April Fool’s Day has come and gone but if you’re not reading street signs, the joke’s on you. April is when the city picks up where they left off in November with street cleaning and the tow trucks were out in force this morning. We’re talking flatbeds so they can tow more than one car per truck.
As I watched the tow trucks pull away on Centre Street, I couldn’t help but feel a smidge of glee on behalf of my west-of-Highland Street neighbors. They’re squeezed by the influx of daily commuters who drive to the neighborhood, occupy much of the available street parking (RCC commuters take up the remainder), and then hop on the Orange Line at Roxbury Crossing.
Sorry Rozzie, West Roxbury, Hyde Park, Mattapan, and Milton. Getting towed sucks – it’s an awful waste of time and money. But if you parked on the wrong side of the street today, it’s time to pay up. Think of this financial contribution as a generous way of easing the city’s fiscal crisis: you’re adding more beans to the pot.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Monday, April 5, 2010
Common Ground
Colin breaks ground (re-using a shovel found on-site) in the Common Ground Community Garden on Cedar Street.
Seriously, Colin along with Liz, Rachel Shuler, and Jeff Klein spent the afternoon this past Saturday where they'd left off the week before: clearing brambles, saplings, and other vegetation out of the Common Ground soon-to-be garden.
Jon Ellertson, of Thornton Street since 1967, gardened this particular plot with other neighbors from 1968 until around 1980. At the time, the city owned the land which now belongs to BNAN. Apple trees had been planted in the garden at that time but they didn't survive. Ellertson hopes to plant more apple trees, if other gardeners agree, but in the meantime considers the garden a "nice community-building exercise".
Watch the progress of the garden here.
Seriously, Colin along with Liz, Rachel Shuler, and Jeff Klein spent the afternoon this past Saturday where they'd left off the week before: clearing brambles, saplings, and other vegetation out of the Common Ground soon-to-be garden.
Jon Ellertson, of Thornton Street since 1967, gardened this particular plot with other neighbors from 1968 until around 1980. At the time, the city owned the land which now belongs to BNAN. Apple trees had been planted in the garden at that time but they didn't survive. Ellertson hopes to plant more apple trees, if other gardeners agree, but in the meantime considers the garden a "nice community-building exercise".
Watch the progress of the garden here.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
RIP, Dr. Joseph D. Warren
Gentle, kind, bright, thoughtful: Dr. Joseph D. Warren was the best kind of "good citizen". He will be most sorely missed but fortunately, through his work, he's left behind a little bit of heaven.
From Northeastern University: "Funeral services for Dr. Warren will be taking place at 10am at Sacred Heart Parish, located at 1321 Centre St., Newton, MA, 02459 on Monday, April 5. More information will be forthcoming".
From Northeastern University: "Funeral services for Dr. Warren will be taking place at 10am at Sacred Heart Parish, located at 1321 Centre St., Newton, MA, 02459 on Monday, April 5. More information will be forthcoming".
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
This Is What Sunshine Looks Like: Dudley's New Police Station Under Construction
Taken early on a Saturday morning a month ago, this is Dudley Square's new police station under construction. Local 7 has made their mark on a steel girder. Unlike the big gravel pit in the middle of Dudley, this building gives us reason to hope.
Where to Hide Your Swiss Army Knife Outside City Hall
I had an appointment at City Hall and was running late. Dashed into the building and threw all my bags on the xray machine conveyor belt. Walked through the metal detector. Almost there.
"Ma’am, do you have a Swiss Army knife in your bag?"
Shit. Shit!
I always have a Swiss Army knife in my bag and if I don’t have a Swiss Army knife, I have a Leatherman. How do people make it through the day without pocket tools? The last time one of my pocket knives was confiscated by airport security and I bought a new, more expensive model, I promised myself I’d have it forever.
Shit!
"Ma’am, you can’t enter the building with the pocket knife."
"Can I leave it here with you and grab it on my way out?" Worth a try to ask.
"No, ma’am blah, blah blah." I was thinking of where I could go or who I knew in the area who wouldn’t mind babysitting my pocket knife for an hour or so.
Across from City Hall lies a Quizway or Subnos – one of those national fast "food" sandwich shops. I ran into the just opened store.
"Good morning," I said. "How are you?"
Bianca, the young woman behind the counter was very pleasant.
"Listen," I said. "I have kind of a bizarre request…" I proffered the Swiss Army knife. "Any chance at all you could hold on to this for just an hour while I duck into City Hall." I turned on my most winning smile. She remained pleasant, obviously used to crazy people.
"Sorry," she said. "The manager has strictly forbidden that we hold anything for anyone. It's store policy."
"So this happens a lot? People come in and ask you to hold onto stuff for them?"
"Oh yeah," she said. "All the time. All the time. Sorry, I would do it but…"
"How often? How often do people ask you to hold onto things?"
"Oh, everyday."
"And what kind of stuff?"
She giggled. "Oh, everything! One guy came in with a suitcase full of ‘razor blades’ and wanted us to hold on to them for him."
"A suitcase full of razor blades? And he told you that?"
"Yeah." She was still giggling. "I’m really sorry," she said again. "I would but the manager is really strict…"
I thanked her and ran outside, scanning the plaza. I was considering burying the knife in the soil of one of the huge brick planters until I could retrieve it when I saw the solution: the perfect Swiss Army knife hiding spot. The plaza has all kinds of smallish, unsealed electrical boxes (the wires are taped, if not capped) so I slid the knife into one of those and went back into City Hall.
When finished with my business, there was a part of me assuming the knife would be gone but lo and behold! it was still there.
"Ma’am, do you have a Swiss Army knife in your bag?"
Shit. Shit!
I always have a Swiss Army knife in my bag and if I don’t have a Swiss Army knife, I have a Leatherman. How do people make it through the day without pocket tools? The last time one of my pocket knives was confiscated by airport security and I bought a new, more expensive model, I promised myself I’d have it forever.
Shit!
"Ma’am, you can’t enter the building with the pocket knife."
"Can I leave it here with you and grab it on my way out?" Worth a try to ask.
"No, ma’am blah, blah blah." I was thinking of where I could go or who I knew in the area who wouldn’t mind babysitting my pocket knife for an hour or so.
Across from City Hall lies a Quizway or Subnos – one of those national fast "food" sandwich shops. I ran into the just opened store.
"Good morning," I said. "How are you?"
Bianca, the young woman behind the counter was very pleasant.
"Listen," I said. "I have kind of a bizarre request…" I proffered the Swiss Army knife. "Any chance at all you could hold on to this for just an hour while I duck into City Hall." I turned on my most winning smile. She remained pleasant, obviously used to crazy people.
"Sorry," she said. "The manager has strictly forbidden that we hold anything for anyone. It's store policy."
"So this happens a lot? People come in and ask you to hold onto stuff for them?"
"Oh yeah," she said. "All the time. All the time. Sorry, I would do it but…"
"How often? How often do people ask you to hold onto things?"
"Oh, everyday."
"And what kind of stuff?"
She giggled. "Oh, everything! One guy came in with a suitcase full of ‘razor blades’ and wanted us to hold on to them for him."
"A suitcase full of razor blades? And he told you that?"
"Yeah." She was still giggling. "I’m really sorry," she said again. "I would but the manager is really strict…"
I thanked her and ran outside, scanning the plaza. I was considering burying the knife in the soil of one of the huge brick planters until I could retrieve it when I saw the solution: the perfect Swiss Army knife hiding spot. The plaza has all kinds of smallish, unsealed electrical boxes (the wires are taped, if not capped) so I slid the knife into one of those and went back into City Hall.
When finished with my business, there was a part of me assuming the knife would be gone but lo and behold! it was still there.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Deposed of, Disposed of
Deposed last week for the very first time in my life and in that five grueling hours, I learned a lot.
I learned why lawyers have generally earned the reputation of being smarmy sub-humans.
I learned that intimidation, browbeating, manipulation, and bullying is understood to be an important part of “questioning” in legal proceedings.
I learned that, five days later, though I may still be smarting from what felt like emotional molestation, it’s just all in a day’s work for counsel.
I learned that it’s hard not to be contemptuous of a legal system in which bullying witnesses is ordinary part of establishing the “truth”.
I learned you don’t have to be particularly brainy to be a lawyer, just driven and at least mildly sadistic.
I learned that our legal system could probably do with some reform.
I learned why lawyers have generally earned the reputation of being smarmy sub-humans.
I learned that intimidation, browbeating, manipulation, and bullying is understood to be an important part of “questioning” in legal proceedings.
I learned that, five days later, though I may still be smarting from what felt like emotional molestation, it’s just all in a day’s work for counsel.
I learned that it’s hard not to be contemptuous of a legal system in which bullying witnesses is ordinary part of establishing the “truth”.
I learned you don’t have to be particularly brainy to be a lawyer, just driven and at least mildly sadistic.
I learned that our legal system could probably do with some reform.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
What Does Your Garden Grow?
City, city, often pretty, how does your garden grow?
With empty bottles of rum and not empty condoms
And tomatoes lined up in a row.
In my personal almanac, Spring begins at the Winter Solstice, when daylight begins outstripping darkness. As a gardener, unfrozen earth is the first hint that I can start planting those cool weather crops like peas and kale. And as an urban gardener, I never know what treasures or surprises I’ll find in my garden plot. There can be errant tomato plants, unidentified flowers, and even a little non-organic matter.
When I gardened in the Fens, I found used condoms, men’s underwear and a belt. More used condoms and beer bottles sprouted regularly in the Symphony Road plot. Oscar Parker garden in Mission Hill has its share of bottles and sundry junk food wrappers and is also the site of the best dump I’ve ever received: a five foot tall metal sculpture. Buried in the Spring snow a few years ago, at first I thought it was just an iron pipe but unearthed it revealed itself to be so much more. Given the weight of this thing and the fact that it would take at least two very fit people to hurl it over the fence, I believe it was intended as a gift as much as a dump.
So thank you, anonymous MassArt or Museum School student. I assume you finished this piece and had nowhere to put it so you made an unsolicited nocturnal submission – and one so much more pleasant than the others I’ve received.
At first, I tried to erect it in my plot since it would’ve made a kick-ass trellis for my sweet peas. Unable to secure it well enough on the uneven, muddy garden soil, I conferred with garden managers and someone fastened it to the concrete in a common area.
With empty bottles of rum and not empty condoms
And tomatoes lined up in a row.
In my personal almanac, Spring begins at the Winter Solstice, when daylight begins outstripping darkness. As a gardener, unfrozen earth is the first hint that I can start planting those cool weather crops like peas and kale. And as an urban gardener, I never know what treasures or surprises I’ll find in my garden plot. There can be errant tomato plants, unidentified flowers, and even a little non-organic matter.
