THE GLOBE AFTER MARTy » THE SENATE AFTER KERRy » A.R.T.’S PIPPIN AFTER FossE
november 23, 2012 >> Free WeeKLY >> thePhoenix.com
nutcracker, reBOOteD Boston Ballet puts a new spin on an old favorite. Page 22
p 35 When not hunting South End rats or pas-de-deux-ing down Clarendon, the Nutcracker enjoys yoga, laundromat pirouettes, dog-walking, and chillaxing on the roof deck.
ON THE COVER AND THIS PAGE PHOTOS BY DANNY KIM, SHOT ON LOCATION AT UNION PARK LAUNDRY AND SOUTH END BUTTERY
THIS WEEK AT THEPHOENIX.COM :: SKY’S THE LIMIT Liz Pelly interviews pop phenom Sky Ferreira. Plus, win tix to her show all week on wfnx.com :: GLOBE TROTTING More from Peter Kadzis on the legacy of departing Boston Globe editor Marty Baron :: MENINOWATCH Mayor’s hospital stay enters month two
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opinion :: feedback
From thephoenix.com CorreCtion
Siena Oristaglio and Noah Blumenson-Cook did not agree with several changes that the Phoenix made to their elegy for Becca Darling (“Après elle le déluge: Remembering Becca Darling,” November 2, 2012). First, the photograph that was printed was an image of Becca Darling dressed up to play a character named Melissa Mahoney for an Amanda Palmer music video called “Oasis.” The authors would have preferred the Phoenix to print this photo of Becca instead. Second, the verbiage in the printed article appeared as “set it alight and set it free,” when the authors intended it to read “set it light and set it free,” an illusion to PJ Harvey’s “Man-Size,” a song that Becca loved. Finally, the last line of the piece was altered from “we are all going down together” (from Laurie Ander-
re: “A Convenient exCuse,” by Wen stephenson, 11.02.12 The author relates Bill McKibben saying that climate activists must challenge their purported allies, not just the AGW deniers (who couldn’t care less what they say). True. But it isn’t happening. McKibben himself resolutely supports President Obama and the Democrats, as do most mainstream environmental organizations. The author meekly mentions Obama in the same breath as . . . Elizabeth Warren, as if they are
instagram us
son’s “From the Air”) to “we are all going down.” The authors of the piece would like to remark that yes, we are all going down, but we are doing it together. There is no pilot. You are not alone. somehow equally responsible for the failure to address AGW. I quit 350.org for precisely those reasons. Want to know why AGW has disappeared from the national consciousness? Ask President Frackenstein. . . . When climate activists recognize that Obama and the Democrats are not the answer then they may garner respect and will secure credibility. Until then, they appear to be just more partisan Democratic hacks who are Useful Idiots for the corporatists who have rigged the game. _“W bgonne”
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in this issue
6 PERFORMANCES ONLY! DEC 05 - 09
LA BELLE ET LA BÊTE
(BEAUTY AND THE BEAST) LEMIEUX PILON 4D ART
A timeless love story meets the magic of technology in a stunning theatrical event.
editorial
p8
now & next
p 11
» Hey, who put all this bacon in our hot chocolate? It’s cold out; here’s how to insulate your arteries with delicious local cocoa innovations. Plus get a peek inside the Vermont logcabin dreamhouse of Boston Ballet soloist John Lam. Player piano + saddle + wet bar = one hell of a weekend.
p 12
» haute hot chocolate p 12 » air travel 101 p 12 » at home with John lam p 14
p 14
ARTSEMERSON.ORG / 617.824.8400 CUTLER MAJESTIC THEATRE 219 TREMONT ST BOSTON
or
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» the Big hurt p 16 » @Kadzis p 18 » talking politics p 20
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spotlight
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» After over two decades, the Boston Ballet’s The Nutcracker gets a long-awaited overhaul. We’ll take you on a backstage tour. And why does one Phoenix staffer still have nightmares about being crushed under the clogs of Mother Ginger? Learn the hidden perils of podunk dance productions. » the nutcracker, then and now p 22 » worst nutcracker roles ever p 24 » tutu takeover p 30
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» This week, a very special Bieberwatch edition of the Big Hurt unveils the new TomKat we’ve all been waiting for: Scoober. (Just go read it.) And we examine the legacy of Globe editor Marty Baron, as he prepares to pull up stakes and head off to the Washington Post.
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Nutcracker roles roles illustratioN illustratioN by by amaNda amaNda boucher boucher Nutcracker
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The Museum
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School
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» It’s time for us to gather with our loved ones and gorge on cranberry harissa, dunk turkeys in brine, and get sloshed on hot toddies. Can you imagine something better to be thankful for? We didn’t think so.
» active ingredient: cranberries p 38 » turkey tips: the pros weigh in p 40 » liquid: hot cocktails p 42 » on the cheap: Kigo Kitchen p 44 » the week in food events p 45
arts & nightlife
p 38
p 47
» We’re bringing you a zoo this week. Check it: We’ve got tigers on rafts in Life of Pi. We ponder the uncertain future of Lamb of God. And we mourn departed dogs with Lauren Slater.
10 am daily
oN the cheap photo by derek kouyoumjiaN; books illustratioN by karl steveNs
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Who Will You Discover?
Nov 29–Dec 2
» Boston fun list p 48 » welcome to central square p 50 » Boston city guide p 52 » visual arts p 53 » Books p 56 » dance & classical p 58 » theater p 60 » film p 62 » Music p 67 » nightlife p 76 » get seen p 77 » Back talk: chet walker p 78
p 53
SALE The Museum School’s annual Art Sale is just around the corner. Explore thousands of works by SMFA students, alumni, faculty and affiliated artists. Proceeds benefit SMFA student scholarships. Opening night music on Nov 29 by DJ Holtie School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 230 The Fenway Boston, MA 02115 Media sponsor:
www.smfa.edu/smfasale Design: Mario Avila Design.com
THEPHOENIX.cOm :: 11.23.12 7
opinion :: Editorial vol. lXXvIII | no. 44
Stephen M. Mindich, Publisher & Chairman Everett Finkelstein, Chief Operating Officer Carly Carioli, Editor in Chief Peter Kadzis, Editor at Large
EDITORIAL
Managing editors Shaula Clark,
Jacqueline Houton
arts editor Jon Garelick fiLM editor Peter Keough Music editor Michael Marotta assistant Music editor Liz Pelly staff editors Thomas McBee, SI Rosenbaum staff Writers David S. Bernstein, Chris Faraone events editor Alexandra Cavallo associate food editor Cassandra Landry Listings coordinator Michael C. Walsh contributing editors Carolyn Clay [theater], Lloyd
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offices 126 Brookline Ave., Boston, MA 02215, 617-536-5390, Advertising dept fax 617-536-1463 Web site thePhoenix.com Manuscripts Address to Managing Editor, News & Features, Boston Phoenix, 126 Brookline Ave., Boston, MA 02215. We assume no responsibility for returning manuscripts. Letters to the editor e-mail to letters@phx.com. Please include a daytime telephone number for verification. subscriptions Bulk rate $49/6 months, $89/1 year, allow 7-14 days for delivery; first-class rate $175/6 months, $289/1 year, allow 1-3 days for delivery. Send name and address with check or money order to: Subscription Department, Boston Phoenix, 126 Brookline Ave., Boston, MA 02215. copyright © 2012 by The Boston Phoenix, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission, by any method whatsoever, is prohibited. printed by Cummings Printing Co.
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Washington is gripped with Benghazi Fever. It is a tricky and treacherous disease. On the surface, it manifests itself as a deep and seemingly patriotic concern about the deaths of US Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three other Americans — two of whom worked for the CIA. These symptoms, however, are extremely misleading. In essence, Benghazi Fever resembles a personality disorder. Its symptoms: impulsive irresponsibility and extreme cold-heartedness. Late-stage Benghazi Fever is characterized by profoundly superficial explosions of egocentricity. Some experts even suggest that this parasitic urge to exploit public misfortune for personal gratification may have a strangely sexual element. It is a way, the thinking goes, to release the daemons that linger after a miserably humiliating public failure. Republican Senator John McCain is currently in the midst of a full-blown attack. To make matters worse, McCain is a carrier. He has infected Republican colleague Lindsey Graham, who has previously proven himself to be susceptible to a wide range of other political perversions. The only known antidote to Benghazi Fever is truth — of which there is a chronic shortage in Washington. So in the days to come, as America watches the sick and twisted psyches of McCain and Graham writhe in outraged ecstasy on cable and network news, remember these facts:
1. UN Ambassador Susan Rice was not involved in any way, shape, or form with Benghazi — other than to act as a glorified talking head in the absence of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was abroad on business at the time.
2. Because Clinton is too formidable and popular a political figure to attack with pathetic conspiracy theories, Rice is the surrogate victim. (If fake conspiracies didn’t doom Clinton during the trumped-up Whitewater scandal, they wouldn’t work now. McCain knows this.) 3. It’s convenient that Rice is President Obama’s pick to succeed Clinton. By attacking Rice, the moral midgets are really attacking Obama, who is relatively impervious to assault these days because of his recent re-election victory. Attempting to hurt a weaker target in order to vicariously injure a more powerful one is a pretty good definition of cowardice. It’s also an example of what the Nixon White House called “ratfucking.” 4. There is a reasonable chance that the Senate Benghazi hearings will find a degree of error or unpreparedness leading up to the attack. That is what boy toy and former CIA director David Petraeus was testifying about the episode when the Phoenix went to press. The fact that congressional Republicans cut requests for State Department security funds will likely also come into play. 5. Four people died in the Benghazi attack, and that tragic fact can not be undone. Nearly five thousand American service members died in Iraq, along with upwards of 100,000 Iraqi civilians. All died because public officials like McCain and Graham bought the lies of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney about Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction and building an atomic bomb. Why haven’t McCain and Graham investigated this? Your witness, America. Gobble, gobble.
The only known antidote to Benghazi Fever is truth — of which there is a chronic shortage in Washington.
P
PhoTo: REuTERS
production director Travis Ritch creative director Kristen Goodfriend art director Kevin Banks photo editor Janice Checchio advertising art Manager Angelina Berardi senior designer Janet Smith Taylor editoriaL designer Christina Briggs Web designer Braden Chang freeLance designer Daniel Callahan production artist Faye Orlove
noW
pop-up treats » a dancer’s den » BieBer MatchMaking » Baron’s Move
& NEXT
photo by conor doherty
Design Museum Boston takes flight. Page 12.
thephoenIX.com :: 11.23.12 11
Now & Next :: oN our radar
ThaT’s hoT
If that snowstorm a couple of weeks back was any indication, we’d say that winter is well on its not-so-merry way. Luckily, the Revere Hotel has just PoP iT devised a rather excellent way to ward like iT’s hoT off those winter doldrums: “Pop It Like fridays from 3 to 6 pm, through dec 21 It’s Hot: A Taza Hot Chocolate Pop-Up lobby of the revere Shop!” What’s better than a gourmet hotel, 200 stuart st, hot-cocoa stand with decadent offerings boston like meringue brûlée and, uh, maplereverehotel.com bacon hot chocolate? That would be a The Parlor free gourmet hot-cocoa stand. In return, daily from 2 to 6 pm they’re asking for a “pay-what-youlobby of the Mandarin want” donation to benefit the Home Oriental, 776 boylston st, boston for Little Wanderers, a local children’s nonprofit. That’s a deal to warm both mandarinoriental.com/ boston your freezing bones and your heart. Not a chocolate lover? You can pop over to the Mandarin Oriental to sample “The Parlor,” their new pop-up afternoon tea lounge, which has seasonal treats like hot toddies with rum, Calvados, Scotch, or bourbon (yes, please), an array of herbal teas, pastries, tea sandwiches, and more. Those aren’t free . . . but they sound equally delicious. _al ex a n d r a C ava l l o
WorD of the Week
jukebox
n. 1. A coin-operated phonograph, typically in a gaudy, illuminated cabinet, having a variety of records that can be selected by push button. See also: The Infinite Jukebox, a new web app that allows you to generate a never-ending, ever-changing version of your favorite song. Find it — along with the 60 other projects developed over the course of 24 frenzied hours at this month’s Music Hack Day at MIT — at boston.musichackday.org. 12 11.23.12 :: thephOeniX.cOM
You’re Doing it Wrong: Air trAvel Don't worry. Our expert is here to help.
This week marks one of the busiest for travel — which for many of us means nervously clutching three-ounce shampoos as we queue up at security for government-sanctioned groping, followed by equally pleasant sardine-style seating and SkyMall reading. At least we now have something neat to see before boarding: “Getting There: Design for Travel in the Modern Age,” a just-opened exhibit that explores how design shapes our trips, from seats to signage to silverware. On view for a year at Logan’s Terminal E, it’s co-presented by Design Museum Boston, a decentralized network of exhibits celebrating smart design. Cofounder and director Sam Aquillano is pretty well-travelled himself; we tapped him for some tips. _JaCqueli ne h ouT on
On Our jet-setting past: “We have to be careful not look at the 1950s and ’60s air-travel experience through rose-colored eye masks (I couldn’t resist) — just think about people smoking cigarettes on planes. But it’s not called the Golden Age for nothing. . . . Travelers dressed up; they socialized with other passengers in in-air lounges. They collectively realized that what they were doing — flying — was an exciting experience.” On building better airpOrts: “My favorite piece is a 1958 animated video created by Charles and Ray Eames for their friend Eero Saarinen, titled ‘The Expanding Airport.’ Most airports are horribly designed. If you were designing a structure for giant organisms with 200-foot wingspans, you would design airports the way they are today — spread-out, long expanses and large gaps between gates. Saarinen was trying to design an airport at the human scale. The idea was simple: instead of making planes go to terminals, make terminals go to planes. Passengers would enter through the main airport ‘hub’ into a detachable, mobile lounge that was comfortable, luxurious, and relaxing.” On squeezing passengers On planes: “Progressive airlines and designers are responding to this economic reality in interesting ways. IDEO, a leading design firm operating in Cambridge, worked with New Zealand Airlines to redefine in-flight ‘personal space’ to be a bit more flexible and offer different configurations for traveling alone, with a partner, or even with a family.” On packing: “I cringe when I see people in the airport dragging what seems like everything they own. I equate flying to urban backpacking — I try to be as efficient as possible. . . . My favorite gear for traveling: my iPad and Bose QuietComfort headphones.” On flying philOsOphically: “Travel, like most things in life, is all what you make it out to be. If you’re geared up for a giant bus ride in the sky, then by all means throw on some sweatpants and settle into your perceived cocoon. If you’re excited to go to new places with new people, focus on the journey as an important part of your trip, say hello to your neighbor, and hell . . . be nice!” learn more about design Museum boston — and its november 28 bash at Massart — at designmuseumboston.org.
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Now & Next :: reside
At Home witH JoHn LAm
Boston Ballet’s The NuTcracker is a local hallmark of the holiday season. (Sort of like our annual eggnog-induced emotional breakdowns, though those tend to garner fewer glowing reviews from audiences.) This year, the production gets its first makeover in decades — but company soloist John Lam, at least, clearly retains a fondness for tradition. On free weekends, Lam and his husband, real-estate lawyer John Ruggieri, retreat from their modern city condo to a rustic log home in Barnard, Vermont, to snowmobile, hike, and entertain friends and family amid 10 acres of rolling green hills. “It’s the quintessential New England experience,” says Ruggieri. We danced on by for a visit. _Scott Kearnan » @t heW ri teStuffSK
A B
C
is a place we both fell in love with,” agrand“Vermont says Lam. And what’s more romantic than a stone fireplace stretching to an 18-foot
ceiling? (The sunken hot tub on the deck, maybe.) The area is so meaningful to the couple that they married on a nearby estate and built their registry with locally based glassblower Simon Pearce.
great room, where the couple frequently BwaysThis entertain, boasts a well-stocked wet bar. Alon hand: fine red wine, single-malt Scotch,
E
D
and quality vodka for cosmopolitans (plus San Pellegrino for non-drinker Lam). The home’s name, Stonewall Lodge, alludes to the NYC bar that birthed the modern gay-rights movement — and also to, well, a lot of stone walls nearby.
all the handsome furnishings cily orNearly were passed down by Ruggieri’s famdiscovered during the pair’s frequent
antiquing excursions. (Antiques Collaborative in nearby Quechee, Vermont, is a favorite.) Their finds include this saddle, a nod to their dream of eventually raising horses here. Brave party guests have been known to mount it on occasion.
You’ll likely hear this player piano tinkling Dcouple during the holidays. It’s tradition for the to host as many as 20 family members for
This painting of a lion is by Ruggieri’s mother, ea landmark Connie. Her work also hangs in Bentley’s, restaurant in artsy Woodstock,
Vermont, where the pair often browse galleries. Speaking of family ties, their other favorite pieces are originals by Mara Abboud, sister to famous Boston-born menswear designer Joseph Abboud.
14 11.23.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm
photos by matt teuten
Thanksgiving dinner in this room. Adjacent is a tricked-out kitchen where Lam, an avid home chef, gets to indulge his non-dancing passion all year round.
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now & next :: voices The Big hurT
BieBer’s next romance B y D av iD T ho r p e
BieBerWATCh! Our fledgling manlet has reportedly had his first taste of heartache! E! News — and everyone else in the world, by now — brings word that Biebs has been dumped by longtime gee eff Selena Gomez, who complained of conflicting schedules and “trust issues” (Bieber had lately been spied gallivanting with a young Victoria’s Secret model). To veteran Bieberwatchers, it’s no shock that the relationship ended in dumpage; Justin has become, by most media accounts, quite the little shit. I don’t hold it against him; I was a little shit at his age, I’m an even bigger shit more than a decade on, and God only knows how tremendous a shit I would become if I were rich, famous, or attractive. Persistent celeb-gossip and blind-item rumors accused Bieber of being an uneven boyfriend, possessed of a wandering eye, sometimes cruel and arrogant but occasionally executing the kind of grand gestures — renting out the Staples Center for a private showing of Titanic — that require a genuinely devoted PR team. 16 11.23.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm
A single Bieber is a much better story, since it creates a compelling pop-culture power vacuum.
She may be better off rid of him, and Bieberwatch won’t likely suffer. Bieber and Gomez didn’t make a compelling celebrity couple, if such a thing even exists. On the brink of Bieber’s transition into smoldering masculinity, the baby-faced Selena seemed like a relic of his more cherubic days. Plus, their names didn’t combine pleasingly, as is required of all power couples: Jelena? Bieb-ez? Selieber? Sebulba? Naturally, the rest of the junk media is taking the split well. After a few photo slideshows of the young couple in happier times, they’ll be relieved to move on. A single Bieber is a much better story, since it creates a compelling pop-culture power vacuum: whose comforts shall our heartsick teen twink seek? They’re already lining up replacements. Billboard.com has assembled brief dossiers of eligible suitresses, leading off with natural match Carly Rae Jepsen: they’re “good friends,” share management, and have already released a romantic duet. From there,
it moves through wishful Twittercrashing pairings like Taylor Swift and Rihanna and onward to the highly speculative: “From what we can tell, Justin Bieber and Jennifer Lawrence have never actually met, but when they do, who’s to say whether or not sparks will fly?” By the end of the Billboard.com item, things get pretty fanciful: “Although they may not speak the same language, Biebs and 20-year-old South Korea native HyunA both speak the language of love in their effortlessly catchy musical stylings.” Meanwhile, tvguide.com is putting it up to an online vote — nonbinding, of course, but you can be sure Bieber’s management will be keeping a close eye. “Could you see Bieber making beautiful music with another musician like Taylor Swift or Demi Lovato? Or should he go the cougar route with an older woman like Katy Perry or Demi Moore?” Yes, being 28 apparently puts Katy in the “cougar” category alongside the 50-year-old Moore — I guess that means Carly Rae is only two years away from cougarhood (and, ouch, I’m two years into it). One option in the tvguide.com vote is “me,” which doesn’t seem like the best match — I’m sure we’d get along fine in terms of renting Die Hard and playing Xbox, but Justin is a young man with raging hormones, and he deserves a more enthusiastic lover. Plus, if the rumors that Bieber berated Gomez for her minimal baby fat are true, I’m sure he wouldn’t tolerate my sloppy frame. Actually, if the option of a man-man match is on the table, I have a much better suggestion: Scooter Braun, his dashing young manager. If you’ve watched the Justin Bieber movie or read any Braun interview, it’s clear that Scoots yearns tragically for the lad, whether he’s admitted it to himself or not. Lay aside all this Taylor Swift dream-couple fluff: the thought of Scooter and Justin, two crazy kids, hand in glove since the early days, finally locking eyes across the dressing room and realizing they were meant for one another. . . . That’s a love story for the ages. P
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DT H O R P E@ P H X .C O M :: @A R R
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Hub fans bid baron adieu B Y PETER KA D ZIS
P K A DZ I S @ P H X .C O M :: @ K A DZ I S
Outside of New York, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles, there is no big-city daily better than Baron’s Globe.
In the 1960S AnD 1970S, when the media sky was as expansive as the horizon of Fenway Park, Boston Globe editor Tom Winship hankered to make the Globe one of the nation’s top 10 dailies. He succeeded. When Marty Baron took command of the Globe newsroom on July 30, 2001, the picture had changed. Across the nation, newspaper profitability had tanked. Survival was the new imperative. As Baron prepares to assume the top editorial slot at the Washington Post on January 2, 2013, he is once again signing on with a jittery publisher. The Post is not going out of business. But while the Globe’s parent, the New York Times Company, has achieved at least temporary stability, the Post is in the red, with a loss shy of $22 million in the third quarter. Even in better times, judging newspaper quality was subjective. Today, numbers don’t help much. All media balance sheets are under pressure. And the business of calculating Internetenhanced readership is voodoo. Still, I think it is safe to say that outside of New York, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles, there is no big-city daily better than Baron’s Globe. Over the last 11 years, Baron kept the Globe’s edge. Relative to resources, it could be argued that he made it better. Winship’s brand had more voices and personality, Baron’s more focus and discipline. Given the punishing economics of the industry, compounded by the worst recession of a lifetime, further walloped by digitization and commodification, maintaining excellence is a bankable accomplishment. Baron’s former colleagues at the Los Angeles Times and the Miami Herald talk about him in terms usually reserved for the last of the .400 hitters. That, too, is generally the case at the Globe. In an online piece I wrote last week, the day Baron’s long-rumored gig at the Post was announced, I suggested that
during Baron’s service at the New York Times in the late-1990s, he achieved oneness with the Times’ values. A friend from the Providence Journal, who had been hired by Baron to work in the Los Angeles Times’ business section, emailed suggesting that I was not quite right: “He didn’t take his standards from the NYT; he brought his standards there.” Hyperbole? Perhaps. But to parse the implicit point: Baron is inner-directed. He sets his own mark, measures his own success. That is what I think a New York coeval of Baron’s was driving at when he told me, “On an existential level, I wonder if Marty gives a shit.” No one is likely to accuse Baron of being clubbable, a talent Winship held in spades. “Reserved.” “Frosty.” “Defensive.” Those are words applied to Baron over the years, often by admirers — sometimes by friends. My theory: there is something generational here. I noticed that when Larry Summers was Harvard president, many undergraduates said they liked the brutally direct Summers, felt they could connect because Summers was honest, unambiguous. Faculty reminded the kids of their parents. And the faculty, well, as a group, they found Summers insufficiently respectful. To oversimplify, the Globe’s thirtyto-fortysomething cohort seems more admiring of Baron than the forty-tofiftysomething crew. And harnessing youth and energy is more or less a timehonored tactic in the business. Among the inmates of Washington’s government-media complex, curiosity stirs. Baron has his share of friends and allies. One ultimate-insider type, however, told me he was surprised by what seemed to be a degree of apprehension. Delphic, he would not elaborate. Fear of the unknown? Then again, it might be an outer-directed community preparing to confront Emerson’s self-invented man. In intellectual terms, there was nothing clubbable about Emerson. P
SEE “MR. BARON GOES TO WASHINGTON” AT THEPHOENIX.COM for Peter Kadzis’s off-the-top-of-his-head version of this story, written the day Baron’s Globe exit was announced.
18 11.23.12 :: THEPHOENIX.COM
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11/15/12 4:26 PM
now & next :: voices talking politics
Him again? B y D av iD S. B ern St e i n
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this was supposed to be the calm after the storm. We’ve just finished a wild year on the local political scene: Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren faced off in the nation’s marquee US Senate race; a down-and-dirty North Shore congressional battle pitted John Tierney against Richard Tisei; Joe Kennedy III gave us the first campaign of the famous family’s next generation; and of course former governor Mitt Romney ran his downto-the-wire presidential quest out of North End headquarters. With the dust settled, Boston’s political insiders were looking forward to a quiet 2013 — a municipal election year, with Boston’s Tom Menino expected to cruise to re-election. But, barely a week after the November 6 election, the Massachusetts political world was right back in the maelstrom. Two deepening mysteries were responsible. First, the Washington Post reported early last week that President Barack Obama is considering US Senator John Kerry for his second-term secretary of defense. This unleashed a torrent of near-hysterical telephone and text activity about potential candidates for a special election. Kerry was 20 11.23.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm
It seems like everybody in town is gearing up to run for something.
known to be eager to succeed Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, but reporting and rumor suggested that he would get passed over again, this time for Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice. The Post article re-opened the possibility. At around the same time as that Post bombshell, the Boston Globe dropped another: Mayor Tom Menino, already in the hospital for two weeks dealing with a viral infection and blood clot, had “suffered another setback” with back pain and would remain at Brigham & Women’s indefinitely. All of a sudden, political insiders were gossiping about who was planning to run if the 69-year-old Menino can’t. A press conference on his behalf fanned the flames. “Insiders are going crazy over his health [and] re-election prospects,” one campaign operative told me. Of course, neither race might actually materialize. But it feels like the campaign cycle never ended — oh, and Lieutenant Governor Tim Murray essentially kicked off the 2014 gubernatorial campaign last Thursday, with a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce speech that all but declared himself a candidate. It seems like everybody in town is gearing up to run for something.
Brown has signaled that we can expect him to return as the GOP standard-bearer if Kerry does leave — even though, should Brown win, he’d need to defend the seat in 2014 (when Kerry is next due for reelection), putting him through four tough statewide campaigns in less than five years. The indefatigable Brown is one of the few people who would be undaunted by that prospect. One of his top aides, Jerry McDermott, posted on Facebook shortly after the Post article appeared: “Team Scott Brown. Hope you had some much needed rest. Looks to be a busy 2013 and 2014.” Democrats are mostly talking about the usual suspects — members of Congress, former congressman Marty Meehan, those who have run before — because the shortened timeframe of a special election probably makes it too hard for anyone else to raise money and gain traction against Brown. But if they were all to take a pass, there could be an opening for lesserknowns to vie for the chance. State Senator Ben Downing of Pittsfield, Fall River mayor Will Flanagan, former New Bedford mayor Scott Lang, Suffolk County sheriff Andrea Cabral, and businessman David D’Allesandro are names being tossed around. The roster of possible mayoral candidates in Boston is even longer. And all eyes are on City Councilor John Connolly, who some think could announce his intent to run regardless of Menino’s stated intentions. The image of the youthful, energetic Connolly campaigning against an immobilized, frail-looking Menino could change a lot of calculations — among potential voters, donors, other candidates, and even Menino himself. Also distracting the local political chattering class is the growing expectation that Congressman Michael Capuano of Somerville will run for governor in 2014. That would mean an open race, in half of Boston, for his place in Washington. There is no end to the scroll of interested names for that race, including City Councilors Felix Arroyo and Ayanna Pressley. Or, of course, the rumor and speculation will pass, and the status quo will remain intact — as much as that might disappoint gossiping insiders. P
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spotlight :: dance
Boston the nut Ballet’s c Boston o racker pe
The Nutcracker
539 WasH ra House , Boston :: ington st, n DecemBe ovemBer 23– r 30 617.695.695 :: $35-$172 :: 5 BostonBa or visit llet.org .
Building a better mousetrap? Boston Ballet takes a chance by remaking its most successful production B Y J EF F R EY G A N T Z
J E F F R E Y M G A N TZ@ G M A I L .C O M
W
ithout The Nutcracker, there’d be no ballet in America as we know it.” That was Boston Ballet general manager D. David Brown speaking, back in 1986, and it would be hard to argue the point. America is, as the title of Jennifer Fisher’s 2003 book puts it, Nutcracker Nation, the country that’s taken Peter Tchaikovsky’s holiday ballet to its heart. And nowhere more so than in Boston. In its 1990s heyday at the Wang Theatre, Boston Ballet’s Nutcracker was the mostwatched production anywhere, drawing as many as 140,000 spectators a year, and accounting for well over half of the company’s annual box office. It’s become a Boston tradition, like the Marathon, or Fourth of July on the Esplanade.
This year, however, Boston Ballet artistic director Mikko Nissinen has reconceived the production, giving it a new time frame, a new beginning, and a new ending. He’s also replaced the Helen Pond–Herbert Senn sets from 1978 and David Walker’s costumes from 1995 with new designs by Robert Perdziola, whose credits include American Ballet Theatre and the Metropolitan Opera. It’s a big gamble he’s taking with the company’s cash cow; if it doesn’t come off, there might be no ballet in Boston as we know it. The odd thing about The Nutcracker is that the ballet barely registered when it premiered, on December 6, 1892, at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. It played 22 11.23.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm
on a bill with the Tchaikovsky opera Iolanthe, and neither work fared well with the critics. In Russia, The Nutcracker enjoyed just 11 performances that season and reappeared sporadically. The ballet did spread to Europe and eventually America, and you could argue that what ignited interest here was the “Nutcracker Suite” segment of the 1940 Walt Disney film Fantasia, with Cossack thistles exploding through the trepak, Chinese mushrooms bowing and scurrying, fish swirling sensuously to the Arabian dance’s English horn, and fairies gliding balletically on ice. George Balanchine himself played Herr Drosselmeier in the New York City Ballet production of The Nut-
cracker that aired on CBS Christmas night in 1957 and 1958. Rudolf Nureyev brought his version to the Royal Ballet in 1968; Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gelsey Kirkland starred in the ABT Nutcracker that aired on PBS in 1977. Soon auteur productions were springing up. Mark Morris’s The Hard Nut set the action in ’50s/’60s America and gave the Nutcracker an Elvis pompadour. Patrice Bart replaced the mice with Russian revolutionaries. Maurice Béjart turned his Nutcracker into a story of “Elle, the Mother,” with a carrot-haired Félix the Cat, an angel playing the accordion, and dancers in Mao outfits riding bicycles.
>> NEW NuTcRAckER on p 24
COLOR phOTOs bY ERIC ANTONIOu; bLACk-ANd-whITE phOTOs COuRTEsY OF bOsTON bALLET
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Nutcracker head, 2012
2002
1996
1996
2010
1996
THEPHOENIX.cOm :: 11.23.12 23
spotlight :: dance
Nutcracker roles
My star-studded turns in a low-budget, small-town production of Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece B y C a ssa n d r a L a n dry c l a n d ry@ p h x .c o m :: @ e at d r i n k w r i t e
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rom the ages of eight to 16, i played just about every supporting role The Nutcracker had to offer. here are a few lowlights.
