Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Viking (2009), Edition: 1, 320 pages
Description
Since the early 1980s, renowned musician and visual artist David Byrne has been riding a bike as his principal means of transportation in New York City. Two decades ago, he discovered folding bikes and started taking them with him when traveling around the world. Byrne's choice was initially made out of convenience rather than political motivation, but the more cities he saw from his bicycle, the more he became hooked on this mode of transport and the sense of liberation, exhilaration, and connection it provided. This point of view, from his bike seat, became his panoramic window on urban life, a magical way of opening one's eyes to the inner workings and rhythms of a city's geography and population. Bicycle Diaries chronicles Byrne's observations and insights--what he is seeing, whom he is meeting, what he is thinking about--as he pedals through and engages with some of the world's major cities.--Publisher.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member kukulaj
There is a bit about bicycling in here but a lot more about urban design. It's all in the context of Byrne's traveling around on his various projects. He comes across as a pleasant and intelligent fellow - not something to take for granted in a pop star! On the other hand, I can't say I found any
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really sparkling insights here. He's just a few years older than I, so when he wrote the book he was several years younger than I am when reading it. I've read quite a bit about the evolution of cities, peak oil, etc. Perhaps if somebody really likes David Byrne and doesn't know about urban design, this could be a great inspiration to go learn. Show Less
LibraryThing member snash
I thought the book would give more of a picture of various cities around the world. That's there but for the most part each city was used as a springboard to a variety of musings about the nature of people, society, art etc. That might be disappointing except that I found his musings very
His views on a livable city were particularly interesting.
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interesting. They were interesting in that they're similar to my own but included evidence I was unaware of or trotted off in a new and intriguing way. His empathies are liberal, anti-auto, anti-religion, and pro-diversity but not horribly strident.His views on a livable city were particularly interesting.
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LibraryThing member subbobmail
Ah, to be David Byrne and live the life of a world-travelling, songwriting, artmaking, genre-hopping, bike-riding cosmopolite. This book (taken largely from his online journal) follows DB from city to city as he soaks up the local culture at eye-level, or rather bike-level. He makes a good argument
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for ditching the car and using the pedals. After all, why whiz through life at blinding speed when you can slow down and appreciate it? Especially if you're lucky enough to meet with artists and interesting people of all kinds in many countries, as DB happens to be. Some people may find his prose flat and disturbingly free of affect, but I find Byrne an excellent observer with a refreshing reluctance to express opinion over-quickly. This book makes me want to be David Byrne, or at the very least acquire an excellent folding bike Show Less
LibraryThing member dodatadic
Food for thought. Unique perspective, excelent observations. Didn't know he was from sub-urban Baltimore. To me, he is a quintessential New Yorker - somebody who is not necesserily born in NYC, but contributes to its liveliness.
LibraryThing member bookczuk
A bit of background first: I was a passionate bike-commuter when I was working. I pedaled my way to work both in St Louis and in Charleston (Skipped biking to work in DC because I lived in Bethesda, worked in NW DC and was on night shift.) I've had marvelous experiences and some pretty crappy ones.
David Byrne was able to do what I would love to do -- explore a lot of places (specifically cities)by bicycle. I love seeing the quirky underside of towns, noting the things not seen by tourists, and missed by car or train or bus. Byrne visited some of my favorite cities, a few that I want to go to and a few that hold no interest for me. In them all, he used keen observation to pick out some unique elements. He writes a blend of travelog, bike-wisdom and political commentary. If one element didn't interest me, another shortly came along that did.
I do wish the photographs were a little sharper and better labeled. Some may have been in color originally and didn't survive the switch to black and white. Or maybe it was just a crappy camera. Either way, they were the most frustrating for me.
Passing this on to a friend from Brooklyn, who is interested in what's happening to our cities. It was given to us by another friend (EN) as some "recovery reading for javaczuk after surgery.
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My current town is only moderately bike-friendly; there are far too many fatalities on the roads here for me to feel good any more. But, in theory, I am a huge bike supporter. It just makes so much sense. David Byrne was able to do what I would love to do -- explore a lot of places (specifically cities)by bicycle. I love seeing the quirky underside of towns, noting the things not seen by tourists, and missed by car or train or bus. Byrne visited some of my favorite cities, a few that I want to go to and a few that hold no interest for me. In them all, he used keen observation to pick out some unique elements. He writes a blend of travelog, bike-wisdom and political commentary. If one element didn't interest me, another shortly came along that did.