When I gardened in the Fens, I found used condoms, men’s underwear and a belt. More used condoms and beer bottles sprouted regularly in the Symphony Road plot. Oscar Parker garden in Mission Hill has its share of bottles and sundry junk food wrappers and is also the site of the best dump I’ve ever received: a five foot tall metal sculpture. Buried in the Spring snow a few years ago, at first I thought it was just an iron pipe but unearthed it revealed itself to be so much more. Given the weight of this thing and the fact that it would take at least two very fit people to hurl it over the fence, I believe it was intended as a gift as much as a dump.
So thank you, anonymous MassArt or Museum School student. I assume you finished this piece and had nowhere to put it so you made an unsolicited nocturnal submission – and one so much more pleasant than the others I’ve received.
At first, I tried to erect it in my plot since it would’ve made a kick-ass trellis for my sweet peas. Unable to secure it well enough on the uneven, muddy garden soil, I conferred with garden managers and someone fastened it to the concrete in a common area.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
You Say Toe May Toe, I Say Roxbury
Just as the Sober Homes a couple of years ago stoked some neighborhood heat and activity, so too had the recent exciting prospect of a nice neighborhood restaurant. What began as a polite online listserv conversation about what amenities mean to us, degenerated after a week or so into name calling: Fort Hill! Highland Park! Fort Hill! Highland Park!
Triggered innocently enough by a neighbor taking initiative, the Fort Hill! Highland Park! debate simmers on the back of the stove. On the front burner: to vision or not to vision. What do we want here? What are we willing to tolerate, what will we embrace, and what will we disdain? And what will we call ourselves? This last is not a new question.
As Francis S. Drake wrote in 1878 in his preface to The Town of Roxbury, Its Memorable Persons and Places, Its History and Antiquities, with Numerous Illustrations of Its Old landmarks and Noted Personages:
“Roxbury was appropriately so named from its most prominent natural characteristic; and no one who venerates its founders or who cherishes a proper regard for the preservation of its historical or ancestral memories, should ever consent to substitute for it a name no more applicable to it than to many other localities now included within the city limits. To do so is no less a blunder in taste than in fact. The great city of London, while gradually absorbing adjoining localities, religiously preserves their ancient names. Are ours less dear to us? Let us, then, while a single “rock” remains above its surface, cling to the good old name of ROXBURY, ‘scotched, not killed,’ by the temporary substitution for it of the unacceptable misnomer of ‘Boston Highlands’.”
Unlike Drake, I kinda like Boston Highlands for this section of Roxbury. But I agree, too, with the neighbor who fairly growled on the listserv, call this nook what you like but its name is Roxbury.
Triggered innocently enough by a neighbor taking initiative, the Fort Hill! Highland Park! debate simmers on the back of the stove. On the front burner: to vision or not to vision. What do we want here? What are we willing to tolerate, what will we embrace, and what will we disdain? And what will we call ourselves? This last is not a new question.
As Francis S. Drake wrote in 1878 in his preface to The Town of Roxbury, Its Memorable Persons and Places, Its History and Antiquities, with Numerous Illustrations of Its Old landmarks and Noted Personages:
“Roxbury was appropriately so named from its most prominent natural characteristic; and no one who venerates its founders or who cherishes a proper regard for the preservation of its historical or ancestral memories, should ever consent to substitute for it a name no more applicable to it than to many other localities now included within the city limits. To do so is no less a blunder in taste than in fact. The great city of London, while gradually absorbing adjoining localities, religiously preserves their ancient names. Are ours less dear to us? Let us, then, while a single “rock” remains above its surface, cling to the good old name of ROXBURY, ‘scotched, not killed,’ by the temporary substitution for it of the unacceptable misnomer of ‘Boston Highlands’.”
Unlike Drake, I kinda like Boston Highlands for this section of Roxbury. But I agree, too, with the neighbor who fairly growled on the listserv, call this nook what you like but its name is Roxbury.
Monday, March 22, 2010
911
When you dial 911 from a cell phone in Massachusetts, you get the State Police.
“911. This call is being recorded. What is your emergency?”
“No emergency. May I have the Boston Police, please?”
Here’s where it gets annoying and maybe even a little dangerous. Most dispatchers will plug you right through to whatever police department it is you’ve asked for. Others want to hear your story.
“What’s the problem, ma’am?”
I fell for this the first time it happened, prattled on with location and concerns and descriptions and caveats. Then the dude put me through to the Boston Police.
“Boston Police. This call is being recorded. What is the address of your emergency?”
And I had to repeat it all again.
Think about this: if it is an emergency and I’ve got a bullet riddled body on the floor of my kitchen, or an assailant lunging at me with a knife or someone in the vicinity who’s just had a stroke or heart attack, does it really make sense for me to be relaying the details twice, taking up twice the time during which the stroke/heart attack/gunshot/knife victim oozes her life force?
Maybe I didn’t have a time sensitive, life threatening emergency but it’s still a waste of effort and time to have to relate information to an agency or person who will then do NOTHING with that information. It’s not like it’s even a satisfying rant to complain to a Statie on the phone.
Still, this morning I did what Skip Gates and Peter Watts, and hundreds of drunken college students nation-wide obviously have no problem doing. I mouthed back to a cop. Ok, so it was from the relative safety of my anonymous cellphone and I left everyone’s mother out of it.
“Umm, do you really have to know this? I mean it’s a waste of time. The State police won’t be responding to this. Could you just put me through?”
I don’t even remember what he replied but I stood my ground and prattled on about wasting time and not relevant and having to repeat it all ‘til I wore him down. Then I told my story to the Boston dispatcher. I don’t know for sure but I hope they didn’t do nothing with it.
“911. This call is being recorded. What is your emergency?”
“No emergency. May I have the Boston Police, please?”
Here’s where it gets annoying and maybe even a little dangerous. Most dispatchers will plug you right through to whatever police department it is you’ve asked for. Others want to hear your story.
“What’s the problem, ma’am?”
I fell for this the first time it happened, prattled on with location and concerns and descriptions and caveats. Then the dude put me through to the Boston Police.
“Boston Police. This call is being recorded. What is the address of your emergency?”
And I had to repeat it all again.
Think about this: if it is an emergency and I’ve got a bullet riddled body on the floor of my kitchen, or an assailant lunging at me with a knife or someone in the vicinity who’s just had a stroke or heart attack, does it really make sense for me to be relaying the details twice, taking up twice the time during which the stroke/heart attack/gunshot/knife victim oozes her life force?
Maybe I didn’t have a time sensitive, life threatening emergency but it’s still a waste of effort and time to have to relate information to an agency or person who will then do NOTHING with that information. It’s not like it’s even a satisfying rant to complain to a Statie on the phone.
Still, this morning I did what Skip Gates and Peter Watts, and hundreds of drunken college students nation-wide obviously have no problem doing. I mouthed back to a cop. Ok, so it was from the relative safety of my anonymous cellphone and I left everyone’s mother out of it.
“Umm, do you really have to know this? I mean it’s a waste of time. The State police won’t be responding to this. Could you just put me through?”
I don’t even remember what he replied but I stood my ground and prattled on about wasting time and not relevant and having to repeat it all ‘til I wore him down. Then I told my story to the Boston dispatcher. I don’t know for sure but I hope they didn’t do nothing with it.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Lines of Information
Overheard on the morning commute: "...cause when it's real cocaine you don't see that shit". What shit?! What shit? I'm still wondering what shit but thought it more provident to roll on by rather than stop and ask.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
From the Women's Room
Photographic irony not intended. Or is it?
This was a nice thing to find inside the stall door. Graffitti used to amuse me as I relieved myself but stainless steel deters it. And of course I had to check out operation beautiful.
This was a nice thing to find inside the stall door. Graffitti used to amuse me as I relieved myself but stainless steel deters it. And of course I had to check out operation beautiful.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Where's Your Cart?
From Boston Recycling:
"Where's Your Cart? We noticed that you did not have your new recycling cart out and would like to encourage you to join the thousands of residents already participating in the 'Recycle More' program. You can fill your cart with the following items:...."
This is the little note that the Boston Recycling people have bothered to leave two weeks running (this week in full color) in my mailbox. The cart in question is a huge monstrosity of a trash can which I believe is intended to promote single stream recycling. Why can't I just single stream recycle in my small easy-to-carry-up-and-down-three-flights-of-stairs-even-when-full portable blue bins? Which is what I will continue to do.
The big cart does have two advantages: wheels and a lid. The wheels though don't make it any easier to maneuver up and down that last flight of steep granite steps and I don't really have the space for it alongside the house. The lid is great for those windy days when most of the recycling in my small bins gets blown around the street. Still, a lid does not a recycling bin make.
Many of my neighbors have resorted to the big carts but I'll stick with the smaller bins. They're more manageable. And it's rare that I have so much to recycle that even a quarter of the big cart would be full making it just that much more inconvenient to haul such a small load in such a big container up and down the steps.
It will take more than big carts to promote recycling among those who don't do it. On trash days I am appalled at the volume of perfectly useable, clean stuff (children's toys and furniture, mostly) that gets kicked to the curb and not the recycling bin.
Maybe recycling only reinforces or pardons the mindless consumerism that got us into this trashy mess. Remember, it's reduce what you buy and re-use all you can, first. Then, finally, recycle.
"Where's Your Cart? We noticed that you did not have your new recycling cart out and would like to encourage you to join the thousands of residents already participating in the 'Recycle More' program. You can fill your cart with the following items:...."
This is the little note that the Boston Recycling people have bothered to leave two weeks running (this week in full color) in my mailbox. The cart in question is a huge monstrosity of a trash can which I believe is intended to promote single stream recycling. Why can't I just single stream recycle in my small easy-to-carry-up-and-down-three-flights-of-stairs-even-when-full portable blue bins? Which is what I will continue to do.
The big cart does have two advantages: wheels and a lid. The wheels though don't make it any easier to maneuver up and down that last flight of steep granite steps and I don't really have the space for it alongside the house. The lid is great for those windy days when most of the recycling in my small bins gets blown around the street. Still, a lid does not a recycling bin make.
Many of my neighbors have resorted to the big carts but I'll stick with the smaller bins. They're more manageable. And it's rare that I have so much to recycle that even a quarter of the big cart would be full making it just that much more inconvenient to haul such a small load in such a big container up and down the steps.
It will take more than big carts to promote recycling among those who don't do it. On trash days I am appalled at the volume of perfectly useable, clean stuff (children's toys and furniture, mostly) that gets kicked to the curb and not the recycling bin.
