Category: Arts & Culture

  • TALKING BACK: A Critical Dialogue On Spirituality Part III

    Jacques Fleury Spare Change News “Just for today, do not worry Just for today, do not anger, Honor your parents, teachers and elders. Earn your living hon- estly. Show gratitude to everything”. -Dr. Mikao Usui I have written about how my mother helped to create my own reality, hence my own identity. Now I will…

  • Love, Lies, & Broken Dreams

    Marc D. Goldfinger Spare Change News There is no sense of time here. Have I been in the Troll’s basement for 30 days? Or has it been 30 years? The other junk- ies who dropped in here today tell me that it is raining outside. They say it has been raining for days now. It…

  • Sol Y Canto: Latin roots music to change the world

    Nakia Hill Spare Change News The Amador family of Cambridge has a lot to be thankful for this coming New Year. First, the dynamic duo of Sol Y Canto and their 15-year-old twin daughters, Alisa and Sonia, recently released the audio recording of Lola’s Fandango, published by Barefoot Books. Second, they’ve had numerous performances, including…

  • The Arts Maven: A selective guide to free events in Greater Boston

    By David Fillingham New England Conservatory: Free Concerts Date: December 1, 2011- 6:30 PM Price: Free Location: Williams Hall Here’s more than a bunch of symphonies and songs. Even those are not what you think. And although the music stopped with his death in 1911—100 years later, his time is now. During four months of…

  • A Holocaust of Toads

    By Doug Holder As boys- we dropped rocks a flurry of bomblets on a passing phalanx of toads. Commanders for once free from the clamp of parental constraint punch drunk with the notion of our control of fate life death. And like mini Dr. Mengeles, we experimented stuffing firecrackers down their twitching throats and watched…

  • Learning from the Sixties: A Talk with John Maher

    Learning from the Sixties: A Talk with John Maher

    A new book, Learning From The Sixties: Memoir Of An Organizer, is intended to pass on the lessons learned along the way by anti-Vietnam War activist and political organizer John Maher, a longtime Cambridge resident, to a new generation. In the book, Maher describes his journey from student activist, a leader of the New Left,…

  • Poetry: Westwood Lodge, 1980–1990

    Westwood Lodge, 1980–1990 By Sarah Hanna And then again, you go west, to that perennial Resort at the end of the bending street, row of pines, Where Sexton strolled through noon, made mocassins, And danced in a circle: the Summer Hotel. Why every tumid season, cicadas burning blue, Beetles mounting one another, chewing all the…

  • Tales from the Wandering: Stories based on the lives of the homeless in Boston

    Tales from the Wandering Stories based on the lives of the homeless in Boston Spotting Your Own Skin For the better part of the next ten years, the Black Smoke stayed within orbit around a variety of couches and TV screens in the tristate area. In the beginning, he’d pour out of the room and…

  • Poetry At Occupy Boston

    Following this short piece is a poem I read at Occupy Boston Poetry. As I walked into the camping area I was impressed at the organization of the occupation. The people had a logistics tent, a media tent and a staging area where they would hold meetings and entertainment. It was truly an honor to…

  • Homeless and Housed Populations Unified by Common Art

    [img_assist|nid=291|title=A Common Artist at Work|desc=Photo curtesy of http://www.ecclesia-ministries.org/common_art.html|link=none|align=center|width=640|height=480] Summertime on Newbury Street beckons tourists and locals to stroll the sidewalks and admire the bright patterns of the season. Propped up in front of historic Emmanuel Church is a display of art for sale, featuring paintings of a field of colorful poppies, a contemporary geometric design,…