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APR 25, 2019 - MAY 02, 2019 BUSINESS PUBLISHER John Loftus ASSOCIATE PUBLISHERS Chris Faraone Jason Pramas SALES EXECUTIVES Victoria Botana Nicole Howe Matt Riley FOR ADVERTISING INFORMATION sales@digboston.com
EDITORIAL EDITOR IN CHIEF Chris Faraone EXECUTIVE EDITOR Jason Pramas MANAGING EDITOR Mitchell Dewar MUSIC EDITOR Nina Corcoran FILM EDITOR Jake Mulligan THEATER EDITOR Christopher Ehlers COMEDY EDITOR Dennis Maler STAFF WRITER Haley Hamilton CONTRIBUTORS G. Valentino Ball, Sarah Betancourt, Tim Bugbee, Patrick Cochran, Mike Crawford, Britni de la Cretaz, Kori Feener, Eoin Higgins, Zack Huffman, Marc Hurwitz, Marcus Johnson-Smith, C. Shardae Jobson, Heather Kapplow, Derek Kouyoumjian, Dan McCarthy, Rev. Irene Monroe, Peter Roberge, Maya Shaffer, Citizen Strain, M.J. Tidwell, Miriam Wasser, Dave Wedge, Baynard Woods INTERNS Casey Campbell, Morgan Hume, Jillian Kravatz, Olivia Mastrosimone, Juan A. Ramirez, Jacob Schick, Sydney B. Wertheim
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ON THE COVER PHOTO OF NANCIA BY JAY HUNT FOR SMOKEHOUSE MEDIA. CHECK OUT OUR INTERVIEW WITH NANCIA IN THIS WEEK’S MUSIC SECTION.
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I am exhausted. Between writing several pieces for this issue, traveling to see family for Easter, and flying out of state for a media conference next week so I can grovel for more grants and funding to bring back to Boston so we can do more reporting, the thought of even filling this short space was daunting. I also happen to be working tirelessly on the final installment of our years-long investigation into firearms in Mass. And so considering my busyness and interest in gun reporting, I thought the best way to get out of actually writing a column this week was to simply highlight a couple of select passages from one of the most gripping long-form bombshells that I have read in years. Titled “Secrecy, Self-Dealing, and Greed at the NRA,” the investigation by Mike Spies of the Trace, in collaboration with the New Yorker, reveals how top NRA brass has funneled millions of dollars to outside consultants. And worse. It should really be the next thing that you read. As soon as you’re done with this week’s DigBoston, of course. It’s a story about sportsmen… “Under Wild Skies” is also the name of a TV show, broadcast on the Outdoor Channel, that features [outside NRA media consultant Tony] Makris and his guests, including [outside NRA media consultant] Revan McQueen, tracking big game in such far-flung locales as Botswana’s Okavango Delta. (“Under Wild Skies” used to appear on mainstream TV, but NBC Sports ended its run after Makris, on camera, shot an elephant in the face.) According to a recent article in the Times, the N.R.A. has paid Under Wild Skies some eighteen million dollars since 2010. And good old conservative accountability… One of these venders is Wayne Sheets, who retired from the N.R.A. in 2008 but continued to serve as a fund-raising consultant. According to state filings, Sheets’s contract stipulated a “base monthly consulting fee” of thirty thousand dollars, to be paid “regardless of the number of consulting hours provided by Consultant.” Trump would approve… Weaver was replaced by Josh Powell, an outdoorsman in his mid-forties. Powell came to the N.R.A. after running two clothing catalogues that catered to men who enjoy adventure, venison, and fine wine. Businesses that had worked with Powell sued him on at least twenty occasions, for unpaid bills amounting to more than four hundred thousand dollars. Don’t get too angry, though, as there is some hope after all… “If the board doesn’t know, they’ve breached their duty of care, which is against the law in New York,” where the N.R.A. is chartered. According to [a] former I.R.S. official, New York State “could sanction board members, remove board members, disband the board, or close down the organization entirely.”
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NEWS US SACKING SACKLER F.I.G.H.T. OPIATES
Tufts students work to expose administration’s depraved thirst for opioid blood money BY CHRIS FARAONE @FARA1 + F.I.G.H.T. It’s been a shitty past couple of weeks for the organized crime family behind OxyContin. The Connecticut-based Sacklers, whose Purdue Pharma banked billions on the backs of people who became addicted to its marquee painkiller, may finally be feeling the aggression mounting in long overdue response to their impact and influence. More than 200,000 Americans have died of prescription opioidrelated overdoses since Purdue began recklessly and deceptively marketing Oxy, while the amount of residual death and despair the company has spurred beyond that is immeasurable. As a result of so much killing, the outrage aimed at the Sacklers and their purse is perpetual—last month, three US senators, including Ed Markey of Massachusetts, sent a letter asking Purdue Pharma to commit to restraining from profiting off its latest endeavor: developing addiction recovery meds. But the blowback has been extra vigilant of late, seemingly since it came to light earlier this year that prosecutors in the Bay State and New York are gunning for company brass. As the New York Times reported April 1, “members of the [Sackler] family continued to push aggressively to expand the market for OxyContin and other opioids for years after the company admitted in a 2007 plea deal that it had misrepresented the drug’s addictive qualities and potential for abuse.” Compounding the general negative reaction to such gross developments, last month saw three big moves against the Sacklers in the art world in which family members have used money to gain friends and benefactor visibility for decades. Following protests like one at the Guggenheim in New York in which demonstrators littered the museum with symbolic prescription slips, that institution, as well as the National Portrait Gallery and the Tate Modern Art Gallery in London, announced that it would no longer take Sackler drug money. Locally, students at Tufts have ramped up actions that started around 2017, when campus publications began highlighting the ties between the hated family and the university, specifically in relation to the namesake Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences in Boston’s Chinatown. As more revolting information has come out, more members of the Tufts community have spoken up— organizing a petition, speaking at rallies, and last week painting the iconic campus cannon, an open canvas of sorts for various causes and voices. “The stridency of the call is based on the fact that the information out there is so reputable,” said Nathan Foster, a recent Tufts grad who is helping organize Sack Sackler efforts. “When it comes to these kinds of connections, the fact that you can say that it’s real, and this influence is real … is really important to have when deciding how to improve institutions.” A student who is seeking a degree in public health and who helped paint the cannon added: “I care about issues of addiction; it’s something I am particularly interested in in my field. When I found out the Sackler family was tied to Tufts I was literally taking a class about substance abuse and covering the opioid epidemic. It just felt so incongruous that a school that educated me and taught 4
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me to think critically and to care about the world was also funded by a family that precipitated the opioid crisis.” In response to the ongoing controversy, Tufts Executive Director of Public Relations Patrick Collins told the Tufts Daily that the lawsuits against Purdue Pharma are “deeply troubling” and said the university “will be undertaking a review of Tufts’ connection with Purdue to ensure that we were provided accurate information, that we followed our conflict of interest guidelines and that we adhered to our principles of academic and research integrity.” The spokesperson has also pointed out that Tufts first jumped into the sack with the Sacklers long before OxyContin came on the market. Despite all the damning cacophony, times don’t necessarily seem too bad for these billionaires. According to Forbes, the Sacklers are collectively worth about $13 billion, making them the 19th wealthiest family in America. As per reporting by the Deerfield Valley News and the VTDigger, this month it came out that some of them recently purchased an entire ski mountain in Vermont. Meanwhile, in response to Mass Attorney General Maura Healey’s lawsuit, Sackler family attorneys filed a motion arguing the claims are based on “misleading and inflammatory allegations.” In a statement, the Sacklers smirked, “We are confident the court will look past the inflammatory media coverage generated by the misleading complaint and apply the law fairly by dismissing all of these claims.” Some Tufts students are much less forgiving. “I have very close family members who have been directly affected by the opiate crisis,” said Shane Woolley, a senior from Rhode Island. “They struggle with addictions that were brought on by the exact marketing tactics that the Sacklers used to make billions of dollars.” Woolley recounted a conversation he had with a high-level administrator: “To their credit, they listened respectfully, but when I said that the bare minimum that they could do is take the Sackler names off of the buildings downtown, they said, ‘I hear you, but we have a lot of people who want us to keep those names on out of respect.’ “I said, ‘With all due respect, none of those people were likely affected, and they’re probably donors. They probably include the Sacklers. You should be listening to those who were affected.’” This reporting was done in collaboration with the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism and its F.I.G.H.T. Opiates project. For more information, coverage, and videos visit binjonline.org and fightopiates.org.
