Compiled by Arts Fuse Editor

Our expert critics supply a guide to film, visual art, theater, author readings, and music. More offerings will be added as they come in.

Film

Grrl Haus Cinema Best of 2024 Festival
December 9 & 10 at 7:00 p.m.
Brattle Theatre, Cambridge

Grrl Haus is a nonprofit dedicated to showcasing short films by women, trans, and nonbinary artists, with a strong focus on DIY, low-budget, and experimental filmmaking.

Boston Open Screen
December 10 at 7 p.m.
Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline

Open Screen is Boston’s one and only open mic night for filmmakers! If your pet project is under 10 minutes, they will screen it!

Off the Wall Cinema 50th Anniversary Celebration
December 11 & 12
Brattle Theatre, Cambridge

The Brattle Theater presents a tribute to the legendary Off the Wall Coffee House in Central Square that started up in 1974, before there were DVDs or home video. The organization offered rare, unusual, obscure, forgotten, and hidden gems of cinema in its tiny storefront in Central Square. For 12 years local animators, budding filmmakers, underappreciated classics, unsung heroes, and films made by a few infamous hacks, like Ed Wood, were screened for audiences seated at café tables and chairs.

December 11 at 6 p.m. Animation

December 11 at 8 p.m. Live Action

December 12 at 7 p.m. The big event! Filmmakers, stories, local celebrities, and a Q&A with the organization’s former owners will be accompanied by screenings of work by Karen Aqua, Lisa Craft, the Hubley Family, and more. There will also be shorts featuring the likes of Gerald McBoing Boing, Betty Boop, the Beatles, and Lionel Hampton, among others.

Carol for Another Christmas
December 12 at 7 p.m.
Harvard Film Archives

The HFA is screening a new 35mm print of the only television film directed and produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz (All About Eve, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir). “Broadcast on ABC the same year Dr. Strangelove was released to theaters, Carol for Another Christmas (1964) reunites stars Sterling Hayden and Peter Sellers in Rod Serling’s impassioned plea to prevent nuclear war through international cooperation.” Sponsored by the Xerox Corporation, the original teleplay was produced as one in a series of TV movies intended to build public support for the critical work of the United Nations. Rod Serling’s midcentury reworking of the Dickens classic features an all-star ensemble that includes Ben Gazzara, Pat Hingle, Steve Lawrence, Percy Rodriguez, Eva Marie Saint, Robert Shaw, and James Shigeta, all of whom reportedly worked for union scale due to their belief in the controversial project.

The film is essentially a feature-length Twilight Zone episode: key sequences draped in noir shadows present the suffering at Hiroshima, the plight of innocents displaced by war, and the tragedy of hunger in a country of abundance.

Porcelain War
December 13, 14, 15
Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline

Winner of the 2024 Sundance Grand Jury Prize. In this doc, Ukrainian artists Slava, Anya, and Andrey make stunning porcelain figures and beautifully designed pottery as their men go off to fight as a daily job. It is a unique look at citizens coping with war as daily life goes on and of the “enduring hope and passion of ordinary people living through extraordinary circumstances.”

On December 15 at 2 p.m. as part of the PANORAMA series, there will be a post-film discussion with co-directors Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev and film participant Anya Stasenko. Arts Fuse review

Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy
December 13–16
Harvard Film Archives

These three newly restored films in Ray’s Apu Trilogy — Pather Panchali, Aparajito, and The World of Apu — are considered by many as some of the best films of all time. They constitute an epic of progress, a dramatic mirror of India’s rise from British colony to the world’s largest democracy. The films have won many awards and, collectively, are seen as a cinematic milestone in India and across the world.

Daft Punk & Leiji Matsumoto: Interstella 5555
December 14 at 7:30
Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline

Interstella 5555 tells the animated story of the abduction of an alien music band by an evil human who has dark plans for the group. The hour-long film was cut into music videos to accompany Daft Punk’s album Discovery. It is rare to see it screened in its original form in cinemas.

