Boston can indeed be a very strange town. Just check out the random observations of a local woman as she wandered about Boston Common the other day during our run of fine weather.
a) Way too many couples lying on the commons making out. Love is a beautiful thing, but since when is it acceptable to lie in a public area, tangle yourself up with your partner, and make out? I don’t care how good looking you are, nobody wants to see that.
[…]f) Two girls in the twenties repeatedly hitting themselves in the abdominal area and chanting in some sort of ritualistic manner. The pounding when on for 20+ minutes and makes me wonder if the girls will ever be able to have children after basically punching themselves in the ovaries over and over. They also did other pilates-like moves and said things such as “shake it off, shake it off” and “I love my body, I love my body.” Then they rubbed their faces and said “I love my beautiful face” over and over again. It seemed to be some private self-esteem building class…or something like that.
g) While waiting to use the bathroom at Burger King, a woman telling us all about her abdominal troubles, using graphic language, claiming she couldn’t hold it, rubbing her huge stomach, and un-buttoning her pants before she even entered the bathroom. Ew.
I suppose you’ll see similar weirdness in any big city (for the first item cf. Rome), but, man, Boston has its share.
Oh, (f) is Dahn yoga practice.
Dahn yoga is the franchised un-yoga that spread like kudzu over the past few years. It’s Korean. It’s not rooted in the asanas (postures) of Hindu yoga, as best I can tell but more in east Asian medical theories, as best I can tell, plus a practice of percussive body-hitting that is meant to wake up the body (at least that’s what I sensed it was meant to do). It’s about “happy smiles”. As someone who had been introduced to more Indian yoga, I found Dahn yoga too weird for words, and it made me way more tense than anything. Give me more traditional asanas anyday. Fortunately, you can readily get those without ersatz spirituality that can accompany them in some parts.
Dom, you haven’t seen strange and bizarre until you’ve walked around Scollay Square late at night. There’s stuff that happens up at the Triangle (on the North side of City Hall, opposite Haymarket) that you just don’t want to see.
Is there an exorcist in Boston? Sounds like there is a great need for one. Or maybe a mental institution?
I thought boston WAS a mental institution…
Nah, just kidding. That’s Providence.