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‘HIS CRIME, YOUR TIME’
R CHA O F K NG L A
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Meet LIPSTICK, Boston’s ladies involved in putting a stop to inner-city killing
The time is now to support survivors of sexual assault and harassment.
WORDS AND PHOTOS BY ALYSSA DUNDAS A straw purchase can lead to up to 18 months in prison. Depending on the circumstances, that’s how much time you can do in Mass for buying a gun for someone who can’t legally own one. The reality of such harsh punishments is one main reason Operation LIPSTICK takes action by educating women about the consequences of making such purchases and hiding or holding firearms for others. Their message: His crime, your time. One driving force of LIPSTICK’s mission is a question: Where did the gun come from? This is the central inquiry when people, far too commonly women, are coerced into buying guns for their husbands, boyfriends, brothers, or anyone else with a criminal record that prevents them from passing a background check. Straw purchasing is a federal offense, and often involves women who hold some kind of a close relationship with the person who ultimately receives the gun. In its role, LIPSTICK provides education and resources, which includes explaining how straw buying equals exploitation. It tends to happen in environments where violence is common, with most of the risk taken by the decoy doing the buying. In order to make such a purchase, someone has to lie on a federal form that asks, among other things, if they’re buying for someone who is prohibited from owning a gun due to a criminal record, or who simply doesn’t want to wait for a background check for some reason or another. As LIPSTICK, which this month opened up a brick and mortar space on Warren Street in Roxbury, teaches in counseling and courses, such fabrications run the serious risk of being exposed. In addition to showing up at college campuses, churches, hair salons, domestic abuse programs, and other places where women of various ages and backgrounds can be reached, LIPSTICK maintains a “Women+Guns Database” that features a number of horror stories. In one instance, a gunrunner used a trio of women to straw purchase several hundred guns in Ohio and then transport them to New York before getting busted. More recently, last month two women were sent to federal prison for making false statements when questioned about purchases in Colorado. LIPSTICK’s new Roxbury headquarters may be local to Boston, but as far as its organizers are concerned it sits at the crossroads of the entire country. Since sentences stemming from straw purchases stunt family health and development everywhere, they’re focusing across the board and have even managed to get coverage from national outlets like People while gaining the support of celebrity activists, including Meryl Streep. More than 50 people showed up at the organization’s grand opening this month, with guests including US Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley. The former Boston city councilor and longtime advocate for women called for further legislative action on the gun violence front and said a strong straw-purchasing bill is needed. “I believe it is incumbent upon me as a leader to lift up the stories and the struggles of the Massachusetts 7th [congressional district], to lift up the innovation and ideas like LIPSTICK,” Pressley told the crowd. “Our past does not have to be our future,” LIPSTICK co-founder Ruth Rollins said in her turn. Rollins’ son, Warren Daniel Hairston, was shot and killed in 2007; for his mother, this work comes from a place of love and healing. “As we do better, and we learn better, we can be better and we can interrupt that cycle [of gun violence],” Rollins said. “As a survivor I wanted to be part of the solution.”
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HOW TO DO PHOTOGRAPHY AND ILLUSTRATION FOR DIGBOSTON APPARENT HORIZON
In “an age of ubiquitous images” BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS
both Chris Faraone and me.
DIGBOSTON COVERS BY FORMER INTERNS KURESSE BOLDS (LEFT) AND MURRAY (RIGHT).
At the start of this year, I wrote an editorial on how to write for DigBoston that proved quite popular and led to an increase in the number of article pitches we get from freelance journalists weekly. But it also led a growing number of photographers and illustrators to ask, “Hey, what about us?” In answer to that question, I have the unfortunate duty to be the bearer of bad news. In the form of a statement I made several days ago while speaking to a class of MassArt first-year students: “We live in an age of ubiquitous images.” As such—in a news industry that has fewer and fewer jobs for talent, and smaller and smaller budgets for content—images are a distant second consideration after reporting when it comes time to decide what content to pay for. With millions of photos and thousands of drawings being produced daily worldwide, it’s inevitable that an ever-growing array of them are available for free. Even for commercial use. Amazingly, despite that fact, unscrupulous news outlets will still steal whatever they want and damn the potential lawsuits. Because few people making images have the ability to sue. And if they sue, they aren’t going to get much in the way of damages even if they win. For outlets like DigBoston that do care about creators’ rights, there are still so many ways to get free images for our articles that it makes little financial sense to pay for most of them. In a period when we’re still a small operation… and every dollar counts. As we continue growing, we expect that situation to change. Which has certainly been what we’ve been explaining to people in the last two years since my group took the publication over. It’s a goal for us to pay the best money we can for all the content we publish—unlike all too many outlets with much larger budgets. But we have to survive long enough to grow to the point where that’s possible. And we can’t survive if we overspend our limited news budget to expand the amount of visual art we commission. Although it’s worth mentioning that all top DigBoston staff have multiple skill sets. Including art. Publisher John Loftus has a fine sense of design. Ditto Editor-in-Chief Chris Faraone, who also makes fun collages for many of our articles. And I’m a photographer with an MFA in visual art that does shoot 6
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for Dig from time to time. So we ourselves create images for our own publication. Moreover, like many other commercial news outlets, we do have a small group of photographers and illustrators that are “close in” to us. People that have been working with the Dig for a long time—back to the relatively flush years when the paper was larger and advertisers were easier to come by. They are extremely experienced and at the top of their game; so we do indeed pay them. For images in beats that they dominate like concert photography. Or for special issues when we can budget for major illustrations and photoshoots. But we’re talking about five or six people tops. With maybe a few more occasional contributors that we pay more rarely. Otherwise, a few regular cartoonists fill out our paid visual arts roster. And that’s all we can afford to do. Now, a city like Boston—with colleges like MassArt cranking out hundreds of highly trained artists every year, many of whom try to stick around for at least a few years— has large numbers of people qualified to work for a publication like ours. It is also home to many more artists without much formal training. Some of whom are actually better than many formally trained artists by our lights. Since they focus from day one on trying to sell work made for paying markets. From the perspective of myself and the other DigBoston execs, we’re having several solid photographers and illustrators a week sending us their portfolios and resumes in hopes of getting work with us. But we can’t afford to hire them. What, then, are the options for enterprising Boston area artists that want to get paid contracts with the Dig, yet don’t want to wait for some misty future when we’re larger and richer and can afford to commission all our photos and illustrations? Happily, all is not hopeless: 1) Pitch standalone works of visual journalism. Photo essays and illustrated news stories that we can pay for out of our reporting budget. If you can construct a narrative with images (and some text), then we’re far more likely to be able to buy your work from time to time. If you have a reporter that you can team up with, all the better. Email pitches to editorial@digboston.com to reach
2) Intern with us. The main advantage of interning with us for two or three months is getting to know the Dig staff—and a better sense of how we operate and what the openings are for photographers and illustrators. We allow both college students and working adults to apply. It’s also worth mentioning that, if you’re good enough, we may put your work in the running for an annual award from our trade association—and we will start paying you. One of our recent interns actually won the 2018 award for best cover illustration. A nice resume stuffer to be sure. As are a few clips with DigBoston. Email internships@digboston.com if you’re interested to throw your hat in the ring. Just remember that our internship program is increasingly competitive, and that we do not accept all applicants. 3) Partner with us. If you’re part of an upcoming nonprofit art show in the Boston area, we are quite willing to run free ads and copy in support of it. That could result in your photography or illustration getting some exposure in our pages—sometimes even on our cover—although we tend to help larger community efforts like Somerville Open Studios, not individual artists. Email us at editorial@digboston.com for more info on this potential opportunity. There’s one other thing we can do that might help. Dig management is also the leadership of the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism (BINJ). The main mission of BINJ is to pay reporters to produce long-form investigative news articles. It should be possible for us to look for grants and donations aimed at supporting the work of local photographers and illustrators, too, and syndicating that work to DigBoston and other news outlets in BINJ’s regional network. The same way BINJ helps syndicate investigative reporting around Massachusetts. If any of our readers are aware of nonprofit funding for that kind of endeavor, please let us know. We’ll also start looking over the months to come, and report back if we get anywhere. Which is a great example of why we’re building a hybrid for-profit/nonprofit enterprise, come to think of it. To properly fund a contemporary news organization “by any means necessary.” Addendum: A note of appreciation to PhD student Julie Zollmann and professor Kim Wilson of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University for inviting Chris Faraone, Haley Hamilton, and myself of BINJ and DigBoston; Sarah Betancourt of CommonWealth magazine; and Beryl Lipton of MuckRock to spend a day talking with Fletcher master’s and PhD students about investigative reporting research methods. We had a blast, and look forward to doing more events together in the future. Jason Pramas is executive editor and associate publisher of DigBoston and executive director of the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism.
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PHOTO BY CAITLIN CUNNINGHAM COURTESY OF THIRST BOSTON
THE THIRST IS REAL DRINKS
Six years in, Boston’s premier cocktail conference stays fiercely local while expanding BY ERIC TWARDZIK “When we first started Thirst there weren’t hundreds of cocktail bars in the city, and now there are. You throw a stone and hit a cocktail bar.” That reflection comes courtesy of Maureen Hautaniemi, a co-founder of Thirst Boston, the educationfocused cocktail festival that will return to its namesake city for the sixth time the final weekend in April. Like more than a few of the bars that sprung up during the city’s cocktail revival, Thirst is starting to feel like something else: an institution. “In the past six years many cities have had their own cocktail festival, but I think that Thirst has stood the test of time,” Hautaniemi says. “Six years is a big deal.” Festivals in other cities inspired Hautaniemi to cofound Thirst in 2013 with Nick Korn, owner of the cocktailfocused events and marketing firm OFFSITE. Hautaniemi, who now works with OFFSITE year-round, was then organizing events like Portland Cocktail Week for another industry-focused firm. “Every time I would come home we always wondered, Why doesn’t Boston have a cocktail festival?” Hautaniemi says. “It just seemed like the right time to find some partners and create one that showcased the Boston hospitality industry. It’s grown to encompass a little bit more of New England, so we try to do outreach and work with bartenders in all of the other New England states.” A broader focus on New England isn’t the only way that Thirst has changed since its inception. Its first year was at the Hotel Commonwealth; its second, at the Fairmont Copley Plaza. The Boston Center for Adult Education has hosted the last four and proved a match for Thirst’s evolving approach to cocktail education.
“At the beginning of Thirst we had all classes that were sort of lecture-style with PowerPoint presentations. Since then, we’ve really evolved to be a little bit more hands-on,” Hautaniemi says. “One of the benefits of working with the Boston Center for Adult Education is they have teaching kitchens. We have classes that have hands-on components, so you’re actually making cocktails or you’re working to carbonate beverages instead of just hearing about them in a lecture.” While the focus of Thirst remains local, it’s increasingly attracted high-profile presenters from outside of the region. But to preserve the festival’s hometown focus, they’re typically paired with locals. This year features a class on rum punch hosted by Jim Meehan, founder of acclaimed New York City bar PDT, as well as Brother Cleve, a tiki drink historian and longtime fixture of the Boston cocktail scene. It’s not just out-of-town presenters who Thirst is looking to host. The festival also established a “Thirst Scholars Program” that solicits applications from bartenders across North America, ultimately bringing 10 of them to Thirst to attend classes, receive distillation training, and help prepare cocktails during the event. Even the festival’s most proudly local event, the State Lines party held Saturday night at the Innovation and Design center, has a smidgen of outside influence. At this state fair-themed shindig, bartenders from across New England represent their local scene at state-specific pavilions. But each year has a “wildcard” pavilion featuring bartenders from a state outside the region: This year will see Washington take its place at the party. Industry workers and cocktail-loving laypeople are
important to Thirst, but there’s another demographic Hautaniemi is excited to attract: brands. “By bringing that national spotlight to Boston once a year we’re able to not only show people in the press what is going on and what we think is special, but also show national liquor companies that Boston is a place where things are happening and the bartenders are of a high quality. That allows them to take a second look at Boston and allocate more funds towards marketing or hiring more brand ambassadors in the city,” Hautaniemi says. Six years in, Thirst has stayed fiercely local—even as it has increasingly invited outside parties to get in on the action. According to Hautaniemi, that’s always been a part of the plan. “Our philosophy is that if we create something of high quality for our community, other people will come and visit it,” Hautaniemi says.
HAUTANIEMI + KORN PHOTO COURTESY OF THIRST BOSTON
>> THIRST TAKES PLACE 4.26-28 THIS YEAR AT THE BOSTON CENTER FOR ADULT EDUCATION AND ADDITIONAL LOCATIONS ACROSS THE CITY. A FULL LIST OF CLASSES, EVENT SCHEDULE, AND TICKETS CAN BE FOUND ONLINE AT THIRSTBOSTON.COM 8
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RADIO DAYS FEATURE INTERVIEW
How Bill Lichtenstein got the band back together for a critical Hub history doc INTERVIEW BY CHRIS FARAONE @FARA1 At 39 years old I’ve come to terms with the fact that I missed out. Despite having protested and partied and seen hundreds of concerts, as a journalist I’ve also spent a lot of time with Baby Boomer mentors, and I more or less believe the subtext of their every anecdote and vignette: Their seminal era was much better, more fun, more inspirational, and certainly a lot more original than most others, mine included. Filmmaker Bill Lichtenstein has delivered a stunning reminder of this intergenerational reality in his new project, WBCN & the American Revolution. The documentary linchpin of this year’s Independent Film Festival Boston, his film rips wide open a warp into the late 1960s and early ’70s. All with the familiar backdrop of sex, drugs, and music but with a Boston focus, funk, and flavor that you won’t get in a gratuitous CNN decade doc. With his time capsule about to rock the IFFBoston after years in development, I asked Lichtenstein to share a couple of war stories—about the old days, sure, but also in regard to the challenge of summoning and interviewing an iconic alt media rogues’ gallery. Having landed on-air at WBCN as a 14-year-old in 1970, he started from the very beginning. The genesis… I always had a radio pressed against my ear—I used to put one under my pillow at night. … I grew up loving radio, but in those days loving radio meant Top 40 radio, which was literally 40 songs over and over again. … Somewhere along the way, my class [from Brookline] had a field trip and we actually went to WBCN. It just seemed like the coolest place you could imagine. It was just so different—the way people talked. … To be able to turn on the radio and to hear someone making reference to the head shops around town, to the antiVietnam War movement that was just taking off … it was this thing that really had no connection to anything that came before it. And it had arrived in Boston. … It really was something you hadn’t seen, and now to hear it on the radio was amazing. … And so in ninth grade I was in this open educational program and they said, You have to go get a volunteer job one day a week. Some people went to volunteer at a hospital or lab or something, and I called [WBCN]. They had just started a listener line—it was like Google, ask a question and they’d answer it or find the answer— and they needed people to answer it, so I started answering the listener line on Wednesdays. Within a month or two, Danny Schechter, who was doing news, said, Can you do me a favor? There was a demonstration at the Berkeley Street police station against the killing of [Black Panther] Fred Hampton in Chicago. He handed me this tape recorder and said, Just push the little red button. I brought it back and he showed me how to cut the tape, and [from there] I started producing radio spots.
The connection… I’ve heard from people who have made movies about their families that you’ll find out things you never knew. I found out how I ended up with a show, which was I was at a meeting about [how WBCN could attract more high school students] … and Al Perry, who was the general manager and is in the film, says that I said, You don’t know anything about high school students. After the meeting, Al [told the program director], We should give him a show. Shortly thereafter I started doing a weekly all-night Saturday night radio show on ’BCN. That was my connection to the station. The spark… Initially, what made me want to do the film, it started during the 2000s. During the Iraq War, post-9/11 there was a sense that somehow artists, musicians, all of us somehow had lost the imperative to speak up about what’s going on in society. There was a moment in particular when Bruce Springsteen did a fundraiser for John Kerry and was attacked for being too political. Back in the day he would have been attacked for being too conservative for doing a fundraiser for a Democratic candidate.
The source… Certainly Boston was on par [with San Francisco when it came to counterculture influence] … and very little of it was ever chronicled. I don’t know what that is, but there really was a missing chapter, a missing book from the ’60s about how you got from San Francisco to Watergate. Something happened in the middle there, and it didn’t happen in San Francisco. San Francisco burned out by ’68 or ’69, and New York became commercialized, so a lot of what happened was in Boston. The process… Boston was a central point of the ’60s and the counterculture, so everybody came through—every major musical figure, political figure—in some way and intersected in some way with ’BCN. So there was all of this archival stuff, most of which had been lost to the ages. … We really thought it out. We had a white wall in an office we were in … with this overview of events that had happened in Boston. Then we had to gather the archives. … It was like archaeology. We would find something like a tape of Patti Smith at the Jazz Workshop and figure somebody must have some photos. … Initially we thought about doing it as an ensemble, with like six people, but we decided that we couldn’t. … ’BCN was an extended family. … All of these people largely were successful because they were great storytellers. And so part of what helped make the film work was the ability to sit them all down. There are great moments in there because of it. The bigger picture… The belief was always that this told a story about social change and people speaking up for what is right. If it was just about Boston, it would have a limited appeal, so really from the beginning we looked at how ’BCN in fact had a much broader influence, and then we tried to tell that story. Some people who remember the station have this enduring love for it, but it’s also a story simply about how media can create social change. That’s a universal story.
