matt-landry-fysh-blog

[matt-landry-fysh-blog]

Rocktoberfest @ Uncharted

Spicoli Vans, check, D.a.r.e. T shirt, check, fanny pac full of eighties mixtapes, check, white makeup on face, check. I looked in the mirror one last time to double check that my costume, “The Ghost of the Eighties” was perfect. After carefully inspecting my entire outfit in the mirror, I snapped a picture and told my roommate I was ready to go. We then began our three quarter mile journey over to UnchARTed. We approached the roundabout in front of the Tsongas Center when all of a sudden we heard our names shouted at us from a car, “Nick! Matt! Get in!”, the voice came from our friends Gavin and Kyle, they were riding in Gavin’s old nineties Sab. We hoped in the car, relieved that we would not have to waste our precious energy walking, and could instead use it dancing the night away.

We parked the car across the street and hopped out, soundcheck was going on as we walked over. Angsty kids sat outside on the curb smoking cigarettes, talking about bands, and showing off their costumes while waiting to be let in. We patiently waited at the back of the line and sparked up a conversation with our friends about what they thought the headliners would sound like.

We were let in at promptly Nine O’Clock as the bill had said. Our noses were greeted by the scent of pizza and beer. I bought a slice of buffalo chicken pizza and waited at the bar for its arrival. I sat down and talked to a kid that me and Nick do radio with; We chit chatted about what our shows had been playing recently for music, how we’ve been spending our time, and what kinds of PSA’s and promos we’ve been playing recently. After a little bit my pizza was ready to pick up so I grabbed my slice and went over to help with a table our radio station was putting on (Rocktoberfest was a free concert put on by MEISA and was meant to be a precursor concert to Rock for Tots a charity show that WUML will be putting on november thirtieth. I waited around with my friends showing off our costumes and speaking to people at the show about our upcoming event. While there I also handed out my eighties mixtape which was filled with Talking Heads, Joy Division, New Order, Sonic Youth and The Smiths. It was fun to watch various people’s faces light up when I handed them a crappy looking mixtape that I hand made.

After a little while of tabling I left and went back to the crowd to watch the show. The first band that came up was “Snowhaus”, a local band made up of kids from UMass Lowell (if you have not listened to them, I would highly suggest it). They started the set by playing their song “Mantra”, the lights shined on the singer as he sang his heart out, the bass hit my chest hard, and I danced my heart out. I stood there, doing the lawnmower to their music when I realized how neat it was that people I went to school with could make music this good, that caused a whole crowd of people to have a great evening, forget their troubles, and just have fun.

The music continued and I kept dancing, then eventually Snowhaus’ final song came on, they rocked it. Every beat had me moving along, sweat dripping from my hair. The final chord was played and the set was over. After the set was a fifteen minute break between bands, during which I talked to Lucas (the pianist) for a bit about how much I enjoyed the set and after a little bit we talked about a concert we both mutually had gone to a week before (Death Grips in Worcester). After speaking to him I spoke with Nick and we realized that we would leave before the next set because of how late it was getting.

We set off on our expedition back to the dorm with rock music blaring behind us. We walked down the cobblestone street talking about how much we enjoyed the set and how energetic it was. We reflected on how great it is that we have met so many people and gotten so close to others via music at UML. We talked about how crazy it was that just by joining a radio club earlier this year we had met so many great people, had so many great nights, and how much more great things are to come from it.

Below is a picture of me in my costume and a picture of the band playing

[matt-landry-fysh-blog]

Mill No.5 Farmers Market

I woke up promptly at ten o’clock that Sunday morning. I walked over to my common room to find that I was the only one awake, my best friend Sam who came up the night before from our hometown was out cold on the couch, my roommate and dear friend Nick still loudly snored (I do too so I can’t really complain), filling the hall with strange pig like noises. So I hopped in the shower and patiently waited for my sleeping beauty's to wake up. I turned it on and ice cold water poured out, the way I like it when I need that extra kick to start the morning due to a long night beforehand. I dried myself off, got dressed, and walked over to the kitchen table. I found then that both Nick and Sam had awoken from their slumbers. We spoke for a few minutes before realizing how hungry we were, so we agreed to pick up our friends Cam and Lupo, and rush over to the Top Donut a five minute walk away from my dorm.

