welcome to missed connection where I recommend a book to someone I was too distant from or distracted by or shy to actually…recommend a book to. today! mysteries abound.
Dear NYC Mopeds! Inc,
I have no idea what y’all are doing in there. Or why your shop is open around happy hour every single Wednesday for a month straight, clean cut young men in Barbour jackets that look like the boys I had crushes on in college tinkering with the mopeds lined up on your sidewalk, then closed for days on end. I’ve never been brave enough to actually enter your store, but I’ve walked by every day for almost two years, and it appears that there’s a very tall surfboard leaning up against the register. What is NYC Mopeds! Inc. doing with a surfboard? I don’t know, but I just love you, and your storefront painted in fun letters, “25 smiles per hour,” and the refusal to adhere to any kind of schedule, and the fun of it all.
Something you don’t know about me, besides my name, occupation, astrological sign, and the fact that I exist, is that I have a moped dream. One summer, I was in Marseille, waiting to cross the road from the ice cream shop to the ocean. I stopped and waited for the two mopeds buzzing towards me, one on each side of the road, to pass. Not anything out of the ordinary. But then the two mopeds stopped in the middle of the road, and a beautiful boy on a red moped and a beautiful girl on a yellow moped shook their shiny hair out of their chic helmets, kissed, then rode off in their opposite directions. It felt like something out of a toothpaste commercial. I’ve never wanted anything more viscerally than I wanted to stay in Marseille and purchase a daisy yellow moped. I didn’t, and now I live a life that feels like a dream in a different way, and I love walking by your shop, never stopping in, letting whatever you do in there remain a mystery. I love that your royal blue awning makes me think about summer even when the puddles by the curb are frozen over, gray in the January sleet. I don’t even think you actually sell mopeds. It seems like mostly a repair shop, but maybe mostly actually a place for guys who are really into mopeds to hang out? I don’t know. But I love that there is this thing, mopeds, that brings you all so much joy. Whenever the doors are open, there’s noise, laughter, a lot of “hey watch this!” that reminds me of growing up around people as obsessed with their trucks as you are with your mopeds. I grew up in a very southern, very small town, that couldn’t be more different from the busy city blocks between Bed Stuy and Bushwick where you and your toolboxes reside, and there wasn’t much to do besides hang out in parking lots, sitting in trucks, hoping for an adventure. The only difference between our parking lots and your store is a couple of wheels. Wouldn’t it be amazing if that were true?
I’m moving soon, and this is my last dispatch from my Brooklyn apartment. I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye. So this is a thank you note for all of the secondhand joy you brought me daily, walking to the coffee shop and the subway, late night stumbles home from the Broadway. Thank you and here is a book I wanted to remind you about.
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler is nothing if not a delightful mystery. Have you read it? Maybe when you were young, before you knew how to drive a moped, you had to read it for homework, curled up in the back of your dad’s silver Taurus or in a quiet subway car carrying you home. If you haven’t read it, or if it’s been awhile, this novel is about two siblings who decide to run away from home (a moped would have come in handy) and hit the road for a New York adventure. They happen upon an art mystery. They’re resourceful and scrappy. There’s a map, a mysterious stranger. And best of all, you could probably read this whole book between oil changes (do mopeds require oil changes?). It’s an adventure and the only thing I think I know for sure about you, NYC Mopeds! Inc, is that you’re up for an adventure.
Best of luck with the mopeds and the surfboard (?) and the pure delight that is loving something that goes fast, that makes you smile. Hope to see you down the road, somewhere.
Warm regards,
Stuart
thank you so much for reading!!!!! you can find all of the books mentioned here or anywhere else on Bookshop. and don’t forget, missed connection is a PAY WHAT YOU WISH substack (just like the met, we! if you’re not up to commiting a monthly or annual subscription, venmo any amount of dollars to @stupennebaker and I’ll be delighted to comp you a paid subscription. <3
you can also find me rarely here and more often here and I would love to be friends with you. if you missed this month’s books in review, you can find it here. it was a good one!
are you a stranger? I would love to write to you about a book. click here. you don’t have to answer all the questions or give me an email address or create a password. fun!
Now I want a daisy yellow moped too! Or, I’d like to go to Marseilles and rent one. And then casually stroll into NYC Mopeds! Inc. to talk about riding mopeds in France with my new friends.
It's always so hard saying good bye to the local haunts--even the ones you've never haunted. There are places like NYC Mopeds! (namely a shop called FishTown USA) that live on in my mind. One day, I hope to haunt them.
Always love these missed connections :)