Learning Strategies

As of today, this blog has moved to blog.larrydavidson.com. See you there!

Labels: books, Dorchester, food, life, linguistics, math, model railroads, movies, teaching and learning, technology, travel, Weston

A completely unsolicited testimonial:

Barbara and I noticed that our 28-year-old gas furnace was behaving erratically, sometimes turning off and on in rapid intervals, and sometimes turning off altogether. We called Micci Fuel Co. to come look at it and fix whatever was wrong. They showed up on time, cleaned and vacuumed the furnace, and explained to us just what they were doing and why. If you’re in their neighborhood, we certainly recommend them!

The furnace works perfectly now.

By the way, conventional wisdom has it that young people aren’t going into businesses like this anymore, so we were pleased to see that one of the guys who showed up was in his twenties.

Labels: Dorchester

We tend to think of Dorchester as “inner city” — which indeed it is...or not, depending on one’s definition (see below). But most of us don’t think of urban gardens in connection with Dorchester. A useful antidote is Dorchester Community Gardens. Our local community garden is on Msgr. Lydon Way. Here are a few photos, which might surprise those whose image of Dorchester is formed solely by crime reports in The Globe:










Now, as for the definition of “inner city”: Wikipedia says that it’s “the central area of a major city or metropolis,” going on to explain as follows:

the term is often applied to the poorer parts of the city centre and is sometimes used as a euphemism with the connotation of being an area, perhaps a ghetto or slum, where residents are less educated and more impoverished and where there is more crime.

Answers.com defines it like this:

The usually older, central part of a city, especially when characterized by crowded neighborhoods in which low-income, often minority groups predominate.

Whichever definition you prefer, Dorchester is certainly in part inner-city. I do tell people that I live in the inner city, but we also have community gardens and other green space.

Labels: Dorchester

I’ve written a couple of previous posts about the Ashmont Grill — two years ago and five months ago. Since the latter post, Barbara and I have visited several times, mostly for the Monday Night wine club, which I highly recommend (though not, of course, for my under-21 readers). Each evening features a four-course dinner (admittedly of four small plates), with wines paired with each course, for an amazing $30 per person. The food is almost uniformly excellent, though occasionally the restaurant takes this opportunity to try out new dishes which of course aren’t necessarily successful. (Presumably the reason that they can achieve the $30 price point is that the wines are donated by a winery or retail outlet each time.) Here are four recent examples to whet your appetite:

From September 8


From October 27


From November 3


From December 22


I’m looking forward to Tuscany! (Who wouldn’t?)

A related event was a wine tasting benefit on August 4 at the Ashmont Grill for the St. Marks Area Civic Association, featuring wines from Albert Winestein, a retail wine-and-cheese store in Hyde Park.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of the Wine Club is not the wine nor even the food, but the fact that guests are arranged family style at tables that seat four to eight. As a couple, Barbara and I are always seated with strangers, something that would usually have a high probability of making me uncomfortable. I’m not particularly extraverted, and I tend not to be very sociable with people I don’t know yet. But the fact is that we’ve met lots of interesting people with a surprising number of things in common with us — not just providing the obvious conversation topics such as food, wine, and Dorchester. We’ve met a manager at a local independent bookstore (one of the few that remain), a physics professor, an architect from a neighboring town, and a woman who knew one of the very few Weston families to be distinctly countercultural.

So, if you live anywhere near Dorchester, try it out! Reservations are advised; you can call the restaurant (617-825-4300) to make inquiries and to be put on their email list. They usually don’t know the menus until a few days in advance, so don’t expect a lot of notice.

As locals know, the current incarnation of the Ashmont Grill is the creation of Chris Douglass, a neighborhood resident who is best known for his South End restaurant, Icarus. Barbara and I usually go to Icarus only once a year (for our anniversary), since it’s extremely expensive. The Ashmont Grill is still a bit overpriced, and not in the same league as Icarus in terms of cuisine and service, but at least it’s the sort of place that one could go to once a month, even without the exceptional value of the Wine Club. Read my July 19 review for more of my point of view, or check out the many reviews on Yelp for a variety of opinions, some reasonable and some wrong-headed. (I’m reminded of Tom Lehrer’s remark that the trouble with folk music is that it’s written by the people, and my friend Brian’s observation that you have to be wary of the general public’s opinions of restaurants, since McDonald’s is the most popular restaurant in the world.)

Before we leave the subject of the Ashmont Grill, I need to write a bit about Tavolo, Chris Douglass’s latest restaurant, catty-corner from the Ashmont Grill and right at the Ashmont Station on the Red Line. The theory was that this would be a third price point, with Icarus at the very high end, Ashmont Grill in the Middle, and Tavolo at the low end. As a pizza-and-pasta joint, Tavolo should be informal and inexpensive, while still serving high-quality food. Barbara and I have been there a couple of times, and we’re not impressed, though we really, really want to like it. The food is perfectly OK (nothing to write home about, but then again that’s not what you would expect), though there were a few flaws. For instance, while Barbara’s salad came with the dressing on the side, as she had requested, it was so heavily pre-salted that she couldn’t eat it. (Why pre-salt a salad at all?) And the carbonara was a bit too eggy, at least for our taste. We really liked the mushroom pizza. Service was fine, including cheerfully willing replacement of the salted salad. But our big problem was the wine prices. For a purportedly inexpensive restaurant with a $40 ceiling on wine, why does the lowest-price red go for $32? (My friends who are beer drinkers don’t have similar complaints.) For instance, a nice Sicilian Nero d’Avola that can be purchased retail for ten dollars is priced at $36 at Tavolo! I know that there are lots of reason for significant mark-ups, but if the otherwise pricey Birch Street Bistro in Roslindale can charge $24 for similar wines, why can’t Tavolo?

Labels: Dorchester, food

The Savin Hill neighborhood in Dorchester is conventionally divided into two parts, at least by real estate agents. The “better” half, according to some, is “Savin Hill over the Bridge,” namely the portion to the east of the bridge that crosses the Southeast Expressway. Dorchester is changing so rapidly that this decades-only terminology may now be out of date; read what people have to say on Yelp if you want some local opinions on the subject.

Anyway, immediately to the west of the bridge — practically on the bridge itself, but not quite “over the bridge” — is C.F. Donovan’s Restaurant, one of our favorites in Dorchester. Simple, unpretentious, not trying to be upscale or too gourmet, Donovan’s is where Barbara and I go when we’re driving home and it’s too late to start cooking dinner. Always reliable, Donovan’s has a large menu, prices are good, the food is always of high quality, the service is friendly and accurate, the portions are large, and the wine list is both decent and reasonably priced. What more could one ask for?

Try the Savin Hill scallops (“Jumbo Sea Scallops sautéed with sage butter, served over baby spinach and garlic mashed potatoes”), the French onion soup, the prime rib, the onion rings, the chicken bella boca, the grilled asparagus, and the burgers. In our experience, you can’t go wrong.

Labels: Dorchester, food

Following up on yesterday’s footnote, I need to mention another linguistic annoyance: the misuse of the word “Spanish.” Yes, it correctly describes the language that is spoken not only in Spain but also in much of Central and South America, but it’s not the right word for the culture, the food, or the people — unless, of course, you’re talking about Spain itself. For the Western Hemisphere we have the perfectly good words “Hispanic” and “Latino.” Anyway, my local neighborhood convenience store changed owners recently, and now it advertises “Spanish & American Foods,” as you can see in this picture. (I couldn’t find an angle that would avoid the intrusive stop sign, but you can still read it pretty well.)



Needless to say, I found lot of Latin American items inside the store but very little food from Spain. They do, however, primarily carry the Goya Foods brand, and it’s of interest that Goya was indeed founded by a couple from Spain. Goya, however, clearly uses the words “Spanish,” “Hispanic,” and “Latino” correctly on their website.

Labels: Dorchester, food, linguistics

Two years ago I promised a review of the dim sum at the then-new branch of Chau Chow in Dorchester, but I don’t think I ever wrote one. So here, at long last, is that review.

Barbara and I ate dim sum there this morning (for what must be at least the sixth time — so you can see that we like it). Chau Chow serves traditional dim sum, where the servers roll carts around the restaurant and you order small quantities (Chinese tapas?) by pointing, not from a menu. There are, of course, both advantages and disadvantages to this system: aside from being authentic and just generally cool, the rolling-cart method has the advantage that you can see what you’re getting; it has the disadvantages that the food can sometimes come in very rapid succession, and you don’t always know what you’re getting, especially when the server speaks little English or very heavily accented English. At Chau Chow there are several servers in this category, but they’re all friendly and willing to try. The food is quite delicious, at least to these moderately educated Western palates. I don’t know what customers at the extremes would think — either the extreme of wanting totally Americanized food or the extreme of wanting nothing familiar. Perhaps both of those groups would be disappointed.

There are several dishes about which Barbara and I can agree: we’re both very fond of them. This morning we had scrumptious pork-and-shrimp shumai, unctuous eggplant that’s probably bad for us, yummy ground pork dumplings, the always delicious fried taro cakes (with a bit of shrimp in them), two different kinds of lovely shrimp-and-scallion dumplings, some not-to-be-missed lobster dumplings (yum!) — all of those were items we both loved. Do you begin to detect any themes there? In addition, we had scallion dumplings (which Barbara liked more than I did, since I’m put off by the flavor that steaming imparts to scallions) and stuffed mushrooms (which I love, but which have a texture that doesn’t appeal to Barbara). Needless to say, this was too much food, so we took quite a bit home to reheat for breakfast and/or lunch tomorrow. The entire bill came to $42.00 including tax and tip, which sounds like a lot for breakfast or brunch but was actually quite reasonable when you consider all the leftovers it provided.

So go to Chau Chow, especially if you have a group of more than two people, so you can sample more choices. Maybe you’ll try the chicken feet.

Labels: Dorchester, food

Instead of being out in the thunderstorm this afternoon, I attended a beautiful concert performance by my fellow Dorchesterite and former student, coloratura soprano Zakiyyah Sutton. (Yes, I had to look it up too. I used to know what coloratura meant, but I had forgotten.) The concert was held at the mostly white Old South Church in Copley Square, but was actually sponsored by the Concert Committee for Young People’s Artistry and Education of their sister UCC Church, the predominantly black Eliot Congregational Church in Roxbury. As you’ll see, this racial distinction turned out to be relevant.

Zakiyyah, who just graduated from the Boston Arts Academy, was a student of mine for two summers at Crimson Summer Academy and will be attending Wellesley College in the fall. She sang an amazing 14 numbers in this concert: ten as solos and four as duets with fellow performer Jamal Hoskins, a tenor, who performed five solos (and, of course, four duets). The Eliot Studio Singers accompanied a few of the songs as well.

By far the best performance was Zakiyyah’s rendition of the aria “Der Hölle Rache” from Mozart’s Magic Flute. This was actually her second song in German, since she had opened the concert with “Bist Du Bei Mir,” attributed to J.S. Bach in the program but apparently actually written by Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel, or so they say. Zakiyyah’s other two pre-intermission solos were Scarlatti songs, both beautifully sung in Italian; she was so convincing in both languages that it was only afterwards that I found out that she actually doesn’t speak either of them.

The second half of the concert was less familiar to me, including a song from Aladdin, one by Stevie Wonder, and several gospel numbers, only two of which I knew. Culturally speaking, I found the performance eye-opening in several ways, starting with the fact that I was in a small minority in the audience (there were probably only six or seven whites there) and I have very little familiarity with the traditions of the black church, both for racial and religious reasons. Sure, I know about them second-hand from books, plays, and movies, but it’s something quite different to be immersed in the black church in person. The differences became vividly evident when Zakiyyah movingly dedicated a song (“His eye is on the sparrow”) to her ailing father and then broke down when she started to sing it. The audience was just so supportive of her, and in a way that no white audience could have been. I don’t meant to suggest that a white audience wouldn’t have been equally supportive, because of course they would have tried to be — they just wouldn’t have been able to show it very well. The interaction between performer and audience was just so meaningful and effective in this context.

