Sat. July 31 - Sun. Aug. 1

What do artists do when a crisis hits? Make art. Provocative German artists Heide Hatry is very good and quick on these kind of things, and with the Gulf Oil Spill presenting this slight problem for the next few decades, she's seized upon it to put up paintings, sculptures and, well, dead animals, such as birds, opossums, rats and mice. Dead animals have a lot to do with the oil spill; hence, her art. Hatry's exhibtion, called "Imagine It Thick In Your Own Hair," is up through Sunday Aug. 1. What she does: Using road kill and found animal corpses, Hatry creates scenes suggestive of what is happening in the Gulf of Mexico today. Her pigments are actual oil and tar and other “organic” materials that are the substance of the disaster. (Note: Life is a circle. The repugnant oil that is responsible for destroying life and land was once dinosaurs and plants.) The show is intended to evoke the tragedy being visited upon earth and sea that is choking its life from it right now and to motivate people to help. It is difficult to not look away when you see an actual animal suffering - we've seen this on the nightly news and on Anderson Cooper a lot - and Hatry wants to demand awareness by putting the harsh truth directly in front of the viewer, unmitigated by distance, or even the distancing effect of TV. The show is a benefit exhibition, and the proceeds from sales will be used to support the Audubon Action Center, the principal organization assisting the wildlife of the Gulf region. 

ongoing, Fridays and Saturdays

 Sure, it's out of town - about 40 minutes from Boston - but so is Comcast Center and that can be a headache and a half when you consider traffic/parking/etc. If you like quality music outdoors and on a slightly smaller scale, we heartily recommend the Lowell Summer Music Series. We've seen Richard Thompson, Los Lobos, and recently Amos Lee and have yet to be disappointed by the music or the vibe. It's a bring-your-lawnchairs/bring-your-kids type of place and can seat several thousand folks. It's a summer with Lyle Lovett, the B-52s (in photo) and the Indigo Girls. Not bad at all. It takes place at Boarding House Park in the center of Lowell. JSInk spoke with programming director Peter Aucella about the series, past and present.

JSInk: How has the Lowell Summer Music Series evolved over time?
PA: I started the Series in 1990 as Boarding House Park construction was completed.  The trees have certainly grown much larger, but the venue is still in great shape as we proceed with our 21st season.  Our initial concept was to do ethnic music similar to the Lowell Folk Festival, but onegenre per night, since the immigrant story is part of the historyinterpreted by the Lowell National Historical Park.  We had a limited budget and free admission, so it was a modest affair.  We realized that it takes just as much work to do this for a smaller audience as it does for a bigger one, so we began to grow the series and the number of name performers steadily each year since then.  I don't think we ever envisioned having acts like the B-52s, Lyle Lovett, Indigo Girls, Jimmy Cliff and Herbie Hancock but people really love seeing these shows in such anintimate venue.

ongoing - Sun. Aug. 29

 "A teeming world of insects." That's the way Cirque du Soleil is promoting its latest dance-acrobatics-contortionist-music-mindscramble  extravaganza to hit Boston, "OVO,' which is up at Fan Pier and Pier 4 through Sunday Aug. 29. That raises the question: Who don't like bugs? Most of us, I'd say, especially in this summer of tree-and-leaf munching beetles and those damn carnivorous black bastards that attacked me out on Plum Island's beach. I grew up in Maine where the mosquito is the state bird, and was amazed that at the University of Maine, which I went to as an undergrad, there was a department called Entomology. Imagine, a whole area of study where you spend your life hovering over insects! I mean, an ant farm is one thing, but ...

At any rate, the human insects at "Ovo" are a far friendlier and cuddlier bunch that what you'll see out in the natural world. Some of the 'sects and 'sects buddies (frogs, bats, we think) we could idenifty: grasshoppers, crickets, ants, butterflies and ladybugs. Some, we just had to figure were nebulous/ambiguous insects working out their problems amidst this colorful ecosystem. Their life: They work, eat, crawl, flutter, play, fight and look for love in a non-stop riot of energy and movement. I truly enjoy Cirque du Soleil productions and refuse to join any backlash-because-they're-big movement, but I've also thought most of the time the "storyline" created was just something flimsy (even if drenched in Meaning) on which to hang to physical movement. And so what? I'd figure out what the show was "about" from reading the production notes and enjoy the mostly wordless stage activity and sounscape for what it was. Look at it this way: It's kind of like the 3-D "Alice in Wonderland" but in real live 3-D. Colors, shapes, sizes, movement. In "OVO,' though, there's less to figure. You can pretty much settle in and watch the trapeze action (sometimes right above the net they've strung over our heads), the wall-climbing-and= leaping frogs, the sinuous movements and contortionist fun with the ladybugs, the moth that is on a rope and emerges out of its cocoon.

