There’s nothing like a good Irish argument. If you want to go back and forth over what’s the best Irish breakfast in town, you can compare and contrast the traditional Irish breakfast at the Westbury Restaurant and the Irish Jumbo Breakfast Roll at the Rox Diner. If you’re up for a quarrel about whether Jameson or Bushmills is the better Irish whiskey, you can try them both at the Corrib Pub and the West Roxbury Pub. If you’re Irish, and just want to be among your fellow landsmen, the Website city-data.com suggests heading to the west side of West Roxbury, where the Irish population is as …

Sara Hamlen is wrapped up in the arts. If she’s not working in watercolor or pen and ink or maybe making a sketch, she’s likely taking some photos. If she’s not creating her own art, it’s a good bet she’s teaching others how to make their own. Hamlen grew up in Dedham, lived on the West Coast for a while, and has been a West Roxbury resident for the past decade, where she’s also a member of the West Roxbuy Art Association. She credits her parents for instilling a love of the arts in her. Q: What are your earliest memories of doing artistic things? Hamlen: My mom and dad were very encouraging …

Richard Martin makes his living in education – he started teaching in 1974, and now he’s the principal at the Harvard/Kent Elementary School in Charlestown. But he’s been letting his creative juices flow through writing – poetry, fiction, memoir – since he was around 20. Now 62, Martin is having a rather productive year, with the release of the short story collection “Altercations in the Quiet Car” and a new CD, “Improvised Trees.” We spoke on the deck overlooking the back yard at his house in West Roxbury, where he and his family have been living since 1995. Q. Do you remember when you first…

The Summer Festival Theater at Roxbury Latin kicks off its 2011 season on Thursday with Tom Stoppard’s absurdist retelling of “Hamlet,” “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” to be joined next week by William Shakespeare’s fast-paced romantic comedy “Twelfth Night.” During breaks at a rehearsal of “Twelfth Night” earlier this week, director Ross MacDonald and cast members David W. Frank and Kenny Steven Fuentes spoke about the play, the characters, and why Shakespeare remains relevant to today’s audiences. David W. Frank is a longtime teacher of English at Roxbury Latin. He also runs the …

It is either ironic or a bit of an inside joke that Patrice Monahan recently wrote a song titled “I Ain’t Got No Time.” Never mind that the longtime West Roxbury resident is a singer-dancer-pianist-actor-composer. She’s also a part-time teacher at the Patrick Lyndon School, works with senior citizens, and gives private lessons in piano, guitar, voice, and tap dance. In the middle of all that, she’s married, is a mom, and is retired from a nursing career. Her group Patrice Monahan Jazz will be performing original tunes and covers of jazz standards at the Roslindale Village Farmers' Market on …

The West Roxbury Branch Library hosted an introductory overview of the lecture series “American Identity” last Monday. Starting on June 27, the program kicks into gear with the first of nine DVD lectures on the lives of a cross section of well known Americans. The half-hour talks are given by Patrick Allitt, Professor of American History at Emory University, and are part of a course he created for The Teaching Company. The program was brought to the library by longtime West Roxbury resident and retired Boston University professor Dolores Burton, who also chose the nine lecture subjects out of…

Posters and postcards are all around town. Sets are being designed. Rehearsals are just around the corner. Roxbury Latin’s Smith Theater will soon be host to the first (hopefully) annual Summer Festival Theater, with presentations of “Twelfth Night” and “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.” It all started just more than a year ago when British actor and director Ross MacDonald, who was working steadily at New Repertory Theatre, answered an ad looking for a theater professional to direct a production. He got the job: directing Roxbury Latin’s junior school play “The Lion, the Witch and the …

Hercules Press, a longtime West Roxbury printing business, opened its doors in 1973, near Anna’s Donuts, and moved to its current 91 Spring St. location 15 years later. Owner Michael Macrides had already taken the reins of the business his father started by then, but he had musical ambitions long before. He started drum lessons at 10, and was playing professionally by 16. His rock band Big Bucks eventually signed with local hotshot producer Alan Lorber. Of course, life can get in the way. The band didn’t pan out, neither did another one. Then marriage, fatherhood, and divorce led to Macrides …

Suzie Canale grew up surrounded by flowers, working in her family’s wholesale flower business. The West Roxbury resident remembers back when she was 10-years-old, opening up a case of flowers that had come from Holland, and catching a whiff of chocolate. Her parents told her it was the aroma of the chocolate cosmos flower. Canale thought, right then, that it might be fun to write a story about it someday. With the publication of her first book, “The Land of Chocolate Cosmos,” that dream has come true. The book is about a young boy who helps solve a chocolate shortage problem through …

Trombonist Norman Bolter has a good memory of how old he was when certain things happened to him. The longtime West Roxbury resident was first enamored of the trombone when he was 4 (he saw Mr. Greenjeans playing one on “Captain Kangaroo”). He got his first one and began formal lessons when he was 9. He decided he wanted to be in an orchestra when he was 10. He composed “The Song of King David” when he was 12. He played the piece for the personnel manager of the Boston Symphony Orchestra when he was 13. He joined the BSO at 20. Now 56, Bolter retired from the BSO in 2007.   Q: You’re from …

Tammy Schuetz Cook is excited about her new purchase. “I just got home from purchasing a kiln from another artist,” she said over the phone. “I got an amazing deal.” Schuetz Cook — wife, mother, blogger, social media specialist, tech writer and jewelry maker — is embarking on a new chapter in her already busy creative life, working in a medium called ‘metal clay.’ The kiln will enable her to finish her pieces at home, whereas she’d previously been renting a shelf in a kiln at a Brookline Village bead shop. “Working with metal clay brings me back to when I used to do more with pottery,” she …

The way Argentinean painter and sculptor Silvina Mizrahi sees it, looking at artwork in books is only half of the picture. For someone who has taught art to multiple age groups in America and in other parts of the world, she should know. She will be bringing her expertise to the West Roxbury Library for a pair of kids’ workshops she designed about masks and mosaics, respectively. “My idea is about showing the kids the creative possibilities through looking at masks and mosaics in books — to let it inspire them,” she said over the phone from the Colorado Mountains where she’s been traveling …

Jon F. Merz is one prolific dude. The Medfield-based novelist, screenwriter, producer and martial artist has released 20 books and multiple short stories during the last decade. This Saturday afternoon he’ll be reading from and signing copies of the “The Kensei” - the fifth entry in his Lawson Vampire series, at Seek Books on Centre Street from 1-4 p.m. In addition to the Lawson Vampire novels, Merz has written 11 entries in his Rogue Angel series, several stand-alone novels and a pair of non-fiction books, one of which he co-wrote with his mother. He’s served with the United States Air Force…

“Look, but don’t touch.” It’s the rule of thumb when you’re in a gallery or a museum. If you’ve ever been that daring individual that reaches over the rope to fondle a piece of artwork then you’ve likely suffered the wrath of security guards, shrill alarm systems and looks of disbelief from fellow patrons. While Jamaica Plain artist Anna Koon probably doesn’t relish the thought of viewers indulging in any heavy petting with her work, she’s dispensed with the ‘don’t touch’ taboo. Koon produces mixed-media pieces that incorporate various combinations of drawing, painting, photography and found …

New York freaked out. Los Angeles followed. Now it’s Boston’s turn. This is a local column. Technically it’s supposed to only highlight things happening in West Roxbury — and there are good reasons for that, but every now and again something occurs nearby that’s important enough to include here… something not to be missed. In this case that ‘something’ is called “Neighbors,” a Company One theater production running at the BCA’s Plaza Theater in Boston’s South End. It might just be the most button-pushing show you’ll ever witness. Penned by young playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, “Neighbors” …

When we think of opera, we tend to imagine stories about people driven to extreme, tragic ends. We think of horned-helmets and metal brassieres… shrill fat ladies singing and the resulting shattered glass. We also probably think of having our patience tested sitting through long, stuffy theater productions. Our preconceived notions have kept opera on the fringes of pop culture — it's a higher art form we tend to ridicule for sheer lack of understanding. There's truth is that opera has elements of all of those things, but in the proper hands it can be much more. One particularly intriguing …

It's become nearly impossible to subsist as a full-time independent artist. Not that it was ever easy. But now, no matter what the medium, the market is so congested that fewer and fewer people who would otherwise be career artists actually see the day when they can quit their so-called 'day job.' Even for a versatile guy like West Roxbury's Anthony Lobosco, a local visual artist whose work is perpetually on display in high traffic spots: monthly at the West Roxbury branch of Brookline Bank and also currently at Picture This. Additionally he's got a pair of simultaneous shows hanging this …

Singing has never been for sissies. Public perception dictates social norms, however, and boys that burst into song have long been lumped in with the drama club set - not exactly every boy's dream of social prestige. But fads like karaoke and the popularity of media spectacles such as High School Musical, American Idol and Glee have made it more attractive - sexy, even - for boys to sing. Sure, crooners have always made the ladies swoon, but we're not just talking about pop tunes. In that regard, Roxbury Latin remains ahead of the curve. On December 9, the school will stage the now-annual …

For Cordelia Sullivan, working at the library is somewhat of a family affair. "My sister is a librarian and encouraged me to also become one," she said in a recent interview.  "Granted, I initially decided to become a librarian because I couldn't decide what I wanted to do, but I did enjoy doing research and I always loved the library. When I was young I was too shy to talk to librarians, and it seems that I missed out on a lot of really good books everyone else has read because of it. I wish I had talked to them because I would have found out about putting holds on books and interlibrary …

West Roxbury's own Lance Ozier is one of those unusual people that can drift between creative mediums with ease; he's somewhat of a modern Renaissance man. You might recall his recent photography exhibit at the West Roxbury library, Magical Moments: Cutler Park at Dawn. When Patch's Bret Silverberg spoke to Ozier, 60, about his photography in September, he made clear that he considers himself an amateur shutterbug. But as the VP of Planning and Policy at WGBH, it's plain to see that he thrives in and around situations that involve creativity; one look at the images he chose for his Cutler …