About ten minutes later, Zakiyyah got back up and said that she had recovered and wanted to sing the song the way it should be done. Actually, I thought she had sung it perfectly well the first time — she did manage to get through it successfully with the aid of the audience — but I have to admit that the second rendition was truly beautiful, and I’m glad she decided to do it.

In general, the solos were much more effective than the duets, perhaps because Zakiyyah was definitely the stronger performer. But their closing number, a duet version of “Amazing Grace,” was moving and perfect.

I’ll close with a couple of non-musical notes: the opening remarks by Old South Church Associate Minister Quinn Caldwell included an African proverb that definitely resonated with me: “If you want to walk fast, walk alone; if you want to walk far, walk together.” This speaks to me in part because of what it says about teaching. (More about that in a later post.) Also, I was struck by the explicit recognition of two judges in the audience: Judge Leslie E. Harris and Judge Milton L. Wright, Jr.; the latter turns out to be “a gifted singer and writer of a musical production as well as a lawyer.” The musical director from the Eliot Church pointed out that performances like this one show “Roxbury on the good side,” in contrast to what they usually see in court. While Zakiyyah is from Dorchester, the point is still completely valid and contrasts with what we usually hear on the news. Crime is news; music isn’t.

Labels: Dorchester, life

It was too hot to cook today, so Barbara and I went to the Ashmont Grill, along with our friend Cheri. This was our third dinner visit there in the past six months or so (in addition to a couple of brunches). I didn’t post anything about the previous two dinners, since I was waiting for a tie-breaker, and now we have one.

First of all, what happened two visits ago? We had been disappointed at that time, because earlier experiences at the Ashmont Grill had all been wonderful; but that time everything was mediocre. Vegetables were somewhat overcooked, meat was a bit dry and not hot enough, and service was haphazard. Next time would be better, we hoped. And indeed it was. So which was the real Ashmont Grill? I am pleased to report that the one disappointing experience was an anomaly, and all seems to be well. The three of us sampled a variety of items on the menu, and there wasn’t a false step among them: crisp, light calamari, whisked to us from the fryer without spending time under a heat lamp; plump, fresh, garlicky mussels in a red pepper sauce; a top-quality hamburger cooked exactly to order; fall-off-the-bone short ribs in not too much sauce; excellent home-made cole slaw; hot, thick, sinfully rich home-made onion rings; hot, fresh, cornbread; and a nice bottle of Côtes du Rousillon.

The prices, of course, are significantly lower than those at Chris Douglass’s other restaurant, his flagship Icarus, which is one of the very best restaurants in Boston. But it still seems a bit expensive for an informal, low-key, neighborhood-type place. Oh, it’s still definitely worth it, but don’t expect cheap. The food and service are great; now if only the prices were a little lower...

Labels: Dorchester, food

Just getting around to blogging this, but there was a fascinating article a few weeks ago in the Boston Globe, made all the more relevant to me because it mentioned several of my Weston students and was written by the mother of one of those students. Ellen Freeman Roth’s article, headlined “Not your father’s nicknames when teens talk to parents,” explored what kids call their parents and their parents’ friends:

Lisa and Michael Josephson of Old Greenwich, Conn., are Mama Jo and Papa Jo, names coined by their daughter’s friend. Timothy Sweet of Watertown began calling his father “Sweet Man” a dozen years ago on a Boy Scout trip. Sweet likewise has nicknames for his friends’ parents, including “Glenzo” for Glen and “Pina” for Patricia.

Sarah Switlik, 18, a Babson College student from Princeton, N.J., said her mother, Pam, wasn’t thrilled at first when Sarah called her P-Money. “Initially my mom said, ‘Really, Sarah,’ exasperatedly. Now when she’s texting she signs off, ‘Love, P$.’ It makes her feel like one of the girls.”

...

Caroline Gaulin, 22, of Greenwich, Conn., yelled “My bad, G-Dog!” to her father, Dan, during a basketball game to make light of an error she'd made. “After that we started calling him G-Dog,” she said. “Now he loves it.”

