Category / News

by hereandsphere

HOUSE AS BASIC AS CHICAGO BLUES : PROK & FITCH @ 360 PROVIDENCE 10.11.13

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There are some DJs and mix duos who trick up their house music as gussied as a drag queen. Others bend the genre out of shape, or clink it to other genres, or paint it with melody, all in search of a signature sound that, far too often, sounds more simpering than signifying. Then there are the DJs who strip house music down to its basics, simplify it, clip it to one tone, one stride, one vision in search of a connection instinctive as a nerve ending. Prok & Fitch proved at 360 in Providence to be of the latter sort and masterfully so. They didn’t beat around the bush, wander off, get all persnickety. From the beginning of their set at about 12:15 A.M. until well on toward 2:00 AM, they dropped a stride and strut, a push and push, a scoop and stomp : all of them low and grumbly and of a texture thick enough — without feeling like a cake mix.

360, by the way, is a new dance-music arena and a good one. Dark and spacious with a DJ booth as open to the fans as a handshake and a hug. It’s no frills, just the space and some lighting — an ideal match for the basic blues sound that was dropped upon it at this performance.

The two DJs began with a chant of “you don’t stop, no you don’t stop” — from their “After the World” track — and so it went for the many — but not quite enough — fans who danced into second wind and beyond. Using four CD players and mixing in teamwork — few solos by either man — the Londoners blended and cut, clippd the reperat bitton, squeezed the tone knob, and quick-cut the beat parade. Occasionally they flubbed a mix (I noticed one quite sloppy segue at 1:15 A.M.); but they made good the mistake so quickly that few minded. That’s one of the advantages of playing house music in basic mode: the mix flaws heal rapidly. It was that way with 1950s Chicago blues. In that most dependable of rigidly restricted, scream and ramble-effect genres, you knew what was coming, and when, and almost how’; and if a bass line went south, the guitar was there to kick it north again, and you liked the effect; it lent salt to the music ‘s pepper, spit to its shine.

Prok & Fitch have made so many tracks so similar — yet so grabbing — that they were able to salt their own pepper almost the entire night. One heard, I think, segments of their two Todd terry remixes (“Can You feel It’ and “Something Going On”), their collaboration with Roger Sanchez (“Take You There”), two collaborations with the UK’s Filthy Rich (“Time To Jam” and “Justified”), and many others of their prolific oeuvre. It was a spirit-chaser night of — so to speak — stride strut, leg lug, hip flip and brain sprain, without digression. Pause breaks were few; streakies, none. They poked the mix board all set long, but only to guide the music, not bust it open. As basic as a Bo Diddley jam, as sure as a Littler Walter, as double-played as a Howlin’ Wolf, they played house music pure and sure, and found within the genre itself all the drive and soul that lies within it, ready to pounce. Laying down the law of house. It was a set not to be missed.

Local DJ Marcus Christian, whom i had never heard play at length, opened with a set as basic and bluesy as Prok & Fitch’s. He perhaps mixed his sound with a bit more bending than they did; but the textures thus toyed with at low frequency led direcyly gto the bass and blaster work of the main men. Very well done.

—- Deedee Freedberg / Here and Sphere

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by hereandsphere

MEEK AT THE MOVIES : We Are What We Are ( 2.5 STARS )

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^ generations of cannibals in your backyard ; Bill sage as Papa Parker in “We Are What we Are”

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Human consumption (as in flesh of, not spending habits) onscreen isn’t so disturbing when it’s a vampire or a werewolf gnawing on your fellow being as an hors d’oeuvre, but bring that in a little tighter, where man’s dining on man for sustenance and it becomes down right creepy. Even the understandable plight of the “Alive” survivors who chomped on frozen stiffs to keep themselves going in the high Andes, educes a shudder; and there’s still reports of ritual cannibalism among remote tribes in Borneo, but what if it was next door, and not something perverse and of a sick mind like Jeffery Dahmer, but a long standing family tradition executed in the name of God?

Meet the Parker family. They feel like lost cast members from “Little House on the Prairie,” yet live in the modern suburban remotes of upstate New York. Mom (Kassie Depaiva) handles everything culinary, from the ritualistic harvesting to the careful trimming and lengthy rendering process, which results in a savory stew, but right off the bat, mom has a seizure in the middle of a flash storm, vomits up heaves of blood, and is gone. Her grisly duties then fall to her daughters, Iris (Ambyr Childers) and Rose (Julia Garner), though after the death, father (Bill Sage) declares a period of abstinence, which allows for the macabre outer sheen of the film to ebb and the edgy backstory of how the Parkers came to their generations old practice, to fill the strange now as the girls struggle to come of age (a time of sexual awakening for Iris) and dad goes through maniacal mood swings and Parkinson-like fits.

The film directed by Jim Mickle, who amused with the quirky vampire hunter saga “Stake Land,” is fairly loyal remake of the 2010 Mexican film of the same title. That cult staple was set in the impoverished barrios of Mexico City and Mickle’s relocation to the drab Catskills brings home the grim affect with greater visceral resonance. He also leverages hurricane season (the 2011 storm Irene was upon the area when he shot the film) as a cleaver plot device as the rising waters from the ongoing storms begin to unearth and expose the bones of the Parkers’ past feasts.

Little of the barbaric practice makes it onto the screen for much of the film, but the traces are ever there; be it the missing person reminders that pop up in conversation or an information flash (reminiscent of “Prisoners”), the muffled whines that come from the Parkers’ root cellar or the inquisitive coroner (Michael Parks) who starts putting together the pieces–literally.

