Skip to content

The $8 Lowell Tour

Last Friday, when we heard the weather forecast calling for stiffing heat and humidity all weekend, we had forecast Sunday as a beach day. But when we woke up this morning and saw winds topping 15 mph at the coastline, we said “Screw the beach and its 63-degree water. Let’s go to Lowell.”

Back in the 19th century, Lowell was a thriving mill town, the first and biggest of its kind in America. But when textile manufacturing moved south in the first part of the 20th century, Lowell fell on hard times for many decades, with sky-high unemployment and abandoned industrial blight. It has recently seen a cultural revival, with many artists fleeing Boston to set up shop in Lowell in the large brick converted mills that dominate the downtown.

We went to the Lowell National Historical Park, which is made up of various mill sites, and headed to the visitor center. “We’d like to take a tour,” I told the kindly Park employee behind the counter. She proceeded to tell us about a tour that involved taking a street trolley to a mill, touring a mill, then getting on a boat to tour the canals, going through a series of hand-operated locks, touring a gatehouse, touring a dam, getting back on the boat, interacting with a period-costumed mill girl, going through more locks, then boarding a trolley back to the visitor’s center. Total time: 2 hours and 15 minutes. Total ticket price: $8 a person. God bless the National Park Service.

We went to the designated tour departure spot at 11:30am, and it turned out we were the only people on the tour. Our tour guide was a young, chipper but very well-spoken woman who immediately plunged into the history of Lowell as a textile mecca: Its canals, its business magnates, its technology, and its workers. We boarded the trolley, which had 3 people to operate it and stop traffic as we rolled along the downtown streets.

At first I was daunted to be the only people on the tour, knowing that my full attention would be required for the next 2 hours and 15 minutes. Luckily, we’re both nerdy enough to be interested in things like 19th-century textile mills, so the in-depth explanation and tour of the water turbines and looms didn’t bore us to pieces. We boarded a boat piloted by a man who gave his safety spiel as if talking to a group of 20 eager tourists, and cruised along the canals. The first lock was operated by 3 people. The second lock was operated by 3 more people, and as promised there was a period-costumed mill girl who explained how one of the gatehouses have saved Lowell from being flooded several times. Total number of Parks employees who we saw on our tour: 12. I’ll reiterate the total ticket price: $8 a person. It was one of the best historical tours I’ve ever been on and probably ended up being cheaper than going to the beach.

Pictured below left is a loom room in Boote Mills, which featured scores of running looms that were so loud we were given ear plugs. Pictured below right is a dam on the Merrimack River made entirely of steel poles and plywood, as seen from a gatehouse.

lowell

lowella

Posted in Massachusetts.

Tagged with .

Comments Off on The $8 Lowell Tour

By Meredith – July 13, 2008

Movie Review — Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

Too many people in this gutless world have come under the impression that writers are a race of finks, queer and candy asses to be bilked, cheated and mocked as a form of commercial sport. It should be noted, therefore, in the public interest, that some writers possess .44 Magnums and can puncture beer cans with 240-grain slugs from that weapon at a distance of 150 yards. — Hunter S. Thompson

The annual Boston French film festival is currently underway at the Museum of Fine Arts, and Mr. P’s been dropping heavy hints about his desire to see a French film or two or four. I wholly support his yen to stay abreast of his native country’s cinematic output, but me, well, I’ll freak out if I have to sit through another introspective and poignant film about romance, sickness, friendship, and/or coming of age featuring adorable French people cavorting around claustrophobic apartments. So I applied my wifely wiles and we end up seeing Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, a documentary by Alex Gibney, the guy who did the jaw-dropping Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.

Gonzo is a documentary about the writing and exploits of the iconoclastic drug-inhaling gun-loving journalist Hunter S. Thompson. 2 hours may seem an excessive running time except for avowed fans, but even non-fans can be riveted by the varied sources and historical events that are seamlessly blended together. From Thompson’s breakthrough 1966 book about his time with the Hell’s Angels to his immediate and prophetic reaction to 9/11, his uncanny insight and unconventional style is shown in the context of its origins.

There are expected interviews with Thompson’s wives and son, his crazed illustrator Ralph Steadman, colleague Tom Wolfe, and Rolling Stone founder Jann Werner, but then there’s also anecdotes from admirers like Jimmy Carter, Pat Buchanan, Jimmy Buffet, and George McGovern. Johnny Deep (billed as the narrator) reads a number of excerpts from Thompson’s writing over actual and re-created footage.

