this week in literature

NEW YEAR’S DAY MARATHON BENEFIT READING

poetry-project-marathon-benefit

Who: The Poetry Project
What: Forty-third Annual New Year’s Day Marathon Benefit Reading
Where: The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery, 131 East Tenth St., 212-674-0910
When: Sunday, January 1, $20 in advance, $25 at the door, 3:00 pm – 2:00 am
Why: More than 150 writers, musicians, actors, dancers, and other artists will take the podium in this annual Poetry Project benefit, this year celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Poetry Project, which “promotes, fosters, and inspires the reading and writing of contemporary poetry by (a) presenting contemporary poetry to diverse audiences, (b) increasing public recognition, awareness, and appreciation of poetry and other arts, (c) providing a community setting in which poets and artists can exchange ideas and information, and (d) encouraging the participation and development of new poets from a broad range of styles.” This year’s forty-third annual marathon boasts another stellar lineup, including Penny Arcade, Jennifer Bartlett, Anselm Berrigan, Edmund Berrigan, Justin Vivian Bond, Steve Cannon, Yoshiko Chuma, Andrei Codrescu, Grace Dunham, Steve Earle, John Giorno, Nick Hallett, Yvonne Meier, Jonas Mekas, Thurston Moore, Eileen Myles, Yvonne Rainer, Lee Ranaldo, Will Rawls, Bob Rosenthal, Sarah Schulman, Elliott Sharp, Tammy Faye Starlight, ynne Tillman, Edwin Torres, Rachel Trachtenburg, Martha Wilson, Anne Waldman and Fast Speaking Music, CAConrad, and Church of Betty, among many others.

ELEMENTS OF OZ

Unique app is key part of ELEMENTS OF OZ (photo by Gennadi Novash, courtesy of Peak Performances @Montclair State University)

3LD Art and Technology Center
80 Greenwich St. at Rector St.
Tuesday – Sunday through December 18, $25
866-811-4111
www.3ldnyc.org
www.thebuildersassociation.org

The Builders Association (Sontag:Reborn, Invisible Cities) takes audiences on a wild trip down the yellow brick road as it deconstructs and reconstructs The Wizard of Oz in its fun and innovative multimedia experimental production Elements of Oz. Conceived by Marianne Weems, Moe Angelos, and James Gibbs, directed by Weems, and cowritten by Gibbs and Angelos, Elements of Oz delves into the legend and legacy of the classic 1939 film, sharing little-known stories, reenacting key scenes, and examining its online presence, including theories about how the book and movie are metaphors for the U.S. monetary system and gold standard. Continuing at the 3LD Art and Technology Center through December 18, the show presents a small corp of actors who reenact and reshoot key scenes, creating a new version via multiple monitors that project what is happening onstage and freeze-frames taken from previous scenes. The piece is performed by Angelos, Sean Donovan, and Hannah Heller, who each portray several characters — all three play Dorothy Gale at various points. They not only switch roles, they also shift from commenting on the film to acting in its re-creation, and from past to present, telling tales of 1939 moviemaking and its ongoing reverberations in popular culture. Following a YouTube overture, Angelos delivers the first of many “talking points,” giving inside information to the audience. “It’s a masterpiece,” she says about the film, “but all we see is the magic. We don’t see all the brutal work and failure.” Elements of Oz reveals how much of that magic was made as stage manager April Sigler, associate lighting designer Elliott Jenetopulos, video designer Austin Switser, production manager Brendan Regimbal, and technical director Carl Whipple set up and break down Neal Wilkinson’s sets, filming short scenes that are then edited live to mimic the original, shot by shot, and played back on a large onstage screen as well as the monitors that fill the theater. Meanwhile, Moe relates stories about Margaret Hamilton and her double, Betty Denko, suffering major injuries; how “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” was almost left on the cutting-room floor; that some of the munchkins were repurposed as flying monkeys; and what really happened when the film went from black-and-white to color.

