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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

  • Pi Day — or Tau Day???

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    This is a few days late, but… We held our annual observation of Pi Day on Monday in two of my classes and on Tuesday in the other two (since they didn’t meet on Monday). But one of my students… Read More ›

  • Bob Devaney’s talks and the Weston Fractal Fair

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    Professor Robert Devaney of Boston University gave two excellent talks to our precalculus classes (consisting mostly of juniors, with a sprinkling of advanced sophomores and freshmen) on Tuesday. His talk to the college-prep classes (”Precalculus Part One”) focused on the… Read More ›

  • Something new every ten years

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    “We should all embark on something completely new every ten years,” said Roy Strong, as quoted by Susan Hill in Howard’s End is on the Landing. When I read this opinion, I paused, closed the book, and thought for a… Read More ›

  • Taste of Dorchester

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    Come to the Taste of Dorchester on April 28! The food is from Ashmont Grill, Big Moe’s M&M Ribs, Blarney Stone, Butcher Shop Market, Inc., Dot 2 Dot Café, Down Home Delivery & Catering, Flat Black Coffee, Freeport Tavern, Gerard’s Restaurant,… Read More ›

  • Fractal Fair preview and invitation

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    If you’re in or around Weston on Wednesday, come to our Ninth Annual Fractal Fair! It’s from 10:00 to 12:15 in the Weston High School Library. The exhibits and presentations, by 50 Honors Precalculus students (mostly juniors), will focus on… Read More ›

  • High School Quiz Show

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    Be sure to watch High School Quiz Show tonight: Channel 2 at 7:00! The match is between Weston and Woburn, starring Mir Bokhari, Grace Huckins, Jon Birjiniuk, and Matthew Chernick, as seen left-to-right in this brief promotional video.

  • Howard’s End is on the Landing

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    What an unusual title for a book! What on earth can it mean? Well, part of the problem is an intentional ambiguity in how book titles are traditionally indicated. One rule states that a book title that is mentioned inline… Read More ›

  • Bartok, Dvorak, and the “Top Ten Composers”

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    About seven weeks ago, music critic Anthony Tommasini took on the thankless task of listing the “the top 10 classical music composers in history, not including those still with us.” Of course this task is impossible; no matter whom he… Read More ›

  • An epic chess match: Geeking out at WHS

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    Weston High School is a great place! With a student body of only 748 students, we had about 150 show up for a chess match of all things! What a delightfully geeky experience. The context was a fund-raiser for the… Read More ›

  • Slides from my talk on linguistics

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    I have posted the slides from my linguistics talk, but I’m not sure how useful they are without audio. The talk, after all, was an oral presentation accompanied by slides, not a visual presentation accompanied by audio. So I’m going… Read More ›

  • Freedom

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    Last year I listened to the audiobook version of Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections and reviewed it in this blog, so I figured that I would follow it up with Franzen’s fourth and latest novel, Freedom. While Freedom held my interest all… Read More ›

  • The Lie that Binds, Life Sentences, and The Wild Duck

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    Last night I saw the Weston High School Theater Company’s excellent performance of The Lie That Binds. What? You’ve never heard of this play? That’s because it was written collaboratively by the cast and crew — namely, the students in… Read More ›

  • Invisible children

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    At school yesterday we had a special assembly sponsored by our local Amnesty International chapter. Here is the official description we were given ahead of time: At the assembly on March 3, Thursday, the non-profit organization Invisible Children will be… Read More ›

  • Math Team to State Meet

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    Congratulations to the Weston High School Math Team for moving on to post-season! We will be competing in the State Meet on April 1 because of our current standing, which is #3 in the state among medium-sized high schools: at… Read More ›

  • Making order out of chaos

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    Yesterday evening I delivered the first lecture in our new Beyond the Classroom series, described as follows: Weston High School is pleased to announce a new series of talks for the whole community led by our esteemed faculty members on a broad… Read More ›

  • Utopia in Four Movements

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    Saw an absolutely fascinating movie yesterday at the ICA: Utopia in Four Movements. This engaging film, which premiered last year at Sundance, is unusual in at least two ways. First, although it has music and voice-over like most documentaries, both… Read More ›

  • Yankee?

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    They really shouldn’t be displaying a frayed flag. And I think they would get more business if they changed their name, perhaps to Red Sox.

  • Lamb Jam

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    Mixed feelings about the American Lamb Jam held yesterday at the Charles Hotel: On the one hand, the food was excellent and plentiful. Seventeen restaurants, mostly from the Boston area, provided a huge variety of lamb preparations and side dishes,… Read More ›

  • Rail Power

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    It turned out to be a pleasure to read Steve Barry’s Rail Power, a gift from my sister-in-law. At first glance this looks like nothing more than a downsized coffee-table book, filled with lots of pictures and very little text. What… Read More ›

  • Making order out of chaos

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    BSP*: Come hear my talk on linguistics at 7:00 PM on Tuesday, February 1, at the Weston Public Library! Here’s a description: Making order out of chaos: A conversation about linguistics “Linguistics? What’s that?” This is the usual response I… Read More ›