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June 27, 2008

VIDEO: Boston Phoenix staff eaten by crocodiles!

Well, not really -- but, look, it's not completely out of the question. The rest of the Boston Phoenix staff is off on a summer picnic today, boating out to the Harbor Islands en masse for several hours of reflection and contemplation. We haven't heard from them in a few hours, so it's entirely possible that they've been eaten by crocodiles. And of course it's possible that someone got it on video.

In the meantime, we bring you this video that we found on National Geographic, which shows what happens when a baby hippos start gnawing on crocodiles. (Warning: super-cuteness alert!):

Truth be told, we were scouting out the Nat'l Geo site for signs of this Bjork/Sigur Ros show that they're streaming on the interwebs tomorrow, live from Iceland -- we're a little bummed we can't TIVO this thing, but if you happen to be in front of your browser tomorrow (instead of at the beach?) between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., you may want to point yourself over here.

June 26, 2008

Flashbacks: The Milton apparition deciphered, Scot Lehigh on skydiving, and the man behind a far-out idea for providing solar power

LISTEN UP
5 Years Ago
June 27, 2003 | Michael Bronski explained the meaning behind the Blessed Virgin Mary's appearance on a window at Milton Hospital.
 "...Obviously, the BVM has a message for us today. The trick is in deciphering it. Fortunately, her appearance in Milton is easy to interpret. The BVM chose to appear at a hospital because she is speaking about matters of physical health. No doubt she is unhappy with the rancorous debates about Medicare and prescription drugs taking place in Congress. She may also be speaking to the horrific problem of AIDS in Africa, which has been exacerbated by the failure of the US government and pharmaceutical companies to do anything about it. There can be little debate on the meaning of this apparition, because let’s face it — if she wanted to give her blessing to the ongoing occupation of Iraq, she would have manifested herself at the Pentagon. If she wanted to support war profiteering, she would have made an appearance at the headquarters of Halliburton...The BVM doesn’t make a lot of the personal appearances, so when she does, it’s a good idea to pay attention." Read Full Article

SNUBBING SCIENCE
10 Years Ago
June 26, 1998 | Ellen Barry investigated the scientific objections to everyone’s favorite cult-classic alien TV show.
“Yes, the skeptics of the world are united in giving The X-Files the old secular-humanist thumbs-down, according to statements from the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, or CSICOP, which has kept a close eye on weeping Madonnas and floating balls of light since 1976. What it comes down to is a pattern of discrimination.“ ‘It’s always the mystical explanation that prevails, and science is shown as incapable of dealing with it,’ says Matt Nisbet, a CSICOP, ‘But suppose Hollywood produced a show that was fictional in nature in which there is a black suspect and a white suspect and the black suspect was always guilty, would you be able to defend that as only fiction? It’s a negative stereotype.’ ”THE THINGS WE DO FOR STORIES
25 Years Ago
June 21, 1983 | Scot Lehigh leaped out of a plane for no good reason or if you’d rather, went skydiving.
“ ‘Stand by,’ the jumpmaster yelled, his voice above the engine’s roar breaking my fright-frozen fixation on the ground. My right hand moved out to grasp the strut, and it and my left hand started to pull against the wind of a 70-mile-an-hour flight to get my body out of the plane...I know it’s idiocy, but I’ll just do it, I thought. I won’t think about it; I’ll just fling myself back...Instantly everything went from a confused, windy whoosh to a falling, dizzying, streaking blur...I reached for the reserve rip and was about to pull it when — whump — the main chute clapped open, and my 160-foot free-fall ended with a sharp jerk. I looked up to see the parachute — surprisingly small, I thought —  between me and the hazy sky...Now, the rushing confusion of free fall quieted, it seemed virtually silent...Although I knew my rate of descent was around 15 feet per second, it seemed unexpectedly gentle and slow as I looked farther out, south to Quabbin Reservoir, and over to the town of Orange.”SOLAR SHOWER
30 Years Ago
June 27, 1978 | Michael Matza profiled Dr. Peter Glaser, the man behind a far-out idea for providing solar power.
“Like other scientists working on the long-term energy needs of the planet, Glaser cites the Arab oil embargo of 1973 as the catalyst for exploring alternatives. Unlike other proponents of renewable solar power, those who would capture the sun’s energy through decentralized, ground-based collectors, Glaser advocates centralized power production on a scale that is truly staggering. His scheme calls for numerous 20,000-ton satellites to be placed in synchronous orbit 22,000 miles above the earth. Solar panels on them would collect the sun’s energy, convert it to microwaves and beam it to earth. Huge, six-mile-diameter receiving antennas located on earth would catch the microwaves and reconvert them to electricity. The resulting energy would be distributed to regional utility power pools and sold to consumers...Because the satellites required would be larger (72 miles square) than any we could hope to launch from earth, they would have to be constructed in space by a team of at least 400 trained astronaut-laborers. It’s here that the project begins to sound like science fiction. According to one plan kicking about, the required materials for the satellites would come from mining the moon.”

June 23, 2008

Words on the street

Let's talk about street art, shall we? "Street art," as a term, is so broad (as is the concept it represents), and there are so many different types of street art out there that it's easy to forget that some street art - a lot of it, in fact - has a point. Sometimes that point is direct and profound, and sometimes it's open to interpretation. Consider Shepard Fairey's Progress/Obama poster, or nearly anything Banksy does. It's like thousands of open-ended messages lining the streets of your city, just waiting for you to notice them. And there's no more overt way to convey a message via street art than to use words. For today's street art fix, feast your eyes upon the word-centric images below, all from the Boston area.

