Photo by Matt Teuten |
There are two kinds of people in the world: people who love to shop and people who would rather prepare for a colonoscopy than enter a store. This latter bunch could account for the Best Readers’ Poll write-in “votes” we received that said things like “Property is theft!” and “Eat the Rich!” Fortunately for what’s left of the economy (as well as for our poll), we also have readers who routinely engage in mercantile commerce — no doubt with varying degrees of enthusiasm.
It’s for those casual consumers and rabid till-they-droppers that we laud and applaud this year’s winners. (The rest of you can return to your self-criticism session any time.) The act of shopping, after all, is only natural — the one activity that combines two primal human talents, hunting and gathering, with acquired abilities such as parallel parking, counting change, and carrying bulky bags of stuff onto crowded subways.
The variety of shops, boutiques, emporiums, specialty stores, product purveyors, co-ops, and outlets in the Boston area is, indeed, impressive. So whatever you’ve got, don’t spend it all in one place. Click below to see the results . . . 
Related:
Boston's Best City Life 2009, An old dog teaches his tricks, Review: Orphan, More 
- Boston's Best City Life 2009
There’s so much to love about Boston, it’s hard sometimes to know where to start. Traffic? Obnoxious Sox fans? Irritating students? Norway rats? Inflated rents? An inferiority complex unlike any on the Eastern seaboard?
- An old dog teaches his tricks
"You can call me a pothead," slow-talking Harry Brown tells me, roughly 15 minutes into my visit to his 80-acre farm in Starks, Maine.
- Review: Orphan
John (Peter Sarsgaard) and Kate (Vera Farmiga) don't have eight children to contend with, but after the miscarriage of their daughter, they adopt, bringing their brood to three. Perhaps they should have cut their losses.
- Review: Adam
As opposed to what happens in most films about mentally challenged characters, the protagonist of Max Mayer's debut feature does not regress into a stereotype. Instead, he shows by contrast how stereotyped all the other characters are.
- Surviving the econopocalypse
If you're like the more than nine percent of Americans currently unemployed, your "Yes We Can!" has lately lost some of its gusto. You've hit up everyone you know for work, including your mom, your ex, and your ex's ex.
- Rx for Barack
President Barack Obama is taking his vacation not a moment too soon. As his painfully poor performance in the health-care debate shows, he is way off his game. He clearly needs some time to recharge his batteries.
- Factory food
Since Squanto taught the Pilgrims to plant maize, no food has been more emblematic of the evolution of American eating habits than corn. That's been true from the sepia-tinged golden age of the Midwestern breadbasket to the present day, where those yellow kernels are lab-engineered and recombinated into a dizzying array of futuristic foodstuffs.
- Close connections
Some of Lifespan's board members do business with the hospital network
- Letters to the Portland Editor: July 10, 2009
A recent EqualityMaine campaign letter claimed that gay marriage is "the fight for our lives." I wonder whose lives they are talking about, when AIDS service organizations and community health/reproductive clinics across the state have been tightening their belts and desperately trying to crunch numbers.
- Compassionate or coercive?
The election of Barack Obama has inspired dread among pro-lifers nationwide. But for the Rhode Island wing of the movement, the anxiety goes back quite a bit farther.
- Dodging shots
In politics, and with the media, it's the outcome, and not the intention, that matters. That's fortunate for Senator Susan Collins, who got lucky twice in the same week.
- Less
Topics:
Ultimate Lists
, Health and Fitness, Medicine, Medical Treatments and Procedures, More
, Health and Fitness, Medicine, Medical Treatments and Procedures, Shopping, best, Medical Imaging and Diagnostics, Less