The film will be followed by a curated selection of iconic Daft Punk videos from directors including Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, Seb Janiak, Roman Coppola, and Warren Fu.

Pick of the Week

Mudbound (2017)
Netflix

The success of The Piano Lesson and The Nickel Boys cast an illuminating light on this film about the challenges and triumphs of Black life in America. The Fire Inside, the story of the professional boxer Claressa “T-Rex” Shields, was the directorial debut of Cambridge native and Concord Academy graduate Rachel Morrison, who was the cinematographer on Black Panther, Fruitvale Station, Bessie, and Pariah.

For Mudbound, based on Hillary Jordan’s novel, Morrison became the first woman nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography. This is a sweeping period drama about two families, the Jacksons, who are Black, and the McAllans, who are white. They are forced to share land together at the close of World War II. Director Dee Rees (Bessie, Pariah) also became the first Black woman nominated for an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. She handles the sometimes brutal scenes carefully but powerfully, making it clear that American racism and injustice continue to be a part of our country’s present. The fine cast includes Carey Mulligan, Jason Clark, Mary J. Blige, Garrett Hedlund, Rob Morgan, and Jonathan Banks.

An interview with Rachel Morrison on the cinematography of Mudbound can be found here.

— Tim Jackson

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Visual Arts

Flemish painting, like Flanders itself, is sometimes hard to place. The painting of Flanders, a historical region now mostly inside Belgium, first dominated art in the Netherlands, then was overshadowed by the Dutch Golden Age and further confused by complicated political and religious divisions and border fluctuations as Flanders changed hands between the Kingdom of France, the Burgundians, Hapsburgs, Austrians, and the First French Republic. The art of Flanders lacks the popular branding of, say, French Impressionism or Pop Art. Nevertheless, it is much revered by art historians: Flemish artists popularized oil painting, and Flemish painting has been known ever since for its rich, sensuous use of the medium, creating works of unprecedented color, depth, and vivid details, populated with a colorful variety of human types.

Saints, Sinners, Lovers and Fools: 300 Years of Flemish Masterworks, opening at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem on December 14, surveys Flemish painting, sculpture, and decorative arts with important examples from the 15th though the 17th centuries. The artists include such Renaissance and Baroque masters as Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, Hans Memling, Jan Gossaert, Jan Bruegel, Clara Peters, and Jacob Jordaens.

The Swiss-American photographer and filmmaker Robert Frank is best known for his 1958 book The Americans, which has been described as “perhaps the most influential photography book of the 20th century.” Earlier, in 1955, seven of his photographs were included in the much celebrated exhibition The Family of Man, organized by the Museum of Modern Art, which toured it around the world, where it was seen by 9 million people. The show’s catalogue remains a popular coffee table book to this day.

In 1949, Frank created a scrapbook of photographs of Paris for Mary Lockspeiser, who later became his wife. Mary’s Book, which entered the MFA’s collection in 2021, contains 74 photographs with inscriptions, made when Frank was experimenting with juxtaposing images and text. Robert Frank: Mary’s Book opens at the Museum of Fine Arts on December 21. Celebrating the centennial of Frank’s birth in 1924, the exhibition features spreads from this unique album, along with other photographs he took in Paris, on loan from the artist’s foundation. “The book,” says the museum, “is a reflection on solitary contemplation that reads like a lyrical poem.”

“Haplomes” are a genus of abstract beings created by the collaboration of British artist David Hockney and composer James Sellars in the late 1980s. The work produced a film: Haplomatics, a “pseudo-scientific fantasy” uniting Hockney’s prints and Sellars’s narrative and score. David Hockney & James Sellars: Haplomatics, opening December 13 at the New Britain Museum of American Art, features 35 xerographic prints that were used to create the film, shown alongside the complete film itself in its public debut.

