Monday, July 31, 2006

chaz

(Charles River, north from the River Street Bridge,
between Boston, left, and Cambridge, right,
in the Bay State, Massachusetts)
----This is my 150th post on Pancakes and Side Dishes. Just so you know.----

a bad turn for marmaduke

(Hampshire St., Cambridge, MA)

Sunday, July 30, 2006

Friday, July 28, 2006

slides may be grey or yellow in color

(flight from Boston to Chicago, United Airlines)

Very few images need glossing, I find, but this is all about the poor execution of a simple idea. These two panels from the emergency instruction card I found on my United Airlines flight point up the very clear fact that not everyone should be allowed to use Photoshop. Foregrounds, backgrounds, and figures all seem to have been imported from different sources. How hard would it have been to photograph an actual person descending an emergency slide? Instead, the fellow on the left could easily be describing how high he'd like a load of cordwood stacked. Certainly he looks nothing like a real person sliding to safety out the door of a jetliner.

And what of the woman behind him? Disturbing. She appears to have shoved him out the door, her wooden expression showing plain distaste. Maybe she's just annoyed that he's ignored the common "women and children first" rule of evacuating distressed passenger vehicles.

In the right-hand panel, the passengers escape into a flat, barren backdrop. But what's that? Check out the woman in blue skulking away as the passenger from the slide is still being helped to his feet. It's the same woman who just shoved him out of the plane! She's everywhere!

Finally, let us please note that "slides may be grey or yellow in color." Do not be confused just because the inflatable rubber surface leading from the side of the plane to the ground is yellow. It's still a slide. Easy mistake to make, of course, if you're expecting it to be "grey." Entrust your life to it anyway. If it is orange, maroon, or aquamarine, you'll just have to take your chances.

Okay. If I've helped to save even one life here today, that will be enough. If not . . . well, that's fine too.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

wire under a bird

(some street named after a tree, Somerville, MA)

Monday, July 24, 2006

Sunday, July 23, 2006

common conference

(Cambridge Common, Mass. Ave., Cambridge, MA)

Birds

I couldn’t get any work done at all. If it wasn’t the chirping, it was the fluttering. Papers were swept from their place as soon as I lifted my hand from them. And small shadows darted all about, making it hard to read. For sure it was distracting.

It was impossible to count how many there were, but I reckoned at least two dozen birds were inside my office. They were small birds, sparrows and finches from what I could tell, but when you get that many in an office, it seems like hundreds.

There were feathers to deal with too, and that might have a cute detail except for the worst thing of all. Bird shit everywhere. My desk looked like the lining of a bird cage in no time. How was I going to route those invoices when they were spattered with green and white smears of bird feces? But I didn’t have time to redo everything. And with the birds, it would just get messed up again.

“How’d they get in there?” one of my coworkers asked me when I went to get coffee. My previous cup hadn’t lasted more than a minute before I found a few tufted white feathers floating in it. This time I was taking a saucer to put on top of the mug.

“How should I know?” I said. “They were in there when I got in on Monday.”

“I don’t understand. How can you work in there with birds all over the place?”

“Makes it tough,” I said. I took a danish from the box someone had left on the counter. I only wanted half, but I took a whole one back to my office. The birds would finish it off. It was the only real benefit of their presence.

She shook her head. “Somebody should do something about it.”

“I’ve been assured that they’ve called the management company. The maintenance guys are busy, I guess.”

“That’s ridiculous!” she said.

Our office manager darted into the kitchen and poured a quick cup of coffee. He smiled. “Yeah, but they’re cutting our rent in half for the month, so that’s something.” He darted out again.

“So something good’s coming out of it,” I said. “Anyway, I gotta get back. Last time I left, they landed on my keyboard and somehow rebooted my computer. This whole spreadsheet got corrupted somehow.”

I took my coffee, saucer, and danish back down the hall. The incessant birdsong grew louder as I got closer to my office. I picked a few pale tufts of stray feathers from my sleeve and pressed on. It would be a long week.

Saturday, July 15, 2006

retrieval

(Boston, MA)

back from b'line

(a taxi somewhere between Brookline and Somerville, MA)

Friday, July 14, 2006

Thursday, July 13, 2006

The Rambunctious Adventures of Jalasso Pei, part two


With the match suspended and the threat to her record averted, Jalasso returned to the peril of the moment: the wrath of her mother. A new wave of panic washed over her, and she dashed to the makeshift net to see if she could disentagle the knotted afghans and reposition the chairs from which they hung.

Miranda watched with vague interest while slowly packing her tennis gear.

“Need some help?” she asked over her shoulder after several moments. Jalasso had started in desperation to pull loose thick strands of yarn from the knit throws.

Jalasso glanced over at her. “Would you?”

“Ha!” Miranda laughed sarcastically. She stood and heaved her bulky saffron tennis bag over her shoulder. “You wish.” She headed for the door at the far end of Jalasso’s bedroom.

In frustration, Jalasso accidentally pulled loose several more strands of yarn from her mother’s expensive afghans. It seemed to her that at any minute the entire collection of knit items might unravel into one long, messy strand. She dropped the twisted mess as she watched Miranda striding toward the door. “Oh, yeah?” she shouted. “Well, next time we play, you’re going to wish something! That I’d stop kicking your skinny butt!”