Sat. July 31 & Mon. Aug. 2

Generally speaking you'll se the Chandler Travis and one of his innumerable bands (the Incredible Casuals and the Chandler Travis Philharmonic) to name two at local clubs like Toad or Johnny D's. By local, we mean Boston area: Travis - a prolific and genre-scrambling singer-songwriter-guitarist - is based on Cape Cod and from the looks of it plays just about every night of the week down that way. But he's got a really big shoe coming at the Berklee Performance Center on Monday, August 2 at 8:15). Travis sent us five tracks from the upcoming, swinging, jazzy new CD, "The Chandler Travis Philharmonic Blows" -it's rather horn-driven. But in the lyrics you will note the witty and droll observations Travis is prone to put into songs. There's one Kinksian, almost happy/quasi-weary song about "Pushing Up Daisies." It's about carrying on until, well, the inevitable.

Travis is playing looking forward to the bigger Berklee venue and thinks he and his large band can do things a lot more theatrical and not just be playing for a bunch of customers more intent on their next beer than the music. (Nothing wrong with that. You make your living in clubs, that's part of the package.) But, writes Travis, "I just wanted to make a case for my/ourselves as doing something unusually original, ambitious, and necessary between these various bands. I've been working like a crazy person with three different bands with at least three different mostly original repertoires. My summer schedule is just hilarious and the CTP is certainly the most of everything, and possibly deserving of more attention in Beantown." Tickets: $15. Starts at 8:15.

(Wed- Sun.) ongoing - through Sun. Aug. 22

Sherlock Holmes is one of the world’s best-known sleuths and "The Hound of the Baskervilles" one of his best-known and most-beloved cases. From Basil Rathbone to Michael Cain to Robert Downey, Jr., some of the best and most beloved actors of their respective eras have taken a moment to doff the famous deerhunter hat, take up the curved pipe and go about the business of solving unsolvable crimes.Rarely if ever has it been so much fun, however, as in the Central Square Theater’s production that runs through Sunday Aug. 22.

Though Holmes’ cases (and Holmes himself) are among the most complicated ever created, CST takes things to a whole new level by having the entire story performed by only three actors! Featuring the noticeably svelte Remo Airaldi in the title role (among many others), the play also features Bill Mootos as Dr. Watson (the most consistent character and d therefore the self-labeled “star” of the story) and student actor Trent Mills, who towers above the miniature proscenium as various members of the Baskerville family. With just three people portraying a cast of about 17, the comic confusion rises to such a pitch that, at the request of the audience, the trio - who are themselves posing as a traveling troupe called the Stellar Traveling Dramatists (acronym it!) who are often fully aware that they are acting – are “forced” to reenact the entire first act in miniature (a la the digested “Hamlet” in “The Complete WOWSA”) to start the second.

Sun. Aug. 1

One of favorite songs from the English psych-rock band Kula Shaker - remember was them? - was "Grateful When You're Dead/Jerry Was There," a trippy tribute to the late Garcia, where, in the song, it suggested many Deadheads held events where they swore, man, that "Jerry was there." Why do we think that will happen Sunday Aug. 1 out in Boston harbor? Because it would have been his 68th  birthday and this take on a 419 aspect in the Deadhead world. (Jerry went down for good 15 years ago, after years of hard drugs and dietary trouble took their toll.) This year, to make that day extra special (why do we celebrate death days?) on Sunday Aug. 1 you can board the Rock and Blues Cruise with The Grateful Dread, the long-running reggae/Dead tribute band. It's not, as you no doubt realize, a goof. There's links between the languid Dead and the languid reggae/ska sound and, of course, there's the pot. Check out the Grateful Dread at www.thegratefuldread.com. The Dread have been packing Martha’s Vineyard clubs and selling out shows across the region since their inception. 

   The Dread takes the Dead songs - "Dark Star,' "Franklin's Tower's

Mondays

Remember "The Gong Show?" That Chuck Barris monstrosity that showcased untalented people trying get famous on TV by doing embarrassing crap that we sometimes watched, revolted by the acts and that fact that we were watching ... Oh, wait, that's TV today, too. Yes, folks, "The Gong Show" was just ahead of its time. Maybe it was avant-garde performance art and we didn't even know it. Well, TT the Bear's is taking what traditionally is a slow night in clubland - Monday - and turning it into "Gong Show Karaoke."
"The concept is simple," explains club manager Kevin Patey. "A panel of judges, (comprised of members of Boston's music community)  and an opportunity to sing, and risk the chance of the wrath of the judges and the much feared 'gong.' (Why does JSInk fear this judges bell will toll for us at some point ... )  

Why compete? Patey: "Contestants can win prizes and accolade from the judges, (or be told the reason they got the gong!). Hosted by former Abbey Lounge doorman, local comedian and all around great guy, Tommy Somerville. 

