The first major snowstorm of the year struck Rhode Island this weekend and the state was predictably paralyzed. Shoppers cleaned shelves of milk and bread. Drivers pumped gas tanks dry. Schools, organizations and some businesses canceled business a day before the storm. Part of the panic is primal - anxiety in the collective psyche of all Rhode Islanders who survived the Blizzard of ‘78. But it’s also rooted in reality. Despite the advance warning, the plows waited until the snow came tumbling down to begin sanding, salting and pre-treating the white stuff, exacerbating the slippery conditions.
You’d think a state that began its life as a glacier could deal with a little snow. Last year the executive director of the State Emergency Agency and the Providence Director of Emergency Management were both fired for their roles in a chaotic first snowstorm that left some schoolchildren stranded on buses until just before midnight.
Leading to this week's question: What is your favorite or wildest snowstorm memory?
Monday, December 22, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
Going for Baroque
The Christmas season has always blended the pagan and the Christian, merging stories of Santa Claus and Jesus Christ, lighting evergreen trees and church candles, uttering wishes and prayers with equal conviction. But there are some strange partnerships this season in my neighborhood and surrounding communities. Nativity scenes seem to be on the rise, but they are not limited to Mary, Joseph, the Three Wise Men, the shepherds, the Baby Jesus and the odd donkey, sheep or camel. Every so often you see a penguin or a polar bear lurking among the barnyard animals. Reindeer and camels intermingle. While not yet part of the inner circle, Santa and Frosty are within a snowball’s distance of the Wise Men. One house down the street has propped up a cardboard Nativity on the left side of the front door and a complementary scene featuring Charlie Brown and the gang celebrating a Peanuts’ Christmas to the right of it. Even more disturbing are those lawns along Route 114 that showcase giant, grotesquely inflated, plastic blow-up Nativity figures. It’s one thing to see a glowing Baby Jesus the size of a giant pumpkin. It’s another to see the same Baby Jesus in 52 mph wind gusts, zipping around the yard in his manger, only to be strewn, punctured by a tree branch and flattened in the grass the next morning.
What is the most disturbing holiday decoration you’ve seen so far?
For Scrooge-aholics
Trinity Repertory’s annual production of “A Christmas Carol” is only one of eight versions of the famed Charles Dickens tale now playing within driving distance of the average Rhode Islander. Scrooge runs amok at the Hartford Stage in Connecticut, the Artists’ Exchange in Cranston, the Attleboro Community Theatre in Massachusetts, the Swamp Meadow Community Theatre in Foster, the Granite Theatre in Westerly, the Zeiterion Theatre in New Bedford and at a one-man show in Mansfield, Mass. While it seems like Scrooge overkill, it’s hard to blame strapped theaters for trying to conjure up the Ghost of Christmas Box Office Past to salvage a dreary ticket season.
Rhody Universe: David Byrne worked in a weiner joint
Back in the dark ages of the 1970s, David Byrne, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz hung around Providence as students at the Rhode Island School of Design. Eventually they would form three-quarters of The Talking Heads, considered one of the all-time great bands by music fans of a certain vintage. Ever since, as Byrne grew to iconic status, Providence adopted him as a favorite son. While the feeling isn’t exactly mutual, Byrne does remember his time in Providence, as recounted in the Nov. 28 edition of The Providence Phoenix. The most interesting revelation? Byrne once logged hours in a New York System, selling gaggers by the arm.
What is the most disturbing holiday decoration you’ve seen so far?
For Scrooge-aholics
Trinity Repertory’s annual production of “A Christmas Carol” is only one of eight versions of the famed Charles Dickens tale now playing within driving distance of the average Rhode Islander. Scrooge runs amok at the Hartford Stage in Connecticut, the Artists’ Exchange in Cranston, the Attleboro Community Theatre in Massachusetts, the Swamp Meadow Community Theatre in Foster, the Granite Theatre in Westerly, the Zeiterion Theatre in New Bedford and at a one-man show in Mansfield, Mass. While it seems like Scrooge overkill, it’s hard to blame strapped theaters for trying to conjure up the Ghost of Christmas Box Office Past to salvage a dreary ticket season.
