Sunday, May 31, 2009
Film / Special Events Live the Undead Dream: Be a Zombie
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Sun, May 31, 2009 at 8:02 AM
Halloween is still months away and yet there are two (2!) zombie events in New York today (sort of) to sate your hunger for portraying a brain-munching limper. Firstly, 800 extras are needed to play zombies one week from today on Governor's Island for the filming of Isle of the Dead, a forthcoming remake of a classic Val Lewton production that, as far as I can tell, is the work of one of my favorite artists collectives The Bruce High Quality Foundation (which seems odd). At any rate, the RSVP deadline is tomorrow, so make like Apache and jump on it!
Meanwhile, you can practice your zombie moves in the city's first Zombie Walk of 2009, which starts today at 2pm in Williamsburg at The Charleston (174 Bedford Ave, between N 7th and N 8th Sts). After some makeup sessions and practice runs (and drinking for the zombies of legal age), the walk lurches up to McCarren Park and back down to South Williamsburg to end up at Duff's (168 Marcy Ave, between S 5th and Broadway). Click here for full details.
(via Vulture)
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Art
FREE BOOZE! Art Events Today and Tonight
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Sat, May 30, 2009 at 11:36 AM
Long Island City
Open studios at, like, literally 150 artists' spaces in Long Island City today and tomorrow between 1pm and 6pm. Click here for details, maps, info etc.
Chelsea
Heidi Taillefer (work pictured) and Mike Davis's surreal paintings at Joshua Liner Gallery, 548 W 28th St, 3rd Floor (between Tenth and Eleventh Aves), 6-9pm
East Village/Lower East Side
Christopher Clary, Mike Estabrook, Min Oh, Oraib Toukan hold open studios at 107 Suffolk St, #410 (between Stanton and Rivington Sts), 4-9pm
Leo Fitzpatrick's photographic details in That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore (America at the Turn of the Century) at Fuse Gallery, 93 Second Ave (between 5th and 6th St, behind Lit), 7-10pm
Art / Special Events
FREE GOLF! Free Artistic Mini-Golf
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Sat, May 30, 2009 at 10:00 AM
Imagine the coolest thing ever (think about it, it's mini-golf, isn't it?), now imagine that coolest thing ever being free, designed by 30 local artists and set up in a giant Sunset Park warehouse. What you're imagining must look something like Playing Through, a one-day self-described "mini-golf carnival" taking place from noon to midnight today at Industry City (55 33rd St, 2nd Fl).
In addition to the 18-hole course, Playing Through will feature a food court of local vendors, beverage carts (serving soda and beer), a cotton-candy machine and a "popcorn waterfall." Serious putters will want to hit the links early so they are all mini-golfed out by the time live music starts at 9pm. Click here for all the details.
(via Brooklyn Paper via Curbed)
Politics / Special Events Grassroots Media Gets Serious
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Sat, May 30, 2009 at 9:00 AM
Worried about what our tyrannical corporate media overlords might do if we don't keep our eyes, blogs, Tweets and Diggs on them? Well, quit worrying and get learning at the 6th Annual NYC Grassroots Media Conference, which runs all day today with programs, panels, screenings and shindigs at Hunter College (69th St between Lexington and Park Aves). Topics include everything from green map-making and grassroots Tweeting to politics on YouTube and queer youth media. Click here for a full schedule, ticket info and directions.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Music Don't Go At Eve With Power Fists, Whatever Those Are
Posted by Mike Conklin on Fri, May 29, 2009 at 4:46 PM
Eve and I are really confused about why everyone seems to be sticking up for Chris Brown, even though everyone knows he beat the fuck out of Rihanna. I didn't feel like writing anymore today, so I'll just let Eve tell you about it, through her Twitter.
hold on hold on!! im just gonna reach out to some of ya’ll out there and say this bluntly, why do ppl keep tryin to protect chris browns asshes guilty until proven innocent, and no man should ever raise a hand to a woman, im so sick of people kissin his ass..
yeh i did just watcha clip of him saying he isnt a monster…yeh motherfucker u are. let him or any other man come to me with power fists..id fuck him up.
and a message to rihanna…girl your beautiful and talented and u dont need a nigga like that around u…ur special and deserve better…
& finally,no we dont no wat happened that night, all i no, is seein rihannas beautiful face bruised and upset..thats enuff 4 me.
