Dig Boston Jan 14th, 2015 by DigBoston

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IRANIAN CINEMA MAINSTREAM AND COVERT MATTHEW RITCHIE IS THE ICA’S AGENT OF CHAOS

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NEWS, FEATURES + MEDIA FARM EDITOR Chris Faraone

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CREATIVE DIRECTOR Tak Toyoshima

We’re barely a month into 2015, and already the Hub is buzzing with news of every stripe. For starters, in our role as alternative journalists we’ve been following all the coverage of the trial of alleged Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev, devoting our trenchant Media Farm opining in full to the topic. That will continue as long as the trial does, so be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Then there’s the news that the United States Olympic Committee selected Boston as the American candidate in its attempt to win the international bid for the 2024 Summer Games. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but we have been wildly vocal in our position that it’s a bad decision for the average denizens of the city, so long as both history and our general inability to even provide public school students with needed resources and technology is an indicator of what’s to come. Considering the trepidation much of the populace expressed at the prospect of the Games coming here, not to mention promises to keep the Games “privately funded” while billions of dollars in federal funding will be requested for security, we’ve still got a long way to go, many articles to write, and a lot more people to piss off. Stay tuned to DigBoston.com for all of it.

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OFFICE MANAGER John Loftus ADVISOR Joseph B. Darby III DigBoston, 242 East Berkeley St. 5th Floor Boston, MA 02118 Fax 617.849.5990 Phone 617.426.8942 digboston.com

COVER ARTIST

Matthew Ritchie will be blowing minds at the ICA this week, so be sure to bring a tarp and some sponges. See page 22 for all the details! Ritchie photo by Jennifer Taylor Photography.

Wanna do a cover? Email scott@digpublishing.com.

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DIGTIONARY

HESITANT DOMAIN noun

/ˈhezədənt dōˈmān/

The right of private property owners to express caution and skepticism at the city’s right to expropriate private property for future Olympic use, because the private property owners generally consider Boston 2024 to be a loser’s game. OH CRUEL WORLD Dear Mass Republican, Yeah, yeah, yeah. You got your guy Charlie Baker in office. So … fucking … what? Nope, I’m not a Democrat. And obviously not one of you geeks with your lobster pants and picket

fences. But I’ll tell you what: If Baker’s only half the fraud that Governor Deval Patrick was, he’ll be one hell of a success. And I’m not exactly a Boston Herald reader, if you know what I’m spraying.

Send anonymous gripes to editorial@digpublishing.com.

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VOL 17 + ISSUE 2 JANUARY 14, 2015 - JANUARY 21, 2015

NEWS & OPINIONS

>> OUR SNARK ABOUT THE BOSTON OLYMPICS WAS QUOTED IN THE ‘NY TIMES.’ PRETTY DESPERATE IF YOU ASK US. >> REST IN PARODY TO ALL VICTIMS OF THE ‘CHARLIE HEBDO’ MASSACRE. JOURNOS, THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE.

OLYMPIC NIGHTMARE BY CHRIS FARAONE @FARA1

BOSTON BASTARD

After a full year at City Hall, this week Mayor Marty Walsh announced they are just one community meeting away from finally starting a national search for our new school superintendent. You know, to replace the one who resigned in 2013.

50.6%

Probability of transgender youth being diagnosed with depression, according to data from the Sidney Borum Jr. Health Center showing “transgender youth [are] at high risk for negative mental health outcomes.”

20.6%

LET THE

HUNGER GAMES

Comparatively, the probability of nontransgender youth being diagnosed with depression.

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Let’s call this the last installment of the Cambridge Curmudgeon and the Somerville Sleaze. Along with the Boston Bastard, our recurring Massholes will appear online, and sometimes in the paper at longer length. But you can kiss these print snippets goodbye.

I’LL CUT TO THE CHASE: At the press conference in South Boston last week where Mayor Marty Walsh and his Boston 2024 pals formally announced the selection of their bid by the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), I felt like I was sitting at a funeral. Specifically, the whole thing reminded me of my grandfather’s wake, and how I wanted to throw rocks at the priest for pretending it was a positive moment. I expected this to be a bitter pill to swallow if the day ever came, but in all my years as a reporter I have never felt so damn defeated. To hell with any bullshit that Olympic planners have said about how the process is “just getting started,” or about how “people have seen some of the plans,” as Walsh suggested. Those are lies and quarter-truths, and should be reported as such for the next decade

if need be. The fact is, Boston 2024 has been organizing for more than a year. The presser was about as sickening as expected, with songs like “Come Together” playing, as if The Beatles gave a damn about track and field, and a stage stocked with a diverse spread of smiling athletes, as if the Games have anything to do with sports. It felt like a cross between a house-flipping seminar and whatever happens inside a Scientology center, right down to the terrifyingly ominous Boston 2024 logo on screens beside the deius. Walsh opened the event by asking, “Wow, can you believe this?” I can’t speak for the rest of the media, but I certainly could not. When covering the 2013 mayoral race, I didn’t see Marty as the Manchurian type, yet there he was, thanking John Fish, the CEO of Suffolk Construction, for “putting aside a lot of his business” to pursue the continued on pg. 6

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continued from pg. 4 bid. It was a speech fit for a ventriloquist, and Fish grinned royally as he watched from the side. For what it’s worth, Walsh is one hell of a soldier. He laid on thick his assurance that “Boston has a vision for a new kind of Olympics,” and announced that the city would hold nine community meetings to discuss planning between now and September. The mayor also thanked State Sen. Eileen Donoghue, who helped make early legislative inroads for Boston’s Olympic efforts. Donoghue, however, had already been thanked by Fish, who cut her campaign a $500 check in June and tapped her for the Boston 2024 executive committee. If nothing else, at least now we know who really runs this city. Not students, not activists, not longtime residents, not even the benevolent pols. I’ve always understood that, but this is a particularly painful moment of impotence. The Hub has just been thrown against a brick wall, ice-cold brass Olympic rings pressed clean against its temple. Organizers say they’re just beginning, but there’s already talk of where the Finish Line might go. What if the public feels that it belongs in Readville? Or on Olympics-boosting Boston Globe columnist Shirley Leung’s front lawn, where the runners can use her throw towels to wipe their bloody nipples and ball sweat? I’ll be at the coming public forums. All of them, although I’m certain they’ll accomplish nothing. How do I know? Because neither the city nor the Boston 2024 team acknowledges critical input, or else Walsh and others wouldn’t already be trying to rhetorically minimize the impact on everything from traffic to municipal employee time, and ruling out the prospect of a public vote on whether we should host at all. There will be town hall meetings, sure, but it’ll be like when parents sit their kids in front of arcade games without putting quarters in; we may think we’re playing, but it’s really the opposite. By the time Walsh tried using as an Olympic mandate the “100 texts” he received last night from cronies congratulating him on winning the bid, I had more or less stopped paying attention. As I packed up before hitting the bathroom, all I could think about was how insufferable the next 10 years will be if our leaders and their puppet masters insist on continuing to pretend the Games are good for us. The thought stuck with me all the way to the urinal where, due to the flannel pajamas I had on under my jeans not having a dick hole, I accidentally peed all over my leg. Had John Fish walked in and told me it was raining, it wouldn’t have made me any dryer.

DONOGHUE, HOWEVER, HAD ALREADY BEEN THANKED BY FISH, WHO CUT HER CAMPAIGN A $500 CHECK IN JUNE AND TAPPED HER FOR THE BOSTON 2024 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.

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Is this thing still going on?

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ALL TSARNAEV, ALL THE TIME

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BY MEDIA FARM @MEDIAFARM

Sorry to remind you about the asshole charged with bombing the Boston Marathon, and of the cockroaches covering the carnival at the federal courthouse. Also apologies for dredging up all of the media dung stuck to our Timberlands, that endless barrage of meaningless think pieces and Dickensian descriptions of Dzokhar Tsarnaev’s wardrobe. We know the mainstream is religious about objectivity, but some coverage last week rang more like an L.L. Bean Catalog description than notes on a federal bombing trial. From the Boston Globe: Tsarnaev, 21, stood before them, lanky, fidgeting, and with flowing curly hair, wearing a dark collared sweater in the morning, and later a crewneck. We’re sure everyone will get more serious when the jury is selected, but for now the mush amounts to so much generic garbage. That said, while there’s been far too much rhetorical arm wrestling over whether Tsarnaev can get a fair trial in Boston—even in the wake of it being decided that he will face a jury here—the news has also spurred important conversations. For a clever dart on press suppression in this trial and in general, for one, check Northeastern University journalism professor Dan Kennedy’s latest for WGBH News. For not-so-clever analysis, you’re already in the right place … STONER POETRY We smoked a joint while reading a piece written by forensic psychiatrist Judith G. Edersheim, JD, MD, titled “Could Tsarnaev Argue, ‘My Immature, Pot-Impaired Brain Made Me Do It’?” We barely got through the part about her title. She’s co-director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Law, Brain & Behavior and an assistant clinical professor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School—and not, clearly, a

writer. But we did manage to spin some verse out of the raddest parts … Mitigating factors death sentence impaired capacity demonstrable duress relative immaturity ill-considered decisions thrill seeking sex, drugs and friends Brains are not created equal In the end, behavior trumps brain scans well-known campus marijuana dealer smoked pot frequently KEEP ON SUCKIN’ On a slightly different but obviously related note, kudos to Celia Farber of the New York Observer for thinking to contact legendary alt cartoonist Robert Crumb about the massacre of Charlie Hebdo staffers in Paris. In the midst of so many superficial tributes to the brave satirists killed, Crumb offers a dose of reality worthy of their memory. Here’s an excerpt from the part where the writer asks how it is even possible that she’s the only reporter who thought to call America’s most celebrated satirical comic strip artist, who happens to live in France, after an office full of political creatives was targeted by extremists: No, you’re the only one. You don’t have journalists over there anymore, what they have is public relations people. That’s what they have over in America now. Two-hundred and fifty thousand people in public relations. And a dwindling number of actual reporters and journalists … Amen.

