Where have I been? Just over in my weblog/LiveJournal. I've been busy and lazy by turns and the blog is far easier to update impulsively. Please insert standard apology with promise to improve update frequency here.

Frequent flyers will have already noticed my Oops Gallery, and may have decided where they stand on the issue of whether screenshots of grammatical errors make me a nerd or a fellow traveler. (If anyone's decided that /oops makes me a potential employee, please let me know.)

I was plodding through the humid haze to the T stop at City Hall when I heard them. Gospel, crystal-clear, obviously live, drawing me in like no gospel has since Sweet Honey in the Rock, though Toni Lynn Washington has come close with her gospel-driven blues. I drifted closer.

Four women, two men, a guy on keys, and a trumpet (of the Lord, presumably). Praising His name in amplified four-part harmony near the edge of City Hall Plaza in Boston, which is a barren, windswept expanse of brick, as ugly as the concrete Modern Penal-style City Hall but with a Bostonian touch.

Since City Hall Plaza was created, its only fans have been kids on wheels (planks, skates, bikes), who are routinely chased off by cops. This is a problem. Lots of tourists take the T to Government Center and walk from there to Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market, crossing City Hall Plaza as they go: an acre of brick-paved space with a lot of stairs and a monstrous concrete building in the middle. This is also a problem.

Boston is known for having very cool, very usable public space, but there's nothing user-friendly about City Hall Plaza. No one likes it, but no one's figured out what to do with it, and we've got enough on our hands with the Big Dig anyway. So instead of transforming the space, Boston Mayor Tom Menino is trying to find ways to use it.

I really like Mayor Menino (shown here listening attentively at today's press conference). I trust him because he loves Boston. Today, he loved Boston enough to introduce a second summer of "Arts on the Arcade," a series of art exhibits and events at City Hall Plaza. I thought the series was deftly named, considering that the reality is closer to "Singing on the Steppes."

The Mayor's speech was short and not great, but it was good enough for a press conference which may or may not get mentioned on tonight's news. I have absolutely no recollection of what he said. But I clapped in all the right places anyway, because I'm sort of trained to do it by now.

That great moment when the candidate walks in and the room erupts in spontaneous cheers and applause? Uh-huh. It's like setting a fire. Three minutes before the candidate gets there, you dispatch cheerleaders to different sections of the crowd. All they have to do is start the clapping and everyone else will join in. That's how that works.

Anyway. The Mayor spoke and a few other people spoke and they unveiled the big weatherproof schedule of events. Then the gospel choir took over again. They did about forty minutes of enthusiastic spirituals, the call-and-response kind you can learn quickly enough to sing along before the song is over.

The choir drew a good-sized crowd, which formed mostly behind me. There were two other women near me, and we seemed to be the only ones really grooving on the music. (Alternatively, we were the only ones willing to look goofy in public, but it's all a matter of perspective. Gospel this good is exhilarating.)

When they finally stopped, I made eye contact with the woman next to me, an African-American perhaps in her fifties, and noticed we were wearing the same smile. "Ain't it great?" she said, beaming. "Ain't it great just to praise Him? Ain't it somethin'?"

I said, "It surely is." And it was. So what if I'm Jewish?

It's good to be back.