Monhegan, a ruggedly spectacular island in the Gulf of Maine, about 12 nautical miles from the mainland and settled as a fishing outpost before Plymouth Colony, has attracted artists for two centuries. Among the many who have worked here in the summer months are Rockwell Kent, Edward Hopper, George Bellows, Jamie Wyeth, and visitors from the New York School of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Monhegan’s complex natural history and progression of ecosystems from settlement pastureland, later abandoned, to spruce forest to deciduous woodlands — birch, aspen, and maple — have also brought ecologists to study the island.

Art, Ecology, and the Resilience of a Maine Island, opening at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art on December 12, unites artworks, photographs, historical documents, and scientific material from these two sets of visitors to explore decades of change in the landscape and the remarkable forest recovery on the island, much of it thanks to conservation-minded islanders. “Monhegan’s history,” says the museum, “has lessons for us all.”

Earlier this year, the term “Anthropocene Epoch,” meaning a proposed geological period that began when human activity began to dominate Earth, was, after years consideration, roundly rejected as part of the Geologic Time Scale by the International Commission on Stratigraphy and the International Union of Geological Sciences. Nevertheless, the concept continues to grow in use with Earth and environmental scientists, social scientists, politicians, economists, and, apparently, with artists.

Case in point is the Fuller Craft Museum’s exhibition Waste Not, Want Not: Craft in the Anthropocene, opening December 21. The show focuses on work handmade from the debris or by-products of modern industry, blurring the lines between manufactured commodities and traditional handicraft. “Together,” says the museum, “the works reveal how artists are employing craft techniques and knowledge to reimagine the role of the artist in the twenty-first century — and how reuse is just one facet of a desperately needed response to our current era.”

Modern art works have posed many issues for art conservators seeking to preserve them for later generations, and the challenges have only grown over time. New pigments and media, unstable plastics, industrial processes, and long-obsolete electronic systems have all brought new dilemmas to the process. The growing importance of video and video installation in contemporary art has introduced yet another element: time.

On Wednesday, December 11, at 12:30 pm, conservators from the Straus Center at the Harvard Art Museums will tackle this last issue in a gallery talk: Conserving the Intangible for Made in Germany? Art and Identity in Global Nation. They will discuss their approach to conserving time-based media in this current exhibition and will introduce the cross-departmental work of the museums’ Time-Based Media Working Group and the use of “identity and iteration” reports to help preserve the intangible. Participants are limited to 18 on a first-come, first-served basis. No reservations are necessary but check in with the Reception Desk when you arrive.

— Peter Walsh

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Theater

COVID PROTOCOLS: Check with specific theaters.

Macbeth in Stride, written and performed by Whitney White. Directed by Taibi Magar and Tyler Dobrowsky. Choreographed by Raja Feather Kelly. Presented by Yale Rep,1120 Chapel Street, New Haven, through December 14.

“The Queen is center stage. In a stacked setlist of original pop, rock, gospel, and R&B bangers, OBIE Award winner Whitney White subverts one of Shakespeare’s most iconic tales. The arc of Lady Macbeth is reimagined as the story of an ambitious Black woman, told through her own contemporary perspective of femininity, desire, and power with a capital P.” The one-person show promises to bring “Lady M’s herstory into the 21st century with energy, humor, and swagger to spare.”

Extinction: The Musical. Written and performed by Reverend Billy & The Stop Shopping Choir at Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street (at Astor Place), New York, December 8, 15, and 22. Livestreamed on the Joe’s Pub YouTube channel.

Given the explosion of conventional life-enhancing holiday entertainments (i.e., Scrooge & Co.), I can’t help but toss out a more … radical … example of musical uplift. “As part of its crusade against consumerism,” writes the NYTimes of Reverend Billy & The Stop Shopping Choir, “an unorthodox New York church urges action to preserve the Earth.” This revue is billed as “a wild, loving experience that will make you want to live. If you’re troubled by consumer hypnosis, non-consensual plastic, The Sixth Extinction, or just exhausted by the contemporary moment this show is for you. Honest. Come get Revived.” Reverend Billy & The Stop Shopping Choir was the opening act for Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s 2024 Love Earth tour.