If the plausibility of that sounds a bit hard to swallow, Sage does an effusive job of making the sell as the righteous propagator and controller. Childers too lends credibility as a young woman torn between wanting love and a normal life and familial obligation to her aggrieved father and siblings. It’s her burgeoning courtship with the bashful deputy (Wyatt Russell) and the coroner’s personal need for answers that become the catalyst for the hellish denouement that will not sit well with the squeamish.

In the mix too is Kelly McGillis, barely recognizable as the frumpish next door neighbor who shows Parker’s young son (Frank Gore) compassion, administering bedside TLC and remedies to the boy bedridden with shakes and a fever. She thinks it’s a just common cold from the bluster and rain outside, but it’s hunger from the abstinence–a point that’s driven home and sets off a light in her head when the anemic seeming towhead suddenly chomps down on her thumb with frenzied lust.

For an indie cult-horror film, “We Are What We Are” succeeds modestly much in the same way “You’re Next” did. It transcends the genre’s trappings and makes the most of its humble resources with confident craftsmanship and nuanced subtly that embosses character and demonstrates care. It’s not going to re-script the genre by any stretch, but for those who have the yen, it is a sating bowl of gruesome gruel.

—- Tom Meek / Meek at the Movies

by hereandsphere

BOSTON MAYOR FINAL — CHARLOTTE’S ENDORSEMENT ANALYZED

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^ center field and left field : Charlotte Golar-Richie and Marty walsh

On Saturday morning at 10 A.M., at a rally called by herself, Charlotte Golar-Richie endorsed Marty Walsh for Mayor.

With her at the endorsing conference were Felix Arroyo and John Barros, both of whom had already endorsed Walsh a few days prior. Seeing the three of them walking with Charlotte Golar-Richie to the conference like the Beatles — as Dorchester’s Joyce Linehan put it — on their Abbey Road LP cover was quite the experience. It seemed a seminal moment in Boston city politics : the Four Horsemen of the “Working families” Apocalypse…

Walsh’s face wore a stun, as if he too couldn’t quite believe he now had the support of the Primary ballot’s three leading candidates of color. Frankly, I was stunned too. But not for long. Hardy had Golar-Richie finished speaking when the news broke that basically her entire campaign staff — finance chairman, field director, and the staffs of several of her local headquarters — were all joining the John Connolly campaign.

Now I was beyond stunned. What the dickens was going on here ? You endorse one guy, and essentially all your people go to work for the other guy ? The same day, no less ?  Surely Golar-Richie had to know. And if so, what was the significance of her endorsement ? I began to ask myself some questions :

1.Why did Golar-Richie not endorse at the same time that Barros and Arroyo did ? Reportedly they asked her to join with them. But she did not. Why ?

2.Why did she wait three full days thereafter — during which time the CUPAC and Black Ministerial Alliance, both of which groups had backed her in the Primary, publicly endorsed Connolly — before finally doing what Barros and Arroyo had asked her to do on Tuesday ?

3.Why did she not endorse John Connolly, since almost all of her staff did so ?

Only Golar-Richie herself knows the answer to these questions. Maybe she will tell us. until she does, however, a few answers suggest themselves simply by the nature of the events. What i think happened is this :

1.Golar-Richie did not want the impact of her endorsement to be diluted as part of a group. She would endorse alone and draw all the attention.

2.She was always a careful candidate whose campaign hallmark was caution and flexibility to all sides –in keeping with her persona as a manager impartial. Thus the waiting period, during which she “carefully assessed” Connolly and Walsh. “Careful assessment’ would lend gravitas to her decision when it came.

3.Meanwhile, she was known to have been one of Menino’s choices to succeed him, and she had been part of his administration; and Menino had already and obviously chosen to give help to Connolly. The period of “careful assessment” allowed her staffers quietly to make their arrangements to join the Connolly camp and thus put a smile on Menino’s chin.

4.Now having assured her staffers of a safe haven — and herself of having gifted Connolly the meat of her campaign — she was free at last to take care of a significant task of personal politics :  ( a ) an endorsement of Connolly by her would allow Arroyo and Barros to box her out, among voters of color (if she chooses to run for elected office again) as not being for “working families”; of favoring the “banker’s candidate” — the ‘school privatizer” — as folks in various camps close to Barros, Arroyo, and Walsh were aleady saying; and ( b ) an endorsement of Walsh would prevent that. Thus Walsh it had to be. A gamble, but a well planned one.

I am guessing that the feverish phone calls back and forth that the Herald’s Peter Gelzinis said took place from Thursday into Friday were about that very issue. Charlotte’s Menino friends told her to get with Connolly : and so she pondered, and gave her staff (and the PAC’s) time to do exactly that. Meanwhile, Charlotte’s Walsh-supporting friends told her to endorse Walsh or be boxed out. And so, once the backstage work was safely done, she endorsed Walsh.

Simple. Shrewd. The reward of caution.

Many smart politicians play both sides of a divide. It’s one of the most successful ways to occupy the political center. Occupying the center — what former Boston Mayor candidate John Sears calls “Playing center field” — was Golar-Richie’s campaign theme, its tone, its distinction, its claim to seriousness. She owns it, and as long as she can “play center field” without errors, she’ll be a serious force in political baseball no matter which man becomes Mayor.

—- Michael Freedberg / Here and Sphere

by hereandsphere

“You must get to work” : PEG ALOI INTERVIEWS JETHRO TULL’s IAN ANDERSON

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It was my privilege and pleasure to talk with Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson about his new album, “Thick as a Brick Two” and his methods of writing, among other things, for Here and Sphere.

Mr. Anderson is a remarkably articulate and erudite conversationalist. This is just a short segment of our conversation. I hope you in Boston try to see the performance at the Wang Theatre tonight !

