Blog on a Half Shell

Howdy Doody Time Warp

2012-01-30T10:27:00.002-05:00

While talking with Rhode Island marionette artist extraordinaire Dan Butterworth last week, I was reminded of an odd, only-in-Rhode Island conversation I had more than a decade ago during a visit to Westerly.

Sparking the memory, the puppet master from Pascoag related a story about Howdy Doody, America’s first puppet star. The unlikely TV celebrity got his start in 1947 on a show produced at NBC at Rockefeller Center. The people who first worked on the show didn’t really know puppeteering and didn’t expect the series to be such a hit. When it became a success, Howdy went Hollywood, where producers hired professional manipulators, aiming for a slicker, more polished puppet. According to Butterworth:

They quickly found out that the people didn’t want that. That wasn’t Howdy Doody. So in the parlance of puppetry, “Howdy Doodying” means to just bang the puppet around.

Flashback to Westerly, circa 1999. I was walking by The Washington Trust building downtown, near the Pawcatuck River, when a man nearby pointed to the bank and said:

“Howdy Doody’s trapped in there.”
I looked at him blankly.
“You know the puppet? Howdy Doody?”
I told him I had heard of him.
“They’ve got him in a bank vault in there. He’s being held for safe keeping until they can settle a lawsuit.”
“Howdy Doody?”
“The original Howdy Doody. He’s been stuck in a bank vault in Westerly for over a year now.”

As it turns out, the stranger was telling the truth. Howdy Doody spent more than a year of incarceration in a Westerly bank vault, the victim of a custody dispute. After the death of Buffalo Bob Smith, who hosted the show, providing Howdy’s original voice, a legal battle erupted between the heirs of Smith and Rufus Rose, one of the original puppeteers, and a museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts, to which Howdy Doody had been bequeathed. The puppet’s saga made headlines around the world. One of the better ones was “Original Howdy in Deep Doody.”

During one day of the deposition, a puppetmaker named Alan Semok, who had worked on the first Howdy marionette, was asked to unseal a trap door on the back of the puppet’s head. According to Wikipedia:

Velma Dawson, the puppet’s original builder, who was 88 years of age at the time of the deposition, was present and given the opportunity to examine the inside of the head in an effort to verify that the puppet in question was the original that she created. Despite 50 years of numerous repairs, repaints, and replaced body parts, Dawson eventually declared the head of the puppet to be the one she originally made in 1947. The Detroit Institute [of] Arts, which has one of the largest collections of historically significant puppets in North America, ultimately prevailed in the case and now has custody of the original Howdy.

Back when I was in college, a satirical, LA-based TV show called “Fridays” used to spoof Howdy Doody. It featured a voiceover by Larry David (of “Seinfeld” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” fame). Howdy Doody, never actually seen on camera, was presented from the camera’s point of view as the stereotypical Hollywood celebrity, always being fawned over wherever he goes. In the inaugural sketch, David plays a plastic surgeon who agrees to give a patient (Bruce Mahler) the face of celebrity – turning him into Howdy Doody. Next we see scenes from Howdy’s viewpoint as he enters various locations in his distinctive, staggering, herky-jerky style, while David would be heard fawning: “Good morning, Mr. Doody. How are you, Mr. Doody. Nice to see you, Mr. Doody.” Great stuff from a sketch comedy series that is severely underrated in the annals of TV history. (The same folks did a brilliant breaking news segment on the brutal practice of “Muppet bashing” on southern California beaches. So they had the puppet demographic covered.)

This week’s question: What was the strangest Rhode Island court case?

White Out

2012-01-23T12:00:00.003-05:00

Apparently, reports of the death of Old Man Winter were greatly exaggerated. Last Thursday’s overnight snowfall followed by Saturday’s all-day white-out left New Englanders with the sense that the universe had righted itself again – a feeling accentuated by yesterday’s victory/escape by the New England Patriots over the Baltimore Ravens sending the home team back to the Super Bowl for the fifth time during the Belichick/Brady era.

A weekend of bunkering, shoveling, football and stew cooking – Narragansett porter turns out to be a good water substitute when simmering in combination with pork, potatoes, carrots, onions and garlic – felt like Rhode Island in January again. So maybe those fat backyard squirrels (referenced in a previous blog) were onto something after all. (One is pictured here indulging in a bit of leftover fruit from the compost pile at my parents’ property in Barrington, courtesy of a photo taken pre-snowstorm from my sister, Kai, visiting from England.)

For nature lovers, one of the signature signs of a Rhode Island January is the sighting of snowy owls. According to the Audubon Society of Rhode Island’s “bird alert,” one has been spotted for the past couple of weeks at Island Rocks off Sachuest Point in Middletown. The owls nest in the Arctic tundra but winter south and have been reported in Rhode Island with regularity in recent years. They primarily feed off lemmings up north but will make do with any small rodents, birds, rabbits, fish or carrion in the Ocean State (in owl circles, Rhody road kill is known as New York System Carrion). Adult males are virtually pure white, which combined with their large size and hunting skill, gives the birds a mythic reputation.

Yesterday’s New York Times had a story on America’s “unusual spike” in snowy owl sightings. According to Denver Holt, director of the Owl Research Institute in Charlo, Mont.:

One showed up at the airport in Hawaii, and they shot it. It’s the first ever in Hawaii and they shot it!

As reported by Jim Robbins: “The owl was killed on Thanksgiving by federal officials who feared that the bird would interfere with landings and takeoffs.” A valid concern, perhaps, although Boston’s Logan Airport, which attracts large numbers of snowy owls “because the airfield looks like tundra,” traps and removes them – 21 so far this year, closing in on the record of 43 in 1986.

Why so many are showing up all of a sudden remains a mystery. But with a plethora of white owls suddenly in our midst, coupled with last year’s sighting of a white hart in Dartmoor, England, isn’t it about time we saw a white lobster pop up in Narragansett Bay? (For the record, by “white lobster” we mean the albino crustacean. White lobster is also the term used in Central American fishing villages to describe the bounty of discarded cocaine from drug dealers fleeing federal agents that washes ashore or circulates in local fishing grounds, inspiring a trade that turns thatched hut communities into islands of mansions and satellite dishes.)

What is your most memorable animal encounter in Rhode Island?

Squeezebox Idol

2012-01-16T11:23:00.005-05:00

Among the many classic Gary Larson cartoons that form “The Far Side” oeuvre was a split-panel showing on one side an escalator of the dead going to heaven with St. Peter at the top handing out harps to the incoming angels while below on the down escalator the devil greets rookie demons with accordions.

The much-maligned squeezebox, although a staple of folk music around the world, barely ranks above the kazoo in the minds of many. But a Rhode Island man may change all of that.

Cory Pesaturo, a 23-year-old Cumberland native, recently won the World Digital Accordion Championship in New Zealand. Like breaking the 4-minute mile or landing on the moon, he has done for mankind what was once considered impossible: Making the accordion cool. (In fact, he does for the accordion what Hawaiian Jake Shimabukuro does for the ukulele.)

The guess here is that Pesaturo is already on the short list for the newly created R.I. Music Hall of Fame, which inducts its first class next month. The inaugural roster includes Roomful of Blues and John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band, along with Dave McKenna, Eileen Farrell, Oliver Shaw, Ken Lyon, Anders & Poncia and Gerry Granahan.

I’ve told my Beaver Brown story before, but it’s worth repeating here. Once, when I was on a bus in Australia’s Outback, the driver played the band’s "Eddie & The Cruisers" soundtrack album (featuring “On the Dark Side”) over and over. Eventually I worked my way up to the front of the bus and casually mentioned that it was nice to hear a Rhode Island band so far from home. The driver asked what I meant by that.
“Beaver Brown. They’re a Rhode Island band.”
“Sorry, mate. That’s an Aussie band.”
I started arguing with him, but he got more animated, no doubt thinking yet another stupid septic (rhyming slang: septic tank = Yank) was trying to take credit away from a hardworking, blue-collar Oz band. At that point it occurred to me that I was in the middle of a vast wasteland of red clay and scraggly bush, and getting in a heated argument with the bus driver was probably not the best use of my time.
“How long to Darwin,” I asked.
“About 14 hours.”
“Right. Aussie band it is, then.”

This week’s question: What is Rhode Island’s signature instrument?

Rhode Sized
Kudos to Betty Cotter, managing editor of Independent Newspapers, for catching the following size-of-Rhode Island reference in a recent edition of The New York Times. The item appeared in the second paragraph of a story about New Year’s Day violence between Russia and the former Soviet republic of Moldova, which just celebrated 20 years of independence.

Russia has roughly 1,100 troops based in the separatist enclave of Transnistria, a ribbon of territory roughly the size of Rhode Island that has large ethnic Russian and Ukrainian populations.

Beyond The Onion

2012-01-09T09:47:00.002-05:00

If you know anything about Rhode Island, you’re probably not surprised that the state’s most popular New Year’s tradition is playing the Rhode Island Lottery’s Million Dollar Raffle. The way it works: Buy a ticket for $20 for a shot at a million bucks, with the drawing to be held on New Year’s Eve.

So while the rest the country watches a ball drop in Manhattan, Rhode Islanders are watching numbered ping-pong balls being sucked out of an air-mix machine during a live telecast on WPRI-12.

A North Providence man won the million-dollar ticket this year (playing 033122). Again, if you know anything about Rhode Island, you’re probably not surprised that he bought the winning ticket at Club Fantasies, a Providence strip club.

Providence, once known as a city of churches, where tolerance for religion in all of its forms and expressions became a stamp of honor, has morphed into the strip-club capital of the North Atlantic, where tolerance for undressing in all of its forms and expressions has become part of the culture. Between the patrons and the strippers, that’s where we get most of our news.

So people don’t even blink anymore when a longtime police chief gets arrested after allegedly chasing down an ex-stripper in an unmarked car, losing her on foot, taking the cash out of the purse she left on the front seat, handing it to a subordinate and telling him to go spend it in Vegas. (The police chief from North Providence is being sued by the ex-stripper from the Satin Doll to the tune of $250,000.)

Rhode Island is living satire. Which is why even though we are grateful The Onion, “America’s Finest News Source,” has introduced hard copies of its newspaper to the state’s café, coffee shop, bar and diner culture, its humor is somewhat diminished by the fact that what actually happens in Rhode Island is funnier than anything a satirist could ever write. Give the paper’s franchisee – Gaspee Publishing in Providence – credit for trying. It chose Buddy Cianci to headline the launch party. The twice-former mayor of Providence, who sold pasta sauce, flicked cigarettes and spent time in a federal prison before embarking on a new career as a media personality, was the perfect choice to introduce America’s premier spoof newsweekly to the irrelevant yet endearing universe that is Rhode Island. Maybe that will change our Onion luck.

The last time the Ocean State got decent play in The Onion was in a story under the April 18, 2007 headline: “Rhode Island Votes to Move 2008 Primary to Tomorrow.” So we might not be the brightest bulbs in the Onionverse, but here’s hoping that Rhode Island, as one of 16 markets now carrying the print edition, will find its way into a few Onion-worthy “breaking news” headlines. Like these:

Rhode Island No Longer the Size of Rhode Island: Experts Blame Global Warming, Faulty Rulers
Scientists Discover Black Hole in Ocean State Job Lot
First Apple Grown from Tree Root of Roger Williams Accidentally Eaten by Connecticut Tourist
Impact from Rhode Island Pothole Causes Rift in Time and Space
Big Blue Bug Topples, Injuring Pogo Dave, Santa George during Morning Commute
Rhode Island Becomes First State to Place Entire Budget on Black 13 and Let it Ride
New York System Wiener Joint Cook Fired for Short-Arming Customers
Tiverton Hermit Believed to be Only Rhode Islander Who Doesn’t Know a Guy
Rhode Island Man Invents Hybrid Car that Runs on Dunkin’
G.I. Joe Confesses to Intimate Relationship with Mysterious, Potato-Shaped Boy Toy
Newport Loses Latest Bid to Host America’s Cup – City Officials Hoping Tourists Throng to First Ever Twelve-Meter Rubber Duck Race

What Rhode Island headline would you like to see in The Onion?

Winter Slush

2011-12-30T10:51:00.002-05:00

A miscellany of holiday remnants…

Except for the freak pre-Halloween snowstorm that added a chilling grace note to the weekend of molten iron pours and trick-or-treating zombie brides, late autumn and early winter were unseasonably warm this year, as the southern New England landscape never got out of its bleak brown-gray bathrobe day after day. So even the most hardened cynic might be forgiven for believing in a little Christmas magic on the morning of Dec. 25, when a few fat snowflakes tumbled down and the neighborhood cove cascaded in flurries for an hour or so, giving us a taste of a white Christmas, if not the feast that many had hoped for.

There was less poetry in the real world, but no shortage of holiday weirdness, at least in the news pages. The following item comes from the South Kingstown police beat in yesterday’s South County Independent:

A LITTLE HO-HO-HO
A North Kingstown woman is under arrest after she allegedly tried to give the Wakefield Mall Santa a lap dance and then stole DVDs from one of the stores.

The item goes on to describe the woman’s bizarre behavior. According to the photographer on the scene, Santa handled the situation with the dignity one would expect from a centuries-old elf. Before allegedly stealing five DVDs, the woman managed to get the photo of herself on Santa’s lap from the photographer, telling him and St. Nick to “come watch her dance at Cheater’s [a Providence strip club].”

Another item, this time from the North Kingstown police beat in yesterday’s North East Independent, falls under the Grinch category:

LARCENY
Greg Pignolet, of 91 King Phillip Drive, reported on Friday that his decorative winged pig was stolen from his front yard overnight.

While we certainly don’t condone the theft, it does strike us as odd that a winged pig would go missing around the holidays. We have heard that animals can speak on Christmas Day. Perhaps pigs can fly, too.

Finally, we also noticed in our papers that one local senior center plans to hold its New Year’s Eve celebration on Saturday at 10:30 a.m. “with the ball to drop at noon.” We like this idea. Beats having to spend another midnight watching Z-List celebrities complain about the cold in New York and Fergie introducing lame musical acts from Los Angeles.

Having said that, perhaps it’s appropriate that, in households across America, “dropping the ball” is the signature moment of New Year’s Eve. Isn’t that the year in a nutshell? We begin with hope and promise and resolutions of change; we end worn-out, beaten down, glad it’s over. Year after year, fumbling through, mostly dropping the ball. And yet there it is again, lying in front of us, waiting to be picked up and carried across the goal line.

What’s your New Year’s resolution?

Making Soupy

2011-12-23T10:36:00.002-05:00

Most families and cultures have their own Christmas customs, honed over the years to the perfection of a jeweled ornament. This year I had a chance to celebrate someone else’s tradition. On Wednesday, thanks to the Garafola family of Bradford – and Bill Lucey, our publisher, for inviting me along – I was allowed to participate in a winter ritual native to Rhode Island, or more particularly, the town of Westerly: Making soupy.

Which is how I ended up with my hands buried in pork butts and carrying raw sausage from closet to cooler and sausage casings from kitchen to basement. Short for soppressata, soupy is a cured sausage mixed with secret herbs and spices – every family has their own you-die-if-you-discover-it recipe – that hangs over winter and is ready to eat by the following Easter. The Garafolas, a friendly bunch, put up with my intrusion and inexperience, allowing me to work the drill that fed the meat into a synthetic casing managed by the family’s patriarch, Lou, whose touch is amazing to watch. If I had any say in such matters at all, I’d bestow upon him the title of soupy maestro.

The tradition dates back to a town in Calabria, the birthplace of many Italian immigrants who settled in Westerly around 1900 to work the granite quarries as stonemasons. Now Westerly is the soupy capital of the world, while just across the river, in neighboring Pawcatuck, Conn., settled by Sicilians, hardly anyone makes it. In fact, it is a food so identified with the families and villages of Westerly that many lifelong Rhode Islanders have never heard of it, much less tasted it. (Although Pat Garafola, the family matriarch, said that you can get a white soupy in Providence. The Westerly version is red.)

Every family thinks they make the best soupy, of course, which is how it should be. The sausages are passed on at Easter to family (at least family that is still on speaking terms) and close friends. Our own family Christmas tradition includes a South African Mixed Grill, made by my father, who usually combines a bit of steak, back bacon and sausage to eggs over easy, fried potatoes, tomatoes and banana, with baked beans and toast. This year the sausage will be soupy, before the curing.

What are your family traditions for Christmas, New Year or any of the winter holidays?

[Note: Publishing a bit earlier than usually since Monday is the official holiday. Same next week. Expect a pre-New Year’s Day post on Friday. Merry Christmas!]

On the Civil War Trail

2011-12-19T11:54:00.002-05:00

War is the scribe of history, and its imprint smudges the news of the day in every generation. Last week the Iraq war was declared over, but our country’s military engagement continues around the world, a reminder of the shadow that always accompanies the season of peace and light.

The story of Rhode Island in wartime has been sporadically documented. A couple of weeks ago this blog focused on Christian M. McBurney’s “The Rhode Island Campaign: The First French and American Operation in the Revolutionary War,” a book that contributes significantly to the Ocean State’s historical narrative. The Revolutionary War, at least in New England, has always been a primary concern. There are trails with landmarks and burial grounds telling the Patriot story scattered throughout the six states, and all New England schoolchildren grow up with a fundamental understanding of the region’s importance to the emerging nation’s aspirations and sense of identity – even though Massachusetts gets most of the ink.

Recent scholarly excursions into King Philip’s War have expanded our understanding of Colonial-era Rhode Island and the surrounding Puritan New England colonies as well. From June 1675 to August 1676, the war was fought between the growing population of New Englanders (aided by some local tribes) against Native American tribes comprising the Narragansett, Wampanoag, Nipmuck and others.

The World Wars are commemorated in monuments. All Rhode Islanders know the World War I monument, a towering shaft of Westerly granite that used to occupy the crazed DownCity roundabout known as “suicide circle” until it was relocated to its current position in front of the Superior Court building in the 1980s when Providence moved its rivers. World War II left a legacy in V-J Day, now known as Victory Day, denoting the date when the Japanese surrendered. Rhode Island remains the only state in the U.S. to mark the date with a holiday. A Rhode Islander is also purportedly the young sailor depicted in the world’s most famous photograph of a kiss. Alfred Einsentaedt’s signature image of World War II, of the sailor kissing a nurse in a white dress, taken on V-J Day in Times Square, is one of the iconic American scenes, even though in recent years other veterans have laid claim to putting their lips on the moment.

Given the level of fascination with all things historical in these parts, it’s surprising that Rhode Island shows such scant interest in a war that much of the rest of the country can’t get enough of – the Civil War. Especially since by the time of the War Between the States, Rhode Island was a hub of manufacturing, with many of the mills generating fabrics for Southern plantations then switching over to produce material for the Union cause. Rhode Island regiments served with distinction in the Civil War, and yet even this year’s 150th anniversary of the war’s beginning didn’t generate much play in a state that saw its capital celebrate its 375th anniversary.

A new organization in Massachusetts is trying to bring more attention to New England’s role in the Civil War. The New England Civil War Foundation is seeking to create a New England Civil War Discovery Trail that will spotlight houses of historical significance (such as the residence of Gen. Ambrose Burnside – whom we have to thank for “sideburns” – on Benefit Street in Providence), places of maritime activity (such as Newport), and factories that made products for Union soldiers, including uniforms and guns. The only Rhode Island location mentioned to date on the Web site is the Mill at Shady Lea in North Kingstown. According to the site, blankets were made there for Union soldiers. Also, several POWs from the South, who were stationed at Fort Adams in Newport, ended up working there, with many of them staying on and settling in the area.

The South County Museum in Narragansett and the Pettaquamscutt Historical Society in Kingston are just two of the local historical landmarks that contain objects and ephemera detailing Rhode Island’s involvement with the Civil War. Anyone who wants to nominate historic spots for the New England Civil War Discovery Trail should e-mail editor@battlefieldjournal.com.

What was Rhode Island’s most significant contribution to the Civil War?

Sea-struck

2011-12-12T12:37:00.003-05:00

The watery side of Rhode Island gets the gallery treatment in a couple of exhibitions hereabouts. The Artists for Save The Bay Sale & Exhibit, featuring hundreds of artworks in a variety of media made by more than 70 Rhode Island artists – all focusing in some way on the state’s most precious resource, Narragansett Bay – will be on display through Dec. 27 in Providence. I’ll have more this Thursday in the paper and online.

While the Save The Bay show emphasizes the bay’s scenery, biodiversity and variety of moods (in all seasons, types of weather and times of day and night), an exhibition at the Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery at Salve Regina University in Newport goes for something deeper. Titled “Ocean States,” and curated by Ernest Jolicoeur, the gallery’s new director, the exhibition showcases five Rhode Island-based artists responding to the sea.

Two installations stand out. The first, at the entrance, is a companion to the exhibit – Bert Emerson’s “A Day at the Beach,” a large-scale construction of found objects, glass, wood, plastic and aquarium filters transformed into something that on first glance appears culled from the mad scientist’s laboratory in “Young Frankenstein.” (The one where Igor, played by Marty Feldman, dropped the first brain, so he took the one belonging to “Abby someone…Abby Normal.”)

Emerson’s inventive installation contains 75 items, representing a fraction of nearly 1,000 pounds of trash, everything from those ubiquitous crushed Styrofoam Dunkin’ Donuts cups to fishing lures and SpongeBob SquarePants novelties, collected during a local beach cleanup in September. The piece is a collaboration with Clean Ocean Access, an organization whose mission focuses attention on the cleanliness and safety of the water at the Rhode Island coast and issues of public access. COA provides a weekly program that tests levels of unseen contaminated water in our shore areas. While people are sometimes warned about contamination, the sea life of Narragansett Bay doesn’t have the option of closing the beach. COA’s idea, according to the artist, is to make “the invisible visible,” which is what Emerson has done here with his provocative and labor-intensive artwork.

The other eye-grabber is “Waveform 1,” a kinetic sculpture by Mikhail Mansion and Will Reeves, made of steel, wood, aluminum and stainless steel, that mimics the undulating quality of ocean water. The contrast between the construction’s hard materials and its fluid action is disorienting and visually engaging, all the more so since the rhythmic accompanying sound here is not sloshing water but the mechanized noise associated with engineering (echoing the age of steam). Positioned in the center of the gallery, the installation is 100-by-128-by-120 inches in size, and demands attention throughout the visit. The mechanical wave rises and falls from a battery of overhead controls that include pulleys and wires, gears and cams, turning metal and wood into the shape and motion of a jellyfish. Thus the wave, as the primal act of the sea, is ingeniously reconsidered here.

Other artists present multiple works. All have their highlights. As a series, Allison Eleanor Bianco’s screen prints featuring grounded and sinking ships in highly saturated colors is a successful blend of the comic and tragic. A staggered fleet of tall ships, tugs, trawlers, tankers, ferries and cruise ships are depicted in their beached or submerging vessel forms at their voyage’s unexpected end. Dramatic color choices and the specificity of each vessel’s design add to the poignancy of works, which resonate with evocations of loss, memory and the ultimate inevitability of all journeys, human and otherwise.

Buck Hastings cultivates surreal scenes using old magazines and oceanographic textbooks, creating dream-like photo-collages inspired by the adventure of deep-sea exploration, while Todd Moore presents large India Ink drawings on paper, immersing viewers in topographic detail along the rocky New England coast. Both artists add to the collective of the re-imagined ocean that cradles Rhode Island (and, by extension, the world beyond). And, with Narragansett Bay pounding the rocks below the Cliff Walk just a few hundred yards away, the Hamilton Gallery is ideally situated to offer the tantalizing bit of sea-smack found in “Ocean States.”

The show ends Wednesday. Hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. tomorrow and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Wednesday.

This week’s question: What is your favorite artwork depicting Rhode Island?

Revolutionary Rhody

2011-12-05T11:58:00.002-05:00

Flashback, August 1778. With American patriots and their allies primed to capture the British garrison at Newport, and French forces poised for an epic sea battle against the British in and around Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island found itself at the epicenter of the Revolutionary War. Victory here, and the war might have ended sooner, with place names like Portsmouth and Quaker Hill becoming as much of the nation’s consciousness as Yorktown and Bunker Hill.

We can only speculate what might have happened had the sea battle not begun at the cusp of a hurricane, or “the Great Storm,” as it was known. The weather, coupled with evasive strategy by Britain’s Admiral Howe, eventually forced the French fleet to depart Rhode Island for repairs in Boston – a major factor in dooming prospects for absolute American victory in the Rhode Island theater.

I’ll have more on Christian M. McBurney’s “The Rhode Island Campaign,” a scholarly account of the first joint French and American operation of the Revolutionary War, in this Thursday’s paper and online edition. Today’s blog is devoted to a few marks made in yellow highlighter, an accumulation of oddities and details that didn’t make it into the review.

One only-in-Rhode-Island moment: On Major General John Sullivan, commander-in-chief of the American Army, requesting provisions from Continental depots in Boston:

Sullivan refused only one item because Rhode Island had plenty of it – rum.

Speaking of rum, the demon drink was one of the few advantages that Providence held over Newport, which bested our state capital in population, wealth and culture:

…in one area, at least, Providence outdid its flashier sister city: in 1769, its thirty-one rum distilleries surpassed Newport’s twenty-six.

Some of the British turned out to be scarecrows. Or scarepatriots, as Colonel John Topham’s 1st Rhode Island State Regiment discovered when it inspected British fortifications on the island at Butts (Windmill) Hill:

Marching inland, he discovered amid the earthen walls and wooden barracks atop Butts Hill only dummy soldiers – red-coated uniforms stuffed with straw.

Straw soldiers weren’t the only trick the British had up their sleeves. The Navy had a ploy of its own:

Howe had brought with him three fire ships, which could be set ablaze and adrift when the tides and winds were right to crash into the huge, anchored French ships. [The names of the British fire ships were Strombolo, Sulphur and Volcano.]

The Aug. 10, 1778 edition of The Boston Independent Ledger, reporting on the war, declared “All eyes are now turned to Rhode Island.” (What a difference a couple of centuries make, give or take three or four decades. Now when all eyes turn to Rhode Island, they’re watching “Family Guy.”)

Some things never change: Colonel Laurens, riding on horseback from New York to Providence, reported that he had journeyed “in 48 hours over the worst and in some parts the most obscure roads that I ever traveled.” Welcome to Rhody, where some of our potholes are on the National Historic Register.

Rock stars are famous for not going on stage unless their demands for, say, a bowl of green-only M&Ms are met. With the baguette-mad French, apparently, the deal-breaker was bread, which was lacking in Rhode Island: According to Sullivan, French Admiral D’Estaing asked for 6,000 bricks “necessary for the construction of ovens to bake flour and make bread. Our existence depends on it.” And Laurens wrote, “The French squadron will want a great quantity of provisions whether they winter here or return to France. No biscuit is to be had here. Pennsylvania must furnish flour, and bakers should be employed [there] immediately.” Apparently, the French never got the hang of jonnycakes.

What is your favorite Rhode Island historical oddity?

Winterizing

2011-11-28T11:09:00.002-05:00

Although the weather outside is hardly frightful, I'm making the call now: If you live in New England, get ready for a cold and snowy winter. My reasoning is based solely on recent observations while walking or jogging through neighborhoods suddenly exploding in fat squirrels with bushy tails. I'm talking Santa girth. These aren't woodsy rodents. They're sumo wrestlers. I've got three in my backyard that don't even bother moving anymore when I walk by. They live in a cedar tree on the property and have to take turns scrambling up the bark (although the word "scrambling" is generous; imagine three sumo wrestlers rock climbing behind one another and you have pretty good idea of the pace). So this can't be a good sign for anyone hoping for a mild winter.

But if you don’t trust my forecasting skills, weather lore is abundant in foolproof methods to gauge the severity of winter. Here are a few:

1) Find a dead, local goose. (In other words, no Canada geese. And nothing store-bought. You don't know where they've been.) Locate the breastbone. Its length will indicate the length of the upcoming winter while its color will determine the season’s severity. A plain white breastbone foretells a mild winter. The more mottled, the more severe.

2) Check for moss growing on a tree in your neighborhood. Locate the south side of the tree. The more moss growing on that side of the tree, the harder the winter ahead.

3) Watch those fat squirrels with bushy tails bury their nuts. The deeper they dig, the colder the winter to come.

4) Think back to July. Were the anthills high? If so, it means a snowy winter.

5) Peel an onion grown locally. The general rule of thumb is: “Onion skins very thin/Mild winter coming in; Onion skins thick and tough/Coming winter cold and rough.”

6) Go to the riverbank. Locate a muskrat hole. The higher the burrow, the higher the snow will be this winter.

7) Cut open a persimmon seed. Look inside. If it has a knife shape that means winter will be cold and icy, with winds that cut like a knife.

8) Check the thickness of cornhusks, raccoon tails and the hair on the nape of a crow’s neck. If thicker than usual, expect a rough winter.

9) Watch pigs. Are they gathering sticks? Watch ants. Are they marching in a line? Watch woodpeckers. Are they sharing trees? Watch spiders. Are they spinning bigger-than-average webs or showing up in your house in greater numbers? All of these animal behaviors predict a severe winter.

10) Find a woolly bear caterpillar. Is it fatter and fuzzier than the last time you looked at a woolly bear caterpillar? Is the orange band in the middle narrower than normal? Both are portents of a hard winter.

There’s more. Did the monarch butterflies, snowy owls, geese and ducks migrate early? Are the hornet’s nests higher than normal? Have the bees hibernated in their hives prematurely? Are squirrels gathering nuts even earlier and more frantically than usual, and hiding them in odd places? Are you suddenly noticing crickets and mice in your house?

If so, bundle up and make sure your shovel and scraper are handy. Based on the Fat Squirrel Theory, Old Man Winter looks like he’s building an igloo in Rhode Island this year.

This week’s question: What winter weather lore do you trust the most?

Thanksgiving Story

2011-11-21T09:30:00.001-05:00

A few years back I welcomed new neighbors with a harvest basket filled with a cornucopia of gifts and a card that read, “You’ve been turkeyed.” On the heels of a previously anonymous Halloween candy-and-art-supply “You’ve been ghosted” delivery to the doorstep, the secret grab bag of Thanksgiving kitsch became part of a new tradition, with variants (“You’ve been shamrocked” on Saint Patrick’s Day; “You’ve been egged” at Easter) keeping the mystery going all year long.

(Not all of the skulking was successful. A late-night egg planting one Easter went horribly wrong once when children opened their plastic eggs the next morning in the living room, only to see grubby, slimy, early-rising insects crawl out. They had been attracted by the jellybeans inside. On the plus side, according to their parents, the negative reinforcement seemed to curb the kids’ appetite for candy that year.)

The gist of the Thanksgiving ritual involved a visit from the great gobbler, Tom Booghalamoon.* Inspired by my own childhood readings of the Great Pumpkin, whom Linus waits for unfailingly to visit every year in “Peanuts,” Tom Booghalamoon – also known as Tom B. Turkey – is a giant flying Narragansett turkey that wears a pilgrim’s hat and rides a broom. Just as Santa Claus brings gifts to children everywhere on Christmas Eve, Tom Turkey welcomes anyone who has moved into a new neighborhood since the previous Thanksgiving with gifts of hearth and harvest. With his faithful Turkey Boys and Turkey Girls, urchins that have a home in a corn maze the size of Rhode Island, at a latitude and longitude that doesn’t appear to exist on any known map, Tom brings good cheer to those who are leaving something behind but are also looking forward to whatever might be ahead.

What is your favorite Thanksgiving Day ritual?

· Linguists may recognize Booghalamoon as Persian for “wild turkey.” Other foreign names include: “Chilmyeonjo,” Korean for “seven-faced bird”; “dik rumi,” Arabic for “Roman rooster” or “Ethiopian bird”; “huoji,” a Chinese word meaning “fire chicken” (other Chinese words include “tujinji” or “cough up a brocade chicken” or “tushouji” or “cough up a ribbon chicken”); “la dinde” in France, which is derived from “(poulet) d’Inde” or “(chicken) from India”; “(der) Truthahn” in German; “gallopoula” in Greek, meaning “French chicken”; “Peru,” in Portuguese, which is also their name for the country “Peru”; “bata mzinga” in Swahili, meaning “the great duck”; and “feel murgh” in Urdu, meaning “elephant chicken.” (Source: Wikipedia.)

Day of the Dolphins

2011-11-14T10:54:00.002-05:00

In Celtic mythology, the dolphin was considered “the watcher of the water” or “protector of sacred water.” So the recent sighting of common dolphins cavorting in a pod just off Barrington Beach could be taken as a sign that Narragansett Bay is getting healthy enough to support the kind of baitfish that will bring Flipper back into the fold here in Rhode Island, where the mermaids and giant sea monkeys left along with the horseshoe crabs back during the 1970s, when the bay was a toxic sewer.

I remember two things about combing the shore along the upper part of the bay back in the early 1970s. For the first couple of years, you could find as many horseshoe crab shells as rocks on the shore. Then they just disappeared. The other vivid memory is a nighttime excursion to the Providence waterfront, near where the big tankers dock now. I looked down into the water and saw a steady stream of electric blue goop going out with the current. Never knew what that blue goop was, but if I were a fish I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have wanted to swim through it.

In the years since, Save The Bay has done a remarkable job of cleaning the water, educating the public, lobbying politicians and fighting industrialists to bring the state’s most important resource back to health. I know this because about the time I moved back to Rhode Island, I began to notice the horseshoe crabs again, swimming along the tide line. Eel runs and bluefish runs frequent the channels. Some former oyster beds are recovering. More places are opening for safe quahogging. So there’s hope for the mermaids and sea monkeys.

It’s good news that bear have returned to our forests and dolphins to our bay. Now that environmental regulation, including legislation for clean water and clean air, has proven to work, and creatures like the osprey – on a fast track to extinction during the 1970s – are thriving once again in Rhode Island, many in Congress want to curtail these programs and put the ecosystem back in the hands of the industrialists. I think the dolphins dropped by to remind Rhode Islanders not to let them do that.

While Narragansett Bay has improved, it still has too much pollution from sewage waste, treatment plants, storm water spill-off, over-development and industrial facilities that violate their permits, resulting at times in the creation of dead zones, beach and shell-fishing closures, fish-kills and clam die-offs. It’s nice that the watchers of the water spent a day at play in Narragansett Bay. But vigilance isn’t just the job of marine mammals. If Rhode Islanders want to preserve the bay for future generations, we can’t expect dolphins to do all of the watching.

Which is why the annual Save The Bay Sale & Exhibit, opening this Thursday at the Save The Bay Center at Fields Point in Providence, is worth a detour for anyone who cares about the bay’s revival. More than 70 artists, most from Rhode Island, will showcase over 200 original works of painting, photography, sculpture and jewelry inspired by the Ocean State’s most prominent landscape. The show, which helps to fund the organization’s KEYS campaign (Keep Educating Young Scientists), continues through Dec. 27. If you’re an art-lover or a bay-watcher, drop by and discover more than 200 ways to see an old friend in a new light.

This week’s question: What was your favorite wildlife encounter in Rhode Island?

Blog on the Half Shell Classic
We didn’t exist as a blog back in 2000, when the movie “Chicken Run” came out. But Rhody-philes might like to rent the stop-animation classic, if only to rank the performance of its protagonist – a Rhode Island Red named Rocky Rhodes – against those of other cartoon Rhode Islanders, including the cast of “Family Guy,” Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head from the “Toy Story” trilogy, and “G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero.” Just sayin’: The rooster gives the American dysfunctional family, the potatoes and the soldier who takes himself a bit too seriously a real run for their money.