Photos by Alix Piorun.

Photo by historygradguy. 

Photos by sushiesque.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seen near the Wall in Central Square. Photo by famed Phoenix intern, Jason O'Bryan.

Photo by walknboston. 

Photos by 5m@5hYdez. 

June 20, 2008

Flashbacks: The politics of whoopee cushions, Sarah Lawrence’s dirty little secret and the agonies and triumphs of caving

SLEAZY DOES IT
5 Years Ago
June 20, 2003 | Carly Carioli profiled hip-hop baiting rappers of Gravy Train.
“Gravy Train...are a quartet of three self-described ‘rap bitches’ (Chunx, Funx, and Drunx) and one gay boy (Hunx) who apply riot grrrl’s postfeminist mandate to the Fat Beats and Bra Straps (Rhino) girlschool of ’80s hip-hop...Frontgal Chunx seems to have internalized Just-Ice’s 1986 anthem ‘That Girl Is a Slut’ — and decided, like the grrrls who scrawled ‘whore’ on their bellies in the mid-’90s, to turn the epithet on its rear. Their finest moment is ‘Drinking 40 Oz.,’ from their debut Menz EP (Cold Crush). In the spirit of Schoolly D’s ‘Saturday Night,’ Chunx recounts, in a squeaky bubblegum rhyme, the story of her day, and her love affair with St. Ides: getting trashed (‘Don’t even try to contain the fortiez that I drain/I leave a malt liquor stain like a fuckin’ freight train’); picking up strays of both genders at the local high school (‘I find me a bitch, a young virgin switch/I find a young gun, I drench him in cum’); eventually deciding she loves the booze more than the boyz (‘rather sip you than get screwed’).” Read the Full Article
 
FIGHT THE GLOWER
20 Years Ago
June 17, 1988 | Aron Abrams described his unique tactics to battle the Ayatollah Khomeini — with whoopee cushions.
"The Ayatollah Khomeini may be a horrible man, but his face looked great on a whoopee cushion. Everyone in my line of work knew that. In 1980 I, along with a few dedicated others, fought to overpower his evil regime. I didn't work in Washington near the Pentagon, but in Boston, near Sandwich World. ‘Jack and Jill's Fun Shop’ was the name of the office, and we sold anti-Iran propaganda.

"1980 was the hostages' summer in Iran. While the diplomats did what they could with talks here and rescue attempts there, the Fun Shop rallied to the crisis in a direct, no-holds-barred fashion. Our big seller was a novelty postcard showing the ayatollah, in his turban and robe, sitting on a toilet. Take that, Khomeini. The way to victory, we knew, was through demoralizing the enemy."

DIRTY LITTLE SECRET
25 Years Ago
June 21, 1983 | The Phoenix reported about a one-time employee of Sarah Lawrence College who had published an article after making a dark discovery in researching the school’s past.
“Written by Louise Blecher Rose, a Sarah Lawrence graduate who left the college’s faculty last month to teach creative writing at Columbia University, the Commentary article describes Rose’s accidental discovery of a file marked ‘Admission Quotas Jewish Students’ while she was researching a history of Sarah Lawrence for its 50th anniversary, in 1979. The file, Rose wrote, was ‘a detailed record of Sarah Lawrence’s discriminatory quota system,’ which operated until 1956. Included in the file was evidence that Jewish applicants had been rejected in favor of far less qualified non-Jewish applicants...

“Rose maintains that Sarah Lawrence’s president at the time, Dr. Charles DeCarlo, was much less impressed by the quota revelation. She says DeCarlo refused to publish the Sarah Lawrence history she turned in...[T]hough DeCarlo never directly threatened her with dismissal, he made it clear that her job would be in jeopardy if she published...outside the college...

“But according to DeCarlo, the file material had no bearing on his decision not to publish...The manuscript was ‘sophomorically serious’ and ‘heavy-handed,’ DeCarlo says. ‘It just wasn’t good enough to be published, period.’ ”

DEAD END
30 Years Ago
June 20, 1978 | Phil Bertoni explored the agonies and triumphs of caving.
“ ‘Endurance limit’ is a phrase frequently recurrent in cave exploration, and refers to a very real boundary. It is that point, deep underground, where a caver looks balefully at a promising lead with eyes that haven’t closed for 24 hours — and knows by his chattering teeth, twitching muscles and stomach cramps that if he crawls in, he won’t be able to crawl out. Few activities that pass as sport demand as much strength and endurance as does caving. A routine survey trip can easily involve 16 straight hours of continuous hard activity, simultaneously requiring the mental acuity to perform a sophisticated and exacting job.”

June 19, 2008

Throw some C's on it: NBA Champs on parade

 

June 18, 2008

CELTICS WATCH: CHAMPS.

All this seems so long ago now, doesn't it? 

