A Rush Hour Vignette

Normally I read the paper during my commute. I somewhat stubbornly cling to my old-media habit for several reasons: more than ever, it's important to be informed; I want to support a legitimate news organization; and it helps pass the time.

But lately my paper hasn't been making it onto my porch; I find it at the bottom of the steps, and this morning it was completely soaked from the overnight rain, in spite of being delivered in a plastic bag. So I didn't have anything to read. I had a section from yesterday's paper, and started working on the crossword, but after a few minutes my pen started running out of ink. (It's refillable, but I didn't know it was so close to running out.) I had no choice but to observe my fellow passengers, but today I was glad I did.

I was able to sit after a couple of stops, which is pretty unusual. There was a couple standing in front of where I was sitting, and a woman standing adjacent to the man. Like many other commuters, she had earbuds in. When we reached one of the stations downtown where a lot of people get out, the woman in the couple said goodbye to her partner, who bent down to kiss her goodbye. As he did so, the button on the back pocket of his pants hooked onto the other woman's earbud cord. When he stood upright again the cord stayed around the button, but he had no idea.

As I watched all of this, I looked at the woman wearing the earbuds. It seemed that I was the only person who had witnessed the whole scene; I caught her eye, and both of us started laughing at how silly it was. Clearly she didn't want to touch the back of the guy's pants, so she reached out and made a motion that moved the cord away from her body, and that was able to release it from the button. I looked at her again and said "Well played" in a quiet voice. She smiled and returned her attention to her phone.

Degrees of Separation

It's a little creepy that LinkedIn suggested one of the guys who lives upstairs in the "people you may know" section. Usually the folks who show up there are people I have searched for on LinkedIn in the past, or at least people affiliated with the same employer. I suppose there is potentially some zip code matching happening in the algorithm, but it's still a bit unnerving.

Overheard: And You May Ask Yourself... Edition

(This isn't exactly "overheard," since the speaker was directly addressing a bus full of commuters, but it's close enough.)

On my way home on a recent workday, as the bus pulled into Ruggles station, the driver said to all of us preparing to exit and transfer to the Orange Line, "I don't know how you people do this every day. At least I'm getting paid to be here..."

Groovin' on the Bus

The things you miss when you are not commuting via public transit: this morning I got to hear someone else's music being played out of either (a) the tiny, tinny speaker of their phone, or (b) an actual radio with equally poor sound quality. The culprit was too far away for me to see the device, but I am confident that it wasn't an old-school boombox. I heard what I thought was a station ID, so it could have been a streaming radio station.

However, it must be said that the listener did have good taste: during my short shared ride on that particular bus, I got to hear "Evil Ways" by Santana and "Got To Give It Up" by Marvin Gaye.

Random Searches, Random Results

When you search in Google (or whichever search engine you prefer), do you ever look at what results come up when you start typing? It can be very entertaining.

Please note item five on the list, which I have marked. For it to land that high, I believe that means a significant number of people must have typed that question into a search box.

Also noteworthy: the ninth item on the list. If you have to ask, then you may not want to know the answer...

The Pop Paradox

Last weekend we attended a bar mitzvah; the young man is the son of a colleague and friend of the Mrs. The event was really nice, with teenagers running semi-amok and a delicious meal. A DJ was on hand to keep things festive, spinning pop hits covering the past decade or so.

A couple of things struck me about the music. I don't exactly follow pop these days, but I knew the majority of the songs, or at least the performers. But nothing was played as a nod to the adults in the room; nothing from the '80s, or even the '90s. (What the Mrs. thought was "Baby Got Back" turned out to be its sample-child, "Anaconda.")

But more notable to my mind (and ears) was a sameness to the music. Other than the occasional vocal performance, nothing really stood out. There's a similarity to how modern pop songs are constructed, even down to some of the chord changes they employ, that suggests they emanate from a factory somewhere. You hear the same structure, the same types of flourishes, the rap verse dropped in at approximately the same point.

It's not just simple nostalgia, or even the argument that the music we love and connect with as teenagers remains the most powerful and most significant to us. Divorcing myself from those sentiments, today's music just isn't as good as pop from eras past. While the roster of performers may come from more diverse cultural backgrounds, the music they are producing is not nearly as diverse as the sounds radio offered in the 1970s, or even the '80s.

