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Blood on the tracks

I wish they posted images of the section front online, so you could see the blood spatter all over my article in the Globe this morning. The graphics people really went for it. There's even a spray of hemoglobin across the Arts logo at the top of the page. All this for my feature on the new "CSI" exhibit at the Museum of Science.

On-Off Art

Busy day, but I'd be remiss if I didn't point out two pieces of must reading in the Globe this morning. On Page 1 - and kudos for that decision - Geoff Edgers outlines what may be the final act in the drama between MassMoCA and Swiss artist Christoph Buchel. Disappointingly, most of us will never get to see Buchel's massive but unfinished exhibit in Building 5. There's bad blood here; MoCA's website report on the court decision avoids using Buchel's name entirely. I think you can make a case for either side on the philosophical questions, but what's clear is that Buchel comes off as a stereotypically pretentious, obnoxious Euro-blowhard. Witness these lines from the Globe story: "Buchel, who has rarely spoken to the press, sent an e-mail to the Globe last night in response to the museum's move. Alluding to his dispute with Mass MoCA over the project's budget, he offered to donate a permanent installation that would not cost anything to mount. He concluded the e-mail with an image of the plan, a tweak of the museum's rooftop signs to spell out 'Mass CoMA.' " In Euro-speak: Oh, piss off.

Of course, the worst problem with artists like Buchel is that they provide fodder for the Jeff Jacoby faction that looks at modern art and sees only garbage. Somehow Buchel escapes mention in Jacoby's column today, which considers two other high-profile works, Martin Creed's Turner Prize-winning "Work 227: The Lights Going On And Off" and MIT student Star Simpson's Mooninite-like bodywear that almost got her shot at Logan Airport last week. Jacoby puts some well-aimed darts in some soft underbellies, then reaches this ginormously broad-brushed conclusion: "Someday the art world will rediscover the standards it has abandoned. It will blush when it remembers the way it honored quacks like Creed and treated silly stunts as works of genius. In the meantime, 'Work 227' makes a fine metaphor for what that world has become: The lights may be on (or off), but nobody's home." Which rather deserves the same retort as Buchel.

No Schuur on the North Shore

Due to low ticket sales, the Diane Schuur concert scheduled for Oct. 9 at the North Shore Music Theatre has been canceled. Ticketholders will be contacted about refunds. Information: 978-232-7200.

In America, gas gives us public art

Huh? Well, I was trying a play on the old Yakow Smirnov routine. Never mind. Our subject today is the Dorchester LNG tank painted by social activist and former nun Corita Kent back in 1971, when it was owned by Boston Gas. Newcomers may have been baffled the other day when the changing of the logo on the tank was a major story in the papers and on the evening news. Byebye Keyspan, hello National Grid. No big deal right? Yeah, just like messing with the Citgo sign. Around here we prefer our landmarks controversial and associated with giant fossil fuel companies. You got a problem with that?

For a lot of folks on the Southeast Expressway, the tank was their first close encounter with public art that wasn't a statue of blind justice or some general on a horse, and it occasioned much talk, including the idea that Kent had snuck a likeness of Ho Chi Minh into the blue stripe. Yup, they were different times - or were they? I mean, Ho and Osama look a lot alike, and it would only take us a couple of calls to talk radio to get a fresh rumor going...

Annnnyway, Kent died in '86. When the tank was torn down in the '90s, her design, now a fondly remembered landmark, was repainted on a second tank. And the other day the hanging of a new logo on the tank was big news, even though it doesn't affect the art. So here's some more big news: The Dorchester Arts Collaborative and Dorchester Historical Society will hold a panel discussion on Kent, her art and the history of the tank, at 7 p.m. on Oct. 27 at the Savin Hill Yacht Club. And if I'm not mistaken, the club is right there in easy sight of the tank.

Panelists include Alexandra Carrera, executive director of the Corita Art Center in Los Angeles, and Fogg Museum prints curator Susan Dackerman, plus former Boston Gas PR man Frank Arricale. The free, public event is part of Dorchester Open Studios. For more information, call 617-839-6734 or click to www.thedac.org.

Documentaries in Newburyport

I had a piece on next weekend's Newburyport Documentary Film Festival in Sunday's Globe. If you're thinking about coming, and I highly recommend it, the fest site is here. Features on the late Andre Dubus and two Mass. 9/11 widows doing charity work on behalf of Afghan widows top the schedule.

Bunraku is back

The Japan Society of Boston will present the traditional Japanese puppet theater Bunraku at the Cutler Majestic Theatre on Oct. 2-3 as part of the National Bunraku Theatre of Japan's first major U.S. tour since 1992. It's the first time Bunraku will be seen in Boston since 1984. To be honest, it's news to me.

From the press release: "One of Japan’s most celebrated traditional art forms, Bunraku traces its origins to the 18th century and developed alongside Kabuki in the vigorous urban culture of early-modern Japan. It features large puppets that are three-quarters life size, each manipulated by three onstage puppeteers and each moving in extraordinarily lifelike actions. The Bunraku puppets are accompanied by an onstage narrator who recites all the dialogue and takes on the personality of each character in the drama; seated next to the narrator at stage left are musicians performing on the banjo-like three-stringed shamisen. The three elements of puppets, narration, and music are flawlessly integrated in a multi-dimensioned performance that has evoked wonder and deep emotion in audiences all over the world."

The two evening performances will include the tower-climbing scene from a play called "Oschichi’s Burning Love," as well as the "moving domestic drama" called "Miracle at the Tsubosaku Kannon Temple." The performances will be in Japanese with English supertitles, and between the two plays members of the troupe will demonstrate the workings of the puppets and talking about the art form.

Tickets are available at the box office,and at Telecharge, 800-233-3123 or www.telecharge.com. Tix are $35-$65, $20 for students. Opening-night sponsor seats are also available through the Japan Society of Boston, 617-451-0726.

The last time I saw Bruce

I still have a few grains of the infield in a ziplock on my bulletin board.

Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuce!

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
At the TD Banknorth Garden
Sunday, November 18 and Monday, November 19, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Tickets are $67.50 and $97.50

Tickets go on-sale Monday, September 24, 2007 at 10:00 am

More LiveNation concerts after the jump.

This had to happen

The Dropkick Murphys have a new album out this week, "The Meanest of Times," and with it,  a new fan: Bruce Springsteen.

State Street Gives MFA $10 Million

Even I won't say this is the change they found in their couch. Even to the giant State Street Corporation, $10 million is a good chunk of cash. And at tonight's Museum of Fine Arts annual meeting, officials will announce a gift of that amount to the $500 million Building the New MFA campaign. In return the MFA will name the Fenway entrance to the museum as the State Street Fenway Entrance. Closed for more than two decades, the entrance is scheduled to re-open in February 2008, the first benchmark of the massive MFA rebuilding project. The entrance will lead visitors to a new MFA lobby and ticketing desk - and out to Frederick Law Olmstead's Emerald Necklace.                                                                                                                   Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston