December 21, 2012 by The Phoenix

year in review » pop culture » Movies » restaurants » Music » and more

december 21, 2012 >> Free WeeKLY >> thePhoenix.com

What to Wear to the end of the World

New Year’s Eve fashion special Page 48

“tarantino goes even bigger, from the prop tooth bouncing atop a dentist’s wagon to the post-Peckinpah geysers of spurting viscera.” p 69 Brett Michel on Django Unchained, one of our 10 best films of 2012

on the cover Photo by Mike Pecci. For Full credits see Page 53.

NEW mobilE sitE, iN bEtA: m.thephoenix. com

This week AT ThePhOeNiX.COM :: MeN! VideO gAMes! guNs! AMeriCA! Maddy Myers on Hotline Miami and american narratives of masculinity and violence :: BeYONd NewTOwN chris Faraone on race, murder, and media bias :: The greeN MAChiNe boston’s city council moves to regulate medical marijuana facebook.com/ bostonphoenix

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THEPHOENIX.cOm :: 12.21.12 3

opinion :: feedback

From thephoenix.com RE: “iNtERviEw: histoRy lEssoN with KEN buRNs,” by pEtER KEough (12.14.12)

The lacrosse players were only “mildly inconvenienced”? Thousands of death threats, names tarnished, families suffering nervous breakdowns, reputations destroyed, abandoned by the Dept. of Justice, the FBI, the churches, their school, the media — all for a crime that never happened. But it was a crime that everyone wanted to believe happened (so all our stereotypes could be affirmed). That says a lot about 21st-century American culture. Too bad America was only “mildly inconvenienced” by the discovery that prosecutors need not believe in “innocent until proven guilty” and that some cases are just too damn important to those with agendas to let innocence to be allowed as a defense. We should all have been concerned. We weren’t. Next time it may be you. _“algi ERs50”

RE: “smoKE sigNals,” by david s. bERNstEiN (12.14.12) MMS has ignored medical research, literature reviews, and physician recommendation matrices available in medical literature, preferring to tell its membership that there is none. Patients are now forced to educate and persuade their physicians, some of whom

instagram us

agree their patients benefit from cannabis, but who do not feel they have the knowledge to “prescribe.” MMS needs to fulfill its mission “to do all things as may be necessary and appropriate to advance medical knowledge, to develop and maintain the highest professional and ethical standards of medical practice and health care, and to promote medical institutions formed on liberal principles for the health, benefit, and welfare of the citizens of the Commonwealth.” That should begin with honest education of its membership, likely including an admission of lies promulgated by Dr. Broadhurst in the Offical Voters’ Guide and elsewhere. _“phalty”

RE: “Naomi KlEiN’s fiERcE NEw REsolvE to fight foR climatE justicE,” by wEN stEphENsoN (12.14.12) A carbon tax would go a long way. A serious carbon tax would increase the price of fossil energy and reduce usage. It would stimulate more renewable energy and conservation. If the revenue were distributed on a flat basis, then it would be progressive and give everyone more cash to adjust. A bill (HR 6338) is proposed in the U.S. House. It is not enough, but it’s a start. But it won’t pass, because fossil energy owns the government. So. where does that leave us? Fighting for our lives, I guess. _“s agE Rad achow s Ky”

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4 12.21.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm

1 » @arden_fraser :: 2 » @zamforia :: 3 » @ajtulliani

in this issue now & next

» When the feathered serpent flies down to napalm our faces off on Friday (that’s how this Mayan Armageddon thing is supposed to happen, right?), we can’t say we didn’t see it coming — or we at least DVR’d it. Ruin of civilization, thy name is Honey Boo Boo. » 15 signs of the slop-culture apocalypse p 10 » Boston blow-dry bars a-go-go p 10 » Christmas tree Dna p 10

p 10

voiCes

p 16

p 12

» Yo dawg, I heard you like memes, so ChristianMemes.com put some Christ in your memes, so you can get saved while you surf. Which is as terrible as you’d expect . . . but not nearly as terrible as that Imagine Dragons bullshit. » the Year in Christian Memes p 12 » the Big Hurt p 16 » talking Politics p 18 » @Kadzis p 20 » Burning Questions p 22

p 25

» Remember when Mad Men got all S&M-y? Remember Amanda Fucking Palmer’s pointy-booted groin-kick to the record industry? How about the 12 zillion hours we spent playing Diablo III? So awesome. Here, we recap our favorite A&E highlights of 2012. » Film p 26 » Games p 28 » tv p 30 » art p 32 » Books p 34 » Dance p 36 » theater p 37

sPotliGHt

» Classical p 38 » Jazz p 39 » national Pop p 40 » local Pop p 42 » overlooked Music p 44 » Hip-Hop p 46

p 28

p 37 p

p 48

eve oF DestruCtion » What to wear to the end of the world.

p 48 6 12.21.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm

big hurt illustration by Cody bond, fashion photo by mike peCCi

Year in review

FooD & DrinK

p 55

» For Boston dining, it’s been a year of toe-curling burgers, really long ramen lines, craft cocktails (not to mention craft caffeine), and Facebook flame wars.

vol. lXXvIII | no. 48

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

» Boston Dining: a look back p 56 » Beeradvocate: Beer in review p 58 » the week in food events p 61

p 58

arts & niGHtliFe

» Boston Fun list p 64 » nYe 2012 p 65 » Boston City Guide p 66 » visual arts p 67 » theater p 68

NEW MEDIA

p 63

» Supposing you survive this week’s fiery cataclysm of doom . . . you’re still going to need weekend plans. Plus, just for you and the rest of the last people on earth, we’ve got a roundup of clutch NYE events — several semiformal, so make sure to keep a spare tux and a sequined gas mask in your fallout shelter.

Schwartz [classical] , Louisa Kasdon [food] cOnTRiBuTing WRiTERs Matt Bors, Daniel Brockman, Lauryn Joseph, Scott Kearnan, Dan Kennedy, Mitch Krpata, MC Slim JB, Tom Meek, Brett Michel, Robert Nadeau, Luke O’Neil, James Parker, Gerald Peary, Ariel Shearer, Marcia B. Siegel, Harvey Silverglate, Karl Stevens, David Thorpe, Eugenia Williamson sEniOR WEB pRODucER Maddy Myers sOciaL mEDia pRODucER Ariel Shearer

MARkETINg/pROMOTIONs

DiREcTOR OF maRKETing anD pROmOTiOns

Shawn McLaughlin

inTERacTivE maRKETing managER

Lindsey Mathison

pROmOTiOns cOORDinaTOR Nicholas Gemelli

CREATIvE gROup

p 65

» Film p 69 » Music p 72 » nightlife p 77 » Get seen p 78

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 pRODucTiOn aRTisT Faye Orlove FREELancE DEsignER Daniel Callahan

ADvERTIsINg sALEs

sEniOR vicE pREsiDEnT A. William Risteen vicE pREsiDEnT OF saLEs anD BusinEss DEvELOpmEnT

David Garland

DiREcTOR OF BEvERagE saLEs Sean Weymouth sEniOR accOunT ExEcuTivEs OF inTEgRaTED mEDia saLEs Margo Dowlearn Flint, Howard Temkin aDvERTising OpERaTiOns managER Kevin Lawrence inTEgRaTED mEDia saLEs cOORDinaTOR

Adam Oppenheimer

gEnERaL saLEs managER Brian Russell DiREcTOR OF Dining saLEs Luba Gorelik TRaFFic cOORDinaTORs Colleen McCarthy,

Jonathan Caruso

cLassiFiED saLEs managER Melissa Wright RETaiL accOunT ExEcuTivEs Nathaniel Andrews,

Sara Berthiaume, Scott Schultz , Daniel Tugender,

CIRCuLATION

beer photo by derek kouyoumjian, weirdo reCords photo by ian perlman

ciRcuLaTiOn DiREcTOR James Dorgan ciRcuLaTiOn managER Michael Johnson

OpERATIONs

iT DiREcTOR Bill Ovoian FaciLiTiEs managER John Nunziato

FINANCE

p 72

DiREcTORs OF FinancE Scotty Cole, Steven Gallucci cREDiT anD cOLLEcTiOns managER Michael Tosi sTaFF accOunTanTs Brian Ambrozavitch ,

Peter Lehar

FinanciaL anaLysT Lisy Huerta-Bonilla TRaDE BusinEss DEvELOpmEnT managER

Rachael Mindich

HuMAN REsOuRCEs

REcEpTiOnisT/aDminisTRaTivE assisTanT

Lindy Raso

p 74

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.

32 Newbury St. Boston, MA 02116 (857) 233-5016 www.bettiepageclothing.com THEPHOENIX.cOm :: 12.21.12 7

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S i g n S o f t h e a p o c a ly p S e » M a S S M e n S w e a r » t h e y e a r ’ S w o r S t S i n g l e S

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Porter square just got some added flour power, courtesy of a 70-seat temple to handmade noodles. No, we don’t mean more ramen, but rather the much-anticipated Italian joint Giulia, where you can gawk at all the pasta rolling and cranking right in the dining room. (Just try not to drool on the dough.) Co-owned by Via Matta alum chef Michael Pagliarini and his wife, Pamela Ralston, Giulia opened its doors to the carb-craving public on December 4, filling the space previously occupied by Rafiki Bistro with bucatini all’amatriciana, wild-boar pappardelle, warm semolina cakes with lardo, house-made lamb sausage, and more antipasti than you can shake a rolling pin at. » Giulia, 1682 Mass Ave, Cambridge :: 617.441.2800 photo by michael diskin

THEPHOENIX.COM :: 12.21.12 9

Now & Next :: oN our radar

Osmium MaYBe tHe MaYaNS Were oNto SoMetHiNg...

n. 1. A hard, heavy, and rare metal with the greatest density of the known elements. 2. A Stonehambased line of “uncommon and enduring” menswear. Founded this year and available at osmium.com, it features made-in-America designs with subtle twists — think dedicated smartphone pockets, a sleek belt with an airport-ready removable buckle, and updates on traditional garb, like a loungy onesize-fits-all Thai fisherman pant or a drop-front pant inspired by vintage sailor uniforms.

Word of the Week

15 signs of the apocalypse we probably should have heeded in 2012 As the dAte of the alleged Mayan doomsday drew nearer, we found ourselves looking

back over the past year. And it’s not looking good. In fact, so much terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad (and just plain ridiculous) slop-culture shit happened in 2012 that we can’t help but wonder if the Mayans mightn’t have crystal-balled our day of reckoning. Ah well, if this is really the end of days, at least we didn’t live long enough to have to see Liz Taylor’s legacy besmirched by a cracked-out Lindsay Lohan. Oh wait . . . _al exa N d r a C ava l l o

HONEY BOO BOO. Because if the fact that a mildly obese six-year-old perpetually tweaking off a Red Bull/Mountain Dew cocktail and her morbidly obese backwoods family have their own TV show isn’t a sign, we don’t know what is. Actually, we do. The fact that said show has some of the highest ratings on television. SNOOKI PROCREATED. Because her progeny cannot be allowed to roam the earth. And because three years ago we didn’t know what a Snooki was, and now her kid has celebrity status. BURGER KING’S BACON SUNDAE. Because when we’ve reached the point where we are actively seeking out ingenious new ways to fatten our already fat asses, it might be time to call it a day.

BATH SALTS. Because it’s a gateway drug to zombies. ZOMBIES. Because, on that note, we’re pretty sure if the Mayan gods of thunder and fire don’t get us first, they will. Remember the NY cannibal cop? ELMO MIGHT BE A PEDO. Because we just can’t accept that. OREO BOYCOTTS. Because it’s just a cookie, okay, a delicious cookie. And also, can we just get over the gay-as-evil thing already, you yokels? Oh, we can’t? Bring on the gods of thunder and fire. KARDASHIANS. Because.

BABY HASHTAG. Because that shit is ridiculous, okay? And because it makes the name Blue Ivy seem reasonable. It’s not reasonable. BUTT CHUGGING. Because when keg stands and shot-gunning Bud Heavies have become so passé to even our nation’s frat boys that they’re funneling wine up their buttholes, it might be time to close the book on drinking. Forever.

there she bloWs

WHere to go

Blo, 437 Columbus Ave, Boston :: 617.262.0105 or blomedry.com Gust-o, 221 Newbury St, Boston :: 617.927.5451 or gust-o.com Mario Russo, 9 Newbury St, Boston :: 617.424.6676 OR 60 Northern Ave, Boston :: 857.350.3139 :: mariorusso.com

We suspect we’ll learn how to perfectly style our own hair right around the time we grow a third hand. in the meantime, those looking to leave the blowouts to the pros (and/or enjoy a toe-curling scalp massage once in a while — we don’t judge) have a number of new options, now that the dedicated blow-dry bars the West Coast and nyC have had for years are cropping up here. First came the major chain blo, which set up shop in the south end this summer. then this month, just before holiday-party primetime, newbury street got its own scissor-free salon: Gust-o. Joining a sister spot in minneapolis, it offers a menu of 10 styles for $35 a pop, plus add-ons like faux-lash and makeup application. and while it’s not hanging up its shears by any means, local stalwart mario russo is now offering an emergency blowout service, with on-call stylists available for same-day appointments at both locations for $40. in short: it’s now pretty darn easy to get your hair did. _ Ja C qU e liN e H oUt oN

10 12.21.12 :: THEPHOENIX.COm

FIFTY SHADES OF GREY. Because the image of all those repressed housewives creaming their fullcoverage panties over that piece of crap is enough to make us wish for the end of time. On the other hand, at least it got them to . . . read? RIHANNA AND CHRIS BROWN. Because between that shit and Twilight, we’re raising a nation of little girls whose motto is, to quote Florence and the Machine, “a kiss with a fist is better than none.” AMY POEHLER AND WILL ARNETT SPLIT. Because if they can’t make it, none of us can. KATIE HOLMES AND TOM CRUISE SPLIT. HAHAHAHA just kidding. That was good. THE PAUL McCARTNEY/NIRVANA “REUNION.” Because, um, it wasn’t?

Gust-o

by the numbers

Height in feet of this year’s Boston Common Christmas tree, once again donated by Nova Scotia to honor Boston’s 1917 emergency response after a ship explosion in Halifax

1/6

Size of the human genome compared to that of a conifer, which has recently been partially sequenced by teams of US and Canadian scientists

>100 million

Years that the genome of conifers has remained essentially stable, unlike those of flowering plants over the same period

Verbatim

“this holiday season, your gluttonous appetite and lust for malt liquor can actually make a difference.” — DtX restaurant jm Curley’s youtube announcement of its 40-40-40-40-40 Challenge, which tasks diners with consuming 40 ounces of burger, 40 ounces of fries, and 40 ounces of malt liquor within 40 minutes; winners get their meal for free, losers pay $40, and local hunger-relief charity Lovin’ spoonfuls gets a $40 donation either way

now & next :: voices Year in review

It’s AdAm And EvE, not AdAm And scumbAg stEvE: thE YEAr In chrIstIAn mEmEs B y C h r i s Fa r a o n e

c fa r a o n e @ p h x .c o m : : @ fa r a 1

There’s no sacred pasTime

Christ is one of the Web’s favorite punching bags.

that evangelicals haven’t hijacked. From Stryper, to T-shirts that say “Jesus” in the likeness of the Reese’s logo, there’s been no end to their assimilative efforts. So it should be no surprise that, in the age of tweeting popes, religious visionaries have begun to convert memes to Christianity. We’re not talking about the mirthful blasphemy that’s been popular on image boards for years. Take, for example, the Guido Jesus meme, starring a super-jacked Fabio-type creature in a V-neck snapping a selfie, usually accompanied by jokes that hardly qualify as pious propaganda (“BEARS A CROSS / GOOD FOR TRICEPS”; “TURNED WATER / INTO JAGERBOMBS”). In 2012, Christians manifested a wholly new phenomenon by creating their own memeosphere, and by flipping Scumbag Steve and his other advice animal ilk into pro-gospel statements. “Christianity has always been a fertile ground for Internet memes,” says Brad Kim, the editor of Know Your Meme (knowyourmeme.com). At the same time, Kim notes that there are “roadblocks to exploring the subject of Christianity in the context of Internet culture, mainly due to the polarized nature of its audiences and the community bias towards religious-skepticism.” In other words: Christ is one of the Web’s favorite punching bags. That said, this year, the crew behind Christian Memes (christianmemes. com) — a network of blogs and socialmedia sites with more than 50,000 Facebook likes — decided to judo-flip the sacrilege. They don’t outright reject mainstream memes, but in a growing subculture of tubular youth >> Christian memes on p 14

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now & next :: voices

<< Christian memes from p 12

Devout as they are, the Christian Memes team hopes to deliver unto the Web as it has given unto them.

14 12.21.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm

ministers in board shorts and sandals, they knew that wholesome memetic fanfare could catch on with the Christ crowd. “Most memes are hilarious but often feature vulgar and profane themes, as well as derogatory remarks and comments towards Jesus and Christianity,” writes Christian Memes co-founder Michael Schaffer in an email to the Phoenix. “We wanted to give other Christians the opportunity to see memes that are positive towards what we believe for a change.” A lot of Schaffer’s pro-Christ memes are familiar, only with a biblical bent and an intuitively righteous twist. Scumbag Steve becomes a shitty Christian (“ ‘THE STAND’ IS PLAYED DURING WORSHIP / SITS DOWN”); Success Kid has perfect Sunday attendance (“HAVE TO MEMORIZE BIBLE VERSE FOR CHRISTIAN CLASS / ALREADY HAVE IT MEMORIZED”). In the same vein, Xzibit is a shameless proselytizer of recursive religiosity (“YO DAWG I HEARD YOU LIKE FREEDOM / IT IS FOR FREEDOM THAT CHRIST SET US FREE”); Musically Oblivious 8th Grader knows jack about church jams; Overly Attached Girlfriend is nuttier than usual; Good Guy Greg is a convert (“BECOMES A CHRISTIAN / QUITS USING DRUGS”). “The big difference in a lot of our memes is that we have edited versions for our site,” writes Schaffer. “For instance, Good Guy Greg has a candy cane in his mouth [instead of a joint]. We get a lot of hate for our edited memes, but it’s something I feel is appropriate to do, since our main audience is Christians, and above all, God.” Devout as they are, the Christian Memes team hopes to deliver unto the Web as it has given unto them. To that end they’ve birthed Oversaved Oscar, an original effort whose character is crazily ecclesiastical (“GOES TO BIRTHDAY PARTY THAT HAS DEVIL’S FOOD CAKE / REFUSES TO EAT IT.”) It’s not exactly Guido Jesus, but it’s actually quite funny. “We are taking something that is secular and sometimes blasphemous, and using its appeal in a way that gives God glory,” writes Bryan Housley, the Christian Memes webmaster, in an email. Adds Schaffer: “This socialmedia platform has given us the ability to not only show people that Christians aren’t stuck-up humorless freaks, but that we like to have a good time as well.” P

now & next :: voices The Big hurT

The worsT singles of 2012 B y D av iD T ho r p e

dt h o r p e@ p h x .c o m :: @a r r

song called “Mercy” in 2012; it’s the same price, and it’s about getting jerked off in a Lambo.

AlThough 2012 wAsn’T a particularly awful year for music, we still had to contend with a few dozen all-time stinkers. I wish I had room to fully address all the year’s egregious pop crimes — Matchbox Twenty’s “She’s So Mean,” 2 Chainz & Drake’s “No Lie,” Ed Sheeran’s “The A Team” — but I’ll focus my efforts on a few of the very worst.

Second RunneR-up of MonSteRS and Men “LittLe taLkS”

Not only did I always think this was going to be Mighty Mighty Bosstones when it came on the radio, I was always a little disappointed that it wasn’t. What could bring on such a perverse reaction? Well, picture a slightly lamer Icelandic version of Mumford & Sons. Check out how mad you’re getting.

fiRSt RunneR-up dave MatthewS Band, “MeRcy”

Dave Matthews shuffles up to “Mercy” with cap in hand; his voice is soft and humble, like Garrison Keillor singing a self-composed hymn. Dave Matthews has a Message for us. Dave believes deeply 16 12.21.12 :: thephoenix.com/bighurt

Picture a slightly lamer Icelandic version of Mumford & Sons. Check out how mad you’re getting.

that the world’s problems should be fixed. How can we do it? I don’t expect Brookings Institution nuance from my pop songs, but Dave comes at us with a pretty lightweight policy platform. First, stop whining about the world’s problems — uh, check yourself, Matthews — “ ’cause crying won’t save or feed a hungry child.” (Instructions for feeding a hungry child are not included.) Second: big surprise, it’s the ol’ smile-on-your-brother chestnut: “Love is strong, so we got to get together/ till there is no reason to fight.” Hug it out, Syria. Stick around for the aftertaste. Under its false gentleness, this is a haughty, scolding track. “We spend a lot of time bickering at great cost, and very little time actually coming up with solutions,” Matthews told CNN. “And I think that’s sort of pathetic and desperate.” You heard the man. Stop being the problem. Roll up your sleeves and get it done, people. Note to shoppers: if you’re interested in being passive-aggressively blamed for the world’s ills and taken to task for not fixing them, shop carefully. There was another

When we look back on the worst indie pop of 2012, “It’s Time” might not be the first thing that comes to mind — that honor probably goes to Fun.’s “Some Nights,” which was more grating, ridiculous, overplayed, and overpunctuated. But Fun.’s towering terribleness was propped up with idiot pomp and misapplied ambition, and in 10 years we might even look back on “Some Nights” as funny-bad rather than toxically awful (don’t get me wrong: for now, fuck ’em). I don’t think the ages will be as kind to “It’s Time,” with its undisguised Creed video and its nauseating aw-shucks humblebrag chorus (“don’t worry guys, I’ll totally be the same down-to-earth dude when I’m famous”). So-called “indie” acts like Fun., Gotye, Neon Trees, and Mumford & Sons ruled alt-rock radio in 2012, but most had some kernel of not3-Doors-Down-ness to them. Imagine Dragons might just mark the permanent deathblow to the “indie” descriptor. By now, we’ve long accepted that terms like “indie rock” and “indie pop” have nothing to do with record label status. They’re like “punk” and “alternative”: coopted, deprecated, largely meaningless. But Imagine Dragons? Come on. Draw the “indie rock” line somewhere. J Mascis probably rolls in his grave every time someone refers to these Glee-covered, adfunded, Interscope-signed, Alex Da Kid– produced clowns as “indie” anything. (Then he climbs out, wonders why he fell asleep in a grave, and rolls around on the lawn a little.) Every scene, even fake indie, has to have its hangers-on and cashers-in, its various Bushes and Stone Temple Pilotses, but these guys are way past that. Twenty years ago, we’d be embarrassed even to call Imagine Dragons “alternative.” “It’s Time” is thinly disguised mainstream asshole rock, and the alterations required to turn it into a convincing Nickelback song are minimal: deeper voice, slight compression bump, and looser jeans. P

ILLUStratIoN BY codY BoNd

winneR iMagine dRagonS, “it’S tiMe”

now & next :: voices Talking PoliTics

Death knell for the local gop? B y D av iD S. B ern St e i n

d b e r n st e i n @ p h x .c o m :: @ d b e r n st e i n

was viewed favorably by fewer than 40 percent of the district’s voters. Those races have convinced many that even the best candidates, in the best circumstances, cannot overcome the Democratic advantages. More optimistic Republicans blame this year’s results on extraordinary turnout, driven by interest in President Barack Obama and Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren. The 2010 results were similarly ascribed to enthusiasm for Deval Patrick; in 2008 and 2006, it was Obama and Patrick again, respectively. John Kerry’s presidential bid was cited as cause for the GOP’s drubbing in 2004. It’s always going to be something. The coming election cycle will have an open gubernatorial race; in 2016, Democrats will come out strong to choose the next president. Massachusetts Republicans have to figure out how to win over those additional voters, not hope for an election in which they don’t show up.

If Democrats’ stranglehold on the state continues to tighten, we’ll look back at 2012 as the year the MassGOP surrendered.

18 12.21.12 :: thephoenix.com/talkingpolitics

The defeatism within the party suggests that top-flight candidates might be hard to recruit. If so, the Democrats’ stranglehold on the state will only tighten. And we will look back at 2012 as the year the MassGOP surrendered.

No more excuses

There arguably have been worse years for the MassGOP. In November 2010, as the rest of the country ushered Republicans into office, Democrats here swept all the statewide and congressional races. Veterans of the party point to 1986, when they had to nominate George Kariotis for governor in a primary write-in campaign, and he went on to get around 30 percent of the vote against Michael Dukakis. But in 2012, Republicans had a popular incumbent senator, one with a reputation for moderation and independence, seeking re-election. Polls showed that, even by election day, some 55 percent of the electorate approved of the job Brown was doing in office. Yet only 46 percent voted to keep him there. Similarly, Tisei was a solid, moderate candidate polling ahead of Tierney, who

A New philosophy

One huge obstacle in their path is the locally despised national GOP, which has grown ever more conservative and toxic. “The party is paying the price in places like Massachusetts, the Northeast, and California,” Tisei says. “The national brand is really difficult to overcome in this state.” Brown’s claims of moderation and independence, and the age-old mantra of “fiscally conservative, socially moderate,” proved to be insufficient to inoculate local Republicans from the national brand. Tisei says the national GOP needs to change — but that might be a long time coming. What might be needed is for party leaders like Brown and Baker to articulate, in the course of high-profile campaigns, a new governing philosophy that defines today’s Massachusetts Republicans. That’s what Bill Weld did in 1990, in leading the party back from its 1986 nadir. But that can’t happen if those leaders decide not to campaign against what they see as mathematically impossible odds. If that turns out to be the legacy of the 2012 elections, the MassGOP might really be buried for quite some time. P

photo-illustration by k bonami

obiTuaries for the Massachusetts Republican Party have been written many times — I’ve contributed several items to that genre myself. But this year, there’s something different about the postmortems, in the wake of Scott Brown’s eight-point loss for re-election to the US Senate and Richard Tisei’s narrow defeat to Congressman John Tierney. This time, it’s GOP insiders and officeholders in the state suggesting that their cause is hopeless — that their numerical and institutional disadvantages just might mean that they simply cannot win, beyond a small smattering of state legislative districts and countywide lawenforcement positions. Maybe the gloom is a passing phase. “There are glass-half-empty and glass-halffull Republicans in the state,” says Charlie Baker, whose 2010 gubernatorial loss was another tough blow for the party. “Things can change quickly. Nobody expected Notre Dame to win 12 games this year.” It might be telling, however, that Baker sounds less than enthusiastic about committing to a second run for the State House corner office in 2014. “It’s not something I will rule out doing again,” he says.

now & next :: voices @Kadzis

Kevin, we hardly Knew ye B Y PETER KA D ZIS

ThanKs To The initiative of journalismadvocacy group MuckRock, 500 pages of raw and redacted FBI files focusing on allegations of corruption during the 1970s in the administration of the late Boston mayor Kevin White are now available to the public. Globe staffer Peter Schworm wrote the story, stitching together vibrant facts with shadowy allegations, whispered hearsay with official records. It is difficult to recapture the political feel of those days, but Schworm provides a clear picture of low jinks in high places. The White FBI files contain clear suggestions that contracts for municipal waste removal may have been fixed (shock!); that bribes disguised as campaign contributions might have changed hands (horror!!); and that even lowly cops on the beat were subject to petty persecution if they canvassed for candidates seeking to oust the mayor (outrage!!!). The choicest nugget was the news that White facilitated — translation: extorted — a $4.5 million charitable contribution from the insurance giant John Hancock for Boston University.

It’s difficult to recapture the political feel of those days, but the Globe provides a clear picture of low jinks in high places.

Footnote: when White exited the mayoralty, he established himself at BU in a lush suite of offices with a magnificent view of the Charles River. There, he practiced the occult art of acting as a lavishly paid campus Bigfoot and shadowy in-house political fixer. For White, living well was truly the best revenge. Okay, freeze-frame the narrative. It is not that the story as recounted is false. But neither is it precisely true. Context is everything. To understand the truth about the White years, you have to understand that the shenanigans and skullduggery that the FBI shaped into those damning little turdlets were from a long time ago. The action took place in a political galaxy that today is far, far away. Could this happen in the administration of Mayor Thomas Menino? Doubtful. Too much has changed. I’ll concede that White probably pocketed something or gained favor from his mayoralty — most likely from big downtown-real-estatedevelopment deals.

There is, of course, no proof of this. And let’s not forget, that try as the Feds might have to indict White, they never did. No sophisticate would say White was an innocent. But neither can anyone say that White was guilty of anything other than playing the sleazy and hard-nosed game of municipal politics by the rules as they were then understood. Those rules were simple: 1) Don’t be stupid. 2) Don’t get caught. One of the principal cultural differences between then and now is that in the mid20th century, it was almost shameful for a politician to expect campaign contributions from a certain class of person. Rich folks gave to Republicans, trade unions gave to Democrats, and civil servants tithed a portion of their salary to the “outfit” just as Mormons give to their church. Today — for better or for worse — political contributions are merely a business cost. And then there was the practice of awarding no-show jobs, an ancient accommodation whereby someone got a check for doing nothing and kicked some of it back to their political sponsor, who — in turn — kicked some back to their political godfather. Then, two things changed. Beacon Hill reformed procurement practices, making the act of spending tax dollars more expensive, more complicated, and — paradoxically — more transparent. In essence, the paper trail became too long and too elaborate to hide. The cost of a bigger, less efficient bureaucracy was (and is) — presto! — cleaner government. Go figure. The final nail in the coffin of the bad old days was the unionization of about 700 middle-management City Hall jobs that were once political plums, ripe for giving by the mayor. So now, instead of squawking about the corrupt spoils system, we get to whine about unresponsive public-employee unions. Kevin White is chuckling from his grave. P

PETER KADZIS APPEARS ON FOX 25 NEWS Tuesday mornings at 7:50 am and on WGBH’s Boston Public Radio on Fridays at 1:10 pm.

20 12.21.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm

photo: ap/wide world

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now & next :: voices burning questions

how to toke if you’re broke B y Val er ie Va n de Pa nn e

va l e r i e@va l e r i e va n d e pa n n e .c o m :: @a s kt h e d u c h e s s

carrying a sentence of up to five years in state prison. Mike Crawford, a/k/a “Mike Cann,” cohost of unregularradio.com’s show Two Hotheads: Where Activism Happens, says activists do not want people who are healthy being used as poster children by prohibitionists who assert medical marijuana is a sham. However, “the only way to protect yourself is to get a medical card,” Crawford says, recognizing that many recreational users may try to get a medical recommendation. Since neither prohibitionists nor activists want that, he believes the only sensible option is legalization. No one, says Crawford, should go to jail for marijuana. Until it is legalized, remember that simple possession of up to an ounce of marijuana for your personal recreational use is decriminalized in Massachusetts. How will poor people on disability and food stamps, etc., obtain it? — ClaSS ConSCi ouS i n allSton

Welcome to “Burning Questions,” the first in a series devoted to your medicalmarijuana FAQs. I am completely healthy, but where can I get a diagnosis of glaucoma? — S to k ed in S o m e rVi l l e

If you are completely healthy, but seek to get a diagnosis for a serious illness to get a medical-marijuana recommendation, “That’s fraud,” says Joshua Krefetz, attorney with the #mmj-friendly Allston firm Krefetz & Seed. Under the new law, the fraudulent use of a medical-marijuana registration card or cultivation registration is a misdemeanor. If the fraudulent use is for distribution or for-profit sale, and for non-medical use, it’s a felony

Your Massachusetts medicalmarijuana inquiries, answered.

“Patients with demonstrated financial need will have permission to grow enough for their personal medical needs,” explains Matt Allen, executive director of Massachusetts Patient Advocacy Alliance. That sounds good, say activists, but the cost of a doctor’s visit for the recommendation can run about $200. Cultivating a sufficient supply of medical marijuana for yourself can run anywhere from $500 to $1000. For those on a limited income, these costs can be prohibitive. Could the new law make pot cheaper? In Colorado, where hundreds of dispensaries compete in a for-profit system, the market has driven the price down to $15 for an eighth of an ounce of medical marijuana. An ounce can cost as low as $115, about one-fourth of what you’d pay on the Massachusetts black market. But Massachusetts will have a notfor-profit system with a limited number of dispensaries. This will probably encourage prices to stay at the black-

market level. And while pharmaceutical drugs are often covered, at least in part, by insurance plans, medical marijuana at this time is not. Nor is it covered by MassHealth, Medicaid, food stamps, or any other governmentsubsidized program — forcing everyone, including low-income sick people, to pay for it out of pocket. Maine and Rhode Island also have non-profit dispensary systems, and patients and their caregivers have found creative, community-based solutions to the affordability problem. Charles Wynott, of Portland, Maine, is a low-income AIDS patient. He’s spent over a decade helping low-income people in hospice and with AIDS obtain medical marijuana by connecting them with compassionate “caregivers,” who sell their product for $100 to $200 an ounce. Caregivers in Maine can only produce medical marijuana for five patients at a time. Wynott seeks caregivers who will cultivate for one of their five patients at a discount. It’s difficult, he says, because “most of the caregivers want to make money. Hopefully they get satisfaction helping people. It’s a good feeling to know you helped someone who is sick and dying.” Maine’s law requires dispensaries to have a low-income program, but most are selling “low-income” marijuana for $300 an ounce — a price Wynott says is too high. Other activists also assert that Maine dispensaries are failing to provide patients with enough quality medical marijuana at a reasonable price. In Rhode Island, patient and caregiver D.J. Stone explains, there is a group of caregivers who donate to the less fortunate. “I’m sure we don’t reach everyone,” he says, but they do try. “It’s been working well. We even have what’s called a gifting program that’s written into our law, where patients and caregivers can gift medical marijuana to any other patient or caregiver.” This kind of support, he says, is “what it comes down to. One person helping the other. We’ve gotta work together.” P

Got burninG questions of your own? send them to valerie@valerievandepanne.com.

22 12.21.12 :: tHePHoeniX.com

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THEPHOENIX.cOm :: 12.21.12 25

year in review :: film

Cutting edge B y Pet er K eo u gh

p k e o u g h @ p h x .c o m

orture, vengeance, guilt, despair, mental decline, a rough night out — so why do I feel so exhilarated about the 10 best movies of 2012? These brilliant films bring the viewer to the edge, where the view is edifying, and a lot of fun, too.

Moonrise Kingdom

Zero Dark Thirty :: Some have misread this film as an endorsement of torture. Instead, the ambiguity of Kathryn Bigelow’s dense and thrilling account of the CIA search for Osama bin Laden doesn’t offer any ideological shelter during the scenes of “enhanced interrogation.” Jessica Chastain plays the obsessed agent who cracks the case, and her tears at the end aren’t tears of triumph. (Scheduled to open in Boston on January 4.)

Django Unchained :: Quentin Tarantino doesn’t just write history with lightning; he rewrites it. In 1858 Texas the escaped slave of the title becomes a bounty hunter and sets out to free his wife from a plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio). In the process, he pretty much destroys the South before the Civil War even starts. Christoph Waltz as Django’s sardonic mentor is the antithesis of his Nazi in Inglourious Basterds. (See Brett Michel’s review on page 69.)

Holy Motors :: Leos Carax’s first feature-film film since Pola X (1999) follows Mr. Oscar (Denis Lavant) through the nine appointments on his schedule, each involving a different character, scenario, and genre, each bursting into a mini-movie that takes place for cameras that can’t be seen and for an audience that might not be there. Carax and Lavant put on a dazzling tour de force.

Moonrise Kingdom :: Wes Anderson should always make movies featuring 13-year-olds. Like Sam (Jared Gilman), an orphan enduring summer camp in 1965. He’s in love with Suzy (Kara Hayward), but no one approves, so they run away to live happily ever after. This plan also liberates Anderson’s imagination. Beneath the whimsy and paganism, though, lingers a premonition of loss and corruption.

Marina Ambramovic: The Artist Is Present :: Matthew Akers’s documentary opens with a rare conventional

26 12.21.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm

A Simple Life

Bachelorette

movie image: a long close-up of a face. It belongs to the performance artist of the title, who for three months sat in a chair in a MOMA gallery as thousands of visitors, one by one, looked into her eyes. Many wept. The film demonstrates how cinema can make the artist seem present, offering a soul that mirrors one’s own.

A Simple Life :: Hong Kong filmmaker Ann Hui shows the decline of a beloved housekeeper, Ah Tao (Deannie Yip), who is cared for by a family member (Andy Lau) after she suffers a stroke. Hui depicts the passage of time with subtle episodes and draws on emotions without succumbing to sentimentality.

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia :: This team of investigators searching for the grave of a murder victim isn’t CSI: Miami, especially when they try to stuff a too-big body into a toosmall trunk. But as their cars snake through the Anatolian wasteland their search becomes internal, a glimpse into troubled memories. Another masterpiece from Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

The Master :: Set in the post–World War II era, P.T. Anderson’s oblique epic follows the misadventures of Freddie (Joaquin Phoenix), an alcoholic vet who ends up on a yacht with Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the charismatic master of the title, founder of a religion that preaches psychic healing through Scientology-like procedures. Hallucinatory, explosively acted, acutely detailed — is it all a dream?

The Turin Horse :: Legend has it that in Turin, Friedrich Nietzsche embraced a beaten horse and went insane. Bela Tarr picks up the story of the horse, its owner, and his daughter. They live in a farm in the middle of windblown nowhere, and their routines are desperate, banal, and eloquent, elevated to poetry by Tarr’s blackand-white imagery.

Bachelorette :: Three 30-ish high-school classmates played by Kirsten Dunst, Lizzy Caplan, and Isla Fisher celebrate the wedding of a fourth. Sounds familiar, but Leslye Headland’s debut subverts expectations with its honesty. Boasting the best ensemble cast of the year, it’s a party that doesn’t end well, but for this bunch it’s all for the best. F

THEPHOENIX.cOm :: 12.21.12 27

year in review :: games

Thinking man’s acTion b y mit c h kr pata @ m k r pata

t some point, it a stopped being a trend and became the

reality: the most interesting, thought-provoking games aren’t mega-budget retail releases, but smaller downloadable titles. Three of my top five games of 2012 could be had for a low price and a quick download. The Walking Dead (PC, Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network) :: In Telltale Games’ episodic take on the comic by Robert Kirkman, even the simplest choices can have farreaching implications. As an escaped convict attempting to care for an orphaned girl, players are forced into one impossible moral conundrum after another. The gameplay is hardly challenging — its simple puzzles and streamlined action scenes never tax your brain or your reflexes — but The Walking Dead’s ethical quandaries challenge what’s in your heart.

Trials Evolution (Xbox Live Arcade) :: How hard can it be to ride a dirtbike up

a hill? After your 100th failed attempt to clear a near-vertical ramp with a metal pipe sticking out of the top, you’ll know it’s harder than you could ever have imagined — and, somehow, immeasurably more satisfying to accomplish. Spec Ops: The Line (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) :: It looked like a generic military shooter. It played like a generic military shooter. But Spec Ops: The Line thwarted players’ expectations of the genre by delivering a thoughtful, probing story about mission creep and the human costs of war.

ouTside The box

ere are five PC indie games of 2012 that h serve as important counterpoints to the Halos and Mass Effects of the mainstream gaming world.

Hotline Miami :: This top-down 2D shooter by Dennaton Games is more a puzzle than an action game; you’re a hit man who must organize each of his hundreds of kills with calculating precision. The bright neon levels and pumping synth soundtrack draw you in by making murder seem like forgettable fun, but the game soon forces you to notice this unfolding nightmare and its effect on the protagonist’s psyche.

They Bleed Pixels :: Spooky Squid Games’ platformer about a young girl who dreams of growing a pair of claws for hands and slaughtering monsters has a deceptively simple combat system that will delight and frustrate you in turns. It’s a refreshing change to see a young schoolgirl character in a heroic protagonist role, rather than as a damsel in distress.

They Bleed Pixels

Mark of the Ninja (Xbox Live Arcade) :: Klei Entertainment’s downloadable stealth game is a masterwork of interface design. With a streamlined graphical approach to representing sound, movement, and illumination, Mark of the Ninja eliminates the cheapness that often plagues stealthaction games. It’s a gem.

Diablo III (PC) :: About eight hours into Diablo III, I wondered what the big deal was. About 40 hours into it, I began to fear for my marriage, my employment, and my sanity. Blizzard’s action-RPG opus was worth the 12-year wait. P

Thirty Flights of Loving :: This sequel to Blendo Games’ Gravity Bone (2008) is a first-person shooter presented out of order, mostly in flashback, with dreamlike cutscenes interjected amidst the action. It’s short, but each moment feels well placed.

dys4ia :: Anna Anthropy’s stirring narrative of her experiences with undergoing hormone-replacement therapy, as well as with social exclusion and transphobia in her day-to-day life, is structured as a series of short mini-games during which the player will fail again and again, thus experiencing Anthropy’s frustrations.

Howling Dogs :: This interactive fiction game by Porpentine describes the occupant of a futuristic cell-like apartment who owns a virtual reality console and little else. As the protagonist’s life falls into a poverty-stricken shambles, the virtual world becomes the only place that feels real.

_mad d y myers » mmyers@phx.com :: @samus c l on e The Walking Dead

28 12.21.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm

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year in review :: tv

Tv is good for you B y Er ic G o u l d

g o u l d @t v w o rt h watc h i n g .c o m

elevision, far from a vast wasteland these days, is often T a digital cornucopia to be triaged. Our flat-panel age was so jam-packed with quality shows in 2012 that for every

great drama listed here, there were others, like FX’s Justified and HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, right behind. The year produced plenty of non-fiction winners, too, like PBS’s American Masters (with such treasures as The Day Carl Sandburg Died) and Travel Channel’s No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain. But the real test was whether a TV series could, or could not, be missed each week. And these 10 could not.

30 12.21.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm

Call the Midwife (PBS) :: This postwar period drama edged out the more-popular Downton Abbey for its pure heart and charm. Following young midwives working in London’s scruffy East End, Call the Midwife unflinchingly, and with emotional depth, delivered the joys, and bodily fluids, of childbirth.

Mad Men (AMC) :: Just when you thought this series might have run out of steam, it came back with its strongest season ever. The Mad Men writers and directors are just too good, exquisitely crafting each episode like its own short film. It’s television production at its highest, most artistic level.

mad men photo by Frank ockenFels/amc

Mad Men

Girls

Louie (FX) :: Writer, director, and actor Louis C.K. has taken the half-hour sitcom and reshaped it into something all his own: a mundane, Kafkaesque world that lurches with hilarious surprise collisions — much like the improv-jazz soundtrack underneath it. The late-season trilogy, gueststarring director David Lynch, was creepy and utterly genius: it’s “The Crying Cleaning Lady Show”!

Breaking Bad (AMC) :: The TV tale of high-school chemistry teacher Walter White’s descent into hardcore crime, when it finishes next summer, will stand as one of the bestscripted series ever. This season did not match some of its earlier triumphs, but we’re quibbling over shades of brilliance here.

Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO) :: For pure wit and instinct on live television throughout the election season, Maher was the best chaperone for liberals. He’s the heir to Dick Cavett’s suave, intellectual latenight legacy, but with the mouth of a 21st-century trucker.

Girls (HBO) :: The media hype and hate in advance of this show was unprecedented, almost poisoning the well before anyone took a drink. Breakout auteur Lena Dunham did not disappoint. Her series about youths at the mercy of their own irony and self-reference took several inventive turns, and Girls was squirmy-funny-smart all the way through.

Awake (NBC) :: This high-concept drama about a detective caught between two ap-

parent realities — he can’t tell which is real and which is a dream — was riveting. Of course, NBC rewarded me, and a rabid, enthusiastic (read: small) audience, by canceling it. Hell on Wheels (AMC) :: This period drama about the construction of the transcontinental railroad in the 1860s achieved something unusual, and difficult: a second season that far exceeded its first. It made American history current, and Christopher Heyerdahl, über-icky as “The Swede,” made a villain of biblical proportions.

Inside Comedy (Showtime) :: Director and longtime stand-up veteran David Steinberg hosted this interview series with new and old-school comics, including Don Rickles, Chris Rock, and Sarah Silverman. Steinberg’s sly, understated style gave us a brilliant glimpse into comedy minds put on the spot, and artists at the top of the heap.

Family Guy (Fox) :: While adult cartoons like The Ricky Gervais Show and FX’s Archer often came close to being as vital and irreverent as Seth MacFarlane’s mainstay, Family Guy continued to be reliably one step ahead. And it has a talking dog. P

Family Guy THEPHOENIX.cOm :: 12.21.12 31

year in review :: art

SandcaStleS and SunSpotS B y Gr eG C o o k

g r e g c o o k l a n d.c o m /j o u r n a l

t was a year of bracing histories — ’60s assassinations, ’80s pandemics, and four decades of hubris in Iraq. But 2012’s best art wasn’t all bad news. Brandeis University revived its Rose Art Museum. And a sunny new mural became a beacon in the heart of the city — and a benchmark for what art in Boston can achieve.

Ori Gersht, Pomegranate

(through January 10) tells the story of Western architects’ attempts to modernize Baghdad. Plans and models offer rueful lessons in optimism, hubris, and business. “This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s” :: Curator Helen Molesworth’s revisionist history of 1980s art, at the Institute of Contemporary Art (through March 3), argues that the Reagan-Thatcher greed-isgood decade was all about feminism and AIDS. The art is a requiem for liberal losses and oh-so-many dead.

Cristi Rinklin :: Last summer, Rinklin covered windows at the Currier Museum of Art with a 20-foot-wide cartoon of taffy clouds, stark moun-

Walter Gropius, University of Baghdad Campus, from “City of Mirages”

Os Gêmeos :: Was the technicolor giant that the Brazilian street-art twins Os Gêmeos painted at Dewey Square last summer just your friendly neighborhood graffiti kid or, as Fox friends suggested, a terrorist? A little from column A and a little from column B. The cheekily ambiguous mural flooded the site of the 2011 Occupy encampment with sunny delight. It’s the best large-scale public art in Boston in decades. It has permission to be there for a year and a half. Email the mayor (mayor@cityofboston.gov) and demand it live forever.

“Kennedy to Kent State” :: This photo show at the Worcester Art Museum (through February 3) is a riveting blow-by-blow account of how utopian 1960s dreams came undone between the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the resignation of Richard Nixon.

32 12.21.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm

Ori Gersht :: Israeli artist Gersht’s striking videos of exploding old-master still lifes in “History Repeating” at the Museum of Fine Arts (through January 6) reverberate with the posttraumatic stress of the Holocaust and Israel’s subsequent wars.

“Oh, Canada” :: Curator Denise Markonish spent three years crisscrossing Canada to reveal a whole nation (incredibly) off the American art world’s radar, except for the occasional Vancouver photographer. “Oh, Canada” at MASS MoCA (through April 1) shows what we’re missing: visionary spectacles like Shary Boyle’s naked spider-woman disappearing into a midnight web.

“City of Mirages: Baghdad 1952–1982” :: This exhibit at BSA Space

tains, and swooping rivers. The sun glowing through it boosted the stellar painting the Bostonian has been doing in recent years to a new wattage. “American Vanguards” :: This show at Phillips Academy’s Addison Gallery of American Art (through December 30) detailed how a handful of friends in New York in the 1930s birthed what would become known as Abstract Expressionism and made the Big Apple the center of the Western art world (with some help from summers in Massachusetts). One takeaway: Willem de Kooning’s paintings dripped with sensuality from the start.

Nancy Holt :: The 1970s Earthworks movement is associated with big boys

os gemeos photo by geoff hargadon

Os Gêmeos

wielding big tools. “Sight Lines” at the Tufts University Art Gallery last spring showed how Nancy Holt, whose Sun Tunnels in the Utah desert is a sort of construction-site Stonehenge, could play with heavy machinery with the best of them. “THe IVeNTION Of GLORy” :: “The Invention of Glory” at the Peabody Essex Museum (through December 31) imports four giant 15th-century tapestries propagandizing a Portuguese king’s con-

quest of the region known today as Morocco. They’re a breathtaking history lesson via a Renaissance version of a cast-of-thousands Hollywood spectacular. For the Peabody Essex in 2012, it was excellent business as usual — with Jerry Uelsmann’s photo fantasies, contemporary Native American “Shapeshifting,” frothy “Hats,” and a comprehensive (if somewhat off base) roundup of Ansel Adams’s water works. No museum in the region is more entertaining, edifying, and entrancing. p

THEPHOENIX.cOm :: 12.21.12 33

year in review :: books

Brilliant friends B y Eu g En ia W il l i a m s o n

ou already know Chis Ware’s Building Stories is the achievement of the decade (thanks, New York Times!), but some other people wrote some pretty great books this year too.

Detroit City Is the Place To Be: The Afterlife of an American Metropolis by Mark Binelli [Metropolitan Books] :: Any city whose postapocalyptic ruins lend themselves to misery tours and RoboCop sets seems hopeless. But Detroit native Mark Binelli — author of the excellent novel Sacco and Vanzetti Must Die! — makes a compelling, darkly funny case that his calamitous hometown has some life in it still.

Familiar by J. Robert Lennon [Graywolf ] :: The plot kicks off when the protagonist slips through a crack in the space-time continuum. By the time the reader is through, she’ll feel like she has too. Lennon has rendered a magically compulsive and brilliant novel that combines elements of speculative fiction, postmodern zaniness, psychological realism, and the social novel — it’s nothing less than miraculous.

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante [Europa Editions] :: Each of Elena Ferrante’s novels has the ability to pummel the reader into a sublime despond. My Brilliant Friend, an allegory of postwar Italy, is no exception, but its sumptuous depictions of ’50s Neapolitan village life provide a unique and glorious respite from complete devastation.

The Vanishers by Heidi Julavits [Doubleday] :: While serving as editor of The Believer, Heidi Julavits has managed to crank out incredibly smart and disquieting books every few years. The Vanishers, her latest novel — and her most accessible to date — is set at a college

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for psychics; it offers a half-surreal meditation on female friendship and feminism’s ritual matricide. How To Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran [Harper Perennial] :: The unsparing honesty and infectious ebullience with which British journalist Catlin Moran approaches her personal account of why feminism matters seems lacking Stateside, with a few notable exceptions. (Confidential to Lindy West: write a book already.) How To Be a Woman should be compulsory reading for teenage girls.

Triburbia by Karl Taro Greenfeld [Harper] :: A novel about Tribeca’s moneyed hipsters has a strong likelihood of being excruciating. Against all odds, Triburbia is anything but. Instead, it’s an incisive,

moving, and very funny take on how even Manhattanites can be provincial as all get-out. A bonus: Greenfeld writes like Jonathan Franzen without all the painful riffs. Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American Masterpiece by Michael Gorra [Liveright] :: Heavenly as it is, The Portrait of a Lady did not emerge fully formed from another, higher plane. Scholar Michael Gorra recreates the life of Henry James as he wrote the novel, interspersing biographical details with a close reading of the text. As painstakingly thorough as Gorra gets, his writing — like his source material — is pure delight.

The Lifespan of a Fact by John D’Agata and Jim Fingal [W.W. Norton] :: When this back-and-forth between journalist and fact-checker debuted in January, critics were captivated by the unlikeliness of its readability and the elegant way it presented the complex relationship nonfiction writers have with

the truth. None could have guessed how timely it would prove, except perhaps Mike Daisey and Jonah Lehrer. Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple [Little, Brown and Company] :: Seattle residents unable to distinguish between author and work were upset by the protagonist of this epistolary novel, one Bernadette Fox, an architect who finds the city a crunchy hellhole filled with invasive social climbers. But readers with a sense of self-awareness will delight in this madcap send-up of corporate culture and competitive parenting.

Too Good To Be True: A Memoir by Benjamin Anastas [New Harvest] :: Most people resent Ivy League grads who publish a critically acclaimed novel by age 30, and most will relish the gory details of one’s complete derailment. Benjamin Anastas provides just that in his first memoir, saving the reader from hollow schadenfreude with funny, excoriating descriptions of the middle-class Brooklyn life just out of his reach. P

year in review :: dance

Outer mOves, inner beauty B y D eB r a C a sh

ere, in no particular H order, are some of the highlights of the year

Whitney Jensen

in Boston dance.

Monica Bill Barnes & Company :: Take Sinatra and Otis Redding, baton twirling, a troupe of plucky, gifted ladies, and stir. Philosophystudent-turned-choreographer Barnes, who came to the ICA in June, puts humane humor at the center of seriously well-crafted dance entertainment.

Robert Battle at Harvard :: He’s running the first dance company he ever saw — Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater — and could afford pretentions, but Robert Battle’s bashful tale of how he finally, finally, got hired by then-artistic director Judith Jamison was intimate, eye-opening, and full of selfdeprecating humor. Asked by Harvard dance director Jill Johnson to identify the characteristic he most dislikes in others, he thought for a moment and answered, “Apathy.”

Anna Myer and Dancers’ Hoop Suite :: In bringing the classical musicians, dancers, and young rap poets of her Hoop Suite into the open air of a public-housing basketball court in Charlestown, Anna

36 12.21.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm

Lar Lubovitch, and Gus Solomons Jr. demonstrating how much dancing men have achieved since the days of Pillow founder Ted Shawn.

Green Street Studios 20th Anniversary Gala :: A community is only as vibrant as its members, but for dance, the space to create that community is indispensible. With visiting friends like David Parker joining local dance makers and performers, this event underlined the fact that despite its underdog status and a chronic scarcity of financial resources, Boston’s independent dance community remains lively.

Lar Lubovitch :: The path-breaking minimalism of North Star no longer seems new, but in his recent The Legend of Ten, Lubovitch is still able to summon a painterly panorama, while Crisis Variations’ tableaux of disaster are studded with moments of beauty. At 69, Lubovitch, who brought his troupe to a Celebrity Series event in October, continues to produce at the top of his game.

The Men Dancers: From the Horse’s Mouth at Jacob’s Pillow :: The recipe is simple: a brief personal story, a structured improvisation, a diagonal sashay through a stream of light. But this exclusive, all-male edition of Tina Croll and Jamie Cunningham’s long running oral history extravaganza featured elder statesmen Arthur Mitchell,

Kyle Abraham :: The most celebrated dance maker of recent years, Kyle Abraham, brought his company, Abraham. In.Motion, to Boston for the first time, performing The Radio Show (at the ICA, presented by CrashARTS). The piece mourns the loss of two voices: the choreographer’s father, stricken with aphasia and Alzheimer’s disease, and a radio station

that offered entertainment, counsel, and shared identity to Pittsburgh’s African-American community. In Abraham’s work, the decorum of ballet and the heft of hip-hop meet as equals, and it looked almost as gorgeous on his dancers as it does on the man himself. Whitney Jensen in Rooster at Boston Ballet :: She’s always a ray of sunshine in her roles, but in the luxuriant moves of her solo to the Rolling Stones’ “Ruby Tuesday,” Whitney Jensen suggested an inner life to match her fluent, exterior beauty.

Mikko Nissinen’s Nutcracker at Boston Ballet :: The Swarovskicrystal-laden tutus may be over the top, but Boston Ballet’s investment in a refreshed Nutcracker will bring visions of sugarplums to a new generation, with an 1820s setting that does not insult anyone’s intelligence and authentic dance challenges for the company’s roster of distinguished technicians. P

photo by Rosalie o’ConnoR

John Carrafa and Erin Gottwald’s Dance House at Green Street Studios :: John Carrafa stopped dancing for Twyla Tharp 25 years ago, and went on to choreograph for television and films and to be nominated twice for Tonys. But when he and former Digby Dance member Erin Gottwald developed eight bopping side-by-side duets, they decided to debut them in front of an informal audience. No costumes. No lights. All terrific energy and connection.

Myer demonstrated how dance can go beyond theatrical footlights to offer a sense of recognition, mutual respect, and healing.

year in review :: theater

Stage worthieS B Y C A R O LYN C L AY

Ted Hughes’ Tales from Ovid [Whistler in the Dark, presented by ArtsEmerson] :: In this carnal, lyrical plunge into the primal, an acrobatic ensemble of five, under the focused direction of Meg Taintor, climbed, dangled, and tangled among a quartet of silk skeins hung from the rafters while at the same time delivering the muscular, nature-infused verse culled by Hughes from Ovid’s mythological tales.

ith the addition of ArtsEmerson to a lively array of hometown players, the Boston Rialto has seen an embarrassment of riches. The following embarrassments are listed in chronological order.

Red [SpeakEasy Stage Company] :: Thomas Derrah was a paint-spattered Vesuvius of anger and pontification as Mark Rothko in John Logan’s Tony-winning evocation of the volcanic abstract expressionist. David R. Gammons was at the helm of the bristling production, which started SpeakEasy on a roll that went on to include Next to Normal and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson.

Long Day’s Journey into Night [New Repertory Theatre] :: Karen MacDonald and Will Lyman continued their joint assault on 20th-century American classics, turning in friskily romantic yet heartrending performances as James and Mary Tyrone in Eugene O’Neill’s emotional marathon of an autobiographical drama. Scott Edmiston directed the aptly ghostly production.

Avenue Q [Lyric Stage Company of Boston] :: Kevin Clash’s recent travails notwithstanding, who can resist this adults-only Sesame Street in which sweet candor and anxiety about the future are filtered through upbeat ditties, life lessons, and hot puppet sex? Spiro Veloudos’s production fielded actor/singers in perfect synch with the fur-and-felt characters they animated.

the National Union of Mineworkers strike as weave them together into a thrilling, abrasive braid. ‘Master Harold’ . . . and the Boys [Gloucester Stage Company] :: Director Benny Sato Ambush hurled the autobiographical Molotov cocktail that is Athol Fugard’s 1982 drama with both tenderness and ferocity, and the cast — Johnny Lee Davenport, Anthony Willis Jr., and Peter Mark Kendall — proved as explosive as the play.

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity [Company One] :: Set in the hyperbolic, hate-mongering world of pro wrestling, Kristoffer Diaz’s Obie-winning allegory lampoons that choreographed combination of melodrama, spectacle, and sport even as it demonstrates its body-slamming effectiveness. And Shawn LaCount’s staging,

Betrayal [Huntington Theatre Company] :: Maria Aitkin helmed this delicate and perceptive revival of Harold Pinter’s 1978 dissection of a love affair, which illustrates the ameliorative tricks of memory by moving in reverse. A final visual coup suggested not just that memory is illusion but that the shifting sands of power and duplicity were all underfoot from the beginning.

Long Day’s Journey into Night

with his combat as well as thespian chops, was as entertaining a smackdown as the play. Marie Antoinette [American Repertory Theater] :: David Adjmi’s mash-up of satire and sympathy centered on the famously icecream-coiffed proponent of cake may not be profound, but it sure is pertinent. And Rebecca Taichman’s droll, boogying staging was splendid to look at.

Our Town [Huntington Theatre Company] :: David Cromer’s much-lauded intimate staging lives up to its hype, giving off a smell as astringent as it is sweet and serving up a third-act surprise that drives home how less than vividly we see our lives. P

Marie Antoinette

Billy Elliott the Musical [Broadway in Boston] :: If I’m going to be emotionally manipulated, I prefer that it be done as skillfully as it was by the Tony-winning musical based on the Brit film about an adolescent allowed to dance his way out of a dying coal-mining town circa 1985. The Stephen Daldry–directed production did not so much juxtapose Billy’s story with documentation of

THEPHOENIX.cOm :: 12.21.12 37

year in review :: classical

Heat and ligHt B y L Loyd Sc hwa rt z

oston has too much B music on the highest level for one listener to

Vladimir Jurowski

hear everything. So here are my top choices from among the performances I was able to attend.

Best opera production :: Peter Maxwell Davies’s The Lighthouse (Boston Lyric Opera). Horror story? Religious mystery? Staged at the JFK Library (with its real lighthouse) by Tim Albery, conducted by David Angus, designed by Canadian installation artist Camellia Koo, spectacularly lit by Thomas Hase, and superbly sung, this was probably the BLO’s all-time best production. Terrifying. Unforgettable.

Most inspired programming :: Composer/conductor/virtuoso pianist Thomas Adès returned to lead the BSO, soprano Dawn Upshaw, and pianist Kirill Gerstein in a life-affirming program of Sibelius, Prokofiev, and Adès’s own In Seven Days, evoking the Creation and its aftermath.

Best revival :: The late composer Leon Kirchner’s opera Lily , based on Saul Bellow’s Henderson the Rain King, was a New York City Opera disaster in

The Lighthouse

1977. But Kirchner’s own abbreviated chamber version at the New England Conservatory, with its original soprano, Diana Hoagland, still in glorious voice, made a powerful impression and cried out for a full revival. Best new group :: Conductor Benjamin Zander’s new orchestra, the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, made its impressive debut at Symphony Hall with technically superlative, sonically magnificent, and musically satisfying performances by 117 very grown-up players between the ages of 12 and 21. A most rewarding addition to the classical community.

Best vocal performance (three-way tie) :: This award has to be shared by

three dazzling and expressive sopranos: Deborah van Renterghem, for her hair-raising wannabe empress in Emmanuel Music’s exciting concert version of Mozart’s last opera, La clemenza di Tito; Russian soprano Olga Peretyatko, for her exquisite lead in the BSO’s marvelous concert version of Stravinsky’s early fairytale opera The Nightingale (she also sparkled as Fire in Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges, the second half of that magical double bill of one-acts); and Amanda Forsythe, for her witty, charming, and touching embodiment of the title role in Boston Baroque’s superb semi-staged version of Handel’s Partenope. Best piano playing :: The Rivers School Chopin Symposium re-created a fascinating concert Chopin himself organized in 1842, and playing what Chopin played, Rivers artist-inresidence Roberto Poli conveyed the composer’s spontaneity, brilliance, warmth, playfulness, mysterious depth, and singing tone.

Best new work (Another tie) :: At the BSO, David Zinman stepped in for James Levine to lead John Harbison’s haunting Sixth Symphony, with eloquent Irish mezzo-soprano

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Paula Murrihy singing James Wright’s poem “Entering the Temple in Nimes.” And Winsor Music premiered the scintillating and inward-turning new Oboe Quartet by 30-year-old Scottish composer Helen Grime, whom Harbison brought to Tanglewood as a 2008 composition fellow. The extraordinary oboist was, of course, Grime’s commissioner, Peggy Pearson. Most fun :: Boston Conservatory has the city’s best music-theater program, and its production of Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock’s 1966 minor Broadway hit, The Apple Tree, wonderfully cast with the stars of tomorrow, was the year’s most thoroughly entertaining event.

Greatest loss :: Elliott Carter, America’s most profound classical composer, died a month before his 104th birthday, having worked with full creative power up until the very end. Happily, there are still major works that haven’t yet been performed (including a Wallace Stevens cycle commissioned by James Levine), but it’s heartbreaking that there’ll never be another new piece, especially the setting of Sappho he was eagerly contemplating. P

Jurowski photo by romanGontcharov.tif

Best orchestral performance :: Russian conductor Vladimir Jurowski and the Boston Symphony Orchestra at its peak offered an overwhelming version of Shostakovich’s powerful but rarely performed Fourth Symphony.

year in review :: jazz

Head turners B y J o n G a r el ick

j g a r e l i c k@ p h x .c o m

n a year in which WGBH-FM gutted its jazz programming Iat the and the Atlantic took the predictable broadside swipe health of the genre, there were signs of vibrant life

Mary Halvorson

everywhere. Here’s a chronological sampling.

Ed Reed :: The then-82year-old Bay Area singer, ex-con, and drug counselor came to Scullers in January after the release of his latest disc, Born To Be Blue (Blue Shorts Records). He sang every lyric as though he was living it — as he once was.

Jason Moran, “In My Mind” :: The pianist and composer’s reflection on Thelonious Monk’s historic 1959 Town Hall concert is a 90-minute multimedia extravaganza that possibly suffers from conceptual overload, but at Jordan Hall in February, with Moran’s trio, the Bandwagon, and an NEC horn section, what emerged was a moving double portrait of Moran and Monk.

Robert Pinsky and Laurence Hobgood’s PoemJazz :: I’m always made apprehensive by the corny postbeatnik proposition “jazz poetry,” but former US poet laureate Pinsky and pianist Hobgood (who is also Kurt Elling’s musical direct) made it work both on disc and at the Regattabar back in February.

Robert Glasper :: Pianistcomposer Glasper’s highly touted Black Radio (Blue Note) sounded to me like middle-ofthe-road contemporary R&B (with the requisite guest-star vocalists), but his show at the Regattabar in March was another thing entirely: a sick mingling of the rhythms of the late J Dilla with a terrific electric-jazz band that included saxophonist/vocalist Casey

Benjamin, bassist Derrick Hodge, and drummer Mark Colenburg (in for Chris Dave).

apologies to those expecting faithful covers). Would Kate have had it any other way?

The Fringe :: Boston’s great free-jazz trio, saxophonist George Garzone, bassist John Lockwood, and drummer Bob Gullotti, celebrated 40 years as a working band — with only one change of personnel (they gave a shout-out to original bassist Rich Appleman). The show at the Boston Conservatory Theater in May was yet another demonstration of their mastery and daring.

Kat Edmonson :: Edmonson’s gamine appearance and small, Blossom Dearie– like voice are deceptive — on Way Down Low (MRI) and in her appearance at Scullers in July, she showed how big and deep her music really is.

Mary Halvorson :: Probably no one is getting more mysterious, exciting sounds out of a guitar than the Brooklineraised Halvorson. She and her quintet released Bending Bridges (Firehouse 12) and played the Lily Pad at the beginning of June (on a bill with her mentor, Joe Morris). She returned with Taylor Ho Bynum’s sextet to Johnny D’s in September.

Robert Glasper

Theo Bleckmann :: The German-born visionary singer took on the daunting task of reinterpreting Kate Bush with his album Hello Earth! (Winter & Winter) and played a great show at the Regattabar in June (with

Michael Formanek Quartet :: The go-to New York bassist released a new album, Small Places (ECM), and played a show with his band (alto saxophonist Tim Berne, pianist Craig Taborn, and drummer Gerald Cleaver) at the Regattabar in October that offered a profound take on the balance between exquisitely written “open” compositions and hell-for-leather free blowing.

Rabbit Rabbit :: The duo of Tin Hat violinist/singer/ composer Carla Kihlstedt (now at New England Conservatory) and multi-instrumentalist and singer Matthias Bossi crossed all kinds of lines — jazz, folk, world — in a thrilling show at the Regattabar in October with the help of their friend Jon Evans on bass and guitars. P

THEPHOENIX.cOm :: 12.21.12 39

year in review :: national PoP

DESCENDING INTO MADNESS b y D A N IEL bR O C K M A N d b r o c k m a n @ p h x .c o m

et’s see: harvests are deteriorating, polar icecaps are melting, eternal global war is a way of life, and people seem to think that Japandroids are the future of rock. That’s right, all signs of imminent societal collapse. Here’s a tour through the accelerating descent through song into madness that was 2012.

PUSSY RIOT, “Панк-

молебен :Богородица, Путина прогони” :: Forget

recordings and tours — the most potent moment of pure rock in 2012 was a blurry YouTube clip of a protest poem performed in a Russian Orthodox church. The Riot crew did more than just get the Grey Lady to print the word “pussy” — they mainstreamed fist-in-the-air revolution and displayed a going-to-prison-foryour-ideals fearlessness.

DEATH GRIPS, “Bass Rattle Stars Out the Sky” :: Whether you think they self-destructed or hit their stride, there’s no dispute that Death Grips were the most fascinating musical unit of the year. Leaking their own album, getting themselves dropped by their label, and, oh right, filling two whole albums with righteous anger and pounding-yet-vaguelynew-wave-ish tunesmithery — DG definitely #DGAF.

LANA DEL REY, “Ride” :: “Video Games” introduced LDR as a vulnerable ingénue, ready to wilt at the bright lights and ensuing criticism. But her powerhouse Born To Die (Interscope) showed a formidable artiste with a vision of 21st-century pop stardom to match the hype.

NICKI MINAJ, “Pound the Alarm” :: “Bottle, sip, bottle, guzzle, I’m a bad bitch, no muzzle”: in 2012, Minaj took her guest-rap bona fides and parlayed them into chart gold via a mix of strange-qua-strange and adrenalized ’90s-rave. “Pound the Alarm” and megasmash “Starships” proved that Minaj has the pop goods to effectively peddle her weirdness to the masses.

Death Grips

GRIMES, “Genesis” :: In this age of austerity, Claire Boucher may be the future of bands: one woman, some samplers and synths, and an impeccable ear for both the weird and the catchy. Visions (Arbutus) is the sound of tomorrow’s sci-fi pop/R&B today, put together low-budget with style and heart to spare.

FRANK OCEAN, “Pyramids” :: Bucking the 2012 trend of minimalist R&B is this towering epic that reaches Cecil B. DeMille levels of lavish and bizarre allusions: “Set the cheetahs loose/They have taken Cleopatra,” Ocean’s patient loverman gently croons, amidst Prince idolatry and a fucking John Mayer guitar solo.

BLACK BREATH, “Endless Corpse” :: Amid a sea of unmemorable sludge emperors, metal was kept interesting in 2012 primarily by bands who displayed a debt to hardcore. A prime example is the bruising punch of Black Breath,

Nicki Minaj

40 12.21.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm

Grimes

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who mixed scythe-against-pavement guitar screech and ’70s-horror-movie spine-tingle to produce a potent and pissed-off screed. AMANDA PALMER, “Do It With a Rockstar” :: Palmer’s 2012 will be a case study in MBA courses for decades, what with managing to extract a million-and-change from her following sans industry assistance — waving her outside-of-society freak flag, she used those e-bucks to fashion a glob of pure glam theater-rock more potent and vital than anything she has done before.

grimes photo by tommy chaseLucas

TAYLOR SWIFT, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”

:: It’s official: the war between pop and indie is so on. Ostensibly a breakup ode, this juggernaut single is a potent backhand smack at Indieboy Nation and a sassy rejoinder to those who scoff at the recent pop renaissance that will someday come to define the current musical era. BRUNO MARS, “Locked Out of Heaven” :: Mars and his crew, sneaking into the Temple of Carnality whilst pilfering several key ’80s Police hits in the process, hit pop paydirt here from the first snare hit — catchy enough to have eight-year-olds humming “Your sex brings me to paradise,” so good that their parents are too busy snapping their fingers to care. P

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THEPHOENIX.cOm :: 12.21.12 41

year in review :: local pop

MASS APPEAL B y MIC HA EL MARO T TA m i c h a e l@ p h x .c o m

ew records from Amanda Palmer, Converge, Mission of Burma, and Passion Pit gave Boston a steady (inter) national presence in 2012. But as usual, the best music from our city was cultivated within the clubs of Cambridge, Allston DIY spaces, squares of Somerville, and way down the ’Pike in Western Mass. Gone are the days when our music scene hoped those outside the community would pay attention to what’s going on here — if the rest of the county isn’t listening, it’s no fault of ours. Here are 10 reasons why, presented in no particular order.

Caspian

Autochrome :: Separation Realms [selfreleased] :: The sudden hiatus of this icy post-punk quartet was as abrupt as it was disappointing. But in their two years together, Autochrome left a wonderfully claustrophobic record ripped straight from the smoky UK lounges of 1982. Top track: “100 Series.”

Potty Mouth

Caspian :: Waking S eason [Triple Crown Records] :: In August the Beverly post-rock veterans invited fans to T.T.’s for a listening party, then rewarded the 100 people vibing in the dark to the recorded version of Waking Season with a surprise gig that took the album’s lush, hypnotic aura to another level. Several world tours later, Caspian are continually one of Boston’s most overlooked treasures. Top track: “Halls of the Summer.”

Fat Creeps :: Fat Creeps [self-release] :: The trio’s late-2011 debut single “Nancy Drew” was an aural morning of ennui packaged in lo-fi garage-pop, and it was the perfect primer for the North Shore co-eds’ August EP, carried by the ocean-strum cautionary tale of “Leave Her Alone,” one of the best tracks of 2012. Primed for a huge breakout in 2013. Top Track: “Leave Her Alone.”

Grand Resort :: Vanguard Dreams [self-released] :: Andres Pichardo crafted his C86-inspired jangle-pop sound by himself while studying at New England Institute of Art, but now the Dominican native calls Brooklyn home. What he created here was a

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Infinity Girl :: Stop Being On My Side [self-release] :: Four unassuming dudes living in Central Square come together to create a thunderous, neoshoegaze record that seduces with noise, reverb, and startling polish. Few bands sling such ferocious noise with such ease. Top track: “Please Forget.”

Mean Creek :: Youth Companion [Old Flame Records]:: They twice toured the country with Counting Crows, but still were able to capture the sound of Boston with Youth Companion, a gutsy, rolled-up-sleeve collection of indie anthems. As impassioned a rock band as we’ll ever get. Top track: “Do You Know?”

Infinity Girl

Mellow Bravo :: Mellow Bravo [Small Stone Recordings] :: Brash, bluesy, Boston. Bravo’s sophomore record is another barroom brawl through Somerville back-alleys. There’s always room in Boston for an old-fashioned no-bullshit rock-and-roll band. Top track: “Where the Bodies Lay.”

Potty Mouth :: Sun Damage [Feeble Minds/ Ride The Snake/Puzzle Pieces] :: The debut 12-inch EP from this Northampton garage-rock quartet is so good, three record labels released it in July. Girl-gang vocals, ’90s guitar-rock harmony vibes, and an abrasively smooth collection of songs impossible to get out of your head. Top track: “Dog Song.”

Speedy Ortiz :: Sports [Exploding In Sound] :: In 2013, Western Mass could be the new Brooklyn, and leading bands like Psychic Blood, California X, and Bunny’s a Swine is Northampton’s Speedy Ortiz, a sludgy, noisy post-grunge guitarrock outfit led by the brash lyricism of Sadie Dupuis. Top track: “Silver Spring.”

RIBS :: Russian Blood [self-released] :: Rock Act of the Year in the 2012 Boston Music Awards, RIBS are as experimental as they are explosive, developing a meticulous sound of arena-charged power-rock that combines sonic theatrics, industrial precision, and sky-high riffage in one post-apocalyptic rock-and-roll time bomb. Top track: “Alarms.” P

potty mouth photo by ali Donoghue

washed-out sun-shower of blissful pop. Top track: “Microscopic.”

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year in review :: overlooked rock & pop

Ten under The radar b y L IZ PEL Ly

l p e l ly@ p h x .c o m

ear-end lists are so often are based solely on the Y records that received the most press. Here’s a look beyond the major-indie PR bubble at some of the year’s best underground sounds and DIY label releases.

Hear Hums, Opens [Inner Islands] :: Gainesville duo Mitch Myers and Kenzie Cook’s 2012 atmospheric recording of bright minimal psychedelia is mesmerizing: soft guitar hums, floating chants, chirpy percussion. Ethereal drone elements and folksy found sounds make each track blend into the next.

TOPS, Tender Opposites [Arbutus Records] :: Montreal’s underground produced the most interesting new music this year (Grimes, Doldrums, Majical Cloudz), but this LP by TOPS is perhaps the most essential and painfully overlooked. “Turn Your Love Around” and “Go Away” are two of the best avant-pop jams of the year.

Pegasvs, Pegasvs [Canada Records] :: The debut record by a Barcelona dream-pop duo I caught at Primavera Sound festival this year. Producer Sergio Perez and singer Luciana Della Villa started playing together in 2010 after years of playing in various psychedelic and pop bands in Spain. Their lyrics are all sung in Spanish, but the strength of their synth-anddrum shoegaze translates, regardless.

