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At ICA, Oscars take it in the shorts

The Institute of Contemporary Art once again presents the year's Academy Award-nominated short films in separate programs of animated and live action shorts. These are two Oscar categories in which most folks don't get the see the nominees. Each program will include all the nominated short films from their respective category, plus a few short-listed films that didn’t make the final cut.

The animated program - suitable for ages 7 and up - features "Madagascar, Carnet de Voyage," "The Gruffalo" and Bill Plympton's "The Cow That Wanted to Be a Hamburger" (pictured). It runs Feb. 21, 24, 27 and March 3, 5 and 6. The live action program, not for the kiddos, includes "Wish 143," "The Crush" and "God of Love" (pictured below). It runs on the same dates except not on March 5. Tickets, $10, and show times at icaboston.org, the box office or (617) 478-3103.

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."

WGBH host harmonizes with MFA's Art of the Americas wing

The Museum of Fine Arts Boston's new Art of the Americas Wing continues to be the arts topic of conversation among most people I know: Have you been? I'm waiting for the crowds to go down. After tweeting the opening a few weeks back, I went as a civilian for the first time last week, with my wife and my mom. General consensus that the art is terrifically well presented. I wish we hadn't gone on a day when 200+ sales guys (and they were mostly guys) from a certain Boston software company (Hint: It begins with O and ends with -acle) were there for some sort of group-bonding scavenger hunt. They mostly huddled in front of the Sargents and Stuarts and Copleys in their business-casual duds, gossiping about work, backs to the art. I actually saw two of them chest bump. That's still a thing? Yuck. But some of them tried to be polite, making way when they realizing they were blocking my mom, who is in her 70s, and my wife, who has a cast on one foot. "Sorry for team building on your museum day," one of them told Mom, and he seemed to mean it.

So anyway. If you haven't been to the new wing yet, or if you've been and want to stay in tune with the experience, I've got a radio show for you. On WGBH's 99.5 All Classical (Motto: The station that doesn't have call letters anymore), host Cathy Fuller is doing a twice weekly music-and-art hookup. She told me Monday that she's one of the folks who haven't been to the new wing yet - and judging by the weather outside as I write, she may not make her planned trip tomorrow. But she knows a lot of the paintings already, and every Monday and Thursday at noon, she's offering a piece of music or two to match a particular picture. It's a neat little idea that's she's going to carry through the month.

"I just really wanted people who are listening to the radio to start thinking about getting over there," Fuller said. "There's no relation necessarily between two pieces of art that were created in the same year, other than that they were created in the same year. But as soon as you present two pieces of art to any sort of interested, engaged mind, then the connections and the way of thinking just get charged."

Monday's focus, for instance, was on what I think is one of the greatest of the masterpieces on display. Winslow Homer's 1885 "The Fog Warning" (above), shows a doryman at sea, at day's end, an ominous approaching fog bank threatening his ability to row back to his distant ship. Fuller paired it with American composer Edward MacDowell's sometimes dramatic Piano Concerto No. 1, which was itself finished under time pressure.

"It's very special the way you can get your brain to find a vocabulary for talking and thinking about art if you're thinking about two kinds of art at once," Fuller said. "I think it's nice to get the listeners thinking visually as well as musically."

One of her best pairings was last week, when she matched Edward Hopper's "disconcerting" 1932 work "Room In Brooklyn" (right) with George Gershwin's songs as performed by William Bolcom. It's a fascinating contrast between the composer perhaps most closely identified with New York City and Hopper's image of a woman - Lonely? Alienated? - staring out at the rooftops.

On Thursday (1/13), she'll pair Gloucester native Fitz Henry Lane's "New York Harbor" with pieces by Louis Moreau Gottschalk, performed by Boston pianist Michael Lewin. She writes, "It glows - and, like Homer, Lane seems to have an understanding of water so uncanny, it's astonishing."

Next Monday (1/17), the MFA will offer a free open house to celebrate Martin Luther King Day, with activities including jazz and multi-media performances, art-making for kids and adults, and 10-minute "spotlight talks" by museum staffers about some of the art in the new wing. Fuller had already chosen to highlight Georgia O'Keefe's 1927 "White Rose with Larkspur, No. 2" on that day, but one of two pieces of music she'll highlight is William Grant Still's ballet "La Guiablesse." Still, she writes, was often called the "Dean of African-American composers," best known for his popular Afro-American Symphony. Click to her host notes to read more about her choices.

So check out Fuller's pairings. Really, though, you should get yourself down to the museum and see the new wing and all the great art in it. I'm sure the team-building is over by now.

(Images: The Fog Warning, 1885, Winslow Homer, Oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Otis Norcross Fund. Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Room in Brooklyn, Edward Hopper, 1932 Oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The Hayden Collection—Charles Henry Hayden Fund. Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.)

11. See if WikiLeaks will post about your theater

People have probably been writing about what theater needs to do to survive since Shakespeare's day; certainly it's become a cottage industry over the last few years. Everyone knows the problems. As corporate and foundation support shrank during the recession, many companies had to tighten their belts, as did other types of arts groups. Fans with less disposable income are harder to attract, and new audiences are even harder. The average age of theatergoers has been climbing to the point where at some theaters, snoring is almost as big an annoyance as ringing cell phones.

There are hopeful signs out there. Unusual collaborations and novel ticket programs show that local theaters are willing to experiment, though more offstage than on. And theater as art will always survive, of course. When I talked to Ryan Landry of the Gold Dust Orphans a couple of weeks ago about his new Christmas show, he recounted a visit with some theater students at Bowdoin College. They kept him for twice the scheduled time, grilling him for advice on getting a show up without money or an organization behind them, just because it's what they have to do.

