HOW TO READ A NOVELIST and GOODBYE TO ALL THAT at Powerhouse

Two terrific events coming up at Powerhouse arena focusing on writing, living, and interacting as a writer in New York and the world….

1234026_10151732895449342_673610519_n

GOODBYE TO ALL THAT edited by Sari Botton
Tuesday Oct 08, 2013

In Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York, edited by Sari Botton, 28 women writers take up Didion’s literary legacy by sharing their own stories about New York. With stellar contributions from some of today’s most beloved female authors of memoir and literary fiction—Cheryl Strayed, Dani Shapiro, Emma Straub, Emily Gould, Emily St. John Mandel, Hope Edelman, and more—Goodbye to All That tells the stories of their own love/hate relationships with New York, as well as the city’s gravitational pull on them—even at the worst of times.

HOW TO READ A NOVELIST by John Freeman
Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Between 2000 and 2013 John Freeman put interviews to tape with just about every major writer who published a book: he spoke with such departed legends as Norman Mailer and David Foster Wallace; the Nobel laureates Doris Lessing, Mo Yan, and Günter Grass; bestsellers such as Amy Tan and John Irving; American greats from Toni Morrison to Philip Roth; and a younger generation of novelists that includes Dave Eggers, David Mitchell, Kiran Desai, and Jonathan Safran Foer. How to Read a Novelist rounds up 55 of Freeman’s very best profiles and interviews, but it is not simply a collection of discrete dialogues between interviewer and interviewee; these authors are also in conversation with one another, with Freeman serving as a deft moderator connecting the dots of a global literary culture. And in the poignant introduction about Freeman’s experiences interviewing John Updike, he gets to the heart of his enterprise: what it means to love a writer, to attempt to live up to his or her achievements—and then to come face to face with him or her in less-than-ideal circumstances.

THE WEEK/WEEKEND: Dec 13th-?????!!!

Just a reminder, The 22 will be on vacation from Dec 19th-29th. Weekly listings will return around Jan 1st, and submissions are due for the collage volume by Jan 30th, (though we highly recommend getting them in during these 2 weeks.) Have a safe and Happy Holipocalypse!

The Bark and Scream Series: Eli Keszler: Percussion and Ashley Paul: Alto Sax
THE FIREHOUSE SPACE
December 13, 2012 8:00 pm

Where (we) Live
BAM
Paula Greif, ceramics (Dec 19)
Marsha Trattner, blacksmith (Dec 20)
Riccardo Vecchio, painter (Dec 21)
Victoria Valencia, woodworker/furniture-maker (Dec 22)

Masters at crafting alluring sonic landscapes from the most unlikely found objects, Brooklyn-based quartet Sō Percussion explores the idea of home with a bold experiment in collaborative art-making. Directed by three-time Obie Award winner Ain Gordon (Spalding Gray: Stories Left to Tell), Where (we) Live invites artistic colleagues working in different mediums to participate as both co-collaborator and muse in Sō’s creative process and performance: Grey Mcmurray (itsnotyouitsme, Knights on Earth) writes poignant, personal songs; Martin Schmidt’s videos show the quirky and unnoticed beauty in our homes; and Emily Johnson delivers secret instructions to the performers onstage. Each evening will also feature a special guest artist (listed below). To these and other contributions, Sō adds an astounding range of composed and improvised sounds, inspired by the physical and symbolic places we live.

JOHN HODGMAN: THAT IS ALL
Friday, Dec 21, 2012
The Bell House

Not even John Hodgman, the Daily Show’s resident expert, knows for sure. But he is keeping John Cusack prisoner in his home, just in case. And on December 21, he will perform what is likely to be the last night of comedy entertainment ever.

detail
Letha Wilson

Higher Pictures
Thursday, December 13, 6 – 8 pm

Higher Pictures presents the first solo exhibition by Letha Wilson. Wilson uses photography as a material medium combining photographic images of nature, prints, paint, concrete and wood in a dimensional manner to examine the made world.My artwork uses images I have photographed in the natural landscape as a starting point for interpretation and confrontation. The work creates relationships between architecture and nature, the gallery space and the American wilderness. In the photo-based sculptures the ability for a photograph to transport the viewer is both called upon, and questioned; sculptural intervention attempts to compensate for the photographʼs failure to encompass the physical site it represents. Landscape photography as a genre is approached with equal parts reverence and skepticism.