Pegasvs

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Start with “La Melodia del Afilador” or “Brillar.” Hysterics, Hysterics [M’Lady’s Records] :: When both Kathleen Hanna and Calvin Johnson have namedropped a young hardcore band in interviews, you know they are worth checking out. This summer I decided to catch a show by Olympia’s Hysterics at a practice space in Allston, and, as it turns out, Kathleen and Calvin know what’s up. The fiery shouts and ear-splitting riffs on Hysterics’s debut EP make for some of the year’s most urgent punk songs.

Sourpatch, Stagger & Fade [Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records] :: A true DIY gem full of feminist dream-pop of the West Coast variety. Fans of Black Tambourine and Velocity Girl will wonder how it possibly took them so long to find these songs.

Happy Jawbone Family Band, The Silk Pistol [Night People] :: Happy Jawbone might be the best band in New England. A long-time favorite among Boston’s basement showgoers, this year the always-excellent

Waxahatchee

Tops

Night People label of Iowa City took notice, releasing the band’s followup to OK Midnight You Win (out last year via Feeding Tube). Happy Jawbone’s scrappy weirdo psych-pop is Brattleboro’s best-kept secret, but their recent signing with Mexican Summer may change that in 2013.

10-song full-length from a Baltimore noise-rock duo whose name has been circulating around the underground music community for years. The word “visceral” has been thrown around a lot this year, but the highs and lows here are hard not to feel shook up by.

Procession, Your Turn To Feel [Self-released] :: Eight tracks of hooky shoegaze from a Grand Rapids, Michigan, post-punk group I was introduced to at this year’s Ladyfest Boston. The lead track “Mementos” was one of the most-played songs on my college radio show this year, but the entire album is worth playing on repeat. They’re not reinventing dream-pop, but there’s something distinct to their vocalist’s wide-eyed youthfulness and ultra-sincere lyricism countered by walls of distortion and fucking huge noisy guitars.

Daniel Bachman, Seven Pines [Tompkins Square] :: It’s pretty understandable that Bachman’s LP went overlooked this year: allinstrumental acoustic guitar records are rarely this interesting. But this 22-year-old from Fredericksburg, Virginia, plays seriously excellent, complex songs inspired by folk and blues as much as by experimental drone and psych.

Ed Schrader’s Music Beat, Jazz Mind [Load Records] :: An addictive

Waxahatchee, American Weekend [Don Giovanni] :: Former PS Eliot singer Katie Crutchfield’s solo debut of minimal acoustic guitar is sad and angsty as hell, but might be my favorite album of the year. P

year in review :: hip-hop

BANGER STYLE b y C HR IS FA R A O NE

c fa r ao n e@ p h x .c o m

or months, I’ve sat silently on subterranean sidelines while others summoned tadpoles over embarrassing trend rappers. So in recapping 2012, I embraced the chance to parade some recent unsung hip-hop ringers. If you want to read about how 2 Chainz changed the game, check a round-up by some chump who hasn’t sampled half my stash.

The always-reliable barbarians from ARMY OF THE PHARAOHS put the hurt on in 2012. Straying solo for a second time, Vinnie Paz prevailed again with God of the Serengeti (Enemy Soil), which takes some deep personal turns, but also clocks the year’s most mesmerizing murder anthem in “Battle Hymn.”

Other aggressive outings came from Alchemist and Action Bronson (Rare Chandeliers), Sean Price (Mic Tyson; Duck Down), and La Coka Nostra (Masters of the Dark Arts; Fat Beats). But swinging from the deepest depths was Cambridge beatmaker ARCITYPE, who teamed with Duck Down demoli-

tion man Ruste Juxx on the awesomely abrasive V.I.C. (AR Classic/ Duck Down). A Brooklyn monster with a massive uppercut, Juxx is angrier than Onyx, and in Arcitype he’s found a worthy, armed accomplice. STATIK SELEKTAH’s inner circle stood tall across the board, from the producer’s second project with Termanology and the 1982 crew (2012, Traffic Entertainment), to relative newcomer JFK getting a proper mixtape intro (A.G.E.). Upping the ante, though, was Term’s duel with Fizzy Womack on the spit-heavy Fizzyology (Brick) and a two-shot by Reks, who dropped diametrically

themed diatribes in Straight, No Chaser (also off Brick, with Statik) and Rebelutionary (off Gracie, with Numonics). While roughnecks hammered and commercial cats yammered, the fringes grew more sophisticated. Stones Throw fellow HOMEBOY SANDMAN ripped a pair of stellar EPs (Chimera; Subject: Matter), and entered new conceptual realms with miracles like “For the Kids” on First of a Living Breed.

On the spacier end of the stoner spectrum is ANX (Fake Four Inc.) by DARK TIME SUNSHINE. Onry Ozzbon has the most entrancing voice in hip-hop, and instrumental architect Zavala’s latest acid-scape is every bit as catchy as an early Outkast opus. For adventurous heads, “Cultclass” could be the track of the year.

Of the many great alternative feats, BILLY WOODS of Super Chron Flight Brothers finds himself alone in the corner. The arcanely complicated History Will Absolve Me (Backwoodz Studioz) finds the equally misanthropic and pop-culture-savvy stoner soaring somewhere between brilliance and the Genius.

A lot of popular shit was worth obsessing over too — but especially ELP’s Cancer for Cure (Fat Possum) which was even doper than all of the neo-hipster blogger twerps pretended that they thought it was. The most likeable rap album of the year, in any sub-genre, is The Only Number That Matters Is Won (Raw Poetix) from PACEWON AND MR. GREEN. The Jersey boys have mastered boom bap, plain and simple, fresh and funky. And this time they brought along Lee “Scratch” Perry.

8 46 12.21.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm

For joints as hard as they are intelligent, Midwest powerhouse

the LEFT’s Gas Mask (Mello Music Group) hits with didactic wit. Riding on Apollo Brown’s soul snippets, Journalist 103 emerges as a political force not to be fucked with. Of course, there’s also the trusty activist standbys PUBLIC ENEMY, who returned to both form and prosperity this year with two instantly classic LPs — The Evil Empire of Everything (King Midas) and Most of My Heroes Still Don’t Appear on No Stamp (Eastlink) — and yet another world tour to match.

All things considered, it was a year of sweet rebellion. The most essential grab comes from funk-hop gods the COUP, whose Sorry to Bother You (Epitaph) simultaneously works the brain and renders cheeseball rap unnecessary. With smart and artsy party bangers like “My Murder, My Love,” there’s just no need for music by the suckas. P

Perfect Holiday Or Valentine’s Day Gift!

BOSTON WINE EXPO 2013 Celebrating food, wine and culture

Wine & Food Sampling | Cooking Demos | Social Media Lounge | Seminars | Grand Cru Wine Lounge

February 16 – 17, 2013 – President’s Day Weekend! Benefitting Tufts Medical Center and other local charities Seaport World Trade Center www.WineExpoBoston.com Sponsored by:

EvE of DEstruct

48 12.21.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm

tion

Dress like thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no tomorrow P hotogra P hy by Mik e Pec c i Stylin g b y Jeff lah enS o f D reS S c oD e bo Sto n

THEPHOENIX.cOm :: 12.21.12 49

spotlight :: fashion

50 12.21.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm

THEPHOENIX.cOm :: 12.21.12 51

52 12.21.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm

spotlight :: fashion

THE cloTHES PAGE 48–49 » On Cajai Vintage earrings, $12 at Oona’s; Glamourpuss NYC “Rex Bolero” jacket, $835 at Daniela Corte; Rag & Bone “Renard” dress, $995 at the Tannery; Twilight hammered silver cuff, $24 at Twilight On Evalena Bless by Bless Couture “Peace” dress, $195 at Bless by Bless Couture; JoJo skull/pearl bracelet, $58, Twilight spike rings in gold and hematite, $24 each, and Twilight “Silver Cascade” triangle earrings, $24, all at Twilight; civilian gas mask, $34.99 at Army Barracks On Nick Randolph Engineering by Michael Bastian “JD Rx” glasses, $210 at Randolph Engineering; Reiss “Goodwood B” velvet blazer, $500, and “Dexter” bow tie, $95, both at Reiss; Rag & Bone “Standard” shirt, $325 at the Tannery; army tactical vest, $49.99 at Army Barracks; GANT by Michael Bastian blue camo skinny cargo pants, $275 at GANT Boston; Ball and Buck “Pelican Hook” belt, $118 at Ball and Buck PAGE 50 » Top photo › On Nick Wigens flat cap, $128 at Salmagundi; Ball and Buck hunter’s shirt, $128 at Ball and Buck; vintage ’60s wool sweater, $38 at Oona’s; Universal Works cardigan, $295 at Drinkwater’s; Unbranded tapered raw denim, $78 at Sault New England; Rockport “Union Street” wing boots, $200 at Rockport On Evalena Reiss “Etta” dress, $370 at Reiss; Rockport “Presia” tied Mary Jane, $140 at Rockport Bottom photo › On Kevin Ben Sherman “Classic Tux” blazer, $295 at Uniform; Reiss “Boston” shirt, $170 at Reiss; vintage ’60s black vest, $25, and Brooks Brothers “Prince of Wales” trousers, $35, both at Bobby from Boston

WHErE To SHoP

PAGE 51 » On Dilven Vintage ’60s fancy top, $78 at Oona’s; Reiss “Karina” flower leather cuff, $75 at Reiss; Bailey44 “Lolla Lee Lou” leather legging, $334 at Twilight; additional bracelets courtesy of Lisa Pierpont of boldfacers.com PAGE 52 » On Kevin Printed bandana, $120, LGB coated zip-up bomber jacket, $940, BBS coated pants, $1065, knuckle ring, $515, and leather/chain bracelet, $550, all at Alan Bilzerian PAGE 53 » On Cajai Max & Cleo “Ruffle Cover Up” blazer, $50, Twilight hammered silver cuff, $24, and Whiting & Davis crossbody pouch, $92, all at Twilight; vintage earrings, $12 at Oona’s; Daniela Corte “Nolita” leggings with faux leather, $235, and “Natasha” lace top, $365, both at Daniela Corte; Giuseppe Zanotti “Eva” bootie, $795 at the Tannery covEr » On Evalena Bless by Bless Couture “Peace” dress, $195 at Bless by Bless Couture; JoJo skull/pearl bracelet, $58, Twilight spike rings in gold and hematite, $24 each, and Twilight “Silver Cascade” triangle earrings, $24, all at Twilight; civilian gas mask, $34.99 at Army Barracks On Nick Randolph Engineering by Michael Bastian “JD Rx” glasses, $210 at Randolph Engineering; Reiss “Goodwood B” velvet blazer, $500, and “Dexter” bow tie, $95, both at Reiss; Rag & Bone “Standard” shirt, $325 at the Tannery; army tactical vest, $49.99 at Army Barracks; GANT by Michael Bastian blue camo skinny cargo pants, $275 at GANT Boston; Ball and Buck “Pelican Hook” belt, $118 at Ball and Buck

AlAN BIlzErIAN » 34 Newbury St, Boston :: 617.536.1001 or alanbilzerian.com Army BArrAckS » 173 mass Ave, Boston :: 617.437.1657 or armybarracks.com BAll ANd Buck » 144B Newbury St, Boston :: 617.262.1776 or ballandbuck.com BlESS By BlESS cOuTurE » 866.992.5377 or blessbybless.com BOBBy frOm BOSTON » 19 Thayer St, Boston :: 617.423.9299 dANIElA cOrTE » 211 Newbury St, Boston :: 617.608.4778 or danielacorte.com drINkwATEr’S » 2067 mass Ave, cambridge :: 617.547.2067 or drinkwaterscambridge.com GANT BOSTON » 324 Newbury St, Boston :: 617.536.1949 or gant.com OONA’S » 1210 mass Ave, cambridge :: 617.491.2654 or oonasboston.com rANdOlPH ENGINEErING » randolphusa.com rEISS » 132 Newbury St, Boston :: 617.262.5800 or reiss.com rOckPOrT » 218 Newbury St, Boston :: 617.859.3127 or rockport.com SAlmAGuNdI » 765 centre St, Jamaica Plain :: 617.522.5047 or salmagundi.com SAulT NEw ENGlANd » 577 Tremont St, Boston :: 857.239.9434 or saultne.com THE TANNEry » 711 Boylston St, Boston :: 617.267.5500 or thetannery.com TwIlIGHT » 12 fleet St, Boston :: 617.523.8008 or twilightboutique.com uNIfOrm » 511 Tremont St, Boston :: 617.247.2360 or uniformboston.com

The crew assistant/photo on page 52: GINA mANNING :: Dit: TONy fErNANdEz :: Lighting tech: ANTHONy JArvIS :: assistants: EIlEEN PEccI ANd mIkE TrAN :: compositing anD post services: mcfArlANdANdPEccI.cOm :: assistant styLists: cHrISTOPHEr cHAmBErlANd of DésinvoLte anD krISTIN BrIcE, JENNIfEr OrTAkAlES, anD NATAlIE NIcHOlAS of emerson coLLege :: hair anD makeup Design: BrENdA wElcH of Leather & Lace artistry :: makeup artist: rOSAlIE PIAzzA of g2o spa & saLon :: hair styLists: dAIlIN dAvIlA anD ElENA mArTENS of g2o spa & saLon :: moDeLs: NIck APOSTOlIdES, cAJAI fEllOwS, EvAlENA mArIE, dIlvEN SAIrANy, anD kEvIN wANG :: shot at eLevin stuDios

THEPHOENIX.cOm :: 12.21.12 53

two mountains, one experience 116 trails 535 skiable acres including 100+ acres of tree skiing New Surface Lift at Wildcat Free Beginner Terrain at Bear Peak New Abenaki Park at Bear Peak Daily Deals & Savings New Freestyle Stunt Air Bag

VERTICAL VALUE & VARIETY

IN ONE TICKET

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slopeside accommodations

Situated at the base of Bear Peak just steps away from the chairlift, the Attitash Grand Summit Hotel offers relaxed lodging with slopeside convenience. Our 143 guest rooms combine comfort and quality for family vacations and weekend getaways. Kids Age 12 & Under eat for free in Crawford’s Restaurant during a stay. Book Now:

888-554-1900

attitash.com

Ways to Save at Attitash & Wildcat Mountain

Start your day on freshly groomed trails at Attitash, with picturesque views of Mt. Washington and the Presidential Range.

vertical value card

Finish a day with the family at Wildcat Mountain, taking in the #1 View in the East of Tuckerman Ravine and Mt. Washington.

Save up to 50% on single day lift tickets with the Vertical Value Card, our frequent skier card valid at Attitash Mountain Resort and Wildcat Mountain. Pay a one-time annual activation fee of $89 and get your first ticket for free. Cannot be combined with any other deals. Discount is applied to full-priced, single day lift tickets based on age categories. Pricing and rates are subject to change. Complete details online.

e-tickets & daily deals

Maximize your savings, visit us online to see daily deals, special discount rates and to purchase e-tickets in advance

Learn2 program

Our new Learn2 Program, designed for Ages 13+, is packed with value. Clinic includes three hours of on-snow instruction, rental equipment and a novice lift ticket. Single Clinic: $65 Three Clinic Package: $130

Call 866-376-4293 to reserve a clinic at Attitash or 888.SKI.WILD x217 to reserve at Wildcat.

800.223.SNOW attitash.com

888.SKI.WILD skiwildcat.com

eaT

The year in dining » beer-respecTing bars » a Jewish chrisTmas eve

& DRINK

Photo by derek kouyoumjian

Bukowski Tavern. Page 58.

THEPHOENIX.cOm :: 12.21.12 55

Food & drink :: dining

RestauRant Rewind

A look back at the year in Boston dining B y MC Sl iM J B

the Kitchen sink Burger at grass Fed

Boston dining in 2012 can be summed up easily as the Year of the Burger. Yes, we could have trawled Chinatown for the best Shanghainese soup dumplings or scoured Eastie in search of great pupusas, but all Bostonians really seemed to want this year was the all-American hamburger. On the cheap end, local chains like UBurger and Tasty Burger proliferated to offer a better alternative to heinous global-chain crap like McD’s. But every fine-dining restaurant seemed to offer a burger too, at least at the bar, as epitomized, still, by the insanely high-craft, extraordinary Craigie on Main 56 12.21.12 :: Thephoenix.com/food

Burgers were ubiquitous, inescapable.

burger. In between was everything from the farm-to-table burger typified by Jamaica Plain’s new Grass Fed restaurant, to the big, simple, beautiful pub burger at DTX hangout jm Curley, to gastropubby pile-ups like the Hangtown Fry (topped with a fried egg and fried oysters) at the Gallows in the South End. Burgers were ubiquitous, inescapable. While the herd went stampeding after endless iterations of chopped beefsteak on a bun, a smaller flock went flitting about in search of another sometimes humble, sometimes exalted dish: ramen,

the Japanese noodle soup. This little frenzy got kicked off by Guchi’s Midnight Ramen, a very occasional pop-up in fine-dining restaurants like Bondir and No. 9 Park, with only a handful of seats that sold out in an eyeblink. The Back Bay’s posh Uni jumped on the bandwagon with its own weekend late-night offering. Porter Square newcomer Yume Wo Katare confirmed the food-geek mania for ramen, drawing nightly hour-plus lines for its extra-hefty jiro-style ramen right from its October opening. Other relatively obscure Asian delicacies made waves this year too. Korean-style spicy wings continued to find converts as the Bon Chon franchise expanded to Harvard Square. Japanese skewer grilling over charcoal found a pricey outpost in the South End’s Yakitori Zai. And bao bao found their way out of Chinatown’s dim sum parlors and into quality budget purveyors like Powderhouse Square’s new DooWee & Rice. On the high end, seasonal and local New American continued to dominate, with new entries like Inman Square’s Puritan & Co., Milton’s Steel and Rye, and Newton Centre’s Farmstead Table. On the neighborhood front, the South End managed to regain some of its recently faded luster as a dining destination with a slew of openings (Kitchen, Yakitori Zai, Vejigantes, BoMA, Cinquecento, Estelle’s). Kendall Square continued its surprising 2011 restaurant expansion with stellar new openings like West Bridge. West Roxbury emerged as a fine little dining destination in its own right, helped by newcomers like Vietnamese gem Banh Mi Ngon and BBQ purveyor Red-Eyed Pig. And Southie’s gentrification accelerated with openings like Lincoln Tavern and a forthcoming Foodie’s Urban Market. Meanwhile, Somerville’s Union Square got a bit of uptown flavor via Latin-tapas purveyor Casa B and the craftcocktail hideaway Backbar, with the much anticipated Middle European restaurant Bronwyn approaching fast. But the bigger neighborhood story was the Seaport’s ongoing development into a kind of restaurant Mall of America, augmented this year by new outlets of local restaurant fiefdoms like Empire and national chains like Rosa Mexicano, with a few twinkly food-TV stars en route to add some boutiquey glamour. Local celebritychef Ming Tsai will finally reach beyond his Wellesley base to open Blue Dragon, while Manhattan star chefs Geoffrey Zakarian and Mario Batali announced their 2013

photoS By MeliSSa oStrow

@McSliMJB

shrimp Capellini _ _ Egg nest at shojo

Boston debuts here. The Seaport’s thousands of restaurant seats are thronging with tourists, convention-goers, and especially suburbanites who seem thrilled by the easy highway access and harbor views. Less excited? Food lovers in search of non-chainy dining and independent restaurateurs in Boston neighborhoods without abundant cheap parking. The craft-cocktail revival continued its steady expansion with new, more relaxedfeeling outlets like Kenmore Square’s the Hawthorne, Chinatown’s Shōjō, Central Square’s Brick & Mortar, and Harvard Square’s First Printer. Many featured spirits made by emerging local distillers like Roxbury’s Bully Boy and Southie’s GrandTen. And Bostonians got more serious about their coffee at a slew of indie cafes with new options like pour-over coffees, including Thinking Cup, Render, and dwelltime. Food trucks continued on the huge roll they began in 2011, greatly expanding their number and footprint in Boston with Mayor Menino’s support. This success story inspired neighbors Brookline, Newton, and Somerville to pilot their own programs, despite the concerted efforts of Beacon Hill lobbyists like Dave Andelman (yes, the Phantom Gourmet guy) and his Restaurant and Business Alliance to throw sand in their axles for the benefit of their brick-andmortar clients. Of course, openings are never the whole story of a restaurant year. The closing of Downtown Crossing’s venerable, storied Locke-Ober, the last place in the city to insist that gentlemen wear jackets, marked the passing of a more refined and formal manner of dining in Boston. To the chagrin of many, TC’s Lounge, the last real dive bar in the high-rent Back Bay, suffered a devastating fire from which it could not recover. And karma finally seemed to catch up to the owners of fancy pizza chain the Upper Crust, who notoriously abused and ripped off their (mostly immigrant) kitchen staff, fell to fighting among themselves, and finally filed

for bankruptcy. Technology and social media continued to expand their sway over the Boston restaurant scene, as Bostonians increasingly turned to the Web and smartphone apps to research places to eat and drink, reserve tables, book transportation, and share their opinions of their experiences afterward. Some restaurants continued to muff the challenge of gracefully handling negative feedback from amateur reviewers on platforms like Chowhound and Yelp. Exhibit A was the ugly flame war that erupted on Facebook between an unhappy customer of Pigalle and its chef/owner, Marc Orfaly, which expanded virally into a national news story. It probably felt good at the time, and we empathize with industry enmity toward uninformed amateurs, but that likely hurt Orfaly’s business. Forget the hate for now, and consider the humble Watertown joint that embodies everything that was good and exciting about Boston dining in 2012: Strip-T’s. Long a diner-like purveyor of modest American food, it morphed dramatically under new chef Tim Maslow after he returned home from a five-year stint under NYC’s David Chang. Young Maslow (son of the founding chef/owner) created an overnight food-nerd sensation with his original, globetrotting menu that somehow touched on every theme of the year — local raw bar and seafood, inventive use of offal, some Southern flavors, a vegetarian bánh mì, a knockout of a hamburger, a revelatory rendition of cauliflower, a terrific bowl of ramen, a jaw-dropping lamb-shoulder sandwich — and killed it on every one of them. Good news if you haven’t made it out to Watertown yet: he’s expanding into Brookline’s Washington Square next year. If you want to feel the love, to put your finger on the throbbing pulse of Boston’s diverse, chaotic, and wonderfully evolving restaurant scene — and maybe feel which way the culinary winds of 2013 are blowing — Strip-T’s might just be the place to start. P Thephoenix.com/food :: 12.21.12 57

Food & drink :: Liquid

Beeradvocate

The BesT Beer Bars in BosTon

Wan beert more C h eC b u z z ? ko be ut erad voC Com ate .

Ten places that served and respected beer in 2012 B y J a so n & T o dd a l s Trö m

b r o s @ b e e r a dvo c at e .c o m :: @ b e e r a dvo c at e

get asked on a weekly basis is: “Where do you guys drink in the Boston area?” That’s a tough one, as there are a ton of places that serve great beer. But if we had to create a list of 10 places dedicated to respecting beer in 2012, it would look like this.

atwood’s tavern

877 Cambridge St, Cambridge :: 617.864.2792 or atwoodstavern. com » Taps: 24 :: Bottles: 40 Your neighborhood bar. Local love is strong, with half the beers on tap hailing from New England. A spacious outdoor patio for warmer days, live music, and a killer Double J Farm burger make Atwood’s a must-visit.

Bukowski tavern

50 Dalton St, Boston & 1281 Cambridge St, Cambridge :: 617.437.999 & 617.497.7077 or bukowskitavern.net » Taps: 22 & 33 :: Bottles: 150 & 134 A bar with attitude. At “Buks,” the music is always loud, F-bombs are welcomed, bottled offerings are served from ice tubs, drafts are always rotating, and mug-club members rule; we’re proud Boston members. Their White Trash Cheese Dip and Peanut Butter Burger (add bacon!) are favorites.

deep ellum

477 Cambridge St, Allston :: 617.787.2337 or deepellum-boston.com » Taps: 28 :: Bottles: 50 Highly curated. Looking for obscure >> Beer on p 60

Thancckesssful

for a su first year!

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 58 12.21.12 :: Thephoenix.com/food

Bukowski tavern

photo by derek kouyoumjian

one of the top questions we

Food & drink :: Liquid awesome food menu, but Russell House is one of the only bars in town that serves 100 percent New England–brewed beers — most from Massachusetts. We dig the downstairs bar area and raw bar.

