In the montage I ascend from the dashboard— depart on the window dressed of spaniels— and like the nude descending the staircase
I’m aggrieved.
For I know not where the primordial matter in the skin sack I’m in intends to go.
My watchword is wrecker—I’m a kickback president of threats.
There is a poet in my pocket that only manages: humbug! amidst the glossolalia.
I have an earwig in a sachet that transmits opioid messages of dis-illusion.
I am not my vertigo—I intone in my inclination.
I’m the slacker that darkens as I upend—the king of stalemate bequests!
There are eddies in the rivulets that course thru my coagulated blood.
I am a godson among the startled—and humming a turd-tune I know . . .
Violin-leaves tar at the wings— Dew-drug sinners eat garnet stopgaps— There be rodent chocolates in the chinaberry cabinet—and three clear tools of destruction.
(I intend to use)
Come. Appease.
image: p. remer
What I’m Reading:
Because Indigenous Peoples did not live in societies that the colonizers understood, we were considered not civilized enough to govern ourselves. “It is on the British race, whether in Great Britain, or in the United States, or in the Colonies, or wherever it may be, that rest the highest hopes of those who try to penetrate the dark future, or who seek to raise and better the patient masses of mankind,” Britain’s Lord Rosebery told an Australian audience in 1883.
— Tanya Talaga / The Knowing: How the Oppression of Indigenous Peoples Continues to Echo Today – A Native American History and Canadian Memoir of Intergenerational Trauma
Chut, man, he’s got thee upturned syllogism logic. He’s also got a bad case of the Higgs-Boson blues. He’s got the anthropocene cold shoulder, and a slight case of thee reliquary saint’s joints and bone shards flu. His name is Smith.
All the while she’s about a mover, but Smith has got the worst case of mondegreen and all he hears is: eedda vadda voodda. Her name is Mary.
I tell you it makes no sense at all—and it’s so bad that this scene conflates with a litany of sea-green epistolaries. Nobody sends letters like this anymore—did they ever?—such a shame!
Mary reads “The Emperor of Ice-Cream.” She cuts-up the poem—then adds to it—so it reads: let queef queef be finale of streams / be downtown be the emperor of nice dreams.
Smith dips his cuticles in a bowl of dal makhani, and brainstorms tankas about Goa’s sacred cows. He coins neologisms galore (parenthetically including [cowfabulations!]). Then he gets a dose of thee Kipling throttle-wish and wants to whip a manservant for ole’ colonial times sake: the good old ruddy duddies, he laments. (This is a bad man, kiddies—steer clear!)
Light up the world with nicotine nabobs, Mary quips (and queefs) from her Moosetracks perch. Smith is past caring. He starts a freewrite—using his knife and the tamarind sauce—on the napkin tucked into his shirt collar.
He reads aloud: Harrumph, huzzah, and all that… extortion for freelancers and firefly friendly sky pies. Don’t shout ‘negatory’ before noon … oh, stop me if you’ve heard this one before…
Even though we haven’t heard it before, let’s not and say we did.
What I’m Reading:
Orcas (Orcinus orca) have been spotted ramming sharp-tail sunfish (Masturus lanceolatus) so hard that they explode. The gory display involved a female orca holding a dead sunfish in place for a male to speed into. In the aftermath, a juvenile orca ate some of the fleshy pieces of the fish, while the adult pair snacked on the carcass. “We think this may help younger orcas feed more easily,” says marine ecologist and study co-author Kathryn Ayres. “Or it could also just be for fun. Orcas are known for playing with their food.”
— Jacob Smith / “Orcas smash sunfish to smithereens” / Nature Briefing
The fifth, and last, day of the Ride the Hudson Valley Tour promised to be eventful — featuring a route the length of Manhattan Island from the Bronx. What I didn’t expect was a series of blowdowns blocking the trail early in the morning. I also didn’t expect Summer Streets NYC — when Broadway is shut down to traffic from Dyckman Street in the Bronx all the way downtown to the Brooklyn Bridge. A forty-mile ride in all with the 8.5 mile ride back to Moynihan Station to catch the train back home to Boston.
