this week in literature

BROOKLYN BOOK FESTIVAL

Former honoree Paul Auster will talk with 2010 BoBi award winner John Ashbery during Brooklyn Book Festival (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Multiple locations in Brooklyn
Sunday, September 12, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
www.brooklynbookfestival.org

The fifth annual Brooklyn Book Festival takes place on Sunday, September 12, with a host of literary events at such locations as the Borough Hall Courtroom, St. Francis College Auditorium, and the Brooklyn Historical Society. The festival opens at 10:00 in the morning with the promising “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (But I Like It),” with Steve Almond, Jennifer Egan, and Colson Whitehead reading from music-inspired writings, followed by a Q&A, as well as Stewart O’Nan, Siri Hustvedt, and T Cooper discussing “How Things Shake Out.” Jon Scieszka, E. Lockhart, and Mac Barnett will team up for “You’ve Got to Be Kidding,” Paul Krugman and Robin Wells will converse about “The Economic Crisis and What to Do About It,” Naomi Klein, Kurt Andersen, Jordan Flaherty, and Paul Reyes will get serious for “The Culture of Disaster: How Crisis Defines America,” while Kate Christensen, Sam Lipsyte, and Rakesh Satyal will get personal for “Me . . . in the World.” Amy Goodman and David Zirin will lead a tribute to the late Howard Zinn, Paul Auster will talk with 2010 BoBi award winner John Ashbery, Sarah Silverman will get down and dirty with David Rakoff, and Cristina Garcia, Steven Millhauser, and Peter Straub will delve into “Hallucinations of Your Neighbors.” Among the dozens of other participants are Dennis Lehane, Bernice L. McFadden, Michael Connelly, Francine Prose, Matthew Sharpe, Jacqueline Woodson, Phillip Lopate, Kristin Hersh, John Hodgman, Kristen Schaal, Adam Haslett, Kate Milford, Ben Katchor, Jessica Abel, Melvin Van Peebles, Mona Simpson, Pete Hamill, Venus Williams, Charles Fuller, and many, many more. Although all programs are free, some require advanced tickets, which will be distributed an hour before the presentation. There will also be a bevy of “bookend events” held September 10-12 at Light Industry, Greenlight Bookstore, Coco 66, the Bell House, powerHouse Arena, BAM Rose Cinemas, St. Ann’s Warehouse, and other spots, featuring film screenings, flash readings, live music, cocktail hours, and pizza; highlights include Rob Sheffield chatting up TALKING TO GIRLS ABOUT DURAN DURAN, Carolyn Kellogg in “An Intimate Conversation with John Waters,” Russell Banks discussing Atom Egoyan’s 1997 adaptation of his novel THE SWEET HEREAFTER after a screening of the film, live performances by Mountains and Lymbyc Systym, and a free showing of COSMOS: A PERSONAL VOYAGE in Brooklyn Bridge Park, complete with telescopes.

KIDS READING: NERDS BY MICHAEL BUCKLEY

powerHouse Arena
37 Main St., DUMBO
Saturday, September 11, free, 4:00
718-666-3049
www.powerhousearena.com
www.teamnerds.com

Brooklyn’s powerHouse Arena might be more well known for its cutting-edge art shows and photography books, but it also caters to the younger set. On Saturday afternoon, author Michael Buckley will be at the DUMBO institution for a reading and signing celebrating the release of NERDS 2: M IS FOR MAMA’S BOY (Amulet, September 2010), the follow-up to last year’s NERDS: NATIONAL ESPIONAGE, RESCUE, AND DEFENSE SOCIETY, which is now out in paperback. Buckley, who also wrote the bestselling series THE SISTERS GRIMM and is a longtime FOT (friend of twi-ny), is a favorite of kids, traveling across the country to schools, libraries, and bookstores to read chapters and engage youngsters’ mids with his zany stories. Future family-friendly readings and signings at powerHouse include Audrey Vernick’s IS YOUR BUFFALO READY FOR KINDERGARTEN? on September 14 and Tad Hills’s HOW ROCKET LEARNED TO READ on September 19.

