Metaboston

Can the Gardner Museum Overcome the Touch of Evil?

Abby Goodnough looks at how the Isabella Gardner Museum is trying to overcome the legacy of Gardner's restrictive will and the devastating unsolved theft.

"[T]he museum has labored in recent years to shed its fusty image and move past the theft that has, for better or worse, given it a reputation of being “touched with evil,” as Douglass Shand-Tucci, who wrote a biography of Gardner, once put it. Its latest goal, a 65,000-square-foot new building designed by Renzo Piano to sit behind Gardner’s century-old mansion, is the boldest yet.

***

Now, in a victory the Gardner had been awaiting for months, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled on March 4 that the museum can depart from the strict parameters of Gardner’s prickly will. It called the expansion a “reasonable deviation” from the will because it is in the public interest to protect the building from overuse.

According to the will if the arrangement of any of the museum’s holdings changes, the entire collection, the building and the land beneath it must be turned over to Harvard.

Goodnough's article presents a museum that seems to labor under the legacy of a Jamesian secret history.  Although the thefts are a subject of recurring interest they seem to have infused the museum with melancholy in this presentation. 

It does seem too bad that very particular and eccentric museums like this have to be improved with the worst example being the plan to move the Barnes Collection.  That said, the Gardner's plans to expand and bring in new blood come across as a form of exorcism here.

Barney Frank Profile

 The New Yorker's profile of MA congressman Barney Frank talks about the financial crisis and Frank's increasingly important role as chairman of the Committe on Financial Services and his role as a gay pioneer for being the first congressman to out himself.  Even the portrait illustration by Martin Schoeller (left) seems very serious. 

But what is more interesting is that Frank is pretty funny, about sex:

... Frank no longer censors his ribald sense of humor. Not long ago, Paul Begala, the political strategist, was speaking at a fund-raiser for a gay-rights group and said, “When I told my father, back in Texas, that I was speaking to an L.G.B.T. group, he said that sounded like a sandwich.” From the audience, Frank called out, “Sometimes it is!”

and about food (and other things):

Frank speaks incessantly about food. In “Let’s Get Frank,” he complains about the low-fat provisions given to Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee during the impeachment debate. Referring to Dick Gephardt, who was the Minority Leader at the time, Frank says, “They got all this jelly-doughnut shit in there, and I gotta eat this stuff. . . . Gephardt’s a sheygets—whaddaya expect from Gephardt?” Sheygets is Yiddish for a male Gentile, and thus one who cannot be trusted to provide acceptable snacks.

He must be a relief there compared to most people in Washington who seem boring at best.

Reenacting the Boston Massacre

This Thursday, March 5, is the 239th anniversary of the Boston Massacre.

The Boston Historical Society will have a reenactment of the Massacre and the subsequent trial with John Adams defending British soldiers.

Trial of the Century
11:30am – 12:30pm and 2:30 pm – 3:30pm

Watch John Adams defend the British soldiers accused of murdering Bostonians. Self-defense or cold-blooded murder? You decide as audience members are invited to act as jurors for this celebrated case. Program led by rangers from the Adams National Historical Park. Free with museum admission; in the Old State House.

Boston Massacre Reenactment
7:00 pm-7:45 pm

See the event that sparked the Revolution! Local reenactment groups will portray the infamous incident outside the Old State House.

(Image:  Paul Revere's print of the event)

E. Coli in the Charles River: The Movie

An animation model of e. Coli moving through the Charles from Ferdi Hellweger.

Free Agent Jungle: Freelancer Community

Sooz is reviving her freelancer community events as Free Agent Jungle with the first event coming up in a couple weeks.

Free Agent Jungle is the reincarnation of my Free Agent Boston project that I ran 1999-2004. Beginning with the lunch on February 19th, we’ll once again be meeting for a networking lunch for Boston area free agents, freelancers and consultants the third Thursday of every month. The upcoming lunch is taking place at Tavern on The Square in Porter Square (Cambridge).

It seems like a good time to for this kind of thing as a lot of people are likely turning to freelance work to increase or replace income.

Banditos Misteriosos Gift Swap Location a Mystery No Longer!

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Banditos Misteriosos has revealed where you can exchange your found gift as part of their Freeform Gift Swap.  The idea behind the swap is to discover an entertaining or whimsical item and turn it into to a gift to exchange by the most important part of presents, wrapping.

[T]he First Annual Boston Freeform Gift Swap will be taking place in Copley Square, right in front of the church on the cement clearing. will be taking place in Copley Square, right in front of the church on the cement clearing.
 

***

Participants will be asked to arrive no later than 1:50pm.

