pattycake, pattycake, I’m the baker’s man

Answer the questions in this post and I will reward you with spices from Araby, silks from Cathay.

* * *

I did more than just witness a wedding this past Saturday, of course.

I hit up the Union Square Farmer’s Market for old time’s sake, buying fresh basil and haggling over a ciabatta loaf. I hadn’t intended to buy anything else, but when the butcher pointed out that only grass-fed beef went into her hot dogs I instantly bought a pack. At home, I grilled up some chicken and sandwiched it between the toasted ciabatta, along with the basil, some mozzarella and some tomato slices. I think the chicken pushed it over the edge, as the entire concoction kept threatening to disintegrate in my hands. But I still enjoyed it.

The next morning, per Mia’s recommendation, I toasted some ciabatta slices in the oven with mozzarella, basil and diced tomatoes for a homemade pizza. Just as delicious and much less messy.

So I have ciabatta, basil, tomatoes and grass-fed beef hot dogs in my fridge (mozzarella’s gone). And some grapes. What can I do with these ingredients?

* * *

Non-Bostonians, pay attention: the Red Line, one of the main branches of Boston’s subway (the “T”), starts at Park Street near the Boston Common. It goes north into Cambridge, passing through MIT, Harvard and Tufts before ending at the Alewife T stop.

You see a lot of homeless people at the Park Street, Central Square and Harvard T stops, but significantly fewer at Porter or Kendall/MIT and almost none in Davis. Then you see a bunch of panhandlers at Alewife again, which always strikes me odd because you can’t really walk around Alewife. It’s one of those well-paved strip malls, designed to funnel cars into Dunkin Donuts and CVSs. When James Howard Kunstler talks about places not worth caring about, he means Alewife^*.

Non-Bostonians: I have brought you up to speed.

Everyone: why do homeless people congregate at those T stops and not others? It costs the same amount of money to reach any of those stops. Harvard and Central get a lot of foot traffic, but Alewife gets almost none - the panhandlers there walk from car to car at the Route 2 interchange. Harvard has lots of students, but so does the Kendall/MIT stop. And if you want to rationalize about soft-hearted liberals at Harvard and their generosity to the homeless, let me stop you now: I have never once seen even the flakiest Cambridge Spartacist drop a dime in a beggar’s cup. Boston may slant left, but it’s the coldest left I’ve ever seen.

I want to know why homeless and transients favor certain neighborhoods over others. This would make an excellent project for a grad student, unless the student discovers that panhandling pays better than grad school and is less demeaning.

* * *

Finally, I’ve seen a couple different car washes offering the following promotion in the last month: Ask How You Can Wash Your Car for $1 A Day. I presume this sign advertises some unlimited wash program - $30 a month, let’s say. I’ve seen this offer at several different chains all across Cambridge, Somerville and Watertown, so more than one franchise pushes it.

However, every time I stop and check the prices a little further, I see that you can get a quality car wash - wax, undercarriage rinse, the works - for about $15. So this $30/month plan only pays off if you wash your car more frequently than once every two weeks - in other words, for neurotics only.

Granted, you should not come to me for car wash advice - the rust stains on my hood promoted my car from Sturdy Traveler to out-and-out Beater about a year ago. But does this make sense to anyone else? Should you wash your car more than once every two weeks - more often than you fill its gas tank? If not, what gives?

* * *

Spices and silks, people. Tick tock.

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^* You can reach Government Center, which Kunstler calls out in the linked video, on the Green Line.

hurricanes and faster things

o Good news, everyone: I found the filthiest toilet in Boston.¹ It’s the men’s room in the Borders at Downtown Crossing. The first time I used it, several years ago, I remember I needed a token to open the door but nothing else about the experience. The second time I used it, this past Sunday: disaster!

Picture the worst train station bathroom you’ve ever entered, but with a lone Robert Doisneau print on the wall. A floor awash in urine. Two stalls, one of which won’t stay closed and the other of which o’erflows with solid fecal waste. The soap dispenser hangs on the wall above the trash can, rather than within arm’s reach of the sink, thus guaranteeing fewer people will find or use it.

Can I blame the entirety of its disgusting decline on no longer requiring a token for entry? Yes. Yes, I can.

o I have nothing but good things to say about the lunchtime bartender at the Grafton St Pub in Harvard Square. He not only has an Irish accent, but he’s everything you’d expect of a proper European bartender. Picture that guy in the Stella Artois commercial, trying to pour a beer in a train car and failing, but without the snooty attitude.

o Sometimes when I get out of jiu-jitsu, I notice that the music on the stereo seems about a quarter-step slower. I never notice it at any other time. Still flushed from exercise, I attribute it to the cocktail of adrenaline and oxygenated blood. I’ve worked out so hard that I’ve stepped outside of time. I have a mutant power.

