THE WEEK: NOV 21-25.

MONDAY:

From #occupy to revolution
Jed Brandt, Mike Ely, Eric Riebellarsi
Jed Brandt is an editor with the Occupied Wall Street  Journal, and together with Eric Ribellarsi, has recently returned from deep investigations into the “movement of the squares” in Greece and the revolutionary movement in Nepal. Mike Ely is a veteran revolutionary whose political life started with the early SDS and the Black Panther Party in the 1960s, and covers decades of experience attempting to build revolutionary organization, including among coal miners in the wildcat strike movements of the 1970s. All three are participants in the Kasama Project — a communist effort to re-imagine and regroup for  revolution in the U.S. All have been active in the Occupy Together movement in different cities.

Robert Ashley:That Morning Thing
A remounting of Robert Ashley’s legendary opera. That Morning Thing was performed only three times (Ann Arbor, MI, Oakland, CA and Tokyo, Japan) in the late 1960s, but the opera acquired its reputation through rumor and the famous recordings of two sections, Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon and She Was A Visitor.

The Oven: AND HUMBABA CAME FROM HIS STRONG HOUSE OF CEDAR
Creative Sounds of Dissension 
JOAN DIDION in conversation with Sloane Crosley
The Secret Science Club presents paleoanthropologist, fossil hunter, and human evolution expert William Harcourt-Smith
Bailey Cooke/Time Travelers/Graham Lee Smith
Dance Film Lab Showcase
Chibi-rific Manga Drawing Workshop with Misako Rocks
Moonshot Magazine’s “Secret Issue” Reading and Release Party
Opre! A Symposium on Romani (Gypsy) Musics and Cultures
ALIEN COMIC / SALLEY MAY AND FRIENDS
Felix and Dexter
Blake Mackey/Mercies/Beet Juice / Kristy Kruger
1751 EASY STREET :: ARTIST TALK
NEW AMSTERDAM RECORD’S DOUBLE-RELEASE EVENT
CANSTRUCTION 

TUESDAY:

Citizen Cartography Workshop: Build a Virtual Atlas of New York
Help NYPL build the geospatial library of the future! This workshop (which takes place the three times a month) will get you oriented with the a set of tools the Library has developed (available at maps.nypl.org) that enables librarians and the general public to add valuable geographic context to old maps. The workshop will focus on the core activity of the website: georectification, or “warping” maps. This means overlaying digital images of historic maps onto a contemporary digital map (similar to Google Maps), transforming them into tiles of a virtual atlas.

THE STORY COLLIDER: BODIES IN MOTION
From finding awe in Hubble images to visiting the doctor, science is everywhere in our lives. Whether we wear a white lab coat or haven’t seen a test tube since 8th grade, science affects and changes us. We all have a story about science, and at The Story Collider, we want to hear those stories.

The Underdeveloped and Overexposed Life and Death of Deena Domino
E.S.P. TV Episodes 8-10 Screening Party

PHARMACOPHORE: ARCHITECTURAL PLACEBO

Myles Manley/The Lost Shores/Tom Devaney (of Rotary Club)/Johann
Researching Family History @ the Schomburg Center
CROSSING BOUNDARIES
GRADUATE POETS SERIES/TAKSIM
SALLIE FORD AND THE SOUND OUTSIDE/QUIET LIFE
Jean-Frédéric Schnyder
THE FUNES
Someone’s Trying to Kill Me 

WENESDAY: 

ANDRU BEMIS @ROOTS AND RUCKUS
Video@Hubertus – Screening of videos by Paul McCarthy
MARY BEARD
PERFECT SENSE/RYAN BLOTNICK’S 04646/TATTOOS AND MUSHROOMS FEATURING: MICHAEL BLAKE 

THURSDAY:

THANKSGIVING!

FRIDAY:

Jack Smith
Few artists can be said to have had a greater influence on the history of experimental cinema, queer cinema, and performance art than Jack Smith (1932–1989). Smith was an antic performer who played to the cheap seats, flamboyantly and tragicomically overwrought in the manner of Theda Bara, Maria Montez, Gloria Swanson, and Dorothy Lamour. His style of camp blended Hollywood orientalism, burlesque, kitsch, polymorphous sexuality, and social satire. Caustically funny, politically trenchant, and defiantly intolerant of intolerance, he provoked police raids and censorial judges, and created a beautiful, haunting, poignant, outrageous, orgiastic body of work that transformed the artistic landscape of the New York underground—a culture also being shaped in profoundly radical ways by Andy Warhol, Tony Conrad, Ken Jacobs, Ron Rice, the Kuchars, Jonas Mekas, the Velvet Underground, Charles Ludlam, and Susan Sontag—as well as inspiring a subsequent generation of artists, including Richard Foreman, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Christophe Schlingensief, Laurie Anderson, Derek Jarman, Nan Goldin, Robert Wilson Jack Goldstein, Mike Kelley, Pipilotti Rist, Vaginal Davis, Cindy Sherman, Guy Maddin, Ryan Trecartin, John Waters, Vivienne Dick, The Cockettes, John Bock, and countless others.

PERFORMA 11
Performa 11, the fourth edition of the internationally acclaimed biennial of new visual art performance presented by Performa, will be held in New York City from November 1–21, 2011. The three-week biennial will showcase new work by more than 100 of the most exciting artists working today, in an innovative program breaking down the boundaries between visual art, music, dance, poetry, fashion, architecture, graphic design, and the culinary arts. Presented in collaboration with a consortium of more than 50 arts institutions and over 50 curators, as well as a network of public spaces and private venues across the city, Performa 11 will ignite New York City with energy and ideas, acting as a vital “think tank” linking minds across the five boroughs and bringing audiences together for brilliant new performances in all disciplines.

Aid and Abet: Working With NGOs
Sonnambula
RON AGAM AND TONY SOULIÉ
Rona Yefman
THE STONE
American Letters 1927-1947: Jackson Pollock & Family
An Auteurist History of Film
Dead Laptop Series
SPANKIN’ STEPHEN’S MONDAY NIGHT PUB QUIZ
Carsten Höller: Experience
Street Scenes / Visual Narrative
Observatory: 
the ephemera: an exhibition by James Walsh
BRAIN CLOUD
Diego Rivera: Murals for The Museum of Modern Art
CHASE GRANOFF: INTUITION IS PRECEDING OVER MY UNDERSTANDING
WHERE AM I?: The tactile experience of sculpture work
The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora: A 60 Year Retrospective
C.I.C.T. / Théātre des Bouffes du Nord Fragments
A BREAK FROM CONTENT: JASON MIDDLEBROOK
DEATHSCAPE
The Cherry Orchard
OPEN INVITATION FOR ACTIONS ON INTERNATIONAL MIGRANTS DAY
Simon Denny:Corporate Video Decisions
Behind the Curtains of XXI Century Communism

UPCOMING:

Jerry Walden 

THE WEEK: JULY 12-15th

SUPERCODA AND THE 22 MAGAZINE PRESENT: PABLO MALAURIE AND ANDRU BEMIS AND THE 1st ARTIST’S OPEN FORUM

JULY 14th CAFE ORWELL 7pm
Excited to announce this one. Pablo Malaurie’s voice is of the angels, and he’s come all the way from Argentina to play for you. It’s going to be beautiful, and glorious, and fun. Pablo has been widely praised for his fusion style (South American and Japanese in some cases), opened for Devandra Banhart and recently was a part of Catalin Mitulescu’s film “Loverboy.” He’s making the rounds in NY for the next couple days and we’re really pleased to have him.
PLUS as an extra amazing bonus we just found out Andru Bemis is coming by as well! He’s played with some great folk and best of all he chooses to go it solo, no endorsements, no contracts, just him and the rails riding him from town to town. It’s an amazing feat in this day and age and we’re thrilled to have him! Read more about it at his website: http://www.andrubemis.com/ Come help support not only our effort to see Volume II of The 22 Magazine in PRINT but also witness the  brainchild of Valerie Kuehne, i.e. Supercoda @ Cafe Orwell, the gorgeous spectacle that goes on nearly every  night (when does Valerie sleep?!?) and allows you to witness sounds that are otherworldly and stunning. Now, please watch/listen to the gorgeous song below.