 

Once at the area in Copley, you will see Banditos wearing blue shirts and bandanas.  Merely walk up to them and ask for a card.  After that, we will ask all participants to circle up around a marked, well, circle, that will be chalked in.  
 

At 2:00, instructions will be explained and trading will commence.
 

Please do show up no later than 1:50pm!

Ignite Boston 5: Feb. 12

O'Reilly Media will be putting on another Ignite event in Boston in February.  There are usually some good presentations and it is a good opportunity to see some of the interesting things people around the area are doing.

The fifth Ignite Boston will be Thursday, February 12, from 5pm to 9pm at The Hooley House in the Faneuil Hall area of Boston. There is no cover charge or any sort of fee. The event is free as in 'Free Beer'.

Since there is limited space at the Hooley House, you must RSVP here to secure a chance to attend. By RSVPing you will also have the chance to win $300 worth of O'Reilly books of your choosing. You must be present to win. There will likely be other items like tee-shirts and other promo items for those who alert us ahead that they plan to attend.

From 5-5:45 pm, mingle and talk tech with your fellow FOOs, alpha geeks, and techies from the greater Boston area. After the mingling and social stuff, on to the select keynotes. Then, onto the lightening talks.

Knitting Street Art in the South End

Knitters in the South End venture into public art. They've tagged the lampost outside their weekly hangout Flour Bakery with long knitted sleeve.

Snugly fitting the post and measuring about 3 feet long, the hand-knit sleeve features more than a dozen different colors of yarn woven into geometric shapes and complicated patterns, including a glow-in-the-dark skull and crossbones and a lime-green spider. At the bottom, swallows hold banners that read "South" and "End."

Although it evokes a sweater, the covering is actually a form of public art, according to members of the South End Knitters, a club that meets weekly at the bakery and constructed the project.

***

For the South End Knitters, the "signature" is celebrating the artsy South End. There were "no rules, just do," leading to the eclectic piece that the group attached to the lamppost with zip-ties on Halloween night (while forgoing a permit from the city).

Image of the installation: TamaraKnits from the South End Knitters Flickr set

Wookie Pitches at Fenway

Chewbacca throws out the first pitch at Fenway in 2005, part of GalacticBinder's Top Ten Star Wars Sports Crossovers. 

Couldn't they do a better job of matching the head fur to the matted body outfit?  The head looks like it just had a shampoo and blowdry and the body looks like the found it in a Lansdowne Street dumpster. 

(via Metafilter) (Image:  Jim Davis via GalacticBinder)

1960 Jet Hits Birds at Logan

Adding to the the achievement of rescuing that US Air flight in New York is just how deadly birds can be to a jet.  The most deadly took place at Logan when a flight hit a flock of starlings.

On Oct. 4, 1960, 62 people died when Eastern Airlines Flight 375 plunged wing-first into Boston Harbor after flying into a flock of birds shortly after takeoff. It was the first commercial airline crash in Logan Airport's history, the deadliest air disaster in New England history at the time, and it remains the most deadly crash in US history involving a bird strike.

Banditos Misteriosos' Post-Holiday Gift Exchange

In celebration of the post-holidays Banditos Misteriosos is holding their gift exchange at the end of January, just as the winter doldrums will be setting in.

Holiday Season has passed, and thus, it is with pride that Banditos Misteriosos announces its First Annual Boston Freeform Gift Swap!

Consider this your usual Yankee Gift Swap, but with a bunch of twists!

On Saturday, January 31st at 2pm expect a maelstrom of gift trading, swapping and throwing.

We do not expect you to buy anything or trade any of your new-found gifts for your fellow banditos. Far from it!

On top of that, we shall be tweaking the trading logistics a bit. Expect a round-robin combined with some additional changes to keep things moving.

Burfoot and the Boston Marathon

 

A vivid memoir of Amby Burfoot's 1968 Boston Marathon win.

Ponzi: Boston's Innovator of Financial Fraud

An apparent role model for alleged fraudster Bernie Madoff, Charles Ponzi joined the select group whose name has become immortalized in the language.

BU professor Mitchell Zukoff wrote Ponzi's biography and has been widely cited as people seek to understand the Madoff scandal

But, if you organize a Ponzi scheme what is your exit strategy if the scam can't be sustained and most don't last more than a year.

Some hope to disappear, some seem resigned to be caught and some intend to go straight and cover up the scam.

Most Ponzi schemes last a year at most, says Utpal Bhattacharya, an Indiana University finance professor. (Ponzi’s lasted just nine months.) So it seems likely that Mr. Madoff, an investment manager since 1960, started out legitimate or semi-legitimate. People in that position sometimes foolishly think they can hide a one-time loss with new investors’ money, and make up for it with a big gamble later.

In other words, Ponzi schemers don’t necessarily start out as such, and as sophisticated as they are, they may not consciously recognize that they have created one. They delude themselves into thinking the ploy is just a stopgap measure, an attempt to hide a loss until they can — once again — dream up something brilliant.

ExxonMobil Oil Spill Fine

ExxonMobil Pipeline will pay $6 million for spilling 150,000 gallons of diesel into the Mystic River and Boston Harbor.

As it was being pumped from the Nara, the fuel flowed past a 10-inch seal valve located on Berth 3, which closed off a product receipt line from Berth 1. As a result of wear and tear, the valve did not close completely and leaked oil into the Berth 1 product receipt line.

ExxonMobil was aware of this defect, prosecutors charged. In September 2005, a contractor pressure-tested the value and informed ExxonMobil that it leaked. Nevertheless, ExxonMobil had failed to replace the valve by the time the Nara arrived in January 2006.

Suggest an Idea for Banditos Misteriosos!

 

Banditos Misteriosos, the group that has brought events like scavenger hunts and watergun fights to Boston, is soliciting ideas for upcoming events

Our planning committee is an open process, and a great deal of our ideas come from our community members! To make this process even easier, we now set up a fancy submission website. So, start brainstorming and start suggestin'

We love ideas!

Boston Red Dogs: An Economic Indicator

Hot dog sales in Boston's Financial District as an economic indicator in this article on fear in downtown Boston.

Gabriel Ruiz, who runs Boston Red Dogs, a set of kiosks that sell hot dogs, sodas and Italian sausages on the cusp of the city’s financial district, has never seen such a lacklustre lunchtime rush.

The queues to his stall at lunchtime used to snake around the corner of Washington Street but not lately. “I’ve been on this street for 18 years and this is the first year that I am not sure if I am going to operate in January, February and March,” said Mr Ruiz, who owns four pushcarts in Downtown Crossing and the Boston Common. “I’ve lost a lot of regular customers to job cuts in the area.”

The 1000 Watch Project

Boston architects Moskow Linn are looking for your old watches.  They think the time of the watch is at an end as people turn to cell phones and other devices for their timekeeping needs.  So to mark the end of the wristwatch era they want to collect 1,000 watches to send to the Smithsonian.  They project is up to about 350 watches so far.  You can see a couple of the donated watches below.

Do you remember the pocket watch? With the advent of cell phones (the pocket watch of the new millennium) wrist watches are dying a slow death. But it is difficult (if not impossible) to throw out your old wrist watch even if it is broken. Is that because when it was worn it was almost an integral part of the body? Or does it represent an important moment in one’s life?

Our goal is to create a 1000 watch commemorative collection of old, discarded wrist watches. Each watch will receive an epitaph written by the owner and can be visited in our on line gallery:   www.MoskowLinn.com/TKWP

When the collection is complete it will be donated to the Smithsonian Gallery in Washington DC as an illustrative display of this moment in time.

To add your watch to the collection, send it to Moskow Linn Architects with a 10 word epitaph including your name. The watch will be cataloged, numbered and put away for posterity.

Future Nostalgia: Missing Boston Before It's Gone

An interesting look at places that embody neighborhoods or city quirkiness in an age of chain stores.  The article touches on streetscapes you might never have considered like Bromfield Street as well as trying to find examples of the old Harvard Square and South Boston.  Development is likely to slow down considerably which may make some of these spots under less threat of vanishing.

"Fifty years ago, the wrecking balls of urban renewal leveled the poor but neighborly West End. Scollay Square — a grown-up's pleasure palace of tattoo parlors, penny vaudeville, and prostitutes — was steamrolled by the concrete brutalism of City Hall Plaza.

Of course, some change is good: consider the Institute of Contemporary Art's striking new waterfront digs. But the implications of urban change are different from what they used to be. In years past, there was at least a chance that unique new establishments might replace unique old ones. Today, flux tends to homogenize: hence, the Kenmore Square of the Rat and Mr. Butch (RIP) and Super Socks having given way, in less than a decade, to the Kenmore Square of Bertucci's and Kinko's and Qdoba. This dynamic is pernicious enough if you live in Houston or Phoenix. But it's especially galling here in Boston, where the streets carry the accumulated history of (almost) four centuries.

Once you've recognized this reality, there are basically two ways to go. You can accept it passively, dispassionately, maturely, and get on with your business. Or, you can recognize the slow death of urban uniqueness as the tragedy that it is — and then commit yourself to savoring every last exception to this rule while they still exist.

Jane Holz Kay''s Lost Boston is the guide to what has already disappeared over Boston's long history.

WBUR Social Media Meetup: Dec. 9th

 Another WBUR Social Media Meetup this evening.  WBUR has been innovative in using social media to develop a community around the station and consider what social media means for a traditional media producer.  An interesting opportunity to visit the station and meet some interesting people.

