Matt D. holds up his Magners Comedy Festival trophy, won this past weekend in Boston.

Cambridge comedian Matt D. has to update his bio: He won the Magners Comedy Festival last weekend.

The festival ran Wednesday through Sunday at five venues throughout Boston, bringing to town names such as Colin Quinn and Marc Maron (for a public recording of his “WTF with Marc Maron” podcast) and making some new ones — namely that of Matt D., who is soon off to Glasgow, Scotland, courtesy of the hard cider company to compete in the Glasgow International Comedy Festival starting March 15.

Onstage, Matt D. typically presents himself as mopey and nearly withdrawn, approaching the microphone with a sullen hesitancy that makes his acerbic one-liners land with deadly impact, then retreating to resign himself to part with another. His jokes often give a twist to a common phrase or situation: “Personally, I prefer gummy Pepsi bottles” was a recent offering. Or: “One of my plants just died after a long battle with me being lazy.”

The comedian (who accepted his trophy in a T-shirt with a flying pig design) spent several tweets thanking people who congratulated him and being generally modest (sample boast: “Thanks to Magners USA for throwing a great festival! Amazing experience. Also Nick’s Comedy Stop and Mottley’s Comedy for hosting the shows!”) prompting fellow comedian Ted Pettingell to tell him, “You already won, you can stop being nice.”

While Matt D. is a mainstay at local clubs such as the Comedy Studio in Harvard Square, his next show is Thursday at Foxwoods in Connecticut, the start of a three-night stand at its Comix Club. On Feb. 8, he’s back at ImprovBoston in Central Square.

Raj Sivaraman, another Cambridge comedian, offered his congratulations for the Magners win in the form of a suggestion.

“Hopefully he will use the prize money to buy a new shirt,” Sivaraman tweeted.

We just completed our best holiday season in quite some time. The volume of business happily surprised us after years of challenge. Despite this unanticipated demand, our amazing staff rose to the occasion, the publishers supplied us with the books we needed and our customers showered us with much appreciated holiday cheer. We are very thankful as we head into 2012.

A number of you have asked me why sales were so good this year. Theories abound: the Borders bankruptcy, good weather and great new titles. Maybe even Occupy Harvard and the closing of Harvard Yard, which forced tourists to change their plans and visit local businesses. My guess is that all of these factors played a role, however small. Still, independent booksellers around the country are reporting similar results, even where the weather did not cooperate or there wasn’t a shuttered Borders.

One thing that we all observed was how often customers told us they were choosing to shop with us to support an independent bookstore and local business. While we often receive comments like these, the staff was struck by their frequency and the apparent conviction behind them.

This growing awareness of the importance of shopping local was probably also encouraged by an unfortunate marketing campaign by our biggest competitor, Amazon. I encourage you to read Richard Russo’s wonderful piece, “Amazon’s Jungle Logic” in The New York Times (Dec. 12), listen to Robin Young’s “Here and Now” (Dec. 15), or read this blog post by an editor of Harvard Business Review. What emerges is a picture of a predatory corporation, willfully damaging local communities and abusing their employees in support of a supposedly “efficient” business model.

We know that we have to constantly strive to deserve your patronage. Our ultimate goal is to be able to provide any book ever written, faster than any competitor. We have already taken substantial steps to implement this strategy: a new harvard.com, a bicycle delivery service and a book-making robot. I am pleased to report the latest development toward realizing our vision: an agreement with HarperCollins, under which our robot will be able to print thousands of recent works. The list includes books from such writers as Russell Banks, Doris Lessing, Joyce Carol Oates, Agatha Christie, Michael Chabon, Neil Gaiman, Ursula K. Le Guin, Dennis Lehane, Ann Patchett, Richard Wright and Howard Zinn, among many others.

For those of you who also read e-books, most titles are now available through our enhanced website. In partnership with the American Booksellers Association, we also now provide an app (available on both Android and iOS), through which you can purchase and read e-books while supporting your independent bookstore.

