Growing up, my parents and I revisited a canon of classic Christmas movies every year: The Bishop’s Wife featuring Cary Grant at the peak of his ineffable charm; Miracle on 34th Street with Edmund Gwenn’s archetypical Santa Claus and nine-year-old Natalie Wood giving her contemporary child actors a run for their money; Going My Way and The Bells of St. Mary’s, both starring Bing Crosby as a cool priest and in the latter sequel, Ingrid Bergman as his nun counterpart; It’s A Wonderful Life, its first three-quarters seemingly interminable to a child until George Bailey wishes he’d never been born and the rest is pure magic that director Frank Capra, James Stewart and Henry Travers (as Clarence the Angel) all sell the heck out of.
The three of us found a new holiday classic via A Christmas Story during its original 1983 theatrical run. In witnessing little Ralphie’s exhaustive efforts to ask for a Red Ryder BB Gun in 1940s Indiana (including the frozen pole licking, copious Bumpus hounds, an alarming department store Santa and his cranky helper elves, etc.), I don’t think my parents or I had ever laughed so much at the movies. An adaptation of humorist Jean Shepherd’s book In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, the film was only a minor box office hit (although I recall many commercials for it airing at the time.) The following year, we saw it again at the second-run Times Cinema on Vliet St. It was as riotously funny to us as the first time. A year later, after cable TV finally came to Milwaukee, seemingly everyone had seen the film. At a holiday party that year, numerous kids remarked to bespectacled me, “You look just like that kid from A Christmas Story!”
I can credit Ralphie and company for a newfound desire to find more holiday films to love. When I was 9, my mom and I attempted to watch every version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol we could see, from the 1938 edition with Reginald Owen to the then-new, made-for-TV one starring George C. Scott (I wonder if I could watch it today without thinking of his performances in Dr. Strangelove or Hardcore.) At the time, I enjoyed the novelty of 1970’s Scrooge, a musical adaptation with Albert Finney; revisiting it last year, it’s still a fizzy take on the oft-told legend with a terrific score, even if the Christmas Future sequence where Scrooge essentially goes to Hell is trippy, cheesy and very much of its time. The 1951 version still has the best Ebenezer, Alistair Sim even if his partial resemblance to Klaus Kinski makes me long for the Werner Herzog version of this story that never was.
Of all of my parents’ beloved holiday perennials, their favorite, 1942’s Holiday Inn, pairs Crosby with Fred Astaire. The former plays a New York City entertainer who retreats to the Connecticut countryside, opening a hotel/nightclub that only operates on holidays; it primarily exists as a vehicle for a selection of seasonally themed Irving Berlin compositions including the debut of what is often cited as the best-selling single of all time, “White Christmas”. My folks usually waited to watch it on Christmas Eve after I had gone to bed. By my teenage years, I began accompanying them, first viewing it on a VHS tape recorded from an airing on local independent WVTV Channel 18, then on a store-bought cassette and eventually on DVD. It soon became one of my favorites, seen so many times that I could probably recite all of its dialogue today. It hasn’t aged entirely well (gratuitous blackface number alert!) and some of the holidays celebrated are a stretch (George Washington’s Birthday?) but those Christmas (and New Year’s Eve) scenes are evergreens. The 1954 sequel titled White Christmas (duh) substitutes an absent Astaire with Danny Kaye; it’s fine but not nearly as affecting as its predecessor.
Apart from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (one of my husband’s favorites), Tim Burton’s and Henry Selick’s The Nightmare Before Christmas (not a Halloween film!) and It Happened On Fifth Avenue (a hidden gem from 1947 about a benevolent bum and the kindness of strangers), as an adult I didn’t much seek out other holiday classics (despite no shortage of new ones via The Hallmark Channel) until the pandemic hit three years ago. With time on our hands and the world of streaming at our fingertips, we found a few worthy new candidates for the canon: Remember The Night, written by Preston Sturges and teaming up Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck (a few years before Double Indemnity) and Holiday Affair, a sort-of-comic noir with Robert Mitchum and a young Janet Leigh. However, the Christmas film I’ve grown to love most in the past decade is Ernst Lubitsch’s The Shop Around The Corner from 1940 with Stewart and Margaret Sullavan as two employees in a Budapest gift shop. Sharp and tender in equal measures, its stellar last twenty minutes is what all romances, comedies and romantic comedies should aspire to be.
In putting together the list below, I considered some excellent Christmas-adjacent titles like The Apartment, Carol, Holiday, Tangerine and Catch Me If You Can. In the end, I selected only films that I felt compelled to actually watch at Christmas and not any other time of year. I did make room for this year’s The Holdovers, which doesn’t entirely comply to these rules (I first saw it in September at TIFF and the time of year did not alter my enjoyment of it); still, it already exudes enough of that elemental seasonal spirit to earn its place here.
Twenty summers ago, I made my last ever mixtape—that is, a music mix on a C-90 cassette as opposed to a blank compact disc. A few months earlier, I had acquired my very first laptop computer (dude, I got a Dell) which allowed me to make the move from analog to digital.
By late July 2003, I had a few mix CDs under my belt but circumstance gave me an excuse to make one more mixtape. In my hometown of Milwaukee, I met up with my parents (who then lived in Iowa) for three nights; then, I spent another six nights with my friend Laura, a Chicago native whom I met as a student at Marquette University some years before. I’d moved to Boston shortly after graduation but she stayed on. Between her job at a nursery and other family commitments, I was left alone roughly half of that time to apartment-sit, see other old friends and explore the city I’d left behind. Laura lived on the East Side just off Oakland Ave and I had a blast visiting all the old haunts, from the Oriental and Downer Theatres to Bradford Beach, Atomic Records and even Klode Park out in Whitefish Bay.
With ample time on my hands, I curated a mixtape for Laura as a thankful gesture for putting me up. I had brought an entire Case Logic 128-capacity CD wallet with me stuffed with all-time faves, recent purchases and a few discs I had to review for Splendid!, a music website I wrote for at the time; I may have also schlepped a blank tape with me purposely for this task. Laura was (and continues to be) a friend I make mixes for on an annual basis, going all the way back to our senior year at MU when we first bonded as friends and I crafted her a tape she dubbed the “Kriofske Mix” (a moniker I lent to two of my (now former) blogs.)
