Dig Boston July 22-29, 2015

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PART II IN OUR SERIES ON THE FORTHCOMING A.R.T. PRODUCTION

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.T T.’SUT O

R E M M U S MIDSPECIAL!

PI E S , P U P H S U L PAT IO S , S R TS , A N D CONCE MORE!

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AMY SCHU M BEARS UN ER’S BREAKOUT CHARACT ERISTIC TIDINESS

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VOL 17 + ISSUE 29

JULY 22, 2015 - JULY 29, 2015

EDITOR Dan McCarthy NEWS, FEATURES + MEDIA FARM EDITOR Chris Faraone ASSOCIATE MUSIC EDITOR Nina Corcoran ASSOCIATE FILM EDITOR Jake Mulligan CONTRIBUTORS Nate Boroyan, Paige Chaplin, Mitchell Dewar Christopher Ehlers, Bill Hayduke, Emily Hopkins, Micaela Kimball, Dave Wedge INTERNS Oliver Bok, Emily Tiberio

DESIGN CREATIVE DIRECTOR Tak Toyoshima DESIGNER Brittany Grabowski INTERNS Amy Bouchard, Stephanie Buonopane, Kelsey Cole COMICS Tim Chamberlain Pat Falco Patt Kelley Tak Toyoshima

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

BUSINESS PUBLISHER Jeff Lawrence 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 Hop on, summer part two is about to begin!

Let’s hope the T driver doesn’t text while he’s driving. Illustration by Amy Bouchard.

©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.

DEAR READER Ah, midsummer.

Like that moment from childhood where you wake up the day your science project is due and blink into the morning light, realizing you’ve had seven months to work on your replica of the solar system but did absolutely nothing, and the clock’s ticking suddenly begins to sound like TNT explosions with every passing second—the analogous point for summer in the Hub is essentially upon us.

Which is fine, provided you get your ass off your couch and get out and do things. Lots of things.

Like, say, get up with what a peculiar pack of big energy pipeline protesters are doing (News, page 4).

Or check out the spread of live music still inbound before Labor Day. Or just hook up with a crew of friends and go drinking well into the evening at a few choice patios and roof decks around town (and even Eastie). Or get your hands on a useful and by no means comprehensive map to the available true-blue Slush Puppies to be procured in places stretching from Everett to Quincy and in-between (all from Midsummer special spread, page 10). This is important stuff people.

As everyone is quick to remind you via the breathtaking array of unoriginal meme-ing: Winter is coming.

Not for a while. But still.

DAN MCCARTHY - EDITOR, DIGBOSTON

DIGTIONARY

MBT-AC

noun mbta-see 1. The air that flows through the bus that feels cool on your skin but is really a carrier of rancid body odor and other foul smells of the city during a heat wave.

OH, CRUEL WORLD Dear Pope, You are not cool. You are not tolerant. You are the Pope, and you are the leader of the most notorious gang of child rapists that the world has ever known. You might not fuck children yourself, and you may even pretend to believe in science and to respect gay folks. At the end of the day though, your church is still a slumlord and protector of evil that preys on the poor. So while the mayor of Boston pays you visits, and people act like priests stopped raping little boys, I just wanted to remind everybody about the less than reputable institution that you represent.

ILLUSTRATION BY AMY BOUCHARD

EDITORIAL

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NEWS US

DEDHAM AND GOLIATH NEWS TO US

The war against Big Energy is raging on the southern edge of Boston—and it’s being fought by a peculiar troupe of pipeline protesters On a bright, sunny June morning, just outside of the manicured Legacy Place mall in Dedham, a small posse of protesters meets on Elm Street. They’re trying to halt the construction of a natural gas pipeline that, in the worstcase scenario, will be capable of incinerating a large swath of Dedham and neighboring West Roxbury.

After passing by the high-end stores in Legacy Place, said local leg of the Algonquin Pipeline is slated to traverse a major thoroughfare, slice through a residential neighborhood, and run across the street from the West Roxbury Crushed Stone quarry, where active blasting happens regularly. Demonstrators have come to speak out against these worrisome plans, and also to support Mike Butler, the chairman of the Dedham Board of Selectmen.

Butler is trying to draw attention to the Town of Dedham’s lawsuit against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. FERC has the final say about whether this pipeline is built, and by all appearances, the commission wants construction to commence as soon as possible.

It’s worth noting that a small town filing a lawsuit against a federal agency is not an everyday occurrence— it’s markedly unusual. That said, there may be a trend underway, as the Town of Deerfield in Western Mass recently sued FERC, seeking to block another natural gas line. In Dedham’s case, the claims appear to be substantial. The town argues that FERC cut them out 4

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of key deliberations over Spectra’s application for the project.

There aren’t many pickets in this neck of the woods, but suburban protesters are upset. So Butler and a range of others—some who protest often, others who haven’t since college 50 years ago—are taking a stand. At the very least, the people of Dedham and the surrounding communities want some kind of say in the mysterious processes involving FERC and Spectra; it’s late in the game, and construction has started, but they’re sick of sitting silent in the dark.

In that sense, things are changing on the southern edge of Boston. And Dedham Town Meeting Member Jessica Porter says she has her colleague’s back.

“Mike’s courage and strength of conviction,” says Porter, who has actively rebuked supporters of the pipeline, “is a real model of leadership for our elected officials.”

Chairman of the Dedham Board of Selectmen and a former manager at Boston Scientific and Gillette, Butler managed to reach middle age without being arrested.

But on this day in June, that’s all about to change.

Construction of the pipeline is set to begin, and FERC has failed to respond to Dedham’s appeal. Having exhausted the traditional protest route, Butler decides to engage in an act of civil disobedience. The selectman is going to get himself arrested.

In his trademark dress shirt and khakis, Butler stands in the way of a construction crew in an active work zone.

He temporarily halts progress on the pipeline, but after several minutes, police handcuff the selectman and drive him away in a squad car. As the cops bring Butler to the station in Dedham Square, protesters chant, “Stop the pipeline! Thank you Mike!” Their frustration now heightened, the demonstrators call out their adversary, “Shame on Spectra!”

Not unlike people protesting the “bomb trains” crisscrossing America, residents in Dedham and West Roxbury are up in arms about what many see as a legitimate threat to their health and safety. Beyond the possibility of an explosion, there are other terrifying potential side effects of having the line run through a residential area. According to a group calling itself Stop the West Roxbury Lateral Pipeline, those concerns include the danger of environmental contamination from methane, as well as from toxic components like PCBs, arsenic, and radon. Some residents are concerned that they might have to forfeit property because of the construction, while others fear residual plummeting property values.

DEDHAM AND GOLIATH continued on pg. 6

PHOTOS BY TRE TIMBERS

BY NICK MOORHEAD

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DEDHAM AND GOLIATH continued from pg. 4

SPECTRA-CLE

Spectra Energy Corp. is headquartered in Houston, Texas. That’s far away from Dedham, but the company is attempting to construct a new Commonwealth stretch of their natural gas pipeline (officially called the Algonquin Incremental Market Project, or AIM), the whole of which runs from Texas to Canada.

Regarding the construction in Dedham, Spectra has been demonstrably tight-lipped. When I finally get in touch with a public relations person after multiple attempts, she refuses to let me record our conversation, citing Spectra company policy. Nevermind that Spectra’s policy is to record all incoming calls; I’m not allowed to do the same.

Then there’s FERC, the agency that Spectra contacts for approval whenever they need a go-ahead on projects. According to government documents, the Spectra subsidiary operating in Dedham, Algonquin Gas Transmission, was approved for the pipe plans by FERC on March 18, 2014.

Within a week Dedham officials responded to FERC, sending a request to gain “intervener” status. Following FERC’s refusal to grant that status, six months later, in September, Dedham pols filed another claim on the decision process. FERC stood firm, reluctant to make any effort whatsoever to solicit community input.

The fight has since erupted on several fronts. On April 2, the same day that Dedham officials requested a rehearing with FERC, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and US Congressman Stephen Lynch also sought legal remedies.

Nevertheless, FERC gave Spectra the greenlight on June 11, allowing them to start construction only five days later. In a June 12 letter to FERC Chairman Norman Bay, Lynch let loose.

“I understand that Spectra Energy is allowed to proceed despite FERC’s granting a rehearing,” the congressman wrote. “I strongly urge that you immediately conduct the rehearing … and issue a finding as soon thereafter as is practically possible.”

In his own letter, Walsh added, “We respectfully submit that it is unfair and unreasonable for Boston to have to watch construction commence, while its timely made Request for Rehearing remains pending.”

Nothing worked. FERC appears to agree with Spectra, which maintains that the Algonquin is in the best interest of the public, and that the gas it will deliver is needed for generating electricity. The company has also cried poor, claiming that it stands to lose a lot of money if construction stops.

Marylee Hanley, director of stakeholder outreach at Spectra, explains, “The need for our pipeline is to provide service to our existing customers.” Meanwhile, according to a panel of industry experts writing in CommonWealth Magazine last month, “We’re not facing an energy crisis in New England.” They claim that far too much maneuvering happens behind the scenes: “Tens of billions of dollars that we will have to spend updating our energy system will be sunk into expensive, supply-side, grid-scale expenditures just as we are unlocking cleaner, cheaper, and lower-risk solutions.”

