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Work and play at MASSMoCA. And a boat.

Made one of my regular visits to MASSMoCA in North Adams last weekend and found that the current exhibits - at least the ones I could hit in a couple of hours - are as usual a mix of the sublime and the ridiculous. At the sublime end of the spectrum of course is Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective, which has its own building and its own web site and is expected to stick around through 2033. I've been through it perhaps half a dozen times since it opened in 2008, and the work still feels like genius.

The Workers: Precarity/Invisibility/Mobility, on display through April 14, does something different for a MoCA show, tackling its subject head-on, almost polemically at times. The idea is to show how far labor has fallen from the days of Rosie the Riveter in our era of economic despair, outsourcing, migrancy and exploitation. A series of photos shows workers increasingly buried on a beach, in sight of distant factories, until there's nothing left of them. A nearby installation combines a workers' break room and a gallows, like a New Yorker cartoon that needs no caption.

Most compelling is Adrian Paci's tragicomic "Centro di permanenza temporanea," a large-screen video that shows solemn-faced  minority workers lining up to climb one of those wheeled airport staircases - but instead of boarding a plane, they are left standing stoically on the staircase in the middle of the airport, while the shiny jets of commerce taxi and take off all around them. (Image courtesy MASSMoCA.) The video is specifically intended to comment on the plight of undocumented workers, but the sense of abandonment seems to apply to pretty much everyone these days. This five-minute film was a kick in the head.

Upstairs in Building 4 is the exhibit Nari Ward: Sub Mirage Lignum, running through February. This is one of those shows where the scale of the works is designed to take advantage of the huge spaces at MASSMoCA, so that they make an impact even if the curatorial explanations don't always convince. The centerpiece of Ward's show is "Nu Colossus," which features a fishing boat cut in sections and a giant, conical basket-woven fish trap of a kind used in Ward's native Jamaica. One's immediate impression is that the hunter has become the hunted. But of course such obvious interpretation is never correct here at MoCA, and the accompanying text informs us, "This duality of seduction and entrapment is key to Ward's idea of mirage, which as an image both distorts reality and points to a sense of need."

I sometimes feel as though I am insulting the artist when I talk about what's most affecting in these giant installations, as it's often different than the stated intent of the work. Does my sense of wonder at their immediate visceral impact trump the Moebius-strip curator-speak of the cerebral explanations? Disbelieving some of the airy conceptual constructions does not make one a Philistine, does it?

By itself, bringing a boat into the gallery no longer floats mine. But a look into the gaping maw of the fish trap - filled with broken furniture (more on that in a sec) and lit in sinister chiarscuro by the gaps in the basket weave - was a stunner. All I could see was an upsettingly intense still-life of a tornado's unholy inner chaos, looking up into the funnel as it sucked away me, Dorothy and Toto. My crappy cellphone pic can't do it justice, but perhaps it doesn't matter, as this interpretation is apparently an unintended consequence of the artist's craft and vision, and nowhere mentioned in the text. Thanks to eavesdropping, though, I know I'm not the only one who saw it immediately.

The furniture, as well as the foam rubber, resistors and capacitors making up Ward's giant "Mango Tourists" in an adjacent gallery, were sourced around the museum, which occupies the former Sprague Electric factory complex. A large installation in the Workers exhibit re-creates and comments on an "artwork" of disposable cups stuck in a chain link fence at the Sprague plant during a 1970 strike. To use a couple of verbs much favored by curators nowadays, it would be interesting to "unpack" the ways that these works "interrogate" the site's history. There are places in the museum where the workers' passages (in both senses of the word) remain vividly present.

Finally I wandered into the football-field sized Building 5 gallery, the site of MASSMoCA's most mind-blowing triumphs and its most hilarious misfires. The sheer size of the joint brings out artistic ambitions that raise the stakes so high even the misfires are must-sees. That, alas, was not the case with Katharina Grosse's one floor up more highly, an exhibit which ended, fortunately or unfortunately, on New Year's Day.

