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ROYALE
DEAR READER
TORO Y MOI
ELECTION TRASH
With an election in play and my having been admittedly over the top on Twitter for the past couple of months on account of, among other things, being triggered by campaign signs for conservative Geoff Diehl (who by the time this piece is published could be the new US senator from Massachusetts, so help us lord), I was relatively timid across social media this week in order to stay out of the fray. The truth is that while many of my personal comments are stupid and vile, I really do lock most ideas that are insanely controversial into draft mode for at least a couple minutes before firing upon the world, and very often delete darts rather than send them. But that’s not really enough anymore. In a climate that has people threatening the lives of journalists and their perceived partisan rivals over rhetorical barbs, I recently began to stockpile notes that may fare better with the kind of readers who actually open and read articles and columns instead of just barking at the headlines. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t stand by any of these notions if they happened to be isolated and disseminated piecemeal by a troll, but since I’m sharing them with readers first instead of blasting them into the battle zone I hope it goes to show that I think, write, report, and do what the heck I do first and foremost for progressives and those sitting on the fence. Hatred’s just an ugly and unwanted byproduct. Without any further ado, here are some favorite excerpts from my postelection Twitter trash bin that are no longer particularly relevant but that I’m sharing anyway… • I wanted to put an image of an “I Farted Today” button on the DigBoston election issue, but I knew the same lefties who knocked me for lambasting people who don’t vote at all would give us hell for mocking the process. • I noticed that the rotary by the big Catholic church in West Roxbury was decked out with Charlie Baker and Diehl signs, and I was wondering if local Dems are upset since they’ve coddled those demented child rapists in this state for decades.
W/ BUTCHER BROWN
• At what point as a member of the party that is constantly attacking voting rights should one arrive at the realization that the politicians they support are fucking cheaters? • On the bright side, thanks to all those Diehl signs, we know where the bigots in the Bay State live. Unfortunately, it’s right next door to where the rest of us live, and that’s not gonna change after Election Night.
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THIS THU! NOV. 8
THIS FRI! NOV. 9
MON. NOVEMBER 12 WED. NOVEMBER 14
Wild Child
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WED. DECEMBER 5
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SAT. DECEMBER 8
SAT. DECEMBER 1
TUE. DECEMBER 4
ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10AM!
ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10AM!
KING PRINCESS
FKJ
FRI. JANUARY 25
SUN. MAY 5
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WITH
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ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10AM!
SAT. MARCH 9
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TY SEGALL & WHITE FENCE W/ AXIS: SOVA
THU. FEBRUARY 28
• I wonder how people who voted No on Question 3 feel about being in a bathroom with a hateful shithead every time they look into a mirror. • I’m pretty sure that publicists who send out press releases (that have nothing to do with voting) on Election Day don’t realize that people can vote for things other than American Idol.
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≠ 11/13 CHARLOTTE LAWRENCE ≠ 11/15 WEAKENED FRIENDS ≠ 11/16 JAK KNIGHT & ZACK FOX ≠ 11/16 KAL MARKS ≠ 11/17 JACK HARLOW ≠ 11/18 FORWARD ≠ 11/19 PRIOR PANIC ≠ 11/26 MONOBODY ≠ 11/27 DRUG CHURCH / GOUGE AWAY ≠ 11/29 KISSISSIPPI ≠ 12/2 THE HELIO SEQUENCE ≠ 12/3 CULTS ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10AM!
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CELEBRATION NEWS TO US
Drinking with the Merrimack Valley recovery workers who live on an old cruise ship in Southie BY DANIEL KAUFMAN The Grand Celebration is a hulking monstrosity of steel and steam and tiny dirty portholes. The Bahamas Paradise website that coordinates the ship’s charter boasts of 10 dining options, including the Crow’s Nest Sports Bar and Admiral’s Steak and Seafood. There’s also a casino, deck pool, spa, and nightly entertainment—dancers and live bands, karaoke. The whole thing, they advertise, is a “Vegasstyle extravaganza.” Despite all the bars and amenities, though, there are no cocktails available for those who huddle in the aging vessel’s shadow smoking cigarettes these days. And some of them could really use a drink. The pipefitters and other workers who have been staying aboard the Celebration for the past month arrived in pickup trucks and buses from states all around the country to repair the damage wrought in Lawrence, Andover, and North Andover after an overpressurization led to explosions and damage in more than 30 homes and businesses this September. It’s tough work, and they wake up in the early morning every day to walk a quarter mile to their trucks and then fight traffic for up to two hours on their way to sites in the Merrimack Valley. Many of them are pissed off and worn out. In Lawrence and Andover, these men—they’re mostly guys—help with the arduous task of replacing aging and volatile cast-iron gas pipes with plastic replacements. Hours later, they return dusty and beaten to their floating home, which was secured by their employer, Columbia Gas, 4
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so as to not take up hotel space for people displaced by the disaster. Upon their every return to the ship, the temporary employees are screened by a metal detector, while their belongings are X-rayed for contraband like weapons and booze. This does not deter the more determined smugglers who, despite their best efforts, still usually have their booze taken away. This is their routine for three weeks at a time, seven day a week. Then they go back home. Over the past month, I spent time with many of these workers at the bars they frequent around South Boston. A few crucial patterns emerged, the most important of which is the disregard that many feel toward their floatel. By day, on the work site, jackhammers and backhoes screech and vibrate through lug sole boots. Most of the guys are used to that. By night, there’s what some find to be a much more unsettling sound—the unrelenting buzz of the ship’s generators, running full bore through the evening and rumbling through the sleeping quarters. The men sleep two to a room, in areas far smaller than the hotels that they typically stay at on sleepover assignments. One 30-year gas industry veteran from New Hampshire describes his space as akin to living in “state lockup if it was built above a sawmill.” The scene is one reflecting corporate negligence. The circumstances that floated these thousand-plus workers into this dock are a perfect storm of greed and incompetence. As energy companies like Columbia Gas
continue to cut pensions and benefits for their workers year after year and Gov. Charlie Baker has people like Department of Public Utilities Chair Angela O’Connor—a founding president of the New England Power Generators Association trade association—on the case. With all that in the background, I asked members of a crew from New Jersey hanging out at the Harpoon Brewery Beer Hall last week if I should become a pipefitter. They say no, and I remind them that they have been bragging about making close to 50 bucks an hour. “Yeah,” one replies, “but you have to live on a boat with these assholes.” Some tell me that people refer to their wives as “winter widows,” since their husbands work such brutal hours— sometimes up to 80 a week which, compounded by out-ofstate assignments, leave little time for family. Overall, these cruise ship tenants seem exhausted, both physically and emotionally. There are perks, and decent pay, but there are also sleepless nights and more work the next morning. Not to mention what they call a shitty breakfast buffet. The bittersweetness reminds me of the reviews I found online, from people who had traveled on the vessel to the Bahamas. Despite the paradise around them, the comments they left ranged from “just OK” to descriptions of an all-out “nightmare.” Either way, for work or leisure, the situation hardly calls for celebration.
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PIZZA BARONS LAY OFF 1,100 APPARENT HORIZON
Papa Gino’s & D’Angelo workers need to organize for justice BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS Mainstream press coverage of mass layoffs like Sunday’s shutdown of almost 100 Papa Gino’s and D’Angelo fast food restaurants generally looks upon such tragic events through a glass, darkly. Because journalism in the service of the rich and powerful is a poor reflection of reality when it comes to all things labor. Which is why early reportage in major news media typically involves simple transcription of executives’ rationales for such precipitous decisions. Rather than immediate investigation of the massive damage done to the lives of, in this case, more than 1,100 area workers summarily terminated with no official warning of any kind, according to the Boston Globe. True to form, PGHC Holdings Inc., the Dedham-based parent company of both brands, has excuses at the ready for credulous reporters. None of which explain why it’s acceptable to treat its workforce—the people that built the company and kept it running through good times and bad—like so much garbage. But that’s fine and dandy, yes? Given that few journalists ever seem particularly concerned about the human cost of mass layoffs. It’s just assumed (and sometimes stated) that “the market” will take care of everything. Such “disruption” is “good for the economy,” doncha know. And if some hapless working poor people lose their apartments, lose custody of their children, go hungry, and end up on the streets, then that’s their fault for not being “competitive” enough and getting more degrees. Or something. Not the fault of the company that put them there. In any event, according to the Boston Business Journal, PGHC released a statement on Monday explaining “that it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. [The company] also announced that it had reached an agreement in principle to be sold to a portfolio company of Wynnchurch Capital, a private equity firm that has offices in Chicago, Los Angeles and Toronto.” “Private equity firms,” according to a major 2014 investigation by the New York Times, “now manage $3.5 trillion in assets. The firms overseeing these funds borrow money or raise it from investors to buy troubled or inefficient companies. Then they try to turn the companies around and sell at a profit.” Ironically, some of the largest investors in such firms are public sector pension funds. Whose unionized members have no idea what their money is being used for—thanks to byzantine and opaque agreements between their pension funds and firms like Wynnchurch that aim to keep them and the public at large in the dark about buyouts like the tentative PGHC deal. The details that are visible are disturbing enough. According to Boston Globe business columnist Jon Chesto, PGHC “[c]hief financial officer Corey Wendland pointed to one big reason for his company’s need for more dough: minimum-wage increases across many of its markets, combined with higher health insurance expenses.” You read that right. One of the executives directly responsible for destroying the lives of hundreds of working-class families in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire is blaming legislation that’s gradually raising minimum wages in three of those states (minus, sadly, the Granite State) to levels that they should have been at over a decade back for his company’s crisis. Not corporate mismanagement or malfeasance. It’s basically all the fault of those darned unions and other labor advocates for pushing higher wage floors that still don’t even allow many workers to make ends meet once enacted. Massachusetts, for example, will go from the abysmal $11 an hour rate mandated by 2017 to a somewhat less abysmal $15 an hour over five years 6
