DigBoston 10.18.18

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WICKED GARDEN COVER: SPORTS

BOXING RETURNS TO BOSTON

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LOBSTER ROLL AIOLI

COMIC FEATURE

CHARLIE ON THE MBTA

PLUS: JAY GONZALEZ HAS A PLAN

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OCT 18, 2018 - OCT 25, 2018 BUSINESS PUBLISHER John Loftus ASSOCIATE PUBLISHERS Chris Faraone Jason Pramas SALES ASSOCIATES Christopher Bent Victoria Botana FOR ADVERTISING INFORMATION sales@digboston.com BUSINESS MANAGER John Loftus

EDITORIAL

EDITOR IN CHIEF Chris Faraone EXECUTIVE EDITOR Jason Pramas MANAGING EDITOR Mitchell Dewar MUSIC EDITOR Nina Corcoran FILM EDITOR Jake Mulligan THEATER EDITOR Christopher Ehlers COMEDY EDITOR Dennis Maler STAFF WRITER Haley Hamilton CONTRIBUTORS G. Valentino Ball, Sarah Betancourt, Tim Bugbee, Patrick Cochran, Mike Crawford, Britni de la Cretaz, Kori Feener, Eoin Higgins, Zack Huffman, Marc Hurwitz, Marcus Johnson-Smith, C. Shardae Jobson, Heather Kapplow, Derek Kouyoumjian, Dan McCarthy, Rev. Irene Monroe, Peter Roberge, Maya Shaffer, Citizen Strain, M.J. Tidwell, Miriam Wasser, Dave Wedge, Baynard Woods INTERNS Casey Campbell, Morgan Hume, Daniel Kaufman, Jillian Kravatz, Jacob Schick

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DESIGNER Don Kuss COMICS Tim Chamberlain, Pat Falco Patt Kelley, Cagen Luse DigBoston Phone 617.426.8942 digboston.com

ON THE COVER

PHOTO OF KATIE TAYLOR COURTESY OF KATIE TAYLOR MANAGEMENT. CHECK OUT GEORGE HASSETT’S ARTICLE ABOUT THIS WEEKEND’S BOSTON GARDEN FIGHT NIGHT IN THE FEATURE SECTION, AND/ OR READ A LONGER VERSION AT DIGBOSTON.COM. ©2018 DIGBOSTON IS PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY DIG MEDIA GROUP INC. NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION CAN BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT WRITTEN CONSENT. DIG MEDIA GROUP INC. 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.

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BOWERY BOSTON & NEWPORT JAZZ PRESENT

DESTINY SCHENECTADY

This column is an unpaid advertisement for the city of Schenectady, New York, where I visited last week to speak about reporting at this year’s New England gathering for American Community Media (ACM).

In a sense, I suppose this is a love note about every city sort of like it too, from Lowell, Massachusetts, to hundreds of other small and middle-sized metropolises everywhere.

But first Schenectady, which, like a lot of other cities in the 50-75,000 population range that fell on tough times in the past half-century, has managed to rebound to some degree thanks to a mix of generous philanthropy, invigorated federal and state funding, and more than anything else individuals (including many transplants, immigrants and otherwise) who care about their hometown and work their asses off to make it better. In my brief stay there, I thoroughly enjoyed the record, book, and antique shopping, as well as the bars and eats from downtown to the edge of Union College and its Little Italy, and even the Rivers Casino, where I had a great time despite losing a net 20 bucks.

No place is perfect, and I learned from speakers at the conference I was at that Schenectady, for example, has something of an ongoing youth pregnancy crisis. Some of that philanthropy is also bittersweet; the stunning Proctors Theater and its truly awesome adjoining arts and education facilities were in part gifted by General Electric, that most despicable of all American behemoths that once employed more than 30,000 in the city, but now has less than 4,000 workers there and just recently slashed another 200-plus.

Since I’ve come to admire these resilient urban hamlets in the past decade or so, I have also grown disgusted with the attitudes that people often have about these places. Attitudes I’m sure I have been guilty of perpetuating myself in the past. Some people whom I told that I was heading to Schenectady on business reacted as if I was venturing into a red-state fire swamp.

A lot of cities really suck, to be sure. Take Charlotte, North Carolina, for example—fuck it.

But the attitude that places big enough to have pro sports teams—and the people in them—are inherently better than spots like Schenectady is classist and crazy. Not to mention demonstrably untrue.

To be clear, there are countless books and academic studies that explain the phenomenon of an increasing vitality in gateway cities, as we call such scrappy comeback areas in Mass. If you’re looking for a cheaper rent in someplace that still went for Hillary over the POTUS, you should join me in consuming them. This isn’t yet another cheap and sappy call for liberals to reach out and touch some disenfranchised GOP enthusiasts—I would never waste your time like that. I’m just saying that if you are ever looking for a way out of expensive megacity living, you may want to consider a true blue hub with a lot of heart and arts like Worcester or Schenectady.

Give me a few years, and I’ll be right behind you.

CHRIS FARAONE, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Need more Dig? Sign up for the Daily Dig @ tiny.cc/DailyDig

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NEWS+OPINION

THE DEMOCRAT ELECTION 2018

Jay Gonzalez on taxes, equity, and his plan to win

BY MAX CHAPNICK @MAXCHAPPY Minutes before my recent meetup with Jay Gonzalez, the democratic nominee for governor of Massachusetts, he was marching among signs reading “Yankees = Scabs” outside the Boston Common Ritz Carlton. Up and down the sidewalk, hotel workers from Local 26 were striking for a contract. The picket was loud, with demonstrators chanting into megaphones and banging away on empty cans.

After we found some quiet nearby outside of a coffee shop, I asked Gonzalez to explain his tax plan; among other things, he’s proposing a new levy on the largest university endowments to fund transportation infrastructure and state colleges. The idea has received criticism from both universities and also from Gonzalez’s opponent, incumbent Gov. Charlie Baker, who is leading in recent polls.

Gonzalez seemed tired from the trail but determined.

Within earshot of striking workers, he spoke about combating wealth inequality and reinvesting in crumbling infrastructure and public education.

Can you explain your endowment tax plan?

This is a proposal to impose a 1.6 percent [tax] on the value of endowments of universities in Massachusetts who have endowments that exceed a billion dollars in value. And that 1.6 percent tax would generate one billion dollars each year that would be dedicated to improve our education and transportation systems in Massachusetts, which we desperately need to do.

It would go to make childcare and preschool more affordable for families. It would go to help make our public schools work for every child in this state; we have huge disparities, huge achievement gaps. Lower income districts in particular don’t have the resources we need.

This will help get every school to be great. It would help make our public universities and community colleges more affordable and debt free for any resident who wants to go.

And our transportation system is one of the worst in the country. It’s affecting people’s quality of life every day.

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Traffic is terrible. People are paying higher fares for disabled trains and reduced bus service. We have to do better at this.

We’re Massachusetts. We have always believed we can overcome every challenge. We’ve always been a leader.

And in order for our economy to keep growing, we need to invest in the most important asset, which is our people.

And these are two of our biggest challenges holding people back.

I think it’s a fair proposal. These universities have accumulated enormous wealth, thanks to their tax-exempt status. And for those who have accumulated over a billion dollars in their endowments, I think this is a modest tax that would enable them to do everything they do today and allow their endowments to still grow but at a slightly slower rate, and make a huge difference for working families across this state.

Moving off of this topic: From what I’ve seen, and what’s been reported, two of the biggest challenges that your campaign faces are first, name recognition; people don’t know you. And, second, if they do, how do you distinguish yourself from Gov. Baker?

So on the second point, I’m not worried at all about the differences between us, they’re huge. And as more and more people are tuning into this race and understanding them, we’re earning their support. On the differences, quickly: He’s a status quo governor. He’s totally satisfied with the world as it exists. His number-one operating principle right out of the Republican playbook is no more taxes. …

And I’m saying, let’s be Massachusetts. Let’s aim high.

Let’s take on these big challenges that are holding people back and be honest about the fact that we’re going to need new revenue to do it. And I’m going to ask the wealthy to pay their fair share in order to make investments to fix our transportation system, to make our education system work for everyone, and address the challenges holding people

back. So big differences between us.

I also think it’s really important that we have a governor that’s going to stand up for every single person in this state.

For all the little guys out there. Charlie Baker, you know a lot of people’s starting point is, “Well, I’m just grateful, he seems nice, he’s not a crazy right-wing extremist, aren’t we so lucky.” But that’s not good enough. That shouldn’t be the measure of whether our governor is doing a good job and standing up for everyone.

He’s actually been complicit with Donald Trump on immigration issues, opposing Syrian refugees resettling here, committing the Massachusetts National Guard to the Mexican border to separate kids from their families. It took a lot of pressure for him to change his position on that.

I am going to be consistent on this issues. He’s also asking the people of Massachusetts to send Geoff Diehl to represent us in the United States Senate, and replace Elizabeth Warren. Geoff Diehl, who was the co-chair of Donald Trump’s campaign in Massachusetts. Just as an example, Charlie Baker’s pro-choice. You can’t be prochoice and want to send someone to the United States Senate who’s going to do everything he can do undercut a woman’s right to choose. So there’s a big difference on those issues between the two of us.

In terms of name recognition, nobody knew who I was when I started this campaign. This is the first time I’ve ever done this. Lots of people are distracted with all the stuff going on in Washington. People are just starting to tune in to this race. And as they do, we’ve got a huge grassroots campaign that’s engaging them, we’re engaging in one-onone interactions knocking on tens of thousands of doors every week, [making] tens of thousands of phone calls, out talking to people at events. And when we’re engaging people and getting people to think about this race for more than five seconds, we are earning their support.

Read a longer version of this interview at digboston.com.

