Arts and Events: July 2009 Archives

   

Click on the images for more about this Week in Rock; this week features Kanye at Webster Hallt, Spank Rock at Siren and on the Williamsburg Bridge, and a Gothamist House (at CMJ) announcement!

       

This September the New York Public Library will bring you back to school with some topographical history lessons. They're celebrating the New York Harbor Quadricentennial with an extensive exhibit featuring rarely seen maps, atlases and other treasures from their own personal collection. The exhibit is titled Mapping New York’s Shoreline, 1609-2009, and opens on September 25th... but here's a sneak peek.

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Hey hipsters, you're too disaffected to probably care, but: you've finally made it into the pages of TIME magazine! Or at least onto their internet home. They begin their brief history of the hipster by narrowing the group down to people who hate Coldplay, love silk-screened tees, and drink PBR. We cross-referenced this in our Urban Outfitters Hipster's Guide to the Galaxy handbook that doesn't exist because hipsters would never buy it, and it all seemed to check out.

Last night Joe's Pub hosted a Michael Jackson edition of their Our Hit Parade series. Some adorable kids joined in on the fun (video here), performing as the Jackson 6, only to be upstaged by one Mr. Alan Cumming. Watch him adorably fumble over the words to "You Are Not Alone" and "Smile":

The graffiti mecca of Queens is getting... buffed! liQcity has images of 5Pointz in LIC getting a fresh coat of yellow paint. The site says they are "merely getting a free canvas reset, as the owners of the building were required to repaint as part of the necessary renovations after the recent stairwell collapse." It was recently divulged that the artist studios housed inside will be vacated, following the stairway collapse earlier this year that injured one renter. But "5pointz will still exist on the exterior walls" and new pieces go up every night as artists try "to keep up with the yellow paint machines." An image of the very yellow front of the building is after the jump.

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After hearing about how much Ghostland Observatory's Aaron Behrens admired the work of M. Ward (pictured), we decided to ask him to interview the musician for us. Ward recently released his sixth solo effort, Hold Time, and will be delivering tunes in his soothingly achy voice to those in attendance at his Central Park Summerstage show this Saturday. As for Behrens, his band will be playing this Sunday at the All Points West Festival. Catch them both! But first listen in as the two talk shop...

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If you have been to Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, you have seen the ranting grey-haired man pacing up and down the middle of the street. Usually positioned between North 5th and North 7th, sometimes later in the day he'll make it all the way down to the South Side, probably on his way home. Lawrence LaDouceur lives at the Glenwood Hostel, and prior to that he's led quite a life. One brave soul has now gone one-on-one with him, making him the subject of a short film; Russel Fong captures LaDouceur's thoughts as they pour from his head, and he even visits his current home. Maybe next time you see him you'll give him a chance and have your own one-on-one (it's a bit heart-wrenching when he tells Fong of their talk: "you don't know how good this is for me.")

       

Have a hankering for some rock & roll leftovers? The Gotta Have It! Rock & Roll Pop Art Auction is currently being housed at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Annex. You can check out the catalog, and bid online, here, where you'll find everything from Eminem's King of Pop costume to The King's rings... and inexplicably a T2 prop. The auction runs through August 5th, so if you have any desire to own answering machine tapes holding naughty messages from Madonna, act now!

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It's been over three months since jewelry designer Nicole Gagne was seriously injured during an external stairway collapse at 5Pointz. The LIC building housed her studio, along with many other artist's workspaces.

The Naked Cowboy is running for Mayor, so the NY Post is taking this time to delve deeper into the Times Square busker's life (whose first turn in the spotlight was posing as a prostitute on the Jerry Springer Show). There's just so much going on Behind the Underwear!

              

Yesterday afternoon the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company hosted an 826NYC benefit, in the form of an Honest Elimination Texas Hold 'Em Poker Tournament. Ira Glass, David Cross, and Michael Ian Black were all on hand, as well as ticket holders taking part and supporting the organization. We took the opportunity to head over to the storefront and explore their superhero goodies. The shop opened years ago, but incase you haven't been here's what you should know:

Yesterday's free concert on the Waterfront (the third of the weekly Pool Parties this summer), was one of the many events that succombed to the weather gods. I'm Not Sayin speaks up and reports back from the frontline saying "the State Park management told the promoters to pull the plug—before headliners Trail of Dead could plug in and play a single power chord." Smart move, and the crowd made the best of it, running off to nearby bars, and snapping windblown shots for their Facebook pages.

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Synonymous with folk music ever since her earliest days singing on college campuses in the 1960s, Joan Baez has never been one for silence. She's released dozens of albums featuring her distinctive voice over the course of her 50-year career and she's still an active performer, touring cross-country this summer before heading to Europe later this fall.

In the program notes for Art of Memory, Tanya Calamoneri's macabre dance-theater piece about bookish isolation, gifted designer Sean Breault describes his set as a blend of his "fascination with Theodore Kaczynski [the Unabomber] and his 'living quarters,' The Deep South, Reclusive Troglodytes, Swamps, Mystics, Open Heart Surgeries, Beautiful Minds, One's Descent Into Madness, Possessions, Spirits and Kittens that some people put into bags and toss over the bridge's edge." Though no cats are killed nor hearts dissected during the hour long performance, Breault's description aptly conveys Art of Memory's atmosphere: sometimes sullen, sometimes febrile, always strange.

                     

The 1.7 mile 9th annual Central Park Underwear Run went down last night, and plenty were on hand, gladly stripping down to their knickers in the humidity. Run-NYC was also on hand, calling it the "mermaid parade of running"... but we'll always think of it as the Running of the Balls. No word yet on whether or not the group broke the world record for most people assembled in their underwear. A city waits in suspense...

Say what you will about street art, or whatever this might be categorized under, but this should make even the most soulless grump in town crack a smile. Urban Prankster posted this image today, but it was actually taken at an unnamed NYC pizza joint back in January. Making us wonder why the Tom Hanks sticker movement hasn't taken over every trash can in the city by now.

   

Click on the images for more about this Week in Rock; this week features Dirty Projectors at the Williamsburg Waterfront, Andrew Bird at Green-Wood Cemetery, and Ted Leo at Pier 54.

Sometimes things are just really cool to watch, like this video of the Manhattan Bridge moving along with the subway traffic.

              

Click on the film stills above for more on this week's new releases and repertory screenings, which also include Shrink, The Answer Man, G-Force, Orphan, The Ugly Truth, California Company Town, The English Surgeon, Paraiso Travel, Loren Cass, Import/Export, Blood Simple, Deadgirl, and, starting Wednesday, Rediscovering John Cazale.

     

We've seen plenty of old images of the Bronx, but what about the current state of affairs in the borough? Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao's photographs of the Bronx document today, and are part of the upcoming Intersections: The Grand Concourse Commissions at the Bronx Museum of the Arts (running from Sunday, August 2nd through January 4, 2010). Liao is just one of the artists who will be a part of the installation; his "series features several vast and virtuosic panoramas of the Grand Concourse, including two 128-foot wide, hyper-detailed panorama of every building on the thoroughfare." Learn more about the exhibit, and other artists involved, here.

Move over Triathalon, the 2009 Central Park Underwear Run (or if you prefer: the Running of the Balls) takes place tonight. The 1.7 mile fun run goes down every year prior to the big, and much more serious, Sunday race. The organizers have simple rules for this one: "No transitions, no timing chips, no expensive race gear, just 500 strangers running around in their underwear." We will say, this sounds a bit better than the naked bike ride, so we'll actually accept any photos you take if you should happen to stumble upon the sweaty half dressed mob.

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Today we're giving away a pair of tickets for the upcoming All Points West Festival. The weekend of music starts on July 31st, and details to win tickets are in today's GothamList newsletter—just sign up, and you'll also get our daily event listings. We'll pick a winner at random, and will be contacting all winners in the near future! You can get today's newsletter when you sign up.

Okay, not really. But Wes Verhoeve spotted this in a storefront on Lorimer and Jackson in Brooklyn. Art? Joke? Crazy hipsters? We may never know.

       

Seriously, this guy? Alright, so this is happening, living tourist attraction Naked Cowboy has officially announced he's running for Mayor of New York City.

       

Not that we needed any convincing about Belgian artist James Ensor (1860-1949), but after New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl declared that the "astonishing" Ensor retrospective at MoMA "will affect many viewers like the detonation of a bomb whose fuse has been fizzing inconspicuously for a century," we quit procrastinating and finally humped it to midtown on Saturday. It was definitely worth the trip, and we were pleasantly surprised to find that the exhibit wasn't disastrously mobbed in the way that blockbuster museum retrospectives tend to get.

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Summer tends to be the season of the teenager—on the streets, at the movies, in your memories. Back towards the end of our teenage years, Natasha Lyonne landed a series of roles in summer flicks (Slums of Beverly Hills, But I'm a Cheerleader and The American Pie movies) that marked her as a teen that seemed a little bit off the beaten path. Not long after that, she would begin making headlines for a personal life that took her even further off that path, so far that many wondered whether she would make it out of her twenties.

Summer is upon us, and Mayor Bloomberg has declared July to be Good Beer Month. And there's nothing quite like riding ones bike to a bar and imbibing in some cold ones, right? Actually that sounds like a dangerous idea, but it still didn't stop some folks from putting together a Bike to the Bars event.

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Yesterday we got to watch in "real time" the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon, down to the second it was aired when covered by Walter Cronkite. Today the NY Times has included a four page insert in the paper, featuring the big headline of July 21st, 1969, just as it was printed 40 years ago. Wanna save some trees? Read the original story here; it's still probably one of the most exciting ledes of all time: "Men have landed and walked on the moon."