PS- This show will be also be one of the first opportunities to be part of The 22′s Artist’s Open Forum. Have a question, concern, or problem as an artist? This is where we can help. We’ll be passing out signup sheets allowing you to let us know what is concerning you as artists, writers, and musicians and will address those concerns in our next meeting or on the blog. More info about what this all about at the show.

http://www.the22magazine.com/Pages/upcomingevents.html

The Belle Brigade @ MERCURY LOUNGE TUESDAY JUNE 12th. More about the Belle Brigade.

Tuli Kupferberg @ BOWERY POETRY CLUB JULY 13 7:00 PM

Tuli Kupferberg (1923-20

10), cartoonist, song-comedian, Beat poet, anarcho-geographer, Lower East Side atheist guru, anti-circumcision activist, author of I Hate Poems About Poems About Poems, died one year and one day ago. Friends and half-dressed disciples will celebrate his ever-awakening memory. Hosted by Sparrow. Jeffrey Lewis, Terese Coe ,John S. Hall, Thelma Blitz, Steve Dalachinsky, Yuko Otomo, Bob Holman Lawrence, White Richard West, Sparrow

The event will be a benefit for the War Resisters League. Watch Live on the Web! http://www.bowerypoetrylive.com/

Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky launches his new graphic design project, “The Book of Ice” at Eyebeam. The “Book of Ice” (Mark Batty Publisher) consists of multiple engagements with the theme of ice as presented by posters, stickers, music compositions, and an introduction by best selling author Brian Greene, whose ground-breaking book “The Elegant Universe” sets the tone for some of the issues in Miller’s new book.

RSVP

For the event at Eyebeam, Miller will team up with Bill McKibben, acclaimed writer and founder of 350.org, along with Green Patriot Poster project curator Edward Morris, Small Planet Institute’s Anna Lappé, and several leading theoreticians of graphic design. Miller will also present music interpretations of some of the sonic data as compositions derived from the book and his explorations in Antarctica with a live string quartet, The Telos Ensemble, playing his compositions. At the end of the evening, there will be a book signing, and open social event themed on Antarctica, including a selection of remixes produced by Paul commissioned by the German public radio.

PERFORMANCY FORUM 14 at BOB the Pavilion

Wednesday, July 13, 7-10PM

TESS DWORMAN

ANYA LIFTIG

BEN SPATZ/MAXIMILIAN BALDUZZI/URBAN RESEARCH THEATER

MATTHEW STEPHEN SMITH

CHRISTY WALSH

PAUL PINTO AND JEFFREY YOUNG (OF THINGNY)

and PPL composer BRIAN MCCORKLE and members of the CAST performing an excerpt from ‘INSTITUTE_INSTITUT’ concert-style and YOU!

BOB the Pavilion is a composting toilet and inflated platform for performance and more! http://www.bobthepavilion.​com/BOB the Pavilion was supported by a grant from Columbia University School of the Arts (SOA) and Graduate School of Architecture, Preservation, and Planning(GSAPP).

Ritual A Group Exhibition by HONEYCOMB

Brooklyn, NY, July 2011, HONEYCOMB and Causey Contemporary proudly present Ritual, a group exhibition featuring original artwork produced by over twenty of the freshest urban, newbrow, young contemporary artists hailing from seven countries. The public is invited to the artists’ reception on July 12th from 6 – 9 p.m Ritualistic behavior is one of the few things that have universally permeated all human sociological development. It has helped form civilizations, spawned entire belief systems, and through the ages has continuously influenced human conduct while simultaneously shaping the world as we know it. While the actual processes may vary, the incorporation of ritual into society is something that transcends nationality, geographic location and linear timeline. Cultures of both the past and present have used symbolic, traditional or religious rituals for any number of reasons including divination, personal pleasure, the achievement of spiritual or emotional needs, the formation of social bonds, expressions of respect and devotion, the advancement of social status, acceptance or for educational purposes. Although there are great differences among the countless rituals in existence, it is evident that regardless of intent or appearance, ritualistic behavior is undeniably intertwined with both our past and our future, and something that unites us all.

