[racket] [ANN] RacketCon 2013: 29 September

The latest weather forecast is basically sunny, high 70F, low 44F,
today through Sunday.

No guarantees. Boston is often one of those, "if you don't like the
weather, wait 15 minutes" places.

This time of year the weather _can_ actually be stable for a week.  If
so, should be great for walking and doing all of the outdoor
activities people mentioned above.

But wouldn't hurt to pack a lightweight anorak or umbrella. ;)



On Sun, Sep 22, 2013 at 2:02 PM, Norman Gray <norman at astro.gla.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> Eric, hello.
>
> On 2013 Sep 22, at 16:30, Eric Hanchrow <eric.hanchrow at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> My wife and I will be in Boston a day early (Friday).  Does anyone
>> have a "must-see" touristy suggestion for us?
>
> Along with seemingly everyone else, I'd recommend the Freedom Trail.
>
> I don't know where you're visiting from, but speaking as a visitor to Boston and to the US, I found the Freedom Trail to be a very illuminating account of the US foundation myth, at a humane scale.  I can't think of an analogue for the UK myth (which itself is rather thought-provoking), and the analogues for other countries tend towards the bombastic.  It also shines an oddly-angled light on one phase of my own country's colonial history, and on its current pseudo-colonial adventures.
>
> The trail goes past, but doesn't explicitly include, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/54th_Regiment_Memorial>, from which (I think) I 'got' the US civil war in a way I hadn't before, and which made me feel more foreign in the US than anything I've noticed since, in a smattering of visits across the country.
>
> I'm not normally a fan of heritage sites, which generally call out for rather detached and against-the-grain interrogation.  But the Boston Freedom Trail is both successful in its own terms and (not, I think, accidentally) interesting as rhetoric.
>
> Enjoy RacketCon.
>
> All the best,
>
> Norman
>
>
> --
> Norman Gray  :  http://nxg.me.uk
> SUPA School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow, UK
>
>
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