The Inhabited World by Mohamed Chakmakchi

…………………………….
Ptolemy on the banks of Egypt’s Mediterranean shore, old drunkard,
weaning from the cosmos a guide for his treatise of relics.
This matter of the sciences, the natural philosophy that led him
to me, and conversely, me to you, to this, this inhabited world.
…………………………….
Each hour, those constellations blink and spurn knowledge,
I laugh out loud, hissing “thunder creaking forward into brains,”
like a splinter of thoughts, or an ice particle, in deference to
winter’s end, melting towards the center of reverie and vice.
…………………………….
Now on Ptolemy’s Alexandrian port where the ships led us to you,
And us to Syria there is a booth–Yes, that booth there!–where a boy selling
fruit hides in his pocket, buried beneath his linty smile, the truth.
That Eve was lost- the apple his now, inside it a worm for Ptolemy.
…………………………….
The stars only twinkle when the devil in his pocket smiles
Back his fanged hiss and hammer. The worm, spurned, swallows
The lint in the boys pocket and takes whole the form, the color,
Of Eve’s apple. “Why, the poor thing didn’t even know it was gone from her.”
…………………………….
So I speak in tongues and release the boy. It is my rotten apple now.
You keep the stars; their lives are not mine to hinder. But here
as Ptolemy wanders the barren fruitless ports of Roman Egypt,
Greek Alexandria sleeps a mid-day slumber, pockets for lint remain.
…………………………….
Tired and barren in our inhabited world. The devil has it!
…………………………….…………………………………………………….
Mohamed Chakmakchi is a writer of Iraqi origin who has lived in the US,
Europe, Iraq and the Arab Levante. He studied at NYU. When not raising
his cup with friends, he works on his novel, poetry, theatre and essays.
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THE WEEK/WEEKEND: September 28-October 4.

THE SECRET CITY (NEW YORK)
Sunday, September 30th
Dixon Place

  • Cabaret star, Justin Vivian Bond will sing for us
  • Chef Amanda Freitag will present the food offering.
  • Painter John Devaney will share his beautiful work, which captures the endless parade of life.
  • Brooklyn Express Drumline will energize with their rhythms.
  • Charlotte Booker will make a New York poem with the assembled crowd. We’ll play a game of New York trivia…

And, of course, there will be storytelling, live music, community, art and LOTS of clapping. What more could you want out of a Sunday morning? Come celebrate the city with us. Oh, and feel free to bring something tasty for the refreshment table!

WADE GUYTON OS
OCTOBER 4, 2012–JANUARY 13, 2013
The Whitney

Over the past decade, New York–based artist Wade Guyton (b. 1972) has pioneered a groundbreaking body of work that explores our changing relationships to images and artworks through the use of common digital technologies, such as the desktop computer, scanner, and inkjet printer. Guyton’s purposeful misuse of these tools to make paintings and drawings results in beautiful accidents that relate to daily lives now punctuated by misprinted photos and blurred images on our phone and computer screens. Comprising more than eighty works dating from 1999 to the present, Guyton’s first midcareer survey features a dramatic, non-chronological design in which staggered rows of parallel walls confront the viewer like the layered pages of a book or stacked windows on a monitor. 

MI JU: GAIA
FREIGHT AND VOLUME
September 27 – November 3, 2012

The exhibition’s title Gaia refers to the Greek earth mother goddess as well as the scientific Gaia Principle, proposing that “all organisms and their inorganic surroundings on Earth are closely integrated to form a single and self-regulating complex system, to maintain the conditions for life on our planet” (James Lovelock). Mi explores the significance of Gaia pictorially, as it relates to today’s ecological challenges. In works such as One -as well as Wind and Water–the artist celebrates and pays homage to the elements in all their glory by examining both microcosms and macrocosms in nature. Mi deconstructs space in the manner of classic Asian landscape painting to present a floating menagerie of symbols – disembodied lanterns, birds, insects, dragons and other hybrid creatures, rich organic matter – looming up from the primordial void. Mi also employs radical shifts in scale and density, subtle hues juxtaposed with jarring color, fluctuating perspective and other dramatic methods to convey her otherworldly vision. Negative space is addressed lovingly and carefully, with as much and perhaps more import than actual objects.