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WESTWOOD BLUES

It’s late June, and the Westwood Library is holding a public event to give Spectra an opportunity to tell its side of the story. But while 30 to 40 people show up for the meeting, there isn’t a single employee from the energy behemoth among them. Though Spectra agreed to dispatch representatives to speak with citizens and listen to concerns, spokespeople backed out at the last moment.

While Spectra didn’t show, Ellen Fine did. A woman who learned how to organize and galvanize grassroots protest during the Occupy movement in 2011, Fine says, comparing her current adversary to the world’s most notorious agriculture bully, “Spectra makes Monsanto look like environmentalists.”

Also present is Margaret Whitfield, who already has construction for the pipeline underway by her home.

Whitfield received a notice about the dig in the mail, but says the correspondence was written in legal jargon that she didn’t fully understand. She knew enough to realize something was wrong, though—very wrong.

“I called my selectman, I called my federal legislators, my state. It’s this process of pointing fingers at each other.

I feel like you need to have an engineering degree or you need to be a lawyer to understand all of these processes.

The democratic process is a myth. There is no democracy here; it’s run by the big businesses.”

Whitfield has built up a following among fellow protesters, and people pay extremely close attention when she speaks her mind at meetings. She recently asked a community journalist in Dedham, “What do I tell to my kids where there’s a transmission line 15 feet from my living room, and my daughter asks me, ‘Is it going to explode?’” Whitfield asks this question often; it’s clear that she has yet to come up with an answer.

SEARCHING FOR HOPE

I speak with Dennis Teehan, another member of the Dedham Board of Selectmen, several days after a Board of Health meeting gave protesters another opportunity to air grievances. We’re speaking at New England Baptist Hospital, where Teehan works as a physician.

“I think the town has known about this for about two years, before I was elected,” Teehan says. “The process hasn’t happened right. By FERC doing nothing, they’ve effectively taken away our right for judicial review of the project and taken away our right for a second environmental review. It’s really very concerning.”

Teehan continues: “Regardless of your viewpoint about this project or some of the larger issues, what all Americans should be concerned about is the blurry line between the regulatory agency and the industry that they’re choosing to regulate. It seems like—and if I’m wrong, I’m wrong—but I get the impression that FERC

seems to be maneuvering in a way that serves Spectra’s interests, instead of, maybe, regulating them.”

With FERC and Spectra apparently operating in sync, it seems that health and safety—of workers, of everyone in areas through which their operations traffic—have been compromised on the federal agency’s watch. The company does not have a clean record when it comes to environmental impact or equipment malfunctions.

In Maine, for example, a pipeline owned by Spectra malfunctioned in the Penobscot Bay area on New Year’s Eve two years ago. According to local news sources, the accident resulted in “an emergency shutdown valve blowing open,” and in “a plume of gas 100 feet into the air.”

Regarding the blowout in Maine, Hanley, the Spectra director, states, “There was a malfunction of one of our valves from the compressor station and we had our team on the site in less than 30 minutes. There were no concerns to the safety of the community or the residents.” But residents are concerned. In the past, Spectra has been forced to pay more than $15 million in fines for discharging PCBs along an East Coast pipeline, and according to the US Environmental Protection Agency, Spectra took several decades to clean up these spills. Today, that same pipeline extends through Massachusetts on its way to Canada. In fact, it’s the same artery that Spectra hopes to stretch through Dedham and West Roxbury.

GO TIME

Despite the tenacious opposition to Spectra from both residents and politicians, construction continues. Adding insult to injury, this month Spectra filed a lawsuit against the City of Boston, arguing that the municipality is standing in the way of the West Roxbury Lateral. All together, the ordeal is quickly becoming an extremely complicated legal scrum that could take years to untangle.

A federal court dismissed Dedham’s lawsuit against FERC just last week. There is still hope in the court of appeals though, and in the case of Dedham v Goliath, residents are only getting louder. Their biggest rally up to this point is scheduled for Sunday afternoon. Among those likely to attend is Joseph Matthew Hickey, a technical analyst who has lived in Dedham with his wife Cindy for 12 years. At the Dedham Board of Health meeting, Hickey was among the protesters who stood up to speak. “I know a lot of you are saying this is the 11th hour,” he said, “but I feel like it’s two minutes to midnight.”

This article was produced in collaboration with the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. For more info on this and other projects visit medium.com/@binj and follow on Twitter @BINJreports.

PHOTO BY TRE TIMBERS

Stop the West Roxbury Lateral Pipeline, also known as SWRL, is led by Seamus Whelan. A Westie resident who has run for the Boston City Council, Whelan works full time as a nurse, and focuses on the pipeline issue on his days off. Along with other SWRL members, he often wears a bright red shirt advertising the cause at public events in a display of solidarity.

Butler hadn’t prepared for construction to begin so soon. Spectra was supposed to fire up their heavy equipment on June 29. Despite widespread opposition though, or perhaps because of that pushback against the pipeline, the timeline for the West Roxbury Lateral extension was moved to start two weeks early, on June 16. The reason for the change in schedule, like so much having to do with the pipeline, is unclear.

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BLUNT TRUTH

SPLITTING PURPLE HAIRS Dueling legalization campaigns finalize ballot language

BY MIKE CANN @MIKECANNBOSTON

GOT AN EVENT? LIST IT.

Use our self-serve listings page to get your event online TODAY!

digboston.com/listings We offer a free basic listing as well as enhanced and premium listings to really get you noticed.

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With an August 5 deadline approaching for proposals on initiatives to appear on the statewide ballot in November 2016, two separate factions are now finalizing plans to run competing campaigns to legalize cannabis in Massachusetts.

On one side, there is the local outfit Bay State Repeal, which is banking on a grassroots uprising with volunteers collecting the bulk of signatures. Theirs is likely a fool’s errand unless some new substantial contributions come through soon. Each measure will need 60,000-plus signatures in the first round of gathering, which is a daunting task without the proper bank.

On the other hand, there is the Washington, DC-headquartered Marijuana Policy Project. MPP has a national donor base, as well as a proven track record of winning ballot initiatives nationally and in the Bay State (see: decriminalization in 2008). This time around, they plan to run a million dollar campaign aiming for Mass to regulate cannabis like alcohol.

Of course, there’s still a chance for the under-funded Bay State Repeal. It all depends on the language of the MPP initiative, as a low plant count or criminal penalties that are too harsh for those caught growing outside of the system could lead many to back Bay State Repeal, whose leadership calls the MPP’s tax and regulate model “prohibition lite.”

From what I’ve seen, with specific language so far unknown, many local activists and advocates are thus far refusing to fund either initiative. Bay State Repeal recently publicly released a second draft of their plans online, while MPP has yet to disclose any critical details at all. According to the latter’s New England Policy Director Matt Simon, MPP is “guided by a local drafting committee of over a dozen that has yet to decide how this will play out. We’ve heard from all the sides, but it’s going to be interesting … We do have two members of Bay State Repeal on our drafting committee.“ Michael Latulippe, president of the Cannabis Society of Massachusetts, is among those who are currently withholding an endorsement. At the same time, he says he is concerned that MPP has not been transparent enough, especially in comparison with Bay State Repeal.

Latullipe is currently holding domains for reformma.com, regulatemass.com, and regulatema.com—all or any of which he hopes to use to help raise funds for, or to gift to one of the initiatives. So far, the Cannabis Society pres is undecided on which campaign will get to benefit from the already-active ReformMA portal, but he says language will be the deciding factor.

“We believe the people of Massachusetts deserve some role in creating legislation that is meant to serve them,” Latullipe says. “ReformMA currently owns regulatemass.com, which was requested recently by the Marijuana Policy Project to use for their campaign. Because of the importance of the many issues brought forth by the cannabis community in regards to regulating marijuana in Massachusetts, ReformMA will continue to hold onto the domains until we see the final language presented by both MPP and Bay State Repeal.”

Cannabis Society Secretary Jeremiah MacKinnon adds, “While Bay State Repeal has been very forthcoming with their initiative language to the public, the MPP has yet to release any information on their initiative to allow for public discussion, debate, and amendment. We hope all stakeholders and residents will have a chance to view and discuss the language before it is filed on August 5 with the Attorney General.”

In response, Jim Borghesani of MPP says, “We have a very inclusive drafting committee, including two BSR members working on the petition, and we’re following the process we set out to follow. The language will be publicly available soon. I guess folks will have to judge for themselves about the “prohibition lite” moniker, but we think a regulated and controlled market is the most realistic and effective alternative to prohibition, and we think it will present a strong argument to [Mass] voters in 2016. The bottom line: We think [Mass] voters will be receptive in 2016 to a new approach—namely, a regulated and controlled market—to scrap a longtime policy that has failed at every level.”

Then there is MassCann/NORML, the wildcard. With a new food contract for their annual and now two-day Boston Freedom Rally, the group could make a contribution of $10,000 or more to the campaign of one of the initiatives.

MassCann President Bill Flynn says, “It’s going to be up to our members, they may choose to endorse both or one, and then there’s the money issue. MassCann could make a contribution to one of the campaigns, but we won’t know until the language is released, and then we’ll take it to our members to decide.”

One way or the other, even if it’s “prohibition lite,” that sounds better than the prohibition that we have right now.