Teachers are almost always called by title and surname at Weston, but at CSA we’re all on a first-name basis. These customs run counter to expectations and fly in the face of the customs for naming of parents and parents’ friends, at least based on my predictions. There are probably some interesting class issues here. Although I grew up calling my parents “Mom” and “Dad,” I called all my other relatives and my parents’s friends by their first names: it was Lillian and Leonard, not Aunt Lillian and Uncle Leonard; Luke and Gen, not Mr. and Mrs. Garner. But Barbara grew up more formally, with Aunts and Uncles and surnames with titles. I’ll have to ask my CSA students what they do; I’ll predict big differences between Weston and Dorchester.

Labels: Dorchester, life, linguistics, teaching and learning, Weston

As I mentioned in my post of four days ago, my sophomores at Crimson Summer Academy (CSA) are currently studying models of voting. While I’m trying to move them away from cuteness as a criterion and toward serious consideration of candidates, my mission is more mathematical than political. So I want my students to learn about the mathematical methods involved in various answers to our Big Question for the summer: “What if nobody gets a majority?” We’re a democracy (more or less), which means that the majority should rule (more or less) except where minority rights are involved. So we study all sorts of real-life voting methods that soon-to-be voters will have to confront:

• simple plurality, as in elections for Massachusetts governor
• two-round runoff, used in much of the South and elsewhere
• preliminary-and-final (very close to two-round runoff), used in elections for Mayor and City Council in Boston
• Plan E Proportional Representation, used in elections for City Council in Cambridge
• the Electoral College, used in elections for president of the United States

The problem is that even with the current heightened interest in Obama, teens still aren’t going to pay much attention to candidates for offices other than president. They don’t care about Cambridge and Boston city councillors. So, how do we grab their attention? What’s something in which they have a lot of interest and about which they have a lot of knowledge? Several years, ago one of my teaching assistants (“mentors” in CSA jargon), himself a Harvard undergraduate, made an excellent suggestion, which we’ve followed ever since: hold an election for three Supreme Musical Artists of the Past Fifty Years.

So that’s what we do. We collect nominations on the first day. Then, at various points throughout the course, we hold elections using the different methods listed above, always starting with the same nominees. Maybe the results will differ, depending on the method. Needless to say, the results among 15-year-olds bear no relation to the candidates for whom I would have voted. In fact, about a third of the nominees were individuals or groups that I hadn’t even heard of. Anyway, with no further ado, here were the winners from the two-round-runoff method, each listed with the number of votes in the second round (stay tune for the results of other methods later in the summer):

37	Tupac Shakur
32	Lil Wayne
31	Chris Brown

And the runners-up in the second round were...

23	Michael Jackson
15	The Beatles
15	Jonas Bros.

Labels: Dorchester, math, teaching and learning

Take a close look at the yellow bars in this bar chart:

Much to my surprise, it turns out that subway fares in Boston have remained nearly unchanged for 110 years when adjusted for inflation, especially when you ignore the short-lived drop to ten cents in 1950. This chart comes from a fascinating document entitled “Report on the Proposed 2007 MBTA Fare Restructuring and Fare Increase,” published by the MBTA in July of 2006.

Why am I so unusually interested in this geeky document? Perhaps it’s because I’m a math teacher — or maybe it’s because I’m building a model railroad based loosely on the T, though I think there’s a lurking variable there that explains both phenomena. In any case, the general public should also become aware of it, especially with all the recent complaints against the MBTA. Many, perhaps even most, of those complaints are certainly justified, but isn’t it interesting that the fare hasn’t actually risen significantly in real dollars in over a century? Using my trusty TI–83 Plus calculator, I computed a linear regression for the data, with years since 1900 as the input values and the fares in 2005 dollars as the output values, excluding the anomalous dip in 1950. The slope indeed turned out to be indistinguishable from zero — actually 0.0013 to two sig figs. Even when I included the 1950 fare it was still only barely higher, being 0.0017. The correlation coefficient wasn’t good, but it’s still quite compelling that the best-fit line should be nearly flat.