Marquee Marks

2011-11-07T14:39:00.002-05:00

Last week, while checking in with Fusionworks Dance Company in Lincoln, I noticed the “P” was missing on the Pharmacy sign at the Lincoln Mall Target. So it read: HARMACY. I made a note of it because I liked the idea of a “harmacy” as a place you go where the drugs do more harm than good.

Earlier today my friend Gavin, during our lunchtime jog, said he saw his favorite sign amid a string of cheap motels near the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Trying to set itself apart, one motel advertised free HBO. Except that the “H” had disappeared. Turns out that this particular dive was actually offering: FREE B O.

For a long while a few years back, Junge’s Hotel on Route 16 in North Conway, N.H. had a marquee with a dark letter. So it read: “Jung ‘s Hotel.” I always wanted to stay there, imagining a “Twin Peaks-ian” atmosphere in which rooms would be visited by spirits and angels, Grim Reapers and devils, old wise men and Earth Mothers and the like.

More than once during my bicycle trip up the East Coast a decade ago, I saw signs advertising Sunday events with the S missing that read: UNDAY. The idea appealed to me. Ever since I have tried to schedule one “unday” every month – a day to break routine, explore somewhere new, try something different and tune out the noise of the world. The ritual of the unday as a day devoted to spontaneity and adventure – whether recreational, scholarly or spiritual – is something I’ve cultivated to the point where I can’t imagine a month without one. Amazing to think it was conceived amid a plastic wilderness of pink flamingoes and mailbox manatees.

What was your favorite roadside sign?

Late Potato
Not sure how we missed this, given this blog’s obsession with all things Potato Head. But earlier this year in Time magazine’s “Culture” section, it was reported that Pawtucket-based Hasbro was introducing thinner versions of Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head. Bowing to a carb-conscious public and recent statistics about obesity, the toy manufacturer apparently decided that the iconic spuds should be a better role model for kids, hence the slimmer figures. For some reason, Hasbro also suddenly decided they needed pants. So that’s the news from Rhody: No more naked potato.

All Hallows

2011-10-31T12:47:00.003-04:00

In the spirit of today’s Halloween, we present an Eastern screech owl, denizen of the Rhode Island woods, courtesy of an e-mail from the Audubon Society of Rhode Island, which is sponsoring owl prowls, full moon hikes and wildlife walks throughout the state in November. It’s just one of the bits of whimsy and mischief I’ve noticed today, from the elaborate rogues’ gallery and horror menagerie that annually takes over a house on High Street in Wakefield to the barista in a bumblebee outfit who served me coffee and a bagel at Sweet Cakes Bakery and Café in Peace Dale.

Work gets in the way today, so my Doctuh Funkmeistuh – “Zombies like funk. We are the funky dead.” – persona will have to wait a few moons to unleash itself upon an unsuspecting public, but that doesn’t mean we’ve gone cold turkey on the holiday. Last Friday some friends and I met at the Steel Yard in Providence for the 6th annual Iron Pour. This year’s theme was “Molten Masquerade” and the whole experience was, in owl terms, a hoot. Members of the Iron Guild poured about 500 pounds of liquid, gold-colored iron into various molds, metal skulls, jack-o-lanterns and giant sculptures, while the yard smoldered and blazed, producing billowing white smoke, shimmering steam and exploding stars out of the iron that splattered against the cold ground or expired in the raw autumn night. Equally impressive was the furnace containing the oozing orange metal, sending plumes of wild yellow and blue fire sky high and disgorging streams of the amber liquid when called upon. The ironmaster (or ironmistress in this case) asked the crowd to vote on naming the furnace from such possibilities as El Jefe, Hoss the Boss, Psiclops (not Cyclops, for reasons I can’t remember) and Banshee (inspired by the incessantly noisy but necessary furnace fan) – although I was partial to the suggestion by one guy in the audience who said we should name it Dave…Dave the Furnace.

Some of the molds became spears that were used to attack a monstrous witch, which caught flame and disintegrated into its skeletal pose. Another large mold, once it cooled and was lifted off the ground with a winch and a steel chain, was revealed as a giant, glowing skull. The Iron Guild members, in their best village mob impersonation, moved in loose choreography, attacking various masquerade figures, including a giant goat and a tree-like creature that reminded me of one of the characters on the old “H.R. Pufnstuf” kid show. They lit a massive metal jack-o-lantern and sent it rolling down a hill. They ignited skulls around the perimeter (although the skull directly in front of us seemed to have enough life in it to keep snuffing out the fire, eventually treating us to a brief but spectacular interlude of flaming eyeballs and a torch-like tongue before going dark again). Masked mythical creatures cavorted along with one ironmonger twirling a flaming lasso of sorts, sending colorful sparks into the night. Another character – a crowd favorite – revved a flaming chainsaw and ran around a lot. Every time the molten iron splattered on the ground or collided with other surfaces the oxide produced dazzling fireworks of mostly silver and blue. Pumpkins in the dark jolted to life with each pour, instantly flashing their sinister jack-o-lantern grins. The evening was a theatrical mix of controlled volcanic eruption, magma flow, the rites of destruction and creation, and sparklers on steroids.

At one level the night was about the pure joy of burning things. At another it was modern mythmaking, a blend of art, science and ritual weirdness harking back to the Halloweens of yore and the fire festivals of ancient tribes. Luminous and fanciful, the Halloween Iron Pour is one of those quirky experiments in living alchemy that Providence does so well. Prometheus and Vulcan should be proud.

This week’s question: What was your most memorable Halloween?

Throwaway Size
During last week’s game 5 of the World Series between the Texas Rangers and the St. Louis Cardinals, Fox broadcasting announcer Joe Buck dropped a Rhody size reference between at-bats, noting that “220 Rhode Islands” could fit into Texas. Of course, while the geographic math may be true, on a cultural level it’s doubtful you could find 220 Rhode Islanders who could fit into Texas.

Pulp and Cow

2011-10-24T12:24:00.003-04:00

While trolling for blog fodder this morning I stumbled onto a blog that had previously trolled my newspaper to comment on and link to a story I’d forgotten I’d written. Welcome to the vortex, where information spins endlessly, cycling forever, outliving the minds that thought it, dreamed it and bothered to write it down.

Turns out that last year the blog Grim Reviews scattered a few kind words about a pre-Halloween feature I wrote three years ago about Rhode Island native C.M. Eddy Jr., a pulp writer for “Weird Tales” and a close friend to H.P. Lovecraft and Harry Houdini. Eddy’s grandson, Jim Dyer of Narragansett, had compiled a partial collection of his work – 13 stories titled “The Loved Dead and Other Tales,” published by his homegrown company, Fenham Publishing. Previously, Dyer had published Eddy’s work in “Exit Into Eternity, Tales of the Bizarre and Supernatural.”

Given that Halloween is just around the corner, it seemed like a good time to resurrect a couple of quotes from the piece that serve to illuminate Lovecraft and Houdini, two artists in different disciplines whose influence on modern horror writers (in Lovecraft’s case) and illusionists (in Houdini’s) is unquestioned, from Stephen King to David Copperfield.

Lovecraft, of course, was a Providence native and Rhode Island lifer, while Houdini was a frequent visitor to our humble state. The words are Dyer’s:

On Eddy’s relationship to Lovecraft:

My grandparents became friends with Lovecraft in the early 1920s. He used to walk to their house in Fox Point and stay late into the night. My grandfather and he would take late-night walks in the streets of Providence, looking for interesting places or just talking about ideas for stories. My grandmother typed some of his manuscripts…He wasn’t competitive at all. Lovecraft had a hand in a lot of stories that he never got any credit for. He had a circle of friends, who would mail each other different stories and make comments.

On Eddy’s relationship to Houdini:

He worked as a ghostwriter and an investigator for Houdini. Houdini paid writers to write stories that had his name on them in popular magazines. He also used to go around the country breaking up séances and exposing mediums as fakes. My grandfather would travel to a town ahead of him and find out everything he could. He’d figure out how the voices were coming from the walls, how the table might be moving. Then he’d type up a report for Houdini, who would show up with all of the newspapers and expose the act as if he was doing it on the spot.

Odd Cow
The runaway cow that fell out of a truck last Tuesday on the Jamestown Bridge while on its way to the slaughterhouse captured the attention and imagination of locals. The bovine avoided capture for two hours before being shot by police and state environmental officials at the request of its owner. We’ll have more on the paper side in “Flotsam & Jetsam” this Thursday, but for now we’d like to know where Jamestown Bridge Cow ranks in Rhode Island’s cow pantheon. Here’s my take:

1) Golden Cow. (Newport Creamery logo.)
2) Jamestown Bridge Cow. (RIP)
3) Diva Cows. (Two of the seven Cows on Parade owned by Imagine, a boutique store in Warren. The colorful cow-sized sculptures graze eternally outside the second story of the store along Route 114. Warren has embraced the kitschy cattle, unlike denizens of Imagine’s previous home in Barrington, who raised a hue and cry to ban the cows from their town.)
4) Colt Park Bulls. (Two Jersey bulls owned by Colonel Colt that now stand as sculptures on marble pedestals at the entrance to Colt State Park in Bristol. Colt raised the finest Jersey herd in the world. On the right is a Grand Champion. On the left is a bull that killed a farm worker.)
5) The Purple Cow. (A boutique store in Wakefield.)
6) Rhody Fresh. (The logo for Rhody Fresh, local milk from local farms.)

Years ago, after someone shot an elephant in Chepachet, the town’s residents honored its memory with a statue and an annual holiday. This week’s question: How should we honor the late, lamented Jamestown Bridge Cow?

Grab Bag

2011-10-17T11:38:00.001-04:00

Piecing together a few random finds from recent reading, with a Rhody twist. First, from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s unauthorized autobiography as excerpted in the British newsmagazine, The Week. In the extract, Assange recalls spending much of his childhood on the run from his mother’s abusive ex-lover, a member of a cult called The Family, based in the mountains north of Melbourne, Australia:

It was so tiring. Just moving all the time. Being on the run. The very last time, we got some intelligence that Leif was drawing close: they told us he was near us in the hills outside Melbourne. My brother and I showed a lot of resistance that final time – we just couldn’t bear the idea of grabbing our things again and dashing for the door. As a bribe, my mother and I told my little brother he could take his prized rooster, a Rhode Island Red, a very tall, proud, strong-looking bird, who was also extremely loud.

And two more for the size of Rhode Island archives:

From Sloane Crosley’s collection of essays, “How Did You Get This Number,” in a paragraph on an essay about a trip to Alaska titled “Light Pollution”:

The state of Alaska itself is like one big whale. Chunks of ice the size of Rhode Island exist like barnacles. They could detach from a glacier up north and no one would notice.

From the archives of the Economic Collapse blog:

Did you know that a new desert the size of Rhode Island is created in China because of drought every single year?

This week’s question: What is your favorite use of Rhode Island in a printed sentence?

Rhody Awards

2011-10-10T12:00:00.003-04:00

Meandering among the throngs yesterday during an Indian Summer excursion along the East Bay Bike Path, watching snakes slither sideways to the grassy margins and butterflies hitching rides on colorful backpacks, I paused every now and then to do a little browsing at the Barrington Preservation Society’s historical markers. These story kiosks, spread out through the Barrington stretch of bike path, are a relatively recent addition to the recreational route.

Through text and old photographs, the markers document places of local interest. Like Haines Park, the former property of a physician who bought the land because he believed in the virtue of fresh air and outdoor recreation, who spent one summer living there before dying of asthma. One of the oldest state parks in Rhode Island, Haines became a great escape for East Bay residents, a place for hiking, picnicking, baseball, bocce and horseshoes. A wooden footbridge (destroyed by the 1938 Hurricane) connected it to Crescent Park, the East Bay’s lesser-known cousin to Rocky Point, where a mammoth wooden roller coaster stood until 1961. Some of the stone fireplaces, constructed by masons as part of President Roosevelt’s WPA initiative, remain in use.

A short walk away tells the story of Bay Spring, where my neighborhood is located. It began as a summer tent colony (like the tourist camp on Cronin’s Bathing Beach at Point Judith or the tent community that developed at Roy Carpenter’s Beach in Matunuck) and turned into the town’s industrial center. One factory churned out the country’s largest supply of imitation leather, mostly for the auto industry, while the lace factory, which is now an assisted living facility, supplied the world with veils, curtains and other lace works. My neighborhood also was one of Rhode Island’s most productive oyster harvesting locations – at one time providing enough business for three thriving oyster shacks. The Bay Spring Yacht Club building (also destroyed by the 1938 Hurricane) stood at what is now Lavin’s Marina, hosting summer nights of cards and pool on its second floor, music and dancing on the third.

The walk went on that way, like a slow-moving View-Master. The next stop was Drownville (the original name for West Barrington), home to farms and a train station depot on tracks that once stretched from Providence to Bristol. Once again, the 1938 Hurricane – which did more to change the face of Rhode Island than anything since the Wisconsin Glacier retreated – left its mark, forcing the abandonment of passenger rail service, although freight still traveled the tracks until 1976.

Then onto Little Echo, an ice pond created from a clay pit, where icemen stored their winter haul in a local ice house and served the surrounding neighborhoods until the age of electricity and refrigeration. Residents would put large signs in their windows with the numbers 25, 50, 75 or 100, indicating how many pounds of ice they needed, and the icemen cameth. No questions asked. The pond now hosts bullfrogs and dragonflies, mute swans and snapping turtles the size of flying saucers.

Brickyard Pond, the next stop, now a tranquil place for fishing, kayaking and birding, was once the site of a huge clay works, where Barrington bricks were made. It is estimated that more than 100 buildings in downtown Providence and on the East Side were built with Barrington bricks. (I still have one of the bricks, courtesy of my friend Tom, who gathered it from the rubble of the late, lamented West Barrington Elementary School while I was living in New Hampshire.)

The story kiosks paint a picture of past vibrancy, connecting the dots. Trains came up and down what is now bike path, carrying loads of bricks to Providence, and fabrics from the Bay Spring factories, and ice packed in sawdust keeping oysters alive for delivery to the shore dinner hall at Crescent Park and restaurants in Providence, Boston and beyond. Even amid the Spandex and bicycles carrying GPS navigation systems and little trailers containing Pomeranians, the old ghosts come to life in these historical markers, which on Friday will be honored, most deservedly, at the R.I. Preservation Celebration with their own Rhody Award.

Chosen by Preserve Rhode Island and the R.I. Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission from nominations by the public, the Rhody Awards pay tribute to individuals, organizations and projects for their contributions to the preservation of Rhode Island’s historic places. In doing so, they celebrate our sense of place and the stories that make us who we are today.

The icemen and the oystermen, the station agents and the factory workers of West Barrington may be gone, but the village goes on. And thanks to the happy marriage of history, nature and recreation on the East Bay Bike Path, its legacies won't be forgotten.

What is your favorite example of historic preservation in Rhode Island?

Footloose: Super Sized

2011-10-03T11:37:00.002-04:00

A camera crew walked into the woods of West Greenwich a couple of weeks ago, looking for Bigfoot. Readers are welcome to provide their own punch line.

The Animal Planet TV series “Finding Bigfoot” dropped by Little Rhody to investigate a Sasquatch sighting in the Ocean State. The show, now in its second season, has already hunted for Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) in Alaska, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Oregon and Washington.

Tall, hairy and elusive, like pretty much every drummer that ever played in a 1980s heavy metal band, Bigfoot walks like a human and is categorized as a cryptid, last seen avoiding the paparazzi from The Weekly World News. At least three members of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization believe that there are different Bigfeet – each with slightly distinctive characteristics – roaming the various states. The one in Florida is known as the Ape Skunk, because of its distinctive odor. The one in Rhode Island is called “Big Rhody,” – or Ted, by its friends.

In the spirit of reportorial accuracy, it should be noted that “Big Rhody” is also a 28-inch pizza (with an 87-inch crust circumference) made by the folks at Pier Pizza.

The TV show was inspired to visit Rhode Island based on a video shot from a car of a shadowy figure keeping pace alongside the automobile. [Santa George? Pogo Dave? The ghost of Tarzan Brown?] On the BFRO Web site, the most recent reports of possible Bigfoot evidence include:

Oct. 2006, Washington County – Possible stick formation found by hiker in the Great Swamp.

Oct. 1998, Providence County – Daylight sighting by mountain biker in the Black Hut Management Area outside Glendale.

Summer 1978, Washington County – Mother and son see Sasquatch close-up from road.

If I remember my summer of 1978 correctly, there’s a good chance that mother and son were smoking something close-up from the road before the Sasquatch sighting, but that’s a blog post for another day.

On the other hand, the two most recent sightings occurred in October, making this month a good one for Bigfoot spotting in Rhode Island. Given that the winds and rains and salt-smack of Irene have stripped and dried-out the leaves from most of our trees prior to this year’s foliage season, Rhody leaf-peepers might want to shift their attention to hairy, barefoot giants this year.

This week’s question: If you were a Bigfoot in Rhode Island, where would you live?

Return of Naked Man

2011-09-26T10:54:00.001-04:00

From this week’s North East Independent police beat, with an assist from the Independent’s East Greenwich reporter Cassidy Swanson:

NAKED MAN VISITS RESIDENCE

A local woman received a strange visitor around midnight on Sunday claiming that the apocalypse is imminent. According to a police report, the resident stated that she heard a noise coming from her front porch and opened her front door to find a naked white man, approximately 20 years old, 200 pounds and 6 feet to 6 feet, 3 inches tall with blond hair, who was wearing only a pair of white socks, the report states.
The woman called to her son-in-law, who also lives at her home, and when he spoke to the man the visitor said “The world is ending,” and “I’m sorry if I scared you.” The male then proceeded to run from the home, smacking himself on the buttocks with his hand, the report states.

In the interest of accuracy, as our proofreader pointed out, this guy is really Almost Naked Man, given the white socks. But for the purposes of this blog post, we’ll give him the benefit of the Fully Monty.

Creepy though it sounds, Naked Man is a pretty popular character in the police logs and beat reports of weekly newspapers across America. I first realized this more than a decade ago, when a professor at a college I worked at in New Hampshire – who liked to spend summer nights wandering the streets around the campus in the nude – was caught by police one evening hiding in the bushes a few blocks from his home. I was the college’s news director at the time, and the professor begged me to keep his name out of the paper. I told him I had no control over that, but he had control over whether he put his pants on when going out in public. At any rate, I discovered that the professor was merely one of countless numbers of Naked Men out there, roaming the cities and suburbs from sea to shining sea. Some are ideological naturalists. Some are closet risk-takers. Some are curious or chronic streakers. Some are bombed or stoned out of their gourds. Some have a screw loose. Some are no doubt perverts. At the end of the day, it takes all kinds to be a Naked Man.

But outside of any disturbing aspects of Naked Man’s behavior, he may yet have some value beyond providing brief amusement in the police beat sections of weekly papers. I give you the Naked Man News Headline Game. Here’s how it works: Read the headlines of an actual newspaper then replace one of the words with Naked Man. As an example, here are some real headlines from recent editions of The New York Times:

House Republicans Discover a Growing Bond with Netanyahu
Dodd-Frank Act a Favorite Target for Republicans Laying Blame
Qaddafi Calls New Libya Government a Propped-Up ‘Charade’
Greece Nears the Precipice, Raising Fear
Turkey Predicts Alliance with Egypt as Regional Anchors
Strauss-Kahn Concedes ‘Error’ in Sexual Encounter with Maid
Paint Creek, the Town Perry Left Behind
Facebook to Offer Path to Media
Tumult of Arab Spring Prompts Worries in Washington
Obama Tax Plan Would Ask More of Millionaires

Now for the Naked Man versions:

House Republicans Discover a Growing Bond with Naked Man
Naked Man Act a Favorite Target for Republicans Laying Blame
Qaddafi Calls New Libya Government a Propped-Up ‘Naked Man’
Greece Nears the Naked Man, Raising Fear
Turkey Predicts Alliance with Naked Man as Regional Anchors
Strauss-Kahn Concedes ‘Error’ in Naked Man Encounter with Maid (Some of these actually work for real!)
Paint Creek, the Naked Man Perry Left Behind
Facebook to Offer Naked Man to Media
Naked Man of Arab Spring Prompts Worries in Washington
Obama Tax Plan Would Ask More of Naked Man

As you can see, it really doesn’t matter where you put the Naked Man. He works in nearly every editorial situation.

However, given that I write for a family-friendly newspaper, I’m going to limit this week’s question to: What is your favorite all-time newspaper headline?

(Mine comes courtesy of The Boston Herald, after a man carrying a few tons of timber traveled an overpass he wasn’t supposed to during the morning commute. The road collapsed, his truck overturned, spilling wood all over the highway, causing epic traffic delays and costing millions of dollars in lost productivity and repairs. The Herald’s cover that afternoon featured a photograph of the forlorn driver with an inset of the damage he caused under the headline: LUMBER JERK.)

Rhodywood Cameo

2011-09-19T11:15:00.002-04:00

Last week Hollywood came to town to film a car chase. The R.I. Film & Television Office even sent out a press release celebrating the fact, although why you need a couple of Hollywood stuntmen to fabricate what most Rhode Island commuters see on the highways and byways everyday is hard to understand.

The Washington Street shoot in Providence took two days, which is usually how long it takes to find an open parking space on Washington Street. The scene will appear in a Universal Studios moving picture called “R.I.P.D.” Surprisingly, the movie’s not about the Rhode Island Police Department. Instead, it’s an action-adventure film described as a cross between “Men in Black” and “Ghostbusters” in which Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds play “two undead police officers dispatched by the otherworldly Rest In Peace Department to protect the world from an increasingly destructive array of creatures who refuse to move peacefully to the other side.”

It’s a poorly kept secret that the undead have long romanced Providence, mainly because the city makes them feel at home. Lovecraft lived there. Poe pined for a lost love there. It’s a town friendly to ghosts, vampires and zombies, so the idea of partially filming a feature about undead policemen in Rhody’s capital city is, quite literally, a no-brainer.

And given the fact that Rhody has potholes that can send you into other dimensions, the choice of Providence for a pulp movie car chase has merit, too – although unless we’re talking about the scene from “Bullitt,” “The French Connection,” “Ronin,” “Vanishing Point,” “Gone in 60 Seconds,” “To Live and Die in L.A.,” “The Italian Job,” “Dirty Mary Crazy Larry,” “The Blues Brothers,” “Smokey and the Bandit,” “The Fast and the Furious,” “Cannonball Run” or “Against All Odds,” we’re bound to be disappointed in the careening chrome even as we admire Hollywood’s ability to elongate Washington Street into something closer to the Pacific Coast Highway.

Leading to this week’s question: What Rhode Island road is best suited for a Hollywood car chase?

Size reprise
Great size of Rhode Island reference in The Atlantic magazine, falling in the first paragraph under the headline, “The Beginning of the End for Suburban America.”

In the years following World War II, the United States experienced an unprecedented consumption boom. Anything you could measure was growing. A Rhode Island-sized chunk of land was bulldozed to make new suburbs every single year for decades. America rounded into its present-day shape.

Nice to know that more than 60 years of Rhode Island-sized sprawl turned America into what it is today. But how do we measure the sprawl that is actually in Rhode Island? In Quonochontaugs?

Songs for the Rhode

2011-09-12T12:09:00.002-04:00

The Clash began “Know Your Rights,” a cut off the “Combat Rock” album, with the words: “This is a public service announcement…with guitar…”

In homage, some of our old blog posts have new life…with guitar…

Last March Blog on the Half Shell dedicated one of its weekly musings to Rhode Island’s characteristic standing as “The Knowaguy State.” The piece prompted West Kingston singer-songwriter Billy Mitchell to e-mail me, requesting permission to pursue the theme in song form. The result, “I Know a Guy,” is a witty, upbeat ditty describing the foibles of Rhody culture and cronyism with a catchy melody and infectious chorus. The song is the sixth track on Mitchell’s latest CD, “Detour,” to be released in October. (It’s one of two Rhody-centric songs on the disc. The other, “Meet Me Under The Shepard’s Clock,” pays homage to a Providence tradition in a simpler, more enchanting time.)

During the recent Wakefield Arts and Entertainment Festival, South County singer-songwriter and artist Jon Campbell mentioned casually (if half-jokingly) that he’d be interested in tweaking a recent column of mine (“The Ballad of Yellow Lobster”) in song form. The column basically re-capped the one-year anniversary of the death of Tyler, a yellow lobster pulled from Narragansett Bay that made headlines around the world before it expired in a research facility at the University of Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay Campus – and after providing enough material for all or part of four columns and two blog posts. It’s cruel sport, but that’s the way we lobsterazzi roll.

Still, it got me thinking that if this media thing doesn’t work out, maybe I have a future in pitching song ideas to crooners.

Some possibilities (with apologies to parodied artists in parenthesis):

“Buddy Was His Name-O” (anonymous English songwriter)
“Snail Salad in Paradise” (Jimmy Buffett)
“Termite in a Blue Dress” (Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels)
“Mr. Clam Man” (The Chordettes)
“My Kind of Town (Pawtucket Is)” (Frank Sinatra)
“50 Ways to Lop a Lobster” (Paul Simon)
“I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa George” (Tommie Connor, Jimmy Boyd)
“(Here’s to You) Mr. Potato Head” (Simon & Garfunkel)
“Ode to G.I. Joe” (B.B. King)
“That’s About the Size of Rhode Island” (Sesame Street)

If you were to write a song about Rhode Island, what would it be called?

Postscript: Irene

2011-09-02T11:10:00.002-04:00

A funny thing happened on the evening the power was restored to my cove neighborhood in West Barrington. One neighbor sat on his porch, strumming guitar. My friends across the street, after checking light switches, computers and TVs to make sure they were functioning, turned everything off, went for a dusk bike ride and then lit their outdoor fire ring, inviting people over to talk. My parents, who generally occupy evening hours at their house on the laptop (Mom) or watching television (Dad), were sitting on the porch in the dark, conversing while looking out at the bay and the planes flying to and from Green Airport. Most of the neighborhood, in fact, was out strolling, cycling or sitting in their porches, chatting amiably.

After going more than four days without power, everyone wanted it back, but once they had it, they were happy to ignore it. The power outage caused by Hurricane Irene seemed to spark something significant and universal in people, even despite the challenges of keeping food and drink cold, cooking, cleaning and doing the wash, or finding our way around the house at night. It felt right to go to sleep to the sound of crickets, wake up to the caterwauling of hungry sea gulls and live the day in concert with the rising heat songs of cicadas. The stars were impossibly bright for a Rhode Island sky too often polluted by excessive human light. You could see Cassiopeia’s W and the Archer’s arrow point and both Dippers dipping in vivid relief, looking like giant-sized versions of glow-in-the-dark stickers plastered on the ceiling above a child’s bed. Neighbors who once barely spoke to one another came out of their houses for no apparent reason and resumed their hurricane-prompted conversations, helping each other clean up, exchanging tools or tips, and sharing new stories about damages and crimes occurring in Rhode Island in the storm’s aftermath. Children grudgingly admitted how much fun it was to play Clue by candlelight and Twister by flashlight. People gathered at the shoreline, marveling at the liquid silver of the bay at twilight, the water lapping in waves of melted moonlight.

It was as if we all knew – whatever we lost when the power went out, we gained something, too. And now that the power was back, we didn’t want to sacrifice our newfound embrace of simple pleasures. Who knows how long it will last? But for the first time since I can’t remember when, the place I call home feels like a neighborhood. Without a doubt, the communities that endured the worst of Irene’s miseries deserve our thoughts and prayers, but in West Barrington, and wherever the storm managed only inconveniences of varying degree, we might want to thank her.

Irene follow-up question: How did you occupy your time while the power was out?

[Note: Half Shell is posting early because of Monday’s Labor Day holiday.]

Irene: A Sketch

2011-08-29T11:29:00.002-04:00

The first casualty of Hurricane Irene in my cove neighborhood happened three days before the storm arrived when a tree removal crew chopped down a majestic weeping willow, dressed in its lush summer green, from a yard by a house at the point. The willow had been there for several generations, standing as one of the postage stamp trees of West Barrington. But the neighbor had lost a couple of big branches recently – during one of last winter’s nor’easters and, before that, during a heavy wind and rain storm last summer – and given the dire predictions of Irene’s wrath, he was determined not to risk his home for the notoriously weak-rooted willow in our sandy soil.

Most people spent part of Saturday boarding up and removing potential projectiles from their yards, then went to bed as the storm blew in. The power went out in Barrington at 7 a.m. on Sunday and the worst of the surge followed a couple of hours later, as water splashed over the cove’s edge, swamping some roads, spilling over sea walls and creating little lakes in adjacent parks. Despite steady, strong winds for hours afterward and except for one small stretch of street that appeared to endure a mini-twister, causing large trees to topple onto rooftops, sheds and in yards, our neighborhood was mostly spared, and we were once again able to sigh with relief that a hurricane – a.k.a. God’s bowling ball – only delivered a glancing blow.

We were lucky. Watching during the height of the storm from one of the windows in my folks’ place that wasn’t boarded, the Atlantic appeared primal, with breakers crashing in the middle of the bay and surf as high as a one-story house. At one point, between the wind and the rain, the world was just a wild, gray blur, with no way to tell where the water met the land. It felt like being on the smear end of a microscope.

But the worst didn’t last long. Heavy rains eventually subsided and all that was left was to ride out the winds, nap, drink, eat, play board games, and check out the damage when the lull came later in the afternoon. A friend’s boat had been wrenched from its mooring. They discovered it a long way down the channel, with a gash in the hull, in a completely different marina, where someone had lashed it to a dock to spare it further damage. Neighbors and strangers gathered to survey the scene, sharing condolences with people who sat on their porches under houses crowned by downed trees or otherwise enjoying the fresh air, charged with ions that paradoxically made us feel drugged and drowsy. My souvenir from the day was a quahog shell that was tossed onto the small beach at Allin’s Cove, ringed on the inside with a half-inch of the dazzling purple color used to make wampum.

All the world is investing in gold these days, it seems. But its value is merely monetary. Give me a clamshell offered up by a hurricane any day, if only as a reminder of the blessings and fortunes we always take for granted, and in memory of the friends and willows we lose along the way.

How did you pass the time during Hurricane Irene?

Of Killhags and Gurrybutts

2011-08-23T15:44:00.002-04:00

The vacation gods were kind to me. As I returned to my office this morning, wondering what I might blog about later, a brown envelope addressed from Florida was dropped onto my desk chair. Inside was a book and a letter from Mim Harrison, who lived in Sand Hill Cove with her husband back in the mid-1970s and early ’80s. Her book is titled: “Wicked Good Words: From johnnycakes to jug handles, a roundup of America’s regionalisms.”

In her letter she says:

As a former South County-ite, I made sure that Rhode Island and southern Rhode Island in particular, was well represented – down to the mention of River’s Edge Café for its American chop suey. Other Rhode Islandisms are in here as well; I don’t think anybody else in the country drinks cabinets. Bubbler is in here, too…although there’s some surprising (and perhaps disturbing) news about its use.

[Side note: River’s Edge Café is now Meldgie’s Rivers Edge Café, a concession by Meldgie to the fact that Rhode Islanders will always call things by what they once were instead of what they are. So when Quick Rick’s in Wakefield, which has been a fast eats pit stop for generations, turned over to a woman named Jessica it became Jessica’s Quick Rick’s. And when the Joyce Family Pub (or “Joyce’s”) in Matunuck was sold a few years back to an Irish woman named Tara, it became Tara’s Joyce Family Pub. That is, until recently, when she renamed it Tara’s Tipperary Tavern. But it will be at least 40 years before folks around these parts stop calling it “Joyce’s.”]

For the record, Harrison traces “bubbler” – meaning a water fountain where the water bubbles up from the spigot – to the Midwest, where the earliest known reference dates back to 1911. Most Rhode Islanders grew up with the word pronounced “bub-luh” but meaning the same thing, although there aren’t many of us left who date back to 1911 to tell the rest of us whether we were drinking from bubblers back then.

The book begins with a New England chapter titled “Wicked Pissa.” Most New Englanders will recognize the majority of expressions, although I was taken with “the frog run of the sap” (meaning the last batch of maple syrup you collect during the season, just about the time the frogs appear) and “gurrybutt” (the empty bowl that accompanies orders of clams, mussels or lobster at a fish shack or seafood restaurant and used for shell discards). A “killhag,” common to Maine and New Hampshire, is a trap used to catch a variety of animals. To “put the oakum on him” is to shut a guy up for good. (Oakum is a tarred hemp mixture used to seal the seams on boats.)

As for people living in the Other 44, some Southerners call a heavy rain a “frog strangler.” “Old Scratch,” a term for the Devil, was coined in New England but is still in use in parts of the South. That region also has more than one term for “the blues,” including the “mulligrubs,” which traces its etymology to a medieval English word for migraine, and “the weary dismals,” an expression heard in Tennessee as well as Virginia and North Carolina, which share the Great Dismal Swamp.

Iowans will eat a “loosemeat sandwich,” a concoction of ground beef and onions on a bun, known elsewhere as a “sloppy joe.” Lottery cards are known as “pickles” in Nebraska because they’re traditionally sold out of pickle jars. Avocados in Louisiana are known as “alligator pears” and French toast in New Orleans is “lost bread.”

Residents of Seattle have an expression, “the mountain is out today,” meaning those rare occasions when it’s clear enough to see Mount Rainier. (A local variation in praise of sunny weather, not mentioned by Harrison, is “it’s a three-bridge day,” spoken by residents of the East Bay on clear days when they can see the Mt. Hope, Newport (Pell) and Jamestown (Verrazzano) bridges bending over Narragansett Bay.)

Alaskans call whisky “arctic wine” and snowmobiles “iron dogs.” A “beignet” is a New Orleans-style doughnut without the hole, similar to Rhode Island’s (and New England’s) “doughboy,” which tends to be rounder, like the bellies of its eaters. In the Southwest, the same plump, powder-sugared confection is called a “bunuelo.” Other New England expressions for doughnuts include “boil cakes,” “cymbals” and “huffjuff” or “huffle juffle.” Some Connecticutites call them “holy pokes” while Mainers might refer to them as “Baptist bread” (or “Baptist cake”) in honor of the dough being immersed.

This week’s question: What’s your favorite regionalism?

State of the State

2011-08-08T11:07:00.002-04:00

Following up on last week’s post on the “State By State” essay collection, published in 2009, I thought a summary of the addendum might be of interest to Rhody readers, wherein each state is ranked in a variety of categories.

Rhode Island ranks:

43rd in population.
42nd in population increase.
12th in foreign-born population.
29th in population born elsewhere in the U.S.
45th in birthrate.
9th in median age. All six New England states were in the top 10, including Maine (1), Vermont (2), New Hampshire (7), Connecticut (8) and Massachusetts (10).
18th in gross state product per capita.
34th in bankruptcy filing rate at 28 percent. (Tennessee came in first at a whopping 109.9 percent.)
21st in mean travel time to work.
47th in unemployment rate. (From the Bureau of Labor Statistics in Feb. 2008. We all know what happened later that year, when the economy collapsed. Since then, Rhody’s unemployment rate has nearly doubled and ranks consistently in the top five.)
43rd in military recruitment rate.
18th in percentage of population claiming no religion.
9th in public education expenditure per pupil.
32nd in voter participation rate.
42nd in oil consumption per capita.
43rd in gasoline consumption per capita.
44th in violent crime rate.
41st in incarceration rate.
35th in breastfeeding rate.
43rd in population without health insurance.
34th in toothlessness rate at 17.9 percent. (West Virginia is first at 40.5 percent.)
44th in obesity rate.
5th in alcohol consumption. (Only Wisconsin, North Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa drink more.)
26th in cigarette consumption.
43rd in divorce rate.
47th in suicide rate.
47th in highest monthly temperature.
27th in lowest monthly temperature.

