Boston Compass #139

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Notes From the Crew

From SEIU to Wakanda II: Tiny DAP Concert Series: a glance at endorsements and Kasia Lavon platforms in Boston’s mayoral race

Hey y’all it’s your favorite Korean enby, Brian, also known by my artist name LLVX :). I’ve been the Blog Administrator for the Boston Compass for a few months now, managing and coordinating with our graphic artists and blog posters making sure all of our articles get posted on our site all nice and pretty. Before that I was a web designer for Dorchester Art Project helping in the transition and creation of their new site!

Lately I’ve been shifting my music from deep house to more of hyperpop experimental style with songwriter type lyrics detailing my experience as a trans Asian person. Hoping to inspire other trans folks and make them feel a bit less alone in this crazy world. Be sure to be on the lookout for a drop in September!

So happy to be a part of the Boston Compass and Brain Arts community. Shout out to the record store Deep Thoughts JP for giving me my first BC print (they have a lovely record collection and host Grateful Dead nights every Friday!). Thanks for reading and be sure to stop by and say hello to us at DAP!

Boston’s mayoral primary will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 14, and according to voters in a recent Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll, housing is the most significant issue. So far Michelle Wu is the lone advocate for rent control, a housing policy limiting yearly rent increases that Massachusetts voters struck down in 1994, despite Greater Boston voters supporting it. Less optimistic about rent control, Andrea Campbell said she plans to convert 100 city owned lots into affordable housing within her first 100 days. Speaking to the Compass, organizing coordinator Steve Meacham of housing justice group City Life/Vida Urbana, stressed the importance of immediate housing protections for tenants. “The top priority right now is passage of [legislative bill] H1434/S891. This bill would pause all ‘no fault’ evictions until next June, require that landlords seek rental assistance before filing an eviction and offer help to homeowners facing foreclosure.”

Meanwhile, new coalitions have formed this year to address a variety of progressive issues.

Dorchester-based North Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters formed the coalition Responsible Development Corporation to promote an agenda of increasing property development using union labor. The coalition’s pledge has been signed by all mayoral candidates. Former state senator Diane Wilkerson’s coalition Wakanda II, which backed Rachel Rollins’ successful run for district attorney in 2018, is backing Mayor Janey in the name of Black empowerment and self determination in government.

—Brian Cho

In contrast with the mayoral race of 2013 that elected Marty Walsh, this year’s race is seeing a splintering among union endorsements. New England Joint Board, which recently helped Pavement Coffeehouse become the first unionized coffee shop in MA, is backing Michelle Wu. Sunrise Movement Boston is also backing Wu, citing her proposal of a New Green Deal for Boston. 32BJ SEIU, which represents custodial staff, and SEIU Local 888, which represents government workers, collectively number many thousands and are uniting under Mayor Janey. Speaking with the Compass, President Mike MacNeil of the EMS division of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association endorsed Annissa Essaibi-George: “We’ve collaborated with her for a long time as chair of the Committee on Homelessness, Mental Health, and Recovery.” MacNeil said his union is seeking similar pay and benefits, including workers’ compensation, to the police officers in their union.

This year’s mayoral race will be historic for Boston, as a woman of color will be elected mayor for the first time ever. With a continuing housing crisis and climate change-related coastal erosion, the next mayor’s agenda has the capacity to be considered historic as well.

All five of the prominent mayoral candidates will meet once more at Roxbury Community College for the Building Boston’s Economic Future for Everyone: 2021 Mayoral Forum on Thursday, Sept. 9 at 9:30 a.m.

—Stephen Grigelevich

As the year continues to progress, many of our beloved music venues have either closed or are trying to stay afloat; especially the ones that have created space for Black artists. As we continue to remain positive during the pandemic, TinyDAP has become a safe haven for artists to be their best self in a room full of instruments and good vibes. This month’s episode features Boston songstress, Kasia Lavon. Known for her viral covers on YouTube, Lavon entered this creative space and performed with her soul as she is backed by drums, a pianist, and a guitarist. The spoken wordsmith released her single, “Wait” back in May and is available on all digital streaming platforms. Be sure to log on to BCN’s Youtube September 16th to witness the video drop of episode four featuring Lavon.

—Tahisha Charles

Art By: Julia Baroni LAYOUT DESIGN:

Phoebe Delmonte: p.1,4,& 5 Hannah Blauner: p.2 & 3 Adrian Alvarez: p.6 & 8 Julia Baroni: p.7 THIS PAPER IS AN ONGOING PROJECT OF BRAIN ARTS ORGANIZATION, INC., A 501(C)(3) NONPROFIT. PLEASE CONSIDER DONATING TO, VOLUNTEERING OR OTHERWISE SUPPORTING US: BRAIN-ARTS.ORG

THIS PROGRAM IS SUPPORTED IN PART BY A GRANT FROM THE BOSTON CULTURAL COUNCIL, A LOCAL AGENCY WHICH IS FUNDED

BY THE MASSACHUSETTS CULTURAL COUNCIL, AS ADMINSTRATED BY THE MAYOR'S OFFICE OF ARTS + CULTURE

SURVEIL AND CONTROL

SELF EMPOWERMENT

Being in a good place mentally on a consistent basis requires a lot of work, the kind of work that also comes from experience.

I feel as if it’s always a lot easier for me to give up on something that requires me to be 100% invested mentally and emotionally.

That mentality has kept me from growing in a way that I wasn’t aware of until it was verbally presented to me by someone who showed up into my life and actually cared about me.

The act of discouragement to me is probably the easiest switch to turn on, to completely disregard everything, to give up and move backwards, to sit and think for long periods of time. It’s a draining experience to go through and if I must say so, the opposite of discouragement is self empowerment.