Peg Aloi:  First of all, I must confess that in 1983, when I was a sophomore in college, I dressed as you for Hallowe’en. I believe you had short hair at the time, but mine was long, so I opted to dress as you, circa 1977, that “Songs From the Wood” era.

Ian Anderson: Oh, well, then, I suppose if I was a kind of pugnacious guest and given to outbursts of an informal nature, then in response to that the question has to be dreadfully obvious: did you get laid?

PA: Well, I was dressed as a man, so….hmmm, I can’t actually remember! I guess I’d have had an opportunity to understand what that whole groupie thing is all about.

IA: I don’t actually have much experience with groupies, as I don’t usually enjoy the post-performance social scene; I am that sort of party pooper who leaves after half an hour and goes back to my lonely hotel room to read a book. After all the years of touring I have done, that kind of wild party just seems like a really excessive evening that I have never been in tune with. It is nice to be on stage with the band, however.

PA: Perhaps like many Tull fans of my generation, my favorite album and one that was really very formative in my musical tastes was 1977’s “Song’s From the Wood.”

IA: That album is still mentioned as one of the most formative for many fans. It was a long time coming, and I had an interest in the contemporary folk music of the ‘60s and ‘70s. But it wasn’t until 1977 that we made an album that was strongly folk influenced, in the sense that it drew upon elements of culture and mythology which we set not authentically to English folk music, but used musical elements that would make those lyrics work. If “Thick as a Brick” is Jethro Tull’s progressive rock album, then “Songs from the Wood” is our folk rock album, if you want to go down that road.

PA: So, once you began working on “Thick as a Brick Two,” you apparently wrote the entire concept album in about two or three weeks. Why, after hesitating about wanting to do this project, do you think it all came together so quickly?

IA: I do try to write quickly. When I am sitting down to write a whole album I do sit down to work every day and I simply get to work. There’s no point in hanging ‘round and waiting for the muse to visit you. You must get to work and look for inspiration, and happily, it comes. I had a deliberate deadline, and I’d start working at 9 am, at the beginning of January, and basically had it complete within a ten day period. And that is about how long it should take: in reality you come up with the bulk of the lyrics and then you write about four or five minutes of the music every day, and then you refine the ideas and work on the arrangements, and work on it to get it locked down. I suppose if you went into it and did not manage to write three minutes of music a day, I can’t see the point of continuing to do it. You just have to get to work.

PA: You mentioned in an earlier interview that you think the music world has become more accepting of the progressive rock genre; I wanted to ask what you think of the progressive rock revival that seems to be going, or if you’re familiar with the Wyrd Folk movement or some of the efforts made to promote this kind of music in recent years, like Mark Coyle’s work with The Unbroken Circle or Woven Wheat Whispers, or bands like Pearls Before Swine, Fuschia, The Strawbs, or artists like Mina Doi Todd or Devendra Banhart or In Gowan Ring.

IA: I would not exactly call it a progressive rock revival because that term is still a bit problematic. It’s a journalistic term really; in 1969 I did not have a problem with being in a progressive rock band, but some time around 1972 the term “progrock” became a word commonly used by critics to poke fun at bands like Yes or Emerson Lake and Palmer as a way of criticizing their rather excessive musical showing off. So that was part of what gave progressive rock a sort of dirty name. Then when punk came along in 1976 it sort of swept away the cobwebs of progrock and it went away for a time and it really took a while for it was treated with some dignity and affection again. That is not to say that those progrock bands did not play great music, but it was often underpinned by the need to to show they could play their instruments better than other people. It did take a while for progressive rock to become respectable again, and now you have a whole new generation of musicians in their 20s whose musical tastes are evolving, which s right and proper. The other day I tried to describe the more experimental music happening today and I decided the best definition was to say it’s music for people who get bored easily. Let’s face it, most pop music does get a bit boring, and many people want something more, so hopefully with the experimentation going on now they don’t need to look too far.

“Whatever Happened to Gerald Bostock?” (Thick as a Brick 2), as well as “Thick as  Brick” will be featured in Ian Anderson’s performance at the Wang Center, Boston, October 12. Tickets available via Stub Hub.

— Peg Aloi / Here and Sphere correspondent

by hereandsphere

BOSTON MAYOR FINAL : CHARLOTTE DECIDES

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^ Abbey Road (as Dorchester’s Joyce Linehan says) : Charlotte joins Team Walsh

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The picture that heads my column is one that I admit I never expected to see in this Mayor election. Charlotte Golar-Richie, the quiet, cautious, middle of the road administrator, endorses Marty Walsh, her opposite in every way.

It’s a big boost for Walsh and will certainly have an effect on the November 5th vote. Until Golar-Richie came forward, Walsh’s campaign looked lost and losing. Just in the first five of Boston’s 22 wards he looked down by 10,000 votes. Now that margin looks quite less.

I opine thus not because of the mere fact of Golar-Richie’s endorsement but on account of WHY. The answer is not simple or obvious. Sure, there are personal issues and policy differences that have developed over the years of Connolly’s service on the Council, between him and some activists who certainly Golar-Richie talked to. But i prefer not to think that Golar-Richie chose because of personal stuff. She’s bigger than that. And her endorsement speech offers a wider clue : she talked about Walsh being a Mayor for “working families.” That phrase never crossed her lips during the Primary. They are Walsh’s theme. So who was she saying them to ?

There’s answer for this question too : she was saying them to the union activists who oppose the school reforms that John Connolly wants. These reforms have drawn the ire of Teachers’ Union activists since they were first bruited. Yet they are exactly the reforms being advocated by President Obama’s education secretary, Arne Duncan, and, in Massachusetts by Democrats for education reform.

