Pencil This In

MUSIC: No matter who you might be, the Vivian Girls (pictured) probably hate you, but if you just don't care, then head over to their home state of Jersey tonight for their show with Titus Andronicus. Just don't expect to make any new friends, okay?

9 p.m. // Maxwell's [1039 Washington St, Hoboken] // $10

EVENT: The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council presents Access Restricted: The Capital of the World tonight. This time around, the nomadic lecture series will focus on "the effects of financial interests on the design and form of buildings. Situated on what was once considered the 'most expensive real estate in New York,' the landmarked Bank of New York Building features two stunning Art Deco masterpieces, the Observation Room and the Red Room." Architectural historian Carol Willis will be the speaker of the evening.

6:30 p.m. // Bank of New York Building, One Wall Street // Free

THEATER: Downtown provocateur Young Jean Lee has become well known for exploring the art of the uncomfortable. In her newest play, The Shipment, she gives herself the most uncomfortable challenge yet: To make, as a Korean-American, a black identity-politics show. Charles Isherwood at the Times loves it: "Please don’t let the social-studies tag 'identity-politics' put you off; The Shipment, performed by a diversely talented cast of five black actors, will bore or offend only the humorless. Ms. Lee’s method is not to wag a finger but to wink and smile, trusting that you’ll register the point after you’ve had a good laugh. The show is provocative but never polemical, and it is pleasingly eclectic." — John Del Signore

8 p.m. // The Kitchen [512 W 19th St] // $15

VIDEO: King's County Cinema Society presents "a night of ass-shaking cinema and music videos. We're going to start the night off with a hot compilation of fast-paced and heart pumping soukous music videos, a fitting appetizer for Rize (2005, David LaChappelle), a documentary tracing the rize of a hyperkinetic dance known as krumping in East L.A with origins in a clown who shakes his shit in full clown regalia."

8:30 p.m. // Freddy's Bar and Backroom [485 Dean St, Brooklyn] // Free

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Carlson in Arts & Entertainment on January 14, 2009 1:03 PM

Comments [rss]

Kyle T

Those girls keep downtalking going out for drinks with your coworkers, so what about them, if your job is your band, then aren't your bandmates your coworkers? At least I don't sit around fully clothed in a bathtub with my coworkers!

Internet Handle

I am confused how the same link to the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council website can also explain why the Vivian Girls "probably hate [me]." Is there some kind of musical easter egg on the LMCC site? Possibly drowned out by layers of pointless reverb and distortion?

continentalop

Young Jean Lee's new play is called "The Shipment," not "The Settlement." It's correct in the quote but wrong in the intro line.

nativist

they're busted and their band sucks.

Thespis

Agreed. Oh, oh, but they play their own instruments! So that's, like, punk!

Puh-lease -- I was around for the real punk rock movement, and it wasn't three whiny girls from suburban New Jersey talking about how, like, everything sucks and how cool they are not to suck like everything else, which, like, all totally sucks.

nice job

Really? I'm pretty sure many of the original punks were not from NYC. The Feelies for example were from NJ, David Byrne was from Maryland and Richard Hell and Tom Verlaine [Television]were from Deleware. So think about it before you go off on a tangent about how the "original" punks weren't from suburbia.

Also, what do you think the founding attitude of punk was? "You suck, this sucks, everyone sucks," except they probably weren't as articulate about it.

So were you actually "there" for the original punk rock movement or did you just read an article about it?

Thespis

Buddy, you're talking out of your ass. I never said anything about having to be from an urban center to be a punk rocker -- I've known plenty that were from nowhere. Nor is it a problem if you consider everything in the universe to be terminally fucked. But if you're from suburban New Jersey, and your whole deal is that you walk around acting, like, totally bored with everything, cause you're, like, totally better than all of those sheeple...yeah, I've known a ton of those people, too, and they all suck.