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starting in January. For readers who think that wage is too high, try living on $15 an hour most anywhere in southern New England right now—assuming you get 40 hours work a week, which many Papa Gino’s and D’Angelo workers didn’t—and see how you do. Naturally, since laid-off PGHC workers weren’t unionized, they had nothing and no one to protect them when the corporate ax fell over the weekend. Even the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act that provides extended unemployment and retraining benefits to victims of a narrow range of mass layoffs may not apply here. Although, as with area NECCO workers who were also laid off en masse this year with no notice, it may be worth trying a class action lawsuit to demand WARN coverage anyway. But with most of the affected PGHC workers making minimum wage, they have next to nothing saved to see them through the difficult period they now face. While the unemployment they may not all qualify for will definitely not be enough to live on until they find new jobs, given their low pay rate. So, it will even harder for them to mount such a suit than it has been for the NECCO crew. A D’Angelo manager who writes under the nom de plume C.D. Madeira took a job at another company about three months ago and agreed to provide an insider’s perspective on the layoff crisis to me in an interview. Unsurprisingly, Madeira says that PGHC was not a decent employer even before its recent action. “I worked for D’Angelo for two and a half years as a manager. They treated us like trash, the minimum wage employees worse. Management was paid as little as possible while required to work 50 hours a week and often much much more. More often than not they required us to work that extra off the clock so as not to skew their labor information. They refused to repair restaurants even when it was a danger to employees and customers. “Basically, I’m glad I don’t work there anymore and that I got out before this happened, but I know many people who are now out of a job. “They closed nearly 100 locations, between the Papa Gino’s and D’Angelo brands, leaving over 1,000 people without jobs and without notice. No severance pay. No PTO [paid time off] payout. Nothing. People went to work assuming they would have a job and they were turned away. Those who had jobs were given calls throughout the day to tell them to close up shop permanently. They were told they could apply at other corporate locations for consideration for rehire.” Not that laid-off PGHC workers are exactly taking the situation lying down. Many have plastered the Papa Gino’s Facebook page with angry messages. Leading the parent company to respond on the page with another statement, “While we regret the rather abrupt closures, we are currently undergoing major updates to better serve our guests and ask for your patience as we make these changes. As New England’s local pizzeria since 1961, we are still standing strong and will be relaunching our restaurants, introducing improvements for the benefit of all of our guests.” Madeira doesn’t buy it: “I saw the breakdown of the conference call they had with the general managers who remain. Basically they’re painting this as, ‘Well, now that we have all these underperforming restaurants out of the way, we can totally renovate the remaining locations!’ Many stores they closed were not underperforming. Also they’ve known about this sale for months. They were talking about putting the brand up for sale a couple of months before I left. So this has been in the works for well long enough to have warned people. “They’ve always been shady. Papa Gino’s originally
bought the D’Angelo brand to try and save itself but instead ended up dragging it down completely from what I heard from old-time employees.” This is the testimony that the public has not yet heard in the local press. And it’s infuriating, if not much of a shock to anyone who has worked in low-wage sectors like fast food before. The question now is: What can laid-off Papa Gino’s and D’Angelo workers do to get some simple justice? PGHC executives responsible for major social dislocation across our region thanks to the layoffs will be fine. They’ve got golden parachutes. PGHC shareholders will make some money in the sale to buyout firm Wynnchurch Capital. Wynnchurch will make plenty of money by reviving the Papa Gino’s and D’Angelo brands and selling them to the highest bidder, and/or by dumping the buyout debt on the company and making millions in “consulting” fees whether the company succeeds or tanks, and/or by gutting company assets for cash. But what about the workers? All I can say is what I say in pretty much every article I write about labor issues: Workers need to stand and fight. Wherever we are. Whatever our situation. So, for the remaining Papa Gino’s and D’Angelo workers, you all need to unionize. To make sure you have at least the protection of a union contract in the likely event of more layoffs. And better wages, benefits, and working conditions while you all are still employed there. It won’t be easy. But you can be sure that at least two or three major unions—I’m guessing UNITEHERE, SEIU, and possibly UAW—are eager to get in touch with you. I recommend you work with the union that will give you the best service (in the form of staff dedicated to your group) and the most autonomy. And for the laidoff Papa Gino’s and D’Angelo workers? You, too, need to organize. Get together. Talk things over. Get advice from some experienced union leaders and pro bono representation from some labor lawyers. Maybe find a way to sue your former bosses or the new owners for redress under the WARN Act or some other applicable law. Build community support the way Market Basket workers did a few years ago. Explain why it’s not acceptable for large companies to treat people the way PGHC treated you—and even less acceptable for government at all levels to let them get away with it. Raise money and awareness. Formulate demands. For severance pay. For extended unemployment benefits. For retraining. For damages. For whatever you all need to be made whole. Stay in close touch with your former colleagues as they try to strengthen their position. Then figure out how to win some justice… together. Fortunately, a Facebook page has been started to do just that. Called, fittingly, Papa Gino’s Workers’ Reparations. Here’s a short link for PGHC workers reading in print: tiny.cc/papajustice/. Check it out. And best of luck to all of you.
“They treated us like trash, the minimum wage employees worse.”
Apparent Horizon—winner of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia’s 2018 Best Political Column award—is syndicated by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. Jason Pramas is BINJ’s network director, and executive editor and associate publisher of DigBoston. Copyright 2018 Jason Pramas.
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Kaiju Big Battel comes to Somerville this weekend BY JILLIAN KRAVATZ @JILLIAN_KRAVATZ
SALARY NEGOTIATION WORKSHOPS Join a FREE grassroots salary negotiation workshop that helps close the gender pay gap by empowering women to advocate for themselves in the job market!
November 5 and December 5, 2018 5:00 - 7:30pm 1175 Tremont Street, Roxbury FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC RSVP via our calendar at northeastern.edu/crossing
Notice of Public Meeting Notice is hereby given that a Community Outreach Meeting for a Proposed Marijuana Establishment is scheduled for: Date: Time: Location:
Thursday, November 15th, 2018 6:00PM Brighton Elks Club 326 Washington Street, Brighton, 02135
The Proposed Marijuana Establishment is anticipated to be located at: 345 Washington St, Brighton 02135 There will be an opportunity for the public to ask questions. If you have any questions about this meeting or have comments about the proposal please contact:Conor Newman Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services conor.newman@boston.gov 617-635-2678
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Yes, people really fight between the ropes in Sumo-style elaborate monster costumes, employing all the grisliest dramatic pro-wrestling moves and sometimes throwing in a dance number. Yes, such a thing started here in Boston, and yes, you can see the outlandish spectacular in action this weekend. The Kaiju Big Battel: Once Again, is set to go down Saturday, Nov 10, at the ONCE Ballroom in Somerville. To anyone who’s never seen or heard of such a thing, let Dr. Cube (an evil mastermind Kaiju character) describe it for you: “Awesome sights of leviathan monstrosities crushing their opponents like a Minecraft addiction crushes one’s hope of a social life…” That’s how he introduces a recent video of a Kaiju battle on the group’s website, where fans can read blow-by-blow synopses of the bouts. Saturday’s event also includes a preshow board game tournament and a postshow karaoke night. Then on Sunday, Kaiju Big Battel is hosting a kids’ party, including a preshow meet-and-greet with some of the Kaiju characters, self-described as a “phantasmagoric population of crossbred animals, nomadic minerals, virtuous vegetables, aggravating extraterrestrials, and braggart beasts.” Sunday’s event also includes a number of interactive games and a musical performance by Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band. DigBoston asked event coordinator Shiori Yamaki about the upcoming battle, the meaning of Kaiju, and the history of the troupe. First, what does “Kaiju” mean? Oh, you don’t know Kaiju?! Kaiju is now a universal word even kids know! Kaiju means monsters in Japanese. For example, Godzilla is kaiju. Your website keeps fans in the know about past and upcoming Kaiju fights. Recently, a note from the Kaiju commissioner announced that Super Wrong lost his best friend Pink Bear in a recent battle against another monster, Hunninaught. Is Super Wrong doing OK? Will he be ready to fight on Saturday? Let me correct one thing to understand us better—our fight is called “fighto,” not fight. Fighto means battle in Japanese. So, as for Super Wrong. Thanks for worrying about him. He’s been battling a fierce battle of loneliness since losing Hunninaught the Pink Bear. He’s been writing a lot of poetry and eating gallons of ice cream. So yes, although he’s desperate at this moment, he is ready for this weekend. Kaiju has been through a lot—intergalactic sparring, violent monster rumbles, threats to destroy planet Earth—but how (really) did it all get started? We are performing arts group. Founder, Rand, was an art students who was into Japanese tokusatsu—Japanese live-action film/drama with special effects. He had an idea to bring tokusatsu into live action with pro-wrestling influence. It all started from his passion. Is coming to Somerville like coming home? Of course! Somerville fans always give us a warm welcome. Oh, did you know the venue, ONCE, has good tacos always? But remind you, tacos are available only limited numbers so order it as soon as you get there. In the “Kaiju-verse,” there are heroes and rogues, referees and villains, futuristic robots and radioactive sea creatures. What does the Kaiju-verse have to tell us about our own? Monsters are REAL and danger can happen! >> KAIJU ONCE AGAIN. SAT 11.10, 8-11PM. >> KAIJU TIME FOR KIDS. SUN 11.11, 1PM. ONCE BALLROOM, 156 HIGHLAND AVE., SOMERVILLE. KAIJU.COM
SIN AND SASS IN WESTERN MASS BOSTON BETTER BEER BUREAU
Our first of many trips into the Pioneer Valley microbrew scene BY CHRIS FARAONE @FARA1 We’re going to be writing quite a bit about Western Mass and its beautiful vice trade over the next couple of months. First there is New England Treatment Access (NETA) Northampton, which is slated to be the first or at least one of the first legal dispensaries to open in Mass, allegedly sometime later this month, and of course the new MGM Springfield, built across I-91 from the Basketball Hall of Fame. I look forward to losing a few dollars there. While the Berkshires and Pioneer Valley are ripe for all kinds of coverage that readers in Boston can likely appreciate, since both are a relatively short car or bus ride away and offer significant party and culture opps across the board, this week we’re starting with their beers because, well, they do them well in Western Mass. There are far too many breweries and destinations to name in a column (or a book, for that matter), but an obvious starting point is Fort Hill Brewery in Easthampton, which, in addition to having a facility and tasting room fit for a wedding or simply a quick sudsy stop-in, pumps out some of the most breathtaking pints and cans anywhere. Fort Hill’s flagship Fresh Pick is a staple you can fortunately find in almost any beer store west of Worcester, and I’m hoping that more of the perfect 7 percent citra magic makes its way here soon. I also grabbed a four-pack of the devilishly labeled Sinshine, a delicious but antagonistic New England IPA from Bay State Brewing Co. in Leicester. Sure, Leicester’s not exactly Western Mass—not by the standards of any selfrespecting Pioneer Valley or Berkshires native (I got a serious talking-to about this last weekend)—but I saw a lot of it out there, so here goes… We’re working with a cloudy citrus nectar that could almost pass for fruit juice in appearance. There’s a bit of leather in its bite; despite the peach, melon, and tangerine notes—or perhaps because of them, as those and other flavors packed in here are as well known for bitterness as they are for their sweetness—the first few sips of Sinshine go down like a Sweet Tart. I mean that in a deep, positive, spiritual way; even up to about half an hour after banging back a couple of these ones, there were noticeable traces on my tonsils. It’s New England haze at its most daring and aggressive, as well as a canned treat that will get you shellacked at 6.9 percent ABV. If you’re in the area and want the full experience, I recommend Fitzwilly’s and the adjoining Toasted Owl Tavern in Northampton as a proper starting place for evening fun. Serious beer snobs may dislike that their taps are actually cold, but for my money, the IPA, an easy West Coast classic with an ideal citrus kick from BLDG 8 Brewing in Northampton, made for perfect memories. I’m craving one right now. Finally, while there are a lot more options to taste and bars to visit—I really want to check out Northampton’s internationally propped Tunnel Bar, though I understand it’s much more of a cocktail haven—no first trip to the area, I was told, can be complete without a visit to the Beer Can Museum at the vaunted Ye Ol’ Watering Hole. By the time I made it there after the Northampton Brewery, I didn’t have much stamina left in me for more sampling, but I did spend roughly half an hour ogling the nearly 4,000 old cans they have on display. Looking back, I wonder if they have any old rusted joints for sale—perhaps there are some silver bullets in the basement for the tourists. I didn’t bother asking, though, since my trunk back at the hotel was already stuffed with plenty of contemporary product to bring back to Boston, review, and share with my drunken associates.