Why would union activists, Democrats all, oppose so resolutely reforms being proposed by a Democratic President ? In the twitter-sphere — and the blog-o-sphere — one finds out. There one finds a growing anger among progressive people against the radicalized GOP and also against a President whom these activists see as “giving away too much” to the GOP. The radicalization of the GOP is, as Bill Moyers writes astutely, the big political story of the year. Almost as big a story is the like radicalization taking ground inside the Democratic party. You cannot radicalize an electorate in only one direction; voters who differ aren’t going to just sit still and let a radical party take over — or block — the nation ‘s direction. Activists DO things. And so activists on the progressive tip are doing.

In Boston’s Mayor election that has now come to mean opposing a school reform led by Democrats ! The verbal overkill abounds : that Connolly’s school agenda means “privatization” of the public schools, that it’s “some outside group” doing it, that “he’s a jerk,” etc etc. In fact, John Connolly is about as traditional a patrician urban reformer as you can find. What is there in his suggestions for a longer school day, greater leeway for principals to choose teaching staff, core curriculum, and support for charter schools as an alternative, that requires raising the hue and cry ? Horace Mann’s school reforms of the 1840s were no less ambitious, nor the much more radical reforms advocated by John Dewey 110 years ago. 50 years from now, John Connolly’s reforms will look as obvious as Dewey’s and Mann’s reforms 50 years after their day.

The older a nation and its institutions become, the harder it is to reform them. Our nation has aged greatly since 1840, 1900, even since 1965. Reforming our associations today seems almost impossible to do; those vested in them simply WILL NOT change. We see it in Washington, where he Tea party opposes everything and anything that will make this nation fairer and better. Now we see it here in Boston.

Reform of Boston’s schools should begin with the teachers; and with the parents; but for too long there has been disconnect — indeed, a widening of it — that has made school reform a bridge broken; and John Connolly, himself a former teacher and a public school parent, has stepped in to span the reform forward. For this he has incurred the enthusiastic support of school parents, and the support of education-agenda Obama Democrats — and the ire of teacher activists and many economic progressives.

I have had personal experience of this disconnect. I read the Boston Teachers’ Union ten-page schools manifesto several times. For some months I have tried to moderate between friends in the Union and the Connolly agenda. I suggested that the BTU should endorse Connolly, saying we differ on how to reform the schools, but we are one in making schools the top city priority.” I failed. I hope we can still talk and be friends.

I suspect there are many, involved in Boston’s civic matters, who are saying something like.

The education-issue split in the Massachusetts Democratic party seems a portentous event. Add to that the economic split : progressive activists dislike the Obama administration’s ties to big finance. In Boston, some fear that John Connolly is the banker candidate. The business development candidate, he surely is. It’s where Boston is headed and has been headed for at least the last dozen years. But Connolly is by no means a Koch Brother or ALEC guy. He might say, in his own words, that the business of Boston is business, but Connolly’s business looks as if it will be a business culture tolerant, diverse, and open to all who have talent; with all lifestyles fully respected; a “green” business culture and one that supports living wage legislation. This is controversial ? Seems that it is.

The Tea Party first arose in very “red’ states, where the “reformers” were all GOP. Massachusetts is a very “blue” state. Here the Democratic party is almost all, and, as the people of a democracy usually find themselves on the opposite side of issues, splitting the Massachusetts Democratic party is the only option. But ; if that were all that is now happening in this mayor election, it might be set aside afterward. it isn’t. The national Democratic party is splitting too, as progressive activists, tired of President Obama’s cautious generosity of style, are taking the matter of opposing Tea regression into their own hands. We see it in Texas with Wendy Davis, in California thanks to Governor Brown, in the talk of nominating Elizabeth Warren for President rather than Hillary. We see the fight everywhere against Wal Mart and for a much more livable minimum wage.

Yet John Connolly agrees with progressive activists on all those issues — passionately and uncompromisingly so. Only on the issue of school reform do he and the activists differ; and that one difference is now enough to cast him as the activists’ bogeyman, the evil enemy. To those who have watched the Tea party demonize conservative GOP Senators who “aren’t conservative enough,” it all looks depressingly familiar.

This is what Charlotte Golar-Richie has decided to take sides with. People do what they are gonna do.

—- Michael Freedberg / Here and Sphere

BREAKING : Just as I began to post this column, word came that Charlotte’s campaign field director Darryl Smith, AND her Finance chairman Clayton Turnbull are BOTH going to work for John Connolly. Talk about timing !

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^ Golar-Richie’s Field Director announces that he is joining John Connolly : (Connolly seen here with former Council candidate Philip Frattaroli and his Dad.)

by hereandsphere

BOSTON MAYORAL : THE MARTY WALSH CAMPAIGN

NOTE : Here and Sphere, for which I write, has endorsed Marty Walsh’s opponent. The following article is my own opinion, however.

Bartlett yard Marty Walsh

^ Courage and a voice for working people : Marty Walsh at Bartlett Street Bus Yard

Courage is the word that comes to my mind when I think of Marty Walsh and his campaign. For a guy who seems almost introverted, who really doesn’t sense the social wave, who comes from a part of Boston that is visibly shrinking in reach and number, to run for mayor of a City I don’t think he really understands seems an act of huge courage. This is a good thing. By no means do I disparage Walsh’s public persona. It has won friends of all sorts in the Legislature. It has elevated him to the top among those who know him best. I have, in previous columns, called Walsh “a hero of civil rights.” This he definitely is.

His courage — to break loose of the hermetic cultural world in which he grew up; to see himself as one and the same with people living very differently from how life along “Dot Ave — has brought Walsh almost to election as Mayor of Boston. He bested ten rivals in the Primary with a total vote that topped his Final opponent, John Connolly. As he himself claimed it, at a large outdoor rally on election eve : “Tomorrow we will top the ticket !”