An Atypical Appellation

Today at the office, the regular front-desk person was out, and there was a fill-in person that I had not seen or met before. She was about half my age, but when I spoke to her about something, she responded and ended her sentence with "hon." I was a little surprised; after all, it is 2015, and "hon" is the sort of thing you expect to hear spoken by a sixtyish diner waitress in a 1970s movie. But it was also charming in its own way, a note of familiarity used as a way to make people feel like their requests are being heard, to put them at ease.

One Way or Another

Now that the weather has changed, I've been taking a different route to work in the mornings. Instead of going to the bus stop right on the corner, it involves walking for several minutes through the neighborhood to get to a different bus route, then connecting in Medford Square to another bus that brings me to Davis Square, where I hop onto the Red Line for two stops.

It might not seem like a better option, but in daily practice it is much calmer and more civilized. I enjoy the walk in the morning air (the walking is the reason I didn't do this in the summer), and I don't have to fight my way onto an already-packed Orange Line train only to have to fight my way off again after only two stops. And while the first bus tends to get caught in some traffic, it's not nearly as bad as what I encountered almost every day taking the 86. Some mornings I ride to Medford Square with the Mrs., who stops there for coffee on days when she's going to one of her two office locations.

The second bus runs through Davis and on to Harvard, but it tends to get bogged down on the stretch of Mass. Ave. between Porter and Harvard. The T has acknowledged this by having buses on this route alternate during the morning rush between running all the way to Harvard and going only as far as Davis. The buses are clearly marked; they say "DAVIS SQ" instead of "HARVARD VIA DAVIS" and they are indicated on the route's schedule.

But of course, people don't pay attention. This morning I boarded the bus and sat down. A couple of people got on behind me, then a woman got on and asked the driver a question about getting to a specific destination. He told her the bus was going only as far as Davis. Another woman sitting near the front jumped up and said, in a minor panic, "Wait, what?" He explained again that the bus did not go to Harvard Square, but connected with the Red Line at Davis. Her face cycled through a couple of expressions before she decided this was acceptable, said "Okay, whatever," to no one in particular, and sat down again.

Analog

This morning I came out of the subway and was walking toward my office. I am generally on the lookout for people moving more slowly so that I can move around them. Ahead of me I noticed a woman with her head down and her right arm bent up at the elbow, in the now-common posture of someone looking at a smartphone while walking.

I moved to my right, and as I came up behind her I saw that she was not looking at her phone, but in fact was deeply engaged with written material on an old-fashioned clipboard. I was pleasantly surprised and a little amused.

Snapshot

There are times when I see people who are so distinctive in appearance that I would like to take a photo, but that isn't always practical on, say, a jammed subway car, and some people would not want that image to be published online without their consent. But I can certainly offer a description.

Due to the recent traffic issues (which are now gone, thankfully), on a few mornings I found it easier, or at least less of a headache, to take the Orange Line into downtown and switch to the Red Line to get to Harvard Square. I don't attempt to read on trains and buses unless I'm able to get a seat, because it requires a fair amount of effort to avoid falling down and to be ready to move out of the way of those exiting and entering, so I amuse myself by observing people.

One morning I was watching people get off the train at State Street and getting ready to get out at the next stop. As people on the platform started getting on the train, I saw a flash of hair that I thought was red, but then a moment later I saw it was in fact orange, like really orange. As the person entered the train I saw it was a woman, well-dressed and with very carefully applied makeup. She stood near me for a moment but then moved into the car to take an empty seat.

The color and cut of her hair were obviously taken directly from Annie Lennox circa the first Eurythmics album. She was also wearing glasses that reminded me of the Matsuda frames that were popular among sophisticated, well-to-do types in the early 1980s. They could have been vintage, or just of a similar shape and material. She was pale, but had on bright lipstick that stood out on her face.

She was wearing a skirt suit that had the distinct look of being homemade. I don't mean that in a negative way; I suspect the woman had made it herself, because it was unusual and she had the look of someone who would prefer a very specific style, one not readily available in a store. The fabric was cream and there was a small repeating pattern in burgundy, like small paisleys, spaced about two inches apart. (I wasn't close enough to get a clear look.) The jacket was cut like a man's tail coat but without the tails; the skirt was straight and above the knee. She wore some sort of white blouse with a ruffled collar, white stockings, and bright orange pumps that were clearly meant to play off her hair color.

I would have loved a chance to talk with this woman, just because she was so distinctive looking. She had obviously put great care into her appearance, and on a midsummer day it's unusual to see anyone on the T, male or female, kitted out so elaborately.

