Words &c.

(This would have been typed up and posted yesterday, if I was in any state of mind to.)

This plane is roomier than the last two, and I get a window. Tray table is very low, though. They have much fancier LCD screens that fold down out of the ceiling every two rows on both sides. Right now they're playing soothing ambient music and hypnotic patterns. It's like out of Brave New World (soma would make flights a lot more tolerable, come to think of it). If it's some hypnosis program to keep children quiet, I'm all for it.

This airline is cruel. They taunt you with a movie preview, then make you pay five dollars for (crappy little) headphones to watch the movie. Thankfully it looked like a very boring romantic comedy.

They serve complimentary drinks. I get another ginger ale.By a lucky fluke I am passed down not two, but four tiny biscuits. These will be my only sustenance aside from the bagel sandwich I had at the airport until Phoenix. These and the box of Mentos, though I don't think it will come to that. Why'd I bring these, anyways? Last flight I had coffee granola bars. Though those did seem to burn a little when I chewed them.

Meals are five dollars. Cocktails are five dollars. Headphones are five dollars.

This airline tells you to stay strapped into your seat even when the seatbelt light is off.

There is a stewardess who is not human. She is too horrible to be human. She asked our row if we wanted anything more to drink. I was going to say yes when I looked up, and saw her smile. It was reptilian, predatory, vicious. My hand flipped about in the air, pointing to something I couldn't see, and my eyes rolled in their sockets for a second before I mumbled 'no'. What the hell just happened? Is this some madness brought on by the altitude?

We fly over clouds, lots of clouds, and then over farmland. If crop-circling aliens were to visit today, they might think we were the ones trying to tell them something with the curious geometric patterns we shape our fields into. I try to place myself on the map - Boston to Phoenix, so southwest direction. We're probably passing over the northwestern-most quadrant of the South - Oklahoma and bordering states, I reckon. I wish these planes had some GPS system so you could know exactly where the plane is.

I listen to my iPod, and thus hear good, straight music for the first time in many days. Shinbone Alley's a great song for this kind of thing. I never did get around to cycling through Boston's radio offerings. Much of a digital-music junkie as I am, I would listen to the radio if the ads weren't so frequent and terrible. Maybe there's some decent pirate radio in Portland, if I can find it.

We pass over another long stretch of clouds, which I spend continuing Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72. I forgot how good it feels to read Dr. Thompson's mad ramblings. They should get Johnny Depp to narrate all his works into audiobook.

Something I've wondered about audiobooks - have they ever done them with multiple actors? While one person doing all the voices is traditional, it might be interesting to have, say, four or more people. Maybe it's a budget issue - audiobooks of a certain level of notoriety of a certain length get this certain amount of money to hire a voice actor of a certain level of skill for a certain amount of time, and no leeway.

The land is now dry and tan. There's large splotches of dark - some sort of plantlife. Where are we now, West Texas?

I'm one of the only people with their windows open. I'm on a plane of morlocks.

I'm amazed there's still agriculture out here. We've passed from prairie into out and out desert, but it's still divided into fields and I can just make out the tiny houses below.

The landscape is beautiful. This is what I wanted the window seat to see - the great desert of the southwest. There's long-dry rivers all through this land, and I briefly mistake the shadows for pockets of water. It's Martian here.

Plateaus and remarkable, and seemingly unlikely formations. There's everywhere here.

We fly over a swath of mountains and past a large canyon, and I think it's the Rockies and the Grand Canyon. I suspect I'm wrong, mainly about the latter. Don't have any map to check. We fly over a town of not more than a dozen buildings. Miles later we're over what passes for a city here. Less than a hundred buildings. The land gets greener around the mountains. The hills have twisting edges, and look like oak leaves extruding from the earth.

--

Phoenix sprawls like nothing I've seen before. I can't see where it ends through the thick, two-mile deep haze of smog and dust that looms on the horizon like some virtual fog of war. Orcs could come out of it at any moment. Sharp mountains, raw and unpolished from the depths of the Earth, come jutting up in the middle of this flat land.