We sat down, drank coffee, ate donuts, and watched the cars drive by. I stared and just thought about how strange it was that I was here now, with this strange combination of old friends and new friends, in a new place that I call home, where I’ve been beginning to learn the ins and outs of. It felt odd to be in this breakfast place that felt similar to a restaurant that I would frequent in my hometown growing up. The Talking Heads quote “And you may ask yourself how did I get here?” came to mind. I sat there drinking, thinking about it and letting it fester. A few minutes after having this borderline crisis I suggested to my friends that we go to Mill Number 5 and show our friend Sam some of the neat stuff Lowell has to offer and maybe catch a movie after. So off we went on our merry way on the mile long walk over to Mill Number 5.

Patiently we waited in line for the elevator, braving the cold while aromas of tapas filled our noses. Eventually it was our turn to enter the tiny elevator, we entered and ascended to a hipster's heaven, also known as Mill Number Five during the Farmer's Market.

Exiting the elevator I was greeted with the twangy sounds of a folk band wearing what looked like the highest line of amish fashion. We listened for a bit but left to go shopping. The first store we went to was Dress and Trousers. It’s a small vintage clothing store that specializes in clothing from the nineties. I found it interesting walking around how much it reminded me of this store Grime that exists one town over from my hometown, both were filled with old jean jackets and vintage tee shirts that looked straight out of the 80’s. I tried on a pair of jeans and a jean shirt, they both fit pretty well and were decently priced so I got them. We thanked the man and went on our way to the next store, Vinyl Destination.

I entered in and immediately started looking at the Frank Zappa bin, because as of recent I have been extremely into his music. I searched for one of my favorite albums of his, and one of my favorite jazz albums ever, Hot Rats. But, the search was to no avail. After that I just walked around the record store with my friends talking about albums and songs we loved. I ended up getting a copy of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel, once we’d done that we ventured over to the Luna Theater.

The beeps and boops of the arcade games greeted us as we entered the Luna Theater. Immediately, without hesitation I began to play with the free arcade games. I sat around and played Asteroids for probably thirty minutes trying to get the high score; I failed to get the highest score, but I did get several on the leaderboard. After a few games we realized that we should get seats to the movie before it started so we entered the theater and patiently awaited the film to start.

The film flew by and all I could think about was various childhood memories surrounding the movie. I got out and just reflected on the new home I had formed in Lowell. The similarities between where I grew up and my current home and what I added to them to make them my homes. I found it interesting to think that now for once I had created my own “home” rather than just being born into it.

[matt-landry-fysh-blog]

Night at the luna

The night began at six o’clock with one of my roommates (and dear friends) Will, losing his mind because his intramural basketball game was cancelled and because the movie he had been raving over for the past month and a half was playing at the Luna Theater. So we assembled a group of friends that consisted of yours truly, Will, my other roommate Nick, and our friend Cam. Will talked the whole way there about how the Movie would blow our minds, and that it was one of his favorite films ever made. We made a quick pit stop to grab some candy and soda to sneak into the film ( I got a box Juji Fruits and a can of Arnold Palmer, one of my favorite candy-drink combos for watching a movie). Then off to Mill Number Five.

We showed up about twenty minutes early before showtime so we went into the record store for a bit. We walked around looking at all the music and sharing stuff with each other, I showed them my one of my favorite records ever This is Happening by LCD Soundsystem. I snagged a copy of it, paid the man twenty five dollars and rushed for the theater.

We walked in and snagged a seat towards the upper middle part of the theater and chit chatted waiting for the film to start, talking about this and that, nothing of significance. Then, all of a sudden the films title flashed across the screen The Prestige.

The movie is about two rival magicians that throughout their careers try to outwit each other. The whole movie takes place while one character is on death row due to the death of the other magician and is told from flashbacks prompted by the dead magicians notebook. The film ends on an extreme twist, that once me and my friends began to piece together made us go wild. There was an open discussion going on after the film to talk about identity and how it’s addressed in the movie, but we felt like us discussing it on our would be more fun so we went home after the credits rolled.

The whole walk back consisted of us discussing what we had just seen, and our friend Will grinning the whole time because of our response to the movie. We talked for probably an hour between the walk and hanging out in the common room of our dorm. We sat there talking about this scene where an old chinese magician’s whole magic trick revolves around creating a fake persona that he has dedicated his life to upholding. Whenever he goes out in public he acts as though he is weak and frail even though he has normal strength allowing him to pull off his illusions. This was interesting because It almost relates to stardom and the idea that people put their lives on hold and become different people in the public eye just to pull of an “Illusion”.

