What is the Most Remarkable Thing About Coming Home?

This blog is now for 12 year-olds by a 21 year-old. Thank You.

What Happened at That Furniture Store?

I have not presented information in quite some time. You, as a reader, are no doubt used to this, so I will forego apologies and excuses and get right to today’s Information, which is almost definitely of little or no concern to anyone outside of the Boston area.

Listen: here’s how this came about. Last Thursday an Associate and I did our best to make good on plans to see a certain wildly popular superhero movie in its larger, louder IMAX form. Doing this required making our way to the nearest IMAX equipped theater location, which, the internet told us, was also a furniture store, “Jordan’s Furniture.” No doubt your thoughts mimicked ours: “Wait. A furniture store?”

A furniture store.

So I activated Google Maps on my you-know-what phone and she unlocked the doors to her Lincoln Continental and we made our way, with relative ease, to the furniture store. With an IMAX theater.

An IMAX furniture store.

Listen: we had no clue what we were getting into, on a number of levels. First, from a purely conceptual standpoint - we had not had the foresight nor (at the time) the how-to knowledge to buy tickets beforehand, and so found ourselves faced with a blinking ‘sold out’ sign upon reaching the theater. But second, and more importantly, we were not adequately prepared for the theater itself. The theater, I hope you remember, is also a furniture store.

Now, if I were an eastern Massachusetts native, or if I watched local TV stations and their culturally-illuminating commercials for local establishments I might have been better prepared for Jordan’s Furniture. Things being what they are, I was not. So try to imagine how it felt to be faced with what I’m about to describe: a building the size of small stadium, clearly advertising itself as a containing within it a furniture store, IMAX theater, and a Fuddruckers. The side of the building also made clear that within it were held “liquid fireworks,” and a store called Beantown, as well as an ice cream parlor. The building itself, like an Escher drawing of an alien spacecraft, had managed to confound me both in its presentation and in its mere existence to begin with.

Despite being put off by the Fuddruckers, I was intrigued by the promise of liquid fireworks, and at this point was not yet aware that the movie we’d come to see was sold out, so we made haste into a furniture store, something I’d never have thought myself likely to do. Entrance was gained through an enormous revolving door, the kind that can hold about 5 people in each of its compartments, the kind I’ve only ever seen at the Cincinnati airport. A recording of a man with a New England accent warned us to be careful, since the door was apparently a dangerous contraption prone to slowing and stopping unpredictably. Once inside we were greeted by a woman wearing a headset and simultaneously assaulted by a myriad of strange impossible sights and disorienting sounds.

Listen: Jordan’s Furniture is an insane place. To the right of the front door was an auditorium sized room with a ceiling 50 feet high or more. Along the left side of this room was a counter beneath a large sign for Richardson’s Ice cream, featuring a staggering menu. The right wall of the room was covered in an enlargement of a photograph of the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge in front of the Boston Skyline. Along the wall was a metal framework of poles and columns, with cables above and netting below. A man on a trapeze hung by his knees and swung lazily back and forth, while a girl on a platform across from him was strapped into a harness before swinging out towards the upside-down man. The far wall appeared to be a kind of stage from which some classic piece of music was blaring. Jets of water, illuminated by spotlights above (and likely strobe lights below) shot up from the stage nearly to the ceiling, and did so in a complicated and choreographed manner. Liquid fireworks. Closer to the door was a small candy store specializing in Jelly Bellies, and around the room were enormous items constructed entirely from the candies. An entire garden tableau, for example. I do not have a photograph, and for that I apologize.

As exciting as all this was, we still expected to see a movie, and getting to the theater part of this outlandish location required us to walk through a kind of maze of long halls that ended with signs pointing the way to the theater. Naturally, these halls were tastefully lit with polished tile floors and neutral colored walls, as they served as Jordan’s Furniture’s labyrinthine showroom of dining room sets and king-sized beds. In order to reach the only aspect of this destination in which we originally had any interest, we had to walk through an entire furniture store stretched out into the form of a winding pathway instead of one enormous room. This fucking place is, first and foremost, a furniture store.

The movie, as I mentioned, was sold out, so we left after spending a little time examining the candy sculptures and watching the liquid fireworks. That is the end of the story.

I can’t think of anything perfect and well-understood with which to compare Jordan’s Furniture. The closest I can come is a Vegas casino, minus the gambling, and with more children. Both Jordan’s Furniture and those enormous terrible casinos elicited the same kind of Lovecraftian blend of confusion, awe, intrigue, and repulsion in me. I was drawn in by the bright lights and spectacles of liquid fireworks and IMAX, while being repelled by having to look at furniture and being near a Fuddruckers, the same way casinos throw entertainment and the false promise of riches at you, but you have to walk by the soul-crushing picture of hopelessness presented by the flocks of elderly women stationed at slot machines to get to the empty promises inside.

It was really Something.

What Is the Weather Doing Right Now (Special Video Edition)

These days it takes a lot of water to get me blogging.

What is it Like to go to Wal-Mart on Christmas Eve?