Noises Off by Michael Frayn. Directed by Ilyse Robbins. Staged by the Lyric Stage Company of Boston at 140 Clarendon Street, Boston, through December 22.

Trump has been elected. Like so many of our theaters, the Lyric Stage thinks it needs to cheer us up. They have picked an ace comedy to do so. The company “rings in the holidays with the gift of laughter, outrageous characters, and meaningful time spent with loved ones” with another revival of Frayn’s celebrated backstage farce.

NOISE Book, music & lyrics by César Alvarez. Directed by Dante Green. Staged by the Wilbury Theatre Group at 475 Valley Street, Providence, through December 22.

This immersive/interaction musical (a Rhode Island premiere) “follows a troupe of musicians who decide that society is broken and set out to make music that models a society they actually want to live in.” This is a “participatory theatrical celebration that sings across the history of music, and into the future, in a collective effort to invent a better world. As the show unravels into a dreamlike explosion of song and dance, the audience steps into a creative role.”

Emma by Kate Hamill. Based on the novel by Jane Austen. Directed by Regine Vital. Staged by Actors’ Shakespeare Project at the Multicultural Arts Center in Cambridge, 41 Second Street, East Cambridge, through December 15.

We are told this is going to be a “high-octane” adaptation of Jane Austen’s beloved romantic comedy. Gasoline rather than tea will be served? The cast includes Jennie Israel, Dev Luthra, and Josephine Moshiri Elwood.

The Thanksgiving Play by Larissa FastHorse. Directed by Tara Moses. Staged by Moonbox Productions at Arrow Street, 2 Arrow Street, Cambridge, through December 15.

According to the Moonbox Productions website, this revival of Fasthorse’s script raises some interesting queries: “Isn’t it time we rethink Thanksgiving? That’s the question on the table when four politically correct performers get together to create a new take on the traditional holiday pageant. Good intentions turn into outright tension as the group struggles to re-envision history, all without ruffling any feathers. Rambunctious, wild, and fearless, this satire serves up history and humor with a steaming side dish of uniquely American hypocrisy. Are you ready to eat your words?” Arts Fuse review

Note: “With each show, Moonbox Productions partners with a local non-profit, to raise awareness for their cause, create connections for them within the community and increase the reach and impact of their work. For the production of The Thanksgiving Play Moonbox will be partnering with North American Indian Center of Boston (NAICOB).”

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, adapted and directed by Courtney Sale. Staged by the Merrimack Repertory Theatre at the 50 E. Merrimack Street, Lowell, December 11 through 29.

“Karen MacDonald returns for her third year as the iconic Ebenezer Scrooge, a grumpy curmudgeon transformed by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. Joined by a talented ensemble of both new and returning performers, this year’s production brings a vibrant energy to the stage that will resonate with the heart of everyone who sees the performance.”

Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ adapted by Steve Wargo. Directed By Steven Maler. Musical Direction by Dan Rodriguez. Staged by the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company at the Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre, Boston, December 8 through 22.

“Journey back to Victorian England and experience Dickens’ heart-warming classic story brought to brilliant life!” The cast includes Will Lyman as the iconic Ebenezer Scrooge along with a cast of veteran local performers including Aimee Doherty as Mrs. Cratchit, Robert St. Laurence as Bob Cratchit, Kathy St. George as Charwoman, Jared Troilo as Fred, and Bobbie Steinbach as Jacob Marley.

Midwinter Revels: A Celtic and Cabo Verdean Celebration of the Solstice Directed by Debra Wise. Music Director Elijah Botkin. At Harvard University, Sanders Theatre in Memorial Hall, 45 Quincy Street, Cambridge, December 13 through 28.

“In a small fishing village off the shores of Galway Bay, a community gathers in the local pub to celebrate the season. A child enters looking for a package that may have been delivered for his mother, who comes from another coastal town — in Cabo Verde. Songs and dances are shared, and the pub dissolves into a portal for fantasy with a transformative retelling of the Selkie story, a Celtic myth about living between two worlds. Irish songs, jigs, and reels share the stage with dance, drumming, and traditional songs from Cabo Verde. In the Revels tradition, new community is catalyzed, and with it hopes for a new year.”

