BICYCLE DIARIES by David Byrne (Viking), 297 pages, $32.50 cloth. Rating: NNNN
Part travel, part philosophy, part autobiography, part urban studies, Bicycle Diaries is like a casual conversation with David Byrne, artist, photographer, writer and musician.
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It’s the kind of book you’d expect from a polymath.
The thread sewing together decades of touring the world with the Talking Heads or opening public art installations is Byrne’s perspective – “faster than a walk, slower than a train, often slightly higher than a person” – which frames his urban observations.
Byrne touches on subjects like the goings-on at the Stasi museum in Berlin, the Marcos family’s life in Manila or how people cope in the bleaker sections of the American side of Niagara Falls. He offers a friendly, even humble analysis of what our infrastructure says about us and is wholly engaging throughout.
You’re left asking yourself what you’ve missed waiting in traffic in your car as Byrne pedals by, stops, absorbs, takes a photo and moves on.
