twi-ny recommended events

NATIONAL ADOPTION REUNION WITH GAVIN DeGRAW

Gavin DeGraw will be hanging out in Central Park with the animals on October 4, looking to set a Guinness World Record

Naumburg Bandshell, Central Park
Tuesday, October 4, free, 4:00 – 6:30
www.animalalliancenyc.org
www.gavindegraw.com

Gavin DeGraw isn’t about to let the awful attack he suffered in August in the East Village keep him down. The New York-based singer-songwriter behind such singles as “In Love with a Girl,” “We Belong Together,” and “I Don’t Want to Be” and such albums as Chariot (2003), Free (2009), and his latest, Sweeter (RCA, September 2011), is about to set off on a U.S. tour, but first he’ll be playing a free show October 4 at the Naumburg Bandshell in Central Park. The performance is part of Petco’s National Adoption Reunion, which is attempting to break the Guinness World Record for the Largest Gathering of Adopted Shelter Animals, currently at 250. To participate, just bring your pet (dogs must be on a leash, cats, rabbits, and other animals in a carrier) and proof of adoption from a shelter or rescue organization (the animal cannot have been purchased from a pet store or breeder) to the park at 4:00. There will also be dogs available for adoption on-site. National Adoption Reunion is the centerpiece of the third annual New York Week for the Animals, cosponsored by the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC’s Animals and which also includes such upcoming events as the New York Audubon Evening Autumn Migration Walk, a birding tour of Bryant Park, the workshop “Trap-Neuter-Return: How to Manage a Feral Cat Colony,” a Dogs Have Angels Too book signing and adoption with Sara Cavallaro, the second annual Anjellicle Cats Rescue Catbaret, the Pup Parade & Blessing of Animals for Veterans, a Creepy Creatures Weekend at the New York Botanical Garden, the second annual 5K Run for the Horses, and other special activities and adoption clinics through October 9.

CONVERSATIONS: UP FROM THE STACKS

Monday, October 3, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Bruno Walter Auditorium, 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, free, 6:00
Tuesday, October 4, and Wednesday, October 5, the New York Public Library, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, South Court Auditorium, 42nd St. & Fifth Ave., free but reservations required, 7:00
Thursday, October 6, David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center, free, 8:30
www.nypl.org

For nearly a quarter century, Ben Katchor has been looking at life like no one else in such weekly comic strips as “Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer,” “Hotel & Farm,” “The Jew of New York,” and “The Cardboard Valise.” He has also shared his unique world view in theatrical productions created with musician and composer Mark Mulcahy, including A Checkroom Romance, The Rosenbach Company, and The Slugbearers of Kayrol Island. Mulcahy and Katchor have collaborated again, this time on Up from the Stacks, a new work that follows college student Lincoln Cabinée as he toils part time in the main branch of the New York Public Library around 1970. Up from the Stacks, which features Ken Maiuri, Dave Trenholm, and Brian Marchese, will have its premiere tonight at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, followed by presentations Tuesday and Wednesday at the very spot where it is set, the NYPL on Fifth Ave. & 42nd St., and a fourth show Thursday night at the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center. Advance reservations are necessary for the middle performances, but it’s first come, first served on Monday and Thursday, with all four shows free. (For our recent twi-ny talk with Katchor, click here.) Up from the Stacks, is part of the NYPL’s “Conversations” series, which continues October 11 with John Lithgow in conversation with Bill Moyers, October 18 with Deborah Baker in discussion with Elizabeth Rubin, and November 2 with James Romm speaking with Daniel Mendelsohn.

HILLARY JORDAN: WHEN SHE WOKE

Monday, October 3, McNally Jackson, 52 Prince St. between Lafayette & Mulberry Sts., free, 7:00
Wednesday, October 5, BookCourt, 163 Court St. between Pacific & Dean Sts., free, 7:00
www.algonquinbooksblog.com
www.hillaryjordan.com