Retro Tech

I have car things to share, but I haven't had the time to prep them. Meanwhile, I saw this person on a bus last week, sporting a vintage Walkman radio headset:

That thing has to be at least 20 years old, right? My recollection is that the yellow-and-gray "sports" style Walkman stuff was popular in the mid-'90s. It's kind of impressive that it still works. And props to her for keeping it solidly retro.

(Note: I didn't obscure her face because she was already turned away from me and is not, in my opinion, readily identifiable.)

Ice Cream Monday

As a public transit rider, I see pretty much the entire spectrum of human behavior. After more than three decades I'm not often surprised by something I see, but it still happens.

This past Monday I was coming home from work via Davis Square. It's not my usual route, but I'd chosen not to wait around for my usual bus, which was running behind. As I was standing outside the station, I noticed a sound like that of a spoon clinking on glass.

I looked around, trying not to be too obvious, and eventually discerned a woman sitting on a bench, eating ice cream from a glass bowl. As I watched, she finished, wrapped the dish and spoon in a cloth, and put them into her backpack.

I considered the possibilities and came up with: either she's an extremely zealous environmentalist who can't abide the waste of a cup for her ice cream (in that case, why not just get a cone?), or she had swiped the dish from the nearby JP Licks. I kind of prefer the second option.

Random Outfit Critique

I saw this guy on the T on Thursday and had intended to post this picture that day or yesterday. He's fully outfitted for summer professional work. I like seeing a pink shirt with a khaki suit; it works quite well and is a far less obvious choice than a blue or white shirt. I also like that the shirt and tie are not solids, but subtle patterns/textures. So what if the suit's from Express? Everyone has to start an adult wardrobe somewhere.

My only objection to his outfit is the green tie, or maybe it's more accurate to say the pairing of the green tie with the pink shirt. It's possible he fancies himself a devotee of The Original Preppy Handbook, but if that's the case it's supposed to be pink and kelly green. I think I would have been bothered less by that, even if it came off looking more costume-y. When I see this shade of green, all I can think of is the jacket the winner of the Masters tournament gets, and I find it singularly unappealing.

But however you feel about this shade of green, the pocket square that appears to be the very same shade as the tie is just a bit too much. He could have put a paper napkin in his breast pocket and it would look better than this thing. Points for effort, but docked for execution. (I don't remember noticing his shoes, which means they were probably fine.)

Earworms

I had to laugh when I saw this cartoon in The New Yorker, because a few days ago while in a store I was subjected to the heinous "We Built This City." Often when I'm in stores I don't notice the music, or at least it doesn't register in my consciousness, but that has a lot to do with the volume at which it's being played. In this instance it was louder than it ought to have been, which meant I was hearing it inside my head later that evening.

Frequently songs, even ones such as this one that I loathe, can get stuck in my brain for days if I hear only a few bars. Sometimes it's fun, like having an iPod set on shuffle in my head; other times, not so much. There have been instances where the mere mention of the title of a song, without hearing any of the actual song being played, was enough to induce an earworm.

I read an article recently about a study that suggested chewing gum can help dislodge an earworm from one's brain, because the repetitive muscle movement required to chew gum somehow interferes with the part of the brain where songs get stuck, or something like that. I haven't tried that yet on myself, because typically I don't have the same song stuck in my head for more than a couple of days before it gets replaced by something else, voluntarily or not. This week, I noticed that a couple of days after the original infestation, "WBTC" had been replaced by the opening-credits theme music from House of Cards, shortly after we had watched a couple of episodes.

[Tangentially: I seem to remember Spin magazine crowning "WBTC" as the worst song ever, or at least the worst song of the rock era. I always agreed with that ranking, but I think if someone attempted to compile an updated version of that list, last year's "All About That Bass" would be a strong contender for the number one spot.]

Stashed Cash

I was at my local liquor store this evening, because I knew the Mrs. was coming home with burritos and I really wanted a cold beer to enjoy with mine. There was a guy in front of me in line who looked to be at least 40, with a woman of a similar age.

Long ago I worked in the gift shop of a local cultural institution that received a lot of visits from school groups, and camp groups during the summer. The kids had a tendency to keep their money stashed in their shoes, and I watched in amazement as the guy in line ahead of me bent his leg up, reached into his shoe, and pulled out cash. He was wearing a T-shirt and shorts, so I suppose he may not have had any pockets, and apparently he doesn't carry a wallet either.

Car Stuff: Paulie?