I’ve always considered Thompson a genius, but this movie made me see him in a different light: As genuine. One fellow reporter from the 1972 campaign trail remarked how the copious amounts of drugs and drinks that Thompson imbibed seemed to have no effect whatsoever on his behavior. But while Thompson’s writing survived and even thrived under the mind-altering substances, it couldn’t persevere over his fame. By the mid-70s, his first marriage fell apart and Thompson seemed to lose touch with the Gonzo muse that fueled his corrosive and exuberant rhetoric. He would continue writing until his suicide in 2005, an event which is treated in the documentary as the most logical end to Thompson’s life. By the time the movie ends with footage of Thompson’s spectacular funeral, the comparison to Mark Twain seems a bit less outlandish.

Posted in Review.

Tagged with , .

Comments Off on Movie Review — Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

By Meredith – July 12, 2008

Frogs Eat Butterflies. Snakes Eat Frogs. Hogs Eat Snakes. Men Eat Hogs

I receive a surprising number of Google hits from people searching for information about two Wallace Stevens poems that I have previously discussed, “The Emperor of Ice Cream” and “Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock.” Since getting these types of Google hits is vastly more rewarding than getting hits for “cigarettes that billie joe smokes” and “babes in gym shorts,” I decided to dissect another Wallace Stevens poem, one that uses seasonal phrases like “turgid summer” and “thunder’s rattapallax” (a word that’s not in the dictionary, but still in limited usage on the internet).

“Frogs Eat Butterflies. Snakes Eat Frogs. Hogs Eat Snakes. Men Eat Hogs.” It’s a fun title, rhyming, obviously a food chain, but what does it mean? Well, the poem features one character, a simple man who built a cabin and tended a field. His life is “indolent, arid,” and time seems to suckle “on his arid being.” Note how Stevens uses the word “arid” twice in reference to the man. This guy is parched, probably an old, withered man who is just trying to survive.

Compare the parched man to the other character in the poem, the swine-like rivers, so swollen with water that they tug at the banks like a hog’s snout foraging for food. Like a hog, the river is lazy, greedy, and relentless. The parched man is a frequent visitor to the river; this is made clear by Stevens’ reference to “quirks of imagery,” that such an arid man would be in the presense of the lush moisture of the river, so “grotesque” in its persistent flow.

It’s tempting to make grand proclamations about what Stevens is saying in this poem because it seems rife with allegory. You could say, for instance, that the hog and the river represent nature, and the man represents humanity, and while humanity may rule the food chain for now, in the end nature will endure, yadda yadda yadda. But Wallace Stevens didn’t like his poetry to “think” like this, so I think Stevens is writing about an old man whose time for eating hogs has come and gone.

“Frogs Eat Butterflies. Snakes Eat Frogs. Hogs Eat Snakes. Men Eat Hogs”

It is true that the rivers went nosing like swine,
Tugging at banks, until they seemed
Bland belly-sounds in somnolent troughs,

That the air was heavy with the breath of these swine,
The breath of turgid summer, and
Heavy with thunder’s rattapallax,

That the man who erected this cabin, planted
This field, and tended it awhile,
Knew not the quirks of imagery,

That the hours of his indolent, arid days,
Grotesque with this nosing in banks,
This somnolence and rattapallax,

Seemed to suckle themselves on his arid being,
As the swine-like rivers suckled themselves
While they went seaward to the sea-mouths.

–Wallace Stevens

Posted in Culture.

Tagged with .

Comments Off on Frogs Eat Butterflies. Snakes Eat Frogs. Hogs Eat Snakes. Men Eat Hogs

By Meredith – July 10, 2008

Tales from the T

Red Line, 7:40am. Considering the only people on the train at this hour are sleepy commuters, the subway conductor is making rather lengthy stop annoucements: “We’re now approaching Harvard Square. The doors will be opening on your right. Change here for local bus connections. This is a Braintree train, Braintree train. Please don’t forget to take your newspapers, coffee cups, backpacks and luggage with you when you exit the train. Next stop, Harvard… Now entering Harvard Square, the doors will be opening on your right…”

Normally this would bother the piss out of me, but this conductor is a young black man who possesses a strangely soothing voice with the perfect tone and cadence for talking to a train of faceless passengers: Polite yet genuine, friendly but not ingratiating, confident but not brazen. He has a great voice, and he is showing it off, incessantly.

I exit the train at South Station. (“Please exit at South Station and go upstairs for commuter rail service, Amtrak service, Silver line service to Logan Airport, and local and regional bus connections”) and proceed to walk on the platform to the stairs that lead to the street. As I walk, I pass the smooth-talking conductor, who is leaning out of his vestibule to watch for passengers before he closes the train doors.