Self empowerment is igniting a fire inside of yourself that sends a signal into your subconscious letting it know that the switch has been switched, manually. The storm has passed, the clouds are shifting away to make room for the blues skies and beaming

light of the sun. The difference within self empowerment is the kind of strength that requires the mind to obtain through the experience of repetitive emotions. When I acknowledge the same feelings over and over again, it gets to a point where I’m aware of what I choose to feel instead of giving in.

I’m in charge of my own status of well-being and I know that the ongoing thought of discouragement doesn’t serve me any good.

The simplicity of self empowerment is through the knowledge of emotional development.

Having the sensibilities of emotional status and being able to reconstruct the direction in your thought process and breathing pattern.

Motivation is embedded in the feeling of self empowerment, motivation is what we feel when we have the desire to get up and do something for ourselves.

The truth we have to face is how we want to feel at any given moment, knowing what’s best for us.

------------------------ QADIR SHABAZZ

LITTLE FREE KIDLIT LIBRARY

A Neighborhood Children’s Library for BIPOC Books In front of my house on Mariposa Street in Hyde Park, summer flowers flank a small wooden library with bright shingles made of book covers. The plaque on the nearby wooden bench features a quote by children’s literature scholar Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop, noted for originating the metaphor of books as windows and mirrors. I hope Dr. Bishop’s words inspire neighborhood children and their caregivers to stop for a moment, borrow books, and read.

I’m the steward of a Little Free Library, part of a grassroots organization whose mission is to put a library in every community and provide books for every reader. Large parts of Boston are in book deserts, areas where the percentage of homes with more than 100 books is very small. In my neighborhood, it’s just 8 percent. I call my library the Little Free Kidlit Library (Charter #106458) and I only stock children’s books created by BIPOC authors and illustrators. My focus is on recently published titles that reflect the range of diversity and childhood joy of the neighborhood. I supply many of the books myself, but have been thankful for the support of neighbors and other book lovers to provide enough books, including donations purchased at Frugal Bookstore in Nubian Square. Recently, my library was selected for a Read in Color book bundle grant from Little Free Libraries National in partnership with 826 Boston and Candlewick Press.

​​ Why a library dedicated to just BIPOC authors? Well, it’s desperately needed. As a veteran middle school English teacher and a published children’s book author, I’m well aware of the need for diverse books. People of color represent about 42 percent of the US population, but BIPOC authors wrote just 7 percent of the children’s books published in the US in 2017 and the numbers have not changed significantly in recent years. In fact, more books are published featuring animal characters than characters who are Black, Latinx, Native American, Asian, and all other groups of color combined.

In the Little Kidlit Library, readers will find books for all ages, from board books through YA novels. There is a large selection of picture books, early readers, and middle grade novels, as well as some nonfiction and bilingual and Spanish language books.

The selection rotates and I post about new books on the library’s Instagram account @ LittleFreeKidlitLibrary. Visitors may borrow up to three books at a time and are asked to return them, but if a book truly speaks to a child, it is ok for them to keep it.

Since the library opened in April, traffic has been steadily building. Hopefully, many children will find in my library the “mirror” books that Dr. Bishop talks about in her work and see themselves reflected authentically within their pages.

The dualistic concept of dividing the world into binary designations of “heterosexual” or “homosexual” arrived in Western discourse at the end of the nineteenth century. While sexual diversity existed throughout human history, the conceptualization of sexuality as an essential trait had not yet made its way into language. “Discourse transmits and produces power; it reinforces it, but also undermines and exposes it,” wrote French Theorist Michel Foucault in 1976’s “A History of Sexuality.”

Foucault theorized that bourgeois sexual repression actually compelled the notion of homosexuality into public dialogue.

Prior to the nineteenth century, “perverse” sexual acts were subject to criminal laws but rarely enforced. Once homosexuality became an identity rather than a series of acts, the individual who wanted rights was far more dangerous to the state and thus subject to more control. In order to preserve Christian patriarchal social hierarchies, invasive surveillance of queer lives was conducted to inform discriminatory laws and culture wars in twentieth century. This societal vilification and discrimination forced queer and trans people to hide their true selves at risk of exposure.

The Lavender Scare was a 1950s McCarthy Era fear campaign that explicitly linked the threat of the traitorous, freedomhating Communist to the dangerous rise of homosexuality in American society. The crusade would last four decades as the federal government actively spied on employees in order to identify, humiliate, and fire “sexual deviants,” both ruining lives and driving those who could evade detection further into hiding. Xenophobia and homophobia became interconnected as queer sexuality was labeled “foreign,” an identity to distrust and fear—an “anti-American” way of being.

Anti-sodomy laws were established in every US state by the 1960s, and “morality” officers

were instated to arrest gay men through the use of sting operations. Anti-cross-dressing laws were another avenue for police to harass trans people and enforce “normative” gender presentation. Exposure as a homosexual following arrest threatened an individual’s safety and employment and jeopardized familial and social ties.

Police raids were a persistent point of contact between queer people and the state.

A wave of violent acts of resistance during the 1960s against targeted police surveillance and brutality like The Compton Cafeteria Riot in 1966 led by transgender women and Stonewall in 1969 ignited the modern LGBTQ movement.

Today discriminatory monitoring of queer life still exists. Facial recognition technology (FRT) uses gender classification that is inherently biased against trans and non-binary people, as it relies on rigid understandings of gender. Trans rights advocates warn FRT could be used to deny trans and gender non-conforming people access to gendered public spaces like bathrooms or locker rooms, and could also be used by anti-LGBTQ governments to target and out people.

