Dig Boston 5.6.13

DIGBOSTON.COM 5.6.15 - 5.13.15

NEWS

JILL STEIN IS MORE HIP-HOP THAN YOU

GREEN PARTY POTUS HOPEFUL BREAKS TOWARD WHITE HOUSE

EATS

BABBO PIZZERIA

MARIO BATALI

BREACHES BOSTON

MUSIC

THEATER

THE LAST TWO PEOPLE ON EARTH

MANDY PATINKIN AND TAYLOR MAC ENLIVEN THE APOCALYPSE

ROCK ‘N’ ROLL RUMBLE

WRAPPED UP IN ZIP-TIE

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DEAR READER There are plenty of reasons to be in good spirits about life in Boston.

Take, for instance, the fact that right here in the Hub, we have badass lefty progressive Jill Stein, who at the spry age of 64, is not only a fan of and friend to the hip-hop community (even convincing our normally exercise-averse news editor, Chris Faraone, to go dancing with her), but is also running for President of the United States on the Green Party ticket (yes, the same ticket once dominated by everyone’s favorite anti-corporation hush-puppy and seatbelt booster Ralph Nader). Stein, however, represents a lot of what your friends at DigBoston stand for: great music, radical politics, big fun. You can catch our feature interview with her on Page 4.

Also, the weather is getting sunnier, the mood increasingly more fitting for alfresco indulgement, be it for some killer Italian street food and Neapolitan pizza (see: Eats, Page 14), or for patio beers (see: Honest Pint, Page 16). And don’t forget the latest stage production in town, this one featuring Mandy Pantankin, a legend of thespianism beloved for roles as a six-fingered-man hunter and a criminal behaviorist. Fittingly, our cover model stars in a cheery new production about life after the apocalypse (see: Theatre, Page 26).

Call it a dramatic depiction of what will happen if Michele Bachmann ever slithers into the White House.

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EDITORIAL

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BY DAN MCCARTHY @ACUTALPROOF

BUSINESS ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Marc Shepard OPERATIONS MANAGER John Loftus ADVISOR Joseph B. Darby III DigBoston, 242 East Berkeley St. 5th Floor Boston, MA 02118 Fax 617.849.5990 Phone 617.426.8942 digboston.com

ON THE COVER

Mandy Patinkin and Taylor Mac in the American Repertory Theater’s production The Two Last People on Earth: An Apocalyptic Vaudeville. Photo by Paul Kolnik.

Jill Stein photo by Michael Zaia.

©2015 DIGBOSTON IS PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY DIG PUBLISHING LLC. NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION CAN BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT WRITTEN CONSENT. DIG PUBLISHING LLC CANNOT BE HELD LIABLE FOR ANY TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS. ONE COPY OF DIGBOSTON IS AVAILABLE FREE TO MASSACHUSETTS RESIDENTS AND VISITORS EACH WEEK. ANYONE REMOVING PAPERS IN BULK WILL BE PROSECUTED ON THEFT CHARGES TO THE FULLEST EXTENT OF THE LAW.

DIGTIONARY

IN-TOLL-ERABLE

adj inˈtōl(ə)rəb(ə)l 1. The state of unbearable being of any person receiving an expensive MassDOT violation notice in the mail, after taking advantage of what appears to be a consequence-free legal U-Turn on the Mass Pike going toward Worcester, only to find numerous other Hub denizens have also been fucked by that system.

OH, CRUEL WORLD Dear Allergies, Have you any idea how much havoc you reap? Does one know how many boogers thy wipe from one’s ruby red nostrils in the average day when you’re around? Hath your morning dew know any boundaries? Doth you protest my aggressive itching and persistent cranky behavior? Or does one relish in it like an old man itching testicles violently? Twas all he wrote, as he scratched his throat, on my polleny semen I do hope you choke.

ILLUSTRATION BY ELISE CAMERON

PUBLISHER Jeff Lawrence

NEWS US

THE ONLY COLOR THAT MATTERS IS GREEN NEWS TO US

Hip-hop and hummus with bestest leftist POTUS candidate Jill Stein

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I’m in the corner room at the Middle East in Cambridge, guzzling beers and plowing through a fistful of falafel across from my favorite candidate for President of the United States. It’s not Bernie Sanders, the socialist Vermont senator who is also running for the White House. He’s cool, and perhaps lefty enough for me, but Bernie isn’t this cool.

The hopeful with whom I am sharing appetizers has even considered asking Immortal Technique, the controversial indie rap artist from Harlem, to be her running mate.

“He’s a friend, but I don’t think he was born in the United States, so he can’t do it,” she says. “I have spoken with him though. I love Immortal Technique. He has great ideas—we need to hear from more people like him.”

As you may have guessed, I’m hanging with Jill Stein, who is likely to run for president in 2016 on the Green Party ticket.

Since she formed an exploratory committee in February, and is the most progressive person considering the plunge, we thought that it was only right to put her on our cover and let her use the DigBoston bullhorn. Stein is a Commonwealth resident, a licensed physician, and as a bonus whooped Mitt Romney in a Bay State gubernatorial debate in 2002. As the Green candidate for president a decade later, she was arrested for trying to enter a debate at Hofstra University on Long Island, where she would likely have delivered a belated encore shellacking. But in cases when Stein has actually been allowed to participate in candidate forums, she has impressed.

The doc is hardly an electoral powerhouse. Last jog around, her operation raised less than $1 million, while she captured only .36 percent of the popular vote (she appeared on the ballot in 36 states). At the same time, those 469,000

votes were enough to earn Stein the superlative of Most Successful Female POTUS Candidate in US History. That’s a feat in itself, and in watching her pitch our DigBoston photographer, a student at MassArt, it’s obvious how Stein attracted nearly half-a-million supporters with such meager resources.

“Do you have debt?”

The question hits home; the undergrad photog nods slowly but dramatically. “Oh yeah.”

“Would you like to have it abolished?”

“Oh yeah. I try to manage my money, worked five jobs over the summer to pay what I can, but that’s just for living expenses.”

Stein goes for the closer.

“You should listen to what we’re saying … Because if it’s important, then you can be sure that Jeb and Hillary are working against it—whether it’s student debt, whether it’s affordable college, whether it’s keeping schools open and having an education budget.”

The candidate looks back at me: “There is an enormous amount of misery, and especially when you cross the generational divide. Among young people there’s just no question that there is a revolt going on … they are highly discouraged, and cynical, but if they feel like there is a tool with integrity that’s available to them, they’ll use it.”

THE BIG DANCE

A few weeks before our dinner, I asked Stein’s media manager to arrange for an interesting meeting between us. So as to avoid simply slathering on the puffery that she

deserves, I requested that we do more than just a interview.

Her relatability has been brought into question, even by some who have supported Stein’s past nominations, and so I wanted to evaluate her down-to-earthness. Her team was amenable, but must have had no clue how out of shape I am, because they responded with an opportunity to join her for a hip-hop dance class.

I follow the candidate and her one-man entourage up a squeaky old staircase at the Dance Complex on Mass Ave. It’s unlikely that anyone would recognize her as a politician or presidential candidate; even those who know Stein well may be a bit thrown off, as she’s dressed super casually in purple Chuck Taylors and without her trademark tandem blazer and green blouse. Just steps inside the building, however, a young woman behind the counter looks up and asks, “Are you from Lexington?”

Stein does live in Lexington, where she has served as a town meeting representative. She enjoys the acknowledgment for a millisecond, but it turns out the receptionist doesn’t actually know her, but rather just made the connection from a logo for Wilson Farm, a Lexington staple, on Stein’s tote bag. In any case, another Dance Complex employee directs us to a studio on the top floor.

I’ve done these kinds of participatory pieces before, but never with a candidate for president. And certainly never in such a sweaty situation, as the studio is filled with roughly two dozen hot-steppers in appropriate exercise gear, whereas I’m dressed more like a backup dancer in a ’90s rap video with Timberlands and sagging jeans. As bass lines GREEN continued on pg. 6

PHOTO BY DENNIS TRAINOR

BY CHRIS FARAONE @FARA1

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DEPT. OF COMMERCE

FEATURE

NEWS TO US

GREEN continued from pg. 4 bounce off the walls, Stein grooves with the precision of a teen on a Dance Dance Revolution simulator, her every kick fully extended and arms flailing fiercely. I’m a much less admirable specimen, though I manage to hold my own as the instructor coaches us through a routine.

At 64 years young, Stein is the oldest person in here, and more than thrice the age of some classmates. Other than the teacher, I’m the second oldest, and so after 45 minutes I step to the rear for a breather and to scribble some notes. I’m shaking, perspiring too profusely to grip my pen, and in mid-routine Stein looks over and asks, “Are you alright?” To which I reply, “Yes, but the only reason I agreed to this in the first place is because you’re a doctor.”

As I’m marinating in sweat on the sidelines, it dawns on me that Stein is infinitely more hip-hop, at least in the traditional empowerment sense, than young schmucks like Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio, the US senator from Florida who claims to be a fan of the genre. As snares kick and horns blow in the background, Stein crosses the hour mark with ease, and there’s a moment of camaraderie and triumph among classmates—exactly the kind of scene she needs to spur, over and over again, with voters all across the country if she plans to resonate at large. Some are wheezing, but not her. Stein explains her style and method.

“I just had to make some of the moves work for me,” she says. “I had my own flow.

That’s what hip-hop is.”

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Since beginning to formally consider another presidential push, Stein hasn’t been able to make it to the Dance Complex as much as she would like to. Instead, she has been busy touring border towns in Texas, where she visited striking oil workers and communities who are fighting fracking interests, as well as other groups of marginalized voters. Her idea, which is supported by Gallup polls showing that record numbers of Americans are identifying as independent, is that people are increasingly sick of big party dominance. As Stein puts it, they’re “tired of making excuses for their political abusers.”

“The vacuum is really intense now,” she explains. “After two Obama terms, people are dropping out … Our challenge is to get the word out to people across the spectrum … We’re tiny, but our voting base is larger than just the Greens. We’ve become the umbrella for the principled political resistance, and a big question out there is whether people who want to revolt will take that revolt to the voting booth, or if they want to stay home.”

Like a lot of progressives, I have doubts about the Greens—even though they’re probably the vehicle that’s best equipped to dent the dominant parties. At the same time, I am completely trusting of Stein, whom I have long believed to be one of the smartest pols in America. At the very least, her priorities speak to underlying issues: “It’s Black Lives Matter,” she says. “It’s the prison state, it’s the security state, and it’s student debt—those are the big things.”

She’s not a warmongering scumbag either, which is unique in this day and age. On military spending, Stein rails against “Democrats and Republicans looking to go after anything that breathes.” “If it shows up on infrared,” she says, the establishment philosophy is to “shoot it!”

