I saw Frida (in the picture above, proudly perched upon the signage at JFK) for the first time in a long time yesterday. Diego was off doing his thing, I guess. Frida was sitting there faithfully, pooping on passers-by whenever she got a chance, the little she-devil. The bench nearby was well-pooped upon, I can tell you that.

And the windows that look outbound look like Jackson Pollock spatter paintings, they’ve been so lovingly and artfully shat upon by the talented pigeons of Dot. In fact, here is an *actual* view through one of the windows that looks hauntingly like Pollock’s Lavender Mist:

They are working on a Mondrian in a window looking West, but it’s only about halfway done. Mondrian poses special challenges for pigeons. But it’s coming along.

Hopefully, the pieces of pigeon sticking out willy-nilly from vents above the tracks (in the picture below) are not remnants of Diego:

I have a feeling that without Diego, the Mondrian will never be completed. And although we know he’s a dirty bird in some respects, without his artistic vision, the JFK/UMass T station would not be the hallowed monument to pigeon poop that it is today.

Speaking of dirty birds, did anyone see the bird-flu “scenario” on Dateline, or whatever that evening news show where they do the “Perverted Justice” thing is? Here it is: “OUTBREAK! COULD IT HAPPEN HERE?” The answer is, “yes, if that frizzy-haired blonde passenger zero chick isn’t apprehended and locked away for good!” Personally, I don’t think they made it scary enough. They were acting like it was scary, but it wasn’t. Especially when it was up against Bride of Chucky over on the WB.

They gave the same tired advice they always give about a possible pandemic: keep lots of bottled water and canned food at home. Actually, one of the “experts” they had on said, “not a lot, just enough for six to eight weeks.” Who are these people and how big is their pantry? And what would your roommates say if you, like, came home one day with eight weeks’ worth of canned goods and bottled water? They’d be looking for the shotguns and ammo under your bed, thinking you’d gone all survivalist on ‘em.

Besides, the idea that anyone’s really got the extra cash around to spend on two months of canned goods when there are itunes and games for your xbox and marijuana and crystal to buy is lunacy. What are these people on? Why not just wait until it happens and then loot the supermarkets like everyone else?

Met a friend at the Brattle last night for a movie called Word Play, part of the indie film festival there. The Brattle is a not for profit art cinema, but thank God they’ve just gotten new seats. A lot of art cinemas expect you to suffer for their art. They think it’s quaint to have ratty old seats and a stained old bedsheet to project a worn-out copy of whatever movie they’re showing on. Sorry, but it’s not 1942 in a bombed-out ghetto. Would you go to a restaurant that expected you to sit on a sticky floor and eat your day-old dinner off paper plates with plastic cutlery?

So the seating was better than I remember from the old days. I was definitely happy for that. But by the time we got there, the place was already packed so we didn’t exactly have our choice of seats. It’s a small theater and, actually, I don’t think there’s a bad seat in the house, so it wasn’t a problem, except that I sort of hate making people get up to let me pass.

The only thing I’ll say about the audience in my immediate vicinity is—while most were very well-behaved, as you would expect from the seasoned cineastes that would go to the Brattle, the woman next to me was belching through the whole friggin film. Sometimes they were these silent burps, almost like little onion-flavored yawns, but more often than not she did it right out loud. But all through the movie she was doing it.

My friend said afterwards that she must have had a condition. And I say, that’s well and good, but take care of it before you go out, or rent a movie. Let’s get this straight, there is no God-given right to go to a movie and belch all through it. And if you cannot behave appropriately, either on account of a medical condition, mental disorder, traumatic childhood, ill-socialization, whatever, just stay home, where you can belch to your little heart’s delight. Whatever it is, it’ll come out on HBO shortly. You’re really not missing anything. Because, I’ll tell you this: it’s not worth all the bad karma you’re inviting by going out and befouling the air with your toxic burps. It will come back to you. Count on it.

Despite the nonstop burp-o-rama to my right, I did enjoy the movie. It was not a profound or revelatory experience, but it was enjoyable

After the movie we went to the Algiers, a teahouse next to the cinema. We’d been to the place before, and it has this kind of Bohemian feel to it, but, again, Bohemian has just become sort of code word for dirty and expensive. These places in the heart of Cambridge can’t possibly be authentically bohemian—they are faux-bohemian at best.

