We here at Boston Daily are big fans of understated revolution. In January, we reeled after Boston University dramatically remade its logo to look shockingly similar to the old one. (In this month’s issue of Boston magazine, you can see some actual innovation in logos for other educational institutions.)

Today, we were shaken to learn that the Harvard University Art Museums have a completely new moniker.

The facilities are now called the Harvard Art Museum.

Consider our minds blown.

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Boston Common is one of our favorite outdoor places in the city. During the winter, it’s fun to watch college students sled on stolen cafeteria trays. We stroll through the park on the first warm days of spring, and watch the tourists feed the obese squirrels during the summer. Even the crinkling leaves that line the sidewalks during the fall make us happy.

Apparently, we aren’t alone in our love for the Common. City officials are considering ending large-scale events in the park because the huge number of visitors are ruining it.

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David McCullough’s granddaughters were livid. The five girls stood in a quiet corner near the red carpet for Boston premiere of John Adams, a seven-part miniseries that debuts on HBO on Sunday, and watched their grandfather talk to reporters.

“He can’t even talk to his own grandkids!” One complained.

“It just hurts my feelings!” Another said dramatically.

But even the slighted granddaughters stopped their conversation to watch as co-executive producer Tom Hanks entered the McKim Building.

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Back in our high school days, our parents were dismayed to see us leaning toward a career in the arts. Gone were the dreams of lavish vacations paid for by their child’s law firm. Instead, they resigned themselves to the fact that they could never buy a smaller home because we’d probably move back home when we fell on our faces.

Well, we’ve shown them. The New England Foundation for the Arts has released a study that says we creative types play an important role in the local economy.

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Boston Daily is happy it’s an election year. Not only because we’re huge dorks, but because the endless parade of pundits on the news channels has distracted us during the writer’s strike. Instead of our regular diet of Friday Night Lights or 30 Rock, we’ve been left with Moment of Truth and American Gladiators.

Thankfully, our long national nightmare is over. Not only will we get our weekly Tina Fey fix once more, but it means that Boston Rocks the Oscars will go off without a hitch.

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The presidential primaries of 2008 will be remembered for two things—the incredibly close races in both parties and the importance of action star endorsements. The Mike Huckabee-Chuck Norris parallel has been well-documented. Ron Paul has pro wrestler Kane in his corner. Earlier today news came out that Rambo Sylvester Stallone has endorsed John McCain.

We don’t want the other candidates to feel left out, so we’ve got some action stars and comic book heroes in mind for candidates in both parties.

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Boston has a long history of producing great writers and poets, but until last year nobody thought to create a poet laureate position to continue the tradition. After a long search, the city has its first poet laureate in Sam Cornish, a long-time professor at Emerson College who is respected for his poems about the African-American experience in the 1970s.

We talked to our first poet laureate about how he got the job, the sound of hoofbeats, and Mayor Tom Menino’s deep intellectual life.

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Last year, Harvard University Press published the personal notebooks of Robert Frost. The 809-page compendium has been generally well received. The guy who edited it, after all, Robert Faggen, spent five years on the project. But maybe he should have spent six. (more…)

While you may be off thanks to Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the presidential hopefuls are working. And after the controversy over Hillary Clinton’s remarks earlier this month, the candidates are treating black history like a high-wire act — taking care to strike just the right balance with voters.

Some are better at it than others.

That sound you just heard? That was Mitt Romney going splaaaaat.

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In November, the Cambridge Arts Council selected Peter Payack at the city’s first Poet Populist. Aside from the Soviet-sounding title, the Poet Populist gets a $1,000 stipend and gets to make public appearances. Apparently, the title also gets your work published in the Cambridge Chronicle.

Payack’s poem is titled “Santa and the Ho-Ho-Ho Zone.” As you can imagine, it only gets worse. (more…)