Author Archives
In 2018 I semi-retired by retiring from Weston High School after my 21st year teaching mathematics there. This was also my 44th year as a teacher altogether. In 2023 I retired fully, adding in my 18 years at Harvard’s Crimson Summer Academy each summer. For 21 years I had taught at the Saturday Course in Milton, MA, and I used to serve on the board of the Dorchester Historical Society.
I read, cook, and spend a lot of time building my model railroad. For some reason I’m left with less free time than would be ideal, considering that I’m supposed to be retired, but somehow I also manage to devote time to my wife, Barbara, and to our varying number of cats (once up to six, but now sadly down to one).
Larry Davidson
ljd@larrydavidson.com
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So you wake up one morning, blind in one eye, and soon you learn that you have a 20% chance of going blind in the other eye too…
No, it has never happened to me. And I hope not to you either. But it did happen to journalist Frank Bruni. I have just finished reading his resilient memoir, The Beauty of Dusk. Bruni’s affliction, non-arteritic anterior optic neuropathy,… Read More ›
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A quiz: why can’t you read this?
Yes, I know you can read this, namely this blog post. The question is why can’t you read the passage below this paragraph. OK, OK, so it’s not in English, but that’s not the point. It’s from the Greek Old… Read More ›
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“God created the integers…”
No, it’s not about theology. It’s about math! The title of this book, edited by Stephen Hawking, is the first half of a famous quotation from Leopold Kronecker: “God created the integers, all else is the work of man.” Actually,… Read More ›
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Don’t be misled by the name.
The Neponset Cafe is a small Japanese restaurant in Dorchester that primarily features ramen, despite the restaurant’s name—which comes from its location on Neponset Avenue, right next to Neponset Circle. (Don’t confuse it with a very different Neponset Cafe across… Read More ›
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My next challenge: (re)reading Ulysses!
Perhaps the title to this post is misleading: is it strictly correct for me to say that I am “re”reading Ulysses? Well, in a way. I like to claim that I’ve already read it one and a half times, because… Read More ›
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Revisiting Brasserie
In honor of Star Wars Day, Barbara and I returned to Brasserie for our third visit yesterday. OK, I lied. It wasn’t really for Star Wars Day (but still: May the Fourth be with you). It was for another holiday… Read More ›
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A Pop History of Asian Americans from the Nineties to Now
The title of this post is the subtitle of the book, even though it describes it perfectly. The much more cryptic title is simply Rise. This is not the kind of book you read cover-to-cover. It’s more the type you… Read More ›
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Are contractions bad? In a way, but not for the obvious reason.
Oh my. Edwin Battistella begins a recent post in the OUP blog with this sentence: A few years ago, a student dropped a linguistics course I was teaching because the textbook used contractions. Yikes, can that be true? Apparently so…. Read More ›
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Gulp. Are there (were there?) special math problems given only to Jews?
Yes, unfortunately there is (or was?) such a thing. The special problems were, of course, more difficult than the regular math problems. Much more difficult. I learned about this from Tanya Khovanova’s Math Blog, where she explains “how during entrance… Read More ›
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“Yes, it’s my real name. Shut up!”
You probably don’t believe it’s his real name, so check out the first chapter of Randy Rainbow’s memoir, Playing with Myself. He even includes a photo of his birth certificate (but Republicans will probably claim that it’s a fake—just like… Read More ›
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Looking forward to a local cat café
What’s wrong with you, Boston? Tokyo has 100 cat cafés; Boston has zero! But that may be changing—for the better, of course, since we couldn’t have fewer than zero. Richard Auffrey, better known as The Passionate Foodie, recently wrote about… Read More ›
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Re-read a whodunit (even though you already know who done it because you’ve read it before)!
Why, you ask, should I re-read a whodunit when I already know who done it because I’ve read it before!? The quick answer, which I mentioned in an answer to a completely different question in a completely different context two… Read More ›
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Go hang a salami, I’m a lasagna hog.
Say what? If you don’t get it, just read it backwards! Yes, it’s a palindrome. And I just watched a movie about people who write palindromes: The Palindromists. “How nerdy can you get!”, you exclaim. “And which syllable has the… Read More ›
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Math helps you flourish—but not in the obvious way!
My good friend and colleague Leah Gordon often likes the same books that I do. From time to time we make recommendations to each other. One of these is Francis Su’s Mathematics for Human Flourishing, which I have just finished… Read More ›
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What could possibly shock a German?
You may think the answer is “nothing.” Except maybe a failure to follow the rules. But you would be wrong. By this point you are probably familiar with Felicia Hofner, a.k.a. “Feli from Germany.” After six years in Cincinnati her… Read More ›
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Happy Passover!
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Learning Ukrainian: progress report #5
The lessons are starting to become uninspired/uninspiring. My guess is that Duolingo had to rapidly hire some Ukrainian speakers and no one had the time to write thoughtful, well-vetted lessons. So we get sentence after sentence with only small variations… Read More ›
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The Conversation, a 1974 movie
The Conversation is supposedly a great film. Everyone says so. It has mystery, suspense, interesting technology, and excellent acting. So why was I just meh about it? Well, it’s half a century old, so it may just be that it… Read More ›
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Learning to read aloud fluidly in a new alphabet
As you know, I’ve been learning Ukrainian through Duolingo for about six weeks now. I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I am progressing. The bad news is that Duolingo doesn’t give me enough context!… Read More ›
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Are we really living in the real world?
That question may now seem like a tired old trope. That’s because it all started with Philip K. Dick’s classic 1959 work, Time Out of Joint. For some reason I had never read this dystopian novel before, even though it… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 