DigBoston 8.17.17

DIGBOSTON.COM 08.17.17 - 08.23.17

ATTN: NAZIS, WHITE SUPREMACISTS, FASCISTS, NATIONALISTS, STEVE BANNON, RIGHT-WING TROLLS, TRUMP SUPPORTERS, RACISTS, BIGOTS, SEPARATISTS, AND ALL OF YOUR PATHETIC FRIENDS.

GTFO!

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Dear Reader, It was unlikely that either Boston Mayor Marty Walsh or Mass Gov. Charlie Baker would say something remarkable or disappointing at their emergency presser on City Hall Plaza. Though both back certain policies, ideas, and companies that arguably buttress economic and racial disparity, I think that almost everyone of sane imagination can agree that neither is a white supremacist, and as such Charlie and Marty were expected to stand in front of microphones on Monday and lambaste President Donald Trump and his racist supporters, including those who swarmed on Charlottesville last weekend, as well as those who allegedly plan to bring some loathsome message or another to the Hub on Saturday (or not, as we are hearing as we are about to go to print that hatemongering protesters were scared off, but in any case…).

There were very few surprises at the press availability. A large scrum of reporters from a range of outlets circled ’round, as Baker, Walsh, and law enforcement officials spoke with a gaggle of clergy and government workers behind them. All of the above condemned intolerance and bigotry, and unlike the president of the United States, said the sort of human things that you’re supposed to say in such a situation. Theatrics were kept to a minimum, as were many details, since even Boston Police Department Commissioner William Evans claimed to not yet know exactly who is planning the contested demonstration.

Prior to the dog and pony show of solidarity with Charlottesville, I ran into some activists whom I have covered in the past. A few came down to City Hall not only for the speeches but to find out if the state and municipal leaders on hand planned to show up at the counter-protests. As one experienced organizer put it, “We’re telling them to stand up to the white supremacists with us. Their high profile, and the media that their involvement will attract, would do a lot to make everyone there a lot safer.”

It’s probable that most of the electeds who were cheesing for the cameras on Monday will show up to repel hate on Saturday. Walsh implied that he’ll be present, while Boston City Councilor-at-Large Ayanna Pressley released a statement saying, “We will counter protest your actions with the collective conviction and vigilance necessary to see racial, social and economic justice realized.” In his turn, Baker acknowledged that “there are a lot of people in communities of color who think they are not being heard by [the Trump] administration,” said those voices “need to do something,” and suggested that anti-hate organizers use the term “unity rally,” rather than “counter-protest.”

As for whether he will be there on the front lines along with them, the governor balked: “I actually don’t know what’s on my calendar Saturday, but if I can come, I will come.”

I don’t know what the gov has on his plate this weekend, but if it’s something like a golf outing with General Electric Chairman Jeff Immelt, who sits on President Trump’s advisory council for manufacturers, I sure hope that Baker realizes the potential impact that a well-liked sitting Republican governor can make by standing up to Trump’s minions and sycophants in person, and shows up for the unity rally he asked for.

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NEWS US HYPER LOOPY NEWS TO US

West Coast tube travel evangelist pitches Polynesian paradise at Faneuil Hall

BY CHRIS FARAONE @FARA1 It would have been amazing if Matthew Modine crashed into Quincy Market at 4,000 miles per hour last Friday.

Talk about stranger things.

Not all dreams come true, but the crowd on hand for Boston GreenFest did get to experience Nick Garzilli, a partner of Modine’s at the Santa Monica-based tube travel startup Hyper Chariot. Though not a Tinsel Town celeb like his chiseled associate, Garzilli, a tech executive who’s led campaigns against publicly subsidized high speed rail projects in California, delivered a performance in the 275-year old hall that was worthy of a sci-fi motion picture treatment.

The name of the event, dubbed an “eco forum” by the GreenFest organizers, left the door wide open for evangelists and future boosters like Garzilli: “Transportation Tomorrow Today.” Other panelists included Chris Dempsey, the director of the Transportation for Massachusetts coalition, Greater Four Corners Action Coalition organizer Mela Bush Miles, and Tim Lasker, the sustainability specialist for the MBTA. And while such grounded representatives from various worker and advocacy groups focused on the “today” part of the colloquium title, Garzilli hopped on the “tomorrow” train, opening with a pitch about turning the Hub into Epcot: “There are these contraptions, these transportation networks if you want to call the roller coasters that … They’re going all over and they’re doing crazy things to people—4 or 5G—insane stuff.

They’re insured, and they have a much higher safety record than our roads, much higher … So what if we took a step back, and looked at our cities and tried to turn them into amusement parks?”

We weren’t being trolled. At least not in the traditional sense. I suppose it all depends on how you feel about Garzilli, whose GreenFest bio notes that he once “had a private meeting with Elon Musk at Space X, the month before Musk announced Hyperloop.” Indeed, Garzilli’s Hyper Chariot, which “is working to shoot you safely

“And we’re going to have these new transportation systems out there, and people are going to start leaving this country and other countries to go live there.

What are all the politicians gonna do then?”

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through a tube at 4,000 mph,” is the seven-minute abs alternative to Musk’s octogenarian Hyperloop, which lazily wants to move passengers at a mere 760 mph. As Garzilli further explained: “We got all this congestion on our roads, but we could have solar-powered pod cars everywhere. And this could all be privately funded and privately operated without any subsidies. And we can insure these like we insure amusement rides … You should be able to build this stuff above our city streets or under the highway. When you’re sitting in traffic, look up, and say, ‘Wow, what if the city leased that space to innovators?’ The technology is there, but we’re stuck in the past. There are solutions.”

The idea of a steroidal bullet train blasting between South Station and Dorchester, with various neighborhood stops, seemed appealing to the other panelists and to a few heads in the crowd as well. But only superficially, since the reality of transit in Boston eclipses the hope of a hyper tomorrow. As Mela Bush Miles, who chairs the Fairmount Indigo Transit Coalition along with her work for the Four Corners group, noted: “Right now we have a thing going on in Boston around the Fairmount Line where you have trains that are dirty, old filthy diesel trains slunking through the community, and people cannot get on the train but they have to take the byproduct of those trains blowing past them and destroying their health.”

Miles, who started advocating for transportation justice years ago in response to her son’s asthma, further explained why she isn’t holding her breath for newfangled solutions.

“The communities should not have to take the burden of the toxins without the benefit of the transportation,” Miles said. “We should have the benefits and not just the consequences.”

After which Lasker, the MBTA sustainability specialist, added, “I’m not against the concept at all, but I have this sticky problem of dealing with today’s reality. And to get to transportation of the future and tomorrow, I have to deal with what we have right now. I have to move 1.35 million people today. This afternoon at 5 o’clock. I love hearing about these different innovative solutions, and I hear you say private investor, and it sounds great, but I would love to see the proof in the pudding … It’s hard for me to go and sell something to the general public that they haven’t really seen or touched.”

Despite Garzilli’s clear disdain for public transit—at one point he said “it only really serves a couple of people”—

there was actually some agreement among panelists, in part thanks to the deft and friendly moderation of Peter Arpin, a businessman and sustainability expert, but mostly born from a common belief among participants that government bureaucracies—in cahoots with their cronies in private enterprise—have largely bungled mass transportation, and done so egregiously in Greater Boston. As for the solutions … that’s where similarities ended.

On the more practical side of the spectrum with Miles, Dempsey warned that T fixes should be a primary priority but also acknowledged the “many cities around the country that are incredibly envious of the urban fabric that Boston has, because we are walkable [and] bikeable [with] beautiful streets and beautiful neighborhoods.”

Following comparable comments from the panel and audience, in which people expressed regional pride along with serious concern about inadequate service and crumbling infrastructure, Garzilli saw an opening to pitch an alternative that few in the crowd had likely considered.

“They got permits to build new nations in French Polynesia,” Garzilli said, name-checking the controversial venture capitalist Peter Thiel. “I was actually approached by this group for a new transportation system for this … There is going to be an opportunity, for people who have been handed a raw deal … the impoverished people … There are people who are trying to solve this with new nations, and they have been given permission to build us a way out … And we’re going to have these new transportation systems out there, and people are going to start leaving this country and other countries to go live there. What are all the politicians gonna do then?”

Seemingly unmoved by the prospect of spending the rest of their lives in Peter Thiel’s privately funded tubular paradise, the other panelists gave closing comments that primarily addressed the present nightmare and steered clear of science fiction.

“You have something new, and then there’s not the political will to get it where it needs to be,” Miles said. She wasn’t talking about Hyperloop. “They even tested out [electric] trains last year that could make [the Fairmount Line] rapid transit, and now they’re on mothballs somewhere because, ‘Oh, just give [the public funding] to the Kraft Group [and the New England Patriots] and run it down to Foxborough.’”

