pluto!

This begins my last month in Cambridge. People keep asking me what things I want to make sure to do before I go. My answers are not especially inspiring, other than that I want to make sure I finish my quest to see all the planets in the Boston model solar system. Today, Sara and I went to Pluto, whose demotion to dwarf planet status I fully endorse but is part of Boston's system and so part of my quest. Pluto is at the Riverside T stop, which is the furthest stop out on the Green Line. We got there and there was all these buses, because the station had been closed due to some problem. Still, our bubbly astronomical enthusiasm was good enough to talk our way over the construction tape and up to the platform.



We also went to visit Brandeis University, including a stop by this peace garden they have there:



If you look close, you can see I'm wearing my man purse. It was pointed out that the buttons on my man purse do not exactly suggest success at fulfilling whatever inner peace goals the peace garden may have:



As for the planets quest, the major obstacle to completion would seem to be--cue the Beavis laugh-track--Uranus, as the Saturn's location is only a few blocks from my house and the Sun is at the Museum of Science.

venus!

(me, Venus)

Studies have shown there are two kinds of people in the world: Jeremy supporters (of which there are eight) and Jeremy detractors. The latter have regarded my project of visiting all the sites in the Boston area model solar system before I leave Cambridge as being delusionally ambitious, and they have also conspired to place various obstacles in my path, such as removing both Saturn and Neptune from their reported locations. Today, after an errand brought me nearby, I decided to scale the parking garage of Boston's Museum of Science, at the top of which Venus was reputed to be. With the help of a paid sherpa (called "Sara") and an exotic new climbing technology (called "the Elevator"), I reached the summit, located Venus, and had "Sara" take this photo.

While Jeremy detractors may be saddened by losing yet another round in their unending battle to thwart me, they can take comfort in my looking more slovenly and in need of a haircut in this photo than I might otherwise like.

BTW, at a restaurant the other night, a woman was wearing a T-shirt that said "Pluto: Never Forget." Don't worry, I won't forget: I just hope I reach the Riverside Train Station before it's removed or vandalized. I have six sites down--Saturn, Uranus, Pluto, and the Sun remain.

boys are stupider, send them to...

(Jupiter and me, at South Station in Boston)

Detractors of the boy detective might have thought that I had abandoned my plan to get photos of myself by all the exhibits in the Boston area model solar system. Wrong! When I got back from New York City late Thursday night, I remembered that Jupiter was in the train station. Some investigation revealed that it was in the food court, over on the side where a number of people were sitting. I felt quite self-conscious taking a photo of myself by Jupiter while these young station-hanging-hipsters were sitting a few feet away--not to mention being completely exhausted from my trip--so it's not like I was going for a accurate rendering of my handsome visage or an especially great depiction of the splendor of our largest planet behind me. Nonetheless, it counts, meaning that I now have five down--Mercury, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Neptune--and five to go: the three remaining planets, Pluto, and the Sun.

argh! they took away me neptune and replaced it with kiddie rides!

Saturday was a trip to Salem. Salem is not just witch-kitsch--it's also the home of the New England Pirate Museum. And, on the way out of the museum, we ran into a strange older woman with pink eye makeup and puns we could not keep up with ("To someone waiting for the gallows, no noose is good noose," "I'd love to have the chance to unbuckle his swash, if you know what I mean") who told us this happened to be the weekend of Salem's annual Pirate Faire.



On the way back from Salem, I was able to finagle a stop at the Square One Mall in Saugus, which is the former home of Neptune in Boston's model solar system. Neptune used to be in the Food Court, and the circumstances of its removal have been left somewhat mysterious.



I thought any reasonably bookstore would have some book for children that featured all the planets, but instead the only rendition of Neptune we could find was a coffee table book. (I also thought maybe we'd be able to find a fake foam trident somewhere, but no luck on that.) We asked a guy who ran a kiddie train if he knew where Neptune had been and he assured us that nothing of the sort had been in the food court--at least in the six months he had worked there, six months being when the mall added the kiddie train. We decided to go with the theory that Neptune was booted to make room for the toddler-railroad to come through, and so here is my photo in front of it:



Four planets down, four and the Sun and Pluto to go.

earth calling jeremy

(me and earth, as well as earth's more shadowy side)

So, my misplaced cel phone being sufficiently "misplaced" as to be indistinguishable from "gone," I went to the mall today to buy a Treo, and I decided I might as well walk across the street and take care of visiting Earth while I was at it. I was especially motivated by an e-mail from a friend this morning who sent a photo of herself by a monument to Saturn in her home city, while my own schemes for seeing Saturn in Cambridge have been temporarily thwarted. Anyway, three planets down, six and the Sun to go.

I've been playing around with the Treo and think I've finally gotten the hang of text messaging, something I never mastered on my last phone. Turns out it's like e-mail, only with your phone. Except I can also do e-mail from my phone, but then it goes to e-mail, and text messages go to other people's phones, even if they don't have e-mail on their phone. Brilliant! Now I need to master that strange, vowelless pidgin people use to make their msgs shrtr.

why does the world continually conspire to thwart me?

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeremy Freese  
Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2006 11:54 AM
To: 'information@mos.org'
Subject: lost planet

I am living in the Boston area for the next year.  Like many folks 
with a limited period of time to spend in a lovely, famous place, I have 
developed a list of all the things I wanted to make sure I do and see in 
the area while I'm here.  The virtues of the Freedom Trail and Walden 
Pond notwithstanding, prominent on my list was that I wanted to get 
photographs of myself standing by all of the planets in the MoS's model 
solar system.  Of the ten locations, I had the least worries about seeing 
Saturn because it was listed as being at the Cambridge Public Library, 
near where I live.  However, the library is undergoing renovations and has 
temporarily relocated, and apparently Saturn did not move along with it.  
Indeed, a librarian said she was not sure where Saturn was right now.  Any
information you can provide about the location of Saturn would be greatly
appreciated.

--Jeremy

(Note: original post about this project here. Note also: conspirators of the world, I refuse to be so easily thwarted.)

Update: I've received a response. It turns out that Neptune, which was purportedly in the food court of a mall in Saugus, is also unavailable!

Dear Jeremy,

The Saturn model was brought back to the Museum of Science when the 
Cambridge library closed, and is currently in storage. Since the Saturn 
and Neptune  models are not available, we revised the Community Solar 
System passport to give credit for those planets. The most recent 
version of the solar system passport is available for download at:

http://www.mos.org/doc/1270

Please note that there is a second set of planet models located in the 
Museum of Science - in the planetarium lobby. The bronze models are 
surrounded by the sun so  you could take a photo of all the planets at 
once! No admission is required to visit the planetarium lobby.

I hope you'll have a chance to stop by the Museum of Science.

Sincerely,
Noreen Grice
Chaerles Hayden Planetarium, Boston

I have not yet figured out my next move. I am not yet conceding defeat.

start with the m's

(photos from mercury and mars)

In addition to my longterm program of blogging from different states, I have decided today to launch a separate initiative to get of photograph of myself by each of the planets in the Boston Area mock solar system by the time I leave the area. The photos above are from me by Mercury (at the Museum of Science) and Mars (at the CambridgeSide Galleria Mall). I didn't want to delay the group I was with, plus I didn't want to get the easy ones all out of the way so easily, so I didn't make them go with me to the top of the museum parking garage to get Venus or into a nearby hotel lobby to get Earth. The Sun, it turns out, is in the Museum Planetarium, which I think means I'll have to pay to get to see it. And here I had thought solar power was free for all.

Pluto is at a T stop out on the Green Line. I will go to it sometime, although I do agree with its demotion. I wonder if there will be some protester chained to it.

BTW, I was invited along to the Museum of Science today by a few friends to see the BodyWorlds2 exhibit, the sequel to the popular BodyWorlds that involves artistically and informatively intended presentations of dead bodies that have been plastinated and sliced up or manipulated in various ways. Given how ridiculously squeamish I am, I was concerned that the exhibit would be so gross I'd need to worry about having a seizure (no, neither am I jumping on the Dorothaleptic bandwagon nor was this a complete impossibility, for reasons I'm not going to share on the blog just now). As it turned out, I didn't find the exhibit that gross, but I also didn't find it that interesting, either. So many people raved about the original that I'm not sure if it's just an inferior sequel or if plastinated bodies aren't my thing.

As for highlights, though, there was a comparison of body slices from an obese and nonobese person of the same height that provides good scared-straight-to-the-salad-bar material, and there was also a selection of embryos in jars that allowed you to insert yourself in the mind of a Supreme Court Justice ("okay, I could see where the same person could see that and think it's a mother's choice, and see that and think it's a little too close to infanticide").