Rhody Universe: David Byrne worked in a weiner joint
Back in the dark ages of the 1970s, David Byrne, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz hung around Providence as students at the Rhode Island School of Design. Eventually they would form three-quarters of The Talking Heads, considered one of the all-time great bands by music fans of a certain vintage. Ever since, as Byrne grew to iconic status, Providence adopted him as a favorite son. While the feeling isn’t exactly mutual, Byrne does remember his time in Providence, as recounted in the Nov. 28 edition of The Providence Phoenix. The most interesting revelation? Byrne once logged hours in a New York System, selling gaggers by the arm.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Rocket blog
Last Friday I sacrificed a vacation day to fix the hard drive on my laptop. After enduring a couple of hours of frustration and failure, playing the part of Dave to my MacBook’s Hal, I made an appointment with the Genius Bar at the Apple Store in the Providence Place Mall. Arriving 15 minutes early, I was encouraged to play with the computers on site, so I positioned myself in front of a screen the size of Fenway’s Green Monster and started scrolling through online newspapers. Next to me was a man who appeared to be in his 30s, dancing in place and singing at high volume to Elton John’s “Rocket Man.”
While he sang and moved without rhythm, Rocket Man tried to make eye contact. I kept the corner of my left eye on alert in the event of rocket launch, while studiously reading the latest news on the Celtics and Bruins. My 15-minute wait turned into 45, and Rocket Man continued grooving to the beat of his own planet, eventually working his way through the entire Elton John discography.
Finally the Genius Bar opened. I left Rocket Man to “Crocodile Rock” and “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” on his own. After a couple of hours of diagnostics and repairs and installing updates, I had my computer back, took note of Rocket Man’s sudden disappearance from the Apple atmosphere, slogged through Providence traffic and got to my home on the cove just as the sun went down. Even though I was grateful that my pictures had been salvaged on iPhoto, it felt like a waste of a day, until I rounded the bend to watch and listen to masses of geese migrating, joining one another in V formation, flying above the waves and below the blood-red sunset. Somehow though, in the cacophony of honking, all I could hear was “Rocket Man.”
The tedium of the mundane can be transcended by an instant of nature, and a fleeting moment can save a day. But I think it’s gonna be a long, long time before I get that damn song out of my head...
This week’s question: If hell had a jukebox, what songs would play on it?
Rhody on Ice
This week’s size of Rhode Island reference links to an artistic rendering of the famed 2002 Larsen B Ice Shelf collapse. For some reason, the clunky drawing has the Ocean State toppled over horizontally, like the chalk outline of a homicide victim.
Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids
In fact it’s cold as hell
And there’s no one there to raise them if you did
And all this science I don’t understand
It’s just my job five days a week
A rocket man, a rocket man
While he sang and moved without rhythm, Rocket Man tried to make eye contact. I kept the corner of my left eye on alert in the event of rocket launch, while studiously reading the latest news on the Celtics and Bruins. My 15-minute wait turned into 45, and Rocket Man continued grooving to the beat of his own planet, eventually working his way through the entire Elton John discography.
Finally the Genius Bar opened. I left Rocket Man to “Crocodile Rock” and “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” on his own. After a couple of hours of diagnostics and repairs and installing updates, I had my computer back, took note of Rocket Man’s sudden disappearance from the Apple atmosphere, slogged through Providence traffic and got to my home on the cove just as the sun went down. Even though I was grateful that my pictures had been salvaged on iPhoto, it felt like a waste of a day, until I rounded the bend to watch and listen to masses of geese migrating, joining one another in V formation, flying above the waves and below the blood-red sunset. Somehow though, in the cacophony of honking, all I could hear was “Rocket Man.”
The tedium of the mundane can be transcended by an instant of nature, and a fleeting moment can save a day. But I think it’s gonna be a long, long time before I get that damn song out of my head...
This week’s question: If hell had a jukebox, what songs would play on it?
