this week in literature

FIRST SATURDAYS: TRANSFORMATION

Cordero will get Saturday night party started at Brooklyn Museum on January 2 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Brooklyn Museum of Art
200 Eastern Parkway
Saturday, January 2, free after 5:00 (some events require advance free tickets available an hour or two before showtime)
718-638-5000
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum’s monthly First Saturdays program rings in the new year with its monthly array of free activities, beginning at 5:00 with Cordero, a rousing live band formed by Ani Cordero in Tucson in 1999 with members of Calexico and Giant Sand and based in New York City since 2000; Cordero plays smooth, surprisingly subtle Latin pop that is always on the verge of busting loose. At 6:00, Daphne Brooks will talk about funk rock and James Brown. At 6:30, the Midnight Checkout Queens will play live along with a screening of HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH (John Cameron Mitchell, 2001). At 7:00, Venus Ensembles will headline the annual Winter Masquerade Ball, so be sure to come in costume. At 9:00, John Sellers will talk about his book PERFECT FROM NOW ON: HOW INDIE ROCK SAVED MY LIFE. Also at 9:00, Expressway Music hosts a karaoke contest for free FELA! tickets, and Jonathan Toubin spins tunes during the always hot dance party. And as always, the evening includes a gallery talk, a hands-on art workshop, and admission to all of the current exhibitions: “Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 to the Present,” “James Tissot: ‘The Life of Christ,’” “Body Parts: Ancient Egyptian Fragments and Amulets,” “Reflections on the Electric Mirror: New Feminist Video,” “Patricia Cronin: ‘Harriet Hosmer, Lost and Found,’” and “From the Village to the Vogue: The Modernist Jewelry of Art Smith.”

NEW YEAR’S DAY MARATHON BENEFIT READING

Patti Smith will be among the many, many participants at the annual Poetry Project New Year's Day marathon (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Poetry Project
St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery
131 East Tenth St. at Second Ave.
Friday, January 1, $15-$18, 2:00
212-674-0910
www.poetryproject.org

The Poetry Project will be welcoming in the new year for the thirty-sixth year with a marathon poetry reading with some two hundred artistic figures from various walks of life sharing their pearls of wisdom. Among the many, many participants will be Penny Arcade, Steve Cannon, Mónica de la Torre, Steve Earle, Maggie Estep, John Giorno, Philip Glass, John S. Hall, Lenny Kaye, Judith Malina, Legs McNeil, Taylor Mead, Jonas Mekas, Dael Orlandersmith, Citizen Reno, Elliott Sharp, Patti Smith, and Edwin Torres for this all-day event.

NEW YEAR POETRY

brokenlight

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

The Bowery Poetry Club is hosting its sixteenth annual New Year’s Day poetry reading, featuring more than 150 performers, as an alternative to other literary events being held at such nearby venues as the Poetry Project and the Cornelia Street Cafe. Participating readers include Hobo Bob, Steve Cannon, Steve Dalachinsky, Bingo Gazingo, Bob Holman, Eve Packer, Angelo Verga, Bruce Weber, and Zork, some of whom will be at the other readings as well. 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 provides food and other services for the homeless. Of course, these three poetry events don’t really have to be an either/or proposition, as poetry lovers could easily schedule in visits to each one.

CHARLES BUKOWSKI TRIBUTE READING

charlesbukowski

SON OF A PONY READING SERIES
Cornelia Street Cafe
29 Cornelia St. between West Fourth & Bleecker Sts.
Friday, January 1, $7, 6:00 – 8:00
212-989-9319
www.corneliastreetcafe.com

If the massive marathon event at the Poetry Project is a little too much for you to take all at once, the Cornelia Street Cafe is holding its second annual New Year’s Day tribute to the rather iconoclastic, eclectic, and iconic Charles Bukowski. Hosted by Kat Georges, the evening includes poetry readings and performances by Peter Carlaftes, Bob Quattrone, 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 poem by Bukowski or your own poem inspired by the writer, you can sign up to participate as well.

WILLIAM BLAKE / JANE AUSTEN / CHARLES DICKENS / GIACOMO PUCCINI

William Blake, “Mysterious Dream,” watercolor over traces of black chalk

Morgan Library & Museum
225 Madison Ave. at 36th St.
Closed Monday
Admission: $12 adults, $8 children under sixteen (free Fridays 7:00 – 9:00)
212-685-0008
www.themorgan.org

While they’re not exactly the Rat Pack and didn’t exactly hang out together – although there is some overlap of when they existed here on earth – William Blake (1757-1827), Jane Austen (1775-1817), Charles Dickens (1812-70), and Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) make for quite a foursome at the Morgan Library this holiday season. A master engraver, painter, Romantic poet, and religious nut, Blake was a visionary artist who claimed that some of his work came from, well, otherworldly visions. “William Blake’s World: ‘A New Heaven Is Begun’” (through January 3) includes such awe-inspiring pieces as “Satan,” “Chaucer’s Canterbury Pilgrims,” the gorgeous watercolor series he did illustrating the Book of Job (even throwing in Jesus for good measure), the wacky “First Book of Urizen,” a letter from Blake to one of his patrons, a pair of plates of his most famous poem, “The Tyger,” and his anti-New World screed, “America: A Prophecy.” Blake, who died poor and was buried in an unmarked grave, had remarkable skill and a mind that just did not quite fit in his time.

The Morgan takes a revealing look at one of England’s greatest novelists in “A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacy” (through March 14), comprising original manuscripts, letters, and illustrated editions as well as Blake’s portrait of Harriet Quentin, which Austen saw in London. Austen, who published anonymously because of her gender, penned such classic books as PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, MANSFIELD PARK, EMMA, and SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, all dealt with in this exhibition. Her writings are placed in context alongside satiric cartoons by James Gillray and diary entries and a documentary film in which other authors discuss Austen’s lasting influence. The letter from her sister Cassandra announcing Jane’s death is simply heartbreaking.

John Leech, detail, “Mr. Fezziwig’s Ball,” original watercolor illustration for Charles Dickens’s CHRISTMAS CAROL, first edition, 1843

Running through January 10 in the McKim Building, “Charles Dickens’s A CHRISTMAS CAROL” features Dickens’s original marked-up manuscript of the holiday tale, written in six weeks in 1843 and bound in red leather shortly after its publication. The book is in the McKim Building, which will be open to the public for free on Tuesdays from 3:00 to 5:00, Fridays (except Christmas and New Year’s Day) from 7:00 to 9:00 (when the entire museum is free), and Sundays from 4:00 to 6:00. Finally, the Morgan is displaying more than three dozen items that look into the life and legacy of Italian composer Giacomo Puccini in “Celebrating Puccini” (through January 10), including letters, posters, and original manuscripts for LA BOHÈME and MADAMA BUTTERFLY.

LAST CHANCE: CHELSEA ART STROLL

Dan Flavin show warms the heart in cold Chelsea (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

You don’t have to seek out a fireplace, Christmas tree, and cup of cider to escape the chills of the holiday season; instead, you can bask in the warm glow of “Dan Flavin: Series and Progressions,” at David Zwirner in Chelsea through December 19, multiple connected spaces in which Flavin’s minimalist light sculptures bounce soft reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, and more off one another. But as welcoming as most of the show is, one of Flavin’s barriers, “untitled (to Helga and Carlo, with respect and affection),” cuts the last room in half, a stark difference from the other pieces, as well as “alternating pink and gold,” which runs around the walls of the cavernous gallery next door. Several other shows worth seeing are also closing on December 19. In Luke Smalley’s “Sunday Drive – A Memorial Exhibition” at ClampArt, the photographer, who passed away in May at the age of fifty-three, has created a narrative series in which three hot young women visit their hot young boyfriends in prison, but Smalley, as was his wont, focuses on the macho males, who seem to have walked right out of a Bruce Weber shoot.

Form meets function in Judd furniture show (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

If you’re still seeking warmth, stop in to see “Bill Viola: Bodies of Light” at James Cohan and allow yourself to be hypnotized by the thirty-minute high-def video “Old Oak (Study),” as the sun rises and sets behind a stunning tree. The show also features eight other short video projects, including several that involve water in a fascinating way. And if you do decide to head to Chelsea to see these last-chance displays, be sure to stop by Julie Saul from 4:00 to 6:00, when New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast will be signing copies of THEORIES OF EVERYTHING in conjunction with the exhibition “Sad Sacks, Worry Warts, Hellions & Bad Eggs: A New Print Series,” which continues through January 9. In addition to the fun prints are several of Chast’s charmingly decorated pysanka Easter eggs. Also on view at Julie Saul is “Heads: A Group Exhibition,” featuring works by Rineke Dijkstra, Soo Kim, Gary Schneider, Tanya Marcuse, and others. Finally, if you find yourself getting tired from all the running around, do not – we repeat, do not – take a seat in any of the chairs at Sebastian + Barquet, where a little-known side of Donald Judd is being revealed through December 23. It turns out that he loved making functional furniture, and several examples of his work are on display, looking very Judd-like.

UNINHABITABLE MANSIONS

Brooklyn indie supergroup is supporting strong debut album

Tuesday, December 15, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey St., $12-$15, 7:30
Sunday, December 20, Cameo, 93 North Sixth St.
www.myspace.com/uninhabitablemansions

Uninhabitable Mansions is an art collective and Brooklyn mini-supergroup that features Annie Hart from Au Revoir Simone, Danny Comer and Chris Diken from Radical Dads, Doug Marvin from Dirty on Purpose, and Robbie Guertin and Tyler Sargent from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Their debut album is a steady stream of inventive indie pop that enjoys stopping and starting, dropping in and out and back again, with most songs developing slowly and quietly at the outset. Indeed, UM is in no hurry, which is a good thing, because the characters in their songs are often lost souls, waiting for something or someone, not knowing where they’re going. “There’s nothing here to see for miles,” they sing in “Big Kick,” which charges out of the gate with a searing guitar line that lasts for nearly a minute before the lyrics begin. (The six-strings go deliriously screechy at the end.) In the acoustic-based “Do You Have a Strategy?,” which features an infectiously quirky hook, they explain, “You say someday our bones will turn to dust / Darling, it’s true, but what’s the rush / A little rust wouldn’t hurt you / Let’s stop right here / The days will wait for us.” In the trifecta of “Do You Have a Strategy?” “Midnight Topography,” and “Maps: Not Accurate,” references are made to missing landmarks, shifting skylines, standing in thin air, and maps, over and over. They sing of escape, looking for a way out, drifting, floating, heading in the wrong direction, searching for a “place that nobody knows.” “Staring at the ceiling and you start to get the feeling that / There’s nowhere to go,” they sing in the poppy “We Already Know.” The band’s subtle, ethereal sound befits the line “We’re sick of solid ground” from the album’s opener, “The Speed Is Deceiving,” and indeed, much of the record itself is deceiving, in compelling ways. In addition to being musicians, UM also makes unique literary and art projects; for example, on their Web site, you can purchase Diken’s short story “The Killer at the Beach” paired with a trench coat designed by Sara Jones as well as T-shirts, handmade books by Guertin, and even a yardstick. On December 15, they’re playing with the Antlers and Sharon Van Etten at a sold-out Bowery Ballroom show, but there are still tickets available for their December 20 gig at the Cameo Gallery inside the Lovin’ Cup Cafe with Revival Times and Pocketknife.