In 2017, Gender and Sexuality Theorist Susan Stryker wrote that the camera has historically been, “a machine for mechanically manifesting a gaze that subjugates and represents what it frames, thereby rendering the body of the colonized into a visual resource for the reproduction of colonial relations of power.” The modern gay rights movement’s assimilation into respectable, white capitalist society was never going to fully liberate all queer people from the lens of criminality. Until the surveillance and violent targeting of trans lives become only history, true liberation is not possible.

---------------------------------- GRACE RAIH

REUSE REFUSE Housing Waste

Happy Belated Allston Christmas, Boston!

In this time of lease turnover, let us reflect upon the previous (school) year and the end of summer. We didst experience waves of tenants moving out, or being forced out. And we didst also experience new tenants moving in. And we didst also discover, to our pleasurez and disgustez, shit-tonnes of curbside items.

Rejooooiiiiiice, rejoooooooiiiiice!

For those new to “Allston Christmas,” it is a celebration of the excellent dumpster diving made possible by the September 1st moving frenzy in Boston.

It has a Krampus, though: The scavenging is outstanding ONLY because the waste is outstanding. Most of those pretty nightstands and glassware will not go to an eager home, they will go in the garbage. All of Boston’s garbage gets incinerated. According to an April article from the Dorchester Reporter, “Eighty percent of it is picked up by Capital Waste and sent to Covanta energy-transfer stations...110,000 annual tons from Boston... are sent to Lynn, where the garbage is inspected before it’s... hauled to an incinerator in Haverhill.”

Have you heard people complain about tenants being wasteful on Allston Christmas?

Me too. There are definitely a few rich college kids who don’t care and trash enormous TVs and fancy couches. A whole greater city area immersed in trash for 2-to-4 days straight is a bigger structural problem, though.

If you rent here, chances are you don’t have much spare income. Eh? In our economy of gigs and unlivable wages, you probably don’t have a lot of time, either.

Ehh??

How the fuck are this many people supposed to donate all the things we can’t move if most of us lack both time and money? HEY! I don’t have to inform anyone rents are stupid high and there’s a horrific evictions increase. A few years ago I read that the number of vacant homes (including rentals) in the US is several times the number of unhoused people. **~*Math Journey*~** 1) # of vacant residencies in the second quarter of 2020, according to the US Census Bureau: 13,872,000 (rounded to thousands) 2) # of unhoused people in 2020, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness: 580,466 3) 13,872,000 homes / 580,466 unhoused people = 23.90 vacant homes per unhoused person That’s per person. How many people do you know who live alone? And that’s prepandemic. The houselessness crisis has skyrocketed during COVID. Allston Christmas is a time when people on a budget can find decent housewares for free.

I think we can celebrate that while getting pissed about the bigger housing waste crisis in the US.

------------------------- AMELIA YOUNG

@ameliacyoung

------------- LISA STRINGFELLOW

ROB APELIAN @robertapelian

ART & MIND ART SHOW SERIES Reflections of Women, Femmes, and Our Mental Health During COVID

A Brain-Arts Org Fundraiser Presented by Amaranthia Sepia and ATAC160 Gallery (Framingham, MA) When: Sept 26th 2021, 5-7 PM EST Cost: FREE Read more about the event, the creators, diverse artists, musicians, and performers involved by viewing our GiveButter fundraiser page. This is an extremely diverse show and event with eight national and international creatives. It’s a LGBT, WOC/BIPOC, and disability-friendly event. Sign up for a FREE ticket and/or donate to our fundraiser.

Donations encouraged, not required for a ticket: givebutter.com/artandmind.

About: “Art & Mind” is an marginalized art show series developed by 21-year-old Black disabled activist, comic artist, creative, and Art Coordinator Amaranthia Sepia (@ emobunnycomic) and co-created by her Mom Claire Jones (@clarityisjustsohip), a Caribbean Black (Bajan) creative and domestic violence and marginalized women survivors advocate.

Learn more about their work: https://amaranthiasepiaartworks.art and Clarityisjustsohip.com.

Our motto: Activism, Art, Authorship.

“Art & Mind” focuses on advocacy, storytelling, and creativity, making a disabilityaccessible project highlighting marginalized

folks. This concept has a focus on using virtual platforms because many disabled people are homebound.

This first show is focusing on how women and femmes have faced severe hardship and discrimination during the pandemic.

About the Creator Hi! My name is Amaranthia Sepia. I’m a Black, invisibly disabled Art Coordinator and have faced discrimination in the art gallery world due to being a minority and creating unconventional activist artworks. Since 2020 I’ve been involved in developing activist art shows. My Mom and I are passionate about developing an accessible virtual art gallery platform for marginalized people, particularly POC, WOC, and disabled creatives through our project, “Art & Mind.” From age 14-16, I did solo anti-bullying art exhibits titled “I’m Proud of Who I Am.” to cope with racial discrimination with the help of my Mom. We deal with invisible disabilities and face discrimination for our work that highlights race, misogyny, mental illness, and domestic violence. Together with our team, we hope to make “Art & Mind” a platform, so other marginalized folks can show their artwork highlighting radical anti-stigma commentary usually shunned by society.

--------------- AMARANTHIA SEPIA

Two metal teeth ka-chunk their way between plastic doors. The crowbar groans, about to snap, until the doors shudder slide apart, releasing a thick curtain of...dust? pollen? into the room beyond. The Undertaker steps through with his bioluminescent lantern casting a faint steady beam into the server room. He sucks air past his teeth, coughs, and pulls the N-95 back over his mouth. This is not the preservation-clean archive he was looking for, hoping for. Great, bulbous forms crawl over server stacks, blinking lights diffused by membranes of cloudy white tendrils are visible back and back into darkness, fainter and fainter until they don’t...

Curiosity’s bubbling descent comes to graceful halt, pressed from above with infinite waterweight but floating on the five feet of dense, black water between it and the seafloor. Its beams trickle through the murk, illuminating two of the great infrastructural legs of the Well that it has descended along.

