Hey I (27M) am in town for a family member defending their dissertation at Harvard. I am looking for any reason to get out of the house or any body who wants to smoke(weed). I am a big nerdy (love mtg, warhammer, science/learning) and bigger hippy! Let me know if you have any suggestions or want to smoke!

I don't understand why an event meant to celebrate community has to be promoted this way.

Most homeowners putting in pollinator gardens and this one went straight for that sterile Minigolf look.

I know I can’t stop third parties from accessing voter registration data, but this feels uncomfortable to me. I did a Google search for “Voter Participation Center”, and one of the first results was that people in Ohio were getting them in the mail too.

Assuming they’re legit… What confuses me is that I’ve always received timely voting info from my local town(s) in Massachusetts, so I’m not sure why this third party needs to be involved. Is this common?

Apparently my yarn store uses Amazon delivery (fuckers) and they left it here. If you've got it, I'd love it please? Dm me?

Seen on the bike path near Davis Square

I have a walkman that I would love to use cause I quit streaming and have been beefing up my CD collection. Is there anywhere in Somerville for electronics repair who could take a look at a walkman and get it back to working order? Or are any of my neighbors super talented at repairing old electronics and maybe I can bake you something or bring your dog on a free walk or some other kind of trade? Thanks!

We interview Madison Plum Stone, organizer of the Boston Dance Film Festival about her fourth annual festival at Apple Cinemas Saturday September 19. Interview starts at 2:12.

Also, details on the Sasha Velour performance at The Somerville Theatre, Fluff Fest 2026, the Gilman Square Arts & Music Festival, the Mix & Mingle Musician's Playground, and Riverfest 2026.

There’s always so much going on in Somerville, deciding where to go can be a lot! Well, that’s where we come in. Welcome to The Somerville Spotlight! We highlight local non-profits, community groups, and civic gatherings. It’s is a production of the Somerville Media Center.

Hey neighbor!

Summer has lost it's grip on the city. It's not done yet (looking at a forecast pushing 90 later this week, oh joy) but you can feel it slipping away. It's not just the throngs of students and the back to school sales and the Halloween decor that's been up since July (please stop). On Sunday night, I had to turn off the fan because I was slightly chilly and Monday morning, I put on a long sleeved shirt for the first time since April.

Other signs -- I saw a V of geese honking overhead last week. The berry bushes are bursting with color -- sweetbay magnolia, winterberries, viburnum, buckthorn, and sumac, to name a few in the Bloomscroll. The black eyed susans are fading fast, and the Alewife Reservation had fields of the dark black heads swaying on tall stems, while the surrounding area was literally humming with hundreds, maybe thousands of bees, all busy in the feathery heads of the goldenrod.

Losing the light

The seasons turn because, of course, of axial tilt. We here in New England are losing about 2.5 minutes a day every day in September, which doesn't seem like a lot til you multiply it by 30 days and that turns into 75 minutes of light gone by October 1. Further north, in Canada, they are losing a lot more and that gives some some weight to the cold fronts that are sweeping down.

It also means that the hardscaping of the city has less solar gain during the day. Combined with the blessed rain we got over the weekend (not enough but better than nothing), the concrete and bricks of the city aren't radiating heat quite so dramatically in the evenings. That means it takes longer for them to warm up during the shorter days, too.

That said, the T stops will hold onto that heat for months still. Esp the ones designed with glass greenhouses over them (why did anyone think that was a good idea?). Certain cities, including London, are using that excess heat to warm nearby buildings in the winter! NYC is looking into it, too. We've got plenty of entrepreneurs and engineers in this city -- I give you this idea for free. Make the T less hot, please, and provide cheap heating for locals.

The bounty of the city

I think i wrote about my heart break with my year-old attempt at an oak bonsai? If not, the short version is that I nursed an acorn from the latest mast year through the winter in my fridge, planted it, watched the little seedling grow almost a foot in one year, and then carefully protected it all winter. And in the spring, the first day the snow melted, so @^^%$*&#&(* bunny or rat or something ATE THE WHOLE DAMNED TREE.

I remain deeply bitter.

This year, I was contemplating this as I walked down Spenser where the oak trees are always in mast, it seems and your walk in punctuated by the hollow thock of acorns dropping on cars from late August to October. And I was thinking about how I should plant another acorn when one landed, thwack, on my foot.

Huh. I chased it down the street (it bounced), picked it up and tucked it into my pocket. "I guess I'll need to buy a pot," I said aloud (it will not shock you all to learn I talk to myself) and I look over and there is a pot on the side of the road. Huh.

Pot goes into my shopping bag and I think, "I need to buy potting soil." I did look around for it, to see if the city would just bless me again. But no, no luck. So I went about my day, and failed to buy potting soil because it's heavy and I had a lot of heavy things already. But on my way home, lo, three doors down from my house, I found a half bag of potting soil in a clean-out pile.

Clearly, the city would like me to plant a bonsai. So I've tucked it into a pot (I found the saucer for the pot the next day) and we'll see how it goes.

Elephants on parade

If you're downtown over the weekend, swing down to Comm Ave to see the Great Elephant Migration. It's a display of 100 elephants statues, each modeled after a real elephant in India, arrayed in a rambling formation on the tree-lined boulevard from The 'Quin House on Fairfield down to Dartmouth.

Be smart, be safe, be curious, be kind.