this week in literature

NEXT WAVE THEATER: NOSFERATU

Grzegorz Jarzyna adds to the vampire legend in multimedia NOSFERATU running this week at BAM (photo by Stefan Okolowicz)

Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM Harvey Theater
651 Fulton St. between Ashland & Rockwell Pl.
October 30 – November 2, $20-$65
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

Halloween is quickly upon us, so arts organizations across the city are turning to horror to try to scare the hell out of us this week. Over at BAM, you can catch the frightening “Puppets on Film” series, which includes Godzilla, Aliens, and the terrifying The Great Muppet Caper; Alfred Hitchcock’s Family Plot and The Lodger, the latter with live music by Morricone Youth; and the twelfth annual BAMboo!, a free, child-friendly block party with music, candy, games, workshops, and more. But the strangest of them all is likely to be TR Warszawa and Teatr Narodowy’s multimedia production of Nosferatu, inspired by Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula — which was also the inspiration for F. W. Murnau’s 1922 horror classic, Nosferatu, a film that had to change its title, character names, and plot details because the Stoker family would not authorize the rights. Written and directed by Grzegorz Jarzyna, who brought Thomas Vinterberg’s Dogme 95 film The Celebration to mesmerizing life as Festen at St. Ann’s Warehouse last year, Nosferatu has an original score by John Zorn, with sets and costumes by Magdalena Maciejewska, lighting by Jacqueline Sobiszewski, and video design by Bartek Macias. The cast consists of Sandra Korzeniak, Katarzyna Warnke, Wolfgang Michael, Jan Englert, Jan Frycz, Krzysztof Franieczek, Marcin Hycnar, Lech Łotocki, and Adam Woronowicz. The show runs October 30 through November 2 at the BAM Harvey; on November 1 at 6:00 in the Hillman Attic Studio ($15), New Yorker journalist Joan Acocella will give the related talk “On Vampires.” In addition, Film Forum is showing Werner Herzog’s remake Nosferatu the Vampyre through November 7, with a bonus screening of Murnau’s original on November 4 at 7:30.

LORRIE MOORE: WATCHING TELEVISION

Lorrie Moore will discuss the changing nature of narrative on television in annual Robert B. Silvers lecture at the NYPL

New York Public Library
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, Celeste Bartos Forum
Friday, October 25, $15-$25, 7:00
www.nypl.org
www.nybooks.com

Once upon a time, not really all that long ago, people had to get off their couches in order to change the channel on their television sets, and even then, their choices were limited; here in New York, it was only channels 2 (CBS), 4 (NBC), 5 (WNEW), 7 (ABC), 9 (WOR), 11 (WPIX), 13 (WNET), and 21 (WLIW). Television has gone through some maturation over the years, not only technologically but also in quality, as the once-standard phrase “the boob tube” has seemingly gone into disuse. Bestselling, award-winning author Lorrie Moore, who has written such novels as Anagrams and A Gate at the Stairs, such collections as Like Life and Birds of America, and the children’s book The Forgotten Helper, will discuss how storytelling and narrative has changed on the small screen when she delivers the annual Robert B. Silvers Lecture, titled “Watching Television,” on October 25 at the New York Public Library’s main branch. The lecture series is held in honor of Robert B. Silvers, who has been editor of the New York Review of Books since 1963, a year in which the most popular television shows included The Beverly Hillbillies, Bonanza, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Andy Griffith Show, and Candid Camera. Moore, a native New Yorker, is a frequent contributor to the prestigious publication, having recently reviewed the Showtime series Homeland in the February 21 issue. Among the previous Robert B. Silvers lecturers are Joan Didion, J. M. Coetzee, Zadie Smith, Oliver Sacks, and Derek Walcott.

VICTORIA COHEN: HOTEL CHELSEA

Third Streaming
10 Greene St., second floor
Monday – Friday through October 25, free
646-370-3877
www.thirdstreaming.com
www.victoriacohen.com

In the summer of 2011, when New York native Victoria Cohen heard that the Hotel Chelsea was being sold and would be undergoing extensive renovations, she “felt many emotions,” she writes in her debut photo book, the beautiful, deluxe, oversize Hotel Chelsea (Pointed Leaf Press, August 2013, $95). “First and foremost, as an artist, I was angry and sad that an institution such as the Chelsea would have this fate. . . . It just didn’t seem possible — at least to me — that a place with such an extraordinary history, and where so many of the greatest literary minds, visual artists, musicians, and eccentrics of the twentieth century have called home for over a hundred years, could be torn apart.” So Cohen set out to capture the heart and soul of the hotel that had helped give birth to seminal works by Jack Kerouac, Arthur C. Clarke, Leonard Cohen, William S. Burroughs, Larry Rivers, Patti Smith, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, and so many others. For three weeks, Cohen shot what she calls “portraits” of the hotel’s guest rooms, rooftop, and hallways, although no humans are ever seen.

