strange radiation: the pool of radiance archive
Adventures with an unreliable narrator.
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Mar 14 05: table for one
So here I am in Boston. Well, Cambridge, actually; as I understand it, Cambridge:Boston::Brooklyn:Manhattan. I’m here with a number of my coworkers for a one-day seminar on Innovation in the Workplace. Yeah, ugh. Rumor has it that tomorrow we will learn that ‘thinking inside the box’ is this year’s ‘thinking outside the box.’ Whether or not the rumor is true, I am trying to withhold my cynicism about the whole enterprise until no earlier than lunchtime tomorrow. The travel and housing and drinks are free, so who am I to complain?
Most of us are staying at the Hotel Marlowe, which is at the end of Cambridge that (evidently) becomes a complete ghost town once the sun sets. We’re out behind a shopping mall with a name that is at once tony and utterly, soullessly generic—The Galleria at Cambridge, or some such. I got here around dinnertime, and I was hungry, and I had an hour and a half before the gang from NYC was supposed to gather in the hotel bar for drinks. Furthermore, I hadn’t been to Boston since my a capella days, and the idea of wandering around a strange city appealed; so I wandered off in the direction of the North End. I don’t know the North End from Peoria, but the concierges assured me that it would be an interesting place to go. It was also convenient to the hotel. I think that was part of the concierges’ secret agenda. When I told them I was looking for a place I could walk to, they looked at me funny. Does nobody walk in this town? Or was I just taking my life in my hands traversing the hotel’s neighborhood at night and nobody could bring themselves to tell me? Whatever the motivation, the North End was a great place for a stroll: I passed low 18th/19th-century brick buildings that screamed ‘you can’t afford the rent for this place,’ and bars and more bars (this is a drinker’s town), and especially a long long series of achingly romantic little Italian restaurants. To have asked for a table for one at any one of them would have been too tragic to be borne. Note to self: when come back, bring Paul.
I walked for a while, looking in windows (best business name, florists’ division: Ka-Bloom) and watching the people stream past me on the sidewalks. There were a great many young whippersnappers with faces painted green, radiating outward from the Fleet Center. (Judging by appearances, I’d say the Celtics won tonight.) But in the end, I abandoned my search for a glimpse of the soul of Boston. Such an undertaking requires more than ninety minutes, and it certainly requires the assistance of a local. (Confidential to Maggie R.: Much too late, I realized I should have dropped you a line before coming up. I thought a lot about Spiral Hunt while I was wandering around. Looking forward to reading more of it.) I came back to the hotel. I had a burger in the bar and had drinks with the gang. Carolyn’s birthday is tomorrow, so there was tequila.
I’m going to bed now.
ps: I’m typing this from a free terminal at the Marlowe’s 24-hour Executive Center. One of the last people to use this terminal apparently Googled the phrase “boston call girls” and then forgot to clear his cache. Amateur.