PHOTO OF BILL LICHTENSTEIN AT WBCN CIRCA 1973 USED COURTESY OF DON SANFORD
PHOTO OF WBCN AIRSTAFF CIRCA 1970 IN RECORD LIBRARY AT 312 STUART STREET STUDIOS IN BOSTON BY PETER SIMON
>> WBCN & THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION AT IFFBOSTON. SOMERVILLE THEATRE, 55 DAVIS SQUARE, SOMERVILLE. SAT 4.27. MORE INFO AT IFFBOSTON.ORG AND THEAMERICANREVOLUTION.FM 10
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HEX AND THE CITY EXCERPT
First lady of witchcraft Laurie Cabot is 85 and still working to undo 2,000 years of propaganda BY SAM BALTRUSIS
The following is excerpted from the new book, Wicked Salem: Exploring Lingering Lore & Legends In most of the interviews that I’ve conducted for Wicked Salem, one name kept coming up like a wellcrafted spell whispered from the Witch City’s collective lips. Laurie Cabot. The “Official Witch” of Salem known for her outspoken and sometimes controversial approach still has that all-knowing fire that magically emanates from the high priestess well into her twilight years. “She might be eighty-five but she’s still going strong,” said my friend Memie Watson when I asked about setting up an interview with her mentor. Watson, a high priestess who also teaches at Enchanted in Salem’s Pickering Wharf, said Cabot is still wicked busy “writing books, teaching classes and making her crafts and oils.” Then I got the call. Cabot agreed to meet with me. When I walked into her workshop, I was immediately overwhelmed by Cabot’s positive energy. She radiates wisdom. It’s all around her. “I didn’t plan on living in Salem,” she told me about 12
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her move from Boston’s North End to the Witch City in the late 1960s. “My purpose in life at the time was to teach witchcraft as a science. I had no idea anybody was going to notice me.” While I’m chatting with the grande dame of witchcraft, I’m amazed by the artifacts assembled behind her. There’s a wall full of antique dolls—including a miniature version of Cabot—and stacks of books from all religious traditions. Her desk is covered with beads and objects that sparkle. Think Alice in Wonderland. And I fell into Salem’s rabbit hole. “I didn’t plan any of this,” she said, adding that the universe has been her guiding force throughout most of her magical life. “It was all by accident. But I have to admit, I was naive at the time.” As the high priestess is speaking, I hear three loud knocks on the wall behind her. I looked up. Was it ghost? “Oh, those are my fairy knockers,” she said, checking with her daughter Penny to make sure the front door was locked. “They were sent over from Cornwall. It’s usually a warning of some sort.” Apparently, Cabot gets a heads up when there’s
danger nearby. In fact, she avoided an issue with carbon monoxide a few years ago thanks to her Cornish pixie friends. “The knockers saved my life,” she insisted. Unfazed by the phantom knocking incident, Cabot continued talking about her early days teaching a tensession class on the science of witchcraft in Wellesley followed by stint at Salem State. Apparently, she was too “flamboyant” for the college circuit even though her classes were popular with the students. “I dressed a bit more conservative back then,” she said with a smile, pointing out her signature look that includes a black robe, two-tone hair, cat-eye makeup, a tattoo on her cheek, black-rimmed glasses and a large pentacle hanging around her neck. “I’m much different now.” There’s no doubt that Cabot’s legacy continues to thrive in the North Shore’s tight-knit Wiccan community. But what about Salem’s coven of commercialism in October? It’s her fault. Well, kinda sorta. It actually started when Cabot’s black-cat familiar, Molly Boo, climbed up a tree when she lived on Chestnut Street. “Molly Boo outed me,” she said about the incident that catapulted her into international fame. Her cat climbed a tree outside of her apartment and got stuck about fifty feet up. Molly Boo wouldn’t come down for three days. Cabot contacted everyone including the police. No one would help her. She feared that Molly Boo would die. In desperation, Cabot called the local newspaper. “They were only interested in the story because I was a Witch,” she recalled. “I told them that Molly Boo was my familiar and I wanted my cat out of the tree.” According to Cabot, a man came with a pole that had a loop and he quickly rescued Molly Boo. “One of the guys said, ‘don’t put a curse on us’ and I just rolled my eyes,” she said with a laugh. Of course, a local photographer captured the animal rescue and the photo was picked up by hundreds of papers across the globe. Soon after, Cabot opened Salem’s first “witch shop” in 1970. Armed with her newfound notoriety, Cabot wanted to dispel the myths and misconceptions related to modern-day witchcraft. However, she had no idea how difficult it would be to educate the public. “How do you undo two-thousand years of propaganda?” she emoted. “People used ‘witch’ as an umbrella term for magic in all cultures. There was so much false information and misinterpretation.” Witches, she explained in a New York Times article published in the 1970s, “don’t sacrifice animals or people or drink blood or eat babies or any of that stuff.” When asked about the hysteria in Salem more than three centuries ago, Cabot said witchcraft has been associated with evil intentions and devil-worshipping for generations. “They couldn’t find a witch in Salem in 1692 because they had no idea what they were looking for,” she responded. “They had it all wrong.” Cabot did shy away from the history associated with the witch trials. However, she believes the Salem of today is the polar opposite compared to 1692. “In many ways, I believe those innocent people gave their lives for us,” she said, adding that the local Wiccan community honors the twenty victims from the Salem witch trials during Samhain, the Celtic feast of the dead. For the record, she doesn’t believe the victims of the witch trials were actually practicing pagans. After being declared Salem’s “Official Witch” by then Governor Michael Dukakis in 1977, Cabot’s popularity flourished. She appeared on scores of television shows including Oprah, radio broadcasts and was featured in dozens of newspapers and magazines. Cabot even ran for
mayor on a so-called witch’s platform before publishing her book, The Power of the Witch, in the 1980s. In an article published in the Salem Evening News on October 25, 1989, Cabot was dubbed the “first lady of witchcraft” and the piece also talked about how she made Salem the “witch capital of the world.” She even wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times that ran on October 31, 1989. “As a witch, I am appalled at the way society views us,” she wrote. “On the one hand, we are portrayed as silly, green-skinned hags flying on broomsticks across children’s Saturday cartoons. On the other, we are used as scapegoats for all the bizarre cult crimes and violent rituals staged by misguided individuals who think they are practicing witchcraft.” The op-ed was called “Witches, Without Warts.” While Cabot’s fame skyrocketed, a backlash started to develop in the 1990s. Salem wanted to focus on its maritime history and totally forget that its past was soaked in blood. “Our witch history makes us special,” she said. “Every single city up and down the coast has maritime history. They all have pirates and lighthouses. Salem’s history was becoming polarized.” Yes, Salem can celebrate both witches and pirates. In 1997, she was involved in a minor courtroom drama and newspapers wanted to tarnish Cabot’s reputation. “It was hard to tell who was real then,” she said, obviously hurt by the backlash. What would she say to the people from the dark period in her life? “Do your research,” she shot back. “Study what I’ve studied. Ignorance is bliss.” As Cabot talked about the painful episode from her past, the soundtrack from Disney’s Frozen mysteriously started to play from a TV next to her workshop. The song? “Let it go.” Now in her eighties, Cabot’s fire has simmered a bit. However, she’s still passionate about educating the masses. When asked about the witch-onbroom silhouettes that are still perpetuated in pop culture, she told me that it’s demeaning. “If you are going to have witches fly on brooms, there’s no reason to make us look horrific,” she said, referring to Margaret Hamilton’s green-skinned crone stereotype from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. “Either they portray us as horrific looking with warts or supercilious,” she added. As far as the Spooky World-style shenanigans that has transmogrified Salem every October, Cabot isn’t a fan. “I’m still not sure what a guy with an ax in his head and blood dripping down his face has to do with witchcraft,” she told the Boston Globe in 2017. “Some of it is offensive. The fun house. The scary murderous stuff. It brings bad vibes. It’s projecting the wrong kinds of things.” Cabot is also wary of the ghost hunters on TV who don’t respect the dead. Witches, she explained to me, communicate with spirits during rituals by calling in their ancestors. As a high priestess, Cabot is able to cross between both worlds. She’s able to invoke both the living and the dead. “Ghosts don’t harm people,” she said. “They don’t scratch or sit on us.” She also talked about poltergeist phenomenon saying that it’s a “quirk of energy from the living,” she explained. In other words, people can manifest “thought forms” without even knowing they are doing it. “A poltergeist is not from another realm,” she said “It’s not a ghost or spirit. It’s something else.” As my interview with the grande dame of witchcraft was coming to an end, she asked me what I was calling the book. “Wicked Salem: Exploring Lingering Lore and Legends,” I said. “Of course, you’re the legend.” Cabot’s face lit up. “I like that,” she said with a smile. I then asked one more question before heading out. How does the first lady of witchcraft respond to people who blame her for Salem’s commercialism? “I say ‘thank you,’” Cabot mused. “And you’re welcome.” Sam Baltrusis, author of Wicked Salem: Exploring Lingering Lore and Legends, produces the MASS ParaCon slotted for Lenox, MA on September 27-29, 2019 and is featured on the 100th episode of A Haunting airing on the Travel Channel in June. Visit SamBaltrusis.com for more information.
