Morning-- Too goddamn early. I wake to go to the airport. My flight leaves at 7:20 AM, which means, according to my family, that the only appropriate time to arrive for a flight, if it leaves at 7:20 AM, March 1, 2009, is to arrive sometime a few winters previous, maybe late January, 20o7, at about 2:53 AM. That is, barring any inclement weather, in which case, your arrival should be no earlier than autumn, 1986.
A few bits of hygiene care later, we are off, racing down the highway in the damp, blurry pre-dawn, the first few fingers of light clutching the western mountains as it hunted us.
Check-In has changed since the last time I flew. In the days of yore (about a year ago, anyway) check-in consisted of staring down an unnervingly cheery attendant, who smile and bat their eyes at you, even as they tell you that, yes, in fact, shaving cream is a weapon and you cannot bring it on the plane. However, the ripostes with Air Travel bureaucracy are nullified by the replacement of those eerily chipper attendants by LCD screens. Why bother with pesky employment, with its 'salaries,' and 'benefits,' and 'genuine human interaction,' When you can have mass mechanization? Brilliance, I tell you! This change, in effect, has created a sort of check-in bottleneck, where passengers do all the work themselves, and where once these desks were manned by at least five attendants, they now are manned by one to two employees who flit from computer to computer, checking everybody's IDs. That's all.
After this disheartening experience, I was hoping for painless air travel, with a nice movie and some reliably atrocious airline food. My hopes, to my utter dismay, were half-dashed. The trip was uneventful, enjoyable even. It flew by quickly with the help of a book and a catnap. But instead of the cumbersome, blocky (but blissfully gratis) headsets from the air-travel of my childhood, the quaint, semi-unconstitutional-but-mostly-just-ethically-iffy edited in-flight movies have been replaced by tiny 'digeplayers,' on which passengers can watch almost anything, for only $10, credit card only. And the meals, my god, the meals! Using the sort of advertising language that makes me want to wretch, the front pocket included a pamphlet which described different 'picnic baskets' which could be purchased for $5. So, great! A picnic basket!... On a plane. Right.
The only other harrowing portion of the journey pertained to the skittish woman seated next to me, who scooted over to the window seat the second the plane door was closed and we were free to do with our row as we pleased. It wasn't so much that she did it, had I been in her situation, I would have done the same thing, but she was so quick about it, it was rather strange. The other portion pertained to the man sitting behind me, who, in what I've come to expect from American Exceptionalism, felt it was his prerogative to talk on the phone as long as he wished, regardless of FAA regulations which state phones must be turned off.
Boston--
Upon arriving in Boston, I found a very simple, streamlined process to retrieving my luggage, and I was greeted by Laurel, one of the friends I was staying with here. We then took the bus to the train station (colloquially, 'the T.') This took us a little longer than expected, as we took the wrong bus, thusly receiving an extra tour of Logan International, which is a lovely concrete block, definitely worth that second, superfluous trip.
The T is just as it sounds. It has multiple lines running through the city. My first glimpse of which, as we exited the tunnel (the train is like the bastard child of a subway and a trolley, some parts are on ground, others, beneath it) was of a gigantic Barnes and Noble, which serves as both bookstore and school bookstore for Boston University. Near to that was a brick building, sitting like an old man among teenagers in the city, with a tower, and old-archictecture (none of the few archictectural terms of which I know to describe this building are springing to mind, of course.) This intermingling of old and new which is rampant throughout the city is clearly visible on the bus ride back to Laurel's apartment. But in the day since arriving, at the time I'm writing this, I've been able to see much more of the city, and indeed, the whole place is littered with these brick neo-classical relics seated next to glass and concrete behemoths of modernity.
No where is this marvelous reuse of the cities old buildings more evident than the place Jake and Laurel live. Chopped up from an old house into apartments, it was probably built in the early 19th century, what with its vaulted ceilings, closed up fireplaces, gorgeous moulding, perennially squeaky wood-flooring and like just about every old building ever, staircases seemingly made by dwarfs suffering from vertigo.
