touching eternity

Last Sunday, at the St Patrick's Green Mass, Cardinal Turcotte said that, as he'd reached the age of 75, he'd sent in his resignation to the Vatican, and was now waiting for their response. Today, it was announced that Bishop Lepine is now Archbishop Lepine and in charge of the Montreal ArchDiocese. I'm told that Rome usually waits about 5 years before giving an archbishop the title of Cardinal, so in 5 years time it will be Cardinal Lepine.

Well, I don't expect that Turcotte is entirely gone from the scene. A retired archbishop/cardinal is still a priest, and the way things are these days, he might still be called on to celebrate Mass from time to time.

Of course, Lepine was the obvious choice. Much as we all love Tom Dowd, he's still the second youngest Catholic bishop in the world, and I really don't see him being handed the reins of an archdiocese right on top of becoming a bishop so young. That's a little too much speed to take, y'know? On the other hand, I think there's every probability that he'll take over from Lepine when Lepine hits 75, assuming some other diocese doesn't snatch him up first. Doing the math, that's Archbishop Dowd in 14 years, and Cardinal Dowd in 19. I remember that Laurie and Martin were talking about hopes of a Pope Thomas ... I say, wait a couple of decades, and We Shall See.

So, that bit in the Passion where Pilate offers to release a prisoner, and the crowds call for the release of Barabbas instead of Jesus? Turns out that Barabbas' first name was also Jesus. Maybe a lot of people have noticed this -- there it is in my NRSV translation of Matthew -- but I was not aware of this until now. And apparently "Bar Abbas" means "son of the father", which sounds like a title for Christ ... I mean, if it had gotten around that He was the Son of God; I wouldn't be surprised if the Apostles had gone blabbing it about. The mother of James and John knew enough to ask for special favours, after all.

So I wonder: is it possible that when the crowd shouted "give us Barabbas", they actually thought they were asking for the release of *Jesus Christ*? Or that someone along the way totally pulled a bait-and-switch on the population of Jerusalem? Because up to now, it seems to have been emphasised that the Jewish authorities were too afraid of public backlash to act overtly ... seems odd that all of a sudden the public would be unanimously calling for His crucifixion.

I can now honestly say that I have read all of the Old Testament. That ... actually means less than it sounds like. I can't help but feel that I really should study this in a little more depth than a mere reading can give me. I'm certainly not sure I retained a great deal.

Jonah was a surprisingly compact and concise read, and Zechariah was interesting. The other minor prophets ... they kind of flow into each other (though Malachi has an interesting motif: "I accuse you of X; you ask me when? Here's when!") and I couldn't tell you what most of them say specifically. Still, it's a foundation at least; I must be sure to come back later.

A common theme, it seems to me, is this: God will punish Israel for the latter's unfaithfulness, probably by giving foreign nations power over Israel and scattering the Jewish people to the far corners of the world; but sometime in the future there will be forgiveness and Israel will rise again, and the oppressors will be brought low.

Also: when I say "Old Testament", I mean "as recognised by the Catholic Church". That's seven books more than most Protestant Bibles, but lacking a few from the Orthodox Bible. 2 Maccabees was basically a retelling of 1 Maccabees; are 3 Maccabees and 4 Maccabees yet more retellings of the same? The miracle of Channukah wasn't really mentioned in 1 or 2, so I wonder.

There's a new-ish restaurant around the corner from me, called Kanbai. Robert C. seems to like it; we stopped there for lunch a couple of weeks ago after church, and I had one of the appetisers. Robert was going on about how scarily spicy some of the dishes were, in particular this one fish soup thing (number 404 on the menu) but at the time, having just had brunch less than two hours before, I didn't really have the room for it.

I checked it out last night. It was a Friday and I was running through my somewhat more limited options and suddenly remembered the fish soup thing available there. So off I went.

( Weapon Of Mouth Destruction I )

( Weapon Of Mouth Destruction II )

Dinner with Fr Stephen yesterday, at Chez Maggy, an Indian restaurant in Verdun. Most Indian restaurants in Montreal seem to be run by Muslims, and I'm sure there must be a handful run by Hindus, but the proprietress of Chez Maggy is Catholic -- there's a crucifix on the wall behind the counter, and a picture of Mother Teresa. (I think she's from Bangladesh. She has a pretty thick accent. Which of course means that the food is really authentic.) There's also a huge amount of respect for the clerical collar, whether Fr Stephen is wearing it or not.

We had some leftover biryani and lentils at the end of the evening, and I asked for it to be packed up to take home. I'm dining on it right now. Maggy (I'm assuming her name is Maggy, since the restaurant is Chez Maggy) was nice enough to also add a small helping of chicken curry to the package, and I'm pretty sure there's more biryani in here than was actually left over in the serving bowl.... I, uh, think she thought I was a priest because I was keeping company with Fr Stephen.... She said something about us "working for God" and asked to be remembered in our prayers. Well, I can't exactly say that I don't "work for God" because I do volunteer at church, after all. Either way, there's a little old Indian lady who'll be figuring in my nightly prayers for the next little while.