Rhody on Ice
This week’s size of Rhode Island reference links to an artistic rendering of the famed 2002 Larsen B Ice Shelf collapse. For some reason, the clunky drawing has the Ocean State toppled over horizontally, like the chalk outline of a homicide victim.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Loose change
A Web site on Ideas for Change in America is seeking your input on how to make things better. It’s described as “a citizen-driven project that aims to identify and create momentum around the best ideas for how the Obama Administration and the 111th Congress can turn the broad call for ‘change’ across the country into specific policies.” The site is designed to be nonpartisan and invites all political points of view. Anyone can submit an idea or comment and vote on others. The top 10 ranked ideas will be presented to the Obama Administration on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, as the “Top 10 Ideas for America.” A national campaign will be launched in support of each idea.
But not every light bulb burns the same wattage. As of this posting, change.org listed about 1,500 suggested ideas. Among them – Repeal the Patriot Act. Create a global union of states. End the war on drugs. Legalize marijuana. Create a Department of Innovation. Create a Department of Peace. Close Guantanamo. Make Election Day a national holiday. Tell the truth about extraterrestrial contact. Make free trees available to the public. Remove the nonprofit status from churches that are politically active. Give all veterans the day off on Veterans Day. Get rid of daylight-saving time. Promote bicycle transportation. Create a cabinet position on Violence against Women. Put prayer back in schools. Conduct no business on Sundays. Launch a National Service Corps to improve the nation’s infrastructure. Mandate vegan school lunches in addition to standard fare. Plant a large organic victory garden on the White House lawn. Stop the live skinning of animals.
It’s an intriguing read, representing a broad spectrum of interests from leftist to centrist to rightist. At minimum, the site proves that thoughtful consideration of ways in which change can be a positive force is a worthwhile exercise. Leading to this week’s question: If you could change one thing about Rhode Island, what would it be?
Diehards
The lasting image of the 2004 World Series championship by the Boston Red Sox – the team’s first in 86 years – was the sight of nearly every graveyard in New England festooned in Sox caps, jerseys and pennants. Rooting for the Red Sox is a cradle-to-grave activity for members of the Nation, but now the dearly departed don’t have to give up the ghost. The first officially licensed Red Sox casket arrived in Rockland, Mass., serial No. 0001, at the Magoun-Biggins Funeral Home. The casket is manufactured by Eternal Image of Michigan, which creates branded funeral products for corporations as varied as Major League Baseball, the Vatican Library, the American Kennel Club and Star Trek. Not surprisingly, the Red Sox and Yankees are running neck-and-neck in the afterlife biz, well ahead of all other teams and products in sales of team-logo caskets and urns. Last year, the Sox stopped the popular practice of fans scattering the ashes of their loved ones on the grounds of Fenway Park, after the number of dying wishes became too overwhelming to accommodate. Recently traded centerfielder Coco Crisp had the baseball quote of the year when he talked about patrolling an outfield that was part-grass, part-warning track and part-cremation ash: “It’s kind of freaky knowing you’re diving into somebody’s grandpa.”
Mining for Size
Found this in a USA Today story from last year about the environmentally destructive coal mining practice called “mountaintop removal.”
But not every light bulb burns the same wattage. As of this posting, change.org listed about 1,500 suggested ideas. Among them – Repeal the Patriot Act. Create a global union of states. End the war on drugs. Legalize marijuana. Create a Department of Innovation. Create a Department of Peace. Close Guantanamo. Make Election Day a national holiday. Tell the truth about extraterrestrial contact. Make free trees available to the public. Remove the nonprofit status from churches that are politically active. Give all veterans the day off on Veterans Day. Get rid of daylight-saving time. Promote bicycle transportation. Create a cabinet position on Violence against Women. Put prayer back in schools. Conduct no business on Sundays. Launch a National Service Corps to improve the nation’s infrastructure. Mandate vegan school lunches in addition to standard fare. Plant a large organic victory garden on the White House lawn. Stop the live skinning of animals.
