I spent the end of last week in Cambridge, where I gave a talk at MIT about the homology of Hurwitz spaces.
- Good addition to Harvard Square: there’s now a used-book table on Mass Ave, like the ones I used to patronize on Broadway in Morningside Heights. I flipped through “Strike From Space,” a 1965 book by Phyllis Schlafly and Lester Ward, with the thesis that dopey Democrats were getting head-faked by the Soviets into escalating our commitment to Vietnam, which conflict was in fact not the firewall against an all-red Asia but a mere Soviet plot to distract us from an imminent nuclear first strike from orbit. Bad addition to Harvard Square: a Qdoba! I thought fast food was forbidden from Harvard Square by zoning laws, but apparently you can apply for an exemption — here’s Chipotle’s application to open a restaurant at One Brattle Square.
- I had the pleasure of meeting Andy Putman and learning about a beautiful recent theorem of his; the moduli space of genus-g curves with full level N structure has the same second homology as M_g itself, for g at least 5. As a corollary, all these spaces have Picard number 1. I also learned a lot from Denis Auroux about mapping class group factorizations and symplectic Lefschetz fibrations — but more on this when I write a post or two on Hurwitz spaces. Update: (25 Sep 08) Putman’s paper is now on the arXiv.
What do you consider fast food? When we were grad students, there was a Chili’s on Mt. Auburn a block from JFK.
Loosely speaking, “fast food” means “no waiters.” So Chili’s doesn’t count. On the other hand, Au Bon Pain has to count if Qdoba does.
The Au Bon Pain in the Holyoke Center has been there as long as I can remember. But I think ABP should get a pass because I love their pastries :)
And what about Finagle-a-Bagel? Definitely fast food even if a local chain. But I see your point.
“…but more on this when I write a post or two on Hurwitz spaces. ”
Looking forward to it.