this week in literature

SUPER SABADO: CUÉNTAME! CELEBRATING ORAL HISTORY

Emeline Michel will perform a special concert as part of El Museo del Barrio’s free Super Sabado on November 19

FREE THIRD SATURDAYS
El Museo del Barrio
1230 Fifth Ave. at 104th St.
Saturday, November 19, free, 11:00 am – 9:00 pm
212-831-7272
www.elmuseo.org

November 19 is the third Saturday of the month, which means that admission to El Museo del Barrio is free all day. It also means there will be a slate of special activities, this month focusing on oral history, beginning at 11:00 with the hands-on program “Artexplorers & Artmaking,” which continues through 3:00. From 12 noon till 3:00, you can share your favorite dicho (expression) as part of “Say Quesooooo!” At noon and 2:00 in El Café, you can sing along with Bilingual Birdies and playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes (In the Heights, Water by the Spoonful). At 4:00, Haitian singer-songwriter Emeline Michel will perform an hour-long show in El Teatro in conjunction with the Carnegie Hall Neighborhood Concert Series. From 4:00 to 6:00, poet Caridad de la Luz “La Bruja” will lead a spoken-word workshop for teens. And at 7:00, “Speak Up!” features María Morales hosting spoken-word performances by Anthony Morales, Nancy-Arroyo Ruffin, Jennifer “Skye” Cabrera, and Maegan Ortiz. In addition, there will be tours of the museum’s two current exhibits, “Voces y Visiones: Signs, Systems & the City” and “El Museo’s Bienal: The (S) Files 2011.” And be sure to come hungry, because there’s always something interesting cooking in El Café.

SELECTED SHORTS: MIRANDA JULY PRESENTS IT CHOOSES YOU

Symphony Space, Peter Jay Sharp Theatre
2537 Broadway at 95th St.
Wednesday, November 16, $15-$27, 7:00
212-864-5400
www.symphonyspace.org
www.mirandajuly.com

In her second feature-length film, The Future, writer-director-star Miranda July extensively researched PennySaver ads to develop a major plot point — and even discovered Joe Putterlik, who played an important role in the indie flick. The author of the delightful short-story collection No one belongs here more than you., July has turned her PennySaver adventures into It Chooses You (McSweeney’s, November 15, 2011, $24), a book that details her adventures tracking down some of the people who advertise in the paper, accompanied by photographs by Brigitte Sire. “Tuesday was the day the PennySaver booklet was delivered,” July writes early on. “It came hidden among the coupons and other junk mail. I read it while I ate lunch, and then, because I was in no hurry to get back to not writing, I usually kept reading it straight through to the real estate ads in the back. I carefully considered each item — not as a buyer, but as a curious citizen of Los Angeles. Each listing was like a very brief newspaper article. News flash: someone in LA is selling a jacket. The jacket is leather. It is also large and black. The person thinks it is worth ten dollars. But the person is not very confident about that price, and is willing to consider other, lower prices. I wanted to know more things about what this leather-jacket person thought, how they were getting through the days, what they hoped, what they feared — but none of that information was listed. What was listed was the person’s phone number.” The multimedia performance artist, whose interactive “Eleven Heavy Things” filled Union Square Park back in the summer of 2010, will be at Symphony Space on November 16 for a special presentation of the “Selected Shorts” series, performing selections from It Chooses You with Olga Merediz, Adrian Martinez, and Tom Bloom. July is an endearing, engaging figure, so it should make for a memorable event. The evening will begin with Betty Gilpin reading Hannah Pittard’s “Orion’s Belt.” (July will also be reading from and signing copies of It Chooses You at BookCourt in Brooklyn on November 15 at 7:00.)

FIRST SATURDAY — SANFORD BIGGERS: SWEET FUNK—AN INTROSPECTIVE

Sanford Biggers, “Calenda (Big Ass Bang!),” pure pigment, mirrored disco ball, 2004 (courtesy of the artist and Michael Klein Arts, New York)

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

The exhibition “Sanford Biggers: Sweet Funk—An Introspective” is at the center of the Brooklyn Museum’s free First Saturday program for November, focusing on the sociocultural, history-laden work of the L.A.-born, New York-based multidisciplinary artist, who will be on hand to give an artist talk at 8:00. The evening also includes live performances by Navegante, Ninjasonik, Kanene Holder (400 Years of GRRRRRR), and Imani Uzuri, a screening of Charles Burnett’s To Sleep with Anger, an artist talk with Matthew Buckingham about his installation “The Spirit and the Letter,” a curator talk with Teresa Carbone on “Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties,” a book club talk and signing with Paul Beatty (The White Boy Shuffle), and a dance party hosted by DJ Rich Medina with Jump N Funk paying tribute to Fela Kuti, Afrobeat, and world music. Among the other exhibitions on view are “Raw/Cooked: Kristof Wickman,” “Lee Mingwei: ’The Moving Garden,’” “Eva Hesse Spectres 1960,” “Timothy Greenfield-Sanders: The Latino List,” “reOrder: An Architectural Environment by Situ Studio,” and “Split Second: Indian Paintings.”