 

Continue reading

The Wind that Flattens the Flames.

by Joshua Bocher

“All have one breath”
-Ecclesiastes

“They fade like fall and winter”
-Zhuangzi

I.

Go
To a place
Where the wind
Whirls about and
Returns
Again

I’ll stay behind
Carving and polishing
My words

Say no more
About it

II.

One
Who wants for nothing
Whose life was spent
As a shadow

Doesn’t wish
To hear
The rebukes
Of the wise,
Only the songs
Of fools

III.

The man fell
He tosses and trembles
On the cold ground
As death draws near him

His disposition once fiercer
Than a lion’s,
The crumbled grass
Beneath him
Keeps growing
Still

IV.

After sweet sleep
Roaming
The infinite,

With a start
I will wake,

Feeling great glee
In the return
To plainness

Joshua Bocher is a graduate student at Harvard University, where he researchs Chinese poetry.  Before attending graduate school, he lived in Taiwan for over two and a half years.  His poems and translations have been published or are forthcoming in several journals, including SpinozablueIlluminationsFull of Crow PoetryThe Brown Literary Review, and Issues.

The 22 Playlist #3 (Threefifty), August 31, 2012.

We’ve got a special playlist this week, curated by and dedicated to the sonorous sounds of Threefifty and friends. Threefifty is currently trying to raise money for their third album and today is the last day to donate! Although they’ve reached a goal of around $2200, they need more like $7000 to create something truly spectacular. They’ve called on friends who are stellar musicians to help build this playlist. Ranging from the building block strings of Redhooker, to the randomized perfection of Dither, to the stripped down tones of Runaway Dorothy, each of these bands is special not only musically but as avid supporters, friends, brothers, and lovers of Threefifty. This playlist is truly amazing, please take a listen and HELP SUPPORT!

DONATE LINK: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/threefifty/collapses

To check out artist’s websites, video and to buy tracks please visit the single tracks here.

THE WEEK: APRIL 16-20.

EDITOR’S PICKS:

Cross-Reference: A Collaborative Exhibition Featuring the work of Hans + Gieves
http://www.likethespice.com/Cross-Reference-Hans+Gieves.html
04/20/2012-05/27/2012

Like the Spice gallery presents Cross-Reference, a collaborative of Nashville-based painter Hans Schmitt-Matzen and Brooklyn-based photographer Gieves Anderson. It’s fitting that Hans and Gieves begin the works in their latest series in libraries, which the two artists consider sanctuaries of thought. Duly titled Cross-Reference, the series enables a philosophical contemplation of color and composition through an alchemy of the disparate mediums of photography and painting. Libraries’ unbroken rows and columns of books were the artists’ inspiration for the new works, and Gieves’ large photographic prints of the buildings’ interiors and exteriors form the multicolored surfaces to which Hans applies oils in thick gestural strokes made with brushes, blades, and customized squeegees.

Marc Brotherton – New Work
http://www.causeycontemporary.com/node/marc-brotherton/6235?tpl=tpls/exhibitionpressrelease&location=6235
04/20/2012-05/27/2012

Causey Contemporary is pleased to present two solo exhibitions this April, New Paintings by Marc Brotherton and Acid Bath by Nina Carelli. Marking his third solo exhibition with the gallery, Brotherton will present his newest series of bold, mixed-media paintings, which explore ideas of new technology, communication, color and design. Marc Brotherton contends that living in the twenty-first century, we are constantly bombarded by input– be it from televisions, news sources, the internet, or one of the many communication gadgets. In a way, Brotherton’s paintings are a form of communication, which address technological and political quandaries, but also banalities of daily life. The outcome of his work is a materialized investigation into the perplexing world in which we live. Brotherton states that his incentive to make art comes from an “…inner curiosity, a personal necessity to acknowledge an awareness that we are here together inhabiting an increasingly chaotic world.”

Continue reading

THE WEEK: MARCH 12-16.

EDITOR’S PICKS: 

Fiction Magazine 40th Anniversary Celebration
http://www.housingworks.org/events/detail/fiction-magazine-40th-anniversary-celebration
03/15/2012-03/15/2012
7pm-

Celebrate the new issue and Fiction’s 40th anniversary with contributors Sheila Kohler, Jerome Charyn, Brendan Kiely, and Kesi Foster.