As if to prove my point: the waitress would not bring me a beer because I could not produce ID, which is ridiculous, the little nazi. I have not been carded since I was about thirteen. I could not be mistaken for a minor by anyone with even a quarter of a brain in her head. And the notion that she’s just following orders, well, that’s almost as disgusting as the orders themselves. That’s the Nuremberg defense, after all, isn’t it? Must we follow orders that make no sense, or cause undue suffering to others?

I drank water and ordered a bowl of lentil soup. But I can tell you this much: This little Bohemian won’t be going back to Algiers.

Hey, it’s Earth Day! Hooray for Earth! (Disclosure: I’m rooting for Earth to win.)

I’ve been wanting to ask those of you who cycle in Boston if you have ever noticed that no matter what direction you’re traveling, there’s always a headwind? QOTD.

A little shout-out to Charlie D., regarding livablestreets. I went to a forum at the Museum of Science recently that they co-sponsored. A lot of great ideas being implemented elsewhere, definitely worth looking into for Boston.

I should say that when I lived in JP I enjoyed having the greenway right outside my door. JP is fairly bicycle-friendly, but still, I think, focused more on “leisure-cycling,” not actually getting from A to B in a timely fashion. It’s a start, but Boston is the perfect size for a comprehensive network of bike trails that could get you anywhere you wanted to go. We should aim higher.

Anyway, thanks Charlie D., and I encourage everyone to check out livablestreets.com!

And a shout-out to dsaklad, too, who wrote to ask: “How would you compare Bates Hall with other reading room areas around the Boston Public Library buildings’ floors?…” I’m assuming this is a rhetorical question, dsaklad, and if so, it’s a very, very good point.

I don’t really have any major complaints with Da Hall. Even the crazies are well-behaved there, mostly on account of the proactive security personnel, who don’t take no guff. But the truth is you don’t have to be crazy to act the fool in public. In fact, I’m sitting right now in that little cafe-type place in the McKim Building–Sebastian’s–and there’s a perfectly normal-looking fellow in the corner reading something very lengthy on his laptop aloud to himself. Now, in and of itself, there’s nothing wrong with that. I always read what I’ve written out loud before I send it off for publication, for example, because, for some reason, I think it should sound nice. But I wouldn’t do it in the reading room, or in the middle of a cafe, unless I had been asked to a reading, or something, y’know? It’s a matter of sharing public space. It’s about mutual consent as to its uses.

When the students are in their exam period, the library and this little cafe are just crawling with people who seem to be on a mission to outfreak each other. I’ve seen some stunningly pretentious performances, let me tell you. Young people trying to shock with their put-on personae. Sad, really.

It’s like Berklee School of Mucus over on Mass Ave. I pass through the area on my way to the Fens, and all I’ve got to say is they’re all so different they’re the same. Looking freaky is easy enough these days. Doesn’t impress me. It’s an extension of adolescent acting-out. Nothing more, nothing less.

(Meeeeowww! You can tell I’m getting old and crotchety–in fact, yesterday I went shopping and was in the fitting room trying on shirts. I came out to ask the twenty-something clerk if she thought the fitted shirt I had on fit, and she said, “well…” It was snug, but that’s how it’s cut. She was like, “that’s the style, but…” I was like, “but what?” She didn’t want to say it, bless her, but the “but” was something like “but for people half your age.” I bought it anyway.)

What you’ve got in the youth of today is a kind of moral oreo: deeply conservative on the inside, but freaky on the outside. They’re joiners—but so were the hippies and the beats and so on. It’s always been about belonging. To a tribe, sure, but having your face stapled is no different really than wearing a suit everyday. A different team, sure, but essentially the same game.

I remember when Vans were really cutting-edge cool. That’s when the skateboarding subculture was going mainstream in the most obnoxious way. About six months later, everybody was wearing ‘em. I mean, old bag-ladies and bums were tricked out with their double-tongues. Vans are very comfortable. I admit I bought a pair and wore ‘em out, though I have never in my life been on a skateboard.