On Tuesday, I took the commuter train from Boston out to Newburyport. It took me a bit of running about, asking for directions from almost everyone, and made it onto the train with only a minute to spare. As a rule, on public transit I try always to sit next to little old ladies, for they are generally composed of sweet natures. So, I wandered up the aisle, looking for an open seat, finally finding one near the front of the car. Politely, I asked to sit. Expecting a voice crackling from years of over-perfuming and Better Homes recipes, instead, the woman growled at me like a bear and snapped "Kid, do whateva you want." At that point, I was so embarrassed I couldn't even move on, I just sat down and cowered.
Luckily, crazy old bear lady got off after two stops, and I was able to look out the window at the passing towns. The land is dotted with groves of leafless oaks rising above frozen marshes, cut through every so often by half-frozen rivers. Which is a nice way of saying 'swampy.' The outlying suburbs, filled not with the cookie-cutter homes with sprawling driveways and massive chainstores, are instead beautiful entities unto themselves, made up of brick-and-ivy storefronts and dutch colonials stacked neatly against each other. This subtle bit of city planning is significant in that it shows that even in America, there are places where our outlying cities have not splayed themselves out entirely for the benefit of cars. Where western suburbs are made with automobiles in mind, (the age old question: which came first? the suburb or station wagon?) every place, be it a home or a business, feels it has a prerogative to provide more-than-adequate parking space. Part of what makes the central city such an artfully compact wonder is that it disregards this equation.
Newburyport exists in this vein. It is comprised of beautiful colonial homes, its high school is an old georgian ogre, just fun to look at. My hosts (one of whom was engaged in the town governance) while driving me through town, were giddy to point out a home built in the late 17th century, and, to my delight, positively rueful when we passed through the newer chain-store consumerist hellholes.
Antithetical to the graceful aging of the city and the suburbs is that this place is filthy. It's hard to determine what these people hate more: taxation without representation or brooms. I mean, I know these people live in a swamp, but c'mon.
Also slightly antithetical, but mostly just aggravating is the way that people treat one another. I've never considered the west coast a particularly courteous area, yet compared to Bostonians, Oregonians (or, by extension, most Westerners) are like Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. On the T coming home from Newburyport, there were a group of rich kids discussing where to get off, in relation to where they parked. During this conversation, a man dressed in punk attire entered the train. He stumbled slightly over my feet, and apologized. I motioned that it was fine. He was only on for a stop, but heard enough of the rich kids' discussion to say, before exiting "yeah, you should get off at Park and you'll be fine." He then exited the train.
There was a momentary pause before the rich kids, as well as another local, began mocking the man.
"What the fuck wazzat?"
"Who the fuck he think he is?"
"Di' we ask him? Di' we ask 'wheh should we go?' Fuckin' tourist."
"Whyn'cha fuckin' get awf at Wonderland, then see wheh you're at, fuckin' mook."
Of course, then they got off at Park.
A few minutes after that, a tall, stuttering man came rushing into the car, asking if he could borrow someone's cellphone. No one offered, and I felt bad. I pulled mine out, checking the reception bars. We were underground, so, naturally, barely any reception. I'm about to apologize to the man for my lack of reception, when the local from the first interaction blurts out,
"You won' get no reception down heeah."
At this point, I handed the phone to the stuttering man, just as a fuck-you to the local. The man needed help dialing, so I helped him. Sadly, the phone, being spurned by reception bars, didn't even dial out. The man thanked me, and I apologized that I couldn't be more helpful.
The local then looked down at me, smirked, and spat "Nice try."
I just looked back at him hard and shrugged.
Thursday, Jake and I decided to wander to the older portions of Boston and walk "The Freedom" trail, which is, as it sounds, a delightful trail of bricks lain down going around to different historic sites in Boston, including the Common, the old State House, Faneuil Hall and the Granary Graveyard.
The Granary Graveyard was its own block of the city, filled with both little weathered near-anonymous gravestones, and massive, hulking phallic memorial columns symbols of our nation's forefather's virility. (John Hancock's was circumcised, thank God.) Walking around, though, it was hard to see why the city couldn't just assign someone to come in and at least shovel out decent pathways, much less get the snow away from these stones, already badly beaten by the elements.
Meandering up the path, we passed both the gravestone of John Adams, and his very much non-jewish friend, Hancock. (I am doing my best to refrain from the easiest of jokes.) In the far end of the yard lay the gravesite of Paul Revere, (the town loves him) which was easily the tourist highlight. In front of Jake and me, two middle-aged hipsters were taking pictures of practically every gravestone whose engraved words were still visible, and when they happened upon Revere's grave, they guffawed over "never hearing about him before." And one of them, determined to get a good photo, knelt down next to the memorial stone (not the actual grave), his friend with the camera lining up the shot, and he set his starbucks cup on Revere's grave, so that it wouldn't be in the shot, of course.
Now, I'm not a hugely proud American. Pride is such a weird concept. I have a hard time with people who exhibit pride in being things they didn't choose to be (White, American, even Gay, Presbyterian, a radiator, the number 4) and neither do I subscribe to any thoughtless hero-worship of the founding fathers. I'm certainly not above mocking them if the situation permits and the joke arrives. But to see a starbucks cup carelessly strewn over a man's grave like its his personal coffee table is pretty pathetic. But I guess I'm glad his twitter-account will have this killer pic of some old guys' tombstone.
This sort of aggravation only grew worse with the continuation of the trail. At one of the next stops, we found The Old Corner Bookstore Building, a place which once published the writings of "Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stow, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Greenleaf Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Charles Dickens and Louisa May Alcott." Of course, this location is no longer a publisher. It's naturally become a jewelry store known as Ultra Diamonds, advertising 'ridiculous' 80% off sales prices. I'm glad that a place which once celebrated the birth of a country which celebrates life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is now inhabited by a company of hacks peddling pieces of carbon mined by wage slaves in Africa.
Further on, a tavern calling itself "the first tavern in America," established in 1795, (though that seems dubious. Did nobody drink from 1620-1795? Puritans, oh Puritans! Still, being sourrounded by swamp-land certainly makes me want to drink. So, someone in 175 years MUST have had a drink.) was now filled with buzzing television sets buzzing with sports, and their taps were filled with Sam beer, and only Sam Adams (These people love freedom AND shitty beer.)
At this point, I handed the phone to the stuttering man, just as a fuck-you to the local. The man needed help dialing, so I helped him. Sadly, the phone, being spurned by reception bars, didn't even dial out. The man thanked me, and I apologized that I couldn't be more helpful.
The local then looked down at me, smirked, and spat "Nice try."
I just looked back at him hard and shrugged.
Thursday, Jake and I decided to wander to the older portions of Boston and walk "The Freedom" trail, which is, as it sounds, a delightful trail of bricks lain down going around to different historic sites in Boston, including the Common, the old State House, Faneuil Hall and the Granary Graveyard.
The Granary Graveyard was its own block of the city, filled with both little weathered near-anonymous gravestones, and massive, hulking phallic memorial columns symbols of our nation's forefather's virility. (John Hancock's was circumcised, thank God.) Walking around, though, it was hard to see why the city couldn't just assign someone to come in and at least shovel out decent pathways, much less get the snow away from these stones, already badly beaten by the elements.
Meandering up the path, we passed both the gravestone of John Adams, and his very much non-jewish friend, Hancock. (I am doing my best to refrain from the easiest of jokes.) In the far end of the yard lay the gravesite of Paul Revere, (the town loves him) which was easily the tourist highlight. In front of Jake and me, two middle-aged hipsters were taking pictures of practically every gravestone whose engraved words were still visible, and when they happened upon Revere's grave, they guffawed over "never hearing about him before." And one of them, determined to get a good photo, knelt down next to the memorial stone (not the actual grave), his friend with the camera lining up the shot, and he set his starbucks cup on Revere's grave, so that it wouldn't be in the shot, of course.
Now, I'm not a hugely proud American. Pride is such a weird concept. I have a hard time with people who exhibit pride in being things they didn't choose to be (White, American, even Gay, Presbyterian, a radiator, the number 4) and neither do I subscribe to any thoughtless hero-worship of the founding fathers. I'm certainly not above mocking them if the situation permits and the joke arrives. But to see a starbucks cup carelessly strewn over a man's grave like its his personal coffee table is pretty pathetic. But I guess I'm glad his twitter-account will have this killer pic of some old guys' tombstone.
