MetaFilter posts tagged with Cambridge

Now I guess I’ll never see you again, Marie

allen.spaulding — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:35:25 -0800

Ten years ago today, Mark Sandman died on stage during a Morphine concert at the Giardini del Principe in Palestrina, Italy. His music and its impact has not always received the type of attention normally given to rock stars tragically struck down in their prime, let alone one this brilliant. Sandman’s legacy is hard to measure, although some have tried. Frontman of both Treat Her Right and Morphine, as well as many side projects, he always seemed on the cusp of making the leap from critically acclaimed darling of college radio to major recording star (watch a live performance of Cure for Pain here). Treat Her Right (listen) toured with Bob Dylan, although once signed to RCA, never quite made to mainstream success (as Sandman put it “"RCA decided that if our little basement tape could do so well, why not spend fifty times more money and it will be fifty times better!”). Sandman died touring in support of Morphine's latest release, The Night, released by Dreamworks, the latest attempt by a big label to promote the band (listen).
Sandman’s music continues to impress, including a collection of his previously unreleased solo work issued after his death (selections can be heard here). Somewhere between proto-alt-country and swamp rock, one major aspect of Sandman’s work was innovative usage of bizarrely tuned basses, including the use of a two-string slide bass, an instrument of his own creation and one later used by collaborator Chris Ballew in his other band Presidents of the United States of America (who would write Gone Again Gone in Sandman's memory).
Perhaps more important than his musicality, Sandman’s lasting influence was the development of a local music scene in Cambridge that continues to this day. While the Pixies may be the best-known band to come out of the Boston/Cambridge scene in the 90s, as measured by their impact nationwide, Morphine may have been equally if not more influential locally. Sandman’s own record label, Hi-n-Dry has become the home of many local artists, including local favorites Dennis Brennan and Session Americana (featuring Treat Her Right harmonica player Jim Fitting, as well as others who’ve played with Sandman over the years. See them at Hi-n-Dry here). Furthermore, Sandman regularly promoted shows at the Middle East, helping develop the space from a neighborhood restaurant that occasionally rented out a stage into a major venue. Indeed, the intersection of Mass Ave and Brookline Street in Central Square, the location of the Middle East and TT The Bears has been officially named Mark Sandman Square. Even these landmarks don’t do justice to the community that he fostered and which continues to this day. Finally, Sandman was also a graphic artist, creating a comic called The Twinemen, which would later become the name of a band named in his memory.
Every week, Hi-n-Dry is offering downloads of Sandman's compositions. Or, if you're in the neighborhood, stop by any of Sandman’s old haunts, such as Toad and Lizard Lounge in Porter to the Middle East, TT’s, Plough and Stars in Central. If you’re lucky, or if you do your homework, you’ll find a band of old Cambridge regulars, playing roots standards, with a few Sandman hits thrown in.

Is Philosophy a Language Game?

nasreddin — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 13:10:02 -0800

§7. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

Ludwig Wittgenstein is such a contradictory figure that there are, in professional philosophical usage, two of him. Wittgenstein I had solved every philosophical problem in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921); having nothing else to do, he went home to Austria and became, unsuccessfully, a schoolteacher. In 1929, Wittgenstein I returned to Cambridge, where he began his transformation into Wittgenstein II. He was no longer confident in the Tractatus, his certainty in any answers less firm. Wittgenstein II's great, posthumous, work was the Philosophical Investigations. But Wittgenstein the living man was one, not two: musician and architect, reader of mysteries and engineer. "If philosophy has anything to do with wisdom," he once wrote, "there's certainly not a grain of that in Mind, and quite often a grain in the detective stories."

Balloon In Space (Nearly)

jack_mo — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 17:50:27 -0800

Project Nova: on the 9th of September three Cambridge engineering students launched a balloon equipped with a camera and tracking devices. It reached a height of 32km and took 857 photographs during its three hour flight, some showing the curvature of the earth. You can also download a KML file to follow the balloon's flight path in Google Earth.

Cambridge in Colour

crunchland — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 15:07:22 -0800

Cambridge in Colour ... long exposures during twilight or moonlit conditions can produce other-worldly images. Be sure to check out the digital photo tutorials, too.

The Meaning of a House

alms — Thu, 09 Sep 2004 21:18:38 -0800

This has a value in our profession, and it doesn't have to do with scale at all. It has to do with the actual meaning of a house.

Newton Archive

thomas j wise — Sat, 01 Nov 2003 17:00:17 -0800

Isaac Newton Massive, ongoing project based at Cambridge University, devoted to putting Newton's MSS on the Web. At present, the digitized materials available range from journals to scientific MSS to theological speculations.

charlesv — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 20:11:39 -0800

Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687), Lord of Zuylichem, was a poet, musician, diplomat and secretary to 2 Princes of Orange. He attended Oxford and Cambridge and corresponded with virtually every contemporary of any intellectual importance in Europe, including Charles I of England, Anton von Leeuwenhoek and Peter Paul Ruebens, to name a very few. He also played the lute for King James. As the definition of a Renaissance man, he makes me feel sort of inadequate.

chrismear — Sat, 27 Apr 2002 07:03:56 -0800

'Cambridge Students Beaten by Israeli Army' Three of my fellow students spent their Easter vacation on the West Bank as unofficial international observers. In the course of accompanying Palestinian medics to a refugee camp, with medical supplies and food, they were allegedly stopped and beaten by Israeli troops.
While their actions are undoubtedly noble and brave ("we are doing the job the UN should be doing"), the Israeli embassy suggests that "whilst the intentions were geniune, (their) actions have been misguided."
I can't decide what to think. (more inside)