(Ah, Google is my friend: apparently the place has a 95% recommended rating on urbanspoon.com, and one of the reviewers mentions that it's specifically Bengali cuisine -- I hadn't noticed that bit on the snow-covered sign -- the good ol' plain-and-simple, homecooked kind. Which is the best kind, to tell the truth. That "homecooked" nuance is what I appreciated most about Le Roi du Wonton up on St-Marc and Lincoln; it's been years since I've gone there, but I think Peter and Charles and I may be dining there in a couple of weeks. Anyway, Chez Maggy is indeed very tasty; I especially like the samosas.)

One thing that did come up in conversation: my take on the scriptural passage, "when you pray, do not do as the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you they have already received their reward." See, prayer is a good thing, even if much of it is done for show. Similarly, giving alms to the needy: even if it is largely done for the approval of others, that is still better than not giving alms at all. "They have already received their reward" -- there IS a reward for doing these things, because they are good things to do, it's just that the reward comes in the form of earthly recognition. I apply this to my own altar service: my volunteer work is highly visible, and I've been told on at least one occasion that there will be a reward for me in heaven for this, or something along those lines. But I do not think there will be. See, the good opinion of these people IS my reward, and because I am getting this reward now, I do not think there will be anything extra for me in the hereafter, nor do I think that it will figure in the accounting at the final judgement. True, I don't do it for the good opinion of others, and in that respect at least I think I am different from the hypocrites described in scripture ... but make no mistake, I really do enjoy it.

Still working my way through the Bible. Need to reread Baruch because I don't think I retained anything there. Should try to draw up plans for Ezekiel's temple in AutoCAD one of these days. Daniel was shorter than I expected, but highly readable. Now in the minor prophets: finished Hosea and Joel today. Next up: Amos. Not that I want any recognition for this or anything.

Once upon a time there was a young king who, at his first private family dinner after his coronation, stood up to say grace and give thanks to God, as his father had done before him, for the meal that was laid out before the royal family. When he was done, he happened to notice a look of disappointment on the face of the head steward, so he called the man over and asked him what was wrong.

The steward said: "your majesty, giving thanks is all very well, but the servants in the kitchen are unhappy that you do not remember them. After all, it is they who have slaved all day to cook the food that you are about to eat."

"Ah," said the king, "well, I shall remember the next time."

The next evening, the king dined with his minister of trade and labour. After they had taken their places at the table, the king stood up and gave thanks to the servants and staff for the meal that was laid out before them. Then he looked up, and saw an unhappy frown on the face of his minister, so he leaned over and asked the man what was wrong.

The minister of trade and labour said: "your majesty, I'm sure the palace servants do a fine job, but after all, they only prepare the food. This wine is from the south, this venison is from the north; the fish is from the western seas, and the vegetables were grown in the east. Who is it that actually gathers these things together and brings them to your table? The tradesmen and the wagoners, they are the ones you should thank!"

"Ah," said the king, "well, I shall remember the next time."

The next evening, the king dined with his minister of agriculture. After they had taken their places at the table, the king stood up and gave thanks to the tradesmen and the wagoners for the meal that was laid out before them. Then he looked up, and saw that his minister was quite angry at something, so he leaned over and asked the man what was wrong.

The minister of agriculture said: "your majesty, why on earth are you thanking the tradesmen and wagoners, of all people, for the food? All they do is buy and sell and cart things around! Shouldn't you give thanks instead to the people who actually made this happen? The farmers who tended the livestock and cultivated the wheat and vegetables, the hunters who brought in the game, the fishermen who caught the seafood -- you should thank them instead!"

"Ah," said the king, "well, I shall remember the next time."

The next evening, the king dined with his minister of the environment -- for the kingdom was a progressive, green kingdom. After they had taken their places at the table, the king stood up and gave thanks to the farmers, hunters and fishermen of the kingdom for the meal that was laid out before them. Then he looked up, and saw that his minister was absolutely outraged, so he leaned over and asked the man what was wrong.

The minister of the environment said: "your majesty, are you really giving thanks to these men of environmental exploitation? What is man against nature? A truffle grows wild and is rooted up by pigs, and all man does is pick up that truffle and sell it at exorbitant prices. This bread would not be here if the earth did not yield wheat, or if the rain did not water the earth. And speaking of rain, should you not be thankful that it neither rained too much nor too little, and that even so, the harvest was not ruined by some other natural disaster?"

"Ah," said the king, "well, I shall remember the next time."

The next evening, the king dined with the archbishop of the city. After they had taken their places at the table, the king stood up -- because he was a young king and the archbishop was indulgent, and because it would ruin the story for the archbishop to give the final blessing -- and gave thanks to the earth and to the rains and to the forces of nature for the meal that was laid out before them. Then he looked up, and saw that the archbishop was laughing his head off.

"Your majesty," said the archbishop, when he got his breath back, "just who do you think is responsible for all that?"

Yes. A lie is a deliberate attempt to deceive. Deception by the omission of crucial information is therefore a lie. This is regardless of whether it's good or bad, whether it's the right or wrong thing to do. This is definitions, not morality. It really saddens me to look at the answers given so far and see all the people who seem to read the question as "is it always wrong to lie by omission".