It is clear that the rumors of the demise of independent bookstores have been greatly exaggerated. Entrepreneurs continue to enter the industry, reimagining how the printed word is distributed to passionate readers. It has been an exciting year, but we promise you that the coming year will be even more exciting. Thanks again for your patronage and support and we look forward to seeing you in the store.

Jeff Mayersohn, owner of the Harvard Book Store

A dancer sweeps around the stage in Callie Chapman’s politically charged “Left,” coming to Harvard Square’s Oberon on Sunday and Monday. (Photo: Khristophe Diaz)

The dance coming to Harvard Square’s Oberon this weekend is distinctly international in flavor, but it’s the trans-Atlantic troupe expandance with a work showing what happens when rock ’n’ roll meets yoga, while it’s Somerville’s Zoé Dance Company performing a piece about Chile’s Pinochet dictatorship. (Irish dance artist Ailish Claffey contributes a third piece “inspired by Ireland’s rugged beauty, unyielding land and the harsh realities that face its people.”)

“With the economy in a rut, it’s nice to know you can find art created to make you think, feel and see the beauty again,” the creators say, noting tickets for $25 or less and calling the night full of “ambitious and diverse dance works that will enliven your spirit.”

Zoé Dance describes choreographer Callie Chapman’s politically charged “Left” as a “thought-provoking and physically stunning new contemporary dance,” and there’s backup for the boast. Dance critic Iris Fanger called it some of the year’s best:

The Zoé Dance Company hit all the right moves with “Left” — a passionate response to the repression caused by dictatorships. This program is one reason to watch the talent bubbling up from the smaller dance companies.

It, expandance’s “Rock Om” and “Cnoic Chlaonta” by Claffey and expandance choreographer Alicia Chistofi-Walshe have two-and-a-half-hour performances at Oberon at 8 p.m. Sunday and Monday, with tickets going for $25 for table seats, $20 for general admission and $18 for students, seniors and Boston Dance Alliance members.

There’s also an hour-and-a-half free performance scheduled for 6 p.m. Friday giving people a chance to meet the dancers and choreographers, see improvised dance and nosh on wine and cheese. The location is to be announced.

For information about the Friday performance, e-mail Zoé Dance here. For information about the Sunday and Monday performances, or to buy tickets, click here.

Mindy Kaling talks with reporters at the 2009 Screen Actors Guild awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. (Photo: Kristin Dos Santos)

She’s conquered standup comedy and become a star on NBC’s “The Office.” She’s written books (including a funny memoir, “Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?”) and plays (“Matt & Ben,” about Cantabrigians Matt Damon and Ben Affleck). She’s been in movies (including “No Strings Attached” and this year’s “The Five-Year Engagement”), was even just named a best-dressed by Nylon magazine — and now she’s on the menu at Mr. Bartley’s Gourmet Burgers in Harvard Square.

Alongside “The People’s Republic of Cambridge,” a burger topped with cole slaw and Russian dressing and “The Skip Gates,” a teriyaki burger with grilled pineapple and onion rings is “The Mindy Kaling”: a burger topped with guacamole and pineapple-jalapeno relish with baked beans. Now, to the layperson, that may sound confusing and potentially disgusting, but to a native Cantabrigian such as Kaling — born in 1979 as Vera Chokalingam — it’s an honor.

Stonehill College student and Kaling fan Kelsey Finigan went to Mr. Bartley’s on Friday night and had a Mindy Kaling, so new it’s only on the “Happy New Year” menu. And she tweeted it.

“So honored to have a namesake burger at Mr. Bartley’s in Harvard Square,” Kaling tweeted an hour later. “And next to Ray Allen’s!” (A Ray Allen is a comparatively normal burger. It has grilled peppers and dijon mustard.)

“Love this place,” Kaling said. And in reaction to a comment that the Harvard Square institution has the best onion rings: “I KNOW, THE BEST.”

The Mindy Kaling is only being tried out by Mr. Bartley’s, workers said Saturday. If enough people order it, it’ll make it to the permanent menu.

All kinds of chocolate will be glorified, taught about and even dispenses as samples Jan. 27-29 at Harvard Square’s second Chocolate Festival, including the hot chocolate at Crema Café and signature treats at L.A. Burdick. (Photos: top, Kai Schreiber; bottom, Sushiesque)

How dark can you take your chocolate? Because Harvard Square’s Chocolate Festival, running Jan. 27-29, adds a wrinkle from last year’s inaugural event: two upscale “Dining in the Dark” events in which people savor chocolate dishes blindfolded, heightening their sense of taste and smell.

One at Nubar, in the Sheraton Commander hotel, 16 Garden St., at 7 p.m. Jan. 27 ($65 each for 35 participants), and a repeat at UpStairs on the Square, 91 Winthrop St., at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 28. To keep the senses even more alert, owners Mary Catherine Deibel and Deborah Hughes are keeping the menu secret. ($60 per participant)

On that Saturday there’s also:

A chocolate treasure hunt in the square from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. starting with buying a $1 map in Deguglielmo Plaza in front of Crema Café at 27 Brattle St.). Proceeds go to support the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter, and the hunt can be completed in as little as 45 minutes.

A chocolate sampling event from 1 to 2 p.m. in Deguglielmo Plaza with a samples from restaurants and shops from across Harvard Square.

The Art of Chocolate Tasting at 3 p.m. at the Russell House Tavern, 14 JFK St. A master chocolatier explores the history of chocolate and the cacao bean, including its history among royals. ($25 each for 30 participants)

An Evening of Wine and Chocolate at 6 p.m. at Finale, 30 Dunster St., which takes a systematic approach to tasting wine and pairing it with chocolate and includes a discussion of how chocolate and wine are made. Organizers promise plenty of tasting. ($48 each for 25 participants)

A “Death by Chocolate” interactive murder mystery event at 7 p.m. at Fire + Ice, 50 Church St., featuring a gourmet three-course dinner. Here’s the idea, which is also a bit far to the sugary side, as described by the plotters: “Count Chocula welcomes you to ChocoCon 2011! Lady Godiva and Billy Wonka have come together to announce their newest creations. Their innovations are the Golden Ticket to chocolate success! Help Wonka sort through the clues and interrogate the suspects. Find out who was willing to go so far as to cause a … DEATH BY CHOCOLATE!” ($49.95 each for 150 participants)

There are also 2½-hour chocolate tours starting at 11 a.m. Jan. 28-29 teaching the history of chocolate, how luxury chocolates are made and bringing participants to a several sites for samples and tips on tasting, buying and storing fine chocolate: Cardullo’s, the gourmet shop with a wide variety of chocolates, Lakota Bakery cookies and other treats; chocolate shop L.A. Burdick, known for its hot chocolate and homemade truffles; coffeehouse and bakery Crema Café; Sweet Cupcake; J.P. Licks, the ice cream and hot chocolate shop; Finale, the dessert restaurant; and even, get this, Lush, the maker of vegetarian (and, the company says, more than 70 percent vegan) products for bath, hair and body, because it uses cocoa in some. ($48 each for 14 participants in each tour, with lower prices for kids)

This post took significant material from a press release.

Including its new entertainment license that allows bands to perform until midnight Sundays through Wednesdays, until 12:30 a.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and until 1 a.m. 25 times a year, the 50-52 Church St. venue will more than fill a cavernous space left empty when the Phatt Boys restaurant closed in February 2006. Some people living nearby and at least one square business owner worry about noise, parking problems and public drunkenness, and hired Huron Village attorney Shippen L. Page to argue that the commission should reject the transfer of Phatt Boys’ liquor license and ask for a new application for the live music.

“It can and should consider the prospective overall impact on the community,” Page wrote, noting  a multiperson fight that broke out Nov. 30 at the larger Central Square restaurant and nightclub, The Middle East, as well as residents lacking a chance to look at floor plans and the failure of the businessmen behind The Sinclair to get sign-off from city zoning officials in the time laid out by commission rules.

