What a surprisingly moving requiem, Luca! I could almost hear the sounds of each engine. I relished the 2 days per week of school runs that our neighbor did on his motorcycles— a 1972 Indian and a Kawasaki. He loved his bikes probably more than his kids.
I, for one, shall ne'er mourn the explosion-powered transit epoch's doom. As a musician, the auditory terror of chromatic clusters rattling below the bass clef staff at 110dB, whether up-close or clashing to create the ubiquitous patina of noise stress from the freeways of my 20th-century hometown of Los Ángeles, is a nuisance to which I'm only too glad to bid farewell.
My husband is passionate about motorcycles, cars and planes, and we've often been to the aviation and aerospace museum here in Ottawa. Those old airplane engines are pure sculpture masterpieces, and I could swear they're haunted.
Thank you for this exquisite contemplation of a technology and a country. It may not be as artful as Nabokov's evocation but it is truer, and wiser, and that counts for something. It incidentally reminds me of the first and best motorcycle ride I ever had. I was 11, and going to a hippie school in Rockland County. There was in that orbit an elderly person I admired. Her name was Stephanie and she was all of 21. She had just got a Honda, the first I had ever seen. She asked me if I wanted a ride. I said yes. Hold on tight, she advised, as we went down - - was it South Mountain Road? - - very hilly. For a measurable amount of time the bike was in the air. It was heaven! To fly!
Not about motorcycles per se, but I was thinking, the moment you mentioned Flagstaff, a place which is magical yet for all the wrong reasons (I am also thinking of Phoenix as captured at the beginning of Psycho), he wrote incandescently of American places and their almost instant wreckage, their aggressive decadence; how no sooner was something built than its time was past. And that left all kinds of graveyards such as the one you describe, which he aestheticized so remarkably, by seeing the nostalgic beauty in what was apparently merely tacky. I'm not even sure if I like him anymore but nobody old enough to have seen the traces of 1950s America that were still left in, say, the 1960s and 1970s and 1980s, could fail to be moved. There is definitely a resonance between your writing and his, in that sense - - - - Nabokov invented American nostalgia in a plausible way and you are somehow on that track - - - - but not with the rest of his neuorosis - - - an accusation which would enrage him as he wilfully detested all things Freudian far more passionately I think than you do. It's why my late wife loved him.
As a person who is very nostalgic I found this to be very thought provoking. While my experience with motorcycles is very limited I did like my sports cars especially convertibles. The part that affected me most was the thought of the changes on the children and future culture ie how they will interact with new technology. No more vroom vroom when playing with toy cars. I hope their experiences are better than with the smart phone.
Excellent! I still dream of having an old motorcycle to bridge the gap to a simpler time, with simpler pleasures. I don't need a horse, but a motorcycle will do just fine.
Petrolhead BF approves these messages. He does the Distinguished Gentlemen’s Ride in support of men’s charities and in a good year, a couple hundred bikers show up. Dress code is smoking jacket, tweeds, historic military and aviation or anything distinguished and gentlemanly. In the finale, they come over the Clifton Suspension Bridge waving and saluting, and the sound filling the Avon Gorge is that sort of flat, huge 80s rock sound - acromegalic, if I can borrow a word from you - but the visuals are pure 1935. The feeling you get is equally strange and mighty: shock and awe at the vastness of what you can hear and feel, plus giggling yourself silly because that’s the 11th Dick Dastardly tipping you the lid, and you didn’t even know you were their ranking officer. Magic.
I felt the same way at our local recycling centre seeing a cubic meter of cds and cassettes and stacks of naked vinyls as their paper sleeves went to another bin. Heartbreaking.
Imagine the sound of Rolling Thunder! Participants mostly rode the largest motorcycles, especially Harley-Davidsons, often with sidecars for their wives or sweethearts, as many had ridden hundreds of miles to get to DC.
Sadly, we hear that thunder no more. Although the organization is said to have a new home, the Vietnam Veterans are now in their 70s or 80s, or no longer riding on this earthly plane.
2019 was announced as the last DC ride, and then the Covid lockdowns drove a stake through its heart. A cab driver told me it was canceled because DC traffic had increased so greatly since the 90s that it was getting to be very onerous to close a route for the parade, particularly as there were fewer and fewer participants as the years rolled on. There were also getting to be more and more crashes and fatalities. (They didn't only ride on the closed parade route: naturally, there would be subgroups of five to twenty bikers riding around town before or after the parade.)
I used to see them hanging out on the National Mall near the Vietnam and Lincoln Memorials during the 3-day Memorial Day weekend. To me, it always looked more like a class reunion picnic than a narrowly focused interest group.
What a surprisingly moving requiem, Luca! I could almost hear the sounds of each engine. I relished the 2 days per week of school runs that our neighbor did on his motorcycles— a 1972 Indian and a Kawasaki. He loved his bikes probably more than his kids.