On Tuesday night, driving home from jiu-jitsu, I decided to at least offer a sop to the scientific method and turn on the radio to see if other music sounded slower. It did not.

o I’d fret publicly over how much I still needed to pack, but that wouldn’t accomplish anything. I really ought to be fretting over how many boxes I need to buy.

o My school’s five-year reunion falls this weekend and I don’t know if I’m going. I already have plans on Saturday, so I’ll show up to the Saturday event late if at all. And I’d gladly forego the Friday party if someone had a better offer. Many of my better friends from school can’t make it, many of the rest fall either a year ahead of or behind me, and the few that will be there I see every week anyway.

As I’ve said before: BC was big enough to have subcultures, and for that I’m grateful. Smaller schools tend to drown students in the overwhelming social circle of the same hundred people. But I got to hang with the theater kids. Specifically, the improv kids. Specifically, the improv murder mystery kids. You can’t drill down to that level at St. John’s, let me tell you.

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¹ If you have a website, weblog, LiveJournal or Facebook page, please post the above link, using the text “filthiest toilet in Boston.” I’d like to revive the dormant tradition of Googlebombing as a public service. The people must be warned!

(passion) to play through pain, to love the game (passion) to break the chain, to blaze the flame

I lived immediately adjacent to the Boston Marathon route for 3 years at Boston College without once seeing it. The Marathon literally ran past my front door - both at Castle Greyskull and Sketchy-Six - and I couldn’t be bothered to watch. This year I remedied that.

I caught the 86 at about quarter to ten, taking it from Union Square to three blocks shy of Chestnut Hill Ave. At that point the driver kicked us off, so I walked the rest of the way. I saw the men’s wheelchair competition speed by as I walked downhill and snuck aboard an empty C Line train.

J. (whom I work with) had a keg of Magic Hat and french toast in the oven when I arrived at her place, just behind the St. Mary’s T stop. More friends and coworkers trickled in over the next hour. We stepped out briefly to watch the two leading female runners - Russian Alevtina Biktimirova and Final Fantasy villain Dire Tune - sprint past, then returned indoors for breakfast.

The bulk of the pack hit our stretch by about noon, so we filed into the street to cheer them on. A weird, friendly anarchy prevails on Marathon Monday. Cops lined the street, but so long as you keep your beverage in a red SOLO cup they’d never bother you. The spectators cheered total strangers, urging them to stay strong until the finish, but mercilessly booed girls who darted across the street in drunken packs, clotting up the Marathon’s main artery.

Anyone can cheer on an athlete, but being inches away from marathoners gives you the opportunity to cheer and be recognized. I would yell wild sports cliches at every runner I saw, calling them out by what they wore. “Yeah, Dana Farber!” I cried, for a team that ran for the titular cancer institute. “One more mile! You got it!” Watching them tilt their heads wearily and raise their hand in a salute made my afternoon.

“Come on, Children’s! Come on, Tufts! Keep it moving.”

“That’s it, Mass General! One mile! Gimme one mile!”

“It’s actually a mile point two,” someone corrected me, at one point. Probably an MIT grad.

But the high point of the day came when an older guy, already well tanned from the gorgeous day, hit my stretch walking and left it running. “One more mile,” I screamed at him. “Come on! Give me one more! You’re almost there!” I’d like to believe I made the difference for that one guy.

I got a bit of a sunburn but I can’t complain.

they know my name ’cause I told it to them

I gave The Neon Bible another try (the Arcade Fire album, not the posthumous John Kennedy Toole novel) - and it’s not as bad as I first thought! I don’t know if I’d feel a pressing need to see them live if I’d already seen Interpol play within the last 12 months, but I can stand their music better now. I even found myself rocking out, just a little, on the drive in this morning.

Similar feelings about Dismemberment Plan (I owe Jason for bringing these both to my attention, though Elizabeth N. turned me on to D-Plan way, way back in high school). Don’t expect me to revisit Kanye, though.

I fed Pandora a smorgasboard of entries yesterday - I held the cutting board up to its gaping maw and scraped Atmosphere, Interpol, controller.controller, Massive Attack, Chemical Brothers and Otis Redding into it. It spit out a couple interesting recos: Arctic Monkeys, Blue Scholars and The Editors, among others. New fodder, new fodder!

I watched a repeat of America’s Best Dance Crew in the break room at work over lunch on Tuesday. I have the following observations, possibly heretical:

• Sure, Breaksk8, the roller-skating dance crew, is talented, but doesn’t half the novelty lie in the fact that they’re not falling down? It’s like wearing ten pound wristbands while you pop ‘n lock. Lil’ Mama would say, “Your moves weren’t the freshest, but DAMN - how’d you do that with those weights on?” If they were doing the same caliber of moves without skates they wouldn’t have even made the cut. And you don’t get extra points for handicapping yourself … on the street.

• The repeat we saw had a Michael Jackson theme to it, in honor of the 25th anniversary of Thriller (and god damn, that album stands the test of time). One group actually drew “Thriller” as their song to dance to. “Isn’t that cheating?” I asked. “Can’t they just do the Thriller dance? And then J.C. Chasez will say, ‘You guys did the dance from “Thriller.” You win.’” Because that shit is hard. I speak from experience here.

• Status Quo - represent!