May 13th, 2015

DIGBOSTON.COM 5.13.15 - 5.20.15

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THE WORST BIKE ROAD ... EVER

BEACON STREET,

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TEARS FALL AND TRUTHS DROP IN SPEAKEASY’S LATEST DRAMA

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MOTHERS AND SONS

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TOGETHER BOSTON

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EDITOR Dan McCarthy

DEAR READER

PUBLISHER Jeff Lawrence

As far as bike-friendly communities go, Boston is getting increasingly friendlier.

And it’s not just out of the goodness of the collective populace’s heart either, considering that the Hub is regularly voted one of the worst, if not the worst city to own a car or be a driver in. Add the fact that our MBTA showed just how dysfunctional it is this past winter (as if anyone who has ever been stuck underground on the Green Line during Sox season needed a reminder), and it it becomes clear why the powers that be are paying so much attention to the cycling community—Boston needs more commuting options, and the local governments encouraging bikers means less pressure on traffic and transit.

Which isn’t to say more can’t be done, and as our news piece demonstrates, focusing on the horror that is Beacon Street in Somerville—a major throughway for the town for many cyclists—the battle for fully functional biking in Greater Boston is far from over.

But better biking isn’t far away either. Our special Bike Issue spread this week focuses on the innovation happening right here in the Hub—some of the world’s best custom bikes that are being made here, as well as the local races, services, and even lauded restaurateur-cyclists—underscoring why we take time each year to celebrate all there is to celebrate in the world of biking in Boston. With a little luck (and continued efforts from activists, lawmakers, and inventors all throughout Boston), our city will in the years to come slowly eek its way off the worst-of lists for drivers, and continue on its current path toward the best-of lists for cycling enthusiasts.

Happy riding.

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Marc Shepard

BY DAN MCCARTHY @ACUTALPROOF

NEWS, FEATURES + MEDIA FARM EDITOR Chris Faraone ASSOCIATE MUSIC EDITOR Nina Corcoran ASSOCIATE A+E EDITOR Spencer Shannon CONTRIBUTORS Boston Bastard, Martín Caballero, Emily Hopkins, Micaela Kimball, Jake Mulligan, Cady Vishniac, Dave Wedge INTERNS Paige Chaplin

DESIGN CREATIVE DIRECTOR Tak Toyoshima DESIGNER Brittany Grabowski INTERNS Elise Cameron, Alek Glasrud, Michael Zaia COMICS Tim Chamberlain Brian Connolly Pat Falco Patt Kelley

ADVERTISING ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Nate Andrews Jesse Weiss FOR ADVERTISING INFORMATION sales@digpublishing.com

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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

Elise Cameron is an illustration student at Lesley University College of Art and Design and has been entertaining us with her illustrations for Oh, Cruel World for the past few months.

We think she’s earned her way up to a cover, don’t you think?

©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

REVERATION

noun rəˈvir āSH(ə)n 1. A celebration in Revere, Massachusetts, on Mother’s Day involving hundreds of hooligans clashing with one another on the beach that eventually sucks all of the helium out of the local media gas chamber.

OH, CRUEL WORLD Dear Useless Towel, Where the hell do you get off even calling yourself a towel? Sure, you look like a towel.

And I understand how someone could think you are a towel, what with your pink and blue stripes and superficial towel-y texture.

But when it comes down to business, it’s like you actually repel water. What the hell are you made of, Scotchgard? I just don’t get it. You’re no good for swimming; no good for sweat; no good for even just laying around. I’d use you as a jizz rag, but that would probably get uglier than trying to clean up in the shower, which you’re no good for either.

There is, no use, for you.

FEATURE

NEWS TO US

EDITORIAL

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

MAY 13, 2015 - MAY 20, 2015

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

VOL 17 + ISSUE 19

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NEWS US THE VISION VS. THE REALITY. COMPLETE WITH WHITE PICK UP TRUCKS IN BOTH.

THE BALLAD OF BIKING ON BEACON STREET NEWS TO US

A neverending Somerville saga continues

It’s been almost two years since we covered the City of Somerville’s bungled early attempt to build a cycle track on Beacon Street between Inman and Porter Squares. Among the revelations we reported at the time: • In a December 2012 review of the Beacon Street plan, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation blasted Somerville’s proposal. Among other shortcomings, the state cited a gauntlet of safety violations, and noted that planners neglected to address basic questions like “Where would the bus stops be situated?”

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• City planners were initially tardy in submitting requested changes to the appropriate state agencies, thereby contributing to stalling any progress on development.

• Motorists and bike advocates were at each other’s throats during a pitched debate about the choice between adequate parking and a suitable cycle track.

Meanwhile, what most people on both sides didn’t realize was that the city had approved use of a former gas station lot on Beacon Street for the building of a 35-room hotel that would utilize a number of street spots.

• An architectural design firm, whose proprietors are major contributors to Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone, drew the renderings for said hotel. But while the same firm was subsequently hired to draft the Beacon Street plans, their initial reports suspiciously omitted the impact of hotel parking.

I could go on for pages; like that of Assembly Square, the long-running ballad of Beacon Street is shrouded in enough apparent pay-to-play politics to turn one’s stomach, though only a handful of affected residents seem aware of the subterfuge. Nevertheless, in brainstorming ideas for our annual bike issue, we asked friends and readers for opinions on the worst roads in Greater Boston, and more than half of you returned us to the scene of our Somerville reporting.

All these months later, Beacon Street remains, as we wrote in 2013, “a messy patchwork of asphalt Band-Aids and incongruous lane markers.”

The city’s robust media relations team took dramatic issue with our series on the Beacon Street debacle, which mentioned harsh truths that counter the common image of Somerville as an early retirement hamlet for hipsters. The city’s spokespeople are full of shit though; back in 2013, their director of transportation and infrastructure claimed the

Beacon Street “process is on schedule and moving forward as planned,” and that “it will be a transformative project … helping Somerville fulfill our goal of being the most walkable, bikeable, transit-accessible community in the United States.”

That’s quite a statement. Especially if one considers reality, and the responses I got this past weekend as I walked the war zone asking people to share their experiences. While planners have promised American excellence, at the moment local residents prefer to reference locales like Kuwait and Leningrad in order to describe the infrastructure. As such, and since the city has accused us of embellishing and theorizing conspiracies in the past, for this update I went straight to those who continue to endure the stretch of rural Afghanistan connecting Somerville Ave with Washington Street in Cambridge.

“I popped a tire on this street—a car tire!” one young woman told me. She was taking in the weekend afternoon with her roommates on their front lawn abutting Beacon Street. One of her male friends, also a recent college grad, added: “I bike everywhere, and I’ve popped tires as well.”

Their other buddy said he quit using the street altogether: BEACON STREET continued on pg. 6

PHOTO BY CHRIS FARAONE

BY CHRIS FARAONE @FARA1

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DEPT. OF COMMERCE

FEATURE

NEWS TO US

BEACON STREET continued from pg. 4 “I don’t bike on Beacon anymore. I pop out right there on the corner. I used to bike down it, but this past year they dug it up again, so I just stopped trying.”

Nearby I found a restaurant worker walking his bike, and he told a similar story.

Like many people I approached, he’d come to accept what’s more or less been the city’s line, which is that the entire street needs to eventually get torn up for a cycle track, and the residents might as well shoulder the pain so the local government won’t waste money on interim blacktop. It’s an unfortunate perspective, but one that jibes municipally if one considers how much cash Somerville has already hemorrhaged by paying the aforementioned politically wired design firm to sketch, adjust, and re-sketch plans.

Not everyone has fallen for the city line. Speaking at a community meeting in 2013, State Senator Pat Jehlen questioned the seemingly unnecessary complexity of the situation. “I strongly doubt that a five-block track will attract more cyclists,” she said. “I think what will attract more cyclists is paving the street!” Her comments (and the Dig’s reporting) were characterized by some as being anti-cycle track; whether that’s the case or not, what’s more underlyingly important is the simple fact that Beacon Street is a hazardous minefield.