Let's all get in the holiday sprit of things at WBUR's final social media event of 2008!

This very loosely structured gathering will commence at 6:30ish. (PM) Expect a tour of the station followed by some free-flowing conversation about new media and public radio.

Bring: Please feel free to bring holiday cookies, your insights, cameras and laptops. You are invited to share some of your media/social media projects with the group.

Those not full of holiday snacks will head over to the Sunset aftwards for more eats and drinks.

And who knows? Maybe Hannukah Harry will make an appearance.

Questions? Tweet @WBUR or email Ken George: wburnewmedia@yahoo.com.

Info:
Time: 
Place:  WBUR, 890 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, MA 02215
Cost:  Free

Banditos Misteriosos T-Shirt Contest

Boston's favorite proponents of urban fun Banditos Misteriosos are looking for help to design a new t-shirt.

Fashion is a fickle industry. It turns out that our soon-to-be old t-shirts [above] are sooo out of style. So to help the group become "in" again, we need your help: Design a new t-shirt!

Please make sure that your design includes the following three items:

1) Our name.... (it can be the full "Banditos Misteriosos" or just "Banditos")

2) Our beloved, mustachioed mascot, Señor Cloudy.

3) Our website, www.misteriosos.org

Art Inspired by Forest Hills Cemetery

John Kramer has an installation and exhibit about Forest Hills Cemetery at the Art Institute of Boston's gallery near Porter Square.

A photographic installation and meditation on natural and sculpted forms in the context of a 19th-century garden cemetery—Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plain.

Loving all mixtures of cemeteries and art this seems quite good.

Videos of Obama Victory Celebrations

Celebrations from:

Cambridge (Mass Ave.)

Harvard Square

Harvard Square

Harvard Square

Harvard Yard

Boston (BPL Copley Square)

and a slow drive through singing Boston crowds.

'O New England' From the Decemberists

One of the Decemberists' latest singles is "O New England," a less-than-inspiring vision of our region.

O New England
In the face of your empire
I think I'd rather just wait in the car
And return to the turnpike
Watching New England's skyline sinking below.

Monster Mashup Dance Event: Oct. 25

Banditos Misteriosos has another event coming up a Boston Monster Mashup dance event on October 25.  Now they've released their instructional video of the moves for their collective dance.

If years of Halloween-themed TV specials and music videos have taught us anything, it’s that come late October, monsters and ghouls love to get together and dance.  Thus, it is with pride, that Banditos Misteriosos announces our very own Monster Mash-up!

Consider this a Halloween Dance Party but with all your fellow dancers dressed as ghosts!  But, to give this dance another dimension, we will be your choreographers.  On October 17th, we will be releasing an instructional video, complete with dance moves and your very own mentor ghost. 

Specifics

Costumes:
Everyone should come dressed as a ghost, bedsheet style. No white sheets, though — that is *so* last Halloween. Be creative! (and remember the eye holes!)

Dance Moves: 
The instructional video will be released on our website and will teach you the dance moves that we will be doing. The choreography does not necessarily correspond to the music, but will be based on various signals. (Don’t get it? Don’t worry! It’ll make sense when you watch the video.) Learn the moves for a follow-the-leader style dance!

Massachusetts Open Meeting Law and the Boston City Council

The Boston City Council violated the Massachusetts open meeting law according to the state Appeals Court.  Dan Kennedy has some interesting observations.

Council president Maureen Feeney tells Mason that the law presents "challenges" and is "confusing." Before I go any further, you should know that the law does nothing more than require governmental bodies such as the city council to conduct the public's business in public, and to provide adequate notice of when its meetings will take place.

Councilor Michael Flaherty is quoted as saying that the law creates a "chilling effect," claiming, "You can't even have a conversation with colleagues in the hallway or in a session." That's an interesting observation. The law says that a quorum — that is, a majority — of members cannot discuss official business outside the context of a legal, publicly announced meeting.

If Flaherty had said, You can't even have a conversation in the hallway with six or more colleagues about city business, that would be accurate. It would also underscore the absurdity of his complaint.

Encuentro 5

Encuentro 5 is a "space for progressive movement building in the heart of Boston"

They hold events regularly in a building built by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union

On one floor of 33 Harrison Ave, e5 brings together organizations from diverse sectors, fostering an ongoing exchange of skills and experiences. With physical space for offices and a core technology infrastructure, e5 allows a pooling of resources so organizations can focus more on their programs. e5’s 2000+ square foot multi-media event room provides a much-needed venue for cultural and political programming to help attract and inspire new people to our movement.  For strategic emerging projects, e5 provides initial resources to help ensure early success.

