Revere: Revolution in Silver is a graphic novel set in colonial Boston where Paul Revere isn't just a silversmith and a hero of the American Revolution but must battle monsters like werewolves as well. Werewolves are vulnerable to silver so that could work.
Listen, my children, and you shall hear… Whoa, hold it right there.
This is one Paul Revere story that is not fit for children’s ears or
eyes. Revere: Revolution in Silver is scary, gory, and sort of
sick, actually. That’s not meant as criticism, just a warning to anyone
who might confuse this dark graphic novel with a nice, patriotic comic
book for kids.
Lavallee’s concept is wickedly clever: Revere, the legendary
midnight rider, is recast as a caped crusader who patrols the highways
and byways of colonial Massachusetts to protect every Middlesex village
and farm from–werewolves."
Another contributing factor in falling lobster prices: increasing supply as lobsters benefit from global warming.
“Lobsters, crabs, squid, and other invertebrates are becoming more common while populations of bottom-feeding fish are plummeting, according to a long-term trawling study of Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay.
***
Scientists from the University of Rhode Island (URI) say rising sea temperatures linked to global warming is the primary cause of shifts in the abundance and types of species living in the bay and adjacent Rhode Island Sound
"At 295 years old, the Old State House has just undergone another major preservation project. The Old State House tower and weather-beaten North East corner have been painstakingly restored and are in wonderful condition thanks to a team of dedicated preservation professionals.
The Bostonian Society invites you to join us for an evening with our preservation project team. Our architects and preservation specialists will discuss the methods and techniques that were used to restore the Old State House. Members of the team will talk about the daily challenges that were overcome, and the exciting discoveries that were made throughout the project. View the historic nails, woodwork, and masonry that were removed from the building during the preservation process, and look at photographs documenting the project.
Following the presentation, enjoy refreshments and take a tour of our newly restored tower.
Time: Tuesday, September 16, 6:30 p.m.
Location: The Old State House Museum, 206 Washington St., Boston, MA Cost: Free and open to the public (Image: Bostonian Society)
Lobster news lately has been a bit down for this symbol of a New England summer.
The FDA has been warning against eating the lobster tomalley (the greenish organ inside a lobster) "because of a potential
contamination of dangerous levels of toxins that can cause paralytic shellfish
poisoning, which can be fatal."
Roadkill lobsters have apparently been sold in Massachusetts following an accident according to this article:
"Despite orders to destroy thousands of pounds of seafood that
spilled from a truck after a highway crash, the seafood was unloaded
and sold illegally from the back of a truck at a local restaurant.
A multiple vehicle accident on Rt. 395 south ripped open the
refrigerated truck and spilled 11,000 pounds of live lobsters and fish
and about 150 gallons of diesel fuel.
Some of the fuel spilled on the seafood in the crash leaving it
exposed without refrigeration for hours, prompting Webster's director
of public health to order the load destroyed Sunday."
Tomorrow's the last day to contribute to the organization that runs Edith Wharton's Berkshires mansion, the Mount, which is facing foreclosure following heavy reliance on debt financing for their renovation.
"The Mount is faced with imminent foreclosure, which could result in
this National Historic Landmark being closed to the public forever.
Please make a contribution now! To prevent foreclosure, The Mount estimates
that it needs to raise up to $3 million through the Save The Mount campaign
before April 24, 2008."
From their website it looks like they've raised about $760,000 at this point so things don't look great with only one day to go. However, they say they have a matching fund pledge which brings them considerably closer. (Image above: Edith Wharton Restoration)
Are the big red bugs we like (lobsters) being killed by the same chemicals we use to get rid of the little bugs we don't like (mosquitos)? Council members in Newport, Rhode Island think so.
"The Newport City Council voted to ban the toxic chemical methoprene
from the city's mosquito abatement program at their April 9 meeting.
The issue arose when Newport City Councilman Charles Y. Duncan called
for a resolution that bans the use of any of the toxic poisons, such as
methoprene, in the mosquito program. Methoprene is thought to be a
contributing factor in the decline of the area lobster population."