Victoria Cohen, “Room 1024, Chair,” C-print, 2011 (© 2011 by Victoria Cohen)

Instead, it is as if ghosts and spirits inhabit Cohen’s pictures, taken with a handheld camera using only natural light. More than two dozen are on view at Third Streaming in SoHo through October 25, wonderfully arranged by curator Michael Steinberg and Cohen. A mop and bucket, seemingly timeless, stand by themselves in a corner. An old piano looks like it might not have been played in years. Brick walls in disrepair on the roof hint at some bad times gone by. But the real mysteries of the Hotel Chelsea, which was recently sold to luxury hotel developer King & Grove, can be found in Cohen’s marvelously composed shots of the guest rooms, each one unique and different, from the dark couch in “Room 632” to the two bright-red chairs in “Eighth Floor South,” from the card table in “Fifth Floor South” to the mini-fridge and coffee paraphernalia against green wallpaper in “Room 203.” One series of photos zeroes in on made beds, while another focuses on rooms with two windows, adding a compelling geometric element to the works. One of the most striking images is “Room 1024,” the camera placed just in front of the entrance to a sparkling living room with chairs that seem to be inviting the viewer to take a seat. In each of these photos, Cohen also invites the viewer to create their own narrative about the past, present, and future, and it’s almost impossible not to.

SELECTED SHORTS: THE STORIES OF JOHN UPDIKE

Symphony Space, Peter Jay Sharp Theatre
2537 Broadway at 95th St.
Wednesday, October 16, $28, 7:30
212-864-5400
www.symphonyspace.org

Winner of multiple Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Critics Circle Awards, National Book Awards, O. Henry Prizes, and others, literary master John Updike was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, so it is appropriate that a group of actors and writers will be paying tribute to him by reading from his work at the latest edition of Symphony Space’s Selected Shorts series. (We know that the town in Pennsylvania is pronounced differently from the verb, but we couldn’t help ourselves.) The event will feature Tony Kushner, Sally Field, Alec Baldwin, Jane Kaczmarek, and others introducing and/or reading from the new eight-hundred-page Updike: Collected Early Stories (Library of America, September 2013, $24.49), comprising 102 stories published between 1953 and 1975, 80 of which first appeared in The New Yorker. Selected Shorts continues November 6 with Colum McCann, Gabriel Byrne, Terry Tempest, Tea Obreht, Rebecca Naomi Jones, and others presenting stories from the new collection The Book of Men.

THE L.E.S. WAS THEIRS: RAYYA ELIAS AND BRENDAN JAY SULLIVAN REMEMBER THE ’80s AND THE AUGHTS

Bedford + Bowery Newsroom
155 Grand St. off Bedford Ave., Brooklyn
Friday, October 11, free, 7:00
www.facebook.com/events

Two very different Lower East Side decades come to Brooklyn on October 11 for the special literary event “The L.E.S. Was Theirs: Rayya Elias and Brendan Jay Sullivan Remember the ’80s and the Aughts.” In Harley Loco: A Memoir of Hard Living, Hair, and Post-Punk, from the Middle East to the Lower East Side (Viking, April 2013, $27.95), writer, musician, and hair stylist Rayya Elias bravely shares her dramatic story of sex, drugs, and rock and roll in the 1980s, a time she readily admits she was extremely fortunate to have survived. In Rivington Was Ours: Lady Gaga, the Lower East Side, and the Prime of Our Lives (It Books, August 2013, $16.99), writer, producer, and deejay Brendan Jay Sullivan details the year he spent with go-go dancer Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, soon to become much better known as Lady Gaga. Elias and Sullivan will read from their books and discuss the changing downtown scene on Friday night at the Bedford + Bowery Newsroom on Grand St. in Brooklyn.