It’s an intriguing read, representing a broad spectrum of interests from leftist to centrist to rightist. At minimum, the site proves that thoughtful consideration of ways in which change can be a positive force is a worthwhile exercise. Leading to this week’s question: If you could change one thing about Rhode Island, what would it be?
Diehards
The lasting image of the 2004 World Series championship by the Boston Red Sox – the team’s first in 86 years – was the sight of nearly every graveyard in New England festooned in Sox caps, jerseys and pennants. Rooting for the Red Sox is a cradle-to-grave activity for members of the Nation, but now the dearly departed don’t have to give up the ghost. The first officially licensed Red Sox casket arrived in Rockland, Mass., serial No. 0001, at the Magoun-Biggins Funeral Home. The casket is manufactured by Eternal Image of Michigan, which creates branded funeral products for corporations as varied as Major League Baseball, the Vatican Library, the American Kennel Club and Star Trek. Not surprisingly, the Red Sox and Yankees are running neck-and-neck in the afterlife biz, well ahead of all other teams and products in sales of team-logo caskets and urns. Last year, the Sox stopped the popular practice of fans scattering the ashes of their loved ones on the grounds of Fenway Park, after the number of dying wishes became too overwhelming to accommodate. Recently traded centerfielder Coco Crisp had the baseball quote of the year when he talked about patrolling an outfield that was part-grass, part-warning track and part-cremation ash: “It’s kind of freaky knowing you’re diving into somebody’s grandpa.”
Mining for Size
Found this in a USA Today story from last year about the environmentally destructive coal mining practice called “mountaintop removal.”
Without further restrictions, 2,200 square miles of Appalachian forests – an area twice the size of Rhode Island – will be eliminated by 2012.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Thanksgiving edition
By tradition, the Norris clan travels to North Portland, Maine, every Thanksgiving, to celebrate with lifelong friends and former Rhode Islanders, the Conforti family. One year, after clearing plates cleaned of turkey, walnut-and-wild rice stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce (both homemade and canned), sweet potato, antipasto, Italian Wedding soup, roasted chestnuts, green beans, carrots, squash, pies of pumpkin, apple, pecan (and occasionally strawberry rhubarb), glasses of red wine and ale, and cups of coffee, my father reached into his pockets, spilling the future of Thanksgiving onto the dining room table.
Pills, in bottles and bowls, tumbled onto the tablecloth. They made small piles of harvest colors – sienna capsules, egg-yellow ovals, oblong blues and breath mint-sized medicine colored orange, white, beige and blue-green.
“This is for my prostate,” Dad said, swallowing three orange ovals. He paused for effect, a twinkle in his eye. “And this is for my colon.” Three big beige capsules disappeared in a mouthful.
Our friend Joe joined in the chant, whenever he heard the appropriate affliction.
“This is for my arthritis.” Three white capsules vanished while Dad reached for something blue.
“This is for my depression.” Something yellow next. “This is for my blood pressure.” Then he held up a pill called ginkgo biloba and tapped his head. “For my memory.”
Fingers plunged into another bowl, grasping a vitamin C and two echinacea capsules.
“For the cold I’m fighting.”
The drug store Thanksgiving lasted as long as the feast.
“This comes from African tree bark,” said Dad, holding up his final pill.
Then Joe: “These use flower pollen from an unpolluted part of Sweden.”
Leading of course to this week’s question: What was your funniest or most memorable Thanksgiving experience?
When Size Meets Universe
Here at Half Shell, we believe in the separation of church and state, but not when it involves the “size of Rhode Island.” The following items referencing the research of Smithsonian astronomer Margaret Geller were plucked from the Web sites The Real Truth, maintained by the Restored Church of God and Watchtower, the online site for Jehovah’s Witnesses. (For those who don’t like proselytizing, we’ll keep the links a mystery. Feel free to Google away to your heart’s content.)
Not for nothin’, but here in the birthplace of G.I. Joe, Dee Dee Myers and religious freedom, the notion of picturing the whole world from the vantage point of Rhode Island doesn’t sound that far-fetched.