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DEPT. OF COMMERCE
ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT
9
DOGGED DEFENSE FEATURE
Work intensifies to keep guns away from animal abusers BY MARY KUHLMAN + LYNNE PEEPLES A conviction for domestic violence in the US strips a person of the legal right to possess a gun. It doesn’t matter if the conviction is a misdemeanor or a felony. The rationale for the federal law: Domestic violence is a red flag for future violence—including potentially deadly violence with a firearm. Scientific and anecdotal evidence suggests that a person who abuses animals also has a higher likelihood of hurting other people. And that insight has begun fueling a push, at the state and federal levels, to slap a no-gun penalty on anyone convicted of animal cruelty. “As we look at some of the recent mass shootings from Columbine to Parkland to Sutherland Springs, these perpetrators had a history of animal abuse. Addressing this pattern of behavior is a part of the solution for preventing gun violence and hopefully saving lives,” said US Rep. Katherine Clark, D-Mass, who in July introduced bill (HR 6278) introduced focusing on the issue. Local officials also are recognizing animal abuse as a human safety issue. A partnership between the New York City Police Department and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has more than tripled arrests for animal abuse in New York City since its 2014 launch. Around the country, at least 75 state and local prosecuting offices have personnel specializing in animal abuse, according to a list provided by the National Link Coalition, an advocacy group formed a decade ago by activists concerned about the apparent connection between animal abuse and family violence. In May, for example, the San Diego District Attorney’s Office began rolling out its Animal Cruelty Prosecution Unit. Tracy Prior, deputy district attorney and chief of the office’s Family Protection Division, which is overseeing the new unit, plans to work more closely with law enforcement partners to try to prosecute more animal cruelty crimes. The logic of such initiatives, as National Link Coalition coordinator Phil Arkow put it, is that “investigating animal cruelty cases aggressively ... can also stop other violence including child abuse, domestic violence and elder abuse.” Current federal law already bars felons from having a firearm, but many animal cruelty crimes—even those that involve torture and mutilation—re prosecuted as misdemeanors. Clark’s bill would step up enforcement by forbidding anyone with a misdemeanor conviction for animal cruelty from possessing a gun. Clark is favored to win reelection on Nov. 6, and, if the bill doesn’t pass this year, she plans to reintroduce it in the next Congress. Similar legislation was introduced earlier this year in New Jersey, and the Illinois State Crime Commission has recommended a state ban on gun ownership by all convicted animal abusers. The federal and state bills face uphill battles, say law enforcement and public policy experts. Gun rights and farm industry groups have frequently fought animal cruelty legislation. Representatives of Gun Owners of America have registered to lobby on the Clark bill. Jerry Elsner, executive director of the crime commission in Illinois, said he also expects to encounter strong opposition by gun rights groups. His agency will seek sponsors after next month’s elections for a bill to bar gun possession by convicted 10
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animal abusers. The Illinois State Rifle Association and the National Rifle Association fought bills to require the surrender of firearms in domestic violence cases before state and federal bans were adopted. “People didn’t want guns taken away from wife beaters. That wasn’t popular at all,” said Elsner, a registered Republican. But on the animal abuse legislation, he frames his personal position another way: “I’m not anti-gun, I’m anti-animal abuse.” Neither rifle association responded to requests for comment on calls to bar gun possession by people convicted of animal cruelty. Federal law enforcement authorities have started to embrace the notion that animal abuse could presage other crimes. In a July report, the FBI, the US Department of Homeland Security and the National Counterterrorism Center declared animal abuse a warning sign for “terrorism and other premeditated violence against humans.” They cited research by the FBI, which found that among adults arrested between 2004 and 2009 for committing acts of animal cruelty, about half were subsequently arrested for another crime. The FBI also began formally tracking animal abuse crimes in 2016 via a new national data collection system. “It’s going to take three-to-five years, as they collect this new data, to really reveal the clear patterns,” said Clark, the Massachusetts congresswoman. Even so, she said she is confident that existing studies demonstrate that her legislation is needed. Research has produced some provocative statistics. Animal abusers are five times more likely to commit violent crimes against people than nonabusers, according to a study published in 1997 by Northeastern University and the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The Chicago Crime Commission reported in 2004 that 82 percent of offenders arrested for animal abuse had prior convictions for battery, weapons or drugs. Another study, in 1999, found that 63 percent of aggressive criminals incarcerated in South Africa had deliberately inflicted harm on animals in childhood. And in a study published in July, the FBI concluded that 60 percent of animal cruelty offenders had also engaged in intimate partner violence, with or without guns. Before he began killing and dismantling humans, Jeffrey Dahmer did the same with animals, researchers found. According to published reports, other mass murderers, including the “Boston Strangler” Albert DeSalvo, and school shooters such as Kip Kinkel, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, also tortured and killed
animals in the years prior to their killing sprees. Of course, not every child who abuses an animal will go on to carry out heinous acts against people. Clifton Flynn, provost at the University of South Carolina Upstate and author of studies and a book on the topic, pointed to criteria that could identify those at greatest risk of committing violence, such as people with multiple episodes of abuse or who carried out more up-close-and-personal cruelty. “If a kid takes a cat and strangles it until it almost dies, then I’d be worried about that kid - more so than a kid who takes a rifle and shoots a squirrel in a tree 50 yards away,” he said. John Thompson, deputy executive director of the National Sheriffs’ Association and a former police chief in Maryland, said that for 30 years in law enforcement, he was unaware of the link. “I would just call animal control. It wasn’t my problem,” he added. “Law enforcement just doesn’t get it. But that is changing.” Joye Estes echoed Thompson’s sentiment. She used to investigate sex crimes, child abuse and domestic abuse as an officer with the Louisville Metro Police Department in Kentucky. “I wish I’d had the knowledge about the link back when I was a detective,” said Estes, now a law enforcement investigator for the Jefferson County, Kentucky, public schools. For 11 consecutive years, the Animal Legal Defense Fund, an advocacy group, has ranked Kentucky last among US states in the strength of its animal protection laws. Among the reasons: humane officers lack broad enforcement authority and it’s very difficult to bring felony charges against animal abusers. Kentucky is also one of the few states where veterinarians are actually prohibited from reporting abuse, according to Animal Defense Fund reports. Estes, through a group she co-founded in September, the Kentucky Link Coalition, is seeking to raise awareness of the connection between animal abuse and interpersonal violence. “We need to break down silos - to share info between animal control and police and social services,” she said. “Animal cruelty is the most silent crime. Animals never learn to talk, never go to school, never have relatives come to visit or visit friends.” Meanwhile, more states are passing bills that create—or stiffen—felony provisions for animal cruelty, which could make it easier to bar offenders from possessing guns. In August 2017, Pennsylvania enacted legislation that added felony-level penalties for firsttime aggravated animal cruelty offenses, such as torture. “Extreme risk protection order” laws are also emerging, which target the gun rights of animal abusers in much the same way as domestic violence offenders. The first such state law, passed in Connecticut in 1999, provides police officers the power to temporarily take away an individual’s guns based on a history of violent acts, drug abuse or animal cruelty. A bill that took effect in Oregon in January now gives a judge the power to weigh factors including convictions for domestic violence or animal cruelty in deciding whether to order a temporary surrender of firearms. “Based on what we know about those who perpetrate animal cruelty,” said Flynn, “there are good reasons to keep guns out of their hands.” This story was reported by the FairWarning-Commonwealth News Service Collaboration.