When we think back to where we were as fans a year ago coming off a lost season, it really seems all the more amazing that this team just won the NBA title. Really, we'd love to say we saw this coming all along. Unfortunately for us our thoughts on the subject are on the record. Maybe it was residual angst from our days rooting for the pre-2004 Red Sox, but we didn't think this would actually happen - we probably didn't even think it could happen - until somewhere in the middle of the Detroit series. When they traded for Ray Allen, we were underwhelmed. When they traded for Garnett, we were happy, yet still skeptical. As they rolled through the regular season, we were pleased, but stayed guarded. Our confidence reached its peak towards the end of the season as they wrapped up the number one seed, but that was quickly reversed by the Hawks and Cavaliers taking them to the limit, shaking our faith in the team to its very foundation.

Chalk it up to whatever you wish - we're certainly not even going to try to understand it - but somewhere in there, this team just started playing amazingly good basketball. Each night it was someone else stepping up and having the big game. Tonight, it was Rajon Rondo, who was out-offensive-rebounding the entire Lakers team by himself. And if it isn't clear, the Big Three now have cemented their Hall of Fame status. People were getting on all three of them at various points throughout the playoffs, but now in retrospect, it really doesn't matter. This was a total team effort. And yes, that includes the much-maligned Doc Rivers.

The Big Three is getting old in basketball years, and many of the key role players are also on the wrong side of thirty. These Celtics, realistically, didn't have much of a window beyond this year. But they took advantage of it. Maybe it won't be another dynasty, but for the fans who remember pining for Greg Oden, the ineptitude of Mark Blount, the disastous Vin Baker deal, Rick Pitino's famous tirade, M. L. Carr as coach, times when the best Celtic on the court was either Dino Radja or Dana Barros, and the deaths of Reggie Lewis and Len Bias, this one should still be particularly sweet.

UPDATE: Here's video of Kevin Garnett's emotional, giddy interview with Michelle Tafoya:

June 16, 2008

Your Boston Bloomsday To-Do List

 

(A little late for the traditional 8 a.m. start time, but feel free to pick it up at Episode 9.)

Episode 1 - Telemachus. Breakfast. Shave. Take a dip at Carson Beach in Southie.

God, he said quietly. Isn't the sea what Algy calls it: a grey sweet mother? The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea. Epi oinopa ponton. Ah, Dedalus, the Greeks. I must teach you. You must read them in the original. Thalatta! Thalatta! She is our great sweet mother. Come and look.

Episode 2 - Nestor. Duck into a BU summer school history class.

Had Pyrrhus not fallen by a beldam's hand in Argos or Julius Caesar not been knifed to death? They are not to be thought away. Time has branded them and fettered they are lodged in the room of the infinite possibilities they have ousted. But can those have been possible seeing that they never were? Or was that only possible which came to pass? Weave, weaver of the wind....

"History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake."

Episode 3 - Proteus. Walk along the waterfront. Close your eyes, contemplating the “ineluctable modality of the audible.” Open them again. See the sea change. Pick your nose and smear it on a rock.

Under the upswelling tide he saw the writhing weeds lift languidly and sway reluctant arms, hising up their petticoats, in whispering water swaying and upturning coy silver fronds. Day by day: night by night: lifted, flooded and let fall.

Episode 4 - Calypso. Buy a pork kidney in Chinatown. Cook it up good.

Mr. Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liver slices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencod's roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.

Episode 5 - Lotus Eaters. Visit to post office...check for love letter. (Or at least check your e-mail.) Take a hot tub bath at Inman Oasis.

Enjoy a bath now: clean trough of water, cool enamel, the gentle tepid stream. This is my body. He foresaw his pale body reclined in it at full, naked, in a womb of warmth, oiled by scented melting soap, softly laved. He saw his trunk and limbs riprippled over and sustained, buoyed lightly upward, lemonyellow: his navel, bud of flesh: and saw the dark tangled curls of his bush floating, floating hair of the stream around the limp father of thousands, a languid floating flower.

Episode 6 - Hades. Visit Mount Auburn Cemetery. Ponder your mortality.

I daresay the soil would be quite fat with corpse manure, bones, flesh, nails, charnelhouses. Dreadful. Turning green and pink, decomposing. Rot quick in damp earth. The lean old ones tougher. Then a kind of a tallowy kind of a cheesy. Then begin to get black, treacle oozing out of them. Then dried up. Deathmoths. Of course the cells or whatever they are go on living. Changing about. Live for ever practically. Nothing to feed on feed on themselves.

Episode 7 - Aeolus. Stop by a newspaper office. (Feel free to buy an ad.)

He stayed in his walk to watch a typesetter neatly distributing type. Reads it backwards first. Quickly he does it. Must require some practice that. mangiD. kcirtaP. Poor papa with his hagadah book, reading backwards with his finger to me. Pessach. Next year in Jerusalem. Dear, O dear! All that long business about that brought us out of the land of Egypt and into the house of bondage alleluia. Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu.... How quickly he does that job. Practice makes perfect. Seems to see with his fingers.

Episode 8 - Lestrygonians. Order a grilled cheese and a glass of wine at All-Star Sandwich Bar.

He smellsipped the cordial juice and, bidding his throat strongly to speed it, set his wineglass delicately down.... Mr Bloom ate his strips of sandwich, fresh clean bread, with relish of disgust, pungent mustard, the feety savour of green cheese. Sips of his wine soothed his palate. Not logwood that. Tastes fuller this weather with the chill off.

Episode 9 - Scylla And Charybdis. Visit the BPL. Thumb through a copy of Hamlet.

