There are days a city feels like a place — and days it feels like a heartbeat.
On Marathon Monday, the Boston Marathon turns Boston into something bigger: a chorus of cheers, a chain of encouragement, thirty-thousand quiet battles carried across 26.2 miles with pride in every step.
We’re lucky to live just above Heartbreak Hill (meet me in a dark bar sometime and I’ll tell you how it got its name), so it’s easy to watch the race. These pictures are a small snapshot of the thousands of people lining the route, cheering on the runners. That one runner, making the ❤️over his head? That’s because we all erupted for him when he approached and that energy fed him instantly.
That happens again and again and it’s amazing each time.
Today, we don’t just watch. We witness. We celebrate. We carry each other forward.
Boston Strong, baby.
(And yes, I’m now in the shop. If you’re on the right side of Comm Ave, stop by.)
There’s a stunning poem in Kevin Young’s prizewinning collection, Night Watch. It speaks of tulips pushing up from the earth, in April, and what the dead want.
Know what I want? I want Boston bunnies to stop going all salad bar in our garden. You think they’re cute? They’re not cute. They’re savages.
Anyone have a good recipe for Lapin Chasseur? I’m open to ideas.
Anyway. Poetry. It’s sometimes meant to calm the soul. I thought, “It’s April! My tulips are sprouting! Let’s take a picture with one of my favorite collections from last year that mentions those beautiful spring flowers!”
Outside, lights and camera in hand, I was met with carnage, with what looked like the aftermath of Sherman’s March. So now in addition to the remarkable words contained in Night Watch, I also need a stiff shot of cognac to settle my nerves and to add to the stew I’m starting to think about.
Tulips
What the dead want— shelter—opposable
thumbs—to quit being
compared to taxes, as if they can be
evaded. Each April
Sadly, sadly wiser,
& alone
they push up like tulips from the earth,
perennial as pain.
Trouble me again.
Wonderful evening celebrating the paperback release of Annie Hartnett’s remarkable novel, The Road to Tender Hearts.
As you may know, Annie was a bookseller here in the Long Ago, so it’s always a blast to welcome her back to Newtonville Books. If you haven’t read her latest, now is the perfect time to pick up a signed copy from your favorite Indie bookstore!
(Boots were not planned, but serendipitously were perfect. If you can guess which boot is Annie’s, drinks are on me when next we meet!)
Tonight at 7pm, @annie_hartnett launches the gorgeous paperback of THE ROAD TO TENDER HEARTS at NVB. We LOVE this book and are so happy your book clubs can now read it, those with the no-hardcover rules!
If you can’t make it tonight, don’t worry, we’ll be talking this up for a long time!
#theroadtotenderhearts
What a fabulous pre-launch launch of Love & Other Monsters from Emily Franklin! She had the crowd (standing room only!) rapt!
And while we have (a few!) signed copies for you at the store, the Punch? She is gone — but not forgotten. All ingredients, as usual, were waiting for me in Emily’s pages.
Love & Other Monsters Villa Punch:
6 cups black tea (like Earl Grey — something with a title, like Lord Byron), chilled
2 cups rhubarb syrup
1.5 cups orange juice (all juice — fresh, please!)
.75 cups lemon juice
.5 cup lime juice
1.5 cups plum juice
.5 cups fennel simple syrup
5 drops rose water
Pinch of salt
4 cups sparkling water (added just before serving)
If Mary Shelley were a contemporary, she might ask: “My dear Nicholas, whatever are you up to in your lab?” And like Dr. Frankenstein, I would probably reply, after looking over both shoulders: “Darling, it’s a secret.”
To find out what the secret is, you’ll need to pop into Newtonville Books about 7 o’clock tonight. It just *may* have something to do with the early release from @emilyfranklinauthor of her latest, Love & Other Monsters. It features Mary, mentioned above, and another Shelley of great literary renown, maybe a Byron — and a young woman you might not have heard of yet, but you will.
I promise.
On this day in 1776, Boston exhaled.
March 17th — Evacuation Day — when the British left Boston after invading the city nearly a year earlier.
How? Well, Colonel Henry Knox — ex-bookseller! — pulled off an unbelievable feat and, in the middle of winter, moved 60 tons of captured canons more than 300 miles from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston. General George Washington ordered that they be positioned in Dorchester Heights, aimed down at the invaders.
Boston had been under siege for 11 months, but suddenly the British garrison and navy were threatened. The Brits had to choose: attack or retreat.
They retreated.
This was Washington’s first victory and a huge boost to the morale of every patriot. So tonight feels like the right moment to pull from the shelf Cincinnatus: George Washington & the Enlightenment by Garry Wills. It was a high school graduation gift from my older brother, George.
I mean, of course it was.
I’m pairing it with something suitably revolutionary — rum. Warmed with a little cinnamon. After all, it’s about 20° right now. Not quite the snowstorm that prevented a British attack on the cannons Washington had pointed down at the occupiers from those Heights 250 years ago, but an echo of that weather, certainly.
History, like rum, rewards a slow appreciation.
So, here’s to a bookseller, and to George Washington — farmer, general, reluctant symbol — and a book that remembers the restraint behind the revolution.
Rum optional. Reflection required.
Ok, one last drink from Scottsdale, then back to my Boston stomping grounds. This is The Joey Fumosa, a smoky, bourbon forward cocktail from DiMaggio’s. I mean, if you’re watching baseball during the day, why not pay homage to one of its greats at night by eating at an establishment named in his honor (the fact that he was a Yankee is frankly overshadowed by his San Francisco roots).
It’s almost time to: Play ball!
The Joey Fumosa:
Bourbon, maple syrup, bitters — smoked under glass, table side.
After our first game (a terrific victory by the Giants) we headed to The Mission in Old Town Scottsdale where I began the evening with La Familia.
A great nightcap to a beautiful day. Baseball in the Valley of the Sun? It’s remarkable. Especially when the Giants win? Well, it doesn’t hurt.
La Familia:
Rye, apricot, aperol, lime, oaxacan hot honey, mint
On my brief (!) Scottsdale sojourn, I of course made time around baseball to partake in the glory that is The Poisoned Pen bookstore. Did I make a purchase? Obviously. Bookstores aren’t museums — if you want them to stay open, you have to buy stuff.
I saw friends old and new there, including Jenna Blum and Tracy Sierra (okay, Tracy may not know we’re friends, yet, but we will be! We’re practically neighbors!)
So, Old Town Scottsdale did not disappoint. It offered fabulous books, terrific signage, and the occasional adult beverage.
Go Giants!
No, I am not a Cubs fan. Giants forever, of course. But I’m at Spring Training, and while yesterday we were at the Giants’ park in Scottsdale — today we’ve traveled to Chicago. Or Mesa.
It’s a beautiful park, for sure. And when in Rome — or, er, Mesa — you drink The Red Line.
THE RED LINE:
JIM BEAM WHISKEY, BLOOD ORANGE SYRUP,
LIME, GINGER BEER, SPRITE & TA-JIN RIM
Go Giants! Game time in 5 minutes.