OUT AND ABOUT: THE FINAL SHOW AT GIANT ROBOT NEW YORK

Artist Kelly Tunstall is part of the last show at Giant Robot New York, which is closing later this month (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

NEW WORK BY SUSIE GHAHREMANI AND KELLY TUNSTALL
Giant Robot
437 East Ninth St. between First Ave. & Ave. A
Through September 23
Admission: free
212-674-4769
www.grny.net

It was with great sadness that we attended the opening of “Out and About: New Work by Susie Ghahremani and Kelly Tunstall” on September 4 at Giant Robot in the East Village, and it had nothing to do with Ghahremani’s adorable gouache paintings on paper and wood of animals or Tunstall’s surreal portraits of women with elongated features. Instead, we were horrified to learn from store manager Mark Gilson that this would be the last show at Giant Robot, which will be closing its doors on September 23, a victim of the bad economy. (Ghahremani was also part of the second-ever show at Giant Robot New York.) “It’s been a fun ride and it’s all smiles,” company founder and Giant Robot magazine publisher Eric Nakamura wrote on his blog that night. “Imagine, as a much younger man, I’ve always wanted to have a shop in New York City and I did it.” Sure, that’s easy for Nakamura to say; he still has stores in Los Angeles and San Francisco, while we here on the East Coast will now have to look elsewhere to find unique and unusual toys, art books, and clothing and to see exhibitions by such artists as Matt Furie, Evah Fan, Scrappers, Deth P. Sun, Keith Shore, Souther Salazar, and many others. Giant Robot was a great place to start personal art collections, as most shows had prices that began at $100 or less for original pieces. Beginning September 8, Giant Robot will be holding a clearance sale, with items selling for thirty percent off, and there will be a series of special events leading up to the closing, so keep watching this space for more information as it becomes available.

MASTER CLASS WITH ALEJANDRO JODOROWSKY

Eclectic iconoclast Alejandro Jodorowsky will lead a seminar at the Museum of Arts & Design on September 25

ART AS A WAY OF TRANSFORMATION
Museum of Arts & Design
2 Columbus Circle at 58th St. & Broadway
Saturday, September 25, $60-$85, 3:00
212-299-7777
www.madmuseum.org
www.clubcultura.com

The Museum of Arts & Design is quickly becoming a major player in the world of independent, foreign, and avant-garde film in the city. In July, they presented “Zombo Italiano: The Italian Zombie Film Movement, 1972-1985,” which included screenings of works by George A. Romero, Lucio Fulci, Lamberto Bava, and Pier Paolo Pasolini. Later this month, they are featuring the hypnotic, surreal films of one of the twentieth century’s most bizarre characters in the series “Blood into Gold: The Cinematic Alchemy of Alejandro Jodorowsky.” While the museum will be screening such cult favorites as EL TOPO, THE HOLY MOUNTAIN, and SANTA SANGRE, the premier event will be a master class with the Chilean-born Mexican filmmaker, who is also a prolific playwright, poet, puppeteer, performance artist, psychoshaman, philosopher, comic-book writer (with Moebius), composer, mime, novelist, musician, tarot interpreter, and anarchist. The eighty-one-year-old Jodorowsky will be focusing on “the power of film and art, with attention given to art-making as a means for enlightenment.” Advance registration is a must, as space is extremely limited, so sign up quickly to be part of what should be an eye-opening experience.

CROSSING THE LINE 2010

Ryoji Ikeda’s “datamatics (ver. 2.0)” kicks off FIAF’s Crossing the Line festival on September 10-11

FIAF FALL FESTIVAL
French Institute Alliance Française and other locations
Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
Le Skyroom and FIAF Gallery, 22 East 60th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
September 10-27, free- $45
212-355-6160
www.fiaf.org/crossingtheline

The fourth annual Crossing the Line Festival, a multidisciplinary international celebration consisting of cutting-edge music, dance, film, theater, art, photography, lectures, and even a fair, will take place September 10-27 at FIAF as well as such other venues as the Joyce, the Invisible Dog Art Center, 3rd Ward, the Red Hook Community Farm, Dance Theater Workshop, Columbia University, the ISSUE Project Room, and Anthology Film Archives. Ryoji Ikeda kicks off the festival with “datamatics [ver. 2.0],” in which the Japanese artist and composer uses computer data, an electronic score, and strobes to present a visually dynamic performance; Ikeda’s multimedia installation “the transcendental” will be on view in the FIAF Gallery for free from September 11 through October 16. There will be a pair of exciting site-specific performance pieces, with locations to be announced, with Arthur Nauzyciel’s HETERO running September 11-14 and Daniel Pettrow’s THE SEA MUSEUM scheduled for September 18-19. Former Pina Bausch dramaturg Raimund Hoghe and Congolese dancer-choreographer Faustin Linyekula team up on September 16-18, Buddhist monk and teacher Matthieu Ricard sits down with Philip Glass on September 13 to engage in a “Conversation on Contemplation and Creativity,” and Willi Dorner will lead “Bodies in Urban Spaces,” a pair of free performance walks in Lower Manhattan scheduled for sunrise on September 27 and sunset on September 27. In addition, “Farm City: Where Are You Growing?” will explore urban agriculture around the city with a fair, film screenings, a farm tour, and an afternoon forum. The festival will also include performances and appearances by Jérôme Bel, Bertrand Bonello, Bouchra Ouizguen, Richard Garet, and Eliane Radigue. Tickets for the 2010 edition of Crossing the Line are on sale now; please note that some of the free events require advance RSVPs.

MEET THE AUTHOR

Sam Lipsyte will kick off the Center for Fiction’s fall season on September 10 with Jess Walter

The Center for Fiction
17 East 47th St.
September 10 – December 16, free – $10
212-755-6710
www.centerforfiction.org

The Center for Fiction, previously known as the Mercantile Library, has been celebrating the written word since 1820. The nonprofit organization, which tends to operate somewhat under the radar, regularly hosts wonderful events in its intimate reading room, most of them free, others ranging between $8 and $10 (or a book donation to the center’s Books for NYC Schools program), all requiring advance RSVP. The group’s fall Meet the Author series gets under way September 10 as Sam Lipsyte and Jess Walter contemplate the comic novel, followed on September 22 with “Conjugal Lit,” a panel discussion with Lore Segal, Gary Giddins, Brenda Wineapple, and Stephen Koch, moderated by James Marcus. Among the other featured events are “A Literary Friendship” with Matthew Sharpe and Linh Dinh on October 7, Francine Prose on October 13, Eileen Myles on October 28, S. J. Rozan on November 9, Jennifer Egan on November 10, Louis Begley on November 10, and Oscar Hijuelos and Carlos Eire on the Cuba-Miami Connection on December 16.

BAM NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL

Don’t get washed out of getting tickets to see Pina Bausch’s VOLLMOND at BAM (photo by Laurent Philippe)

Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, 30 Lafayette Ave.
BAM Harvey Theater, 651 Fulton St.
September 23 – December 19, $20-$85
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

Now in its twenty-eighth year, BAM’s Next Wave Festival is, as always, a terrific collection of productions scouted from around the world. Single tickets go on sale Monday, August 30, for Laurie Anderson’s phantasmagoric DELUSION and Pina Bausch’s VOLLMOND, an extremely strong one-two punch to get the season going, featuring a pair of longtime BAM favorites; we recently caught Anderson at (le) poisson rouge, and she’s still at the top of her game, while VOLLMOND is the final piece from the inventive, innovative, and endlessly entertaining Bausch, who passed away in June 2009, leaving behind a BAM legacy that included the thrilling BAMBOO BLUES, NEFÉS, and FUR DIE KINDER VON GESTERN, HEUTE, UND MORGEN, among other splendid shows. The rest of the series goes on sale September 7, with such highlights as Ralph Lemon’s HOW CAN YOU STAY IN THE HOUSE ALL DAY AND NOT GO ANYWHERE?, Stew’s BROOKLYN OMNIBUS, Julia Stiles in the Ridge Theater’s PERSEPHONE, Sasha Waltz’s GEZEITEN, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s version of Akira Kurosawa’s THRONE OF BLOOD, Thomas Ostermeier’s take on Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN, Gísli Örn Gardarsson and Nick Cave’s experimental exploration of Franz Kafka’s METAMORPHOSIS, and Mikel Rouse’s multimedia extravaganza GRAVITY RADIO. Subscription tickets are available right now; if you buy seats to four or more shows, you can save up to forty percent and receive such benefits as priority access to future seasons, flexible scheduling, and discounts for additional tickets.