The previous night, Friday, I stayed in Dobb’s Ferry, mostly because I desperately needed to do laundry, take a decent shower, and most importantly catch up on sleep. It just so happened that a violent storm moved through the area packed with high winds, rain, and in some places hail. I was glad to be indoors in that case.
Near Dobb’s Ferry, NY.
I was off to an early 6am start hoping to beat the most severe heat and humidity forecast for the day. Little did I know that multiple obstructions would bar my way.
I was able to negotiate my way through the first blowdown blocking the trail, this was easy enough to move aside on my own.
Yonkers-Dunwoodie, NY area.
But the toppled trees became more and more massive as I made my way down toward Van Cortlandt Park. I’d yet to encounter anyone headed in the opposite direction from these blowdowns.
Tibbets Brook Park, NY
Until I met a runner headed in the opposite direction who called out “good luck!” And then I saw what he meant — obviously this would get progressively more challenging.
At this point I tried to reroute myself out of the parkway onto surface streets, but a mile later I realized the options for bicycling through the area to Brooklyn were more challenging (read: dangerous traffic) and asked Google Maps to reroute me toward the Empire State Trail — all reroutes, including my query on Ride with GPS, had me returning the way I’d come: back the way I’d left and into Van Cortlandt Park.
Van Cortlandt Park, NY.
By the time I arrived back at the blowdown I saw some joggers trying to navigate it — but this center route was too difficult as it required going over the trunk and under some very large branches. Shortly after this picture the woman in the lead took a hard fall.
I’d have to tamp down one of the sides of the blowdown — about fifty feet off the trail. Soon I saw where . . .
Van Cortlandt Park, NY.
. . . this man was tamping down the west side (top of the tree side) of the obstruction. And another cyclist followed him.
Van Cortlandt Park, NY.
My challenge was that my bike was in “fully tour-loaded mode” with mini-panniers on the fork and gravel panniers on my rear rack. Instead of making multiple trips and taking the panniers off the bike, I hoisted the bike up to hip level and tramped off into the trail the other two cyclist had tamped down. It was rough going navigating the brambles and poison ivy and thick underbrush around the downed tree.
Van Cortlandt Park, NY.
No worse the wear, but quite itchy from the nettles and poison ivy — but not the end of the blowdowns either. They became easier to navigate through, but there were five major blowdowns in total. The previous night’s weather hit the area hard.
Van Cortlandt Park, NY.
The entrance to Van Cortlandt Park was a quiescent contrast to the tempest-tossed jungle just a mile away.
Finally free of Van Cortlandt Park and onto the concrete jungle and clean streets of the Bronx.
As I had stayed in town (Dobb’s Ferry) the night before and not returned to camp for breakfast I was starved — and lucky — to find this farmers market opened early in the Inwood, NYC neighborhood.
A lemon poppyseed loaf hit the spot, as the poison ivy itchiness kicked into high gear.
At Dyckman Street I had a choice to make: follow the mapped route via the Empire State Trail on the west side by the Hudson River, or do something novel and ride the entirety of Summer Streets all the way across the Brooklyn Bridge to Red Hook, Brooklyn — our finish line.
As you regular readers may remember I already did that section of the Empire State Trail earlier this year as I was completing my Key West, Florida to Maine ride, and with the heat moving in and copious amount of water breaks, food and rest stops on the Summer Streets route — I opted for the novelty of riding the entirety of the 14 miles of car-free Broadway. Only pedestrians and bicyclists allowed. No brainer!
All the way through to midtown . . .
… into the financial district in lower Manhattan …
… and onto the Brooklyn Bridge.
Somewhere along the route PTNY ran out of the dayglo pink paint they use to mark the route we follow…
… and fittingly opted for the blood-red paint on hand. It was hard to see this color on the dark street surface, and I wondered if anyone missed them and got turned around. Luckily, we were provided cue sheets to follow and had digital maps too.
Brooklyn Bridge Park was such a respite from the crowds, din, and general madness (a good sorta’ crazy) of Summer Streets.
