Trotting around Boston

Harlem Globetrotters star Buckets Blakes was all over Boston yesterday, but he started his tour with an unusual audience - the Aquarium's harbor seals. Blakes got a little wet as he demonstrated the classic Globetrotters' spin and passed to the seals, one of which gave him a smooch. "I had a teammate swim with the sharks," he joked. "I'd rather swim with the seals." Later, Blakes visited kids at the Nathan Hale School in Roxbury and met Marcus Branch, the fifth grader who wrote to the Globetrotters, asking the team to visit. (And yes, Branch's class is now invited to the Garden to watch the Globetrotters perform on March 29 and 30.) This evening, Blakes will pop up at the Children's Museum's Green at Night program, where he'll help kids create basketballs and nets from recycled materials.

Maybe it's their names - Betty Blaize, Honey Do, and Joy de Vie - or maybe it's the sequins the women wear. Whatever it is, Quincy city councilor Brian McNamee isn't much interested in the burlesque troupe known as the Boston Babydolls. "Mr. McNamee told me he didn't want 'boas, strippers, and [expletive]' in his neighborhood," says the Babydolls's fedora-wearing founder and frontman Alex Newman, who goes by the name of Scratch. (McNamee didn't return our call yesterday.) At issue is a dance studio the troupe is trying to open on Billings Road. When McNamee got wind of it, says Scratch, the certificate of occupancy was revoked. "He felt his constituents would react badly if we were there," Scratch said yesterday, "but I don't think he knows the difference between strippers and a burlesque dance troupe." (There's no nudity in burlesque.) Scratch said the Babydolls have racked up $10,000 in legal fees trying to secure the Billing Roads site, and they're not giving up. "This would be a community resource," Scratch said, "offering dance and fitness classes for children and adults." Even while they're fighting City Hall, the Babydolls are staying busy. The Great Boston Burlesque Exposition and Vintage Fashion Fair takes place April 10 at The Hyatt Regency.

You know it's almost spring: the snow has almost melted and the stars are headed for Boston. Variety reports that Kevin Costner and Tommy Lee Jones will join Ben Affleck in the indie film "The Company Men," due to begin filming here next month. In the flick, Affleck will play a laid-off corporate mucky muck forced to work for his brother-in-law (Costner), a drywall installer. Jones will play a senior partner in the firm, who struggles with his partners' greed. John Wells wrote the script and will also direct. In other Ben news, the actor was expected on stage at the Vital Voices Global Leadership Awards ceremony at the Kennedy Center last night, along with Maria Bello, Candice Bergen, Sally Field, and designer Diane von Furstenberg. The awards honor women leaders worldwide.

Cantankerous comic Lewis Black (inset) was at Harvard's A.R.T. Institute this week, where he gave acting students advice and a few expletive-laced anecdotes about his career since his days at Yale Drama School. A.R.T. senior actor Jeremy Geidt, who was one of Black's teachers at Yale and now teaches at the A.R.T., was in the audience with staffers who worked with Black when he performed at the A.R.T. in Christopher Durang's play "Media Amok" in 1993. . . . We're told injured Miami Heat forward Dwayne Wade sated his appetite at Via Matta the other night.

Shonda Schilling stopped by the American Cancer Society's AstraZeneca Hope Lodge Center yesterday to hype the Society's Key Gala, which takes place March 28 at the Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel. Curt Schilling's wife, a cancer survivor herself, is the honorary chairwoman of the event.

A 29-year-old trivia question writer from North Billerica will compete on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" today. Timothy Woodward, a former teacher and writer for a Kenyan TV show, will face host Meredith Vieira again on March 30. (So we guess he does well today.) Woodward said he's a game-show fanatic from way back, when he used to watch "Sale of the Century" with his mom. Over the years, he's made close to $65,000 competing on shows. His own trivia writing experience has been a big plus, especially with multiple choice questions. "You can think like the question makers thought when they made the answers," he said.

A shout-out to former Boston magazine scribe Sean Flynn, who's a finalist for a 2009 National Magazine Award. Flynn, an alum of The Boston Phoenix and the Herald as well, is nominated not once but twice in the reporting category for pieces that appeared in GQ. ("Papa" was about the estate of the late, great James Brown, and "The Longest Night" is the story of a shipwreck in the Bering Sea.) "Really, I don't do this for awards," Flynn told us yesterday. "If I did, I'd go broke."

Names can be reached at names@globe.com or at 617-929-8253.