Speaking of which, I can see it now—the TB Hyperloop express! Back Bay to Gillette in 30 seconds, with limitless Mach razor marketing ops. A thousand bucks to sit in seat number 12, two hundred a pop for the rest of you suckers.

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TALKING JOINTS MEMO

WEED REVIEW: CINDERELLA 99 And the verdict is: The shoe fits

BY CITIZEN STRAIN

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If you’re anything like us, the type of individual who likes to read and smoke a lot of weed, then you are often looking for some cannabis to help you stay up late and work on innovative and artistic projects. It’s a need that noobs and those who aren’t everyday consumers couldn’t comprehend, and needless to say, this review is not for them. Nor is it for specialists and professional growers, who probably already know about the strain’s ancestral ties to the immortal Jack Herer, and all of the amazing perks that come with such a pedigree.

We grabbed our ounce of Cinderella 99 from a grower friend in Maine, where it is selling for about $200 an ounce. Closer to Boston, you can find the flower at Sage Naturals in Cambridge, or perhaps in the stash of your pal with the insane West Coast connections, since the sativa-heavy hybrid grows pretty prolifically in Washington and Oregon. I’m fairly sure that I encountered Cindy on my trip to Portland earlier this year, though I’m probably confusing it with any of the several dozen other prizewinners I puffed on during that exquisite visit.

In addition to its candy confection flavor and sweet stench, this goodness goes the distance in the energy department. It isn’t napping weed. It can be working weed, or movie-watching weed, or video game-playing weed, but leave your Cinderella 99 at home if you have plans to spend a slow day in the shade with your lights out. This stink will make you think.

Aesthetically, the nuggets are notably dense, making the strain a favorite among growers. Besides famously high yields, Cinderella is fluffy enough to the touch to warrant light petting, sort of like a shorthaired canine. Our batch crushed well in a metal grinder, smoked beautifully in joints and blunts, and burned evenly in one-hitters and pipes alike. We also decarboxylated some flowers to make capsules, and unlike other cocaine-comparable crops that beget buzzkills in edible form, Cinderella seems to have some stamina built into its exceptionally rare composition.

At the same time, I won’t pretend that this is the most functional or practical option available. Roofers, truckers, and operators of commercial equipment in general should steer clear of heavy doses during work hours, as Cindy likes to stick around and doesn’t seem to have a ceiling to her beauty. Unless, of course, said operator happens to be on vacation and is looking for a heady, powerful sativa hybrid tooled for maximum creative output. In that case, be sure to point them to this write-up.

It isn’t napping weed. It can be working weed, or movie-watching weed, or video gameplaying weed, but leave your Cinderella 99 at home if you have plans to spend a slow day in the shade with your lights out.

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE CANNABIS NEWSLETTER AT TALKINGJOINTSMEMO.COM

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BULL MEDIA FARM

Deciphering the viral Somerville News Weekly rant about an alleged FBI probe of Mayor Curtatone

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We’ve been here before.

The Dig last covered William Tauro back in December 2015, when the Somerville News Weekly publisher and Donald Trump fanboy took a debunked report of a threat by a Somerville elementary school student and publicized it until he caught the attention of the Make America Great Again people. At the time, Tauro responded to widespread local criticism by exclaiming: “Just recently got a call from the Trump Camp asking me for my permission to use my Somerville School article! Fucking ahy!

Take that and shove it up your ass!”

In some ways, last Sunday’s Somerville News Weekly article accusing Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone of “racketeering” and “extortion” is even more absurd and shorter on facts than the author’s notorious school threat scoop. Nevertheless, the article was shared hundreds of times within hours of being posted on Sunday morning.

For all its hefty accusations, the Somerville News Weekly exclusive is notably vague on details. It’s insane that anyone would share such trash, and if the article hadn’t gone relatively viral we would have left it alone to die naturally. But it has been shared extensively, and as one of the few outlets that has actually done deep reporting on Curtatone, has reporters with institutional Somerville memory on our team, and has a record of criticizing Mayor Joe and the rosy Somerville-is-the-newBrooklyn narrative that is embraced by his administration, we thought DigBoston was a somewhat neutral voice on the matter that could help shine some light on this pseudo event.

On that note, please allow us to explain this shit show in slow motion, both for those who sort of know what’s going on and for those who were simply hoodwinked by the headline. Excerpts from the Somerville News Weekly article, “FBI Racketeering/ Extortion Probe Being Sought Against Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone,” are in italics, followed by annotations by our Somerville brain trust.

A complaint was sought and evidence presented this past week with the Boston Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Anti-Corruption Unit, asking the Bureau to pursue charges against Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone with allegations accusing the six term mayor of racketeering and extortion.

The multiple allegations against the Mayor are stemming back to several stalled development deals within the City of Somerville—accusing the Mayor of “shaking down” property owners, forcing/extorting property owners to use his own connected (favored) developers, racketeering, and tampering with an MBTA property bidding process, while depriving a Somerville (bowling alley) property owner of his rights.

Read carefully: All this says is that Tauro contacted and complained to the FBI. Which is different than an FBI investigation, or so we thought. Add in some buzzwords like “shaking down,” “extortion,” and “racketeering,” though, and the reader might assume that some supporting details or documents will follow. That reader would be wrong.

Before going further, one has to wonder if Tauro alone is behind the column.

Because the rants that follow sound a lot like those of ousted Somerville School Committee member James Norton, whose Somerville News Weekly columns often feature unlettered tirades against the Black Lives Matter banner on Somerville City Hall, as well as criticisms of the city’s sanctuary stance on immigrants. Whoever had a hand in writing it, the rambling continues: In the case of the bowling alley, the Mayor and a local real estate developer are named as approaching and allegedly attempting to deprive the property owner of his rights…

It’s like walking into someone else’s dinner conversation, and they’re reluctant to offer prerequisites. Nothing but more unnamed accusers in this epic 93-word sentence. However veiled the references (always a sign of exceptional journalism), this passage may refer to Herbert “Butchy” Foster, whose tiny old bowling alley sits near the planned site of a Green Line stop in Ball Square (the establishment currently has a banner outside announcing 50 years of business). Foster, whose father was a co-defendant of Winter Hill mob boss Howie Winter in his infamous pinball machine conviction, might know a thing or two about shakedowns, but Tauro leaves it all to the imagination…

READ OUR WHOLE TRANSLATION OF THIS NONSENSE AT DIGBOSTON.COM

A PROTEST BY ANY OTHER NAME...

APPARENT HORIZON

The best way to defeat the ultra right is to stop playing their game

BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS Street protest is a vital part of any genuinely democratic political system. But how and when people choose to demonstrate (or counterdemonstrate) determines the tactic’s relative success or failure. So in a situation like this week’s, when the ultra right is planning to hold a Boston rally in the wake of a similar event that caused the deaths of one left-winger and two cops in Charlottesville, what is the most effective way for the left—led by those political groups that believe in democracy, equality, human rights, and social justice—to grow their ranks while helping stop the reactionary drive for power in its tracks? At least in this corner of the US. As I see it, there are three possible ways for the left to respond to public actions by right-wing extremists in the current moment. Here’s a quick look at each with my gloss.

1) Lead: Educate and organize for the long haul.

Organizing target: People who already agree with left ideas, and the huge middle ground of fence-sitters who will work with whichever side makes the strongest effort to talk to them.

With this approach, left organizers generally do not respond directly to particular ultra-right actions. Instead, they always seek to set the political agenda in society. To reach out to the vast sea of unorganized folks in a diverse array of communities and engage them in discussion and debate about matters like racism in American society. To build a culture that makes it impossible for the hard right to operate in the open. This option is often misconstrued by more militant left activists as “doing nothing,” but that is far from the case. Winning hearts and minds—especially in suburban communities that the left has failed to pay attention to for decades—is the most important political work of all, because it results in a strong political base and makes better political solutions to societal problems possible. It is also a majoritarian strategy because it seeks to build the largest possible social movement. And it has the added bonus of depriving the ultra right of publicity.

2) React: Hold counterdemonstrations every time the ultra right calls a public action.

Organizing target: The activist left.

This approach involves left organizers taking the bait and dropping longer-term organizing work to attempt to blunt ultra-right public initiatives. Which allows the ultra right to dictate both the terms of debate and the terrain of political struggle. Also, in the interest of speed, it forces the left to narrow its outreach to activists that are already pushing for its ideas. If repeated frequently, this option leads away from political solutions to societal crises by leaving power in the hands of the current capitalist duopoly, and it causes the ultra right to be perceived as more powerful than they actually are—since political strength is often judged by the size of a group’s enemies.

Thus a rally of a few hundred will be taken much more seriously by many if thousands of people directly respond to it—ironically, assisting the ultra right’s PR and thence helping them to grow rather than shrink.

3) Provoke: Attempt to defeat the ultra right militarily.

Organizing target: The small number of left activists willing to take up arms against the right in this time and place, and the small number of allies who think that it’s a good idea to do so.