There’s also healthcare; though I’m not much of a gambler, I’d bet all 10 fingers used to type this profile that Stein would breakdance all over her opponents if given a chance to confront them on the issue. “Forget the bureaucratic mumbo jumbo,” she says. “We need healthcare from the cradle to the grave, for it to just be built into society. It’s an outrageous myth that it’s really expensive to cover everybody. What’s really expensive is having a thousand insurance plans whereby all the minutiae of your coverage has to be tracked … Companies are making out like bandits, but it hasn’t been a step forward for middle Americans.”

As for her chances … Stein’s communications director, Massachusetts filmmaker and video blogger Dennis Trainor, says their team is still determining exactly how far they should push the envelope in their messaging. So far, in addition to expected lefty press, the exploratory outing has been covered by national outlets including C-SPAN and ABC News, which are typically reluctant to report on third parties at all, let alone this early in the race. According to Trainor and Stein, the Greens aren’t any less progressive than in years past, but they have finally modernized—not just in their media operation, but in their organization as well.

“We’re looking to run around [the corporate media],” Stein says, “and to build a movement that is so big that it forces them to cover us. We get to piggyback on everything we did last time, and we have digital tools for organizing and fundraising that we never were able to afford before. It’s a totally different ballgame. For the first time, at the national level we are turning the crank.”

She continues: “We have ballot status. We can make voices louder, and stronger, and help connect causes like climate justice and prison transformation … The missing component here is connecting the dots. When you start putting together millions of students and former students who are in debt, with one out of three AfricanAmericans who are in prison or on probation, with one out of two American families that are in poverty or heading for it, then we have not just a plurality, but a majority.”

If Stein can pull off anything along those lines, if she can bring such constituencies together, it will be her most impressive hip-hop move of all.

PHOTO BY MICHAEL ZAIA

IT GETS BETTER

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ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

FEATURE

NEWS TO US

BLUNT TRUTH

TROUBLESOME

‘They got a War on Drugs so police can bother me’

BY MIKE CANN @MIKECANN The conservative Howie Carr crowd is still up in arms over the rioting that followed the death of another black man in police custody in Baltimore. To be clear: they’re not upset about the actual death, or other killings like it, but rather because people decided to riot. Carr, along with his pathetic legionnaires and parrots, were all, “Take their EBT cards and benefits away.”

I listened to a week of this garbage. Of all the dreadful crap that poured into Carr’s top-rated syndicated talk show, one particular buffon spoke volumes about the quality of callers. “Howie, with all this lawlessness,” he cried, “who’s going to represent the white working class?”

Racially sensitive guy that he is, Carr responded, “How about we just say working class?” As if his listeners don’t know his show, and what it stands for. For months now, Carr has routinely labeled protesters in Ferguson and Baltimore the “whiner class,” and condemned them as “part of the EBT crowd.”

What’s always left out of hate radio conversations, of course, are the root causes of rioting: institutional racism, hopelessness, etc. Like the late great Tupac Shakur said, “Instead of war on poverty, they got a War On Drugs so the police can bother me.” You’d think such revelations are obvious to the point that they’ve become cliche, but they apparently aren’t. Over on MSNBC, when retired Baltimore police officer Neill Franklin, a prominent activist with Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), noted the War on Drugs as a reason for discontent in Baltimore, and in urban centers across the nation, Joe Scarborough responded, “You’re certainly not suggesting that drug laws were responsible for the rioting yesterday?” Actually Joe, that’s exactly what he is suggesting, along with countless other close observers including former Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon, who is best known as the creator of the hit HBO series “The Wire.” In order to turn things around, Simon says, “I know I sound like a broken record, but we end the [expletive] drug war.”

For the Howie Carr crowd though, it’s too much fun to blame everything on EBT cards. Never mind the bigger question of whether Americans will ever recognize that racial peace is inexorably linked to the continuing drug war. Otherwise, like Tupac rapped back in the ‘90s, there won’t be any changes. Just racist faces. And more riots.

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MASS DISPENSARY UPDATE FAQ

BY DIG STAFF @DIGBOSTON We thought you might be wondering …

Did it take a judge to get some momentum for the medical marijuana program in Mass?

Yes. Last Monday, a judge in Suffolk Superior Court in Boston officially noted what we have all known for a while—that the Department of Public Health screwed the pudding, and that the agency wrongfully denied licenses to two dispensaries in particular.

Which ones?

Ones proposed by Medical Marijuana of Massachusetts (MMM) for Mashpee and Plymouth.

Isn’t that the one owned by a politician?

Not owned, but yes, former US Congressman William Delahunt was heading MMM at one time, but now even he is too disgusted with the bureaucratic bullshit to proceed in the industry.

What happened with that whole thing?

On the macro level, former Governor Deval Patrick apparently didn’t want dispensaries opening on his watch, and sabotaged the process. On a micro level, in scrutinizing dispensary applications even more than the state does things like security and surveillance contracts, the commonwealth went way overboard. MMM, though a relative whale compared to other operations, caught the shit end of the stick during an overzealous second review, and was put out for minor discrepancies with their initial proposal.

So does that mean I can get the medical pot that I need like, tomorrow?

LOL. No, sorry, if it were only that simple. New Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker seems to have good intentions, and is completely revamping the system on the dispensary and patient ends. That new process won’t be introduced until May 15 though, so only time will tell. As for the dispensaries themselves: 15 licenses have been awarded so far, though with the aforementioned court decisions and the new process being installed, who the hell really knows. In any case, it looks like the first shop, In Good Health, will open in Brockton this summer. See you there.

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DEPT. OF COMMERCE

What we can all learn from ‘The Thread’

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

BY CHRIS FARAONE @FARA1

So much for any of the bigshot Boston outlets piecing together all the moments and events surrounding the bombing of the 2013 Boston Marathon. You know, the specifics, like how the Brothers Tsarnaev spent the days and hours beforehand, their every movement in the aftermath of the attack, critical things of that sort.

Yeah, yeah ... the Pulitzer-heavy Boston Globe and a couple of others have been whole-hog on the job, in many cases generating detailed timelines and infographics.

Bruce Gellerman of WBUR has also been dutiful in identifying holes in the prevailing narrative, while Phillip Martin at WGBH has brought listeners terrifyingly close to the courtroom.

Niceties aside though, in the interest of being the ombudsman that nobody asked for, I’m comfortable saying that trial reportage has been shallow overall. The feds nailed their guy to the wall, we get it, but for many, the satisfaction and closure end there. This far along, countless questions still remain in multiple realms ranging from the reason the Tsarnaevs were attached to Watertown, to the killing of Ibragim Todashev, a friend of Tamerlan’s, in Florida by a dirty FBI agent, to details about cops from out of town who dispatched themselves to the manhunt.

In contemplating the loose ends, as well as my own failure to knot them, I can’t help but think about The Thread, a short documentary that set out to expose “how the internet manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombers changed the face of journalism forever.” Probably due to the hyperbolic description, or perhaps since I’m an arrogant prick like everyone else in the press, I initially brushed the film off as another cheap attempt to either glorify or bludgeon new media sleuths. But after sitting on it for a few weeks, I feel there’s an important lesson in the doc, which was shot and cut by some of the filmmakers behind such stellar works as Man on Wire and the Osama bin Laden CIA caper Manhunt.

As could have been predicted, The Thread caught heaps of holy hell from a couple of critics, all of whom seemed to resent any judgment of their industry. A writer at the New Republic opined that the documentary “is baggy and unfocused throughout, unsure of the conflict it sets out to explore.” Well, duh. That’s the fucking point. The Thread literally opens with a micro-blogging college student, as arrogant as he is awkward, saying that he just wanted to put together all the pieces of the bombing story. As the film goes to show, few media behemoths were of much help in the immediate wake of events; as recent weeks have further evidenced, trial coverage is comparably lacking. Of course the documentary is unfocused.

To its credit, The Thread balances a sympathetic appreciation for Twitter detectives and Reddit investigators with commentary from snobbier subjects like an editor from Slate who, despite boasting his site’s OG status among web media giants, apparently doesn’t understand how the internet works. All failures considered, it’s absurd for establishment reporters of any stripe—whether their credentials are from CBS or BuzzFeed—to blanketly deride amateurs. Like an editor from the New York Times says in the movie, news is often just well-vetted gossip, and “some people are really good at it who are not journalists.” Furthermore, while Twitter rumor-mongers are often wrong about important matters, as shown in The Thread, so are well-funded mainstream news organizations. Though their conversations often ran amok, it didn’t take a Redditor to temporarily misinform the nation that a dozen people had been killed by the finish line.

Finally, I’m not even sure that it’s worth the time to dive a million miles deep into this case, or to further impugn the investigation—Tsarnaev is rat meat dead or alive, and no armchair expedition is likely to spur authorities to budge an inch on their story. It would have been refreshing to have many more answers, but as the feds try their best to silence the defendant once and for all, that window seems to close a little more each day. >> THE THREAD (LIGHTBOX ENTERTAINMENT AND XBOX ENTERTAINMENT STUDIOS) IS AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD OR VIEW-ON-DEMAND ON VARIOUS DIGITAL PLATFORMS).

IMAGE COURTESY GAWKER

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MY HEART IS A

CHEAP FUCK

BY SHANA GRAHAM

SO, ALICE, WHERE SHALL we be off to today? The train game, again?

Then the train game it shall be.

Pick a platform, any platform! I know: I’ll close my eyes and let you sniff it out. What do you smell, Alice, ol’ pup? The sweat of Buenos Aires playboys in the midnight heat? Fruit rotting in the dirt at the bazaar in Istanbul and the musky perfume of the stall-keeper’s son, humming a movie tune, just barely seventeen?

The tinny scent of blood at the old butcher shop in Rome and the butcher’s hands, each as big as your four paws put together?

What do you smell, Alice, my friend? Where in the world shall we go next?

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It started in Athens. Alice and I had been together four years. The vet said Alice was dying, said she should be put down before it got any worse. I listened, and nodded, and all the while plotted how we’d make our escape. Athens was getting old, anyway. Hell, it was old. Everything was musty and crumbling and years overbaked. It couldn’t help but go bad and take

you right along with it. You and your little dog, too. Time to move along. Alice was ready.

There are so many deaths that are not my death, not your death, Alice. Each place has its own variety. In Mexico you can get kidnapped for ransom and decapitated by the henchmen of an enemy drug cartel.

In Afghanistan there are suicide bombers pushing ice cream carts. In sub-Saharan Africa you have a one in six chance of dying before you reach the age of five. In India there is malaria, starvation, buses plunging off Himalayan cliffs and slipping through cracks in bridges that open like hungry mouths and close just as quickly, but at least you can have your soul set adrift in the Ganges and reincarnated to some more wizened form. There are hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, all the great rumblings this weary earth calls forth. Oh, but I love life.

I’ll save you all with my love. Come, Alice!

Come jump into my bed, curl yourself against me, your wet nose warm against my belly.

