Phantom Orchard: Zeena Parkins & Ikue Mori // Pet Bottle Ningen
Roulette
Tuesday, December 11, 2012 @ 8:00 pm

Friends and colleagues since 1988, Ikue Mori and Zeena Parkins are two of the strongest musical voices out of the downtown scene.  Lynchpins of bands as diverse as DNA, Skeleton Crew, Electric Masada, Hemophiliac and Björk, each have been leading figures of the downtown scene since the early 1980s, and their collaboration, Phantom Orchard is the perfect outlet for their unique and personal musical languages.  Tonight, Phantom Orchard presents duo arrangements of work from their most recent album,Trouble in Paradise (Tzadik), featuring Mori on live visuals and electronics and Parkins on harps, keyboard, and celesta.

Love Fail
BAM
Dec 6—Dec 8, 2012

The latest work from Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang, love fail marries evocative new music with timeless storytelling to tell a tale of love both found and unfulfilled, performed by the ravishing voices of legendary early music group Anonymous 4.

Rants and Other Suggestions/Lamprophonic Emerging Writers Series
Dec 7th
Symphony Space

826NYC presents Rants and Other Suggestions with readings and performances by Jonathan Franzen, Gail Collins, Jonathan Ames, Reggie Watts, Eugene Mirman and Sarah Vowell. Music by Stephin Merritt. A benefit for 826NYC./The mission of Lamprophonic is to present and promote new voices in the New York writing community. We prepare a diverse and entertaining reading each month that demonstrates the quality and variety of emerging New York writers. In a typical reading, we hear poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, and are open to anything that thoughtfully engages listeners.

Building Stories: CHRIS WARE in conversation with ZADIE SMITH
NYPL
Tuesday, December 11, 2012, 7 p.m.

Chris Ware’s graphic novel Building Stories is a compilation of narratives about the inhabitants of a Chicago apartment building. Without a semblance of beginning or end, Ware’s stories illustrate bits of life that are heavy with allusions to the nature of American society and the human condition. Many credit Ware with ushering the graphic medium into the realm of “serious literature,” and few others have been as quick to pick up on this literary talent as Zadie Smith, who included Ware in her anthology of short stories, The Book of Other People.

Artful Dining: An Evening with Joyce Carol Oates
Symphony Space
Dec 10th

Joyce Carol Oates is one of the most prolific authors of our time. Her novels include We Were the Mulvaneys, Blonde, A Garden of Earthly Delights, them, The Gravedigger’s Daughter, and dozens of others. Her canon also includes numerous collections of short stories, poetry, essays and memoirs, young adult fiction, and plays. Join the two-time O. Henry Award winning writer as she discusses her illustrious career and creative process.

DJ SHADOW : ALL BASSES COVERED
TUE, DECEMBER 11, 2012
Brooklyn Bowl

Os Mutantes w/ Pedro Moraes and an event within Carnegie Hall’s “Voices from Latin America” festival
Le Poisson Rouge
Dec 8/9th

When the members of the legendary “Tropicália” band Os Mutantes took the stage before an audience of thousands at the Hollywood bowl a few years back, it seemed one of the greatest secrets in modern music was finally out. The seminal band whose ethereal absurdist pop music had inspired so many prominent musicians since their breakup decades before, were back. This time the world seemed ready. Now this influential band has reemerged with a brand new much anticipated album entitled Haih on Anti-records.

Humans and Other Animals (Bobby Lucy)
Laughing Lotus Yoga NY
Fri, Dec 7th

Please come to the opening of my show at Laughing Lotus. I will be showing a large assortment of reasonably priced archival, limited edition prints that are ideal for gift giving, just in time for the holidaze. I will also be unveiling a fresh new piece of art just for the event.
There will be kombucha and hors d’oevres and lots of nice folks to chat with. I hope to see you there!! and feel free to bring friends!