She should have known from her long nine years of experience that just such a line would signal her mother’s entrance. It never failed that Mrs. Pei arrived always at the height of her daughter’s most outrageous exclamations. As the word “butt” left Jalasso’s lips, the heavy oak door flew open with a soft thud.

Jalasso leapt back a foot and covered her mouth involuntarily. Not because of the sudden terror her mother inspired, though she did. And not because it seemed very likely that she’d lose her court privileges for at least a month, though she probably would. But rather because the door to her room had just burst open with a thud, whereas it typically tended toward more of a crash. The difference between the sounds was accounted for by Miranda. She had just reached the door as Jalasso’s mother came in, and the door hit the girl square in the face.

Mrs. Pei’s reaction was less immediate. She had entered the room admonishing her daughter for her rambunctious, destructive behavior, for her rude treatment of her guest, and for her distinctly unladylike language. It took her a couple of seconds to process the details of the situation in Jalasso’s bedroom, and her tirade sputtered out as she took it all in. Jalasso stood still, eyes wide, hands over her mouth. Several of the antique throws looked in danger of being unraveled, and they were strapped to the delicately wroght chairs she’d hoped would downplay the sporty look of her daughter’s room. And finally, it seemed that little blonde girl Jalasso had a tennis rivalry with stood just inside the doorway. She was holding her nose and wailing in pain.

Mrs. Pei sputtered as she shifted her primary concern from confronting Jalasso about the broken window to kneeling down in front of the girl she’d evidently just hit in the face with the door.

Mrs. Pei held Miranda by the shoulders. “Oh, I’m so sorry, dear! I’m sorry! I didn’t know you were behind the door.”

Miranda continued to cry in high-pitched screams interspersed with long, low sobs. Mrs. Pei tried to pull the girl’s hands away from her face to see how badly she was hurt, but Miranda wouldn’t let her. She kept her whole face hidden, and her endless hours of tennis practice gave the little girl considerable upper body strength.

“Please, honey, let me see,” Mrs. Pei implored the girl. She disliked have to use a soft, mothering tone. Dealing with Jalasso’s unbridled energy and crafty willfulness had made such gentle measures so rare that they now felt false and foreign. But she had to cope with this situation as best she could. She didn’t think it would help to get stern or to overpower the girl.

Slowly, Miranda relaxed her arms, and Mrs. Pei drew her hands back. When she saw the girl’s face, she blanched. She tried not to react for fear of scaring her, but Miranda recognized the look of concern and uncertainty. She knew something was wrong.

Plus, it was hard not to notice the blood that dripped from her nose and now covered the bottom half of her face and both of her hands. Immediately, Miranda’s whimpering escalated into a series of high, anguished shrieks. Her hands flew back to cover her face and she sat down heavily on the floor, her tennis bag sliding off her shoulder and slumping to one side.

Mrs. Pei did her best to make soothing sounds, but Miranda seemed to be going into some mild form of shock. “Jalasso,” the woman whispered loudly, never taking her eyes off the injured child, “call down to Marble. Tell him your friend is hurt.”

Jalasso stood at the far side of the room, shifting her weight from one foot the other. She wanted to spring into action. She knew it was time. But for the time being, she felt incapable of moving. Things would just get worse from here, and she knew it. If only she could rewind things. Back to the match. To those last few returns. To that awful backhand of hers.

“Jalasso!” Mrs. Pei shouted in her best commanding voice.

The girls sprang into action, practically vaulting over her canopy bed toward her phone. She used the intercom function and heard the butler pick up as he always did in two rings, no more, no less.

“Marble!” she shrieked. “Mother’s calling for you. Miranda’s hurt!”

“Very good, Miss Jalasso,” Marble said in his unhurried, unflappable manner. “First aid or emergency?”

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

some decanted evening

(another suspicious venue, Brookline, MA)

the joke

(The B-Side, Windsor at Hampshire Street, Cambridge, MA)

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

smoot 360

(Harvard Bridge, 4.4 smoots and an ear away from Cambridge, MA)

admin: belated bloggy birthday

I'm breaking character here for a sec to note that this blog had a birthday last month and all of us missed it.

Back in April 2005 someone asked me if I had a blog. We'd been talking about writing, which both of us did, and then she just asked me that, as if I was supposed to say, "Well, yeah, duh." But instead I said something like, "Um, no. Is that a thing I really need to have?"

Oh, and just look at me now.

It kind of was something I needed to have, and not because anyone's come beating down my door with offers of publishing contracts and prize money for unparalleled brilliance. No one's even so much as accidentally bumped into my door. Some might even avoid it. I don't care.

What I have instead, at least for now, is a tiny little cluster of people who check in and see what I'm posting. Did I have that before I cranked this blog up in June of last year? Hell, no, I didn't. Back then I had only a few indulgent friends who read things I would send them. They were great about it, and supportive as can be. Now they don't have to keep their inboxes cleared of my scribblings. Now they can just come see when they have time.

