twi-ny recommended events

GRAND CENTRAL HOLIDAY TRAIN SHOW 2010

The Holiday Train Show has pulled back into Grand Central Terminal (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex
Grand Central Terminal
Shuttle Passage next to the Station Masters’ Office
Through January 15
Monday through Friday, 8:00 am — 8:00 pm; Saturday and Sunday, 10:00 am — 6:00 pm
Admission: free
212-878-0106
www.mta.info
www.grandcentralterminal.com

The Transit Museum’s ninth annual holiday train show in Grand Central is, as always, a sheer delight. Created by Lionel and TW Design, the display features such city monuments as the Empire State Building (complete with King Kong), Philip Johnson’s AT&T/Sony building, and Grand Central itself, surrounded by a gaggle of little shops. The streets around the buildings and the lighted Christmas tree are filled with shoppers, cabs, policemen, buses, and commuters, all preparing for the holiday season. There’s also some cool track work going on, as well as a special dockside delivery. At the back of the display, Santa and his reindeer fly over a snow-covered mountain as the North Pole Central roars on. Finally, along the walls, the museum has reached into its permanent collection, pulling out such gems as the 1928 Pocahontas, the 1938 Broadway Limited, the 1954 Emperor Chief, the 1975 Hiawatha, the 1927 American Legion Limited, the 1927 Lone Scout, and the 1936 Blue Comet. Part of the fun of the Holiday Train Show is that it turns everyone, no matter what age, into a little kid again, their eyes wide with joy. And while in Grand Central, be sure to stop by the Grand Central Holiday Fair, which continues through December 24.

CLEMENT C. MOORE PARK

People gather every Christmas Eve in Clement C. Moore Park to read his holiday classic, “The Night Before Christmas” (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Sunday, December 19, Church of the Intercession, 550 West 155th St. at Broadway, free, 4:00
Friday, December 24, Clement C. Moore Park, West 22nd St. at Tenth Ave., free
www.nycgovparks.org
www.audubonparkperspectives.com

On Christmas Eve, 1822, Clement Clarke Moore wrote the holiday poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” for his wife and children, who lived on an estate called Chelsea in the neighborhood that later became the Chelsea of today. A native New Yorker, Moore (1779–1863) has two city parks named after him, the half-acre Clement C. Moore Park on Tenth Ave. & 22nd St. and the Clement Clarke Moore Homestead in Newtown, Queens. Every Christmas Eve, people gather at the Chelsea park to read Moore’s famous story, which is better known as “The Night Before Christmas,” right near where it was written. Although Moore is most closely associated with Christmas, he also compiled a Hebrew lexicon and was fluent in six languages. The Moore mansion itself was located at what is now a doctor’s office at 420 West 23rd St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves. Moore is buried in Trinity Cemetery in Audubon Park, where, on Sunday, December 19, actor Malik Yoba will read Moore’s most famous poem in the Church of the Intercession, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the public reading, which will be followed by a lantern-lit procession and wreath-laying ceremony. “Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night.”

SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT SING-ALONG

Satan and Saddam Hussein are all part of the fun in SOUTH PARK sing-along

SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT (Trey Parker, 1999)
92YTribeca
200 Hudson St. at Canal St.
Saturday, December 18, $13 (includes one beer), 10:30 pm
212-415-5500
www.92YTribeca.org/film

Now this is our kind of sing-along. While others gather to celebrate THE SOUND OF MUSIC, MAMMA MIA, and WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, singing classic, familiar, popular hits, we’d much rather be blasting out such memorable songs as the Oscar-nominated “Blame Canada,” “Uncle Fucka,” “Kyle’s Mom’s a Bitch,” and “What Would Brian Boitano Do?” Since 1997, Matt Stone and Trey Parker have been using colorful low-tech cutouts to show that there are no sacred cows, lambasting celebrities, politicians, religion, sexuality, the military, education, television, movies, corporations, pop culture, and just about everything else they can think of in the animated series South Park, which follows the travails of a group of eight-year-old boys in a small town in Colorado. In 1999, Eric Cartman, Kyle Broflovski, Stan Marsh, and Kenny McCormick got to star in their own feature-length animated film, SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT, in which they lead the resistance to save Terrance & Phillip while Kyle’s mom starts a war with Canada. They’re joined by such SP regulars as Chef, Mr. Mackey, Mr. Garrison, and Wendy Testeberger and such special guests as Satan, Saddam Hussein, and the mysterious Gregory, along with guest voicers George Clooney, Eric Idle, Minnie Driver, Dave Foley, and Brent Spiner. The musical numbers, written by Parker with Henry Mancini Award winner Marc Shaiman (HAIRSPRAY), are a riot, including “I’m Super” from the irrepressible Big Gay Al, which boasts the fabulous lyrics “Bombs are flying / People are dying / Children are crying / Politicians are lying too // Cancer is killing / Texaco’s spilling / The whole world’s gone to hell // But how are you? / I’m super / Thanks for asking!” Tickets are $13 and come with one beer, props, a trivia contest, and other goodies.