Revisiting this mix two decades on, I feel transported back to my late 20’s, an primordial era where I apparently thought nothing of including two songs by Ani DiFranco, two tracks from the Punch-Drunk Love soundtrack, an album cut from The White Stripes’ then-new Elephant (my #2 album of that year, I haven’t listened to it in at least 15) and the gauzy opener from Blur’s then-new Think Thank (also not heard in full in a long, long time.) I had also recently gotten into The Go-Betweens, The New Pornographers and Mary Lou Lord—hearing what I selected from each again reminds me what it was like to discover an artist one connected with so instantly you’d rush out and devour their back catalog piece by piece depending on what you could find in (for me, mostly used) record stores.
Among these twenty tracks, six are from albums I reviewed for Splendid! Required to write about everything from obnoxious prog-rock to near-ambient mood music, they’re scattered across that range: Paul Brill’s genre-expanding take on Americana, Natacha Atlas doing the same for world music (and sounding entirely different), Northern State (a clever and disarmingly low-fi distaff Beastie Boys), two cuts from a compilation for a record label helmed by a member of the Cocteau Twins (including the title track above) and an a capella cover of a Pixies song on TV On The Radio’s debut EP, so new-sounding and exceptional I wasn’t surprised by the mass-acclaim their second LP Return To Cookie Mountain received three years later.
True to titular form, there’s a loose and fairly obvious summer theme going on here. My favorite section is the last five songs—“You Had Time” sets the pensive, reflective mood (much better than the other DiFranco selection, anyway) and Jeff Buckley’s dreamy, ethereal cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” (which I listened to about 100 times that summer) runs with it, sustained by another old-school Stuart Murdoch reverie. Somehow, the contrasting tones of Shelley Duvall and Tunde Adebimpe just fit right in. I often cringe at mixes I made decades ago, but at least the last quarter of this one hit nicely when I revisited it a few weeks back, walking under the overgrow trees of the Commonwealth Mall on an idyllic mid-summer late afternoon.
In your twenties, you tend to find your people, especially if it’s in a place other than where you grew up or came of age. In my twenties, life beyond higher education was inconceivable to me until I had no other choice but to confront it. As my grad school colleagues dispersed to other cities and states, I met people through roommates, co-workers and before long, my first serious boyfriend. Most of these connections, however, proved fleeting, born of circumstance and destined to end once irrelevant. With a few exceptions (I met the boyfriend at a club on a night when I was determined to meet someone), I was drifting, waiting for things to happen rather than actively seeking them out.
Literally days before that boyfriend and I broke up two years later, I had (coincidentally or not) taken a crucial first step towards a new, more satisfying chapter of my life when I inquired about volunteering for the Brattle Theatre, a single-screen (with a balcony!), freshly non-for-profit arthouse and repertory cinema in Harvard Square. My first activity was assisting with the folding, labelling and stamping of their film calendar mailers at Ned and Ivy’s (the organization’s co-directors) apartment on a Saturday afternoon. The sort of tedious but necessary grassroots support work not uncommon to struggling non-profits, it was also a kind of social gathering—a dozen volunteers of various ages casually sprawled out around an open concept living/family room on the second floor of a Cambridge triple decker, cooperating to get the task done while a Miyazaki film or an episode of Fishing With John played on TV.
Soon a regular at this every-other-month activity, I also began volunteering a two-hour shift at the Brattle’s shoebox-sized administrative office Monday evenings after work. I assisted Ned and Ivy with any task they had for me, from stuffing envelopes to data entry of old paper box office reports. Eighteen months later, when I mentioned in passing that I had gotten abruptly laid off from my day job, Ivy notified me of an open Office Manager position at the Coolidge Corner Theatre across town in Brookline. A somewhat larger operation than the Brattle (with three screens at time), the Coolidge was/is the Boston area’s other preeminent arthouse non-profit. I got the Coolidge job but likely would not have without the inside information and encouragement I received via my Brattle volunteering. I ended up working at the Coolidge for over sixteen years until Covid put an abrupt end to that (as it did for so many other things.)
Brattle Theatre
Still, my career in film exhibition is not the only opportunity I have to thank the Brattle for. At that first calendar-folding session, one of the other participants, an enthusiastic man named Michael introduced himself, asking me, “Do you see at least twenty-five indie films a year?” I certainly did, so he handed me a business card for the Chlotrudis Society For Independent Film, a local non-profit (of which he is president and co-founder) that holds an annual awards ceremony—sort of an alternative Oscars, like the Independent Spirit Awards—and also met up for weekly screenings at the Brattle, the Coolidge and other nearby cinemas. I had actually heard of the group: two years earlier when I worked part-time for a local film industry magazine, I spotted the Chlotrudis Awards as I copy-edited event listings, having to carefully scan it multiple times to comprehend/correctly spell such an unusual moniker (it’s a portmanteau of the co-founders’ two cats, Chloe and Gertrudis.) I placed the card in my wallet and promptly forgot about it.
After a full year of Brattle volunteering (and a fair amount of personal healing and growth), I finally signed up for a Chlotrudis membership online: “Why not at least check it out?,” I thought to myself. The first meet-up I attended was Catherine Hardwicke’s intense teens-gone-wild drama Thirteen at the Coolidge, followed by a group cocktail party at a member’s apartment weeks later. Within two months, I went to the High Falls Film Festival in Rochester, New York with Michael and a few other members; before long, I joined the organization’s Board of Directors. Chlotrudis provided opportunities to view with other people the independent and foreign films I more often than not had been seeing on my own; in time, I also had a new circle of friends—not only to see movies with but also engage in sometimes feisty, often engrossing discussions with via the group’s email list. Although cinema was the one thing we all had in common, we naturally discovered other shared interests such as books, music, television etc. In time, thanks to all three of these film-centered organizations, I felt part of a community in ways that I really hadn’t previously, at least not as an adult. Just a few years earlier, I was seriously considering moving back to the Midwest, at the time a place I still knew more comfortably (and which had a lower cost of living to boot.) Now, I felt firmly entrenched in Boston with a real support system I wouldn’t have had if I’d made another move and started all over again.
