The L Magazine - New York City's Local Event and Arts & Culture Guide

FREE BOOZE! Art Events Tonight

editor@thelmagazine.com (Benjamin Sutton) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:37:00 -0500

Williamsburg
Blane De St. Croix and critic Jill Connor discuss the former's Mountain Strip installation at Black & White Project Space, 483 Driggs Ave (between North 9th and North 10th Sts), 7pm
French art collective Le Dernier Cri (work pictured) take over at Cinders, 103 Havemeyer St (between Grand and Hope Sts), 7-10pm
Deceptive sculptors present Evidence of the Paranormal at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, 438 Union Ave (between Metropolitan Ave and Devoe St), 7-9pm
Johan Nobell's trashy landscapes and John Stoney's pencil classicism at Pierogi, 177 North 9th St (between Bedford and Driggs Aves), 7-9pm
Group photography show and Grand Opening at K&K, 109 Broadway (between Bedford Ave and Berry St), 7-10pm

Greenpoint
Big group show Party at Chris's House at Janet Kurnatowski Gallery, 205 Norman Ave (at Humboldt St), 7-9pm
Manhattan art parties after the jump.

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Breaking: American Woman Doesn't Want to Be on Television

editor@thelmagazine.com (Mark Asch) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:11:00 -0500

Would you like The L to "weigh in" on Oprah Winfrey's decision to end her popular daytime television serial in which everybody takes turns talking about themselves?

It is very impressive, we suppose, that a person is secure enough in her employment and plans for the future that she can give 22 months' notice. I, too, had considered announcing that I would leave The Measure in September of 2011, to move to Copenhagen and pursue my long-term professional goal of living on government assistance while biking around drunk on Aquavit all day, but it'd be pretty presumptuous of me to expect there'd even still be a Measure in September of 2011, and not just an iPhone app that transmits Mike Conklin's withering dissections of indie-rock dinosaurs directly into your prefrontal cortex in bursts of 12 phonemes or less.

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Jim DeRogatis: "The Pixies Are a Cynical Corporation Cashing in on Blatant Nostalgia"

editor@thelmagazine.com (Mike Conklin) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:39:00 -0500

Jim DeRogatis of the Chicago Sun Times had a few words for the Pixies in his review of their show at the Aragon Theater last night, some of which I will paste below because they speak to what I was getting at the other day before everyone started calling me names.

When a group of revered and influential rockers come back together after a decade of acrimonious separation and/or inactivity, all but the most hard-hearted punks can grant them one lap around the reunion circuit playing the old should-have-been-hits, if only to collect the accolades and the cash that probably eluded them the first time.

Boston's proto-alternative quartet the Pixies took that victory lap in 2004. Now, while they remain popular enough to play three nights at the Aragon Ballroom—Friday and Saturday sold out, though Thursday only was about half full—it's hard to consider them anything but a cynical corporation cashing in on blatant nostalgia—a hipper version of Creedence Clearwater Revisited or Journey and whoever is singing with that group these days.

So go ahead, guys, and let him know that he should lighten up and stop being such a ridiculous asshole, and to quit being such an indie-purist while he's at it. And be sure to tell him that, duh, it's not possible that there's anything wrong with what the band's doing because they're not forcing anyone to buy anything! Altough maybe you don't have to, since it seems he already has his own commenters starting to show up. Just_A_Girl, for instance, thinks it was totally "pretentions" of him to compare them to Journey. Which is totally fair, come to think of it. I prefer to compare them to Kiss.

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Werewolves, Vampires, Tweens, Twilight, New Moon, I am Tired, Meh

editor@thelmagazine.com (Jonny Diamond) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:01:00 -0500

Because the most important movie of OUR TIME is coming out tonight, we decided to give into America's craze for Vampires vs. Werewolves and round up some of our favorite clips of the genres' respective money shots: The wolf transformation, and the vampire suck. Here are two (just a taste), followed by like a billion after the jump. (Thanks to intern Deirdre for her tireless YouTube searching...)

An American Werewolf in Paris
This is probably the least sexy Julie Delpy nude moment you will ever see on screen, though not as laughable as some of those scenes with Ethan Hawke in those dumb sunrise/sunset movies.

Interview with a Vampire
"Dear Brad,
Thanks for showing me who I really am. These feelings I've been bottling up for so long were finally released on set with you and I can't tell you how wonderful it is. Today, I am a new man. A gay man. Ever yours, Tom Cruise.
P.S. I think this all started (me being gay) with Lea Thompson on the set of All Right the Moves."

