Tacos in Greater Boston

It seems I am always going on and on about New York, and neglecting my second home – Cambridge. Well, Boston and Cambridge have one thing New York does not: good Mexican food. The perfect fish taco is still to be found at a certain taco stand in the middle of La Paz. It [...]

Bicycling in Cambridge, thinking about New York

I am out the door for a spin in Cambridge. The weather is nice, but I know there will be no urban picnic stops at the Dosa man in Washington square, or at Grimaldi’s in Brooklyn in the afternoon. If you are in Greenwich Village and hungry, you should check him out. Five dollars and [...]

The dark underside of happiness

A recent article in New York magazine, “Some Dark Thoughts on Happiness,” discusses the nascent field of positive psychology, and the dismal undercurrent of the view of happiness as universally attainable. If happiness becomes something we can make ourselves, might we eventually be expected to be happy? Will unhappy people be vilified? In more lachrymose [...]