The intersection of Beacon Street and Charlesgate, where Kanako Miura, a 36-year-old visiting researcher at MIT, was struck and killed by a dump truck. This is the sight of BU that most new students first see.   |  Photo courtesy of Brian D’Amico.

On May 19, under mercurial weather, Boston University’s class of 2013 spread across Nickerson Field—a scarlet sea of smiling faces and decorated graduation caps. Despite the looming prospects of seeking gainful employment, paying-off student loans, and reaching some nebulous standard of adulthood, it was a joyful ceremony. The class had made it through college unscathed.

At 3:34 pm that same day, a dump truck collided with a cyclist and drove away in an alleged hit-and-run accident in front of BU’s Myles Standish Hall. For Kanaka Miura, a 36-year-old visiting researcher at MIT in her second year at the school, the collision was fatal. Miura’s death is the latest in a year full of tragedies on Boston’s streets and follows, by only four days, Mayor Thomas Menino’s pledge to reduce cycling accidents by 50% by 2020.

Downtown, crowds continued—as they have for weeks—to mill around Copley Square and the memorials for victims of the Boston Marathon bombings. Shrines of flowers, running shoes, Red Sox hats, whiteboards and candles commemorating the deaths and injuries still pepper the Copley area. Blown-out store windows remain boarded up. The plaza is still an open wound in the heart of the city.

It’s difficult to comprehend the number of tragedies, freak accidents, and acts of malice that Boston has seen this year—it’s impossible to feel everything at once. The bad news came in waves and in clusters. Each time it stuck, like a lump in the throat. These tragedies, with frequency and consequence greater than anyone could have imagined, occurred here on our doorstep and left the Boston and BU communities with red, deep and agitated wounds. Our city is different now: it’s been injured in a way it hasn’t been in hundreds of years.

Boston University has lost a confirmed and astounding total of 11 students in the past 13 months: three in a car crash while studying abroad in New Zealand, three in bicycle collisions (like the one that claimed Miura’s life), one in the marathon bombings, one in an overdose, one in a suicide, one in a shooting, one in a fire, one in an accident in Turkey.

All of the victims were aged 24 or younger. Reminders of their presence persist in our daily lives. A shrine to Christopher Weigl, who was killed on his bicycle after colliding with a truck on the corner of Comm Ave. and St. Paul St., remains on that corner, the photographs and letters weathered but resilient. Binland Lee and Lu Lingzi were awarded posthumous degrees at this year’s commencement. Nobody has forgotten who we’ve lost.

In the face of tragedy, numbing is easy—especially at a time when we receive information at inhuman speeds. We barrel through emotion after emotion and too quickly beeline to analysis and criticism. It’s not easy to forget a fallen cyclist or a bombing victim when we are encouraged to contextualize them as part of some larger issue. It’s just as arduous to remember that we are unexceptional—the tragedies affecting us now have affected and are still affecting others the world over. It’s harder still, having accomplished this, to remember how to retrace our steps and tend the wounds we’ve received, honoring what we have lost. It’s muscular, our emotional back-and-forth. It’s a push-and-pull of grief and empathy that wears us out the more we exercise it.

Boston University extends out massively, from Allston’s bustling streets to the edge of downtown Boston’s skyscrapers. In between, a campus has been united by a year of tragedy. Each new piece of bad news is magnified a hundred fold because we feel it together—a community loss. At the end of this brutal year we are eager to move on, to return to a time when violence and misfortune are rare. But, in the wake of Miura’s death, a tragedy physically set on the very edge of our campus, it’s clear that no such time exists—maybe it never did. But does that mean that there is no hope?

Commencement 2013. Photo by Kenshin Okubo.

• • •

The commencement ceremony was long, but ended mirthfully. The rain gracefully held off until after the proceedings. The riant, scarlet-clad crowd poured out of the stadium and into the city. The rain began to fall, slowly at first, sometimes bleeding right through the graduation robes’ bright pigment into recent grads’ best apparel—white dresses pinked, shirtsleeves reddened.

This year, we all bled. This year, many of us learned for the first time what it means to be truly frightened. We learned what it’s like to lose a friend, to feel unsafe when walking down the street. We learned to grieve. We learned that our world is not as safe as it seems, and we learned that reactions to events like the ones we’ve experienced can be ugly, brutish and cruel.

But we also learned what it means to be unified. We learned to be proud of where we live. We learned to be grateful for the protection and support around us every day, from that provided by our local police departments to that of our peers, professors and neighbors. We learned to see things from a new perspective. We learned that the best—sometimes the only—thing we can do is continue to live—learning, caring, and remembering.

We come to college to grow up. We pursue our passions and embrace the possibility of changing our minds. We come to experience the new and the strange. This year, we lost an innocence we never knew we had and learned that not one of us is as invincible as once believed.

This spring has been one of the most beautiful Boston has ever seen. The bloom has been profuse, prolonged and luscious, the temperatures mild and the skies almost uninterruptedly clear. People of all ages are outside—exploring, shedding the weight of the year among the growth. This is a time of rebirth, of renewed faith and abundance. Under these temperate climes, in the sunlit faces of our new graduates, it’s clear that nothing, no matter how harsh, can completely diminish the spirit of this city—even as the tide continues to turn.