Adam Rudolph – GO Organic Orchestra
Roulette
Monday, October 1, 2012 @ 8:00 pm

Unique in the realm of approaches to improvisational conducting, Go: Organic Orchestra utilizes a composed non-linear score consisting of sound and motion elements. These include tone rows, synthetic scales, melodies, linguistic shapes, intervallic patterns, textural gestures, modes, ragas, maqams, and plainchant. The score serves to provide material for both the improvisations and the orchestrations. Motion and forms and are generated through the application of the composer’s rhythm concept “Cyclic Verticalism” whereby polymeters are combined with additive rhythm cycles.

NY ART BOOK FAIR
September 30 to October 1, 2011
MoMA PS1

Printed Matter presents the seventh annual NY Art Book Fair, from September 30 to October 1, 2011, at MoMA PS1, Long Island City, Queens. A preview will be held on the evening of Thursday, September 29th. Free and open to the public, and featuring more than 200 exhibitors, the NY Art Book Fair is the world’s premier event for artists’ books, contemporary art catalogs and monographs, art periodicals, and artist zines. Exhibitors include international presses, booksellers, antiquarian dealers, artists and independent publishers from twenty-one countries.

The Thrilling Adventure Hour featuring A staged show in the style of old-time radio with Paul F. Tompkins / Paget Brewster / John Hodgman / Busy Philipps / James Urbaniak

Martha Colburn : Camera, lights, charge, Pop!
Horton Gallery
Sep 28 – Nov 4, 2012

Horton Gallery is proud to announce Martha Colburn’s Camera, lights, charge, Pop! – opening Friday, September 28th in the gallery’s new, expanded Lower East Side location at 55-59 Chrystie Street. Marking the first time that her work has been seen in this capacity, the exhibition will feature an hour and a half program of about thirty manipulated found footage and stop animation films from the mid-1990s to the present as well as Polaroids and large-scale collages.

Collaborations with Marina Rosenfeld, Jason Lescalleet, Tamio Shiraishi + Cammisa Buerhaus
Abrons Arts Center
Fri, September 28, 2012 – 8:00pm

The second evening of “Voices and Echoes” presents a series of unique collaborations including Otomo Yoshihide + Marina Rosenfeld duo, Gozo Yoshimasu + Tamio Shiraishi + Cammisa Buerhaus trio, and Akio Suzuki + Jason Lescalleet duo.

Bob Log III
BABY SODA

SOMNAMBULISTS/DIMENSIONS/ROOTLESS
Felipe Jesus Consalvos: EXPLODED WHIMS
Vincent Castiglia @Sacred Gallery
LUZ at LaMama
AdA – Author Directing Author
Your Land/My Land
Brooklyn Commons: Martha Rosler and Michael Arcega
CHAPTER 2: PLACES
Pierce Warnecke + Richard Garret
Slow Boys – Michael Lowenstern and Todd Reynolds
Show #8: Forced Collaboration
Yarn/Wire
Lighthouse / Lightning Rod and Griot New York (excerpts)
Gasland Screening with Council Member Stephen Levin
Carver Audain (Jerome Commission) // Composers Inside Electronics (John Driscoll, Tom Hamilton and Doug Van Nort)
World Maker Faire New York
KERSTIN BRÄTSCH
“THERE WAS A TIME WE WERE PRESENT” WORKS BY DAN SABAU
2011 Digital/Electronic Arts NYFA Fellows Exhibit
Wild Leaves/Nathan Xander
Melanie Daniel: Artist Talk
THE END TIMES CABARET: THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO
BUSHWICK BOUNCE
VASKAKAS
Art & Law Residency Exhibition 2012
gozoCine: Works by Gozo Yoshimasu
Sonagi Project: Barame Soop
How Can Art Affect Political Change?
Macular Degeneration Reception and Listening Party
My Favourite Things
PARTY HEADQUARTERS – ART IN THE AGE OF POLITICAL ABSURDITY

