My wife has been learning the Japanese language on her own for a while, which means an appreciation of Japanese culture has seeped into our household beyond pop-culture mainstays like anime, manga, sushi and ninjas! Part of understanding a language is understanding the culture that uses it, that shaped it, and we’ve both been enriched by what we’ve learned. For some time now we’ve known we have a couple of locations with a Japanese connection we could visit in our general vicinity, and last Sunday we were finally able to make it to the largest of them, the Morikami Museum & Japanese Gardens in Delray Beach.
I knew of Imogen Heap; her name is uncommon enough that once you hear it, it tends to stick in your memory. I knew of her from the song “Let Go,” featured years ago in the soundtrack to Garden State (though it took some time before I learned that strange voice belonged to a woman!). Beyond that I had heard a couple songs here are there, especially on Pandora, where her music would sometimes come up as part of some of my playlists. So I knew of Imogen Heap, but I didn’t really know Imogen Heap. Until last night.
It was my wife’s idea to go see her in concert at The Fillmore in Miami Beach; tickets were cheap, general admission and given her non-top-40-radio status, the attendance would probably be manageable. Sure! And then it snuck up on me. Yesterday I played her latest album, which you can stream from her website, but that was it. I was going in cold, ready to soak up the new music.
There were three short opening acts: Euphoria, a trio of high-school kids from Boca Raton who won a contest held by Imogen; Geese, a violin/strings duo who are also part of Imogen’s band; and Ben Christophers, a guy and his guitar, also part of Imogen’s band. They each played 3 songs (Ben did 4) and were each good. The kids from Boca were very good for this being their first show (and what a show!); Geese was weird (in a good way), using computers, loops and effects to create soundscapes; and Ben was fine with his guitar, especially on a very trip-hoppy number that actually got the audience listening. About half an hour after these three acts were done, Imogen took the stage.
With the start of the new year and my return to university for my Nursing degree, I have decided to make a radical change in my life as it has been for the last (give or take) 9 years: I want to be car-lite, and eventually car-free, in 2010.
Over the past year, I really got into riding my bicycle as a regular form of transportation, increasing little by little the amount and distance of riding I’d do. Along with that, my interest in bicycle advocacy was also ignited, due greatly to the lack of functional bicycle infrastructure in the Greater Miami area, and especially in my home of Miami Beach, a place that by all means should be a paradise for bicyclists. As I stand a couple of days away from starting a new phase in my life, I figured it was the perfect time to put into practice what I have been preaching to the four winds: a bicycle, especially when coupled with other alternative forms of transportation, can be pretty much all you need.
The truth is that for a few months now I have been chewing on the idea of getting rid of my car, a 1996 Toyota Camry. I like my car just fine, but I have fallen out of love with it and with the car-centric lifestyle. As I have used it less and less I have noticed that it hasn’t been that big of a deal, and in fact, it has saved us a nice amount of money. That was all well and good while I was unemployed and thus my car trips were few and far in between, but why not take the plunge?
Today I announced that I am stepping down as the person behind the @BikeMiami Twitter account as of January 1, 2010. You can read the (very diplomatic) letter I posted here.
Honest truth is, I got tired of just being a cheerleader for a team that is not even playing at the moment. I started that Twitter account as a volunteer effort to help the Bike Miami team get the word out about events and to promote regular city cycling in Miami. After that, there were two Bike Miami Days (neither of which I could attend) and a couple of Bike Miami Rides, all of which were properly promoted. But then the period right before the city election hit, and before more pressing matters like City Budget, Bike Miami was set aside. There was a moment of victory when the City of Miami Commission approved both the Miami Bicycle Master Plan and Miami 21, but then Mayor Diaz’s term in office came to an end, and the candidate that would have followed his lead was not chosen. And there Bike Miami ground to a halt and has remained since.
With the Bike Miami Coordinator also loosing her job in City Hall, there was a cease of communication about the future of Bike Miami that has yet to be rectified. I did keep the Twitter account going through this time but without any official backing, it became more and more difficult to truly have a direction and to know what message to broadcast beyond “get on your bikes, Miami.”
To this we can add an amount of aggravation caused by a local bike shop merchant who decided he would have a beef with me and anything I did through the @BikeMiami account, whether it was me retweeting info about cool bike-related products (most of which are not available in Miami, something we can lay at the feet of the retailers), bike-related news from around the nation/world, or pushing for the regular kind of bike riding that we see in Europe (i.e. normal, day-to-day stuff, not Lycra or anything else needing special equipment). He simply refused to understand that I was a volunteer that did not speak officially for Bike Miami, but that in general kept the spirit of the message of Bike Miami in mind when operating that account. When it finally got personal, I knew for sure that this wasn’t worth the hassle.
I have a very clear idea of what I would like to see Bike Miami do, but since Bike Miami is simply a brand name attached to a series of events organized by the City of Miami, there isn’t much I expect that name to do beyond the Days and Rides. After seeing sites like BikePortland.org, Bike-PGH.org, Bike PHL or BikeJax.org, I realized what Miami needs is a truly independent bicycle advocacy central site, something I don’t really see Bike Miami becoming unless it goes independent of Miami City Hall, which I also don’t really see happening. So you know, be the change you want to see and all that…
I hope that the people I left the account to don’t let it die off, because it has grown to be a good vehicle for communication with the regular folks out there as well as a link to the larger network of bike advocacy sites. But that’s now out of my hands. I will continue to be a cheerleader for the idea of Bike Miami, and hope that the new administration of the City of Miami can realize the importance of this brand name and the initiative it launched for the future of Miami.