There's this guy on the streets around here whose idea of panhandling involves following people around and pleading. "Please...? Please...? Sir, I'm hungry. Please...?" Which is both heartbreaking and utterly creepy-scary. Tonight he followed me all the way down from the corner of Ste-Catherine to my place near the corner of Rene-Levesque, asking for help to get a new pair of shoes; and I can't help but feel that going home was a bad idea, that I should have just stayed on the street until he stopped following me around, but by that point I was getting really too anxious to get the hell away.

The worst part is that I was just coming back from a Knights of Columbus meeting. And we're all about charity and community service and giving to the less fortunate, right? Can I really turn my back on this poor fellow? What kind of hypocrite am I to do so? On the other hand, if this is how he behaves towards me after some piddling amount of "help" in the long-forgotten past -- I certainly don't remember ever giving him money, though I guess I must have; I did give him an old pair of trousers once -- how much worse would it be if I were to do so again?

I have this rule that if a panhandler wants a specific amount for some specific purpose, I should not give the full amount. The idea is that I should be only one of a crowd -- he must obtain the rest of what he needs from other people. I cannot be the one to shoulder the whole burden. This fellow ... he doesn't seem to understand that. And the pressure, the inability to take "no" for an answer, makes me Highly Averse to ever lending him a hand, ever again.

I'm at about three-quarters of the way into Isaiah in my Bible reading. Isaiah is actually a surprisingly compelling read; or else it's just that it's different from Sirach, Wisdom and Proverbs, all three of which are basically collections of advice.

The wonderful coincidence is that this weekend's First Reading is from Isaiah, as I discovered when I dropped in at St Willibrord's for Mass today. It was even a passage that I'd only just read either earlier today or late last night. This sort of thing has happened once or twice before since I started my reading, though never so close on the heels of my private reading. I must say that there is something very remarkable and different about experiencing a reading in Church that one remembers having read privately not too long ago. There is this sense of familiarity: I know this passage, I say to myself, I recognise it, I know how it goes. The reading is no longer a presentation of new(ish) knowledge, but a reiteration of something already present in my mind. It's a special feeling and I rather like it.

Yesterday I had lunch with some guy I picked up off the street. He was from BC, and was headed towards Halifax; he was living a sort of lifestyle that I thought had died out in the '30s -- busking and panhandling when he had to, picking up day-work when he could. He spoke of hanging around at rural gas stations, waiting for farmers to drive by with jobs picking produce. He spoke of the negotiations involved: $2.50 a bucket, in cash, or no deal -- and there was always enough work that one could in fact say "no deal".

In a way, I find this rather heartening. One thing I worry about is that our current system of safety nets -- welfare, employment insurance and so on -- is so dependent on bureaucratic identification that it might be impossible to do as this guy is doing: finding non-career-path work to get by. It's easy to sit in judgement of the homeless and think they should go get a job, but the bureaucracy makes this a somewhat less than perfectly feasible idea. So many things require a permanent address, and not having such a thing is kind of the primary characteristic of being homeless.

Anyway, apparently there are a number of people who live like this, and they learn to recognise each other. They're a fairly small demographic, after all. He said that, wherever he went, he could be sure to run into some traveller or other whom he knew. I did not inquire too deeply into how he got into this lifestyle, but he did mention once having a house and a girlfriend and (presumably) a mundane job; I'm guessing that the loss of these had something to do with the recent economic troubles. He also said, though, that he didn't think he could go back to the old lifestyle. It's true, there is probably something very liberating about that sort of transient life. There's no security and precious little comfort, but at the same time there is no clutter....

By my calculations, there should be enough meat in my freezer to last me up to the first week of February. This makes me feel absurdly pleased.

I guess the big news, really, is that the IFcomp has come and gone. I entered a Biblical game, "Cana According To Micah", knowing full well that Biblical games tend not to do so well, largely because they tend to be written with some sort of evangelical agenda in mind. I'd say that maga pretty much summed up my goals with this in the first line of his initial review: "Christian, Biblical IF that doesn't suck".

I came in 9th, out of 38 entries. I'd told myself that I should be happy to place in the top third; it's not as if I'm really pushing anything special, the way I was the last two times -- the randomised engine in "Act of Murder", the Vic-Lit tense/pronoun shift in "Muse" -- and really I was entering because I thought I'd go mad if I didn't do something productive in the direction of one of my interests this year. So 9th is not bad; quite respectable, in fact, though I suppose I'm a little spoiled from coming in 2nd both times before.

Also, I was rated just high enough to snag the prize on the prize list that I'd told myself I would take even if I were 1st: a trio of Dennis Wheatley crime dossier reproductions. Huzzah! The person who came in 10th took the Dennis Wheatley 1930 original, so I'm going out on a limb here and guessing that I literally was *just* high enough, and that if our positions were reversed he'd have taken the three reproductions and, er, I'd have taken the one original. (Yeah, the original is probably worth more, as a collector's item, but I want to read and play, not trade for cash value on e-bay.)

Now that the competition is over, though, and anxiety over my relative placing is not occupying my thoughts ... and I'm not checking the review sites every hour or so ... I find myself descending in this pit of desperate unhappiness. Part of it is the condo drama, I suppose -- some people should be very happy that I do not actually have any mob connections. Perhaps another part is just plain old loneliness. There's a bunch of stuff that I really need to do, like renewing my driver's license and my Quebec Health card, but I never seem to find the emotional energy for it. On the whole, the old fantasy of faking my death to start afresh somewhere else is looking really attractive right about now. I can't spend every minute of my time counting the portions of meat in my freezer, after all.