Back in the rubble, I ambushed a couple of unsuspecting iced coffee drinkers in front of Petsi Pies. The topic of my story piqued their interests immediately. “I don’t bike on this street,” said one woman. “I go over to Somerville Ave.” She wasn’t the first to express a preference for the parallel concourse. A guy sitting with her added, “I ride a motorcycle, and this street is the worst.

I have to stand up off my seat.” Everyone I asked has some kind of particular loathe affair with Beacon Street. “The pipes!” cried one guy I interviewed. “Last year there were pipes all on the side of the road; so if you wanted to get to the other side, you had to drive all the way down, then back the other way. It was awful.”

On the Porter Square end of the rocky road, I walked into Bicycle Belle, a store that was founded almost two years ago to specialize in bikes that are “suitable for short urban trips.” As troopers who have stuck it out despite the poor street conditions, the women at Bicycle Belle had no specific criticisms for the city or process, but were happy to share purchasing tips for those forced to traverse urban mogul fields.

“If you’re thinking short-term, something that’s just going to get you through the terrible pavement, you can go with a mountain bike that has some shocks on the frame,” said Cecilia, the store’s chief operating associate. “We also recommend getting bikes that are made of steel rather than aluminum.” She would know. “I’ve heard occasional stories of people popping their tires on this road, but I think people are just generally frustrated. We hope that once it’s fully repaved it will be really great, but it’s only going to get worse before it gets better.”

That appears to be the case. As one of the recent college grads I interviewed noted: “Now there’s also the summertime smell of Beacon, which we’re pretty sure is the smell of shit. We’re not really sure where it comes from, but it seems to have something to do with that huge crack in the ground over there.”

“I don’t bike on Beacon anymore. I pop out right there on the corner. I used to bike down it, but this past year they dug it up again, so I just stopped trying.”

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ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

FEATURE

NEWS TO US

FREE RADICAL

FREE-WHEELIN’ RADICAL On fear and ghost cycles of springtimes past

BY EMILY HOPKINS @GENDERPIZZA

INTERNS WANTED! The Dig is looking for interns to help us produce the best newspaper in town.

Design

 Photography Illustration

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contact

tak@digpublishing.com and please include your school name, area of interest, and samples of / links to your work.

The last memory I have of biking from before the blizzards is a rough one. It was late at night, so there was no traffic when I set out on my journey home to Allston from Jamaica Plain. A cab was double-parked near the Riverway, and as I changed lanes to avoid him my front tire got caught in the E Line tracks. I’m not sure what my body did next, but I landed on my back and wound up with dirt on my left cheek, blood on my right knee, and somehow four intact glass bottles of beer in my backpack.

The accident shook my body and my nerves. By the time my muscles were in any shape to ride again, snow was in the forecast. I locked my bike in the basement for the season and hunkered down for the storm. Snow was a great excuse to stay off my wheels, but as the banks shrank and disappeared, I had to own up to the fact that I was scared to climb back on my bike.

For me, cycling has always been about overcoming fear. Fear that a snag in the road will dismount me. Fear that a door will open and flip me. Fear that the guy I just cussed out will pull over and kick my ass. The yelling comes from the fear. Can’t you see how scary this is?

Before winter could fully recede, spring claimed its first victim. Marcia Deihl was hit by a truck in Cambridge. As is often the case when such horrendous accidents occur, the driver hasn’t been charged in relation to the incident. If they do face charges, motorists are rarely convicted, while investigations stay open for weeks or months without resolution. If you hit a car with another car, even if there are no injuries, all parties work hard and fast to assign fault and to determine who will pay for damage. A biker might get killed but hardly leave a scratch; as far as the insurance companies must be concerned, there’s a lot less paperwork involved.

Boston’s working hard to fix its bike safety problem. Plans for the Comm Ave cycle track, once destined for the waste bin, have been approved. Furthermore, last year Boston emerged as a nationwide leader by becoming the first city to require truck side guards, pieces of plastic or metal meant to keep colliding bikers from being pulled underneath vehicles.

We’re getting closer. In the meantime, I’ll continue to carry this fear.

MEDIA FARM

2030, AS DESIGNED BY YOU

Boston looks to arts and crafts to address transit challenges

BY MEDIA FARM @MEDIAFARM In the interest of giving more than just a little space to reader opinions this week, and to help stoke a dialogue about commons and the proliferation of cycle culture, for Media Farm we’re surrendering our soap box to the people. This past weekend, a whole lot of Bostonians dropped by the pop-up 2030 Visioning Lab in Chinatown to give input about how they would like to see the city transformed over the next 15 years, and to scribble answers in response to questions ranging from How do we fund upgrades without burdening fare payers? to How do we better engage youth in our transportation planning? (One brilliant answer to the latter: “Ask their opinion and use their ideas!”)

The whole thing was ridiculous in a sense; the city appears to be anxious to collaborate with outside companies to fix many of these problems, and as our services become increasingly privatized, there should be little doubt that corporations—not citizens with magic markers, or even municipal leaders—will make decisions that affect the ebb and flow of our future. Nevertheless, you spoke and wrote down your opinions, and we recorded a whole bunch of them. Check digboston.com for some of the best (and worst, to be frank) ideas we saw tagged on the walls of the Visioning Lab.

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ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

FEATURE

NEWS TO US

A VERY PROUD GIDEON COLTOF

MICHAEL BURTOV DOES SOME ‘SPLAININ’

WHEEL-E BIKE ISSUE: INNOVATION

Local trio re-invents the wheel, with some help from Tron

BY DAN MCCARTHY @ACUTALPROOF The wheel. Generally thought to have been born around 3,500 BC, the first known use of two of them for gliding around the terra firma dates back to the early 1800s. But for centuries, the very concept of what was possible with the design remained virtually stagnant, with so few figuring out a way to improve upon the original that the notion of doing so (ie: “reinventing the wheel”) has become a punchline.

Enter Michael Burtov, co-founder of the Cambridgebased GeoOrbital project, who just over a year ago was on the receiving end of inspiration’s breath and a moment of engineering clarity (which is interesting considering he has no training in the field) after screening a classic Disney movie involving a pre-Big Lebowski Jeff Bridges.

“I was watching the movie Tron and I realized that all that space inside the ‘orbital’ wheel was wasted,” he says, referring to the particular version of motorcycle wheel the film’s “light cycles” zoomed around on. “So I thought why not put all sorts of components inside that empty space [and create a] wheel that doesn’t spin around a hub, but orbits around a central mass.” The problem was Burtov hailed from a business background, and bringing this concept to light would require funding, not to mention actual engineers.

The latter would come after attending the weekly Venture Cafe networking event in Cambridge last September.

Burtov was introduced to Gideon Coltof, now GeoOrbital VP of product, a senior engineer with experience in robotics,

“It’s an electric wheel that will let you turn any bike into an e-bike in about five minutes.”

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renewable power, and program and product design and management, as well as product development for the likes of Roomba overlords iRobot, and the Department of Defense.

Dakota Decker soon followed, coming on board as chief technology officer. Decker, a wunderkind in his own right (he graduated high school at 14), brought experience from working with the US Air Force and holding project leadership roles with Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), which is attempting to revolutionize space exploration.

Now a team, the trio began working on the first prototype in early October, with the actual mechanical work being done at Artisan’s Asylum in Somerville, and a second version of the prototype was developed around February of this year. The third was just assembled and tested about a month ago, and the group is now entering pre-production for a prototype that has all the features of the existing models in addition to the improvements and tweaks made along the way. GeoOrbital’s production model is on track to be available for sale to the public this summer, but still, what is it exactly?

“It’s an electric wheel that will let you turn any bike into an e-bike in about five minutes,” says Coltof. “It’s got a battery and motor control, and everything is built into the wheel itself.

It’s pretty unique. The only part of the wheel that spins on the rim is the tire. The rest of guts remain static.”

After a one-time install of things like a throttle to clamp onto handlebars (the wheel reaches 25mph on flat surfaces, which can increase with minimal manual pedaling), riders will be able to take off their existing front wheel, secure the GeoOrbital on, and away you go. To return the bike to manual, you just disconnect the GeoOrbital (the throttle stores on the bike) and put the standard wheel back on. That’s it.