The main portion of the exhibit consists of truckloads of dirt heaped on the gallery floor, spray-painted in various colors and stuck with large, styrofoam rods that look like the icy wastes of Superman's home planet. It called to mind the el cheapo alien landscapes on the original "Star Trek." The exhibit text says that Grosse's work "opens up a new path for painting while rearranging conventions, hierarchy and our very habits of seeing." Also: "the anarchic work embraces a state of ambiguity that allows for alternative ways of processing what is seen." To which I can only say, uh huh.

MASSMoCA: You can get there from here

NORTH ADAMS -  MASSMoCA, the Clark Art Institute and other cultural attractions in the North Adams-Williamstown area are once again accessible to eastern Mass. residents without a long Mass Pike re-route or a detour through dueling banjos country in the Berkshires.

On Dec. 15 the state reopened the stretch of Route 2 that runs through Charlemont, Savoy, Florida and North Adams after $23 million in rapid-fire repairs. The road, a key-east west link in that corner of the state, was washed out in Tropical Storm Irene in late August.

Take it from someone with family in North Adams and an interest in MASSMoCA, the Clark, the Williams College art museum and various other attractions: doing without Route 2 would have made a winter trip here less than appealing. The state-recommended detour added considerably to the travel time. In November we took a shorter route recommended by MASSMoCA, which traversed some beautiful valleys and slopes in the backwoods north of Route 2, but also brought us to a near head-on with a convoy of giant dump trucks carrying fill for the Route 2 project, on a narrow two-lane blacktop with no shoulders. There were Trucks use lower gears signs and hair-raising descents.

I spent a night out on Interstate 93 during the Fast 14 bridge-replacement project for a story, and was flabbergasted by what they could do in the course of a week. I'm even more impressed by the Route 2 project, which we drove this week. We'd heard a bridge was out and some other areas might have seen a little washout, but in fact it looks like several hundreds yards of roadway have been replaced (in different stretches), in one of the most hilly and remote high-traffic stretches in the state, through steep hills, with precipitous dropoffs to the Cold River on the other side. Banks and long cement retaining walls are or will be rebuilt, entire stretches of river seem to have new channels, landslides have been cleared away, etc. We got our $23 million worth, although it looks like the project will continue through the winter.

It's safe to go back to MoCA, in other words, and now through Sunday is your last chance to see Katharina Grosse's "One Floor Up More Highly" (right) in the museum's ginormous Gallery 5. Strangely, it bears a certain resemblance to the piles of fill at the Route 2 constuction sites. A museum official said today that they didn't think the road closure had affected visitor traffic much, but that they've noticed more people coming through since Route 2 reopened on Dec. 15, so maybe it hurt a little bit after all.

One other note. If any of you are fond of stopping in the Mohawk Trail State Forest during the warm weather months to use the unofficial nude beach just downstream from the state campground, I have bad news. The trees that shielded the site from the road are gone.

Fake Whitey Bulger tweets = comic edgework

 I write today to praise a Boston fake, and no, I'm not talking about the CBS July 4 fireworks telecast. It's the @James_W_Bulger Twitter feed, written as far as I know anonymously. It's often as funny and sharp as any comic writing around today, and by the nature of Twitter highly topical and time-sensitive.

Before anyone gets outraged, let's acknowledge that finding humor in anything Bulger is a twisted exercise. The circus atmosphere around his capture should not be allowed to obscure the corruption and horror that Bulger inflicted on Boston. Read Kevin Cullen or Peter Gelzinis to be reminded, or just this powerful Op Ed by Michael Patrick MacDonald. The people peddling FREE WHITEY t-shirts online are greedy, thoughtless idiots. I don't expect those touched by his Southie reign of terror to easily see the humor in tweets from @James_W_Bulger. Probably a lot of other people won't, either.

But someone was going to do this, of course, perhaps inspired when the FBI announced his capture via Twitter. What's surprising is how well @James_W_Bulger is done. The writer channels Bulger's flip arrogance and brutality in a way that satirizes the very infotainment culture that has sprung up around his capture (including, of course, the idea that he's on Twitter).