Maybe recycling only reinforces or pardons the mindless consumerism that got us into this trashy mess. Remember, it's reduce what you buy and re-use all you can, first. Then, finally, recycle.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Copley BPL: Turn Down the Bleepin' Thermostat
Unfortunate that the city is planning library cuts.
I visited the Copley branch today to see the wonderful Man on the Street photo exhibit (free!) and another on Poe (free!) which I couldn't peruse as carefully as I would have liked because I thought I would pass out it was so bleeping hot in there. Seriously, it was ridiculously hot - which in a public building is fiscally irresponsible.
The library could save millions if it simply turned down the thermostat several notches. Even then, the environment would be warm but if they were uncomfortable with cooler than tropical conditions, librarians might be willing to don a sweater, or even a scarf and some fingerless gloves if it meant saving a colleague's job.
I'd be willing, as neighbor Mary Ann Nelson suggested, to pay ten bucks for a library card but only once I'm sure they're not going to squander it on improvident heating expenditures.
I visited the Copley branch today to see the wonderful Man on the Street photo exhibit (free!) and another on Poe (free!) which I couldn't peruse as carefully as I would have liked because I thought I would pass out it was so bleeping hot in there. Seriously, it was ridiculously hot - which in a public building is fiscally irresponsible.
The library could save millions if it simply turned down the thermostat several notches. Even then, the environment would be warm but if they were uncomfortable with cooler than tropical conditions, librarians might be willing to don a sweater, or even a scarf and some fingerless gloves if it meant saving a colleague's job.
I'd be willing, as neighbor Mary Ann Nelson suggested, to pay ten bucks for a library card but only once I'm sure they're not going to squander it on improvident heating expenditures.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
T Door Stoppers
There are only three reasons why anyone should stand in front of the door on the T.
The first is that the car is packed and there is absolutely no other place to stand.
The second is that you know that the door in front of which you stand will NOT be opening at the next stop so you will not be getting in anyone’s way.
The third and final reason for standing in front of the door on the T is that you will be exiting at the next stop and are in front of the door to expedite not impede the process of getting off and on the train.
Oh, wait, there is another reason that someone would stand in front of the door on the T. Hmmm. What’s the best way for me to articulate it? That reason would be that the person standing in the doorway is really stoopid and/or really rude.
The people who ride the T: another reason to avoid using it whenever possible.
The first is that the car is packed and there is absolutely no other place to stand.
The second is that you know that the door in front of which you stand will NOT be opening at the next stop so you will not be getting in anyone’s way.
The third and final reason for standing in front of the door on the T is that you will be exiting at the next stop and are in front of the door to expedite not impede the process of getting off and on the train.
Oh, wait, there is another reason that someone would stand in front of the door on the T. Hmmm. What’s the best way for me to articulate it? That reason would be that the person standing in the doorway is really stoopid and/or really rude.
The people who ride the T: another reason to avoid using it whenever possible.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
The Common Word Cafe Open to the Public
The Common Word Cafe in the mosque has been open to the public for about a month now. All are welcome. They offer coffee, tea, panini, pastries, and wifi. To get to it through the front entrance of the mosque, go though the lobby and it is on your right. From the parking lot in back of the mosque it is in the door on your left. It's a really comfortable and lovely space to hang out.
Hours are Sunday through Thursday 11 a.m. - 8 p.m. and Friday and Saturday 10 a.m. - 9 p.m.
Hours are Sunday through Thursday 11 a.m. - 8 p.m. and Friday and Saturday 10 a.m. - 9 p.m.
neighborhood vision this saturday at the mosque
Roxbury's
Highland Park
Community Vision
Join us, to continue crafting
the vision and strategy for our
neighborhood's future.
8am to 11am
Sat, 20 Feb 2010
Common Word Cafe
100 Malcolm X Boulevard
Questions?
call/email Simon Hare
617-620-6730
simon@ourhighland.com
Organized by
|Your Neighbors
Monday, February 8, 2010
Highland Park Settles. We Hope.
Never doubt that one negative person can frustrate an otherwise productive and fruitful neighborhood conversation. It happened last night when about 30 of us at a community meeting (open to anyone in the community who cared to attend) talked with Darryl Settles and his architect about his (yay!) plans for 85 Centre Street, Legends on the Hill.
Like the "conversation" on national health care, so much of what has informed the conversation on Settles' proposal has been a "keep your government hands off my Medicare" kind of misinformation.
So, to the facts. Settles is in the process of buying the lots and hopes to close on the property by mid-March. The building on the site is structurally unsound and will need to be razed. What he rebuilds is dependent on whether or not he gets a liquor license but will be mixed use (yay!!). The options are ground level commercial space with 6 one-bedroom lofts above or ground level commercial space with 2 two-story lofts above or an open work space concept which would be available during the day to members and in the evening become a restaurant/cafe. This venue will not be a nightclub.
With a capacity of 125, the restaurant/bar will be reasonably priced, family friendly, and would be open 'til midnight or one on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. It would close earlier on the other nights of the week. As far as the 2 a.m. liquor license, Settles said he is "only guilty of asking for everything but not expecting to get it all". In a perfect world he would love to keep the place open til 2 (making for a healthy and viable business) but he always realized that those late hours were unlikely in our neighborhood. He is undertaking this project on his own and without partners.
The reasonable concerns articulated repeatedly in the neighborhood and in the ether: increased noise, traffic, and shifting plans for the space. Those can and will be addressed. Even without Settles bringing a business here, parking is a problem for some and that problem is being discussed and solutions are in the works. Living spaces above the commercial space insure state of the art soundproofing. Plans for the space are a process and will morph over time as the neighborhood voices concerns and Settles hits the inevitable snags inherent in any project.
The unreasonable concerns articulated in the neighborhood and in the ether: bringing in a restaurant/bar will bring in Sodom and Gomorrah. (Yeah, like they're not already here). But to say that a Settles business will bring mayhem to the area is like saying bringing in the Newport Jazz Festival is going to attract a Woodstock '99 crowd. It isn't logical and it isn't true. It's a red herring diverting attention from productive conversation and negotiation.
Which brings me to the It Won't Work Here person. Everytime that person's mouth opened, Armageddon flew out. "This never worked and that never worked and this won't work and that won't work and this isn't fair and that isn't fair". Still, though that person worked really, really, really hard to drive us all to thoughts of suicide, the group voted by an overwhelming majority to support Settles in his pursuit of a liquor license contingent upon his attendance at a meeting, "facilitated by Chuck Turner, with immediate abutters to discuss his detailed proposal, and all options for 85 Centre Street".
That Settles will be developing the property is reason to rejoice. As one neighbor pointed out last night, a new building on the site rids the neighborhood of that piece of urban blight and heat trap that is asphalt. The final project will have its opportunity costs as does every decision we make in life. It won't be perfect. But neither is what we have now. It's time to progress to a different type of imperfection.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Bye Bye (sob), Sleep No More
The Punchdrunk contingent left the country in mid-November after entrusting their work to competent American performers and managers. Now, after a month long extension, SNM is staging its final Boston area performances this weekend. For those of you who missed it, you truly missed a once in a lifetime experience. (Performances have been sold out for weeks now and good luck getting in standby. Last weekend, people started queuing at one o’clock in the afternoon to try to get in). Their work is venue dependent so even if SNM is performed in another place at another time, it’ll never be the same. Like sex and really good food, maybe the best art is ephemeral, several intense exquisite moments and then, aah, aah, ahh! it’s over. Just an exquisite memory.
WBUR did a story yesterday morning about the “greening” of the new MFA addition and an MFA curator said “art preservation is a race against time”. Is it still art once it’s been preserved? I mean the art that serves a greater function than adorning an empty space on a wall: the art that gets people talking (about more than how much a piece has sold for) and arguing and engaged; the art that inspires a multitude of emotions, not all of them pleasant. Uncertainty, awkwardness, and fear as well as euphoria, curiosity, and a dreamlike whimsy were all part of the SNM experience.
SNM was not just a theatrical experience it was that kind of art: engaging and inspiring. Every dressed room at the Old Lincoln School in its degraded 5 month old form continues to be a morphing, living art installation, an art installation that can be smelled and heard and touched and swallowed. But the experience doesn’t end when you exit the building. There is so much to discuss: what you saw, what was done with you, where you went, who was that character?
Diane Paulus, ART Artistic Director, deserves kudos for bringing this show to town. She has said that she was working in London when she first heard of Punchdrunk. She’d go into Tesco and the store clerks were talking about Punchdrunk and the professional theatre people she was working with were talking about Punchdrunk: everybody was talking about Punchdrunk. You can’t help but want to talk about the performance after you’ve visited one. And you can’t help but want to go back.
A rather buttoned-down work colleague went with his wife and 15-year-old daughter who doesn’t usually talk much to them. The daughter spent the ride home, and time in the kitchen when they got home and more time the following day talking to her parents about SNM. The work colleague was delighted to have some (rare) rapport with his teenage daughter. I gave birthday tix to a friend who became obsessed (like me) and attended four performances. Many people donated their time for free to steward performances several evenings a week. It’s that kind of inspirational and I feel honored that I got to be a tiny little part of it.
I know my hometown can be a bigoted backwater but for this past Fall, at least, we were host to something magical and transcendent: the thrill that participation in grown-up make-believe can create and the vivid memories it leaves behind.
Thanks, Punchdrunk. Please come again!
WBUR did a story yesterday morning about the “greening” of the new MFA addition and an MFA curator said “art preservation is a race against time”. Is it still art once it’s been preserved? I mean the art that serves a greater function than adorning an empty space on a wall: the art that gets people talking (about more than how much a piece has sold for) and arguing and engaged; the art that inspires a multitude of emotions, not all of them pleasant. Uncertainty, awkwardness, and fear as well as euphoria, curiosity, and a dreamlike whimsy were all part of the SNM experience.
SNM was not just a theatrical experience it was that kind of art: engaging and inspiring. Every dressed room at the Old Lincoln School in its degraded 5 month old form continues to be a morphing, living art installation, an art installation that can be smelled and heard and touched and swallowed. But the experience doesn’t end when you exit the building. There is so much to discuss: what you saw, what was done with you, where you went, who was that character?
Diane Paulus, ART Artistic Director, deserves kudos for bringing this show to town. She has said that she was working in London when she first heard of Punchdrunk. She’d go into Tesco and the store clerks were talking about Punchdrunk and the professional theatre people she was working with were talking about Punchdrunk: everybody was talking about Punchdrunk. You can’t help but want to talk about the performance after you’ve visited one. And you can’t help but want to go back.
A rather buttoned-down work colleague went with his wife and 15-year-old daughter who doesn’t usually talk much to them. The daughter spent the ride home, and time in the kitchen when they got home and more time the following day talking to her parents about SNM. The work colleague was delighted to have some (rare) rapport with his teenage daughter. I gave birthday tix to a friend who became obsessed (like me) and attended four performances. Many people donated their time for free to steward performances several evenings a week. It’s that kind of inspirational and I feel honored that I got to be a tiny little part of it.
