Recommended: Kite Fest • Faces Of AIDS • Lasers • John Waters • Stop Abortion Ban Rallies
May 18 to 15, 2019: Pictured above: Revere Beach Kite Festival, May 17, 2015. (Greg Cook) If this is the kind…
A Laser Show To Celebrate Local Immigrants’ Stories … And Confront Stigma
NOTE: I’ve been commissioned by the Essex County Community Foundation to help document/promote cultural projects from its Creative County Initiative,…
Gordon Parks’ Camera ‘Was My Choice Of Weapons Against … Racism, Intolerance And Poverty’
The year after the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott, Life magazine asked Gordon Parks to travel to Alabama to photograph the…
How Tolkien Envisioned ‘The Hobbit’ And ‘Lord Of The Rings’
In the fall of 1936, as the first edition of “The Hobbit” was in production, its author, J.R.R. Tolkien, gave…
First Look At The New Mural Going Up On Boston’s Greenway
On Saturday, Dutch artist Stefan Thelen—known by his anti-superhero identity Super A—began painting a mural depicting a barn swallow crashing…
This New Crosswalk Is An Optical Illusion To (Hopefully) Slow Cars
The question was how to slow traffic around Medford’s Brooks Elementary School to make it safer for students. Last year,…
Honoring Women Arts Leaders In Boston With A Set Of Trading Cards
“The Elma Lewis 2018 Women in Community Arts Collectors Edition Trading Cards” set was created by Boston artist Neil Horsky…
'Nature's Nation': Digging Into American Art For A More Honest History Of Our Relationship To The Land
“In some districts, where twenty-five years ago they were plentiful, scarcely any are now to be seen,” the American ornithologist…
Plans Underway To Resurrect Waterbury’s Holy Land USA
It was drizzling lightly on Thursday afternoon, a few days before Easter, when we drove up to Holy Land USA…
Somerville PorchFest: Wonderland’s Totally Biased Guide To This Saturday's Music Fest
Somerville’s annual PorchFest is part hootenanny, part a giant open studios for bands. More than 200 bands acts are scheduled…
Unicorns! Gorgons! Manticores! In Metropolitan Chorale's Collaboration With Puppet Showplace Theater
Unicorns, gorgons and other fantastical creatures abound in the Metropolitan Chorale’s performance of Gian Carlo Menotti’s “The Unicorn, The Gorgon…
Transgender Soul Music Pioneer Jackie Shane Recorded Her Biggest Hit In 1960s Boston
Jackie Shane—the electrifying soul singer, black cult heroine, and transgender pioneer—died this week in Nashville at age 78. “Any Other…
The Earth Expedition Of Sun Ra, Jazz Visionary And Afrofuturist Pioneer
“There’s no limit to the things that you can do,” go the lyrics to jazz visionary Sun Ra’s “Space Is…
Winners Of 2018 Boston Music Awards
Below are the winners of the 2018 Boston Music Awards, which were announced at Boston’s House of Blues on Dec.…
Photos: Honk Festival Parade 2018
In this afternoon’s Honk Parade, dozens of bands and activist and community groups marched from Davis Square in Somerville to…
Patricia Marx And Roz Chast's 'Why Don't You Write My Eulogy Now So I Can Correct It?'
