Latest news with #H.G.Wells
Boston Globe
14-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Five things to do around Boston, March 17-23
Friday Cringe Chronicles See Mortified Live at WBUR Boston. The show features people sharing real artifacts of their former teen angst — including rage-filled journal entries, poems, letters, song lyrics, schoolwork, and more. Celebrate (and cringe at) teen emotion as you get in touch with your childhood self. Show starts at 7 p.m. (doors open at 6 p.m.) at WBUR CitySpace. Find tickets — students, $10; general admission, $25 — at Advertisement Friday-Sunday Fear Factory Experience a modern interpretation of a classic H.G. Wells horror story in None Escape (The Island of Dr. Moreau) — written by former Globe Magazine advice columnist Robin Abrahams (a.k.a. Miss Conduct). The play, performed at Unity Somerville church, follows a woman stranded on an island with a scientist conducting inhumane experiments. With additional performances next week. Find times and tickets, $25 general admission, $20 seniors and students, at Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Saturday-Sunday Patchwork Past See 250 years of American history sewn together at Quilts 250: Stitching in the Spirit of Democracy, on display at Concord Academy. To commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the Concord 250 Celebrations Committee is showing over 200 quilts that touch on the founding and history of the United States. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Free. Sunday Wool Works Browse through the best of New England's fiber arts at Boston Public Market FiberFest 2025. Buy yarn, cozy goods, and more from 20-plus fiber farmers and crafters. Or, learn to needle felt, indigo dye, and make your own headbands at a series of drop-in and ticketed interactive workshops. Runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Free admission, with items available for purchase. Adelaide Parker can be reached at
Boston Globe
31-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Here's some advice: Never ask someone who's leaving their job ‘What's next?'
Aw, thanks! I say with a blush. Per your question: One waits eternally. 'Don't ask people what they're doing next' is one of the odd, small bits of wisdom I've picked up from doing this. Don't ask students what their post-graduate plans are, don't ask newlyweds if they plan to have kids, don't ask new authors what their next book is going to be about. It's such a natural thing to want to do — I've done it! — and the intentions behind it are good, but no. 'What's next' might be a stressful or exhausting thing to contemplate, or perhaps it is, as yet, uncontemplated. In a city as achievement-oriented as Boston, in particular, it conveys a sense that one always has to be in motion, on the way to scale new heights, that today's accomplishments are never enough. If people who have accomplished A Big Thing have a shiny new Next Thing on their horizon, they'll tell you. You won't have to ask. (Here's mine: I wrote a modern-day stage adaptation of H.G. Wells's science fiction/horror classic The Island of Dr. Moreau, and Somerville's Theatre@First will be producing it this March! It's my first play and I'm delirious with excitement. I'm also continuing in my job as a research associate at Harvard Business School, and yes — while not as active as I should be, I am present on LinkedIn.) Now let's get to this retirement/job-quitting business specifically. Based on my recent experience, I think the best thing to say in response to this news is some version of 'Wow, that's huge!' and invite the other person, by words or facial expression, to tell you more. Advertisement When people have finished something — a degree program, or a renovation, or a book — we congratulate them. They always had a goal in mind and they achieved it. But when people end something, that's more ambiguous, because the 'something' could go on. The thing itself isn't finished, the person who did it is finished with it. It's a choice, not a predetermined outcome. Advertisement Finishing doesn't require a story — ending does. And any story about ending is going to be complicated and filled with ambivalence. Ending a job, in particular, is multifaceted. There are practical issues about money and time, and personal ones about identity and the passage of time, and public-relations ones about the relationship of the person with their organizational alma mater. So be open to whatever story the person wants to tell, without pressing for specific details. And while not asking 'what's next' — if you have an idea or an offer, throw it out there! Do you have a new part-time gig in mind for your friend? Have you been looking for a travel buddy? Someone to collaborate on a project with? Offer! Even if they say no, it's a lovely feeling to be asked. What's the best advice you've ever been given? Let us know in the comment form below. Miss Conduct is Robin Abrahams, a writer with a PhD in psychology.