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How the Hacketts hacked the system to help patients BY MIKE CANN @MIKECANN

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Donna Hackett is a vocal and compassionate medical marijuana patient and advocate. Ask her about it, and she’ll tell you it’s a family affair. For Hackett it began in 2007, when she was diagnosed with Lyme disease. For help she turned to medical marijuana treatments in Rhode Island, a state in which she seemed to qualify for compassionate use. A Massachusetts native, Hackett experienced an even bigger health scare only a few months later, this time an aggressive Stage III breast cancer tumor that required surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation treatments. Upon hearing the news, she turned to her son Robert and said, “We are going to need better pot if I’m going to make it through this.” Robert was soon purchasing books, scouring High Times for cultivation tips, and growing quality medicine for his mom. He is a “natural gardener,” his mother says proudly. In June of 2008, while Donna was still undergoing chemo and radiation treatments, the Hacketts were raided by a police drug task force. Somebody had snitched on them. Donna showed police her hospital paperwork, though at the time her doctors in Boston were not yet allowed to recommend in Rhode Island. “My world was ripped apart,” she says all these years later. “I believed in the law, and that they wouldn’t prosecute a bald, broken cancer patient.” Donna continues: “When I expressed my disgust to my lawyer [about] the plea that would harm my son’s future, he said, ‘Why are you mad? After all, you’re just a pot-smoking mom who was lucky enough to get cancer!’” Since slamming down the phone on her

attorney, Hackett has committed all her spare energy to medical marijuana education and support. She is a legally registered patient in Rhode Island, and her son Robert is her registered caregiver. Furthermore, the Hackett family went on to successfully push an amendment to Rhode Island’s medical marijuana law that allows patients to receive recommendations from doctors in the Bay State. To this day she helps others as well. “The first patient I delivered medicine to was a breast cancer patient like myself who worked in law enforcement,” Hackett says. “She was surprised at the fact that I wanted to help her, asked me if I held her job against her. I said, ‘No, do you hold it against me that I grow pot?’ I would sit with her when she had no one to accompany her to chemo. She passed away this last summer.” Speaking about her former home, Massachusetts, Hackett says medical laws needs to be amended here as well. “Even if dispensaries open, many patients can’t afford the dispensary prices,” she says. “Mass needs [an] amendment that expressly allows caregivers.”

A WORTHY DISRUPTION

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This past year was tumultuous, as anti-policebrutality marches flooded streets. Already this year, it seems that not a week goes by without some major roadway being blocked by protests. Stir in the Olympics bidding process, which Boston officials assure us has just begun (despite private interests stewing for years), and the demonstrations are just getting started. Should we “win” the international bid, the next 10 years will see many more protests from people affected by the Olympics. The Olympics are a housing issue. They are a racial issue. They are a queer issue. They are a public access issue. They

are a transportation issue, and Boston activists know how to fight for those things. While you were celebrating or begrudging the Olympics news, a group of protesters has made its debut. #HowDisruptive, comprised of people of color and their allies who support the growing anti-racist movement, got their name from public officials’ responses to recent unrest. This reminds me of a militant feminist chant: “You feel me up, I’ll fuck you up.” If Mayor Walsh and others have no qualms about disrupting vulnerable Hub communities, they can be damn sure someone will return the favor.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE HACKETTS

BY EMILY HOPKINS @GENDERPIZZA

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PINK LIPSTICK WITH GLOSS

(FOURTH HEAD FROM THE LEFT)

by Mark Cravens

THE ROOM HAS THE APPEARANCE of

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something from a science-fiction film— all white, sterile, windowless, with a digital clock hanging high and centered on each of the four walls. I sit in the long black leather sofa that rests by the door, concentrating on the wall in front of me. It is grotesque, but necessary to the experience. Heads—faceless, hairless, porcelain heads—protrude from the wall with open cavities from the nose down. At the top of the hour, these open spaces will be filled with the mouths of women. I won’t be able to see anything except their mouths and they won’t see me at all because the faceless heads have no eyeholes. And for sixty minutes those partial faces are all mine. This is not a free service. At Previews,

the Kissing Room is only one of the rooms offered. There are other rooms. My friend Roger goes to the I-Room. My belief is that anything goes in the I-Room. I don’t know this for sure because Roger hasn’t told me much. In the brochure there is an asterisk by the I-Room option, Clients must sign non-disclosure statement. The I-Room is insanely expensive—twelve hundred per hour. The light comes on just on the other side of the wall, and soon the empty mouth holes are filled with actual mouths. Once all those empty cavities are filled, I have my choice of head. I’ve paid for sixty minutes to kiss any of those mouths that I want, or just one if that’s all I want. Or I can sample every one of them, which I often did when I first

started at Previews. All of the mouths are very attractive and very different. The first one from the left is bright red lipstick. Second is bright red lipstick with gloss. Different colors go down the line, alternating between nongloss and gloss. Pink is next, then darker red, black, and plain. Of the ten heads on the wall, I’m stuck on pink with lip gloss, fourth one from the left, and have been for the better part of six months. Because I know her. She’s Roger’s wife. I think. Sometimes when I’m kissing Cindy I feel like making a show out of the experience. I don’t make any sounds other than the slow and moist sounds of the kissing itself, though I want to. I want the person on the other side of the wall to know what I’m feeling. The last

few times I’ve dedicated myself to Pink Lipstick with Gloss, the Fourth Head from the Left, I’ve had the sense that she was into the experience, trying just as much as me to turn off her instincts and stick to the script. The clock is down to eleven minutes and I’m thinking too much. I want to go through the wall. I feel like I have to know. But I tell myself it’s Cindy behind the wall and that works long enough for me to enjoy the rest. For the rest of the day, all I do is wonder if the head is Cindy. I never get any work done on Thursday afternoon. I play around on websites and go to the restroom a lot. I wonder if Roger knows his wife works there. After work I stop by Roger and Cindy’s house under the pretense of returning a deck of cards that I borrowed a long time ago. Cindy is reclined on the couch, her feet propped against their coffee table so that her knees are in the air. The golden crescents of her calves are flush. The moist backs of her thighs curl into her denim shorts. I feel my face warming. “Hey Cindy. Is Roger here?” “He’s in his room. Bad day you need to rehash?” “No, just returning these,” I say, holding up the deck of cards. I’m staring at her mouth. There is no way to know for sure. “I’ll see myself to his room. See you, Cindy.” I walk to Roger’s room in the back of the house. Roger is listening to music through some earbuds and reading a digital magazine. “Hey.” “Hey, Roger. I have this deck of cards that I borrowed from you guys a while back and I was in the neighborhood and everything.” His eyes narrow into slits. He doesn’t believe this for a second. “Okay, throw them on the desk behind you.” Roger’s room is decorated in the Junior High School Boy fashion. He has posters of athletes and rock bands on his walls, hung by pushpins and thumb tacks. On one wall hangs a calendar of supermodel photos. This month’s picture has her lying in the surf on a beach, her bathing suit only half wet. “Good picture,” I say. “Sometimes I look at it for fifteen minutes straight. You can see her nipples through the swimsuit.” As soon as someone tells you something like that, you have to look. “Don’t you wish the women at Previews looked like this?” I say. “Some are pretty close. Believe me. Last week even I was in the I-Room, and there was this girl, had to be Latina or something. I can

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smile. The thought that goes along with that smile is something akin to I knew it! And then she leaned up and kissed me. Really kissed me. This would never be mentioned again. When the trip was over, I went back to Previews and there was a new face—Pink Lipstick with Gloss, Fourth Head from the Left. I was convinced it was Cindy. From staring at her face and her mouth so much, I knew it was her. And then, when I kissed the mouth, I recognized the style and the softness and even the taste, strangely enough. It was her. It had to be her. She had gotten a job after all. ** The next day is Thursday, the day Cindy will be working. I’m thinking about what Roger said about the secret entrance to Previews. I pull up a map on my phone and look up the Previews area. Several buildings are connected. One of those other businesses could definitely be a secret entrance to Previews. The thought of discovering Cindy is the prevailing thought on Thursday morning. I pay little attention to my choice of attire and I do very little work at all. I am up a lot, walking, going to the printer despite the fact that I have printed nothing. The morning seems long and Roger is holed up in his office. I stop by there several times to tell him any random tidbit I can think of. He is annoyed after the second visit but he soon figures out the reason for my nervous energy. “Today is Thursday,” he says. “I know why you’re so worked up. But here’s the thing, even if you do manage to find the employee entrance and even if you do see this mystery girl, you’re not even going to know it’s her. You don’t see her face ever, right?” “I think I’ll recognize her,” I say. “No, what you’ll do is convince yourself that you saw her and you’ll have the wrong girl. But that’s okay. Maybe that’s what needs to happen so that you’ll leave this alone.” Roger smooths out the lapels of his jacket. He is wearing a charcoal suit with very white pinstripes, like something gangsters wore in the twenties. His pink tie with the black parallel stripes tilt at a thirty-degree angle. It is a sharp outfit. “You’re going today too, it appears.” I say. “This is the day my dark-skinned beaut is there.” “Perhaps I’ll see you there.” There is a bit of animosity or annoyance in our conversation. It is hard to figure out why either of us would be edgy. I leave for lunch early and walk to the café run by the bald man with the untraceable accent. I want to beat the lunch crowd so I can pick a table in the corner, out of the line of sight