This approach involves giving the ultra right what they want most of all: violent street fights. It requires responding to the armed militias organized by the hard right with what amounts to left-wing militias. Which I think is a very bad idea in this place and time. Because it means activist militants must, by default, restrict their organizing to the very small groups of people willing to take up arms against their ultra-right antagonists in any given community. It tends to alienate huge numbers of people who don’t think it’s wise to try to fight fire with fire… and causes people who could have been organized into the left to be disorganized into fence-sitters. It also feeds the fantasy of actually beating the ultra right badly

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enough that they exit the political stage. Which is a highly unlikely outcome for the simple reason that right-wing militias have a big head start on any left imitators in both armament and training. Plus many militia members have military and police backgrounds, yet very few left-wingers have spent much time in either institution. Giving the ultra right far more allies in the police and military—and therefore in government. With those connections in place, a right-wing government like the Trump administration will certainly use any significant left violence as the excuse for a massive state crackdown on all of the ultra right’s political opponents. And even without such a crackdown, on a practical level, ultra-right recruitment increases every time they get in a street fight. Pursuing this course tends to make them stronger. Because they look badass whether they lose or win. If they lose, that feeds into their claim that “white people are oppressed by ‘Social Justice Warriors.’” If they win, it looks like history is on their side.

And history is definitely not right now. But if the left wants to ensure the victory of ultra right in this period, pursuing the military option will virtually guarantee it.

That said, my favorite choice is obviously the first one. I hope that local left leaders will take my comments to heart, and that both the right and left will de-escalate their tactics enough to let traditional political activity supplant the looming downward spiral toward violent conflict. Because, if history is any guide, the latter path leads our society to a place we really don’t want to go.

Apparent Horizon 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 2017 Jason Pramas. Licensed for use by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism and media outlets in its network.

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THE UNION OF SEX, DRUGS, AND ROCK ‘N’ ROLL GUEST COLUMN

I helped organize a suburban Mass Guitar Center. Here’s what I learned.

BY JONATHON FEINBERG

Last month, after many years of organizing and nearly five years negotiating, more than 100 workers from four Guitar Center locations—Las Vegas, Chicago, Manhattan, and Danvers here in Mass—won a contract with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. It wasn’t easy, as the company ran extensive unionbusting efforts. But the campaign ultimately won, relying heavily on publicity and garnering several celebrity endorsements.

My favorite was Rage Against the Machine guitar player Tom Morello, who at one point even worked with union representatives at a negotiation session with the company.

The contract, which went into effect on July 9, includes higher base wages ($0.50 above minimum starting), 2.75 percent annual raises, more advanced scheduling, affordable (and excellent) healthcare through the union, better job security, and increased availability of full-time classification, all of which are now much more enforceable thanks to a grievance process that was also put in place.

The RWDSU began by organizing workers at large retail outlets in Manhattan, then moving beyond that city.

It covers employees in a wide variety of enterprises; the Guitar Center campaign took place alongside initiatives to organize marijuana dispensaries and sex toy shops, while the union also represents workers in fields ranging from cereal production to car washes, some through its affiliation with the United Food & Commercial Workers International Union.

The purchase of Guitar Center by Bain Capital (which now co-owns the company with Ares Management) in 2007 spurred a rapid decline in working conditions, from benefits to pay and commission structures. Turnover

I learned a lot about unions and the labor movement, but also about the most important things in life, like connecting with people across differences to build a better future together.

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increased dramatically, and what was once a reasonably decent job for working musicians slipped away. In just the year and a half that I’ve been at the Danvers store, job descriptions changed at least four times—such announcements were rarely made clear—while an entire level of management was eliminated, an attendance policy was put in place without anyone knowing, and about 20 people quit or were fired. Maximum staffing is 28 people, and a vast majority of the workforce is under 30 years old.

There have also been noncontractual issues in a workplace that corporate tells us supports musicians of every stripe. Our store has struggled with employing women, and rarely has more than one person of color on the payroll at all. There is no sufficient training, and we are often understaffed on difficult shifts. Promises from management have been left unfulfilled; one case, a highearning and well-liked salesman was fired because he took gig leave (an unpaid day off for a show that is guaranteed by the company). Safety has also been an issue, and two people have fallen off broken ladders. We still do not have access to drinking water other than the bathroom sink.

This was bad, low-paid work for young musicians with few employment options.

A few months into my time at Guitar Center, the conditions my coworkers complained about became personal. When I was working in the warehouse, I hurt my back unloading a truck which resulted in several doctors visits and missing two weeks of work, not to mention a potential lifelong injury. My manager told me not to file a report or to claim any lost time because I would be drugtested and lose my job. It was not a friendly place to work, and it was obvious why people left so quickly.

The organizing campaign began more or less when I was hired. I had heard about the initiative on social media, mostly about Tom Morello’s endorsement. I was unemployed and needed a job that was flexible enough for me to continue playing with my band, Tigerman Woah, and a friend at Guitar Center said that his store was hiring.

I made the connection and reached out to an organizer at the RWDSU to see what they thought.

With my friend’s blessing and leadership, we began to organize the warehouse. This was probably the easiest part, since the lowest-paid and hardest-working folks in the store wanted more. Going into sales was trickier, but by relying on relationships that had been built up over the past six or seven years, we drummed up significant interest. There were some problem workers, loudmouths, and gossipers, but we managed to create a tight and

dedicated leadership core within about four months.

Meanwhile, the RWDSU successfully sued Guitar Center (via the National Labor Relations Board) for bargaining in bad faith, illegal union-busting efforts, and a litany of other charges. This put our store in a holding pattern. We had countless secret shop floor conversations and 10 pm meetings in my living room, despite 6 am shifts the next day, mapping the relationships in the store to see who we should approach next and who we couldn’t trust. We even listened to recordings from other stores, as organizers fought with managers and friends and union busters. We were gearing up to fight, but also holding steady to see if we might get voluntary recognition as part of the NLRB settlement. This was a point of contention internally and between our committee and the union, but we eventually got voluntary recognition, and our campaign continued as we got 90 percent of the store to sign union cards.

In mid-June, I went to New York with two other leaders from my store to join delegates from the other three stores who were bargaining with Guitar Center. Considering the history, we were not expecting a win. The first day was essentially training for us, since the union’s representatives did all of the bargaining. But at the urging of my coworkers from Danvers, we did agree to shift away from the pay and commission structure that our union had initially proposed, since it could have yielded negative pay impacts on part-time workers and because the company seemed unwilling to accept it anyway. Eventually, Guitar Center agreed to the change, which won unanimous support from all employees.

The negotiation itself was stressful, but we kept a hard face in front of the enemy, strategically reacted to concessions, and kept focused for the entire 8-hour meeting. The company’s executive on hand kept trying to act relatable and make jokes, but there was no fooling us, as we had heard that he once told a worker, “If you wanted to make more money, you should have gone to med school.” Plus we had momentum with us. Guitar Center’s credit rating had recently been lowered, and it had just lost a federal lawsuit, so the company’s position weakened, and it became clear that its negotiators had been sent to make a deal and get its name out of the news.

We left that day with a national contract, and proceeded to have many drinks to celebrate. Every store has since unanimously ratified the contract. In Danvers, we are now organized through the RWDSU’s New England Joint Board, and our managers, many of whom had been fed the typical anti-union lies about workplace troubles and losing control of their stores, are finally easing down from high-alert. There are still occasional disputes and many questions, we are all adjusting to the workers’ victory, but the atmosphere inside the store appears to be returning to normal. Steward training starts in October, and the North Shore Labor Council is giving us an award at its annual legislative dinner in September.

I’m not sure how much longer any of us will work at Guitar Center or what the future of the company holds. Retail is a difficult industry. I learned a lot about unions and the labor movement, but also about the most important things in life, like connecting with people across differences to build a better future together. I know that my friends and I are more secure in our jobs, and more secure in ourselves and our lives. This was an empowering process for us all, and as we continue to bring in new hires, I keep hearing this story being told openly behind registers, and seeing it reflected on our nametags and whenever any of us thanks a customer for shopping union.

The author is an organizer and musician and plays guitar in the band Tigerman Woah.

BRAWL FOR CITY HALL

TWO QS ON SCHOOLS

Margaret Farmer (Boston City Council Candidate, D1) RECORDINGS BY STM PRODUCTIONS

R FO

CITY HALL

Though it’s just a three-candidate scrum, the race to replace District 1 Councilor Sal LaMattina is a contest that hardcore followers of Boston politics should watch closely. There are significant credentials in play on all sides of the battle for East Boston, the North End, and Charlestown, with Eastie resident Margaret Farmer bringing a significantly relevant background. The Director of Development for North Suffolk Mental Health Association, in her civic life Farmer is president of the Jeffries Point Neighborhood Association, as well as a neighborhood Chamber of Commerce board member. We asked her two questions about Boston Public Schools that we are asking all of the candidates.