But…. Walsh is a “union guy” — was business manager of the Boston Building trades Council — and has built his campaign on continuing the current downtown building boom and the jobs it provides. There is nothing at all wrong with this. The building boom is real. It is good for all Bostonians. It creates jobs, good paying jobs for workers who then spend that money into the city’s economy. All good. But the more that Walsh is a union guy, the less he is the man of courage; the less he is one brave man breaking free of — fighting against — the Old Boston and its old ways.

His challenge, as a Mayor finalist is, how does he bring Boston labor unions into the new Boston, the coming Boston of business innovation, business lifestyle, business politics ? Indeed — as many voters are asking — is becoming Mayor the best way even to do this ? At times in the past month or so, Walsh has talked — sermonized, almost — about recruiting businesses to Boston; taking them from Texas, South Carolina, from all over; of opening up a Boston office of business recruitment. This sounds odd speech coming from a union guy. Few of the businesses he would be preaching Boston to are union shops. There are, by percentage, fewer Union households in Boston than there used to be. In Walsh’s business recruitment world, they will be a smaller percentage still.

At which point Walsh’s courage begets contradiction.

And conundrum : for if union households would decline in numerical importance in a Walsh-for-business Boston, there would be no decline at all in the importance of the Police and Firefighter Unions, or of the Boston Teachers Union. Or of the School Bus Drivers Union. Need I say more : and into the two recent labor union events that have angered almost all Boston — Walsh too — came the news, via John Connolly, that Walsh has five times filed a bill (H. 2467 this year) to make labor arbitration awards final, taking review power away from municipal councils. A request was made that he withdraw the bill. He declined to do so.

Walsh’s strategy now, as a finalist, is to bring to his side working-class voters of diverse origins and skin color. He has John Barros’s endorsement, and he has Felix G. Arroyo’s endorsement — and his strategist, Doug Rubin — and now often voices the message that was Arroyo’s : pathways out of poverty by way of better schools and safer neighborhoods. It’s a good message. It builds upon Walsh’s own story and upon his support base. The Boston building boom should provide building trades jobs for Latino Bostonians, Cape Verdean Bostonians, Viet Namese Bostonians, all Bostonians. And yet…

…the argument did not work for Arroyo in the primary and seems unfitted to what Boston is like today. It is a message not too different from Mel King’s and Ray Flynn’s in 1983. But Boston has become much more entrepreneurial in the past 30 years. (And Mel King himself is close today to Charles Clemons, who was a Mayoral candidate and is a radio entrepreneur with an economic point of view almost Republican.) Boston today is more prosperous than in 1983, more upper middle class. No social group desires radical school improvement more passionately than the upper middle class — and those who would join it. Upper middle class parents push their children to excel. Sometimes they overdo it, but that is what the new Boston often is. Achievement, and bicycles. Downtown boutiques — and advanced courses in every high school grade. Diversity and social metro-lifestyle — because all entrepreneur brains have worthy ideas to pick up on. Upper middle class parents like new ideas. And they’re in a hurry to get them.

Marty Walsh understands this dynamic well, I think. But he cannot be its voice. Because it already has a voice, a man who is of it and personifies it : John Connolly. Thus Walsh has chosen the only course left for him : to voice for the people who would like to be in a hurry but can’t be because they have too much other stuff — dysfunctional homes, kids going astray, language barriers at home, working three jobs to make ends meet; that sort of thing — on their plate.

It is good that Marty Walsh is committing to be the voice of those trying to catch up to the people in a hurry. No one speaks it with more personal conviction. But in doing so, he has, ironically, narrowed his reach. Because John Connolly’s campaign extends far beyond upper middle class parents. He has brought to his side Boston Wards very different from upper middle class — Charlestown, East Boston, North End, much of Roxbury and Mattapan — for whom access to the Mayor’s office and the Mayor’s ear is vital. Connolly looks like the winner to these constituencies, including some which did not vote for either him or Walsh in the primary. They can see how things shape, and they are surely correct in thinking that their support assures a Connolly victory and thus access to his office and ear. And yesterday both Communities United’s PAC and the black Ministerial Alliance endorsed him.

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Against this dynamic and this perception, Marty Walsh now fights courageously, doing proud those who believe in him.

—- Michael Freedberg / Here and Sphere

by hereandsphere

BOSTON ELECTION : CITY COUNCIL AT-LARGE FINAL — A FIRST LOOK

Boston’s City Council has little power via the present City charter. Such little as it has is most effectively directed to questioning the Mayor’s agenda. Even though the Council almost always gets onto the Mayor’s side on such, merely by questioning it awakens the City’s voters to agenda items that might not win most voters’ favor. And they are less easily brought aboard the Mayor’s agenda than are the Council members.

Every Mayoral agenda contains items that voters might justly question. That’s why we, at Here and Sphere, in making our endorsement and suggestions for the Council, rank a candidate’s potential independence first of all. We want the Council to answer to constituencies that the Mayor’s agenda does not favor. We see the Mayor’s proposals and the Council response as a kind of labor negotiation, one in which a common middle ground is reached. For that reason, we especially insist that the at-Large (city-wide) elected Councillors demonstrate this independence.

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^ Jack Kelly : independence almost assured — we endorse ! (photo  by Kelly campaign)

Which is why we balance our endorsement of John Connolly for Mayor with an endorsement of jack Kelly as a city-wide Councillor. He will be as comprehensive a “voice for labor’ as anyone of the eight candidates on the ballot. None, to our knowledge, has received as many Union endorsements as has he. Moreover, Kelly is not only a “voice for labor.” He has Planned Parenthood’s endorsement, that of District Four Councillor Tito Jackson, and the support of at least two Boston Globe columnists so far.  And just today, he gained endorsement by Ramon Soto, who was an at-large Council candidate himself.