NEWS EXTRA

SUITE SOLIDARITY “If we don’t get no contract—you don’t get no peace!”

BY JOE RAMSEY Patrons checking in at the Ritz-Carlton must feel like the horde has descended. Surrounded by the rhythmic riot of street percussion, they dart for the shimmering glass doors, as behind them bull horns roar: “If we don’t get no contract—you don’t get no peace!”

But the truth is that this raucous crowd on the picket line—four to five hundred last Friday at the Ritz—are the very people who work in these fancy hotels, providing black-tie service with a smile, the very people who make the booming hospitality industry move.

Eighteen hundred Marriott workers are now on strike in our city, and they hail from 80 countries—but most I have met have been here in Boston for decades.

José Cabrera, 38, has spent half of his life working for the W, a hotel recently acquired by Marriott. He sees what is happening now as a tipping point.

“We finally have a majority of hotel workers union in this city, so we can push Marriott to play fair.”

On Sept 12, with negotiations deadlocked between UNITE HERE Local 26 and Marriott management, 96 percent of these workers voted to authorize a strike. That strike began on Wednesday, Oct 3, and has since spread to eight cities.

Locally, workers are out picketing from 7 am to 7 pm daily at seven different Boston hotels: the Aloft Boston Seaport District, the Element Boston Seaport District, the Ritz-Carlton Boston, the Sheraton Boston, the W Hotel Boston, the Westin Boston Waterfront, and the Westin Copley Place. Their chants can be heard for blocks: “Don’t check IN, check OUT!” Juan Robles has worked at the Westin Copley for 31 years in the purchasing department. He now lives in Dedham, having been forced to move out of Boston by rising rents.

Even off the picket line, it’s a common concern across Boston: Wages are not keeping up with rent, forcing workers to take second jobs or live far from the workplace.

Meanwhile corporate profits soar. The largest hotel company on earth, Marriott’s gross profit margins for 2017 were 14.9 percent on more than $5 billion in revenue.

Catering to the whims of the 1 percent, suites at the Westin now run to $1,500 per night. At the Ritz-Carlton, well over two grand.

This strike thus raises a fundamental question for our city: Who should benefit from Boston’s popularity as a tourist and conference destination? The workers who sustain the industry, or merely the corporations who own the hotels?

The strike’s main slogan is “One job should be enough!” In today’s Boston, it resonates.

On the picket line I also met Kia Modak, a first-year student at Harvard University.

Active in SLAM, the Student Labor Action Movement, she wants to pressure Harvard to move its big events out of Marriott hotels.

Behind her, marching in his hard hat, is Tom Ward, member of Iron Workers Local 7 and the Boston Labor Council. “The Marriott is terrible,” he says. “They build their hotels with nonunion labor. There are already international boycotts against them.”

With dozens of orange mop buckets flipped into drums, it’s a picket line you can dance to: infectious and inviting—unless of course you’re attempting to cross it. It’s so loud, the cops on detail need earplugs.

Even inside Marriott hotels, these workers have allies. I ran into Eunice Buffaloe, a retiree visiting from Tennessee and staying in a nearby Marriott Courtyard. Learning of the strike, she was appalled; turns out Eunice is a lifelong union worker herself, a retired member of Communication Workers of America Local 3805.

“If I saw a picket line in front of my hotel, I’d check out,” she said.

The heart of the picket line remains the hotel workers themselves—hundreds of bartenders, housekeepers, cooks, servers, and attendants—bravely withholding their labor to pressure Marriott for a living wage, benefits, and more control over their workplace.

“All the picketing is tiring, to be honest,” Cabrera admits, “but it’s worth it. This is not just about me as an individual, it’s about everybody.”

Joe Ramsey teaches and organizes at UMass Boston, in the Faculty Staff Union (FSU/ MTA), and in the Coalition to Save UMB. He can reached at jgramsey@gmail.com.

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EDITORIAL

ALet’sNOTE TO BOSTON-AREA JOURNALISM STUDENTS talk

BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS So you’re a journalism student. This is a tough time to do what you’re doing.

No question. According to Data USA, American colleges grant well over 10,000 journalism degrees a year. And sure, some of those are graduate degrees; so not all of those diplomas are going to newly minted journalists. Only most of them.

But according to the Pew Research Center, the number of newsroom jobs dropped by 23 percent between 2008 and 2017—from 114,000 to 88,000. A loss of over 26,000 “reporters, editors, photographers and videographers” who “worked in five industries that produce news: newspaper, radio, broadcast television, cable and ‘other information services’ (the best match for digital-native news publishers).”

Many of the journalists who lost their jobs in that period are trying to hang on in a swiftly shrinking news industry. And those who have jobs are desperate to keep them.

Yet colleges keep pumping out trained journalists.

Here in the Boston area, we continue to have a reasonably strong news sector.

But it’s taken some serious hits in the last couple of decades. The region’s flagship daily newspaper, the Boston Globe, has downsized its staff repeatedly over the years through buyouts and occasional layoffs, and its main competitor, the Boston Herald, was recently bought by a venture capital firm and has become a shadow of its former self in short order. Radio news outlets like WBUR and TV news outlets like WCVB have been somewhat more stable, if smaller, employers of journalists.

The biggest weekly newspaper, the Boston Phoenix, folded outright in 2013. And an array of community newspapers have suffered from waves of mergers and consolidations—leaving fewer jobs in that part of the market, as well.

Meaning that students like you keep getting degrees in journalism—and related majors like communications, English, and literature. And you keep fighting to wedge your foot in newsroom doors in hopes of grabbing any of the declining number of full-time reporter jobs while the grabbing’s still decent. Despite the lack of anywhere near enough of said jobs to go around in cities like this one.

Why? Well, from my frequent conversations with aspiring journalists from schools around the area, near as I can figure, you all uniformly think that being a journalist is an important job and you’re very keen to do it. I’m sure journalism’s enduring popularity with students is also partially due to the surprising tenacity with which an air of romance and adventure hangs around the profession— helped along by an array of books and movies from All the President’s Men to The Year of Living Dangerously that remain touchstones in popular culture. Even as journalism’s reputation continues to take a beating from right-wing politicians and their followers.

The one explanation for your collective ardor for jobs in a waning profession that I’ve never heard from any journalism student is that you all are somehow doing it for the money. And how could you? Journalism is one of the worst-paying professions out there—with an average annual wage of $51,550 for full-timers in the US last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Though more and more working journalists are freelancers without a steady gig… rendering even that figure functionally fantastical.

Nevertheless, such passion is precisely what motivates my colleagues and me at DigBoston. We’re certainly trying to make a living as working journalists… and trying to make it possible for as many of our peers as we can to do the same.

But we’re mainly in the news game to provide our readers with the information they need to be engaged citizens (and residents) in our still relatively democratic society—while covering all the stuff that makes life worth living. And to have fun doing it.

For us, money isn’t the most important consideration. Not because we don’t need money to survive like (almost) everyone else. We totally do. Rather because if that were all we were focused on, we wouldn’t be able to practice journalism in this era of uncertainty. Since we know that nobody has yet hit upon a new economic model to fund news production anywhere near as successful as the failing old models once were.

Despite that fairly grim reality, we really like to help train other people to be journalists. Especially young people who have decided to take the leap and devote their lives to the trade. To pass the torch and all that. So, periodically, we like to write notes like this one to let journalism students know that if you’re serious about risking everything—your future economic security, your love life, and your sanity (on occasion)—to speak truth to power, or simply for the joy of writing solid copy about any subject that you’re really passionate about, then we want to talk to you.

We have an increasingly robust internship program at DigBoston. We’ve been attracting a growing number of fantastic and talented students to spend 6-8 hours a week working with us for a semester (or two). And we haven’t reached our capacity. We even accept recent graduates in some cases.

It’s a competitive application process, and we don’t pick everyone. But if you’re a journalism (or photography or multimedia or visual arts or design) student interested in working with a crew that does what we do first and foremost in the service of democracy, drop us a line at internships@digboston.com Jason Pramas is executive editor and associate publisher of DigBoston..

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CEASEFIRE ON THE COMMON TALKING JOINTS MEMO

MassCann and the Friends of the Public Garden try to be friends.

BY ANDY GAUS ANDYGAUS@SPRYNET.COM

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Monday - Saturday 10 am to 8 pm Sunday 10 am to 6 pm

Every year after the Boston Freedom Rally, there are complaints from downtown residents: the noise, the smell, the destruction of the Common, and above all, the trash! These complaints are often passed on to the Friends of the Public Garden, a public-service group dedicated to preserving Boston’s public spaces. In previous years, MassCann/NORML, the sponsor of the rally, and the Friends have mostly traded accusations. This year, the two sides held a meeting at the Friends’ Beacon Street headquarters, and it was surprisingly civil.

As for the trash, MassCann pleads guilty to creating a lot of it during the rally, but has always been faithful about cleaning it up at the end, including this year. Press secretary Maggie Kinsella explained that rally vendors are expected to clean up their own area and provide their own barrels, and the vendor management company that MassCann hires is supposed to make sure all vendors comply. She admitted that not all of that happened as planned and that MassCann will demand better trash management from whatever management company is hired for next year’s rally. MassCann also offered to schedule a Common walkaround with the Friends after next year’s rally to verify the condition of the Common.

Leslie Adams, board chairman of the Friends, relayed the feelings of some local residents that they just can’t use the Common during the days of the rally, what with the crowds and the music and the smell. Lawyer John Swomley, who has litigated on MassCann’s behalf for 20 years, gently suggested that those residents should plan activities elsewhere during those days.

Robert Mulcahy, the Friends’ project manager, said the rally needed better traffic management to keep Charles Street from being blocked during load-in.