The 54th Season of Langston Hughes’ Black Nativity, staged by The National Center of Afro-American Artists at the Emerson Paramount Center, Robert J. Orchard Stage, Emerson Paramount Center, 559 Washington St., Boston, through December 22.

“Performed in Boston since 1970, this is believed to be the longest-running production of Langston Hughes’ Black Nativity in the history of the show. Black Nativity presents the traditional Christmas story as found in the New Testament gospels as a narrative of common people receiving the divine gifts of joy and hope. Within a swell of energetic, gospel music performed by children and adults, the Christ Child arrives amid dramatic dance propelled by African drums. His arrival portents a new era for all people of good will, an era heralded by the uplifting music that swells throughout the theater.”

The Diary of a Tap Dancer, written and choreographed by Ayodele Casel. Directed by Torya Beard. Staged by the American Repertory Theatre at the Loeb Drama Center, Cambridge, December 12 through January 4, 2025.

“Tap dancer and choreographer Ayodele Casel and longtime collaborator director Torya Beard (Chasing Magic, Funny Girl) return to A.R.T. this holiday season to share the joyful, resilient, and liberating spirit of tap. This world premiere production “weaves together dance, narrative, and song to reveal the power of reclaiming language, culture, and one’s own identity.” The storyline “traces Ayodele’s life from her roots in The Bronx and Puerto Rico, while celebrating the extraordinary and often-overlooked women tap dancers who paved the way.”

— Bill Marx

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World Music and Roots

Socks in the Frying Pan
December 12, 8 p.m.
TCAN, Natick

Every year it seems like more and more of the best Celtic groups come through with Irish holiday concerts. A welcome addition to that list is Socks in the Frying Pan, a dazzling traditional trio from County Clare that features Aodan Coyne on guitar and lead vocals, Shane Hayes on accordion, and his brother Fiachra Hayes on fiddle. Besides the holiday tunes they’ll also be featuring selections from their excellent new album Waiting for Inspiration.

Festival Navideño 2024
December 14, 7 p.m. to midnight
Florian Hall, Dorchester

The Puerto Rican Festival of Boston is sponsoring a holiday bash that includes both food and the rich musical tradition of Puerto Rican holiday songs, which will be provided by the brilliant cuatro and tres player Juan Nieves & his Legado Orchestra.

De Parang Jam
December 14, 5 to 9 p.m.
Yamba Market, Cambridge

Another great Caribbean holiday musical tradition is parang, the Spanish-language Christmas songs sung by Trinidadian troubadours as they go from house to house spreading merriment.It’s been a while since there was a parang event in Boston, so kudos to cultural warriors Roots Alley Collective for hosting this free parang party at a Black-owned Cambridge dispensary, which will also include the Carnival rhythm section One Jam and DJ OxMighty.

The Abyssinians with the Flying Vipers
December 18, 10 p.m.
Bill’s Bar, Boston

Just about every list of the greatest roots reggae records of all time includes Satta Massagana, the 1976 classic by the Abyssinians. The title track became a Rastafarian anthem and a favorite riddim that went on to be used on countless other reggae tracks. But the entire record remains a classic: the group’s close harmonies impress and the power of its Garveyite lyrics cuts though on tracks like “Y Mas Gan” and “African Race.” The group has had varying and sometimes competing lineups over the years — this version is likely led by original singer Donald Manning. Their Reggae Takeova show will be their first Boston appearance in ages. Sweetening the deal is a opening set from dub masters the Flying Vipers, who just released a new single on Easy Star Records, “Show Me,” that features some sweet vocals from Kellee Webb.