And, as you may have noticed, I also went all visual this year. What would I be doing with all my pictures if I couldn't showcase them this way? Again, junking up emailboxes. Hoping people said "cool." Now it's just there. Come look. Tell your friends. Take up a collection and send me on the road. I'm down with whatever.

So for those reasons and many more, I'm giving my first year on Blogspot a happy nod. I'm that much more out of my head now. In all senses of the phrase. And for that, how can one not be glad?

Monday, July 10, 2006

Friday, July 07, 2006

patron saint of after-hours deliveries

(University Monuments, Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA)

Thursday, July 06, 2006

bozolton

(Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA!)

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

lichtenstein's "clijster's concentration"

(a living room in Somerville, MA)

underground education

(descending toward Kendall/MIT, Red Line, MBTA, Cambridge, MA)

Saturday, July 01, 2006

The Rambunctious Adventures of Jalasso Pei, part one

Mishit

Jalasso had hoped the additional insulation and pricey soundproofing of her room would do the job. She needed it to muffle steady footfalls and shoe squeaks, to dampen the sharp smacks of tennis balls bouncing off the floor, and to smother her outraged cries as Miranda scored sneaky points.

And maybe it had worked. But even so, even the best soundproofing did nothing to hide a shattered bedroom window. Especially when the bright yellow tennis ball Jalasso had so terribly mishit sailed out that window, a shimmering trail of glass in its wake. Not when the spherical missile fell in bright noontime daylight four stories to the family estate’s vast green lawn. And not when the blasted thing then bounced, hopped, and rolled to a stop only a few yards from where her mother stood, discussing the details of Jalasso’s upcoming birthday lawn party with the groundskeeper.

As Jalasso stood looking out the windows and saw her mother’s beautiful pale moon of a face turn and look up at her angrily, she knew she would never be able to talk her way out of this one.

“So is that the match?” Miranda asked from over Jalasso’s shoulder as they watched Mrs. Pei walk stiffly toward the house.

Jalasso leapt down from the window seat and yanked one of the long, flowing curtains over the broken window. The wind outside gusted, pulling the curtain toward the jagged hole in the glass.

“What do you think, Miranda?” Jalasso asked testily, looking around the room at the obvious damage their game had caused.

“I think yeah,” Miranda said in a light tone. “But I’m just saying . . .”

Jalasso barely heard her. She had begun to run around her enormous bedroom, righting objects knocked over during the game, kicking stray tennis balls into her garage-sized walk-in closet, tucking the racquet she had been using under the mattress of her canopy bed. She did all this by force of habit, because she knew full well she could never get that window fixed before her mother made the long trek up to the fourth floor and down the long corridors toward the wing of the house that contained Jalasso’s bedroom. Besides, how would she ever have explained the ball? And all that glass outside? The makeshift net of antique afghan throws strung between two Chippendale chairs in the middle of the room?

Suddenly, she spun back toward Miranda, who still stood by the window, her racquet gripped lightly in her left hand. She glared. “You’re just saying what?” Jalasso asked suspiciously.

Miranda shrugged. “You’re down a set.”

Jalasso’s mouth fell open in astonishment. “What a cheap win!” she exclaimed. “That’s what it means to you when my mother’s about to come in here and revoke all my court privileges for the rest of the spring?”

Miranda tried to look hurt, but the expression was so unnatural for her that she looked instead like she was just recovering from a bad sneeze. “Like you wouldn’t! You’re still counting that game when I had an allergic reaction to that bee sting!”

For a moment, Jalasso forgot about the impending doom of Mrs. Pei. “That was totally fair,” she said. “Forfeiting for medical reasons.”

“My throat was going to close up!” Miranda yelled.

Jalasso threw her hands in the air. “So you made the right decision!”

Miranda grinned triumphantly. “So now it’s your turn,” she said. “Do we continue the game, or are you going to forfeit?”

Jalasso jumped up and down several times in frustration. She stomped her feet. “Why can’t we play it later?” she whined.

Miranda looked at her bare wrist as if she had a watch on it. “It’s match time now.”

Jalasso stopped suddenly and let her shoulders drop. She felt defeated, and she wanted just to fall down on the floor.

“Forfeit?” Miranda asked. She twirled her racquet in her hand.

Jalasso looked up at her sometime-friend and her small face broke into a grin. Her dark eyes glared up from under her choppy bangs. “Fine,” she said, “we’ll play. It’s still your serve.”

It was Miranda’s turn to look sincerely outraged. “What?” she asked. “We can’t play now! Your mom is coming up here to ground you for the rest of forever.”

Jalasso feigned an unconvincing look of innocence. “We can’t play?”

Miranda shook her head at Jalasso’s stupidity. “Of course not!”

Jalasso grinned wickedly and pumped her small fist. “Okay, then,” she said. “If we can’t play, then I don’t forfeit. Game postponed due to weather.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the weather,” Miranda protested.

Jalasso nodded. “Well, it’s about to get really bad in here. Stormy, even.”

Miranda tossed her head in irritation and stomped toward her tennis bag to gather her belongings. “Fine, Jalasso, the game’s postponed,” she said icily. “But I’m writing down the score. We’ll play again when you can go out, in like ten years.”

[next chapter]