I know my hometown can be a bigoted backwater but for this past Fall, at least, we were host to something magical and transcendent: the thrill that participation in grown-up make-believe can create and the vivid memories it leaves behind.
Thanks, Punchdrunk. Please come again!
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Thank You, CUJP!
They were distributing leaflets with a quote from Howard Zinn from You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train And here's that quote:
"To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places - and there are so many - where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory."
Amen.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Pedia
The thing about the old school Encyclopedia Britannica, as unwieldy, monolithic, exclusionary, and “biased” as it was, is that is was (is?) stable, erudite, abiding, and consistent. Which is a good thing –until it isn’t. If I looked up Roxbury, MA in my imaginary old school EB a year ago and then looked it up again today (assuming that the EB contained an entry for Roxbury, MA which it may not have done but that’s another rant) the entry would have remained the same. Even an updated edition would have most likely have included a nominally edited entry.
Not so in the ever-shifting, dependent on who's-taking-the time-to-write-it-today world of The Web, or, more specifically, Wikipedia. A year ago, the entry in Wikipedia under Roxbury, MA included the casual observation of "generally acknowledged to be the most dangerous part of Boston" - which statement made me so mad I almost opened a Wiki account so I could edit the stupid piece. "Generally acknowledged"??! By whom? And on what shoddy believe-everything-you-read-in-the-papers basis?!
Today, however, the entry is shiny, happy and gleaming with lots of good history but no mention of danger, just the dewy-eyed promise of (ugh!) gentrification in the Fort Hill section of Roxbury, which statement I find just as offensive as the one of the other extreme. Here's a direct quote:
"The Fort Hill section experienced significant gentrification when college students (many from Northeastern University and Wentworth Institute of Technology), artists, and young professionals moved into the area in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In the present day, there is much commercial and residential redevelopment."
Since when do college students and artists qualify as gentry? Artists live in areas that are not gentrified or upscale, because as the lowest income earning group of all educated people, they can't afford to live in gentrified areas. And neither, might I suggest, can most students.
Commercial development? Some of us are begging for it and others prefer to keep this nook sleepy but the only commercial development here are the airy sandcastles in the Wikipedia writer's dreams.
(No, I don't want to open a Wiki account and edit it. I'd rather use it as fodder).
And so here we run into the biggest problem of The Web: any nincompoop can write any unsubstantiated drivel she likes and many people will not only read it. They'll believe it without investigation, without corroboration, without thinking. Oh, wait. That's not The Web: that's people.
Not so in the ever-shifting, dependent on who's-taking-the time-to-write-it-today world of The Web, or, more specifically, Wikipedia. A year ago, the entry in Wikipedia under Roxbury, MA included the casual observation of "generally acknowledged to be the most dangerous part of Boston" - which statement made me so mad I almost opened a Wiki account so I could edit the stupid piece. "Generally acknowledged"??! By whom? And on what shoddy believe-everything-you-read-in-the-papers basis?!
Today, however, the entry is shiny, happy and gleaming with lots of good history but no mention of danger, just the dewy-eyed promise of (ugh!) gentrification in the Fort Hill section of Roxbury, which statement I find just as offensive as the one of the other extreme. Here's a direct quote:
"The Fort Hill section experienced significant gentrification when college students (many from Northeastern University and Wentworth Institute of Technology), artists, and young professionals moved into the area in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In the present day, there is much commercial and residential redevelopment."
Since when do college students and artists qualify as gentry? Artists live in areas that are not gentrified or upscale, because as the lowest income earning group of all educated people, they can't afford to live in gentrified areas. And neither, might I suggest, can most students.
Commercial development? Some of us are begging for it and others prefer to keep this nook sleepy but the only commercial development here are the airy sandcastles in the Wikipedia writer's dreams.
(No, I don't want to open a Wiki account and edit it. I'd rather use it as fodder).
And so here we run into the biggest problem of The Web: any nincompoop can write any unsubstantiated drivel she likes and many people will not only read it. They'll believe it without investigation, without corroboration, without thinking. Oh, wait. That's not The Web: that's people.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
85 Centre St. Beehive Collapse
This is 85 Centre Street, the site of what many in the neighborhood still hope is a possible Darryl Settles development project. It's not made of cinder block, but brick. Columbus Ave. brings up the rear of the parcel.
The plan was to raze this building and, using the two adjacent empty lots, build a lounge/restaurant with 6 condos above it. Mixed used development: urban sustainable living at its best.
The listserv hummed for a week with people stating reasons (mostly) for and (some) against the proposal. But what was initially a high quality debate on quality of life issues precipitated by development, gradually degenerated into a tussle over whether we should call the district Fort Hill or Highland Park. Sigh.
Many are disappointed that they're forced to spend their disposable income in other areas and would love the opportunity to drop it here, at a righteous Darryl Settles jazz club. I'm particularly disappointed because I've watched as slimeballs buy and ooze their way into the neighborhood while the legitimate ones, like Settles, are shown the door before they step on the curb. I'd gladly trade the very quiet but illegal and way overcrowded boarding house across the street from me for a mixed use condo/jazz club development, in a finger-snap.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Why DO People Vote Against Their Own Interests?
This is a question that, living in the good ol' US of A, I ask myself regularly during elections. I asked it several times a day while Dubya enjoyed his eight year reign. It has particular saliency now as the current health care "debate" rages, literally.
Universal health care is a no-brainer. Full stop. Yet the people who have the most to gain from a public health care plan show up at Town Halls apoplectic with fury and brandishing signs reading "Keep your government hands off my Medicare" (Medicare being the government funded health care option for the elderly and disabled poor).
Finally, the BBC is offering an answer.
Universal health care is a no-brainer. Full stop. Yet the people who have the most to gain from a public health care plan show up at Town Halls apoplectic with fury and brandishing signs reading "Keep your government hands off my Medicare" (Medicare being the government funded health care option for the elderly and disabled poor).
Finally, the BBC is offering an answer.
Friday, January 29, 2010
RIP, Howard Zinn
The Globe's obit of Howard Zinn, the man who made the people, not just the popes, patriarchs, and politicians, active agents of history, is horrendously ironic because it includes quotes from interviews with lots of local celebrities and not a single quote from a "common" man.
Guess the guys wrote the obit hadn't read the book. Or maybe they prefer to thumb their noses at the idea that made Howard famous: ordinary people are just as important as everyone else.
Guess the guys wrote the obit hadn't read the book. Or maybe they prefer to thumb their noses at the idea that made Howard famous: ordinary people are just as important as everyone else.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Beehive in Highland Park?
The neighborhood listserv is buzzing about 85 Centre Street. Darryl Settles, co-owner of The Beehive and founder of the Beantown Jazz Festival wanted to bring in a restaurant/bar to the address.
On Tuesday, the licensing hearing was slated for 10 a.m. at City Hall but in the wee hours before that hearing “the applicant (the Telsa Group/Darryl Settles)” withdrew “the application for a license at 85 Center St. at this time in order to conduct further community outreach." Three neighbors, according to Mr. Settles, within view of the address had successfully lobbied against the proposal.
The good thing is that this topic has generated a huge, polite neighborhood discussion. Many opinions are conflicting but people are civil. And it is pretty obvious that there is far more support in the neighborhood for this project than Mr. Settles believed.
The arguments against the project? The usual: noise, traffic, more people. Noise from traffic and people. People walking. People laughing as they leave the decent high end restaurant/jazz club after having a good time. In short, detractors fear the very things that are part of sustainable, stimulating, appealing urban living.
I, too, might be one of these people if I suspected that this restaurant was designed to attract a student crowd. Students drove me out of Symphony Road, they drove me out of Mission Hill. I tired of their drunken all night shrieking, their vomiting on my doorstep. Besides, I get my dose of drunken shrieking from the folks who frequent Fernandez liquor store and hang out in Cedar Park. But just as The Beehive and the jazz festival don't attract an immature, irresponsible clientele, neither, I believe, would this project. There will be naysayers regarding any thing new, but a decent food and music emporium for a mature clientele is a great way of providing an economic, social, and cultural boost to any urban neighborhood - especially this one.
Highland Kitchen in Somerville is a fabulous place in a really dense neighborhood with virtually no parking (six spaces, I think). It’s got great food and a great atmosphere and there is no increased “violence, drugs, brawl, out of town gangs, late night brawls, noise, traffic, pimps” as one of my Highland neighbors wrote he feared a restaurant/bar would bring. Scores of other sophisticated neighborhood joints could be added to the list of well run businesses that enhance their districts.
While I appreciate the concerns of the people opposed to the project, I can’t help but believe that much of that concern about the proposal is less “cautionary dissent” than reactionary fear and a provincial NIMBY-ism. Mr. Settles has a great track record as a good businessman. Given the chronic unemployment faced by the young people from this area, it is shameful to me that we dismissed him without any discussion or attempt at negotiation.
Just as I was finishing this piece, I spoke on the phone to Mr. Settles. I had called him to express my support and he was gracious enough to return my call. He said he has decided to abandon the 85 Centre Street project because it was a risk not worth taking when faced with such a negative reaction from a few people near to 85 Centre. He has many other opportunities. His advice was not to let die the conversation that we, as a neighborhood, had begun.
This project was a job-creating enterprise which would foster mingling and help boost the reputation of a misinterpreted neighborhood. The next time such an opportunity appears, at the very least I hope we discuss it before driving it away.
On Tuesday, the licensing hearing was slated for 10 a.m. at City Hall but in the wee hours before that hearing “the applicant (the Telsa Group/Darryl Settles)” withdrew “the application for a license at 85 Center St. at this time in order to conduct further community outreach." Three neighbors, according to Mr. Settles, within view of the address had successfully lobbied against the proposal.
The good thing is that this topic has generated a huge, polite neighborhood discussion. Many opinions are conflicting but people are civil. And it is pretty obvious that there is far more support in the neighborhood for this project than Mr. Settles believed.
The arguments against the project? The usual: noise, traffic, more people. Noise from traffic and people. People walking. People laughing as they leave the decent high end restaurant/jazz club after having a good time. In short, detractors fear the very things that are part of sustainable, stimulating, appealing urban living.
I, too, might be one of these people if I suspected that this restaurant was designed to attract a student crowd. Students drove me out of Symphony Road, they drove me out of Mission Hill. I tired of their drunken all night shrieking, their vomiting on my doorstep. Besides, I get my dose of drunken shrieking from the folks who frequent Fernandez liquor store and hang out in Cedar Park. But just as The Beehive and the jazz festival don't attract an immature, irresponsible clientele, neither, I believe, would this project. There will be naysayers regarding any thing new, but a decent food and music emporium for a mature clientele is a great way of providing an economic, social, and cultural boost to any urban neighborhood - especially this one.