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Janice seemed grateful for the conversation more than the sex. She gave me her number on the back of one of my business cards. If you’re ever in town again, it said. She left the motel first and then I took a shower to wash the smoke out of my hair. My hair was still wet out on the deck as I talked to Roger. I should’ve been the one who had married Cindy, but I never would’ve met her without Roger. It was just one of those things that felt like it should be, but it wouldn’t be. I would have to pine from afar and love her secretly. I would probably marry someone else, have a family, but still love Cindy. I played scenarios through my head in mere seconds, of me with different faceless wives and faceless kids out in the backyard with my grill and my Kiss the Cook apron, making burgers. “Look, I’ll get over it, okay? She will too. This kind of thing happens when you get married. You’ll see.” All of a sudden I felt he was talking too loud. I walked back inside and grabbed a beer from the fridge. I’m not the kind of guy who usually downs a beer quickly, but I did this time. I decided to go to bed. No brushing teeth. No washing up. No removing the smoke-scented clothes. Just bed. Roger and Cindy’s bedroom was across from mine, and I noticed the door was cracked. I stepped up to the door and listened, half expecting to hear Cindy sniffling or sobbing from her fight with Roger. But there was nothing. I walked inside and slowly made my way to her bedside, kneeling down. I did so very quietly, thinking that I’d downed that beer too fast. Her eyes were open. “What’s wrong? Is Roger doing something foolish or has he passed out already?” “No, nothing like that. Just checking to see if you were okay.” The covers around her shoulder moved suddenly, with a slightly jerky motion, like she was shrugging. “We’ll be fine.” I leaned over to give her a hug. I had never hugged her before, but I felt this urge, this need to hug this beautiful woman who at that moment I was convinced was my love. She still smelled faintly of the perfume she had worn for going out that night. She had not taken her jewelry off. She didn’t reciprocate the hug, so the event was more like that I leaned on top of her and gently put my face to her face, with my left arm loosely around her shoulder. It felt awkward and unpleasant, and I knew I had stepped over some sort of line in the man-woman friendship code. Intimate touching is not allowed. I rose up and looked at her face, expecting to see horror. But she was smiling at me—not a big smile, not even a happy

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wheel, hanging out with Roger and Cindy at their timeshare every night, getting drunk off their wine and passing out on the couch. There was one night when I insisted they go to dinner without me. They went to one of the nicer places on the pier, Cindy all made up and in a black dress. I went out myself, to a dive bar looking for a lonely woman or a vacationer who had broken up with her boyfriend. Instead I found a married local who smoked heavily and had stretch marks the likes of which I had never seen, made more visible because of her deep tan. I made fast and somewhat dull love to her in a motel that rented by the hour. Her name was Janice. When I got back to the timeshare, Cindy and Roger were clearly angry with one another. He was out on the back deck with a half-empty bottle of rum and she was in bed. I walked outside and sat with Roger. “You guys have fun?” “She went to bed in her dress. That dress is very expensive. It probably shouldn’t be slept in.” Roger was lightly rocking his highball glass and making it swish like an angry ocean. He wasn’t looking at anything, just in the general direction of the security light of the timeshare next door. “It can be dry-cleaned I suppose.” “She said she wants to do something, again. Like a job. That she’s bored.” “How is that a bad thing?” Roger looked at me. “It happened to Stevens and his wife, and Musselman, and Rodriquez. None of them are married anymore.” “Come on, you think Cindy would cheat on you?” He laughed. “Maybe, if she got out more. I’ve cheated on her.” This I knew. “No, I just don’t want to get a divorce and lose so much. She’s at home all day. All she does is shop, get makeovers, read romance novels, and look pretty. If she met some new people and had the opportunity, who could blame her really? We all get lonely.” It was similar to what Janice had said. She brought up her husband and I just dove right in. I found married life so strange, but appealing, because I felt like I was made to be married, that it would be what saved me. Janice talked it up like a death sentence—long days of raising children and fighting with your spouse, of forgetting how to talk with each other, taking it out on the kids and each other, and finally looking to drown your problems in booze or through sex with anonymous strangers, i.e. me.

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never tell. But she was almost flawless, just a scar from having her appendix removed. That’s the thing with these supermodel pictures. That pic has been doctored. Every imperfection has been edited out.” “So the women at Previews might look like this?” “Like I said, some are pretty close.” Roger takes one earbud out. “And there’s freckles too, especially in the lightskinned ones. But that’s all I’m saying. I’ve already said too much.” “It’s not like they’re monitoring you. I can’t afford anything above the Kissing Room anyway.” “I’ve done the Kissing Room once or twice,” says Roger. “It’s not enough, though I do like how you can’t see anything. That makes it hot.” “I go to the same face every time. I think I’m in love with her.” I start to laugh here. I’m in love with Pink Lipstick with Gloss, Fourth Head from the left. “I’m in love with this Latina girl. Seriously. Don’t tell Cindy though, dude. But I think I know what you’re getting at. You want to meet this woman. Outside of Previews.” Either that, or make love to your wife. Maybe they’re one and the same. “Is it possible?” “I’ve been told—and I don’t know if it’s true—that the employee entrance to Previews is actually two streets over, on Canal Street, at that deli run by the bald guy.” “The one with the weird accent?” “Yeah, him. Apparently, all those buildings are connected from Canal Street. This is just what people have told me.” “You think this is true?” “Do you think you’re the first person to have this idea, who thought you were in love with one of these girls?” He picks up a video game controller and he pops his earbud back in. “I’ll see you at work. There’s your cards.” “Thanks. Good luck.” I see Cindy again on the way out. She has changed into a T-shirt and running shorts in preparation for her evening run. Her hair is up, something I have seen only one other time, when she and Roger invited me to join them in Florida for a week. We took a walk one morning along the beach because Cindy wanted some seashells. Roger walked to her right. I was just behind her on the left. Her hair was up in a ponytail and I took the opportunity to savor every taut muscle and tendon in her neck. This was next to the last day. I had thought I would use the week to have a few one-night stands and just have a good time. Instead I spent the week being a third

DIGBOSTON.C0M

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of anyone walking in. When I get there, the place is completely empty and they let me have my spot. I wish the place had some music playing in the background, like elevator music, something I could hum along to. I order a coffee and pretend that I am waiting for someone to join me. A lot of time passes and no one walks in. The bald owner keeps sending looks my way. He shrugs his shoulders and talks to his employees. I am loitering in his store and it annoys him. Either that or he realizes that I know about the secret entrance. A room directly behind the counter has a No Admittance sign on the door. None of the deli employees go in. The bald owner never goes in. Eventually people start coming in. At first it is people who are eating, trying to beat the lunch crowd just like me. They go right to the line and order their sandwiches. But then a woman walks in alone, carrying a garment bag. She is blonde and attractive. She dodges the line and pushes a key into the No Admittance door and walks in. After that, every few minutes another woman comes in and heads straight for the secret door. Some have garment bags. Some have shopping bags. Some have gym bags. They all walk by the line, attracting the attention of the men who stand waiting, and then they disappear into the door. I am on my fifth cup of coffee so I feel very jittery when I see Cindy walk in. I almost do not recognize her. She is wearing sunglasses and a scarf over her hair. She has no bag except her red purse. My insides start doing back flips. And that feeling, mixed with the unusual amount of caffeine I’ve had, makes me feel sick. I wait for Cindy to walk into the secret door, and then I walk quickly to the men’s room and throw up. I decide to go to Previews right away. I pop three mints into my mouth and pay my tab. Everything slows down finally—my heart rate, the thoughts in my head, time itself. I feel normal again. I have not been seen. All I can think about now is my dilemma and the inevitable solution. I am going to have to keep this a secret from Roger. I will never say anything. Even though Cindy has to know it is me she kisses for an hour every Thursday, I will play the game of keeping it all a secret. When the lights come on in the Kissing Room, I freeze where I stand. Some of the mouths are smiling. Some are pouty. Some lick their lips. All are very attractive and enticing. But Pink Lipstick with Gloss, Fourth Head from the

left has changed. I can tell right away it is a different head. Cindy is not in the room anymore. I sit down on the leather sofa and stare dumbly at all of the faces again and again hoping that maybe she’s switched heads or that my brain is deceiving me. Eventually the mouths stop smiling and flirting and instead look impatient or confused. The red digital timer ticks further and further to zero and with around twelve minutes left, I walk out. Weeks go by and I continue to return to the Kissing Room on Thursdays, hoping that Cindy had been temporarily reassigned to a different room. Eventually I realize she isn’t coming back and I stop going altogether. I sink into a sort of seclusion for a while after that, just going to work and quietly doing my daily tasks. I feel angry and betrayed by my best friend’s wife. I make up excuses to avoid lunch with Roger or dinner at his house. One day I randomly ask a new co-worker, Karen, out on a date. She seems thrilled. Karen is a boring woman, but she’s nice and not altogether unpleasant to look at. She styles her hair like a much younger woman, almost like a teenager—straight and parted down the middle. I can tell on the first date that she wants to please me, that she really wants me to like her. She laughs at any half-assed attempts I make to be witty. She touches her hair and her face often and smiles whenever I look at her. When I take her back to her place, she invites me up. It is all too easy but it feels nice to be wanted. Lying in bed afterward, I think I could make a go of this. I feel like I have to. After a few weeks dating Karen, I bring her over to Roger and Cindy’s for dinner. Cindy goes all out on the dinner, making three courses and a dessert. Everything tastes great. She and Roger can’t stay away from each other. It is like they are the ones who just started dating. Cindy looks different too. She has dyed her hair so that it is darker. She wears red, which is something I’ve never seen, and her face is different too. Different makeup, bolder. Different lipstick—now it is a dark red. She hardly looks at me during the entire dinner and makes only small talk. I am like someone that she’s just met. After dinner, I follow Roger into his playroom under the pretense of listening to some new album he has acquired. “Things have really stepped up for Cindy and me. I’ve got to tell you something.” He leans in close like he’s going to whisper in my ear. “Cindy works at Previews now, in the I-Room.” “Wow.”