The concern around methoprene is that it kills lobster larvae and opponents of the pesticide point to Maine's banning of the chemical.
"Altosid is made of methoprene, a larvicide, that when applied, reduces
the number of adult mosquitoes and thus reduces human risk from
mosquito borne diseases such as EEE and West Nile virus. Rhode Island
lobstermen and many environmentalists oppose the use of methoprene
because the chemical also kills lobster larvae.
The lobstermen argue that Maine is the only East Coast fishery where
the lobster population is at acceptable, sustainable levels because,
unlike other East Coast fisheries, Maine bans the use of methoprene and
larvicides in its waters. Maine is also the only fishery where the
lobster population does not suffer from shell disease. In all the other
fisheries, Rhode Island included, lobster birth rates are noticeably
below normal."
After 112 years without advertising, the start and finish of the Boston Marathon will now feature ads from John Hancock and Adidas to help increase prizes to continue attracting top runners.
"The changes in sponsorship ads highlight distance running's growing
dependence on sponsors to provide lucrative prize money to attract
leading athletes and raise its profile, said Guy Morse, executive
director of the Boston Athletic Association, the race's organizer.
They
also demonstrate the need for support to meet operating expenses and
make donations to the eight cities and towns that provide public safety
and other services to runners passing along the marathon's 26.2-mile
route, Morse said."
The Boiled Dinner may not be that exciting but it is a classic New England meal and perhaps a reason for New England's less than stunning culinary reputation (although it has changed a lot). You may know one variation of the Boiled Dinner as the Irish-American classic corned beef and cabbage.
If you don't want to make it Jane and Michael Stern recommend Moody's Diner in Waldoboro, Maine as one of the rare restaurants still serving it.
“'The lost ski areas are closed, but they are alive in the hearts and
minds of everyone who called those places home,'” said Jeremy Davis, who
started the New England Lost Ski Area Project (www.nelsap.org) nine years ago. “'I can attest to that. Just read my e-mail for a week.'”
Local ski areas started to go out of business when owners were faced with rising insurance costs and a demand for more luxurious resorts.
"[T]he 1970s were hard times for operators of ski areas. There was
an energy crisis, which not only cut down leisure driving by potential
customers but saddled areas with higher energy prices. At the same
time, liability insurance costs spiked. The histories of dozens of
small ski areas end with the conclusion that it could not reopen one
winter because the owners could not afford their insurance premiums.
Skiing was also a victim of its own success. With six times the number
of American skiers in 1970 as in 1955, many skiers began searching for
thrills beyond the local hill. And when they did visit a big resort,
they rode relatively comfortable chair lifts instead of T-bars. They
skied on groomed trails, many covered using something altogether new:
snow-making equipment."
Global warming and a demand for even more professional and luxurious accommodations are continuing pressures. The NELSAP site is a good reminder that are plenty of sites that still exist. There were even several ski areas in Rhode Island and at least one remains.
"The intruders broke a window to get into the two-story wood frame
building — a furnished residence open in the summer — before destroying
tables and chairs, pictures, windows, light fixtures, and dishes.
Wicker furniture and dressers were smashed and thrown into a fireplace
and burned, apparently to provide heat in the unheated building.
Empty beer bottles and cans, plastic cups, and cellophane apparently used to hold
marijuana were also found, according to [Sgt. Lee] Hodsden. The vandals vomited in
the living room and discharged two fire extinguishers inside the
building, on a dead-end road off Route 125."
Weird hyperlinking aside: why does Yahoo News provide a link from the phrase "empty beer bottles" to a Yahoo search window? Do they think horrified poetry fans will need an explanation of these mysterious objects? (Image: Friends of Robert Frost)
"What observations would Herman Melville, the great bard of the
whaling industry, make about smelts, a variety of fish so modest in
size that the limits Maine imposes upon anglers are a matter of quarts,
not inches?
