this week in literature

SEE THE LIGHT(S): HANUKKAH AT THE JEWISH MUSEUM

Maurice Sendak has gathered together menorahs for the Jewish Museum exhibition “An Artist Remembers” (photo of final illustration of GRANDPA’S HOUSE courtesy the Maurice Sendak Collection, Rosenbach Museum & Library)

Jewish Museum
1109 Fifth Ave. at 92nd St.
December 15-27, free – $20
212-423-3337
www.thejewishmuseum.org

What better place to celebrate Hanukkah than at the Jewish Museum? The stately Fifth Ave. institution will be partying up for the Festival of Lights with a series of programs and exhibitions over the next two weeks. On Thursday night, December 15 ($12-$15, 8:00-11:00), “Cheryl Does Chanukah” will feature techno dreidels, sweet sufganiot, a one-hour open bar, a dance party hosted by DJ Nick, and a live performance by Brooklyn-based quartet Cheryl. On Saturdays, admission to the museum is free, so be sure to check out the special exhibition “An Artist Remembers: Hanukkah Lamps Selected by Maurice Sendak,” a group of lamps chosen by the children’s book legend from the Jewish Museum’s permanent collection. Sunday is Hanukkah Family Day, with a menorah workshop for children three and up and live music by Ben Rudnick and Friends. On Monday (free with museum admission, 12 noon – 3:00), there will be a tour of “An Artist Remembers,” followed by Hanukkah-themed tours of the permanent exhibition, “Culture and Continuity,” at 1:15 on December 22, 23, 26, and 27. The Macaroons will perform three holiday shows on Sunday ($15-$20, 11:00, 1:00, 3:00); look for such seasonal favorites as “Dreidel Bird” and “Hurry Up and Light the Candles.” And Frank London’s Klezmer Brass Band Allstars will say goodbye to Hanukkah by rocking out on December 27 ($45, 7:30) with their inspiring brand of Jewish roots music.

MELORA GRIFFIS: WINGS AND MURMURS — THE PAINTINGS TALK BACK

Melora Griffis, “bruised kite hope flares,” acrylic, gouache, and pastel on paper, 2010 (courtesy of the artist and 571 Projects)

571 Projects
551 West 21st St. #204A between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Thursday, December 8, free, 7:30
Exhibition on view Tuesday – Saturday through December 16, free, 12 noon – 6:00 pm
212-229-0897
www.571projects.com

In “wings and murmurs,” Melora Griffis’s intimate new solo exhibition at 571 Projects in Chelsea, many of the works feature variations on women’s faces, from the self-portrait “against the wall,” in which the painter, performance artist, and actress holds tight against the right side of the canvas, as if trying to hide from the viewer, to “sister,” which depicts a woman who looks like she has just been through a prizefight, and “unsichtbar,” in which the top part of the subject has been painted over in white, her face and head disappearing into the background. A bold mix of abstraction and figuration with a liberal use of white paint that melds into the small gallery space’s stark white walls, “wings and murmurs” beautifully displays Griffis’s confident brushstrokes and haunting color scheme, particularly in the ghostly “bruised kite hope flares,” which greets visitors as they enter the room. The show runs through December 16, with a special free event scheduled for December 8 at 7:30, “the paintings talk back,” in which poets Betty Harmon, Alystyre Julian, and Shelley Stenhouse will read pieces inspired by Griffis’s work, followed by an open dialogue and a musical performance by the artist.