“I know, but it’s not bad, because she only works one shift a week and I’m her only client. I’m not into objectifying my wife or anything, but this has saved us. I’m not sure you know how close to being over we were. It’s like we’ve found each other again. There’s something about not having ownership of your spouse, or at least not feeling like you do … whatever. It’s amazing. Plus she looks so much hotter when she walks into the I-Room at Previews. We are like two people who have never made love at all. Every time we go at it, it’s like new, and Cindy will do things that I never thought she would do.” I’m nodding. I can think of nothing to say. “I know. This is weird. Sorry man. Karen seems nice.” “She is.” And we leave it at that. I walk out of the room. The ladies are talking pleasantly. We all sit together for a while and catch up. I feel like I’m very quiet and that Cindy is too. Roger and Karen do most of the talking. I offer to help Cindy with the dishes. In the kitchen, we hardly speak. I rinse the dishes off and hand them to her to put in the dishwasher. The most we say is “Here you go” or “Thank you.” When the dishwasher is loaded and started, we finally look at each other. She gives me a half smile, what appears to be a conciliatory grin. There is absolutely nothing to say. “We should get back out there,” she says as she stops and places her hand on my shoulder. Then, she gives it a squeeze. And she’s gone.

Mark Cravens used to spend his time teaching math to eighth graders. Now he spends his days with his four boys, providing them with bad habits and lots of sugar. You can read more of his fiction in Bird’s Thumb, Swamp Biscuits & Tea, and The Bicycle Review.

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

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D E PA R T M E N T O F COMMERCE

NEWS + FEATURES

DEPARTMENT COMMERCE of

>> STADIUM SPORTS BAR & GRILL IN SOUTHIE AND DOWNTOWN BOSTON HAS CLOSED, TO THE DISMAY OF BROS EVERYWHERE. >> DAVIS SQUARE JUST GOT A SOLID NEW SPOT FOR SHEEP’S CHEESE PIZZA AND ITALIAN GOODIES CALLED PEPE BOCCA.

SHINE ON IN CAMBRIDGE BY CADY VISHNIAC @CAVISHNIAC

HOT POT HEADS

Jack Huang, the owner and proprietor of the sushi strongholds Douzo in the Back Bay and Basho in Fenway, has heard your calls for a sleek new hot pot emporium. The result: the new ShabuMaru, which has just opened in the Westin Copley Place and features hot pot combos starting at $19. Hot pots, like restaurant bills, are great for splitting between friends who are equally cold and hungry for boiling cauldrons of broth, veggies, and meat. Also great if it’s too cold to get to Chinatown, where the stuff is probably cheaper.

NEW CENTRAL SQUARE

“ARTY OBJECTS”

SPRING (ROLLS) TIME

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01 14 15 – 01 21 15

Two things are likely to prevent you from hitting Davio’s Steakhouse for a bite to eat. One: It’s too cold to go out of the house. And two: You’re broke. Well, good news, because if you’ve mustered up the courage and the layers to venture outside when the thermometer drops below 32 degrees, you can stop into Davio’s bar Monday-Friday and land a free order of the killer spring rolls (ie: Philly cheesesteak, chicken parm, reuben) just for doing so.

SHOP FOR QUIRKY AWESOMENESS

A COUPLE WEEKS BEFORE THE HOLIDAYS,

something interesting happened to the old Out of the Blue Gallery space near Central Square. Windows were papered over, a crew of painters showed up, and in the evenings, light could be seen spilling out from under the front door. “I deliberately did not put up any kind of ‘Coming Soon’ or ‘Watch this Space,’” says Emma King, the owner of the new “arty objects” shop SHINE. “I wanted there to be an element of surprise.” After moving into the space in November, she says she worked round the clock to open SHINE in time for Christmas. King hoped to make her store “colorful and quirky and dynamic and poppy, and well-curated, hopefully.” And she’s succeeded. Gorgeous sugar skull pillows ($34-40) and candles made to look like Mexican pro wrestlers ($12) sit on the shelves next to robot salt and pepper shakers ($20) and copies of The Indie Rock Coloring Book ($9.95). It’s a whole bunch of stuff in a teeny tiny space, painstakingly >> SHINE. NOW OPEN. 106 PROSPECT ST., CAMBRIDGE. 617-661-5889.

arranged so nothing feels crowded. In fact, King is grooming a special Valentine’s Day section throughout my visit, moving stuffed animals onto one shelf with all of her lovey-dovey cards and assorted romantic doodads. A former photographer and filmmaker, she says, “A lot of my skill in photography lies in editing well, as well as having a good eye. I’m selective … whilst being dynamic and colorful, also being a little bit minimalist.” King’s bestselling items include her ties ($36), a USB-rechargeable bottle light shaped like a wine cork ($15), and a customizable cookie stamper ($15), which can be used to print any message on dough before baking. So far, business is brisk, with satisfied customers sending their friends her way. “I’ve yet to do any advertising. I’m relying on word of mouth,” King says. “I’m incredibly grateful to my new community.”

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OLDE MAGOUNʼS SALOON PRESENTS:

BACON PALOOZA VI WEDNESDAYSʼ JAN 7TH – 28TH 5-11PM

LOCAL UNDERGROUND Come for the cannolis, stay for the steak tacos. BY DAN MCCARTHY @ACUTALPROOF

BISCUITS & GRAVY

bacon cheddar cheese biscuits / maple cured bacon / country gravy

FIG- ALICIOUS

figs wrapped in smoked bacon stuffed with goat cheese drizzled with balsamic

ARANCINI

risotto stuffed with pancetta fontina cheese amatriciana sauce

BACON RANGOON

black pepper bacon / charred jalapenos / cream cheese / plum sauce

LACQUERED CRISPY PORK BELLY Szechuan spices / hoisin glaze / Asian slaw

BACON POUTINE

Tatar tot / cheese curds / bacon onion gravy / topped with soft egg

BEEF BACON BLUE

beef filets stuffed with blue cheese wrapped in bacon / pepper port reduction jalapeño bacon / slab bacon / chicharrones / smoked bacon / pancetta

BREAD PUDDING

warm maple bacon / dried fruit / salted caramel / bourbon ice cream

SMOKED MAPLE BACON OLDE FASHION muddled oranges / fresh cranberries

AECHT SCHLENKERLA RAUCHBIER ON DRAUGHT lightly smoked lager

@MAGOUNSSALOON OLDEMAGOUNSSALOON

DIGBOSTON.C0M

01 14 15 – 01 21 15

518 Medford St Somerville

16 magounssaloon.com|617 - 7 76 - 2 6 0 0

For over 70 years, Modern Pastry’s charm was anchored to its reputation as a North End staple for landing killer lobster tails and Old-World pastries in a cozy, somewhat cramped space that harkened back to the good old days when familyowned Italian storefronts with limited real estate lined Hanover Street. But co-owner John Picariello saw that the perpetual packed house was more a mark of its needing to expand than a reason to stay the same. “My dad, an old Italian, would say ‘Oh, you’re fine the way you are,’ but I would respond, ‘Dad, we’re losing business because [customers] can’t get in,’” he says. So last year, he purchased the neighboring space, which previously housed the Piccola Venezia restaurant, for a full-scale expansion, which brought with it all the history the 1910-built structure possessed, including a prefinished and unused public seating area in the basement. Enter Dave Ferrone, manager of the now-open Modern Underground restaurant located there. “I come in here and I’m like, ‘We really gotta redo the bar [down] here if it’s going to be usable,’ so I came in and redid it myself,” says Ferrone. “So now I’m stuck here,” he says, and adds with a

laugh, “I went from not working to this. I liked the not working part much better.” The new space is minimalist save for an abundance of flat screen TVs. Along with draft beer and wine, the eclectic, simple menu includes items such as succulent Steak Tacos ($10.50), Barbecue Spring Rolls, ($10.50), and the Angusbeef Modern Burger ($10.50). Picariello says the meat is sourced from a North End butcher, in keeping with the spot’s status as a true neighborhood joint. “I’ve been here my whole life, and my family has been here 85 years now,” says Picariello. “It’s getting harder and harder to know our neighbors. I [used to know] everyone on the street; I could go from building to building to building. This is a good way to get to know the people that still live here.” He adds, “It’s a spot to sit down, watch the game, have a beer and a burger in the neighborhood. Good, simple food made from scratch.” As if to punctuate that idea, while I was visiting, Picariello’s octogenarian father strolled in. After several moments of chitchatting with diners, he broke out into a bellowing Italian song for a few measures before glancing at the TVs and saying: “Okay that’s enough … I gotta go watch the Bruins.”

>> MODERN UNDERGROUND. NOW OPEN. 257 HANOVER ST., BOSTON. 617-523-3783. MODERNPASTRY.COM

PHOTO BY DAN MCCARTHY

BACON BOMB MAC & CHEESE

When it’s as cold out as it has been around these parts for the last week or so, it’s not unusual to want to lock yourself in your apartment and fire up a movie, pop some popcorn, and eat pizza until you explode. Which is fine and all. But be advised that on Monday nights from 10pm-midnight, you can pretty much achieve the same thing at Todd Winer’s dynamite authentic Neapolitan pizza house and hangout bar, now that they’ve launched Mondays at the Movies. Once there, you’ll be treated to gratis house-made pepperoniflavored popcorn at the bar, as well as pizza and drink specials themed to the chosen movies of the night, such as the “I want my $2 draft beer special” for a screening of the John Cusack classic Better Off Dead. If you don’t know the significance of that, you really need to brush up on ’80s Cusack flicks.