It’s probably not as bad as you’re imagining it to be. While malls and the like are swarmed with the hopelessly desperate and seasoned-out seasoners, the people you find at Wal-Mart forty minutes before it closes on Christmas eve are a quiet, doleful lot already resigned to their holiday failures. If the mob scene at malls are the war that ends the world, then the people at Wal-Mart the day before Christmas are the shuffling society that creeps out after the apocalypse. All the good food is long gone, and anything that could have ever been a bare necessity has been stripped from the shelves, like hurricane season in Florida. You can still find apple cider and deodorant though, so I came out ahead.

What is the Weather Doing Right Now #8 (Special Good-Emergency Update)

I know how it must make you feel to have to read two consecutive information-pieces about the weather, and I assure you that it will not become typical. This is a special instance in which the meteorological happenings of my immediate surroundings are of interest to those who find Good Information to be a worthwhile pursuit. This is because it is snowing outside.

It snowed earlier today, but it was not the good kind (like you want). Now it is the good kind, the kind that makes itself malleable for the purposes of projectiles and effigies and sliding down inclines. also, the massive amounts of light pollution that Boston generates - pollution that is usually wasted by being sent uninterrupted into space - is trapped under the clouds and must bounce around and among the aforementioned precipitation. The result of this is a night time that has more light than most 5 p.m.'s of late, but with no one discernible source. I have not felt this positive about the weather in a long, long time, and so felt it necessary to make note of it for posterity, as tomorrow in the wan overcast light of day these things will probably be ushered away by rain and warmth, turned to unlovable slush. That is the way of things.

[update]

Here is that picture of small snowpeople I promised (and you requested).



Here's the whole story...

Here is How Thanksgiving Went

If you’re wondering where I’ve been in the two plus weeks it’s been since I last transmitted Information I can finally tell you: I was on hiatus. This hiatus was special because it was a secret hiatus, and only I knew about it, and only I will ever know the reasons behind its existence. You should not trouble yourself with curiosities regarding those reasons and My Situations in general because such endeavors are pointless and boring.

This Thursday last saw another occurrence of the holiday known to most as Thanksgiving (and known to certain characters from films from true stories as Pranksgiving*), and as is the Donovan Family Tradition we did all we could to not make much of it. The holiday was notable this year for being (I think) the first time all 4 members of the immediate family were not present. My brother (of whose existence I must once again remind and assure you) allegedly spent the holiday in Maine with Some Lady, whose existence I am willing to put up for debate (see what I did there?). Despite this, my parents (whose love for one another becomes less detectable every day) and I did all we could to spend the hallowed day watching things and eating things. The curious reader will ask “what did you watch?” and the reader who is unfamiliar with me and my Ways will ask “what did you eat?” I can answer both of these questions succinctly: “No Country for Old Men,” and “turkey and some biscuits and that’s about it,” respectively. Had I the energy to regale you with reviews of No Country… as well as the other films I’ve seen in the past two weeks I would, but instead I will tell you, in the unlikely event that you didn’t already know, that the Coen brother’s new movie is the best thing you’ll see this year and deserves to win Best Everything. I know how prone I am to superlatives and hyperbole (superbole? get it? Is this pun good or awful?), but this time I am not exaggerating. Honestly. On the opposite end of things, if you’re interested in reading about the worst movie of 2007 you can go here to read a review written mostly by me and credited entirely to someone else for reasons that are not worth going into.

I am almost certain that other things happened, but as far as their worth in terms of being shared as Information is concerned the opportunity cost of writing it all out is less than the returns you or I would get from being able to read it at any given time. What was most important about Thanksgiving break was my return to a state of childlike wonder and adolescent sedentariness in the puffy white-gloved hands of Super Mario Galaxy. If you want to know how many hours over the course of 3 days I spent in front of the television with that remote in my hand I will not lie: more than twelve. Now, upon a successful return to the frigid reality of a semester at its close, and all the work and terror inherent within, the decision to guide a rotund plumber through space in lieu of making headway on a number of assignments might seem like a mistake. It wasn’t, though. I do not make those, and it was worth it, maybe.




*this joke not worth explaining if you aren’t already in on its subtle punch-lines

Here are 657 Words About Who Knows What

You might find that this information deviates from the fare normally found here in this needless and needlessly vague and scattered blog. That is because this is a season finale, and as is typical for such affairs all the stops have been summarily pulled out and set aside for later use. Tomorrow I am expected to be conscious and appropriately dressed in a stuffy room at no later than 9 a.m. so that the finer points (and likely most other points) of socialization can be explained to me over the course of two-and-a-half hours every week, in a format that remains – this point – undisclosed. All the beach balls and sparkling cold drinks are being packed away to make room for the thick sweaters and bottles of antidepressants whose respective warmths are sure to be imminently necessary. So.

Here is that reflection on this year’s summer you requested.