But the commissioners granted the license transfer and adding nightly capacity by 396 people (and 52 outdoor dining seats) to the current 304.

Alcohol sales are to end when shows stop, and the venue is to get three-month and six-month reviews, according to people who attended the meeting. On issues of parking, however, commissioners said Harvard Square parking garages aren’t used fully and can absorb more visitors.

Opposition was led by Pebble Gifford, who lives just outside Harvard Square and told commissioners Nov. 15, in a roving 20 minutes of testimony, how much she dreaded a return of the drunkenness long-time residents lived through in decades past. She also urged commissioners to look at the kinds of bands booked by The Sinclair’s proponents, The Bowery Presents, noting some that had obscene names and others dressed in Arab garb and wondering if they were “trying to be provocative.”

Despite the lawyer, Gifford’s testimony and a roomful of similarly concerned people, commissioners okayed the plans, giving Harvard Square another live music option (larger than Tommy Doyle’s and more diverse than the jazz-minded Regattabar and folk-focused Passim) and late-night dining.

Resident Charles Teague felt commissioners gave a pass on the delayed zoning official signature only by saying such rules were broken all the time, but his take after attending the meeting wasn’t all negative.

“It’s good to have another performance space,” Teague said, “but I think it’s dying to be in Kendall Square.”

The Basement Housing Overlay District — usually referred to as the Chestnut Hill Realty petition after the company that asked for it — first affects 13 buildings along Massachusetts Avenue between Porter and Harvard squares, all with at least 30 existing apartments including a basement unit and all built before 1930. If the studio and one-bedroom apartments are considered a success, the zoning could be expanded citywide and affect another dozen buildings.

After the vote a week ago, councillor Craig Kelley submitted a request for reconsideration. But the seven days he and vice mayor Henrietta Davis had to persuade other councillors to vote no were fruitless, and Sam Seidel, who was missing from the first vote, joined the majority to vote in favor.

Mayor David Maher and councillors Marjorie Decker and Ken Reeves were urged Monday not to vote on any matter involving Chestnut Hill Realty by recent council candidate Gary Mello, because company-related campaign contributions gave their votes “the appearance of impropriety.” The three officials declined Mello’s suggestion without comment.

Aside from Mello’s concerns about money appearing to sway votes, there were concerns about parking from fellow candidate Tom Stohlman (who felt allowing basement units to go in without matching parking spots “should not be passed without some corresponding benefit to everybody else in that zone”) and about the quality of basement apartments in general. “I looked at a lot of basement apartments when I was [first] looking to live in the city several years ago, and all of those were all in terrible condition. I would have been very said if I had to live there,” resident Dara Glass said. “They don’t offer a good quality of living.”

Backers of the plan, including former mayor Sheila Russell and Chestnut Hill Realty’s director of development, Mark Levin, painted a different picture of what Levin called “moderately priced housing … affordable to a wide range of renters,” mentioning large windows and high ceilings to go along with mandated separate water and sewage lines and case-by-case approval from city engineers keen on keeping renters from being flooded.

The zoning will create a few units of affordable housing; most basement apartments will be market-rate but, according to Chestnut Hill Realty’s Matthew Zuker, between 15 percent and 20 percent cheaper than above-ground apartments in the same buildings.

Heather Hoffman, a real estate attorney and co-president of the Association of Cambridge Neighborhoods, had data for Chestnut Hill Realty’s buildings in the Basement Housing Overlay District, including the John Harvard Apartments at 1-3 Langdon St., which she said the company bought for $250,000 in 1976 and is now assessed at $4.8 million; the Wendell Terrace Apartments at 19-21 Wendell St., bought for $235,000 in 1976 and now assessed at $4.9 million; and the Chauncy Court Apartments at 18-26 Chauncy St., bought for $2.6 million in 1986 and now assessed at $12.7 million. Calculating 80 percent of the value of studio and one-bedroom housing in those buildings, Hoffman found a basement apartment could get as low as $1,412 at the John Harvard Apartments and $1,124 at the other sites.

