Future Shock
If 2004 was this good, what's in store for Boston next year? You could guess or you could drop by a psychic salon.
Who would have predicted that 2004 would be the year Boston finally threw the Curse of the Bambino out with the bath water? Only the most optimistic baseball futurists would have made such a prognostication a year ago. But now it seems we're a city with limitless potential - in baseball and beyond.
Still, why leave things to chance? To find out the score for the Boston of 2005, I took the Green Line and went to a place called the Original Tremont Tearoom, just off Boston Common. This "full service psychic salon" has been in business since 1936 and advises, according to a brochure that smells strongly of incense, "almost 8,000 active customers."
A recent afternoon saw just one active customer, a guy with gray hair and a black leather jacket, conferring with a psychic adviser in the corner of a room crammed with candles and assorted new age tchotchkes. There were Chinese stars and silver axes on the walls, along with framed photos of the staff - Harmony Dawn, Amythyst Star, et al. Someone had tacked to the wall a button reading, "Cut the crap. I'm psychic."
My psychic was Peter B. - the Kafkaesque initial was all this master psychic/Reiki master would give - and he appeared to be an amiable guy. He had a dark mustache, an interesting way of bantering with the deck of tarot cards ("Oh . . . hmm . . . ha-hah . . . I hadn't thought of it that way"), and a gap in his mouth where his front teeth should be. I tried not to mind the gap, but I couldn't help but read into the dental emptiness. Did this mean his predictions would lack bite? Or that there was something missing here? In any case, I felt bad for him: It seemed that psychics didn't get dental insurance. I didn't want to stare, so I focused on the cards, which had a pattern on the backs that resembled a cross between a Tinker Toy and a DNA molecule. He asked me to shuffle and cut the deck, then started flipping and arranging the cards in the way that psychics in the movies always do. This reassured me.
Then he started talking in generalities. He saw a lot of conflict around the airport and the waterfront, conflict between the federal government and local interests over matters of security. Yawn city. I really wanted my money's worth $50 for a half-hour session so I changed the subject to the Sox.
Peter said that Boston, and this seemed as much for the players as for the fans, had to "make a shift in attitude in regards to New York." If they took the focus off the Yankees, they could make it to the World Series again in 2005. "They will have to pay attention to others. Then the door opens," he said. Peter also saw something about "letting two players go," but he didn't name names. I was concerned. And - get this - a player is going to get injured! Peter tried to peer into the future: "Somebody reliable. Hold on a second . . . good in the outfield and also good at batting." He couldn't tune it in any finer than that. As far as a date for the injury goes, Peter said, "I see it as sometime around May, June." Will Johnny Damon cut himself shaving? I couldn't help but wonder.
We started talking about Governor Mitt Romney. Peter consulted the cards. "There's something about Romney having an alternative proposal, in terms of leaving his post." Now we were getting somewhere. Between the summer and next November, said Peter, Romney will take "a position in the Bush administration." Could he tell which one?
"Not at the present time."
Romney, it seemed, was inaccessible even on the psychic plane.
I hoped that we'd do better with culture. Peter made a vague prediction about Boston being "represented quite well in the entertainment industry" next year and apologized for not knowing the names of the entertainers.
So I inquired about one of the best-known cultural institutions in town. Will Bostonians keep lining up to see Blue Man Group next year?
"I get, 'Yes,' " he said.
At last, a solid prediction. We're going to be a blue state for a long time to come. 