Mouse
to be fair, the mouse war was, and is, one of the best scenes in the entire tour de force, and i got in on the action three separate times: once as a baby mouse, once as an adult mouse, and once as a soldier in the nutcracker’s cavalry (see below). that being said, strapping a papier-mâché mask with dimesized eye holes to your dome and running around onstage in constant fear of slamming into your fellow rodent brethren for lack of peripheral vision — all while listening to your amplified huffing and puffing as you sweat your makeup off — ain’t a glamorous walk in the park. neither is being an actual mouse, i would imagine.
soLdier
the only time i joined the good guy’s side as a toy soldier, with bright red stickers slapped onto my cheeks by a backstage mom and a cardboard cadet hat strapped to my tiny head with an itchy length of rubber band, i got my first glimpses of two things: weaponry and the chiseled butt cheeks of our male lead, clinton. our choreography mostly consisted of coordinated marching and fake beating the shit out of the mice with our wooden rifles, but our real purpose was to huddle around clinton in one corner of the stage after the battle, concealing him as he whipped off the huge papier-mâché nutcracker head, slicked back his long ’90s boy-band hair a few times, and emerged as the prince.
Party GirL/Boy
Almost nothing is worse than being any girl who isn’t clara in those opening christmas party scenes — that rich bitch was as good a frenemy as anyone could ask for. But nothing is worse than watching the girls in those scenes flipping their ringlets when you’ve been relegated to playing a Victorian boy in velvet pantaloons. this scene is where i learned to convincingly mime conversation, make sassy faces, and get properly sloshed on imaginary punch.
GinGersnaP
now that i think about it, i’m pretty sure mama Ginger was a drag queen. her skirt, this massively clunky tent constructed from flexible pVc pipe, got in everyone’s way backstage until the dance was done and it could once more be hoisted up into the rafters until the finale. we shuffled our way onstage, hidden under the skirt, and prayed that no one got stuck or stomped on by her platforms. the whole point of the gingersnaps was to showcase a bunch of kids doing cartwheels and running around being brats — which is why, as a cartwheel-and-handstand-impaired human, i was a shit gingersnap. not knowing what to do with me, the choreographer made me the brown-noser kid, so i spent my time on stage “tattling” on my 10 other siblings.
Chinese
charming and quaint with a soupçon of racism, this one. the number consisted of me and three other teenage girls, decked out in “traditional chinese hats” (complete with synthetic braided ponytails) and slanting eyeliner, being wheeled out on stage in a wheelbarrow by the only asian dude we had in the company. the costume consisted of satiny pajamas with gold embroidered dragons on them, and the signature move was pique turns with our arms bent at 90 degrees, index fingers pointing to the sky. 24 11.23.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm
Boston Ballet, however, has never strayed far from the 1816 E.T.A. Hoffmann novella, Nutcracker and Mouse King, that provided the libretto for Tchaikovsky’s score. And over the decades, the company’s warm and cozy production has been rife with details, some clever, some sentimental, some funny. Walker drew on the English mummers’ play St. George and the Dragon, dressing the Nutcracker as St. George, in white and red, and the Mouse King as the Turkish Knight, in green and gold with turban and scimitar. (The Mouse King also sported a cat’s-head trophy belt.) The Silberhauses’ grandfather clock was topped with an owl, the enemy of mice, and at one point Drosselmeier, himself a watchmaker, appeared at the top of the clock and flapped the wings of his cloak. In the middle of the party’s evening-ending Grossvater Tanz, Clara’s Grandpa and Grandma always broke into an out-of-control polka; there were also years when Grandpa, enjoying a second childhood, stole Fritz’s new hobby horse and rode it around the room. During the battle scene, four baby mice would parody the Dance of the Cygnets from Swan Lake, and when the Mouse King went down, a corps of mice ran on with a Red Cross stretcher and attempted CPR. Many Bostonians have grown up with The Nutcracker as part of their lives. Nissinen, who was born in Finland, did not. “I was in the Kirov Ballet School, I was age 17, when I did my first Nutcracker,” he tells me. “It was the grand pas de deux, on the Mariinsky stage. I wasn’t the baby mouse or anything else; I started the other way around. I had seen the grand pas de deux, but I had never seen the full version until I went to Russia.” What’s more, he was a little taken aback when he arrived in Boston in 2002 and saw his new company’s production. “I thought it was this holiday extravaganza that had everything possible packed into it and more. I felt it was extremely gimmicky. It was like six chefs in the kitchen. It looked like a Hollywood variety-show Christmas extravaganza to me. Yes, I was impressed with the magnitude of the machinery, and how many shows they did. But it was like a holiday revue for me rather than a Nutcracker.” His idea, Nissinen continues, was “to go back to the original intent of the thing.” But he hadn’t gotten very far before, in 2003, the Wang Center, which had housed Boston Ballet’s Nutcracker since 1968, declined to renew the company’s contract for
illustrations By amanda Boucher
The five worst
<< new nutCraCker from p 22
Charles Heightchew
this holiday
there’s more than magic in the air
phOTOs bY ERIC ANTONIOu
Robert Perdziola
the production, replacing it in 2004 with a touring version of The Radio City Christmas Spectacular Starring the Radio City Rockettes. The Ballet scrambled to find a new home for The Nutcracker; it wound up at the Colonial Theatre, with a smaller stage, a smaller orchestra pit, and smaller audiences. (The Wang seats 3600, the Colonial 1700.) In 2005, the production moved to the 2400-seat Boston Opera House, which was an improvement. But everything had been scaled to fit the Wang; the Christmas tree, which had risen from 15 to 40 feet there, could go no higher than 30 feet at the Opera House. Besides which, the production was aging. “We were at the point,” says Nissinen, “that we would have had to spend a quarter-million dollars a year keeping the old ship afloat. So we decided, instead of waiting until The Nutcracker is not working, let’s invest in it and make it better and give it oxygen for the next 15 to 20 years.” He had no doubt, he says, that moving forward was the right decision. But he still had to find a designer. “I was almost a year behind the schedule that I had self-imposed,” he recalls, “but I felt that I didn’t
Mikko Nissinen
have the right match, and I was going to postpone this for another year if I didn’t have the right match. Then I started talking with Robert Perdziola, and it was clear that he embraced the concept of not going the Disney direction, the Broadwayshow direction.” So what direction did Nissinen want to go in? “My way of looking at the story,” he says, “is that we’re seeing the whole thing through the eyes of this little girl called Clara. There’s a Christmas celebration, and she’s all excited, and there’s an uncle who’s a little bit outside of the norm, and the kids and Clara love that, because that’s how they are. The story is also about Clara’s growing up, turning from a girl into a little woman. She takes her love interest and fascination with the Nutcracker to a sort of romantic level and dreams about it, and yet it’s unattainable. It’s her journey.” Boston Ballet’s new Nutcracker will be taking a journey of its own. The ’80s and early-’90s version was a Late Victorian Nutcracker whose costume quirks included two little boys in kilts. (Scottish author >> NEW NuTcRAckER on p 26
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spotlight :: dance
noW
then
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James Macpherson’s Ossian poems were very popular in Germany.) Walker’s costume design in 1995 moved the time frame back to 1840 or so, with the party guests in pastel shades that echoed the Mariinsky blue of the Silberhaus drawing room. Now, Nissinen is taking it back still farther. “I went about 1820s,” he says. “I talked with Robert, and the previous production was sort of 1840s, 1850s, where everything was huge, the ladies’ costumes for the party had extra hips and puffy arms, and we decided to go for the Empire style, where it’s much more in line with the dancers’ bodies, and showcase a more understated kind of sophistication. We decided to keep the place as southern Germany, as in the original, and try to highlight the contrast between reality and dream.” But many elements, he says, will be new. “The opening will take place in a square, and then there’s Herr Drosselmeier’s puppet-theater scene with street kids, urchins on stage, watching it, and that turns into a town scene, and we found a very clever way to do the entrance into the party scene. And there are the children who dance, but now there are three children who are younger than that, so they’re in the party scene, but they aren’t participating in the dances because they’re too young. We’re trying to stretch the family structure a bit. And the battle is different. The Nutcracker is way more mechanical, until he starts to breathe.” Nissinen is looking at the second act, he says, “as the Nutcracker’s kingdom that’s ruled by the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Nutcracker. I’m not emphasizing the Kingdom of Sweets part; it’s definitely in heaven, dance heaven, but you have a feeling that it’s much more royalty. I’m tying the national dances to some of the dolls that the kids have got in the first act. The national dances are in celebration of Clara’s saving the Nutcracker’s life, dancers sharing their national pride.” Just as this is a more adult Nutcracker in concept, it’s more muted in color, as a tour of Boston Ballet’s costume shop and a dress rehearsal of the second act at its Clarendon Street studio make clear. Drosselmeier is still in black, but the subtle ribbing of his jacket, the even more subtle striping of his trousers, and the double row of buttons on his waistcoat evoke a period elegance.
>> NEW NuTcRAckER on p 28
26 11.23.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm
phOTOs bY ERIC ANTONIOu
<< NEW NuTcRAckER from p 25
then
BOSTON PREMIERE
Thurs 11/29 & Fri 11/30 IMAX at the Aquarium
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spotlight :: dance
Chelsea Perry as Clara
Sabi Varga as Drosselmeier
<< NEW NuTcRAckER from p 26
The Snow King’s jacket is patterned with snowflakes and fir branches. The Sugar Plum Fairy has two costumes, one pink, one more like brown sugar that she changes into for the grand pas de deux; both tutus are brushed at the edges with gold flakes that Perdziola himself handpainted. There’s pale green and rose for the Pastoral trio, ocher and burgundy for the Arabian woman, trousers striped in maroon and blue and gold for the Russian men. What really pop are the Nutcracker’s orange-red jacket, the 28 11.23.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm
full-skirted coats and plumed hats for the Page children (replacing the Angels at the outset of act two), and the new Harlequin outfits for the Polichinelles. The lines, as Nissinen points out, are simpler: Clara, in her dove-blue, Empire-waisted walking dress, with bonnet and muff, could be a young Jane Austen heroine. There are 350 costumes in all, in wool, silk, cotton, linen, and many blends; everything is beautifully sewn and fabulously detailed, with 200,000 jewels in total. And everything looks expensive; one only hopes the detail will read
when the dancers are on stage. The sets are painted flats. The Silberhaus drawing room — here more like a ballroom — is grand and ornate in its rich browns, with a central alcove framing the 42-foot tree. The backdrop for Snow has a lovely birch forest replacing the usual evergreens. And the palace of the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Nutcracker Prince is worthy of Louis XVI, with Fragonard-like depictions of the divertissement dancers on the ceiling. There are, in other words, many reasons to think that this Nutcracker will be a wonderful
ballet as well as a wonderful holiday entertainment. And the new ending? It picks up on what the company did in 2004 at the Colonial. “Clara will be waking up on a couch,” says Nissinen, “and to her surprise she does find the Nutcracker as a doll, and she will be disappointed that it was a dream. But in the second act, there’s a moment where she’s been given a crown, in appreciation for saving the Nutcracker’s life. And the ballet will finish with her touching her head and the crown is still there, and her eyes light up, and that’s the end.” P
phOTOs bY ERIC ANTONIOu
Adiarys Almeida and Irlan Silva as Chinese Dancers
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spotlight :: Dance
30 11.23.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm
Tutu Takeover Boston Balletâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Nutcracker gets a makeunder B y R en ata C e Rt o -Wa R e @scorpiondisco
pho t o s B y Da nn y K i m
THEPHOENIX.cOm :: 11.23.12 31
F
rom November 23 through December 30, an expected 90,000 audience members will slide into seats at the Boston Opera House to take in The Nutcracker, a 42-year tradition for Boston Ballet and the result of countless hours of preparation — and not just for the dancers perfecting their moves in rehearsal rooms. Charles Heightchew, the Ballet’s costumes and wardrobe manager, has been in overdrive for the last year. And no wonder: he’d been tasked with overseeing the production of a staggering 350 new costumes, the first new Nutcracker looks in 17 years. Last month, as his team finished hems and affixed the final Swarovski crystals, he let us into the workshop for a closer look.
32 11.23.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm
by the numbers
350
approximate number of new costumes created for this production
18
number of full-time staff in the costumes and wardrobe department for this show
200,000
number of swarovski crystals ordered for this production
1400
number of yards of tulle used in the 26 tutus made for the Waltz of the Flowers
2
number of women who hand-painted the 1400 yards of tulle
“Mikko [artistic director Mikko Nissinen], who joined the Boston Ballet in 2001, has wanted to have his own costume production since he came here, but at the time, the costumes were fairly new and in good shape,” says Heightchew, surrounded by mountains of tulle at the Ballet’s South End headquarters. “We are going into our 50th-anniversary season this year, so it was an appropriate time to really launch this next project and have our new production of costumes for Mikko’s new choreography.” “It’s a whole new ballgame, because I get to do it exactly how I envisioned the whole production,” adds Nissinen. “I’ve been like a kid in a candy store.” The overhaul comes at a time of renewed energy for the Ballet, which has staged a number of modern — and noticeably tutu-free — productions in recent years. Take this season’s opener, a program that included Christopher Bruce’s Rooster, set to a soundtrack by the Rolling Stones and featuring enough strutting and thrusting to make Mick Jagger feel like a Monkee. (As one industry insider put it, “This is not your grandmother’s ballet.”) Other works, though, remain deeply rooted in tradition, none more so than its annual production of The Nutcracker, a treasured holiday chestnut >> Costumes on p 35
photos by danny kim; renderings courtesy of boston ballet
spotlight :: Dance
The evoluTion of Radio. This is WhaT’s f’n nexT.
spotlight :: Dance
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photos by danny kim; renderings courtesy of boston ballet
<< Costumes from p 32
and, for many, a gateway drug to the art form. But after many years with same look, it was high time for an update. Enter designer Robert Perdziola. Tapped by Heightchew, Nissinen, and production manager Ben Phillips to put a fresh spin on the costumes and set, Perdziola is no stranger to major productions. Although this is his first Nutcracker, he has designed for companies around the world, including Opera Boston, the Metropolitan Opera, and Opera Australia, for which he was nominated for a Helpmann Award — the Aussie answer to the Tony — in 2008. Perdziola and company began with indepth discussions of the period, style, story, and characters, and he attended several performances with Nissinen to see the existing costumes in action. “It’s one thing to see the clothes on a dress form, but it’s another to see how it’s going to come together on a human,” says Heightchew. Perdziola worked out his first round of sketches last summer. His challenge? To balance the fresh with the familiar, to update the look while staying true to the ballet’s traditional historical context. “No 1920s folklore or 1930s futuristic,” jokes Heightchew. The previous costumes were based on the showier silhouettes of the mid-1830s; this production dials everything back to the early 1820s. Yet by going back in time just 15 years, the vibe of the costumes changes markedly — think more muted colors and streamlined silhouettes. “Our previous costumes were set in 1835, and in that period the silhouettes were quite large — the skirts took up a lot of room, the girls’ costumes took up a lot of room,” Heightchew explains. “But by going backwards to around 1820, we now have a silhouette that is much slimmer. What that means is that you can get more people on the stage: there’s definitely more room and more air around the dancers.” The added elbow room is key. “The previous costumes were made for the Wang Theatre, where dancers had plenty of room on a large stage,” Heightchew continues. “But then when the Ballet moved to the Colonial, and then the Boston Opera House, it was quite crowded on stage, so the earlier, slimmer silhouettes will allow more room for the dancers to breathe.” The lack of extravagant layers also allows a better view of all that fancy footwork. While every costume is new, the most noticeably different ones are found in act one on the Party Mothers (no relation to Dina Lohan). “Their silhouette is very Regency, very Pride and Prejudice — it’s familiar. Last season’s costumes were that high-1830 Niedermeyer that you don’t see very often unless you go see a period piece, but this is something that people recognize from PBS specials, so there’s a reference there for people to grasp,” says Heightchew. After several rounds of tweaking, Perdziola’s finalized designs started com-
ing into the costume department last December while The Nutcracker was still being performed with the old wardrobe. By January, Heightchew and his team were in full swing, turning the sketches into wearable art. The department’s 18 staffers, along with nine volunteers, cut, sewed, handpainted, and finished costumes in-house, while some of the specialized designs, like the ballet’s crowd-pleasing animal characters — mice, reindeer, bears — were outsourced to shops across North America, from New York to Ontario to Pittsburgh. They, too, got a new look. The bear, for instance, is a little more realistic-looking now. His face is less cartoonish — his eyes closer together, his snout pointier, the overall effect just a touch less adorable. New costumes were still trickling in as late as mid-October, just weeks before the production’s opening. Each had to be tailored to its wearer. With a nightly changing cast, with two or more dancers often assigned to each of the 182 roles and a minimum of three fittings for all 350 new costumes, it’s no surprise that Heightchew and crew were doing fittings from February almost right until opening night. Once the ballet is underway, the wardrobe needs constant upkeep. The dressers, who help get the dancers into costume each night a half-hour before the curtains rise, keep notes on the state of the costumes, checking for loose hooks, tears, and other damage. After each performance they spend about an hour doing repairs. They haven’t had to deal with any major wardrobe malfunctions yet, but a few ballerinas’ bodices were splitting at the front seams, likely due to some dry-rotted thread. Because of the nightly inspections, such issues are handled pretty quickly. Plus, Heightchew points out, “There’s a lot going on onstage, so you hope that people don’t take notice.” Safe bet, that. “Everyone is incredibly elegant in this look,” Heightchew says. “The men are so handsome, the women are beautiful, the little boys and girls look like miniature versions of the parents. It’s much less about contrasty production, so it’s become really subtle and mature.” Heightchew, Nissinen, and Phillips hope the change-up will bring in a new audience as well as continue to charm those who keep coming back every year, offering something new and familiar at the same time. “We really have two audiences: the group that is coming to see The Nutcracker because it’s a holiday tradition and the kids want to come see it, and then there’s a ballet audience that is also coming to see it. There is something there for both audiences, and it works on a lot of different levels.” As for the old costumes, they have an entire storeroom full of them, which they plan to sell along with the set. They hope to sell it all to other ballet houses, but there’s a chance collectors and fans of the ballet could scoop them up too. A Mouse King for Halloween 2013, anyone? P
The suite life What does the nutcracker do when he’s not smiting mice and hoisting sugar plum fairies? our photog trailed him on his day off.
THEPHOENIX.cOm :: 11.23.12 35
eAT
A crAnberry Three-wAy » hoT cockTAils » kigo kiTchen » food evenTs
& DRINK
photo by joel veak
Local chefs weigh in on the big bird. Page 40.
THEPHOENIX.cOm :: 11.23.12 37
Food & drink :: recipes
Active ingredient: crAnberries After these recipes, you might just toss the sauce
moroCCan sPiCed Cranberry harissa
Cassie Piuma of Oleana Makes about 10 quarter-cup servings In a saucepan, stir together 1 cup water, 1 cup raw, unfiltered honey, 1/2 tsp. smoked paprika, 1 tbs. finely chopped fresh ginger, 1/2 tsp. orangeblossom water, 2 cinnamon sticks, a pinch of salt, and 2 tbs. harissa paste (more or less, depending on how spicy you like it). Turn heat to medium-high and bring to a boil. Add 4 cups cranberries; return to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes or until cranberries burst. Remove from heat and cool. Remove cinnamon sticks. The sauce will thicken as it cools and can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 10 days. Serve with goat cheese, toasted almonds, and radishes.
the boston boG
Misty Kalkofen of Brick & Mortar Makes one cocktail
Muddle 6 cranberries in a mixing glass. Add 11/2 oz. Appleton Estate Reserve rum, 1/2 oz. Rothman & Winter apricot liqueur, 1/2 oz. ginger syrup*, 1/2 oz. fresh lemon juice, and ice. Shake. Fine-strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with an orange zest. *For the ginger syrup, dice ginger (skin on) into 3/4-inch cubes. Take equal volumes of ginger cubes and Demerarasugar simple syrup, blend, and strain.
PumPkin CheeseCake with Cranberry Confit and GinGer-Cranberry Crumble For the triple-ginger/cranberry dough, combine the following ingredients using the creaming method (Google it): 12 oz. butter, 2 cups packed brown sugar, 2 eggs, 1/2 cup molasses, 41/2 cups flour, 1 tbs. and 1 tsp. ground ginger, 1 tbs. and 1 tsp. baking soda, 1 tsp. salt, 3 tbs. grated fresh ginger (freeze the whole root first), 1 cup crystallized ginger, and 1 cup rehydrated dried cranberries. You can press the dough into a pie shell before chilling overnight; bake cold at 350 degrees until lightly brown. Once cool, you can add your desired pie filling (see right). Use the excess dough for cookie dough and/or cut into chunks, bake, cool, and crumble as a garnish.
38 11.23.12 :: ThePhOenix.COM/fOOd
For the no-bake cheesecake, make sure all ingredients are at room temperature and beat 1 lb. cream cheese and 8 oz. butter until soft. Add 1 lb. mascarpone. Slowly add 1 cup sugar and 1 tsp. salt followed by 8 oz. canned pumpkin puree (or 6 oz. melted semi-sweet chocolate). Finish with spices and seasonings to taste. Pipe into desired vessel or tart shell, and chill to set. For the cranberry confit, add 12 oz. glucose or light corn syrup to 1 lb. fresh cranberries ( just enough to cover the berries). Cover and cook on low heat under tender. Chill before cranberries burst; bring back to room temperature and serve as a garnish.
photos by melissa ostrow
Meghan Thompson of Steel & Rye Makes one 10- to 12-inch cheesecake
617.325.1700 | RED-EYEDPIG.COM 1753 Centre St West Roxbury, MA 02132 Take-out and Catering Hours: M-W 4-9 | Th 11:30-9 | Fr & Sat 11:30- 10 | Sun 12-7 Follow us on Twitter & Facebook
Food & drink :: Feast
The greaT Turkey debaTe
how br to c h ec i n e
maw k out at t s’s recIp heph e o com enIx. .
To brine or not to brine, and other pressing poultry questions B y L o u isa Ka sd o n lo u i s a@ lo u i s a k a s d o n .c o m
“Brining” is the new vogue in turkey cooking. The basic idea is that you submerge the bird in a water bath with several cups of salt and spices overnight and, through the magic of osmosis, get tender turkey flesh come morning. Brining recipes are rampant in the media; supermarkets now stock brining kits right next to the Butterball display. But is brining worth its salt? Curious, we sought out sage advice from local chefs.
roasted turkey on a huge platter is a stage prop. It looks great but won’t be cooked right. It’s impossible to get all the meat — light and dark — perfectly done unless you break it down into pieces. Best idea: roast the turkey whole until it is golden and the breast is done, show it around the room, and put the legs back in the oven for 20 more minutes.”
Jasper white
Josh Lewin
or, Leave it to the pros
If your turkey turns out tough, burned, or otherwIse tragIc thIs year, consIder leavIng It to a pro next tIme: Jasper whIte’s summer shack takes advance orders for deep-frIed and over-roasted thanksgIvIng turkeys every year.
Chef-owner of Summer Shack “Brining is a plus/minus. It can add flavor, but if the bird spends too much time in the brine, you dry it out because the salt extracts moisture. I’m not a briner. The only way to cook a turkey perfectly — meaning uniformly — with all meat being cooked evenly at the same time is to deep fry it. Failing that, split the legs from the breast and cook them separately (on the bone); they will cook very nicely but not look great on the holiday table. That was the way we did it when I worked in the big old hotels.”
tony Maws
Chef-owner of Craigie on Main “Brining is an attempt to put two things into equilibrium by osmosis: the natural salinity of the fresh bird and the higher salt of the brine. The idea is that you can equalize the saline content in the bird and keep it moist and juicy, and can add a little flavor kick to a pretty plain protein without adding more salt. The hard thing is that you can’t taste what is happening to the raw bird as it is brining, so you sort of have to take it on faith. Brining works for us in the restaurant, where we have a huge walk-in refrigerator. . . . What I would do at home is break down the bird, brine it in pieces, and then roast it in the oven.”
Josh Lewin
Executive chef of Beacon Hill Bistro “I personally never brine turkey. If the final product is crispy skin, with nice browned edges, never put it in liquid. Brining makes turkey spongy at the expense of flavor. I think the best thing to do with a turkey is to salt the skin, salt under the skin, put salt in the cavity to season the bird. There’s a lot you can do to get a moist, flavorful turkey without dumping it in water. Plus, to brine a turkey for a day, you have to keep it cold and in the refrigerator. That doesn’t make a lot of sense, especially if you live in 40 11.23.12 :: THEpHoENix.CoM/food
the city. You have to give up your whole refrigerator to brine a good-sized turkey and keep it cold. What you really need is a good meat thermometer.”
Louie DiBiccari
Executive chef of Storyville and chef-owner of Chef Louie Night and the forthcoming Tavern Road “Brining? Eh? Meh? Why bother? Brining adds moisture to the flesh but doesn’t change the fact that some parts of the turkey cook faster than others. I think the iconic image of the perfectly golden
lewin photo by joel veak
chris DougLass
Chef-owner of Ashmont Grill and Tavolo “I tend to brine my turkeys. I think it keeps them moist. But I start early, putting the bird in the brine on Sunday or Monday, taking it out, and letting it sit for a day or two and drain, uncovered, so that it is dry to the touch. If the turkey ‘pellicule’ (skin) is too moist, it won’t brown. It needs to develop a thin, dry veneer to brown. If you have a normal home-sized refrigerator, forget about the brining. . . . It is absolutely hard to get a whole roasted stuffed turkey done perfectly. I butterfly my turkeys and put foil over the breast. I take out the ‘back,’ crack the breastbone from the inside, and open it up and spread it. The downside: you need a really big pan.” P
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75 on Liberty wharf
Living in new engLand, no stranger to the biting cold, you would think that heated alcoholic drinks would be an easy sell, but that’s not always the case. Considering how many of us you see trudging through the snow with a large iced Dunkin’s frozen into our fists, perhaps that’s not so surprising after all. I happen to share the aversion, which is why I’ve gone looking for warm cocktails to break the ice, so to speak. “I personally think they’re just overlooked,” says Julie Gibbons of the
newly opened 75 on Liberty Wharf. “I don’t think a lot of places have menus for them or don’t market them well.” Or perhaps they just don’t have the right setting for them. At her bar, the fire-pit cocktail menu actually lives up to its name. “You’ll see people out there with a hot coffee drink or a warm apple cider enjoying the fire and hanging out. It just goes along with the atmosphere to have a nice, warm, toasty drink.” They’re trying to look beyond the standard Irish-coffee model with their
Balancing a hot drink isn’t as easy as it sounds.
mulled wine and pear brandy. They begin with a riesling, which they heat, combine with fresh ginger, cloves, and cardamom, and then top with a Pierre Ferrand cognac. “It gives it a cider taste, but it still has a wine feeling,” she says. Plus, the riesling harkens to the days when they served mulled wine on the cold city streets of Germany. Gary Hermanson of City Landing is drawing from another European tradition, this one from his Swedish family, with his version of glögg. He steeps a spice bag of cardamom, raisins, orange peel, cloves, sliced almonds, and cinnamon in boiling water for 30 minutes, adding sugar to taste. Next he adds fino sherry and ruby port, along with either akvavit, grain alcohol, or an 80-proof vodka, as in the version available at the restaurant. Then he heats it again, bottles it, and lets it sit for a few days — or a few years. As long as you don’t over-spice it with cinnamon, he says, you can let it rest and “it just gets better and better.” For people who’ve embraced the hot toddy or the spiced cider, this is the next logical option, Hermanson says. “Whether it’s a foodie, or a craftcocktailer, or someone looking for something outside of the norm, it’s very seasonally appropriate and very holidaydriven. People always say it smells and tastes like Christmas.” If either of those options sounds a little heavy, body- or spice-wise, Rob Haberek is doing a drink at Sel de la Terre that combines vanilla- and brown-sugar-infused bourbon, hot water, and an orange wheel. “This is a more interesting take on a traditional hot toddy, with brown sugar instead of honey acting as the sweetener and an immediate vanilla presence on the nose,” he explains. Seems simple, but balancing a hot drink isn’t as easy as it sounds, says Chad Arnholt of Citizen Public House, who throws an outdoor drinking party by his own fire pit on every first snow. “Hot drinks seem like a no-brainer, but if you don’t prep your glass right, the glass will cool down the drink, or the cream will cool it down. You go from 140-degree coffee to something 80, 90 degrees and tepid.” Instead, he’ll steep an apple in hot water and honey and add it to mezcal, making a drink that’s perfect for “sitting in front of the fire with two feet of snow.” Mezcal and fire — now that sounds worth getting heated up for. P
WHERE TO DRINK :: 75 on Liberty Wharf, 220 Northern Ave, Boston :: 617.227.0754 or 75onlibertywharf.com :: City Landing, 255 State St, Boston :: 617.725.0305 or citylanding.com Sel de la Terre, 774 Boylston St, Boston :: 617.266.8800 or seldelaterre.com :: Citizen Public House, 1310 Boylston St, Boston :: 617.450.9000 or citizenpub.com
42 11.23.12 :: THEPHOENIx.COm/fOOD
photo by joel veak
Food & drink :: liquid
HappyfromHolidays
Thanks to all of our loyal fans!
Op
en Christmas
Give the gift of fish this holiday, and when you purchase $200 worth of gift cards from one of our restaurants, enjoy a lobster dinner on us. Boston, Braintree, Burlington, Cambridge, Chestnut Hill, Dedham, Framingham, and Peabody www.legalseafoods.com
Food & drink :: dining
On the Cheap
Kigo Kitchen
When it COmes tO quality, like a well-oiled machine. It lets Asian takeout joints are typically customers choose their own protein miles behind their traditional sit(chicken, pork, steak, edamame, down counterparts. But modern tofu, or veggies only), sauce (a eateries like Foumami, Wrapmi, teriyaki offshoot called “kigo-yaki” and Bento Express are pineapple tamarind, breaking down that Penang curry, peanut eat up longstanding divide hoisin, coconut lime, The Curry Student between good food and or fire sauce), and base Center at Northeastern fast food. Kigo Kitchen, (noodles, white rice, or University, 360 Huntington Ave, Boston which opened at Northbrown rice), which the eastern University’s chefs toss together, rather 617.373.2000 or Curry Student Center haphazardly, in a large kigokitchen.com in September, is the flaming wok. Ninety Mon–Thurs, 11 am to 7 newest entry in Boston’s seconds later, voilà: a pm; Friday, 11 am to 5 pm burgeoning fast-casual steaming bowl of AsianAsian-food scene. flavored identity crisis. Kigo is a Japanese- and ThaiFounder and CEO Steve Hooper, style build-your-own-stir-fry a former venture capitalist, says he station that serves up dishes dreamt up the concept as an MBA
student while interning with Boloco founder John Pepper, who helped Hooper get his idea off the ground. But it’s too early to tell if Kigo has the potential to become a local name brand like Boloco. To the restaurant’s credit, students and others in the area have lined up for combos like Island Time ($7.75), Thai Me Up ($8.75), and my favorite, Wok Full o’ Nuts ($7) — edamame fried with bell pepper, onion, carrot, snow peas,
and Chinese celery, all topped with peanut sauce. The Seattle-style teriyaki sauce used for Kigo Classic ($7.75) can be overwhelming, so try subbing in coconut lime. The Penang curry is another instance in which Kigo drenches perfectly savory ingredients with a thick, rich sauce. Still, a flavor-blasted bowl of Thai noodles might be just the thing for nursing a hangover or scarfing down a tasty meal before class. _Wei-Huan CHen » WeiHuanC@gmail.Com
restaurant spotlight
36
Rotating DRafts
BRUnCH
and over
130
served saturday & sunday 11am-3pm
Bottles 400 Highland Ave Davis Square | 617-764-1655 fivehorsestavern.com
Dumpling Café Boston Phoenix gives us 4 stars! We a re the new DUMPLING Café in Boston’s Chinatown. Come try our signature mini juicy buns ( XLB) , pork leek dumplings, a nd ma ngo shrimp.
