Welcome to Tales from the T part 2: Electric Boogaloo! Each week we’ll be diving into a story about the T and other forms of Boston transportation. Who knows, some of them might even be interesting.
Wishing my life was a TV show has the same energy as romanticizing trips to Costco and pretending The Sink baristas are the archetypal “popular kids.” Although I don’t need it, I just want an excuse to battle through song ("Glee," (2009–15)) and speak in an Irish accent ("Derry Girls," (2018–)) and drink coffee for lunch ("Gilmore Girls," (2000–07)). Instead, this column is my chance to ramble, uninterrupted, about TV shows I love and to imagine myself as the Athena to Ryan Murphy’s Zeus (i.e. a screenwriter’s brainchild).
Sports fans, by definition, are hopeless and idealistic reactionaries. We sit glued to our seats, trying to extrapolate the bigger picture of the individual decisions, games and players that we watch.
Head is pounding, sunlight hurts, body aches and there’s a mysterious bruise. Sitting in bed with a Pedialyte and a treat from Magnificent Muffin won’t fix it — it’s a hangover that can’t be slept off. It’s not going away unless we fight it off. It’s not from The Pub, the Burren or Mike’s; it’s from Belarus, Algeria, India, Hungary, Egypt, China, the United States and even the United Kingdom. Maybe we should call TEMS? Democracy’s down bad.
I think by now it’s time to address the elephant in the station — and I don’t mean Jumbo’s flattened corpse. Let’s talk about the Green Line Extension, or GLX: What is its history, what will it bring, why did we spend $2 million to name one station, I mean seriously, who on Earth thought that was a good idea?
To honor the Class of 2021, I decided to rank the top Boston sports moments from the last four years.
A DJ once told me that mixing techno or house during a set is easier than mixing pop or hip-hop songs due to the similarity in beats and repetition, as well as the anti-teleological nature and layering characteristics of house and techno tracks. The difficult part is how to perfectly master the grand rhythm of buildups and drops in order to keep the audience hooked to the evolving repetitions. If the whole night of music is graphed in terms of its excitement, then it should look like a flow of slowly ascending waves.
They call it Commencement instead of graduation. I guess it's based on this idea that the transition from college bubble to adult stratosphere is full of amazing possibilities.
Imagine a long stretch of sand basking under a bright sun, with picturesque lighthouses dotting the distance. Whether she’s reading a book on the beach or wading in the water, Tufts graduating senior lacrosse attacker Catherine Lawliss has her happy place in Nantucket, Mass. Perhaps this is where we’ll find Lawliss this summer after she and her senior teammates lead the women’s lacrosse team to what will hopefully be another deep NCAA tournament run.
Content warning: This column discusses mass shootings and gun violence.
For this last column, I asked my friends to share a bit of what they’re looking forward to as a post-pandemic world starts to come into focus. They sent me songs of rumination, rest and, most of all, celebration. This is part 2; part 1 is available at tuftsdaily.com.
I have noticed a common notion that fantasy and science fiction are easy genres to write for, simply because it comes down to making things up as you go. I would argue, though, that it carries the unique challenge of not just rounding out a character, but finding them a place in the strange world you create.
Following a 7 a.m practice, nothing sounds better than a fat stack of pancakes. Luckily, Uncommon Grounds (which is on the way back from Tufts’ indoor practice tennis courts) in Watertown offers a fun selection of pancakes, waffles and french toast on their menu. Being the great students that we are, we placed our breakfast orders the night before so we would have enough time to eat our pancakes and make it back in time for our morning classes. Yet, choosing what to order off a menu where everything made my mouth water resulted in my scrolling through Uncommon Grounds’ menu for almost an hour.
For this last column, I asked my friends to share a bit of what they’re looking forward to as a post-pandemic world starts to come into focus. They sent me songs of rumination and rest and, most of all, celebration.
In November 2019, Evo Morales, Bolivia’s longtime president, resigned from office after an audit uncovered inconsistencies in the recent presidential election. Morales, Bolivia’s president for nearly 14 years, was only allowed to run for a third consecutive term because of a 2017 court ruling which critics claim was slated in his favor.
Last year, as a first-year, Mr. Crêpe was my favorite restaurant. Ever. I could walk in at any time of the day and not feel bad about eating a crepe filled with Nutella and whipped cream; whether it was 8 a.m. or 8 p.m., a dessert crepe was always socially acceptable. After over a year of popping into Mr. Crêpe during almost every trip to Davis Square, I can now say that I am pretty experienced with making what to order a tough choice.
I would consider myself a quirky kid (as pretentious as that sounds). I had a strange sense of humor that came from being the youngest in a big family and often had to find ways to keep myself entertained. “Phineas and Ferb” was my best friend during those years, a show that made me feel less alone. Now, with every re-watch, I’m reminded of just how lucky I was to grow up with the triangle-shaped kid and his quiet British brother.
One of President Biden’s favorite phrases is “science is back.” After four years of the Trump administration’s deregulatory policies, drilling permits for federal lands and denialism in the face of climate catastrophe, Biden makes a point of proving he will listen to scientists when it comes to preventing full-blown disaster.
Dear J: I recently got into a new relationship with a boy at Tufts. I really like him and it's going well but we only have a couple more weeks together until we go back home for the summer (we live far away from each other). I think the long distance is going to be too hard on us since our relationship is still young. How should we handle it?
It’s equally hilarious, terrifying and heartbreaking, which is a rare (and difficult) combo to achieve. And considering the fact that it’s about a hit man, it has some of the wildest cold opens that I’ve ever seen on TV. These cold opens do not only set the tone for how each episode will play out, but also point out the ridiculous nature of it all — that we’re essentially rooting for a hired killer to succeed, find love and be happy. The concept is ridiculous, but when it takes place in a world that's as ridiculous to the characters as it is to us, you find yourself in the unique position of relating to a hit man.
