this week in literature

SEE IT BIG! INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS

Veronica Cartwright can’t take any more in chilling remake of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (Philip Kaufman, 1978)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Saturday, April 28, free with museum admission, 6:00
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us

Based on a magazine serial by Jack Finney, Don Siegel’s 1956 classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, was the ultimate thriller about cold war paranoia. Twenty-two years later, in a nation just beginning to come to grips with the failure of the Vietnam War, Philip Kaufman (The Right Stuff, Quills) remade the film, moving the location north to San Francisco from the original’s Los Angeles. When health inspector Matthew Bennell (Donald Sutherland) and lab scientist Elizabeth Driscoll (Brooke Adams) suspect that people, while they sleep, are being replaced by pod replicas, they have a hard time making anyone believe them, especially Dr. David Kibner (Leonary Nimoy), who takes the Freudian route instead. But when Jack and Nancy Bellicec (Jeff Goldblum and Veronica Cartwright) seem to come up with some physical proof, things begin to get far more serious — and much more dangerous. Kaufman’s film is one of the best remakes ever made, paying proper homage to the original while standing up on its own, with an unforgettable ending (as well as an unforgettable dog). It cleverly captures the building selfishness of the late 1970s, which would lead directly into the Reagan era. As an added treat, the film includes a whole bunch of cameos, including Siegel as a taxi driver, Robert Duvall as a priest, and Kevin McCarthy, who starred as Dr. Miles Bennell in the original, still on the run, trying desperately to make someone believe him. The sc-fi thriller is screening at the Museum of the Moving Image as part of the institution’s See It Big! series and will be introduced by Columbia professor and author Annette Insdorf, who will also be signing copies of her latest book, Contemporary Film Directors: Philip Kaufman (University of Illinois Press, March 2012, $22).

POETRY NIGHT IN THE GARDEN

E. V. Day and Kembra Pfahler have transformed the Hole gallery on Bowery into Monet’s Giverny (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

GIVERNY: BY E. V. DAY AND KEMBRA PFAHLER
The Hole
312 Bowery
Friday, April 13, free, 8:00
Exhibition continues through April 24
212-466-1100
theholenyc.com
giverny slideshow

From 1883 until his death in 1926 at the age of ninety, master Impressionist Claude Monet lived and painted in Giverny, a garden paradise in France filled with colorful flowers, trees, plants, lily pads, a Japanese bridge, walking paths, ponds, and other primarily natural elements that populated many of his most famous works. In 2010, installation artist E. V. Day was awarded the prestigious Versailles/Giverny Foundation Munn Residency, allowing her to live in Giverny as a means to inspire her the way Monet himself was inspired by his surroundings. The native New Yorker invited her friend Kembra Pfahler, lead singer of the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, to join her for part of the stay, during which Day photographed a naked, purple, fright-wigged Pfahler, made up like a shocking version of LeRoy Neiman’s Femlin character. Day and Pfahler’s thrilling collaboration is now on view at the Hole through April 24, where they have re-created a section of the garden, complete with live flowers, wallpaper of trees, fake grass, a stone path, and the Japanese bridge arching over a large pond. As you walk through the indoor Bowery garden, you’ll come upon many of the photos Day took of Pfahler, who inhabits the scenes as if a living, breathing creature emerging from nature. “Giverny” is a gorgeous installation, offering visitors the opportunity to walk through Monet’s mind and palette. On Friday, April 13, the Hole will host a free evening of poetry, featuring Stefan Bondell, Lizzi Bougatsos, John Holland, Bob Holman, Stuart S. Lupton, Lisa Pomares, Michael Quattlebaum Jr., Jessica White, Arden Wohl, and Pfahler reading from the bridge.

j-CATION 2012: SAKURA

Riot grrl group the Suzan are part of second annual j-CATION celebration at Japan Society on April 14

Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Saturday, April 14, $10, 11:00 am – 11:00 pm
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