OPERA ON TAP.
http://barbesbrooklyn.com/calendar.html
03/16/2012-03/16/2012
8pm-

OPERA ON TAP. Opera is fun. Most people don’t seem to realize how much fun it really is. In order to prove it, Opera on Tap has taken its act to barrooms where they found out that beer on tap enhances the operatic experience. The company is made up of young singers and instrumentalists who relish the direct contact with audiences not inhibited in their reactions by the looming menace of giant chandeliers.

Kris Kuksi
http://joshualinergallery.com/index.php
03/08/2012-04/07/2012
11pm-6pm

With its cautionary title, Triumph skewers the hubris and folly of human ambition. This cavalcade of epic works references mythology, the occult, and organized religion, and uses age-old techniques of visual storytelling to voice personal angst. Depicting grand themes with extravagant embellishments, Kuksi’s assemblages of small, mass-produced materials are intrinsically narrative. Like gilt Baroque altarpieces, their stunning excess of detail is the ideal vehicle for the artist’s critique of power and piety. And like those early works of public art, they appeal to the viewer to transcend the strife and striving associated with greed.

Continue reading

THE WEEK: Dec 5-9.

MONDAY:

Photographing the Dead: The History of Postmortem Photography from The Burns Collection and Archive
Postmortem photography, photographing a deceased person, was a common practice in the 19th and early 20th centuries. These photographs, from the beginning of the practice until now, are special mementos that hold deep meaning for mourners through visually “embalming” the dead. Although postmortem photographs make up the largest group of nineteenth-century American genre photographs, until recent years they were largely unseen and unknown. Dr. Burns recognized the importance of this phenomenon in his early collecting when he bought his first postmortem photographs in 1976. Since that time he has amassed the most comprehensive collection of postmortem photography in the world and has curated several exhibits and published three books on the subject: the Sleeping Beauty series. Tonight, Dr. Burns will speak about the practice of postmortem photography from the 19th century until today and share hundreds of images from his collection.

FIRST BOOK BROOKLYN HOLIDAY PARTY & FUNDRAISER
first book–brooklyn is a nonprofit organization dedicated to getting new books to children in need.  join us tonight for their first annual holiday party and fundraiser.

Continue reading

THE WEEK: Nov 7-11.

MONDAY:

Paul McCarthy, The Dwarves, The Forests 
Hauser & Wirth New York is proud to present an exhibition of major new works by Los Angeles-based Paul McCarthy, one of America’s most challenging and influential artists. Comprising bronzes, a massive tour de force wood carving, and a pair of fantastical landscape maquettes all presented on the gallery’s two floors, ‘The Dwarves, The Forests’ is the first exhibition of sculptures to emerge from McCarthy’s recent exploration of the famous 19th century German folk tale Snow White (Schneewittchen) and the modern interpretation of that story in Disney’s beloved 1937 animated classic film ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’

AMRAM & CO @ Cornelia St.
David Amram, piano, french horn, flutes, composition & surprises; Kevin Twigg, drums, glockenspiel; John de Witt, bass; Adam Amram, percussion

With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used To Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful
OCD Lecture Series
Stress and the Individual Litigant: Managing the Practical and Emotional Aspects of Litigation and Exploring Alternatives Zombies Identified – (Re)Considering the Monster #2
Harmony Holiday & Jared Stanley
Abigail Washburn
Evolving Music #5 – Remembering Raphe Malik
Occupy: Presented by n+1 and Housing Works
FALL DOWNTOWN: SEASON PARTY
Robert Graham
LINDEMANN YOUNG ARTIST DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
League of Professional Theatre Women 

TUESDAY:

Listen to This by Alex Ross
Listen to This—which collects Alex Ross’ finest writing for The New Yorker since 1994—is that rare book that moves across the entire landscape of music, from classical to rock and back again. In this series of lively, erudite essays, Ross tells of his own late-blooming discovery of pop, and of how contemporary sounds relate to centuries of musical tradition. He vividly sketches canonical composers such as Schubert, Verdi, and Brahms; gives us in-depth interviews with modern pop masters such as Björk and Radiohead; and, in a previously unpublished essay, brilliantly retells hundreds of years of music history—from Renaissance dances to Led Zeppelin—through a few iconic bass lines of celebration and lament. Witty, passionate, and brimming with insight, Listen to Thisshows how music expresses the full complexity of the human condition.