“Have a great day, Gorgeous,” he purrs as I walk past. I almost turn around, but keep walking, surprised. It has been about 3 years since I’ve elicited flirty comments from perfect strangers based solely on my appearance. But I did just have my hair done, and I am tanned and toned from last weekend’s hiking trip, and maybe the white tea is flattering my aura.

Gorgeous! I smile as I enter the stairway, holding the door open for the person walking behind me. I glance at her, suddenly embarrassed: It is a young, trim black woman wearing a sundress and high-heel sandals, with long glossy hair piled around her winsome face. She is the very definition of the word gorgeous. I run up the stairs, laughing at myself. When I was young and cute, I was contemptuous and even hostile to the whistles, the stares, the pick-up lines. Now I’m reveling in imaginary ones.

Posted in Massachusetts.

Tagged with .

Comments Off on Tales from the T

By Meredith – July 9, 2008

The What-What?

Today is my second totally caffeine-free day (not counting the minimal 30-50 mg in my morning and afternoon white tea.) The mental fogginess is much worse today than yesterday — I actually wrote an email to a co-worker that began “Hello Meredith.” Of course, the co-worker is a male and certainly not named Meredith. Hello, I’m Meredith, and I’m a recovering caffeine addict.

My friend TJ and I used to say “The what-what?” whenever we were experiencing supreme cluelessness. It came from the show Futurama:

Fry: Bender, where’s the bathroom?
Bender: The what-room?
Fry: The bathroom.
Bender: The bath-what?
Fry: The BATHROOM!
Bender: (pause) The what-what?

Today has just been a string of “what-what” moments.

All day long, repeatedly and most recently at 7pm, I’ve said sheepishly “Oops, sorry. I haven’t had my coffee yet.”

“No wonder Starbucks is closing 600 stores,” said a co-worker when I told him I quit drinking coffee.

Yes, jokes and sympathy abounds, but no one has directly asked me why I quit, which may mean they are drawing their own quiet, mistaken conclusion that I am pregnant. I am not pregnant, nor am I actively pursuing the condition at the moment. No, I am giving up coffee because I’ve drank it my entire adult life, and I want to see if life is any different, either positively or negatively. Maybe I’ll sleep better. Maybe I wouldn’t have mid-afternoon energy crashes. Maybe the sing-song voices in my head will stop ordering me to start fires. At the very least, I will avoid ever again having to choke down coffee that was brewed in a hotel room, airplane, or Starbucks.

Posted in Existence.

Tagged with .

Comments Off on The What-What?

By Meredith – July 8, 2008

4 4000-footers for the 4th

A spur-of-the-moment July 4th hiking and camping trip in the White Mountains turned into a 3-day affair when our legs proved to be restless and the blue skies filled with high fluffy white clouds proved to be perfect for peak-bagging 4 toughish 4000-footer summits.

On Friday, as we drove to New Hampshire, I tricked Mr. Pinault into agreeing to take on Mount Flume. He had wanted to do a short, easy hike, and the isolated Mount Flume is 11 miles round trip via the Osseo Trail. “But 3 miles are on flat ground,” I pointed out, “and 6 miles are along an old logging road with switchbacks, leaving really only 2 miles of work.” Indeed, the trail was very nice, gradual, and free of rock slabs — gotta love those old logging roads, sort of — and the views at the summit were splendid, but 11 miles is 11 miles. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

On Saturday, we woke up in the Lafeyette Campground and walked 20 feet to the trailhead for North and South Kinsman, which are popular mountains that lay on the Applachian Trail. The elation of seeing a moose near Lonesome Lake (see yesterday) carried us through the morning, which was fortunate because the Fishin’ Jimmy trail — which sounds so fun — was a difficult and tiring 2 miles in swampy, rocky woods. We reached the summit of North Kinsman first but headed straight to South Kinsman to eat lunch in the plentiful noon sun next to dreadlocked college kids, one of whom spent five minutes extolling the virtues of Nutrageous candy bars. We backtracked to North Kinsman and sat on the ledge with a crowd of hikers that dispersed soon after we arrived. “It’s a rare thing to have the summit of North Kinsman to yourself on a Saturday, so enjoy it while you can,” the last man to leave said to us with a wink in his voice. I enjoyed it by jumping for joy (see me below, right). The whole hike took about 7 hours, including the 30 minutes during which we breaked for the moose.

On Sunday, we woke up early at the campground and sure, we could have headed home, but the weather was still nice and our muscles were not completely screaming, so we drove north to the foreboding Presidential Range to take on Mount Eisenhower via the Edmands Path. This finely-engineered trail has been said to provide the best views in the Presidential Range for the least amount of effort, and indeed, it was a steady 3-mile climb that took us only 2 hours from the parking lot to the top. The rocky alpine Eisenhower summit provided an excellent view of Mount Washington (see Mr. Pinault below, left) and it occured to me belatedly that we should have bagged nearby Mount Jefferson on July 4th instead of Mount Flume, but that’s a hard hike — it’s a vacation, after all.