The green, green grass they waste their precious water supply on is ugly from up high. It doesn't belong in this biome, and I feel like an offended god looking down upon it. I want to tear out of the side of the plane and bring divine wrath upon them; to see them on their knees staring up into the unforgiving sun as their florescent blue pools dry up around them.

There's a control tower that looks like someone smashed a lunar lander into a pillar. I keep trying to get a picture of it, but eventually give up, figuring someone will have posted a better one online. The only one I can find is small, but it's good enough to give you the gist:

Leaving to get to Logan in 11 minutes.

Too damn early.

Went shopping with David. The funk cleared up and I'm feeling much better. Seeing the burly rent-a-cop with a (cherry-wood handled) revolver at the sedate suburban store reminded me of a few days earlier on the train. There was a fellow who got on the subway with "Bank Protective Services" on his shirt. I only noticed the .44 Magnum strapped to his hip when he got off.

Something from the New York jaunt I keep forgetting to mention: Marcos has a moleskin journal with each page a portion of a map of New York, so one may mark the locations of conveniences or oddities. I hope someone's produced one of these for Portland.

Will be getting up at 4:30 a.m. tomorrow (1:30 a.m. PST) to fly out. Hope I a) get that window seat and b) am awake to enjoy the view.

This is the last day here. I suppose it's well-timed, I've rapidly run out of steam for museums and historic sites.

Went and had breakfast with David in the nearest restaurant that was still serving breakfast. In retrospect, that might be the stuff that's making me feel mildly crap right now.

We then went out to Cambridge, wandered around MIT campus for a few minutes. Picked up William Gibson's Spook Country and Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 at the Harvard Coop (which has a fascinating history section).

Returned home for lack of sights to see.

Uploaded on Picasa.

Took the 93 north to where the Bunker Hill site is. It's an immense, plain monument. The tiny arrow slits in the walls are used by several pigeons as nesting sites.

The plaque tells me there's 294 steps. After 175 steps and no sights beyond other climbers and lots of grey stone, and realizing I hadn't had anything to drink in four hours, I descended again. Will give another try after liquid.
.

Left at noon with David to pick up the Alamo Theater's order of confections. The confection company's warehouse is the most sugar I've seen in one place at a time, with such highlight as chocolate escargot and chocolate 'it's a girl!' cigars (females don't warrant actual tobacco apparently).

Over the last couple decades, Harvard's been stealthily and aggressively buying up land on the outskirts of Boston.

Dropped off at Faneuil Square/Quincy Market. Started walking around and promptly became very disoriented.

There's a breakdancing troupe with quite an audience fifty feet away from where I'm sitting. It's probably far too hip for me.

The camera shop Google Earth told me is here is closed down while they gut the building it's in.

Might visit Bunker Hill after I've found some food here.

Boston also has a free WiFi cloud in this area.

The buffalo sauce-base and pineapple pizza I ordered last night doesn't taste any better cold this morning.

Nor do the fries I ordered in a panic after learning the minimum price with delivery was ten dollars.

Finally got off the couch when Journey of Man ended at 2:00 p.m., and got on the bus with no specific destination in mind.

Saw a billboard on the bus that had an exploding Mt. Dew can firing a wrecking ball into a tiny man's back. The message of this ad is clear: Mt. Dew is going to break your spine. I remember the stubby can of it waiting in the fridge back home, waiting like a murder-mad midget. I've been living with a killer for days.

Finally get around to purchasing a seven-day pass, which I could've done at any machine. I probably could've saved fifteen bucks if I'd been smart enough to do it three days ago.

In the subway we pass another animated mural, this time more clear to my eyes. It depicts vodka bottles exploding into tinier bottles. I'm not sure what this tells me, beyond that alcohol might need to be handled with eye protection (like Sicilian cheese).

First order of business will be getting a disposable camera.

I decide to hop the Orange Line and check out Chinatown. Transit's much easier with a pass.

A girl tries to point out a huge rat crawling on the overhead pipes in the subway. Her female friend that noticed it takes it much more in stride than she does.

These subway stations are truly labyrinthine. You could spend hours just exploring them. I can easily imagine some post-apocalyptic Boston or New York where people build their villages within them and merchants use the trains as caravans.