Seems like a bunch of things happening Friday.

1) John's concert, way way out in St Bruno de Montarville. Seriously, John, what is up with these remote off-island locations?

2) I have an invitation to a Rocky Horror Picture ... thing. Oh, a Halloween Ball.

3) Knights of Columbus planning meeting, in case I want to get involved in any upcoming thing.

I really should go to the concert and show some support. On the other hand, the KofC meeting looks like it could be important for me as a new member, though it also seems like the least fun of the three options. The Rocky Horror thing looks like it would be the most interesting: I've never actually attended a real showing/performance. Although ... given that one of my other options is a Knights of Columbus meeting, I kind of wonder if I really should.

Of course, there's always option 4: hop on the bus to Baltimore on Friday afternoon and attend Dave's Halloween party down in Maryland on Saturday. I suspect that this is a Very Bad Idea. 16 hours on busses and trains one way, another 16 hours back; I'll be in transit longer than I'll actually be there. On the other hand, it's a Halloween costume party in Maryland. The very first interactive fiction I ever played, Infocom's "Suspect", was set at a Halloween costume party in Maryland. So you could say that the thought of going appeals to my sense of symmetry. Or something.

Had a sudden craving for steak last night, so I hied me down to the nearest biftheque, Mr Steer, for an entrecote; and remembering what an excellent blue steak Ian made earlier this summer, I asked for it to be blue.

What I ordered was a blue steak with a side of baked beans. What I got was a side of baked potato and a steak that was ... rare on one end, medium on the other. At least the seasoning was tasty and the baked potato was excellent, but I do not think I shall be going there again. (I don't know ... one thing that impressed me about Ian's blue was how the centre had the firm, plastic quality of a smoked salmon; by comparison, a rare steak seems undercooked even though technically it is more cooked than the blue. I guess there's a real difference between something that is preserved in its pristine state and something that is left untouched because one just never got around to it.)

I should check out the Entrecote St-Jean again. A place that has survived these decades with only one thing on its menu -- well, technically two: a steak, and the same thing only smaller -- must be doing something right with that one thing. I miss Joe's, though. That was the steakhouse that I would go to occasionally when I first came to Montreal. They had an all-you-can-eat salad bar, and that was where I first discovered the joys of green cheese dressing. If Joe's has moved, I don't know where to; all I know is that it's not where I last saw it.

Meanwhile, my reading:

I'm about three chapters into "Pirates of the Levant". I sometimes worry that someone will look over my shoulder and read some of this out of context. The characters in the Alatriste novels -- including Inigo in his narration -- are about as politically correct in their mindsets and prejudices as one might expect a 17th century Spaniard to be.

Bible: Finished the Psalms, with a brief break to read Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon. Finished Proverbs. Finished Wisdom of Solomon last night, now treading my way through Sirach.

The morning was spent hanging around South Station, waiting for the bus back to Montreal via Manchester. By this time, I was pretty much done with the tourist thing, and quite happy to just sit down with a book.

There is a stall in the food court of the Amtrak portion of South Station, called "Cajun Cajun". They have the most delicious bourbon chicken, as I'd found out a couple of days previously when I first rolled into town. Today being Friday, I was on the lookout for seafood, and I saw that they had crawfish. I had no idea what a crawfish is, except that it seems to come up every so often in stories about idyllic summers spent beside bodies of water in the deep south. Well ... now I know. A crawfish is a miniature lobster, so tiny as to be virtually (though not absolutely) meatless, but very richly flavoured. One might say that the entire purpose of a crawfish is to impart its flavour into the stew in which it is cooked. It is also very messy eating, or least potentially so, as it seems impossible to attack one of these little critters with a fork and knife. One must use one's fingers, and it is a minor miracle that my white button-down escaped stain-free from the encounter. The whole was still quite excellent, however. If I ever have crawfish again, it will be in the comfort of my own home, with my kitchen sink right behind me.

Anyway, onto the bus and onwards to Manchester, New Hampshire.

According to Wikipedia, Manchester is the largest city in northern New England; which is to say, the largest city if you don't count Boston. The name, however, I associate with the city of the same name in England; and while I have never been to Manchester, England, I associate that city with heavy industrialisation and factories, factories, factories. And soccer. Manchester, New Hampshire, is not quite like that: it does not associate itself much with soccer.

As with my entry to NYC a week before, my first impression of Manchester was of the view across a river. There were industrial buildings such as I might see along the Lachine Canal; the buildings seemed to be a little on the low side. I remember spotting the hotel at which I would spend the night, and taking note of its position, and thinking I'd be able to walk there without any problem. Well, that much was true ... except that I started down a parallel street that went right past the hotel without drawing close. In the end, I got to my hotel by trespassing through the yard of an auto repair garage, pushing my way through some bushes and trip-trapping over the railroad tracks.

At least the room was air-conditioned.

The street on which my hotel was located ran past a lot of industrial-looking property. Jota told me later that there was a trend towards turning these old factories and warehouses into lofts, which is no surprise, really. Come to think of it, all that property is prime real estate, being on the river and all, and no doubt with cathedral-high ceilings to boot. Anyway, once I got my bearings, it wasn't too hard to figure out how to get where I wanted to go, and I set out to meet Jota at his office.