Othelo Gervacio @ FUSE GALLERY.
“Postboredom”
Exhibition: July 13 through July 27, 2011

Opening Reception: Wednesday, July 13th, 7 to 10 pm

Boredom inspires creation. In Othelo Gervacio’s case, Postboredom is art garnered from his lingering disenfranchised youth. Gervacio has held onto the adolescent manifestation of making art and music because “you hate what is happening around you.” He states, “Are the only punks left now ‘Fashion punks’? No thanks, I’d rather I’d sit at home, listen to sludgy metal and paint something dark.” Othelo Gervacio is a new face in the downtown New York art scene.  After four years under the wing of tattoo/fine artist Scott Campbell, and prior schooling in the arts, Gervacio has channeled his experiences to create his own definitive style.  With the use of dark imagery and gothic lettering forms,
his art reflects an influence from the grittier side of tattoo culture, metal music, and lingering teenage angst.


Shapeshifters @ 4 4 3  P A S

Curated by Laurel Sparks

July 14 – August 26

Opening Reception: Thursday, July 14, 6-8 pm

bespoke bathing costume
Sparks says this show features geniuses only!
Come one come all y’all to gawk at their works:
whose stalagmites elude portrayal
but for the smudgen empyrean
fibrous by seat of their cohort–
ashtray w/ suspenders unwrinkled
a pile of glazier-thin feuilles fatales

flurry of homosocial g.w.ps
twins peer at the heart in thir pants
weeping fruitier and downreaching espalier
a nacorn an urn unhectorized
gutterclouds inform an architecture
its mouth a painted hare or rabbitt
atop an accretion of realnesses.
how do you value a painting? by its
pearlescent gummery centre. can
a beercan grow a thing. potteryhound
helmet from hellsdeep chainworks the
neolyth clawfoot cum eagle arm–
tender clips of the fan, snakely
beads reveal sculptoraly or by
erasure the ponderous red creature.

– Julian T. Brolaski

June 18, 2011,
Larry Bob Phillips will begin work on his project Wiggle Room, as part of Recess’s signature program, Session. Session invites artists to use its storefront space as studio, exhibition venue and grounds for experimentation.
Over the course of two months, Phillips will record four collaborative events, covering the walls inside 41 Grand Street with large-scale, and densely detailed drawings. Phillips will invite artists to join him in the space for temporary performances, and will draw these interventions. The artist’s anticipation and memory of the performance will inform the content of Phillips’ wall drawings. Visitors to Recess can engage in performances and witness their own integration into the ongoing drawing.
Throughout this Session, visitors to Recess in SoHo will witness a diverse series of collaborations, starting with Michael Beitz’s construction of “exhibition furniture” for Wiggle Room.
Wiggle Room will feature the following events:
Tuesday July 12th Reception/Viewing for Michael Beitz
Thursday July 21st Jeff Jensen Night of Laughs Friday
July 29th Chuleta & Hennessy Youngman Bury Post Black Thursday

August 4th CHERYL closing performance

Daniel Parmanetter@ FIVEMYLES.

July 12, 6 – 9 pm Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right

FROM THE ARTIST:

I’ve been working with Bob Dylan as a metaphor or symbol in my works for a few years now but wanted to make it a bit more abstract, further away from the real person.

The installation visually is based on a particular sort of stage light that I only know from single person performances in the the 60s and 70s and that for me is also very metaphorical. I combine this with audio footage of a very special moment in Dylan’s carrier. Somebody called him “Judas” in a show in Manchester, England in 1966. You can watch that here:

And I will ad my own story to this. Not my personal one, but a kind of metaphorical little story. I’m replaceing his real answer to the Judas cry with words I’ll rearrange from footage of the old man Dylan’s voice. So you will see the puppet in that stage light and hear the Judas cry followed by a rather metaphorical answer.

Over the course of five years since he launched his enterprise New York Night Train, Jonathan Toubin has forged a singular career and achieved remarkable success: He is not only a deejay with a staggering collection of rare garage rock and soul on 45 rpm records, but also a visionary creator and producer of long-running (and now internationally touring) multi-media parties. This summer, he will take a break from his Soul Clap and Dance-Off, the most popular soul party in North America, to focus on the launch of his most ambitious undertaking to date, Land of 1,000 Dances, in which live dance demonstrators and projected videos—montages of vintage and original footage—will teach partygoers the dance crazes of the 1960s while Toubin plays 45s he has curated specifically for the individual dances.

Discursive Arrangements, or Stubbornly Persisent Illusions @ Klaus Von Nichtssagend.

Curated by Timothy Hull and Lumi Tan Mathew Cerletty, Devon Costello, Timothy Hull, Ryan Mrozowski, Thomas and Renée Rapedius, Sean Raspet, Ruby Sky Stiler, Sophie-Therese Trenka-Dalton, Allyson Vieira

July 14th – August 14th, 2011 Opening Reception: July 14th, 6-8 PM

Third Thursday Presents: Forgotten City Lights @City Reliquary

A Photographic Archive of NYC’s Street Lamposts Curated by “Forgotten New York” author and webmaster, Kevin Walsh and NYC transit employee and enthusiast, Bob Mulero

This Third Thursday, July 15th from 7-10pm at the City Reliquary Museum, 370 Metropolitan Ave.Join us for the opening reception of a truly illuminating exhibit, “FORGOTTEN CITY LIGHTS: A Photographic Archive of NYC’s Street Lamposts.” This newest exhibit focuses on the often ignored but always overhead variants and styles of NYC street lamps.

Bethany Shorb, Supplemental Restraint System @DEVOTION GALLERY.

On view until July 24th, 2011

Exhibition preview – Detroit-based visual artist Bethany Shorb’s “Supplemental Restraint System” is born from classic American and vintage European sports car parts harvested from wrecked vehicles. Her work is tightly wrapped in an outer skin made exclusively from previously deployed airbags, beaded and sutured back together forming another protective barrier in an imagined automotive crash narrative, then further fetishized in glass scientific vitrines. Also included in the show are neon and automotive emblem text assemblages as obsessive tropes on car-culture.

Cold Cave

Cult of Youth, Zambri

Knitting Factory Brooklyn

Tue, July 12, 2011 Doors: 8:00 PM / Show: 8:30 PM $15.00 Cold Cave are an experimental electronic pop group from Philadelphia and New York City who make melodic synthscapes with jackhammer beats. They acknowledge the dark roots of synthesizer music as well as its potential for making the brightest pop with their hard songs celebrating the contradictory beauty of the human condition.

HARIBO: the Haribo experience presents Candy Rain c/o Raul De Nieves and Jessie Stead @ Secret Project Robot.

Opening Reception: Friday July 15th, 2011

The Haribo Experience presents Candy Rain. Featuring limited edition Raul De Nieves and Jessie Stead flavored video installation elegance. Inside the music box with the lid closed and the lights off the tiny ballerina starts to cry. You give her all your money but its too late you are soaked to the bone with her dance-floor tears and intoxicated politely… forever. The hairdos grow backwards entering your brain, are you experienced? Join us for a joy-us one-way trip into the song flavored box.

LoVid
The Other Side of Ground @Mixed Greens.

JUNE 16–AUGUST 26, 2011
OPENING: THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 6-8PM

Mixed Greens is pleased to present the site-specific window project The Other Side of Ground by Tali Hinkis and Kyle Lapidus, the artist duo known as LoVid. Their dynamic, colorful pieces are a masterful mix of the low- and high-tech.

Known for their innovative performances, live video installations, tactile objects, patchworks, sculptures, and installations, LoVid encourages the viewer to reexamine his/her relationship to the digital world. By mixing analog and digital philosophies, processes, and techniques, LoVid’s pieces come to life. In one piece, for instance, it was necessary for viewers to touch points on a monolithic sculpture in order for a video to activate. Human touch became the subject of a digital output. MORE »

MORE:

Colorific @ Postmasters Art.

Swamp Dogg @R&B Festival at MetroTech

LAND @KLOMPCHING.

MISS BUGS PARLOUR @BROOKLYNITE.