THE “CHINDIA” DIALOGUES

The Amit Chaudhuri Band will be playing a special show at “The ‘Chindia’ Dialogues” at Asia Society

Asia Society
725 Park Ave. at 70th St.
November 3-6, free – $20
212-517-2742
www.asiasociety.org

In conjunction with its exhibit “Rabindranath Tagore: The Last Harvest,” Asia Society is hosting “The ‘Chindia’ Dialogues,” an impressive four-day symposium bringing together poets, novelists, musicians, critics, activists, scholars, journalists, and other experts from China and India as part of the inaugural Asian Arts & Ideas Forum. The cultural exchange of ideas begins on November 3 when Indian writer Amitav Ghosh sits down with Chinese scholar and Yale history professor Jonathan Spence to discuss Ghosh’s new historical novel, River of Smoke, introduced by Orville Schell ($12, 6:30). On Friday at 12:30 (free), Yu Hua, Zha Jianying, Siddhartha Deb, and Murong Xuecun will delve into “Underground & Undercover: Literary Reportage,” moderated by Schell. At 8:00 (free with advance RSVP), the innovative Shanghai Restoration Project will perform with singer Zhang Le. Saturday’s full slate ($15 for one day, $20 for Saturday and Sunday) of Sino-Indian cross-culture and social, political, and historical exploration, examination, and entertainment kicks off at 1:00 with “Literary Border Crossings: The Writer as Traveler,” with Tagore translator Sharmistha Mohanty, Shen Shuang, Allan Sealy, Christopher Lydon, and Ashis Nandy via digital link, followed at 2:15 by “Cyberwriters & Cybercoolies: China’s New Literary Space,” with Zha Jianying, Emily Parker, Yu Hua, and Murong Xuecun. At 3:30, Amitava Kumar, Meena Kandasamy, Suketu Mehta, and Su Tong gather together to discuss “Literature of Migration: Where Do the Birds Fly?” followed at 4:45 by a conversation between Amit Chaudhuri and Christopher Lydon. That night at 8:00 (free with advance RSVP), Chaudhuri will lead his diverse band in a concert with opera singer Qian Yi and the Du Yun Quartet, with Du Yun on piano and electronics, Li Liqun on yangqin, Brad Henkel on trumpet, and Theo Metz on drums, performing an excerpt from the traditional story “Slaying of the Tiger General.” On Sunday at 1:00, Ha Jin, Meena Kandasamy, Amitava Kumar, Sharmistha Mohanty, Allan Sealy, Yu Hua, Su Tong, and Xu Xiaobin will read from their work for “The ‘Chindia’ Readings,” hosted by Amitava Kumar, followed at 2:30 by “Defying the Cartographer: Shared Cultures vs. Nation-States,” which features Siddhartha Deb, Zha Jianying, Yu Hua, and Amitava Kumar talking about legacy and fate. At 3:45, Ha Jin, Su Tong, Xu Xiaobin, and Meena Kandasamy will read from their works and talk about “Seeing Double: The Persistence of the Past in Contemporary Chinese and Indian Culture,” with the closing event taking place at 5:00, “Tagore and the Artist as Citizen of the World,” with Christopher Lydon, Tan Chung, Amit Chaudhuri, and Sharmistha Mohanty.

PERFORMA 11: NEW VISUAL ART PERFORMANCE BIENNIAL

Elmgreen & Dragset’s HAPPY DAYS IN THE ART WORLD kicks off the fourth edition of the Performa biennial, which runs November 1-21 all over the city

Multiple venues in all five boroughs
November 1-21, free – $75
www.11.performa-arts.org