Along the way, I saw the TD logo again, this time on the side of an office building. "Ameritrade", it said. Later, when Jota and I were comfortably ensconced in the booth of a seafood restaurant, I told him about it, and about how I'd seen the same logo on the side of a stadium in Boston. Well yes, said Jota, it's quite recent. His bank had just been bought up by TD, in fact....

Let me pause here for a moment. Mitch looking to work for RBC -- the Royal Bank of Canada -- in New York City ... and TD -- the Toronto Dominion bank -- buying up pieces of New England, including Jota's old bank. Is there a pattern here? Are we slowly taking over the US with our banks? How does the average American feel about inroads being made by the *Royal* Bank and the Toronto *Dominion* bank? Jota admitted that, while he did know that TD was a Canadian bank, he did not know what the "D" stood for. It is of course not unusual to have foreign banks in one's country, but what I'm noticing and commenting on here is the change in the status quo.

Anyway, there was Jota and there was seafood. And I still do not know Jota's real name, though I suppose I could easily have snatched up his credit card (the one with the TD logo on it) to see, if I'd thought about it.

After dinner, we walked out to a park, and let me tell you it was a very different experience from the parks in the cities I'd just left. This park was empty. Maybe one or two people hanging around, but otherwise ... dead. I have never seen the like before in my life. It was a little spooky. Jota said something about the Lovecraftian image of New England, with its decaying cities and all; I don't know if Manchester qualifies as "decaying", but this lifeless city park was certainly ... atmospheric.

We did eventually see some kids playing basketball in a basketball court, which reassured me that there were people (or, at least, cleverly-disguised killer robots) living in the city. And there were people on Elm Street on the way back to the hotel, too, though not quite at the same density as, say, on St-Laurent or any random place in NYC. Then again, nowhere is there quite the same density of people as in NYC.

I returned to the hotel, showered, slept, and caught the early bus the next morning back to Montreal.

I left in the morning with Kevin and his wife Ellen, on the T, getting off at Boston Common while they continued on to North Station.

Boston Common at that time of the morning is much emptier than it is at mid-afternoon. I had my watercolours with me: I had intended to spend some time while on this tour practicing, but, after a week, this was the first time I actually got to take them out. I sat down across from the Frog Pond and its pavilion, and proceeded to make a mess of it. I've still got a lot to learn, I think. I think what really went wrong was when I tried to paint in the thin brown lines evident along the edge of the pavilion roofs. That is a level of accuracy that I should not attempt unless the pencil base is a carefully constructed architectural drawing. As a watercolour sketch, I really should have been going for a more impressionistic approach -- intricate details should be suggested and implied, but almost never stated outright. Also, I have yet to figure out how to get Massive Amounts Of Foliage right.

Nevertheless, a couple of early risers -- I'm not entirely sure as to whether they were volunteer workers or homeless people, and there seemed to be suggestive evidence either way -- seemed impressed by it.

I eventually stopped into a Starbucks to check up on Facebook, and that is where I got in touch with Val. She hadn't been able to make it to the previous night's get-together, because of work, but it was just the right time to arrange for a lunch meeting. And I'd been wanting to check out Legal Seafoods ever since I saw the name of the chain on my first visit to Boston a year-and-a-half ago. And there's one right outside the T stop at MIT that I got off at last night, and that's just around the corner from Val's office. So.

Lunch at Legal Seafoods. There are just so many puns. Seriously, is it really Legal given that they're dealing in ... fishy business? Also, Val pointed out that, what with the shellfish and all, it wasn't exactly kosher. I eventually picked a bluefish thing at Val's recommendation. I don't think I've ever had bluefish before, though I remember once seeing it at the PA supermarket ... I remember looking up recommendations on how to cook it, then going back and finding that it was no longer available. Bluefish is a bit on the fatty side, like salmon, which means it's also rather more flavourful than your basic white fish.

On impulse, I got off the T a stop or two early on my way back. We were crossing the river and I looked out, and I saw people messing around in boats, and I had to check it out. It turns out that there's a community boating thing there: someone way back in the ... 1920s, I think ... decided that it would be a Good Thing to gather the neighbourhood's underpriveleged youth together and teach them to sail. Some communities have basketball, some have martial arts ... Boston had sailboats. I'm a little envious, actually. I'd love to get out on the river in a boat, but I guess I have to be a Boston resident to take advantage of this. (Mind you, if I were a Boston resident, I probably would never get around to it.)

From there, I slowly made my way back ... I confess that, after a week of tromping around and meeting people and stuff, I was beginning to grow a little exhausted. I walked over to where Kevin and Ellen were finishing their workday -- getting lost in the process -- and then we all went back to their place where curry was made.

I'm afraid I wasn't all that great company that evening. As I said, I was beginning to get a little exhausted from the week's adventure, on top of all the walking done that day; and although Kevin has a very nice little pile of board games and I had been looking forward to playing one or another of them, in the end we just managed one game of ... er, it's this card game thing where you collect the heads of French nobles as guillotine operators; probably a little bit similar to Family Business, I think, if I could only remember how Family Business was played. My apologies, Kevin: next time, I'll try not to exhaust myself before we look at board games.