Kelly addresses issues only after careful study — no Council candidate is more thoughtful. His enjoyment of people is infectious; everybody sees it. If anyone in this year’s election has the inner stuff to enthuse almost everyone, it is Jack Kelly.

The other seven candidates include four of the seven who we “suggested” in the Primary. The three who missed the cut — Chris Conroy, Catherine O’Neill, and Phil Frattaroli  — will, we hope, be heard from again. The four “suggested’s” who did make it — incumbent Ayanna Pressley and newcomers Annissa Essaibi George, Marty Keogh, and Jeff Ross, all of whom we like a lot — now find themselves in competition with three whom we did not suggest. These are serious contenders : incumbent Stephen J. Murphy; former Councillor Mike Flaherty; and one newcomer, Michelle Wu.

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^ Annissa Essaibi George : very Dorchester and as “Dot” is Boston’s largest neighborhood, that’s reason enough to like. we do.

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^ Jeff Ross : hard work and a proven, long time commitment to Bostonians needing a voice

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^ Marty Keogh : the voice of Wards 18 and 20 — is it enough ? we hope it is.

We continue to like our four “survivors.” We understand that at least one, even of them, will not be elected in November. Yet we cannot simply dismiss Flaherty, Murphy, and Wu any longer. So how, at first look, do we judge their candidacy ?

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^ strong in every neighborhood of Boston : Mike Flaherty

1.Mike Flaherty has put together a citywide vote as uniformly strong as any Council candidate. And city-wide strength is something we want to see in a city-wide candidate. It’s almost as important as independence.

After failing to win election in 2011 — having lost badly in 2009 when he challenged mayor Menino — Flaherty has won back all the voter confidence that had appeared no longer his. We would be very surprised if Flaherty does not win back his Council seat, and we will be doing a Profile of him next week. In which we will take the temperature of his independence of mind.

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^ Stephen Murphy : what has he yet to do that he has not already done ?

2.Stephen J. Murphy has been a personal friend of this writer for almost our entire adult lives. Indepenence from Mayor Menino is built into his soul. Murphy’s mild, gentlemanly manner belies a passionate commitment to traditional Boston ways and agendas — into which he has, much more smoothly than I thought likely, blended all kinds of “new Boston’ constituencies. Murphy seems to say, “you may be think you’re one of those ‘new Bostonians,’ but you’ll fit right into traditional Boston, I will take you there, and you will like it.” No one else on the Council could have done this important mission as successfully.

My only question of Murphy’s continuing on the Council is whether or not his work hasn’t been fully accomplished. What has he still left to do that others can’t do ? I will be asking him this question in a coming profile.

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^ Michelle Wu : impressive bio

3.Michelle Wu. She was said to be all over the city; we have all seen her worn-out-shoes news story. Yet I, despite being all over the City at street level myself, since the beginning of August, only met Wu for the first time at the Roslindale parade. Where did she wear out those shoes ?

The Wu candidacy puzzles me. She took fourth spot in the Primary by a huge margin : how did she become so well known ? so well thought of ? Better known than marty Keogh ? Better thought vof than teacher and neighborhood activist Annissa Essaibi George ? More worthy a progressive than Jeff Ross ? Her personal story is impressive : harvard Law School graduate and care provider for her widowed mother. Her political story seems even more to the point : she was a campaign staffer for Senator Elizabeth Warren, the most popular politician in Massachusetts.

Yet others in this year’s Council campaign worked for Warren as well. All, even Jeff Ross, who grew up on the West Coast, have longer and deeper attachment to Boston than Wu, who only recently moved to the City. Why the Council ? To me, at first look, Wu seems better fitted to head a city administrative department than to be a elected voice. If the theme is “new Boston,” Ross, to our mind, fits the bill much more profoundly than Wu. Surely her biography and Warren connection impressed many voters who don’t accord their Council votes a policy importance. To me, using a Councillor vote to congratulate an impressive personal achievement is to disrespect the Council. A Councillor should be more than a graduation day photograph.

That said, we will be talking to Michelle Wu next week and asking her what there is about her candidacy other than a very impressive bio.

—- Michael Freedberg / Here and Sphere

by hereandsphere

MEEK AT THE MOVIES : Captain Phillips ( 2.5 STARS )

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^ Tom Hanks as pirated cargo captain in Paul Greengrass’s “Captain Phillips”

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Back in 2009 the whole world watched rapt as an American cargo ship was seized by pirates off the coast of Africa. To save his crew, the captain offered himself up as hostage and was subsequently cordoned off in a lifeboat pod with a posse of armed and anxious pirates looking for a multi-million dollar ransom. Eventually the US Navy and SEAL Team 6 got involved and brought about a quick resolution. It made for great drama then and would seem a natural fit for film, but though harrowing, “Captain Philips” never quite gets below the surface of the whole ordeal.

All of this might come as a bit of a surprise because “Phillips” is directed by Paul Greengrass, who adroitly chronicled the intrepid doings of the doomed 9/11 passengers in “United 93.” His poignant insight and meticulous care for every passenger’s story and plight rang through cleanly and affected with a genuine earnestness. Here that acumen feels lost or at best, severely muted.

“Phillips” begins rather no-nonsense with the captain (Tom Hanks) and his wife (Catherine Keener) driving to the airport and bantering about how their children are growing up in a harsh world where being righteous and diligent isn’t enough anymore (perhaps an omen of what’s to come?). Shortly after, Phillips and his crew load up food aid for Africa in the Arabian Peninsula and do a once over of the Maersk Alabama. Phillips is working with a new crew that aren’t quite up to his standards and neither is the ship, which ominously has unsecured ‘pirate gates.’

