2015 People & Events
I used to keep a running record of cool stuff that happened during the year, people I met and events I attended, which is a nice way to look back and remember that I do, in fact, live in my favourite city in the country. I'll add more as I remember it.
People - Lectures, panels, etc.
Writers
Neil Gaiman - Boston Book Festival
Amanda Palmer - Boston Book Festival
Kelly Link - Boston Book Festival
Emily St. John Mandel - Boston Book Festival
Joyce Carol Oates - Harvard Book Store
Artists
Kate Beaton - Harvard Book Store
STEM
Neil De Grasse Tyson - Science in the Movies - Wilbur Theatre
Bill Nye - StarTalk - Citi Performing Arts Center
Everyone in this year's Ig Nobels (I was part of the stage crew), but especially Yoshiro Nakamatsu, aka Dr. NakaMats
Law/Social/Political
Mary Bonauto [1]
Jean Chatzky
Events - Concerts, panels, etc.
Music
Postmodern Jukebox - Wilbur Theatre
Joanna Newsom - Orpheum Theatre
Boston Pops - Nosferatu, a Symphony of Terror, with Berkleey School of Music - Symphony Hall [2]
A Shout Across Time - Celebrating Einstein - Cambridge Science Festival
The Harvard Christmas Revels (Wales) - Sanders Theatre
Radio/Podcast
Wait Wait Don't Tell Me - Wang Theatre
Post-Meridian Radio Players - Monster in the Mirror Halloween radio show [3]
Art
Strandbeests exhibition in the Boston garden
Open Studios - citywide art gallery open house events - Cambridge, Somerville, South End, Fort Point
Dutch masters exhibit (Rembrandt, Vermeer, others) - Museum of Fine Arts
Francisco Goya - Museum of Fine Arts
Arlene Shechet - Institute of Contemporary Art
Sonic Arboretum - Ian Schneller & Andrew Bird - Institute of Contemporary Art
Ragnar Kjartansson - "The Visitors" - Institute of Contemporary Art
Smithsonian's Hirshorn Modern Art Museum - Marvelous Objects: surrealism from Paris to New York [8]
STEM
Science By the Pint - open lectures by Harvard/MIT professors [4]
Harvard Engineering School's Science and Cooking lecture series
CafeSci lecture series- PBS Nova - [5]
Engadget [6]
Theatre
Shit-faced Shakespeare - A Midsummer Night's Dream - Davis Theatre
A Taste of Honey - Boston Centre for American Performance
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike - Huntington Theatre [7]
Picasso at the Lupin Agile - Arsenal For the Arts
My Fair Lady - Arsenal For the Arts
Is He Dead? - Vokes Theatre
The Slutcracker - Somerville Theatre
Musical Theatre
UFG winter Cabaret series - "Musical Theatre's Greatest Flops and Failures" - UFORGE Gallery
Beatiful: The Carole King Musical - Boston Opera House
Kinky Boots - Boston Opera House
Waitress - A.R.T, the American Repertory Theatre
Matilda - Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts
Misc
The Library of Congress [9]
Footnotes
[1] this was a month after the SCOTUS marriage equality ruling. I went up to her, shook her hand, and said "thank you for taking care of us." We also took a picture together to send to my friends, one of whom is in law, whose marriage is now legal. Congrats!)
[2] Some background on Nosferatu: it was created without permission from the Bram Stoker estate, which sued and had all copies of the film destroyed. However, one survived, so we're still able to view this masterpiece today. The musical score for this silent film was also lost, which is why so many composers have written their own musical scores. The Berklee College of Music's film scoring class wrote one such composition, which was performed the night before Halloween by the Boston Pops. It was spectacular.
[3] they performed "Dr. Jekyll and Ms Hyde" and "The Frankenstein Murders". I liked this group because they changed the canon text to include more women. They contemplated having women read the roles while keeping male pronouns but then decided in the end that it was important to create major roles for women in classic literature, which are notably absent.
[4] One of the best lectures was held in conjunction with Cambridge Science Festival's "Celebrating Einstein." We gathered at the cavernouse warehouse-like Aeronaut Brewery for a lecture on gravitational waves. Dr. Scott Hughes and his lab from the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research set up huge speakesr and played for us the sounds of gravitational waves produced by black holes, both individually and in their interactions with other celestial bodies. The whole place echoed with the eerie sound of black holes clashing with each other and altering the paths of comets. It was incredible.
[5] On Valentine's Day, with another snowstorm on the way the next day, we forded the snowdrifts to hear Dr. Anne Pringle discuss her research on the poisonous death cap mushroom. At our post-lecture dinner at Abigails, we learned the special for the night was wild mushroom pasta. Of course we had to get it. I could also make a lot of Hannibal jokes at this juncture.
[6] kind of disappointing this year - instead of a tradeshow, they made it a party, which no one wanted. Smaller space, loud music, too much crowding, not as many cool giveaways. I did get to control a drone and ride an electric longboard.
[7] we went out to see this after dark on the coldest night that winter. (relatively cold, maybe -17F/-27C, but it felt colder due to wind chill.) The train stations near symphony hall are tricky. Opposite trains don't run parallel to each other, so stations on either side of the street don't take you separate ways, like you would expect. We forgot that: that's how we got stuck at 11pm at an outside train station stop, with nothing to shield us from the wind, for almost 20 minutes. We went to see a Chekov-themed play, and then we lived it.
[8] Included works from Marcel DuChamp, Salvadore Dali, Man Ray. Museum includes the gorgeous "The Healer" by Rene Magritte.
[9] I got a library card! The world is my oyster.