If your organization is planning an event of any kind, please email Caitlin at crockett@boulderweekly.com.
EVENTS
‘Murder 1974: Fangs for the Memories,’ an Interactive Virtual Mystery. 7 p.m. Feb. 4, 6, 25 and 26. Price: $30 (one ticket required for one computer, no limit on viewers), rockymountainmurdermysteries.com
Gerald Ford is president, and the dust of Watergate has begun to settle. The American involvement in Vietnam has ended, and things are returning to “normal” in America — or are they? What evil presence is murdering the guests of the Bluebird Lodge? Perhaps some ancient creature of darkness has arrived on Gold Hill? Join your family or friends across the continent for a romp through the 1970s, solving a crime story, unraveling a whodunit and competing with others to figure out the secrets that unfold in ‘Murder 1974: Fangs for the Memories.’
Tara High School presents: ‘Pride and Prejudice’ by Jane Austen, adapted by Jon Jory. Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 6 and 7. Tickets are $15, tarahighschool.org/tickets.html
Please join Tara High School’s 11th grade theater students in this visually innovative, character-driven adaptation of Jane Austen’s beloved novel of manners, first impressions and the art of changing one’s mind. Recordings of both casts’ performances will be streaming online from Saturday, Feb. 6 at 2:30 p.m. through midnight on Sunday, Feb. 7. Tickets can be purchased for the streaming via Eventbrite, and a link will be provided.
‘Scrooge: Bah Humbug!’ Through March 14, Jesters Dinner Theatre, 224 Main St., Longmont. Price: $25-$43, jesterstheatre.com
COVID may have postponed but it can’t stop this musical version of the holiday classic A Christmas Carol, which Jesters has been performing annually for more than 20 years. Audience seating will be limited. Masks are required when not seated at your table.
Julie Macfarlane — ‘Going Public,’ with Sasha Brietzke. 5 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 10, via Zoom. Tickets are $5, boulderbookstore.net.
In this clear-eyed account, Julie Macfarlane confronts her own silence and deeply rooted trauma to chart a remarkable course from sexual abuse victim to agent of change. Going Public merges the worlds of personal and professional, activism and scholarship. Drawing upon decades of legal training, Macfarlane decodes the well-worn methods used by church, school and state to silence survivors, from first reporting to cross-examination to non-disclosure agreements. Macfarlane describes the isolation and exhaustion of going public in her own life, as she takes her abuser to court, challenges her colleagues and weathers a defamation lawsuit. Macfarlane will be in conversation with Sasha Brietzke for this virtual event.
Boulder Public Libraries presents BeeChicas: Interested in beekeeping? 4 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 10, via YouTube or Facebook Live, calendar.boulderlibrary.org/event/7450963
Drop into this round table conversation for a quick look at what it would take to get started in beekeeping. The BeeChicas will discuss time commitments, cost and how to find a mentor. Set attainable goals like signing up for beekeeping classes, reading three beekeeping books and joining a local bee club.
PODCASTS
New problems are better than old ones
‘Build For Tomorrow’ proves that no problem is new
An upcoming episode of Jason Feifer’s podcast Build For Tomorrow was inspired after he ordered a to-go cocktail from Rosetta Hall in Boulder on New Year’s Eve.
“It just got me thinking: How did that happen?” he explains over the phone. “Like, how did we go very quickly from not being able to get to-go alcohol to being able to get to-go alcohol? And why was that illegal in the first place?”
Feifer, the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur magazine, is “obsessed with how change happens.” It’s the driving quest behind Build For Tomorrow, where Feifer uses historical documents and expert interviews to dig deep into humanity’s history of fear-mongering and mythmaking. Sifting back through time, Feifer proves again and again that almost no problem on Earth is new: We’ve always feared new technology (“A bicycle is dangerous,” the New York Times declared in 1880; 22 years earlier the paper claimed the telegraph was “too fast for the truth”); our delirium over substance use long predates prohibition of alcohol or marijuana (coffee was banned and bad-mouthed by kings, sultans and businessmen across the globe for 500 years out of fear that it stimulated radical thought); every election is the “most important election of our lifetime”; and nostalgia has long clouded our vision of when, exactly, were “the good old days” (incredibly, Thomas Jefferson felt wistful for the age of Anglo-Saxons who roamed Earth 700 years before he was born).
“Modern human behavior (abstract thinking, art, blade tools) began 50,000 years ago, and we think we are so special that the small fragment of time in which we all are alive is the time in which everything changes,” Feifer says. “I suppose it’s possible, but it is statistically unlikely. So what is happening here? Why are we doing this? Why do we think every new technology will end civilization and that every new generation is worse than the last? And, more importantly, are we harming ourselves by constantly thinking that there’s danger where there’s no danger? And the answer I found is yes, it genuinely slows innovation.”
But all is not lost. Hope is the overall message Feifer wants to send, which is part of why the podcast recently rebranded after a number of years under the moniker Pessimists Archive, a collaboration with digital archivist Louis Anslow.
“We had to do what we’re always preaching about,” Feifer says, “and that’s change.”