What do you believe is the current state of Boston Public Schools? What grade would you give them now? And what grade would you give them when Marty Walsh started four years ago?

I’m actually really thrilled with the amount of attention and focus that we’re beginning to see on Boston Public Schools. The Build BPS program, which has recently been passed, is a $1 billion 10-year plan to rebuild a significant number of our Boston schools… Some of our schools are the oldest in the nation, and while I’m proud of the construction that went into them and that they’re still standing, they’re not as conducive to modern technology or modern weather patterns.

I was also very pleased to see that Superintendent (Tommy) Chang instituted a new program for students who are homeless. You can’t just expect a child to come in and learn if they are homeless, if they are dealing with substance use at home, if they aren’t sure when the last time they ate was. So I definitely think we’re making strides in the right direction. I don’t believe that they go far enough [though]… I think we can do more.

What specifically are you going to do to improve schools? How many are you going to visit? What programs would you add or subtract? How much more money, if any, do you think the schools need?

I have already had the privilege of visiting a number of our public schools, and I am thrilled about the creativity, the compassion, and about the commitment and dedication that our teachers bring to the schools. And the same is true of our students. I saw people who were coming up with projects that were allowing students to express their creativity while still learning math… I would continue to visit, I would hope that by the end of my first year I will have visited all of the public schools. It’s important that I get feedback from parents, students directly themselves, and teachers for ways that we can improve our schools. They’re the ones who are most closely involved.

I would like to see a number of programs added. Mass Start, which is a statelevel program which is only currently in the Winthrop Public Schools, has shown tremendous success in working with students. They work with high-risk students who have shown behavioral issues, self-identified as having problems at home, and it provides a social worker and clinician to know that they have someone they can talk to and who will support them [and] help them solve any home issues like helping a parent find an option for treatment.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CANDIDATE AT MARGARETFORBOSTON.ORG. CHECK DIGBOSTON.COM FOR LONGER VERSIONS OF THIS INTERVIEW PLUS INTERVIEWS WITH DOZENS MORE CANDIDATES FOR OFFICE.

NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

11

ILLUSTRATION BY JAMES WALSH

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‘YOU CAN’T RUN, YOU CAN’T HIDE’ DEMOCRACY IN CRISIS

Charlottesville and the shattering of America

BY BAYNARD WOODS @BAYNARDWOODS

Two middle-aged men, one black and one white, walked up a street in downtown Charlottesville, Virginia yelling at each other. It was a moment of relative normalcy in a day otherwise defined by mayhem.

Both men used the phrase “born and bred” to define their relationship to the smallish Southern college town, nestled in the hills of the politically contested state of Virginia.

The white man, Ed Knight, wore a Confederate flag bandana around his head.

“You, with that stupid Confederate flag, talking about history,” the black man, George Steppe, said. “You don’t know nothing about no history. Only thing you know is hate.”

“This is our history and it should not be destroyed,” Knight said of the statue of Robert E. Lee in the park, where authorities had just dispersed crowds from a Unite the Right rally.

Knight supported the event that brought hundreds of armed racists and fascists to his home city this weekend.

It also brought hundreds of anti-fascists, some of them armed with sticks and shields as well, pledging to defend the area from right-wing terror. Now, after hours of bloody battle during which the anti-racist groups remained largely passive, riot police were breaking things up, pushing Steppe back, and inching forward behind shields. Knight walked alongside with a sign reading, “Make C-Ville Great Again.”

The chaos started the night before, as the Nazis and other racists gathered for the 21st-century version of a Klan rally—a Klanclave of khaki and tiki torches. At one point, a group of the white supremacists surrounded a group of counter-protesters, throwing punches and torches.

Within minutes of arriving in the downtown area on Saturday morning, we saw the first of many fights. White supremacists with helmets—some German World War II-era—and white polos, sticks, an assortment of flags, and homemade shields marked with the insignia of the racist

Guys with pistols seemed to keep their hands on them, ready to draw at any moment. It felt like something horrible would happen.

group Vanguard America chanted at a smaller crowd of counter-demonstrators.

“You can’t run, you can’t hide, you get helicopter rides,” they said, a reference to far-right governments in Argentina and Chile in the ’70s and ’80s that threw leftists from helicopters to “disappear” them.

As the racists marched forward, anti-racists tried to block them. After one particular swirl of violence and swinging of sticks that we observed, three of the counterprotesters were left bloody. The racists seemed to target the faces of women, but after also taking some heavy blows themselves, ran away as cops finally rolled in to set up barricades.

A similar pattern continued to play out over the next several hours: Every time a new faction of the right marched in its crazed Tom Sawyer armor toward the park, another fight broke out.

The scrum was filled with every variety of racist imaginable, from the Nazi biker to the fashy computer programmer. They were almost exclusively white and male. The anti-fascist activists who packed the streets were predominantly white also, but there were far more women and people of color opposing the Nazis. Otherwise the two opposing armies seemed to be of roughly equal size.

The fights were swift, chaotic, and brutal. The two sides launched bottles and tear gas canisters back and forth as state troopers stood and watched, slack-jawed. At one point, as a few bottles whizzed by him in quick succession, a trooper perked up enough to pull out his phone and record some of the mayhem.

When the police declared the assembly illegal—before it even officially began—and told everyone to leave, it forced these groups together.

Right-wing militia types wielding assault rifles and wearing MAGA patches on paramilitary uniforms roamed through the crowd. Guys with pistols seemed to keep their hands on them, ready to draw at any moment.

It felt like something horrible would happen.

Then, as the various groups became separated, it seemed like the rumble had largely ended.

“I’m glad no serious gunshots rang out,” Steppe said at around 12:30 pm NEWS TO US

on Saturday. “I was threatened with a gun… Police wasn’t around when a guy pulled up his gun up on me, though.”

Though barely past noon, Steppe and Knight both seemed to think that it was the end of the day.

The racists, who had not been able to hold their rally, were trying to regroup at another park farther from downtown. Eventually, as a state of emergency was declared, they decided to leave—some of them even suggested hiding in the woods.

Antifa burned right-wing flags in a park, and then marched through the city. As two anti-racist groups converged on Water Street at around 1:35 pm, it felt triumphant. They had driven the bigots out of town—or at least those who were from out of town.

About five minutes later, as they continued marching, it sounded like a bomb exploded as a muscle car, which police say was driven by extremist James Alex Fields, sped down the street and plowed through the march and into other cars. Fields then threw the weaponized car into reverse, fleeing from the scene of terror.

Bodies were strewn through the road. Street medics, marked by red tape, delivered first aid while waiting on ambulances to arrive. Activists held Antifa banners to block camera views of the injured.

The right-wingers were nowhere to be found.

Meanwhile, in New Jersey, President Donald Trump meandered through a speech in which which he condemned the violence on “many sides.” He did not use the words “white supremacy,” or “terrorism,” nor did he say the name of Heather Heyer, the woman who was killed in the terror attack. Trump did not offer support to the 19 others who were hospitalized, or prayers for those who were still in critical condition.

Fields, who was photographed earlier in the day with the same Vanguard America shield we saw when we first arrived in town, was arrested and charged with murder.

I am writing this on the night of the attack, and I won’t pretend to know what it means for our country. The racism is not new. The argument Steppe and Knight were having in their hometown could have happened any time in the last 50 years. But the way the battle over white supremacy was being waged around them was new, and Charlottesville was not ready for it. None of us are.

When that gray car slammed into those people, it shattered a part of America, or at least the illusion of it.

I don’t know what that means yet, because it shattered something in me, too.

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

13

BOSTON RUNS ON FERMENTATION EATS

A Q&A with Jeremy Ogusky, Boston Fermentation Festival founder

BY M.J. TIDWELL @MJTIDWELL781

Two really cool people that are coming are Michael Harlan Turkell, who has a show on the Heritage Food Network, a food podcast, and recently wrote a book called “Acid Trip” where he basically fermented vinegar all over the world. He’s from New York City, and he’s a really creative food journalist.

I’ve paired him with a friend of mine named Jitti Chaithiraphant, who is a local chef and vinegar maker here in Boston. Michael’s going to be talking about the history of vinegar making and then Jitti is actually going to have samplings of a bunch of these vinegars that he’s been working on. He does all kinds of wild vinegars— things you would have never thought about … like banana vinegar.

A lot of our speakers are going to be multisensory.

People are going to be learning and they’re going to be listening and tasting at the same time.

So, why fermentation? Health benefits? Taste? What brought you over to the fermentation side?

I think fermentation has a lot of draw, a lot of reasons to be interested in it. I’m interested in it for the flavor; that’s what originally brought me in. But after learning about fermented flavors and the process, I learned a lot more about the health benefits, and I also connected the dots in terms of my family, where they’re from, the fermented foods that my grandparents and my greatgrandparents used to make and eat all the time. My family is all originally from Eastern Europe, specifically Lithuania and the Czech Republic where a lot of food and drink is fermented.