GAGA’S HOLIDAY WORKSHOP

Lady Gaga has taken over Barneys New York this holiday season (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Barneys New York
660 Madison Ave. at 61st St.
Through January 1, free
212-826-8900
www.barneys.com
www.gagasworkshop.com

Lady Gaga is determined to be part of your holiday season one way or another, whether you want her to be or not, and we can’t say that that’s necessarily a bad thing. Grand Central has just published the deluxe fifty-dollar hardcover Lady Gaga x Terry Richardson, a behind-the-scenes photography book in which the famed lensman follows around the former Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta from August 2010 to February 2011, while Interscope has just released Born This Way — the Remix, with Zedd, Goldfrapp, Foster the People, Metronomy, and others putting their own spin on the songs from the original disc, which has topped the five-million mark in sales. And now the native New Yorker has taken over Barneys with a collection of Gaga Goodies that can be found on the fifth floor of the shopping mecca, in a space designed by her Royal Gaga-ness with Nicola Formichetti and the art collective assume vivid astro focus, featuring special-edition designer cosmetics, toys, jewelry, candy, apparel, and other accessories, with twenty-five percent of all sales going to the Born This Way Foundation, which believes in “empowering youth” and “inspiring bravery.” She has also designed several of Barneys windows, filling them with the futuristic, streamlined Gagamachine, the inviting ice-blue Crystal Cave, and the Victorian-era Gaga’s Boudoir, along with the short musical film “Constellation.” On “You and I” from Born This Way, LG sings, “This time I’m not leaving without you”; this month it will be hard for holiday shoppers to leave without at least a little bit of Gaga.

THE BROOKLYN COMICS AND GRAPHICS FESTIVAL

The charming Galit Seliktar will be signing copies of her highly praised FARM 54, written with her brother, Gilad, at the Fanfare / Potent Mon booth at 4:00 & 7:00 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church
275 North Eighth St. at Havemeyer St.
Saturday, December 3, free, 12 noon – 9:00
www.comicsandgraphicsfest.com

The third annual Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival returns today to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church in Williamsburgh, featuring an impressive lineup of guests, exhibitors, and special events from 12 noon to 9:00. Admission is free to see such industry favorites as Chip Kidd, David Mazzuchelli, Adrian Tomine, John Porcellino, Sam Henderson, Mark Newgarden, Lisa Hanawalt, Kim Deitch, Brian Ralph, Gary Panter, Dash Shaw, and MAD’s Jack Davis, along with such exhibitors as Acti-i-vate, Drawn & Quarterly, Fanfare / Potent Mon, Fantagraphics, the Jack Kirby Museum, Rabid Rabbit, Top Shelf, and dozens of others. Programming highlights include a Q&A with Davis at 1:30, a “Gestural Aesthetics” panel at 2:30 with Austin English, Dunja Jankovic, and Frank Santoro, moderated by Bill Kartalopoulos (who, with Desert Island and PictureBox, created the festival), “Chip Kidd and David Mazzuchelli: Comics by Design” at 3:30, also moderated by Kartalopoulos, “Phoebe Gloeckner: A Life and Other Stories” at 5:00 with Gloeckner and Nicole Rudick, “The Language in Comics” at 6:00 with Porcellino, Gabrielle Bell, and David Sandlin, moderated by Myla Goldberg, and “C.F. and Brian Ralph in Conversation” at 7:00, moderated by Tom Spurgeon. In conjunction with the festival, a film series continues through Sunday at the Spectacle Theater on South Third St., with the Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation showcase at 7:30 and The Idea (Berthold Bartosch, 1932) and The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Lotte Reiniger, 1926), with live music by Chips and Salsa, at 9:30 ($5 per screening, $8 for both). In addition, “Pictures and Performance: A Melodrama,” consisting of multimedia works by Kartalopoulos, Ben Katchor, Shana Moulton, R. Sikoryak, and others, will take place at the Brick Theater at 3:00 on Sunday (free admission).

