Witch Hunts
Posted: December 11, 2017 Filed under: Boston, history, New England, North Shore Leave a comment
In 1693 Cotton Mather wrote a book called Wonders Of The Invisible World, defending the Salem Witch Trials.
A few years later a guy named Robert Calef wrote More Wonders Of The Invisible World, which was kind of a sarcastic slam on Cotton Mather.
Calef objected to proceedings that lead to “a Biggotted Zeal, stirring up a Blind and most Bloody rage, not against Enemies, or Irreligious Proffligate Persons, But (in Judgment of Charity, and to view) against as Vertuous and Religious as any they have left behind them in this Country, which have suffered as Evil doers with the utmost extent of rigour.”
Can’t say I got a ton out of the book, but I did get some good stuff from the introduction, by Chadwick Hansen. 
If a witch is attacking you boil a pin in urine:
Even Chadwick Hansen appears ultimately baffled by what Robert Calef was up to, since much of his book is lies about how Cotton Mather fondled up a girl named Margaret Rule while curing her of bewitchment.
Hansen attempts to provide the context to a baffling historical period. 
Later Mather would write a book called The Right Way To Shake Off A Viper:
Wild times in old Massachusetts. Few people who were taken to the Salem Witch Museum in childhood ever forgot it.
Previous coverage of witch hunts.
Boston (England)
Posted: October 27, 2017 Filed under: Boston, New England, writing Leave a comment
There’s a lot of crime fiction about Boston, America, but is there any about Boston, UK? I went looking and was directed to the works of Colin Watson, who writes about a fictional town, Flaxborough, which is based on Boston (UK version)?
I can’t say it was totally compelling to me but cheers to Colin Watson.
Watson was the first person to successfully sue Private Eye for libel, for an article in issue 25 when he objected to being described as: “the little-known author who . . . was writing a novel, very Wodehouse but without the jokes”. He was awarded £750.
New Hampshire
Posted: September 26, 2017 Filed under: New England Leave a comment
Remember The Old Man Of The Mountain?
WARNING TO MASSACHUSETTS DRIVERS!
Posted: August 28, 2017 Filed under: Boston, maps, New England Leave a comment
Discovered a serious error in my DeLorme Atlas & Gazetteer
You can’t actually drive from Moon Island to Long Island! There’s a road on the map that’s just not there!
Be careful out there guys and ALWAYS double check visual clues before attempting to drive from one island to another.
Bob Marley in Boston
Posted: July 2, 2017 Filed under: baseball, Boston, music, New England Leave a comment
Because people were talking about Baby Driver, I started singing it in my head to the tune of Bob Marley’s Slave Driver.
What a song. So then I went looking for Slave Driver on Spotify. I found a recording of Bob Marley and The Wailers, Live At The Music Hall, Boston, 1978. “Easy Skanking In Boston ’78” is the title, which I don’t love saying. “Bob Marley and The Wailers Live At The Music Hall – Boston – 1978” seems like it gives you what you need?
The Music Hall is now the Wang Theatre. Photo from Wikipedia by Tim Pierce.
Somehow shocking that Boston would be the scene of a legendary Marley concert. Who was in the crowd?!
Steve Morse wrote about this recording for The Boston Globe when the album was released in 2015:
My one meeting with Bob Marley was memorable. I was sent by the Globe to interview him at the Essex Hotel in New York before his show at Boston’s Music Hall in 1978. I walked in to Marley’s room, which looked out over Central Park, at 11 a.m. It was a chaotic scene. Four or five members of his entourage were kicking a soccer ball that banged off the picture windows. Two king-size joints were being passed around. Bob sat on a couch, reading aloud from the Book of Revelation.
Realizing I was in over my head, I waited a while before daring to ask Marley about his music. He agreed to talk, shut the Bible, quelled the soccer noise, and stated his worldview: “Everything is going to be united now. Everything is going to be cool. Forget the past and unite.”
Marley’s response to a country politically divided and stricken with gun violence was notably cooler and more Christian than the NRA’s response.
|
” |
Two months later he’d be in Boston.
(Minute 34-38 or so a good sample)
June 8, 1978 was a Thursday, a hot night, 89 degrees. The Red Sox had an off day, but that weekend they’d start a ten game win streak on the road in the West Coast.
The Sox would win 99 games that year, but lose a one game playoff to the Yankees at home in Fenway Park.
Ned Martin would call the game for WITS radio.
Years later he’d die of a heart attack in a shuttle bus at the Raleigh airport on his way home from Ted Williams’ memorial.
April 19. Patriots Day.
Posted: April 19, 2017 Filed under: America, history, New England, painting, pictures Leave a comment
Worth remembering that the American Revolution started when the federal government sent troops to take away people’s guns and ammunition.
More men from Needham died on April 19, 1775, I believe, than from any other town except Lexington:
The detail in that footnote! What she remembers, the old blind woman: how many of the soldiers had thrown away their coats! It was under the will of this venerable lady that he first received a legacy!
History gets so much more interesting when you get into how do we know this? what is the source? who claims this? who saw it happen?
The Needham Public Library.
Amos Doolittle wasn’t there but he showed up a few weeks later:
My favorite book on this topic is:
Tourtellot is really kind of funny when he rips into his least favorite patriot, vain old John Hancock:
that illustration up top from:
a British book – is there a pro-Redcoat bias?
Edelman learns Super Bowl has ended
Posted: February 8, 2017 Filed under: heroes, New England, sports Leave a commentseen on Inside The NFL on Showtime.
Coaches for Super Bowl LI
Posted: February 3, 2017 Filed under: Boston, heroes, New England, sports Leave a commentMORE ON public lands under Trump to come, but first we have to address a reader email:
Dear Helytimes,
Will you continue your tradition of discussing the Super Bowl coaches, in anticipation of Big Game LI?
So writes reader Abigail J. in Wellesley, Mass.
Thanks for writing Abigail! Last year, we profiled the somewhat dim personalities of Ron Rivera and Gary Kubiak.
Photo Credit: Reginald RogersParaglide Carolina Panther head coach Ron Rivera, left, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and former Carolina Panthers player Mike Rucker sign autographs and photos for Soldiers at the 1st Brigade Combat Team dining facility Friday during their visit to the post.
Rivera’s Panther’s may have controlled their APE but it wasn’t enough.
This year we have a return for Bill Belichick, whom we investigated to the edge of known facts before the epic XLIX game. In that battle he squared off against Pete Carroll, the most compelling coaching figure in the NFL and subject of an in-depth Helytimes profile.
This year comes Dan Quinn.
He won a Super Bowl under Pete Carroll in 2014, and seems more Carroll than Belichick for sure. Here’s an article about him from the AJC by Jeff Schultz. Bumper stickers are a theme:
Quinnisms: Iron sharpens iron. Do right longer. Do what we do. It’s about the ball. It’s about the process (Former coach Mike Smith left that one behind.)
Quinn also has had a dozen T-shirts or hats with punchy thoughts made up during the season, the latest being, “Ready to Ride, Dog.” The week of the first playoff win over Seattle, players wore shirts reading: “Arrive violently.” Those words were referenced by Neal after the game.
Don’t have much more to add. In light of Belichick’s Trump support perhaps this a revealing moment, from Inside the NFL:
We’ll see what happens in Houston.
At the moment, who can fail to find NBA coaches more compelling?:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDjRrHG9bGw
Impressive thing about Manchester By The Sea
Posted: December 9, 2016 Filed under: movies, New England, North Shore Leave a comment
The entire film takes place in Massachusetts, yet no one is seen going to Dunkin Donuts or holding a Dunkin Donuts cup.
A short examination of New England and Massachusetts psychology is at the beginning of this book:
available at Amazon or your local indie bookstore. You’ll enjoy it.
F Minus
Posted: December 8, 2016 Filed under: books, Boston, comedy, New England, writing Leave a commentI don’t like to give bad reviews to books on Helytimes. Why call limited attention to bad books? However I must condemn this book.
Let me admit that I didn’t read it.
I oppose it because:
1) I was not consulted on it and didn’t hear about it until it was published
2) I was not included in it
3) many geniuses were not included in it, and the selections don’t represent anything like a best of.
Impossible in an anthology to please everyone. But I suspect anyone familiar with the Lampoon will find the table of contents to be the funniest part.
(That’s the only part I read.)
4) No art?
The Lampoon is full of beautiful art that makes the words tolerable.
Example I happened to find here.
A mistake to print an all words anthology.
5) the whole point of the Lampoon is you can write and “publish” dumb bad practice material that no one will ever see.
On the other hand: I was lucky and was given issues of the Lampoon by my cousin when I was a senior in high school. That gift changed my life. So maybe this book will do that for someone.
Still, I must grade it an F minus and recommend that you not purchase it on Amazon or your local indie bookstore. For example The Harvard Book Store:
found on the website of Dr. Barbara Long
Here’s a funny review by one Helen Andrews of Sydney, Australia in the Weekly Standard. (Shoutout to Chris McKenna who I guess reads The Weekly Standard?)
I think you’ll get more value for your book dollar in:
available at Amazon or your local indie bookstore. You’ll enjoy it.
Stressful job
Posted: October 18, 2016 Filed under: New England, sports Leave a comment
Bill Belichick’s IT guy. Lucky Coach says he is happy with Dan Famosi.
A Description Of Distant Roads
Posted: October 9, 2016 Filed under: Boston, New England, the California Condition Leave a comment
Another incredible title for a travel book. This one from the missionary Juan Crespí, who in 1769 took a walk from Baja California to San Francisco and back.
Really appreciate the translation with careful annotations by Alan K. Brown. Here’s Crespí on the origin of the name Carpinteria.
Carpinteria
I wonder if he stopped to get a burger at The Spot.
My favorite part of the book so far though is this poem.
I found it a soothing pastime late one evening to make a map of Crepsí’s trip.
He must’ve seen some interesting stuff.
Much boring stuff as well:
That photo from the collection of Harry Crosby, who photo’g’d much of Crespí’s trail in Baja California.
Not to be confused with the other Harry Crosby:
But he yearned to escape the rigidity of everyday life in Boston. His experience in France made it unbearable to live among what he called “dreary, drearier, dreariest Boston” and to put up with “Boston virgins who are brought up among sexless surroundings, who wear canvas drawers and flat-heeled shoes.” He wanted to escape “the horrors of Boston and particularly of Boston virgins.” Any sense of propriety was wiped out by a lust for living in the moment, forgetting all risks and possible consequences.
The Fire Princess
On July 9, 1928, Crosby met 20-year-old Josephine Noyes Rotch, the daughter of Arthur and Helen Ludington Rotch in Boston. Ten years his junior, they met while she was shopping inVenice at the Lido for her wedding trousseau… “She was dark and intense… since the season of her coming out in 1926-7, she had been known around Boston as fast, a ‘bad egg’…with a good deal of sex appeal.”
They met for sex as often as her eight days in Venice would allow.
Gem from Last Chance U coach
Posted: September 27, 2016 Filed under: advice, how to live, New England Leave a comment
Fair’s where you kiss a pig and give it a blue ribbon.
Massachusetts alt version: fair’s where you go to see a giant pumpkin.
Photo from the 2013 Topsfield Fair via Alex1961 on Flickr
Feejee mermaid
Posted: September 16, 2016 Filed under: animals, Boston, marine biology, New England, the ocean Leave a comment
To go on display! But back in Massachusetts. Is is worth a trip?
The original object was exhibited by P.T. Barnum in Barnum’s American Museum in New York in 1842 and then disappeared. It was assumed that it had been destroyed in one of Barnum’s many fires that destroyed his collections…
There is controversy today on whether the Fiji mermaid actually disappeared in the fire or not. Many claim to have the original exhibit, but Harvard University’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, has the most proof that their exhibit is the actual original. It does not look completely the same, but it does have the same flat nose and bared teeth. The thought that the fires could have altered the appearance of the mermaid are reason for it not looking completely like it did in Barnum’s possession.
Well, if I can’t make it to Cambridge I can always make my own:
A guide to constructing a Fiji mermaid appeared in the November 2009 issue of Fortean Times magazine, in an article written by special effects expert and stop-motion animator Alan Friswell. Rather than building the figure with fish and monkey parts, Friswell used papier mache and modelling putty, sealed with wallpaper paste, and with doll’s hair glued to the scalp.
When Will You Marry?
Posted: September 8, 2016 Filed under: art history, Boston, MFA Boston, museum, New England, painting, pictures, Tahiti Leave a comment
What a title for a painting. Heard of this Gaugin painting in an article about Qatar’s art scene. Reportedly some Qataris bought it for $300 mill. Says Wiki, back in 1893:
Gauguin placed this painting on consignment at the exhibition at a price of 1,500 francs, the highest price he assigned and shared by only one other painting, but had no takers.
Gaugin didn’t always crush it with his titles (Study of A Nude, etc) but sometimes he nailed it. Here is Where Are You Going?
(sometimes less interestingly called Woman Holding A Fruit)
Of course best of all, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? at the good ol’ Boston MFA.
Charles Morice two years later tried to raise a public subscription to purchase the painting for the nation. To assist this endeavour, Gauguin wrote a detailed description of the work concluding with the messianic remark that he spoke in parables: “Seeing they see not, hearing they hear not”. The subscription nevertheless failed.
You can read about Geoff Dyer’s frustrating experiences with these paintings and Gaugin and Tahiti in:
I was bummed I missed that dude at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival, bet we could’ve had some laughs.
Picture from the wikipedia page for Maine Coon
Posted: June 29, 2016 Filed under: cats, New England Leave a comment
(was trying to learn about native cat and dog type creatures of North America)
Is this a survey or the chant of a cult?
Posted: June 17, 2016 Filed under: baseball, Boston, New England Leave a comment
At Fenway Park for Jason Varitek bobblehead day, I stopped to fill out a two page survey. Here’s the bottom of page 2:
The whole survey had a bit of a hypnotism vibe:
If you’re an official card-carrying member of Red Sox Nation ($14 a year) you can watch batting practice from on top of the Green Monster:
Fenway is just so wonderful. From the wall of former Red Sox logos, one of the more unsuccessful efforts:
Orioles outfield coach Wayne Kirby kept giving emphatic instructions that, as far as I could tell, were heard by nobody:
The Red Sox encourage you to follow “the time-honored tradition of keeping score.” A very Zen activity, recommended. I developed my method during my Roxbury Latin playing career, when I was judged more valuable for my tactical/strategic and historical mind than for my hitting/fielding abilities.
Doesn’t that just tell the whole story. A tough night for Boston but any night at Fenway is a good time.
I feel grateful to the Boston Red Sox.
I feel thankful for the Boston Red Sox.
I feel a sense of gratitude towards the Boston Red Sox.
(contact me if you wish to purchase a Varitek bobblehead, $6000 obo)
Went to check on results of the Harvard-Yale boat race
Posted: June 13, 2016 Filed under: New England, sports Leave a comment
an inauspicious day for the Crimson.
Bucky with the good chair
Posted: April 28, 2016 Filed under: Boston, New England, people Leave a comment
(spent more time than I’d like to admit trying to find pictures of Buckminster Fuller in interesting chairs)
One of the better gravestones:
in good old Mount Auburn Cemetery
which is the place I’m picturing when I hear:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOMwu6OoGo4
Jackie smoking pregnant
Posted: April 17, 2016 Filed under: America Since 1945, Kennedy-Nixon, New England, presidents 1 Comment
Trying to learn what brand of cigarette Jackie Kennedy smoked (no clear answer) I came across an evocative picture of Jackie Kennedy smoking while visibly pregnant, which you can see here.
I couldn’t and can’t find the source for it. Google Image searching leads me in an endless looparound of Tumblr and Pinterest. Maybe it’s in an old magazine. Maybe some Kennedy guest or family member took it and it got on the Internet somehow. Maybe a British tabloid published it, they go crazy for Kennedy goss.
Public domain pic of Jackie, August 31 1963, by Cecil Stoughton, found http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/JFKWHP-ST-C283-50-63.aspx
Not mine to “print” I guess on Helytimes — we take sourcing semi-seriously. (But is it that different to link to it?)
Public domain photo of Robert and John Kennedy with Marilyn Monroe, taken by Cecil Stoughton. Found here: http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/9jndTasee0CsvxnFg6IWxg.aspx
This home movie footage, on the other hand, is in the public domain and online at the Kennedy Library. Some of these movies feel almost too private, too intimate — you can for instance see our current ambassador to Japan, then age six, jumping on the bed in her swimsuit with (possibly) the future first lady of California?
Here are two clips.
Jackie smokes:
The President’s golf swing:
If you know anything about golf would love to hear takes on JFK’s swing.
Helytimes 