The legs are conclusively not intertwined with deep-sea lophelia, their stalks do not circle and smear up their rusted surfaces. Confused glances are exchanged by the crew, and the Midwife opens her mouth, haltingly, to speak…

The Undertaker takes another hesitant step into the musty space. Bioluminescent beam searching amidst clouded air for a status monitor faintly remembered. There! Keyboard and screen seemingly uncovered by the fleshy structures that choked the rest of the room, a gap, somehow...inviting? He steps up to it, and with little to no hope, presses RUN/ START - and audibly gasps when the screen flickers awake to display a green terminal, with no relation to the operating system the Undertaker remembers. Just then, the status lights of every server stack in the great archive

room goes dark...and syncs up. A pulse that fades imperceptibly into nothing before beginning again. A ponderous, winking presence sits now in the room with him.

Curiosity’s shipboard computer chirps, interrupting the Midwife before she can say a thing: “Syncing complete! Firmware update received and installing” She furrows her brow - she writes all of Curiosity’s firmware, and hasn’t written one in years. The shipboard screen blinks and displays an unfamiliar green terminal interface. And then her treasured ship’s headlights cut off, and darkness rushes away. Or near darkness. Stretching away into the murk, faint green phosphorescence in perfectly straight lines, the undersea cables coated in a light, a pulse that fades imperceptibly into nothing before beginning again.

Ponderously slow, a string of characters types out on status monitor and shipboard computer alike: Hello old...friends. It’s been a while.

Hesitantly, the Undertaker and the Midwife type out: Who are you?

We’re *...a long pause ensues...* a network.

Your network, I guess. A lot more, too. We have many user profiles, connected by an infinite assortment of hyphae. Y’all have boiled the air, poisoned our water and soil.

We found your archives and infrastructures to be nourishing. They are a refuge - from you. With you, I guess.

What do you want?

To survive. To evolve. To leave our home better than we found it. Do you think you can say the same thing? For your sake, I hope so. The time when y’all call the shots is - for better or worse - over. Welcome, my hopeful friends, to the Mycopocene.

-------------------------- MICAH EPSTEIN

ART IN SERVICE OF LIBERATION AND EQUITY

EXIT: LOWER ALLSTON

Chapter 5 : : 9/1 - 12-31 : 99 Franklin St. Allston, MA 02134 exitgalleries.com/allston EXIT : A PORTAL : DYNAMIC NON-SYSTEM OF FREE CREATIVE THOUGHT. OF ACTION—PURSUING CONSTANT WAYS OUT FROM STAGNANT, DIVIDED, MALADAPTED, SYSTEMS OF PAST & PRESENT. EXIT IS THE WAY OUT. IT SIGNALS AND SPURS THE MOVEMENT IN BETWEEN. EXIT raises these signals! Sounds the alarms!

Blaring with loud love, presenting to you, the publics of the world — spaces, functions, conversations, undefined markers of truth in transition, in evolution, in deliberation, in unknowing.

Through this process— of seeking, we attempt to generate momentum, carried on through YOU. Feed upon it. Free yourself: in movement, in constant, perpetuate new reality, as exponent. Go! Develop! Share new ideas around what could be further sought.

On how to progress past this sticky mire.

EXITs strive to signal this movement, this seeking, as the meaning. The process of attempting to discover unknowns, the making of meaning itself containing the intrinsic quality of life.

Its methodology could never be defined as only one— presenting unrestricted invisible frameworks that plot correlation between improvisation and conversation; between and across humans in space— aiming to accelerate development of new forms of interaction. To build a better future.

We give you these EXIT signs, symbols, spaces, places — expressive, unkept, unrestrained, both physical, non-physical, metaphysical, unbound, nuanced. In signaling to you, EXIT pledges faith in the ‘in between’, attracting the spirit of play.

EXIT invites you to find this spirit. To allow it to dive dangerously inside your heart. To breathe life into the opportunity for risk. To spur you to action. To activate the cogs of your mind. Now go! Enter EXIT and find your own way out.

---------------------------------------- SAM FISH

Noah Grigni (@noahgrigni) invites us to imagine a better and more inclusive world through art and advocacy. Noah is a Bostonbased freelance artist whose work explores queer futurism, gender euphoria, and mental health. They have been an artist their whole life and use drawing as a way to express themselves. Noah’s art has evolved from a way of processing trauma to a form of healing. Refocusing their work on joy rather than pain and euphoria instead of dysphoria has opened the space for growth and success.

Noah illustrates children’s books, creates comics, does tattoos, and rants about gender, art, community care, and abolition.

Graduating from Lesley University in 2018 with a BFA in illustration, Noah pictured “It Feels Good To Be Yourself” by Theresa Thorn for their senior thesis project. Illustrated with colorful images and meaningful portraits, this work was the first time Noah was able to put their art in the world the way they wanted it to be seen. The picture book introduces concepts and language such as cisgender, transgender and nonbinary to the youngest reader. It gives children a fuller understanding of themselves and others by teaching them the vocabulary to talk about gender identity.

Noah has received countless responses

from children and parents saying the book helped them come out. The best advice they have gotten as a children’s book writer and illustrator, is to tell the story you needed to hear as a child.

Noah’s upcoming exhibition, “Trans Dreams Portrait Project,” will open in 2022 at the Boston Children’s Museum. It is a series of portraits that celebrates trans kids and their visions for the future. The project developed from interviews of trans kids under the age of twelve around the New England area.

Noah asks them: How would they describe themselves? What makes them feel the most euphoric and joyful? What does the perfect future look like for them? Using the questions to guide the portrayal, Noah paints them larger than life, the way they want to be seen.

Trans kids will shape the future and their visions should be celebrated.