In Madrid there was Alex. Alejandro, he said, sounding it out, making me repeat it. Alejandro, I said with a wave of my arm like a matador sweeping his red cape from before the barreling snout of a bull. But in bed, he let me call him Alex. Alejandro, tall and lanky, fluid like a dancer, an added shoulder roll, hip thrust, sashay in every

step. Skin the color of milky tea and black hair long enough to ball in your fist. He was sassy and forward at the club off Plaza de Chueca, blockading his body before me so close I could feel his breath on my forehead, heat and Marlboro Lights and rum that sugared the corners and inner rim of his lips. “American men are my specialty,” he purred. But once we got to his place , his demeanor changed completely. He was silent in the bright elevator. He fumbled with his keys and held the apartment door open for me with a shy smile; cracked cans of Cruzcampo, apologizing that he had nothing more to offer. Disappeared into the bathroom for a long ten minutes.

His cave of an apartment. One square room with a low, sloped ceiling, bare walls, cardboard-colored carpeting stiff beneath my bare feet. The couch pocked with burn marks and a coffee table scattered with overflowing ashtrays and soccer magazines. When he exited the bathroom I took him immediately on the floor.

Alex, I said. He mewed like a wild, injured beast; reared and bucked as I clutched his mane. His back slick with sweat; his eyes squeezed shut. Alex.

After, I held him on the couch, his head in my lap, combing his damp hair with my fingers as he fell asleep. Some late night Spanish talk show played on the television. There was a woman,

probably in her fifties, seated beside a teenage boy in a long black t-shirt and baggy jeans. She was yelling at the boy, waving her arms about, shaking her head, her face red with exertion.

Before I slipped out the door, I used his bathroom and was surprised to find cologne bottles of every shape, size and color lining the narrow shelf that spanned the length of the wall. A bulbous blue glass bottle with a silver stopper and icy white lettering; a squat, rectangular container that looked like it was made of cork. I counted them, forty-two bottles total. Somehow, it made me love him even more.

Alice in the photo I used to carry in the vinyl sleeve of my wallet. It was just a few weeks after we adopted her and she was maybe eight weeks old, black ball of a thing with huge white paws, pretty, dopey eyes, that long whip tail that was already knocking over every wine glass or coffee mug or flower vase in its path. Enzo’s sitting on our bed, rocking her in the crook of his arm, the gentlest look on his face, his hand bigger than Alice’s head and nearly as dark. So tiny was she. This before the Dane erupted out of her mutt gene pool and she shot up into a spindly black giant.

Alice! Enzo! (I freeze in the bustle of some city square, a vendor hawking newspapers in one language or another, people pushing around me.) Alice was tiny and we were young and dumb and perfect. Enzo, I think, was thirty. I was twenty-six. Our damp, little basement apartment in Boston where we huddled under swaths of blankets while the Autumn rain pounded the window and we made up stories. Enzo would make up one part and then nod and pass it to me and I would take the next part, and we could go on like that for hours. We’d read them to Alice when we finished. If she stayed and listened, it meant she liked the story. If she left the room mid-way through, it meant we had failed and had to win back her favor by plying her with treats. She often left, but I think it was because she knew she’d get biscuits and belly rubs.

Alice used to love: Licking peanut butter off my fingers. All the smelly, sapid things that dredge up out of the ground after a good rain, including lost socks, bloated earthworms, half-eaten sandwiches, bird carcasses. Belly rubs and biscuits, of course. Me. Enzo. (But she likely forgot who he was after a while.) Waking up somewhere new and somewhere new and somewhere new and rushing out into the clamoring scents of an unknown city, all coy for her attention. Everything worthy of her endless love. Dog things.

In India, there was Prakash. Prakash of the Oranges. I found him inside an enormous orb where I was sitting cross-legged on a mat amidst devotees and students of Sri Aurobindo and “The Mother,” trying, unsuccessfully, to meditate. Or to “concentrate,” as was the vernacular of the strange international community in Tamil Nadu – part commune, part ashram, and part minidemocracy – where I’d landed. I’d never meditated before and, honestly, didn’t think much of the practice. The idea of attaining some sort of divine, egoless emptiness through forced stillness seemed contrived, contrary to the buzzing, humming, throbbing constancy of a MY HEART continued on pg. 12

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MY HEART continued from pg. 10

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world that was more than I could possibly partake of in a lifetime of motion. Why stop? There would be plenty of time for stillness when I was dead.

But there had been a dearth of English teaching opportunities of late.

My money was running low and I was growing disenchanted with India’s cockroach-laden, cold-bath-in-a-bucket, budget accommodations. Auroville! Sung my fellow travelers. Where students are welcomed with open arms! With cheap and luxurious villas! With feasts of abundance!

Light and clouds shooting through circular cutouts in the walls of the dome.

I could feel him staring at me across the circle, looked up from my fidgeting and met his gaze. I recognized him from the cafeteria the night prior. A group of us babbling on in broken English, so many accents, and he’d sat down at the end of the table with a few empty seats between him and the rest of us. On his tray: a large wooden bowl filled with orange slices, a smaller, empty bowl, and a glass of water.

I watched as he peeled the rind, slowly, methodically, from each orange slice, picked out any seeds, placed the rind and seeds in the empty bowl, ate the slice, sipped a bit of water, and then moved on to the next slice. He did not look at us or acknowledge us at all. When he finished all the oranges, he removed his tray and walked off.

Prakash, his face gaunt and long nose slightly crooked, head shaved to a dark stubble and black eyes blazing with intent, a combination of mischief and challenge more focused than anything else in that would-be concentration chamber. He cocked his head toward the staircase leading down to the dome’s exit. Rose to his feet, so tall, so thin, because he eats nothing but oranges, I thought. Walked away without looking back.

In his little cement-block cell of a room in the long-term volunteer housing, he stripped off his clothes as soon as he’d shut the door behind me; lay down across the thin cotton mattress that covered half the floor. I shed my clothes, also, and lay beside him.

Prakash of the Oranges! Prakash, fifty-two years old, as I later dredged out of him, but lean and taut, rippled with smooth muscle and purple veins along his biceps and calves from his daily routine of running and pushups in the early morning fields, with only a few grey hairs on his lower back to show for his age. For an hour, at least, we lay without touching while he read me poems from a Hindi volume. I couldn’t understand a word, of course. But his voice. Hushed and melodic, almost a whisper, and then, suddenly, playful and emphatic, as if he was reading to a child. As if he was saying, Oranges! I like to eat oranges!

I wanted to laugh. I wanted to sing. The wind billowed the white sheet that hung across the single window like a sail. Warm breeze and flickers of afternoon sun across our bare skin. The smell of fresh cut grass and a tinge of something pungent and burning in the distance.

Finally, Prakash reached for an orange.

There were nine of them, scattered on a small, blue-cloth covered table beside the bed. He peeled it slowly, stacking the rind in a neat pile on the table, removed a segment and held it to my

lips. So impossibly sweet. I didn’t wait until I finished chewing. I snatched the remainder of the orange from his other hand and crushed it with my palm over his chest. At first he looked wild, angry, like he might strike me. But then he smiled.

Rolled and pinned me to the bed with his body, the sticky mess of juice and pulp between our bellies, the sweetness on our tongues. We didn’t leave his room all night and all the next day and all the night after.

We pissed in a plastic bottle and poured it out the window. We ate only oranges.

The book of poetry lay unopened. We left only because the orange-soaked room was attracting flies.

A lesson on your wild, yearning heart, Alice: mute it. Suppress it. Toss it beneath trains. Hang it from rickety ceiling fans above soiled guesthouse mattresses.

Shove it out the doors of moving buses.

Fling it before rampaging packs of bulls.

Leave it out overnight in desert rainstorms with no shelter in sight.

of grass between the sidewalk and the street, legs flailing in the air. Beast! Beast!

I grabbed the leash, crouched and placed my hand on her belly and she snapped toward me, teeth bared. For an instant, I was gripped with terror, but then her eyes met mine and her whole body relaxed and we sat there, rain streaming over us, while Alice’s breathing slowed to normal.

Enzo and I made it for over two years.

Longer than I’ve ever stayed with anyone else. Things were really good – that’s the sad part. We had simple pleasures, routines: Sunday morning lattes and bagels and a crossword at Pavement while Alice lazed on the sidewalk outside; getting drunk on cheap beer and laughing at late-night Oprah re-runs; the fresh pasta shop on Newbury St. where we bought noodles for Enzo’s famous lasagna that I insisted he make at least once a week. You know how it is when everything in a city is infused with a person? When you can never go back or risk falling to

“I remember from my college abnormal psych course the concept of “insight” in mental health as the degree to which a patient is able to recognize and reflect meaningfully on his own disorder. This ability to separate rational from irrational behavior, to gaze on ones’ lunacy from a clinical distance, even while still tangled in the throes of it, is a measure of recovery, of at least some semblance of sanity. “

In Amsterdam, I’d just bought myself a vanilla soft serve cone from a sidewalk stand when the rain started. Just a few drops at first, but within a few seconds it was pummeling down, soaking my canvas coat, washing ice cream onto my hand.

I looked around for somewhere to duck inside and that’s when Alice started going crazy, jumping and twisting side-to-side as if she was surrounded by a pack of imaginary predators. She crouched low on her front legs, snarled at nothing, then reared up, pounced to her left and snarled again.

I tried to keep a hold on her leash that was ripping into my palm, but I lost my grip and, simultaneously, my cone flew from my other hand and splat onto the wet concrete. Save me! This wild, incomprehensible beast. You played me for your confidant, but something else rages within you. Growling and hissing and then Alice was on her back, writhing, grinding herself into the muddy patch

your knees at every corner? Wrapping yourself around every streetlamp?

When I left for Japan on a nine-month teaching grant, we cried at the airport.

What a sight. Enzo sturdy and dark like a great Cherry Wood Tree, he was just getting seriously into weight training and his body was bulging in unexpected places we’d discover together, sobbing just a little less effusively than a drag queen at a wedding. And little, pasty-skinned me, burrowed in his arms, the good Boy Scout with my new backpack, white t-shirt and khaki shorts, leaving a big, wet splotch in the middle of Enzo’s track jacket. I told him he wasn’t allowed to wash the jacket until I returned. I made him set his phone alarm for 1:30 p.m. and I set mine for 9:30 p.m. so whenever they went off we could spend a minute simultaneously thinking of each other and willing our big love across the divide. I warned him that Alice and I might pick out a cute, little snotty-nosed orphan tot to bring home and we could all be the

perfect, modern, double-daddy, interracial, international McFamily. I kissed him with some twisted martyr-like combination of real grief and self-flagellating deception because I knew, even then, even weeks before then, that I wasn’t coming back.

I gave it about six months. Let my correspondence slow. Too busy so very busy the time difference is difficult the phones unreliable the Internet café closed and moved to another street a parallel city an alternate universe I sent a letter three weeks ago a very long letter you never received it? Stupid-ass foreign postal system, awash with bureaucrats and cronies, dispassionate to the exigencies of true love.

Then I told him I’d fallen in love with one of my students. I told him in an email, Alice. It was terrible. Cowardly. I know. I know.

I remember from my college abnormal psych course the concept of “insight” in mental health as the degree to which a patient is able to recognize and reflect meaningfully on his own disorder. This ability to separate rational from irrational behavior, to gaze on ones’ lunacy from a clinical distance, even while still tangled in the throes of it, is a measure of recovery, of at least some semblance of sanity. Well, I had insight, Alice. Reams and reams of insight. Sufficient insight to build an escape ramp right out of my cell and into the great, wide world of the free.

My heart is a cheap fuck, a weepy bastard.

But oh, to be free.

I’m bored, Alice. Bored with London, bored with France… Sometimes I think we need to go home, fall in love, settle, save for retirement. Yes, Alice, I’ll have a wedding.

A wedding! And at my wedding I’ll wear a red bow tie and he’ll wear a black one. We’ll each hold a single red rose. We will feed each other from chopsticks, Alice! We’ll slow dance on a ballroom floor while everyone watches. All our friends and family, they’ll gather round our cake table laden with doll figurines in costumes of all the countries of the world and they will eat cake. Later we’ll make a slideshow set to cheesy music and post it on the Internet. We’ll move to a pink castle in Hawaii…

At the Hotel Continental in Tangier, as I sat in the breakfast room eating my cornflakes and milk, someone turned the television to the English-language BBC news and the reporter announced that Oprah had just aired her final show.

A breeze rushed in through the open window beside me, blowing my paper napkin to the floor, filling the air with the scent of sewage. Outside, I saw that waves of garbage were washing up on the shore; a line of wolves were winding their way, steady and silent, up the stone path through the old city toward my hotel atop the hill. I had planned to stay several more weeks, but I checked out that day. The taxi driver who took me to the port in his ancient Mercedes told me a complicated story that concluded with an appeal for help purchasing a new inhaler for his ailing mother and hell, I’d heard it all before, but I gave him all the dirham in my wallet, the equivalent of about fifty dollars, and he pressed his palms together.

Thank you, my good friend, thank you, thank you. Later, counting the bills, he’d wonder at the photo, tucked into the pile, of the big, dark man cradling a black and white puppy like a first-born child. He’d stick it in his glove compartment amongst

Shana Graham hopes that if she closes her eyes and counts to eleven, you’ll appear on her doorstep bearing a big, steaming platter of tater tots and feed them to her one-by-one.

Ready… set… GO! You can find more of her work and connect with her at www.supershana.com.

NEWS TO US ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

FEATURE

“What the fuck is this?” I asked.

“Nutella,” he said, grinning. “You try.

You will like. Very good.”

I was livid. Langos are supposed to be savory, that’s the point. Cabbage, yes.

Sour cream, yes. Mushrooms, eggplant, cheese, yes. But not Nutella, of all things.

I shoved the thing back toward him.

He pushed it across the counter at me, still grinning, this adorable, doughy, dimple-cheeked grin. And that’s all it took.

I returned the next night and Oliver was behind the stand, but I didn’t realize it was he, and not Tomas, until it was too late.

I guess it all was kind of a bad joke.

Sometimes, Alice, that’s the way it turns out.

There were lumps growing on Alice’s left leg. I kept having them removed and back they would come. Three years after Athens and it all came down to a windy, April morning in Krakow. Alice had spent the entire night bleating and falling, eyes crusted shut, ripping at her raw leg.

In the morning, she lay heavy and still, already relieved, as I lifted her from the car and carried her into the veterinary clinic. The room was tiled and sterile with a metallic counter. I lay my head on Alice’s neck, ran my fingers through her damp, matted fur and thought about where I would go when I left that room.

The answer was home. But I realized I didn’t know where the hell that was. I held that dog tighter and closed my eyes.

She would always start tugging against the leash as soon as we rounded the corner onto Marlborough Street.

Her black nose would quiver and her ears alert and she’d stride with eager purpose. I used to take her for that same walk just about every evening before dinner and it happened each time we got to that corner. As if it was the most exciting moment ever; as if she couldn’t wait another second to cross the threshold into our yard, a block away.

What do you smell, Alice? That cherry blossom tree, bare of its pink petals, but still perfume to your supersensitive snout? The neighbor’s white cat, breath hot with the stink of whatever bird or mouse she’s caught, as she arches her back and scurries from our path? That overgrown lot a few houses away, dense with weeds and dandelions and other dank treasures? The little clay pots of mint and basil and thyme we used to try all summer to convince to grow on our steps?

What do you smell, Alice? Ah, is it the scent of the lasagna he’s preparing for our dinner? Slow baking for hours in the oven, now wafting out the window as we approach, welcoming our return?

Find our way home, Alice. Find our way home.

13

ILLUSTRATIONS BY BRITTANY GRABOWSKI

various other treasures left-behind: a heavy, gold-colored pen engraved with Hotel Majestic Barcelona; a women’s wristwatch with a broken clasp; coins from countless countries. He’d look at it every now and then, consider throwing it away, decide to keep it.

In Johannesburg there was Derek. I hated Johannesburg. Sprawling and dim despite its sunshine. Razor wire and gate opening onto gate opening onto gate.

Scarred city. I only went there for Derek.

A few sordid nights chasing each other about in the sand on the Costa del Sol while he was on his annual European holiday. But at home, affixed behind his desk, his towering bookshelves, his serious Professorship of Private Law at the University of Johannesburg, he was just as dour as his city. His research focus was land law, specifically burial rights.

Over dinner, Derek would explain to me how they are running out of graves in Johannesburg because so many people are dying of AIDS. Graveyards are populated overnight, solemn new cities erupting from the fields, springing forth from hillsides. The living and the dead squabbling for precious real estate.

They are struggling to find solutions.

Upright burial. Stacking coffins three or four deep in a single grave. Extending some cemeteries and erecting new ones.

A Burial Conference of international experts to study the issue. Recycling gravesites by digging out old bones, bagging them, and burying them deeper so the site appears fresh for the newly deceased. Illegal cemeteries are surfacing on private land. Authorities are trying to dissuade people from burying relatives in their backyards.

The city has piloted a mausoleum project, but very few people want to be cremated. Derek said this is because their culture holds that the grave is a sacred dwelling; a house for the bodies of those who are still alive but can no longer be seen. Even death seeks a place to reside.

Enzo once told me he wanted to be cremated. If I outlived him, he wanted me to choose a fitting place to disperse his ashes. What would I do with his ashes, Alice? Already, I carry yours. I don’t want to be a walking mausoleum. I don’t want to haul a train full of bones.

In Prague, there was Oliver and Tomas. Brothers, believe it or not. Twin brothers. Yes, I know it sounds like the opening to some bad joke. They ran a little stand in the open air Christmas market in Wenceslas Square selling langos – a tasty, fried flat bread I’d been snacking on all across Hungary, Austria and the Czech Republic. I paid for one and Tomas handed me a strip of waxed paper bearing a puffy sphere slathered with brown stuff.

DEPT. COMMERCE EATS

BAB COMPANY

Mario Batali breaches Boston

SHOP

COMPANY MEN

Socially-conscious ’60s-inspired clothing company opens in evolving Charlestown

BY DAN MCCARTHY @ACUTALPROOF

DIGBOSTON.C0M

05 06 15 – 05 13 15

14

In January of 2014, Casey Paton and Mark Lisavich, former frat brothers at Villanova, decided to join forces and change careers. Each having found success in different fields—Paton was a successful stock trader and Lisavich a computer programmer—they chose something neither one of them had professional experience with: the intersection of retail, fashion, and charity.

Fast-forward past their teaming up with the MassArt design grads behind the South End’s Emulsion Printhouse, previewing for friends and family, and launching an ecommerce site, all while learning the start-up ropes, and you have Encore Apparel Company. The company quietly opened its first brick and mortar storefront-slash-fulfillment-and-privateevent-space tucked along the Charlestown Navy Yard a few weeks ago, blocks away from the sparkling new Spaulding Rehabilitation Center.

“I grew up in Maine with parents who were big hippies,” says Paton. “I kind of wanted to build a brand around that [folk rock] aesthetic and time period, around [the] general attitude and music.” Besides Bob Dylan and The Band, Paton says he and partner Lisavich have taken a lot of inspiration for EAC from New England-based apparel titan Life Is Good (whose founder Bert Jacobs is a fellow Villanova alum). “They’re a great company, but we tried to put a different spin on it. We’re not a streetwear company obviously, but we’re trying to be younger and music driven,” he says.

The space itself contains industrial concrete juxtaposed with a modular design. The roof is cement and slanted toward the water, and is a reminder of the building’s history as a large-scale ocean vessel launch. Think: an open-floor format, reclaimed barn wood, leather sofas, and petrified wood tables made from pillars of timber from the 1800s and preserved in the muck off the Navy Yard, courtesy of Longleaf Lumber in Cambridge. After the self-financed project garnered excitement for the men’s and women’s shirts, hoodies, and hats available from its online portal, it was encouraging enough to make the store a reality. Still, Paton says the move from corporate banking to independent philanthropic business owner keeps him up some nights.

“I left banking [and] I wanted to try different things,” he says. “[But] some nights I lay in bed and think I’m crazy to have given up that career to take a shot at something [like this].”

What’s been driving the partners forward in spite of the risk of launching a startup in a shaky economy, not to mention the low foot traffic where the store is (“We’re kind of tucked away,” says Paton with a laugh) has been the desire to stick to their goal of incorporating a socially responsibility component in the brand. In short: not to be just another company trying to make a fast buck. To do that, the team took a page from the Grateful Dead’s Rex Foundation, which finds individuals and small organizations doing community-driven charity work and pledges support. EAC has already teamed up with an initiative based 20 miles south of Boston that’s centered on families who have lost spouses and loved ones to cancer. EAC creates a shirt and its tagline around a specific charity, and four dollars of every sale off the top line goes right to the group it’s supporting.

“I wanted to bring into corporate enterprise [a] sense of giving,” says Paton. “I think there’s a lot of apathy in the world these days, so to see people giving up their time and energy for [their] community [is] something I wanted to try to support and promote through this company.” >> ENCORE APPAREL COMPANY. NOW OPEN. C5 SHIPWAY PLACE (OFF 1ST AVE. AND 13TH ST.), CHARLESTOWN. ENCOREAPPAREL.COM

One would think that a marquee, world-famous chef’s first foray into the Hub’s dining sphere would bring with it all manner of hype and hyperbole, and a place to drop an entire week’s pay in a single dinner.

While the former was definitely true for Mario Batali and partner Joe Bastianich’s just-opened Seaport eatery, Babbo Pizzeria, the latter thankfully isn’t quite happening.

Barely open a few weeks, the restaurant has already attracted both cheers and jeers from foodies and the media alike. (The negative reactions are less for the quality of the food and more because a 2012 tip-skimming lawsuit and eventual settlement has left some in the service industry with a sour taste in their mouths for Batali and Bastianich.)