Oh yes, how could I forget. While wandering around North Station, I happened to look up and saw the TD logo on a stadium. It took me a moment to remember that I was not in Canada anymore, and the logo of a Canadian bank is not something I would expect to see so prominently displayed on the side of a stadium. Of course, there was no mention anywhere as to what "TD" stood for ... not that it's very prominently advertised over here either. Kevin and Ellen said that the stadium had been bought up, and the logo applied, not too long ago, so I guess this is a pretty recent thing....

I said goodbye to Mitch in the early morning and took the subway back to the Port Authority bus terminal, where I caught the bus to Boston. This was to be my third visit to Boston in less than two years: I'm beginning to feel as though I know the city, for all I've only seen the environs of two convention centres. At the very least, I'm growing quite familiar with the South Station terminal.

My host for Boston was Kevin Jackson-Mead. He was at work when I arrived in that city, but had made arrangements allowing me to drop off my baggage at his home. Now, while I'm familiar with South Station as a terminal for busses headed to Montreal and other cities, I had never actually taken the T -- Boston's subway/metro -- before. It turns out that the T is in fact a little more complex, to my mind, than the New York subway: whereas in NYC, a single line will (almost) always -- unless Weird Things happen -- service the same stations, despite different lines using the same track, the Boston T involves lines that split into multiple branches. So you've got to watch out for the ultimate destination of whichever train you board. In retrospect, this is in fact not at all different from the idea of multiple lines on the same track, sharing the same stations for certain lengths; what is really different about the Boston T is the way the signage seems to imply that all trains on the red line (for example) are the same line. NYC would call them lines 4, 5 and 6 and make to pretence of any relationship between them.

Also, the trains heading out into the more residential areas are more properly trams. They have stops rather than stations, the difference being that you cannot buy tickets at stops. I do not in fact remember how I dealt with the issue of getting all the way out into the residential districts (are they far out enough to be called the suburbs?) and finding that you can't buy tickets out there. Part of me seems to recall accidentally buying more tickets than I needed, but I can't for the life of me think why or how I would do that.

Anyway, I'm back in downtown Boston, getting very familiar with Boston Common. I arrived in time to catch the final scene of "All's Well That Ends Well" being performed, and it was a very good performance indeed. I also poked around the Frog Pond, which is a wading pool for little kids and which was seeing some serious use that afternoon -- the weather was still hot. Boston Common is not like Central Park: it is more sedate, and makes no pretence of being a piece of wilderness accidentally left behind. There is a much higher percentage of rolling lawns. I remember seeing a few people with laptops out, and I wonder if it has wi-fi coverage.

Organising visits for MD, NYC and Boston were very different experiences. For MD, I seemed to be in constant conversation beforehand with Dave, ironing out our itinerary and deciding what to do and where to go. For NYC, it was a case of trying to catch people when they had a chance to breathe -- trying to herd cats, as it were. For Boston ... for Boston all I had to do was to tell Zarf I was coming, and let him post it to a mailing list. That simple. Boston seems to have more than its fair share of IFfers, that is for certain; or at least they are more co-ordinated than anywhere else.

So, dinner that evening was at the CBC -- the Cambridge Brewing Company, which appears to be the default dinner-and-drinks place for the local IF community. This was across the river (once again, on the T I go) in what I suppose is more properly called Cambridge, MA. I met up with Doug, Zarf, Nick Montfort, Flourish, Jason McIntosh and, of course, Kevin.

I know about getting pitchers of beer for the table; CBC has, instead, this tower-of-beer thing -- a clear cylinder about three or four feet high, full of beer, with a spigot at the bottom from which one might fill one's glass. Fr Stephen tells me that this is not, in fact, all that unusual, but here at the CBC I was seeing this thing for the first time, and I was fascinated. My hosts had filled it with an India Pale Ale, of which I had a glass. I confess to not normally liking beer very much, but I found this to be quite acceptable to my palette. I shall have to investigate these India Pale Ale things a little more.

Zarf showed me this toy he was making for the iPad, which involved building up a stylised tree-house by dragging in little icon shapes and seeing the dynamic text description generated by this configuration of shapes, orientation and distances. I found it very intriguing, and would certainly put that on my iPad if I had one. The toy has been launched since then; just a few days ago, in fact, and I encourage people to give it a shot.

After dinner we took a walk through Cambridge to an ice-cream parlour for dessert. I do not think I would have been able to find my way back very easily, without someone to guide me.

Mitch's apartment is practically a shoebox. But it has room for a couch, which makes it positively luxurious by NYC standards. I think this came up later, in conversation with Mitch, DDyte and Kiz, about the NYC lifestyle: no-one actually lives in their apartment; the apartment is merely a place in which to sleep, and New Yorkers actually do all their day-to-day living out in the parks and streets of the city. Certainly, I found the life in the various parks -- not just Central Park! -- to be quite vibrant.

I had a lunch appointment with 2SG Thomas, at a Vegan place down in the Village. Again, a case of checking out the dining habits of the locals: I only picked it because he'd made postive noises about it in a Facebook post a few weeks earlier. So, the plan was to wander around the Village until lunch....