Hannah Heller and Sean Donovan play multiple characters in experimental exploration of the making of THE WIZARD OF OZ (photo by Gennadi Novash, courtesy of Peak Performances @Montclair State University)

Just as The Wizard of Oz made use of cutting-edge technology, so does Elements of Oz, which has a unique innovation of its own. During the show, which is based on both the film and the book by L. Frank Baum, there are moments that are best viewed through your smart phone or tablet via a free augmented reality app, designed by John Cleater, that enhances what you’re watching by adding visual and aural effects, from snow to giggling munchkins to other cool surprises. Angelos (the Five Lesbian Brothers), Donovan (Thank You for Coming: Play), and Heller (The World Is Round) are hysterical as they change from role to role, with Angelos as Dorothy and Glinda, the mustachioed Donovan as Dorothy, Uncle Henry, Mike Wallace, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, Salman Rushdie, and the Wizard, and Heller as Dorothy, Aunt Em, the Wicked Witch, the Scarecrow, Judy Garland, and Ayn Rand. (The costumes are by Andreea Mincic, with lighting by Jennifer Tipton, sound design and original music by Dan Dobson, and interactive design and programming by Jesse Garrison.) Originally presented by Peak Performances @ Montclair State University, the goofy and charming Elements of Oz is probably about twenty minutes too long, as things get a little repetitive, and as fun as the app is, you’ll find yourself at times looking at your phone, waiting for the next bit of AR to take place, instead of watching what is happening onstage. But like the original book and film, Elements of Oz is an enjoyable mind-expanding journey; and be sure to keep that app on as you exit 3LD and head down Greenwich St.

ICONS & INNOVATORS: NORMAN LEAR

Norman Lear, seen above in documentary NORMAN LEAR: ANOTHER VERSION OF YOU, will be at the Greene Space to discuss his life and career

Norman Lear, seen above in documentary NORMAN LEAR: ANOTHER VERSION OF YOU, will be at the Greene Space on December 17 to discuss his life and career

Who: Norman Lear, Susan Fales-Hill, Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady
What: Conversation with Norman Lear
When: Saturday, December 17, $25, 6:00
Where: The Greene Space at WNYC, 44 Charlton St. at Varick St.
Why: “In my ninety-plus years I’ve lived a multitude of lives,” Norman Lear writes in his new memoir, Even This I Get to Experience. “I had a front-row seat at the birth of television; wrote, produced, created, or developed more than a hundred shows; had nine on the air at the same time; finished one season with three of the top four and another with five of the top nine; hosted Saturday Night Live; wrote, directed, produced, executive-produced, or financed more than a dozen major films; before normalization, led an entourage of Hollywood writers and producers on a three-week tour of China; founded several cause-oriented national organizations, including the 300,000-member liberal advocacy group People for the American Way; was told by the New York Times that I changed the face of television; was labeled the ‘No. 1 enemy of the American family’ by Jerry Falwell; was warned by Pat Robertson that my arms were ‘too short to box with God’; made it onto Richard Nixon’s ‘Enemies List’; was presented with the National Medal of the Arts by President Clinton; purchased an original copy of the Declaration of Independence and toured it for ten years in all fifty states; was ranked by Entertainment Weekly fortieth among the ‘100 Greatest Entertainers of the Century’ (twenty-nine places ahead of the Sex Pistols); ran the Olympic torch in the 2002 Winter Olympics; blew a fortune in a series of bad investments in failing businesses; and reached a point where I was informed we might even have to sell our home.” That’s quite a legacy for the ninety-four-year-old New Haven native, built around such innovative television programs as All in the Family, Good Times, The Jeffersons, Sanford and Son, Maude, Fernwood 2Night, One Day at a Time, and Marry Hartman, Mary Hartman but one that goes much further than that. On December 17, Lear will sit down with author and television writer Susan Fales-Hill (Always Wear Joy, A Different World) for the next installment of her “Icons & Innovators” series at the Greene Space for a conversation exploring Lear’s extensive life and career. They will be joined by filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (Jesus Camp, 12th & Delaware), directors of the recently released documentary Norman Lear: Another Version of You, which opened the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. It should be a fascinating, wide-ranging talk, especially given the political situation in the country today.

