By the end of February, we’ve reached a point where we’ve broken the habit of writing the wrong year at the top of memos and homework assignments (provided you still know how to use a writing implement to make the characters of the alphabet). It’s also the time where referring to the new year as “new” loses any humorous appeal. March just is… another month in the calendar. It’s the August of the winter months, and it's particularly easy to find yourself disillusioned with the promises a new year brings. All the more reason to get outside and find joy where you can.
Maybe this is the year where you get really into roller derby, or come equipped to your Oscars' watch party armed with sharp commentary and insights about the merits of each short film nominee. It’s always appropriate to stay in to read a book about, say, a late 19th-century murder case, but don’t forget the residual joys of wandering into the gray and stumbling on a club of readers who want to discuss that book with you. It’s ok, I promise.
Oscar-nominated shorts
Various venues, days and times
Coolidge Corner Theatre Matinee $14.25; adults $16.25; Coolidge members and students $13.25; children and seniors $14.25
ICA Boston Members $5; nonmembers $10
Somerville Theatre Matinee $10; general admission $14; seniors $10
West Newton Cinema Matinee $10; seniors $10; children $10; evening $12
Watching the Oscar-nominated shorts (animated, live action, documentary), will undoubtedly give you an edge in your low-stakes Oscars' pool come ceremony night. But each year, these fifteen shorts (that many of us otherwise may have missed) turn up some absolute gold. Or, in the case of mischievous Catholic boarding school students, a rare war-time dessert.
From The Vault Collections Showing: Women in Cartography
Friday Mar. 3, 2:00 - 4:00 p.m.
BPL Central Library in Copley Square, Boston
Free
The Leventhal Map & Education Center’s biweekly collections showing, From the Vault, is shifting into Women’s History Month with this presentation of maps and other cartographic delights developed and made by women creators. The center houses thousands upon thousands of objects, “a quarter million," by their reckoning, which means that a good chunk of them won’t get their time to shine during more curated exhibitions. All the more reason to sharpen your sense of place and direction in this world.
Celebrity Series of Boston Jazz Festival
Artists For Humanity EpiCenter, Boston
Mar. 8 - 11
Tickets start at $19
For the second year, Celebrity Series of Boston is returning to the night via a pop-up jazz club in Southie’s Artists For Humanity EpiCenter. You’ll have your pick of music for four nights, with sets by Chilean tenorwoman Melissa Aldana, Cambridge native Nnenna Freelon and Ambrose Akinmusire — whose quartet is joined by guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel.
Boston Roller Derby Season Opener
Saturday, Mar. 11
4:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m.
Shriners Auditorium, Wilmington
Free for kids under 6; children $8; adult general admission $16
Sport is an incredible feature of society. We cheer on our spiritual proxies on the field or pitch or rink, our bound spirits rising in victory and sinking in defeat. And sure, we sometimes invest a lot of that emotional energy in pros who make astronomical sums, but there’s no reason we can’t translate that same enthusiasm to the world of amateur sport. Or specifically, roller derby. Keep the modern revival of the sport going and support your squad as the Boston Roller Derby suits up for a new season. The opening bout will be presented in partnership with the North Shore Alliance of GLBTQ+ Youth.
Coro Allegro presents 'Fanfares'
Sunday, Mar. 12, 3 p.m.
Church of the Covenant, Boston
Tickets start at $25. Mass Cultural Council's Card to Culture discount-eligible.
Coro Allegro is in Birthday-mode this month, celebrating the centennial of Daniel Pinkham and the 150th anniversary of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Joined by tenor Matthew DiBattista and organist Heinrich Christensen, the choir will perform Pinkham’s "Fanfares" and "Christmas Cantata" (Sinfonia Sacra); as well as Vaughan Williams’s "Mass in G minor." Also prepared is a Boston premiere — "Shawn Crouch’s Paradise," a 12-part motet that incorporates the poetry and interpretive work of Hafez, Sholeh Wolpé and Iraq War veteran Brian Turner.
Blood & Ivy: The 1894 Murder That Scandalized Harvard
Wednesday, Mar. 15, 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Charlotte and William Bloomberg Medford Public Library
Free
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. John White Webster is one of those criminal court cases that may not carry name recognition like a Madison v. Marbury or Miranda v. Arizona, but that doesn’t diminish its historical reverberations. The legal proceedings surrounding the disappearance/murder of Dr. George Parkman led us to new understandings about forensic evidence and its use in the courtroom. It’s also the subject of the Medford Historical Society’s upcoming Book Club, so you’d better catch up.
Andrés Di Tella: Archives and Memory
Friday, Mar. 24, 7 p.m. (Photographs)
Friday, Mar. 24, 9:45 p.m. (Under Construction)
Monday, Mar. 27, 7 p.m. (Diaries)
General admission $15
Argentine filmmaker and Harvard Center for Latin American Studies visiting professor Andrés di Tella will have several of his films screened during this two-day program presented by the Harvard Film Archive. Included are 2007’s "Photographs," an autobiographical documentary exploring his relationship to this Indian mother; and 2000’s "Under Construction" (or, "The Place I was Born No Longer Exists"), an experiment in image that asks the audience to consider the destruction of familiar structures and the erection of new ones. The neighborhood isn’t the neighborhood, anymore.
Lizzie Stark at Harvard Book Store
Friday, Mar. 31, 7 p.m.
Harvard Book Store, Cambridge
Free
Yes, eggs are expensive, and yes — media-types and aspirational comedians will continue to beat you over the head with uvular-related puns. But why wouldn’t they? The incredible, edible egg is a staple of diets all over the world; a protein source that is ancient and affordable. Author Lizzie Stark has written the book on that cultural history. It’s called "Egg: A Dozen Ovatures," and she’s pulling up to the Harvard Book Store to discuss the humble egg’s spiritual, culinary and artistic influence.
