Yearly Archives: 2011

LIVING IN AMERICA: BRAIN AND THE TIBETAN CREATIVE MIND

Creation of sand mandala is part of Global Weekend program at AMNH (photo copyright Kitt Teed)

GLOBAL WEEKENDS
American Museum of Natural History
Central Park West at 79th St.
January 25-30, free with suggested museum admission of $9-$16
212-769-5200
www.amnh.org

To inaugurate the exhibition “Body and Spirit: Tibetan Medical Paintings,” Kehn Rinpoche Geshe Kachen Lobzang Tsetan of Tashi Lhunpo Monastery and monks from Drepang Loseling Monastery will lead a procession and prayer ritual through the American Museum of Natural History on January 25 beginning at 10:30 am. The celebration also kicks off the institution’s latest Global Weekends program, which will extend over six days and feature monastic cham dances, art exchanges, the creation of a Medicine Buddha sand mandala, and public meditation that is being held in conjunction with the interactive exhibit “Brain: The Inside Story” as well. On January 29 at 1:30, Richard J. Davidson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Investigating Healthy Minds will present “Change Your Brain by Transforming Your Mind,” followed by a Q&A. Other speakers include Barnard term assistant professor Annabella Pitkin and Joseph Loizzo of the Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Science. The meditation sessions, which require advance RSVP, are being held January 25 at 8:00 am in the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life, January 26 at 7:30 pm in the Hayden Planetarium Space Theatre, January 28 at 7:00 pm in the Audubon Gallery, and January 29 at 3:00 pm in the Linder Theater.

WORLD’S BIGGEST JERK OFF

The Bell House
149 Seventh St. between Second & Third Aves., Gowanus
Sunday, January 23, $10, 4:00
718-643-6510
www.thebellhouseny.com

Yes, the title of this event invites funny opening lines aplenty, but this jerky battle is nothing if not downright serious, so we’re taking the high road on this one. Not that it won’t be a hell of a lot of fun, because it’s certain to be. But it’s also no mere Slim Jim wrestling match. Competitors will be bringing in all kinds of dehydrated and slow-baked edibles, not just meats, to come up with the best jerky and win a variety of prizes. Heck, there are even a couple of spots still open if you want to throw your own personal jerky into the circle. The feast is put together by the Takedown, which also holds cook-offs featuring chili, bacon, fondue, salsa, lamb, curry, and cookies and is promising some very creative, challenging projects in the future. What else do you have to do on a late Sunday afternoon before the Jets game? So head to Gowanus and watch a whole bunch of people jerk off like mad in one crazy party.

PAT COOPER IN CONVERSATION WITH COLIN QUINN

92nd St. Y, Buttenwieser Hall
1395 Lexington Ave. at 92nd St.
Tuesday, January 25, $29, 8:30
212-415-5500
www.patcooper.com
www.squareonepublishers.com
www.92y.org

On January 25, Pat Cooper will be making a special appearance at the 92nd St. Y, which should only lend more credence to those who are sure that the legendary Italian comedian, born Pasquale Caputo, is actually Jewish. “They believed that the skinny kid with the horn-rimmed glasses davened in the morning, did his routines on garlic and saints at night, and said the Shema before going to bed,” he writes in his intimate, revealing, and extremely funny new memoir, HOW DARE YOU SAY HOW DARE ME! (Square One, November 2010, $24.95). “He was circumcised, not baptized. He was bar mitzvahed, not given Holy Communion. He dropped out of law school, not trade school,” he continues. Cooper’s wide-ranging book tour brings him back to Manhattan on Tuesday night, where he will be in conversation with another hot comedian, Colin Quinn, the former host of TOUGH CROWD who just won a 2011 Nightlife Award for Outstanding Comedian in a Major Engagement for his one-man Broadway show, the Jerry Seinfeld-directed LONG STORY SHORT: HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN 75 MINUTES, which is now extended through March 5 at the Helen Hayes Theatre. There’s no telling what kind of fireworks are liable to go off by putting these two highly opinionated tough guys together, so don’t miss this one-time-only event. (For more on Cooper and his book, you can read our twi-ny talk with him here.)

UNDER THE INFLUENCE: WRITERS ON FILM PRESENTS PAUL AUSTER

Paul Auster will present special screening of an American classic at Crosby Street Hotel

Crosby Street Hotel
79 Crosby St. between Prince & Spring Sts.
Monday, January 24, $35, 6:30
212-226-6400
www.crosbystreethotel.com

