Though it’s easy to forget when you spend all your time in an ivory faux-limestone tower, it’s easy to forget, Cambridge, Massachusetts is a unique (and wonderful) point in time and space. There are nicknames to match: some idiot Republican called Harvard “The Kremlin on the Charles,” semi-observant writers who’ve been to France sometimes call this city the “Boston’s Left Bank,” and everybody who gets a parking ticket will sigh and proclaim that that’s just life in the “People’s Republic of Cambridge.”

Actually, that has kind of a nice ring to it, don’t you think? Well, I do. Read the rest of this entry »