For reasons too complicated to get into here, I'm going to be spending a lot of time in Amherst this coming academic year. I am not actually moving to Amherst, but I am going to be there enough that I need to rent a room.

It's my impression that a fair number of people on this board have lived in Massachusetts - perhaps not actually Amherst, but hell, it's not a big state. Me, I've been to Boston, um, twice, and that's it. I'd like to ask for general advice on what rural MA is like, things to know, places to avoid, etc.

(And if you happen to know someone in Amherst looking for a housemate who's only there about half of each month, please do say. :-)

>It's my impression that a fair number of people on this board have
>lived in Massachusetts - perhaps not actually Amherst, but hell, it's
>not a big state.

Big enough that I don't know anything about Amherst, besides the fact that there's a UMass campus there, despite having lived in either Worcester or Metro West for years. :)

Well, that's not true, I know one other fact relating to Amherst, but it's not going to be of any help to you: namely, that one of the first presidents of Amherst Agricultural College (now UMass Amherst), William S. Clark, went on to found Sapporo Agricultural College (now Hokkaidō University). Clark is largely forgotten in Massachusetts now (Clark University in Worcester is named after a different person), but he remains revered in Hokkaidō, where—I am told—you will still find a motto from his farewell address to his students ("Boys, be ambitious!") painted on walls and emblazoned on civic signage.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>that one of the first
>presidents of Amherst Agricultural College (now UMass Amherst),
>William S. Clark, went on to found Sapporo Agricultural College (now
>Hokkaidō University).

That IS very interesting. Wonder if JMS knew that little factoid when he picked the name for the EEEEEBIL guy who would inhabit Earthdome by the end of B5

>>that one of the first
>>presidents of Amherst Agricultural College (now UMass Amherst),
>>William S. Clark, went on to found Sapporo Agricultural College (now
>>Hokkaidō University).
>
>That IS very interesting. Wonder if JMS knew that little factoid when
>he picked the name for the EEEEEBIL guy who would inhabit Earthdome by
>the end of B5

Eh, I doubt it. "William Clark" is not exactly a rare or distinctive name. (Also, President Clark's middle name is Morgan, not Smith. In fact ISTR he usually went by "W. Morgan Clark".)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

LAST EDITED ON Aug-13-17 AT 07:13 PM (EDT)
 
It's permeated Japanese culture to the point they used it in one of the famous SoftBank commercials.

http://youtu.be/tcFJVDrJEaE

....well, two. At least. :)

http://youtu.be/SYLRo7Fl-VM

Also the 10th ending theme of Fairy Tail is named "Boys Be Ambitious!"

http://youtu.be/mcEHX0sAGww

Somewhat more to the point, I live in Montague, a couple of small towns up the road from Amherst. I don't go into Amherst proper a lot, but I've been living in the 91 corridor for about 20 years now. I can certainly answer questions about the general area, if not so much the town proper.

dbrandon

I grew up in Northampton, just up Route 9. I haven't lived in the area since 1990, but my mother still lives there and I visit fairly frequently.

One thing I'd say is that Amherst isn't really "rural" (though many of the small towns nearby are) -- i.e., there isn't much if any farming in Amherst proper. It'd be more accurate to call it suburban, though without an "urb" for it to be "sub" to.

The only places I'd recommend avoiding living are places with too many undergrads -- UMass's "Zoo Mass" reputation, though exaggerated, isn't entirely unwarranted. You don't want too many drunken partiers on your lawn at the wee hours of a weekend morning.

Also, the "H" in "Amherst" is silent. Pronouncing it is the best way to show yourself as an outsider.

>
>Also, the "H" in "Amherst" is silent. Pronouncing it is the best way
>to show yourself as an outsider.

Much like for the longest time I was certain Worchester was pronounced kind of like the sauce, not Wooster, huh?

LAST EDITED ON Aug-14-17 AT 11:08 PM (EDT)
 
>>Also, the "H" in "Amherst" is silent. Pronouncing it is the best way
>>to show yourself as an outsider.
>
>Much like for the longest time I was certain Worchester was pronounced
>kind of like the sauce, not Wooster, huh?

Well, there's your problem—neither one has an h in it. Well, OK, there's an h in Worcestershire, but you know what I mean.

(Less flippantly, both the one in Massachusetts and the one in England are pronounced by sort of eliding straight over the "rce". Wuhster.)

Also, you may leave the h out of Amherst, but you lean hard on it in Framingham, which sounds exactly like you are arranging things so that a smoked leg of pork will be charged with a crime it did not commit. Also, Woburn is pronounced with a "woo" and not much of the r. Massachusetts is weird.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>Also, you may leave the h out of Amherst, but you lean hard on it in
>Framingham, which sounds exactly like you are arranging things so that
>a smoked leg of pork will be charged with a crime it did not commit.

Yup, but don't try that with Hingham and Dedham. The h is silent and the rest sounds like "um" (Hing-um, Dead-um). Then there's Waltham which is neither "Walt-ham" nor "Walt-um" but "Wall-tham".

>Much like for the longest time I was certain Worchester was pronounced
>kind of like the sauce, not Wooster, huh?

Actually, it *is* pronounced like the sauce.
It's not wor-ches-ter-shire sauce. It's wus-tah-sheer sauce.

Which is to say, they're pronounced entirely unlike Dorchester.

My only interactions with Amherst were when I was out there for a LARP at UMass. They were hosting an SF con, asked for a LARP, and got ours. (Theater style, no physical combat.) We all went for the LARP, which ran 7am - 11pm for three days, full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes, and the poor con runners - who had booked a bunch of vendors on the fact that they had 60 people coming to their con who were NOT from the college - were suddenly faced with the fact that we weren't coming out of our space except to use the elevators.

Which broke on Saturday afternoon, trapping one of us in there. (It started going up and down at twice the normal speed - she started ringing SOS on the emergency bell, and we could hear the doppler shift. The elevators became a running gag shortly thereafter.)

LAST EDITED ON Aug-21-17 AT 09:04 PM (EDT)
 
NJAC? That was actually the very first con I ever went to, in 1990. The scum (1) running it pointed me at Arisia, which was my home convention for many years.

(1) In a literal sense: The Student Conventioneers of UMass. :)

>NJAC? That was actually the very first con I ever went to, in 1990.
>The scum (1) running it pointed me at Arisia, which was my home
>convention for many years.
>
>(1) In a literal sense: The Student Conventioneers of UMass. :)

As I understand it, Arisia was in fact founded (at least in part) by former NJAC concom members.

I believe that is indeed the case, but as I was operating from memory, I wasn't sure. :D