He called out several pretenders: @James_W_Bulger: Im seeing fake Twitter accounts pretending to be me...if they had a copy of my resume they'd think twice. ...

This Whitey is surprisingly tech-savvy. @James_W_Bulger: If anyone has the Twitter names for Zip, Stevie, Kevin, and John Morris, lemme know. Im wanna try this Google Hangouts with them.

And he's not afraid to tweak that other Bulger brother: @James_W_Bulger: Can someone help me post a Craigslist Ad? Here's the title: " WANTED: Non Chicken-s*** Attorney" & here's the body: "Contact Billy Bulger"

He even has a few things to say about the Red Sox vs. Orioles dustup. @James_W_Bulger: After watching last night's Red Sox game, I would like to extend an offer to Kevin Gregg to come work for me.

It's the best anonymous riff since Joe Klein was revealed as the author of "Primary Colors." I suspect the writer behind @James_W_Bulger is in the media too. In addition to a predictable hatred for Howie Carr, he has a very special feeling for a certain Fox 25 anchor. @James_W_Bulger: Doesnt matter what happens in court today bc @mariastephanos is now following me on Twitter. My day is complete.

This will lose its luster if the author is ID'd, of course. And soon it will start getting old. Probably best for him to fade away...at least until the trial. Less is more. But for the moment it's dark comedy gold. And one final irony. When I search his profile for tweets to use with this post, Twitter suggested some "similar" feeds I might want to follow. Yikes.

Whitey Bulger in jail. Eddie Coyle on stage.

I went to bed early Wednesday night. Before I went downstairs this morning, I picked up my phone to check email and saw a fresh message from playwright Bill Doncaster. “A little overwhelmed by the karma,” he wrote. “When I started this, would never have predicted Higgins' work would be back on the rise, the Bruins would win the cup again, and Whitey would  get pinched. A little surreal.”

 Wait, what? I read it again to make sure he wasn’t joking, then ran to turn on the TV. Sure enough, a couple of days after the start of a new FBI ad campaign, they’d finally caught Whitey Bulger.

Doncaster wrote a stage adaptation of George V. Higgins’ classic 1972 Boston crime novel, “The Friends of Eddie Coyle,” which limns the same Irish-and-Italian mob scene where James “Whitey” Bulger ruled before he went on the run 16 years ago.

“I was more shocked than when they got Bin Laden,” Doncaster said by phone later in the day. “I heard his name and thought, they’re not still reporting on that ad campaign are they? And then I heard the word arrest.”

Doncaster’s play was cheered in a staged reading at the Burren in Davis Square last November, with Higgins’ widow in the audience. And he recently announced that a full production of the play will begin performances Dec. 8-Jan. 15 at the ART’s Oberon venue on the edge of Harvard Square. (Doncaster notes that while Bulger was a Southie phenomenon, the fictional Coyle came from Cambridge's Central Square.)

The play is just one sign of a Higgins resurgence, the biggest being that Brad Pitt spent part of the last few months filming an adaptation of “Cogan’s Trade” in (alas) New Orleans. Doncaster is putting together a non-profit to finance his production and will sart raising money sometime next month. You can go to www.thefriendsofeddiecoyle.com and sign up for email updates.

Doncaster and I had already joked recently about the timing of the Bruins championship. One of the best remembered moments in Peter Yates’ acclaimed “Coyle” movie is when Robert Mitchum, as the drunken hood Coyle, cheers on “Number four! Bobby Orr!” The last Bruins’ Stanley Cup triumph was in… 1972. But the Whitey capture takes karma to a new level.

One of the key characters in “Coyle” is Dillon, a felon who is the silent owner of a bar (like Bulger and Triple O’s), a government informant playing both sides of the street (like Bulger) and, it turns out, a killer (like Bulger). Doncaster said that Higgins, although he’d been a federal prosecutor, always maintained that Dillon was an invention and not based on Bulger.