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FEATURE
DEPT. OF COMMERCE
ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT
11
BUY ME, BOSTON FEATURE
Brian Coleman’s classic advertisement patchwork provides vast portrait of Mass cultural history BY CHRIS FARAONE @FARA1 There are many things that came to mind when brainstorming approaches to this piece about my old friend and accomplice Brian Coleman, but none more than that he… takes… his… time. Not his sweet-ass time, as that phrase has a nasty connotation. Just… his… time. Something that most of us in the writing game don’t have the luxury of enjoying these days. But not Coleman. He took his time to interview hundreds of iconic producers and rap artists for books in his Check the Technique series—for years, he even painstakingly transcribed his analog interviews in notebooks by hand before rewriting them on computer. And most recently, Coleman has been turning pages of old newspapers and magazines spelunking for unique ads in service of his latest project, Buy Me, Boston, which he describes as a “stream-of-consciousness visual tour through late 20th-century Boston.” True to his patient nature, for Buy Me, Boston Coleman sorted through pubs, including the Bay State Banner, the Real Paper, and even vintage Boston Red Sox yearbooks, to select about 400 ads that made the final cut. Like I said, the guy is in… no… rush. That’s for the better, as he’s plucked and unearthed essential goodies that were shot and illustrated to push everything from long-forgotten venues to enduring institutions like WGBH. “I didn’t want to do another hip-hop book, but I like doing books,” Coleman told me. “Even though they’re not the easiest thing to do, it’s my first impulse.” With his circus of a book release party coming to the Brattle Theatre this Sunday, Nov 11, and featuring everything from forgotten dusty clips to a local celebstudded panel, I asked Coleman about this massive
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undertaking, starting where it all began, at the separate archives of legendary Bay State Banner arts reporter Kay Bourne and of David Bieber, whose endless namesake collection of memorabilia could rival any comparable storied private stash across the country. Can you begin by just telling us about the troves you worked with that made this all possible? First, there are the Kay Bourne Archives. I knew Kay a little bit, and it was a confluence of me getting to know and to hang out with Kay and David Bieber. Their archives are on very parallel paths, and one difference is that David saved everything. A lot of stuff he barely looked at. He knew that he was going to have an archive. But Kay was different. She was a journalist, so it was stuff that she was writing about for the most part, but it was also that she might need something for a reference later, so it would go in a folder. Kay’s archive is now at Emerson [College]. Volume-wise there’s no comparison—Bieber’s is a thousand times bigger, and he is now in the process of unpacking it. There’s stuff that he hasn’t looked at in 30 years, so now it’s this Christmas-in-July kind of thing. And anything he has in there is in mint condition—it hasn’t been touched. He has Boston Phoenix and Boston After Dark issues that he took, looked at it for a second, then put it in a box and it hasn’t been seen for 40 years. It’s really fascinating, and he’s probably only unpacked 30 to 40 percent of it. Are you yourself an archivist at this juncture? I’m certainly an amateur archivist. In one way, this book is kind of my stake in the ground. I’m not going to go to school for library science, I’m not going to work at a
library, and so this is my way of approximating that kind of experience. I’m far from super knowledgeable about stuff, but being on the inside of it I think I understand a little about archives now. How is what you did with Buy Me, Boston different from your previous efforts? It was a totally different approach than Check the Technique in every way. There’s no writing, but it still took me a long fucking time. Faced with all this history, and everything you could be writing about, why advertisements? I’ve always been fascinated with ads. As a kid, and still now. When I’m watching TV with my wife, and an ad comes on, she just turns off, and I watch ’em. I’m fascinated by them. It relates back to the work I did with hip-hop stuff. You look back—five years, 10 years, 20 years—and certain things have kind of held their importance, and other things have been flashes in the pan. It’s like, “Oh, Wreckx-n-Effect, I really thought that they were gonna change the world. I guess they didn’t.” But Public Enemy still sounds pretty damn good. It’s the same with ads in a way. That you look back and you say, That club was really important. That restaurant made an impact. Or it’s still around. I honestly thought that the most challenging thing would be to create this narrative of a city that doesn’t exist anymore purely with raw materials that everyone considers trash. Ads are cutting room floor. It’s like when you make a pie and you have extra dough and you make snickerdoodles out of it.
So, none of this was ever garbage to you? Ads are the pure voice of a business. When you get a feature, it’s mediated—by the photographer who goes to take the picture, by the journalist writing the article. The ads are the voice of whatever they do. The more I looked at the ads, the more I realized there are two ways you can do it. You can be super utilitarian—this is our address, this is what we do. Or you can have a little flair to it and give it to a designer—maybe somebody’s niece was going to art school. Some of the ads from the ’60s were kind of fascinating. … There are [concert] ads that are really wild style-like graffiti writing, in that you would have to look at the ad for two minutes to realize what it said. When you had a copy of the Avatar, you were going to sit down, smoke a joint, and be there for two hours reading that paper. I’d never really thought about that before. What are some ads that stand out from the piles for you? Some of the radio station ads are really dope. There’s an FNX one [for the alt rock station WFNX] that’s not massively artistic, but it’s clever and it’s funny and it’s using a vintage kind of approach [with a black-and-white image of a baby]. What was the method to your digging, if any? The stuff that I was looking through and the way I was looking through it was almost random. It was like pulling a slot machine and seeing what pops up. There are no categories in the book, it’s not arranged in any way. The book is really stream of consciousness. I gave the images to my designer and said, “Do it.” And he just did his thing after I scanned everything. I can’t believe my scanner hasn’t blown up. The overall thing that was the most fun about it was that since I envisioned it as a multivolume thing, I didn’t put pressure on myself to put every single thing in there. If I missed something, I’ll get it in the next volume. My whole thing was just balance— not too much music, even though it’s me and it is gonna be a music thing, but also a balance between dumb shit and serious culture. But it’s still kind of a stream-ofconsciousness thing, because what it really boils down to is that nobody who goes through it has any idea what’s next. I knew that if I had the balance and I shook it up, it’s like having a good playlist and if you hit shuffle, you’re going to hit good stuff. A lot of times when people do histories of Boston and overviews, they’re very much myopic, they’re very much their own lens. I wanted to have an actual bird’s-eye view of Boston—as close as I could, which means black, white, gay, straight, and kind of make it actually represent Boston. I went outside of my experience on purpose to make it representative. I thought that I could tell that story in a unique way.
>> BUY ME, BOSTON. RELEASE PARTY FEATURING RARELY SEEN VISUALS, SLIDESHOW, AND PANEL WITH DAVID BIEBER, PRINCE CHARLES ALEXANDER, BLOWFISH, AND DART ADAMS. SUN 11.11 AT THE BRATTLE THEATER. NEWS TO US
FEATURE
DEPT. OF COMMERCE
ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT
13
BREAK THE CYCLE EATS
Ballyhooed Harvard philanthropist duo pivots, still hopes to help fight homelessness BY CHRIS HUGHES-ZIMMERMAN All along Mass Ave in Cambridge, there are skeletons of luxury condos (and completed ones as well) that are sprouting up across the street from newly minted pharmaceutical labs, high-end restaurants, and of course, the usual nationally registered historic places. While these spaces occupy the lump sum narrative encircling the Greater Boston area, arguably much less noticed is the enduring systemic homelessness and economic disparity that also surround the region’s colleges and tourist destinations. Enter Breaktime, an effort to fight young adult homelessness hatched by two Harvard undergraduates, Connor Schoen and Tony Shu. Motivated by the stories they have heard as volunteers at the Y2Y student-run shelter in Harvard Square, the pair is aiming to fill gaps in programming and provide stable employment, vocational training, and career-based education to young people who are experiencing housing insecurity. Schoen and Shu initially planned to open a brick and mortar cafe in early 2019, specifically at 1000 Mass Ave in Cambridge. While trendy cafes can be hallmarks of gentrification, the Breaktime team sought to turn the dislocation process on its head in a state where, as estimated by the 2017 report from the Massachusetts 14
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Commission on Unaccompanied Homeless Youth, among other things, there are “multiple populations of unaccompanied homeless youth.” The report additionally found that “lack of access to safe and stable housing is the common denominator,” with “distinct clusters of causes, service needs, barriers, and coping strategies among different subpopulations and across different regions of the state.” For Cambridge, Shu said, “We wanted to go with a physical space,” adding that such a setup could “promote face-to-face interaction.” Having won a grant from the Harvard College Innovation Challenge and the Harvard Graduate School of Education—and received a crush of press for its early announcements—Breaktime has made some progress, raising nearly $10,000 more on GoFundMe as of this writing. For now, though, the costly cafe plans are on hold, and last month the crew pivoted to starting with a catering business while scouting potential locations for a different storefront. Whatever form their efforts take, Schoen said that he hopes Breaktime can provide some of the safety that is lacking in the shelter system, all while cutting steady paychecks and providing vocational training as well as career mentorship. For many who experience
homelessness, workforce participation is an uphill climb. For young women, LGBTQ youth, and non-English speakers, it’s even steeper. “A second-stage employer is somebody who recruits actively from first-stage programs … and that provides people with both the hard skills and soft skills necessary for basic entry-level jobs,” Schoen said. “There is a gap between the amazing programming that people are doing and the broader realities of the workforce.” In time, Schoen and Shu hope that their efforts can be replicated elsewhere. Estimates put the number of young adults experiencing homelessness across the US at more than 4 million. “There [are] unfortunately huge, discriminatory barriers that we can’t completely destroy on our own,” Schoen told the Dig. “That takes a huge cultural movement. “We’re creating the second-stage program in order to begin combating those, combating that stigma, providing a source of support to bridge the gap between first-stage programs.” For more info or to support Breaktime, visit them at breaktime.us.