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Show Review: Sleigh Bells at (Le) Poisson Rouge

editor@thelmagazine.com (Jeff Klingman) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:28:00 -0500

Along with the sprawling, dozen-member commune, the stark, minimal guy-girl duo has been the most ascendant band configuration of the nearly dead decade. It’s a naturally compelling setup. Without other band members to complicate things, the audience is free to read all sorts of interpersonal implications in to the music, no matter what the relationship of the performers might be. Derek Miller and Alison Krauss, the NYC twosome billed as Sleigh Bells, are factually platonic, but have even less than usual on stage to distract from daydreaming. Miller’s got a guitar, Krauss has a mic, and there’s an iPod plugged in somewhere providing the rest. Its canned, rising distortion signaled their early-Friday morning entrance to the Le Poisson Rouge stage, and instantaneously swelled the room’s ranks by a third. Really the only local unknowns to get suddenly white-hot from the recent CMJ Fest, Sleigh Bells play blown-out mutant pop, laced with lacerating guitar noise and thudding hip-hop beats. They’ve got less than a dozen songs at this point, but could plausibly be called one of the city’s hottest tickets.

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Neue Galerie Reaches New Millenium: Free Nights Start Next Month

editor@thelmagazine.com (Benjamin Sutton) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:53:00 -0500

The Neue Galerie, the museum of Austrian and German art at Fifth Avenue and 86th Street that maintains a not unpleasant balance of awesomeness (free screenings, best museum restaurant ever, cabaret nights, well-curated exhibitions that are never too big to enjoy) and stuffiness ($15 admission, no kids under 12, no smiling), may never again seem so intimidating and exclusive: Beginning December 4th, admission to the Neue Galerie will be free on the first Friday of every month from 6-8pm.

Most museums have free nights—MoMA from 4-8pm on Fridays, the New Museum from 7-9pm on Thursdays, ICP is by donation from 5-8pm on Fridays—but it took a Bloomberg grant to bring the Neue Galerie around to the practice. And it's just in time, because the museum's current show, From Klimt to Klee: Masterworks from the Serge Sabarsky Collection (through February 15), should not be missed.

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Your Capital "CHRIST" Christmas Gift for Wii Players

editor@thelmagazine.com (Benjamin Sutton) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:19:00 -0500

If the Bible's anything to go by, Mass: We Pray would be the best-selling Wii game ever if it weren't a very elaborate joke. The video game lets you re-enact your favorite Christian rituals whenever you want in the comfort of your living room with the whole family, including but not limited to baptism, confession, transubstantiation, genuflecting and lighting prayer candles. It comes with a cross-shaped Wiimote with rosary safety bracelet (pictured), and the kneeling accessory ("the Kniiler"?) makes the whole experience a little more physical (and a lot more spiritual). Check out the terrific Mass: We Pray infomercial after the jump. (colectiva)

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Tim Burton is a Lot Funnier Than His Marketing Managers Let On

editor@thelmagazine.com (Henry Stewart) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:44:00 -0500

My colleague Benjamin Sutton should have a fuller review of this show up soon, but in the meantime here's a brief impression:

Though Tim Burton has a few comedies, or at least comedy-hybrids, on his director’s resume, his name doesn’t conjure thoughts of hilarity: instead, he is known as the Modern Master of the Macabre, the social misfit with an imagination toggling between the eerie and nightmarish. And so the highlights of the new MoMA lifetime retrospective, which features film screenings and several galleries of sketches, storyboards, video projects and movie artifacts, aren’t the pieces that conform to the familiar conception—in which the curators revel reductively—of the troubled artist eager to reject the suburban manicurerie of his youth, though die-hard fans (often with hair of unnatural hues) will appreciate the rarae aves: the Vincent models behind glass, the Batman hoods, the commercials, music videos, early work for television, recent flash animation projects, and the career-spanning character sketches, so rich that they make one wish some of his live-action features (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory especially) had been animated (by hand) instead. No, the most revealing works adorning the museum walls are the sketchbook pieces that reveal an intimate lighter side, particularly those in a series from the 80s that might have felt at home as single-panel cartoons in a magazine circulated only in the afterlife.

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MTA Has the Best New Fake Twitter

editor@thelmagazine.com (Benjamin Sutton) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:10:00 -0500

Several blogs have been commenting on the stream of hilarity that, like suited strap-hangers from subway staircases at City Hall, has been emerging nearly non-stop from the @FakeMTA Twitter account since it began on Monday. I think the inaugural tweet may still be my favorite:"From Nov. 16-Dec. 12, the L train will be running Ironic from Bedford Ave. to Metropolitan Ave." You should get on that.

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This Dude from the Fiery Furnaces Hasn't the Slightest Idea When to Shut the Fuck Up

editor@thelmagazine.com (Mike Conklin) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:37:00 -0500

I told you a couple weeks ago about the Fiery Furnaces' Matthew Friedberger talking shit about Radiohead for trying to attain all sorts of hipster credibility by writing a song about the last surviving WWI veteran, Harry Patch. I also told you that it turned out Friedberger had confused Harry Patch the war veteran with Harry Partch the experimental composer, even though he said he was just kidding? Haha?

Anyway, because Beck is actually a lot cooler and with much better taste than I ever give him credit for, he released a 10-minute tribute to Partch on his website earlier this week. Was it in response to Friedberger being an idiot? We'll probably never know.

Now Friedberger's taken to his band's MySpace page with a pair of positively full-of-shit blog posts that are basically unreadable. In one of them, titled Imaginary Response (clever!), he appears to take a shot at Beck:

How fruitful an imaginary song proved in practice! So as we all move forward, shouldn't we admit that posting songs on the internet—being virtual, in other words—is so last year? So to speak. Isn't that what every music management company intern from Northeastern recommends that bands do? That can't be right

Yes! So last year! Said Friedberger in a blog post on fucking MySpace.

[via Pitchfork]

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Eminem Pushes Relapse 2 Back, Releasing Expanded Relapse 1 Instead

editor@thelmagazine.com (Benjamin Sutton) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:45:00 -0500

According to a post yesterday on his official website, Eminem's ambitious plans to release another Relapse album this year have been abandoned. Instead, he'll be adding seven tracks to the first Relapse, calling it Relapse: Refill and putting it out just in time for the holidays on December 21. The expanded record will feature the posse cut from the Lebron James movie with Kanye West, and Lil Wayne (and, er, Drake), a track called "Taking My Ball" from the DJ Hero soundtrack and five brand new songs.

No word on what those will sound like, but the announcement makes oblique references to the involvement of Dr. Dre and Just Blaze, so that's promising. Relapse 2, meanwhile, will come out next year sometime. On an unrelated note, did you see those amazing cyphers from the 2009 BET Awards? Best idea ever. Check out Eminem, Mos Def and Black Thought freestyling together after the jump.

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Your Weekend at the Movies, "Just to See What All the Fuss Is About"

editor@thelmagazine.com (Jesse Hassenger) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:56:00 -0500

New Moon: The continuing adventures of Weirdface & Twitchy, and by "adventures" I mean moping in and around trees. New Moon: Revenge of Twilight looks to sink to new depths of unintentional minimalism by sidelining the main vampire in Italy for most of the movie, providing what I assume will be an ineffective werewolf substitute. It's definitely a werewolf, though, rather than a more interesting wolf-man: in a flash, that muscley guy who almost got fired after the first movie morphs into a T-shirt-ready all-fours wolf, not some kind of badass hybrid. I will see this for the same reason I sometimes flip to the Disney Channel: because bad stuff that people between the ages of ten and eighteen enjoy is inherently more interesting to me than plain old regular bad movies and TV shows.

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Dave Choi Deserves Your Attention

editor@thelmagazine.com (Paddy Johnson) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:00:00 -0500

Who knows why some artists make it big and others don't... by Paddy Johnson Why do some artists become famous while others are passed by? I used to ask this question all the time while visiting artMovingProjects, a Williamsburg gallery that specialized in exhibiting wildly talented mid-career artists, who for one reason or another had been passed over by the Chelsea community. The gallery sadly closed its doors last year, but Dave Choi's exhibition "If A Lion Could Speak We Could Not Understand Him" at Hogar Collection could be a sign that there are…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Concerning the International Language of Rom-Com Cliché

editor@thelmagazine.com (Simon Abrams) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:00:00 -0500

South Korean festival fave My Dear Enemy is a variation on a tired theme. by Simon Abrams My Dear Enemy Directed by Lee Yoon-ki While a gender bias among certain genres is universal, it's especially salient in South Korea, where the two most popular genres break down neatly along traditional masculine/feminine lines: romantic comedies for her, gangster films for him. Each trades in gender-based stereotypes, making the former only slightly more bearable than the latter when it comes to my graceless sex (give me loveable oafs over self-important made men any day). Lee Yoon-ki's My Dear Enemy,…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