“I ride our GeoOrbital prototypes almost every day as part of my commute, and unlike when I’m on a regular bike,

>> GEOORBITAL WHEEL. AVAILABLE SUMMER 2015. FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT GEOO.COM

I am not in desperate need of a shower when I get to work,” says Burtov. “When I want to bike for fun or exercise, I take the front wheel off, put my regular wheel back on, and in 30 seconds I get back my 100-percent manual bike.” Adds Coltof: “I’m a bicycle commuter myself, [and] the problem for most urban bike commuters is you get to where you’re going, and then you’re damp or sweating. The cool thing about our wheel is it gets you to where you want to go, ‘no sweat.’ You can hop on, and off you go. It really enables city commuters to maximize the advantages of a bike [in a city].”

At the moment, the company is fully operating off angel investment funding, with planned price points hovering around $500 for a wheel (making it one of the least expensive, if not the least expensive e-bike wheel on the market), which could have a massive impact for those that eschew public trans for the cycle life. And for anyone who has ever suffered at the hands of the Green Line, the idea of biking through town is becoming more and more appealing (and not sweating your ass off is always appealing). Take for instance the fact that the average commute on the MBTA in the Hub is around 35-45 minutes, whereas commuting the same general distance is cut in half on a bike. Add the fact that you can get there even quicker with a speedy transition to an e-bike, if nothing else this new project could change how you view urban mobility. As Coltof puts it, the GeoOrbital “kind of flattens the world for you.”

“Biking is a lifestyle choice for many but it is also an extremely practical and cost-effective form of transportation,” says Burtov. “We need to get more people into biking—not just the cool and fit people, but all people.

That’s the key to needed and lasting change. I see the GeoOrbital wheel not only as a way to get more people into biking, but also as a way to make practical biking the norm, rather than the exception.”

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ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

FEATURE

NEWS TO US

BIKE ISSUE: SHOPS

BIKE SHOP HONOR ROLL

LOCAL BIKE MAKERS

BY DIGSTAFF

FIREFLY BICYCLES

A selection of a few standout local shops we like

Custom hand-made bicycles right in Boston near the South Bay Center, helmed by a trio of locals making gorgeous road and utility bicycles since 2011. In addition to the killer rides and range of services, this custom shop features an art gallery highlighting the work of local artists and craftspeople. fireflybicycles.com

ROYAL H CYCLES >> SOMERVELO

SOMERVELO

Beloved local repair and service allseason Union Square shop (with a gorgeous website) run by two ex bike mechanics, which went under recent renovations resulting in a slicker shop and more workspace. somervelo.com

LANDRY’S

Massive Mass-based full-service bike shop chain, great resource for bike knowledge on gear, local group rides, and bike clubs. They’ve been around since 1922, and it’s clear why. landrys.com

QUAD BIKES

Small Harvard-based nonprofit bike shop for repairs, new and used bikes, and accessories. quadbikes.org

BIKES NOT BOMBS

Jamaica Plain nonprofit shop with full range of repair services, voted best in town by readers in the 2015 DigThis Awards. bikesnotbombs.org

URBAN ADVENTOURS

Tourist favorite in the North End for rentals and general urban biking guidance, chats with world-known professional cyclers, and eco-friendly tendencies. urbanadventours.com

TRAIL LEADER

BACK BAY BICYCLES

A shop old enough to drink legally (and it has a 12-year-old sibling in Portsmouth, NH: Papa Wheelies). An everything-you-need kind of local spot. Uses a 15-step personal bike fitting procedure called BG FIT to create a “marriage between rider and bicycle.” papa-wheelies.com

COMMUNITY BICYCLE SUPPLY One of the largest resources for all manner of biking, specializing in gear for the serious cyclist, with pretty much every major cycling brand and product available and a soup-to-nuts service ability.

Go ahead, try and stump them. communitybicycle.com

ACE WHEELWORKS

Porter/Davis Square bike emporium, and an offshoot of the larger Belmont sister store. Great staff, voted “best of” by several media outlets, and former Olympic cyclists and college stars are often found either working or shopping here. wheelworks.com

Innovation District ground zero for killer brazed jointed steel bikes with nine categories of styles from touring to fixed gear, and even time trial. The owner actually learned the precision bike-frame trade from the gods at Seven Cycles. Wait lists run around three months out, so if you’re ready to drop some coin on new wheels, plan accordingly. royalhcycles.com

GEEKHOUSE

Multi-billion-dollar bike company founded

by Marty Walsh in 2002 (no, not the Mayor, a different Marty Walsh). Makers of insanely gorgeous custom-fitted welded steel frame bikes in seven styles, all bikes hand-built in Mass with the cyclocross lines geared toward the tough courses found in the Northeast. geekhousebikes.com

MONTAGUE

Creators of The Montague Boston, the Cambridge-born first full-size single-speed folding bike which collapses in 20 seconds.

The founder is an MIT grad and designed the model bearing in mind the need of tactical paratroopers for immediate allterrain functionality from their mountain bikes. Gun turrets sold separately. Well, not really. Still: badass. montaguebikes.com

RESEARCH: JASMINE FERRELL

The lexington loop

Arnold arboretum

Forest hills cemetery

Paul dudley white bicycle paths

For: 30-40 miles of gorgeous long rides through the meadows, farmhouses, and nature-rich paths of several historic towns like Concord and Lincoln.

For: Killer views of Boston, and Peter’s Hill in Roslindale.

For: One of the few trails through landscaped cemetery.

For: 14-mile loop of DCR maintained paths, river views.

Muddy river

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For: Long rides, restored pathways from the Emerald Necklace Greenway Project.

Make your bike glow in the dark with powder

BY DAN MCCARTHY @ACUTALPROOF Riding your bike at night can be fun, provided cars and other things that could crash into you can see you. If they can’t, then not so much.

To ensure you and your bike are visible in the dark hours, you could just drape your ride in all manner of reflective tape, blinking battery powered lights, cat-collar bells, air horns, and whatever else you think will increase your personal safety on the road.

Or, you could employ the services of Hub Powderworks, a subsidiary of Cambridge-based Hub Bicycle Co., which employs a “retro-reflective” industrial-strength powder coating initially designed for highway and mining safety. In short, they can make your bike appear to glow when light is shined on it after dark.

Here’s how it works: Once you set up the job you turn your bike into the shop (standard bikes only at this point, so no tandems and the like). The team there disassembles your bike and strips it of any existing paint, and the frame and forks are then prepped for the process. According to the company itself, this is the only bike shop in the world licensed to refinish bikes with the material.

Once your bike is attached to a ground wire it’s sprayed with electrostatically charged powder particles that cling to grounded metal “like a sock fresh out of the dryer,” per the Powderworks website. After the bike has been completely covered by the Halo process, it’s transferred to an oven that bakes the powder on permanently, setting it into the bike’s frame.

The compound causes any light shined on it to be sent right back in the direction it came in. So headlights shining on bikes can see anything coated with this retro-reflective material from a greater distance, and make the Zakim Gray color it comes in appear to glow blue. The process for locals costs $329, and takes roughly a week depending on how busy they are.

Which is far less expensive than the hospital bills that come with being mowed down by a car at night.

NEWS TO US

POWDER FRESH

FEATURE

Chances are if you are even slightly serious about biking, you have at least heard the name Seven Cycles. And that’s for good reason. They’re a top-notch custom titanium and carbon fiber bicycle frame manufacturer that uses the best steels to create a variety of frames and is one of the world’s largest custom bike builders. Besides doing a range of frame styles (road, tandems, triathlon, touring, mountain), they’ve developed a revolutionary “Seven Fit Methodology” for perfectly fitting a bike to its owner, partnered with industry icon Paul Turner on the first customizable full suspension bike in 2001, and become of the world’s largest custom bike builders. Besides knowing how to build bicycles, these guys are no slouches in racing either, with their Team Seven riders winning national and international championships over the years, and even achieving the highest American finish for any mountain biker competing in the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. Not that their bikes will necessarily allow the likes of you to do the same, but finding a way to procure one is probably a step in the right direction. sevencycles.com

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

SEVEN CYCLES

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

BIKE ISSUE: INNOVATION

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Bay circuit trail

For: Interlacing paths for road and off-road riding, slicing through 34 towns in Mass.

Bonus: Connects the beaches of Newburyport and Duxbury.

Neponset river greenway

Stony brook reservation

Assabet river national wildlife refuge

For: Jaunts through the marshes and Pope John Paul II Park Bonus: Possible dead body sightings in the marshes.

For: Winding rides through Boston’s highest natural point, Bellevue Hill, and on to the Charles and Neponset Rivers.

For: Cruises through lush foliage and past colonial housing remnants along the Assabet River Rail Trail after a hearty joint. Or three.

Pierre lallement southwest corridor bike path

For: What is consistently named one of the best bike paths in Mass, named for the inventor of the pedal bike.

PHOTOS COURTESY SEVEN CYCLES | POWDERWORKS PHOTOS FROM HUBPOWDERWORKS.COM | TRAIL MAPS BY BRITTANY GRABOWSKI

>> FOR MORE INFORMATION CHECK OUT HUBPOWDERWORKS.COM

JODY'S TIPS ON HILLS

“You gotta do hills. Belmont has a horrific hill on Concord Avenue that’s a great training hill. Very steep, not very long.”

ON LYCRA

“You can’t escape the clothing.

You just gotta get over it. You have to wear the tight shorts with the diaper if you’re doing a long ride.

People just gotta get comfy with Lycra and the tight shirts, and all that.”

ON HER BIKE

“I have an amazing beautiful custom-made bike from Seven Cycles in Watertown. I never thought I deserved such a good bike, and once I did I had to honor it by becoming a cyclist.”

ON proper FITTING L TO R: RON GOLDBERG, GINNY ADAMS, JODY ADAMS, MARCY JACKSON, JACKI MORISI, ELIZA ADAMS, MEGHAN BRADY (ALL MEMBERS OF PMC TEAM RIALTO-TRADE)

JODY ADAMS BIKE ISSUE: PROFILE

“You want to make sure [the] bike is fitted properly, and that you know how to sit on [it].

The thing that most people complain about is back problems and neck problems. When you’re gripping the handlebars and leaning on your hands enormous tension develops.

You want to, as much as possible, use your legs and your core, and your hands should just be resting on the handlebars gently, not leaning.”

ON WHERE TO FUEL UP

Forge Bakery, Somerville

The Top Chef Master and PMC cyclist talks gear, rides, and the life-affirming boon of cycling

“They have a great coffee and English muffin and egg sandwiches.”

BY DAN MCCARTHY @ACUTALPROOF

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How did you get into riding?

I spent summers in Barnstable for the past 35 years, and watched all these people come through on bikes. In the early years, I thought the bikers were crazy. But in the last 10 years I started thinking “I want to do that.” About five years ago my sister was living with cancer, and it just made so much sense to me to do the PMC. I started talking to my partners and we all agreed we should put a team together and ride. This year was our fifth, and we trained our little butts off. Two years ago my sister rode with me, and then my other sister did, so now it’s a big family effort.

Tell me about your team.

We have a great team, people from our staff at Rialto and Trade.

Both of my partners ride. One of them, Sean Griffing, is a serious cyclist and competes. One of the others, One of the others, Eric Papachristos, is a reluctant cyclist (laughs). [The PMC] is his only long ride he does all year, and [he] jokes about dusting off his road bike just do it. But he wouldn’t miss it for anything.

How did this past winter affect how you trained?

This year was horrible for training with all the snow so we’re just starting to get out. I was out the other day for 30 miles, and did a couple of back to backs the other weekend, so I’m feeling confident.

What’s it like competing for charity?

It really feels like every pedal stroke we do makes a difference.

We can’t do anything for loved ones who are living with cancer besides accept it and support the organizations that are making a difference and figuring out ways to combat current cancers, or actually find a cure. And what the PMC has done is raise over 400 million dollars and you know that they’ve made a difference at Dana-Farber. The work they’ve done is unbelievable. Where we are now versus five years ago, between treatments, medications, and therapies is unbelievable.

And that comes down to the funds raised through things like the PMC race.

It’s all in the money. In order to do the research and do these treatments it takes money. And 100 percent of the money we raise goes to Dana-Farber. All other costs are absorbed by sponsors and fundraising that PMC does, but as far as riders are concerned, I know that if you give me five dollars, that’s going straight to Dana-Farber.

What are some of your favorite local rides?

I live in Brookline and work in Cambridge and there are rides from both places. From Brookline I ride out to Dover, Sherborn, that area, even Natick. From Cambridge my favorite is a 40-mile ride through Concord, Acton, Carlisle, and back to Lexington and Cambridge. I do longer rides out to Harvard and Bolton, and there are also really beautiful rides through Wellesley and Weston. I did the Boston Marathon ride a couple weeks ago, but there are lots of options without getting in a car.

Best part about cycling?

As Robin Williams was quoted as saying, who used to ride: “It’s the closest thing to flying.”

Formaggio Kitchen, Cambridge

“Last year they were selling little ‘biking sandos’ as I called them. Basically tennis-ballsized rolls filled with Italian meat or roasted eggplant, and they fit perfectly in the back of my cycling shirt.”

Ride Studio Cafe, Lexington

“I go there all the time. It’s a cafe and coffee shop, and friendly to bikes. The owner Rob is one of the owners at Seven Cycles in Watertown, and the other owner is competitive cyclist and they sponsor all sorts of rides. It’s such a great starting point for lots of riders, and [the owners] were intentional about creating a hub for a community of people to gather before and after rides.”

Ferns Country Store, Carlisle

“They make all kinds of sandwiches and soup and coffee, very green in terms of how they process things, and it’s very welcoming to cyclists. They have loads of bike racks out front, which is always a good sign.”

JODY ADAMS PHOTOS BY KEN RIVARD PHOTOGRAPHY

Having spent summers in Barnstable, Mass, for the past 35 years, local restaurateur Jody Adams watched cyclists pass through town on road bikes season after season, and by and large thought the lot of them were crazy. But about 10 years ago she found herself starting to get the bug to get on the iron horse, and when one of her sisters was diagnosed with cancer about five years ago, she found that last push she needed to get serious about cycling.

So after she spoke with her partners at her restaurants Rialto and Trade about putting a team together to ride in the Pan Mass Challenge, a charity competition that raises money for adult and pediatric cancer care and research at the DanaFarber Cancer Institute, her life on the bike began.

This past year was her fifth year doing the PMC, and as far as she’s concerned there’s nothing better than the experience.

“You can’t imagine what it’s like to ride 200 miles along roads that are lined with people holding up signs saying ‘I’m only here because of you’ or ‘You’re riding in honor of my son who died,’” she says.

15

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

FEATURE

NEWS TO US

BURGERS GONE

WILD 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

BIKE ISSUE: ROAD SCHOLAR

BIBLI-OH!

SHRIMP BAHN MI 15 Ground shrimp patty / long beans / papaya slaw / Thai curry mayo spicy cucumber salad / French baguette

Because sometimes you do your reading on the road

BY DAN MCCARTHY @ACUTALPROOF Starting Saturday, May 16, and throughout the summer, the Boston Public Library is rolling its Bibliocycle through Boston’s neighborhoods for the second summer. Which means if you need to renew or just sign up for a library card, or want to check out a book, they have you covered. The trailer on the back will hold up to 50 books at a time with everything from newly released literary fiction to bestsellers and even bike repair books. You can do it all right there. Library services on the go.

It’ll be popping up at everything from pop-up events, to the MassArt campus, to farmers markets in Roslindale, Roxbury, and Southie, as well as at City Hall and wherever else the library might get requests to roll through. (No, your backyard kegger prob isn’t the best fit … maybe.)

The only caveat is you can only check out 10 items per person from the cart.

Which isn’t much of a caveat, actually. Also, you can’t pay any fines owed to brick and mortar libraries at the Bibliocycle.

If that’s a problem try returning your books on time, lazy.