He also suggested that the rally could do better to manage the surging crowds and offered to work with MassCann on better models of traffic and crowd management.

The meeting, on the whole, was constructive, and MassCann and the Friends agreed to stay in touch before, during, and after next year’s rally. One thing was not discussed: moving the Freedom rally off the Common entirely. That harebrained idea, the child of city councilors Ed Flynn and Josh Zakim, will be the subject of a public hearing still to be scheduled. That’s when we’ll hear from those who feel that Boston Common is no place for an excessive display of freedom.

Andy Gaus is a Massachusetts-based cannabis advocate and a member of MassCann-NORML.

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FIGHT HUB SPECIAL FEATURE

The battle for the future of boxing takes a pivotal and scandalous stop in Boston

BY GEORGE HASSETT @BOSCRIMEWRITER Boxing vs Bureaucracy After Saunders tested positive for a banned substance, it was widely believed he would still be licensed to fight in Boston.

Promoter Eddie Hearn and even Saunders’ opponent Andrade said they supported Saunders’ application for a license, while the sanctioning body whose title Saunders held—known as the World Boxing Organization—said PHOTO OF RYAN KIELCZWESKI (LEFT) BY JOE KELLEY FOR MURPHYS BOXING they would defer to the Massachusetts State Athletic Commission.

Since the fight card was announced in the summer, Without the fight, Saunders would lose out on a careerit was clear local boxing history would be made this high $2.3 million payday. coming Saturday at Boston Garden.

On Oct 9, the commission met to decide his fate.

At the time, however, there was no way to know how Saunders said his positive test was due to using nasal much bullshit would ensue. spray. “The opponent and promoter have accepted that Fight fans got a slight whiff of the controversy this nasal spray won’t give a fighter an unfair advantage,” August in Quincy Market, where the air was thick with said Saunders’ lawyer Stephen Heath. “They’ve taken a pugilistic tradition at a press conference for the Oct 20 pragmatic view on this isolated use of nasal spray.” fight card at Boston Garden. Former welterweight champ Bryan Lambert, a state athletic commissioner, Tony Demarco of the North End was in attendance, as punched back: “We don’t leave the opinions of fighters was former welterweight contender Irish Micky Ward of as the sole deciding factor. I don’t see how we license this Lowell. Even before things got started, it was clear that fight.” an unprecedented amount of championship boxing was When the commission voted to deny Saunders a coming to town. license, it meant he would also likely be stripped of his For the first time in any living person’s memory, title and certainly miss out on the seven-figure payday Boston will host three championship fights this for the Oct 20 fight. Saunders, who attended the meeting Saturday, including title fights in the junior lightweight via conference call, did not immediately understand the (130 pounds), middleweight (160 pounds), and female result of the vote. lightweight divisions. In all there will be 10 bouts on the “Am I allowed to box in your state?” he asked twice. card with many of the matchups between fighters from “No, Billy Joe, they denied it,” Heath told him. the UK and the US. Saunders, who was recently fined $13,000 by Playing into Boston’s history with the United England’s boxing commission for an incident in which he Kingdom, undefeated Providence native Demetrius “Boo filmed himself offering crack cocaine to a woman if the Boo” Andrade showed up dressed in a blue Revolutionary woman would hit a passerby, responded by saying, “Well, War-era jacket, vest, and pants. The Olympian then suck my prick, you penises.” pointed at Billy Joe Saunders, his English opponent in Since Saunders’ failed test on Aug 30, promoter Eddie the middleweight title portion of the main event, and Hearn had the WBO’s next ranked shouted, “The Redcoats are here!” fighter, Walter Kautondokwa, on With Saunders not wearing a stand-by training for the fight and red coat, and with Andrade hardly ready to step in. Saunders-Andrade landing the Revolutionary War was a matchup between two of reference, Andrade’s gag seemed the middleweight division’s top to flop. five fighters, but it was also likely “You look like Papa Smurf!” to be something of a tactical chess Saunders yelled back. match between the two deeply With both fighters undefeated experienced former Olympians. and among the most technically Now, after preparing for the sound boxers in the middleweight slick southpaw Saunders, Andrade will be in the ring division, the bout appeared to be a major day on with an unknown knockout artist who would rather boxing’s calendar. But just a few days after their brawl than box. It is an intriguing main event in a exchange outside of Faneuil Hall, Saunders tested packed 10-fight card that in addition to two other title positive for the banned performance-enhancing fights also features a title eliminator, an intriguing stimulant oxilofrine and the main event—a title fight in rematch, an international superstar, and local favorites the sport’s historic and most popular glamour division— trying to reach elite-level status. was put in jeopardy.

Before it was over, there’d be a profane outburst at Irish superstar, Boston debut a state hearing, millions of lost dollars for one fighter, It might surprise local fight fans that one of the and, finally, a wildcard, an unknown knockout artist who sport’s biggest stars is living quietly in New England. could make everything more exciting.

Katie Taylor isn’t fighting in the main event, but she 10

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may be the biggest star on the card. A 2012 Olympic Gold medalist for Ireland, Taylor is the highest-paid female fighter in the world. An icon in her native Ireland, Taylor is more popular than fellow combat sport star Conor McGregor on the isle. And this whole time, this transcendent star has been living in Connecticut.

“I can’t wait to fight in Boston,” she says. “Over the last two years I’ve spent most of my time in Connecticut.

Bernom is in the middle of nowhere, it’s a really quiet place and there’s great sparring in the gym. … It will be my first time fighting [in Boston]. I know it’s a big town for the Irish and I’m a Red Sox fan since moving to Connecticut.”

Taylor grew up around boxing—her dad and two brothers were also fighters. As a young woman pursuing the sport, she had to surpass some unique obstacles.

“I had to pretend to be a boy to get sparring. I used to get in with headgear and people didn’t even know they were sparring a female.”

Taylor won the lightweight championship in 2017 by third-round knockout. She says her goal now is to help establish women’s professional boxing worldwide—and Boston is a great place to start.

“When I first turned pro I wasn’t sure how much money was in women’s boxing, but the last few fights opened my eyes,” she said. “I’m focused on leaving a legacy in women’s pro boxing. I want big, big fights. I want to be considered the best of all time.”

Taylor is fighting Cindy Serrano, a respected New York boxer who has not lost in six years and has never been knocked out. At the August press conference, Serrano said, “We’re going to prove that women can fight and we look good doing it.”

Taylor says she is focused on fighting Serrano on Saturday, but would like her next fight to be against Cindy’s sister Amanda, an undefeated pro and one of the most popular women’s boxers in the United States.

“Amanda Serrano would be the most talked-about fight in women’s boxing. I have to go against her sister first. Cindy is a seasoned experienced pro, but Amanda Serrano is the one everyone has been talking about.”

Local standouts, major bouts The early undercards of a championship boxing match are often boring nondescript affairs with little excitement. That won’t be the case on Saturday, as the early bouts feature fighters affiliated with Murphys Boxing, the fight promotion company founded by Dropkick Murphys frontman Ken Casey. That portion of the card features an undefeated heavyweight, an intriguing rematch, and local boxers looking for the big win to push them to elite status.

Heavyweight Niall Kennedy, the New England Heavyweight champion, is an undefeated fighter who works as a police officer in Ireland. He is fighting another undefeated heavyweight in Brutal Brendan Barrett of Philadelphia. Also Ryan Kielczweski (29 wins, three losses, and 11 knockouts), a Quincy lightweight known as the Polish Prince, says Saturday’s fight against Tommy Coyle (24 wins, four losses) of England is the biggest of his career.

“This guy is known,” Kielczweski told the Dig. “He has knocked out good fighters and he is the Commonwealth champ, one of the biggest belts in UK. He’s the best fighter I’ve ever fought.”

Kielczweski started boxing at age six when his dad took him to a South Boston gym. As an amateur Kielczweski won 118 of 129 fights and rose to a number two ranking in the National Golden Gloves.

“I turned pro at 19, I was sick of the amateur politics … little did I know. I hate the business side of boxing. Ken

got me out of my contract with my last promoter after they left me out to dry the last couple of years. Even when I was with the other promoter, Ken would put me on cards.

This is my second fight with them and they’re really keeping me busy.”

Mark DeLuca (21 wins, one loss, and 13 knockouts) is another Murphys Boxing fighter on the card looking for redemption. DeLuca, a Whitman native and Marine who served in Afghanistan, is bouncing back from his first loss as a pro. In June DeLuca lost to respected pro Walter Wright, and he says he is determined to even the score Saturday.

“This one is a little more personal than the other fights,” DeLuca said. “We have some history, we fought before and our styles match up well—we make good dance partners. He definitely had a tough style. Walter Wright might not be known to the public, but inside boxing people know he’s a slick, experienced cutie in there, and he’s beaten some good fighters.”

“He came with his best last time,” said DeLuca, “and this time I’ll be ready.”

The main event The big show on Saturday was supposed to be a coming-out party for Demetrius Andrade’s incredible talent—a party 10 years in the making.

It is no overstatement to say Andrade is one of the greatest New England amateur fighters of all time—a 2007 amateur world champion and 2008 Olympian who was tabbed for stardom due to his fast hands and big personality.

And early on, it looked like he would get there. He was developed on cable television and made the jump to HBO, winning a vacant title in late 2013, then looking like one of the world’s best in a seventh-round knockout of Brian Rose in June 2014.

Not long after, Andrade and his promoter had a falling-out that led to a 16-month layoff, during which time he was stripped of his world title. He also turned down a multifight contract with Showtime and became embroiled in a lawsuit with Roc Nation Sports. Another deal with HBO stalled after one fight, and in July it was announced Andrade would split ways with his longtime promoter.