Labels: Dorchester, math, model railroads

As I mentioned in my post of two days ago, the sophomore component of the summer course I teach at Crimson Summer Academy focuses on models of voting. Although the emphasis is primarily on applied mathematics, the 2008 course was destined to be more political than the previous summers’ versions. For the first time it was clear that voting would not be merely an academic exercise for these teens who won’t be able to vote for three more years. Ordinarily I try to avoid talking about politics with students, and in the typical math class it’s easy enough to avoid it. But in these circumstances there was no alternative but to take this as a teachable moment and embrace the students’ natural interest in the presidential race. Keep in mind that these are inner-city kids who attend public and parochial schools in Cambridge and Boston, with the largest contingent living in Dorchester and Roxbury.

So I started by polling the students about their political views. Here were the results:

0	John McCain
0	Ralph Nader
25	Barack Obama
4	None of the above
1	Prefer not to say

I guess we won’t invite McCain to speak to the class.

Labels: Dorchester, life, math, teaching and learning

My regular readers know that I teach Quantitative Reasoning (QR) at the Crimson Summer Academy (CSA) over the summer. (If you don’t how what CSA is, read my blog posts from May 7, 2007, and April 30, 2008.) The theme for all courses for the summer is The Student as Citizen, and the particular QR unit for rising sophomores is models of voting. More on that in a later post, since of course it’s especially interesting in this particular summer. Anyway, one girl’s succinct comment on Barack Obama yesterday was, “Obama’s cute.”

I didn’t know how to respond to this observation, but another girl in the class did: “Obama isn’t cute! Deval Patrick is cute!”

I decided to stay out of this conversation. Fifteen-year-old girls don’t see the world in quite the same way as I do.

Labels: Dorchester, life, teaching and learning

Which is a better place to buy soft-shell crabs, the Legal Seafoods fish market at Chestnut Hill or the Roche Bros. supermarket in West Roxbury? The obvious answer is Legal, of course. Everyone knows that fish markets are better than supermarkets, and Legal is well-known for selling impeccably fresh fish (not to mention fresh ads). But the Conventional Wisdom is apparently wrong. I’ve bought soft-shell crabs three times in the past month — once at Legal and twice at Roche Bros. — and the verdict is clear. The Roche Bros. product (at three dollars per crab) was tastier, fresher-tasting, and plumper than the Legal product (at six dollars per crab, though for slightly larger ones, I must admit).

On a slightly different matter, it's unfortunate that the Shaw’s and Stop & Shop markets in Dorchester can’t provide food and service of the quality provided by the West Roxbury Roche Bros., where the food is always good and the employees are both well-trained and friendly.

Labels: Dorchester, food

It was great to see my neighborhood featured on Channel 5’s Chronicle this evening! And no, it wasn’t because of crime, but because of diversity and the new transit-oriented development near Ashmont Station. The episode, called “Happenin’ Hoods,” included a segment on a “Boston neighborhood that combines the best of the old and the new”: Peabody Square, Dorchester. What came across was a neighborhood with lots of elegant old housing stock, an excellent restaurant, new condos and rental apartments, and — most importantly — a rich diversity in racial groups, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class, and income levels. In this part of Dorchester nobody blinks at an interracial gay couple, and that’s how we like it.

Labels: Dorchester

Where can Dorchester kids get into college? Anywhere!

Some of my Weston students believe that they are entitled to go to Harvard and BC and Bryn Mawr, but kids who go to public schools in Dorchester and Roxbury certainly aren't in their league. If your parents are rich and well-connected and have provided you with every educational opportunity that money can buy, you deserve to get into Harvard, don't you? But if your parents are low-income immigrants who have sent you to the school formerly known as Dorchester High School, you don't have a chance.

Or do you? Well, admittedly the deck is stacked against you; the odds are in favor of the Weston student. But let's look at some of the 29 high-school seniors who have been attending the Crimson Summer Academy for the last two summers, starting with some of the most competitive colleges:

• Harvard admitted 3. That’s 10% of the class — can’t beat that at Weston.


