Recent Posts - page 56

  • A language game

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    Check out Dialect, a tabletop role-playing game based on linguistics! I’ve never tried it myself, mind you. But it certainly looks intriguing — for the right set of players. The question is, who has the time and the interest to… Read More ›

  • Wordslut

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    All published reviewers of Wordslut are women — at least as far as I can tell. But men should read it too. Aside from gender issues, you may be wondering whether this is a technical linguistics book or a popularization. Its… Read More ›

  • Steel & Rye

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    Once again it was too hot to cook, and it happened that Barbara and were a stone’s throw from Steel & Rye, which we hadn’t been to in a long time. Steel & Rye is actually in Milton, but it… Read More ›

  • Sabine

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    This is Sabine, our friendly neighborhood skunk:

  • The Bowery Bar

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    Yesterday it was too hot to cook, so Barbara and I decided to try out dinner at The Bowery Bar, a relatively new restaurant in Dorchester that we hadn’t yet been to. They have a beautiful patio, but we opted… Read More ›

  • Interpreting a sign

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    How do you interpret this sign? Does it mean… (A) handicapped parking on Election Day, with a 30-minute limit (and parking allowed for everyone on other days)? (B) handicapped parking all the time, usually with indefinite time but with a… Read More ›

  • Booksmart

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    Anyone who has been to Weston High School or a similar suburban school — whether as a student, a teacher, or a parent — will appreciate the new movie Booksmart. If you’ve been to a suburban school in southern California, so… Read More ›

  • Supreme Musical Artists of the Past Fifty Years

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    Michael Jackson? Tupac? What do you think — who are the supreme musical artists of the past fifty years? As some of you know, the sophomores of the Crimson Summer Academy vote every summer for which three artists should hold… Read More ›

  • Painting a Mural

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    A group of dedicated high-school students and city employees paint a mural, in historically accurate colors, overlooking the garden maintained by community volunteers at Clementine Park in Dorchester:

  • Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed

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    Mixed feelings about this non-fiction book. Maybe I should talk to someone about it. On the one hand, it’s filled with fascinating stories and views — things that make the reader close the book in order to stop and think… Read More ›

  • Stories and courses

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    What is a course? Is it a collection of chapters? Is it a collection of topics? I hope it’s neither — especially not that collection of chapters! A course should always tell a story. It should have a unifying purpose…. Read More ›

  • Stories and tests

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    Should a math test tell a story? That’s certainly not what most people think a math test should do! Should a course tell a story? More on that tomorrow, but at least I might get a few more takers for… Read More ›

  • Weston alum on treating depression

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    One of my former Weston students has just published “Treating depression takes much more than serotonin,” a fascinating article in Popular Science. The author, Grace Huckins, class of 2012 and erstwhile co-captain of the award-winning Weston High School Math Team, has written this… Read More ›

  • Greek to Me

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    The best book of the year! Yes, I know that the year is only half over, but I’m still going to nominate Mary Norris’s Greek to Me as the best book of the year. Equal parts travelogue, memoir, mythology, and… Read More ›

  • Machines Like Me

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    What? Ian McEwan writes science fiction? News to me, but I had to give this book a chance. It’s Ian McEwan, after all. Machines Like Me falls into the alternative-history subgenre, in which the author postulates that one or more… Read More ›

  • Bella Luna

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    It may not look like much in the picture, but it sure was yummy: grilled sea scallops with fresh corn, cherry tomatoes, and peaches (that’s a peach, not an egg yolk, in the picture), all served over parsnip puree. This… Read More ›

  • Virginia Woolf: “On Not Knowing Greek”

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    What did I know about Virginia Woolf? Not much. I knew that she wrote about needing “a room of her own,” and that she had written something about a lighthouse, and I had long ago seen Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid… Read More ›

  • The most commonly spoken language in your state

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    What’s the most commonly spoken language in your state? (We’ll exclude the two obvious ones, of course — English and Spanish.) This map shows the surprising answer, at least if we trust Business Insider: Absolutely fascinating, but I’m not completely… Read More ›

  • Barcelona (the restaurant, not the city)

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    Four out of five stars, IMHO, for the Barcelona restaurant in Brookline. Barbara and I went there last night as a change of pace for our anniversary dinner. A major motivator was that we both love Barcelona, the city, and… Read More ›

  • “Why Chinese is so damn hard”

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    I just read a provocative essay by David Moser entitled “Why Chinese is so damn hard.” Is it really that hard? And are we talking about speaking Chinese or reading it? Hard compared to what? Hard for a foreigner or… Read More ›