Well: if the father who has not a son be not a father can the son who has not a father be a son? When Rutlandbaconsouthamptonshakespeare or another poet of the same name in the comedy of errors wrote Hamlet he was not the father of his own son merely but, being no more a son, he was and felt himself the father of all his race, the father of his own grandfather, the father of his unborn grandson who, by the same token, never was born for nature, as Mr Magee understands her, abhors perfection.

Episode 10 - Wandering Rocks. Free period. Perambulate aimlessly. Do some people-watching.

Mr Kernan turned and walked down the slope of Watling street by the corner of Guinness's visitors' waitingroom. Outside the Dublin Distillers Company's stores an outside car without fare or jarvey stood, the reins knotted to the wheel. Damn dangerous thing. Some Tipperary bosthoon endangering the lives of the citizens. Runaway horse.... Denis Breen with his tomes, weary of having waited an hour in John Henry Menton's office, led his wife over O'Connell bridge, bound for the office of Messrs Collis and Ward.... A cavalcade in easy trot along Pembroke quay passed, outriders leaping, leaping in their, in their saddles. Frockcoats. Cream sunshades.

Episode 11 - Sirens. Get a drink and listen to musical stylings on offer at Ryles.

From the saloon a call came, long in dying. That was a tuningfork the tuner had that he forgot that he now struck. Acall again. That he now poised that it now throbbed. You hear? It throbbed, pure, purer, softly and softlier, its buzzing prongs. Longer in dying call.... A voiceless song sang from within, singing.... A duodene of birdnotes chirruped bright treble answer under sensitive hands. Brightly the keys, all twinkling, linked, all harpsichording, called to a voice to sing the strain of dewy morn, of youth, of love's leavetaking, life's, love's morn.

Episode 12 - Cyclops. Get in an argument with a racist.

-- Mendelssohn was a jew and Karl Marx and Mercadante and Spinoza. And the Saviour was a jew and his father was a jew. Your God.

-- He had no father, says Martin. That'll do now. Drive ahead.

-- Whose God? says the citizen.

-- Well, his uncle was a jew, says he. Your God was a jew. Christ was a jew like me.

Gob, the citizen made a plunge back into the shop.

-- By Jesus, says he, I'Il brain that bloody jewman for using the holy name. By Jesus, I'll crucify him so I will. Give us that biscuitbox here.

Episode 13 - Nausicca. Take a walk on Revere Beach. (Behave yourself.)

The summer evening had begun to fold the world in its mysterious embrace. Far away in the west the sun was setting and the last glow of all too fleeting day lingered lovingly on sea and strand, on the proud promontory of dear old Howth guarding as ever the waters of the bay, on the weedgrown rocks along Sandymount shore and, last but not least, on the quiet church whence there streamed forth at times upon the stillness the voice of prayer to her who is in her pure radiance a beacon ever to the storm-tossed heart of man, Mary, star of the sea.

Episode 14 - Oxen Of The Sun. Visit the maternity ward at MGH. Consider the long evolution of the English language.

Send us, bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Send us, bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Send us bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit.

Hoopsa, boyaboy, hoopsa! Hoopsa, hoyaboy, hoopsa! Hoopsa, boyaboy, hoopsa.

Episode 15 - Circe. Get very drunk. Walk around the Combat Zone, and try to picture the days when there was an actual red light district in Boston.

KITTY (Peers at the gasjet.) What ails it tonight?

LYNCH (Deeply.) Enter a ghost and hobgoblins.

ZOE Clap on the back for Zoe.

(The wand in Lynch's hand flashes: a brass poker. Stephen stands at the pianola on which sprawl his hat and ashplant. With two fingers he repeats once more the series of empty fifths. Florry Talbot, a blond feeble goosefat whore in a tatterdemalion gown of mildewed strawberry, lolls spreadeagle in the sofa corner, her limp forearm pendent over the bolster, listening. A heavy stye droops over her sleepy eyelid.)

KITTY (Hiccups again with a kick of her horsed foot.) O, excuse!

ZOE (Promptly.) Your boy's thinking of you. Tie a knot on your shift.

(Kitty Ricketts bends her head. Her boa uncoils, slides, glides over her shoulder, back, arm, chair to the ground. Lynch lifts the curled caterpillar on his wand. She snakes her neck, nestling. Stephen glances behind at the squatted figure with its cap back to the front.)

Episode 16 - Eumaeus. Hail a cab. Engage in a long, rambling conversation with the cabby.

All kinds of Utopian plans were flashing through his (Bloom's) busy brain. Education (the genuine article), literature, journalism, prize titbits, up to date billing, hydros and concert tours in English watering resorts packed with theatres, turning money away, duets in Italian with the accent perfectly true to nature and a quantity of other things, no necessity of course to tell the world and his wife from the housetops about it and a slice of luck. An opening was all was wanted. Because he more than suspected he had his father's voice to bank his hopes on which it was quite on the cards he had so it would be just as well, by the way no harm, to trail the conversation in the direction of that particular red herring just to.

Episode 17 - Ithaca. Arrive home. Make a cup of cocoa. Talk about life. Walk out in your back yard. Pee in the bushes while you gaze up at the “heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit.”

What action did Bloom make on their arrival at their destination?

At the housesteps of the 4th of the equidifferent uneven numbers, number 7 Eccles street, he inserted his hand mechanically into the back pocket of his trousers to obtain his latchkey.

Was it there?