There are rhombus shaped marble chairs at some of the subway stops. They look very uncomfortable

The subway blues performers conscientiously stop for a loudspeaker announcement. I imagine it's probably a requirement of their registration.

I emerge into what I'm told is Chinatown, and am greeted by a Dunkin' Donuts. As I cross the street to a barren plaza with no seating I see another Dunkin' Donuts a couple blocks away. I've hardly seen any Starbucks.

I discover there's not a lot to do in Chinatown if you're a lone, inexperienced tourist who isn't hungry. It's more of a Eastasiatownexceptforthosejapanese, judging by the Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese establishments. There's one little section I wanted to get a photo of, but it's hard to get in a shot without cars blocking the view and old men scrutinizing you.

Out of pure luck (and the need for passport photography in that community) I found a place that sold disposable cameras. I get the only kind they had - a ten dollar Kodak - and find it has 27 photos on it. This is significantly less than the 40-some I can burn through in three hours of wandering. Guess this means no more panorama shots.

Waiting in the train area, wiffle-waffling between taking the train to some unknown destination or going up and waiting for the perfect shot of that area. Have I mentioned I'm hopelessly indecisive on my own?

Three Dunkin' Donuts within three blocks. That might be a record.

I just realized none of the Doctor's recent companions have thought to use a camera, even when they're from the era of cameraphones.

Seeing Boston makes me realize just how whitebread Portland is. Being the only white guy on the bus is a normal occurrence.

Benches in these subway stations are much more expansive, in keeping with the length of the trains. I really like it here in these underground stations. One thing they could use more of are restrooms.

I get off the train at Downtown Crossing and wander four blocks to find myself back in Chinatown. I suppose this is the Great Magnet of Hunter S. Thompson, which drags one in whichever direction it pleases.

I wander around for a bit and snap some photos. I'm in what passes for a park here - a brick area with benches cordoned off by a red fence, with an old wooden playstructure in a pool of a mix of sand, paper, bits of brick, and cigarette butts. A brightly colored abstract mural decorates the brick wall that towers above us, and there's a plain memorial to the victims at Tianamen Square.

David gets back tomorrow evening. Once he's here I'll try and commandeer his iPhone for photography duty, and get in visits to the U.S.S. Constitution, Museum of Fine Art, Museum of Bad Art, and whatever other attractions I can think of.

For now I'm at a loss of what to do. Maybe I'll hit Quincy Market and then North Point. It's beginning to edge onto rush hour, which I'd rather not take the train home in.

Intending to reach Quincy Market (also known as Faneuil Hall), I take the Orange Line down to State street. After five minutes of wandering, I realize I'm back in the area where I first emerged into downtown Boston. Half the businesses in the area are closed at 5:30 p.m. on a Sunday, so I've made my way back to that irregular square I first rested my feet in. Those terrifying pigeons still threaten me bodily harm.

I'm not sure how much more aimless wandering I'm up for. May return home soon.

Still haven't eaten in a Boston restaurant yet.

Walking back to the train station, I notice the same theater that's been in sight at the Chinatown, Park Street, and State Street stops. All the distance I've gone by train I could have traversed by foot (and repeatedly did untintentionally). It's easy in unfamiliar territory to go just a few blocks and believe you're in a whole different sector.

It's back to Ashmont for me. Never did manage to find a bathroom.

I realize that the JFK of the JFK/U.Mass. stop refers to JFK Museum and Library, not the airport. Which is in New York. Which is not Boston. You'd think I could remember that.

Knowing that now, I would up and visit, but it's liable to be closed after 6 like most attractions of its type. There's not a lot after that you can do alone in an unfamiliar city when you're under 21 (much less 18).

I pass a mural with some of the most terrifying faces I've ever seen. Its text tells me their 'community is strong because we communicate'. The faces tell me their community eats any rivals.

As it turns out, there's a very weak WiFi network here where I wait for the 240 home. I can get blinks of connection enough to maybe half-load a webpage, but passing cars interfere too much to post to Blogger from here.

There are two black women beside me who seem to be native Africans. They're speaking in what's definitely not any European or Caribbean language.

The 240 only seems to run once an hour by this time of day.