A lot of people are interested in the health benefits.

We’re finding—there’s all kinds of new studies—we’re realizing that eating food that is alive and full of healthy bacteria and microorganisms is really good for us. Not eating homogenous, radiated, pasteurized, dead food …

Wait, so you’re saying we maybe shouldn’t eat McDonald’s for every meal?

Well, it’s not just McDonald’s. A lot of the food we eat is not full of life. We’ve made our food homogenous. We’ve made food a lot safer in many ways, and it’s led to a lot of really great advances, but maybe we’ve gone a little bit overboard and killed all the life in our food. That’s affecting

our bodies … our food is not, and then our bodies are not, full of the diversity of microorganisms that we need to be healthy.

People have been talking about this for generations, but now Science with a capital “S” is starting to catch up. The amount of diversity in microbes in just a forkful of sauerkraut is incomparable to what’s in a probiotic capsule, and people are starting to catch on to that.

Catch on indeed—you had over 14,000 people attend the festival last year. What are you most excited for at this year’s fifth annual fermentation festival?

Every year it gets a little bit bigger and a little bit better. I think what I’m most excited about is that fermentation is a really cool window into all sorts of other really neat topics. There are lots of clinicians and medical health experts who come to the festival, and there are also lots of farmers and urban homesteaders and DIY folks that come, who are just interested in making things themselves. And there are a lot of science people who are interested in microbiology or brewing. It’s really cool to get these groups together in the same room, talking to each other. They don’t often get to come together like that.

You have a great lineup of speakers this year. Are there any, say, at-home fermenters or microbiology experts we should look out for especially?

cocktails, we’ll have small brewers, all New England based, and some cider makers and sake makers and mead and everything else.

And this year we’re doing something really cool. We’re having a farmer’s market sweep afterparty. From 5 to 7 after the festival, we’ve recruited five local bartenders to spend the day collecting fermented ingredients. Each of them are sponsored by a local distiller. At the afterparty they’re going to create cocktails with the spirit of their sponsor and whatever they’ve collected. So if you come to the afterparty, you’ll get to taste five custom fermentationforward cocktails and vote for your favorite.

>> FIFTH ANNUAL BOSTON FERMENTATION FESTIVAL 2017. SUN 8.27. BOSTON PUBLIC MARKET, 100 HANOVER ST., BOSTON. 10AM–4PM/FREE/ALL AGES. >> FARMER’S MARKET SWEEP AFTERPARTY. SUN 8.27. BOSTON PUBLIC MARKET, 100 HANOVER ST., BOSTON. 5–7PM/$25/21+.

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PHOTO BY BETTY LIU

Sauerkraut is a gateway drug. Gateway to the wide world of healthy, flavorful fermentation.

Luckily for you, the fifth annual Boston Fermentation Festival is coming to the Boston Public Market on Aug 27 to celebrate all tasty rotten things. From a “kraut mob” to microbiomes and twice-fermented bagels, the event is perfect for connoisseurs and the newly interested alike, according to festival founder Jeremy Ogusky. Oh, and did we mention the cocktails? We asked Ogusky about all of it.

Along with speakers, you’ll also have activities like this so-called kraut mob. Could you tell me a little about that?

The kraut mob is always super successful and fun.

It’s called a kraut mob because it becomes a mob of people all learning how to make sauerkraut. It’s totally free. We’ll have probably 600 pounds of vegetables all piled up … and anyone can just walk up and learn how to make sauerkraut and then walk away with a jar full of fermenting and bubbling cabbage. It’s very simple, and it’s a great introduction to fermentation if you’re a bit skeptical or nervous or just curious. Sauerkraut is a great gateway drug to fermentation.

Right next to the kraut mob on the plaza at the Boston Public Market, we’re having a libations garden. We’re going to have all different local fermenters who create alcohol.

We’ll have small distillers there giving samples, we’ll have

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FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

15

MADAME GANDHI MUSIC

The future is female, and the solo musician, activist, and former M.I.A. drummer knows how to get there

The future is female. By now, you’ve heard the slogan, you’ve seen the shirts, and, hopefully, you’re noticing the prediction is fulfilling itself. But what does it mean exactly?

It’s a flexible phrase that can be repurposed by the person wielding it, and for Kiran Gandhi, the musician known as Madame Gandhi, it’s about existing on a spectrum to better combat phobias.

“It’s about looking to feminine energy for our very survival. It’s about asking what can we learn from what women bring to the table, literally to combat the hyperego, machismo leadership we’re seeing in the Trump era,” says Gandhi. “I want to know what it’s like to be emotionally intelligent and collaborative. What if we valued femininity in this society as much as we’ve valued masculinity? It’s up to us as new leaders to redefine a unifying slogan. To me, the trans community has long been leaders in celebrating femininity and eliminating misogyny in allowing people to accept their whole selves.”

Gandhi knows the weight of that phrase. She named one of her songs after it because it’s so relevant to her life.

She triple-majored in political science, women’s studies, and math at Georgetown University while also performing as a drummer for numerous musicians. She then played at festivals like SXSW and Bonnaroo. Between 2011 and 2013, she worked as the first ever full-time digital analyst at Interscope Records, using her math degree to analyze patterns from Spotify streaming data. Next, she moved to Boston to earn her MBA from Harvard University in 2015. That same year, she ran the London Marathon while bleeding freely on her period to help combat stigmas against menstruation. Okay, now take a breath. Kiran

Gandhi is the personification of what it means to be the future and to chase it relentlessly, and she just so happens to be female while she works to achieve it all.

Under her moniker as Madame Gandhi, she works to continue that movement, particularly for intersectional feminist strides. Her debut five-track EP, the excellent Voices, showcases everything she has to offer. On it, she’s busy drumming—she picked up the instrument at summer camp purely because it seemed “boyish” in assignment and she felt rebellious picking it up—while also singing about the feminist agenda and challenging preconceived notions most Americans fail to see an issue with because of how normalized they’ve become.

Live, she turns her tour-de-force music into a full-on experience. When she isn’t performing alone, darting around the stage playing each music part herself, she’s recruiting a team of talented women of color to energize the room. There comes a point during her performances where she usually pulls out a text and reads a passage that’s inspired her. Often, it cites the importance of unity, feminism, and political rebellion on both major and minor scales.

“Some people get uncomfortable when I do the reading. Other people cling to every word,” she says. “It’s your job as the artist to curate the environment you want.”

Naturally, Gandhi chooses to shares words that have inspired her in hopes that those same words serve some purpose to fans in the audience.

It should come as no surprise that Madame Gandhi’s performances impact every onlooker. While her music, lyrics, and readings onstage leave a mark on listeners

regardless of gender, race, age, or background, there’s a different level of inspiration she hopes to provide for women of color.

“I want people to be hit be the emotions first and then receive the message later. I always feel like the musicians who inspired me the most were able to move me in that way,” she says. “I want people to see me being my truest and most vulnerable self, taking risks, and succeeding on a stage while confident so they feel that they can do the same. There’s something really powerful about seeing other women who look like you take risks on a platform. I don’t think we see enough women in 3D settings.

In my show, I’m drumming, I’m producing, I’m rapping, I’m speaking, and I want others to feel like they can access their fullest potential.”

In 2015, Boston was estimated to be 62.1 percent white.

That means chances are more than half the people reading this are white, but if you fall in line with DigBoston’s ethos, you’re disgusted with that number and actively take steps to reroute Boston’s racial history. In that case, listen to Gandhi. While she loves Boston and considers it a second home—“I love visiting Allston, all of the Brazilian grocery stores there, Refuge Cafe, the vegan food spot in Central Square, A4, and running on the Charles River,” she says, reflecting on her time here while earning an MBA from Harvard—she also knows there’s a lot of work to be done by the white population, particularly the white women of the city. And once you soak it up, the forward momentum she actively works toward reaching becomes all the more achievable.

“The first step, honestly, is to acknowledge that being in a black body or a body of color completely changes your experience as a female. A lot of women find their race holds them back, oftentimes more so than their gender does,” she says. “Modern feminists’ movements have to pick focal points that not only affect white women, but all women. We have to identify what are the lowest common denominators and fight those things first: pay equality, body positivity, sex positivity, menstrual health and hygiene, combating rape and sexual violence. These are issues that tend to face women of lower-income backgrounds, which, in this country, tends to be linked to race. It upsets all of us, but white women could take the first step by acknowledging how their experiences in that are different.”

>> MADAME GANDHI, HAPPY LITTLE CLOUDS. FRI 8.18. ONCE SOMERVILLE, 156 HIGHLAND AVE., SOMERVILLE. 8PM/ALL AGES (LEGAL GUARDIAN PRESENT FOR MINORS)/$8. ONCESOMERVILLE.COM

MUSIC EVENTS THU 8.17

THU 8.17

FRI 8.18

FRI 8.18

SUN 8.20

WED 8.23

[Middle East Upstairs, 472 Mass. Ave., Cambridge. 8pm/18+/$13. mideastoffers.com]

[Great Scott, 1222 Comm.