Thank you. This made me even more excited to pick up my Moto Guzzi V7 from winter storage in a few weeks
pic or it isn’t a Guzzi
when I dropped her off
Verily a V
I, for one, shall ne'er mourn the explosion-powered transit epoch's doom. As a musician, the auditory terror of chromatic clusters rattling below the bass clef staff at 110dB, whether up-close or clashing to create the ubiquitous patina of noise stress from the freeways of my 20th-century hometown of Los Ángeles, is a nuisance to which I'm only too glad to bid farewell.
In fairness, mostly tire roar…
You're right! I can't wait until special ultraquiet tyres are invented.
My husband is passionate about motorcycles, cars and planes, and we've often been to the aviation and aerospace museum here in Ottawa. Those old airplane engines are pure sculpture masterpieces, and I could swear they're haunted.
Thank you for this exquisite contemplation of a technology and a country. It may not be as artful as Nabokov's evocation but it is truer, and wiser, and that counts for something. It incidentally reminds me of the first and best motorcycle ride I ever had. I was 11, and going to a hippie school in Rockland County. There was in that orbit an elderly person I admired. Her name was Stephanie and she was all of 21. She had just got a Honda, the first I had ever seen. She asked me if I wanted a ride. I said yes. Hold on tight, she advised, as we went down - - was it South Mountain Road? - - very hilly. For a measurable amount of time the bike was in the air. It was heaven! To fly!
Nabokov? Did he write about this?
Not about motorcycles per se, but I was thinking, the moment you mentioned Flagstaff, a place which is magical yet for all the wrong reasons (I am also thinking of Phoenix as captured at the beginning of Psycho), he wrote incandescently of American places and their almost instant wreckage, their aggressive decadence; how no sooner was something built than its time was past. And that left all kinds of graveyards such as the one you describe, which he aestheticized so remarkably, by seeing the nostalgic beauty in what was apparently merely tacky. I'm not even sure if I like him anymore but nobody old enough to have seen the traces of 1950s America that were still left in, say, the 1960s and 1970s and 1980s, could fail to be moved. There is definitely a resonance between your writing and his, in that sense - - - - Nabokov invented American nostalgia in a plausible way and you are somehow on that track - - - - but not with the rest of his neuorosis - - - an accusation which would enrage him as he wilfully detested all things Freudian far more passionately I think than you do. It's why my late wife loved him.
As a person who is very nostalgic I found this to be very thought provoking. While my experience with motorcycles is very limited I did like my sports cars especially convertibles. The part that affected me most was the thought of the changes on the children and future culture ie how they will interact with new technology. No more vroom vroom when playing with toy cars. I hope their experiences are better than with the smart phone.
Excellent! I still dream of having an old motorcycle to bridge the gap to a simpler time, with simpler pleasures. I don't need a horse, but a motorcycle will do just fine.
If anyone has a sample of the original Moto Oud EDP from Blackbird, please send it to Luca :). Here’s a note about the reformulation:
https://blackbird.black/products/moto-oud-eau-de-parfum
Yes please :-)
Petrolhead BF approves these messages. He does the Distinguished Gentlemen’s Ride in support of men’s charities and in a good year, a couple hundred bikers show up. Dress code is smoking jacket, tweeds, historic military and aviation or anything distinguished and gentlemanly. In the finale, they come over the Clifton Suspension Bridge waving and saluting, and the sound filling the Avon Gorge is that sort of flat, huge 80s rock sound - acromegalic, if I can borrow a word from you - but the visuals are pure 1935. The feeling you get is equally strange and mighty: shock and awe at the vastness of what you can hear and feel, plus giggling yourself silly because that’s the 11th Dick Dastardly tipping you the lid, and you didn’t even know you were their ranking officer. Magic.
❤️👍🏼🤣
Brilliant piece, love it!
I felt the same way at our local recycling centre seeing a cubic meter of cds and cassettes and stacks of naked vinyls as their paper sleeves went to another bin. Heartbreaking.
Imagine the sound of Rolling Thunder! Participants mostly rode the largest motorcycles, especially Harley-Davidsons, often with sidecars for their wives or sweethearts, as many had ridden hundreds of miles to get to DC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_Thunder_(organization)
Sadly, we hear that thunder no more. Although the organization is said to have a new home, the Vietnam Veterans are now in their 70s or 80s, or no longer riding on this earthly plane.
2019 was announced as the last DC ride, and then the Covid lockdowns drove a stake through its heart. A cab driver told me it was canceled because DC traffic had increased so greatly since the 90s that it was getting to be very onerous to close a route for the parade, particularly as there were fewer and fewer participants as the years rolled on. There were also getting to be more and more crashes and fatalities. (They didn't only ride on the closed parade route: naturally, there would be subgroups of five to twenty bikers riding around town before or after the parade.)
I used to see them hanging out on the National Mall near the Vietnam and Lincoln Memorials during the 3-day Memorial Day weekend. To me, it always looked more like a class reunion picnic than a narrowly focused interest group.