<< Beer from p 58

offerings from Europe? Gravity-poured casks of German lagers? Maybe even a delicious cocktail? (We’re not judging.) You’ve come to the right place. The beers are exceptional, and let’s not forget the deviled eggs. Bonus: Lone Star Taco Bar, their sister location, is right next door.

meadhall

the publick house

the salty pig

the lower depths

476 Comm Ave, Boston :: 617.266.6662 or thelowerdepths. com » Taps: 16 :: Bottles: 180 Yeah, they’ve got 40s, too. This is a great alternative for grabbing a pint near Fenway Park, with a wellrounded cast of craft and macro brews. And the food is fun: check out their Fat Kid salad (with fried chicken, tater tots, cheese, bacon, and ranch) and poutine tater tots.

meadhall

4 Cambridge Ctr, Cambridge :: 617.714.4372 or themeadhall.com » Taps: 112 :: Bottles: 14 Multi-tap done right. Meadhall offers the largest lineup of craft beer on draft in town. Inspired by bars in Belgium, it serves every beer in the appropriate branded glassware. No glass available? No beer! Plus, the bites are solid, and the mezzanine is available for parties.

the puBlick house & monk’s cell

1648 Beacon St, Brookline :: 617.277.2880 » Taps: 35 :: Bottles: 130 Belgium comes to Brookline. It’s got the

largest selection of Belgian ales in town and arguably the highest-quality pours, especially since they recently converted their lines to straight carbon dioxide. We tend to hide in the Monk’s Cell (the side bar) for goblets of Belgian ale paired with waterzooi or moules frites.

russell house tavern

14 JFK St, Cambridge :: 617.500.3055 or russellhousecambridge.com » Taps: 13 :: Bottles: 40 Local, local, local. Not only does it source local ingredients for the

stoddard’s fine food & ale

48 Temple Pl, Boston :: 617.426.0048 or stoddardsfoodandale.com » Taps: 20 :: Bottles: 50 From the massive carved wood bar to the pre-Prohibition bartender garb to the unbranded tap handles, it smacks of the old school. Expect a classic, sessionable, non-compromised beer selection with cask ales and the occasional über-beer-geek offering. Bonus: jm Curley is across the street. P

RESTAURANT SPOTLIGHT fresh.Modern.Creative

TASTE OF KOREA

KOREANA RESTAURANT 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

new location now open!

617-576-8661

www.koreanaboston.com 158 Prospect St., Cambridge

1019 Great Plain Ave needham (781)-444-9200

$5Off

Your order of $25 or more

Not valid with any other offers and/or lunch specials / Maki Madness / Tax and gratuity not included /Alcohol excluded. Valid for Dine in Only

187 Harvard St Brookline (617) 277-2999

www.garifusion.com ExPirES 1/31/2013

“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 60 12.21.12 :: Thephoenix.com/food

photos by derek kouyoumjian

lord hoBo

92 Hampshire St, Cambridge :: 617.250.8454 or lordhobo.com » Taps: 40 :: Bottles: 40 Lord what? Doesn’t matter. You’ve come for the beer — solid offerings, mostly aimed at beer geeks, with a hand-picked menu that leans toward American, Belgian, and Scandinavian brews. Dark and cozy, Hobo is a great place to hunker down for a long beer-drinking session.

130 Dartmouth St, Boston :: 617.536.6200 or thesaltypig.com » Taps: 12 :: Bottles: 24 Pig parts! Think house-cured meats and meat and cheese boards, plus pizza. (Getting the Salty Pig pizza with farm-fresh eggs on top should be mandatory.) Bathrooms are wallpapered with The Far Side comics. Oh, and the beers are always good too.

Food & drink :: calendar

Chew Out

SATURDAY 22

SAtuRDAY 22 GEORGETOWN

GINGERBREAD WORKSHOP AT SPORTELLO

CUPCAKE HOLIDAY DECORATING WORKSHOP

Any schmuck can toss some sprinkles on a sloppily frosted cupcake. But not you, not this year: Georgetown Cupcake is helping you up your game. Frost, decorate, and wrap a dozen cupcakes (in flavors like Butterscotch Pudding, Holiday Lava Fudge, and Rudolph Red Velvet) while snacking on sweets and sipping cocoa or ’nog. No one will want to eat your beauteous creations for fear of defacing a work of art — but then they’ll give in and devour them anyway. 2 pm @ the Four Seasons Hotel, 200 Boylston St, Boston

Remember what we said about not wussing out on the holiday cupcakes? Same goes for the age-old tradition of pimping out an edible house with candy. Sportello will take care of the toughest part (you know which part we mean — trying to hold all four walls together with your two measly hands while you wait for the frosting glue to dry), so you can get fancy with it. 10:30 am @ Sportello, 348 Congress St, Boston :: $15; also available in takeaway kits :: Call 617.737.1234 to RSVP or order a kit.

$65 Call 617.927.2250 to RSVP.

SuNDAY 23 CASA DRAGONES

MONDAY 24 LUMIÈRE’S JEWISH

It’s the 23rd, so you know what that means: extendedfamily time. Maybe your great-aunts are already settled into your kitchen, bickering about the best way to cook a casserole, or maybe they’re showing up tomorrow. Either way, you could probably use some tequila right about now. Seek refuge at the Urban Grape’s new South End spot and steel yourself with some smooth Casa Dragones tequila, plus samples of other spirits, cordials, and wines.

Gathering around a Lazy Susan is one of our favorite holiday traditions. Growing up, Lumière chef Michael Leviton was no stranger to the Christmas Eve Chinese-and-movie-night ritual; now he’s recreating the experience, serving up a special menu with plates like five-spice pork tenderloin and crispy braised pork belly with Chinese greens and XO sauce. Once you’ve had your fill, West Newton Cinema waits right across the street.

3 to 6 pm @ the Urban Grape South End, 303 Columbus Ave, Boston

5:30 to 9 pm @ Lumière, 1293 Washington St, West Newton

Free

Pricing à la carte

857.250.2509 or theurbangrape.com

617. 244.9199 or lumiererestaurant.com

AND MUCH MORE

CHRISTMAS EVE

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THEPHoENix.Com/Food :: 12.21.12 61

DjangO UnchaineD » nina hOss anD BarBara » an Offal new Year’s eve

NIGHTLIFE + ARTS

Photo by ian Perlman

Weirdo Records. Page 72.

THEPHOENIX.cOm :: 12.21.12 63

Arts & Nightlife :: get out JEWMONGOUS: : Featuring new jams like “Jesus Christ’s Bar Mitzvah” alongside old chestnuts like “Phantom Foreskin,” Sean Altman’s raucous annual Hanukkah-season/Christmas Eve show is back for another night of debauchery :: Club Passim, 47 Palmer St, Cambridge :: December 24 @ 6 + 8:30 pm :: $20; $18 advance :: clubpassim.com

Boston Fun List

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

One thing that most 24 Jews find pretty funny? That whole immaculateconception, son-of-God, Christmas-story thing. Peabodybred comedian Gary Culman — an equal-opportunity holiday offender — is poking fun at both X-Mas and Hanukkah (plus a lot of other stuff ) in tonight’s “All I Want for Hanukkah Is Christmas” show. Safe Christmas Eve bet for both those non-Yuletide-revelers and those who’d just prefer not to spend this holiday fighting with their relatives over under-cooked ham. The Last Comic Standing finalist is joined by guest comic Dan Crohn this evening. MON

THU

Well folks, we’ve had a pretty good run of it but, according to the 20 Mayan calendar, the end of days is upon us . . . again. And if we’re all going to perish in hellfire, brimstone, and all that nasty jazz come tomorrow, we might as well go down partying tonight. We’ll be bidding the world adieu at ORG: Last Day on Earth at Oberon, a rager of a show featuring the apocalyptic stylings of Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken Toys, Michael J. Epstein & Sophia Cacciola, and Jaggery; performance art by Johnny Blazes and Janaka Stucky, spoken-word poetry, film, and much more. It’s the end of the world as we know it, and we feel just fine. Oberon, 2 Arrow St, Cambridge :: 9 pm :: $25; 20 standing room :: americanrepertorytheater.org

Just a couple of weeks left to catch a performance of Boston Ballet’s revamped, remastered The Nutcracker. The beloved holiday ballet features all new sets and costumes, with the classic Tchaikovsky score. Choreographed by Mikko Nissinen, The Nutcracker is one holiday tradition that, for us at least, never gets old. The ongoing production runs through the end of December. THU

Opera House, 539 Washington St, Boston :: Open through December 30; tonight @ 7:30 pm :: $45-$177 :: bostonballet.org

Speaking of the end of the 22 world, it’d be a bummer if it all went kaput before

FRI

Torrent Engine 18 (a new independent art space in Dorchester — see our recent story online at thePhoenix.com/Boston/Arts) had a chance to open its doors. Either way, you can help fund the project and party with special guests and performers Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman at Torrent Engine 18’s Mayan Doomsday Gala Party. Other treats include other yet-to-be-announced musical guests, deadly good libations from Booze Époque, burlesque performances, mystery readings, and more. Super secret location TBA :: 7:30 pm :: $125 :: brownpapertickets.com

64 12.21.12 :: THEPHOENIx.COM/EvENTS

Not feeling the yuks this Christmas Eve? Another 24 holiday alternative storms our town in the form of the annual Matzo Ball, one of the biggest Jewish singles parties in the country. Celebrating 26 years of holiday reveling and matchmaking, the Matzo Ball is, of course, also open to those shiksas looking to meet a nice Jewish boy (or gal). Dress to impress, this thing’s a party. L’chaim!

MON

Royale, 279 Tremont St, Boston :: 9 pm :: $30 :: matzoball.wantickets.com

Improv Asylum, 216 Hanover St, Boston :: 8 pm :: $20 :: improvasylum.com

We can’t think of a better way to shake our holiday 6 2 hangovers than to get down to the funky beats of the Roots, who play a night-after-Christmas show tonight at the HoB. The Philly rap legends are touring behind last year’s Undun, the outfit’s 13th album, at a show that’ll help keep the party going until NYE for all ya’ll lucky bastards who have this holiday week off. Let’s get down one last time, 2012.

WED

House of Blues, 15 Lansdowne St, Boston :: 7 pm :: $37-$49.50 :: livenation.com

Arts & Nightlife :: NeW YeAr’s eVe

THE MAYANS WERE WRONG! NYE 2012 Rocking in 2013

BAD RABBITS › With Herra Terra › 9 pm › $25 › Brighton Music Hall, 158 Brighton Ave, Allston › ticketmaster.com THE NEW HIGHWAY HYMNAL › Eye Design and Vanya Records present NHH along with Color Channel, Fat Creeps, and Yale, MA. Plus DJ sets by everydayisamixtape › 9 pm › $15 › Great Scott, 1222 Comm Ave, Allston › ticketweb.com DEER TICK › With Two Gallants › 8 pm › SOLD OUT › The Sinclair, 52 Church St, Cambridge › boweryboston.com BEWARE THE DANGERS OF A GHOST SCORPION › With Thick Shakes and Ladybones › 8 pm › $10 › O’Brien’s, 3 Harvard Ave, Allston › obrienspubboston. com HALEY JANE & THE PRIMATES › 10:30 pm › TBA › Plough & Stars, 912 Mass Ave, Cambridge › ploughandstars.com SOULIVE › With the Shady Horns and Akashic Record › 8 pm › $40 › Paradise Rock Club, 967 Comm Ave, Boston › ticketmaster. com JOSHUA TREE › U2 Tribute › 8 pm › $25 › Church, 69 Kilmarnock St, Boston › churchofboston.com THE TREE › With Eight Feet Tall, Why I Rise, and Delman Ryder › 7:30 pm › $15; $12 advance › Middle East upstairs, 474 Mass Ave, Cambridge › ticketweb.com

Dance 2012’s ass off

DJ KON › 9 pm › Price TBA › Middlesex, 315 Mass Ave, Cambridge › middlesexlounge.us HEROES NYE: WITH DJ CHRIS EWEN (PLUS PARTY FAVORS AND A “WHITE TRASH BUFFET”) › 9 pm › $20: $15 advance › T.T. the Bear’s Place, 15 Brookline St, Cambridge › ticketweb.com DJ COSTA’S NYE HOUSE PARTY › 10 pm › $50 › Estate, 1 Boylston Place, Boston › theestateboston.com SOUL-LE-LUH-JAH NYE › With DJ Claude Money and PJ Gray › 10 pm › $20 › ZuZu, 474 Mass Ave, Cambridge › zuzubar.com GANGNAM STYLE NYE › With DJ Vinny. And yeah, he’ll probably play that song › 9 pm › $30; $20 advance › Phoenix Landing, 512 Mass Ave, Cambridge › phoenixlandingbar.com

MaRRow. Bone. Luges.

BELLY NYE PARTY › Yeah, so, apparently they have one. A marrow bone luge. Plus all kinds of cured meats, offal, drinks, and music by DJ Just Joan. But the fuck’s a marrow bone luge? Anyway, the esteemed wine bar and fancy snackery looks forward to the pleasure of your company › 6-7 pm or 9-10 pm entry › $70 6-7 pm; $85 9-10 pm › Belly Wine Bar, One Kendall Square, Cambridge › bellywinebar.com

ThiRTeen. Two ThousanD ThiRTeen.

5TH ANNUAL TIMELESS: A BOND EVENING › ’Tis the year for James Bondthemed NYE parties, it seems. This one has a Bond Girl contest, music by DJ Stacks and Synergy DJs, professional photographers, party favors, prizes for best Bond look-alike and “female spy,” and more › 8:30 pm › $50-$1200 › Marriott Courtyard Hotel, 275 Tremont St, Boston › synergynye.com NEW YEAR’S EVE SKYFALL › “Your mission, should you choose to accept it . . .” is to get drunk on martinis and champagne. With two rooms of DJs, party favors, late-night snacks, and more. Tuxedos and “provocative gowns” strongly encouraged › 9 pm › tickets starting at $100 › Storyville, 90 Exeter St, Boston › storyvilleskyfallebgrpthmbos0nye.eventbrite.com

oh, You fancY, huh?

NYE ON TOP OF THE LIBERTY › With aerial performers; dancers; light hors d’oeuvres; music by DJ Michael Savant, DJ 7L, and DJ Frank White; and more › 8 pm › $85 › Liberty Hotel, 215 Charles St, Boston › showclix.com/event/topoftheliberty BOSTON’S RESOLUTION BALL › Black Tie optional (but encouraged) affair with the Felix Brown Band, DJ Tommy W, party favors, premium cocktails, midnight champagne toast, and more › 7 pm › $59$399 › Sheraton Copley Hotel, 39 Dalton St, Boston › eventbrite.com UNDER THE STARS AT LEGAL HARBORSIDE › “The closest you can come to being inside a snow globe” on the restaurant’s glass-enclosed roof deck, with live music, party favors, midnight Moët & Chandon “Imperial” Brut champagne toast, and more › 9:30 pm › $45 › Legal Harborside, 270 Northern Ave, Boston › legalseafoods.com NYE 2013 BLACK TIE BALL › Black Tie not-so-optional at this ball that has food stations, and passed hors d’oeuvres, a “red carpet entrance” with formal photos, party favors, premium midnight champagne toast, music by DJ Theo A, and more › 9 pm › $120 › Taj Boston, 15 Arlington St, Boston › Taj2013nye-ebgrpthmbos0nye. eventbrite.com STUDIO 57 › Revere Hotel’s Space 57 gets a glitzy Studio 54 makeover with replica props, “scantily clad bartenders,” performances by the Boston Circus Guild, interactive photo booth, live stream of the Times Square ball drop, themed cocktails, music, dancing, and more › 9 pm › $75; $125 VIP › Space 57, Revere Hotel, 200 Stuart St, Boston › studio57.eventbrite.com THE EMERALD AFFAIR › Or, pop over to the Emerald Lounge (also in the Revere)

for a party to benefit the Home for Little Wanderers. With music by DJ Miss Jade, party favors, passed hors d’oeuvres, vodka ice bar on the patio, optional breakfast and dessert bar, and more › 8 pm › $25; $220 VIP › Emerald Lounge, Revere Hotel, 200 Stuart St, Boston › emeraldnye2013. eventbrite.com NYE 2013 MASQUERAVE › Costume bash with music by nationally touring DJs 5 & A Dume and Aylen, local DJs AI and Tao, two live feeds of Times Square, professional photographers and videographers, party favors, give-a-ways, and more › 9:45 pm › $85; $100 VIP › Cyclorama, 539 Tremont St, Boston › masquerave2013-ebgrpthmbos0nye. eventbrite.com

oh, You oLD, huh?

40 + BACK BAY GALA › Just kidding, you’re not old you’re . . . a party veteran. This Black Tie optional gala is for the middleaged and older set, with music by the Love Dogs, VJ Rick H, premium cocktails, an all-inclusive dinner option, dancing, champagne toast, and more “mature” fun › 7 pm dinner option; 9 pm party › Dinner package starting at $159; party at $69 (donate $10 extra to the Ellie Fund for a VIP goody bag) › Sheraton Copley Hotel, 39 Dalton St, Boston › bostoneventguide.com

gRooving Like gaTsBY

TOWNE: GATSBY NEW YEAR’S EVE › With the release of the new movie of The Great Gatsby drawing nigh, ’tis also the year for parties based on Daisy, Nick, and the gang. This one is a ’20s-themed cocktail party with classic hors d’oeuvres, live music, and more. Prohibition, 1920s, and Gatsby-esque semiformal attire required › 9 pm › $80 › Towne Stove and Spirits, 900 Boylston St, Boston › estoreboston.com THE GATSBY MANSION NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY › The Greatest Bar turns into a 1920s speakeasy, with all the glamour and glitz of the era, with music by DJ Sisko. Gatsbyattire strongly encouraged › 9 pm › tickets start at $75 › The Greatest Bar, 262 Friend St, Boston › gatsbynewyears-ebgrpthmbos0nye. eventbrite.com 5TH ANNUAL GREAT GATSBY GALA › Dress in your best roaring ’20s attire for this annual bash with music by DJ Evaredy, custom “mug shots,” passed hors d’oeuvres, champagne toast, and more › 8 pm › tickets start at $75 › Alibi Bar and Lounge, 215 Charles St, Boston › alibiboston.ticketleap.com SWING CENTRAL’S NYE GREAT GATSBY GALA › Vintage black-tie attire encouraged for this retro dance party with photo booths, props, live bands, and more (but unfortunately no booze. Prohibition and all that) › 9 pm › $30; $25 advance (until Dec 25) › Boston Swing Central at the Crosby Whistle Stop, 24 Roland St, Charlestown › bostonswingcentral.org/newyears

For even more New Year’s Eve 2013 parties, prix-fixe dinners, boat cruises, LGBT bashes, First Night 2013 events and editor’s picks, and more, visit events.thephoenix.com.

THEPHOENIX.cOm/EvENTs :: 12.21.12 65

Arts & Nightlife :: clAssicAl :: dANce :: visuAl Art

ClassiCal ConCerts tHursDaY 20

CALLITHUMPIAN CONSORT › Cage’s Song Books; Cardew’s The Great Learning, Paragraph 7; Wolff’s Changing the System › 7 pm › Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 280 the Fenway, Boston › $27; $24 seniors; $12 students › 617.278.5156 or gardnermuseum.org

FriDaY 21

BLUE HERON › Selection of works by Du Fay, Josquin, Obrecht, Brumel, and more › Fri-Sat 8 pm › First Church, Congregational, 11 Garden St, Cambridge › $30-$50; $25 seniors; $10 students › 617.547.2724 or blueheronchoir.org BOSTON CAMERATA › “The Brotherhood of the Star: A Hispanic Christmas,” with Les Fleurs des Caraïbes › Fri 8 pm › Hancock United Church of Christ, 1912 Mass Ave, Lexington › Sat 8 pm › First Parish Church Newbury, 20 High Rd, Newbury › $22-$46; $10 students › 781.862.4220 or bostoncamerata.org CHORUS PRO MUSICA › Selection of works by Willcocks, Jacques, Rutter, Fissinger, Holst, Vaughan Williams, and Darke › 8 pm › Old South Church, 645 Boylston St, Boston › $25$45; $22-$41 students, seniors › 617.267.7442 or choruspromusica.org

ERIN HOLMES, D’ANNA FORTUNATO, MICHAEL CALMÈS, PHILIP LIMA, CARL WRUBEL, AND WILLIAM MERRILL › Selection of Christmas music › 7 pm › St. John’s Episcopal Church, 1 Roanoke Ave, Jamaica Plain › $10 › 617.524.2999 or jpconcerts.org

saturDaY 22

BOSTON CAMERATA › “The Brotherhood of the Star: A Hispanic Christmas,” with Les Fleurs des Caraïbes › 8 pm › First Parish Church Newbury, 20 High Rd, Newbury › $22-$46; $10 students › bostoncamerata.org VON BRINGHURST, YAKOV ZAMIR, ELIJAH HOPKIN, JAMES DARGAN, AND SARAH HAGER › Handel’s Messiah › 4 pm › St. John’s Episcopal Church, 1 Roanoke Ave, Jamaica Plain › $10 › 617.524.2999 or jpconcerts.org BLUE HERON › See listing for Fri

sunDaY 23

DAVID HAGAN › Works for piano by Mendelssohn, Beethoven, and Chopin › 2 pm › Newton Free Library, 330 Homer St, Newton › Free › 617.796.1360 or newtonfreelibrary.net STANDING ROOM ONLY › Selection of works by Tchaikovsky, Anderson, and more › 7:30 pm › Unitarian Universalist Church in Wakefield , 326 Main St, Wakefield › $30; $25 students, seniors › 339.203.9366 or sroconcerts.org

thursdAy 20

Callithumpian Consort are at the Gardner Museum playing Cage, Cardew, and Wolff.

DanCe PerFormanCe BOSTON BALLET › Nissinen’s The Nutcracker › Through December 30 › Thurs + Mon 7:30 pm; Fri-Sat + Wed-Thurs 1 + 7:30 pm; Sun 1 + 5:30 pm › Opera House, 539 Washington St, Boston › $35$172 › 617.259.3400 or bostonballet. org

The Nutcracker

BOSTON URBAN BALLET › Anthony Williams’s Urban Nutcracker › Through December 23 › Fri 7:30 pm; Sat 1 + 7:30 pm; Sun 3 pm › John Hancock Hall, 180 Berkeley Street, Boston › $20-$60 › 617.524.4381 or urbannutcracker. com

66 12.21.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm/EvENTs

galleries

Admission to the following galleries is free, unless otherwise noted. In addition to the hours listed here, many galleries are open by appointment. Please note that many of these locations alter their hours during the holidays. Check website or call for exact information. 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” AXELLE FINE ARTS › 617.450.0700 › 91 Newbury St, Boston › axelle.com › Daily 10 am6 pm › Through Jan 6: “Michel Delacroix at 80” BOSTON ATHENÆUM › 617.227.0270 › 101/2 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 SCULPTORS GALLERY › 617.482.7781 › 486 Harrison Ave, Boston › bostonsculptors.com › Wed-Sun noon–6 pm › Through Jan 27: “Height, Width, Depth, Time: Boston Sculptors Celebrates 20 Years” 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” BRICKBOTTOM GALLERY › 617.776.3410 › 1 Fitchburg St, Somerville › brickbottomartists. com › Thurs-Sat noon–5 pm › Through Jan 12: “Spectrum! A Selection of Artists from Joy Street Studios” 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” 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” 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” › Through May 29: Hans Tutschku: “Unreal Memories” CHASE YOUNG GALLERY › 617.859.7222 › 450 Harrison Ave, Boston › chaseyounggallery. com › Tues-Sat 11 am-6 pm; Sun 11 am-4 pm › Through Dec 22: “Winter Group Show of Gallery Artists” 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” FRENCH CULTURAL CENTER › 617.912.0400 › 53 Marlborough St, Boston › frenchculturalcenter.org › Daily 9 am-9 pm › Through Dec 29: “French Champagne and Calvados” GRIFFIN MUSEUM BY DIGITAL SILVER IMAGING › 617.489.0035 › 4 Clarendon St, Boston › griffinmuseum.org › Tues-Wed + Fri 11 am- 6 pm; Thurs 11 am-7 pm; Sat noon- 5 pm › Through Jan 13: Robert Moran: “Relics” HARBORARTS OUTDOOR GALLERY › › 256 Marginal St, East Boston › harborarts.net › Open 24 hours › Through Dec 31: “Hazards of

Modern Living” Public Art Installation JP ART MARKET › 617.522.1729 › 36 South St, Jamaica Plain › jpartmarket.com › WedThurs 2-7 pm; Fri 12:30-7:30 pm; Sat 11:30 am-8 pm; Sun 11:30 am-6 pm › Through Jan 4: Jon Langford KINGSTON GALLERY › 617.423.4113 › 450 Harrison Ave, #43, Boston › kingstongallery. com › Wed-Sun noon- 5 pm › Through Dec 23: “Big HUGE Small Works” LA GALERÍA AT VILLA VICTORIA CENTER FOR THE ARTS › 617.927.1717 › 85 West Newton St, Boston › villavictoriaarts. org/gallery.html › Thurs-Fri 3-6 pm; Sat 1-4 pm › Through Dec 30: “Paredes en Fuego: The 2012 Cacique Youth Art Show” LACONIA GALLERY › 617.670.1568 › 433 Harrison Ave, Boston › laconiagallery.org › Fri-Sun noon–4 pm › Through Jan 13: David Curcio: “I Wouldn’t Worry About It” LOT F GALLERY › 617.426.1021 › 145 Pearl St, Boston › lotfgallery.com › Sat noon-4 pm › Through Dec 28: “Winter Salad” MILLS GALLERY AT BOSTON CENTER FOR THE ARTS › 617.426.8835 › 539 Tremont St, Boston › bcaonline.org › Wed + Sun noon-5 pm; Thurs-Sat noon-9 pm › Through Feb 3: “Process Goes Public” 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” MULTICULTURAL ARTS CENTER › 617.577.1400 › 41 Second St, Cambridge › multiculturalartscenter.org › Mon-Fri 10:30 am-6 pm › Through Dec 26: Sylvia StaggGiuliano: “Transit of Venus” PEARL STREET GALLERY › 617.338.1388 › 100 Pearl St, Chelsea › Sat-Sun noon-5 pm › Through Dec 30: “Hurricane Sandy Relief Show and Sale” 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” 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” 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” WASHINGTON STREET ART CENTER › 617.623.5315 › 321 Washington St, Somerville › washingtonst.org › Sat noon-4 pm › Through Dec 22: Danielle Festa: “Fabricating Realities”

museums

ADDISON GALLERY OF AMERICAN ART AT PHILLIPS ACADEMY › 978.749.4015 › 180 Main St, Andover › andover. edu/addison › Tues-Sat 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” 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: “Retreat” › Through Dec 30: Julianne Swartz: “How Deep is Your” › Through April 21: “Second Nature: Abstract Photography Then and Now” › Through Oct 1: “PLATFORM 10: Dan Peterman” 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 › Tues-Sun 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 Dec 30: Mark Davis: “Icarus” › 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 March 17: Chris Gustin: “Masterworks in Clay” HARVARD ART MUSEUMS › 617.495.9400 › 485 Broadway, Cambridge › harvardartmuseums.org › Tues-Sat 10 am-5 pm › Admission $9; $7 seniors; $6 students › Through Dec 29: “Recent Acquisitions, Part III: Kerry James Marshall” › Through June 1: “Re-View” 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 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 am-5 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” › Through May 28: “Curiosity” MIT MUSEUM › 617.253.4444 › 265 Mass Ave, Cambridge › web.mit.edu/museum › TuesFri 10 am-5 pm; Sat-Sun noon-5 pm › Through

Dec 31: Berenice Abbott: “Photography and Science: An Essential Unity” › Through March 17: “Rivers of Ice: Vanishing Glaciers of the Greater Himalaya” › Through Sept 28: “The Jeweled Net: Views of Contemporary Holography” 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: “The Allure of Japan” › Through Jan 6: Ori Gersht: “History Repeating” › Through Feb 3: Mario Testino: “In Your Face” › Through Feb 18: “Artful Healing” › Through Feb 18: “Cats to Crickets: Pets in Japan’s Floating World” › Through March 31: Daniel Rich: “Platforms of Power” › Through April 14: “The Postcard Age: Selections from the Leonard A. Lauder Collection” › Through June 16: “Kings, Queens, and Courtiers: Royalty on Paper” › Through June 16: Mario Testino: “British Royal Portraits” › Through June 23: “Divine Depictions: Korean Buddhist

Berenice Abbott’s The Parabolic Mirror Has a Thousand Eyes is on view at the MIT Museum as part of the show “Photography and Science: An Essential Unity” through December 31.