Highland Kitchen in Somerville is a fabulous place in a really dense neighborhood with virtually no parking (six spaces, I think). It’s got great food and a great atmosphere and there is no increased “violence, drugs, brawl, out of town gangs, late night brawls, noise, traffic, pimps” as one of my Highland neighbors wrote he feared a restaurant/bar would bring. Scores of other sophisticated neighborhood joints could be added to the list of well run businesses that enhance their districts.
While I appreciate the concerns of the people opposed to the project, I can’t help but believe that much of that concern about the proposal is less “cautionary dissent” than reactionary fear and a provincial NIMBY-ism. Mr. Settles has a great track record as a good businessman. Given the chronic unemployment faced by the young people from this area, it is shameful to me that we dismissed him without any discussion or attempt at negotiation.
Just as I was finishing this piece, I spoke on the phone to Mr. Settles. I had called him to express my support and he was gracious enough to return my call. He said he has decided to abandon the 85 Centre Street project because it was a risk not worth taking when faced with such a negative reaction from a few people near to 85 Centre. He has many other opportunities. His advice was not to let die the conversation that we, as a neighborhood, had begun.
This project was a job-creating enterprise which would foster mingling and help boost the reputation of a misinterpreted neighborhood. The next time such an opportunity appears, at the very least I hope we discuss it before driving it away.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Everett and Roxbury
I love my neighbors. Some are easier to love. There's the older woman on my street with a heart as big as her two-family house. I really love her. I mean really. She's one of those people I'd want to have at my if-you-could-have-anyone-in-the-world-or-from-history-to-dinner-who-would-it-be? dinner party. She's pushing 80 and has suffered some serious health problems recently but she is absolutely gorgeous, with her mocha skin and amber eyes, both inside and out. She is really easy to love cause she just vibrates love so all you have to do is reflect it back to her.
Anyway, during one of our chats, she asked where I grew up and I told her Everett. So she laughed and said in her big love way, "Oh, Everett! When I think of Everett, I think of the country!" And I just laughed right along with her.
But it's funny in so many ways that aren't even remotely funny. Everett. Blue collar, working class, white - at least through the 70's. When I was growing up we ridiculed the Italian immigrant kid in school because he couldn't speak English. We also made any substitute teacher who entered our class for the day weep. Any substitute teacher. When I was growing up the Orange Line still ran into Everett and as little kids our moms would dress us up to take the train "into Town". And we never ventured into Roxbury. Ever. It was "other", dangerous, to be avoided.
And then my family moved out of Everett, to a bedroom (yuck) community. I was sent to a Catholic girl's school (yuck, again). One of my classmates was an extremely voluble, round girl with really bad acne who wound up going to Wellesley College. One day in science lab, I let voluble girl know that I'd grown up in Everett, not in the bedroom community (what the fuck does that mean, anyway) where we were living. She was horrified and let loose, volubly, a string of stereotypical insults disguised as good humor. I don't remember the specifics but I do vividly remember the import: Everett was "other", dangerous, to be avoided.
Until voluble girl edified me, Everett was just home, the place where I grew up and where all my extended family still lived. The only knives I had experienced were the ones used to cut food and I didn't know anyone who had been a victim of violence. Voluble girl had the same impression of Everett that many foreigners have of the US and that many metro Bostonians have of Roxbury: that there's a gunfight on every corner and someone waiting with a shiv just inside your front door.
College and travel around the world broadened my perspectives. After Wellesley, voluble girl got married and had kids. My money says her perspectives stayed the exact same. She had formed her opinion of Everett based on...I'm not sure what. The hatred and vitriol of family and friends who could best elevate themselves by disparaging others? Simple ignorance? Intellectual laziness? Social and political systems better served by dividing people rather than bringing them together? A combination of those and other factors?
Whatever misguided ideas voluble girl had about Everett, I carried with me about Roxbury. Until after college and travel when I worked here. I realized what a beautiful, historic place it is and how my impression of it had been distorted by a combination of many factors, the most powerful being my willingness to believe what is not really the whole truth. I chose to live here.
I'm not ready to share with my dear neighbor whom I love dearly that Everett is not the country. Maybe I'll just throw a dinner party there and invite her.
Anyway, during one of our chats, she asked where I grew up and I told her Everett. So she laughed and said in her big love way, "Oh, Everett! When I think of Everett, I think of the country!" And I just laughed right along with her.
But it's funny in so many ways that aren't even remotely funny. Everett. Blue collar, working class, white - at least through the 70's. When I was growing up we ridiculed the Italian immigrant kid in school because he couldn't speak English. We also made any substitute teacher who entered our class for the day weep. Any substitute teacher. When I was growing up the Orange Line still ran into Everett and as little kids our moms would dress us up to take the train "into Town". And we never ventured into Roxbury. Ever. It was "other", dangerous, to be avoided.
And then my family moved out of Everett, to a bedroom (yuck) community. I was sent to a Catholic girl's school (yuck, again). One of my classmates was an extremely voluble, round girl with really bad acne who wound up going to Wellesley College. One day in science lab, I let voluble girl know that I'd grown up in Everett, not in the bedroom community (what the fuck does that mean, anyway) where we were living. She was horrified and let loose, volubly, a string of stereotypical insults disguised as good humor. I don't remember the specifics but I do vividly remember the import: Everett was "other", dangerous, to be avoided.
Until voluble girl edified me, Everett was just home, the place where I grew up and where all my extended family still lived. The only knives I had experienced were the ones used to cut food and I didn't know anyone who had been a victim of violence. Voluble girl had the same impression of Everett that many foreigners have of the US and that many metro Bostonians have of Roxbury: that there's a gunfight on every corner and someone waiting with a shiv just inside your front door.
College and travel around the world broadened my perspectives. After Wellesley, voluble girl got married and had kids. My money says her perspectives stayed the exact same. She had formed her opinion of Everett based on...I'm not sure what. The hatred and vitriol of family and friends who could best elevate themselves by disparaging others? Simple ignorance? Intellectual laziness? Social and political systems better served by dividing people rather than bringing them together? A combination of those and other factors?
Whatever misguided ideas voluble girl had about Everett, I carried with me about Roxbury. Until after college and travel when I worked here. I realized what a beautiful, historic place it is and how my impression of it had been distorted by a combination of many factors, the most powerful being my willingness to believe what is not really the whole truth. I chose to live here.
I'm not ready to share with my dear neighbor whom I love dearly that Everett is not the country. Maybe I'll just throw a dinner party there and invite her.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Archeology of the African Meeting House -Dig It.
On 22 October 09, Dr Cheryl Laroche and Dr. David Landon spoke at the African meeting house about an archeological dig there. What I learned that I'll carry away forever: "self-emancipated". People who escaped the shackles of bondage were self-emancipated, not runaways.
Boston Highlands Hero
While Dudley might be a detritus disaster, we here in the Boston Highlands benefit from the tireless efforts of neighbor James Hudson. Now in his 70's, he'd tried sitting in front of the television all day when he first retired but it drove him crazy. So he started doing work around the neighborhood, cleaning up public spaces that needed cleaning and pruning and mowing and sweeping and raking.
A patch of greenspace on Rockledge St. stays marvelously manicured but, unlike all of the city designated parks, I never noticed city workers in it. Later found out it's James who takes care of it. Cooper Clarke community garden on Linwood benefits from James' willingness to work as hard as he can from sun-up til sun-down. His own garden patch is always perfectly maintained and he trims and edges common areas in the rest of the garden area. To the best of my knowledge, he's not paid for the work but derives satisfaction from having a meaningful way to pass the day.
A patch of greenspace on Rockledge St. stays marvelously manicured but, unlike all of the city designated parks, I never noticed city workers in it. Later found out it's James who takes care of it. Cooper Clarke community garden on Linwood benefits from James' willingness to work as hard as he can from sun-up til sun-down. His own garden patch is always perfectly maintained and he trims and edges common areas in the rest of the garden area. To the best of my knowledge, he's not paid for the work but derives satisfaction from having a meaningful way to pass the day.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Roxbury's 380th Anniversary
State Rep. Byron Rushing kicks off the first of a four-part spring history series with a talk called "Everything you always wanted to know about Roxbury's history." Organized by Discover Roxbury.
Thursday, February 4, 7:30pm-9pm Free and open to the public.
Haley House Bakery Cafe, 12 Dade St
Learn about Roxbury! You know you want to....
And the Haley House is a wonderful cafe.
Thursday, February 4, 7:30pm-9pm Free and open to the public.
Haley House Bakery Cafe, 12 Dade St
Learn about Roxbury! You know you want to....
And the Haley House is a wonderful cafe.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
The Pendulum Swings
Nine fifteen p.m. and it looks like Brown won. My only consolation is that he'll be a one-termer (just two years).
And Martha is out of touch with voters if she let this one get away from her.
But the American electorate is so predictable in its constant, inexorable anger. If the Republocrats are in power, they will feel the full fury of the electorate's wrath! The Democricans, likewise, will be shunted aside if they happen to hold the reins when bad things are happening to good people! And if, gadzooks! someone should question the efficacy of a political system which is nothing more than a swinging pedulum, crucify him and blame him for the Democricans/Republocrats seizing power!
And Martha is out of touch with voters if she let this one get away from her.
But the American electorate is so predictable in its constant, inexorable anger. If the Republocrats are in power, they will feel the full fury of the electorate's wrath! The Democricans, likewise, will be shunted aside if they happen to hold the reins when bad things are happening to good people! And if, gadzooks! someone should question the efficacy of a political system which is nothing more than a swinging pedulum, crucify him and blame him for the Democricans/Republocrats seizing power!
Monday, January 18, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Not So Filthy Lucre
The problem with money is not that it is dirty but that it is quite the opposite. Money is a sterilizing, homogenizing force in the world. Singapore is the perfect example of this. The twilight tranny parade has been replaced with avenues of all the exact same store you can find in every other metropolis in the world. Why go to Singapore for The Gap? Or Moscow for MacDonald's or Paris for Starbuck's? Just stay home godammit, if familiarity is all you're looking for.