Maybe this will not be the information you want at all. Nevertheless, I will present it to you in the form of paragraphs with diction and sentence structure the likes of which nobody ever needs expose themselves to. We here at The Place started the summer sleeping on bare mattresses in hatefully stifling rooms, living like ghosts, occasionally waking up with stomachs full of blood. When we were finally admitted to our proper residence it was unclear whether or not things actually planned on improving. Boxes and garbage bags heavy with personal effects sat on bare floors waiting for furniture and organization to take their rightful places in the Place. There was nowhere to sit, to sleep, to eat, to launder clothes. I spent time in a computer lab being re-taught the basic to intermediate-basics of the monster named statistics. I woke up with ants on me sometimes. I went swimming just once, and indoors. I failed to visit the most proximal ocean. Then that was over with, time passed, I started offering information here, and the days continued.

There were times of progress: the addition and immediate failure of laundry facilities, the possession of a bed, a desk, two typewriters (that I promise to give you information about someday, honest), new shoes, carbonated beverages and at least one airplane safety card. As near as I can tell personal growth was slim to none, and financial growth was of an inverted nature. At some point it seems like everyone got much quieter, and there was talk of serious matters in strained voices heard through walls and satellites. No easily pegged or overarching theme of the season made itself apparent, and despite living like some kind of almost-grown-up for the first time in Ever, very little about my information has changed, making this the summer of the status quo. I did not make any new lasting friends, but no bridges were incinerated throughout the season’s course. Things weren’t stagnant, their pace was simply glacial, their net gains and dividends as yet invisible from such a short distance.

Now it seems like things are happening every day. The reappearance of people I missed more than I was probably even aware of, the disappearance of people whose absences were unforeseen and more unsettling than expected. A conversation that did a little new good to a lot of vintage bad, and the annexation of necessary furniture and an unnecessary but hopefully functional fog machine. I promise to let you know about the fog machine. Looks like we made it.
Now though, it is time to go to sleep in preparation for the rude awakening of academic responsibilities the complete disappearance of the nauseating sentimentality with which this information you’ve just read is so uncharacteristically imbued. Everyone should write down a goal they hope to accomplish in the coming season. Write it down on notebook paper, fold it into quarters, and label it like this:



Don’t sign or date it. Leave it somewhere that it will be found by someone who couldn’t possibly know you.

Here is Part Two

Of the illustrated guide to the trip I took to this country's upper west side.





As a bonus I have included a picture of an island that looks alarmingly like a Normal Curve:

Here is Part One

Of the Illustrated Guide to My Trip to Alaska on an Environmentally Hostile Cruise Ship




You will almost certainly have to click it in order to read it, and there will almost certainly be more of these to follow. In other news: hello, it is nice to be back in America Proper.

What Happened With That All Night Bakery

Well, it definitely exists. Getting there requires a car and a fair amount of patience, especially if the driver is unable to understand the concept of getting off at exit 24B-A on 93 South after crossing the ZBH Bridge. It was an important part of getting to the bakery. Navigational problems continued to arise as we found ourselves at the intersection of Atlantic Ave. and Atlantic Ave. Am I joking about this? No, I am not.



Everything worked out eventually though. The bakery has a sign that explains that it is open 24 hours a day. One enters the bakery through a door, and once inside it becomes apparent that the business has many baked wares to sell.

Yes, they have canolis.

Here is that Simple Arithmetic I Did Yesterday

Yesterday I went out walking (I don’t do too much talking these days), and before I knew what I was doing I wound up on the banks of the Charles between Harvard and Central.



I found myself surrounded by a significant number of partially-clothed sunbathing people and, consequently, a meager amount of math. Here, I will give you that simple math data:

Ratio of Attractive Women in Bikinis to Hideous Men in Terrible Athletic Shorts 1:3.667

This is the main piece of information that stood out to me, not only because it directly influenced my ability to enjoy the walk along the river, but also because it brought up a lot of evolutionary questions, questions that I do not feel like thinking about or posing here.

Feel free to check my work

Here is That Picture of a 3-legged Cat

...That I took with my phone almost three months ago.



It is one of the friendliest cats I have come across, and it belongs to one of the many Sarahs I know. That is a book of short stories by Etgar Keret nearby.


Here is a special bonus picture of what O'Hare International Airport looks like when you are in a pretty serious hurry.



Someday: probably many entries just about airports and just about cats (no more about both, though).

Here is Why I am Glad that Pigeon was Ground into Paste

For awhile now a couple of pigeons have been calling the upstairs front porch and its nearby roof-areas home. At no time have I been okay with this. The pigeons make noise constantly, especially in the morning when the sun is up and I am supposed to be asleep. There is a constant cooing murmur, along with scuffling noises that come from an inexplicable desire the birds have to root around and mess with what may or may not be a hole in the Place’s roof. I hate these birds. Others seem to have opinions much closer to 'neutral' on the matter of these birds. That is not what is important right now. What is important is that a smashed pigeon appeared on the road this morning, the corpse so fresh that it sent up feathers every time a car drove by or over it. I am certain that this is one of the two problematic birds I have been loathing for the past month. I am glad it is not alive anymore. I imagine the surviving bird will have to move somewhere else in order to escape whatever grief for which its minute and primitive brain has the capacity. Good. Quiet

Here Is that Picture of Ironically Placed Subway Ads You Requested