🥳🏖️ Summer Fridays are SO back

🍔 Big news for burger heads: It’s burger month at Shake Shack, which means you can score a free bacon cheeseburger now through May 24 and a free Shack Burger from May 25-31, all with a $10+ purchase. Just use promo code FREEBURGER at checkout! Here are the deets.

🥳 And a happy early birthday to Member Jonathan Lee. You’re bun in a million! (Sorry.)

👀 What’s on tap today:

Up first…

It’s Summer Friday season, B-Siders! Every Friday through Labor Day, your favorite newsletter will be a little shorter, sweeter, and packed with even more things to do to help you slam your laptop shut till Monday.

Here’s what’s going down this weekend:

🐥 Take your own duck boat for a spin. Friendly reminder: These adorable paddle boats on Boston Harbor are officially ready to rock! The deets: They’re first-come, first-served, and $25 for 30 minutes or $35 for 45 minutes. Just head to the dock in front of the Boston Children’s Museum!

😂 Get giggly with your gals. Standup at the Speedway is going down TONIGHT. Catch some of the funniest New England comics as seen on TV, at the Boston Comedy Festival, and Don't Tell. Bonus: Tickets are under $20.

🛍️ Skip the mall to shop small. Boston’s vintage scene is buzzing this MDW. See: Found’s MDW sale, featuring sweet deals like a $10 section and 50% off classic charm necklaces and bracelets; Select Markets’ Fenway Vintage Festival; and the Brighton Bazaar’s first-ever Big Gig (basically the love child of a music fest and a market).

🕯️ Get cozy with a homemade candle. 60 degrees and rainy calls for this candle-making workshop on May 23 and 24. Create your own 100% soy wax candle, play candle trivia (with prizes), and customize your jar with these whimsical botanical decals.

🌴 Show your Sox (and “Survivor”) pride. Fun fact: A New Englander just won $2 million on “Survivor 50!” All the more reason to head to Saturday’s Red Sox game to snag this Survivor x Red Sox neck gaiter with your ticket. Just be sure to buy it with this link!

🧘 Cure your Sunday scaries with a stretch. A beginner-friendly yoga class under hanging greenery and a disco ball? All surrounded by candles? Our dream date. That’s the plan in this candlelight flow yoga class at Upstairs at Bow on May 24.

🍸 Tell your bartender “it needs some work.” No, really! “So Close” Mondays at Nook in Bow Market are a cheap date’s dream: Try one of their work-in-progress cocktails for just $12, then tell the bartender what it needs to be *perfect* (a twist of this, a dash of that, you get the idea).

🍌 PEEL! Call all wordpuzzlers: Aeronaut Brewing is hosting a free Banagrams tourney on May 25. They’ll likely limit participation to 32 or 64 players single-elimination-style. But don’t worry, there’ll be casual rounds, too!

🖼️ Spend a rainy day at the MFA (or ICA). Monday’s dreary forecast is primo weather for the MFA’s and ICA’s free Memorial Day admission. Note: MFA tickets are IRL on a first-come, first-served basis (with a Mass. zip code). Reserve your ICA tix here May 24 at 10 a.m.

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🎓 The days of easy A’s at Harvard are OVER. It’s official: Harvard faculty members just greenlit a new policy to limit A’s to just 20% of the final grades in undergrad courses (plus up to four extra A’s as the professor sees fit). Ex: Only 24 students could get an A in a course of 100 students (but there’s no limit on A-minuses!). Harvard’s grade inflation has been creeping up for decades: Just 25% of Harvard letter grades were A’s in 2005, jumping up to 60% in 2025. The new rule will go into effect in the 2027 academic year.

🚶 Open Streets are coming to a neighborhood near you. Don’t you dare think about driving because the City of Boston’s beloved car-free event series is coming back this summer and fall. Imagine: Streets closed to vehicles from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., live music, pop-ups, and supporting local businesses, all without playing Frogger in traffic. What more could you want?! Allston-Brighton, JP, and Mattapan are on the docket, plus Roslindale for the first time ever. Check the full schedule here!

🚌 Get in loser, we’re taking the bus to Houghton’s Pond! How this for a beach day: Seasonal weekend service on the 716 bus to Houghton’s Pond is back on May 23. For the uninitiated, Houghton’s Pond is part of the Blue Hills Reservation, featuring a fab beach for swimming, fishing, and chilling (yes, there are bathrooms and a concession stand!). Take note: The bus will run every 45 minutes from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays through Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

You might see a lot of skin at Fenway tonight. Like, a lot.

The Red Sox will apparently be allowing the viral “Tarps Off” craze to come to the ballpark. What’s “Tarps Off,” you may ask? Well, it’s where fans take off their shirts (the “tarps”) and wave them above their heads like the feral fans they are (the visuals are EXACTLY what you’d imagine …). 

To be clear, this behavior isn’t groundbreaking at Fenway … or really, any sporting event (see: April 2023). Beer-drunk dudes in the bleachers have been taking their tops off for years — it just got a little *rebrand* after picking up steam on social media.

Oddly enough, there’s no specific policy against removing your shirt at Fenway. But a Sox spokesperson said they just “ask fans to abide by the code of conduct to create a safe and enjoyable experience for all.” Don’t say we didn’t warn you!

— Written by Emily Schario

🫣 Thanks for reading! But when we take our top off at Fenway, we’re causing a scene … OK!

💜 Special shoutout to today's sponsor, William James College, for supporting local journalism and creating meaningful pathways into careers that truly matter.

🦞 The results are in: Annnnnd we totally forgot to put in yesterday’s poll — oopsies! Instead, please enjoy this video of a guy sneaking a five-pound lobster into Fenway. Now this is the feral bleacher behavior we can get behind. 

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