10% Off
Twin Lobster Special
OnLy $19.95
Minimum of $25 dollars for 10% off. *One coupon per table Good with this ad. DINE IN ONLY . excluding twin lobster special* DINE IN ONLY . Cannot be combined with other offers. Expires 12/31/2012 Expires 12/31/2012 695 Washington St. Boston, Chinatown • Open- 11am to 2 am 7days • 617-338-8858 Visit us at WWW. DUMPLINGCAFE.COM
Burritos • Tacos • Quesadillas • Enchiladas
$1.00 OFF
“A Neighborhood Spot in Newton Center”
Your purchase of any Mexican plate tamales, quesadilla, enchiladas or our famous
Brunch. Lunch. Dinner. Late Night.
B.u. Loc ati on
Live Music Monday. Tuesday. Friday. Sunday Brunch. 796 Beacon St. Newton Center • 617-332-8743 • www.bstreetnewton.com
44 11.23.12 :: THepHoeNix.CoM/Food
1294 Beacon St Brookline (Coolidge Corner) 617-739-3900
Burrito Grande
642 Beacon St, (Kenmore Square) 617-437-9700
1728 Mass Ave Cambridge (near Porter) 617-354-7400
149 First Street Cambridge, MA 617-354-5550
366 Washington St Brighton Center 617-782-9600
NO DOUBLE DISCOUNTS. CANNOT BE COMBINED WITH OTHER OFFERS. Coupon Expires: 12/31/2012 | One coupon per customer
photo by derek kouyoumjian
Speedy stir-fry for Northeastern students — and the rest of us
Food & drink :: calendar
Chew Out
SUNDAY 25
Friday 23 FASHION SHOW FRIDAYS
After your Thursday fill of Gram’s butter-slathered stuffing, corn, and aging progeny, you may well be in need of a Friday refresher. If you’re not ready to dive back into the cranberry sauce and mom jeans just yet, set your sights on Brasserie JO’s catwalk of seasonal style, served up with chef Nicholas Calias’s midday menu of French fare. This week, the spotlight is on local designer Kinda Touma, who should restore the hope in humanity that your cousin’s Ed Hardy ensemble so rudely ripped away. Noon to 2 pm @ Brasserie JO, 120 Huntington Ave, Boston Free; menu à la carte 617.425.3240 or brasseriejoboston.com
tuesday 27 A TASTE OF
MOnday 26 ALL SHOOK UP:
ROYAL-TEA AT THE MFA
FRENCH FROMAGES
THE EVOLUTION OF THE COCKTAIL
The MFA’s high-class punsters have launched a series of afternoon teas, running every Sunday through December 16, to tie in with “Mario Testino: British Royal Portraits.” So flex those pinkies and practice your curtsy; then partake of a variety of teas, finger sandwiches, and sweets. Booze costs extra, but there will be a stacked selection — we’re sure Prince Harry would approve.
There’s no excuse for your continued Sorcerer’s Apprentice-like approach of randomly flinging every alcohol you own into some club soda and calling it a drink. So sign up to get schooled at the hands of Market by JeanGeorges’s mixology wizard, Domingo-Martin Barreres. He’ll offer boozy history lessons while teaching classic and contemporary cocktails that are simple enough to prep at home, but tasty enough to put an end to your everything-butthe-kitchen-sink drinks. 6 to 8 pm @ the Boston Center for Adult Education, 122 Arlington St, Boston
6:30 to 8:30 pm @ the French Cultural Center, 53 Marlborough St, Boston $20 members; $27 nonmembers
$43 members; $50 nonmembers; $20 materials
Bravo at the MFA, 465 Huntington Ave, Boston :: $28 :: 617.369.3474 or mfa.org
If you’ve got a date who’s cool with running the risk of halitosis, there ain’t no outing classier than one spent tasting artisanal cheeses in a stately Back Bay manse. Bred in the indie farmsteads of the French countryside, the cheesy potpourri and paired wines are sure to kick your palate’s standards up a notch. Cardcarrying fromagophile Ihsan Gurdal of Formaggio Kitchen will send you home ready to toss those month-old Kraft squares and invest in something likely older but definitely tastier.
617.267.4430 or bcae.org
617.912.0400 or frenchculturalcenter.org
Put your business in the Spotlight! Contact Sberthiaume@phx.com | 617-859-3202 TASTE
OF
KOREA
KOREANA RESTAURANT Lulu’s Bakes fresh on the premises all day, with pure and natural ingredients. 57 Salem Street Boston, MA 02113 617-742-0070
20 Winthrop Square Lane Boston, MA 02110 857-250-4946
Specializing in Korean style barbecue, each table has a built in cooking grill with custom designed smoke ventilation. Koreana focuses on customer service with attention to your dining needs while offering the best traditional food possible. Sunday-Thursday: 11:30am to 10:30pm Friday & Saturday: 11:30am to midnight
617-576-8661
www.koreanaboston.com 158 Prospect St., Cambridge
“The way it OTTO be.” - The Boston Phoenix 1432 mass ave cambridge, ma 617 499 3352 289 harvard st brookline, ma 617 232 0014 888 comm ave boston, ma 617 232 0447
576 congress st portland, me 207 773 7099 225 congress st portland, me 207 358 7870
www.ottoportland.com THEpHOENix.COM/FOOd :: 11.23.12 45
P RO M OT I O N
Contests&events
SpeCiAl offerS from our pArTNerS
enter to win online at thephoenix.Com/Contests
eleCtion party at Cafeteria photos by Natasha Moustache
Star Trek: The Next Generation A Celebration of Season 2: Ticket Giveaway
DO
NIGHTLIFE + ARTS
Lauren SLate » Life Of Pi » Lamb Of GOD » DeaD CatS DeaD ratS David Curcio, What Will Survive of Us . . . Is Nothing. Page 52.
THEPHOENIX.cOm :: 11.23.12 47
Arts & Nightlife :: get out
Boston Fun List
CULTURAL SURVIVAL BAZAAR Get a jump start on your holiday shopping at the annual festival of native arts and culture, kicking off for the season this weekend :: Whole Foods Fresh Pond, 200 Alewife Brook Pkway, Cambridge :: Nov 23-23 from 10 am to 10 pm + Nov 24 from 11 am to 6 pm :: free :: bazaar.culturalsurvival.org
Mo
For m Re fUn ore Follo events, w on tw us itt @B o s tonFu er nshit or lik FaceB e us at ook.c o Bosto nFuns m/ hit
C o MP iL ED B Y A LE X A n DRA C AVA L L o
Hot tix
AN ILIAD :: April 27–May 4 at the Paramount Center, Boston :: tickets start at $25 :: On sale Monday @ artsemerson.org TAPPIN’ THRU LIFE: AN EVENING WITH MAURICE HINES :: May 14-19 at the Cutler Majestic Theatre, Boston :: tickets start at $25 :: On sale Monday @ artsemerson.org PUBLIC ENEMY :: December 2 at Royale, Boston :: $25 :: boweryboston.com ACTION ITEM + HELLO HIGHWAY + BEFORE YOUR EXIT :: January 4 at Brighton Music Hall, Allston :: $15 :: ticketmaster.com NIKI & THE DOVE :: January 13 at Brighton Music Hall, Allston :: $13 :: ticketmaster.com SAVOY :: January 18 at the Middle East downstairs, Cambridge :: $12 :: ticketweb. com THE DARKNESS :: January 19 at the Paradise Rock Club, Boston :: $30 :: ticketmaster.com SOUNDGARDEN :: January 20 at the Orpheum Theatre, Boston :: $59.50 :: livenation.com ROBERT EARL KEEN :: January 24 at Royale, Boston :: $25 :: boweryboston.com LOTUS + MOON HOOCH :: January 25 at the House of Blues, Boston :: $22.50-$25 :: livenation.com THE USED + WE CAME AS ROMANS + CROWN THE EMPIRE + MINDFLOW :: January 29 at the House of Blues, Boston :: $27.50-$39.50 :: livenation.com
WED
They played a short — and excellent — early set at WFNX’s 28 “Seaport Six” show early this summer, but tonight Delta Spirit are headlining at the HoB. We recommend checking them out before the San Diego folkies — who are enjoying a similarly rapid, if not quite as meteoric, rise from relative obscurity to big venue stardom as fellow folk-rock faves the Lumineers — move on to less-than-indiefolk-friendly venues like the Garden (Mumford, anyone?). House of Blues, 15 Lansdowne St, Boston :: 8 pm :: $22 :: livenation.com
FLOGGING MOLLY + SKINNY LISTER + DAVID HAUSE :: February 1 at the House of Blues, Boston :: $30.50$40.50 :: livenation.com RED BARAAT :: February 2 at the Sinclair, Cambridge :: $15 :: boweryboston. com TONY BENNETT :: February 14 at the Opera House, Boston :: $60.50-$150.50 :: livenation.com SPIRITUAL REZ :: February 16 at the Sinclair, Cambridge :: $15 :: boweryboston.com LEWIS BLACK: “THE RANT IS DUE”:: March 23 at the Wang Theatre, Boston :: $35.75-$66.75 :: citicenter.org
48 11.23.12 :: THePHoeNix.CoM/eveNTS
SUN
From the excellent Seven Psychopaths to New
25 Repertory Theatre’s new play Chesapeake,
dognapping is all the rage these days. In the latter the stolen dog is a device through which the play — recently lauded as “eloquent” by Variety — poses and tries to answer the question “What is art?” A timely question, indeed. Telling the story of a performance artist who nabs a senator’s dog in an attempt to keep public funding for the arts, Chesapeake debuts tonight. Charles Mosesian Theatre, Arsenal Center for the Arts, 321 Arsenal St, Watertown :: November 25–December 16; today @ 2 + 7:30 pm :: $15 :: newrep.org
What do you get when you meld the music of the fantastically androgynous Thin White Duke with the decidedly feminine wiles of 23 the Babes in Boinkland? That would be “Oh! You Pretty Things: An Explosive Cocktail of David Bowie Covers and Burlesque.” We’d much rather spend our evening after Thanksgiving listening to Niki Luparelli & the Gold Diggers perform 24 songs from the extensive Bowie catalog — backdropped by a burlesque performance by the Babes of Boinkland and Mary Widow — than battling the rabid hordes of Black Friday shoppers at the mall. But that’s just us. fri
oberon, 2 Arrow St, Cambridge :: 9 pm :: $15–$18 :: amrep.org/oberon
When Conan thinks you’re funny 24 enough that he’s willing to endorse the pilot episodes of your show, you must be doing something right. Those episodes of Pete Holmes’s proposed TBS late night show have yet to air, but we’re still going to check out his stand-up tonight. You might recognize Holmes’s mug from VH1’s Best Week Ever and his voice from the baby in those Esurance commercials, but the Conan-approved funnyman might be best known for his popular Nerdist podcast “You Made It Weird,” for which he interviews fellow comedians including Marc Maron, Sarah Silverman, and Judd Apatow about their secret weirdness.
Sat
Paradise Rock Club, 967 Comm Ave, Boston :: 7 pm :: $15 :: ticketmaster.com
So is it, like, hip to be into Neil Young now (again)? It would appear so, if the recent spate of chillwave Young covers we’ve seen popping up on 6 2 the Interwebz (see Andrew Graham’s November 2 Phoenix story) is any indication. We’re proud to say we’ve been down with old Neil the whole damn time. So we’ll be grooving to the rock legend — who we’d bet good money thinks “chillwave” is some sort of newfangled surf slang — tonight with his band Crazy Horse and the inimitable Patti Smith. moN
TD Garden, 100 Legends Way, Boston :: 7:30 pm :: $58-$258 :: livenation.com
We normally don’t need a reason to leave our protective-cage apartments and witness the holy rock grail that is a Viva Viva live 27 performance, but tonight there’s extra incentive, since the show benefits the Prince Children’s Education Fund. Also joining the cause are the Jessica Prouty Band and Flat Swamp. Be the effect to the cause. tUE
Middle east upstairs, 472 Mass Ave, Cambridge :: 8 pm :: $10 :: ticketweb.com
Free events “SvviM” :: House dance night with Andre Obin, Glass T33th, Fuzzy Fotch, and Reuphy :: Middlesex, 315 Mass Ave, Cambridge :: November 26 @ 9 pm :: middlesexlounge.us BeAT ReSeARCH: A TRiBUTe To LeCCo’S LeMMA :: Tribute to Boston’s first all hip-hop radio show with host Brick Casey, DefRock + DJ Miles Maker, Brian Coleman, DJs Flack & Pace, and VJ Dziga, plus special guests :: Good Life, 28 Kingston St, Boston :: November 28 @ 9 pm :: goodlifebar.com
KiLLiAN iRiSH ReD RUCKUS ToUR FeATURiNG vHS oR BeTA :: The AV Club co-presents this free tour with the Brooklyn-by way of-Louisville electro-pop/rock band. The Fatal Flaw open. RSVP to get on the list (does not guarantee admission, first come first serve, limited to capacity) :: Middle east downstairs, 480 Mass Ave, Cambridge :: November 29 @ TBA :: avclub.com/ruckustour HARvARD BooK SToRe’S ANNiveRSARY PARTY :: Celebrate 80 years at the HBS with other patrons, local authors, and staff. With snacks, refreshments, and more :: Harvard Book Store, 1256 Mass Ave, Cambridge :: November 29 @ 7 pm :: harvard.com DeNNiS LeHANe :: Lehane discusses his newest book, Live By Night :: Boston Public Library, 700 Boylston St, Boston :: November 29 @ 6 pm :: bpl.org
Sponsored in part by the Provincetown Tourism Fund
“RADio FRee SUNDAY” :: No charge for entry upstairs (music by Roy Sludge Trio) or downstairs (open mic comedy with PJ Westin) :: Radio, 381 Somerville Ave, Somerville :: November 25 :: radiobarunion.com
Provincetown November 30th thru December 2nd
THePHoeNix.CoM/eveNTS :: 11.23.12 49
ne C h a xt w e ek rl Tell esto : wn fav us you
e sp r Cha o r lisT lesTow Ts in ings n! e m @ p ail Twe eT hx.Co pho @BosTo m or enix n .Com -
Meet the Mayor MiddLe eaSt UpStairS
>> 472 Mass Ave :: 617.864.EAST ::
mideastclub.com
Jere Pilapil
foursquare.com/jerocrowe
WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD
central square 5 PLACES WE LOvE
1
There are tons of places in Central to grab a beer and more to hear live music while drinking said beer. Places to find a fine craft cocktail however, are more limited. Green Street had the distinction of being the best cocktail bar aorund for miles until Brick & Mortar moved into the space previously occupied by Enormous Room. It doesn’t have much more elbow room than its predecessor but, luckily, it’s less about dancing and more about imbibing excellent, expertly crafted signature cocktails. 569 Mass Ave :: 617.491.0061
2
Central is a very bike-friendly ’hood, so it’s lucky they have Broadway Bicycle School (the school offers workshops in bike building and repair). Their employees know what they’re talking about (and don’t make you feel like a newb when you don’t). They’ll repair your bike right in front of you when you wheel it in. Plus, they’ve got all the gear you need, which makes it a one-stop shop for city cyclists. 351 Broadway :: 617.868.3392 :: broadwaybicycleschool.com
3
Need an Elvis toilet seat? How about moustache Band-Aids? Virgin
GettInG there Bus: 1 + 47 + 64 + 70 + 83 + 91 + CT1 :: suBway: reD line
50 11.23.12 :: THEPHOENIX.COM/EVENTS THEPHOENIX.COM
of Guadalupe cigarette case or plastic monkey cocktail charms? Of course not, nobody needs those things, but as soon as you walk into Buckaroo’s Mercantile you’re going to want all of them. The shop’s wares range from wacky to weird to wonderful and are almost all one-of-a-kind. 5 Brookline St :: 617.492.4792 :: buckmerc.com
4
Life Alive might have the local market on kale cornered (and that place is the bomb), but it’s just down the street at Veggie Galaxy where you’ll find Central’s veg-heads queuing up at all hours for delicious
diner fare. Whoever said “everything’s better with bacon” never tried this joint’s signature Chipotle black bean or mushroom chickpea burger topped with red pepper puree or sweet potato mash. 450 Mass Ave :: 617.497.1513 :: veggiegalaxy.com
5
Brunch is our favorite meal of the week. And our favorie brunch in Central is at Café Luna (ZuZu is a close second; you’ve got to try the Kathy Bates). Luna boasts not only delicious, hangover-soothing breakfast eats but also possibly the nicest owner in town.
403 Mass Ave :: 617.576.3400 :: cafeluna-centralsq.com
#FF @Censquare @miDeasTCluB @miDDlesexlounge @rivergoDsonline @phoenixlanDing2
How did you get this mayorship? I honestly don’t know how this happened. I’m there a lot of Tuesdays for a comedy open mic, and that’s about it. I’m kind of a bad mayor that way. I’m kind of a negligent presence. The event only takes place once a week, so if anyone wants to take my mayorship, it wouldn’t be that hard. What kind of comedy do you do? Um, observational. Non sequiturs. Could you offer our readers a non sequitur? Raccoons would be adorable if they could just keep their guts inside. Ever been inside the Middle East Upstairs on a sold-out summer day? It’s like being inside someone’s mouth. I’ve only been to the Middle East Upstairs for that open mic. I may have checked in once when I was using the bathroom while hanging out outside waiting for someone. I’m like a mayor who just goes to town hall and never stays in town otherwise. You’re like Romney when he was governor of Massachusetts. Exactly. If you were him, how would you have handled this election thing differently? I would’ve sat down and counted my money instead of wasting my time. _Barry thompson
DON’T MISS...
1
Need something to do the day after Thanksgiving other than sleeping off your tryptophan hangover? Check out the MIT Museum’s 15th annual F.a.t. Chain reaction, in which teams and individuals participate in a series of mini chain reactions that link together to form one mega-reaction. Get into the action or watch in awe . . . either way it’s a preferable alternative to eating leftovers in your underwear. November 23 from 1 to 4 pm :: Rockwell Cage Gymnasium, 120 Vassar St :: $15; $5 students, seniors :: web. mit.edu
2
If there’s another trivia night where competitors might be asked to create Ben Franklin’s teeth out of Styrofoam packing peanuts and prove their knowledge on subjects like “athletes with rap albums “ in the same evening, we’d love to hear about it. Until then, we’ll be at Champion of Champions trivia every first Wednesday of the month over at the Middle East corner.
December 5 @ 9 pm :: 472 Mass Ave :: free :: quizchampions.com
3 Want to be interviewed about your Foursquare mayorship? Give us a shout: tweet @bostonphoenix or email listings@phx.com. And for tips, friend us: foursquare.com/bostonphoenix.
worD on the tweet “#anDsomemoneyToBuyiT #CenTralsquare a homeless man jusT huggeD me anD saiD ‘weeD is legal, man! all i neeD is a DoCTor.’ ” via @Byungparkk via rT @sTarvs
We’re personally partial to Improv Asylum but, when in Central, catch a Cage Match at ImprovBoston. Two improv teams are pitted against one another, and the audience gets to vote. Plus, there’s beer.
Every Friday @ 9:30 pm :: 40 Prospect St :: $12; $10 students :: improvboston.com
PHOTOS By dEREK KOUyOUMjIAN
arts & nightlife :: get out
Arts & Nightlife :: get out
To-Do LisT
kARAokE
THURsDAY 22
BLINK! › Six-week, state-of-the-art, LED light and sound show featuring the music of the Holiday Pops that runs once every half-hour › Thurs-Wed 4:30 pm › Faneuil Hall Marketplace, 4 South Market Building, Boston › Free › faneuilhallmarketplace.com CONCORD TURKEY TROT 5K ROAD RACE TO BENEFIT CONCORD OPEN TABLE › Thanksgivingmorning run with T-shirts and goody bags for participants › 9 am › Alcott Elementary School, 93 Laurel St, Concord › $25 › 978.369.8000 or concordturkeytrot. com THANKSGIVING DAY ULTIMATE BOOTCAMP BLAST TO BENEFIT THE ST. FRANCIS HOUSE › Ninetyminute workout designed for all fitness abilities › 9 am › Boston Common, Charles St, Boston › $25 › ultimatebootcamp.com THANKSGIVING DAY ULTIMATE BOOTCAMP BLAST TO BENEFIT THE WATERTOWN BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB › Ninety-minute workout designed for all fitness abilities › 8:30 am › Arsenal Park, 545 Arsenal St, Watertown › $25 › ultimatebootcamp.com THANKSGIVING WEEKEND FESTIVAL › Hearth cooking, Native American food traditions, musket shooting matches, presentations on the history of Thanksgiving, and more › Thurs-Sun 9:30 am › Old Sturbridge Village, 1 Old Sturbridge Village Rd, Sturbridge › Free entry; prices per various activity vary › 800.733.1830 or osv.org ZOOLIGHTS › Thousands of lights, animals on display in the Yukon Creek, and photo opportunities with the reindeer › Thurs-Wed 5 pm › Franklin Park Zoo, 1 Franklin Park Rd, Boston › $7 › 617.541.5466 or zoonewengland.org
HONG KONG @ FANEUIL HALL › “Karaoke” › Thurs-Fri 6 pm; Sat-Sun 5 pm; Mon-Wed 9 pm › 65 Chatham St, Boston › 617.227.2226 or › hongkongboston.com KINSALE › “Karaoke Night” › Thursdays at 8:30 pm › 2 Center Plaza, Boston › 617.742.5577 or › classicirish.com/kinsale_about.html LANSDOWNE PUB › “Live Band Karaoke” › Thursdays at 9 pm › 9 Lansdowne St, Boston › 617.266.1222 or › lansdownepubboston.com ROSEBUD DINER › Karaoke at the Rosebud › Sun + Tues 8 pm › 381 Summer St, Somerville › 617.666.6015 or › rosebuddiner.com SISSY K’S › “Karaoke Night” › Thurs + Sun-Wed 8 pm › 6 Commercial St, Boston › 617.248.6511 FIRE + ICE › “Karaoke Night”“ › 9 pm › 205 Berkeley St, Boston › 617.482. FIRE JACqUE’S CABARET › “Mizery Loves Karaoke” › Karaoke hosted by Mizery › Tuesdays at 10:30 pm › 79 Broadway, Boston › No cover › 617.426.8902 or › jacquescabaret.com AN TUA NUA › “Karaoke Night” › Wednesdays at 9:30 pm › 835 Beacon St, Boston › 617.262.2121 HENNESSY’S ›”Live Band Karaoke” › Wednesdays at 9 pm › 25 Union St, Boston › 617.742.2121 or › somerspubs. com/hennessys_history WAVE SPORTS PUB › “Karaoke & Music Videos with DJ Todd” › DJ Todd › Thurs-Sat 9 pm › 411 Waverly Oaks Rd, Waltham › 781.894.7014
For tons more to do, point your phone to m.thePhoenix.com
FRiDAY 23
“BRITISH ARROWS AWARDS” SCREENING › Selection showcasing the year’s best television advertisements › Fri-Sat 7 pm › Institute of Contemporary Art, 100 Northern Ave, Boston › $10; $6 students › 617.478.3100 or icaboston. org CULTURAL SURVIVAL BAZAAR › Unique, handmade gift items including art, jewelry, clothing, crafts, and decor from Africa, Asia, and the Americas › Fri-Sun 11 am › Whole Foods Market, 200 Alewife Brook Pkwy, Cambridge › Free › 617.491.0040 or bazaar.culturalsurvival.org DANCE FRIDAY › Ongoing participatory dance with music played by rotating DJs in a smoke-and-alcohol-free environment › 8:30 pm › First Parish Church of Cambridge, 3 Church St., Cambridge › $10-$15 › dancefriday.org FESTIVAL OF TREES › With more than 225 Christmas trees, kid’s activities, raffles, and more › Fri-Sun 10 am; Mon-Thurs 5 pm › Valley Office Park, 13 Branch St, Methuen › Mon-Fri: $8; SatSun: $10 › methuenfestivaloftrees.com MIT’S FRIDAY AFTER THANKSGIVING (F.A.T.) CHAIN REACTION › Event featuring approximately 35 mini chain reactions linked together with the help of artist Arthur Ganson › 1 pm › MIT
Rockwall Cage Gymnasium, 120 Vasser St, Cambridge › $15; $5 students, seniors › 617.253.5927 or mit.edu/museum/programs/fat2012.html
sATURDAY 24
BARN DANCE › With Dudley Laufman calling and OH, CONTRAire! providing live music › 7:30 pm › Parish Center for the Arts, 10 Lincoln St, Westford › $6; students free › 978.692.6333 LATE NIGHT CAMBALACHE MILONGA › No partner necessary; preceded by a crash course with a guest instructor › 8 pm › Dance Union, 16 Bow Street, Somerville › $15 › 617.721.4872 or bostontango.org ROSLINDALE TREE LIGHTING › With performances, crafts, Santa’s arrival, and complimentary hot chocolate and treats › 3 pm › Adams Park, 72 Poplar St, Roslindale › Free › 617.327.4065 or roslindale.net/holidays
sUNDAY 25
NATIONAL DAY OF MOURNING › Commemorating the 63rd anniversary
52 11.23.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm/EvENTs
following JFK’s death with house tours and a memorial ceremony at 2 pm › 9:30 am › John F. Kennedy National Historic Site, 83 Beals St, Brookline › Free › 617.566.7937 or nps.gov/jof
TUEsDAY 27
“GALLERY NIGHT TUESDAYS” › Showcase of artwork from a different local artist each week › 6 pm › Liberty Hotel, 215 Charles St, Boston › 617.224.4000 or › libertyhotel.com “GAME OVER” › Weekly game night with fighting games and DDR set-ups, Magic the Gathering, Rock Band, Dance Central, and more › 5 pm › Good Life, 28 Kingston St, Boston › Free › 617.451.2622 or › goodlifebar.com
WEDNEsDAY 28
“APOCALYPSE SOON? HOW THE WORLD ENDS (OR DOESN’T) IN RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD” › With David Carrasco › 6 pm › Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, 11 Divinity Ave, Cambridge › Free > 617.496.1027 or peabody.harvard.edu BOSTON SPEAKERS SERIES 2012: LISA LING › The journalist and National Geographic and Oprah Winfrey Network host discusses her career and the state of the news in general › 8 pm › Symphony Hall, 301 Mass Ave, Boston › SOLD OUT › 888.266.1200 or bostonspeakersseries.org DANCE FREEDOM › Ongoing participatory event with music played by rotating DJs in a smoke-and-alcohol free environment › 7:30 pm › First Church, Congregational, 11 Garden St, Cambridge › $10-$12 › 617.547.2724 or dancefreedom.com RATTLIN’ AROUND THE CHRISTMAS TREE TO BENEFIT THE GLOBE SANTA FUND › Jazz music from the Rollo Tomasi Quartet, fashion presentation by the Dawn Mostow Models, live and silent auctions, and a Southwestern tasting › 5:30 pm › Poe’s Kitchen at the Rattlesnake, 384 Boylston St, Boston › $20 › 617.859.8555 or spiritedbostonians2012. eventbrite.com
WITH AUTHOR SARA MARCUS” › The Girls Rock Camp Alliance hosts a reading and fundraiser with Sara Marcus, author of Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot-Grrrl Revolution. › 4 pm › Lorem Ipsum Books, 1299 Cambridge St, Cambridge › Free; suggested $12 donation› 617.497.7669 or girlsrockcampalliance.org “PETA ANTI-FUR DEMO FOR FURFREE FRIDAY” › PETA activists will gather at Harris and Klaff ’s Furrier Shop for a demonstration to educate the public about the cruelty caused by producing and wearing fur. Meet at Harris and Klaff ’s Furrier, 1333 Beacon St. › 11 am › Brookline, Coolidge Corner, Brookline, Boston
sATURDAY 24
“END THE FED/END THE WARS RALLY” › This is the Boston installment of a nationwide rally demanding that the Federal Reserve be audited and then held accountable. Activists will meet at the Boston Common’s Parkman Bandstand. From there, the group will walk to the Federal Reserve, making stops along the way to spread the message and disperse literature and mail-in petitions to US Senators. › noon › Parkman Bandstand, Boston Common, Boston › Free › facebook.com/ events/165573756899894/
AcTivisM
THURsDAY 29
HOLIDAY WANDER › Special events and personal gifting advice at more than 25 independent shops, restaurants, and salons › 5 pm › Roslindale Village, Washington St + Corinth St, Roslindale › Free › roslindale.net/holidays MUSEUM SCHOOL ART SALE › With work produced by SMFA students, alumni, faculty, and affiliated artists › 10 am › School of the Museum of Fine Arts, 230 the Fenway, Boston › Free › 617.267.6100 or smfa.edu STUFF-A-TRUCK TO BENEFIT THE HOME FOR LITTLE WANDERERS › Bring toys and holiday gifts for children and families living in at-risk circumstances › 11 am › Boston Common, Charles St, Boston + Legacy Place, 680 Legacy Pl, Dedham › All donations welcome › thehome.org/bigwishes
AcTivisM FRiDAY 23
“GIRLS ROCK CAMP ALLIANCE 50 SHOWS/50 STATES DRIVE
For more ways to get involved go to thePhoenix. com/listings or check out “The Activist’s Notebook” on the Phlog!
Arts & Nightlife :: visuAl Arts
review
DaviD CurCio: neeDle point
JuLIANNE SWArTzImAgES By PHoTogrAPHy & DESIgN, BoSToN
Julianne Swartz: how Deep? a wilDCarD arounD art theSe days is the rise of Maker culture, the tribe of hip geeks devoted to DIY tinkering, engineering, electronics, and invention. Via Maker Faires and TEDxTalks, local techies seem to be inventing their own creative universe, parallel to Boston’s existing art world. At recent Maker Faires in Somerville and New York, there was lots of fizz, but the gee-whiz gadgets were often hampered by bugs and a feeling that it would have been nice if the inventors had put a bit more thought into the point of it all. So along comes Julianne Swartz of Kingston, New York, who merges Maker tinkering with the resonance of fine art. Her show “How Deep Is Your,” at DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, feels like indie Sufjan Stevens riffs inspired by the power chords of Richard Serra’s carefully propped-up lead sculptures or Olafur Eliasson’s fake suns and artificial waterfalls, which were basically Maker projects with Hollywood budgets. Swartz specializes in modest, delicate, playful, emo gestures. Spectrum (Double Yellow) is a series of wires, each a different shade of the rainbow, arching from wall to floor. Look closely. There’s a gap in the middle of each arch — half an inch of just air.
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In fact, the ends of the spans are strings, apparently weighted at the bottom and held taut by a magnet attracted to the wire above. Physics sleight of hand produces a little wonder. Obstacle has a wire arm rising out of a base of rough cement blocks to drag a little brown plastic balloon in a circle on the floor around it. The movement, apparently driven by hidden clockwork, is hesitant, and seemingly more so as the balloon attempts to hurdle a cement lump blocking its path. That hesitancy transforms the rough materials into poignancy. Swartz’s sciencey method produces its share of duds. And she struggles to stay on the right side of heartfelt versus greeting card when she rigs bathroom-sink drains to broadcast affirmations such as “You’re amazing in everything you do.” Her biggest piece snakes pipes through the museum, ending in a funnel. Put your ear close to hear a tinny version (emanating from a record player two floors below) of the Bee Gees’ 1977 song “How Deep Is Your Love.” If you’re not a complete cynical bastard, it can offer a little shot of nostalgia and romantic longing.
