Once upon a time you were probably learning Spanish, French, Italian, or Latin. (If you weren’t, keep reading anyway.) You probably had to learn hundreds of verb forms in your chosen language, if it was one of those. Not so if… Read More ›
Month: May 2020
Culling the herd (the herd of books, that is)
There’s no such thing as too many books. Well, maybe there is. I wrote about this problem in a blog post five months ago — at this point it feels like five years, of course — when I resolved to do something… Read More ›
Tavolo again
How excessive! Takeout two nights in a row! But desperate times call for desperate measures, as Hippocrates (supposedly) said. So Barbara and I got delicious takeout from Tavolo last night: stuffed quahogs, margherita pizza, tagliatelle bolognese, flourless chocolate cake —… Read More ›
Kapow!
Unusually delicious takeout last night from Kapow (actually styled “Kapow!”) in Lower Mills, Dorchester: Tom Yum soup, chicken wings, excited eggplant (!), steamed gyoza, udon garlic noodle with duck, and shrimp pad Thai — more than enough for both Barbara… Read More ›
Your brother-in-law’s mother’s sister is your _________________?
Fill in the blank in the title — but no need to do it in Latin, as in the figure. English will be fine. What? You can’t do it? You say English doesn’t have a word for that relationship? You… Read More ›
My diverse neighborhood: everybody counts!
As I was taking my walk today, I came across this multilingual sign at the corner of Dot Ave and Park Street. Can you identify all five languages? Remember to fill out your census forms! In order to count, you… Read More ›
What are your favorite poems?
What are your favorite poems? Is an epic poem too long to count as an answer to this question? I hope not — but I’ll play it safe and split the difference. My favorite pair of poems are… drumroll, please…… Read More ›
Read it on the internet (if you can)!
“So many boxes to be found on the internet!” I’m guessing that you’ve seen something like this, perhaps in Facebook, Twitter, email, etc. Right? And perhaps you know that the boxes represent characters in fonts that you don’t have on… Read More ›
Freedom City
So Donald Trump dies from an apparent heart attack after taking hydroxychloroquine, and President Pence calls on far-right militias to enforce a “Make America Great Again” fascist-style government. OK, it’s fiction. More or less. My opening sentence is not quite… Read More ›
What’s wrong with Advanced Placement tests?
Three cheers for the College Board! Right? Everyone loves AP tests. Well, maybe you do, maybe you don’t, but read on. You might be surprised. Although Jonathan Halabi, a New York City math teacher, occasionally gets too much into the… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 