BREAKFAST

BRUNCH

243 Hampshire St, Inman Sq 617-491-0176

www.inmanoasis.com

&LUNCH

+dinner &Entertainment award winning

@ 5pm

after 10pm

>> PASTORAL. 345 CONGRESS ST. 617-345-0005. PASTORALFORTPOINT.COM

$2. CASH.

CENTRAL SQUARE. 472-480 MASS AVE

NEWS + FEATURES D E PA R T M E N T O F COMMERCE

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2009

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

NOW OPEN FOR

MONDAY NIGHT MOVIE LIGHTS BY DAN MCCARTHY @ACUTALPROOF

SLEEPING BEAUTIES: BEERS WORTH AGING NOW Five local seasonals that’ll test your willpower BY KAREN CINPINSKI @CATSINPJS

REAL FOOD every night TILL ' CLOSE

A true test of willpower: waiting months, years, to drink a beer. But, some suds benefit from a little aging. They’re like the George Clooneys of beer, evolving and maturing in flavor intensities and taste complexities. As a rule, the best nominees for aging have elevated ABVs and are fortified with rich, dark malts (think: barleywines, Belgian ales, barrel-aged brews, imperials, doubles, and other burly beers), and they’re available en masse now. Find and (eventually) imbibe these local seasonals and new releases ready to hit the pillow for a spell—or however long you can fight the urge to uncap them. Patience is a virtue, people.

9 2 h a m p s hir e s t, ca m b r id g e , m a | 6 1 7-2 5 0 - 8 4 5 4 | l o r d h o b o.c o m

Month-Long (all of January)

Tap Take-Over The World’s Oldest Brewery, Est. 1040 AD

Tradition & Craft Produced Premium Bier

SLEEPING BEAUTY: BERKLEY BELGIAN STYLE TRIPLE Style: Abbey Tripel ABV: 8.9%

SLEEPING BEAUTY: JACK’S ABBY BRIDE MAKER Style: Lager Wine ABV: 13%

from Berkley Beer in

nuptials of several

This rotating brew

Mass is made with local honey and

comes already aged in rye whiskey bar-

- Vitus Weizenbock - Hefeweissbier

DIGBOSTON.C0M

01 14 15 – 01 21 15

- Hefeweissbier Dunkel

- Korbinian Doppelbock

rels for four months.

- Kristall Weissbier”

for a few months

- Original Premium Lager

Let this one rest

and you’ll find that the booze softens, making the beer

incredibly smooth.

Tastings will be held: Thursday 1/8 7:00-9:00 PM Thursday 1/22 7:00-9:00 PM 518 Medford St, Somerville, MA 02145

Grab a bottle, lock, and key.

Named to honor the

SLEEPING BEAUTY: HARPOON TUSCAN POOL PARTY Style: Fruit Beer ABV: 7.6%

SLEEPING BEAUTY: BACKLASH BEER VANDAL Style: Double IPA ABV: 8.5% This limited release

SLEEPING BEAUTY: WHITE BIRCH OL’ CATTYWHOMPUS Style: English Barleywine ABV: 10.5%

Jack’s Abby Brewing

Harpoon’s 100 Barrel

Beer is in celebration

Hampshire’s White

staffers, this is the

Mass-based brewery’s second take on a barrel-aged

lager wine. Aged in

bourbon barrels, the October release’s

mega ABV and dark malts make it the

perfect candidate

for a long nap in the cellar.

The recent release in Series, number 52,

pays homage to an

employee-only trip to Italy that led to

collaboration with

Birrificio L’Olmaia, a

brewery in Montep-

ulciano. Aged on oak spirals and brewed with a balance of

juicy hops and sweet Sangiovese and Merlot grape juice, the

ale, if matured just

a little longer, might grow a mustache.

by Mass’s Backlash of their third-year anniversary. It’s

brewed with three

different varieties of

hops. The big IPA will likely lose some of

its hops-forwardness over time, but

the caramel malt

will start to shine through.

Brewed by New

Birch Brewing, this

English barleywine has two key aging

ingredients: a high ABV and darker

grains. After a couple years, the hops will

likely recede and the suds will take on

sweeter sherry-like flavors. Don’t get

confused, it’s still beer.

EAT+DRINK

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BY DAN MCCARTHY @ACUTALPROOF

NEWS + FEATURES

Polar-vortex-proof drinking, with more fire

HALF-OFF boston

D E PA R T M E N T O F COMMERCE

IN TOD’ WE TRUST

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$50 to BELLA LUNA RESTAURANT & MILKY WAY LOUNGE for $25 It’s been said that the medicinal cold weather cure-all of choice for William Faulkner was the hot toddy. For anyone who has burst through their local saloon’s doors on a icy night in Boston, face frozen from the snapping wind, and called out for one to restore a little life in their limbs, it’s one of many reinforcing examples of Faulkner’s general imbibing-related intelligence (as was his old adage: “Well, between Scotch and nothin’, I suppose I’d take Scotch. It’s the nearest thing to good moonshine I can find”). While there is no shortage of varieties to be found in town at bars both high and dive, stopping into Stoddard’s Fine Food and Ale downtown means you’ll be facing an interesting, simple twist on the classic bourbon-based quick pickerupper. As bar manager Jamie Walsh puts it, “It’s for people who like shit set on fire.” “Ours is inspired by one that caught my eye a few years back, watching something Dave DeGroff (aka: "King Cocktail") was doing,” he says. “He’s kinda the Godfather of what we’re doing cocktail-wise in this side of industry. He’s NYC’s version of [legendary Boston mixologist] Brother Cleve.” In short, it’s a small amendment and improvisation on the traditional recipe, using as a base Spanish coffee, which is poured into a thin wine glass after being lined with triple sec and 151 over-proof rum. With a long stick, the over-proof is set ablaze and allowed to burn a bit. By twirling the fire, the bartender can make sure the sugar hardens around the glass before adding the Kahlua, coffee, and lightly-whipped cream with grated fresh cinnamon on top. Sweet, unctuous, and with the sweet burn of rum. Faulkner was right. “It’s different and fun,” says Walsh. “When people see it [on a cold night] they just say, ‘That’s what I want.’” >> FLAMING HOT TODDY. $11. AVAILABLE AT STODDARD’S FOOD AND ALE. 48 TEMPLE PLACE, BOSTON. 617-526-0048. STODDARDSFOODANDALE.COM

$20 to THE DUMPLING ROOM for $10 $20 to JACOB WIRTH for $10 $50 to JOHN HARVARDS for $25

NEW DEALS every week

F o r r e g u l a r u p d at e s o n n e w d e a l s + s p e c i a l d i s c o u n t s , s i g n u p f o r t h e D a i ly D i g at

digboston.com/dailydig

For more deals go to: digboston.com/deals

digboston humor | news | lifestyle

Wednesday January 14th

CLAUDIA SCHMIDT Singer-Songwriter / Folk

Thursday January 15th For the Sake of the Song presents

CENTRAL SQ. CAMBRIDGE, MA mideastclub.com | zuzubar.com (617) 864-EAST | ticketweb.com

-DOWNSTAIRS-

SONGS LINDA TAUGHT US

Featuring the songs Linda Ronstadt made famous Friday January 16th 7:30PM

MEMPHIS ROCKABILLY BAND Rockabilly

SAT 1/16

CRACKER

CAMPER VAN BEETHOVEN SAT 1/17

TRAPPED IN THE 90’S WITH MUSIC BY DIAMOND D. ON 1S & 2S SUN 1/18 NV CONCEPTS PRESENTS:

THU 1/22 - LEEDZ PRESENTS

Friday January 16th 10PM

BIM SKALA BIM Boston Ska

Saturday January 17th 7:30PM

JUNIOR BROWN PLUS LYLE BREWER, TONY SAVARINO & THE SAVTONES AND COLIN DWYER BAND Rockabilly

Tuesdays in January 5:30PM Free Barside Duo

JESSE & MARIAM Indie / Folk

17 Holland St., Davis Sq. Somerville (617) 776-2004 Directly on T Red Line at Davis

- UPSTAIRS WED 1/14

THAT 1 GUY THU 1/15 - LEEDZ PRESENTS

BLACK DAVE FRI 1/16

WED 1.14

GUILLERMO SEXO SAT 1/17 HERE NOW LIVE: SUN 1/18

ROSU LUP / ERIC LEVA MON 1/19

DIGBOSTON.C0M

01 14 15 – 01 21 15

Friday January 23rd 10PM We Dig Free Fridays presents

WHISKEY KILL PLUS THE RED PENNYS Rockabilly

Friday January 31st 10PM

SIOBHAN MAGNUS of American Idol

PLUS

THU 1/22

PAPER WAVES Rock

DOUGIE F & DJ FIRE /mideastclub /zuzubar @mideastclub @zuzubar

JESSE & MARIAM Indie/Folk

17 Holland St., Davis Sq. Somerville (617) 776-2004 Directly on T Red Line at Davis

FRI 1.16

Vinyl Social

BSO 101

Negative Thinking

You’re familiar with Tigerman Woah’s whiskey-soaked Americana (and if you aren’t, well, you really should be), but you’ve yet to get to know their record collection. Tonight is the night you will, as they guest DJ at Good Life’s Vinyl Social, an evening of swapping, selling, and spinning with other collectors.

It’s not hard to appreciate the symphony: Go, sit, listen, delight in the sonic joy the strings incite. But if you want to up your game and become a virtuosic listener, head to Boston Symphony Orchestra’s “Are You Listening?” series—also known as “classical music for dummies”— designed to enhance your listening abilities and appreciation of music, no degree required.

