And just as Google has come out with its new route planning service for bikes, I've been wanting to incorporate more into this blog around the idea of mapping, map-making, spaces and places, lived and represented. So, for starters, I entered my starting and finishing addresses--my house in Berkeley to the Transbay Ferry Terminal at 1st and Mission where I could catch the F bus back across the bay. But there, Google had me riding to Oakland and then hopping on the ferry for a grand total of 15 miles in the saddle. I entered the addresses of the 6 cafes from the "Heading south, heading north" post and this looked a little more...adventurous, shall we say?
So it was set--I would ride along the path that Google mapped out for me, taking new streets for the closer, more familiar destinations (California to Market Street for the Berkeley to Oakland trip? Really?), avoiding the thoroughfares like E 14th St. in Oakland and El Camino Real up and down the peninsula, discovering a new path to the Dumbarton Bridge...and of course, Google had been kind enough to allow me to pass or stop by at a few new cafes along the way, to sit down, sample the view, and work my way through the stack of papers that I had to grade. A perfect day, mapped out in advance.
Yet, everything I've learned, and feel intuitively (which one was first?) about space and place vitiates against the idea of following the Google map, actually--the strategic planning of paths and points on a fixed grid of representations precluding an engagement with lived, heterogeneous, emergent spaces (de Certeau, anyone? thanks to Donald Moore's anthro seminar on spatialization).
Do maps like this pre-determine our experiences? Can they help us find our way, and still allow us to discover our own paths? Can we use one technology to remix, recontextualize, or even fight another? Or, as the case was yesterday, this warm day in March 2010: Can tweets destabilize a Google map?
Tweets, those little narrative vignettes that are plenty controlled themselves, but which might bring a little life to the spaces in between the points and labels and colored lines. I'm not going to try to theorize this any more here, but to 'hand the mic' over to the tweets themselves to retell a little experiment, on wheels and on media. Wheels, meaning the single-speed Scattante Americano that was to convey me around the bay. Media, meaning the crappy cell phone that would send the 140 character updates over to "40404" to be fed into my Twitter stream.
Oh yeah, and media, meaning the old iPod that would play this tune from Jónsi over and over and over again. Go ahead, click, pedal and spin:
Nice, huh? It starts slow, but check your volume...
After launching on the path, sunglasses on, warm breeze blowing by, I decided to head straight for the sandwiches and not get a haircut and delay the eventual arrival in San Francisco any more. But why are there so many red lights on this path? Pull out my phone and decide to send...
tildensky: Another tweetconfession: Should be #amwriting but #amriding instead. But hey, at least they sound the same, right? Market & 55th.Green light, red light, and another green light before I got that off. But it seemed like a nice initial signpost; I had noticed that my friend Jane and others use hashtags like this pretty frequently, and was feeling pleased with the thought that "riding" and "writing" sound the same. (though, really, why don't we be a little more honest and say #amtweeting?) And several blocks later...
tildensky: Struck by idyllic painting-style posters on back wall of Oakland Ice Center @ San Pablo & 17th. How many skating rinks are left? #amriding via txtOf course, many other thoughts filled my mind as I was riding: should I tweet about this, that, or even this other thing? What's the right balance between tweeting and riding? (no tweeting at all, right?!) Who would be seeing these tweets? Was I doing it for myself or for some imagined audience? I bet as I was riding along that I'd lose at least a few followers; better make at least one tweet useful for people:
tildensky: Pitstop #1. 2 Vietnamese sandwiches to go at Cam Huong, long lines, 4 languages, $5.50. #amriding 9th & WebsterEnough said there, sandwiches in the backpack, and on the road again, a feeling of dread coming across me as I felt my weight on the wheels and saw a familiar scene:
How can I capture the emotion of these moments, reconstructing here what happened then for your time and place? Downtown Oakland feels like the starting point of rides going south, even if it's already 7 or 8 miles in. Seeing the bay, catching glimpses of San Francisco, and smelling the salt, you start to feel a certain rhythm, a kind of immersion...
tildensky: When I'm old or unable to move well, maybe all I'll have to do to travel again is put a little sunscreen on my nose. #amriding EmbarcaderoIt always works, newer layers of experience laminated upon older ones, all condensed into elongated moments in motion. Why are smells so evocative?
Spinning further south...have you seen these signs?
And then the water, the water, have you ridden next to the sparkling water? While listening to this song, or another of your 'this songs'?
Of course, there has to be an interruption or two, fences to climb, tracks to cross or, as the case may be, ride...
Actually that might have been easier than what Google planned for me on the way to EON:
Forget EON. Heading for Calaroga and straight for Paddy's cafe. And isn't that fun to say? "Calaroga, Calaroga, Calaroga..."tildensky: After the serene coastline, no shoulder and impatient hordes of Costco-bound shoppers on Hesperian are a definite shock. #amriding barely.
Grading, yes. Cappuccino, yes. (How else would this post be fit to be Cafffeinated?) And a 5-minute nap in the park across the street, followed by a little more grading. And then, oh, did I mention this was what my google map had become? You see, I still don't have an iPhone...
tildensky: Watching shadows of trees and wheels lengthen under you, beside you, stretched out in front of you, one of the pleasures of #amriding /UnCty
Of course, everything has to stop sometime. Passing under the Dumbarton to get onto the Dumbarton, razor-wire fencing that would keep you out from the Dumbarton...
...save the fact that they left the door open anyway.
Then up, over, banana, powerbar...
tildensky: What bridge would YOU like to see opened to bikes? #amriding the Dumbarton.Finally, somewhere in my engridded and geotagged mind, I had just 'turned the corner' and 'headed back up', on the 2nd (or was this the 3rd already) big 'leg' of the trip. Over the bridge. On the peninsula. Headed north. All that and more when...
tildensky: Twas bound to happen: flat on Bayfront Expressway and the wrong pump valve fitting. #amriding has become #amwalking. Still a lovely evening.
The sun slides across the sky that remains, the air still warm.
I never finished the ride, never finished the map, just as I haven't finished this post. You know, I'd love to stay and play another song. But, for the time being at least....tildensky: Zoom in, slow down, look, smell, listen. #amwalking with flat thru Redwood City neighborhoods, balmy Saturday, melodious BBQs in full swing.
tildensky: Calling it a day after #wasriding & #waswalking to Redwood City and then #waseating fantastic burrito at Naranjo's. now...#mustgetwriting via txt
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