"We must consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us; so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world."
-John Winthrop
"The noble craftsmen we promote,/Disown the knave and fool;/Each honest man shall have his vote,/Each child shall have his school."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Boston is an oasis in the desert, a place where the larger proportion of people are loving, rational and happy."
-Julia Ward Howe
"Our country is the world-our countrymen are all mankind."
-William Lloyd Garrison
"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."
-Henry David Thoreau
"In this republican country, amid the fluctuating waves of our social life, somebody is always at the drowning-point."
-Nathaniel Hawthorne
"For what Pericles said to the Athenians has long been true of this Commonwealth: 'We do not imitate-for we are a model to others.'"
-John F. Kennedy
"Everywhere/giant finned cars nose forward like fish;/a savage servility/slides by on grease."
-Robert Lowell
"Boston-spindly-legged, depleted of nearly all her spiritual and cutaneous oils, provincial, self-esteeming-has gone on spending and spending her inflated bills of pure reputation, decade after decade. Now, one supposes it is all over at last."
-Elizabeth Hardwick
"Because I could not stop for Death,/He kindly stopped for me."
-Emily Dickinson
"I'm from Wrentham. I drive a truck."
-Scott Brown
A. S. Hamrah is the film critic for n+1 and has a piece in the latest issue of The Baffler.
I may have swapped the order of the JFK/Lowell quotes, but YES. LIKE.
Like fish driven by people who can't drive.
Seriously though, For The Union Dead always gets me. Lowell may have been uneven at times, but that's a fine poem right there.
No doubt about it.
"Somebody put pawn on my computah!"
--My office mate (back when I had a job).
I once purchased a Marc Jacobs coat and a Le Creuset fondue set (never used) at the outlet mall in Wrentham.
By which I mean, I bought it and never used it. Not that there was the possibility of its having been used by someone before I bought it.
I got all my nice winter coats from Wrentham Village, a very stylish Hugo Boss camel number and a superwarm Cole Haan thing with zips and pockets everywhere. I love that place.
The only three words you need to know: Gold Toe Outlet.
It don't take a PhD
To know I'm goin' nowhere fast
--Peter Wolf, Seth Justman, "Piss on the Wall"
Is Andrew Sullivan a resident of Massachusetts at this point? Just curious.
No Jack Kerouac? Tsk tsk.
Say what you will, I love the Wrentham Outlet.
I've seen a lot of players come and go, but one thing's remained constant: Aqua Velva
-C. Yastrzemski
"I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it." John Kerry
Roadrunner, roadrunner
Going faster miles an hour
Gonna drive past the Stop 'n' Shop
With the radio on
I'm in love with Massachusetts
And the neon when it's cold outside
And the highway when it's late at night
Got the radio on
I'm like the roadrunner
-Jonathan Richman
This.
Yeah.
And no George V. Higgins?