They're Coming? We're Coming?

editor@thelmagazine.com (David Goldman) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:00:00 -0500

In retro sci-fi animation Planet 51, an American astronaut invades a planet that looks a lot like 50s America. by David Goldman Planet 51 Directed by Jorge Blanco and Javier Abad This debut from Spanish animation studio Ilion has a promising premise (even if it was similar to last year's Battle for Terra): a gung-ho American astronaut (voiced by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) lands on a planet of green-hued inhabitants—who, for dramatic purposes, all speak English and look somewhat human-like. In fact, their world is more or less a version of 1950s America, from the diners to the cheesy sci-fi "invasion" movies…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Afghanistan? Problem Solved.

editor@thelmagazine.com (Paul D'Agostino) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:00:00 -0500

It's cheap, it's elegant, and if you're lucky, the new Sandy Bullock movie will be playing. You're welcome, Mr. President. by Paul D'Agostino Now that the American military has long since surged its way to victory in Iraq, it's high time for the cavalry to re-energize, refocus, reload and remount—and to replicate such swift success in Afghanistan. And if you find something egregiously wrong with almost all of that statement, you are, without doubt, quite right. Except for the implication that a cavalry might remount. Back in the earliest stages of our current fight against the Taliban, soldiers on horseback proved stunningly effective.…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Forget the Rat Race: Life in France is Like a Hamster Wheel

editor@thelmagazine.com (Benjamin Sutton) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:04:00 -0500

The Telegraph's Travel section, always a treasure trove of unusual destinations, featured an all-too-brief piece on Tuesday about a hotel in an 18th century building in Nantes, France, where Frederic Tabary and Yann Falquerho have created a suite called "Hamster Villa." Following the "caveman suite" model (except, you know, inter-species), the Hamster Villa is a hotel room designed to resemble a giant hamster cage.

There's a human-sized hamster wheel for fitness, grain pellets for food, hay for sleeping in and hamster hats to help you get into the role, all for the relatively affordable rate of 99 euros per night ($147)—although that price is expected to go up shortly as un-hamster-y amenities like wireless internet and TVs are added. Get a closer look after the jump, where, if you understand French, Tabary (pictured) discusses very rationally, practically intellectually, why he and Falquerho created the Hamster Villa. (io9)

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Wes Anderson Knows He's Made the Second Greatest Animated Fox Movie of All Time

editor@thelmagazine.com (Mark Asch) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:29:00 -0500

So, Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox is a delightful dioramarama that gets the best out of its director's obsession with controlled play; perhaps due to its natural, sweet address to kids, his usual unresolved conflicts—chiefly, the problems of stepping out of a world of your own making and understanding the needs of others—feel less petulant than in his prior film (and less precious than in another recent film we could name).

It also features, as the background music in an early, pastoral scene, the song "Love", an Oscar-nominated number from Disney's 1973 film of Robin Hood, the movie your film editor watched more times than any other movie in the years before he watched The Princess Bride more than any other movie.

In Disney's Robin Hood, of course, Robin Hood and Maid Marian are loving foxes as well. Roald Dahl's Mr. Fox (the book was published in 1970) is himself a Robin Hood figure, a dashing, justified thief who, along with his gang of fellow-animals (badgers, rabbits, etc in both Disney and Dahl), risks life and limb to steal from comically greedy English landowners.

Is the song in question embedded after the jump? Oh gee I don't know better click on the jump and find out.

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Casting Announced for Ethan Hawke's A Lie of the Mind

editor@thelmagazine.com (Benjamin Sutton) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:57:00 -0500

The cast of an upcoming revival of Sam Shepard's 1985 play A Lie of the Mind by The New Group, which is to be directed by Ethan Hawke, was announced today. According to ArtsBeat, the cast will include Josh Hamilton (who starred in Hawke's previous directorial effort, 2007's Things We Want), Marin Ireland (whom our own Dan Callahan called "one of our finest young theater actresses" in his review of After Miss Julie), Deirdre O’Connell (of the extended Paywrights Horizons show Circle Mirror Transformation), and three other actors you're more likely to remember for their film roles: Alessandro Nivola, Frank Whaley and Maggie Siff (from season one of Mad Men). The play, about a man who thinks he may have murdered his wife during a fit of blind rage, begins previews on January 29.

