The scientists say it'll all wash away

We went dancing last night. It was a great time. The floor was a little packed by the end of the night and one's feet will hurt from 3 hours of dancing without a break, but we had so much fun. A good thing to remind myself that it's good to get out of the house, now and then.

I'm sitting in the basement office now, enjoying the sonic experiments of Atlas Sound. It's good to feel different sensations, to leave the comfortable routines of every day. I feel like an explorer in my little basement room.

The smell of New Jersey

Listening to New Jersey bands as the bus transits New Jersey:

Bands/artists (and their most NJ-emblematic song)

-Saves the Day (Always Ten Feet Tall or Shoulder to the Wheel)
-Titus Andronicus (Fear and Loathing in Mahwah, NJ or My Time Outside The Womb)
-Bruce Springsteen (Open All Night)

What is it with New Jersey and producing great music? These are three artists whose music I haven't gotten over. They all have reams of really good songs across multiple albums. New Jersey is an idea to me, raw and unfiltered, symbolizing everything good and bad about America. The music reflects that.

are these sentences true?

-Barack Obama sometimes appears to be naive and politically tone-deaf. This may derive from an abundance of confidence.

-Rick Perry is full of bluster and often seems confused.

-Herman Cain talks a good game, but he suffers from a dearth of ideas.

-Michelle Bachmann spends so much time trying to seem authentic that whatever substance she had to begin with has long since eroded away from constant burnishing.

-Were Newt Gingrich to become the Republican nominee, Democrats would be dancing in the streets.

an Allston hypothesis

In response to a query from John B——

Interesting topic for sure. I don't really have any data about Allston, so whatever I say is based on anecdotal evidence. I found relations between the students and the other residents to be mostly harmonious, although there's definitely sort of a sense that actual human interaction is to be avoided. This is not really stated by anyone, but it's an unwritten rule. When you see people on the street who are maybe hispanic, brazilian, or older asian people, you both ignore each other mostly, I think. It's basically respectful, but you're really acting like the other person is not there. In that way there are two separate worlds. People don't mix too much. Each group has its own stores and its own gathering places. The places that the groups have in common are probably limited to liquor stores, fast food joints, thrift stores (sometimes), and some ethnic restaurants where students might interact with the mostly immigrant community.

It's also interesting that while the students are certainly better off financially in comparison to the immigrants, they are also mostly interested in living on the cheap. There's definitely a certain type of person who is drawn to the neighborhood, usually more thrifty types among students. This may be a large part of the appeal of Allston; it's relatively cheap for Boston, and by taking advantage of some of the institutions that the immigrant communities have brought with them (cheaper ethnic restaurants, laundries, and groceries) students can save money. I also think that the privileged type of person that you find at BU, for example, might consider living in Allston something of an adventure. It offers cheaper living, ethnic flavor, and something of an art and music scene, plenty of bars, without the dangerous, violent urban side that places like Roxbury and Dorchester have. It makes you feel like you're "slumming it" in relative safety. And if you ever get tired of Allston, there's also Brookline right nearby, which is comparatively white and affluent, and probably even safer than Allston.

I do think, though that a lot of the students (and to a lesser extent, the immigrant community) don't give any respect to Allston as a place, precisely because they are usually not long-term residents. They are more likely to leave trash on the streets, break bottles at random, and make noise at night, because they sort of don't consider Allston a real place. It's just a place where the poor immigrants live and where people go to party and temporarily live cheaply during their college years. It is not, in this mindset, deserving of respect; it's not a 'real' neighborhood. I'm sure that this is also partially because people often come to Allston to visit the bars, and so are intoxicated. This is unpleasant for people like me (and I imagine for older, long-term residents), who just want to live quietly, go to work, and occasionally enjoy some of the many restaurants.

I hope that helps you some. Let me know if I can provide any more information, or if you want me to expand on any of these points.

-Allan

Roundheads vs. Cavaliers

Shorn of my flowing locks, I will have to rely only on my considerable charm in my daily quest to win friends and influence people.

missed the saturday dance

The world is a big place. There must be room in it for me. I pray for the serenity and the forethought to realize that anything good or bad that happens to me is small potatoes simply because of the grand scale of life and the world.

There are pluses and minuses ahead, but the most important point is that there is an ahead.

your future now

Someday I would like to make a move with this line in it:

"Well Barney, I'd like to think that today I lost a paying customer, but gained a good friend. And that's what matters most. Goodnight folks."

Just my little way of giving back to the community. Because that's what matters most. Goodnight folks.

working on coining cool phrases and being quoted by someone someday

Time is just a patina. Years accumulate on a person like kitchen grime on a neglected drinking glass left out on a high shelf, the kind where dust mixes with bits of oil and becomes a sticky, dirty mess.