As a result of such shabbiness, once underway around the Horn of Africa, Phillips insists on drills, but just as he sounds the alarm, two speeding skiffs packed with armed men come at the enormous cargo carrier. The Somali pirates fail in their first strike, but have a trailing mother ship to refuel at, and are back nipping at the Alabama the next day.

Three things drive these men on the high seas, money, mind games and stimulants. The pirates, who can speak English, imposter the Somali Coast Guard, while Phillips, knowing they are listening in, pretends to call in an air strike and later, after the Alabama is boarded, lies about the operational condition of the ship. The Somalis, gaunt, angry and hard to tell apart, all gnaw on a narcotic stimulant known as khat and when offered thirty thousand dollars to just be gone, they laugh and whimsically mention that their last take was six million dollars, to which Phillips asks, “Then why are you doing this?” It’s a good question that unfortunately never gets adequately addressed.

Phillips’s men too, see the whole situation as a transaction and don’t want to take on the task of repelling the pirates (they use a series of high power water cannons) because they’re not getting paid enough and ultimately end up hiding in the hold while Phillips deals with the armed intruders.

There are some intriguing bits of chicanery deployed by Phillips and his crew to stem the pirates, but eventually Phillips ends up in the survival capsule with the armed men and the US Navy on their tail, and that’s where the film breaks down — or goes on too long. It becomes an endless loop of the pirates debating whether to kill Phillips and the Navy eternally searching for the right seam to let loose its mighty hammer. One thing is given : the US will not allow the Somalis to take Phillips ashore alive.

The film based on Phillip’s memoir, “A Captain’s Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea,” has recently come under fire by crew members who claim it’s a gross fictionalization of what really happened. Complaints, too, have come from the company which allegedly sent the Alabama through pirate infested waters as short cut to save on fuel costs.

The recent Danish film “A Hijacking” also covered a similar real-life arc with great palp and soul by burrowing into the lives and motivations of those in peril as well as their captors. Here Greengrass (who registered much respect with his guttural Bourne films) wows with gorgeous oceanic vastness and crisp, taut editing, and Hanks, on his game, conjures up a thespian tempest; yet without the charts and logs to deepen the now, the full force effort labors as much under the weight of its shallow effusiveness.

—- Tom Meek / Meek at the Movies

by hereandsphere

BOSTON MAYOR FINAL : THE ITALIAN VOTE ? YES INDEED

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^ Two Sal’s Two : John Connolly receives the Yes — at Warren Prescott School in Charlestown

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Today at 1:30 PM John Connolly received endorsement from two Sal’s : State Senator Sal DiDomenico, representing Charlestown and parts of Allston-Brighton, and District One City Councillor Sal LaMattina. Aboard the Connolly campaign they join State Representative Carlo Basile of East Boston, former District One Councillor Paul Scapicchio, District Nine Councillor Mark Ciommo, the North End’s State Representative Aaron Michlewitz, Susan Passoni, and top Menino fundraiser Vinnie Marino of Roslindale.

Yes, dear reader, as you can see, there is an “Italian vote” even in supposedly Irish Boston. And it counts. But first, indulge me in a little trip through Boston social history :

1. Voters of Italian name continue to reside, chiefly, in most of the Boston places that their grandparents lived in : much of the North End; half of East Boston; Readville; one precinct of Ward 6 in South Boston; a significant scattering in Roslindale, Fairmount Hill, and West Roxbury; and a tight little area hard by Brighton Center, to which Italians from the region of Frosinone and San Donato came, three generation ago, to work in quarries. They amount to about 14 percent of all Boston voters.

2. Because the ancestors of most Boston voters of Italian name arrived in Boston later than the forbears of most Bostonians of Irish name, voters of Italian name still show some connection to ethnicity.

3. Since voters of Italian name proved strongly outnumbered by those of Irish name, the custom grew in Italian-name neighborhoods of backing for Mayor not an Italian candidate –who was presumed unlikely to win — but an Irish name candidate who would make a deal with the Italian communities — by way of their political leaders. Italian-name voters tended to vote as a family group; and, not knowing particularly well the Irish-name candidates — who almost always lived elsewhere in the city — they followed their leaders’ recommendation. More than once, the “block” vote in Boston’s Italian-resident areas won the Mayor’s office for the Irish name candidate -chosen by those leaders. It was stupendously true in 1959 — when Collins beat Powers -and importantly so in 1967, when Kevin White beat Louise Day Hicks.

Scroll forward again to now. We have John Connolly and Marty Walsh. Walsh lives in Dorchester, far from any Italian-name neighborhood. John Connolly lives in West Roxbury, at opposite remove from most Italian-name sections of the City. It is a very 1959 situation.

Yes, via social media and a flood of news sources almost every italian-name voter of 2013 knows at least something about both men. Yet few voters know them well. In this voting situation, sponsorship by a trusted local leader can still make a difference. One or two such sponsorings might not turn many heads in this the internet era; but six or seven leaders of same heritage banding together — plus an issue; in this case, school reform — surely will turn lots of noggins.

There was an issue in today’s Sal and Sal endorsement. The event took place outside Charlestown’s \Warren Prescott school, and both Sal’s talked of their working together with Connolly on school reform agendas.

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^ LaMattina — Connolly — DiDomenico

Connolly’s band of Italian name pols may even arouse the really BIG Italian name I have yet to mention, a guy you are probably already thinking : Tom Menino, the only Italian-name Mayor that Boston has ever had. What will he do in this election ? Will he do ANY thing at all in it ?