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NANCIA MUSIC
From Rindge, to fringe, to opening for Kim, the Cambridge R&B singer has hustled relentlessly BY CHRIS FARAONE @FARA1
For Nancia, the storied road and rise up through the rhythmic ranks began in a familiar fashion. “In ancient times, it started with me singing in church and school in Cambridge,” the singer says all these years later. “In church, you have to compete for the solo parts—you have 30 to 50 people in a choir. It’s fierce. And on top of that, when you sing in a church and you’re a newcomer or you are young, the elders have mature vocals that challenge and inspire you. You train with them, and singing every week you have to come prepared and know your music.” If she wasn’t singing shoulder to shoulder with elders, Nancia was neck and neck with peers. “I went to Cambridge Rindge and Latin and I took choir,” she recalls fondly. “My music teacher put me in the forefront, and through word of mouth I started singing at Cambridge City Hall events, shelters, wherever. If they needed a student, I was there. It started to become word of mouth. “I was learning about music and discovering myself. I was taking in as much as I can, working with different vocal teachers and getting into competitions. I used to go to talent shows, and if they knew you sang, it was expected [that you would compete].” Competition at her church and school proved to be proper preparation for an industry in which shit is never just handed to you. There’s no doubt about it—Nancia is young and has been crushing it on social media while opening for America’s top R&B singers. But don’t get it confused; she’s been in the rat race since MySpace. “I had some stumbles,” she says. “The music industry is very unforgiving. I remember certain music industry personnel have judged me on my appearance and not my talent. But I know what I have. … One of my wakeup calls was in New York. I did the Apollo. … They told me to practice more, but they still let me go on to compete because they thought I had talent. Did I win? No. But I created connections, and from that point on I started
working with producers from New York and agents and have been back and forth between there and Boston.” It was a turning point. “At that point I really loved the whole Bad Boy movement, and I was doing hooks for just about everyone, but I wanted my own movement. I started working with Smokehouse [Media], and it made me cross over into a different, more R&B-gospel-hip-hop sound, which forced me to perform in front of a different crowd. “For me, the roots of R&B are gospel vocals. There’s a common story line—love, love, love, love, love. I try to shy away from that, ’cause everything is not love. I’m still R&B, but I want to go outside the boundaries.” Another turn, Nancia says, came after she lost her voice for six months a few years back. “I got sick and started getting sore throats,” she says. “My vocals were becoming weak, and I went to therapy at Mass General Hospital to get it back. I came out of that stronger and with a new confidence. It was the birth of new Nancia vocals.” Though she’s been Massachusetts R&B royalty for years, Nancia really doesn’t carry herself like a prima donna. On a recent Friday, the singer showed up at the Hard Rock Cafe in Faneuil Hall an hour before her show for a sound check carrying her own bag with the evening’s
wardrobe changes. For all her diva attributes—big personality, major online following, a clothing line— she’s utterly accessible. “I have to constantly be engaged with my supporters and fans,” Nancia says. “I’m on social media and always talking to everybody. … It comes down to that connection, that interaction. You got to secure that connection. That’s what we want as artists, that’s what makes our music continue to move forward. I’m always making that effort. I want to connect with whoever can connect with my music.” Other times, Nancia rolls deep. Her entourage, a mix of models and artists, have held each other down for a decade; though she has only recently become a local headliner and started opening for names as big as Lil’ Kim, everything you see has been a work in the making. At our Hard Rock interview, Smokehouse quarterback, photographer, and chief producer Jay Hunt is on hand with multiple recording devices, making sure that every shot and angle is correct. It’s all according to their long-term plan. “I never would have thought in a million years I would get to open for the people I’ve been able to perform with,” Nancia says. She’ll be adding on to that list when her new project drops in July. “If someone told me this when I was 10 years old, I would have never believed it. It’s surreal. Like singing the National Anthem for the Red Sox and for the San Francisco Giants. “Not even your voice is guaranteed tomorrow. This is my dream. I don’t care how big or small it is, I’m going to go for it. “At this point, I’m just owning it.”
>> TRC FEST WITH NANCIA, BRANDIE BLAZE, LOUIE BELLO, DUTCH REBELLE, PORSHA OLAYIWOLA, AND MORE. TUE 5.12 AT THE SINCLAIR, 52 CHURCH ST., CAMBRIDGE. 14
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E’S DAN SAVAG
IVAL FILM FEST
May 4th COLUMBUS THEATRE, PROVIDENCE T I C K E T S AT H U M P FI L M FE S T.C O M
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THEATER REVIEWS PERFORMING ARTS
BY CHRISTOPHER EHLERS @_CHRISEHLERS AND JILLIAN KRAVATZ @JILLIAN_KRAVATZ
WHO THE **** IS MERLE? DEADHOUSE AT BOSTON PLAYWRIGHTS THEATER
THE STRANGE UNDOING OF PRUDENCIA HART AT APOLLINAIRE THEATRE
It may be that no local theater company does weird as well as Apollinaire, and Danielle Fauteux Jacques’s atmospheric and good-natured production of David Greig’s bizarre The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart is another strange feather in their one-of-a-kind cap. Immersively staged in a Scottish pub on the Scottish borders (also designed by Fauteux Jacques), Prudencia Hart (Becca A. Lewis) is an uptight academic who ventures out into a snowstorm one strange night and finds herself face to face with the Devil himself (Keith Foster). For several reasons, Prudencia Hart—which is told in rhyming couplets at a sometimes breakneck speed and with over-the-top Scottish accents—can feel impossible to follow, even frustratingly so. But despite the confusion, Apollinaire’s production remains compelling, mysterious, and alluringly atmospheric. It’s a fantastical fever dream complete with audience interaction and live music, including a sultry, creepy version of Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” that—I’ll be honest—I wouldn’t mind hearing a few dozen more times. Becca Lewis is fearless and charming as Prudencia, and as Colin Syme—Prudencia’s cocky suitor and, ultimately, savior—Brooks Reeves once again makes a good case that he just might be one of Boston’s most valuable theatrical assets. Daring, rambunctious, and refreshingly odd, I still can’t get Prudencia Hart out of my head. THE STRANGE UNDOING OF PRUDENCIA HART. THROUGH 5.4 AT APOLLINAIRE THEATRE COMPANY, 189 WINNISIMMET ST., CHELSEA. APOLLINAIRETHEATRE.COM -Ehlers
LES MISÉRABLES AT BROADWAY IN BOSTON
As ubiquitous as Les Misérables feels, it’s been seven whole years since the last time an official touring 16
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production has rolled into Boston. This time—like last time—this production uses the direction of Laurence Connor and James Powell that was first utilized for the 25th anniversary tour. Although it is true that this newish production succeeds in looking sharp and ultimately packs a very satisfying emotional punch, it just can’t compare to the iconic turntable staging of John Caird and Trevor Nunn’s original production. But this old warhorse has held up remarkably well, and this current national tour is a total treat. Say what you will about Les Misérables, but after three decades, it’s as beloved as ever. Deservingly so, I’d argue. LES MISÉRABLES. THROUGH 4.28 AT CITIZENS BANK OPERA HOUSE, 539 WASHINGTON ST., BOSTON. BOSTON. BROADWAY.COM -Ehlers
SYLVIA AT THEATER UNCORKED
After an impressive concert version of Sweeney Todd and a staged reading of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Boston’s newest small theater company, Theater UnCorked, opened (and closed) its first fully staged production this weekend with Sylvia, A.R. Gurney’s 1995 comedy about a man and his beloved dog. I have never liked this play, and I still don’t like it now. I normally don’t write about productions that have already closed, but it is worth mentioning that Shana Dirik (who played dog Sylvia with a rough and tough Brooklyn flair) can fill a stage, and light it up, too; Dirik has an undeniable star power that isn’t adequately used on Boston stages. And while her presence was a gift to Sylvia, Gurney’s eye roll of a play didn’t do her any favors. Let’s hope its next production—the musical Ruthless!— will find Dirik in a spotlight that shines as brightly as she does. SYLVIA AT THEATER UNCORKED. RUTHLESS! RUNS 11.21-24 AT BOSTON CENTER FOR THE ARTS, 527 TREMONT ST., BOSTON. THEATERUNCORKED.COM -Ehlers
It’s a common trope of popular high school dramas—the star football player who tragically dies; the girl next door suddenly found dead. Laura Palmer in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks. Jason Blossom in Netflix’s Riverdale. For your latest dose of teen intrigue surrounding the sudden death of a popular kid, turn to Boston Playwrights’ Theatre’s current play, Dead House. Written by Beirut Balutis and produced jointly by Boston Playwrights’ Theatre and the Boston University College of Fine Arts School of Theatre, Dead House opens with a stylized car crash in slow motion. A car full of teens donning ponytails, cheerleading pleats and letterman jackets walk away unscathed—all except for the football star Wesley. We never meet Wesley, but his death looms over the play like the smoke of a burning coal mine. When the lights come up again, we meet a kind-faced student Merle (Thomas Mitsock)— the new kid. He arrives a few months after Wesley’s death and captures the small town’s attention. Dead House takes place in rural PA, in a fictional town smack dab in the heart of coal country—a place where people rarely arrive and almost never leave. Where did this Merle kid come from? Soon Merle falls in with the local high school’s main clique, lead by a hilarious and ferocious cheer captain named Prairie (Amanda Figueroa). Soon he is chugging Yeunglings and watching horror movies with “the House.” Despite everyone’s suspicions as to Merle’s trustworthiness, almost every character seems to open up to him, confiding their secrets and vulnerabilities in snatches of one-on-one time away from the main pack. Everyone is intrigued by him and wary of him, but there isn’t anything particularly interesting or curious about Merle, save one small detail he keeps to himself. He knew Wesley. Beirut’s play is often funny—notably a ridiculous cheerleading practice that hits all the right “mean girl” notes. It is also grotesque—probing the violence of peer pressure in a climactic scene where Merle proves his loyalty to the pack by branding himself on the chest with his football number (which, of course, used to be Wesley’s number). We finally get some clarity about Merle in the final scene when he confesses to Wesley’s bereft mother that he was more than just her son’s friend. He was his lover. Yet I left last Thursday’s preview somewhat baffled. Was this a tale about mothers and sons? Is it about being queer in a suffocating, conservative town? Is it about peer pressure and the all-too-common teenage need to fit in? Is it something darker? Dead House is all of these things, with a rah-rah and a drunken bender to boot. DEAD HOUSE. 4.18-4.28 AT BOSTON PLAYWRIGHTS’ THEATRE. 949 COMM. AVE., BOSTON. BOSTONPLAYWRIGHTS.ORG