“I wanted to have someone as Commencement speaker who’s made a huge, huge impact on the world, and she did it coming out as an undergraduate,” Brown said, as reported by BU Today.

Wendy Kopp | Photo courtesy of BU Photography

In 1990, Kopp founded the non-profit Teach For America after graduating from Princeton University to fulfill the dream that “one day, all children in this nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education.” In this program, exemplary recent college graduates commit to a two-year teaching stint in America’s impoverished and low-performing inner-city and rural schools in an effort to address educational inequality. For 23 years Kopp presided as CEO of Teach For America, growing the organization from its initial 500 corps-members to today’s 10,000 participants and 28,000 alumni, and serving over 3 million students in some of the nation’s neediest schools.

In 2007, Kopp expanded Teach For America’s educational mission to a global scale in another venture she co-founded called Teach For All. As the organization’s website states, “Teach For All is a global network of independent social enterprises that are working to expand educational opportunity in their nations by enlisting their most prominent future leaders in the effort. We aspire to the vision that one day, all children will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education.”

She has authored two books chronicling her experiences: One Day, All Children: The Unlikely Triumph of Teach For America and What I Learned Along the Way (2003) and A Chance To Make History: What Works and What Doesn’t in Providing an Excellent Education For All (2011).

For her efforts and contributions, Kopp will also be presented with an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree  from the university.

Kopp commented on the announcement on her Twitter account:

[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/wendykopp/status/330343527525527553"]

After learning of the news that Wendy Kopp was named Commencement speaker, Future Teach For America corps member Kiera Vinson (CAS ’13) was anticipative. “I think Wendy Kopp has the potential to be a great speaker. Being that I will be moving immediately after graduation to start my time with TFA, I hope she has wise words about education and its power.”

Hopefully Kopp conveys a message to the graduating seniors that inspires them to make an attempt to better our nation and the world, as she has done herself.

Wendy Kopp will deliver her address to the Class of 2013 during Commencement on Sunday, May 19, at Nickerson Field.

Read on for this year’s final edition of FASHION S(QUAD)! It’s a good ‘un. Thank you for reading! Stay classy, BU!

Kah (CAS ’16) demonstrates just how to layer in springtime. | Photo by Sharon Weissburg. 

Kah’s ribcage necklace is so lovely and delicate. What a find! | Photo by Sharon Weissburg.

Lisa’s (CAS ’16) Urban Outfitters pants complement her neon-trimmed sweatshirt perfectly. And look at that bag! | Photo by Sharon Weissburg.

Elina (PhD) wears J. Crew trousers with a basic black blazer, tapping into the recent chic pajama trend. | Photo by Sharon Weissburg.

Omeed (SMG ’14) is all cool sweats (from Acne) and big swagger. | Photo by Sharon Weissburg.

This girl brings icy coolness to a sunny day. | Photo by Sharon Weissburg.

Kate (CAS ’16) is a punk rock version of the girl from Brave, huh? | Photo by Sharon Weissburg.

Adele (a grad student) got her sweet pants at Rainbow and also might be the coolest girl ever. | Photo by Sharon Weissburg.

Entirely too rad. | Photo by Sharon Weissburg.

Divest BU poses on the BU beach during an event to inform people about sea level rise caused by climate change. | Courtesy of Divest BU.

Ben Thompson views climate change as a slow apocalypse. The issue is dire enough to the soft-spoken math grad student that he’s travelled across the country to express his support for other environmental groups participating in protests, sit-ins and dramatic demonstrations.

Behind his passion is the belief that it only takes a simple understanding of climate change for people to realize the potential for disaster and take action. Even if his actions only get people thinking and talking, they’re worth it.

“To start the conversation is so much more than symbolic,” he said, “it’s strategic, and it’s life or death.”

So, when he got to Boston University last September, he started Divest BU as a way to spark conversations and get students thinking about climate change. The group’s ultimate goal is for these conversations to get students to push BU administrators into retracting the university’s fossil fuel investments.

But the first year hasn’t been easy for Thompson and Divest BU. Not being a part of the undergraduate community made it difficult for Thompson to start a movement oriented so heavily toward getting people involved.

When Thompson first started the group in September, it sent a letter to President Robert Brown directly requesting the administration to divest from fossil fuels, but President Brown declined.

“The world does not yet have viable technological and political alternatives to fossil fuels to meet its energy demands,” he wrote in his response. “I believe that the best near-term solution is to work with fossil fuel producers to mitigate, to the extent feasible, the release of greenhouse gases.”

In his letter, President Brown said the decision would be considered more extensively by an Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing put together by the Board of Trustees, which was still in the works at the time of his response.

Although President Brown rejected the group’s request for divestment, his response only emphasized Thompson’s belief that divestment will not come from aggressive lobbying.

“[Administrators] are not going to divest because we make rational or moral appeals to them,” said Thompson. “They’re going to divest because the student body demands it.”

In that regard, Divest BU is starting to make progress, and Thompson is optimistic for the future. He said the group has seen other encouraging signs. All year long, its members have been collecting signatures for a petition to divest, and Thompson said they’re “creeping closer” to the 1,000 signature goal.