“This show is about as personal as I can be without sitting down and telling the story,” David Curcio says of his ruefully titled exhibit “I Wouldn’t Worry About It.” His folksy drawing-andembroidery What Will Survive of Us Is Nothing shows a man and woman in 19th-century garb crying, surrounded by a border of animal traps, shackles, knives, flaming lighters, and pills arranged like flowers. More Than You Know offers decorative patterns of pills that frame a heart, a woman’s reproductive system, and women’s butts. Script across the bottom reads, “Before I go I need to be something more than skin & bones, you see.” The 40-year-old Watertown artist’s delicate, endearing pictures are like scratched-out diaries of a heart laid bare. His symbols — pills, razor blades, tears, flowers, Abraham Lincoln, scantily clad ladies — channel his losses over the past year or so: divorce, having to sell his home “DAVID and close his Ningyo EdiCURCIO: tions gallery. I WOULDN’T “The show’s WORRY about [antiABOUT IT” depressant] Laconia Gallery, drugs. The 433 Harrison show’s about Ave, Boston depression. The show’s Through January 13 about selfloathing. The show’s about sex,” Curcio says. “It’s a way of making something beautiful out of something awful.” _GC
_G R eG COOk
“JULIANNE SWARTZ: HOW DEEP IS YOUR” :: DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, 51 Sandy Pond Rd, Lincoln :: Through December 30 THEPHOENIX.COM/ARTS :: 11.23.12 53
Arts & Nightlife :: visuAl Arts
openings
CAPE COD MUSEUM OF ART › 508.385.4477 › 60 Hope Ln, Dennis › cmfa. org › Mon-Sat 10 am-5 pm; Thurs 10 am-8 pm; Sun noon-5 pm; Call for winter hours › Admission $8; free for ages under 18; admission by donation Thurs › Nov 28-Dec 16: “Giving 100 Percent”
galleries
Admission to the following galleries is free, unless otherwise noted. In addition to the hours listed here, many galleries are open by appointment. ABERJONA RIVER GALLERY › 781.729.1158 › 184 Swanton St, Winchester › griffinmuseum.org › Daily 11 am-5 pm › Through Dec 2: Robert Schwartz: “Gestures and Glances” ALBRIGHT ART › 978.369.7300 › 32 Main St, Concord › albrightartgallery.com › Sun-Tues 10 am-6 pm; Wed-Sat 10 am-8 pm › Through Jan 6: “Give Art” ALUMNI LIBRARY AT WENTWORTH INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY › 617.989.4040 › 550 Huntington Ave, Boston › wit.edu › Mon-Thurs 7 am-11 pm; Fri 7 am-6 pm; Sat 8 am-6 pm; Sun 11 am-10 pm › Through Nov 26: “Boston’s West End: Moving Forward/ Looking Back” AMERICAN ISLAMIC CONGRESS CENTER › 617.266.0080 › 38 Newbury St, Boston › aicongress.org › Mon-Fri 9 am-5 pm; Sat noon-4 pm › Through Jan 15: “Bosnian Born” ARS LIBRI › 617.357.5212 › 500 Harrison Ave, Boston › arslibri.com › Mon-Fri 10 am-6 pm; Sat 11 am-5 pm › Through Dec 22: Wendy Burton: “Histories” ARSENAL CENTER FOR THE ARTS › 617.923.0100 › 321 Arsenal St, Watertown › arsenalarts.org › Tues-Sun noon-6 pm › Nov 29-Jan 10: “Small Works 2012” › Reception Nov 29: 5:30-7:30 pm ART INSTITUTE OF BOSTON › 617.585.6600 › 700 Beacon St, Boston › aiboston.edu › Tues-Wed + Fri noon-5 pm; Thurs 3-8 pm; Sat noon-5 pm › Through Dec 16: “MasterWork” BARBARA KRAKOW GALLERY › 617.262.4490 › 10 Newbury St, Boston › barbarakrakowgallery.com › Tues-Sat 10 am5:30 pm › Through Nov 24: Allan McCollum: “The Shapes Project: Perfect Couples” BOSTON ATHENÆUM › 617.227.0270 › 10-
1/2 Beacon St, Boston › bostonathenaeum.org › Mon 9 am-8 pm; Tues-Fri 9 am-5:30 pm; Sat 9 am-4 pm › Through Jan 12: “Chromo-Mania! The Art of Chromolithograhy in Boston, 18401910” BOSTON CYBERARTS GALLERY › 617.290.5010 › 141 Green St, Jamaica Plain › bostoncyberarts.org › Wed-Thurs 6-9 pm; Fri-Sun 11 am-6 pm › Through Dec 14: “COLLISION18:Present” BOSTON UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY › 617.353.4672 › 855 Comm Avenue, Boston › bu. edu/art › Tues-Fri 10 am-5 pm; Sat-Sun 1-5 pm › Through Dec 20: Vlatka Horvat: “Also Called: Backbone, Anchor, Lifeline” BROMFIELD GALLERY › 617.451.3605 › 450 Harrison Ave, Boston › bromfieldgallery. com › Wed-Sat noon-5 pm › Through Dec 1: Judy Riola: “Noisy Constellations” › Through Dec 1: Prilla Smith Brackett: “Promises to Keep: Monoprints” BSA SPACE › 617.391.4039 › Boston Society of Architects, 290 Congress St, Boston › bsaspace. org › Daily 10 am-6 pm › Through Dec 31: “City of Mirages: Baghdad, 1952–1982” BUNKER HILL COMMUNITY COLLEGE ART GALLERY › 617.228.2093 › 250 New Rutherford Ave, Charlestown › bhcc.mass.edu/ artgallery › Mon + Wed + Fri 11 am-4 pm; Tues + Thurs 1-6 pm; Sat 11 am–2 pm › Through Dec 15: “Artists on the Stump” CAC GALLERY › 617.349.4380 › 344 Broadway, Cambridge › cambridgema.gov/cac › Mon + Wed 8:30 am-8 pm; Tues + Thurs 8:30 am-5 pm; Fri 8:30 am-noon › Through Nov 23: Halsey Burgund: “ROUND: Cambridge” CAMBRIDGE ART ASSOCIATION › 617.876.0246 › 25 Lowell St, Cambridge › cambridgeart.org › Lowell St: Tues-Sat 11 am-5 pm; Mount Auburn St: Mon-Fri 9 am-6 pm, Sat 9 am-1 pm › Through Jan 10: “Blue” CAMBRIDGE CENTER FOR ADULT EDUCATION › 617.547.6789 › 42 Brattle St, Cambridge › ccae.org › Daily noon-9 pm › Through Nov 30: “The New England Folk Music Archives Exhibition” CARPENTER CENTER FOR THE VISUAL ARTS AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY › 617.495.3251 › 24 Quincy St, Cambridge › ves.fas.harvard.edu › Mon-Fri 10 am-5 pm; Sat-Sun 1 pm-5 pm › Through Dec 20: Christian Boltanski: “6 Septembres” › Through Dec 20: “Parsis: The Zoroastrians of India” CHASE YOUNG GALLERY › 617.859.7222 › 450 Harrison Ave, Boston › chaseyounggallery. com › Tues-Sat 11 am-6 pm; Sun 11 am-4 pm › Through Nov 30: Peter Hoffer: “Second Nature”
Jacklyn Boyland’s Peppermint is on view at the Arsenal Center for the Arts as part of the group show “Small Works 2012” from November 29 through January 10. 54 11.23.12 :: THEPHOENIX.COM/ARTS
COPLEY SOCIETY OF ART › 617.536.5049 › 158 Newbury St, Boston › copleysociety.org › Tues-Sat 11 am-6 pm; Sun noon-5 pm › Through Dec 24: “Holiday Small Works 2012” DAVIS ART GALLERY › 508.752.5334 › 44 Portland St, Worcester › davisart.com › MonFri 8:30 am-5 pm › Through Jan 4: “The Quest for Inner Peace: An Exploration of Asian Arts Through Western Eyes” DTR MODERN GALLERY › 617.424.7001 › 167 Newbury St, Boston › dtrmodern.com › Mon-Fri 10 am-6:30 pm; Sat 10 am-7 pm; Sun noon-6 pm › Through Dec 21: “Dalí” 808 GALLERY › 617.358.0922 › 808 Comm Ave, Boston › bu.edu/cfa/visual-arts/galleries › Tues-Sun 1-5 pm › Through Dec 16: “On Sincerity” FOURTH WALL PROJECT › › 132 Brookline Ave, Boston › fourthwallproject.com › Wed-Fri 1-6 pm; Sun 1-5 pm › Through Dec 3: “Fear No Art 4” GALLERY AT THE PIANO FACTORY › 617.437.9365 › 791 Tremont St, Boston › galleryatthepianofactory.org › Fri 6-8 pm; SatSun noon-5 pm › Through Nov 25: Richard Inonog, Jason Baker, Justine M. Johnson, and Heather Noelle: “Aperture” GALLERY KAYAFAS › 617.482.0411 › 450 Harrison Ave, Boston › gallerykayafas.com › Tues-Sat 11 am–5:30 pm › Through Nov 24: Caleb Cole: “Odd One Out” and “Dolls” › Through Nov 24: Pelle Cass: “Strangers” GALLERY NAGA › 617.267.9060 › 67 Newbury St, Boston › gallerynaga.com › TuesSat 10AM-5PM › Through Dec 15: Gregory Gillespie: “Transfixed” GLADSTONE JEWELRY › 978.704.9410 › 36 Union St, Manchester › gladstonejewelry.com › Wed-Fri 11 am-6 pm; Sat 11 am-5 pm › Through Jan 25: Edwina Sandys HALEY HOUSE BAKERY CAFE › 617.445.0900 › 12 Dade St, Roxbury › haleyhouse. org › Mon-Wed + Fri 7:30 am-4 pm; Thurs 7:30 a m-9 pm; Sat 9 am-3 pm › Through Nov 30: Boston Day & Evening Academy: “Identity” HALLSPACE › 617.288.2255 › 950 Dorchester Ave, Dorchester › hallspace.org › Fri-Sat noon-5 pm › Through Nov 24: Richard Cutrona: “Political Lens” HARBORARTS OUTDOOR GALLERY › › 256 Marginal St, East Boston › harborarts.net › Open 24 hours › Through Dec 31: “Hazards of Modern Living” Public Art Installation JEWETT ART GALLERY AT WELLESLEY COLLEGE › 781.283.2042 › 106 Central St, Wellesley › jewettgallery. wordpress.com › Daily noon-5 pm › Through Nov 30: Travis Krupka: “Ferraris in a Forest” KINGSTON GALLERY › 617.423.4113 › 450 Harrison Ave, #43, Boston › kingstongallery.com › Wed-Sun noon- 5 pm › Through Dec 2: Luanne E Witkowski: “Place” LACONIA GALLERY › 617.670.1568 › 433 Harrison Ave, Boston › laconiagallery.org › FriSun noon–4 pm › Through Jan 13: David Curcio: “I Wouldn’t Worry About It” LINCOLN ARTS PROJECT › 289 Moody St, Waltham › lincolnartsproject.com › Wed-Fri 4-9 pm; Sat 2-8 pm › Through Dec 1: “Insider/ Outsider” LOT F GALLERY › 617.426.1021 › 145 Pearl St, Boston › lotfgallery.com › Sat noon-4 pm › Through Nov 23: Adam O’Day, Dave Tree, Elizabeth Kirby Sullivan, and Mike Hammecker: “Four” LOUISA GOULD GALLERY › 508.693.7373 › 13 Beach St, Vineyard Haven › Daily 9 am-6 pm › Through Dec 24: “Holiday Small Treasure Show” LYNNARTS › 781.598.5244 › 25 Exchange St, Lynn › lynnarts.org › Mon-Wed + Fri 10 am–4 pm; Thurs 11 am–7 pm; Sat 11 am–4 pm › Through Dec 28: Joan Mullen and Marjorie Kaye: “Desire and Compulsion” MEDALLION GALLERY › 617.236.8283 › 350 Boylston St, Boston › medalliongallery.com › Mon-Sat 10 am-7 pm; Sun noon-5 pm › Through Nov 30: Milan Klic
MIT LIST VISUAL ARTS CENTER › 617.253.4860 › 20 Ames St, Cambridge › web. mit.edu/lvac › Daily noon-6 pm › Through Jan 6: “In the Holocene” MIT WOLK GALLERY › 617.253.7334 › 77 Mass Ave, Cambridge › Mon-Fri 9 am–5 pm › Through Dec 28: William Wurster: “Frames for Living” MULTICULTURAL ARTS CENTER › 617.577.1400 › 41 Second St, Cambridge › multiculturalartscenter.org › Mon-Fri 10:30 am-6 pm › Through Dec 14: Martin Karplus: “South and Central American Kodachromes of the 1960s” › Through Dec 26: Sylvia StaggGiuliano: “Transit of Venus” MUSEUM OF SCIENCE › 617.723.2500 › 1 Science Pk, Boston › mos.org › Sat-Thurs 9 am-5 pm; Fri 9 am-9 pm › Through March 3: “Shipwreck! Pirates & Treasure” NEW ART CENTER › 617.964.3424 › 61 Washington Park, Newtonville › newartcenter. org › Mon-Fri 9 am-5 pm; Sat 1-5 pm › Through Dec 7: “New Media › Fresh Paint II” › Through Dec 7: Sarah Pollman NEW ENGLAND SCHOOL OF PHOTOGRAPHY › 617.437.1868 › 537 Comm Ave, Boston › nesop.com › Mon-Fri 9 am-5 pm › Through Dec 14: Paul-Jude Guillaume: “Never Let Me Go” NEWBURY FINE ARTS › 617.536.0210 › 29 Newbury St, Boston › newburyfinearts. com › Through Nov 25: Tim Merrett: “clearHISTORY” PEARL STREET GALLERY › 617.338.1388 › 100 Pearl St, Chelsea › Sat-Sun noon-5 pm › Through Dec 30: “Hurricane Sandy Relief Show and Sale” POST ROAD ART CENTER › 508.485.2580 › 1 Boston Post Rd , Marlborough › postroadartcenter.com › Mon-Sat 9:30 am-5:30 pm › Through Nov 28: “Staff Show 2012” QUIDLEY AND COMPANY GALLERY › 617.450.4300 › 38 Newbury St, Boston › quidleyandco.com › Tues-Fri 10 am-6 pm; Sat 10 am-5 pm › Through Nov 25: “Urban Intersection” ROBERT KLEIN GALLERY › 617.267.7997 › 38 Newbury St, Boston › robertkleingallery. com › Tues-Fri 10 am–5:30 pm; Sat 11 am–5 pm › Through Dec 22: Michael Kenna: “A Decade in Review” ROLLY-MICHAUX GALLERY › 617.536.9898 › 290 Dartmouth St, Boston › rollymichaux.com › Tues-Sat 11 am-4:30 pm › Through Dec 29: Robert Castagna and Ksenia Mack: “A Soundtrack for Still Pictures: Lost Across America” SANDRA AND DAVID BAKALAR GALLERY AT MASSACHUSETTS COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN › 617.879.7333 › 621 Huntington Ave, Boston › Mon-Sat noon-6 pm; Wed noon-8 pm › Through Dec 1: Zandra Rhodes: “A Lifelong Love Affair with Textiles” SCHILTKAMP GALLERY AT CLARK UNIVERSITY › 508.793.7711 › 92 Downing St, Worcester › clarku.edu/schiltkampgallery › Mon–Thurs 9 am-8 pm; Fri 9 am-4 pm; Sat-Sun noon-5 pm › Through Nov 26: “Love Letters - The Intersection of Art and Design” SCHOOL OF THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS › 617.267.6100 › 230 The Fenway, Boston › smfa.edu/gallery › Mon-Sat 10 am-5 pm; Thurs 10 am-8 pm › Through Dec 3: “Grad Student Curatorial Team Show” 17 COX › 715.441.3631 › 17 Cox Ct, Beverly › 17cox.com › By appointment only › Through Dec 23: “$1000 Reward for the 20 Foot Santa Claus” SHERMAN GALLERY AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY › 617.358.0295 › 775 Comm Ave, Boston › bu.edu/cfa › Tues-Fri 11 am-5 pm; Sat-Sun 1-5 pm › Through Dec 16: Stephen A. Frank: “Exploring My Kodachrome Dreams, You Can’t Go Home Again” SOCIETY OF ARTS AND CRAFTS › 617.266.1810 › 175 Newbury St, Boston › societyofcrafts.org › Tues-Sat 10 am-6 pm ›
Through Jan 19: “Our Cups Runneth Over” SOUTH SHORE ART CENTER › 781.383.2787 › 119 Ripley Rd, Cohasset › ssac.org › Mon-Sat 10 am-4 pm; Sun noon-4 pm › Through Dec 23: “Regarding the 3rd Dimension: Real or Imagined?” STATE TRANSPORTATION BUILDING › 10 Park Pl, Boston › Mon-Fri 9 am-5 pm › Through Nov 30: “100 Prints Celebrating 100 Years” STEPHEN D. PAINE GALLERY AT MASSACHUSETTS COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN › 617.879.7333 › 621 Huntington Ave, Boston › Mon-Sat noon-6 pm; Wed noon-8 pm › Through Dec 24: “Earth & Alchemy” STUDIOS AT PORTER MILL › › 95 Rantoul St, Beverly › studiosatportermill.blogspot.com › Wed-Fri 5-7 pm; Sat-Sun noon-4 pm › Through Nov 25: “All Mixed Up” TRUSTMAN ART GALLERY AT SIMMONS COLLEGE › 617.521.2268 › 300 the Fenway, Boston › simmons.edu/trustman › Mon-Fri 10 am-4:30 pm › Through Dec 13: Milo Fay, Eliza Gagnon, and Elaine Spatz-Rabinowitz: “Where We Live” TUFTS UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY AT THE AIDEKMAN ARTS CENTER › 617.627.3094 › 40 Talbot Ave, Medford › artgallery. tufts.edu › Wed-Sun noon-5 pm › Through Dec 16: Lucy+Jorge Orta: “Food-Water-Life” WARNER BABCOCK INSTITUTE FOR GREEN CHEMISTRY › 978.229.5400 › 100 Research Dr, Wilmington › beyondbenign.org › By appointment only › Through Jan 11: “Tales from a Test Tube: Abstractions and Reactions” WASHINGTON STREET ART CENTER › 617.623.5315 › 321 Washington St, Somerville › washingtonst.org › Sat noon-4 pm › Through Dec 1: Adam H. Marchand: “Inventory” WOODRUFF’S ART CENTER › 508.477.5767 › 1 Market St, Mashpee › woodruffsartcenter.com › Mon-Sat 10 am-6 pm; Sun 11 am-5 pm › Through Dec 31: “100 Ways to Paint I Love You”
museums
ADDISON GALLERY OF AMERICAN ART AT PHILLIPS ACADEMY › 978.749.4015 › 180 Main St, Andover › andover.edu/addison › TuesSat 10 am-5 pm; Sun 1-5 pm › Through Dec 30: “American Vanguards: Graham, Davis, Gorky, de Kooning, and Their Circle, 1927 – 1942” › Through Jan 13: “Pekupatikut Innuat Akunikana / Pictures Woke the People Up: An Innu Project with Wendy Ewald and Eric Gottesman” › Through Jan 13: “People, Places, Things: Symbols of American Culture” ARMENIAN LIBRARY AND MUSEUM OF AMERICA › 617.926.2562 › 65 Main Street, Watertown › almainc.org › Thur-Fri noon-8 pm; Sat-Sun noon-6 pm › Through Dec 30: “The Life and Works of Arshag Fetvadjian” › Through Jan 31: “The Art of Ranzar” CAHOON MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART › 508.428.7581 › 4676 Falmouth Rd, Cotuit › cahoonmuseum.org › Tues-Sat 10 am-4 pm; Sun 1-4 pm › Admission $8; $7 seniors; $6 students › Through Dec 30: “Cherubs: From Imps to Angels” › Through Dec 30: Rachel Ellis Kaufman and Heather Blume: “Relations” CHARLES RIVER MUSEUM OF INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION › 781.893.5410 › 154 Moody St, Waltham › crmi. org › Thurs-Sun 10 am-5 pm › Admission $7; $5 students, seniors › Through Jan 15: Wayne Strattman: “Self Illumination” DAVIS MUSEUM AT WELLESLEY COLLEGE › 781.283.3382 › 106 Central St, Wellesley › davismuseum.wellesley.edu › TuesSat 11 am-5 pm; Wed 11 am-8 pm; Sun noon-4 pm › Free admission › Through Dec 16: “A Generous Medium: Photography at Wellesley, 1972-2012” DECORDOVA SCULPTURE PARK AND MUSEUM › 781.259.8355 › 51 Sandy Pond Rd, Lincoln › decordova.org › Tues-Sun 10 am-5 pm › Admission $14; $12 seniors; $10 students and youth ages 13 and up; free to children under 12 › Through Dec 30: Jean Shin and Brian Ripel:
FA I L URe BY k AR L s T eVeNs k A r L ST E v E N S A rT@ P H x .C o m
©2012 kArL STEvENS. The Lodger, THE grAPHIC NovEL By kArL STEvENS IS AvAILABLE NoW AT fINEr ComIC SHoPS. CHECk ouT kArLSTEvENSArT.Com
“Retreat” › Through Dec 30: Julianne Swartz: “How Deep Is Your” › Through April 21: “Second Nature: Abstract Photography Then and Now” ERIC CARLE MUSEUM OF PICTURE BOOK ART › 413.658.1100 › 125 West Bay Rd, Amherst › carlemuseum.org › Mon-Fri 10 am–4 pm; Sat 10 am–5 pm; Sun noon–5 pm › $7; $5 students › Through Nov 25: “Our British Cousins: The Magical Art of Maisy and Friends” › Through Feb 24: “Beyond Books: The Independent Art of Eric Carle” › Through March 10: “Iconic Images: Ten Years of Collecting for The Carle” FITCHBURG ART MUSEUM › 978.345.4207 › 185 Elm St, Fitchburg › fitchburgartmuseum. org › Wed-Fri noon-4 pm; Sat-Sun 11 am-5 pm › Admission $9; $5 students and seniors › Through Dec 20: “American Scenery: Different Views in Hudson River School Painting” › Through Dec 20: “Different Views: Landscape Photographs from the Museum’s Collections” › Through Dec 20: “Face to Face: Works From The Collection In Dialogue” › Through Dec 20: “The Director’s Favorites” FULLER CRAFT MUSEUM › 508.588.6000 › 455 Oak St, Brockton › fullermuseum.org › TuesSun 10 am-5 pm; Wed 10 am-9 pm › Admission $8; $5 students, seniors; free for members and children under 12, and for all Wed 5-9 pm › Through Jan 20: Cyndy Barbone, Deborah Frazee Carlson, Fuyuko Matsubara, and Bhakti Ziek: “Grand Tales of the Loom: Four Master Weavers” › Through Feb 10: “2012 Biennial Members Exhibition” › Through Feb 24: Chris Gustin: “Masterworks in Clay” GRIFFIN MUSEUM OF PHOTOGRAPHY › 781.729.1158 › 67 Shore Rd, Winchester › griffinmuseum.org › Tues-Thurs 11 am-5 pm; Fri 11 am-4 pm; Sat-Sun noon-4 pm › Admission $5; $2 seniors; free for children and students; free for all on Thurs › Through Dec 2: Jess T. Dugan: “Transcendence” › Through Dec 2: Lynn Goldsmith: “The Looking Glass” › Through Dec 2: Rita Bernstein: “Undertow” INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART › 617.478.3100 › 100 Northern Ave, Boston › icaboston.org › Tues-Wed + Sat-Sun 10 am–5 pm; Thurs-Fri 10 am–9 pm › Admission $15; $10 students, seniors; free for ages under 17; free after 5 pm on Thurs › Through Nov 25: Dianna Molzan › Through Nov 25: Os Gêmeos › Through March 3: “This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s” ISABELLA STEWART GARDNER
MUSEUM › 617.566.1401 › 280 the Fenway, Boston › gardnermuseum.org › Wed-Mon 11 am5 pm › Admission $15; $12 seniors; $5 students with ID; free for ages under 18 › Through Jan 7: “The Great Bare Mat & Constellation” MASSACHUSETTS MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART › 413.662.2111 › 87 Marshall St, North Adams › massmoca. org › Wed-Mon 11 am–5 pm › Admission $15; $11 students; $5 ages 6-16; free for ages 5 and under › Through Jan 2: “Making Room: The Space Between Two and Three Dimensions” › Through Feb 4: “Invisible Cities” › Through April 1: “Oh, Canada” MCMULLEN MUSEUM OF ART AT BOSTON COLLEGE › 617.552.8100 › 140 Comm Ave, Chestnut Hill › bc.edu/artmuseum › Mon-Fri 11 am-4 pm; Sat-Sun noon-5 pm › Free admission › Through Dec 9: Paul Klee: “Philosophical Vision; From Nature to Art” MIT MUSEUM › 617.253.4444 › 265 Mass Ave, Cambridge › web.mit.edu/museum › Tues-Fri 10 am-5 pm; Sat-Sun noon-5 pm › Through Dec 31: Berenice Abbott: “Photography and Science: An Essential Unity” › Through March 31: “Rivers of Ice: Vanishing Glaciers of the Greater Himalaya” MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS › 617.267.9300 › 465 Huntington Ave, Boston › mfa.org › MonTues + Sat-Sun 10 am-4:45 pm; Wed-Fri 10 am-9:45 pm › Admission $22; $20 students, seniors; free for ages 7-17 and under during non-school hours [otherwise $10]; free for ages 6 and under › Through Dec 31: Edward Weston: “Leaves of Grass” › Through Dec 31: “Mario Testino: In Your Face and British Royal Portraits” › Through Dec 31: “The Allure of Japan” › Through Jan 6: Ori Gersht: “History Repeating” › Through Feb 18: “Cats to Crickets: Pets in Japan’s Floating World” › Through July 7: “Art of the White Mountains” › Through June 1: “Jewels, Gems, and Treasures: Ancient to Modern” NATIONAL CENTER OF AFROAMERICAN ARTISTS › 617.442.8614 › 300 Walnut Ave, Boston › ncaaa.org › Admission $4; $3 seniors, students › Through Jan 13: “Jamaican Artists: Celebrating 50 years of Independence” NORMAN ROCKWELL MUSEUM › 413.298.4100 › 9 Rte 183, Stockbridge › nrm.org › Daily 10 am–5 pm, through Oct. After Nov, 10 am-4 pm; weekends 10 am- 5 pm › Admission $15; $13.50 seniors; $10 students with ID; free
for ages 18 and under when accompanied by an adult › Through Jan 21: Norman Rockwell: “Home for the Holidays” › Through Feb 24: “Heroes and Villains: The Comic Book Art of Alex Ross” PEABODY ESSEX MUSEUM › 978.745.9500 › 161 Essex St, Salem › pem.org › Tues-Sun and Mon holidays 10 am-5 pm › Admission $15; $13 seniors; $11 students; free for ages 16 and under › Through Dec 31: “The Invention of Glory: Afonso V and the Pastrana Tapestries” › Through Jan 31: “Auspicious Wishes and Natural Beauty in Korean Art” › Through Jan 31: “Fish, Silk, Tea, Bamboo: Cultivating an Image of China” › Through Jan 31: “Of Gods and Mortals, Traditional Art from India” › Through Jan 31: “Perfect Imbalance, Exploring Chinese Aesthetics” › Through Feb 3: “FreePort [No. 004]: Peter Hutton” › Through Feb 3: “Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones” › Through May 27: “FreePort [No. 005]: Michael Lin” › Through May 27: “Natural Histories: Photographs by Barbara Bosworth” PEABODY MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY › 617.496.1027 › 11 Divinity Ave, Cambridge › peabody.harvard.edu › Daily 9 am-5 pm › Admission $9; $7 students, seniors; free to members, Harvard students, and children under 3; also free to all Massachusetts residents Wed 3-5 pm and Sun 9 am–noon › Through Jan 31: “From Daguerreotype to Digital: Anthropology and Photography” PROVINCETOWN ART ASSOCIATION AND MUSEUM › 508.487.1750 › 460 Commercial St, Provincetown › paam.org › Mon-Thurs 11 am-8 pm; Fri 11 am-10 pm; Sat-Sun 11 am-5 pm through Sept. Beginning in Oct, Thurs-Sun noon-5 pm and by appointment. › Admission $5; free for children under 13, and on Fri evenings › Through Nov 25: Taro Yamamoto › Through Dec 2: “Painting a Building, Building a Painting: The Art of Susan Baker” › Through Jan 13: “Works on Paper from the PAAM Collection” RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL OF DESIGN MUSEUM OF ART › 401.454.6500 › 224 Benefit St, Providence, RI › risdmuseum. org › Tues-Sun 10 am-5 pm; third Thurs per month until 9 pm › Admission $10; $7 seniors; $3 college students and youth ages 5-18; free every Sun 10 am–1 pm, the third Thurs of each month 5-9 pm, and the last Sat of the month › Through Dec 2: “The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Rhode Island” › Through Jan 13: “America In View: Landscape Photography 1865 to Now” › Through Feb 24: “Everyday Things: Contemporary Works from the Collection” ROSE ART MUSEUM AT BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY › 781.736.3434 › 415 South St, Waltham › brandeis.edu/rose › Tues-Sun noon-5 pm › Admission $3 › Through Dec 9: Dor Guez: “100 Steps to the Mediterranean” STERLING AND FRANCINE CLARK ART INSTITUTE › 413.458.2303 › 225 South St, Williamstown › clarkart.edu › Tues-Sun 10 am-5 pm › Through Oct 31, admission $15, free to youth 18 and under. Beginning Nov 1, the institute is open free to the public. › Through Jan 1: “Clark Remix” WILLIAMS COLLEGE MUSEUM OF ART › 413.597.2429 › 15 Lawrence Hall Dr, Williamstown › wcma.org › Tues-Sat 10 am-5 pm; Sun 1-5 pm › Through Nov 25: Laylah Ali: “The Greenheads Series” › Through Dec 30: “Room for Reflection” WORCESTER ART MUSEUM › 508.799.4406 › 55 Salisbury St, Worcester › worcesterart.org › Wed-Fri + Sun 11 am-5 pm; Sat 10 am-5 pm; Third Thursday 11 am-8 pm › Admission $14, $12 for seniors and students. Free for youth 17 and under and for all on first Sat of the month, 10 am-noon › Through Nov 30: “Pilgrimage to Hokusai’s Waterfalls” › Through Dec 2: “20th Century American Drawings” › Through Feb 3: “Kennedy to Kent State: Images of a Generation” THEPHOENIX.COM/ARTS :: 11.23.12 55
Arts & Nightlife :: Books
book events sAtURDAY 24
“WORD-N-RHYTHM” › BBQ, open mic poetry, and live music › Out of the Blue Gallery, 106 Prospect St, Cambridge › $5 donation › 617.354.5287 or outoftheblueartgallery. com
sUnDAY 25
“LIZARD LOUNGE POETRY NIGHT: 2012 LL SLAM” › With music by the Jeff Robinson Trio › 8 pm › Lizard Lounge, 1667 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $5 › 617.547.0759 or lizardloungeclub.com
MonDAY 26
to stArt with, both the dogs are dead. Musashi and Lila, the title pooch of Lauren Slater’s The $60,000 Dog: My Life with Animals (Beacon Press), have crossed the rainbow bridge. The desired goat has yet to be obtained, likewise the horse. But Lauren Slater remains connected to animals, if not necessarily the ones profiled in her new collection of essays. That’s okay, though. The book “is not primarily about dogs, and you can make the case that it’s not even really about animals,” she says, on the phone from her Harvard, Mass, home. “It’s about being human in relation to the non-human citizens of this earth. It never ceases to amaze me that we’re surrounded by these non-human consciousnesses. Even my chickens — they are all conscious.” Slater, a psychologist as well as a formidable and poetic prose stylist, has written at length about mental illness and her
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family’s dysfunction in books like Welcome to My Country and Prozac Diary. It seems natural, then, to ask if there’s a connection. “I worry that my love for animals is some kind of pathology,” she acknowledges. “Some kind of pathological stain left on me by the family I grew up in. I don’t know. I don’t feel like I am afraid of human connection. I have friends. I like people. I love certain people. But at the same time, I prefer to spend a lot of time by myself. I could go for days without talking to people and be perfectly content as long as I have my animals. But I have two children. I’m a mother. . . . If I didn’t have a family, if I didn’t have kids pulling me back into the regular realm of the human, though, I don’t know where I’d go.” _Cle a S imon
LAUREN SLATER :: Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard St, Brookline :: November 27 @ 7 pm :: Free :: brooklinebooksmith.com
56 11.23.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm/ARTS
tHURsDAY 29
ANTHONY D’ARIES AND MEG KEARNEY › The Language of Men and The Girl in the Mirror discussions › 7 pm › Porter Square Books, Porter Square Shopping Center, 25 White St, Cambridge › Free › 617.491.2220 or portersquarebooks.com “FIRST LIGHT FESTIVAL” › Local authors discuss their newest works › 5 pm › Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard St, Brookline › Free › 617.566.6660 or brooklinebooksmith.com HARVARD BOOK STORE 80TH ANNIVERSARY PARTY › 7 pm › Harvard Book Store, 1256 Mass Ave, Cambridge › Free › 617.661.1515 or harvard.com
tUesDAY 27
“GRANTA: THE BEST OF YOUNG BRAZILIAN NOVELISTS” › With Granta associate editor Patrick Ryan and novelists Cristhiano Aguiar and Vinicius Jatobá › 7 pm › Porter Square Books, Porter Square Shopping Center, 25 White St, Cambridge › Free › 617.491.2220 or portersquarebooks.com PAUL REID › The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Defender of the Realm, 1940-1965 reading › 7 pm › Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard St, Brookline › Free › 617.566.6660 or brooklinebooksmith.com LAUREN SLATER › The $60,000 Dog: My Life with Animals reading › 7 pm › Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard St, Brookline › Free › 617.566.6660 or brooklinebooksmith.com JEFF SPECK › Walkable City presentation and signing › 6:30 pm › Somerville Theatre, 55 Davis Square, Somerville › Free › 617.625.5700 or somervilletheatreonline.com “THE STORY SPACE: KATY RYDELL” › 7 pm › Out of the Blue Gallery, 106 Prospect St, Cambridge › Free › 617.354.5287 or outoftheblueartgallery.com
WeDnesDAY 28
MARK ANTHONY › Never Letting Go: Heal Grief with Help from
Brian McGrory reads at Brookline Booksmith on Monday.
