Somerville High School’s Anthony Scrima earned Runner-up honors in the MIAA’s 13th Annual Sportsmanship Essay/Multimedia Contest, with a video entry titled Be the Game Changer.

Scrima’s video:

Ghost Dance In Berlin: A Rhapsody in Gray by Peter Wortsman ( Solas House, Inc. 2013)  $16.95

I admit I am not a  well-traveled individual like my friend the noted critic and Somerville Times guest columnist, Dennis Daly. My travels encompass  Union Square to Davis, from the Bloc 11 Cafe, to the hinterlands of the Sherman Cafe.  Nor do I harbor a great interest in Germany. Being a Jew, and with  Holocaust survivors in my family, my images of Germany have been  of grainy documentary footage, with skeletal corpses heaped together  outside a concentration camp–never again–I have said to myself–for  more than one reason. But Peter Wortsman’s memoir: Ghost Dance in Berlin…. A Rhapsody in Gray caught my interest–not only because it was recommended to me by a writer I greatly admire–Alan Kaufman ( Drunken Angel and Outlaw Bible of American Literature) but because Wortsman brings the gimlet eye of a seasoned traveler, and the sensibility of a poet to his prose.

Hey, if you haved lived a little you have baggage. Are you going to make amends? Poet Tony Artuso pipes in.

Somerville Police issued the following alert Tuesday of an attempted assault in the Porter Square area Monday night.

This is Deputy Chief Michael Cabral with an important message:

On 11/18/2013, at approximately 11:35 p.m., a female victim reported that while walking home alone in the Porter Square area, she was grabbed from behind by an unknown male. The male assailant was described as 5″ 9″ with short straight hair . Male had on a black jacket with collar, baggy pants and nice shoes.  The attacker attempted to sexually assault her.  The victim screamed; at which point her attacker fled north on Porter Street towards Summer Street. The victim was not injured.

By Jim Clark

Police responded to a report of a group of men running behind a Gilman St. residence Monday night, reportedly involved in a confrontation where a firearm was used to make threats.

By Jim Clark

On Wednesday, November 13, a Somerville High School teacher reported a case of assault against her, allegedly committed by a student, Lorreno Pierre, 18.

The teacher reportedly told police that Pierre had touched her in an unwelcome and inappropriate manner while visiting her in her office at the school.

Arrests:
*

Jose Montano, 31, of 122 Central Ave., Chelsea, November 11, 3:44 p.m., arrested at 520 Columbia St. on a charge of rape.

Marsha Cargill, 44, of 338 Somerville Ave., November 11, 8:05 p.m., arrested at 328 Somerville Ave. on charges of disturbing the peace and trespassing.

The Somerville Public Library invites all residents to a book discussion of Strong Boy: The Life and Times of John L. Sullivan, America’s First Sports Hero with author Christopher Klein, to be held Wednesday, Nov. 20 at 7 p.m. at the Central Library, 79 Highland Ave. Strong Boy tells the story of America’s first sports superstar, Sullivan, the first athlete to earn more than a million dollars. Rising from Boston’s Irish working class to become the most recognizable man in the nation in the late nineteenth century, he is said to have transformed the sport of boxing.

An unattended chiminea on Westminster Street is believed to be the cause of a fire which resulted in fire damage to a home on Lovell Street. – Photo by Somerville Fire Department.

An unattended chiminea in the rear yard of 17-19 Westminster Street appears to have resulted in a fire which spread to a neighboring yard and rear deck before being extinguished by Somerville firefighters early Sunday morning, November 17. Firefighters responding to a reported fire at 5:03 a.m. on Lovell Street arrived to find leaves, a tree, a fence and a rear deck burning in two yards. A wood burning chiminea (a clay outdoor fireplace) had apparently been left burning overnight in the rear yard on Westminster Street following a party.

Join Mayor Joseph Curtatone, the Somerville Board of Aldermen and School Committee, Somerville Bicycle Committee City, Shape Up Somerville, and many others to celebrate walking, biking, and transit-riding into the fall, as well as two important milestones for Somerville. On Friday, Nov. 22 from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. at the East Somerville Community School (Cross Street side), all residents and commuters are invited to join us for hot coffee or hot cider, and students who take part in the “active transportation” day may enter to win a free bike helmet.