“We think [Mass] voters will be receptive in 2016 to a new approach--namely, a regulated and controlled market--to scrap a longtime policy that has failed at every level.”

MEDIA FARM

ESTRANGED FRUIT

Bending over backward for white terror suspects

BY MEDIA FARM @MEDIAFARM

The ONCE Lounge is here!

Open 5-10pm every Thurs, Fri & Sat Night with a New Bar Menu & Arcade Games

Do us a favor. Scratch that. Do yourself a favor. Google “estranged” plus “killer.”

Or “estranged” and “murderer,” or “estranged” and “homicide.” What do you get? Depending on the time and place, you’ll probably discover more apologies for white folks who did bad things than you will find desperately impassioned sympathy for the families of people of color who got caught up in crime.

As all but the most ignorant Americans must acknowledge in the wake of mass public and school shootings from Connecticut to Colorado, Caucasian executioners get special treatment. Take Dylann Roof, the Neanderthal who allegedly fired on a church-full of racial minorities in South Carolina. Authorities handled the accused killer with kid gloves, damn near took him out for dinner and a rom-com. Even worse, the pattern of coverage after the shooting in Charleston was similar to that which has unfolded after massacres committed

by Roof’s trigger-happy hillbilly contemporaries elsewhere, with the gunman’s mental stability immediately brought into question. Now go back to Google, and see how many articles you can find in which an alleged killer of color had their insanity defense staged by reporters before they even got a lawyer.

Here in Boston last week, we had a prime example of how cordial the media is toward the families of white suspects—even those who are accused of engineering an attack on the homefront inspired by ISIS! This particular story goes that 23-year-old Commonwealth native Alexander Ciccolo (aka Ali Al Amriki), son of Boston Police Department Captain Robert Ciccolo, was arrested for plotting violence and receiving firearms. It’s a tragedy, and only a monster could feel anything but badly for the Ciccolo clan for having to wrestle with their son’s illness. Nevertheless, we can use coverage of the incident as an example of the kind of compassion hacks should try displaying next time they consider a Latino or black murder suspect.

In the Ciccolo case, even respectable outlets like New York Magazine bent over backwards to exonerate the family in their headline (“Estranged Son of Boston Police Captain Arrested”), while the xenophobes at TownHall.com added a suggestive prefix for how readers should receive the news: “Scary: Estranged Son of Boston Police Captain Arrested.” And on, and on they parroted, from CBS (“The estranged son of a respected Boston police captain was arrested …”), to ABC affiliates (“Boston Police Captain’s Estranged Son Reportedly Arrested In FBI Terror Sting”), to the Berkshire Eagle, which squeezed their disclaimer into the first sentence: “Ciccolo is the estranged son of Boston Police Capt. Robert Ciccolo, a 27-year veteran of the Boston Police Department, who first alerted …” One is led to believe that perps who aren’t rhetorically severed from their fam before the nutgraf are still living on the couch in their ancestral homes, their every fantasy endorsed by mom, dad, and siblings alike.

Of all the noise around the Ciccolo arrest, however, the sharpest analysis came not from a paid writer or critic, but rather from Rich Herbert, a resident of Pittsfield who blew local pundits clean out of the water in a letter published by the aforementioned Eagle. Among Herbert’s gems:

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The New York Times referred to the incident as a “Terror Bomb Plot.” CBS News referred to it as an “ISIS-inspired terror plot.” ABC News reported on “the domestic threat post by ISIS.” They also claimed that the FBI found among his personal effects “jihad paperwork.” Apparently, even jihad isn’t free of bureaucracy. The reporting regarding Ciccolo’s “terrorist bomb plot” was almost entirely uniform, with some fringe exceptions.

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Was this the beginning of ISIS in America, or a deeply troubled youth with a history of mental illness and no connection whatsoever to reality, let alone the Middle East? The readers should decide for themselves.

Tickets: 617.934.2610 or 888.503.5659

Sounds like good advice for journalists as well.

[Media Farm is wrangled by DigBoston News + Features Editor Chris Faraone] FREE RADICAL ON DIGBOSTON.COM: In continued (over)reaction to #BlackLivesMatter protests on I-93 last winter, Mass lawmakers push to classify blocking the highway as attempted murder.

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MID-SUMMER MUSIC

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN

As the long days of summer burn hot through the midseason months, it’s important to get the right lineup of live music on one’s agenda in order to squeeze all the fun-juice out of summer’s bountiful fruit. Thus, we’ve assembled a quick reference guide to some of the shows to come, and who you may or may not want to have accompany you.

D I M R E M SUM

Miguel

VITALS: Try not to swoon when the R&B crooner fills the House of Blues with sultry notes for $30.

SHOW DATE: Aug 4 WHO TO BRING: The one who loves having drugged-up sex and thinks Prince is a god. houseofblues.com/boston

L A I C SPE

The Pill reunion show

VITALS: Dance to all the britpop your country never understood by hitting up Great Scott for $10 on Friday and $15 on Saturday.

SHOW DATE: Aug 14-15 WHO TO BRING: The one who only left their house if you were going to see the Pill greatscottboston.com

Modest Mouse

VITALS: Sad indie rock about lonesome drives and unintentional radio hits takes over Blue Hills Bank Pavilion for $46.

SHOW DATE: July 23 WHO TO BRING: The one who tweets passive aggressive shots at their boss. bluehillsbankpavilion.net/

Culture Club

VITALS: Pretend the ’80s are still going strong when the English act takes over Blue Hills Bank Pavilion in bold costumes for $40.

SHOW DATE: Aug 2 WHO TO BRING: The one who makes a point of buying androgynous clothing. bluehillsbankpavilion.net

VITALS: Chicago’s alt rock band from the ’90s brings sassy vocals back to life at Paradise Rock Club for $25.

SHOW DATE: July 30 WHO TO BRING: The one who posts ’90s nostalgia quizzes on Facebook every week. crossroadspresents.com/paradiserock-club

VITALS: Follow the basslines of buzz band indie rock and sloppy vocals your dad hates for $20 at Brighton Music Hall.

SHOW DATE: July 31 WHO TO BRING: The one who dropped out of college in ’02 and claims to have been a hipster before it was cool. crossroadspresents.com/brighton-music-hall

THUNDER CATS Your next go-to music club and rock bistro is coming in early August

BY DAN MCCARTHY @ACUTALPROOF

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VITALS: Local label EIS will bring out a massive roster (Pile, Krill, Kal Marks, etc.) for three days of epic shows at the Sinclair, Great Scott, and O’Briens for $8-12.

SHOW DATE: Aug 22-24 WHO TO BRING: The one who has every cassette of every local band … ever. sinclaircambridge.com greatscottboston.com obrienspubboston.com

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Veruca Salt

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Now that word is out that Somerville is going to be losing Johnny D’s (RIP) come early 2016, you can stifle your loss-of-live-music-venue angst by knowing that Thunder Road is about to come to life in the old Radio space just outside Union Square.

For months now, the Thunder Road team have had their hands full power washing graffiti off the brick in the 1930s Radio space, handbuilding the entire new upstairs bar, and making sure the new PA

Exploding In Sound’s “Thank You For Being a Friend” shows

system is killer and befitting of the forthcoming 250-300 person space (early reports: it is). Be sure to note the subterranean “Walnut Room” for a refuge during live shows, as well as a space for themed events (in the works: video game nights).

General Manager Dan Millen says that they’ll soon be doing some soft opening parties, and then kicking off the first night of business and music on Aug 1. They’re going for a “rock and roll bistro thing,” so think jalapeno

burgers, artisan flatbreads, quinoastuffed avocados with bacon jam, and a dish called the Kerouac, named for the author’s favorite dinner (read: a steak and a shot of booze). Most of the taps will be a lineup of local craft beers (Harpoon, Mayflower, Slumbrew). And PBR in cans.

Because of course.

THUNDER ROAD. SLATED TO OPEN AUG 1. 379 SOMERVILLE AVE., SOMERVILLE. THUNDERROADCLUB.COM

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Daily 7:00pm-8:30pm Daily 12:00pm-6:00pm Fri & Sat 9:00pm-10:30pm

Sensational Sunset Cruises

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Historical Harbor Tours

Starlit Evening Cruises

$20/person*

Sundays: ENDLESS SUMMAH

$22/person*

Thursdays: HIGH SEAS HUMOR

calypso, Paella, frozen drinks!

We cruise the harbor with the All-Star comedians from Improv Asylum

Mondays: WINDUSTRY NIGHT

they will have you laughing all night long! (21+)

Perfect for the weekend worker!

Wednesdays:

HARBURLESQUE

Fridays:

FLOATING BEER HAUL New selections weekly

burlesque show! (21+)

Mass Bay Lines

60 Rowes Wharf, Boston, MA 02110 Tickets: 617.934.2610 or 888.503.5659

NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

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MIDSUMMER SPECI

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KO AT THE SHIPYARD RISTORANTE FIORE

Neighborhood: North End Roof deck or patio: Roof deck Go-to move: Grab a table with a chosen date (maybe Tinder, maybe not Tinder) and split some prosciutto and melon with a chilled bottle of rose.