The Power of Negative Thinking would likely make for a shitty selfhelp book, but it’s a good premise for an art show. The seven featured artists address life’s unpleasant aspects, with projects—paintings, sculpture, installation, photography—that represent a world where happiness is seen as the ultimate commodity.

Good Life Boston, 28 Kingston St., Boston. 8:30pm/18+/FREE. goodlifebar.com

Symphony Hall, 301 Mass Ave., Boston. 5:30pm/all ages/FREE, $15 reception. bso.org

New Art Center, 61 Washington Park., Newtonville. 6-8pm/all ages/ FREE. newartcenter.org

swap + sell + spin

Tuesdays in January 5:30PM Free Barside Duo

SWIZZYMACK

WED 1.14 get schooled

will it be any good?

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512 Mass. Ave. Central Sq. Cambridge, MA 617-576-6260 phoenixlandingbar.com

CHANCES ARE THERE'S A PARTY IN HARVARD SQUARE. OR AT THE VERY LEAST ON THE 66 BUS.

FRI 1.16

SAT 1.17

TUE 1.20

#BlackPoetsSpeakOut

Gordon Parks

Opus Affair

Taking over the House Slam this week is Black Poets Speak Out, a poetry event that aims to continue building upon the momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement. With respect, the evening’s open mic is reserved for poets of color. Whether your role is to listen up or speak up, make sure to show up.

The work of celebrated AfricanAmerican photographer Gordon Parks is on display at the Museum of Fine Arts in an exhibit that focuses on the realities of life under segregation during the 1940s, while simultaneously detailing Parks’ own story. As a photojournalist for TIME Magazine, Parks was often assigned stories on social issues over his white colleagues—the national black narrative resting in his hands.

Since you were already planning on spending your Tuesday imbibing spiked punch, might as well make it for charity—the hangover hurts less when it’s for a good cause. The raisons de boire at this month’s Opus Affair meetup are arts organizations Bridge Rep of Boston, Girls Rock Camp, and Opera on Tap. Cheers.

Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Ave., Boston. On view through 9.13. For museum hours and admission prices, visit mfa.org

Stoddard’s Fine Food & Ale, 28 Temple Place, Boston. 6-9pm/21+/FREE. opusaffair.org

art as activism

Haley House Bakery Cafe, 14 Dade St., Roxbury. 6:30pm/18+/ FREE. For more information, visit the event Facebook page.

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drink up

PHOTO BY AUSTIN DICKEY. SUBMIT YOUR DIG THIS ARTWORK TO SCOTT@DIGPUBLISHING.COM

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01 14 15 – 01 21 15

In an e-mail last week, Allston’s ARCH Gallery announced that they are shutting down operations effective immediately after less than a year in existence. In the statement, the Gallery alluded to the ongoing struggle to fully realize the space’s potential in the face of seemingly endless red tape. It states: “Months before the March opening and ever since, ARCH has battled for permitting to allow larger parties to enjoy our space, musicians to fill the air, and more guests to gather and enjoy local art. This week, after over a year of effort from all possible angles from the ARCH team, management has decided this quest has become too extensive and difficult, and will shut off the lights and close ARCH Gallery’s 52 Everett Street location.” While not completely closing the book, this move would seem to mark the end for Allston Rock City Hall, the new live music venue that property owners CRE Management had originally hoped to open in the warehouse space on Everett Street, which also houses Studio 52. Despite that, the ARCH team is still “trying to relocate as many of our 2015 shows as possible and find likeminded backing support, and they will be seeking a new location. In the meantime: You can see a small showcase of their artists this month at the Out of the Blue Gallery Too, 541 Mass Ave in Cambridge.

>> GOOGLE IT: FROM FENWAY PARK TO FIREWORKS, LOCAL FILMMAKERS' TIMELAPSE VIDEO SHOWS BOSTON LOOKING PRETTY. >> UNITED WITH SURVIVORS: PROTESTORS PLAN TO PROTEST BILL COSBY’S TWO SHOWS AT THE WILBUR IN FEBRUARY.

AGENT OF CHAOS

BY SUSANNA JACKSON @SUEDOESNTTWEET

MATTHEW RITCHIE

CLOSES HIS EXPANSIVE ICA RESIDENCY WITH AN IMMERSIVE MULTIMEDIA PERFORMANCE FOR THE LAST 18 MONTHS, Matthew Ritchie has made

his presence at the Institute of Contemporary Art known—within, on, and outside of the museum’s walls. A mural of gray lines, shadows, and amoeba-like splotches greeted commuters just outside South Station. Through slashing rain, a group of concertgoers found refuge in an old seaman’s chapel for an elegiac site-specific musical performance. Paint jumps off a gallery wall onto windowpanes, the aesthetic of the installation slightly different depending on the hour in which you stand in front of it. This week, Ritchie will bring his residency, Remanence, to a close with a presentation of the layered and experimental “The Long Count/The Long Game,” a collaborative museum-spanning performance about the beginning of time featuring Aaron and Bryce Dessner of the National, Kelley Deal of the Breeders, Shara Worden of

My Brightest Diamond, MIT composer Evan Ziporyn, and an 11-person ensemble. We caught up with Ritchie to discuss this passion project, as well as cultural literacy, interdisciplinary arts, and coffee critics. The work you’ve done in your 18-month residency has played with the theme of memory. Why end the experience with a performance exploring the beginning of time—a time before memories exist? That’s an awesome question, but you’ve answered it. Of course we’re going to end with the beginning. It was always built around that, partly because the curator [Jenelle Porter] came to see the first performance of the show and it was such a powerful memory for her. We wanted to play with this idea of a memory rebuilt, which is a theme to this whole project: what can you remember, what’ve you forgotten. It seemed natural to end this way. Plus—it’s my birthday. AGENT OF CHAOS continued on pg. 24

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AGENT OF CHAOS continued from pg. 22

What about the multi-genre approach excites you? Why do you challenge or reinterpret traditional spaces? What I’m particularly interested in, and what this project has really allowed, is not just a kind of “Sleep No More” where there is a lot of crazy stuff going on, but a way to look at the rules of social interaction and how by changing one or two rules you really change the way people feel about a space forever. If you go back somewhere and you’re like, “You know, that was the place where we went around the back of there and smoked weed one time,” that really changes how you feel about something. It becomes kind of a secret. And so this will be like recomposing the rules of being in a museum; you don’t go to the museum to have your tarot read, you don’t go to the museum to smash a guitar, or you don’t go to the museum to see Kelley Deal hanging out in the lobby doing very unusual things. But now you will have done all of that. So now, anyone who was there, from that moment on, will go back and think this is the place where all those things all happened at the same time. Shifting your role to the world, open up all these previous unknown possibilities—that’s what interests me most about what they call “transmedia.” When your Dewey Square mural was unveiled, you did an interview at the Globe where you said, “After five years, the citizens of Boston will be art critics.” Were you referring to an emerging or growing cultural literacy in the city, or where you being a little snarky? It’s sort of the culture when everyone becomes a coffee critic. You know, it’s a little bit annoying at times. Like, are we really going to talk that much about coffee? But its also a sign that you can take another step in that direction. If you liked the mural or didn’t like the mural, well come see a rock show … The ICA is a pretty dynamic institution, but this residency really pushed the edge of what an institution can do. Part of the goal of this project was they invited me to be an agent of chaos and try to do almost impossible things. So that’s a sign of growth, right, when an institution says, “We are old enough to take risks that we wouldn’t have taken a year ago or five years ago. It’s just too much for us and now we want to try this—we’re ready to fail.”

DIGBOSTON.C0M

01 14 15 – 01 21 15

What do you hope the energy will be like at the final performances: celebratory, serious? Do you hope the experience will jolt audiences, surprise them, challenge them? I’m not interested in frightening people. It’s more about gently reminding them that the rules we all live by can be changed, and it can be fun to try new things … I think it will feel respectful and very, very intriguing. Although the ideas are all really crazy, there is a level of seriousness in the practice of the musicians. So it should feel crazy serious, like entertaining in the deepest sense of the word, where you’re like, “Something is going on here.” It’s not just a guy with a kazoo and a monkey suit. Although, that sounds pretty good. Next time. And what will be your greatest takeaway from your time at the ICA? I’m kind of amazed we pulled all this off. >> THE LONG COUNT/THE LONG GAME. INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART, 100 NORTHERN AVE., BOSTON. THU 1.15 + FRI 1.16 AT 7:30PM/ALL AGES/$30, $15 MEMBERS. ICABOSTON.ORG

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TWIG OUT

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WED 1.14

Slim Twig pieces it all together

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MUSIC EVENTS

BY MARTÍN CABALLERO @_EL_CABALLERO

BOSTON SINGER PROJECT

DIG THIS

[Passim, 47 Palmer St., Somerville. 8pm/$13-15. passim.org]

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STONER ROCK KARMA TO BURN + SIERRA + SAND RECKONER + RHINO KING

[T.T. The Bear’s, 10 Brookline St., Cambridge. 9pm/18+/$8. ttthebears.com]

THU 1.15

MOHAWK NIGHT RYAN PACKER + DJ COA

[28 Kingston St., Boston. 10pm/21+/FREE. Goodlifebar. com] FRI 1.16

PSYCH ROCK + POST ROCK THE TELEVIBES + FUTURE SPA + CHARLIE + BEN TAN

[Cantab Lounge, 738 Mass., Ave. 8pm/21+/$8. cantab-lounge. com]

RECORD STORE FEELS

SLIM TWIG PHOTO BY MEG REMY | ZS PHOTO BY YUKO TORIHARA

Zs + PARTICULARS + TRIGGER

[Deep Thoughts, 138B South St., Jamaica Plain. 8Pm/all ages/ $5-10. deepthoughtsjp.com]