Pills, in bottles and bowls, tumbled onto the tablecloth. They made small piles of harvest colors – sienna capsules, egg-yellow ovals, oblong blues and breath mint-sized medicine colored orange, white, beige and blue-green.
“This is for my prostate,” Dad said, swallowing three orange ovals. He paused for effect, a twinkle in his eye. “And this is for my colon.” Three big beige capsules disappeared in a mouthful.
Our friend Joe joined in the chant, whenever he heard the appropriate affliction.
“This is for my arthritis.” Three white capsules vanished while Dad reached for something blue.
“This is for my depression.” Something yellow next. “This is for my blood pressure.” Then he held up a pill called ginkgo biloba and tapped his head. “For my memory.”
Fingers plunged into another bowl, grasping a vitamin C and two echinacea capsules.
“For the cold I’m fighting.”
The drug store Thanksgiving lasted as long as the feast.
“This comes from African tree bark,” said Dad, holding up his final pill.
Then Joe: “These use flower pollen from an unpolluted part of Sweden.”
Leading of course to this week’s question: What was your funniest or most memorable Thanksgiving experience?
When Size Meets Universe
Here at Half Shell, we believe in the separation of church and state, but not when it involves the “size of Rhode Island.” The following items referencing the research of Smithsonian astronomer Margaret Geller were plucked from the Web sites The Real Truth, maintained by the Restored Church of God and Watchtower, the online site for Jehovah’s Witnesses. (For those who don’t like proselytizing, we’ll keep the links a mystery. Feel free to Google away to your heart’s content.)
1) Made in the 1980s, the first 3-D visualization of the universe was chosen for the northern sky. Although that survey covered a spectrum of [more than] 500 million light years, Geller likened this panorama to trying to visualize the structure of the continents and the oceans of the earth by examining a map the size of Rhode Island.
2) Interpretations of cosmic structure on the basis of current mapping of the heavens are far from definitive – more like trying to picture the whole world from a survey of Rhode Island, USA.
Not for nothin’, but here in the birthplace of G.I. Joe, Dee Dee Myers and religious freedom, the notion of picturing the whole world from the vantage point of Rhode Island doesn’t sound that far-fetched.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Extreme makeover edition
The lively experiment of Blog on the Half Shell continues. While building on our obsession with “size of Rhode Island” references and anything with an Ocean State of mind, we’ll also be asking a question each week. So post a comment and we’ll see if Half Shell can get a half-life…
Budget blues
A friend of mine, a waitress, spent a recent Saturday afternoon waiting for customers.
“You know the worst part,” she asked. “Everybody who walks through the door looks at me, shakes their head and says, ‘It’s the economy, isn’t it?’ Well, you know, maybe it’s just a slow Saturday. We had those when the economy was good, too.”
Point taken, but my friend would be the first to admit that Easy Street is a dead end these days. The same waitresses and bartenders who paid their heating and electric bills by working a double on Saturdays have seen their income cut by half. Shoppers aren’t shopping. Some businesses have closed. And the daily drumbeat of bankruptcies, foreclosures, debts, defaults and layoffs has the sound and fury of a Keith Moon solo.
Everybody I know is cutting back. Clipping coupons. Eating in. Buying only what we absolutely need at the grocery store. Even those of us who are fortunate enough to still have jobs are juggling bills more than ever before, getting by paycheck to paycheck.
Several polls reinforce what we see around us on a daily basis. All of them, from Quinnipiac College to Gallup, indicate that consumers are already implementing huge cutbacks in dining out, entertainment and leisure, heating or cooling their homes, vacations and charitable giving.