Plays Inspired by the T

A new series of plays use the T as both inspiration and constraint.

At 11:15 a.m. last Saturday, Ginger Lazarus boarded an Orange Line train at Oak Grove. While her fellow passengers were eager to reach their destinations - many of them appeared to be headed to the Red Sox game - Lazarus was hoping for a long ride. The clock was ticking: she had to write a short play, to be performed the following Wednesday, by the time she arrived at the end of the line at Forest Hills.

Across town, playwright Forrest Walter was getting on the Green Line at Lechmere with the same goal. Later in the day, three more playwrights would be boarding the T to participate in Mill 6 Collaborative’s theatrical experiment, The T Plays. Over the next week, a total of ten local writers will take on the challenge of writing a short play, set on the MBTA, in the time it takes to get from end of the T to the other.

The whole event is sponsored by the Mill 6 Collaborative. 

A Visit to Berklee College of Music

Howard Mandel visits Berklee College of Music to talk with participants in the jazz program and thinks about what one commenter calls the "incredible imbalance of supply and demand in the jazz world." 

During my long day at Berklee last week I addressed smart students and faculty in five separate meetings on topics of reviewing, interviewing, biography, travel writing and "effective communication." The attentions of those I faced as well as the palpable creative energies in the streets and classrooms of the burgeoning urban campus did happily encourage your humble culture vulture. And yet I also worry: What do these bright kids think they'll do with their costly educations? Can the world employ several thousand grads every year whose skills focus on the instigation of sound? The greatest of jazz's greats -- Morton, Armstrong, Bechet, Dodds, Beiderbecke, Hines, Ellington, Basie, Hawkins, Young, Benny Carter, Holiday, Goodman, Parker, Gillespie, Monk and the rest -- didn't go to school but worked at jazz from an early age. Do programs like Berklee's prolong adolescence, indulge self-absorbtion, or train youth to become productive citizens and professionals?

Mapping 'Infinite Jest' Across Boston and Cambridge

In a memorial to David Foster Wallace and his novel, the Ideas publishes a map of Infinite Jest's locations around the Boston area.

Paul Revere: Werewolf Hunter

Revere:  Revolution in Silver is a graphic novel set in colonial Boston where Paul Revere isn't just a silversmith and a hero of the American Revolution but must battle monsters like werewolves as well.  Werewolves are vulnerable to silver so that could work.

 Listen, my children, and you shall hear… Whoa, hold it right there. This is one Paul Revere story that is not fit for children’s ears or eyes. Revere: Revolution in Silver is scary, gory, and sort of sick, actually. That’s not meant as criticism, just a warning to anyone who might confuse this dark graphic novel with a nice, patriotic comic book for kids.

Lavallee’s concept is wickedly clever: Revere, the legendary midnight rider, is recast as a caped crusader who patrols the highways and byways of colonial Massachusetts to protect every Middlesex village and farm from–werewolves."

Open House at Reading for the Blind & Dyslexic

The Boston/Cambridge branch of Reading for the Blind & Dyslexic will hold an open house on Wednesday, October 22 for people interested in volunteering to record books for people whose vision problems interfere with their ability to read. RFB&D is the "nation's educational library serving people who cannot effectively read standard print because of visual impairment, dyslexia or other physical disability" and a great cause.  The organization recently moved to the Henderson Carriage Building near Porter Square so it is pretty convenient to get to as well.

Info:
Time:  October 22, 10am - 1pm and 6pm - 8pm.
Location:  RFB&D, 2067 Mass. Ave., Cambridge, MA

Boston Greenfest 2008

Boston will hold its Greenfest focusing on ways to increase sustainable efforts around the city with lectures on topics like green architecture and economics on the schedule.

Info:
Time:  September 26-27, 2008, 10 am - 5 pm
Location:  City Hall Plaza, Boston, MA
Cost:  Free

Boldcrits: Bike Racing in Boston

Dirt oval track bike racing will begin Sept. 15th at William E. Smith Field in Allston.  Should be fun to watch.  All for the glory of a six-pack.

Time:  Mondays (beginning Sept. 15) at 6:30pm
Location:  William E. Smith Field, 250 Western Ave., Boston, MA
Cost:  Free

Loren Coleman, Cryptozoologist, at Museum of Science

The Museum of Science ventures into the misty regions of cryptozoology with a lecture by Loren Coleman, the most famous researcher into bigfoot and other great folkloric creatures.

"Could hair samples be used to verify the existence of Bigfoot? Are unexplained animal droppings evidence of a new species? Do footprints hold the key to unlocking the mystery of the yeti? World-renowned cryptozoologist Loren Coleman has spent decades researching the existence of fantastical creatures and interviewing witnesses who have sighted sea serpents, lake monsters, Sasquatch, thunderbirds, and yet-to-be-verified animals.  Join us to explore the science behind these mythic beings.

