DigBoston 10.25.18

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OCT 25, 2018 - NOV 01, 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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ROYALE

TORO Y MOI

SMALL EYES ON ME

I have a hell of a time finding goggles for swimming. They never seem to fit, mostly in the bridge region. Goddamn things let water seep in every lap. It sucks.

After years of having no idea why pool specs rarely fit correctly, a person close to me who shall remain unnamed let me in on a wide-open secret: “Your eyes are really close together,” she said.

I looked in the mirror.

Holy shit! She wasn’t kidding.

In the time since, I have been uncharacteristically selfconscious of my shortcoming, often wearing sunglasses to hide my beady peepers. It’s not the first time I’ve had feelings of inadequacy; as the shortest boy in my entire class in middle school, I got picked on and beaten, even losing several teeth in one instance. I’ve been over that for years and even fought back on some occasions; nevertheless, this new awareness of my physically myopic and cycloptic optics has been a reminder of the terror that comes with the feeling that you don’t think, look, or act like your tormentors say you are supposed to.

Lucky for me, my bully wasn’t the President of the United States. Because when I was growing up, the people who had that position didn’t use their pulpits to nitpick the perceived flaws of former flames. To be clear, every POTUS since George Washington has been a warmonger and tool of the elite (yes, that includes Barack Obama). But while I hate to join the sentimental set and waste my precious weekly column space on trite issues of fed import that larger outlets needle needlessly around the clock, I can’t help but acknowledge the egregious lowlight of Donald Trump calling Stormy Daniels “Horseface.”

I’m not here to police insults people like to use in private. To do so is as foolish as it’s futile; if the president had any friends, I could care less about what he said in their company. But for chrissakes, whether you’re a high-ranking honcho or a high school punk who got head after prom, it can’t be said enough that there are few things more transparently pathetic than publicly mocking the appearance of a person you got sloppy with.

That such behavior is applauded by Trump’s base is no surprise to anybody who has seen the infantile bigots at his rallies, but that doesn’t make his verbal assaults less harrowing, since they reflect the increasing attacks on women, people of color, and this past week, especially trans people, as Trump “is considering narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth, the most drastic move yet in a governmentwide effort to roll back recognition and protections of transgender people under federal civil rights law,” according to the New York Times.

You might ask: Should my condemnation of namecalling also apply to Daniels? She did, after all, make the word “mushroom” trend after she spoke about the shape of Trump’s dick on TV. The porn star apologized, but didn’t really have to, since she’s ultimately just trying to show that he is lying about their affair, and describing genitals is always a great way to prove that something (or somebody) went down.

Fortunately, I think she’ll be okay; Daniels knows she’s hot and that the POTUS likely jerks off to her regularly, and I doubt that she was too offended by the insult. As for the rest of us who are twisting in the wind with this presidency, waiting to see if he will fuck and diss us next, that’s another story altogether.

In my case, it turns out that my eyes may not be too far apart after all. The problem, I’m starting to realize, is my big-ass nose. Luckily, I learned to embrace it years ago.

It’s distinguished and aerodynamic, and it helps me sniff out frauds like Trump from blocks away.

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

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3

NEWS+OPINION QUESTIONS BEGET QUESTIONS

ELECTION 2018

Your ballot initiative breakdown, from patient limits, to campaign finance, to transgender rights

BY OLIVIA DENG @OLIVIADENG1 On Election Day (Nov 6), Massachusetts voters will vote “yes” or “no” on three questions. The first is about establishing safe patient limits in hospitals, the second regards money in politics, and the third relates to transgender protections in public accommodations. With a flurry of messages floating from every direction like hail in a New England snowstorm, it can be difficult to understand the history behind these questions and the implications of the laws they can trigger. With help from experts and advocates from all corners, we compiled this guide to decipher the arguments.

Q1 This question, which has spurred a yard-sign war on lawns across the Commonwealth, asks voters to approve a law that would limit the number of patients assigned to nurses working at hospitals and other health facilities.

While currently there is no standard for patient-to-nurse limits in Mass, if passed, those exceeding the maximum allowed number of patients would theoretically be fined.

According to Kate Norton, spokesperson for the Safe Patient Limits campaign (aka the “Yes” side), the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) and nurse advocates have been pushing for safe patient limits for 20 years. “Putting this on the ballot was really the only option left on the part of nurses to try and secure safe patient limits and make sure that patients are getting the same care equity across every hospital in the Commonwealth,” Norton said.

The lack of standards is concerning, Norton added, saying there are grave consequences for patients when nurses have too many patients to simultaneously care for.

“Put yourself in their [patients’] shoes,” she said. “Do you want to be one of four patients that a nurse is taking care of at the same time, or one of eight patients? Nurses do excellent work, but it’s just not safe. … You see things like increased rates of readmission. You see greater rates of infections.”

Conor Yunits, spokesperson for Coalition to Protect Patient Safety, characterized the proposed law as rigid. “Question 1 imposes rigid, government mandated nurse staffing ratios on a health care system that has the best patient outcomes in the world,” Yunits said, adding that critical programs and community hospitals could be forced to close. “These astronomical costs will force hospitals to limit services and close entire units, or close completely if they cannot afford the costs needed to comply. This will result in bed closures and cuts to community health programs, such as cancer screenings, opioid treatments, mental health services, domestic violence programs and pre- or post-natal care at hospitals across the state. It will cause some hospitals to close.”

Norton said the argument that programs will be closed because of this law is unfounded. “Programs and services don’t get cut because of nurses,” she said. “Programs and services get cut because they don’t make enough profit to the satisfaction of their executives.” The Yes on 1 spokesperson also suggests that voters “follow the money.”

“The opposition side here has been funded by the Massachusetts Hospital Association and hospitals across Massachusetts which function as corporate entities,” Norton said. “You’ve got hospital executives making well into the seven figures; last year the hospital industry generated $28 billion in revenue. There is no question the 4

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hospitals can support this, but they’re using scare tactics.

They’re using threats and intimidation to try and confuse the voters.”

Q2 This less-discussed referendum will ask voters to approve a law that would create a Citizens Commission to investigate campaign finance and make amendments to the United States Constitution to limit how much money corporations, unions, and other artificial entities can spend on elections. The initiative behind Question 2 was sparked by Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court (2010), which yielded the decision that “Political spending is a form of protected speech under the First Amendment, and the government may not keep corporations or unions from spending money to support or denounce individual candidates in elections.”

Voting “yes” on this question would mean supporting a 28th Amendment to overturn Citizens United and related cases. Ben Gubits, the spokesperson for People Govern, Not Money, which is leading the “Yes on 2” effort, said that since Citizens United, elections have become increasingly expensive.

“It had a profound impact on our democracy where those that can afford to make large campaign contributions have more voice in our democracy than average citizens do,” Gubits said. “The commission will take testimony, hold hearings, issue reports on campaign finance and the impact of money in politics in Massachusetts and what’s happening in campaign finance. … They will also be kind of the people’s watchdog to hold our elected officials and members of Congress accountable.”

The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance is leading the “No on 2” campaign against such reforms. Paul Craney, spokesperson for the group, said that a “yes” vote on Question 2 means voting to “have your First Amendment rights restricted more.” When asked what he means by having freedom of speech restricted by voting to limit big money’s influence in elections, Craney said the proponents of Question 2 are asking, “Can we put into the US Constitution discrimination? So you pick out winners and losers in campaign finance law. The constitution is very clear that everyone should be treated the same.”

Craney pointed to the proposed millionaires’ tax ballot question that sought to create an additional 4 percent state tax on those earning more than $1 million annually, with the revenue going to education and transportation.

That referendum didn’t make it to the ballot but,

according to Craney, made “a similar argument where [proponents] wanted to put into the state constitution discrimination meaning that if you earn a certain amount, you’re treated differently than others. That was blatantly unconstitutional. … The Supreme Court has already ruled that Citizens United, the court case that’s starting this question, is constitutional and it’s everyone’s right.”

In response to those claims, those who are behind Question 2 say the imbalance between those who are able to make massive campaign contributions and average citizens is itself discriminatory.

“We are trying to take power away from the billionaires and special interests that dominate our elections and deliver it back to average citizens,” Gubits said. “The people should have power in our government, not just the special donors and the people that can afford to make large campaign contributions.”

Q3 Question 3 asks voters if they want to keep a law that prohibits discrimination against transgender people in any place of public accommodation. Freedom for All Massachusetts is leading the campaign to vote “yes” while Keep MA Safe is running the “no” side.

This particular fight for transgender rights in Mass can be traced at least as far back as 2011, when the Transgender Equal Rights Coalition pushed for legislation that protects transgender people from discrimination in employment, credit, housing, and education.

Five years later, Freedom for All Massachusetts pushed through the unfinished work and passed the law to protect people from discrimination in public places. But now, this component of transgender rights is under threat.

“Voters will vote yes to uphold the law or no, which would repeal the law,” said Matthew Wilder, spokesperson for Freedom for All Massachusetts. “The bar was really low for the no side to place this on the ballot. They only needed 32,000 signatures.” Wilder added: “At its core it’s about dignity and respect for transgender people and [to] ensure they are free from discrimination and harassment in all public places. … We want to make sure this law is upheld, that those protections remain.”

Yvette Ollada, spokesperson for Keep MA Safe, said that the organization is leading the No on 3 campaign because the “current bathroom law allows for predators and convicted sex offenders to enter women’s locker rooms, bathrooms and fitting rooms. … We need to repeal the law because we need to protect women. … We are concerned about convicted sex offenders abusing the law to prey on women.”

Asked about why her group wants to repeal a provision that protects transgender people from discrimination, Ollada said, “The definition of gender identity is too broad.”

Countering that argument, Wilder noted there has not been any uptick in criminal activity since the law went into effect two years ago. Indeed, a 2018 study published in Sexuality Research and Social Policy shows that there is no link between transgender rights law and bathroom crimes.

“All this law does is protect transgender people from harassment and discrimination in public places,” Wilder said. “Look at the facts.”

SURPRISE! NEWS EXTRA

Study finds Mass Catholics support expansion of abortion rights

BY DANIEL KAUFMAN The numbers are in on Massachusetts voters’ views on abortion: An overwhelming majority support a woman’s right to choose. In a new study released this month by the MassINC Polling Group in collaboration with the National Institute for Reproductive Health (NIRH) and NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts, polls revealed high levels of support for abortion access among the state’s Catholic constituents.

More than two-thirds of Catholics polled for the study supported a number of pro-choice initiatives, including a state law guaranteeing the legal right to an abortion, an exception to the ban on abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy to protect a woman’s health or in cases where there is a grave fetal anomaly, ensuring MassHealth continues to offer low-income patients access to abortion services, and requiring all health insurers to cover the cost of abortion services.

The study comes on the heels of the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. With Justice Kavanaugh’s confirmation, many liberals fear that the Supreme Court decision in Roe V. Wade stipulating women’s constitutional right to privacy and in turn abortion could be overturned, opening the floodgates for the gutting of women’s access to abortion services across the country.