VINDALOO 15 Lamb rubbed with Indian spices / Vindaloo sauce / paneer cheese grilled naan bread / Manchurian cauliflower 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

>> BIBLIOCYCLE. FOR INFORMATION VISIT BPL.ORG/COMMUNITY

CHIMICHANGA 14 Flash fried tortilla stuffed with Angus beef / jack cheese / ranchero sauce / roasted poblano peppers / tomatillo jicama slaw

BIKE/ROAD RACES We cherry-picked a few road races to get on your calendar

BEER BELLY BURGER 14 Angus beef steamed in Jacks Abby smoke & dagger / onions fontina cheese / pretzel roll / beer battered onion rings

MAGOUNSSALOON

Raises $150 per rider for Bikes Not Bombs’ youth and international programs, and offers 10-, 30-, 50-, and 80-mile options. bikesnotbombs. org/bike-a-thon

Four routes with miles ranging from 35 to 100 all around the Pioneer Valley. Visit 10 breweries (including a meadery and a kombuchary) to sample brews and chat beer while riding. facebook. com/pedal2pints

JUNE 7

OLDEMAGOUNSSALOON

TOUR DE HIVES

A biking tour of local apiaries in Jamaica Plain, Mattapan, and Chestnut Hill followed by a taco picnic lunch and lectures on honeybee biology and backyard honey production, as well as a honey tasting! tourdehives2015. brownpapertickets.com

05 13 15 – 05 20 15 DIGBOSTON.C0M

JUNE 13

BIKES NOT BOMBS BIKE-A-THON

BOURBON VANILLA BEAN MILK SHAKE & COOKIES 9

16

JUNE 7

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

130 Brighton Avenue Allston, MA

PEDAL 2 PINTS

JUNE 20

RIBRIDE 2015

Twenty-five-mile ride through southern NH (Merrimack, Amherst Village, Nashua) ending with free admission to an annual ribfest and BBQ competition with live music. bikereg.com/ ribride

JULY 25

JAM FUND GRAND FUNDO

Yearly fundraising ride in the Pioneer Valley through steep elevations with proceeds going to the JAM fund to provide riders with travel and equipment costs, and to foster young riders into the sport. jamcycling.org/ grand-fundo

AUGUST 1-2

PAN MASS CHALLENGE

Dana-Farber fundraising annual ride raising thousands of dollars for cancer research and treatments. pmc.org/ event/pmc-2015

NEWS TO US FEATURE DEPT. OF COMMERCE ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

17

300

$

BONUS BUCKS on select models*

NC700X ®

Greater Boston Motor Sports 1098 Massachusetts Ave, Arlington, MA www.greaterbostonmotorsports.com (781) 648-1300 SEE DEALER FOR DETAILS

powersports.honda.com ALWAYS WEAR A HELMET, EYE PROTECTION AND PROTECTIVE CLOTHING. NEVER RIDE UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF DRUGS OR ALCOHOL, AND NEVER USE THE STREET AS A RACETRACK. OBEY THE LAW AND READ YOUR OWNER’S MANUAL THOROUGHLY. *$300 Bonus Bucks valid on 2014 and prior NC700X models. Bonus Bucks redeemable only for purchases at dealer on purchase date. No cash value. Non-transferable.

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)

ARTS ENTERTAINMENT

DIGBOSTON.C0M

05 13 15 – 05 20 15

18

THURS 5.14

THURS 5.14

FRI 5.15

FRI 5.15

SAT 5.16

SUN 5.17

Pitch Perfect 2 Premiere feat.

The Eight Tracks

Trivia for Troublemakers

Toll with Me

Lawn on D Season Opener

Porchfest Daytime & After-Party at Cuisine en Locale

The Second Annual Boston Zine Fest

As part of a special Thursday night opening of the sequel to the 2012 blockbuster hit that coined the word “toner” (a musical boner) amongst other nuggets of comedy gold (ie: every line out of Rebel Wilson’s mouth), Somerville Theatre presents a free pre-show by a cappella group Eight Tracks.

The 30-minute concert will include two arrangements from Pitch Perfect, so you can live that fantasy of attending Nationals.

Since 1967, nonprofit organization Resist has provided funding and support to radical grassroots efforts all over the country, with a solid belief in the power of social justice, direct action, and creativity. To raise funds and fight The Man at the same time, the group is hosting a radical trivia night, packed full of questions pertaining to “radical social movements throughout his/ hertory.” Come for the cause, stay for the prizes.

Artist Gianna Stewart, a local sculptor and MFA graduate of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, invites the public to join her this weekend as she completes the finishing touches on her new temporary installation, a part of Fort Point’s Open Studios weekend. Composed of 8,500 bells attached to chain-link fences along A Street, the project will reveal what the artist calls “the invisible winds that walk with us on A Street.” It will also do wonders for your next found sound recording project.

The Lawn on D, Boston’s inventive, one-of-a-kind experimental landscape and event space, kicks off its second season with an opening party featuring activities and performances from Berklee College of Music, OBERON, Boston Circus Guild, Sound of our Town, and more.

And because we know you’re all holding your breath, Swing Time, the wildly popular interactive installation from last year that combines LED lights with circular swings for adults, is back. Bonus: it’s bringing a maze this season.

Seriously.

Cuisine en Locale is keeping the ball rolling by participating in this year’s fifth annual Somerville Porchfest with a full day of activities. At lunchtime they’ll be dishing out (locally-sourced) sliders and tacos on the restaurant’s back lot. When the day of meandering and music from Porchfest is over, many of the hundreds of local bands playing will head to the restaurant for an afterparty/encore show. Note: This may not be a good time for one of those “everyone back to my place!” moments.

The second annual Boston Zine Fest needs you. To raise funds for the premiere celebration of the epitome of DIY art and publication, the event organizers will be hosting an all-vegan brunch featuring tofu scrambles, pancakes, and more, while local writers and artists will read selections from, you guessed it, their zines.

You’ve spent money on far less awesome things. And far less awesome brunches, for that matter.

Somerville Theatre.

55 Davis Sq., Somerville.

7pm/all ages/FREE (with movie ticket purchase). somervilletheatreonline.com

Lir Irish Pub & Restaurant.

903 Boylston St., Boston.

7:30pm/21+/$5-$10 suggested donation. facebook.com/calltoresist

Post Office Fence. A St., Boston. All ages/FREE. fortpointarts.org/openstudios

The Lawn on D. 420 D St., Boston. 5pm/all ages/FREE. lawnond.com

Cuisine en Locale. 156 Highland Ave., Somerville.

12pm/all ages/FREE. cuisineenlocale.com

Washington Street Art Center. 321 Washington St., Somerville. 12pm/ all ages/$5-10 suggested donation. bostonzinefest. tumblr.com

PHOTO BY JOE DIFAZIO

ALL YOU NEED ARE SOME STAPLES AND A DREAM. SUPPORT THESE CREATIVE ARTISTS, YOU WON’T BE SORRY.

19

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

FEATURE

NEWS TO US

MUSIC

MUSIC

HIT THE DANCEFLOOR

’90S LOVE

Courtney Barnett is not easily fazed

Local musicians unify Together Boston

BY TOM KIELTY @THETOMKIELTY

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN

TOGETHER AT LAST: (CLOCKWISE) ANDRÉ OBIN, MISS GEO, AND W00DY Forget about Skrillex and Diplo. There’s more to electronic music than dubstep drops and robots.

Together Boston is back for its sixth year. The weeklong series of educational discussions, screenings, and performances takes over the city to deliver music and art with a sense of unity. The best part is not its big-name draws (Andy Stott, East India Youth), but the rising stars—especially the ones in our own backyard. Say hello to Miss Geo, André Obin, and W00DY. Synthpop duo Miss Geo (they also go by Abby and Paz) morph bedroom recordings that recall Crystal Castles and The Knife. On their new release, Shapes, they experiment with sound effects outside the conventional pop song structure. “What happens if we scream here? What happens if we add some duck noises there? Let’s express that theme ... in French!” says Abby.

Meanwhile, André Obin tunes into the dark tones of Matthew Dear and nostalgic glistening of M83 on Endorphin. This is the first record for which he spent three months fully immersed in the songwriting process, free of commitment. “It can be an expensive endeavor but it’s usually worth it for the sake of carefully curated art,” he explains.