Time:  Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2008,  7:00 pm
Location:  Museum of Science, Boston/Cahners Theater
Cost:  Free  "Seating passes are available to the general public in the Museum lobby beginning at 5:45 pm the evening of the program.  First come, first served."

Big Screen Boston

 

Paul Sherman has written (and self-published) what seems to be an encyclopedic guide to Boston's cinematic identity with Big Screen Boston and he also puts up excerpts from the book on his website.

Interesting interview with Sherman on what makes a Boston film:

"JMG: You give a lot of credit to films like Jan Egleson’s Billy in the Lowlands and The Dark End of the Street for legitimizing production in Boston.  Has the American film landscape changed as a result of Boston films? 

Sherman: I don’t think I could pinpoint any changes that Boston movies are single-handedly responsible for, but films like Billy in the Lowlands and The Dark End of the Street have certainly helped to create independent film as we know it today.  As Hollywood has become more hit-oriented, it makes it all the more important for there to be a thriving grassroots film industry.  I give films like The Dozens credit for being part of the independent movement and for helping to inspire the resurgence of indie films that continues to this day.

Preserving the Old State House

You can learn about the challenges of preserving a 300-year old building in the center of a modern city as the Bostonian Society offers a program on their recent tower renovation:  No Reservation about Preservation: Preserving the Old State House.

"At 295 years old, the Old State House has just undergone another major preservation project. The Old State House tower and weather-beaten North East corner have been painstakingly restored and are in wonderful condition thanks to a team of dedicated preservation professionals.

The Bostonian Society invites you to join us for an evening with our preservation project team. Our architects and preservation specialists will discuss the methods and techniques that were used to restore the Old State House. Members of the team will talk about the daily challenges that were overcome, and the exciting discoveries that were made throughout the project. View the historic nails, woodwork, and masonry that were removed from the building during the preservation process, and look at photographs documenting the project.

Following the presentation, enjoy refreshments and take a tour of our newly restored tower.

Time:  Tuesday, September 16, 6:30 p.m.
Location:  The Old State House Museum, 206 Washington St., Boston, MA
Cost:  Free and open to the public
(Image:  Bostonian Society)

New England's Cornucopia of Lit Journals

New England's treasure trove of magazines you aren't reading . . . but probably should. 

Magazines like literary stalwarts Ploughshares and AGNI as well as new blood like Redivider and Quick Fiction.

Boston Zine Fair: Sept. 20 - 21

 

The Boston Zine Fair is being held at the Art Institute of Boston on September 20-21.  Zines, self-published journals, are another of the ancestors of community and social media, that are so prominent now.

“The Boston Zine Fair is a weekend-long event with the aim of bringing together zinesters, artists, small presses and other producers of independent media. The conference includes two full days of tabling, an opening night show with live bands and readers, as well as potluck meals throughout the weekend. There are also numerous hands-on workshops and discussion panels which give us the opportunity to learn new skills to use in our own creative enterprises, as well as to explore the importance of independent media in a corporate-owned world.

While zines have lost some luster with the rise of blogging and internet publishing in general it should be interesting to check out what local people are doing with this medium and the whole culture that surrounds it.

Info:
Time: Sept. 20 - 21
Location:  Art Institute of Boston, 601 Newbury Street, Boston, MA
Cost:  Free

Reminder: Ignite Boston 4: Sept. 11 (6pm - 10pm)

A reminder that Ignite Boston 4 is coming up on Thursday (Previously on Metaboston).

Info:
Time:  Thursday, September 11, 6 - 10pm
Location:  Hooley House, 25 Union Street, Boston, MA,

The list of speakers has been announced and Tim O'Reilly will be giving a presentation.

"Speakers:

• Mansour Raad - Disaster Routing Application in 24hours
  

•      Deconstructing the 24 hours to build a re-routing application for the Minneapolis I35 bridge collapse.
• Jon Radoff - Megatrends in Video Gaming
       A presentation on the who, what and where of current videogame market trends.

Boston Community Change: Local Business Loyalty Program

Boston Community Change is a developing loyalty/rebate program for local Boston businesses.  Currently about 200 merchants participate.

"Boston Community Change is a tool to align our daily economic activities with our deepest human values.  When you shop, the program generates money for local businesses and nonprofits and creates a way for citizen consumers to make conscientious decisions about their spending that will affect how money circulates within their community. 

The program is transforming our communities for the better by changing the way we shop, the way we do business, and the way we support the causes we care about.