AUTHOR EVENT — KATHRYN CALLEY GALITZ, “THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: MASTERPIECE PAINTINGS”

met-masterpieces

Barnes & Noble
150 East 86th St. at Lexington Ave.
Tuesday, December 13, free, 7:00
212-369-2180
www.rizzoliusa.com
stores.barnesandnoble.com

On December 13, the Met moves slightly northeast as museum curator and educator Kathryn Calley Galitz discusses her new book, The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Masterpiece Paintings (Skira Rizzoli, September 2016, $75), at the Barnes & Noble on Eighty-Sixth St. and Lexington Ave. The deluxe book examines five hundred classic works, divided into four chronological sections, “Before 1450,” “1450-1750,” “1750-1900,” and “After 1900,” from the ca. 3800-3700 BCE Central Iran “Storage Jar with Mountain Goats” to Kerry James Marshall’s 2014 “Untitled (Studio).” In addition to full-color photos of each piece, the book includes a bibliography and artist-based index. “Every painting has a story to tell. It should come as no surprise, then, that The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Masterpiece Paintings reveals so many intriguing stories,” Met director Thomas P. Campbell writes in the foreword, opposite Georges Braque’s “Still Life with Metronome (Still Life with Mandola and Metronome).” In her essay “Painting through the Ages,” Galitz explains, “As for the qualifier ‘masterpiece,’ it is indeed a loaded term whose inherent subjectivity goes without saying. We each have our own idea of what constitutes greatness, just as, over time, the canon of acknowledged masterpieces has been subject to the vagaries of taste — both scholarly and popular. . . . That a painting completed in 2015 is included in the same volume as works that have enjoyed masterpiece status for centuries may come as a surprise, but its presence forces us to question the imposition of an arbitrary time frame on the notion of a masterpiece.” Many of the reproductions are full pages, allowing readers to delve into the details of some of what makes these works so special. (Getting the prestigious front cover, by the way, is Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres’s “Joséphine-Éléonore-Marie-Pauline de Galard de Brassac de Béarn, Princesse de Broglie,” while Ogata Kōrin’s “Irises at Yatsuhashi [Eight Bridges]” occupies the back.) I started to list some of my personal favorites here, but that would have just gone on . . . and on . . . and on. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Masterpiece Paintings is a beautifully designed book that will make you gasp again and again, much like a trip through the Met’s spectacular galleries does.

SELECTED SHORTS: PAUL GIAMATTI CURATES STORIES FROM THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

Paul Giamatti is hosting and curating an evening of fiction from the New York Review of Books at Symphony Space

Who: Paul Giamatti, Jane Kaczmarek, Billy Porter, Kathryn Erbe
What: Paul Giamatti Curates Stories from the New York Review of Books
Where: Symphony Space, Peter Jay Sharp Theatre, 2537 Broadway at 95th St., 212-864-5400
When: Wednesday, December 7, $30 ($80 premium), 7:30
Why: For more than fifty years, the New York Review of Books has been exploring American culture, society, and politics, publishing articles by prominent writers from around the world. On December 7, Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning Brooklynite Paul Giamatti will be at Symphony Space for the latest edition of “Selected Shorts,” in which actors and other artists read specially chosen short stories. Giamatti will be curating the evening, choosing fiction from the collection of the prestigious New York Review of Books, a roster that includes W. H. Auden, Anton Chekhov, Saki, Daphne du Maurier, Elizabeth Hardwick, and so many others. “I go to the New York Review of Books for everything weird, wild, classic, and obscure,” the star of Sideways, John Adams, and American Splendor explains. “They’ve got one of the greatest collections of authors, past and present, on the planet.” Taking the stage to perform the works will be seven-time Emmy nominee Jane Kaczmarek (Malcolm in the Middle, Apollo 11), Tony winner Billy Porter (Kinky Boots, Shuffle Along), and Tony nominee Kathryn Erbe (Law & Order: Criminal Intent, The Speed of Darkness). The program is being held in cooperation with the NYRB Classics, a series “dedicated to publishing an eclectic mix of fiction and nonfiction from different eras and times and of various sorts.”