But now that it has opened, after first announcing plans for a Boston locale back in 2012, the fact that you can head here on a date and eat and drink heartily—and still be able to afford dessert— should by itself be a reason to make the journey to the Seaport. And according to GM and BU grad Caroline Conrad, the price point was definitely intentional.

“We wanted to be a humble pizzeria that anyone—a college student to someone buying vintage [bottles of] Barolo—can afford,” says Conrad, who is quick to coach diners through the menu’s pizzas (“the margherita is perfect,” she says), cheeses hailing from Western Mass, cured meats from Batali’s salumeria in Seattle, and the rest of the streetfood à la Italy. There’s an array of options from the ocean (try the salt-cod spread-y Bacala Mantecato, but ask for extra crostini) and with Boston’s rich food culture “anchored in products from the sea and the bog,” as Batali puts it, it makes sense that the Seaport would be chosen as the venue’s home base for Boston. “We like being near the water, but we’re especially impressed by how quickly the seaport is being developed,” says Batali, adding, “The neighborhood is going to be big.”

“We’re confident that Bostonians are the sort that will appreciate our brand of hospitality and that we are able to love them back in a very good way for a very long time,” says Batali. “We hope [we’re] here to stay.”

>> BABBO PIZZERIA. 11 FAN PIER BLVD., BOSTON. 617.421.4466.

BABBOPIZZERIA.COM

ENCORE APPAREL PHOTOS COURTESY STEVEN HIEN PHOTOGRAPHY | BABBO PHOTOS BY MICHAEL ZAIA

BY DAN MCCARTHY @ACUTALPROOF

NEWS TO US FEATURE DEPT. OF COMMERCE ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

15

300

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Redemption value is not to exceed $300. Offer ends 6/30/15. Check with participating Honda Dealers for complete details. For rider training information or to locate a rider training course near you, call the Motorcycle Safety Foundation at 1-800-446-9227. NC700X® is a trademark of Honda Motor Co., Ltd. ©2015 American Honda Motor Co., Inc. (4/15)

BURGERS GONE

HONEST PINT SPONSORED BY SUNSET GRILL & TAP

CRAFT PATIO DRINKING

WILD

Views and brews on five choice patios around the Hub

BY JEFF LAWRENCE @29THOUSAND Spring is not so much a season here in Boston as it is a bridge from the cold hell of winter to the hot sweltering oppression that is summer. Seemingly shorter every year, this time of bloom or bust is the perfect excuse for patio perusing. So I reached out to Marc Hurwitz, founder of Boston’s Hidden Restaurants, a master of social (drinking) media, and asked for his top choices of places to imbibe suds outside (see below).

Marc also happens to be something of an urban outdoorsman, leading groups on some amazing meandering walks around the Hub for the Boston chapter of the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC). Feel free to get off your ass and join him, because walking is good for your body. And your mind. Oh, and there’s usually a patio and cold suds waiting for you when you reach the end of one of his trots around town. That should be enough to inspire you to lace up your kicks and get out there. If not for your health then for the beer.

Wednesday’s May 6th – 27th 5-11pm PLATES BISON BITES 12 Char-grilled bison sliders / LTO / potato rolls / bubbly hot cheddar cheese dip BIG KAHUNA 15 Ahi tuna poke / kimchi / avocado / pickled ginger mayo / taro chips

ATWOOD’S TAVERN, CAMBRIDGE

Cozy restaurant and bar with live music, great food, and a quality craft beer list. But its crown jewel is its “secret” patio, which can be accessed toward the back left of the space. Very private feeling and very mellow. And very much a place to blow the froth off a few from Atwood’s well-curated (and rotating) 24 draft lines. [877 Cambridge St., Cambridge.

617.864.2792. atwoodstavern.com]

SHRIMP BAHN MI 15 Ground shrimp patty / long beans / papaya slaw / Thai curry mayo spicy cucumber salad / French baguette VINDALOO 15 Lamb rubbed with Indian spices / Vindaloo sauce / paneer cheese grilled naan bread / Manchurian cauliflower

ASHMONT GRILL, DORCHESTER

A real neighborhood spot that’s also a food nerd’s favorite, this slightly upscale American place has a patio out back complete with strings of lights, plants, and a fire pit. And while the beer list isn’t extensive, there’s still some great local beer here. Sipping on a DOT Ale 1630, brewed right in Dorchester, feels right. [555 Talbot Ave., Dorchester.

617.825.4300. ashmontgrill.com]

SWEET SWINE O’ MINE 14 Mix of slab bacon / smoked pork / ground pork / fried green tomato bacon mayo / smoked Gouda / Texas toast / salt & vinegar fries JAMAICAN DEATH 14 Ground turkey / jerk seasoning / pepper jack cheese / habanero sauce / papaya slaw / sweet roll / plantain chips

CAMBRIDGE COMMON, CAMBRIDGE

Its sidewalk patio isn’t exactly a thing of beauty, but the people-watching can be good, the food is solid (don’t miss the tater tots), and this is a place that has one of the best curated beer lists on the Cambridge side of the Charles River—without being overwhelming. It’s one of the first craft beer bars, and still tops in my book. [1667 Mass Ave., Cambridge. 617.547.1228. cambridgecommonrestaurant.com]

CHIMICHANGA 14 Flash fried tortilla stuffed with Angus beef / jack cheese / ranchero sauce / roasted poblano peppers / tomatillo jicama slaw BEER BELLY BURGER 14 Angus beef steamed in Jacks Abby smoke & dagger / onions fontina cheese / pretzel roll / beer battered onion rings

BELLA LUNA, JAMAICA PLAIN

Sharing its space with the Milky Way Lounge, Bella Luna resides in a historic brewery building and has a funky charm inside, with food offerings learning toward Italian fare and fine options for beer. Its outdoor patio is the place to be in the warmer months, with the brewery’s huge smokestack shadowing the deck. [284 Armory St., Jamaica Plain.

617.524.3740. milkywayjp.com]

BOURBON VANILLA BEAN MILK SHAKE & COOKIES 9

MAGOUNSSALOON

THE PUBLICK HOUSE, BROOKLINE

OLDEMAGOUNSSALOON

Much like Cambridge Common, the sidewalk patio here is almost an afterthought, but on a warm summer day, it’s a killer spot to explore an insanely extensive beer list of 30+ drafts that lean heavy on the Belgians. [1648 Beacon St., Brookline.

617.277.2880. thepublickhousebeerbar.com]

DIGBOSTON.C0M

05 06 15 – 05 13 15

16

FOLLOW MARC HURAWITZ ON TWITTER @HIDDENBOSTON, AND CHECK OUT THE WALKS AT AMCBOSTON.ORG/WALKS

518 Medford St. Somerville magounssaloon.com 617-776-2600

130 Brighton Avenue Allston, MA

NEWS TO US FEATURE ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

RHODE ISLAND CONVENTION CENTER, MAY 16TH & 17TH

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

NEW ENGLAND’S LARGEST CANNABIS INDUSTRY CONVENTION

TICKETS ON SALE NOW

THIS EVENT will bring together dozens of vendors from every aspect of the Cannabis industry, 2 full days of educational workshops & panels, and thousands of patients, advocates, supporters, educators, and entrepreneurs. There will also be a wide assortment of the best smoking, vaping, storage, and growing accessories available for purchase at the show!

2 FULL DAYS OF PROGRAMMING Featuring:

· Bob Lobel, New England Sports Broadcast legend & MMJ patient · Education: Cultivation for Patients and Caregivers · Politics/Activism Panel · Medical Marijuana as Medicine Education: Cooking with Cannabis · MA Medical Marijuana Law

SATURDAY: $25 SUNDAY: $25 2 DAY PASS: $40

Buy your tickets NOW:

WWW.CANNATICKET.COM Presented by

Saturday: noon - 6pm Sunday: 11am-5pm At the Rhode Island Convention Center, in Downtown Providence

17

ARTS ENTERTAINMENT I GOT NEXT!

THURS 5.7

FRI 5.8

SAT 5.9

SAT 5.9

SUN 5.10

TUES 5.12

Video Game Night at Trident

The House Slam: Featuring Roya Marsh

Jad Abumrad, Gut Churn

Boston Theater Marathon XVII

Together Boston 2015

CHEAP SEATS 29

Indulge your inner nostalgic nerd at this throwback game night co-hosted by books and pancakes purveyor Trident Cafe and Bit Fest, a Boston-based company that hosts popup events for video game lovers. Trident’s second-floor cafe will be packed with retro arcade games as well as a few classic consoles. The time to defend your PacMan high score has come.

Since 2014, the cafe/ community space Haley House has hosted a highenergy, no-holds-barred bi-monthly poetry slam that brings together a diverse group of artists in a welcoming, safe space. This week’s featured poet is an award-winning author and teacher who brings together her passion and spirituality onstage and “wields a saber of light that will penetrate those dark pockets of prejudice, injustice, and hurt that lay buried deep within each of us.”

When we say the word “innovation”—a term tossed off every time one turns around these days— what do we really mean?

MacArthur Fellowship recipient and NPR Radiolab co-host Jad Abumrad wants to find out. In this eclectic lecture event, Abumrad combines more than three years of scientific research, personal revelation, and artistic storytelling to examine the role of discomfort and uncertainty in the ever-challenging creative process.

The Boston Theater Marathon features 50 separate 10-minute plays by 51 emerging and established local New England playwrights, produced by 50 Boston-area theatres in just 10 magical, intense hours. Besides fostering an environment of collaboration and community among artists, producers, and directors, the BTM allows audiences the opportunity to be exposed to the exciting works that are taking form right in their own backyards.

The city’s annual festival of music, art, and technology kicks off its weeklong run with two events on Sunday.

A “Synthfest” hosted at Berklee College of Music, is exactly what it sounds like—a room full of synths for folks to check out, play with, and talk about! Then at 8pm, Middlesex Lounge will host the festival’s Opening Party, headlined

by Manchester-based artist Andy Stott and Boston electronica stars André Obin and DJ WON’T.

Boston’s only omni-genre variety show returns, showcasing the most diverse assortment of comedians, thespians, dancers, poets, and visual and conceptual artists the city has to offer.

The word “artist” is used loosely here—sit down at a show, and you never quite can tell what you’ll see. As always, the heart of CHEAP SEATS is a spirit of freedom and reckless originality, so if anything else, you’ll leave with a radically altered notion of what constitutes performance.

Trident Booksellers and Cafe. 338 Newbury St., Boston. 7pm/all ages/FREE. bostonbitfest.com

Haley House Bakery Cafe. 12 Dade St., Roxbury.

6:30pm/18+/FREE. haleyhouse.org

Sanders Theatre. 45 Quincy St., Cambridge.

8pm/all ages/$40-60. For more information, visit celebrityseries.org

Boston Center for the Arts.

539 Tremont St., Boston.

12pm/all ages/$25, $35 door.