Thornton Wilder's groundbreaking 1938 play Our Town has been almost irreparably scarred by unbearably earnest high school drama club productions over the years. So it came as a bit of a surprise that Chicago director David Cromer—who won an OBIE for his rather sensational adaptation of The Adding Machine last season—would be reviving this old relic here in New York. But since opening Off Broadway all the way back in March, the production, night after night, has been eradicating any misconceptions that Our Town is just a hokey, Norman Rockwell Hallmark card to small town America.

The papers have picked up on the dumpster diving story and it turns out the location of the pool is in Gowanus. The address was actually decoded after this video on the project hit the internet last week, meaning people have been coming by and trying to sneak a peak at the private pools.

       

When NY1's (and Pat's Papers') Pat Kiernan agreed to help us out with some tips for New Yorkers on how to celebrate Canada Day a few weeks back, we had no idea just how deep his national pride ran in the desire to give our readers an authentic Canadian experience. The first three readers who responded to his Canadian pop star-themed trivia question were treated to a round of poutine, courtesy of the beloved local anchor.

New York-based band Capillary Action is coming off a five month tour, which included shows with Les Claypool, and tonight they're ending it with a hometown celebration at Zebulon. Check them out before you take it all in, and it may be your last chance for a while as we've heard there may be a year-long hiatus on the horizon.

    

Cute Owl Overload! Five eastern screech owls were released in Central Park on Saturday (hopefully not in a quiet zone!). They won't be the only ones there, some were spotted in the North Woods last year. Turns out wildlife rehabilitor Bobby Horvath is responsible for both releases, and after seeing that the North Woods ones were doing so well, he brought the new troupe in—Yojimbot of The Origin of Species was on hand to document the release. Urban Hawks notes that "Central Park may have its risks, but it lacks Great-Horned Owls which are becoming a major predator of Eastern Screech-Owls."

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Some heavy news out of the Beastie Boys' camp today: The three emcees and one DJ are canceling their upcoming tour and postponing their new album release because doctors have discovered a cancerous tumor in Adam Yauch's left parotid (salivary) gland. In the video above, Yauch and Adam Horovitz announce the bad news, with Yauch expressing healthy optimism about his recovery, because the cancer is localized and will not affect his vocal chords. He's expected to have surgery next week, to be followed by radiation treatment.

      

Last night may have been the first time since it opened this spring that Citi Field was home to fans cheering loudly for over two consecutive hours. That's because fresh off his return to (the top of) The Ed Sullivan Theater, Paul McCartney once again played on the home field of the Mets where the Beatles had their legendary Shea Stadium shows. And by all accounts, Macca brought it.

             

Click on the film stills above for more details and reviews on this week's new releases and repertory screenings, which also include 500 Days of Summer, Homecoming, Death in Love, Off Jackson Avenue, Somers Town, A Woman in Berlin, The Way We Get By, Died Young, Stayed Pretty, In a Lonely Place, Flesh Gordon, The Blair Witch Project , and A Clockwork Orange.

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Terrible news everyone: Sad Panda has gone missing. A reader sent us these disturbing images of a Wall Street with no mascot. His usual stomping grounds have been checked out, but he's nowhere to be found. One concerned citizen even put up a missing poster.

This morning Third Eye Blind, or 3EB if you prefer, played at Central Park for Good Morning America's summer concert series, but yesterday lead singer Stephan Jenkins was in our very own office performing a more intimate set. Despite his bike being stolen the day before after riding it from Bowery to midtown, he still had a smile on his face. The band is releasing a new album, titled Ursa Major, in August, which includes a duet with original indie darling Kimya Dawson. Yesterday he played us some of the old and new (which you can watch below), including one song about being in love with a lesbian—no word on if it's about MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, who he has said he has "an overwhelming and tragic crush on."

       

Fans of the Quay Brothers will be pleased to know that Parsons The New School for Design is currently hosting a traveling exhibit of 11 rarely seen miniature décors from some of the Quays' most prominent works. Since 1979, the famously reclusive brothers (born and raised in Norristown, Pennsylvania) have produced over 30 enthralling animated works, including the critically acclaimed Street of Crocodiles, an adaptation of the Bruno Schulz novel by the same name, which Terry Gilliam deems one of the top ten best animated films of all time.

Okay so we're all familiar with the Verizon eyesore on the banks of the East River, and the fact that it's hate-fuel for those who have to look at it from Brooklyn, but now the company is taking it to the streets, and likely annoying even more of the city. Their never-ending "network is always with you" campaign was filming earlier over near 7th Street and 1st Avenue. Did you see hundreds of red shirts clogging up the East Village today? Can you see them now?