Also, Rhode Island is one of seven states with no roller coaster.

Most importantly, Rhode Island was at the top of the list in one category, ranking first in Table 17, “Classic Movie Theaters and Drive-Ins Per Capita,” with a score of 143.1. (Source: Cinema Treasures.)

What does this mean? We drink a lot, but typically aren’t violent or criminal in nature. We stay married. We don’t tend to jump off bridges. We’re thinner than the average Americans. We don’t severely deplete energy resources. We spend more than most on education. We used to have jobs. There aren’t that many of us, all things considered, but those of us who are from here tend to stay here. We miss the Cyclone, the Corkscrew and the Flume*, and we still like to watch movies in places that have a little character.

Leading to this week’s question: What’s your favorite old movie house in Rhode Island?

[Blogger’s note: Starting next week, Half Shell will be burrowing in the sands of Lambert’s Cove, enjoying a Monday-to-Monday beach rental on the Vineyard, which means…look for our return on Tuesday, Aug. 23, when we’ll be rocking some serious surfer tan and clam belly. Until then…]

*Technically, a log ride, not a roller coaster, but it belongs in the discussion of lamented amusement park rides.

Jhumpa's take

2011-08-01T12:47:00.002-04:00

To write the Rhode Island entry in the book, “State By State: A Panoramic Portrait of America,” featuring 50 writers opining on 50 states, editors chose Jhumpa Lahiri, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, who grew up in Kingston. The book itself is a fascinating kaleidoscope of Americana. Essays are wildly inconsistent in tone and presentation, which is part of the appeal. Like the old joke about the four blind men touching different parts of an elephant and describing something other than what it is, these authors don’t capture sense of place comprehensively, but by not even trying to go for the whole elephant, collectively they do convey a sense of what is peculiar.

(Some partnerships are odd. Massachusetts gets native son, John Hodgman, best known for his appearances on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and TV commercials for Macintosh computers. Now a transplanted New Yorker, Hodgman’s Bay State rambling seems to miss its mark: “I guess that I am from Massachusetts. But I never felt at home there, and, really, no one ever does.” Yeah, well. No. Having lived there myself, and having shared conversations with countless residents from the Cape and the Islands to Boston to the Berkshires over the years, I’m fairly confident in saying that many feel very much at home in Massachusetts and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. Hodgman does allude to the state’s sports mania, which he doesn’t share…a point emphasized by the error in the following sentence: “The local sports teams – which I am told are the Baseball Red Sox, the Football Patriots, the Basketball Celtics, the Hockey Bears, and of course the famous Boston Lobsters of the World Team Tennis League – are an obsession.” Yeah, well. No. Lobster sarcasm aside, it’s the Hockey Bruins. Your Stanley Cup champion Hockey Bruins. The Bears are a football team that plays in Chicago.)

Lahiri is a good choice to represent Rhode Island, even though her short stories and novels often draw upon her autobiographical experiences of feeling alienated in the culture she grew up in. After some cursory geography and history, she moves into memoir, sharing details about her upbringing in “a place originally called Little Rest.” She’s at her best when engaging in the tactile sensations of the place, as in this paragraph:

The Atlantic I grew up with lacks the color and warmth of the Caribbean, the grandeur of the Pacific, the romance of the Mediterranean. It is generally cold, and full of rust-colored seaweed. Still, I prefer it. The waters of Rhode Island, as much a part of the state’s character, if not more, as the land, never asked us questions, never raised a brow. Thanks to its very lack of welcome, its unwavering indifference, the ocean always made me feel accepted, and to my dying day, the seaside is the only place where I can feel truly and recklessly happy.

Another wonderful section follows in which Lahiri contrasts her father’s contentment about living in Rhode Island with her mother’s agitation…including a sad passage about her mother getting racist notes and anonymous hate mail while teaching at a South County elementary school. The anecdotes balance the state’s charms with its under-the-surface ugliness, but Lahiri resists the temptation to catalog the litany of little injustices that occur here. So I’ll return to the section on her father, because I think she gets at what makes Rhode Island an appealing place to live for many of us who choose to do so:

My father, a global traveler, considers Rhode Island paradise. For nearly four decades he has dedicated himself there to a job he loves, rising through the ranks in the library’s cataloging department to become its head. But in addition to the job, he loves the place. He loves that it is quiet, and moderate, and is, in the great scheme of things, uneventful.

Two quibbles: Throughout the article, Lahiri refers to “Dell’s” – instead of Del’s – lemonade. And she mentions the “Ghiorse Beach Factor,” which was actually just the “Ghiorse Factor,” a meteorologist’s numerical shorthand for describing the inherent beauty of any particular day, well known to all Rhode Islanders. After noticing Hodgman’s “Hockey Bears,” and these two typos in the only two pieces I’ve read so far, I have an idea. Next time, how about 50 editors from 50 states?

What makes Rhode Island unique as a state?

Art, Unanchored

2011-07-25T12:45:00.001-04:00

There’s a big boat hanging out in Newport this summer that describes itself as a “floating art gallery.” Dubbed Sea Fair, the world’s first mobile mega-yacht art gallery chose Newport as its Summer Hang, docking at the Newport Shipyard, where owners hoped to attract lovers of art and fancy boats to its 228-foot-long luxury digs.

The plan was to interest tourists in viewing three decks worth of sculpture, glass, jewelry, fine furniture and contemporary photography and painting, while also giving them a look-see at a handful of masterworks by the likes of Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali. Most of the works range in price from $3,000 to $35,000. There’s enough space leftover for two outdoor bars, an international coffee bar, an open-air bistro and a glass-walled restaurant. But after a flurry of early interest this summer in Newport, the fourth largest privately owned yacht in the U.S. has pulled anchor on the idea for a few weeks, citing vendor disappointment at the relative lack of daily patronage.

The yacht plans a trip to Martha’s Vineyard later this month and a return engagement in Newport during the lead-up to Labor Day.

Organizers thought the Newport destination made sense, given the art yacht’s popularity in Sarasota earlier in the season. But last year’s yellow lobster drew a bigger crowd to Newport. It shouldn’t have been a surprise. Tough economy everywhere – especially here in Rhody. Newport skews the data somewhat, and there are plenty of rich folks zooming around these parts in July and August, but the state on the whole is a collective of proud, working-class folks with ties to family traditions and the old world (Ireland, Portugal, Italy) that values a bargain and distrusts anything that comes with too many dollar signs – unless it’s the lottery.

We are home to the nation’s first bargain stores and family restaurants that live by the credo of selling big portions for cheap. We make art but rarely buy it. And during our glorious summers, we have a million ways to get on a boat or on the water without paying admission or feeling as if we’re underdressed.

Still, the under-whelming support for the art yacht has given me an idea for a classified advertisement.

WANTED: DINGHY
(Or reasonable rowboat facsimile, such as a whaleboat, dory, lifeboat or currach. Perhaps even a raft. For purposes of artistic experiment.)

Bottom Feeder, a.k.a. Art Dinghy on the Half Shell, would be the world’s first rowboat art gallery. Small enough to dock anywhere on the Rhode Island coast, the boat needs to have enough room for the rower, one patron and one work of art. Maiden voyage to launch with a viewing of “Dogs Playing Poker.” Refreshments will be served at our outdoor coffee thermos and flask of rotating spirits.

Outside of traditional galleries and festivals, where would you like to see art in Rhode Island?

The Sunny Side of the Tweet

2011-07-18T12:11:00.003-04:00

A good friend once described me as a “social media Quaker.” Another called me a “social media snob.” Both may be right. I don’t deny the pervasive influence or potential benefit of the social media revolution, but I’ve mostly chosen not to join the party, remaining friendless on Facebook, having exactly one tweet to my name (a crude and snarky post that may end up being my Twittertaph) and only signing up on LinkedIn to try to locate someone I couldn’t find any other way. Even though, working for a newspaper, there’s a certain amount of pressure to stay plugged in to everything, everywhere, at all times, I resist the impulse personally for reasons of health and sanity, and professionally because I think in today’s culture the intensity of 24-7 cyber-immersion results in communication that is skewed to being almost entirely reactive rather than reflective. And what’s missing from the debate in the political arena, on the airwaves and on Internet comment boards, where so many of the participants prefer to act like monkeys throwing feces at one another, is the measured, reasoned and thoughtful approach to argument and analysis that can result in positive progress. Social media is a ceaseless echo chamber. Some of us just need more distance, space, quiet and time to think through problems, consider solutions, become inspired, stoke our imagination, create, invent or discover what's meaningful and valuable in our lives.

Another friend and I once had an idea – that we’ll never follow through on, so I’ll give it up to the universe – for a T-shirt company to compete with Twitter. We’d wear a different shirt every day, each bearing a new message. Some examples:

HAD A BAGEL TODAY.
LESS FACEBOOK. MORE FRESH AIR.
WHAT WOULD JESUS GOOGLE?

That kind of thing.

In the meantime, for those who are interested, the most popular Rhode Islander in the Twitterverse is Audrey McClelland, a working mom, writer and former fashion executive, who “vlogs” (video blogs) daily fashion advice. The last time I checked, which was also the first time I checked, she had 16,906 followers, ranking No. 1 overall in the Ocean State, ahead of such members of the Rhody Twitterati as Gov. Lincoln Chafee (No. 29), Rhode Island Monthly Bride (No. 93) and Rhode Island Weather Alerts (No. 98).

What Rhode Islander would you most like to follow on Twitter?

Crackerjack Memories

2011-07-11T11:38:00.003-04:00

Baseball passion cuts deeply in New England, where being manager of the Boston Red Sox is the most scrutinized job in the six states. The earliest written mention of the game in the United States was a 1791 ordinance in Pittsfield, Mass. that banned playing it within 80 yards of the town meeting house. After the American Industrial Revolution was born in Pawtucket, the game became religion in mill cities up and down the East Coast, where immigrant communities spent precious leisure hours playing the sport – while their rich robber baron overlords in places like Newport preferred yachting, polo, golf, tennis and rambling around in horseless carriages.

Few books capture the relationship between baseball and the working-class players and fans hooked by the game better than Dan Barry’s “Bottom of the 33rd,” subtitled “Hope, Redemption and Baseball’s Longest Game.” Barry, a national columnist for the New York Times and former Providence Journal writer, revisits April 19, 1981, a cold and raw night in Pawtucket, when the Rochester Red Wings and Pawtucket Red Sox played the longest game in professional baseball history – a game that didn’t end until later that summer after being mercifully suspended at the end of the 32nd inning.

It’s a book full of gems, and its accordion-like structure, in which we experience a moment imbedded in the game – an at-bat, a player on base, a pitcher toeing the rubber – before pulling back as the author frames the life, moving from boyhood dreams to (mostly) broken dreams, captures the hard road and loss of innocence for the many who don’t make it. Rhode Islanders will enjoy the local history and colorful details that bring the book to life, with references to Pawtucket landmarks like the Mei-King, the Modern Diner, the Wiener Genie and McCoy Stadium’s slow transformation from dive to minor league field of dreams.

Barry captures sense of place beautifully, as one short sequence illustrates:

Hope, after all, is the motto of Rhode Island. Hope has a seat on the public buses, those thirty-five-foot green whales, their insides musty with urine at certain hours of the day, sighing through their blowholes as they stop and start past machine shops and old mills. One of the drivers, Scott Molloy, who will soon embark upon a long career in academia, is occasionally assigned the Pawtucket route. And for all the urban despair he sees, especially late at night, when that despair assumes the drape of gloom, he is struck by a small group of ragtag Pawtucket regulars, a couple of white guys, a black guy, and a woman, who routinely make the transfer to the dog track in Lincoln. Broken people, really, but made whole somehow by one another, and by the shared hope of a winning day at the track – of returning home on a RIPTA bus with a hundred-dollar score on a two-dollar bet. Never happens. Maybe tomorrow.

For lifelong Red Sox fans, there is much to savor, even if it is mostly painful memories. Playing for Rochester during baseball’s longest game was Cal Ripken, Jr., who would be the sport’s golden child in the majors, breaking Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games streak and quite possibly saving MLB from years of apathy following revelations of historic records shattered with the help of steroids from some of the game’s biggest stars. Playing for Pawtucket that night were Wade Boggs, Bruce Hurst, Marty Barrett, Rich Gedman and Bobby Ojeda, all of whom would meet a few years later when Ojeda’s Mets would defeat a Red Sox team made up in part of former PawSox teammates in a World Series that wrote another dramatic chapter in Boston's litany of epic collapses. Here’s how Barry writes it:

All of this is five years in the future, and far, far from Pawtucket. That ground ball hit by Wilson; that error made by Buckner; that series-ending, knife-in-the-heart moment when Jesse Orosco launches his glove high into the New York night after striking out Marty Barrett. Marty is here now, harvesting and tossing away the infield pebbles that might lead to bad hops around second base. And Wade Boggs, who will weep in the Boston dugout after that World Series, is here, muttering curfew, curfew, isn’t there any such thing as a curfew. And Rich Gedman, who will be unable to block an errant Bob Stanley pitch in the 10th inning of that fateful Game Six, allowing the Mets to tie the game, is in the bullpen, having left the game hours ago. And Bobby Ojeda, Hurst’s brother in the slightly odd fraternity of left-handers, somehow convinced Joe Morgan to let him go home a few innings ago. Ojeda will also appear in the 1986 World Series, but for the New York Mets. In the moments leading up to the climactic seventh game of the World Series games, the two former teammates will spot each other, one in a Red Sox uniform, one in a Mets uniform, and their eyes will lock in wordless communication, conveying so much, including: Pawtucket.
Of all the Shea Stadium revelry that followed the last out of the World Series, Ojeda will remember one moment above the rest. He sees them now, two Red Sox players making their way through the champagne-soaked chaos of the Mets jubilant clubhouse, through a party at their expense. Boston’s starting battery for Game Seven: Bruce Hurst and Rich Gedman, his Pawtucket brothers, coming to hug him and offer their heartfelt, heartbroken congratulations.
“I won’t ever, ever forget it,” Ojeda will say.

What is your favorite McCoy Stadium memory?

Santa sighting

2011-07-01T11:45:00.002-04:00

Earlier this week, just a few short months after passing Pogo Dave on the highways of Rhode Island, I discovered another Rhody original whizzing along the asphalt artery of I-95 – Santa George. Also known as George Martin, owner of a Rhode Island vanity plate that reads “SANTA,” Santa George zoomed by me at a high-octane 80-plus reindeer-miles-per-hour on his way home to his summer North Pole in North Smithfield on his day off from Theatre By The Sea duties in Matunuck, where this month he is playing the Padre in “Man of La Mancha.”

On Independence Day Monday you can see Santa George riding in the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council’s “Polar Express” float at the Bristol Fourth of July Parade. After that he’ll appear in the Pine Acres Resort Christmas in July. Apparently, there’s no off-season for Santa. Look up “Santas for Hire” in Rhode Island and you’ll find Santa Lester and Santa James, both from Warwick, also in the mix for whatever stirs your eggnog. (Just fill out a Santa Request Form.)

In light of last Monday’s posting on the Believe It Tour, it appears that the Folklore component of Rhody Believeitology is alive and well with the likes of Santa George, Love 22 and Pogo Dave roaming around or beyond the state. Santa George has been spreading Christmas cheer for more than 30 years, including the last 11 as a Real Bearded Santa. (He’s listed No. 1322 on the National Beard Registry and is a past member of the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas.)

You can follow Santa George on Twitter or My Space. Or just wait until Christmas.

What is your favorite Rhode Island vanity plate?

[Blogger’s note: Posting early because of Monday’s Fourth of July holiday, when I expect to vanish into a world that is half-hammock, half-cooler.]

'Blood Simple' Meets 'Complex World'

2011-06-27T11:41:00.004-04:00

The Believe It Tour came to Rhode Island last Friday to host a vampire-themed blood drive at the R.I. Blood Center and celebrate the season premiere of HBO’s “True Blood.” The company promotes something called “Believeitology” and encourages exploration of the weird, folkloric and supernatural – all in good fun.

There are five fields of study: Cryptozoology (study of “cryptids,” or animal-like creatures such as Bigfoot, Mothman, the Loch Ness Monster and Chupacabra); Paranormal (mostly ghosts and hauntings); Extraterrestrial (aliens and UFOs); Monsters (zombies, vampires, dragons, werewolves, mummies or any creatures bent on destroying humanity); and Folklore (the beliefs, rituals and stories contained within a culture, including such seasonal and holiday customs as Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Green Man).

Believe It Tour (or BIT as we’ll call it from now on) is a national organization but it’s hard to imagine a better place for them to detour than Rhody, home to the grandmaster of weird fiction, H.P. Lovecraft, two Roto-Rooter plumbers turned Ghost Hunters and enough legends of vampires, devils and phantom ships to fill a crypt. Rhode Island has its own state folklorist in Michael Bell. Providence cemeteries are sometimes converted into public art galleries. Edgar Allan Poe once spent a few months pining for a lost love on Benefit Street. Back when Rhode Island was a colony, records of visits by ghosts, witches and devils were legion. Zombie walks occur with increasing regularity in the capital city. Somewhere a few years back in Hope Valley, a Rhode Island couple converted an empty strip mall store into an extraterrestrial reporting center.

Here’s a guarantee: Spend a day walking through Providence and you’ll run into a cryptid. Probably more than one. It may not have a fancy name like Clam Man or Swamp Yankee Thing but you can be sure that it will be only vaguely human – although, oddly enough, quite often erudite.

What is your favorite example of Rhode Island folklore?

Our Cup Runneth Over

2011-06-20T12:05:00.006-04:00

The Bear came out of hibernation, and suddenly 39 New England winters of discontent just melted, as if by magic, like the moment in “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe” when Aslan returns to Narnia. The Boston Bruins won the Stanley Cup last Wednesday night, and ever since it has been a nonstop love-fest between the fans and the team. The game 7 win, the plane ride back from Vancouver, the Stanley Cup popping up in neighborhood bars everywhere, the Rolling Rally on duck boats through Boston and streets lined by more than a million fans, and the surreal scene at Fenway Park yesterday, culminating in Bruins wearing Red Sox caps throwing out first pitches to Red Sox wearing Bruins caps. As celebrations of tribal euphoria go, it will be hard to top.

And that’s saying something for a region that has been blessed to see seven world championships from its four major sports teams in less than a decade. The Patriots (three Super Bowls), Red Sox (two World Series titles), Celtics (one NBA finals trophy) and Bruins (one Stanley Cup) have accomplished something that no group of teams in any city or region in America can claim. Boston is Banner Town, and now the Bruins legacy has another piece of hardware, adding a glint of silver to the generations of stories spanning Eddie Shore to Milt Schmidt to Bobby Orr to Cam Neely to Tim Thomas.

We’ve said it before when the B's were alternating seasons of heartbreak and futility. Even though basketball was invented in Springfield, Mass., and the modern American gridiron version of football evolved out of games on the Boston Common, where the Oneida Football Club of Boston became the first organized team to play any kind of football in the United States, this is a hockey and baseball region first and foremost, representing our winter and summer souls. The Red Sox are the oldest team still playing in Boston, a charter member of the American League, winners of the first World Series, a storybook franchise playing in a storybook park. The Bruins are the second-oldest, one of the Original Six, and the first club from the United States to join the NHL.

Yesterday at the Fens, the Bruins were the toast of the Olde Towne. Speakers blared team anthems: “Dirty Water” by The Standells, played after every Bruins (and Red Sox) win; “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” by The Dropkick Murphys; “Black and Yellow” by Wiz Khalifa (apologies to Pittsburgh fans, since the anthem was written for them; then again, the Penguins took the Bruins colors when they came into the league, so maybe we can call it even); and most enjoyably, “Nutty” (a.k.a. “The Nut Rocker”) by The Ventures, a surf-rock instrumental version of “The Nutcracker Suite” beloved to all fans that grew up watching Bobby Orr and The Big, Bad Bruins through the fuzzy static and twitching rabbit ears of Channel 38. To top it off, during the Red Sox’ romp over the Brewers, every time Boston scored a run fans heard the Bruins’ goal celebration of a foghorn followed by Zombie Nation’s “Kernkraft 400” sample from the soundtrack of “Shaun of the Dead.” (Even the Celtics were represented, with Ray Allen sitting in the box seats with his children next to the Red Sox dugout.)

Great stuff. And the Stanley Cup, the world’s greatest sporting trophy (ah, the stories it could tell…), will be starring all summer in a local version of “Where’s Waldo?” called “Where’s Stanley?” We’ve already seen it on a rooftop apartment and in a baby stroller in the North End, at Tia’s on the waterfront, Stella on the South End, at Gypsy Bar, Foxwoods Casino and even the pitcher’s mound at Fenway Park.

Amazing. Summer starts tomorrow and everyone is still talking hockey. Earlier this spring, while trying to get some sleep at 3 a.m. at Blackwoods campground in Acadia, Maine, I couldn’t help eavesdropping at the campfire conversation next to me, a dozen or so young people talking excitedly about the Bruins-Tampa Bay series. The next morning, at Trailhead Café in Bar Harbor, one after another Bruins fan came in, asking the owner whether the B’s could contain Vancouver’s dynamic Sedin twins (they could) and whether Timmy Thomas, the University of Vermont graduate who spent the early part of his career sweating it out in Finland and Sweden and minor-league outposts such as Birmingham, Ala., and Houston and Hamilton, Ontario, could summon up one more stellar series (he could). After Wednesday’s victory, Sen. John Kerry phoned a sports talk radio show in Boston (J.K. from D.C.? The Senator from a van down by the Potomac?) just to exult in the triumph and relive some of its highlights.

Part of the reason for such universal joy about this year’s team is how unexpected it was, following so many seasons of epic collapses, Game 7 losses, high expectations dashed and – some years – little to root for. In that way, it was like the Patriots winning their first Super Bowl and the Red Sox toppling the Yankees then sweeping the Cardinals for their first World Series title in 86 years. Like those seasons – the Snow Game, the Tuck Rule, Adam Vinatieri’s Greatest Field Goal Ever (45 yards in a blizzard), followed by an overtime kick and winning the Super Bowl as time expired for the Pats; the Dave Roberts steal, Big Papi walk-offs and Curt Schilling’s Bloody Sock game for the Sox – this Bruins year had the stuff of magic about it. Tim Thomas’s Greatest Save Ever (“stick save and a beauty!”) against the Lightning. Bobby Orr waving the giant, black-and-gold No. 18 banner in honor of injured Bruin Nathan Horton. Former Providence Bruin Brad Marchand (forever known as “Marshmont” to loyal listeners of 98.5 The Sports Hub, the B’s flagship station) completing the holy trinity of hockey antagonism in 30 seconds, beginning with a Kevin McHale-like clothesline of one Canuck, followed by a ducking up-and-under to topple another oncoming skater, then an immediate fists-up skirmish with a third Vancouver player. Horton smuggling melted Garden ice and pouring it on the rink in Vancouver just prior to Game 7. Or the stoic captain Zdeno Chara, who stands 7-feet on skates, hoisting the Cup higher than it has ever been lifted before and uttering a Slovakian primal scream.

What was your favorite moment of the Bruins’ run to the Stanley Cup?

Remembering the Tent

2011-06-13T14:13:00.003-04:00

In “The Tent: Life in the Round,” a documentary of the late, lamented Warwick Musical Theatre, one scene shows comedian Howie Mandel engaged in a battle of wits with a moth. The moth chases Mandel around the revolving stage before settling on his crotch, prompting an inspired sequence of physical comedy and more than one hysterically improvised one-liner. Then the moth, aglow in applause, takes its act to the audience and alights on the bare thigh of a woman in the front row. Mandel calls security over for help and together the comedian and the teenage staff member plot the best way to disarm the insect.

It’s a great Rhody moment, the summertime moth stealing the show from the headliner as if to remind everyone in the room not to get too full of themselves. Even better, Mandel played along enthusiastically, losing himself completely in the moment, recognizing the rich potential for comedy in the absurdity as the audience roared.

That was the thing about the Tent. Just like the summer musicals at the old barn in Matunuck, where moths join the antics on stage, lightning bugs illuminate the parking lot and coyotes sometimes howl in harmony to the score, the rough-and-ready venue carved out of a former Warwick cow pasture brought celebrities down to earth. Following up on last year’s hit exhibition featuring Rocky Point Amusement Park, the Warwick Museum of Art is presenting “Life in the Round,” a look back at the legacy of the Tent, which operated from the 1950s to the 1990s, bringing Broadway shows, pop crooners, country musicians, TV stars, Vegas acts, wrestlers and comedians to the only place in Rhode Island you’d ever see them.

The show, which runs through July 29, will have an opening reception on Friday, June 24 from 7 to 9 p.m. Comprising memorabilia from the personal collection of promoter Larry Bonoff, whose parents, Barbara and Buster, founded the place, the show positively drips with nostalgia. Ephemera includes playbills, posters, schedules and photographs of the big stars, including publicity stills with autographs and handwritten sentiments and backstage snapshots of Bonoff and the likes of George Carlin, Jerry Seinfeld, Barbara Mandrell, the Smothers Brothers and Huey Lewis & The News. The old color seating chart and some of the original chairs are on display along with signs and T-shirts. The DVD documentary plays several times daily. Like last year’s Rocky Point show, the exhibition’s value lies mostly in its carefree ride down memory lane. For Rhode Islanders of a certain vintage whose summers always included a taste of Broadway, Vegas or Hollywood between chowders and clam cakes, the Tent – and its uncomfortable seats, stifling heat and scene-stealing moths – will be forever missed.

What is your favorite memory of the Tent?

Wild, Wild Life

2011-06-06T15:28:00.002-04:00

Rhode Island, unlike South Africa, doesn’t have a Big Five moving about beyond the confines of Roger Williams Park Zoo. There’s no Cape buffalo, rhinoceros, elephant, leopard or lion to watch out for…although some locals still swear that mountain lions roam in the wilds of Matunuck and Hopkinton. Any talk of a Little Five would have to start with the quahog and the Rhode Island Red, and perhaps include the endangered American burying beetle, a species that lives on Eastern Standard Time only on Block Island (and a Massachusetts island to which it has been introduced) and an insect that warrants its own headquarters in Rhody.

Unlike the South African quintet, the Rhode Island candidates don’t pose much of a hazard to the careless observer. You won’t find them hanging on the walls of private lodges or exaggerated in Big Game conversations at the neighborhood Elks or Lions. But there is one creature that deserves more respect than it gets in this state: the tick. By all accounts (and “by all” I mean generally a few friends and neighbors) this has been a terrible tick year already in Rhode Island (and by “terrible” I mean there’s a lot of ’em around). And given the damage they can wreak on human life, through debilitating afflictions including Lyme disease and other vector-borne illnesses, having a state full of ticks during beach-and-backyard grilling season is like the summer thundercloud that follows us wherever we go.

Fortunately, Rhode Island has Dr. Thomas Mather, University of Rhode Island entomologist and director of the TickEncounter Resource Center and URI’s Center for Vector-Borne Disease, to tackle the tick problem. Mather raises tick awareness through solid science, detailed reporting, sobering statistics, helpful tips and a healthy dose of good humor to bring more people to the cause of preventing serious diseases like Lyme, babesiosis and anaplasmosis.

The fifth annual Big Tick Gala will be held on Friday from 5:30 to 8 p.m. at the Roger Williams Park Botanical Center in Providence. The fund-raiser will include a silent auction, tick-bite prevention “marketplace,” speaking program, live comedy and a custom martini dubbed the “tick-tini.” The bug-inspired cocktail is the latest creative venture from Mather, who a few years back helped sell the state legislature on a “Scratch the Tick” instant lottery ticket to raise money for the cause. (Folks in Hollywood want to see their names in bright lights on a marquee or in stars in cement but it’s a bigger honor in Rhode Island to find your way onto a scratch lottery ticket.) Mather doesn’t have his own TV series yet, but maybe he should.

What animals would you look for on a Rhode Island safari?

Mascot mania

2011-05-31T16:04:00.002-04:00

Once the purview of sports teams and colleges, mascots have become ubiquitous in Rhode Island. We all know the Big Blue Bug, the crouching giant termite off I-95 that welcomes drivers to and from Providence and does double-duty as the mascot for New England Pest Control. The Providence College Friars had Dalmatians serve as mascots before introducing a live-action, bald-headed, big-bellied Friar that routinely patrolled Schneider Arena and the old Providence Civic Center (while students at both venues blew up inflatable Friars to complement the live mascot, presumably to raise the intimidation factor.) A newer, slimmer, more serious Friar replaced the jolly, portly one a few years ago and has made appearances on ESPN’s “This Is SportsCenter” commercials and on SportCenter’s Top-10 Plays.

The University of Rhode Island’s mascot – Rhody the Ram – pays tribute to the school’s agricultural origins and the state’s textile heritage. It also got itself thrown out of a game between URI and Wake Forest, played in Providence, back when Tim Duncan played for the Demon Deacons. I know because I was at the game, yelling at the referee that threw out the Ram.

Strangely enough, that incident didn't make the Ram's Wikipedia page, but controversy continued to dog Rhody in subsequent years:

February 3, 1998 - Rhody the Ram tried to prevent the St. Joe's Hawk from his eternal flapping by putting an inner tube over its head, temporarily immobilizing his arms. While trying to remove the tube, the Hawk's head (costume) fell off. The incident was televised and repeated on ESPN.

December 2, 2006 - Rhody the Ram was assaulted by a fan at the Dunkin' Donuts center during halftime of the annual URI-Providence College game, a fierce in-state rivalry. The assailant was never found, but Comedy Central talk show host Stephen Colbert has claimed responsibility for the attack. The Ram was taken to the hospital for minor injuries, making this another incident in the long and sometimes ugly rivalry between the two teams.

The beloved mascot bears of Rhody’s professional minor league teams (“Paws” for the PawSox and “Samboni” for the P-Bruins) are more popular than the players taking the Landon Wilson shuttle back and forth to Boston.

But beyond sports, mascots are now selling everything. For a couple of years at least, the R.I. Resource Recovery Corporation, partnering with Recycling for RI Education, has promoted a multi-colored, oddly costumed alien superhero named MaxMan to champion the cause of recycling in the Ocean State. According to Encyclopedia Superheroica: “MaxMan saves the world by recycling.” And “MaxMan roams the Ocean State spreading the word regarding the wonders of recycling.” He even has a catchphrase: “Recycle it right!”

Not to be outdone, the mascot for the R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council is a larger-than-life-size Chinese Mitten Crab named Mitzilla. Created by Providence puppet masters and international performers Big Nazo (who last year crafted the always-hungry, bloodthirsty plant Audrey II in Theatre By The Sea’s production of “Little Shop of Horrors), Mitzilla was commissioned under the R.I. Aquatic Invasive Species Management Plan. According to the CRMC Web site:

The mitten crab was inspired by the R.I. Resource Recovery’s MaxMan puppet, which serves as a mascot to educate the public on recycling. The crab’s purpose will similarly be to educate the public on the problems of aquatic invasive species and will appear at public events and school programs.

The latest mascot to enter the mix is the R.I. Blood Center’s Captain Hemo Globin, who appeared on the scene just in time to raise awareness of the need for summer blood donations. (You can find a picture of him by scrolling down on this Facebook link.)

Where the next Rhody mascot will come from is anybody’s guess. In the meantime: What is your favorite Rhode Island mascot?

Blueways blues

2011-05-23T12:34:00.003-04:00

Once upon a time in Rhode Island, everything was a Greenway or a Blueway. This was a place of wild seas and wilderness, providing a home for people who fished or farmed –or most likely, both. But with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, which turned Rhode Island into America’s first booming mill and factory community, the state rapidly lost ground to the ravages of modern living, requiring some visionaries of the day to insist on building public parks, riverside cemeteries and protected lands just to keep a little green alive in all that soot. Then in the baby boom following World War II, Rhody became suburbanized. We got mall-crazy and lost our wicked feng shui in a sea of asphalt, dead end streets and cul-de-sacs. From 1964 to 1997, Rhode Island’s farmland was cut in half. Not long after that, Smart Growth Rhode Island estimated that one of the consequences of unchecked sprawl would be a $1.5-billion tax bill for Rhode Islanders over the next 20 years. Just another reason why we should preserve what’s left of our Greenways and Blueways, before they all turn into Sprawlways.

We already mentioned the Greenways folks a couple of weeks ago, so this week we’ll give a nod to the R.I. Blueways Alliance, which is organizing a dozen unique paddling excursions down rivers, in lakes and ponds and along the coast of Narragansett Bay beginning in June. Collectively titled, “Paddle 2011: River, Pond and Bay Stories,” the trips are a joint effort between the alliance and several of the state’s watershed and historic groups.

The Tomaquag Indian Memorial Museum in Exeter and the Wood-Pawcatuck River Watershed Council in Hope Valley are teaming up for a talk-and-tour, with the first part inviting paddlers to the museum to learn about the way Narragansett, Wampanoag and Niantic Indians used kayaks to fish and forage, followed by a trip down the Wood River, among the spring anglers and wildlife found in abundance along the banks. The Ten Mile River Watershed Council will lead paddlers on a trip that follows the route Roger Williams took when he fled Massachusetts and landed in what would become Providence. Paddlers can explore a gorge, a fjord-like estuary, a pristine river or a salt pond. They can celebrate the summer solstice, the state’s historic mill culture or the natural world. Or they can learn the technique of stand-up paddle boarding.

Eric Wertheimer, who submits a pictorial column to the Arts & Living section of Independent Newspapers titled “Only in South County,” said that only when he began taking photographs in his “second life” did he become aware of how much water you find in Rhode Island. The more Rhode Islanders notice and engage with our waterways, the greater the possibility of keeping them blueways, instead of sludgeways. The more Rhode Islanders experience the woods and trails and pocket wildernesses of the state, the greater the odds of keeping them greenways, instead of trashways.

We may have lost the battle of sprawlways forever – I’m talking to you Bald Hill Road in Warwick and West Main Road in Middletown. Our main highway (Route 95) is mostly eyesore from the Route 4 split north to the Massachusetts border (despite the tidy skyline of Providence and whatever cheer the Big Blue Bug brings to the kitsch-minded among us). The concrete arteries spewing through Providence, Cranston and Warwick are so lacking in aesthetic that drivers apparently have no qualms about opening their windows en route and tossing out their trash in the scrub along the medians. The contrast with our greenways and blueways could not be more striking – which is why we should fight for their continued evergreen, everblue health. It's the kind of local color we can be proud of.

Where is the worst sprawl in Rhode Island?

[Blogger’s note: Half Shell will be testing the waters of Maine next Monday. Check back on Tuesday to see how the world is living la vida Rhody.]

Rhody Size Reprise

2011-05-16T12:26:00.002-04:00

Followers of this blog know that I am a sporadic collector and sharer of size of Rhode Island references, but recently while trolling for fodder I stumbled onto Lexacat, posting down the road in Kingston, who has raised the genre to high art. Among Lexacat’s blog oeuvre is one called, “The Size of Rhode Island.”

While adding to the litany of SORI references, Lexacat goes a step further, analyzing and assessing each item for accuracy. In a recent post, for example, Luxembourg was definitively determined to be NOT the size of Rhode Island. One important note: Lexacat appropriately uses the standard 1,545 square-mile figure, which includes such watery acreage as Narragansett Bay – the Ocean State’s most distinctive feature – and not the 1,045 square-mile number, which measures land mass only.

