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You want to give the gift of local music. But maybe people on your list don’t have CD players or aren’t going to shows or love maple syrup a little more than music. No problem.

Here’s all the best, weirdest, most awesome merch from local(ish) artists. And yes, there’s rock ’n’ roll maple syrup in this gift guide!

Gene Dante’s ‘DL/UX’ on cassette

Still living with 1985 tech? Gene Dante has you covered. Just pop this $11 cassette of Dante’s new album into your Sony Walkman or the tape deck of your Dodge Caravan. Don’t have a Walkman or Caravan? Well, splurge on the $28 40-page glossy art and lyric book of “DL/UX” created by the Secret Bureau of Art & Design, which comes with the album on CD (vinyl editions arrive in 2022). Walkman, boombox or streaming through your phone, this album delivers all the glam rock, power pop, dark ballads and dirty disco you need this holiday season. genedante.com

‘Juno’ transcription book

Lyle Brewer’s solo guitar album “Juno” came out of sobriety and snow. In 2015, during a winter of epic storms, the newly sober Brewer wrote a tune for every bit of inclement weather that rolled through Boston. It’s an amazing album and you can play it. Not play through speakers but actually play it on your guitar. This transcription book features standard notation and tablature, tempo markings, fingerings and a collection of wonderful illustrations. lylebrewermusic.com

Jittery Jack steam shave, beard trim or classic razor bald fade

Shave and haircut, two big items on anybody’s holiday gift list, right? North Shore native and rockabilly king Kevin “Jack” Patey has a barber shop in Manchester-by-the-Sea. Why not gift somebody a clip from that man that knows a little something about rock ’n’ rock and great hair (see Elvis, Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran)? While you’re there, punch in a tune on the jukebox full of 45s or go head-to-head with a pal on the vintage Slot Car Set. jacksbarbershack.com

Blood Lightning ashtray

Smoke ’em if you got ’em. Blood Lightning is Boston’s latest supergroup (members of volume warriors Set Fire, Sam Black Church, Gozu and Worshipper make up the lineup). No better way to celebrate the band’s stoner metal meets fire rock (that’s a genre I just made up!) than with this $8 ashtray. Don’t smoke? Smart move. Store your guitar pics, random Canadian coins and keys in it. bloodlightning.bandcamp.com

Kid Gulliver’s maple syrup

What, did you think the syrup thing was click bait and we’d never get to it? The sweetest little indie rock band on the scene adds even more sugar to your life. The legit Vermont gold comes from trees on singer/guitarist Simone Berk’s property. Pick up a pint for $15 or a quart for $30 at Kid Gulliver’s Dec. 17 gig at Somerville’s Crystal Ballroom. kidgulliver.com

‘Bedford Falls’ T-shirt

All your loved ones hate music. It’s a sad state but warm their hearts with this “It’s a Wonderful Life” T-shirt from your favorite non-profit art house theater, the Brattle. And remember each gift of art touches so many other lives. When art isn’t around it leaves an awful hole, doesn’t it? brattlefilm.org

 

VENICE LIDO, Italy — By going behind the cameras for her feature writing-directing debut with Netflix’s “The Lost Daughter,” Maggie Gyllenhaal has recharged her career.

Freely adapted from the pseudonymous Italian author Elena Ferrante’s novel of the same name, “The Lost Daughter” has been racking up awards and praise since it premiered at September’s Venice Film Festival, where Gyllenhaal, 44, was awarded best screenplay.

“The Lost Daughter” is expected to place in Motion Picture Academy and Critics Choice nominations for star Olivia Colman and Gyllenhaal’s direction and screenplay adaptation.

As to how this career change happened, “I read these (Ferrante) books years ago and I thought, ‘This woman is so (expletive) up’ — and then a minute later I related to her. Am I (expletive) up? Or is this an experience that nobody is talking about?”

In “The Lost Daughter,” Colman’s Leda Caruso, a Cambridge professor, is on holiday in Greece, where her history as an imperfect mother is revealed in flashbacks while her interactions with visiting vacationers threaten violence.

For Gyllenhaal, Ferrante’s writing reveals “these secret truths about a feminine experience in the world, spoken out loud.”

