Mini Snow Towers

Someone stacked chunks of snow into lots of little towers around the Boston Public Library. I wonder how much time they spent and if they did it at night or during the day when people could watch.

Things like this make me happy.

Obama in Boston

Not only in the city, but across the street from my office.

Dartmouth Street was blocked to cars and pedestrians between Boylston and Stuart.

Midnight, Orange Line

Last night I went to a concert that ended late; it was midnight before I got on the T to go home. While nothing bad has ever happened to me on the T, riding it at night is a phobia of mine and I was should've-skipped-the-concert nervous about riding it by myself at that hour. I was planning escape routes and things to say if someone demanded my money.

In the Downtown Crossing station where I got on, a boy, late teens or early 20s, was studying the subway map and asked me how to get to Roxbury. He was cute enough to disrupt my normal standoffishness. I told him I was going that way and pointed him toward the track. We waited on the platform together and I was happy when he kept talking. He told me he was going to the mosque in Roxbury; I knew where it was and we talked about its recent opening. He was my height and very slim with acne and scruffy cheeks, and he had an accent from some nation in the Middle East.

We'd stop talking and watch for the train and then start talking again -- smalltalk, which normally I'm lousy at. He told me about how he was going to the mosque to pray because (he said it sheepishly) he'd already missed one prayer that day. When he finished praying he needed to eat a lot because he's supposed to fast during the day. (I asked if he gets hungry and he said with a sneaky grin, you just eat a giant breakfast to make up for it.) He's from New York, visiting Boston for one day, for reasons I didn't catch; had taken a Greyhound bus to get here. He asked if I was in *university* and I said no, not for a long time.

The T came and I sat beside him. He had on a blue hoodie and was holding his phone; I checked to see if it was an iPhone, but it wasn't, but he saw me looking at it and bashfully showed me his wallpaper, which was a photo of himself, I think on a bus. "Self-portrait?" I said, and he smiled. By this time I was smitten enough to start worrying about his safety and well-being after he got off the T. "Where will you stay tonight?" I asked. "At the mosque?"

He said no, that after he prayed he would head back downtown to look for a 24-hour cafe so he could eat all night before sunrise, for Ramadan. I remembered that the T stops running for the night; I tried to explain but I don't think he understood that he was certain to miss the last train and get stranded in Roxbury. He got off at his stop and said "Take care" and I said "You too." And I felt bad about him eventually discovering that the T had closed while he'd been praying, and I hoped he had enough cab money to get where he wanted to go.

But by then I was almost home too, and I'd been so busy talking I'd forgotten to be afraid. Whatever his name was, he was like my little T angel. I hope he got home OK.

Overheard at the Farmer's Market

1. "I have six ears."

2. "When my significant other talks to me, he meows."

Copley Square Farmer's Market

Something about sun-dappled berries and veggies makes me happy. Or maybe it's just all of the colors at every booth.

In which I finally see the Shepard Fairey exhibit at the ICA

Once when we were eating lunch at our favorite place in Chinatown, Maggie pointed out a Shepard Fairey graffiti on the building across the street. I said "Oooh" and felt cultured.

On Saturday I finally made it to the ICA to see his exhibit.

The Andre The Giant stuff, the various portraits, record covers, concert posters -- these were all cool. Bold, clean lines on hyperdetailed mini-image collages could keep your eyes interested for hours. I'm not a museum person and suspected I'd feel self-conscious "looking at art," but the detail in the stuff made me want to examine it. I don't much care about the "meaning" of a piece as much as I liked to get right up close to see how he put them together.

But while I was looking at this stuff -- which was cool & interesting but only cool & interesting -- the Obama Hope poster was on my mind. Would it be there? Or was the little Obama portrait in the portait room with Johnny Cash and MLK all I was going to get?

The exhibit didn't disappoint, of course: the Hope poster is there -- it has a wall to itself and is much bigger than I imagined. I pretended not to be phased by it as I walked up to have a look, but it has the wow factor the other pieces lack. I felt very satisfied to see in person one of the most famous images in the world.

While the Fairey exhibit spanned four or five large rooms and showcased dozens of pieces (several as big as highway billboards), the rest of the museum was pretty skimpy. But Chris reminded me that the ICA isn't strictly a museum -- I guess there's other things going on on the other floors.

The building is art in its own right. It sits right on Boston Harbor and has huge glass walls that offer a mesmirizing view of the city.

All in all a worthwhile visit.

Southwest Corridor

For more than two years, I have worked near the east entrance to the Southwest Corridor that runs parallel to Boylston Street. I guess I always thought it was just another sidewalk.

Today I learned how wrong I was - I took the passageway to Mass Ave to get to Whole Foods. It's beautiful! Parks and flowers and a tennis court and lots of dogs walking and playing!

I was on this bus!

Six bus passengers were taken to hospitals this morning with neck and back injuries after an MBTA bus driver stopped suddenly to avoid hitting another vehicle near the Forest Hills T Station, according to a transit spokesman.

The Route 32 bus hit the brakes at 8:30 a.m. to avoid hitting a van that pulled out in front of it, said Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority spokesman Joe Pesaturo in an e-mail.

I was the last one to get on and was standing up near the driver. I held on as people dominoed into me. Lucky that I had a good grip on the handle and didn't go through the windshield! But surviving unscathed made me feel big & strong.

Love Train?

I'm sure meeting your future spouse on the commuter rail would make that vehicle from hell more endearing than it was in my experience. But still, getting married on the train?

