BELIEVE, BE LIVE, LIVE
I was standing outside South Station waiting for the bus. This was in 1981 and I was working in East Boston at a half-way house for alcoholics. I’m not sure why I was there at the bus stop. I only know that I was using the MBTA for practical reasons and I was on my way someplace or on my way back to East Boston from someplace. I was waiting for a bus that would take me either toward or away from East Boston. I was standing on the sidewalk on Atlantic Avenue observing my surroundings. Across the street a building was being modernized. There were four by eight sheets of underlayment plywood stood up to keep people from the construction site. On the plywood were written several words and phrases some official, some not. One of the unofficial phrases was more thought provoking. I read it and read it again. I did this several times until I got the phrasing and meter right in my head. I have quoted the phrase more than once since then and I use it as part of my e-mail signature now.
Boston is a great city for getting around. But, as anywhere else, it helps if you were born there. Boston is a small contained metropolis that has everything within a few miles of anywhere. If one is healthy and able to perambulate then this is the place to live. I lived in two areas of the city of Boston; Comm Ave out near Hereford and Gloucester and on the north slope of Beacon Hill. The north slope of Beacon Hill was once the West End, a wonderful Italian neighborhood. The West End was torn down as part of a revitalization campaign in downtown Boston. Down came a family neighborhood and up went Government Center. Government Center was a crowd of concrete brutalist architecture city, state, and federal government buildings. I have trouble with brutalist architecture. It looks like someone didn’t really give a crap about how it looks. It looks simply like the decision makers were not invested in beauty or pleasing the populace. I would guess that whomever made the call to build these non-attractive buildings became lazy during the final days of city planning and just gave in to the least popular architectural submissions. I have read that the architecture is suggestive of the “honesty of concrete construction”. I think it is a fart in the face of humanity.
The first place I saw brutalist architecture was at SUNY Stony Brook, New York. I was a member of an organization in Port Washington, an anti-nuke affinity group aligned with SHAD and CLAMSHELL. I was in my last year of Navy service and my mind had been awakened by some people who owned a bookstore. If you want to get into trouble with the populace in general hang out at an independent book store and be part of the culture there. Anyway, the affinity group and many others from New York and New England met for several days of protest planning at Stony Brook. I recall during lunch on a grassy quad one of the women mentioning that the buildings there were ‘brutalist architecture’. All of us sitting together at lunch agreed that was a good description. Later that year at the Wall Street protest of 1979 I was arrested 3 times with my affinity mate Emily and on one of those occasions I sat next to Daniel Ellsberg and his son on one of the police buses. In case you missed it then here it is now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODCvbn_hUDI
During this protest I met a future reporter for NPR. Margot Adler was a working for WBAI an independent radiostation in The City. I liked her for her earth-mother persona and beautiful presence. She died this past summer. Here is her obit.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/28/margot-adler-dead-dies_n_5627883.html
So the graffiti on the side of a construction site near South Station in Boston hit a nerve with me in 1981. Even as I write this short piece in memory of the West End of Boston, Stony Brook, Wall Street protest, and Margot Adler I still am intrigued by the simple transition from word to word of this phrase. “Believe, Be Live, Live”.
Simple, eh?
George M. Goodwin
September 19, 2014
Here is a poem I wrote with my son Sam a few years back.
DECOY
As Metaphor
A plastic owl stands strapped, fixed like a dummy to the roof,
Serving notice to vagrants to maintain order and discipline,
With best laid plans owl poses dutifully,
Glaring at everything
Though at nothing in particular,
This is the image employed by owl.
Day by day by day, the owl resolute,
Determined to control everything,
Smug when a nuisance arrives then retreats.
Scowling and sneering, being most impolite,
The pretend owl defends his turf.
Unintended consequences on the roof,
Vagrants now enjoy the owl,
The posturing and expressions lost in the fun,
Gatherings and meetings, owl as host, are held daily,
The host is ignored and the roof is a mess.
Playing Fair and Being Kind 