HOW DOES IT WORK?
Every time you use your Boston Community Change card at a participating merchant across Boston's neighborhoods, a portion of each transaction is:

Returned to you as a cash rebate

Donated to a local community based non-profit or school of your choice

Donated to the local Main Streets organization

You can also hear a radio interview with Brian Goodman, the founder of Boston Community Change.

Lights Out for Boston Buildings

Boston is turning off the lights in its skyscrapers in an environmental stunt that will be of help to migrating birds that can be confused by city lights.

"The program is also timed to take effect during the fall's migratory bird season, when many bird species are thrown off course by lights emanating from skyscrapers along the East Coast. A top executive at Mass Audubon, which helped plan the initiative, said scientific studies have documented the impact of city lights on migratory birds, spurring several major cities such as Chicago and Toronto to institute lights-out policies.

"We have an incredible array of birds that migrate along the East Coast, and it's clear the bright lights confuse them and cause them to circle or run into buildings," said Laura Johnson, president of Mass Audubon. "A lot of species are threatened, so if we can do anything to help them along the way, then we should do it."

Boston Perspective on Declining Lobster Prices

The NYTimes investigates how declining lobster prices are affecting Boston lobstermen and restaurants.

"Bernie Feeney, who traps lobsters out of Boston Harbor, said he knew many lobstermen who had taken second jobs in recent years. Mr. Feeney, who has been a lobsterman since 1978, said he had been doing marine surveying for the last five years to help pay the bills.

“In a year where our fuel costs are almost doubled and bait costs have gone up 50 to 60 percent as a result of fuel,” Mr. Feeney said, “it’s a squeeze from both ends.”

Partly as a result, young people are not going into the lobstering business, he said, adding that the average age of a fisherman in Massachusetts is 59.

“There aren’t many young entrants,” said Mr. Feeney, a past president of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association. “The startup costs of this business are astronomical compared to what they used to be.”

A Theory on the MBTA-MIT Controversy

 

Why did the MBTA sue the MIT students who exposed their Charlie Card problems and not the vendor of their system. A plausible theory:

“As Chris stated in his own article, “…Doesn’t this seem backwards to you? Shouldn’t the MBTA be suing the vendor who sold them the flawed system? Security problems go away by mandating independant security testing before a product is accepted, not by trying to get security researchers to be quiet. This is a good example of how the reactive approach doesn’t work. The flaws are still in the system and suing researchers has just shined a bright light on them…” - Unfortunately, in a typical bean-counter response to a threat to the profit model, this comes down to protecting an expensive investment and in a free market economy, the investment many times wins over blatant, slap-you-in-the-face logic.

Although to the observer it makes more sense to attack the source of the problem, profits reside in the path of the easiest hill to overcome. I would speculate that it was determined the three MIT researchers were the less likely candidates to put up any relevant fight equaling less expense long-term in costly litigation as opposed to a well-funded vendor who would be adamant and ferocious about protecting their own bottom-line. This means that from a budget perspective, the corporation will traditionally move towards the least cost initiative counting on their shark-like aggressiveness to payoff - they didn’t count on the MIT students to be resilient, spiny blowfish… ouch.

This fits in with Bruce Schneier's essay on the MBTA issue that we posted about recently.

Art EnCAMPment on the Boston Harbor Islands

Art EnCAMPment on Bumpkin Island provided an opportunity for artists to move to a Boston Harbor Island and create their work.

"Ten teams of artists effectively marooned themselves on the Boston Harbor island [Bumpkin Island] from Thursday, August 28, through Monday, September 1, with only whatever art and survival supplies they could carry with them. Their mission in exile was to create “site-specific” performances or installations.

The whole expedition was organized by the Berwick Research Institute and Studio Soto.

"Part residency, part survivalist experiment, and fully impressionable, malleable, speculative and reflective, the Encampment allows artists to explore new possibilities, removed from the distractions and discourses of the mainland. Yet, like an explorer with a partially drawn map to be fully formed in expedition, the project presents itself as a microcosm of transparent, possible attributes and actions for a culture stripped bare and invented anew.

You can see some of the work from kino-eye's Flickrstream.  (Images above:  Berwick Research Inst.)

Boston Comics Roundtable and Their First Anthology

Boston comics creators meet weekly in Harvard Square as the Boston Comics Roundtable.  They have their first anthology "Inbound" available now.  Looking forward to checking it out.

"The Boston Comics Roundtable was created in 2006 to unite Boston-based comics creators in the spirit of camaraderie and professional development. This year commences the start of a new publishing initiative to spread the word – Boston is the hot new town for comics!

