Courting the Cyclists

As part of my continuing series of occasional posts about how hip cyclists are, I offer this link about a hipster-targetted concert Saturday night by the Budapest Festival Orchestra.

Unusually for a BFO concert, this event is starting at 11:30 p.m. and is staged not in the hoity-toity Palace of Arts on Soroksari ut but at a venue that normally hosts shows by pop and folk bands and rock stars from the dark and distant past.

Also unusually for a BFO concert, the playbill features a picture of someone wearing a sleeveless denim vest, over-ear headphones and a big furry wolf's head. This plus the bold, paint-brush font for the lettering tells you straight away that the event is not targeted at the usual conservative crowd.

 

The cycling angle comes from a post on the Hungarian Cyclists Club website, where BFO Conductor Iván Fischer makes a direct invitation to the hipster elite. Fischer made his last splash in the cycling world in the fall, when he conducted a free concert at Heroes' Square on the occasion of the European Car-Free Day Critical Mass. 

Now he's doing another concert just for cyclists -- apparently he really loves us. Either that, or he wants people to believe he really loves us, which, of course, is only natural. Fischer writes this on the cycling club's site:

Dear Budapest cyclists,
When at Heroes' Square, I saw the raised bicycles and thought, it would be nice to hold a concert just for young people, late at night, when older people are asleep, and when, for a few minutes, there aren't so many cars on the streets, and it's possible to bike to the concert hall. Now it's a reality -- for you - on the night of Jan. 21 at the Millenáris Teatrum. Come one and all to Midnight Music. Tickets will be very cheap, only for a small contribution to the costs.

The tickets are extremely cheap by BFO standards -- just HUF 1,200. And if you belong the cyclists' club or come by bike, you get a further 30 percent discount.

So, along with the concessionaires at Liszt Ferenc Airport and the fabric store at Jaszai Mari ter, Iván Fischer joins the queue of Hungarian opinion leaders who are desperately trying to ingratiate themselves with cyclists just because we're so cool.

Good luck to you, maestro.

Critical Angst

For MOST participants, I think, last night's Critical Mass was an unqualified kick in the pants. According to the Hungarian news agency, MTI, about 30,000 people turned out, and the closing bike lift at Heroes' Square was one for the ages: Perched on the steps of the Museum of Fine Arts, the Budapest Festival Orchestra rewarded finishers with a short but sweet concert starting at 8 p.m. The selections included Tchaikovsky, Dvorák and Brahms.

Co-organiser Károly Sinka told MTI that it had been the best attended Car-Free Day Critical Mass ever. The free-style mode of organisation -- with no cordoned off parade route -- would be "the future" of the event, Sinka added.

My own experience of the ride was less of a success -- partly because there were just so many people this year. We got caught in a jam on the kiskörút and ended up missing the bike lift as well as the BFO's serenade. As I pulled up to the square, Maestro Iván Fischer was taking his bows before an ecstatic crowd, and wishing them "many car-free days." But having missed the performance, the moment was lost on me.

Things started out promisingly enough at the Feneketlen tó, as I finally got hold of some CM 2011 stickers to keep the series going on our refrigerator. Some other activists were passing out stickers for free-range eggs or something, and I got this snap of Lance in front of their giant pink chicken.

It was something to do with "bio" eggs or humanely produced ones or something along those lines.

We stopped in at the Transit cafe to check out a photo exhibition ("Me and my Bike"), and then we met some cycling acquaintances and settled in for a couple refreshments. Then time sort-of got away from us.

It was past 7 p.m. when we finally clamboured back onto our bikes and I knew we were cutting it close with the bike lift scheduled at 8. Sure enough, we got caught in one of the worst Critical Mass jams of all time. Honestly, I don't think it'd been that bad since the giant Critical Mass in the spring of 2008. You'd be in front of a traffic signal and sit there through four cycles of the light before finally getting through the intersection. (The irony of me complaining about a traffic jam that we deliberately set out to create is not lost on me. But damn -- I was getting nostalgic for the CMs of recent years, when there were enough of us to make an impression but not no so many that you couldn't move.)

Damn this traffic jam!

After creeping down the kiskörút for a half hour, Kristin suggested that maybe such a long exposure to traffic fumes (from cars, not us, obviously) wasn't the healthiest thing for our kids. And me, being the stubborn arse that I am, insisted on riding the thing to its conclusion. CM is evidently more important to me than protecting my kids from black lung. What kind of monster am I?

Sequoia was a good sport for awhile, but after we got past Szabadság Bridge,
she started to squeal.

At least Kristin, who was carrying Sequoia, did the right thing and bagged on it before the turn at Andrássy. Sequoia was getting crabby by that point anyway, so it was time to get her home. Lance was also getting crabby, but as he had the misfortune to be on my bike, he was stuck.

Restless Lance tries to frustrate my picture taking.

Poor guy. All of his suffering (and my stupid persistence) was for naught. By the time Lance and I got across Dózsa György and over to the museum's steps, the only evidence of the night's merriment were these empty seats and sheet music holders. We saw a couple musicians idling by with instrument cases over their shoulders, but no sign of Iván Fischer.

I bet that was an awesome concert.

Festival Orchestra to Play at Critical Mass

Image stolen from cyclechic.blog.hu.

This year's Critical Mass won't be quite as subdued as I feared. The closing bike lift at Heroes' Square will feature probably the most sublime musical accompaniment Hungary can offer: the Budapest Festival Orchestra.

According to posts on the Hungarian Cyclists' Club site as well as on the Facebook page of the orchestra:

"The Budapest Festival Orchestra, as a sign of respect for the Critical Mass on Sept. 22, at the end of the event, will welcome cyclists with music in Heroes Square."

BFO Musical Director Iván Fischer includes this personal message to CM participants:

"I really like and respect Critical Mass. They give me confidence in our future."

Needless to say, that's some endorsement. And from one of the most accomplished and respected figures of Hungarian society and international arts.

A colleague who saw this news was skeptical of whether Critical Mass and classical would go together. And I can't dispute that it will be an unusual pairing. The background music at past rides has been firmly grounded in popular genres; one particular memory is of a sun-dappled bike lift a couple years ago behind the Petofi Csarnok, and having Bob Marley's "Iron Lion Zion" blasting from a boom box.

I love Bob Marley and I loved that moment, but in terms of evangelistic value, we can do better. The cycling movement already does quite well with students and old punk rockers like myself. It needs to diversify and send a message that cycling is for everyone, no matter their age, hair style or musical tastes. On this score, the booking of the BFO is more than a coup -- it rocks!