Then there’s W00DY, whose experimental full-length, RNBW, drops in June. Between working a part-time job and obsessively practicing her music, she’s finally figured out how to record bodily sounds (ie: breaths and slurps) and dark gloom similar to Holly Herndon or Andy Stott. “Having physical contact with hardware equipment is extremely satisfying,” she says, referring to her 16-channel analogue mixer. “It feels like I’m playing an instrument.”

With great technology comes great responsibility—and error. “Let’s just say that machines, while you never have to worry about them not showing up, are oddly not as reliable as humans,” says Obin. Hoping your equipment doesn’t flake is part of the routine. “You’re always flipping a coin: Will the signal make its way through the maze, or not?” says Abby.

That’s part of the allure. Electronic music is fueled entirely by passion. More importantly, it can’t be done without help from an audience. “We’ll tweak parts based on what we discover makes an emotional connection or was overlooked,” admits Abby. Together, as the festival title implies, we make our music stronger.

Head out to any of Together Boston’s events to catch the next big thing—and help them craft their material in the process.

Being an influencer and a supporter has never been so easy.

>> COURTNEY BARRETT WITH CHASTITY BELT AND DARREN HANLON. THE SINCLAIR, 52 CHURCH ST., CAMBRIDGE. MON MAY 18. SOLD OUT. COURTNEYBARNETT.COM.AU

>> TOGETHER BOSTON. MAY 10-17. FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT TOGETHERBOSTON.COM

DIGBOSTON.C0M

05 13 15 – 05 20 15

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]

LIGHTNING BOLT PHOTO BY NATALJA KENT | COURTNEY BARNETT PHOTO BY MIA MALA MCDONALD

Twenty-seven-year-old Australian Courtney Barnett first drew notice in the US at the 2013 CMJ Music Festival in New York City when the likes of Rolling Stone and The New York Times pointed her out as a festival highlight. Her Double EP: Sea of Split Peas is one of several she’s released on her own, and the song “Avant Gardener” was an early sign of her keenly observational lyrics and deadpan vocal delivery.

However, that was nothing in comparison to the seemingly universal praise her fulllength debut, Sometimes I Sit And Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit, has garnered this year.

She launches her biggest North American tour to date on Monday at a sold-out Sinclair in Cambridge, and will return to the area to play the Newport Folk Festival in July.

When asked via email if she feels there’s more at stake on this trip, she simply says, “Nah,” adding, “It’s just a pleasure to climb up on stages all around the world and sing my songs.”

Her response is similarly low-key when she’s asked what she’s been doing with her time between the initial CMJ buzz and her current turn as the next big thing.

“I was just kinda getting on with life,” she says. “Doing the washing, hanging the washing out, taking the washing off the line.”

That sort of thinking has endeared her to fans drawn to her uniquely offbeat worldview and impressive melodic sensibilities, drawing often from the best elements of ’90s alt-rock.

That fan affection is not lost on Barnett.

“It’s totally awesome, I’m stoked that so many people relate to the words and the music,” she says before admitting, “Of course, it’s slightly terrifying to release your most vulnerable thoughts out into the world.”

And her love for the ’90s was not lost when Bay State native son and Barnett favorite, Evan Dando, joined her onstage in December in Melbourne, for a duet on the Lemonheads’ own uniquely offbeat worldview ditty, “Being Around.”

“I love that song so much, the first time I heard it I was like ‘Goddamn it, that’s the song I’ve been trying to write,’” Barnett reveals. “It was a real treat to sing with Evan Dando, he’s a real nice guy with the voice of an angel.”

NEWS TO US FEATURE DEPT. OF COMMERCE

mideastclub.com | zuzubar.com (617) 864-EAST | ticketweb.com

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

CENTRAL SQ. CAMBRIDGE, MA

21

- DOWNSTAIRS WED 5/13

TOGETHER FESTIVAL STWO & SANGO THURS 5/14- TOGETHER PRESENTS:

CREW LOVE

W/ SOUL CLAP FRI 5/15 -TOGETHER PRESENTS:

MANO LE TOUGH

BOB MOSES W/ PROJECT PABLO SAT 5/16 - TOGETHER PRESENTS:

JUSTIN MARTIN & ARDALAN - UPSTAIRS WED 5/13

COUNTER PUNCH THURS 5/14

THE WERKS STRANGE CHANGES FRI 5/15

FULL OF HELL THE BODY, I AM BECOME DEATH SAT 5/16- BENEFIT 7PM

SMASH IT DEAD FEST SUN 5/17 - LEEDZ PRESENTS:

ODDISEE MON 5/18

USNEA TUES 5/19

WATER TORTURE HIRUDINEA /mideastclub /zuzubar @mideastclub @zuzubar

FILM

BREAK BEAT

Bicycle idolatry as arrogant as it is astounding in Breaking Away

BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN

digdeals 1/ 2

off eats

» Bella Luna Restaurant & Milky Way Lounge

» Jacob Wirth Co. » Patty Chens Dumpling Room » John Harvardʼs Brewery » Cuisine En Locale Food Share

1/ 2

off shops

» Stingray Body Art » Kulturez » I Hate the Green Line T-Shirt » Magpie

DIGBOSTON.C0M

05 13 15 – 05 20 15

22

Dave Stoller rides his bike because he loves to. But he also rides it because he’s got nothing better to do. He lives in Bloomington, Indiana, home of the state university, but he’s not a student. The first time we see him—in Breaking Away, playing this Sunday at the Harvard Film Archive—he’s wasting time with his friends, out on the quarry. The college kids call them “cutters,” because their fathers cut the stone from that quarry, and built the school with it. Dave can’t escape that nickname. He can’t escape his parents’ house, either, or his position in the lower class. But what he can do is ride.

There are two championship competitions, but the film—released in 1979—is not another Rocky. Dave’s not using his abilities to try and earn himself a better life. He’s just looking for a respite from the one that he already has. He idolizes his bike, which leads to an infatuation with the Italian culture that birthed it. He starts listening to opera, talking about family values, and even renames his cat “Fellini”—after the director of working-class classics like I Vitelloni. That this film claims such a lineage is astoundingly arrogant. That it lives up to the claim is just astounding.

This is the part of the review where we detail the plot—what connects the first shot to the last race—but Breaking Away barely has one. Instead there’s a series of intersecting subplots: Dave puts on an affected accent to try and win over a co-ed; his friends stoke the preexisting strife with IU’s latest class; his parents try in vain to enjoy a romantic night in. These stories don’t serve separate masters, but all aim to craft a portrait of Bloomington—a patchwork of townie life in Middle America. This is a city symphony for a small city.

The film is directed by the late Peter Yates, who’d already earned a rep for regional specificity. A few years earlier, he’d adapted George Higgins’ seminal The Friends of Eddie Coyle—and in doing so, made the best Boston movie ever. You wretched at the smell of spilled beer as it wafted off the screen during the Boston Garden scenes. He affords the same attention to Bloomington. Tracking shots run down streets to reveal the local hangouts in the background; digressions bring us to local industries and landscapes. Yates shot on location and relied on unadorned camera angles—he let the texture of his chosen setting serve as the main character.

That deliberate unshowiness ends up giving the movie its soul. Yates doesn’t stage the climactic race for tension—he makes a play for transcendence. During the last laps, his camera rests high in the stands, watching Dave glide through the turns like a bird off a strong gust. Yates looks at this kid, and his bike, and his town—the working-class spirit beating loudly within all of them—and he sees grace. >> BREAKING AWAY. SUN 5.17. HARVARD FILM ARCHIVE. 24 QUINCY ST., CAMBRIDGE. 5PM/PG/FREE. FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT HCL.HARVARD.EDU/HFA

FILM EVENTS THURS 5.14

FRI 5.15

MON 5.18

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

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

[Coolidge Corner.

290 Harvard St., Brookline.

Fri 5.15 + Sat 5.16, midnight/R/$11.25. coolidge.org]

[Coolidge Corner.