Smelt fishing is a deep and dependable tradition
on the state's coast. As soon as the ice is thick enough, smelters drag
their customized shanties onto the tidal rivers and sit inside them,
stoking wood stoves and tending to baited lines that hang through holes
in the ice.
Every December, whole villages of such smelt
shanties spring up almost overnight here — an official, if unnecessary,
signal of winter's arrival." (Image: Redpath Museum)
Inside New Hampshire's MacDowell Colony. Created 100 years ago, the Peterborough, NH site is the oldest artists' colony in the country providing studios for artists to work without interruption in a congenial rural environment. In the clip above, monologist Mike Daisey, whose performance in Cambridge was interrupted by religious fundamentalists, discusses his experiences at the colony.
Another perspective on the MacDowell from Tara Geer below:
Why does New Hampshire have the first primary and why should they keep it? This podcast (above) by On the Media does a good job of explaining the issues and is fairly convincing about New Hampshire's historical and current claims. One especially interesting reminder: how unimportant the primaries were until recently:
"BROOKE GLADSTONE [On The Media Host]: . . . Robert La Follette, the progressive
governor of Wisconsin, created the first primary in 1905 so that the
people, rather than the party bosses, could choose the candidates.
A lot of states jumped on the bandwagon but then jumped off again.
By the '50s and '60s, even the '70s, only a few states held primaries.
What happened?
BILL GARDNER [NH Secretary of State]: They'd have one primary,
some states maybe two, and then the big shots, the party leaders would
go to the legislature and say, look, it's costing a lot of money to
have the people do this and they don't participate in high numbers. Let
us have the power back. And so state after state gave the power back.
Well, in this state, the people prevailed, and they said, no, we
want to make this decision. We care about this, and we're going to keep
it. And so New Hampshire kept it while state after state got rid of it.
Then after we've had it for a half a century, all of a sudden a
state that's bigger and more powerful says they should have it? We just
said, no, we're not going to just give this up. We never took it from
anyone else. We don't think it's right to take it from us and we're
going to protect it."
A brawl in Harvard Yard among Revolutionary War troops from Virginia and Marblehead, MA described in the always interesting Boston 1775 blog, including George Washington's confrontation with the brawlers.
"[The Marblehead men] looked with scorn on such an rustic uniform [of the Virginians] when
compared to their own round jackets and fishers’ trousers, [and they]
directly confronted from fifty to an hundred of the riflemen who were
viewing the college buildings.
Their first manifestations were
ridicule and derision, which the riflemen bore with more patience than
their wont, but resort being made to snow, which then covered the
ground, these soft missives were interchanged but a few minutes before
both parties closed, and a fierce struggle commenced with biting and
gouging on the one part, and knockdown on the other part with as much
apparent fury as the most deadly enmity could create. Reinforced by
their friends, in less than five minutes more than a thousand
combatants were on the field, struggling for the mastery."
"They begane now to gather
in ye small harvest they had, and to fitte up their
houses and dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in
health & strenght, and had all things in good plenty; for as
some were thus imployed in affairs abroad, others were excersised in fishing, aboute codd, & bass, &
other fish, of which yey
tooke good store, of which every family had their portion. All ye somer ther
was no wante. And now begane to come in store of foule, as
winter aproached, of which this place did abound when they came
first (but afterward decreased by degrees). And besids water
foule, ther was great store of wild Turkies, of which they tooke
many, besids venison, &c. Besids they had aboute a peck
a meale a weeke to a person, or now since harvest, Indean corne to
yt proportion. Which made many afterwards write so
largly of their plenty hear to their freinds in England, which were not rained, but true reports."
Description of the first Thanksgiving from William Bradford's Of Plimoth Plantation (1608-1650). (Image of front page above)
Comprehensive treatment of the song Charlie on the MTA that gives its name to the Charlie ticket. Including the history of its inspiration:
"In the 1940s, the MTA fare-schedule was very complicated - at one time,
the booklet that explained it was 9 pages long. Fare increases were
implemented by means of an "exit fare". Rather than modify all the
turnstiles for the new rate, they just collected the extra money when leaving
the train. (Exit fares currently exist on the Braintree branch of
the Red Line.) One of the key points of the platform of Walter A.
