Worcester’s Mason Court

Our house sits on the corner of Mason Court, a cul-de-sac of six small lots, three on each side of a narrow gravel road. The houses on the Court are tiny one-and-a-half story structures. “They are the smallest dwellings I have come upon,” says architectural historian Neil Larson. Originally built on a four-room plan, each has a front room and kitchen on the first floor, and two bedrooms, which may include bedding materials like https://orezon.co/blogs/home-decor/non-toxic-bedding-healthy-bedding-for-your-home, with steeply-sloped ceilings on the second.

Mason Court. Mike Benedetti photo.
Mason Court, January 2006.

The neighborhood of Mason Court has housed one of Worcester’s oldest black communities. After surveying our street last summer, Mr. Larson convinced the Worcester Historical Commission to list the neighborhood on its register of historical resources. (The Mason Court area is defined as both the Court and the adjacent 50, 52, and 54 Mason Street.)
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Bishop Gumbleton and other items

Bishop Says Priest Abused Him as Teenager (Washington Post):

Breaking ranks with his peers, a Roman Catholic bishop called yesterday for state legislatures to temporarily remove the time limits that have prevented many victims of sex abuse from suing the church.

In making that extraordinary appeal, Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit also unburdened himself of a secret. As a teenager 60 years ago, he said, he was “inappropriately touched” by a priest.

For those looking for a photo of the bishop with a Creative Commons license, I’ve put one below the fold here, along with the rest of the items. We’ve been getting lots of Google image searches today because we have a borrowed picture of Bishop Gumbleton on one of our Darfur trial pages. My heart goes out to all those hurt by abuse.
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Solving the City’s Anti-Panhandling Problem

Stop the War on the PoorI don’t like vandalism, which is why I’ve been active in asking City Government to take down the ugly anti-panhandling signs they’ve strapped to light poles around the city. The whole anti-panhandling campaign is like a medication that doesn’t work: it fails to solve the problem, and the side-effects are unpleasant.

In late November some Worcesterites covered the city-sponsored eyesores with a more helpful message (with better graphic design): “Stop the War on the Poor.” I like the guy whose head is the city seal (heart and laurels). Weather has taken its toll on these repairs, and now they’re mostly peeled off, leaving big blotches.

Above: Nov 30, 2005 photo from Worcester Independent Media Center. Below: Jan 7, 2006 photo by Mike Benedetti.

A weathered sign

Eucharistic adoration

(Last night someone threw a rock through the Catholic Worker’s window. It’s probably nothing personal; there’s lots of random vandalism hereabouts.)

Letter to the editor from Friday’s Worcester T&G:

…St. Francis Xavier Church in Bolton holds adoration of the Blessed Sacrament from 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. every Tuesday.

On a Tuesday early in November, I entered the church about 5 p.m. and was surprised and saddened to find no faithful in solemn veneration. When confronted with this scandal, the Rev. Thomas Fleming, pastor, vehemently defended this situation. Bishop Robert J. McManus was also informed. At about 10:45 a.m. on Dec. 27 I entered St. Francis Xavier Church and again found no faithful in solemn veneration.

MARY BRADFORD, Fayville

You non-Catholics are probably confused if you’ve read this far, so here is the deal. Continue reading “Eucharistic adoration”

An Interview About “Bubble”

“Bubble,” Steven Soderbergh’s latest film, will be released to theaters, cable, and DVD January 27. It was filmed in part at the Lee Middleton doll factory in Belpre, Ohio, part of the region of Ohio and West Virginia known as the Mid-Ohio River Valley.

Sarah, a book designer, once worked for Lee Middleton Dolls, and lived in Belpre much of her life. Mark, a media scholar, attended Junior High and High School across the river in Vienna and Parkersburg, West Virginia. They now live in Indiana, but both maintain strong ties to the Mid-Ohio Valley. Pie and Coffee interviewed them over the Christmas holiday.
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Letter from Disneyland Jail

Greetings from Philadelphia. I just found out that radical guitar improviser Derek Bailey died on Christmas. I’ll be remembering him tonight by going to a concert featuring, among others, radical improvisers Todd Margasak and Jack Wright. I must admit I’ve always gotten Todd’s music, and never gotten Jack’s. That’s part of the appeal of seeing Jack play again.