The entertaining blog examines such SORI of lore as the BP Gulf oil spill (bigger than Rhody), the Yellowstone caldera (within the acceptable plus-minus range to be considered a viable SORI), Iceland (no), ammonia refrigeration units (no), Fort Benning in Georgia (no), Alex Rodriguez’ elbow pad (no), the area of timberlands purchased by Weyerhauser in 1900 (maybe), some guy’s father’s oil stain (no), the Copper River Watershed Area in Alaska (no), Basque Country in Spain (no), North Cascades National Park in Washington (almost), Aiken County in South Carolina (almost), Nancy Pelosi’s heart or airplane (both no), Alonzo Mourning’s basketball jersey (no), the scoreboard at Yankee Stadium (no), Antarctica’s ice chunk (maybe), disappearing wetlands at the mouth of the Colorado River (maybe), Chevron’s “worst oil catastrophe on the planet” (maybe), destroyed rain forest (maybe) and pregnant with sextuplets lady (no).

What Lexacat and the good folks at Quahog and the staff here at Half Shell are perhaps most curious about is why anyone outside of Rhody even cares about measuring its calamities, communities, extremities and other oddities in Rhode Islands? Whatever the reasons, so many reporters now reflexively use the phrase in their descriptions that it won't be long before "size of Rhode Island" has a spot in the AP Stylebook between "sister" ("capitalize in all references before the names of nuns") and "skeptic."

This week’s question: What remains in the universe to be measured in Rhode Islands?

Moonrise Musings

2011-05-09T15:54:00.004-04:00

This week in the wilds of Matunuck, actor Ed Norton is performing scenes as a camp counselor for the next Wes Anderson movie, “Moonrise Kingdom,” which is filming in Rhode Island this spring. Early word from the advance team is that the ticks, no-see-ums and mosquitoes have been brutal – no surprise since they’ve chosen to film some scenes in the Swamp Yankee part of Rhode Island.

In recent weeks, the good folks at Orbie’s Café in Wakefield have been loaning me Anderson flicks along with my daily coffee, starting with “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou,” “The Darjeeling Express” and “Bottle Rocket,” Anderson’s directorial debut, starring the Wilson brothers, Owen and Luke. I had already seen “Rushmore” and “The Royal Tenenbaums” and I just picked up “The Fantastic Mr. Fox.” Anderson’s films polarize people, but I’m an unabashed fan. Especially of “The Life Aquatic,” which received his harshest reviews of any film to date.

Mini-review alert: I love the playfulness of its multi-layered, film-within-a-film storytelling. Spectacular visuals and odd details evoke the comparable dreamlike worlds of moviemaking and the aquatic environment, as we watch Team Zissou making a documentary of whatever they encounter (raising the metaphorical questions about truth and illusion, reality and artificiality). The movie works as both a parody and homage of the Jacques Cousteau milieu, with its stories of “jaguar sharks” and “crayon pony fish,” but it resonates more deeply as a story about explorers as heroes, when every 12-year-old boy, if he couldn’t play shortstop for the Red Sox, dreamed of diving the oceans, digging for treasure or blasting off into space in search of adventure. There’s satire in the steady hawking and marketing of Zissou paraphernalia and his constant need for more funding, contrasted with the heavily endowed enterprise of his oceanographer rival (played by Jeff Goldlbum), whose high-tech resources would be at home in a Bond movie. Some of it is surreal, including a couple of modern pirate scenes (no Jack Sparrow romance here…when his college interns fail to join Zissou on a rescue mission, the explorer threatens to give them an incomplete). There are several wonderful touches of wit and aesthetic, such as the Portuguese crewmember that plays his guitar and sings David Bowie songs in Portuguese; those exotic, extra-colorful, “Finding Nemo”-esque marine creatures; and a great cast, including a deadpan, water-weary Bill Murray playing the lead role.

Those who watch a lot of Anderson’s films will note some commonalities, especially in themes and motifs of abandonment, arrested adolescence, the father-son relationship, and portraits of a world in which many of the characters come from money. These are broken people; everyone, at some level, carries a weighted personality that has buried grief or pain. But wrapped around these characters are wonderful scenes that linger visually and emotionally, achieving a quality that feels both literary and cinematic.

So what can we expect from “Moonrise Kingdom?” More of the same, I’d imagine, only with an distinctly Ocean State atmosphere, circa the 1960s. The setting for the film is an island off the coast of New England. A young boy and girl fall and love and run away together. Various factions of the town go out to search for them. From that premise, a movie will bloom.

According to colleague Liz Boardman, the film will be shot entirely in Rhode Island over 44 days this spring, with locations already secured in Jamestown, Portsmouth and Hopkinton. Norton’s scenes will be filmed on part of Bayfield Farm, a South Kingstown Land Trust property off Camp Fuller Road in Matunuck, where a temporary Boy Scout camp of stick-and-canvas tents will be set up amid the pasture land, the juniper trees, rocks and cows.

I still think the turf farms along Slocum Road and Sodco’s massive mechanical irrigator (that looks like a water sprinkler from “The Land of the Giants”) would make a great location for a movie, along with the strange Cold War remnants of lonely buildings and roads at Quonset Point.

Your turn: What Rhode Island setting would make a good movie location?

Greenway Lament

2011-05-02T12:54:00.002-04:00

Amid the new perfumes, sounds and colors that arrived daily last week as spring popped in the landscape, the joys of the season in South County were tempered by one little-known off-note. On Friday, the offices of the East Coast Greenway Alliance – an organization dedicated to creating a continuous recreational route from Key West to the top of Maine – closed their doors, shut the windows and turned off the phones at Lily Pads Professional Center in Peace Dale. Greenway headquarters have departed to Durham, N.C., and while the move makes sense on a number of levels, it’s still a loss for the local culture of “fresh air fiends,” to use an expression from author Paul Theroux.

The Greenway will still have a presence in Rhode Island, as Eric Weis, the organization’s trail program coordinator, lives in Providence and maintains a small office on Dorrance Street. But having the headquarters here gave legitimacy to all of the efforts to build public paths, whether on the spine of the Greenway or popular spurs – like the East Bay Bike Path, the Blackstone River Bikeway or the William C. O’Neill (South County) Bike Path, throughout the state. As a consequence, Rhody has become one of the more bike-friendly states on the Eastern Seaboard, with 50 miles of paved paths completed, another 40 miles at various stages of development, and bike routes and lanes integrated into its largest cities. A recent trip down Blackstone Boulevard in Providence revealed the kind of urban bike lane that would be the envy of any city cyclist. Despite its steep hills, potholes and long winters, Providence has emerged as a cycling town, thanks in large part to its steady influx of green-minded college students.

Not all Rhode Islanders are fans of public paths. In some places, such as the Canonchet section of Narragansett, NIMBY has reared its ugly head, as some residents have stonewalled the planned process for extending the South County Bike Path from South Kingstown to Narragansett Town Beach for years. Their arguments ring hollow, particularly since public access already exists in the neighborhood, which serves as the gateway to the South County Museum. Among their most recent rhetorical strategies is to express concern about the surrounding wetlands. It’s a great point. Makes you wonder why they didn’t consider it when they built their houses there.

NIMBY is a popular figure in Rhode Island, and I can even understand the angst when it comes to wind turbines, container ports, nuclear power plants, prisons and airports. But a bike path? As someone who lives two blocks from the most traveled bike path in the state, I can assure you that you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who lives on or near the route that doesn’t appreciate having it there. In an age when we’re combating obesity, inactivity and our dependency on expensive energy, bike paths are no-brainers for communities. They promote health and fellowship, provide opportunities to see nature in the raw and the progression of the seasons, and become a unifying source of pride for neighborhoods. Just this spring, jogging the path along White Horn Brook and Genessee Swamp in South Kingstown, I’ve encountered a deafening chorus of peepers screeching like banshees, hunting hawks and herons, deer and fawns bounding through the adjoining woods, beaver lodges, bugling geese and concerts of songbirds in the swamp and surrounding forest. At the path in Barrington, the town’s historic society has installed storyboard kiosks, documenting the region’s heritage as a place of oyster houses, lace factories and Wampanoag territory.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, but apparently it was built quicker than the town of Narragansett can build a bike path. So until that day happens, here’s this week’s question: What is your favorite bike path in Rhode Island?

Jolly Roger and Out

2011-04-25T12:40:00.004-04:00

The romance of pirates never seems to fade, despite the grim details emerging weekly from modern pirates mistreating or killing yachters and sailors in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden. The violence associated with corsairs of legend – clashing swords, walking planks, firing cannon – is the stuff of adventure, somehow different from the gruesome news accounts of brutal, bloody shootouts and kidnappings. With old-school pirates, it’s the rogue spirit people seem to respond to, the sense of freedom on the high seas, the lure of buried treasure, the cult of personality and the classless ideal of sharing the common spoils.

And nowhere in the United States is piracy more revered than in Rhode Island, where re-enactors like the Rhode Island Pirate Players and the Free Men of the Sea (based in Connecticut) spread the gospel of buccaneer life at festivals throughout the year, including this weekend’s “Bridge to the Past” at Smith’s Castle in Wickford. Along the banks of the Cocumscussoc, the Free Men will launch an exhibition “PIRATES! Against all flags,” that will give visitors a glimpse into the fact and folklore of long-ago pirates on the New England coast, allowing them to view period weapons, pirate flags, coins and other treasure, types of punishments and other paraphernalia. The event coincides with Sunday’s May Fair in East Greenwich, called “Pirate Palooza.” Earlier this month, the R.I. Pirate Players, who entertain visitors to Newport every summer with their walking tour “Dead Men’s Tales,” became the first Rhode Island pirates to receive a letter of marque – also known as a privateering commission – from the governor (Lincoln Chafee in this case) since Gov. William Jones issued letters of marque during the War of 1812.

(Side note: It's common to see Rhody vessels and even some houses still flying versions of the Jolly Roger - or skull-and-crossbones flags. Rebel flags in general remain popular here in The Independent State. You can spot a Confederate flag now and then in rural Rhody. Even more common is the "Don't Tread on Me" flag...although I saw more of them around before it was usurped by the Tea Party. There are still a few traditionalists, but even then, many residents flying national flags haven't gotten around to changing from the original circle of 13 stars yet.)

During the Golden Age of Piracy, from the late 17th through the early 18th century, piracy was – like slavery – an industry of its own in Rhode Island. Although most went under the legal “privateer” label, pirates commonly fitted out in Rhode Island while residents answered the equivalent of “Pirate Needed” Help Wanted ads to serve as crew members. And Rhody, especially Newport, was a refuge for many of the most notorious swashbucklers, including William Kidd, Blackbeard, Henry Every and Thomas Tew, most of whom supposedly buried booty in and around Block Island or Aquidneck Island – as yet undiscovered (or unreported).

Every, considered “The King of Pirates” since he acquired more plunder than any other freebooter, captured the biggest treasure ever on a ship belonging to the Great Mogul of India, then supposedly came to Providence in 1696 on his ship Charles (alias Fancy) after leaving his home port of Madagascar to outfit himself with a new ship that would take him to retirement on the west coast Ireland. In 1698, the London Board of Trade reported “pieces of Arabian gold are common in New York and Rhode Island, after the arrival there of pirate Captain Coats from the Red Sea.” In 1702, maritime historian William Clark wrote “every man in Newport is either a pirate or privateerman.” In 1716, Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, is known to have enjoyed an extended stay in Providence. Long after piracy died out in most of the Colonies, Rhode Islanders were still going on raids, claiming prizes and pocketing sterling, gold and jewels. It took the merchants to change things. As merchant ships began crowding Rhode Island harbors, their owners didn’t want their vessels to become pirate prizes, so they forced local politicians to enforce and strengthen the laws against piracy. In 1723 at Gravelly Point near Newport, 26 men were hanged for piracy, putting an exclamation point on how seriously Rhode Island law officials were taking the new rules.

Thomas Tew, often called “The Rhode Island Pirate,” lives on in a rum named after him, produced by the Newport Distilling Co. Made with blackstrap molasses, pot stills and local water, and aged in French and American oak barrels, the rum harks back to when Newport was the rum capital of the world. By 1769, 22 distilleries were operating in Newport. During this time, according to a Web site featuring “A Condensed History of Rum,” “New England rum was considered to be better than that of the Caribbean. Rhode Island rum for a short period was so popular that it was actually used as currency in Europe alongside of gold.” But the drink fell out of favor during the next century. By 1817, only two distilleries remained in town. The John Dyer Distillery in Providence, the last standing in the state, shut down in 1872. So Thomas Tew, which produced its first bottle in 2007, was the first Rhode Island-made rum in 135 years.

Aside from wampum and rum, what would be an appropriate alternative form of currency for Rhode Island today?

Fossils R Us

2011-04-18T12:28:00.004-04:00

One of the side notes from Jamestown filmmaker Patti Cassidy’s documentary project, “Elephants in Rhode Island,” was that to date there have been no wooly mammoth or mastodon bones discovered in the Ocean State, despite significant findings in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maine. This doesn’t mean that the primeval elephants weren’t here. Trawlers have scooped up mammoth and mastodon teeth during their hauls in Narragansett Bay, suggesting that the Pleistocene mega-fauna were hanging out when the bay was a basin, as yet unfilled by glacial melt.

Quite likely they were happily camped out in pre-sprawl, Ice Age Rhode Island, blissfully unaware of the mass extinction to come – a condition they shared with short-faced bears, dire wolves, stag-moose, giant beaver and saber-toothed cats.

As Gary Haynes writes in his “American megafaunal extinctions at the end of the Pleistocene”:

The great vanishing act took place in California and Rhode Island and Texas, in the center of Brazil and along the Pacific coast of Chile, in the inland steppes and pampas and plains of both Americas, in the cold southern cone of Argentina, in the lowlands and plains, mountains and foothills, everywhere in both continents and at nearly the same time. It’s a mystery we cannot solve – a true cold case.

Not one we’re likely to solve today, but in the universe that is Rhode Island, there’s a bigger mystery afoot. Why don’t we have a state fossil? Most every other state does, including four of our New England neighbors: Vermont (white whale); Massachusetts (dinosaur tracks – theropod footprints); Connecticut (dinosaur tracks – Eubrontes giganteus); and Maine (Devonian plant).

Rhody, along with both Carolinas, Kansas, Iowa, Indiana, Tennessee and Hawaii, is just a blank space on the official state fossils list.

Marilyn Massaro, curator of collections at the Museum of Natural History and Planetarium at Roger Williams Park in Providence, which houses thousands of state fossils, thinks it’s high time that changed.

“The official state fossil should come from one the plant families of the Carboniferous period,” she said in a phone conversation this morning. “That really is sort of the Rhode Island fossil. In fact, I can’t believe that Calamites aren’t already the state fossil.”

The Carboniferous period, also known as the coal age, occurred between 354 million to 290 million years ago. Calamites were medium-sized trees that grew up to 100 feet or more, located in the understories of coal swamps. Their only living relatives are horsetails. Their fossils are still evident in parts of Rhode Island.

Any other suggestions? What should be the state fossil of Rhode Island? (Note: Assorted media personalities, weather forecasters and ex-governors are not eligible.)

Right-of-way, Wrong-of-way

2011-04-11T12:03:00.003-04:00

There was a time when Rhode Islanders could get to every inch of their shoreline. That isn’t true anymore, even though Rhody probably does a better job than the other 22 coastal states of promoting its public rights of way. Making our way to the water’s edge is considered a birthright, a privilege granted to every Rhode Islander by the colony’s original charter, as ordained by King Charles II, and affirmed later in the state Constitution.

Here, people have the right to fish from the shore; leave the shore to swim in the sea; gather seaweed; or merely pass along the shore on their excursions and ramblings. Jim Bedell, whose Coast Watcher’s Journal column appears in the arts section of Independent Newspapers, writes eloquently about the natural beauty, history, science and encounters that can be combed from the southern Rhode Island shoreline while informing citizens of their public access rights.

Unfortunately, not everybody shares the same democratic spirit. Over the years, some public rights of way have been obliterated – marked improperly with Private Property, No Trespassing or No Parking signs; blocked by grown trees or shrubbery, illegal dumping or fencing; even paved over.

I am reminded of what a blessing Rhode Island’s rights of ways are every day, from my little cottage on the cove, where the public access (and parking) are plentiful. People come to sit and watch the waves and the light, the rising moons and the setting suns, the bonfires and fireworks around the Fourth of July. They come to fish, explore the little beaches, swim or launch kayaks.

I often walk to the beach at Allin’s Cove, visiting swans and herons, geese and ducks, gulls and crows, shore birds and songbirds. From there I sometimes ramble through the neighborhood, connecting to the East Bay Bike Path, and wander over to the other side of the cove in a neighborhood once known as Drownville. A little over a mile leads to Mussachuck, where the other day I watched herring run up the creek and two nesting osprey take turns looping through the winds. Not far away, just past Annawamscutt Beach, another pair of osprey has successfully established a nest.

Last week, after visiting Rosecliff for this Thursday’s paper column, I meandered to the Cliff Walk and settled on a small beach between Marine Avenue and Ruggles Avenue, where the waves were wild and white, giving off an “Aquidneck Five-0” vibe. A day later, my commute took me toward Sakonnet, so I dropped by Warrens Point – perhaps my favorite spot in the state. The place is generally inaccessible since the way to it is guarded by a man in a little security booth during the warmer months and, unless you have a boat, you can’t get there without someone claiming you’re trespassing. Some day, when I can afford the jail time, I’ll challenge the blatant abuse of wealth at work here, but that’s a fight for another recession. For now, I’m content to limit my visits to three seasons. Even though signs say the beach is closed; truth is, nature never closes its beaches. Only people do.

As much as we should celebrate every right of way, we should challenge every wrong of way. If I can ever afford to retire (not likely), I’ll start up a Wrong of Way Brigade. We’ll wear buttons that say WOW and march to all of Rhode Island’s inaccessible shore paths, demanding our way to the waves and the wind and the light that belong to nobody but are shared by all souls.

What is your favorite Rhode Island right of way?

Providelphia

2011-04-04T11:18:00.001-04:00

Post Mortem: “Body of Proof”

Episode 1 of the made-in-Rhode-Island, set-in-Philadelphia, cadaver-of-the-week drama “Body of Proof” aired last Tuesday (with a second episode squeezed into the ABC Sunday lineup last night), so here are my first impressions:

The series is Hollywood slick, but the acting is uneven, and you would expect a first show to offer a little more edge and originality in either the plot (painfully contrived) or the ensemble characters (painfully familiar and forgettable). Dana Delany plays the main character, Dr. Megan Hunt, a brilliant medical examiner with Sherlock Holmes-esque powers of observation and deduction. Before her forensic career, Hunt was an ace neurosurgeon until a horrific traffic accident left her with a condition that causes her hands to cramp and numb without warning – a handicap that ended her first profession after she killed a woman on the operating table. She has no relationship whatsoever with her 12-year-old daughter, who lives with her embittered ex-husband. And, in a point made repeatedly during the first show, she has no friends. Wow. That’s a lot of baggage to carry.

One problem is that this kind of show has been done to death, and better, ranging from the “CSI” franchise to “Crossing Jordan” (with Jill Hennessy as a crime-solving forensic pathologist in Boston) and “Bones” (with Emily Deschanel as a forensic anthropologist in Washington, D.C.). Hunt’s medical examiner follows in the tradition of these talented, emotionally-stunted women who are more comfortable spending their days among corpses than with the living. In all of these shows, there’s murder and banter in equal doses, a few red herrings to carry the hour, a story arc peppered with obvious sexual chemistry between the female protagonist and her male partner, and throwaway lines of noir humor that border on parody.

In fact, parody might’ve been a better way to go. The genre was lampooned brilliantly in the Nicholas Stoller and Jason Segel movie, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” as the eponymous character spoofed the stock female crime-solver role in “Crime Scene: Scene of the Crime” and, during the final credits, “Animal Instincts.” (Check out the spin-off movie “Get Him to the Greek” for another short Sarah Marshall parody of a TV drama cliche, “Blind Medicine,” in which Kristen Bell plays a visually impaired nurse. Hysterical.)

If only “Body of Proof” had the guts to go all the way for camp. They could’ve invited a weekly celebrity cadaver (in the manner of the old celebrity super-villains on the 1960s “Batman” show, or the celebrity murderer on the not-camp-but-certainly-witty “Columbo”) to draw interest. Pay the standard slab rate to B actors that no longer have the option of going on “Love Boat,” “Fantasy Island” or “Tales from the Crypt.”

Another problem is this whole Providence-Philly mash-up. While the various Rhodyspotting scenes are fun, it’s jolting to see Pennsylvania cops hanging out by the Hot Club or a sudden exterior shot of the Billy Penn tower in the mix. I’m sure the folks in Pennsylvania are saying the same thing we are: “Hey, that’s not Philadelphia!” (Of course, Philly’s a bigger market than La Prov, to borrow a phrase from Phillipe & Jorge – may they rest in peace – which may explain why Rhody isn’t the setting as well as the location shoot.) Also, at least in the first episode, everybody who works in Providelphia (or Phillydence) seems to have spectacular, only slightly varied, views of the same city buildings.

The R.I. Film and TV Office along with many in the Ocean State are rooting for this show for the jobs it will provide and for the exposure it will bring. That’s fine (although let’s not be yahoos about it; if the show settles in as a standard, well-made forensic drama, that’s probably the best we can hope for.) It’s a shame, though. Providence would make a great noir town on the little screen. We have the infrastructure in place for gritty crime drama. Rampant corruption. Colorful real-life characters. The University of Rhode Island even offers a popular forensics lecture series during the academic year.

At any rate, the next time someone decides to film a series in Rhody with a weekly dead body count, let’s hope the autopsy reveals that the last meal included stuffies, wieners and strip pizza, not cheesesteaks.

What do you think of “Body of Proof”?

Pogo Dave Spotting

2011-03-28T12:18:00.003-04:00

Highway driving in Rhode Island can be dreary in March. Until the forsythia arrives, and unless the hawks are hovering, there are few highlights on the major roadways. So yesterday’s trip from Barrington to South County and back was a rare treat for me, since I passed Pogo Dave coming and going.

It was my first (and second) Pogo Dave sighting. I passed him on Route 4 sometime before noon and then on I-95 heading back to Providence around 4:30. He drives an All-American red, white and blue automobile with a bull’s head and horns on the hood, various gizmos and stationary bikes mounted on the roof. The car has a sign that reads: “This car is powered with insanity.” A North Providence native, also known as Dave Clayman, Pogo Dave has been parking his car on roadsides throughout Rhode Island performing on his contraption and spreading the gospel of nonsense for 16 years. Somehow, despite driving about 33,000 miles a year in this state for the past 11 years, I’ve never seen him before…until twice in one day.

With the international holiday of pranks, hoaxes and practical jokes set for Friday,* perhaps we should consider making Pogo Dave Rhode Island’s official April Fool. (Although Love 22 might give him a run for his money. We might have to put it to a state vote, as we did during the debate over what should be the official state drink: Del’s lemonade or coffee milk?)

The tradition of April Fool’s Day hoaxes goes back centuries, but the practice seems to have really taken off in modern times. Among the best last year: Starbucks, the coffee chain that sizes its cups as “tall,” “grande” and venti” – a language I generally refer to dismissively as Starbuckian – showed it had a sense of humor by announcing two more sizes: the 128-ounce “plenta” and the two-ounce “micra.” Google changed its name to “Topeka” for the day. And England’s Guardian newspaper announced that after 188 years of printing ink on paper, it would be switching exclusively to publishing on Twitter, after management decided that any story can be told in 140 characters.

Rhode Island hasn’t been at the forefront of a good April Fool’s Day prank in a long time, at least according to the humorologist at the University of South-Central Rhode Island who is often consulted in these matters.

This week’s question: Who is Rhode Island’s April Fool?

* A partial list of tomfoolery that may also include parodies, satires, spoofs, lampoons, follies, frolics, wisecracks, gags, japes, capers, larks, farces, send ups, takeoffs, mockeries, fakes and forgeries.

Roger and We

2011-03-21T12:12:00.004-04:00

Following up on last week’s question on how to celebrate Rhode Island’s 375th anniversary – gift ideas under consideration: wampum or Cumberlandite – it looks like the City of Providence wants to party like it’s 1636.

On Wednesday at 5:30 p.m., the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce will conduct a Providence 375 Informational Workshop. From their press release:

HOPE FREEDOM ROOTS INGENUITY
A celebration to honor Roger Williams’ legacy and ideals
In 1636, Roger Williams and a small group of followers landed on the shores of the Seekonk River in Providence’s Fox Point. From May-October 2011, Providence will commemorate the 375th anniversary of the colonial settlement along the shores of the Great Salt Cove.

Among the events: a “My Providence” video contest; a special WaterFire in honor of the 375th; Providence’s Independence Weekend celebration and fireworks; a “Providence 375” gala honoring individuals who exemplify Williams’ legacy and ideals; a National Park Service-sponsored Shakespeare in the Park production; a “Roger Williams Paddle” led by Rhode Island Blueways; a “What does the American dream mean to you?” public art installation at Roger Williams National Memorial; an exhibit on Williams’ “A Key into the Language of America” at The Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology; The Manton Avenue Project’s “375 Roger (Over and Out): the happy-birthday-Providence-plays”; and more.

Conveniently missing from the hoopla is another Roger Williams project announced earlier this month – one that would flesh out the founder’s reputation as a slave trader. In his later years, Williams wasn’t quite the idealist he had been as a younger man. The decades after that moment when Narragansett Indian Sachem Canonicus and his people gifted Williams the land that would become the Rhode Island Colony were marred by conflict between cultures, culminating in King Philip’s War during the 1670s. According to Julianne Jennings, a Native American and former Rhode Island scholar now studying in Arizona, Williams and other colonists held a town meeting on August 1676 that resulted in an agreement to send the community’s American Indian prisoners to the Caribbean, Portugal, Spain and Africa, where they were sold as slaves. (The fact that Williams’ house had been destroyed by native factions in the burning of Providence during March of that year might have contributed to the cranky old free-thinker’s judgment.)

State officials have agreed to a request to erect a plaque somewhere in Providence that will focus on Williams’ role in selling American Indian war captives into slavery. They just haven’t figured out where or when. Given the tendency to deify our historical figures into the realm of myth and legend, there’s probably some resistance to permanently installing a monument to the Bad Roger legacy during the same year we’re celebrating the 375th anniversary of Good Roger’s landing. But there shouldn’t be.

Inherent in every holiday named after a person is the hypocrisy of sanctifying those who were flesh and flawed. The cracks in the faces of the four presidents on Mt. Rushmore are not just weather-related, but metaphoric, a visual reminder that we put masks on our heroes, and don’t really want to see them in their stark complexity. To schoolchildren from Woonsocket to Westerly, Roger Williams is the George Washington of Rhode Island. (Although Washington, truth be told, was no great fan of Rhode Island, skipping it on his horseback journeys until we knuckled under and ratified statehood.) We have this permanent image of Preacher Williams in the long coat and the pilgrim’s hat greeting the local tribes with “What cheer,” befriending natives and colonists regardless of their cultural, political or religious beliefs, and setting the tone for the best of Rhode Island’s ideals and aspirations. As Rhode Islanders, we believe that before there was an American dream, Williams dreamed it. But the truth is far more complicated. Wherever you shine a light you'll see shadows. Which is fine. An exacting curiosity in pursuit of truth and knowledge is always healthier to a functioning society than mindless PR. Anniversaries aren’t just about celebrating the past. They are about surviving it, hopefully with a few lessons learned along the way.

Where should the “Roger Williams, slave trader” plaque be placed?

Rhody Sampler

2011-03-14T12:35:00.002-04:00

Wienerpalooza
We had a serious wiener conversation in the office the other day. At issue was the correct spelling of one of Rhode Island’s culinary delights – the New York System Hot Wiener – which has nothing to do with New York and is traditionally spelled “weiner,” at least if you go by some of the oldest establishments in the state: the Original New York System Hot Weiner joint in Providence; Cosmic Steak, Pizza & Weiners in Warwick; Moonlight House of Weiners in Woonsocket; the Wein-O-Rama in Cranston and the Weiner Genie in Lincoln. Of course, not every wiener business spells it the same way. In some locations, the word is “weiner” on the building and “wiener” on the road sign (or vice versa). Our grammar Bible, the A.P. Stylebook, has no entry for wiener. So we are left to our own devices.

Maybe in the future, when other states eventually catch on to the culinary glory of “an arm all the way with an Arizona” – steamed buns stuffed with wieners, meat sauce, mustard, onions and celery salt running from the cook’s palm to the shoulder washed down with a coffee milk – we can do what the Scots do with whisky. Whisky made in Scotland, better known as Scotch, is spelled with no “e;” whereas it’s whiskey if distilled anywhere else. One day, perhaps, only Rhode Island wieners will be spelled officially as “weiners.” (Smells like legislation brewing.) Until that happens, however, we chose “wiener” essentially for grammatical clarity – and also because most of the modern restaurants that get into the wiener business spell it the dictionary way. It may not be as much fun as perpetuating a deliberate typo but it provides a bit of editorial sanity when we have to write about gaggers.

That said, don’t be surprised if a rogue weiner slips into our writing every once in a while.

The reason this came up is because colleague Chris Church wrote a story in the March 10 edition of The North East Independent about the North Kingstown House of Pizza winning an award from the Web site Fork in the Rhode for having the best wieners in the state. The judging was based on sampling more than 100 belly-busters from 34 wiener joints. It’s a nice honor for the Post Road eatery, given that it beat out some classic gagger locales, including the A&W Restaurant in Greenville, Olneyville New York System, Ferrucci’s Original New York System in Arctic, Lumber-Jacks-Pizza ’n Wieners in North Smithfield, Sparky’s Coney Island System in East Providence, Snoopy’s Diner in North Kingstown and (my wiener local) Rod’s Grill in Warren. But another problem with any comprehensive Rhody wiener story is keeping track of all the places that sell them. There’s no telling how many spots were left out of the survey, but Quick Rick’s Sandwich Shop just across the parking lot from our Independent offices sells them, as does Kingston Pizza down the road in Peace Dale. Bishop’s 4th Street Diner in Newport is also a contributor to Rhody’s gagger landscape.

As for the wiener wording, it’s the latest in a long line of Independent grammatical conundrums. Previous discussions – and they can get pretty heated – have established a consistent style for a variety of local terms and cultural references. They include our “two Z” spelling of Verrazzano (the explorer’s name who shares space on the Jamestown Bridge and is spelled differently on various road signs en route; even Wikipedia only gives him one “Z”); our “no H” spelling of jonnycake (even though most Rhode Island jonnycake purists insist that the flour must be made with Rhode Island stone-ground white flint corn to earn the H-less distinction); and whether to “capital the B” in Easter Bunny (A.P., once again, is silent on the matter).

Rhody Universe: Sendai
Odd note from The Weather Channel this weekend, reporting on the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan, especially the city of Sendai. According to TWC, Sendai’s closet climatological comparison to an American city is Providence. The two municipalities, both located on the northeast corners of their countries, share an uncanny similarity in average high and average low temperatures, average rainfall and average snowfall.

Happy Anniversary, Rhody
In the spring of 1636, Roger Williams crossed the Seekonk River to what would become the Rhode Island side of the New England colonies and dropped anchor in a place he called Providence. That means this spring marks the 375th anniversary of Rhode Island’s founding.

So what would be an appropriate 375th anniversary gift for Rhode Island?

Most anniversary gift lists only go up to 75 or 80 years. According to Wikipedia, the oldest traditional anniversary gift given in the United States (appropriate for age 75) is something with diamonds or gold, although modern lists (up to age 80) have been revised to diamonds or pearls. Traditionally in the United Kingdom it’s oak. Imagine after 80 years of marriage, getting a handful of acorns....

The Knowaguy State

2011-03-07T11:32:00.003-05:00

Long before the age of texting, tweeting and posting, Rhode Islanders had their own brand of social media called Knowaguy. Knowaguy was where we went whenever we needed something. Need a job? A plumber? Someone to take hazardous waste off your hands? Don’t worry. I knowaguy. You knowaguy? I knowaguy. Of course you knowaguy. This is Rhode Island. We all knowaguy. Often it’s the same guy, but that’s a post for another day.

Our longstanding culture of “knowaguy” may help explain a factoid buried in Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” cover story on Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (the piece came out on Jan. 3, but we’re a little behind in our magazine reading). Time reports that the world’s most popular social platform is used more in Rhode Island than in any of the Other 49. As of the New Year, 65 percent of the Ocean State used Facebook. (The lowest rate, at 30 percent, was recorded by New Mexico.)

In one respect, it seems odd that the nation’s second-most densely populated state (behind New Jersey) would be the most avid users of Facebook, a site that allows people to stay in touch over long distances. But the convenience of remote communication, it turns out, may not be Facebook’s most vital function. The greater lure is the sense of being part of a community.

Rhode Island’s pre-existing social culture as a place of jostling elbows – whether at the big tables of shore dining halls or the cramped counters and bars of diners and pubs – lends itself ideally to the Facebook format. Relationships matter here in a way that they don’t everywhere. And everything is personal.

My friend Tom and I were talking about this subject yesterday, after a round of golf and during a couple of pints in Warren. Although Facebook is a global phenomenon, Tom believes that it still works best in closed or tight-knit communities, like college campuses, from which it originated. Rhode Island is its own campus, its own neighborhood. Historically we have a low migration rate. Most people are born here and die here. Even those who leave usually come back. [Consider the unofficial University of Rhode Island fight song: I’m Rhode Island born and Rhode Island bred and when I die I’ll be Rhode Island dead…] Which is why in this fragmented time, when a nation that used to gather around the TV to watch Cronkite now chooses between 700 channels and multiple types of media, it’s still possible in Rhode Island to have a conversation that the whole state can engage in. It’s like that old “Coffee Chat” segment on “Saturday Night Live:”

Rocky Point Park. The Blizzard of ’78. The Station Fire.

Discuss.

[Side note: Rhode Island itself was once a topic of discussion on “Coffee Chat.” It went something like: “Rhode Island…Neither a road, nor an island. Discuss.”]

There may be other factors for Rhody’s high Facebook use. The Ocean State is first in the nation for access to broadband coverage, which certainly helps. Its unemployment rate (over 11 percent at last count with the national average hovering around 9 percent) is still one of the highest in the country, so it’s possible that more people in Rhode Island have more time to log on. But it’s also just as likely that Facebook is the high school yearbook that you never put away in the closet, and the whole state of Rhode Island is the high school class that never graduated. Part of our identity as Rhode Islanders is knowing (and being interested in) what other Rhode Islanders are up to at any given moment, whether friends, neighbors, strangers or Buddy.

Your turn: Why does Rhode Island use Facebook more than any other state?

Skimming Buddy

2011-02-28T12:23:00.002-05:00

Last Thursday Half Shell received an advance copy of Buddy Cianci’s memoir, so naturally we spent the weekend reading it. Although written with New York author David Fisher, it’s a Buddy yak and yarn all the way, filled with every Buddy-centric story we’ve come to know and love, from stacking dead bodies like Lincoln Logs during the Blizzard of ’78 to the media circus of Plunder Dome, toupees to cigarettes, mobsters to marinara sauce.

Starting with the title, “Politics and Pasta: How I Prosecuted Mobsters, Rebuilt a Dying City, Dined with Sinatra, Spent Five Years in a Federally Funded Gated Community, and Lived to Tell the Tale,” the memoir is both self-serving and self-deprecating in equal doses, much like the former mayor himself. Love him or loathe him, readers should give Cianci credit for his frank, behind-the-scenes look at public service and private demons, told in a voice that is unmistakably his own, quick-witted and still advertising. (Throughout the book Providence is regularly referred to as “the great city of Providence,” a mantra that the former mayor can’t help himself from repeating.)