At an April 9 meeting of BU’s student government, Colby Smith, another member of Divest BU asked for Student Government’s support of its cause. Three weeks later, the government voted unanimously in support of divestment.

In addition, Thompson’s spending the summer working on a faculty letter to present to the administration at the beginning of next semester, by which time the Board of Trustees’ new investment committee should be up and running.

“I think we’re in a really good position to start next year,” Thompson said.

In my search for the next college or university to intrude upon, I decided to head over to Berklee. I mean, why not? If you’ve ever walked by some of its buildings around Newbury, you’d have been sure to pass through small crowds of hip, artistic or musical creatures that slightly resemble college students, only with cooler hair and retro clothing.

In any event, it would seem that in trying to explore their campus I just ended up jumping around from building to building—not literally, of course, though I admire parkour pros—not really finding anything all that exciting to write about. Sure, the buildings were full of interesting looking students. And, of course, the structures were beautifully and uniquely decorated with low-lamps and some red walls, but I wasn’t finding a story. At least not until I recruited some help.

Bodega secret shop | Photo by Joseph Martelli

As I began to lose steam on my search for a story amidst this anti-campus, two friends of mine decided to aid me in my quest. They had heard from students at Berklee that there were quite a few hotspots around the area that many of them liked to frequent. It’s starting to seem like when a story isn’t necessarily budding on-campus, heading to students’ favorite spots in the immediate surrounding areas is the way to go.

Our first stop was at a store called Bodega. Now, at first glance you would never in a million-and-two years think that this little rundown corner store was worth even walking near, but you’d be pretty mistaken. I managed to snap a picture of the exterior, but once inside the 4 ft by 4 ft entrance—putting on the facade of a miniature, dirtier version of CityCo—the “owners” demanded that I take no pictures. In a second, I’d see why.

Upon approaching the Snapple vending machine in the back of the room, the front of the machine retreated into the wall revealing an entire shop behind the walls of this dinky little hole in the wall. Ha! See what I did there? A hole in the wall of the hole-in-the-wall. Anyhow, inside of this shop were the most colorful Nikes in all of Boston paired with some of the most unique and trendy button-downs and tank tops I think I’ve ever come across in one place. Despite the no-pictures rule, Debbie, an employee with stunningly wild hair, was kind enough to allow me a few snapshots.

Exterior of Berklee | Photo by Joseph Martelli

After exiting by the same Snapple door we entered through, my friends and I ventured over to Pavement, a hip little coffee shop over on Gainsborough St with a conveniently placed sushi restaurant across the street. After settling into some seats and ordering what was probably the most plain item on a menu filled with some of the most unique bagels and salads I’ve ever heard of, I sat back down and started simply observing different tables. As I inhaled my bagel with strawberry preserves, I noticed a student sitting at a nearby table in torn up boots, a red shirt and multicolored nail-polish on his fingers. I thought his appearance was so striking that I asked if I could take a picture for my personal blog, and he agreed albeit a bit shyly. “Should I move closer,” he asked, at a decibel I could barely hear. And that was that. I suppose sometimes people speak louder with their stylistic choices rather than their words.

About an hour into sitting at Pavement, with bits of bagel left on my plate and two empty Coke bottles—the old kind—on the table, one of my friends suggested running across the street to grab sushi. Now, I’m not sure if my opinion of Pavement was affected or not by the amazing salmon sashimi I smuggled in from Symphony Sushi, but I have a pretty high opinion of it as of now. At some point while devouring our contraband goods in the coffee shop we realized that the shy trendy kid had done the same, as we all had matching white takeout bags under our tables.

Exterior of Pavement on Gainsborough St | Photo by Joseph Martelli

At about 8:54, the woman working at the cash register announced to everyone—and by everyone I mean all three of us—that the shop would be closing in five minutes. During the walk back to campus, I thought a bit about the few things I may have learned about Berklee’s students and atmosphere. Even at 9 p.m., the streets around the school’s buildings were dominated by students with instruments strapped to their backs or guitar cases in their hands–all of them adorned by denim vests, or combat boots with wild yet beautiful hairstyles.

These kids express themselves endlessly, day and night. They speak through their clothing, or through their hair, or through their instruments, and not even their own campus can keep them contained. They know no limits and color outside of their lines each and every day. I admire these students. I admire the kid wearing nail-polish and eating sushi in a coffee shop. I would have certainly liked to have found a story somewhere within the actual walls of Berklee, but I don’t regret sharing in the experiences of what a typical afternoon is like for these masters of expression.

One more down, many more to explore.

Oatmeal makes a delicious breakfast and takes almost no time to make. You’ll also feel full extremely quickly. It’s perfect before those lengthy morning classes since it will keep you full until lunchtime.

Whether it is breakfast, lunch, or dinner, oatmeal is healthy and anyone can make it. If you’re feeling especially daring, oatmeal is very versatile, and could easily be used for any meal.

For this recipe, I chose a tropical flavor blend for my oats. Of course, you can choose to amend it to your preferences or keep it as is. It’s a healthy, balanced breakfast that will not only keep you alert and awake all day, but will also let you skip the muffin and pack down real nutrients. 