In response to this possibility, pro-choice groups in Massachusetts have begun to solidify statewide protections on abortion access, beginning with the passage of S.2260 earlier this summer, which struck down a number of archaic laws restricting women’s access to abortion. These outdated statutes, some of which date back to the mid-1800s, include a ban on illegally procuring a miscarriage, a ban on unmarried people accessing contraception, a ban on distributing information about how to access contraception or abortion care, and a law that punishes pharmacists, doctors, and other healthcare providers for distributing contraception or performing an abortion.

While pro-choice groups celebrated the passage of S.2260, the battle for abortion rights is far from won. For Rebecca Hart Holder, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts, the joint NIRH/NARAL study is just the first step in solidifying and expanding Massachusetts’ reputation as a leader in the fight for fair access to abortion.

“Right now the right to abortion is guaranteed by Roe, but if Roe were to fall, the Massachusetts state constitution has been interpreted by our supreme court to have more of an expansive right to abortion then the federal constitution.

We believe that the court would find that our state constitution guarantees the right to privacy, but that doesn’t exist in statute, and obviously political winds can change, so we think it’s important to put in statute the fact that women and families in Massachusetts can access abortion care when and if they need it.

The legislative session doesn’t begin until January, so as of now we are working on that but it’s something we’re taking a very serious look at considering the confirmation of justice Kavanaugh.”

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BOSTON FIDDLES WHILE THE WORLD BURNS APPARENT HORIZON

City government continues issuing reports while UN calls for immediate action

BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS

When writing about human-induced global warming on a regular basis, it’s a good idea to pace oneself. Because it’s such a relentlessly depressing topic that highlighting it too often can backfire. Faced with an existential threat of such magnitude that human civilization—and perhaps the human race itself—may well be doomed, people have a tendency to just tune out. Figuring that “we may indeed be doomed, but not just yet.” Which reflects a serious misunderstanding of how doom works.

And more importantly, neglects to factor in how the avoidance of thinking about approaching doom makes its swift arrival all the more certain. By cultivating inaction, when immediate and militant action is called for.

Be that as it may, there are times when journalists like myself cannot just let a notable happening pass without comment. And Mayor Marty Walsh’s global warming-related press conference of last week was certainly such a one.

In keeping with previous junkets on the same theme, Walsh rehearsed yet another version of the same report he’s been trotting out for the last couple of years. This time entitled “Resilient Boston Harbor.” Where the fashionable foundation buzzword “resilient” stands in for “doing the cheapest, least effective thing possible.”

Since like previous versions the report: 1) doesn’t propose binding regulation to force the corporations responsible for the lion’s share of carbon emissions in Boston to do what is necessary to make the city carbon neutral by its target date of 2050 2) continues to use lower estimates for threats like sea level rise and ever-increasing air temperature rather than higher credible estimates when planning city responses, and 3) doesn’t set hard timetables for actually building the limited defensive measures it does call for… measures that basically assume that efforts to make Boston—and every significant polity on the planet— carbon-neutral will fail.

Most everything the city might do to achieve carbon neutrality and adapt to the negative effects of global warming—beyond generating more reports—is conveniently pushed off to a time well after the Walsh administration is likely to be out of office.

Worse still, the new Boston paper got released just days after a devastating new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report was published by the United Nations—which says if governments worldwide haven’t made their nations carbon-neutral by 2040, then humanity has no hope of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees celsius. Meaning that we’re on track for the far worse scenarios of 2 degrees celsius of warming and above… that IPCC report authors say 6

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will be much more destructive to multiple planetary systems than previously anticipated. Making Boston’s current plans even more inadequate than they already are.

In fact, the only mention of completed (or nearly completed) climate remediation efforts in the press release for the “Resilient Boston Harbor” report is a brief passage indicating that “a deployable floodwall system has been installed across the East Boston Greenway, and a section of Main Street in Charlestown is being elevated.” And most every proposed initiative in the report itself is still in the planning stages. Lots of nice drawings of all the stuff that hasn’t been built yet, though.

However, according to the Boston Herald, there was one bright spot the day of the mayor’s presser when “a group of East Boston residents stormed City Hall Plaza, demanding that he hear their concerns about Eversource’s proposal to put a substation near Chelsea Creek.”

It seems that the local environmental justice group GreenRoots has been trying to meet with Walsh for about a year to attempt to stop regional power utility Eversource Energy from building the structure. To no avail.

A petition to Walsh being circulated by the group on Change.org on the matter makes it clear why: The highvoltage substation is slated to be built in an area around Chelsea Creek (a.k.a. Chelsea River) that’s flooding more and more frequently because of global warminginduced sea level rise. When Hurricane Sandy hit New York City in 2012, a similar station was flooded—causing it to explode and burn. A bad enough outcome in the best of circumstances.

But the Chelsea Creek substation will be located very close to storage tanks holding over eight million gallons of jet fuel for nearby Logan Airport. Should those be ignited by such an explosion, the effect on surrounding neighborhoods would be catastrophic. In both human and environmental terms.

The GreenRoots petition concludes: “We find it odd that your office has pushed for many sustainability initiatives concerning the Creek when this project isn’t compatible with this vision.” The initiatives include measures meant to reduce flooding from sea level rise on Chelsea Creek by “connecting high points near Boardman Street and Eagle Street,” according to the city’s 2016 Climate Ready Boston report. Although that is not mentioned in the latest report.

The Herald reported that Walsh’s office responded with a brief statement: “‘The substation in East Boston will better support East Boston’s growing population and facilities, including the city’s investments in a new police station, ambulance bay and a public works facility,’ adding that the city worked with Eversource to choose the site.”

The mayor has not yet agreed to meet with GreenRoots. Yet he really should. Because how is the public supposed to take any of his administration’s global warming remediation initiatives seriously when he’s still playing politics as usual with a major energy distribution corporation for a project that could have profound negative environmental effects?

“The city worked with Eversource to choose the site,” the city statement says. Lovely. But how much

did it work with the East Boston community? And the grassroots environmental advocacy group working there and in neighboring Chelsea? Beyond the dog-and-pony shows necessary to put the barest sheen of democracy on the “Climate Ready Boston” process of which the “Resilient Boston Harbor” report is part? Not much at all, apparently. Basically Eversource wants the substation at Chelsea Creek. And it’s going to get what it wants in the current corporate-dominated political moment.

If Walsh is willing to kowtow to that big company on an issue of such serious environmental import, then why should anyone expect him to put the kind of political pressure necessary on other major Bostonarea corporations that will be needed to make the city carbon-neutral and better prepared for global warminginduced disaster by 2050? Let alone 2040.

This is the guy who never saw a huge city government giveaway to major companies like General Electric during his tenure in office that he wouldn’t support. What could possibly make him change his modus operandi for conducting business as usual?

Which is “give the corporations whatever they ask for— big tax breaks, free services, and public funds—and try to get a few crumbs for working families around the edges of any ‘deals’ thus cut.”

The obvious answer is that concerted grassroots political action will be required to pressure Walsh and politicians like him the world over to do the right thing consistently on the global warming front. Which is a herculean task, if attempted in one go.

But rather than take on the world’s global warming emergency all at once, Boston-area readers can send a message to Walsh that the old politics will not stand if he wants to remain in the mayor’s office—by signing the GreenRoots petition and getting involved in the fight to stop the Eversource substation from being built in environmentally sensitive Chelsea Creek.

Then folks can plug into the growing number of local battles to bring environmentally destructive natural gas utilities like National Grid and Columbia Gas to heel.

And along the way, a political movement may coalesce that can force Boston city government to take stronger long-term action to stop all activities that add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere—while saving the city from global warming-induced sea level rise and the many other deleterious effects of climate change that have already begun at our current 1 degree celsius average air temperature increase planetwide since the dawn of the industrial era.

But human society had best not take too long with such activist baby steps. Because the IPCC report is quite clear: If we have not taken giant leaps toward global carbon neutrality by 2030—only 12 years from now— then there will be no hope of stopping warming at the Paris Climate Agreement’s “aspirational target” of 1.5 degrees celsius by 2040.

If we can’t do that, then cities like Boston will have bigger crises to worry about than “just” accelerating sea level rise and ever-higher average air temperature. We will have stepped off the ecological precipice… and our doom will be upon us.

Apparent Horizon—winner of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia’s 2018 Best Political Column award—is syndicated by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. Jason Pramas is BINJ’s network director, and executive editor and associate publisher of DigBoston. Copyright 2018 Jason Pramas.

PRINT AIN’T DEAD ARTS NEWS

Upham’s Corner pop-up bookstores bring community works by writers of color

BY MORGAN HUME With Boston full of so much history and culture, it’s natural that there are so many bookstores all around the city. But as Arielle Gray and Cierra Michele noticed, most of those shops lack sections of books written by authors of color. They also saw that certain neighborhoods like Dorchester don’t have bookstores, which means residents have less access to literature.

And so after applying for and receiving a grant from the Dudley Square Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI), Gray and Michele set out to change that. These days they’re the co-founders of Print Ain’t Dead, a series of pop-up bookstores that will turn different venues in Upham’s Corner into spaces for literary connection and community during October and November. New and gently used books written by authors of color will be sold at a reduced price, between $2 and $5, so people can afford to expand their collection of books and expose themselves to literature they may not have access to otherwise.

“I think everybody should have access to affordable reading material, and a lot of times in areas that are predominately people of color living there, those things aren’t given to us or the city doesn’t see it necessary to install these types of exhibitions,” Gray told DigBoston.

Gray said she wants the stores to have a cozy atmosphere, so lights, bookshelves, rugs and seating areas will transform the room into a more intimate setting. It will become a place where visitors feel comfortable sitting down, listening to music, and diving into a new book.

“We want it to be a visual experience, we want it to be a literary experience, we want it to be a cultural experience that people are really going to walk away with,” said Gray.

In addition to selling books, each night there will be a performance by a featured author who will read a selection of their writing for about 25 to 35 minutes.

Most of the proceeds from the event will go to the author who is performing that night, so audience members support local authors by putting money directly in their pockets, Gray explained. The featured performers include Porsha O and Chloe Wong.

“We are a community and a community supports one another, so by coming to the pop-up, you’re not only supporting the pop-up but you’re supporting the authors that we’re featuring,” said Gray.

When the featured performers are finished, audience members are welcome to take the stage and read some of their own work in an open reading. This gives authors who write short stories, for example, the opportunity to share their pieces in a setting that is more geared toward literature than performance art, like spoken poetry.

The overall goal of Print Ain’t Dead is to bring literature to communities that don’t have permanent bookstores, give residents access to literature that they don’t have on a daily basis. Gray hopes Print Ain’t Dead will show people that any area can be transformed into a place for literature, including unexpected or untraditional places.

“Any space is a literary space, any space is a space to read and to connect,” said Gray. “You don’t need to be in a fancy bookstore to do those things.”

In the future, Gray would like to expand these pop-ups throughout the city to more neighborhoods, including Mattapan and the Seaport. She hopes to eventually spread them to other communities across Massachusetts and over state lines in places in need of accessible literature.

“I just think it’s a basic human right to have access to books,” Gray said. “It’s a basic human right to be able to go to a bookstore in your neighborhood and buy a book if you want to, and to also buy books written by people that look like you, people who reflect you and your culture.”

Monday, October 22 – Friday, November 2 Registered Boston voters can vote at any early voting location in the City, including City Hall.

Pick a time and place that is best for you.