illustration by karl stevens; photo by suzanne kreiter
AnimAl mAgnetism
RICHARD KRAMER › 7 pm › Porter Square Books, Porter Square Shopping Center, 25 White St, Cambridge › Free › 617.491.2220 or portersquarebooks.com BRIAN McGRORY › Buddy: How a Rooster Made Me a Family Man reading › 7 pm › Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard St, Brookline › Free › 617.566.5615 or brooklinebooksmith. com DENNIS NURKSE AND GEORGE KALOGERIS › A Night in Brooklyn and Dialogos readings › Blacksmith House at Cambridge Center for Adult Education, 56 Brattle St, Cambridge › $3 › 617.547.6789 or ccae.org MICHAEL ROCKLAND › An American Diplomat in Franco Spain reading › 7 pm › Harvard Coop, 1400 Mass Ave, Cambridge › Free › 617.489.0519 or harvard. bkstore.com
the Other Side reading › 7 pm › Harvard Coop, 1400 Mass Ave, Cambridge › Free › 617.489.0519 or harvard.bkstore.com BOSTON POETRY SLAM › With featured poet Nicole Terez Dutton › 8 pm › Cantab Lounge, 738 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $3 › 617.354.2685 or cantab-lounge.com RICHARD MASON › Presenting the e-lumination of his novel History of a Pleasure Seeker › 7 pm › Porter Square Books, Porter Square Shopping Center, 25 White St, Cambridge › Free › 617.491.2220 or portersquarebooks.com DEB PERELMAN › The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook reading › 6 pm › Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290 Harvard St, Brookline › Free › 617.566.6660 or coolidge.org JAMES WOOD › The Fun Stuff: And Other Essays reading › 7 pm › Harvard Book Store, 1256 Mass Ave, Cambridge › Free › 617.661.1515 or harvard.com
Arts & Nightlife :: dANce & clAssicAl
CLASSICAL ConCertS
operA
FrIDAY 23
BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA CONDUCTED BY CHRISTIAN ZACHARIAS › Haydn’s Symphony No. 76; Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 18 in B-flat, K.456; Selections from Beethoven’s score of The Creatures of Prometheus, Op. 43 › Fri 1:30 pm; Sat + Tues 8 pm › Symphony Hall, 301 Mass Ave, Boston › $30-$114 › 888.266.1200 or bso.org
SAtUrDAY 24
Joyce castle
BOSTON EARLY MUSIC FESTIVAL CHAMBER OPERA › Monteverdi’s Orfeo, with Aaron Sheehan [Orfeo], Teresa Wakim [Ninfa and Proserpina], Mireille Asselin [La Musica and Euridice], Shannon Mercer [Messagiera], Ryland Angel [Pastore I and Speranza], Jason McStoots [Pastore II and Apollo], Charles Blandy [Pastore III], Olivier Laquerre [Plutone], and Douglas Williams [Pastore IV and Caronte] › Sat 8 pm; Sun 3 pm › Jordan Hall, 30 Gainsborough St, Boston › $19-$125 › 617.661.1812 or bemf.org BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA CONDUCTED BY CHRISTIAN ZACHARIAS › See listing for Fri
SUnDAY 25
Michael TippeTT’s MidsuMMer Madness The firsT aMerican producTion of any of Michael Tippett’s five operas was Sarah Caldwell’s The Ice Break for the Opera Company of Boston in 1979. In 1991, BU students did The Knot Garden. This year, Opera Boston scheduled the first Boston production of The Midsummer Marriage, Tippett’s first opera (completed in 1952, after six years of work). But Opera Boston folded. So Gil Rose, Opera Boston’s artistic director and music director of Boston Modern Orchestra Project, with the support of Randoph Fuller, former board member of Opera Boston (and a former Phoenix opera critic), presented Midsummer Marriage in concert at Jordan Hall on November 10. It was a thrilling, if exhausting, event. Tippett, alas, wrote his own librettos, which compromise his exhilarating musical inventiveness. Although they’re not the only remarkable passages in Midsummer Marriage, the four seasonal “Ritual Dances” are practically its only music ever excerpted, probably because they’re wordless. This music doesn’t sound like anyone else: modern in harmony and texture, but hardly Modernist; if anything, it’s old-fashioned in its long-breathed sweep and earnest, rhapsodic, even ecstatic fullness; heroic or delicately pastoral; tingling, yet almost naïvely without wit or irony. But oh, the words — ponderously, glutinously stiff (“I care not what you do”), flatly portentous (“I resent the fatal pressure of the world”), symbol-laden, then suddenly pedestrian (“O,
Jack!”). Characters are either stereotypes or abstractions. Tippett’s private nature mythology (alluding to the lovers’ ritual trials of The Magic Flute and figures from The Waste Land) reminds me of Blake’s long, obscure, perplexing “prophetic books,” without Blake’s inspired language. Still, this performance was as stunning as the music. Under Rose, the unflagging orchestra poured out voluminous and crystalline sound — the impressive pickup chorus superbly directed by the uncredited Beth Willer. As the central lovers, tenor Julius Ahn and soprano Sara Heaton sang with white-hot fervor — Heaton with radiant lyric warmth (demanding “not Love but Truth”), Ahn with unexpected stentorian power (though unrelievedly grim for someone singing about “summer morning dancing in my heart”). Baritone Robert Honeysucker and mezzo-soprano Lynn Torgove were luxury casting as the He- and She-Ancients. Baritone David Kravitz projected the most nuanced character as Fisher King, Heaton’s uncomprehending capitalist father, with delightful soprano Deborah Selig and tenor Matthew Dibattista as his pawns, the (now) embarrassingly conventional 1950s suburban lovers. But mezzo-soprano Joyce Castle, entering late, stole the show as Madame Sosostris, the haunted clairvoyant pained under the weight of her own clarity. The intermission was full of rumors about more post–Opera Boston opera in the works. _LL oy d Schwartz
>> MORE CLASSICAL! For more of Lloyd Schwartz’s concert reviews, go to thePhoenix.com/arts 58 11.23.12 :: THEPHOENIX.COM/ARTS
BRIAN CHURCH AND HEINRICH CHRISTENSEN › Brahms’s Vier ernste Gesänge; Selection of arias from Bach’s Advent Cantatas; Pinkham’s The Wellesley Hills Psalm Book › 5 pm › King’s Chapel, 58 Tremont St, Boston › $15; $10 students, seniors › 617.227.2155 or kings-chapel.org CHARNESS FAMILY QUINTET › Selection of works by Vivaldi, Mozart, Beethoven, Martinu, Prokofiev, and Dan Charness › 2 pm › Newton Free Library, 330 Homer St, Newton › Free › 617.796.1360 or newtonfreelibrary.net BOSTON EARLY MUSIC FESTIVAL CHAMBER OPERA › See listing for Sat
tUeSDAY 27
NEC YOUTH PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA CONDUCTED BY DAVID LOEBEL › Overture to Bernstein’s Candide; Elgar’s Cello Concerto, with Sasha Scolnik-Brower; Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 [Pathetique] › 8 pm › Jordan Hall, 30 Gainsborough St, Boston › Free › 617.585.1260 or necmusic.edu BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA CONDUCTED BY CHRISTIAN ZACHARIAS › See listing for Fri
WeDneSDAY 28
NEC CHAMBER ORCHESTRA › Haydn’s Symphony No. 44 in E minor [Trauer]; Dvorák’s Serenade in E for string orchestra, Op. 22; Barshai’s Chamber Symphony, Op. 110a › 8 pm › Jordan Hall, 30 Gainsborough St, Boston › Free › 617.585.1260 or necmusic.edu SARAH K. ORLOVSKY AND MARK MCNEILL › Works for soprano and piano by Barber, Castel, Menotti, and Strauss › 5:30 pm › Church of St. John the Evangelist, 35 Bowdoin St, Boston › Free › 617.227.5242 or stjev.org UNIVERSITY ORCHESTRA › Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture; Suite from
brA Certified Artists only Prokofiev’s Lieutenant Kije; Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 [Romantic] › 8 pm › Fine Arts Center at UMass Amherst, 151 President Dr, Amherst › $10; $5 students, seniors › 413.545.2511 or umasstix.com/ musicanddance
tHUrSDAY 29
BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA CONDUCTED BY STÉPHANE DENÈVE › Overture to Berlioz’s Les Francs-juges; Saint-Saëns’s Piano Concerto No. 5 [Egyptian]; Three Interludes from MacMillen’s The Sacrifice; Roussel’s Bacchus et Ariane, Suite No. 2 › 8 pm › Symphony Hall, 301 Mass Ave, Boston › $30-$114 › 888.266.1200 or bso.org NAOKO SUGIYAMA › Works for piano by Barber, Harbison, and Gershwin › 8 pm › Pickman Hall at Longy School of Music, 27 Garden St, Cambridge › Free › 617.876.0956 or longy.edu OPERAHUB › Hindemith’s The Long Christmas Dinner › 8 pm › Black Box Theatre at Boston Center for the Arts, 539 Tremont Street, Boston › Free › 617.933.8600 or operahub.org
DAnCe PerForMAnCe
FrIDAY 23
BOSTON BALLET › Nissinen’s The Nutcracker › Fri + Thurs 7:30 pm; Sat 1 + 7:30 pm; Sun 1 + 5:30 pm › Opera House, 539 Washington St, Boston › $35-$172 › 617.259.3400 or bostonballet.org IMPACT DANCE COMPANY › “A Debut Benefit Concert Series” › Fri-Sat 8 pm › Green Street Studios, 185 Green St, Cambridge › $20; $10 students › 617.997.3527 or facebook.com/ impactdanceboston
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only nine Artist lofts AvAilAble. All buyers must be BRA Certified and have an income that does not exceed $61,600. $70,400 for a 2 person household
SAtUrDAY 24
BOSTON BALLET › See listing for Fri IMPACT DANCE COMPANY › See listing for Fri
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at Westinghouse
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SUnDAY 25
Boston Affordable Housing income limit of $61,600
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tHUrSDAY 29
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BOSTON BALLET › See listing for Fri
HARVARD DANCE PROGRAM › “Dance Program Winter Performances 2012,” with choreography from John Jasperse, Alex Willis, and Tsung-Yun Tzeng › 8 pm › Harvard Dance Center, 60 Garden St., Cambridge › $10; $5 students, seniors › 617.495.8683 or ofa.fas.harvard.edu/dance BOSTON BALLET › See listing for Fri
sAturdAy 24
•
www.theloftsatwestinghouse.com Contact Patrick Reardon at preardon@thehamiltoncompany.com
The most celebratory holiday restaurant in town. Open Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day & Holiday Parties
Aaron Sheehan plays the title role and Mireille Asselin is Euridice in Boston Early Music Festival’s production of Orfeo.
Located in the heart of Harvard Square 617 864.1933 • upstairsonthesquare.com
THEPHOENIX.COM/EvENTS :: 11.23.12 59
Arts & Nightlife :: theAter
play by play
Compiled by maddy myers
Whistler puckers up for ovid A decAde Ago, director Mary Zimmerman won a Tony for a staging of Metamorphoses set around a pool. In its carnal, beauteous, and terrifying Ted Hughes’ Tales from Ovid (presented by ArtsEmerson at the Paramount Center through November 18), Boston troupe Whistler in the Dark ditches water for air. Spinning stories from the mythology compilation completed by the Roman poet in 8 AD and translated into a 1997 Whitbread Book of the Year by onetime English poet laureate Hughes, an acrobatic ensemble of five climbs, dangles, and tangles among a quartet of silk skeins hung from the rafters of the Jackie Liebergott Black Box while at the same time delivering Hughes’s muscular, nature-infused verse. The piece, helmed by artistic director Meg Taintor, was conceived by the company in 2010 and first performed at its then-home in the Factory Theatre. ArtsEmerson has enabled Whistler to reinvent its primal time in prime time, and its Tales from Ovid is a pareddown, pumped-up dip into the elemental that I am grateful not to have missed twice. With Pilobolus-like tumbling and coupling, aerial poses and plunges, and Feiffer-esque black leotards, this Tales from Ovid might seem more a dance than a theater piece. But the Whistlers are
>>
a stage troupe best known for stark, if poetical, works by politicized Brit writers, among them Howard Brenton, Caryl Churchill, and Tom Stoppard (next up is Churchill’s Vinegar Tom in January). The fit young performers would seem to have learned their daring physical tricks from consultants Jill Maio and Leah Able of AirCraft Aerial Arts. And their journey out of Chaos into Ovid’s sensuous, vengeful dustup of gods and mortals is enhanced by the dissonant violin scrapings of the work’s co-composer, Shaw Pong Liu. But the Whistlers (when they aren’t feigning old age) are accomplished actors. Narrating while enacting their mythological minidramas (separated by small, collective sighs), the performers both inhabit their archetypal characters — including a number who are painfully turned into beasts — and mine the powerful, sometimes hideous emotion built into Hughes’s text. With a grand simplicity, eschewing wide differentiation among personae, they do exactly what Hughes ordered: they turn Ovid’s chock-full and florid chronicle into a collective Jungian dream. _Car olyn Clay
MORE THEATER! :: Read Carolyn Clay’s review of the Huntington Theatre Company’s production of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal at thePhoenix.com/theater
60 11.23.12 :: THEPHOENIX.COM/ARTs
ILLUSTRATION BY PAUL HOPPE
OpENING
aNNie › Maggie Dillier helms the Riverside Theatre Works staging of Thomas Meehan, Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin’s musical set during the Great Depression. A young orphan named Annie wins the chance to spend a day with a cranky billionaire and manages to soften his heart. › November 30–December 9 › Riverside Theatre Works, 45 Fairmount Avenue, Hyde Park › $15-$25 › 617.361.7024 or rtwboston.org arabiaN NiGHTs › The Central Square Theater reprises Daniel Gidron’s successful staging of Dominic Cooke’s theatrical adaptation of the ancient Persian folk tales of King Shahryar and his new wife Shahrazad. She tells her husband a new story each night in an effort to distract him from his panicked vow to murder any woman the night after she weds him, in an effort to prevent adultery. The production is co-staged by the Nora Theatre Company & Underground Railway Theater. › November 23–December 30 › Central Square Theater, 450 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $15-$45 › 866.811.4111 or centralsquaretheater.org bUrNiNG Up THe diCTioNary › Vagabond Theatre Group stages Meron Langsner’s dark romantic comedy about two lovers who can’t seem to trust one another. James Peter Sotis directs. › November 28–December 1 › Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont St, Boston › $18-$22 › 617.933.8600 or vagabondtheatregroup.wordpress.com THe CapiTol sTeps: THe 2012 WiNNers aNd losers ediTioN › The Capitol Steps theater group, which is made up of ex-Senate staffers determined to mock their previous employers, stages a special production recapping the election. The ever-changing satirical comedy show mocks political pundits and protesters, from Republicans to Democrats to Tea Partiers to Occupiers. › November 24 › Sanders Theatre, 45 Quincy St, Cambridge › $31-$39 › 617.496.2222 or capsteps.com CHesapeaKe › New Rep stages the Boston premiere of Lee Blessing’s comedy about a performance artist at odds with a conservative senator. A twist of fate brings the pair together and forces them to argue over the true meaning of art . . . and friendship. Doug Lockwood directs. › November 25–December 16 › Arsenal Center for the Arts, 321 Arsenal St, Watertown › $36 › 617.923.0100 or newrep.org CHiNGlisH › Daniel Cavanaugh stars as an American businessman trying to cash in on a Chinese province’s growth potential in David Henry Hwang’s new comedy, presented by Lyric Stage under Larry Coen’s direction. Alexander Platt co-stars, alongside Tiffany Chen, Michael Tow, Celeste Oliva, Chen Tang, and Liz Eng. › November 30–December 23 › Lyric Stage Company of Boston, 140 Clarendon Street, Boston › $25-$58 › 617.437.7172 or lyricstage.com a CHrisTmas Carol › Arianna Knapp takes on Jon Kimbell’s stage adaptation of the Charles Dickens novella, featuring original music composed and arranged by Alby Potts and James Woodland. David Coffee stars as Scrooge in this North Shore Music Theatre production. › December 7–23 › North Shore Music Theatre, 62 Dunham Rd, Beverly › $45$60 › 978.232.7200 or nsmt.org HalF ’N HalF ’N HalF › Kyle Fabel helms John Kolvenbach’s farcical parody of life at a repertory theatre, from behind-the-scenes drama to on-stage theatrics. Jim Ortlieb, Carol Halstead, Zoë Winters and Andrew Pastides star in the Merrimack Rep staging. › November 29–December 23 › Merrimack
Repertory Theatre, 50 East Merrimack Street, Lowell › $15-$47 › 978.454.3926 or mrt.org/ halfnhalfnhalf.html THe HoW aNd THe WHy › Shana Gozansky directs Trinity Rep’s production of Sarah Treem’s drama about a generational clash between two female evolutionary biologists, one well-established in her field and one about to begin her career. Barrie Kreinik and Anne Scurria star. › November 29–December 30 › Trinity Repertory Company, 201 Washington St, Providence, RI › $28-$34 › 401.351.4242 or trinityrep.com HoW THe GriNCH sTole CHrisTmas › Matt August directs the Broadway tour of Mel Marvin and Timothy Mason’s musical theater adaptation of the classic Dr. Seuss story about a holiday-hating green grump who soon learns the importance of cheer. The show includes two famous songs from the original animated movie of the same name: “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” and “Welcome Christmas.” › November 23–December 9 › Citi Performing Arts Center, 270 Tremont Street, Boston › $35-$125 › 617.482.9393 or citicenter.org/shows/lists iT’s a WoNderFUl liFe › Stoneham Theatre’s Weylin Symes directs his theatrical adaptation of Frank Capra’s famed holiday film about a man who has lost his faith in himself and his life. An angel talks the man out of suicide by traveling back down memory lane and showing how much one person’s efforts can change the world around them for the better, whether they realize it or not. › November 23–December 23 › Stoneham Theatre, 395 Main St, Stoneham › $44-$48 › 781.279.2200 or stonehamtheatre.org loVe, FaiTH aNd oTHer dirTy Words › The New Center for Arts & Culture presents this play about interfaith couples, written and directed by Kent Stephens. The work endeavors to include perspectives from all ethnicities and beliefs, including Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Hindu, Muslim and atheist. › November 28–29 › Modern Theatre, 525 Washington St, Boston › $15-$28 › 617.531.4610 or newcenterboston.org oF miCe aNd meN › Moonbox Productions presents a theatrical adaptation of John Steinbeck’s Depression-era novel about two migrant workers named George and Lennie, the latter of whom is mentally disabled. Although George tries to downplay Lennie’s disability and hopes for a normal life, a tragic accident causes George to realize that this can never be possible. Allison Olivia Choat directs the production, which features incidental music composed by Dan Rodrigues. › December 7–22 › Boston Center for the Arts Plaza Theatre, 539 Tremont Street, Boston › $25-$30 › 617.864.0841 or moonboxproductions.org THe piaNisT oF WillesdeN laNe › Mona Golabek stars as her mother, Lisa Jura, in a biographical one-woman play. Lisa, a young Jewish woman, grew up in Vienna in 1938 and in London during the Blitzkrieg. She dreamed of being a famous pianist; WWII forced her to reconsider some of her big plans, but not her love of music. Hershey Felder directs. › November 23–December 16 › Paramount Theatre, 559 Washington St, Boston › $25-$69 › 617.824.8000 or artsemerson.org pippiN › Diane Paulus helms the A.R.T.’s staging of Stephen Schwartz and Roger O. Hirson’s musical about a young prince who believes he’s destined for greatness but can’t decide what sort of great feats will suit him best. Gypsy Snider of Les 7 doigts de la main choreographs the staging, which stars Matthew James Thomas and Patina Miller. › December 5–January 20 › Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle Street, Cambridge › $25-$85 › 617.547.8300 or amrep.org reCKless › John Fogle is at the helm of Craig Lucas’s cheerfully surreal, dark-edged 1988 fantasy, in which a happy housewife whose husband has hired a hitman goes on
the lam on Christmas Eve. Nancy Gahagan stars in this Salem Theatre Company staging. › November 29–December 22 › Salem Theatre Company, 90 Lafayette St, Salem › $10-$25 › 978.790.8546 or salemtheatre.com rUdolpH THe red NeCKed reiNdeer › Ryan Landry and the Gold Dust Orphans have written a new Christmas parody musical this year: a lampoon of the Rankin/Bass Christmas special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Jesse James Wood stars as Rudolph, who stands out from the other reindeer because of his Southern drawl. James P. Byrne directs. › November 29–December 23 › Machine, 1256 Boylston St, Boston › $35-$45 › 617.536.1950 or facebook.com/golddustorphans THe saNTalaNd diaries › David Josef Hansen stars in the one-man show adapted by Joe Mantello from David Sedaris’s autobiographical essay about his experience working as a Christmas elf in a Macy’s department store. Tony Simotes directs the Shakespeare & Company staging. › November 30–December 29 › Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre, 70 Kemble St, Lenox › $15-$50 › 413.637.3353 or shakespeare.org THe sCreWTape leTTers › The Cutler Majestic hosts the return of this nationwide touring production, staged by the Fellowship for the Performing Arts. The staging uses Anthony Lawton’s original adaptation of C.S. Lewis’s satirical Christian apologetics novel, and it features Max McLean as Screwtape. Jeffrey Fiske directs. › November 30–December 1 › Cutler Majestic Theatre, 219 Tremont St, Boston › $39-$89 › 617.824.8000 or screwtapeonstage.com/boston sisTer’s CHrisTmas CaTeCHism: THe mysTery oF THe maGi’s Gold › Maripat Donovan, Jane Morris and Marc Silvia conceived this latest installment in their Late Night Catechism series; “Sister” Denise Fennell hosts the comedic, unconventional tutorial about Catholic holiday traditions. This time, the story revolves around the three gifts given to the baby Jesus. › December 6 › Lowell Memorial Auditorium, 50 East Merrimack St, Lowell › $25.75-$45.75 › 978.454.2299 or lowellauditorium.com
NOW playING
beTrayal › The Huntington Theatre stages Harold Pinter’s drama about a love affair between a man and woman who shamelessly deceive one another, as well as their respective spouses. Maria Aitken directs. › Through December 9 › Boston University Theatre, 264 Huntington Ave, Boston › $15-$75 › 617.266.7900 or huntingtontheatre.org bye bye liVer: THe bosToN driNKiNG play › Hennessy’s hosts the Boston chapter of Bye Bye Liver, a show about drinking culture, from wine snobs to wildly fun (and occasionally terrifying) booze parties. The performance also incorporates audience interaction with social games like “Would You Rather” and “Never Have I Ever.” › Indefinitely › Hennessy’s, 25 Union St, Boston › $20 › 866.811.4111 or ByeByeLiver.com a CHrisTmas Carol › Trinity Repertory Company leads off the attack of the Scrooges with its 35th annual offering of Adrian Hall & Richard Cumming’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’s tale of the incredible flying miser. Tyler Dobrowsky directs, and Timothy Crowe stars as Scrooge. › Through December 29 › Trinity Repertory Company, 201 Washington St, Providence, RI › $15-$36 › 401.351.4242 or tickets.trinityrep.com Hell Cab › Acme Theater stages Will Kern’s dark tragicomedy that strings together a series of stories that take place in a taxicab. Seven actors play approximately 25 roles in this staging, directed by Russell Greene. › Through December 8 › Acme Theater, 31 Summer St, Maynard › $18; $16 students, seniors › 978.897.9828 or acmetheater.com
WFNX Presents Sky Ferreira
Nov. 27th @ tt the Bears Tune into WFNX.com this week to win tickets to Sky Ferreira’s show, presented by WFNX. Enter at www.wfnx.com/contests and winners will be announced on air throughout the week! THEPHOENIX.COM/EvENTs :: 11.23.12 61
Arts & Nightlife :: filM
review
Pi-eyed Pi Patel Promises a story that will make Magee’s script, adapted from Yann Martel’s novel, you believe in God. Stranded on a lifeboat with is understandably hesitant in exploring his lead’s a Bengal tiger, the titular hero searches for (and contradictory faiths. This is really just an event picture, and thus director Ang Lee strains for) profundity in this it’s more invested in the episodic series of visual yarn of religious faith, survival instinct, and the marvels — a tiger stranded on a raft, an island of connections between them. But what begins as scurrying meerkats, a zebra fighting its way out of a spiritual manifesto — Pi studies Hinduism, a sinking cargo ship — than in the soulful Catholicism, and Islam simultaneously — ends up as insincere posturconflicts that accompany them. (I’d argue ++1/2 ing. The only religion this opulent that, in terms of Hollywood survival epics opus subscribes to is faith in the from 2012, The Grey is a much more LIFE OF PI beauty of visual effects. compelling look at God and his inherent Directed by Ang Lee Life shines when those visuals silence.) At times, the hallucinatory images :: Written by David Magee based on the take over, yet the borderline-shallow and interest in man’s struggle against novel by Yann Martel pontifications about faith are equally nature suggest Werner Herzog by way :: With Suraj Sharma, ubiquitous. (The 3D is admirable, but of Michael Powell. But this tiger is more Gérard Depardieu, I’d suggest skipping the surcharge guarded friend than incomprehensible foe, Irrfan Khan, Rafe Spall, and Tabu :: 20th so you can see Claudio Miranda’s and these painterly compositions aren’t so Century Fox :: 120 stunning cinematography without much an aspect of the story as the whole minutes tinted glasses rendering each color raison d’être. a shade dimmer.) Pi feels more like A climactic twist reveals that Lee, Martel, BOSTON COMMON + FENWAY + EMBASSY + a dramatic conceit than a person, and Magee may be more interested in the SUBURBS and the leaden performance by nature of narrative than in faith, but it’s too first-timer Suraj Sharma doesn’t little, too late. “Why does it have to mean help. His journey is paired with an unfortunate anything?” — it’s a direct quote, one that suggests framing device: Rafe Spall features as an Lee is copping to the fact that this is more about inquisitive author who bluntly articulates the beauty than about searching for something under its film’s themes and symbolic motifs. It’s a paean to surface. Life poses as a spiritual experience, but it’s multiculturalism (certainly not complex enough more like a postcard. _JA kE MuLLI GAN to justify the pandering narrator), but David 62 11.23.12 :: THEPHOENIX.COM/MOvIES
PaPist Plot Though one was an atheist and the other a churchgoer, both Luis Buñuel and Alfred Hitchcock were obsessed with their Catholicism. Over a lunch in LA they disclosed their mutual desire to film Tristana, a Spanish novel. The fetishist hook of the book: the eponymous heroine becomes an amputee, alluring an unattractive middle-aged man (Buñuel, Hitchcock?). Buñuel ended up making Tristana (1970), and this Surrealist classic is being rereleased in a spiffy restored print. That means that, as Tristana, Catherine Deneuve, at 26, is a ripe young peach. And she’s still a virgin, for this is priest-heavy Toledo, Spain. Pure de Sade (a Buñuel favorite): Tristana becomes the orphaned ward of her wealthy, lecherous uncle, Don Lope (Fernando Rey), who deflowers her. Don Lupe is a secular anti-Papist, and he ravishes his religious niece to blaspheme the Church. Poor +++1/2 Catherine Deneuve! First TRISTANA she was in (1970) Belle de Jour Directed by Louis (1966), where Buñuel :: Written by Luis Buñuel + she was Julio Alejandro, raped, defiled, based on the prostituted. novel by Benito And in TristaPérez Gáldos :: With Catherine na, just as she Deneuve, escapes Don Fernando Rey, Lope and and Franco finds refuge Nero :: Spanish :: Cinema Guild :: with a painter 98 minutes (Franco Nero), she gets canKendall Square cer. One leg is lopped off, and the divinely beautiful Deneuve hobbles, on crutches, back into the arms Don Lope. But stick about for the twisted finale: Tristana discovers the glories of sexual perversity, while Don Lope seeks the comforts of the Church, as they both head for a hellfire “film noir” climax. _GERALD PEARY
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Funny business a lot has haPPened to ing to close some chapter for Boston-born, Harvard-educated yourself.” filmmaker Andrew Bujalski in the Is Funny Ha Ha an accurate decade since he filmed his breakrepresentation of that earlier through debut, the acclaimed indie period of his life? “It’s fiction, but it represents feature, Funny Ha Ha (2002). reality as I knew it at that time. To Currently living in Austin, he’s look at it now, I can see just how ecputting the final touches on his centric it is, told in almost a fourth film, Computer FuNNY private language,” he says, Chess, which features referring to the speech Phoenix film critic hA hA, style derisively labeled Gerald Peary among its TEN YEARS “mumblecore,” which acting ensemble. Other LATER became the name of a DIY than prepping Peary for At the Harvard filmmaking movement. his close-up, what else Film Archive Funny Ha Ha has been has he been up to since November 26 at preserved by the Harvard he was in Boston for 7 pm Film Archive, who will the Coolidge Corner prehost Bujalski for a Q&A when miere of his last picture, Beeswax they present a new print on No(2009)? “I got married, bought a vember 26 at 7pm. house, and had a kid,” he tells me “We went to the HFA and said, by phone. “So that accounts for ‘We know that you usually preserve most of what I’ve been doing for things that are a hell of a lot older the last three years. But I often than this, but we wonder if you’d be wonder what my life would be interested in helping us out,’ and like now if I hadn’t made that they really came through. I could movie. Every time you make not be more appreciative.” _BR E T T MIch E L something, you’re probably try-
ALBERT R. BROCCOLI’S EON PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS DANIEL CRAIG AS IAN FLEMING’S JAMES BOND IN “SKYFALL” JAVI E R BARDEM RALPH FI E NNES NAOMI E HARRI S BÉRÉNI C E MARLOHE WITH ALBERT FINNEY AND JUDI DENCH AS “M” COMUSIC COSTUME PRODUCTION PRODUCERS ANDREW NOAKES DAVID POPE BY THOMAS NEWMAN DESIGNER JANY TEMIME EDITOR STUART BAIRD, A.C.E. DESIGNER DENNIS GASSNER DIRECTOR OF EXECUTIVE WRITTEN PHOTOGRAPHY ROGER DEAKINS, ASC BSC PRODUCER CALLUM MCDOUGALL BY NEAL PURVIS & ROBERT WADE AND JOHN LOGAN DIRECTED PRODUCED BY MICHAEL G. WILSON AND BARBARA BROCCOLI BY SAM MENDES FEATURING “SKYFALL” PERFORMED BY ADELE
CHECK LOCAL LISTINGS FOR THEATERS AND SHOWTIMES THEPHOENIX.COM/MOvIES :: 11.23.12 63
Arts & Nightlife :: film
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+++ 2012 BRITISH ARROW AWARDS › If you’re willing or interested enough to sit through over an hour’s worth of nothing but advertising on any day other than Super Bowl Sunday, it’s not a bad idea to stick with the best. These British imports come from varying corners of the marketplace, from phone companies to soft-drink makers, and seek to appeal to international jet setters, the child in all of us, or even to the daring bit of ourselves that would like to piss off Chef Gordon Ramsay. Very few of these TV commercials will seem familiar, since many are hawking British brands largely unheard-of stateside. British celebrities are sprinkled throughout, and there’s a Comic Relief treat featuring a smug Stephen Fry. Several emotional PSAs and charity ads cut in between the fluffy Christmas ones. The selection is truly eclectic; the only things these ads have in common are the running times and bursts of creativity. › 65m › Institute of Contemporary Art › _Monica Castillo