— Noah Schaffer

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Classical Music

Music for the Temple
Presented by A Far Cry
December 14 and 15, 3 p.m.
St. John’s, Jamaica Plain (Saturday) and First Church in Cambridge (Sunday)

The Criers’ final concert of the year brings together music by female composers (including Jessie Montgomery, Caroline Shaw, Reena Esmail, and Kaija Saariaho) that relate in various ways to the work of the 20th-century Swedish artist Hilma af Klint.

Christmas at Emmanuel
Presented by Emmanuel Music
December 15, 4 p.m.
Emmanuel Church, Boston

Ryan Turner and Emmanuel Music team up with Project STEP in a program that pairs two Bach cantatas with the New England premiere of Evan Williams’ A Little Mass for Christmas.

Baroque Christmas
Presented by the Handel & Haydn Society
December 19 at 7:30 p.m. and 22 at 3 p.m.
Jordan Hall, Boston

Ruben Valenzuela directs H&H’s annual holiday program which, this year, features a welcome dose of Baroque music from Latin America.

Christmas in 15th-century France & Burgundy
Presented by Blue Heron
December 20 at 8 p.m. and 21 at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.
First Church in Cambridge

Blue Heron’s annual Christmas concert returns, this time with repertoire by Guillaume Du Fay, Nicolas Grenon, Johannes Ciconia, Johannes Regis, and others in tow.

— Jonathan Blumhofer

Winter Concert
Cambridge Community Chorus
December 15 at 4 p.m.
At the Kresge Auditorium, 48 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

On the program: Vivaldi’s Gloria & Mozart’s Vesperae Solennes de Dominica, K. 321. Music director Pamela Mindell leads a professional orchestra and soloists.

— Bill Marx

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Jazz

Zahili Amora/Claudio Ragazzi Duo
December 12 at 7 p.m.
Lilypad, Cambridge

The Grammy- and Emmy-winning Buenos Aires-born composer and guitarist Claudio Ragazzi, long a treasure of the Boston scene, pairs off with the elegant Cuban pianist Zahili Amora in a program called “A Latin Jazz Journey.” Expect a blend of Afro-Cuban rhythms with “the soulful melodies of Argentinean tango and folk music,” showcasing both players’ original compositions.

Kat Edmonson
December 14 at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston

If you haven’t seen Kat Edmonson, it’s about time. The savvy and satin-voiced Texas chanteuse has a taste for movie soundtracks and jazz standards and a knack for writing attractive pop tunes that make it into movies (you may know “Lucky” and “If”). Her duet of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” with Lyle Lovett was also something of a hit. Anyway, this is her Christmas show. You could do worse.

Aardvark Jazz Orchestra
December 14 at 7:30 pm
Church of the Covenant, Boston

In their 52nd annual Christmas benefit concert, the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra will feature founder and music director Mark Harvey’s “Peace, Good Will to All,” “inspired by Charles Ives and marking the 150th anniversary of his birth.” The concert will also celebrate Duke Ellington’s 125th birthday with several of his Sacred Concert pieces, showcasing the terrific Aardvark vocalist Grace Hughes in “Tell Me It’s the Truth” and “Come Sunday. There will also be jazz-infused carols such as “What Child Is This” and “an Aardvark perennial,” the ancient hymn “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence,” performed at the first Aardvark Christmas concert in 1973.

Charlie Kohlhase’s Explorers Club
December 15 at 6:30 p.m.
Lilypad, Cambridge

Charlie Kohlhase’s Explorers Club delivered one of the best jazz albums of 2024, A Second Life (Mandorla). The octet from that album (with the inimitable Bill Lowe in for Jeb Bishop) should adequately fill the intimate confines of the Lilypad with glorious sound. The program will include pieces by Kohlhase, Billy Frazier, Roswell Rudd, and John Tchicai. The players will be Kohlhase on alto, tenor, and baritone saxes; Lowe on bass trombone; Seth Meicht, tenor; Daniel Rosenthal, trumpet, flugelhorn; Josiah Reibstein, tuba; Eric Hofbauer, guitar; Tony Leva, bass; and Curt Newton, drums.