Point is: you’ve got to put a lot into staying ahead of the curve these days. That’s why tattoos and piercings have gained popularity. Because you have to really want to be part of the tribe to get ‘em.

But it’s all good. When you think about it, how much true originality can one society take?

Anyway, everyone knows the real freaks are the ones everybody says “seemed perfectly normal” before they bit off the heads of ninety-seven live chicks and left them lined up on little toothpick stakes on the State House lawn, or whatever. And no, that wasn’t me.

But back to Bates Hall. The great thing about this brave new world we live in is that, actual schizophrenics are really the least annoying of the lot. It’s a great time to be stark-raving mad, if ever there was one. Because nowadays, it’s those who are mad who often seem most sane.

And “sane” people are always taking advantage of the license we grant the insane in public. It’s like, “well, if crazy people can talk to themselves in public, why can’t I?” Or, you know, “if nutso there on the internet can kidnap his neighbor and cannibalize her, why shouldn’t I be able to, too?”

Manners are memes. It’s all monkey-see-monkey-do. What’s conventional is arrived at by a sort of silent consensus. It’s not what someone says should be done, like the Catholic Church or the Bush Administration would like it to be, it’s what people are actually doing, and when enough people get to talking to themsleves in public or eating their neighbors’ children, then you’ve got what they call a critical mass. Manners don’t always make the best sense. But I do think morals are intuitively obvious to anyone with a little good sense. (Under no circumstances do I condone cannibalism, by the way, in case you were wondering.)

And the monkey-see-monkey-do factor is why it’s even more important to proactively—preemptively—spread positive memes. On Earth Day, and every day!

I’ve gotta tell you, I’m sick of hearing people whine about gas prices, when all I see on my bike commute to Back Bay from Dot is big-ass SUVs with one person in ‘em, backed up for miles along Mass Ave.

The thing that’s vexed me for years is the trend, after 9/11, to buy huge, gas-guzzlin SUVs, in absolute defiance of common sense. News Flash, bitches: driving a gas-guzzler is no one’s God-given right.

Having said that, I can’t see cycling really catching on as a widespread alternative to driving in the States. Even a compact city, like Boston, where every effort should be made to make cycling everywhere more viable, is doing next to nothing to encourage alternative transportation.

There is an infrastructure issue here, but there is a larger impediment to alternative transport, and it is purely psychological. We have built our environment around the car, and now we have a culture that can’t conceive of life without it.

It still cracks me up that people are genuinely puzzled about skyrocketing obesity rates. People are on the move, sure, but they, themselves, are hardly moving. You go to a shopping center and watch people circle around for half an hour so they can get a prime parking spot ten feet from the shop. Heaven forbid they have to walk twenty. I’ll say it again: We are a sad, fat nation in denial.

I can’t say I’d want too many more cyclists on the street, though, the streets here being what they are. It would be even harder to get around than it already is. And cyclists–myself included–are not too keen on following the rules of the road, which makes it difficult to predict what they’re going to do when you encounter them. I will say this: I understand now that I have been cycling in the city for a couple weeks why cyclists act like they do. You wouldn’t get anywhere in Boston if you obeyed the rules. You have to be an aggressive rider to get anywhere.

Back at Bates today.

Mohamed, my friend in the army jacket is back, too, of course. Mohamed is his Muslim prison name, as it turns out. His real name is Jimmy. Master Bates just showed up and is arranging and rearranging his wads of newspaper. Feels like home.

Usually people leave Mohamed alone. His barricade is a formidable barrier, signaling his desire for isolation. The tables in Bates Hall are able to accommodate eight, but, as in any public space, people find ways to spread out and mark their borders. I do it, too. Like most people I take up two spots—one for my junk (no, not that junk, silly—get your mind out of the gutter!) and one for my self. I would move my junk if it got crowded, but if it’s not crowded and someone were to—somewhat inconceivably—ask me to move it, I would probably “mean mug” them, and hope that I was better armed than they were (I have my bicycle seat, which I suppose could be used as a weapon in a pinch).

Americans, even the skinny ones, seem to have the sense to sit at least a seat apart, whenever space permits. It’s because of our super-size auras, I guess.