The timing was right—Eddie Hearn, armed with $250 million in DAZN funding, was looking for boxing’s most talented free agents. With signees saying Hearn is offering life-changing money at almost $3 million a fight, it seems Andrade’s winding road has ended in a payday worth millions.

At the same time, Andrade is now fighting a much less known opponent, since Saunders failed a drug test then vacated his middleweight title belt. Walter Kautondokwa, 33, the undefeated African middleweight champion, is the late replacement for Saunders. Sixteen of Kautondokwa’s 17 wins have come by knockout, but he has never faced a notable opponent.

Kautondokwa, however, will have the advantage of surprise—he has been training for Andrade while Andrade trained for Saunders. There is little footage of Kautondokwa fights.

It may all work out best for the average fan who wants to see action in the ring—Saunders is such a skilled technician he is rarely in entertaining fights, while Kautondokwa will likely try to force Andrade into an all-out brawl.

Since the press conference, the business and legal battles have been unpredictable bruisers. On Saturday, with any luck, the clashes in the ring will look a lot like all the action leading up to fight night.

Certified Beer Sniffers PHOTO OF KATIE TAYLOR BY ED MULHOLLAND FOR KATIE TAYLOR MANAGEMENT

9 2 H A M P S HIR E S T, CA M B 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

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ROUTE 6A ROCK HARBOR

MAKE LIKE A TREE GTFO

This year’s top New England routes for fall food and foliage WORDS AND PHOTOS BY MARC HURWITZ @HIDDENBOSTON For some, fall is the best time of year, with temperatures finally dropping, leaves turning all shades of color, and restaurants and bars offering autumn-based items (including dishes and drinks made with pumpkin, which tends to evoke all kinds of emotions—not all of which are good—but that’s another topic for another day).

Sure, the Greater Boston area is a great place to be in October, but sometimes it’s nice to get out of town and experience what the rest of the region has to offer.

Since there are so many options, the burning question is, where to go?

You could basically head in any direction and find some good places, but some routes in particular are just meant for the fall season. Below are 10 good ones, with some food/drink options along or near each one.

Route 6A, Cape Cod Northern New England tends to get much of the press when it comes to fall road trips, but this winding old road is easily one of the most scenic in all of the Northeast—especially when the leaves start to turn.

Heading east from the Sagamore Bridge, Route 6A meanders through such historic villages as Sandwich, Barnstable, Yarmouth, Dennis, and Brewster, with each having its own personality and all having extremely old trees that come ablaze this time of year.

[Restaurant Options: the Sagamore Inn in Sagamore (by the Sandwich line) for seafood and Italian dishes in a homey space; Grumpy’s in Dennis for breakfast dishes, sandwiches, and other comfort food] Route 77, Southeast Corner of Rhode Island Roads that end at the water tend to be special routes for everyone from motorcyclists to roadtrippers to mystery riders, as they tend not to have too much traffic because they don’t really go anywhere. And this surprisingly rural road near the Massachusetts border is a perfect example of this, going through historic Tiverton Four Corners and bucolic old Little Compton 14

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before petering out by an often-wild stretch of the ocean in Sakonnet. There are few places in New England that feature both farmland and ocean views, and this is certainly one of them.

[Restaurant Option: The Commons Lunch in Little Compton (just off Route 77) for classic “South Coast” and Rhode Island fare, including calamari and jonnycakes] Route 169, Northeast Corner of Connecticut When you take a night flight from, say, Boston to Washington, DC, you’ll find very few truly dark stretches of land below, as nearly the entire route flies above major cities and sprawling suburban areas, with one of the only dark areas being where this road can be found.

The lightly traveled Route 169 makes its way up and down high hills and through farmland while heading into such unspoiled towns as Woodstock, Pomfret, and Brooklyn, and it is so beautiful that it has actually been designated a National Scenic Byway.

[Restaurant Options: The Vanilla Bean Cafe in Pomfret for sandwiches, desserts, and live music at night in a tree-shaded hilltop setting; Sharpe Hill Vineyard and Fireside Tavern in Pomfret (just off Route 169) for wine tastings and a romantic special-occasion meal in a hillside spot in the middle of nowhere] Route 5, Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts Valleys seem to be particularly great places to view foliage, and this

very old byway makes its way through a particularly gorgeous one just east of the Berkshires. Here you’ll find spectacular scenery that includes Sugarloaf Mountain in South Deerfield, Mount Tom in Easthampton and Holyoke, historic Deerfield Village, and much more, while bustling Northampton is a good stop if you’re hungry or thirsty. Some great foliage routes lead off of Route 5 as well, including the Mohawk Trail (Route 2) and Route 116.

[Restaurant Options: The People’s Pint in Greenfield for farm-to-table food and house-brewed beer; Packard’s in Northampton for cheap drinks in a rustic space; Tom’s in Whately for hot dogs, burgers, and ice cream in a rural setting] Check digboston.com for additional spots in Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire

ROUTE 5 - THE PEOPLE’S PINT IN GREENFIELD

MAINE EVENT FOOD

PAGU makes a super fine lobster roll

BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS

People all over the US labor under many misapprehensions about the Boston area—to the extent they think about us at all. One of the worst of these is the idea that lobster rolls are a local delicacy. Or that Bostonians eat them all the time. Or that we have lots of joints that specialize in their production.

This is not, of course, the case. It’s certainly true that lobster rolls are a regional speciality, found all over New England. But they’re really a Maine thing. So, it’s not particularly easy to find a really good lobster roll in or around the Hub. Not to say that there aren’t several places that do a nice job with the old standby and a few spots that even specialize in it.

So it was with some surprise that I found a great lobster roll at PAGU—a fairly upscale Cambridge establishment at which I recently chose to celebrate a special occasion.

Because, heretofore, I’ve been something of a purist when it comes to the crustacean creation in question. The roll has to be a split-top hot dog roll. White bread, naturally. I allow for either of the two traditional condiments: melted butter or mayonnaise. But nothing else. And the lobster itself has to be as fresh as possible.

Having had rolls featuring lobster that had literally just come off a boat, I can’t accept frozen product or meat more than a day out of the ocean. It should be lightly boiled or steamed by an expert hand so it has that all-important snap when you bite into it. If it’s chewy at all, it’s not going to make a good roll.

I had already heard about PAGU’s version long since. It, and chef owner Tracy Chang, have hardly lacked for write-ups. Which is why I knew it was notable for its black roll. And figured, “What the heck, I might as well try it.” Very glad I did. It was super fine. The roll was made with squid ink and sake, and just tasted like really light savory bread—which it was. Instead of mayo or butter, the lobster was dressed with pear, avocado, and an unusual soy aioli. Giving it a really bright flavor without adding unnecessary and distracting acidity. And the meat had that perfect snap.

Some might consider the portion small for the $23 PAGU was charging the day of my visit. But I think of the eatery’s offering as a more traditional-sized roll. Like the ones I very occasionally got to enjoy on trips to the Pine Tree State in my childhood.

Before the fad for “overstuffed” sandwiches took hold. With the house-made chips it’s served with, it’s solid light supper for the average person. I certainly didn’t feel ripped off, or that I was in need of more lobster when I was finished. And its price point is comparable to other rolls around town. So check it out some evening soon. Sit at the bar, as I did—obviating the need for a reservation—order a roll, let friendly and knowledgeable mixologists like Andy and Veronica take care of your libations, and reflect that the old ways of doing things are not forever the best ways.

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commercial grade professional caulking PHOTO BY JASON PRAMAS. >>PAGU. 310 MASS. AVE., CAMBRIDGE. GOPAGU.COM

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SUPERTEEN MUSIC

The secret Salem band you should be listening to

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN

PHOTO BY SPENCER DAVIS

It’s witching season in Salem. As the city is flooded with tourist looking for ghost tours, haunted houses, and the everlasting charm of one of America’s creepiest cities, the city’s regular residents remember how lucky they are to live their on-and-off peak season. Well, everybody except for SUPERTEEN. As of a month ago, they moved out of Salem and into Boston proper—a first in the indie rock band’s career.

SUPERTEEN is the best Salem band you’ve probably never heard of. The five-piece indie rock band—comprised of bassist Patrick Dunning, drummer and percussionist Chris Faria, guitarist Jackson Martel, vocalist Sam Robinson, and vocalist Meryl Schultz—verges on postpunk because of how tonally aggressive its songs can get, but the melodies beneath them are too strong to let the genre swerve down that path entirely. Instead, SUPERTEEN churn out a gruff, snarky, guitar-laden sound that’s addicting as hell. If you couldn’t tell, we’re mildly obsessed.

The band’s origin story is as cute as it is modest.

Everyone in the band first met one another in seventh grade while attending the same middle school in Salem.

They did what most 13-year-olds into music would do: They got together after school to jam in one another’s basements. Eventually, those jam sessions turned into a few half-hearted punk bands and a couple stints performing at local VFW posts. While their music back then was supposedly “really, really bad,” it served as the foundation for what would later become SUPERTEEN, namely the impulse to get the day’s stresses, week’s struggles, and year’s emotions off their chest while surrounded by some of their closest friends.

“It feels like we’ve been friends literally forever,” says Martel. “Nobody could play guitar back then. Patrick sort of knew how to play guitar, but he wasn’t really good.

But we kept playing until eventually we started getting better.”

It wasn’t until the five went off to colleges like Vassar College and Suffolk University that the impulse to form a serious band finally occurred. In the early weeks of 2013 while back home over winter break, they began writing new material. Everything began piling up until they realized they should try to create a more serious project. The name SUPERTEEN bounced around and, finally, was chosen, as were a handful of songs that would go on to be on their first official releases, Moon Music EP and Exponential SUPERTEEN. Fast forward five years and the band is sitting on a massively underrated album, Over Everything. Like a mishmash of catchy ’90s alt-rock, the dirty mania of local bands like Pile and Lady Bones, and general basement rock that feels too good to be stuck in basements, SUPERTEEN and their newest album sound urgent as hell. Each guitar line is crisp while playing into warped tones. Robinson and Schultz’s shouts intertwine and then quickly play into call-and-response form. Songs like “Sodium Pill” and “The Chain Waltz” feel like Parquet Courts at their fastest speed. “Leaks” burns slowly with a drugged out-like vibe.