Feel free to play around with flavor, and don’t be shy (after all, it is your breakfast).

Good luck, and have fun cooking!

Summer oatmeal | Photo by Gabriella Gricius

Summer Oatmeal

Total time: 5-7 minutes

Ingredients:

½ cup of Quaker oats

½ cup of vanilla Greek yogurt

1 cup water

a few chunks of your favorite fruits (I chose mango)

½ cup frozen mixed berries

pinch of sugar (brown sugar makes it especially more rich and satisfying)

Directions:

1. In a microwave-safe bowl, add oatmeal, sugar and water.

2. Microwave the oatmeal for 1 minute

3. Top the oatmeal with vanilla yogurt, berries (thaw them first), and mango chunks

Peggy, independent in her element (and her power color!). | Screenshot by Sharon Weissburg.

This week’s episode of Mad Men saw one of the era’s darkest days–the day of the Martin Luther King, Jr. assassination.

After these past few weeks of tragedy in a year already filled with tragedies, this episode hit home in ways it most likely didn’t intend to. The news hits, and phone service cuts out. People aren’t sure what to do with themselves, or if it’s safe in the streets. Do we go into work? they ask. Can we turn on the TV? Is it safe to go pick up the kids? Should we chase this story? Maybe it’s just how the world is right now–or maybe that’s how the world has always been–but watching the familiar characters of Mad Men react to Dr. King’s murder felt curiously like looking into a mirror.

This episode is similar to past seasons in how the director chooses to handle major historical events– by bouncing from character to character, showing their individual reactions. (The same model was used to handle the Kennedy assassination back in season one.) This is a different sort of tragedy than Kennedy, however. While JFK had a direct and tangible effect on all of the characters’ lives, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. could not (and does not) affect each character equally. This being New York City, the race riot crisis in the South and elsewhere is removed enough from these affluent northerners’ lives as to seem irrelevant to the plot. And for the most part, Mad Men has not dealt much with the issue of the civil rights movement. Now, though, there are riots in the streets of New York for the first time. It’s undeniably in their faces.

There isn’t much of an African-American voice on the show, with the exception of Dawn and Peggy’s yet unnamed secretary. However, despite this sparseness, Mad Men has been recognized for painting well-rounded, three-dimensional black characters (as covered in The Quad by Allan Lasser, here). We’ve primarily only seen black characters in positions of labor, but now there are two African-American secretaries working in the same position as Peggy once did. Their reactions are separate and very individual–Peggy’s secretary openly discusses her feelings on the event, accepting a tender hug from Peggy and permission to go home. Meanwhile, Dawn, not unlike Peggy and Don, prefers to work, and awkwardly rebuffs a hug from Joan (hilarious, by the way) and refuses to leave. Of course, the show hasn’t yet fully entered into a discussion of the civil rights movement, and it’s not definite that it will. After all, this is a show about a world of white, upper-middle class advertising executives.

Bobby and Don settle in for a sad day at the movies. | Photo via AMC.

Bobby Draper, who usually engages in typically childish behavior, accidentally breaking things out of curiosity and being berated by his mother, finally receives an extended scene this week. “I didn’t do it” has functioned as his catchphrase through six seasons without much other dialogue. A similar incident occurs this week–Bobby notices that his wallpaper doesn’t line up and rips a piece of it off, earning him a week without TV. After the assassination, Don picks the kids up and takes them into the chaotic city. When Sally and Megan go to the park for a vigil, Don decides to take Bobby on the errand he’s only done alone until now–going to the movies (Planet of the Apes! A buried Manhattan speaks volumes). “Everyone likes to go to a movie when they’re sad,” says Bobby. Don is suddenly seized with emotion. Later, he says to Megan, “One day they get older, and you see them do something, and you feel that feeling you were pretending to have, and it feels like your heart is going to explode.”

We also see a rare, new side of Ginsberg, who’s been something of a mystery since his strange monologue about his traumatic childhood in a concentration camp. His father sets him up without warning on a date with a perfectly adorable school teacher. It is awkward. Ginsberg babbles about never having had sex before, asks random and probing questions, and finally has an outburst of frustration. The date is cut short by the news of the assassination. It’s not clear what this means for Ginsberg’s character arc except to show that he is awkward, anxious, and very much alive (rather than the detached and brilliant oddball in the SCDP offices).

Pete, as per usual, makes the entire tragedy about himself. When Harry makes a crude remark (which seems to be becoming Harry’s job on this show), Pete spits out, “That man had a wife and four children!” even though as recently as last week’s episode, he was the first to bring up the perceived unattractiveness of employing African-American staff. He calls Trudy, begging to come back and be the father figure he knows he isn’t, and is rebuffed. He pours himself a drink and sits in his cold bachelor pad.

Ginsberg on a date? | Photo via AMC.

Peggy, meanwhile, is all practicality and success, about to buy an apartment on the Upper-East Side wearing her old power color, mustard yellow. Abe has taken a backseat to the operation, and looks as if he’s from another planet than Peggy. They are, indeed, in very different places; Abe admits that he’d rather live somewhere on the West Side. They react very differently to the assassination, as well: Abe rushes into the action and revels in the drama (for which Peggy berates him), and Peggy, after pausing to reflect, goes right back to work.