POPCENTRIC TUNES LOS ELK + THE SHILLS + ALEX STERN & FRIENDS + GREAT WOODS + SLOWDIM

[T.T.The Bear’s, 10 Brookline Ave., Cambridge. 8:30pm/18+/$8. ttthebears.com]

I'LL BE OUT IN A MINUTE Given that he plays almost all the instruments, performs all the vocals, and handles all the production, Slim Twig passes through A Hound at the Hem with rather startling anonymity. That is to say that by the end of the Toronto artist’s sprawling and ambitious progressive pop LP, fantastic as it sounds, there aren’t a handful of signature moments of individual brilliance to look back on: no flashes of impressive vocal range or virtuoso instrumental solos, and no calling attention to anything that might draw attention away from the meticulously constructed whole. Although he may create all the pieces, Twig’s true talent lies in putting them all together. “My aesthetic is really kind of a collage-based thing where I’m constantly in the process of consuming culture, whether music or films or other art, and kind of blending those up and presenting them as something that’s in my own voice,” says Twig, born Max Turnbull, on the phone from Toronto. “My stuff is really idea driven. If I hear something that really intrigues me, it goes into the blender.” Since critical buzz carried him up from the city’s underground scene in 2008, Twig’s proverbial blender has hardly stopped spinning. His catalog speaks to a restless creative streak: Along with two solo LPs and EPs as Slim Twig, he produced wife Meg Remy’s album, GEM, as US Girls, and played punk rock with Tropics before transitioning to his current band project, Darlene Shrugg. Plus he’s starred in several Canadian indie flicks. And then there was

the two volumes of his free mixtape Spit It Twig!, a Madlib-referencing nod to sample-based hip-hop. Wherever he wants to go creatively, there’s a vehicle that can get him there. “As Slim Twig, I approach the music as a project, as a framework of ideas that I’m working from and a vision of what I’m after,” he explains. “I don’t have distinctions in my mind where I’m switching over from one to the next. It’s more like contributing to a project very specifically and kind of chipping away at it.” That takes us back to Hound, which was selfreleased in limited quantities in 2012 by Twig when his label, Paper Bag Records, passed on it. Re-released by DFA Records in October, the album, which follows a loosely conceptual narrative based on Lolita, showcases Twig in Brian Wilson mode, conjuring the spirits of psychedelic horror soundtracks, warped prog-rock, and elegant orchestral music with gleeful abandon, but also with purpose. With his forthcoming new music, Twig hopes to dive further into arranging the whole sonic world, rather than enacting everything about it. “My new stuff is the same: taking the idea of an album that already exists, using that as a jumpingoff point for my own imagination,” he says. “I do have a voice within the music that is my own and isn’t just the grafting of influences or whatever, but that is a tradition in all kinds of culture making, not just music.”

>> SLIM TWIG W/ US GIRLS. MIDDLE EAST UPSTAIRS, 472 MASS AVE., CAMBRIDGE. MON 1.19. 8PM/$10/18+. SLIM-TWIG.COM

BEAT DOWN

MUSIC EVENTS GARAGE-GAZE

Noelle LeBlanc + Co. keep it simple BY MARTÍN CABALLERO @_EL_CABALLERO

MAGIC SHOPPE, GUILLERMO SEXO, MILK, MOON TOWER

[Middle East Upstairs, 472 Mass Ave., Cambridge. 9pm/18+/$8. mideastclub. com] SAT 1.17

ONLY BADASS BANDS HAVE A HORSE FOR A DRUMMER

DIGBOSTON.C0M

01 14 15 – 01 21 15

Sometimes a band is just a band. Like, say, The Organ Beats. That’s the takeaway from speaking with Noelle LeBlanc, the Waltham-based band’s lead singer, who also plays guitar and keys, on the phone on a Wednesday evening as she finishes up some midweek grocery shopping. That’s not to say the Beats don’t have a clear artistic vision (more on that later), but, with LeBlanc having already experienced the pressurized world of major-label contracts and domestic tours as part of mid-aughts punk-pop outfit Damone, taking the understated route feels like a good fit. “We don’t sit down and have band meetings,” says LeBlanc, who started Organ Beats shortly after Damone’s dissolution in 2008. “We get together and just throw on some guitar, throw on some vocals. We challenge ourselves a little bit, but it just feels good to do something and hear it back.” It’s not an approach that yields a high volume of material— the band just last week dropped the video for “GOLDENHEART,” the title track from their most recent album, released in November 2012—but the results have been worth the wait. Between GOLDENHEART and the band’s 2009 debut Sleep When We Are Dead, LeBlanc, her brother Danny (drums), Mikey C. (bass), and Alex Fiorentino (guitars/keys) have built their rep on powerpop guitars, sweeping hooks, and Noelle’s versatile vocals, all parts fitting together with a natural chemistry despite the fact that much of their individual work is done alone. “It was a pretty easy process actually,” say LeBlanc. “We kind of record in our own homes, then send stuff out to be mixed. “I like doing it at home because you have more time to play with melodies and different instruments.” But their upcoming project—an album tentatively titled Dynasty of Millions that’s inspired by hours of watching “Cosmos” and “interspace conspiracy type stuff,” according to LeBlanc—will take them in a slightly different creative direction, not to mention back into the studio to actually work together in vivo. “The music is still pretty much rock and roll, but with some space sounds I guess?” LeBlanc laughs. “The songs are kind of about looking up and wishing you were out there or something. It will still have a huge pop influence. But we are going to try and experiment a bit with tape and weird experimental sounds, to have fun with it.” >> THE ORGAN BEATS W/ SIDEWALK DRIVER + LEO*LEO + WORSHIPPER. THE SINCLAIR, 52 CHURCH ST., CAMBRIDGE. SAT 1.17. 8PM/$12/18+. THEORGANBEATS.BANDCAMP.COM

THRUST CLUB DEATH WALTZ + WHOOPI STICKS + PINK PARTS

[Lilypad, .1353 Cambridge St., Cambridge. 7pm/$5-10. lilypadinman.com]

LO-FI HIGH FIVE WAKES + FUN ADV + LOST FILM+ MINI DRESSES

[Great Scott, 1222 Comm Ave., Allston. 9pm/18+/ $8. greatscottboston.com] WED 1.21

RE:SET W/ SOUTH AFRICAN SOUL BLACK COFFEE

[Phoenix Landing, 512 Mass Ave., Cambridge. 10pm-1am/19+/FREE. phoenixlanding.com]

REASSURING ELECTRO

JIM-E STACK

[Great Scott, 1222 Comm Ave., Allston. 9pm/18+/ $10. greatscottboston.com]

RAUCOUS MODERN ROCK THE WHIGS + THESE WILD PLAINS, DJ CARB

[Brighton Music Hall, 158 Brighton Ave., Allston. 8pm/18+/$12. crossroadspresents.com]

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THU 1.15

MFA showcases the diversity of Iranian film

$25 TICKETS @ NEW ENGLAND CANNABIS CONVENTION!

BY KRISTOFER JENSON @DAILYFANBOY

THE BRIDGE...TO THE DARK SIDE THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI

[Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Ave., Boston. 6:30pm/NR/$9-$11. mfa. org/film] FRI 1.16

A FUTURE PERFECT @ SPEAKEASY STAGE COMPANY

@FTER MIDNITE

JOHNNY A @ JOHNNY D’S BRYAN CALLEN @ LAUGH BOSTON BACONPALOOZA VI @ OLDE MAGOUN’S SALOON

NOW

DIGBOSTON.C0M

01 14 15 – 01 21 15

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THE PHOENIX PROJECT

BECAUSE WHEN I THINK IRAN I THINK CAMPING No matter the state of relations between American and Iranian leadership, it is in the interest of film lovers the world over to keep a keen eye on the multi-layered world of Iranian cinema, celebrated annually by the Festival of Films from Iran at the Museum of Fine Arts. From aboveboard releases to underground projects that were smuggled out of the country on a flash drive, slice-of-life dramas to subversive commentary, the work of established pros to first-time directors, the extent to which Iranian artists and audiences are flocking to film as a means of expression is fascinating for its prevalence, and useful for developing a threedimensional view of life, philosophy, and politics as seen by Iranians themselves. For the uninitiated, experiencing an entirely new cinematic style can be a lot to take in, so we’ve organized this year’s slate into two categories: those made in Iran with full knowledge and support from the authorities, and those made subversively or under conditions of questionable legality. On the domestic front, be sure to catch What’s the Time in Your World?, a meditation on accepting that the changing reality of your hometown will never live up to your gilded memories, featuring familiar face Leila Hatami, known to international audiences as the star of A Separation, the first Iranian film to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Bending the Rules follows a young musical group whose members have the opportunity to embark on an international tour yet also face obstacles from their once-revolutionary parents. Most unique in this category is Fish & Cat, a movie experience that you will never see coming. Partially inspired by a true story, Shahram Mokri’s film follows the collision of urban students attending a kite-flying competition and their

temporary neighbors, a strange pair of restaurant owners who may or may not serve human flesh. Shot in a single take, Fish & Cat plays with familiar horror conventions with a satisfyingly grim sense of humor and no small amount of suspense. A must-see. The semi-legal, underground selections bend toward docudrama and documentary, covering subjects likely unfamiliar to Western audiences. StopOver, which follows the ordeals faced by migrants all over the Mediterranean and Europe, good people who must put their faith in smugglers and hope for the best. Iranian is a social experiment in which atheist Mehran Tamadon, who was born and raised in Iran but lives in France, lived in a house with conservative clerics supportive of the Iranian regime. The documentary follows the ensuing debates on how to arrive at and construct the ideal society. Of note on the subversive side is New York Times favorite Fifi Howls from Happiness, a documentary that tells the unique story of once-celebrated artist Bahman Mohassess, an openly gay man whose work was omnipresent before the 1979 revolution. Finally, there is the headline-making Cannes favorite Manuscripts Don’t Burn by renowned dissident filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof, who crafted this fact-based tale completely clandestinely. Manuscripts explores a fictionalized version of the infamous "chain killings," which saw over 80 writers and intellectuals murdered by mysterious, possibly government, organizations. Though the thaw in relations between the US and Iran is promising, it alone cannot create understanding between the two worlds. Iranians are making enormous, often risky, efforts to tell us their story in film. We owe it to them, the world, and ourselves to appreciate their labor and their artistry.