Album closer “First Time Living,” which made it onto our Song of the Summer list this year, slowly tumbles into a serious manic breakdown, the kind of guitar-forward number whose bark is just as bad (read: incredible) as its bite. Over Everything is a serious tour-de-force of an album, and it’s been flying under the radar of nearly every publication since it dropped earlier this February.

“We were trying to return to form with Over Everything because, out of all our records, Isn’t A Person is the one that strayed from what we usually do,” says Martel. “We wanted to get back to the music we wanted to be making the most because the band is an important part for our emotional well-being. A big goal was that this band and this album would help make life more liveable. People were going through tough times more so with this record than other ones. I think that comes through. It’s darker than our other material. There’s a malaise on it that didn’t get onto the other records. So we evoked some feelings on it that we felt we had to get out, and the fact that we could do so while making a good record feels great.”

In fairness, this time was both harder and easier than previous releases. SUPERTEEN’s last three albums—2013’s Exponential SUPERTEEN, 2015’s Stay Creepy, 2016’s Isn’t A Person—came like clockwork. All three were written while the members were in college, where they practiced regularly over the course of summer and then dropped the album before heading back to school in the fall. But

then, suddenly, people’s lives got more complicated, the band practiced less, and things began to slow down. While their lives post-college got convoluted, the members of SUPERTEEN were busy inhaling music around them, taking influences from the dark psych of Creative Adult, the guitar work of Built to Spill, the structurally defiant framework of mewithoutYou, and the passion of Self Defense Family. The process of writing music became more arduous because of the surmounting stress, and that comes through in the album’s density. What draws the corners of the album’s lips upwards, though, is the handiwork of Cory Best, who engineered, recorded, and mixed everything.

“We’ve never had the money to give ourselves time in the studio, so we try to cram as much in as possible in those few hours we’re in a studio,” says Martel. “When it was all said and done, though, recording with our good friend and Berklee guy Corey was the right call. He did everything, and he’s brilliant. We’re blind bats when it comes to recording. I don’t know what condenser mic is. I know nothing. So he swooped in and made it sound awesome.”

There are handfuls of details that make Over Everything such an engaging listen. For one, they decided to record instruments in a variety of different basement venues in Boston, hopping from place to place to record bass in one and vocals in another. Best gave them guitar technique ideas that they could try out, brought in new pedals for them to play with, and gave them a 12-string instrument that brought a twangy, almost sitar-sounding feeling to songs like “DBT (Shocked)” and “Would You Like A Second Fortune?” But perhaps Best’s greatest technical suggestion was putting the microphone outside of a basement to record a distant guitar tone inside. When they tried it out, the microphone picked up the sound of a train passing nearby while simultaneously catching the guitar part Martel played inside the basement—an instance of unofficial studio magic.

What all of this technical goodness means for you, loyal DigBoston readers, is that you have some great music to listen to. Not just on record, but live.

SUPERTEEN’s long-awaited move to the Boston area means the band will be added to bills more often now, increasing the chances to hear them and the new songs from Over Everything onstage. So if you’re looking for some serious October goosebumps or want to get a thrill from Salem, stick around in the city and keep your eyes peeled for SUPERTEEN’s impending live sets in Boston.

They’re certainly glad to be here.

“Instead of walking down the street in Salem and seeing some kid from your algebra class, you can get lost in the flow of the city in Boston,” says Martel. “There was a small local scene for a couple years back when we were getting started, but honestly Salem doesn’t have DIY venues or basement venues right now. There’s only really two places for a band like us to play. So moving to Boston seemed like the smart choice for opportunities, and I know that will pay off soon enough.”

>> OVER EVERYTHING. OUT NOW VIA SAD CACTUS RECORDS.

MUSIC EVENTS FRI 10.19

PROM DO-OVER FUTURE TEENS (PLAYING 2004-2008 HITS) [ONCE Somerville, 156 Highland Ave., Somerville.

7:30pm/all ages/$15. oncesomerville.com]

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THE POP PUNK, THE LYRICAL MECHANIC, AND THE INDUSTRY PATH THE EARLY NOVEMBER + MORE [Brighton Music Hall, 158 Brighton Ave., Allston.

6:30pm/all ages/$19. crossroadspresents.com]

DIGBOSTON.COM

SAT 10.20

BE THE DAMN COWBOY MITSKI + OVERCOATS

[House of Blues, 15 Lansdowne St., Boston.

7pm/all ages/$22.50. houseofblues.com]

SAT 10.20

INDIE ‘SPIKED POLAR SELTZER ON A SUMMER DAY’ ROCK MARK MERREN + MEGAZOYD + MORE

[Lilypad Inman, 1353 Cambridge St., Cambridge.

10pm/all ages/$10. lilypadinman.com]

SUN 10.21

TELL ME HOW YOU REALLY FEEL COURTNEY BARNETT + WAXAHATCHEE [House of Blues, 15 Lansdowne St., Boston.

7pm/all ages/$35. houseofblues.com]

TUE 10.23

DOOM METAL EMBRACES REAL DEATH BELL WITCH [ONCE Somerville, 156 Highland Ave., Somerville. 8pm/all ages/$12. oncesomerville.com]

MR TWIN SISTER WHEEL OF TUNES

Jazzy soul act talks DJing parties and UFO investigations

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN

If we all changed as much as Mr Twin Sister does, it would be hard to pin down what our identities were. The New York band began as an indie rock act in 2011, switched to electronic chillwave in 2014, and now finds itself in a glitchy electropop world of minimalist soul in 2018 thanks to Salt, its third album.

Salt is a perfect example of how scattered yet polished Mr Twin Sister really are.

Despite foreays into jazz, soul, DnB, orchestral strings, and horns, the record sounds incredibly singular in its production, giving the feel PHOTO BY KAREN SOFIA COLON of a lucid dream in the club.

That comes from inherent experimentation and being open to failure. Saxophonist Eric Cardona, for instance, did hundreds of takes on his saxophone and then tried to recapture his original idea, often tossing ideas in the trash that felt stale. Lead singer Andrea Estella toys with how her voice falls and fades. Sporadic moments on Salt are united in how they’re constantly in communal motion. So a song like “Buy to Return” can see maximum vocals blossom in real time while the music fritzes behind it, whereas the opener “Keep on Mixing” feels like a slick, electronic, minimalist work of art that’s intent on letting you get lost in the feeling of dance. Different songs, but somehow they belong on the same record. Salt flickers between these styles, but it never once feels jarring because of how confidently Mr Twin Sister pull it all off.

“This record fell together in a way,” says Cardona. “We’ve always listened to such different types of music growing up and sharing music with one another. We’ve had this large, large, large pool of songs for so long. There was something about these that glued themselves together pretty quickly sonically. We cooked each one down. I think what keeps these songs in the same world is that they operate with the same amount of elements in each song. The core of each song is cooked down, and that’s something I feel very proud of. When we listen back to some old recordings of ours, we feel like they’re a bit overstuffed. So we were craving some air and space, which this glues together. ” To sort through the complex persona of Mr Twin Sister, we interviewed Eric Cardona and Andrea Estella for a round of Wheel of Tunes, a series where we ask musicians questions inspired by their song titles. With Salt as the prompt, their answers are imaginative and succinct—qualities that will ground Mr Twin Sister’s songs when the band headlines Great Scott this Thursday night.

1. “Keep on Mixing” If you were DJing a party, what are two songs you would absolutely include in your mix?

EC: Two songs, oof. Andrea is here with me right now, so I’ll let her pick one. We’re both not DJs at all, but we love to put music on. She picks “Pull Up to the Bumper” by Grace Jones. I like the moment in a party when it’s ready to put on “2 Become 1” by the Spice Girls. It’s a moment that happens, and that’s a great track.

2. “Alien FM” Do you think To The Stars Academy, a UFO investigation project started by Tom DeLonge of Blink-182, is a good idea and worth investing in?

EC: Actually, I have heard about this because I’m a Blink-182 fan.

AE: I think we should stay out of the sky. We’re doing plenty wrong down here so we should stay out of the sky. We gotta keep it down here. It might fix all of our problems, but I’m done. People are so annoying. We could be saving the Earth! That’s a difficult question.

EC: So I think our answer is “No” for that.

Read the rest of the article at Digboston.com

>>MR TWIN SISTER, SATEEN. THU 10.18. GREAT SCOTT, 1222 COMM. AVE., ALLSTON. 8:30PM/18+/$14. GREATSCOTTBOSTON.COM NEWS TO US

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THEATER REVIEWS PERFORMING ARTS

BY CHRISTOPHER EHLERS @_CHRISEHLERS AND JILLIAN KRAVATZ @JILLIAN_KRAVATZ

A FEARLESS, AND THEREFORE POWERFUL, FRANKENSTEIN AT CENTRAL SQUARE THEATER

GIRLHOOD, INTERRUPTED THE TRAGIC ECSTASY OF GIRLHOOD AT BOSTON PLAYWRIGHTS’ THEATRE

It’s likely that when you hear the name Frankenstein a very specific image comes to mind, one that probably involves green skin, stitches, and a pair of bolts.

The first thing to know about this production of Frankenstein, which is the 2011 version written by Nick Dear, is that it definitely has nothing to do with the movie monster you’re thinking of. Dear’s version, which premiered at London’s National Theatre in 2011 with Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller, tells the story from the perspective of the creature and has done away with all of the “It’s alive!” business.

