Make Like a Tree and Leaf

Boston Marathon Cleanup

2009-04-20T15:54:00.003-04:00

So race day comes, and everything goes according to plan. But what happens after those 26.2 miles of glory come to their salt-encrusted and muscle-cramping end? I traveled behind the finish line at the 2009 edition of the Boston Marathon to find out. There were lots of mylar blankets, some elite athletes being escorted to the Copley Plaza Hotel, and lots of pained runners. Maybe I should sign up to run it next year...

One Campaign

2009-04-06T08:14:00.003-04:00

Boston University's One Campaign is part of a larger global effort to spread awareness about AIDS and poverty in Africa. Originally started by U2's Bono, the One Campaign typically uses pictures of celebrities to gain publicity for its cause. At BU, students are the picture subjects. Check out this video, which explains what the BU group does.

Spellin'

2009-03-22T00:23:00.002-04:00

21 of Boston's best spellers gathered last Saturday at historic Faneuil Hall to compete in the second annual Citywide Spelling Bee. The winner of the event received an all-expenses-paid trip to the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington in May.

Ancient Order of Hibernians 5K

2009-03-17T20:49:00.001-04:00

Check out this soundslides presentation of the AOH 5K in Peabody, MA on March 14

Seal Feeding at the New England Aquarium

2009-02-21T10:03:00.004-05:00

Seal feeding time at the New England Aquarium in Boston provides excitement for children and their parents during Massachusetts school vacation week in mid-February. Here, children observe Atlantic Harbor Seals eating their daily lunch. The seals can weigh up to 300 lbs and live for 25 years

Unitarians Get Down With Darwin

2009-02-19T11:15:00.003-05:00

EVOLVE!

Check out this story I just wrote for the West Roxbury Transcript.

Fiber Optics on Commonwealth Ave, Boston

2009-02-17T18:11:00.002-05:00

Salem's So Sweet Chocolate and Ice Sculpture Festival

2009-02-08T19:37:00.008-05:00

For an eight month period beginning every November, Salem Massachusetts becomes – pun shamelessly intended – a ghost town. The crowds of credulous tourists that buy candy apples and line up outside the Salem Wax Museum of Ghouls and Goblins have all gone home, and spookiness beds down for a long-overdue winter of hibernation.

Eight months of dirty snow banks and shuttered storefronts create a commercial vacuum – an awkward interim between Halloween and the beginning of summer when no one really cares about witches. But those broomstick-riding, spell-casting old hags power the town’s economy, and without them, Salem is just another Lynn or Danvers! Imagine! To fill this disconcerting dearth of commerce, the Salem Chamber of Commerce created a puzzling event called the Salem’s So Sweet Chocolate and Ice Sculpture Festival.

In its seventh year, the ‘festival’ runs from February 7th – 14th, timed to coincide with Valentine’s day, another man-made creation designed to suck money from the shivering masses. The festival is just as transparently commercial as that February holiday, but with less chocolate.

Walking down Salem’s Essex Street pedestrian mall, I came across the first sign of the festival: a four-foot-high ice sculpture in the form of a margarita glass, conveniently placed in front of a local restaurant. Down the street a similarly diminutive sculpture of a movie projector sat melting in front of the local cinema. A few blocks down in front of Cornerstone Books sat Curious George, reading a book.

I looked everywhere, but the chocolate advertised on the event’s website (free samples in almost every store downtown!) was nowhere to be found. Recognizing the event’s ice sculptures to be advertisements for local businesses, I realized that I had been duped! This so-called festival was really just a way to get people into local businesses in the dead of winter! There would be no chocolate, not unless I chose to have lunch at the expensive Hawthorne Hotel, which would give me a free chocolate mousse dessert afterwards.

My girlfriend and I really just wanted the chocolate. But at least we live in Salem, and didn’t expend any effort getting to the festival. Since it was advertised in the ‘Events’ section of Boston.com earlier in the week, there must have been hundreds of very disappointed, and slightly chilled people roaming the streets of Salem this weekend.

One local business, the Army-Navy store, decided to break ranks with the festival, refusing to buy into to its chocolate lies and sugarplum daydreams. In the window it posted a sign: “There’s nothing in here! The chocolate is a lie!” Walking past the store, my girlfriend and I, with nary a cocoa bean in our bellies, took it as truth. Salem’s So Sweet Chocolate and Ice Sculpture Festival was, indeed, bittersweet.

Halloween in Salem

2009-02-02T10:56:00.001-05:00

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