Throughout his career, Brooklyn-based author Paul Auster has written highly visual, cinematic novels, including THE NEW YORK TRILOGY (1985-87), LEVIATHAN (1992), and THE BROOKLYN FOLLIES (2005). He has also written several screenplays, including 1995’s SMOKE and BLUE IN THE FACE, 1998’s LULU ON THE BRIDGE (which he also directed), and the 1993 adaptation of his 1990 novel THE MUSIC OF CHANCE. The cinema plays a major role in THE BOOK OF ILLUSIONS (2002), about the missing films of silent comedian Hector Mann, which led to Auster’s screenplay for THE INNER LIFE OF MARTIN FROST (2007). In his latest novel, SUNSET PARK (Henry Holt, November 2010, $25), about a group of people squatting in a house across from Green-Wood Cemetery, one of the main characters, Alice Bergstrom, is writing her dissertation on William Wyler’s classic post-WWII drama THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, allowing Auster to explore the film in great detail over the course of several long passages. Winner of eight Oscars, including Best Motion Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Writing, and Best Supporting Actor, the film tells the story of three veterans returning home from the war and the difficulties they have readjusting to the American way of life, which they had just fought so valiantly for. On January 24, Auster will introduce a screening of THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES as part of the Crosby Hotel’s “Under the Influence: Writers on Film” series. Following the screening, Auster will be interviewed by journalist and screenwriter Michael Maren, the host of the series, followed by a cocktail reception. The series continues April 11 with Jim Shepard discussing Werner Herzog’s AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD (1972) and June 3 with Jennifer Egan presenting Quentin Tarantino’s PULP FICTION (1994).

THE MARCH BY E. L. DOCTOROW: A DRAMATIC READING

Symphony Space, Leonard Nimoy Thalia
2537 Broadway at 97th St.
Monday, January 24, $15-$20, 7:30
212-864-5400
www.symphonyspace.org

In 2005, E. L. Doctorow released THE MARCH, an intricate novel of Major General William Tecumseh Sherman’s 1864 march through Georgia. Doctorow and his wife, Helen Henslee (PRETTY REDWING), have adapted the bestselling book for a dramatic staged reading to be held January 24 at Symphony Space’s Leonard Nimoy Thalia. Performers from stage and screen playing multiple roles include Francesca Choy-Kee, Mia Dillon, Keir Dullea, Ron McLarty, Joe Morton, and James Naughton, who also directs the production. The reading will be followed by a conversation with Doctorow, Henslee and Naughton.

TU B’SHVAT WINTER GARDEN FESTIVAL

A family-friendly Tu B’Shvat seder will be part of Winter Garden Festival at the Museum at Eldridge Street

Museum at Eldridge Street
12 Eldridge St. between Canal & Division Sts.
Sunday, January 23, free with RSVP, 1:00-4:00
212-219-0302
www.eldridgestreet.org

Tu B’Shvat, also known as Jewish Arbor Day, is held on the fifteenth day of Shevat, which occurred on January 20. But you can still celebrate this environmentally friendly holiday Sunday afternoon at the Museum at Eldridge Street’s Winter Garden Festival. From 1:00 to 4:00, the museum will host planting projects, genealogy and instrument design workshops, challah-making, beer and olive tastings, a Rhythm for Recyclables concert, museum tours, and a Tu B’Shvat seder, which traditionally includes the Seven Species: wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates. Food for the event will be supplied by Economy Candy, Russ & Daughters, the Sweet Life, and Whole Foods.

EUROPEAN MASTERS

Luca Carlevarijs’s “View of the Molo, Venice, Looking West” is one of the highlights of Christie’s first major auction of 2011

OLD MASTER & 19th CENTURY PAINTINGS, DRAWINGS & WATERCOLORS
Christie’s
20 Rockefeller Plaza
Free viewing: January 22-26, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm (Sunday 1:00 – 5:00)
Auction: Wednesday, January 26, 10:00 am, 2:00 & 4:30 pm
212-636-2126
www.christies.com

It’s European Masters Week in New York, and the centerpiece is a major two-part auction at Christie’s on January 26, with more than three hundred works dating from the fourteenth to nineteenth centuries on the block. The museum-quality exhibition, free and open to the public, goes on view today, featuring a number of extremely exciting paintings, from private collections, that were initially acquired during the Grand Tour in Italy during the eighteenth century. Highlights include Luca Carlevarijs’s lush, dramatic “View of the Molo, Venice, Looking West” ($3.5-$4.5 million), Giovanni Antonio Canal’s (il Canaletto) “View of Mestre” ($2.5-$3.5 million), Jean-François Millet’s “La fin de la journée; effet du soir” (“L’Homme à la veste”) ($800,000-$1.2 million), William Adolphe Bouguereau’s “Portrait of Eva and Frances Johnston” ($800,000-$1.2 million), Jean-Leon Gérôme’s “Master of the hounds” ($700,000-$1 million), and Giovanni Paolo Panini’s “An architectural capriccio with figures among Roman ruins” ($600,000-$800,000). The auction also includes more affordable paintings, drawings, and studies by Fragonard, Boucher, Lhermitte, Corot, Tiepolo, Gericault, and Rubens, ranging from $5,000 to $150,000 (for the latter’s exquisite “An écorché study of a male nude, with a subsidiary study of the right leg”). European Masters Week continues all over the city, with such exhibitions as “Master Paintings” at Jack Kilgore & Co., “From Gallery Canesso, Paris — The Master of the Blue Jeans and a Selection of Paintings” at Didier Aaron, “Past Reflections, Old Master Paintings from the 17th and 19th Century” at Lawrence Steigrad Fine Arts, and more Master Drawings shows at Shepherd and Derom Galleries, French and Company, Robert Simon Fine Art, and other locations.