Each of the mortgages have been refinanced recently, to  $6.2 million from $4.3 million at the John Harvard Apartments, to $6.4 million from $4.5 million at Wendell Terrace and to $17.7 million from $11.3 million at Chauncy Court.

“That’s nearly $10 million that was taken out of these buildings two months ago. It is reasonable  to conclude there is a lot of value in them, and I suggest strongly that they can in fact afford to put in affordable apartments,” Hoffman said of the Realty.

Her association proposed an amendment last week to the zoning to make affordable housing out of all new basement apartments or an equal number of them, but it failed 6-2.

A message is projected onto a wall at Occupy Boston’s Camp Dewey late Thursday. (photo: mpeake)

With an eviction notice hanging for Occupy Boston’s Camp Dewey and the future of the movement in flux, here’s a suggestion for a way forward that could benefit literally everyone:

Take the energy that was going into The Boston Occupier newspaper (at one point called or expected to be The Occupy Boston Globe) and put it instead into Spare Change, the 19-year-old paper by and benefiting the homeless that is published by the Homeless Empowerment Project and run out of Harvard Square church offices.

Spare Change has some good content but is limited by the limited amount of interest people have in reading about the homeless. It could benefit by expanding its mission, both by being more practical (meaning directly useful to people beyond the homeless) and more urgent (meaning having news in it that matters directly to people beyond the homeless). That means being more about economic injustice in a practical and widely appealing way, which would bring more sales and possibly more advertising. The good news is that economic justice is a popular theme these days; the bad news is that the wider focus requires more expertise.

And the good news again is that this expertise is likely found among the energetic and idealistic people of Occupy Boston, which could use a print organ to speak more directly with people who don’t live online and get related tweets and video in real time. (And Occupy certainly wants to benefit the homeless, including those made homeless through the very specific kinds of economic injustice that have exploded over the past few years: debt, foreclosure, pension “reform,” market turbulence and so on.)

The content from Occupy websites can go into Spare Change, and the writers among Occupy can write directly for it on a variety of topics.

The final element to this, and another way to make Spare Change and Occupy practical and even more popular, is to make some of that content about cheap living in Boston. If anyone has advice about where to get the best, least expensive meals, goods and services throughout the area, it’s probably the homeless.

You could wind up with a Spare Change that’s one-sixth practical, buy-it-cheap news you can use; half Occupy content; and the remaining third homeless-specific content. That sounds more readable and more salable, meaning more profitable for the homeless Spare Change vendors who could badly use the money, than the current mix of 100 percent homeless-related content.

Then the unique human infrastructure of Spare Change can go to work. The paper has what no one else in Boston has now, not even the Metro (for which workers hand out papers silently and robotically): hawkers. People who already interact with passers-by to induce them to buy but can and should expand that to yell out what’s in an issue of Spare Change and draw attention to it. But they shouldn’t just be calling out, “Get your Spare Change here” or even “Get your Spare Change here, help the homeless”; they should be calling out the top, practical, urgent topics in that issue: “Get your Spare Change here! Mayors, FBI and Homeland Security may be conspiring against Occupy Wall Street!” (and “Five best breakfasts below $5! In this issue!”)

Theoretically, Spare Change and Occupy Boston have something no one’s had access to in quite a long time: town criers.

Occupy movements should be doing this everywhere there’s a paper for the homeless, if they’re not already.

The downside is that Occupy and the homeless could be inextricably jumbled in people’s minds, and that could work to the detriment of Occupy, given the perception of homelessness in the minds of the mass public — but that perception is itself an issue Spare Change and Occupy needs to address, since the economic-justice truth is that these days (and, really, always the case) anyone can be homeless, and more families and children are.

Even if its physical presence at Camp Dewey and Harvard Yard ends, Occupy can continue evolving into a political force, and a common media can be a way to do that.