I came across a post from Brendan Kiley in Seattle's the Stranger offering Ten Things Theaters Need to Do Right Now to Save Themselves that local theater people might find worth a read. Its advice isn't brand new for the most part, but it's communicated with, um, vigor, and ought to give a lot of local companies fodder for discussion.

Ironically enough, since I wrote this in the Globe today, item number one is: Enough with the Shakespeare already. "Stretch yourself. Live a little. Find new, good, weird plays nobody has heard of. Teach your audiences to want surprises, not pacifiers." Suggestions like producing quick and dirty and more often and dropping off the MFA track are not exactly new, but Kiley also suggests providing child care and pushing booze after the show. "Theaters try to 'build community' with postplay talkbacks and lectures and other versions of you've spent two hours watching my play, now look at me some more!" he writes. "You want community? Give people a place to sit, something to talk about (the play they just saw), and a bottle."

Some of this is snark, of course, and I'm not sure a bucket of PBR on ice will help the Huntington or the Lyric bring in more hipsters. But for smaller local troupes trying to survive/recover from this long recession, Kiley's piece is worth a read.

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.)

Thanks, Dale

I'm not going to the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame award ceremony today at lunchtime at the Marriott Quincy Hotel, but it bears mentioning anyway. Robin Young, Tom Ellis and Gary LaPierre are among the honorees, along with posthumous recipients Ken Coleman, Robert J. Lurtsema and Johnny Most. But the inductee whose career meant the most to me is former WRKO and WXKS DJ Dale Dorman. Dorman spun Top 40 rock at 'RKO AM 680, from 1968 to '78. I probably switched over to free-form FM and wilder things on WBCN around 9th or 10th grade, but from '68 to about '75, especially when he was on the wake-up shift, it was Uncle Dale who first played so much great music for me. That was the golden era before music radio split off into disco and hard rock and rap and all the other formats, when Top 40 might bring a segue from the Stones or Creedence to the Temps or Gladys Knight and on to some godawful one-hit wonder. And the same songs the next hour. My Wonder Years, it was, and every time I happen to hear a snatch of his voice, from some old aircheck on line, it puts me right back there. Here's to ya, Dale. The Hall, by the way, is at Massasoit Community College in Brockton.

Afternoon reading: Palmdale, Big Red farewell, Esperanza, Amanda & more

Good piece in the Herald this morning by Brett Milano on Palmdale, Kay Hanley's latest musical venture. Sure do wish he'd gotten her to dish some of the Miley Cyris dirt, though, sounds like there's a lot... A fond farewell to Big Red & Shiny, which is shutting down its main web presence on Sept. 1. The art journal beat us to the web by a year and a half. ... Word up on the latest from Esperanza Spalding, Berklee phenom turned bigtime jazz hero. ... Amanda Palmer's latest web exploit: Finding a terminally cute, Phillip Glass-loving, 17-year-old Canadian piano prodigy loitering at Berklee after summer camp and taking him home for a webcast. We'll be hearing from Tristan sooner or later, I'd wager. ... Oh and here's an interview with Steven Bogart, Palmer's high-school teacher who's directing her in "Cabaret" at the ART. ... And ehre's a little something for my North Shore neighbors, a Newburyport Arts piece on Andrew Mungo, who runs our beloved little art house theater, The Screening Room, and is now on the big screen himself.

Life is good wants you (if you're a local band)

Two local bands will be picked to join Ziggy Marley,  Ozomatli, Corrine Bailey Rae and Ben Harper in the lineup for the Life is good Festival, Sept. 11-12 at Prowse Farm in Canton. Of course, you''l also be sharing the stage with Jason Mraz, but that's between you and your god. The festival, which will also feature Dan Zanes and Friends and They Might Be Giants on the “Good Kids” Stage, is intended to raise $1 million for the Life is good Kids Foundation, helping children overcome life-threatening challenges such as violence, poverty and serious illness. Life is good is working with Sonicbids, a web-based company that helps bands from around the world discover and book gigs, to find two local acts who look to spread optimism through their music. To nominate an act, go here. The $10 fee goes to the charity. Tickets for the 2010 Life is good Festival at Blue Hills are available here.  Adult single-day tickets are $50, two-day tickets $9. Tickets for children ages 6-12 are $10; children 5 and under get in free.

BSO unveils iPhone app

The Boston Symphony Orchestra today unveiled its iPhone app, the BSO Media Center, which can be downloaded free from the iTunes store. Now, no matter where you go, you'll be able to find out immediately which concerts James Levine isn't conducting!

The app gives iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad users access to the BSO, Boston Pops, and Tanglewood anywhere with "the latest updates, program notes, and comprehensive season schedules for all events, as well as special offers on tickets, merchandise, and digital music." You'll also be able to access the BSO’s award-winning Classical Companion, BSO and Pops podcasts and some WebTV and live audio streams. It doesn't look like direct ticket purchasing is in the cards at the moment, though.

Look around Symphony Hall on any given night and you'd figure it's the least-wired audience in town, just by the average age. But the orchestra has had success releasing concerts on its BSO Classics label for download. The app was  created for the BSO by Newton-based MobiLaurus.

Morning reading: Richard III, Portsmouth Museum, Fenway and George Carlin

Can't imagine why I haven't been to the Portsmouth Museum of Art but after reading this Globe story I'm on my way. ... And here's my Globe theater column, on "Richard III." ... David Weininger gets bonus points for quoting John Updike in the lede of his story on the upcoming Landmarks Orchestra performance at Fenway Park. ... "Boston embraces Passion Pit" is more than it sounds, a good multimedia look at the band and its success in the guise of a concert review at the RSL blog. ... The Addison Gallery is slowly moving toward reopening and blogs about the latest steps here. ... And finally, take a look at our friend James Sullivan in his unintentionally psychedelic shirt talking on Fox25 about his new George Carlin bio: