This area is not unlike St. John’s Wood, that is, the quant leafy location on the iconic Abbey Road Beatle’s album cover. Taken opposite the Boston Common during a BLM protest, the sizable police and military contingent cordoned off a commercial area in the Downtown Crossing neighborhood. To my back is the Boston Common, a location initially used for colonial livestock fodder. St. John’s Wood is also renowned for its sweeping green spaces, including, but not limited to, Regent’s Park and Primrose Hill. Of course, Beacon Hill, also to my back, is a historical neighborhood where many of Boston’s power brokers live and circulate (the state capital building, the Massachusetts seat of power, sits atop the hill like a golden bulwark). Similarly, Primrose Hill is the watering hole for London’s minted elites. Rihanna sold her stucco villa on St. John’s Park in September for a cool £32 million. At 6,332 square feet, that’s about $7,000 per square foot, admittedly more expensive than anywhere in Boston. As the global pandemic ebbs, it will be interesting to see where the real estate tides will take humanity, but what is increasingly certain is that the rapidly changing climate will have some cascading […]
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This is my friend Donatella and her beautiful and absorbingly congenial daughter Analisa. Donatella helps manage the wine cooperative in Dorgali that is responsible for the production and distribution of one of their increasingly popular wine exports: Cannoneau. The Cannoneau grape, which you might also know as Grenache, has become trendy in recent years, due to its noted association with long life. In short, the preponderance of grey hairs in this area of Sardinia has been attributed—dubiously, I’d say—to the high level of polyphenols in Cannoneau. And as health trends go in the US, as soon as something is coined a superfood or associated with longevity, it becomes a fad item that becomes, in some ways, a stand-in for all of the other important variables that make it a “health” food. The seniority of Sardinians is obviously more than just a matter of drinking large volumes of Cannoneau, though it apparently has not done any discernible harm. Interestingly, in a recent Lancet study (and in the American medical community more broadly), researchers claim that NO amount of alcohol is safe for consumption. Sardinians drink two glasses of wine per day on average, and while Sardinians alcohol consumption is well above the […]
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As we approach President Trump’s ego-fueled fireworks extravaganza, it is important not to overlook the history of the garish Mount Rushmore monument, its sordid historical roots, and that of the national and state park system more broadly. Though it is unreasonable to expect a man that barely reads to understand the historical implications of throwing a campaign infomercial at Mount Rushmore, American’s ought to understand how provocative such an act is to the Sioux in particular, and Native-Americans generally. The history of Mount Rushmore and it’s role in Ethnic Cleansing The Black Hills from which Mount Rushmore was carved sat on land, codified in the Sioux Treaty of 1868, granted to the Sioux “in perpetuity”, that is, until George Armstrong Custer and his 7th Cavalry expedition reported gold deposits in the Black Hills in 1874. By 1876 the Sioux were ordered to vacate the Black Hills or be deemed “hostile” intruders. White prospectors would flock to the Black Hills in droves, forcibly displacing the Sioux in the process. By 1911, the park would be given “game preserve” status, thereby cutting off yet another vital economic resource from the Sioux, and subsequently named Custer State Park in 1919. To date, it is […]
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As a child of the 80s, I have indelible almost-peed-in-my-pants memories of Eddie Murphy on the stage in Delirious and Raw, but also as an actor, unparalleled impressionist, sketch comedian and unfortunate one-time Rick James musical collaborator (“Party All the Time!”). In Coming to America, a movie starring Murphy, a congenial and high-minded African prince named Akeem travels to America to find a wife that in his words will, “arouse my intellect, as well as my loins”. Akeem decides that Queens, NY is the most suitable location to find his bride-to-be. One of Akeem’s first stops in the neighborhood is the My-T Sharp Barbershop. When Akeem opens the door the black proprietor—played by Murphy—is incredulous that Saul—played by Murphy too—an old Jewish customer, would suggest that Rocky Marciano be considered the best heavyweight boxer of the ages: “Oh, there they go, there they go. Every time I talk about boxing, a white man pulls Rocky Marciano out of his ass. That’s their one, that’s their one. “Rocky Marciano, Rocky Marciano!” Let me tell you something, Rocky Marciano was good, but compared to Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano ain’t shit!” Fight against the smallness of systemic racial injustice Marciano did, in […]
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