What a coincidence, then, to hear from Steve Kruse about a new book called "The Mechanical Horse", which tells among others things about how bicycle technology played an important role in the development of airplanes.
Another book, encountered while researching the New York-based family that brought what later would be called the Veblen House to Princeton in the 1930s, is The Cycling City: Bicycles and Urban America in the 1890's. If you happen to be in NY this Wednesday, April 6th, the author's giving a talk.
Every now and then, I catch a glimpse of the role bicycles could play in the "AsIf" world--that imaginary place where people live as if the future of the planet matters. Early afternoon on April 1, I got a call from my daughter announcing that she had ridden her bike to Cranbury to see a friend. I had already been fooled earlier in the day by a friend who had called to ask why I wasn't at McCarter Theater for the auditions for environmental theater. I fell for that one hook, line, and sinker, and was searching the theater's website for information when she called back to say April Fools. Surely my daughter, who has a mischievous streak, was playing tricks, so it took her awhile to convince me she actually had made the cross-country ride, in less than an hour. Cranbury for serious bicyclists would be small potatoes, I suppose, but for a puddle jumper like me, it was as if my daughter had ridden her bike to the moon. She was calling, in part, to ask for a ride home, which I supplied, as we all do, because we can.
Every now and then, I catch a glimpse of the role bicycles could play in the "AsIf" world--that imaginary place where people live as if the future of the planet matters. Early afternoon on April 1, I got a call from my daughter announcing that she had ridden her bike to Cranbury to see a friend. I had already been fooled earlier in the day by a friend who had called to ask why I wasn't at McCarter Theater for the auditions for environmental theater. I fell for that one hook, line, and sinker, and was searching the theater's website for information when she called back to say April Fools. Surely my daughter, who has a mischievous streak, was playing tricks, so it took her awhile to convince me she actually had made the cross-country ride, in less than an hour. Cranbury for serious bicyclists would be small potatoes, I suppose, but for a puddle jumper like me, it was as if my daughter had ridden her bike to the moon. She was calling, in part, to ask for a ride home, which I supplied, as we all do, because we can.
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