For more information, visit bostonplaywrights.org

For full schedule and venue information, and to purchase tickets, visit togetherboston.com

Cambridge YMCA Theater.

820 Mass Ave, Cambridge.

7pm/all ages/$5.

DIGBOSTON.C0M

05 06 15 – 05 13 15

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19

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

FEATURE

NEWS TO US

MUSIC

MUSIC

CASE CLOSED

ON DECK

DJ and producer Durkin does it all

Rock ’n’ Roll Rumble wraps it up with Zip-Tie Handcuffs

BY MARTÍN CABALLERO @_EL_CABALLERO

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN

For someone with such an established track record, Durkin has little interest in looking back.

But, for the uninitiated, a quick recap: Over the last five years, the Cambridge-based producer/DJ has had a hand in (or on) records from the cutting edge of hip-hop, dance, and electronic music. From collaborations with Black EL and Ghostdad (as Banana Seat) to his own solo instrumental and remix work, plus residencies at Good Life, the W Hotel, and ZuZu, Durkin has plenty on his playlist.

“I think I’m really lucky,” he says on the phone, ahead of a busy week, which includes the fourth installment of his #DREAMCLUB party this Saturday at Good Life, followed by his first show with Black EL in nearly two years next Wednesday. “I’m lucky because I play at good places; even if I’m getting booked for Friday or Saturday night, I’m only playing places that give me the creative license to take risks and play what I want to play.”

While also preparing the follow-up to last year’s workworkwork EP, Durkin is excited to reunite with Black EL onstage. Following the release of their second EP The Collage in 2012, the pair took a hiatus from live shows to rework their slick, breezy hip-hop sound into something more dynamic and experimental. The result was last year’s L_ST, which, despite being ostensibly a Black EL solo record, was crafted under Durkin’s guidance as executive producer.

“I had never been in that role before,” he says of L_ST, for which he worked on production (with co-producer Victor Radz), mixing, and mastering. “We wanted to change the mood up.

If you can inject ideas from other producers but keep things consistent by having the oversight of an executive producer, it makes for a really interesting album. I really like pulling all that stuff together.”

He continues: “The difference between old and new show is I’m doing a lot less DJ trick stuff, but instead, we’re running this effects rig on Black EL’s voice. That’s what I’ll be managing during the set. So we can do live Auto-Tune and other effects, and we can take this very studiooriented record and make it live.”

STRANGELY NOT POPULAR WITH THE PROTEST COMMUNITY THOUGH Boston’s annual Rock ’n’ Roll Rumble has been going strong since 1979, but this year shook things up. The 2015 edition saw TT The Bear’s Place open its doors for eight nights to host 24 competing bands once again, letting the room flood with every facet of rock possible, from experimental to folk. Amidst all this, one thing became clear: The youth are ready to be taken seriously. On Friday night last week, one of the bands fighting to overcome the kids finally wound up standing tall as the victor. All rise for local rock trio Zip-Tie Handcuffs.

Zip-Tie Handcuffs are exactly who should come to mind when you think of a rock contest. They throw down punk rock riffs in the same vein as Diarrhea Planet, minus the jukebox range of fake intros, all held together by drummer Max Levy’s ridiculously tight, fierce, deafening style. It’s hard to believe a sound that loud comes from a mere three people. Bassist Ian Grinold and guitarist Matt Ford were standing on invisible lava the night they won, shifting their feet and darting about the stage in a frenzy. Veins sprung from their necks as they sang, the two spitting out words with the same goofy spirit of the Beastie Boys, lightening the mood even further by throwing their instruments across the stage to one another to swap parts.

Age became apparent when they were almost dethroned by Americana quartet Nemes. Fiddler Dave Anthony and his built-for-Broadway voice seemed to have no end, encouraging the band to uphold their unrelenting energy. Whipping out a cover from The Lion King was bold, but child’s play is rather fitting for adults, too, even during the seriousness of finals.

Eternals and Soft Pyramids brought poppy shoegaze to our attention as well, showing some serious stripes that speak beyond their respective ages, as did Raw Blow’s tough post-hardcore riffage. In a city packed with colleges, it should be obvious that the students are studying up, but the Rumble proved many have also been taking notes from local higher-ups outside the classroom.

So as Zip-Tie Handcuffs accepted the winners’ crown (decorated with feathers and antlers, natch) from ’90s local giants The Gravel Pit and WZLX Boston Emissions host Anngelle Wood closed the night with parting words, we couldn’t help but think—what’s next? Next year may see the college kids rise even higher, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

Until then, rock fanatics.

20

MUSIC EVENTS WED 5.6

MIGRANT MUSIC THE DEAR HUNTER + NORTHERN FACES + BRIAN MARQUIS

[The Sinclair. 52 Church St., Cambridge. 7pm/18+/$20. sinclaircambridge.com]

THU 5.7

SAT 5.9

[House of Blues.

15 Lansdowne St., Boston, 7pm/all ages/$30. houseofblues.com]

[Paradise Rock Club.

967 Comm Ave., Boston.

8pm/18+/$25. crossroadspresents.com]

1, 2 STEP INTO 2004 CIARA

YUNG RICH NATION TOUR MIGOS + OG MACO

SUN 5.10

TUE 5.12

[House of Blues.

15 Lansdowne St., Boston, 7pm/all ages/$25-35. houseofblues.com]

[Middle East Downstairs.

480 Mass Ave., Cambridge.

6:30pm/all ages/$12. mideastclub.com]

MAKE-YOU-SMILE MUSIC THE KOOKS + YOUNG RISING SONS + JOYWAVE

SENSIBLE SCREAMS PIANOS BECOME THE TEETH + LOMA PRIETA + GATES

JP EXPERIMENTAL FOLK SKINNY BONES + DINNERSSS

[Lilypad. 1353 Cambridge St., Cambridge. 10pm/all ages/$5. lilypadinman.com]

ZIP-TIE HANDCUFFS PHOTOS BY MICHAEL ZAIA

DIGBOSTON.C0M

05 06 15 – 05 13 15

>> #DREAMCLUB W/DURKIN, C.Z., & THE YELLOW R. KEL. SAT 5.9. GOOD LIFE, 28 KINGSTON ST., BOSTON. 10PM/21+/$10. FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT SOUNDCLOUD.COM/DURKIN

NEWS TO US

DJs: dj COA & Ryan Packer Genres: Punk, Hardcore, Alt. Rock, Metal 21+ Saturday MAY 9 9:30 pm

FLASHBACK VS

DREAM CLUB W/ The Awesome 2

DJs: C.Z. (M|O|D), Durkin, Tha Yellow R. Kel Genres: Love Trap, Dream Club, Chill Wave + Old School Hip Hop, House & Reggae upstairs 21+ $10 Monday MAY 11 7:00 pm

BEAT RESEARCH

GRADUATION

PARTY

DJs: Beat Research Class of 2015 Genres: Open Format 18+ Wednesday MAY 13 8:00 pm

VINYL SOCIAL vs SHOW N SELL

ART GALLERY DJs: Stolen Houses Art Reception by Mission Gallery and Kevin Stanton | 18+

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

21

- DOWNSTAIRS THURS 5/7

THE BEST ENTERTAINMENT IN CAMBRIDGE 7 DAYS A WEEK!

black gold tour FRI 5/8

TUESDAYS

SUNDAYS

THIRSTY TUESDAYS

DOUBLE TAP

apashe

thriftworks ANDREILIEN, KLL SMTH SAT 5/9 BOWERY PRESENTS:

smallpools grizfolk sold out sat 5/9 10:30 pm

TRAPPED IN THE 90S

Tues 5/12 - BOWERY PRESENTS:

PIANOS BECOME THE TEETH 6:30 pm

- UPSTAIRS WED 5/6

the meatmen AGAINST THE GRAIN

THE HUMANOIDS, BIG KILL THURS 5/7

CURTIS HARDING CREATUROS SOULELUJAH DJS FRI 5/8

SEEPEOPLES

VAPORS OF MORPHINE sat 5/9

TOVE STYRKE LANY 7PM SUN 5/10 THE MONSIEURS MOTHER TONGUE E, BONG WISH MON 5/11

YOUNG PANDAS SOFT CACTUS, DEAD NUGENT TUES 5/12

DRAG THE RIVER

MATT CHARRETTE DAN WEBB & THE SPIDERS

/mideastclub /zuzubar @mideastclub @zuzubar

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

FEATURE

MOHAWK NIGHT

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

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

Boston’s Best Irish Pub

Thursday MAY 7 9:30 pm

Weekly Gaming Night: The same

Live Resident Band The Night Foxes, Playing everything Old, New & Everything Inbetween

guys who bring you Game Night every week at Good Life bar are now also running a special Sunday night.

21+, NO

21+, NO COVER, 10PM - 1AM

COVER, 6PM 11:30PM

MONDAYS

WEDNESDAYS

MAKKA MONDAY

GEEKS WHO DRINK ELEMENTS

14+yrs every Monday night, Bringing Roots, Reggae & Dancehall Tunes 21+, 10PM - 1AM

THURSDAYS

Free Trivia Pub Quiz from 7:30PM - 9:30PM

RE:SET WEDNESDAYS

Weekly Dance Party, House, Disco, Techno, Local & International DJ’s

15+ Years of Resident Drum & Bass Bringing some of the worlds biggest DnB DJ’s to Cambridge

19+, 10PM - 2AM

19+, 10PM - 1AM

FRIDAYS

SATURDAYS

PRETTY YOUNG THING

BOOM BOOM ROOM

21+, 10PM - 2AM

21+, 10PM - 2AM

80’s Old School & Top 40 Dance hits

80’s, 90’s, 00’s One Hit Wonders

CHECK OUT ALL PHOENIX LANDING NIGHTLY EVENTS AT:

WWW.PHOENIXLANDINGBAR.COM

1/2 PRICED APPS DAILY 5 - 7PM SHOWING THE 6 NATIONS RUGBY TOURNAMENT LIVE STARTING FEB 6

WATCH EVERY SOCCER GAME! LIVE OPENING 7:30am

ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE Saturdays & Sundays Every Game shown live in HD on 12 Massive TV’s. We Show All European Soccer including Champions League, Europa League, German, French, Italian & Spanish Leagues.

NFL SUNDAY SPECIAL $4 Drafts, Wing Specials, Happy Hour Priced menu!