If Dear’s version wasn’t different enough from Mary Shelley’s original story, then this Nora Theatre Company and Underground Railway Theater production at Central Square Theater is a monster of a different color entirely.

But with a director like David R. Gammons at the helm, how could we expect any less?

Gammons, one of Boston’s most intriguing visionaries, has made Frankenstein into a high-concept marvel of theatricality, the audacity of which will repel some but beguile others. And while his production has its problems, most of which have to do with the creature, it nonetheless remains a transfixing experience worthy of your time.

The creature, in this case, is played by all six members of the cast, sometimes all at once and other times just by a few; think of an acting class where the teacher might say: “Okay, class! Now, all together, be an amoeba! Feel the amoeba!”

The actors take turns breaking free from playing the creature to play secondary parts, and take turns giving voice to the monster. It is very difficult to get past this improv class-style, many-headed monster, and the production is not as suspenseful or frightening as it might have been with a singular monster, but that is clearly not the tale that Gammons wanted to tell.

The acting remains first-rate even if I began to pity the cast (Remo Airaldi, David Keohane, John Kuntz, Ashley Risteen, Omar Robinson, and Debra Wise) for the amount of grumbling and panting they had to do as the creature.

But part of what makes this Frankenstein so impressive is the first-rate design elements that give it its spirit. Cristina Todesco’s multipurpose, industrial blank canvas set works wonders along with Jeff Adelberg’s terrific lighting design, and Rachel Padula’s costumes are refreshingly original, even when they sometimes look like they came from a construction-themed episode of Project Runway. Most impressive, though, is David Wilson’s ingenious sound design that gives this production its indispensable sense of mood and place. (Adelberg, Padula, and Wilson all struck similar gold with Gammons’ unforgettable production of Edward II, which played at Actors’ Shakespeare Project last year).

Come armed with an open mind and you just might be swept up in the craft of this stylish retelling of one of our most enduring tales.

- Christopher Ehlers

Four young girls who have all come to live in a staterun home under different circumstances grapple with the death of Amber, their friend and housemate whose suicide rocks their already unstable lives.

Written by Kira Rockwell, The Tragic Ecstasy of Girlhood is a mixed bag of acutely drawn characters full of wit and perception who get bogged down by a script that turns melodramatic and more emotionally manipulative than it needs to be.

But this world-premiere production, directed by Leila Ghaemi, is acted by a first-rate quintet of young actresses whose performances are utterly convincing and (almost) profoundly moving.

Charlie (Tatiana Chavez) had an extra special bond with Amber (a remarkable Sarah Hirsch), an already emotionally unstable girl whose spiral is ignited by both her discovery of her birth mother’s identity and the realization that her biological mother wants no part of her life. Charlie may have even been falling for Amber, which is part of the reason why she is taking her suicide harder than the others.

Mercy, played by a dynamic Danielle Palmer, has just found out that she’s about to be released back into the care of her parents; her mother seems to have reconciled with her abusive father, and he’ll be coming to pick Mercy up in about a week, which gives Mercy plenty of time to plan her escape with her friends.

The street-smart Audi (Stephanie Castillo) has been around a block a few times in her 16 years but has actively tried to keep her record clean so that she can one day adopt her younger sister, Izzy (Amanda Figueroa). The girls want to help Mercy not have to go back home to her abusive father: Charlie offers her estranged aunt’s Oklahoma couch and Audi suggests that all she has to do is find a sugar daddy. “Desperate times call for hoochie measures,” Marcy jokes.

Even though the girls fight like sisters, they’re a family, whether they admit it or not. They’ve landed in foster care for different reasons—death, neglect, abuse—and although they haven’t experienced much kindness, they’ve survived, even if none of them knows what comes next.

For The Tragic Ecstasy of Girlhood to reach its full potential, Rockwell must figure out whether she wants her play to be about the inherited pain and suffering of women, as the bizarre ending suggests, or about the struggle of young girls born into a world of cruelty who— above all else—need to find it in their hearts to love themselves.

- Christopher Ehlers

FRANKENSTEIN. THROUGH 11.4 AT CENTRAL SQUARE THEATER, 450 MASS. AVE., CAMBRIDGE. CENTRALSQUARETHEATER.ORG

THE TRAGIC ECSTASY OF GIRLHOOD. THROUGH 10.21 AT BOSTON PLAYWRIGHTS’ THEATRE AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY, 949 COMM. AVE., BOSTON. BU.EDU/BPT

THE UNRAVELLING OF AN AMERICAN FAMILY ALL MY SONS AT PRAXIS STAGE

Before the lights go up on Praxis Stage’s season opener—a production of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons— theatergoers shuffling to their seats are subjected to a few jazz standards from the ’30s and ’40s. “If it’s a crime then I’m guilty, guilty of loving you,” a warbling 18

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voice admits from a speaker mounted in the corner. A few minutes later, another crooner asks, “What can I do?

What can I say? After I’ve taken the blame?” If a bit on the nose, the music prepares us for what’s to come: an argumentative family drama confronting the losses and the spoils of war.

It’s a few years after V-day. The boys are back home, the factories are making dishwashers and pressure cookers again, and everyone is trying to get back to living.

The Kellers really are “in the money,” enjoying the wealth they’ve gained from the family’s productive factory.

Of course, though, not all is right with the Keller family. Their son Larry never came home from the war, and Kate Keller, played by a sympathetic and dynamic Sharon Mason, has never accepted the death of her oldest boy, still waiting on the day when he will return a hero.

Joe Keller, the family’s patriarch, has his own demons.

Accused of knowingly shipping damaged airplane parts from his factory after the death of 21 pilots from defective cylinder heads, he is determined to keep up the ruse of innocence after having blamed the faulty equipment on his business partner and former next-door neighbor Steve Deever. While Joe, played by Praxis founder Daniel Boudreau, basks in the morning sun reading a newspaper at the start of the play, Deever sits in jail.

Boudreau’s performance is rightly impressive and forceful. With a swaggering gait, a booming voice and squinting eyes, he captures the audacity of a guilty man staring the world in the face and laughing that it might dare to question him.The courts have put their trust in the man whose version of the truth was more forceful, and that—in Keller’s mind—is just fine.

In this production, director Joe Juknievich has decided to cast black actors Lorna Lowe and Dominic Carter to play Deever’s children, Ann and George. When two men get blamed for the same thing, the play argues, the black man is the one who gets locked up for it regardless of the truth.

If there is any justice in the play, it seems to be that even a family well-practiced in its own lies cannot hold out forever. Praxis Stage’s production is most successful near the end, when it’s all anguish, yelling, tears, and a well-staged crash into a wicker lawn table. One wishes, however, there had not been quite as much yelling in the previous scenes.

Before the ultimate unraveling of the family, Praxis’s production often feels rushed and overanimated— escalating headfirst toward a tragic conclusion that’s inevitable not because it’s earned but because the script demands it. The pacing of Juknievich’s production sometimes comes off as an anxiousness to get on to the next scene, and the love scenes between Chris (Casey Preston) and Ann feel particularly unconvincing despite their Romeo and Juliet potential. Their romance is one chance to take a breath in an otherwise tense and argumentative play, and, though doomed, it would have served the production to settle into a easier depiction of love.

The rushed quality of certain scenes, however, sometimes lent a wanted uneasiness to the family’s attempts to seem normal. Like scarfing down a meal as fast as possible for fear of never eating again, the Kellers push on awkwardly to the next scene. If they don’t hurry, someone will start asking questions.

In Chelsea, where the play is being staged, planes passing to and from Logan fly low, their engine’s roar filling the streets every few minutes. Leaving the theater, one such plane rattled ahead—a perfect coda more effective than any jazz standard.

- Jillian Kravatz ALL MY SONS. THROUGH 10.27 AT PRAXIS STAGE AT CHELSEA THEATRE WORKS, 189 WINNISIMMET ST., CHELSEA. PRAXISSTAGE.COM

FROM THE HEART BOOKS

A memoir of working hard and being broke in the richest country on earth REVIEW BY MAX CHAPNICK @MAXCHAPPY

“We cannot understand … any great injustice by thinking about the masses,” Ana Maria Archila told the New York Times. “We have to think about it in the experience of one person.”

That’s how Archila, one of the protesters who famously confronted Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake during the height of the fight over Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court appointment, frames the power of her confrontation. She wanted Flake to listen to her story.

She argues that individual stories can, sometimes, change minds.

For that same reason, in a moment when media shorthand like “Trump country” seems to caricature an entire class of people living between the coasts, a compelling narrative from that too-often-stereotyped region feels refreshing and urgent.

In her new memoir, Heartland, Sarah Smarsh fully embodies Archila’s idea: The book tells the story of the injustices done to millions by taking the reader inside one person’s life, her own. Smarsh denies being an “activist” writer and says her new book is neither a polemic nor a manifesto; it is first and foremost a memoir. Still, Heartland’s vulnerability necessarily reflects back on public discourse, at least in the way Archila articulates: Smarsh comprehensively and vividly portrays intergenerational, rural poverty through the eyes of one particular person.

Smarsh structures the book chronologically, tracing her life growing up on the prairie from birth to high school, and intersperses those stories by detailing the lives of her family through several generations. As the book navigates Smarsh’s childhood, each chapter focuses on a related thematic concern, like money (“A penny in a purse”), physical work (“The body of a poor girl”), home ownership (“A house that needs shingles”), and gender trouble (“A working class woman”).

In addition to thematic division, Smarsh uses another structural technique in dedicating the book to “the poor child I would never have.” This child, whom she calls August, is named for the month, as well as for Smarsh’s grandfather and for the adjective.