SAT. NOVEMBER 24
NEWS TO US
FEATURE
DEPT. OF COMMERCE
ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT
15
HASSLE FEST 10 MUSIC
A yearbook-style breakdown of who’s who at Boston’s Underground Music & Art Festival BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN It’s been a decade of discovering new artists. A decade of experimental artists in small spaces. A decade of sweaty fans singing back at sweaty singers. Folks, we’re talking about Hassle Fest, the oddball music festival that brings the most overlooked and beloved artists of Boston and beyond to stages around the city. This weekend, the music festival rings in its 10th year, and things are already looking to get wilder than ever before to celebrate the anniversary. Hassle Fest 10 will take place on Friday, Nov 9, and Saturday, Nov 10. As always, it’s all-ages and open to the public. Each day, there will be eight different shows you can attend, each with a special theme and lineup across venues like Zone 3, Hardcore Stadium, Green St Studios, Studio 550, Lilypad, Industry Lab, Brighton Music Hall, Outpost 186, ONCE Somerville, and more. It’s a lot to take in, yes, but the fine folks at The Boston Hassle break the schedule down for you in simpler terms at their website. To help you digest the massive lineup Hassle Fest 10 organized, we teamed up with one of The Boston Hassle’s founders, Dan Shea, to fill you in on who’s who in the class, yearbook style. MOST UNIQUE SOUND “There are so many unique sounds at our fest, so this is a bit overwhelming to consider narrowing it down. I’ll go with Gyna Bootleg & Tamio Shiraishi, though, who offer up a body horror noise and sax duo that will terrify and amaze at Studio 550 on Nov 9.” - Dan Shea “Dubbed as ‘conspiracy jingles,’ Beverly Tender isn’t technically the weirdest sound on their own, but by comparison to the other artists on this lineup they are. Equal parts freak folk and anti-pop, this sparse indie rock band from Providence will keep you perplexed while nodding along during their performance at the Lilypad on Nov 9.” - DigBoston FUNNIEST BANTER “This definitely goes to Storytime at the Ape’s Nest, which for HFX goes down at Industry Lab on Nov 10. Weird storytelling over weird music is the gist, but the banter? The banter is gold, as there’s always comedians and other stray funny persons lurking about.” - Dan Shea “Definitely swing by Storytime, if only to hear Angela Sawyer talk. Best known as the tour de force who used to run the aptly titled Weirdo Records, Sawyer also performs music and does comedy sets. She’s one of the true DIY queens in Boston’s scene.” - DigBoston CATCHIEST HOOKS “This one is very hard to pick, but it’s also very hard not to choose Mini Dresses. They have for so long held my pop heart in their masterful, dreamy, laid-back pop hands. Put on your swaying clothes and come out and sway to this band at the Lilypad on Nov 9.” - Dan Shea “There’s something sweet at the crux of Grave Givertz’s indie folk songs. That saccharine part of her music will wedge itself in your ears all day long after you
see her at Outpost 186 on Nov 9.” - DigBoston BEST GUITAR SOLOS “Andy California is playing the fest’s biggest show at Brighton Music Hall with the Gories on Nov 10! He has the best guitar solos. I know this personally to be true.” Dan Shea “Nobody can play guitar like Wendy Eisenberg, though she wouldn’t brag about it even if you asked her to. Watch the ex-Birthing Hips member whittle down free jazz chords and improv solos on guitar and banjo when she plays late on Nov 10 at Studio 550.” - DigBoston MOST UNDERRATED “Brandie Blaze, straight up. An outstanding rapper. How is this amazing, potent, charismatic woman not running this town yet? She’s playing at the Lilypad on Nov 10!” - Dan Shea “Dare we say LEYA? An experimental duo hailing from New York City, LEYA sees a violinist and harpist create beautiful, dark, almost ambient work together that lures you in the weirder it gets. Their set at Green Street Studios on Nov 10 shouldn’t be missed.” - DigBoston ABOUT TO BLOW UP “Besides Brandie, you mean? I’ll take this question to mean the most literally combustible performer … and that might be Timeghost. He’s playing the End of Fest Party at Cambridge Elks Lodge on Nov 10. You see, he uses cellphone signals and microwaves as part of his performances, so I’ll leave this one to the imagination.” Dan Shea “Anson Rap$ is taking his time to reveal his work because he’s a creative perfectionist. As someone with an artistic eye and command of space as great as his, it’s no wonder Anson Rap$ is poised to be all over your feed in the next year. See him start things off right at the Lilypad on Nov 10.” - DigBoston EASIEST TO DANCE TO “If you haven’t checked out Providence and Montreal’s DJ Richard, do that now. He’s headlining the techno party on Nov 9 at Cambridge Elks Lodge. Tweaked house beats and deep and evil late night chords for you? It’s going to [be] a fun night.” - Dan Shea “Get your fix of nihilist queer revolt music when genderqueer and nonbinary artist Dreamcrusher takes the stage at Studio 550 on Nov 9. With a combination of industrial, noise, punk, and shoegaze, their music will get you dancing in a different way.” - DigBoston
before. Watch as Tyler Kershaw brings you into his world of confusion, desolation, and post-relationship blues in a melodic dreampop light. They play at the Lilypad on Nov 9.” - DigBoston MOST SURPRISING GRAB “The Gories. If there’s one band that we can probably smile about and say that they might never have come to Boston (ever again?) if we didn’t try for years to get them here, then it’s these legends. So psyched that we were able to make this happen! They’re playing at Brighton Music Hall on Nov 10.” - Dan Shea “Cienfuegos is a Brooklyn-Cuban nomad churning out noise techno with a colorful twist. If that doesn’t have you hooked, the fact that his music is an ode to family and floating—and that his name translates to “one hundred fires”—should. Though New York City isn’t far, tacking this act onto the Nov 9 show at Cambridge Elks Lodge was a surprise we were happy to see.” - DigBoston BEST SEEN WITH FRIENDS “Video Nasties. Weirdo, culty, noisy dance rockers from Portland, Maine. You’re like, ‘Huh?’ then before you know it, you’re dancing with 50 sweaty weirdos, blissing out and forgetting that life sucks.” - Dan Shea “Imagine if Juana Molina’s earliest work was combined with Bjork, then somebody shot it warp speed into the future, and then you slowed it down and took a few screenshots. That’s what Solei’s music sounds like. It’s a beautiful reworking of electronic samples and ambient tones. See it with your friends when she plays at ONCE Somerville on Nov 9 because you will have trouble explaining it to them otherwise.” - DigBoston COOLEST RAPPER “Abdu Ali is very cool. You seen their duds? Repping Baltimore club and queer black culture ferociously, and starting parties all over, that’s exactly what I imagine will happen over at Lilypad on Nov 10 for HFX!” - Dan Shea “Red Shaydez is so cool that you probably will get flustered in her presence. The Boston-based rapper practices the art of self-care and basks in her own magnetic aura. See her at the Lilypad on Nov 10 to see for yourself.” - DigBoston
BIGGEST BOSTON STAPLE “For me, it would be New England Patriots. Survivors of the last great Boston Noise Rock Wars. They survive to play on Nov 10 at Green Street Studios. One hell of a band.” - Dan Shea “By now, you have to be trying to avoid Funeral Advantage if you’ve never seen the dream pop band
>> HASSLE FEST 10. FRI 11.9, SAT 11.10. VARIOUS VENUES. ALL AGES/SLIDING SCALE. BOSTONHASSLE.COM
PHOTO OF ABDU ALI BY HANNA HURR
MUSIC EVENTS THU 11.08
POST-HARDCORE MEETS MIDWEST ROCK CURSIVE + MEAT WAVE + CAMPDOGZZ
[Paradise Rock Club, 967 Comm. Ave., Allston. 8pm/18+/$20. crossroadspresents.com] 16
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THU 11.08
SAXOPHONE FROM HEAVEN AND EARTH KAMASI WASHINGTON + BUTCHER BROWN
[Royale, 279 Tremont St., Boston. 8pm/18+/$38.75. royaleboston.org]
DIGBOSTON.COM
FRI 11.09
FRI 11.09
SUN 11.11
MON 11.12
[Brighton Music Hall, 158 Brighton Ave., Allston. 8pm/18+/$20. crossroadspresents.com]
[The Sinclair, 52 Church St., Cambridge. 8pm/18+/$20. sinclaircambridge.com]
[Great Scott, 1222 Comm. Ave., Allston. 8:30pm/18+/$12. greatscottboston.com]
[The Sinclair, 52 Church St., Cambridge. 7pm/all ages/$15. sinclaircambridge.com]
DOUBLE NEGATIVE BUMMER SLOWCORE LOW + IN/VIA + DJ CARBO
FREE SAMPLES FROM DJS WHO DANCE GIRAFFAGE + RYAN HEMSWORTH + INSTUPENDO
THE SHY GUY OF LONG ISLAND EMO JOHN NOLAN + NEMES + DESTRY
DIY WILL NEVER DIE ANTARCTIGO VESPUCCI + KATIE ELLEN + (T-T)B
BOYGENIUS WHEEL OF TUNES
Julien Baker talks animal emotions and comparing herself to others BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN On their own, Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus are a force to be reckoned with. Each is a member of today’s rising indie rock royalty. Fans crowded the venues they played on recent tours, be it the Sinclair or Great Scott, eager to sing along to lyrics that, to them, are scripture. Baker, PHOTO BY LARA PENTELUTE Bridgers, and Dacus bear it all onstage and slink back to their quiet selves offstage. But together, as an indie rock supergroup dubbed boygenius, they’re creating something even more powerful than they could have imagined. On their debut self-titled EP, boygenius, the trio seem to float through pitch-perfect vocal harmonies and stirring guitar ballads. It’s a quiet listen that carries a secret strength under the surface. A song like “Salt In The Wound” shakes the louder you blast it. Meanwhile, the hushed words in “Ketchum, ID” will haunt you for days after you listen. Apart from a few collaborations as of late, like a live cover Baker and Bridgers did together of Gillian Welch’s “Everything Is Free” at music festival Eaux Claires, this is the first time these musicians have worked together—a surprise given how seamless boygenius sounds. “It’s a lot different turning over a song that isn’t completely written and asking somebody what they want to add to it,” says Baker. “I trust them both so much that I knew it would be amazing, but I find myself with a lot of apprehension when it comes to showing unfinished songs to somebody. And yet this communication was so comfortable and easy. It was interesting to hear Lucy offer an observation, something so small that could make sure a huge difference, like switching words or moving lines because it would make for an internal run. She has an incredible mind for the tiny details. And it was cool to work with Phoebe as well because she will say a lot of things as joke but they have a hint of seriousness. We talk all the time about [how] her jokes wind up being her best ideas. It’s a quote from one of her best friends, and we all believe that. When we take ourselves seriously, the ideas we’re afraid to present end up being the best ones. But Phoebe has a great ear for instrumentation and production, things that could make a song sound huge. They’re both very empathetic people who feel very deeply, and that’s likely what makes them such great songwriters.” To peek into the real personalities behind the idolized members of boygenius, we interviewed Julien Baker for a round of Wheel of Tunes, a series where we ask musicians questions inspired by their song titles. With boygenius as the prompt, her answers are honest and clear—traits that also will appear in boygenius’ music when the trio plays the Orpheum this Thursday night. 