Jarrett House North: Boston

Opening Day, very early in the morning

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 19:28:27 GMT

New York Times: Red Sox Top A's, 6-5, in Tokyo Opener. For the curious, no, I did not get out of bed at 5:30 to watch the opener. I did, however, tune into the game on AM radio—something I haven’t ever used on my car before—on the way in to work, to hear that the As were up in the seventh inning.

Yes indeed: daytime temps nearing 50, the Red Sox are back in action, and it’s still light when I drive home from work. Must be spring.<?p>

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 16:51:08 GMT

I was all set to post my favorite Irish-relevant Muppet sketch—Animal, the Swedish Chef, and Beaker singing “Danny Boy”—until the coffee kicked in and I remembered I had already done it.

Ah well. If you’re in a maudlin mood, check out Eva Cassidy’s rendition.

Where are my feet?

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:37:32 GMT

It’s cold, cold, cold here today. Really unsettled weather over the weekend; it went from somewhat reasonable and sunny on Saturday to rainy and thundersnowing on Sunday. Twice we went out shopping in clear weather only to look out the window inside the store and see lightning and heavy, wet horizontal snow whipping across the parking lot. The winds were high and blew in 6° air from somewhere. It was too cold even for the dogs to walk, and that’s saying something.

Boston gets philosophy again

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 16:36:59 GMT

As Dave Winer would say, it’s philosophy time for Patriots Nation. What a heartbreaker of a game last night. But it was that rare Superbowl, one that was exciting to watch from beginning to end, and for that I thank both the Patriots and the Giants.

Yeah, I thank the Giants. Now maybe Brady can get his feet back on the ground and his head back to the game. I think the last two weeks of preemptive crowning of the team in the media were not good for the play last night.

I’m really grateful to the Pats, too, who gave us an amazing ride all season long. I don’t expect to see this kind of season again, but now I’ll always hope.

Ice cream may, in fact, be eternal

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 04:57:48 GMT

When the New York Times writes about the near-demise and miraculous return from tax-evasion death of a Cambridge, MA ice-cream maker, you know there’s something special going on. And, in fact, there is.

To my astonishment, in the nearly seven years of this blog I’ve only written about Toscanini’s once, in conjunction with last year’s Ig Nobel awards. But my roots with Toscanini’s go back right to 2000, to almost the day I first set foot on MIT’s campus, where at the time there was a Tosci’s under the entry stairs at the west campus student center, one in Central Square, and one in the same block just south of Harvard Square as the stationery store. They had basil ice cream. Basil ice cream. Like the pure essence of Italian summer, like back yard gardens, like pure golden-green herbal explosions in your mouth. I was instantly hooked.

I only tasted basil ice cream twice, but there were other flavors. Green tea. Guinness, of course. And khulfee and burnt caramel and all the other spectacular flavors that they had. Completely unlike every other ice cream that there ever was.

With the Atlantic opening up their paywall, you get a little better sense of how good it really was. Ice Cream for Beginners - 00.06 describes the origins of burnt caramel, and a little of the creative atmosphere of the place. As well as how he might have gotten into the tax problems in the first place: the bit about Adam Simha wandering into the kitchen to filch ingredients probably raised no eyebrows in the happy-go-lucky creative late 90s but makes me wonder now how many other employees thought of Tosci’s as their own version of Andy Warhol’s Factory, or their Stop’n’Shop.

But all of this pales at the thought that I might be able to taste basil ice cream again. Perhaps I ought to drop Gus Rancatore a line. Right now, he might be susceptible to special requests.

New York to Boston: Winnahs (ssh!)

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:33:30 GMT

I think the New York Times is getting a little ahead of itself by preemptively declaring Boston a city with three winning teams. Someone touch wood, quick.

Of course, the article is “balanced” enough to include the dismal history of our teams. Two favorite passages: “Last spring, the team was accused of losing games on purpose so it could finish with the N.B.A.’s worst record and increase its chances of landing the No. 1 or 2 pick in the draft. The Celtics botched that, too” and “The Patriots’ history has been the most pathetic. Beyond frequent 3-13 seasons, their first true home, Schaefer Stadium, opened in 1971 with massive toilet overflows and barely improved thereafter.”

End of an era

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 19:49:49 GMT

I knew we hadn’t been back in the North End very often, but what really brought it home was calling the phone number at our butcher and finding that it was no longer in service. A quick Google search confirmed the worst: Frank Susi, owner of the Abruzzese Meat Market on Salem Street, had to retire earlier this year and the shop is now closed.

To say this is culinary devastation would be an understatement. As this blog testifies, sausages and pancetta from Frank’s store were major ingredients in our lives for many years. On at least one occasion, I flew the pancetta back to Seattle with me when we were living there. And there will be no fresh cotechino for New Years this year.

At least I’ve learned that Frank’s legacy lives on, literally, in his son, Anthony, who runs Sage (which has apparently moved to the South End). Who knew?

The bonus pic is from National Geographic’s “zip code” visit a few years back to the North End, and captures Frank as I remember him: jovial, and with a very sharp knife in one hand and fresh meat in the other.

Another day, another 2-3 inches

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 20:35:09 GMT

You know, I really should stop being surprised when the snow falls continuously. It is Boston in December, after all. But I’m a little bit in awe of the continuous snowfall we’re getting right now on top of the 11 inches we got a week ago and the nice ice storm we got last Sunday. I want to ask, “Is this really necessary?”

The continued snowfall makes something like the Snowscoop, just highlighted today on the Hardware Aisle blog at This Old House, look really attractive to me.

Pops, done

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 17:32:49 GMT

For me, at least. Because we’re driving to New Jersey on Saturday for the Christmas holidays, I frontloaded my concert schedule and finished my personal Pops run last night with two back to back concerts. The 4 pm concert was the better of the two for me personally, and I think for the team as a whole; we were all fresh, having had a day off since our Sunday morning and afternoon concerts, and our concentration was good. The result was a luminous rendition of Rutter’s “What Sweeter Music” (which rises substantially in my estimation with a full string section behind it) and of the Vaughan Williams Fantasia on Christmas Carols. The second show was weaker in the first half—a few minor glitches that threw off the concentration of the chorus—but stronger in the second, where audience response to the Twelve Days medley made a big difference.

Two explanatory notes:

There are something like 33 home performances of the Holiday Pops concert, and even if the Tanglewood Festival Chorus were all full time choristers (which we’re not), we couldn’t possibly sing all the shows without developing a mass outbreak of laryngitis and vocal nodules. So we take 250 voices and split them up into five or so teams. I sing on the Purple Team, and we had a run of six or seven shows.
The program at Holiday Pops is typically structured with a more serious first half and a more “fun” second half. This year the first half was not only serious but strikingly good from a choral repertoire perspective, with the usual “Holiday Fanfare” (on Hark the Herald Angels Sing) and the “Hallelujah Chorus” being supplemented by the aforementioned Rutter and Vaughan Williams pieces, and by a suite from the sublime Amahl and the Night Visitors. The second half kicks off this year with a massive jazzy, brassy take on Joy to the World, is followed by the indignity that is “Light One Candle,” then “Sleigh Ride,” “Twelve Days,” the traditional Night Before Christmas, the “Santa Medley” (featuring the full-choir arrangement of “Santa Baby” which the Globe review compares to being seduced by a pro wrestler(!)), a singalong, and two encores. All the pieces on the second half benefit from audience feedback, and we know the crowd is going to be good when we hear them reacting to the early jokes in “Twelve Days.” Last night the crowd was clearly primed and had repeat listeners in it, as some joker in the crowd called out “Excellent!” when Keith announced the number—a reference to the appearance of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” made famous to current listeners of course by the “excellent” Wayne’s World movie, in one of the later days.

All in all, I think I had more fun at Pops this year than I’ve had in the past. But I’m still glad it’s done!

Hanging out after the morning Pops performance

Tim Jarrett — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 21:06:03 GMT

I'm posting this on the iPhone from the Uno's across from Symphony Hall. The morning matinee was well attended considering the weather. I had to shovel about six inches of snow before I could get to the car, and had to take Lisa's Highlander to get through the mostly unplowed roads.

But now I'm warm and dry, with a concert under my belt, free wifi, and the Patriots. Not too shabby.

Snowbound

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 05:05:31 GMT

I had to take care of sick family this morning, so I went into the office late. I left early on account of the threat of snow, and made my last grocery run on the way home. It was 1 pm when I left the grocery store, and the snow was just starting to come down. By the time I got out of the Trader Joe’s (the last stop), there was a 2-inch snow buildup on my car.

It got deeper from there. When I started the snowblower at 4:45, as the snow seemed to be slackening, we had about 6 inches. I think we’ve gotten another 5 since then.

At least this is nice powdery stuff—though that means it has already drifted our sidewalks… but at least it’s easy to shovel.

Ice dream

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 17:01:48 GMT

I woke up and went downstairs to look out the window, expecting to see new snow from last night’s expected storm. The sidewalks were black and looked wet, and I thought, ice. I put my boots on, put on the dogs’ collars, and stepped outside. Two steps down the brick walkway and then… the dogs pulled me down the sidewalk like I was on skates. Oof.

Fortunately there is some time until I have to get to Symphony Hall for the opening of the Pops rehearsal. Yes, it’s that time…

French Toast alert: Yellow

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 18:32:48 GMT

AdamG at Universal Hub coins what I believe is a new term: the French Toast Alert System, which shows the urgency of your need to run to the store to buy milk, eggs, and bread to wait out a coming snowfall. Heh. Be sure to read the comments where the system is defined.

And yes, it looks like it will snow on my birthday.

UPDATE: Live French Toast Advisory System Alertbox!!!

Boston Globe Good Will Hunting retrospective omits Elliott Smith

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 19:15:20 GMT

Which, you know, kinda sucks, since Elliott’s music was pretty pivotal to the whole movie, and it really launched him past hipster obscurity to a wider audience. So let’s do the retrospective:

Elliott Smith left the band Heatmiser in 1994 because he was tired of having all his songs played like big rock songs, and went on to become a solo act specializing in whispered lyrics and acoustic arrangements as harrowing as anything Heatmiser ever did.
Gus Van Sant tapped Elliott for the soundtrack, presumably based on familiarity with his work from their joint residence in Portland.
The movie was a surprise hit and Elliott ended up playing “Miss Misery” at the Oscars.
Elliott released two albums on Dreamworks.
Elliott got addicted (or his addiction worsened) to alcohol and other hard drugs (heroin, crack, you name it). He went into a downward spiral, and ultimately was found dead stabbed through the heart. The death was ruled a suicide.

Not as cheery as talking about Matt Damon, but just as significant a follow-up to the movie. I don’t know if Elliott would have burned up as fast as he did without the sudden fame the movie brought, but it seems pretty clear that it contributed to his issues.

Signage wars

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 00:46:51 GMT

An article in yesterday’s Globe triggered one of my fortunately rare moments of anger at the greater Boston metropolitan area where I live. The anger came toward the end of an article about poor, confusing, and absent road signs throughout the area:

Since 2001, state Senator Patricia D. Jehlen has been sponsoring legislation that would force communities to post signs at intersections, but the bill has gone nowhere. The Massachusetts Municipal Association opposes it as a costly burden that takes the decision away from communities.

Um. Excuse me? What decision are you taking away from communities? Is it the decision to do their jobs? Because really, if you build the roads but don’t put up the signs, why did you bother?

Clue for you, folks. Massachusetts has a high per capita income ($44,289) and a high rate of taxation (5.3%), while Washington State is lower on both fronts ($35,409 and no state income tax). But Washington State manages to actually post signs on all its streets! So does Virginia ($38,390/2% to 5.75%); so does North Carolina ($30,553/6%-8%). What is the state doing with the money it takes in income tax that it can’t afford to put up the damned signs itself, or grant money to the local communities?

Actually, this puts another question to my mind. If a local community can’t afford to put up street signs, and can’t keep residential streets paved or maintain storm sewers, then the system is broken. Either the towns need to build up their tax bases or small towns need to combine and consolidate services so they aren’t trying to each maintain their own systems. Or the state could get off its ass and make sure the municipalities have what they need to serve their people.

Halloween is Everyday

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 04:19:55 GMT

Alas, tis true—if you aren’t trick or treating or taking someone out trick or treating, the holiday is over way too soon. It was a pretty quiet day at the office followed by a relatively small parade of trick or treaters. (Favorites: the neighborhood “math kid” (he was Pi a few years ago) as the Pythagorean Triples, and the middle school kid wearing the halo, black leotard, and black wings, who announced herself as the “goth angel.”)

It’s a good thing I don’t live on this block. I have to believe that the trick or treat traffic at Youk’s place would be a lot heavier.

You know the Sox have won the Series...

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 16:49:02 GMT

...when greater Boston traffic goes completely and utterly to Hell the next morning. I swear, I spent 70 minutes just on the 10 miles of Rt. 2 between my home and 128, thanks to the four separate fender-benders I ran into.

I didn’t stay up for the end, and thus missed Colorado’s runs... and A-Rod’s hogging the spotlight. Dude, I think you could have picked some other night to announce that you are taking your punk ass to the market. You’d think that you would at least have waited until a few days after Red Sox pitcher (pitcher!) Daisuke Matsuzaka blew away your post-season RBI record...

And the reaction the day after?

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 02:24:41 GMT

The Onion: Terry Francona Announces Josh Beckett Will Start Games 1, 4, 7, 2, 6, 3, 5. In that order, of course, so that he can rest between games.

Heh.

My favorite take on the game last night had to be Fark’s Game One thread, which featured pix of poor overmatched Rox pitcher Jeff Francis with the caption, “Dude, he’s 12.”

I’m not planning to blog the whole Series…

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 03:29:22 GMT

But I like the way we’re starting: three up, three down from Beckett. He steps off the plate; the TV (and maybe in Fenway, I don’t know) plays the Pixies’ “Here Comes Your Man.” Which has to be a first for MLB.

Then Padroia steps up, and whaddaya know? Home run. Then Youk gets a double, and Manny singles him in.

You know what, folks? We are downright spoiled.

I just hope they can play the game. The “drizzle” looks pretty heavy from here.

What's that? or, Car envy

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:36:21 GMT

One of my neighbors was selling a Mitsubishi 3000 recently. I thought, “How nice, he’s outgrown fast cars.” Not so fast. Lisa pointed out a new car in his driveway when we were out on a walk, saying, “I think he got a classic Porsche.”

A closer look told me it was no Porsche (though the hatchback/fastback made it look a little like a 911 from the rear), but what it was was a little more obscure. Definitely a British sports car: right-hand drive, and the original British plate was still on the vehicle under its Mass. plate. But what model? Then I saw him start to back it out of the driveway, and it hit me. I told my wife, “I think that’s an Aston Martin—the James Bond car.”

I got a closer look as we went by. Sunroof with a cloth top, the famous winged Aston Martin logo on the back, gunmetal gray paint. I memorized the lines as best I could and went home to look it up. I was unfortunately unable to do the check that day, as that’s when the stomach flu that grounded me for much of the weekend into yesterday kicked in. But I looked it up today, and my neighbor is driving an Aston Martin DB Mark III. It is the James Bond car, but not the one that appears in the film. When Ian Fleming wrote the novel Goldfinger, he had Bond driving a DB Mark III, but this was upgraded to Aston Martin’s latest DB 5 when the film of Goldfinger was made.

As a longtime British car fan (I grew up with my dad’s project car, a 1967 MGB that he rebuilt or fixed from the chassis up, and drove my own 1977 MGB, his second project car, until an unfortunate carburetor fire), I am extremely jealous. Oh, to be in a small, potentially unsafe vehicle again, low to the ground, loud, and responsive...

Putting James Levine in his place

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 03:13:07 GMT

Last night I came home from the second of three performances of Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé with the BSO (the third is tomorrow night at Carnegie Hall), and stopped on the way to pick up eggs and bread for breakfast. Since the concert went until after 10 and I live in Arlington, it was almost 11 when I pulled into the Stop’n’Shop on Mass Ave and went looking for my groceries, still wearing my tux.

The place was pretty empty—it closes at midnight—and the only people there were the stock workers and the clerks, one of whom had to put away his soda when I walked up to his line. He started ringing up my stuff with a straight face—pretty good feat, considering I was in full formal attire—and then said, with no preamble, “I’ve never worn a tux…all my friends got married fifteen years ago now and I never had to wear a tux for any of their weddings.”

I said, deciding for some reason not to disclose to this random stranger that I had been singing in the performance, “Well, you could always go to Symphony Hall.”

“Oh yeah!” he said, brightening. “Is that where you were?” I nodded, and he asked, “So who was the guest tonight?”

The guest. Ah yeah. Thanks to years of marketing, the only thing most people remember about the classical performances are the guest stars. I knew the pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet had played, but rather than butcher his name, I said, “No guest tonight, just the regular symphony and chorus.”

“Cool,” he said. And then, “So what’s that Keith Lockhart like, anyhow?”

I replied with a straight face, “Amazing,” and beat it before I started cracking up.

And yes, before you say anything, I am of course part of the problem by laughing at this guy rather than informing him of the existence of James Levine. But there is a time and a place for that kind of conversation, and it’s not after 11 PM in the check-out line of a Stop’n’Shop.

Rob Crawford for President of Red Sox Nation

Tim Jarrett — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 04:12:16 GMT

Regular Guy Rob Crawford is running for President of Red Sox Nation. Once you get past some of the aggressive populism of his candidacy, he reveals himself as a candidate with some seriously good ideas for making the Red Sox accessible to all:

Have you ever had a conversation with someone that revealed to you that the other person’s life would be deeply touched by tickets to a Red Sox game? And you knew that if you owned season tickets, you would give that four tickets right there on the spot? Perhaps their spouse, who is a huge Red Sox, is in the final stages of terminal cancer, and tickets would enable him to say "goodbye” to Fenway. Or perhaps she's a single mother with three kids who’s struggling to make ends meet and could never conceive of taking her family to a game. The Red Sox Angels program would put season tickets into the hands of Red Sox Angels across New England who would go through their daily lives looking and listening for people to give their tickets away to…
My second idea to improve ticket access is called, Sox Tix for Kids.
Almost no season ticket holder actually attends every Red Sox home game, and almost every season ticket holder would love to donate at least one game’s tickets to a group of children who have never attended a game at Fenway, have no access to tickets to Fenway, but really want to go to a game at Fenway. I envision a program that asks season ticket holders, on their season ticket renewal form, to donate one or more games’ tickets to the Sox Tix for Kids program…

That in and of itself gets my vote. And by the way—the Red Sox Angels idea is a pretty nifty example of grace in action. Not a bad follow-up for the son of the head pastor emeritus of Old South Church… a man who, himself, used to write poems to each of the principals of his kids’ schools at the beginning of each school year, apologizing in advance for the hooky that they would be playing to catch home games. And Rob’s regular blog is pretty darned good reading too. (Subscribed.)

Check out Rob’s blog and comment on it—by doing so, you vote for good sense, good grace, and a good fan for president of the Nation.

Watching TV from miles away

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 20:21:40 GMT

Universal Hub: Now that’s a wide-screen TV. Looks like WGBH is going to get into the lit advertisement space with a VERY large (30'x45') outdoor display. Visions of 25' tall Ernies aside, it looks like you won’t actually be able to watch television on the display; it’ll show a different image each day.

That relieves me of having to make the obligatory hifi comment, but I’ll make it anyway: with every TV in the world moving to 16x9, why on earth would they deploy a 3x2 TV instead? I could almost understand 4x3, but 3x2 is just puzzling.

More info about the ~~Jumbotron~~ LED mural can be found on WGBH.com’s design pages for their new building.

Doc in the house?

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 03:33:05 GMT

First, congratulations to Cluetrainer, Linux Journal editor, and Berkman Center fellow Doc Searls on hitting his swingin’ 60s. Second, I feel like I should welcome him to the neighborhood—though he hasn’t settled in yet, he reports he was looking at apartments in Ahlington yesterday.

Doc, if you do take an apartment here, we’ll have to have you over to the park for the best views of Boston.

Harry Potter and the Cantabrigians

Tim Jarrett — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 03:43:12 GMT

After a long week, Lisa and I headed down to Harvard Square tonight to take in the Pottermania. We’re both a little too old, now, and have too many other responsibilities to stand in line until midnight to get a copy of The Deathly Hallows, so ours will arrive from Amazon sometime tomorrow. (And I will get to read it by the end of next week, if I’m lucky—Lisa has dibs.)

But we enjoyed watching the chaos. Coming into the Square past the Coop, the crowds of college students waiting for the doors to reopen at midnight were substantial; fortunately for my eyes, few wore costumes, though there were more than a few Gryffindor scarves in evidence. Walking from Eliot Street to the Harvard Bookstore along the back roads, we saw a little more cosplay, most perfectly safe (though the college age girls in school uniforms and plaid short skirts were a little much).

The Kendall Band no more?

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 03:31:46 GMT

Der Spatchel points out that the Kendall Band, an interactive musical sculpture in the Kendall Square T station, is not functioning because the T can’t afford to maintain it. While I can sympathize with the T—when I was at Sloan, the piece seemed to be inoperative as often as it worked—it seems a shame for the single nicest feature of any T station to go mute. Particularly since it is right outside MIT.

I had no idea that the piece was by a descendant of Henri Matisse—or that Paul Matisse had other sonic artworks throughout the city. I’m particularly tickled by this description of the musical fence: “Its immense popularity proved problematic, however, in the urban environment. Passers-by played the fence at all hours, causing its relocation to the less residential environment of the DeCordova Sculpture Park.”

Busy week for conferences in Boston

Tim Jarrett — Sat, 26 May 2007 02:49:36 GMT

Next week is shaping up to be interesting for those of us in the Boston area who care about the direction of the Internet. First, there’s the O’Reilly Ignite session (an evening of networking, speakers, five-minute elevator pitches, and more). Then the next day, the Berkman Center hosts the 2007 Internet and Society Conference, on the topic of how universities stay relevant in the face of the erosion of traditional, hierarchical ways of structuring and mediating knowledge. Berkman fellow David Weinberger, whose Everything is Miscellaneous I just completed reading in the airport Legal Seafoods, should have some interesting things to say about the topic. Nice to see, too, that some other familiar faces, including Doc Searls, Dan Gillmor, and Jessamyn West, will be in attendance.

Gee, if I didn’t have to ship a product at the end of June, I’d be taking some serious vacation time next week.

Spring a-sprung

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 09 May 2007 03:33:01 GMT

Down in New Jersey this weekend for Lisa’s dad’s birthday. Thirty-one guests in a small two bedroom condo on the shore = party.

Back in Massachusetts: warm springlike days and nights. In from the grill, I smell like a bratwurst. There are worse fates. Our lawn is about to bite me.

Hiring again.

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 17:06:28 GMT

I once again have an opening for a pre-sales engineer at my firm, iET Solutions. Details on our website and on Craigslist.

We’re a pretty exciting place to be right now—a consistently profitable company in the IT Service Management and CMDB space. Not only are we growing, we’re also making some big product investments, so Presales is going to be a critical part of the success of taking those to the market.

If selling isn’t your thing, we also have consulting and support positions open. If you’d like to discuss the job position further, just contact me.

Diebold: Why aren’t you content to be assimilated?

Tim Jarrett — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 03:10:29 GMT

Boston Globe: Voting device pact at issue. The municipal election in Arlington today raised this article to my attention. Voting machines by AutoMARK, which use a touchscreen to produce a paper ballot as part of a disabled voter assistance measure, were in use in some precincts in Arlington today. And Diebold would have liked to stop them: they’ve filed suit against the state for choosing the wrong product.

Yes, seriously.

I hope that AutoMARK’s machines passed some of the tests that Diebold’s have failed, such as not being able to be opened using an ordinary file cabinet key and not being able to be arbitrarily manipulated to rig an election. But even if that level of testing hasn’t been conducted, the premise of the suit is pretty hysterical. After all, why wouldn’t one want to purchase insecure, hackable voting machines that don’t leave a paper trail?

You know it's going to be an exciting concert...

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 04:46:04 GMT

...when Maestro Levine breaks his baton during a rehearsal. Not even dress, yet!

I’m back with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, after a few months off, for a series of performances of Beethoven’s Fidelio. The BSO is going all out on this one, with downloadable previews (also available on their podcast, to which, I confess, I do not subscribe)—even an animated Flash ad that cycles through the soloists.

And quite a roster of soloists it is, too: I recognized half of them from the concerts I’ve done with the group over the last few years, including Johan Botha (Valdemar in Gurreleider); Mathew Polenzani (Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni), and Albert Dohmen (the Peasant, also from Gurreleider). Dohmen deserves special mention because his normal speaking voice can rattle window glass, it’s that low and rumbly. Also deserving mention is Christine Brewer, another Gurreleider alum, who is making a habit of last minute subsitutions with the BSO. Here she fills in for Karita Mattila (YAGA, yet another Gurreleider alum), who withdrew this week due to illness.

All of this wouldn’t matter if the music weren’t so sublime. I am, despite the catholicity of my tastes, not normally an opera fan. But the music in Fidelio is spectacular—er, at least the part we’ve heard so far, which is limited to the two finales. I’m looking forward to hearing the rest of the work at tomorrow night’s dress rehearsal.

Snow a-comin’

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 15:07:51 GMT

We’ve had a nice run of it this week, but Esta is heading home today…into the thick of a March snowstorm. And I’ll be heading out to Framingham shortly, despite the fact that the last time they called for as much snow as we’ll get today, it took me three and a half hours to drive the 19.7 miles between the two locations.

(I never wrote about this, but when I was doing Holiday Pops concerts in 2005, I had a Friday morning rehearsal followed by a call at the office. It was snowing as I drove onto the Pike from Symphony Hall, but just a dusting. By the time I got out of my call at the office three hours later, I had six inches on my car. I spent 45 minutes just getting up the hill out of our parking lot, and another 45 making my way down Speen Street to go back to the Pike…)

So hopefully today goes better.

Deval Patrick at Old South

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 16:14:39 GMT

As I was saying, it’s a little bit of a red-letter (blue letter?) day when the governor of Massachusetts is in your church. I suppose it’s nothing new for Old South, which has hosted Boston Tea Party planning meetings and baptized Ben Franklin, but it was pretty new for me. So I was interested to see how senior minister Nancy Taylor treated Governor Patrick’s presence.

