3rd House Journal

Dashboards and Engines

[Old Chrysler dashboard, Jamaica Plain, Boston; 9/24/11]

Software programs, including blogging utilities, like to call the user interface housing all your tools a "dashboard." Likewise, the system "driving" the software is referred to as the "engine." Alas, they don't give you a wheel to run it with, just a mouse.

[Engine on the 1938 Chrysler]

Here's the old Chrysler itself, which appeared to be perfectly restored.

[1938 Chrysler, seen on Burroughs St in JP]

 --

I started this post days ago, thinking I'd have time and inspiration to add something clever. (sigh)

Station to Station

[At Stony Brook station, Jamaica Plain, Boston; 9/24/11]

I didn't grow up in the city and even now I live in a suburb and drive the short distance to my job. So I find public transportation perhaps a bit more fascinating than city dwellers who take it for granted. No doubt there is a lot to grumble about, especially for anyone relying on it to get to a job on time every day. But the patterns and people are captivating for a camera-toting visitor. We take the T on weekends occasionally from D's place in the Back Bay to get to places too far to walk to (and even sometimes short distances back home when tired). While Boston is a small, walkable city, there are farther-flung parts requiring transportation, like the Jamaica Plain neighborhood, where we went on Saturday for the annual JP Open Studios event.

The photo above at the Stony Brook station is very similar to one I took two years ago, this time populated with silhouettes of two riders awaiting the next train. While people are almost always more fascinating than patterns, and I admire street photographers who capture people so well, I'm not comfortable doing it myself. Unless of course the people happen to be part of the pattern.

[Prudential Tower in Back Bay, from the Stony Brook T station]

 

Demographics

[Young musicians, Newbury St, Boston; 9/17/11]

In the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston where D lives, the largest population consists of 20-somethings (32.5%) followed by 30-somethings (22.4%) [source]. Only 6.7% are in D's age bracket of 60s and another 11.3% in my age bracket of 50s. People 70 and over add up to a mere 5.5%. It's good and bad. I feel like we (over 50) live in their world, somewhat unseen. Point of fact, at the movie theatre this weekend, a couple of young people tried to cut in front of us as the agent reached to take our tickets, and then apologized, "Sorry, I didn't see you!" We were the only ones in line at the time.

Of course, they bring a lot of energy. It's fun to see the young women dressed up and out having a good time. There's also an amazing amount of first-rate music being played on the sidewalks, generally by Berklee students. The young woman singing in this rock band (below) in front of Zara on Sunday had a fantastic voice. Who knows where she'll end up.

[Street musicians, Newbury St; 9/18/11]

On Saturday afternoon, there was a concert at the Hatch Shell on the Esplanade with bands we'd never heard of. We didn't have time to stop by, but we assumed the deluge of especially-young people (teenagers) on the sidewalks was from that. Then we saw the Hemp Fest on the Boston Common. It reminded D of the '60s. Mostly I was taken aback by the trash strewn everywhere across the Common around the indifferent crowd. Okay, so they're stoners. But if you're trying to advocate for legalization, shouldn't you, like, attempt to make a good impression? I felt old, and vaguely threatened. Which made me think I could imagine how it felt to my my age now in the '60s. Then it also crossed my mind that many of these kids are entering a world with scarce jobs and diminishing prospects, so maybe this is their response. But no one group of people represents everyone. The world holds the stoners and the fashionistas, the geeks and the creatives. At a malleable age, there's plenty of time to go in any direction.

9/11/11

[Schoolchildren's Flag Mural on the Esplanade; 9/11/11]

I went into last weekend determined to mainly ignore the 9/11 10-year anniversary. We spent some time on Saturday just walking around the Back Bay enjoying the beautiful weather. We did stop briefly at the 9/11 Memorial tucked in a quiet corner of the Public Garden. Then in the evening we headed off to a bistro to celebrate my birthday a day early. I also had a moment before dinner to play around with the new camera D gave me to upgrade my old Lumix.

But by Sunday afternoon, I was ready to take a stroll over to the Massachusetts Remembers 9/11 Concert on the Esplanade. It was a beautiful day, as it had been 10 years ago, and people were out enjoying the park as they always do on weekends - running, bicycling, dog-walking and stroller-pushing, sunbathing and picnicking. The first we saw of the event itself as we approached the Hatch Shell was the enormous flag (photo above) made up of 50,000 individual squares of fabric decorated by Massachusetts schoolkids shortly after 9/11/01. Massachusetts as a rule is not a big flag-waving place, but the immediate aftermath of the attacks brought a genuine embrace of country.

The concert area was surrounded by an innocuous metal rail fence with entrances guarded by relaxed looking police and small tables set up to inspect purses and bags. People of all ages and ethnicities milled around inside, women in headcover, men in Sikh turbans, people wearing NYC Firefighters t-shirts and others in Red Sox tees. We listened to some of speakers, including families of people who had flown out of Boston that morning 10 years ago and were lost, politicians, a Muslim chaplain and a Christian minister (both women, interestingly), and servicemen who read a poem. We also ran into Lorianne and her husband at the event (see her post here). The event was lovely, and it reminded me of the days immediately after 9/11 when we felt as one - the world was with us and the country was united. And then it was promptly squandered by those in power who set a course that divided us from the world and divided us within, weakening us financially and morally. I could go on, but it's tiring and pointless. Meanwhile, here are some of my photos from the weekend.

[Newbury St, Boston; 9/11/11]

I started this post days ago but I've been too busy or exhausted to finish it. Besides work, I've had a lot of chances to see friends I haven't seen in ages, which has been great and nourishing. But downtime has been a little hard to come by. The warm, humid weather of the week suddenly turned quite cool and fall-like yesterday after a downpour. I haven't found time yet to dig out my fall clothes...

Fractured Reflections

[Sunday School Building, Christian Science Center Plaza, Boston; 9/5/11]

Fragmented images from the long weekend: a somewhat doubtful start on Friday night healthwise, improvement Saturday and a sallying forth into the world (or its local microcosm) for a few afternoon hours, further afield up the coast on Sunday, and then the world came to us on Monday (or at least a multitude of its college students, who descended upon the city like a semi-sophisticated, strategically tattooed occupying army). Labor Day Weekend in Boston begins with an emptying out as the tide pulls everyone far out onto the shoals and then washes them back in like a tidal wave on Monday.

While street musicians continue to entertain Bostonians in the summer, it takes the college students, particularly those from the Berklee School of Music but not limited to them, to really get things moving. On Saturday, we found The Saxyderms from Tufts in the Public Garden.

[The Saxyderms, Public Garden, Boston; 9/3/11]

On Sunday, we took a drive up to through Gloucester to Rockport for our annual pilgrimage to its mixture of quaint and tacky (shacks and shops) and truly magnificent (the Shalin Liu Performance Center and the lovely views from the harbors).

[Old Harbor, Rockport, MA; 9/4/11]

On Monday, we stayed in the city, taking a short walk over to the IM Pei-designed Christian Science Center Plaza (photos at top and below), where a lone, tiny, remote-control speedboat zipped up and down almost the entire 646-foot long reflecting pool (which, alas, is about to be shortened "slightly" by upcoming renovations - hopefully it will retain its striking beauty).

For more photos of the weekend, see my Flickr set.