What the assassination will do to the dynamic of the show is yet uncertain, but one thing continues to be clear: it’s all going south. Megan’s father sadly said it best this episode while on the phone with Megan. He decidedly applauds the “escalation of decay,” a sign that things will certainly continue to darken.

Rachel Atcheson and Peter Singer before the event | Photo by Corey Blumenthal

On Friday evening, BU Veg Society’s Rachel Atcheson (CAS ’13) organized the biggest event of her college career: bringing Peter Singer, described by The New Yorker as “the most influential living philosopher,” to Boston University for a free presentation in Morse Auditorium. Professor Singer, who currently teaches bioethics at Princeton University, first gained recognition in the animal rights movement with his 1975 book, Animal Liberation, which is now considered the philosophical foundation for animal rights.

“I think of him as the godfather of the animal rights movement,” said Atcheson at the reception before Singer’s speech. But the professor’s teachings aren’t limited to animal rights; although Atcheson brought him to BU, thirteen student groups contributed to funding the presentation, including the BU Veg Society and Undergraduate Philosophy Association, as well as the Philosophy Department and CAS student government. He will donate his $10,000 speaking fee to two major animal charities.

Professor Singer’s unique approach to animal rights drew a mixed crowd of about three hundred to the presentation. “We are animals, not something separate,” he observed. In the audience along with philosophy students and radical activists was biomedical engineering student Derin Sevenler, who turned to veganism for its environmental benefits rather than its ethics and takes a more practical approach to the topic. He agrees with Singer’s moral point of view, but “you don’t have to be Pete Singer to realize the future of the planet depends on us changing the way we treat animals.”

After the presentation, Professor Singer held a brief Q&A | Photo by Corey Blumenthal

Several students were at the event because they had studied Singer’s philosophy in class here at BU. In fact, nearly every ethics class on campus reads his work. “I don’t necessarily agree with Singer,” said Dan Genkin (CAS ’16) moments before engaging six vegans in a heated debate over such issues as immigration and global warming. Despite disagreeing with many of Singer’s teachings, Genkin came to the event at the recommendation of his professor.

On the opposite end of the spectrum was Jordan Gallagher, who graduated from BU in 1973. A strong advocate of animal rights, Gallagher remains a dedicated activist, but cut ties with BU years ago because of a dispute over vivisection. “They were sewing kittens’ eyelids shut and putting them in these tumbler things,” he told me, as part of a sensory function experiment. Gallagher returned to Morse Auditorium to hear Singer speak.

The diversity of the attendees is part of what makes BU an ideal outlet for such an event. “University is a learning environment based on logic,” said Lindsay Crocket (CAS ’15). “We’re educated people just starting to form our own ideas.” Fellow BU Veg Society member Maggie Agardi (CAS ’14) agreed: “At BU, even if we’re not always receptive to an idea, we’re always receptive to hearing it.”

A group of students, including Atcheson, pose with the professor. | Photo by Corey Blumenthal

Professor Singer seemed to be of a similar mind when I asked him how he felt about reaching out to an audience of university students. “People of college age are more willing to change,” he explained. “They’re less rigid in their ways.” His advice for young people wanting to learn more about ethics as they set out into the world? “Study philosophy, take applied ethics courses, and meet people from a different background. Speak to people who are unlike yourself.”

Image courtesy of the SoWa Market Facebook page.

SoWa takes its name from Boston’s South of Washington district, often referred to by locals as “SoWa.” The district spans east-to-west from Massachusetts Avenue to East Berkley Street, and north-to-south from Washington to Albany Street. In the 1900s, the area was a manufacturing hub for (among other things) shoes, pianos, and canned goods, but remained largely nondescript once these industries left the Boston area. Only in the early 2000s did SoWa begin its dramatic gentrification. Now, previously abandoned brick-and-beam factories are filled with art studios, galleries, and upscale restaurants, and the area has become one of the most desirable neighborhoods for developers, creative businesses, and families alike.

SoWa Open Air Market is perfectly emblematic of the area’s new character. Beginning in 2003, the summertime ”SoWa Sundays” have attracted thousands of the cities hippest shoppers with the promise of unique craft finds and gourmet foods to be discovered at the market’s dozens of vender stalls. Shoppers can also spend hours wandering through the indoor Vintage Market, rifling through piles of vintage clothing and local crafts, fueled by the possibility of a vintage MiuMiu Pump or genuine mother-of-pearl cigarette case.

After uncovering such treasures, shoppers can break for lunch at one of the many food trucks that set up in a parking lot adjacent to the markets. Here, mobile chefs combine often locally grown ingredients to produce delicious international flavors bound to satisfy even the most adventurous appetites. Some of the more intriguing-sounding of the food truck line-up this year include Fugu Truck, Area Four, ShuckinTruck (a rawbar to go!), and Culinary Cruiser.