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At Performa: Replaying Anna Halprin’s Parades & Changes

editor@thelmagazine.com (Alexis Clements) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:25:00 -0500

The re-staging, or perhaps more appropriately, the re-imagining of Anna Halprin’s Parades & Changes is one of the most anticipated works in Performa 09. Those in the dance world who know Halprin’s work and her lasting influence on the form over the past sixty odd years have been eager to see this piece on the stage again. And judging from the response of the audience the night I was there, no one was disappointed.

Originally staged in 1965, the piece caused a sensation both in the dance world and with the general public. When the work was mounted for the first time in New York in 1967, arrest warrants were issued for the artists involved. Why all the fuss? At the time nudity on the city’s stages was illegal and rarely used, even among those who would thwart the law. Today, nudity in performance art and dance has become banal in some sense, or at the very least expected in many settings. Halprin’s use of the nude body was one of the earliest, most deliberate and prolonged examples. That said, the lack of clothing was only one of the conventions that Parades & Changes was pushing up against. Perhaps more importantly was her testing of conventions of sexuality, authorship, and even the definition of dance.

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28 Hours of Innovative Art Begin in Approximately 27 Hours

editor@thelmagazine.com (Benjamin Sutton) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:52:00 -0500

The folks behind the summer's Vision Festival kick off their jam-packed fall festival, 28 Hours of Innovative Art, tomorrow at 6pm at the CSV Center (107 Suffolk St) on the LES. The full roster of art, dance, poetry, music and theater events continues all day and into the evening on Saturday, with everything from choreography, yoga and video art to brass bands, screenings and readings. $50 gets you into every event both days, or $30 per day ($20 for students and seniors). Check out the full schedule to see the huge roster of participating artists, dancers, musicians, artists, writers and filmmakers.

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Omar Bin Laden Interested in Peacemaking Role at UN. Yes, That Bin Laden.

editor@thelmagazine.com (Jonny Diamond) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:21:00 -0500

You know, we can't all be held accountable for the sins of our fathers. Omar Bin Laden agrees with me, and is just kind of bummed about his dad, Osama. The fourth son of the skinny old terrorist demagogue [pictured, btw, second from the right in happier, pre-demagogue times] told the New Statesmen, wistfully:

Although my father was stern and did not hesitate to use his cane, there were good times when he stopped his war plans and played with us.

Which is kind of like how my dad would sometimes stop watching Canadian football and tell me to get him a beer. Lil Bin Laden also revealed a possible career path, demonstrating a pretty shrewd sense of the current American political climate:

I would like to be in a position to promote peace. I believe that the United Nations would be ideal for me.

C U THERE! Also, he likes horses.

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Latin American Art Fair PINTA 09 Opens Tomorrow

editor@thelmagazine.com (Benjamin Sutton) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:51:00 -0500

Now in its third year, the PINTA art fair of modern and contemporary Latin American art brings together over 50 galleries and a dozen art magazines from about 20 countries, all squeezed into the Metropolitan Pavilion on West 18th Street for the next four days. The invitation-only opening party is tonight, but the real fun begins tomorrow when the fair opens to the public and continues through Sunday.

More so than the art fair week in early spring, PINTA offers an opportunity to catch smaller and lesser-known galleries from countries with vibrant but often under-represented contemporary art scenes like Brazil, Cuba and Chile. PINTA is open tomorrow and Saturday from 12-8pm and Sunday 12-7pm. Click here for details.

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Jeanne-Claude, Artistic and Life Partner of Christo, Is Dead

editor@thelmagazine.com (Benjamin Sutton) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:20:00 -0500

Jeanne-Claude, who with her husband made up the artist duo Christo and Jeanne-Claude (whom New Yorkers will remember for their orange Gates in Central Park) died last night. According to The Associated Press she succumbed to complications from a brain aneurysm, she was 74.

The French artist was best known for her works with husband Christo that often involved draping large monuments, buildings and landscapes in fabric—the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, a stretch of coast in Sydney, Pont Neuf in Paris, for instance. A family statement explained that the pair's two current works-in-progress (one in Colorado, the other in the United Arab Emirates), will continue as planned, though they'll clearly have a more solemn emotional impact than the usual giddy wonder the duo's spectacular installations evoke. (ArtsBeat)

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Famous Vampire Robert Pattinson Would Appear Nude On Film for Money

editor@thelmagazine.com (Jonny Diamond) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:51:00 -0500

Yes, we know. Here is some news about famous handsome person Robert Pattinson. He would appear naked. On film. When not asked whether that would include full frontal, Mr. Pattinson did not deny it. Which means he'd totally show peen. All of humanity to rejoice.

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