Is your femoral cutaneous nerve feeling tingly? Is the side of your thigh numb? Are you wearing skinny jeans? Incase you weren't scaremongered enough by the Wall Street Journal piece, Dr. Jennifer Ashton stopped by the CBS Early Show to make "fashion victim" jokes and warn of the health concerns over skinny jeans that are too tight on the legs and groin.

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Yesterday word went around that there was some unwanted tagging going on the Os Gemeos work-in-progress mural on Houston Street. It didn't take long for the brothers to cover it up with a dedication to their old friend Dash Snow (an old photo of the three after the jump). There are actually two dedications to the late artist (who also was known as Sace in his tagging years), and one to Iz the Wiz (you can see his tag on the subway car in the mural). And with that, the mural is finally complete!

       

So last night David Letterman and Paul McCartney were finally face to face, as Sir Paul returned to the Ed Sullivan Theater and made his first appearance on the Late Night show. He talked to Dave about his attachment to the space, where the Beatles made their first U.S. appearance in the '60s—you can watch their chat below, and the performance after the jump.

While performance artist Thoth, beloved by many, awaits his court date in August after getting arrested for "prayforming," the Parks Department has gotten back to us with their somewhat canned comment on the incident. Parks spokesperson Philip Abramson explains:

"There are many spaces in Central Park where unamplified music may be played without a permit. However, the Bethesda Terrace area has been designated a 'quiet zone' for many years. The Parks Department routinely asks musicians and performers to move from Bethesda to other areas of the park such as the Bandshell and Dead Road.

Continue reading "Parks Department Speaks Out on Thoth Arrest"

     

Every year July we love seeing photos from the 12-day Feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel and San Paolino in Williamsburg. And this year we're enjoying an added bonus: video of the crazy “Dance of the Giglio,” during which, according to Giglio USA, a five ton platform bearing a five story hand-sculptured tower and a 12-piece brass band is lifted by 125 brawny men who carry it on their shoulders through the neighborhood in tempo to Italian folk songs. Or, as depicted here, the theme from Rocky, which at this point might as well be considered traditional Italian music. The video was taken right at the climactic moment when the Giglio meets "la barca"; i.e. "the boat." (More background on the tradition here.)

              

It may be easy to judge someone like Dash Snow. His pedigree, his art, his drug abuse, his lifestyle. But when the artist joined the 27 Club and departed for the big "hamster nest" in the sky, he left behind many Polaroids, many tags, many works of art, and many grieving friends. Gavin McInnes, who you know from Vice, wrote a tribute to his friend and his relation to New York City.

The best part of living in New York is the feeling that you’re in the center of everything. This feeling is like heroin and soon you want more. Eventually, Brooklyn isn’t enough. Then, certain parts of Manhattan aren’t enough. You feel like you’re visiting your parents when you’re in Soho or you’re on a road trip when you’re in Chelsea. St. Marks is a mini mall and even the East Village feels like a pale imitation of the Lower East Side. You never felt like that when you were partying with Dash Snow. You felt like you were in the center of New York. He was the kind of thing people move to New York for.

Today we're giving away a pair of tickets for the upcoming All Points West Festival. The weekend of music starts on July 31st, and details to win tickets are in today's GothamList newsletter—just sign up, and you'll also get our daily event listings. We'll pick a winner at random, and if you don't win, we'll have one more pair to give away in the near future! You can get today's newsletter when you sign up.

Remember that guy who wrote the creepy sex book for teens. Well, he's back! This time targeting the L train set, and those who love them, with a book of short stories titled I Hate All of You on This L Train (dedicated to fellow author Tao Lin).

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Hidden away at the end of Greenpoint Avenue by the East River in Brooklyn you'll find Le Grenier, an inviting new boutique that mixes a wide variety of "Industrial & Machine Age" antiques with contemporary housewares. Owner Maya Marzolf spent years renovating the late 1800s building and filling it with her eclectic collection, which her friends have dubbed "Apothecary Chic." Each of the antiques seems to tell a story, and many of them are refreshingly affordable, especially the dishware. We recently asked Marzolf to elaborate on some of the more intriguing items, her love for Greenpoint, and the riverfront park that's finally opened at the end of her block. (Click on the images above for more on the collection.)

       

As noted in our newsletter today, 32 years ago tonight, at 8:37 p.m., the blackout of 1977 began. On its 30th anniversary, we did a full recap of the night. The evening has been well-documented elsewhere as well—here are some more images—but the LIFE database actually has plenty photographs from other blackouts in the city's past (1942, 1959, 1965 and 2003). In 2003 the NY Times looked at how the '65 and '77 ones shaped our history. While the former showed people coming together, proving "reassuring and exhilarating," they sum up the latter with a quote a priest named Gabriel Santacruz from St. Barbara's Church in Bushwick. He said the Sunday after the '77 blackout: "We are without God now."