Metro has you covered with a list of where to go and what to do this weekend in Boston.
MUSEUMS
Shark and Ray Touch Tank
Opens today, ongoing
New England Aquarium
1 Central Wharf, Boston
MBTA: Blue Line to Aquarium
$23 regular admission, 617-973-5200
www.neaq.org
Ask any eight-year-old boy: Sharks are the coolest. And rays are cool too. And now, at your local marine life museum, you can touch them. Don’t worry about them trying to eat you- they’re already so well fed they don’t even care. Fun fact: their skin feels like sandpaper because it’s got thousands of tiny little barbs on it.
The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl
Friday through Sept. 5th
Institute of Contemporary Art
100 Northern Ave., Boston
MBTA: Silver Line SL1 or SL2 to World Trade Center
$15, 617-478-3100
www.icaboston.org
Much has been made of the art of recording an album, but what about the art of the vinyl record itself — the sleeve, the disc? Forget the music, this show is about records themselves as art, including the legendary work of the Mingering Mike, whom you should Google right now if you’ve never heard of him. Also, what better time to kick this off than the weekend of Record Store Day. Look that up too!
THEATRE
Walking the Volcano
Through May 1st
Boston Playwrights’ Theatre
949 Commonwealth Ave., Boston
MBTA: Green Line B to Pleasant St.
$30, 866-811-4111
www.bostonplaywrights.org
This Jon Lipsky play is composed vignettes with stories ranging from the a drug-smuggling tale in the bathroom of an airplane to a journalist romance in Vietnam War-era Saigon. Lipsky compiled these eight pieces, each about ten minutes in length, from his submissions to the Boston Theatre Marathon. The same actors return to play different people in each vignette.
Sons of the Prophet
Through May 1st
Calderwood Pavilion, Boston Center for the Arts
527 Tremont St., Boston
MBTA: Orange Line to Back Bay
$25-89, 617-266-0800
www.huntingtontheatre.org
Uncommon people and situations- what would we do without them? Your story of getting home from work and then slapping yourself because you forgot to buy eggs but now that you’re home you just want to stay in? Not stage-worthy. This story of a two witty gay brothers transforming intense family tragedy into unlikely comedy? Stage-worthy.
MUSIC
WZLX Rock ‘n’ Roll Rumble Semifinals
Friday, 9:30 p.m.
T.T. the Bear’s Place
10 Brookline St., Cambridge
MBTA: Red Line to Central
$10, 21+, 617-492-2327
wzlx.radio.com/rumble
A pretty representative selection from the Beantown music scene will try to outdo each other for your amusement. Your local scene is diverse, folks- seems like every rock genre from punk to sunshiny pop to metal to laptop meddling will be represented. At press time, we do not know who won last night, Mellow Bravo, Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling, Sidewalk Driver or Spirit Kid. Obviously we don’t know tonight’s victor either, but based on numbers alone, Walter Sickert and the Army of Broken Toys may give OldJack, Black Thai and John Powhida International Airport a run for their rockin’ money.
A Journey to the West
Friday, 8 p.m.
Paine Hall, Harvard University
1 Oxford St., Cambridge
MBTA: Red Line to Harvard
$8, 617-496-2222
www.fas.harvard.edu/~musicdpt/
This orchestral program, presented by the Harvard-Radcliffe Chinese Students Association, features the titular piece, based on the classic Chinese folktale of the Monkey King, as well as three others by both eastern and western composers, including a double concerto for flute and erhu. The erhu is that two-stringed violin-like thing you always see that guy in Park St. station playing.
For the Sake of the Song: A Tribute to Leonard Cohen
Saturday, 8 p.m.
Arts at the Armory
191 Highland Ave., Somerville
MBTA: Red Line to Davis
$8, 617-718-2191
www.forthesakeofthesong.com/
You may hear a cold and lonely halleluiah as local musicians including Dietrich Strause, Brendan Murphy, Ryan Fitzsimmons, and Patrick Coman will play some classic Leonard Cohen tunes and discuss how the gravely-voiced master influenced their own work. They’ll also play some of their own songs, and perhaps you’ll notice the Cohen influence.
Palmetto Moon Electronic Group
Tuesday, 8 p.m.
Aviary Gallery
49 South St., Jamaica Plain
MBTA: Bus 39 to South St. @ Center St.
$10, 617-504-5358
www.nonevent.org
This entity is not actually a group but the alias of improvisational electronic wizard Eric Lanham, also known as Carl Calm. He takes a bunch of samplers, synthesizers, drum machines, and computers, both digital and analog, and creates a spontaneous musical happening. Songs? Who the heck needs songs?! Also appearing: Driphouse, Benjamin Nelson, and Keith Fullerton Whitman.
ART
Drawing with Code
Through April 24th
DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum
51 Sandy Pond Rd., Lincoln
MBTA: Commuter Rail To Lincoln
$12, 781-259-8355
www.decordova.org/art
An exhibition of computer-assisted art from the 50’s through the 80’s – i.e., a time before Photoshop that was a wild west of limited technology and unexplored potential. The creators of these images were just as much coders as they were artists – they employed algorithms processed by the computers to create images, earning them the nickname “algorists.”
Chihuly: Through the Looking Glass
Through August 7th
Museum of Fine Arts
465 Huntington Ave., Boston
MBTA: Green Line E to Museum of Fine Arts
$20 regular admission, 800-440-6975
www.mfa.org
Dale Chihuly is a master of glass sculpture. His work is surreal and brilliantly colorful, and full of shapes you never encounter in real life. In one section, layered seashell-like patterns on a ceiling above make you feel like you’re inside a kaleidoscope; in another, great purple staves shoot up from a bunch of logs like ants being raptured. Awesome.
MOVIES
Warhol on Film
Saturday, 8 p.m.
Bright Family Screening Room, Paramount Center
559 Washington St., Boston
MBTA: Orange Line to Chinatown
$10, 617-824-8000
www.artsemerson.org
A groovy heap of exploding plastic freakiness relevant to both pop art and rock music history, this double feature presents “The Velvet Underground in Boston,” a live show shot by Warhol in 1967 and recently unearthed, full of ridiculous 60’s camera movements and that detached, drugged-up groove, followed by “Hedy,” Warhol’s portrait of a drag queen named Mario Montez.
The Dark Crystal
Friday, 5:30 p.m. and 9:45 p.m.
Brattle Theatre
40 Brattle St., Cambridge
MBTA: Red Line to Harvard
$10, 617 876-6837
www.brattlefilm.org
In his book “Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa-Puffs”, Chuck Klosterman poses the question of whether or not an otherwise attractive and stable potential mate would be rendered undateable if he or she were unrelentingly obsessed with this 1982 Jim Henson fantasy masterpiece. But would that be such a crime? This movie is totally absorbing and unique- could you really blame him/her?
LECTURES
A Brief History of the Spectre of the Internet and the Death of Writing
Wednesday, 5:30 p.m.
Geological Lecture Hall, Harvard University
24 Oxford St., Cambridge
MBTA: Red Line to Harvard
Free, 617-496-1027
www.peabody.harvard.edu
Author Matthew Battles discusses a topic most of us cynically or nostalgically mention in passing but rarely ever really think about: how is the Internet changing the art of writing? There’s a sense that its effect on the art is largely one of dumbing down, but is that really the case? What are we really leaving behind?