Thinking about this movie now makes me extremely happy, it made me feel so much closer to my friends and made me reflect on what cinemas like this can do for us and our community. I live in Grafton (it’s a small town next to Worcester), and the town over had a small independent theater that I went to a lot growing up. I have so many fond memories of seeing movies there like going on my first date with my first real girlfriend there, seeing almost every superhero movie there with my group of friends from seventh grade all the way up to high school, or watching pixar movies there when I was a little kid. I think that places like this are so important to the community they serve because they allow for memories like this to be created that wouldn’t occur in a commercial cinema.

The Luna Theater fills up a space that is much needed, allowing for films to be shown in such a way to expand the minds of the community around it. Unlike a commercial cinema one of the things they focus on is allowing a spotlight for films and conversations to take place that usually would not occur. Such as the documentary they were running last week on the lost rock and roll of Cambodia called Don't Think I’ve Forgotten. Having a space like the Luna allows for creative projects that don’t meet standard appeal to have a home and place to be shown.

I’ve been a huge fan of the Luna and will definitely visit again sometime soon. Me and my friends are really into weird cult films (like The Room or They Live) so we will definitely have to come back for one of their “Weird Wednesdays”.

Shown below (or above depending on where you are reading this from) is a picture of me in front of the luna before the showing and a picture of me at the record store before the showing.

[matt-landry-fysh-blog]

I am going to preface the essay I am about to write with this. I am white, I have never been black, I never will be black. All I have to understand the hardships of being African American in America is their words. Whether those words are communicated to me via a conversation with a friend, a book, or a play like the one I saw last week.

I saw The Royale the other week at the Merrimack Repertory Theater. I thought the play was amazing, I was a theater kid in High School (a fact I very rarely tell people due to the connotations attached to theater kids) so getting to see a play for my english class excited me. Sitting down for the show I had no clue what I was in for, I had never heard of The Royale but the stage set up looked great. I giddily sat in my seat and waited for the show to start.

Five actors came out, a man dressed up in a suit, a man in trousers and a dress shirt, a woman, and two shirtless men. The man in the suit began to speak, explaining that what we were about to witness was a fight between the reigning black heavyweight champion Jay “The Sport” Jackson and a man named Fish. The bell rang and the fight began, I don’t know what I expected to see during the boxing scenes, but what I got was incredible. The actors stood next to each other facing the crowd, rhythmically stomping and clapping to demonstrate the punches being thrown. The fight showed us the main character of the story Jay “The Sport” Jackson, he is a cocky man that works hard for what he believes in. Jay would like to fight the white heavyweight champion and be crowned heavyweight champion of the world. He realizes that this want will cause harm from racist violence, but he believes he must do it for himself, so he goes through with it.

The play builds steadily builds up to this fight, Jay trains with and befriends his now partner Fish, goes on various press conferences where he is threatened with violence for his fight for equality, and contemplates the implications of winning this fight. Then, just a little while before the fight Jay is confronted by his sister, she pleads with him, begging for him to throw the fight, explaining that if he wins he will do more harm to the black community than good.

The play climaxes with the fight, the lights come up on Jay Jackson in the ring, but rather than standing next to a heavyweight white man, he is next to his sister. I found this choice to be extremely interesting, rather than showing the fight as a physical boxing match, it is portrayed as a fight of man vs himself. Jay fights his conscience on whether or not he should win the fight. Eventually Jay reasons and wins the fight against himself, and the actual boxing match. After winning, Jay immediately sees the implications of his actions, his newfound friend/trainer Fish is stabbed while watching him win the match.

One of my favorite things about the play was the importance of the fights in a mental perspective. Each fight didn’t really focus on the punches, but what was going on in the mind of Jay Jackson. I thought this was a very interesting choice to make, I’ve seen many films and stories about boxing (Raging Bull, Rocky, The Fighter), but none had ever made a similar stylistic decision to this play. But the reason why that is, is because this play delved into areas none of those movies went. The play needed the fights to be done in this style because it allowed us to fully understand the implications of the ending of the play. We wouldn’t understand the importance of Jay’s win, had we not known the fight that was raging inside of him, making the win so much more difficult to reach. Not only that but it made the murder of Fish even more brutal, Jay had clearly thought of this possibly occurring but still won the fight. I found it really neat that the final fight never even featured the white heavyweight champion, because the whole fight that was going on was between Jay and his conscience (played by his sister).

Another thing that I really liked about the play was the way rythym to it. Every fight featured a lot of stomping and clapping to give it a pace that made it feel almost dreamlike. It didn’t feel like you were watching a fight, it almost felt like you were a part of it due to the beats and rythyms that were going on during.