NEW YORK COMIC CON

Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny will talk X-FILES and take pictures with fans at New York Comic Con

Jacob K. Javits Convention Center
655 West 34th St. (11th Ave. between 34th & 39th Sts.)
October 10-13, $30-$50 per day, four-day pass $85
www.newyorkcomiccon.com

New York Comic Con continues its exponential growth this year by focusing on the small screen more than ever. The eighth edition, taking place October 10-13 at the Javits Center, includes presentations on a wide range of television programs, including Game of Thrones, Haven, Falling Skies, The Following, The Walking Dead, Robot Chicken, Archer, Bob’s Burgers, Doctor Who, Teen Wolf, Futurescape with James Woods, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Person of Interest, Sleepy Hollow, The League, and others, with the shows’ stars, writers, and producers on hand for screenings, discussions, and Q&As, all free with the price of admission. There are lots of autograph sessions and photo ops as well, but some of them will cost you a pretty penny; it’s $220 to get your picture taken with Patrick Stewart and William Shatner together, or with Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny, who will be talking up The X-Files on Sunday afternoon. Below are our recommendations for this year’s convention; please note that many of the guests will be signing autographs on multiple days.

Thursday, October 10
Autographing Highlights: Zoë Bell, Marissa Jade, Miss Zukie, Kathy Najimi, Joe Quinones, Greg Pack, Greg Rucka, Jamie Tyndall

Women in Comics, with Claudia McGivney, Megan Kociolek, Amy Chu, Becky Cloonan, Emily Weisenstein, Erica Schultz, and Laura Pope-Robbins, 1A15, 3:15

Welcome to the Brass Screen: Steampunk TV and Film, with Bruce Boxleitner, Matt James Daley, Thom Truelove, Trevor Crafts, and Leanna Renee Hieber, moderated by Diana Pho, 1A17, 3:45

Bill Plympton’s Cheatin’ & Kickstarter, with Adam Rackoff, James Hancock, and Bill Plympton, 1A08, 4:15

Carmine Infantino: A VisualLecture Retrospective, with Arlen Schumer, 1A08, 6:45

NYCC Thursday Night Kickoff with Comedy Mutant, featuring Brian Posehn, Janeane Garofalo, Mike Drucker, and Myq Kaplan, Main stage 1-D, 8:00

Friday, October 11
Autographing Highlights: Kristin Bauer, Andrea Cremer, Mick Foley, Joel Grey, Dean Haspiel, Darlene Love, Greg Pak, Raphael Sbarge, Stuart Moore, Veronica Taylor

Hatsune Miku Live Party 2013 in Kansai Special Film Concert at NYCC, 1A23, 11:15 am

He’s Back! Celebrate Chucky’s 25th Anniversary with the Creators & Cast, with Brad Dourif, Danielle Bisutti, Don Mancini, Fiona Dourif, Harry Knowles, and Jennifer Tilly, Main Stage 1-D, 12:15

Game of Thrones with Jerome Flynn, 1A23, 12:30

B. J. Novak’s One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories, with B. J. Novak and Lev Grossman, 1A22, 1:30

Will.i.am’s Wizards and Robots, with will.i.am, 1A23, 1:45

The Walking Dead 10th Anniversary Panel,” with Charlie Adlard and Robert Kirkman, Empire Stage 1-E, 2:45

[Adult Swim] Presents Robot Chicken, with Breckin Meyer, Clare Grant, Keith Crofford, Matthew Senreich, and Seth Green, Main Stage 1-D, 5:00

Oldboy, with Mark Protosevich, Michael Imperioli, and Pom Klementieff, Main Stage 1-D, 6:00

Spotlight on the Fifth Beatle: The Story of Brian Epstein, with Bruce Cohen, Dave Marsh, David Kahne, Vivek J. Tiwary, and Andrew C. Robinson, 1A01, 6:30

The Cyanide and Happiness Show! with Dave McElfatrick, Kris Wilson, and Shawn Coss, 1A10, 8:00

William Shatner and Patrick Stewart will be together again at New York Comic Con

Saturday, October 12
Autographing Highlights: Gillian Anderson, Julie Benz, Bruce Boxleitner, David Duchovny, Boomer Esiason, Hulk Hogan, Jerry “the King” Lawler, Stan Lee, Andrew McCarthy, William Shatner, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Billy West

Archer Discussion and Q&A, with Adam Reed, Aisha Tyler, Amber Nash, Chris Parnell, H. Jon Benjamin, Jessica Walter, Judy Greer, and Lucky Yates, Main Stage 1-D, 11:00 am