Anyway, yesterday, some middle-aged guy had the gall to sit at the other end of the table where Mohamed was sitting. And Mohamed expressed his displeasure by taking one of the super-size books he’s barricaded himself in with and slamming it down on the table. The thud thus produced was of Biblical proportions, echoing through the cavernous hall, causing everyone to look up, and the poor guy at Mohamed’s table to look around nervously.

No one was sure if Mohamed had been provoked by the man’s innocent incursion, or was just being schizoid, as usual. We all went back to work. The man got up, leaving his jacket on his chair, and went off to look for a reference book. When he came back, there was no doubt about Mohamed’s displeasure. He banged the book on the tabletop again, without looking up, but this time the irritation was visible on his furrowed brow. And he shifted suddenly, so that he was turned resolutely away from the interloper.

But, lest you think Mohamed is the exception, I have a story, again from my personal diary, from December of 2004. I was at the library because my roommate was having a little afternoon “play date” back at the apartment. (You’re going to start thinking I’m Dostoyevsky’s Underground Man if I keep quoting my diary, if you don’t already.)

3:29. I’m in the reading room at the Boston Public Library. It’s absolutely packed—students from the area colleges. It was hard to find a spot, and when I did and started to take my coat off this blonde sitting catty-corner says to me, “oh, my friend’s coming back any minute.”

The seat across from hers was free and two seats beside it, and two seats beside her.

I nodded and smiled. I said, “great,” and made to sit down in the farthest seat from her that was free.

She said, “well, he’s got a lot of stuff—he kinda likes to spread out.”

I’m like, “great, thanks for the head’s-up,” and sat down.

She huffed and rolled her eyes at me.

A quarter of an hour later, and her little friend still hasn’t shown up. I want to tell her I freakin own this reading room. I was reading in this reading room when she was in her training bra. The nerve.

4:22. Every once in a while Heather looks over at me, thinking I’m looking over at her when I’m looking at my notes. Almost an hour has passed, and still no sign of her imaginary friend. She apparently feels she is entitled to six spaces. There are eight per table. She has no books open, or papers spread about—she’s typing away on her laptop—but she has thrown her handbag over to the side, in front of the seat next to hers, and has tossed a couple of decoy notebooks out in front of the seat across from her (and sort of spilling over to the seat next to it) to make it look to the casual observer that they are taken. But it doesn’t take freakin Nancy Drew to see that the bottoms of the notebooks are facing her, rather than the seat across from her, as would likely be the case if they belonged to someone sitting there.

The thing that gets me is that I didn’t try to sit across from her, or beside her, but across from her, three seats down from her, when she tried to dissuade me. It’s like on the T—people generally don’t sit right next to one another, rump to rump. If I have the choice of sitting right between two people or standing, usually I stand. I understand people sort of claiming the space on either side of them, when space allows, but you can’t claim two spaces or three spaces either side of you when it’s packed in like this, and why on earth would you need to? I mean, if you want that kind of space, rent a freakin room.

Opa! she just flipped her long, curly locks, in a rather dramatic gesture—maybe that’s what she needs all that space for.

5:19. Nearly two hours. Gathering up my stuff.

Before I go I ask her, “where’d your friend run off to? Maybe he’s in danger. You should go after him!”

She just snarls in reply.

“Grrr!” I growl back.

But how pathetic is that? When you get stood up by even your imaginary friends?

So, everybody does it, some are just more artful about it than others. I can actually relate to Mohamed better than Heather. This is probably the one place he can hang out and do his thing and not have to worry about people really hassling him. But Heather? That’s just your garden-variety entitlement mentality taken to its logical extreme. Although, she wouldn’t have been here at all if there hadn’t been plenty of other people around to snarl at and deny seatage to. Because what are eight seats to yourself worth when there’s a whole roomful or carful of ‘em? Know what I’m sayin?

How about “Bates-Rage”?

Bates Hall is getting on my nerves in a major way.

I don’t know what’s up this morning, but about twenty-five people have come into Bates Hall since I got here to take pictures. And they’re all using their FLASH! WHICH IS PROHIBITED, PEOPLE! YEAH, THAT MEANS YOU, LADY! The last couple days I’ve been reporting to you from the BPL, there’s not been one instance of flash photography in Da Hall (as we Bates Hall denizens call it). Why now? What phase is the moon in? Are we having increased sunspot activity?