I have plans already in motion for what I want to do and which I will reveal in due time.
For a number of reasons, I’ve been, literally, off the bike for months now. We’ve also missed the last three Bike Miami Days, including the April edition in Coconut Grove alongside the Dutch Consulate, which I hear was nothing but a spectacle. That’s why when it came to today’s Bike Miami, the last one for the current season (summer’s here, so it’s officially time to go inside), we were both incredibly pumped for the occasion.
It started a bit off, given that during the month of May, the Venetian Causeway has been closed to all-but-local traffic, cutting off our one way to bike down to Downtown from the Beach. Rather than face Biscayne Blvd., risk the MacArthur Causeway, or waste time taking a bus, we decided to drive (which, on reflection, provided a bit of a bookend to our Bike Miami experience for this year, as we also drove down to the first one). We used one of the Pay-to-Park spaces since it was cheaper than the parking at Bayside, and off we went.
This is the first time we’ve been there early enough to attend the customary rally, this time on the steps of the Courthouse. There was live music and some kiosks with varied information. We got to see some of the “regulars” and were greeted by Kathryn Moore, tireless Bike Miami dynamo that she is for Mayor Manny Diaz (did you know the Mayor’s on Twitter?). We saw some folks dance for the chance to win three bikes and a dude pull a Ford Fiesta while on a bike. Then, off to ride.
The route by now is well-known to us. It extended once more to the Miami River, though there was nothing going on there this time around. The riverside was, however, preened and very inviting, though Lummus Park was, still, closed to the public. I was once again reminded of the potential for that area of Downtown Miami and the idea my wife and I dreamed up for a Downtown Riverside Marketplace, which I wrote up for Miami Metblogs (Part 1, Part 2).
Around this area we suddenly found the entrance to the Miami River Greenway, right under the I-95 Overpasses, except it was fenced closed after maybe a little over 100 feet. The paved walkway I know continues along the river all the way to the bay, but it is broken up in parts by construction and gaps that yet need to be bridged. If there’s a project the City of Miami (also on Twitter, by the way) needs to put attention to and get done as soon as possible, the Miami River Greenway is it; being able to highlight and drive traffic to this wonder of our city, the one urban river we have, would do wonders for Downtown and the City in general, not to mention that it would create another great addition to the route for future Bike Miami Days.
The rest of the day was spent riding around the usual route established by now. We visited Mary Brickell Village again, and marveled, as we walked around, at how many empty retail spaces it has and what a shame that is (note to developers: open a Kosher eatery here–or frankly, anywhere Downtown–and we’ll heap praises and money every time we visit Downtown/Brickell) given how beautiful the Village is. We noticed the smaller attendance to this event than in months past, and speculated that it had to do with the heat (it was HOT today) and the fact that it was the seventh event; both are good reasons why it makes perfect sense to close up Bike Miami for the summer and wait for the cooler climate of the fall to restart. There were hardly any kiosks and those that were left fairly quickly with less than a handful sticking around till the 2 PM closing time. Once again, Bayfront Park was not a part of the Bike Miami route due to a conflicting event.
We rode around, enjoying the chance to be on our bikes after about a three-month hiatus, but by 3-ish PM we were ready to head back home. We packed the bikes back on the rack, and said goodbye to Bike Miami for the time-being.
I’d like to do a review of Bike Miami as it’s grown since its inception seven months ago, but overall, we’ve been very pleased. Even this event, which by all accounts was the least attended, was successful in its stated goal of allowing people to explore the city in a new way and promoting bike culture in Miami. The summer break will be good for everyone, allowing excitement to build over the next four to five months. Come the fall, I know we’ll be ready to bike down again and party on two wheels.
I have joined Metblogs, a network of city-focused blogs for a number of metropolitan areas around the world. My friend Patricia is a contributor for the Seattle Metblogs and that kinda gave me the impetus to do the same in my own city. Given how the Miami Metblogs was downright suffering for lack of content (the last non-news post was in March 08) I decided this would be a great way for me to connect more with my hometown and a way to talk about the city aside from the topic of cycling, which I already cover in my Slow Bike Miami Beach blog (though I also expect to cover some cycling stuff on Metblogs as well).
So drop by Miami Metblogs and check out whatever I end up writing about there (and hopefully we’ll have more contributors joining up soon as well). You can check out my Author Profile page which includes links to articles written by me, or go to the front page and see what’s going on.
My wife has been learning the Japanese language on her own for a while, which means an appreciation of Japanese culture has seeped into our household beyond pop-culture mainstays like anime, manga, sushi and ninjas! Part of understanding a language is understanding the culture that uses it, that shaped it, and we’ve both been enriched by what we’ve learned. For some time now we’ve known we have a couple of locations with a Japanese connection we could visit in our general vicinity, and last Sunday we were finally able to make it to the largest of them, the Morikami Museum & Japanese Gardens in Delray Beach.
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