Urban Confluence

13 Apr

by T. B. Meek

It was a typical bustling day at the Porter Square shopping mall made more so by the beautiful spring day, a gift from Mother Nature after a week of overcast skies and two torrential rain storms that caused drain basins to back up and overflow. Chaz Perkins, his sciatica acting up, gingerly baby stepped his way out of the CVS, skirted his way around one of the many lingering puddles that dotted the parking lot and a his way towards old Betsy, his trusted Honda CRV with more than 15 years of reliable service. He had parked Betsy near the pharmacy with strategic intent to minimize the taxation of his hip. As he had envisioned it, he would first hit up Ace Hardware for his spring planting needs (a new trowel to replace the rusty, ineffective relic that had been in the condo’s basement since before the Boston Tea Party, and nasturtium and magnolias seeds for the planters that abutted the sidewalk in front of the three story walkup) and then the liquor store for a half case of Vino Verde to go with the Portuguese fisherman’s stew he had made for his book club which would be arriving at his Huron Village abode within the next three hours. Everything was going according to plan, the trowel, seeds and wine had been deposited in Betsy’s boot, what Chaz didn’t bargain for was the demanding woman insisting that the pharmacist check and recheck his records as he stood by on achy joint waiting to claim his ‘scipts and pay for the much needed vial of Advil and coveted Reeses Peanut Cups. When it was revealed that the woman’s prescription order had been placed at another CVS some two miles away, the woman, who Chaz felt possessed the melodramatic air of Blanche DuBois, launched into an indignant tirade shaming the pharmacist for her mistake and adding another five minutes of hip grinding discomfort to his day.


Outside in the cloudless blue Chaz examined the space between the blue Tesla and Betsy. It was sideways sliding tight, but every space in the parking lot was ridiculously small. It was as if some over zealous planner decided to take normal sized spots and reduce them all to compact size so they could squeeze in an extra fifteen or twenty cars, but for what gain? Anyone with a minivan or plus size SUV took up two spaces and the rear of the monstrosity often jutted out, adding to the lot’s chaotic traffic flow woes. Chaz imagined that the number of insurance claims filed at Porter Square had to be substantially higher than those at the suburban shopping expanses like Burlington or Natick where you could park an apatosaurus-sized family truckster without fear of losing a sideview and still have ample room to swing your door open without dinging your neighbor.


Gripping the doorframe, Chaz swung his right leg up and into Betsy, but suddenly seized as a bolt of paralyzing pain shot down his thigh. He first thought to back out to rebalance and reassess but pushed forward and pleasantly discovered a modicum of relief in the gentle cupping of his hip bones by the ergonomic form of the well worn bucket seat. Settling in, he pushed back in the seat to retrieve his car keys and cracked screen iPhone from his pant pockets.


Gazing up in the rearview Chaz drank in the scene, cars lulling and going. That was a way of life in the cramped concrete cauldron just minutes from the heart of Harvard Square, drivers passive-aggressively trolling for purchase, issuing toothy smiles and feigned civility. Wearily Chaz inserted the key into the ignition, turned it over and noticed three text messages on his phone. He pulled his reading glasses down from atop his head, gave a habitual tug on his graying beard and used his fingerprint to unlock the phone. Two messages were from book club members, the third was from his publisher. At the age of 68, Chaz was elated to be publishing his first novel. To date he had published three collections of poetry and a memoir, but now the project he had spent nearly fifteen years on, including five years of research before putting pen to paper, was coming to fruition. Staring at that last message he wanted to tap on it but couldn’t. What if it was bad news? After all it was a Sunday, and most professional matters waited til Monday, unless. It could be good news too, he thought. Maybe the publisher had reconsidered the request to up the number of copies for the first printing. The other messages ostensibly had to do with logistics of the upcoming gathering. Chaz decided to start with those and read the publisher’s text when he got home. No matter how the news landed, home was the place to be, not a buzzing hive of distractive hum.


He was about to open the message from Marley Mickelstein, his former co-worker from the Institute of Contemporary Art who was bringing potato rolls and a carrot cake, when two quick taps of a car horn rippled in from behind. The first toot shot through him and made his hand jerk back from the phone’s web etched screen. Chaz looked up into the rearview to see a sleek, navy blue BMW sedan with a young man in aviator sunglasses leering at him like a DEA agent on a bust.