>> BOSTON FESTIVAL OF FILMS FROM IRAN. MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, 465 HUNTINGTON AVENUE, BOSTON. FRI 1.16 - SUN 1.26. FOR SHOWTIMES AND TICKET PRICES, VISIT MFA.ORG/FILM

[Coolidge Corner. 290 Harvard St., Brookline. midnight/NR/$11.25. coolidge.org]

BEST WORST MOVIE PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE

[Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290 Harvard St., Brookline. Fri 1.16 - Sat 1.17. midnight/ NR/$11.25. coolidge.org]

ALEJANDRO DOUBLE FEATURE THE DANCE OF REALITY & JODOROWSKY’S DUNE [Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St., Harvard Sq., Cambridge. Dance: 7pm/NR. Dune: 5pm, 9:45pm/R/$7-12. brattlefilm. org]

SAT 1.17

BOSTON ONLINE FILM CRITICS ASSOC. BEST PICTURE 2014

SNOWPIERCER

[Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St., Harvard Sq., Cambridge. 4pm, 9pm/R/$7-12. brattlefilm.org]

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WED 1.14

‘A Future Perfect’ premieres with SpeakEasy BY SUSANNA JACKSON @SUEDOESNTTWEET

CASH FOR YOUR WARHOL AND FRIENDS ‘STREET STUDY’ RECEPTION

[The Beehive, 541 Tremont St., Boston. 6:30pm/FREE. For full details, visit the event Facebook page]

COMEDIC CHEKHOVIAN MASHUP VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE

[BU Theatre, 264 Huntington Ave., Boston. Ongoing through SUN 2.1. For showtimes and ticket prices, visit huntingtontheatre.org] THU 1.15

PEM PARTY ART, OF THE WALL

[Peabody Essex Museum, 161 Essex St., Salem. 6-9pm/$10, Free for Salem residents, members. pem.org]

THE ARTIST FORMERLY KNOWN AS CAITLIN DUENNEBIER

DIGBOSTON.C0M

01 14 15 – 01 21 15

“If you asked me 10 years ago where I wanted to be ...” M. Bevin O’Gara lets the thought hang in the empty rehearsal room, the production of “A Future Perfect” now moved to a stage at Calderwood Pavilion for the show’s world premiere. The director doesn’t clue me in to what a decade-younger version of herself imagined for her life in 2015, but says her priorities have shifted. Now—recently engaged, gainfully employed as an associate producer at Huntington Theater, and fresh off a year that saw her directorial work in Boston on many Best of 2014 lists—O’Gara says, “I’m happy.” It is this line of thought that sits at the crux of “A Future Perfect,” a new play by Ken Urban that the SpeakEasy Stage Company has billed as “A timely new comedy about friendship, babies, and defining success.” In a Brooklyn apartment with a guitar mounted to a red accent wall, chairs adorned with orange accent pillows, and a fat stack of old records, a couple who met in the nineties grapples with what they want out of life, what they need from each other, and how those things have changed since their relationship began. Nearing 40, Claire (Marianna Bassham) has “professionalized” and Max (Brian Hastert) works for pennies on a PBS puppet show. Their respective shifts in priorities since they were in college come into sharp focus when they learn their friends are pregnant—and

Claire is openly, albeit unconsciously, hostile about the news. “What I liked about this play was that Claire was unlike other women I’d been reading,” says O’Gara, who has known the playwright for years (but this is their first collaboration). “She was blunt, she said what was on her mind, and it gets her in trouble— that part of her doesn’t change throughout the play. She says blunt things in scene one, she says blunt things in scene nine, but her awareness of that is different. She is actively deciding to be that same person, even though parts of herself have shifted.” “I heard Claire very early on,” says Urban. “What her voice sounded like, what her goals were—and I knew I had to make her fearless.” This fearless-yet-conflicted protagonist is matched by the even-tempered musical Max, and both of them continue to bring their briefcases and baggage home from work each day, building the tension in their chic, contemporary condo. Pregnancy may have been what set off the soul searching, but it’s not the only thing impacting their senses of self. The political and professional pressures keep each person’s character in constant flux, and through it all, “A Future Perfect” asks, can a partnership last? “We often talk about drifting apart,” says O’Gara, “but can we drift together?”

>> A FUTURE PERFECT. CALDERWOOD PAVILION, 539 HUNTINGTON AVE., BOSTON. ONGOING THROUGH SAT 2.7. FOR SHOWTIMES AND TICKET PRICES, VISIT SPEAKEASYSTAGE.COM

‘IT WAS PRETTY VIOLENT’ RECEPTION

[Thomas Young Gallery, 516 E 2nd St., Boston. 7-9pm/FREE. thomasyounggallery.com] FRI 1.16

PICTURE YOURSELF ‘SELF PORTRAITS NOT #SELFIES’ RECEPTION

[Panopticon Gallery, 502C Comm Ave., Boston. 5:30-7:30pm/FREE. panopticongallery.com]

AND ANOTHA ONE CHEAP SEATS 25

[Cambridge YMCA Theater, 820 Mass Ave., Cambridge. 7pm/all ages/$5-10. For more information, visit the event Facebook page]

PHOTO BY CRAIG BAILEY/PERSPECTIVE PHOTO

HEY, THESE DAYS EVEN MUPPETS NEED A SECOND JOB

WHAT'S FOR BREAKFAST BY PATT KELLEY WHATS4BREAKFAST.COM

THE STRIP BAR BY PAT FALCO ILLFALCO.COM

“Increased porn use in men is very often a response to loneliness—due to divorce, separation, etc.—or stress or depression,” said Dr. David Ley, writer, clinical psychologist, and author of The Myth of Sex Addiction.. Deployment to a war zone, needless to say, can be highly stressful and very lonely. “Sexual arousal is VERY good at diverting us from things we’re bothered by,” said Dr. Ley. “For many people, that’s fine, and it works great to let off steam. But if you’re not taking care of the real issue—loneliness, depression, stress—then the porn use can sometimes become its own problem.” Which is what seems to have happened in your case, PAR. Dr. Ley agrees that your husband should get some solo counseling in addition to the couples counseling you’re planning on getting together. As for your out-of-sync libidos, PAR, try to bear in mind that all of this—the discovery that it wasn’t just porn, the communication that’s happened in the wake of that revelation, the reawakening of your libido—basically just went down. It may take some time (and counseling) before you two reconnect and reestablish your sexual groove. “PAR’s husband might be intimidated by his wife’s libido and desire—if he is a guy who is struggling with unmanaged feelings of depression and anxiety,” said Dr. Ley. “So he could benefit from seeing a therapist and doing some work around how he is coping with these feelings while on deployment, and how he communicates these feelings to his wife. This way, she would know that when he’s not interested in sex, it’s because he’s stressed or depressed, not because of the porn.”

As bartenders we’re pretty damn good at appearing to be busy. It’s engrained in us. There’s always something that could be cleaned in your downtime, so we clean, wiping up non-existent spills and polishing clean silverware … and all the while we’re listening. People forget that we’re there and they speak freely, especially once the alcohol sets in. The bar between us provides a barrier of only a couple of feet, but people have this false sense of security, the idea that when they sit there secrets are shared and kept. And sometimes they are, but not all the time. If a customer tells me something in confidence, my lips are sealed. If I’m a forgotten fly on the wall however, that’s a different story. So here are seven of my favorite things not-so-accidentally overheard recently at my bar. 7. “And I told her, I said, ‘You’re not coming back in here without that shoe.’” 6. “I have to stop groping strangers. That’s how you end up in the back of a van with no mascara. Van, okay. No mascara? Not okay.” 5. “Man, Hitler really ruined that mustache style for everyone.” 4. “I don’t know man … I’m just a cuddler. I like to cuddle, dude.” 3. “And I told that bartender, no way, I don’t want this White Russian, it tastes like chocolate milk.” 2. “People who don’t know who Vanna White is are communists.” 1. “If I get a phone call today from a mysterious 617 number I probably have gonorrhea.”

OUR VALUED CUSTOMERS BY TIM CHAMBERLAIN OURVC.NET

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My husband and I have been married for 10 years and have two children. We had a wild sex life in the beginning, but his job (he’s military) took him away so many times that our relationship (and the sex) took a nosedive. Upon coming back from deployments, he would always have an addiction to porn. I would believe him when he’d tell me that he stopped, but every time he’d come back it would start again. Last fall, he was gone for four months, and the addiction is still there. For the past year, he was going onto anonymous webcam sites and engaging in mutual masturbation with random women. I found out, and we are talking now about our problems and working to resolve them. The camming has stopped and we are going to attend counseling as a couple, but I also think he should attend counseling for himself. Our newfound communication and intimacy has reawakened my libido, and now I want it more than him. I’m angry that the lack of frequent sex is what drove him to porn, but now the problem is that I want it too much! I don’t know how to handle my newfound libido and his lack of interest. I need him to be more adamant about showing me he wants me. Am I reading too much into it and being too needy? Paranoid And Reawakened

BY LIZZIE HAVOC @BARHAVOC

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