But you don't have to go to the other side of the world to witness the homogenization of culture. It's right here in Boston's South End. I don't think there's a MacDonald's and the Banana Republic is in the Copley Square mall, known as Copley Place. No there's a homogeneity of sensibility and I don't mean a homo-sensibility. Fagolas in the South End keep it a tad interesting. And all the boutique stores, restaurants, and bars are better than the international chains, if unaffordable. And that's where the South End becomes dull. The people there are either really affluent yuppies or public housing denizens. So there's predominantly this really comfortable, hip yet dull, middle-American ethos that permeates the district. And I don't want that coming up into Dudley. Give me Rozzie Square with its myriad small mom and pop businesses (a butcher shop, several bakeries, cafes, fish market, wallpaper and paint store) or Union Square (same deal) instead. I prefer funky, authentic, immigrant, diverse, and varied to a whole slew of upscale.
But the tentacles of the South End are pushing to breach Mass. Ave. In some cases they have. Restoration Resources is one business that is a sign of this breach. The store is actually kinda wonderful. They are an architectural salvage business, taking useful and beautiful materials from places that are run down or about to be demolished (I assume) and selling them. There are old mantelpieces and windows and chandeliers - all very shabby-chic. The cradle to cradle people have to love the concept but the prices are anything but sustainable - unless you're getting a Goldman-Sachs type bonus. Or aspire to.
Ok, ok. So I like Restoration Hardware and I'd prefer businesses like them in my neighborhood over The Home Creepo anyday. But is the gouging really necessary? Isn't it possible to be interesting and affordable at the same time? I think what rankles as much as the homogeneity of culture is the concomitant brainwashing: money, style, status uber alles. Yawn. How boring.
But you don't have to go to the other side of the world to witness the homogenization of culture. It's right here in Boston's South End. I don't think there's a MacDonald's and the Banana Republic is in the Copley Square mall, known as Copley Place. No there's a homogeneity of sensibility and I don't mean a homo-sensibility. Fagolas in the South End keep it a tad interesting. And all the boutique stores, restaurants, and bars are better than the international chains, if unaffordable. And that's where the South End becomes dull. The people there are either really affluent yuppies or public housing denizens. So there's predominantly this really comfortable, hip yet dull, middle-American ethos that permeates the district. And I don't want that coming up into Dudley. Give me Rozzie Square with its myriad small mom and pop businesses (a butcher shop, several bakeries, cafes, fish market, wallpaper and paint store) or Union Square (same deal) instead. I prefer funky, authentic, immigrant, diverse, and varied to a whole slew of upscale.
But the tentacles of the South End are pushing to breach Mass. Ave. In some cases they have. Restoration Resources is one business that is a sign of this breach. The store is actually kinda wonderful. They are an architectural salvage business, taking useful and beautiful materials from places that are run down or about to be demolished (I assume) and selling them. There are old mantelpieces and windows and chandeliers - all very shabby-chic. The cradle to cradle people have to love the concept but the prices are anything but sustainable - unless you're getting a Goldman-Sachs type bonus. Or aspire to.
Ok, ok. So I like Restoration Hardware and I'd prefer businesses like them in my neighborhood over The Home Creepo anyday. But is the gouging really necessary? Isn't it possible to be interesting and affordable at the same time? I think what rankles as much as the homogeneity of culture is the concomitant brainwashing: money, style, status uber alles. Yawn. How boring.
Filthy Dudley
Walking through Dudley Square yesterday I was struck by how FILTHY the streets were - strewn with garbage and trash of all kinds. Dudley Main Street Director Joyce Stanley works really hard for the businesses of Dudley, trying to build up the district. Not really sure what the businesses do for themselves - except for complain about how no one is doing anything for them.
Businesses of Dudley: get out there with brooms and trash bags, daily! Clean it up! And if you need help, once you've demonstrated a willingness to help yourself, I am certain the good people of Roxbury, would be happy to chip in during a twice yearly Clean Dudley work day.
I am tempted to pull a Mike Dukakis myself (god, I love that man) and walk through the square the way he walks through the Fens on his way to work at Northeastern: with a big trash picking up waste as he goes. And when one congratulates him for taking initiative, he'll just say something like the work starts with us, or you've got to be willing to do it yourself and not leave it to someone else. I forget what he actually said but how can you not adore a man who walks the talk.
Businesses of Dudley: get out there with brooms and trash bags, daily! Clean it up! And if you need help, once you've demonstrated a willingness to help yourself, I am certain the good people of Roxbury, would be happy to chip in during a twice yearly Clean Dudley work day.
I am tempted to pull a Mike Dukakis myself (god, I love that man) and walk through the square the way he walks through the Fens on his way to work at Northeastern: with a big trash picking up waste as he goes. And when one congratulates him for taking initiative, he'll just say something like the work starts with us, or you've got to be willing to do it yourself and not leave it to someone else. I forget what he actually said but how can you not adore a man who walks the talk.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Trust in a New Year
So I’m walking on the Northeastern campus and it’s deserted because of the holidays when a kid of about 12 approaches me.
Excuse me. Do you have a phone I can borrow? I’m supposed to meet my cousin and I have no idea where he’s at, he says. Can I borrow your phone to call him and find out where he is?
My first thought is, poor thing, so I say sorry sweetie I left my phone at home (which I had) but maybe we can figure something out. For a second I think I’ll tell him to look for a pay phone and give him some change but I don’t think there is a payphone anywhere nearby. Are there payphones at all anymore? And there’s a Northeastern college student walking toward us listening to his iphone so I stop him and say excuse us do you have a phone we can borrow. He, I say, gesturing toward the kid, needs to make a call and I don’t have my phone. And the international student takes out his earbuds and turns off the tunes and loads the phone app and gives the phone to the kid. So the kid dials his cousin and that’s when the little hum which I had been ignoring turned into a buzz and I thought, oh, shit. This kid is playing us and is going to run off with the international student’s phone and it’ll be my fault. There was no real reason for me not to trust the kid. Though his request was a little unusual, it seemed more ingenuous than conniving. But that’s how they get you isn’t it?
As the kid is talking to his cousin I’m getting nervous because time has slowed and the conversation seems to be taking an inordinately long time. It wasn’t, it just seemed to be. I start carefully edging closer to the kid thinking if he tries to bolt with the phone, I’ll grab him by the hoodie and he won’t get far. The international student and I stand watch.
The kid gets off the phone with his cousin and says Burger King. He’s at Burger King. He hands the phone back to the international student. Do you know where that is we ask him? No, he says, but it’s easy enough to give him directions and he goes off on his way.
Thank you, I say to the international Northeastern student. Thank you very much. That was really nice of you. And he nods and goes on his way probably thinking easy for you to say, lady, it wasn’t your phone at risk.
Excuse me. Do you have a phone I can borrow? I’m supposed to meet my cousin and I have no idea where he’s at, he says. Can I borrow your phone to call him and find out where he is?
My first thought is, poor thing, so I say sorry sweetie I left my phone at home (which I had) but maybe we can figure something out. For a second I think I’ll tell him to look for a pay phone and give him some change but I don’t think there is a payphone anywhere nearby. Are there payphones at all anymore? And there’s a Northeastern college student walking toward us listening to his iphone so I stop him and say excuse us do you have a phone we can borrow. He, I say, gesturing toward the kid, needs to make a call and I don’t have my phone. And the international student takes out his earbuds and turns off the tunes and loads the phone app and gives the phone to the kid. So the kid dials his cousin and that’s when the little hum which I had been ignoring turned into a buzz and I thought, oh, shit. This kid is playing us and is going to run off with the international student’s phone and it’ll be my fault. There was no real reason for me not to trust the kid. Though his request was a little unusual, it seemed more ingenuous than conniving. But that’s how they get you isn’t it?
As the kid is talking to his cousin I’m getting nervous because time has slowed and the conversation seems to be taking an inordinately long time. It wasn’t, it just seemed to be. I start carefully edging closer to the kid thinking if he tries to bolt with the phone, I’ll grab him by the hoodie and he won’t get far. The international student and I stand watch.
The kid gets off the phone with his cousin and says Burger King. He’s at Burger King. He hands the phone back to the international student. Do you know where that is we ask him? No, he says, but it’s easy enough to give him directions and he goes off on his way.
Thank you, I say to the international Northeastern student. Thank you very much. That was really nice of you. And he nods and goes on his way probably thinking easy for you to say, lady, it wasn’t your phone at risk.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Friday, November 6, 2009
Farm City and Garden Girls
Thanks to Slow Food Boston, writer/farmer Novella Carpenter will be at the Fort Point Artists Community Store on Friday the 13th. So I get to ask the question (spoiler alert) that was making me crazy when I read Farm City
: why didn't you eat the bird killed by the dogs?
The book was a gift from someone who was reminded of me when she heard Carpenter on NPR. We both garden and raise bees in urban neighborhoods that have as much grit as dirt. But pigs and turkeys and ducks, oh my! After reading Novella, I wanted to raise my own pigs but my yard's too small and I don't own a car so couldn't schlep the enormous amounts of food necessary to keep 'em growing. Read the book!
Garden Girl is Roxbury's city farmer but I find her style a little too suburban. Give me the dumpster diving and free-ranging fowl and sow of Novella to the stifling animal pens and pristine raised beds of the Spruill/Moreno compound - even if the latter are mandated by city ordinance.
: why didn't you eat the bird killed by the dogs?
The book was a gift from someone who was reminded of me when she heard Carpenter on NPR. We both garden and raise bees in urban neighborhoods that have as much grit as dirt. But pigs and turkeys and ducks, oh my! After reading Novella, I wanted to raise my own pigs but my yard's too small and I don't own a car so couldn't schlep the enormous amounts of food necessary to keep 'em growing. Read the book!
Garden Girl is Roxbury's city farmer but I find her style a little too suburban. Give me the dumpster diving and free-ranging fowl and sow of Novella to the stifling animal pens and pristine raised beds of the Spruill/Moreno compound - even if the latter are mandated by city ordinance.
The History of the Past 30 Years in Greater Boston
...in one newspaper story and all the comments it attracted.
Luke Isman's Bicycle Defense Kit
Bicycle Defense Kit
The Bicycle Defense Kit (BDK) offers options for dealing with aggressive motorists. Contained within an altoids tin, the 8 tools vary in detectability, potential to cause damage, and legality. Specifically, cyclists can:
- Issue "citizen citations" with official-ish tickets.
- Label offending vehicles with an "I was a jerk to a cyclist" sticker.
- Introduce the risk of paint damage with a Jolly Rancher.
- Create certain coating cremation via DOT3 brake fluid.
- Make cars stink worse than their exhaust with a carefully-placed stink bomb.
- Throw a trusty bolt to dent offending traffic as it passes.
- Lock out loony drivers by filling their keyholes with super glue.
- Cut through tire valve stems with a utility blade.