NYC is laid out on a strict grid, which breaks down in the Village. I was told later that the engineers responsible for setting up the NYC street grid -- demolishing anything that didn't line up -- halted when they got close to that end of Manhattan and wouldn't go further, because a plague of cholera had the Village in its grip at the time. As a result, that part of the city is full of streets with names like "Sullivan", rather than, say, "East 45th"; and the alignment is all at an odd angle to the main grid. I confess to getting a little bit lost. I had thought I was moving in the general direction of Lunch, until I suddenly found myself back exactly at the Subway station where I'd started. And here I thought this sort of thing only happened in stories....

I was a little more careful about my directionality after that. I made a brief stop in a bookstore to look at their street maps, and then I confidently made my way to Washington Square Park. Now there's a delightful little place. I picked up a honeydew sorbet from a street vendor -- God bless street vendors, every city needs more of them -- and found myself drawn into a game of chess ($5 a game) with an older gentleman at one of the tables. I don't pretend to be any good at chess; in fact, I pretty much suck at it, though I have been told that I give the impression of being the sort of person who should be a pretty good chess player. Although I lost the game, the guy did compliment me on my playing ... perhaps because I tend not to hesitate very long? That does look like confidence, sometimes.

Or maybe he just wanted to sucker me into another game for another $5. Who knows. Regardless, it was a pleasant use of a $5 bill.

It's been 16 years since I last saw 2SG Thomas. I remember we used to go to this restaurant, Country Manna, and order four main courses between the two of us. We were much younger then, and soldiers besides; I don't think we could do that now. I know I didn't manage to finish my lunch here, but on the other hand I find that I am perhaps not a big fan after all of seitan.

Of course, after 16 years, there's a lot to catch up on, and little idea where to start. I don't remember everything we said -- I think we reminisced for a bit -- but now I'm thinking up various things that I wish we'd talked about as well. Things like Lord Dunsany.

Thomas had to go back to work after lunch, so I had the afternoon to kill before meeting up with Mitch again for dinner. I decided to head off to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and just wander. I was interested in seeing their collection of 19th Century paintings -- yay Impressionists -- but there turned out to be an enormous lineup for that part of the museum, and I hadn't the time. Instead I wandered through other parts and found out just how much of a labyrinth the place is.

I remember an exhibit on Spanish art/architecture that occupied a double-storeyed room, made up to look like the interior of a Spanish courtyard, with separate entrances for the verandah above and the courtyard proper below. I remember several rooms of musical instruments, and a mediaeval armour exhibit. I remember finding an octagonal room with Impressionist works on the walls -- and here I found Renoir's painting of "Two Girls at a Piano". I told Fr Stephen once before that this is my least favourite Renoir, because it seemed to me to be something of a surfeit of peach and orange. Seeing the real thing, I realise that my impression was perhaps based on rather poor reproductions: the real thing shows considerably better colour composition and balance than I had thought. Discussing things with Fr Stephen some weeks later, he said that quite often it is difficult to do justice to a painting with a photograph; the camera doesn't capture all the reflection and refraction the way an eye does, I suppose, and it must be even worse for those paintings in which the texture of the paint is an issue.

I walked across Central Park, cross-wise this time, to get to dinner. There were people playing on the great lawn, and I saw turtles swimming in a pond. My goodness, New Yorkers know how to use their parks!

I'd wanted to dine at a kosher deli while I was in NYC, and Mitch had suggested Zabar's. However, we found when we got there that they were within minutes of closing the deli section of the operation; Mitch and I just had time to pick up a couple of sandwiches for them to heat up in the panini grill. DDyte showed up then, in time for a sandwich but not in time for the grill. We finished up outside because they were now locking up. Allow me to express my surprise that any dining place at all closes shop at 7pm in NYC.

I shall have to check out the other kosher delis in NYC if I go there again though. They may have blintzes and knishes, but my sandwich was pastrami and cheese -- I don't think many rabbis eat here.

We finished off the day with meeting Kiz at the bar/lounge near her office. Conversation drifted towards lifestyle. I described the advertisements I'd seen earlier in the day in the windows of real-estate agents, how everything was taken with a wide-angled lens, and how the prices seemed so very high all around. We spoke about work: Mitch was finishing up his Ph.D., and had had an interview for a potential job earlier in the day. He spoke about possibly working for RBC, which was my first indication of a larger phenomenon, one which would become more evident in Boston and Manchester and which I shall discuss then....

Updated my last entry, on Gabriel Knight 3, because I'd left out mention of the one puzzle that bugged me the most -- I'd hit the hints three times, not twice. There's more that can be said, I think, but I've probably already said enough.

One thing I'd like to add, though:

At one point, looking at the hotel maid, Gabriel comments that he "thought the French maid in 'Clue' had big ... feather dusters". First of all, yay "Clue" reference: much as I love that movie, I didn't think it was quite so famous as to merit a reference in a computer game. Second of all, it gets funnier when you remember that Gabriel Knight is being voiced by Tim Curry, who was actually in the movie. I'm guessing the line was an actor allusion, inserted purely because of him.

I picked up Gabriel Knight 3 from gog.com a little over a week ago, in spite of warnings from Dave* and from Susana that the game was ... a little annoying, shall we say? But I really did want to finish off the Gabriel Knight trilogy and, as I said to Dave, GK1 was the single best adventure Sierra ever put out, so how bad could GK3 possibly be (famous last words)?