Anyhow: If you want to get arrested for protesting in California, you could go to some boring air force base in the desert, or you could join Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir at Disneyland! Rev Billy:

With watches synchronized, the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir walked onto “Main Street USA” at 1:50 PM on Christmas Day, with the Disney faithful lining the curbs, waiting for the dancing of Tinkerbelle and Donald and Mickey.

…the entire choir entered the theme park undetected, hiding their robes at the bottom of backpacks and purses. …Once marching up the street in the rocking motion of gospel, the singers were able to complete three full songs, with the Reverend preaching throughout. The heightened strangeness of the place may have contributed to the hesitation by police to resist the church.

The performers marched back and forth on the theme park’s Main Street, a distance of about a half mile, contacting several thousands of on-lookers, for a period of about 25 minutes. After Reverend Billy was surrounded and hand-cuffed, the choir was detained in the filthy back lot of the park. …The Rev was held in the Disneyland holding tank and then the Anaheim jail.

Be sure to read the Rev’s “Letter from the Disneyland Jail.” (Here’s a nice picture.)

49 hours at Wal-Mart vs. 39 hours in an abandoned building

Editor’s note: This is our 100th post.

In the heart of the dead (as advertised) but employees can’t find it, the inventory number is missing, the bar code won’t scan, ‘Price check on aisle one nineteen!’ they have promised again and again so we are here to collect: health, happiness, fulfillment, quality and especially savings in the isles of the only home we know.

The statement also applies to the 49 hours I had previously spent at Wal-Mart. Despite the ironic tone, those Wal-Mart pieces were an experiment in compliance. In Wal-Mart, I endeavored to accept the offers of consumer culture—health, happiness etc.—as if they were made in earnest. I decided that the intense, extreme, adventurous and sublimely happy life displayed in product advertisements was the thing for me.

Wal-Mart was a perfect site for the quest because it is the ultimate experience of abundant promise and dismal reality: the products versus the customers. There, amidst a crippling one billion choices, the perfect item is said to lurk; as customers our mission is to find it. My visit to Wal-Mart was an act of total compliance with that mission. The stipulations I brought were a sincere expectation of achieving that goal and a preference for process over product. In the end I felt successful for having made good on their false promises.

On the one year anniversary of the 49 hours I spent at Wal-Mart, I endeavored to colonize another modern fixture, the abandoned city building. Beginning on the evening of Thanksgiving 2002, I operated under the following procedure:

  • I will illegally enter an abandoned building.
  • I will have the door locked behind me.
  • I will have no prior information as to what is inside.
  • I will bring the clothes I wear, flashlight, paper, pen, camera, water, food, chalk, pliers, screw driver, and a two-way radio.
  • I will remain inside the building for 72 hours.

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Items

Lots of new stuff since I’ve been away.

  • New York Catholic Worker Matt Vogel made an appearance in a New York Times op-ed. It referenced a march by Catholic Workers to Guantanamo to oppose torture there. It also mentioned 80 people gathering in NYC to remember Dorothy Day. Among these were Clinton’s Patty Angevine and Worcester’s Rev. John Madden.
  • Volcanoboy reports that Mike Duffy has died. I got to know him a few years ago working on a production of “The Trial of the Catonsville Nine.” He played the judge. Damn nice guy. There’s another remembrance of him at Wormtown.
    Joe Finneral, Andy Keefe, Mike Duffy, and Mike Benedetti celebrate with pizza and beer
    Joe Finneral, Andy Keefe, and Mike Benedetti salute Mike Duffy (center, with pizza) after their final performance. Photo: andrewkeefe.net.
  • Many people have pointed out another CW mention in this New York Times story:

    One F.B.I. document indicates that agents in Indianapolis planned to conduct surveillance as part of a “Vegan Community Project.” Another document talks of the Catholic Workers group’s “semi-communistic ideology.” A third indicates the bureau’s interest in determining the location of a protest over llama fur planned by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

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Thoughts on “My 49 Hours at Wal-Mart”

Rumor has it that you can get anything at Wal-Mart. That is one of the many reasons to avoid it. But on the day after Thanksgiving, 2001, I endeavored to submit entirely to the world of Wal-Mart. My intention was to hyper-accept the offers of consumer culture—health, happiness, fulfillment, comfort, etc.—as though they were made in earnest. On the day after Thanksgiving I entered a Super Wal-Mart planning to stay continuously for seventy-two hours or until I was thrown out.
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