CULTURE:
A Time for Dance
Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m., Sunday, 2 p.m.
Midway Studios
15 Channel Center St., Boston
MBTA: 11 Bus to A St at Mt. Washington Ave.
$22, 617-912-9222
www.bostonconservatory.edu
In additon to three brand new works, The Boston Conservatory’s dance troupe will be doing “There is a Time”, a 1956 piece by legendary choreographer and dancer Jose Limon. It’s inspired by the same bible passage that inspired the Byrds’ “Turn Turn Turn”- and there, now you’ll have that song stuck in your head for the rest of the day. Mwahaha!
Carmen
Friday and Wednesday, 7:30 p.m., Sunday, 3 p.m.
Shubert Theatre
270 Tremont St, Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Boylston
$34-195, 866-348-9738
www.citicenter.org
“Carmen”’s enduring popularity rests on just one of its pieces, “the March of the Toreadors”, one of the all time great blasts of classical music bombast. An eight-bit version of it plays as you’re getting ready to fight that oily Spaniard Don Francisco in “Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!”. And some who say opera isn’t relevant! Also plays next week.
New Music at the Pozen Center
Saturday, 5 p.m.
Pozen Center, MassArt
621 Huntington Ave., Boston
MBTA: Green Line E to Longwood
Free, 781-863-1308
www.massart.edu
An evening of contemporary compositions, combining music, large, hanging photography, non-textile fashion design (not sure what that entails), and spoken word into one modernist mish-mash of experience. Includes a piece for the four-handed piano (very cool). Performers include pianist John Holland, Shawn Moore, who creates his own electronic instruments, electronic musician Marc McNulty, and the Rathbun-Rivera Violin and Piano Duo.
COMEDY
Neil Hamburger
Friday, 7 p.m.
Great Scott
1222 Commonwealth Ave., Allston
MBTA: Green Line B to Harvard Ave.
$10, 18+, 617-566-9014
www.greatscottboston.com
Neil Hamburger, real name Gregg Turkington, has been touring around America in a crappy tunxedo for years telling really, really, eye-rollingly, groan-inducingly bad jokes with all the comedic ability and timing of a sea urchin. He frequently coughs or clears his throat disgustingly mid-joke, groans as if anticipating his audience’s reaction, and generally acts bored. It’s hilarious, and it’s genius.
Dead Man’s Cell Phone
Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday (check site for times)
Lyric Stage Company of Boston
140 Clarendon St., Boston
MBTA: Orange Line or Commuter Rail to Copley
$25-54, 617-585-5678
www.lyricstage.com
A dark comedy about a woman who’s minding her own business in a cafe when the man at the table next to her up and dies. Then his cell phone rings. Naturally, she picks it up. Wouldn’t you? Yeah, we wouldn’t either, but anyway, soon she’s whisked into the bizarre life, and it gets weirder and weirder. Ends November 14th.
The 23rd Annual Christmas Festival
Friday, 12 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Seaport World Trade Center
200 Seaport Blvd., Boston
MBTA: Silver Line to World Trade Center
$12, 617-385-5000
www.bostonchristmasfestival.com
Okay, maybe it’s a little too early to be thinking about Christmas, but maybe you could use a jump on things. Like a farmers’ market for holiday chotchkies, food, and more, the festival features the works of over 350 craftsmen, and, just for kicks, a cutthroat gingerbread house competition.
Krzysztof Wodiczko
Wednesday, 6:30 p.m.
Institute for Contemporary Art
100 Northern Ave., Boston
MBTA: Silver Line to World Trade Center
$15, 617-478-3103
www.icaboston.org
This Polish artist, creator of the ICA’s new video installation “OUT OF HERE: The Veterans Project”, will talk about war and art (and possibly the art of war) with the Iraq vets he interviewed for the piece. It’ll provide a great context for viewing the piece yourself if you haven’t yet. Free with admission.
MUSIC
Vintage Globestomp II
Friday, 10:30 p.m.
Oberon
2 Arrow St., Cambridge
MBTA: Red Line to Harvard
$14 in adv./ $15.00 at door, 866-811-4111
www.cluboberon.com
For those looking for a more exotic musical night out than three bored-looking dudes playing guitars and drums or one bored-looking dude spinning house records, we recommend this night of groups mixing (among other things), middle eastern, psychedelia, techno, and string fusion sounds, accompanied by not one, but two belly dancing troupes. Yowza! Pass the hummus! No- the spicy kind! Yeah!
Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling
Friday, 7 p.m.
Church of Boston
69 Kilmarnock St., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Kenmore
$10, 21+, 617-236-7600
www.churchofboston.com
This surprisingly unique local punk act are just a guy and girl, the former on bass guitar attached to an octave pedal that makes it sound robotically tripled, and the latter on drums and Kim Gordon-style impassioned caterwauling. They’re loud and strange, and all their songs are called “Episodes” as if they’re a TV show. They’re probably going to be famous.
