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News from Central Square

My employer has just rolled out its latest venture, Lisensa, which allows bloggers to set licensing terms for republishing their content and collect $. We've already gotten one pretty positive writeup - from Plagiarism Today, no less. Scroll down that lefthand rail of this page and you'll find the Lisensa logo, which will link you to a page where you can find out the rules for reprinting HubArts. And yes, I know the logo is cut off, we're working on it.

Everybody is a star

From the AP: "CANBERRA, Australia - Scientists announced Monday that they have developed a high-tech T-shirt that turns the strumming of an air guitar into music." Full story.

It's the art, stupid

A couple of interesting Globe stories this morning tracking interesting new intersections of art and philanthropy. Here is an editorial about the Artadia nonprofit, which provides direct support to worthy artists and is expanding its operations to Boston. "It's a crucial move, a rejection of the dreamy and misguided stereotype that being cash-strapped and unknown is romantic or good for the artist, the arts, or the culture," the Globe says. And here is a feature about painters in Maine lending their talents to a fund-raising effort to add land to Baxter State Park, including a lake that offers a much-painted vista. (There's also a slide show.)

FBI's Most Wanted Movie Fan

Oh, come on, you knew Whitey was going to have to see how Jack played him, right?

Patrick's day

It will be interesting to see how the arts community fares under Gov. Deval Patrick - whether that email we all got from Kitty Dukakis really meant something. He did manage to mention the "creative economy" in his victory speech. But that term includes everything from ad agencies to dotcoms. We'll see. ... The Exhibitionist tips some info about Patrick's arts background that the Weekly Dig actually dug up a couple of weeks ago - Patrick's estranged father played with Sun Ra! How cool is that?

Jazz is Sovereign at Berklee

The Sovereign Bank Music Series brings the funk to Berklee Thursday night with Eguie Castrillo and Friends: Latin Meets Jazz, featuring an 18-piece band, at the Berklee Performance Center at 8:15. Tix are $15. Call 617-931-2000 or visit ticketmaster.com. Expect guest vocalist Didi Stewart, up and comer drummer Pablo Pena and versions of "Caravan" and "A Night in Tunisia." The Sovereign series also brings in big name Marcus Miller for a Dec. 8 performance with two student groups he'll rehearse all that week.

Next: Cooking borscht with the cast of "Mother Courage"

Local cultural groups are truly doing everything they can to get people in the door in these difficult times. Maybe it's just coincidence, but after blogging about the "Fashion Show" exhibit at the MFA and savoring the starmaker machinery of KeithLockhart.com, I was amused to get an email from the BSO saying they're expanding their popular "Repartee" series for 20- and 30somethings to include a new set of events for "mature singles." They're calling it the Bolero series, in homage to Ravel's signature work and perhaps its use in the film "10," which those old enough to remember know as sort of an "American Pie" for the "mature singles" set.

From the release: This November, the Boston Symphony Orchestra launches Bolero, a new concert series catering to culturally savvy singles over 40.  Three specially designed evenings will provide an opportunity for local singles to mix and mingle with fellow music enthusiasts over drinks and hors d’oeuvres in an exclusive pre-concert reception.  Bolero subscribers also enjoy an insider’s preview of the evening’s concert by a guest speaker from the BSO community.  Guest speakers will offer a unique perspective on the evening’s musical offerings for both seasoned concertgoers and newcomers alike.  The customized series offers the chance to see an international array of renowned conductors including Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, and André Previn.  Additional benefits for Bolero subscribers include reserved event parking and discounts at select restaurants, hotels, and retailers throughout Boston.

Bolero subscribers can purchase tickets singly or in a three-concert package. For more information on the Bolero Series, contact the subscription office at 617-266-7575 or 888-266-7575. Maybe you'll meet someone you want to give that Keith Lockhart heart keychain.

Dressed for success

I tried to work up some indignation about "Fashion Show," I really did. No doubt one or two voices will be raised against the MFA exhibit, subtitled "Paris Collections 2006," which runs Nov. 12-March 18. Like previous shows on cars and guitars and Bill Koch's toys, it will likely be criticized as a misuse of the museum's resources for an exhibit of dubious artistic merit, an unabashed play for a blockbuster audience.