Along with these social benefits, actively participating in Chlotrudis also exposed me to films I might have never otherwise seen or thought to check out. While the organization honored well-known indie hits of the day such as Lost in Translation, The Station Agent and American Splendor, it would just as likely name Lucas Belvaux’s The Trilogy as Best Picture or award Sarah Polley Best Actress for her work in the little-seen My Life Without Me. While Chlotrudis Awards’ categories generally mirror those of other ceremonies, its signature prize, the Buried Treasure, is their centerpiece: bestowed upon a film with a US gross under $250K that also never played wide (i.e., above 1,000 screens), it was purposely created to make people aware of an excellent movie that might’ve flown under the radar for most. At my first Chlotrudis Awards in 2004, this prize was given to Marion Bridge, an adaptation of a Canadian play starring Molly Parker and featuring a teenaged Elliot Page (a big fan of Canadian cinema, Michael’s championing of it over the years has exposed me to far more of it than most people south of the border ever get to see); the following year, it went to Nosey Parker, a whimsical, micro-budgeted Vermont feature. While I would’ve heard of other concurrent Buried Treasure nominees such as Infernal Affairs (later remade as The Departed) or Abbas Kiarostami’s Ten outside of Chlotrudis, it’s unlikely I would’ve thought to watch the documentary Love & Diane or the charming, low-key Uruguayan film Whiskey.
Chlotrudis Awards = cats on sticks!
Me And You And Everyone We Know is not one of those discovered-through-Chlotrudis obscurities—after premiering at the 2005 Sundance Film and winning the Camera d’Or (best first feature) at Cannes, IFC Films released it in June of that year. With a US gross of $8 million on a budget of $800,000, it was unquestionably an indie hit and a critical darling. Writer/director/star Miranda July was already well-known in performance art circles, but this feature debut reestablished her as a filmmaker first and foremost. Chances are I still would’ve seen it had I never joined the group. However, watching it with my Chlotrudis friends at the Coolidge in their 45-seat screening room was a blast. July’s gently quirky demeanor, the handmade feel of its relatively low-budget aesthetics (especially Michael Andrews’ vintage PBS-inspired electronic score), the sharp yet humane screenplay, the presence of a beloved (if unknown to most American audiences) Canadian character actor like Tracy Wright—all of it cinematic catnip as far as Chlotrudis’ sensibilities were concerned. I don’t remember if everyone in our group loved the film that evening but I can’t deny that we bonded over the shared experience which is at least one thing that fortified (and still enhances) the act of moviegoing for me.
The film is essentially a romantic comedy where one hopes the two leads will get together in the end after their meet-cute. They are Christine Jesperson (July), a video performance artist/July alter-ego whose day job is driving for an elder cab service and Richard Swersey (John Hawkes), a department store shoe salesman and recently divorced father of two. The odd (and unusually specific) surnames provide a peek into July’s trademark whimsy while the ways in which she introduces these characters (Christine in the midst of creating one of her let’s-just-say-unique art pieces, Richard when he lights his hand on fire as a desperate gesture to hold on to his marriage) feel too genuine and fully thought out to come off as just quirky for quirk’s sake. After their initial meeting at Richard’s workplace (where Christine takes a client shopping), she returns by herself to purchase a pair of shoes from him that he had previously recommended to her (“You think you deserve this pain, but you don’t,” he says of her current, inferior footwear.) They end up walking to their parked cars together where one can instantly detect their chemistry but also some hesitation. Christine likens the length of their stroll to an entire relationship (speaking of the distance from the store to the cars, “This is our whole life together”) but pushes it too far when, after they separate, she shows up again at Richard’s car and invites herself in for a ride over to her vehicle. Still sore from his recent divorce, Richard reacts negatively, instantly disintegrating Christine’s impulsively constructed rom-com facade.
While Christine and Richard’s will-they-or-won’t-they trajectory is the film’s key narrative thread, it is far from the only one pushing it forward. Me and You… is more of an ensemble piece, almost a micro-scale version of, say, Magnolia where numerous characters intersect in alternately predictable and unexpected ways. Richard’s somewhat oafish co-worker Andrew (Brad William Henke) develops a playful, if caustic relationship with two 14-year-old girls, Heather (Natasha Slayton) and Rebecca (Najarra Townsend). The girls go to school with Richard’s older son Peter (Miles Thompson) who is often seen taking care of his six-year-old brother Robby (Brandon Ratcliff). Both Peter (and, to a lesser extent Robby) befriend Sylvie (Carlie Westerman), a thoughtful, precocious neighbor girl somewhere in age between the brothers. Also figuring in are Richard’s estranged wife (and Peter and Robby’s mom) Pam (JoNell Kennedy), Christine’s elder-cab client Michael (Hector Elias) and Nancy Herrington (Tracy Wright), a stoic gallery curator whom Christine submits her artwork to.
Your average indie ensemble comedy-drama would emphasize and gather momentum on the strength and timing of its connections (and disconnections); Me and You… instead fixates on more personal, idiosyncratic motifs. Set in an unglamorous-verging-on-seedy Los Angeles residential neighborhood, it takes what could be ordinary, everyday situations and swiftly turns them inside out: a father and his young daughter buy a goldfish in a plastic bag filled with water from a pet store, but he accidentally leaves the bag on top of his car and drives off with only Christine and Michael initially witnessing it. Robby hears a mysterious tapping noise every day outside his mom’s house; she dismisses it as the sound the streetlights make when they turn on, but he remains unconvinced and obsessed. Sylvie plays with neighborhood kids Robby’s age as if she were their mother but takes this tendency to obsessive heights when she shows Peter her secret hope chest, lovingly layered with items she’ll use as a wife and mom one day (“It’s my dowry,” she states matter-of-factly.)
As in Magnolia, nearly every character here is lonely to some degree. While depiction of such an emotional state could lead to inertia (or alternately, desperation), July utilizes loneliness as an impetus for a myriad of activities people of varying ages pursue in order to combat it. Often, the impulse is sexually charged: Heather and Rebecca flirt with Andrew but keep their distance (particularly once their playacting threatens to have real consequences); they also attempt to work out their frustration and curiosity by first tormenting, then fooling around with Peter. When someone is too young to fully understand sex, they seek release in less conventional ways, such as Sylvie’s very-real-to-her fantasy world of monogrammed towel sets and fresh crisp shower curtains—itself momentarily derailed in her mind when she watches Heather and Rebecca’s rendezvous with Peter through her bedroom window.