Without stooping to tired cliches or preaching to the choir, Build For Tomorrow suggests that fear and uncertainty don’t have to be never-ending loops into each other — with some focus (and maybe a few history lessons), we can embrace change and find paths to opportunity.
“The stories that we tell ourselves about progress are often incorrect,” Feifer says. “A lot of the things that we think are totally unique to us are not unique to us, and despite whatever challenges you see and experience, you have an opportunity to create something better out of that. But that has to start by having a real, clear-eyed, sober understanding of the problems in front of you instead of the problems as you’re told they are.”
What to listen to next: The podcasts Jason Feifer can’t get enough of
‘Richard’s Famous Food Podcast’
Richard Parks III — a James Beard Award-nominated writer, filmmaker and cookbook author — hosts this Gastropod-meets-Rick-and-Morty project. A running narrative between anthropomorphic pickles weaves between the histories of foods and culinary trends. “There’s no way to explain it,” Feifer says. “Just go listen — it’s amazing.”
‘Everything is Alive’
Former Fresh Air with Terry Gross producer Ian Chillag created this much beloved show that interviews inanimate objects. “They do just the most exquisite job of thinking through what the perspective on life would be if you were a bar of soap or a subway seat,” Feifer says. “It’s just charming and thoughtful and weirdly human. I can’t get enough of it”.
‘StartUp’
Alex Blumberg documented the creation of his internationally successful podcast company Gimlet for the first season of StartUp. “He recorded stuff that you just never hear,” Feifer says. “He recorded his conversation with his co-founder about their equity split, he recorded their very uncomfortable fumbling pitches with their investors. I’ve never heard anything like it.”
ART
In memoriam: Mary K. (Polly) Addison (1935-2021)
Local artist supported the Dairy from the beginning
Polly Addison, local artist, CU Boulder alumna and namesake of one of the Dairy Art Center’s galleries, died on Jan. 11.
Addison was involved with the Dairy since it formed in 1992, helping with fundraisers, working on the visual arts committee and serving on the board.
“A few months into our board term, I found Polly outside the Dairy picking up cigarette butts and other trash,” Deborah Malden, who served with Addison on the board, wrote in a statement for the 2019 exhibit The Unknown Polly Addison. “I asked Polly what she was doing. After all, the Dairy had paid staff who surely could help keep the place clean. Polly shared that, ‘If board members failed to treat the Dairy as we would our own homes, how could we expect the rest of the community to support it?’”
When the Dairy had trouble paying a bill in the early days, visual arts curator Jessica Kooiman Parker says Addison stepped in to pay.
“She was known for things like that,” Kooiman Parker told Boulder Weekly in 2019.
Addison curated what was likely the Dairy’s first exhibition of “new media art” in the early 2000s.
“Some of the shows she curated were really cutting edge,” Kooiman Parker told BW. “Net Art was all based on work created about the internet, and this was in 2003, fairly early for technological art to be highlighted. I think that’s really telling about her and her character and how contemporary she was.”
Addison’s own work ranged from hyper-realistic pen and ink drawings to whimsical oil paintings and pastel studies that highlight the artist’s technical proficiency across a range of media. Her art often captured familial bonds and histories in unexpected, thought-provoking ways.
To read more about the life and work of Polly Addison, revisit the BW article detailing the 2019 show in her honor (Arts & Culture, “The name on the wall,” June 6, 2019), and visit the Dairy’s website: https://bit.ly/3j8Vhu1
ART AROUND THE COUNTY
What’s New From Shark’s Ink. Through March 31, 15th Street Gallery, 1708 15th St., Boulder, 15thstreetgalleryboulder.com
An exhibition featuring recent work by distinguished artists, such as Enrique Chagoya, made in collaboration with master printer Bud Shark, of Shark’s Inc. in Lyons. Call the gallery to schedule a viewing time: 303-447-2841.
Lyudmila Agrich. Feb. 5-March 5, Smith Klein Gallery, 1116 Pearl St., Boulder, smithklein.com
Using an impasto style (thick application of paint), Lyudmila Agrich has developed her own impressionistic style, with entrancing textures that create mesmerizing optical illusions.
Elizabeth Morisette: Fiber Art From Upcycled Materials, presented by Handweavers Guild of Boulder. 10 a.m. Monday, Feb. 8; 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 9, via Zoom. This event is free. Please email programs@handweaversofboulder.org for Zoom access information.
Elizabeth Morisette has been exhibiting her weavings and sculptures for 25 years, often featuring repurposed materials. Morisette will discuss her basketry work, as well as her community engagement work.
‘FROM THIS DAY FORWARD.’ Feb. 11- May 31, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (BMoCA), 1750 13th St., Boulder, bmoca.org
Paula Gasparini-Santos, Past, Present, Future (detail), acrylic on canvas, 2019, 36” x 48”. Courtesy of the artist.
This exhibition, guest curated by Tya Alisa Anthony, is an invitation to consider the exhibiting artists’ responses to our current reality. Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art encourages visitors to move through the galleries while thinking critically about where we see ourselves going. FROM THIS DAY FORWARD questions systemic injustice and suggests new ways of thinking about creating an inclusive, thoughtful society.