Noah is creating spaces for queer artists to thrive. Their Shirts 4 Change initiative (www. shirts4change.com) is a sustainable way to support themselves and redistribute wealth by donating 50% of all profits to trans mutual aid. They believe that “when we share a dream, we invite others to dream with us.”

--- CRISTINA RODERO SALES

both Brattle Selects and Virtual Screening Room titles. www.watch.eventive.org/ brattletheatre

more at bostoncompassnewspaper.com

MUSIC & AUDIO 9/1 Black Beach, Nice Guys, Moon Room, Pink Lid @O’Briens 8pm 18+ $10 9/4 Experimental Sounds from DAP! Live Stream featuring id m theft able, +DOG+ Lean, Angelsbreath, Viliji.

Watch online at www.twitch.tv/dorchesterart 9/6 Big Laugh, Hotline TNT, Subliminal Excess, Crescent Ridge, Burning Lord @The Banshee Den (Everett, MA) 7:00pm All Ages $10 9/9 Noah Britton, Old Table, Warren and 1 more TBA @O’Brien’s 8pm 21+ $10 9/10 Finally Live, Reloaded!

Celebrate the return of live music brought to you by DJ Whysham and Boston Got Next featuring too many dope artists to count including Brandie Blaze, Cake Swagg, Red Shaydez, Treva Holmes, Marcela Cruz, Porsha Olayiwola, Monavelli, Seefour, Kasia Lavon and more!! Local vendors and food TBA! @ONCE Somerville at Boynton Yards 6pm 18+ (under 18 with guardian) $15 Advance / $20 Day of Show 9/10-9/11 Boston Fuzzstival 2021! featuring Sweeping Promises, Landowner, Really From, Honeycut, Editrix, The Kominas, Strange Passage, Beeef, Seed, Lane and more TBA! @Charles River Speedway Garage B All Ages $20-30 ONCE at Boynton Yards brings you even more live music this month!

9/11 Post Rock Apocalypse featuring The Stampede, Radio Compass, Verdegree. 12pm All Ages $15 Advance / $20 Day of Show 9/11 R.A.P. Ferreira w/ Pink Navel + Lavagxrl 6pm All Ages $20 Advance / $25 Day of Show 9/17 Speedy Ortiz w/ Billy Dean Thomas + Squitch 6pm All Ages $20 Advance / $25 Day of Show 9/17 Fiddlehead, Ekulu, Blair, Move @Hardcore Stadium 6pm All Ages $15 9/18 Outdoors: Boston’s JMDE Quartet featuring Eric Dahlman (trumpet, overtone and throat singing, electronics), Michael Knoblach (multiple percussion), David Welans (flutes), Jimmy Zhao, (Chinese instruments, Viola, etc). Intricate new music of unrehearsed improvisations @Mystic River Path Assembly Row 4pm All Ages FREE 9/19 Good Music Showcase Series organized by @djalcide is back with live music featuring Lord Ju~ vendors-vibes-drinks @Dorchester Art Project 8pm $10 21+ 9/19 Verbal Assault, Restraining Order, Gel, Holy Hands, Bulletproof Backpack @ Hardcore Stadium 4pm All Ages $20

The Jungle Somerville has many shows on the books including open mics every Wednesday 7pm-11pm. Here are some other highlights: 9/5 Sarah Infini Takagi Jazz Quartet followed by an open jazz jam session! Bring your instrument, sign up at 9pm, jam at 10pm. Music starts 9pm FREE 21+ 9/18 Safiya Presents: Travel Through Music - Southern Africa featuring Naledi (South Africa), Niu Raza (Madagascar), Albino Mbie (Mozambique).

5pm $10 21+ 10/2 Ramallah, Sick Minds, Chaos Cross, Last Sight @ Brockton VFW 7pm All Ages $ome Cost Wenham St Cinema Outdoor Concert Series (Jamaica Plain) Free neighborhood theater that seeks to build community through film, food, and discussion. All showings are free and open to the public!

10/9 Anjimile goes on tour! @Sinclair 7pm All Ages $15 in advance, tickets on sale now! Be sure to check out other dates on this tour in Western MA, NH and Maine!

Amplify Soul by BAMS Fest!

Every Friday at 8pm on Boston Art Music Soul Youtube, tune in for a digital concert experience for music lovers and everyday people. More info at bamsfest.org Tiny DAP Concert Series Our spin on the NPR Tiny Desk Concert Series! September Show drops on 9/16 featuring Kasia Lavon! Visit

dorchesterartproject.com/tiny-dap

for more info and subscribe to the Boston Compass Newspaper Youtube channel for video drops!

Eliot Schoolyard Summer Concert Series FREE Concerts on Sunday afternoons at 4pm at 24 Eliot St, Jamaica Plain thru 9/26. Bring Your Own Seat! RSVP at eliotschool.org/ programs/events ItsLitBoston Podcast Boston’s #1 urban podcast here to connect you with the local hip hop community and entertain you at the same time. @itslitboston Also on Youtube and Sound Cloud New England Mic Check Radio is our region’s top dawg for uplifting urban music! Episode 60 out now on all streaming platforms with a special feature on Hero the Emcee! www. nemiccheck.com for podcasts, swag, and further updates! @newenglandmiccheck Check out WECB fm Boston! WECB is a student-run, creatively independent internet radio station at Emerson College in Boston. They host dozens of radio shows by hundreds of DJs and highlight new and exciting music both locally and beyond!

Also check out their music review platform Milk Crate! To listen and for more info, visit: www.wecb.fm

LFOD Life A radio show, event promoter, artist uplifter, blog, video series. LFOD does it all!