ALEXANDER HAMILTON: STRIVER, STATESMAN, SCOUNDREL

After Alonzo Chappel, “Hamilton at Yorktown in 1781,” steel engraving (New York: Johnson, Fry, and Co., 1858. NYPL, Picture Collection)

New York Public Library
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III Gallery
476 Fifth Ave. at 41st St.
Daily through December 31, free
917-275-6975
www.nypl.org

So what would Alexander Hamilton himself have thought about the controversy surrounding the cast of Hamilton confronting incoming vice president Mike Pence during the curtain call at a recent performance of the hit musical at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway? It’s hard to know, as the current New York Public Library exhibit “Alexander Hamilton: Striver, Statesman, Scoundrel” reveals. Consisting of a densely packed amount of materials gathered from the library’s holdings, the exhibition focuses on the unpredictability of the Founding Father and his ever-evolving views as the new nation set its course. “Hamilton was at best a complicated hero and, at worst, an admirable scourge,” the wall text explains, pointing out several of Hamilton’s seemingly inconsistent beliefs involving states’ rights, finance, slavery, support of France, and the Constitution itself. “Alexander Hamilton: Striver, Statesman, Scoundrel” features letters, books, illustrations, and official documents from throughout Hamilton’s life and career, following him from Nevis-born orphaned immigrant to secretary of the Treasury to his death in a duel against political rival Aaron Burr. Among the books and papers on view are Hamilton’s “Plan of a Constitution for America,” his original draft of President George Washington’s Farewell Address alongside the final version, various pamphlets he published, newspaper articles he cowrote under pseudonyms, and a copy of The Federalist: A Collection of Essays, Written in Favour of the New Constitution, by Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. There are also engravings of Hamilton Grange, a look at his relationship with his wife, Eliza Schuyler, and her powerful family, and a wall mural of Hamilton and Burr dueling. There’s a lot to read and the room is very dark, so bring reading glasses if you have them. “How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a / Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten / Spot in the Caribbean by providence, impoverished, in squalor / Grow up to be a hero and a scholar?” Burr asks at the beginning of the Broadway musical. “Alexander Hamilton: Striver, Statesman, Scoundrel” provides a fascinating, if brief, investigation into that very question.

MACY’S THANKSGIVING DAY PARADE: A NEW YORK CITY HOLIDAY TRADITION

thanksgiving-day-parade-tradition

77th St. & Central Park West to 34th St. & Seventh Ave.
Thursday, November 24, free, 9:00 am – 12 noon
212-494-4495
www.rizzolibookstore.com
social.macys.com

In 1924, a bunch of Macy’s employees joined forces and held the first Macy’s Christmas Parade, as it was then known. This year Macy’s celebrates the ninetieth edition of this beloved American event — for those of you going crazy trying to figure out how 1924 to 2016 makes 90, the parade was canceled from 1942 through 1944 because of World War II — with the publication of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade: A New York City Holiday Tradition (Rizzoli, August 2016, $29.95). “This iconic and truly American event started on the streets of New York City in 1924 as a way for New York’s largely immigrant workforce employed at Macy’s department store to celebrate our national day of Thanksgiving in a manner befitting the customs of their native lands,” Governor Andrew Cuomo writes in the foreword. “Today, no other holiday event can match its large-scale pageantry, diversity, and place in pop culture. It could only have been created in New York.” The oversized hardcover features nearly two hundred photographs by Matt Harnick and the Macy’s Archives that reveal the before, during, and after of the parade through the decades, in color and black-and-white, from shots of the balloon creation in New Jersey to pictures of beloved characters marching down Fifth Ave. “Actual preparation for each year’s parade takes approximately eighteen months, with the construction of an individual float requiring anywhere from four to six months,” Stephen H. Silverman notes in his behind-the-scenes essay that introduces readers to many of the people responsible for making things happen, from sketching and designing balloons to arranging the celebrity list to dismantling floats once the parade is over.

“Most often the parade adequately reflects what is going on in American mass culture, news, and entertainment at the time,” parade executive producer Amy Kule tells Silverman. “We try to be nimble. What we can’t be is too cool or fashion-forward.” The 2016 lineup, which cannot be accused of being too cool or fashion-forward, features such giant balloons as Hello Kitty, Pillsbury Doughboy, and Charlie Brown, such floats as 1-2-3 Sesame Street, Mount Rushmore’s American Pride, and Cracker Jack’s At the Ball Game, and such performers as De la Soul, Fitz and the Tantrums, Regina Spektor, Tony Bennett, and Sara McLachlan. To get a start on the parade, head on over to Central Park West and Columbus Ave. between 77th & 81st Sts. the day before, November 23, from approximately 3:00 to 10:00 to check out the Big Balloon Blow-up.