on velocipedists' tools

Avé, dear reader, & welcome. Come, let's explore the tools of a velocipedist. Her most basic elements are the following: a stout and fearless heart, that central muscle primed and pumping proudly, pulsating without palpitation betwixt her gently heaving breasts; fed by her blood and quickened with the hot action of honest labor are her brains, which analyze, sort, and weigh the options facing her before commanding her body to tilt this way or that, to zig or zag, to shift gears down or up, or to abandon her smog-sled altogether and roll tumbling onto the nearest patch of grass; then come her senses – mostly those of hearing and sight – with which she takes in the landscapes flashing by, which feed her brains and give them data to chew on and react to. On the periphery lie other elements, lesser but by no means indispensable, namely: a loud, no-handed whistle; a quick, sharp shout; a firm pair of close-toed shoes; a kit containing all the tools she might need to fix her wire-donkey on the fly; an ankle cuff to tie her pants away from the whirring links of chain; a helmet or other such protection for her cranium; patches of reflective material prominently placed to make her presence known at night; and lights to cut a swath through the shadows' gathering and alert others to her hurtling passage. With these few tools the smog-sledder transects the phaltscape (asphalt landscape) silently and cleanly, skimming across the planet's surface using only the food in her guts as fuel, discretely voided wastes her only measurable exhaust. So come, now, my hearties, and grab you bike, partake of its wonders, there's so much you'll like.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

graffiti, a meritocracy

Design an image, crafting it lovingly from the aether. Make it appealing to look at, and fill it will subtle meaning. Then, after much gentle and loving effort, venture out into the night and glue it to a pole, abandoning it there. This is the life of the street artist. Once his picture is up and his work is done, he vanishes into the darkness to wait and see how the Universe will respond. As a seasoned veteran of the streets, he operates cunningly and without ado; occasionally, however, he struggles with memories of earlier agony. Oh how he would sweat when first starting out, and quiver, his knees shaking on the way to check and see if his image were still up or if it had been scraped down or covered over in the few hours since it was born. Oh how he would wallow in sadness at finding his tender little piece plastered over with another person's art, or, worse, hacked off and discarded by a member of one of those Artwork Desecration Teams. The budding street artist suffers trepidation because his graffiti – once it is stuck up or otherwise applied – stops belonging to just one person and becomes the common property of anyone who might look at it; it merges with the harsh and tumultuous meritocracy that is graffiti.

If the graffiti artist wants to keep his sanity, he will realize quickly (by delving deeply into his soul-space and maintaining a proper equilibrium there) that his street art, along with the graffiti applied by the next vandal, is just one segment in a giant, shifting mosaic applied by hundreds of selfless SDUBS (Self Directed Urban Beautification Specialists) whose goal is to enliven the otherwise colorless and visually barren asphalt landscape (phaltscape). With enough experience he will understand that by covering only a portion of his piece instead of defacing it entirely, the other street artists deem his art edgy, unique, or beautiful enough to merit a continuing existence on wall, pole, and street-sign. (Exceptions to this rule include if his work is so terribly lame as to be worth neither time nor effort to cover over or if he is particularly good at putting his pieces in places few others might reach, which in itself would prove his mettle.) As long as he stays in the graffiti game, he shall, in time, develop a vandal's eye of his own, which will allow him to judge which pieces to cover over, which to incorporate into his newest work of art, and which to not touch at all.

His is a dangerous game of applying and fleeing, watching and forgetting, shrugging and re-applying. His is a world in which his city destroys his art nearly as quickly as he can apply it, a world in which his work must stand not only the test of time but also appeal to the sensibilities of any subsequent vandal whose primarily purpose is to destroy the phaltscape. He must keep one eye out for meddlesome and ever-watchful cops while contending with some of the finest artists operating today for display space, artists who plaster over poor and inferior works of art mercilessly and without hesitation. Such is life in the harsh meritocracy of the graffiti-writer.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