This 1990s Cadillac Eldorado appeared recently in a neighbor's driveway. It's very similar to the car Paulie drove on The Sopranos, but one night I was out with the dog and saw a guy come out and get into it who looked to be about the age of the kid who Paulie had as sort of an apprentice for a while (name escapes me, it's been a while since I saw the show).

Whoever he is, I'll be friendly to him, just in case.

Curbside Tubes

Back in the fall, a couple of old tube TV sets appeared on curbs in the neighborhood. The city does not take these with regular trash collection. If a resident wants to dispose of a TV or computer monitor, s/he must go to city hall and purchase a sticker that is then affixed to the item, and the resident must schedule a special pick-up with the waste management company. Sometimes this happens, while other times the set remains on the curb, and the person discarding it is likely hoping that someone else will take it away to use it for parts.

This one landed on a curb down the block and around the corner, and was gone within a day, two days tops. It probably got stickered and carted off. (Toshiba TVs were pretty good at one time, but now they just license the name.)

This one, not quite as large, was right across the street from us on a side street. It arrived at around the same time but lingered. After the first big snowstorm the drifts along the streets were huge, and it wasn't until the snow started melting in mid-March that the set reappeared. Once it got covered by snow I totally forgot about it, but there it was. It's still there today, now face down. If this homeowner's lot did not happen to be on a corner, the TV would be a lot more visible and more likely to be considered an eyesore by a neighbor.

Car Stuff: No Accounting for Taste

I'd planned something else for today, but it requires some prep work and it's too late to start on it tonight, so let's return to my occasional photos of odd or unusual modern cars.

This is a recent Honda Accord that someone has put a considerable amount of effort into customizing. The result is not what I would consider appealing or tasteful, but what do I know? It's probably a safe bet the owner was one of the first to see Furious 7 this past weekend. Is this car any faster than a stock Accord? Maybe, but somehow I suspect the modifications are only cosmetic.

March Thaw

This week's warmer temperatures aren't going to last, but it has been warm enough for long enough to allow me to finally remove the last stubborn slab of ice around the perimeter of our house. This was on the side of the house away from the driveway, an area that gets very little sun during January and February (and not much in general), and the ice there was about two inches thick. But even that was no match for the thermometer climbing over 50 yesterday and today, and not dropping below freezing last night. I was also able to widen the walkway along the front of the house with minimal effort.

Elsewhere in the neighborhood, the melting snow is revealing previously buried items, like this:

This car belongs to the people who live in the yellow house at the left of the photo. They have at least half a dozen vehicles (and as far as I can tell, only two drivers in the household) and this old Chevy Cavalier seems to be one of the lesser-used ones, so it wasn't surprising that they let this one get buried. I wish I'd gotten a pic a couple of days earlier, when it was just starting to emerge from its snowy cocoon. Before that it appeared to be just a very large pile of snow; in fact I didn't even realize that there was a car under there.

Now, I'm off to enjoy the day on a nice long walk with the dog.

Snow Update

Last weekend's snow put us in third place for the most snow in one winter, and only six-tenths of an inch behind second place. We've had a few flurries fall Tuesday, Wednesday, and today, so I think it's likely that this winter has moved into second place for snowfall, and it's not over yet. (I just confirmed that this has in fact occurred. For the record, we're less than a foot away from moving into first place.)

So I thought I'd once again look at the snow accumulation around our house. Here's the by-now familiar view of our back yard, and the five-foot high wooden fence at the back has now completely disappeared. I'm a little surprised that the neighbor behind us has not cleared that garage roof yet.

Here's the path across the back of the house. You can see that I gave up on the idea of keeping the entire area in front of the garage door clear. As long as it's accessible it doesn't need to be cleared completely.

Here's the same path looking in the opposite direction. The dog and I have to navigate this several times a day.

Here are the mounds in front of the house, which keep growing along with the plowed-up drifts to the left, by the street. Note the wall of snow directly ahead, past the yellow house; there is supposed to be an opening there to allow pedestrians to pass along without going into the street, but the business owner decided not to bother this year.

And just for laughs, this is a bus stop I was at yesterday. There used to be a Shaw's supermarket here but it closed about a year ago and now this stop gets very little use, but my bank happens to be across the parking lot. When I took this picture I was standing on several feet of snow where a path had been made from the parking lot to the street. Most stops have been cleared better than this one, but venturing out without waterproof, insulated footwear is still a bad idea.