1. “Bite The Hand” Looking back at your life, who is someone you were ungrateful to or for? What would you want to say to them now? Wow. [long pause] Man, I’m trying to decide which way to take this, lighthearted or more serious. I feel like I was probably ungrateful for my mother. But I was also ungrateful for middle school teachers who were probably extremely frustrated with me. I felt really resentful of authority at that time in my life. I was that kid, which I hate. I don’t know if I hate it, really, but it’s a trope, you know? The rebellious junior high student who believes their intellectual superiority means they don’t need to hear the wisdom of people who—whether or not it’s misguided or coming across in a coarse way—just wanted to help me not screw up so much. I guess you could extrapolate that to a larger conversation. I find myself lost in needing to reframe things into a perspective that appreciates people’s intent more than their execution. There’s some times where execution is in poor taste or unacceptable, but for the most part I think I’m a sensitive person, and knowing that helps me remind myself not to take things so personally, to try to discern that sometimes hearing hurtful honesty is more useful than hearing things that are platitude. I have been ungrateful for people who did the former and I’m grateful for them now. Read the rest of the article at Digboston.com >>BOYGENIUS: JULIEN BAKER, PHOEBE BRIDGERS, LUCY DACUS. THU 11.8. ORPHEUM THEATRE, 1 HAMILTON PL., BOSTON. 6:30PM/ALL AGES/$30. CROSSROADSPRESENTS.COM
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THEATER REVIEWS PERFORMING ARTS
BY CHRISTOPHER EHLERS @_CHRISEHLERS, JILLIAN KRAVATZ @JILLIAN_KRAVATZ & JACOB SCHICK @SCHICK_JACOB
but Plum’s evolution (or devolution, depending on how you look at it) from provincial Midwestern matron to a scheming, pot-selling hussy is profoundly entertaining. What’s more, it’s the best thing the Lyric has done in nearly two years. THE ROOMMATE. THROUGH 11.18 AT THE LYRIC STAGE COMPANY OF BOSTON, 140 CLARENDON ST., BOSTON. LYRICSTAGE.COM -Ehlers
PETER AND THE STARCATCHER AT HUB THEATRE COMPANY
BLAKE HAMMOND (EDNA TURNBLAD) AND BROOKE SHAPIRO (TRACY TURNBLAD) IN HAIRSPRAY AT NORTH SHORE MUSIC THEATRE THRU NOVEMBER 11. PHOTO © PAUL LYDEN.
HAIRSPRAY AT NORTH SHORE MUSIC THEATRE
Few modern musicals match the wit, heart, and craft of Hairspray, and Jeff Whiting’s production for North Shore Music Theatre is a mostly excellent reminder of just how lovable it is. Brooke Shapiro is terrific as Tracy Turnblad, the big-hearted, big-waisted, and big-haired girl who single-handedly lands a teenage heart throb, thaws the hearts of the villainous Von Tussles, and integrates a nationally syndicated television show, all without denting her ’do. Hairspray is so well written that the flaws of this particular production are rendered relatively forgivable, but it is worth mentioning that the in-the-round setting at North Shore presents a regular problem that directors largely fail to rise above; there are moments in Hairspray that are so chaotic that I literally could not see what was happening on stage. Worse, Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan’s deliriously funny script has not been adequately mined for all of its potential. Still, this
THE SALONNIÈRES AIMS FOR BITING CRITIQUE, HITS DATED COMMENTARY
It’s easy to see what the set of The Salonnières is trying to do. It’s an opulent room filled with ornate couches and chairs—Renaissance paintings hung on the walls. But the most striking aspect of this set, designed by Katy Monthei, is its boundaries. The room is set on a raised stage and walled by thin gold bars rising out of the floor to meet at a point on the top. It looks like a birdcage at the Greater Boston Stage Company. And when the Liz Duffy Adams’ play—directed by Weylin Simes—begins to hit its stride, it’s clear that The Salonnières is trying to use this set to its symbolic advantage. Three aristocratic women gather in a salon 18
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Hairspray is a welcome salve for these perilous times. HAIRSPRAY. THROUGH 11.11 AT NORTH SHORE MUSIC THEATRE, 62 DUNHAM RD., BEVERLY. NSMT.ORG
-Ehlers
THE ROOMMATE AT THE LYRIC STAGE
Two of Boston’s best-loved actresses join forces for The Roommate, Jen Silverman’s quirky comedy about two middle-aged women who find themselves living together, trying new things, and reckoning with a demon or two. Paula Plum plays Sharon, a 54-year-old Iowa woman who has recently retired from her marriage and takes in a roommate in order to save a little money. Adrianne Krstansky plays Robyn, a gay vegan from the Bronx whose arrival awakens in Sharon something real and untapped. Directed by Spiro Veloudos, The Roommate is an irresistible treat featuring two beloved actresses at the top of their games. The play loses a bit of steam in its last third when Sharon takes a special interest in Robyn’s past,
in pre-revolution Paris to talk and tell stories. As the backstory of these characters unfold, the stories they tell begin to take on an allegorical quality. The young and naive Madeleine de Sauveterre (Elainy Mata) has been promised to marry the much older Duc de la Beauchene (Bill Mootos). She is joined by Henriette, the Comtesse de Mare (Laura Latreille) and Gabrielle, the Marquise D’Aulney (Sarah Newhouse). The two older and more experienced women seek to guide her through their stories—often featuring a princess and a beast (or at least a prince who acts like one). Here is when The Salonnières begins to come together. The play gets to toy with the ideas of fairy tales while acting one out itself; it can make what seem to be modern feminist critiques through the lens of 18thcentury France; and it can wax poetic on class differences. These women, especially Francoise the maid (Lisa Joyce),
I have tried very hard to see the merit in Peter and the Starcatcher, Rick Elice’s story theater-like adaptation of Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson’s novel, but this rambunctious, hard-to-follow prequel about how Peter became Pan still seems like something that should have been left behind in
improv class. Peter and the Starcatcher is still an overloud, overlong slog that still needs some pruning. Director Sarah Gazdowicz’s pacing is glacial, which has resulted in a production that runs much closer to three hours than it needs to (the Broadway production ran a taut two hours) and scores of scenes that feel like playtime for the actors seem to go on and on. Putting aside my ill feelings about the play, Hub Theatre Company’s high-energy revival does indeed conjure a bit of magic, and that is owed in no small part to the impeccable ensemble of actors who are turning out one of the best ensemble efforts of the year. I loved Michael John Ciszewski’s take on Smee, and Lindsay Eagle is a riot as the flatulent Alf. Jon Vellante and David Makransky are both major assets, and Joey C. Pelletier is in divine form as the dastardly, over-the-top Black Stache. PETER AND THE STARCATCHER. THROUGH 11.17 AT HUB THEATRE COMPANY AT FIRST CHURCH BOSTON, 66 MARLBOROUGH ST. HUBTHEATREBOSTON.ORG -Ehlers are songbirds. Each is trapped in its own golden cage— surrounded by opulent scenery but unable to fly. Instead they must sing—telling stories to each other to lift their spirits and to provide entertainment. But instead of a biting social commentary, The Salonnières turns into a rehash of older feminist tropes. Joyce nearly steals the show, but she and the other characters are clipped by the dialogue and the plot. It’s simply birdsong—pretty to listen to, but filled with little meaning. THE SALONNIERES. THROUGH 11.11 AT GREATER BOSTON STAGE COMPANY, 395 MAIN ST., STONEHAM. GREATERBOSTONSTAGE.ORG -Schick
Beneath the cavernous gothic arches of a church nave, two men sit hunched over a wooden table. “Your works will last,” Prime Minister Robert Cecil tells Master Shagspeare in the opening scene of Equivocation. “I believe your plays will still be being done … 50 years from now,” he guesses, to the audience’s amusement. Four hundred years later, plays by Shagspeare are most certainly still being done—we just call him Shakespeare. Kicking off their 15th season, the Actors’ Shakespeare Project—like their predecessors in the 17th century—are currently working in rep. While some nights find them spitting out the soliloquies of Macbeth, other nights they take on different roles in local playwright Bill Cain’s Equivocation. Cain’s play—set in 1606 England—tells a possible tale of how Macbeth might have been written. Shagspeare (or Shag, as he’s called by his peers) is commissioned to write a play for King James. The play is to chronicle the treasonous Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in which (according to the King) a group of rebelling Catholics digs a tunnel under Parliament, fills it with gunpowder, and attempts to blow up the King and his court. A decoded letter stifles the plot, however, and the conspirators are locked in the tower and publicly executed. God Save the King! Directed by Christopher V. Edwards, ASP’s Equivocation works best when the full ensemble takes the stage. They work beautifully together, flitting from scene to scene with ease—one moment practicing a scene from a half-written King Lear, the next arguing over how the gunpowder plot makes dull theater, the next changing characters completely (facilitated by slight, swift costume changes designed by Jessica Pribble) and entering a Jacobean court room. Ed Hoopman, for example, plays the hotheaded young actor Sharpe but doubles equally well as a hilarious King James and a suffering, starving Catholic conspirator. Maurice Parent’s performance also stands out—as he shifts from portraying the hunchbacked, manipulative Robert Cecil to a cross-eyed witch to a no-name actor, Nate. Hoopman and Parent are compelling as different characters just by the way they stand, cock an eyebrow, laugh, or harrumph. If to equivocate is to “double,” ASP’s actors have learned the (very long) script well. Where the performance lagged, another scene shift followed, at least, to pick it up again. As Shag (played by a sensitive, straightforward Steven Barkhimer) and his company struggle to rehearse his overwrought first drafts of The True History of the Gunpowder Plot, they start to poke holes in the official story of the Gunpowder Plot, which only discourages Shag from continuing with the project. How to write not about the king, but around him? He almost throws in the towel completely, until his daughter Judith (played sassily by Kimberly Gaughan) pulls an old draft from the bin and urges her father to finish it. In the end, we get Macbeth, which has nothing outright to do with the gunpowder plot, but everything to do with power, greed, and regicide.
