05 Monday Nov 2007
Posted in a sense of place
One of my favorite walks to take in Boston is the route from my dorm along the Emerald Necklace (Olmsted’s series of parks) to the Arnold Arboretum. This is the walk I took this morning, which was a glorious autumn day here in the city. I took my camera long and got some photos of the fall foliage (and one example of premature holiday decoration).
Or see the larger pictures at picasa.
19 Friday Oct 2007
Posted in a sense of place
My friend Megan, the fabulous baker, wrote and asked when I first got to Boston if I had had Boston Cream Pie yet, what exactly it is, and was it any good? I had to answer “no” to the first question, and thus had no idea about the answers to questions 2 and 3. I promised to hunt some up, try it, and report back.
Today, I finally got around to doing just that at the Omni Parker House hotel, which is credited with actually creating the “pie” back in the 19th century. The dessert is actually a vanilla sponge cake cut in two layers with a vanilla custard between and some sort of chocolate glaze over top. Apparently there are endless variations. The one I had today included almond shavings, whipped cream, and strawberries, and looked more like this version (right) than the one above. Unfortunately, I neglected to take my camera, so don’t have a genuine “Anna’s Boston Cream Pie” visual.
(images from What’s Cooking America and Rosie’s Bakery)
01 Monday Oct 2007
Posted in a sense of place
Since I have an interview with the Massachusetts Historical Society for an assistant librarian position tomorrow, I took my “day off” today and spent it, well, reading literature on archival appraisal theory . . . but at least I did it in a national park! I took the Harbor Islands Ferry from Long Wharf in downtown Boston and stopped at both Georges Island and Spectacle Island, where I wandered around taking pictures and intermittently doing my assigned reading.
Georges Island is the home of Fort Warren, built just prior to the American Civil War and active as a military base until after WWII. I find abandoned military forts creepy, haunting, and strangely compelling. There’s something satisfying about the fact that they are no longer in use and that the earth is showing signs of reclaiming sites that witnessed a lot of human violence and suffering. But turning these fortresses into parks where people picnic and play is also a bit disturbing–a way of domesticating architecture that was built for much more chilling purposes.
Aptly, I spent my time there reading historian Nell Painter’s essay on the psychological ravages of institutional slavery on slaves and owners alike.
From Georges you have a clear view of Boston Light, the first lighthouse to be established in North America, it was lit in 1716 and today is the last remaining American lighthouse to be occupied by an actual lighthouse keeper.
From there, I took the ferry to Spectacle Island, which affords views of Logan Airport, the Boston skyline, and lots of oceangoing traffic. It was strange to see sailboats moving back and forth beneath low-flying jets coming in for a landing.
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| Harbor Islands |
25 Tuesday Sep 2007
Posted in a sense of place
Some of you may recall the plot arc of Arrested Development in which Michael (Jason Bateman) is involved in international intrigue, crossing into the settlement of Wee Britain and, for a short while, dating a mysterious young woman named Rita (played by Charlize Theron). Well, it was the first thing that came to mind when I walked passed this sign on my way to the Arnold Arboretum today:
Honestly: do they all wear uniforms? (or maybe robes, and carry broomsticks?) . . . or maybe it’s more along the (in)famous Summerhill free school model, and they run around like wild savages and set their own bedtimes at democratic community meetings (more my style).
A little further up the road, while speculating about the nature of British schoolchildren, I happened to stumble across this peculiar architectural specimen:
If it weren’t for the half-dozen American flags liberally sprouting from the battlements, I might be tempted to suggest this was the school in question . . . what purpose do you think the giant golden crown serve? Anyone?
Happy Monday!
21 Friday Sep 2007
Posted in a sense of place
Here are some photos I took on my way to work this morning, at the Barnes & Noble store, and on my way home again.
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| Barnes & Noble (Boston) #2 |
I’ve discovered that (on nice days) it is as fast to walk to work along the Fenway park system as it is to ride the T, so I am getting my exercise without having to get up any earlier than the 7:00-11:00am shift at work requires!
17 Monday Sep 2007
Posted in a sense of place
Today being my self-imposed day of rest, I left early with a sack lunch for Concord, Mass., to take a walk through the Walden Pond Reservation. This meant boarding the T and then switching to the commuter rail at North Station for the remainder of the journey to Concord. I left home at 8:15 and was in Concord by 9:30.
Walden Pond is a mile outside of town, though I made an inadvertent detour by turning the wrong way on Thoreau Street and walking for a good ways through a wealthy suburb before realizing that I was not going in the right direction. I backtracked through town, passed the rail station, and out across, finally ending up on the boarders of the reservation.
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| Walden Pond |
(click on the photograph for the complete album)
I admit that I know very little about Henry David Thoreau, nor have I made any serious study of the transcendentalist movement. The site, however, is beautiful and–despite its well-trodden paths–reminded me of Northern Michigan, particularly the small lake systems I used to canoe in the Upper Peninsula. And I was also reminded of my time at the Oregon Extension, since Thoreau’s retreat to Walden Pond was one of the early inspirations for their own educational project.
I stopped for lunch on the far side of the lake, away from the visitor’s center. There were several intrepid souls swimming in the water! The guy working at the gift shop later told me told me they swim till it freezes over out there, so I guess this wasn’t much different than high summer for them. Sitting by the lake, I caught up on some correspondence and got slightly sun-burnt on the back of my neck for my troubles.
In the park shop, I bought a Dover edition of Margaret Fuller’s Women in the Nineteenth Century (and early American feminist tract), which I started reading on the train home. My favorite quote so far? “We would have every path open to woman as freely as to man . . . a ravishing harmony of the spheres would ensue”! (16).
I have to say, of all the results of women’s equality, I never put “ravishing harmony of the spheres” on my list . . . but whatever it is, it sounds good to me!
I will definitely have to go back when the leaves start to turn.
09 Sunday Sep 2007
Posted in library life
Hello All,
Hard to believe it’s Sunday evening, and I’m closing out Week One of classes, and my second weekend here in Boston. Here are a few more pictures of my campus:
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| Simmons Campus |
(click on the photograph for the complete album)
This week, I had general orientation and two of my three courses (the next one doesn’t meet for the first time until Tuesday). LIS438: Introduction to Archival Methods and Services meets Wednesday nights and is the beginning class for all students who dual-degree, as well as some students who focus in Archives Management without the History M.A. I’m looking forward to the practical aspects of this course–particularly the internship!–as well as the philosophical/ethical issues we’ll tackle (copyright, privacy, access, etc.). HIST597: History Methods is equally promising, as we wrangle with the existential questions What Is History? Why Do History?
Both courses are reading-heavy but assignment-light, at least on the paper-writing front, for which I am saying grateful prayers to Sophia, Goddess of Wisdom, and any other deities who might be listening. I’m greatly looking forward to doing substantial research papers, not to mention my history thesis, but it’s a blessing this semester to be able to focus on settling in, straightening out my work schedule, and putting my energy into class discussion. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop–which it may well do now that I’ve announced the fact online!
I’ve gamboled thoroughly this weekend, apart from reading for history (which, in its own way, if a sort of gamboling) . Saturday, I met Hanna (a fellow History/Archives Management student in her second year) for a idiosyncratic walking tour of our bit of Boston. We spent six hours wandering around from Fenway to the North End, stopping occasionally for nourishment of various kinds or to seek respite from the 90-degree heat in an air-conditioned building. A fellow former homeschooler (somehow we always manage to find one another . . .), with hippie parents who homesteaded in rural Maine, Hanna shares my love of teen literature, BBC drama, and (natch) history: the doing and preserving of. I had a lovely time.
Last night and today was spent fervently wishing the heat wave would pass (it finally has, though my room has yet to reflect the outside temperatures), and reading various historians’ perspectives on Why Do We Do History? I took a study break in the middle of the day and detoured into the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum, next door to the main campus, to which I have free access as a Simmons student! It’s this crazy art museum, built by the rich Mrs. Gardner, to display her own collection of art in the style in which she felt it was most naturally suited: a Venetian palazzo complete with a greenhouse courtyard that rises the four storeys of the museum to a towering glass ceiling. Sadly, you aren’t able to walk through the courtyard, but there is a stone cloister that runs all the way around it on the first floor, with benches to sit on in relative quiet.
This leisurely schedule has been made possible by the fact that it’s my last weekend before starting work at Barnes & Noble. Next weekend, I will have to juggle reading assignments alongside the time spent wrangling toddlers (and often more so their parents) in the children’s section of B&N at the Prudential Center.
I will also be kept busy with various workshops on the library and technology services, scheduled throughout the month of September, and assignments for my courses: on the agenda this week is selecting an internship for my Archives class as well as scheduling a Field Study of an area archive. More on how those go next weekend!
05 Wednesday Sep 2007
Posted in a sense of place
On Labor Day, I took the subway out to Wonderland and walked along Revere Beach, which used to be “Boston’s version of Coney Island” according to my Lonely Planet Boston City Guide. No longer so glamorous, it provided me with exactly what I needed: a few hours within sight, sound, and touch of the ocean. Here are some pics (once again, click on the photograph to view the full album):
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| Revere Beach |
02 Sunday Sep 2007
Posted in life writing
Boston: Day Three
My computer is up and running . . . for the first time, ever, I have high-speed internet access on my own computer, in my own dorm room. I have finally arrived in the 21st century. Whatever Pixies, Nixies, Boggarts or Brownies saw fit to patch up my ethernet allowed their benevolence to run out when it comes to Anna’zOn, since I can’t get the page-editing software to work today. However, other aspects of my multi-media communication arsenal seem to be functioning, so here is what I can offer by way of showing you a bit about my new environs, one weekend in to the adventure.
1) Photos, as so many have requested. I have uploaded pictures of my dorm and its immediate environs to to Picasa, which you can view by clicking on the link below.
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| North Hall |
I also have an album up of photographs from the going-away party my friend Cara hosted last Sunday (good lord, was it only a week ago??) so all my Barnes & Noble buddies could wish me luck.
2) Check out this Google map of Anna’s Boston, which I was created last night. I’ll be adding to it as I enlarge my world (a little each day) . . . for you map freaks out there (and I say this with all kindness because I’m one of them. My room decorations current consist of four maps: NPR stations in the United States, a map of the world, a map of Boston, and a map of the campus), hope you enjoy it!
Today, I’m sticking close to “home” (the dorm doesn’t quite feel homey yet), making headway in the organization of my life–both internal and external–and preparing for Advising/Orientation day on Tuesday, at which (according to the published schedule) we will drink a lot and sign away our lives (academic and financial) on various bits of paper. Tonight, I have a hall meeting at which I will get to meet some of those people whom I live with, whom–so far–I have only met as shuffling bodies headed for the showers in the morning. I’m not up for much socializing at the moment, but they’re all Graduate School of Library and Information Science, or GSLIS Students (pronounced “GISS-liss” with a hard G as in gambol or gabardine), so chances are I will have some of them in classes and every repetition of names and faces helps!
I had my first meal at Bartol Hall, the main dining hall on the residential campus. La-dee-dah! It’s like the most expansive breakfast buffet you’ve ever seen (waffles? pancakes? bagels? oatmeal? cold cereal? egga? bacon? grits? fruit and yogurt? hot chocolate? coffee? fruit juice?). Suddenly, the whole monastic-like system of bachelor dons and bluestocking lady professors living in University quarters and dining in the Senior Common Room makes so much more sense . . . except, of course, for the fact that it’s made possible by a whole regiment or two of waitsstaff who bear an unsettling resemblance to the Scouts in Gaudy Night, except for (thank heavens!) the absence of frilly aprons and caps.
More about people and courses when I meet more of the former and attend more of the latter . . .
For Labor Day, I am going to take the T (subway) to Wonderland and get a look at the ocean!
01 Saturday Sep 2007
Posted in a sense of place
Hi Everyone! Just a quick word to say I’ve arrived safely and am in the hectic midst of moving in–some of it fun, some of it not. I promise pictures as soon as I have my ethernet working at the dorm (it’s giving me problems . . . why can’t the magic computer faeries come and fix it??)
I moved in yesterday, somewhat hurridly, in order to get the rental car to Logan Airport by noon. I left the residential campus at 10:30, which turned out to be a good amount of time, since I got off at the wrong exit and ended up driving around East Boston for an hour, asking directions on three separate occasions (everyone was very nice, but either I’m bad at following directions, or they neglected some crucial detail). Boston is one of those cities that, once you’ve left the highway it’s virtually impossible to get back ON said highway unless you do so by accident (sort of like how you can only see certain magical beings out of the corner of your eye). But I did finally get to abandon the car, and am now the relieved owner of my very own CharlieCard MBTA pass for the semester. Hooray for public transportation!
Then I returned, after lunch at the Trident Bookstore and Cafe (why eat anywhere else when you can eat at a bookstore?) on Newbury Street, to begin the daunting task of unpacking and arranging my life.
The PROS of my dorm room:
A door that locks, to which only I possess a key
A tree outside the window
High ceilings
Only on the second floor
Located across the hall from bathrooms
It came with a its very own bookcase! (already filled . . .)
Next door to the campus gym
. . . and also to the Riverway park, which I ran along this morning.
A few CONS:
Air conditioning unit located right outside the window (noisy on warm nights!)
Linolium floors
North-facing window (Calliope is worried)
Wonky lock takes fiddling
Awkward confguration for furniture (if I believed in feng shui I’d be pissed)
All in all, I’m fairly confident I can make it feel homey.
I have my ID card on the requisite lanyard (though I spend enough of my time lanyarded at Barnes & Noble that I am resisting wearing it, and carry the thing around in my pocket instead). The photo is just the right amount of embarrassing. It’s just a little too weird being a student again, but I’ll get used to it. Particularly when I get to pay student-price admissions to museums and theater and other cultural events!
Today, I have a long list of little items to pick up at Bed, Bath & Beyond and Staples (yes, we have them here, too, right down the block . . .), and somewhere in there, some food to eat. The campus meal plan doesn’t kick in until tomorrow, so I can treat myself to restaurant food for one more day before feeling profligate with my pocketbook (I do have to eat, after all).
More soon . . .
the feminist librarian 