Archive for November, 2009

A rainy day near Haymarket…

Looks like it might spin.  Maybe the sign will help.

Maybe not.

PS It didn’t spin.

And so, midway through the journey of  life, I found myself printing out a dark forest’s worth of marketing emails so that they could then be scanned and the resulting file burned on a CD to be sent probably via FedEx.  Indeed, I had strayed.

The task was irritating enough as I started at the present and began working backwards, but when I starting finding material that predated my joining the company, it got a little more interesting.  And then, just before the end – or rather, the beginning – I found this.

This is the sort of stuff that drives me mad.  it sets my teath on edge.  No, I’m not complaining that “A sneak-peak at what’s inside” is not a sentence.  I’m pretty much at peace with the use of pieces and fragments in headlines and email subject lines.  It’s the simple error of using “peak” instead of “peek” that gets me. I’ll take a couple of extra irritation points for gratuitous-hyphenation, too.

As deftly explained by Paul Brians with some handy mnemonics, a peak is the top of a mountain, a peek is a glimpse, and pique is irritation or excitement.  For extra credit, we can also find that pique is a type of polo shirt, and a peke is an ugly little dog also known as Pekingese.

Anyway, that message would never have gone out like that on my watch.  It made me think of the time I had to correct “security breeches” to “security breaches” in a press release at a company selling software that helped prevent data theft, not a company selling adult diapers.  Sure, it’s not exactly the decline and fall of Western civilization, but please folks, proofread with your brain, not just your eyes or your computer.

I hadn’t really thought much about local Chinese food with an actual Chinatown so close to home, but when Jason asked me to suggest a good Chinese restaurant in Central or Harvard, I realized that I’m living on a boulevard of pretty unimpressive Chinese restaurants stretching for miles!

Let’s start at Harvard and head North first.

Yenching, 1326 Mass Ave.  There are plenty of positive reviews, but I am not impressed.

Changsho, 1712 Mass Ave.  Grand and imperial looking, but not that exciting.  Plus, they slipped slices of ham into their vegetarian eggplant. And it looks like part of a chain now.

Wok n Roll, 1908 Mass Ave. Right in Porter, but never seems to make the list.  Maybe it’s the name.

Qing Dao Garden, 2383 Mass Ave.  We’re most of the way to the Arlington line and finally, an agreeably low-key joint with fresh and interesting dishes.

Back to Harvard now, heading South…

Hong Kong, 1238 Mass Ave.  OK, I get it, it’s a comedy club and they have really big scorpion bowls.  That in itself should disqualify it.  Do not eat here unless already drunk.

New Asia, 1105 Mass Ave.  Meh. But they do deliver!

(note the 600+ house numbers of nothing right through Central square)

Mary Chung, 460 Mass Ave.  Almost Halfway to MIT, we find the other border of the desert.  Mary Chung is an institution for good reason.  I think they have one of the highest food to decor rating ratios (over 3:1) in all of Zagat.  Don’t miss the suan la chow show. (And when a dish has its own wikipedia page that mentions a restaurant, that should speak volumes)

It’s 3.2 miles along Mass Ave – give or take – between Mary Chung and Qing Dao Garden, and as far as I’m concerned, there’s not much to eat Chinese-wise along that strip, which encompasses three of the major squares of Cambridge.  Sort of disgraceful, don’t you think?

Just for yuks, let’s venture past Mary Chung for a bonus round heading towards MIT and swerving on to Main Street a bit.

All Asia, 332 Mass Ave. Known for music not so much for food.

Pu Pu Hot Pot, 907 Main Street. Divey, but I like this place in spite of or maybe because of the name.

Royal East, 792 Main Street.  Fancier than Changsho and with more culinary chops to back it up if you ask me.

I’m sure plenty of differing opinions will surface, but I do want to recognize a place that I’ve omitted because it’s a bit off the beaten track of Mass Ave, but well worth the trip if you’re stuck in the 3.2 mile Chinese Rut: Zoe’s, at 289 Beacon Street, next to Petsi Pies.  I’m not even 100% sure they’re still in operation, but especially given the above, I’m going to make a point to seek them out again soon.

It’s an incredible time for Boston photo fans. I’ll never blog it all properly, but here’s a passel of updates on photography stuff of the recent past, present and near future.

The DeCordova (sculpture park and) Museum has three (three!) photography shows up right now: a solo exhibition by Lalla Essaydi, a wonderful collection of Jules Aarons‘ work, and an array of portfolios curated by ace photographologist Leslie K. Brown.

The Photographic Resource Center just opened an exhibition of the winners of the Leopold Godowsky, Jr. Color Photography Awards, named in honor of a co-inventor of the recently canceled Kodachrome film.

Also at the PRC, the Fall photography lecture series continues next week with Roger Ballen.  Ballen follows Keith Carter, who last week delivered a charming lecture that conveyed and illustrated “seven mantras” for creativity and life.  Carter observed, “The search for beauty is huge in peoples’ lives. Not so large in graduate schools.” It reminded me of both Arno Minkkinen’s bus station and Andrea Robbins and Max Becher’s travel philosophy, both observed at past PRC lectures.

Gallery Kayafas is showing the work of Caleb Charland right now.  Charland makes beautiful prints that play with concepts from physics using elemental substances like water, ice, fire, and oil. The work reminds me a bit of that of John Chervinsky, whom I first met at the PRC satellite gallery at the MIT Center for Theoretical Physics.

Continuing a line from Charland through Chervinsky, we can’t help but arrive at the MIT Museum’s new Harold “Doc” Edgerton Digital Collections, opening this weekend.

And lastly for the moment but surely not leastly, next week, the MFA opens an exhibit of Harry Callahan’s photographs.