Photo: Alicia ayo Ohs in NERVOUS/SYSTEM. Credit: Andrew Schneider.
ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN: EQUIVOCATION BY THE ACTORS’ SHAKESPEARE PROJECT
NERVOUS/SYSTEM
By Andrew Schneider & Company November 9-11, 2018 performing.mit.edu
EQUIVOCATION. THROUGH 11.10 AT UNITED PARISH OF BROOKLINE, 210 HARVARD ST., BROOKLINE. ACTORSSHAKESPEAREPROJECT.ORG -Kravatz
EQUIVOCATION ENSEMBLE AS GLOBE ACTORS. PHOTO BY NILE SCOTT SHOTS.
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THE FRIEND ZONE SAVAGE LOVE
BY DAN SAVAGE @FAKEDANSAVAGE | MAIL@SAVAGELOVE.NET
I’ve been spending a lot of time lately thinking about myself and my sexuality and my romantic self. I can log on and easily find someone to fuck. I’m a bear-built top guy. There are ladies in my life who choose to share their beds with me. I can find subs to tie up and torture. (I’m kinky and bi.) What I can’t find is a long-term partner. The problem is that after I fuck/sleep with/torture someone, my brain stops seeing them as sexual and moves them into the friend category. I have friends that I used to fuck regularly, that now it’s a chore to get it up for. Sure, the sex still feels good, but it’s not passionate. And when it’s all said and done, they’re still in the “friend” category in my brain. Some of them have suggested being more, but I’ve recoiled. There’s nothing wrong with them, but they’re friends, not potential partners. I’m 32, and my siblings are married and having kids, and the people I grew up with are married and having kids. And here I am not able to find a long-term significant other. Am I broken? Should I just accept that, at least for me, sexual partners and domestic/romantic partners will always be separate categories? Always Alone What if you’re not like most everyone else? What if this is just how your sexuality works? What if you’re wired—emotionally, romantically, sexually—for intense but brief sexual connections that blossom into wonderful friendships? And what if you’ve been tricked into thinking you’re broken because the kind of successful long-term relationships your siblings and friends have are celebrated and the kind of successful short-term relationships you have are stigmatized? If your siblings and friends want to have the kinds of relationships they’re having— and it’s possible some do not—they will feel no inner conflict about their choices while simultaneously being showered with praise for their choices. But what are they really doing? They’re doing what they want, they’re doing what makes them happy, they’re doing what works for them romantically, emotionally, and sexually. And what are you doing? Maybe you’re doing what you want, AA, maybe you’re doing what could make you happy. So why doesn’t it make you happy? Maybe because you’ve been made to feel broken by a culture that holds up one relationship model—the partnered and preferably monogamous pair—and insists that this model is the only healthy and whole option, and that anyone who goes a different way, fucks a different way, or relates a different way is broken. Now, it’s possible you are broken, of course, but anyone could be broken. You could be broken, I could be broken, your married siblings and friends could be broken. (Regarding your siblings and friends: Not everyone who marries and has kids wanted marriage and kids. Some no doubt wanted it, AA, but others succumbed to what was expected of them.) But here’s a suggestion for something I want you to try, something that might make you feel better because it could very well be true: Try to accept that, for you, sexual partners and domestic/romantic partners might always be separate, and that doesn’t mean you’re broken. If that self-acceptance makes you feel whole, AA, then you have your answer. I might make a different suggestion if your brief-but-intense sexual encounters left a lot of hurt feelings in their wake. But that’s not the case. You hook up with someone a few times, you share an intense sexual experience, and you feel a brief romantic connection to them. And when those sexual and romantic feelings subside, you’re not left with a string of bitter exes and enemies, but with a large and growing circle of good friends. Which leads me to believe that even if you aren’t doing what everyone else is doing, AA, you’re clearly doing something right. P.S. Another option if you do want to get married someday: a companionate marriage to one of your most intimate friends—someone like you, AA, who also sees potential life partners and potential sex partners as two distinct categories with no overlap—and all the Grindr hookups and BDSM sessions you like with one-offs who become good friends.
COMEDY EVENTS THU 11.08 - SAT 11.10
JESSIMAE PELUSO @ LAUGH BOSTON
With roots in Syracuse, Jessimae Peluso sought comedic pastures first in Boston where she performed improv with “The Tribe,” laying the sod for what would become a burgeoning spontaneous brand of original comedy. Since then, Jessimae has leapt onto the small screen as a cast member for MTV’s “Girl Code” & “Failosophy”, with appearances on TBS’ “Deal With It”, NBC’s “Last Call With Carson Daly Spotlight”, Comedy Central’s “@Midnight”, E!’s “Chelsea Lately”, Fox’s “Worlds Funniest Fails”, AXS’ “Gotham Live”, “The Tyra Banks Show”, Tru TV’s “All Worked Up” and an international Nintendo ad campaign.
425 SUMMER ST., BOSTON | VARIOUS | $25-$29 FRI 11.09 - SAT 11.10
AL PARK @ NICK’S COMEDY STOP
Al Park has quickly emerged as a rising talent on the national comedy scene. He recently won both the 2014 Boston Comedy Festival and the 2014 Cleveland Comedy Festival. In 2013 he was the Comic-in-Residence at the legendary Comedy Studio in Cambridge, MA, and won the annual Summer Showdown Comedy Contest at the Rhode Island Comedy Connection. Additionally he has been a featured performer at the Laugh Your Asheville Off Comedy Festival and North Carolina Comedy Arts Festival. He now travels the country captivating audiences with his world-wise attitude and storytelling flair.
100 WARRENTON ST., BOSTON | 8PM | $20 FRI 11.09 - SAT 11.10
LEWIS BLACK’S THE JOKE’S ON US TOUR @ SHUBERT THEATRE
Lewis Black, Grammy Award-winning, stand-up comedian, is one of the most prolific and popular performers working today. He executes a brilliant trifecta as a standup comedian, actor and author. His live performances provide a cathartic release of anger and disillusionment for his audience. He is a passionate performer who is a more pissed-off optimist than a mean-spirited curmudgeon. Lewis is the rare comic who can cause an audience to laugh themselves into incontinence while making compelling points about the absurdity of our world.
265 TREMONT BOSTON | 8PM | $60 SAT 11.10
BOSTON COMEDY CHICKS @ DOYLE’S
Featuring: Erika Welch, Michelle Sui, Brett Johnson, Isha Patnaik, and Erin Maguire. Hosted by Kathe Farris
3484 WASHINGTON ST., JP | 8PM | $15
Lineup & shows to change without notice. For more info on everything Boston Comedy visit BostonComedyShows.com Bios & writeups pulled from various sources, including from the clubs & comics… RUTHERFORD BY DON KUSS DONKUSS@DIGBOSTON.COM
On the Lovecast, strap it on with Tristan Taormino!: savagelovecast.com
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TRADITION OF QUALITY FILM
The latest Frederick Wiseman film considers longstanding values in small-town America BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN
PHOTO COURTESY CIVIC FILM
Frederick Wiseman’s recent film Ex Libris [2017] profiled the New York Public Library system, depicting the events and processes that populate its many branches on a day by day basis. That subject got made explicitly political rather quickly. In the very first scene, Richard Dawkins gives a lecture at the main NYPL branch that includes notes about the power that could potentially be wielded by a block of unified “nonreligious” voters in the United States—a group that has traditionally been underserved by national American politics, at least so far as Dawkins sees it. His lecture essentially sets the table for the three-hour-plus feature, which goes on to paint the NYPL system as an unending spiral of academic pursuits, artist lectures, community meetings, fundraising events, and other happenings—all in loose dialogue with one another, as well as with the staff, the buildings, and the collections themselves—a constant miracle entirely devoid of religious influence. “It became a political film because the library represents everything that Trump doesn’t,” Wiseman would say about Ex Libris in an interview published by Mubi.com after the film’s release. “Values of enlightenment, of learning, of education, of science, of helping people”. The administration of the 45th president of the United States leads us pretty much directly from Ex Libris to Wiseman’s most recent film, Monrovia, Indiana [2018]. More specifically it was Wiseman’s growing desire, sometime during or after the 2016 election, to make a movie about “a small town in the Midwest” that led him to Monrovia, a solidly red-voting farm town with a population below 1,100. This is his 42nd nonfiction feature, all of which have utilized the same production style: He selects an institution or location as his subject, shoots there for a number of weeks (usually around eight), only filming events that would theoretically be happening anyway (no interviews or tours or any other efforts are made for the sake of so-called context), then he edits those events into compressed sequences, which are then arranged (in a nonchronological order) to make up the final edit. Many of Wiseman’s films can
be fit into subseries within his body of work; to wit, Monrovia is his fourth movie about an American town/ city/neighborhood, following Aspen [1991], Belfast, Maine [1999], and In Jackson Heights [2015]. What these films share in common are their radically complex structures, which are unique even by the standard of other Frederick Wiseman films: Faced with the prospect of covering entire communities, these films upend his usual sense of focus and rigor, leaving him to capture fragments rather than a whole (you can shoot a whole Boxing Gym [2010], not so much a whole town, even one as small as Monrovia). But his editing draws those fragmented sequences together with deeply intuitive organization, provoking rich associations with every new sequence—associations that concern both the individual films themselves and the entire Wiseman catalog. Befitting a neighborhood defined by agricultural economics, Monrovia the film begins with about three minutes of landscape footage, the only people visible heavily shrouded behind farming equipment. The first person we see clearly is a man surrounded by hogs. And the first conversation we hear at length is really more of a lecture: Another man is leading a church group discussion, speaking about the “tribulations” we face in life, how they’re all attributable to original sin, how religious faith provides our only possible salvation. Ex Libris begins with a paean to science and knowledge; meanwhile, Monrovia is structured so that the very first word you hear is “God.” One quickly ascertains that the values being taught here are far removed from those being upheld in the liberal arts institutions of the northeast United States. The second dialogue-based sequence in Monrovia depicts a high school teacher droning on for three and a half minutes about the “dominating” basketball teams their high school had fielded in the past. His rant is not recognizably different from the kind that would be given by an old high school athlete reliving old glories from the comfort of a barstool. And the students appear eminently aware of that fact, responding only with stupefied
