Word: tower
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Starbuck's and Tower Records take over Harvard Square, and the Gap takes over the world, the unique and the independent grow increasingly difficult to track down. Even among bookstores, which were once thriving reminders of individuality and art, the Barnes and Noble monolith (a.k.a. the Harvard Coop) has taken its toll. Its near-monopoly on textbooks leaves little room for the smaller shop. Yet there are still pockets of bookish bohemia dotting the Boston-Cambridge landscape...
...government control to the anarchy of individual freedom. Very few people understand the Faustian bargain they have made. This shop is dedicated to those who have rejected the bargain. It is open to those who might reconsider." "Anarchy"? "Faustian bargain"? That's pure bohemia. Packed 12-foot bookshelves tower above Beringer and Johnnie Walker boxes overflowing with books. Rolling metal ladders facilitate browsing. Old black-and white postcards of Dorothy Parker and Charles Baudelaire cover the ends of the shelves. A dark gray cat named Blue stalks the aisles, and its owner (also owner of the store), Vincent McCaffrey...
...block east on Tremont Street, a stone church tower pierces the fog. The doors of New Hope Baptist Church open and several well-dressed black ladies descend its well-worn concrete steps. An aging but lively woman says a deaconess meeting has just adjourned, and, like a good deaconess, she smiles and adds, "Come back tomorrow, and then you'll really have a story. We have a great service--you should bring your friends...
Harvard is supposedly a school which will pump us full of the skills and credentials that can be used to make the world a better place. Taking advantage of all that Harvard has to offer is a great idea, but ensconcing oneself in a tower of elitism, academia and complacency...
...keep an eye on the big picture our educational institution is embedded in, ask what this education is for and about after all, and participate in the broader community in any way possible. Or, at the very least, that they stop trying to polish the walls of the ivory tower and pretend we can be both uber-privileged and righteous...