While the rest of the country might wonder what all of the fuss is about, there is much for Rhode Islanders to feast upon. Consider Buddy’s description of the Providence he inherited as mayor. After chronicling the city’s former glory, he writes about what it looked like in 1975:

Our downtown was practically deserted; the once grand hotel, the Biltmore, was closing; and, perhaps symbolically, the week I was inaugurated a crane was pulling out the grand piano from the second floor. The situation was so awful that even the American Bible Society, one of the last successful businesses we had, had packed its Bibles and moved out of town. Let me illustrate it this way: On the night of my inauguration the police got an emergency phone call that several monkeys were escaping from our zoo. You know you’re in trouble when your monkeys are trying to get out of town.

A legendary campaigner, who always believed that there was “no substitute for hitting the streets and shaking the hands of voters,” Buddy was beloved by Providence residents because he never missed a graduation, communion, confirmation, bar mizvah, Little League opener, breakfast, picnic, wedding or parade if he could help it. He recalls one trip to a Portuguese Democratic Club event:

They roasted a pig over an open fire and then proudly explained the old tradition, the guest of honor gets to eat the eye. I looked at this big thing looking right back at me and I thought, Eat the eye? You gotta be nuts. But there were a lot of potential votes watching me. I gotta eat the eye. I took a deep breath and swallowed it. Then I looked at the crowd and said with as much disappointment as I could pretend I felt, “What? I only get one?”

The book is filled with such moments, making it a fun read for the Rhodyfile. From time to time, in the middle of a sentence or a paragraph, he’ll just start pitching Providence with a line like: “…by the way, if you’ve never been to Providence you are missing a wonderful experience; come for WaterFire…” He considers himself the city’s greatest salesman (it’s hard to argue the point) and believes his most important lasting accomplishment was raising the self-esteem of Providence residents.

Amid stories of clashing egos and politics as usual, Buddy articulates the patchwork ideas that became his vision for Providence. They include a commitment to historic preservation (“In Providence history was our future.”); an emerging realization of the importance of celebrating the city’s diversity and ensuring fairness (“To me all people were equal; they were all potential votes.”); the significance of a thriving arts community to restore the city’s vibrancy ("I used artists as the shock troops of neighborhood rehabilitation...We had more artists per capita in Providence than any American city...Artists value space above comfort, and that's what we could offer them."); and a mayor’s most critical responsibility (“The single thing that every northern mayor is judged by is how quickly the streets get plowed after a snowstorm. Snow is apolitical; there is no Democratic or Republican way to clear the streets.”)

Buddy doesn’t ignore his other legacy, the criminal assault charge that forced him out of office the first time and the federal prison stint for being found guilty on the charge of conspiring to violate the RICO act. He explains his version of events, diffusing any painful memories with trademark one liners (“According to a Brown University poll, on the day I was indicted my approval rating actually went up four points.”)

Potential mayors might want to consider his sage advice. The book is a primer for anyone looking to run for office in Rhode Island. (“Don’t get between a voter and their bingo card.”) He even offers tips for marching in a parade. (“For obvious reasons, never, ever march behind a horse...Never march behind a bishop either, because he’ll stop frequently to bless people, and they make the sign of the cross, so they can’t clap for you. And don’t march in front of the parade queen’s float because no one is going to be looking at you.”)

It’s all here. Putting guards armed with shotguns on garbage trucks. Canceling The Who concert at the old Civic Center. Saving the Ocean State Theatre from the wrecking ball. Flirting with casinos. Putting police on horses and replica gas lamps on Federal Hill. Bringing the Providence Bruins to town. Trying to get Frank Sinatra’s mother’s doctor’s kid into Brown. (He couldn’t.) Attracting the X Games and Gravity Games. Becoming a champion of gay rights. Building a public ice skating rink in a derelict part of Downcity. Pardoning the Big Blue Bug. Commissioning the sloop Providence. Welcoming trolleys and gondolas. Launching the nation’s first tax-free arts district. Going on the radio with Imus. And much more. Good Buddy. Bad Buddy. Every Buddy in between.

What is your favorite Buddy story?

Miss America Hopeful Runs on Dunkin'

2011-02-21T11:05:00.002-05:00

Miss America pageant contestants are rarely chosen for their oratory. But despite her rather good showing overall during the most recent competition, Deborah Saint-Vil, Miss Rhode Island 2011, made an even greater impression in media limbo than on the judges. And it wasn’t a swimsuit or evening gown that did it. It was a factoid.

Given a chance to introduce herself and represent her home state, Miss Rhode Island declared: “With the most Dunkin Donuts shops per capita in the nation, I’m wired up and fired up tonight! I’m Miss Rhode Island!”

The comment went viral the moment it came out of her mouth. Saint-Vil may not have won – on this snowy President's Day we are reminded that a Rhode Islander has as good a chance of becoming President of the United States as Miss America – but her pronouncement got more play on the blogosphere and Twittersphere than any of the Other 49 sparkly wannabes. It was also featured in a Miss America sum-up on “The Soup,” the E! network’s pop cultural gumbo of favorite TV moments from the past week.

While some Rhode Islanders cringed at the reference, most national commentators seemed charmed by it. One blogger noted: “(must be Dunkin Donuts Co. is based out of Rhode Island?)”

Uh, no, actually. That’s one of the odd twists in this tale. Dunkin’ Donuts is a Massachusetts chain. But in Rhode Island, travel distances are measured as much in Dunkin’ Donuts as miles. You can’t jog a 5K anywhere in the state without running into one.

How did this happen? Probably because our two favorite things are: 1) Coffee and 2) Anything fried in dough. The recent news that greater Providence (including the Fall River-New Bedford, Mass. region) remains the doughnut capital of the United States, with 25.3 doughnut shops per 100,000 people, surprised no one hereabouts. (Boston came in a distant second.)

But for those who’ve got their crullers in a twist because Miss Rhode Island bragged about our Dunkin’ mania, consider what she might have said:

“Hello, I’m Miss Rhode Island. Our founder’s skeleton was consumed by an apple tree root!”

“I’m from Rhode Island, one of only two states that never ratified the 18th Amendment declaring Prohibition! Isn’t that right, Miss Connecticut?”

“In these difficult economic times, I’m proud to be from Rhode Island, home to the first discount store in the United States!”

“I’m Miss Rhode Island, home to the world’s largest bug! It’s a big blue termite – 58 feet long and 928 times actual termite size! And it lives rent-free on a roof overlooking a highway in Providence!”

“I’m from Rhode Island, where the weather is always changing, which is why we have a corrosion test site at Point Judith where material samples sit exposed for years and are analyzed to determine the toll taken by ocean air and the sun!”

What should Miss Rhode Island be most proud of?

Valentines and Oysters

2011-02-14T10:15:00.001-05:00

On the calendar of holidays in New England, Valentine’s Day fits like a sourball in a Whitman’s Sampler. There’s nothing natural about it. Unlike Halloween (pumpkins and crows), Thanksgiving (Pilgrim hats and turkeys), Christmas (snow on evergreens), New Year’s (First Night), St. Patrick’s Day (Irish pubs), Easter (spring returns!) and Fourth of July (grilling and fireworks), Valentine’s Day has no organic relationship with the region.

Look around. There are mounds of snow and potholed roads everywhere. It’s cold and slippery. Nothing says “Be My Valentine” like a yearning for rock salt and Icy Melt.

Let’s face it. Cold hearts don’t melt in February. The pagan origins of St. Valentine’s Day refer to the time of year when the birds start to mate. But this month I haven’t seen any birds mating. I’ve only seen birds freezing. They’re hungry. They’re miserable. They’re wondering when the snow and ice will clear and the frozen ground will once again offer up wormy breakfasts.

Most of us know the feeling. Valentine’s Day would be better if it were moved to the summer. Possibly August, which has no national holiday. Days and nights of August in Rhode Island have the sensual, languid quality one would like to see in a Valentine’s Day. If I am overemphasizing the passionate and romantic aspect of the occasion – what the Greeks called “Eros” – it’s only because I feel as if I’m drowning in a media flood of florists and wineries, candy makers and chocolatiers, barbershop quartets and restaurants advertising candlelight dinners, all of them banking on Valentine’s Day as a lover’s holiday.

Maybe there’s a reason why every year Valentine’s Day is considered the holiday most overrated and least anticipated by a majority of Americans. At least locally, Providence just isn’t as sexy as Miami or New Orleans in February. Perhaps we would be better off downplaying “Eros,” and emphasizing the various other aspects of love – “Storge” (familial), “Philia” (friendship) and “Agape” (selfless love for others). I mention this even knowing that reducing love to four chambers of the heart is inherently problematic. Google “kinds of love” and you’ll see links numbering them at 4, 5, 3, 9, 7 and 8 varieties on the first page scroll.

Adding to Rhode Islanders’ Valentine’s Day angst this year is the news that wild oysters are “functionally extinct,” meaning that the world’s most popular aphrodisiac is going the way of the Dodo. For those of us who would prefer a platter of Moonstones, Watch Hills, Rome Points and Ninigret Cups to a chocolate box of nuts, fruits, nougats, caramels and creams, the worry that wild oyster extinction will endanger love on the half shell is almost paralyzing. (It’s an irrational worry; but aren’t they all?)

At least in Rhode Island, valentines and oysters are members of the same species. But don’t take my word for it. New York City’s Aquagrill considers Rhody oysters to be the best on the market. Here’s what the owner had to say about Moonstones in an article on “26 Oysters You Should Know This Valentine’s Day” for The Feast:

I’ve had these since I opened. Some of my favorite oysters. It’s almost like a meal, a perfectly balanced oyster. Sweet, salty, bitterness, but everything comes together in your mouth. Rhode Island is one of my favorite states for oysters.

The proof is in the shucking. He also carries Watch Hills, Rome Points, Ninigret Cups and Potter’s Moons, which he describes as his “second favorite oyster.”

The other benefit of combining oysters with Valentine’s Day is that, if you find the right kind, you won’t have to spring for pearls.

What is your Valentine’s Day ritual?

True Crime: Confessions of a Dangerous Blog

2011-02-07T11:05:00.002-05:00

Journalism may be in the business of throwaway lines but there are whole novels in police beat. Consider the following Tales from the Naked Suburbs pulled from the police logs by my colleagues and fellow scribes at Independent Newspapers, as reported in last Thursday’s editions. First, from the North Kingstown police log in The North East Independent:

TRESPASSING
REPORTED
John Flowers of 88 Terre Mar Drive, North Kingstown, was issued a no-trespass order at the Wickford Sunoco after he argued with the clerk about paying for $16 worth of gas he had pumped. Flowers eventually paid for the gas and when questioned by police, he said he “owned all of Rhode Island” and didn’t have to pay for any gas because he already owned it.

And this instant classic – to use a horrible oxymoron – from the Narragansett police log in The South County Independent:

MEOW
A 42-year-old Narragansett woman walked into the Narragansett police station on Jan. 25 at around 10:10 p.m., saying she was concerned at her boyfriend’s level of intoxication. The complainant said he came home from skiing intoxicated. Once in the vehicle together, the man started spitting and began to meow, at which point the woman went to police. After a short period of time, the man apologized to police, and the couple went home together.

If only there were an Elmore Leonard or two to chronicle the characters that live so vividly in the police reports as transcribed in Rhode Island’s local dailies and weeklies. Maybe it was just something in the air last week, but we don’t think so. Week after week, we report locals behaving badly and bizarrely, just as they do in every town and city in America.

The bigger question is what snaps in the brain in these moments? In that split second, why does the life of an expectorating, growling tomcat seem preferable to the mundane reality of human relationships and workdays after an alcohol-infused ski trip? What triggers us to spontaneously declare ourselves King of Rhode Island after filling a quarter-tank of gas with unleaded?

Perhaps it’s just a need to blow off steam. Maybe a little insanity is necessary every once in a while in a world gone mad, when there is so much strife and anger and unfairness around us that even the relentless distractions of noise and neon can’t mask the daily frustration. Just as fairy tales and horror movies and bad dreams can be therapeutic ways to address our collective fears, perhaps the patterns of behavior uncovered in police beat show us how people keep society from driving off the cliff. The tires are flat, the doors are dented, the muffler’s broken and we stall out every now and then, but at the end of the day, we’re still moving forward, headlights be damned.

Maybe that explains Rhody Gas King and Spitting Cat Man.

What is your favorite police beat anecdote?

Married to the Mob

2011-01-31T13:09:00.002-05:00

A couple of weeks ago the news went old school with word that more than 100 people were arrested in a sweep that targeted seven mob families in New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island. The round-up was impressive in its scope, playing like an episode of “Crime Story,” and reminding us of the days when the Rhody motto was – to use the expression long made popular by Providence Phoenix columnists Phillipe and Jorge – “Mobsters and Lobsters.”

Rhode Island’s notorious independent streak rears up at a time like this. Although proudly New England, the state has an unhealthy affinity for the Mid-Atlantic, as evidenced by its mobster history, disproportionate number of Yankees fans, and connections to TV shows ranging from “Jersey Shore” to “The Sopranos.” Local viewers of the latter used to look for episodes based on Rhody mob lore. In season 4’s “The Weight,” one subplot involved Uncle Junior telling Tony to put a hit on Johnny, according to the Wikipedia summary, “using the skills of a notorious crew of an elderly hit man from Rhode Island, Lou “DiMaggio” Galina – nicknamed for his use of a baseball bat as a murder weapon.” The incident is pulled directly from a Rhody mob moment, when, as the story goes, “Bobo” Marrapese bashed in the head of a teenager with a baseball bat after getting cut off in Pawtucket on a ramp leading to I-95.

Even the DiMaggio reference is an in-joke. Once at The Mews in Wakefield, I talked with a guy at the bar who said that, in his youth, he drove back and forth from Providence to Boston running numbers for the mob. He said that the only difference between the bars were the pictures inside. In Boston, it was the Virgin Mary, John F. Kennedy and Ted Williams. In Providence, it was the Virgin Mary, Frank Sinatra and Joe DiMaggio.

The mob arrest made headlines around the world and was of particular interest to the newspapers of England, which can’t ever seem to get enough of the underbelly of America. As far back as 1993, the English newspaper The Independent (no relation) published a lengthy piece on Rhode Island as the “US Mob state,” in which reporter Patrick Cockburn opens as if he’s warming up an audience in the Catskills:

A joke, much resented by Rhode Islanders, is that things got so bad in their state during the recent recession that the mafia had to lay of two of its judges.

The only thing the reporter got wrong is the “much resented by Rhode Islanders” clause. Most Rhode Islanders love mob jokes. Chances are if you ever hear a mob joke, a Rhode Islander made it up in the first place.

It’s politically incorrect to harp on it now, but growing up in this state, hearing stories, rumors and gossip about the mob was a given. Even as elementary school kids, we watched “Godfathers” I and II and compared Hollywood scenes with local details of murder, racketeering and extortion we heard secondhand during recess between games of Muckle The Kid With The Ball.

As much as the state has changed, its Rogues Island reputation lives on. The first European settlers may have moved to Rhode Island to pursue religious freedom, but it wasn’t long before the rascals and radicals took root. We were a haven for pirates, an industry so lucrative that the state decided to make it legal by calling it privateering. During Prohibition, rumrunning was rampant in Rhode Island. (It’s rumored that Tara Mulroy’s Joyce Family Pub, still hanging on the edge of the earth in Matunuck, was one of many Rhody watering holes involved in the trade.) And Providence, of course, was home to the New England mob for generations. Even now, if Half Shell ever goes under, I could start my own mob blog, using the Internet’s Mob Name Generator. (Depending on whether I use the informal or formal version of my first name, I am either Doug “The Jeweler” Norris or Douglas “The Vampire” Norris, either of which would be appropriate in a state with its own Jewelry District and vampire legends.)

What is your favorite Rhode Island crime story?

Weather smack

2011-01-24T11:58:00.003-05:00

With more snow forecast for tomorrow and Wednesday, 2011 is blurring into a blizzard of blizzards. In a couple of weeks, some Pennsylvania rodent will tell the rest of America whether this winter will be a long one or not, but here in New England we don’t need a publicity-seeking groundhog to predict the weather. We’ve got our own clues in nature to investigate, albeit few of them involving toothy mammals, whether the burrowing variety or those attractive Weather Channel personalities bragging about their Doppler radar.

How do you know winter is going to be long, cold and snowy? The hornet’s paper nest will be higher than usual, while the squirrel’s nest will be lower. The wooly worm will wear a jet-black coat, rather than its standard brown-striped russet. Squirrels will have bushier tails. Walnuts and hickory nuts will have thicker hulls. August will have a lot of foggy mornings. Onions will have extra layers. You’ll have to dig deeper to get at your carrots. The north side of any neighborhood trees will be enlarged with extra bark and moss will grow thicker on all of the trees. The bushes will grow more blackberries and the pines will drop more cones than usual. And perhaps you’ll hear the late-night call of the hoot owl throughout autumn, foretelling the next season's severity.

Some weather lore has been turned into proverbs:

The aching of a broken bone predicts rain.

True enough. When it comes to forecasting precipitation, my two surgically reconstructed knees and surgically repaired right elbow are more accurate than Al Roker, Stephanie Abrams and Heather Tesch combined.

One proverb I’d never heard before, but discovered recently on a Web site devoted to American Folklore, has resonance because of the “thunder snow” Rhode Island received during its most recent blizzard, when the sight of lightning and the rumble of thunder in a flurry of early morning snow seemed almost apocalyptic:

If you see lightning in January, you will see snow in April.

Worrisome, because we’ve already had the January lightning, and the thought of April snow on a day when snow piles are stacked like skyscrapers and the temperature may not climb above a single digit is just winter misery overkill.

Based on living through the last decade of winters on a West Barrington Cove, I also know this: When the ducks cluster near the shore, freely mingling with the gulls, geese and swans, and there’s no low tide to provide an easy buffet, a storm’s coming. It’s an observation that I’ve cobbled together in my own weather proverb:

When birds of a different feather flock by the shore together, seal the windows, grab a coat – and get ready for stormy weather.

This week's question: What is your favorite weather lore?

Really, Rhody?

2011-01-17T14:30:00.003-05:00

It sounds like something written for the old Seth Meyers-Amy Poehler “Really?” bit on Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update.” Not long after the ball was dropped on the New Year, Rhode Island politicians dropped the ball again when Republican Rep. Doreen M. Costa of Dist. 31 in North Kingstown and Exeter took her first crack at legislating by submitting a resolution to ban state officials and agencies from using any term but “Christmas trees” to describe the “customarily erected” evergreens decorated in many households during December.

So let’s see. Rhode Island has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation. Families and many entire communities are in debt. Job prospects are dim. The educational system is a mess. The state’s infrastructure is in disrepair. Health care costs are bankrupting people and businesses. What to do, what to do? Hmm. Oh, here’s a priority: From now on, all state employees and agencies must always say “Christmas tree” in their official statements and communications.

Really?

What happens to the poor sod who makes a mistake and publicly utters or e-mails an announcement about a “holiday tree” instead? Or makes some unfortunate reference to “yule,” “wintertide,” “Saturnalia,” “Norway spruce” or “evergreen”? Would he or she get fired? Banned from the office Christmas party? Burned at the stake? Sent to the stocks for a day to be pummeled with fruitcakes and eggnog? Permanently rubber-stamped onto Santa’s Naughty List?

Costa, as described in an Independent editorial last week, is “a vocal member of the R.I. Tea Party and one of 29 newcomers elected on a platform of change.” She has admitted that she submitted the legislation “on a whim,” with the backing of Rep. Joseph Trillo, a Republican from Warwick. Because they submitted it wrong, copies of the resolution were not given to lawmakers but instead were approved by the House on a voice vote within moments of its introduction, requiring – in what amounts to a monumental waste of time and energy – referral to a committee to consider and study the matter.

Whether you celebrate Christmas or not (and, for the record, I do; four beloved Christmas trees from my childhood are now towering evergreens in my backyard, serving as home for a mockingbird and a playground for squirrels), the legislative effort is misguided. To establish a law insisting that state workers use the expression “Christmas tree” is heavy-handed, and the inference or presumption by the legislators that a “Christmas tree” has always been a “Christmas tree” is just plain wrong. Not for nothin’, but Bethlehem wasn’t exactly known for its Scotch pine, Douglas fir and white spruce.

Sure, it’s always fun when we can correct political correctness and co-opt a pagan ritual in one fell swoop, but how about letting Rhode Island – the original “separation of church and state” state – do what it does best and encourage everyone to keep making ornaments, not laws, for the Christmas tree?

Speaking of which, there’s also some momentum for a bill to stipulate that Halloween would always be celebrated on the last Saturday of October – no matter its actual date – to make it easier for parents to plan trick-or-treating and for bars, restaurants and businesses to profit from the holiday. Again, let’s put a stake in this vampire right now.

Before you know it, some well-intentioned politician will decide that we should move Halloween to August – a month without a national holiday – so the kids won’t have to risk going out in the cold. And maybe we should pick a Sunday in March or April and just stick with it to celebrate Easter, because it’s too confusing the way that holiday bounces like a jellybean around the calendar every spring. On second thought, make it April, because some years Easter falls too closely next to St. Patrick’s Day. Then again, it would probably be better for bars and restaurants if the feast day of St. Patrick were held on a weekend, so let’s just consider March 17 to be more like a global happy hour if it falls on Monday through Friday and schedule the bodhrans and shamrocks for the third Saturday in March.

What would you change about any holiday, if you could?

Dorr and more

2011-01-10T12:28:00.004-05:00

For those Rhode Islanders who grew up around these parts since the 1970s, our study of American history in schools was startlingly lacking in previous Rhode Islanders. Oh, sure, we might have spent a day or two on Roger Williams and Samuel Slater, squeezed in between the timeline of Columbus, Pilgrims, American Revolution (mostly the events in Boston and Philadelphia), the Civil War (Gettysburg), World War II and the Kennedy years, but otherwise most of us meandered around the state, driving on asphalt called Willet Avenue, Metacom Avenue and Newman Avenue without knowing the stories behind the street names.

The religious seekers, political pioneers, radical patriots, revolutionary thinkers, independent women, Wampanoag and Narragansett sachems, privateers and pirates, slave traders and abolitionists, innovative entrepreneurs and military heroes – including the soldiers of the First Rhode Island Regiment, also known as the Black Regiment of Rhode Island, comprising slaves who agreed to fight for their country in exchange for freedom – that made up the patchwork of Rhode Island history were anonymous to us.

Things are better now. Schools have made more of an effort to incorporate local history into their curricula. The Web, cable television and publishers like Arcadia and The History Press have created a market for stories and images documenting regional and community histories. So every now and then someone who was part of the state limelight in some long-ago generation returns from the shadows to earn the spotlight again.

Such is the case with Thomas Dorr. In an age when only white male landowners (i.e., the filthy rich) could vote in Rhode Island, Dorr, the son of Conservative Whigs, shocked his family by becoming the people’s champion, leading a short-lived revolution that fizzled in its day but opened the door to a future in which Rhode Island and the nation would become more democratic.

As Rhode Islander Rory Raven, author of “The Dorr War: Treason, Rebellion & The Fight for Reform in Rhode Island” (2010, The History Press) notes:

There is a Dorr Street in Providence; it is a dead end, and on my last visit, there was no street sign. And while an official portrait of Dorr was hung in the Rhode Island Statehouse some time ago, giving him his rightful place among the other governors honored there, that portrait has not been seen in many years, and no one seems to know where it has gotten to.

Raven’s book restores Dorr’s place in the pantheon of the state’s quirky and independent but significant historical figures. As leader of the Dorr Rebellion, he helped draft the “People’s Constitution,” mandating universal suffrage for white males. (There is some evidence that he was sympathetic to the plight of African Americans and women as well, but decided that those were civil rights battles that would have to be fought later.)

Studying the bare bones of history, the Dorr War appears almost comical. On the day when Rhode Island had two governors, Dorr marched with his supporters up to the Rhode Island State House to claim his seat, only to the find the doors locked and no way to get in, so he held swearing-in ceremonies in a nearby foundry still under construction.

Later, he attempted a military victory by marching on a Providence arsenal, tugging along two cannons (that allegedly had been seized from British General Burgoyne after his defeat at Saratoga during the Revolution and ended up in Rhode Island), both of which misfired, causing most of his followers to abandon the effort.

When his political enemies marched up Acote’s Hill in Chepachet to capture him, “there he was,” said the Woonsocketer in the militia, “gone.” So they took the cannons and smashed up a local tavern, eating and drinking everything the owner had, and confiscating the lot, including household silver, a cookstove and a pair of garters belonging to someone named Ripsy Tift. (The victors and writers of history would later call this “the sacking of Chepachet.”)

Dorr was eventually imprisoned for life and sentenced to solitary confinement and hard labor. (He painted fans all day. Some of his fans are now in the Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art.)

One side note: Raven makes the point that for generations in Rhode Island all major political rallies were structured around the classic Rhode Island clambake, which then as today certainly would make the politics more palatable. Memo to candidates in 2012: Less negative advertising. More rockweed and quahogs.

What Rhode Islander do you think deserves more prominence in the history books?

Beating a Dead Potato

2011-01-03T10:05:00.002-05:00

A brief look back at the news of the previous decade from the perspective of one of its biggest celebrities, Hollywood star, toy Hall-of-Famer and Rhode Island’s own, Mr. Potato Head:

Upon opening the parcel, Customs officers were greeted with the smiling face of Mr. Potato Head. When a panel from Mr. Potato Head’s back was removed, a quantity of MDMA (ecstasy) tablets was found in a small taped bag concealed in the cavity space.

-- Australian customs postal director Karen Williams after discovering a large amount of drugs inside a Mr. Potato Head toy mailed to Sydney from Ireland. From Google News AFP. Oct. 3, 2007.

Its bright colors, strange shape and moveable parts make it fascinating for Louis. The secret space within Mr. Potato Head allows us to hide tasty treats like fresh crab inside and that perhaps more than anything has resulted in him becoming such a hit.

-- Matt Slater of Blue Reef Aquarium in Newquay, Cornwall referring to a 6-foot, giant Pacific octopus that refused to let go of a Mr. Potato Head for hours at a time. From The Scuba Herald. Jan. 11, 2008.

On the Democratic side it’s definitely Senator Obama, and on the Republic side it’s Senator McCain.

-- Andy Green, an Iowa man who gained national attention by asking 2008 Presidential candidates and other politicians to pose for photographs with a Mr. Potato Head, referring to his best-selling snapshots. His portfolio included images with Obama, McCain, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and John Edwards, whom Green described as the most uncomfortable with the idea. From WHDH News. Jan. 2, 2008.

If you look at this potato head, the only thing missing is a watermelon.

-- Onna Moniz-John, East Providence affirmative action officer after seeing Kathy Szarko’s “Tourist Tater,” one of the giant Mr. Potato Heads that appeared throughout the state as part of a Rhode Island tourism campaign in 2000. From A.P. reporter Gillian Flynn’s story as reported on ABC News. Sept. 30, 2000.

He’s a potato. That’s why he’s brown.

-- The artist Szarko, responding to the complaint.

The whole Potato Head campaign is supposed to encourage people to visit. Obviously, we did not intend to offend anyone.

-- Then Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian on the decision to remove the 6-foot Mr. Potato Head from outside City Hall. The statue had been on display since May but complaints started after its photo appeared in a newspaper in September.

Mr. Potato Head goes organic.

-- Headline on a story about giant potatoes riding bicycles in the Dutch countryside to promote the health benefits of organic farming. From the Web site, www.greenpeace.org. May 29, 2009.

Starbucks teaching efficiency with Mr. Potato Head.

-- Headline on a blog post quoting a Wall Street Journal story about Starbucks executives training managers throughout the country: “One odd tactic that he used was to challenge managers to reassemble and box a Mr. Potato Head toy.” From the site, www.bloggingstocks.com. Aug. 5, 2009.

Hasbro Inc.’s Mr. Potato Head, for example, demonstrates the potential for amusement in manipulating and distorting the human form and shows that children’s toys can find a place in art.

-- Quoted from Farrah Tan’s article headlined “Mr. Potato Head, Barbie and Eeyore help redefine our view of bodies in student-curated art exhibition,” about a show titled “Bodies Unbound: The Classical and Grotesque” at Cornell University. From The Cornell Chronicle. May 5, 2010.

‘Toy Story 3’ hits a high point of comic surrealism when Mr. Potato Head is forced to reinvent himself as Mr. Pita Bread Head – it’s harder than it looks, especially when a pigeon turns up…

-- Quoted from Ty Burr’s review of “Toy Story 3” in The Boston Globe. June 18, 2010.

…that’s what Mr. Potato Head has always been about. You can make him into anything you want…His theme isn’t just imagination, but the opportunity to be and do anything.

-- Quoted from Matt Cuthbert’s article headlined “Mr. Potato Head encourages kids to tap their imagination at McWane Science Center” about “The Adventures of Mr. Potato Head” exhibition in Birmingham, Ala. From the Web site, al.com. July 6, 2010.

They say, ‘That’s Mr. Potato Head! You can’t throw him away! You’ve gotta give him to the neighbor kids! People identify with him so much.

-- Mark Westlund, spokesman for San Francisco’s Department of the Environment, responding to the anger of city residents when they discovered Mr. Potato Head figures were being used on blue recycling bins to promote responsible waste disposal. As a result, the city reversed its plan to transform Mr. Potato Head into Mr. Plastic and place him “alongside detergent bottles, disposable cups and other plastic items,” according to reporter Joe Eskenazi. From The San Francisco Weekly. Sept. 15, 2010.

So a nation heaves a sigh of relief. After all that worry, Mr. Potato Head is back in the ample, if recently sagging, bosom of Manchester United.

-- British magazine The Week quoting Rod Liddle in The Sunday Times about England footballer Wayne Rooney’s expensive return to Old Trafford. The British press has begun referring to Rooney routinely as Mr. Potato Head. Oct. 30, 2010.

What has been your favorite Potato Head moment of the new millennium?

Blizzard Thoughts

2010-12-27T11:27:00.002-05:00

Why do we give names to hurricanes but not blizzards?

That was the thought that kept me company during the digging out this morning. Sometime between 6 and 6:30, while the coffee was brewing and the weather forecasters were explaining why they got wrong what they got wrong, I shoveled and scraped and warmed up the car in a Blanding Avenue conga line with my neighbors. The drive to South County was sloppy, choppy and slow, but the roads were mostly empty, and the office, once the computers rebooted, hummed with electricity and heat. Now, moaning winds and the plow music of beeping, grinding and road rumble make the sounds of the day beyond the window. Phones go off haphazardly. The workday settles into the pace of a snowdrift.

The Not-Quite-White Christmas was truly a Boxing Day blizzard, with aftermath lingering into Monday. It barely made deadline as the biggest storm of 2010, the largest accumulation of snow in Rhody since the two snowfalls that struck last December. Between blizzards, we passed a year, and in this week’s Arts & Living section we relive some of the scenes of 2010 from southern Rhode Island – from roads turned into rivers during the March floods to the University of Rhode Island research vessel Endeavor voyaging to the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of the BP oil spill. Skipping through the images in our photo archives was an odd experience, compressing the news and seasons of an entire year into a couple of hours of fleeting glances and memories.

In the whirl of a snow globe, photographs fell from filing cabinets and folders, no two quite alike. A pair of snowmen greeted travelers along Slocum Road in Exeter. Children pushed through a tight passage of blossoms at Kinney Azalea Gardens in Kingston. Visitors to the South County Museum in Narragansett held newly hatched chicks and watched cracking eggs during the museum’s Fourth of July Rhode Island Red Chick Hatch. Waves from tropical storm Nicole battered the breakwater off Point Judith. Maples erupted in red and orange over an artist’s studio in Rockville.

A swirl of scenes, brief moments and encounters, and then it was over. Times grow yellow in a dusty morgue. This weekend's snowstorm at least gives the space and silence necessary for appreciation and reflection, countering the norm of accelerated lives. So to friends and strangers, followers and any folks just passing through, may these winter-worn days, dressed as they are in snowflake sweaters, thick boots and skin-tight balaclavas, give you pause to be grateful for the people and places you know. Remember, "zero visibility" is just a weatherman's way of saying "blindness," and always keep a shovel and a scraper in your car – but don’t forget the sleds, skates, skis and snowshoes either.

Rest in peace, 2010, and happy New Year.

What will you remember most from the past year?

Saugatucket Solstice

2010-12-20T11:22:00.002-05:00

It appears that the calendar will conspire with New England weather to turn tomorrow’s historic winter solstice, timed to coincide with a total eclipse of a full moon, into just another cloudy workday. So for me the ritual walk likely will be little more than a late afternoon trip for coffee along the icy Saugatucket River, just a snowball’s throw from my window.

It’s still worth celebrating the return of incremental light, and scenes of mallard tribes huddled against the riverbank and randomly scattered copper oak leaves trapped under thin skins of cracked ice make the detour a pleasant one, despite the increasingly annoying intrusion of sign pollution marking the short walk. Where once there was just a river abutting a parking lot, with no signs to speak of, now there is a fenced boardwalk leading to a gravel path connecting the area to the bridge that leads from Wakefield School to Main Street, sprouting signs like weeds. They are permanent admonishments, mostly variations of: PLEASE DON’T FEED THE WATERFOWL and PLEASE CLEAN UP AFTER YOUR DOG. While the rebukes are well intended, it’s somewhat ironic that before the river walk became a recreational haven, it lacked the aesthetics of modern leisure (benches, viewing platform, a dock) – but it also didn’t need the cautionary overkill.

No doubt the walkway has brought more people to the river. And, yes, there are minefields of doggy detritus to navigate because some pet owners can’t be bothered to pick up after themselves. And, yes, some misguided souls like to feed Wonder Bread to wildlife. But the signs don’t seem to prevent people who leave waste untended and feed Twinkies to geese from doing those things. They just sort of ruin the view. If signs really could change behavior, I’d be the first in line to make them: PLEASE FEED THE HUNGRY. PLEASE CLOTHE THE TATTERED. PLEASE SHELTER THE HOMELESS.

As long as we’re admonishing folks, we might at least try doing society some good.

What sign would you like to post for anyone passing by?

A Scrooge a Day

2010-12-13T12:16:00.003-05:00

‘Tis the season of dueling ‘Messiahs,’ battling Claras and Scrooge-a-Palooza, a trinity of choral concerts, ballets and plays around the winter holidays that serve as a kind of artistic eggnog, the comfort food of creative expression at Christmastime. The Chorus of Westerly, which performed the region’s first concert of Handel’s “Messiah” just before Thanksgiving, editing the masterwork from its 2-1/2 hour running time to 75 minutes of highlights, sent out a press release with the following note:

In December, when The New York Times lists holiday musical performances, there is an entire section entitled: "Messiah and other oratorio performances."

And it’s true. There are "Messiahs" wherever you look. Scores of them, in churches and colleges and community chorales throughout Rhode Island, from Brown University’s orchestrated production to the sing-it-yourself-"Messiahs" at the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd (Jan. 2) in Kingston and the First Baptist Church (Jan. 9) in Wickford.

But one might just as easily publish a calendar with listings for dance and theater that reads:
“'Nutcracker’ and other ballets” and “'A Christmas Carol’ and other plays.”

Rhode Island “Nutcrackers” range from the Festival Ballet of Providence version at PPAC to the lavish staging at Rosecliff Mansion in Newport to Rhode Island Youth Theatre’s “Madeleine Meets The Nutcracker” in East Greenwich. The New York Times recently ran a piece titled “'Nutcracker’ Nation: Yes We Can!,” chronicling Alastair Macaulay’s quest to see two dozen productions of “The Nutcracker” across America. One in Washington, D.C., set in a Georgetown mansion, featured Miss Liberty and John Paul Jones in the company of Drosselmeyer’s dancing dolls and staged Act II in a dreamscape of the Potomac “with female cherry blossoms dancing the Waltz of the Flowers.”

