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Friday, March 29, 2024

Search via Google for “Cambridge events” and you’ll find a slightly confusing “Cambridge in America” headline and a much more reassuring “cantab.org” link. Reassuring because it’s obviously the Web site of the Cantab Lounge, that delightfully wheezy Central Square gin-and-jazz joint, home to the legendary Little Joe Cook.

But it’s obvious where this is going: It’s not obvious at all, because “Cambridge in America” has to do with Britain’s Cambridge University. “Cantab.org” is a Web site for Cambridge University.

But I get a weird kick out of seeing this dive sharing an identity, sort of, with hallowed Cambridge University — like Ronald Albemarle Blodgett Islington Dimwitty Fletcher IV (representing the university) learning that there’s another Ronald Albemarle Blodgett Islington Dimwitty Fletcher IV (standing in for the lounge) who’s a Nascar-loving construction worker with a wife named Tammi Faye.

Not that I’m anything like that, but it’s odd how the reverse snobbery of the Colonies still runs irrationally in a third-generation Jewish emigrant from Russia, Poland and thereabouts. Take that, Britain!