I ventured out with my housemate, S., to Market Basket, to pick up fixins for a Friday night shindig. This is an old-school supermarket, like the ones from the seventies of my golden youth.

I liked how focused and frank people were there. They tend to be more passive-aggressive at the Stop-n-Shop in Porter Square, where I usually go. At Market Basket, if your cart's blocking their way, they'll just move it. No drama. It's not such a high-stakes proposition. It's physics, not The Frankfurt School. Logistics, not social theory. Egos aren't on the line. The whole shopping experience was refreshingly less meta.

And the prices were way lower. Like on some things, more than a dollar less than Stop-n-Shop.

Yes, it was super crowded. But it actually has more of a market feel. Sometimes I find shopping at Stop-n-Shop a very lonesome, alienating experience.  It's a bit further to Market Basket, but maybe I'll go back.


Got my first bicycle moving violation from the city of Cambridge Friday, around Central Square, for running a light. There were actually four of us stopped, and none of us blew through. It was more like a "rolling stop," but whatever. We all got off with warnings.

Still, this whole experience may have radicalized me. I won't know for sure until Monday's commute, though.


Turns out that reports of the death of my neighbor's magnolia were, erm, overstated:



Still struggling—I mean, it's the middle of June, for Pete's sake—but it's alive! And that's reason for hope, and celebration.


The Institute For Infinitely Small Things has concluded their renaming expedition. Check out the results. But be forewarned, there are an alarming number of once-familiar place names which now bear the names of people's pets. With Jingles The Wonder Dog leading the pack. (There are also multitudes named after the renamer, of course, or the renamer's boo.)

Among my favorite renamings:

From Dunster Street to Get Over It Street. Because: "[the renamer has] been harassed multiple times by the same homeless man on this street for being queer. He needs to get over it."

From Harvard Square to Crimes Against Humanity and Corporate Greed Square. That's so Cambridge—oops! I mean, that's so Jinglesville.

From Hurlbut to Flingass Ave. (self-explanatory).

From Inman Square to Ringo Starr Round. Why? "Ringo's creative drumming and heartfelt vocals, especially on 'it don't come easy' compelled this choice."  Ringo has always been my favorite Beatle, too.

From Magazine Street to Agazinemay Street, "because it's magazine in pig latin."

From Newport Rd to Pret un cul de sac "almost a dead end".

Ed Rogers would like to rename Reverend Williams Park Ed Rogers Park, because, he says: "This is one of my favorite parks in the area. I want it."

And, finally, Ware St. would become Szczepanowski Street as part of a much more ambitious scheme to "rename all Anglo Saxon names to Slovak names."