Paintings” › Through July 7: “Art of the White Mountains” › Through Sept 8: “Chinese Lacquer 1200–1800” › Through June 1: “Jewels, Gems, and Treasures: Ancient to Modern” MUSEUM OF SCIENCE › 617.723.2500 › 1 Science Pk, Boston › mos.org › Sat-Thurs 9 am-5 pm; Fri 9 am-9 pm › Admission $22; $20 seniors; $19 children 3-11 › Through Jan 13: “Mammoths and Mastodons: Titans of the Ice Age” › Through March 3: “Shipwreck! Pirates & Treasure” NORMAN ROCKWELL MUSEUM › 413.298.4100 › 9 Rte 183, Stockbridge › nrm. org › Daily 10 am–5 pm, May through Oct. Nov through April, 10 am-4 pm and weekends 10 am-5 pm › Admission $16; $14.50 seniors; $10 students with ID; $5 for kids and teens 6 to 18; free for ages 5 and under › 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” 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 Jan 13: “America In View: Landscape Photography 1865 to Now” › Through Feb 24: “Everyday Things: Contemporary Works from the Collection” › Through May 19: “Grisogorious Places: Edward Lear’s Travels” › Through June 9: “RISD Business: Sassy Signs and Sculptures by Alejandro Diaz” › Through June 30: Angela Bulloch, Anthony McCall, and Haroon Mirza: “Double-and-Add” 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 Feb 3: “Kennedy to Kent State: Images of a Generation”

on view through February 24

open daily • nrm.org • 413-298-4100 9 Rt. 183, Stockbridge, MA THEPHOENIX.cOm/EvENTs :: 12.21.12 67

Arts & Nightlife :: theAter

play by play Compiled by Maddy Myers

OpENING

INVISIBLE MAN › Christopher McElroen helms Oren Jacoby’s theatrical adaptation of Ralph Ellison’s 1952 novel about an idealistic young African-American man who begins to realize and push back against his social invisibility. Teagle F. Bougere stars in the Huntington Theatre co-production. › January 4–February 3 › Boston University Theatre, 264 Huntington Ave, Boston › $15-$95 › 617.266.0800 or huntingtontheatre.org 33 VARIATIONS › Spiro Veloudos stages a new play by Moises Kaufman that juxtaposes two time periods. In this Lyric Stage production, James Andreassi co-stars, as Beethoven, with Paula Plum, as a modern-day musicologist struggling to understand the composer’s motivations. › January 4–February 2 › Lyric Stage Company of Boston, 140 Clarendon St, Boston › $27-$58 › 617.585.5678 or lyricstage.com

NOW playING

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. › Through December 30 › Central Square Theater, 450 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $15-$45 › 866.811.4111 or centralsquaretheater.org BLACK NATIVITY › John Andrew Ross, original music director of the National Center of Afro-American Artists’ annual production of Langston Hughes’s nativity play, reprises his directorial role again for this annual performance that infuses the original scripture with music and dance. The cast of more than 50 actors includes experienced adult performers as well as young children, some of whom will be performing publicly for the first time. › Through December 22 › Blackman Auditorium, Northeastern University, 342 Huntington Avenue, Boston › $18-$45 › 617.442.8614 or blacknativity.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 CHINGLISH › As David Henry Hwang’s Chinglish demonstrates, negotiations between Americans and Chinese are seldom as snappy as the play’s title. In this “new comedy about the misadventures of miscommunication,” which is in its New England premiere at the Lyric Stage Company, an Ohio businessman travels to Guiyang, China, hoping to land a contract for signage at a new cultural center. Larry Coen is at the helm of this sharp Lyric production that trips smoothly between linguistic farce and lyrical episodes that hark back to ancient arts and the Cultural Revolution. Barlow Adamson whips up a convincing mélange of sincerity and dissembling as the Every Businessman looking for a fresh start. › Through December 23 › Lyric Stage Company of Boston, 140 Clarendon St, Boston › $25-$58 › 617.585.5678 or lyricstage. 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 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. › Through December 23 › North Shore Music Theatre, 62 Dunham Rd, Beverly › $45-$60 › 978.232.7200 or nsmt.org THE CHRISTMAS REVELS › Patrick Swanson directs the annual Revels celebration of the Winter Solstice, with George Emlen as the music director. The show includes the talents of piper Paddy Keenan and fiddler Sheila Falls Keohane, musician and song leader David Coffin, Steven Barkhimer, soloist Mary Casey, the O’Shea Chaplin Academy of Irish Dance, the Pinewoods Morris Men, and Cambridge Symphonic Brass Ensemble. › Through December 27 › Sanders Theatre, 45 Quincy St, Cambridge › $25-$52; $15-$40 children 11 & under › 617.496.2222 or revels.org FULLY COMMITTED › Gabriel Kuttner stars as Sam, a would-be actor working at a 4-star Manhattan restaurant, in Becky Mode’s comedy about serving New York’s upper crust. Bridget Kathleen O’Leary directs the production for New Repertory Theatre. › Through December 30 › Arsenal Center for the Arts, 321 Arsenal St, Watertown › $36 › 617.923.0100 or newrep.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. › Through December 23 › Merrimack Repertory Theatre, 50 East Merrimack Street, Lowell › $15-$47 › 978.454.3926 or mrt.org/halfnhalfnhalf.html HANSEL AND GRETEL › Allegra Libonati directs a cast of graduate acting students from the ART Institute for Advanced Theater Training in this theatrical adaptation of the classic children’s story by the Brothers Grimm. › Through January 6 › Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle Street, Cambridge › $15 › 617.547.8300 or amrep.org HOLIDAY MEMORIES › New Rep stages Truman Capote’s holiday play about his experiences growing up during the Depression in the deep South. The piece is based on two of Capote’s short stories, “The Thanksgiving Visitor” and “A Christmas Memory.” Russell Vandenbroucke directs. › Through December 23 › New Repertory Theatre, Arsenal Center for the Arts, 321 Arsenal St, Watertown › $28-$58 › 617.923.8487 or newrep.org 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. › Through December 30 › Trinity Repertory Company, 201 Washington St, Providence, RI › $28-$34 › 401.351.4242 or trinityrep.com 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. › Through

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The Huntington Theatre Company’s production of Our Town is at the BCA’s Calderwood Pavilion through January 26. Read Carolyn Clay’s review at thePhoenix.com/arts. December 23 › Stoneham Theatre, 395 Main St, Stoneham › $44-$48 › 781.279.2200 or stonehamtheatre.org MEMPHIS › Christopher Ashley directs the Broadway tour of Joe DiPietro and David Bryan’s musical set in the 1950s and loosely based on the life of Memphis disc jockey Dewey Phillips. Earl Darrington, Felicia Boswell, and Bryan Fenkart star. › Through December 23 › Colonial Theatre, 106 Boylston St, Boston › $34-$129 › 617.426.9366 or boston.broadway. com › Jon Garelick’s review at thePhoenix. com/arts 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. › Through December 22 › Boston Center for the Arts Plaza Theatre, 539 Tremont Street, Boston › $25-$30 › 617.864.0841 or moonboxproductions.org OUR TOWN › The Huntington presents Thornton Wilder’s moving American classic set between 1901 and 1913. The play breaks the fourth wall and acknowledges its theatricality by including the Stage Manager as a character, as the story illuminates the value of life’s small details and set pieces. David Cromer directs. › Through January 13 › Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont St, Boston › $15$105 › 617.266.0800 or huntingtontheatre. org › Carolyn Clay’s review at thePhoenix. com/arts PIPPIN › Diane Paulus helms the ART’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. › Through 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. › Through December 22 › Salem Theatre Company, 90 Lafayette St, Salem › $10-$25 › 978.790.8546 or salemtheatre.com RUDOLPH THE RED NECKED REINDEER › Having had his holiday way with the Virgin Mary and the Grinch, Ryan Landry is now toying with everybody’s favorite bit of blinking venison. A glittering, dancing, singing travesty of the Rankin/Bass television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (which has been on every year since 1964!), Rudolph the Red Necked Reindeer turns deer meat into beef cake, then runs it through the Gold Dust Orphans’ roaster basted with sequins and smut. This is not Landry’s most ingenious show — perhaps because the original, with its unlikely trio of beacon-nosed reindeer, elf who wants to be a dentist, and random prospector, is so loopy it’s hard to parody — even if you do throw in Drew Barrymore, The Lion King, and a trailer-park Santa who likes plugging squirrels. But like most pranks at the Gold Dust Orphanage, Rudolph is a lot of bawdy, showboating fun. And the costumes by Scott Martino are worthy of Cher — or Liberace as a Munchkin. › Through 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. › Through December 29 › Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre, 70 Kemble St, Lenox › $15-$50 › 413.637.3353 or shakespeare.org TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA › Robert Walsh directs Actors’ Shakespeare Project in the Bard’s romantic comedy about a love triangle, cross-dressing maidens, and couples engaged to be married against their wishes. › December 12–January 6 › Davis Square Theatre, 255 Elm Street, Somerville › $28-$50 › 866.811.4111 or actorsshakespeareproject.org

ARTS & NIGHTLIFE :: FILM

REVIEW

NINA HOSS’S BARBARA Barbara is the latest collaboration between director Christian Petzold and his star Nina Hoss. Set in East Germany in 1980, the film tells the story of a doctor (Hoss) who has been exiled to the provinces after being jailed for an unnamed crime. I talked to Hoss in New York during her Stateside press swing to promote Barbara. What do you think accounts for the richness of the collaboration with Christian Petzold? I always have the feeling that he sees something in me personally which I am not but I can relate to very well. It’s always about a human being who is outside of a social community, or the society, even, and tries to make her way back in.

SPAGHETTI SOUTHERN STYLE WITH INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, Quentin Taran-

Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz, devouring tino rewrote the end of World War II, going big as Tarantino’s dialogue as much as he did in his Oscarhe reduced Hitler to something very small: a corpse winning turn in Basterds) “purchases” the shackled riddled with bullets ﬁred by Jewish hit men. HistoriDjango (a whip-scarred Jamie Foxx) with a couple cally inaccurate to say the least, it was also incredof well-placed blasts from his concealed handibly satisfying. cannon. Freed from what the German-born dentist Now, Tarantino reconfigures that calls “this slavery malarkey,” Django literclassic American genre, the Western, ally begins “acting” as King’s valet. +++1/2 setting his new film in the Deep South, King, a bounty hunter who is as much a DJANGO creating what he terms a “Southern,” dentist as Doc Holliday, takes on Django UNCHAINED while infusing it with the spaghetti as his protégé, with a goal of rescuing sensibilities of Sergio Leone (director Django’s long-lost wife, Broomhilda Directed and written by Quentin Tarantino of Tarantino’s favorite film, The Good, (Kerry Washington), who’s the property :: With Jamie Foxx, The Bad and the Ugly) and, more so, the of powerful plantation proprietor CalChristoph Waltz, genre grit of that other Sergio, Corbucci vin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio, oozing Leonardo DiCaprio, (director of 1966’s Django, naturally). sleaze). But Candie may be the least of Kerry Washington, and Samuel L. Jackson :: The Taking place in a sun-drenched land their worries. Weinstein Company :: (gorgeous location photography by Robert Stephen (a menacing Samuel L. Jack165 minutes Richardson), the film has Tarantino going son) is hunched over his cane after 60 even bigger, making everything comically years as Candie’s personal Stepin Fetchit, Boston Common + Fenway + Kendall oversized, from the prop tooth bouncing but once he shuffles away from his master, Square + suburbs atop a dentist’s wagon to the post-Peckinpah he’s terrifying. Transparently manipulatgeysers of spurting viscera. It’s as though ing everyone around him, his loyalties to Blazing Saddles has been remade by Monty Python, except anyone but himself are a theatrical façade. Tarantino’s voice remains clear — which certainly won’t At this point, things slow down a bit. But it be appreciated by, say, Spike Lee, who publicly took Tardoesn’t make the film feel overlong. Instead, it’s the antino to task for using the word “nigger” a comparably calm before the shitstorm, when Tarantino takes quaint 38 times in Jackie Brown. (It’s deployed incessantly the chains off, and the real carnage begins. _BR E T T MI CHEL here, as in Jackie, by actors of all races.)

Barbara is aware she’s being kept tabs on, and yet for most of the movie, it’s you and the camera. They talked a lot about, “What position do you give the audience so that you don’t get a voyeuristic feeling?” So I knew that the way they capture me in these lonely moments is one that doesn’t attack her. So I didn’t have to mistrust the camera. It was a friend more than an enemy. And also an invisible presence. Exactly. Something that gets the truth which [Barbara] won’t show ever to the State. But I can give it to the camera. This role was really about balancing the emotions, how much can you give away, how much can you tell through your eyes or through your gestures. I had to work on her being tough to the world around her. But not so harsh and closed up that you’re not interested in her anymore. _CHARLES TAYLO R See Gerald Peary’s review of Barbara on page 70. Find more of our interview with Nina Hoss at thePhoenix.com/movies.

Nina Hoss

THEPHOENIX.COM/MOVIES :: 12.21.12 69

5BEST PICTURE

GOLDEN GLOBE AWARD NOMINATIONS (DRAMA)

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BEST PICTURE

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Arts & Nightlife :: film

opening this week

movements of its former trainer Stéphanie (Marion Cotillard). You almost forget that a little earlier the creature had ripped her legs off. That accident is just the start of a litany of calamities. On the bright side, Stéphanie emerges from her post-accident depression, forms an unlikely liaison with troubled martialarts fighter Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts), and adjusts to mobility with her new prosthetics. But then people get fired, love is betrayed, families are broken up — so that when a little kid is standing on an ice-covered pond, you pretty much know what’s going to happen next. The lugubrious plot takes a refreshing detour when Stéphanie pokes into the world of extreme fighting. Cotillard’s performance is a match for the histrionics, but Rust and Bone still could cut a lot of fat. › 120m › French › Kendall Square _Peter Keough +1/2 THIS IS 40 › I’m at a loss to empathize with the middle-aged plight of Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann), supporting players in Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up, now front and center in the writer/director/producer’s kinda-sorta sequel. The couple might have to sell their gigantic home because Debbie’s boutique clothing store is missing $12,000 and Pete, a record-label owner (though you’d swear his business is riding his bike), has loaned his struggling father (Albert Brooks, priceless as always) $80,000. Boo. Hoo. Overlong and never more than amusing, the film finds Apatow once again employing his wife (Mann) and daughters (Maude and Iris) as his onscreen family, while the handsome, thick-haired Rudd is the average-looking filmmaker’s movie surrogate. That’s the level of honesty in this movie’s entitled bubble of reality. › 134m › Boston Common + Fenway + suburbs _Brett Michel

++++ BARBARA › In this brilliant Cold War political drama set in the GDR in 1980, a doctor, Barbara (the extraordinary Nina Hoss), is exiled from East Berlin to a provincial town by the Baltic Sea because she has requested to move to the West. Once there, her every move is monitored by the local Stasi, who come into her apartment at will, overturning her furniture and checking her body parts. Her claustrophobic life continues at the local hospital, where she is assigned — the handsome doctor (Ronald Zehrfeld) who befriends her and courts her is, very likely, also a Stasi spy. Somehow, in this stirring narrative, Barbara manages to keep hold of her principles, and her humanity and courage, and battles to save a dissident teenage girl whose life the Communists are trying to destroy. Filmmaker Christian Petzold was appropriately awarded Best Director at the 2012 Berlin Film Festival. In a perfect world, Nina Hoss would be a 2013 Oscar nominee for Best Actress. › German › 105m › Coolidge Corner _Gerald Peary ++1/2 THE GUILT TRIP › Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand make a snappy comic duo in this road movie about a tetchy mother-son relationship. He plays Andy, a chemist who’s invented a nontoxic cleanser. She’s Joyce, a Joizy widow whose high spirits have dampened in middle age. They embark on a cross-country drive during which Andy has a series of mostly disastrous pitch meetings. He’s planned a surprise on the West Coast — but will they get there before he throttles her? Mommy annoys and embarrasses her bubele, but she also teaches him that he needs to sell himself before he can market his product. Rogen adroitly finds humor in Andy’s frustration with the gulf between where he wants his life to be ++1/2 ANNA KARENINA › 2012 › Visit and where it actually is. Streisand awakens the thePhoenix.com/movies for a full review. › comic persona that’s been hibernating since 130m › Boston Common + Kendall Square + Yentl, and has her requisite verklempt moments. Coolidge Corner + West Newton Dan Fogelman’s script could have been more +++ ARGO › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix.com/ ambitious (like Albert Brooks’s Mother), but movies for a full review. › 120m › Boston in the hands of director Anne Fletcher it’s Common + Fenway + Fresh Pond + enjoyably breezy. › 96m › Boston Common + Somerville Theatre + Coolidge Corner + Fenway + suburbs _Betsy Sherman Chestnut Hill + Embassy + suburbs ++1/2 LES MISÉRABLES › For his +++1/2 CHASING ICE › 2012 › Visit adaptation of the kitsch-fest known as Les thePhoenix.com/movies for a full review. › 80m Miz, Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech) bets › Coolidge Corner heavily on his cast, and mostly wins. ++ CORALINE › 2009 › Henry Selick’s His musical strategy is to have the adaptation of the weird and funny singing done live on set, and to Neil Gaiman novel is a regressive, have the camera bore in on the sometimes subversive, but mostly re actors, especially during solos. for mo annoying disappointment. film The singing does indeed have Coraline (a shrill Dakota s immediacy, and the close-ups listingoenix. Fanning) is fed up with her heph t give the audience intimacy to o G parents (Teri Hatcher and John vies with the characters. Hugh com/mo Hodgman), so when the brick Jackman, as Jean Valjean, voices wall sealing the tiny door in her big themes of guilt and redemption bedroom vanishes in a dream, she with the hit-you-over-the-head lyrics, goes exploring and discovers an “Other but what he personally brings to the role World” where everything seems better is a restless physicality. Anne Hathaway — but what’s with the buttons sealing is raw and touching and sings like an angel as everybody’s eyes? Gaiman’s book delves into Fantine, the doomed factory girl, and Samantha existential anxieties about identity, illusion, and Barks is terrific as street-smart Éponine. reality; Selick’s movie stays on the “no place like We all lose with Russell Crowe’s constipated home” surface. › 100m › Brattle: Sun performance as Valjean’s pursuer, Javert. But +++ DIANA VREELAND: THE EYE HAS the piece isn’t only about individuals; it’s also TO TRAVEL › 2011 › Visit thePhoenix.com/ about a people’s rebellion played out against a movies for a full review. › 86m › West Newton: satisfying backdrop of 19th-century Parisian Sat-Sun filth. › 158m › Boston Common + Fenway + ++1/2 FLIGHT › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix. suburbs _Betsy Sherman com/movies for a full review. › 139m › Boston ++1/2 RUST AND BONE › One image from Common + Fresh Pond + Somerville Jacques Audiard’s overwrought melodrama Theatre + suburbs suggests what a shimmering, mysterious movie +1/2 HITCHCOCK › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix. it might have been. Through the glass wall of com/movies for a full review. › 98m › Boston an aquarium tank, a killer whale emerges with Common + Kendall Square + Embassy its giant cartoon face, imitating playfully the ++1/2 THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED

now playing

phX piCks >> Can’t Miss • ARMAGEDDON As we arrive at the mayan deadline for the end of the world, one of our last regrets is that the coolidge chose michael Bay’s Armageddon (1998) as its @ftermidnite send off. or maybe not; the gleeful absurdity of the premise (bunch of space jockeys try to detonate deadly asteroid), the explosive special effects, and Ben Affleck’s Animal Crackers scene, make this a dumb but entertaining way to spend the end. Also screens saturday — if there is one. Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290 Harvard St, Brookline :: midnight :: $9.25 :: 617.734.2501 or coolidge.org FRI

• focus features 10th anniversary retrospective What happened to independent cinema? it’s alive and well at Focus Features, which has kept the indie torch alive with films such as cary Fukunaga’s Jane Eyre (2011; noon and 5 pm), Joe Wright’s Atonement (2007; 2:30 + 7:30 pm), and Rian Johnson’s Brick (2006; 10 pm), all screening today at the Brattle as part of their Focus Features 10th Anniversary Retrospective. Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St, Cambridge :: Double feature $12; $10 students, seniors :: 617.876.6837 or brattlefilm.org SAT

• hfa’s fourth annual vintage christmas shoW if your lastminute shopping takes you to harvard square and you’re looking for some yuletide relief, head over to the harvard Film Archive’s Fourth Annual vintage christmas show. it’s a kid-friendly event featuring two hours of shorts including a George Kuchar video diary, some comedy classics, and a murder mystery. A murder mystery? season’s greetings! Harvard Film Archive in the Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy St, Cambridge :: 2 pm :: free :: 627. 495.4700 or hcl.harvard.edu/hfa SUN

FROM THE AWARD WINNING DIRECTOR OF “A PROPHET”

GOLDEN GLOBE AWARD ®

NOMINATIONS

BEST ACTRESS MARION COTILLARD DRAMA

• gene Kelly centennial triBute it’s a musical Wednesday to brighten the post-christmas gloom. At the Brattle you can enjoy the Gene Kelly centennial tribute with the iconic hoofer in stanley Donen’s On the Town (1949; 2:15 + 7 pm) and George sidney’s Anchors Aweigh (1945; 4:15 + 9 pm). Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St, Cambridge :: Double feature $12; $10 students, seniors :: 617.876.6837 or brattlefilm.org • sing-a-long SOUND OF MUSIC And if you feel like joining in with the festivities, there’s the Regent’s sing-Along Sound of Music (1965), where you and Julie Andrews can belt out the great Rodgers and hammerstein tunes. Regent Theatre, 7 Medford St, Arlington :: December 26-29; today @ 10:30 am + 7 pm:: $15; $12 seniors :: 781.646.4849 or regenttheatre.com WED

+++ THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix. com/movies for a full review. › 102m › Somerville Theatre + PLAYING FOR KEEPS › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix.com/movies for a full review. › 106m › Boston Common + Fenway + Fresh Pond + suburbs +1/2 RED DAWN › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix.com/movies for a full review. › 93m › Boston Common + suburbs +++ RISE OF THE GUARDIANS › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix.com/movies for a full review. › 97m › Boston Common + Fenway + Fresh Pond + Chestnut Hill + Arlington Capitol + suburbs +++ THE SESSIONS › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix.com/movies for a full review. › 95m › Coolidge Corner + West Newton +++ SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix.com/movies for a full review. › 122m › Boston Common + Fenway + West Newton ++++ SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN › 1953 › The directorial team of Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, the songs of Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed, and the performances of Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, Donald O’Connor, and Jean Hagen combine to make this the finest musical of the ‘50s. The background — a lively satire of Hollywood at the beginning of the sound era — is delightful, and the musical numbers, such as “Make ‘Em Laugh” and the classic title sequence, are extraordinary. › 103m › Brattle: Tues +++ SKYFALL › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix. com/movies for a full review. › 143m › Boston Common + Fenway + Fresh Pond + Somerville Theatre + Chestnut Hill + Embassy + suburbs

