Boston Day 5: Harvard and Cambridge

Tuesday was mainly dedicated to exploring Cambridge and especially Harvard. My guide book warned me:

"Today ... the institution's accumulated wealth--architectural, archaeological, artistic, literary, and historic--makes a brief tour of its campus and museum impossible. Allow several hours, days, or years."

Fodor's Massachusetts 2003, p. 89
by Patricia Harris, David Lyon,
Anna Mundow, and Lisa Oppenheimer

I walked this route during the daytime. This blog entry is short because these pictures document the trip exceptionally well.

Early in the day I attended the class International Financial History, 1700 to the Present (password protected). I was told, correctly, that the instructor, Professor Ferguson, is an interesting speaker: entertaining, and pompous (in an humorous way). Although it was the third lecture of the class, I could easily follow it. I liked the material and presentation style, and wish I could take the class.

I'm not going to include my notes from the class in this blog post--that would be silly. Nevertheless, I will include some of the amusing comments the professor made; they reflect his personality. To read/hear the flavor of these remarks, you ought to know the professor has a British accent.

• Ferguson was proud that the class had 180 people, much more than 30 people originally expected. Every lecture thus far had been in ever larger lecture halls. In reflecting on this constant movement, he said, the class will have been on a "tour of Harvard Yard" before it's through.
• As new course packets were being printed, he said they're "felling tar tracks in the Amazon."
• He remarked on some trouble with the course packets, saying he was involved in "complex, not to say obscure, arguments about copyright."
• Regarding students' ability to purchase his book, one of the course's textbooks, he wondered "whether there are sufficient copies in Cambridge, let alone the country."
• He said owning the textbook would be "as useful to you as financially lucrative to me." Hmmm...
• During the lecture, he asked students to take out a dollar bill to examine. That is, "unless Harvard students don't carry such small currency."
• He said he "asked [now ex-]President [of Harvard] Summers [when being hired] if [he] could hedge [his] contract ... and be paid in Euros."
• Commenting on another book used in the class, he said, "one of the things I like about [X]'s book .. is the tweedy, stuffy Oxford air. You can almost smell the snuff in the sitting room."

After the lecture, we grabbed lunch, partially from Darwin's deli, and had a picnic. Dessert came from Burdick Chocolate. I explored Cambridge and Harvard after lunch.

During my wanderings, I visited the Fogg Museum. Although I didn't finish exploring it, I saw enough to be impressed in the 35 minutes I was there: it contains pieces from famous painters, including Monet, Munch, Whistler, Degas, Picasso, Miro, Pollock, Pissaro, Van Gogh, Renoir, Mondrian, and Bierstadt. Harvard certainly has resources.

While exploring, I ran into Noam Elkies, a sharp mathematician I met at a conference in Banff. He made enough of an impression on me that I remembered him. He didn't remember me. :)

Just before dinner, I got snuck into Widener, Harvard's main library. It's a fairly standard, nice main university library.

After dark, I took a shuttle to Inman Square, ate at the Brazilian restaurant Muqueca, walked back to the Harvard-MIT data center, then walked home. None of this is part of the route map.