WEEK 1:

WEEK 2:

MON. OCT. 22, 9A.M. – 5P.M.

MON. OCT. 29, 9A.M. – 5P.M.

TUES. OCT. 23, 12 – 8P.M.

TUES. OCT. 30, 12 – 8P.M.

Boston City Hall (Downtown 9a.m. - 8p.m.)

Holy Name Parish Hall (Roxbury)

Boston City Hall (Downtown 9a.m. - 8p.m.)

Boston City Hall (Downtown)

Boston City Hall (Downtown)

Harvard-Kent School (Charlestown)

Dot House Health (Dorchester) Tobin Community Center (Mission Hill)

Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology (South End)

WED. OCT. 24, 9A.M. – 5P.M.

Wang YMCA of Chinatown (Chinatown)

Boston City Hall (Downtown)

WED. OCT. 31, 9A.M. – 5P.M.

THUR. OCT. 25, 12 – 8P.M.

Boston City Hall (Downtown)

Boston City Hall (Downtown 9a.m. - 8p.m.)

THUR. NOV. 1, 12 – 8P.M.

All Saints’ Church (Dorchester)

Boston City Hall (Downtown 9a.m. - 8p.m.)

Honan-Allston Library (Allston)

The Salvation Army Ray & Joan Kroc Community Ctr. (Dorchester)

Margarita Muniz Academy (Formerly Louis Agassiz Elementary School) (Jamaica Plain)

ABCD Thelma D. Burns Building (Roxbury) The Blue Hills Collaborative (Hyde Park)

FRI. OCT. 26, 9A.M. – 5P.M.

FRI. NOV. 2, 9A.M. – 5P.M.

Boston City Hall (Downtown)

Boston City Hall (Downtown)

WEEKEND VOTING: SAT. & SUN. OCT. 27 & 28, 10A.M. - 6P.M. Mildred Ave. Community Center. (Mattapan)

Paris St. Community Center (East Boston) James F. Condon Elementary School (South Boston)

Roche Community Center (West Roxbury)

Saint John Paul II Catholic Academy Neponset Campus (formerly known as St. Ann’s School) (Dorchester)

Bruce C. Bolling Municipal Building (Roxbury) Copley Square Library (Back Bay) Jackson Mann School (Allston)

Perkins Community Center /Joseph Lee School (Dorchester) In order to vote early or on Election Day, you must register to vote by October 17.

If you miss the early voting period, you can still vote on Election Day, Tuesday, November 6.

Learn more at boston.gov/early-voting #VoteEarlyBoston • Call 311 • election@boston.gov

Image Courtsey of AAUW.

SALARY NEGOTIATION WORKSHOPS Join a FREE grassroots salary negotiation workshop that helps close the gender pay gap by empowering women to advocate for themselves in the job market!

November 5 and December 5, 2018 5:00 - 7:30pm 1175 Tremont Street, Roxbury FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC RSVP via our calendar at northeastern.edu/crossing

The Print Ain’t Dead opening reception will be at the Fairmount Innovation Lab on 10.26 7:30-10pm, and the other three will be at the Pierce AIR Space in Uphams Corner noon-4pm on 10.28, 11.4, and 11.8. printaintdead.splashthat.com for more info.

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MATTHEW 2018 LGBTQ HISTORY MONTH

WHERE IS CAMBRIDGE FROM?

Who is welcome and safe here?

Speakers

Join us for a conversation exploring historical and

Charles Sullivan, Cambridge Historical Commission

contemporary dimensions of immigration in Cambridge, which became a Sanctuary City in 1985. Together with a

Christine Elow, Cambridge Police Nestor Pimienta, Harvard Divinity School

panel of experts and audience participation, we’ll discuss

Rev. Irene Monroe, Moderator

core questions about identity, belonging, and welcoming.

Introduction by ENROOT student storytellers

Free and open to the public Margaret Jewett Hall | 11 Garden Street | Cambridge MA Register at cambridgehistory.org

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The Shepard murder revisited

BY REV. IRENE MONROE

This month marks 20 years since the death of Matthew Shepard. In October 1998, Shepard, then 21, was a first-year college student at University of Wyoming. Under the guise of friendship, two men (Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson) lured Shepard from a tavern, tortured, and bludgeoned him with their rifles, and then tethered him to a rough-hewn wooden fence to die—simply because he was gay.

That’s the story the world over has come to know. And for the most part, the LGBTQ community is tenaciously sticking with it, resulting in numerous hagiographies on Shepard as the quintessential LGBTQ icon.

However, as with all iconic narratives, apocryphal tales abound, along with queries concerning the truth.

In 2013, investigative journalist Stephen Jimenez, himself gay, wrote The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard, upending a canonized narrative we all have grown familiarly comfortable with irrespective of its sensationalized macabre details.

I had the pleasure of meeting Jimenez at his book reading at the Harvard Coop in October 2013. I told Jimenez that perhaps it’s easier to kill the messenger (him) than to hear his message, which is that Shepard’s murder had nothing to do with his sexual orientation and everything to do with his involvement in Laramie’s deadly crystal methamphetamine drug trafficking underworld.

Jimenez writes that Shepard was not only a user, but he was also a courier who had plans just before his death to drive a shipment of meth.

“I learned that Matthew had been a user of meth. And from everything I was able to trace, Matthew got into meth in a serious way when he was living in Denver before he moved to Laramie,” Jimenez said in an interview with Rachel Martin on NPR. According to Jimenez, Shepard’s murderers were not strangers—one was a bisexual crystal meth addict who not only knew Matthew, but also partied, bought drugs from, and had sex with Matthew. With this “new” information, a more textured but troubling narrative emerges.

Writing in the Advocate, Aaron Hicklin asked, “Did our need to make a symbol of Shepard blind us to a messy, complex story that is darker and more troubling than the established narrative?” Overall, the response to Jimenez’s book was a thunderous rebuke. He became an instant media sensation as a pariah, a Judas, and a colossal sellout.

Nonetheless, the story shatters a revered icon for LGBTQ rights, one in which the victim was deliberately chosen because of his race, gender, and economic background.

“Matthew Shepard’s status as a gay everyman was determined—first by the media, then by gay-rights groups—with little knowledge of who he was,” Gabriel Arana wrote in a 2009 piece titled “What the gay-rights movement has lost by making Shepard its icon.” “He looked like an attractive, angelic, white college student from the heart of conservative America. … The anointing of Matthew Shepard as an iconic image for LGBTQ rights not only concealed from the American public the real person but also it hid the other varied faces of hate crimes in 1998.”

For example, that of James Byrd Jr., who was walking home from a party along a highway in East Texas when he was offered a ride. The trip resulted in Byrd being dragged by his ankles to his death—simply because he was black.

Some would argue that it is a good thing, politically, to canonize someone in order to push through legislative changes needed by LGBTQ Americans. To those ends, the fruit of the Shepard narrative include the Matthew Shepard Foundation; the Laramie Project play; a TV movie, the Matthew Shepard Story; and the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act, mostly known as the Matthew Shepard Act, to name a few.

Not bad, some would say, for a story built on more fiction than truth.

Now, the shelf life of the cultural currency of the Shepard narrative might expire after nearly two decades. “There are valuable reasons for telling certain stories in a certain way at pivotal times, but that doesn’t mean we have to hold on to them once they’ve outlived their usefulness,” Hicklin wrote.

Personally, I see the Jimenez book as a cautionary tale about how the needs of a community can sometimes trump the truth. In retrospect, crystal meth was popular in urban gay clubs and in small-town America. Places like Laramie.

Homophobia, unquestionably, played a role in Shepard’s death, but drugs might have, too.

On this 20th anniversary of his death, perhaps it is time to revisit the story anew.

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BAD DECISION JUICE BOSTON BETTER BEER BUREAU

Getting to know Backlash Beer Company

BY DIG STAFF @DIGBOSTON

Welcome to the Boston Better Beer Bureau, our latest incarnation of the trusty suds reporting we’ve done at DigBoston ever since people referred to beer as suds.

Really, we remember the days when we’d spend half our checks on fancy German bottles just so that we could review them, whereas these days breweries from all around New England kindly send us samplers and stay in touch. The BBBB is a new attempt to return that love, all while sharing more news about the innumerable microbreweries and pubs among us.

Welcome to Boston!

This review’s supposed to start with us saying that it was a phenomenal decision to drink Bad Decision Juice. That’s the corny way to write about how seriously delicious this new local potion truly is, and you can count on others using the approach. God bless ’em, but we have different plans for introducing readers to the Backlash Beer Company on Hampden Street outside of Dudley Square.

Now that it’s had about a month to get its draft lines calibrated and develop friendships with the kind of food trucks that we’d like to engage while drinking their beers, we’ll be certain to stop into the minimalist taproom later this month and report back to readers. First, though, we’re here to gush over Bad Decision Juice, which has increasingly been showing up on shelves across the region.

Technically, Backlash calls this flagship a “big-drinking, lower ABV IPA with Citra, El Dorado, and Idaho 7 hops.” Sure, that sounds sublime, but what’s more important is that Bad Decision, despite clocking in at a mere 4.7 percent ABV, does a dangerous enough dance on your tastebuds to remain sexy. There are hints of grapefruit that your average loyal Founders All Day IPA consumer will appreciate, but more burly guzzlers who typically avoid selections with less than 5 percent alcohol should nonetheless consider picking up a four-pack.

Backlash is a new kid on the block by many measures; the label on our cans was even crooked, how rustic! With that said, it should be noted that co-founders Maggie Foley and Helder Pimentel have been toiling for more than five years, during which time they have worked out of some places owned by others while doing the brewing equivalent to couch-surfing. They arrived on Hamden Street in 2016 and began mixing flavors that can now be found on tap there—not only Bad Decision Juice, but also promising potential prizewinners like Roxbury, their “New England-style IPA made with Citra and Galaxy hops.”

As promised, we’ll be back soon for a report from the front line.

How about this afternoon?

Sounds good, we’ll see you there.

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GRAVE ENCOUNTERS FEATURE

Digging for dirt in the state’s most haunted cemeteries

BY SAM BALTRUSIS

PHOTO OF SAM BALTRUSIS BY FRANK C. GRACE

If one bases my ghost-hunting persona purely on the three paranormal-themed TV shows I’ve appeared on over the years, I have an odd fixation for the most haunted cemeteries in Massachusetts. As the author of nine historical-based ghost books, I’ve spent many sleepless nights frolicking among the headstones in search of the skeletal secrets buried beneath the Bay State’s blood-stained soil.

Apparently, I have a thing for historic cemeteries.

And, yes, it’s true. I tend to gravitate toward graveyards.

When it comes to paranormal investigations in cemeteries, demonologist James Annitto told me that they’re perfect for beginners looking to learn the tricks of the trade. He said New England’s burial grounds may have “lots of contamination, but that’s what makes you a great investigator and how you learn,” he told me, adding that outdoor locations are difficult for the most experienced paranormal investigators because of false-positive readings on equipment because of noise, temperature fluctuations and wind. “It gives you the ability to decipher what’s contamination and what is plausible paranormal activity. I started out doing graveyards and cemeteries. You would just need to call and get permission.”

It’s my belief that the paranormal activity at New England’s cemeteries are psychic remnants of the unjust killings and unmarked graves leftover from centuries of tainted dirt from the Bay State’s dark past.

