Speak Stiltedly and Wear a Yellow Shirt

Quote of the day: We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. –John Adams, 1798

As you may know, our own Senator Kerry, the non-Irishman, has come out against gay marriage. The legislature is working on that Constitutional amendment to define marriage. I’m thinking it’s time to move to a state where they already know what marriage is. Then again, the gallantry would probably follow me there.

While writing a story I stumbled across a local term I’d never known was local. I know the basics like grinder, bubbler, johnnycake and you guys, but sometimes I just don’t know whether people say scrod in other parts of the country. And not for one moment did I suspect the b word of being a regionalism.

Apparently, coastal New England dialect, also known as Eastern New England regional dialect, isn’t restricted to coastal New England. Like so-called Hawaiian sweet bread (actually Portuguese sweet bread, known in Fall River by the Portuguese name, massa, from massa sovada), the coastal dialect got around with the whalers and can be found in other coastal cities.

But back to the words. Reading through the Wicked Good Guide to Boston English, I found plenty of words and phrases I’d forgotten or never suspected of being regionalisms. I’ll add some Southern New England ones to the list for regional interest: directional, down cellar, So don’t I, elastics, wicked frickin’, Hoodsie cups, hub, jimmies, kegger, killer, cabinet (milkshake), rotary, quarter of (the hour), on account of, packie, quahog, Southie, T, tonic, and whole ‘nother.

None of those are the b-word. I found the b-word at Dictionary.com, which also claims that angry in the sense of red and inflamed is a New England regionalism. Who knew? And the b-word is… bulkhead, those doors that lead down cellar. Apparently nowhere else in the English-speaking world do these things have a proper name. Bulkhead is a regionalism - who knew?

Continuing the saga of the broken radiator…

The plumber replaced the trap and another one somewhere in the building. It was a loud, long process during which the heat had to be off for the entire building. (You’d think they’d separate the risers, at least, but no…) In the process the bushing sprang a leak. Apparently you can’t get a concentric bushing to fit an 80-year-old steam radiator anywhere in town, but the bushing is in the mail. It may show up tomorrow, or maybe next week, which means several more days of not sleeping in because the plumber could show up at any time. I suppose it’s better than freezing.

For the moment, I have epoxy on my bushing. I’ve been waiting for it to dry, and now I’m going to turn the radiator back on and see what I get in the way of hot water leaks. If I never blog again, you can assume the bushing blew and took me out.

It’s a toasty 0°F in sunny Boston this morning, with a windchill of only -20°. Maybe I should go for a walk before the cold weather returns. Or maybe I should wait for the -40° windchill, just to be masochistic.

Last night’s ice is still lingering on one window, and the plumber is out retrieving a new trap for my broken radiator. It’s exploding pipes season here in Boston - he told me how one house lost its entire heating system when the heat went out and all the radiators froze and burst. Fortunately I still have 2 radiators that work, so nothing’s at risk of freezing besides yours truly.

Contest of the day: the Eclipse Design Awards

Today was the last chance to buy cheap T tokens. As of tomorrow the fare goes up 25%. This is the MBTA’s inspired solution to reduced ridership - charge even more! Yet another stunning idea from the city that brought you the Big Dig…

My solution to the fare hike is never to take the T again, if its physically possible to walk. That may sound drastic, but in fact there are relatively few places on the Green Line that you can’t get to faster by walking than by taking the T. (You can’t get a taxi for love or money in this city.)

The Green Line is, in fact, the train on which Charlie found himself trapped in that famous Boston filk to which the title of this entry alludes. He was on his way to JP but he couldn’t pay the exit fare (exit fares still exist on the Braintree line), so he had to ride back and forth between Government Station (formerly Scollay Square) and Arborway (no longer served by trolley) forever.

Believe me, you’d be better off joining Jemima’s Personal MBTA Strike.

I’m sure I’ve noticed before that the Star Market at the Prudential Center has gone missing, but it’s still a shock. I expected groceries, and instead I got an unexpected holiday craft fair. It’s outdoors, but otherwise a vast improvement over the anemic Harvard Square Craft Fair. Most of the stuff at the Pru is imported, though there are a few genuine craftspeople hawking their own wares, like the bookmark guy.