Brooklyn-based author Hillary Jordan’s debut novel, Mudbound (Algonquin, 2009), about racial tension in a family on a Mississippi farm in the post-World War II south, was greeted with both honors and sales, winning the 2006 Bellwether Prize as well as a 2009 Alex Award from the American Library Association and becoming a favorite among reading groups. Two years later, Jordan returns with When She Woke (Algonquin, October 2011, $24.95), a novel set not in the past but the barely removed future, a dystopian America in which Christian fundamentalism, genetic manipulation, and the merging of church and state combine to solve the overcrowding in the penal system by “melachroming” convicted offenders, turning them red, blue, yellow, and green — bringing discrimination based on skin color to a whole new level. “She saw her hands first,” Jordan writes. “She held them in front of her eyes, squinting up at them. For a few seconds, shadowed by her eyelashes and backlit by the hard white light emanating from the ceiling, they appeared black. Then her eyes adjusted, and the illusion faded. She examined the backs, the palms. They floated above her, as starkly alien as starfish. She’d known what to expect — she’d seen Reds many times before, of course, on the street and on the vid — but still, she wasn’t prepared for the sight of her own changed flesh. For the twenty-six years she’d been alive, her hands had been a honey-toned pink, deepening to golden brown in the summertime. Now, they were the color of newly shed blood.” Despite this science-fiction touch, the book hearkens back, quite consciously, to that 1850 classic of American literature, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, as the trajectory of Jordan’s fallen woman protagonist, Hannah Payne, echoes that of Hester Prynne, both victims of a tortured “man of God” and overwhelming societal hypocrisy. Jordan’s echo of Hawthorne brings to light the Puritan narrative that still lies so close to the surface of an America that continues to struggle with sexuality, gender, crime, and punishment. Akin to and often compared with Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Jordan’s novel will hit stores October 11, and she’s opening her book tour in New York City this week with two special events, a reading, signing, and conversation with Valerie Martin on October 3 at McNally Jackson in the West Village and a reading, signing, and audience Q&A on October 5 at BookCourt in Cobble Hill.

ATLANTIC ANTIC

Atlantic Ave. between Hicks St. & Fourth Ave.
Sunday, October 2, free, 12 noon – 6:00 pm
www.atlanticave.org

It looks like it should be quite a beautiful day for the thirty-seventh annual Atlantic Antic, where more than one million people are expected to enjoy food, art, music, dance, and more along Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn, from Hicks St. to Fourth Ave. On outdoor stages and inside bars and restaurants, you’ll be able to catch live performances by the Winsor Terrors, Les Sans Culottes, Charanga Soleil, the Dysfunctional Family Jazz Band, the Jack Grace Band, BR and Timebomb, the Black Coffee Blues Band, Alex Battles’ Whisky Rebellion, the Brotherhood of the Jug Band Blues, and many more. The afternoon also includes lots of family-friendly activities between Boerum Pl. & Smith St,, with pony rides, magicians, puppet shows, kids’ bands, face painting, inflatable rides, and plenty more. Among the participating establishments are the Chip Shop, the Waterfront Ale House, the Brazen Head, the Flying Saucer, Gumbo, and Hank’s Saloon, and there will be local booths galore selling all kinds of items you won’t find at standard street fairs. And for the eighteenth year, the New York Transit Museum is hosting the Bus Festival on Boerum Pl. between State St. & Atlantic Ave., featuring vintage buses, workshops, free tours, and other fun things.

RED HOOK RAMBLE

Alejandro Teichberg puts the finishing touches on his “Not Out of the Woods Yet” exhibit at the Everbrite Mercantile Co. in Red Hook (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

So you’re finally ready to venture off to that hotbed of Swedish home furnishings, IKEA, prepared to face massive crowds and track down all the parts you need from the nearly endless warehouse section before bringing it home to figure out how to put it all together. If you don’t have a car, the best way to get there is via the Water Taxi that leaves from Fulton Ferry Landing every forty minutes (beginning at 11:00 in the morning) and is free on Saturdays and Sundays. But when you get off in Brooklyn, don’t hurry your way into the superstore. Instead, first take a ramble through Red Hook, another gentrifying nabe that offers some great places to eat, shop, and check out art. And you’re gonna need this foray before foraging through IKEA. Head down Van Brunt and begin your Red Hook ramble at the Red Hook Lobster Pound (284 Van Brunt), where you can order an excellent lobster roll and enjoy it at the next-door inside picnic area. Then stroll to the Everbrite Mercantile Co. (351 Van Brunt), where you can buy all sorts of unusual objects and see Alejandro Teichberg’s “Not Out of the Woods Yet” exhibit, consisting of some wonderful paintings of natural scenes immersed in personal memories. Next up is the Kentler International Drawing Space (353 Van Brunt), which is currently showing Lezli Rubin-Kunda and Ellen Moffat’s collaborative multimedia “Marking Space.” Then stop at Baked (359 Van Brunt) for a ridiculous sweet & salty brownie, a slice of crazy good Red Hook Red Hot red velvet cake, or the insane, heavenly chocolate cloud cookie. Now that you’re stuffed with food and art, you’ll be ready to navigate through IKEA — or else you’ll be so satisfied with your lovely afternoon that you’ll board the free ferry back home and take a good, long nap filled with pleasant dreams instead of facing the nightmare of having to assemble that computer desk, headboard, or kitchen table you don’t really need as much as you originally thought.