Stylistically, when Smarsh turns to and from the second person address—suddenly including a “you” in her book—it produces, sometimes, an awkward whiplash, and sometimes a defiant lyricism.

More practically, the imagined child serves as a bulwark against chaos and an objective lens for retrospective analysis. The technique allows Smarsh to pause and reflect in the midst of incomprehensible forces: “You [August] were above the markets that defined the lives of farmers and farm animals, beyond the shame a country or church could assign.”

The swirl of agribusiness markets and shaming rhetoric that hems in young Sarah are as unique to her environment as the tornados that sweep through rural Kansas. Smarsh’s specific setting delimits much of her early life, and she announces her farmstead as home in the first, tactile sentence of this first substantive chapter: “The farm was thirty miles west of Wichita on the silty loam of southern Kansas that never asked for more than prairie grass.”

On a recent trip to Boston, Smarsh framed her book talk, almost inevitably, around this geographic determinism. It was a rainy Monday night at Harvard Book Store, where a dozen packed rows of people sat surrounded by a university with an endowment $10 billion larger than the annual GDP of Smarsh’s metropolitan Wichita. Smarsh warned the crowd about ignoring the importance of one’s earthly coordinates: “In this digital moment,” she said, “some of us fancy ourselves post-geography.”

But the planet’s larger than it may appear on our screens. She continued: “Where we are physically on the Earth absolutely shapes our experience. …

That has everything to do with class.”

For Smarsh, geography and economics are intertwined. These two characteristics—physical distance and material wealth—also separate America’s newsrooms and publishing houses from the life experiences of people like Smarsh. This difference, Smarsh argues, results in the media’s rhetorical shortcuts that can empty places like Kansas of its nuance.

Terms like “Trump country,” “red NEWS TO US

states,” “flyover country,” “the rural-urban divide,” “the working class,” and even “poor” denote a stereotype, Smarsh points out, that flattens the experience, for example, of the millions of Midwesterners who voted for Hillary Clinton.

Consider, as Smarsh asks us, how the term “white trash” is, in fact, a “slur.” Consider how even the simple word poor, a term “used to represent those without money,” is also “a descriptor meaning outright badness, as in ‘poor health’ or ‘poor test results.’ In a country where personal value is supposed to create wealth, it is easy for a poor person to feel himself a bad one.”

Or consider, as Smarsh addresses her would-be child, how this language of difference can clash with a reality: “You would have been born on one side of that perceived divide, but that wouldn’t have predicted anything about the core of you. Not your politics and definitely not your character. … Every day you would decide whether to stay, go, or try to go. And, if you went, no matter where you ended up … you’d still feel the invisible dirt of your motherland on the soles of your feet.”

In order to really understand this book, I think you have to read it yourself. And that’s because Heartland succeeds most completely in the unexpected details and emotional quirks that each reader will stumble over themselves—the Flintstone vitamins signifying wealth, the misspelling of “missiles” signifying lack of opportunity. The book shines from thousands of these buried gems, ready and waiting to be noticed. Smarsh invites her readers to see the whole more clearly by its parts.

About halfway through the book, Smarsh presents one of these idiosyncratic anecdotes chock-full of revelatory minutia. Entering adolescence and just beginning to find her voice, young Smarsh competes in her elementary school’s “annual public speaking contest.” The theme is “illegal drugs,” and there are red ribbons brought in from DARE. Smarsh, practiced, poised, and self-adorned with dangly earrings, delivers a speech called “The Devil Within,” in which she “laid the responsibility for avoiding drug addiction squarely where I’d been taught it belonged: yourself.” Smarsh wins. She’s rewarded with a certificate, a scientific calculator, and a handshake with the district attorney.

But something feels wrong. To the praise of her family sitting on fold-out chairs, young Smarsh says addicts are morally deficient. But couldn’t fifth-grade Smarsh have easily been talking about her own family? What about “Dad’s booze and gambling, Mom and Grandma’s incessant smoking, and Chris’s [Dad’s second wife’s] pills”? What about Smarsh’s own “stealing and vandalizing”? Are her family members, and her own self, irresponsible, weak willed, and morally failed?

“While Heartland is not a political book and it doesn’t set out to make an overtly political argument,” Smarsh told the crowd in Cambridge, “it absolutely regards the connection between public forces and our private experiences.”

Too often, like the fifth-grade Smarsh, we neglect to appreciate the impact of public forces, namely a lack of money and opportunity, on private decisions.

If family members like Chris, with her opioid addiction, had “failed,” Smarsh wonders, “what about the systems that had failed her?”

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

19

GREAT FLICK(ER) FILM

Introducing Tony Conrad is accompanied by a program of his films

BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN

“STILL FRAMES FROM STRAIGHT AND NARROW, 1970, 16MM. COPYRIGHT: TONY CONRAD ESTATE”.

There is the cliche phrase “pure cinema” so regularly used to describe those scenes or passages that seem properly attuned to the motion picture format, like a chase, or a stunt, or a kiss. I’ve of course used the phrase myself, and probably much too often. But I haven’t used it much in the past three years, not since I first became acquainted with the “flicker” movies crafted and directed by artists including Paul Sharits, Jodie Mack, and Tony Conrad— works that for me seem to encompass the very idea of movies, that illusion of movement created by shifting light, and to such an extent that I’ve begun to regard the work of these artists as being utterly inextricable from my own conception of the form itself, their films as “purely” cinematic as any by Billy Bitzer or the brothers Lumière.

Among the most seminal entries in the flicker subgenre are those by the aforementioned Tony Conrad (1940-2016), particularly his aptly named The Flicker [1966], which might even be designed to function as an introduction to the stereoscopic phenomenon. To wit, the movie, Conrad’s first, begins with a warning for the uninitiated: In a disclaimer both cheeky and sincere, it’s advised that what follows may “induce epileptic seizures or produce mild symptoms of shock treatment” (it should also be noted that the film has been found to induce photogenic migraines in those susceptible, so please do take real caution as may be necessary). Following this warning are two stylized title cards, and then finally the movie itself: Roughly 30 minutes of clear frames and black frames alternating in succession, the former acting as a base, and the latter interrupting almost like the shutter of a projector, creating a black-and-white flicker effect that ramps up and down in speed according to a 20

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complex rhythm dictated with mathematical precision by Conrad himself (there is a synthesizer-based soundtrack accompanying the film, although to me it sounds quite similar to the noise created by film projectors themselves, creating another link between The Flicker and the base mechanics of the art form).

The Flicker begins with the clear frames interrupted by black flashes every few seconds, but then the effect increases metronomically until the black frames create a constant pulse, which grows faster and clearer until the flicker begins to slow back down, the film exhaling toward its own ending, a damn near orchestral rhythm expressed only in light. Since the black frames are rarely if ever on screen for more than a fraction of a second, your eyes don’t comprehend them as individual units, so instead all you can really see is a reflection of your own perception, whatever your mind creates to fill in the blanks. In other words, the film literally forces you into a participatory state, and a deeply physical one at that: I’ve seen The Flicker in a theatrical setting twice now, and both times I perceived geometric shapes, lines, spheres, and patterns, none of which are present on the physical film itself.

The next opportunity to see The Flicker in a theatrical setting comes this Friday at the Harvard Film Archive (Oct 19, 7 pm), as part of a feature-length program of stroboscopic Conrad movies. That program will include three additional works that I’ve yet to see, those being 4-X Attack [1973], a 10-minute excerpt from Articulation of Boolean Algebra for Film Opticals [1975], and The Eye of Count Flickerstein [1975]. But I have seen the fifth and final movie included in the program, Straight and Narrow [1970], which is co-directed by Beverly Grant and features

a score by John Cale and Terry Riley. Straight and Narrow functions almost like a sequel to The Flicker, essentially multiplying the same concept: In this film there’s a rapid succession of blackand-white lines, both horizontal and vertical, which are once again arranged to alternate at a speed that creates an inherently hallucinogenic effect. And just as The Flicker seems to create patterns and shapes that aren’t really present on the actual print, Straight and Narrow appears to produce colors within its black-and-white frames.

Yet to speak about these films in this manner—as cinematically oriented optical illusions—strikes me as reducing what they actually do. Both not only provoke but make absolutely essential the mental space where viewer meets film, where the audience projects themselves back onto the screen, creating an experience defined entirely by the interplay between the film’s texture and your own perception, and in a manner that’s lively, visceral, not at all stuffy but totally sensorial.

Some of Conrad’s flicker movies have been digitized or shown as installation art, but in my experience (with the former at least) that greatly dilutes the experience. Seen at full length, start to finish, via their original 16mm format, The Flicker and Straight and Narrow both reveal themselves as two entirely vital works of abstract cinema art: Their rhythms are singular, intuitive and progressive and innately pleasurable, and in those rigorously composed rhythms the films transform light itself into a form of narrative, one that encompasses viewer and projector and space alike. Following these films Conrad—a multidisciplinary artist with more credits than I could fit on this whole page—would engage in sculptural work and performance art that challenged the very boundaries of cinematic formats—he took photochemical film and pickled it (Pickled E.K. 7302– 244–0502 #11 being one example), or cooked it (Sukiyaki Film being another), while also making new “movies” comprised of nothing more than paint drying on a canvas (as in his Yellow Movies cycle and their various spin-offs).

He worked to obliterate the very conceptions that give a phrase like “pure cinema” its meaning. “I was trying to kill film,” Conrad once said about this post-flicker period of his work. “I wanted to let it lay over and die.” These early “structuralist” films, The Flicker and Straight and Narrow and their companions, may have represented the very tradition he was out to kill. Well, call Flickerstein—they’re alive.