Chaz stared at the ridged incarnation for a second, shrugged and went back to the message. “Running behind, still need to ice the cake.” He had stated to type back, “No worries, take your time,” when a pronounced horn lean halted his focus. Chaz rolled down his window and issued a calm, ‘move along’ hand wave.


The BMW’s tinted window dropped and the deep, thrumping bass of an old school rap song rolled out into the communal air. Chaz thought it might be Tupac’s “California Love,” but wasn’t certain. “Are you going out?” the man shouted over the music.
Chaz leaned out the window, craned his neck and used his right arm to grip the gunnel of the old SUV, the torque of which triggered another pang of pain. He waited for it to subside and then growled, “In a few.”


The volume on the music lowered. “What’s a few?” the man shouted back.


“My friend, I have a feeling that however I define ‘a few,’ it will not be satisfactory to you. I understand and appreciate your frustration. Parking here is a coveted commodity. That said, I have a personal matter to attend to before I depart.”


Chaz pulled his head back in and was about to raise the window when there was another short honk. “Jerk….It’s people like you…” he heard the man mutter shout and then cease. Chaz poked his head back out the window. “People like me? What kind of person am I? An old person, a person who doesn’t look or think like you, or just a person who is in your entitled way? I believe the answer is ‘C,’ all of the above.”


“C’mon man!” the BMW driver shouted and bounced the palms of his hands off the steering wheel. “Are you going out or not?”
Another stab of pain shot down Chaz’s leg. He winced. “Look my friend, here is what I suggest you do, take a lap around the lot and when you come back around, I’ll be rolling out. Easy peasy, right? Besides you have me sealed in and there’s three cars jammed up behind you.”


The driver glanced up into his rearview, it was true, there was a queue of other impatient hopefuls lined up behind him. One driver had their arms up by their ears, mouth agape, while another was pawing the air, hoping the gesture would magically break the stalemate and provide forward progress.


The tinted window rose, Tupac’s synthesized voice ceased and the BMW revved angrily before lurching forward with a guttural squeal. In its wake, the smell of burnt rubber wafted upward and into crystalline day.


Chaz finished his response to Marley and opened the message from Helen Chambers. There was a picture of an Australian shepherd with piecing blue eyes, head cocked to one side and tongue lolled out. “Ok if bring this handsome lad?” Chaz smiled to himself. Bear had been at other bookclub meetings and mostly just curled up at Helen’s feet and slept though the literary excuse to imbibe organic wines and nosh on sinful satiations discouraged by their primary care physicians. Chaz typed back, “Only if he’s read the book” and added a succession of emojis that included a smily face, bear and a dog.


Chaz dropped the iPhone into the console bucket between the two seats, shifted his hips and eased Betsy into reverse, rolling back as slowly as one can. Extricating a vehicle from the Porter Square shopping mall was a no small feat if you did not have one of those fancy newfangled rearview cams or proximity sensors to issue bumper alerts. Betsy had some notable blind spots too that Chaz had to constantly remind himself of. Inch by inch he continued to roll out but hit the breaks when he heard a short inaudible shout and the resonance of a soft thud from the backside of Betsy. He looked up into the rearview mirror, frowned and rolled down the window. “My bad,” he said offering an apologetic wave to the young man and woman with their toddler sitting backwards in a half filled shopping cart. He waited for them to clear and double checked the mirrors before letting off the break. Nearly half way out, he cut the wheel hard left and trained his eye on the left front bumper to make sure it cleared the blue Tesla. It was tight but a well executed maneuver as Betsy came perpendicular to the parking spot. Chaz gathered to put the Honda into drive and noticed in the rearview a dark haired woman in a pristine white SUV with its flasher on looking to take the spot. Further back he saw the blue BMW zip up. Horns sounded, heads craned and arms gestured. Chaz gazed fore. He was out, the two overly caffeinated and impatient could figure it out on their own. He was also fairly certain that the boxy SUV could not fit in the slot. Just as he was about to lay his hand back on the shift, a Toyota Corolla coming from the opposite direction, a vehicle of Betsy’s vintage marred by a multitude of scuff marks and duct tape along the front bumper, paused and put its left blinker on. Chaz marveled at the diminutive white haired woman, her head barely above the the crest of the steering wheel. She returned the eye contact and flashed a friendly smile and expectant head nod. Chaz smiled back, put Betsy in reverse, rolled back the three feet he had between the Honda and the white SUV and flashed his high beams. In three jerky stop and goes, the Toyota pulled snugly into the slip. When all was clear, Betsy rolled on and away from the salvo of blaring horns that erupted in her wake.