The financial district as seen from Brooklyn Bridge Park, and…
… off in the distance the Statue of Liberty …
… it’s getting hot, muggy, steamy and “stewy” and I’m so glad this is almost over at this point.
A fellow PTNY bicyclist finishing the 240-mile tour at Stong Rope Brewery in Red Hook, Brooklyn.
Lots going on in this revivified light industrial area of Red Hook…
… especially as it is our finishing line. We’re done!
Yay!
No more mid-to-late summer extended rides for me — after three Erie Canal Rides (2023-2025) and this Ride the Hudson Valley Ride — I’m done with the oppressive heat, humidity, wildfire smoke, tornadic winds, and general round the clock discomfort.
Climate change is here and gaining force and I don’t need another bout of acute renal failure or emergency room visits. I’m a credit card bike tourist in the dead of summer from here on out — a light bikepacking setup, nightly showers and air conditioning in July and August for me.
I’ve nothing left to prove in exchange for the extreme midsummer discomfort.
But I’ll enjoy this moment for all it’s worth. Albany to NYC in the books. At some point in an upcoming fall or spring I’ll finish the entire 750-mile Empire State Trail by biking the 200 miles from Albany to the Canadian border.
At Strong Rope Brewery, Brooklyn, NYC.
A fitting backdrop for a “Finish Line” across the sound.
Now I have to bike the 8.5 miles back to Manhattan and Moynihan train station for the 2:04 train back to Boston.
Back across the Brooklyn Bridge where I meet my fellow PTNY bicyclists on their way to finish the ride. Yay, hooray for all. We made it!
Now I’m really close to finishing…
… closer …
… and I’m done! At Moynihan Train Station.
Day 5: Start: Dobb’s Ferry, NY Finish: Red Hook, Brooklyn, & Moynihan, NYC Miles: 41.51
What I’m Reading:
I strapped my KN95 mask over my ears, ready to brave the grocery store. Then I turned and saw myself in the grocery window, a tall and spindly apparition with a beak. I was not man but moa, a large flightless bird hunted to extinction, mounted in a glass case at the natural history museum. I was ready to peck on the window…
— Martin Espada / “Love Song of the Moa” / Jailbreak of Sparrows
Reading is an act of creation; unlike any other medium, books require the mind to fabricate its own sensory experiences. So simple, so inspiring. And as no two minds could possibly be alike, no book has ever been alike for any two readers. There’s nothing passive about it! Your mind is doing the work of director, designer, actor, cinematographer, all in the blink of an eye.
Engage with your mind, read the book.
— Paul Theriault / Brookline Booksmith Newsletter
How I still want to sing despite all the truth of our wars and our gunshots ringing louder than our school bells, our politicians smiling lies at the mic, the deadlock of our divided voices shouting over each other instead of singing together. How I want to sing again— beautiful or not, just to be harmony—from sea to shining sea—with the only country I know enough to know how to sing for.
— Richard Blanco / “America the Beautiful Again” / How to Love a Country: Poems
Car dependency is not inevitable—it’s a design choice.
A new international study reveals that Rome ranks among Europe’s most car-dependent cities, while Paris and Zurich demonstrate that a different model is possible.
Their success is not based on banning cars, but on creating compact, accessible cities supported by efficient public transport, walkable neighborhoods, and high-quality cycling infrastructure.
The lesson is clear: when cities bring people closer to jobs, services, and public spaces, dependence on the private car naturally declines.
The future of urban mobility is not about moving more cars-it is about giving people more choices.
— IMM Design Lab / Facebook post
Because Indigenous Peoples did not live in societies that the colonizers understood, we were considered not civilized enough to govern ourselves. “It is on the British race, whether in Great Britain, or in the United States, or in the Colonies, or wherever it may be, that rest the highest hopes of those who try to penetrate the dark future, or who seek to raise and better the patient masses of mankind,” Britain’s Lord Rosebery told an Australian audience in 1883.
