Highly recommended
Saturday, February 21, 2004
Do yourself a favor, head to your local cinema and see the brilliant animated feature Triplets of Belleville. Somebody, perhaps the director Sylvain Chomet, really knows his cycling: whether it’s the poster of Fausto Coppi on Champion’s wall, the Tour de France stars of the 1940s-1950s in wee Champion’s scrapbook, Madame Souza truing a wheel old school style with a tuning fork, Champion sitting on a scale to weigh his food intake, the vivid alpine scenes of an early 1960s Tour de France, the resignation of entering the broom wagon, or the most realistic depiction of a cyclist in motion you’ll ever see in an animated film, cycling has never been depicted in such a fluid and poetic manner other than the art house work of Danish director Jorgen Leth (and his films such as A Sunday in Hell, Stars and Watercarriers, The Impossible Hour are all actual race footage, not a work of animation). I’ve been enamored by Genndy Tartakovsky’s minimalist, stunningly creative Samurai Jack (on the Cartoon Network) and it’s refreshing to see Chomet contribute a work of art equally as inventive to the world of animation virtually all done in classic frame-by-frame, hand-drawn technique.
Last night I watched the film American Splendor and it vividly brought back memories of watching Harvey Pekar’s confrontations with David Letterman on late night television. I was in high school in the backwaters of upstate NY, with only 1 tv station at my disposal, and Pekar’s recurring guest spots made for eye-opening television moments: raw, angry eruptions of a man who felt fucked over by life. I’d never seen anything like it on network television and was amazed to witness Pekar as one of only 2 guests (the other being the comic/magician duo Penn & Teller) who could go toe to toe with David Letterman and make him uncomfortable. (Well, come to think of it there was also Charles Grodin’s amazing appearance on Johnny Carson where he ripped into Carson, but that’s another story.) I don’t even remember if I knew about his American Splendor comics, I was just intrigued and fascinated by this character who kept showing up on Letterman until he finally exploded on his 8th and final appearance. If I had access to Pekar’s comics then I probably would have bought them, but I don’t know if I would have appreciated them (also kind of like how I was confounded by Ben Katchor comics until one day it all clicked) until I, too, was out on my own scraping to pay the rent and pursuing passions dwelling on the fringe of societal norms. Pekar slogged away as a hospital file clerk in Cleveland, OH and spent his free time reading, shopping for rare LPs and 78s at yard sales, and reviewing jazz records. A chance encounter at a yard sale led to his friendship with R. Crumb and inspiration to put his life’s story in comic form. Pekar could only draw the crudest of stick figures, but he has genius when it comes to dialogue and the narrative portrayal of daily events. His work depends on collaboration with comic artists such as R. Crumb to bring his vision to fruition. One other point, wait ’til you see Pekar’s friend Toby. And listen to him expound about his favorite film. Wow.
I whole heartedly recommend carving out some time in you day (or night) and treating yourself to the tale of an American original. If you’ve got even more time to kill make it a double feature with the equally excellent documentary Crumb. While our world is becoming increasingly digital, fast paced, and homogenous, American Splendor is a refreshing reminder to revel in joyous endeavors that don’t involve computers: walking, reading books, losing oneself in LPs, drawing, and thinking, all to the beat of your own jazz drummer, man.
Do Harvey a favor, buy his books at your local indy bookstore.
I recently came across a collection of New Yorker covers with a cycling theme and it always makes me think of the races I’ve done at the crack of dawn in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. There’s nothing quite like riding your bike to the park literally as the Sun rises. The city’s calm, eerily quiet, and devoid of people or traffic. Time permitting, I’d head over to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade afterwards for some people watching and Brooklyn Bridge watching before taking a nap and enjoying a full day of NYC. Today, I was cooped up inside doing school work, out of the glorious sunshine, and this cover picture made me wish I was riding my bike to the Promenade to daydream.


Surprisingly,
Professional cycling had always been a sport dominated by continental Europeans. Tom Simpson, from 1959 to 1967, was one of the early English-speaking pioneers to compete on the continent and to this date his
Of course, no summation of Tom Simpson’s career and life would be complete without commenting on the tragic ignorance on the part of pro cyclists regarding drug and alcohol use plus the dangerous practice on the part of race promoters regarding the limited amount of fluids allowed to riders during races in stifling heat. Amazingly, on hot days racers would actually stop in bars along the route and steal water to drink since the race caravan provided no neutral water to the riders and prohibited handups from team vehicles. Also, there was a belief that small amounts of alcohol were beneficial in the heat. On the day Simpson died he was severely dehydrated, had consumed brandy at the base of Mt. Ventoux, and popped some amphetamines for an added boost sealing his fate. Simpson’s defenders, his wife and some former teammates, claim that it was the race doctor’s fault that Simpson died due to medical incompetence. Sadly, they seem to be in denial about the drugs in his system. Their prevailing belief is that since Tom Simpson had used drugs before and hadn’t died that he knew what he was doing. Ergo, the amphetamines in his system couldn’t have been the cause of death. Simpson was a pretty bright fellow, but he had no medical or pharmaceutical training and therefore was in no position to properly self-prescribe performance enhancing drugs.
The past couple of weeks I’ve actually made a conscious effort to get back on my bike after letting it lie out to fallow ensconced in cobwebs during my first semester of grad school.