First note: the timing of the governor’s visit was probably deliberate. The UCC churches celebrated Amistad Sunday yesterday—the anniversary of the first significant pro-civil rights decision by the Supreme Court, in which the abolitionists among the Congregational churches had a significant part—and one would suppose that Massachusetts’s first black governor might find the occasion worth marking. But the sermon, about mercy and justice versus the hard dictates of law, went into interesting territory. Reverend Taylor’s argument was that Amistad set a precedent that the need for justice and mercy in repatriating the seized African slaves triumphed over consideration of their slaying their captors and seizing the ship that imprisoned them.

But she also pointed out that the larger Biblical context of this incident, as well as for consideration of slavery in general during the 19th century, is even more interesting. She pointed out that there were Christians on both sides of the slavery issue, both of whom claimed Biblical support for their positions, and that in a way the Civil War was also the war that ended American Christian perception of the Bible as infallible.

At this point, I supposed, she might transition into a discussion about Christians who cite the Bible in taking homophobic or anti-gay-rights stances. Instead, the Reverend made a point about the church’s work with transgendered persons and talked about a recent case in which Largo, FL church leaders called for the dismissal of a long time city manager when he revealed that he was struggling with gender identity issues and planned to become a woman. Rev. Taylor said that Old South had offered the city council free lessons on transgender awareness, and made the point that we seek to respond with understanding rather than using the Bible as a weapon.

So I think Governor Patrick could have taken away two messages from Sunday’s sermon: not all Christians are intolerant wielders of the Bible as a weapon, and mercy and justice must sometimes trump enforcement of the law. One hopes that he takes the latter to heart as he works on how the state will interact with Homeland Security on immigration matters in the future. If there was ever a case that pointed out the need for mercy and justice in public matters, this is it.

The full text and an MP3 recording of Rev. Taylor’s sermon will be posted on the Old South site, as well as available in the sermon podcast.

Update: Of course, the governor had other concerns on Sunday as well. My heart goes out to him and Mrs. Patrick. I certainly know what it’s like dealing with depression, and I commend both of them for dealing with the issue transparently and publicly.

On a completely different note...

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:43:13 GMT

Before I forget, I should note that yesterday, my sister Esta and I not only went to church services with Deval Patrick (about which, more later), we also got coffee with him.

Or at least we were in the same line at the register together.

And before Esta tells the story: Yes, there was some funky music on in the coffee shop, and yes, I may have unconsciously shaken my booty just a little bit. While I was standing next to the governor of Massachusetts. Waiting to pay for coffee.

And no, Patrick fans, I didn’t hear what he ordered.

Frozen food

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 21:26:46 GMT

I feel rather like a bag of frozen peas these days, rattling around in the bottom of a very large, very cold freezer.

While Lisa and I were in New Jersey this weekend, we had a brief thaw that started melting the layers of ice and snow that had lingered since Valentine’s Day. Unfortunately, the French drain in our driveway is covered with six inches of ice, and the snowmelt pooled on top of that ice until it crept into the garage and the laundry room. Thank goodness that after the flood last year, there was really nothing on the floor to damage, and our neighbor was on hand to get the worst of it up with a wet-dry vac before any problems could occur.

And then, of course, we had another cold snap. So instead of alternating layers of ice and snow, we have a two-inch layer of solid ice over much of the backyard, parts of the front yard, and bits of the driveway. At least our sidewalk is clear...

Be careful what you wish for...

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 18:10:42 GMT

Why, it was just the other day that I was griping about the unnaturally warm weather we were experiencing this winter. “It’s a sign of the apocalypse,” I groaned. “Think of the poor ski resorts. Plus all the people getting colds.” That, of course, was before we woke up this morning to single-digit temperatures. And before I realized that the glass in my office is not well insulated—or insulated at all, apparently.

Ah well. If it weren’t cold, what would I have to complain about?

This is going to be a year without skiing for me, actually, for a number of reasons. So I guess the main reason I missed the cold was that I got acclimatized to it. Suddenly that’s not sounding like such a hot reason to want it to be cold.

Um. I can’t feel my fingers.

Anyway, now it’s cold and winter can officially roll on. Just a little late, but that’s ok. Geez, it’s hard to type when I’m shivering this hard. Maybe I ought just to lie down on the office floor for a minute. It looks warm and comfortable...

Brr. Ah, OK. The word is that there’s a damper stuck open in the heating system that is pulling cold air into the office. Perfect timing.

Breaking rhythm

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 05:31:40 GMT

Under duress, a lot of traditions can go by the wayside. Example: we couldn’t find cotechino this year, having gotten started on our shopping a little too late, so we will be ringing in the new year with salmon and lentils instead. Oddly appropriate, given the little tidbit that Zalm dug up earlier this month about Christ being of the lineage of Salmon. This will be an adaptation of the redoubtable salmon with favetta and citronelle that we learned to make in Seattle, with lentils instead of favetta since we’re clearly in the wrong season for fava beans.

Other than that? Same tradition as before: going to bed early on New Years Eve. But this year we listened to a month’s worth of Funky 16 Corners during dinner, and I will be playing a few minutes of Redline, my new in-between hours addiction, prior to crashing for the night. So the wheel of time does move on rather than just in a circle.