Biblioball 2012
The Bell House
Saturday, December 8, 2012

Enjoy live music from  Los Encantados. Shake it to sets from DJs Duane Harriott, Brian Blackout, John XI, Marty McSorley, and Mikey Post as they spin 40s, 50s & 60s Soul, 70s Funk, Pre-Punk Psych, Juke-Joint, Bogooloo, New-Wave and more. Enter the Fancy Pants Raffle, and you could walk away with fantastic prizes from local shops, restaurants and artists. 50% of all raffle proceeds will go towards the Sandy Children’s Book Relief Fund. Smile for the camera as photographer Jeremy Balderson snaps your portrait in front of illustrator Gilbert Ford‘s original Biblioball backdrop

Brooklyn Literary Mash-Up
Monday, Dec 10th
BAM

The Brooklyn Literary Mash-Up celebrates the multifarious literary voices of Brooklyn of the past 150 years, mixing excerpts of work by classic writers with that of contemporary voices. Members of the new Brooklyn International Theater Company use music, projected images, spoken word, and movement to bring these glittering words to life. Curated and directed by Brooklyn filmmaker Nelson George, the Brooklyn Literary Mash-Up is a honeyed, cynical, and humorous tribute to Kings County.

The Musical Parlor of Emily Dickinson
NYPL
Sat Dec 8th

Presented by Music Division Chief George Boziwick and the Red Skies Music Ensemble, this program recreates the intimate setting of music-making in the Dickinson home.  A selection of popular ballads, minstrel tunes, and Irish dance music from Emily’s own music book illustrates in performance, pictures, and commentary how the Dickinson’s collected, listened to, and performed the music of their time.

SUSANNE SLAVICK(Wrought)/CAROLINE BURTON(Prey)
Accola Griefen Gallery
Dec 7th (opening) 

In her first solo exhibit at Accola Griefen Gallery, Slavick shows works from the R&R(…&R) series that start with “found” photographs circulating freely on the web.  These images of decimated buildings and gaping earth are documents from recent war-torn regions including Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Justseeds: Sowing the Seeds of Love
Munch Gallery-245 Broome Street
Dec 7th 7-9

‘Sowing the Seeds of Love’ by collective group, Justseeds, is the newest exhibition in conjunction with Munch Gallery. Each artist has created a unique piece specifically for the gallery, and all original work will be accompanied by limited edition work. The exhibition will also include a site-specific collaborative mural. We are excited to present the first Justseeds group exhibition in New York City.

Classical At The Cornelia Presents…Red Thread
Cornelia St Cafe
Monday, Dec 10 – 8:30PM

Red Thread (= röd tråd in Swedish) is an age old expression meaning the guiding story line, or cohesive element, connecting a beginning with an end. Picture a thread of yarn beginning at some place, guiding you through various twists and turns, leading you to a destination elsewhere, alternatively returning back to the point of origin, it is also the name of a Swedish-American quartet based in Brooklyn that plays original works for violin, electric guitar, electric bass, drums. The members are all instrumentalist/composers who have come together to traverse the terrain of through-composed jazz, improvised chamber music, cinematic prog, and new settings of pieces by defining composers such as Anton Webern.

Witnessing Human Rights: Past, Present, and Future
Paley Center
Tuesday, December 11, 2012

This special evening celebrates twenty years of the international nonprofit organization WITNESS and their mission: See it. Film It. Change it. A panel of activists, journalists, academics, and citizens will discuss some very crucial questions concerning citizen journalism: With every person now a potential witness, how are human rights abuses being reported and contextualized? Does more content create more and faster change? Our experts will also examine how human rights stories have been covered over the last twenty years and consider how they will evolve in the future. Founded in the wake of the Rodney King beating caught on tape, WITNESS was employing video long before six billion people held video-enabled cellphones in their pockets.

Music Factory
Eyebeam
Dec 8-Dec 11

Beginning this Friday at midnight (Dec. 8), an ensemble comprised of more than 70 musicians will come together to fashion an unbroken collective statement of over 96 hours. Music Factory interrogates the mode of musical production, looking for conditions that might serve the promise of improvised music in the 21st Century.