The “Tony Conrad: Film” program takes place at the Harvard Film Archive on Fri 10.19, 7pm. 16mm. $9.

The screening is part of Introducing Tony Conrad: A Retrospective, which is on display at both the MIT List Visual Arts Center (20 Ames St., Cambridge) and the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts (24 Quincy St., Cambridge) 10.19–1.6.19.. Other motion picture screenings occurring in conjunction with the exhibit include the documentary Tony Conrad: Completely in the Present [2016] (also on 10.19), as well as two programs of video-based work by Conrad (on 11.16 and 11.30). Also occurring in conjunction with the exhibit is a sound performance presented by Non-Event featuring Henry Flynt, Lary 7, and Damon & Naomi (12.1 at the MIT List Visual Arts Center, free to the public but RSVP is required). For more information on the exhibit and programming, see listart.mit.edu, carpenter.center, and library.harvard.edu/film/index.html/.

OCTOBER 29

NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

21

THE RUB SAVAGE LOVE

DIG THIS

HORROR SHOW

The spookiest happenings from Boston to Salem

BY DAN SAVAGE @FAKEDANSAVAGE | MAIL@SAVAGELOVE.NET

BY MORGAN HUME

I have a secret: For the past three months, I’ve been attending a local Jacks club (a menonly masturbation event). As someone recovering from sexual abuse, I find the party to be safe, therapeutic, and just sexy fun. I feel like I need this! Unfortunately, I spotted one of my employees at last week’s event. Although I’m openly gay at my workplace, being naked, erect, and sexual in the same room as my employee felt wrong. I freaked out, packed up, and departed without him seeing me (I hope). I’m his manager at work, and I feel that being sexual around him could damage our professional relationship. It could even have dangerous HR consequences. I realize he has every right to attend Jacks, as much right as me, but I wish he weren’t there. I want to continue attending Jacks, but what if he’s there again? Frankly, I’m terrified to discuss the topic with him. Help!

Just A Cock Kraving Safety “I hate to say it, but now that JACKS knows his employee attends these events, he really has to stop going,” said Alison Green, the management consultant behind the popular Ask a Manager advice column (askamanager.org) and the author of Ask a Manager: How to Navigate Clueless Colleagues, Lunch-Stealing Bosses, and the Rest of Your Life at Work.

And why do you have to stop going to your beloved JO club?

“In an employment relationship where he’s in a position of power,” said Green, “JACKS has a responsibility to avoid any remotely sexual situation with an employee.”

Green also strongly advises against pulling your employee aside and working out some sort of shared custody agreement—you get Jacks to yourself every other week— because initiating a conversation with a subordinate about when and where he likes to jack off would be a bad idea. She also doesn’t think you can just keep going in the hopes that your employee won’t be back.

“If he continues to attend and it got back to anyone at their workplace, it would be really damaging to his reputation—not the fact that he was at the event to begin with, but the fact that he continued to attend knowing an employee was also participating,” said Green. “It would call his professional judgment into question, and it’s highly likely that HR would freak out about the potential legal liability that arises when you have a manager and a subordinate in a sexual context together.”

It seems crazy unfair to me that you should have to stop going to parties you not only enjoy, JACKS, but that have aided in your recovery. And Green agrees—it isn’t fair—but with great power (management) comes great responsibility (avoiding places where your employees are known to jack off).

“It’s never going to feel fair to have to drop out of a private, out-of-work activity just because of your job,” said Green. “I’m hoping it’s possible for JACKS to find a different club in a neighboring town. Or he could start his own club and offer a safe haven for other managers hiding out from potential run-ins with employees—Jacks for Middle Managers or something!”

While I had Green’s attention, I asked her about other sorts of gay social events that might toss a manager and an employee into a sexual context—think of the thousands of men who attended the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco last month. Gay men (and others) walk around in various states of undress or dress up, and a lot of flirting, groping, and more goes down. Should gay men in management have to skip events like Folsom lest they run into men they supervise?

“Public events are different from private clubs,” said Green. “A private club is more intimate, and a public event is, well, public. And it’s not reasonable or practical to expect managers to entirely curtail their social lives or never attend a public event. But a private club that’s organized specifically and primarily for sexual activity is in a different category.”

However, gay managers who run into employees at events like Folsom or circuit parties shouldn’t ogle, hit on, or photograph their employees.

“If someone who reports to you is in a sexual situation,” said Green, “you should keep moving and give them as much space as you reasonably can.”

I’m going to give myself the last word here: You’ve been attending that JO club for months and saw your employee there only once, JACKS, so I think you can risk going back at least one more time. I would hate to see you deprived of release (and see your recovery set back!) if your employee was there only that one time.

Follow Alison Green on Twitter @AskAManager.

On the Lovecast, cartoonist Ellen Forney on dating with bipolar disorder: savagelovecast.com

Pinball Witch Hunt Halloween Extravaganza WHAT: In which your friends from DigBoston (read: us) present you with a night of comedy, horror, and trivia with a costume contest and prizes. Featuring Lamont Price (Hulu, 2 Dope Queens, Boston’s Best Comedian 2018) and other comics seen on MTV and Comedy Central.

WHERE: Down the Road Brewery, Everett WHEN: Oct 24 Pumpkin Palooza at the Lawn on D WHAT: As the Lawn on D wraps up another season, it’s time to celebrate with two days full of Halloween festivities. Past such events have brought us live music, LED dancers, pumpkin carving, and face painting. More spooky details about this year’s event will be released soon.

WHERE: South Boston WHEN: Oct 27-28, all day Fenway Friday Night Halloween Pub Crawl WHAT: Pub crawls are everywhere in Boston, and Halloween is no exception. There are a lot to choose from, but this one appears to involve goblins, werewolves, and goons lurking nearby, and they’re all a ton of fun to drink with.

WHERE: Fenway WHEN: Oct 27 Canine Promenade WHAT: If you’re not a dog person, you are the real monster. For those who love animals, this event features the cutest pups around strutting their stuff in tiny costumes, all while they parade for half a mile alongside the Charles River. It may not be the scariest, but it’s definitely the cutest.

WHERE: Esplanade WHEN: Oct 28, noon-2 pm Dragathon WHAT: These badass ladies are ditching the blood and gore to dress up with glitter and glitz. Celebrate Halloween with these former RuPaul’s Drag Race contestants offering a smorgasbord of stand-up, music, drinks, and of course, killer looks.

WHERE: Royale, Boston WHEN: Oct 31, 8 pm Cry Innocent WHAT: Anyone can sit down and read The Crucible, but seeing the events unfold in front of you is a whole other experience. Cry Innocent brings the infamous 1692 witch trials to life live on stage, in the spot where they took place more than 300 years ago.

It’s a unique horror guaranteed to bring more chills than your upcoming heating bills.

WHERE: Old Town Hall, Salem WHEN: Shows run seven days a week Pumpkins and Pints WHAT: Forget a pumpkin spiced latte, we’re skipping right to beer. This celebration features seasonal food and drinks, and you know what that means—Oktoberfest brews from local and international distributors.

WHERE: Glasshouse, Cambridge WHEN: Oct 13, 3-7 pm Boston Costume Dash WHAT: Trick-or-treating is fun, but a bit childish, right? Well, you can still put on a silly costume, but instead of feasting on candy, you can burn off calories by running. This 5K is different from most, of course, since participants will be running in costumes. Including some who will presumably be dressed as runners, which could be somewhat confusing.

WHERE: Copley Square WHEN: Oct 27, 9 am Tales from the Crypt WHAT: King’s Chapel is one of the rare churches in the northeast that contains crypts, aka the remains of dead people. Candlelit tours are led in the cellar where relics are stored, making it so history buffs and necromaniacs can gawk at the opportunity to explore the historic landmark.

WHERE: King’s Chapel, Downtown Boston WHEN: Oct 19-23, 25-27, 29-31. Tours offered at 5:30 pm and 6:15 pm

savagelovecast.com

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WHAT'S FOR BREAKFAST

BY PATT KELLEY PATTKELLEY.COM

CLERGY AND LAITY FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING (CLAH) FUNDRAISER FRI. OCT. 26, 2018, 7:30 - 11:30PM HIBERNIAN HALL 151 Watertown Street, Watertown, MA 02472 (Bus Line #59)

AR

GO

ETH A

SP EL

NIG

HT WIT HA KL AN I N TR EV AN IBU EN DA ING TE TOU TO OF CH SP OF IRI TUA MO TOW L UP PRESENTS: N L IFT LIVE BAND — MAGIC OF MOTOWN with Arthur Jefferson and the New Rhythm Band FR

AN

Music of the night includes Aretha Franklin, Four Tops, Temptations, and Stevie Wonder!

Appetizers and desserts provided. Drinks available to purchase from the bar.

RSVP AT: clahgospelnight2018.eventbrite.com Proceeds benefit CLAH programs, which uses volunteers from diverse communities to repair homes of persons in need. For information about the program and volunteer opportunities, call 617-244-3650, visit coopmet.org or email info@coopmet.org.

THE WAY WE WEREN’T

BY PAT FALCO ILLFALCO.COM

MONKEY SEED PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS

FRIDAY OCT 26th 6PM

OUR VALUED CUSTOMERS

BY TIM CHAMBERLAIN OURVC.NET

PA R K S O U N D S B O S T O N . C O M NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

23

presents...

Pinball

Witch Hunt a Halloween

Extravaganza

! a i v i r T r o r r o H + y ed

m o C f O t A Nigh

! t s e t n o Costume C Prizes!

Featuring Lamont Pri Queens, Boston’s Bes

ce (Hulu, 2 Dope

t Comedian 2018)

& other comics seen o

WEDS OCT. 24 @ 7PM

$15

n MTV & Comedy Central

At Down the Road 199 Ashland St. Everett