O'Brien, a Progressive Party candidate for mayor of Boston, was to fight
fare increases and make the fare schedule more uniform. Charlie was
born.
The text of the song was written in 1949 by Jacqueline Steiner and Bess Lomax Hawes. It was one of seven songs written for
O'Brien's campaign, each one emphasized a key point of his platform.
One recording was made of each song, and they were broadcast from a sound
truck that drove around the streets of Boston. This earned O'Brien a $10
fine for disturbing the peace."
The Kingston Trio above popularized it but weren't the first to sing it.
Partnership in a Maine lobster trap. Catch a Piece of Maine is a clever way to guarantee income for lobstermen and appeal to local food interest with an online business aspect (check your lobster account; free shipping):
"With your purchase of a partnership ($2,995), you will be assigned a
lobster trap number fished by one of the eight professional lobstermen
pictured on the meet the lobstermen
page. During each fishing trip, your lobsterman will record the catch
from your trap. This data is retrieved when your lobsterman sells his
daily catch back at the dock and will be recorded onto an online
database. You will receive an online personal lobster account where you
can view your trap’s performance updated every Friday afternoon. You
will be able to see when your trap was checked, how much it caught, and
how many lobster credits you have available for shipping. You are
guaranteed at least 40 lobsters from your trap, but most traps average
50 or often more." (via Luxist)
Charles Forster, of Charlestown, took toothpicks from whittled objects to mass manufacture through clever marketing:
"To get toothpicks into restaurants, Forster hired Harvard men. After
they had finished dining on Forster's dime at a local establishment,
such as the Union Oyster House, they demanded wooden toothpicks. When
they were told none were available, the students raised a ruckus and
vowed never to eat there again. Naturally, when Forster came around
some days hence, the restaurant manager purchased boxes of toothpicks
to distribute to his customers." (Image: Voodoo Toothpick Holder available from The Green Head)
The first American murderer was a passenger on the Mayflower. John Billington was hanged within 10 years of the Mayflower's arrival for shooting John Newcomen with a blunderbuss. First gun crime too. (Image of Louisiana blunderbuss)
A visit to the Vermont Shepherd cheese farm in Putney, VT run by Harvard grad David Major. "Today he rises before dawn, seven days a week, to tend to his cheese dairy, Vermont Shepherd. He heads out through the crisp
air of misty mornings among the gently rolling hills to see to the chore he enjoys the most: tending his sheep."
But don't get too excited about the Vermont Cheese Trail: "While Vermont's Cheese Trail may be an attempt to model the vineyard
tours of California's Napa Valley, the similarities are few. Not many
of these artisanal cheese operations could accommodate tour groups, and
the farms are so widely spread that it would be difficult to visit more
than one in a day. So even though the artisanal cheese movement in
Vermont continues to flourish, the best option for most may be to
sample the cheeses at cheese stores or farmers' markets, rather than
trying to pay a visit to the farms."
Daniel Gross casts a gimlet eye on fall-in-New England staple day trip: apple-picking.
Apple picking is a cherished rite of fall, a wholesome and fun family
outing, a throwback to a simpler time when people weren't so
disconnected from the production of their sustenance. I look forward to
it every year. It's also a wasteful scam.
Gross ends up having a good time at Bartlett's Orchard in the Berkshires but still notes that it encourages overconsumption and brings up the paradox of choice. But he doesn't bring up the idea that in rich countries manual labor, like gardening or apple picking, becomes a leisure activity.
Nantucket's request that poop-producing dogs not visit island beaches strikes at one of the cornerstones of the modern Nantucket lifestyle. What next? No more beach driving permits and a prohibition on driving your giant truck onto the beach?
