Getting there required crossing the Blue Line MBTA tracks via this suitably blue-lined overpass.
Walking up the overpass, I felt as if I was on a footbridge rollercoaster.
According to this, the overpass was opened and named for Anthony and Dee Dee Marmo in September 2001 (no conspiracy theories, please!)
One but can’t help but notice its electric blue curves.
And on the other side of Marmo Overpass, it’s the beach!
It was pretty deserted on an unseasonably chilly Friday in early May.
Although I would’ve liked to have seen more activity, I have to admit I appreciated the solitude.
At the beach’s south end sits a residential neighborhood that juts out east towards the coastal suburb of Winthrop.
I must have arrived at or near low tide.
According to a municipal sign (not pictured), the beach is officially open from Memorial Day to Labor Day, so I was only weeks away from enjoying a hot dog from Selma’s Kitchen or a cup of Richie’s Italian Ice.
Looking south towards Porrazzo Skating Rink and beyond that, the familiar sight of Logan Airport Tower. In my last post, I mentioned I haven’t had a reason to return to Orient Heights (I live on practically the opposite end of Boston), but if I ever find myself out that way again, I’ll revisit Constitution Beach (that is, if it’s not too cold and windy.)
On a Friday afternoon in May 2016, I took a Blue Line MBTA train out to Orient Heights (according to Wikipedia, Boston’s northernmost and northeasternmost neighborhood) simply because I could. Having previously taken the line all the way to its terminus at Wonderland station in Revere Beach, I had never stopped anywhere along the way between it and Logan Airport.
If Orient Heights has a landmark, it’s the Madonna Queen of the Universe Shrine, the front of which is visible (albeit from a distance) from Route 1A; its back (the tall, narrow structure above) faces most of the actual neighborhood.
Otherwise, this is another average residential neighborhood accessible by T but not much of a magnet for tourists or visitors. (As of 2021, the tire shop with the vintage signage above is now a cell phone store.)
It’s an enclave mostly stuck in various past eras.
This antiquated siding is something you rarely see in Boston’s hipper neighborhoods (as well as business names with curiously placed periods.)
Of course there’s a Chinese-American restaurant with stereotypical signage and lots of red.
No name, just billiards, presumably.
As of 2023, the Beverly Richard Dance Center is still in business (I wonder if there’s much crossover with the billiards place?), as is Oxigen.J and Great Chef.
A look at Google Maps confirms Peter J. Martino, Jr. is still practicing (along with fellow Martino’s Nicholas and Justin) but the storefront to the right has been refurbished into the much brighter (if still Japanese) Sunny’s Cafe. Victory Pub is now called Renegade’s Pub and doesn’t appear to have changed much (at least on the outside.)
The intersection of Bennington and Saratoga Streets where Route 145 curves right from the former onto the latter with Orient Heights MBTA station in the distance. I haven’t had a reason to return to Orient Heights, although on that one visit I also came across an interesting piece of municipal architecture that I’ll post about next week.
I’ve always been a proponent of being a tourist in one’s own town; having taken many pictures documenting the city’s iconic spaces over the years, here are a baker’s dozen that you likely won’t find on a tourism map or website.
We begin in Louisburg Square, arguably the toniest enclave of Beacon Hill, the city’s toniest neighborhood. I don’t remember this old-fashioned mailbox always being there although it’s possible someone may have recently painted or gussied it up. Sitting along old row homes and cobblestone sidewalks, its antiquity fits right in.
A couple blocks away on Beacon Street near the State House sits this somewhat dingy luncheonette which, at least from the outside hasn’t changed much since it opened in 1977. I haven’t tried it (as with most downtown eating places, it’s only open during working week hours) but I’d be sad if it ever closed for good as it’s part of a vanishing breed gradually being taken over by your Cavas, Sweetgreens and Chipotles.
A Google search reveals that Scotch n’ Sirloin, a restaurant overlooking a stretch of I-93 that wasn’t entirely consumed by the Big Dig twenty-odd years ago closed in 1991 and yet the sign remains (the above photo is from December 2020) and likely will until the building gets rehabbed or torn down.
For years, this truck for Kitty’s Restaurant and Lounge in the far North suburbs has been a fixture at Haymarket. I don’t know why, exactly, but it’s always parked there and I rarely fail to notice its distinctive logo.