"I get asked about that pretty frequently,” Doncaster said. “With the similarities…it’s easy to jump to that conclusion.”

In Doncaster’s production, Rick Park plays Dillon. I’d recently asked Doncaster to put me in touch with Park on an unrelated matter, and when he emailed me this morning, his original intent was just to make sure I’d heard from Park.

“Very, very strange,” Doncaster said with a laugh.

Not as spooky as the real thing, though. Doncaster met Bulger “for two seconds” back in the 80s. “My girlfriend at the time lived in the neighborhood. Scary guy, even in a brief meeting.”

Bee film at MFA: Honey or doom?

Honeybee colony collapse disorder can seem like one more droplet in a deluge of bad environmental news. But a compelling new film that opens at the Museum of Fine Arts today suggests that losing the bees could bring global disaster a lot sooner than climate change, and that how we respond to its threat will be a measure of our future.

"Queen of the Sun: What are the Bees Telling Us?" from director Taggart Siegel is not the kind of documentary where both sides of an issue are considered with earnest even-handedness. There are no blustering Republican senators or industry-funded scientists here to denounce the film's assertions: that bee colonies are in trouble world-wide, that it's mostly man's fault, and that if we don't change soon, very bad things will happen. Instead a variety of often idiosyncratic beekeepers and other experts lament the industrial agriculture and chemical pesticides they blame for the loss of millions of hives in the U.S. and Europe.

"Colony collapse disorder is the bill we are getting for all we have done to the bees," one says. We have factory-farmed them just like pork and chicken, trucking them around the country to fertilize vast monocultures of agricultural products, subjected them to pesticides and genetically modified plants, and now ... the bees have had enough. And since they fertilize 40 percent of the world's food supply, according to the film, we had better begin reversing the damage.

The film is full of fascinating bee facts, some frightening - three-quarters of America's commercial bees spend Valentine's Day in California, fertilizing almonds - and some subtly beautiful. Bees like the same smells we do, for instance.

Some of the bee lovers are a bit out there - they seem to spend more time in the hives shirtless than wearing any kind of beekeeping gear - but their reverence for these insects and their role in what used to be our natural environment is inspiring.

If you're anything like me, most of your thinking about the environment these days is dominated by gloom about global warming, rising sea levels, increasing extreme weather, tornados and Japanese radiation leaks. "We're all gonna die" seems a reasonable conclusion, especially given the vast reservoirs of denial and inaction in the chambers of power.

"Queen of the Sun" will give you something new to worry about. But in the eyes of those beekeepers there is also hope.

The Globe's Mark Feeney reaches a slightly different conclusion about the film here. Information on movie tickets and showtimes at the MFA is here.

Natasha has her say. So does Natasha. And Natasha.

"The Natasha Plays" at Charlestown Working Theater, tonight through Saturday, comes with an intriguing back story. Russian playwright Yaroslava Pulinovich is still in her early 20s, but has been produced several times in her homeland and Europe. This triptych of monologues by three different Natashas puts a spotlight on the youth of modern Russia, but at the same time it's universal, says Jennifer Johnson, one of CWT's three co-directors. Abandonment and identity, the price of celebrity, the worship of fame ... not so far from the America of reality TV, Lady Gaga and mall culture.

In "Natasha's Dream," the speaker is an orphan (Julia M. Smith, pictured) who attaches herself to an interested journalist with disastrous results. In "I Won," we hear from an upwardly mobile teen (Sarah Lloyd) who's not going to let anything interfere with her chance at fame. And in the short "Epilogue," recently added, another teen (Shannon McPhee) composes a love letter to a pop star.

"Each of the characters is named Natasha, but they are vastly different. The whole idea is that these young Russian women are products of their environment and their upbringing," she said. "It will be interesting to see how audiences correlate the same kind of themes to the American experience."