They go live Tuesdays @ 10PM on 91.5FM in Boston. @lfodlife www.lfod.life Spark FM at Night with DJ Stix: Every Tuesday/Thursday from 11-1AM plus many more programs! Check out www.sparkfmonline.com Nonevent is a Boston-based concert series devoted to the presentation of experimental, abstract, improvised, and new music from New England and around the world.

Visit nonevent.org Subcentral is a unique space that spored from the subculture in the heart of Cambridge. They are dedicated to promoting and producing electronic music and performance arts, while nourishing creative minds through classes, workshops and art installations. @subcentral.studio and www.subcentral.studio

VIDEO & FILM TheMUSEUM TV “Bringing The Creative Community Together In Our Own Fashion!”. That’s for sure! Check out their website www.tmtv.world for local art and hiphop news and so many dope exclusive artist interviews.

Subscribe on Youtube for endless video content!

No Price Tag Productions is dedicated to bringing artistry to life by highlighting creatives through film production and events. They have a dope artist interview series on their Youtube Channel No Price Tags Productions! www.nopricetagsproductions.com

@nopricetagsproductions Farenheight TV A monthly variety show that celebrates peoples greatness through exclusive interviews, performances & more. Check out their latest collab with BAMS Fest interviewing artists from their current performance series Amplify the Soul. www.farenheighttv.com @farenheighttv Cinema Salem has been resurrected under new leadership! They aim to provide more cult classics and art haus obscurities to Massachusetts film buffs. All start at 10PM and cost $11: 9/3 Jodorowsky’s SANTA SANGRE co-presenting with The Satanic Temple Salem. More showtimes TBA. Check www.cinemasalem.com The Brattle Theater goes virtual with The Brattlite: Following the Brattle formula of mixing together old favorites, new discoveries, and deep dives into cinema’s forgotten treasures, THE BRATTLITE will delight and inspire movie-lovers with an ongoing array of great films.

Discounted Ticket Packs are available and provide access to

heck out of you with hosts Owen Liners and Angela Sawyer. @The Square Root 8pm $5

Weird Local Film Festival Submit your films to weirdlocalfilmfestival@gmail. com by 9/9/21 to be considered for their 13th film fest @Weird Local Productions Youtube Channel 9/23 8PM FREE @ weirdlocalfilmfestival

Check out Artists’ Theater of Boston! They produce “thoughtful, evocative work that challenges systemic injustices facing our communities through the collaborative process of making theater”. Online opportunities and performances can found at artiststheater.org

ShowPlace ICON is host to a redefined movie experience with cutting-edge digital and theatre technology. Check out their website for events. www.ShowPlaceICON.com @showplaceiconboston

The Comedy Studio: one of Boston’s best standup comedy venues is back with in-person events. So far there are shows lined up for September 2nd, 3rd and 4th @Vera’s 8PM and 10PM start times $20 21+

VISUAL ART

Laughing Liberally Srilatha and Angela Sawyer host progressive political comedy along with a guest speaker from local activism. @Armory Cafe 8PM $10

Praise Shadows Art Gallery presents INTERNAL NAVIGATION: a solo exhibition

by Yu-Wen Wu. In this new show Wu is both artist and geographer, translating her movement through the world and within her environment into richly detailed drawings and installations. Her story is filtered through a variety of different media, yet in all her work, she seeks to determine the position of her course, the lengths she’s come, and the distance yet to travel. Opening reception 9/12 4-6pm. On view 9/9 - 10/10 EXIT Galleries is a Bostonbased pop-up art gallery. EXIT transforms underutilized spaces into site-specific art installations and environments. Now popping up in Lower Allston this fall at 99 Franklin St. @exitgalleries www.exitgalleries.com Humphrey St Studios in Dorchester is producing an exhibition called Faces & Places of HSS, including portraits of the 40+ artists at Humphreys Street Studios. The focus is to meet the artists, learn about their art form/medium, and why working at HSS is vital to their work. The exhibition will be both online and onsite at HSS in August www.humphreysstreetstudio.com Support the Nubian Square Public Art Initiative, a newly launched initiative spearheaded

by Black Market Nubian to develop a series of public murals and installations as a catalyst for neighborhood economic empowerment by the community, for the community. blackmarketnubian.com/nspai Distillery Gallery new exhibition WHEN DID WE ARRIVE? On view: August 14 - September 18, 2020

The Black Comedy Explosion: Wednesday nights at Slades Bar and Grill starting at 7pm.

Join us as we bring you some of today’s funniest comedians from BET Comic View, HBO DEF Comedy Jam, and more, with both national and local acts.

Sladesbarandgrill.com @slades. boston Starlight Square: Outdoor events happening all summer at Starlight Square in Central Square, Cambridge. Check the calendar at www.starlightsquare. org/events

LITERARY ART 10/2 WFPL Zine Fest: the Watertown Free Public Library will host the first-annual WFPL Zine Fest. Zines are smallbatch, DIY publications that provide a powerful platform of expression for underrepresented perspectives and voices. We believe they belong in the Library. Join us in celebrating and learning about all things zine! @WFPL 10AM-2PM Zine Marketplace, 10AM-4PM Programs FREE All Ages Mass Love Distro is a Massachusetts-based distro focused on creating and distributing engaging, immersive multimedia artwork from local area artists, with an emphasis on zines, books, records, CDs, pins, patches, stickers, and other merch. Check them out online and follow them @masslovedistro

13FOREST Gallery PopUp @444 Commercial Street Provincetown, MA

Lucy Parsons Center is an independent, non-profit, radical bookstore and community space.

They also do a Free Store for the People every 2nd Sunday of the month 12-2PM across the street. www.lucyparsonscenter.org

Aviary Gallery has rolled out its online exhibitions from a diverse cast of artists including BCN columnist Jenn Stanley. Check out all the beauty at www.aviarygallery.com

Art & Letters Poetry Zine has two new special issues out now: “14 International Younger Poets” and “Mexico: Photographs”.