“A Christmas Carol” is the annual cash-cow staple at Trinity Rep in Providence. But they’re also playing the Dickens out of it in East Greenwich (The Academy Players at the Varnum Armory), Cranston (The Black Box Theatre at The Artists’ Exchange), Woonsocket (Encore Repertory Company at the Stadium Theatre) and Westerly (The Granite Theatre, where artistic director David Jepson performs all of the roles in a one-man show).

Like the Ghosts of Christmas Past, every year Handel, Tchaikovsky and Dickens come back to haunt the hallowed performance halls of Rhode Island. No doubt one day, for sheer convenience, the works of all three artists willl be combined into one festive event.: “The NutMessCarol.” Scrooge is redeemed, waking on a snowy Christmas morning to the sound of the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Nutcracker Prince singing the “Hallelujah” chorus, while Tiny Tim marries Clara, Marley’s Ghost dances the pas de deux with the Snow Queen, and the Cratchits welcome the angel Clarence, the Little Drummer Boy, Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, Heat Miser, Snow Miser and all the boys and girls of Whoville to their humble home.

This week’s question: What turns you into a Grinch?

Season's Greetings

2010-12-06T15:24:00.002-05:00

As we wait for the first snowfall, Rhode Islanders are comforted by certain sights that kindle the spirit of the winter holidays, from the tree lightings and Main Street ornamentation that give each town and village its distinctive seasonal look to the backyard glowing-bulb narratives of nativities, winter wonderlands and Santa’s workshops.

Each day my commute passes Santa on a forklift along I95 South and every evening I return home to the sight of New England Pest Control’s giant termite, wearing lighted antlers, a blinking red nose and blue illumination on its thorax and abdomen. But Rhody’s Big Blue (Christmas) Bug isn’t the only yuletide roadside ritual.

Trips to Tiverton are marked by the homeless nativity scene at Amicable Congregational Church, where about a dozen years ago Pastor William Sterrett and local chainsaw artist Michael Higgins teamed up to present a modern version of the First Noel. The scene features Jose, an unemployed migrant farm worker; Maura, a pregnant runaway; Hope, their newborn daughter; Gabe, an African American angel; David, a Native American working at Walgreens; Anna, a battered woman working the night shift at a medical center; a shopping cart; and an oil drum providing heat.

Another sign of the season is the holiday press release. Every year companies pitch various holiday-survey stories to newspapers to keep their products in the public eye during the Christmas blitz. Last week we received one from Dunkin’ Donuts asking the question: “Which part of the gingerbread man cookie do you eat first?” Turns out that 64 percent start with the head (my choice), while 20 percent go for the legs and only 16 percent begin at the arms. Left unsaid is that gingerbread men occupy the same diminished land of extremities as Oscar statuettes and harem guards, but since this is a family-friendly blog, we’ll leave our exploration of this topic right there.

Except to add that a town council in England recently voted to change the name of gingerbread men to gingerbread persons, only to reverse course after people not made of gingerbread complained that it was a plan that could only have been dreamed up by a fruitcake.

What is your favorite sign of the winter holidays in Rhode Island?

Winterizing

2010-11-29T16:01:00.003-05:00

Geographically the dividing line between southern and northern New England may run in a rough, jagged crust separating rocky beach from sandy beach, but culturally the difference is most keenly felt in how each region handles winter. Up in New Hampshire, where I last lived, it was common for store marquees and school booster boards to proclaim “THINK ICE” or “LET IT SNOW” as soon as the apples dropped from the trees and until someone collected the payoff for correctly predicting the exact day of ice-out.

Down here in Rhody, it’s a different story – a tale of dreaded snowfalls and legendary blizzards, snowplows stuck behind school buses and annual milk and bread panic. The first scrape of winter was apparent this morning in my West Barrington cove, where the neighborhood woke to frosted car windows and a temperature reluctant to climb out of the 20s. Over the weekend I reshuffled the wardrobe, moving out the Hawaiian shirts to make room for clothes of a more Alaskan bent – the scarves and sweaters, fleeces and balaclavas that accessorize winter.

Alaskan aside: The 49th State is getting a lot of mileage and free publicity out of TLC’s “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” so here’s a way for Rhody’s new governor to put the 13th State on the map: “Linc Chafee’s Rhode Island,” a reality TV program showing the Chafee family living la vida Rhody. Suggested programs: 1) “East Bay Ecstasy”: The Chafees enjoy a morning of duckpin bowling at Dudek Lanes in Warren, followed by lunch at Rod’s Grill (an arm of gaggers all the way) or Blount’s Clam Shack, culminating in a night of competitive bocce at the gravel pits in Bristol’s Colt State Park. 2) “South County Sojourn”: With halibut-bashing not an option, the Chafees choose to spend the morning quahogging barefoot in the mudflats along Galilee Escape Road, before hopping on the slow boat to Block Island for an afternoon of TV drinking games at the bar in The National Hotel. (How it works: Every time Sarah Palin says “Obamacare” or “lamestream media,” you have to drink.)

Join the fun. Suggest an episode.

Alaskan aside, part deux: On a whim, I decided to Google “How many Rhode Islands can fit into Alaska?” Here’s the scary part: Dozens of sites have answered that question – and others like it, from “How many Rhode Islands can fit into Texas” to “How many Rhode Islands can fit into Mississippi?” In fact, pretty much name a place and somebody has worked out how many Rhode Islands can be squeezed into it. Of course, it wouldn’t be Rhode Island if everyone agreed on the math. Yahoo! Answers says that Rhode Island fits 423.56 times into Alaska, while Wiki Answers puts the number at 634.7. The difference is that Yahoo! uses the 1,545 square-mile calculation, which includes Narragansett Bay, while Wiki sticks to the land-only number of 1,045 square miles. Yes, this is how I spend my Monday afternoons.

And now, back to the post:

As for winter, New Hampshire may be colder, but like the reverse of an Arizona summer, it’s a dry cold. The loss of light in Rhode Island seems even more dispiriting than it does in moose country, for reasons that I can’t entirely fathom – although perhaps it has something to do with our lack of dark sky. Street lamps and neon strip the night of stars. That’s a bad tradeoff, especially in the season of Orion.

This week’s question: What do you dread most – or look forward to most – about winter?

Bear Essentials

2010-11-22T14:59:00.002-05:00

There’s a rogue bear roaming the woods and neighborhoods of South County this fall. Suspected of killing four sheep, the Eastern black bear has been spotted crossing Ministerial Road in South Kingstown but has so far eluded and outwitted state environmental officials.

A week or so ago, DEM set up a trap filled with doughnuts and meat, long a Rhode Island staple. (At least it’s in the local culinary tradition of anything goes with dough. Consider the chourico sticks at Sip ‘n’ Dip in Bristol – essentially a cruller of fried dough surrounding a spicy Portuguese sausage – exhibit A.) The bear swiped the doughnuts but left the meat hanging, backing out of the trap while showing a healthy skepticism toward free carcass for the taking.

So many questions remain: Were the doughnuts honey-dipped? Did DEM cheap out with day-old leftovers from Dunkin’ Donuts? Or did they come from Allie’s, the legendary North Kingstown doughnut shop and Rhody pilgrimage site whose founder, sadly, passed away a week ago?

Here’s what we know: This particular bear likes doughnuts and sheep. So we at Half Shell humbly propose an idea for the next trap: “Mutton doughnut.” Yum. Great sheep taste in a deep-fat fried pastry. What bear could resist that?

Bears haven’t been around much in these parts since the Colonial days, when settlers clear-cut the forests, hunting them out and driving them away. But they’ve returned in small numbers in recent years, attracted by the state’s second-growth forests and a chance to stretch their legs away from the crowded conifers of Connecticut. The last time a bear got this much attention for visiting Rhode Island was in 2008. That summer I wrote an article for the autumn issue of South County Living describing the frenzy:

One day in late May, a black bear crossed over the Connecticut border into Rhode Island, carving a swath through upland forest and along rivers, blissfully unaware of the invisible line that separates Nutmeg from Ocean State culture and its own impending celebrity. The bear was hungry, quite likely just out of hibernation, and looking to set up his territory and find a mate. It wandered through the Foster-Glocester-Scituate region of northern Rhode Island and meandered in a southeasterly route into Coventry and, eventually, South County, where it was spotted Memorial Day weekend on Liberty Lane in West Kingston.

On May 27, the young bear, estimated at two years old and about 130 pounds, swam from the South Kingstown side of Narrow River to the Narragansett side, where it indulged in a breakfast buffet of birdfeeders and trashcans in the North End. But its visit to Mettatuxet started a frenzy, and before long the bear, dubbed “Fluffy” by the media, was dodging the wildlife paparazzi of camera-toting residents, TV crews and uniformed environmental law enforcement.

The saga of “Fluffy” lasted about a week, as new sightings were reported on television and radio, in local papers and in various blogs. The CVS/pharmacy in Wakefield hired someone in a bear suit to stand near Main Street with a sign urging shoppers to purchase “bear necessities.” Narragansett resident Jeanne Vicario printed up T-shirts that read “Where’s the Bear?” and “Mettatuxet Bear Patrol” and sold them at local bars and stores, donating a portion of the proceeds to the Sierra Club.

The giddy response to the South County Bear was a spontaneous reaction to the rare sighting of a totemic animal that, in the age before the settlers arrived, once foraged freely in these forests. Bears disappeared from the local landscape for hundreds of years, only recently showing up once again as a blip on the Rhode Island radar during the past decade. Narragansett Deputy Chief Dean Hoxsie told The South County Independent that he’d never seen or heard of a bear in the area in 24 years of law enforcement work.

Two years later, there's a new bear in town. Good news to those of us who believe in cultivating a little wildness wherever we can in an age of suburban overgrowth and digital overload. Then again, never been mauled by one. Might whistle a different tune then.

Leading to this week’s totally unrelated question: What is your favorite Thanksgiving ritual? (Bonus points if you can work doughnuts into the answer.)

Potato Head Mash

2010-11-15T10:52:00.003-05:00

We return to the lighter side this week with a new look at the perpetually ascending stardom of Pawtucket’s own Mr. Potato Head. As reported in previous posts, the globetrotting Hasbro toy continues to straddle the celebrity tightrope between fame and scandal, having served as courier in an ecstasy drug deal from Ireland to Sydney, Australia; an octopus’ boy-toy love child in Cornwall, England; potato paparazzi in a series of snapshots taken with 2008 U.S. Presidential Candidates; and charged as racist in his “Tourist Tater” appearance as part of a Rhode Island tourism campaign.

Last year, life imitated toy as bicyclists in the Netherlands created a 1,000-kilometer long bike tour called the “PieperPad” (Potato Trail), donning potato costumes to ride the route designed to get people “out into the countryside and enjoy potatoes, a well loved Dutch staple, in a totally new way.” And as part of the new economic reality, Starbucks began using Mr. Potato Head as a model for the benefits of efficiency, requiring its managers to reassemble and box a Mr. Potato Head toy during training sessions.

But the growing Potato Head dynasty has found even more fertile ground in 2010, threatening to overtake “size of Rhode Island” in the media barrage of Ocean State references. The British press has routinely taken to calling England footballer Wayne Rooney as “Mr. Potato Head.” Most recently, Rod Liddle wrote in The Sunday Times: “So, a nation heaves a sigh of relief. After all that worry, Mr. Potato Head is back in the ample, if recently sagging, bosom of Manchester United.”

Earlier this spring, Mr. Potato Head joined Barbie in a group art exhibition – “Bodies Unbound: The Classical and Grotesque” at the Johnson Museum at Cornell. As reported in the Cornell Chronicle:

Elizabeth Emrich, curatorial assistant at the museum, believes the show’s success stems partly from the wide range of objects on display. Hasbro Inc.’s Mr. Potato Head, for example, demonstrates the potential for amusement in manipulating and distorting the human form and shows that children’s toys can find a place in art.

This summer, Birmingham, Ala., hosted “The Adventures of Mr. Potato Head” at the McWane Science Center, highlighted by a collection of Mr. Potato Head memorabilia from Birmingham’s own Dennis Martin. Matt Cuthbert at al.com writes:

…one kiosk ties it all together, and it suddenly makes sense. Kids are asked “What’s ahead for you?” And given the opportunity to place themselves in the role of several different careers – from gardener to astronaut. And that’s what Mr. Potato Head has always been about. You can make him into anything you want…His theme isn’t just imagination, but the opportunity to be and do anything. At one station, kids get the opportunity to exercise those imaginations and play with a huge tray full of Mr. Potato Head parts. Go ahead and give him princess shoes and a construction worker’s hat. Plug arms into his nose and mouth holes. He won’t mind – he’s been through worse (just see “Toy Story 3”).

Speaking of which, Mr. Potato Head excelled once again as a supporting actor in the third installment of the “Toy Story” trilogy, one of the best movies of the year, leading Ty Burr of The Boston Globe to comment: “‘Toy Story 3’ hits a high point of comic surrealism when Mr. Potato Head is forced to reinvent himself as Mr. Pita Bread Head – it’s harder than it looks, especially when a pigeon turns up…”

Also this summer, the Elvis Estate in Graceland teamed up with Hasbro to create Elvis Potato Heads. The first figure, timed to be released for Elvis Tribute Week in August, featured Elvis in a jumpsuit. The second figure, Elvis in black leather, will be available for Christmas.

Residents of San Francisco also made Potato Head news this year when some of them discovered a Mr. Potato Head staring back at them from newly issued blue recycling bins scattered throughout the city. According to writer Joe Eskenazi of SF Weekly:

The concept is simple: Mr. Potato Head would be more appropriately named Mr. Plastic, of which he is entirely crafted – and, short of plastic wrap or plastic bags, any sort of plastic is acceptable in a blue bin. But city residents don’t see bits of plastic when they glimpse Mr. Potato Head. They see vestiges of their childhood. And then they get angry.

Mark Westlund, a spokesman for the city’s Department of the Environment, confirmed that it will be removing Mr. Potato Head from future printed materials as soon as possible. Quite simply, San Franciscans have been too emotionally affected by the sight of Mr. Potato Head to absorb the intended message of placing him alongside detergent bottles, disposable cups, and other plastic items. As a result, the city has received a number of indignant phone calls. “They say, ‘That’s Mr. Potato Head! You can’t throw him away! You’ve gotta give him to the neighbor kids.!” Westlund says. “People identify with him so much.”

What does the future hold for Mr. Potato Head? Steam punk and robots, apparently.

Which leaves us with this week’s question: What explains the enduring popularity of Mr. Potato Head?

Sounding Off

2010-11-08T15:27:00.002-05:00

There are rare mornings in the cove when my half-waking to a new day dawns in utter silence. For a blissful few moments, nothing stirs. No planes take off from across the bay at T.F. Green, their rumbling departures amplified by the acoustics of water and sky. No cars start in their driveways, idling in the cold, before coming and going along the narrow streets of the neighborhood. No garbage trucks clatter. No utility vehicles beep. No doors slam. The relentless screeching of the everyday manmade world hasn’t yet found its voice.

I thought of that this morning, when rain drummed against the windows, making its own pleasant waking music. For I have no quarrel with the wind or waves, thunder or rain, birdsong or even foghorn – one of the few human-created sounds that works in harmony with nature. There are noises that I welcome, so long as I am able to shut off the buzzing alarm before it begins its daily banshee call. But I’ve learned to appreciate any lingering silence wherever and whenever I find it.

In an interview with The Sun magazine, acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton said that there may be only a dozen places in the country where a person can sit for 20 minutes without hearing a plane fly overhead or some other manmade noise. And Rhode Island isn’t one of them.

Examples are legion. Even my favorite places, such as the woods behind Hundred Acre Cove in Barrington, where the toll for moving through meditation and scenery is enduring a steady soundtrack of dull, distant traffic relentlessly motoring back-and-forth along the Wampanoag Trail, resounding across the water like a dying dentist’s drill. I went there on Saturday, before going to the library, where I found a seat in the “designated quiet area” next to two people who talked incessantly for two solid hours. Remember when whole libraries were “designated quiet areas?” How long before we have to start designating quiet areas in forests and churches?

My annual camping trip in the Maine woods used to end every night with the distant sound of the crashing waves against the rocks and the occasional disturbance of drunken harmonica or nearby bursts of laughter around the fireplace. Now, however, it is a constant parade of remote vehicle doors opening and locking. Where once there were ravens, now there are ring tones; owls in the pines have given way to car alarms.

As I type these words, another siren wails down High Street in Wakefield. The sirens are everywhere, even in once sleepy South County. I hear them constantly, whether jogging the bike path in Barrington, playing tennis at Hope High School in Providence, or spraying golf balls at Windmill Hill in Warren. These days, even recreation and reverie are merely fleeting pleasures between sirens; the cry of emergency is the default sound setting of civilization.

Hempton makes the point that all places once had a unique sonic identity, but everywhere people live now sounds like traffic. Artist Bill Fontana’s much-maligned sound installation of Rhode Island birdsong at the Kent County Courthouse makes this point rather eloquently. In the sprawl of Route 2, the birds that once sang these songs have been driven out – grasses and trees supplanted by concrete, wildlife replaced by chrome and engines. In this kind of world, the honking goose has become more invasive than the honking cab.

So is there a place in this state, outside of perhaps Block Island, where human sound rarely if ever intrudes? Where is your favorite quiet place in Rhode Island?

All Voters Eve

2010-11-01T14:00:00.003-04:00

Sunday’s Halloween is over, and wind-ripped skeletons, broken pumpkins and toppled tombstones in yards throughout every Rhode Island neighborhood took on a more sober cast this morning in recognition of an even more bizarre festive season, culminating with tomorrow’s Election Day.

It’s been a wild ride so far, with the headless horsemen of the media falling all over themselves trying to explain why “FEAR” is the new “HOPE.” (Although the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations' motto, if not its name, seems safe for now.)

We even had our own Rhody Beast moment, when Democratic candidate for governor Frank Caprio uttered the “Shove it” heard ’round the world, using phraseology better suited to a Mamet play to tell President Obama – de facto leader of the Democratic Party – exactly what he thought of not getting the Dude of D.C.’s endorsement. It’s all very messy, especially given that Linc Chafee, a former Republican Senator from Rhody now running for governor as an Independent, is a favorite son in most Democratic households in the state, where many still remember crossing parties to vote for his father. Proving once again that yesterday’s Greek tragedy is today’s Rhode Island comedy.

If that weren’t enough, Bob Healey’s “Bullwinkle noir,” black-and-white political signs added a faux macabre touch to the predominance of red, white and blue in backyard campaign signage, a blur of names and phrases sharing the yard under tree ghosts, witches-on-broomsticks and – suddenly popular this year – phantom riders on motorcycles. (One nearby house even had a motorcycle dangling from an oak.) Whatever you think of Healey’s position, the candidate for lieutenant governor who is running on the pledge of eliminating the office of lieutenant governor has some of the most creative signage in politics, and it doesn’t hurt that he allows his own cartoonish mug – which looks like Ozzy Osbourne with a beard – to represent his cause.

Weird, wild stuff, as Johnny Carson (may he rest in peace) would have said.

Still, we have an election tomorrow, and, personally, I’m hoping we still have Providence Plantations by the end of the day. The argument for eliminating the phrase is essentially that plantations is a word associated with slavery. It wasn’t, back in the day, when it originally meant a “settlement,” “colony,” “estate or farm.” But even if today most people link the word “plantations” to the slave trade, the move to change the state’s name still rests entirely (albeit emotionally) on connotative grounds. It falls short historically, etymologically and geographically, given that Providence Plantations represented the area of the colony (Warwick and Providence) that wasn’t Aquidneck (or Rhode) Island. Somewhat ironically, as others have pointed out, it was primarily the "Rhode Island" part of Rhode Island that insisted on an economy of slavery, while the "Providence Plantations" part of Rhode Island largely and continually fought to eliminate the practice, establishing many first-in-America steps toward abolition in the process. It’s true that slavery is a significant part of the story of Rhode Island, and that by illuminating our inglorious past, we can begin to develop the conscience and compassion required of a civilized society. So let’s keep doing that. Let’s educate Rhode Islanders about our history without revising it.

Question of the week: What was worst Rhode Island political ad you saw this year?

The Offensive Offensive

2010-10-25T14:30:00.002-04:00

This past Columbus Day, Providence residents woke up to see a statue of Christopher Columbus splattered in red paint and wearing a sign around its waist that read “MURDERER.” Similar acts of vandalism occurred on statues of Columbus throughout the country. Many in Rhode Island’s vast Italian American community reacted in outrage, with the Sons of Italy insisting that the state investigate and prosecute the statue desecration as a hate crime.

So maybe we should start arresting pigeons, too.

The incident and its resulting furor illustrate the lack of civility and level of debate in our society today. To many Italian Americans, Columbus is a legendary explorer and a cultural hero. To many Native Americans, he is a bloodthirsty butcher and evil oppressor. Somewhere in between lies a complex truth, but in an age that dismisses context, we will never find it. There are good reasons to debate Columbus’ place in history and the appropriateness of honoring him as a historical figure. But they are lost in a black-and-white world where all issues have distinctly polarized sides with no ability for light to penetrate.

Last year, Brown University eliminated Columbus Day from the calendar and replaced it with the generic Fall Weekend. That was offensive to me, not because it slighted the Italian explorer, but because it so banally shattered the storytelling inherent in the power of names and promoted branding over creative holiday conjuring. For many New Englanders, Columbus Day means getting into the car and meandering along rivers and over mountains to see leaves in their death throes, a metaphoric ritual (plus cider donuts and pumpkin pie) that connects us to all explorers – from the intrepid to the incompetent – and satisfies the human impulse to seek beyond our confines.

But Columbus Day isn’t the only controversial holiday. Practically every holiday offends someone. Consider Thanksgiving. Long a part of the New England and American chowder of history and myth, popularly celebrated by families at feast and high school football games, Thanksgiving is a National Day of Mourning to many indigenous Americans. On that day, members of the Wampanoag Tribe protest outside the grounds of Plimoth Plantation. Animal rights groups condemn the mass turkey slaughter. Hispanic Americans want the history books to reflect that earlier Thanksgivings, involving the Spanish, took place in Florida and Texas (while conveniently ignoring that American Indians have been celebrating Thanksgiving feasts on their own land for millennia).

Or what of Christmas? ‘Tis the season when the late Jerry Falwell’s “Friend or Foe” campaign still has legs. Woe to the unfortunate soul who accidentally slips and wishes the wrong person a “happy holiday” at Christmas. The merry season is a basket case of controversies. The devout protest its consumerism. Pagans blame Christians for co-opting their rituals. People like me bemoan the fact that we have to hear “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer” starting in September.

As we approach Halloween – America’s second most popular holiday, even though it’s not very big with the fundamentalists – it would be nice to think you could wear your scary Rush Limbaugh mask without offending anybody. But you can’t. Not anymore. Better to play it safe. Stick with the Spider-Man outfit. Limit conversation to “trick-or-treat.” And keep a few buckets of red paint handy, just in case.

This week’s question: If you could change any holiday, which would it be?

Local Haunts

2010-10-18T10:19:00.003-04:00

The ghosts of Rhode Island are a motley lot. They are scattered throughout the state, a collection of mysterious farmers, soldiers, lightkeepers, headmasters, stable hands, monks and nuns haunting swamps, graveyards, churches, schools, carousels, renovated barns, lighthouses, nursing homes, monasteries, fire stations, country clubs, hotels, sororities, fraternities and tourist attractions.

As chronicled on Web sites such as Shadowlands and Ghost Traveller and TV shows like “Ghost Hunters,” Rhode Island is rich in ghost lore, with apparitions that include Colonial settlers, Narragansett and Wampanoag warriors, Revolutionary and Civil War soldiers, Victorian women and spirits animated as recently as the age of disco. Some of them are named Patrick, Barbara, George and Banquo. Edgar Allan Poe is reportedly still strolling down Benefit Street in Providence some nights, pining for his lost love, although he is also spotted in Baltimore, where he was buried, which is difficult to explain, even with the low air fare on Southwest from T.F. Green to Crab City.

They are dressed in red capes and black dresses, wearing military uniforms or war paint, the same wardrobe night after night, year after year, suggesting that fashion is somewhat lacking in the afterlife version of The Gap. Not all of our ghosts manifest themselves in figural form, though. Some are orbs. Some are blue lights. One in Warren floats around as a grayish-blue cloud - not far from seven heads sometimes seen hovering over seven poles near the Kickemuit River.

They can alter the weather, creating cold spots or gusts. Some can shove and grab with invisible force. Most make noise in typical ways - slamming doors, shattering china, rattling silverware and turning on radios. In some parts of Rhode Island, ghosts are still making the sounds of previous centuries, an aural spectrum that includes cannons firing, horses galloping and carousel music.

In addition to our resident spirits, Rhody also hosts phantom ships, trains, horse carriages and horse-and-rider varieties of transportation ghosts, making a kind of RIPTA for the eternally restless.

The ghost at the Roger Williams University Theatre in Bristol has been dubbed the aforementioned Banquo. It is thought that he is a former farm hand who froze to death in the hayloft of one of the barns on site, before they were converted into the theater. The Cumberland Monastery is crowded with ghosts, including a monk who moves books, a phantom horse rider on the trails and a child in the swamp. One punctual spirit appears upon a lake in Foster each year on the opening day of trout season.

Eerie voices have been caught on tape recorders and unexplained objects have been captured on videotape, but so far there are no reports of Rhode Island ghosts Tweeting or posting on Facebook, suggesting two possibilities: 1) Ghosts are creatures of analog, not digital: or 2) The phenomenon of social media is just slow to catch on in the spectral market.

What is your favorite Rhode Island ghost story?

Size Archive
From Rebecca Solnit’s “Wanderlust: A History of Walking,” published in 2000 by Viking, on page 7 in the chapter “Tracing a Headland: An Introduction”:

I became in the 1980s an antinuclear activist and participated in the spring demonstrations at the Nevada Test Site, a Department of Energy site the size of Rhode Island in southern Nevada where the United States has been detonating nuclear bombs – more than a thousand to date – since 1951.

Loose Leaf

2010-10-11T12:58:00.001-04:00

It was a three-hawk drive to work this morning, the roads empty thanks to Christopher Columbus and the holiday some Americans celebrate in his honor (while others, including the population of Brown University, wrap the Italian explorer into a more nebulous celebration called “Fall Weekend”). The barren drive made for an easy commute, a diversion worthy of an Explorers’ Day, with leaves just beginning to turn and red-tails perched like statue idols on street lanterns along Route 4.

Traditionally the weekend most associated with spectacular New England foliage, Columbus Day and its Saturday/Sunday predecessors got clobbered by a stray hot summer or global climate change or whatever else is going on out there. Based on our own experiences, tour buses traveled landscapes alternatively still green-leafed, withered and dried, or dominated by large swaths of deadstick, with trunks and branches in their wind-stripped, rain-ripped forms, more suited for winter. Nothing peaked on the Mass Pike. The gentle slopes of western Massachusetts and Vermont offered their satisfying fare of glistening rivers and buzzing villages, covered bridges and country stores, but were devoid of the Oz-like color we’ve come to expect with colder nights and the thickening coats of goats and dogs.

New Hampshire saved us, especially the stretch between Campton and Canterbury, and the communities along the Pemigewasset River, our old stomping grounds, where the blend of cool green-and-blue evergreens wove seamlessly among crimson-and-orange sugar maples and the brilliant yellows of birches, blaring like bugles. The counterpoint of dramatic mountains, with their purple shadows making still life scenes on a canvas of blue sky, and the spectacular sweep of wooded rainbows along the slopes and riverbanks, satisfied the ritualistic itch that gets under the skin of most New Englanders every fall.

So we can wait a little longer in Rhode Island for whatever color will come this year, appreciating the individual trees and the little groves for providing moments of tranquility in the midst of a noisy and harsh political season, when knee-high cardboard signs in the weedy grass compete with Halloween decorations and the gathering hordes of pundits, press, politicians and PR hacks appear everywhere, shouting through their megaphones like competing carnival barkers, poisoning the air with cackling crow noises.

On the back roads of Rhode Island, as we prepare for autumn’s late arrival, we see dozens of witches, already snared mid-flight, having flown their broomsticks smack-dab into trees and telephone poles – in the same locations, we suspect, where each Christmas we find skeletal Santa Clauses stuck in chimneys. The gourd-happy members of the Southern New England Giant Pumpkin Growers Association have weighed their monster vegetables at Frerichs Farm in Warren. The gang at “Ghost Hunters,” a “Scooby-Doo” crew for adults, whose founders work as Roto-Rooter plumbers by day and investigators of the paranormal by night, threw Little Rhody a bone – launching its new season by examining the spectral happenings at Rose Island Lighthouse. (The same episode included an investigation of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. The best moment: When Jason and Grant make an appeal to the baseball ghosts by saying “We’re from Rhode Island. We’re Red Sox fans.” You’d think that would get a few Yankee poltergeists stirring.)

We savor new autumn beers like Vermont’s Magic Hat IPA on Tour and Maine’s Peak Organic Fall Summit Ale, watching woodpiles in the neighborhood grow into pyramids against chain-link fences and observing herons hunting in the eelgrass along the cove. We ramble along at Four Town Farm – where horses and harvest scenes occupy the crossroads between Seekonk, Swansea, East Providence and Barrington – pausing to enjoy a murder of crows looting a pumpkin patch, the black birds and the orange gourds mixing the colors of Halloween.

The days shorten. The light lessens. Autumn moves like a cat in the rivergrass – senses heightened, stalking its ghost, seeing what we don’t in the tangle that lies just beyond.

What is your favorite autumn ritual?

One Day in Providence

2010-10-04T13:39:00.002-04:00

Providence is a city of potholes and rabbit holes. The former are rarely fixed, the latter are always on the move, making the Providence underground a notoriously elusive scene. Perhaps that’s because so much of it exists above ground, in artist’s lofts and cold warehouses, abandoned stores and condemned buildings. And that’s just the art scene. Sex and crime also have their own thriving undergrounds, but it’s the artists that have made the city a haven for cheap, radical, do-it-yourself creating, and the clues are everywhere.

They’re stapled to telephone poles and street kiosks, chalked on brick and pavement, plastered to Dumpsters and graffitied on bridges and buildings, appearing one day and vanishing the next, leaving only the trace evidence of stapled fragments and faint chalk to suggest their whereabouts, whenabouts and whatabouts.

The patron saint Andre the Giant still stares down from the odd red octagonal stop sign, warning all passersby to OBEY. That word may have evolved nationally into HOPE or CHANGE and a wrestler may have morphed into a President, but Andre’s stoic mug still shows up now and then as a ghost and an echo of a simpler time, in the same way that pagan symbols often find a niche in the carvings, rituals and texts of modern religious iconography.

Artists, like most folks engaged in a trade, communicate in code. In the past you could find their tracks and ciphers, runes and hieroglyphics at the Price Rite Dumpster, Eastern Butcher Block, Sparkle City, Pink Rabbit, Dirt Palace, Gold Mine, Anarchy Mark’s Basement, Castle Cinema, Columbus Theater, Building 16, Old North Cemetery, Cradle of Filth, Church of the Messiah, Firehouse 19 or Candle Factory. Some no longer exist; others retain their roles as urban tableaux rasa.

More than most cities, Providence is a kind of living canvas. Edgy and dodgy in spots, dotted with entrapments and enchantments, snags and escapes. It is a place where the line separating art from trash is finer than anywhere else, given how much sheer creativity is generated from the recycled detritus of the city's crumbling landscape. A place where garbage dumps are treasure troves. And a place where, if you're a visitor, free parking can be either the holy grail or a false idol.

Earlier this year, I parked on Benefit Street and wandered down to the R.I. State Council on the Arts offices across from the State House. One Andre the Giant stared down at me from a traffic light across from the RISD Museum. Another gazed out from a RISD Rides bus stop. A woman got off a bicycle to post a flyer on a street lamp, a notice of a two-night exhibition of paintings and installations titled “Dirty Laundry & Clean Thoughts,” scheduled for a house on Kinsley Ave. later that weekend. Graffiti on the RISD Museum wall, near the lion mosaics, revealed communication by chalk, mostly anonymous love notes, punctuated by hearts and exclamation points. The space between the concrete steps and the shadowy terrace at the second-floor entrance to the Chace Center was filled with odd noises – typewriter tapping, rain, thunder and lightning, church bells. The work of Wakefield storyteller, educator and artist Marc Levitt, “Audio Winds #1,” a multi-channel audio installation, produced sounds that might have been heard at this precise location during previous centuries. The walk continued, past yellow masking tape on brickwork spelling “YO” and pink chalk scribbles and doodles complaining about finals. I meandered down to a sidewalk with a series of stencils – a tire, a dove and a splayed human body. All the while the city was buzzing was jackhammers and beeping construction trucks. Street corners were wrapped in yellow caution tape. Orange cones and red signs barricaded deep holes in the road, where construction workers wearing hardhats popped in and out, chasing their own white rabbits. And when I returned to my car, still sitting under the watchful eye of Andre, the passenger side window was smashed, my iPod and cell phone were gone, and I was left to ponder a maxim I have long believed: Theft is the only true art.

What is your Rhode Island crime story?

Moose on the Run

2010-09-27T13:48:00.002-04:00

One of the more fascinating aspects of Rhode Island politics every four years is the race for the lieutenant governor’s office, mainly because perennial independent candidate Robert J. Healey Jr. of the Cool Moose Party has run on the platform of abolishing the job. His contention that $99,000 in salary (along with associated fees of staffing, workspace, supplies and other expenditures placing the total budget at just under $1 million) is too much for Rhode Islanders to stomach for a position whose official duty is to replace the governor if he or she dies or becomes incapacitated, has struck a chord with many residents, especially during an election cycle in which voters seem inclined to shake up the status quo, whatever the consequences.

Healey, a Barrington resident, spent the last few years owning and managing The Cheese Plate in Warren, a delightfully offbeat, European-style dining spot that he recently sold. He has run twice previously, garnering surprising support and increasing name recognition, and in today’s political climate, some pundits believe that this election may represent his best chance to win.

His campaign posters – all of them parodying aspects of culture – add a certain charm to a political season dominated by dull signs and attack ads. One conjures John Lennon with Healey wearing a New York City T-shirt under the words: “Imagine No Lieutenant Governor…It’s Easy If You Try.” In another, he’s The Lone Ranger under the words “The Lone Candidate Rides Again.” A third shows him as what appears to be Napoleon (“Glory is Fleeting But Obscurity is Forever”). My favorite shows side-by-side Healeys spoofing Grant Wood’s iconic painting “American Gothic.”

Even if Healey wins, a constitutional amendment would be required to abolish the lieutenant governor’s office. Healey pledges that, if elected, he would serve but would collect no salary and hire no staff, thereby saving taxpayers $1 million for each year of his term, totaling $4 million for the term’s duration. His opponents, incumbent Democrat Elizabeth H. Roberts and independent Robert P. Venturini (of local cable’s “An Hour with Bob” and “Bob’s Big Adventures” fame), both believe in the merits of the office. In a bizarre and slightly sleazy side note, Heidi Rogers, the winner of the Republican primary (who also wants to eliminate the office) withdrew from the race just days after her victory, leaving Republicans with nobody on the ballot. (Rogers urged Republicans to support Healey.)

Cool Moose has been around a lot longer than the various Mad Hatters comprising America’s Tea Parties, but these days the old expression that “politics makes strange bedfellows” should perhaps be amended with an assist from Shakespeare. In politics today, “All the world’s a mattress,” and a lumpy one at that.