boredom. If this weren’t the only scene depicting nonextracurricular public education in Monrovia, it’d be grim, but given that it is, it’s pretty much damning. It’d play like absurdist satire if it didn’t also play so true. How can you laugh at this? How can you not? Just like the Dawkins scene in Ex Libris, this high school glory-days scene creates a general mood that’s maintained throughout most of Monrovia: a blurry middle located somewhere between queasily condescending humor and genuinely humane social interest. There’s absolutely a sense of pitiful comedy at play here, but I’m also not quite sure it could’ve been avoided. Truthfully I think documenting a faithbased working-class white community in 2018 brings a certain chintziness along with the territory, and to ignore that would be to lie. Wiseman recognizes the comedy wherever it occurs, usually finding it coexisting alongside Monrovia’s recurring themes, which are faith and tradition (and the role that both play in maintaining patriarchy on both the macro and micro levels). The film is structured around a series of centerpieces, and each one brings all this into unified focus, godliness with goofiness, tradition with stagnation. These longer sequences include a wedding (where the officiant presides over a ludicrous ritual involving a plastic-looking cross—“the bride’s piece of the unity cross represents the beauty, and the many other capabilities, of the woman”), three different town council meetings (one of which has the all-white members of the council deeply concerned about changes in Monrovia’s “demographics”), a ceremony held at a Masonic lodge (which critic Richard Brody noted as having “a ritual pomp more apt for a funeral”), and finally, in the film’s last scenes, a memorial and a funeral (which critic Ben Sachs, a longtime student of Wiseman movies, recently cited as featuring what’s “got to be one of the least interesting speeches Wiseman has ever included in a film”). Wiseman is a great artist, and this is a great film, and given that, you probably don’t need me to say that it’s only with good reason that the film ends with an uninteresting speech. The man who memorializes the late woman in question speaks about her almost entirely within the context of her relationship with her husband, and more specifically he mostly speaks about her within the context of how totally deferential she was to her husband. Now for all we know that’s exactly what she might’ve liked. But that doesn’t matter so much, not in terms of the film itself. In the film itself, this ending creates rhymes with the wedding scene, and with the values professed therein. And then those two faith-based sequences rhyme with the ones involving local politics, informing one another, providing insight back and forth, statements and mindsets from one echoed in the other, gags set up in one place and then paid off in the next (the high school teacher’s basketball speech leads to one of the funniest visual gags I’ve ever seen in a Wiseman movie). So there’s Tobacco Road [1941] here, and something of a elegy for rural America, too. But don’t take the symbol too far; don’t think it’s the values on display in Monrovia that are buried during that funeral. The preacher carries on, the values get passed along. If Wiseman’s film suggests anything definite, it’s that another filmmaker visiting Monrovia years from now probably would find that not much had changed.
>> MONROVIA, INDIANA SCREENS AT THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS ON FOUR MORE OCCASIONS: THU 11.8 4PM, SUN 11.11 12:30PM, WED 11.14 4PM, SAT 11.24 12:30PM. $13. WISEMAN’S OTHER FEATURES, INCLUDING EX LIBRIS, CAN BE SEEN ON KANOPY, A LIBRARY-BASED ONLINE STREAMING SERVICE 22
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ART REVIEW VISUAL ART
UNLESS: Massive piece of art tells simple message about global warming BY MORGAN HUME Artist Stephane Cardon is using a large artwork to tell a simple message: Climate change is a pressing, unavoidable crisis that we must take fast action to remediate. Her 3,400-square-foot piece in the entryway of the Prudential Center uses vibrantly colored construction debris netting, a sustainable choice of material. Cardon is also a professor at MassArt, and she shared more about her exhibit with DigBoston. What inspired you to create this piece? UNLESS came about partly because of the space it is in, its uses and potential, and partly because of a growing sense of urgency to make a piece that would speak to the great crisis of our time: climate change. I was keen to create a work that would speak to the intersection of many different issues pertaining to climate: development and housing, labor and economic inequality, manufacturing and consumption, community organizing and spirituality. When Boston Properties and Now + There approached me and took me to the space in the Prudential Center, I was awed by the audience it would reach. Over 80,000 people enter the building through the doors at 800 Boylston St every day. It is a public space open 24 hours that provides access to a shopping center, offices, residences, as well as temporary shelter for many. Given the size of that audience and the passing crowds of Boylston Street, I felt the need to create a galvanizing and visual call to action. How does the art explore climate change and sustainability? Why is this important? Last month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international body of scientists, published a report at the urging of many low-lying and developing nations that are already seeing the severe impact of climate change on their people, economies, and habitats. The report reveals a frightening fact: Our fossil fueldependent lifestyles are putting us in great, immediate peril. If we cannot halt our carbon emissions and end our dependence on fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, oil) within the next 12 years, the knock-on effect on the climate might be out of our hands to control. There is nothing more important than this. Every socially unjust issue we are already witnessing is exacerbated by a changing climate. As I told my students on Halloween: “You know what’s really scary? Food shortages.” Last winter, I was a part of a Climate Ready Boston cohort, organized by the city’s Greenovate program. In the training we were shown many maps, some of which were, frankly, conservative, which depicted the impact of a changing climate on Greater Boston by neighborhood. We can expect more and more hot days in the summer, a rapidly rising sea level, intensifying storms, and storm water flooding. (Link available at boston.gov.) Boston is ill-equipped to deal with this. Our infrastructure is old and easily overwhelmed. Most of the city, including the airport, is built on fill and very low-lying. Much of our public transportation and major roads are underground. Our downtown is densely developed and captures heat because of limited green space. The city is trying to address this in its future planning, but there is no amount of waterfront parks, seawalls, or raised infrastructure that can hold back the eight feet of sea level rise predicted in 80 years if we do not also cut our carbon use to almost nil and fast. UNLESS is large to be unavoidable. It is made of mostly repurposed debris netting from construction sites around the city, which is undergoing a building boom. Construction is responsible for over 50 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions. But the piece’s real focus is on climate justice and how the worsening
impacts we face will affect the poorest and most vulnerable communities hardest. Because the materials for UNLESS were free or very affordable, I could use the project budget to pay a higher than average wage for labor—something unusual in the field of art and design in particular, but that more generally responds to the lack of liveable wages in the United States where 41 million people live in poverty (source: the Guardian and the UN). This relates to climate because the wealthiest few in the world have significantly heavier carbon footprints than most of us and are also in a better position to weather the storm, literally. The 30 people I worked with on the UNLESS all had an emotional stake in the project. I wanted the fabrication of the piece to pull together two Puerto Rican communities: students from San Juan who were studying at MassArt last winter following the hurricanes that closed their school, and the community at La Villa Victoria in the South End. La Villa Victoria is an historic example of how community can come together and organize for their own good and power. In 1968, they stopped some of the gentrification of the South End that threatened to displace them from their homes. In the process, they created a neighborhood with affordable housing, health services, a preschool, an arts center and hall. Why did you decide on the use of such bright colors, materials, and large size? Orange and blue are two colors one sees overwhelmingly in infrastructure and in construction. Safety orange is a neon color used for warning. It is highly visible. When combined with its complement, blue, you create a very energetic visual. But the blue also stands for “the Blue Marble,” our Earth, as it was affectionately nicknamed in 1972 by the crew of Apollo 17. This image of our common home is one of the most reproduced in human history and became a symbol for the environmental movement. In the Prudential Center, I made the blue circle repeat four times on the stairs. This is to represent our consumption as a nation: If the entire planet were to consume at US levels, we would need over four planets’ worth of resources. This again is a link to
environmental justice: On the global scale, the North and nations like the US that industrialized earlier are largely responsible for the damage to our biosphere. How do you hope people see the installation as they walk by? What message do you hope they take away from the art? This is a traumatic subject. It has been shown that people shut down and dissociate from news about climate change, but also that overwhelmingly people are concerned. I wanted to create a work that would be healing as well as energizing. The piece can be seen in an instant, while walking by. Its scale and color provoke a feeling of awe. When I read Pope Francis’s encyclical letter, Laudato Si’: On Care of our Common Home, I felt hopeful that a faith leader was calling out to a global audience and asking us to consider our Westernized patterns of consumption, production, development. I chose phrases from the text to highlight through embroidery. This was the majority of the work we did as a team: repairing the fabric collected, sewing and embroidering. I hope that people will sign up for the call to action in SMS form: Texting UNLESSBOS to 555888 will launch a text message feed that engages subscribers in climate justice content and actionable steps. There is no time for apathy, and making an artwork that would only illustrate the problem seemed insufficient. Will you create more art that tackles climate change or similar issues in the future? Without a doubt. There are many intricacies to explore in this topic that go beyond the bold, banner-drop gesture that UNLESS represents. What feels imperative to me at this point is that the projects I work on link up with other ongoing action around climate change, whether that be in the field of education, science or community organizing Join MA-National Museum of Women in the Arts for an artist talk with UNLESS artist Stephanie Cardon. Saturday, 11.10, 10:30-11:30PM, 800 Boylston St., Boston.
UNLESS BY STEPHANIE CARDON, INTERIOR PHOTO, VIEW 1 (RYAN MCMAHON/NOW + THERE). NEWS TO US
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