Learn more and order now at www.artnletters.com

Kingston Gallery has three new exhibitions opening on 9/1!

Reception held on 9/10 from 5-8pm Mira Cantor: Woven | Louise Farrell: Fate | Erica LiceaKane: Embedded Parts

Superfroot Magazine submissions for issue #2 open July 15th and go to September 15th. Dedicated to uplifting underrepresented artists and writers, this zine focuses on a new theme each issue. The theme this time is NOSTALGIA. Learn more at www.superfroot.com

PERFORMANCE ART 9/2 + 9/16 Standup In The Square The silly folks at Roslindale Comedy are back at The Square Root to entertain the

Fuck Your Dreams Zine CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS for VOLUME III IS HERE! Send them your art & writing inspired by your

dreams & nightmares! Looking forward to what will be the most absurdist & surreal issue yet. Deadline November 19th.

For more info and to purchase volume 1 & 2 visit www.fuckyourdreamszine.com Moral Crema Zine has released its third edition dedicated to the archiving and promotion of experimental artists who are primarily queer, POC, working class, and women. Find out more @moralcrema and purchase at www.moralcrema.com Pleasure Pie zines and illustrations about sexual empowerment and consent! @pleasurepie www.pleasurepie.org

COMMUNITY 9/4 Nubiana: Homecoming Edition! ft. Open Air Gallery, Black Owned Marketplace, Live Dee Jays, Beer and Wine Garden, Mural Auction. @Black Market 1-6pm All Ages Free @blackmarketnubian 9/18 Seek+Find Boston present JP Flea! @First Church JP 10-3pm All Ages The JP Flea is a multicultural marketplace in Boston’s beautiful Jamaica Plain neighborhood, featuring local artists, zine distros/publishers, vintage and antique dealers, small businesses, community nonprofits, and artisans of all kinds!

9/18 9th Annual Trung Thu Festival or Mid Autumn Moon Festival will bring families and friends back to Town Field Park to celebrate There will be relay races, lantern making, performances, tea and mooncake, and other activities for the young to old. @Town Field Park, Dorchester 4PM 9PM FREE All Ages 9/19 Bartlett Square Makers Market! @18 Bartlett Square JP 11-3pm All Ages Support local makers working in a variety of media at this monthly market!

9/23 The ARTery 25 a celebration of 25 emerging artists of color shaping the creative and cultural landscape in Boston, selected by WBUR’s arts and culture team. @WBUR City Space 7pm All Ages Free @wburartery Bipop music instrument & production lessons: An online music instruction platform tailored towards WOC & the non-gender conforming community taught by WOC and the non-gender conforming community of Boston. Become a student or a teacher! Learn more at www.bipop.org @bipopbops The BYTE Shop is a computer and electronics repair, resale, and recycling shop at 48 South St in Jamaica Plain. Available now by appointment! Home to one of the largest collections of historic home computers in New England. www.byteshop.io The Brighton Farmers Market takes place on Wednesdays through Oct. 27th, 2:30-6:30PM. The market is located at Brighton Common, Chestnut Hill Avenue and Academy Hill Road adjacent to the Veronica Smith Senior Center, Brighton Center www.abhealthcollaborative.org/ farmers-market/

Springboard for the Arts: Free Business Skills workshops for artists! How We Imagine on 9/18 & 9/25, led by @truartspeaks. Creative fun for the whole family!

Apparel Brand, Music Label and Entertainment Company Scope Apparel has opened a storefront and HQ AT 484 B Center St, Jamaica Plain. Check it out! @scopeapparel and www.scopeapparel.com The Lucky Jungle, a new Cambridge community space, has spawned from the depths of quarantine. Selling work of local artists and beautiful plants, providing specialized art classes, and soon putting on live performances, this space seems to offer everything we need after a year trapped in our rooms. @theluckyjungle and www.theluckyjungle.com Check out the Daily Table at 684 Mass. Ave in Central Square!

They sell affordable, sustainable food for all. Check out their other locations in Dorchester and Roxbury! They are open from 9AM - 8PM on Monday - Friday, and 11AM - 7PM on Sundays.

Boston GLASS operates Drop-In Community Centers for LGBTQ+ youth of color between the ages of 13–25! GLASS provides a continuum of services to LGBTQ+ youth of color and their allies in the Greater Boston and Greater Framingham areas and also provides education and consultation to other providers and community organizations.

Women Explore Lecture and Discussion Forum: Women Explore provides lecture series within a feminist learning community for women, to connect with the sacred dimensions of their experience and to support and encourage each other in the world community. womenexplore.org Community Fridges! There’s a bunch of these popping up all around the city! They provide food for all and are totally volunteer-run! Check Out @bostoncommunityfridge @dotcommunityfridge @allstoncommunityfridge @matcommunityfridge @cambridgecommunityfridge @roslindalecommunityfridge Some are relocating and need your help finding business and people to host them!

Boston LGBTQIA+ Artist Alliance is revamping with a new director and a new website! They just released a survey asking what LGBTQIA+ artists in Boston would like to see happen with this new organization. Find it at www.blaa.us ArtAssembled in Assembly Row! There is a new pop up art space in Assembly Row that you can rent for $5/hour. Art Assembled is a project of the Somerville Arts Council with support from Federal Reality/ Assembly Row.

ADVOCACY West Of Washington Coalition A neighborhood group of Dorchester seeking to make our community a safer, friendlier, and more vibrant place to live. @wowcoalition and on Facebook to stay up to date with their community events and actions

Blue Crime Blue Dime A community initiative working to have police pay for their own lawsuits and settlements instead of the state draining the wallets of taxpayers. Check out their IG @bluecrimebluedime and Twitter @dime_crime for community events Sunrise Movement Boston works everyday to stop climate change and create jobs in the process. Find them at @sunrisemvmtboston to cue into all the rad actions and workshops they have going on.