And, for those who feel compelled to bring some of the local flavor home with them, SoWa Open Air Market also features a full-scale farmer’s market.  For the environmentally conscious cook, this is the perfect place to pick up fresh ingredients with a minimal carbon footprint. Stands include a wide array of produce and baked goods, as well as preserves, herbs, candy, chocolate, and flowers. This year, the market will feature non-GMO milk and meat products, seafood, and wine. Additionally, the SoWa farmer’s market hosts several food-related events throughout the season, including a tart bake-off and a plant swap.

So, if you’re sticking around Boston for the summer, make sure you get yourself over to the SoWa Open Air and Vintage Markets at some point. It’s a great way to spend a beautiful day, support local artists and farmers, eat delicious food, and buy awesome stuff!

Braff says that this method will allow him to retain creative control and prevent any compromises that may hurt the film artistically, while still keeping the financiers’ investments secure.

“After I saw how the amazing Veronica Mars fans rallied around that project in a mind-blowing way, I couldn’t help but think, like so many others, maybe this could be a new paradigm for filmmakers who want to make smaller, personal films without having to sign away any of their artistic freedom,” says Braff in an appeal video on Kickstarter.

An auteur filmmaker, Braff will again write, direct, and star in this film, as he did in his directorial debut, Garden State. The film, titled Wish I Was Here, is a dramatic comedy written by Braff and his brother, Adam, about the existential crisis of a 35-year-old father, husband, and struggling actor named Aidan Bloom.

An artistic mock-up of Braff as character Aidan Bloom in Wish I Was Here‘s opening fantasy sequence. | Image courtesy of Colin Fix via Kickstarter

“I wrote Garden State about a time in my life when I was feeling overwhelmed and lost in my twenties. I guess you could say Wish I Was Here is about the next chapter of your life in your thirties, not a sequel in story but it’s a continuation of the tone,” says Braff.

Wish I Was Here is expected to debut at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival in January, but the film needs the $2 million in order to cue production. The campaign has provided  incentives for users to donate, ranging from copies of the film’s screenplay and Braff’s production diary for $10, to becoming a cast member for $10,000.

Support for the Kickstarter campaign has proved to be very strong. In just three days, the 30-day campaign’s fundraising goal was raised by donations from approximately 28,000 backers.

“28,000 Financiers in 3 days!…I will not let you down. Let’s go make a killer movie!” posted Braff on his Twitter account after the milestone was reached.

Even though the project has reached its $2,000,000 fundraising goal, money continues to flow in. Supporters continue to pledge, eager to feel a part of the filmmaking process and have a personal stake.

[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/jonnyymartin/status/328237975915855872"]

This marks the beginning of an important change in film financing. With the success of crowdfunding efforts such as Braff’s Wish I Was Here campaign, low-budget, niche films have a chance to not only get made, but made as envisioned by the artist. Filmmakers do not have to go hat-in-hand to those with access to substantial amounts of money in order to make an artistic expression. The Web has created a power shift in cinema, loosening the grip financiers hold over artists. However, though the Web has allowed the opportunity for ideas to become tangible productions, distribution to the local movie theater will still depend on how well received films are at film festivals.

Disclosure: Thomas Pelkey is a pledger to the Wish I Was Here Kickstarter campaign

One of the aspects of American growth in which Boston’s influence is inherent is the literary tradition. For hundreds of years, some of the most influential poets of United States’ history stepped onto the T (or into horse-drawn carriages) in the Back Bay, walked the sidewalks of Cambridge, and faced the dark Boston winters and bright Boston springtime just as the current students of Boston University do every year.

The Boston University English Department building on Bay State Road. | Photograph by Ashley Hansberry

Poets of Boston’s intensely literary past include Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, T.S. Eliot, Edward Estlin Cummings, Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Elizabeth Bishop, and many more. Greater Boston is the birthplace of at least two huge poetic movements: the Transcendentalist movement and the Confessionalist movement. Boston University played a monumental role in the formation of the latter, thanks to a Pulitzer Prize winning poet named Robert Lowell who was a professor of writing at the time.

Why Boston?

Immediately, the question of “why?” springs to mind: why Boston? How is it that so many of the most important names in the history of poetry are tied to this city? Poetry can be created without a restriction of setting. Indeed, the Confessionals born out of arguably the most famous classroom of poetry’s history—that is, Robert Lowell’s seminar—are famous for occupying an internal and deeply personal environment within their poems and not the external, literal setting in which they lived. Is it coincidence, then, that they all lived in the same place?

An obvious reason for Boston’s draw lies in the plethora of universities in Boston. The strong academic tradition of the nation’s first and most prominent college town logically leads to a strong literary tradition. This is half of it. The other half lies in economics.

Robert Pinsky, a BU professor and former United State Poet Laureate, who was a student of Lowell’s during his time at Harvard, suggested to The Quad, “Maybe going further back in history helps explain it? A few generations before those days [of the Confessionals], American poets were mainly from the Northeast—mainly Boston and New York—and from a certain social class.”

To add to Pinsky’s theory, Kevin Gallagher, a BU Associate Professor of International Relations who is in the process of creating Spoke, a Massachusetts poetry annual launching this summer, said during an interview with The Quad that the poetic tradition of Boston is due to its presses: “The poetry that people knew about were where the publishing houses were… Paperback books were hard to get. All books were hardback. In those days, it took a lot of money to have a printing press and make those books.”