The actors are current or former masters students in the theater program at Towson University in Maryland, home to the New Russian Drama Project, and the production was developed there with The Center for International Theatre Development. Center director Philip Arnoult was aware of CWT's interest in international projects, and one thing led to another. The production is directed by Stephen Nunns, translated by John Freedman.

Of course, none of this would matter if CWT hadn't also found an audience that shares its interest. The best sign of that may be that CWT sold out three of last week's four performances of "Caesarian Section" by Poland's edgy Teatr Zar. That was a show of movement and meaning, but not especially linear. Johnson says "The Natasha Plays" is text-based narrative, more traditional in form. Despite the distance between Boston and these teenagers' lives, it should be quite accessible.

"Tons of people came to see Zar, they were very, very exciting events, made more exciting by the tornado on Wednesday night, which was their closing night. It was so crazy," Johnson said. "Weirdly and inexplicably our lights flickered...but it sort of went with the performance.

"The audience at CWT typically stays (after shows), we really try to make it an opportunity for people to talk to each other and the artists, particularly if we have artists from other countries," she said. "But it was such crazy weather, basically no one could leave. So we just were there forever, but we had a lot of wine, so that was OK."

Now that's my kind of theater.

"The Natasha Plays" runs tonight through Saturday at Charlestown Working Theater, 442 Bunker Hill Street, Charlestown. It's accessible by the Orange Line from Sullivan Station or Bus Lines #92 and #93. Tix are $10 tonight, $15-22 the rest of the week. Call 866-811-4111 or click to www.charlestownworkingtheater.org.

Photo: Jay Herzog.

Spalding's Grammy = Esperanza indeed, but...

Lots of questions after last night's Grammys. Is Madonna going to let Lady Gaga do that to her song? Muse, really? And finally, Train? Really? Have you no shame?? But these are common types of questions for a ceremony - an industry - in which the band responsible for "Drops of Jupiter" escapes justice keeps winning awards. There was one less-expected question a lot of people around the country were asking last night, though, which was, Who is Esperanza Spalding?

Never mind that she's a favorite of Prince and President Obama, as well as many in the jazz world, and was recently the subject of a long New Yorker profile. Spalding's triumph as Best New Artist was a puzzlement to many watching the Grammys, and not just because of who she beat out. She's hardly a household name, has never been a guest judge on "American Idol" nor, as far as I know, been photographed by the paparazzi smooching John Mayer. So widespread was the puzzlement that NPR Music's A Blog Supreme had to post a (pretty excellent) Spalding primer. My favorite reaction to her win, quoted in the NPR blog, was via Twitter: @jazzfamoose NEWS ALERT: Bieber fans amassing in Tahrir Square in protest.

Those of us in Boston know who Spalding is, though - the genre-jumping jazz bassist and singer who was asked to join the Berklee faculty at 20 and made a lot of friends around town with gigs in little rooms like the late, lamented Bob the Chef's before moving on to, well, Prince and the New Yorker.

Truth is, though, the frustration of true Beliebers is not without foundation. Spalding's 2010 album "Chamber Music Society" didn't garner a Grammy nomination, much less a statuette, and "new" is, as often, a dubious term. Her album "Junjo" came out way back in 2006, before Bieber was even a gleam in Usher's eye. Even those of us who know who she is were surprised at her win over Bieber, Drake, Mumford and Sons, and Florence and the Machine.

Spalding is terrific, and, bonus, looks like a star. But I don't hear a lot of people arguing that "Chamber Music Society" is a major artistic statement to which attention must be paid. It's hard to say why this became Spalding's Grammy year. So while the jazz world should certainly celebrate her win as a hope-ful sign, I wouldn't read too much into it as far as jazz's place in the music industry. As deserving of stardom as Spalding is, her win this year is only slightly less baffling than most of Grammy's decisions.

