Here and There

First full day in Boston. Got up, wrote yesterday’s blog post, had some coffee at the home of my hosts, then set out for the JFK Presidential Library and Museum. Quick note: on the 15-minute walk to the T, Boston’s public transportation system and eponymous subway nickname, we passed this storefront gem:

The library was a short (distance-wise) subway ride from my hosts’ home in Somerville to the UMass Boston campus. A short, free shuttle ride took us around the campus to the library. Both are located on a well-kept peninsula jutting out more or less into the “hah-bah.” Not a bad place to go to school, if slightly remote.

When we got to the museum/library, we were treated to a 17-minute documentary, covering the period from JFK’s early life up to the contentious election of 1960. Funny, the video started with a photograph of Kennedy as president, accompanied by his own voice over, disparaging the myth over the lie. I couldn’t help but notice the irony there: If there is a single president in the modern era mythologized by the popular culture, it’s John F. Kennedy. The documentary was also comical in its ability to (accurately, I presume) depict Kennedy as a young man whose worldview was forming in alarmingly sophisticated ways, as the Nazis gathered strength in Germany and the Japanese empire ran over islands in the Pacific. Spurred to help defend his country, the young Kennedy is seen more than once shirtless, sunglasses, ear-to-ear winning smile. Always a playboy, that guy.

The museum was pretty good, albeit cheesy (as any historical museum is wont to be). One of my favorites was several pieces of legal pad paper that had JFK’s “doodles” on it. One even had a pencil drawing of a sailboat. At least we know where his priorities lay. The short video on the Cuban Missile Crisis (or, “the closest the planet has come to nuclear annihilation) was disappointing, but the automatic doors to get into the theater where it was shown impressed me.

I appreciated the temporary exhibited titled “Handmade and Heartfelt,” a collection of gifts of homage to the former first couple. It included a mosaic portrait of the 35th president:

The exhibits are arranged chronologically, and just after the black-walled “November 22, 1963” room, the last part of the tour is the legacies room. Just before the exit, keeping with chronology, is a video of Bill Clinton retelling the story of shaking Kennedy’s hands when Clinton was a young man. Perfect.

The building itself was pretty nice (sorry, I’m lacking descriptive terms at the moment). It’s basically a stone, three-story structure in which the museum lives, then a black steel and glass tower adjacent to and rising up over the museum, which I believe is where the library lives. One of the more appealing details inside the building was this Guggenheim-like ascending spiral just bordering the library inside:

For dinner, we met up with an old friend from SF, and another from my Austin days, whom I hadn’t seen in seven years. They actually met independently in Austin a few years ago, and moved up to Boston together last year. We went to Emma’s in Kendall Square. It didn’t look like much from the outside, but they had the friendliest wait staff, and some of the best pizza I’ve ever had. I’d rank it at least on par with my local favorite, Pauline’s. I’m thinking Emma’s cooks their pies on a stone, giving the thin crust that perfect flakiness. One of our pizza’s was a “garlicky green olive,” feta, goat cheese to die for. The others were plain cheese and Italian sweet sausage with carmelized onions. Overall, excellent food, friendly service, and a reasonable price ($20 per person, including tip).

Today, I go back to New York to meet friends for dinner in the city. Pizza tour continues, as we planned to go to Mario Batatli’s Otto Pizzeria.

For the record (you know who you are), I didn’t plan on getting all this pizza when I originally decided to come out here. But why fight it? Pizza in general is better in the East, whereas good Mexican food is impossible to find out here (and, perhaps needless to say, California and Mexican are somewhat synonymous). When in Rome…

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