The poets formed by Boston in its early years had the money and connections to become published. Gallagher suggested that “Boston was a literary hub because of its presses, because it was close to the port, [and] because it had its own vibrant economy.” The poets who were published and celebrated had to have ties to a city at that time. “There were probably Phyllis Wheatleys in Mississippi,” remarked Gallagher, “but there weren’t publishing presses in Mississippi.”

Robert Lowell, born and raised in Boston, was of the higher class, from a prominent Boston Brahmin family. He, in turn, brought many more poets to the city.

Robert Lowell, Poetic Glue

In the 1950s and 1960s, it was Lowell’s presence that made Boston the place for poetry. Gallagher noted of the two schools of poetry in the 1960s, “In real life these people were all poets and all hanging out in Boston.”

One of those “hanging out” in Boston was a young poet named Kathleen Spivack who came to Boston on an undergraduate fellowship in January 1959 to study with Robert Lowell. She chronicles the experience in a book, With Robert Lowell and His Circle (Northeastern University Press).

Robert Lowell formerly lived at 239 Marlborough Street in Boston’s Back Bay. | Photo by Ashley Hansberry

In a typical BU classroom (“The chairs were in disarray around the seminar table, and the windows looked out on busy Commonwealth Avenue below”), Spivack sat with fellow students Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, George Starbuck, and many more big names of poetry as they workshopped and discussed their own poetry and that of others under Lowell’s guidance.  She recalls, “The air vibrated with intellectual excitement. We were living in an era of greatest American poetry, and these poets were living in our midst.”

Lowell, during his time teaching at BU, Harvard, and in his personal “office hours” at his home on Marlborough Street, was a magnet for the poets developing at the time. In a note to Kathleen Spivack in 1988, Roger Rosenblatt recalls that while Lowell was at Harvard, “his office hours were held in the mornings in his rooms in Eliot House. A pilgrimage arrived, made up not only of his Harvard students but of people from all over Boston.”

This pilgrimage was not limited to the residents of Boston, however, and Spivack remembers the constant stream of visitors to her class: “Members of the class were rarely introduced to the visiting poets: it was assumed that we possibly knew them. Afterward Lowell would hastily disappear with them into a distinguished huddle.”

Boston University’s Role

Spivack recalls the dynamic of Lowell’s classroom: “So many violent points of view, in that early class: to listen to Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and George Starbuck (the most voluble members), all talking wildly, all with a high degree of authoritativeness in their voices, stating exactly opposing opinions, was a bewildering but instructive experience.” Without Lowell’s class at BU, these poets would not have met and learned from each other. It is impossible to guess where the American literary tradition would be today if this had not happened, but it would surely be lacking.

The ordinary elements Spivack recalls of this extraordinary class are comforting and compelling–The students were afraid of the professor! A love triangle was forming! The professor favored some students more than others!– while putting them in the context of a classroom that we Boston University students can imagine quite easily. The idea that these grand poets did the same as we look out of our classroom windows onto Commonwealth Avenue is encouraging; the next great innovator of the field may be sitting in our classes, too.

Indeed, it was while at BU that Anne Sexton, who “was at the beginning of her poetic career when she attended Robert Lowell’s class at Boston University in the spring of 1959,” according to Spivack, composed some of her most well-known poems, including “You Doctor Martin.”

Similarly, Sylvia Plath was becoming the poet for which the country would remember her while at BU. In an introduction to Ariel, Plath’s posthumously published collection of poems, Lowell writes: “She showed us poems that later, more or less unchanged, went into her first book, The Colossus. They were somber, formidably expert in stanza structure, and had a flair for alliteration and Massachusetts’ low-tide dolor.” The poems that made these two poets a representative voice for female rage in the sixties were so deeply tied to the Boston and the BU class that they might not have existed or developed without Lowell’s seminar.

The Cantab Lounge in Cambridge’s Central Square is an example of Boston’s welcoming of spoken word poetry and other such developments. | Photo by Katy Meyer

Beyond and after Lowell’s seminar, Boston University continued to play a large role in the formation of Boston’s poetry scene. Since 1987, Agni, an influential literary magazine, has been produced at BU. Agni is still produced twice yearly.

For some time, Agni had a BU contemporary called The Partisan Review, which was another literary magazine at the time, named “one of the most influential literary journals in the country” by this 2003 Associated Press article. It became a Boston University owned publication in 1978. The magazine “introduce[d] Americans to existentialism” and included the poetry of Wallace Stevens and other such influential names. The Partisan Review was discontinued in 2003 because the magazine was losing the university $300,000 a year. This reason for its demise is, sadly, common in the literary and publishing world.

Leaving Boston

Thinking back on Lowell’s BU seminar, Robert Pinsky said that “it’s interesting that Lowell taught that class with Plath, Sexton, Starbuck at BU…in an era when creative writing programs, once rare, were beginning and expanding. Those programs…may have democratized the art, moving it from a traditional geographical center in the Northeast.” Currently, there are hundreds of MFA Creative Writing programs throughout the nation, and not only in Boston or other populous cities. This offers more opportunities to poets, and allows there to be more poets in the country as a whole.