Meanwhile, Robby regularly spends time in an online chatroom that Peter showed him how to use; the two of them begin chatting with an anonymous, presumed adult engaging in sex talk. Peter laughs it away but young Robby is intrigued and returns to the chat room on his own, his six-year-old ideas of what sex might be both hilariously off-the-mark and touchingly innocent (and scatological!) Conceived in an era directly before smartphones, the film, with its desktop setup and the clunky chime of messages received back-and-forth (forever!) might now feel tame and nostalgic. As with the girls and Andrew, however, Robby’s playing a potentially dangerous game, one whose implications are still years ahead of him. When he eventually meets in real life the other cast member he’s been chatting with, the reveal is both ridiculous and sublime: lovingly scored to Spiritualized’s slow-building, in due course rousing “Any Way That You Want Me”, it’s poignant and bittersweet rather than embarrassed or full of shame. Credit July’s direction of her ensemble and in particular, her child actors: not everyone could coax such an uncommonly natural and believable performance out of someone as young as Ratcliff.
I get that July’s sensibility is not for everyone—the sudden callback of Christine receiving a phone call where the person on the other end of the line says a single word (“Macaroni”) and hangs up, Robby casually drawing on a piece of art on the wall as Richard and Peter sit on the couch in front of it, numbly ignoring him, Pam’s “self-affirming” nightgown, Nancy’s “I’ve Got Cat-itude!” mug—such quirks will easily delight or repulse a viewer depending on one’s taste (though this letter-perfect Onion article from 2012 gets it.) It may be tempting to regard Me and You… as a stereotypically navel-gazing indie, but one shouldn’t ignore the considerable feeling July suffuses her work with. Watch for how Nancy’s face slowly transforms when she’s watching the video Christine has submitted to her gallery at the moment Christine begins talking directly to her. Look at Richard’s growth throughout the film: “I am prepared for amazing things to happen; I can handle it,” he tells Andrew early on only to show how unprepared he is when Christine gets into his car. Midway through, he realizes that when he lit his hand on fire, “I was trying to save my life and it didn’t work.” By the end, he quietly, willingly gives himself over to chance as July illustrates, via him and Christine tenderly embracing the beauty of being open and receptive to making things up as one goes along.
That goldfish-left-on-top-of-a-car scene from earlier plays no crucial part from a narrative perspective but Me and You…wouldn’t be the same without it. As Christine and Michael drive along the highway, following the car as the goldfish unceremoniously slides off its roof, over its windshield and onto the trunk of another car ahead of it, Michael reassures a distraught Christine, perhaps indirectly evoking the film’s title, “At least we’re all together in this.” That sense of camaraderie and support is really what the film is all about; it’s also what I craved and then experienced once I found my people at the movies—on both sides of the screen.
As kids, we learned to define a holiday by its traditions: a neighborhood parade and fireworks for Independence Day, costumes and trick-or-treating for Halloween, turkey dinner on Thanksgiving. Christmas might have had more traditions than all the other holidays put together. I’ve previously written about such hallowed activities as purchasing and trimming a fresh tree, putting up lights and displays and, as an adult, braving blizzards and state lines to visit my folks.
Such rituals, however, barely graze the bottomless cornucopia of what makes Christmas complete. Not only did we schlep home a fresh tree every year, Mom would also handcraft a distinct set of ornaments (albeit usually from a kit): wooden painted Disney figures, painstakingly cross-stitched trinkets, little “people” constructed from clothespins and felt (I was always partial to the lady cellist because her eyes ended up a bit googly.) She’d also lay out my grandmother’s nativity on the dining room’s built-in buffet shelf while Dad and I put up the vintage Lionel train set I inherited from my Great Uncle Eugene around the tree. We’d watch nearly all the television specials that, in those pre-cable, pre-VCR days you had but one chance to view in real time when they aired, from the unimpeachable A Charlie Brown Christmas to whatever was trendy that year (even Pac-Man was deemed worthy of one.) Mugs of hot chocolate, glasses of eggnog, the brass angel display that spun when the heat from a lit candle was applied underneath, the red (or green) bulb Dad would place in the front porch light fixture—it simply wasn’t Christmas without each and every one of these traditions.
The most anticipated and certainly tastiest of them all were the many batches of cookies Mom made (and still makes to this day.) The rest of the year, we’d have your standard Nestle Tollhouse Chocolate Chip and Peanut Butter varieties, perhaps Oatmeal Raisin if mom was so moved. December was strictly for the season, even if it was as elemental as changing the chips from milk to mint chocolate or sprinkling colored sugar on the peanut butter ones. Actually, even those somewhat paled next to the extra special varieties, the ones that took more effort. Many came from ten-to-thirty-year-old cookbooks my mom wouldn’t consult for anything else—some of them were even exclusively devoted to Christmas cookies, published by and made available for free from the Wisconsin Gas Company every season. I was astonished a few years back to discover my mom had hung onto a book from 1953 that appeared to have been run through the dishwasher multiple times.
From such tomes came recipes for delicacies like Pecan Fingers, Rum Balls and that famous holiday staple, the Gingerbread Man. I believe this is also where the beloved, dreaded Pinwheels came from—adored for their complex taste and texture of chocolate and vanilla dough swirled together as its name dictates, abhorred because it was a particularly difficult, time-intensive cookie to make (even my grandmother, a masterful baker often groused about the process.) Much simpler (but no less delicious) were Almond Shortbreads topped with apricot or raspberry jam and Cream Cheese “Spritz” cookies, their dough (often enhanced with red or green food coloring) stuffed into a tube in a machine that would emit perfect spheres onto the baking sheet while unnervingly making a noise resembling a protracted, if finite scream.
