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zaterdag 28 juni 2014
donderdag 26 juni 2014
Vespa maintenance Zen
Scooter in the Sticks: Motorcycle Maintenance: To Zen or Not Zen
So why maintain the Vespa myself?
I've asked this question more than once lying on the cold concrete floor of our unheated garage trying to position my bifocals so I could see or each time I didn't have the right tool or part. Why do this work when it would be easy to schedule our local Vespa technicians?
I had to revisit Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig to find a more eloquent way to express the reasons I've engaged maintenance of the scooter. Chapter 2 is a great chapter wrestling with the idea of doing your own work. Pirsig writes:
"Here is the machine, isolated in time and in space from everything else in the universe. It has no relationship to you, you have no relationship to it..."
Pirsig rejects this notion and outlines the contemporary relationship most have towards their vehicles. A motorcycle or scooter is personal in a way a car can't be. Perhaps it is the inherent risk in riding, the physical exposure or vulnerability or the heightened awareness of the world that makes the machine more connected to me. I entrust my life to my scooter in a real sense and having a basic understanding of the basic mechanical functioning and maintenance seems a reasonable step to ensure a successful relationship. For me, I believe performing routine checks and maintenance of the Vespa keeps me honest, it keeps me paying attention, and it keeps me safe. And it makes riding richer. It makes sense to me in my head. Time will tell if it works in practice.
I'm no mechanic either but I don't want to feel helpless on the road should something happen. And I want to be able to repair failures myself on long trips that otherwise would spell the end of an adventure. Tires, drivebelt, ignition, cables, brakes, things that wear out or break. With the right parts and cooperation of a service station I could keep the Vespa on the road. The mechanical adventure. Not for everyone but I merely suggest you consider it. When I started this work I figured the worse that could happen is I would have to haul a half torn apart Vespa to the dealer to save me. A lesson in humility.
Hebdidge: Images and Things
Dick Hebdidge, Hiding in the Light: On Images and Things
D'Ascanio's Vespa established the pattern for all subsequent scooter designs and its general shape changed little over the years (the headlamp was later moved from the mudguard to the handlebars but this was the only major styling alteration). It combined three innovations-the stub-axles, open frame, and enclosed engine-which were reproduced over the next twenty years by manufacturers in France, Germany and Britain so that, by 1966, one journalist could state authoritatively that “there is hardly a scooter built today which does not incorporate two out of these three distinctive features”. 14 This fixing of the design concept was made possible through the phenomenal sales (by 1960, 1,000,000 Vespas had been sold, and after a slack period in the late 1960s, the oil crisis led to a market revival and in 1980 Piaggio were reported to be producing 450,000 scooters a year (see Guardian, 21 February, 1981)). Domination of the market led to domination of the image: the field was secured so effectively that by the mid-1960s the words “Vespa” and “scooter” were interchangeable in some European languages. (Traffic signs in Paris still stipulate the times when “Vespas” can be parked.)
Vespa: sexier from a distance
Mad Men's Talia Balsam's Vespa: "They're Sexier From a Distance" - Buyer's Remorse - Racked National
Hoewel de acteur (Don Draper) uit Mad Men:
Talia Balsam: All my life I had wanted/envisioned myself on an Italian Vespa. I was like, "That's it. That's my mode of transportation." I'm very interested in Italy. I've worked there and I was thinking this was going to be part of my—I guess—identity. I don't know what I was thinking. So when I was twenty-five, and living in LA, I got one. Nothing with buttons, a real stick shift one, an old white Italian Vespa. And I was trying to learn how to drive it. And I was on a hill...in two seconds I'd fallen off and almost broken my ankle. I just basically lifted the thing back up, walked it back to the garage and never rode it again.
Racked: You weren't actually hurt?
Talia Balsam: No, I just hurt and scared myself enough—and I'd realized my intrepid idea of "That girl on the moped." After buying it, it basically took nothing for me to never sit back on top of it again. A little less fearful, and I probably would have gotten back up. Basically, for me, they're sexier from a distance, but not my talent. John never understood why I never rode it again.
Hoewel de acteur (Don Draper) uit Mad Men:
Wooden vespa
Wooden Vespa Scooter by Carlos Alberto | via anthropomorphicreality
Scooters have become a lot cooler these days than they used to be, and with offerings like this Wooden Vespa by Carlos Alberto individuals are beginning to use the 2 wheeler as a way to express their inner creativity.
Designed for his daughter Daniella, which is exactly what this beautiful scooter is called, Carlos Alberto crafted this fully functional Vespa scooter from laminated hardwood. Packed with a 50cc motor, this thing looks like it’s right out of the 60s. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen people getting creative with their Vespas either.
Moore: Geystroke
Peter Moore | Me and Greystoke: Two months on
Moore writes about his Vespa: Greystroke
Moore writes about his Vespa: Greystroke
Two months ago today I picked up my new Vespa, a 125 S Sport that has been christened Greystoke.
You may remember things didn’t start off too well. The oil light came on and wouldn’t go off, a problem that was traced to a dodgy wire shorting on the frame. I think I predicted at the time that the side view mirrors would start swinging like a gate, and indeed, that has come to pass.
(…)
The main reason I love it is because it puts a smile on my face every time I ride it.
Update: Greystoke is no longer with us. Less than a week after writing this post, a guy did a u-turn in front of me and I ploughed into the side of his van. Greystoke was written off, I ended up in hospital getting my head scanned. And I can’t replace him until everything is sorted out in court.`
Vespista: travel
Peter Moore | The new manager at Menaggio is a Vespista
Moore collects interesting links about Vespitas. He writes:
ISSUU - Milan Istanbul by vespa by da ma
Moore collects interesting links about Vespitas. He writes:
Those of you who have read Vroom with a View may remember that I spent a little time at the youth hostel overlooking Lake Como at Menaggio.(…) I got an email from the new manager, Davide, the other day. I say new, but he has been manager since 2010. He tells me he still gets visitors turning up after reading about the place in my book. He also told me he is a Vespista. And not just any old Vespista. A pretty hardcore one who rode his scooter from Milan to Istanbul. You can read about his adventures in this online article:
ISSUU - Milan Istanbul by vespa by da ma
Moore: travel writing with Vespa
Peter Moore | The Secrets of Travel Writing
It’s a problem I still face. My last book was about buying an old Vespa in Italy and riding it from Milan to Rome. I had a fantastic scene where I go and visit an old Vespa mechanic in Sydney. He has a great workshop with old posters, little old Italian guys hanging around a beat up coffee machine. But I couldn’t use it without slowing down the whole narrative. So I had to cut it free. It’s like movies. A lot of scenes end up on the cutting floor. A boring all day bus journey can be easily pared down to ‘By evening we were in Esfahan …’
woensdag 25 juni 2014
Moretti: Italian culture
Nanni Moretti's Caro Diario - An Italian Culture Analysis | Les Nuits Masquées
Nanni Moretti’s Caro Diario (1993) can be theorised as a merging of several critical discourses directed at contemporary Italian bourgeoisie and intellectuals together with the social injustice that they perpetuate. Both ‘In Vespa’ and ‘Isole’ scorn Italian culture for its bourgeois capitalistic aspirations and its complacency. During ‘In Vespa’, Moretti aligns with the minority to inform his discourse against social injustices. Meanwhile, Moretti’s internal journey and self-realisations throughout Caro Diario is an observation on the Italian individual’s inactivity and passivity in life. Finally ‘Medici’ is critical of Italian authority figures and other national power institutions that have broken people’s trust.
Moretti postmodern
Postmodernism Expressed Through Cinema Film Studies Essay
Read more: http://www.ukessays.com/essays/film-studies/postmodernism-expressed-through-cinema-film-studies-essay.php#ixzz35gvvXRSU
Both the films Mystery Train(1989) and Caro Diario(1993) are ideal representations as mediums in which postmodernist thought is expressed and utilized as a tool to critique contemporary media in-itself and its effects on society as a whole . In Nanni Moretti’s witty creation, Caro Diario, the viewer is continuously placed in situations in which he must decipher the social critique and discourse held within the film. In the first autobiographical episode,” On a Vespa”, Moretti rides his vespa through the city of Rome, admiring the uniqueness of the architecture in the antiquated districts. He then proceeds to ride through a middle class suburb, showing disdain for the conformist lifestyle of its residents. In this scene multiple housing projects are shown, highlighting the contrast of lifestyle in Rome.
Read more: http://www.ukessays.com/essays/film-studies/postmodernism-expressed-through-cinema-film-studies-essay.php#ixzz35gvvXRSU
Vespa: Style in Motion
From Roman Holiday to Quadrophenia, the Vespa scooter has long been a symbol of youthful independence as well as one of the most recognizable pop culture icons of the 20th century. Immortalized as a design classic, the ever-growing ranks of Vespa dealers and scooter clubs worldwide attest to its enduring popularity at the street level. For the first time, the complete history of this chic mode of transport is celebrated in Vespa: Style in Motion. Fully authorized by and drawn from the archives of its manufacturer, Piaggio, this mighty volume tells the Vespa's story from its birth, right after World War II, to the brand new Granturismo model. Vespa is filled with hundreds of film stills, advertisements, and period photographs, offering a visual homage for any fan of Italian flair. Specifications and diagrams of all 41 scooter models, plus in-depth profiles of 15 classic Vespas, provide a detailed reference for true aficionados. Always in vogue, the Vespa remains the ride of choice for hipsters and internationalists everywhere. This, for them, is the last word.
Five best Vespa (2)
Best 5 Vespa appearances in movies from Roman Holiday to Quadrophenia - Swide (3,4,5)
Vespa
Il Segno di venere
Roman Holiday
Vespa
A Hungarian film about a 12-year-old gypsy Lali, who lives in extreme poverty with his mother in a rural Romany community, wins a chocolate bar whilst playing cards that contains a prize: a scooter (which is not other than a ET4)
In order to collect it, he has to go to Budapest and decides to travel alone, also hoping to catch up with his father, whom he hasn’t seen for years. But the journey isn’t as straightforward as he imagines, from friendly encounters to his confrontation with a Hungarian society that is swift to destroy people’s dreams, particularly those of gypsies.
Il Segno di venere
‘The Sign of Venus’ starring Sophia Loren is an Italian comedy by Dino Risi. Two cousins, one from the North, the other from the South, Agnes and Cesira are living together in Rome. Agnes (Loren) is the southern beauty who attracts the attention of male suitors everywhere she goes. The older and plainer cousin Cesira, visits a fortune who tells her that she is entering ‘the sign of Venus’ and that it is the perfect time to find love. From then on she is convinced that every man she meets, whether he displays interest in her or not, is her soul mate.
Audrey Hepburn is a royal princess out to see Rome on her own. Gregory Peck is a reporter who takes her on a tour of Rome, although she doesn’t know who he is. The Princess gets into the swing of things and abandons her stuffy royal ways and through their adventures, they gradually fall in love. A trite and impossibly syrupy romance but probably the most famous of all appearances by a Vespa in a film. Hepburn won an Oscar for her role as Anya. This year the 27th of August marks the 60th anniversary of the release of the film and its premier in New York.
Five Best Vespa in Films (1)
There are hundreds’ of movies that feature the Vespa, Swide sifts through them all however to bring you the best five. One and two:
Respiro
Quadrophenia
Respiro
On the idyllic setting of Lampedusa Respiro is about a free-spirited mother of three who is accused of madness by the islands people who are fed up with her antics. Grazia play by Valeria Golino, behaves erratically, one minute she is laughing and swimming half naked in the sea, the next she is curled in ball on her bed. Her family she is a manic depressive and discuss having her sent to a mental facility in the North of Italy. When she learns of their plan she goes into hiding, forcing her husband and the town’s people to reassess.
Quadrophenia
Loosely based on the Who’s rock opera of the same name the film centres events building up to and around the Mods versus Rockers clashes on Brighton beach in 1965. Jimmy Cooper is a disillusioned working class boy with a taste for amphetamine and his Lambretta scooter, who finds an outlet for his teenage angst with a gang of British Mods, and through their clashes with rival gang the Rockers he grows up quickly learning about loyalty, truth, love and betrayal. Sting stars as the mod leader ‘Ace Face’.
Scootin' for a Dream
Scootin' for a Dream: A Stand Up Comics Vespa Trip Across the USA - YouTube
My name's Rich Camp and I'm a stand up comic. I rebuilt a vintage Vespa myself and plan to drive across the country from Rhode Island to Los Angeles to follow my dream of being a comic. I'll be performing at comedy clubs on the trip and a group of friends will be following me in a van to capture every stupid, idiotic, dangerous moment.
Knight on a shiny white Vespa
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