Patricia Marx and Roz Chast have a delicious premise for their slim illustrated humor/advice book “Why Don’t You Write My…
‘The Handmaid’s Tale’: A Walking Tour Of The Novel’s Cambridge Settings
Margaret Atwood was living in West Berlin in 1984, the city still divided by the Berlin Wall, when she began…
How Tolkien Envisioned ‘The Hobbit’ And ‘Lord Of The Rings’
In the fall of 1936, as the first edition of “The Hobbit” was in production, its author, J.R.R. Tolkien, gave…
‘Johnny Boo Is King!’ In New Kids Graphic Novel From (Former) Vermont Cartoonist Laureate James Kochalka
“Johnny Boo Is King!,” the new graphic novel for kids from James Kockalka, the former Cartoonist Laureate of Vermont, begins…
Interview: Guy Gavriel Kay On His New Novel ‘A Brightness Long Ago,’ Tolkien, Reimagining History
In Guy Gavriel Kay’s latest novel “A Brightness Long Ago” (due out from Viking May 14), Count Uberto, dubbed “The…
Historian Robert Caro's ‘Working’ Methods: Dig Through Archives, Wear Ties, Silence
When Robert Caro, the legendary political journalist-historian, was a young investigative reporter at the crusading, liberal New York newspaper Newsday,…
Bread and Puppet Theater’s ‘Diagonal Life’ Addresses Politics, Migration, Global Warming
Three large brown papier-mâché puppets arrive on the blue curtained stage early on in Bread and Puppet Theater’s “Diagonal Life:…
Unicorns! Gorgons! Manticores! In Metropolitan Chorale's Collaboration With Puppet Showplace Theater
Unicorns, gorgons and other fantastical creatures abound in the Metropolitan Chorale’s performance of Gian Carlo Menotti’s “The Unicorn, The Gorgon…
Leonora Carrington’s Magic Realist Paintings Come Alive at Double Edge Theatre
“Leonora & Alejandro: La Maga y el Maestro”—presented by Double Edge Theatre at their Farm Center in Ashfield from April…
Is Harvard’s American Repertory Theater Leaving Cambridge?
A $100 million donation “will enable Harvard to imagine a 21st-century research and performance center in Allston,” the Cambridge university…
‘Ajijaak On Turtle Island,’ Heather Henson’s Puppet Spectacle With Indigenous Roots
“Ajijaak on Turtle Island”—by Heather Henson (daughter of Muppets creator Jim Henson) and IBEX Puppetry—is an environmental fable, Henson says,…
Sandglass Theater’s Refugee Stories: ‘Is It Our Responsibility To Help Everyone?’
Woven through “Babylon: Journeys of Refugees” by Sandglass Theater is a version of the American debate about immigrants and migrants…
A Cartoon White House Briefing Room For Speaking Your Mind
At the end of Amherst College’s Eli Marsh Gallery in Fayerweather Hall is Macon Reed’s recreation of the White House…
Black Panthers 1968: Selections From A Major Photo Archive in San Francisco
“A lot of people tried to talk us out of it,” Pirkle Jones told The New York Times in December…
How ‘Pigeon’ And ‘Elephant & Piggie’ Author Mo Willems Protested In 2018
Mo Willems has won Caldecott Honors three times for his picture books for children—beginning with 2003’s “Don’t Let the Pigeon…
Vigil for Victims of New Zealand Mosque Attacks: ‘That Could Have Been Me’
“That could have been me. That could have been my brother. That could have been my own family,” Farida Moustafa…
Youth Climate Strike: 'Climate Now, School Later'
“Hey, hey, ho, ho! Climate change has got to go,” chanted hundreds of people at the Youth Climate Strike at…
'One Gun Gone': Turning Guns Into Art To Buy More Guns Off The Street
For years, Providence photographer and sculptor Scott Lapham has taught art to teens and young adults. “Four of my students…
Plans Underway To Resurrect Waterbury’s Holy Land USA
It was drizzling lightly on Thursday afternoon, a few days before Easter, when we drove up to Holy Land USA…
Photos: Roman Catholic Easter Pageant Reenacts Jesus’ Execution
Roman Catholics in Boston marked Good Friday today, the prelude to Easter, with a live Stations of the Cross, or…
Hershey’s Chocolate World: Riding The Free Chocolate Tour
Is it a roller coaster? “No,” replies the patient ride attendant at the free, 30-minute “Hershey’s Chocolate Tour” at Hershey’s…
Woodpecker