Ave., Allston. 9pm/18+/$12. greatscottboston.com]

[Great Scott, 1222 Comm.

Ave., Allston. 10pm/21+/$9. greatscottboston.com]

[Middle East Downstairs, 472 Mass. Ave., Cambridge. 7pm/18+/$40. mideastoffers.com]

[Middle East Upstairs, 472 Mass. Ave., Cambridge.

7pm/all ages/$12. mideastoffers.com]

[O’Brien’s Pub, 3 Harvard Ave., Allston. 8pm/18+/$8. obrienspubboston.com]

RAP ALBUM RELEASE PARTY THE PERCEPTIONISTS (MR. LIF & AKROBATIK)

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INDIE ROCK WITH A HINT OF SUGAR IAN SWEET + BEEEF + BABY!

DIGBOSTON.COM

GRUNGE FOR FUZZY FEELINGS LOOSE TOOTH + SUN ORGAN + FUCKO

THE ROCK GUITAR LEGEND DICK DALE + SPECIAL GUESTS

SWEAT OUT THE DANCE MOVES ALL GET OUT + RATBOYS + WILD PINK + LILITH

LOCAL ROCK WITH A TWIST OF EMO SACCHARINE + TYLER DANIEL BEAN + BOY REX + FUTURE FRIENDS

PHOTO COURTESY OF MADAME GANDHI

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN

THE PERCEPTIONISTS MUSIC

Surviving death to make ‘Resolution’

BY GEORGE HASSETT @BOSCRIMEWRITER

CENTRAL SQUARE CAMBRIDGE

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THU 8/17 6PM

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SAT 8/19 - 7PM KING KADE

SUN 8/20 - 7PM NYCK CAUTION & KIRK KNIGHT (PRO ERA)

WED 8/23 - 7PM BLACK METAL YOGA WITH BLACK WIDOW YOGA /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

DOWNSTAIRS

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

THU 8/17 - 7PM

WINTER LEGS FRI 8/18 - 7PM

DICK DALE FRI 8/18 - 1030PM “HEROES” SAT 8/19 - 7PM FATBOY SSE /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

UPSTAIRS

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

THU 8/17 - 8PM

The Perceptionists (Mr. Lif & Akrobatik) Album Release Party FRI 8/18 - 8PM Atlas Lab, Aubrey Haddard, Ali McGuirk SAT 8/19 - 7PM Daniel Miller & The High Life

SAT 8/19 - 11PM SOULELUJAH SUN 8/20 - 7PM All Get Out, Ratboys, Wild Pink, Lilith MON 8/21 - 7PM

WEMF Presents: Diva Karr, Effzero

PHOTO BY DOM SAVINI

Resolution is the brand-new album from Mr. Lif and Akrobatik. After an 11-year gap between projects for their supergroup, the Perceptionists, and the near-death experiences that the MCs overcame separately in the intervening years, it’s an appropriate title.

“There’s a different tone to this album,” says Lif. “We’ve both been through some shit; resolution was the right word.”

Since the Perceptionists dropped Black Dialogue in 2006, Lif and Akrobatik have each faced a crisis that threatened their lives. For Lif, it came in 2006 when his tour bus fell off a 38-foot cliff. For Akrobatik, it was a ruptured heart valve in 2011 that left him in need of emergency surgery. To darken matters, shortly after the release of Black Dialogue, the group’s other member, Fakts One, left to focus on his production career.

“I thought we started something really special with Black Dialogue, and I felt like we had unfinished business,” Akrobatik says.

“When I left the hospital, I thought, ‘What are we waiting for? Tomorrow’s not guaranteed.’ Making another album with Mr. Lif was one of the main things I wanted to do with my life. It really feels like a resolution.”

Although the project is their first full-length effort as the Perceptionists in more than a decade, Lif and Akrobatik have been frequent collaborators.

“There’s a symbiosis there,” says Lif. “I refer to Ak as my brother. Add in our contrast in voices, what we can do as solo artists, it’s a blessing.”

For their album release party on Thursday, Aug 17, the Perceptionists return to the Middle East, where they both helped kick-start the Hub’s vibrant underground rap scene in the ’90s. Looking back on old rhymes and accomplishments, Lif recalls his introduction to Akrobatik: “I heard of him on the Newbury Freestyle sessions and I was like, ‘Oh, this dude’s a beast.’”

The feeling was mutual.

“The first time I heard Lif was ‘Madness in a Cup’ on [WERS] 88.9 and said, ‘Yo, who is that?’” says Akrobatik. “He had his own sound; he was so confident. We became friends really quickly and before I knew it we were watching the Super Bowl together.”

In the time since, Lif and Ak have rhymed through recessions, wars, and presidential scandals. Nonetheless, their 2017 approach still manages to sound fresh. Take “Early Mourning” and “Hose Down,” for example, which open up the album with socially conscious messages over beats you can jam to.

“Lif and Ak were always about a party beat that can get you to dance, but if you listen to the lyrics you’ll realize we’re touching on some heavy topics,” Akrobatik says. “Not only does the song make you want to move to the beat, the lyrics are relevant.”

Resolution also sees Lif and Ak return to their battle rap roots—on “Let’s Battle,” they rip all wack MCs with a ferocity reflective of their legendary ’90s ciphers. At the same time, they show that they’re continuing to grow as artists; on “Grab Hold,” “A Different Light,” and the title track “Resolution,” they both get far more personal and introspective than they’ve ever been under the group umbrella.

“We had to deal with a lot of dark moments,” says Akrobatik. “This was our chance to talk about things. On ‘Different Light’ I get something very personal off my chest directed at one person.”

One person who isn’t called out by name—the current president of the United States.

“We made a conscious effort not to mention him by name,” says Lif. “We didn’t want the art to be stained with that. We now have the living, breathing embodiment of a corporation as president. But instead of doing protest songs, I thought to myself, I’ll turn inward and make music that resonates with the hip-hop community with positive energy.”

As they continue to release dope records into their 40s, both Lif and Ak eschew all talk of ageism in rap music. “I don’t think there’s a generation gap in hip-hop,” says Akrobatik, who teaches a course titled Hip-Hop: an Insider’s View at UMass Boston. “You’re dope or you’re not.”

Ak continues: “Teaching has helped me keep an open mind for beats like [album track] ‘Lemme Find Out.’ I’m always interacting with younger people. I have a class full of 19-year-olds, so I need to listen to Lil Yachty front to back so when they ask me about it I have an educated opinion.”

Adds Lif: “The legends are still bodying shit on the mic. As a writer, the more life experience I have, the sharper my blade gets.

“Ever notice how the older wizards in the kung fu flicks with the long white beards are the most dangerous cats? The young cats have more energy, but the elder can use it versus them and on the low is holding some magic dust he can blind you with.

“I’ve never been this excited to be an artist—my first record in ’97 was fun, but now I’m an engineer … My career up to now has been a warmup lap.”

TUE 8/22 - 8PM Rixe, The Brass WED 8/23 - 7PM Big Big Buildings, Pulitzer Prize Fighter /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

BUY TICKETS @ TICKETWEB.COM SOCIAL MEDIA:

@MIDEASTCLUB @ZUZUBAR @SONIAMIDEAST

>> THE PERCEPTIONISTS WITH EA$Y MONEY. THU 8.17. MIDDLE EAST DOWNSTAIRS, 472 MASS. AVE., CAMBRIDGE. 8PM/18+/$13. MIDEASTOFFERS.COM NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

17

FILM

NO EXAGGERATION

Ingrid Goes West shows that even satire has its limits

BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN

We tend to avoid covering crowdfunding campaigns. There It often feels like we’re living in a moment that can’t be satirized, if only because the circumstances we live with already seem exaggerated beyond reality. This is something you might think about if you’re watching Ingrid Goes West [2017]—the movie sets itself up like a satire, but its main subject is the culture of social media, and it depicts that realistically, if only because online culture is already silly enough as is. In the movie, Aubrey Plaza features as an unstable loner who manipulates her way into the life of a popular Instagram user (Elizabeth Olsen), even resorting to violence to keep up her cool-girl charade—the joke being that Plaza’s character therefore goes from being a digital “follower” to a literal one, making this something like Single White Female With an iPhone. That’s a connection that writer/director Matt Spicer chooses to lean into: Single White Female [1992] is cited directly, while another shot quotes Halloween [1979]. So the satire of the film, in theory, comes from this contrast—from the fact that a seemingly innocuous habit (social media usage) is being grafted onto an entirely sinister format (the structure of thrillers and slasher movies). But when it comes to depicting Instagram posts, the movie achieves something more like recognition than exaggeration. Spicer does have the performers read their character’s posts aloud, word by word, via narration— so you’ll hear Olsen, in character, exclaiming something like “New Clare V. clutch got me like dot dot dot princess emoji.”