COMING UP:

Rhinoceros
A Postcard from New Yorkshire New works by Doktor A.
8th Annual AQUAEFEST
Carnival Des Corbeaux
The Para-Architectural Imagination of Gustav Klutsis
Devin Powers, “Paintings”
SAM FALLS: BOOK AND SHOW

Paris Commune
Local Report 2012

Adults in the Dark: Avant-Garde Animation (MAD)
The Mountain Goats
THIRD ANNUAL BRING TO LIGHT: NUIT BLANCHE NEW YORK

WILLEM ANDERSSON at Nancy Margolis Gallery
THE HIVE
How to Break

THE WEEK/WEEKEND: September 6-13.

VALERIE HEGARTY: Figure, Flowers, Fruit
Nicelle Beauchene Gallery
September 9, 2012 – October 21, 2012

In this exhibition, Hegarty takes her point of departure from themes of consumption, lust,reproduction and greed. Playing with traditional still life and figurative painting, Hegarty cites as inspiration the cult comedy Little Shop of Horrors along with current newsheadlines concerning the enhancement and mutilation of body and food. These four new paintings metamorphose sculpturally, as the paintings burst, grow and propagate in bodily gestures, leading the overgrowth to travel ominously beyond the canvas boundaries.

Strange Tales of Liaozhai
Friday, September 7
HERE Arts Center

Through choreography and manipulation, master puppeteer Hanne Tierney conducts an intricate counterweight system of over 100 strings, transforming a full stage of inanimate objects into the players of two emotionally charged tales.

Nancy Davidson: Dustup
Betty Cunningham Gallery
9/6/2012 To 10/6/2012

Betty Cuningham Gallery is pleased to open its 2012-13 season with Nancy Davidson, featuring her inflatable sculpture, Dustup. This will be the artist’s first exhibition at the Gallery. The artist will be present for the opening reception. Davidson, a sculptor and video artist, is known for her unique media – larger than life inflatable sculptures – and for her interest in American icons and gender issues. In 2005 with the support of a Creative Capital Grant, she began her exploration on the myth and reality of the cowgirl. After researching western women’s history Davidson focused on the rodeo cowgirl.

Thomas Allen: Beautiful Evidence
Sep 9 – Oct 14, 2012
Foley Gallery

Allen’s signature use of cutting and repurposing book illustrations has not vanished. Instead of the pulp fiction genre, Allen plays with 50’s era versions of clean cut youths and domesticated moms. His unmistakable talent for creating the illusion of 3D in photography with his deft cuts and crimps, establishes a magical world in which a boy and girl play tag creating their own kind of electricity, a milkman makes a very special delivery in space, young toughs play marbles with the solar system and a mother busily sews her own version of “string theory.”

David Stoupakis/Matthew Bone
September 8th – October 19th
Last Rites Gallery

David Stoupakis is an internationally recognized painter who creates eerie portraits of beings that appear wise beyond their years. The self-taught artist adds both haunting imagery and grim fairytale-like elements to his work to juxtapoz childhood innocence with macabre surroundings. InAshes to Sorrow, his new collection of drawings and oil paintings, David creates a continuation of his previous body of work-Walking with These Shadows./With his new work, Matthew Bone continues to explore the visual language he created as a child when massive unmonitored media consumption informed his worldview. A latchkey kid from an early age, pornography, comic books and movies formulated his ideas of sexuality, masculinity, and femininity- in essence reality and perception were sculpted by imaginary worlds steeped heavily in sensationalistic imagery.