250 Hanover St., Boston. ristorantefiore.com

HOUSES FOR THE

SETTING SUN

Neighborhood: Eastie Roof deck or patio: Patio Go-to move: Procure a stack of their meat pies and whatever beer or house sangria they have going with some rousing games of cornhole. Meat pies and cornhole are a natural pairing, of course. 256 Marginal St., Boston. kocateringandpies.com/east-boston

BY DAN MCCARTHY @ACUTALPROOF

LEGAL HARBORSIDE

DANTE RESTAURANT

Neighborhood: Museum of Science-ish Roof deck or patio: Patio Go-to move: Order rounds of sfizi (Italian tapas), more rounds of ice cold Peroni or classic formula Schlitz, and sit back as the afternoon sun bathes the river and Beacon Hill in magic-hour light. Do it. 40 Edwin H. Land Blvd., Cambridge. restaurantdante.com

PHOTOS BY STEPHANIE BUONOPANE | DANTE PHOTO COURTESY DANTE

Neighborhood: Seaport Roof deck or patio: Roof deck Go-to move: Arrive with a gang of your pals, overeat together (see: oysters), and knock back a few pitchers of punch under the retractable roof while gazing out at the harbor. Or just drinking more punch. 270 Northern Ave., Boston. legalseafoods.com/ restaurants/boston-legal-harborside

With the midsummer point of the year reached and the days slowly ticking away until we’re consumed with misery and coldness once more, it’s important to take stock of the available ways one can drink in both the late-day weather and sunsets, as well as alcohol and fun. Here are four choice spots to do just that while the summer is still upon us.

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NEWS TO US

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DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

13

OLDE MAGOUNʼS SALOON PRESENTS:

MIDSUMMER SPECI

AL

BACON PALOOZA

WEDNESDAYʼS • JULY 1ST-29TH 5-11PM ARANCINI

Crispy Risotto Croquette / Pancetta / fontina Cheese / Amatraciana Sauce

HOG WILD RANGOON

Black Pepper Bacon / Charred Jalapenos / Cream Cheese / Plum Sauce

FIG-ALICIOUS

Bacon Wrapped Figs / Goat Cheese / Balsamic Vinegar Drizzle

BACON POUTINE

Waffle Fries / Cheese Curds /

Bacon Onion Gravy / Soft Fried Egg

CHICKEN & BISCUITS BACON BOA

Pan Fried Asian Bun / Slab Bacon / Kimichi / Korean BBQ Sauce

BACON WRAPPED PORK TENDERLOIN

Roasted peach & Shallot Gastrique

BACON BOMB MAC & CHEESE Apple wood Smoked Bacon / chicharones / Jalapeño Bacon / Pancetta

WARM BACON AND BREAD PUDDING

Salted Caramel Sauce / Bourbon Pecan Ice Cream

@MAGOUNSSALOON OLDEMAGOUNSSALOON

518 Medford St. Somerville

magounssaloon.com|617 - 7 76 - 2 6 0 0 14

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FRESH MARKET

In order for the new Boston Public Market to succeed, Haymarket must too

BY DAN MCCARTHY @ACUTALPROOF Liz Morningstar—former secretary of cabinet affairs for Governor Deval Patrick and current CEO of the forthcoming Boston Public Market opening July 30—is something of a bon vivant when it comes to grocery shopping. In fact, she’s obsessed.

“I don’t care about shoes, I’m not that big of a clothes shopper, but I love to grocery shop,” she says. “Love fresh produce … the smell of it, [and] I love to look at it,” she says. “I don’t pretend to be a big foodie, I’m not a snob … that’s not my thing. [Grocery shopping] is a totally overwhelming, beautiful experience. I know that sounds crazy, but I believe that.”

It’s not that crazy. If the proliferation of expensive organic markets and the cult of shops like Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods are any metric, there are a lot of other people just like her. Moreover, the ground shift of how people are buying food and what food they’re buying is continuing to lean toward products that are traceable to the source and organic, especially in urban environments dominated by the millennial sect. Which is why Morningstar has been spearheading this project with her sights firmly set on bringing a kind of melting pot, mixed-use (there will be a 3,200-square-foot demonstration and test kitchen with public events), and 100 percent locally Mass-sourced epicurean wonderland to the Rose Kennedy Greenway.

The market will house over 30 and represent over 65 local farmers, butchers, fishmongers, cheese makers, cider wizards, masters of chocolate (Somerville’s Taza will have a huge chocolate milling station on site), and more, but will also serve as a testing ground for start-up culinary projects (see: hand-pulled Japanese-style ramen from Noodle Lab), as well as market extensions of local favorites (see: Bon Me).

But the appeal here isn’t just for the die-hard localvores, but also those who don’t even consider eating local. “I’m actually more interested in the people who aren’t, and they come in here and they’re like, ‘You mean I could eat meat that is all from Mass? I just didn’t think that was possible,’” she says. “[It’s an] educational experience … you can show how things are being made.”

The project’s origin dates back to 2001 and the formation of the Boston Public Market Association. In 2011 the location (directly over the Haymarket MBTA station) was chosen to embolden the nascent Market District, including the abutting Haymarket open-air market outside its doors, which has been in operation for over 180 years.

And the history of that area wasn’t lost on Morningstar, either. She insists that she has kept a watchful eye on every stage of the project since coming on board in 2013 to ensure this wouldn’t ultimately be a privately funded (to the tune of $9 million in donations), city-supported endeavor that would land in the neighborhood and spell doom for the historic produce market.

“This is a state project, [and] Haymarket has been here for years,” she says. “They’re important [and] their history to me personally.” Still, it goes without saying that even the prospect of a negative impact on a farmer’s market that largely sees the local immigrant population manning the carts and doing their produce shopping is enough to turn most people sour.

“Over time I think [the local Haymarket vendors] have seen already the impact and the additional customers that are down here, and it is a good thing,” says Morningstar. But I will say to you what I said to my board and the commission: If we succeed and Haymarket doesn’t, we have failed. It is important that they remain, succeed, [and] thrive.” >> BOSTON PUBLIC MARKET. OPENS JULY 30. 136 BLACKSTONE ST., BOSTON. FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT BOSTONPUBLICMARKET.ORG

PHOTOS BY STEPHANIE BUONOPANE

Fried Chicken / Buttermilk Biscuits / Country Bacon Gravy

Take 5, at 5, in the Fenway 5 Thursday, July 30th 5-7pm

◊ Lansdowne Pub 9 Lansdowne Street

◊ Bleacher Bar 82 A Lansdowne Street ◊ Game On 82 Lansdown Street

#take5

Share how you Take 5 on Instag Tag @harp ram: oonbrewer y and five friends in yo of your ur post an d use the ha shtag.

Fir

◊ Bill’s Bar 5 Lansdowne Street ◊ Loretta’s Last Call 1 Lansdowne Street

st 25 peop le to show their post to th e Bartend er gets a bee r ON US!

®

NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

15

SLUSH FUN

EVERETT

GOING CLEAR: I adopted a Slush Puppie obsession, and it’s unlike any that you’ve heard of

MIDSUMMER SPECI

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BY CHRIS FARAONE @FARA1 I was probably nine years old, covered in trash, because back then we played in the dump behind my apartment complex.

There were plenty of parks nearby, but the kids I hung with in my native Flushing at the time were dirtbags out of central casting, and to be honest, I kind of enjoyed spelunking through old rusted appliances. Every now and then we’d find a porno mag, and inevitably we’d rumble until somebody prevailed and claimed ownership of it. But best of all, when we finally dug enough change out of sopping wet couch pillows, we brought our shrapnel to the Asian grocery around the block and bought Slush Puppies.

The owner of the corner store was nice enough to let us in covered in filth, but he was also a notorious scoundrel and cheapskate. So one day when I showed up with 40 cents and asked him to spot me a dime for a 50 cent Slush Puppie, he rejected my proposal, but said that I could have the ice—only with no flavor.

Not much of a negotiator, I accepted the deal with no argument, and walked out with my Garbage Pail Kid buddies, jealous of the sweet delicious neon swimming in their flimsy paper cups.

But then I sipped. Then slurped.

Then gulped. Then gulped again. Then I ditched the straw—a risky move—and funneled the rest into my throat. Filled with a surprised enthusiasm, I looked up at my friends as if I had discovered gold but couldn’t believe it: “These things are better with no flavor!”

“Yeah right it’s better with no flavor, dickhead. Says the guy with a 40 cent cup of ice!”

They laughed in my face. But I knew that I was onto something, and frankly, I didn’t care if anybody else shared my enthusiasm for virgin slush. The joke was on them; not like anyone was counting calories in the ’80s, but as very few people realize, the ice in a traditional Puppie already tastes like rock candy before they squirt in the syrup. If you’re looking for a sugar shock to tilt your pancreas on edge, then by all means, go for Licious Lemon Limecicle or better yet, the Polar Purple Shiver. But on a blistering summer afternoon, whether following

a day of scavenging through rubbish or of just shooting hoops, there’s nothing more refreshing than a naked Pup’, or as I have ordered it every time I’m fortunate enough to stumble onto a machine, “Just the ice please, no syrup whatsoever.”

For me, even few savory comfort foods compare or conjure such sensual and vivid memories of preteen pleasure.

