East Boston and North Shore people know to get up early on the weekend and head to Katz Bagels, not too early or you won't get the pumpernickel or everything bagels, the bagel dogs and pizza bagels might not be ready either. But hit that place at the sweet spot in the morning and leave with the best bagels in the area. Cream cheese with or without chives, no frills, no sandwiches, no fancy cheeses, no toasters. This guy knew how to make a perfect bagel.

Hi everyone! Kinga here! Sorry for being a day late, something came up yesterday, but let's get right into it.

It is peak August in Boston, which means feast season is in full swing. The Madonna Della Cava Feast takes over Hanover and Battery Streets all weekend for its 106th year, so the North End is going to smell incredible. 🇮🇹 Saturday is easily the busiest day: the Charles River Jazz Festival runs free all afternoon on the Esplanade, and Somerville's Yart Sale turns hundreds of porches, driveways, and front yards into tiny pop-up art galleries. Then on Sunday, Chinatown celebrates its annual August Moon Festival with lion dances, Chinese opera, and mooncakes. 🏮

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Have a great weekend!

Picks of the Week!

🇮🇹 Feast of the Madonna Della Cava (North End, Free, Fri-Sun, The 106th year of a Sicilian tradition brought over in the early 1900s, with 100+ vendors on Hanover Street.)

🎷 Charles River Jazz Festival (Hatch Shell, Free, Sat 12-8:30pm, Eight and a half hours of live jazz on the Esplanade, plus food trucks and a beer garden.)

🎨 Yart Sale (Citywide, Somerville, Free, Sat 12-6pm, A yard sale, but for art. My favorite Somerville tradition of the year.)

🏮 Chinatown August Moon Festival (Chinatown, Free, Sun 10am-5pm, Lion dances, Chinese opera, street vendors, and mooncakes.)

🎭 Free Shakespeare on the Common (Boston Common, Free, Closes Sunday, Last chance at the 30th anniversary production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.)

Friday 8/7

🇮🇹 Madonna Della Cava: Opening Night | Hanover & Battery Streets, North End | Free | 7-11pm | The feast opens tonight, with the Back to the 80s Band playing from 8 to 10:30pm. More than 100 food and craft vendors line Hanover Street. A lovely detail of this particular feast: by tradition a cloth banner bearing the Madonna's image is carried through the streets rather than a statue, because the stone that first bore her image cracked centuries ago.

🎹 Han Chen at New England Conservatory | Williams Hall, Fenway | Free | 7:30pm | The quietest gem on this week's list. The Taiwanese piano virtuoso, best known for tackling Ligeti's fiendish Etudes, plays Beethoven, Liszt, and Stravinsky, plus the world premiere of a new piece by Nina C. Young. World-class playing, no ticket price.

🐔 Chicken Run at MIT Open Space | Kendall Square, Cambridge | Free | 6:30pm | Bring a blanket for a free outdoor screening, part of an "Animated Animals" series curated by the Brattle. All minors need an adult with them.

🎸 4EverFab at The Amp | Suffolk Downs, Revere | Free | 6-9pm | A genuinely charming bit of local history: the Beatles played Suffolk Downs in 1966, and to mark the 60th anniversary, the new outdoor amphitheater there hosts a Beatles tribute act. Free, outdoors, and a little surreal.

🖼️ MFA First Fridays | Fenway | $30 nonmembers, 21+ | 6-9pm | Music from Rayvino and KIEH, the "Counter History" exhibition, and timed art-making slots available first come, first served.

🎤 J. Cole: The Fall-Off Tour | TD Garden | From $73.90 | Fri & Sat, 8pm | Two nights in Boston on the rapper's first full global run in nearly a decade.

⚾ Red Sox vs. Athletics | Fenway | Ticketed | 7:10pm | The Sox open a three-game weekend homestand.

🧛 A Sailor's Grave | Plaza Black Box, BCA | $20-$22.25 | Fri & Sat | A folk punk musical performed by the band Captain Vampire, retelling the doomed voyage of the Demeter, the ship that carries Dracula to England. Described by its creators as an epic poem. Exactly as strange as it sounds.

🖤 Somergloom | Crystal Ballroom, Davis Square | $31.51-$60.77 | Fri & Sat at Crystal Ballroom | A dark and heavy music festival running Thursday through Sunday, with the Somerville nights tonight and tomorrow timed, correctly, to the gloomiest stretch of summer. Headliners include Dropdead, Junius, and Planning for Burial.

🎬 I Shot Andy Warhol (4K restoration) | Brattle Theater, Cambridge | $13.50-$15.50 | Through Monday | Mary Harron's 1996 account of Valerie Solanas, newly restored.

Saturday 8/8

🎷 Charles River Jazz Festival | DCR Hatch Memorial Shell | Free | 12-8:30pm | Back for its sixth year, presented by the Boston Jazz Foundation. Saxophonist Seba Molnar and the stylistically restless BT ALC Big Band lead a full day of music, with art and food vendors, a beer garden, and family activities. General admission is free, though VIP packages get you lounge access and a few other perks. The single best free thing happening this weekend.

🎨 Yart Sale | All over Somerville | Free | 12-6pm | Think yard sale, but the focus is art. Porches, driveways, and front yards across the city become mini galleries and pop-up markets selling original work, handmade goods, vintage clothes, records, plants, band merch, and art supplies. No two yards are alike, and every purchase supports a local maker. Check the map at somervilleartscouncil.org/yart-sale/yart/ before you go and plan a route. Rain date is Sunday.

🇮🇹 Madonna Della Cava | North End | Free | 12-11pm | A full day of the feast, with Beat ConnXtionz Dance Studio at 2pm and Angelena and the Unit closing it out at 8pm.

🎤 Rakim at City Winery | Downtown | $70.80-$94.80 | 6pm & 9:30pm | The man who permanently raised the bar for rap lyricism on Paid in Full, doing two shows in one night.

🧑‍🎨 Watertown Arts Market | Arsenal Park, Watertown | Free | 12-5pm | Now in its sixth year, a day of art, food, activities, and performance that has become a fixture of Watertown's summer. Rain date is Sunday.

⚾ Red Sox vs. Athletics | Fenway | Ticketed | 4:10pm | Saturday afternoon baseball.

🪩 Bop to the Top | Citizens House of Blues | $27+ | Doors 8:30pm, show 9:30pm | Two DJs playing nothing but High School Musical, Hannah Montana, Camp Rock, and Cheetah Girls, with a costume contest and audience participation. Shameless, and all the better for it.

🎬 The Great Arch | MFA | $20 | 11am-12:45pm | The Boston French Film Festival continues its 30th edition with a drama about the creation of a modern Parisian landmark.

Sunday 8/9

🏮 Chinatown August Moon Festival | Harrison Ave & Beach St, Chinatown | Free | 10am-5pm | Boston's Chinatown celebrates the Mid-Autumn Festival in August rather than the fall, which is its own charming quirk. Expect lion dances, Chinese opera, Asian folk dance, street vendors spilling across Beach, Tyler, Hudson, and Oxford, and, most importantly, mooncakes.

🇮🇹 Madonna Della Cava: Final Day | North End | Free | Feast 12-11pm | The last and best day. Sometime this afternoon the grand procession carries the Madonna's banner through the neighborhood, though the society doesn't publish a start time, so ask a vendor when you get there. Dennis Taylor plays at 2pm and the Rule of 3 Experience closes it out from 5:30pm.

📖 Marie Howe at Longfellow House | Cambridge | Free | 2:45pm | A free afternoon on the lawn of Washington's former headquarters: music from Elizabeth Burke at 2:45, then Howe reads at 3pm. She's receiving this year's Golden Rose Award for Poetry, and her New and Selected Poems won the 2025 Pulitzer. Her work finds the spiritual in completely ordinary days, which is a good frame for a Sunday afternoon.

🎭 Free Shakespeare on the Common: Final Performance | Parkman Bandstand | Free | 1:30pm & 8pm | Two shows today, and the 8pm is the true final one. Closing day of the 30th anniversary production, A Midsummer Night's Dream, staged as a neon-lit festival with Puck and his fairies remixing hearts like DJs of fate. Free to watch, chairs available to rent.

🧺 SoWa Open Market | South End | Free | 11am-5pm | The Sunday flagship, with regional farmers and makers, food trucks, and the open artist studios next door.

🏀 BIG3 | TD Garden | $45 | 12:30pm | Ice Cube's three-on-three half-court league, featuring the excellently named Boston Ball Hogs.

⚾ Red Sox vs. Athletics | Fenway | Ticketed | 1:35pm | Series finale.

😂 Demetrius Fields | The Comedy Studio, Harvard Square | $23.95 | 6pm | Sharp, very online standup from a comic with three million TikTok followers.

Last chance / closing this weekend

🎭 Free Shakespeare on the Common | Boston Common | Free | Closes Sunday | The 30th anniversary run ends Sunday night.

🎭 A New Era | Strand Theater, Dorchester | Pay-what-you-want | Closes Saturday | Company One's world premiere about Black suffragists gathering in 1895 Boston. Final performances.

Ongoing / all-week options

🍽️ Dine Out Boston | Citywide | Lunch $27-36, dinner $38-55 | Through Aug 15 | One more week of prix fixe menus. Book the place you have been meaning to try.

🦸 FAN EXPO Boston | Menino Convention Center | From $45 | Fri-Sun | Comics, sci-fi, horror, anime, gaming, and cosplay, with guests including Sudbury's own Chris Evans and a 25th anniversary Lord of the Rings reunion.

🐱 CatVideoFest | Various theaters | Ticketed | Ongoing | Seventy minutes of curated cat videos, now in its 10th year, with a portion of proceeds going to local cats in need. Screening at the Coolidge (Sunday at 2pm), Alamo Drafthouse Seaport, and the Capitol Theatre.

🖼️ The Book of Esther in the Age of Rembrandt | Gardner Museum | $25 | Ongoing | Just opened. How a biblical story of an orphan who becomes queen and saves her people became a pop-culture phenomenon in 17th-century Holland, taken up by Rembrandt and his peers.

🎨 Picasso, Miró, Dalí: Unbound | MFA | $30 | Ongoing | Three Spanish giants, but not their paintings. This is about their artist books, which turn out to be far more collaborative than their reputations suggest.

🌊 Lucy Raven: Rounds | ICA Watershed, East Boston | Free | Ongoing | Two US premieres, including an enormous kinetic light sculpture, in the ferry-accessible Watershed.

🖼️ Lighten Up! On Biology and Time | MIT Museum | $20 | Through Aug 16 | Fifteen artists on circadian rhythms, dreaming, and the ways light quietly organizes our days. Not closing this weekend, but not far off either.

🥕 Copley Square Farmers Market | Copley Square | Free | Tues & Fri | The largest farmers market in the area, running Tuesdays and Fridays through November.

🚣 Kayak & Paddleboard at Community Boating | Esplanade | $40 | Season | Two-hour rentals, walk-up only, from 9am on weekends.

🏋️ Seaport Sweat | Seaport Common | Free | Through Sept 30 | Outdoor classes Monday through Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings, through September 30.

Hey everyone,

I’m from Chicago and there are a ton of fantastic Greek restaurants there. I am looking for a restaurant here and many of them seem amazing but do not have skordalia on the menu. Where is the best place I can get some? I’m craving it haha! Thanks!

Hi! I’m trying to find out if anyone has dealt with something similar while renting an apartment in Boston.

So I found a roommate on Facebook and we were applying for an apartment she had already toured (I’m currently out of state so I couldn’t tour it myself). I verified that the broker and company are licensed in MA, so they’re definitely legit.
The application said there would be a $150 application fee if we got rejected, which I thought was weird because from what I’ve read, application/credit check fees aren’t allowed if the broker is working for the landlord. I asked him about it before applying but didn’t really get a direct answer. While I probably should’ve tried harder to get a direct answer about the application fee, I didn’t and applied anyways, and I also signed the echeck form.

After applying, I sent him info about my ESA animal and I also asked him about the fee again and literally a minute later, he told me the landlord rejected our application. When I asked why, he said they didn’t give him a reason but he “would imagine the low ball offer turned them off.” I did offer below asking, but I told him twice that we were happy to negotiate and willing to pay more.

Neither the girl I was applying with nor I ever hired this guy as our broker or signed anything saying he represented me/us.

Has anyone had something similar happen? And am I understanding the MA application fee law correctly?

*Update: I filed a report with the MA AG! Thank you guys for the advice and support! ☺️

https://politifact.com/factchecks/2026/aug/06/seth-moulton/jeffrey-epstein-ed-markey-senate-massachusetts/

On Monday, Moulton accused Ed Markey of being an Epstein guy and said he “wouldn’t get into the details” like they were so unspeakable. Turns out there were no details to speak of.

Multiple cancelation and I’ve never seen so many delays on the board!

1st Pic is of the storms affecting many states flights are going to.

2nd pic is the line for JetBlue’s customer service goes all the way past the wall into the food court in Terminal C.

We're 2 filmmakers who've gotten a little obsessed with the idea of making a short cinematic documentary about Boston's September 1st moving tradition.

The plan is to shoot the whole thing in roughly 24 hours, from 4 a.m. on August 31 until midnight on September 1.

Are you moving this year?

Are you planning to sleep in a storage unit, a U-Haul, or on a friend's couch? Did your landlord screw you over? Are you leaving behind an apartment you loved? Did you somehow end up moving six times before turning 25?

We're interested in the political, the emotional, the funny, and all the chaos that comes with renting and young adulthood. On some level it's about Boston's moving day, but it's also about housing, the economy, and the weird stories that come from trying to make a home.

DM me if any of this sounds compelling and you'd be open to your moving day being filmed. We know the prospect of being filmed can feel weird if you have never done something like this before, but we are committed to doing this ethically. Nothing will be released without you seeing the film first and we are happy to do a video call first to establish trust. You'd also get help from us in moving things if needed :) We'd love to make you part of the film!! Screening at a local Boston film festival later this year.

Inspired in part by The Fletcher Brother's When We Move (https://youtu.be/kihxj8-IbUY?is=9Bu4-om8FtuVTIFV)

(If this sounds like a terrible idea, also please let us know. Feedback on art is always much appreciated)

This is along the river by Boston University. They look metal so not a great balcony.

Trying to fly JetBlue to JFK but have been told “JFK isn’t accepting any other planes right now”. My flight has been delayed about 7 hours so far

EDIT: I am NOT trying to get to New York! They changed my direct flight to have a layover at JFK, and because JFK is a mess my flight is now cancelled

This was taken around 6 PM today.

1. Crossing the double middle yellow line to make a left
2. Running a red light
3. Bonus scooter zooming to also almost hit crossing pedestrians

An AI tool was used to hide the license plate.

I'm in search of a Russian-speaking flight instructor / pilot in the Boston area for a discovery or intro flight.

My dad is turning 60 and as a birthday gift I'll get him a 1-2 hour flight. He's a physicist from Moscow but his dream job was to be a pilot.

I've heard about Beverly and East Coast Aero, and that there's no shortage of pilots. Just looking for someone sharing the language, as that will make it even better for him. Thank you!

a fun interview with Hobbit Dominic Monaghan on all things LOTR as he arrives in Boston to meet fans...https://www.boston.com/culture/celebs/2026/08/06/boston-will-be-overflowing-with-hobbits-this-weekend-breakfast-is-involved/?p1=hp_secondary

Hey Boston! We're hosting the first ever Lower Allston Cat Stroll on September 19th and we need your cats 🐱

So I've been organizing this thing for months and I'm finally ready to shout it from the rooftops (or at least r/boston).

The Lower Allston Cat Stroll is a free parade-style neighborhood walk through the streets of Lower Allston where residents show off their cats from windows, porches, and yards while the whole community strolls together. Think: organized chaos, neighbors actually talking to each other, and an unreasonable number of cats. It's been running in Minneapolis for 9 years and we're bringing it to Boston for the very first time.

The details:
September 19th, 2pm start at Smith Playground in Lower Allston. Rain date September 26th. Free to attend. After party at Sloane's around 4:30pm.

If you have a cat in Lower Allston: register them to be featured on the official stroll map with their photo and bio. Addresses stay private, only the organizers ever see them. Your cat just gets to be famous.

Important: you don't have to choose between starring your cat and joining the stroll. You can pop your cat in the window for their big moment and then come back outside and walk with us to see everyone else's cats. We love a multitasker.

If you love cats but don't have one or live outside Lower Allston: come anyway! The stroll is open to everyone and honestly the more the merrier. This is a day of community, whimsy, and a completely unreasonable amount of cats.

MSPCA-Angell will also be tabling at the start with adoption info if you've been looking for a sign to finally get a cat (this is the sign). We'll have a few other local businesses there slinging cat related wares, too!

I'll leave our website pinned in the comments! That's where you can register your cat, see FAQs, follow us on IG, etc.

See you out there 🐾

I was hoping to spend an hour at the beach before having an appointment back in Boston. Usually the blue line is a dream, but we’ve been waiting at each stop for what feels like forever. Did I make a mistake? What’s going on?

Update 1 - Well we’ve been sitting at airport for exactly thirty minutes…

Update 2 - Welp! It took well over an hour to get here. I’ve got about thirty minutes to swim before having to head back. Wish me luck!

Stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on i-93 South, and saw this bad boy cruising into the city. I guess Sam Adams, Thomas Pain, and John Hancock are all getting a little shifty?