By Marina Knight
There is a fragile-looking girl sitting in front of me putting on make-up. She’s wearing a hot pink shirt and she has bleach-blonde hair and for the life of me I can’t figure out why this is necessary behavior in a café.
A loud family of four with visiting in-laws just vacated the table next to me. Their sandwich remnants still linger on the table and people around them glance down as if they’re going to jump off the table and into their latte.
Bob Marley, then some offbeat indie-pop song blares though the speakers and it’s raining hard outside.
This is the scene at Darwin’s café in Cambridge, Mass.
For the past four days, it’s been my office. Sometimes, I snag a seat on the large, yet horribly unsupportive, couch and sometimes I slide into a chair at one of the communal tables. Today, my timing was just right and I am sitting at a small table all my own. This little piece of real estate is a serious score and I have staked out my belongings, iPod, cell phone, small black notebook, pen and iced tea to let people know that I will be here for the afternoon.
The place has its downfalls, grungy bathroom, semi-weak coffee, just a tad-too-loud music, but it has free wi-fi, air conditioning and I think most other people in here are working, too.
This week I have been web commuting. At first I thought I was telecommuting, but it turns out I am not. That term is not only outmoded, I learned, it is too vague. Plus, telecommuting was what people did when the phone was the main means of communication. Now we use the web. It was important to make this distinction at the beginning of the week, and to mete out the varied nuances of working from away early.
The work I have done this week can also be classified as “nomad working.” It’s not quite as easy as it sounds, especially in a new town. I’ve gone through a fair number of possible work places and only a few allow me to get work done.
On day one, I walked down to the Cambridge public library only to discover that it’s closed for total renovation. I was sent to a high school gym, where I sat for a few hours. It was hot out and there was no AC and the kids reading circle was a bit out of control, so that locale was canned.
I tried working at Pete’s Coffee, the coffee being the obvious bonus, it had AC and wi-fi but there was way too much turnover, giving the place a restless feel. I found it hard to concentrate. On reflection it may have been the triple shot of espresso that caused my jittery feeling.
Darwin’s is just right, even when it’s a bit crowded. There is a different vibe to feed off than the normal office vibe. Some people are writing in journals, others are totally tuned out and focused on what looks like heavy research and an older man just behind me is editing photos. One of the coffee baristas just played Dee Jay, dedicating a song to us. Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean was our gift.
If the experience has taught me anything (the ability to block out crying children, working in a semi-chaotic environment and methods of caffeine regulation aside) it is that work is something you do, not something you travel to.
7/26/08
7/17/08
Vacation season
BY TOM KEARNEY
This is the best of times; this is the worst of times.
It’s vacation season.
People come, people go; people are a little preoccupied at work because they’re thinking about sipping a pina colada on the beach.
Everybody does everyone else’s job while they’re gone, only not as well; a former reporter winds up baby-sitting the computer servers; novices shoot news photos and we all hope for the best.
At a small operation like ours, where every job is vital, vacations have to be finessed. Optimally, people would work all the time. But in reality, without vacations, the people on our staff would burn out like dollar-store candles.
With them, those folks come back energized, full of energy and ideas — which they pitch to the poor souls who’ve been filling in and are worn out and dreaming of their own vacation time.
As for my own time off, I separate things into vacations and family trips.
Vacations are when you kick back, relax, sip tall, cool drinks, maybe smoke a cigar, and dip your toes into cool water while you read a trashy novel.
Family trips are when you’re loaded up like a pack horse, carrying a backpack jammed with sunscreen, water, raincoats, hats, insect repellent, bug-bite antidote, and whatever else fits in there.
You lug this burden behind cavorting children at, say, an amusement park where all the rides give you vertigo, or retail stores where the beaded shirts and distressed minskirts have no place in your closet, or on a beach road where your load expands to include a blanket, towels and beach chairs.
Don’t get me wrong; I love family trips. Family trips bring anticipation during the drive, knowing you’ll wind up someplace exciting. Family trips mean great conversations, songs and laughter. Family trips bring the satisfaction that you’re showing the youngsters things they’d never experience otherwise.
Family trips are the best.
Just don’t call them vacations.
This is the best of times; this is the worst of times.
It’s vacation season.
People come, people go; people are a little preoccupied at work because they’re thinking about sipping a pina colada on the beach.
Everybody does everyone else’s job while they’re gone, only not as well; a former reporter winds up baby-sitting the computer servers; novices shoot news photos and we all hope for the best.
At a small operation like ours, where every job is vital, vacations have to be finessed. Optimally, people would work all the time. But in reality, without vacations, the people on our staff would burn out like dollar-store candles.
With them, those folks come back energized, full of energy and ideas — which they pitch to the poor souls who’ve been filling in and are worn out and dreaming of their own vacation time.
As for my own time off, I separate things into vacations and family trips.