I’m not alone; all sorts of people worship everything from slush to shave ice—my family back in New York swears by the Lemon Ice King of Corona, while friends in Boston search for the legendary Slushie Man around Roxbury or smuggle tubs of Del’s delicious frozen lemonade over the border from Rhode Island. Among brain-freeze aficionados, though, there is an even smaller faction that appreciates an old-fashioned Slush Puppie, as opposed to the pre-mixed concoctions by that brand or any other, and a more elite club within that niche learned enough to “go clear.” A lot of people swear by Slurpees, and I respect the chemical concoction that enables my occasional frozen cola to remain chilled and fluffy in defiance of the sun and physics. But for me, the Puppie is the ideal rush. My crush, the perfect slush.

These days, I get my Puppies at Marascio’s Market in the Readville section of Hyde Park, about a block and a half from the home of former Boston Mayor Tom Menino. Better known to locals as “Johnny’s” for the longtime owner’s first name, the corner store is straight out of the 1940s, right down to the sausages they make in plain sight daily and a crew of regulars who occupy the back room.

Going there, typically with my niece, throws me back to some of the best days of my youth. In a recent win, I even got her to start ordering Puppies with no flavor. “Just the ice,” she tells our friend behind the counter. The other day, I heard that Johnny sold the place, and word around the neighborhood is that the new proprietors are set to take over soon. It will be interesting to see what they do with the store, which could definitely use a makeover. If they move their perfect Pup’ even an inch, though, the city will be worse off for it.

GTFO: SWIMMING HOLES EDITION

BY DIGSTAFF Sure, it’s now possible to swim in the Charles River publicly. And that’s great and all, but as Jeff Goldblum pointed out in Jurassic Park, just because you spend time thinking about if you could do something, doesn’t mean you should do something.

So, here are three natural swimming holes and waterfalls to mark with a pushpin on your map and hit before the end of summer in Mass, New Hampshire, and Connecticut.

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CAMBRIDGE PARK ST. COPLEY SQ.

ROXBURY MALL

FRANKLIN PARK

HYDE PARK

BOOZE POP: Night Market 48 JFK St., Cambridge Did we say this was a booze-free feature? We hope not. If we did, we were lying, because you should definitely check out the frozen Sake slushies they’re slinging at Night Market.

READCHILL: Marascio’s Market 1758 River St., Hyde Park As mentioned in the attached article. The original, the incredible Slush Puppie—remember to ask for one with no extra flavor.

DEL AGUA: Quincy Farmer’s Market 43 Dennis Ryan Pkwy., Quincy Hard as it is to admit, the classic Rhode Island staple, Del’s Frozen Lemonade, out-cools all the competition. Yes, even Slush Puppie. Catch them on Fridays in the summer on this side of the Commonwealth border in Quincy.

Chapel Brook Falls, Ashfield MA A set of waterfalls that total 45 feet in drops, with the final falls ending in a 20-foot drop “block formation” and a 5-foot slide, and smaller cascades and pools found just downstream from the falls.

QUINCY

SLUSH DADDY: Richie’s Classic Italian Slush 3 Garvey St., Everett Don’t take it from us. Nah, take it from every guido who has ever proudly called the North Shore home.

Or anyone else for that matter. When it comes to icy treats that require spoons, Richie’s has no peer.

ROYAL FREEZE: Slush King Park St. and Copley Sq., Boston We’re not sure how these guys keep all that cold deliciousness so, well, cold in the heat of summer, but we do know that seeing them posted on the edge of the Common is tantamount to finding an oasis.

ROX BERRY: Various Vendors Franklin Park and Roxbury Mall More of a shave ice than a traditional slush per se, you’ll want to look for a man or woman pushing one of those silver carts that blind you in the sun. See whatever flavor all the regulars are getting, and order the same for yourself.

Diana’s Baths, Bartlett NH Well-known by hikers and outdoorsy folk, Diana’s Baths are a series of natural granite-basin pools off an easy-to-find trail and simple hike in the White Mountains. It’s something of sacred ground, and the Native Americans dubbed it Oonahgemessuk Weegeet: “Home of the Water Fairies”.

Enders Falls, West Granby, Connecticut Essentially a series of five waterfalls with a medium-sized pool at the base of the falls; the last pool is marked by a gorgeous 15-foot waterfall. Pull a Leo DiCaprio in The Beach at your own peril. Rocks hurt, man.

NEWS TO US

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DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

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ARTS ENTERTAINMENT

18

THU 7.23

FRI 7.24

SAT 7.25

SUN 7.26

SUN 7.26

TUES 7.28

Visual Boston at ICA

Yoga, Music, and Chocolate at BKLN Boulders

The Apartment

Matt Teuten book release of Other Side Cafe

100th Anniversary of NE Poetry Club

Taste of Ethnic Boston

If you’re into one-nightonly digital slideshows that are spinoffs of cutting edge art events in LA, you should head to the ICA on Thursday. All Visual Boston will be showcasing the works of over 40 lens-based artists (in collaboration with over 100 artists), with a live soundtrack by Boston-based BATHAUS. It goes down in the ICA Art Lab, and there will even be a free zine for you. Just go.

Indoor rock-climbing gyms are pretty self explanatory.

They exist to let you climb on big things indoors.

However, if you’re looking for a different kind of Friday night, you can get in on the candlelit yoga experience happening, set to dreamy music, followed by a chocolate and cider pairing using local stars Downeast Cider House. All you have to do is not do something that hurts you, and this could be a nice little Friday night.

Chances are if you’re a regular reader of ours, you don’t live in a posh penthouse apartment. No matter though. You can head to one on Saturday in Southie, as it will be turned into a one-day collective photography exhibit featuring works that reflect on how we interact with space and housing. Oh, and there will be live music from local acts like W00dy, Project Mixx, Byoosik, and Bob Diesel through the night. Nice.

There’s a good chance if you spent any amount of time over the years mixing it up in the (sadly) now-closed Other Side Cafe, you’ll want to head to Firebrand Saints on Sunday for the release of local artist Matt Teuten’s self-published book, which uses his extensive archive of photos of life at Other Side over the years. Copies of the book will be on hand, as will a photobooth. New memories, people. Let’s make them.

Sure, you fancy yourself something of a poet. You can take four lines of text and make the ends rhyme. Nice work. But if you’d like to really get down and dirty with some great poetry, you can join the outdoor reading and centennial celebration of the oldest poetry reading club in the nation while sitting on the east lawn of the Longfellow National Historic Site. It may just improve your haiku game.

Can’t hurt it, that’s for sure.

Some would consider heading into unknown neighborhood and noshing on whatever mysterious foodstuffs found there to be a good way of dabbling in ethni flavors. Not a bad idea. Not a great one either.

So if you want a good cross section, head to the second annual Taste of Ethnic Boston on Tuesday for some live steel drum music, a public art discussion, and food from the likes of Teranga (Senegalese), Committee (Mediterranean), and Montien (Thai). Happy over-eating.

ICA. 100 Northern Ave., Boston. 7:30-9pm/all ages/ FREE. For more information, visit allvisualboston.org/ upcoming

Brooklyn Boulders.

12A Tyler St., Somerville.

10pm/21+/$25. For more information, visit brooklynboulders.com/ somerville

Penthouse at 26 West Broadway.

26 West Broadway, Boston.

11am-11pm/all ages/$5. For more information, visit darkroomboston.com

Firebrand Saints.

1 Broadway, Cambridge.

617-401-3399. 2pm/all ages/ cash bar.

New England Poetry Club.

105 Brattle St., Cambridge.

3pm/all ages/FREE. For more information, visit nepoetryclub.org

Harborside Inn. 185 State St., Boston.

5:30-8pm/21+/$15. For tickets, visit getkonnected. com/events/a-taste-ofethnic-boston

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PHOTO BY MATT TEUTEN

CELEBRATE THE LEGENDARY OTHERSIDE CAFE THIS SUNDAY. BUT YOU HAVE TO BRING YOUR OWN COCONUT BRA.

NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

19

MUSIC

MUSIC

THANK YOU

WHAT BIG EYES YOU HAVE

Part ways with T.T. The Bear’s Place the right way

Soft Fangs gets intimate at O’Briens

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN

Like most people, my first visit to T.T. the Bear’s Place was during freshman year of college. Boston’s music scene was spilling over with shows, fall was spreading through the city, and a buzz filled the air I had never heard before. I constantly stressed over which concert to go to, for there was—and still is—never a lack of options. But then I arrived at T.T. the Bear’s to see the Octopus Project. The tiny stage held its ground while the crowd, dancing to electronic beeps with whiskey sours in their hands, squashed against it. I had heard about the epic shows of the past, about the Pixies blowing the walls out and Arcade Fire bringing people to tears, but it was only then that I finally understood. This wasn’t just a small venue that booked stadium-acts-to-be; it was a community of passionate, fearless, unrelenting fans who loved music wholly regardless of an act’s hype.

T.T. the Bear’s Place is a venue of memories for more people than the city of Boston can hold. It’s where I lost a shoe during a Joyce Manor set and they stopped the show to help find it. Where I went to my first show solo and no one raised an eyebrow to make me second-guess the decision. Where I got punched in the face while ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead played and the whole room supported my decision to carry on moshing with a hand to my bleeding nose. T.T. the Bear’s Place is a venue for its people, for the bands, and, most importantly, for the music. Those pool tables in the back and the U-shaped bar don’t hide its efforts to foster a friendly environment, and neither does the host stamping your hand at the door.

