Snow!
Despite the cold, I’ve been having fun in Boston so far. Jo and Jono are being gracious and generous hosts and I’m eating really well. Pork Pad Prik Khing tonight, I think.
We all went to a party at a Burner friend’s place here on Friday. They have a pet flying squirrel called “Squee”, which is a perfectly onomatopoeic name for a flying squirrel. He was the cute as all get-out, a little mouse-sized thing flinging itself between the pant legs of the guests and running up everyone’s jumper. He normally eats pecans (squirreling caches of them all around the house) but a treat is half a grape, which he’ll sit and eat the flesh out of before discarding the skin. All night I was terrified of sitting on the little bugger.
The same Burner friends had told us about The Slutcracker, which we went to see on Sunday. Apparently The Nutcracker is a Christmas tradition around Boston and indeed I’d seen posters for a couple of different productions at the T stations. The Slutcracker is the Burlesque version. None of us were actually familiar with the Nutcracker story, but apparently it’s got something to do with pink dildos coming to life and up until now I didn’t realise the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy took place on a stripper pole. It was good clean fun (even the male dancers had pasties!) and you should definitely see it if you find yourself in town this time next year.
Today I got up at the crack of midday and wandered around Harvard for a while. Though traditional, when I did see a car stopped by the side of a path I felt it wasn’t my place to direct them to move on. It’s a nice area though and I wandered around with my camera being a very obvious tourist and taking photos of what I can only presume is the most educated snowman in the country.
After that I went in to the MIT Museum. The exhibitions were awesome. Firstly holograms. I want a hologram! Anyone know how much a “print” of a hologram costs or where I can get one?
Next was the kinetic sculpture of Arthur Ganson. It was absolutely fantastic. He builds machines full of cogs and wheels and pulleys which, in essence, dance, plus more arty things like a mechanical vice which slowly crushes a radio whenever one of the audience steps on the foot pedal to activate it (previously crushed radios also on display). There was also “Brownian Rice”, which is flat-out the trippyest thing I’ve seen at 4:30 on a Monday afternoon, ever. Another one to see if you find yourself here, or if you find his work traveling to your town.
Serendipity was when I decided to check my coat and got into the lift to go back to the entrance where the coat-check was. I got out of the lift to find myself in the bowels of the institution, right out the front of the Tech Model Railroad Club. I had read about the TMRC in the Jargon File years ago and although it wasn’t open, I got to play Tetris on the “Green building” through the window in the hall. I love the feeling of being in the places where stuff happened.
We’re off now to meet some friends at a genuine Boston Irish Bar in Brookline. Not sure what’s on for the rest of the week, but I’d better push through the snow and do the Freedom Trail at some point. Oh, did I mention the snow? On the way out to the Slutcracker we had a bit of a frolic through about 30cm of fluffy, powdery snow. Three days later and it’s all still there. White Christmas, ahoy!