-Kravatz
CAN’T KNOCK THE HUSSLE ARTS NEWS
When Drake rips your pic of Nipsey and gives you no credit INTERVIEW BY CHRIS FARAONE @FARA1
If you have been active on social media in Greater Boston music circles this past month, then you may have followed the saga of Drake (and countless others) using an image by New England photographer Isaac Remsen to commemorate fallen Cali rapper and activist Nipsey Hussle. It would have been all good, only Remsen (and his watermark) were cropped out of the conversation. With that situation in the immediate rear view, and with Remsen on the verge of dropping an ambitious New England hip-hop photography project soon that’s been in the making for years, we followed up to see what ultimately came of the whole Nipsey incident. When did you start seeing the Nipsey photo circulating? As I got to hiphopdx.com I was scrolling down and saw an article about artists mourning Nipsey. I clicked on it and as I looked down I was speechless. I saw my image and at first I didn’t even see who posted it; I turned to my girlfriend and told her the news, took another glance, and it was none other then @champagnepapi. Drake shared my image! I couldn’t believe it. At first I thought, This is crazy, and then I see it’s been cropped to remove my watermark. While it’s a buzzkill to not be credited by Drake or whoever runs his Instagram account, it’s a blessing knowing my artwork has more eyes on it than ever before. I have politely messaged Drake as well as some of the big publications to share the story of the image. Is it a legal loophole of sorts when a news outlet uses a photo of an Instagram post? Sharing someone’s image without their consent, cropping it in a way that it removes their watermark, and then not credit the artist is all copyright infringement. None of these major news outlets did their due diligence and contacted me regarding the use of my image. Based on the terms and agreements of Instagram they are granted a license to use your image on their platform when you choose to share something. It’s still shocking to see the reach my image has had across the globe. What, if any, recourse have you taken in this instance? In this instance I have been doing what I can to put the correct information out there and get credit for my work. I’m still not sure what I will do in the long run, but I haven’t, as yet, pursued any legal action. In most cases when this happens, I look forward to getting credited in the hopes that it would bring more traffic to my website. I may have the respect of an artist but it doesn’t always get reciprocated with getting credit for my visual work. I am always honored when people enjoy my photography and decide to share my images; unfortunately, I have had to remind a few people that these images are copyrighted. Any advice for other photogs? What, if anything, will you be doing differently moving forward? My advice for photographers who end up in this situation is to stay diligent in your efforts to create a conversation with those who have shared your work. It’s gotten me a lot farther by being polite and explaining things from my perspective. I treat it as an honor and a form of respect when someone enjoys your artwork so much that they want to share it with the world. In terms of watermarking your images, I have learned on more than one occasion that it should be displayed in a way that won’t distract from the image but also in a way that can’t be modified or cropped out. I have begun to implement new techniques to prevent this type of situation. In other news, tell us about your Boston hip-hop portrait project. Where can people score a shirt? Will there be posters too? Throughout the past decade I have been fortunate enough to photograph some incredible hip-hop artists in and around New England. Using the images I have collected over the years I began to create an intricate puzzle of hip-hop artists, musicians, and those who I feel are the most influential to the culture here in New England. There are so many important people involved in the New England hip-hop scene, and these are the ones I have been fortunate to meet and document. I am aiming to have the design for purchase this summer via isaacremsen.com. NEWS TO US
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HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC FILM
On two films by Ja’Tovia Gary at the HFA BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN
The Harvard Film Archive began the “Cinema of Resistance” series in May 2017, with the programmer at the time, David Pendleton, offering something of a mission statement in the notes accompanying the first screening. “Cinema has always been a method of examining the world the way it is, in order to understand it, to begin to change it, to imagine it otherwise,” he wrote, quite rightly. “So we begin a monthly series of films animated with the spirit of protest, of pointing out oppression and working towards justice.” This week brings the latest “Resistance” screening, “An Evening with Ja’Tovia Gary” (April 26 at 7pm), which pairs two short films by that artist (a 201819 Harvard Film Study Center-Radcliffe fellow) with Med Hondo’s rarely exhibited feature West Indies (1979). In terms of subject, theme, subtext, and so on, the films by Gary befit the program’s concept entirely. An Ecstatic Experience (2015) and Giverny I (Négresse Impériale) (2017), which are each about six minutes long, both present structures that constantly juxtapose archival footage, direct animation, and specific historical signifiers (both seen and heard), all combining to center expressions of the experiences of black Americans (faces we recognize across the pair of films include Ruby Dee, Assata Shakur, Fred Hampton, Diamond Reynolds, and Gary herself). Seen together, An Ecstatic Experience and Giverny I reveal a consistent and deeply personalized cinematic syntax, a language of Gary’s own, characterized by a rigorous control of visual composition and cutting rhythm. These are films worth describing just as much as they’re worth interpreting (if such acts can really be seperated), for the vast multiplicity of meanings they suggest and create is of course derived entirely from the dense complexity of their design. During its first few seconds An Ecstatic Experience introduces three disparate elements into its structure. Following the title cards, there is black-and-white 4:3 footage of a church and its congregants; cut between those shots are widescreen images of what appears to be direct animation on a film-based surface, which creates something of a low-speed flicker effect; and there is a song on the audio track, Alice Coltrane’s “Journey in Satchidananda,” which lasts for about the first 90 seconds of the film. After the opening moments, fades and dissolves connect the animation to the churchgoers more continuously, at which point the different footage sources begin to conform with one another—an image
of a young child from the church is seen all stretched out in widescreen (emphasizing a focus on family and lineage that is central to the film), and meanwhile the animated images begin to appear in the boxy ratio of the black-and-white footage (sometimes even sharing a split screen for a second or two). Then as the sax comes in on “Satchidananda,” we see images of the church’s preacher, his body moving as if in sway to the music— and simultaneously the animation begins to cut into the black-and-white footage more closely on the beat, flickering on as if in lockstep with the high notes on the soundtrack. From a beginning of nearly total discontinuity, we reach something like discordant communion (a vague description, but one which for me describes the essence of the form of both these films). The second movement of the piece centers a legitimately extraordinary media object unearthed from obscurity (to wit, the great filmmaker Terence Nance, in citing Gary as an influence, once misidentified the source of this find). For this middle two minutes of An Ecstatic Experience, we’re looking at a monologue delivered by Ruby Dee, in what was originally an unbroken closeup shot. Dee is performing the words of Fannie Moore, a former slave whose narrative was written in the mid-1930s; the clip is from the “Slavery” episode of the television miniseries History of the Negro People (1965), as identified by Rachel Churner of Artforum. Throughout Dee’s typically staggering performance, Gary continues her sculpture of image and ratio. When Dee’s speech reaches a high pitch, the image may jump in size (from an inset into the entire frame), or even multiply (we see two, three, even four of the same image stacked together within the frame), and meanwhile direct animation continues atop the older image, surrounding and even momentarily overtaking Dee’s visage, still resembling the look of scratches on a film-based material, but now arranged in a manner clearly intentional, forming geometric shapes and other figures around the preexisting footage. When Dee’s monologue ends, the film cuts to darkness, then returns back to a close-up shot of Assata Shakur from a recorded interview, an image which itself gets interrupted for a few seconds at a time by a superimposition of Dee’s close-up from before. Following the Shakur statement, the film returns to the clip from History, now fully zoomed out to reveal a group of other
