Hi there. We are/I am talking about Robert Moses a bit more today, of course.

Note to first-time readers or those who very understandably don't remember everything about every email you've ever gotten from me: I write occasionally on https://josh.works, I have an 'enter your email here' box, and you entered your email at some point. I could tell a few stories where the punchline would be "I don't want you to get these emails if you don't want them, for a variety of reasons, so unsubscribe at the bottom of the page, or here. Otherwise, here be dragons, and your presumed double opt-in"

Do you know the 99 percent invisible podcast? It's what's sorta inspiring "today's episode", that you're reading right now.

I've listened to a handful of their episodes over the years. They do some interesting episodes on 'urban things/people'. A few weeks ago, on Twitter, someone with the podcast announced that they were dedicating almost a year, in 2024, to "The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York".

As you could imagine, I was obviously following along all the way.

So, episode 1 came out, I listened to it yesterday while cooking dinner. Titled "Breaking Down The Power Broker with Conan O'Brien", episode 562. It was OK. Some of the various contributions didn't seem like the 'best possible use of my time', whatever that means, but some imparted some of the energy that I think is right.

But I cannot wait to listen to them get started. Sometime in January, Episode 1, about the first hundred pages of The Power Broker, will drop. I'm almost done listening to the book right now (yes, I am currently working my way through it right now and I'll probably keep up with the podcast. Would be fun to have you join!

This of course made me think of my own testimony to the book, and both Roberts.

(Robert Caro, author. Robert Moses, subject/object)

​https://josh.works/robert-moses​

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I recently spent a few weeks in Thailand, got back to Denver a few days ago. I've got a LOT coming about 'road stuff'. Part 1 and 2 of a substack series I'm working on.

To not over-bury the lede, I'll be comparing/contrasting at least some bits of mobility infrastructure in Asia with related mobility infrastructure bits in the United States.

​'Traffic Congestion' As Solvable, Part 1​

It's about "What’s the vehicle carrying capacity of a single lane?".

​'Traffic Congestion' As Solvable, Part 2​

It's about junctions as taking a specific, definable space/shape, and thoughts on vehicle speeds.

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I think the substack links above are worth a read, eventually. No need to read them right now, I'll probably write (and link to) parts 3 and 4 in the next email you get from me. 🎶 it's not a threat it's a warnin' 🎶

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My brain has been particularly... tickled since returning to Denver. And jetlagged.

Tiktoks I made recently that are interesting to at least me

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Sometimes I say "here's your content", inspired by Bo Burnam's 'Content', I saw first on his Netflix special "Inside", specifically the 1:13 mark here.

I did a bunch of 360 camera footage riding around on my scooter, exploring different recording and editing modes/combinations.

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​https://www.tiktok.com/@josh_exists/video/7302664214726970666​

^^ Thailand, peaceful jungle rural roads. I really like the song/artists backing the above track. There's a cool story to it.

Thailand was complicated for me. I recently started a book titled The Jakarta Method. I spent combined months this year in Indonesia. Participated in conversations about the merits of flying to Jakarta from Bali in order to secure access to embassies, to facilitate important and time-bound visa issues. Also, one doesn't have to dig far to find obvious bad blood in various ways within Indonesia/Asia. As someone born in America, with varieties of close ties to the State of the United States, it's interesting.

I talked a lot about whiteness the last few months.

I almost rode a scooter across at least some of the island of Java, and if I'd felt ambitious, I could have ridden all the way from Ubud to Jakarta.

Anyway, my brain was full of comparisons and contrasts of Thailand to Bali, when I was in Thailand (and Nepal/Kathmandu, in some ways, but I didn't get any scooter/drone footage from there. I'm dopamine-driven, not a comprehensive researcher or whatever.

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I quite liked this tiktok, even though the algorithm didn't:

​https://www.tiktok.com/@josh_exists/video/7302666678926888238​

I've spent a lot of time lately thinking about, broadly "using scooters safely". As you could imagine, there's a variety of decision-making and skills building and such that can go into something like riding around safely-enough.

Honestly, a lot of roads in Thailand didn't feel "safe enough". I used them anyway.

Plenty of roads in Denver feel far more dangerous than anything I experienced in Thailand.

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​https://www.tiktok.com/@josh_exists/video/7302848258609646891​

^^ This was fun, my first time piloting the drone while riding on the back of a scooter. Tried my first pass at getting smooth, continuous footage of a scooter in transit from one spot to another.

It went pretty well/is pretty interesting, in some ways. Sorta nausea-inducing in some ways, too. The camera is not always moved in a continuous way by it's operator. Don't judge the music, feels like the only track on Tiktok as long as the video file I uploaded.

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​https://www.tiktok.com/@josh_exists/video/7302997991311363371​

^^ A tour of what counts for a 'fairly large, urban parking area' in Chiang Mai, Thailand. it's for a huge mall called 'Central Festival', and there were a few of these sorts of malls around Thailand. The economic westernization of Thailand vs. Bali is quite different. There's HUNDREDS of scooters in this lot, and some percentage of the scooters represents not one person but two. Anyone who runs a shop that is patronized by people using their own legs for transportation should be thrilled to be located near a parking area like this, used like this.

For comparison/contrast, here's a clip showing me scooting along some dense areas in Bali - these are the largest roads on the island of Bali: https://www.tiktok.com/@josh_exists/video/7303219644809088298​

At their worst, they are not nearly as bad as a road type much more common in Thailand. Example: https://www.tiktok.com/@josh_exists/video/7302666678926888238​

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Sigh. There's so much more I could say, but it won't be today.

- Josh

PS I really think any time spent on The Power Broker, and Robert Moses overall, is time well spent. For example, there's a scene in Motherless Brooklyn that shows a meaningful story about Robert Moses. Directed by Edward Norton, who also plays the main role.

I think it's worth the $3 to rent on Amazon Prime to watch. There's not so much modern media about Moses, so I always consume whatever bits of it that I can find.

Here's Alec Baldwin talking about playing Robert Moses.

Fast-forward to the 21 minute mark to see Robert Moses. At 23:50 you see RM storming to the Mayor's office, after he finishes the swearing-in ceremony. the mayor (i don't even remember which one) didn't give Moses all three of the titles Moses wanted - the mayor gave him only two. He didn't appoint him to the city planning commission So, he's... fixing the situation.

Moses (called 'mo' in the movie) says "WHAT IS THIS SHIT? WHAT ABOUT CITY PLANNING?" and, well, watch yourself. He gets a 'blank', and bullies the mayor into signing it. The whole scene is good, and it's explained in more detail on the very first page of The Power Broker.

​Here's a CBS Special about a play about Robert Moses.