290 Harvard St., Brookline.

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

FRI 5.15

FRI 5.15

VANYALAND AND THE VOLTAGE FACTORY PRESENT METALHEAD

DIRECTOR LAV DIAZ IN-PERSON STORM CHILDREN, BOOK ONE

For more deals go to: digboston.com/deals digboston arts + entertainment | news | lifestyle

[Harvard Film Archive.

24 Quincy St., Harvard Sq., Cambridge. 7pm/NR/$12. hcl.harvard.edu/hfa]

COOLIDGE AFTER MIDNIGHT DEATH WISH 3

GREG SESTERO PRESENTS THE ROOM

[Coolidge Corner.

290 Harvard St., Brookline.

Midnight/R/$11.25. coolidge.org]

CINEMA JUKEBOX PRESENTS AMADEUS

MON 5.18

DIRECTED BY WOJCIECH JERZY HAS AN UNEVENTFUL STORY

[Harvard Film Archive.

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

NEWS TO US FEATURE DEPT. OF COMMERCE

every night TILL ' CLOSE 9 2 H A MP S HIR E S T, CA MB R ID G E , M A | 6 1 7-2 5 0 - 8 4 5 4 | L O R D H O B O.C O M

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

REAL FOOD

23

FILM

BURNIN’ HECK

Cobain documentary wholly born in the digital age DEATH WISH 3

BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN

FILM SHORTS BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN

SMELLS LIKE MINERAL SPIRITS We know what documentaries about Great Artists are like: There’s critics raving about a musician’s legacy, collaborators providing context, and performance footage helping to stitch everything into a halfway coherent whole. Cobain: Montage of Heck contains some of that—but it’s buried deep within a dense trove of ephemera.

The film was made with the support of Cobain’s family, so the selling point is the access: Want to see outtakes from the Nevermind cover shoot? Or alternate band names?

Or Kurt nodding off while holding his newborn daughter? Montage has you covered.

The film portrays the cagey artist so nakedly that you feel like you’re violating ethical boundaries just by watching it.

But we’ve seen the all-access angle done before—even with Cobain himself. The accomplishment of director Brett Morgan and editor Joe Beshenkovsky is the way they tell the story through free association: They pick up a trail and follow it to the end, the way that we do when researching things online. A scribbled journal contains a highlighted lyric, which leads to a track, which leads to a video, which leads to a media response, which leads to a new journal entry—and these cycles almost always play out without the intrusion of talking heads. It’s like a deep dive into a fully stocked Cobain YouTube channel—and its representative of the way entire lives are now recorded and reported on. This is the rare documentary truly born of the digital age. >> COBAIN: MONTAGE OF HECK. NOW AVAILABLE FOR STREAMING VIA HBO PLATFORMS.

CAROLL-ING Big Bird doc falls on its beak

DO NOT PLUCK WITH THE SUIT.

BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN

DIGBOSTON.C0M

05 13 15 – 05 20 15

24

There’s another Great Artist documentary coming out this week, and the subject couldn’t be further from Cobain on the cultural spectrum.

I Am Big Bird studies Waltham-born Caroll Spinney, who’s been in the yellow suit since the character debuted in ’69. The title tells the story—Spinney is one with the bird. He recalls the time some college kids plucked its feathers as a prank as though it were a life-defining moment of trauma: “It was like seeing my own child raped.”

That line will draw a loud scoff from anyone who’s experienced actual trauma. But it speaks to the way that he and the suit are inseparable—and if this documentary has a thesis, that’s it. Talking head after talking head argues that he’s an artist in his own right, defined by his own influences and preoccupations. The movie claims that the Bird came not from Jim Henson, or The Muppets, or from Sesame Street, but from the soul of Caroll Spinney.

We leave with no doubt that he’s an extraordinary performer. But the telling of his story is anything but—the film is undeniably ordinary. We walk through his life beat by beat (right up to the Romney kerfuffle), aided by interviews and b-roll, without ever spending more than a few moments on any one thing. Montage of Heck is a pushback against the deeply ingrained clichés of bio-doc construction—and I Am Big Bird is the type of movie it’s pushing back against. >> I AM BIG BIRD. FRI 5.15-MON 5.18. FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT BRATTLEFILM.ORG

AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON

FURIOUS SEVEN

Joss Whedon returns to write and direct the second team-up film in Marvel’s neverending cinematic serial, so the threats of bad-robot Ultron are met with puns as often as they are with punches.

Sad to say that his eye for action isn’t nearly as sharp as his ear for gags: The fights are a jumble of colors and cuts, with the camera perpetually placed so close up that you can never enjoy the motion of the combat. Marvel’s best, like Guardians of the Galaxy, are as classically constructed as something like Jaws—they’re secondhand Spielberg. But this is b-grade Michael Bay.

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.

CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA

This documentary portrait of 94-yearold fashion icon Iris Apfel—directed by the late Albert Maysles—is hardly an all-encompassing one. Health scares and major events occur entirely offscreen, while we watch Iris playfully palling around with her director, her husband, and a number of well-known admirers.

(Yeezy’s a fan.) If there’s a constant here, it’s the subject’s beautiful bluster.

She may not show much vulnerability, but she, and this film, have no need for things like “truth.” They’ve got charm.

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 house of mirrors—the movie even ends in one.

DEATH WISH 3 The unrelenting nastiness of filmmaker Michael Winner reached an apex in this sequel, wherein Charles Bronson returns to NYC to battle an evil gang that looks like they arrived direct from the set of The Warriors. The romantic nonsequiturs are sure to draw perplexed laughs from the midnight crowd, but the expansively explosive final shoot-out— filmed on the fakest NYC sets this side of Eyes Wide Shut—will raise eyebrows even higher. Check the dynamic angles and the garish color palette: Death Wish isn’t an action thriller anymore, it’s a disreputable comic book.

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 naïf 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.

IRIS

LOST RIVER How to describe Ryan Gosling’s astoundingly incompetent directorial debut? Christina Hendricks stars as a mom forced into degrading work to save her mortgage—it’s ostensibly a housing crisis parable. But with the help of maverick cinematographer and neon enthusiast Benoit Debie (Spring Breakers) Gosling expends most of his energy pilfering shots from better filmmakers: a burning house borrowed from Badlands, long tracking shots that reek of Kubrick ... The aesthetic slickness saps the last bits of sincerity out of this movie star’s paean to poor people. He’s made a perfume ad for poverty.

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.

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ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

FEATURE

NEWS TO US

THEATER

MOTHERS AND SONS

Tears fall and truths drop in Speakeasy’s latest drama

BY SPENCER SHANNON @SUSPENCEY

Wednesday MAY 13 8:00 pm

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SO GRANDSON OF MINE WEARS UNPATTERNED CLOTHES Mothers and Sons, penned by award-winning playwright Terrence McNally, opens on a not-so-uncommon scene: mother-in-law and son-in-law stand at the window of the latter’s apartment, awkwardly exchanging small talk and commenting on the weather. They wait for someone; the anticipation hangs palpably in the air.

However, when the name of the missing person comes up, it’s tinged with pain.

The audience soon realizes that this isn’t a friendly visit—it’s a dutiful one. Katherine (Nancy E. Carroll) has come to see Cal (Michael Kaye) after years of estrangement to return the unopened journal of Andre, her son and Cal’s late lover, who died from AIDS in the 1990s.

The play is complex, the characters nuanced and flawed—the meaning of it can be a challenge to unearth in the surprisingly swift 90-minute run time. Mothers and Sons seems to encapsulate how much society has changed between the 1980s and today, especially in regards to the gay rights movement. Cal has a young husband, Will (Nile Hawver), whom he met online, owns his own apartment, and even has a young son, Bud (Liam Lurker). Yet he is still haunted by the terrors of the sickness that ravaged Andre and the dark years that stole away most of the other men of his generation, and he still feels as though the safety and comfort he enjoys today are unreal. If anything, Katharine represents the slowly dying opposition: she blames Cal in part for Andre’s death, she affirms repeatedly that Andre wasn’t gay before he left home for New York, and she offhandedly drops racially tainted jabs that offend the fiercely politically correct Cal and Will.