Some guy just came in and tried to move one of the lamps on the tables here. People are funny.

Good ol’ Bates Hall. I’ve been coming here periodically to read, write, and study for years, of course. For nearly fifteen years, in fact—ever since I first came to Boston in the early nineties. And I’m telling you, it’s the same borderline personalities in here now that were in here when I started. Myself included. It’s like home. I call it “My Ancestral Home,” in fact. These are my peeps.

All week there’s been a brother in an army jacket buttoned up to his chin at the next table, who’s barricaded himself in behind a wall of big, fat reference books. He’s working hard on something. Blowing his nose, mainly. When he’s not doing that he’s squinting and staring into the middle distance. Sometimes he strokes his chin and shakes his head slowly. Occasionally he snaps his fingers, beatniklike. He’s extremely well-kempt—so extremely well-kempt you know there’s something amiss. But I like him. He gives the place the air of a prison library. I think one of the books in his book barricade is the Koran, actually.

And three tables away is my old friend, a resident of Da Hall. Master Bates, I call him. I wrote about him in an entry from my personal diary, way back in November, 2003:

There’s old Master Bates sitting at the next table, organizing his notes again. His morning ritual. He left, after choosing the day’s ball cap, for his Mexican shower downstairs.

There’s another regular who’s been busy today arranging and rearranging his things, and being very fastidious, wiping the tabletop with a kleenex from his pocket. Here comes Master Bates again, and it turns out they know each other! A pleasant surprise!

Master Bates begins rooting through his rucksack, throwing away some carefully selected balls of wadded-up newspaper. He has just fetched a Hebrew-English Lexicon of the Old Testament. OCDers, Schizophrenics, and Borderliners love the OT God. And the OT God loves them back. Heck, back in the day, He was one of ‘em.

Master Bates has stacks of notes in teeny, tiny print that he is also arranging meticulously. He is writing a book, it looks like: Meditations on La Via Crucis is the title. That’s Latin for the “Stations of the Cross.” It’s all painstakingly hand-written, of course. Not that I’m knocking any of it. Were this a Medieval monastery, all of this would be perfectly normal. Maybe Master Bates is actually Brother Bates, or Father Bates, or Archbishop Bates, who got sucked through a wormhole from the 14th Century. Like, pre-Gutenberg.

Opa! He has just dumped out a whole bag of magic markers on the table! Now he’s digging, digging, digging, carefully arranging his pullovers—six or seven of them—which he has stacked in the chair next to his. Rooting, rooting—digging for some treasure! A gem of enlightenment along La Via Lucis, perhaps. A pearl of wisdom at the bottom of his rucksack?

Aha! There it is!

He has chosen a new cap.

I suppose I was being a bit flippant when I wrote that. Today I see it differently, of course. There must be a place at Bates Hall for all of us. And who’s to say that his contribution is any less significant in his dimension than any of our is in ours? Not I.

But I do hope to get my wireless situation resolved sometime in the very near future, so I can start working from home again.

Now I’m off to the garden! Check out my new snapshots here.

“Boston officers shoot at suspect who fled stop in stolen SUV” and “MBTA officer, suspect exchange gunfire at T stop”.

Now, there have been times I have been tempted to stand up and fight for the rights of decent, well-behaved commuters, and say something to some young punks who are acting up on the platform. But you know that part of what’s going on in any such situation is a kind of dare–it’s a potent if primitive combination of intentional provocation and intimidation, and the fact is, a lot of these thugs are spoiling for a fight. And if they’re looking for it, they’re likely armed as well.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned the time last summer I was on the Orange line and a big gang of thugs busted onto the train, staring people down, and I ended up standing next to one, who muttered to his buddy, “I just wish someone would bump into me—I just want to beat the shit out of somebody.” I quietly made my way to the opposite end of the car.

You can bet not a one of them paid their fare, either. That’s just one of the many perks of membership in a band of marauding thugs.