Order a kit: $19.90 delivered (U.S.). Contains 3 citations, 3 stickers, and one of the rest.
home, contact, me
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Map of Boston Highlands from 1888
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
Witch Hunt, 2007
One of the scariest things for The Mob (not organized crime, the neighborhood mob) to handle was the idea that the newest-to-the-neighborhood Sober Homes housed sex offenders. Now, if The Mob did a little simple online sex offender registry research it would've discovered that sex offenders were scattered throughout the neighborhood in places other than the Sober Homes. And had been. And if The Mob had thought even just the littlest bit instead of lashing out blindly, it would've considered that while proximity may exacerbate the problem, sex offenders do travel, so whether he lives next door or not, he can getcha.
But if The Mob had researched and if The Mob had thoughtfully considered before lashing out blindly, it would not have been a mob. And it would not have been as successfully manipulated and played by its elected leader, Diane Wilkerson. I watched, I must admit now with some shame, as part of The Mob. Diane is a master of mob manipulation. If any thoughtful remark was made, she quickly and vigorously fomented fear and hatred to divert attention away from real issues and thus avoid having to address them. She verbally attacked and disparaged the vulnerable people living in the Sober Homes as the problem. She deftly crafted a smokescreen of rage and fear and protected the disrespectful, racist developer and the disbarred lawyer behind it. These two men, in my humble opinion, with the assistance of someone with power at the State level, had created the problem and continue to derive benefit from it at the expense of the men and women they purport to aid and, too, at the expense of The Mob.
But if The Mob had researched and if The Mob had thoughtfully considered before lashing out blindly, it would not have been a mob. And it would not have been as successfully manipulated and played by its elected leader, Diane Wilkerson. I watched, I must admit now with some shame, as part of The Mob. Diane is a master of mob manipulation. If any thoughtful remark was made, she quickly and vigorously fomented fear and hatred to divert attention away from real issues and thus avoid having to address them. She verbally attacked and disparaged the vulnerable people living in the Sober Homes as the problem. She deftly crafted a smokescreen of rage and fear and protected the disrespectful, racist developer and the disbarred lawyer behind it. These two men, in my humble opinion, with the assistance of someone with power at the State level, had created the problem and continue to derive benefit from it at the expense of the men and women they purport to aid and, too, at the expense of The Mob.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
How Do We Define and Attain the Good Society?
United States of American government subsidizes banks and other failing corporate greedstrosities.
Canadian government subsidizes programs to answer questions like these:
Friday, November 13, 2009
2:00 PM - 4:00 PM, Lower Level Conference Room, Busch Hall
"The Measure of Our Success: How Do We Define and Attain the Good Society?"
CES Special Event
This panel will feature Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen in person and Jean-Paul Fitoussi via videoconference from Paris. They will discuss the findings of the recent report issued by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress that was headed by Sen, Fitoussi, and Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.
In addition, Peter Hall and Michèle Lamont will be on the panel. Their Successful Societies Program is a Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) funded program that aims to quantify the measures of societal success. The resulting book, entitled Successful Societies: How Institutions and Culture Affect Health, integrates recent research in an effort to answer the question of why some societies are more successful than others at promoting individual and collective well-being.
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For full background information, please visit the following links:
Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress: http://www.stiglitz-sen-fitoussi.fr/en/index.htm
Successful Societies Program (CIFAR): http://www2.cifar.ca/research/successful-societies-program/
Successful Societies: How Institutions and Culture Affect Health (Cambridge University Press)
http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521516600
Moderated by Éloi Laurent, Senior Economist and Scientific Advisor at OFCE (l’Observatoire Français des Conjonctures Économiques).
Contact: Jason Beerman
Email: beerman@fas.harvard.edu
Canadian government subsidizes programs to answer questions like these:
Friday, November 13, 2009
2:00 PM - 4:00 PM, Lower Level Conference Room, Busch Hall
"The Measure of Our Success: How Do We Define and Attain the Good Society?"
- Amartya Sen, Nobel Laureate in Economics; Thomas W. Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy, Harvard University; Chair Adviser of the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress;
- Jean-Paul Fitoussi, Professor of Economics and President of the Observatoire Français des Conjonctures économiques (OFCE) in Paris; Coordinator of the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress;
- Peter Hall, Krupp Foundation Professor of European Studies, Harvard University; Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research's Successful Societies Program;
- Michèle Lamont, Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies and Professor of Sociology and African and African American studies, Harvard University; Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research's Successful Societies Program
CES Special Event
This panel will feature Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen in person and Jean-Paul Fitoussi via videoconference from Paris. They will discuss the findings of the recent report issued by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress that was headed by Sen, Fitoussi, and Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.
In addition, Peter Hall and Michèle Lamont will be on the panel. Their Successful Societies Program is a Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) funded program that aims to quantify the measures of societal success. The resulting book, entitled Successful Societies: How Institutions and Culture Affect Health, integrates recent research in an effort to answer the question of why some societies are more successful than others at promoting individual and collective well-being.
---
For full background information, please visit the following links:
Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress: http://www.stiglitz-sen-fitoussi.fr/en/index.htm
Successful Societies Program (CIFAR): http://www2.cifar.ca/research/successful-societies-program/
Successful Societies: How Institutions and Culture Affect Health (Cambridge University Press)
http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521516600
Moderated by Éloi Laurent, Senior Economist and Scientific Advisor at OFCE (l’Observatoire Français des Conjonctures Économiques).
Contact: Jason Beerman
Email: beerman@fas.harvard.edu
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Cleaning House
There are things you don't notice when driving or riding, things you only see when walking. State troopers and Boston public works were cleaning out someone's home under the Mass. Ave. bridge at about 10 o'clock this morning. There were blankets and makeshift beds and even a bike so someone had created an oasis in this dry, almost out-of-the-way cranny of the city. The Pollyanna part of my brain pretended that the homeless folks who lived here were woken up and moved by city outreach workers to more comfortable, safer, indoor accommodation. (I like to delude myself daily with dreams of a better world - it helps me to get out of bed. Some mornings).
And then I got to H Square and as the Spare Change news hawkers waved their papers in my face I thought, Shit! That home probably belongs to one of these people. Some hapless guy is out here in the city somewhere working a godawful job (or three) that pays less than minimum wage and he's going to come "home" on this dreary, chilly, wet evening and everything that signified his home will be gone; all the stuff he's managed to collect or assemble to make the place livable now in the dump over by Magazine St. in Roxbury. Nothing left but the rain streaked cement underbelly of the bridge.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
This Place Matters
It housed Hook and Ladder #1, a horse drawn fire truck and was built around 1859.
One on One
Tonight, Haley House, 12 Dade St, Dudley Square from 8 pm. - 10 p.m. Mayoral Candidate Mike Flaherty answers your questions. Go. Ask. Vote.
The Donkey Show
Fairies, fairies everywhere; charming, callipygian fairies. I love fairies. So I loved The Donkey Show. The first time I saw it was with a thirty-something friend who's more grunge than disco. I took advantage of the 2-for-1 ticket offer and brought her. She was glad she'd seen it but wouldn't have paid to do so. It's not her scene, she said. I was transported to fairyland. The second time was with my soon-to-be-70-year-old mother and her friends. Watching them watch and be in the show was part of the fun.
Monday, October 26, 2009
One Reason Why Roxbury is Regularly Screwed
The Department of Families and Children and the MSPCC like to show their gratitude for the people working in the trenches of child welfare - those who care for kids whose parents either don't want them or are too sick to care for them or a combination of both.
This past Saturday a foster parent appreciation lunch was held at Academy Homes on Washington Street. Foster parents got lunch, simple entertainment, certificates of appreciation and gift certificates to Stop and Shop.
At one table, conversation turned to the upcoming mayoral election. Ms. State Worker thought Menino had been around too long. Ms. AFSCME, likewise, thought it was time for a change. Conversation turned to race and Ms. AFSCME stated that this country is not ready for a black president (all the more reason to get one in there) and that only reason Obama got elected was cause Dubya screwed up so badly (which is probably true). Ms. Runs Her Mouth said it didn't matter who got in - they're all the same and nothing ever changes.
"People have to create change. Everyone's gonna vote, right? Everyone here is gonna vote?"
"It's all in the hands of the lord," Ms. Runs Her Mouth asserted. "That's why I don't need to worry about it. The lord will decide."
Ms. BTD amen'd as did Ms. Stellar Foster Mom. And the retort of "the lord helps those who help themselves" was lost in the din of amens.
This past Saturday a foster parent appreciation lunch was held at Academy Homes on Washington Street. Foster parents got lunch, simple entertainment, certificates of appreciation and gift certificates to Stop and Shop.
At one table, conversation turned to the upcoming mayoral election. Ms. State Worker thought Menino had been around too long. Ms. AFSCME, likewise, thought it was time for a change. Conversation turned to race and Ms. AFSCME stated that this country is not ready for a black president (all the more reason to get one in there) and that only reason Obama got elected was cause Dubya screwed up so badly (which is probably true). Ms. Runs Her Mouth said it didn't matter who got in - they're all the same and nothing ever changes.
"People have to create change. Everyone's gonna vote, right? Everyone here is gonna vote?"
"It's all in the hands of the lord," Ms. Runs Her Mouth asserted. "That's why I don't need to worry about it. The lord will decide."
Ms. BTD amen'd as did Ms. Stellar Foster Mom. And the retort of "the lord helps those who help themselves" was lost in the din of amens.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Looking Good at Both Ends of Dudley
At one end of Dudley, you can learn about Maximon, the Santiago Atitlan Mayan Lord of Looking Good. At the other end, you can shop at this store which has been in Dudley Sq. since the '30's. (It's grated cause the picture was taken on a Sunday). Current proprietors came on board in the '50's. They sell some kick-ass wigs that'll keep you looking good. For every book store in Harvard Square, Dudley has a hairdresser or barber shop.
Maximon, who was once persecuted and made to go underground, is a partier.I don't think Harvard Sq. does have a liquor store but Dudley has two on the same block and at least three more within easy walking distance. Giant Liquors is open on Sundays, thank Maximon, when the rest of Dudley is shuttered, cause if there's anything the poor and disenfranchised need, it's legal drugs.
Is this a great storefront or what? I see an old-fashioned soda fountain in there. Or a flower shop.
Maximon, who was once persecuted and made to go underground, is a partier.
Is this a great storefront or what? I see an old-fashioned soda fountain in there. Or a flower shop.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Blasphemy Day
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Feed me instead Knowledge of Angels.
Stars in the Square
Riding into Harvard Square Tuesday morning, I noticed a bunch of cops and a crowd gathered around the T station. Trouble, I thought, some kind of early morning, drug fueled fight. Or the Red Line crapped out again. But the crowd was eerily quiet and the cops weren't moving. Rounding the Out of Town island, I saw the film camera. All the faces of the people in the crowd, lifted toward the scene of action, resembled a mass of worshipers praying at the altar of their god. Who in this case is Fame and Hollywood. One of my colleagues, a talented filmmaker in his own right, spotted Ben Affleck. But the real stars in Harvard Square that day were Felix Barrett and Maxine Doyle, Punchdrunk people, speaking at this class.