Walking four miles through Cambridge and interesting PBS specials are making it very hard to get off this leather sofa. May eventually make it to the door.

Plan to visit the Museum of Fine Arts next Wednesday, when they're open until 9 p.m. and I can get in free after 3.

Today the plan is to hit the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, which is on the Harvard Campus.

Ashmont station was closed due to construction. Free shuttle bus to JFK. Still surprised at just how damn long these subway trains are.

Like in New York, seeing abnormally high amounts of attractive women. Beginning to suspect they're robots.

We pass by the animated subway mural. I realize it's not an explosion, but people moving. Haven't been able to adjust my eyes so I can actually see the animation.

The subways here are swift, efficient, and surprisingly clean. However, I realize the Screaming Child threat is as pervasive as ever, and I should remember to bring the iPod.

The subway train only seems to be underground about half the time.

Today it is sunny, with primarily decorative clouds. I realize the neighborhood of newer buildings near the Museum of Science is actually MIT. Hopefully I can visit the MIT Museum of Technology on the way back from the Peabody.

I wonder if I'll be able to find a time machine in the Peabody.

-

The subway stations are like marketplaces, with fruit stands, Dunkin' Donuts, souvenir stands, magazine stands, and even more fruitstands. There's a lot of fruit in East Coast cities.

I emerged up into Harvard Square (which is not square at all), and began to wander around in a daze. By pure luck, I ended up after a half-hour trek back in Harvard Square.

There's a guy playing Sultans of Swing and doing excellent spraypaintings.

Was not ambushed by the CarTalk brothers. Fears thusfar eased.

There's a WiFi network all over, but it's very inconveniently restricted to Harvard students. This means I might actually have to resort to asking someone to find out where I am in relation to 11 Divinity St.

I eventually wound up outside the Harvard Museum of Natural History, and decided I may as well spend the day there. They have dozens of exquisite glass flowers, with paper-thin leaves and detailed anatomical models, all made by one man. Next door to that is the mineral exhibit, with such attractions as a 1600 pound amethyst pocket, numerous crystals in bulbous formations, and a tiny sample of zyvagintsevite ( (PdPtAu)3 (PbSn) ).

In a show of excellent fortune, it turns out the Peabody Museum is in the same building as the Museum of Natural History. They have an excellent exhibit on the Tuareg and Amazigh, including clothing, a camel saddle, and a few swords. Next room over is dedicated to a huge collection of Moche vessels, which are rendered with expert detail into numerous forms including faces, animals, and a crayfish. It expands into a section of Aztec reliefs, which dot the stairs down to where the American Indian artifacts are stored.

Currently I'm sitting in the Northwest tribes exhibit, which is surprisingly well done. There's some examples of masks I've never even seen in a northwest museum.

It looks like I might need to get a disposable film camera. This digital one is too dated to find another memory card for.

Some inconsiderate vandal appears to have hacked the genitalia off this particular Northwest statue, which looks to be depicted with a handlebar mustache.

The Oceanic exhibit is eerily silent, and the wood floor creaks loudly. Automatic lights suddenly burst to life as you approach the displays. I wonder how long until that sents some octogenarian professor into v-fib.

There's a selection of war clubs, one of which looks suspiciously like a Sand People staff from Star Wars.

I buy a couple of shirts from the gift shop, which eliminates the last of the original twenties in my travel money. I'm down to small bills and a fistful of dollar coins.

Walking back to the station (where I can finally buy a CharlieCard) I expend the last seven photos on a cathedral, then turn around to see another building just as worthy of photography. It is a cruel thing.

I'll be glad when David is back in Boston. Riding the subway is fun, but the amount of time spent in transit from Milton to anywhere else takes a sizable chunk out of the day. Though car transport might be just as lengthy.

After an hour of staggering around lost, I found myself at Central Station - one station further in from Harvard.

There's a heavily made-up and formally dressed girl the bench over who looks like a German doll.

-

I end up wandering around Downtown Crossing station, only to discover that MBTA customer services closes sometime around 5.

There's a restaurant called Au Bon Pain here. It sounds like the French Die Hard.