FILM

GIRLS

Angsty-white-boy-grows-up narrative gets flipped in Girlhood

BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN

Saturday, May 9th 10PM

RUSS LIVERMORE BAND + GINA ALABRIO Folk-Rock

Friday, May 15th 8:30PM

BIG OL’ DIRTY BUCKET + TRUE MONKS + SUNDOG Funk

Saturday, May 16th 10PM

VINAL + THE SPACE BETWEEN Jam Band

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

Wednesday, May 6th

MATTHEW CURRY + BEN KNIGHT + COLIN DWYER Blues Rock

Thursday, May 7th

Grammy Award Winner

SHELBY LYNNE: Country

Friday, May 8th 7:30PM

ANTIGONE RISING + A FRAGILE TOMORROW Alt-Country

Friday, May 8th 10PM

THE MACROTONES + BARIKA Afropop Night

Saturday, May 9th 7PM

RUST NEVER SLEEPS Neil Young Covers

Saturday, May 9th 10PM

RUSS LIVERMORE BAND + GINA ALABRIO Folk-Rock

DIGBOSTON.C0M

05 06 15 – 05 13 15

22

Tuesday, May 12th 5:30pm-7pm

THE AMY DOUGLAS HAPPY HOUR Free Bar-Side Music

17 HOLLAND ST., DAVIS SQ. SOMERVILLE (617) 776-2004 DIRECTLY ON T RED LINE AT DAVIS

In France, the title is Bande de Filles, which translates to something like “A Bunch of Girls.” But here in America, it’s just called Girlhood. Which essentially positions this movie—the latest by French filmmaker Cèline Sciamma—as a counterpoint to the already seminal Boyhood. And perhaps not just to Boyhood, but to the straight-whitemaleness of so many cinematic coming-of-age narratives (of Harold and Maude, of Rushmore, of all their kin). And considering Sciamma’s main characters are four black girls, this is more than a response to any one film, but rather a much-needed corrective for the entire angsty-white-boy-grows-up narrative. And it’s a party for the type of people who’ve been backgrounded behind those white boys on our cinema screens in recent years.

Marieme (Karidja Tourè) is our entryway into the film’s chosen subculture: We follow her into the girl gang of the original title, shortly after she learns that her grades are going to force her into a vocational school. Together the gang forms a gaggle of bullies of the pre-cyber variety. They start fights in the subway and steal lunch money from the weaker kids. While brothers, fathers, and boyfriends work to police their femininity and sexuality at home, they indulge in acts of aggression as a form of recreation—they personify stereotypical machismo.

More than once, we see them viciously intimidating their peers, only to laugh it off moments later. Sciamma’s long takes reveal just how performative their bravado is—the tough-girl act always falters before the camera turns away. The film’s most talked-about sequence sees the four perform a lip sync of Rihanna’s empowermentballad “Diamonds,” staring directly into the screen. They’re once again using performative behavior to give themselves a persona they can never find in their respective homes. The film corrects a narrative’s imbalance while the characters try to correct the patriarchal expectations laid on them.

Sciamma’s interests have already been established: She’s made three films, and they all consider the fluidity of sexuality or gender in one way or another. (The last one was called Tomboy.) Marieme eventually starts slinging drugs for a local crime boss, and tapers down her own femininity even further so as to survive in that milieu. But the sparse texture of the crime story pales in contrast to the vibrant way in which the high-school scenes are shot—it’s an unnecessarily allegorical addition to a film that had already found strength in realist details. The film is at its strongest in the schoolyard.

While we’re on the subject of the bildungsroman, it should be mentioned that there’s already a storied tradition of films about young white men misbehaving in the French cinema. Movies like Zero for Conduct, by Jean Vigo, and The 400 Blows, by François Truffaut, are more than just celebrated cultural objects—they’re often cited as essential texts in the creation of the art form. Sciamma may not have the aesthetic invention of those men, but she doesn’t need it. She’s daring to make films about the kind of people—individuals who belong to marginalized races, genders, and sexual orientations—that Vigo and Truffaut never bothered to turn their cameras toward. >> GIRLHOOD. 5.8-5.11. BRATTLE THEATRE. 40 BRATTLE ST. CAMBRIDGE. FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT BRATTLEFILM.ORG. GIRLHOOD REVIEW [BRATTLE]

FILM EVENTS FRI 5.8

DIRECTOR CHEICK OUMAR SISSOKO IN PERSON GUIMBA THE TYRANT

[Harvard Film Archive. 24 Quincy St., Harvard Sq., Cambridge. 7pm/NR/$12. hcl.harvard.edu/hfa] FRI 5.8

THERE WILL BE WIRE HANGERS MOMMIE DEAREST

[Coolidge Corner Theatre. 290 Harvard St., Brookline. Fri 5.8 and Sat 5.9, 11:59pm/R/$11.25. coolidge.org]

SAT 5.9

MON 5.11

[Harvard Film Archive. 24 Quincy St., Harvard Sq., Cambridge. 10pm/R/$7-9. hcl.harvard.edu/hfa]

[Harvard Film Archive. 24 Quincy St., Harvard Sq., Cambridge. 7pm/NR/$7-9. hcl.harvard.edu/hfa]

PRESENTED BY BEN RIVERS THE BEYOND

SUN 5.10

MOTHER’S DAY DOUBLE FEATURE PSYCHO AND THE BROOD

[Brattle Theatre. 40 Brattle St., Harvard Sq., Cambridge.

7pm and 9:30pm/R/$9-11. brattlefilm.org]

DIRECTED BY WOJCIECH JERZY HAS CODES

MON 5.11

CARY GRANT AND AUDREY HEPBURN IN CHARADE

[Coolidge Corner Theatre.

290 Harvard St., Brookline.

7pm/NR/$11.25. coolidge. org]

23

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

FEATURE

NEWS TO US

FILM

35MM

‘Citizen Kane’ on 35MM re-affirms the cred

BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN THE BEYOND FILM SHORTS BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN

THE CGI SNOWGLOBE REALLY RUINED IT FOR ME Citizen Kane is called “the greatest movie ever made” so often that it’s easy to forget why that is. But when you see it on 35mm, on a big screen—as you can at the Brattle this week—all your trepidation about the reputation we’ve afforded it (and Orson Welles) will dissolve away.

The film provides a compendium of every cinematic trick that Welles knew—it’s an encyclopedia of emphatic filmmaking—and the cumulative effect of his kineticism borders on the transcendent.

But Kane comprises more than just camera tricks. In the non-linear construction of the film—which flows through both layers of memories and recordings of reality—there is architecture. In the expressionist sets, and in the evocative faces strewn throughout them, we find sculpture. There is poetry in the tragic screenplay, music by way of Bernard Herrmann’s score, painting in the revolutionary deep-focus cinematography. And in the famously constant movement of Welles’ camera, we see dance.

In France, filmmaking is lovingly referred to as “the seventh art.” With Citizen Kane, Welles shows us the way that movies collect all those arts that came before him. He shows us the way that cinema combines all performative forms into one. His film earns its lofty designation. It’s the best. >> CITIZEN KANE. WED 5.6 AND THU 5.7. BRATTLE THEATRE, 40 BRATTLE ST., CAMBRIDGE. 4:30PM, 7PM, + 9:30PM/PG/$9-11. FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT BRATTLEFILM.ORG

AVENGE MEH

Big hype, low-ish results

BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN

DIGBOSTON.C0M

05 06 15 – 05 13 15

24

I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE, MULLIGAN!

Avengers: Age of Ultron lasts 142 minutes, but not all of them belong to this movie. About 30 minutes are spent wrapping up stories from prior Marvel movies—those dying to know how the Baron von Strucker subplot concludes should rush to the theater—while another 30ish are spent setting up future films. (Even Josh Brolin shows up, for literally five seconds.)

In-between the catch-ups and callbacks, superheroes fight a robot named Ultron.

Joss Whedon directs again, so the enemy’s threats are met with puns as often as they’re met with punches. And when the dialogue isn’t indulging winky jokes or setting the table for sequels, it makes small gestures toward subtexts of the political (Iron Man launches an AI without getting the approval of his Superhero Congress), and existential (Ultron decides, not illogically, that the Earth will be safe once humans vacate it) variety.

So the comic-panel frivolity of the first entry—where the images often resembled fullpage splashes—has been lost. But it’s not the half-hearted thematic heaviness that kills it.

It’s Whedon, who resorts to a cuttier, less distinctive aesthetic. We’re closer to the action now, but that also makes it a lot harder to see. (Age of Ultron more closely resembles the chaos cinema of Michael Bay than it does Spielberg or Lucas.) Recall the operatic verve of Pacific Rim, or even Marvel’s own Guardians of the Galaxy, and this feels televisual by comparison. It doesn’t help that Whedon’s story has commercial breaks—and that they’re three years long. >> AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON. NOW PLAYING EVERYWHERE. PG-13.

ADULT BEGINNERS

IT FOLLOWS

The title places us in a specific genre— the “man-child takes responsibility and stops doing drugs” comedy. Nick Kroll starts as our Seth Rogen, so to speak: a bombed-out exec who burned through his investors’ money and now resides on his sister’s couch. Melodrama (his brother-in-law is a cheater) mingles with cheap gags (Kroll has to defecate while babysitting, so he straps the kiddie toilet to his ass like a backpack) while character actors like Jane Krakowski make haste to steal every scene. It’s a sitcom-er’s showcase.

After an inaugural backseat tryst with her new boyfriend, Jay receives startling news: He’s just given her a sexually transmitted demon. And the only way she can stave it off is by sleeping around.

Were she a man, this would be a sex comedy, but she’s not, so the thrusting and the threesomes all play out with the verve of a funeral. For director David Robert Mitchell—who lamely sets up a nice virginal boy as the stealth protagonist—the true terror isn’t what’s behind Jay. It’s the urges inside her.

CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA Juliette Binoche plays an actress modeled after Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart plays the punkish assistant who helps her rehearse, and Chloe Grace Moretz plays an actress modeled after Kristen Stewart. Young and old clash verbally by day and by night, debating everything from the politics of Millennial privacy standards to the potential artistry of young-adult fiction.

The metatextual reflections quickly overwhelm us, providing an experience both pleasurable and impenetrable.

We’re not in a lecture hall, but a houseof-mirrors—the movie even ends in one.

EX MACHINA Frankenstein refashioned as a technothriller. Oscar Isaac plays the doctor’s equivalent; an unscrupulous tech developer illegally mining search engines and cell phones to create AVA, an anthropomorphic AI. And Domhall Gleeson plays the trusting naif in thrall to the unnatural beast’s affections—a lowly coder called in to decide if AVA’s “brain” passes human muster. We know how this story ends: We’re headed inexorably toward a showdown between man and the monsters he creates.

Modern concerns dominate the text, but this one runs from an antique framework.

FURIOUS SEVEN Paul Walker’s final performance is shamelessly sentimentalized amidst crashing cars and crassly cool violence— sad to say that the long-running series’ ingrained earnestness has been upshifted, by new-to-the-series filmmaker James Wan, into something far more tricked-out. (Check out the opening sequence, in which he turns the deaths of dozens into the type of amoral joke these films never used to indulge in.)

It’s machismo porn with a dash of melancholy—a party at a funeral.

THE LONGEST RIDE We open on Scott Eastwood’s body, broken down to its parts by the camera’s close-up: First arms, then abs, then eyes—he’s the subject of the ever-elusive female gaze. He quickly falls for the gazer, Sophia (Britt Robertson)—and this being a Nicholas Sparks adaptation, the pair realize they are star-crossed soulmates soon enough. The story is tired, but the point-of-view is new: Eastwood is always framed through Sophia’s unashamedly carnal eyes. Most Sparks adaptations cultivate idealized romanticism, but here it’s pure sex.