— Tanya Talaga / The Knowing: How the Oppression of Indigenous Peoples Continues to Echo Today – A Native American History and Canadian Memoir of Intergenerational Trauma
shit flows downhill he who loves power gets to be king he who loves love gets to be priest kings and priests resurrect absolutes deny existence
of excrement and orifice suffering is proof worship is suffering he who suffers shit will not have power he may have peace peace is indifference
— Serena J. Fox / “Power Not Peace”
It happens chronologically, but it does not happen chronologically. For days and then weeks and then months and then years I cannot sleep. As soon as the sun begins to fade, my senses go into alert. There is no dulling them. The prickling scalp, the raised shoulders, the darting glances. They are waiting for something. I keep my eyes closed, count sheep, the usual tricks, but it feels as though someone is peeling my mind back, wide open, bony bald, preparing me for some unholy incision. I lie as still as possible in the dark, stiff as a board, hoping I won’t be found.
— Emily LaBarge / Dog Days
I want only to be a worn-down stone on the ruins of time, a dolmen raised above this forsaken graveyard’s terrain
— Alain Mabanckou / “{I Want Only to Be a Worn-Down Stone}”
What I’m Listening To:
I turned twenty-three Lying in my bed Rain blew through the windows A thousand little arrowheads Cracks in the ceiling Splinter in my palm There’s a car crash at the doorstep And nothing left to hold on
eye can see the division lines in the atmosphere the elemental lines that divide this particle from that the swirls in space those lines which order the world + universe our perspective—mine anyway
eye see the invisible bullseye the lineations in the hawk’s current the particulate pixels streaming from it’s red tail the rust to brown eddies in the convection the wake diluting to hiss
eye see the sharp arrow of declination as it strikes the mourning dove
in this (my) neighborhood pt. 145
Day 4: Start: Carmel, NY Finish: Dobbs Ferry, NY Miles: 42.37
What I’m Reading:
But I happened to look inwards among the machinery of our roundabout, and there I saw a slobbering cretin grinding at a wheel and sweating as he ground, and grinding eternally. And when I perceived that he was the author of all our speed and that the music was of his making, that everything depended on his grinding wheel, I thought I would like to get off. But we were going too fast.
Small sharply defined puffs— No heat, no air compressors, Gaskets, rubber seals, rubber feet— Cloud-like, a shy homunculus, Trapped beneath a 5 o’clock crowd.
in this (my) neighborhood pt. 144
Day 3:
Start: Stone Ridge, NY Finish: Carmel, NY Miles: 65.56
What I’m Reading:
We are now trying for liberty that requires no blood-that women shall have their rights, not rights from you. Give them what belongs to them.
— Sojourner Truth / Intepretive display at Walkway Over The Hudson, Poughkeepsie, NY.
Mary has a budget of eleven nails— She scores her shy puppet On a cross that revolves on the ceiling fan— In her austere grey room.
Indoor Camping (Condensation Journal)
My tent was drenched this morning as if it had been dipped in a pool and allowed to saturate in water. I’ll camp indoors tonight, and try that so I don’t pack a wet tent again.
The ride is hilly today. Shorter, at 45 miles. Enjoyable, but uneventful, which may be a product of second day acclimation to the ride. Here are some of the highlights:
Early morning riding through farmlands: wild lupines, apples, and corn fields. Livingston, NY.
Morning coffe stop about 9 miles in at Germantown, NY.
The Catskills and the Hudson River from Clermont State Historic Site. Clermont, NY.
Mostly quiet backroads this morning. Tivoli, NY.
Tivoli, NY.
The Frank Gheary designed Fisher Performing Arts Center at Bard College. Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.
Poet’s Walk Park not inviting to bikes on the trail so I moved on. Barrytown, NY.
The view south of the Hudson River from the George Clinton Bridge. Rhinebeck, NY.
Village Coffee and Goods — lunch stop at Kingston, NY.
A couple of miles of welcome gravel riding on the Wallkill Valley Rail Trail. Rosendale, NY.
The old Rosendale Cement Works. Rosendale, NY.