eyes in graffiti

Walk through Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Berlin, Amsterdam, or Bangkok, and look in the forgotten, in the grimy, and in the underused places. With a keen glance and a bit of luck, you will witness the riotous beauty known as graffiti. Oh, what a profusion it is of style and color, of shape and size, of message and image, all blending into a whole that, if viewed from afar, resembles little more than clutter. Step closer, however, and trust your peripheral vision, and your most tender of sphincters will drink gladly of the intoxicating power of street art. Why, though, do we look? Why are we powerless against the urge to sweep our gazes down into worn and sticky curbs and up onto soot-stained poles? Eyes, my friends, we look at graffiti because it is full of eyes (and not just any eyes, but human eyes). They may have stumbled upon the technique accidentally, they may have copied it from advertisers, but, for whatever reason, graffitos exploit one of mankind's primal and deep-seated fears, using a time-proven method for getting people to look at something – giving it eyes.

Since our time as forest-creeping, prairie-running, skull-bashing troglodytes, the species homo sapiens has developed the uncanny ability to recognize the shape of the eye even if it should be obscured by layers of random patterns. Experts argue whether this ability is restricted merely to recognizing human eyes or if it applies to those of our former predators (i.e. bear, cougar, coyote), but I hazard that our subconscious brains are constantly trying to figuring out if someone, or something, is looking at us. Advertisers exploit this evolutionary adaptation to our status as Top Predator Of One Another by blanketing the asphalt landscape – the phaltscape – with pictures of pretty people who nearly all happened to have been staring directly at the camera's shutter when it opened. (Now, however, instead of our powers giving us the upper hand in a fight-or-flight situation, they allow us to be convinced that we need that new and re-formulated cucumber body scrub. Woe be unto mankind.)

All quasi-scientific, pseudo-evolutionary nonsense aside, why do graffiti-writers use eyes in their designs? Why does they want people to look at their works of art? Few graffitos apply their craft for financial gain; as with other labors of love, people cipher-write regardless of the risks it poses to life, limb, liberty, and liability. SDUBS (Self Directed Urban Beautification Specialists) are wily and suspicious by nature; they maintain a level of honor, decorum, and discipline so profound as to make inquiry into their personal matters a life-threatening endeavor; therefore, these questions shall likely go unanswered for generations to come. For now, however, please enjoy the street-side galleries of free-to-the-consumer art wherever you may be, and rest easily in the knowledge that, by looking back at eyes that look at you, you are merely executing a deeply-ingrained survival reflex that is as natural to humans as is laughter. Never forget, however, to keep an eye out for mankind's oldest enemy – itself.

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit

the phaltscape calls

As the leaves turn brown and the morning mists catch me shivering, I struggle to resist the siren-song of the far and distant phaltscape. Known also as the asphalt landscape, the phaltscape exists in cities around the world, in urban environments large and small, in concrete jungles the world over. To some degree, the phaltscape exists here, too, in this rural little Pennsylvania town; I ride on it every day, pulling myself on my smogsled across its winding expanse, laboring along its curling and rising and dipping pathways with as much speed as I can muster. There is one phaltscape in particular for which I long, however; it stretches from Santa Monica Bay to Cesar E. Chavez Boulevard, from the Griffith Observatory to the 10 Freeway – I pine for the blacktop of my fair lost city, El Pueblo De El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora La Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula.

I do not linger in agony, nor do I suffer too greatly from being absent for the past seven months from her cruel and tender embrace; my love for her lives in a special place within the folds of my heart, in that place normally reserved for one's biological, or birth, mother. It is likely because I died and was reborn more than once in L.A. that I regard her with such child-like devotion, that I think of her with such fondness, that I am blind to her faults and see only her virtues; if she were less harsh, I'd feel betrayed, yet if she were to age and gain some wrinkles, I would not care one bit. Ask me to explain this affection, and I will draw a blank. Ask me to define, even, what I mean exactly by L.A., and my brains will overload and go blue-screen while they trying to pin down her elusive and terrifying grandeur.