But that cheeky line reading doesn’t change the fact that you really do see that kind of post—written in that kind of vernacular—whenever you check your own feed. That element of Ingrid doesn’t feel like satire at all. Its depiction of social media isn’t quite exaggerated—if anything, it’s closer to uncanny.

But a filmmaker doesn’t have an actress saying “dot dot dot princess emoji” unless he thinks the character posting that phrase is a little bit vapid. So on the subject of social media, you know where Ingrid Goes West stands, and you know it from the start. In fact, the first 10 minutes of the movie lay out its entire agenda. An opening montage

shows off the Instagram feed of a woman named Charlotte, who is mostly documenting her upcoming nuptials (“so glad I married this weirdo, fluttering hearts emoji”); the next scene depicts Ingrid (Plaza) at the wedding, uninvited, where she maces the bride (she does so as payback for a perceived snub—Charlotte had once commented on her Instagram posts, so Ingrid had expected an invite). This lands Ingrid in a mental health facility, where she appears to legitimately stabilize—or, at least, she claims as much— before she’s finally released and given back her possessions, including her phone, thus starting the whole process over again. Spicer gives that phone a close-up as Ingrid reclaims it from a bag, as though it were a precious object finally unearthed. When she logs back online—for what is the first time in a long time—the score swells, and her eyes glaze over. This imagery is unmistakable. And just like with “dot dot dot princess emoji,” the conclusion suggested is a disapproving one: Ingrid is an addict, the phone is her fix.

Like most fixes, it leaves her wanting more—and the lives that look best on Instagram are what she covets most. To replace Charlotte, Ingrid finds Taylor Sloane (Olsen), who lives near Joshua Tree with her husband Ezra (Wyatt Russell). Spicer’s film is thinking about the way that these two women represent opposite sides of the same experience—the movie is as skeptical of Taylor’s presentation of her life as it is of Ingrid’s obsession with it.

And its humor, so far as it has any, comes from the cheap shots it takes at the way their online personas contrast with their actual lives: In one sequence, Ingrid gazes lovingly at Taylor’s gourmet lunch, which has been posted on Instagram; then Spicer’s film cuts jarringly to the ugly frozen meal sitting on her own table. Later, when Ingrid has worked herself into the Sloane home, Taylor has to apologize that she has no food from the “farmer’s market,” because her Instagram persona had suggested her kitchen would be fully stocked with such offerings. The joke, in both cases, is about the gulf between self-presentation and reality—which is also to say that it’s a tired joke, and one usually made with greater nuance, too. All this happens

in the first third of the movie, and from these scenes alone, you can tell where the next two-thirds will go: The personal relationships formed among these characters will be fractured by what they do with their phones, because that’s how pseudo-satires about social issues tend to play out. All the while, Spicer keeps his frames detached from any individual perspective, often blocking his actors within deliberately flat compositions, so you’re not really seeing this from either woman’s point of view.

Aesthetically and otherwise, it’s more like you’re looking down at both of them.

Then why see it, why think about it, why read about it? What keeps you invested in the movie—or, at least, what keeps you watching it—is the astuteness it has about the vernaculars we use online and about the phones we use to type them. This is a film that knows that a person may spend minutes deciding between “ha ha” and “heh heh” when messaging someone for the first time. This is a film that knows that people currently feel no shame about demanding that service workers take their photo just so they can post it via social media. And this is a film that knows that a sheltered white girl, after meeting the African-American man who lives next door (O’Shea Jackson Jr.), might express shock upon finding out he’s a landlord. Those last two examples are intertwined with class dynamics, which is the one subject the film is actually savvy about. After watching Ingrid connect herself to Taylor and Ezra, the screenplay continues to add characters to their social circle—like Taylor’s ex-con brother, who’s the only one cynical enough to see through Ingrid’s machinations, or his fashion-designer girlfriend, who becomes an aspirational figure for Taylor just as Taylor is for Ingrid—and each person it adds expands those dynamics significantly. For Taylor, for instance, Ingrid’s unchecked adoration is much welcomed—but not when it’s happening in the vicinity of the fashion designer, whom Taylor adores herself, meaning that Ingrid’s BFFstyle dedication suddenly has the stink of lower-class desperation.

Ironically enough it’s those dramatic moments—when Instagram is left behind, satire is off the table, and the characters are face to face—where the film’s insights are heaviest. But Ingrid spends most of its time elsewhere, jabbing weakly at a much easier target—the hallmarks and cliches of social media—casting aspersions toward the way 20-somethings will post the covers of books they haven’t read, toward the kids who post inspirational one-liners as if they were profundities, or toward the people that comment on serious family tragedies with posts like “#blue.” From the way Spicer’s actors read those posts aloud, you know that it’s all coming from a place of condescension, even when there’s empathy mixed in.

So despite all the film’s qualities, it becomes just as basic as the people it mocks—because who needs to go to the movies to feel superior to a typical Instagram post? We don’t even need to leave the house for that. We just need to pick up our phones.

>> INGRID GOES WEST. RATED R. OPENING FRI 8.25 AT BOSTON-AREA THEATERS.

FILM EVENTS FRI 8.18

COOLIDGE AFTER MIDNIGHT PRESENTS SPEED [1994] [Coolidge Corner Theatre.

290 Harvard St., Brookline.

Midnight/R/$12.25. 35mm. coolidge.org]

18

08.17.17 - 08.23.17

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SAT 8.19

SAT8.19

[Harvard Film Archive. 24 Quincy St., Harvard Sq., Cambridge. 7pm/NR/$7-9.

35mm. hcl.harvard.edu/ hfa]

[Harvard Film Archive.

24 Quincy St., Harvard Sq., Cambridge. 9:30pm/ NR/$7-9. 35mm. hcl. harvard.edu/hfa]

AN ERNST LUBITSCH RETROSPECTIVE CONTINUES ON AT HARVARD WITH CLUNY BROWN [1946]

DIGBOSTON.COM

‘THE COMPLETE JEAN RENOIR’ ALSO CONTINUES AT THE HFA THE RIVER [1951]

TUE 8.22

THU 8.24

THU 8.24

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

5 and 7:30pm/NR/$9-11.

35mm. brattlefilm.org]

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

4:30 and 7pm/NR/$9-11.

35mm. For showtimes and details on rest of program, visit brattlefilm.org]

[Coolidge Corner Theatre.

290 Harvard St., Brookline.

7pm/R/$12.25. 35mm. coolidge.org]

THE BRATTLE’S ROBERT MITCHUM CENTENNIAL TRIBUTE CONTINUES WITH TWO FOR THE SEESAW [1962]

ALSO CONTINUING AT THE BRATTLE, THE FILMS OF AGNES VARDA VAGABOND [1985]

CINEMA JUKEBOX PRESENTS THE BLUES BROTHERS [1980]

Are you a … Social Justice Advocate?

Concerned Community Member?

Perturbed Protester?

Pissed Off Organizer?

Let Us Be Your BULLHORN

Email your op-eds to:

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NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

19

NEVERLAND RETURNS THEATER

Peter Pan and actress Karen Murphy come home to Boston

BY CHRISTOPHER EHLERS @_CHRISEHLERS

She made her Broadway debut in Maury Yeston’s Titanic in the late 1990s, and in impressive succession came 42nd Street, All Shook Up, 9 to 5, and A Little Night Music. In 2009, Murphy was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for My Vaudeville Man! Much of Neverland has changed since its premiere at A.R.T. three years ago: It feels lighter and quicker, and it glosses over some of the darker moments that gave the show its bittersweet core. But with things shifted around, it is undeniably geared more toward children than it was before.

“This is the biggest compliment I can pay the show,” said Murphy. “We are so family friendly. You can bring four generations to our show and everyone will love it and have a good time. Who doesn’t know and love Peter Pan? There’s a reason why we’re the number one selling show on the road behind Phantom, Hamilton, and The Book of Mormon; we’re doing everything right.”

Just three years after premiering at Cambridge’s American Repertory Theater, Finding Neverland returns to Boston where the mega-popular national tour will play through Aug 20 at the Boston Opera House.

The show was a sold-out smash in Cambridge, and although the Broadway run was short-lived and knocked by critics (backstage politics played a huge part in the latter), the tour has been rapturously received on the road and is doing boffo business at the box office.

But the occasion marks more than just Neverland returning to the place where it all started—it heralds the return of Broadway veteran Karen Murphy to her old stomping grounds. (Murphy plays Mrs. du Maurier, Sylvia’s stern mother who disapproves of the time that her daughter and grandchildren are spending with J.M. Barrie.)