Salon: Tang-Wei Hsu and Michael Kienzer@ISCP

TIM KUHL’S DOOMSAYER CD RELEASE SHOW: Michael Formanek, bass; Ben Gerstein, trombone; Jonathan Goldberger, guitar; Frantz Loriot, viola; Tim Kuhl, drums; Jonathan Moritz, saxophones

25 Years, 25 Artists @Julie Saul

NAG: Wednesday, July 13: Greenpoint & Northside Loft Tenants Meeting In June 2010, the NY State Legislature expanded the Loft Law, giving coverage to North Brooklyn!  For more background on what the Loft Law is and who qualifies, please visit our blog.

THE WEEKEND May 13-14.

MakerBot Make-A-Thon // Experience Cutting-Edge Rapid Prototyping

MakerBot Make-A-Thon
Saturday, May 14th, 2:00 – 6:00 pm
195 Morgan Avenue, Brooklyn NY
FREE

The MakerBot Thing-O-Matic is 1) a modern manufacturing breakthrough, and 2) also a lot of fun.

The 3rd Ward MakerBot Make-A-Thon is your chance to see these tiny factories in action, print awesome 3D objects and even a 3D portrait of yourself.

MakerBot Artist-in-Residence Kyle McDonald will be presenting his work turning the Xbox Kinect into a 3D Scanner.  He will scan you in his 3D Photo Booth, then print you using the MakerBot.

The Makerbot prints anything up to 4”x5”x5” with ABS and PLA (biodegradable) plastic. All you do is hit print, and the machine does all the work. Print 100 butterflies, an entire chess set — anything! And see a 9 foot-wide geodesic dome, printed entirely on the MakerBot.

Learn more about the MakerBot and the 3rd Ward Make-A-Thon in The New York Times here.

Plus, win prizes from MakerBotApress Books, and MAKE Magazine!

RSVPs are required at http://www.3rdward.com/rsvp

MakerBot Industries was named one of the top 20 startups in NYC, and has been featured in The New York Times, Wired, Make: Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, IEEE Spectrum, CNN, Financial Times, NPR, The Economist and others. For more information on MakerBot, click here and see photos of the MakerBot Thing-O-Matic here.

Learn more about Kyle McDonald’s Xbox Kinect hack in this 3rd Ward blog post.


BYE BYE KITTY @JAPAN SOCIETY. Between Heaven and Hell in Contemporary Japanese Art
Friday, March 18 — Sunday, June 12

Bye Bye Kitty!!! is a radical departure from recent Japanese exhibitions. Moving far beyond the stereotypes of kawaii and otaku culture, Japan Society’s show features sixteen emerging and mid-career artists whose paintings, objects, photographs, videos, and installations meld traditional styles with challenging visions of Japan’s troubled present and uncertain future.

Buy the Catalog
Admission & Gallery Hours


MY W. B. YEATS

Timothy Donnelly, Philip Levine, and Rosanna Warren, with Eamon Grennan

Saturday, May 14, 2:30pm
MAP

An event curated by noted Irish poet Eamon Grennan, with American poets reading and responding to Yeats’ work and exploring the influence of this literary giant on their own poetry.

Co-sponsored by Culture Ireland, the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center at Lincoln Center, and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Admission is free.

Bruno Walter Auditorium
111 Amsterdam Avenue and 65th Street


THE BLACK LIGHT LOUNGE@ SECRET PROJECT ROBOT.

Saturday, May 14 8-11pm.
How awesome would it be to walk into a room filled salon style with black light posters and art!?  This Spring Secret Project Robot creates the long awaited fluorescent opulence.  Over 30 artists participate to transform the gallery into a black light cocktail lounge.

THE ART OF MONEY: PERSONAL FINANCE RESOURCES FOR ARTISTS
WEBSITE

Join the Department of Cultural Affairs, Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, and Department of Consumer Affairs Office of Financial Empowerment for a day of FREE financial counseling sessions and workshops designed to help working artists, arts administrators, and independent workers reduce debt and manage credit.

