things i think about while powerwashing 133

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I've been embarking on some fairly long bike rides on Saturdays around Manhattan. I did a recent circumnavigation of Manhattan (in adventure in itself) and have done some rides all the way up and down the West Side. For the most part, I found Manhattan and New York by extension to be fairly flat besides the bridges. So when the city closed down a 14.8 mile route up the middle of the island, I figured it had to be easy. Right?

Then why was I struggling up a massive hill in the middle of my 37-mile bike ride???

I was not alone in this journey — joined by esteemed subscriber Seth McFarlane (and later by esteemed subscriber Carolyn Xu), we navigated our way on bikes past the giant run clubs (that thankfully disappeared around 80th street) and through the pelotons of grey and black CitiBikes over the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan and all the way up to Inwood.

My typical bike ride is Saturday at 7 or 8 am. So when Seth and I ran into traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge I was bewildered. Traffic? In the bike lane? There were a few people overtaking a little aggressively. We did it once or twice as well. But by the time our wheels crossed boroughs the feeling has sunk in: we're not here for the speed — we're just here to have fun.

And it was fun. In spite of having to dodge stray runners on the left (signs said bikes were supposed to stick on the left, runners on the right), in spite of no indication of which side fast or slow bikes were supposed to stick to, in spite of the constrained parking cone lanes constructed around turns. It was freeing. The blur of office buildings whizzing by slowly took the color of brick residential housing for each block traveled uptown, each new street bringing us a little more change of elevation until we hit the hills of upper Manhattan.

No bike ride is complete, apparently, without at least a bagel and a coffee (obtained separately). We finished off the ride by convincing Carolyn to ride a CitiBike across the Queensboro and Pulaski bridges to grab some $2.75 burgers in Greenpoint. Good work everyone!

museum of the week

This day was an interesting day. To get to Poster House, I had to walk through a bright and colorful street fair in order to get to the exhibit. Once inside, the vibrant and chaotic energy of the fair was replaced with the stoic, structured and even almost dogmatic spirit of uh ahhh uhhhh cold war era u.s. defense contractor ad posters.

Let’s let that sink in for a bit then continue on.

In the 1960s, U.S. defense contractor General Dynamics hired designer Erik Nitsche to create a series of posters focusing on nuclear world peace as well as kind of showing off some of the work and research they did. Hey, the maker of the M1 Abrams tank and Gulfstream jet probably said to Nitsche. Make it look like we are doing stuff that is super futuristic and cool and not bomb-y.

He did — and did not disappoint. I found Nitche’s posters to be striking and bold, emitting a kind of quiet power over the viewer, like a silent stern look telling them to behave. The posters, clear in its design but vague in their meanings, perfectly mirror how defense contractors portray themselves today in T.V. ads.

Some favorites:

• The aerospace one with the loop and the infinity symbols is really beautiful with how clear cut and strong its lines are. Really enjoy the color scheme as well.
• The basic forces one is amazing — the black/light-green gradient with the layout of the waves, gravity and stars really give me some awesome brutalist vibes. Well, more in a Control video game way than a control over people way.

In a total 180 of the order was the chaos and frenzy of the anti-bomb posters. Following a few nuclear disasters (the original two in Japan, as well as the Three Mile Island disaster) the anti-nuclear sentiment reach an all-time high. The posters I saw were reminiscent of the ones I’ve seen floating around for various rallies around New York and shared on Instagram. A little more clever than todays, I’d say, but with the same hope and urgency.

anonymous subscriber news

Yum! I do love some pizza.

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animal of the week

Esteemed subscriber and noted city girl Magdalene Lam went to Animal Kingdom in Orlando and saw a giraffe! She only had this to tell all you people:

Send me your animal photos at ryan@torrtle.co!