+++ THE FLAT › While dealing with the contents of his late grandmother’s Tel Aviv apartment, Arnon Goldfinger fell down a rabbit hole of family history. Among the teacups and fur wraps, he found a stash of Nazi propaganda. In this engrossing documentary, the filmmaker discovers evidence of a friendship between his German-Jewish grandparents, who emigrated to Palestine in the ’30s, and an SS officer investigating “the Jewish question.” This cordial relationship may have blinded the couple to the danger to come, since they failed to protect vulnerable relatives. Goldfinger and his mother, who is rattled by the revelation, travel to Germany to meet the daughter of her parents’ friend. The Flat encourages viewers to read between the lines. Its pensive tone counterpoints the violent events of the past, about which children were not supposed to ask questions. It suggests that much as we’d like to peel family secrets like an onion, it can be kinder to back off after a few layers. › Hebrew + German + English › 97m › Kendall Square _Betsy Sherman +1/2 HITCHCOCK › “Is this picture still about a queer killing people in his mother’s dress?” asks Paramount chief Barney Balaban (Richard Portnow) before refusing to finance Psycho for Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins). The
phX piCks >> CAn’t Miss • ORCHESTRA OF EXILES Polish 23 violinist Bronislaw Huberman had a lot of pressure on him when he put together his Palestine (later Israeli) Philharmonic in the 1930s; the Jewish musicians who didn’t make the cut were likely doomed to be victims of the Holocaust. Orchestra of Exiles, Josh Aronson’s harrowing, but uplifting doc about this amazing story will screen today and throughout the week at the MFA. Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Av, Boston :: 5:30 pm :: $11; $9 students, seniors :: 617.267.9300 or mfa.org FRI
• HANNAH AND HER SISTERS And you thought your holiday was difficult. Woody Allen balanced his talents for the comic and dramatic in Hannah and Her 24 Sisters (1986), in which he also plays the ex-husband of the title sibling, played by soon-to-be-ex-flame Mia Farrow. They join Hannah’s two sisters, played by Dianne Wiest and Barbara Hershey, for a family Thanksgiving dinner with extra helpings of infidelity and neuroses. It plays tonight at 6 pm and Sunday at 1 pm at ArtsEmerson. Paramount Center, 559 Washington St, Boston :: $10 :: 617.824.800 or artsemerson.org SAT
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• COMEDY MARATHON: UNIVERSAL PICTURES CELEBRATING 100 YEARS As proven in “Comedy Marathon: Universal Pictures Celebrating 100 Years,” 25 that studio cornered much of the comic market in the ’40s with stars W.C. Fields, here represented by The Bank Dick (1940; 3 pm) and Never Give a BOSTON CAMBRIDGE Sucker an Even Break (1941; 4:45 pm), and Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, yukking Ja m es Landmark’s Kendall Square AMC Loews Boston Common 19 it up in Buck Privates (1941; 11 am + 6:30 pm) and Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein cy m ic ha el (888) AMC-4FUN (1948; 1 + 8:30 pm), all screening at the Brattle. g d’ar (617) 499-1996 r a Je ss ic a b l h Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St, Cambridge :: $9.75; $7.75 seniors + matinee; $6.75 stustu da n n y l ie b dents + senior matinee :: 617.876.6837 or brattlefilm.org uston SUN
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• DO THE RIGHT THING + BLUE COLLAR Two tough-minded movies at the Brattle celebrate those folks whom Mitt Romney was referring to with his 29 unfortunate 47 percent remark. In Do the Right Thing (1989; 7 pm) Spike Lee directs and plays a pizza deliverer who discovers that sometimes the right thing involves a trashcan and a plate-glass window. And union stalwarts played by Richard Pryor, Yaphet Kotto, and Harvey Keitel become unlikely criminals in Paul Schrader’s Blue Collar (1978; 4:30 + 9:30 pm). Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St, Cambridge :: $9.75; $7.75 seniors; $6.75 students :: 617.876.6837 or brattlefilm.org THU
CAMBRIDGE Landmark’s Kendall Square (617) 499-1996
• STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION – A CELEBRATION OF SEASON 2 For some, the crew of the Starship Enterprise will forever be Captain Picard, Data, Troi, Worf, and the rest. You can see them again in “Star Trek: The Next Generation — A Celebration of Season 2,” a special event featuring two programs from 1988, “Q Who?” and “The Measure of a Man,” the latter supplemented with 12 minutes of previously unseen footage. Regal Fenway 13, 201 Brookline Avenue, Boston :: 7 pm :: call theater for ticket info :: 617.424.6266 or FathomEvents.com
rejection plummets Hitch (“Hold the ’cock,’” the droll prankster playfully tells his closeted leading man) into despair, causing him to have hallucinations of Ed Gein (Michael Wincott), the real-life model for Norman Bates (James D’Arcy). Ron Howard usually is the one who abuses such hoary devices, and I doubt the Master of Suspense would be amused by their presence in director Sacha Gervasi’s biopic. Nor do I think that Alma Reville (Helen Mirren), Hitch’s long-suffering screenwriter wife, would have appreciated John J. McLaughlin’s nyuk-nyuk script, which never overlooks an opportunity to wink at the audience. At his lowest, Hitch refers to an early edit of Psycho as “stillborn.” That description also applies to this film. › 98m › Kendall Square _Brett Michel +1/2 RED DAWN › High-school football players trade Friday-night lights for AK-47s when North Korea invades Spokane in this remake of John Milius’s 1984 hit, whose rallying cry is no longer “freedom” but “family.” In Patrick Swayze’s role is Chris Hemsworth, now a Marine home from Iraq, and in for Charlie Sheen is Josh Peck, who seems more stoner than captain of the football team. The Wolverines have been integrated, but the upgrade from a small town to a city of 200,000 (an undisguised Detroit) brings its own implausibility. Dan Bradley, a stunt and secondunit director making his first-unit debut, amps up the action, reprising favorite scenes with twists while eliminating rape (North Korea would rather interrogate our cheerleaders). The bland cast perks up when Jeffrey Dean Morgan punches in as a crusty retired soldier, but in trading Milius’s jingoist conviction for brotherly friction the remake has little reason for being. “Dude,” says Josh Hutcherson (in C. Thomas Howell’s role), “we’re living Call of Duty, and it sucks.” › 93m › Boston Common + suburbs _Ann Lewinson +++ RISE OF THE GUARDIANS › A true surprise, this feature directing debut from storyboard artist Peter Ramsey isn’t the lump of coal I expected. Instead it’s a computer-animated crowd pleaser featuring unique interpretations of mythical childhood characters reinvented as the kiddie equivalent (well, kiddie-er) of The Avengers. When the world is threatened by the Bogeyman (coolly voiced by Jude Law), Santa Claus — re-imagined as a tattooed, saber-wielding Cossack named North (Alec Baldwin, merry with a Russian accent) — assembles “the Guardians”: Tooth (Isla Fisher), an aquatic colored flitting fairy; Sandy, the mute Sandman; and E. Aster Bunnymund (Hugh Jackman), a 6-foot-1, boomerang-slinging Aussie rabbit. The script by David Lindsay-Abaire (Rabbit Hole), based on William Joyce’s books and focused on new recruit Jack Frost (a fine Chris Pine), is your average hero’s journey with a Spartacus-lite climax. But the various parts certainly add up to a zippy, enjoyable 3D whole. › 97m › Boston Common + Fenway + Arlington Capitol _Brett Michel ++ THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN PART 2 › As vampire/teen heartthrob Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) embraces his bride, Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), for the first time since she died (and awoke as a new member of the bloodsucking Cullen clan) while giving birth to the rapidly aging Renesmee (Mackenzie Foy), he smiles and says, “We’re the same temperature finally.” It’s taken five films, but we’ve arrived at a good explanation for the lack of heat between these two. Bill Condon’s back for Part 2 of the final Twilight installment, and it’s both the director of Gods and Monsters and Dreamgirls who’s sitting behind the camera, camping up the head-popping horror during an extended climax that finds the Cullens fighting alongside their lupine enemiesturned-protectors, led by Jacob (Taylor Lautner), in a showdown with vampire coven the Volturi. At a key point, coven leader Aro (Michael Sheen) lets out a spectacular laugh — which nearly drowned out my own. › 116m › Boston Common + Fenway + Fresh Pond + Chestnut Hill + Embassy + Arlington Capitol + suburbs _Brett Michel
now plAying
ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN › 1948 › In truth, our heroes meet Frankenstein’s monster (Glenn Strange), the Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi), and the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr.). Charles Barton directs. › b&w › 83m › Brattle: Sun ++1/2 ANNA KARENINA › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix.com/movies for a full review. › 130m › Boston Common + Coolidge Corner + West Newton +++ APOLLO 13 › 1995 › Director Ron Howard ekes surprising suspense out of this dramatic retelling of the real-life 1970 space catastrophe. Ed Harris, as Mission Control Flight Director Gene Kranz, and Gary Sinise, as Ken Mattingly, the astronaut forced to stay behind, depict the strength and determination of men who do not bend under pressure. But it’s Tom Hanks, as Commander Jim Lovell, who captures the aching loss of a man able to see his dream receding from his reach. › 140m › Brattle: Tues +++ ARGO › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix.com/ movies for a full review. › 120m › Boston Common + Fenway + Fresh Pond + Somerville Theatre + Coolidge Corner + Chestnut Hill + Embassy + suburbs +++1/2 THE BANK DICK › 1940 › A fine introduction to the sublime, unique comedy of W.C. Fields. After being treated like dirt by his obnoxious family, Fields is hired on, hilariously, as a private eye guarding a bank vault. Among his antics: choking a little boy who carries a toy gun into the bank. Fields wrote this one, under the pseudonym of Mahatma Kane Jeeves. › b&w › 74m › Brattle: Sun +++ BROOKLYN CASTLE › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix.com/movies for a full review. › 101m › Kendall Square +++ BUCK PRIVATES › 1941 › Quite a period piece, inspired by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s establishing the first military draft in American history. Among the accidental draftees are Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, who, recalcitrant con men, learn to fit into this movie’s all-Caucasian version of the US Army, and just in time for World War II. The best scenes involving the comic duo are repeats of famous vaudeville and radio routines: the “crap” game, tubby Lou being drilled on how to march and carry a rifle. Abbott and Costello are a superb team, forgotten today despite their amazing popularity through the 1950s. Still, probably the finest thing in this movie are the musical numbers by the squarebut-wonderfully harmonic Andrews Sisters: “You’re a Lucky Fellow, Mr. Smith,” “I’ll Be with You in Apple Blossom Time,” and, of course, “The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B.” Arthur Lubin directs › b&w › 184m › Brattle: Sun +++1/2 CHASING ICE › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix.com/movies for a full review. › 76m › Kendall Square +1/2 CLOUD ATLAS › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix. com/movies for a full review. › 172m › Boston Common + Fenway + Arlington Capitol + suburbs +++ DIANA VREELAND: THE EYE HAS TO TRAVEL › 2011 › Visit thePhoenix.com/ movies for a full review. › 86m › West Newton: Sat-Sun ++1/2 FLIGHT › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix. com/movies for a full review. › 139m › Boston Common + Fenway + Fresh Pond + Somerville Theatre + Embassy + suburbs +++ FUNNY HA HA › 2003 › Andrew Bujalski’s debut film is such a slice of life that it has no real beginning or end but is all middle. That’s appropriate, perhaps, for a portrait of a nascent twentysomething struggling in the cocoon of a post-student Allston apartment and a string of temporary jobs and even more ephemeral relationships. Played with note-perfect uncertainty by Kate Dollenmayer, Marnie opens the film at a tattoo parlor, where the proprietor refuses to oblige her because she’s drunk. This foiled attempt at permanency sets the tone for
Nemo, adds to its laurels and then some with this tale of a family of costumed crimefighters. Writer/director Brad Bird’s witty take on the domestic lives of superheroes is set in a cheery, postmodern society where frivolous litigation (collateral damage and personal injury) against superheroes had become so rampant that the heroes — much like the mutants in X-Men — were legally required to suppress their superpowers and fit in with everybody else. As the film opens, it’s 15 years later: Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson), now plain old Bob Parr, has traded his six-pack for a beer gut and is pushing a pencil at an insurance company, and his wife, Elastigirl (Holly Hunter), now Helen Parr, has become a stay-at-home mom supervising a
the half-conscious, non-articulated efforts at contact and clarity in coffeeshops, at casual parties, and on park benches. In one sad image, Marnie sprawls on a stairway writing that ultimate document of despair, the to-do list. In the next episode, she’s exploiting the infatuation of charmless Mitchell (Bujalski) by engaging him in chess and basketball, two items on the list. That Mitchell himself then manipulates Marnie with pitiful results adds to the irony, if not the clarity. › 90m › HFA: Mon +++1/2 GREGORY CREWDSON › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix.com/movies for a full review. › 78m › Coolidge Corner ++1/2 HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS › 1995 › Based on a 1990 Boston Phoenix article by Chris Radant, Jodie Foster’s funny and infuriating film finds single mother Claudia (Holly Hunter) enduring the annual pilgrimage back home to the suburbs of Baltimore for Thanksgiving. The comic mishaps that befall her just getting there — she loses her job, for starters — are predictable but paced pertly, and Hunter makes a witty and sympathetic sufferer. Waiting for her are her motormouthed chainsmoking mom (Anne Bancroft), her easygoing oddball dad (Charles Durning), her unhappy older sister (Cynthia Stevenson), her gay younger brother (Robert Downey Jr.), and the requisite dotty aunt (Geraldine Chaplin). But the laughs do outnumber the teary hugs, the performers bring grit and truth to their sometimes stereotyped roles, and Foster directs with crisp timing and a bracing balance of black humor, farce, pathos, and dignity. › 103m › ArtsEmerson: Sat-Sun 1/2 HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix.com/movies for a full review. › 91m › Fresh Pond + West Newton [Sat-Sun] + Arlington Capitol + suburbs +++ THE INCREDIBLES › 2004 › Pixar, the animation studio behind Toy Story and Finding
>> now playing on p 65
He Rescued the Musicians to Create the Israel Philharmonic Featuring
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ORCHESTRA
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STARTS FRI. 11/23 • FIVE SHOWS ONLY! MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS 465 Huntington Ave. • (617) 267-9300 • www.mfa.org FRI & WED: 5:30PM • SAT & SUN: 1:00PM • THU: 3:30PM
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THE BEST LOVE STORY SEEN ON FILM IN YEARS! A spectacle that has to be seen to be believed.
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Anna Karenina sings, dances and soars. An ingenious, intoxicating adaptation. Leo Tolstoy’s novel has been brilliantly re-imagined.”
INTELLIGENTLY ECSTATIC WITH THE EMOTIONS RUNNING AT FEVER PITCH!”
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“A
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In celebration of the upcoming nh Blu-Ray™ release– Season 2 of the iconic series StaR tRek: the Next GeNeRatIoN is coming to select movie theatres nationwide on thursday, November 29 at 7:00 p.m. Don’t miss seeing Q Who? and the world premiere of the MeaSuRe of a MaN extended Cut on the big screen.
foR a ChaNCe to WIN 2 CoMPLIMeNtaRY PaSSeS VISIt:
THEPHOENIX.COM/CONTESTS No PuRChaSe NeCeSSaRY. Passes are limited. Limit one pass per person.
Visit FathomEVEnts.com For tickEts and thEatrE locations 66 11.12.23 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm/mOvIEs
Arts & Nightlife :: film << now playing from p 65
rambunctious trio of super-charged children. Sick of the mundane malaise of suburbia, Bob puts on his Mr. Incredible tights and joins his former sidekick, Frozone (Samuel L. Jackson), in parlaying their bowling night into an opportunity to revive their superhero escapades. One thing leads to another, and without telling Helen, Bob accepts an invitation to a remote island to battle a peevish megalomaniac (Jason Lee) and his omnipotent über-bot. Mr. Incredible proves not as incredible as he used to be, and an angry Helen and the kids have to bail him out. Sure, the world hangs in the balance, but it’s the adult-savvy everyday dynamic between Bob and Helen that saves the day. › 115m › ArtsEmerson: Fri-Sat ++1/2 A LATE QUARTET › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix.com/movies for a full review. › 105m › Somerville Theatre + Coolidge Corner ++ LINCOLN › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix.com/ movies for a full review. › 120m › Boston Common + Fenway + Kendall Square + West Newton +++ LONESOME › 1928 › In Paul Fejos’s romantic silent classic, which was made on the edge of the sound era, two young people, a factory worker and a switchboard operator, meet and fall in love and court on location at Coney Island at its prime, not realizing they’re from the same tenement. › silent › 69m › Brattle: Wed ++1/2 THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix.com/movies for a full review. › 96m › Boston Common + Fresh Pond + suburbs NEVER GIVE A SUCKER AN EVEN BREAK › 1941 › W.C. Fields plays himself attempting to sell a surreal screenplay that he’s penned. As he reads the script to studio head Franklin Pangborn (again, playing himself), the events contained therein begin to play out in real life and things grow increasingly bizarre. Edward F. Cline directs. › b&w › 77m › Brattle: Sun ++1/2 THE OTHER SON › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix.com/movies for a full review. › French › 105m › West Newton +++ THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix. com/movies for a full review. › 103m › Boston Common + Kendall Square + Embassy ++1/2 PIECES OF APRIL › 2003 › In the edgy slacker odyssey Go, Katie Holmes showed talent that went beyond her teen-idol status from Dawson’s Creek. In Peter Hedges’s portrait of familiar dysfunction, she tries to further that promise. Her April, full of angst, yearning and indecision (not unlike her TV person), lives in a cramped New York apartment with her new boyfriend, Bobby (Derek Luke, who had such an impressive debut in Antwone Fisher). The interracial coupling casts shadows of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner when April invites her estranged family over for Thanksgiving. Problems ensue: April’s never cooked before, Bobby gets tangled up with a gang of BMX biker thugs, and the oven doesn’t work. Then there’s April’s family, imprisoned in a beat-up compact wagon where her controlling mother (Patricia Clarkson), waning from the ravages of cancer, prattles on about her daughter’s shortcomings and her father (Oliver Platt) is too eager to please. Holmes may be ready to shoulder a film, but this isn’t quite it: as penned by Hedges, her April is too aloof and unsympathetic. Still, Clarkson (Station Agent) is superb, and Sean Hayes (Will and Grace) as the foppish upstairs neighbor obsessed with his state-of-the-art oven provides some biting comic relief. › 81m › ArtsEmerson: Fri +++ PITCH PERFECT › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix.com/movies for a full review. › 105m › Arlington Capitol + suburbs +++1/2 POSSESSION › 1981 › Visit thePhoenix. com/movies for a full review. › 127m › HFA: Sat-Sun +++ SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix.com/movies for a full review. › 86m › West Newton +++ THE SESSIONS › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix.
com/movies for a full review. › 95m › Kendall Square + West Newton +++ SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix.com/movies for a full review. › 109m › Fresh Pond + suburbs +++ SKYFALL › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix. com/movies for a full review. › 143m › Boston Common + Fenway + Fresh Pond + Somerville Theatre + Chestnut Hill + Embassy + suburbs SLAP SHOT › 1977 › Paul Newman stars as an aging player-coach for a struggling minor league hockey team in director George Roy Hill’s cult classic. On the verge of folding and having tried a myriad of gimmicks to increase fan attendance, the Chief’s eventually find success in adopting the brawler mentality of the Hanson brothers, a trio of goons who find their ice time increasing as the crowd starts to warm up to their overtly violent brand of hockey. › 123m › Brattle: Sat ++ THE STING › 1973 › Set in 1930s Chicago, George Roy Hill’s overrated audience pleaser has Paul Newman taking fellow con man Robert Redford under his wing as they try to swindle mob boss Robert Shaw via past-posting (getting your mark to think a race is taking place when in fact it’s already been run and you know who won), a gimmick that was old hat even back then. With Charles Durning, Ray Walston, Eileen Brennan, and Harold Gould. › 129m › Brattle: Sat +++ TALES OF THE NIGHT [LES CONTES DE LA NUIT] › 2011 › Visit thePhoenix.com/ movies for a full review. › French › 84m › MFA +++ THE THING › 1982 › Going back to the original short story (“Who Goes There?” by John Campbell Jr.), John Carpenter puts forth a much more psychological, and also more violent, film than the 1951 Howard Hawks–produced classic. In this remake, a 12-man Antarctic research crew led by Kurt Russell is attacked by an alien capable of assuming any form. Tension mounts as the isolated individuals fight off paranoia while trying to discover which of them have been infected by the creature. Rob Bottin’s special effects go overboard at times, but the film succeeds through Carpenter’s ability to create genuine suspense. › 109m › Brattle: Fri +++1/2 TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD › 1962 › Gregory Peck plays a Southern lawyer defending a black man (Brock Peters) accused of rape in this atmospheric adaptation of the Harper Lee bestseller. The pace is leisurely and distinctive, and by filtering its story through the eyes of a young girl (Mary Badham), the film transcends the usual message-movie glibness — it’s as much a gothic mood piece about the South as it is a liberal rabble rouser. With Robert Duvall, in his film debut, as the mysterious neighbor Boo Radley. Robert Mulligan directed, from a script by Horton Foote. › b&w › 129m › Brattle: Fri +++1/2 WINGS OF DESIRE › 1988 › The protagonists in Wim Wenders’s fantasy are a pair of angels, Damiel (Bruno Ganz) and Cassiel (Otto Sander), who drift around Berlin observing people, listening in on their private longings and wishing that they too could become mortal. With the help of former angel Peter Falk, Damiel realizes this dream (wherein the film goes from black and white to color). His romance with a beautiful trapeze artist (Solveig Dommartin) isn’t exactly realistic — her monologue at the bar of a rock-and-roll club (music from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Crime and the City Solution) sounds like bad Jean-Luc Godard. But the Berlin ambiance — Damiel atop the Gedächtniskirche, Cassiel huddled next to the Siegessäule’s “Gold Elsie,” an old man perplexed by the destruction of Potsdamer Platz — emerges hauntingly from Wenders’s metaphorical mist, and Falk gives the movie the kick it needs. › German + French + English › 130m › HFA: Wed ++1/2 WRECK-IT RALPH › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix.com/movies for a full review. › 93m › Boston Common + Fenway + Fresh Pond + Chestnut Hill + Embassy + Arlington Capitol + suburbs
Arts & Nightlife :: Music
WFNX » What’s F’N NeXt Listen live at wfnx.com
ES + TANLINE CUTS M E R P U 52 S clair,
The Sin ambridge :: h ST, c @ 7 pm :: u h c rc ber 28 novem 16 doorS :: 18+ :: $ 700 or 617.451.7 ir Sincla om idge .c cambr
TANLINES, BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
photo by Shawn brackbiLL
formation of Tanlines was as inevitable as it was organic. A few Tleroheyears ago, Professor Murder’s Jesse Cohen and former Don Cabalbassist Eric Emm were creating remixes in a Brooklyn studio,
dipping into their personal hard drives to unearth samples and bringing in friends to lay down vocals. As the duo continued to work together — Emm first produced a Professor Murder record a few years prior — the developing chemistry lent itself to writing original material. Emm started taking on more vocal duty, and Cohen nestled into his comfort zone as a percussionist. “You can see the progression, it’s very natural,” Cohen said by phone earlier this month as Tanlines headed to a show in New Orleans. “At a certain point we wanted to spend some energy on our own material. Remixing is really good for putting stuff out there; it’s an easy platform, especially when you have your own studio.”
Whereas 2010’s Settings EP had a loose, world-music vibe that suggested an electronic Vampire Weekend, this year’s Mixed Emotions (True Panther Sounds) delivered a pair of top-shelf indie singles (“Brothers,” “All Of Me”) and enhanced the duo’s ability to straddle the line between experimentalism and pop music. When Tanlines are at their best, the drumming, almost tribal in its precision and breadth, takes center stage and carries the song. “I start by writing a drum part, or a simple melody, and Eric sings over it,” Cohen says. “We write everything together. It starts with percussion; I’m definitely more rhythm based, Eric is more focused on lyrics, songwriting, more of the textures.” Just don’t call them a dance act, despite their origin as remixers. “There are certain beats borrowed from that world, but overall it’s not a world we come from. . . . DJs are not playing our songs.” _MI CHAEL MAROTTA » MI CHAEL@pH x.COM
Thephoenix.com/music :: 11.23.12 67
Arts & Nightlife :: music rock
metAl
GASLIGHT ANTHEM STILL BURNS
LAMB OF GOD, A cREw of Virginia pummelers who have been riding the rock-and-rollercoaster since their formation as Burn the Priest in 1990, had this year reached a point that veteran bands often do, when the momentum of their early, hungry stage was replaced by a machine-like state of perpetual activity. Crowd after crowd, city after city, their life had become a blurred non-stop cavalcade of busywork. The January release of seventh long-player Resolution (Epic/Roadrunner) seemed another iteration of this endless groove-core metal machine. And yet, when the band walked off of a plane into Ruzyně Airport on June 27 to play a show in Prague, a massive monkey wrench was about to be tossed into their gears. At a Prague show in May of 2010, a fan was injured after climbing the stage, and later died. The exact circumstances leading to 19-year-old Daniel Nosek’s death are a point of Rashomon-like contention, but Czech authorities allege that singer Randy Blythe pushed Nosek off the stage, and arrested him on charges of “bodily harm resulting in death.” For Lamb of God, the everyday business of being modern metal titans ground to a halt. “He spent almost 40 days in jail,” says bassist John Campbell, “and the whole time it was unclear if he would ever come out. Until we saw him at the airport [released
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August 3 on $400,000 bail], it was unclear if they were going to let him go. We kept being told one thing, and then another thing would happen. We’re very happy that he is here now, but the matter is still unresolved, and it’s hard to really be excited. It’s a very trying and difficult situation.” Blythe will have to face trial back in Prague at some asyet-undetermined date, putting his future, and the band’s, in limbo — which is a tricky place to be as the band gears up for another massive tour. “It’s been great playing again, but it’s an odd feeling,” Campbell says. “I mean, there was a good bit of time where it was unclear whether we had played our last show. So it’s nice to be back onstage, great to get out and perform — but what exactly is going to happen from here is still unknown.” When Blythe sat in prison, there was even talk of a replacement singer. “That situation was floated at one point. I mean, we’re all in our late 30s and early 40s, and with maturity you realize that you’ve got to plan for what’s ahead.” Part of that planning ahead entails the real possibility of a Czech tribunal giving Blythe between five and 10 years — but until that happens, Lamb of God have little choice but to put their collective heads down and get back to work doing what they do best, for the time being. _DAN IEL BROCKMAN » D BROCKMAN@phx.COM
LAMB OF GOD + IN FLAMES + HELLYEAH + SYLOSIS :: House of Blues, 15 Lansdowne St, Boston :: November 25 @ 6 pm :: All Ages :: $37-$52.50 :: 888.693.2583 or hob.com/boston
68 11.23.12 :: THEpHOENIx.cOM/MuSIc
_MI ChAEL ChRI S T Op h ER
GASLIGhT ANTheM phoTo BY DANNY CLINCh
LAMB OF GOD’S ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT
Four records in and still suffering the endless comparison treatment, it’s high time folks started to let the Gaslight Anthem exist on its own merits, without the looming specter of that iconic fellow Garden State native. We’re not talking about Glenn Danzig, but rather the everyman dude who might as well be canonized, what with the way the way the state — most recently the goddamn governor — fawns over him. It’s not the fault of singer Brian Fallon and his Gaslight mates; New Jersey is full of earnest, working-class folks who just want to do more. Many fall into a life of shady activities, some move out to Los Angeles and warn mothers about letting their daughter go out with a Jerseyan. But most stick GASLIGhT around, put on their best ANThEM blue collar, and House of Blues, 15 Lansdowne St, attempt to get Boston: beyond regrets by learning life November 26 lessons and @ 7 pm :: All Ages :: $26-$36 :: moving for888.693.2583 or ward. Gaslight’s hob.com/boston Handwritten (Mercury) epitomizes that. Sure, first single “45” might have been a bit too sincere, but dig deeper and there are some straight-up lyrical gut punches. When Fallon laments, “And though if I saw you I’d pretend not to know/ The place where you were in my heart is now closed. . . . I already live with too many ghosts,” he isn’t talking about Tom Joad. You get the feeling the guy has been burned by girls who promised forever and then went off with a young guido named Nick.