performers surrounding Dee. As they begin singing “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” purple animation (once more resembling the texture of a warped film-based material) is layered over the film, just as Gary’s editing introduces yet another element: An Ecstatic Experience begins to cut back and forth between the animated “Hymn” scene and unanimated footage of protests in Ferguson and Baltimore that followed the killing of black men by state officers. As the performance continues on the audio track, we flicker between the various images: the actors from History; the protests that became history; and at one quick stretch, a few black-and-white shots of a tree, seen only in a flicker. The image begins to distort, as if the source of the footage itself was corrupted, and the film concludes. The interplay between the elements making up Giverny I is even more layered and complex than in An Ecstatic Experience, so much so that I won’t even try to describe the newer film on a shot by shot basis. Five distinct sources of imagery make up Giverny I: First there are meticulously composed landscape shots of the Giverny gardens, usually with Gary either posed in the center of the frame or barely visible somewhere in the far off background; then it adds frames of flowers, leaves, and other plants, which flicker in and out momentarily (not unlike the animations in the first segment of Ecstatic); as well as shots from a film of Claude Monet painting in that same garden circa 1915; footage of a Fred Hampton speech, which I believe is sourced from The Murder of Fred Hampton (1971); and finally clips of the video shot by Diamond Reynolds immediately after her boyfriend Philando Castile was shot and killed by a St. Anthony, Minnesota, police officer on July 6, 2016. The audio track on the film is filled by a Norvis Jr piece that remixes a Louis Armstrong recording from 1950. And as in Ecstatic, these various sources are introduced in a delineated manner, before the rhythm then brings them into a sort of chaotic alignment: The movie starts with the images of Gray in the garden as a base; first interrupting it with flickers and clips from the animations and the Monet footage, then with the recordings of Hampton and Reynolds, the latter of which stops the audio track cold whenever it appears, as if a separate interruption above and apart from the other sources. But soon afterward the five elements begin to mix together more closely via superimpositions, “glitches,” and other distortions that cast the images together, at some points even placing strips and bars from one source atop frames of another. Then Giverny I, again in line with An Ecstatic Experience, ends by further complicating the balance it just reached, concluding on a note of disruption, of imbalance. Incorporating standards of collage, “flicker films,” animation, glitch art, and various other experimental film traditions, in Giverny I Gary once again sculpts a shape for her film that seems open at every end, producing innumerable associations within the disparate materials at play (up to and including the material of film itself). The design of the films constantly draws connections between politically urgent aspects of contemporary life that are ever-present but much too rarely acknowledged—the juxtapositions for example raising questions about the relation of state violence to the state of the arts, or about the relation between images that are made for the sake of art and images that are made for the sake of survival. Gary’s films, which move and shift with kinetic fervor, almost literalize Pendleton’s call for movies that are “animated with the spirit of protest” yet are never easily reduced into any particular statement or protest, being far too dense in their form to allow for such reduction. And so if these films do indeed reach a point of radical meaning, they achieve it by the artist’s radical command of form.
>> AN EVENING WITH JA’TOVIA GARY. FRI 4.26. 7PM. HARVARD FILM ARCHIVE. $9. FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE ARTIST, SEE HER WEBSITE AT JATOVIA.COM.
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ALLSTON LIVING ROOM READ PERFORMING ARTS
Where queer stories and more take the floor BY C. SHARDAE JOBSON The inspiration behind Julia Lattimer’s Allston Living Room Read is storied and personal. Storied, in that it joins the lineage of movements and organizations before it that were created to provide regeneration and a comforting space for communities and culture. Think of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in Manhattan, or Boston’s own Combahee River Collective, whose black feminist and black lesbian members built an alternative to the white feminist movement. Personal, in that after having read at fellow queer artist Emily Lombardo’s Life Lines show at A R E A Gallery in fall 2017, Lattimer sensed the deep need for more venues and opportunities to highlight queer voices. “It was a complete eye-opener for me,” Lattimer recalls. “I felt so happy. I had never been part of a curated show of queer people celebrating art, music, and writing before.” The unwavering question from there: Why aren’t there more art-based feminist and queer events? The question perturbed her. “So I thought to myself: If I wanted this space, and for poetry, I would have to make it because I didn’t know where to find it,” Lattimer says. “Although that’s not to say they didn’t exist.” She had moved to Boston from Virginia less than a year earlier. “[I figured], I’ll do it for the summer. A three-month poetry reading series, for queer people.” Now having maintained the monthly series for nearly a year, since July 2018, Lattimer credits the sleeper hit success of Allston Living Room Read to “faith” and the support of other feminist-driven collectives like GRLSQUASH, a “Boston-based womxn’s food, culture, & art journal.” “They are lovely,” Lattimer says. “They were promoting ALRR [on their Instagram Stories] before I had even met them.” After such early shoutouts, Living Room Read began to catch on. “Let me tell you, I have a moment about every single month, around 7:45, and I don’t know if anybody is going to show up,” Lattimer concedes. “But eventually, people start rolling in, and I get this exciting reminder of, Wow. They’re here. [Sometimes] they don’t even know anybody else in the room, and they still want [this series]. Like, Holy shit.” On those nights— usually a Tuesday—and in front a humbly packed living room inside of an Allston duplex, Lattimer introduces herself, the ALRR, and the participating poets: “Sometimes I look around at the poetry scene, and I’m like, We’re all just a bunch of queers in here.” On a countertop in the apartment foyer is a small jar for $5 donations (you can Venmo too). At the end of the evening, the collection’s totaled and divided to pay artists who read poems and short stories, and sometimes performed an acoustic set. The performances are honest and subtly subversive, as well as hilarious in some cases. For one set, poet Cassandra de 20
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Alba read from “The Tyra Poems,” in which she placed the model/mogul Tyra Banks in comical situations, replete with inside America’s Next Top Model jokes. Up to five poets read from their self-published chapbooks, notebooks, or smartphones. They got involved or were invited via word of mouth, on the recommendation of friends, and through writing workshops that Lattimer is a part of, as she is working toward an MFA at UMass Boston. She’s UMB’s Breakwater Review poetry editor as well. “It’s like a chain,” Lattimer says. “It absolutely has been, and again, a lot of that has been on faith. Everyone just vouches for each other. I got a friend that does this. This person would be good at that.” Twenty-somethings have responded the most to the ALRR, and within the cozy and intimate DIY venue, racially speaking, it is majority white. Lattimer acknowledges that while she can’t control who is compelled or willing to visit the series, says she can bring diversity to the performance roster. “I was afraid that this was going to be a white, lesbian space,” Lattimer says. “Because that’s what happens when you don’t do any work and you’re lazy. … It’s just so not helpful, frustrating, and exclusionary when you go into a queer space and see the same gay, white people. I knew that going into this, for the Allston Living Room Read, I was going to make the conscious decision to have people of color, trans, people from all sorts of groups represented, all the time.” Her genuine consideration has helped bring in poets like Romeo Oriogun. The 2017 winner of the Brunel International African Poetry Prize, Oriogun read at ALRR last November and divulged the repercussions he has faced because of his homosexuality, along with the courage to live his truth. Oriogun is also a part of PEN America. Colloquially known as “writers at risk,” PEN hosts artists who are at risk for their work in other countries. “Where he’s from, Nigeria, it is criminalized to be queer,” Lattimer explains. “When you’ve been living in a space for so long in which it’s criminalized to be this ‘thing,’ here we
are celebrating that and it really puts it all in perspective. It was rewarding to bring him in.” It’s been Lattimer’s intention to support more nonheteronormative work and artists who claim queer. The word may have a lot of buzz around it, with woke media monopolizing “queer” as a functioning tool in understanding or unpacking fashion, sexual, and gender landscapes. But for a word that Lattimer’s father remembers being used pejoratively in the 1980s, the ALRR co-exists on a new frontier. “I think it is very powerful, but also complicated. Queerness is like this big abstract concept and how do you put a border around that? And more importantly, should you?” Lattimer acknowledges that she’s had her biases about who gets to declare queer, but only because she sensed usurping. This past February, for example, Ariana Grande’s video for “Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored” was accused of queerbaiting. “I’ve had moments I felt people were latching on to my queerness to help promote something for themselves,” Lattimer says. “It’s just this weird thing that happens when something becomes a buzzword. Everybody wants it and sometimes [it’ll cause you to feel unsure] whether or not they’ve had similar difficulties coming to their experiences from an honest place.” Yet, her concern spurred a reckoning. “I also want to step away from the role and feeling of gatekeeping,” she says. “I would rather see a person who thinks they’re queer and explore everything that may mean to them than not.” With another reading upon us, Lattimer says she’s enjoyed watching the series evolve on an interpersonal level. “This Allston Living Room Read has profoundly changed my experience of living in [Boston],” she says. “If I didn’t have this, I would know far less people, and without knowing it, lose so much. “I thought I was going to do this for the summer.”