The Moth StorySLAM. Theme: Warning Signs
Global Capitalism: A Monthly Update & DiscussionKIRSTIN KAPUSTIK, AMANDA HINCHEY, ALISA FENDLEY, MARI MEADE MONTOYA & FRANCINE ELIZABETH OTT
DANA SCHUTZ “If the Face Had Wheels” book signing and discussion with Barry Schwabsky
Rescue Me!
Balzac’s Omelette
Lonely Dear
CAN MOTHERS STOP TERRORISM?
ICONOMANCY

Continue reading

THE WEEK: NOV 1-4.

TUESDAY:

PERFORMA 11 (ONGOING)
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.

Ben Gerstein (Jerome Foundation Commission) – FREEDOM CHOIR! A congregation for cathartic improvisational service
On November 1st, All Saints’ Day, The Day of the Dead — ancient holidays in honor of the saints, known or unknown; deceased friends and family — Ben Gerstein brings together for the first time a unique ensemble of enormous acoustic, experiential intensity to celebrate the powers of improvisation on this earth. FREEDOM CHOIR! A congregation for cathartic improvisational service. Inspired by the micro and macrocosms of nature, ecstatic spiritual and athletic experiences, dream, destiny, ritual, prayer, ancestry, and visions throughout Art and beyond… Dance floor, prairie, pow-wow, synagogue, church, mountain top, ocean, forest, desert, track and field, fighting ring, mosh pit … Ferocious love! A historic event for expansive sound and emotion; unnamable sound, unnamable emotion. We are the world! Communion between us all…

69°S. (Part of the 2011 Next Wave Festival)
“When I look back at those days, I have no doubt that divine providence guided us… it seemed to me often that we were not alone.” —Sir Ernest Henry ShackletonSixty-nine degrees south latitude, threshold of Antarctica, foreboding and cold. In an attempt to cross the continent, explorer Ernest Shackleton and crew have been shipwrecked, and now—through the work of Phantom Limb marionette maker and composer Erik Sanko and set designer Jessica Grindstaff (both at BAM with More Than Four, 2007 Next Wave)—they emerge before us in the snow.

CHAMBER MUSIC at INCUBATOR ARTS PROJECT
Robert Ashley’s music has long been recognized as some of the most radical, forward-thinking work produced today. The Incubator Arts Project’s MUSIC series, curated by Travis Just, focuses on his chamber and instrumental music, in addition to re-thinking one of his best-known vocal epics: Automatic Writing. A new generation of experimental composers and artists is looking to Ashley’s work for inspiration; this week will show why.(ONGOING)

PHARMA
The Herb Lubalin Study Center at The Cooper Union examines the influence and impact of graphic design on the pharmaceutical industry in PHARMA, a new exhibit featuring original and rarely seen works by luminaries including Andy Warhol, Lester Beall, Will Burtin and Herb Lubalin. PHARMA’s exploration begins with the avant-garde promotionals of the 1940’s, when a market need emerged to promote “miracle” drugs, such as Penicillin, to the medical industry. In a compelling and thought-provoking way, PHARMA presents the relationship graphic design has had with the pharmaceutical industry ranging from the federal government’s increased regulations to new marketing tactics where the everyday consumer, not the doctor, is considered the target audience. While the exhibition provides examples of past and present, the public is encouraged to reflect and question how graphic design is used to market drugs and design has transformed these commodities into objects of desire.

Spartacus Chetwynd: The Lion Tamer
7th Annual Alternative Processes Winners: Barbara Ciurej & Lindsay Lochman 
UMBERTO ECO in conversation with Paul
Tod Lippy: The Conception and Development of ESOPUS
Holdengraber
Migratory Media: A Film Event
Counterfactual: Muybridge’s Debt to Watkins
Tom Brokaw in Conversation with Paul Holdengräber
BROOKLYN REAL ESTATE ROUNDTABLE
OSCAR PEÑAS
Enid Ellen at Piano’s
Tomorrow Land/Collaspe
Barbara Siegel, Arboretum/Privacy Please! Jan Johnson
Influential Friends
Matthew Stone: Optimism as Cultural Rebellion
ARAB SPRINGS/ ATLANTIC WEALTH: TRADING ROOM
Serenity Now!
BRADFORD NORDEEN WITH GARY INDIANA
Playing with Form
CAP/ICP – Artist Lecture: Joni Sternbach – Surfland
365 Drawings
panel discussion | residency as refuge?
GLOBAL ISSUES IN DESIGN AND VISUALITY IN THE 21ST CENTURY: CULTURE – FASHION HACKING
ROXANE BUTTERFLY
Mur Murs

Continue reading