Japan Society’s “Sakura — Spring Renews, Beauty Blooms” series comes to a close on Saturday with the second annual j-CATION, a twelve-hour program of special events celebrating the season and more. The New York Suwa Taiko Association gets things going at 11:00 am with a Taiko Kick-Off, followed by traditional Kamishibai storytelling at 11:20, 12 noon, 12:40 and Simply Stunning Shodo calligraphy classes taught by Masako Inkyo starting every forty-five minutes from 11:30 to 5:30. At 1:00 you can participate in the Japanese adult game show You’re on Standby!, which challenges the mind and the body and will earn one audience member free round-trip airfare to Japan. Adrienne Wong will give cherry blossom block printing demonstrations from 3:00 to 5:00, the same time that Sakura Cinema presents Tomu Uchida’s 1960 classic Killing in Yoshiwara (Heroes of the Red-Light District). There will also be Japanese for Beginners classes at 3:15, 4:00, 4:45, and 5:30. All day long you can hang out in the Hana-mi Lounge, which will be serving Japanese snacks and drinks and will host afternoon karaoke; pick up some wagashi in the foyer; learn origami and add paper cherry blossoms to a wall installation; read brand-new sakura-related haiku from around the world; play hanafuda, wanage, and kendama in the game room; check out the exhibition “Deco Japan: Shaping Art & Culture, 1920-1945” (and win a prize for being among the first three hundred people to complete the “Decoration Exploration”); and visit “Memory: Things We Should Never Forget,” a photography display about the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami that devastated parts of Japan. The festivities conclude with the Yozakura Nights concert at 8:00 with the bilingual Alex York and riot-grrl garage punks the Suzan, followed by a dance party with DJ Aki.

GOD BLESS YOU, MR. VONNEGUT

The life and career of Kurt Vonnegut will be celebrated at Housing Works on April 11

A CELEBRATION OF KURT VONNEGUT’S LIFE AND WORK
Housing Works Bookstore Cafe
126 Crosby St.
Wednesday, April 11, 7:00
212-334-3324
www.housingworks.org

On April 11, 2007, Kurt Vonnegut died at the age of eighty-four. The life and career of the WWII veteran — who surprisingly never won the Nobel Prize or a Pulitzer for such literary masterpieces as Cat’s Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five,, and The Sirens of Titan — will be celebrated at a Housing Works gathering on April 11, the fifth anniversary of his passing. The evening will be hosted by Brendan Jay Sullivan, who is at work on a manuscript about a kid who’s studying Vonnegut’s “Eight Rules of Creative Writing” from Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction. The evening will feature readings by Joe Garden, David Goodwillie, Dave Hill, Cat Marnell, and others, along with Bushwick Book Club songs based on Vonnegut books. In addition, there will be a silent auction including a watercolor donated by Kurt’s son Mark.

BEING SHAKESPEARE

Simon Callow goes through the seven stages of Shakespeare in one-man show (photo by Stephanie Berger)

Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM Harvey Theater
651 Fulton St. between Ashland & Rockwell Pl.
Through April 14, $25-$100
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

Obsessed with William Shakespeare since he was six years old, British actor Simon Callow, now sixty-two, is currently at BAM playing Hermione and Leontes from The Winter’s Tale, Mark Antony and Caesar from Julius Caesar, Jaques, Orlando, and Rosalind from As You Like It, Antipholus from The Comedy of Errors, Falstaff and Prince Henry from Henry IV, Prospero and Miranda from The Tempest, Quince, Flute, Bottom, and Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Kings Henry V, Richard II, and Lear (as well as Queen Margaret), both Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Old Hamlet, and even Shakespeare himself. And he does all that and more in a mere hour and a half in the one-man show Being Shakespeare, written by Bard scholar and Oxford English literature professor Jonathan Bate and directed and designed by Tom Cairns. Built around Jaques’s seven stages of man monologue from As You Like It — “All the world’s a stage / And all the men and women merely players / They have their exits and their entrances / And one man in his time plays many parts / His acts being seven ages” — Being Shakespeare follows the Bard from birth to death, with Callow (Shakespeare in Love, Four Weddings and a Funeral) discussing various aspects of Shakespeare’s personal life, about which precious little is known, and relating them to specific lines and characters from his plays and sonnets. Although there are a handful of Eureka! moments, there are also a lot of comparisons that are too much of a stretch, supposition instead of fact. Bate does include fascinating tidbits about Shakespeare’s sisters, working in his father’s glove-making shop, dealing with lawyers, and marrying the pregnant Anne Hathaway, but the show often feels more like a historical literary lecture than a dramatic play — and, of course, as Hamlet famously intoned, “The play’s the thing.” Callow does a magnificent job at some points, particularly his marvelously entertaining handling of an exchange between Falstaff and Prince Henry about preparing an army unit and the scene in which Peter Quince is casting Pyramus and Thisbe in Dream, but other snippets lack depth and power, perhaps better in idea than in execution. Being Shakespeare might be a treat for Shakespeare fanatics and completists, but it will leave others wanting more. Callow will participate in a postshow talk moderated by Jeff Dolven on April 12, and Bate will be in conversation with Barry Edelstein on April 15 in the BAM Hillman Attic Studio.