Posted in 4000 Footers, Trips.

Tagged with .

Comments Off on 4 4000-footers for the 4th

By Meredith – July 7, 2008

Moose!

I’ve always wanted to see a moose. After dozens of trips to the White Mountains in New Hampshire and hours spent hiking through their natural habitat, the fact that I never happened upon a moose seemed odd. Just last Friday, Mr. P and I were half-joking about taking a touristy “moose safari.” Because we were desperate to see a moose.

But then… on Saturday we hiked to the Kinsman mountains (more on peak-bagging tomorrow) through the popular Lonesome Lake area. As we rounded the lake to connect to the Fishin’ Jimmy trail, a young woman was coming rapidly from the opposite direction.

“There’s a moose in the middle of the path,” she half whispered, half hissed to us, looking more than a little scared as she fled behind us. I did a double-take. “A moose?” We walked a few more steps forward. The young woman’s companion was standing in the trail, staring as we were…

At a moose not ten feet in front of us, literally in the middle of the path. He was huge and magnificent, with a curved set of antlers that towered 8 or 9 feet into the air. He stared calmly at us. We gawked in disbelief at him. Just as Mr. P began digging for the camera, the moose took off into the woods towards the lake.

Mr. P and I walked a short distance down the trail, then picked our way through the woods to the lake. We watched the moose walk slowly across the lake and then take off into the woods. It was one of the most thrilling experiences I’ve ever had while hiking. It was as if I had gone on vacation in Los Angeles, saw a movie star in a Starbucks, and they, like, totally smiled at me.

moose

Posted in 4000 Footers.

Tagged with , .

Comments Off on Moose!

By Meredith – July 6, 2008

Mount Eisenhower 4780′ July 6, 2008




Posted in 4000 Footers.

Tagged with , .

Comments Off on Mount Eisenhower 4780′ July 6, 2008

By Meredith – July 6, 2008

Mounts North Kinsman 4293′ and South Kinsman 4358′ July 5, 2008






Posted in 4000 Footers.

Tagged with , .

Comments Off on Mounts North Kinsman 4293′ and South Kinsman 4358′ July 5, 2008

By Meredith – July 5, 2008

Kicking Black Coffee

Drinking black coffee, black coffee, drinking black coffee, staring at the wall
Black coffee, black coffee, black coffee, staring at the wall
Black coffee, drinking black coffee, drinking black coffee, staring at the…
–Black Flag, “Black Coffee”

I started drinking coffee at the wild age of 16. That first cup was consumed under subtle peer pressure at the Denny’s Restaurant in King of Prussia late one summer night. Up until then, I favored hot tea, finding the bitter taste of coffee to be overwhelming. But there I was at Denny’s, surrounded by suburban teenaged misfits drinking coffee, and I couldn’t bring myself to order the tiny silver teapot of hot water, served with a Lipton’s tea bag and a slice of lemon. So, at the urging of my best friend AS, I drank the coffee and almost cried from the perceived acrid dirty taste.

In only a few months, I acquired enough of a taste for coffee that I decided to apply to work at the coffee specialty store in the King of Prussia mall, the Coffee Beanery, where one of the many perks was as much free coffee as you could consume without twitching. I discovered espresso, as well as a strange physical elation that came from drinking multiple chocolate-spiked shots of it. It really made the time go by.

And thus began my dependance on coffee. Every morning, every afternoon, and right before, during, or after any important social or mental event, there was coffee. When there was no sleep, there was coffee. When there was no food, there was coffee. On road trips, you better believe there was coffee. I never resented coffee for compelling me to drink it. My morning cup of coffee was like an award for getting out of bed. In recent years, I cut my consumption back to anywhere from 1 to 4 cups a day, but I never considered giving it up.

Until last week. I’m down to 1 6-ounce cup of coffee in the morning, and I plan to phase even that out in the coming week. This small dose of caffeine seems to be preventing the withdrawal headaches and fatigue, although my head was pounding last night in bed before I drifted off to a (deeper than usual?) sleep.

Oh, coffee. I’m not saying goodbye forever. But you will no longer be a daily ritualized addiction, more like an acquaitance who I’ll invite for breakfast once in a while. And I’ll welcome you with my best “DAMN good coffee, and HOT!”

Posted in Nostalgia.

Tagged with .

Comments Off on Kicking Black Coffee

By Meredith – July 3, 2008