“I wondered: What if instead of sitting in a room with this book, what would happen if you had to sit with strangers or your mother and have these secrets revealed?

“Where most people have a huge spectrum of things inside them, often we as women are presented with this fantasy version of ourselves. We wanted to show the overwhelming love and joy — and Leda is full of love — that’s a mom.

“But also to do this dangerous thing by opening the truth — of a degree of darkness, perversity, desperation and terror that is also being a parent.

“I would be shocked,” she added, “if there wasn’t one mother who thought, ‘I would like to walk out the door.’ Here (in Leda) is someone who did. I hope the movie asks whether you like her. Or find it comforting that, ‘I wish I had these thoughts.’”

Her relationship with Ferrante, Gyllenhaal clarified, is restricted. “I don’t know who she is. We spoke only through letters. I wrote her a letter first to get the rights for the book and she said, ‘The contract is void if you don’t direct it.’ That was scary!

“I took it as this cosmic vote of confidence from across the universe. She read the script and gave me notes. One was: Take out the sex scene, which I did.

“And she said, ‘It’s important for Leda not to be crazy. If she’s not crazy, we can love her and care about her.’”

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“The Lost Daughter” opens Friday.

With two Academy Awards and an impressive track record, Mahershala Ali is in the enviable position of being able to be very selective.

“Swan Song,” a sci-fi fable written and directed by Ireland’s Benjamin Cleary and co-starring Naomie Harris and Glenn Close, has Cameron Turner (Ali) diagnosed as terminally ill but offered the chance to live on as a clone.

Married to Poppy (Harris), who is expecting their child, Cameron embarks on this journey in secret so his wife will never know she’s living and loving a replacement.

“This script was so good it just separated itself from anything else that I was reading at the time,” Ali, 47, recalled. “And to be clear, Ben is just such a fantastic writer and director. The story felt fresh, new, unique. It was irresistible personally and just selfishly as an actor.

“It felt like the type of challenge or mountain you want to climb. It was the journey I wanted to go on. After sitting down, speaking with Ben and understanding his relationship to the story and some of the deeper things in the film and what he was working to accomplish, I just felt honored that he would consider me for the part.

“That’s why I had to be a part of it. I just didn’t want it to go away.”

Any actor would be thrilled to play two versions of a character, with only slight differences, a dimension most movies never imagine. Ali’s Cameron even gets to wrestle with himself.

“I’m glad they don’t allow you that often because this shouldn’t be the norm. You should always be working with other actors,” Ali reckoned.

“But this was a unique opportunity. In trying to bring this story to life and playing two versions of the same character we had a lot of help.

“We had a wonderful double by the name Shane Dean. I had to play the (wrestling) scene out in its entirety and know where things need to happen and the timing of it all that.

“Shane would try — and then I get to react off of him. Then we would switch and he would copy what I just did on the other side of the camera.

“Then I would bring to life the character he was just playing previously. So it was a joy but honestly, it was really difficult and it was challenging.

“But the joy is always at the end of the things that are challenging. The things that are most fulfilling, they’re usually difficult. So it was it was just a wonderful experiment and experience.”

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“Swan Song” opens Dec. 17.

JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs are reportedly planning to award their investment bankers with major bonuses in 2021, following a post-pandemic boom in deal-making.

JPMorgan is expected to boost its bonus pool for investment banking by about 40%, while Goldman Sachs may increase bonuses by as much as 50%, according to sources familiar with initial deliberations as quoted by Reuters.

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In 2021, investment banks generated substantial profits due to record levels of deal activity, a hot IPO market and climbing equities, as economic stimulus measures helped propel global stock markets to all-time highs.

“You are paying for retention and not just paying for performance,” Eric Dobkin, the veteran banker who spent almost half a century at Goldman Sachs before retiring in 2016, told Bloomberg.

“This year, the firms may well have to overpay to keep the people they most want.”

Last month, the New York-based pay consultancy Johnson Associates said Wall Street was set to see the biggest bonus increases since the Great Recession following a busy and profitable year.

According to the consultancy, incentives at the end of 2021, including cash bonuses and equity awards, will be significantly higher compared with last year, when most professionals saw a decline in awards.

For more stories on economy & finance visit RT’s business section