For what it’s worth, I began by putting the plastic in solitary confinement, locking up my credit card for good until the debt is paid. I refused to turn on the heat until November and continue to keep it low enough to require fleece and sweatshirts some nights. I shop for groceries judiciously, using only whatever dollars happen to be squirming around in the wallet. I use the weekly Borders coupon to buy a single book at a reduced rate, stockpiling gifts for the holiday season. I eat out socially just once a week (a far cry from my devil-may-care pub-crawling past). I jog more and golf less. I spend one night of the week at the library, where I check out books instead of buying them for myself. I’ve postponed travels and vacations and will be sticking closer to home for the foreseeable future, although I refuse to call it a “staycation.” I have also, I admit, stopped giving as much to non-profits, charitable causes and in-store tip jars. I’m rolling quarters, dimes and nickels again and depositing them in the bank (not quite ready to plunge into the pennies yet). I’m breaking out bottles of red wine that have been sitting in a rack for years. I’ve agreed with my friends to cancel our Christmas gift exchange and just enjoy dinner and a night of board games together instead.
How are you cutting back in these tough economic times?
Post a comment, and maybe we can all figure out how to endure the recession together.
Size of Rhode Island alert
The adventure travel Web site World Hum entices us to visit post-nuclear Chernobyl, where “The flora and fauna in an area the size of Rhode Island are still radioactive…”
Budget blues
A friend of mine, a waitress, spent a recent Saturday afternoon waiting for customers.
“You know the worst part,” she asked. “Everybody who walks through the door looks at me, shakes their head and says, ‘It’s the economy, isn’t it?’ Well, you know, maybe it’s just a slow Saturday. We had those when the economy was good, too.”
Point taken, but my friend would be the first to admit that Easy Street is a dead end these days. The same waitresses and bartenders who paid their heating and electric bills by working a double on Saturdays have seen their income cut by half. Shoppers aren’t shopping. Some businesses have closed. And the daily drumbeat of bankruptcies, foreclosures, debts, defaults and layoffs has the sound and fury of a Keith Moon solo.
Everybody I know is cutting back. Clipping coupons. Eating in. Buying only what we absolutely need at the grocery store. Even those of us who are fortunate enough to still have jobs are juggling bills more than ever before, getting by paycheck to paycheck.
Several polls reinforce what we see around us on a daily basis. All of them, from Quinnipiac College to Gallup, indicate that consumers are already implementing huge cutbacks in dining out, entertainment and leisure, heating or cooling their homes, vacations and charitable giving.
For what it’s worth, I began by putting the plastic in solitary confinement, locking up my credit card for good until the debt is paid. I refused to turn on the heat until November and continue to keep it low enough to require fleece and sweatshirts some nights. I shop for groceries judiciously, using only whatever dollars happen to be squirming around in the wallet. I use the weekly Borders coupon to buy a single book at a reduced rate, stockpiling gifts for the holiday season. I eat out socially just once a week (a far cry from my devil-may-care pub-crawling past). I jog more and golf less. I spend one night of the week at the library, where I check out books instead of buying them for myself. I’ve postponed travels and vacations and will be sticking closer to home for the foreseeable future, although I refuse to call it a “staycation.” I have also, I admit, stopped giving as much to non-profits, charitable causes and in-store tip jars. I’m rolling quarters, dimes and nickels again and depositing them in the bank (not quite ready to plunge into the pennies yet). I’m breaking out bottles of red wine that have been sitting in a rack for years. I’ve agreed with my friends to cancel our Christmas gift exchange and just enjoy dinner and a night of board games together instead.
How are you cutting back in these tough economic times?
Post a comment, and maybe we can all figure out how to endure the recession together.
Size of Rhode Island alert
The adventure travel Web site World Hum entices us to visit post-nuclear Chernobyl, where “The flora and fauna in an area the size of Rhode Island are still radioactive…”
Monday, November 10, 2008
Bluest of them all?
Not quite, but based on the recent Presidential Election, Rhode Island is closer to indigo than sky. Rhody ranked third in states showing the greatest margin of victory for President-Elect Obama (28 percent), just behind Hawaii (Obama's native state) and Vermont and just ahead of Massachusetts and New York. By contrast, McCain's largest margin of victory came in Wyoming and Oklahoma, with Utah a solid third and Idaho and Alaska also seeing red. Local Republicans are frustrated by the ritualistic dominance of Dems, but they're at a symbolic disadvantage since the last thing you ever want to see in an Ocean State is a red tide.
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