Arts & Nightlife :: BostoN AcceNts
cellArs By stArlight
DEAD CATS DEAD RATS CAN’T SLOW DOWN DEAD CATS DEAD RATS hAVE found a few musical truths about themselves to be self-evident: they’re fast, they’re unapologetic, and they’re at their best when capitalizing on a combination of the two. The self-labeled grunge-punk trio doesn’t try to pigeonhole their sound for the sake of lofty industry ambitions, and they continue to play the kind of rock and roll they fell in love with back when singer-guitarist Matt Reppucci and bassist Chris Wolz were sporting checkered guitar straps in “shitty ska-pop-punk North Shore bands.” They don’t mess around with other people’s gear at shows — they’ve got no problem sharing their stuff with other bands at any given venue, but playing someone else’s guitar or plugging into another person’s amp isn’t up for discussion. Reppucci changes his strings before every show — “otherwise I break ’em” — and they’d rather spend their time writing or playing live shows than spending a night honing their networking skills via social media or blogging. Dead Cats Dead Rats are, more or less, a Boston band that’s allergic to bullshit — and as they relish the release of their fifth album in three years, this month’s No God in Massachusetts, there’s something to be said for playing what you want (and how). This no-frills, speedy sensibility is intrinsic to their sound and to their overall
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productivity. Dead Cats Dead Rats don’t pretend to reinvent the wheel when it comes to recording — they favor a straightforward approach: just get in there and barrel through fresh material. The intent to produce a record that mirrors the sounds of their live set remains as vital on their fifth album as their first. “We’re writing new songs while we’re in the studio,” says Wolz over Buds at the Middle East corner bar. “We don’t stop doing that, ever. We’d go nuts. Maybe that’s the key. We always keep going, and we never stop writing. I can’t write something and just keep playing it. I can’t even stand to be in band practice that long.” Talking over the tracks of No God in Massachusetts, Reppucci and Wolz share the same favorites: “Bad News,” a revved-up warning to future love interests, and “I Think You Took Too Much,” two-anda-half minutes of straight screaming and accelerating power chords. They’ve got no immediate plans to tour behind the album, but that’s all right, since their Boston fanbase keeps things interesting. “People who come to our shows get pretty rowdy,” laughs Wolz, as Reppucci pipes out a few rounds of “DC! DR! DC! DR!. . . . They act like our band is a football/ soccer club. They have chants and everything.”
We’re “Halfway to Hell” on a nonstop rock-and-roll train passing through the mean streets of nowhere, and VIVA VIVA is behind the wheel, steering us to the Middle East Tuesday night for the Prince Children’s Education Fund benefit show. This latest cut from Boston’s most badass rock band is the closing track off recent EP Dead in Yr Tracks, another gritty romp through Boston’s darker rock underbelly. Rounding out the mix are three solo artists: the Lowell-based grudge rock of IAN JAMES, shimmering experimentalism of LITTLE SPOON, and last-call sing-along minimalism of North of Boston’s POLAROIDS, whose debut show is Wednesday at Great Scott for the Allston Pudding Mixtape Show.
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GRAb ThE MIx AT ThEPhOENIx.COM/ ONThEDOWNLOAD. • Viva Viva “halfway to hell” [11.27 @ Mid East] • Ian James Music “In Your Spell” • Little Spoon “Touch Me” • Polaroids “Sidewalk Cracks” [11.28 @ Great Scott]
_mI cHAEL m ARoT TA
_H ILARY HUGHES » HI LARY.jAnE .HUGHES@ GmAI L.com
DEAD CATS DEAD RATS + IN THE MEANTIME + THE DOWN AND OUTS + TRANSIT GLORIA :: The Middle East, 472 Mass Ave, Cambridge :: November 24 @ 8 pm :: 18+ :: $8 :: 617.864.3278 or mideastclub.com
Viva Viva
THEpHOENIx.COM/MUSIC :: 11.23.12 69
DEAD CATS DEAD RATS PHoTo By KELLy DAviDSoN, vivA vivA PHoTo By MATT TEuTEN
Playlist
Arts & Nightlife :: Music
Mo want re re alb Che v i ew u M C reC k out s?
ALbum REvIEws
en m at t t rele ore he as Co m P h o e n e s ix /m u siC .
+ STAR SLINGER, LADIES IN THE BACK
Jet Jam » How high can a remixheavy disc go when it’s built on the dodgiest and lousiest of foundations? Not very, in the case of Ladies in the Back by the upwardly mobile and otherwise capable UK producer Star Slinger. This EP features a title track, a clean variant, and five remixes, but everything is almost sunk from square one thanks to the base tune. “Ladies” is a thinly sketched, mid-tempo, clubby number — inoffensive and unremarkable enough — turned terrible by monotonously sung vocals about women who love booty grinding, 808s, and lip-syncing. It’s too dumb and awkwardly delivered to be conventionally worthwhile (“Slow and sexy wins the race” is really said out loud), yet too blasé for “so bad, it’s good” entertainment. What’s left is a half-baked, Lonely Island–like send-up of contemporary dance music aesthetics. On the remixes, Chrissy Murderbot’s mash-up party and Jay Far’s tempo-jumping actually work pretty well, because they move away from that frustrating original riddle. _REYAN ALI
+++ THE WEEKND, TRILOGY
Universal Republic » Modern R&B is, no doubt, in the midst of an experimental renaissance — artists like Frank Ocean, Drake, the-Dream, and even Usher are expanding the genre’s sonic playbook by going darker and weirder, incorporating elements of dance-pop, trip-hop, and warped indie rock. Toronto youngster Abel Tesfaye (a/k/a the Weeknd) may not be the most visible member of this new goth-n-b posse, but he’s clearly the most assured: over the course of three 2011 blog-approved mixtapes, Tesfaye has created his own ethereal universe — sampling Beach House and Cocteau Twins, covering Michael Jackson, and layering his fallen-angel croon over brooding synths and snares that explode like firecrackers. Each mixtape has its sluggish spots, but Trilogy (which collects every remastered joint, along with three new ones) is simply exhausting as a front-to-back listen, growing a bit monotonous the longer it plays and showing that, for all his melismatic vocal acrobatics, Tesfaye really only runs on one speed. Nonetheless, Trilogy’s highlights are spellbinding: “D.D.” is a slinky, sexy take on MJ’s underrated “Dirty Diana,” nailing all of the trademark Jackson nuances and showcasing a more visceral vocal style, while snares pound like an angry cokehead neighbor and a hi-hat flickers like a dying lightbulb. “Lonely Star” is a production marvel, with tinny snares skittering frantically over an incessant synth-bass throb. And “High for This” remains the quintessential Weeknd jam, with Tesfaye’s orgasmic moans hovering over warbled synths and an EQ-shifting beat. Bravado still isn’t a good look — like when “Outside” ventures into standard booty-call territory, or on “Til Dawn (Here Comes the Sun)” when Tesfaye tells a prospective lover, “Just wrap your legs around my waist. . . . Don’t you worry ’bout us messin’ up my sheets.” For the Weeknd, sex is a drug — on Trilogy, the two vices are mixed in the same escapist syringe. Even at Tesfaye’s most awkward, it’s impossible not to be intoxicated. _RYA N R EE D
Staff SpinS
What we’re listening to
+++1/2 THE EVENS, THE ODDS
Dischord » In 2006, Ian McKaye (Minor Threat, Fugazi, Embrace, etc.) began focusing his energy on the Evens, a duo with former Warmers drummer Amy Farina. Their third record proves that even the most militant punk songs are often best served by a stripped-down aesthetic. McKaye has always worked with that sort of ethos, but the Evens are radically minimal — lone baritone guitar and punchy drums bring clarity to fiery post-post-punk minimums and maximums. The most addictive track is “King of Kings,” a huge sing-a-long anthem. Another compelling moment comes with “Wanted Criminals,” a song framing the fucked-up realities of the prison industrial complex in the context of the recession. “Need a job, need a job. . . . What if every single person was a deputy?” asks McKaye. “Jails in search of prisoners/Jails in search of prisoners,” he continues. It’s a haunting, complex look at economic injustice. _LI Z PELLY
WIDOWSPEAK “Ballad of the Golden Hour” [Captured Tracks ] Molly Hamilton’s gorgeous floating voice is still the centerpiece on the newest track by Widowspeak. “We could never stay forever/We are destined to grow cold,” she croons over a soaring, twangy lead riff. The song comes from their sophomore LP Almanac, out January 22, likely to be a perfect soundtrack for the long winter ahead.
TIM HECKER & DANIEL LOPATIN “Intrusions” [Mexican Summer/Software] In Instrumental Tourist, ambient maestros Tim Hecker and Daniel Lopatin have collaborated on an album that, surprise to no one, is both cinematic enough to soundtrack an Oscar contender and introspective enough to soundtrack your dying days. This cut in particular sounds like attending Sunday service with a head full of gasoline fumes.
_LIZ P E LLY
_mI CHAEL C. wALsH
70 11.23.12 :: Thephoenix.com/music
Arts & Nightlife :: music
live music
sATuRDAY 24
tuesdAy 27
FRiDAY 23
5 HELENA › Burren, 247 Elm St, Somerville › 617.776.6896 or burren.com ALIEN KNIFE FIGHT › 10:30 pm › Plough & Stars, 912 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.576.0032 or ploughandstars.com ARTURO SANDOVAL › 8 + 10 pm › Scullers, 400 Soldiers Field Rd, Cambridge › $40 › 617.783.0090 or scullersjazz.com BEATLEJUICE › 8 pm › Johnny D’s, 17 Holland St, Somerville › $12-$14 › 617.776.2004 or johnnyds.com BOB FRANKE › 8 pm › Club Passim, 47 Palmer St, Cambridge › $18-$20 › 617.492.7679 or clubpassim.com CFP THE BAND + MC JOHN MICLAINE + BOHAN PHOENIX › Middle East Upstairs, 472 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $10 › 617.864.EAST or ticketweb.com CHRIS MASSON + SWYM + DAVID GALLAGHER BAND + THE REACTIVE › 6:30 pm › All Asia, 334 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $6 › 617.497.1544 or allasiabar.com CLUB D’ELF › 10 pm › Lizard Lounge, 1667 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.547.0759 or lizardloungeclub.com CUMBIAGRA › 10 pm › Beehive, 541 Tremont St, Boston › 617.423.0069 or beehiveboston.com DIANE BLUE › 9 pm › Cantab Lounge, 738 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.354.2685 or cantab-lounge.com FANTASTIC LIARS + GABRIEL BEREZIN › 9 pm › T.T. the Bear’s Place, 10 Brookline St, Cambridge › $10 › 617.492.2327 or ticketweb.com FLABBERGHASTER + THE BEAT HORIZON + PETE DOOM + THE BARGAINS + ELEPHATPROOF + ALEX MASON LANE › Precinct, 70 Union Sq, Somerville › 617.623.9211 or precinctbar.com “HIPPIE HOUR” › With The Merry Runaround › 6 pm › Midway Café, 3496 Washington St, Jamaica Plain › 617.524.9038 or midwaycafe.com JASS BIANCHI + DROYD + JONGI + J-DOLLAZ & C-QUIK › P.A.’s Lounge, 345 Somerville Ave, Somerville › 617.776.1557 JOSH AYOLA + JASON BENNETT + SPITSHINER + CHRISSY VACCARO + JAMIE PAYETTE › Radio Downstairs, 379 Somerville Ave, Somerville › 617.764.0005 or radiobarunion.com THE LINGUISTIC CIVILIANS + BANGFIELD + THE PEOPLE’S PARTY + ORIGINAL GRAVITY › 7 pm › Church of Boston, 69 Kilmarnock St, Boston › $10 › 617.236.7600 or churchofboston.com LOIS LANE AND THE DAILY PLANETS › 10 pm › Howling Wolf Taqueria, 76 Lafayette St, Salem › 978.744.9653 or feedyourwolf.com MANOWAR › 7 pm › Palladium, 261 Main St, Worcester › $75-$100 › 978.797.9696 or tickets.com RAY LAMONTAGNE › 7:30 pm › Orpheum Theatre, 1 Hamilton Pl, Boston › sold out › 617.482.0650 “ROCK & ROLL FOR RESCUE ANIMALS” › With Ghost of Vigoda + Root Nine + Alen of Dale › Radio Upstairs, 379 Somerville Ave, Somerville › 617.764.0005 or radiobarunion.com ROOMFUL OF BLUES › 7 pm › Iron Horse Music Hall, 20 Center St, Northampton › $22.50-$25 › 413.586.8686 or iheg.com/ iron_horse_main.asp “ROZ RASKIN’S BOSTON BIRTHDAY BASHAPALOOZA!” › With Roz Raskin & the Rice Cakes + Four Point Restraints + The Old Edison + Dave Wells › 8 pm › Midway Café, 3496 Washington St, Jamaica
Guitarist Albare plays Scullers. Plain › 617.524.9038 or midwaycafe.com SHOKAZOBA + RHYTHM INC. › 10 pm › Iron Horse Music Hall, 20 Center St, Northampton › $10 › 413.586.8686 or iheg. com/iron_horse_main.asp ST. RIPPER + THE MCGUNKS + THE NUMBSKULLS + BOTTLEFIGHT › 9 pm › Ralph’s Diner, 148 Grove St, Worcester › 508.753.9543
VALERIE STEPHENS › Darryl’s Corner Bar & Kitchen, 604 Columbus Ave, Boston › 617.536.1100 or darrylscornerbarboston.com “WEEKEND OASIS” › With Nicole D’Amico and Friends + DJ Lotusound › 10:30 pm › Middle East Corner, 480 Mass Ave, Cambridge › Free › 617.864.3278 or ticketweb.com
ALEXI P. › Darryl’s Corner Bar & Kitchen, 604 Columbus Ave, Boston › 617.536.1100 or darrylscornerbarboston.com ARTURO SANDOVAL › 8 + 10 pm › Scullers, 400 Soldiers Field Rd, Cambridge › $40 › 617.783.0090 or scullersjazz.com BEATLEJUICE › 8 pm › Johnny D’s, 17 Holland St, Somerville › $12-$14 › 617.776.2004 or johnnyds.com BIGFOOT RESEARCH ORGANIZATION › 7 pm › Club Passim, 47 Palmer St, Cambridge › $14-$16 › 617.492.7679 or clubpassim.com CANDICE ANITRA › 10 pm › Beehive, 541 Tremont St, Boston › 617.423.0069 or beehiveboston.com CLAY VENTRE AND THE BOND GIRLS › 10 pm › Howling Wolf Taqueria, 76 Lafayette St, Salem › 978.744.9653 or feedyourwolf.com COOLING TOWERS + TOTEM PLUSHGUN + FOUR POINT RESTRAINTS + ROBERT FERENT › 7 pm › Church of Boston, 69 Kilmarnock St, Boston › $10 › 617.236.7600 or churchofboston.com DANA LIOR › 8 pm › Outpost 186, 186 1/2 Hampshire St, Cambridge › $10 › 617.876.0860 or zeitgeist-outpost.org DANCE GAVIN DANCE + A LOT LIKE BIRDS + I, THE MIGHTY + HAIL THE SUN + THE ORPHAN, THE POET › 6 pm › Palladium, 261 Main St, Worcester › $18 › 978.797.9696 or tickets.com DAVE AARONOFF & THE PROTAGONISTS + HIGHWAY GHOSTS + LOOKER › Radio Downstairs, 379 Somerville Ave, Somerville › 617.764.0005 or radiobarunion.com
>> live music on p 72
Holiday Dinner Show Wednesday, december 5 at 6:00pm at the LaCava Campus Center at Bentley University
Tickets are only $15.00
and include a three-course gourmet dinner! tickets are available at www.tinyurl.com/bemoved
For more information on the Bowles Performing Arts Series, please visit www.bentley.edu/bowles THEPHOENIX.cOm/EvENTs :: 11.23.12 71
Arts & Nightlife :: music << live music from p 71
You maY know SaV-moR fRom ouR famouS SignS... HeRe’S wHat You maY not know: • We carry 600+ types of craft beer • Wines from around the world • Massive selection of craft spirits • Plus kosher, organic, sulfite-free and celiac-friendly beverages All at the very best prices! Cambridge | Medford | Somerville and “Locke Liquors”in Malden
DAY SLEEPER + THE CARTERS + HUGE FACE › 8 pm › O’Brien’s, 3 Harvard Ave, Allston › $6 › 617.782.6245 or obrienspubboston.com DEAD CATS DEAD RATS + TRANSIT GLORIA + THE DOWN AND OUTS + IN THE MEANTIME › Middle East Upstairs, 472 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $8 › 617.864. EAST or ticketweb.com DIRTY BLONDE › 9 pm › Cantab Lounge, 738 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.354.2685 or cantab-lounge.com DOST TENSOR + JJF + SURPRISE PARTY + NOAH › Precinct, 70 Union Sq, Somerville › 617.623.9211 or precinctbar.com DYING FALLS + DOUBLE-STOPS + WHISTLE UACKET + BUBBA LOAF › P.A.’s Lounge, 345 Somerville Ave, Somerville › 617.776.1557 ELDRIDGE RODRIGUEZ › Radio Upstairs, 379 Somerville Ave, Somerville › 617.764.0005 or radiobarunion.com THE FOOLS › 8 pm › Blue Ocean Music Hall, 4 Oceanfront North, Salisbury › $20 › 978.462.5888 or BlueOceanHall.com HIGH ON FIRE + GOATWHORE + PRIMATE + LO-PAN › 7 pm › The Sinclair, 52 Church St, Cambridge › $16-$18 › 617.451.7700 or ticketmaster.com JOSH LEDERMAN & CSARS › 4 pm › Plough & Stars, 912 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.576.0032 or ploughandstars.com LEADERS LED + THE BRIDGEBUILDERS + JOHN CACCIATORE BAND + BARRICADES + THE SUSAN CONSTANT + COUGAR BAIT + LAST OF THE INDEPENDENTS › 7:30 pm › Middle East Downstairs, 480 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $8$12 › 617.864.EAST or ticketweb.com
www.facebook.com/savmorspirits @SavMorSpirits www.savmorspirits.com Scullers PHX Nov 22_Scullers PHX Nov 22
BOSTON’S #1 JAZZ CLUB!
sCullers jazz Club
Fri. & Sat., Nov. 23 & 24
ARTURO SANDOVAL
Tues., Nov. 27
Introducing
8pm & 10pm
ALBARE
Weds., Nov. 28
8pm 8pm
BILL & BO WINIKER
Part 2
Thurs., Nov. 29
8pm
FRANCISCO MELA & CUBAN SAFARI
Fri., Nov. 30
STEVE COLE & JEFF GOLUB
8pm & 10pm
Josh Dion, drums; Ken Harris, bass
DOUBLETREE SUITES
BY HILTON BOSTON Call for Tickets & Info at: 617-562-4111
Dinner/Show Packages Available. Also In-Club menu
Order on-line at www.scullersjazz.com
72 11.23.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm/EvENTs
Celebrity Series of Boston
upcoming concerts
Chucho Valdés Quintet Nov. 29, 8pm at Berklee performaNCe CeNter
an evening with Christine ebersole JaN. 26, 8pm at SaNDerS theatre
monterey Jazz festival on tour Dee Dee Bridgewater vocals
Christian mcBride bass ambrose akinmusire trumpet Chris potter saxophone Benny Green piano lewis Nash drums JaN. 31, 8pm at Berklee performaNCe CeNter
www.celebrityseries.org CelebrityCharge | 617.482.6661
PHX PicKs >> cAN’T miss • MANOWAR Lube up those pectoral muscles and proclaim “death to false metal” in your finest loincloth as the loudest heavy metal on the planet crushes Worcester in a torrent of sonic thunder. This Lord of Steel World Tour again proves one thing: the gods have a sense of humor, and Eric Adams remains metal’s greatest screamer. Hail and kill. Palladium downstairs, 261 Main St, Worcester :: 7 pm :: $100; $75 advance :: thepalladium.net FRI
23
• THUNDERBLOODS The ’Bloods — a Boston super group featuring previous members of Read Yellow, Bodega Girls, and Kingsley Flood — take on 24 Mickey Bliss’s Club Bohemia in a blitz of whiskey, rock and roll, and constant attempts to steal away your girlfriend. Booze up, booze down. With DOZE, Bugs Bunny, and the Images. (Note: we can neither confirm nor deny that it’s *that* Bugs Bunny). Cantab Lounge downstairs, 728 Mass Ave, Cambridge :: 9 pm :: $8 :: club-bohemia.com • PLUSHGUN It’s two days after Thanksgiving, and the tryptophan has finally worn off. Shake off the extra poundage with a stacked bill of bouncy rock led by Boston’s avant-garde post-punk pushers Cooling Towers and New York’s Plushgun, who merge video-game geekery with a glam’s eye for rock-and-roll panache. With Totem, Four Point Restraints, and Robert Ferent.Church, 69 Kilmarnock St, Boston :: 7 pm :: $10 :: churchofboston.com/club.html SAT
• SKY FERREIRA Since 1985 there have been countless efforts either to cover or rip off Kate Bush’s modern rock classic “Running Up That Hill,” but Sky 27 Ferreira’s electro-throbbing “Lost In My Bedroom” echoes its finer points before carving out its own seat at the dance floor table. Ferreira’s Ghost EP has the New York siren poised for a major breakthrough. See her in this intimate setting before she’s off to the big rooms. T.T. the Bear’s Place, 15 Brookline St, Cambridge :: 8 pm :: $10 :: boweryboston.com • ALBARE The Moroccan-born Australian guitarist Albare (né Albert Dadon) has a deep-jazz touch, tone, and knack for tasty detail as well as flair for contemporary rhythms that draw from pop, but with enough left turns to keep it from getting too “smooth.” He celebrates the release of Long Way (Enja) with harmonica player Hendrik Meurkens, pianist Phil Turcio, bassist Phil Rex, and drummer Pablo Bencid. Scullers, DoubleTree Guest Suites Hotel, 400 Soldiers Field Road, Boston :: 8 pm :: $20 :: 617.562.4111 or scullersjazz.com TUE
• “REBIRTH OF THE THIRD STREAM” New England Conservatory continues the 40th anniversary celebration of its Contemporary Improvisation department by going back 29 to its origins as Third Stream — a merger of jazz and classical. NEC’s Ken Schaphorst, Ran Blake, and the NEC Jazz Orchestra tonight offer examples past and present, from Gil Evan’s arrangement of Tchaikovsky’s “Arab Dance,” to Bernstein, Ellington, Steve Lacy, George Russell, and Blake himself. (Read Jon Garelick’s preview at thePhoenx.com/jazz.) Jordan Hall, 30 Gainsborough St, Boston :: 8 pm :: Free :: 617.585.1260 or necmusic.edu • CHUCHO VALDéS One of the prime movers in modern Cuban jazz, pianist Chucho Valdés combines fierce Afro-Carribbean grooves with orchestral color and singing melodic lines. Making his first visit to Boston in two years, Valdés leads his super quintet, the Afro-Cuban Messengers. Berklee Performance Center, 136 Mass Ave, Cambridge :: 8 pm :: $30-$58 :: 617.482.6661 or celebrityseries.org • SOULjAzz ORCHESTRA Ottawa’s decade-old Souljazz Orchestra has a mortal lock on contemporary grooves, melding Afrobeat and Afro-Carribbean with a molten core of good ol’ American funk. Bring your dancing shoes. Brighton Music Hall, 158 Brighton Ave, Allston :: 9 pm :: $15 :: 617.876.4275 or worldmusic.org THU
SoulJazz Orchestra
Pad, 1353 Cambridge St, Cambridge › 617.497.0823 HUNGRYTOWN › 4:30 pm › Club Passim, 47 Palmer St, Cambridge › $13-$15 › 617.492.7679 or clubpassim.com LAMB OF GOD + HELLYEAH + IN FLAMES + SYLOSIS › Hellyeah + In Flames + Lamb of God + Sylosis › 8 pm › House of Blues, 15 Lansdowne St, Boston › $49.50 › 888.693.2583 LIFE ON HOLD + LETTERDAY + AS THE SPARROW + EMERSON › 8:30 pm › T.T. the Bear’s Place, 10 Brookline St, Cambridge › $8 › 617.492.2327 or ticketweb.com LOWMAN › 9 pm › Toad, 1920 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.497.4950 or toadcambridge.com THE NATURAL WONDERS › 5 pm › Plough & Stars, 912 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.576.0032 or ploughandstars.com NIGHTMARES FOR A WEEK + CHOKE UP + SQUARESONGS + SAVE ENDS + BLIND TIGERS › 1 pm › O’Brien’s, 3 Harvard Ave, Allston › $7 › 617.782.6245 or obrienspubboston.com PENDULUM [DJ SET] › 8 pm › Middle East Downstairs, 480 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $22.50-$25 › 617.864.EAST or ticketweb.com PETER CALO + KAT QUINN › 8 pm › Club Passim, 47 Palmer St, Cambridge › $13$15 › 617.492.7679 or clubpassim.com PSYCHO + IMPENITENT THIEF + GRIMEWAVE › 4 pm › Midway Café, 3496 Washington St, Jamaica Plain › 617.524.9038 or midwaycafe.com ROY SLUDGE TRIO › 4 pm › Radio Upstairs, 379 Somerville Ave, Somerville › Free › 617.764.0005 or radiobarunion.com
tuesdAy 27
>> live music on p 74
M.O.T.O. › 8 pm › Midway Café, 3496 Washington St, Jamaica Plain › 617.524.9038 or midwaycafe.com PATRICK COMAN + THE WHISKEY BOYS › 10 pm › Toad, 1920 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.497.4950 or toadcambridge. com PO BOYZ HAMMOND B-3 ORGAN TRIO › Middle East Corner, 480 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $5 › 617.864.3278 or ticketweb. com RAY LAMONTAGNE › 7:30 pm › Orpheum Theatre, 1 Hamilton Pl, Boston › sold out › 617.482.0650 THE REAL MAKERS › 7:30 pm › Toad, 1920 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.497.4950 or toadcambridge.com THE ROADKILL ORCHESTRA + SECRET EVIL PLAN + GO › 9 pm › Ralph’s Diner, 148 Grove St, Worcester › 508.753.9543 or myspace.com/ralphsdiner
RONNIE EARL AND THE BROADCASTERS › 7 pm › Iron Horse Music Hall, 20 Center St, Northampton › $25-$30 › 413.586.8686 or iheg.com/ iron_horse_main.asp SCARLET STARBIRD + SOMETHING SNEAKY + ROOTS RHYTHM DUB + DJ MIKEY D › 6:30 pm › All Asia, 334 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $6 › 617.497.1544 or allasiabar.com SCATTERSHOT › Sat, Thurs › Burren, 247 Elm St, Somerville › 617.776.6896 or burren.com STREETLIGHT MANIFESTO + HOSTAGE CALM + LIONIZE › 6 pm › Royale, 279 Tremont St, Boston › 617.338.7699 or boweryboston.com THAT’S OUTRAGEOUS + THEATRES + IN ARMISTICE + VELA WHISPER + I’LL WEAR YOUR CROWN › 1 pm › Middle East Upstairs, 472 Mass Ave,
Cambridge › $10-$12 › 617.864.EAST or ticketweb.com TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA › 8 pm › Verizon Wireless Arena, 555 Elm St, Manchester, NH › $32-$68.50 › 800.745.3000 or verizonwirelessarena.com
suNDAY 25
WESTERN FRONT 343 Western Ave, Cambridge
THE
Sky Ferreira is at T.T. the Bear’s Place.
Reggae, Latin & Jazz
Thursday 11/22
hoT springs reggae Call for info
ADIRA AMRAM & THE EXPERIENCE + KID KOALA + SCROLL › 8 pm › Paradise Rock Club, 967 Comm Ave, Boston › $17 › 617.562.8800 or ticketmaster.com THE BOXCAR LILIES › 7 pm › Iron Horse Music Hall, 20 Center St, Northampton › $12.50-$15 › 413.586.8686 or iheg.com/ iron_horse_main.asp FRANK MOREY BAND › 9 pm › Plough & Stars, 912 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.576.0032 or ploughandstars.com GABRIELA MARTINA › 6 pm › Lily
friday 11/23
funk friday
live Bands Call for info saTurday 11/24
reggae revival live reggae MusiC FOR INFO 617-492-7772
www.westernfront.com
on view through February 24
Alex Ross, JLA: The Original Seven, 2000, courtesy of the artist, ™ & © DC Comics. Used with permission.
open daily • nrm.org • 413-298-4100 9 Rt. 183, Stockbridge, MA THEPHOENIX.cOm/EvENTs :: 11.23.12 73
Arts & Nightlife :: music << live music from p 73
SPOSE + CAM GROVES + JAY CARON & MIKE B. [OF EDUCATED ADVOCATES] › Spose + Cam Groves + Jay Caron + Mike B. › 9 pm › Great Scott, 1222 Comm Ave, Allston › $10 › 617.566.9014 or ticketweb.com STEVE SPUNGIN › 6 pm › Howling Wolf Taqueria, 76 Lafayette St, Salem › 978.744.9653 or feedyourwolf.com
thursdAy 29
mOND`AY 26
BRAD MEYER › 10 pm › Cantab Lounge, 738 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.354.2685 or cantab-lounge.com BUGS & RATS + PARTY PIGS +
R E S TA U R A N T & M U S I C C L U B
43 Years Of Great Music Thursday, Nov 22
haPPy ThaNKsGIvING
Bar oPeNs aT 6 PM - No MusIc FrIday/ saTurday, Nov 23 & 24 all BeaTles! all NIGhT!
BeaTle JuIce
suNday, Nov 25 JaZZ BruNch 8:30 aM - 2:30 PM oPeN Blues JaM 4:00PM - 7:00 PM MoNday, Nov 26 TeaM TrIvIa -8:30 PM $1.50 hoT doGs 6 - 10 PM Tuesday, Nov 27
WeddING BaNd shoWcase No cover!