Given that Rhode Island’s lieutenant governor could go the way of the bowyer (maker of bows, arrows, crossbows and bolts) and pardoner (seller of indulgences) during an age that desperately cries out for job creation, Half Shell wants to know: Are there any archaic jobs worth bringing back in the new millennium? Court jester? Town crier? Vestal virgin?

Rhody Five-0

2010-09-20T16:02:00.003-04:00

The hand-chalked menu board on the Block Island ferry includes “Advil” and “Dramamine” among the more traditional fare of hot dogs, bagels and potato chips, but there were few takers during the gentle swells of yesterday’s ride, with most passengers favoring the medicinal benefits of Bloody Marys and Narragansetts over their pharmaceutical counterparts. A beautiful late-summer day drew scattered crowds to the docks of Galilee – a motley mix of drinkers, surfers and families – all of us taking an escape day to the island 13 miles from Point Judith.

On the Block, breakers slammed against the jetties, sending giant plumes of sea spray in all directions, forcing the cast-and-reel fishermen closer to shore. Wave-skimmers, paddle boarders, boogie boarders and surfers challenged the unpredictable breaks, occasionally getting dumped into the violent white froth like bits of cork flying off from champagne spilled at a boat christening. One skimmer, staggering to get up after being sucker-punched by a wave, looked out on the horizon to see his board floating away. He gave it up for lost, but a huge ‘comber rolled in, gathered it up like a toothpick, and sent it careening onto the beach. The message was clear: The sea wasn’t done with him yet.

The day’s overall calm was in stark contrast to the surf, which was wild and rough. But Rhode Islanders learned long ago that if you want to know the weather, forget the forecasts. Ask a surfer. The men and women who live for waves are more passionate about meteorology than the average weatherman. And, maybe because they live so closely in tune with nature, something instinctual kicks in, giving them an edge over the broadcasters with their blue screens and Doppler radar.

So it was timely to receive Don Gentile’s “A Meteorological Guide to Predicting Surf on the Rhode Island Coast” (published by Rosedog Books of Pittsburgh) in the mail today. A lifelong Misquamicut resident and self-described “avid waterman and amateur meteorologist,” Gentile has produced yet another one of those Very Rhode Island books that deserves a place on the shelf for readers who enjoy the quirky culture of the Ocean State. A mix of weather data, local color and folksy memoir, the book is a meditation on the “science of swell prediction” and is filled with observations that could only come from a surfer. Consider what went through his mind during the ravages of Hurricane Gloria in 1985:

Is the worst really going to happen? Is a hurricane bigger than the 1938 hurricane about to devastate the Misquamicut Beach? Will my house survive? Will the swell be rideable after work?

One of the most helpful sections is a description of 14 of mainland Rhode Island’s legendary surfing spots (12 of which are located in the waters off South County). They include such colorful locales as “Dicky’s,” named after a hot dog stand in the parking lot of the long-gone Wreck Bar in Misquamicut; “Fenway” and “Point Panic” in Weekapaug; “Deep Hole” in Matunuck; “K-39,” “Monahans” and “Little Rincon” in Narragansett; and “Ruggles” off Ruggles Avenue in Newport.

With Hawaii Five-0’s scheduled reboot tonight, we thought it might be a good time to remind the world the Ocean State has some world-class breaks of its own (especially during the hurricane season of, well, now, and continuing into the coldest months of the year, when nor’easters blast away at our beaches). Rhody may not have the Kahuna culture of Hawaii, but we do have our own surfing Peter Pan. Also, Salve Regina in Newport and the University of Rhode Island (with campuses in Kingston and Narragansett) both rank among America’s top surfing colleges. (Take that, Harvard dudes.)

Leaving us with only one question: What classic TV series would you like to see remade?

Buzz Kill

2010-09-13T16:30:00.003-04:00

Today’s Daily Beast asks the question: “When’s the last time something exciting happened in Delaware?” The Web site is referencing the state’s bruising but politically intriguing Senate primary contest pitting a couple of red-leaning Blue Hens – one a moderate, the other a staunch conservative. But, here at Half Shell, we’re more interested in the wider ramifications of the question.

Delaware residents once proposed giving away some of their land so that Little Del could reap the cultural attention that Little Rhody gets for being the smallest state in the USA – media props that include, but are not limited to, being an official standard of measurement for anything in the neighborhood of 1000 to 1,500 square miles, serving as a common punch line at the end of any joke about size and earning undue influence as a popular point of reference on The Weather Channel.

Anyway, enough about Delaware. The real reason for this post is to rephrase the Daily Beast’s question: “When’s the last time something exciting happened in Rhode Island?”

Some folks may point to the floods of last March. (Conveniently, Independent Newspapers has just published “Raging Waters,” the story of “The South County Flood of 2010” in words and pictures, available in Wakefield at our 10 High St. offices, Healy News and Damon’s Hardware.) Those old enough, however, can always play the natural disaster trump cards, including “The Blizzard of ’78” (Feb. 6, 1978) or “The Hurricane of ’38” (Sept. 21, 1938).

Rhode Island, not being much of a “buzz”-generating state, gets excited about things that draw yawns elsewhere. Sailing, for instance. Folks not only sail here, they watch other sailors sail from their vantage points on boats and docks and piers and island perches – especially island perches that serve frozen drinks. So maybe the last exciting thing that ever happened here occurred on Sept. 26, 1983, when the Australians won the America’s Cup, yanking the 12-meter yachting trophy out of Newport for the first time, well, ever. And if the Cup races ever were to return to this corner of the Atlantic, we might just have to declare a month-long state holiday, which we’d probably call, given the current vernacular, “Rhodypalooza.”

The other thing that generates excitement in Rhode Island is scandal. We’re not talking about the daily sort of scandal that fills our airwaves and papers and diners and “bubbla” talk on a pretty much every-second basis. We’re talking epic scandal. The kind that Greeks named Homer wrote poems about. So Paris kidnapped Helen from a Greek king and started the Trojan War. Big deal. In the 1990s, we had a guy, a fugitive banker named Joe “Puppy Dog” Mollicone, who single-handedly managed to collapse the state’s entire financial system. Suddenly our credit cards weren’t worth the plastic they were made out of, and Rhode Island money was deemed no good anywhere in the world. (Not for the first time. Something similar happened in Rhode Island during our Revolutionary youth, when we were still deciding whether we wanted to go along with this America thing. An excess of paper money was printed, which farmers took at face value but merchants declined to match. At one point, the legislature passed a law commanding everyone to consider paper the equivalent of gold. The merchants responded by shutting their shops. In the summer of 1876 in the once-thriving cities of Providence and Newport, no business whatsoever was conducted, except in the pubs. At Half Shell we like to think of that as the first “Rhodypalooza.”)

The thing of it is, Mollicone, after a stint in prison, still lives here and still owes us cash. He’s not as visible as he once was, but you can probably friend him on Facebook.

Other days when exciting things happened in Rhode Island:

Sometime in June, 1936: Roger Williams dropped anchor. Started his own colony.
July 19, 1769: British sloop Liberty destroyed at Newport, representing the first overt act of violence against British authority in America.
June 9, 1772: British schooner Gaspee burned in Narragansett Bay, an act of defiance commemorated annually at a Warwick festival.
July 25, 1965: Dylan goes electric at the Newport Folk Festival.

That’s about it.

Waiting for Earl

2010-09-03T10:40:00.004-04:00

The first drops have not yet fallen from the hurricane that lurks off the Atlantic coast, but Earl should arrive sometime later this morning, nearly a week after the first forecasts predicted the track could sweep through New England. Just yesterday Earl was a Category 4 monster, ranked as one of the worst hurricanes to visit the neighborhood in 20 years, threatening to grow in power. Today it looks like it might just degrade into a gray, gusty, rainy day. The kind of day, in other words, that New England used to take for granted in between blasts of summer sunshine.

The Hurricane of ’38, that iconic storm that all young Rhode Islanders learned about at our bedsides and kitchen tables, the tempest that has become a kind of New England version of “Beowulf,” substituting weather for dragons, pummeled a state that was unaware and unprepared. But now we have six days of Doppler Radar showing the giant green blob creeping up the East Coast like a sick sea turtle turning in circles. We have The Weather Channel broadcasting endlessly from every beach on the Eastern Seaboard. We have Weather Underground and various Storm-Trackers and the slow crawl under “The Office” or the Red Sox game, announcing school closings and beach closings and tropical storm warning updates.

Earl has been a kind of shadow companion throughout the work week, poking us in the ribs as we went about our daily business of meeting deadlines, fulfilling social obligations and commuting between places. He was everywhere, part of every conversation, whether you tuned into radio, television or Internet, whether you visited the grocery store or the pizza joint, or whether you were just kibitzing with friends or co-workers. The old stories, photographs and video of hurricanes of yore were dragged out by the media, a succession of ’38, Carol, Gloria and Bob. Pub TVs usually tuned to ESPN had switched to Earl, 24-7. Communities announced voluntary evacuations – begging the question, what exactly is a voluntary evacuation? Technically, couldn’t I voluntarily evacuate anytime I’d like, or do I now need permission from a town official? Did I miss a memo?

A local politician even took Earl seriously enough to send an e-mail to newsrooms yesterday afternoon with a four-line bold headline that read:

With Unpredictability of Hurricane Earl, Independent
Candidate for State Senate Kevin O’Neill Asks His
Supporters and Constituents in South Kingstown and
Block Island to remove his lawn signs today.

The candidate was worried about damage to people and property presumably caused by political signs with his name on it uprooting and swirling around in 140 mile per hour winds like the thunderbolts of Zeus. And it’s true, a rash of voters impaled by political signs might have some effect on the polls.

But such is the way of weather these days. Long before they strike, hurricanes are bloated with the precipitation of hype and hot air. Better, as always, to pay attention to nature. All week the bees have been in a chaotic frenzy, swarming and stinging. The tree frogs have been noisier than normal at dusk. The cicadas have ratcheted up their heat songs during the week of 90-plus-degree weather that preceded Earl’s arrival. All of them telling us, in their own way, not to forget the raincoat on our way out the door today.

What is your favorite storm story?

[Blogger's note: Early blog today because of Monday's Labor Day holiday, when any remnants of Earl will be confined to the dryer. Back on Sept. 13.]

James Woods Has a Posse

2010-08-30T17:02:00.001-04:00

The parking lot attendant at the New Bedford ferry to Martha’s Vineyard is a James Woods fan – and not just because the former Rhode Islander made his bones in Hollywood and still manages to get home every now and then. (Apologies for keeping my source anonymous, but when I spoke with her, I didn’t tell her I might be preserving her comments for posterity. Those determined to confirm that this conversation took place can find her at the ferry dock seven days a week.)

“I love all of his movies,” she told me, speaking of the one-time Warwick resident who, according to the blog site NNDB, has earned fame as an actor by playing “a long list of ruthless creeps and cold-blooded bastards.”

While I waited for the ferry to Oak Bluffs, she went on: “A few weeks ago he just drove up, with his wife or girlfriend or whatever, she looked about 20, and we chatted. He got out of the car and asked his wife or girlfriend or whatever to take a picture of us. He asked my e-mail and I told him but he didn’t write anything down so I figured, yeah, whatever. Two days later the picture came through. He remembered.”

In fact, most of the celebrities that come through New Bedford en route to the Vineyard, she said, are pretty down to earth.

“Bill Murray is just a regular guy,” she said. “He brought his family over to see the fireworks the other night. Just drove right up, dropped them off at the ferry, took the car to the Whale’s Tooth (parking lot) and got on the bus with everybody else.”

Last year, Jim Belushi stood next to her for half-an-hour, waiting for a ride.

“He kept saying what a beautiful place this was,” she said. “Real working-class, but beautiful. He loves it here. Of course, he’s not looking for a job around here. Might think differently then.”

Rise of the blue crabs
Rhode Island water temperatures are running three to five degrees higher than average this summer. While it’s irresponsible to cite a much-hotter-than-usual summer as a definite sign of global climate change, that caution will do little to assuage the fears of those who worry about the Baltimorification (or Delawarification) of the Ocean State. Where Rhode Island once represented the northern reach for many sea creatures, now it seems to be within easy reach of any southern swimmer. But what about the local marine life – lobster, cod, flounder – that prefer a colder bath?

The changing nature of species migrating to Rhody or establishing residence here might be a more reliable indicator that something’s different, weather-wise. Last week a 6-foot sea turtle was spotted in Rhode Island Sound. While certainly not foreign to these waters, large sea turtles – including leatherbacks and loggerheads – are being reported in unusually high numbers by Rhode Island boaters, who’ve seen them paddling in the waters between Block Island and Watch Hill.

Even stranger is the influx of blue crabs, some of them monsters in their own right, crawling around Narragansett Bay. The blue crab invasion, which was also reported on the Vineyard during my stay there, seems to have taken hold everywhere, including Waterplace Park just below the Providence Place Mall. Now, I’ve got nothing against blue crabs, especially on the boil with some cold Narragansetts on ice. But if gaining the blue crab means losing the lobster, Half Shell may have to migrate to Nova Scotia.

The crazy season
The November elections are just around the corner, which means it’s time for New England’s favorite biennial autumn activity – voter fraud. The Cranston Board of Canvassers recently received notarized voter registration cards for Elizabeth Taylor, Rudolph Valentino and Dracula. The astute reader may note that at least two of these voters are dead (well, one is undead), all of them wore (or wear) sunglasses and none of them are Rhode Islanders. But that didn’t stop somebody from notarizing their registration cards. If I were a betting man, I’d say we’re looking for a notary public named Renfield. Then again, here in bloggerland, it doesn’t get much better than the possibility that Dracula could cast the deciding vote for the next Rhode Island governor.

This week’s back-to-school question: What did you do on your summer vacation?

Postscript: Lament for a Lobster

2010-08-16T11:32:00.001-04:00

We here at Half Shell have a heavy heart and a guilty conscience after learning that Rhody’s celebrity yellow lobster – whose discovery garnered headlines across the globe – died last week, having succumbed to the cruel ravages of fame and the public’s insatiable demand to be part of the phenomenon.

After too many days in the spotlight in which the lobster was repeatedly manhandled, it was sent to the University of Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay Campus for rest and recuperation. But apparently all of the attention had overstressed the lobster – dubbed “Tyler,” in honor of the 9-year-old New Hampshire boy whose mother took the first images of Rhody lobsterman Denny Ingram and his find that circulated around the world. Despite the best efforts of Bay Campus employees to provide him with plenty of oxygen and food, optimal water temperature and ample places to hide, Tyler’s immune system just gave out.

So it’s a sad day here at Half Shell, especially knowing that because of our incessant need for column and blog fodder, we contributed to the demise of a crustacean that never sought the limelight. While we generally espouse a life that avoids the celebrity treacle of supermarket tabloids, TV buzz and the widespread stalkerazzi mindset, we got sucked into the yellow lobster’s media glow. Most of us could care less about seeing the stars in cement along Hollywood Boulevard, but if someone wanted to brand a yellow lobster in the brick and cobblestone of Thames Street in Newport, we would make the pilgrimage to pay our respects.

Bloggers and lobsters have a lot in common. Both are bottom-feeders. The truth is, if the yellow lobster had emerged from its pot in a shell of a different color, it would have been boiled red and eaten two weeks ago. But that doesn’t absolve us from our role in killing the crustacean with curiosity. It’s too late to make it up to Tyler, but perhaps his legacy can live on. Someone with musical talent in Rhode Island could start a band called Yellow Lobster. (I’m thinking a reggae/rock/sea chantey group.) A village in need of a tourist attraction could host the Yellow Lobster Seafood Festival. The ghost of Yellow Lobster could join the living gargoyles at WaterFire Providence. Blount Seafood could mount a giant Yellow Lobster on the side of I-95 opposite the New England Pest Control’s Big Blue Bug, creating a gateway of kitsch in Rhode Island. A new dish, the Yellow Lobster Roll – lobster salad made with mustard instead of mayo – could be introduced at Hemenway’s.

What is the best way to pay tribute to the life of the yellow lobster?

[Blogster’s note: Half Shell will be taking a one-week hiatus to hunt and consume various sea creatures while avoiding presidential entourages in the waters off Vineyard Sound next week. Back Monday, Aug. 30.)

Sea Quest

2010-08-09T11:09:00.004-04:00

You know you live in Rhode Island when more people would rather see a yellow lobster than run into Jeri Ryan, the actress who played Seven of Nine in “Star Trek: Voyager” and starred in “Boston Public” and “Leverage,” and who can now be spotted filming scenes for the medical drama “Body of Proof” in the Ocean State. (She’s third from the left in the photo.)

The yellow lobster, a one-in-30-million find, was plucked from Narragansett Bay’s East Passage by Denny Ingram, and resided for a week in a blue basket inside a little shack selling lobster and crabs at the Fishermen’s Co-op on the State Pier in Newport before being donated to the University of Rhode Island Bay Campus in Narragansett for display and study. Since I chronicled my encounter with the rare crustacean on the paper side of things this week, I’ll spare my ink-stained Thursday readers the redundancy, but the trip also prompted thoughts on what an odd summer it has already been for sea creature sightings in these parts.

Although it remains nameless, the yellow lobster has received the most global press for a local marine animal since the mammal dubbed “the Warwick manatee” took the scenic route through Rhode Island a few summers ago. (I even remember a sign outside of Jim’s Dock with a drawing of the manatee, welcoming it to Jerusalem. The manatee, which eventually reached Cape Cod, reportedly snacked from a drainage pipe in Warwick on its journey. In the drawing at Jim’s Dock, the cartoon manatee claimed that the chowder and clam cakes tasted better in South County.)

Earlier this April, nearly 100 North Atlantic right whales – representing about a quarter of the entire population – were spotted cavorting just off Block Island. All summer, reports of great white sharks feasting on seals off Chatham on Cape Cod have raised anxieties among local beachgoers. The sighting of another shark last week off Horseneck Beach in Westport, just a stone’s throw away from Rhody, only increased the collective worry. Of course, fishermen have long known that Rhode Island waters are part of Shark Alley, a stretch that runs along the extreme Atlantic edge from Long Island to Block Island to Martha’s Vineyard to Nantucket, where some of the biggest and fiercest sharks in the world congregate. But it’s rare to see them so frequently close to shore. Then again, there’s a fishermen’s maxim: “Two summers of seals, then a summer of great whites.” With seal populations exploding in Narragansett Bay, we may all need a bigger boat.

Give the sharks credit, they’ve got great timing. The Horseneck Beach shark popped up on the first day of "Shark Week," the Discovery Channel’s seven-day extravaganza celebrating all things shark. As cable TV’s longest-running and most-watched series of programs, “Shark Week” is as much a part of popular culture as the Super Bowl or the Academy Awards. It also happens to be the 35th anniversary of “Jaws,” which was filmed on Martha’s Vineyard but is remembered fondly hereabouts as the movie in which Quint (Robert Shaw) drank Narragansett by the can.

This week’s question: What name should we give the yellow lobster?

Feeling Massachusetts

2010-08-02T10:42:00.001-04:00

Lately Rhode Island headlines have been dominated by stories about rich guys from Massachusetts playing ball with Little Rhody while pushing Taxachusetts to the sidelines. And Bay Staters are not happy about it.

Let’s take them one at a time.

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, who owns homes in Boston and Nantucket, decided to base his $7-million yacht, Isabel, in Rhode Island. By doing so, Kerry would be spared a one-time sales tax of $437,500 in addition to about $70,000 in annual excise taxes. After island-hopping between Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard since the Fourth of July weekend, Kerry recently placed his 76-foot sloop in a Portsmouth shipyard, where it is undergoing routine maintenance. In Rich Guy Land, this is what’s known as good business, since what Kerry is doing is perfectly legal. But in an age when states are struggling to stay solvent, it’s also the kind of thing that reminds everyone how ridiculously lopsided the rules in Rich Guy Land can be. Being an experienced sailor, Kerry recognized the ill political winds blowing broadside and quickly tacked, informing the Massachusetts Department of Revenue last week that he had every intention of paying taxes to the home port – even if the vessel isn’t docked there.

Even more controversial was the R.I. Economic Development Corporation’s decision to guarantee a $75 million loan to former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling’s video-game firm, 38 Studios. By procuring the loan from Rhody taxpayers, Schilling can proceed with plans to move his studio from a Maynard, Mass. mill complex to somewhere comparable in Rhode Island. As Providence Journal columnist Bob Kerr noted in a piece last Wednesday:

The $75 million is 60 percent of the guaranteed loans that the state can grant for high-tech and knowledge-based companies under a law passed in June.

So that’s 60 percent for a video game shrouded in secrecy that may or may not have the breadth and scope of Pong – and 40 percent for anyone else out there that might have a good idea. As someone who hasn’t played a video game since a brief college flirtation with Joust and a strange, mid-1980s obsession with the Arkanoid machine at Giro’s Spaghetti House in Peace Dale, I’m not qualified to judge the potential of video-game development to the Rhode Island economy.

The bigger question for Rhode Island is why are we suddenly dueling with Massachusetts over yachts and video games? Sure, we’ve had our differences before. In 1658, some Pawtuxet residents got so fed up with the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations that they pledged their allegiance to Massachusetts (only to change their minds four years later when presumably they realized they’d have to pay Bay Colony taxes on their horses). In 1746, King George settled a dispute between the two states by giving Rhode Island “the Attleborough Gore,” making up most of what is now known as the East Bay. Despite these flare-ups, Massachusetts and Rhode Island have generally co-existed as big brother and little brother in the New England statehood. Certainly the relationship is nowhere near as contentious as the one between Rhody and Connecticut. The next time we make it through a generation without some Nutmegger getting the itch to dispute our border and claim our beaches will be the first.

And yet, given the recently frosty climate between Bay and Ocean States, I guess the question needs to be asked: What would be worth stealing from Massachusetts?

Handle with Care

2010-07-26T09:04:00.002-04:00

Every time you think that American culture has reached absolute nadir, you look deep into the abyss only to discover…more abyss. A New York company has come up with a plan to stick a celebrity in a box in Bryant Park then invite visitors to take a peek to see who’s inside (but not before signing a non-disclosure release). Our nation’s celebrity fixation being what it is, there’s no doubt that the “starbox” will be a big hit. Before long, B-list celebs will be lining up in droves to be Duct-taped into cardboard boxes all over Manhattan, the way they used to scramble for gigs on “Tales from the Crypt,” “The Love Boat” and “Fantasy Island.” Speculation is rampant on who might be the first boxed celebrity, but the bigger question might be: Can all of New York really keep a secret?

While pondering the notion that America at its lowest common denominator has always been a cross between freak show and peep show, the staff at Half Shell has found a subversive silver lining in the starbox gambit. We like to call it “Rhode Islander in a Box.” It’s a complete rip-off of the New York idea (payback for messing with our chowder) but it does allow for comic possibilities.

Rhode Islander in a Box, or RIB, could be transported by Segway to all corners of Little Rhody, depending on the occasion. We could unveil Rhode Islander in a Box at WaterFire Providence, for example, somewhere between the stone gargoyles and the Del’s Lemonade cart. Rhode Islander in a Box could be rented out for Gaspee Days, the Black Ships Festival or the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Newport. It could have its own float at the Bristol Fourth of July Parade or its own Providence Art Window. At all of these locations, for a nominal fee to cover shipping and handling, viewers could actually gawk at the Rhode Islander in a Box for a predetermined length of time, an activity that on the surface is completely pointless, but on further examination, is even more so.

The key question, of course, is: Which Rhode Islanders would you like to see in a box? Keep in mind that these need to be living, breathing Rhode Islanders. (Note to self: The box will need air holes.) We’re not looking for Rhode Islanders who, may they rest in peace, have already been boxed. Roger Williams himself, tree root though he may be, does not belong in a box. We want contemporary, box-worthy Rhode Islanders: Like, say, Joe Mollicone. James Woods. Richard Hatch. Arlene Violet. Maybe a Cardi Brother. Maybe a Farrelly Brother. Maybe the alto saxophone player from Roomful of Blues.

And if we ever get around to a “Pop Goes the Weasel” version, how about: Buddy in a Box?

Village People

2010-07-19T10:18:00.002-04:00

Recently I kayaked over to Annawamscutt, where now just a beach and a cluster of cottages are left to identify what was once a village. I saw osprey, a night heron, three red-tailed hawks and the usual gulls, geese and cormorants along the way; but no signs of industry, only nature and leisure. My launching point was my home port of Allin’s Cove in what was once known as the village of West Barrington, a former fishing ground for the Wampanoag long before it assumed its rather dull English name. The old post office no longer exists, the lace factory is now elderly housing. Only the corner barbershop, the marina and boatyard remain to signify the once thriving, working-class community of Bay Springs. Long a summer getaway for hordes of Pawtucket residents, the character of my neighborhood is changing. The spectrum ranges through teachers, restaurant owners, exiled New Yorkers, internationals, single moms, retirees, sailors, salvagers, handy men, artists, musicians and accountants, with a few lifers and Pawtucket natives still in the mix. Now both Annawamscutt and West Barrington are fringe neighborhoods in the East Bay town of Barrington linked by a coastline and a bike path. Such is the way of a village.

Rhode Island was once a jumble of villages – fragments of farm and cove, mill and woods that still resonate today if only as part of a certain independent crankiness statewide. Some have retained their names, if not their cultural distinctiveness. Others have disappeared. Many, I suspect, I have visited without even realizing it, for I could not tell you where to find them on any map.

They include Arctic in West Warwick, Arkwright, Quidnick and Summit in Coventry, Barberville and Locustville in Hopkinton, Coggeshall in Warren, Conimicut, Cowesett and Hoxsie in Warwick, Dyerville and Wanskuck in Providence, Forestdale in North Smithfield, Gazzaville, Mapleville, Mohegan, Saxonville, Tarklin and Whipple in Burrillville, Greystone in North Providence, Harmony in Glocester, Hummocks in Portsmouth, Liberty in Exeter, Lime Rock in Lincoln, Omega in East Providence, Stillwater in Smithfield, Vernon in Foster and White Rock in Westerly.

One of the advantages of working in South County at the Independent has been the opportunity to visit the vestiges of old mill towns and beach communities in villages such as Quonochontaug in Charlestown, Ashaway and Moscow in Hopkinton, Galilee and Jerusalem in Narragansett, Misquamicut, Watch Hill and Weekapaug in Westerly, Wood River Junction and Wyoming in Richmond, Rocky Brook, Perryville and Usquepaugh in South Kingstown, Frenchtown in East Greenwich, Hamilton and Slocum in North Kingstown. Work has taken me to the village of Pontiac in Warwick, identified by the Pontiac Mills, which are still condos-in-waiting. I’ve been to Fruit Hill in North Providence to get to Rhode Island College and Knightsville in Cranston to get to the Community College of Rhode Island. I marathoned through Apponaug, a village in Warwick, back in the day when the Ocean State Marathon began in the village of Narragansett Pier. I’ve taken leisurely drives to Sakonnet at the very tip of Little Compton and performed theater at a library and grabbed a bite to eat respectively and respectfully in the villages of Hope and Chopmist in Scituate.

In all, Rhode Island is home to as many as 250 villages, although more than a few are mostly defunct and a number of them survive only as ghost towns. Some have interesting pedigrees. Consider the following places in Westerly: The village of Avondale was originally called Lotteryville because its inhabitants at one time had won a state lottery to build homes there. The village of Misquamicut was once called Pleasant View supposedly because a prominent Victorian-era woman paused there on horseback and remarked on the “pleasant view.” The community of Napatree was wiped off the map by the Hurricane of ’38.

As I sign off on this post from a computer located in Wakefield village – or the village of “Historic Wakefield” to you travelers out there on Route 1 who might miss it through all the sprawl – I end with the week’s ceremonial question: What is your favorite Rhode Island village?

Oyster Night

2010-07-12T13:23:00.002-04:00

Mondays are $1 oyster nights at DeWolf Tavern in Bristol, where I often find myself at the bar washing down the week’s varieties with an ale. DeWolf is not the only place to oyster it up in Little Rhody, but with many of the tasty pearl-makers going for almost $3 a shell these days, the buck-a-bivalve bargain is hard to beat. Most weeks the place has a selection from Canada, Massachusetts, Connecticut and the home state, offering a chance to compare tasting notes. I’ll be there again tonight, Tabasco and black pepper at the ready, if necessary.

Oysters are available year-round, but there’s something about summer that brings out the oyster fiend in folks, as raw bars and regular bars fill up with oval platters of half-shells on ice. You can taste your way around Rhode Island, traveling by tongue to sample Moonstones, Matunucks, Salt Ponds, Sakonnets, Rome Points, Watch Hills, Poppasquashes, Winnapaugs, Ninigrets and Wild Goose among the nearly three-dozen Rhody-born-and-bred varieties.

Savoring an oyster is as much a geographic as culinary experience. As author Rowan Jacobsen said in his guide to oyster eating, “A Geography of Oysters,” all oysters have a quality of “somewhereness.” Their sense of place is inherent in the flavors that emerge beyond their salinity. In other words, they taste like where they come from.

An excerpt from Jacobsen’s book featured the following note about Moonstones:

MOONSTONE
Point Judith Pond, Rhode Island

Some of the most savory oysters in the world come from a geographical arc running from the eastern end of Long Island, along the ragged Rhode Island coast, to Block Island, Cuttyhunk and Martha’s Vineyard: the line marking the terminal moraine of the most recent glacier. Along that arc, mineral-rich waters produce salty oysters with unparalleled stone and iron flavors, of which Moonstone is the reigning king.

While sampling oysters at McCormick & Schmick’s in Providence a couple of years ago, a friend and I tried a Rhode Island-grown oyster. Her description – “Tastes like swimming in the bay in summertime” – was perfect. Since I’ve been making notes on the subject, I’ve had oysters that tasted buttery, fruity, extra salty, or hinting of citrus, wine, even petrol. One good thing: I’ve never met an oyster that tasted like chicken.

In Louisiana, Creole recipes feature a lot of oyster dishes that are fried or baked, which seems like a waste of an oyster, although the dishes themselves are delicious, so maybe a few can be sacrificed in the pursuit of gastronomic bliss. The sad news for folks on the Gulf Coast is that their oysters are drowning in oil. One beloved New Orleans restaurant, called Charlie’s Seafood, was forced to change its menu to survive, and according to a recent Miami Herald article, the chef isn’t exactly happy about it.

“Charlie’s is a place that celebrates Louisiana seafood and here I am frying calamari from Rhode Island,” says [Frank] Brigsten, an award-winning chef who also owns his eponymously named contemporary Creole cuisine restaurant uptown. “I feel like somehow I am betraying my customers by not giving them oysters. I feel like I am wearing someone else’s clothes.”

As great as Rhody seafood is – and between the fish and the shellfish, we enjoy some of the best in the world – it’s hard not to feel devastated for those who live along our Southern coast. Just as Rhode Islanders wouldn’t be Rhode Islanders without our intimate relationship to Narragansett Bay – a place that serves alternatively as playground, buffet and spiritual companion – coastal residents of Louisiana and Texas feel the same way about the Gulf. So tonight, with every Rhode Island oyster that slides down my gullet, I’ll thank the bay and pray to the oyster gods to keep them coming. And, if any greedy, incompetent corporate types start poking around our sea beds, release the giant clams…

What flavors might you expect to taste in a Rhode Island-grown oyster?

Wiener World

2010-07-02T11:21:00.002-04:00

The catchphrase “Only in Rhode Island” has a mostly negative connotation, generally referring to the population’s collective, unblinking acceptance of statewide cronyism, corruption, scandal and crime. But there are other times – we like to call them “Oiri” moments (think Yiddish reggae) – when it is the only way to describe the cultural oddities that abound here.

A case in point: While stuck in traffic on I-95 during last week’s squalls, I yo-yoed back and forth with a white car next to me that had two bumper stickers plastered on it. Since bumper stickers and vanity plates provide the only real reading opportunities during gridlock, I took the time to notice the odd juxtaposition. One was an Obama ’98 campaign sticker. Opposite Obama was a sticker that read:

OLYNEYVILLE
N.Y. SYSTEM
R.I.’s Best Hot Wieners

It’s a fair bet that no Obama supporters driving around the Other 49 would so proudly rank their political pride on equal terms with wiener love, but this is Rhode Island, where presidents rarely visit and wieners (sometimes spelled “weiners”) live in the pantheon of local culinary delights.

Side note: The next morning at the office I found a press release in my inbox headlined: “RHODE ISLAND DISH NAMED ONE OF THE 50 FATTIEST FOODS ACROSS THE NATION: HEALTH MAG REPORTS.”

And there, ranked with South Carolina turducken, South Dakota frybread, Texas corn dogs, Philly cheesesteaks, North Carolina livermush, Mississippi mud pie and Montana’s Rocky Mountain oysters is Rhode Island’s own N.Y. System Wieners. Here’s the profile:

Rhode Island
In the late 1930s, when father-son team Anthony and Nicholas Stevens moved to Rhode Island from Greece, by way of Brooklyn, they opened a small restaurant in the Olneyville neighborhood of Providence. The popular fare – New York System Hot Wieners – is still a regional favorite, and is imitated by vendors and eateries throughout the state.
Ingredients: A beef hot dog drenched in yellow mustard, onions, celery salt and ground-beef sauce.
Fat content: With 13 grams of fat for the hot dog and 15 grams of fat in a serving of ground beef, you’ll max out your daily recommended limit of fat; the ground-beef sauce is usually made with ultra-fatty shortening.

What Health magazine doesn’t say, of course, is that “gaggers” aren’t the only “heart attack on the plate” enjoyed regularly by Rhode Islanders. From hot-oven grinders to doughboys, coffee milk to clam cakes, spinach pie to strip pizza, stuffies to zeppoles and sausage-stuffed breads and meals using chourico (a Portuguese sausage) or Soupys (an Italian sausage), Rhode Island has enough distinctive foods to keep Health magazine in the expose business forever.

This week’s question: What is your favorite “Only in Rhode Island” moment?

[Blogger’s note: Posting early this week because of the Monday holiday. Enjoy the fireworks.]

Smith Hill vs. Jerimoth Hill

2010-06-28T10:16:00.002-04:00

Politics and poetry don’t often mix. There are a few old salts that may still remember a white-haired Robert Frost reading the inaugural poem for John F. Kennedy on a bitterly cold day in Washington, D.C., setting the stage for the Kennedy “Camelot” myth. On the other end of the spectrum, during the George W. Bush administration, poets were invited then quickly uninvited to a poetry gala at the White House when it turned out that some of them were going to recite peace poems (or anti-war propaganda, depending on which side of the aisle you stand on).

Now, here in Little Rhody, a mini-controversy is brewing over the proposal of a state poem. Last May, Sen. Leo Blais, a Coventry Republican, filed Senate Bill No. 2175 with three of his colleagues to establish “Jerimoth Hill,” by Rhode Island poet laureate emeritus Tom Chandler, as the official poem of Rhode Island. The poem describes the highest point in Rhode Island as being unrecognizable “except by this bullet-riddled sign by the road that curves through these scraggled third growth woods that was once a grove of giant pines that were cut down for masts that were used to build ships to sail away to the rest of the world from the docks of Providence Harbor…”

“Jerimoth Hill” is a wonderfully rhythmic and wry poem that, in the Rhode Island style, finds humor and resonance in the local identity and sense of place – in this case an 812-foot bump in Foster that for years was protected from curious onlookers and hikers by a shotgun-wielding homeowner. The prologue is one phrase (“812 feet, the highest point in Rhode Island”). The poem is one sentence broken into 26 single-spaced lines that builds like a story-song (complete with refrains). It serves as a reflective celebration and respectful illumination of one aspect of the state’s quirky culture. Most importantly, there’s nothing boosterish about it, which is probably one of the reasons I like it so much.

Gov. Donald L. Carcieri, however, wasn’t sold. Still, give him points for creativity, since he expressed his veto in sonnet form:

Donald L. Carcieri
Governor
June 22, 2010

TO THE HONORABLE, THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE:

In accordance with the provisions of Section 14, Article IX of the Constitution of the State of Rhode Island and Section 43-1-4 of the Rhode Island General Laws, I transmit, with my disapproval, 2010 S 2175, “Relating to State Affairs and Government – State Emblems.”

State Emblems Bill Sonnet

Per Constitution and Rhode Island Law
Bill 2010 S 2175
I must disapprove since it holds a flaw.
It would by law a State Poem create.
A worthy poet had written those lines
Off’ring thoughts about a Rhode Island hill.
This famous bard would certainly decline
Since other poets were unheard from still.
For no contest was held or survey done
To find out what other poems might show.
Open process lets inspiration run
So I ask your support of this veto.

Art is not art if the state must decree.
Verses are best when we let poems be.

OK, so the sonnet veto is no improvement on the vetoed poem itself, but the idea that Rhody’s state poem should be a collective choice has merit – although one does worry that we’ll end up with some version of the unofficial University of Rhode Island fight song:

I’m Rhode Island born and Rhode Island bred
And when I die I’ll be Rhode Island dead
So go-go Rhode Island
Rho-Rho-Rhode Island
Go Rhode Island, URI!

Leading to this week’s question: What should be the designated poem of Rhode Island?

Rocky Redux

2010-06-21T09:22:00.002-04:00

Today is the summer solstice, making it the longest day of the year. But even though there are plenty of picnics and barbecues, beach days and baseball games, fireworks and ferry rides ahead, I can’t get past the down note: Beginning tomorrow, we start losing the light.

To counter this nagging sensation, many Rhode Islanders move through summer in a mad dash, checking off quintessential experiences. Trips to Fenway and McCoy. A scenic drive to Tiverton Four Corners for an ice cream cone at Gray’s. Picking up chowder and clam cakes at George’s or Champlin’s and sitting on the jetties in Galilee watching the boats come and go. Breakfast at Jim’s Dock in Jerusalem. Pub-crawling and people-watching in Newport. Taking a picnic basket and a kite (or bocce balls) to Colt State Park in Bristol. A day of body boarding and Del’s at your favorite beach. Riding the ferry to Block Island and cycling around the Block before capping the day with drinks on the deck of The National Hotel.

The list is endless, but it’s missing something these days and this month the Warwick Art Museum reminds us what that is - Rocky Point Amusement Park. The once (and future?) land of summer leisure in Rhode Island is the subject of the museum’s latest exhibition, “Long Live Rocky Point: A Collection of Art and Artifacts,” a nostalgic thrill ride through the memories and mementos of a beloved park.

I had a chance to see the exhibition last Thursday (the trip turned into this week’s column, for those who like to follow my paper trail). In typically Rhode Island fashion, the collection is wonderfully weird and eclectic. There’s art by The Mad Peck. Dracula’s coffin top and the Darth Vader car from The House of Horrors. Stories spanning 150 years of Rocky Point goings-on that read straight out of the Weekly World News. Even a strangely familiar, “Animal Farm”-esque metal sign makes an appearance: “Management reserves the right on all decisions.” In a room crowded with TV and radio reporters and random Rhode Islanders, it was as if every photograph, comic book, token, tag, ribbon, Bingo card, postcard, ticket stub, newspaper ad, prop, sign, poster and piece of scrapbook ephemera served as a memory prompt and a conversation starter.

The day Leonard Nimoy showed up to read poetry and tried to sing. The day a woman taking a driver’s lesson just outside the park sent cars sprawling everywhere because a sea gull had flown in her window. The day the Viking statue inside the House of Horrors malfunctioned and scalped the hair off a child’s head.

Museum organizers said, only half-jokingly, that more people have already come to the Warwick Art Museum to see the Rocky Point show than visited during the previous 34 years’ worth of exhibitions combined.

The question is, with no Rocky Point around anymore, what has become the quintessential Rhode Island summer experience?

Rhody, Believe It or Not

2010-06-14T13:17:00.001-04:00

Drivers entering Barrington along the Wampanoag Trail enjoy a New England-as-pictured-in-Yankee magazine kind of view, showing off watery Rhode Island in a long reach of river aiming toward an archetypal white steeple and a big white booster board fronting the high school athletic fields. That scene of river, road and The White Church –it’s officially the First Congregational Church but everyone in the East Bay knows it as The White Church – has a Hollywood movie set quality to it, which may be why we grew up believing the suburban legend that it was used in the opening scene of the nighttime soap opera “Peyton Place.” (Not so much, it turns out.)

We also believed the stories that the art deco-style Fleet Building (now the Bank of America Building) in Providence was the edifice that became The Daily Planet in the “Superman” TV serial. (It wasn’t, even though to this day in Rhode Island people call it “the Superman Building.”)

An old urban legend that circulated at the Rhode Island School of Design warned students not to fall into the canal, since such a plunge would dissolve your skin.

There are a number of local island legends about pirate treasure. Capt. William Kidd reportedly had gold and other valuables stashed away variously on Patience Island, Hog Island and Block Island. Thomas Tew may have left treasure somewhere in Newport. Another pirate, Charles Harris, bragged about hiding a chest full of jewels and coins under the Newport Cliffs. And supposedly there is some booty still to be found at Beavertail, if the tides and good fortune favor you.

Those of us of a certain vintage also may remember jumping out of the Olympic swimming pool at Rocky Point Amusement Park when Electric Boy dove in. The story was that the poor guy had been electrocuted while trying to climb a fence in the park and had his arms amputated as a result. But he happened to be a champion swimmer and diver, so despite his injuries he kept coming back to the park to dive off the high board in the saltwater pool, doing tricks and swimming laps. Because of his horrific accident, many kids believed that he was highly conductive and that they risked electrocution if they swam in the pool when he was in it. In this case at least, the man was real but his zapping power was a myth.

What Rhode Island urban legends do you know?

License to Shill

2010-06-07T13:47:00.003-04:00

Around the world, people embrace certain status symbols: Diamond necklaces. Platinum cards. Rolls-Royces. Swiss bank accounts. Island getaways. In Rhode Island it’s a low-numbered license plate.

The idea that Rhode Islanders drive around checking out everyone else’s under-bumper is nothing new. It’s probably the main reason why nobody here uses directional signals. Blinkers waste time better spent counting the competition and deciphering vanity plates.

Rhody’s license plate angst is historic. Years ago the plates were black and white (instead of the state colors, blue and white) reportedly because the pols on Smith Hill were all Providence College Friars fans. Conspiracy theorists – most of them Keaney Blue-wearing University of Rhode Island Ram fans – will note that Friar colors are black and white. The fact that PC is a private college and URI is the state university added fuel to the license plate furor.

That all ended when the state finally settled on the latest incarnation of its plate – a blue wave cresting in a rectangle of white to represent the Ocean State. But following a trend that has been sweeping America, Rhody began to issue special edition plates to benefit charities. The osprey plate, promoting “Conservation Through Education,” jointly serves the Audubon Society of Rhode Island and Save The Bay. Mr. Potato Head graces the plate that supports The Rhode Island Community Food Bank. Proposed plates are in the works for the New England Patriots to aid the team’s charitable foundation and Providence WaterFire, to raise money for the popular but under-funded public art event.

Last November legislation was passed allowing for the creation of custom license plates that feature the historic Plum Beach Lighthouse. [The beacon is displayed on top of The North East Independent each week. Pt. Judith Lighthouse is the logo on the banner of The South County Independent.] It will generate revenue for the volunteer organization Friends of the Plum Beach Lighthouse, based in North Kingstown, to fund the upkeep of the structure.

In Jeremy D’Entremont’s “The Lighthouses of Rhode Island,” the author compiles various anecdotes of the “spark plug” by the Jamestown Verrazzano Bridge. One of the more bizarre notes that when the lighthouse was restored, cleaners removed 52 tons of pigeon, gull and cormorant guano – “up to four feet deep in the basement” – from inside the tower.

So New Englanders finally have an answer to the question, “Can there ever be too much lighthouse information?”

This week’s other question: What should be Rhode Island’s next specialty license plate?

Devil Wears Provda

2010-06-01T10:55:00.003-04:00

Providence may never be confused with Milan, Paris, Manhattan or London. But at least the city is trying to dress the part.

The first-ever fashion week in Rhode Island’s capital city will take place June 6-12 with two invitation-only runway shows per day scheduled for the Marriott Providence, the Renaissance Providence Hotel and the Hotel Providence. A series of free receptions following the shows will allow members of the public to meet the designers and see creations up-close. In all, the work of 16 designers from New York, New England and "Elsewhere" will be featured (what Anonymous is to Biography, Elsewhere is to Geography) – including Woonsocket native and “Project Runway” contestant Jonathan Joseph Peters and at least one Rhode Island School of Design graduate.

The event is called StyleWeek Providence. Explaining the reason for bringing haute couture to DownCity, StyleWeek founder Rosanna Ortiz Sineal, a senior vice president at the Providence public relations firm Miamore Communications, was quoted in the ProJo as saying:

I just noticed that fashion events in New England are not taken seriously. I wanted to use Providence as a canvas to focus on the business of fashion.

Not to rain on the fashion parade, but methinks there is a reason why "fashion events in New England" are not taken seriously. Because nobody around here really cares whether their lime green purse was so last season or whether ruffled shirts accessorized by live parrots and eye patches are back in style. This tends to be a place that prefers things that last to things that are trendy. We've got Colonial houses still standing from the 1700s and Pilgrim hats good for any occasion that look as if they've never been out of the box.

So go enjoy yourself looking at the "glammuh" next week, but just remember that in these parts a faded Red Sox cap and a pair of Keens can get you through a whole summer.

The question is: How would you describe Rhode Island style?

Slogans R Us

2010-05-23T14:45:00.002-04:00

Good piece by Cynthia Needham of the ProJo last Wednesday on Rhode Island’s Sisyphean efforts to brand itself to the world. Most of the ad campaigns, as the reporter points out, have been dismal failures. Consider:

“The biggest little state in the union” was meant to build state pride, which was never lacking in the first place.
“America’s First Resort” was geared toward attracting the upscale traveler to our mansions and yacht-saturated waters. A better bet might have been pitching “America’s Last Resort” to the downscale traveler interested in our duckpin bowling alleys, mini-golf courses and weiner joints.
“Rhode Island - Our People Make Us Great” was the slogan of choice preferred by former Gov. Edward DiPrete, who eventually pled guilty to charges of bribery, extortion and racketeering.
“Unwind in Rhode Island” was an appeal to daytrippers. The campaign featured lush photos of coastal drives and rides on back roads through orchards and woods crowned in brilliant foliage. It was undermined by “Rewind in Rhode Island,” the state’s “Groundhog Day” problems with never-ending road construction and potholes the size of small galaxies.
“400 Miles of Rest Stops Ahead” was another pitch to the road tripper. Enticements included photos of couples lounging on white sand beaches near gently curling blue waves. Unfortunately, most people reading the ad thought it meant how long they still had to go in order to get to Maine.
Then the call went out to families. The picture changed to a kid happily playing in the surf, accompanied by the words: “This Summer, Put Your Kids Through the Rinse Cycle.” Yeah. It’s always a good idea to alienate your customers by insinuating that they have dirty kids.

Needless to say, none of Rhody’s slogans lasted long.

It’s not entirely the fault of marketing. Distilling the essence of Rhode Island to a bumper sticker sized phrase is a metaphysical impossibility. Another problem: There can only be one “I (Heart) New York.” “I (Heart) RI,” in addition to being derivative, doesn’t have the same cachet. And with the heart already taken, the rebus approach is probably not the way to go – although “Think RI,” expressed as “I (Light Bulb) RI” has a certain Edisonian cognitive charm.

Other possibilities:
“Rhode Island: We Are What We Are.”
“Rhode Island: New England Atmosphere, New York Attitude.”
“Got Fun? Rhody-Size It.”
“Rhode Island: Not for nothin’ but we need your money.”

Actually if I were “Mad Men”-ing this thing, I’d go with a series of simple, elegant, single panel photographs (culminating in 365 images overall, one for each day of the year) showing iconic Rhody scenes, with the slogan - “Rhode Island: Wicked Awesome.”

Short. Sweet. Colloquially correct. Got your wicked. Got your awesome. What else do you need?

This week’s question: What would be a good slogan for Rhode Island?

(Note: Early blog this week because of Monday travels, and next week there will be no Monday blog since your friendly neighborhood Monday blogger plans to be in a kayak or on a tennis court or at the beach or in the pub or all of the above, in no particular order. Check back after Memorial Day.)

Palmetto Rhode

2010-05-17T12:13:00.004-04:00

The question on everyone’s lips in South Carolina is: “Why is Rhode Island on a poster that is supposed to celebrate South Carolina culture?” (Actually that’s probably the third question, after “What’s that in the middle of our poster?” and “Where is Rhode Island?”)

Artist Maya Lin was selected to design the 2010 poster for the Spoleto Festival USA, one of the world’s top performing arts festivals, held annually in Charleston. For this year’s poster, titled “From Rhode Island to South Carolina,” she created a double panel deconstructed from a road atlas. The first presents the Ocean State in portrait format and the second shows the Palmetto State in landscape format. In the center of each, there is a crater-shaped hole (Rhode Island’s looks like an oyster), as if something has been dug away from its core.

Lin is no stranger to controversy. She is most famous for creating the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., which was viciously criticized at first but is now iconic – one of the most celebrated public art works of our time and the standard for what has become almost cliche in war memorial building.

Since the poster appeared, speculation has run rampant in the lower Carolina. Some say it’s merely a graphic association, since maps of Rhode Island and South Carolina appear in alphabetic order on an atlas. The festival’s general director Nigel Redden said that Lin revealed “a third dimension that typically we don’t see,” referring to the ambiguous relationship between the two states. Whatever the case, many are annoyed that Lin gave Rhode Island so much play in a festival that is one of South Carolina’s cultural highlights.

Trying to decipher the riddle, The Post and Courier of Charleston, S.C., reported that:

Both states are original New World colonies; both relied heavily on boats (for whaling in one case, slavery in the other); both are on the East Coast; both have two words in their name.

In a poll on public reaction to the poster conducted by the newspaper, 88 percent voted either “Don’t understand it” or “Don’t like it,” with only 12 percent saying they loved it or liked it.

More from The Post and Courier:

Jennifer Blackman, who works at the S.C. Aquarium, saw the poster at Rising High Cafe on East Bay Street.

“I’m trying to figure it out,” she said. “It’s the Rhode Island thing that’s confusing.”

Ellen Dressler Moryl, director of the city of Charleston’s Office of Cultural Affairs and chief curator of the Piccolo Spoleto Festival, said the excavations in Lin’s image look like ears and seem to be asking, “Are you really listening?”

At first baffled by the Rhode Island-South Carolina connection, Moryl experienced a bolt of understanding. Rhode Island, she said, has the oldest synagogue building in America; Charlestown has the oldest synagogue in continuous use in America.

That must be it, she said.

On the surface it seems a strange match. Two states: One Blue, one Red. One Union, one Confederate. They have Charleston; we have Charlestown. Rhode Island Red, South Carolina Gamecock. We share a few pirates in common. The same ocean. But otherwise, what’s the connection?

My two cents: It’s all about slavery and cultural identity. South Carolina was steeped in the slave trade and plantation culture, and in modern times it endured a very public controversy over the decision to continue flying the Confederate battle flag over the state house (until finally removing it in 2000). Meanwhile, Rhode Island’s role in the culture of slavery has received extensive examination in the press, the arts and academic circles in recent years. This November residents will be voting on a controversial referenda question about whether to keep the official name as “The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.” So Lin’s rendering is a slightly subversive, somewhat cryptic tale and history lesson of two states that have more in common than they know.

Whether that's true or not, most South Carolinians seem to be boycotting the Rhode Island-centric poster. But Rhode Islanders looking for something to hang next to “Dogs Playing Poker” on their walls can purchase a copy online for $25.

This week’s question: “With what state in the Other 49 does Rhode Island share the most in common, and why?”

Joe to Go

2010-05-10T15:10:00.004-04:00

Apparently G.I. Joe has a posse. Teeming multitudes of fans and collectors go for all things Joe around the world, and at the beginning of this month thousands of them arrived at home base alpha, descending upon Rhode Island for the 17th annual G.I. Joe Collectors Convention. The fact that there already have been 16 of these conventions around the world is surprising enough. Even odder: It’s the first time Joe groupies have gathered in the birthplace of the world’s most famous fighting figure.

In the interests of accuracy – and despite most wire service reports to the contrary – it should be noted that Providence isn’t actually home to the headquarters of Hasbro, the toy company that created G.I. Joe. That’s Pawtucket. But Providence is the nation’s only true city-state, so the error is a common one. It’s the same impulse that often locates T.F. Green Airport in Providence, even though it’s really in Warwick.

Anyway, they came from as far away as Belgium, Japan and Singapore to buy, trade, talk some Joe and meet “Joelebrities” – such as the original patent holder, a box artist and a marketing manager. Some of the Joe-heads dressed as characters from the ever-expanding Joeniverse, like the Baroness, Roadblock and Tunnel Rat.

“Joe Con,” as it’s known to collectors, was a plastic love-fest for “America’s moveable fighting man,” born in Pawtucket in 1964 as a 12-inch action figure, the anti-doll to Ken and Barbie. While the ravages of age have taken a physical toll (Joe has suffered from chronic shrinkage, and now measures around 3 inches), the years have been kind in a commercial sense. Star of big and small screen, with a mushrooming line of toy products and tie-ins, Joe is the little plastic piece of Americana that just won’t go away. So long as there are accessories and sealed boxes to make childhood memories tangible, there will be Joe.

All of this G.I. Joe talk reminds me that it has been a while since I’ve seen one of those tourism campaign Mr. Potato Heads anywhere in Rhode Island. A decade ago, Hasbro’s other star was the subject of a Cows on Parade-style tourism initiative in which artists made 6-foot Potato Heads and plopped them in communities around the state, much to the delight of local vandals. Rhode Island tourism officials apparently never considered that Mr. Potato Head is a toy that actually encourages vandalism. Anyway, these things eventually wore out their welcome. Pawtucket was smart enough to re-gift its spud statue to its sister-town of Belper, England a few years ago. The good folks of Belper hated it and tried to send it back. I never heard what eventually happened, but I can only assume that Pawtucket instituted the time-honored “no take-backs” rule among siblings.

This week’s question: Where have all the giant Mr. Potato Heads gone?

Slick for size
Friend, fellow Rhody-phile and reader Tom Viall passed along a recent size-of-Rhode-Islandism back when the Louisiana oil spill was roughly a spewing Rhode Island. Although weather will play a role in determining how big the slick actually gets, they’re no longer measuring it in Ocean States. Sadly, we may be talking about a goopy Montana before all is said and done.

The Rhode Islander

2010-05-03T14:31:00.002-04:00

Comedian Jeff Foxworthy built a career out of one gag: “You Might Be a Redneck If…” Readers of my Independent column, “Flotsam & Jetsam,” occasionally endure an Ocean State spin on that idea called “You Know You’re a Rhode Islander When…” In honor of tomorrow’s anniversary of Rhode Island Independence Day, I thought it might be a good time to revive the feature, borrowing liberally from my old columns, with a few new one-liners in the mix. So…

You Might Be a Littleneck If…

The world is your quahog.
Joe Mollicone still owes you money.
Celebrity means a float in the Bristol Fourth of July Parade.
You were there when Dylan went electric.
You order a cup of clam chowder and the waitress asks if you want red, white or clear.
You think of your inferiority complex as a superiority complex.
You’ve never met an adjective that couldn’t be improved by placing the word “wicked” in front of it.
Not even Martha Stewart can come up with more ways to use pizza dough.
You still call Twin River “Lincoln Downs” and remember betting on the horses before it went to the dogs.
You take the interstate just to find out how high the Powerball jackpot is today.
You can pronounce words in Italian, Portuguese, Narragansett and Wampanoag better than words in English.
You elected a Whitehouse to Congress.
You consider coffee one of the humors.
More people you know follow sailing than NASCAR.
You’ve eaten a Wimpy Skippy and a Murder Burger.
You’ve never eat at Long John Silver’s or Red Lobster.
You see your first snowflake of the year and wonder if there will be school in Foster-Glocester.
You know someone who claims a family heritage that dates back to both the Mayflower and the mob.
You have a Buddy story.
You think a whole season of “The Amazing Race” could be built around trying to get from Watch Hill to Woonsocket.
You once dangled a souvenir in a bucket behind home plate at McCoy Stadium to get a PawSox player’s autograph.
Your first experience going “all the way” was at a New York System Weiner joint.
You once bought a date to a horror movie at the Rustic Drive-In.
You accidentally click on your directional signal while driving and worry that the blinking green arrow is a sign of engine trouble.
You think all Ping-Pong balls come with numbers on them.
Sometimes you like to go to package stores just to browse.
You’ve given lottery tickets as stocking stuffers.
You have a boat in the yard that has never been in the water.
You believe that breakfast should have no curfew.
Your second home is about a 15-minute drive away from your first.
NBC stands for Narragansett Brewing Company, not National Broadcasting Company.
You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need at Ocean State Job Lot.
You bought tickets for the Broadway show “Wicked” thinking it was about Rhode Island.
It doesn’t feel like Christmas until you see the colored lights gleaming on the giant New England Pest Control termite overlooking I-95.
You never have to worry, because you know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy.
You have a Blizzard of ’78 story.
You choose your news channel based upon how much you trust the meteorologist.
Hiking the highest point in the state is the equivalent of five minutes on the Stairmaster.
It’s 20-below zero outside and the clerk at Dunkin’ Donuts asks whether you want your coffee hot or iced.
You order it iced.
You know somebody who knows Kevin Bacon.
You once took the Awful Awful challenge (“drink three, get one free”) and lost.
You know the menu at Gregg’s by heart, but always ask to see it anyway.
You’ve been to Pawtucket, Pawtuxet and Pawcatuck (Conn.) in the same day, but missed the whimsy.
You like your termites at least 58 feet long.
You’re suspicious of white eggs.
You can identify every condiment in the relish tray at Newport Creamery.
You call a night watchman a “security god” and the metal boundary that sometimes replaces a Jersey barrier a “god rail.”
You call a national sports radio show to mention how you were reading about “the PawSox in the ProJo while waiting in line at Benny’s” and expect the rest of the country to understand you.
You have friends on the East Bay who will never meet your friends on the West Bay.
You believe that a community can never have enough pharmacies or convenience stores.
You’d rather listen to a foghorn than the radio.
You’ve eaten a spinach pie at the beach.
You’ve got one headlight out but prefer to think of the glass as half full.
After you retire, you check the obituaries, your Powerball numbers and the weather, in that order.
You’ve eaten one clam cake too many.
You kind of miss the old Jamestown Bridge.
You think this could be the year that Miss Rhode Island makes the final cut.
You’d like to see how the Big Blue Bug would do against Mothra in a cage match.
Going out for coffee is always Plan B.
You don’t think of brown, green and red as colors but as a university, an airport and a chicken.
You prefer the counter to the booth.
You’ve used a quahog shell as an ashtray.
Hearing the phrase “Baywatch” makes you think of Trudy Coxe, not Pamela Anderson.
When it comes to corruption, you think that Rhode Island is like a Spinal Tap amplifier: It can go to 11.
You still have nightmares about driving endlessly around a Ring Road.
You have six degrees of separation from a Cardi brother.
In your neighborhood, lawn animals outnumber live ones.
You think people who aren’t willing to haggle shouldn’t hold yard sales.
Your epitaph reads: “YOU KILLED ME.”
The world gets a little fuzzy north of the Blackstone and south of the Pawcatuck.
Some of your favorite musical memories occurred at a barn in Matunuck and a tent in Warwick.
You once ran a red light because you were distracted by the Dancing Cop.
Someone invites you to a night of bowling and you ask, “Big ball or small ball?”
You grew up thinking everybody ate fish sticks on Friday.
When you hear the phrase “nectar of the gods,” you think: “coffee cabinet.”
As your last meal before being executed, you’d go for the buffet.
Somebody on your block owns a retired greyhound.
You divide the world into Autocrat people and Eclipse people.
Your GPS unit comes with a setting that gives directions by landmarks that no longer exist.
You throw out your car’s alignment by hitting a pothole and figure the next pothole will take care of it.
You judge people based on their condiment choices.
You see the monster in “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” and think, “all-you-can-eat calamari.”
Every time you scratch, you hope to see dollar signs.
What happens in Hope Valley stays in Hope Valley.

Your turn: You know you’re a Rhode Islander when…?

Token redemption

2010-04-26T10:26:00.002-04:00

It sounds like an oxymoron, or maybe we’re giving too much credit to the “oxy” part of the word, but last Friday the R.I. Turnpike and Bridge Authority restored our faith in PR jargon. The agency has this message for all Rhode Islanders or anyone passing through who hasn’t cleaned out his car in awhile:

For questions about token redemption, call 401-423-0800 or visit www.ritba.org.

Turns out RITBA isn’t actually trivializing the release of sin. It is merely informing us that the day is coming when we will no longer be able to trade in a brass coin with the Newport Pell Bridge imprint on it for an 83-cent check from the state. Token holders have until May 15 to get reimbursed for dropping off their bridge coins to the RIBTA customer service center. After that date, all collected tokens will be sold for their scrap metal value. The coins were replaced by the awkwardly-named E-ZPass transponder system last spring. The new transaction eliminates humans and token-catching baskets and the human error of missing the basket while tossing your token on the move. It involves a little white box that you put on your windshield, which sends a signal to the automated tollbooth to lift an orange-colored arm that lets you cross the bridge. (The arms used to be green, until Rhode Islanders kept smashing through them, prompting the color change.) The little white box also counts how many times you pass through a toll and calculates how much to charge your credit card. I’m told certain models of the little white box will even do your taxes.

Not for nothin’: UK edition
Rhode Islanders aren’t the only folks who understand the rhetorical eloquence and sway of a good “not for nothin’” barb. In the “Talking points” section of the March 27 edition of the British magazine The Week, editors made good use of the phrase. The report concerned the suspected corruption of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, which was complicit in allowing the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species to reject a worldwide ban on fishing for Atlantic bluefin tuna, even though stocks have declined to 15 percent of their historic levels. The decision likely served as a death warrant to the entire species, prompting The Week’s editors to write: “Not for nothing has this body been dubbed the ‘International Conspiracy to Catch All Tuna.’” Brilliant, despite the too-proper spelling of “nothing,” which no doubt takes a bit of the oomph out of the gibe for purists of Rhode Islandese.

Eyjafjallajokull
Oops. Had my fingers on the wrong keys and ended up typing an Icelandic volcano.

But come to think of it, the volcanic ash cloud from Iceland has dominated the headlines for a couple of weeks now without a single size of Rhode Island reference. The closest I could find was buried in the comments section of a Huffington Post story. In a thread about natural disasters and global warming, poster Rob the Plumber (no relation to Joe, apparently), had this to say:

Global warming has resulted in acceleration of glacial calving in the northern hemisphere and increased seasonal breakouts of polar bergs. In the south, ice sheets in Antarctica are breaking off, resulting in icebergs the size of Rhode Island.

But of course we already knew that. (See “Floating Rhody,” posted April 5.) Still, the thought of doomsday arriving in the shape of Rhode Island-sized clouds made from volcanic ash traveling the globe on prevailing winds may inspire a little token redemption after all.

At any rate, the volcanic plume has created travel nightmares for millions, which, as we like to say, got us to thinkin’: What is your best worst travel story?

Tarzan Brown Day

2010-04-19T17:03:00.002-04:00

This being Marathon Monday in Boston, we thought it might be a good time to reminisce about one of New England’s best long-distance runners, the late Ellison Myers Brown. Widely known as Tarzan Brown, the Charlestown resident and member of the Narragansett tribe was born and raised in poverty on a reservation, worked as a stonemason and a shellfisherman, and became one of the world’s great marathoners in his 20s. Among his accomplishments: Brown was a two-time winner of the Boston Marathon (1936 and 1939), a participant in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin and in 1939 won 16 consecutive New England road races. (He only lost going for his 17th straight because the winner received a 2-minute, 30-second time handicap advantage. Brown ran faster, but couldn’t make up the time he had to give away. Later that year he won several other races, including the 15-mile New York World’s Fair invitational that mapped a course through the global curiosities decorating Queens. The very next day he raced in Boston at “the Beehive,” the home of the National League Bees – previously known as the Braves – and won a 10-mile celebrity runners Field Day race, giving him 20 outright victories in 22 races to that point that year.)

Fellow runner and Boston Marathon champ (1957) John J. Kelley wrote about Brown in the introduction to Michael Ward’s book, “Ellison ‘Tarzan’ Brown: The Narragansett Indian Who Twice Won the Boston Marathon:”

The legend of Tarzan Brown, like all legends, loomed larger than life. Yet the man who took his nickname from Edgar Rice Burrough’s famous jungle hero would never settle for static stone. He reveled in the pleasures and the pitfalls of the flesh.

A week after he won his first Boston Marathon the R.I. legislature passed a bill designating an annual holiday in his honor. The now defunct Boston Traveler noted it this way in its sports section:

“‘Tarzan Brown Day’ is New R.I. Holiday”

There are those who thought Arlington’s Johnny Kelley was overidolized after his victory in the B.A.A. marathon last year, but the state of Rhode Island has gone completely daffy over its new tercentenary B.A.A. champion, Ellison “Tarzan” Brown, the Narragansett Indian.
They’re treating him to a round of banquets and festivities which has him dizzy and only yesterday the Rhode Island Legislature went to the extreme with a tasty bit of tercentenary publicity. The boys passed a bill which forever establishes a Rhode Island holiday to be known as “Tarzan” Brown Day. They haven’t decided the date yet. They’re leaving that to the fathers of the Narragansett tribe.

Turns out the tribe changed the name of the day, at Tarzan Brown’s request, to “Indian Day in Rhode Island.” A year later Indian Day was signed into law to be held on June 14, with no mention of Tarzan Brown and no reason why it was moved from April. Records are unclear as to when Rhode Islanders stopped celebrating Indian Day, although there is a statute on the books that states:

25-2-4. Narragansett Indian Day.

The last Saturday before the second Sunday in August shall annually be set apart as a day to be known as the “Rhode Island Indian Day of the Narragansett tribe of Indians.” The day is to be observed by the people of this state with appropriate exercises in public places and otherwise commemorative of the Narragansett tribe of Indians.

In 1939, Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller wrote a letter to Tarzan Brown complaining about his nickname. The emerging Hollywood star had recently agreed to play Tarzan in the movies (his first film was “Tarzan the Ape Man”) and threatened legal action against Brown – even though the runner had claimed the nickname since childhood, long before the swimmer discovered the movies.

Brown’s story has a sad end. He was killed in 1975 when a van struck him in a parking lot outside of a Misquamicut bar called The Wreck.

Tarzan Brown’s legacy includes having one of the more descriptive nicknames in Rhode Island history, although his Narragansett tribal name, “Deerfoot,” was perhaps even more apt. Sports figures in Rhody have a long tradition of terrific names – Nap Lajoie, Gabby Hartnett and Rocco Baldelli in baseball; Lyle Wildgoose, the former Providence College hockey player; and boxer Vinnie Pazienza, who also goes by Vinnie Paz and boxed under the nickname, “The Pazmanian Devil.” Even better are some of our mobsters, known colloquially as “The Blind Pig,” “The Moron,” “Fat Bastard” and “Baby Shacks.”

What is your favorite nickname associated with Rhode Island?

Reality check

2010-04-12T11:15:00.004-04:00

There must be something in the water. Despite its diminutive size, the Ocean State is crawling with reality TV show contestants. If I had the resources or the inclination, I could probably prove that Rhody ranks first in the category of most reality TV show contestants per capita in the nation. Since I don't, I will instead take the lazy blogger's way out and declare it to be true anyway, citing anonymous sources and anecdotal and circumstantial evidence. (I get it now, Drudge. This is how you roll.) But here's a fact: Sixteen Rhode Islanders competed on reality TV shows this season – 18 if you count two Rhode Island School of Design graduates. And it’s not just that they show up. They last. And they leave an impression.

It all began with the first reality TV mega-hit, “Survivor: Borneo.” The First Survivor, Richard Hatch of Middletown, not only won – he established the blueprint for how every succeeding Survivor would be victorious after him. Hatch parlayed nude, crude, rude and cunning into a winning hand. Since then, he’s pieced together a reality TV resume that has not been as impressive, including an appearance on the Australian version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” in which he became the first person in Oz “Millionaire” history to go home with nothing. As in $0.00.

Hatch deserves some credit for attaining the highest achievement in the state, which we like to call the Rhody Triple Crown (mostly recently won by former Providence Mayor Buddy Cianci):

Minor celebrity. Federal prisoner. Radio talk show host. (In no particular order.)

Since Hatch, more than 50 Rhode Islanders have appeared on reality TV. The most famous nationally is probably Elisabeth Hasselbeck (formerly Filarski) of Cranston. In her Filarski days, she became one of the most popular contestants on “Survivor,” appearing during the “Australian Outback” season, before marrying a professional football player and starring as the flashpoint conservative on “The View.”

This year, two teams of Rhode Islanders are still in the running in “The Amazing Race.” The Barrington brothers Dan and Jordan Pious and narcotics officers Louis D. Stravato of Bristol and Michael Naylor of Warwick, working as detectives for the police departments in Providence and Newport, respectively, are two of the 4 teams remaining in the competition. The detectives, who gave a shout out to “Rhode Island” on a recent episode, have been a standout hit with audiences but of course this wouldn’t be Rhody without a juicy scandal. Last month TMZ reported that Stravato was linked to a cop-operated cocaine ring and has been restricted to desk duty pending an internal investigation.

On Thursday, University of Rhode Island professor Robert Ballard, the Titanic discoverer, will appear on the National Geographic Channel program “Known Universe.” On the show, he says:

By far the most important discovery I’ve ever made was not the Titanic. It was when we discovered this whole new life system on this planet.

Yes, it’s called Rhode Island.

Actually, Ballard is referring to the discovery of life near hydrothermal vents 2.5 miles below the ocean’s surface. Strange, yes. Fascinating, surely. But not nearly as strange and fascinating as reality TV’s Rhode Island obsession. (The same series features Brown professor of geology Peter Schultz demonstrating how the dinosaur-asteroid collision might have occurred.)

Disc jockey “Pauly D,” a.k.a. Paul Delvecchio from Johnston, is a member of the incomprehensively popular “Jersey Shore” cast. Spoofed on “Saturday Night Live,” invited to late night talk shows, the cast is cashing in on what Rhode Islanders have seen and heard for free by going to Scarborough Beach for the last 50 years.

Why so many Rhode Islanders? Well, TV producers generally go for two things: sexy and quirky. With rare exception, Rhode Island doesn’t really do sexy. But we practically invented quirky. Especially when accompanied by a healthy sense of humor. (See “Family Guy.” Farrelly Brothers movies. Don Bousquet cartoons. May breakfasts. Political history. Rhode Island-ese as a Second Language. Quahogs, jonnycakes, littlenecks, cherrystones, soupys, strip pizza, stuffies, weiners and pretty much anything on the menu. Big Blue Bug. Mr. Potato Head. Oscar the Death Cat.)

What would be a good reality TV show based in Rhode Island?