[Via Star]
Theater Hitting the Stage: Photography, Opera, Darkness
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Fri, May 29, 2009 at 4:00 PM
A series of short plays all about being in the dark and being okay with it (or not) in A Few Plays About the Dark at Greenpoint's Lutheran Church of the Messiah, 129 Russell St (at Nassau Ave), 8pm, $5. Click here for details.
The latest installment in the Fire Department Salon Series takes to the stage at Players' tonight (7pm, $23) with a performance of Exposure Time by Kim Merrill, about the impact of photographic technology on some some of the form's first masters. Click here for details and tickets.
Tonight and tomorrow night, Brooklyn's American Opera Projects offers concert previews of its Gregory Spears's first opera (adapted from Willa Cather), entitled Paul's Case and Sharon's Grave, adapted from Irish playwright John B. Keane (May 29, 30 at 8pm, $15). Click here for details and tickets.
The York Theater's 2009 Musicals in Mufti series kicks off this weekend with performances of The Grand Tour tonight through Sunday. Click here for details and tickets.
Books / Politics / News Sound Smart, Read These: Good Books, Fine Art, Bad Medicine
Posted by Mark Asch on Fri, May 29, 2009 at 3:19 PM
Why is healthcare so expensive? The answer is pretty obvious — profit motive — but the New Yorker's Atul Gawande does do a pretty thorough, knowledgeable job of reporting and explaining how and why doctors lean (or don't) towards more medicine instead of the best medicine. I wish he'd addressed more specific legislative debates, but still a must-read.
Finally, someone walks past the obvious anti-affirmative action red meat of Sonia Sotomayor's ruling in the New Haven firefighter case, and patiently reminds us that no, we're not actually at a point where we can be blissfully free of any racial allowances and considerations.
God bless Dissent magazine: Should We Still Make Things? A Symposium.
Inasmuch as Roberto Bolaño has monopolized the book-reading attention of pretty much every casual reader in the city, you will sound really smart if you drop the names of any of these lesser-known Spanish-language writers, recommended by Chad Post of the heroic lit-in-translation press Open Letter.
The White House art collection: now with 100% less airbrushed Western landscapes, and 100% more on-loan Ab-Ex and Pop Art by Jasper Johns, Bob Rauschenburg and Ed Ruscha (pictured).
New fiction: "In the Crossfire", by Ha Jin, from Granta.
Old clip: V.S. Naipaul and Carl Hiaasen on Charlie Rose, in 2000. This is what's called "Punching above your weight", Carl. Quite possibly literally, given that this is Sir Vidia we're talking about.
Art
FREE BOOZE! Art Events Tonight
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Fri, May 29, 2009 at 3:00 PM
Williamsburg/Bushwick
Up and coming photogs in We Belong Together, a show by Yale Photography MFAs of 2009 at Capricious Space, 103 Broadway (between Berry St and Bedford Ave), 7-10pm
Damian Catera's trippy, drippy drawings, videos and sound works in The End of History at Hogar Collection, 362 Grand St (between Havemeyer St and Marcy Ave), 6-9pm
Coney in all its colors in All Roads Lead to Coney Island at A.M. Richard Fine Art, 328 Berry St, 3rd Fl (at S 4th St), 6-9pm
The Lab @ Media Lounge reception (7pm) and performance (9pm) at Grace Exhibition Space, 840 Broadway, 2nd Fl (between Flushing and Park Ave), 7-11pm
Gowanus/Park Slope
Contemporary art has a laugh in Making Funny at Under Minerva, 565 5th Ave (between 19th and 20th Sts), 7-9pm
Space-themed prints and posters in Outer Space 2.0 at Brooklyn Frame Works Gallery, 142 5th Ave (between St. Johns and Sterling Pls), 7pm
Pick up some discounted art at the Humble Arts Foundation's Spring Cleaning art party and sale at Eponymy, 466 Bergen Street (between Flatbush and 5th Aves), 6-10pm, RSVP required
Manhattan art events after the jump.
Politics Green Villains of the CENTURY: Daniel Henninger and the Wall Street Journal
Posted by Mike Conklin on Fri, May 29, 2009 at 2:36 PM
This is normally the type of story I would leave for Mark or Jonny to comment on, but, in a Wall Street Journal piece about how, by insisting on stricter regulations regarding fuel efficiency, President Obama is driving the final nail into the coffin of American car culture, Daniel Henninger tries to use the fucking Boss against us, arguing, I guess, that in order to pull out of a town to win, the car in which one is doing the pulling out must be a giant, gas-guzzling douche-mobile.
Aside from small cars are really faggoty, Henninger's argument is essentially this:
This marks the end of the internal combustion engine as we knew it, and it is the way Americans have defined, designed and literally driven much of the nation's culture for as long as anyone can remember. Car culture is America's culture.
And yes, hopefully this marks the end of the internal combustion engine as we knew it, because, the internal combustion engine as we knew it played a huge role in getting us into the mess we're currently in—from an environmental perspective, of course, but also in terms of how the "bigger, better, faster" mentality that led us to develop these cars in the first place has come to define us around the world, as morons. He romanticizes cars from another era and has decided, frighteningly, that they are the greatest contributions to world culture the United States has ever made. It's a crazy old-person argument, obviously, from a guy who wants to stunt progress because of his own silly nostalgia.
And again, he tried to use the Boss against us.
Film Drag Me to Hell: The Ultimate Eviction
Posted by Benjamin Sutton and Henry Stewart on Fri, May 29, 2009 at 1:26 PM
Hey, it’s Blockbluster, our seasonal feature in which Benjamin Sutton and Henry Stewart climb out from under their film-snob rock, to find out what regular people all over the country are eating popcorn during. This week, like Dante, they go to hell, with Sam Raimi as their Virgil.
HENRY:
The first thing that struck me about the very enjoyable Drag Me to Hell, Sam "Evil Dead" Raimi's anticipated return to horror after many years of pseudo-prestige work (cf. A Simple Plan) and Spidermannery, was its goofy old-school racism.
Art / Film / Politics Colonialism, The Short Film!
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Fri, May 29, 2009 at 1:00 PM
Well, since there are no natives to kill, enslave or poison with Euro-centric ideology, maybe this short film TXT Island by Chris Gavin is really just about over-consumption. At any rate, it is awesome:
Music Like Hott Tickets, BUT ON YOUR SCREEN AND ONLY COVERING TWO DAYS
Posted by Mike Conklin on Fri, May 29, 2009 at 12:13 PM
I don't usually do this kind of thing because, you know, you have access to all the same listings I do, but after our film department started telling you to spend your whole weekend in a dark movie theater, I figured I'd remind you that you could instead spend your whole weekend in dark music venues, where, it should be noted, you can also get drunk and stare at/talk to attractive girls/boys. Conveniently, there's a crazy amount of good live music to be seen in the next 48 hours.
Politics / News Green Villains of the Week: Hummer and Orrin Hatch
Posted by Mark Asch on Fri, May 29, 2009 at 11:42 AM
Last week Raser Technologies announced a Capitol Hill event for its unlikely new product: an electric Hummer H3, which the company claims gets up to 100 miles per gallon... The following day, Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah [and frequent Hummer shill], jumped into the driver’s seat of a red Hummer H3 and took it for a test drive.
In their insulting pedagogical explanations of why green futurists have unrealistic goals and grasps of the world, there's one thing market-triumphalist alternative energy skeptics always leave out: we're not necessarily planning for the same world we live in now. The green movement isn't just about having major utility companies switch over to wind power — it's about identifying the very specific ways in which our day-to-day lives are going to have to change, too. It's nice to see, though, who is actually laboring under the misapprehension that we can continue to live in exactly the way that got us into this mess.
Wasn't GM going to shut Hummer down?
Politics Right-Wing Bitterz Do Not Like Their Comment Threads Exposed to the World
Posted by Jonny Diamond on Fri, May 29, 2009 at 10:51 AM
Noted tall man and populist savant Bill O'Reilly has attempted to do what we do for you, dear reader, and he has come out the worse for it. It takes a strong stomach and a quick mind to survive the comment threads of the right-wing bitterz, and in this case, O'Reilly has tussled with Michelle Malkin, citing a not particularly nuttier-than-usual comment about Sonia Sotomayor, at her website Hotair. The big problem here, for which old Bill is getting flack from the conservative half of the blogosphere, is that he failed to mention it was a comment he was talking about, making it seem like Malkin herself said it ("it" being something silly about Sotomayor's socialism or fascism or racism or pig-heavy diet; "it" is immaterial here).
Bill, let us wade through the bitterz' comment threads, please, we're trained for it. You are a famous tall man and should be doing more with your life. While we love that the right-wing Archie is fighting with the right-wing Veronica, we really do insist that these things be handled by experts.
And just for fun, here's the first comment I found at America's new Frankfurt School of Conservative Thought, FreeRepublic (regarding nice photos of the president in college):
cult of personality and idol worshiping. It’s that simple. What they failed to mention is that that hung didn’t go after any girls. If you haven’t noticed, there’s no talk about Buttcrack’s old girlfriends? Boyfriends on the other hand...
Take that, President Gay.
Art / Film / Theater Celebrating Young Creative Types
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Fri, May 29, 2009 at 9:50 AM
Downtown Art's spring music, dance, video and theater showcase Festival 3 features teen artists from throughout New York City. The festival's two rotating programs continue this weekend and through June 7 with a lineup of 18 promising young artists presenting works on everything from apocalypse and atheism to McCarthyism, cooking shows and, of course, teen romance. Tickets are $10 ($5 for youth), Downtown Art is at 61 E 4th St, click here for details.
Film Your Unusually Satisfying Weekend at the Movies
Posted by Jesse Hassenger on Fri, May 29, 2009 at 8:21 AM
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Theater Hitting the Stage: Strangers, Shakespeare and Self-Immolation
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Thu, May 28, 2009 at 5:00 PM
Epic Theatre Ensemble's free reading of Mahida’s Extra Key To Heaven by Russell Davis at East 13th Street Theatre (136 E 13th St), tonight at 7pm, reservations required.
Shakespeare gets the meta treatment in hamlethouse at The Warsaw (261 Driggs Ave), May 28 and 29.
Six directors guide ten actors through the works of 6 playwrights in The Drafts' 10 Minute Play Festival: Six Plays About Hope at the Red Room (85 E 4th St), Through May 30.
The naked truth about relationships in New York in Dream of Me at the Players Theatre (115 MacDougal St), through June 6.
Immigration issues tackled with live music, video and film noir in Strangers (pictured) at Ontological Hysteric Theater (131 E 10th St), through June 13.
More theater openings after the jump.
Art
FREE BOOZE! Art Events Tonight
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Thu, May 28, 2009 at 4:30 PM
Dumbo
Artists celebrate being caught failing in Busted at Powerhouse Arena, 37 Main St (at Water St), 7-9pm
Barbara Siegel, Jeanette May and Monica Carrier at A.I.R. Gallery, 111 Front St, #228 (between Adams and Washington Sts), 6-8pm
Bushwick
On the Tectonics of History tracks Nazism's influence on art at ICSP, 1040 Metropolitan Ave (at Morgan Ave), 6-9pm
Upper East Side
Wayne White's 3D text paintings in Way To Go Mister Subtle (pictured) at Mireille Mosler, 35 E 67th St (between Fifth and Madison Aves), 6-8pm
West Village
20th anniversary show Then and Now at the LGBT Community Center, 208 W 13th St (between Seventh and Eighth Aves), 6:30-8:30pm
Eleven (11!) Chelsea events after the jump.
Film Martin Scorsese Has Some Free Movies for You to Watch on the Internet Now
Posted by Mark Asch on Thu, May 28, 2009 at 3:06 PM
We've previously noted that The Auteurs — a site for movie lovers featuring inexpensive high-quality streams of some very necessary movies, great discussion boards, and one of the better hardcore cinephile blogs on the interwebs — now hosts a monthly "Cinematheque" featuring, among other things, free streams of related movies from the Criterion Collection. And a couple of weeks ago, a number of people noted that Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Foundation would join with The Auteurs to help disseminate its terrific, vitally important restorations to the widest possible audience.
This means you: now streaming for free right now on The Auteurs are four of the WCF's first rediscoveries. Karina Longworth really thinks you should watch the major 1964 Turkish film Dry Summer (pictured); for my part, I think you should watch the voracious, lurid South Korean director Kim Ki-young's rickety rollercoaster of a movie The Housemaid, a hothouse sexual power-play concerning a family's provincial, vampiric maid. For the moment, I kind of like the internet.
News Green Hero of the Week: One-Earth.com
Posted by Mark Asch on Thu, May 28, 2009 at 2:21 PM
As we did with last week's hero, Green Map, we're spotlighting an interactive, act-local website to help you be better. One-Earth.com, which launched earlier this month, is a wiki-powered source for information on food, recycling, energy, locations, communities, and so on, all making it that much easier for you to be that much better, and to help other people do likewise. And — on the off chance any of our readers would like to feel an upswelling of pride in their alma mater — it was started by a former Pratt kid (probably while waiting in a local diner for grandmothers in big hats and grandsons in suits to finish their Sunday brunches so that he could sit down and get his hangover eggs).