Of course, there’s nothing you can do about this sort of thing, except move quietly to the opposite end of the car if you can. You do the math in your head when they storm in. You’ve got ten minutes to your stop. You can endure it. And why give them what they’re looking for? They travel in packs—or sometimes “swarms” as they’re calling it in the news now. I mean, did you see the security camera footage of the guard getting “swarmed” by a gang of young thugs on the news yesterday? If you stand up to them, who’ll back you up? Nobody, is who. Nobody wants trouble, except the troublemakers themselves. But who wants to sit there in silence and be intimidated like that?

I would say that the problem is probably not as bad as the press makes it out to be, but the numbers don’t lie. In every category, Boston crime rates are worse than the national average. Everybody knows the murder rate was up 34% in 2005. Aggravated assault, which is something much more likely to happen to just anybody in the wrong place at the wrong time, is off the hook.

Here’s an interesting article from the New York Times about the “bewildering” nature of the new surge in violent crime. I know I have banged on a good deal about eye-contact, but you’ve got to be careful these days: “mean mugging,” which, according to the article is ghetto slang for giving someone a dirty look, could get you killed.

When I was visiting my Aunt Mindy from Indy on St. Armand’s Island a couple of months ago, she told me to write an op-ed piece about conscripting petty criminals. I was like, uh, OK. You know, it goes against some of my gut convictions, but I do think a compulsory national service corps could help with the problem of youth violence, which often results, I think (perhaps simplistically), from lack of purpose, direction, connectivity with a positive community and cause, and plain old garden-variety boredom. Plus lack of prospects and hope of a better life, particularly relative to what we see on TV or in the movies, which also seems to some with violent tendencies to justify violence towards others unlike themselves.

I’m not pinning this on minorities, either. Take this thing at Duke. Whatever happened between that stripper and those Lacrosse players, one thing is for sure: it was sordid. Neither party is coming out of it squeaky clean. I heard yesterday one of the guys, who’s gone to the best, most expensive prep schools, and whom everyone says is a great student and team player, was arrested last year on a trip to Georgetown for assualting a man after taunting him with homophobic slurs. Then there’s the email from one team member, sent the day after rape accusations were made public, “announcing that the following night he planned ‘to have some strippers over’ and would be ‘killing the bitches’ as soon as they walked into his dorm room….The e-mail…notes that, after the strippers were killed, they would be skinned while the author was ‘cumming in my duke issue spandex.’” None of which proves that the young woman who claimed to have been raped was. But it would not surprise me. I certainly don’t doubt for a minute that the players taunted her with racial and misogynist slurs, though.

The picture that arises of the Duke Lacrosse team ain’t pretty, no matter how you slice it. It reminds me of the culture of “careless people” of privilege F. Scott Fitzgerald documented in Gatzby. Sometimes we forget: privilege leads to forms of violence just as surely as privation. It’s not poverty that’s to blame in our time.

Anyway, I think a real, functioning national service corps without the missionary overtones of the Peace Corps and Americorps, could do wonders. Nowadays the volunteer service corps, unfortunately, tends to draw people of privilege who sometimes go into it for the wrong reasons–to bolster their resumes, for example. And working abroad for many years, I ran into my share of Peace Corps volunteers whose attitudes towards their host cultures was downright insulting. As for Americorps or City Year, or whoever they are, whenever I see those kids on the T with their bright red jackets I feel like, what the hell? I think they should ditch the jackets, personally. Doesn’t it make you feel like “the natives” with these brave souls in their bright red jackets risking life and limb to “civilize” us, or something? We know you’re from the suburbs, but, please, try to blend.

I’m from the school of, if you’re going to do good in the world, skip the bright red jacket or the hairshirt, drop the megaphone, and just do it.

I could see the usefulness of uniforms with a conscripted army, of course. And I’m all for it. And if you made the uniforms cool enough–have Piggy-D, or Po-Diddly, or whatever the fuck his name is, design ‘em–a little beret for the lads, a sash for the ladies–you’d have a movement on your hands. The trick is to give them something real to do, not to exacerbate the problem by piling boredom on boredom. The danger is that pinheads like the pols in Washington, would get ideas about using conscripts to clean their houses, cook their meals, and chauffeur them around. Gotta make sure the rich don’t abuse it.

At any rate, I have a feeling it’s going to be a long, hot summer, and probably a senselessly violent one, too, unfortunately. What to do?