Lupo’s
79 Washington st, providence complete schedule at
lupos.com
this Wednesday, november 21
max creek Friday, november 30
WedNesday, Nov 28
veTeraNs For Peace BeNeFIT W/ PuBlIc INTeresT & WIllIe sordIllo Thursday, Nov 29 PoP / rocK
los FleTcheros FrIday, Nov 30 (7:30PM) rooTs rocK
JohNNy hoy & The Blue FIsh (10PM) couNTry / JaM BaNd
coMaNchero
ParaNoId socIal cluB
JohN Waters saturday, january 19
MARTIN SEXTON
the met - Friday, nov. 30
pLayin’ dead grateFuL dead tribute the met - saturday, dec. 29
the Neighborhoods tickets at LUPOs.cOM, F.Y.e. stORes & LUPO’s
74 11.23.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm/EvENTs
saTurday, dec 1 (7PM) sINGer / soNGWrITer FroM aMerIcaN MusIc cluB
MarK eITZel
(10PM) FuNK / cd release shoW
The MacroToNes The esseX
coMING sooN: 12/4 Kelly hoGaN 12/6 el veZ 12/7 (7:30PM) roBBy KrIeGer 12/11 &12 Bad GIrls uPseT By The TruTh 12/13 X-Mas cavalcade For hoMeless 12/14 vaNdaveer 12/16 erIN harPe MeMPhIs FuNdraIser 12/19 daN BerN 12/21 (7:30PM) eITher/orch. 12/26 hello echo 12/27 Peach eaTers / delTa GeNeraTors 12/28 PoWer oF love 12/29 MIeKa Pauley 12/31 BooTy vorTeX 1/5 luTher JohNsoN
www.johnnyds.com Info: 617-776-2004 concert LIne: 617-776-9667 johnny d’s 17 hoLLand st davIs square somervILLe. ma 02144
Chucho Valdés is at the Berklee Performance Center. THE MONSIERS › 8 pm › Charlie’s Kitchen, 10 Eliot St, Cambridge › $5 › 617.492.9646 DELFEAYO MARSALIS QUINTET › 7 pm › Iron Horse Music Hall, 20 Center St, Northampton › $17.50-$20 › 413.586.8686 or iheg.com/iron_horse_main.asp ELAN ASCH TRIO › 8 pm › Outpost 186, 186 1/2 Hampshire St, Cambridge › $10 › 617.876.0860 or zeitgeist-outpost.org FOG WIZARD + SUNKEN SHIPS + EARTHSTOMPER + BLACKTRIP + DESCEND UPON THE SANE › Middle East Upstairs, 472 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $10 › 617.864.EAST or ticketweb.com THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM › 8 pm › House of Blues, 15 Lansdowne St, Boston › sold out › 888.693.2583 IRON HARVEST › 10:30 pm › Plough & Stars, 912 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.576.0032 or ploughandstars.com JERRY BERGONZI GROUP + THE FRINGE › 8 pm › Lily Pad, 1353 Cambridge St, Cambridge › 617.497.0823 MATT MUNISTERI + MARGARET GLASPY › 8 pm › Club Passim, 47 Palmer St, Cambridge › $13-$15 › 617.492.7679 or clubpassim.com NEIL YOUNG & CRAZY HORSE + PATTI SMITH › 7:30 pm › TD Garden, 100 Legends Way, Boston › $58-$258 › 617.931.2000 or ticketmaster.com/ venue/8337 ROYALTY IN EXILE + RAMEN NOODLE BLACKOUT + CARMEN SUPRA › 10 pm › ZuZu, 474 Mass Ave, Cambridge › Free › 617.864.3278 or ticketmaster.com/venue/8547
TuesDAY 27
ABBIE BARRETT › Radio Upstairs, 379 Somerville Ave, Somerville › 617.764.0005 or radiobarunion.com ALBARE › 8 pm › Scullers, 400 Soldiers Field Rd, Cambridge › $20 › 617.783.0090 or scullersjazz.com ANSWERMAN + LOOK SHARP! + EFFZERO › 8 pm › Midway Café, 3496 Washington St, Jamaica Plain › 617.524.9038 or midwaycafe.com ATTACK OF LE PIGEON › 10:30 pm › Plough & Stars, 912 Mass
Ave, Cambridge › 617.576.0032 or ploughandstars.com THE BLUE RIBBONS › 10 pm › Toad, 1920 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.497.4950 or toadcambridge.com THE COLORADAS + SAM STAMBLER & FRIENDS › 8:30 pm › Cantab Lounge, 738 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.354.2685 or cantablounge.com THE DANIEL BYRNES BAND › 9 pm › Lizard Lounge, 1667 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.547.0759 or lizardloungeclub.com DOWNLINK › Middle East Downstairs, 480 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $20-$23 › 617.864.EAST or ticketweb.com THE DYING FALLS › P.A.’s Lounge, 345 Somerville Ave, Somerville › 617.776.1557 THE HORNITZ › 8 pm › Church of Boston, 69 Kilmarnock St, Boston › $3 › 617.236.7600 or churchofboston.com JAH N-1 ROOTS REGGAE › Darryl’s Corner Bar & Kitchen, 604 Columbus Ave, Boston › 617.536.1100 or darrylscornerbarboston.com MIRIAM › 7:30 pm › Toad, 1920 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.497.4950 or toadcambridge.com OTHER LIVES + INDIANS › 8 pm › Paradise Rock Club, 967 Comm Ave, Boston › $13-$15 › 617.562.8800 or ticketmaster.com SKY FERREIRA › 8 pm › T.T. the Bear’s Place, 10 Brookline St, Cambridge › $10 › 617.492.2327 or ticketweb.com “STUFF YO SELF” WITH LARCENIST + DOCTORS AND LAWYERS + FINS + PEACHPIT › 9 pm › Great Scott, 1222 Comm Ave, Allston › $8 › 617.566.9014 or ticketweb.com TITLE FIGHT + PIANOS BECOME THE TEETH + SINGLE MOTHERS › 6:30 pm › The Sinclair, 52 Church St, Cambridge › $12-$14 › 617.451.7700 or ticketmaster.com “VIVA VIVA AND FLAT SWAMP TO BENEFIT THE PRINCE CHILDREN’S EDUCATION FUND” › 8 pm › Middle East Upstairs, 472 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $10 › 617.864.EAST or ticketweb.com
WeDNesDAY 28
ACE HOOD + LSKI & YOUNG CLYDE + BIG KURT & PK-30 + CLASSIQK + MIKE MCKENZIE + PROPAGANDA + SKITSO P & THA DUKE › Middle East Downstairs, 480 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $15-$40 › 617.864.EAST or ticketweb.com BAD ART ENSEMBLE › 10:30 pm › Plough & Stars, 912 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.576.0032 or ploughandstars.com BAKER THOMAS BAND › 10 pm › Toad, 1920 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.497.4950 or toadcambridge.com BILL & BO WINKLER › 8 pm › Scullers, 400 Soldiers Field Rd, Cambridge › $22 › 617.783.0090 or scullersjazz.com THE DANK TOPS › 9 pm › Cantab Lounge, 738 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.354.2685 or cantab-lounge.com THE DAVE ALPERT BAND › 10 pm › Toad, 1920 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.497.4950 or toadcambridge.com DELTA SPIRIT + JEFF THE BROTHERHOOD + FIDLAR › 8 pm › House of Blues, 15 Lansdowne St, Boston › $22 › 888.693.2583 DENNIS BRENNAN BAND + THE DIETRICH STRAUSE BAND › 9:15 pm › Lizard Lounge, 1667 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.547.0759 or lizardloungeclub.com THE GILL AHARON TRIO › 10 pm › Lily Pad, 1353 Cambridge St, Cambridge › 617.497.0823 GOLD LIGHT HOUR + CONNECTOR › P.A.’s Lounge, 345 Somerville Ave, Somerville › 617.776.1557 THE HEAVY PETS › 8 pm › Church of Boston, 69 Kilmarnock St, Boston › $10 › 617.236.7600 or churchofboston.com I FIGHT DRAGONS + MC LARS + SKYFOX › 8:15 pm › T.T. the Bear’s Place, 10 Brookline St, Cambridge › $12-$14 › 617.492.2327 or ticketweb.com “ISTANDARD PRODUCER SHOWCASE - BOSTON STYLE” › With SKID + Buda Da Future + Grandz Muzik › 8 pm › Midway Café, 3496 Washington St, Jamaica Plain › 617.524.9038 or midwaycafe.com JUAN PÉREZ RODRÍGUEZ QUARTET › 9 pm › Ryles, 212 Hampshire St, Cambridge › $10 › 617.876.9330 or rylesjazz.com KEY-DRUM PROJECT + BRIAN FRIEDLAND’S HOUSEHOLD ITEMS + LAURA GRILL BAND › 9 pm › Milky Way, at the Brewery, 284 Armory St, Jamaica Plain › $8 › 617.524.3740 or milkywayjp.com “MIXTTAPE RELEASE SHOW” WITH PRETTY & NICE + WE CAN ALL BE SORRY + POLAROIDS › 9 pm › Great Scott, 1222 Comm Ave, Allston › $7 › 617.566.9014 or ticketweb.com THE MOTHER HIPS + THE NATIONAL RESERVE + OLD JACK › Middle East Upstairs, 472 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $12 › 617.864.EAST or ticketweb.com “NYC ELECTRO ACOUSTIC SINGERSONGWRITER SERIES” › With Monica Lionheart + LIPS › 9 pm › Beehive, 541 Tremont St, Boston › 617.423.0069 or beehiveboston.com PAULO DANAY QUARTET › Darryl’s Corner Bar & Kitchen, 604 Columbus Ave, Boston › 617.536.1100 or darrylscornerbarboston.com “ROCKPALAST #4” › With The Spearmint Sea › 8 pm › O’Brien’s, 3 Harvard Ave, Allston › $5 › 617.782.6245 or obrienspubboston.com TANLINES › 7 pm › The Sinclair, 52 Church St, Cambridge › $14-$16 ›
617.451.7700 or ticketmaster.com TOUGHCATS › 8 pm › Club Passim, 47 Palmer St, Cambridge › $10-$12 › 617.492.7679 or clubpassim.com “VETERANS FOR PEACE BENEFIT” › With Public Interest + Willie Sordillo Jazz Trio › 7:30 pm › Johnny D’s, 17 Holland St, Somerville › $15 › 617.776.2004 or johnnyds.com
THuRsDAY 29
THE AV CLUB + KILIAN’S “IRISH RED RUCKUS TOUR” WITH VHS OR BETA › Middle East Downstairs, 480 Mass Ave, Cambridge › Free › avclub.com/ruckustour BACKDRIVE + SAFER BY THE SHORE + GLORIOUS NOISE + THE COLORS RUN › P.A.’s Lounge, 345 Somerville Ave, Somerville › 617.776.1557 CAMP LO › Middle East Upstairs, 472 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $13 › 617.864.EAST or ticketweb.com CHRISTOPHER WILLIAMS + JAKE ARMERDING › 8 pm › Club Passim, 47 Palmer St, Cambridge › $18-$20 › 617.492.7679 or clubpassim.com CHUCHO VALDÉS QUARTET › 8 pm › Berklee Performance Center, 136 Mass Ave, Boston › $30-$58 › 617.266.7455 CRAIG CASSLER + HONEST THIEVES + EXPLODING TICKET › 6:30 pm › All Asia, 334 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $6 › 617.497.1544 or allasiabar.com FRANCISCO MELA + CUBAN SAFARI › 8 pm › Scullers, 400 Soldiers Field Rd, Cambridge › $25 › 617.783.0090 or scullersjazz.com GEORGE WOODS + ERICA LEIGH + THE GREAT WHISKEY REBELLION › 9 pm › Café 939, 939 Boylston St, Boston › $8 › 617.747.6038 or ticketmaster.com/ INNA DUDUKINA › 2 pm › Café 939, 939 Boylston St, Boston › Free › 617.747.6038 or ticketmaster.com/ A WISH FOR FIRE & SPECIAL FRIENDS › 9:30 pm › Middle East Corner, 480 Mass Ave, Cambridge › Free › 617.864.3278 or ticketweb.com JAMES MERENDA AND TICKLE JUICE › 8 pm › Outpost 186, 186 1/2 Hampshire St, Cambridge › $10 › 617.876.0860 or zeitgeist-outpost.org JIMKATA + JEFF BUJAK › 8 pm › Church of Boston, 69 Kilmarnock St, Boston › $10 › 617.236.7600 or churchofboston.com JUSSI REIJONEN QUINTET › 7 pm › Lily Pad, 1353 Cambridge St, Cambridge › 617.497.0823 LOS FLETCHEROS › 9:30 pm › Johnny D’s, 17 Holland St, Somerville › $8 › 617.776.2004 or johnnyds.com THE MOOG › 10:30 pm › Plough & Stars, 912 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.576.0032 or ploughandstars.com “REBIRTH OF THE THIRD STREAM” › With NEC Jazz Orchestra › 4 pm › Jordan Hall, 30 Gainsborough St, Boston › Free › 617.585.1260 or necmusic.edu ROOSEVELT DIME + THREE TALL PINES › 9:15 pm › Lizard Lounge, 1667 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.547.0759 or lizardloungeclub.com SHIMON BEN-SHIR GROUP › 9 pm › Ryles, 212 Hampshire St, Cambridge › $10 › 617.876.9330 or rylesjazz.com SIMONE FELICE › 9 pm › Great Scott, 1222 Comm Ave, Allston › $10-$13 › 617.566.9014 or ticketweb.com SISTER SPARROW & THE DIRTY BIRDS + HOLLIS BROWN + NAIA KETE › 9 pm › T.T. the Bear’s Place, 10 Brookline St, Cambridge › $12 › 617.492.2327 or ticketweb.com THE SOULJAZZ ORCHESTRA + ZONGO JUNCTION › 9 pm › Brighton Music Hall, 158 Brighton Ave, Allston ›
617.779.0140 or ticketmaster.com TEDESCHI TRUCKS BAND + CHARLIE MARS › 7:30 pm › House of Blues, 15 Lansdowne St, Boston › $45-$75 › 207.657.2700 TODD THIBAUD + RUSSELL CHUDNOFSKY + SEAN STAPLES + JOE KLOMPUS + BILLY BEARD › 7:30 pm › Toad, 1920 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.497.4950 or toadcambridge.com THE TOWER & THE FOOL + SUMMER OF ADEN + LITTLE FOOT + MISSELS › 8 pm › O’Brien’s, 3 Harvard Ave, Allston › $5 › 617.782.6245 or obrienspubboston.com WHITE RABBITS + GUARDS › 7 pm › The Sinclair, 52 Church St, Cambridge › $15-$17 › 617.451.7700 or ticketmaster.com
472-480 mASSAcHuSeTTS AVe ceNTRAl SQ., cAmBRIDGe (617) 864-eAST
mideastclub.com | zuzubar.com ticketweb.com
DOWNSTAIRS SAT 11/24 - 7:30PM UNregulated Radio: SceNe STAND 2 SUN 11/25 EMBRACE PRESENTS: peNDulum (Dj SeT) TUE 11/27: CRUSH BOSTON SWAGSCOUT PRESENT: DOWNlINK WED 11/28 LEEDZ PRESENTS Ace HOOD: THU 11/29: KILLIAN IRISH RED RUCKUS TOUR FEATURING: VHS OR BeTA • 21+ FREE W/ RSVP
upSTAIRS FRI 11/23 LEEDZ PRESENTS: cFp THe BAND MC JOHN MICLAINE
We Can Be Heroes Super Hero Costume Party
19th
Birthday
B ASH!
SAT 11/24 ALL AGES 1PM THAT’S OuTRAGeOuS SAT 11/24/12 - NIGHT SHOW DeAD cATS DeAD RATS IN THE MEANTIME MON 11/26/12 LT LIVE PRESENTS: FOG WIZARD • cONFlAGRATION • eARTHSTOmpeR • BlAcKTRIp TUES 11/27 ReAcH OuT AND ROcK: VIVA VIVA •THE JESSICA PROUTY BAND • FLAT SWAMP WED 11/28/12 THE MOTHER HIPS • THe NATIONAl ReSeRVe • OLD JACK
/mideastclub /zuzubar @mideastclub @zuzubar
Fri 11/30 DJ Brent Covington F / Boyfriends & DJ Stella F / La Boum Free/ 21+ / 10PM $75 Cash Prize for Best Costume At the Brewery Complex next to Sam Adams near the Stony Brook stop on the Orange Line 284 Amory St. Jamaica Plain, MA 617-524-6060 - milkywayjp.com THEPHOENIX.cOm/EvENTs :: 11.23.12 75
Arts & Nightlife :: Clubs WONDER BAR › Allston › “Wonderbar Saturdays” ZUZU › Cambridge › 11 pm › “Soul-le-luh-jah” with Claude Money
sunDAY 25
Glass T33th is at Middlesex on Sunday.
club nights thuRsDAY 22
BOND › Boston › 9 pm › “Taste Thursdays” CURE LOUNGE › Boston › 10 pm › “Cure Thursdays” DISTRICT › Boston › “In Thursdays” EMERALD LOUNGE AT REVERE HOTEL › Boston › 9 pm › “Top 40s & House” ESTATE › Boston › 10 pm › “Glamlife Thursdays” with Chris Harris + Rafael Sanchez JACQUE’S CABARET › Boston › 10:30 pm › With Kris Knievil › “Jacque’s Cabaret” with Kris Knievil LIVING ROOM › Boston › 8 pm › DJ Snow White MIDWAY CAFÉ › Jamaica Plain › “Women’s Dance Night” with DJ Summer’s Eve NAGA › Cambridge › “Verve Thursdays” with DJ Pensive OM RESTAURANT & LOUNGE › Cambridge › 10:30 pm › “Late Night Lounge” PHOENIX LANDING › Cambridge › “Elements” with Crook & Lenore RAMROD › Boston › 10 pm › “Trainwreck Thursdays” with DJ Brian Derrick WONDER BAR › Allston › 10 pm › “Top 40/ House Thursdays”
FRiDAY 23
BOND › Boston › 10 pm › “Play Fridays” COMMON GROUND › Allston › “90s Night” CURE LOUNGE › Boston › 10 pm › “VIP Fridays” with DJ Eric Velez DISTRICT › Boston › “Latin Fridays” EMERALD LOUNGE AT REVERE HOTEL › Boston › 9 pm › “Top 40s & House” ESTATE › Boston › 10 pm › Carlos Melange › 10 pm › “Estate Fridays” GREAT SCOTT › Allston › 10 pm › “The Pill Thanksgiving Hangover” with DJ Ken + DJ Michael V GYPSY BAR › Boston › 10 pm › DJ Dera MACHINE › Boston › 10 pm › “Machine Friday” with DJ Darrin Friedman + Gay Jim MIDDLE EAST CORNER › Cambridge › 10:30 pm › “Weekend Oasis” MIDDLESEX LOUNGE › Cambridge › 9 pm › Flavorheard MILKY WAY › Jamaica Plain › 9 pm › “Dyke Night: Fourth Fridays” NORTHERN NIGHTS › Lynn › 8 pm › “Madonna Fridays” with DJ Jay Ine PHOENIX LANDING › Cambridge › “PYT” with DJ Vinny RISE › Boston › “Wonderland” › 9 pm › “Wonderland” › 1 am › Tyler Michaud + Ju Lee + AlexC
RIVER GODS › Cambridge › 9 pm › The Brobots RUMOR › Boston › 10 pm › “Hush Fridays” with DJ Hectik + DJ Dres + DJ Lus SHRINE AT MGM GRAND › Mashantucket, CT › 9 pm › DJ Biggie + DJ Pauly D + Ryan and JRoc SPLASH ULTRA LOUNGE & BURGER BAR › Boston › 10 pm › “Privilege Fridays” T.T. THE BEAR’S PLACE › Cambridge › 9 pm › Fantastic Liars + Gabriel Berezin UMBRIA PRIME › Boston › 10 pm › “VIP Fridays” UNDERBAR › Boston › 10 pm › “Flavor Fridays” WONDER BAR › Allston › 9 pm › “Friday Night Live” with DJ Braun Dapper ZUZU › Cambridge › 11 pm › “Solid!” with DJ Durkin
sAtuRDAY 24
BOND › Boston › 10 pm › “Flaunt Saturdays” COMMON GROUND › Allston › “Millenium Night” CURE LOUNGE › Boston › 10 pm › “Saturdays at Cure” DISTRICT › Boston › 10 pm › “Clique Saturdays” EMERALD LOUNGE AT REVERE HOTEL › Boston › 9 pm › “Top 40s & House” ESTATE › Boston › PS1 › 10 pm › “VIP Access Saturdays” GOOD LIFE › Boston › 9:30 pm › “Sweet Shop” with Manik + Matt McNeill + DJ Frank White [upstairs] GREAT SCOTT › Allston › 9 pm › “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” GYPSY BAR › Boston › 10 pm › DJ Mario MIDDLESEX LOUNGE › Cambridge › 9 pm › DJ Kon MILKY WAY › Jamaica Plain › 10 pm › “Mango’s Latin Saturdays” with Lee Wilson NAGA › Cambridge › “Chemistry Saturdays” with DJ Mozes + DJ D Say + Miss Jade OM RESTAURANT & LOUNGE › Cambridge › 10:30 pm › “Saturdays @ Om” PHOENIX LANDING › Cambridge › “Boom Boom Room” with DJ Vinny RAMROD › Boston › 10 pm › “Revolution Saturdays” with Isabella Cavallier RISE › Boston › 1 am › Craig Mitchell + Will Pizzetti RIVER GODS › Cambridge › 9 pm › “Sonido Bestial” RUMOR › Boston › 10 pm › “Rumor Saturdays” with DJ Roger M + DJ JC SPLASH ULTRA LOUNGE & BURGER BAR › Boston › 10 pm › “Sold Out Saturdays” with DJ Bamboora T.T. THE BEAR’S PLACE › Cambridge › 10 pm › “Heroes” with DJ Chris Ewen UMBRIA PRIME › Boston › 10 pm › “Scene Saturdays”
76 11.23.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm/EvENTs
CLUB CAFÉ › Boston › 4 pm › “Back 2 Basics Tea Dance” with DJ Harrison COMMON GROUND › Allston › 9:30 pm › “Country Night” CURE LOUNGE › Boston › 10 pm › “Industry Sundays” EMERALD LOUNGE AT REVERE HOTEL › Boston › 9 pm › “Svedka Sundays: Industry Night” MIDDLE EAST DOWNSTAIRS › Cambridge › Pendulum [DJ Set] MIDDLESEX LOUNGE › Cambridge › 9 pm › “SVVIM” with Andre Obin + Glass T33th + Fuzzy Fotch + Reuphy PHOENIX LANDING › Cambridge › “The Drop” RAMROD › Boston › 10 pm › “The Den” RIVER GODS › Cambridge › 8 pm › Sister Kate UMBRIA PRIME › Boston › DJ Nicky Romero UNDERBAR › Boston › 10 pm › “Hot Mess Sundays” with DJ Richie Ladue ZUZU › Cambridge › 10 pm › “Pogo & Work: Hardcore Punk and Beyond” with DJ Dominck
MOnDAY 26
AN TUA NUA › Boston › 9 pm › “CeremonyGoth Night” NAGA › Cambridge › “Industry Mondays” PHOENIX LANDING › Cambridge › “Makka Monday” with Voyager 01 + DJ Uppercut RAMROD › Boston › 10 pm › Retro, 90s, glam, and more from DJ Kuro › “The Attic” with DJ Kuro RIVER GODS › Cambridge › 8 pm › “Weekly Wax” WONDER BAR › Allston › 9 pm › “Mondenial” with Jason Stokes
tuEsDAY 27
EMERALD LOUNGE AT REVERE HOTEL › Boston › 6 pm › “Wicked New Music” MACHINE › Boston › 9 pm › “Psyclone Tuesdays” with Stevie Psyclone MIDDLESEX LOUNGE › Cambridge › 9 pm › “Soul Clap’s Dance Jam” with DJ Elyte NAGA › Cambridge › “Fiesta Tuesdays” PHOENIX LANDING › Cambridge › “Elecsonic” RAMROD › Boston › 10 pm › “Punk Night” RIVER GODS › Cambridge › 9 pm › Honeyspin Tapes RUMOR › Boston › 10 pm › “Evolution Tuesdays” with DJ Hectik WONDER BAR › Allston › “Music Ecology” ZUZU › Cambridge › 10 pm › “Zuesday” with DJ Leah V + Black Adonis
WEDnEsDAY 28
COMMON GROUND › Allston › 10:30 pm › “Reggae Night”
DISTRICT › Boston › “Classic Wednesdays” with DJ Tanno EMERALD LOUNGE AT REVERE HOTEL › Boston › 8 pm › “Mondo Wednesdays” GOOD LIFE › Boston › 9 pm › “Beat Research: A Tribute to Lecco’s Lemma” with MC Brick Casey + Defrock + DJ Miles Maker + Brian Coleman + DJ Flack + DJ Pace + VJ Dziga LIBERTY HOTEL › Boston › 6:30 pm › “Whole Note Wednesdays” MACHINE › Boston › 10 pm › “Show Me Your Stuff” MIDDLE EAST CORNER › Cambridge › 9:30 pm › “Heat” MIDDLESEX LOUNGE › Cambridge › 9 pm › “Swerve-7” with DJ El Poser + DJ Iron Fist PHOENIX LANDING › Cambridge › “Re:Set” RAMROD › Boston › 10 pm › “Rock Wednesdays” with DJ Victor RIVER GODS › Cambridge › 9 pm › “Post Grad: Future Music Sounds from Mmmmaven” with DJ Alex + DJ David RUMOR › Boston › 10 pm › “Latin Night” with DJ Adilson + DJ Maryalice + DJ Boatslip SPLASH ULTRA LOUNGE & BURGER BAR › Boston › 10 pm › “EDM Wednesdays” STORYVILLE › Boston › 9 pm › “MySecretBoston presents Dub Apocalypse” WONDER BAR › Allston › 9 pm › “Wobble Wednesdays” ZUZU › Cambridge › 10 pm › “Swallow” with DJ Ben Bornstein
thuRsDAY 29
BOND › Boston › 9 pm › “Taste Thursdays” DISTRICT › Boston › “In Thursdays” EMERALD LOUNGE AT REVERE HOTEL › Boston › 9 pm › “Top 40s & House” ESTATE › Boston › 10 pm › “Glamlife Thursdays” GOOD LIFE › Boston › 9:45 pm › “A Lil Louder” with Jus Cuz + The Almighty Pretty Face Posse LIVING ROOM › Boston › 8 pm › DJ Snow White MIDDLESEX LOUNGE › Cambridge › 9 pm › “Make it New” with Illum Sphere MIDWAY CAFÉ › Jamaica Plain › “Women’s Dance Night” with DJ Summer’s Eve MILKY WAY › Jamaica Plain › 9 pm › “Ladies Night w/ Stack City Entertainment” NAGA › Cambridge › “Verve Thursdays” OM RESTAURANT & LOUNGE › Cambridge › 10:30 pm › “Late Night Lounge” PHOENIX LANDING › Cambridge › “Elements” with Crook & Lenore RAMROD › Boston › 10 pm › “Trainwreck Thursdays” with DJ Brian Derrick RIVER GODS › Cambridge › 9 pm › DJ Leroy the King ZUZU › Cambridge › 10 pm › “Decade” with DJ Paul Foley
more Clubs and Comedy at thephoenix.Com/events
cOMEDY Nick Kroll is at the
Wilbur on Wednesday, November 28. For tons more to do, point your phone to m.thePhoenix.com
arts & nightlife :: parties
GET SEEN » » At BSSC’s BLIZZARD at Royale
It was apropos that BLIZZarD, Boston Ski & Sports Club’s annual ski-season kickoff party, just happened to coincide with Boston’s very first fall snowstorm. Luckily, if anyone’s equipped to party through inclement conditions, it’s a bunch of skiers and riders. They packed into Royale to throw back “ski shots,” browse the many vendors, and fill out raffle tickets for a slew of rad prizes (includMore ing a trip for two to Whistler Blackcomb in British Columbia). The nasty parties! weather had most folks choosing function over fashion, and at first it At thePho enix. was hard to tell one parka-clad partier from another — until we stumbled com/PArti es. see you ou across Mary Beth, who wasn’t about to let Mother Nature cramp her style. t there!
Mary Beth Boyle
Marketing associate at looMis, sayles & coMpany Mary Beth’s look was all sleek lines and muted elegance, and while we’re no Anna Wintour, even we can tell a legit Chanel handbag from a knockoff. Mary Beth was rocking the former; we had to ask her about the rest of her duds.
pHoToS by DeReK KouyouMJiAn
top: Matt Rouillard; Kristen Steigerwald, Kaila Lauzon, and Andrew Lavallee Clockwise from above left: Allie Tripp; DJ Knife; Aly Morrissey, Scott Largay, and Zach Heyman; Christine Siranko; Julie Giglia, Kevin Cabral, and Stephanie Heil
Which, actually, weren’t all designer. Target was the source for her tights, which paired well with her Elie Tahari jacket, Cole Haan boots, and Lord & Taylor dress. A longtime skier, she likes to play around with her slope style. “I try to be functional and have a little bit of fun at the same time,” she says. “I like to wear bright colors because when you’re skiing it’s the one time you can be a little different.” And said style always includes a helmet. “I’ve been wearing helmets since before they were cool. My parents were those parents. I made the mistake of asking why they didn’t have to wear them. . . . So then we were the whole family of helmets.” _AlExANd rA CAvAllo
Thephoenix.com/parTies :: 11.23.12 77
Arts & Nightlife :: bAck tAlk With Pippin, you’re revisiting not just a landmark show but your own early career. The ’70s was the last Golden Age of Broadway. I got in on all the cool stuff. We were a smaller group of people, more of a family, that moved through show to show together. Not that we didn’t worry about work. Back in those days we made $97.50 a week.
Amer PIPPIN ic theA An reper t t cent er Loeb D ory er, 64 rAmA b cAmb rAttLe St , r D ec e mber iDge 5 20 :: $ –JAnuAry 617.54 25-$95 7.83 Amre 00 or p.org
What did Fosse see in you? I’d never be that presumptuous. But before Pippin I auditioned for [the 1972 Liza Minnelli concert film for television] Liza with a Z. It was a Saturday at Showcase Studios. I showed up in tights and ballet shoes and white hair — it was natural then — and all these other guys around me were men in jeans and boots and beards and bandanas. Finally, at one point, Mr. Fosse said to me, “What am I going to do with you?” My voice was breaking at the time, and I said, “Hire me!” He laughed, and the next time, when I auditioned for Pippin, he said, “I remember you,” and I remember thinking, “Oh please, don’t remember that day.” Pippin for [Fosse] was a complete gift. After the [1969] movie of Sweet Charity he couldn’t get hired. No one wanted him to do the movie of Cabaret. He was the last person they asked, and he won an Academy Award. Then Liza with a Z and then Pippin. It was a Triple Crown situation [Fosse won the Oscar, Emmy, and Tony for the three shows, respectively]. You work all the time, but he loved to work.
Chet Walker Revisits Bob Fosse’s Pippin B y D eB r a c a sh
M
ichael Jackson didn’t invent the moonwalk. Bob Fosse did. Chet Walker, the choreographer’s protegé who co-created the 1999 Tony-winning Fosse, joined the Broadway cast of Pippin two years after its 1972 premiere. With the American Repertory Theater’s upcoming revival directed by Diane Paulus, Walker finds himself revisiting — and reimagining — a work that had been relegated to student and regional productions. This time, Walker’s choreography in Fosse’s much-imitated but never surpassed style will be augmented by acrobatics from Gypsy Snider of the Montreal-based circus company Les 7 doigts de la main.
78 11.23.12 :: Thephoenix.com
“Mr. Fosse said to me, ‘What am I going to do with you?’ ”
Ben Vereen was the original Leading Player in Pippin. Did he really invent Michael Jackson’s moonwalk? No. Mr. Fosse did. Are you having fun? It’s amazing to go back [to Pippin] and go into an arena of other possibilities and bring that all together and blend that with acrobatics. I’m creating Mr. Fosse’s look and adding Fosse-isms throughout it. He didn’t want people to tell him what he did, he was always wanting to evolve. P
ILLUSTRATION BY STEVE WEIGL
Magic To Do
Ann Reinking has attributed Fosse’s style to his need to work with his own deficiencies — the fact that he was pigeon-toed, wearing hats because he was going bald. I would never call them deficiencies! Yeah, he was going bald, but hats were part of that vaudevillian showmanship. Every vaudeville guy had a distinctive hat. He was pigeon-toed, but he never had a technique, he had a style. . . . Of all the [Broadway] choreographers, no one has a style as specific.