MBTA.com not considered harmful

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 00:50:51 GMT

I saw the series of posts last week on Universal Hub about the new MBTA site, but didn’t think too much about them at the time. It’s honestly been a long time since I’ve even ridden the T. But today I found myself needing to find a T station, and my usual standby (go to Yahoo! Maps, find your starting location, and do a Yellow Pages search for transit) just didn’t appeal. So I hit the MBTA’s web page, and lo and behold, absent the crush of people that apparently Slashdotted it on Friday, the Google Maps powered trip planner is actually useful. Who’da thunk it?

Continental and FCC 1, Massport 0

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 00:24:54 GMT

Boston Globe: FCC rules against Logan’s WiFi ban. And about time, too. For a few years Massport has trotted out every lame excuse in the book, including Homeland Security, to keep its tenants and vendors from dipping into its lucrative airport-wide WiFi service monopoly. While some frequent travelers, like me, have taken the plunge and gotten a monthly subscription to Boingo to remove the sting, there are probably still plenty of schmoes paying $8.95 for a “day pass” that will probably only be useful to you for a half hour.

Thanks to BoingBoing for the link, who also point to perennial WiFi pundit Glenn Fleishman’s analysis. I will summarize his summary of the decision:

Restrictions prohibited by the ... rules include lease restrictions... Massport misreads ... misconstrues ... the safety exception is ... inapplicable... no arguments that Massport has made give us reason to change our earlier conclusions that the Commission has statutory authority in these circumstances.

Heh.

What makes Massachusetts different?

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 00:21:17 GMT

I love watching the pro/anti discussion on the Massachusetts Question 1 (should stores with grocery licenses—basically any store that sells perishable products—be permitted to sell wine?). But the argument against Question 1 on the Beacon Hill Wine and Spirits blog (a great wine store, a lousy perspective) really made me raise my eyebrows. My response, reprinted from their comments section:

As someone with lengthy residence in both Washington and Virginia, states where wine and beer sales are permitted in groceries, convenience stores, etc, here are the advantages that I see to question 1:

Better price on low-end/ commodity wines
One-stop shopping (dinner plus wine)
More retail outlets means a larger market for the distributors and might lead to a larger variety of products being available to the end customer
Better retail hours. In my area, the small independent stores are open only until about 8

I also wonder, with tongue in cheek, why we are worried about kids getting wine. I would think that the wine industry with its rapidly aging demographic would welcome any indication that younger customers were interested in its products, rather than beer and vodka.

Finally, I have to ask what makes Massachusetts teenagers different from teenagers in other states where alcohol is available in grocery stores and other outlets. Are teenagers in MA uniquely susceptible to the pressure to drink? Are the stats on teenage alcohol consumption really tightly linked to restricting the type of outlets that can sell wine? I haven't seen those numbers, but I would suggest that whatever it is that makes us unique as a state has more to do with the byzantine state and local liquor laws (only three stores in a chain? liquor available in one town but not another?) than any behavior differences on the part of our teenagers.

My only remaining question, as a bona fide beer snob: why can’t the question include beer sales as well? I don’t think the availability of beer in convenience stores and groceries in Washington State has hurt the sales of truly good independent or craft beers; on the contrary, there’s a huge variety of micros that arguably are harder to find here in Massachusetts (where is the championship of Berkshire Brewing Company, to name one example?).

See also the related thread on Universal Hub, where I found the original blog post.

Not traveling

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 18:11:41 GMT

It feels weird to be in the office and have an hour or two to myself. I was in Baltimore Monday and Tuesday, and on the road a few days last week; the rest of the week is full of remote customer demos. And rehearsals for the Moses und Aron.

About which: I have to say, this is the most challenging piece I’ve ever done. Conceptually, the chorus in this work is supposed to “humanize” Schoenberg’s twelve-tone music, but it’s difficult to be convincingly human when you’re a little terrified of the music.

I’ve written about the challenges of the piece before, but after six weeks of rehearsals they appear no more surmountable than they did before. Vocal lines wander according to their own logic without reference to other musical parts, choral or instrumental, meaning that all the clues you have as a singer to find your pitch are absent; you basically have to memorize every entrance and every melodic line. And it’s a long work. (For other perspectives on preparing for the piece, check out fanw and Eryk, whose open letter to our conductor is one of the funnier things I’ve read recently.)

Route 2 with a view

Tim Jarrett — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 15:34:47 GMT

Lisa and I took time off work yesterday to recuperate from the past few weeks (she had a product launch last week). We drove west along Rt 2 to see what the leaves looked like. It was a little early still but nice, as the photos hopefully show.

Our stops included the French King Bridge and Gould’s Sugar House. While the former was mostly a sightseeing post—one of the few along the road—the latter had pancakes. And syrup. And really, after a morning driving along the leaves, what more could one ask? Well, among other things, a tractor called “Lord,” apparently.

In addition to lunch, we picked up a few things from the sugarhouse, including both Grade A and Grade B syrup. (For the uninitiated, Grade A is thought of as “table syrup,” and generally runs lighter in color, but to my mind Grade B is more interesting. It’s produced at the very end of the sap run, and can have a really spectacular, slightly spicy flavor.) Between that and the 25-cent maple-syrup flavored soft serve ice cream, we were pretty well sugared up for the drive back.

Smite, Smoot, smite

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 15:51:33 GMT

It’s always good to see another MIT scientist winning the Nobel Prize. And this one, fittingly enough, is a Smoot (though not the Smoot). George F. Smoot’s work on the cosmic background radiation has significantly affected our understanding of the universe, and the findings are suitably dramatic as his official biography indicates.