In my latest book called 13 Most Haunted Cemeteries in Massachusetts, I visited a few dozen burial grounds with alleged paranormal activity. Based on my personal experiences out in the field, I strongly believe that Burial Hill in “America’s Hometown” is one of the state’s most haunted. Why? Darcy H. Lee, author of Ghosts of Plymouth, Massachusetts, believes the events that unfolded in the early seventeenth century has left a psychic imprint on the land surrounding Burial Hill in Plymouth’s Town Square.

“When the Pilgrims landed in 1620, there were more than one hundred on board and only fifty survived,” Lee told me. “One of the most haunted places is Town Square, which is near the place where the Pilgrims had 12

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their first settlement. Just prior to the Pilgrims landing, there was a plague that decimated the Native Americans that lived there. The desperation and fear of the the Native Americans who lived and died there is embedded into the ground.”

Based purely on its historical legacy and the harsh conditions that nearly annihilated America’s earliest settlers in 1620, Plymouth is one of New England’s most haunted cities. Burial Hill, the town’s oldest cemetery, is nestled next to First Parish in Plymouth and located across the street from the Church of the Pilgrimage and the 1749 Court House.

The chaos from four centuries ago still lingers in Plymouth’s Town Square. It’s almost as if the death and destruction has psychically imprinted itself on the location.

Lee believes there’s a Native American spirit guarding Burial Hill near the Cushman Monument. “Legend has it that there is a spot on Burial Hill on top of the staircase by a huge tree,” Lee wrote in Ghosts of Plymouth, Massachusetts. “The tree has a peculiar feature. It has roots that look like hands. Some say a Native American guardian sits and watches over people at that tree. If a visitor to Burial Hill does anything unacceptable or inappropriate, the guardian spirit will let them know in a terrifying fashion.”

Luckily, the Native American sentinel spirit likes me.

However, I had a not-so-friendly encounter in early 2018 with a spirit known as “Crazy Mary.” She paces back and forth near the cemetery’s stairs facing Town Square.

When I approached Burial Hill, she lunged at me and I quickly ran down the stairs and back to my room at the John Carver Inn. “She likes to scare people,” said Geoffrey Campbell when I told him about my face-to-face encounter with the aggressive female spirit. “She’s very sad because people misunderstand her,” he told me. “She does scare people off depending on their sensitivities.

I had one woman on my tour who walked up the stairs and came running back down the hill. She said that something came after her.”

Mary isn’t necessarily mentally ill. But, she seems to get a kick out of chasing clairvoyants out of the burial ground.

Campbell, a veteran guide and operator of the Plymouth Night Tour, guided me through the extremely haunted cemetery which is home to several ghosts including scary Mary, a Native American sentinel spirit, a Victorian-era couple and possibly a cryptid known as a Pukwudgie.

Never heard of this mythical creature associated with Plymouth’s Wampanoag tribe? It’s a little trickster that boasts large ears, fingers and nose. Based on reports including a mention in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem “The Song of Hiawatha,” the human-shaped gremlin has smooth, grey skin.

Campbell told me that he’s seen Burial Hill’s Pukwudgies in action. “I was giving a tour a few years ago and we saw three of them dancing around,” Campbell insisted. “People were trying to take pictures but it didn’t pick up.” One tour guide, Vicki Noel Harrington, was in a picture taken outside of the John Carver Inn next to Burial Hill. According to people who have seen the photo, the image looks like a demon peeking over her shoulder.

Campbell believes the “demon” seen in the picture with Harrington is actually a Pukwudgie. “They tend to hide by the mass grave for the soldiers from the brigantine General Arnold,” he said, pointing to an area in the back next to a copse of trees. “We’ve had several sightings from the path leading to the monument.”

Of course, the story about the ill-fated mariners of the General Arnold is legendary in Plymouth. During a Christmas Eve blizzard in 1778, seventy-two men literally froze to death after the vessel and its crew, led

by Captain James Magee, were stranded on a sandbar in Plymouth Harbor.

“Captain Magee told them to put rum in their shoes to ward off frostbite, but many drank it instead, dying quickly thereafter, their bodies frozen where they sat or stood,” wrote Emily Wilcox in Wicked Local Plymouth in 2007. “Seamen huddled together against the blinding snow, whistling winds and crashing waves. Some tried to wrap the heavy, canvas sail around themselves to no avail. They shrieked prayers to God and screamed for help from their fellow man. But the General Arnold was beyond help.”

Campbell said that when the men were retrieved in Plymouth Harbor many of them were frozen in grotesque shapes, some clutching each other in a horrific death grip while others were stacked on top of each other to block the treacherous nor’easter storm.

The bodies of more than seventy frozen soldiers were kept in the 1749 Court House before being buried in a mass grave located in the rear of the cemetery. “The courthouse basically served as a temporary morgue,” Campbell said. “I’ve heard that the courthouse has a residual haunting associated with the tragedy.” At the 1749 Court House in Town Square, people have heard phantom footsteps and what sounded like ice melting.

According to several reports, the captain of the brigantine, James Magee, has been spotted in the cemetery, paying postmortem respect to his fallen crew. Darcy H. Lee, author of Ghosts of Plymouth, Massachusetts, confirmed the rumors. “We do know that Captain James McGee visited their gravesite and his is a residual haunting in Burial Hill as well,” she told me.

“It’s that imprint of what they were doing in life that remains.”

Like Lee, Campbell believes that the spirits haunting Burial Hill are just visiting. “When people see apparitions specifically in this cemetery, they are not usually people who were buried here,” Campbell confirmed. “I find that the apparitions are usually here to visit someone buried in the cemetery. I also believe there’s a portal in Burial

Hill and spirits are able to come through, visit their loved ones and then return back where they came from.”

Lee said that one haunting associated with Burial Hill involves a Victorian-era couple who visited the gravestone of their two-year-old daughter, Ida Elizabeth Spear. “Burial Hill isn’t necessarily haunted by the people buried in the ground, but the people reliving what they did during their lives,” Lee said. “There are reports of a Victorian couple who are visiting the grave of their young daughter who passed away.

Their grief and sadness of those visits remain as a residual haunting in Burial Hill.

People spot them walking up and down the pathways of the cemetery.”

Of course, this theory applies to a recent tragedy that mysteriously happened on September 8, 2010. Michael “Wolf” Pasakarnis, a Plymouth-based poet and artist, was freakishly struck by lightning on his way home from Blue Blinds Bakery on North Street. Many believe that the twenty-nine-year-old man, known for his piercing eyes and heart of gold, predicted his freakish and untimely death which was posthumously revealed in his cryptic drawings and writings.

In fact, Pasakarnis wrote a poem claiming that “the time has come to allow the light of nature to free my soul” a few days before he passed.

Throughout the Burial Hill tour, Campbell kept finding offerings like a turkey feather and a heart-shaped rock. “This is from my friend Wolf,” Campbell confirmed, pointing out that the Jack Skellington hat he was wearing was an homage to Pasakarnis. Apparently, A Nightmare Before Christmas was Wolf’s favorite movie and Campbell led me to the tree where the young man was found dead from electrocution in 2010. There were markings alluding to Wolf’s life and love for Nightmare, including a “Pumpkin King” smile, etched into the tree. “They originally thought Wolf fell from the tree,” Campbell said, recounting Wolf’s prophetic last day. “He was with friends at the bakery and then dropped of a heart-shaped rock at the Laughing Moon boutique before heading up to Court Street and finally to Burial Hill.”

According to an article by Emily Clark in the November 21, 2010 edition of Wicked Local, Wolf left an indelible impact on Plymouth’s tight-knit community. “He was standing next to a beech tree when the bolt hit him, exploding his iPod and exiting out the heel of boots his father had just bought him, leaving a jagged hole behind,” Clark wrote. “His death stunned a community of friends and downtown regulars who had come to rely on his compassion, his daily walks through town and that mysterious other-worldliness that made so many believe in magic and in things happening for a reason.”

When Campbell showed me a picture of Wolf, I gasped. He looked so familiar. In fact, I had recurring dreams of what I thought was a young, Native American man encouraging me to come to Plymouth. It was Wolf.

When I said that I have connected with Wolf’s spirit in my dreams, Campbell wasn’t surprised. It seems that the young man has connected with other mediums in the past. One clairvoyant, Suzanne Giesemann, wrote an entire book called Wolf’s Message in 2014 about her psychic interactions with his spirit.

As Campbell and I were talking, the mystery surrounded this mysterious man continued. His mother, Beth, was visiting Burial Hill from out of town and overheard our discussion. She walked up and started sharing stories about her son. It was a few days before the anniversary of his death so she was in town to pay respect and commemorate her son.

“It’s almost as if he lived between two worlds,” Pasakarnis told me. “When he left the bakery, he told his friends that he ‘had to go’ as if he knew he had to be here at that time. Even the storm was strange. It came out of nowhere and there was only one random lightning strike.”

When I mentioned that I wanted to dedicate 13 Most Haunted Cemeteries in Massachusetts to her son, she said that he would “get a kick out of it,” implying that his spirit is still around. Based on the randomness of meeting his mother in Burial Hill, the feathers and heart-shaped rocks dotting our journey and the recurring dreams, I believe his spirit was around us that day.

Campbell, who regularly eulogizes Wolf on his tours, promised to place two roses at Wolf’s tree on the anniversary of his death.

He also handed Pasakarnis a feather that he found next to the Cushman Monument.

“Here’s a gift from Wolf,” he said. The mother’s eyes started to well up with emotion.

“He would leave something like this,” Pasakarnis said with a smile. “He’s always letting us know that he’s still here in spirit.”

Sam Baltrusis, author of 13 Most Haunted Cemeteries in Massachusetts, produced the Plymouth ParaCon and was recently featured on Destination America and the Travel Channel. Visit SamBaltrusis.com for more information.

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13

POETRY FOR THE NEON APOCALYPSE EXCERPT

BY JAKE TRINGALI @JAKETHEPOET

The following have been reprinted with permission from Poetry for the Neon Apocalypse, out now on Transcendent Zero Press.

no one glances as the blue planet slingshots about the cosmos known only to themselves

invisible ink

and just like that dying in a blink homo oblivium

she got it when she was a young anarchist and bored of the endless

First published by Harbinger Asylum in 2016.

it is not widely known but god has a tattoo

the tattoo started as one elegant equation that transformed into a candle, bloomed into a colorful zoo of particles, and coalesced into droplets of universes

it helped stop / the feelings when i wrapped the silver coated / skull cap around my head the signal was blocked and I felt / myself again and you were skeptical / no, you’re wrong

First published by Poetry Pacific Press in 2016.

inside the train is the worst / they can hear me strangely / i can’t stop pleading for them to listen my sensitivity heightened / at a lower depth bulleting through the bustling city / million stories and frequencies i am grounded / underground

10 nanometers through history without credential, wielding the unstable amid the experimental and slightly elemental thoughts fluoresce and ebb and shimmer

magnetic shielding calms me / the world shifts back and slows the radio waves bounce right off / up to 35 decibels and the wrist strap works best / under aquarius headaches are just a symptom / a broken echo when did you hear that / oh, it’s best left unsaid

frenetic Wilhelm gadgets and levers hand jives atop shiny laboratory apparatus banging and shredding in an unlikely tool shed sparking dimensions, slimming the spectrum no dynamo hypothesis, less method, more madness he nobly finds X inside extended senses

300% more ionization / my schedule is off to sleep under a faraday cage / would free my spirits they can hear / from very, very, very far away

the seeker Wilhelm stands cyber-eyed licking platinocyanide off cathode bodies conjuring ghosts, glimpsing death

vast webs of interconnectedness star system to star system cat’s cradles of galaxies the bustling transit systems of the enlightened the tiny blue planet and its cousins dance near their central sun a thin film develops on the planet skin parasitic, slowly becoming aware of its host and its darker cousins calculations are made, and they are all traveling together very fast indeed 14

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These scorned flowers With fathomless powers Mankind cowers In the late hours The ladies laughed darkly

ignore alien orders

inevitably, it faded god’s interests went elsewhere

of no consequence

Whispered plans of attack Each, a wicked pyromaniac Ember eyes, shades of not black In the late hours The ladies laughed darkly

First published in The Manhattanville Review in 2014.

once the tattoo was finished, it was unchangeable

First published in Corner Club Press in 2015.