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The Week/Weekend: August 9-16

Jessica Rath: Take me to the apple breeder
Jack Hanley Gallery
August 09 – 31 2012

Rath’s porcelain sculptures allude to the odd forms and luminescent hues of little-known and endangered varieties, while large-scale photographic portraits document newly manufactured hybrid trees. These artifacts are designed to investigate diversity at a molecular level and human intervention in the natural world.

MY LOVE FOR YOU BURNS ALL THE TIME
348 South 4th
August 11-August 30

MY LOVE FOR YOU BURNS ALL THE TIME transforms the Packard Plant, Detroit’s notorious post-industrial behemoth, into a series of silver-plated fragments of a monument in miniature. Let’s call it Pirnanesian bling. Measured, documented, reconstructed instances suspend the ever-shifting site into a series of precisely scaled replicas of ruination. Some focus on the buildings’ acclaimed iconography: the water tower, the Grand Boulevard bridge. Others preserve unexceptional examples of architectural obsolescence: a reinforced column, a typical façade, an elevator shaft. Suspension here is a devise in the production of fetish-worthy fantasy, allowing an interminable return to an image of degradation that no longer exists in the material world. The copy, consequently, is rendered more auratic, more titillating.

Grand Central Library’s first Comic Extravaganza
Grand Central Library
Saturday, August 11

Do you sometimes wonder where all these superhero movies come from? Are you new to comics or a lifelong fan? Join us for a celebration of all things comic and super! (super hero, that is).
11:00 am – Toon Town: Comic Books and New York City by Kent Worcester
12:30 pm – Manga drawing instruction with Ivan Velez
2:00 pm – Comic Trivia with Geeks Out
4:00 pm – Comics Panel, featuring Marvel writer Greg Pak and Marvel editor Daniel Ketchum

My Name Is New York: Ramblin’ Around Woody Guthrie’s Town
Central Park 
August 11th

Guided conversation on the history of folk music through Woody Guthrie’s New York with Anna Canoni (Granddaughter of Woody Guthrie and researcher / licensing for “MY NAME IS NEW YORK: Ramblin’ Around Woody Guthrie’s Town”), Tiffany Colannino, Woody Guthrie Archivist and Assistant Producer of “MY NAME IS NEW YORK: Ramblin’ Around Woody Guthrie’s Town”, and Dom Flemons, a member of Carolina Chocolate Drops.

DAYNA KURTZ 
Barbes
Thursday, August 16

With vocal comparisons to Nina Simone and a musical style that pulls from jazz, blues and country, singer/songwriter Dayna Kurtz has found her best success not in America but in Europe. Kurtz started out as a folkie, but has expanded her influences over the years, creating a sound that fits in best with an Americana umbrella.

29th Annual Roots of American Music Festival: Daniel Kahn & The Painted Bird/Taylor Mac/Swamp Dogg
Hearst Plaza
Aug 12 at 1pm, 3pm, and 6pm (see full schedule)

Do politics belong in music? They sure do, especially when delivered as entertainingly as by this handful of radically independent singer-songwriters. Indie folk singer and activist Erin McKeown owes much to the topical songwriting of folk legend Tom Paxton. Bedazzled creature Taylor Mac and band perform selections of political songs from his upcoming 24-hour concert of the history of popular music. Daniel Kahn, whose Painted Bird has been called “the Yiddish Pogues,” is to klezmer music what blues singer Pura Fé, founder of a cappella trio Ulali, is to Native American music.

Underpinnings
House of Yes
Thursday, August 9th

Underpinnings presents a look into the wiry world of performance, dance, music, and fine art as interpreted by its involved artists. With motifs of peeling, multiple selves, sustainable creativity, streaming consciousness, power/submission, synth-art-pop, symbiotic siblingship, and sacrifice, each short individual act envelops viewers in an original experience. The performances will be followed by a party where drinks, video installation, and fine art will flow forth, served on a platter by the ritualistic art community that exists solely in Underpinnings.

