this week in literature

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.

CHARLES BUKOWSKI TRIBUTE 2011

charlesbukowski

SON OF A PONY READING SERIES
Cornelia Street Cafe
29 Cornelia St. between West Fourth & Bleecker Sts.
Friday, January 7, $7 (includes free drink), 6:00 – 8:00
212-989-9319
www.corneliastreetcafe.com

If the massive New Year’s Day marathons at the Poetry Project and the Bowery Poetry Club were a little too much for you to take all at once, the Cornelia Street Cafe is holding its third annual tribute to the rather iconoclastic, eclectic, and iconic Charles Bukowski, author of such books as FACTOTUM, BARFLY, POEMS WRITTEN BEFORE JUMPING OUT OF AN 8 STORY WINDOW, CONFESSIONS OF A MAN INSANE ENOUGH TO LIVE WITH BEASTS, and PLAY THE PIANO DRUNK LIKE A PERCUSSION INSTRUMENT UNTIL THE FINGERS BEGIN TO BLEED A BIT. Hosted by Kat Georges, the evening includes poetry readings and performances by Peter Carlaftes, Thomas Fucaloro, Angelo Verga, George Wallace, and Ryan Buynak, videos of Bukowski, prizes, book giveaways, and, appropriately, one free drink with admission. And if you want to read your own favorite piece by Bukowski or your own poem inspired by the writer, you can sign up to participate as well, but you need to get there before six.

CULTUREMART ’11

Ximena Garnica and Shige Moriya's FLOATING POINT WAVES is part of HERE's annual Culturemart festival

HERE Arts Center
145 Sixth Ave. at Dominick St.
January 7-23, $15
212-647-0202
www.here.org

Culturemart, the annual festival of workshop productions by HERE’s resident artists, is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year with another slate of diverse experimental shows incorporating theater, dance, film, music, and audience interaction. Things get under way January 7-8 with Laura Peterson’s GROUND, the second part of her Wooden trilogy, in which a dance quartet performs within living grass and trees. Ximena Garnica and Shige Moriya, artistic directors of the New York Butoh Festival, will present the immersive, multimedia FLOATING POINT WAVES. Betty Shamieh makes the murdered Arab from Albert Camus’s THE STRANGER the main character in the mysterious THE STRANGEST. A community of artists — as well as the audience — are all part of the interactive LUSH VALLEY, which seeks to reclaim the American dream. THE VENUS RIFF riffs on the Venus Hottentot. Democracy takes center stage in Aaron Landsman’s participatory CITY COUNCIL MEETING. Deborah Stein and Suli Holum investigate a woman who is her own twin in CHIMERA. Kamala Sankaram’s chamber opera MIRANDA mixes reality television with hip-hop and Hindustani classical music. And Lindsay Abromaitis-Smith uses puppetry to look at the sacred in EPYLLION, among other shows running through January 23, with all tickets a mere $15.

DARK MATTERS

THE ALTERNATIVE NEW YEAR’S DAY SPOKEN WORD AND PERFORMANCE EXTRAVAGANZA
Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery between Houston & Bleecker Sts.
Saturday, January 1, free, 2:00 pm – 12 midnight
212-614-0505
www.bowerypoetry.com
www.spokenwordextravaganza.org

The Bowery Poetry Club is hosting its seventeenth annual New Year’s Day alternative poetry reading, featuring more than 150 performers, including Hobo Bob, Steve Cannon, Steve Dalachinsky, Kathi Georges, Bob Holman, Richard Kostelanetz, Eve Packer, Tom Savage, Jackie Sheeler, Phillip Sherrod, Sparrow, Angelo Verga, George Wallace, Bruce Weber, Jeffrey Wright, and Zork, and there will be an open mic as well if you’d like to add your own contribution. Although the event is free, attendees are encouraged to bring paperbacks for Books Through Bars, which supplies reading material to prisoners, and canned goods for Urban Pathways, which collects food and other services for the homeless. This year’s theme, Dark Matters, relates to how an “invisible glue holds the universe together” much like “the arts hold all us disparate individuals together. . . . When the city, the country and the world split into fighting fragments, music, poetry, and dance keep us intact.”

NEW YEAR’S DAY MARATHON READING 2011

Patti Smith will be among the hundreds of readers at the Poetry Project’s annual New Year’s Day marathon (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The Poetry Project at St. Marks Church
131 East 10th St. at Second Ave.
Saturday, January 1, $15-$20, 2:00
212-674-0910
www.poetryproject.org

The Poetry Project, which is dedicated to the past, present, and future of poetry, will hold its thirty-seventh annual New Year’s Day Marathon Reading on Saturday, featuring another outstanding lineup of participants from all over the entertainment spectrum. Among the hundreds of scheduled readers, who will begin at 2:00, are John Giorno, Patti Smith, Lenny Kaye, Philip Glass, Suzanne Vega, Taylor Mead, Eric Bogosian, Anne Waldman & Ambrose Bye, Vito Acconci, Anselm Berrigan, the Church of Betty, Jonas Mekas, Judith Malina, Citizen Reno, Bob Holman, Dael Orlandersmith, CAConrad, Elinor Nauen, Edwin Torres, Eileen Myles, Elliott Sharp, Maggie Dubris, Mike Doughty, Penny Arcade, Mónica de la Torre, Nick Hallett, and Wayne Koestenbaum. Admission is $20, and you can come and go as you please as long as there’s room.