I think that he will. I think that he is already doing it. The events taking place seem to prove that he is involving himself mightily. They cannot be an accident. One endorsement, maybe. Seven ? Not just chance. Menino is indeed involved. And not just among “The Italian vote.”

Did I say “just” the “italian vote” ? It matters a lot more than “just.” Come to the Columbus day Parade this Sunday as it winds through the North end, and you will see much. Come to the after-party at Filippo Restaurant (hosted by Philip Frattaroli, who was a City Council candidate this year). But most of all, think of the families that stand out. In Brighton, Salvucci, Mummolo and Cedrone; in the North End, Passacantilli, Anastasi, Coppola, Anzalone, Langone; in East Boston, Buttiglieri, Aiello, Aloisi, Mangini, Lanzilli, Faretra, Marmo. Readville : Scaccia, LoConte and Pulgini. Fairmount : Pagliarulo and of course Rob Consalvo. From Roslindale, Vadala, Iantosca, and Ferzoco; from West Roxbury, Settana. And the Iannella’s….

So what’s it all add up to ? Pretty basic if you ask me. Yes, the race between Walsh and Connolly is turning into a battle of economic classes (as we all knew it would be). But not every Boston voting bloc identifies by economic class. The “Italian vote’ has almost always — as my list above shows — identified by family and neighborhood. John Connolly is smart to pursue, in this matter, the strategy that won the 1959 race for John Collins and the 1967 race for Kevin White.

Come to think of it, Kevin White looked a lot like Connolly, lived in the same area, pursued a “new Boston vision” just as Connolly is doing, talked the language of “downtown,” and — again like Connolly — came from a family long involved in Boston politics. And had the good sense to court East Boston’s Mario Umana. For the Kevin White of 2013, it’s “so far, so good.” Only 26 days remain until we know if it’s good enough.

Tomorrow : The Walsh strategy

—- Mike Freedberg / Here and Sphere

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^ City Council colleagues : LaMattina and Connolly

by hereandsphere

BOSTON MAYOR : SCHOOL BUS DRIVERS SEND A MESSAGE

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^ no school bus today for 57,000 Boston public school kids

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Marty Walsh must be thinking the election gods have cursed him. On the very morning that he has two important endorsements to announce, the Boston school bus Drivers’ Union stages a walkout and totally steals everybody’s attention. And who is the candidate of school transformation ? To whom parents turn this morning for guidance ? John Connolly. And at his facebook page they find it, comprehensive and helpful.

Yes, Marty Walsh put out a statement condemning the walkout. Of course he did. But so did John Connolly. and while Walsh’s statement said what need saying, Connolly’s added a vision as well as a reason for condemning the walkout. For Walsh, it’s “let’s get back to the task at hand.” For Connolly, it’s “let’s get back to the task at hand because, given the huge achievement gap in our schools, we must do it.” (emphasis added)

Yes, the job that you signed up to do, you need to do. But even more so, there should be a reason, a goal, a mission, that motivates you to do that job. Score a big one for John Connolly.

The School Bus drivers’ walkout really hurts Walsh. His message has been, “look, I’m a union guy, the union folks trust me, they will listen to me.” Maybe some of them will. More likely is that union workers are supporting Walsh not for his sake but for theirs. Today’s job action makes that point clearly enough — as if the huge BPPA arbitration award hadn’t already made it. And what was the huge labor issue that led to the drivers’ work stoppage ? Simply that they object to a GPS mobile application that enables school parents to track a school bus in real time.

For THAT, the drivers disrupt everyone’s day ? Listen, drivers : the rule is that a parent needs to be at her child’s bus stop when the bus arrives, to pick up said child, or else the bus drives off with the child still inside, and then the parent must do a ton of work to find out when the bus will return. If a parent can track that bus in real time, she will be less likely to not be there when the bus arrives at her stop. I don’t think that’s exactly hard for even a driver to figure out.

But enough. The School Bus Drivers not only dinged Marty Walsh badly, they also stole the spotlight from two big endorsements that he received later this morning : Felix Arroyo and John Barros. the Arroyo endorsement was expected. Walsh already has Arroyo’s top advisor, Doug Rubin, guiding him to key parts of Boston’s communities of color. Arroyo’s Dad, Felix D. Arroyo, was a long time ally of Ray Flynn, a candidate from much the same place as Walsh and of much the same support base. (I’ll have more on this subject in a later article.)

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^ John Barros (on the left) : today announces that he supports Marty Walsh for mayor

More surprising is John Barros’ embrace of Walsh. Barros’ education ideas and city vision parallel John Connolly’s almost exactly. So why has he tossed his lot in with Marty Walsh ? I have no hot poop on this issue, but I’m guessing it went something like this :

( 1 ) Barros’ portfolio is education; because Connolly’s theme is education, and his mastery of the issue is so thorough, Barros likely saw no need by Connolly for his advice; whereas with Walsh ? It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the High Schools proposal that Walsh released only two days ago was forged in consultation with Barros. A Walsh administration would have plenty of need for Barros’s education knowledge.
( 2 ) Barros also cares greatly about development of the Dudley Square area. As Walsh’s mantra is the Boston building boom and construction jobs, it would make sense that Barros asked for, and received, specific commitments by Walsh to Barros’s Cape Verdean community that it would get plenty of those construction jobs — and also some construction contracts.

Barros has every right to make the choice he has made. My problem with it is that it undercuts his visionary mission. He has opted for some specific — but small — gains now rather than taking the large, long-term, transforming view with Connolly : a vision that he advocated passionately at numerous Forums. Barros had better hope that he can impart to Marty Walsh and his core advisors some part of the long view that for months he advocated.

If not, he has contradicted himself.

—- Michael Freedberg / Here and Sphere