Five questions. We just want to ask you five questions — or, rather, get five recommendations of things to read, listen to, watch, eat and buy from people who live, work or otherwise spend time in Cambridge. First up is Erica Milia, a Cambridge resident who works in Porter Square.

Read: “The Visual Display of Quantitative Information” by Edward R. Tufte (Graphics Pr, 2001). is Erica’s recommendation for reading material. “That’s a very Cambridge answer for you,” Erica says, calling it “one thing everybody should read” but amending that to: “Anyone who studied graphs in school should read it. It sounds boring, but it is actually really funny, and half the book is pictures,” she said.

Listen to: “Can I say Adele, even though everyone’s already listening to her?” The British singer-songwriter has just two albums out, 2008’s “19” and this year’s “21” (both named after her age while recording them) and has had extraordinary success with each, with the latest spending 13 weeks at the top of Billboard charts — a feat that hasn’t been accomplished since 1998. “She just goes far beyond most people doing pop,” Erica said. “She has an amazing voice and puts a lot more emotion into her songs. She writes her own lyrics, so she portrays her own feelings in a way most performing artists can’t manage.”

Watch: Erica struggled to find a recommendation for this category but finally found one “If you’re into hardcore partying and high drama with British teens”: the U.K. version of “Skins,” the sex-and-drugs soap MTV tried remaking this year with controversy and limited success. “It’s probably not something everyone should see,” she said, and “for the record, I have not seen the later seasons. They weren’t on Netflix.”

Eat: Cambridge Common, 1667 Massachusetts Ave., between Porter and Harvard squares, gets Erica’s vote because “the food’s relatively cheap and really good.” Not to be missed: the curly french fries.

Buy: Without hesitation, the store that gets Erica excited is Penti, the hosiery and lingerie store that opened at 9 JFK St., Harvard Square, just last month. It’s big in Europe, but this is the Turkish chain’s first location in the United States. “You don’t think you need tights until you walk in there and realize you need all their tights,” Erica said.

Send us your own five recommendations and your best big photo at editor@cambridgeday.com.

Newt Gingrich speaks in October at the Western Republican Leadership Conference in Las Vegas. He visited Cambridge on Friday and advocated ending some child labor laws. (Photo: Gage Skidmore)

The antics of the Occupy movement apparently crowds out a Republican suggestion to rethink child labor laws.

Newt Gingrich’s visited Harvard on Friday to screen his film, “A City Upon A Hill: The Spirit of American Exceptionalism,” and hold a Q&A. He is, perhaps not so coincidentally, running for president as a Republican and (among other things) wants to privatize Social Security.

Most coverage of the event focused on his heckling by Occupy protesters, with The Harvard Crimson saying “Many audience members were frustrated by the protesters. ‘Go back to your tents!’ shouted an audience member, prompting laughter and applause from many spectators. But Gingrich was unfazed by the interruption.”

Most of the Crimson’s coverage chided the protesters, summing up the rest of the event as follows:

Audience members pressed Gingrich on his stances on the issues of illegal immigration, female inequality, the educational system, and even beer.

It went into the most detail (three short paragraphs) on the topic of beer.

Unmentioned by the Crimson, and apparently uncovered by The Boston Globe, was Gingrich’s suggestion to eliminate “stupid” child labor laws. Politico quoted Gingrich at length:

“You say to somebody, you shouldn’t go to work before you’re what, 14, 16 years of age, fine. You’re totally poor. You’re in a school that is failing with a teacher that is failing … Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising. You go out and talk to people, as I do, you go out and talk to people who are really successful in one generation. They all started their first job between 9 and 14 years of age. They all were either selling newspapers, going door to door, they were doing something, they were washing cars.”

“This is something that no liberal wants to deal with,” he said, referring to the laws as “core policies of protecting unionization and bureaucratization against children in the poorest neighborhoods.”

“It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, child laws, which are truly stupid,” Gingrich said.

It was unclear what sort of pay the young janitors would get or what, under his plan, would happen to the adults holding those jobs now, some of whom are likely to be parents of poor children.