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WORKMATES SAVAGE LOVE
BY DAN SAVAGE @FAKEDANSAVAGE | MAIL@SAVAGELOVE.NETE3 My best friend’s father is an avid user of social media. He’s retired and spends most of his day posting memes on Facebook and Instagram. Recently, I realized he might not know how Instagram works. I noticed over the past week or so that he has been following, liking, and commenting on a lot of Instagram pictures of young gay men. I don’t think he realizes that anyone who follows him can see that activity. At first I was worried, not because he might be gay or bisexual, but because he may still be “in the closet.” He’s married, with a son (my friend), and to my knowledge, if he is bisexual or gay, nobody knows. I thought about warning him that his activity is public, but then I saw more. Not only has he been liking pictures of younger looking men, he’s also been liking and following accounts of very young boy models. Underage boys. I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but the evidence is there. So now I’ve gone from wanting to warn this guy that he may be accidentally outing himself by not knowing how apps work to feeling morally obligated to tell my friend that his dad is into dudes and might be a pedophile. I can only imagine the ramifications this news would have on him and his family. Best Friend’s Dad “I’m sympathetic to BFD’s concerns,” said Dr. Michael Seto, director of forensic rehabilitation research at the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group and an expert on pedophilia and sexual offending. “I know many people wonder what to do if they suspect someone is sexually attracted to children. And I understand how much of a burden it can feel like to keep a big secret, especially from a best friend.” But before we discuss your options and responsibilities here, BFD, let’s get our terms straight: If by “young boy models” you mean teenage boys past puberty but under the age of consent, then your friend’s father’s behavior is icky and inappropriate—but it is not, by itself, evidence that he’s a pedophile. “Clinically, pedophilia refers to attraction to prepubescent children,” said Dr. Seto, “though I know it’s still commonly used in public to refer to attraction to anyone underage.” Actually, the term “pedophile” gets tossed around so indiscriminately these days that some of my own readers have used it to describe (or condemn) people in their 40s or 50s who are attracted to (or fucking) grown men and women in their 20s and 30s. For the record: An attraction to younger/youngish adults does not make someone a pedophile. If that were the case, almost everyone on earth could be described (and condemned) as a pedophile. Dr. Seto estimates that just 1 percent of men are in fact attracted to prepubescent children. So depending on your point of view—depending on whether you’re a glass 99 percent empty or 1 percent full kind of guy—pedophilia is either exceedingly rare or alarmingly common. “Attraction to underage teens—boys or girls—is more common,” said Dr. Seto, “though it’s hard to estimate how common because it’s a taboo subject. We get hints from the popularity of certain porn genres like ‘schoolgirl,’ ‘twink,’ ‘barely legal,’ and so on. We also have a hint from how so many fashion models begin working in their teens.” But Dr. Seto emphasizes that sexual attraction does not equal sexual behavior. “The Instagram follows and likes may indeed suggest an attraction to underage boys,” said Dr. Seto. “And it may even be pedophilia if the models are that young. But that doesn’t mean his friend’s father is going to do anything beyond following or liking.” Understanding what separates pedophiles who’ve offended against children (read: pedophiles who’ve sexually abused children) from pedophiles who’ve never inappropriately touched a child is an important focus of Dr. Seto’s research, BFD, and his insights could inform your course of action. “One thing we know is that people who are low in self-control are more likely to act on sexual as well as nonsexual impulses,” said Dr. Seto. “That low self-control shows up in other ways, including addictions, problems holding down a job, problems in adult relationships, unreliability, and criminal behavior. My hypothesis is that someone who doesn’t show these signs is unlikely to offend against a child. They might look at child pornography, though, which is illegal and problematic, or they might look at legal images of children—like on social media—as a sexual outlet.” Viewing child pornography is hugely problematic because it creates demand for more child pornography, which leads to more children being abused. But even if no new child porn were ever created, sharing images of the rape of a child is itself a violation of that child. And while it may not be pleasant to contemplate what might be going through a pedophile’s mind when they look at innocent images of children, it’s not against the law for someone with a sexual interest in children to dink around on Instagram. “Returning to BFD’s question about whether to disclose, I don’t think it’s an easy yes-or-no answer,” said Dr. Seto. “It depends on what else BFD knows about the father. I’m required by law and professional ethics to report [someone] if I believe an identifiable child is at imminent risk. This mandatory reporting requirement is NOT triggered simply by knowing whether someone is sexually attracted to children. Instead, I have to consider information like whether the person has ever expressed fantasies or urges about a specific child, whether they work with children regularly, whether they live with children who are in their attraction category, or whether they have ever engaged in suspicious behavior like direct messaging with a child.” Does your friend’s dad work with underage boys? Does he sometimes look after underage boys—say, grandsons? Do they have sleepovers with friends at grandpa’s house? Has he ever behaved in an inappropriate manner around underage boys—e.g., inventing reasons to be alone with them, offering them booze or drugs, or making suggestive comments offline or online? “In the absence of these kinds of red flags, what we have here is someone who might be sexually attracted to underage boys but who might not pose a serious risk to children,” explained Dr. Seto. “So while not disclosing might mean some risk of a child being harmed, disclosing could definitely cause harm to the best friend, to the father, and to their relationship.” You’re in an agonizing position, BFD. You essentially have to weigh the chance—most likely very remote—that your friend’s dad would harm a child against the near certainty that telling your friend about his father’s behavior would do irrevocable harm to their relationship. Your relationship with your friend would also be at risk; this is definitely one of those circumstances where the messenger risks being shot. Figuratively speaking. I hope. Personally, BFD, in your shoes, I would err on the side of protecting even a hypothetical child. I would say something to the dad, perhaps via direct message (you could create a throwaway account and reach out anonymously), and I would also say something to my friend. But I would emphasize what the best available research tells us about pedophilia: It’s not something a person chooses, and most pedophiles never sexually abuse children. (And not everyone who sexually abuses a child is a pedophile.) So even if your best friend’s father is attracted to prepubescent boys— if he’s looking at prepubescent children and not teenagers who happen to be just under the age of consent—that doesn’t mean he’s harmed a child or would ever harm a child. He may need help to avoid offending—if, worst-case scenario, he actually is attracted to children—and being held accountable by loved ones is one way pedophiles avoid offending. Dr. Seto is the author of Pedophilia and Sexual Offending Against Children: Theory, Assessment, and Intervention and more. Follow him on Twitter @ MCSeto.
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