The Donkey Punch Drunk Show
Unfortunate for rhetorical reasons only that The Donkey Show and Punchdrunk run simultaneously. In my excitement to spread the word about both, after seeing The Donkey Show and touring the Old Lincoln School, I rushed into work and exclaimed, you have to check out The Donkey Punch! Oops. I didn't even know what a donkey punch was until this past summer and I wish I'd never learned.
The Thing I Hate Most About Roxbury
Roxbury (like the world, I suppose) is full of incredibly bruised people. The legacy of slavery, a history of second class citizenship, racism, poverty - these are all serious bruisers. But so many folks ignore their personal pain and channel it toward thwarting good in the world. It's an I hurt, I'm gonna make you hurt too way of being. And it's most destructive coming from the folks in the area who have done well for themselves and are working (allegedly) to restore the area to its rightful place as a gem in Boston.
Victimhood, embraced too long, forges its own chains. The negativity, hostility, blaming, and subtle undermining are wearing on me. Deal with your own shit, please, and stop blaming everyone else. Thank you.
Victimhood, embraced too long, forges its own chains. The negativity, hostility, blaming, and subtle undermining are wearing on me. Deal with your own shit, please, and stop blaming everyone else. Thank you.
Sheep No More: Screamer in the House
A cry rang out, one I didn't recognize, and it turned out to be a scream from an audience member. A scream she repeated a few times when startled. She was fine so it was kinda fun.
Another younger woman came up to me demanding, "Where do I go?" When asked that question, sometimes I shrug, sometimes I point in two possible directions at once, which is what I did for her. She whimpered and pulled out her Blackberry, its screen like another spotlight in the hall.
"Are you ok?" I whispered. She was sniffling and snuffling. She was freaked out.
"The elevator guy separated me from my boyfriend," she said.
"It's ok. You'll be ok. Go to the bar. Catch your breath. Text him from there."
So she went into the middle of the main corridor with her Klieg light of a Blackberry.
I fed her to Norman.
Another younger woman came up to me demanding, "Where do I go?" When asked that question, sometimes I shrug, sometimes I point in two possible directions at once, which is what I did for her. She whimpered and pulled out her Blackberry, its screen like another spotlight in the hall.
"Are you ok?" I whispered. She was sniffling and snuffling. She was freaked out.
"The elevator guy separated me from my boyfriend," she said.
"It's ok. You'll be ok. Go to the bar. Catch your breath. Text him from there."
So she went into the middle of the main corridor with her Klieg light of a Blackberry.
I fed her to Norman.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Relocalization Conference at RCC
What's so funny about peace love and localization? Beaucoup, according to Ms Average American. Better to commiserate over a glass of chardonnay about the obscene bonuses Wall Street continues to award itself and Global Warming rather than actively try to thwart the obscenity and warming. Someone Else will take care of those things. Ms American secretly hopes/believes that somehow/someday she'll be one of them, the blessed few who are financially rewarded no matter how badly or how much they screw up their own businesses and other people's lives. Their scales must be much different from those the rest of us use. Or they use their scales for false measurement while we just hold ours over our eyes.
Fortunately, about 200-300 people in the greater Boston area are willing to work for peace, love, and localization and these folks showed up yesterday to get the ball rolling here in Massachusetts or to join others already in motion.
In the Main Tent: Peak Oil, Environmental Havoc, Big Money in Washington, and Isolation and Alienation in Our Communities - which are all interconnected and part of the same problem that needs to be undone by all of us on a local level with the globe in mind. If that makes sense.
Chuck Turner welcomed us, Frances Moore Lappe inspired us and though Mel King and Bill McKibben spoke, I couldn't hang around to listen to them. The break-out sessions included Building Local, Sustainable and Just Food Systems and Applying Democracy in the Face of Corporate Power
The concept that most piqued my interest was Transition Towns. My neighborhood in Roxbury is in transition and I'd like that change to be in the best possible direction. Permaculture, everyone?
My gripe about the conference? We didn't need the to have the problems at hand detailed - speakers were certainly preaching to the choir - about Peak Oil, about Global Warming, about the value of supporting local agriculture. And along those lines - could we work a little on making the presentations a little more pithy and dynamic?
Fortunately, about 200-300 people in the greater Boston area are willing to work for peace, love, and localization and these folks showed up yesterday to get the ball rolling here in Massachusetts or to join others already in motion.
In the Main Tent: Peak Oil, Environmental Havoc, Big Money in Washington, and Isolation and Alienation in Our Communities - which are all interconnected and part of the same problem that needs to be undone by all of us on a local level with the globe in mind. If that makes sense.
Chuck Turner welcomed us, Frances Moore Lappe inspired us and though Mel King and Bill McKibben spoke, I couldn't hang around to listen to them. The break-out sessions included Building Local, Sustainable and Just Food Systems and Applying Democracy in the Face of Corporate Power
The concept that most piqued my interest was Transition Towns. My neighborhood in Roxbury is in transition and I'd like that change to be in the best possible direction. Permaculture, everyone?
My gripe about the conference? We didn't need the to have the problems at hand detailed - speakers were certainly preaching to the choir - about Peak Oil, about Global Warming, about the value of supporting local agriculture. And along those lines - could we work a little on making the presentations a little more pithy and dynamic?
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Sleep No More Stewarding
An interesting experience, stewarding for the Punchdrunk/ART production Sleep No More but the audience can influence the tenor of the night. And last night's audience was AWFUL. For those of you conversing at full voice: you suck. For those of you waltzing around all night without a mask: you suck. And you suck really bad.
Part of the beauty of Punchdrunk's vision and magic is their trust in the audience, their belief that the audience is a focal point of the production. There are no other theatrical productions that I've experienced where a member of the audience can be treated to an intimate one-on-one performance. And all that's required on the part of the audience to become a part of that magic and genius is openness and trust, requited. The production is a mystery best explored on your own, without your crew, without your honey. Go explore by yourself and compare notes at the end of the night. Be willing to be a little unsure, a little off center. Play the game. Play the play. The play is play.
Last night's audience was too - I dunno - mean-spirited? Afraid? Dull? Certain? Perhaps they'd consider themselves too clever, too sophisticated to be caught up in the playfulness of the event, to play with the venue, to play with the experience. Not willing to risk a little fooling, they become fools. That ugly, hard, practical, unimaginative attitude brought a really nasty energy to the whole site. Production crew and stewards were in bad moods by the end of the night thanks to the onslaught of the philistines.
Hopefully, they'll all stay home next time and tell their equally unworthy friends to do the same. Being around all those creepy people left me spooked in ways Macbeth and his Lady never could.
Part of the beauty of Punchdrunk's vision and magic is their trust in the audience, their belief that the audience is a focal point of the production. There are no other theatrical productions that I've experienced where a member of the audience can be treated to an intimate one-on-one performance. And all that's required on the part of the audience to become a part of that magic and genius is openness and trust, requited. The production is a mystery best explored on your own, without your crew, without your honey. Go explore by yourself and compare notes at the end of the night. Be willing to be a little unsure, a little off center. Play the game. Play the play. The play is play.
Last night's audience was too - I dunno - mean-spirited? Afraid? Dull? Certain? Perhaps they'd consider themselves too clever, too sophisticated to be caught up in the playfulness of the event, to play with the venue, to play with the experience. Not willing to risk a little fooling, they become fools. That ugly, hard, practical, unimaginative attitude brought a really nasty energy to the whole site. Production crew and stewards were in bad moods by the end of the night thanks to the onslaught of the philistines.
Hopefully, they'll all stay home next time and tell their equally unworthy friends to do the same. Being around all those creepy people left me spooked in ways Macbeth and his Lady never could.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
I am Positively Punchdrunk on Sleep No More
Cawdor Seeds
I can't remember the last time something got me this excited. It's an experience on every sensory level. Gorgeous to look at and touch and listen to and smell - even when it isn't.
I've become an acolyte - passing out the cawdor seeds cards, buying tickets as birthday presents and for my baristas, volunteering to steward.
The less said about the event, the better, but you need to experience it. Really. Go!
I can't remember the last time something got me this excited. It's an experience on every sensory level. Gorgeous to look at and touch and listen to and smell - even when it isn't.
I've become an acolyte - passing out the cawdor seeds cards, buying tickets as birthday presents and for my baristas, volunteering to steward.
The less said about the event, the better, but you need to experience it. Really. Go!
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Slug Season
It must be all the rain so far this summer because my garden is pullulating with slugs and snails. At the beginning of the month we came home to find scores of them oozing trails along the front steps and retaining wall. And we found this massive critter, seen here alongside my 3 in index finger for size reference. Really!
So what have I done with them all? Sluggo may work but it needs to be reapplied after each rainfall. Given that it rains everyday, that seems like a waste of money. Likewise, beer traps (a plastic cup - I reuse yogurt containers - with a couple of inches of STALE beer in the bottom) work but the traps have been overflowing with the rain and I don't often have stale beer.
I read once that the best pesticide a garden can have is the gardener's own shadow. I've taken to plucking up the little slimers and, depending on how altruistic I'm feeling, disposing of them in various ways. Initially, I'd just grab 'em in my bare fingers and lob them into the street where the sun and cars would do their thing. Growing tired of trying to scrape the thick sludge of slug ooze off my fingers, I'd then wrap them in a leaf of some kind so there was no direct contact. What about gloves? First, those, too, due to the incredible volume of slug and snail slime, clotted with the stuff. But mostly I was too unwilling to run up and down 2 flights of stairs to get the gloves because I did not want to be distracted from the battle. One moment's glance away from the enemy and it might roll under a datura leaf and live another day to glut itself.
As the war waged on and they ate more and more of my tomatoes (reseeded on their own from last years plants! no tomato blight here) and my dahlias and my thyme and whatever else they could slither over, I started feeling a little less like a Buddhist believing that all life is sacred and a little more angry. I'd collect them in a big plastic tub and soak them in vinegar to kill them. Why vinegar? I dunno - anger isn't very rational but I think I think it was a reaction against the slime. I wanted to purge them of their slime. And there was something gratifying about watching the bucket burble.
I did think about eating them. No, not raw, though I imagine if you were a very early and/or very hungry human their plumpness might be tempting. Around the same time I was thinking about eating them, so was The Weekly Dig.
Snails are pretty chewy and there's a reason they're served by the French doused in butter and garlic - everything tastes good in butter and garlic - so if they had any real palate value, you could eat them like raw oysters. I don't know about slugs.
Maybe next year.
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