Boston Night Riders . . . buck naked!

They left their convening site at Boston Common Band Stand at 10 p.m. tonight, June 29, and hit the road on their Fourth Annual World Naked Bicycle Ride Boston to raise awareness! It worked. I was walking from the Kendall Sq. movie, just in front of MIT on Mass Ave., when a slew of nude cyclists flew by. I fumbled for my camera to catch some skin before they passed.

One guy was on roller blades with all his glory swaying in the evening summer breeze. Amazing the sights one can see for free around Boston and Cambridge!

Is there any meaning left to: It doesn't matter whether you win or lose but how you run the race? Go Boston Bruins!

If you click on this picture you can really appreciate the players

Somewhere under the rainbow people shine . . .

As I walked home from a meeting on Peterborough Street past the Victory Gardens heading toward the Prudential, the light shining through the rain told me there had to be a rainbow somewhere. Once I hit Boylston Street, there it was, a double rainbow, too. Everyone stopped to record the phenomenon with their smart phones. Everyone smiling, chatting with strangers at the miracle. Happiness everywhere. What is it about a rainbow that makes us all giddy?

If you look closely you can see the second, fainter rainbow arching across the sky.

Proclaim your rarity to the world . . . Gay Pride, Pirate Cruising, or Animé . . . Boston offers a parade of opportunities for self-expression.

The Boston Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence full of Pride.

In spite of the 7-hour power outage that blackened my neighborhood this morning around 3 a.m., I love living on Boylston Street! Even without checking the papers or websites for Boston events—just walking out my front door— I run smack into surprises.
Last month there was the Annual Animé festival where thousands of people dressed up as popular animation characters.

Yesterday I encountered folks preparing for the Gay Pride parade and the Pirate Cruise and Pub Crawl, two events that always happen on the same day every year. Once again, I wanted to show you some of the characters I tend to meet on a weekend amble along Boylston.
But what all of these "characters" have in common is a burning desire to create an alter ego that in some way enables to them to leave the every-day self behind. So much of our lives we do try to fit in, do the right thing, be responsible, and that is all very worthy, but where are the moments of wild abandon when we can find a way to display our creative fireworks and to burn them brightly? Being part of a community, a movement, a parade, a culture that supports that self-expression is what these festivals and exhibitions of inhibitions released are all about. Nurturing our individuality out there in the real world even if it's only one day a year can open up not only ourselves, but the people who come to witness us as we proclaim our rarity to the world.

Characters from Comicopia.com ready to join in the gay pride parade.

On her way to the Pirate Cruise and Pub Crawl

Twists and twirls as flags unfurl . . . spinning us forward with new pride.

The events of last week—the twin bombs at the Marathon Finish Line and the stranger-than-fiction manhunt that culminated in the arrest of suspect #2 — have left many of us feeling our allegiance to the flag greatly renewed. As people look away from their electronic devices and toward eye-to-eye contact and real time conversation with strangers, family members, and friends, the sense of community grows. Annoyances of New England blizzards, scorching summer days, and massive traffic jams suddenly pale in the light of our newly invigorated Patriotic emotions. Patriot's Day will surely never be the same as the war zone came home.

From bouyant anticipation to anguish

When I posted those happy photos of marathon hopefuls on April 14, like the subjects in my photos, I had no idea of the horror that was going to strike my neighborhood. Away for the weekend, I became aware of the attacks only after receiving a call from a concerned friend who asked if I was OK and then told me about the explosions near the finish line. I stayed glued to the TV for the next few days.

Last night when I got off the commuter rail at Yawkee Station I walked to my apartment which is just outside the "crime scene." It wasn't until early this morning when I tried to go to Trader Joe's and to view the results of the attack that I was still banned from entering the zone. The images I am posting today were just a tiny bit of what I saw. The paper (above) taped to the fence at the corner of Massachusetts Ave. and Boylston St. was the first thing I saw. I was able to enter the Prudential center from the Huntington Avenue side and from the food court looking out toward Boylston I could see that all the stores, including Trader Joe's and Staples were all closed.