Flux Thursday
Flux Factory
August 9th, 8 pm – 11 pm

Join us for Shake In/Shake Out, a special performance art edition of our monthly potluck dinner and art salon. Starting in the kitchen at 8pm we will feast and then at 9:00 we’ll head to the gallery for performances, video art, and installations curated by Fluxers Ye Taik, Lehna Huie, and Lena Hawkins.

Dom Flemons and Boo Hanks
Joe’s Pub
August 16

Music Maker Relief Foundation is pleased to announce the release of Dom Flemons’ & Boo Hanks’Buffalo Junction. This album is the result of a partnership between Piedmont-style blues guitarist Hanks and Flemons, who in 2011 won a Grammy Award and played the Newport Folk Festival with his group the Carolina Chocolate Drops. Hanks worked the tobacco fields near his Virginia home for the majority of his 83 years. In 2006 he began a partnership with Music Maker Relief Foundation that led to opportunities such as opening for the Chocolate Drops collaborating with Dom Flemons on their album, Buffalo Junction, named for Boo Hanks’ hometown. The album, which will be released June 19, 2012, features upbeat, country blues that crosses generational lines.

The World Beatbox Association presents:The 3rd Annual American Beatbox Championships
Le Poisson Rouge
Sun., August 12, 2012 / 6:00 PM

This year’s championship event will be presented over 2 days with the Grand Finals being held at Le Poisson Rouge as well as an opening night International Open Mic series at Littlefield performance arts gallery in Brooklyn. The event will feature beatboxers from across America with special showcases by reigning American champion J-Flo, three man ill, and Word of Mouth (Killa Beatz and Subconscious) of Toronto.

ALSARAH & THE NUBATONES
Barbes
Friday, August 10

Fronted by Sudanese singer Alsaraha, the group plays what they call “Nubian Soul”: a selection of Nubian ‘songs of return’ from the 1970s to today with original material and traditional music of central Sudan and southern Egypt. Featuring Alsarah – Vocals; Karine Fleurima – Vocals and Keys; Haig Manoukian – Oud; Rami El Aasser – Percussion and Mawuena Kodjovi – Bass.

The Lost Circus
Irondale
Saturday, August 11

The party, 9pm-late: Discover a circus long lost, with music from times gone by or times that never were: Amour Obscur (gypsy punk accordion vagabonds), Shayfer James (dark, danceable anthems of mischief), and Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band (riotous steampunk brass). DJ Joro Boro bridges the dust of Burning Man with the sounds of a rogue Slavic circus.

FringefestNYC
Various locations
August 10-26

The New York International Fringe Festival (FringeNYC) is the largest multi-arts festival in North America, with more than 200 companies from all over the world performing for 16 days in more than 20 venues.

Streamline
Kansas Gallery
August 11 – September 08, 2012

Ryan Lauderdale, Owen Kydd, Ignacio Torres, Chloe Wessner, Constant Dullaart, Andrew Pomykalski, Juliette Bonneviot, Ann Hirsch, Kevin Kelly, Aude Pariset, Artie Vierkant, and Sarah Faux.

WoodStock Bowl
Brooklyn Bowl
SUN 8/12

SIXTIES MUSIC/MEMORABILIA SHOW. RARE ’60S PSYCHEDELIC, ROCK & ROLL, FILM/ COUNTER CULTURE POSTERS, VINTAGE CLOTHING/JEWELRY /AUTOGRAPHS/ARTWORK/COMICS/MUSIC/ COLLECTABLE EPHEMERA, FROM THE “DECADE OF CHANGE” CELEBRATING PEACE & LOVE!, PLUS SPECIAL GUEST LEGENDARY GUITARIST GENE CORNISH FROM BK’S OWN ’60S MUSIC ICONS THE YOUNG RASCALS

Détournement: Signs of the Times
Jonathan Levine 
August 8—25, 2012

Jonathan LeVine Gallery is pleased to presentDétournement: Signs of the Times, a group exhibition curated by Carlo McCormick, featuring work by a number of artists, including: AIKO, Dan Witz, David Wojnarowicz, Dylan Egon, Eine, Ilona Granet, Jack Pierson, John Law (Jack Napier), Leo Fitzpatrick, Mark Flood, Martin Wong, Max Rippon (RIPO), Mike Osterhout, Posterboy, Ron English, Shepard Fairey + Jamie Reid, Steve Powers (ESPO), TrustoCorp, Will Boone, Zevs