Murphy hasn’t played Boston for 25 years and is excited to finally come back. After attending the Boston Conservatory for two years, Murphy received her degree from UMass Boston. She went almost immediately into a string of shows at the Charles Playhouse, longtime home of Shear Madness. “Believe it or not,” she joked, “there was life before Shear Madness.”

After performing in things like Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, The Fantasticks, and You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, Murphy got her equity card doing

a musical revue called Cole. From there, she joined the original cast of the Boston run of Forbidden Broadway that played for years at the Terrace Room at the Park Plaza.

“It was a wall-to-wall sellout for the first year,” she said.

“Boston had a tremendous history as being the out-oftown tryout city, a very knowledgeable theatrical audience, and it ran there for almost six years. It was like school for me. I learned so much about so much.”

Forbidden Broadway would also prove to be a kind of crystal ball for Murphy: One of the characters that she impersonated was Angela Lansbury, whom she would ultimately go on to understudy in the last Broadway revival of A Little Night Music.

I couldn’t help but wonder if Murphy shared this with Lansbury. “Oh, yes, of course!” Murphy said. “She’s an enormous fan of Forbidden Broadway, so she knew all about it.”

Murphy had been a fixture of the Boston theater scene for years before the trajectory of her career changed suddenly and forever.

“I got the phone call that every actor dreams of getting,” she said. “My friend said, ‘Do you want my rentstabilized apartment in New York City?’ I said, ‘Okay, there’s my invitation.’ So I reluctantly left Boston and moved to New York where things have gone very well indeed.”

>>FINDING NEVERLAND. THROUGH 8.20 AT THE BOSTON OPERA HOUSE, 539 WASHINGTON ST., BOSTON. BOSTON.BROADWAY.COM

ARTS EVENTS FINAL WEEKEND FINDING NEVERLAND

[Boston Opera House, 539 Washington St., Boston. Through 8.20. boston.broadway.com]

20

08.17.17 - 08.23.17

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DIGBOSTON.COM

MEL BROOKS’ YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN

[North Shore Music Theatre, 62 Dunham Rd., Beverly. Through 8.27. nsmt.org]

FREE OUTDOOR SHAKESPEARE JULIUS CAESAR

[Praxis Stage, various locations in Cambridge. Through 8.27. facebook.com/praxisstage]

VIBRANT & TIMELY EXHIBITION NARI WARD: SUN SPLASHED

[ICA Boston, 25 Harbor Shore Dr., Boston. Through 9.4. icaboston. org]

IMMERSIVE SYNTH-POP MUSICAL BURN ALL NIGHT

[OBERON, 2 Arrow St., Cambridge. Through 9.8. americanrepertorytheater.org]

VISUAL ARTS

REORDERING THE RAINBOW The geographic and stylistic travels of Anya Smolnikova

BY FRANKLIN EINSPRUCH @FRANKLIN_E

Musa Collective is the result of some ambitious graduates of Boston University’s MFA program from the mid-2000s coming together to operate an alternative space in Allston. Open by appointment only, it is significantly less accessible than your typical Harrison Avenue storefront. I have concerns that the casual art-going public thinks that such galleries are only for serious collectors. In fact it is usually that way to keep overhead down. The talent therein is sometimes refreshingly raw. Collectors are obviously welcome, but any sort of viewer is desirable.

The artists in this collective are all figurative painters who take abstraction seriously, abstract painters who take figuration seriously, or painters sailing into the headwinds of art by tacking from one to the other. This last category includes Anya Smolnikova, an exception at Musa for having been a BU undergraduate of such acute talents as to merit being in the company of more advanced practitioners.

Smolnikova, originally from the former Soviet Union, is driven almost entirely by intuition and life experience, hardly at all by logic or program aside from the demands of picture making. There’s a sense of vector in Smolnikova even as she turns. The show has a few earlier canvases, deliberately but not successfully naive landscapes with surreal images and thin paint that don’t come together. Sensing her own need to get a subject back in front of her, she painted landscapes on site at three locations: Key West, the Arnold Arboretum, and her backyard in Boston. The Key West pictures are fine if a bit conventional. The Arboretum ones, focusing on a birch that picks up the colors of dusk against the verdant background, are juicy and confident. The paint in these has a life of its own, meandering in swirls as it forms trees and clouds.

The backyard pictures are yet another step up. Attentively studying the contents of a wheelbarrow filled with bricks and rainwater, she puts down luscious and unexpected colors, closing in on the humble subject and turning it into a grand passage. The second of the series has a striking bit of interpretation, a brick divided in half along the diagonal by pastel line, where the water meets it. The half above reflects the blue of the sky, while the submerged half burns in orange. Lavender-colored debris floats on the surface around it, marking the level of the otherwise-invisible water.

Across the room there’s a 5-foot-high abstraction, Rainbow Bones (Burning the Witch), also painted this year. In it a rainbow, its colors reordered from yellow to green instead of the usual red to violet, bends oddly across the rectangle as spirals of gray and ocher dissolve into smoke and encroach upon it. This seems like an opposing project to the landscapes, but the same attentive handwriting and sense of design animate it. The approaches combine in Home Turf, in which observations of overgrown, weedy grass create a tangle in which a mysterious, invented shape lurks. Smolnikova, still in the first decade of her career, has established an impressive trajectory, however it may zigzag.

GOT AN EVENT? LIST IT. LIVE MUSIC • LOCAVORE MENU PRIVATE EVENTS 10/20 Announcing Janeane Garofalo (2nd show just added) Renowned stand up comedian, actress & activist

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

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

8/18 Madame Gandhi, Happy Little Clouds Electronic feminist activist music.

8/21 The Greatest Generation Star Trek: The Next Generation Podcast.

8/22 The Living End, Goddamn Draculas, Jason Bennett and The Resistance Rock’n’Roll with a hint of punkabilly.

8/24 Cuentame Project Fundraiser SFeat. The Dutch Tulips, Big Jon & the Mattress Factory & DJ Seekay 8/24 Brick + Mortar, The Moms, Thrills, usLights Alternative, indie, drum & bass.

Franklin Einspruch is the editor-in-chief of Delicious Line, at deliciousline.org

156 Highland Ave • Somerville, MA 617-285-0167 oncesomerville.com   @oncesomerville /ONCEsomerville

>>ANYA SMOLNIKOVA: SEEING COLORS. 8.5–8.27. MUSA COLLECTIVE, 119 BRAINTREE ST., STUDIO 312, BOSTON. MUSACOLLECTIVEBOSTON.COM

NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

21

SAVAGE LOVE

QUICKIES

WHAT'S FOR BREAKFAST

BY PATT KELLEY WHATS4BREAKFAST.COM

BY DAN SAVAGE @FAKEDANSAVAGE | MAIL@SAVAGELOVE.NET I’ve been wondering: Since there are lesbians out there who occasionally crave cock, does the reverse also happen?

Are there gay men who occassionally crave pussy?

This Possible?

There are gay men who watch football—hell, I have it on good authority that some gay men play football, TP. So anything is possible. (Also, there are lots of lesbianidentified bisexual women out there, a smaller number of gay-identified bisexual men, and a tiny handful of bisexual-identified football fans.)

I’ve been seeing a lot of articles in the media about men “dropping out of the dating-and-marriage game,” and the conclusions always point to porn as the culprit. This seems like a simplistic explanation. Do you have an opinion on the effect of porn on men?

Pondering Porn I dropped out of the forming-opinions-about-porn game—far too busy consuming porn these days, PP. It’s the only way to keep myself sane here in Trumpsylvania.

Two friends can hook up with a girl or two girls from a bar and have a threesome or a foursome. But can two brothers—with opposite sexual preferences—hook up with a girl and a guy from a bar? Would this be considered wrong? No touching between siblings would occur.

Basic Bros It would be considered wrong by some—but those people aren’t you, your brother, or the girl and guy you hope to pick up together. Personally, BB, I can barely get an erection if one of my siblings is in the same zip code; I can’t imagine getting one with a sibling in the same room. But if you’re comfortable doing opposite-sexual-preferencey things in close proximity to your brother, go for it.

I am a bisexual man and recently divorced my wife of 30 years. I am currently seeing a very beautiful lady.

I satisfy my bisexual desires by going to sex clubs and I always practice safe. I don’t have an issue, I just wanted to tell you I remember one time when you had a column about two guys performing fellatio on another man at the same time. I found it to be such a turn-on and even fantasized I was doing it to you. Hope that doesn’t offend you.

Loving Life Um, thanks for sharing?

On the Lovecast, Dr. Samantha Joel on the psychology of ending relationships: savagelovecast.com.

THE STRANGERER

BY PAT FALCO ILLFALCO.COM

22

08.17.17 - 08.23.17

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OUR VALUED CUSTOMERS

BY TIM CHAMBERLAIN OURVC.NET

Your Trusty Massachusetts Cannabis Newsletter subscribe for free at

talkingjointsmemo.com NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

23