Part of her charm lies in the diversity of her people, in her Chicanos and Japanese and Russians and Germans and Thais; part of it lies in her pleasant weather, in her hot winter winds and cool spring breezes and weeks upon weeks of bright, sunny days. Ah, but I have slipped into the trap I just warned against and tried to pin down that which I just said I could not pin down, struggling for words as my mind grew sluggish, only through great effort pulling myself back from the brink of complete mental shutdown. Suffice it to say that beyond the direct calls from her people – from friends still living there who ask when I shall return – I feel as if Los Angeles herself were pining a bit for me, too, for my footfalls to sound once more in her forgotten and noisome places, for the pneumatic wheels of my wire-donkey to sing from the Ocean to the River, the sweat of my brow gently moistening byway and avenue alike. Of course, such thoughts are but mere foolishness, the heart-pangs of a star-crossed lover yearning for his mate; she is likely glad to be rid of my stink, happy that I have begun to sink in roots of tree and garden, out here. No matter how much, though, I tell myself otherwise, I cannot with ease shake my memories of her. Sigh… and mahalo.

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit

as dogs do, so shall I do

  A woman is out walking her dog and the beast urinates on the sidewalk ahead of me. I step accidentally in the stream of piss spreading toward the gutter, but instead of reacting angrily I tell myself: The poor beast has to piss somewhere – why not right here in front of me? If the woman had curbed her dog, I would not have stepped in its bowel movement, but since she did not, I must scrape its shit off of the bottom of my shoe.

 I have no problem with the animal doing any of this so long as I might also piss freely into the gutter whenever I want to. As a member of the species homo sapiens and a bowel-moving, food-digesting animal, I shall make water into any nearby gutter if the urge to pee should hit me unexpectedly. Just now, I made water in the street near LAPD headquarters, at two thirty on a Wednesday afternoon, and no persons complained or looked at me funny. (I suspect that people do not confront me because I am tall, and because I look like I could be a mentally insane homeless person.)

  City-dwellers of the world, fight species-based discrimination by curbing yourself and pissing in the street. Do not risk injuring or killing yourself because there was no socially acceptable toilet nearby – celebrate your animal nature by watering the phaltscape with your golden showers, today.

  場黑麥 ioanni elymucampus fecit

on phaltscape-withdrawal and dating | encyclopediamericanifesto

  Modern sociologists look with pity upon the smogrider who attempts after years of absence to re-enter the dating scene while she is suffering from withdrawal from the phaltscape, but you and I shall examine her more favorably. For reasons mechanical, spiritual, or otherwise mysterious, she is not riding smog regularly; thus, she is distressed. With her smog-sled sitting dormant, her hands are less calloused, her cheeks have lost their rosy hue, and cheer has fled her moods. This is not an isolated phenomenon: from the urban cyclist orphaned within the last few years to the gear masher with layers of parents, any person who is kept away from something she loves (such as smogriding the phaltscape) will approach potentially romantic meetings gingerly, and with hesitation.

  The physiological reasons for the smogrider's hesitation are clear – since they no longer bathe regularly in endorphin blasts triggered by rigorous exercise, his brains are cloudy and sluggish; lacking their hard and churning labor, his muscles atrophy, and his limbs twitch and jump about at random. Additionally, his speaking is as difficult to understand as his morals are to justify (which we speculate is caused by changes to the physical make-up of the cerebral cortex triggered by conscious epigenetic manipulation). Compared to the physiological reasons, however, the psychological reasons for the smogrider's romantic inability are less well known. Rumors tell that in the hours leading up to his rendezvous he descends into a period of existential crisis that lessens only long enough for him to scream self-loathing obscenities. Other unconfirmed data show that upon meeting his date, the smogrider panics and bears his soul without compunction (from which point onward no modern girl will give him the sex), and that by the end of the date he is on the brink of total personal despair, his failure all but assured, his time and his money surely wasted.

  Denying someone what they love is a crime both cruel and heartless, but keeping whorphan from him phaltscape reek downright of madness.

  場黑麥 ioanni elymucampus fecit

encylopediamericanifesto - phaltscape withdrawal

  The phaltweary smog rider proves her phaltworthiness by bicycling the phaltscape. The evidence of her efforts lie in her callused hands, in her creaking bones, and in gritty, fleeting smiles that threaten sometimes to skate across her youthful and vibrant face. She accepts her station in life so long as she is allowed the exhilarating freedom of gliding around town atop a skinny metal sled. If she can ride smog in the city of her choosing, she has beef with no man.

