanity and particularly the chipper middle aged woman in the cubicle next to him who had flipped-up blonde hair and little inspirational posters tacked on her walls with pink and green push pins, and who would always say "super!" when someone asked how her day was, he had taken a thick grey pen and blotted it all out. This, and the fact that there was rain showering off trees over the car port into puddles in front of the door had me feeling extra sluggish about starting my day.

When i finally was dressed and on my bike, pulling out of the alley into another day full of sounds, smells, people, homework, and appointments, the fresh cold air brought me into the moment, snapping me out of my hypnotic morning trance and into the world. North Ave is smooth and fast these days. There are also wide black strips of felt tarred to the street like racing stripes; the only thing they do is soak up rain and splatter you when you ride over them. The sky was grey all of the way down through Wicker Park, and then at the intersection of Milwakee, Ashland, and Division, something miraculous happened. High above the city, a thick beam of sunlight pushed through the clouds, turning the wet street into blinding glass and lifting the gloom off of everything. All along the skyline, skyscraper tops were liberated from sagging tendrils of fog, and joy soared up inside of me. It was beautiful. I raced downtown playing tag with taxis under the dripping arbors of El tracks and got to work with damp pant cuffs.

Yesterday Jon got a job as a bike messenger and I dumpster-dove a $250 GPS system.
:: Ira 10:37 AM [+] :: [comment/respond]
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When I was very young I was obsessed with making perfect copies. I didn't have access to a computer or photocopier but i used what I could get my hands on and traced things. I really wanted to be able to draw free-hand, but i didn't have the attention span for practicing my technique. Instead I traced from comic books and Mad magazine, mostly pictures of naked women to show off on the playground at school. These traced images went over quite well with my classmates, but when teachers got ahold of them I had to go to the school psychologist.

The internet has lowered the value of traced naked women as a commodity, but it has done nothing but foster my intrest in reproducing images. I've been trying to make spraypaint stencils lately. My first partially sucessful attempt was with blister-pack plastic (the clear flexible stuff that GI Joes are packaged in), but i'm looking for other things to try. Plastic advertisement pannels from inside El trains seem like a good idea. Anyway, in my search for better techniques, I ran across a cool website. Stencil Graffiti is a forthcoming book about street stenciling, and the author's 'links' page references a huge stash of images applied to urban landscapes via spray can. Banksy is one of my favorites.

:: Ira 3:48 PM [+] :: [comment/respond]
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North Ave has been repaved. If you like to ride your bike fast, you are in luck.
:: Ira 4:35 PM [+] :: [comment/respond]
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