Fifty Years of Doctor Who, with Barnaby Edwards, Deborah Stanish, Graeme Burk, JK Woodward, Ken Deep, Robert Smith (TBC), and Andre Tessier, 1A23, 11:15

Spotlight on J. Michael Straczynski, with J. Michael Straczynski, 1A14, 12:15

IFC’s Back to Back Comedy Event: Comedy Bang! Bang! and The Birthday Boys, with members of the Birthday Boys, Reggie Watts, and Scott Aukerman, 1A06, 2:30

Beauty and the Beast Screening and Fan Q&A, with Jay Ryan, Kristin Kreuk, and Matt Mitovich, Main Stage 1-D, 3:45

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., with Jeph Loeb, Main Stage 1-D, 5:00

Showrunners, with Des Doyle, Greg Plageman, Ronald D. Moore, Ryan Patrick McGuffey, and Terence Winter, moderated by Tara DiLullo Bennett, 1A23, 5:30

AMC’s The Walking Dead, with Andrew Lincoln, Chad Coleman, Danai Gurira, Lauren Cohan, Melissa McBride, Norman Reedus, and Steven Yeun, moderated by Debra Birnbaum, Main Stage 1-D, 6:30

Wikia (Live) Cosplay Contest, 1A06, 8:30

Sunday, October 13
Autographing Highlights: John Barrowman, Anthony Daniels, Chip Kidd, Gareth David-Lloyd, Simon Fraser, Andrew McCarthy, William Shatner, Gary Sohmers, Patrick Stewart

Sunday Conversation with Dan DiDio, 1A06, 10:45 am

Defiance: A New Earth — with New Rules, with Grant Bowler, Jaime Murray, Julie Benz, Michael Nankin, and Stephanie Leonidas, Main Stage 1-D, 11:00

Person of Interest Special Video Presentation and Q&A, with Amy Acker, Greg Plageman, Kevin Chapman, Sarah Shahi, and Taraji P. Henson, Empire Stage 1-E, 12:15

The Following Special Video Presentation and Q&A, with Connie Nielsen, James Purefoy, Kevin Bacon, Kevin Williamson, Marcos Siega, Shawn Ashmore, and Valorie Curry, Empire Stage 1-E, 1:30

Chozen Screening and Q&A, with Bobby Moynihan, Grant Dekernion, Hannibal Buress, Method Man, and Tom Brady, Main Stage 1-D, 1:30

The Making of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, with J. W. Rinzler and Jason Fry, 1A23, 2:45

William Shatner Q&A, 1A22, 3:45

Gillian Anderson & David Duchovny Talk X-Files, Main Stage 1-D, 4:00

FIRST SATURDAYS: ¡VIVA BROOKLYN!

José Campeche, “Doña María de los Dolores Gutiérrez del Mazo y Pérez,” oil on canvas, circa 1796

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, March 3, free, 5:00 – 11:00 (some events require free tickets distributed in advance at the Visitor Center)
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

After taking September off for the annual West Indian festivities over Labor Day Weekend, the Brooklyn Museum’s free First Saturdays program returns October 5 with ¡Viva Brooklyn!, celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month. The evening will feature live performances by trombonist Chris Washburne and SYOTOS, Sofía Rei, and Cumbiagra; Richard Aste will give a curator talk on “Behind Closed Doors: Art in the Spanish American Home, 1492–1898”; there will be a screening of Icíar Bollaín’s 2010 film, También La Lluvia, which deals with Christopher Columbus and the local water supply; an art workshop will teach attendees how to make a home medallion using metal tooling; Marymount Manhattan College’s Blanca E. Vega will lead a talk and audience Q&A with writers about contemporary Latino literature; scenes from the moving play La Ruta, which deals with illegal immigration, will be read, followed by a discussion; the Calpulli Mexican Dance Company will host a participatory workshop; pop-up gallery talks will explore “American Identities: A New Look”; El Puente will present a social justice forum with community activists; and Las Comadres Para Las Americas founder and CEO Nora de Hoyos Comstock and a panel of writers will discuss Count on Me: Tales of Sisterhoods and Fierce Friendships. In addition, the galleries will be open late, giving visitors plenty of opportunity to check out “Valerie Hegarty: Alternative Histories,” “Käthe Kollwitz: Prints from the ‘War’ and ‘Death’ Portfolios,” “Divine Felines: Cats of Ancient Egypt,” “Life, Death, and Transformation in the Americas,” “Connecting Cultures: A World in Brooklyn,” and other exhibits.