• Smith admitted an astounding 5 of the 15 girls!


• BC admitted 3.


• MIT admitted 1!


• Brandeis admitted 1, Bryn Mawr 2, Johns Hopkins 1, Penn 1, Pitt 1, Syracuse 6, Union 2, Wellesley 1, Wesleyan 1; Barnard put 2 on their wait-list.


• Some of the remaining six may also be highly competitive schools (I just don’t know about all of them): Denison admitted 1, Lehigh 3, Mass Art 1, Northeastern 8, Regis 3, and Wheaton 3.

OK, they’re not all from Dorchester and Roxbury, but they all attend public schools in Boston and Cambridge, and this college admissions record would be the envy of any public school and even most private schools too. Well done!

Labels: Dorchester, teaching and learning

Yes, it was one night early for Passover, but last night Barbara and I attended the 2008 All-Dorchester Seder, which is held every year at the First Parish Church. A seder at a church? Well, yes. In the first place, it’s a Unitarian Universalist church, so no one should be surprised that they would be hosting a seder. And in the second place, this endeavor is deliberately an interfaith community-building activity, so it’s best not to hold it in a Jewish facility even if one still existed in Dorchester. (For those who don’t know, most members of Dorchester’s once-vibrant Jewish community have long since fled to the suburbs, although there are still a few left here, and there’s a fair number of us who have moved into Dot in the past 25 years.)

Like many other worthwhile all-volunteer activities, the All-Dorchester Seder needs more publicity. I give the volunteers full credit for their hard work and accomplishments, but there really should have been more than 38 of us at this event. Religiously it was a good mix — about half of the people sitting near me being Jewish — but racially it was hardly representative of today’s Dorchester, since almost everyone there was white.

“Next year in Jerusalem!” Well, not exactly. As the Seder leader observed, this wish is to be interpreted symbolically, not literally. Very few of us intend to be in Jerusalem next year. But maybe next year there can be more attendees, with more racial diversity. I’ll remind everyone again in eleven months.

Labels: Dorchester, life

According to an article in this morning’s Boston Globe, the average annual income in Dorchester 02124 (where I live) is $34,556. The average annual income in Weston 02493 (where I teach) is $531,374. That’s a ratio of slightly more than 15 to 1. No comment.

Labels: Dorchester, Weston

Barbara and I spent a few hours yesterday evening in Jamaica Plain. First we walked to the Axiom Gallery, which is hosting an intriguing Math and Art exhibit through April 27 right next to the Green Street T station (confusingly on the Orange Line, not the Green Line). Most of the art is worth seeing for its own sake, but the special appeal for me was the large number of connections with some of the topics that my precalculus class has been studying this year. The sculptures of Bathsheba Grossman are particularly striking. For example:

The works of Kevin van Aelst were also vividly related to what we’ve been studying, as his Dragon Curve, Sierpinski Arrowhead (made of Triscuits!), and Cantor Set made out of a fractal egg all show:
      
I was also intrigued by the works of Keith Peters, which could readily be modeled in NetLogo or StarLogo, even though he apparently used neither, and also by the works of J. Michael James, whose fractal condor was especially beautiful as it swooped around on a large screen.

All in all, definitely a worthwhile experience. I just wish the exhibit had been more extensive, so that I could have justified recommending it to my Weston students. Barbara and I spent 45 minutes there, but I think most of my students would feel done with it after 20 — hardly worth the trip from Weston. But it would be worth the trip from Dorchester, even if we hadn’t already been in JP (where Barbara works).

Anyway, after visiting the gallery, we walked to Cafe D, where we had a pleasant and delicious dinner. Crispy calamari followed by a fish taco and salad for Barbara; arancini followed by duck confit with a cassoulet of braised white beans, portabella mushrooms, and pancetta for me. With wine, tax, and tip, it all came to just under a hundred dollars, which seems to be par for the course these days. It might or might not be worth the trip from Dorchester (on the edge, in my judgment), but, as I said, we were there anyway.

Labels: Dorchester, food, math, teaching and learning, travel, Weston