Going biking now (must remember sunblock today…my arms look like lobster claws).
(1) A quote from A Good Parcel of English Soil (The Metropolitan Line) by Richard Mabey
“But the spirit of the Metroland — a territory in the mind as much as on the ground, neighbourly, sentimental, oddball, accommodating and forever fraying at the edges, continues to thrive.”
(1a) A related quote from Straphanger by Taras Grescoe
“In Mejiro, sinuous streets wind past closely spaced multimillion-dollar mansions of poured concrete, older wooden homes, small fishmongers, and hole-in-the-wall beauty parlors and shops selling used household goods. Elderly women sweep the paths of ingeniously arranged pocket parks; homeowners green the roadsides with bonsai pines and potted plants; the branches of trees are hung with wooden signs indicating their Japanese and Latin names. A sense of custodianship, of a neighborhood enlivened by tiny aesthetic flourishes, prevails. In Mejiro, there is no need for European-style traffic-calming measures: the few cars that appear pick their way gingerly through streets as narrow as alleys. The neighborhood is a paradise for cyclists and cats.
Mejiro is just one of the many such districts. This is the great secret of Japanese cities: away from the main arteries, the streets tend to be remarkably peaceful, and much more intimate and walkable than those in cities built around freeways and cars.”
(2) A quote from City Pendants: Early Sunday Morning and Nighthawks by Carter E. Foster
“The streamlined simplicity of the Nighthawks diner, with its curved form, expanses of glass, and lack of ornament, relates to the Art Deco and machine-age aesthetics that flowered in New York in the 1920s and 1930s, and which were widely expressed in the architecture of the 1939 World’s Fair.”
(3) SC Featured: Gone Fishin’: SC Featured recounts how a fishing trip by former Phillies owner Ruly Carpenter prevented the National League from adopting the designated hitter rule. (ESPN)
(4) Tidying up loose ends…
(a) Weekend 223.1 (filaments and figments)
(b) Mickey Mouse in Tokyo Go (YouTube)
(c) An die Musik (Wikipedia)
Image from Clannad After Story