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Variations on familiar themes and some time travel too

12 Apr

Reviewed: “Thrash,” “Hamlet” and “Exit 8.”Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice”

The title of this slack crime comedy-cum-love triangle calls to mind Paul Mazursky’s open relationship romp “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.” That 1969 curio starring Natalie Wood and Elliot Gould played on character and the times. Here, as directed by BenDavid Grabinski, “Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice” pretty much steals concepts from elsewhere and mixes them together in the blandest, nod-and-wink, not funny way. Vince Vaughn (“Swingers”) and James Marsden (such a good JFK-like prez in “Paradise”) play Nick and Mike, hitmen who are the target of a local mobster named Sosa (Keith David and his glorious baritone, sadly wasted). Allegedly, it’s because Marsden’s Mike ratted out Sosa’s son Jimmy Boy (Jimmy Tatro, “You’re Cordially Invited”), who got collared and had to do time.

The film’s set in the aftermath of Jimmy’s release. Why Sosa, a Black man, refers to Jimmy, who is not Black, as his son is never fully explained — though both spew the same low brow rhetoric and spend much of their time at strip clubs, ogling and hooting. But then there’s the two Nicks, who happen to be one and the same. Did I mention there’s a time machine? There is, and so Vaughn’s Nick from the future comes back to get the Nick of the present to help save Mike. Adding further complications is that Nick’s estranged wife Alice (a fiery Eliza Gonzalez, who is about the best thing in the movie) is hooking up with Mike.

Much of what transpires is four talking heads hatching overly complicated plans to save Mike from Sosa, who has dispatched the feared cannibal hitman, “The Baron,” to extract his pound of flesh. It’s all punched up pulp pablum made further infuriating by the ersatz use of Wong Kar-wai’s slow-mo, “gun-fu” flare. It’s as insulting to the viewer as it is to Wong. Then there’s the gotcha ending that’s palm plant worthy and then some. If I could hop in a time machine and go back, I’d skip this inanity and spin up Wong’s cool Asian-noir “Chungking Express” (1994). 

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Unburied bricks in the Old Burying Ground

9 Apr

Harvard students from Hasty Pudding hold a different kind of social event, exposing a long-buried walkway.

Now that the snow has melted and spring is (tentatively) here, visitors can once again stroll the Old Burying Ground behind First Church, adjacent to Garden Street — on long-buried brick walkways that had been forgotten for decades.

The cemetery, one of the oldest in the country, is the resting place for an octet of Harvard presidents including the first, Henry Dunster, his successor Charles Chauncy, John Leverett and Edward Holyoke, as well as Neptune Frost, an enslaved man believed to have served in the Revolutionary War. But for years, there were no paths, only graves and open green space.

Last summer, Denise Jillson, the Harvard Square Business Association’s executive director, noticed what seemed to brick walkways, buried beneath sod. It turned out that the pathways were installed in the 1930s, with help from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), city officials said. Jillson, who has lived in Cambridge and Somerville most of her life, said she can’t remember ever seeing the brickwork.

Harvard University student volunteers worked to restore the path in the Old Burying Ground. Credit: Harvard Square Business Association

The paths were restored — improving accessibility for visitors — by Harvard students in the Hasty Pudding Club. They had asked Jillson about volunteer opportunities to fulfill community service requirements. Jillson said the students went “above and beyond” in their effort and commitment.

One lingering issue remains: ongoing maintenance of the pathways. Responsibility technically falls to the City of Cambridge, while Harvard oversees a small enclosed section. Jillson said she plans to work with the Department of Public Works (DPW) and use HSBA resources — including staff and interns — to maintain the paths.

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Reviewed: ‘The Drama’

4 Apr

Dark rom-com with likable leads packs a big wallop–one certain to polarize.