The ladies laughed darkly

The ladies laughed darkly Five harpies converge Their barman must emerge Ice cubes hide submerged In the late hours The ladies laughed darkly

Eyebrows drawn, mouths cuss Cloudy tattoos subcutaneous Their alcoholic rage is just In the late hours The ladies laughed darkly Giggles conceal secrets within Abyssal midnight, howling Deep in drink, prayers hidden In the late hours

bugs permeate my tissue cultures / i know how things work microwaves are lesser bugs / allied to the government the van allens / shield poison whispers but wireless radiation / transports thoughts as a butterfly tin foil is only for my sandwich / no, you’re wrong First published by Unrorean in 2015 Jake is a poet living in Boston. Poetry for the Neon Apocalypse can be purchased online or in local bookstores. Catch Jake’s book release party at the Midway Cafe in Jamaica Plain on Sunday, Nov 4 from 4 pm to 8 pm.

NOVEMBER 12

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AISHA BURNS MUSIC

How a Texan violinist found her voice in Mass

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN

PHOTO BY STEPHANIE LARSEN Aisha Burns never imagined she would be a professional musician. The only reason she picked up an instrument to begin with was out of jealousy—an emotion far removed from the work she would later write on her own.

In elementary school, Burns would hang around after school to catch up with her best friend at the time. The two were 10 years old, as eager to learn about the world around them as they were excited to declare they had it all figured out. But suddenly, her friend had a violin in hand and was attending an hour-long after-school music program. Burns immediately wanted to do the same.

“I remember thinking it was the most nerdy instrument. I teased her relentlessly,” says Burns, laughing. “I remember asking her, ‘What is this nerdy instrument? You’re playing violin? You’re in an orchestra class? What is that?’ But then at some point, I got curious about it and picked it up with a pompous attitude, thinking I could teach myself the instrument. I learned a few very simple songs and became very excited about it. When I joined the class, I immediately loved it. And looking back it’s funny, as I’m sure she’s moved on to other things these days whereas I clearly have stuck with it.”

These days, it’s hard to imagine that was the case.

Aisha Burns, now 31 years old, is not only comfortable in her skin, but comfortable breaking out into a solo career after years of avoiding the main spotlight in bands. After releasing her debut solo album, Life in the Midwater, back in 2013, she’s back at it again with Argonauta, this year’s standout solo album. On it, her songwriting is richer, her arrangements more complex, and her voice more expensive. It’s a musical progression so stirring in its improvements that Argonauta has already garnered coverage from outlets like NPR and Stereogum.

Part of Burns’ growth, though not in the recorded

sense, stems from her recent decision to leave Texas.

At summer’s end in 2015, she uprooted to Beverly, Massachusetts. Though it seems random, the location was familiar to her because her partner lived in the area for seven years, including the months where the two dated long distance. Though he moved to Texas for her, they eventually decided to leave the Southern atmosphere and start over somewhere fresh. Beverly is a “dreamy area to live” with freshwater and dynamic scenes of nature, though the changes in landscape are only the first of several hurdles she had to jump over in learning how to call Massachusetts home.

“I’ve been learning what it takes for a place to feel like home,” admits Burns.

“Of course, I travel a lot anyway while touring, but it’s taking some time to settle down here. I was surprised at how long it took for me to feel like I live here, to feel like I’m not vacationing in another town or somebody else’s house. Having the physical space change, of seasons changing and seeing it happen in real time, has impacted me more than I could have foreseen. And the hardest part was figuring out how to make my way into a new music community. Because I was in Austin for so long, I was nestled in well and had plenty of connections. So I’m using this opportunity to learn how to become acquainted with a new scene and new group of musicians.”

It’s difficult to move after spending years strengthening your roots in one city the way she had.

After spending her childhood in San Antonio, Burns stayed in state and moved to Austin to pursue a degree at the University of Texas. College is a chance to reinvent oneself, and she was intent on doing so the same way thousands of incoming college freshman are each year.

Burns wanted to shed her orchestral past. She tried to put her violin away. Her 19-year-old self saw 2006 as the year for big personal change. Instead, she accidentally outed herself early on. While talking about her violin roots in class one day, another student overheard the conversation topic and introduced himself. He invited her to join his friend’s folk rock band. It was the beginning of the biggest lesson Burns would learn: There was a world of music for violin beyond black-tie quartets and rehashed classical standards.

“I kept telling him that I didn’t know how to play in a band setting, that I had never done that before, that I wouldn’t be a good fit, that I had never written my own

music,” she says. “He kept gently nudging me to come to the show and see what I think. So I went to the show … and loved it. I was extremely nervous going to the first rehearsal. I remember pretending to know how to sit in a room with musicians or how to write music from thin air.

But that led me into this path of pursuing music in the way that I had been.”

Over time, she began to realize her skills didn’t just lie in her abilities as a violinist. Burns had begun playing around with acoustic guitar and singing in the comfort of her bedroom. The first solo recording came about simply because Burns wanted to know if she could do it. So many years of her life had been spent playing in projects that others were at the helm of. The biggest, they wrote collaboratively but most structures and themes were defined by the two main members of the band.

Playing violin in a folk rock band was a similar situation, where the main songwriter, Alex Dupree, would decide what each song should feel like. She wanted to know what she would make if she was the one calling all of the shots—and the one singing.

“Not many people knew I could sing, or even wanted to,” she says through a smile. “I was fortunate enough to be a part of a community of very welcoming, patient songwriters. We had a house show we would throw once a month. I told those friends I had been playing guitar a little bit. When they found out I had been singing in my room too, they threw my name into the hat to have my name drawn as a performer for the night. So anyways, they tricked me into performing and I, by proxy, learned I actually liked performing on my own.”

But now, she’s eager to share that voice whenever she can—and she’s very much ready to do so, as her story on Argonauta is hers alone. Single “We Were Worn” sees Burns questioning how to handle the loss of a loved one, going so far as to embrace the biological elements within her from her mother who passed away. Other songs, like “Must Be a Way,” confront depression head-on, as Burns tries to create a literal and figurative image of what the physical manifestation of depression would look like. Her songs stride into dark territory, no doubt, but the way in which Burns articulates these stories, through her words and through her guitar, gives the feeling that you’re watching someone come into their own despite the world showing its fangs at every turn.

“With Argonauta, I wanted the arrangements to be more developed to create a greater sense of atmosphere,” she says. “So I spent a lot of time trying to take songs from an acoustic guitar and vocal line part to then utilize strings more fully. My partner who plays guitar in the band helped me figure out what everyone’s roles could be. By creating a broader sonic landscape, I feel like I learned to be more open. It’s not so much what the songs are about [on this album], but to find an honest feeling, an honest way to talk about grief and depression.

In trying to heal and move on after losing someone, whether that’s mentally or physically, you have to learn what works for you. And that just takes time.”

>> AISHA BURNS, CLIFF NOTEZ. FRI 10.26. ATWOOD’S TAVERN, 877 CAMBRIDGE ST., CAMBRIDGE. 10PM/21+/$10. ATWOODSTAVERN.COM

MUSIC EVENTS THU 10.25

THU 10.25

[The Sinclair, 52 Church St., Cambridge. 7pm/18+/$13. sinclaircambridge.com]

[Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 25 Evans Way, Boston. 7pm/all ages/$15. gardnermuseum.org]

ODDS AND ENDS FROM YOUR FAVORITE ROCK BAND PILE + THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE + LILITH

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WE RISE (THE HIP-HOP FEMININE) OOMPA + DUTCH REBELLE + RES

DIGBOSTON.COM

SAT 10.27

SUN 10.28

[Orpheum Theater, 1 Hamilton Pl., Boston.

6:30pm/all ages/$55. crossroadspresents.com]

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

THE ULTIMATE FOLK LANTERN TOUR EMMYLOU HARRIS + JACKSON BROWNE + LILA DOWNS + MORE

TOTAL POST-ROCK EMOTIONAL AWARENESS THIS WILL DESTROY YOU + STEVE HAUSCHILDT

SUN 10.28

SUN 10.28

[City Winery, 80 Beverly St., Boston. 2pm/21+/$45. citywinery.com]

[ONCE Somerville, 156 Highland Ave., Somerville. 7pm/all ages/$12. oncesomerville.com]

LOCAL BEHAVIOR: CELEBRATING WOMXN AND NON-BINARY ARTISTS CATIE CURTIS + AUBREY HADDARD + BILLY DEAN THOMAS

GUERILLA TOSS + GAUCHE + BUGS AND RATS GUERILLA TOSS + GAUCHE + BUGS AND RATS

MINUS THE BEAR

THE WOLFF SISTERS

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN

BY MORGAN HUME

WHEEL OF TUNES

Math rock forebears talk disbanding, night blindness, and pedalboards

Over nearly the past 20 years, Minus the Bear have been quietly but consistently keeping the fringes of math rock-bent indie rock alive. Ever since the band’s 2001 debut EP put them on the map and their following full-length, Highly Refined Pirates, dropped the following year, they’ve been gathering fans in large and small numbers.

Jake Snider, Dave Knudson, Alex Rose, Cory Murchy, and ex-member Erin Tate have made dozens of guitar-heavy melodies that wiggle their way into your brain. Now that’s coming to an end.

In the middle of July, Minus the Bear announced they would be disbanding at the end of this year. To aid in the send off, a proper farewell tour was booked and the band’s final record, a short EP titled Fair Enough, would be released. Though that’s enough heads-up to prepare oneself to bid the band adieu, it’s still surprising to think about—especially for the band.

“Touring is a lot of waiting around, boredom, and strange sleeping patterns, but the shows themselves are going to be easy to miss,” says Rose. “This tour is making us really appreciate playing live and how amazing our fanbase is. There’s a shared sense of humor we’ve developed over the years, too. That’s a result of the spare time and trying to make one another laugh. That sensibility is shared, and one I’m going to really miss. It’s strange to think it will all stop in a matter of months.”

To dig into the personalities behind Minus the Bear one last time, we interviewed Alex Rose for a round of Wheel of Tunes, a series where we ask musicians questions inspired by their song titles. With Fair Enough and Menos El Oso as the prompt, his answers are quick and playful—qualities that will define Minus the Bear’s sound one last time when they headline the Paradise this Thursday night.

