You probably haven’t heard of Mark Rooney. He’s running for a seat on the Governor’s Council against long-time incumbent Chris Iannella — who may also be unknown to you, even though his family has been in Boston politics for many… Read More ›
Dorchester/Boston
Did you know that Boston is 53% non-white?
I like this store, but…
The Industry, Visit #3
Third time’s the charm, right? That’s what they say. Well, this was something of the reverse situation. Night before last was the third time that Barbara and I had dinner at The Industry. I had already written enthusiastic reviews of the… Read More ›
What happened to our rear window?
We walked out to the driveway this morning, and this is what the rear window of our car looked like. How did that happen? We do have a large spruce tree that hangs over the car, but no large… Read More ›
Fireworks and You
“Hey, Larry!” shouts my neighbor as I take out the trash yesterday evening. “Where are your fireworks?” “People shouldn’t be setting off fireworks in residential neighborhoods,” I reply. “They scare cats and dogs.” “But you’re not scared,” he reasoned. “No,… Read More ›
Cinquecento etc.
For the second year in a row, Barbara and I went to Cinquecento for our anniversary dinner. The high standards of food and service remain (even with a clearly inexperienced server). But I should have checked the review I wrote… Read More ›
What happened to the ceiling?
Came home to find that the ceiling in our den now looked like this:
Winthrop
Never would I have picked the town of Winthrop as the ideal vacation spot… until the confluence of two events: Barbara and I had wanted to find a nearby long-weekend getaway that wouldn’t take much time to travel there and… Read More ›
Cats and geometry
Three of the cats, doing their best to sit at the vertices of an equilateral triangle (even though William isn’t paying attention and Vincent is messing up the covers):
Bach’s Big Birthday Bash
I’d like to give a well-deserved shout-out to my students Laura and Thea for their excellent performance at yesterday’s Boston Bach Birthday Bash celebrating J.S. Bach’s 333rd birthday! Yes, it’s a few days early for Bach’s actual birthday, but that’s… Read More ›
What happened to the Combat Zone?
Yesterday evening, Barbara and I went to an excellent talk by author Stephanie Schorow about her new book, Inside the Combat Zone: The Stripped Down Story of Boston’s Most Notorious Neighborhood. Thank you, Joyce Linehan, for hosting this event at Ashmonticello!… Read More ›
The Body in the Casket
A cleverly worded summary of The Body in the Casket could easily lead you to think that it was describing an Agatha Christie mystery. As you can tell from the image of the cover, it’s actually a Katherine Hall Page mystery, not… Read More ›
Revisiting The Industry
It was time for our annual visit to The Industry, Dorchester’s best restaurant. I say “annual,” but it was only our second visit: I first reviewed it shortly after it opened, about seven months ago. It’s still great. Before commenting… Read More ›
DreamLand Wax Museum
Sometimes a Groupon just leaps out at you and demands to be purchased. It’s a bah-gain, after all, so how could you resist? That’s how Barbara and I ended up visiting Boston’s DreamLand Wax Museum as part of our staycation this week…. Read More ›
Morning glories
I do love our purple morning glories!
Unseen World
Unseen World, a fascinating and complicated novel, will capture and maintain your attention — if you’re the right sort of reader. Right for this book, I mean of course. You probably are if you’re interested in computational linguistics, artificial intelligence, online virtual worlds (as… Read More ›
Yes, the Mission Hill presentation was successful.
Yes, the Mission Hill trip was successful. Two weeks ago, I promised to tell you the results of our decision to replace Chinatown with Mission Hill as one of the eight Boston neighborhoods we visit each summer as part of… Read More ›
Restaurants in the southern part of Dorchester
In the last year or two the southern part of Dorchester has been blessed with a large influx of new restaurants. Here are some capsule comments on ten of them (yes, ten! — and there are more) in alphabetical order:… Read More ›
The Industry
“The Industry”? Is that a restaurant? Yes, indeed; it’s Dorchester’s newest restaurant. Barbara and I decided to try it out last night. All in all — two thumbs up. Fortunately they have valet parking (in the gas station across the… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 