Boston Film Racing Films

Watch the top short (under 3:30 minutes) films that are in the Boston division of the Diesel Film Racing 2008 competition. All films were made in a 24-hour period. Vote for your favorite.  Kudos to "Third Date" (NSFW) for including a film within a film in an under 4 minute movie. 

It's too bad all the films aren't up on YouTube or Blip.TV because they are quite slow to load from the Film Racing website

Richard Garet at Axiom Gallery

Axiom Gallery will be having another experimental music event featuring Richard Garet and Kellam Scott.

"Garet is a New York based sound and video artist. He is interested in the phenomena found and produced in aural and visual time-based media, in nature's processes and human beings' relationship with both artificial and natural environments. Garet explores the it-referential, communicational, and sensory characteristics of the various media he uses. Additionally, he focuses on the investigation of aural and visual spatial-contexts, relational structures, process, materiality and form. In the past he has collaborated with such artists as Brendan Murray, Andre Goncalves, Bruce McClure, Sawako and Shimpei Takada. He has releases on the Non-Visual Objects and Winds Measure Recordings label, and forthcoming releases on AND/OAR, Leeraum and Unframed. (www.richardgaret.com)"

Listen to Garet here

Info:
Location:  Axiom Gallery,141 Green Street, Boston MA
Time:  August 28th at 8:00pm
Cost:  $7 (Suggested)

Ahead of the Curve: Inside Harvard Business School with Philip Broughton

Philip Delves Broughton, a journalist, took his experience at Harvard Business School and turned it into a book when his MBA didn't get him a job.  He seems to have some funny anecdotes.

“Many of his peers, he says, hailed from one of the “three M” backgrounds: Mormons, former military officers, and former McKinsey & Company consultants.

As might be expected students are able to turn financial aid programs to their advantage.

“Mr. Broughton also details a scheme for acquiring “financial aid BMWs”: Upon being accepted at the business school, some students deliberately emptied their bank accounts to buy BMWs for themselves. Since they were not required to list vehicles among assets on their financial aid applications, they often qualified for extra financial aid. “So basically, Harvard buys you a BMW” a classmate informed Mr. Broughton.

You can see him at Harvard Book Store on September 4th.

Neal Gershenfeld and the Fab Lab

Interesting profile of how MIT professor Neal Gershenfeld is trying to increase the ability of people around the world to build things for themselves.

"[A] 48-year-old physicist and MIT professor and the inventor of what he calls the Fab Lab. A Fab Lab (short for fabrication laboratory) is a package of tools designed to make essentially any object.

The kits can include a laser cutter, computer-controlled wood router and a miniature mill for drilling circuit boards, all for around $50,000, including open-source software, batteries and micro-controllers.

Those appliances and materials, Gershenfeld says, are all anyone needs to build whatever he or she can imagine: panels for roofing a house, a simple computer or a better mouse trap. "Basically, the goal is to create a Star Trek-style replicator in 20 years," Gershenfeld says matter-of-factly.

What is especially interesting is that Gershenfeld is also trying to make the process of creating Fab Labs self-sustaining.

Ignite Boston 4: Sept. 11 (6pm - 10pm)

The next Ignite Boston event will be September 11 (6pm - 10pm). It's a great free event where you can hear some interesting ideas in a short format. Unlike a lot of events like this, Ignite Boston also allows you to propose your own short (5 minutes max) presentation.

"The fourth Ignite Boston will be on Thursday, September 11, from 6 to 10pm at the  Hooley House, one block from Faneuil Hall in Boston, MA. THIS IS A LARGER VENUE. So the acoustics will be better than our last event and there will be room to sit, stand and mingle.

From 6-6:45 pm, mingle and talk tech with your fellow FOOs, alpha geeks, and techies from the greater Boston area. After the mingling and social stuff, we'll have a couple of special keynote presentations to kick off our Ignite talks. Then, onto guest speakers who'll catch you up on the cool, new, innovative stuff going on in technology today. Don’t blink or you’ll miss their lightning-fast, five-minute presentations. During intermissions, get a cold beer and chat with speakers, sponsors, and O’Reilly’s own editors. Join us Thursday, September 11th, for a fun, energetic evening of talking, learning, collaborating and drinking!

RSVP If you plan to attend, email IgniteBoston at oreilly dot com for the chance to win $300 worth of O'Reilly books of your choosing. You must be present to win. There will likely be other items like tee-shirts and other promo items for those who alert us ahead that they plan to attend. Presentation Guidelines

Ignite is a user-generated event. If you’re interested in speaking, then submit a proposal for consideration.

Presentations must:

* Be no longer than 5 minutes

* Be on an innovative topic (no sales pitches, please!)

* Be viewable on a PC [a MacBook Pro with Powerpoint and Keynote, and PDF] with standard AV equipment

* Did we mention, no Sales Pitches.