1. “Fair Enough” When’s the last time you were proved wrong about something?

Oh God. Oof. These are so tough. Oh my God. My weakness is coming up with stories on command. Let’s come back to this one. Actually, I think I’m proved wrong all the time. And it’s never a huge deal because it happens so often. I think it’s important to be open to being proven wrong. One of the things we can all be better at as a society is not being so attached to being right. However that can happen, I am all for it.

2. “Viaduct” Where was the prettiest bridge you’ve ever seen?

I mean, the Golden Gate Bridge is pretty amazing. There’s something about popping out on the other side and heading toward wine country that’s pretty magical.

My parents lived in San Francisco for a while. They’re up in Washington now, but I remember that area being an amazing time in my early 20s to explore. I think I was around that age the very first time I saw it. Actually, I saw it for the first time as a teenager. I was in journalism class and we took a trip to San Francisco for some sort of a convention. I saw it but I didn’t cross it until I was in my early 20s.

3. “Dinosaur” In your opinion, what’s the most forgotten dinosaur?

I’ve always been partial to the stegosaurus. I haven’t seen all of the Jurassic Parks or dinosaur movies, but I don’t remember them being featured in the movies much.

It’s more about the velociraptors and T-rex. That guy’s got some awesome protective armor, pretty cool tail, and an overall fearsome creature. It’s such a crazy thing. I’m looking at images now. Yeah. It’s pretty crazy.

Read the rest of the article at Digboston.com

PHOTO BY CHONA KASINGER >>MINUS THE BEAR, CASPIAN. THU 10.25. PARADISE ROCK CLUB, 967 COMM. AVE., ALLSTON. 7PM/18+/$28. CROSSROADSPRESENTS.COM

BMA NOM SPOTLIGHT

New England-inspired folk rockers were born, raised (together) for this

PHOTO BY KAREN SOFIA COLON

Sisters Rebecca, Rachael, and Kat Wolff spent their childhood listening to ’60s rock and immersing themselves in the nature of New England. More than anything else, their adventures hiking the White Mountains in New Hampshire and spending summers by the seashores of Cape Cod—as well as being raised by two musical parents—led them to form the Wolff Sisters.

These days, they’re a Boston-bred, women-fronted band of, evidently, siblings. And they’re nominated for their first Boston Music Award in the Folk Artist of the Year spot.

Since the band blends blues, rock, folk, and country into songs, it doesn’t squeeze neatly into just one category. The sisters look to old and new artists as muses—from Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones, who their parents exposed them to as kids, to modern performers they admire, like Brandi Carlile and the Avett Brothers.

From the time when their kids were young, the Wolff parents tried to instill the importance of music and nature in them. Each sister learned how to play the piano as a child and started performing small gigs at coffee shops and talent shows in high school. When they weren’t playing live, their parents encouraged them to spend time outside, spurring them to hike and swim.

Kat says that while they have been on adventures in other states, nothing moves them quite like New England—it’s the reason this is still their home and why they write their songs here.

During their time as a band, Rachael, Rebecca, and Kat say they’ve built a stronger relationship as siblings. They speak about a unique connection that makes rehearsals and shows easier; they grew up together, and they’re able to communicate on the same wavelength.

“We have each other’s backs and we want everybody to succeed,” Rachael tells the the Dig. “We’re not out for ourselves, we’re out for each other.”

Although the Wolffs have rocked together since their high school days, they didn’t become a pro unit until three years ago, after graduating college. In the time since, they’ve released two albums, Cahoon Hollow and Ramblin, and started to perform with the Last Cavalry, a duo that packs drummer Will Rodriguez and bass player Joe Soldati. When the five get on stage together, they perform, naturally, as the Wolff Sisters & the Last Cavalry.

Whatever form they take, the sisters say they work hard to ensure that fans get the same experience in concert as they enjoy at home. Or even more…

“I think we all get lost in the music when we’re on stage in our own way,” Kat says.

“To see that type of passion, and people up there just kind of going crazy and having fun, hopefully it spreads to the audience and they want to have fun too.”

Around here, the Wolffs gig at the cozy likes of Atwood’s Tavern, Lizard Lounge, and Club Passim. They say the Hub has given them a great platform to share their music, and in the process they’ve made made deep, lasting connections with fellow musicians, all of which has helped them get out to perform in other states.

“At our live shows, we really want people to be in the moment,” Rachael says. She says her goal is to share stories and feelings that people relate to: “[We hope to] write catchy enough songs that they can sing the chorus after the show is done or at least sing the tunes.”

The band’s latest album, Cahoon Hollow, was released earlier this year, and the group will head back to the studio this spring to record new music. Their ultimate goal is to tour most of the year and perform at festivals and venues like the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado they have long wanted to play.

“Our other goal is to just write a song that lasts, a song like ‘The Weight’ by the Band,” Rachael adds. “To have a song where everybody can sing it for generations to come.” >>THE WOLFF SISTERS. SAT 10.27. THE PLOUGH AND STARS, 912 MASS. AVE., CAMBRIDGE. 10PM/21+/$5. FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE BMAS, VISIT BOSTONMUSICAWARDS.COM NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

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THEATER REVIEW PERFORMING ARTS

BY JACOB SCHICK

David Meyers, Jim Petosa takes over the reigns for this drama buttressed with truth by research and historical accounts. We Will Not Be Silent follows the interrogation of Sophie Scholl (Sarah Oakes Muirhead)—a German college student charged with leading the White Rose, a nonviolent resistance movement. Scholl is being interrogated by Kurt Grunwald (Tim Spears), an officer in the Nazi party.

Over the course of the play, Scholl and Grunwald go back and forth, at times discussing the merits of their favorite philosophers, and at times getting into all-out screaming matches with each other. Scholl won’t confess to any of her actions—or at least only until she realizes her brother and co-conspirator Hans (Conor Proft) is in the interrogation room adjacent. Then it’s a matter of to what she will or will not confess, and who to implicate.

With this confused and emotional look at the value of truth, character, and cause, We Will Not Be Silent attempts to weave together a clear sense of right and wrong, or of good and bad. At time it sheds doubt on the implications of resistance and makes efforts to humanize Grunwald.

While it’s understandable that a play would try to nuance its way through a historical account, at the end of the day it’s still hard to humanize Nazis. Sure, Grunwald might be sympathetic to their fight against Hitler, and perhaps he’s flawed by some tragic backstory, but the historical context of We Will Not Be Silent works against it.

The play also never really seems to get anywhere.

Every time something occurs that might be construed as a new development to further the plot, Scholl and Grunwald walk it back. This drags the audience along

TIM SPEARS AND SARAH OAKES MUIRHEAD. PHOTO BY ANDY BRILLIANT.

AT NEW REP, WE WILL NOT BE SILENT CAN’T BE HEARD ABOVE ITS OWN NOISE

When We Will Not Be Silent opens on an interrogation room, it’s not too far of a stretch to assume that, at the same time the characters ask questions of each other, the play will ask questions of the audience. But when We Will Not Be Silent spends just as much time tiring the audience with circular questions as it does with the characters, it’s a lot more frustrating than it is thoughtprovoking.

True to its name, the show—which runs through Nov 4 at the New Repertory Theatre—is almost entirely dialogue-based. Originally written and directed by

on a string, only to end with the realization that it’s been walking in circles. Plays don’t always have to go somewhere, but it feels like We Will Not Be Silent should.

Story issues notwithstanding, Oakes Muirhead and Spears did a very good job in their roles, with the former nearly stealing the entire show as Scholl. Her portrayal was at times both strong and vulnerable, confident and doubtful, and most of all believable. This dichotomy of emotion was particularly striking—she acted much as we might expect a real person to act, perhaps because Scholl was a real person. Spears also performed well but was hindered by what could only have been direction.

On a dime, Spears would turn from a shouting tirade of aggression to a kneeling plea for help from Scholl. This might be explained away the first few times as part of his character’s interrogation technique, but by the end of the play it was only confusing and slightly annoying.

Proft played only a small role as Hans, but he acted as a welcome reprieve from the interrogation scenes.

While We Will Not Be Silent aims for what might have been a thoughtful and critical look at resistance backed by an explicit and implicit reference to a Kantian grounding of morality, the play itself falls far short of its mark. Hindered by circular motion and weary repetitions, We Will Not Be Silent doesn’t have much to add to the conversation.

WE WILL NOT BE SILENT. THROUGH 11.4 AT NEW REPERTORY THEATER, 321 ARSENAL ST., WATERTOWN. NEWREP.ORG

KEITH LOCKHART ON HALLOWEEN AT SYMPHONY HALL Pops to perform Psycho score alongside movie

BY JACOB SCHICK @SCHICK_JACOB This Halloween, the Boston Pops will perform the original score of the classic Alfred Hitchcock film Psycho in sync with the film on screen at Symphony Hall. DigBoston caught up with Pops conductor and musical director Keith Lockhart ahead of this very special event.

Why did you decide on Psycho for this year’s Halloween performance? Is there something particular about the score that stood out to you?

Well, Psycho is such an iconic horror film that it’s almost become a stand-in for the entire genre. I think there are now generations of people who have never even seen the film who when they come to a scary point and go [imitates “Shower Scene” noises] to imitate the shower scene. It’s an outstanding score. It’s a score certainly worthy of people hearing this performed live and it’s kind of the granddaddy of all horror films and really makes a great addition to certain people’s Halloween festivities.

Have you done any work with other pieces by Bernard Herrmann in the past? Where would you say he stands in the music community?

I have. Bernard Herrmann was one of those greats of Hollywood’s golden era. Herrmann was an Americangrown product—a very successful composer, arranger, music director. In Alfred Hitchcock’s first American directorial role, the two of them got hooked up and they decided that they understood each other’s language really well. Herrmann wrote other things, including most of the music to The Twilight Zone, and dozens of other TV shows, but it appears that he liked to go dark. And the 18

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collaboration with Hitchcock included The Man Who Knew Too Much, Vertigo, and North by Northwest, but probably the most famous of those is Psycho. I have to say he’s kind of the dark prince of the film score.

Is the entirety of the Pops playing or is it only certain sections for this performance?

It’s interesting because that film is black and white, even though it’s from 1960. Pretty much everybody was expecting color. Herrmann’s quote about that was that “Hitchcock has written a black-and-white film, and I’d like to write black-and-white music to go with it.” And what he did was use only strings. So you will see the orchestra will consist of a large string section, but not the winds, brass, and percussion that you would expect in the standard Hollywood film score offering. That makes it incredibly inventive, because all the sounds are handled by the strings. The strings make the music and make the tension and make the horror. And the other thing, it keeps it very monochromatic, which is exactly what he was trying to do.

Wow, that’s really interesting.

Yeah, you know, as I’m doing the film I’ve read a little bit more on the background and one of the things that I’ve found most interesting that the one thing everybody knows is the shower scene, right? Originally, Hitchcock didn’t want music in that scene. But when he ran the almost finished product, he didn’t like the way the scene played, and Herrmann said, “Well, you know, I did write music for that part, in case you decided you wanted to

use it.” And so they put it in. And Hitchcock said “Oh, that’s much better.” And Herrmann never stopped giving him guff about it.