On a related note, it’s interesting watching the media catch up, including Wikipedia. When I looked up smoot in Wikipedia late last night, the disambiguation page referenced only a stub article for George F. Smoot. This morning, his full article was there, and it continues to be expanded. Pretty cool.

A little Impulse in your life

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 16:54:10 GMT

A coworker who DJs a jazz show on WICN pointed out the Beantown Jazz Festival, happening this weekend. The opening night concert sounds like a beautiful thing to me:

BeanTown Jazz Festival kick-off concert with the Story of Impulse Records — The McCoy Tyner Septet with Charnett Moffett, Eric Kamau Gravatt, Dave Liebman, Wallace Roney, Steve Turre, and Donald Harrison.

For those playing along at home, that’s Jazz Messengers alum Donald Harrison, ex-Elvin Jones sax player Dave Liebman, sometime Ornette Coleman disciple and Marsalis Brothers associate Charnett Moffett, and of course McCoy Tyner, the sometimes transcendent, sometimes maddeningly inconsistant pianist of John Coltrane’s greatest quartet.

Which is to say it should be a tremendous evening. If I can poke my head up above the rubble of our kitchen renovation, it should be definitely worth checking out.

A new ring

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 03:24:23 GMT

Boston Globe: Church's new sound is meant to be appealing. The new bell wheel, which will allow the bell at Old South to be properly tolled, is beautiful—it has been at the front of our sanctuary for a few weeks. I’m looking forward to hearing it.

And looking at the picture in the Globe, I’m wondering when we can do a tour of the tower. Very cool.

Under water ... and hiring

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 23:10:04 GMT

Between returning from travel, working on our kitchen, my job, and rehearsals starting today for Moses und Aron, posting will be intermittent this week.

In the meantime, if anyone wants to help me out and has relevant technical presales experience, take a look at this.

Catching a breath

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 14:44:58 GMT

Friday morning, and the power is out at my office building (like, in the whole building. That’s a new one.) so I’m working from home and breathing in. It’s been a busy, crazy, nutty week, as they all seem to be recently.

I neglected to mention on Monday that I traveled to Chicago for one day for the IQPC Software Asset Management conference (if you attended the Monday workshops, and a few did, I was playing the role of our Marketing Communications Director who for some strange reason was listed as the speaker for Session C instead of me. Odd). It was a relatively easy travel day—I caught earlier flights than my scheduled one twice and made it home by 10 pm instead of midnight—but it still took a lot out of me.

A lot of the rest of the week, non-work-wise, was spent dealing with errands and distractions. For instance: Wednesday I drove to Walpole to pick up a dishwasher that will go in our new kitchen. Yesterday I was at the doctor’s office. And all week long I was calling and griping at Keyspan about the way they’ve dug up our street. (See next post for details.)

And today the power is out in our office and I’m breathing a little easy rather than fighting the morning commute. It’s nice to have a positive disruption in one’s schedule for a change.

Fighting for justice in our lifetimes

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 04:20:53 GMT

I took a course on the History of the Civil Rights Movement when I was at the University of Virginia. Taught by Julian Bond, a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the course’s readings alone were enough to make any thoughtful American think long and hard about social justice, as was the opportunity to research local reactions to the movement (see my paper on Virginia’s Massive Resistance movement). One of the thoughts I had at the time was about what I would have done if I were alive in the movement years.

Now, of course, I know: I would have been performing somewhere rather than protesting. Because that’s how the quest for justice played out today: my colleagues and pastors from Old South were at the State House rallying for equal marriage while I was rehearsing the Gurrelieder at Tanglewood.

—Someone with less of an axe to grind than mine, by the way, should look at the signs on both sides of the street from today’s protest and learn what can be learned from them about the protesters. The thing that struck me—and again, I’m biased—is the preponderance of identical “Let the People Vote” signs, professionally made (by VoteOnMarriage.org, who don’t merit a link but who also apparently trucked in cases of water), on the anti-equal-marriage side, and how the few off-message signs that appear on that side of the street are incoherent and threatening, while just about every sign on the pro-equal-marriage side is handmade and many of them are funny or thoughtful. I especially like this rebuttal to the specious “let the people vote” argument.

Fortunately there are others out there who are more proactive than me, including the Tin Man, who has decided to take advantage of his current between-positions status to try to make a new career in gay-rights law.

For more context on the constitutional convention today—and the protesters—check out Bay Windows’ liveblog. To take a look at what the other side is saying, see VoteOnMarriage.org’s “Arguments for Marriage” page, which is a fine collection of strawmen.

Follow-up: Italy and Boston

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 20:26:46 GMT

I got a bemused comment after yesterday’s post asking about the Italian presence in Boston. Thankfully for some of my remote readers, Universal Hub has a post that gathers blog posts from people celebrating Italy’s victory in the North End of Boston. I particularly like this individual’s pictures of the crowd.

It’s worth remembering that summer, with its endless festas, is the best time to see Italian-American pride in Boston anyway... the festas call for a post all their own some time.

Gli Azzurri, World Champions

Tim Jarrett — Sun, 09 Jul 2006 23:28:44 GMT

It’s official, Italy beats France for the 2006 World Cup. And the fans are going nuts. In Berlin, in Rome, in Boston.

In Boston?

Yep. City Hall Plaza is packed with fans watching the final game—and going nuts, as aerial shots on the broadcast have shown repeatedly throughout the game.

Of course, you couldn’t prove it by Boston.com, whose blog includes no local interest information about this global sport.