That's liable to be the longest, slowest, most delayed, most frustrating, most uncomfortable, most overpriced, most squished-between-two-fat-peoplest, most obnoxious-guy-watching-Lost-on-his-laptopest, most breakdowniest, most unreliable wedding ceremony ever!

The happy couple will honeymooning at South Station...

Poe Square!

I'm all for Boston having an Edgar Allan Poe Square, but does the intersection of Charles Street and Boylston really stir Poe-y feelings in anyone's heart? It may be near his birthplace, but when I think of Poe I think of him writing The Pit and the Pendulum in a mad frenzy and then falling into a gutter drunk. By Emerson and the Common, in view of PF Chang and the Four Seasons, is not a good place to fall into a gutter drunk. The only thing that can be said to be macabre about the area is perhaps the creepy way the Cold Stone Creamery people burst into song. But if a raven nests on the street sign, I'll shut up.

Green Peace Guy

Upon settling in at a table at Brugger's Bagels...

Maggie: So I was walking down the street, and I saw these three Green Peace people. I was just going to walk by because I was in a rush to get here, but as I passed I noticed that one of them was shockingly goodlooking. He had buzzed hair -

Ben: I know that guy. Amazing eyes and a smile that would make you religious?

Maggie: Yes!

Lunchtime photography

I went out during lunch to buy some birthday cards. When I got back to work a lady outside asked me to take her picture with the Locke & Ober sign. She explained exactly how she wanted it taken (landscape, not portrait) and even had me pose for the shot so she could figure out the best angle.

When she gave me the camera she insisted that I put the camera string around my wrist.

I took the first shot and showed it to her, fully expecting it not to be acceptable. I was preparing myself to spend my lunch hour snapping pictures of this lady and her overpriced restaurant. But after all that setup, she looked at the picture and said, "Eh, that's fine." She thanked me and walked away.

Get it while it's hot!

Now's your chance: Boston's Hancock Building is up for sale.

Quote of the Day

"Suspect Fairey continues to engage in a constant and systemic assault on Boston neighborhoods."

--Affidavit requesting Shepard Fairey's arrest.

Note the assault in the photo below. I hardly think five pictures of Andre the Giant demanding your allegiance counts as an assault on anyone's neighborhood.


I'm reminded of our Aqua Teen Hunger Force incident from a couple years ago and I suspect Boston is just doing its best to look as unhip as possible.

OBEY Fairey. Cont'd.

Me: Speak of the devil, Shepard Fairey was in Boston last night for an event at the ICA (he has an exhibition running through August) and he got arrested on his way there. Two outstanding warrants.
Me: Good. He belongs in jail.
Me: How can you say that? He's a great graffiti artist.
Me: Art shmart. His stuff belongs in an evidence book, not a museum.
Me: The article says he's been arrested 14 other times. It's awesome that he's willing to suffer for his art.
Me: Fourteen's not enough. And he's not suffering -- he's an attention hog.
Me: He makes things beautiful and interesting.
Me: He defaces other people's property.
Me: Ugh. You know, this is why writing my graffiti-writer story is so difficult. You.
Me: The one with your precious São Pauloan graffiti writer?
Me: Yes. He's supposed to be the hero of the story.
Me: Don't blame me if I'm turning him into the criminal he is.
Me: I won't let you.
Me: Just watch.
Me: You're such a Gollum.
Me: You're such a Smeagol.

Quote of the day

"In a statement posted on the state's website at 5 a.m., [Governor] Patrick also urged businesses to tell employees not to come to the office today in an effort to avoid the gridlock that gripped the state last time a major storm struck during the afternoon commute."

--Posted by Ben... from the office.

(Hat tip: Co-worker Aaron, who diligently quantifies our misery....)

Mail

Every time I mail a letter I find it a little impossible to imagine it will get where it's supposed to go. The postal service is as mysterious as God.

Quote of the Day

"He wanted to have sex under the stairwell. I was like, I ain't having sex under no stairwell. I ain't having sex in no creepy alley either. I'm a princess."

--High school girl on the T.

Death and the Ring

On my way to the gym, the transit police and ambulance service people were covering the body of a dead guy on a stretcher. I couldn't see who it was or if it was any of the homeless men who are typically around Back Bay Station.

In the locker room, when I pulled my shirt over my head, it snagged the stone on my ring and tore it out. I found the stone on the floor, placed it carefully in the locker thinking the jewelry store could easily pop the stone back into the setting.

Before leaving the gym, I put the ring back on my hand but had no safe place for the stone, so I decided to hold it between my fingers until I got back to my desk.

This was successful until I got to the Vanguard Medical building by Back Bay Station. My faced itched. I scratched it with the hand holding the stone. And pop! It snapped out from my fingers and I didn't see it drop.

I put down my gym bag, pulled back my hair and got down on my knees to start scouring the brick. It must have bounced into a crack.

The more I looked, the more it wasn't there. People walked by staring at me like I was a crazy person. Tears started to form. Now I'm crazy and crying, I told myself.
After 15 minutes of crawling on the brick mere feet from where someone died a half hour earlier, the tears were getting too heavy and I couldn't see through them. I gave up.

Back at my desk, feeling sorry for myself, I took the clothes out of my gym bag. The little blue stone plopped onto my desk. It hadn't fallen in the street, it had fallen into my bag.

Bizarre Quote for the Day

A woman is walking a very large dog, white with black spots, in Downtown Crossing. Two guys observe.

Guy 1: What is that?
Guy 2: It's a Dalmation.
Guy 1: A Dalmation?
Guy 2: It's a Dalmation mixed with a hound.

It was a Great Dane.