They’re summing up over 40 years in a week of memorable shows: the Lights Out, Ad Frank & the Fast Easy Women, Parlour Bells, Francine, and Cujo featuring Jen Trynin on July 22; Harris, Emergency Music, Vic Firecracker, Orbit, Field Nurse, and Atomic Spectra on July 23; the Neighborhoods, the Dogmatics, the Bristols, Martin & Morrell, and Bleu on July 24; Scruffy The Cat, O Positive, and Randy Black & Willie Alexander on July 25. After that, nothing.

You read the DigBoston. You’ve been to T.T.’s. So head to one of its final shows before those rattling doors never open again, because you will never, ever forget it. And don’t make us tell you twice. >> T.T.’S FAREWELL BLOWOUT. T.T. THE BEAR’S, 10 BROOKLINE ST., CAMBRIDGE. 617.492.2327. WED 7.22-SAT 7.25. 8PM/18+/$15.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT TTTHEBEARS.COM

MUSIC EVENTS WED 7.22

ARTSY ELECTRONIC SON LUX + LANDLADY

[Brighton Music Hall, 158 Brighton Ave., Allston. 8pm/18+/$15. crossroadspresents.com]

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EUPHORIC PUNK BEACH SLANG + HURRY

[Great Scott, 1222 Comm Ave., Allston. 9pm/18+/ $10. greatscottboston.com]

DIGBOSTON.COM

FRI 7.24

COLLEGE INDIE ROCK COMEBACK INTERPOL

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

SAT 7.25

T.T.’S FINAL FAREWELL SCRUFFY THE CAT + O POSITIVE + RANDY BLACK & THE HEATHCROPPERS

[T.T. the Bear’s Place, 10 Brookline St., Cambridge.

8pm/18+/$15. ttthebears.com]

Naming your band after anything weapon-like implies a punk ruggedness or merciless speed, but John Lutkevich’s indie rock band, Soft Fangs, snagged an appropriate title. “I made a cat made out of buttons and marshmallows for fangs, and my friend said, ‘Soft fangs,’ he says when asked about its origins. “I thought it fit the music well.”

It does. Soft Fangs is the type of fragile folk rock that’s hard to imbue with originality, yet Lutkevich pulls it off. He crafts his own form of sad, fragile, distant songwriting that recalls Elliott Smith as much as it does Sparklehorse, a vibe enhanced by recording the lo-fi songs in his parents’ attic. It’s a comfortable melancholy that offers respite from total immersion. “I feel like a lot of kids relate to it,” Lutkevich says.

“But my grandfather thought it was good too.”

From the slowcore sigh of “Dog Park” to the odd familiarity of “Point of View,” Soft Fangs scrapes up sounds ideal for fall weather, but summer heat won’t let idle chatter interrupt the band’s live shows. Lutkevich knows how to dodge folk music’s pitfalls. “Don’t rip off Dylan (too much), no dressing like you’re going to mine coal or just fought in the Revolutionary War, and don’t think that playing an acoustic guitar makes you a protest singer,” he says.

“Also, don’t play the chord progression to ‘House of the Rising Sun’ at a slower speed and try to tell me you made that up.”

After this tour, he’s looking ahead.

Lutkevich’s first full-length is finalized and ready to come to fruition, but that isn’t even the bulk of what’s on his plate. He hits the studio in September to work on his next album. Turns out a man with soft fangs has big eyes, too.

>> SOFT FANGS W/ HONEYSUCKLE, AMY & THE ENGINE, COUNT AND KING, REBEL IN THE MORNING. O’BRIEN’S PUB, 3 HARVARD AVE., ALLSTON. 617.782.6245. SUN 7.26. 1PM/18+/$15.

OBRIENSPUBBOSTON.COM.

MON 7.27

WED 7.29

[Great Scott, 1222 Comm Ave., Allston. 9pm/18+/ $13. greatscottboston.com]

[Brighton Music Hall, 158 Brighton Ave., Allston. 7pm/18+/$13. crossroadspresents.com]

BIG BROTHER EMO THE APPLESEED CAST + ANNABEL + DADS

BEACH ROCK FOR DAYS CAYUCAS + HIBOU

TheAmazing

Acro Cats with e th Rock Cats

d n a b t ca scued y l n o e e h t R e ! e d s l Comee entire wore cats can be in th e cats prov Regent Theatre hous ed!

7 Medford St, Arlington n i a July 23rd - 26th tr www.regentheatre.com for tickets http://www.circuscats.com for info

NEWS TO US

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FILM

WRECK’S IN EFFECT

Trainwreck wraps itself up with an uncharacteristic tidiness

BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN

THURS 7/23

THE FAMILY DINNER JUICE

FRI 7/24

BIM SKALA BIM

PAJAMA SLAVE DANCERS BLUNT OF IT SAT 7/25 - LEEDZ PRESENTS:

CZARFACE

(INSPECTAH DECK + 7L & ESCOTERIC) RA THE RUGGED MAN, MC KABIR SUN 7/26 - BOWERY PRESENTS:

REGGIE & THE FULL EFFECT ALL AGES

THURS 7/30 - LEEDZ PRESENTS:

RJD2

BLUEPRINT WED 7/22

ONCUE

THURS 7/23 - BOWERY PRESENTS:

MR TWIN SISTER

MOON KING, FUNERAL ADVANTAGE FRI 7/24

TREVOR FRANKEL

What iteration of Johnny Depp would you sleep with? That’s what Amy Townsend (Amy Schumer, playing herself without playing herself) and her friend Nikki are considering as they sit in two bathroom stalls. They’re staff writers at a men’s magazine—S’Nuff—and their debate is as fierce as Depp’s eyeliner. (For whatever it’s worth, Pirates-era femme-Johnny is the one to beat.) It’s the sort of observational digression you usually find in stand-up comedy. And when it makes room for such beautiful bits of witty nothingness, Judd Apatow’s Trainwreck— written by Schumer—can match the vitality of a Lenny Bruce set.

Some riffs are transgressive. Some achieve more—they massage Schumer’s performative promiscuity into cinematic poetry. Townsend begins dating surgeon-to-the-athletic-stars Dr. Aaron Conners (Bill Hader). One montage sees them “normaling” like a couple in a Julia Roberts movie: touring the city, leaning on each other, making out—all while Townsend is verbally vomiting over the sentiment of the sequence via voiceover. Maybe it’s a stretch to say that Trainwreck is making a calculated effort not just to subvert the romcom genre but to offend any audience member not at ease with female sexuality. But how else to explain the scene where Townsend monologues about that time she got a condom caught in her cervix?

Another scene redoes an iconic composition from Woody Allen’s Manhattan, except when you see Townsend and Connors on a bench—where Allen sat with Diane Keaton—you notice she’s going down on him. It’s cheeky, but Apatow knows just how long to hold on it; Trainwreck isn’t his best movie, but it may be his best directed. There’s one profoundly moving composition where his camera stares at the couple, head-on, while they sit side by side in a cab: Townsend has propositioned Connors, and he’s working out the possibilities and trying to catch up as she’s smirking in anticipation. The moment contains everything we need to know about the characters and their relationship—she’s in charge, he’s along for the ride, and they’re uncontrollably attracted to each other—and it’s probably the most captivating image Apatow has ever filmed. (Thanks to Schumer, it’s also the sexiest.)

A shot like that suggests that the upside of Apatow is emerging. But he’s still got his blind spots—he’s a better director of comedians than he is of actors. He

CHRISTA GNIADEK, JARRET CLAYMAN SAT 7/25 - BOWERY PRESENTS:

THE MEKONS - SOLD OUT SUN 7/26

AARON GILLESPIE

WRECK’S IN EFFECT continued on pg. 24

FILM EVENTS WED 7.22

FRI 7.24

MON 7.27

STRAW DOGS

WHITE DOG

SEVEN SAMURAI

SAM PECKINPAH’S

MON 7/27 - LEEDZ PRESENTS:

[Somerville Theatre. 55 Davis Sq., Somerville.

8pm/R/$10. 35mm. somervilletheatreonline. com/somerville-theatre]

TUES 7/28 - LEEDZ PRESENTS:

THU 7.23

WILLIAM BECKETT

SKEPTA

BERNER (TAYLOR GANG)

PRESENTED BY INTERNATIONAL PSYCHOANALYTIC ASSOCIATION CONGRESS

THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES

[ICA Boston. 100 Northern Ave, Boston. 8pm/R/$10-12.]

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SAMUEL FULLER’S [Harvard Film Archive. 24 Quincy St., Harvard Sq., Cambridge. 7pm/PG/$7-9.

35mm. hcl.harvard.edu/hfa] SAT 7.25

AKIRA KUROSAWA’S

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WRECK’S IN EFFECT continued from pg. 22 molds entire films to accommodate that deficiency, throwing coherent characterizations out for the sake of gags (Tilda Swinton plays a monstrously selfish magazine editor, who nonetheless shows up at the funeral of a man she’s never met) and then throwing narrative out for the sake of cameos. Chris Evert, Matthew Broderick, and LeBron James stage an emotional intervention for Connors, deep into the movie, despite only LeBron having been on screen prior. The whole audience leans forward and asks, “Why?” And the best that Trainwreck can offer seems to be, “Why not?”