I refuse to eat at any restaurant that calls itself a 'lifestyle grill'.

-

Back on the shuttle to Ashmont. The Vietnamese-American Community of Massachusetts has been having a volleyball tournament in the park for about the whole day now.

--

Returned home at 7. Plan to see the North End and Chinatown tomorrow.

And so with very sore feet, I sit back down in the Park Street station and await a train to Ashmont (rather than Braintree, which is the best New England town name I've heard).

The Museum of Science is, I say with a heavy but admiring heart, superior to OMSI (though not in the OMNIMAX and submarine departments! We'll defend our hypoaquatic supremacy to the death!). Mainly because of the amount of space they have. They're able to cover most scientific subjects with decent depth.

Back on the Red Line. There's a very tiny, sleepy Asian woman across from me I want to pick up and hug until her ribs snap.

One of the better exhibits of the Museum was its Evolution section. They come out very strongly on the side of evolution by natural selection (and the evidence wouldn't have it any other way), and present it in an accurate and understandable manner that clears up many common misconceptions. For one, the idea of the common ancestor, which is a fairly simple one that a lot of people never get.

They have a huge exhibit dedicated to Jane Goodall's work, which includes an area where you can put on wooden arm-stilts and walk like a chimp.

I departed with a bag from the gift shop and a mighty apetite. Science makes me hungry. Alas, the in-house restaurants were closed, and the pizza shop I saw on Bomfield street (the one with jewelry, coin, and baseball card merchants) had also closed its doors (surprisingly early, too - this was at 6:30).

After a walk around the Boston Commons and some more photography (down to 20 photos), some gawking at a street preacher, and refilling my CharlieTicket I returned to the depths of the city and prepared for my return ride, on which I am now on.

Our train has stopped and the speaker is making disturbing noises, and speaking in what is possibly Polish. There are very few of us on the train. I pray we are not suddenly the main characters of a horror film. The thrum of the underground has never sounded so menacing.

With a frightening hiss of steam the train starts up again. The radio chatter continues. We may be riding into some hell dimension that is like a twisted mockery of our own. We may be entering... the Twilight Zone.

With the tinny radio chatter and the train, I am reminded uncomfortably of Half-Life 2. Crap, no crowbar.

The power display grows red. Radio silence until return to homebase.

They give shows with a pair of sixty foot tall Tesla coils.

I will never leave this place.

I've gone from 221 to 58 photos left on the camera, and I don't have any way to offload them.

The laptop is also getting low on power. Will commence radio silence soon.

This museum is absolutely amazing. I've only yet had a cursory exploration of two thirds of one wing of the building.

Much of this Museum is oriented towards children and educating them about science. More than just toss contextless facts at them, the Museum actually tries to instill a fascination with the world and explain the principles of scientific investigation. I'm in a section about Natural Mysteries currently, where one is shown how and encouraged to look for evidence and use it to solve a mystery. When you enter, there's a small abandoned schoolhouse built into the wall. You're told to discover when the last day of school was, when it was abandoned, and other things from its contents and surroundings.

Right now I'm in a remarkable taxidermy exhibit. There are stuffed creatures (most of them real, I think) of all sorts. There's two bears, several big cats, a wall full of gazelle, water buffalo, antelope, and similar heads, and drawer upon drawer full of excellent specimens. Thankfully, the Museum does not frown upon photography.

There's a scale satellite hanging from the ceiling beside a scale Naboo fighter from and there's a slice from a 2000 year old seqoia tree and two early electric cars and there's a gigantic cricket you can see the interior anatomy of and there's a room full of mathematical equations rendered as sculptures and there's a bit of Martian rock and there's a huge DNA helix and there's a formula-1 car and a model Mercury spacecraft and I've only just walked into one wing of the building.

If I'm not out of here in a week, send an extraction team.

Wake up at 10:45 - bed far too comfortable.

Raining, a shift in weather I did not dress for.

Today, I go to see the Science Museum.

---

I have already learned to loathe and fear the MBTA.

Unlike Portland, where a ticket means you can ride the whole of the transit system for a given amount of time, here you have to pay for each individual trip. This makes it fairly expensive if you're completely new to the area and have a tendency to board the wrong buses and trains.

