Let freedom walk, Part ye Seconde

Here we have the Old State House, a striking testament to the past, stooped amongst towering modernity.

[click for larger image] The dual statues that adorn the cornice of the North and South Facades--the Lion and Unicorn--are the Massachusetts Bay Colony's tribute to the overwhelming influence of Fantasy literature and film. The Lion represents C.S. Lewis and his Christianity-infused Chronicles of Narnia. The Unicorn recalls Ridley Scott and his film Legend, which had "Ye moste kickass rubber-horned Satan"--the words of Benjamin Franklin.

It gets a little light from here, less interesting things, things that cost money, things overrun by knicknack and curio shops. Once you get across the river to Charlestown though, things begin to pick up again.

"Huzzah! Her sides are made of Iron!"

Nothing funny to say about this thing, it's a boat.

[Click for larger image] The Bunker Hill Monument was cool though. This monolith commemorates the Colonist's alliance with--I think--the Egyptians or Romans (wherever pyramidal monoliths come from) in their campaign against the tea-taxing, intolerable-acting British Empire.

The park ranger kept referring to the monolith as the site of a tremendous effort on the part of the Colonial partisans to fortify the area. From what I gathered, they built it up in like 8 hours before the fight.

Inside the smaller building is a glassed-in miniature battlefield with little pewter figurines everywhere. I think it's a game, like some kind of 18th century precursor to Risk or Warhammer 40,000. I thought at first it was a scale recreation of the battle, but I didn't see a mini monolith anywhere. The park ranger kept referring back to it, though, during his speech. He must have really kicked ass that game.

Then you climb the 294 steps and see this:

It's a fantastic sight. I can tell why the British would have wanted to capture it so badly, you can see everything. The smudges there aren't from the camera lens, but from some engravings on the Plexiglas. It's fascinating to see ancestral scrawlings like this.

"Benji Franklin sucks" was the most evocative for me personally.

And that was about all the freedom I could handle.