Photo copyright 2019 Greg Cook. If this is the kind of coverage of arts, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please…
Photos: Celebrating Holi, The Hindu Festival Of Colors, At Boston University
Holi is “the Hindu Festival of Colors which celebrates the arrival of Spring,” the Boston University Hindu Student Council writes.…
In Gloucester, Celebrating Purim With Costumes, Stories And Beer: ‘It Is A Mitzvah’
As is traditional, the families gathered at Gloucester’s Temple Ahavat Achim for their annual celebration of the Jewish holiday of…
Photos: Roman Catholic Easter Pageant Reenacts Jesus’ Execution
Roman Catholics in Boston marked Good Friday today, the prelude to Easter, with a live Stations of the Cross, or…
Photos: Celebrating Holi, The Hindu Festival Of Colors, At Boston University
Holi is “the Hindu Festival of Colors which celebrates the arrival of Spring,” the Boston University Hindu Student Council writes.…
In Gloucester, Celebrating Purim With Costumes, Stories And Beer: ‘It Is A Mitzvah’
As is traditional, the families gathered at Gloucester’s Temple Ahavat Achim for their annual celebration of the Jewish holiday of…
Gragger Retells The Jewish Purim Tale As A Radical, Queer Burlesque
Gragger—Boston Workmen’s Circle’s annual, grown-up “evening of gender-bending, ancestral-healing, world-transforming Purim festivities”—is named for the clacker or rattle traditionally used…
New Orleans Second Line Parades Photographed By Pableaux Johnson
“My goal with these photographs is to capture in a single frame what it feels like to be in the…
Photos: Chinese Lunar New Year Celebration In Malden
Chinese Culture Connection hosted its annual Chinese Lunar New Year Celebration at Malden High School on Jan. 26, 2019. All…
First Look At The New Mural Going Up On Boston’s Greenway
On Saturday, Dutch artist Stefan Thelen—known by his anti-superhero identity Super A—began painting a mural depicting a barn swallow crashing…
This New Crosswalk Is An Optical Illusion To (Hopefully) Slow Cars
The question was how to slow traffic around Medford’s Brooks Elementary School to make it safer for students. Last year,…
Fox, Bear And Deer Mural Is Part Of The Public Art Sprouting In Arlington
Families of fox and bears and deer meander around the brick exterior of Arlington’s Fox Library in Eileen de Rosas’s…
Monumental Hugging Arms Selected As Memorial To MLK On Boston Common
“The Embrace”—a pair of monumental hugging arms—has been selected to become a memorial to Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta…
Pioneering Video And Performance Artist Joan Jonas Draws At The Gardner
During Joan Jonas’s 2017 residency at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the pioneering 82-year-old video and performance artist found herself…
Walsh To Veto Landmark Status For Citgo Sign As Real Estate Deal Protects It
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh will veto the Boston Landmarks Commission’s vote to grant landmark status to the Citgo sign in…
Woodpecker
Photo copyright 2019 Greg Cook. If this is the kind of coverage of arts, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please…
The 5-Year-Old’s Guide To ‘Space’ At Boston’s Museum Of Science
Twice this fall, the 5-Year-Old visited “Space: An Out-of-Gravity Experience,” which is on view at Boston’s Museum of Science through Jan.…
The Dazzling ‘Rockefeller Beetles’ Debut At Harvard’s Natural History Museum
The earth is home to 450,000 species of beetles, Brian Farrell, the Harvard University professor and curator of entomology, told…
Fall Bike Ride: Through Lynn Marshes Via The Northern Strand Community Trail
Between Lincoln Avenue and Summer Street in Lynn, there is a dirt stretch of the “Bike to the Sea” Northern…
Dogwood Seedling From Starting Over Festival Sprouts
At the Starting Over Festival that I helped organize in Somerville on April 22, we gave out seedlings. A month…
Photos: Alewife Migrating Upstream Along Mystic Lake
Alewife migrating upstream at the Upper Mystic Lake Dam fish ladder in Winchester, Massachusetts, May 27, 2018. Photos copyright Greg…