Will the musicians be in costume with the audience?

I don’t actually know what we’re doing about that.

One of the things is we’re part of the experience for the audience, you know, it’s not about us. We’d like the audience to come dressed in costume. But the, you know, it’s sometimes on the stage where you’re trying to watch the movie and hear the music, if you see clowns with flashing red ears, or something like that, it distracts from the screen, and we try not to do that.

I guess people have to come and see for themselves.

Exactly, and more importantly that movie. It’s funny, I’m thinking that there are so many people who know of Psycho, but so many people, I think under 50, who’ve never seen the film from one end to the other, let alone on a big screen. You have to imagine how it struck people in 1960. For one thing, we’ve just become so inured to violence. The Freddy Krueger, Friday the 13th, Halloween, sort of genre—every bit of guts being spilled is shown.

And Hitchcock does so much by suggestion and innuendo and raising the tension on the audience. But you do see where so many things that we’ve taken for granted actually came from.

PSYCHO WITH ORCHESTRA. 10.29 & 10.31 AT SYMPHONY HALL, 301 MASS. AVE., BOSTON. BSO.ORG

WEEMS SOLO SHOW IMPRESSES AT BC Strategies of Engagement at McMullen Museum of Art

BY JOHN PYPER

Our current political storm is exposing how few people (myself included) have a solid knowledge of the history of racism in America. Books like The Strange Career of Jim Crow, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, or Hope in the Dark are replacing the navel-gazing literature of Karl Ove Knausgård or the ambient-metadata poetics of Tan Lin. We are in an era where knowledge is a double-edged weapon that grants power and exhausting anger, and we can’t afford to look away.

Carrie Mae Weems, who has a remarkable solo show at Boston College, has been developing a creative anthropology of American history for her whole career. This retrospective at the McMullen includes work from 1987 through 2018 that inspects both our micro- and macro-histories by considering monumental topics like suffering and cultural exhaustion, or by digging in archives to uncover local evidence of who we are.

Strategies of Engagement is filled with discrete projects, including one from the Getty (that also used images from Harvard, which threatened to sue Weems for using them in an unapproved manner) about how anthropologists used the body to justify pseudoscientific claims; one from Williams College about how well-meaning Northerners used education in the reconstructionist South to assimilate freedmen and Native Americans into white patriarchal Christian society; and an ongoing hydra of a project identifying, listing, and creating metaphors for those who are killed by the police in this country.

It’s a tight show that could deal with a few more square feet to really breathe by physically separating the projects, but you exhibit with the gallery you have. It’s honestly the right thing to do to show as much work as possible, as Weems is a powerhouse of creativity and truth. Many of her more exhaustive exhibits have investigated her work from the point of view of photographer rather than as a thinker, including Three Decades of Photography and Video, which traveled extensively in 2013-14. In 2016, Harvard’s Cooper Gallery exhibited a solo show that primarily engaged her self-portraiture that questions how architecture interacts with humanity rather than emphasizing her mastery of the photographic medium. But that’s the exception that proves the rule.

To say this is a show about race is to make it someone else’s problem.

This is a show about America. The title says it all: Weems is an artist who is looking for strategies to engage who we are and what we experience as Americans. If we can listen to other people for once, and stop defining “Real America” as thinly as possible, maybe we can find a moment of clarity.

>> STRATEGIES OF ENGAGEMENT. UNTIL 12.13.

THE MCMULLEN MUSEUM OF ART, BOSTON COLLEGE, 2101 COMM. AVE., BOSTON. BC.EDU/SITES/ARTMUSEUM/EXHIBITIONS/WEEMS/

Photo: Alicia ayo Ohs in NERVOUS/SYSTEM. Credit: Andrew Schneider.

VISUAL ART

NERVOUS/SYSTEM

By Andrew Schneider & Company November 9-11, 2018 performing.mit.edu

MONKEY SEED PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS

FRIDAY OCT 26th 6PM

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

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LOOK AND SEE FILM

A new restoration of Wanda offers an opportunity for reinterpretation

BY HANNAH KINNEY-KOBRE @HANNAH_BLOOMS

IMAGE FROM WANDA, COURTESY JANUS FILMS.

Barbara Loden’s Wanda [1970], her sole feature-length film, depicts the drifting life of its title character, who’s played by Loden herself. She has to convince a friend to loan her money needed to get to her appearance in divorce court, but then shows up late anyway, only to laconically tell the judge that if her husband “wants a divorce, just give it to him.” She attempts to get a job, and fails; she gets picked up by a man at a restaurant and then abandoned by him the next day at an ice cream stand; she wanders the mall, goes to the movies, gets robbed, and eventually finds herself at a bar. And there she is swept into a blur of misplaced intention: She mistakes the man robbing the place, Mr. Dennis (Michael Higgins), for the man tending the bar, and finds herself turned into the Bonnie to his Clyde, on the run at his side, the result of coincidence transfigured into her own intention.

Wanda, the character, has been constantly reduced to the qualities of passivity and blankness and is described with similar terms by critics and artists alike. In detailing her journey, writers have seen an “aimless and lost soul,” a “woman who floats on the surface of society, drifting here or there, with the currents,” someone who can “only cling to what she can, often without being able to say why,” who “takes on a passive role in the situations in her life.” In his piece on the film, Don DeLillo described Wanda as “the empty space designed to accommodate a man’s self-doubt and flaring rage.” These descriptions are not entirely wrong––Wanda is aimless, she is a drifter––but reading them you would imagine a film made up entirely of sadness, of flatness, of aimlessness.

Yet Wanda––both the film and the character––possess the mild, off-kilter vivacity of the woman who tells you her entire life story within the space of two stops on the train. There is a clear reverse side to the character’s passivity—her careful, fluttering curiosity.

Loden’s film is shot through with the lovely grainy texture of 16mm and is composed with loose, often handheld camerawork that compliments Wanda’s meandering inquisitiveness. You can see this in a scene

where Wanda wanders through the mall: The camera follows Wanda as she slowly walks around, following the pace set by her meandering as she observes the displays.

When her eye line comes to rest on a mannequin whose blond hair and bangs resembles her own, the film cuts to the mannequin’s overly painted, expressionless visage, which appears terrifyingly remote. Next the film cuts back to Wanda’s observing face. It’d be easy to decide that it is drawing similarities between her opaque expression and that of the lifeless mannequin. But Wanda’s opacity is one that suggests an inner life rather than disguising it—an animating spark that reveals itself not in what we think of as agency, but in a kind of ethereal docility. Looking at Wanda we see not a plastic, perfect expression, nor do we see neat, put-together attire—what we see is a real person, flesh and blood, her bangs askew, her face tired. Her eyes drop from the mannequin’s face to the floor, and they stay there for a moment. She blinks, and we see in her expression a mind at work, moving from the display before her into some private recess we cannot see or understand.

Her lack of assertion, her lack of definition, does not detract from the flickering yet insistent warmth Loden’s performance lends her. That warmth is best revealed through her relationship to Mr. Dennis, the man on the run, whom she follows and shacks up with. He’s almost as enigmatic as Wanda, but where Wanda is fidgety, Mr. Dennis is stock still. After their meet-strange, he takes her out to eat, and the film cuts between the two sitting on opposite sides of the booth. Wanda looks in Mr. Dennis’s direction with huge, observant eyes, spaghetti humorously dangling out of her mouth. Cut to Mr. Dennis, impassively smoking a cigar, as closed off to Wanda as she is open to him. Later the two lie next to each other in bed, the camera placed at its foot, he like stone with his back turned to her, while Wanda laces her fingers together and vibrates with anxious energy, asking if he’d like to know her name, looking around the room, asking if he’s married, reaching out to caress his forehead. He slaps her hand away—to state it mildly,

Mr. Dennis is a textbook asshole. He hits Wanda, tells her what to wear, and pushes her away when she tries to touch him. Wanda’s attachment to him is surely part of why many critics have characterized her as passive. But her undisguised tenderness, her inclination toward attachment, is the opposite of passivity. When Mr. Dennis tries to dump her on the side of the road shortly after meeting, she stares directly at the camera and defends herself (“I didn’t do anything”). She looks at him, confused and hurt, then looks outside at the open door. She closes it, and Mr. Dennis drives on.

Just as Wanda’s passivity is not without liveliness, Wanda and Mr. Dennis’s relationship is not without moments of tenderness, which stand out in the film like bruises left on someone’s skin. About halfway through the film, Mr. Dennis, exhausted, asks Wanda to drive. The two eventually pull off somewhere, buy some booze, and park in the middle of an open lot, where some dogs emerge from out of nowhere, revealed while the frame follows Mr. Dennis as he’s walking out of some brush. We see the two at a distance—Wanda drinking a beer on top of the car, Mr. Dennis making kissing noises at the animals—and in that instant, they form an imitation of domesticity: husband, wife, dogs. Loden cuts closer here, with Wanda at the center of the frame, lit by a halo from the setting sun. We see the shadows shift and move over her body as Mr. Dennis comes up behind her and places his jacket on her shoulders. She barely registers it, but the camera moves closer as she turns to watch the sun set– –a transient moment, one that unexpectedly and gently unites the two. And this momentary union, like a mirage in a desert, is made all the more meaningful by the apparent impossibility of the conditions that produce it.

Of course, it does not redeem Mr. Dennis and Wanda’s relationship, which is still a mostly transactional and abusive one, just as the persistent flickers of Wanda’s inner life do not fully reveal her to us as an active character. Yet that space is where the beauty of Loden’s Wanda resides. It refuses to explicate or moralize or even explain; it merely asks us to pay attention, to observe quietly and curiously, just as Wanda does.

Loden died of breast cancer in 1980 and was only able to direct two short films after Wanda, despite many attempts to direct another feature. And following this debut film’s release, both her ex-husband, Elia Kazan, and her cinematographer, Nick Proferes, gave quotes suggesting that their contributions to Wanda were outsized. The year of Loden’s death, Kazan claimed that he “wrote the first screenplay, as a favour,” while Proferes stated in a later interview that “it was really co-directed. … I was responsible for the framing and the composition of 99 percent of the shots.” These claims are obviously infuriating; but even Kazan and Proferes, in those same interviews, concede authorship to Loden—Kazan added that it “became her screenplay,” Proferes made it clear he believed that “Wanda was Barbara’s film.” Much like the heroine she plays, Loden’s animating force undeniably slips through. And in our glimpses of Wanda, we perhaps find Barbara there too.

>> WANDA PLAYS AT THE BRATTLE THEATRE FRI 10.26–SUN 10.28. 40 BRATTLE ST., CAMBRIDGE. BRATTLEFILM.ORG FOR SHOWTIMES. DIGITAL RESTORATION. $9.50-11.50.

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DIGBOSTON.COM

HICKEY AND THE HABIT FILM

Local filmmaker debuts new horror flick on the biggest screen

BY JACOB SCHICK

Originally from Charlestown, filmmaker and anti-opiate activist Johnny Hickey launched his career with his writing and directing debut Oxy Morons in 2010. Over the past two years, he’s been working on a new project, the psychological horror The Habit, which stars local celebs including MTV reality show HICKEY (FRONT) AND CAST ON favorite Chris “CT” Tamburello and THE SET OF ‘THE HABIT’ LAST YEAR other Real World cast members from Greater Boston. With his premiere on the enormous 80-foot screen at Jordan’s Imax Theater in Reading on Oct 30, just in time for Halloween, we spoke to the actor and director about his latest.