The North End is a tourism Mecca but out-of-towners tend to flock there for the restaurants, the Italian pastries, the Freedom Trail, etc. People actually live there too and occasionally need to service their vehicles (though let’s face it, the word “LUBRICATION” caught my eye more than anything else.)
Also spotted in the North End: a fake owl on top of a tow-zone sign. I don’t get it, either.
On the opposite end of downtown is Boston’s Chinatown, an ideal spot for Dim Sum but perhaps not so much for those seeking medical attention. My first thought upon seeing this unflashy dated signage in 2015 was, “Oh, really?”; according to Google Maps, work was being done on it as of 2020.
Speaking of dated signage, when Copley Place mall in the Back Bay began finally updating their 1980s-designed interior a few years ago, I knew I had to get a shot of this, located in hallway next to what was then Barney’s (and, long ago, a multiplex cinema with postage-stamp sized theaters) and is now Saks Fifth Avenue Mens’ Store.
A few blocks from the mall, probably on Marlborough St. or Commonwealth Ave. The neighborhood rivals (probably exceeds) Beacon Hill in terms of wealth, yet I tend to see the most elaborate (not to mention unsettling) Halloween decorations there every year.
Stepping away from Central Boston, it’s the Marmo Pedestrian Overpass in Orient Heights, a section of East Boston that I visited in May 2016 simply because I could (the Blue Line T goes out there.) It’s a pleasant, unremarkable neighborhood, most notable for Constitution Beach and this colorful footbridge. I posted a bunch of pix from there on my now-defunct Tumblr and maybe I’ll repost some of them here one day.
From East Boston to the city’s Westernmost boundary, which happens to be a ten minute walk from where I currently live. I’ll post an entire essay on West Roxbury some other time, but for now, here’s Sawmill Brook at Millennium Park, a vista I’ve taken dozens of shots of over the years; it’s almost as far West as one can go while staying within the city limits.
I was going to conclude with this whimsical hydrant on a residential West Roxbury street that I got to know well via many pandemic-era neighborhood walks.
However, I spotted this twin hydrant one street over the other day. Now I’m curious as to whether others exist throughout this neighborhood and beyond. Stay tuned.
Continuing a tradition, here is a selection of color shot in and around Boston during my favorite time of year. Above is the Charles River Esplanade as seen from the Longfellow Bridge. This is a few days before Daylight Savings Time ended; as of today, I’m doubtful much foliage is left.
A burst of yellow on the Esplanade with the Arthur Fiedler statue in the right background.
The Boston Public Garden one brisk morning this past week.
The Garden’s easily one of my favorite spots in town. When I took this photo, I noted how it was a reminder as to why, after moving here decades ago, I stayed.
Across the Charles and over to JFK Park near Harvard Square on an idyllic Saturday morning.
In late September I first noticed how unusually… robust the color was this year. Chalk it up to the summer drought, the subsequent rain, global warming or chance. Either way, I made time for a visit to Mt. Auburn Cemetery on the Cambridge/Watertown border, a place I didn’t make it to last year.
My mom has asked me, “Why go to a cemetery to take pictures?” Here’s one reason…
…and another. Mt. Auburn often feels as much of an arboretum as it does a cemetery.
We conclude on Millennium Park in West Roxbury – a ten minute walk from home and thus a park I’ve spent more time in than nearly any other in the area.
The trees were noticeably sparser than they were just five days before I took this one. Luckily, flashes of that rare autumnal red remained.
IFF Boston’s Fall Focus is a counterpart to their main film festival in late April/early May (in my opinion the best in the area.) Since this offshoot began about 7 or 8 years back, I’ve caught titles there such as Anomalisa, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Cold War and Shoplifters. After an online-only edition in 2020 and my skipping it last year, it was a treat to return. Of the eleven films playing over four days (plus two bonus titles afterwards), I saw these three.
WOMEN TALKING
Sarah Polley’s return to directing after a decade carries almost ridiculously high expectations due to her previous, consistently strong body of work (Away From Her, Take This Waltz, Stories We Tell) and all the awards season hype already showered upon this new film, which Polley adapted from Miriam Toews’ 2018 novel. Happily, Women Talking mostly meets them.