Though the wealthy publishing presses found in only in cities once controlled the poetry cannon, things are changing now. There are more places for poets to publish. Spoken word clips can be found for free on YouTube, and Tumblr’s spilled ink tag offers a space to share poetry. Poetry is not leaving its usual places, but it is now being found in unexpected places as well.

Which leads to another question: will this growing independence change the impact Boston has on American poetry?

Boston, Growing With Poetry

The overwhelming response is, simply, no. Gallagher pointed, again, to Boston’s universities to explain Boston’s continual role in building the American poetic tradition. “You come here to be a poet,” he said. Pinsky agreed, making note of “The Blacksmith House, all these universities, Grub Street writing programs at Emerson and UMass Boston, as well as ours at BU,” all elements of Boston that allow the city to continue being what Adam Zagajewski once called the “American capital of poetry.”

Grolier Poetry Bookshop in Cambridge was founded in 1927 and was visited by many of America’s most influential poets. | Photo by Katy Meyer

Boston will continue to be the prime U.S. locale for poetry because it has the history of its literary tradition and a flexibility that allows poetry to grow in new ways, as well. From where it sits in Cambridge, The Grolier Poetry Book Shop offers a memory of Boston’s literary history. The Grolier was alive in Lowell’s era of poetry and lives into the present era. It is eight-tenths of a mile from the Cantab Lounge, a poetry slam venue that welcomes spoken word poets weekly.

These two places illustrate the future of poetry in Boston—the city’s historically academic view and creation of poetry coexists with the new and open tradition, allowing poetry to transform faster than ever before. (In fact, this summer Boston will welcome slam poets from all over the nation for the National Poetry Slam.) Notes Gallagher, “In a globalized world, it’s important to maintain your identity. And boy, does this place have an identity.”

Boston’s identity is poetic. Poets will always flock to Boston because its cobblestoned streets will always hold poetry.

Dr. Robert Davies delivering lecture portion of The Crossroads Project. | Photo by Garth Lenz.

Making an enormous auditorium like the Tsai Performance Center seem intimate may be difficult to imagine, but this was nonetheless achieved by The Crossroads Project at 7:30 p.m. on April 23.

With dim lighting and quiet words to highlight the powerful ideas being discussed, The Crossroads Project was jointly hosted this past Tuesday by the BU Arts Initiative, the BU Sustainability office and the Dean of Students. This union of three different BU groups helped bring greater attention to one of Crossroads‘s central ideas: the importance of interconnectivity.

The Crossroads Project was a performance spanning across multiple disciplines, including science, visual art and live music. It consisted of a lecture given by physicist and educator Dr. Robert Davies, music played by The Fry Street Quartet and a collection of photographs and paintings displayed on a projector behind Dr. Davies and the performers.

It had, at its heart, one message: it is time to believe what we know. Dr. Davies repeated this phrase numerous times throughout his lecture, which highlighted the importance of global sustainability, climate change, and the choices human beings face in regards to the future. This central idea of Crossroads was elevated by the art that surrounded it, and it was this artistic component that lodged it into the audience’s minds.

Davies spoke slowly and clearly, seemingly to allow every word and warning he gave to have time to sink in. There was an urgency to his words, but also a deep hopefulness.

The lecture was broken up into various parts, each addressing a different part of the greater message of sustainability. While Davies spoke, a slideshow plays with various photographs and paintings relating to the topic. Between each section of the lecture, The Fry Street Quartet played, because as Davies said, “Music is the mental stimulation of human life; it makes you think.”

The Fry Street Quartet played emotionally and poignantly, while a painting representing the topic on which Davies has most recently lectured was displayed behind them. It was not clear whether Davies’s words inspired the relations drawn between the music and the topic or whether the music itself was powerful enough to be able to reflect things like water, soil, sustainability and the future.

It was the marriage of music, science and visual art that made The Crossroads Project so mentally stimulating, just as it intended. Each part of the performance highlighted and brought out another, carrying home the message of sustainability all the more strongly.

Crossroads, unlike many other projects dedicated to sustainability, presented solutions. While reminding us of the price we pay for the luxurious and unsustainable life we currently live, it also strove to create hope for the future.

Davies told us that “science has given us knowledge” and reminded us that we live in multiple, interconnected and overlapping biospheres with every other living thing on Earth. However, he also told us that thought we know these things, we do not act on them, ever worsening our planet’s prospects for the future. We can no longer afford to continue living the same unsustainable lifestyle that we do now. Our planet as we know it will not survive. We see and hear of the effects of our actions all around us, every day. We know what is going on.

And so, Davies said, “It is time to believe what we know.”

The Crossroads Project taught the audience that the first step towards change for our planet is mental change, and reminded us that the campaign for a sustainable human lifestyle is not about sacrifice, but about enrichment. Re-imagination of a potential future must occur before we can move forward. It is we who have to make the move, because it will not be made for us. A huge impulse is required for real change to be acted for our future and that of our children. And so, it is time to believe what we know.

For further information about The Crossroads Project, its performers, message and development, visit http://www.thecrossroadsproject.org/.