Later this morning I'll be heading to North Station and boarding another commuter line to Andover. I'm sure I'll see many signs of Boston's current state of heightened security.

Spring Scenes of Boston.

Not much to say today in the midst of this idyllic weather when everything is bursting forth with newborn greenery and blossoming so I thought I'd share a few shots from my travels around Back Bay and the Fenway the last couple of days. Enjoy.

Ukelele playing Rick in the luscious lair of his Fenway Victory Garden plot.

The army of Pedicabs are out in high style to bring folks to Fenway Park or anywhere else. They're free; you offer a tip and that's how they make their living.

Sunday brunch at Sonsei along Newbury Street. Elegant. Cheerfully noisy.
Great art on the walls. Tasty fare that pleasantly fills the gut but doesn't empty out the pocketbook.

 

 

Under the blossoms of a tree in the middle of Fenway Victory Gardens.

"Under-the-Radar Clothing Event" . . . Designers Circus in Allston

President and Ringmaster of the Designers Circus in Allston, Kathleen O'Neill—long time fashion designer—decided to bring her stash of designer contacts together under one roof. Rather than following the normal retail model, Designers Circus offers only what it calls selected "shopping days" on Saturdays and Wednesdays. In the case of this Spring 2012, there are only 7 days and four of them have already passed! March 31, April 4, and April 7 are still remaining. But then their Mother's Day Sale starts up again on April 25. You'll have to check their website for other sale dates.

The Circus offers Contemporary Boutique Women's Clothing in sizes 2-18 at 50-80% off retail prices. Kathleen writes that her Designers Circus is an under-the-radar clothing event, a sample sale, a warehouse sale, a pop up store, and an experience in "social shopping" all in one. The fitting room is just that, one room. Women try on things in the one large room very much ala Filene's Basement or Loehman's, but the similarities to those other places end there. Kathleen fills her racks with one-of-a-kind treasures you won't find in a standard department store.

 Much of the dramatic costume jewelry (Kathleen is wearing one of the pieces) you'll find at the Designers Circus are made by local artists. One jeweler, Louise Loewenstein of Zip Bling Jewelry, uses zipper parts to create dazzling chokers. If you look closely at the necklace below you'll begin to recognize the common shape of the bottom part of a zipper.

 Being of lean pocket book these days, I was happy to find a $10 rack as well as many items that had been deeply reduced. Here is a detail from an Guatemalan jacket with bone button I purchased tonight for under $50. It's perfect for adding some spring colors to my wardrobe while the air is still cool.

If you like the unusual, the flowing, the colorful, and the sleek, you'll find it all at the Designers Circus at One Braintree Street, Allston MA, or if you're closer to Maine, you can take advantage of the Portland Event Sale Days of Designers Circus at 58 Fore Street, Portland ME.

What matters when color goes away in the middle of a black out?

On Friday, three days after the Back Bay Blackout, electricity had been restored, but there was no fresh dairy in the coolers at the local CVS on Massachusetts Avenue.

The prompt I used with my Wednesday night writing class was “what matters?” from Pat’s Schneider's

book, Writing Alone and with Others. She is the founder of the Amherst Artists and Writers method of creative writing that I have been teaching since 2004. Here's what I wrote that was inspired by the blackout in Back Bay Boston as a result of the explosion of two transformers on Tuesday night at 6:30 that left this part of the city in darkness for over 2 days. Take a look at the YouTube video I found on line the morning after the explosion. I've tagged it on to the end of this blog post.

What matters more? The crunch of a corn chip or the creamy mush of a mashed potato?

 What matters is the pesticide count. How much poison are you willing to chew and swallow. What matters if you’re in a third world country is not the pesticide, hormone, whatever count but whether or not you have something to eat.