This sort of aggravation only grew worse with the continuation of the trail. At one of the next stops, we found The Old Corner Bookstore Building, a place which once published the writings of "Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stow, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Greenleaf Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Charles Dickens and Louisa May Alcott." Of course, this location is no longer a publisher. It's naturally become a jewelry store known as Ultra Diamonds, advertising 'ridiculous' 80% off sales prices. I'm glad that a place which once celebrated the birth of a country which celebrates life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is now inhabited by a company of hacks peddling pieces of carbon mined by wage slaves in Africa.
Further on, a tavern calling itself "the first tavern in America," established in 1795, (though that seems dubious. Did nobody drink from 1620-1795? Puritans, oh Puritans! Still, being sourrounded by swamp-land certainly makes me want to drink. So, someone in 175 years MUST have had a drink.) was now filled with buzzing television sets buzzing with sports, and their taps were filled with Sam beer, and only Sam Adams (These people love freedom AND shitty beer.)
The rest of the freedom trail, including Paul Revere's house (!) was great, with the exception that in most cases passersby are inundated with streams of advertisements, gigantic multinational companies (Starbucks in particular) who made it their goal to link the American Revolution, every spot of hallowed history to their mission statements, 'proud to be part of the birth of America,' etched onto pieces of useless plastic. I was waiting for a sign saying "Boston Common! Brought to you by Verizon! (Are you in?)"
On further reflection, my frustration with this modern state of our historic sites, a corporate commercialization of practically everything we've tried to deserve is perhaps misplaced. Perhaps it's too idealistic of me to expect we'd keep a purified, reverent attitude toward our history, (for even I lack that) protecting it from such bastardization. But as I looked around, to every nearby Border's, Starbucks, WellsFargo, Ruth's Chris Steakhouse (In the basement of the Old City Hall! And How!) I realize that maybe corporatism is our legacy. It is the disease we've wrought upon the world, and that the Freedom Trail is a testament to that, it was destined to fall prey to corporatism, in fact. That just as we were founded upon the principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (the meaning of which, actually is intended to be 'money',) those principles were only important insofar as they saved the rich founding fathers some money, that perhaps this is the true nature of America. Giving free reign to these enterprises, it is our destiny to consume, consume, consume until we swallow ourselves whole. Perhaps this is the only natural course the country would take. Even one hundred years ago, it's conceivable to imagine a local con-man selling trinkets commemorating these places, cheaply made and cheaply broken, in order to make a quick buck. And now that man is a faceless hedge-fund monolith. The pursuit of happiness. Maybe this is just who we are.
That sounds hopelessly dour.
Final Thoughts on Boston: I love Portland.
On further reflection, my frustration with this modern state of our historic sites, a corporate commercialization of practically everything we've tried to deserve is perhaps misplaced. Perhaps it's too idealistic of me to expect we'd keep a purified, reverent attitude toward our history, (for even I lack that) protecting it from such bastardization. But as I looked around, to every nearby Border's, Starbucks, WellsFargo, Ruth's Chris Steakhouse (In the basement of the Old City Hall! And How!) I realize that maybe corporatism is our legacy. It is the disease we've wrought upon the world, and that the Freedom Trail is a testament to that, it was destined to fall prey to corporatism, in fact. That just as we were founded upon the principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (the meaning of which, actually is intended to be 'money',) those principles were only important insofar as they saved the rich founding fathers some money, that perhaps this is the true nature of America. Giving free reign to these enterprises, it is our destiny to consume, consume, consume until we swallow ourselves whole. Perhaps this is the only natural course the country would take. Even one hundred years ago, it's conceivable to imagine a local con-man selling trinkets commemorating these places, cheaply made and cheaply broken, in order to make a quick buck. And now that man is a faceless hedge-fund monolith. The pursuit of happiness. Maybe this is just who we are.
That sounds hopelessly dour.
Final Thoughts on Boston: I love Portland.
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