Anyway, I finished the game last night, almost precisely at midnight by some weird coincidence: my computer clock, when the game closed down, said 00:02, which means the end credits were rolling over midnight.

( And now: comments, reviews, and spoilers )

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* - from here on in this journal, "Dave" will refer to Dave Monath and "McLeod" will refer to Dave McLeod. My system of "Firstname Initial" breaks down with this pair of Dave M.s.

Dave dropped me off at the commuter train station on his way to work, and then it was back to Baltimore to catch the train to NYC. I decided I would walk the distance from Camden Yards to Baltimore Penn Station, a distance of about 20 minutes, straight up north. It was mid-morning, and the weather was hot. My back was a veritable lake of perspiration by the time I got to the station.

For some reason, I always imagined Baltimore to be sadder and dirtier than it actually is. There were some pleasant residential streets -- the Mount Vernon district, I think -- on the way to the station.

I arrived in NYC in the early afternoon, and you can tell you're in NYC because it is crowded with people getting from A to B and back. I was supposed to go drop off my bags at Mitch's apartment at Central Park North -- I was quite impressed to hear that he lived across the street from Central Park -- so that is what I did. I've heard stories about the complexity of the New York subway system, and I certainly remember very little of it from my first visit some ten or twelve years ago, but it actually seemed simple enough. Mitch had already told me which two lines to look for, too, so that helped.

Once I was de-luggaged, I set off into the wilds of Central Park. I wasn't more than about ten minutes into it when I came across some film students making a film. In this scene, the hero of their story was sitting in the park watching people go by, and so I went by ... and they must have really liked me because they called me back and had me go by again three or four times. Somewhere in NYC is a student film with me doing a walk-on. There are ducks in the background.

I gave them my e-mail address. They said they would contact me when the thing is done.

Anyway, Central Park is huge. It's the start of Olmsted's landscaping career, as I understand it, and it went very much over budget because of all the things he crammed into it. Our own Mount Royal was done by the same guy, though significantly later in his career. I walked down the west side, more or less, taking the bridle path through much of the way. I remember pausing by an enormous lake ... was there a fountain in it? I forget ... and watching the rippling waters....

I think it was two hours before I emerged at the southwest corner.

I was supposed to meet Matthew and Mitch at a pizza place of Matthew's choosing. I got there early (once again, my back was a veritable lake of perspiration) and spent a little time browsing in the (air-conditioned) theatrical bookstore next door. There was a library of plays available, and I know there are a couple of scripts that I've wanted to have/read. But why is it that whenever I have the opportunity, I can never remember what I wanted that opportunity for?

Now, there'd been some stress over coordinating the NYC leg of my journey. I guess people in NYC are just that busy. I know people from three different walks of life here: Mitch, from gaming at McGill; Thomas, from my old army days; and then the IF crowd. Duchess and Katre were unavailable, what with it being the first day of Ramadan and all. For some reason, we weren't sure if DDyte and Kiz were available that first day either. And Thomas wanted me to himself for lunch the next day.... So, met Matthew, waited for Mitch, and I guess Mitch was held up at work. By then, the pizza place was getting very full and there would be no way we could get a table -- they don't let you just grab a table and wait in this joint -- so we went elsewhere. Thank goodness Mitch left me the number of his cellphone. Eventually, the three of us ended up in a different pizza place about a block away.

I'm trying to remember the pizza I had. I seem to recall that the crust was thinner and crispier than I'm used to.

Matthew had to go back to work, so after dinner Mitch took me over to his alumni club. Which has all the hallmarks of a gentleman's club, although it certainly isn't "men only". I'd just been reading up on the gentlemen's clubs of London -- did you know, there used to be several ladies' clubs as well? More than there were clubs that let in both genders? -- so I was pretty interested to see the real thing. The club does have hostel rooms for members, though apparently there is a hefty fee involved. Mitch talked about a band that they had in sometimes. There was, I remember, a reading room with desks and backgammon boards, and there was a bar. It's all very very port-and-cigars.

We talked gaming theory. For some reason, Mitch thinks I'm an awesome GM. I'm okay, but I don't know if I'm as good as he seems to think. I must have done something right, GMing for him, at least; I'm not entirely sure what, but talking about it made it gel together in my head a bit more. I remember that, from almost the beginning, I liked drawing on outside sources for inspiration, and using these sources as guidelines for NPC behaviour. Everything is built up through a form of word association, and that can lead to apparently complex worlds with minimal effort on my part. I think Mitch's main point of interest is in the techniques of world-building ... he seems particularly interested in "Dogs In The Vineyard", which I've only encountered briefly in an IFmud session.

We passed through Times Square on the way back, and let me tell you that the way that place is lit up is something else. Most places, you can tell that it's night time even when they're all lit up: that is because there is some variance in the lighting intensity from one step to another. Times Square ... might as well be high noon at midnight. You could sit down anywhere with legal fine print and not have to worry about eye strain.

I remember an army recruiting station and a police station in Times Square that were rather interestingly designed. They looked like toys, like entertainment stalls.

Anyway, back to Mitch's apartment to shower off the dried-up remains of both lakes of perspiration that had come and gone on my back throughout the day, and then to sleep.