+++ MONSOON WEDDING › 2001 › Like most weddings, the one in Mira Nair’s film is stressful and chaotic in its preparation and a little bit false and tacky in its execution, but its pleasures prove genuine and deep. Fatherof-the-bride Lalit Verma (Naseeruddin Shah) worries that he’s getting ripped off by buffoonish, vaguely disreputable wedding planner P.K. Dube (Vijay Raaz) as he prepares for the arranged marriage between his daughter Aditi (Vasundhara Das) and Texas-based engineer Hemant Rai (Parvin Dabas), who will meet for the first time days before the nuptials take place. Neither is he on good terms with his Australian nephew Rahul Chadha (Randeep Hooda), or his own teenage son, chubby Varun (Ishaan Nair), who prefers cooking and dance to more “manly” endeavors. Aditi, for her part, will pursue almost to her wedding night an affair with her married boss. Then there’s the question of why cousin Ria (Shefali Shetty) shrinks from rich Uncle Tej (Rajat Kapoor) even when he offers to pay for her dream of taking part in a writing program in an American university? Nair (Salaam, Bombay!; Mississippi Masala) mixing the bitter with the sweet, going a little heavy on the latter in a film about the power of combining opposites. But love has the last word, as nearly every character finds the appropriate mate despite his or her worst inclinations. Most appealing is the transformation of the benighted P.K., who takes time out from frantic phone calls to make eye contact with a maid with the unlikely but apt name of Alice (Tilotama Shome); what he does then with some flowers and candles makes for the most touching and unexpected moment in the film. › English + Hindi + Punjabi › 114m › Brattle: Sun

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

SCREEN ACTORS GUILD AWARD ®

JOURNEY › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix.com/ movies for a full review. › 169m › Boston Common + Fenway + Fresh Pond + Chestnut Hill + Embassy + Arlington Capitol + suburbs 1/2 HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix.com/movies for a full review. › 91m › West Newton: Sat-Sun ++ HYDE PARK ON HUDSON › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix.com/movies for a full review. › 94m › Boston Common + Kendall Square + West Newton + suburbs +++1/2 IT’S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER › 1955 › This Stanley Donen film may be the best movie musical almost no one knows, and it’s the anti–On the Town. Three servicemen (Gene Kelly, Michael Kidd, and the witty, underrated Dan Dailey), best of pals, return from the war and pledge to meet at their favorite New York bar in 10 years; when they do, they discover they’ve taken such different paths that they can no longer stand one another. This unexpectedly poignant satirical musical is about how their awkward reunion prompts each of the three men to take stock of himself. › 101m › Brattle: Thurs +++1/2 KILLNG THEM SOFTLY › 2012 › Visit thePhoenix.com/movies for a full review. › 97m › Boston Common + Kendall Square Boston Common + Fenway + Fresh Pond + Chestnut Hill + Embassy + Arlington

Capitol + suburbs ++ MAHLER ON THE COUCH › 2010 › Visit thePhoenix.com/movies for a full review. › German › 98m › Coolidge Corner +++ MILK › 2008 › Gus Van Sant’s trenchant bio-pic of San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk is a juicy and manipulative melodrama and a powerful tearjerker. The first openly gay man elected to public office in the United States, Milk (Sean Penn) was murdered on November 27, 1978, along with the city’s mayor, George Moscone (Victor Garber), by Dan White (Josh Brolin) after Moscone refused to let White rescind his resignation from the city’s board of supervisors. We flash back to Milk’s pre-activist days as a closeted New York office drone who, on his 40th birthday, in the arms of new-found love Scott Smith (James Franco), decides to move to San Francisco to do something in his life “to be proud of.” Van Sant re-creates the locations, the clothes, the ambiance, and the fervor of those days with rousing exactitude; Penn uncannily resembles Milk, and at his best he evokes Milk’s combination of sweetness and toughness, his aura of raunchy saintliness. Van Sant does juice up Milk with a sampling of his subject’s chaotic personal life; he fails to integrate these gossipy digressions, and Penn’s performance in them unravel. Still, it’s hard to imagine anyone’s being unmoved by the army of candlelight marchers at the end. › 128m › Brattle: Fri

NOMINATION

BEST ACTRESS MARION COTILLARD

©HFPA

WINNER

BEST PICTURE BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL

“A HYPNOTIC FILM THAT MEANS TO SHAKE YOU, AND DOES. MARION COTILLARD IS A TOUR-DE-FORCE. SHE’S ASTONISHING. MATTHIAS SCHOENAERTS IS SUPERB.” Peter Travers

WINNER

BEST ACTRESS

HOLLYWOOD FILM AWARDS

MARION COTILLARD

MATTHIAS SCHOENAERTS

RUST AND BONE A FILM BY

JACQUES AUDIARD

WWW.SONYCLASSICS.COM wallimage sa

LANDMARK THEATRES EXCLUSIVE ENGAGEMENT KENDALL SQUARE STARTS FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21 Cambridge 617-499-1996

VIEW THE TRAILER AT WWW.RUSTANDBONE.COM THEPHOENIX.cOm/mOvIEs :: 12.21.12 71

Arts & Nightlife :: BostoN AcceNts

cellArs By stArlight

ON A MONDAY EVENING, ANGElA SAWYER is behind the counter at Weirdo Records, labeling a stack of microCDs. “They’re the store’s holiday cards,” she explains. Each contains a recording of a piano player performing a song from A Charlie Brown Christmas, slowed down so it sounds really weird. “They’re really obscure,” she says about the medium in general. “Each can only hold about five minutes.” These are the sorts of eccentricities one routinely stumbles upon at an experimental record shop like Weirdo, which Sawyer opened in Central Square in 2009 after several years of running the store by mail order from her home, and after more than 20 years of working in record shops in general. Weirdo’s Mass Ave storefront feels like a glorified walk-in closet, with neon-pink walls covered in posters and shelves of CDs and LPs ranging from ’60s Pakistani folk instrumentals and long-lost 1940s pop crooners to Spanish ’80s punk compilations and CDs of noise recordings captured in Jamaica Plain. “Play loud on cheap stereo,” reads a CD wrapped in a brown paper bag, propped on a shelf between “funny shaped stuff” and “outsider squares.” These sorts of tags — along with “free jazz,” “world,” and “sixties & seventies” — are the closest things to genre labels found at Weirdo. “To figure out how good music happens, and how meaningful music comes to exist, part

of what you have to do is take out all of the fences that exist inside of your head,” says Sawyer. “About this genre, or that genre.” Sawyer plays in several experimental bands herself: she’s the singer in a hardcore band, Exusamwa; plays solo as Preggy Peggy & the Lazy Babymakers; and, most oddly, is a member of Duck That, an improvisational quartet where everyone plays hunting calls. “We all play little toys that make noises that sound like animals,” she says. Despite its tiny size, Weirdo Records hosts wacky live shows every Monday night. When I visit, however, the weekly show has been moved to Wednesday at 10 am as part of local Whitehaus duo the Bang Brothers’ attempt at playing 12 cities in 24 hours. “There’s a really healthy community here, one of the best in the country,” Sawyer explains. “For people in this town who play nondenominational, nobody-knows-what-the-fuck-it-is kind of music.” Sawyer’s involvement in the local experimental scene gives the shop a community-center feel. “Musicians and artists and people in general need a place where they can go and have that,” she explains. “The world just gets more homogenized all of the time. It gets watered down really easily. Every city you go to looks the same. This is my tiny little dent into the planet that makes it better.” _LIZ PELLY » LPELLY@Phx.com

>> WEIRDO RECORDS :: 844 Mass Ave, Cambridge :: 857.413.0154 or weirdorecords.com 72 12.21.12 :: ThEphOEnIx.COM/MuSIC

Sentimentalized consumerism is weird. But if you are dropping cash on loved ones this December, supporting locally owned record shops is one way to make holiday shopping more purposeful. Here are four shops to check out this month and beyond: Armageddon Record Shop :: For new and used punk, hardcore, noise, indie rock, and more :: 12 Eliot St, Cambridge :: armageddonshop.com looney Tunes :: Vintage vinyl shop, formerly at Boylston St, now located inside of Store 54; a good place to search for underground rock and pop from decades past :: 16 Harvard Ave, Allston, in the basement Nuggets Records :: Dig through thousands of LPs in Kenmore Square :: 486 Comm Ave, Boston :: nuggetsrecords. com Planet Records :: Formerly on JFK Street in Harvard Square, the relocated shop has a “no holds barred” selection of vinyl and CDs in all genres :: 144 Mt. Auburn St, Cambridge :: planet-records.com

WEirDo rECorDS PHoto By iAn PErLMAn

SURVEYING THE STACKS AT WEIRDO RECORDS

SUPPORT LOCAL RECORD SHOPS

Arts & Nightlife :: music THURSDAY 20

“AINE MINOGUE’S CELTIC MIDWINTER CELEBRATION” › 7:30 pm › Club Passim, 47 Palmer St, Cambridge › $20-$22 › 617.492.7679 or clubpassim.com AJ EDWARDS + AS THE SPARROW + THE DEEP NORTH + MOONTOWERS › 9 pm › T.T. the Bear’s Place, 10 Brookline St, Cambridge › $9 › 617.492.2327 or ticketweb.com ALMOST RIGHTEOUS + TIK TOK › 9 pm › Milky Way, at the Brewery, 284 Armory St, Jamaica Plain › $5 › 617.524.3740 or milkywayjp.com BEARSTRONAUT + LETTERDAY › 8 pm › Church of Boston, 69 Kilmarnock St, Boston › $10 › 617.236.7600 or churchofboston.com “BOMB THE MUSIC INDUSTRY!” › With Math the Band + The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die + Sean Eldon & The Greatest Date › 7 pm › Middle East Downstairs, 480 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $10 › 617.864.EAST or ticketweb.com CANCER KILLING GEMINI + DAS MUERTE › Radio Upstairs, 379 Somerville Ave, Somerville › 617.764.0005 or

radiobarunion.com/ DAVES ENERGY GUIDE › Precinct, 70 Union Sq, Somerville › 617.623.9211 or precinctbar.com HIVESMASHER + VATTNET VISKAR + FAMILY › 9 pm › Great Scott, 1222 Comm Ave, Allston › $10 › 617.566.9014 or ticketweb.com THE JAUNTEE + MANGO BOBSLED + THE SOUL PANACEA + MOXA › Middle East Upstairs, 472 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $10 › 617.864.EAST or ticketweb.com KIMON KIRK + DIETRICH STRAUSE + BRIAN WEBB › 9 pm › Lizard Lounge, 1667 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.547.0759 or lizardloungeclub.com KOBIE ALI › 9:30 pm › Middle East Corner, 480 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $5 › 617.864.3278 or ticketweb.com MELVERN TAYLOR & HIS FABULOUS MELTONES › 7:30 pm › Toad, 1920 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.497.4950 or toadcambridge. com MIKE YARSKY + CHARLOTTE BASH › 8 pm › Cantab Lounge Downstairs, 738 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $6 › 617.354.2685 or cantablounge.com

Lupo’s

PREACHER ROE › 10:30 pm › Plough & Stars, 912 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.576.0032 or ploughandstars.com SERIOUS JACK + TALL BOYS + WE WERE ASTRONAUTS › P.A.’s Lounge, 345 Somerville Ave, Somerville › 617.776.1557 SPIRIT ANIMAL › 6 pm › All Asia, 334 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.497.1544 or allasiabar.com STORMIN’ NORMAN AND FRIENDS › 7 pm › Lily Pad, 1353 Cambridge St, Cambridge › 617.497.0823 “THE SUFJAN STEVENS CHRISTMAS SING-A-LONG SEASONAL AFFECTIVE DISORDER YULETIDE DISASTER PAGEANT ON ICE” › With Sufjan Stevens + Sheila Saputo › 7 pm › Royale, 279 Tremont

>> live music on p 74

• WESTERN EDUCATION Western Education’s blistering fall single, “All I Am,” was the first song spun on the relaunched Boston Accents, and it signaled the arrival of the next great band out of Lowell. The high-charged rock quartet releases The Weekend Sessions tonight at a triple-release event also birthing new music from Miss Fairchild and the Joint Chiefs. Middle East downstairs, 480 Mass Ave, Cambridge :: 7 pm :: $12; $10 advance :: ticketweb.com FRI

• ThE STREET DOgS “WRECk ThE hAllS” If the Street Dogs are truly FRI SAT calling it a day, they are doing it in grand holiday fashion. Last month’s 2 1 2 2 announcement that the veteran punk band will be taking a break from recording and touring (but not officially breaking up) left a lot of things open-ended for Mike McColgan and his crew, but one thing is certain: this two-night stand at the ’Dise is going to be merry as fuck. Oi to the world, indeed. Paradise Rock Club, 967 Comm Ave, Boston :: 6 pm :: $17 :: ticketmaster.com • YOUNg lONDON Have yourself a blippy little Christmas as Boston’s electropop scene shows off a troika of dance-mad duos: Young London, Stereo 22 Telescope, and Casey Desmond (as usual, with her trusted sidekick Taylor Barefoot). There will be enough holiday cheer in the room to run a high-powered synthesizer and more dancing than in Santa’s drunkenneon-elves-filled workshop after the man leaves the North Pole. Brighton Music Hall, 158 Brighton Ave, Allston :: 6 pm :: $12 :: ticketmaster. com SAT

• CAM MEEkINS Each year the 26 Boston Music Awards kicks off at the Liberty Hotel with a focus on the city’s rock scene; then an outside band or artist steals the show and walks out with some unexpected hardware. This year’s chosen one was Newtonborn, Wellesley-raised rapper Cam Meekins, who justifiably took home Best New Artist. With 30,000 Facebook likes, and counting, maybe it wasn’t much of an upset after all. Middle East upstairs, 472 Mass Ave, Cambridge :: 7 pm :: $10 :: ticketweb.com

complete schedule at

lupos.com

Friday, January 18

get the Led out saturday, January 19

MARTIN SEXTON

Friday, January 25

R E S TA U R A N T

MUSIC

CLUB

43 Years Of Great Music

PHX PICKS >> CAN’T MISS

79 Washington st, providence

Friday, dec 21(7:30pm) small BiG BaNd Jazz

either / orchestra

plays the music oF JohN tchicai (9:30pm) raNdi's holiday/Birthday Bash perFormers iNclude: dirty truckers, JeNNy dee, tsuNami oF souNd & more! saturday, dec 22(4pm) studeNt showcase

real school oF music (9:30pm) r&B / rock' N roll FuNky white hoNkies suNday, dec 23 Jazz BruNch 8:30 am - 2:30 pm opeN Blues Jam 4:00pm - 7:00 pm moNday, dec 24-

Bar opeN NooN to 6 pm

citizen cope Friday, February 8

Grace potter & the NocturNals the Met - saturday, dec. 29

the NeiGhborhoods tickets at LUPOs.cOM, F.Y.e. stORes & LUPO’s

Box oFFice opeN GiFt certiFicates availaBle tuesday, dec 25-

merry christmas closed For the day

wedNesday, dec 26rock

hello echo

Grimis / craiG martiNsoN thursday, dec 27allmaN Bros. / southerN rock / Blues

the peacheaters delta GeNerators Friday, dec 28Get your 80's Fix!

power oF love (huey lewis triB.) vaN railiN (vaN haleN triB.) / GuNpowder GelatiNe (all Female QueeN triB.) oBi FerNaNdez / dJ keN cmar saturday, dec 29(7pm) pop

mieka pauley (10pm) rock' N roll

dave crespo's aFter party/southerN lust cluB/NauGhty water moNday, dec 31disco FuNk

Booty vortex

New year's eve party

WED

comiNG sooN: 1/3 Joe Fletcher / Nikki laNe 1/4 (7:30pm) amy Black (10pm) Get Backs 1/5 luther JohNsoN 1/9 claudia schmidt 1/10 klezwoods / cirkestra / eNsmB 1/13 Freakwater 1/17 harmoNtowN live podcast w/ daN harmoN & JeFF davis 1/18 deNNey & the Jets/derek hoke 1/29 eNGlish Beat 2/8 hayes carll 2/14 kelly willis/ Bruce roBisoN

Cam Meekins

www.johnnyds.com Info: 617-776-2004 concert LIne: 617-776-9667 johnny d’s 17 hoLLand st davIs square somervILLe. ma 02144

by William Shakespeare directed by Robert Wals h**

Dec. 12 – Jan. 6, 2013 Davis Square Theatre Somerville

** This director is a memb er of the stage directors and choreograph a national theatrical labor ers society, union

866-811-4111 or actorsshakespearep roject

.org

THEPHOENIX.cOm/EvENTs :: 12.21.12 73

Learn – to – Skate CLaSSeS RecReational • FiguRe • Hockey Skating SkillS

Bay State Skating School Children (4/12up) & Adults As FeAtured on "ChroniCle" BRookline • camBRidge Hyde PaRk/dedHam • medFoRd newton/BRigHton Quincy • SomeRville SoutH BoSton • waltHam weSt RoxBuRy • weymoutH ove 40 yearrS

Le Couturier House of Alterations Awa r d W i n n i n g A l t e r a t i o n s fo r the best prices. Previously Contracted for Gucci, Zegna, Ralph Lauren and more.

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mideastclub.com | zuzubar.com ticketweb.com

DOWNSTAIRS THURS 12/20/12 - ALL AGES 7PM BOMB THE MUSIC INDUSTRY! MATH THE BAND SEAN ELDON & THE GREATEST DANE FRI 12/21 - 7PM HEARNOWLIVE PRESENTS: THE JOINT CHIEFS SAT 12/22 USUAL SUSPECKTZ WHISPERS, NANCIA

friday dec. 21 • 9:30 pm – 2 am

Pico Picante Vs. Unity

dJs: franceso Spagna, cruzz, pajaritos, dubbel dutch, Sound international, Oxycontinental music: House (downstairs), Tropical Bass, digital cumbia, moombahton (upstairs) $5 saturday dec. 22 • 9:30 pm – 2 am

amPlify

dJs: Scott & Zack [BassWave], Jeff Leclair, disco Ball murder Kit, Justin dupont, Jackie Treehorn music: electro House, drumstep & Techno (downstairs), Hip Hop, reggae, party Jamz, Trap (upstairs) $5 before 11 pm, $10 after

TUE 12/25 MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE SATER FAMILY! FRI 12/28 PABST BLUE RIBBON PRESENTS: BIM SKALA BIM SUPERSKA STEADY EARNEST, RIKI ROCKSTEADY

UPSTAIRS THURS 12/20 THE JAUNTEE MANGO BOBSLED, THE SOUL PANACEA, MOXA

THE ACACIA STRAIN + WITHIN THE RUINS + FIT FOR AN AUTOPSY + BORN LOW + DYSENTERY + YEARS SINCE THE STORM › 5:30 pm › Palladium Upstairs, 261 Main St, Worcester › $15 › 978.797.9696 or tickets.com “BOOTYPOCALYPSE” › The Hornitz + Vice V’ersatile + Miss Madison West + Lovewhip › 8 pm › Midway Café, 3496 Washington St, Jamaica Plain › 617.524.9038 or midwaycafe.com DEVA MAHAL + FREDRICKS BROWN BAND › Fri-Sat Fri-Sat 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 cantablounge.com DJ DANNY SATORI + MAHLORS + QUITS + MAGGIE WHITLOCK › 6 pm › All Asia, 334 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.497.1544 or allasiabar.com EITHER / ORCHESTRA › 7:30 pm › Johnny D’s, 17 Holland St, Somerville › $12 › 617.776.2004 or johnnyds.com ELUVEITIE + WINTERSUN + VARG › 6 pm › Royale, 279 Tremont St, Boston › 617.338.7699 or boweryboston.com “END OF THE WORLD PARTY” › 9 pm › Sally O’Brien’s, 335 Somerville Ave, Somerville › 617.666.3589 or sallyobriensbar. com/frameset.htm FEDERATOR NO1 + ENDANGERED SPEECHES + KINA ZORE › 8 pm › Church of Boston, 69 Kilmarnock St, Boston › $12 for 2 or $20 at the door › 617.236.7600 or churchofboston.com THE FOUR LEGGED FAITHFUL + RICHARD JAMES & THE NAME CHANGERS › 9:30 pm › Lizard Lounge, 1667 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.547.0759 or lizardloungeclub.com FUNERUS + SCAPHISM + TENTACLES + DEMORALIZER › 8 pm › O’Brien’s, 3 Harvard Ave, Allston › $10 › 617.782.6245 or obrienspubboston.com GODDAMN DRACULAS + USA!USA!USA! + Z*L + FIXED BAYONETS › 9 pm › T.T. the Bear’s Place, 10 Brookline St, Cambridge › $10 › 617.492.2327 or ticketweb.com

GRACE MORRISON & THE RSO › 10 pm › Toad, 1920 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.497.4950 or toadcambridge.com HIP ANONYMOUS › 9:30 pm › Middle East Corner, 480 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $5 › 617.864.3278 or ticketweb.com THE JOINT CHIEFS + MISS FAIRCHILD + WESTERN EDUCATION + HORTONIA › 7 pm › Middle East Downstairs, 480 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $10-$12 › 617.864.3278 or ticketweb.com LANCE MARTIN BAND › 9 pm › Ryles, 212 Hampshire St, Cambridge › $10 › 617.876.9330 or rylesjazz.com LARRY FLINT & THE ROAD SCHOLARS › 6 pm › Sally O’Brien’s, 335 Somerville Ave, Somerville › 617.666.3589 or sallyobriensbar. com/frameset.htm “MYSECRETBOSTON’S END OF WORLD PARTY” › With Coyote Kolb + Toy Soldiers + Castle › Precinct, 70 Union Sq, Somerville › 617.623.9211 or precinctbar.com NEC MILLENNIUM GOSPEL CHOIR › Fri-Sat Fri 7:30 pm; Sat 2:30 pm › Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Ave, Boston › $20-$25 › 617.267.9300 or mfa.org “RALPHS END OF THE WORLD PARTY” › With Numbskulls + Ten Foot Polecats + Kermit’s Finger + Pity Whores + Secret Evil Plan › 9 pm › Ralph’s Diner, 148 Grove St, Worcester › 508.753.9543 SOLSTICE CIRCUS › 8 pm › Plough & Stars, 912 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.576.0032 or ploughandstars.com SPLIT FACE + INFINITTI + HOSTILE FIGURES + RICKY MORTIS + WAYNE DA PAYNE + K.DAVER + SHADED GRACE + PROJECT HYBRID › Middle East Upstairs, 472 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $12-$15 › 617.864.EAST or ticketweb.com STREET DOGS + FLATFOOT 56 + TENEBRAE + THE BLUE BLOODS › 7 pm › Paradise Rock Club, 967 Comm Ave, Boston › $17-$19 › 617.562.8800 or ticketmaster.com THEREFORE I AM + FAIRWEATHER + ACTOR › OBSERVER + FOREIGN TONGUES › 7 pm › The Sinclair, 52 Church St, Cambridge › $15 › 617.451.7700 or ticketmaster.com TIM MERCER + CROOKED MIRROR + PEACH PIT + FANTASTIC LIARS › 8 pm › Radio Downstairs, 379 Somerville Ave, Somerville › 617.764.0005 or radiobarunion.com “UNDER THE COVERS” › With Lori McKenna + Mark Erelli + Jake Armerding + Zack Hickman › 10 pm › Club Passim, 47 Palmer St, Cambridge › $30-$32 › 617.492.7679 or clubpassim.com

sAturdAy 22

SAT 12/22 - ALL AGES VELA WHISPER 1PM SAT 12/22 PRESSURE COOKER DESTROY BABYLON

thursday dec. 27 • 9:30 pm – 2 am

SUN 12/23 SINIZSTAR BATTLE OF THE BANDS FINALS

dJs: The deck Bros., Sancon (Japan) music: Hip Hop, Breaks, 80s, 90s, classics

WED 12/26 - ALL AGES 7pm LEEDZ EDUTAINMENT PRESENTS: CAM MEEKINS

/mideastclub /zuzubar @mideastclub @zuzubar

74 12.21.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm/EvENTs

St, Boston › SOLD OUT › 617.338.7699 or boweryboston.com TAMMY LYNN & MYLES HIGH › 8 pm › Midway Café, 3496 Washington St, Jamaica Plain › 617.524.9038 or midwaycafe.com

FRI 12/21 SPLIT FACE RICKY MORTIS, WAYNE DA PAYNE

mOnday dec. 24wednesday dec. 26 • closed

flaVa of the month

<< live music from p 73

FRIDAY 21

781- 899- 8480 Sign up now!

