Dorchester/Boston

Winthrop

By on

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

By on

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

By on

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?

By on

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

By on

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

By on

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

By on

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 ›

Unseen World

By on

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 ›

The Industry

By on

“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 ›

Chinatown or Mission Hill?

By on

Every year, the rising high-school sophomores at the Crimson Summer Academy take a field trip to a Boston neighborhood as part of their Quantitative Reasoning class. “What,” you may ask, “does a field trip to a neighborhood have to do… Read More ›

Cinquecento

By on

You were probably thinking of 16th-Century Italy when you heard the word Cinquecento, right? That was my first thought too. Italy, yes, but in this context it’s an Italian restaurant in the South End of Boston, appropriately labeled an “authentic… Read More ›

Hollywood in Dorchester

By on

What is an old Detroit police car doing on Ashmont Street in Dorchester? The answer, of course, is that they’re making a movie … and 2016 Dorchester is apparently a perfect stand-in for 1967 Detroit: The movie, which is directed… Read More ›

Playing with Fire

By on

You probably think of Tess Gerritsen as the competent author of interesting genre novels featuring Rizzoli and Isles. Usually, after all, that’s exactly what she is. But Playing with Fire is something very different: part serious mainstream literature, part historical fiction, part… Read More ›

Dorset Hall

By on

Much too hot to cook dinner last night, so we decided to try Dorset Hall, a fairly new addition to our neighborhood. Overall verdict: meh. First the good news: My salad was crisp, fresh, and huge. Barbara’s steak tips were… Read More ›