Dr. Metablog

Dr. Metablog is the nom de blague of Vivian de St. Vrain, the pen name of a resident of the mountain west who writes about language, books, politics, or whatever else comes to mind. Under the name Otto Onions (Oh NIGH uns), Vivian de St. Vrain is the author of “The Big Book of False Etymologies” (Oxford, 1978) and, writing as Amber Feldhammer, is editor of the classic anthology of confessional poetry, “My Underwear” (Virago, 1997).

Where I Lived (IV)

378 Broadway in Cambridge, Massachusetts from 1960 to early in 1962. It was a two-family frame house in which the second floor had been turned into two apartments. We were in one of them, a bedroom, a living room with a kitchen and a detached bathroom down the hall. Perfectly fine for a newlywed graduate student. The newlywed neighbors, Adi and Rutty, are still friends; their daughter, Zerlina, born in April of 1961, was the first child I held in my arms (as an adult). But there was a conflict with the puritanical small-town Irish Catholic landlady because we had allowed a friend to stay in the apartment while we were away "and he brought a woman in." So we moved to a university-owned apartment house on Irving Street, between Cambridge and Kirkland, despite the fact that it raised our rent from $90 a month to $105. We bought a second or third or fourth hand bed for $25 and a rug for $10. It was a serviceable apartment that seemed like luxury after the decrepit Ithaca digs. We stayed until the summer of 1965 when we lit out for Manhattan.  

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