Even without any of these varieties, it’d still be Christmas as long as we had a few batches of iced and decorated sugar cookies, so essential that as a child I simply referred to them as “Christmas Cookies” (as if everything else was ancillary.) A week or two before the 25th, Mom would mix together two batches of the dough and refrigerate them overnight to allow for hardening. The next afternoon, she’d remove them from the cold to briefly thaw, then bring out her massive plastic rolling pin usually filled with water to give it some weight. She’d clear off and clean the kitchen table, sprinkle it with a fistful of flour, then roll out the dough to the perfect width—not too thick or thin. Then, out came the cookie cutters, seasonal shapes such as bells, trees, candy canes (which could also double for the letter J), angels, wreaths, stars and of course, Santa Claus himself. She’d cut the shapes, lay them out on baking sheets and place in the oven for eight to ten minutes.
The fun began once the baked shapes cooled. We’d set up a mini-assembly line of sorts: mom would spread white icing on each cookie, then hand it to me for decorating. I’d sit at the table with a large spread of aluminum foil or plastic wrap before me and an array of shakers and plastic containers with spoons. What a smorgasbord I had to choose from: chocolate and multi-colored sprinkles (or “jimmies” as we called them), a rainbow of sugars (definitely green and red, but also yellow, blue and occasionally pink), tiny cinnamon candies, even tinier crunchy, crystalized multicolored dots of sugar, walnut pieces and, if we had any leftover, some chocolate chips. It was my job to make sure we had a suitable variety of different colors and textures on various shapes. As the excess sugar and sprinkles accumulated on the foil or plastic, I’d occasionally place a cookie on top of the mess, generating a baked good equivalent of the zombie concoction one could devise at a restaurant’s do-it-yourself soda stand, mixing together all available flavors simply because you could. Mom wasn’t a fan of my zombie décor but she preferred it to those times when I’d place two chocolate chips on an angel shape, anticipating that infamous cone bra Madonna would adorn years later.
I was allowed to enjoy a cookie here and there in the days leading up to Christmas Eve when Mom would bring out her loaded, multi-tiered dessert display stand and all bets were off. The next 48 hours and beyond were for eating cookies day and night, along with boxes of chocolate covered cherries and, when I was a bit older, fancy petit fours my parents would procure from a mail order catalog. We’d also make sure to put some out for Santa (along with an obligatory bowl of sugar for his reindeer); I recall earnestly asking my parents one year if he’d like any Rum Balls, a bit uncertain whether it was appropriate to bequeath him something with a presumed alcohol content. We always had enough cookies to last us through New Year’s Eve. By then, the three of us, close to crashing from our extended sugar high, my folks struggling to make it to Midnight (but enjoying a few Brandy Alexanders regardless), would finish off whatever was left and resign ourselves to a bright New Year of diets and other resolutions, quietly anticipating Valentine’s Day where cards and chocolates and perhaps some store-bought cookies would have to suffice.
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.
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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.)
I felt a sense of impending doom as Steve drove me to Logan early on a Friday morning, three days before Christmas. I had an 8 AM flight to visit my parents in Iowa. Since no direct connections between Boston and Des Moines exist, I would have a layover at O’Hare in Chicago. Not that I’ve tested any scientific data to back this up, but I believe O’Hare to be the most hated airport in the country. Due to its central location on the continent, it serves a large volume of flights which only increases the probability for delays, cancellations and other travel hijinks. I’ve rarely had a smooth experience flying at O’Hare: this particular travel hub seemed cursed all the way back to my first airplane trip ever when an arrival there from then-President Clinton delayed my flight to Boston (to look at apartments for my upcoming move) by over six hours.
Five years after 9/11, I’d grown accustomed to such air travel hassles as luggage checks, taking off my shoes and putting small liquid containers in sealed plastic bags. The idea of transferring at O’Hare, however, conjured up recent memories of sitting on the floor there against a bay of windows at a congested boarding gate, removing my headphones every five minutes to check if there were any updates as to when my puddle jumper to Des Moines was now scheduled for takeoff. As Steve pulled into United’s departure area, we hugged, somewhat sad not to be spending our first Christmas as a couple together (though we had celebrated and exchanged gifts the previous evening.) I grabbed my suitcase and backpack and proceeded into the terminal, ready to begin a long-ass day of likely aggravations.
The flight from Boston to Chicago was smooth: everything on time, with no delays for wind, snow, late return of aircraft or engine problems. I anticipated not being so lucky once at O’Hare. After all, this was the same place where, seven years before, I sat in a stagnant plane on the runaway for nearly four hours before takeoff. Eventually, the flight attendant informed us on the intercom system, “We’re delayed because we can’t find the pilot.” We can’t find the pilot are words you never expect nor wish to hear on a plane, along with “Is there a doctor on board?” and “The second engine just failed.”
Sure enough, upon arriving at O’Hare I spotted the Departures board and saw a big red X next to my Des Moines connection. The reason for its cancellation? Yesterday’s massive blizzard in Denver (another travel hub) had a chain-reaction of an effect on screwing up scheduled flights across the entire continent. A cancelled flight is unfortunate but usually easily rectified by replacing it with another one, even if one has to switch airlines. However, given the high quantity of cancellations and also that it was already one of the busiest travel days of the year, no more available flights were to be had until Sunday. The day after tomorrow. Christmas Friggin’ Eve. My only option was to wait on standby for a slew of other Des Moines flights throughout the day.
My name was not called for the first flight. I remained calm and hopeful.
My name was not called for the second flight. This is when I began to panic. I may or may not have actually screamed out loud at while walking away from the boarding area. I did not want to be stuck at O’Hare for potentially two whole days, let alone ten or twelve hours. Three more Des Moines flights were scheduled for the evening; all I could do was wait.
With hours to kill, I walked from one terminal to the next in an effort to hang on to as much of my sanity as I reasonably could. O’Hare is one of the more sprawling airports I’ve ever flown in or out of. United alone takes up so much space that there’s a long underground pedestrian tunnel connecting terminals B and C. It’s decked out in structural curves and neon light wall panels that continually morph into a rainbow of colors. Completed in 1988, the tunnel is a trippy throwback to that era: a version of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody In Blue” (United’s theme song at the time) plays overhead, synchronized with the neon’s changing colors. Given the design, one would expect to hear something more 80s-adjacent such as “Take On Me”.
I must have shlepped that tunnel’s moving walkways at least ten or twelve times during the course of that day stranded at O’Hare.