The latest from off-kilter impresario Kristoffer Borgli is a dark, sardonic rom-com with a sharp morality barb — one so pointed and polarizing that it will repel many viewers.  Others will be provoked, but still hop on board with Borgli’s go-for-broke vision. Of course, the real reason we’re all on tenterhooks about “The Drama,” starring hot properties Zendaya and Robert Pattinson as an engaged couple, is because the movie was shot here in Cambridge and Boston, with a pivotal scene playing out at Porter Square stalwart Andy’s Diner.  

The one thing “The Drama” is not: predictable. It’s also surprisingly funny in awkward, uncomfortable ways. As with “Dream Scenario” (2023), Borgli plants his biggest twists in small, mundane scenes. Things begin innocuously as Pattinson’s Charlie eyes Zendaya’s Emma at a Back Bay Tatte, where she’s reading a novel (it’s fictional fiction, although it shares the name as real novel by Caitlin Wahrer). He’s instantly smitten, looks up the book online, and pretends to have read it for his goofy, gawky overture. Emma ignores him. It’s not a classic cold shoulder, though: An earbud blasts beats in one of her ears, concealed by hair, and the other is deaf — the why of it, revealed later, packs a twist worthy of a Wes Anderson film.

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Unmended wall in Harvard Square needs a few good neighbors

2 Apr

Historic wall in Harvard Square has become “a prairie dog village … but with rats.” And there isn’t money to repair it.

A historic wall in Harvard Square may be up against it, as business owners and city officials are banging their heads against the problem of how to fix it.

The stone wall was built more than 200 years ago, mostly hidden behind Charlie’s Beer Garden, was erected in the late 1700s and early 1800s to channel the spring-fed Town Creek to the Charles River. The project made Winthrop Square — then a knoll and the heart of Harvard Square — a more stable and level gathering spot by protecting it from a creek winding toward the Charles River.

The wall might also have been intended for a more ambitious project: a wharf on Eliot Street, said Charles Sullivan, executive director of the Cambridge Historical Commission. Like the West End in Boston, some parts of Cambridge near the Charles River were previously underwater and later filled in.

The wall partially collapsed in 2020 and was never repaired. Scarce funding and complicated jurisdiction left it crumbling, and rats — lots of rats — moved in. Last year, Denise Jillson, the Harvard Square Business Association’s executive director, asked public health experts in Cambridge and at Harvard University for help analyzing the problem.

“That site is akin to a prairie dog village … but with rats,” said Richard J. Pollack, Harvard’s senior environmental public health officer.

In March, Jillson issued a release calling on the community and stakeholders to “together to find a solution to the complex challenge of preserving this historical relic that sits on private property.” The release included an illustrated comic about the wall and its history created by Caro Taylor, a Cambridge resident and a junior at the Commonwealth School in Boston who was an intern at the HSBA last summer.

The “Old Stone Wall” runs from Winthrop Street, through Charlie’s Beer Garden, and out to Eliot Street. The better-preserved section, which divides Charlie’s and the former Red House restaurant (soon to be relaunched as the Cox Hicks Club), is an impressive 8- to 10-foot high structure, still intact. The collapsed section of the wall — adjacent to Eliot Street, tucked behind the IHOP — is not publicly visible except through a small alley. Here the wall is 4 or 5 feet tall.

A combination of factors likely contributed to its deterioration, according to the city and the Harvard Square Business Association: age, erosion, weather, ongoing disturbances from area construction, and rats.

A relatively intact section of a historic wall in the Harvard Square alleyway between the former Red House and Charlie’s Kitchen. 

The wall was built with large fieldstones laid in a battered profile that lean inward — a technique used in early retaining walls to release pressure. The rocks were dry-laid to allow water to pass through the wall rather than build up behind it. The stones are local: Roxbury Puddingstone from that neighborhood’s Parker Hill and granite from quarries on the Boston Harbor Islands.

“It’s not the only stone wall in Harvard Square, but it is by far the largest and most significant,” Sullivan said.

The wall is located within the Harvard Square Conservation District, which means work requiring a building permit generally requires review by the historical commission. However, the commission’s jurisdiction applies only to features visible from a public way. Portions of the wall are located behind buildings on private property and cannot be seen from the street, limiting the commission’s authority over those sections.