To counteract images of zombie horror for sensitive readers we include images of Boston's supercute overload event: the Duckling Day Parade. The stroll commemorates classic Boston children's book Make Way for Ducklings as little kids dress up as ducklings and walk through the streets of Beacon Hill to the Duckling statue in the Public Garden. Along the way they're led by a quacking, good-humored Harvard marching band. The Harvard band gets the crowd ready
The entertaining and intelligent Boston Behind the Scenes podcast pays a visit to the Boston Athenaeum on the occasion of their 200th anniversary exhibit. It's a thoughtful look at this unique institution in Boston, a membership library housed in a beautiful building on Beacon Hill and founded by Boston Brahmins that is open to the public. Host Adam Weiss explores the history of the Athenaeum and its relationship with the Boston Public Library, the MFA and the city itself before looking at some of the highlights of the exhibit.
Who knew? Syrup-making is usually more associated with Vermont and other rural locations but Somerville makes it own syrup after tapping local maples, boiling the sap into maple syrup which is then "donated to food assistance programs, shared at pancake breakfasts for
students, given as thank-you gifts to key partners, and used in the
Pancake Breakfast fund-raiser held annually by the Friends of the
Community Growing Center." Who's tasted it?
Shakers, now known primarily for their simple elegant furniture and baskets, have their last active community just north of Portland, Maine. The community, Sabbathday Shaker Village in New Gloucester, was once one of 18 such communities around the country. However, the Shakers' strict celibacy policy meant that the group could grow only by converts and an adoption program since discontinued. Shakers were part of a big field of utopian and religious groups in the nineteenth century almost all of which have become defunct. At a time of religious resurgence it's interesting to consider some of these past religious communities.
There's a museum open in the summer season but uniquely there are also active worship services on Sunday that are open to the public that provide a real sense of the community.
There are also inactive Shaker villages and museums in Harvard, MA, in the Berkshires and Enfield, CT that are part of a whole Shaker Trail.
Another guerilla marketing campaign gone awry but this time one that actually threatened some harm to a historic Boston cemetery. Unlike the Mooninite fiasco in which police mistook ad lights for bombs, "Dr. Pepper held a 23-city hunt for coins that would ultimately lead to
a $1 million prize. Contestants would find codes under bottle caps,
enter those codes into a special website and be given additional clues
to physical locations throughout the 23 cities where they would find
the coins." One of the final coins was hidden in the Granary Burying Ground but Dr. Pepper "canceled the campaign after hearing Boston officials had closed the 347
year old Granary Burying Ground (originally closed due to icy paths,
not the contest), the location of one of the final coins. The cemetery
stayed closed once officials realized all the people trying to get in
were in search of the coin, not to tour grave sites."
Yankee Magazine points out that two of the oldest farms in the country are close to Boston including North Andover's Barker Farm "established in 1642 and ... the oldest continuously operating family farm in the country" and Brookline's Allandale Farm "established around 1700" and the last working farm in the Boston/Brookline area, only 7 miles from downtown Boston."
Allandale Farms offers an interesting-sounding summer program for kids to learn about and work on the farm.
Tired of people flaunting their Harvard and MIT sweats and shirts? You can proudly wear the shirt of a college that's not only ancient but redolent of ancient evil with this Miskatonic University shirt. Miskatonic U., located in the town of Arkham in Essex County, not far from Boston, was made famous by horror writer H.P. Lovecraft for its connections to the occult and featured in stories like Herbert West--Reanimator.
Although it was summery today, the chill tomorrow will have you in a fall mood. And fall in New England = foliage, at least for some. If you take leafy matters life this seriously the internet is the place for you, besides the forest.
Yankee Magazine, in their apparent bid to become the Mission Control center for any foliage-related expeditions, has built a complex foliage cyber-NORAD so you can track all the leaves in New England. Although there are a lot of interactive areas, the link to the actual foliage map is overwhelmed by the one that takes you to B and Bs. You need to delve a little deeper to find a foliage map. You can also listen to foliage podcasts, look at foliage webcams, and read a foliage blog. There's a bit too much going on here for leaves changing color on trees and then falling to the ground.
This foliage map from The Foliage Network (!) seems to have all that's needed to make sure you don't miss anything.
Or you could just relax and take a look at the trees changing along your street.
