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cycling in the heat

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Tokyo, 2008.07.25

It's been hot, recently. The other day it was 27oC by 07:00, with a 95% relative humidity. Every day the temperature soars into the thirties.

Needless to say, cycling in such weather presents some problems. Sweating profusely, I find myself getting scorched by passing cars as their overheated engines are joined by the "waste heat" coming from the air conditioning units. It can actually be too hot to stand next to.

But on the other hand such high temperatures give themselves to certain kinds of street photography. The cook sweating it out at the street-side walk-up mini-eatery, his customers waving fans. Men from a work crew taking a break, huddled in the shade of a tree or building. Scantily-clad young ladies sweating through their profuse make-up.

Every season has its opportunities, it seems.

rand()m quote

Immature poets imitate mature poets steal bad poets deface what they take and good poets make it into something better or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique utterly different than that from which it is torn the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time or alien in language or diverse in interest.

—T.S. Eliot