Celebrity Series of Boston Blog

Don't make us do it

Some people post cat pictures...

To all of our as-yet-unrenewed subscribers, past subscribers, and other various fence-sitters: We want you to know we understand your hesitancy. After all, it's summer now, and the cold weather seems so very far off and we have offered a dizzying variety of choice for 07-08. But you know that you need to take care of your winter self now - the concert season will be upon us all before we know it. Don't make us release the bison, subscribe today at www.celebrityseries.org.

Ira Gershwin, observing New York in 1918

"Sniffed in a day: Onions, whiskey, garbage, fur and camphor balls, fountain pen ink, fresh newspapers. Heard in a day: An elevator's purr, telephone's ring, telephone's buzz, a baby's moans, a shout of delight, a screech from a "flat wheel," hoarse honks, a hoarse voice, a tinkle, a match scratch on sandpaper, a deep resounding boom of dynamiting in the impending subway, iron hooks on the gutter."

-an entry from the personal diary of Ira Gershwin, circa 1918, as quoted in Fascinating Rhythm, The Collaboration of George and Ira Gershwin, by Deena Rosenberg.

There will be more coming on George and Ira Gershwin, since Rob Kapilow's What Makes It Great? is taking on The Songs of George Gershwin on February 2 (that's February 2, 2008).

Camerata Ireland, on the road again

Conductor/pianist Barry Douglas and Camerata Ireland are trotting the globe of late, having played concerts in Kilkenny, Dublin, the Naantali Festival in Finland, and the Library of Congress's Rediscover Northern Ireland program in Washington, D.C. all in the last month (sounds like a Red Sox road trip!). The Clandeboye Festival is on tap for August. The Belfast Telegraph has the skinny on this young (they were founded in 1999) and energetic orchestra: Irish musicians take international festivals by storm.

The Camerata Ireland and Barry Douglas play NEC's Jordan Hall on March 7, 2008. The Celebrity Series is offering tickets for the performance to its 2007-2008 subscribers as a free bonus event.

Introducing Strange Maps

GDPPDQ, OK?

Due to the initiative of a certain Celebrity Series staffer (this one's for you, LJ), there has been more than a little discussion of the science of economics 'round these parts in recent weeks. It is in the spirit of econ chit-chat that I share with you a most unusual map (above, but click here for a larger version) and a most unusual, and apparently quite popular, blog (here). The map matches, and renames, the US states with the countries most closely matching their Gross Domestic Product. The kind of fun only economists can truly enjoy!

McSweeney's Selling-Off Inventory

McSweeney's, the Literary Quarterly, Publisher, purveyor of the unusual, and I don't know what-all, is having an online fire-sale of sorts. Though you may be unfamiliar with McSweeney's, they are an outlet for a lot of writers you probably do know. They publish works by the likes of Dave Eggers, David Foster Wallace, Nick Hornby, David Byrne, Art Spiegelman, and Sarah Vowell (Vowell makes her Celebrity Series debut this season on February 8, with David Rakoff, in case you were looking for a CS tie-in...). It seems that McSweeney's distributor has gone out of business, leaving them $130,000 in the hole (more on the story here). They have responded by putting many items in their online catalog on sale at steep discounts (I just ordered the 1855 linguistic train wreck and unintended classic, English As It Is Spoke for half-price) and are even holding a rare items auction on e-Bay.

I don't know how long any of these links will be in operation - neither does McSweeney's, I'll gather - so I recommend acting quickly if you are likely to act at all.

Early Summer in Boston for the non-Bostonian

Blue skies, clean air, everything in full leaf - this is the kind of day that sees Boston crawling with postcard photographers and high school students on field trips. The kind of day that makes it difficult not to lord it over friends in other towns that you live here and they don't.

Lately, there are shorter lines for coffee in the morning, traffic on Storrow Drive is more or less bearable and there is more room on the T than there was a month ago. You probably didn't notice exactly when, but the annual student decampment has happened. In the eyes of many, Boston is about college. People come here to go to school and they move on. By this time each year, college students - the undergrads, anyway - have mostly cleaned out there dorm rooms and gone home to Otherplace, New Jersey, or Brookfarmport, Illinois. Personally, I love the energy they bring to the city, and whether we know it or not, we all love the money they spend here. But it is nice each summer to breath deep, stretch and enjoy a little living space.

Black Grace documentary to air on PBS

   

PBS television stations around the country will soon be airing a new documentary on Black Grace Dance Company, Black Grace: From Cannon's Creek to Jacob's Pillow. For the uninitiated, Black Grace is New Zealand's leading contemporary dance company and one of the world's only (other examples, anyone?) companies creating "Pacific-infused contemporary dance."

Black Grace was founded by the remarkable choreographer, Neil Ieremia, whose work embodies three important Samoan principles: Fa'amaoni (integrity, honesty and pride), Fa'amalosi/Loto Tele (perseverance and determination) and Fa'aloalo (humility and respect). Ieremia says of Black Grace:

"Art is an important part of who we are as a young nation. Our stories, ideas and expression of these are just as valid and important as those from Europe and America. Why can't a New Zealand dance company be the best in the world? We're the only ones standing in our way."

The documentary's PBS mini-site (see link above) features samples from the video of the company in performance, interviews with Black Grace founder Neil Ieremia and Jacob's Pillow Executive Director Ella Baff, and a link to purchase the DVD of the program.

So far, I have only been able to find one broadcast of Black Grace: From Cannon's Creek to Jacob's Pillow scheduled for the Eastern Mass., New Hampshire, Rhode Island PBS television axis: WGBH 44 will broadcast the documentary on Friday, June 22 at 5am. I'm guessing/hoping that more will follow in this area. For those elsewhere in the U.S., visit the PBS mini-site to search for your area.

The Celebrity Series of Boston will present Black Grace April 17 & 18, 2008, at the Tsai Performance Center at Boston University.

UPDATE: My friends at WGBH tell me that the Black Grace documentary will be aired a number of times later this season. Consider June 22 a sneak preview from the National Feed. Stay Tuned!

Once more, with feeling

"I haven't understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it."

—Igor Stravinsky

Wild turkey at Costco, or blogging on the wing

 
For those out-of-town readers whose images of Boston are limited only to wharves, quaint brick buildings and old money, I say, you ain't seen Boston, bruthah. Boston has actual 'burbs with actual mega-marts and actual parking lots (with actual parking spaces!!) - like most places. However, gentle reader, even I can be a bit surprised. I have seen racoons and even the odd skunk lurking near my quaint Northwest digs on occasion, but Boston, er, Waltham has upped the ante by having wild turkeys running pell mell through it's parking lots in broad daylight as if on some turkey double-dare (see above). I just managed to get this turkey/Yeti into the frame as he/she made tracks, lickety-split, for Lexington. Top that, East Orange.

Tulsa Time

It's the concrete sarcophagus for you!

On June 15, 1957 a brand new Plymouth Belvedere Sport Coupe was "swaddled in rust-resistant preservatives and gently placed inside a giant concrete sarcophagus" as part of a time capsule to opened - you guessed it - 50 years later on June 15, 2007.

Complete details, including images and even a video of the interrment, can be found here at the Telstar Logistics blog, a delightful little fraud that's worth a closer look in its own right. I often wonder why those burying time capsules don't give them a little more time accrue impact.