Coolidge goes national with Science on Screen

The indie/arthouse/revival theater scene is not what it was for movie fans back in the day - shed optional tear for the Orson Welles here - but Boston still has some smart programmers. Exhibit A: The Coolidge Corner Theatre’s Science on Screen program will spread to other non-profit moviehouses this year thanks to a $150,000 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Now in its seventh year, Science on Screen pairs feature films and documentaries with presentations by scientific and technological experts. It makes learning fun and sometimes draws a sellout crowd. Discussions have ranged from a talk by MIT music-and-media guru Tod Machover with the documentary "Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey" (right) to an explanation of the function of zombie brains in "Night of the Living Dead."

On Wednesday at the fourth annual Art House Convergence gathering in Utah, just before the Sundance festival, Coolidge leaders will announce a program to provide $7,000 grants to six to eight theaters that want to implement Science on Screen on their, well, screens. The money can be used to rent films or to pay for speaker honoraria or travel expenses, since not every community theater has institutions like MIT and MGH close at hand. The money can also be used for marketing, staff time or other costs associated with the program.

The theaters must present a minimum of three Science on Screen events during the year, and are expected to pitch at least one program idea of their own. The Coolidge is distributing a sort of Science on Screen how-to guide and will mentor them along the way; the grant will also support the program at the Coolidge.

All this comes about thanks to the Sloan Foundation's program for improving public understanding of science and technology through the media.

The Coolidge's next Science on Screen presentation will feature Dr. Jonathan Shay, who will introduce Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket" (left) on Jan. 24 with a talk on combat trauma. Shay was a staff psychiatrist at the Department of Veterans Affairs Outpatient Clinic in Boston, where he treated combat veterans with severe psychological injuries. He retired from clinical work to devote himself full time to prevention shortly after winning a 2007 MacArthur Foundation "genius grant."

First Night Button is ... spacey

Usually the unveiling of the First Night button is one of those events that rates a big meh. You know, how radical are they going to get? The button is a utilitarian object, your $18 pass to all of the night's indoor events. The image is basically a marketing device that must be acceptable for embrace by city leaders, media outlets and children. Usually it's about fireworks and dancing and party hats. Examples from recent years are on the left. Now look at this year's button, right, by Somerville artist Scott Listfield.

Wish I'd gone to the party last night so I could have seen the puzzled looks on the faces of the local dignitaries when the button was unveiled at Brasserie Jo, during a reception for the Greater Boston Concierge Association. After pondering about it for a few minutes, though, I think it's kinda great. Because the 1960s space program once represented the bright future we're all still waiting for. Where's my flying car? Where's my jetpack? Listfield, who paints a lot of vintage astronauts, has chosen an image for the First Night of our future that comments on the whole notion of better days to come. It will be a perfectly acceptable if slightly baffling image to many. But it's actually kinda hip.

If you think I'm reading too much into this, read Listfield's artist statement. "...from Lost In Space to The Jetsons to Jurassic Park, it seems that popular culture craved and fomented this space-age perception of the future," he writes. From the vantage point of the present, the whole flying-car thing looks kinda hilarious. And yet, consider Starbucks, iPads and Kanye West. "The present is in fact a very unusual place," Listfield writes, "and it's strangest in the ubiquity of things we take for granted."

Huh. Turns out this year's button is more than a pretty picture, good graphic design, a commercial icon. It's actually art.

(The buttons, by the way, will be available all over town after Thanksgiving, but you can get a $3 discount by buying yours through www.firstnight.org.)

First Night adds Symphony Hall, college venues

Movin' on up! First Night adds three new spaces to its schedule this year. No performers have been announced yet, but First Night has added Symphony Hall and two new renovated venues downtown, Suffolk University's Modern Theatre and Emerson College's Paramount Mainstage. It won't be the Pops at Symphony Hall; word is something very cool is in the works. In addition, First Night's New Year's Eve festivities will return to the Berklee Performance Center, which will once again host an alumni concert broadcast by WGBH and NPR's national "Talk of the Nation" show. This year's First Night button, by painter Scott Listfield of Somerville, will be unveiled in mid-November. All First Night outdoor events are free, but the $18 button is the ticket for admission to all indoor events. Buttons will be available after Thanksgiving.