The French-Canadian connection

By Marc Levy

Published: October 28, 2003

At last someone’s saying it and, even better, backing it up with a numbers: “The question is really safety, and the fact is … Canadian procedures for safety are comparable and sometimes even better” than those of the United States.
The speaker was Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich, a leader in the effort to import prescription [...]

Hating Star Market

By Marc Levy

Published: October 22, 2003

There was a notable trip to the Porter Square Star Market, a quick jaunt to pick up a couple of bagels and replenish the house’s dwindling supply of roasted, unsalted store-brand peanuts. The trip was notable because the store had neither, making the trip worthless.
But that makes many of my trips to the store notable, [...]

Rant control

By admin

Published: October 13, 2003

Cambridge isn’t going to be getting rent control anytime soon. Whether it’s needed is a little less certain.
The city, like the rest of Massachusetts, has been without rent control since 1994, but activists have put it on the Nov. 4 ballot as a home-rule petition, which means that even if enough voters in the city [...]

Sports denouncer

By admin

Published: October 7, 2003

I spend a lot of time in cheap, no-atmosphere joints and a very little bit in high society. What Anna’s Taqueria and the Locke-Ober Cafe have in common, other than my money, is a lack of flat-panel televisions and sports, and somewhere in between are those scattered Cafe Algiers and Enormous Rooms, whose rarefied vibes [...]

Porter Square

By admin

Published: October 1, 2003

Reading Dawn Powell’s “The Locusts Have No King,” specifically the section in which she describes Rubberleg Square, provoked jealousy. So lively. Such a personality this square has, such powerful memories it would compel from its visitors. A roaring, jittering, manic place, a pixilated place, a wisecracking, bitter, passionate nonstop-talker-barfly kind of a place.
And then there’s [...]