I do wish the photographs were a little sharper and better labeled. Some may have been in color originally and didn't survive the switch to black and white. Or maybe it was just a crappy camera. Either way, they were the most frustrating for me.
Passing this on to a friend from Brooklyn, who is interested in what's happening to our cities. It was given to us by another friend (EN) as some "recovery reading for javaczuk after surgery.
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LibraryThing member Othemts
David Byrne has a folding bike and takes it with him on his travels around the world. This book collects his ruminations from cycling through many great cities. Sometimes they are observations on what he sees from the saddle, but often they ponder more deeply place of the city from architecture to
Favorite Passages:
My generation makes fun of the suburbs and the shopping malls, the TV commercials and the sitcoms that we grew up with -- but they're part of us too. So our ironic view is leavened with something like love. Though we couldn't wait to get out of these places they are something like comfort food for us. Having come from those completely uncool places we are not and can never be urban sophisticates we read about, and neither are we rural specimens -- stoic, self-sufficient, and relaxed -- at ease and comfortable in the wild. These suburbs, where so many of us spent our formative years, still push emotional buttons for us; they're both attractive and deeply disturbing. - p. 9
These [modern] buildings represent the triumph of both the cult of capitalism and the cult of Marxist materialism. Opposing systems have paradoxically achieved more or less the same aesthetic result. Diverging paths converge. The gods of reason triumph over beauty, whimsy, and animal instincts and our innate aesthetic sense -- if one believes that people have such a thing. We associate these latter qualities with either peasants -- the unsophisticated, who don't know any better than to build crooked walls and add peculiar little decorative touches -- or royalty and the upper classes -- our despicable former rulers with their frilly palaces, whom we can now view, in this modern world, as equals, at least on some imaginary or theoretical level. - p. 79
I'm in my midfifties, so I can testify that biking as a way of getting around is not something only for the young and energetic. You don't really need the spandex, and unless you want it to be, biking is not necessarily all the strenous. It's the liberating feeling -- the physical and psychological sensation -- that is more persuasive than any practical argument. Seeing things from a point of view that is close enough to pedestrians, vendors, and storefronts combined with getting around in a way that doesn't feel completely divorced from the life that occurs on the streets is pure pleasure. Observing and engaging in a city's life -- even for a reticent and often shy person like me -- is one of life's great joys. Being a social creature -- it is part of what it means to be human. - p. 292
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culture to politics. He is admittedly didactic at times, but he often makes a good point. Knowing Byrne as the singer/songwriter for Talking Heads, I found his narrative voice not at all what I expected, sometimes a little crude, sometimes a little lofty, but usually compelling. This is a good book for learning about the necessary changes that need to be made to our cities to survive an uncertain future.Favorite Passages:
My generation makes fun of the suburbs and the shopping malls, the TV commercials and the sitcoms that we grew up with -- but they're part of us too. So our ironic view is leavened with something like love. Though we couldn't wait to get out of these places they are something like comfort food for us. Having come from those completely uncool places we are not and can never be urban sophisticates we read about, and neither are we rural specimens -- stoic, self-sufficient, and relaxed -- at ease and comfortable in the wild. These suburbs, where so many of us spent our formative years, still push emotional buttons for us; they're both attractive and deeply disturbing. - p. 9
These [modern] buildings represent the triumph of both the cult of capitalism and the cult of Marxist materialism. Opposing systems have paradoxically achieved more or less the same aesthetic result. Diverging paths converge. The gods of reason triumph over beauty, whimsy, and animal instincts and our innate aesthetic sense -- if one believes that people have such a thing. We associate these latter qualities with either peasants -- the unsophisticated, who don't know any better than to build crooked walls and add peculiar little decorative touches -- or royalty and the upper classes -- our despicable former rulers with their frilly palaces, whom we can now view, in this modern world, as equals, at least on some imaginary or theoretical level. - p. 79