I noticed that the felted wool bags that my friend in NYC knows how to make are in this year. I didn’t buy anything, but I consoled myself for the loss of Star Market by window-shopping, then continued on my way. Sorry I forgot to blog about it last night, but there are still plenty of last minutes left for you last-minute shoppers.

Weird science link of the day: Sunspots and Stradivarius
Boston link of the day: I Hate Boston, a displaced Midwesterner’s blog

If you saw thirty people in Santa hats staggering around town last night, that was my lovely sister Veronica and her crowd celebrating the Twelve Bars of Christmas. It’s a simple holiday tradition you can practice in any city with the required infrastructure - you visit twelve bars in one night. It’s the high point of the holiday season for Veronica - although New Year’s has the advantage of being after all the nuttiness is over.

I’m trying to convince Veronica to start her own blog. There’s a topic she could corner the market on, if she and her associates move fast. Blog, girl, blog!

In my quest to return to this lovely third-world city from the less lovely third-world city of New York, I decided to take the local third-world method of transportation - the famous Chinatown Bus. You can’t go wrong for $10. Today’s Chinatown Bus was provided by the folks at Travel Pack, whose business plan seems to consist of gathering the overflow from Fung Wah (who were sold out when I got there). At least, the Travel Pack people said Fung Wah quite a bit - fung wah is the only Chinese I know.

My last entry bothered a third world native. Certainly Boston has some first-world qualities - the excellent health care system, for example, has not yet succumbed to the HMO bureaucracy. And since we’d all die if a certain amount of fuel oil, natural gas, and electricity wasn’t flowing all winter in the Northeast, there’s a certain level of decrepitude which we can never achieve (though someday we may die trying).

But my allegation that we have a third-world transit system stands; it has only been confirmed by the events of my trip to NYC and return to Boston. You take a ride through New Britain, Connecticut, Bridgeport, Connecticut, or Poughkeepsie, NY, and then try to convince me that I live in the first world. It’s been a week since the 20 inch snowstorm ended, and a week and a half since it started, but I was walking on ice-coated streets and sidewalks from Chinatown to my front door in Boston.

More impressive than sidewalks no one bothered to shovel in eight days was the rainfall inside the Boylston T station. I don’t know how it was even physically possible for water to be flowing from the ceiling of the T station when it was 30°F outside with a windchill of 15°, but it was. That subway stop was built over a hundred years ago and to all appearances has not been painted or cleaned since. I must admit that they repair the metal stairwell whenever it rusts clean through, but even the MBTA could get away with boarding it up with plywood for only so long. They’re not the Big Dig, you know.

Speaking of the Big Dig, what other evidence do I need that this is a third-world country? It’s been going on for eighteen years, and it’s still not over. It’s not a public works project; it’s a way of life. I rest my case.

Quote of the day: We live in Zimbabwe here as far as transportation is concerned. –Bill O’Reilly

We have big street plows here in Boston, and also little sidewalk plows. It sounds like an ideal plowing situation; unfortunately there is no treaty between the large and small plows. Any place the sidewalk meets the street is a slushy disaster area. It’s easier for pedestrians to walk in the street.

I’m going to put the transit system to the test tomorrow. The T is just the beginning of the trip. If I make it to New York by midnight, I may blog. Otherwise, this is Jemima, signing off from the third world country of the Northeast…

Lego link of the day: The Brick Apple
Cool link of the day: Do it yourself weather on Slashdot

There’s a winter storm warning this afternoon for Boston - just in case anyone hadn’t noticed that it’s been snowing for two days now. Besides the white stuff falling out of the sky, there’s another clue - fifteen inches of snow on the ground (unless you’re in one of those 30 inch pockets). Although it has to be relatively warm in order to snow (although, obviously, still below freezing), the 14° windchill makes up for the toasty 28° air temperature. For those of you playing the home game on the metric system, 14°F is -10°C in dog years. It’s not 0° yet, but it’s working on it.