FIRST SATURDAY: YOUTH AND BEAUTY

Luigi Lucioni, “Paul Cadmus,” oil on canvas, 1928, part of “Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties” (Brooklyn Museum, Dick S. Ramsay Fund)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway
Saturday, December 3, free, 5:00 – 11:00 (some events require free tickets distributed in advance at the Visitor Center)
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

Don’t be fooled by the theme of this month’s First Saturday party at the Brooklyn Museum. It might be called “Youth and Beauty,” but you can expect an old-fashioned good time, as it refers to the Eastern Parkway institution’s new exhibit subtitled “Art of the American Twenties,” featuring works by such artists as Thomas Hart Benton, Edward Hopper, Gaston Lachaise, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Alfred Stieglitz. On tap for the free evening is jazz and blues from Hazmat Modine (5:00 to 7:00), a 1920s costume contest (5:30), a collaboration between spoken-word artists and musicians and tap dancer Lisa La Touche that references the Jazz Age and the Harlem Renaissance (5:30), curator Catherine Morris discussing “Eva Hesse Spectres 1960” (6:00), ballroom dance lessons from Nathan Bugh, including the Charleston and the Lindy Hop (6:00), a painting workshop (6:30 – 8:30), a tour of “Youth and Beauty” with museum guide Emily Sachar (7:00), a dance party hosted by the Harlem Renaissance Orchestra (8:00 – 10:00), Farah Griffin discussing Wallace Thurman’s 1929 book, The Blacker the Berry (9:00), and a bodybuilding showcase hosted by Phil Sottile (9:00). The young and the beautiful can always be found at the Brooklyn Museum on First Saturdays, but this month more than ever.

DON DeLILLO AND PAUL AUSTER FOR GRANTA 117: HORROR

Union Square B&N
33 East 17th St.
Tuesday, November 29, free, 7:00
212-253-0810
www.granta.com
www.barnesandnoble.com

Two of America’s finest novelists have taken a foray into a different genre for them in the latest issue of the British literary journal Granta: The Magazine of New Writing. Don DeLillo (White Noise, Mao II) and Paul Auster (Leviathan, The Music of Chance) have contributed spooky tales to the horror issue, along with such other writers as Mark Doty, Sarah Hall, Will Self, D. A. Powell, and the master himself, Stephen King. Auster’s “Your Birthday Has Come and Gone,” excerpted from his upcoming memoir and written in the second person, deals with the death of his mother, while DeLillo’s “The Starveling” is a modern noir set in New York City. DeLillo and Auster will read from and discuss their stories, and the horror genre, at the Union Square Barnes & Noble on Tuesday night at 7:00, with priority seating given to people who buy a copy of Granta 117.

SEE YOU NEXT WEDNESDAY: 8 FILMS BY JOHN LANDIS

THE BLUES BROTHERS is part of eight-film BAMcinématek tribute to John Landis

BAMcinématek
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
November 21-30
212-415-5500
www.bam.org

Film enthusiast, historian, theorist, actor, and writer-director John Landis made some of the seminal comedies of the 1970s and ’80s, particularly a five-film streak that began in 1977 with The Kentucky Fried Movie and continued with National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978), The Blues Brothers (1980), An American Werewolf in London (1981), and Trading Places (1983), followed by the underrated Into the Night (1985). He’s also made such guilty pleasures as 1986’s ¡Three Amigos! (you know you don’t change the channel when you find it on cable) and the 1992 vampire flick Innocent Blood, but he’s directed only one feature film since 1998, the 2010 comedy Burke and Hare. BAMcinématek is honoring the Chicago-born, L.A.-raised auteur with an eight-film tribute in conjunction with the release of his latest book, Monsters in the Movies (DK Adult, September 2011, $40), that begins today with two screenings of Animal House sandwiching a 6:50 showing of Into the Night that will be followed by a Q&A and book signing with Landis, who will be back tomorrow for a Q&A and signing after the 7:00 screening of The Blues Brothers, which is still a riot after all these years. The tribute continues on Wednesday with the very funny — and currently extremely relevant yet again — Trading Places, with one-percenter-wannabe Dan Aykroyd changing positions with ninety-nine-percenter Eddie Murphy. The series concludes next week with a pair of double features, ¡Three Amigos! and Coming to America (1988) on November 29 and the always welcome An American Werewolf in London and the 1982 documentary Coming Soon on November 30. Oh, and keep an eye out for a reference to “See you next Wednesday,” which makes a Hitchockian appearance in nearly every one of Landis’s films.