I said yesterday I liked to check the statues of Art and Science outside the McKim Building to see which one has gone to the birds. While I was waiting on the steps with Boston’s homeless literati for the library to open I had occasion to study the two Goddesses more closely. I have to admit that over the years I have taken them both for granted, but ever since they got a new coat of paint—what was it, a year ago or so?—they look so young and fresh they seemed to merit another look.

And talk about looks. The photo here hardly does them justice. You really have to see them for yourself, to verify what I’m about to reveal here: Art is clearly, clearly jealous of Science’s ball. Check it out for yourself. Science isn’t paying the least little bit of attention to Art, but Art is craning her neck to get a gander of what Science is up to. Science has this sort of haughty look on her face. Because she knows Art would like to snatch that ball from her. And Art looks pensive. Maybe aside from coveting Science’s ball, she’s afraid Science is gonna up and nail her with it, and Art’s got both hands full. She’d have a rough time dodging it.

And that’s another thing about Art. She’s trying to look all cool and casual but she’s clearly worried. Maybe she’s just anxiety-prone in general. She’s off her Prozac again. But she’s so forgetful! She’s brought her paint brush and her pallet, but where’s her easel? Where’s her canvas? Art has all this equipment to lug around, but all Science needs is her ball.

If only they could cooperate. Maybe Art should offer to paint Science’s ball! Do you think Science would go for it? Well, it’s worth a try.

What we all already knew confirmed here.

Comin’ atcha, again, from beautiful Bates Hall here at the Boston Public Library. I have made my neighbor with the wireless a proposition (and actually wrote her a check) and am waiting on an answer, but until I get one I’ll be coming at you from the BPL. Which is really no hardship. The setting is perfect for a little studious reflection on the burning questions of the day.

I was going to take the T in this morning, but I got halfway to JFK from my place and realized, wow, my backpack is so light. I had forgotten my laptop and had to walk back, and thought, sod it, it’s quicker by bike. And it’s true. I made it to the library in about twenty minutes, whereas it would have taken me twice that to get here by train, because I would have had to go either Downtown Crossing to Back Bay station and walked, from Park to Copley, or just walked across the Common from Park. Plus because I lost about ten minutes on the way to JFK it would have been extra thick once I got there, and the misery of being packed into a stuffy train on a gorgeous day like this–there was just no reason to ride the T.

So there.

What am I going to call this blog until October now? Any suggestions?

I got to Copley Square about ten minutes before the library opened and waited out on the steps of the McKim Building with all the bums. I like to check the two statues out there to see which one, The Goddess of Art or The Goddess of Science, the pigeons are pooping on more. But the rain last night had washed away the harsh avian judgment of the previous day, so that Art and Science are starting out the day even. As they should.

I do want to say a word or two about blogging, since it may seem to some that I have been remiss over the last week. I thought about filling in my lost dates from the past week with faked spontaneity, just to make it look like I’d been a good little blogger, but in the end I decided against it. My more demanding critics, like Chex, for instance (hey, by the way, are you related to Coco Crisp?), would surely know, and then I would be in the doghouse again.

So, consider this a sort of Resurrection of The Rage!

Anyway, the remnants of the 110th Boston Marathon were all over Copley Square this morning. Like the day after an orgy. An orgy of masochistic ecstasy. How about those Kenyans, though? Gotta love ‘em. The dude beat the record by one second! You can’t help but think about the space of a second.

But I have to admit something. And here you will definitely be able to tell that though I live here, I am not a proper (and certainly not an improper) Bostonian, but: I don’t get it. I mean, it’s true, some of the runners were inspirational, but they were also crazy. And then there were many who probably weren’t inspirational, just crazy. There were none, I can assure you, who were not crazy.

There is certainly something fascinating about the very fundamentally human propensity to turn everything into competitive sport. I make no claims, pro or con, though I am definitely not against healthy competition. I don’t want to debate the merits of it, it’s the phenomenon that interests me. I mean, don’t you find it endlessly fascinating that every single thing we can do as humans has or will inevitably become a competitive sport?

