Nothing unusual there. Yet.
Now, look across to the East (that's towards the direction of The East River, for those of you who seem confused by direction. Can't imagine why they called it The East River.....). Only but a few feet away, stands another one of these blackened steel pylons. This is a fancier one, as it more so resembles an upside-down-W and is able support more bicycles. Congregated around this one, is an even denser throng of rusted steel. This time, the orange of said rust is darker, richer and thicker. So thick, that one wouldn't even need to notice the punctured tires or the twisted spokes or the broken chains, to surmise that no one has sat on any of their seats or turned any of their pedals, for some time. Now look back to the first pylon, the one just outside my front door, and you'll realise that the bicycles around it, suffer from the very same tell-tale signs of idle languor.
So far, not too much to write home about. These two 'Living Sculptures' are interesting enough, but perhaps they are just an odd, isolated 'Happening'.
Ok, well, now suppose a friend of yours was going away and you were charged with the responsibility of dog-sitting her little joy. Let's say, for example's sake, that this particular Jack Russell Terrier was fairly advanced in years and, as such, ambled along on his several daily walks, at a particularly sedate and restrained pace. Furthermore (and I'm sure this is the domain of all dogs, so I'm not singling out this dear old fellow), his stumbling stagger, would be punctuated by frequent attempts to sniff at each and every street-sign, tree, dust bin, flower bed, pylon and, well, virtually anything that is stationary and rising up from the sidewalk.
With this supposition in mind, you can now imagine the perfect storm of 'Leisure and Pause', that would dictate a particular ebb and flow to your wander around the thin, grid-like streets of The Alphabet City region of The East Village.
The nature of this meander, would force you to take pause, recognise and note the characteristic elements of the streets and sidewalks. More so, than you would normally do. You would suddenly be more aware of what previously was only be a passing panoramic haze, as you rushed along the city blocks and on your way to a date with hope and destiny. (Perhaps a bit of an extreme way to describe my daily routine, but I do tend to believe in hope and collide with destiny a whole bunch). It would be in this new found, concentrated inspection, that you would notice that the display of dormant and clearly unused bicycles, lying still and dead in twisted clumps around the extremities of the sidewalks and curbs of The Alphabet City, are several, often, reoccurring and many. Consistently everywhere. In fact, you'd begin to realise that there are literally hundreds upon hundreds of broken and useless bicycles, that clearly haven't been used for quite some time, dotted around the neighborhood streets. How long each individual bicycle has been there, is impossible to tell and equally difficult to judge, is how long they will remain so. All that is clear, is that this repetitive display seems to end once one crosses West over 2nd Ave.
Interesting. Really is. I mean. if we were to continue on with our routine of suppositionary example and were to imagine you as having a blog, that took everyday Street-Life and used it as a metaphor for further philosophical or analytical meandering summaries (perhaps, the sort of blog, where you were to use ridiculous words and turns of phrases like 'suppositionary example'), then these discoveries would provide wonderful fodder.
Whoops. This is where reality comes crashing in. This is where I must stop our little dance. See, as explained in a previous posting on this blog, I do not use my life as Fodder. Or I try not to, anyways. So now I'm stuck. See, of course those examples I led you across above are real. Obviously. Real to my Life. Real, in so much as, they did actually happen. All of it. And , even though I so badly wanted to relate the image of all these discarded bicycles, as a visual metaphor for all of my hopeful romances and pining advances, that lie scattered, unused and, even some of them, beyond any repair, across the grid-like streets of my days, mind and heart. And that, just like the mounds of bicycles, I seem to unconsciously and unavoidably come across them in my everyday peruse of memory and happenstance. And despite the fact, that I would then finish the piece by brilliantly linking it all together in a biting, self determination of my current state of mind, I can't - for I made a promise to avoid Fodder. A promise to me, a promise to you and a promise to God (well, not really to God, but it just sounds so good to throw that in at the end - aesthetically speaking.).
So I will say just this:
Mr. Bloomberg, can you please organise the removal of all these wretched reminders of faded days of joy, hope and love; all these twisted reminders of what was, what could have been and what, will now, probably never be; all these visceral reminders of vulnerability, learning and belief; and all these masses of rusted steel. Please. It'd really help everyone concerned.
To quote the cliche: Out of mind; Out of sight.
Or, to quote Bob Dylan : When we meet again, introduced as friends .Please don't let on that you knew me when, I was hungry and it was your world.
