The Circus and the Public Square

Someone at a desk somewhere had an idea. An almost brilliant idea.

There are a handful of nomadic circuses that still carry their tents with them, celebrating the size and intimacy of the tent in an age accustomed to the scale of the arena. And there are very few places in the modern city where you can really erect a large tent-- most of them parking lots.

And then there's City Hall Plaza, the blank and anonymous space that was presumed to be just the kind of public gathering space needed for a city that does not gather. City Hall leans over it all, its inverted floors trying to anchor the place through a gesture even its muscular concrete can't support.

In this sad, city center someone thought to erect a tent. Something ephemeral, colorful, and whimsical. The idea makes me smile-- that something so light might be just the thing to bring the plaza to life.

So I was disappointed to skirt the chain link fences, truck generators, and plastic tarps to capture views of the tent up against City Hall. There is so much stuff that comes with the circus, it's baggage, that the big, blue tent shrank into the background. There were no signs of animals, adding to the sterility of circus. There were no rewards for the curious. There wasn't the trunk of an elephant sliding around a corner or even a half-dressed clown. There were no sounds at all beyond the constant traffic along Cambridge Street.

That it was all handled so badly, a temporary real estate deal made between the mayor's office and circus administrators, brings out my cynicism-- enhanced by today's gray weather and biting wind. Boston's major public space, even an unsuccessful one, was given away so that money might be made. And not enough was given in return. And somehow, I do think that had just a little bit of design attention been paid to the placement of the tent, something really wonderful might have happened. The circus would be in the center of the city. It could look like more than a construction site-- something already too familiar in Boston-- and like something truly surprising. This evening in Back Bay I saw that cherry trees were blooming, and that tiny bit of color, so unexpected, cracked me awake. It's that kind of surprise I think we should look for, and maybe, even demand. I wish the mayor might be expected to stun the city by filling the void in front of his office at least once each term. The circus should be in the center of the city. It's just not there yet.

And Einstein wore khakis.

A little red Ford (on sweet loan for two weeks) took me past my usual borders to the Chestnut Hill Mall and to the Apple Store last night. I had registered online for an appointment with a "genius" and at the store there were two, no three-- recognizable because their intellect was embroidered in small letters on the front of their T-shirts. There was also an irate woman demanding an answer from a hapless teenage employee to the question, "Why does Apple make such lousy, unreliable products?!" Her two young boys looked embarrassed. The rest of us stroked our broken iPods and whispered to them not to listen to such cruel, and so clearly foundationless words.

Oddly amidst the waiting and the drawn faces of people in line for help with their machines, I left the store an hour later happy. A man who looked not unlike Albert Einstein-- making me wonder if he has cultivated the look since starting work with Apple or whether if Einstein had lived today he would have found himself relegated to a job in customer service-- told me cheerily that the iPod was still under warranty and that they were going to send me out of the store with a brand new machine. For the price of a few CD's.

It's freshly charged, I started the day by discovering parts of Boston's urban shoreline I hadn't seen, and I'm about to go bring two cats home to my apartment for a two-week visit. It's a good day.

Music is My Boyfriend

Nick Hornby has escaped and is running rough-shod through my head.

His endearingly dysfunctional characters aren’t staying on the pages of his books—they’re starting to make sense to me. I’ve lived in Chicago and as easily as “Hi-Fidelity” made the transatlantic flight, I should be more prepared to find that its idiosyncratic hero has taken up residence with me in Boston. I’m feeling like John Cusack, and from here it’s only a short stumble before I find myself with a boombox and a Peter Gabriel tune. Funny that it’s the boombox I’d have more trouble getting my hands on.

All to say that I’ve lived the past week through pop songs. The reasons are complicated, some personal. I’m feeling emotionally raw. The songs I’m playing – over and over again—are soothing but I’m reminded of this sadistic metaphor: the frog in the pot of water that happily swims as the heat is intensified until only dinner remains. The spice of Calexico’s “Feast of Wire” has flavored the long work hours that have been mine this week. But their mix of horns and blues guitars could just be preparing me for the meat fork that will be the only announcement that “I am DONE.”

And then fate intervened. My iPod showed me the frowny face of death—a cheekiness that until you have seen it its radical inappropriateness cannot be understood. The glib dismissal of a $300 investment is minor. A frowning iPod icon does not begin to address the silence that follows. I’d say my heart feels like it is wrapped in a blanket, so accustomed have I gotten in the past few days to using my iPod as a stylish white and chrome pacemaker.

I’m going to see a Genius at the Apple store in a few hours. I understand what he will say. I remember the night it crashed. It was midnight, I was downloading music from iTunes. I heard a chirping and honestly believed it was a songbird with a radically upset biological clock. I thought it was sweet. “Birds singing at midnight must mean that spring is on its way!” Only after five minutes or so did I realize that the hard drive on my iPod was chirping. Chirping. Hard Drives don’t make noises. Some things aren’t meant to make noises. My cat slaughtered a den of baby rabbits when I was a child. Baby rabbits being skinned and left on my history textbook are one thing no one should have to hear. One’s hard drive is another.

(To A—I hope you are reading this, home and recovering, and that reading updated blogs from friends speeds you along. You’ve my thoughts.)