But maybe all those digressions are an essential part of these Apatow movies. Maybe “why not?” is an abiding principle of his art. At his best—in Funny People—all the randomness condenses into a thematic whole. And when it does, it’s the closest we get to a cinematic equivalent of stand-up comedy: The first riff goes one way, and the next another, but they’re all tied together by the closing line. Trainwreck, focusing almost entirely on Townsend’s messy sexuality and the way the uptight Conners is thrown for a loop by it, achieves that thematic unity. The only problem is that the last lines summing it all up are as conventional as the romcoms Schumer is making fun of.

It could be that she and Apatow intend the film’s narrative as parody. That would explain why she sprints to the film’s last location (even though she’s not in a rush), why we see her getting dressed for that same rendezvous (even though she changes into a different outfit before the scene starts), and why the film’s bombastic final moments—they involve choreographed dancing—seem so deliriously unreal. Whether it’s sincere or spoof—a tongue-in-cheek piss-taking or a concession to commercial appeal—Trainwreck wraps itself up with an uncharacteristic tidiness. It’s a pat happy ending that the movie has certainly earned. But Schumer and her verbose, filthy frankness deserve better. >> TRAINWRECK. RATED R. NOW PLAYING EVERYWHERE.

FILM

FAKE LA MOTTA On the falseness of Southpaw

BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN The performances Robert De Niro gave for Martin Scorsese were etched into the canon for their flame-seared intensity.

But you rewatch them and see a man whose temperature fluctuates upwards and downwards. When he kills Harvey Keitel’s pimp in Taxi Driver, it’s prefaced with a “hey, Sport” that’s played with chilling innocence. Simple relativism: Hot is only hot when you feel it after cold. It’s the “hey,” not the gunshot, that gets you.

As Billy Hope, the Jake La Motta-esque boxer in Antoine Fuqua’s Southpaw, Jake Gyllenhaal runs so hot that the thermometer breaks. He’s a Hell’s Kitchen orphan-turnedjunior heavyweight champ who redeemed himself by starting a family (Rachel McAdams plays Maureen, his tough-girl wife, rocking an accent as affected as her gun-moll attitude) and exorcises his leftover angst in the ring. He screams into the camera, mid-fight, as though he took the title Raging Bull too literally. A fiery performance, sure—but he’s firing blanks.

The script is by Sons of Anarchy auteur Kurt Sutter, which is to say that the characters are archetypes of the Biblical, Shakespearean, and Scorsesean varieties. McAdams gets saddled with the weight of playing star-crossed lover and Lady Macbeth simultaneously: She mouths off to a rival during press conferences, but begs Jake to retire during post-fight cuddles, and then—when said rival’s posse fires a shot during a scuffle—she takes a bullet. It would be generous to even say that McAdams plays a character. Her existence, and its end, is merely what’s needed to get Hope to rock-bottom. She’s a sacrificial actress.

Her death turns Billy into Job with anger management issues. And the script throws more tragedies at him than would a black-and-white melodrama. Child Protective Services takes his daughter away, and she promptly turns her back on him. Billy strikes a referee mid-fight, instigating two lawsuits. Then he loses his boxing license. Soon he’s being rejected from janitorial jobs. Sutter would drop a piano on the character’s head mid-fight, if only he could find an arena with an open roof.

Gyllenhaal sees the utter lack of subtlety in the scenario—his character ends up with a living cliché, a one-eyed over-the-hill trainer (Forest Whitaker) who drops golden oldies à la “boxing is like a chess match”—and elevates his game to comparably ridiculous heights.

He delivers his dialogue with the old Terry Malloy-mumble, but his abrasive facial gestures (eyes flared, head shaking, neck cranking left and right) make even that seem loud. This isn’t acting, it’s contortion.

Southpaw is about finding grace and redemption through suffering, via the channeling of rage into talent—which is to say that it represents how a 12-year-old would interpret Raging Bull.

And it borrows that film’s most iconic scene: Hope, like LaMotta to Sugar Ray, throws his hands down mid-fight and challenges his opponent to give him the punishment he deserves. But the nuances of De Niro’s performance—the sadness in his eyes, the shallowness of his reactions to triumph, the sheer, unshakeable defeat that he carries through each scene—are missing.

All Gyllenhaal has are the gestures themselves: the screams, the flexed muscles, the Brando diction—the most tired external symbols of toxic masculinity. They burn this movie out. >> SOUTHPAW. RATED R. OPENS EVERYWHERE FRI 7.24.

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FILM SHORTS BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN ANT-MAN So far as we can tell, all Marvel superheroes have the same damn ability: They fly into the air and punch people really hard. So bully for AntMan (title role played by Paul Rudd), if only for its scale—the strongest moments of this action-heist-comedy involve toys, insects, and a keychain.

The sequel setups (endless nods to a second insect superhero we never see) and extraneous world-building (Anthony Mackie’s Falcon, from Captain America: The Winter Soldier, arrives for a throwdown) feel as factory-produced as ever. But at least there’s something new on this joint’s dollar menu.

MAGIC MIKE XXL

INSIDE OUT It’s a head trip: The new Pixar movie takes place inside a teenage girl’s psyche, where characters like Joy (Amy Poehler) and Anger (Lewis Black) dictate her actions. The stakes are low—her family moves, and some non-humans get lost, just like Toy Story—and the resulting drama is inevitably inert. But who cares?

The beauty is in the details, like in the way the emotions’ bodies are rounded off into amorphous blobs of energy rather than structured by hard lines. Dramatizing chemical imbalances is admirable, but doing it with such aesthetic vigor? That’s beautiful.

THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT

JURASSIC WORLD If you didn’t know that ’90s nostalgia has hit critical mass, then see the new Jurassic Park film—judging by the box office receipts, you probably have already. Every single sequence in the Chris Pratt-led sequel is centered around callbacks to Steven Spielberg’s original film. Have you been waiting 20 years for another look at the dino that blinded that film’s secondary villain? You’re in luck! Then the film has the nerve to make jokes about the overbranding of stadiums and theme parks. This whole film’s a branded advertisement—reinforcing our reverence for a film we already saw 20 years ago.

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD Max is almost mute. Car chases fill the entire running time. Backstories are illustrated using only the scars and wounds on character’s bodies.

Fury Road speaks to us visually—it’d work entirely without sound. There’s only one verbal motif: “Who killed the world?” shouted by the film’s six heroines toward the patriarchal figures who scorched their planet.

Scoff at the inclusion of progressive politics in a film this unashamedly violent, but everything eventually clicks together. We see a world in need of tearing down. Fury Road finds great cinematic beauty doing exactly that.

A shift to a different stage: The first Mike was an economic parable (Shampoo for the iPhone set), but XXL presents itself as pop-philosophy.

The strippers treat their work as an art form—after all, they’re audience pleasers. See the way cinematographer Steven Soderbergh shoots these dances—camera low to the ground, overhead lights uniting the bodies into one singular color, men grinding incessantly, dollar bills falling from outstretched arms like autumn leaves from the branches— and leave the movie confusing sex and art yourself.

If you’ve taken a psych course, you know the setup: 24 students separated randomly into “guards” and “prisoners.” The awful twist is that—with no direction—the former immediately began abusing the latter. But director Kyle Patrick Alvarez has little to add to the textbook, other than daft horrormovie flourishes. When the dialogue isn’t circling the theme of “power corrupts” like water around a drain, we’re left with Billy Crudup—as ringleader Philip Zimbardo—roving the grounds with a pained smile, like Vincent Price in a haunted house. But there was charm to Price’s bravado.

This smirk is just smug.

TANGERINE Tangerine has two subjects— Hollywood and genitals—with the subtextual suggestion that movies lie to us about both. The taco stands and pizza shops of Santa Monica Boulevard line the background as SinDee Rella, a transgender prostitute just out of jail, hunts down the “real bitch” that’s been sleeping with her pimp-slash-boyfriend. A screwball farce of criss-crossed identity politics ensues, with an emphasis on that which is always left out of screen comedies: the lower classes’ local hangouts and an abiding interest in the politics of having a penis.

Tangerine takes Hollywood and fucks it.

TED 2 The humor and energy of the first one was strangely specific to the region, but only one note in Ted 2 feels Boston-authentic: Mark Wahlberg plays a divorced Irish guy who drinks too much so he can avoid his feelings. The rest is standard-issue Seth MacFarlane—absurd scenarios (a talking bear suing for human rights) interrupted by random pop references (a study session becomes a shot-for-shot recreation of a Breakfast Club montage). The story concludes with a scene at New York Comic Con, a fitting location: These characters aren’t townies, they’re brands.

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THEATER

CUT TO THE CHASE

One of the brightest choreographers in the biz sets his sights on ART’s world premiere of Waitress

BY CHRISTOPHER EHLERS @_CHRISEHLERS

Thursday JULY 23 12:00 AM

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

I think a lot of people want to know if there’s a future for The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

That project was so emotionally resonant for so many of us that worked on it, but I’ve never done something where audience members have been so vocal. I think for all of us, we hope there’s a future, but obviously Disney has many projects in their pipeline. I trust their good stewardship of all that material.