It was in the corresponding pocket of the trousers which he had worn on the day but one preceding.

Why was he doubly irritated?

Because he had forgotten and because he remembered that he had reminded himself twice not to forget.

What were then the alternatives before the, premeditatedly (respectively) and inadvertently, keyless couple?

To enter or not to enter. To knock or not to knock.

Bloom's decision?

A stratagem. Resting his feet on the dwarf wall, he climbed over the area railings, compressed his hat on his head, grasped two points at the lower union of rails and stiles, lowered his body gradually by its length of five feet nine inches and a half to within two feet ten inches of the area pavement, and allowed his body to move freely in space by separating himself from the railings and crouching in preparation for the impact of the fall.

Episode 18 - Penelope. Crawl into bed, with your feet on the pillows and your head under the covers, weary, drifting off to sleep, thinking of the person you love.

...glancing eyes a lattice hid for her lover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night and the castanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down Jo me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. June 16, 2008

Some ideas for Rock Band 2

So Guitar Hero IV is getting a lot of press these days. But what about Rock Band? Rock Band 2 hasn't officially been announced, but the speculation has already begun. As Rock Band fan, we'd like to add our two cents, while also acknowledging that we trust Harmonix and suspect they don't actually need our help. June 13, 2008

Celtics watch: Thursday night's game, summed up in one animated gif

All you need to know about how the Finals has been going so far (hat tip, Sons of Sam Horn):

 

 

June 12, 2008

Flashbacks: Ang Lee on the Hulk’s indestructible pants, on the job with a bounty hunter, and Yoko Ono’s nation of women

THEY’RE STRETCHY PANTS, DUH
5 Years Ago
June 13, 2003 | Peter Keough wondered why Bruce Banner’s pants stay on when he undergoes transformation into the Hulk.
“To his credit, director Ang Lee broaches this question on his own. ‘People always ask, including myself, how come the pants always stay on? I wanted my Hulk to be naked. When he fights the dogs [these are mutant Hulk dogs, sicced on his girlfriend Betty (Jennifer Connelly) by his father (Nick Nolte)], he gets the pants torn off. He should be naked, we should see . . .’

“His, uh, Hulkness? Right. But we don’t. It’s dark. There are tree limbs. There are mutant dogs the size of taxi cabs. But no Little Hulk. After that, Lee gave up about the pants. ‘It’s too much trouble, trying to hide him. It got to the point that I felt like I was making Austin Powers.’ As Josh Lucas — who plays Talbot, Bruce Banner’s rival — puts it, ‘The Hulk’s pants stay on because they want a PG-13 rating.’

“Still, the questions persist. What material are those pants made of? Are they a metaphor for our own repression of the rage the Hulk embodies for us? Are they a dark hint of Oedipal castration?” Read Full Article

LOVE BITES
10 Years Ago
June 12, 1998 | Ellen Barry reported the details you didn’t want to know about mosquitoes’ sex lives.
“Mosquitoes are addled by sex, driven past all reason. Male mosquitoes will copulate for hours after their heads have been removed. If they weren’t born with their genitalia sticking out of their backs, they’d begin having sex the moment they hatched. But their abdomens begin rotating soon after they are born, and by the age of one day, they’re postpubescent and ready to cruise.

“This is important because whether or not you want to admit it, you, Reader, will be a party to the mosquito sex act many thousands of times during your life.”

UNFUCKWITHABLE
20 Years Ago
June 10, 1988 | Ric Kahn recalled how New Hampshire bounty hunter Lance Wilkinson had nabbed a criminal.
“Lance Wilkinson...was fresh on the trail of Ronnie Baby, a reputed thief and certified bail skipper who was on the lam in Lowell...First thing he did was reach for the phone. With his trigger finger he punched in the number on Ronnie Baby’s bail application. It was RB’s grandmother...

‘How do you do, I’m Reverend Alan,’ he lied to granny. ‘How is Ronnie doing?’
‘Oh, fine, Reverend,’ granny said.
‘I know Ronnie from jail. I like to check on my boys once in a while. I’m passing through Lowell and thought I’d say hi.’
‘Ronnie’s doing well, he’s working,’ granny said.
‘Oh, where is he living...?’
“Granny gave up the address...

“Wilkinson drove over to the address, knocked on the door. RB’s girlfriend answered. Wilkinson saw Ronnie Baby sitting there in the kitchen...

“As Wilkinson reached for his handcuffs, the bugger ran out the kitchen door and up a side street... Wilkinson flung his Willie Wacker, a club shaped like a beaver tail. Old Willie buzzed right by RB’s head, convincing the young man that now was a good time to stop running. With Wilkinson moving in on the arrest, Ronnie Baby responded with the desperate act of a hard-ass fugitive. He started to cry. ‘Don’t kill me. Don’t kill me. Don’t kill me.’ Once again, Wilkinson had gotten his man. Later, at the jailhouse, they had to hose that rascal RB down. Poor Ronnie Baby had shit his pants.”

PARTING SHOT
35 Years Ago
June 12, 1973 | Gill Gane quoted the always fun Yoko Ono at the National Organization for Women’s (NOW) International Feminist Planning Conference in Cambridge.
"It was Yoko who seemed to have the best last words:

“ ‘I started off thinking NOW,’ she announced, ‘but I ended up thinking WOW. All women are stateless — I see you have me down on the delegate list as being from England, I suppose that's because my husband is from there; well, I don't represent England, and I don't represent Japan either — all women are stateless, but we're getting together to form a new nation.’
 
