Learning Strategies

Recent Posts - page 32

• (Re)Born in the USA: An Englishman’s love letter to his chosen home, by Roger Bennett

  By ljd42 on September 2, 2021

  “Tracy Chapman saved my life.” That’s the dramatic opening sentence of Chapter 32 of Roger Bennett’s terrific memoir of his life in Liverpool and his decision to emigrate to the USA and become a naturalized American citizen. As a middle-class… Read More ›

• Zoe Rosenthal is not Lawful Good, by Nancy Werlin

  By ljd42 on August 31, 2021

  A shout-out to Aaron Gacs for teaching me what a character alignment chart is! That was four or five years ago. If he hadn’t done that, I would never have understood the title of this captivating novel. If, as the… Read More ›

• Fake news! (Is it clickbait? Or have archaeologists discovered the Trojan Horse? Judge for yourself!)

  By ljd42 on August 29, 2021

  Did you believe in Santa Claus when you were a kid? How about the Bible? God? The Norse gods? Satan? Zeus? Evolution? Grimm’s fairy tales? The quadratic formula? The Trojan War? Everything your parents told you? Everything your teachers told… Read More ›

• A Prime Mistake

  By ljd42 on August 27, 2021

  To be sure, nine, along with three and seven, are great favorites of European folklore. No one knows for sure why just those numerals achieved such prominence. The reference to the fact that all of them are primes does not go far.  So says… Read More ›

• Visiting all 2563 train stations in the UK!

  By ljd42 on August 25, 2021

  We all know now that Dorchester’s own Maya Jonas-Silver is the new world record holder for visiting every single station on the Green, Blue, Orange and Red Lines in the shortest time; it took her 7 hours, 4 minutes, and… Read More ›

• Easttown? Where’s that? And what (or who) is Mare? And what’s so special about the Philly accent?

  By ljd42 on August 23, 2021

  Four questions in that headline—and it isn’t even Passover. You may or may not know that the distinguished linguist John McWhorter’s wonderful podcast Lexicon Valley recently moved from Slate to BookSmart. Not that you care. But what you do (or… Read More ›

• A return to Venice: Transient Desires, by Donna Leon

  By ljd42 on August 21, 2021

  Venezia! La Serenissima! Two and a half years ago was when I most recently reviewed one of Donna Leon’s many Venetian novels. That was The Temptation of Forgiveness. Somehow I had missed Unto Us a Son is Given, which came… Read More ›

• A Meh Landmark

  By ljd42 on August 19, 2021

  After a couple of friends had enthusiastically recommended the pizza at the Landmark Public House in Adams Village, a.k.a. Adams Corner, Barbara and I decided to try it. We lucked into an open parking space right on Minot St. at… Read More ›

• Fake news? Or not? Jigsaw puzzles improve cognitive functioning in seniors!

  By ljd42 on August 18, 2021

  Not high-school seniors. Not college seniors. Seniors as in senior citizens—old people—like me. We all know (don’t we?) that solving crossword puzzles and playing games like Scrabble can supposedly help stave off Alzheimer’s by keeping the left side of the… Read More ›

• Infinity is not a number. (Or is it?)

  By ljd42 on August 16, 2021

  Yes, students have trouble with infinity. And with zero. The great James Propp has written an in-depth essay about conceptual and linguistic issues with infinity and zero. Concrete examples are always best. Propp offers eight ways in which a student… Read More ›

• Fortune Favors the Dead, by Stephen Spotswood

  By ljd42 on August 14, 2021

  No, this is not another Nero Wolfe pastiche that lamely tries to follow Rex Stout’s formula. In Fortune Favors the Dead, written in 2020, author Stephen Spotswood has created two new and very original characters who vividly come to life… Read More ›

• The so-called SmartPhone trap: Is it real?

  By ljd42 on August 11, 2021

  Confirmation bias strikes again! Maybe I’m being unfair to myself. But I admit that I started reading this New York Times piece with a two-fold bias: The “guest essay” in the Times is titled “This is our chance to pull… Read More ›

• עס און עס

  By ljd42 on August 8, 2021

  No, that’s not Hebrew in the title of this post. Yes, it is written in the Hebrew alphabet. The alphabet is Hebrew, but the language is not—it’s Yiddish. You can’t tell it from the name of the restaurant as shown… Read More ›

• Guilt at the Garage, by Simon Brett

  By ljd42 on August 6, 2021

  A mystery in a small seaside village in England. Sounds like Agatha Christie, right? Well, yes, it does sound like Christie. But it’s actually Simon Brett. Guilt at the Garage is a conventional English village mystery. Now don’t interpret “conventional”… Read More ›

• “They Might be Linguists.” Linguists—not giants???

  By ljd42 on August 3, 2021

  You all do know the band They Might Be Giants (TMBG), don’t you? But you might not know my personal connection with them. The connection is that John Flansburgh and John Linnell, founders of TMBG from Lincoln, MA, were students… Read More ›

• Remember the ’60s and the ’70s? WBCN and the American Revolution

  By ljd42 on July 31, 2021

  The ’60s and the the ’70s were formative years for many of us. A must-see film recently illuminated these decades through the lens of the story of WBCN, a.k.a. The American Revolution. Perhaps I need to point out a couple… Read More ›

• No, it’s not Lupin. It’s Hannah LeBaron’s Adventure Cats!

  By ljd42 on July 29, 2021

  Some say you can’t train a cat. My former student Hannah LeBaron and her cat Lily beg to differ. Go read the interview with them on the Community Cats podcast! Apparently Hannah is now an influencer on social media—or so… Read More ›

• The Rose Code, by Kate Quinn

  By ljd42 on July 26, 2021

  Heartfelt thanks to my friend and colleague Leah Gordon for recommending this wonderful novel! The Rose Code is a remarkable work of historical fiction, focusing primarily on three invented characters—together with a supporting cast of real-life ones, such as Alan… Read More ›

• An excessively large box for Flicka

  By ljd42 on July 24, 2021

  

  For some reason Flicka likes this excessively large box. Apparently she doesn’t understand that cats are supposed to sit in boxes that are slightly too small for them!

• Osteria Madre

  By ljd42 on July 22, 2021

  Another new restaurant in the Lower Mills area! This time it’s the “mother restaurant,” Osteria Madre, on the Milton side of the river but just “a stone’s throw from Dorchester.” Since it has only been open for two weeks so… Read More ›

• ‹ Older Entries
• Newer Entries ›