October is upon us!

It's Autumn in New England! Time to grab your pumpkin  coffee, donut, muffin, bread, or pie and get going on those wonderful fall adventures.

This October starts off with a twist-- “Sun Day on a Saturday” at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics offers a chance for the curious to see for themselves what is happening on the surface of the sun.  With all the talk in the news lately about solar events and the effect solar activities has on us on Earth, this is a great chance to see for yourself what all the fuss is about. This event is open to the whole family. Please visit http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/events/public_events.html for additional information. And well you are at it, check out the information this month's Observatory Night. October's topic covers the search for Earth-like planets. Are there more life sustaining planets out there?

The next day, you will have no doubt that there is life around here. The 34^th annual Harvard Square Oktoberfest and Honk Parade will take place on Sunday, October 7th. With seven different stages, music lovers of all genres will be sure to find something to their liking. In fact, marching band enthusiast will probably find more than one thing to their liking. The Honk Parade features 35 marching bands parading from Davis Square to Harvard Square. Talk about making little noise. The procession starts at Noon in Davis Square and ends at 1pm in Harvard Square, just in time to join the fun of Oktoberfest. Oktoberfest kicks off at Noon and wraps at 6pm. Please visit http://www.harvardsquare.com/Home/Articles/Oktoberfest-Entertainment-Lineup-Announced.aspx for performance schedules and more information. (...because this is New England in the Fall, there is a backup plan in case of rain. The rain date is Monday, October 8^th).

Let's hope the rain stays away October 20th and 21st for  the 48 Annual Head of the Charles Regatta . With 9,0000 rowers, the Head of the Charles is the largest two day regatta in the world. And, when you are weaving your way through the 300,000 expected spectators lining the banks of the Charles River, it will feel like the largest two day regatta in the world. For additional information, please visit http://hocr.org/ .

Rather you are on the banks of the river, at a football game, or stroll a college campus during parents' weekend, remember to bring a sweater as the temperatures have started to drop along with the leaves.

Cool September Days

After another long, lazy, sticky summer, the cooler air of September seems to wake us all up and reminds us to dust offer our collective social calendars. This weekend gets things moving in Harvard Square with the New England Americana Festival. With five venues and three nights music, Harvard Square will be jumping September 13th-15th. For performance and ticket information please visit http://newenglandamericana.com/ . For a special treat, check out the Free Daytime Outdoor Stage at Winthrop Park on Saturday, September 15th.

If music is not your thing-how about something a little more “out there”? The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics opens itself up to the public once a month for free public lectures. On September 20th the topic will be "Hunting Alien Moons." For more information and a list of upcoming public events at the center please visit http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/events/public_events.html . Admission is free, but seating is limited.

Around that same time, on Earth we will be finding our balance. On September 23rd, the 9th annual Revels Reversing  celebrating the Autumnal Equinox will occur. The free event is perfect for families. After a kick off at Winthrop Park at 5pm, follow by a 5:45pm procession to the Charles River, the singing goes into high gear at 6pm. For more information check out the Revels website http://www.revels.org/ .

 No matter what you do in the coming weeks, we at Harding House hope you will take a minute to savor these last few warm days of late summer and enjoy this wonderful time of year when days are still bright and the sunshine is still warm, they will gone before you know it. 

-Audra

this weekend music and history!

On Saturday, June 16th, Harvard Square will be filled with the sound of music! The fifth annual Make Music Harvard Square/Fete de la Musique  will  feature more than 70 musicians representing a broad spectrum of music from folk to classical. Inspired by the annual street music festival in Paris, this event is sure to be a delight for all music lovers. For more information including a performance schedule, please visit http://www.harvardsquare.com/Home/News/Calling-All-Musicians!--The-Fifth-Annual-Fete-de-l.aspx

Before or after the music, you may wish to see a bit of old Cambridge. Cambridge Historical Tours will be celebrating their grand opening on Saturday during the Fete de la Musique with a ribbon cutting on Winthrop St at 1:30pm. To celebrate their grand opening, guides will be leading frees tours in the afternoon and be sure to keep an eye for the costumed guides on stage between musical sets on two of the festival stages. For more information visit http://www.harvardsquare.com/Home/Articles/Cambridge-Historical-Tours-Grand-Opening-Event.aspx

River Festival!!

One of our favorite events of the year is occurring this weekend! Saturday, June 2nd is the Cambridge River Festival. This  mile long street fair running along the Charles River between JFK St. and Western Ave on Memorial Dr connecting Harvard and Central Squares attracts 200,000 people each year. For over thirty years, this community based event has been celebrating the cultural heritage and diversity of Cambridge through art and food. With multiple stages featuring music, poetry, dance and theatrical arts, there is such to be something to interest everyone.

Visit http://www2.cambridgema.gov/CAC/Community/2011_Cambridge_River_Fest.cfm

for details.

Chosen Works

Now on display, prints of Tucker Stilley art.  Veteran intermedia artist, and distinguished alumnus of Mass College of Art, Stilley's recent work has been made entirely in collaboration with sophisticated generative software since his total paralysis following his diagnosis with ALS in 2005.


Despite its machine origin, Stilley's work continues to be amazingly organic and playful, while often served on a bed of conceptual irony.  All through the '80s Stilley and his wife,  Lindsay Mofford were a fixture of the Boston media arts scene, producing works shown at the ART, MFA,  Mobius, Brattle, Eventworks as well as the now legendary Middleast Cafe, where he documented over 200 bands with the late great Billy Ruane.  


We are pleased to show Chosen Works through August.  We hope you can stop by to see this collection.  Harding House is open 8 am to 9 pm daily.