“She suggested that in this new nation the policy towards men should be that undesirable aliens would of course be excluded, while desirable aliens could be admitted, but would have no vote.” ...

“ ‘I don’t like the the word ‘equality,’ ’ she declared, ‘I think it’s degrading. Men have had power for the past 2000 years; women should take it for the next 2000.’ ”

June 12, 2008

Flashbacks: Ang Lee on the Hulk’s indestructible pants, on the job with a bounty hunter, and Yoko Ono’s nation of women

THEY’RE STRETCHY PANTS, DUH
5 Years Ago
June 13, 2003 | Peter Keough wondered why Bruce Banner’s pants stay on when he undergoes transformation into the Hulk.
“To his credit, director Ang Lee broaches this question on his own. ‘People always ask, including myself, how come the pants always stay on? I wanted my Hulk to be naked. When he fights the dogs [these are mutant Hulk dogs, sicced on his girlfriend Betty (Jennifer Connelly) by his father (Nick Nolte)], he gets the pants torn off. He should be naked, we should see . . .’

“His, uh, Hulkness? Right. But we don’t. It’s dark. There are tree limbs. There are mutant dogs the size of taxi cabs. But no Little Hulk. After that, Lee gave up about the pants. ‘It’s too much trouble, trying to hide him. It got to the point that I felt like I was making Austin Powers.’ As Josh Lucas — who plays Talbot, Bruce Banner’s rival — puts it, ‘The Hulk’s pants stay on because they want a PG-13 rating.’

“Still, the questions persist. What material are those pants made of? Are they a metaphor for our own repression of the rage the Hulk embodies for us? Are they a dark hint of Oedipal castration?” Read Full Article

LOVE BITES
10 Years Ago
June 12, 1998 | Ellen Barry reported the details you didn’t want to know about mosquitoes’ sex lives.
“Mosquitoes are addled by sex, driven past all reason. Male mosquitoes will copulate for hours after their heads have been removed. If they weren’t born with their genitalia sticking out of their backs, they’d begin having sex the moment they hatched. But their abdomens begin rotating soon after they are born, and by the age of one day, they’re postpubescent and ready to cruise.

“This is important because whether or not you want to admit it, you, Reader, will be a party to the mosquito sex act many thousands of times during your life.”

UNFUCKWITHABLE
20 Years Ago
June 10, 1988 | Ric Kahn recalled how New Hampshire bounty hunter Lance Wilkinson had nabbed a criminal.
“Lance Wilkinson...was fresh on the trail of Ronnie Baby, a reputed thief and certified bail skipper who was on the lam in Lowell...First thing he did was reach for the phone. With his trigger finger he punched in the number on Ronnie Baby’s bail application. It was RB’s grandmother...

‘How do you do, I’m Reverend Alan,’ he lied to granny. ‘How is Ronnie doing?’
‘Oh, fine, Reverend,’ granny said.
‘I know Ronnie from jail. I like to check on my boys once in a while. I’m passing through Lowell and thought I’d say hi.’
‘Ronnie’s doing well, he’s working,’ granny said.
‘Oh, where is he living...?’
“Granny gave up the address...

“Wilkinson drove over to the address, knocked on the door. RB’s girlfriend answered. Wilkinson saw Ronnie Baby sitting there in the kitchen...

“As Wilkinson reached for his handcuffs, the bugger ran out the kitchen door and up a side street... Wilkinson flung his Willie Wacker, a club shaped like a beaver tail. Old Willie buzzed right by RB’s head, convincing the young man that now was a good time to stop running. With Wilkinson moving in on the arrest, Ronnie Baby responded with the desperate act of a hard-ass fugitive. He started to cry. ‘Don’t kill me. Don’t kill me. Don’t kill me.’ Once again, Wilkinson had gotten his man. Later, at the jailhouse, they had to hose that rascal RB down. Poor Ronnie Baby had shit his pants.”

PARTING SHOT
35 Years Ago
June 12, 1973 | Gill Gane quoted the always fun Yoko Ono at the National Organization for Women’s (NOW) International Feminist Planning Conference in Cambridge.
"It was Yoko who seemed to have the best last words:

“ ‘I started off thinking NOW,’ she announced, ‘but I ended up thinking WOW. All women are stateless — I see you have me down on the delegate list as being from England, I suppose that's because my husband is from there; well, I don't represent England, and I don't represent Japan either — all women are stateless, but we're getting together to form a new nation.’
 
“She suggested that in this new nation the policy towards men should be that undesirable aliens would of course be excluded, while desirable aliens could be admitted, but would have no vote.” ...

“ ‘I don’t like the the word ‘equality,’ ’ she declared, ‘I think it’s degrading. Men have had power for the past 2000 years; women should take it for the next 2000.’ ”

June 05, 2008

Church hypocrisy, the extraordinary case of Billy Tipton, and when straights attack

STEP OFF
5 years ago
June 6, 2003 | Susan Ryan-Vollmar shared her reactions to the Catholic Church’s attack on gay marriages (including her own) from the altar.
"I didn’t think I’d get worked up about it. When I read reports last week that the Catholic Church’s four bishops in Massachusetts were directing parish priests to issue a call to arms against same-sex marriage from the altar this past weekend, I wasn’t so much angry as flabbergasted. What were these bishops thinking? Who were they to give moral advice to families? The Church has yet to come to terms with its failure to protect children from pedophilic priests. Now it’s going to go after homosexuals — on whom it tried (and failed) to blame the clergy sex-abuse scandal?" Read Full Article

AN EXTRAORDINARY MAN, INDEED
10 years ago
June 5, 1998 | The Straight Dope’s Cecil Adams fielded a question about Billy Tipton, a jazz musician who attracted posthumous attention when it was discovered that he was born a woman.
"There was a news story a few years back about a jazz musician who died and was found to be a woman after living her life as a man...No one I ask remembers this. Do you? --SMENGI, via AOL

"You think I could forget the story of Billy Tipton? Yes, she lived as a man from age 21 till the day she died at age 74. Yes, her three sons (all adopted) never suspected a thing. But that's not the bizarre part. She lived with five women in succession, all of them attractive, a couple of them knockouts. She had intercourse with at least two of them and, who knows, maybe all five. But of the three we know about in detail, none tumbled to the fact that her husband was a woman (one figured it out later). At first you might think: man, I thought my spouse was oblivious. But the more charitable view is that they were taken in by one of the great performances of all time." Read Full Article

TRAVEL GUIDE
20 years ago
June 3, 1988 | Caroline Knapp criticized the tourism industry.
“Notes Douglas Foy, director of the Conservation Law Foundation, ‘The reason tourists come here is because of Boston’s special character, the environmental quality of the area, all those Town Common, stone-wall, old-New-England-church issues. You would look to the tourism industry to become more active in fighting for clean air and a clean Harbor, for the protection of the drinking-water supply. Unfortunately, a lot of people are caught in the economic-development game. They’re not quite sure which side of the bread their butter is on.’

“Which is, at best, short-sighted.

As Foy puts it, 'Nobody is going to come here if it starts to look like New Jersey.' ”

TERROR TACTICS
25 years ago
June 7, 1983 | Karen Lee Ziner reported that the lesbian population in Northampton was under attack.
"...there’s trouble here. The trouble has to do with sexual politics. Some people think there are too many lesbians living in Northampton, and some of those people are doing just about everything short of murder to make them go away. Since last summer, two lesbians have reportedly been sexually attacked, a third assaulted. At least 30 women and several men, all targeted because they are homosexuals, report receiving harassing phone calls, arson threats, and death threats.

"Now the lines are drawn. 'I think,' says one observer, 'that the individuals who were making the threats were hoping that the gay community would go back in the closet, and the one thing we can be assured of is that this is not 1953, this is not 1965, and people are not going to go back into the closet. And people will organize and they will not stand for that sort of thing.' "

June 05, 2008

Celtics watch: Beat L.A.

It only took making the NBA Finals, but finally it seems the Celtics are the talk of this town.

The Finals begin tonight with the Celtics taking on the Lakers, a team with whom (as you may have heard by now) there's been some historic bad blood - Bird-Magic, Russell-Wilt, McHale-Rambis etc. That stuff makes good copy, but ultimately we prefer to focus on the here and now. Robert Parish isn't walking through that door, after all.

First off, let's give both teams some credit. For the Celtics, we were skeptical when they assembled the Big Three about their ability to hold up over the course of the season. And for a while there, it looked as though that skepticism may have been justified - Ray Allen looked like a shell of his former self during the series against Cleveland, and Kevin Garnett at times looked almost afraid to attack the basket. But they've put their struggles behind them, and anyone who watched the Pistons series would have some trouble defending the suggestion that they don't belong in the Finals. They're playing their best basketball right now, and fans have to be excited for what they're seeing.

Of course, then there's the cold shower that is the Los Angeles Lakers. We don't want to rain on the parade too much They've been merciless during the postseason - only losing three games so far. Their offense is virtually unstoppable, and they play defense almost as well as anyone on top of that. Also to say Phil Jackson v. Doc Rivers looks like a one-sided mismatch would be a brutal understatement. Any analysis, be it statistical or scouting, would suggest that this will be a romp. And if analysis is what you're looking for, read Hollinger or Basketball Prospectus or Henry Abbott or Brett Edwards or Tom Ziller. If you want a more offbeat take on things, read Free Darko or Basketbawful. We're just going to content ourselves with the role of "shameless homer" here, and say that the home-court advantage can overcome all of the Lakers' considerable talents, and call it for the Celtics in Seven.

June 04, 2008

Kimbo Slice v. Boston Cop

Kimbo Slice vs. Boston Police officer Sean Gannon (2004)

We've smacked the Boston Police Department around a bit for its inability to solve a majority of the city's homicides, but let's give credit where credit is due: when it comes to unsanctioned, bare-knuckled, backroom beat-downs, the BPD can make a claim that no other department can: Boston's Finest have a record of 1-0 against Kimbo Slice.

As ESPN The Magazine reminded everyone in their Kimbo cover story this month, the only human ever to knock out the formerly homeless, ex-strip-club bouncer is active-duty Boston patrolman Sean Gannon, who beat Kimbo senseless during a blood-soaked 2004 brawl in a still-undisclosed location somewhere on the east coast. Such is Gannon's fame from the match that he's still a draw, even when he's not fighting: he's scheduled to sign autographs at a local WCF mixed-martial-arts contest in Wilmington on June 20.

