The World as a Stage Institute of Contemporary Art Feb 1 - April 27 The centerpiece of the new exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art is an enormous set of crescent-shaped bleachers that curve around the gallery space like outstretched arms. They are pressed board and synthetic fiber and would resemble gym bleachers if basketball were played in the round and gyms were designed by Gene Roddenberry. Rita McBride's Arena (1997) establishes the dual......

After the tiger attack and ensuing chaos at the San Francisco Zoo, here's some good zoo news, for a change. The New England Aquarium is welcoming many new arrivals. An anaconda celebrated the new year by giving birth to 14 little ones. WBZ explains how anaconda-birthing works: The pregnant 16-foot anaconda finished giving birth to all 14 babies around 5 a.m. Tuesday. While most snakes lay external eggs, anaconda eggs remains inside the mother's body......

As Bostonist did with books, we've tackled best of/worst of lists for movies. Not only are we including the latest best of/worst of lists, but we dug through each list to find which movies impressed every single critic and which ones were absolutely appalling. Here are links for recent "Best Of" lists: American Film Institute Top 10 National Board of Review The Onion AV Club Golden Globe Nominees Metacritic (FYI: The amazing Killer of Sheep......

--As Bostonist reported last night, two young men were stabbed and one left in critical condition at the Back Bay T stop. The incident shut down the station for almost two hours. When this happened last time at the same T stop, Bostonist asked, "What's the MBTA going to do to follow up? And what will the BPD do?" Whatever they did, it didn't work. What really struck us was the fact that no one......

Every once in a while a webcast comes around that Bostonist just adores. Of course, we want to share this adoration and what better way to accomplish this than to drop a review on the intertubes for your consumption? This week we review a 'cast that is produced by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: The Concert. Let us get the geekery out of the way. The folks over at the Gardner have done something great......

As Bostonist loves to remind our dear readers, there is a race for governor going on in this Commonwealth. We realize you'd rather focus on baseball and American Idol, but damn it, we're highbrow. As you may have heard, there was a gubernatorial debate last night, featuring democrats Chris Gabrieli, Tom Reilly, and Deval Patrick, and the independent Christy Mihos. Bostonist listened to the debate on the radio and our feeling was, "meh." But we're......

As Bostonist's non-lawyer friends stumble into work today and read the paper, they keep e-mailing us and asking, "Bostonist, you law-talking person, how is it that the Supreme Judicial Court can rule that a ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional generally, but OK when applied to out-of-state couples?" Allow us to explain. This case involves a challenge to an old law that says no one from out-of-state can get married here if they would be......

This weekend the City of Boston and Life is Good hope that 30,000 carved up pumpkins show up on the Boston Common. This Saturday, October 22, carved pumpkins, or pumpkins to carve can be brought to the Common with a votive candle to be included in the record breaking attempt. Keene, NH owns the current record of most lit jack-o-lanterns in one place. They managed to get 28,952 pumpkins lit and in one place to......

Fear of commitment when it comes to marriage is not uncommon among men - just ask Tom Reilly. As Bostonist has noted before, the position of the Attorney General and Democratic frontrunner for the governorship on same-sex marriage has not toed the state party's pro-gay marriage line. His decision yesterday to certify an anti-gay marriage ballot question that could amend the state constitution is too legally complex to lend itself to the sort of snide,......

As Bostonist walked home from a very important post-work meeting (Happy Hour), we were a little confused when we came to the Park Street T stop to find it surrounded by police cars, ambulances, and blocked off with yellow "Police Line: Do Not Cross" tape. At first, we assumed that some T skidded off the tracks or someone passed out due to the heat in one of those special unair-conditioned cars that we all love.......

Two stories about meter maids, and some questions for our dear readers: 1) This weekend, Bostonist was briefly a little disappointed with our city's meter maids after learning that one of them utterly failed to come to the aid of a family friend who was getting beaten up after the Fouth of July fireworks. (This friend apparently had the gumption to tell a local youth that it was stupid to throw fireworks into a crowd.......

In this city of ridiculously high rents and $10 drinks, Bostonist is frequently broke. We're lucky to have an amazing live music scene and lots of artsy and cultural happenings to choose from, but it can be tough to do without a serious hit to our wallet. Penny-pinching does have its rewards though, because we're always on the lookout for fun and free (or very cheap) events. As Bostonist previously noted, Boston's colleges and universities......

As Bostonist readers may recall, the First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain went up in flames on January 18th, on one of those particularly frigid nights we'd rather forget. Pastor Ashlee Wiest-Laird hasn't forgotten. She is leading an effort to rebuild, even at an estimated cost of ten million dollars. The church suffered a similar fire back in 1975, and rebuild with money from bake sales. But they're trying some different things this time......

Tonight in the Ghettolands (uhhh, Meadowlands), Boston College plays Seton Hall (10-8, 2-5), and Big East history is on the line. By beating Providence by 12 on Tuesday, BC equaled its 1968-69 squad's school record for consecutive wins and the Big East record for best overall start, shared by Syracuse (1999-2000) and Connecticut (1998-99). Never before has a Big East team gone 20-0. The odds makers think BC will have their hands full, making......