More than a hundred venues will be hosting cutting-edge experimental productions at Performa 11, the fourth edition of the biennial multidisciplinary arts festival being held all over the city November 1-21. Featuring art, music, dance, theater, film, architecture, and more in exciting combinations, the three-week festival consists of long-term exhibitions, special one-night stands, and other limited engagements that push the envelope of contemporary performance. Elmgreen & Dragset revisit Beckett in Happy Days in the Art World at the Skirball Center, with Joseph Fiennes and Charles Edwards. L’Encyclopédie de la parole’s Chorale turns political speeches, text messages, and movie quotes into choral works at the Performa Hub on Mott St. Rashaad Newsome holds a medieval rap joust Tournament in conjunction with his new exhibit at Marlborough Chelsea. Anthology Film Archives screens rare footage of one of Lenny Bruce’s last performances, as well as routines by Richard Pryor, Albert Brooks, and Andy Kaufman. Innovative installation artists Mika Rottenberg and Jon Kessler team up to create the chakra sauna Seven at Nicole Klagsbrun Project Space. Matthew Stone journeys into shamanism at the Hole. Mai-Thu Perret’s Love Letters in Ancient Brick at the Joyce SoHo reimagines Krazy Kat as a love-triangle dance. Dripping paint drives Jonathan VanDyke’s storefront drama With One Hand Between Us at Scaramouche. Israeli collective Public Movement choreographs public demonstrations in various parks for Positions. Daido Moriyama restages his thirty-year-old Printing Show—TKY at the Aperture Foundation. Deaf artist Christine Sun Kim will go from audio to visual with Lukas Geronimas in Feedback at Recess. Liz Glynn’s Utopia or Oblivion: Parts I and II will take place in several outdoor venues, using Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome as inspiration. Raphael Zarka mixes skateboarding and sculpture in Free Ride at the Performa Hub. Gerard Byrne turns the Abrons Arts Center into an interactive theater for In Repertory. Varispeed’s Perfect Lives Manhattan is an all-day performance of Robert Ashley’s opera. Performa Ha! gathers comedians and musicians at the HA! comedy club. And that’s only the first week of this outstanding collection of diverse talent and unique performances, with many of the events free.

NEW YORK FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS PRESENTS: AN EVENING WITH JAMES CASEBERE

JAMES CASEBERE IN CONVERSATION WITH HAL FOSTER
Barnes & Noble
150 East 86th St. at Lexington Ave.
Wednesday, October 26, free, 7:00
212-369-2180
www.barnesandnoble.com
www.jamescasebere.net

Born in Michigan and living in Fort Greene since the late 1990s, James Casebere has spent the last thirty years making constructed photographs, creating table-sized architectural landscapes and turning them into haunting large-scale photographs of suburbia, the American West, prisons, and eighteenth-century America. His work has now been collected in James Casebere: Works 1975-2010 (Damiani, October 31, 2011, $80), a midcareer survey of his fascinating oeuvre. Edited by Okwui Enwezor, the book includes essays by Hal Foster and Toni Morrison as well as a talk between Enwezor and Casebere. “Rocking our sense of security and danger, James Casebere probes domestic and public spaces in order to expose the porous borders between them,” Morrison writes in the foreword. “He introduces foreign elements, manipulating light and our visual expectations of the sacred and profane; the safe haven versus confinement; privacy versus secrecy; wilderness versus shelter. He estranges the familiar and warps the conventional in hospitals, church-inflected architecture, ordinary home furnishings, corridors, and prisons.” In celebration of the book’s publication, the New York Foundation of the Arts is presenting the free event “James Casebere in Conversation with Hal Foster,” October 26 at the East 86th St. Barnes & Noble, in which the photographer sits down with the noted art critic, followed by a book signing.

SLAPSTICK ON THE STREETS OF NEW YORK: SPEEDY

Harold Lloyd has a crazy time in Coney Island in SPEEDY

SPEEDY (Ted Wilde, 1928)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Sunday, October 16, free with museum admission, 3:00
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us

Much like the end of the silent film era itself, the last horse-drawn trolley is doomed in Harold Lloyd’s final silent film. Big business is playing dirty trying to get rid of the trolley and classic old-timer Pop Dillon. Meanwhile, Harold “Speedy” Swift, a dreamer who wanders from menial job to menial job (he makes a great soda-jerk with a unique way of announcing the Yankees score), cares only about the joy and wonder life brings. But he’s in love with Pop’s granddaughter, Jane, so he vows to save the day. Along the way, he gets to meet Babe Ruth. Ted Wilde was nominated for an Oscar for Best Director, Comedy, for this thrilling nonstop ride through beautiful Coney Island and the pre-depression streets of New York City. A restored 35mm print of Speedy is being shown October 16 at 3:00 at the Museum of the Moving Image with live accompaniment by pianist Donald Sosin, preceded by an illustrated lecture about the making of the movie by film historian John Bengtson, author of Silent Visions: Discovering Early Hollywood and New York Through the Films of Harold Lloyd (Santa Monica Press, May 2011, $27.95), and will be followed by a book signing.