The video of the Gannon/Kimbo Slice fight (see above) brings new meaning to the phrase "police brutality" -- although, to be fair, it's hard to tell who got the worst of it. Kimbo collapses first, but Gannon takes a vicious punishment. In Kimbo's defense, Gannon executes a couple of expertly-rendered knees to the face -- which, from the reaction of Slice's handlers, is apparently beneath contempt even in no-rules, bare-knuckle brawls. (Ironically, it's perfectly legal in accredited mixed-martial-arts -- Kimbo learned enough about the power of a good knee to jam a couple into the head of former boxing champ Ray Mercer, whom he felled in one of his televised MMA bouts.)

You would think that the BPD would be proud of its homegrown mauler, or at least cynical enough to use Gannon as a crime-prevention tool: after all, what petty burglar wouldn't think just a few seconds longer about taking a swing at his arresting officer if he thought it might be the dude who beat up Kimbo? And, as the Washington Post reports (in a wonderfully-headlined piece entitled "Beat Cops: Why the Police Are Becoming Some of the World's Toughest Fighters"), other police departments are hiring fighters to train officers in MMA-style techniques -- we smell a cost-saver! Alas, even as Kimbo campaigns for another crack at Gannon -- even going so far as to offer his left nut as an incentive -- the BPD has put a muzzle on its hero. Maybe it's trying to giving bloggers another excuse to dredge up the whole 'roid-rage scandal. Or maybe it just doesn't want another Herald front page like this one.

In fact, the BPD did suspend Gannon from duty for his fighting -- although not for fighting Kimbo Slice. Instead, as ESPN reports, Gannon was flagged in 2005, after his Kimbo infamy led him to take a sanctioned out-of-state UFC bout. The two-week suspension Gannon earned for that fight may actually have been a mercy mission: Gannon got his face smashed in during the course of being TKO'd in the first round.

None of that has stopped rematch talk from reaching a fever pitch. ESPN predicts that "when the money is right—and insiders expect an agreement by year's end—[Gannon will] hope for permission to meet Slice in the cage, arguing that Boston cops have received approval to box. If told no, Gannon faces a decision: fight and deal with the consequences, or quit his job and chase an MMA career."

June 04, 2008

Kimbo Slice vs. Boston Cop

Kimbo Slice vs. Boston Police officer Sean Gannon (2004)

We've smacked the Boston Police Department around a bit for its inability to solve a majority of the city's homicides, but let's give credit where credit is due: when it comes to unsanctioned, bare-knuckled, backroom beat-downs, the BPD can make a claim that no other department can: Boston's Finest have a record of 1-0 against Kimbo Slice.

As ESPN The Magazine reminded everyone in their Kimbo cover story this month, the only human ever to knock out the formerly homeless, ex-strip-club bouncer is active-duty Boston patrolman Sean Gannon, who beat Kimbo senseless during a blood-soaked 2004 brawl in a still-undisclosed location somewhere on the east coast. Such is Gannon's fame from the match that he's still a draw, even when he's not fighting: he's scheduled to sign autographs at a local WCF mixed-martial-arts contest in Wilmington on June 20.

The video of the Gannon/Kimbo Slice fight (see above) brings new meaning to the phrase "police brutality" -- although, to be fair, it's hard to tell who got the worst of it. Kimbo collapses first, but Gannon takes a vicious punishment. In Kimbo's defense, Gannon executes a couple of expertly-rendered knees to the face -- which, from the reaction of Slice's handlers, is apparently beneath contempt even in no-rules, bare-knuckle brawls. (Ironically, it's perfectly legal in accredited mixed-martial-arts -- Kimbo learned enough about the power of a good knee to jam a couple into the head of former boxing champ Ray Mercer, whom he felled in one of his televised MMA bouts.)

You would think that the BPD would be proud of its homegrown mauler, or at least cynical enough to use Gannon as a crime-prevention tool: after all, what petty burglar wouldn't think just a few seconds longer about taking a swing at his arresting officer if he thought it might be the dude who beat up Kimbo? And, as the Washington Post reports (in a wonderfully-headlined piece entitled "Beat Cops: Why the Police Are Becoming Some of the World's Toughest Fighters"), other police departments are hiring fighters to train officers in MMA-style techniques -- we smell a cost-saver! Alas, even as Kimbo campaigns for another crack at Gannon -- even going so far as to offer his left nut as an incentive -- the BPD has put a muzzle on its hero. Maybe it's trying to giving bloggers another excuse to dredge up the whole 'roid-rage scandal. Or maybe it just doesn't want another Herald front page like this one.

In fact, the BPD did suspend Gannon from duty for his fighting -- although not for fighting Kimbo Slice. Instead, as ESPN reports, Gannon was flagged in 2005, after his Kimbo infamy led him to take a sanctioned out-of-state UFC bout. The two-week suspension Gannon earned for that fight may actually have been a mercy mission: Gannon got his face smashed in during the course of being TKO'd in the first round.

None of that has stopped rematch talk from reaching a fever pitch. ESPN predicts that "when the money is right—and insiders expect an agreement by year's end—[Gannon will] hope for permission to meet Slice in the cage, arguing that Boston cops have received approval to box. If told no, Gannon faces a decision: fight and deal with the consequences, or quit his job and chase an MMA career."

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