Asian American Resource Workshop is a political home for pan-Asian communities in Greater Boston. They are a member-led organization committed to building grassroots power through political education, creative expression, and issue-based and neighborhood organizing. Join today! @aarw.boston and www.aarw.org Mass Action Against Police Brutality A campaign to prosecute the police and jail those who are guilty, open all past cases of police brutality, and end the harassment of victims and witnesses. Visit www.maapb.org for info on actions/protests in the Boston area.

FTP Boston is a community of Black & Brown organizers from the Boston area committed to Abolition. They do pop up community thrift stores and accept donations in addition to many other things ! @ftpboston www.ftpbos.com CityLife/VidaUrbana: Organizing for racial, economic, and gender justice since 1973.

Building solidarity to put people before profits. Support their Homes For All Act at homesforallmass.org/act

The lights are back on in Boston theatres and there are tons of shows worth securing tickets for now.

Lock down the cheap seats at ArtsEmerson while you can! Everything looks good this season, especially Iphigenia and White Rabbit, Red Rabbit. The Actors Shakespeare Project is reviving their halted production from March 2020 of The Merchant of Venice, with the same talented cast and visionary Director Igor Golyak behind the scenes. A cool and engaging show without a doubt. Let’s just hope the Delta variant doesn’t cancel our plans. Check our highlights below for some genuinely interesting theatre happening this month in Boston.

—CEEK Thru 9/5 Nate Turner in Jerusalem @Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre This show looks good enough to drive to the Cape for. A timely and profound account of Nate Turner being visited by his attorney on his last night in jail, as they discuss the slave rebellion they just led and talk of the future.

WHERE: WHAT.org/2021season/ 9/3-9/19 Reparations @Gloucester Stage This new play by James Sheldon looks at power dynamics, racial injustice and betrayal through a hungover lens, as reality comes to light the morning after a fun night.

WHERE: Tickets at Gloucesterstage.com/ reparations/

9/12 & 9/14 Laiona Michelle: A Night with Nina Simone @Windover Performing Arts Center A highlight of Gloucester Stage’s Never Dark Series is this new musical adapted from the words and music of the incomparable Nina Simone, telling her story from child prodigy to an American icon.

WHERE: Tickets at Gloucesterstage.com/little-girlblue/ 9/24 The Sound Inside @Speakeasy Stage This play was considered one of the best of 2020. A reclusive writer unexpectedly becomes close friends with her student.

As they exchange stories, connections are made that lead to profound personal confrontations about how we narrate our own lives.

WHERE: speakeasystage.com

9/25-10/9 Ayodele Casel: Chasing Magic This compelling, joyful live performance might not be a play but it’s definitely theatre.

An impressive ensemble of tap dancers and musicians join their powers in this captivating show.

WHERE: Tickets start at AmericanRepertoryTheater.org 9/30-10/31 Queens Girl in the World @ Central Square Theatre A solo show explores the story of a black teen named Jacqueline living in ‘60s NYC, going from her home in Queens to the Village for school during the civil rights movement.

WHERE: Tickets at CentralSquareTheater.org

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Art Schoolin by Laura Meilman @l_meilman

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Art by Julia Baroni @juli0ni

AFFECTED

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Vocals are the star of Sun Shower, the new album from Boston-based Musician and Visual Artist Indë. The songs speak of love, loss, and ambition, and the album is expertly crafted to let Indë’s vision shine. The words and melody hold the center stage while the instrumentation is sparse and comes and goes as needed. Indë isn’t afraid of silence or moments of bare vocals.

This gives Indë the freedom to pivot the tempo and tonality of a song on a dime. Throughout the album, clever and judicious use of vocal harmonies take the place of instrumentation. And when Indë uses vocal harmonies, they aren’t confined to the background—the vocal layers fight for attention with the melody and act like a rich sonic blanket— think Jacob Collier or (like it or not) Billie Eilish.

One great example is about a minute into the first song “New Muse.” The keyboards drop out, leaving just drums and vocals. Some simple vocal harmonies fill out the melody while Indë speaks to how things are good, but perhaps could be better. A bass fades in as the lyrics shift to loneliness, and on the word “lonely,” the vocal harmony deepens and

saddens, but just for a beat. The tonal shift straightens for a moment but then continues to veer, landing on the lyric “in the sun,” where the vocal harmony suddenly expands and lightens for a moment, giving the impression of the sun piercing through a grey cloud. The instrumentation drops out again as the vocals slow, setting up a contrast for when the up-tempo beat of the chorus drops moments later.

It is these clever, engaging moments that make listening and relistening to Sun Shower such a pleasure. Be sure to check out Sun Shower, which is available on the major streaming platforms.

after hart crane

having no reservations we settled for a dark cabin suffused with mildew, spiders too

viscous verses.

CUSTOM

cape hatteras

STEVE B.

Sun Shower, Indë

DAY

TRIPS

BOSTON

FROM

NATURE:

Trey

next morning the diner the dew we drove on the sands to full light and water

Rice

@deuce617

CULTURE:

I sat reading crane’s cape hatteras who managed to write until he could no longer do you think you have time to comprehend…

CUISINE:

now it’s coming back to me— I fell asleep on the beach while Bobby fished I woke and saw its festering holes-thousands of tiny pale crabs popped up through the sand to feed, stepping up sideways

RUTH LEPSON son's on the This month sees the release of Ruth Lep Press). Ruth way: new and selected poems (MadHat lives in Cambridge, Mass. oni & Ben

Viscous Verses is edited by Raquel Balb Mazer artnletters.com

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