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Knockin' on heaven's door
Jul. 10th, 2008 09:56 pmSnippets from Boston:
The old woman standing in the road, blocking a car with her body, shouting "Lights! Lights! Lights! Lights!" at the driver. The Asian kid sitting in front of me on the 64 with a zit on the back of his neck staring at me from over the faded royal blue collar of his polo shirt like a tiny blind cyclops. The fat goth girl who was carrying pizzas to her car, unaware that she was dropping napkins behind her, fluttering one-two-three-four-five to the ground like limp-winged sparrows or pale brown bats. The clouds that ringed 3/4 of the horizon, soaked with the sherbet colors of the sunset, like the whole world was slowly sinking into fruit-flavored foam. The window of an MBTA bus has exactly the aspect ratio of a Cinemascope movie, and it was banded with the concrete horizon and the purple-peach clouds and the deep blue sky, with a white contrail slashing through the blue at an angle, and I wanted to point and say, "Hey, cyclops-neck! Hey, cell-phone swearer! Look at that! Look at that perfect shot!"
The day before that, I brought home a potted purple Poseidon pepper plant, with swelling-bursting purple knobs hidden in the green-black leaves and lavender flowers. I knelt in the dirt and dug a hole and planted it, and everything was good.
The day before that, we braved the Brazilian depths of Boston's brutalist city hall to petition the bureaucracy for a marriage license.
The day before that...the day before that...the day before that...
The day before that, we achieved public transportation Nirvana by catching the perfect 57 to the fireworks on the Esplanade, then catching the first 57 to leave after they ended. We sat on the muddy, grassy, sloping banks of the Charles and saw cubical fireworks, slow fireworks shaped like the bells and tentacles of orange medusas, fireworks that filled the sky with a silver sea that throbbed and rippled and faded. Dark boats moved silently across the water.
The day before that, we saw Wall-E, which was as good as everyone says. Ben Burtt is the guy who made the world of Star Wars real, made it breathe, by making sure the soundtrack was always never silent with hums and thumps and beeps and whirs. He's the guy who made every robot (but Eve) speak in Wall-E, and it'd be worth going to the movies blindfolded just to hear his magic.
The day before that, I saw a farmer's market washed away in the machine-gun rainfall — tents collapsing, bagged baked goods lying soggy on the ground, the slateboard sign washed entirely clean of chalk.
The old woman standing in the road, blocking a car with her body, shouting "Lights! Lights! Lights! Lights!" at the driver. The Asian kid sitting in front of me on the 64 with a zit on the back of his neck staring at me from over the faded royal blue collar of his polo shirt like a tiny blind cyclops. The fat goth girl who was carrying pizzas to her car, unaware that she was dropping napkins behind her, fluttering one-two-three-four-five to the ground like limp-winged sparrows or pale brown bats. The clouds that ringed 3/4 of the horizon, soaked with the sherbet colors of the sunset, like the whole world was slowly sinking into fruit-flavored foam. The window of an MBTA bus has exactly the aspect ratio of a Cinemascope movie, and it was banded with the concrete horizon and the purple-peach clouds and the deep blue sky, with a white contrail slashing through the blue at an angle, and I wanted to point and say, "Hey, cyclops-neck! Hey, cell-phone swearer! Look at that! Look at that perfect shot!"
The day before that, I brought home a potted purple Poseidon pepper plant, with swelling-bursting purple knobs hidden in the green-black leaves and lavender flowers. I knelt in the dirt and dug a hole and planted it, and everything was good.
The day before that, we braved the Brazilian depths of Boston's brutalist city hall to petition the bureaucracy for a marriage license.
The day before that...the day before that...the day before that...
The day before that, we achieved public transportation Nirvana by catching the perfect 57 to the fireworks on the Esplanade, then catching the first 57 to leave after they ended. We sat on the muddy, grassy, sloping banks of the Charles and saw cubical fireworks, slow fireworks shaped like the bells and tentacles of orange medusas, fireworks that filled the sky with a silver sea that throbbed and rippled and faded. Dark boats moved silently across the water.
The day before that, we saw Wall-E, which was as good as everyone says. Ben Burtt is the guy who made the world of Star Wars real, made it breathe, by making sure the soundtrack was always never silent with hums and thumps and beeps and whirs. He's the guy who made every robot (but Eve) speak in Wall-E, and it'd be worth going to the movies blindfolded just to hear his magic.
The day before that, I saw a farmer's market washed away in the machine-gun rainfall — tents collapsing, bagged baked goods lying soggy on the ground, the slateboard sign washed entirely clean of chalk.
