Tag: reviews

Rocky Horror at the Orson Welles Cinema and Tim Curry

The Orson Welles Cinema in Cambridge was one of those places that didn’t just show movies — it created events. By the late seventies, the midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show had turned into something closer to a weekly pilgrimage. You didn’t just go to see a film. You went to be part of something strange, loud, funny, and absolutely alive.

The theater itself had a kind of scrappy charm. It wasn’t a palace like the big Boston houses. It was smaller, more intimate, a little rough around the edges — the perfect place for a movie that didn’t fit anywhere else. When the lights went down and the opening lips filled the screen, the whole room shifted. People shouted lines, threw props, danced in the aisles. It was chaos, but it was joyful chaos, the kind that makes you feel like you’re part of a tribe.

And of course, Tim Curry was part of that magic. Not in person — he never performed live at the Orson Welles — but his presence filled the room every time Frank‑N‑Furter strutted down that staircase in heels and pearls. His performance in the 1975 film was the heartbeat of the whole thing. Every midnight showing was built around him, around that wild mix of danger, humor, seduction, and pure theatrical electricity he brought to the role. You could feel the crowd lean forward when he appeared, like they were greeting an old friend.

The Orson Welles screenings helped turn Rocky Horror from a movie into a ritual. People came week after week. Some dressed as Columbia or Magenta, some as Riff Raff, and some just came to watch the madness unfold. The shadow cast acted out the film in front of the screen, timing every gesture to Curry’s voice. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t there in the flesh — his performance was the anchor, the spark, the reason the whole thing worked.

By the time the Orson Welles Cinema closed in 1986, Rocky Horror had already become a legend. But for a lot of people in Cambridge and Boston, the real memories weren’t just of the movie — they were of those midnight gatherings, the laughter, the shouting, the feeling that for a couple of hours you were part of something bigger, stranger, and more fun than anything else in town.

And now they’re both gone. The Orson Welles is dust, the midnight crowds long scattered, but Tim Curry’s Frank‑N‑Furter still shines like a spark from a world that will never come again.

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Poet James Dennis “Jim” Carroll.

Jim Carroll, born in Manhattan in ’49, on August 1st always felt like somebody Boston would’ve claimed if New York hadn’t gotten to him first. He had that street‑level honesty, that “tell it straight or don’t bother” attitude you hear in corner bars from Dorchester to Eastie. The man wrote like he was peeling paint off a tenement wall just to see what truth was underneath.

And that line of his — “Conscience is no more than the dead speaking to us.”

That’s not airy poet talk. That’s a guy who’s seen things, done things, lost people, and knows damn well the ghosts don’t stay quiet. They sit with you. They mutter. They remind you who you were when you were too young, too wild, too stupid to know better. Carroll understood conscience the way a Boston dockworker might: not as a halo, but as a reckoning.

He came up in Manhattan, sure, but he carried himself like someone who’d survived a few winters on the Charles. Basketball courts, Catholic guilt, street corners that could make or break you — he turned all of it into fuel. The Basketball Diaries made him famous, but the poetry is where he really bled.

And the music — that was Carroll stepping into the fire. The Jim Carroll Band didn’t sound like a polished studio act; they sounded like the Lower East Side chewing on a live wire. Clubs like CBGB weren’t venues, they were battlegrounds: sticky floors, busted monitors, cigarette haze thick enough to write your name in. Carroll walked onstage like a guy dragging his past behind him, letting the amps spit it back out at full volume.

“People Who Died” wasn’t just punk — it was a street‑corner funeral shouted over guitars that sounded ready to explode. It was raw, sloppy, beautiful noise, the kind that made you feel like the world might crack open if the band hit one more chord. Carroll didn’t sing like he wanted applause. He sang like he wanted the truth to hurt a little.

Carroll’s voice — on the page or onstage — was raw, unvarnished, and weirdly tender. He could take the wreckage of youth, addiction, bad choices, the whole mess, and make it shine like something worth keeping. He wasn’t afraid of the dark. He walked into it with a notebook or a microphone and came back with lines that hit like a punch and linger like a bruise.

On his birthday, I try to remember him the way a Boston guy would — a tough‑minded poet who listened to the dead, argued with them, wrote down what they said, and handed it back to the living like a warning and a blessing rolled into one.

See less

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Archibald the Mystical Mouse

I’ve been thinking since March 5th of 2026, when I published my book, that I should rewrite it — not because I expect sales to suddenly skyrocket, but because I left out some things, explanations that would have mattered. Like the fact that I have this mystical mouse named Archibald MacLeish who shows up in the beginning. I just assumed everyone would sort of get it, and then it started occurring to me, over and over again, that no, not everyone does get it. What’s the big deal about the mouse?

So let me say it plainly.

In my book, I talk about this make‑believe mouse named Archibald MacLeish. He’s a small, mystical presence who slips in and out of the story, but the name itself comes from something real in my life. Back in school, my science teacher kept a classroom mouse, and he named that little creature Archibald MacLeish. At the time, I didn’t know much about the man behind the name, but my teacher did — and he believed in giving things names that meant something.

Later, I learned who the real Archibald MacLeish was — an American poet who wrote about democracy as something you do, not something you admire from a distance. He believed in dissent, in thinking for yourself, in the dignity of choosing your own path.

So the mouse in my book is that mouse — the one supporting my dissent. Not just the classroom mouse, and not just the poet, but the whole chain of belief behind it: a teacher who saw something in me, a poet who stood for freedom of thought, and a reminder that even the smallest presence can carry a big idea.

That’s the namesake. That’s the reason. That’s why the mouse is Archibald MacLeish. That’s why he shows up at the induction center.

And I should have explained that as an introduction to the little guy — why he’s there and given him the honor and the dues he deserved. I think folks would have felt the depth of his presence.

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Sunday Morning Sex Ramble

If you thought your Sunday morning coffee packed a punch, wait until you get a taste of this story. Scandal, silk stockings, and a dash of notoriety—Mae West and her infamous play are about to spice up your brunch scroll.

On this day in 1927, actress Mae West was sentenced to 10 days in jail for starring in the play Sex, which she also wrote and directed. It was her first Broadway show. Although Sex received terrible reviews, it drew huge crowds. After 41 weeks, police arrived and arrested the cast and crew, but only West ended up in jail. She was charged with “producing an immoral show and maintaining a public nuisance.” She said, “I wrote the story myself. It’s about a girl who lost her reputation and never missed it.” This reminds me of the movie I suggested the other day, “Professor Marston and the Wonder Women” (2017), which explores similar themes of reputation, societal norms, and strong female characters.

While in jail, West had to give up her silk stockings but was allowed to keep her silk underwear. She had her own private cell and charmed the warden and his wife, who invited her to dinner at their home each night. She made friends with other inmates while making beds and dusting. In her free time, she read business articles about different Hollywood studios. She was released two days early for good behavior.

The following year, she wrote and starred in the play Diamond Lil (1928) on Broadway, and it was a big success. She went to Hollywood, got a part in Night After Night (1932), and was allowed to rewrite her scenes. In her first scene, a hatcheck girl says to her, “Goodness, what beautiful diamonds!” and West says, “Goodness has nothing to do with it, dearie.” It was a hit, and the next year she co-starred with Cary Grant in I’m No Angel (1933). By 1935, she was said to be the second-highest-paid person in the United States, after William Randolph Hearst.

Mae West knew a thing or two about stirring the pot—and sometimes, that’s exactly what Sunday mornings are for.

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Rating: 1 out of 5.

There is no charge to subscribe