SATURDAY, MAY 14, 2011
Information Fair, Workshops and Counseling Sessions 12 PM – 5 PM
Post Event Reception 5 PM – 7 PM
Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation | 1368 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, NY 11216

OPENING REMARKS BY
Kate D. LevinCommissioner, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs
Marty MarkowitzBrooklyn Borough President
Jimmy Van BramerNew York City Council Member and Chair of the Committee on Cultural Affairs, Libraries & International Intergroup Relations
Domenic M. Recchia, Jr., New York City Council Member and Chair of the Finance Committee
Colvin GrannumPresident, Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation
Danny SimmonsChair of New York State Council on the Arts and Artist



Love Your Library Day!

Saturday, May 14, 10 AM – 3 PM
Central Library, 10 Grand Army Plaza

As Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) faces a city budget cut that could reduce library hours, materials and free programs, we need your support!

Show your elected officials how much you love BPL by coming to this important, fun event on Central Library’s Plaza.

10 AM – 3 PM: Book, T-shirt and tote bag sale
10 AM – 12 PM: Performance by BPL’s own Lost in the Stacks
12 – 1 PM: Advocacy rally
1 PM: Performance by Vo-Duo, a group inspired by the vodou music traditions of Haiti

You can also use our computers to email your elected officials to say NO to budget cuts and remind them how much your library means to you.

Suggested donation for the event is $5. This donation, as well as proceeds from book, T-shirt and tote bag sales, will help purchase new library materials.


CROSSING ART GALLERY
Saturday, May 14 from 6 to 9 PM

136-17 39th Avenue
Flushing, NY 11354

QMAD, Queens Media Arts Development, in partnership with Crossing Art Gallery, presents the First Annual Performance Art Festival of Queens featuring new works by local, national and international performance artists.  This year’s program, ITINERANT, focuses on works that treat notions of displacement, delivery, and transformation.  Participating artists use performance narratives and actions that evoke immediacy and intimacy to bridge the gap of communication and distance. (READ MORE.)


Shadow-stalkers and Resurrected Chickens:
Animals on the Road to Paradise

Saturday, May 14 at 7 pm
$5 admission
MAP

Stories about the journey to paradise, in religious and literary traditions, feature animals as both obstacles and allies.
In Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf, Grendel is the “shadow-stalker” the hero must slay
to prove himself and attain an earthly paradise; on the medieval pilgrimage trail to Santiago de Compostela, Spain,
there is still an ornate chicken coop housing a pure white rooster and hen in the cathedral in one town
to commemorate a pilgrim’s miraculous escape from disaster.

What beasts block our roads or assist us on the way?

Rev. Craig Townsend presents an evening of tales, images, and soundscape evoking and exploring
the human-animal interactions that illuminate both the journey and its goal.  

Craig Townsend is an Episcopal priest serving as Vicar at St. James’ Church on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
He has a Ph.D. from Harvard that, while focused on American religious history, also entailed
the study of the world’s major religious traditions.

Please visit the Proteus Gowanus website for more news and information about upcoming events.

SXIP SHIREY’s B-DAY at Joe’s Pub.
Saturday, May 14 at 9 pm
MAP

It’s my birthday next month and as a present to myself I’m doing a big “solo show” at Joe’s Pub with some of my very favorite NYC artists who I haven’t had a chance to perform with much or at all. (Aside from Adam but…he’s ADAM) Adam Matta, Ned Rothenberg, Terry Dame, Rachelle Garniez, Racheal Price, Sonny Singh and Xavier.

I will be presenting an expanded version of the Sxipenspiel. I also have a new device called a gravity marble tree…and a perfect Sam Cook styled R & B tune to be sung by Xaxier. I am going to do “Ring My Bell with Rachel Price and I’ll be performing an improv piece with the amazing Ned Rothenberg. PLUS I do a rendition of a composition by Shelley Segal.Very exited to announce that Mathias Kunzli will be the percussionist for the evening.


A brief interview with Sxip about the show and participants:

THE 22: Variations and experiments in breath seem to play a large role in both yours and Ned’s work. Besides the fact that you both play reed instruments do you feel you push the boundaries of the human body as a musical tool?