Vacations are when you kick back, relax, sip tall, cool drinks, maybe smoke a cigar, and dip your toes into cool water while you read a trashy novel.
Family trips are when you’re loaded up like a pack horse, carrying a backpack jammed with sunscreen, water, raincoats, hats, insect repellent, bug-bite antidote, and whatever else fits in there.
You lug this burden behind cavorting children at, say, an amusement park where all the rides give you vertigo, or retail stores where the beaded shirts and distressed minskirts have no place in your closet, or on a beach road where your load expands to include a blanket, towels and beach chairs.
Don’t get me wrong; I love family trips. Family trips bring anticipation during the drive, knowing you’ll wind up someplace exciting. Family trips mean great conversations, songs and laughter. Family trips bring the satisfaction that you’re showing the youngsters things they’d never experience otherwise.
Family trips are the best.
Just don’t call them vacations.
7/4/08
On Independence
By Jesse Roman
Be assured, the following is not an ode to the merits of patriotism. There are already too many of those in America. What is rarely considered, what seems to me an obvious omission, is the question of what patriotism actually means.
Is it synonymous with the kind of rah-rah nationalism that Daniel Webster captured in his 1850 speech when he declared to a frenzied crowd, ”I was born an American; I will live an American; I shall die an American!”
Is patriotism blind faith in your country, its people, its leaders and its principles, warts and all the “conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it,” as playwright George Bernard Shaw once said.
My country, right or wrong is the pseudo-tribalistic mindset that's often used as the litmus test for ‘true’ Americans.
Personally, I have always had a hard time following that type of blind faith. My thoughts on the subject lie somewhere between those of authors Mark Twain, who said that “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it,” and author Sinclair Lewis, who believed, “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.”
Patriotism cannot just be a love for your country. With that must come a willingness to question it at every turn to ensure that the people who govern it stay true to the guiding principles by which it was founded. Among those principles, as we all know, are “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
I recently watched footage of a news broadcast that showed what can happen when so-called “patriotism” is taken to the extreme.
Taking offense to a Mexican flag, which had erroneously been hung a notch above the American flag on a pole in Reno, Nev., a man yanked down both flags in front of the owner, took the U.S. flag in his arms and tossed the Mexican flag on the ground. Then he said to the TV cameras:
“I took this flag down in honor of my country, with a knife of the United States Army! I am a veteran and I will not see this done to my country. If they want to fight us, then they need to be men. But I want someone to fight me for this flag, because they're not going to get it back!”
Some may look at this as a brazen act of valor. Others will cringe.
People can debate which reaction is right or wrong, but at least we have the freedom to engage in the debate. That¹s what makes ours the freest country in the world.
But to keep it that way we all need remain tolerant of other views, we must learn to compromise and we must stay vigilant of the fact that as Americans we are free to believe what we wish. If patriotism is used as a bludgeon to attack the moral fiber of free citizens and intimidate them into censoring their thoughts, then are we really free?
Be assured, the following is not an ode to the merits of patriotism. There are already too many of those in America. What is rarely considered, what seems to me an obvious omission, is the question of what patriotism actually means.
Is it synonymous with the kind of rah-rah nationalism that Daniel Webster captured in his 1850 speech when he declared to a frenzied crowd, ”I was born an American; I will live an American; I shall die an American!”
Is patriotism blind faith in your country, its people, its leaders and its principles, warts and all the “conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it,” as playwright George Bernard Shaw once said.
My country, right or wrong is the pseudo-tribalistic mindset that's often used as the litmus test for ‘true’ Americans.
Personally, I have always had a hard time following that type of blind faith. My thoughts on the subject lie somewhere between those of authors Mark Twain, who said that “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it,” and author Sinclair Lewis, who believed, “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.”
Patriotism cannot just be a love for your country. With that must come a willingness to question it at every turn to ensure that the people who govern it stay true to the guiding principles by which it was founded. Among those principles, as we all know, are “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
I recently watched footage of a news broadcast that showed what can happen when so-called “patriotism” is taken to the extreme.
Taking offense to a Mexican flag, which had erroneously been hung a notch above the American flag on a pole in Reno, Nev., a man yanked down both flags in front of the owner, took the U.S. flag in his arms and tossed the Mexican flag on the ground. Then he said to the TV cameras:
“I took this flag down in honor of my country, with a knife of the United States Army! I am a veteran and I will not see this done to my country. If they want to fight us, then they need to be men. But I want someone to fight me for this flag, because they're not going to get it back!”
Some may look at this as a brazen act of valor. Others will cringe.
People can debate which reaction is right or wrong, but at least we have the freedom to engage in the debate. That¹s what makes ours the freest country in the world.
But to keep it that way we all need remain tolerant of other views, we must learn to compromise and we must stay vigilant of the fact that as Americans we are free to believe what we wish. If patriotism is used as a bludgeon to attack the moral fiber of free citizens and intimidate them into censoring their thoughts, then are we really free?
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