I really enjoyed watching the play. I was really impressed by the acting, lighting, and overall production quality of the play. It made me think a lot about race and how some hard fought battles are more in our head than anything.

Here is a picture I took of the stage(kind of), my phone broke and this was the only picture I could salvage. For some reason it’s only of the top part of the stage.

[matt-landry-fysh-blog]

A little less than a week ago, I visited the historic Boott Cotton Mill and museum with my class. It’s a section of the beautiful Lowell National Historic Park. The park was created in nineteen seventy eight, it was the first urban National Park meant “to support the preservation, protection and interpretation of historic buildings and cultural resources” (nps.gov). I found the visit to be extremely interesting and I believe it enhanced my understanding of the book we have been reading, The Daring Ladies of Lowell by Kate Alcott. The combination of these two resources have allowed me to think more critically about the place where I live and the people that built it.

First entering the Boott Cotton Mill feels like you are entering a time machine, the buildings are five stories tall each, and they fence in a courtyard in the middle like a fortress. The buildings have been preserved over the years so that their stories can still be told, the eighteen-hundreds architecture is still in peak condition and the roads are still made of cobblestone. This is the same courtyard and cobble stone road that many would travel early in the morning to start their twelve to fourteen hour work day, such as the main character of the book Alice Barrow. In the story, the girls are woken up at 4:30 every morning and are given less than a half an hour to get dressed, eat, and prepare for the long day ahead. From there, the girls would enter the Boott Cotton mill and get to work.

Once we entered the mill, the first thing we got to see was the production floor. It was so loud that you could barely hear your own thoughts, and it was full to the brim with looms moving and creating textile. There were two park rangers working the mills and keeping them running with proper safety equipment such as earplugs, but had this been the eighteen-hundreds, it would have been a very different scene. The production floor of that day would have been a death trap. The first major difference you would have seen back in the eighteen-hundreds is that the production floor would be filled with mainly young woman (about one for every four looms), they would be tasked with making sure that at any moment there is still thread being fed into the loom. What you also see is the harmful dust that filled the room. This dust would give the girls lung problems because they were “breathing in lint” (page 36), this would cause girls to do things such as cough up cotton. One thing you would not see back then unlike today is ear protection, the mill girls were very poorly cared for by their superiors. So a lot of these mill girls would experience hearing loss from the long days spent in the insanely loud room. One other thing that you would more than likely see back then (but luckily not today) are injuries in the workplace that could result in loss of hair, cuts, broken bones, or even death. This occurs in the book to Delia when she doesn’t put up her hair, resulting in it getting caught in the loom. She then has her hair cut off to prevent her from being killed. We brought this scene of the book up with the man giving us the tour and he said that most of the time if that situation would have resulted with a girl getting scalped. After walking through the production floor we entered the upper part of the museum.

The upper part of the museum documented a lot of the personal lives of the mill girls such as the conditions they came from and how they functioned in the city of Lowell. We learned that the mill owners main priority was to make the largest profit possible. This has already been shown by the poor working conditions, but we learned in the museum that as times changed so did who they targeted for workers. Originally they used farm girls to run the mills because they were at the time the group of people that were willing to work for the least amount of money due to the conditions they were coming from. Eventually the mill girls began to strike and work towards better pay and conditions. In response to this, the mill owners began to hire poor immigrants instead because of mill girls because they were willing to work in the poor conditions for cheaper. We learned at the museum about the strikes put on by the workers and mill girls as well, one example similar to the book was when in eighteen-thirty-six the mill girls performed a walkout, just like when the girls pulled a walkout to protest the mill owners denying them the right to go to Lovey’s funeral. We then left the museum, and walked across the courtyard to look at a boarding home.

Our class of around twenty piled into the boarding house and began to take the tour. It was cramped, but oddly enough we as a group were less people than would normally be in a boarding house of that size. We walked upstairs and looked at some of the sample room they had setup. It was probably smaller than my dorm, but was expected to fit 6 cots. This was astounding to me, the spread of disease and sickness in these boarding houses must have been extreme. Not only this but we later learned about the strict policies of these boarding houses such as curfews. The girls were required to spend their Sundays at church whether or not they were religious just like in the book.

Overall, reading about the mill girls and visiting the museum made me have a newfound respect for the city I live in. I realized that this town was built on the backs of hardworking women that pushed forward the technology of the world, the civil rights of women, and the rights of workers. I found it admirable to read about the resilience of these girls even when they were put into some of the worst work conditions possible. I’ve provided some great pictures with this essay of me in front of a loom that the women would have worked, and me in front of the museum.