I'm in my midfifties, so I can testify that biking as a way of getting around is not something only for the young and energetic. You don't really need the spandex, and unless you want it to be, biking is not necessarily all the strenous. It's the liberating feeling -- the physical and psychological sensation -- that is more persuasive than any practical argument. Seeing things from a point of view that is close enough to pedestrians, vendors, and storefronts combined with getting around in a way that doesn't feel completely divorced from the life that occurs on the streets is pure pleasure. Observing and engaging in a city's life -- even for a reticent and often shy person like me -- is one of life's great joys. Being a social creature -- it is part of what it means to be human. - p. 292
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LibraryThing member sumariotter
Yes, this is the David Byrne from the Talking Heads, a band I've always loved, and it was a pleasure to discover that I like the man as well. He takes a folding bicycle with him everywhere he goes around the world and he writes diary entries about his experiences, and his thoughts on cities,
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transportation, and art. He is a man after my own heart--he notices how the spaces we live in and the way we travel influence us socially, culturally, ecologically etc. I particularly enjoyed the beginning and the end of this book. My interest flagged at some places in the middle. But overall, reading this book was the joy of discovering a kindred spirit. You won't find out much about David Byrne or his personal life here--this is not a man with a big ego. Just a loosely organized record of his thoughts and observations. Show Less
LibraryThing member librarianbryan
As middle of the road as this guy's music, this was really too pleasant for me to give a higher rating to. That being said, we like the same art, we like bikes. I liked it. I wish the section on Pittsburgh was longer.
LibraryThing member amelish
David Byrne, I love you.
LibraryThing member ownedbycats
Lost interest when it started getting political. I wanted more of a travelogue.
LibraryThing member paakre
I love the way David Byrne writes. I agree with most of his ideas, especially about bicycles and city design. I didn't finish the whole book since it included a lot of personal anecdotes about cities I was not that interested in, but the New York section was great, and the beginning was great.
LibraryThing member jillrhudy
Bizarre and disjointed with really crazy pictures. Come to think of it, I'm a child of the 80s--what else did I expect?
LibraryThing member donhazelwood
A nice meandering travel read discussing art, architecture, history, music, urban planning, and cycling. A pleasant side effect of reading David Byrne is listening to more Talking Heads.
LibraryThing member steve02476
Nice little collection of essays about various cities that Byrne has biked in, with various musings about art, architecture, society, people, etc. A little too preachy sometimes- he tries not to be but it comes out.
LibraryThing member thorold
This wasn't quite what I was expecting — the title made me imagine a travel book or a piece of cycle advocacy, but actually it's more of a semi-random collection of short essays about cities, the people who live there, and the arts, inspired by Byrne's travels to different parts of the world in
Byrne is clearly an intelligent, thoughtful person, and his situation in life allows him to meet interesting people in the course of his travels (assuming that you accept artists, gallery-owners and musicians as "interesting people"...), so this makes for a pleasant, lively read, but I don't think you will find anything very earth-shattering here, unless you are someone who loves motor cars and thinks of the USA as the model of perfect urban planning (in which case it might annoy you a little...). A good short-attention-span book to read on a journey or in a hospital waiting-room, probably.
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the course of his work as a musician. When he travels, he likes to take a folding bike with him and use that to explore, but the cycling per se is only a rather minor part of the story. The format of the book is said to be loosely modelled on W G Sebald, with a mix of first-hand impressions, rambling philosophical sidetracks, and black-and-white photos, but there's a lot more shooting from the hip and a lot less evidence of weeks spent researching stuff in libraries than you would get in an actual Sebald book. Which is fair enough: I don't think anyone would be buying this book expecting to get heavyweight academic delvings. Byrne is clearly an intelligent, thoughtful person, and his situation in life allows him to meet interesting people in the course of his travels (assuming that you accept artists, gallery-owners and musicians as "interesting people"...), so this makes for a pleasant, lively read, but I don't think you will find anything very earth-shattering here, unless you are someone who loves motor cars and thinks of the USA as the model of perfect urban planning (in which case it might annoy you a little...). A good short-attention-span book to read on a journey or in a hospital waiting-room, probably.
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Language
Original language
English
Physical description
297 p.; 8.5 inches
ISBN
0670021148 / 9780670021147