  But what happens when injury, weather, or mechanical failure incapacitate the smog rider, and keep him from his Rounds? He will descend slowly but surely into the same type of madness that inflicts any proud and majestic beast that is kept away from its preordained way of life. Similar to a tiger taken from the jungle, the smog rider who cannot ride will develop a variety of diseases, among them shingles, bulimia, and long spells of wild-eyed, howling insanity. He will move about the area in which he is confined with increasingly erratic and violent movements until such time as he must be contained to avoid damaging himself. The color will flee from his once-rosy cheeks, he will put on weight, and his overall happiness will decrease markedly.

  If your smog-rider begins to develop symptoms similar to those mentioned above – if she turns cranky, impatient, or bossy, or if she loses sight suddenly of the horrible beauty of life itself – get her onto a bicycle and out in the phaltscape as quickly as you can. Every school-aged child knows that to keep an animal locked up far from its usual habitat is cruel and unusual punishment. She who smog-mashes, her insanity dashes.

  Spes Mea In Ratio Est - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

on velocipedal locomotion

  Moving your body from place to place on a velocipede has many advantages over using a motor vehicle, or walking. To ride bicycle, to mash velocipede, is to issue a clear and open declaration of your physical exuberance, hurtling, sweaty proof that you are in both good health and high spirits. During your travels, you shall learn the rhythm and character of your region's unique micro-climates (so that you might weather the noon-time heat in a cool and shaded grove). You shall search without pause for routes lacking in car traffic, those newly paved, or routes superior in similar ways; your city will reward you with unique views of treasures previously overlooked. You will see and be able to explore more secret places more conveniently than if you were driving in a car, while covering far more ground than if you were on foot. Your iron horse requires no large metered parking space, nor will you have to pay someone to watch it while you are away. The only exhaust vapor you create is your own vital breath, and the only waste heat you produce drips as sweat from your ruddy and pliant skin. You will sleep well at night knowing that you dragged yourself across the phaltscape burning only the fuel found in your own tender guts.

  As a silent propulsion system, bicycling is similar to the Russian caterpillar drive of myth, identical to it in all ways but that the Commie bastards were fusion-powered. To move your body from place to place without a nuclear reactor takes time and effort, and bicycling is effort simple, honest, and pure. Dust off your old bicycle, you lazy carbuncle, and help us give those stinking Reds what for.

  Spes Mea In Ratio Est - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

encylopediamericanifesto - phaltworthiness

  The street art vagabond has sworn to preserve for Posterity the diversity of graffiti – it is her duty to capture, isolate, and upload photographs of any urban artwork she locates by bicycling or walking or skating around a city. Looking, however, does not always slake her thirst: in order to perpetuate the phenomenon of artwork that seems to appear suddenly on previously unadorned urban surfaces, and to prove her passage through the area, she leaves her unique mark, a hand-drawn image that serves as her Glyph of Personal Identification, her own meager tribute to the maddeningly prolific beautification campaign known as street art (or, alternately, as vandalism).

  The urban artist spends resources such as time and money on his efforts to fill the urban environment's many empty spaces with colorful and bizarre pictures; for his troubles he is hounded by police and harassed by them likewise. In addition to such acts of state-mandated repression, he suffers from repeated and chronic bouts of a newly classified condition known as phaltweariness (the individual suffering from this condition will commit frequent acts of frugality and self-sacrifice; his actions will reek of virtuous behavior, which he will act not out of a desire to prove himself to another person, or to claim for himself glory, but because the majesty of the human spirit has rewarded his sacrifice of time and self by filling him with a transcendent vigor not seen since the dawn of humankind).

  No grasp as fleeting as that of Big Brother might contain, however, the inexorable and all-nullifying tempest that is Virtuous Action. The street art vagabond therefore who hurls without ado the bounty of her artistic labor upon the phaltscape's expectant canvasses while showcasing freely upon w³  her fellow street artists' work (where it shall be judged and ignored until all servers crash at once), she who does these things simply because they need doing, she who refuses to claim ownership over any part of the process, that street artist is phaltworthy – she acts for the good of the world by leaving well enough alone.

  Spes Mea In Ratio Est - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp