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!