Love in practice is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.
I talked to Grace Ross last week after an event at Assumption College, and asked her: Are you going to run for City Council? She said she’d run if she thought she had enough people interested in volunteering for it to be a real campaign. I asked her if I could spread the word, and she said Yes.
Consider the word spread.
If you’d like Grace to run for an at-large seat on Worcester’s City Council, and you’d be willing to put some work into a campaign, e-mail her at gracegrnrnbw@aol.com.
This Presidents’ Day, Bruce, I, and five friends packed a booth at the Pickle Barrel.
Bruce: I had a pretty good time there with all those people there.
Pie and Coffee: What’s the Pickle Barrel like?
B: The day we went there, everybody was in good spirits. Because I’ve gone in there a couple times before, and it wasn’t such a good vibe. I really got a good vibe that day, because everybody there was on MySpace. My MySpace friends.
P: Not everybody, but a lot of them were.
B: A lot of them sitting at the table were. I encourage more people to be on MySpace.
P: What’s the coffee like at the Pickle Barrel?
B: Very good.
P: What’s the service like?
B: The service we had was very good.
P: It’s actually a pretty well-known place. It’s “the place” in that neighborhood.
B: Yeah. I mean, if you lived in that area, then you would go there. In the case that you lived downtown, you would go to the Midtown Mall, to that diner there.
P: The Pickle Barrel’s a lot bigger and busier than the Midtown Dinette, though.
B: One thing, The French toast is good, but the Midtown Dinette’s was better. One thing about the Pickle Barrel, they forgot to bring me syrup. Other than that, it was pretty good.
P: Well I gotta say too, it would be awesome if the Pickle Barrel had some vegan options. I know that’s sort of insane, and has nothing to do with their being a neighborhood diner. But I throw that out there as a suggestion.
So what is that paper that you’re wielding?
B: I was writing this down last night, abbreviating what the Snow Ghost would be. The rest, the rest, depends—this is two different sayings. The first one would be: shit-nude-out-whore ghoul-horror-out-sick-toll. The nice one would be: so-nice-to-weather good-host-original-snow-transport.
The other one, the Black Death, would be: the bastard-loud-arse dat-eat-arse-to-hell.
P: Any final thoughts about Worcester?
B: It’s kinda cold out today.
I’m attending Beyond Broadcast again this year. I wrote up some notes last year after the conference. Funny how the stuff I wrote about isn’t the stuff that stuck with me. Might as well look back at those notes anyway.
My readers know more than I do.
From this follows that when readers can share their knowledge without the pro journalist as intermediary, the pro journalist must reinvent the job.
Sometime when I’m drunk, ask me to explain my corollary:
My readers drink more than I do.
The full-scale launch of a large, organized campaign to highlight China’s complicity in the Darfur genocide appears likely to begin soon.
This campaign has to spread.
I regret that the time has come to tag a post both “Worcester” and “Wal-Mart.”
A 209,000-square-foot Wal-Mart Supercenter is part of a shopping center planned on 44 acres in Quinsigamond Village where U.S. Steel once operated foundries along the Blackstone River.
I consider myself to be the single biggest proponent of hard core, blood thirsty capitalism this side of Iowa, but Wal-Mart still manages to make me ill.
I’ll be blogging this issue over at Worcester Activist.
Single-use bags will be 5 cents; the charge for multi-use bags will drop from 99 cents to 59 cents. Good!
Last year’s Pie and Coffee “Lent” articles were an eclectic bunch.
Most Catholics either give up something, or take on a new responsibility, for Lent. They also stop eating meat on Fridays (except fish). Since becoming a vegan, I’ve been wondering what I should do. Last year, I gave up soy on Fridays, which was a pain in the neck and not very productive. This year, I think I’ll just observe a juice fast on Ash Wednesday and Fridays, since the combination of prayer and fasting always does me good, and I should try it more often.
Chinese New Year: Indymedia has an article and movie about the celebration in Worcester, courtesy Matt Feinstein. Are there Chinese Christians who feel a conflict between celebrating these first weeks of their New Year, and observing Lent?
Television: You can submit your questions about prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and other topics to Worcester’s Mayor and City Manager via Soapbox.
Catholic Worker: Houston Indymedia reports that the Houston CW is being harrassed by the Klan.
Larry Cirignano appeared at the Worcester courthouse this morning for a probable cause hearing in connection with an alleged assault at a marriage rally late last year.
I couldn’t hang around the court all morning, so you’ll get no news from me. Kevin Ksen of Indymedia and Ethan Jacobs of Bay Windows are on the scene, so some reportage may surface.
Update: Sounds like the Cirignano case is moving forward. One photographer on the scene tells me he tried to get a shot of Cirignano leaving, but that he’d eluded the press. I wandered by the court on my lunch hour, and while my photo isn’t good, it’s something.
Larry Cirignano
Update: Rock on, Ethan Jacobs:
Following the hearing, which was not open to the public or the press, Cirignano confirmed to Bay Windows that the magistrate had found probable cause on both charges, but he declined to comment further.
Telegram & Gazette update (the next morning):
Criminal complaints charging Larry Cirignano, 50, of Arlington, Va., with assault and battery and a civil rights violation were issued yesterday after a show-cause hearing in Central District Court.
[…]
Ms. Loy initially told police she was not injured, but investigators later photographed a small bruise on her elbow.
Three witnesses said they saw Mr. Cirignano push Ms. Loy “with force,†according to the [police] report.
Yesterday I staggered into the Bean Counter, ordered a coffee, and found that I’d left my money at home. A kind stranger paid my bill. So in the interests of “paying it forward,” I’ll try to emulate that generosity of spirit while recalling the fiasco of one year ago today, the Mr. Heterosexual Massachusetts competition.
Continue reading “Mr. Hetero—one year later”
“There’s a saying that Theresa had this ‘T’ written in heaven. Well, I saw this ‘CW’ written in heaven!†(Nina Polcyn Moore, 1986)
Nina Polcyn Moore, one of the last of the Catholic Worker pioneers, has gone to her God. She died on Saturday, February 10, surrounded by family, former Catholic Worker Barbara Blaine (Chicago St. Elizabeth’s), and Dr. Peter Mayock. Fr. Bob Pawell had prayed with her in the afternoon, and she died peacefully and sublimely ready to join our great cloud of witnesses. On my last visit with her, she told me that her current mantra was “Wrap it up!” That’s just one of many samples of her unfailing good humor even as her body went the way of all bodies.
Continue reading “Nina Polcyn Moore, 1914–2007”