All Around

 

Wow, who knew you could get so much knowledge for just 35 cents!

Just a few months ago the woodland way I walk into downtown looked like this. 

Now it looks like a big green jungle. 

Speaking of green, this dude has been sitting on the Amherst College campus for generations.

All that majestic sitting requires a little refreshment.

Poetic observation in downtown Northampton.

Weird image in a Hamp window. 

Big blooming beauty near my house.

Things on my neighbor's porch: stones, pictures, flowers and a hand-woven basket. 

I can't believe that J&J's packy in Springfield has gone out of business!

I used to live right by there on Dresden Street, in a scene where no law of God nor Man applied. Another Springfield fixture falling into ruin - Silvano's. It was a favorite of mobsters and corrupt politicians, as well as people who straight up love Italian food. 

A Springfield police officer enters the headquarters.

 

A Smith graduate now living in New York City wrote a great blog post about the Rachel Maddow speech last weekend.

While walking towards the President's house to find my parents, I bump into guess who? Rachel Maddow. I quickly asked if I could take a photo with her, and nicer than any celeb she happily took a photo and congratulated me on my hard work and good luck with my future endeavors. 

 



To read it all click here.

In the past Northampton was captivated by a woman with a different ideology.

30 Nov 1967, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA - Miss Julie Nixon, 18, a sophomore at Smith College, shows off her ring after announcing her engagement to David Eisenhower, 19. He is a sophomore at Amherst College.

 



The Immolators practicing in Easthampton. 

 

“When you let people do whatever they want, you get Woodstock. When you let government do whatever they want, you get Auschwitz.” – Doug Newman

More Hampenings

They are having a big t-shirt sale at Faces in downtown Northampton this week.

Apparently the big fashion statement for the summer of 2010 is the Grateful Dead, as it has been in these parts since at least 1967.

I understand why the t-shirt below sells. What I don't understand is how they sell them in Massachusetts. Maybe they're a hit with the snobs that come up here from New York City.

Graffiti in downtown Hamp.

Damon and I walked across the overpass on Main Street.

 

The view of downtown Northampton from the middle of the overpass.

What is the sense of this garish yellow line at the bottom of the courthouse steps? For two hundred years people have been climbing those steps, now all of a sudden there needs to be a safety strip?

Are people still protesting about Darfur? Yes. 

Rachel Maddow spoke at the Smith graduation ceremony yesterday. Here's the video of her accepting her honorary degree.

I wonder whether she noticed these signs in a Main Street window.



Bill Gunn, who is running against incumbent John Olver in the upper Valley congressional district, gave this fiery speech Saturday.

Maddowmania

Mad About Maddow

I notice that in downtown Northampton they are selling these pink shirts for those who love MSNBC host and former Valley radio jock Rachel Maddow.

Perhaps you could wear your Maddow shirt while reading this week's Valley Advocate.

Plus if you're a student at Northampton's Smith College, you can catch Maddow in person when she gives the commencement address at their graduation this year. She won't have to travel far to do so, since she still lives here in the Pioneer Valley with her girlfriend, at least on weekends.

Among those who yearn to spend time with Rachel is Amherst's most famous living writer, Augusten Burroughs (above). Or that's what we're told in his blog - that Augusten is being pressured by his boyfriend Dennis to use his literary prestige to ask her over to dinner:

Dennis doesn't watch TV except now he watches Rachel Maddow. He loves his Rachel. In nine years together, he has never had “a show,” if you know what I mean. Although there have been a few things we've watched regularly over the years, there has never been anything quite like this. Rachel Maddow is his Battlestar Galactica.

She makes him laugh. This is why I thank Jesus each morning for Rachel Maddow. I can't even tell you. It's like having a kid, and knowing you can always stick him in front of the television, plug in his Xbox and hand him the controller. He'll be fine now.

So four weeks ago, Dennis -who won't even let me use my name when making a restaurant reservation because he thinks it's pretentious and loathsome- made a special trip downstairs to my office and said, “You need to invite Rachel Maddow over for dinner.” He suggested I contact her “people.”

I just looked up at him and blinked.

Yet relentless pleading from Dennis at least got Augusten to consider what he might say to Maddow in a email:

“Dear Rachel, I know this is kind of creepy and stalkerish but we both live in the same general area of Massachusetts and...” So it's the “I'm your neighbor not your stalker!” approach. I just can't figure out the segue from “We're your neighbors” to “come over for dinner with your girlfriend.” No matter how I phrase it, it comes out sounding odious. Like I want to know her because she's famous or I want to be on her show. In reality, the only place I want to be is in my basement.

Unfortunately Augusten has lost interest in his blog and never updates it anymore, so we never found out whether he sent Rachel Maddow an email or whether she accepted. But I suspect not, because if so Augusten would have somehow made it public.

Recently Maddow was in a controversy with Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown over a fundraising letter Sen. Brown sent out mentioning that Democrats were trying to get Maddow to run for the Senate against him in 2012. She claimed Scott was lying about her.

 



Actually "lie" was too strong a word. Democrat activists were unquestionably urging Maddow to run, and there was even a Facebook page someone put up to promote the notion. Some people suspected that Maddow's local radio chum Bill Dwight (below right) was behind it.

In any case it was all just a tempest in a teapot, but it did get Maddow a ton of free publicity, which no doubt expanded the base of people who are mad about Maddow - Republicans who are mad that the phony controversy got as much play as it did, and Democrats who loved Maddow all the more because she got away with it.

 

In today's democratic media anyone can commit an act of journalism. While any form of reporting, provided it is done honestly, is of value, some types of journalism are more valuable than others. Often citizens who carry out acts of journalism do not do so as effectively as they might because they don't know what minimal standards constitute a good article. But don't worry, you don't have to go to a journalism school to learn the basics, just watch this video from the School for Authentic Journalism and learn all you need to know in about six minutes.

 

A giant mouth appears to threaten Old Glory in front of Northampton's City Hall.



A peace van.

 



Jim Neill captured this shot Saturday of a rainbow over Northampton.

Me relaxing in an Amherst cemetery yesterday.

 



Lord Russ in the same Amherst cemetery in 1996.