Cambridge street life

At first glance, this bit of weekend news only shows why Vermonters are so mellow in their native habitat: they come to Massachusetts to act out. However, this is only a tiny slice of Cantabridgian amusements available nearly any day. I live hardly three miles from the epicentre of the Halloween capital of the world. Salem is high-grade street theatre, but as a rule they have to work at it. Cambridge, on the other hand, is people-watching nirvana any day of the year.

Just the day before the incident in the link above, I took the T to the Peoples' Republic for a libation with friends. To ensure a little exercise I rode to Central Square, even though the gathering was near Kendall. Of the many treats I had en route, the best was a "born to be wild" gentleman riding round the block. The rider was vintage biker boy: heavy, heavily tattooed, wife-beater shirt, chromed Nazi-style helmet. But he was riding a motor scooter of mediocre horsepower.

This being Cambridge, the only question was whether the parody was intentional or not. One hopes it was the former.

R.I.P. Bob Slate's

Saying goodbye to another Cambridge institution wasn't at first on the programme when my wife and I went into Cambridge yesterday. We had decided to go to the Harvard Museum of Natural History, then try to find cheap eats someplace without a national brand on it. The Slate's visit was an add-on, when I mentioned the store and my wife said, "Oh, did you see the Globe column?"
Slate's is going, going, soon to be gone. We visited the Mass. Ave. store in its final flurry. My Rhodia pads were gone, gone in every style: someone had beaten me to it.

Crap: another step in the homogenisation of Harvard Square. I was a very late comer to Slate's, having been in Cambridge rarely most of my life. I was taking refreshment with the Mass Marrier some months ago and mentioned my frustration at being unable to find an old-fashioned long, skinny reporter's pad. He suggested Slate's. I found what I wanted and became a convert. I usually put this curse only on restaurants I like.

This news has its analog in the trouble I have finding the notebook. Slate's was damaged by Staples, then done in by the Internet. The specialised pads I like never had much of a market beyond writers in general and reporters in particular, so the Staples of the world can't be bothered with them. In any case, reporters don't take notes anymore. They record. This certainly makes one techno-savvy and cool, but I still remember what someone told me long ago. People may become more cautious, more guarded, in what they tell you when you record them. In our world that seems more real and more threatening. The pad? It's just a notebook: what harm is there in that? Perhaps that gambit is obsolete too, given how many people self-destruct via Facebook and Twitter. If reporters were still taking the pad and gathering facts, it might be different, but so many are simply making the story up as they go along.

All right: I'll hobble off to my rocker now and play with my skinny little pads. And I won't say where we got lunch: Putting no curses there.