Mon. Aug. 2

Carl Hiaasen is one clever bastard - to quote Ian Dury - and our favorite novelists. Has been for years. With crazy, but believable characters (villains, hereos and mixes of both) a vehemently pro-environmentalist slant, and just some of the best black humor going, Hiaasen just keeps hitting the mark. "Star Island," doesn't come out til July 27, but the bits we know: It involves a one-time teen pop star named Cherry Pye, who hit the skids, did the D/A rehab route and is in the midst of another comeback. (Remind you of anyone, Britney?) She also has a body double, who functions for her when Cherry just can't make it off the floor to go clubbing, and this body double manages to get kidnapped from South Beach - Florida is Hiaasen's stomping ground (he loves the place, hates what's happened to it) - by a paparazzi. It's fair to say hilarity will ensue, but that hilarity will have a subtext. We know this because Skink, Hiaasen's ex-gov-turned-madman-hermit-environmentalist makes a return. And we know it because Hiaasen really is a master at wrenching some heart and soul out of a funny romp. He's the literary Warren Zevon. And it's no stretch to see why the two became friends after being mutual admirers, and ended up writing a song together. "Basket Case." Hiaasen reads from "Star Island" Monday Aug. 2 at 7.

40 Brattle St., Cambridge, 617-876-8021 www.brattlefilm.org

ongoing

"Inception" is centered around the type of plot device usually riddled with questionable developments. But Christopher Nolan’s latest mind-game is a full-blown success. Leonardo DiCaprio is Cobb, the head of a mercenary dream-team (pun intended!) of information thieves, the kind that get into your head while you sleep.  Most of the time, Cobb and his team are the best, they know how to break down the safeguards of the mind and “extract” desired information for their employer. But when Japanese business mogul Saito hires them to do the nearly impossible – to plant an idea in someone’s mind, rather than take it (called “inception”) they get into a swirling mess of dreams-within-dreams that nearly kills them all.

Time travel and dream sequences are more often than not the undoing of many a decent adventure picture. Interesting premises go sour when logic falls by the wayside or dreams stray too far from reality. An easy way out is for a writer or director to make up new rules as they go, in order to excuse a digression from the structure of earlier scenes. So all the credit to Nolan for offering up just enough exposition to let us in on how things work, and then not bending his own rules too much.

ongoing

Don't know about you, but when I was in high school my history courses concerned the US and Western Civilization. There was almost the unspoken agreement that nothing else mattered and, as a kid, I didn't really question it. Didn't all that matter concern these areas? Hopelessly naive and stupid, I know. But I'll also confess I didn't get much more world history in college - that's when we specialize, y'know - and what I've picked up I've done on my own. I'm kind of enjoying Newsweeks new, more worldly focus - even if the articles are brief, there's acknowledgment that in this self-absorbed land of ours, other places and people matter. I bring this up because I went to the opening party/screening at the Museum of Science for the film "Arabia," where 2000 years of Arabian history is compressed into a 45-minute film.

ongoing

Apparently, Pixar has under contract nearly all of the truly imaginative writers in the industry. Using old (but not tired) characters, in "Toy Story 3" they have yet again told a delightful, entertaining story that will be a blast for kids and adults.What Pixar understands is that using a classic story model is fine, as long as you can inject a bit of wit and a slightly different approach into the obvious. The storytellers don’t stretch too far beyond the ordinary for their building blocks: they use toys we all recognize, spoof known genres and make generalized pop references as the butt of many jokes.  Yet in combination – and with a knack for pacing and building real character relationships – something fresh emerges.

Lee Unkrich has an awesome advantage when directing an animated feature: he has absolute control over the actors’ faces.  A beautiful human face or an actor who “lives the part” can be engaging, but a line delivered with a certain twitch of the mouth or a cut of the eyes can make a character. Animation allows the director to make sure that every character can be given a life beyond what is in the script.

ongoing

 As the credits role at the of “Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work,” the 75-year-old subject of the film jokes – “jokes” – that this film, about a year in her life, would have been so much more marketable should she die after its completion. “I’d go!” she says, the joke being the incongruity. She couldn’t because she’d be dead, but she certainly appreciates the commercial value it would have. It’d be a money-maker. She would go out, in a manner of speaking, on top. Being on top – or at least riding out the lows and reaching for the top again and again – has been integral to the iconic comic throughout her career. It remains so. Hell, to her, is to have a blank datebook. It means no one wants her. Perhaps this is the ugly truth about showbiz: That it doesn’t matter what you’ve achieved or who loves you or what you’ve built, if you’re not working - now - you’re dead. Virtually at least. And most of us can understand that, at least to a degree. (Hopefully, we don’t push it to Rivers’ degree.)