Set in a remote, rural, unnamed religious community (though Mennonite seems most likely), it revolves around an emergency, clandestine meeting among about a dozen of its women. Upon discovery that some of their men are drugging and raping them, they debate whether all the women should stay and fight back or leave the settlement with their younger children. It takes place in the near-present, though with the addition of an unlikely musical cue it could reasonably be any time since the late 1960’s; it also leaves open the possibility that it could even be in the near (or remote) future.
Much of it is exactly what the title promises: the women process the dilemma before them, discussing and arguing at length the implications of what courses of action are available to them. If this sounds dry and overly, well, talky, it’s visually far less static and isolated than something like last year’s (admittedly great) Mass. Polley not only sculpts dialogue to ebb and flow naturally like a good screenplay should, she also comprehends the value of opening up this world cinematically when the time is right for it. As the camera moves around and sometimes away from the barn where much of the action occurs, one can usually sense Polley’s hand as an additional unseen character right beside the women, reacting to and often enhancing what transpires.
The superb ensemble cast includes indie-friendly stars (Rooney Mara, Jessie Buckley, Claire Foy), Canadian stalwarts (Sheila McCarthy, Michelle McLeod), revered veterans (Judith Ivey and in a smaller role, Frances McDormand) and Ben Whishaw as the sole on-screen adult male, a sympathetic school teacher asked to take minutes of the meeting (most of the women there are not taught to read and write.)
As the women work their way towards decisive action, the film accumulates considerable power, laying out what’s at stake for these characters, illustrating their turmoil (but never in an exploitative way) and placing it in a larger context that strives to be universally applicable. Occasionally, the story oversteps, simplifying logistical concerns for actions taken; the final section also drags a bit, reiterating ideas and emotional beats already touched upon. However, those are minor missteps. The world Polley depicts is contained to the point of being restrictive; Women Talking, with great catharsis and reasoning explains with artful clarity as to why this is damaging and what future generations can do to avoid succumbing to such a closed-off, incomplete life. (4.5 out of 5)
BROKER
After a brief sojourn in France (The Truth), director Hirokazu Kore-eda made this movie in South Korea rather than his home country of Japan, purportedly so he could work with the actor Song Kang-ho (he was most recently the patriarch in Parasite.) As with its predecessor, the shift in locale does not mean any departure in style or tone, though some parts of Broker might comprise his most overtly comedic work in years.
The plot, however, is the stuff of drama and suspense. Two men, Sang-hyun (Song) and Dong-soo (Gang Dong-won) run an illegal business in Busan where they steal abandoned infants from a church’s drop-off box and sell them on the black market. It works swimmingly until So-young (singer/songwriter IU), a teenage mother in the process of dropping off her own baby discovers their scheme and joins them to interview prospective adoptive parents. Meanwhile, two detectives (one played by Kore-eda alumnus Doona Bae, now middle-aged but still fabulous) sit in their unmarked car and watch this all play out.
Although Broker won the Jury Prize at Cannes, it isn’t on the same level as Kore-eda’s very best work (my top four, chronologically: After Life, Nobody Knows, Still Walking, Shoplifters.) Actually, it’s slightly flabby (maybe 10-20 minutes too long) and although he retains a knack for getting amusing (but not irritating!) performances out of children, this film’s humor and pathos do not always sit comfortably alongside each other. Of course, as veteran auteurs go, Kore-eda is still in a class of his own. He may be relying on variations on familiar themes, but no one else matches his sustained comfort and nimble touch with depicting makeshift families and finding those ingenuous, unforced grace moments that co-exist with the mundane. (4 out of 5)
ARMAGEDDON TIME
The latest from writer/director James Gray is almost nakedly autobiographical. His 11-year-old alter ego, Paul (Banks Repeta) lives in Queens, 1980 (as Gray did), the younger son of a middle-class Jewish-American family whose grandfather (Anthony Hopkins) arrived at Ellis Island near the turn of the 20th century. A would-be artist prone to daydreaming with little traditional work ethic in him, Paul befriends Johnny (Jaylin Webb), an African-American classmate who was left back the previous year and is barely tolerated by their public-school teacher. His friendship with Johnny doesn’t so much open up a new world for Paul as it gradually puts into perspective his own place in the world and how his race and class afford him privilege; meanwhile, his grandfather helps him to understand the complexities of bearing such privilege along with the moral and ethical implications at risk as a result.
Gray gets the period look and feel exactly right but sometimes struggles with other details. Apart from Hopkins, Paul’s family can come off as stereotypical-verging-on-cartoonish; even worse, Johnny’s barely a character at all, a sacrificial lamb for Paul to learn from. The insertion of two real-life figures related to a former president also feels a little clumsy, reiterating the overall point by practically banging it into the ground. On the other hand, the film would fall apart without Repeta’s naturalistic performance; he’s certainly one of the more plausible 11-year-old film protagonists, itself a tough age to depict in that Paul is still an innocent child to a degree but also easily corruptible. Of the few Gray films I’ve seen (Ad Astra, The Immigrant) this is somehow the most satisfying but also the most flawed, which frustrates–I repeatedly sensed that he’s just too close to the material even though it’s undeniably his story to tell. (3 out of 5)
I moved to Boston 25 years ago today. I’ve commemorated past anniversaries with photo essays, listicles and, five years ago, an accountof my first 48 hours in town. Below is a follow-up essay on how I spent (and survived) my first 12 months as a Bostonian.
***
I wore out a City of Boston street map my first year living there.
Accustomed to Milwaukee’s perpendicular street grids (see also Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul and nearly every other major Midwestern city), little prepared me for this layout. An ungainly mess of former cow paths and meandering post roads dating back to the 17th century, I likened it to the messy imprint left behind by a fistful of linguini with sauce, misidentified as spaghetti and flung against the wall by Oscar Madison in the film version of The Odd Couple (upon which he proclaims to Felix Unger, “Now, it’s garbage!”) As a longtime map enthusiast, I was determined to know it by memory. In this pre-smart phone era, I carried it with me, often unfolding and consulting it everywhere I went from the student and immigrant ghettos of Allston Village (where I resided) to the shores of Wollaston Bay in Quincy on a Saturday spent scoping out its beach and multiple clam huts.
My first week in town, I composed in my journal an itinerary of Places To Visit based on obvious landmarks, Boston Phoenix listings and random hearsay. I included major tourist destinations (Quincy Marketplace, the North End, the friggin’ Freedom Trail), cultural institutions of the sort I usually seek out in any big city (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Public Library’s central branch) and naturally, since I moved here to earn a graduate degree in Film Studies from Boston University, independent movie houses (Brattle, Somerville, Coolidge Corner.) A few items on this list now baffle me—I can understand wanting to check out massive community garden Back Bay Fens (even if I had no inkling of its after-hours reputation as a cruising spot) but wherever did I hear that Chestnut Hill Reservoir, while a pleasant place to visit was a must-see spot amongst the myriad of more-than-adequate parks closer to my apartment?
Inevitably, some places didn’t live up to the lofty reputation I assumed of them simply because of their names. Take Downtown Crossing, a shopping district home to Filene’s and Macy’s. Sounds like a hip, happening neighborhood, no? I remember my spirit dissipating the first time I walked along pedestrian-only Winter Street and took in the shabby storefronts, the pathetic Corner Mall (laughably dated even in 1997!) and the rundown Paramount Theatre (a few years before its glorious renovation.) All that held interest for me there was the modern, massive Borders Bookstore at the intersection of Washington and School Streets. Though I miss the now-defunct chain, even then it was nothing worth getting too excited about.
In time, I’d stumble upon places I’d actually want to revisit: the original and relatively spacious outpost of AIDS Action thrift store Boomerangs located down the street from the TD Garden (then called the FleetCenter); Pipeline, Looney Tunes, Second Coming and every other used record store strung along Mass Ave. between Central and Harvard Squares in Cambridge; Deli Haus, a venerable Kenmore Square greasy spoon that I described in my journal as “the dumpy, unpretentious lunch spot I’ve been looking for”; and a handful of local coffeehouses. Having formerly lived in a city without any Starbucks (Milwaukee’s first opened around the time I left), I had a somewhat irrational aversion to them. To my delight, late 90’s Boston was teeming with plenty of alternatives from the workmanlike Caffe Romano on Newbury Street and local mini-chain Carberry’s to funkier, more exotic joints such as the richly painted little rooms of Curious Liquids just across the street from the State House or Iron Lung, a homey, cozy place to sip a Chai Tea near BU’s South Campus. (All of these establishments are sadly if inevitably long gone.)
Often craving to escape my apartment (which I had dubbed the “Shitbox”), I took refuge in whatever beautiful green space I could find (at least until winter arrived, and sometimes even then.) I’ve written before about Knyvet Square, a tiny oasis of a neighborhood park in Brookline just blocks away from the Shitbox; I also often rode my bike down to the Esplanade in hope that one of a group of four benches flanked by three giant trees overlooking the Charles River and the Longfellow Bridge was available. I eventually made my way up and down Frederick Law Olmstead’s famed “Emerald Necklace” of linked parks: venturing south along the Riverway, I fell hard for Jamaica Pond and the Arnold Arboretum, both places considerably expanding my city view by offering acres of space for hiking, reading, sunbathing and solace.
One of four favorite shaded benches overlooking the Charles.
The Public Garden is also a major and more centrally located part of this chain (and one of the notable places in Boston that hasn’t seen too many significant alterations over the past quarter century.) After biking along the Esplanade all the way down to the Hatch Shell, I’d cross over the winding, monolithic Arthur Fiedler Footbridge where the Garden’s northwest corner awaited on the other side across Beacon Street. I’d walk my bike on the central path circling the lagoon teeming with wooden swan-shaped boats (and often, some actual swans), seeking a bench overlooking the peaceful milieu or perhaps another spot along the secondary paths that broke off from the main drag. Some of them led to elegantly manicured rose bush displays or such hidden wonders as a monument dedicated to the invention of ether.
One late Sunday afternoon in early October, I lounged on a bench there reading The Portable Jack Kerouac. A middle-aged man sat down on the next bench over, clad in a blue suit and striped tie, sporting early traces of a receding hairline. Before long, he introduced himself as an out-of-towner here on a business trip and asked me for suggestions regarding stuff to do. Our conversation about the best Boston had to offer rambled on innocently enough for five minutes until, slightly nervously, he asked, “I was wondering if I could take you out to dinner with me tonight.” So, this guy wasn’t just looking for tourism advice. I’m certain I turned beet-red realizing that a man twice my age was trying to pick me up. In a tone straining to be as polite and least awkward as possible, I blurted out, “Oh! Sorry, I actually need to go. You know, homework to do before class tomorrow.” He seemed less disappointed or embarrassed than apologetic as I wished him a good rest of his time in town, got up and left.
Biking home to Allston, I was extremely weirded out. With my green-flannel shirt and short blonde hair, I must’ve resembled quite the young twink engaging in conversation there with an older man looking for some action (no matter how discreetly.) The thing is, I was actually yearning to connect with other gay people. My coming out happened to coincide with moving to Boston, though at this early phase it was more about my own coming to terms with it. After years of denial and despair, I was finally able to admit it to myself and accept it. However, given my introvertive nature, I didn’t yet know how to be actively out. I kept hoping the gays would come to me, that I’d magically stumble upon them. Perhaps if this guy had been more attractive (not to mention much, much closer to my own age), I would’ve taken him up on his offer. Instead, it was what it was and not what I wanted my first homosexual encounter to be.
When I look back at this period, learning how to take comfort in being out defines it as much getting used to being completely on my own. I took on two massive changes simultaneously and struggled with both. Although grad school offered plenty of structure, it threw into relief the part that didn’t—a mostly nonexistent social life. A brief attempt to meet up weekly with my fellow classmates for movie nights and visits from my parents and a close friend from home broke up the monotony somewhat. Still, I generally had way too much time to myself. I did adjust to moviegoing alone, catching a matinee of the then-new The Big Lebowski at the Nickelodeon near BU on Easter Sunday; I also attended the occasional party, including one where I tested the outer limits of my alcohol consumption. I even once worked up the fortitude to check out gay night at Avalon, a spacious nightclub on Lansdowne Street (now home to the local House of Blues.) I paid my cover and lasted less than an hour, dancing by myself a bit and downing a Rolling Rock (my brew of choice as an impoverished student.) No one spoke to me and vice versa; I was likely too nervous to actually notice if anyone was checking me out. I quickly decided it just wasn’t my scene—the insistent, anonymous house music thump held no allure, and everything was too loud, too dark.
I longed for much more, missing the life I had in Milwaukee while knowing it would do me no good to go back there permanently. When I did return for a two-week visit after the Spring semester ended, I wrote in my journal, “I’ve been trying too hard to recreate good memories here.” Back to Boston on Memorial Day with no classes until September, I spent weeks devising productive ways to occupy my time which, given my responsible Catholic work effort would ideally result in a paying job. Combing through the classifieds, looking into summer work-study opportunities at BU and filling out applications at local businesses produced few desirable prospects. I finally resorted to temping, scoring an eight-week term as a desk receptionist at the Massachusetts State Laboratory in Jamaica Plain. It was dull but manageable work, sadly cut short after a week when one of their night watchmen coerced them into giving him the job instead—my older co-worker Linda dismissed the guy as “psychotic” to the point of her having to take tranquilizers to deal with him, so perhaps I dodged a bullet there. Either way, by then the staffing agency was unable to find me another short-term assignment.
Ladies and Gentlemen, The Ether Monument! (at the Public Garden.)
The summer dragged on. I biked nearly everywhere until the chain on my cheap ass Trek jammed up. After taking it by the local shop (the pretentiously named International Bicycle Center) and being told by a snotty employee it was “horribly unsafe and not worth fixing”, I unceremoniously dumped it into the massive communal trash bin in back of my Shitbox. Given that my lease was up at the end of August, I began looking for a better place. For a week or so, I believed I’d found one, a three-bedroom unit on Beacon Street in Brookline that was tiny but sunny and at least much cleaner than the Shitbox. Unfortunately, within two weeks of seeing the place, the current resident suddenly decided to move herself; the landlords gave me 24 hours to either put down a first and last month and security deposit for the entire unit or find two roommates willing to go in on it with me. Neither option was going to happen.
I felt like I was slowly losing my mind. Perhaps a combination of the relentless summer heat and my continued inactivity was to blame but I began witnessing sights that seemed exceptionally surreal: the middle-aged, Middle Eastern, pink-shirted man practicing ballroom dancing steps by himself in Knyvet Square, or an army of kazoo-wielding toddlers marching and tooting past my bench in a park in the middle of Cambridgeport. My hometown and adopted home began merging in my dreams where, instead of the spot Commonwealth Ave curved at Packard’s Corner, I’d find myself getting on the MBTA Green Line Subway at, say, Forest Home Avenue a few miles from where I grew up.
It all came to a head frightfully early one morning when I awoke to the CLICK! of a door abruptly locking behind me. Inexplicably, I stood outside the Shitbox wearing nothing but my tidy whities (good thing I didn’t sleep in the nude!) A 6:00 AM sun beamed down but I found this bright, cheery tableau utterly disorienting and baffling—this was decidedly not a dream. I don’t recall ever having sleepwalked before, but as the old cliché goes, there truly is a first time for everything. Knowing only one of my two roommates was home (the other had gone out of town), I rang our buzzer five, ten, twenty times, to no response. Heck, if I’d been in bed and heard it this early, I would’ve ignored it too.
Thus, I had no choice but to exit the lobby and walk barefoot in my undies around to the back of the building and shout at my roommate’s first floor window, “Abel! Wake up, I’ve locked myself out!” The window was open (no A/C for us in the Shitbox!) but I had to repeat my plea a few times in an increasingly louder (and more desperate) voice. Finally, Abel got the hint, got up and walked to the building’s auto-locking front door to let me in. I thanked him profusely, embarrassed but knowing I had no other choice than to seek his assistance. We both went back to our respective bedrooms and never spoke of it again.
Thankfully, this was my first and last time sleepwalking (that I know of.) It was even more disturbing than that failed pickup in the Public Garden, but I was determined to move beyond it. Later that day, I wrote, “I’m not going to let this city drag me down,” and I meant it. I contacted another staffing agency and scored a few brief assignments in August (including one office job that I summed up as “A world of cubicles, fruit platters and coffee creamers.”) I found a better apartment all the way over in North Cambridge in the right half of a townhouse where I had two roommates (one of whom became a good friend) and, as my bedroom, the entire basement to myself. As the days grew shorter, I could see my limbo approaching its end, for September would bring new classes and work-study opportunities. When the fall semester began, I purchased a new map to replace the old, seriously creased and tattered one, though my familiarity with the area was now such that I didn’t have to use it nearly as much. If I learned anything that first year as a Bostonian, it was that a map can only lend so much direction—the rest comes through various experiences, mishaps and the occasional success.
If shoes are hanging from a telephone wire, it must be Allston, circa 1997 (or whenever.)
Haunted Jukebox 