May is in bloom

As expression goes, April showers bring May flowers. We cannot argue with that. Cambridge and Boston are certainly blooming in May. This is a joyful month to be in the area. It is a month of celebration and a month of transition as spring finally reaches its peak bloom.

The month starts off with one of the most popular events of the year, Mayfair in Harvard Square on May 6th. With an estimated 100,000 people expected to crowd into Harvard Square for this annual event, it will be hard to miss the excitement in the air. With six live performance stages and a variety of craft and food stalls, it would be next to impossible not to find something to capture your attention. Check out http://www.harvardsquare.com/ for more information about Mayfair.

The following weekend, don't forget to pay extra attention to your mother and all the mothers in your life. Mother’s Day falls on Sunday, May 13^th and this will be a busy day for all the restaurants in the area, so if you are planning to treat your mother please remember to plan ahead.

We at Harding House would like to send out a special Mother's Day wish to our General Manager, Briana, who will be celebrating this year as a mother of two, having just recently added a beautiful baby boy to her family.

If you are looking for a family activity on Mother’s Day, Lilac Sunday at the Arnold Arboretum will take place on May 13th. If you are looking for a special treat for your mother, yourself, or anyone else, for that matter, this is a picture perfect way to spend a day. This yearly event is truly a treat for all five scenes. Lilac Sunday is the only day of the year when picnicking is allowed in the arboretum. Plan a day full of music, food and family based activities. For more information visit  http://arboretum.harvard.edu/news-events/lilac-sunday/  .

And, of course there will be no shortage of proud mothers (and assorted other family members and friends) in the area this month. A bookend to the academic year, May is the height of gradation season. With roughly fifty colleges and universities within fifty miles of Boston, you will be hard pressed to find a day between  the  middle of May and the beginning of June that is not a gradation date for one of the institutes of higher learning in the area.  We, at Harding House, would like to congratulate all of the recent and soon to be graduates in the area. On a personal note, I would like to congratulate my nieces- Katelyn graduating from Babson College and her sister, Sarah, graduating from Dedham High School.  So happy for both of you!

Rather you a proud mother, proud graduate or just a person trying to get through the crowd, we at Harding House wish you all a wonderful May.

-Audra 

April in Cambridge...

There is an ongoing debate in New England as to which is the best season of the year around here; personally, I have always preferred Spring. There is something about those first warm days of the year that bring out the early blooms and it seems that the area comes to life again after the winter slumber.  Many of the museums and other attractions extend their hours to accommodate the increased number of visitors to the area. Boston's Freedom Trail revs up for the beginning to the tourism season, which in Boston runs primarily from April until November. For more on the Freedom Trail and it's attractions, see our "Harding House staff hits the trail" blog entry.

By the middle of April things around  Boston will be in full swing, just in time for the over 25,000 runners and estimated 500,000 spectators to descend upon the city for the 116th running of the Boston Marathon on April 16th.  Judging by the number of media outlets that follow this race, the Boston Marathon is the most viewed single day sporting events in the world. Of course when you are the oldest annual marathon in the world, you should get a lot of attention.

Many wonder why the marathon is run on a Monday, where in most of the rest of the nation this would be a normal work day. Well, the third Monday in April is a state holiday in Massachusetts.(and Maine, which until the compromise of 1820 was a part of Massachusetts). Patriots' Day commemorates the battles of Lexington and Concord and the start of the American Revolution in 1775.

This April also marks a very special event in the area.  Boston's beloved Fenway Park will turn 100 years old this month. Why, you may ask is this one venue so important to the city? Well, this historic park has not only been the home of the Boston Red Sox, but it also hosted several other "Home Teams". The Boston Braves played at Fenway during their World Series win in 1914, and their 1915 season…. yes, Boston did have two baseball teams at one time.  Fenway has also been the home field of not one, but two NFL teams. Boston Redskins from 1933 to 1936 and the Boston Patriots from 1963-1968.  Over the years a collection of college football games have also been played at Fenway. And believe it or not, the Boston Bruins even played a game there, the 2010 NHL Winter Classic was held at Fenway Park.  With all that sporting history in one place, it only seems right that we mark Fenway's 100th birthday with grand celebration. Many events are planned to mark the Park's centennial visit www.fenwaypark100.com for more information.

Over on our side of the river, Cambridge itself will also be very busy during the second half of April. The Cambridge Science festival will take place April 20-29. This annual event combines, science, technology, engineering and math. With events focusing on everything from urban wildlife ecosystems to the history of medical advances, there is sure to be something that will interest everyone. For more information and a calendar of events visit www.cambridgesciencefestival.org. 

If the science festival leaves you in the mood to do something good of the environment, come and help at the annual Earth Day in Central Square clean up on April 22nd. For more information on how you can help out visit www.centralsquarecambridge.com .

Just to keep things hopping, the Harvard Arts First Festival will take place April 26-29. With 225 events and over 3,000 participating students, the festival offer a wide range of performances featuring music, dance, and various performing arts, there will not a dull moment to be found. Actor Tommy Lee Jones, Harvard class of 1969, will be receiving this year's Harvard Arts Medal.  Visit http://ofa.fas.harvard.edu/arts/ for more information and a list of events.

One of the things I, personally, love most about Cambridge is how culturally diverse the area is. In my opinion the best byproduct of having so many different cultures represented in such a small geographical area is the diversity of foods available. On April 28th the Cambridge Historical Society will be presenting a historical walking tour of the multi-ethnic restaurants in Central Square. For more information please visit  http://www.cambridgehistory.org/calendar .

Whether your plans take you down the Freedom Trail (please read the following blog entry for more info on that!) or just to a sunny patch in our garden, we at Harding House hope you take a moment to let the sun shine on your face and feel the warm beginnings of a New England spring.