Given the wall’s historic value, the city appropriated $200,000 in Community Preservation Act (CPA) funds in 2021 to shore up the Eliot Street section of the wall. The estimated cost was about $400,000, however, and since it is on private property Sullivan  asked commercial property owners to contribute the additional $200,000.

Of the property owners, only Paul Overgaag, who owns 98 Winthrop Street (previously home to The Red House) and also Charlie’s Kitchen at 10 Eliot Street, agreed to contribute. Raj Dhanda, owner of the Crimson Galeria building and the property at 96 Winthrop Street (formerly the House of Blues, now The Boiling Crab), expressed concerns about the scope of the project and the financial burden. The project stalled, and in 2024, the city reallocated the CPA funds.

In a recent phone interview, Dhanda said he believed the city should have paid more of the project’s cost. He also disputed the $400,000 price tag. At the time, his own contractor estimated that the work would cost less than $200,000.

Rat traps line a dilapidated segment of a historic wall in the Harvard Square alleyway between the former Red House and the IHOP, parallel to Eliot Street. 

One of the primary concerns has been the growing rat population in the alley near the wall. As the wall continues to deteriorate, it might create even more hiding and nesting pockets for rats, Jillson said. The imminent public health risks from rats — and their recent surge in Cambridge — have been well documented. At a public meeting last year, Cambridge City Manager Yi-An Huang said, “These rodents are, as I understand it, reproducing faster than we can possibly catch up.”

Jillson also fears that the burrowing rats might also be destabilizing the soil and thus contributing to the wall’s deterioration. “That wall is basically infested with rodents, and it’s compromising the integrity of the soil,” she said.

The alleyway behind the Too Hot Sichuan restaurant and IHOP is a hotbed of rat activity in the square, Pollack said. Had the restoration moved ahead, it would have included implementing a cement backing to the wall. That would have helped secure the stones and abate erosion. It would also have effectively blocked the rats from burrowing. 

Jillson hopes her press release spurs action. The economic climate, however, is significantly different.

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Reviewed: “Project Hail Mary”

21 Mar

Weir’s self-published first novel was hailed for its deep scientific detail and accuracy but “Hail Mary” trades hard science for a more fantastical plot.

⭐⭐⭐Rating: 3 out of 4.

Fans of Andy Weir’s “The Martian” — and Ridley Scott’s 2015 film adaptation starring Matt Damon — will find familiar bones in this deep space drama with a side of buddy comedy based on Weir’s third novel, “Project Hail Mary.” Weir’s self-published first novel was hailed for its deep scientific detail and accuracy but “Hail Mary” trades hard science for a more fantastical plot. As in Christopher Nolan’s weighty “Interstellar” (2014), we learn early on that the Earth is dying — here, because an alien microorganism called “Astrophage” is eating away the sun. Without adequate sunlight, famine will arrive in 20 to 30 years; the wars triggered by the diminishing food supply will crack civilization far sooner.

It’s not just an Earth problem, either. The ravenous Astrophage are devouring nearly all the stars in the galactic neighborhood — except one, some 12 light-years away. A team of astronauts has been sent to study this star, find out why it is resilient, and return to Earth with the solution. The caveat: The ship has only enough fuel for a one-way trip. The astronauts will send the solution back to Earth via probe, while they drift around for a few more years with various forms of painless euthanasia at their disposal. It’s not exactly something most people would raise their hand for. But the alternative is slow starvation — or worse — before your newly refinanced mortgage is paid off.

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The Renty daguerreotypes find a home, but Harvard’s legal fight lingers

17 Mar

After six long years, the Harvard-Renty controversy came to a close last week when 15 daguerreotypes of Renty Taylor, his daughter Delia and five other enslaved people were transferred to the International African American Museum in South Carolina. The court case – Lanier vs. President & Fellows of Harvard College – had Renty’s great-great-great granddaughter, Tamara Lanier, suing Harvard for possession of the 176-year-old depictions, which were commissioned by Harvard biologist Louis Agassiz in 1850 as evidence for his racist polygenic theory that whites were intellectually superior to Blacks. Its conclusion in May came after many turns and twists. (Harvard has said it cannot confirm that Lanier is related to Renty.)