Running is an ancient one, of course. And when running had a very vital purpose—like you see in that wonderful movie, Gallipoli, for instance—it made complete sense. But in these decadent times, an age of increasing abstraction, when everything is divorced from its purpose, I find it interesting how we still very much feel we have to come up with some purpose anyway. We can’t just have a day where crazy people run 26 miles from Hopkinton to Boston for no reason whatsoever, and if we did not have charities cashing in on it (and thank goodness we do), that’s exactly what it would be. In other words, if we didn’t make something up, we would see it for what it is—sheer, unadulterated MADNESS. And we would see runners for what they really and truly are: UTTERLY MAD.

And don’t even try to deny it.

I don’t know how many times I heard an anchor use the word “inspirational” to describe a runner’s story. And, as I said, there were inspirational stories. But as for running twenty-six-or-so miles, it is not, by any means, of necessity inspirational in and of itself. You can also raise money for cancer by holding a bake sale, but we don’t call that inspirational.

And anyway, all those runners get a high out of it. It’s like crack for them. I don’t know why we don’t lock them all up. It should be illegal.

I was “working” a little further down on Boylston yesterday—well past the finish line, on Berkeley Street—and decided to walk to my garden in the Fenway around noon, to plant a rhododendron. Ran into one of those Heathers in their royal blue jackets. They were all clumped together with no runners to service yet, and were barking at pedestrians. “You can’t walk here! Go around!” But in the most sententious tones. Really, give someone a uniform, and they turn into a Nazi. Every freakin time.

And then there’s the Sox. Sox Nation’s crazy, too. Forgive me for what I’m about to say. I have nothing against the Sox. But whatever you think of the actual Sox, the fans are another thing entirely. I have never fully understood the passion of spectating. There is nothing inspirational about Sox fans, that’s for sure, but I suppose they’ve made a true sport of spectating. When they leave the stadium (I have a prime spot in my garden to watch the watchers passing by before and after), they are either all puffed-up and full of hot air or utterly deflated and full of piss, which they very often relieve themselves of in the Fenway Victory Gardens.

It’s comical, really, the degree to which they invest themselves in what is as utterly vicarious and wholly passive an activity as activities get. The only analogy I can make is to religious services. Like, crazy Pentecostal religious services. I know it’s not original. And again, there is some primordial need to be part of an enormous crowd letting out a mass, hysterical primal scream in one giant roar. I mean, it’s obvious. But better baseball than bullfights, I guess. I don’t know.

It’s been a rough week in Mennonnoland, let me tell you. Wednesday my downstairs neighbor, without warfning, decided to secure her network with a password. I, of course, have been piggy-backing on hers since my roommate moved out, so I was shocked and not a little hurt by this move, let me tell you. Not to mention, it’s a bit sadistic. It’s like someone who’s been handing out crack on the street corner, getting everyone hooked, and then just suddenly stops showing up. It’s like, now you’ve got the whole neighborhood hooked, you can’t just drop it. It’s not about you anymore.

As a long-time wireless freeloader, I’d almost rather do anything than pay for internet access. It’s like paying for porn. Not when people are giving it away. You’d have to be a fool. Now, I know what you’re thinking. That I’m one of thoooooose people. I probably cheat on my taxes, too, right? Next I’ll be feigning cancer to get donations for a Caribbean vacation or pretending I’ve had sextuplets for tea and sympathy, or faking my own death for the life insurance money. But, y’know, it’s out there, in the air, for the taking.

Anyway, I thought, hmph, so that’s how it is, eh? And I hopped on my brand new bicycle and peddled my heart out on down to the Boston Public Library and headed straight for beautiful Bates Hall, where they have wireless for the masses. Much better than that old apartment, anyway, right? Well, come to find that, unlike when I was here during my last wireless crisis a year or so ago, you have to sign on to the library’s portal with your library card number and pin.

Now, here’s where it starts to get ugly. I have confession to make, and I hope you will all be understanding, my gentle readers. I have library fines dating from 2001 amounting to $50.05. I lost my card long ago, and they very rightly refused to give me a new one until I paid up.

So I was stuck. It’s Karma, of course. I could tell you the whole story of the card, the books, the fine, but it’s very long, and very, very sordid.

Suffice it to say, where there’s a will, there’s a way, and today–Saturday–I was able to log on with my own laptop (though not from home), for the first time in a few days.

And I will have more to say about the T presently…