How did you come up with the idea and the story for this movie?

My first film, Oxy Morons, had a lot of these demonic dream sequences in the film that I really liked. But it was a very small part of the film because it was based on a true story.

I always just loved doing that dark horror stuff. I’ve been a horror fan since I was a kid, and I wanted to tie a couple of ideas together, and one idea that I had always seen failing in horror movies is these movies that take place in these abandoned lunatic asylums. I always wanted to play that up and see if I could take advantage of maybe getting access to the abandoned asylums that are in the state of Mass.

I also wanted to tie the story to drugs because that’s my niche market. I came up with the idea of these ravers doing these drugs and they go to this asylum for an underground party. All this stuff starts happening where it goes from a crime drama to a horror to you really don’t know what the hell is going on, almost like a bad trip.

How did you get the Jordan’s Imax Theater in Reading?

We just reached out to them. I always was like, “If I can ever get an IMAX that would be a big deal locally.” They’re really supportive of everything I was doing, you know, to help fight the drug epidemic. The fact that my movie has a dark drug message in it and all the indie opiate work that I’m doing with my nonprofit [F.I.G.H.T.], they were just willing to come on board and give me the theater.

Do you think that being in the Imax Theater benefits The Habit?

It’s arguably the best theater on the East Coast. The only movies that premiere here are big studio movies like The Avengers, Avatar, Venom, Mission Impossible, Batman. It’s the first independent film and Boston film to ever premiere on Imax on 4K laser.

Jordan’s Imax is one of eight theaters like that in the world. It’s a 525-seat theater with an 80-foot screen. It’s perception. We’re gonna put night vision cameras in there, we’re gonna get audience reactions when those subwoofers in their seats explode and shake when something scary happens. We’re gonna give the distributor a marketing tool.

To be able to give people that experience with an independent horror film, it’s never happened before. Look at the movies that are normally there—$200 million movies—and for me to be there with my half-million-dollar movie, it’s a big deal.

Do you think The Habit draws from your experiences in Boston and New England?

I’m a firm believer in you always write and direct and do what you know. The lead actor [Chris “CT” Tamburello] in the movie is my childhood best friend who grew up in the projects in Charlestown with me. We’re real Boston, so a lot of the dialogue, especially when we improv stuff when we’re acting together, is so Boston.

It definitely has a very Boston, New England vibe to it. It’s that time of year right now. Halloween, obviously, is a big deal in New England.

Do you think that your background in the projects gives you an edge?

A hundred percent. Growing up in Charlestown and being a criminal and going to jail and being able to escape out of that definitely gave me a unique set of tools to apply in Hollywood. I can read people, I can call bluffs. I know what people are thinking in the first two seconds I meet them, and once they catch on to that you earn a different respect. I really think that’s something that’s helped me carry myself into Hollywood. It’s the land of dreams but it’s also the land of dream shattering. I like to do that to know that all that shit I went through wasn’t for nothing.

9.13.19 NEWS TO US

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MEOW AND FOREVER SAVAGE LOVE

BY DAN SAVAGE @FAKEDANSAVAGE | MAIL@SAVAGELOVE.NET

Hi, Dan: I am a homosexual young adult seeking advice about kitten play. I find it very intriguing, and I’m wondering where to start. It’s a turn-on when someone calls me kitten, but I’m not sure how to express my kink or desire for kink play to the person or persons I am into. Any advice would be appreciated.

Constructive Advice Thoughtfully Sought Hi, CATS: I am a homosexual not-so-young adult without much advice to offer where kitten play is concerned. I’ve encountered plenty of gay puppies in the wild—at various leather/fetish events—but I’ve seen only one fetish kitty in my lifetime, and she was a queen. (A female cat is called a queen, a male cat is called a tom, and a group of cats is called a glare. #TheMoreYouKnow!)

But Amp Somers, who hosts the kink-friendly sex-ed show Watts the Safeword, assures me that gay kitties are definitely a thing.

“Kitten play is a subcategory of the ‘animal role-play’ or ‘pet play’ kink,” said Somers. “It is a form of domination and submission in which someone gets into the head space of an animal they are role-playing and takes on its characteristics—be it with gear (masks, tails, collars) or by acting out the mannerisms of their animal. Most importantly, and this goes for all proper pet players, there are no actual animals involved in this play.”

Puppy play is the most common form of pet play—by far—and it’s very popular among younger gay kinksters. (Please don’t confuse gay pups or kitties with gay bears or otters. The former is about role-play and fetish; the latter is about body type, affirmation, and community.) But what accounts for the popularity of pet play among younger kinksters?

“This sort of play allows someone to get into kink easily with or without a partner and in a playful manner,” said Somers. “Pet play allows players to get their feet wet in the BDSM world without having to visit a dark dungeon, get tied up, or engage in anything a newer kinkster might find intimidating. It’s a great entry-level kink.”

As for expressing your kink, CATS, that’s something you’re going to have to work out on your own.

“I imagine CATS already has an image of what kitten play looks like to them, and I bet it differs from what I might imagine my own pet play would look like or even from what readers imagine a kitten player to look like,” said Somers. “Is CATS a domesticated lazy kitten who lies in the sun? A curious, well-trained, docile cat responsive to cuddles and treats? Or are they a rambunctious, bratty, independent stray?”

To find your way into the kink scene, Somers recommends getting online.

“That’s how I first found pet play,” he said. “Sites like kitten-play.com offer in-depth written pieces by players, links to resources, and forums where people like CATS can educate themselves. Other sites like FetLife or Facebook provide more private groups to ‘meet’ others, ask more in depth questions, find local get-togethers, and make friends to socialize with. Or if they prefer video content, YouTube has a number of creators (like ‘Scream Kiwi’) who talk about their kinks in a fun, educational, and personal way. And once CATS feels comfortable in their own identity and has defined what they want out of this play, they will be able to really communicate to their partner(s) what they’re into and what they want out of kitten play.”

Check out Amp Somers’s show—Watts the Safeword—at youtube.com/ WattsTheSafeword, and follow him on Twitter @Pup_Amp.

I have a follow-up question on your advice for JACKS, the gay manager who ran into an employee at a JO party. Alison “Ask a Manager” Green told him he couldn’t go to these parties anymore. A distinction was made between sexual situation encounters between bosses and those they manage in “private clubs” (the JO club) or at “public events” (Folsom Street Fair). My question is about Grindr/Scruff/Growlr/etc. Are these more like “private clubs” or “public events”?

In part, my question stems from being a professor and having seen students and colleagues on these apps. I feel like I should not be reading the profiles of students in my department (who are mostly graduate students). I am also troubled by my colleagues appearing on these apps—from the perspective that this seems to be a sexually oriented space and there is the power differential between faculty and students.

Basics Of Sexual Spaces Dating apps are the new gay bars—more than 75 percent of same-sex couples met online—so telling gay bosses or college profs they can’t go on dating apps because their gay male students or underlings might be on them means condemning gay bosses and profs to celibacy. Bosses and profs shouldn’t flirt with their students and underlings, of course, and it might be a good idea to block ’em when you spot ’em—so you won’t be tempted by their profiles/torsos and they won’t be tempted by yours—but gay bosses and profs are free to look for dick on dating apps.

On the Lovecast, where do kinks come from? Dr. Justin Lehmiller on the science of desire: savagelovecast.com

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COMEDY EVENTS THU 10.11

COMEDY @ ARTLOUNGE ARLINGTON

Featuring: Deadair Dennis Maler, Lauren Kirby, Laura Burns, David Thomas, Sarah Francis, Vinnie Pagano, Emily Ruskowski, & Kathe Farris.

Hosted by Stirling Smith

33 DUNSTER ST., CAMBRIDGE | 9PM | FREE FRI 10.26 - SAT 10.27

MARTIN MONTANA @ NICK’S COMEDY STOP

“He’s the Commissioner” That’s what Martin’s Colombian mom used to tell her friends when he got his first all commission job. Now he gets to tell the world all about it, along with his take on all of the other characters he’s met. He can be heard on SiriusXM satellite radio, was a semi-finalist in NY’s Funniest Stand Up Competition, has been featured in the Boston Comedy Festival, and showcased at the 2014 NACA Northern Plains Conference.

100 WARRENTON ST., BOSTON | 8PM | $20 FRI 10.26 - SUN 10.28

PETE LEE @ LAUGH BOSTON

Pete Lee made his network television debut performing on NBC’s Last Comic Standing finishing as a semi-finalist. After competing on Last Standing he shot his own Comedy Central Half Hour Special, which earned him a cult following at comedy clubs and the opportunity to perform at hundreds colleges across the country.

425 SUMMER ST., BOSTON | VARIOUS | $25-$29 FRI 10.26

OLD SCHOOL GAME SHOW’S HALLOWEEN SPECIAL @ THE WILBUR

Join the bloodcurdling hilarious antics of the OSGS’s Halloween trivia extravaganza!

If your idea of trick or treating is laughing, cheering, and winning fabulous prizes, then head to Old School Game Show’s Halloween Special! Featuring a star-studded cast, those lovely maniacs in spandex known as The Cubic Zirconia Dancers, special musical guests, and the Swinging OSGS House Band. Get ready for a Halloween experience only OSGS can bring. Dress up for our costume contest, enjoy the spectacle from your seat, or get the chance to play horror-themed trivia as part of the show!

246 TREMONT ST, BOSTON | 10PM | $26-$37 SAT 10.27

SATURDAY NIGHT SHOWCASE @ THE COMEDY STUDIO

Featuring: Casey Crawford, Mehran Khagani, Brian Longwell, Sean Rosa, Amy Tee, & Comic in Residence Laura Severse.

Hosted by Rick Jenkins

1 BOW MARKET WAY #23, SOMERVILLE | 8PM | $15 SUN 10.28

LIQUID COURAGE COMEDY @ SLUMBREW

Featuring: Caleb Kempf, Ellen Sugarman, Megan Baker, Stirling Smith, Mike Setlow, & Brett Johnson.

Hosted by Chris Post

15 WARD ST., SOMERVILLE | 8PM | $5 MON 10.29

MONDAY NIGHT COMEDY IN THE SUPPER CLUB @ CAPO Hosted by Will Noonan

443 WEST BROADWAY BOSTON | 8PM | FREE WED 10.31

8 O’CLOCK AT 730 @ 730 TAVERN, KITCHEN, & PATIO Featuring: Rob Crean, Liam McGurk, & more.

730 MASS AVE., CAMBRIDGE | 8PM | FREE WED 10.31

THE COMEDY PIZZA PARTY @ PENGUIN PIZZA Hosted by A.J. Glagolev

735 HUNTINGTON AVE, MISSION HILL | 9PM | FREE Lineup & shows to change without notice. For more info on everything Boston Comedy visit BostonComedyShows.com Bios & writeups pulled from various sources, including from the clubs & comics…

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

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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

OUR VALUED CUSTOMERS

BY TIM CHAMBERLAIN OURVC.NET

NEWS TO US

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