What stands out is that just after Lanier initiated the case in 2019, Harvard launched the Committee on Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery. That committee’s 2022 report showed that Harvard had enslaved 70 or more people and benefited financially and otherwise from their enslavement. It prompted Harvard to create a $100 million initiative to support descendant communities and educational initiatives tied to that legacy.

Yet it was during that time that Harvard fought Lanier’s claim, citing she lacked property rights – seeming antithetical to a mission to document and atone. To observers the question became: Was Harvard operating out of different ideological silos, or simply talking out of both sides of its mouth?

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Reviewed: ‘Sirât,’ ‘War Machine,’ & ‘The Dutchman’

14 Mar

A spiritual journey through the Sahara, a violent, alien transformer, and a NYC man who may have strayed in the wrong direction.

“Sirât”

This sprawling wonderment from director Óliver Laxe unfolds as a stark meditation on faith, displacement, and moral endurance. Set in the harsh, borderless landscape of the endless Moroccan Sahara — and its precipitous mountains — a father and son go looking for their missing daughter/sister who’s last been seen embedded with a nomadic rave collective partying its way through the vast, arid nowhere. The film’s spiritual journey is shaped as much by silence and ritual (the rave parties are transfixing) as by events that often startle and shock. Laxe frames fate and belief not as certainty but as friction between devotion and doubt, discipline and compassion, and isolation and responsibility. Beneath its austere beauty, “Sirât” (loosely meaning the path to spiritual enlightenment or paradise) engages quietly but pointedly with contemporary political tensions, touching on migration, gender identity, radicalization, and the fragile line separating faith from ideology.

Driven by a pulsating techno score from David Letellier, known professionally as Kangding Ray, “Sirât” resists easy allegory while allowing meaning to emerge through gesture and repetition. The ensemble’s nuanced performances are restrained and inward, grounding the film’s metaphysical inquiry in palpable human vulnerability. \

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Tracking The Monster and his Bride through the many versions of Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’

13 Mar

Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Bride!”

Right now cinemagoers can double their Frankenstein pleasure with “The Bride!” and Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein,” up for the Best Picture Oscar this Sunday. Sure, “Frankenstein” is streaming on Netflix – it’s practically left theaters – but it is one of those films best seen on the big screen, as is Maggie Gyllenhaal’s newly opened grand spectacle. They play like bookends to the original story by Mary Shelley, just 18 at the time she wrote her 1818 novel subtitled “The Modern Prometheus.”

In the book, The Bride was promised but never made. It’s in the 1935 James Whale-directed sequel to “Frankenstein” (1931) and Gyllenhaal’s “The Bride!” that we get the realization of the corpse bride via very different narratives. Wedding crashers in the genre are “Frankenstein: The True Story” (1973), starring Jane Seymour and David McCallum of the “Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” and an emotionally inert 1985 version of “The Bride” pairing Jennifer Beals (“Flashdance”) with Sting, in which the rendering of The Bride was defined by the performer’s comely, magazine-cover self.

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Reviewed: “The Bride!”

13 Mar

The narrative flip from the book’s Gothic Europe to post-Prohibition Chicago is a kitschy and vibrant reimagining.

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Bride!” is a hot mess — both the title character and the film. It’s a wildly ambitious project with a distinctive female lens, and while it’s rife with social commentary, those themes often feel stitched on — and at times, carelessly so. The film flounders despite a killer cast, including Gyllenhaal’s husband, Peter Sarsgaard, and her brother, Jake, who appear in supporting roles. But the main reason to see the film is the bravura headline by Jessie Buckley, who’s been nominated for a best actress Oscar for her deeply emotional portrait of grief in “Hamnet” (2025).

Buckley can do no wrong in “The Bride!” She previously partnered with Gyllenhaal for her critically acclaimed directorial debut “The Lost Daughter” (2021), for which Buckley received a best supporting actress nod. Here she carries the film’s heaviest load, both as the shadowy visage of “Frankenstein” author Mary Shelley hurling barbs of foreboding from a dark dreamscape, and as Ida, a brash flapper-era Chicagoan party girl whose demise leads to her reincarnation — or “reinvigoration” in the film — as the bride.

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