Today (Wed. 3/14/2012) I walked block after block through the streets of Back Bay in search of a restaurant. It was after 2 and I hadn’t even had breakfast. All the restaurants were dark. All the windows dark. The traffic lights dark. Policemen in day-glow green/yellow jackets and black pants directed the traffic by hand motion and whistles and the bags and bundles people carried were crumpled, recycled ones since no stores were open. I did see a few people with their coats on, huddled inside locked restaurants by the plate glass windows. Probably employees who hadn’t known they’d spend the day waiting for the lights to come on.

As I walked the dark streets I imagined how easily our lives could change without electricity. All that food rotting in coolers and freezers. Even Whole Foods was closed.

Money, ATMs. Nothing functioned. No commerce. No classes. No conferences. What matters? What matters is the difference between temporary and permanent. We don’t live in a war zone, but we could. Finite interruption vs. infinite or permanent absence of what we’ve always known and taken for granted. A vibrant culture plunged into darkness. What’s the phrase? Not amenities, but roads and bridges, utilities, water? Infrastructure.

And then I ask myself if there's another lesson here. What matters in the middle of an emotional storm is to ask: finite or infinite? Temporary interruption vs. destruction.

What matters? That I can see the lines on this note pad. That I have the table on which I rest my feet, the light to see how the orange clementines—soft, round and dimpled—dance with the orange fabric draped over the fainting couch to blend with the terra cotta metal frame that holds up the table and how the color of the frame blends with the terra cotta tone of the rug and picks up the same color in my scarf. How these small details matter and yet they do, especially in contrast to the dark streets of Boston. Dark, even in broad daylight. A darkness that people on another side of the world live with without any choice. 

For me on that day I had a choice. I kept walking and ended up at the Yard House near Fenway Park. On its third day of operation, it had escaped the black out fate and was up and running with a great menu. (I ordered the lunched size angel hair pasta. It was as good as anything I've enjoyed in Italy.)

Today I went to Whole Foods and Trader Joe's and asked how people coped when the lights went out. 

Lots of food got thrown out. Dry ice was brought in. In the case of WF, refrigerated container trucks arrived on Tuesday night to store salvageable food. 

Without a TV on Tuesday night I was able to get online and was appalled by the number of people who commented with their annoyance that the TV news alert about the explosion had made them lose time watching Jeopardy! I guess unless you have a visceral experience of being in the middle of a crisis you just can't get how it's effecting others. It's just another temporary interruption. Finite.

Here is a YouTube video that captured the black smoke in the area:

Spring tease: Sixty degrees in January

Determined to get a walk in today in Back Bay, I wasn't able to get outside and move until after 3 p.m. This is what I saw. Amnesia for the little traces of snow still melting. Windows flung open. Ice cream cones. Layers of clothing left behind. A whisper of what awaits around the bend of the season. Patience.

No surface left untouched . . .

Late Friday night I was too tired to cook for myself so I thought I'd get some Chinese take-out. When I walked through the doors of Mandarin Cuisine on Highland Ave on the Needham/Newton line I was hit with an astounding collection of decorative painting and trinkets, not just on a few surfaces, but everywhere.

As I waited for my food to emerge in its plain brown paper bag, I wandered around the restaurant with my jaw dropped. Not only had the owner Leslie painted walls, cabinets, ceilings, and tables with bold strokes of paint and color, he had "recycled" corks, metallic wrappers, bottle caps, and all sorts of stuff into the walls and ceilings, he had fearlessly personalized the bodies of his flat screen TVs and computers with his paint brushes. No surface had been ignored. It all started, Leslie told me, when the cabinet behind the front desk started to look old and dilapidated. Instead of replacing it, he refaced it with decoration.

Long after my food was ready I was still looking at his handiwork. He had created shades out of chicken coop wire and silk and suspended them below recessed lighting. You can see images of those below. I've been trying to decide whether to replace my kitchen cabinets in my tiny Boston apartment or just paint them. After feasting on the visual and culinary creations at Mandarin Cuisine, I'm leaning towards the resurfacing approach. If you click on the photos if you're reading this in my actual blog vs. my facebook page, you'll be able to see incredible detail. Enjoy.

Leslie peers out below from his decorated flat screen TV.