BRING TO LIGHT: NUIT BLANCHE NEW YORK 2011

Marcos Zotes’s “CCTV/Creative Control” will look down on “Nuit Blanche” visitors from the Milton St. water tower (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Multiple locations throughout Greenpoint, Brooklyn
Saturday, October 1, free, 6:00 pm – 12 midnight
www.bringtolightnyc.org

Greenpoint will shine bright tonight for “Bring to Light: Nuit Blanche New York,” the second annual multimedia festival featuring site-specific projections and performance art in the gentrifying neighborhood. Begun ten years ago in Paris and now held in numerous cities around the world, “Nuit Blanche” celebrates the community in which it takes place; in the case of Greenpoint, an industrial zone that has seen an influx of artists (and hip bars, restaurants, and music clubs) over the last few years, “Nuit Blanche” seeks to build interest in expanding and opening up more of the waterfront to public use. In fact, executive director Ethan Vogt and director of operations Tom Peyton got the city to allow access, just for one night, to several areas that are usually closed to the public. “Bring to Light” consists of more than fifty installations scattered throughout Greenpoint, from a trio of Richard Serra videos from the 1960s and ’70s to Krzysztof Wodiczko’s “Veterans Flame Greenpoint” (footage of a flame flickering to Afghan war stories told by Polish and English-language veterans), from Jeremy Blake’s Winchester Trilogy to Raphaele Shirley’s light-and-water-based “Light Cloud on a Bender,” from Sean Boggs’s slide sequence “Passerby” to Jeff Desom’s panoramic restaging of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window. Among the interactive performances are Rita Ackermann’s “A Backwards Walking Flash Mob,” in which one hundred participants will be filmed walking backward; Daniel Canogar’s “Asalto,” in which people are filmed crawling across a green screen, the results of which will be projected onto a tall building across the street, as if dozens of men, women, and children are climbing up the facade toward the heavens; and Ellis & Cuius’s “The Company,” in which visitors can walk under and around an arch of dangling Tungsten lightbulbs that react to sound and movement (and will host live performances in the space). If you take the East River Ferry from Thirty-fourth St., you’ll be greeted by Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s “Soft Sell,” a video of a large lipsticked mouth welcoming visitors to Greenpoint (and which was originally created for Times Square in 1993, just as it was about to undergo massive changes itself), and can later find Alex Villar’s “Splitting Image” in the park, about a commute on the ferry. And keep an eye out for Marcos Zotes’s “CCTV/Creative Control,” a projection of an enormous watching eye under the Milton St. water tower. There’s art just about everywhere you look, so grab a program, follow the map (or just walk around aimlessly), and enjoy what should be a fascinating and fun — and free — evening of unique and unusual art and architecture.

AMERICAN TEACHER

Documentary examines the sorry treatment of teachers in America today

AMERICAN TEACHER (Vanessa Roth, 2011)
AMC Empire 25
234 West 42nd St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
September 30 – October 6
888262-4386
www.theteachersalaryproject.org
www.amctheatres.com

“It’s the best job in the world, no comparison,” Jonathan Dearman says in American Teacher, Vanessa Roth’s eye-opening documentary about the sorry treatment of teachers in the United States today. Based on the book Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America’s Teachers (New Press, 2005) by Dave Eggers, Daniel Moulthrop, and Nínive Clements Calegari, the eighty-one-minute film looks at the surprising lack of status, salary, respect, and training afforded what is considered in other countries the most important profession by examining the cases of four current or former American teachers, dedicated men and women who are born educators but who have been deeply affected by a seriously flawed system. Texas history professor and sports coach Erik Benner sees his marriage fall apart as he works two jobs to help support his wife and two daughters. Brooklynite Jamie Fidler is following in her father’s footsteps as a teacher, but her pregnancy complicates her future in part by revealing the relatively poor health benefits. Maplewood’s Rhena Jasey is a Harvard grad with two masters degrees from Columbia who is considering leaving the kids she loves so much for a Washington Heights charter school that pays a far more substantial salary. And Dearman, a beloved San Francisco educator, turns to the family real estate business when teaching just can’t pay the bills. Part of the nonprofit Teacher Salary Project, American Teacher is at its best when it shows the teachers in the classroom and talking about what they love about their job, but when it focuses on the many negatives, it feels too much like a telethon, as if a crawl should be running across the bottom of the screen soliciting donations. The film includes numerous statistics involving turnover rates, the declining number of men in the industry, and, of course, various financial figures, dryly narrated by Matt Damon. In addition to following around the four protagonists, Roth speaks with students and their parents, superintendents, principals, professors, and other industry professionals who want to see the system changed. Interestingly, one word that never comes up is “union,” which is often at the center of any discussion about the state of education in America. Although it can pull too much at the heartstrings while stating the obvious, American Teacher is an important documentary that makes a strong case for the United States to fix this growing problem, and fast.