Cheap shot out the Uber window. But somehow this seemed more interesting than another shot of a modern glass tower. On the way to the hotel I saw a structure of such unsurprising ugliness I was sure it was the City Hall annex, or something. Brutalism at its finest!

Turns out it’s a fairly standard square parking ramp in the midst of demolition. Ripping it apart reveals the unlovely structure that some Brutalist architects would have killed to drop on a college campus.

The project has a long and difficult history, I know now. Court battles about the height of the replacement. News stories said the tower had been cancelled because of environmental / aesthetic / jurisdictional / etc concerns about its height in this area. Big surprise: it got built! Nice blue tower. Uber driver said everyone is working from home. Maybe they’ll come back. Who knows. Hybrid probably.

Sigh.

Anyway. Good flight, even though I had the middle seat. Watched a Perry Mason, of course. It had this guy:

We know him, right?

Star Trek, of course: one of Plato’s Stepchildren. But also the Timothy Leary-type who argues with Joe Friday in one of the more famous Dragnet episodes. Excelled in the “cultured exterior insufficiently concealing a rotten moral core.” Arrogant and superior but also, at his core, pathetic. He gets in a fight at a waterfront bar, and the bartender, he can’t believe this crap.

The bartender is required to testify and he still can’t believe this crap.

Harvey would've had a good career playing working class guys.

Short flight: a mere two hours to Boston, which seems odd. Met a dog at the airport who wanted everyone to give it scritches, so of course we did. Ubered the hotel, got to the room, threw the suitcase on the bed to unlock it -

Unlock it. Rrrright. And the combo is . . .

No, it’s not that. Try this . . .

No, it’s not that.

Okay. This ain’t great. I blame COVID, too: it’s been two years since I used the Serious Suitcase. Maybe it’s . . .

Whew. Click. Oh, the hotel? It’s ridiculous.

What is this, a place where Prince convalesced? There’s no desk. I suppose I should have looked at all the room pictures online, but I chose this place for price and airport proximity and some handful of shiny Expedia points I can use to get a discount at another underwhelming property.

There being no desk, I will have to go downstairs and sit in the common area, which is overrun by the Squealingly Excited Girls Team From Somewhere. The public areas are rote “hip.”

Nothing about this is particular comfortable, but it’s not stuffy or middle-of-the-road, so, excitement!

Took a walk, noted how many buildings had rebranded to express solidarity:

Dull building, but I appreciate the sentiment.

For some reason, the view across the street looks like I'm lost in Perpetual Christmasland.

I love this town. The age of it, the quantity of brick. I've never been to the Harbor area. It's great. Juxtapositions, git yes basic urban juxtapositions:

The 80s called and they WON'T HANG UP THE PHONE

You have to understand it context - coming out of the International School era and the time of featureless mirrored-glass blocks, the postmodern style looked new AND old, and hence less likely to age poorly.

Sbout that little guy in the middle. At the time, it was controversial, I think - gah, Phillip, that's just pastiche. No one at any time stacked tripartite windows with lunettes like that. It's almost comical in its relentlessness, like a Palladio's Army.

That said, I like it. The whole thing.

Avast, Me Bwco:

I don't know what it was, but I know what it is.

Then you turn around, and you have this:

Okay okay, you ask, great and all that but what's going on?

Remember a few weeks back when I was talking about the Italian musical group PFM, and talked about standing in the deserted office looking out the broad windows, listening to the big glorious ending of a song, and feeling fantastic because I’d just gotten some unexpected news?

The day before I’d gotten a text from Daughter. But that's tomorrow's Bleat.