Maple syrup festivals, massacre reenactments, and more events this weekend
By: Jim Martinho - Thursday, Mar 5, 2015 - 2:32pm
(Photo credit: Chiot’s Run/Creative Commons)
The clocks on our phones and cable boxes will spring forward Saturday night, which means one fewer hour to party or sleep or hurry up and finish House of Cards so we can finally talk about it. That still leaves plenty of time this weekend to do your civic duty, see history reenacted, or stop by some free festivals.
* Remember when the T stopped running at like midnight even on weekends and everybody complained about it? And then they extended the hours, and it was awesome? Now it could all go away, if we let it. Come to tonight’s Boston City Council Hearing on Late Night MBTA Service to share your thoughts on whether it should be extended past the June 19th pilot end date. Or do nothing and in a few months read that the program’s ending and make some cheap joke on Twitter like “This is why we can’t have nice things, Boston” and yeah I’ll probably RT and add #CityThatAlwaysSleeps and we’ll both have a good laugh but we won’t have late-night service on all T lines and key bus routes. 3.5. 6p. FREE
* Live theatre? That’s way too fancy and expensive — the “-re” spelling tipped you off, might as well spell it with two dollar signs, England. But if you look around a little you can find plays that sound cool and hip and not at all weird and Shakespeare-y, and ticket prices will still leave you some beer money. Featuring the musical mayhem of Walter Sickert and the Broken Toys, Company One Theatre’s new production of Shockheaded Peter takes you into a world of Victorian steamCRUNK nightmares as a manic music box spins stories of — you know what, I could go on but you probably already made up your mind on this based on your reaction to the phrase “Victorian steamCRUNK.” Score student tickets for $15, or if you finally lost/aged out of your college ID, check out pay-what-you-can performances (at least $6) the next two Sundays. The play runs through April 4. 3.6. 8p. $15-38
* Every March, the Museum of Science’s Free Film Fridays program offers free admission to IMAX films at the Mugar Omni Theater (there’s that familiar “-er” spelling, America!) If you’re going to ruin your childhood memories because the Omni can never be as cool as when you were in second grade before you got all jaded about everything, you might as well do it for free. The current lineup features films on the Galapagos Islands, the mystery of the Mayans, and humpback whales, which seem like the same three Omni films they were showing when I was 8, but that can’t be right. 3.6. Various times. FREE
* Find & Form Space hosts a one-night showing of His Room As He Left It: A Work in Progress, an immersive, sculptural narrative by Ariel Kotker consisting of the room and belongings of a fictional 19-year-old boy in a small town in Pennsylvania. Convincing at first glance, the room becomes surreal as visitors piece together the details of the boy’s life through journal entries, trophies, and yes, even his “girly magazines.” It’s like a detailed, revealing museum exhibit about someone who didn’t really exist and even if did he lived a boring and inconsequential life…is what a cynical Negative Nancy who doesn’t get art would say about it. 3.6. 6p. FREE
* Sure, we’re supposed to be getting ready for spring and maple syrup seems like a vaguely fall/winter-ish condiment, but at my house it’s waffle season all year round, baby. Groundwork Somerville and the Somerville Maple Syrup Project collect sap from local sugar maple trees all winter, culminating inSaturday’s Maple Syrup Boil Down Festival near Union Square, featuring taste tests, live music, prizes and more. Hopefully someone will point out a tree they tapped from so you can say “Yeah, I’d tap that!” and I won’t tell anyone you stole my joke, as long as you don’t tell anyone I stole it from an episode of My Grandmother’s Ravioli with Mo Rocca. 3.7. 10a. FREE
* Saturday marks the 245th anniversary of the Boston Massacre, and probably the 244th anniversary of a lazy sportswriter invoking the term to describe a lopsided victory involving a team from Boston. The Old State House hosts an anniversary celebration and reenactment with family-friendly activities all day, leading up to the reenactment of the massacre in the very area it took place. Then we’ll all get drunk and write letters to those wimps in Philadelphia saying, “Look, we know you’d rather be British, but they’re killing people in the streets up here. Let’s get this revolution going. We’ll even come to your place to sign the papers.” 3.7. 7p. FREE
* The nice thing about the Chinese New Year is it happened like a month ago but we’re still celebrating. The lion dance parade in Chinatown was last weekend, and Sunday’s Chinese New Year in Harvard Square celebration keeps the party going with dragon dances and a parade from the square to the Hong Kong. The three-story restaurant and nightclub, recently named one of the best bad decision bars in America and no not just because of that one thing you did with that one person there one time, goes family-friendly for the occasion with arts and crafts, performances, and lantern riddles. 3.8. 12p. FREE