Cassavettes
Friday, 8 p.m.
Middle East Downstairs
472 Mass. Ave., Cambridge
MBTA: Red Line to Central
$10adv./$12 at doors, 18+, 617-864-3278
www.mideastclub.com
It’s a record release show for one of the most lauded bands to come out of this town in recent years. Their new one, “Shake Down the Sun” continues their tradition of agreeable country and folk-inflected rock balladeering. Why haven’t these guys opened for Wilco yet? Patience, patience… tons of other bands on this bill, btw.
Consumer Electronics
Sunday, 3 p.m.
O’Brien’s Pub
3 Harvard Ave., Allston
MBTA: Green Line B to Harvard Ave.
$25, 21+, 617-782-6245
www.obrienspubboston.com
A German dude (Phillip Best) who makes some very uncomfortable sounds. One of his “songs” sounds like a digitized lawnmower being thrown into a wood-chipper; if it doesn’t wake you up, check your pulse. There’s tons of like-minded noisy bands at this early-starting show, so your brain is guaranteed to turn to mush by the end.
Allison Francis
Monday, 7 p.m
All Asia
334 Mass. Ave., Cambridge
MBTA: Red Line to Central
$5 for 21+, 8 for 20 or younger, 617-497-1544
www.allasiabar.com
Allison’s a local acoustic folk-popper whose pleasant songwriting straddles the line between directness and poetry nicely, just as her unusual, husky yet feminine singing voice is halfway between individuality and a post-emo affectation that she actually doesn’t need. She’s still working it all out, but if she keeps playing to her unique strengths she’ll be someone to watch.
Sage Francis
Tuesday, 8 p.m.
Harper’s Ferry
158 Brighton Ave., Allston
MBTA: Green Line B to Harvard Ave.
$15 adv., 17 day of, 18+, 617-254-9743
www.harpersferryboston.com
Francis is a white rapper from Providence with dank lo-fi basement beats. “I Trusted You” steals its hook from an old Andy Kauffman routine and sports lyrics like “Don’t sweat the petty things/ Don’t pet the sweaty things”. “Crackpipe” has a rectangular beat that Sage stretches his raps over skillfully enough that you forget what an awkward hip-hop beat it is.
Brian Wilson
Thursday, 8 p.m.
Lowell Memorial Auditorium
50 East Merrimack St., Lowell
MBTA: [no convenient stop]
$29-55, 978-454-2299
www.lowellauditorium.com
After one of the longest dark nights of the soul on record, here he is, the Beatles’ only true equal in pop-rock brilliance and experimentation, more together than anyone expected, with a full band who don’t miss a beat, singing his (and some of the world’s) best songs, and some new ones that don’t look pale at all alongside them. Awesome.
FILMS
Donnie Darko
Friday and Saturday, 11:55 p.m.
Coolidge Corner Theatre
290 Harvard St., Brookline
MBTA: Green Line C to Coolidge Corner
$8, 617-734-2500
www.coolidge.org
Though it’s kind of a Halloween movie, being a little belated won’t dampen the mystifying effect this film, a bizarre sci-fi/fantasy/horror spin on the teen angst flick, leaves on its viewers. Coolidge is screening it tonight to honor Patrick Swayze, whose performance as pedophile-by-night, self-help guru-by-day is one of his darkest and best.
Python-A-Thon
Saturday, 12 p.m.
Brattle Theatre
40 Brattle St., Cambridge
MBTA: Red Line to Harvard
$30, 617-876-6937
www.brattlefilm.org
It’s been 40 years since the Flying Circus began, so here’s an entire day of Python- surely enough to drive anyone mad in the way only top rate absurdist British satire can and must. Features all four of their theatrical releases as well as Terry Jones’ 1997 adaptation of “A Wind in the Willows”, which featured several Pythons. You can see them all for one price or pick and choose your lunacy.
The Light of Truth
Sunday, 10 a.m.
Harvard Science Center, Hall A
1 Oxford St., Cambridge
MBTA: Red Line to Harvard
Free, 617-325-6789
This one-hour documentary on Sri Lankan Sufi master Bawa Muhaiyaddeen will be followed by a talk on the man by one of his own disciples, Michael Toomey. Sufism, for those who don’t know, is the mystical tradition of Islam, a rather poetic, emotional, and introspective side of a religion too often seen in the West as impossibly cold and rigid.
A Prairie Home Companion
Monday, 6 p.m.
Rabb Auditorium, Boston Public Library
700 Boylston St., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Copley
Free, 617-536-5400
www.bpl.org
The second in BPL’s monthlong Robert Altman series, this 2006 sleeper, at the request of no one in particular, attempted to translate to Garrison Keillor’s homespun, melancholy, surreal, often hilarious (sometimes frankly, usually quietly) public radio universe to the big screen. The result had all of those traits, and, most incredibly of all, featured Lindsay Lohan (?!!!).