If such criticism comes, the MFA won't be shy about answering. I briefly interviewed curator Pamela Parmal for the Improper Boston's fall preview and she staunchly defended the artistic merits of haute couture in general and the show in particular; at the press preview Friday afternoon, Malcolm Rogers cheerfully placed "Fashion Show" in the "tradition" of those other controversial exhibits. Exhibits that bring a lot of new people to the MFA and, at least in Koch's case, may help bring in large new donations.

There are merits to both sides; perhaps by natural inclination, I tend to lean toward the complainers. No matter what anyone says, fashion at this level is a business that happens to include some artistic expression, not the other way around. But after hearing the speakers and walking through the galleries on Friday,  I found I couldn't work up any outrage.

At the risk of sounding like one of Andy Rooney's semi-coherent "60 Minutes" grumbles, what I thought was that the whole thing just seems ...silly.

Sure, there are beautiful and occasionally sublime clothes here, from fashion houses including Christian Lacroix, Christian Dior, Valentino and Yohji Yamamoto. The picture on the front of the Globe today gives you a nice taste of that. And it would be willfully ignorant to carp about the vast gap between what the models wear on the runway and what anyone ever actually dons in real life.

But hey, let's be philistine. There's enough comically "arty" clothing in the show to bring on the kind of ridicule normally reserved for works from the Saatchi collection.

Azzadine Alaia's Mongolian goat-fur jackets look like Dr. Seuss characters or perhaps Cousin It from the "Addams Family." The material is exquisite, the effect hilarious. Hussein Chalayan offers a jacket with an "armrest collar" that looks like one of those neck pillows you see in the gadget catalogs. The exhibit's attempt to reproduce this year's Paris experience means that the mannequins modeling Viktor & Rolf designs wear mesh masks, just like the runway models; the wall text failed to  convince me this is anything other than misogynist kink.

Mason Martin Margiela's conceptual designs of recycled material include a "waistcoat" made entirely of buckles and straps from old leather sandals - it looks like a bondage harness assembled by someone with profound schizophrenia. Funny in a different way were the frizzy designs by Galliano for Dior which reference 1789 and include images of skeletons. Ah, such chuckling irony. Enough to make me pine for the return of the guillotine.

I'd like to say these are the exceptions to the very lovely rule. But like Damien Hirst's frozen goats, they're the cutting edge, dividing those in the know from those who just don't get it. If you want to be part of the fun, you've got to nod thoughtfully at their deep artistic meanings or be thought a reactionary. Perhaps if I'd stayed for the Champagne I would have been seduced.

No doubt there is a profound discussion to be had over the form, function and purpose of haute couture, the standards by which it should be judged, the reasons it should be exhibited at the MFA. And the fate of my own  industry in recent years has made me somewhat more sympathetic to Rogers' efforts to attract a wider audience without being bound by past definitions of what makes a museum exhibition.

But that's not why I'm not complaining about "Fashion Show." Honestly, I looked and all I thought was tee hee. Construct your own "emperor's new clothes" allegory from that if you wish. But it's hard to feel outrage when you're giggling.

Interestingly, the various French fashionistas the houses sent to represent them at the MFA dressed mostly in plain black and other solid, dark colors. The men wore coat and tie. Aside from a couple of mildly odd hairdos and an accessory or two, they were a pretty traditional bunch. Not one of the women came with a mesh mask on. This is Boston, after all.#

I wish...

...I'd had more time this week to write about KeithLockhart.com and that email from Kitty Dukakis about Deval Patrick and the arts. Fortunately Geoff has handled them both over at the Exhibitionist. And actually, the Lockhart site is such a rich lode of material, I may yet get to it.

Still the same

They just announced Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band at the Garden on Jan. 27. Tickets on sale Nov. 11 (a week from tomorrow) at 10 a.m. No ticket prices yet.