SXIP SHIREY: I don’t think I am pushing the boundaries of the human body honestly. Back in my 20s when I wanted to be a punk Michael Hedges I ended up with tendinitis for two years. The first time Ned saw me play he commented on how tense I held my body when I played. He plays with such a focused relaxed quality and puts the intensity just in music. He circular breaths beautifully, which is pushing the body in a sense, but really what is great about him is the calm control of tones that are ever evolving and unwieldy. My playing is definitely a product directly of what my body is doing. Modern dancers sense this and they love my performance, but I don’t think I’m pushing the body, I am pushing the instrument. Oh shit..I just reread the question. I see what you are asking now. I didn’t think of breath as pushing the boundaries of the human body as a musical tool, I just did it. Breath is a rhythm we all understand deeply, it is the most intimate rhythm we make that we can easily hear (unlike a heart beat), there is incredible power in making this intimate sound epic. I am ever creating a palette of compelling of sounds that that I can draw from to take me and the audience to effective places.

THE 22: What are you thoughts on the traditions in music versus the basic elemental pleasure of sound? Is either more important?

SXIP SHIREY: I am finding this question hard to answer. It’s not that either is important or not important. It’s just not the issue. I make sound and music because I have to. It’s what I have to do, sometimes it’s a song with guitar, sometimes it’s playing folks songs, sometimes it’s rolling marbles in glass bowls, sometimes it’s tweaking virtual synths on the computer. It’s all the same to me.

THE 22: What about each of these musician’s appeal to you in collaboration and why did you chose to share this birthday celebration with them?

SXIP SHIREY:They are musicians who have an immediately strong seductive presence the moment they play or sing. They are people I simply like hearing and will go out to hear when I am in NYC. I thought it would be great to actually play with them. Most of them are not my normal collaborators.

THE 22: Can you tell us a little about the SxipenspieI and gravity marble tree?

SXIP SHIREY: The Sxipenspiel is perhaps my favorite birthday gift of all time. I was on tour with Amanda Palmer and Jason Webely’s Evelyn Evelyn tour and my birthday fell on a day we were in Berlin. Amanda and Neil went to a flea market in Berlin and bought these great bicycle bells that do a trilling long tone. They mounted them on a candlestick with a bent copper pipe at the top and dubbed it “The Sxipenspiel”. It’s a totally awkward instrument that sounds somehow amazing. I’ve learned to play it gracefully and I play it a lot. There is something magical sounding about it.

Bells historically are used to give us directions. “it’s time to go to church” “come to the door I am here” ” the egg is done cooking”. There is certain power to use them as a compositional element because their sound stimulates those parts of the brain.

Also check out the WSJ article.

THE 22 MAGAZINE PRESENTS: The Three Furies, Writing with a Vengeance

Sunday, May 15—5:00pm
A Gathering of the Tribes
285 East Third Street (between Ave C & D) #2
(212) 674-3778
A GATHERING OF THE TRIBES
THE 22 MAGAZINE
MAP

Known as “the Angry Ones” in Greek myth, the Furies were a trio of vengeful women born from the blood drops of the castrated appendage of Uranus (whose Titan son, Cronus, did him a dirty turn). They were psychological tormentors, the personification of vindictiveness and retribution. In art they were represented as winged creatures wearing nothing but snakes. In this reading by emerging writers Jamey Bradbury, Ansel Elkins, and Thera Webb—recent graduates of the MFA program in creative writing at University of North Carolina-Greensboro—they will forego niceties and read from an unforgiving selection of their latest work. If you’re bored with bucolic love poems, or have recently be wronged by a paramour, this Gathering of the Tribes is the place to savor the sweet taste of revenge.

Ansel Elkins

has poems appearing this spring in Boston Review, Mississippi Review, Ninth Letter, The American Scholar, The Believer and The Southern Review. She is one of four winners of the 2011 “Discovery”/Boston Review poetry prize. She lives in North Carolina.

Jamey Bradbury

has appeared in Black Warrior Review and is forthcoming in Zone 3. She is a literary assistant in Vermont, and is working on her first novel and a collection of short stories.

Thera Webb

is a radical feminist and resident of Brooklyn. She received her MFA in poetry from UNC Greensboro, and has had work in Fiction (JP) and Forklift, Ohio. Her chapbook, On The Shoulders of the Bear, was released this fall from Fractious Press.