this week in literature

PROSE PROS

Brooklyn-born author Philip Lopate will help kick off fall season of Prose Pros on October 7 with Burt Kimmelman

Sidewalk Café
94 Ave. A
Thursday, October 7, free (donations accepted), 6:30
Series continues November 18 & December 9
212-473-7373
www.sidewalkmusic.net

The literary reading series Prose Pros kicks off its fall season this Thursday at the Sidewalk Café, home of the antifolk music scene, pairing “prose practitioners linked by agreement or opposition, by topic similarities or discordances.” Hosted by writers Martha King (NORTH & SOUTH) and Elinor Nauen (LADIES, START YOUR ENGINES), Prose Pros will team Brooklyn-born authors Philip Lopate (AGAINST JOI DE VIVRE, NOTES ON SONTAG) and Burt Kimmelman (AS IF FREE) on October 7, reading works set in their hometown. On November 18, Andrei Codrescu (THE POETRY LESSON) will join CAConrad (THE BOOK OF FRANK, THE CITY REAL & IMAGINED), followed by Eileen Myles (INFERNO) and Basil King (LEARNING TO DRAW/A HISTORY: TWIN TOWERS) on December 9.

STRANGER THAN FICTION: AMERICAN SPLENDOR

Paul Giamatti and others will pay tribute to Harvey Pekar at special screening and discussion at the IFC Center

AMERICAN SPLENDOR (Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini, 2003)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at Third St.
Tuesday, October 5, $16, 7:30
www.stfdocs.com/films/american_splendor
www.americansplendormovie.com

AMERICAN SPLENDOR is a vastly creative and entertaining love story should have been nominated for more than just a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar. Paul Giamatti stars as Cleveland comic-book writer and all-around schlub Harvey Pekar, with Hope Davis as his neurotic girlfriend, Joyce. The marvelous script and unique visuals, which mimic comic-book panels, are joined by appearances by the real characters discussing how they are portrayed in the film and what their life is really like. You’ll think that Judah Friedlander is overplaying ultimate nerd Toby Radloff until you meet the real thing. The interweaving of fiction and reality is masterful. The film is screening as part of IFC’s Tuesday night series Stranger Than Fiction, hosted by Thom Powers and Raphaela Neihausen, and will be followed by a Q&A with star Giamatti, producer Ted Hope, artist-collaborator Dean Haspiel, and directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini; the discussion is sure to take on added meaning since Pekar’s death this past July at the age of seventy.

JUDY CHICAGO

Judy Chicago and art historian Frances Borzello will discuss their new book on Frida Kahlo at the Brooklyn Museum on October 3 (photo by Donald Woodman)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Pkwy.
Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium, third Floor
Sunday, October 3, free with suggested contribution of $10, 2:00
718-638-5000
www.brooklynmuseum.org

Judy Chicago, creator of the world famous “Dinner Party” installation currently at the Brooklyn Museum and one of the pioneers of feminist art, will make a special visit to the Eastern Parkway institution on Sunday afternoon, October 3, at 2:00, celebrating the release of her latest book, FRIDA KAHLO: FACE TO FACE (Prestel, September 2010, $65). Chicago will be joined by her collaborator, art historian Frances Borzello, in discussing Kahlo’s place as a painter of women’s portraits; in the book, Chicago and Borzello examine 120 such works by the renowned Mexican artist, looking at them from both a personal and professional angle. The discussion will be followed by a Q&A and book signing.

Before or after the book launch, be sure to save plenty of time to see “The Dinner Party,” which has found a long-term home in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art on the fourth floor. The world’s most remarkable dinner party is held at a triangular table that consists of three 48-foot sides with 13 place settings apiece, paying tribute to 39 women who helped shape and change the world. The plate design — a combination of a butterfly pattern and a vulva — and the embroidered silk covering are different for each historical figure, based on their life and accomplishments, which are listed in the accompanying booklet and on Heritage Panels in an adjoining room. Another 999 women are honored with their names inscribed in gold on the Heritage Floor beneath the table; Chicago arranged it so that women who were successful in the same field are placed together. For example, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other suffragists are written under Susan B. Anthony’s setting, and Harriet Tubman and other civil rights leaders are under Sojourner Truth’s setting. Chicago celebrates these women by using so-called feminine iconography, including embroidery, table setting, and tapestry weaving, all of which are generally associated with women, and placing the vulva front and center as an expression of not only life but power.

ART IN ODD PLACES: CHANCE

Paul Notzold’s “TXTual Healing” will project audience texts onto a 14th St. building as part of Art in Odd Places public art festival

14th St. between the Hudson & East Rivers
October 1-10
Admission: free
www.artinoddplaces.org