Tonight’s stop is SUNY Ulster Community College in Stone Ridge, NY.
As promised indoor camping at the SUNY UCC gym. Stone Ridge, NY.
At least my tent will be dry, and packing up in the morning will be a little faster. Stone Ridge, NY.
Day2 Start: Hudson, NY Finish: Stone Ridge, NY Miles: 45.87
What I’m Reading:
The name Poets’ Walk comes from a nearby farm road, where 19th-century writers and poets enjoyed strolling. One frequent visitor was Washington Irving, author of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” who was known for speaking out against the unfair treatment of Indigenous peoples.
— Interpretive Sign at Poet’s Walk Park in Barrytown, NY.
in Sevastopol when sloth consumed me. Now I’m fagged on a stack of lighted pyre — the funeral in progress. I was the son of violence, and as begets one so highly skilled — I’m a gun-licker & barrel-blower who shot off his own nose. My vengeance paid back in towers of flame. A jackanapes no mo’.
Community College Tour?
One of PTNY’s directors elliptically joked this morning that we’re doing a tour of community colleges — which in essence is true because 4 of the 5 nights on this tour we are being hosted by Community College campuses — the other night we’re staying at a State Park. Whatever it is — we spent our day today mostly on the Albany-Hudson Electric Trail and the rest road riding going through the small towns of Nassau, Valatie, Kinderhook, Stuyvesant, and Hudson.
Here are some of the highlights:
Coming back into Albany from across the river in Troy, NY. The tall buildings of the capital complex dominate the skyline.
A quiet moment at Nassau Lake, Nassau, NY.
The first rest stop of the day about 21 miles in to the ride. Nassau, NY.
The Albany-Hudson Electric Line Trail enroute to Kinderhook, NY. Valatie Kill, NY.
Good food and baked goods at Filli’s Jersey Bakery. Valatie, NY.
Valatie Kill means “little falls stream” in old Dutch. Valatie, NY.
Riding through cornfields in . . .
. . . Kinderhook, NY.
Stuyvesant Falls in Stuyvesant, NY.
The Taiga Restaurant in Hudson, NY.
Just a bit of the cool funkiness in Hudson, NY.
Our second rest stop was 45 miles into the ride, only 4 miles from our camp for the night. And it was right in front of . . .
. . . the Hudson Brewery, which was significantly busier. Hudson, NY.
Once at camp — Columbia Greene Community College — it’s all about finding your luggage truck . . .
. . . and staking out your camping spot. Columbia Greene Community College. Hudson, NY.
Then it’s dinner, checking out the night’s entertainment (Chris Huff), and winding down. And ride again tomorrow.
Day 1:
Start: Troy, NY Finish: Hudson, NY Miles: 52.2 miles
What I’m Reading:
I mistake the sound of a recycling cart hitting the curb
for the latch of our gate and picture him instantly:
my father stumbling into the light of the backyard
With a bike ride — Just one, then another. And soon life seems dull Off of a bike.
So you take another And another, and again. Then you can’t stop. Life is better on a bicycle.
Any day on a bike is better Than any other day spent off A bicycle. Go. Go now. Ride your bike.
I’m riding my bike this week from Albany, NY — via Troy, NY to Brooklyn, NYC. I’m riding with PTNY (Parks and Trails New York) on their 4th annual Ride the Hudson Valley.
From 2023 to 2025 I rode Ride the Erie Canal with PTNY — their 400 mile ride from Buffalo, NY to Albany, mostly on the Erie Canal tow path.
After this I’ll have one more 200 mile section left from Albany, NY to the Canadian border, but at this time I haven’t a date or plan for that yet. So this week there will be 209 miles of bike rides . . . and I am extremely thankful.
Go. Go now. Ride your bike.
What I’m Reading:
Billy has 7 bikes. He just bought 2 more. What does he have now?
Summer dilates time. It has a way of taking foreeeever to get here, and once it arrives it seems like there’s months and months ahead of you, and enough time to do all the things you dreamed of. Then you blink… and it’s almost August.
thee istsfor manity reader 