Bruce Gertz Quintet
December 17 at 7:30 p.m.
Lilypad, Cambridge

The esteemed bassist, composer, and Berklee prof Bruce Gertz gathers a fancy Tuesday-night band to play his own music and, we guess, a couple others: tenor saxophonist Jerry Bergonzi, multireed player Allan Chase, guitarist Sheryl Bailey, and drummer Luther Gray.

Christian Sands
December 20 at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston

The superb pianist Christian Sands is taking his new Christmas Stories on the road with the excellent band from the album: guitarist Max Light, bassist Yasushi Nakamura, and brother Ryan Sands on drums. You know the tunes, but the arrangements and playing are all fresh.

— Jon Garelick

Third Thursdays
at Harvard-Epworth United Methodist Church, Cambridge, December 19 at 8 p.m.

Trumpeter Russ Johnson (Lee Konitz, Steve Swallow, Bill Frisell), alto saxophonist Eric Person (Ronald Shannon Jackson, Dave Holland, McCoy Tyner),  Hill Greene (bass), and James Kamal Jones (drums) join Dave Bryant (keyboardist) for a “Third Thursday” evening of new pieces created for an upcoming recording by the quintet.  A paraphrase of what Bryant recently posted on FaceBook about the show:  a “dynamite band” for “some rough and tumble to ring out the old year.” Bryant’s “Third Thursdays” schedule for the early part of 2025 will include the return engagement of the harmolodic quartet of Matt Lavelle, Fred Williams, Bryant, and James Kamal Jones in March.

— Bill Marx

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Author Events

Steven “Nookie” Postal – Porter Square Books
The Nookbook: 120 Recipes for People With Busy Lives 
December 10 at 7 p.m.
Free

“From the mind of Steven ‘Nookie’ Postal comes The NookBook. Whether you are just starting to master the craft of home-cooking, or struggling to keep up with feeding your raging, ungrateful children, this book has landed in the right hands. From Game-Day snacks to an entire Thanksgiving spread, Nookie has you covered. Your partner tells you that 10 people are coming over for dinner and they need to be fed? Easy. This is your manual to navigate your life, regardless of the culinary scenarios you find yourself in.”

Canal District Kendall Winter Market – Harvard Book Store
December 15, 11 a.m.to 4 p.m.
Free

“Harvard Book Store will have a pop up shop at this year’s Canal District Kendall Winter Market. Stop by and say hi to our booksellers and shop books for all ages, including holiday favorites and bestsellers. More information about this Holiday Market and the vendors participating will be available at CDK Winter Market 2024 — Canal District Kendall”

PSB: Boston Edition – Jolabokaflod: Icelandic Book Flood – Porter Square Books
December 19 at 6 p.m.
Tickets are $24

“PSB: Boston Edition is delighted to host a Jolabokaflod gift swap for our last Silent Reading Party of the year! Jolabokaflod, roughly translated as “flood of books,” is an Icelandic tradition of gifting books on Christmas Eve. After receiving a book, everyone gathers around to read and enjoy hot chocolate or cider—and that’s where PSB’s Silent Reading Party comes in!

Join us on December 19 at 6 p.m. at Porter Square Books: Boston Edition for a cozy holiday book swap, followed by our usual silent reading party. The gift swap will be ticketed, but the silent reading party is open to all. Your ticket will include one book, gifted to you on the recommendation of a bookseller, and one mug of hot chocolate from the Travelmug Cafe.

Please note that tickets to the gift swap will close sales on December 12 so that we’re able to organize the swap! Even if you miss the deadline, you are still welcome to join us at the bookstore for the free silent reading party.

To participate in the gift swap, purchase a ticket below!

At the event, we’ll begin by exchanging books, and ticket holders will receive a drink ticket to redeem for their mug of hot chocolate from Travelmug Cafe. After the exchange, we’ll read silently for an hour, followed by some discussion about what we’ve read, in usual Silent Reading Party fashion.”

— Matt Hanson