After dinner at what was then known as the “Jazz Food Court”, presumably named to celebrate Chicago’s musical heritage (though the city’s arguably more famous for the Blues), I mentally prepped myself for those three remaining flights. I was hopeful but also cautious: “Forget it, Jake, it’s O’Hare!”, I thought to myself, paraphrasing that killer last line of dialogue from Chinatown.
Fortunately, I had a backup plan. Ag, a good friend from high school, lived nearby as she was serving her medical residency at the University of Chicago. I could stay with her if she hadn’t yet gone home to Milwaukee to see her parents for the holidays. I called and she was still at her apartment! I had somewhere to stay overnight if it came to that.
I phoned my dad next. We’d been in contact all day. He and my mom offered to drive the six hours from Des Moines to Chicago to pick me up the next morning if necessary. No way was my mother going to let me spend one minute on Christmas Eve in another state.
My name was not called for the third Des Moines flight, nor for the fourth. I had one chance left and a few hours to kill, as the final flight didn’t depart until 11:30 PM. I found an empty boarding gate to zone out in, reading chapters of Jean Shepherd’s In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash (from which most of perennial holiday movie A Christmas Story was adapted) and Mary Roach’s Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers. Oddly enough, Ag had gifted me both of those books.
Many standby names were called for that last Des Moines flight of the night, but not mine. All day long I kept thinking I was near the end of my rope but now I had truly grasped it. Us remaining, rejected passengers were instructed to head down to baggage claim and remain there overnight; I opted to take a cab to Ag’s high-rise studio apartment in Downtown Chicago. At her tiny but modern 33rd-floor unit overlooking the Playboy headquarters, she welcomed me with open arms, an apple and some almonds to snack on; she also mixed me an exceptionally stiff (and much appreciated) Cape Codder.
My parents arrived at her building at 10:30 the next morning. After saying our goodbyes and my mom gifting Ag a box of her homemade Christmas cookies, we set off westward. We soon stopped at an outlet mall just outside the city, in Aurora, for an early, quick lunch at a Panera. As we left the parking lot to continue our journey back to Des Moines, a white Hyundai pulled up next to us. The driver, a balding, middle-aged man cloaked in a sweatsuit, rolled down his window and pointed out to us that we had a flat rear left tire.
Supremely flummoxed, we ambled over to the nearest gas station, a just-built self-service Shell with a half dozen grinning employees, none of whom seemed to speak much English. A random guy coming out of the McDonald’s next door offered to help change our tire for us—we did have a full-sized spare in the trunk. However, my dad could not find the key to unlock the tire’s lug nuts (much worse than not being able to find the pilot, in this case.) Our vehicle, a tan Audi sedan, was a newly acquired company car.
The three of us sat in the Audi for an interminable period of time, snacking on another red-and-green Tupperware container of my mom’s sugar cookies, pinwheels and pecan fingers. This was still the pre-smartphone era, so my dad had to call a 1-800 number in order to find the closest Audi dealership, which happened to be in nearby Naperville. Their maintenance department was closed for the day, but a customer service associate got my dad in touch with a local towing service.
About forty minutes later, a flatbed tow truck arrived to take us and our car to a Goodyear store a few miles away. To safely accomplish this, the three of us had to cram ourselves into the truck’s passenger seat, which was built ideally for one person or two at the very most. I wish someone had taken a photo of me and my parents literally squished together along with the truck’s driver as they dragged our new but unusable Audi through western Chicago suburbia.
It was only early afternoon, but Goodyear was already closed. Luckily, Chihuahua Motors, a local service garage on the other side of Aurora was still open. After we plied ourselves from the truck’s passenger seat (and each other), the mechanics successfully hacked off the locked lug nuts with a foreboding implement resembling a giant ice pick. They removed the flat tire and put a new one on. Nearly 28 hours after my arrival in the Land of Lincoln, the three of us were finally back on the road to Iowa.
We reached Des Moines a little after 7 PM. Thankfully, the airport there had my checked luggage, albeit with the wrong name on the claim ticket. After wearily but determinably settling this with United (an airline I then vowed never to fly on again, although I have a few times since), my parents and I went to their apartment, had martinis and broiled lobster tails for dinner and all promptly passed out from the day’s (or in my case, days’) travel. I’d made it to Des Moines before Christmas Eve.
I also made it clear to my parents that we would not be spending Christmas together in Des Moines again, at least for the following year. Instead, they came out to Boston to celebrate two weeks early. I don’t recall if they were required to transfer planes in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Detroit or (god forbid) O’Hare, but they made it without having to spend the night in their connecting city. Along with Steve (now my spouse), I still occasionally travel for the holidays (though not in COVID times.) I return to the Midwest less often now that my parents have relocated to South Carolina. When I do, however, I’m secretly thankful if I can at all possibly avoid O’Hare and its endless neon pedestrian tunnel, its montage of shifting color mocking its passengers as they flail from one terminal to the next, lost in the temporary limbo of moving towards, however slowly, their final destination.
In September 2003, my roommate Frank and I decided to go spur-of-the-moment to New York City for a weekend—Greyhound bus tickets were pretty cheap, and he found a reasonably priced hotel room online. It was my first trip there.
I’d been yearning to visit the Big Apple ever since moving to Boston six years before, but never made it, not even when another former roommate relocated there in 2000 (she’d leave for San Diego shortly after 9/11.)
Upon arriving at Port Authority on Friday evening, we proceeded directly to Times Square, where Frank took this pic of me—I was only partially aware of the photobombing ladies on the left. Although I was too late to experience the seedy glory of pre-Giuliani era Times Square, at least the Howard Johnson’s was still in business, albeit looking most anachronistic amongst all this 21st Century neon.
We stayed at a boutique hotel on 41st and 7th, next door to the Nederlander Theatre (then home to Rent)—yes, my very first night in NYC was right in the heart of the city’s tourism Valhalla most real New Yorkers would rather avoid. Our accommodations barely left enough room for a queen-sized bed, but they were modern and clean.
42nd Street near Bryant Park, looking East.
Anyway, we only needed the room for sleeping. That first night, we stayed out until 5:00 AM club-hopping around Chelsea and the West Village, ending up at a place called Hell in the Meatpacking District that played cool alternative ’80s and ‘90s rock (as opposed to the generic dance music most gay bars specialized in.) We slept past noon and went out exploring. Back then, one had a nifty view of the Chrysler Building from this vantage point; now, it’s blocked by the monstrosity that is One Vanderbilt.
Facing South on West Broadway at Prince Street, Soho.
From there, we walked South towards the Village, and then through SoHo. I immediately felt more at home in leafier, funkier lower Manhattan than in touristy Times Square.
Facing South on Mulberry Street at Prince.
At this time, Little Italy still extended further North; today, the green-white-and-red banners seen here are long gone, the neighborhood technically called “Nolita” (but really just another part of SoHo.)
Heading further South through Chinatown (where I’m certain we stopped for dim sum at some point), we eventually reached the mighty Brooklyn Bridge.
A perfect, beautiful, late Summer Saturday to walk all the way across it.
The world teems with many great urban bridges, but few match the classicism and elegance of this one.
Frank and I and Manhattan, with the Empire State Building central in the background.
We later met up with a local friend of Frank’s and spent some time at South Street Seaport, which has undergone a massive re-haul in the past 18 years. This was our Financial District view from the deck we sat on. Although 9/11 was relatively fresh in everyone’s minds, the city felt like it was pushing forward, a celebratory air of the new New York, a Manhattan that had yet to become entirely a haven for wealthy foreign tax dodgers.
Greenpoint, Brooklyn: Facing North on Manhattan Ave. at Greenpoint Ave.
On Sunday, we ventured out to Brooklyn. Hipster Williamsburg was in its ascendancy; we walked through it over to a mostly pre-gentrified Greenpoint where we lunched at a place now known as Karczma but at the time was simply a bare-bones joint called “Polish Restaurant”. The massive combination platter, which included stuffed cabbage, pierogi, potato pancakes, kielbasa and Hunter’s Stew made me proud to be of Polish descent.
Before heading back on the Greyhound to Boston, we visited Central Park where an idyllic Sunday afternoon at the Great Lawn was in full swing. I recall walking past an affected young woman who seemed to think she was Holly Golightly in Breakfast At Tiffany’s, but I didn’t get a pic of her.
Also, I can’t leave out that before boarding the bus, Frank and I stopped at a midtown Krispy Kreme and picked up two dozen donuts (including a dozen freshly glazed and hot!) to bring back with us. As our bus made its way up through Harlem and the Bronx, we lounged in our seats, donut boxes on our laps, blissfully induced into Krispy Kreme Komas. Although I’d never seriously consider moving to NYC, I knew I’d be back to visit again—particularly after I made a good friend there who came to personify the city for me.
During a marathon digitization of my old photos, I came across a set taken in the Spring of 1995 when I was a Sophomore at Marquette University and living on the top floor at Tower Hall, a building so tall you can’t even see the top of it here.
These were likely shot with a Nikon camera on loan for the Photography course I took that semester, though not for the course per se (we shot only in black-and-white); I thought I’d take advantage of using something other than my own cheapo Kodak while I had the chance. Above is Marquette Hall, noteworthy for its Gothic bell tower.
Next to it is Gesu Church, perhaps the campus’ most striking classic landmark. More notable to me now, however, is the dank-colored building in the right foreground which housed the University Store (where I often got a Snapple or a Cleary Canadian between classes) and, around the corner, Grebe’s Bakery, fine purveyors of danishes, crullers and other sweet doughy treats. Within a year of this photo, the entire building would be razed for “green space”; Zilber Hall (built in 2009) currently sits there.
Here, the old-school architecture of Gesu and Marquette Hall are flanked by what was then a shiny, brand new complex.
Cudahy Hall, completed in 1994, was most notable for housing MU’s computer labs. It was the first place I ever sent an email or surfed the internet; I will never forget the countless hours I spent there sitting at a monitor, scrolling through green type on a relatively tiny black screen.
When exploring the information superhighway got to be a bit much, I’d take refuge at the Haggerty Museum of Art.
I frequented the Haggerty often; my Freshman year, I couldn’t believe how cool it was that there was an art museum right on campus! I’d also often have lunch or study at one of the picnic tables next to the building.
Not far from the Haggerty, Lalumiere Language Hall is easily MU’s most unique-looking structure, one whose modern, brutalist design (those windows!) I’d spot all the way from I-94 as a child. Opened in 1970, it seemed a little rundown by its 25th anniversary (note the missing letters), but it still stands today.
The most beautiful part of the campus might’ve been the West Mall: green space with benches and paths that were particularly inviting in the spring and summer months.
The West Mall was also adjacent to Memorial Library, where I’d spend hours studying, reading, browsing and relaxing—probably more time there than any other place on campus, apart from my dorm and Johnson Hall, where I had all my Journalism classes.
However, my favorite spot in the West Mall was the St. Joan of Arc Chapel. Built in 1420 France, it passed through a few hands before it was gifted to Marquette in the 1960s. Shipped to Milwaukee and re-assembled stone by stone, it’s a lovely, intimate structure. Pictured here is the back of it; a view from the front and a more detailed history can be found here.
While spending many hours near the Chapel, I saw my share of squirrels—at the time, I noticed they were among the fattest I’d ever witnessed due to all the scraps they received from students and faculty. When I think back to this time and place, these little critters are as essential a part of it as getting a between-class donut at Grebe’s or free Friday night films at the Varsity Theatre or the time we all silently watched Madonna’s banned “Justify My Love” video in my Media Law class. Renovations abound, new buildings sprout up and technology moves forward, but I bet those fat squirrels are still there in abundance.
One of my favorite childhood Christmas activities was the annual ride Bob and Barb (my parents) and I took to view lights and other outdoor decorations on Milwaukee’s tony East Side. After Christmas Day dinner, we’d get in the car and head across town to Lake Drive to see all of its coastal mansions done up in displays spanning from the chaste and tasteful (a single spotlight, a mighty fir dressed in a single red bow) to those so gloriously ostentatious that the electricity bill for one night would’ve likely exceeded what my parents paid to keep our entire house illuminated the entire year. All the while, EZ 104 (actually WEZW-FM 103.7) would soundtrack our sojourn, piping nonstop holiday songs from “The Little Drummer Boy” to “It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year” into our Mercury Monarch.
The ride enabled us to get out of our South Side bungalow and escape into a prettier and certainly more upscale world, if only for an hour. Truthfully, however, we didn’t have to travel all that far to partake in the electric beauty of the season. Heck, we could even experience it from our very own living room via the gorgeous, gigantic white metallic star lit with fat multicolored bulbs our neighbor across the street exhibited every year. Whereas most homes up and down the block strung up their holiday light displays the day after Thanksgiving, this elderly woman who lived alone would wait to decorate until about a week before December 25. One night, the star would suddenly, magically appear; I looked forward to its materialization every year.
Naturally, we did our part to make our own home look festive. Our tree, usually covered in simple white lights would sit in the living room, smack dab in the center of the four windows that faced our street. The windows themselves were decked out in crisscrossing strings of multi-colored lights. Scores of blue lights would dot the three roomy bushes below the front porch, while a wreath sporting older, fatter colored bulbs was always hung on the front door. Next to it, we often replaced the porch light’s white fluorescent bulb with a red or green one, just to be extra festive.
Our display was relatively average, anodyne, even, compared to other homes in the neighborhood. Here and there, one would spot the usual assortment of illuminated, life-sized angels, reindeer, snowmen, Nativity sets and Santa Clauses, both in sturdy concrete and inflated, plastic and more malleable forms. People lucky enough to sport giant conifers in their front yards would cover them with endless strings of lights. Occasionally, a homeowner would go above and beyond to present something unique, like the square, squat one-story home a few blocks away that, without fail, always put up a rather impressive giant neon martini glass (complete with green olive!) on top of their roof—it really stood out among all the other two-story structures surrounding it.
The neighborhood holiday decoration I most fondly recall, however, sat two-and-a-half blocks up our street. In front of a brick house with a terraced roof was a plastic snowman head placed over a lamppost. Painted to include a brimmed hat, red earmuffs, a big red nose and matching patterned scarf, it completely covered the lamp, while the white post was wrapped diagonally with a red ribbon and topped off with a shiny red bow. Simple, cheap and utterly basic, it nonetheless achieved legendary status in my family when I was ten or twelve and Bob first said, “Hey look, it’s Chris-on-a-Stick” once as we passed it.
Every subsequent December, whenever we’d drive by the house, the presence of Chris-on-a-Stick was something he rarely failed to acknowledge. For the first few years, this teasing made me furious which of course only encouraged him to do it more. As I entered High School and put the initial indignities of puberty behind me, I came to accept and embrace the nickname. I even grew to anticipate having a reason to drive past Chris-on-a-Stick, to revel in the joke, comprehending how silly and yet sublime it was to see what had become my namesake—a ridiculous Frosty-the-Snowman-head-on-a-post that would only appear one month out of the year.
When I was 17, I detected a subtle change in Chris-on-a-Stick—he looked a little less faded and possibly a tad jollier. After driving by a few times, I began to think something was awry; upon closer inspection, I discovered I was right—there was a new snowman head on the lamp this year. To the layperson or casual onlooker, it was almost indiscernibly similar, but those aforementioned changes, along with the fact that the plastic head was now two-faced, with an identical visage on its opposite side pitched at the house, confirmed that it was indeed a replacement. “That’s not the real Chris-on-a-Stick”, I’d scoff, adding yet another layer to this seasonal plastic mythology.
That year, Bob and Barb somehow convinced me to pose for a picture standing next to Chris-on-a-Stick (I can imagine its owners’ bewilderment if they were home), even if it wasn’t the real one. Decades on, I’m so thankful they did, if only because I have photographic evidence that it really existed. As for my dad, I got my revenge the following year when, one block over, I noticed a fat plastic snowman placed in someone’s front yard on the ground right in front of a towering flagpole.
“Hey look, it’s Bob-on-a-Pole”, I casually announced as we drove past it one night. Barb burst out laughing and Bob enjoyed the joke as well, knowing that it’s good to both give and receive, not only during the holiday season but throughout the year.
Twenty Thanksgivings ago, I had to come up with a potluck dish for a dinner with friends. I didn’t want to go through the trouble of making a Sweet Potato Pie as I had done the previous year (and whose recipe I first attempted for a Potato Party (no, really) five years before.)
I was out of school and working at my first permanent, full-time office job. In response to my dilemma of What To Bring To The Table, Jane, a co-worker, emailed over a recipe for this Sweet Potato Bake (that could also be made with butternut squash if desired.) I tried it out and it was a big hit with everyone (mostly twentysomething gay men, BTW) at that Thanksgiving dinner.
Boiling and mashing fresh sweet potatoes (or yams, if you prefer, though I can never tell the exact difference) is key—never tried it with the canned variety, never will unless there’s an unlikely shortage of fresh taters. However, I think the real secret to the dish’s success is the crumbly topping: equal parts chopped pecans, brown sugar and flour mixed together with melted butter.
I’ve made this dish nearly every Thanksgiving since. Oh, there was that one year I thought I’d try something different, a similar dish involving maple syrup, but we shall not speak of it again. Because the boiling and mashing takes up considerable time, I only make this once a year, and usually the night before so that I can focus on the Turkey on the holiday itself. Here’s the recipe—if you like sweet potatoes, it will never fail you.
Ingredients:
3 cups cooked sweet potatoes mashed
¼ cup sugar*
½ teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
¼ cup butter (softened)
½ teaspoon vanilla
½ cup milk (or 1/3 cup heavy cream)
½ cup light brown sugar
½ cup flour
½ cup chopped pecans
3 tablespoons butter (melted)
(*The recipe originally called for 1 whole cup of sugar (under which Jane wrote in parentheses, “You can tell right here it’s going to be good with a ratio like that!”), which may explain its instant popularity. Over the years, I’ve determined that a ¼ cup is more than sufficient.)
Directions:
In a large bowl, blend boiled, mashed potatoes, sugar, salt, eggs, ¼ cup softened butter, vanilla and milk.
Place in a greased 1 ½ quart casserole dish (or 9 x 13” pan.)
In a small bowl, combine brown sugar, flour, pecans and remaining butter; top casserole with this crumbled mixture.
Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.
A Happy Thanksgiving to all.
Sweet Potato Bake is the dish furthest on the right.
Haunted Jukebox 