A presto,

Claire

[photo credit: Jonathan Mandell]

I’m somewhat of a fizzler, sometimes. you can see that, I’m sure. Back in France, when K proposed a btp refire, I was quick to agree. Nights, after dinner’d been cleared and the other wwoofers had left the dining caravan, we laid out plans- the new btp would be a dual-dairy of the city, alternate stories embedded with events and destinations.

and then… so quickly it fell to pieces. I know all of you juggle full-time jobs with blogging, and you do it so well, when all I can do is read your blogs, and mewl piteously at my listlessness.

somehow i’ve let this blog, which i tied up so neatly and happily last December, become a ragged, sagging, shabby thing, all gapes and whispers and crickets. so now, to stave off further withering, i’m wrapping it up again. but.

There’s something else I’ve been working on all summer, something I know you all, if you have a few minutes, can maybe help me with. Because my senior colloqium is all about blogs and regional identity- namely, I’m trying to see if where you’re from comes out in how and what you blog. In the interest of a) getting it done, and b) accuracy, I’m keeping a stateside, mid-30s and under perspective.

Whether you’re from here or there or anywhere- does it come out in your blogging voice? is it a conscious thing, or something others have remarked on? So many people have written about the internet’s shrinking effect on the world, but the way i see it, blogging can also be a way to entrench yourself in your homeland. maybe. what do you think? let me know by emailing claire@bostontparties.com

Also, and entirely unrelatedly, I braved the sodden fields and slurried skys of all points west on Friday. i went for the National and for fleet foxes, and for Vampire weekend and the Yeah yeah yeahs, though mother nature had me beat by the latter two. Apart from the whiskey-fueled ramblings of Seasick steve (tennessee soda pop, he called it), the shows were insane, and I suspect layered shimmer rock isn’t all that condusive to massive audiences and downpours.

During the anthemic and throbbing “Mr. november,” Matt Berninger, the lead vocalist for the national, jumped off the stage and waded through the tightpacked swarm of wayfaring hipsters who stretched their hands out and out and some of them he grasped quickly, but when he reached my little sister, he managed to snake his arms around her and sway to the crowd’s swell and the expression on her face reminded me of those pictures of teenage girls at beatles shows- exquisite agony. Eventually, at “i used to be carried in the arms of the cheerleaders,”  he let the arms propell him up and back to the stage. My sister’s face stayed where it was through the night. It was the coolest, we agreed. except possibly for meeting and sharing a 6 hour flight to London with bon iver. but that’s a story for a different, future time.

I stopped running once i got to Comm Ave, and walked the mile and a half back to where the Reservoir begins. At the closet-sized International and National foods co (157 Sutherland Rd), I bought a container of what appeared to be beets and peas and cabbage.

“Health salad,” the dimpled women manning the cashier told me. “It will give energy.” She blushed as she said this, and the young girl behind the deli counter, all frayed yellow hair and window-sill cheekbones, rolled her eyes.

She was right though; it did give me energy. And pink pee, which always brightens my day. Brightons, in this case.

[Photo Credits: Cave Cibum and HJW3001]

In Manhattan, there’s a restaurant on 16th street right off Union Square called the Chat ‘n’ Chew. It is filled with a mix of 50s and cowboy memorabilia, and its menu cheerfully offers up diner fare done right – “not your mama’s meatloaf,” “holey cow” burgers, “uncle red’s addiction” fried chicken, tv dinners, greaseless sweet potato fries, dense and towery slabs of coco-cola chocolate cake, and what until last night I figured was the world’s best mac and cheese- chewy rigatoni tossed with cheddar for flavor and velveeta for fun, and topped with crushed potato chips. The mac and cheese at Silvertone is structurally quite similar to CnC’s, but it subs out the chips for bread crumbs and parmesan. A smart choice, for it clings to the noodles and absorbs the grease instead of adding to it.
Plus, Silvertone has drinks. Not that CnC doesn’t, but they’re not exactly a headlining event.
K and I both ordered the Joey Joe- Joe Jr. Shabadoo, a combination of Jim Beam, bitters, ginger beer, and a twist whose potency:price ratio was well worth its the effort it took to pronounce its tongue-twisting, dorky moniker.
Even the boy, who is depressingly steadfast to the dive bars of Cleveland Circle, had no complaints.

I can’t say I like Silvertone better than CnC- old favorites die hard, and the latter’s service is far friendlier.
But.
Silvertone is about 250 miles closer.
Win: Silvertone.

Near invisible lips pucker and release around a piece of toffee whose wrapper he lets drift to the subway floor. His face is a prune, his eyes the shallowest of grooves. It’s a face that belongs in National Geographic- if not the cover, than at least a decent spread, a visit to ye-olde China, gongs and rice and scarlet dragons.

He has a daughter, nearly as scrawny as he, but unwithered. The alligator on her polo is backwards, and the toenails peeping out form her Tevas are ballerina pink. She too sucks a toffee, though her wrapper is neatly folded, tucked into her grey Jansport.

Sometimes, she shoots her father a backwards glance, and her mouth smiles around the candy. The rest of the time she stares ahead, while her fingers and pink toes drum a steady waltz.

At Packards Corner, she springs to her feet, grabs her father’s elbow, and ushers him off. He is probably still working on that toffee.

Eepstair

“You know, your ipod is misleading.”

We were sitting, the boy and I, in a little booth in Zaftigs watching plates piled high with omelettes and french toast and brisket zoom by on the arms of sturdy, and eagled-eyed servers. I mentioned something about restaurant soundtracks- how they were predictable, prefab, and sucky, and I had said this feeling rather smug about my own musical library, and then the boy’s sentence clattered into my blueberry pancakes with a hackle-raising thud.

“You have all these terrific artists, but then I click on them and there’s only one or two songs.”

Because I listen to music by playlist, not by album, I explained. For the most part, I’ve assembled my library song by song, and most songs are chosen because they fit into a specific playlist.

The boy finds this odd. He grew up listening to albums, though, and I grew up listening to not very much, until I saw Garden State my junior year of high school and rushed out to buy the soundtrack and listened to it over and over and over and emerged with a love of lofi, quirky indie pop. And the Garden State soundtrack is a playlist, really, so perhaps it is responsible for my love of them.

Although… now when I listen to it, I find that though almost every song is poignant and wonderful, together it’s a bit too drowsy. When I make a playlist, I like it to be balanced- the hushed and languid must be followed by something more upbeat and crisp. My playlists do skew towards alternative, but I usually toss in some full-fledged pop, and perhaps some rap, so long as there’s a grabby beat and an absense of maudlin duets.

Currently I’m listening to a playlist I’ve named ‘eepstair, because it’s filled with trendy indie, and some of it is french. It won’t change your life, but it’s summery and joyful and occasionally surging and glorious- the violin in the national’s “90 Mile Water Wall” still makes me achey and misty.

A note- I am somewhat iffy regarding Micachu and the Shapes, because they are very fuzzy and blippy and Mica Levi’s voice is maybe too remniscent of Regina Spector. That being said, it is very lively, interesting, and catchy stuff. If you like it, you may want to check out the band when they play Great Scott this Thursday.

Another note- Sasha Frere Jones is right about Grizzly Bear’s “Two Weeks” being the best song of the summer. I was trying to break free of deeply layered, lush hymnals, but this track has dragged me back.
]]> http://bostontparties.wordpress.com/2009/07/13/eepstair-et-zaftig/feed/ 1 claire http://bostontparties.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/dirty-martini-blues/ http://bostontparties.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/dirty-martini-blues/#comments Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:30:08 +0000 claire http://www.bostontparties.com/?p=1715 ]]> He twiddled the olive spear vigorously. It was his third of the evening, and he sat alone. His eyes fixed upon the Sox game, but in a glazed way- no grimace or grin at hits and strikeouts, certainly no fists banged upon the zinc counter. THe wrinkles in his perwinkle shirt grew with each martini, and when he got up to leave I saw that his khakis were just as wrinkled, and his left boat shoe had a hole in the toe. He didn’t see the smile I gave him, or he pretended not to. A good thing, maybe, as I couldn’t keep the pity out of it.

Emphasis on the “is,” and summer being “it.” A hopeful question. These days are kind of Strokesian though, aren’t they? Vague and grey and faintly buzzing with spikes sweet enough to keep your finger off the skip button. And today was mostly a spike, at least in Brighton, and I took advantage of it on a bench in a teeny park. I don’t know if all the parks in Brighton have free wifi, but the one on comm ave just before the reservoir does. Also it has a lot of passersby, especially in the early evening -stooped and craggy babushkas wheeling metal carts filled with cat food and a carton of half and half, dewy runners and heaving would-be runners, and families, many of them multiracial. Sometimes the families stay, because there’s a playground, and the grass, neat and springy with clovers, is perfect for picnics and little knees.
Just before I left, three little girls plunked down beside me. One produced a small pink dvd player from her small, pink Hannah Montana backpack. Another doled out bags of skittles. The third lay out a beach towel. Voila, an outdoor theatre. I wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or horrified, and I settled on a muffled envy. I love outdoor theatres, even though the movies I’ve seen at them have always been awful, with explosions and rampant CGI and talking cars and Shia laBeouf.

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The photographer Stefanie Klavens loves outdoor theatres too, so long as they are old. Her show at Gallery on the Plaza in Brookline, entitled “Celluloid Dreams: America’s Vanishing Movie Palaces & Drive?In Theaters,” is pure the-way-things-were porn, loaded with Hopper-like shots of the Silver Moon in Lakeland Florida and Somerville Theatre (which is still running, and boasts a fantastically varied and quirky line-up). It’s a small exhibition, and immensely enjoyable, and I can’t recommend it enough. What I can recommend is going soon though, as it’s only running through July 20th. Also, to those of you drive-in buffs, where do you go? Besides Mendon, I mean (in case I’m just not feeling the beef).

“I love that book, man. Do you like it.” The Asian boy liked it very much.

“You read A Clockwork Orange?” He had not.

“Oh man, you gotta read it.” Dreadlocks’ friend, appropriately sporting a bowler hat (in addition to a black mesh shirt and “punk rocker” tattoo on a shriveled bicep), concurred.

“Yeah, you gotta. You’ll get ultraviolent. You’ll just want to hit everyone.” He turned to Dreadlocks.

“Man, we should go ultraviolent NOW.” The little Indian man sitting next to me stiffened.

“No, man. When we get off, we can. We will. We’ll go so ultraviolent.” The Indian man relaxed a little. I prayed they weren’t getting off at Reservoir.

They didn’t, but by Kenmore, the boy in the bowler hat was frothing medicinal blue, and I’d spotted an open seat in the other car. When I left, they were still there, expounding on the swaztika’s true meaning as a peace symbol and what idiots most people were for not looking past its other, more perjorative connotation.

This is only speculation, but methinks that they got off at Woodland, where a blown-out blonde in quilted pastel burberry and metallic Jack Rodgers waited, blasting Britney in her sea-green Range Rover.