FIRST SATURDAYS: PARTY OF LIFE

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, April 7, free, 5:00 – 11:00 (some events require free tickets distributed in advance at the Visitor Center)
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

Pennsylvania-born Keith Haring was one of the most influential street artists and activists of his generation. Known for his drawings and sculpture of cartoony characters, Haring redefined public art in New York City, where he moved when he was nineteen in 1978. In conjunction with the recent opening of its exhibit “Keith Haring: 1978-1982,” the Brooklyn Museum is dedicating its free April First Saturday programming to the life and career of Haring, who died in 1990 of AIDS-related complications. There will be guided tours of the exhibition, a break-dance performance by Floor Royalty Crew, workshops where visitors can make Haring-inspired buttons and Pop art prints, an artist talk by photographer Christopher Makos, who documented the street art scene in the 1970s and ’80s, a talk by Will Hermes about his new book, Love Goes to Buildings on Fire: Five Years in New York That Changed Music Forever, and a dance party hosted by legendary DJ Junior Vasquez. In addition, there will be concerts by the Library Is on Fire and Comandante Zero (with live video) and a screening of Jacob Krupnick’s Girl Walk // All Day (followed by a Q&A with the director and some of the dancers in the film). As always, the galleries will be open late, giving visitors plenty of opportunity to check out the Keith Haring exhibit as well as “Playing House,” “Rachel Kneebone: Regarding Rodin,” “Raw/Cooked: Shura Chernozatonskaya,” “Newspaper Fiction: The New York Journalism of Djuna Barnes, 1913–1919,” “Question Bridge: Black Males,” and “19th-Century Modern.”

GERTRUDE’S PARIS FESTIVAL

Symphony Space will celebrate American ex-pat Gertrude Stein and Paris with springtime festival

Symphony Space
2537 Broadway at 95th St.
April 1 – May 5, free – $95
212-864-5400
www.symphonyspace.org

“America is my country and Paris is my hometown,” Gertrude Stein famously said about the City of Lights. Symphony Space is celebrating the Lost Generation writer’s longtime love affair with the romantic French city with five weeks of special programming, including film screenings, jazz concerts, literary discussions, wine tastings, and dancing. Held in conjunction with the Met’s current exhibit “The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde” (running through June 3), “Gertrude’s Paris” begins on April 1 with Vincente Minnelli’s An American in Paris, a free reception for the “My Paris!” and “La Revue Nègre” photo exhibitions, a free jazz cabaret with the Nick Finzer Trio, and Perry Miller Adato’s documentary Paris: The Luminous Years. The festival continues with such events as “Wearing the Lost Generation: A Musical/Sartorial Salon” on April 5, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s The Mystery of Picasso on April 8, “Great Taste! Red Wines of France” on April 10, “Tin Hat Takes on E. E. Cummings” on April 13, Arne Glimcher’s Picasso and Braque Go to the Movies on April 22, “Josephine Baker/Archival Footage” on April 29, and the free, all-day “Wall to Wall: Gertrude’s Paris” party on May 5. The series also offers a great chance to catch up on the work of Jean Renoir, with Sunday screenings of Beauty and the Beast (April 8), Boudu Saved from Drowning (April 15), and The Rules of the Game (April 22).