Walking around the Square is never short of fascinating. You can watch a well-dressed middle-aged woman trying to tear down “Support Edelin” posters. Flashy guys and gals trip down the brick sidewalks in their platform shoes. Religious hustlers pester people on every corner. Some of them have developed a symbiotic relationship with Phoenix hawkers. If you stop to buy a paper, you have to hear about the Village of God salvation program in upstate New York. Cars drive past and drive past again in the unending quest for legal parking. Buses and trackless trolleys block the entrance to the Eliot Street municipal court parking lot. Meter maids lie in wait, skulking in the shadows. Frisbees sail across traffic jams or into open car windows. And there are still people who think there is such a thing as spare change.
You can study Harvard Square – truck yourself around on a tour through the shops, cheat death crossing side streets, let the adolescent holy men take you for a quarter, loll amid the free art the Fogg or Busch-Reisinger Museums, fight with little old women for the back seat of a cab, stroll hand and hand with somebody across the Yard in autumn. You can do that forever for all the good it’ll do you. There is no sure way to understand what’s going on in Harvard Square. You might as well just do what you went there to do and be a part of it all – whatever it is. The Square is a good place to walk and gawk at other people, but remember, there’s always someone else looking at you.
Here’s looking at you.
Related:
Interview and photos: Gerard Malanga, Notes on Fathers: What Illness Can Teach Us About Family Connections, Photos: Cambridge Carnival International | September 12, 2010, More 
- Interview and photos: Gerard Malanga
In Walt Whitman’s notebook for the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass , he writes, “Every soul has its own individual voice.” That notion rang true for photographer/poet/filmmaker Gerard Malanga as he put together “Souls,” an exhibit of 100 portraits spanning five decades.
- Notes on Fathers: What Illness Can Teach Us About Family Connections
My father stared out across the room, a pained expression on his face.
- Photos: Cambridge Carnival International | September 12, 2010
Crowds enjoy multicultural crafts and music at the 18th annual Cambridge Carnival International at Kendall Square on September 12, 2010.
- Ghosts of upstate New York
An alumnus of both True/False ’09 and last fall’s Camden International Film Festival, Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher’s evocative October Country screens at SPACE Gallery on April 8, as the first installment of an occasional CIFF Selects series, which seeks to expand the Midcoast film festival’s reach into Portland.
- The con goes on
David Mamet has always had a professional fascination with confidence men who pretend to be businessmen.
- Prog wild
Let me just assure you, right off, that after this, I promise never, ever, to talk to you about this year’s SXSW again, but check it out: we passed by a tossed-up tent-and-chain-link venue with a long line jutting into the street, and from between the portajohns came one of the lowest frequencies I’d ever heard — you could hear their plastic locks rattle and feel it on the surface of your shirt.
- Strange brew
Abe Vigoda (the band) celebrated the 89th birthday of Abe Vigoda (the man) by staying up till 5 am.
- Deep blue
If you’re going to explore the cosmos, better do it at night.
- Mandolin Fest
At SPACE Gallery, March 27
- Dum Dum Girls | I Will Be
Kristin Gundred serves up a slightly softer version of the concise, lo-fi throwback bliss that the White Stripes perfected with “Fell in Love With a Girl” in 2002.
- Red Sparowes | The Fear Is Excruciating, But Therein Lies The Answer
Post-rock bands are like silent-film actors — bereft of words, they tend to use broad gestures to ensure that you get the point.
- Less
Topics:
Flashbacks
, Cambridge, Harvard Square, Harvard Square, More
, Cambridge, Harvard Square, Harvard Square, Harvard University, Kenmore Square, Cambridge Center for Adult Education, Cambridge Center for Adult Education, Busch-Reisinger Museums, CULTURE, Flashback, Less