WHILE WE’RE YOUNG Nobody makes comedies as cruel as Noah Baumbach. But his latest starts as a gentle generational farce—Millennials teach Gen-Xers about fedoras and artisanal ice cream. Also lamentably lost is the kinetic playfulness of his Frances Ha, replaced by photography as functional as your dad’s wardrobe. But an Allenesque morality play emerges from the laid-back longueurs, about friends manipulating each other for the sake of success—another Baumbach “comedy” about people who’d rather use each other than relate. He’s getting older and wiser, but no kinder.

THE BEYOND This psychedelic scare picture from director Lucio Fulci—playing the late show at the Harvard Film Archive this Saturday—mimics the structure of nightmares. Settings are established and returned to, but the geography that connects them is never established. Nor is any sense of time passing. And there’s no indication that the vaguely defined terrors unfolding may eventually reach their end. Fulci’s fixation with images of destroyed eyeballs—seen here, in his seminal Zombi, and in quite a few of his other films—suggests a conscious effort to create an entirely idiosyncratic viewing experience. He succeeds.

25

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

FEATURE

NEWS TO US

THEATER

APOCALYPSE NOW

Mandy Pantankin And Taylor Mac Enliven The Apocalypse

BY SPENCER SHANNON @SUSPENCEY

DIGBOSTON.C0M

05 06 15 – 05 13 15

26

Dreamed up in collaboration between multiple Tony Award winners Susan Stroman and Mandy Patinkin (colloquially known as Inigo Montoya), performance artist/ songwriter Taylor Mac, and music director Paul Ford, The Last Two People On Earth: An Apocalyptic Vaudeville is, as the title suggests, a wild collection of juxtapositions and contradictions. The performance brings together two polar opposite characters—one optimistic, one rough—into a stark world ravaged by a biblical storm that strands them alone together.

“It is a vaudeville, but within that vaudeville, it’s about two people coming together and understanding each other’s quirks and personality,” says Susan Stroman, the show’s director. “Two people who, being alone, ultimately know that the only way they will survive now is if they get along.”

They soon find that their only means of communication is one that’s not often the centerpiece of stories dealing with the apocalyptic aftermath of global warming—song and dance.

Patinkin and Mac perform entirely in song throughout the performance, punctuated with vaudevillian steps and movements that give the show its name.

Stroman explains that most of the music performed will be a wide range from the American songbook—an eclectic mix covering contemporary hits, selections from the vast discography of Rodgers and Hammerstein, old standards from past decades, and a few original songs that Taylor Mac himself has written.

“Both of them move really well, and part of the dance is them coming together and seeing eye to eye on things. When they start to dance, they start to enjoy each other,” Stroman says. “And I know that their voices—Mandy and Taylor’s—are extraordinary.”

The idea to stage an intimate performance centered around singing was solely Mandy Patinkin’s, Stroman says. She has always considered herself to be a great admirer of Patinkin’s work, and immediately agreed to take part in the project when Patinkin called her one day with little more than a vague idea in mind.

“Mandy loves performing, he really loves it. He wanted a show rather than just a concert,” she says. “He had met Taylor Mac and thought his voice and Taylor’s would go extraordinarily well together, and they do. The blend of their voices is spectacular, and Mandy was able to recognize that.”

“They just started to talk, and they thought they should bring somebody in to help guide it and to make this into a show, so Mandy called me. I met with Mandy and Taylor in Taylor’s apartment, and they just started to sing for me. And, you know, we just talked about different songs that they like to sing, and we decided to just go into a studio and do some improv.”

After employing the help of Patinkin’s music director Paul Ford, the group went about the time-consuming but exciting work of scouring the American discography for a list of songs that would allow them to tell their story. “It was all about how to push the story forward,” Stroman says. “It was all about finding the right music.”

Patinkin and Mac also knew that they wanted to tell a relevant story, one that addressed an issue close to their hearts—and in the midst of their weeks of improv, they soon decided to make global warming the show’s focus.

“I think it’ll make people think at the end of it. At the end of the show, you will start to think about what’s happening. If you haven’t been aware of it, you’ll be aware after this show because it is absolutely about something getting so bad, weather-wise, and for us, that one might find themselves alone and looking for contact with others,” Stroman says.

Despite its serious origins, Stroman promises that the show will be anything but a downer. It’s a story of friendship, first and foremost, and it finds its foundation in the unique development of an unlikely but highly endearing relationship.

Stroman firmly believes that the show holds something for everybody, and is excited that the cast will be able to bring The Last Two People On Earth to Boston.

“Boston is a great audience town,” she says. “The audiences there are very theatre-savvy. And I think people will be entertained.” >> THE AMERICAN REPERTORY THEATER (A.R.T.) PRESENTS: THE LAST TWO PEOPLE ON EARTH: AN APOCALYPTIC VAUDEVILLE. NOW PLAYING THROUGH SUN 5.31. LOEB DRAMA CENTER. 64 BRATTLE ST., CAMBRIDGE. TICKETS START AT $25. FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT AMERICANREPERTORYTHEATER.ORG

PHOTO BY PAUL KOLNIK

YOU KILLED MY FATHER, PREPARE FOR JAZZ HANDS

NEWS TO US FEATURE DEPT. OF COMMERCE ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

27

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thezspotboston.com

ARTS

ALTERNATE UNIVERSE Creepy fun + queer/trans narratives = this

DIGBOSTON.C0M

05 06 15 – 05 13 15

28

On my 18th birthday, a friend of mine gave me The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. I’d never considered myself a science fiction fan, and all of the people in my life who did were mostly dudes (and kind of jerks about it) so it sat on my shelf, untouched, for years. Then, one winter afternoon year later, I picked it up on a whim. It completely gripped me.

I had no idea sci-fi could be so transformative.

“I go to a lot of sci-fi events and a lot of it turns out to be ‘steampunk-Victoriana’ [or] yet another homage to Lovecraft. Or the cult of Gaiman that’s come to town since he married Amanda Palmer,” says writer Kelsey Jarboe, whose production company, Ascii Flower, is behind Weird, Fantastic & Sublime—a celebration of speculative fiction taking place GIIIRL, I’VE HAD DAYS LIKE THAT during Boston’s ArtWeek. “I’m glad people enjoy that stuff but it feels utterly irrelevant to my life, and I want to make something else for people who feel afraid to call themselves sci-fi fans.

Where they prefer Octavia Butler to Frank Herbert, or whatever.”

Jarboe credits the inspiration for WF&S to Metropolarity, a Philadelphia-based curator who regularly hosts readings, workshops, release parties, and more, centered around reclaiming science fiction for marginalized groups and those with alternative identities. After meeting Metropolarity at the Rhode Island Independent Publishing Expo, Jarboe decided to launch Ascii Flower. “[The company is] a loose collective of zines, events, and other stuff that is explicitly coping with racism, with transphobia, with the fact that people pay to see pretty actresses act [dystopian] in theaters when real people already live in dystopia now, and they have imagination, and beauty, and very creative anger,” Jarboe says.

The event will bring together a menagerie of local speculative fiction writers in one room, and will allow attendees to connect directly with writers who share a desire for inclusive, radical creativity in the media they consume. Author and editor K. Tempest Bradford will serve as MC—she immediately said yes when Jarboe reached out to her about WF&S. “[Bradford is] a pretty vocal feminist and anti-racist who uses her platforms to question old guard and mainstream, and she’s so charismatic, too.

I thought she’d be a good fit as a prominent personality who also immediately sets the tone that this event isn’t about the old guard or the mainstream,” Jarboe says. “In fact, you can truly love speculative fiction and comics and games and see the mess that is the Hugo Awards this year, and Gamergate, and all that nonsense, and be like, ‘Whatever, I’ll start my own thing.’”

Weird, Fantastic & Sublime defies definition, existing somewhere between a theatrical performance and an intimate reading. In the same vein as Oberon’s other cabaret-style programming, WF&S takes on the simple concept of a reading—and builds something completely new. “There’s drinking and dancing and I’d love for people to come in costume—if enough do, I may award prizes for them,” Jarboe says. “And of course most important to me, there’s the presentation of theater. The lighting, the sound, the playfulness.”

If WF&S is a success, Jarboe intends to plan KELSEY JARBOE many more events in the future that will bring together like-minded people in a safe and inclusive space. Above all, she hopes to shatter the notion that speculative fiction belongs to a select few.

“I’m hoping [attendees will] take away a feeling of having been moved and freaked out a little, with something new to read or look up tucked in their bag, and a sense that their ideas and their lives are just a follow-through away from making their own space,” she says. “If fandom feels hostile to people, it’s because it is. Screw fandom, get together with your oversensitive, way-too-smart friends, and make something wonderful and creepy and fun.” >> ASCII FLOWER PRESENTS: WEIRD, FANTASTIC, & SUBLIME. SUN 5.10. OBERON. 2 ARROW ST., CAMBRIDGE. 8PM/MATURE CONTENT/$15-20. FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT AMERICANREPERTORYTHEATER.ORG

ILLUSTRATION BY ASHLEY ALMEIDA

BY SPENCER SHANNON @SUSPENCEY

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Male here, 21 years old. I’ve been in a relationship with my girlfriend for a year and a half. We have somewhat kink-themed sex, though nothing too intense. My girlfriend is very submissive, and I’m more on the submissive side myself, so we have done only light bondage and light flogging. Recently, my girlfriend and I had a fight, and while things were still kind of heated, she suggested I “punish” her by spanking her, which I did, and we wound up having a much better, calmer conversation after the spanking.

The next day, she proposed that this be something we do more often. I am not certain about all the dynamics at play here. Is this a healthy approach to resolving conflict? We already do a bit of kink, and there would be two consenting partners. But at the same time, I don’t want to be an abusive boyfriend or something.

It seemed to help us resolve the conflict—but if we do it more, I’m

not sure it would play out as well. It happened only that one time, so I haven’t moved forward on it. I’m uncertain whether it would be good for our relationship.

Keeping It Newly Kinky Research conducted at Tilburg University in the Netherlands found that kinky people—people who engaged in consensual submission, bondage, and pain play—scored better on most measures of psychological health than non-kinky people. So enjoying a spanking, asking for one, giving one on request, etc., isn’t evidence that there’s something wrong with you or your relationship. As for whether it’s a good idea to spank your girlfriend in the heat of an argument, well, that depends on two things: whether she wants to be spanked at those times (gotta keep it consensual) and whether the spanking—for you—represents an extension of the argument or a suspension of the argument. If you’re setting aside the argument to enjoy a spanking—maybe a little conflict gets her blood pumping and turns her on—and then picking it up later, after you’ve both enjoyed a spanking, then I don’t see the harm.

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