Arts & Nightlife :: music

Young London play Brighton Music Hall.

fridAy 21 ANd sAturdAy 22

“THRASH N. BANG’S XMAS SHOW SPECTACULAR!” › 4 pm › Midway Café, 3496 Washington St, Jamaica Plain › 617.524.9038 or midwaycafe.com USUAL SUSPECKTZ + WHISPERS + NANCIA + FAME FLYNT + E-DON + YUNG NOOSE + B-MONEY › Middle East Downstairs, 480 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $15 › 617.864.EAST or ticketweb.com VELA WHISPER + SORROWS OF SAVIORS + ALLERUS › 1 pm › Middle East Upstairs, 472 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $10-$12 › 617.864.EAST or ticketweb.com YOUNG LONDON + STEREO TELESCOPE + CASEY DESMOND + BOOM BOOM CRASH + DEAR ZIM › 7 pm › Brighton Music Hall, 158 Brighton Ave, Allston › $12-$14 › 617.779.0140 or ticketmaster.com

RADIATOR KING + FAX HOLIDAY › 9 pm › Great Scott, 1222 Comm Ave, Allston › $8 › 617.566.9014 or ticketweb.com “SKANUKKAH!” › With The Takeaways + Jake & the Infernal Machine + Make It Up + SWYM + Shiphrah › 4 pm › Midway Café, 3496 Washington St, Jamaica Plain › 617.524.9038 or midwaycafe.com “THE ROCKING HOLIDAY BATTLE OF THE BANDS FINALS” › 7 pm › Middle East Upstairs, 472 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $10 › 617.864.EAST or ticketweb.com TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA › 7:30 pm › TD Garden, 100 Legends Way, Boston › $32.50-$70.50 › 617.931.2000 or ticketmaster. com/venue/8337

>> live music on p 76

SUNDAY 23

Street Dogs play two nights at the Paradise. SATURDAY 22

BIRDS OF PLAY › 9 pm › Sally O’Brien’s, 335 Somerville Ave, Somerville › 617.666.3589 or sallyobriensbar.com/frameset.htm CHALLENGES + SIDEWALKS + A TURN FOR THE WORST + PRO RE NATA + THE CAUSEWAY BANDITS › 6 pm › Palladium Upstairs, 261 Main St, Worcester › $10-$12 › 978.797.9696 or tickets.com DEHUMANIZED + DYSENTERY + ABACINATE + KALOPSIA + FORCED ASPHYXIATION › 8 pm › O’Brien’s, 3 Harvard Ave, Allston › $10 › 617.782.6245 or obrienspubboston.com FUNKY WHITE HONKIES › 9:30 pm › Johnny D’s, 17 Holland St, Somerville › $12 › 617.776.2004 or johnnyds.com GHOST OF RORY + THE COLOR CHANNEL + THE STAMPEDE + THE MCLOVINS › 8 pm › Church of Boston, 69 Kilmarnock St, Boston › $10 › 617.236.7600 or churchofboston.com HABBIT + WESTERN EDUCATION + SPOT MARY + ENGINE JUDY › 8 pm › Midway Café, 3496 Washington St, Jamaica Plain › 617.524.9038 or midwaycafe.com THE IOA › 10:30 pm › Plough & Stars, 912 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.576.0032 or ploughandstars.com JIM COYLE & THE BARROOM GENTLEMEN › 6 pm › Sally O’Brien’s, 335 Somerville Ave, Somerville › 617.666.3589 or sallyobriensbar.com/frameset.htm JOSH LEDERMAN & CSARS › 4 pm › Plough & Stars, 912 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.576.0032 or ploughandstars.com KENNETH HIGNEY + HYENA + JESSE GALLAGHER + EDAN › 10 pm › Lily Pad, 1353 Cambridge St, Cambridge › 617.497.0823

LETTERIK + BREAKWATER SERVICE + OUTER STYLE + METAPHOR FOR EVERYTHING + DJ MISTER ANYBODY › 6 pm › All Asia, 334 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.497.1544 or allasiabar.com MARC PINANSKY + SAMIAM + THE HORNITZ + EUPHONY › Precinct, 70 Union Sq, Somerville › 617.623.9211 or precinctbar.com MARK LIPMAN + OLINDE › 7:30 pm › Toad, 1920 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.497.4950 or toadcambridge.com THE SOUL DRIVERS › 9 pm › Cantab Lounge, 738 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.354.2685 or cantab-lounge.com PRESSURE COOKER + DESTROY BABYLON + TRUTH & RIGHTS › Middle East Upstairs, 472 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $10 › 617.864.EAST or ticketweb.com THE ROSS LIVERMORE BAND › 10 pm › Toad, 1920 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.497.4950 or toadcambridge.com RYAN REVOLUTION + THE PITY WHORES + JAMIE PAYETTE & KEVIN GALLANT + JOSH AYOLA › Radio Downstairs, 379 Somerville Ave, Somerville › 617.764.0005 or radiobarunion.com STREET DOGS + THE CASUALTIES + BURNING STREETS + PENALTY KILL › 7 pm › Paradise Rock Club, 967 Comm Ave, Boston › $17-$19 › 617.562.8800 or ticketmaster.com “THE OKAY WIN PRESENT: A HOLIDAY AND THE WORLD IS STILL HERE CELEBRATION” › 7 pm › Lily Pad, 1353 Cambridge St, Cambridge › 617.497.0823 THEREFORE I AM › 7 pm › The Sinclair, 52 Church St, Cambridge › $15 › 617.451.7700 or ticketmaster.com

“4TH ANNUAL ROCK N SOUL 2012” › With Gary Hoey + Farren Butcher Inc. + Danny Klein’s Full House + Barrence Whitfield + Casey Desmond + Professor Doug Bell + John Powhida + Hirsh Gardner + Chris Fitz + Brian Templeton + Shea Rose › 8 pm › Regent Theatre, 7 Medford St, Arlington › $25-$30 › 781.646.4849 or regenttheatre.com BADFISH [SUBLIME TRIBUTE] + MIGHTY MYSTIC › 8 pm › Paradise Rock Club, 967 Comm Ave, Boston › $20-$23 › 617.562.8800 or ticketmaster.com THE BORED OF HEALTH › 9 pm › Toad, 1920 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.497.4950 or toadcambridge.com CESCHI + GREY SKY APPEAL + THE LOCKSMITHS + SOUNDFOUNDER + ESH THE MONOLITH + HW › 8 pm › O’Brien’s, 3 Harvard Ave, Allston › $8 › 617.782.6245 or obrienspubboston.com THE DEVIL AND A PENNY + MAURA + CHANDELIERS + BURGLARY YEARS › 9 pm › T.T. the Bear’s Place, 10 Brookline St, Cambridge › $7 › 617.492.2327 or ticketweb.com “JOEL NOEL: BILLY JOEL TRIBUTE SHOW” › With Pat McCann › Burren, 247 Elm St, Somerville › 617.776.6896 or burren.com LORI MCKENNA › 8 pm › Club Passim, 47 Palmer St, Cambridge › $30-$32 › 617.492.7679 or clubpassim.com “MICHAEL MALONEY’S MAYBE THIS CHRISTMAS FUNDRAISER FOR CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL” › 8 pm › Midway Café, 3496 Washington St, Jamaica Plain › 617.524.9038 or midwaycafe.com NATALIE FLANNAGAN + TRICK WALLACE TRIO + TRUSTY SIDEKICK › 8 pm › Sally O’Brien’s, 335 Somerville Ave, Somerville › 617.666.3589 or sallyobriensbar. com/frameset.htm NEVER GOT CAUGHT + SHERMAN BURNS + DEAD CATS DEAD RATS +

Beyond ManageMent

is seeking candidate for a Computer user support speCialist aKa programmer analyst/support for its Cambridge, ma 02142 location who will be resp for adm of app servers such as Bea, Weblogic,iBm Webshere & other webservers such as sunone, mincrosoft iis, apache etc & other middle ware tools such as mQ series, tuxedo on unix & windows based platforms. read tech manuals,confer with users, or conduct cmpt diagnostics to investigate & resolve problems or to provide tech asst & supt install & perform minor repairs to hardware, software, or peripheral eqp, following design or istl specifications. maintain records of daily data comm txn, problems & remedial actions taken, or istl activities. enter commands & observe system functioning to verify correct operations & detect errors. dentify the causes of ntwk problems, using diagnostic testing software & equipment. install new hardware or software systems or components, ensuring integration with existing ntwk systems. Must have at least Bachelor's degree in cmpt sceince/rltd field. Bm will provide a salary of $29705/yr. apply via resume & cvr letter only to Hr Beyond at 400 perimeter Ctr terrace Ne ste 900 atlanta Ga 30346. THEPHOENIX.cOm/EvENTs :: 12.21.12 75

Arts & Nightlife :: music

\] A HOLIDAY TRADITION RETURNS! ]\

<< live music from p 75

MONDAY 24

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 “JEWMONGOUS” › 6 pm › Club Passim, 47 Palmer St, Cambridge › $18-$20 › 617.492.7679 or clubpassim.com THE WHITE OWLS › 8:30 pm › Toad, 1920 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.497.4950 or toadcambridge.com

WEDNESDAY 26

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 BOUBACAR DIABATE TRIO › 9 pm › Ryles, 212 Hampshire St, Cambridge › $10 › 617.876.9330 or rylesjazz.com CAM MEEKINS › 7 pm › Middle East Upstairs, 472 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $10 › 617.864.EAST or ticketweb.com THE DANK TOPS › 9 pm › Cantab Lounge, 738 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.354.2685 or cantab-lounge.com HELLO ECHO + GRIMIS + CRAIG MARTINSON + › 9 pm › Johnny D’s, 17 Holland St, Somerville › $10 › 617.776.2004 or johnnyds.com HOODIE ALLEN › 8 pm › Paradise Rock Club, 967 Comm Ave, Boston › $18-$20 › 617.562.8800 or ticketmaster.com

TICKETS:

617.496.2222 OR REVELS.ORG

Scullers PHX Dec 20_Scullers PHX Dec 20

BOSTON’S #1 JAZZ CLUB!

sCullers jazz Club

LIVE BROADCAST!

Friday, December 28 10pm Eric Jackson Show

Fri. & Sat., Dec. 28 & 29

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 www.facebook.com/savmorspirits @SavMorSpirits www.savmorspirits.com 76 12.21.12 :: THEPHOENIX.cOm/EvENTs

REGINA CARTER

8pm & 10pm

Sun., Dec. 30

4pm & 7pm

GREG ADAMS & EAST BAY SOUL

CD Release “East Bay Soul 2.0”

Mon., Dec. 31

NEW YEARS EVE

8pm &11pm

GREG ADAMS & EAST BAY SOUL 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

COMPUTER Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE: AMD) is a global semiconductor company that designs, develops, markets, and supports a wide range of microprocessors, graphic processing units, chipsets and related products. Resumes are being accepted for the following position in Boxborough, MA: Hardware Development Engineer 2- MA1012: work on next generation high performance graphics/ cryptographic/compression architectures/engines. Send resume with job title and code referenced to: AMD, Mail Stop 101, One AMD Place, P.O. Box 3453 Sunnyvale, CA 94088.

JAVIER ROSARIO BAND › 8 pm › Beehive, 541 Tremont St, Boston › 617.423.0069 or beehiveboston.comom LION LION + OUR LIVES + GREAT AMERICAN GHOST + HARD ROAD + KERRIGAN + NEIGHBORS › 6 pm › Palladium Upstairs, 261 Main St, Worcester › $10-$12 › 978.797.9696 or tickets.com MELISSA FERRICK › 7 pm › Club Passim, 47 Palmer St, Cambridge › $33-$35 › 617.492.7679 or clubpassim.com “ROCKPALAST #5” › With Voigt-Kampff › 8 pm › O’Brien’s, 3 Harvard Ave, Allston › $5 › 617.782.6245 or obrienspubboston.com THE ROOTS › 8 pm › House of Blues, 15 Lansdowne St, Boston › $37-$49.50 › 888.693.2583 THE ROY SLUDGE TRIO + KEVIN BARRY › 9 pm › Lizard Lounge, 1667 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $8 › 617.547.0759 or lizardloungeclub.com SERIOUS JACK + BUGS BUNNY + STEVE BRANSON BAND › P.A.’s Lounge, 345 Somerville Ave, Somerville › 617.776.1557 SO SOL › 9:30 pm › Toad, 1920 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.497.4950 or toadcambridge.com STAR SPANGLED BUMMER › 7:30 pm › Church of Boston, 69 Kilmarnock St, Boston › $8 › 617.236.7600 or churchofboston.com “THE GREAT BIG FANTASTIC THANK YOU PARTY” › All Asia, 334 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.497.1544 or allasiabar.com

THURSDAY 27

BEN CAREW + G MONTANA + J ALLEN › 8 pm › Church of Boston, 69 Kilmarnock St, Boston › $10 › 617.236.7600 or churchofboston.com “BLACK X-MAS” › With Conforza + Pathogenic + Murdoc + Hope Before the Fall + A World Without › 6 pm › Palladium Upstairs, 261 Main St, Worcester › $10-$12 › 978.797.9696 or tickets.com BOB BRADSHAW › 7:30 pm › Toad, 1920 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.497.4950 or toadcambridge.com “CENTRAL SQUARE JAZZ FESTIVAL” › With The Rollo Tomasi Quartet + The June Trio › 8 pm › Cantab Lounge Downstairs, 738 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $6 › 617.354.2685 or cantab-lounge.com DIZZY BATS + MAX WEIGERT + KYLE JOSEPH › P.A.’s Lounge, 345 Somerville Ave, Somerville › 617.776.1557 “FUTURISTIC SOUL: THE INSTRUMENTAL SERIES HOLIDAY PARTY” › With Danny “Skyhigh” McClain + DJ Owt Law + April Stanford + Tavonna Miller + The Lost and Found Band › 9 pm › Milky Way, at the Brewery, 284 Armory St, Jamaica Plain › $5-$8 › 617.524.3740 or milkywayjp.com HEATHER MALONEY › 10:30 pm › Plough & Stars, 912 Mass Ave, Cambridge › 617.576.0032 or ploughandstars.com JAMES MERENDA & TICKLE JUICE › 8 pm › Outpost 186, 186 1/2 Hampshire St, Cambridge › $10 › 617.876.0860 or zeitgeistoutpost.org JOCIE ADAMS + JONAH TOLCHIN + POOR OLD SHINE + FUTUR PRIMITIF › Middle East Upstairs, 472 Mass Ave, Cambridge › $10 › 617.864.EAST or ticketweb.com PEACHEATERS + DELTA GENERATORS › 8:30 pm › Johnny D’s, 17 Holland St, Somerville › $12 › 617.776.2004 or johnnyds.com THE STARTING LINE + FAKE PROBLEMS + RDGLDGRN › 7:30 pm › Paradise Rock Club, 967 Comm Ave, Boston › SOLD OUT › 617.562.8800 or ticketmaster.com THURSDAY NIGHT THUNDER SQUAD › 9:30 pm › Middle East Corner, 480 Mass Ave, Cambridge › Free › 617.864.3278 or ticketweb.com TOM HAGERTY ACOUSTIC BAND › 7:30 pm › Sally O’Brien’s, 335 Somerville Ave, Somerville › 617.666.3589 or sallyobriensbar. com/frameset.htm

Arts & Nightlife :: Clubs THURSDAY 20

BOND › Boston › 9 pm › “Taste Thursdays” with Joe Bermudez + Greg Pic DISTRICT › Boston › 10 pm › “In Thursdays” EMERALD LOUNGE AT REVERE HOTEL › Boston › 9 pm › “Top 40s & House” ESTATE › Boston › 10 pm › “Glamlife Thursdays” JACQUE’S CABARET › Boston › 10:30 pm › “Jacque’s Cabaret” with Kris Knievil M BAR & LOUNGE › Boston › 9 pm › “Lotus Thursdays” MIDDLESEX LOUNGE › Cambridge › DJ Coralcola + Alan Manzi + Baltimoroder + John Barera MIDWAY CAFÉ › Jamaica Plain › “Women’s Dance Night” with DJ Summer’s Eve 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 ZUZU › Cambridge › 10:30 pm › “Rude Sounds” with Selector Nathan + DJ Dandy Dan

TUESDAY 25

thursdAy 27

ALL ASIA › Cambridge › 9 pm › “Scooby Snacks Phych Night” EMERALD LOUNGE AT REVERE HOTEL › Boston › 6 pm › “Wicked New Music” NAGA › Cambridge › “Fiesta Tuesdays” PHOENIX LANDING › Cambridge › “Elecsonic” RAMROD › Boston › 10 pm › “Punk Night”

WEDNESDAY 26

COMMON GROUND › Allston › 10:30 pm › “Reggae Night” DISTRICT › Boston › 10 pm › “Classic Wednesdays” with DJ Tanno EMERALD LOUNGE AT REVERE HOTEL › Boston › 8 pm › “Mondo Wednesdays” MIDDLESEX LOUNGE › Cambridge › “Swerve8” with DJ NO DUBSTEP + El Poser + Uncle Boongy + DJ Goulet PHOENIX LANDING › Cambridge › “Re:Set” RYLES › Cambridge › “Wild Honey” SPLASH ULTRA LOUNGE & BURGER BAR › Boston › 10 pm › “EDM Wednesdays” STORYVILLE › Boston › 9 pm › “MySecretBoston presents Dub Apocalypse” ZUZU › Cambridge › 10 pm › “Daisy Chain” with DJ Angie Donut

FRIDAY 21

BIJOU NIGHTCLUB & LOUNGE › Boston › 10:30 pm › Boris BOND › Boston › 10 pm › “Play Fridays” with DJ Johnny C + Matty D COMMON GROUND › Allston › “90s Night” CURE LOUNGE › Boston › 10 pm › “VIP Fridays” with DJ Profenna DISTRICT › Boston › 10 pm › “Latin Fridays” with DJ Juan Madrid EMERALD LOUNGE AT REVERE HOTEL › Boston › 9 pm › “Top 40s & House” ESTATE › Boston › 10 pm › Gommert Mes GOOD LIFE › Boston › 9:30 pm › “Pico Piquante vs. Unity” GREAT SCOTT › Allston › 10 pm › “The Pill” with DJ Ken + DJ Michael V JULEP BAR › Boston › DJ Soulo MIDDLESEX LOUNGE › Cambridge › Brek. One MILKY WAY › Jamaica Plain › 9 pm › “Boyfriends” with DJ Brent Covington NORTHERN NIGHTS › Lynn › 8 pm › “Madonna Fridays” with DJ Jay Ine PHOENIX LANDING › Cambridge › “PYT” with DJ Vinny PRIME › Boston › 10 pm › “VIP Fridays” RISE › Boston › 9 pm › “Wonderland” with Damien Paul + Jay K the DJ + Mike Swells › 1 am › Bamboora + Voltran + L.E.D. Fut + Plyosophy + Micetro + Brrio + David Nicce + Jaminic + Kranz + Sus Pence + Don Fochi ROYALE › Boston › 10 pm › “Full On Fridays” SPLASH ULTRA LOUNGE & BURGER BAR › Boston › 10 pm › “Privilege Fridays” ZUZU › Cambridge › 11 pm › “Solid!” with Flavorheard

SATURDAY 22

BOND › Boston › 10 pm › “Flaunt Saturdays” COMMON GROUND › Allston › “Millennium Night” CURE LOUNGE › Boston › 10 pm › “Saturdays at Cure” with rotating DJs Hectik + DJ 7L + Brek.One + DJ Theo A + DJ Frank White DISTRICT › Boston › 10 pm › “Status Saturdays” with DJ Cootz EMERALD LOUNGE AT REVERE HOTEL › Boston › 9 pm › “Top 40s & House” ESTATE › Boston › 10 pm › “VIP Access” with DJ Jesse Jess GOOD LIFE › Boston › 9:30 pm › “Amplify” with DJs Scott & Zack + Jeff LeClair + Disco Ball Murder Kid + Justin Dupont + Jackie Treehorn GREAT SCOTT › Allston › 9 pm › “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” JULEP BAR › Boston › DJ Breeazy

THURSDAY 27

Nero are at Royale. MIDDLESEX LOUNGE › Cambridge › DJ Kon MILKY WAY › Jamaica Plain › 10 pm › “Mango’s Latin Saturdays” with Lee Wilson NAGA › Cambridge › “Chemistry Saturdays” OM RESTAURANT & LOUNGE › Cambridge › 10:30 pm › “Saturdays @ Om” PHOENIX LANDING › Cambridge › “Boom Boom Room” with DJ Vinny RAMROD › Boston › 10 pm › “Revolution Saturdays” RISE › Boston › 1 am › Wil Trahan + !nsomnia + Derek The Prince + Tony Dispirity + Lace & Los + Austin Diogo + Dimitri Diogo ROYALE › Boston › 8 pm › “3 Kings Party” › 10 pm › “Saturdays at Royale” SPLASH ULTRA LOUNGE & BURGER BAR › Boston › 10 pm › “Sold Out Saturdays” T.T. THE BEAR’S PLACE › Cambridge › 10 pm › “Heroes” with DJ Chris Ewen ZUZU › Cambridge › 11 pm › “Souleluhjah” with DJ Claude Money

SUNDAY 23

COMMON GROUND › Allston › 9:30 pm › “Country Night” CURE LOUNGE › Boston › 10 pm › “Industry Sundays” with DJ Hectik EMERALD LOUNGE AT REVERE HOTEL › Boston › 9 pm › “Svedka Sundays: Industry Night” PHOENIX LANDING › Cambridge › “The Drop” RAMROD › Boston › 10 pm › “The Den” ZUZU › Cambridge › 10 pm › “Pogo & Work” with DJ Dominick

MONDAY 24

CHURCH OF BOSTON › Boston › 8 pm › “Motivate Mondays” with Mark Merren NAGA › Cambridge › “Industry Mondays” PHOENIX LANDING › Cambridge › “Makka Monday” with Voyager 01 + DJ Uppercut RIVER GODS › Cambridge › 8 pm › “Weekly Wax” ROYALE › Boston › 9 pm › “26th Annual Matzoball”

BOND › Boston › 9 pm › “Taste Thursdays” with Joe Bermudez + Greg Pic DISTRICT › Boston › 10 pm › “In Thursdays” EMERALD LOUNGE AT REVERE HOTEL › Boston › 9 pm › “Top 40s & House” ESTATE › Boston › 10 pm › “Glamlife Thursdays” JACQUE’S CABARET › Boston › 10:30 pm › “Jacque’s Cabaret” with Kris Knievil M BAR & LOUNGE › Boston › 9 pm › “Lotus Thursdays” MIDWAY CAFÉ › Jamaica Plain › “Women’s Dance Night” with DJ Summer’s Eve MILKY WAY › Jamaica Plain › 9 pm › “Futuristic Soul: The Instrumental Series Holiday Party” 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” ROYALE › Boston › 10 pm › Nero ZUZU › Cambridge › 10 pm › “Decade All 80’s Dance Party” with DJ Paul Foley

more Clubs and Comedy at thephoenix.Com/events

COMEDY Improv Asylum’s Holiday

Show, or “The Hess Truck’s Back and It’s a Comedy Show,” is ongoing through December 31 at Improv Asylum. For tons more to do, point your phone to m.thePhoenix.com THEPHOENIX.cOm/EvENTs :: 12.21.12 77

arts & nightlife :: parties

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» At Sumeria Group’s Fall Finale at the Seaport Hotel

More ies!. paret Phoenix At th rties. com/PA ut o see you t h e r e!

Sumeria Group, a newiSh network that connects young professionals in Boston and four other cities with social-engagement opps, recently welcomed a few hundred pretty young things to a formal party at the Seaport Hotel. Well-dressed revelers said goodbye to November with a Fall Finale fundraiser for not one, but four partner organizations: Cristo Rey Boston High School, college-access nonprofit Let’s Get Ready, student-entrepreneurship program BUILD, and the American Red Cross’s Hurricane Sandy relief efforts. Find out more at sumeriagroup.org. Clockwise from right: alex phillips; hilary bartlett, mike monovoukas, and Cayley bowles; ali monahan, a.J. balta, and Kathryn murphy; reed edwards, alex Widen, and matt Delaney; Julia bateman; Carson lappetito and phil hooper; Jackie lloyd and John Degou

Nicole JohNsoN coNsultaNt

She got all her servings of fruits and veggies (and flowers) with a playful printed dress by Camilla and Marc. She kept the rest of the her look simple — but super chic — with black tights and Michael Kors suede shoes, snagged at Moxie on Charles Street, another neighborhood fave. Nicole does look outside her ’hood for eclectic jewelry, like pieces found at Karma, a Newton boutique that sources fair-trade accessories from an international dossier of artisans. That’s where she got the blue stone ring she was rocking, handmade by an artist in Israel. _RENaTa CERTo-WaRE

78 12.21.12 :: Thephoenix.com/parTies

photos by Kareem Worrell

This Beacon Hill resident loves shopping close to home: she stocks up on basics at Wish and always checks in on Holiday — she’s a fan of their in-house label.

ToasT The holidays wiTh

Coors lighT TonighT aT: Ring in the New Year at Kitty O’Shea’s Enjoy a ChampagnE...of BEErs ToasT wiTh millEr high lifE! Plus you can salute the Rockies all night with Coors Light always served ice cold! Doors open at 9PM • Pre Sale tickets available now at: tix@ticketleap.com

Kitty O’Shea’s • 131 State Street, Boston 617.725.0200 • Kittyosheas.com