Fight club | 5 years ago | April 27, 2001 | Camille Dodero investigated the strange world of live monster wrestling.
“Despite the geometric implications of his surname, Dr. Cube isn’t the slightest bit square. Actually, he’s insanely brilliant, a walking embodiment of knife-like intellect wrapped in powder-blue scrubs, rubber gloves, and a stethoscope tie. A former University of Oxford medical-school student, Cube is the kind of self-proclaimed mastermind who distances himself from the masses by addressing other people as ‘humans,’ prefers isolation to interpersonal interaction, and long ago snipped the tightrope between genius and madness before ever trying to navigate it. And so far, eschewing the tenets of social responsibility has served Cube well: at 27, he’s already poised to take over the world — that is, the world of Kaiju International.
“Kaiju, which means ‘mysterious beast’ in Japanese, is a Boston-based monster-wrestling league that stages full-scale matches, contests, and tournaments. Influenced by Japanese anime, World Championship Wrestling subplots, and the kitsch of dubbed monster-movie cult classics like Ultraman, Kaiju cultivates a roster of wrestlers that includes surly monsters like the genetic mutation Dino-Kang, alien hemipterans like Space Bug, and choleric humans like Dr. Cube.”
Rave review | 10 years ago | April 26, 1996 | Geoff Edgers described the scene of a Fitchburg rave.
“A smiling girl in a chest-hugging T-shirt sits on her boyfriend’s lap, facing away, and grinds her hips as he moves his hands over every inch of her teenaged body. It’s just after midnight. If not for the other 2500 people in the room, this might be a magic moment.
“The two are among hundreds on the bleachers surrounding a cement dance floor, usually a hockey rink. A few rows down, on the cold cement, Kendall Centamore, 22, sits and watches the crowd. This is her second rave, and she’s savoring it.
“ ‘There’s a group spirit here,’ she says. ‘Everybody gets along and you don’t really have to worry about how you look.’...
“Her first rave took place last summer, under the stars in a section of the desert outside Los Angeles. At one point, she hallucinated that the ground opened up and dead people joined the dance. It was, she says, a good trip.
“But this is Fitchburg, not LA — a city an hour outside Boston whose most notable landmark is a huge Walmart. The rave is called Raindance....
“At the Fitchburg rave, like all across the country, a few simple truths prevail: the music’s electronic, the crowd young (mid teens to early 20s), and the action as varied as the ravers’ reasons for being there.”
Black sheep | 15 years ago | April 26, 1991 | Caroline Knapp wrote about the guilt and shame of wearing black.
“When spring hit, your friends started showing up to work in odd and foreign hues — pale peaches, mint greens, bright, neon things. You were alarmed. Then you went shopping and your blood pressure rose another notch. Sleeveless little A-line dresses covered with bursts of psychedelic color hanging right there where all the black skirts used to be ... little pastel bolero jackets ... ’60s-style medallions ... capri-length stretch pants covered with orange squiggles and green squares and purple polka dots and God knows what else ...