Other Mother Brothers
Cotton Candy Machine
August 10th to September 9th, 2012

Our next event is with three amazing NYC based artists, Jon Burgerman, Andrew Bell, and JK5 for the opening of ‘Other Mother Brothers’. Join us for a show filled with originals, prints, books, designer toys, apparel and more!

TERMINATOR TOO JUDGMENT PLAY
Santos
Aug 11, 2012

Get blasted by super-soakers! Witness the scorching of He-Man action figures! Be dazzled by James Cameron’s revolutionary action sequences and special effects… recreated LIVE (in true 3D)… with next to no budget at all! Think your Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonation is the best around? Here’s your chance to prove it. For each show, the role of THE  TERMINATOR will be chosen from the audience… by the audience!  Don’t worry, we’ll provide all of Arnold’s complex, important dialogue on cue cards.

AMPLIFIED QUARTET – Jeremiah Cymerman, Peter Evans, Nate Wooley, Matt Bauder
Roulette
Thursday, August 9, 2012 @ 8:00 pm

Jeremiah Cymerman (clarinet, electronics) Matt Bauder (sax, electronics) Peter Evans (trumpet, amplifier) Nate Wooley (trumpet, amplifier)
After several performances as an amplified ensemble, the intense and uncompromising quartet of woodwind players Jeremiah Cymerman & Matt Bauder and trumpeters Nate Wooley & Peter Evans will convene at Roulette for two days of rehearsing & workshopping, leading up to a performance on August 9th.

RUFUS CAPPADOCIA’s ROOTS QUARTET
Barbes

Thursday, Aug 9

The cellist draws from “the similarities between seemingly diverse music forms such as blues, Sufi, Middle Eastern and even Gregorian chant.”.

FOUR TOURS : AUGUST 12, 18, 19 on GOVERNORS ISLAND
PROGRAMS MEET AT STORM KING’S VISITOR CENTER
AUGUST 12, 18, 19

In honor of the 25th anniversary of Socrates Sculpture Park, founded by Mark di Suvero, four artists who have exhibited at Socrates — Janelle Iglesias, Jory Rabinovitz, Rob Swainston, Lan Tuazon — will lead workshops and tours of the di Suvero exhibition and relate the exhibition to their own artistic practices.

The Secret Science Club presents Shark Mania! with Marine Biologist Hans
Thursday, August 16
The Bell House

Shark researcher Hans Walters of the New York Aquarium discusses his wet-and-wild work tagging and tracking sharks and curates a live-screening ofGreat White Highway, a new documentary debuting on Discovery Channel’s Shark Week that follows marine scientists as they pursue the mysterious migrations of great white sharks(Carcharodon carcharias).

Poetry from the Rooftops: Aracelis Girmay, A. Van Jordan & Tom Sleigh
Thurs., August 9, 6:30pm
The Arsenal Building in Central Park, 64th Street at 5th Avenue, NYC

Join us on Thursday, August 9 at 6:30pm for the third Poetry from the Rooftops of 2012. Aracelis Girmay, A. Van Jordan & Tom Sleigh will read from their work.

DAVID ULMANN QUINTET. CD Release Party for “Falling”
Barbes
Tuesday, August 14

David’s debut album, Hidden, was released in 2005 and was called ” an exciting record that reflects restless creativity.” by All About Jazz. David also composes music for film, most recently completing the score for “The Happy House,” a feature filn by D.W. Young. David’s first film project, Atsushi Funahashi’s “Echoes,” was well received by critics and film festivals, winning three Jury and Audience Awards at Annonay International Film Festival in France and the High Hope Award at the Munich International Film Festival.
With David Ullmann – Guitar; Chris Dingman – Vibes; Karel Ruzicka Jr. – Sax; Vinnie Sperrazza – Drums and Gary Wang – Bass.

