Here are a few photos I’ve taken in Cambridge and Boston during the past few days. My dining has been sporadic and not that photogenic, so there aren’t any pictures of fancy meals.
A new duck for me: a male ring-necked duck (Aythya collaris) on Fresh Pond in Cambridge. It’s a diving duck, and, sure enough, it dove several times, but it was wary and this is the best photo I could get with a telephoto lens.
Lamb rogan josh at the Maharaja Restaurant in Cambridge. They used to have a great buffet, but sadly, it’s gone. The food, however, is very good.
Do you remember “Car Talk,” the fascinating auto-repair show that used to be on NPR, hosted by the Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers (Tom and Ray Magliozzi)? Well, that show originated from Harvard Square. As Wikipedia notes,
The show’s offices were located near their shop at the corner of JFK Street and Brattle Street in Harvard Square, marked as “Dewey, Cheetham & Howe“, the imaginary law firm to which they referred on-air. DC&H doubled as the business name of Tappet Brothers Associates, the corporation established to manage the business end of Car Talk. Initially a joke, the company was incorporated after the show expanded from a single station to national syndication.
The offices are still there, though the show is gone (Tom died in 2014). Here’s the building and the famous sign:
I hope you recognize the pun in the name.
Two days ago I wandered down to the Boston Common and the adjacent Public Garden with one aim: to photograph the bronze statue of Mrs. Mallard and her eight ducklings, all modeled on a single drawing in the best children’s book ever written, Make Way for Ducklings. The book, written and illustrated by Robert McCloskey and published in 1941, recounts the story of Mr. and Mrs. Mallard, a mated pair of ducks and their ducklings, who, after many travails, find a home in the pond in the Public Gardens. Here’s an illustration from the story showing Mrs. Mallard (Mr. Mallard was a deadbeat dad who largely abandoned the family) with her eight ducklings getting some help crossing the street. The ducklings were named Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Ouack, Pack, and Quack.
The sculpture I wanted to see (and have seen many times before), was created by Nancy Schön. Wikipedia says this:
The original set of bronze statues was installed in the Boston Public Garden in 1987, and a copy was installed in Moscow at Novodevichy Park in 1991.
. . . The Make Way for Ducklings sculpture is routinely dressed in outfits throughout the year, for various Boston sports teams, for events such as the Boston Marathon, and for holidays such as Mother’s Day.
I knew that they would be dressed for the cold, but here’s what the undressed ducks look like (photo from Wikipedia). The poses are identical to one of the illustrations in the book.
And here’s the whole family, wearing little hand-knit sweaters to keep out the cold (my photos):
Mrs. Mallard’s hat had slipped off, so I put it back on:
. . . and the eight babies, each with a different costume. My friend Tim walked by the ducklings on Tuesday (later on the day I visited), and reported that two duckling costumes were missing. The miscreant who removed them should be arrested! Fortunately, they were all dressed when I saw them.
Hand knitting on the sweaters!
Across the Boston Common is a new statue, “The Embrace,” by Hank Willis Thomas. Wikipedia says this:
The artwork commemorates Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, and depicts four intertwined arms, representing the hug they shared after he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. The work was created by welding together about 609 smaller pieces. The sculpture has received largely negative responses from critics and the public.
The negative responses were based largely on the fact that it shows only the intertwined arms and not Martin or Coretta. But that seems petty when you see the sculpture, which I liked:
An inscription by the statue:
. . . and the Massachusetts Statehouse, the Capitol building of the state, first constructed in 1798 and expanded in 1895. It’s one of the oldest existing state capitol buildings.
A panorama of downtown Boston from the Boston Common (click to enlarge). My shadow is at right.
Some food. First, a lamb gyro, salad, and fries from The Greek Corner Restaurant in Cambridge (as I said, I didn’t eat fancy food):
And no visit to Cambridge is complete without a visit to America’s finest purveyor of homemade ice cream, Christina’s. Here’s the list of flavors, which I’ve put in black and white to make the flavors more legible. Too much choice! It was hard for me to decide, as I was having only two scoops:
Azuki bean and green tea is a great Japanese-style mixture (carrot cake, which has a cream-cheese-icing flavor, is also excellent), but I had to get their best flavor, burnt sugar. It is the best flavor of ice cream in the world. With it I had a scoop of ginger-molasses, which was excellent. If you go to Cambridge and don’t go to Christina’s, you’ll have missed a great culinary experience. My cup:
I’ve been at Harvard (live in Brookline) for nearly four years, but I work at a distance, tapping into the big computers. This has led to me only wandering over to Cambridge a few times. I will make it a priority to go to Christina’s! Nice to see our ducklings are appropriately clad, but I must say I dislike the embrace statue. It’s gaudy.
Love the parading ducks! One small correction: thank goodness Tom Magliozzi did not die in 1977, but rather in 2014. We would have missed out on many laughs had he died earlier. I still miss that show!
I’ll fix that, thanks.
Yes, the famous law firm!
https://images.app.goo.gl/NPGPzLbC6AB4fKfS8
I used to not understand The Embrace statue, based on what I’ve seen of it in pictures. But your pictures make me better understand and like it much better.
Yes, agreed!
I must say, your choice of ice cream flavors sounds excellent. It definitely has a New England-colonial feel to it. It makes me think of the old-fashioned molasses cookies you used to be able to get at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, MI.
My mom lived in Brookline during the war. At that time the statehouse dome was painted black to lessen chance it could be targeted. I remember McCloskey’s cartoons and she had several books of Francis Dahl cartoons as well, with his tough pipe wielding Boston Common squirrels. The line of ducks reminds me of years ago driving to work and I saw a mother duck and ducklings starting to cross the road. I had learned that when you see an animal crossing start to apply your brake, because you don’t know what they’re going to do. There were people behind so I didn’t slam on the brake but kept slowly applying it. I finally had to come to a stop to avoid hitting them. I looked in my mirror and the cars behind me were emergency stopped and pointed in all directions. I was surprised because I had given plenty of warning and it was a sunny day and the ducks were plainly visible. No ducks were injured. I know sometimes you can’t always be so lucky.
It figures prominently in the final shot of the closing scene in Mr. Scorsese’s Oscar-winning flick, The Departed:
Apropos fictional law firms, the British satirical magazine Private Eye occasionally features the firm Sue, Grabbit and Runne, who specialise in frivolous libel cases.
The cars in that cover illustration are fully recognizable as a ’41 Packard and a ’41 Buick. Particularly the Packard.