It also doesn't help that half the bus stop signs don't tell you what bus they're for.

I took the 240 bus into Ashmont, which is 90% black. The 240 bus was the first time I've been the only white person in sight, with the exception of shopping at Viet stores.

The train was hidden inside a construction site, and it took 15 minutes of wandering to find it. A helpful T employee guided me through the ticket buying process.

The train is much older and larger than the MAX. Unlike the MBTA's buses, which manage to be just as big and seat less people than ours, the trains are titanic beasts which can fit hundreds.

It's grey and humid out. My hat has become stiff again from it.

Unlike Portland where the color of the train identifies its clear, single pathway, here they split and end up with destinations miles apart. I will have to be careful with trains.

I have no respect for the Metro newspaper. It runs the headline 'K-Fed: Musical Genius' without a lick of irony.

We are going through the tunnel when the walls are suddenly engulfed in flame. It's one of the subway animations that works as a sort of flipbook.

I leave the train at the Park Street station and realize that I've been beneath the city the entire time. My first sight of it will be from its heart.

I leave down an empty corridor to the exit past black iron gates. The escalator, its gears thrumming loud and regular, goes up four stories to a bright doorway, and as I ride it up I can hear the music of a lone mariachi guitarist coming up from the subway.

Then I'm in Boston. I wander through the streets, passing a theater tucked at the end of a wide alley, next door to an opulent law school across the street from a graveyard. I go down a twisting sloped road filled with the shops of jewelry and coin merchants. There are dark alleyways, immense and foreboding.

Everything is red brick here.

I emerge into an open area, at Franklin and Washington. There's a trio of foodcarts, pigeons, surprisingly few cars, and a guy with a sandwich-board. The pigeons are cruel black birds, and look unnaturally predatory. Their coos are deep threatening rumbles. One advances on me with carnivorous menace in its orange eyes and I pull my legs up onto the bench.

I realize I've never seen a pigeon mating display end in success.

A hairy guy wearing a v-neck 'U.S. Navy Mom' shirt passes by the square. No matter how weird you are in a city, there's going to be someone weirder.

Aside from the foodcarts, there's nowhere to attain sustenance except for pubs. This does me no good.

The cabs here are fewer than New York, but fancier - this one has a video screen on its roof.

During idle reflection, I come to the conclusion that no cities have actually been built on rock and roll.

I've less than two hours of battery left on this computer. I might have to resort to pen and notebook eventually.

I now make my way back to the train, and there to the science museum.

The subway stations are labyrinthine furnaces, both for the trains and the people. I get on a crowded one I guess is going in the right direction. I will see.

The train unexpectedly stops at the next station. I get a coffee to go with my ginger ale, manage to miss the next one, and continue waiting.

Again, styrofoam cups. I didn't even know the rest of the country used them.

Boston, primarily around the waterfront, feels a lot like Portland taken to an extreme (and given a more noble history).

Sidenote to the Shadowcabinet Players (sounds like an acting company): Supers-Portland transit would be like our own Portland's, Seattle's, Boston's, and maybe a bit of New York's smashed together.

Now, on to the Museum of Science. No matter how much more fabulous and grand it is than OMSI, I can always take comfort in that we have the OMNIMAX. Their puny IMAX is nothing compared to our mighty dome. Also, submarine.

There's multiple WiFi networks out on the waterfront. Again, though, they manage to vanish before I can get around to posting.

The people giving amphibious tours give all the children kazoos that make duck noises. They are cruel, cruel people.

There's a kid who looks like a blue-haired 12-year old Quentin Tarantino with a Kingdom of Loathing shirt on. His mother is dressed like some sort of Old West Hippie Gunslinger.

The Museum of Science wins in bigness and having free WiFi. The main hall alone has a Da Vinci ornithopter, a giant map of Boston on the wall which lights up to identify a chosen location.

Given the sheer scope of this place, seventeen dollars for just the exhibit halls seems a very reasonable price. I will attempt to remember and report as much of it as I can, but I may become overwhelmed by the science and have a AMSS* relapse. Should've brought my pills.

*Acute Mad Scientist Syndrome