Yet despite its framework within the complicated history of the gay rights movement, Mothers and Sons is not a queer play. It avoids making Cal and Andre’s lifestyle the main dramatic crux of the story, their homosexuality the root of the characters’ suffering. This is affirmed, almost to the point of obnoxiousness, by how perfect Cal’s life has become. His family operates almost with sitcom-level charm, with his cute and precocious son, his ruggedly handsome husband, and the open and vocal displays of affection they regularly trade throughout the course of the play. It seems to cry out, “See, this is normal!” but borders on projecting a message that the ideal gay lifestyle is one only attainable by those of a certain economic and racial background. It pushes the political message of marriage as the ultimate arrival of equality, which is just not an identifiable or even viable option for many people.

These criticisms aside, Mothers and Sons provides powerful commentary on the passage of time and the inevitable loss suffered by parents not just if their child dies—but even when their child just grows up and moves away. Katharine has defined herself as “Andre’s mother” for so long that she doesn’t know who she is, or how to even be seen as a person, without him. The play examines the sometimes irreconcilable distance between members of consecutive generations, and of the paltry bridges we try to build towards each other with words, the only method we have—one that so often falls short.

At its core, Mothers and Sons tells the story of a mother and a widower who still struggle to let go, and who have tried and failed to find comfort in each other.

It’s about the lies we tell ourselves to get by. It’s about the pain felt by an entire generation of queer people, who found themselves targeted by a deadly disease that had no name, a disease with mysterious origins that was largely left unexamined by the medical community at large. It’s about coming to terms with the danger of pouring so much of yourself into another person that you lose yourself in the process. It’s a passionate, heartbreaking, wholly revelatory play about love. >> SPEAKEASY STAGE COMPANY PRESENTS: MOTHERS AND SONS. THROUGH JUNE 6.

THE STANFORD CALDERWOOD PAVILION, 527 TREMONT ST., BOSTON. TICKETS START AT $25.

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT SPEAKEASYSTAGE.COM

PHOTO BY RICHARD HALL / SILVERLINE IMAGES

SHOW N SELL ART GALLERY

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ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

FEATURE

NEWS TO US

ARTS

THE SUBMISSION

Zeitgeist Stage’s spring season closer meditates on big issues

BY SPENCER SHANNON @SUSPENCEY

DIGBOSTON.C0M

05 13 15 – 05 20 15

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Playwright Shaleeha G’ntamobi has written a gritty, groundbreaking new drama centered on an alcoholic African-American mother struggling with addiction as her cardshark son’s high-stakes gambling threatens their tenuous life in the projects.

The raw, affecting work has been accepted into the prestigious Humana Festival in Louisville, Kentucky, where it will be produced and staged for its world premiere among other promising new plays.

Except for one problem: Shaleeha G’ntamobi doesn’t exist. Danny Larson, a white gay male, is the real writer behind the aforementioned drama. However, he thinks he lacks the “street cred” to be taken seriously as the playwright, so he hires a black actress named Emilie to impersonate him at the festival.

So begins the convoluted chain of events in The Submission, Zeitgeist Stage’s ambitious spring season closer.

“It’s a dramedy about sexual identity and race relations all set in a theater milieu—so that kind of has Zeitgeist Stage written all over it!” says artistic director David Miller. “I think that we often delude ourselves that there’s not a race problem in America, but incidents in Ferguson and Baltimore certainly bring it to the fore.

The play focuses on race issues within the theater community, but I think that that’s applicable to a broader spectrum; that’s what the play does well.”

Issues of race and gender are huge topics at the forefront of our national conversation on civil rights and equality—and Miller explains that many of these issues bleed over into the theater world as well. In recent years, there has been a huge outcry for change. Miller notes that there is a massive imparity between the number of plays produced that are written by white men versus those written by women and people of color (with the scales grievously tipped against the latter).

Furthermore, colorblind casting serves to force minorities out rather than create space for them, resulting in situations in which many parts meant to be played by people of color are given to white actors.

“There’s this kind of fight for equality within theater that represents the crosssection of the US population as a whole,” Miller states. “And so that’s been a very big focus [within the theater community], especially over the last two or three years.”

The Submission is a culmination of that tension. It casts a critical eye on the state of equality within America, and the systems of oppression that keep many down in order to raise others up. For Miller, the concept of privilege is key to fully understanding this work. “[In the play], Emilie says, ‘Don’t you dare equate your experience as a gay white male to my experience as a black female in this society, because they are not comparable. Even though you’re gay, you’re still part of the white male power structure and I am not.’ That’s the kind of exploration of privilege that the play [puts forth],” Miller explains.

The Submission is a tough and unapologetic piece, one that seeks to uncover the ugly parts of society in means that are both uncomfortable and hilarious. Miller is confident that audiences of all backgrounds will find something valuable in the work.

“You watch these nightly broadcasts from Baltimore, and it can be numbing at times. It also can be distant because you think, ‘That’s another city, a different experience,’” Miller says. “But if you go back to when the Boston Marathon bombing was here, we had a much more visceral experience than people just watching it on the news. What I’m hoping is that it just—it does make people take time to pause and think of the implications of sexuality, race, and gender in society and that we still have a way to go.” >> ZEITGEIST STAGE COMPANY PRESENTS: THE SUBMISSION. THROUGH MAY 30.

THE BLACK BOX THEATER AT THE BCA, 539 TREMONT ST., BOSTON. $30, $15 STUDENTS. FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT ZEITGEISTSTAGE.COM

PHOTO BY RICHARD HALL/SILVERLINE IMAGES

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My wife is one of those women who need manual stimulation of her clit during sex to climax. Before meeting her, I had several longterm girlfriends, and not one needed to do this in order to climax.

Before we got married, I explained that I wanted to explore and push the boundaries, and she promised me that would happen.

But she has no fantasies, kinks, or fetishes, and she’s not into any of the things I’ve proposed. Bringing this all together is that when we are having sex, she’s so fixated on stimulating her clit, it’s almost like we are in two different worlds. When she’s working toward an orgasm, her eyes are shut and she’s concentrating on the rubbing— whether she’s doing it or I am—and I can’t help but wonder if the work it takes to get her to orgasm is part of the reason she’s not interested in exploring. I’ve talked to her several times about how I’m yearning to do more, but I haven’t brought up my thoughts on how the way she comes may be affecting things.

Come As You Are My thoughts, in no particular order…

1. Three out of four women need direct, focused, and sometimes intense stimulation of their clit in order to climax—sailing a dick up the vaginal canal isn’t going to do it for most women—so either you lucked out and all of your previous girlfriends were 25 percenters or many/most/all of your previous girlfriends were faking it.

2. I’ve never met a man who wasn’t fixated on stimulating his

dick during sex and/or having his dick stimulated for him during sex.

3. If your wife is picking up on your negativity about the way her pussy works, that could negatively impact her enthusiasm for sex in general and sex with you in particular.

4. Your wife is fantasizing about something when she closes her eyes and starts rubbing her clit. You might be able to have more productive conversations about your sex life—and your desire for a more adventurous one—if you drew her out about what’s going on in her head when she’s getting off. Tell her how sexy she looks, tell her you would love to know what she’s thinking about, tell her how hot her fantasy is if she opens up about it (and don’t freak out if she’s not fantasizing about you), carefully build on her fantasy with some dirty talk. Once she opens up about whatever it is that’s unspooling in her head, you can suggest realizing her fantasies in real life—and a few of yours as well.

5. And … um … lastly … Your wife may need to block you out—she may need to clamp her eyes shut—in order to climax because … um … she may not be sexually attracted to you. That’s harsh, I realize, and I hope that’s not the case. But if marital sex for her is a joyless exercise—she gets you off then clamps her eyes shut and gets herself off—then this is a problem that can’t be fixed, and spending the next five decades trying to fix it will be both futile and frustrating.

Here’s hoping your wife’s issue is something more common and something that can be fixed—she’s sexually repressed but can work through it, or this clamp-eyes-and-rub-clit routine was her masturbatory go-to for years but you two can find new and exciting ways to get her off. Those new and exciting ways to get her off will most likely require her to fixate on stimulating her clit— and that’s okay.

NEWS TO US FEATURE ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

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