Allow me to recount for you a scenario at the Starbucks in the MIT Stata Center.
The woman in front of me orders a toasted bagel. Then she sends it back to have it toasted again -- "I like it really dark." As it's going through the Starbucks Bagel Toaster (tm), half of the bagel catches fire. The worker notices, snuffs the flames, and prepares to throw away the resulting carbonized mass. The woman says, "How does it look? Oh, I'll take that." At this, the woman behind me chirps in, "That can't be any good for you." I add, "Well, it's just carbon." The man two places back contributes, "Carbon can't hurt you, it's inert." I then turn to the woman behind me and say, "Yeah -- that's what they give you if you digest something toxic: carbon powder -- like purified charcoal."
I know a don't win any debate awards for that one, but the story continues.
While we, the waiting customers kbitz and discuss the effects of carbon on the digestive system, the worker has toasted another bagel, and this second bagel has also caught on fire. The first woman, tired of waiting, just takes the less burned halves of the two bagels and prepares to leave Starbucks @ Stata. Of course, the woman behind me has to add, "I just can't see how eating something like that can be good from a macrobiotic perspective." To which the man two heads back replies in an irritated fashion, "Nothing from Starbucks can be considered healthy from a macrobiotic perspective. Just look at it."
By then I had my coffee, so I left. I love it here.
Friday, October 29, 2004
Thursday, October 21, 2004
Executive Summary
From: "Rhialto M."
Subject: Fwd: re: red sox riots
---------- Forwarded Message -----------
Mom, you sent me this clip from the Globe:
> In a delirious reaction to an unprecedented comeback, millions of New
> Englanders erupted in joy early this morning as the Boston Red Sox
> stormed past the New York Yankees to seize the team's first pennant
> since 1986.
I was there. Flash grenades went off tens of feet from me, sending
hundreds and hundreds of people running in all directions. The riot
police shot at me with rubber bullets and stood shoulder to shoulder in
big lines with their body armor and shields to block off streets. We
videotaped them clubbing people across the back and interviewed a guy
who was clubbed in the face and lost a tooth. We watched some kids tip
a car 90 degrees so it stood on its side, and leave it there. And we
were just down the block when some other people filled random car with
newspaper and set it on fire because it had New York plates and a Jeter
shirt hanging confrontationally in the windows. In sixty seconds the
fireball towered over the crowd. Later we went back to the smoking
remains and dug a dozen charred baseballs and softballs out of the
wreckage and tossed them to awed bystanders. While we were doing that,
at least two dozen cops howled by on motorcycles in loose formation. We
were on our bikes, cruising around Fenway and Kenmore Square,
coordinating via cellphone.
The way I look at it, it's a trainer for future political riots.
The entire evening, I think the only words that came out of my mouth
were 'YAAAAAAAAAAA!!! RED SOX!!!! YANKEES SUCK!!!!!' and 'Are there
cops that way?' We forgot what we were celebrating exactly. There was
an overwhelming sense of unity and brotherhood. You knew immediately,
automatically, and beyond question that the people to the left and
right of you -- young or old, prep, hick, townie, big white thug, big
black thug, gangster, or wide-eyed BU student -- people who would never
talk in waking life, except for awkward drug transactions -- had your
back, would go to bat for you, and strived as a team toward the same
glorious cause and goal: overwhelming the fucking riot pigs, setting
their motorcycles on fire, and smashing store windows. And then taking
self-incriminating pictures with their obnoxious little cell phone
cameras.
Burning Man is basically the same thing, except without the riot
police, and you have to be careful not to litter.
Safely,
Your dutiful son
ps. Mom, we all agreed that the car tipping and public arson was going
a little too far.
------- End of Forwarded Message -------
Subject: Fwd: re: red sox riots
---------- Forwarded Message -----------
Mom, you sent me this clip from the Globe:
> In a delirious reaction to an unprecedented comeback, millions of New
> Englanders erupted in joy early this morning as the Boston Red Sox
> stormed past the New York Yankees to seize the team's first pennant
> since 1986.
I was there. Flash grenades went off tens of feet from me, sending
hundreds and hundreds of people running in all directions. The riot
police shot at me with rubber bullets and stood shoulder to shoulder in
big lines with their body armor and shields to block off streets. We
videotaped them clubbing people across the back and interviewed a guy
who was clubbed in the face and lost a tooth. We watched some kids tip
a car 90 degrees so it stood on its side, and leave it there. And we
were just down the block when some other people filled random car with
newspaper and set it on fire because it had New York plates and a Jeter
shirt hanging confrontationally in the windows. In sixty seconds the
fireball towered over the crowd. Later we went back to the smoking
remains and dug a dozen charred baseballs and softballs out of the
wreckage and tossed them to awed bystanders. While we were doing that,
at least two dozen cops howled by on motorcycles in loose formation. We
were on our bikes, cruising around Fenway and Kenmore Square,
coordinating via cellphone.
The way I look at it, it's a trainer for future political riots.
The entire evening, I think the only words that came out of my mouth
were 'YAAAAAAAAAAA!!! RED SOX!!!! YANKEES SUCK!!!!!' and 'Are there
cops that way?' We forgot what we were celebrating exactly. There was
an overwhelming sense of unity and brotherhood. You knew immediately,
automatically, and beyond question that the people to the left and
right of you -- young or old, prep, hick, townie, big white thug, big
black thug, gangster, or wide-eyed BU student -- people who would never
talk in waking life, except for awkward drug transactions -- had your
back, would go to bat for you, and strived as a team toward the same
glorious cause and goal: overwhelming the fucking riot pigs, setting
their motorcycles on fire, and smashing store windows. And then taking
self-incriminating pictures with their obnoxious little cell phone
cameras.
Burning Man is basically the same thing, except without the riot
police, and you have to be careful not to litter.
Safely,
Your dutiful son
ps. Mom, we all agreed that the car tipping and public arson was going
a little too far.
------- End of Forwarded Message -------
