La Luz with Color Green

Friday 4/18, The Southern Cafe and Music Hall With the release of News of the Universe in 2024, guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter Shana Cleveland led her band, La Luz, to deeper levels of previously staked-out musical terrain. What began in 2012 as a surfy, twanged-out Seattle quartet with ‘60s girl-group leanings has evolved into a […]

Cowboy Junkies

Tuesday 4/15 & Wednesday 4/16, The Jefferson Theater Any music act that’s been writing, recording, and touring over the course of 40 years deserves respect. For Cowboy Junkies, the unwavering dedication to their craft equates to more than 20 studio records and countless other contributions to a pioneering style of what jerks like me in […]

Sweetheart of the Rodeo Valentine’s Day Dance

Friday 2/14, Fry’s Spring Beach Club Got any clothing in your wardrobe with musical notes on it? How about a handkerchief you like wearing around your neck? A partner who loves to try new things? No plans for Valentine’s Day? If you’ve answered yes to any or all of the above, this event could be […]

The best reasons to have left the couch in 2024

It’s all too easy to get disgruntled about some of the usual entertainment in a tight town like ours—that is, if you close your eyes and ears too tightly and just stay home all the time. Here are some of the events that made me glad I got my ass off of the couch. Please […]

David Cross is good at what he does, and he likes doing it

Comedian, actor, and writer David Cross is a recognizable face thanks to still-fresh classics like ’90s HBO sketch show “Mr. Show” and the sitcom “Arrested Development,” as well as more recent roles such as that of Sy Grossman on Netflix’s “The Umbrella Academy.” Decades ago, Cross earned a core of devoted Gen X fans, and […]

An otherwise brilliant version of The Scottish Play

“We do it with the lights on,” says The American Shakespeare Center’s Blackfriars Playhouse website about its use of “universal lighting.” So right up front you know that whatever you see in its elegant, woody environs will take place with the house lights aglow.  Understandably, in its staunch attempt to maintain historical accuracy wherever possible, […]

Animal diversions: Creature titles we rescued from the canceled VA book fest

If you’re doing what you’re supposed to do (please say yes), you’re just staying home. For many of us, that means fattening comfort food and boozy evenings binge watching “Tiger King.” Though it’s unquestionably difficult to watch Joe Exotic’s mistreatment of the majestic creatures he’s bred and trapped into an unnatural life, the great cats […]

In Living Black and White—with Shades of Gray: Colorless Expression Proves Lively in Second Street Gallery’s “She’s in Monochrome”

What do we really see when hues are subdued, diminished, or deleted outright? Tough question. If you’re like me—colorblind—that’s kind of how you go through life. Art’s power when deprived of its full spectrum of possibility is difficult to gauge, since most of us who live the difference are simply born this way and have […]

What we do is secret: Private symbologies emerge at Second Street Gallery

Brooklyn multimedia artist Tamara Santibañez, one of the seven featured in Second Street Gallery’s group show “Subculture Shock: Death, Punk, & the Occult in Contemporary Art,” was recently quoted in The New York Times about Latinx artists’ use of family history and heritage. She explained that though her art represents her interests in aggressive underground […]