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You have worked with an incredible array of directors since your Broadway debut with Susan Stroman in The Music Man. What do you remember about that experience?

Interestingly, that is the piece on which I realized I wanted to choreograph and eventually direct someday, watching Stroman do that. I retired at 18 and I’ve had amazing adventures. I studied with Anne Reinking as a teenager, then it was Stroman. I had been a fan of Julie Taymor’s for 15 years, so to be able to be a part of her universe was so thrilling on Spider-Man. And I’ve been such a fan of Diane’s productions, so it’s been an amazing thing to be able to now collaborate with her.

What has it been like for you to collaborate with Sara Bareilles?

Amazing—so inspiring. What’s so lovely is that she’s my age, so it feels like we share a lot of the same references. We were working on a dance arrangement for a sort of big production number and we were in her apartment and I was playing her things from my iPod, and she was playing things from YouTube, and we were up dancing together and just really creating and vibing in the moment. That’s a really neat, fun, creative element of this that I’m loving.

What is the dance going to be like?

It’s interesting; it’s been challenging to figure out how this story dances. Diners don’t dance. Diners are very resistant to dancing because these are places with very limited floor space, and people go there to sit, so it’s an interesting problem to sort of figure out how that environment is going to move. There are a few surprises dance-wise, but I will say that it’s shaping up to be a pretty eclectic mix.

What about working on dance breaks with Sara?

It’s just been fun even figuring out the structure of those moments with her.

Normally I work with my husband, Rob Berman, but with this I didn’t even entertain that question because, I thought, “I want to know what Sara Bareilles’ dance arrangements would be like!” So yes, Sara Bareilles is my dance arranger this time.

Sara has said he grew up on musicals and that this is a dream come true for her.

She respects this so deeply. She really does come from a musical theatre background, but she also has a strong barometer of when something is working or isn’t working … she’s a natural. Maybe Sara Bareilles will be a bright, new voice in the theatre. >> WAITRESS. OPENS 8.2 AT LOEB DRAMA CENTER, 64 BRATTLE ST., CAMBRIDGE. FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT AMERICANREPERTORYTHEATER.ORG/WAITRESS THIS IS THE SECOND IN A MULTI-PART SERIES ABOUT BRINGING A NEW PRODUCTION TO LIFE IN BOSTON. VISIT DIGBOSTON.COM FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW

PHOTO BY STEPHANIE BUONOPANE

PBR ART SHOW

Fri July 24 7PM

Chase Brock is one of the busiest choreographers in the business, and for good reason. He trained with Anne Reinking, made his Broadway debut at 16 with Susan Stroman, and retired from performing by the time he was 18. He has worked with Julie Taymor, Bono, and The Edge on Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark, and frequently collaborates with the Public Theatre in New York. He also serves as artistic director for his own dance company, The Chase Brock Experience, and recently helped create the highly anticipated stage version of Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

This summer he teams up with the American Repertory Theater, Diane Paulus, Sara Bareilles, and Jessie Nelson for the world premiere of Waitress. I recently sat down with Chase to talk about his career, having Sara Bareilles as a dance arranger, and how diners dance.

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ARTS

AFRIK-CANCELLED

A landmark celebration of Afropolitanism six years in the making has just been axed. For now.

BY MICAELA KIMBALL @MICAL218

Dubbed by producers as the Bonnaroo or Coachella of African events, AfrikCan Boston is the first major music and arts festival dedicated to celebrating and honoring African music and culture. It boasts an all-star lineup featuring internationally established artists like Grammy Award winners Oumou Sangare (from Mali) and DJ Lo Down Loretta Brown (aka Erykah Badu), as well as South African house music legend Black Coffee and Cote d’Ivoirian reggae big Alpha Blondy, to name a few.

Local talents such as Lamine Toure and DJ Adam Gibbons of Uhuru Afrika were also set to rock Roxbury’s Ramsey’s Park for five straight days as part of the event, starting Tuesday night and ripping through the weekend, but plans for the fest have suddenly changed in the 11th hour. No more live murals and art, no more fashion, no more food. The same goes for the planned discussions about activism and civic engagement meant to give attendees a platform to voice ideas.

According to Marie-Claude Mendy, AfrikCan’s creator and prime producer, she was given two primary reasons for the cancellation. First, the city maintained there were not enough resources to support an event of this magnitude, especially since another large arts festival—Outside the Box—was taking place that same week in Boston. Second, the city asserted that Boston solely allows for three-day festivals (AfrikCan was a five-day festival). Mendy claims she had cleared the five-day event schedule months beforehand. This is after spending six years putting it together. Mendy notes other festivals, including Outside the Box, boast a five-day lineup.

In a statement to DigBoston, city officials maintained that paperwork for the event was not filed with enough advance notice: “The City of Boston is happy to work with the organizers of the proposed AfrikCan event to find a date that works for the organization, the community and for the City of Boston. However, for an event that spans several days, an organization should start working with the City’s Office of Special Events at least a year in advance. Events of this magnitude take considerable coordination between multiple city departments including the Boston Police Department, Boston Fire Department, EMS, Parks Department, Inspectional Services Department and others.” Producers say the festival is now slated for September 9-13 at a private location to be announced later, and that they do not plan to work through the city of Boston.

In the wake of the abrupt cancellation, questions loom in the minds of producers, artists, and supporters who were pumped for AfrikCan. One source I spoke with wondered if it was due to fear of large numbers of people of color gathering, or if the old white man’s club overseeing the city’s departments either doesn’t understand or isn’t interested in the festival itself.

For others in the community I spoke with, AfrikCan means more than just top-notch Afropolitanism (or the distillation and representation of the ordinary people’s experience in Africa), music, and entertainment. Instead, it is a step forward in combating what Mendy (who also owns the Senegalese restaurant Teranga in the South End) says is the concern that African cultures are both under- and misrepresented in Boston. “With AfrikCan, I wanted to make sure I put African culture on the map here in Boston,” she says. AfrikCan also symbolized a potential forward shift for Boston both artistically and socially, and marked an opportunity to upgrade Boston as a city of diverse artistic and cultural celebrations on par with other major metropolitan cities.

Might AfrikCan offer Boston an opportunity to better provide for its artists and cultural practitioners, and in doing so work to create a better quality of life for the city? Might AfrikCan also pave the way for Boston to better represent and support Black and African cultures? Might this work to change Boston’s tired truth as one of the most segregated, racially backward cities in the US? Hopefully.

We’ll just have to wait until September—when the festival is rescheduled—to find out.

>> FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT AFRICAN.COM 28

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NOTHING MATTRESS

BY BRIAN CONNOLLY @NOTHINGMATTRESS

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BY DAN SAVAGE @FAKEDANSAVAGE My wife is a submissive. I’m not a natural Dom, but I’ve become more comfortable assuming the role. Recently, she stopped hormonal birth control, and her sex drive and interest in capital-S Submission kicked into high gear. She joined FetLife and went to her first munch a couple of weeks ago. She’s not shopping for a Dom. She’s looking to socialize, discuss this part of herself, and not feel like such a freak. She thought she hit it off with a few folks but now realizes she may have been sending mixed signals.

How can she find a group of kinksters who will socialize and share their experiences without assuming her presence as an unaccompanied submissive female is an invitation to fuck?

Married, Optimally Nookied, Only Need Advice The people your wife met at that munch are kinksters, MONONA, not psychics. If she’s not interested in playing with anyone other than her spouse—if she has a hot Dom at home and is there only to make kinky friends—all she has to do is say so. Munches are informal meetups where kinky people, from nervous novices to wizened pros, get together without the pressures or expectations of a play party. Your wife’s presence at a munch is not an invitation to fuck, of course, but someone who respectfully expresses an interest in playing isn’t guilty of bending Emily Post over a bondage bench with the intent to fuck her ass. Most people who go to munches are open to 30

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play, MONONA, but those who aren’t are welcome. Your wife just needs to let her new friends know she’s interested only in socializing. You could help her send that unambiguous, nonmixed signal by accompanying her to the next munch.

I’m a 24-year-old heterosexual female. I discovered that my boyfriend still had an online dating profile up and was checking it regularly. We had a calm discussion about it, and he assured me that he just found the messages he got flattering and offered to take it down. I told him if that’s all he was doing, then there was no reason he couldn’t have those ego boosts and a monogamous relationship with me, too. Had I not been such an avid reader of your column, Dan, that discussion would’ve gone very differently. And, really, it’s not like he was going to forget that other women existed—nor would I want him to. Though I may look back on this and cringe, right now we’re in a great place. We have fun and are sexually compatible and have really excellent conversations. Thank you!

His Answer Perfectly Plausible, Yes? I enjoy letters like HAPPY’s because it’s nice to be reminded that not everyone is cheating or being cheated on, miserably single and looking to get into a relationship or trapped in a miserable couple and looking to get out, kinky and stuck with a vanilla partner or vanilla and stuck with a kinky one. Some people are doing just fine. And yes, HAPPY, I do think your boyfriend’s answer is perfectly plausible—some people are on dating apps for the ego boosts alone (they’re called “time wasters”)—and here’s hoping it’s totally truthful as well.

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