The slow road to Boston

Sure we could have taken the turnpike from Northhampton to Boston, but looking at trees and asphalt for the entire drive sounded kind of boring (along with our dislike of large vehicles is a dislike of actual driving), so we took route 9 the entire way. The perfect route it turned out, since it took us right from Northhampton to Jamaica Plain, where we were staying with Jim for two nights. On our route 9 drive we got really good at figuring out which small towns were within spitting distance of a Walmart. The check list goes something like this: Oddly empty downtown? Boarded up shop windows? A grocery store with a going out of business sign?
Ladies and Gentlemen - you are the proud recipients of a huge (negative) tax generator, traffic creating, soul sucking, downtown killing, less then living wage paying - Walmart. (cue the band and the fireworks.)

The old villages and towns that were too far away from a Walmart to reap the benefits of cheap goods from China were a sad sight indeed. I'm not sure how their residents could possibly think that their vibrant little main street with small shops and pedestrians, trees and kids riding bikes, tax revenue generating shops that actually encouraged a driver to stop and walk around could possibly compete with 20 acres of parking lot baking in the sun.



The two things that I want to mention about Boston (besides what a great host Jim was and how much fun we had going out with him, there he is above): the Boston Museum of Fine Arts rocks! What a good collection they have of early American art and furniture, and a good modern collection that they are working to improve with a lot of recent acquisitions. Oh sure, you can build a fancy building and get a lot of press (cough cough de Young), but if the collection isn't great all you have is a fancy building and nice bathrooms. The de Young has great bathrooms.

The piece of art that made the biggest impression on me was an Edward Hopper called A room in Brooklyn. What tickled my fancy was the placard with the description of the piece. The official description said something about depicting the loneliness of Brooklyn..someone had crossed out loneliness and substituted beauty and tranquility. Rich and I laughed at the image of someone from Brooklyn seeing that and thinking - hey! You 'dissing Brooklyn? and pulling out a ball point pen and improving the official version.

The other thing that made us sit up and take notice were the performers at Jacques
http://www.jacquescabaret.com/
and reactions of the audience. Since we live in SF we certainly have the opportunity to see drag performances, they are fun and great to watch. At Jacques it was more interesting to watch the audience then the performers. Jacques seems to have captured the bachelorette party business - I guess the women feel it's a non-threatening environment and the groom is probably happy that the bride isn't at a Chippendale type place with male strippers. So, the next time you're in Boston check out Jacques. We had fun.


When we get back to SF I'll add some photos to the entries.