HONK! walks loudly, spawns tradition in Somerville and Cambridge
This weekend, thousands of revelers took Davis and Harvard squares in a riot of glitter, fluorescent spandex, and brass bands.
The occasion, of course, was the annual HONK! Festival. And more blocks on blocks of free performances, the festival was once a unique gathering room scored his sixth year with an evening concert cruise, a symposium at Harvard, and a parade that put Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone alongside groups such as Veterans for Peace and sign carrying protesters from the nascent "Occupy Boston" camp.
"There is some irony there," says HONK! organizer Trudi Cohen of the festival’s traction. “Gaining credibility in the city was definitely an uphill battle.”
According to Cohen – whose own proto-HONK! band was formed to play Iraq War protests – it took the backing of Redbones co-owner Robert Gregory to get Davis Square businesses behind the first festival. But from there, the music and the spectacle took over.
Clinical psychologist Brad Blanton, of the Center for Radical Honesty and author of "Korporate Kannibal Kookbook," purveyed his in-your-face T-shirts ("I Don't Need Sex. A GIANT Corporate 'Person' Fucks Me Everyday"). [Full disclosure: I happily
They walked to the basketball court, where about 50 students wearing gym pants and gray NBA Cares T-shirts waited under the shade of an aluminum roof. A cordon of teachers encircled the court and shooed away students who tried to rush in for autographs