Everyday life in New York City is built around the idea of chance — risk as well as luck, both good and bad — as residents, tourists, workers, and other visitors are all part of a daily maelstrom filled with expected and unexpected encounters with friends and strangers, taxis and buses, parks and skyscrapers. If the city is its own massive museum, then its streets are like individual galleries, and with that in mind, curators Yaelle Amir and Petrushka Bazin have taken over 14th St. from October 1 to 10. “Chance” is the latest presentation from Art in Odd Places, which seeks to stretch the limits of public art. Playing off the themes of “proposition, luck, randomness, risk, and opportunity,” Amir and Bazin have gathered together more than two dozen site-specific projects that run the length of 14th St. from the Hudson to the East River, as passersby will come upon live music, dance, sound installations, interactive sculpture, and other participatory events. Perhaps you’ll find one of Sheryl Oring’s “To a Young Poet” envelopes, inside of which is an excerpt from Rainer Maria Rilke and a request for you to respond. Or maybe your movement will be incorporated into Simonetta Moro’s “Chance Drawing: Reverse Window Shopping” at Rags-a-Gogo. Make sure you have proper identification if you want to take one of notary public Carrie Dashow’s “Great Oaths.” Go ahead and answer that ringing phone, as it could be Christopher Dameron and Annika Newell’s “Silent Call” on the other end. Be brave and enter Einat Amir’s “Enough About You,” in which you’ll be put in a room with a stranger and then have a conversation. Although it might be raining anyway, you won’t want to get wet from BroLab Collective’s “Pump 14,” which will be transporting water down 14th St. via a manual bucket filtration system. Watch to see if Irvin Morazan, munching on Cheez Doodles while dressed in a Mayan-inspired headdress, is able to hail a cab in “Taxi!! Taxi!! Taxii!!” If someone is waving at you from across the street, be sure to wave back, because it’s probably part of Flux Factory’s “Sign a Waver.” And if three women suddenly start telling you stories on a street corner, it could very well be Jessica Ann Peavy’s “Two Lies and a Truth,” and it’s up to you to decide which rumor is real. Some of the events will continue all week, while others will take place only tonight, so check the schedule at the above website if you’re interested in a specific performance.

NEW YORK 19th CENTURY PUB CRAWL

Meet at Bridge Cafe
279 Water St.
Saturday, October 2, 4:00
Pay as you go, including $10 cocktail specials
www.19thcpubcrawl.com

There’s room for only fifty people at the New York 19th Century Pub Crawl, which begins Saturday at 4:00 at the Bridge Cafe, a onetime brothel that is the oldest continuous drinking establishment in the city and where pub crawlers will start off with an Old Fashioned, ten-year-old Glen Grant, and specially prepared hors d’oeuvres. The drinking tour will continue with a history talk at Swift Hibernian Lounge with Bowmore 12 Year Old, the original Cock-Tail, and mini-sausages, followed by Glenrothes 1998 at Rye House and stops at the venerable institutions the Old Town and Pete’s Tavern. Advance RSVP and nineteenth-century dress are strongly suggested for this unique evening of old-fashioned fun, where pub crawlers will learn plenty about scotch as well as Jonathan Swift, O. Henry, and East Village history.

muMs & AURORA

New York City natives muMs & Aurora will be teaming up for a special show at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe on September 30

Nuyorican Poets Cafe
236 East Third St. between Aves. B & C
Thursday, September 30, $10, 7:00
www.nuyorican.org
www.mumsandaurora.tumblr.com

We were thrilled to bump into muMs da Schemer the other day, the poet, playwright, director, and actor perhaps most well known as Poet on the HBO prison drama OZ. Born Craig Grant in the Bronx, he has also appeared in such television series as COLD CASE, DEF POETRY JAM, THE GOOD HEART, LAW & ORDER, BOSTON LEGAL, and CHAPPELLE’S SHOW, where he famously portrayed Lysol in the “Mad Real World” sketch. He immediately pulled out a flyer trumpeting his latest gig, teaming up with New York City singer-songwriter, actress, and violinist Aurora Barnes for a series of shows at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. “I’m going back to where I started,” he said. “It’s a real pleasure.” Backed by a band, muMs & Aurora are “folk music’s answer to hip-hop,” performing such songs as “Sleep, Baby, Sleep,” “Fifty Times / Ploylessness,” “Survivor,” and “Bring on the Fire,” alternating between Aurora’s sweet melodies and muMs’s spoken word poetry. They also do a mash-up of muMs’s “Truth” with Kings of Leon’s “Use Somebody” and Stephen Sondheim’s “Move On” from SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE, so you never really know where they’re going to take you next. The duo, who previously collaborated on muMs’s play PARADOX OF THE URBAN CLICHÉ for the LAByrinth Theater Company, will be at the Nuyorican on September 30 at 7:00.

RICHARD DAWKINS: THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH

Richard Dawkins will discuss his latest book at a free discussion and signing September 29 at the Cooper Union

Cooper Union Great Hall
7 East Seventh St. at Third Ave.
Wednesday, September 29, free, 6:30
212-353-4196
www.cooper.edu
www.richarddawkins.net

In his latest book, THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH: THE EVIDENCE FOR EVOLUTION, now available in paperback (Free Press, August 2010, $16.99), controversial scientist, philosopher, and atheist Richard Dawkins writes in the preface, “The evidence for evolution grows by the day, and has never been stronger. At the same time, paradoxically, ill-informed opposition is also stronger than I can remember. This book is my personal summary of the evidence that the ‘theory’ of evolution is actually a fact — as incontrovertible a fact as any in science.” Dawkins, who has also written such tomes as THE GOD DELUSION, THE SELFISH GENE, and A DEVIL’S CHAPLAIN, will be at the Cooper Union on September 29 for a free reading and discussion about THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH, followed by a book signing. Dawkins loves the spotlight, so this should be an entertaining and enlightening evening.