Karen Marston: New Paintings
Vibrant Intersections
Livable Streets: Queens Style!
Deep In The Cut@ Mighty TanakaRoom No. 5 Circle of Arts and Pablo D’AntoniPolished work by artist Paul Catalanotto
The Post-Olympic City
Die Roten Punkte w/ special guest Jessica Delfino
Our Lady J
Birdy
BEE AND FLOWER are playing with friends BARBEZ and ULRICH ZIEGLER

COMING UP:

Joianne Bittle: On My Way Gone
Gypsy Fest
Al Green
The Fall of the American Movie Palace
Hour of Charm 

THE WEEKEND: May 4-6.

EDITOR’S PICKS:

The Birth of Public Speaking
http://thesupercoda.com/
05/05/2012-05/05/2012
7pm-

The Super Coda and Jason Anthony Harris team up to present a night of decadence, delirium, featuring artists from DC, also to celebrate Jason’s birthday! Performances by Public Speaking, Valerie Kuehne, Jon Mizrachi, Dead Beat Dad, Blue Sausage Infant (DC), Pilesar (DC).

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THE WEEK: APRIL 30-MAY 4.

 EDITOR’S PICKS: 

FULL LIST OF ALL MAY DAY EVENTS HERE.

May Day 2012
http://www.maydaynyc.org/
05/01/2012-05/01/2012

We will celebrate a holiday for the 99%. We will come together across lines of race, class, gender, and religion and challenge the systems that create these divisions among us. New Yorkers will join with millions throughout the world — workers, students, immigrants, professionals, houseworkers — We will take to the streets to unite in a General Strike against a system which does not work for us. With our collective power we will begin to build the world we want to see. Another world is possible!

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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.

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The Weekend:Dec 2-4.

FRIDAY:

TED BROOKLYN:
We’re living in what is commonly referred to as the “Information Age.” With the emergence of social networks, we build new communities by pressing the “Like” and “+1” buttons and becoming fans. As we become increasingly interconnected with the Brooklyn community in these new ways, we find ourselves grasping for a new common ethos. In other words, we are striving to refine and define “better.” On December 2 at Brooklyn Bowl, we will address these issues with talks from the best and brightest minds of Brooklyn and beyond.

OPERA ON TAP/Roulette Sisters.
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 chandelier.The Roulette Sisters have been turning heads and stopping traffic since forming in the cold winter of 2003. Noticing that their warm velvet harmonies and spicy hot licks were melting the snow outside, the sisters realized that they had started something not only weather-altering but soul-stirring as well. The sexy sisters play a hip-shaking blend of American country blues, traditional songs, popular tunes and old timey music from the first half of the 20th century. With Mamie Minch: resonator guitar, Meg Reichardt: electric guitar, Megan Burleyson: washboard, Karen Waltuch: viola.

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Archeology 401 by Hardie Karges.

Will they ever get it? (future archeologists, that is)

Will they ever truly understand what it is we did here?

()

Rummaging through city dumps, kitchen middens, Indian

mounds and Chinese cemeteries, they’ll have a job for life

()

They’ll understand the cars, no doubt, since car=chariot,

same word same deal, but will they understand

the computers, the ATM’s, the iPhones, the YouTube?

()

They’ll have the hardware, but they won’t have the program

They’ll just have dead plastic that long ago lost its language,

carrion baggage that got lost in transit…

()

Remember to get something down on paper, even if it’s not

written in stone

Remember to look around outside yourself, even if it’s on the

long way home

Hardie Karges is a poet, blogger and film/video-maker, philosopher by degree and world traveler/trader, having traveled to 139 countries and lived in several of them. He currently lives in LA, but is not an Angeleno. His work has appeared in various online publications and a book is in the works.  His personal blog is at http://hkarges.wordpress.com/.