YOSHITOMO NARA: NOBODY’S FOOL

“Nobody’s Fool” offers a look into childhood memories and loneliness (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Asia Society
725 Park Ave. at 70th St.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 2
Admission: $5-$10 (free Friday nights from 6:00 to 9:00)
212-288-6400
www.asiasociety.org

The many obsessions of fifty-one-year-old Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara are on view at the Asia Society in “Nobody’s Fool,” a wide-ranging exhibition of paintings, sculptures, drawings, ceramics, and site-specific installations. Divided into three primary themes — Isolation, Rebellion, and Music — the works create a fascinating portrait of Nara and his unique take on popular culture. Nara’s most familiar subjects — houses, animals, rock and roll, and little girls who are not quite as cute as they initially appear — relate to his own loneliness growing up and his desire to break free. Evil and danger lurk just below the surface of his pieces, if not in plain sight. In the painting “Make the Road, Follow the Road,” a pig-tailed girl hands a knife to a smiling doglike creature, while on the plate “Too Young to Die” a young girl smoking a cigarette directs a sly, knowing look at the viewer. And in the drawing “Stuffed Dog,” a canine wearing a crown has been thumbtacked to the wall, echoing the crucifixion by way of a direct reference to Nara’s own art, as if his freedom has been taken away from him, accompanied by the words “No Pain No Again.” Nara often uses written language in his works, with his characters making such declarations as “Oh! My God! I Miss You!” and “Pave Your Dreams.” Heavily influenced by American rock and punk, especially the Ramones, he incorporates such phrases as “It’s better to burn out than to fade away” and “Stand by me” in his pieces; In “Guitar Wolf,” the title animal is blasting away on a six-string, shouting out, “Fuckin’ neurotic world!” while in an untitled piece, a young girl with a guitar is standing atop a mountain with a face while singing, “Kill kill kill the P.” Nara has also set up a wall display of dozens of his favorite album covers, appreciated for their jacket art and/or music, including some very interesting and surprising choices.

Yoshitomo Nara opens up the doors to his psyche in site-specific installations at Asia Society (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

“Nobody’s Fool” also features three site-specific installations organized around the theme of home and developed by Nara in tandem with designer Hideki Toyoshima. “Drawing Room Between the Concord and Merrimack” creates a carnivalesque atmosphere with color-wheel stages you can stand on and a small house that represents Nara’s studio. “Doors,” named after the rock band and part of a bigger project from 2006 held in Nara’s hometown, consists of five rooms, each with a very different scene inside and including such works as “It’s Something Unpredictable But in the End Is Right” and “Promise Me No Dead End Streets,” inspired by Green Day. And in “Untitled (formerly ‘Home’),” Nara invites visitors to walk through a one-story house he and Toyoshima constructed earlier this year in the Park Ave. Armory and filled with a video montage of photographs, a peace sign stuffed with handmade dolls, and a maquette of “White Ghost,” a miniature of the large sculptures that stood on Park Ave. announcing and protecting the exhibit. The installations offer trips deeper into Nara’s fascinating psyche and working method, built on childhood memories and rock and roll dreams. On Sunday, December 19, Asia Society will be hosting “My House Is My Home,” a workshop for families at 3:00 in which they’ll take a closer look at Nara’s special installations. And as a special bonus, if you check in with Asia Society on Foursquare, you’ll get two-for-one admission. (Admission is free on Friday nights from 6:00 to 9:00.)

THE CONFORMIST (IL CONFORMISTA)

Jean-Paul Trintignant tries to find his place in the world in Bernardo Bertolucci’s lush masterpiece, THE CONFORMIST

THE CONFORMIST (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
December 17-23, 1:00, 3:15, 5:30, 7:45, 10:00
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

Based on the novel by Alberto Moravia, Bernardo Bertolucci’s gorgeous masterpiece, THE CONFORMIST, is a political thriller about paranoia, pedophilia, and trying to find one’s place in a changing world. Jean-Louis Trintignant (AND GOD CREATED WOMAN, Z, MY NIGHT AT MAUD’S) stars as Marcello Clerici, a troubled man who suffered childhood traumas and is now attempting to join the fascist secret police. To prove his dedication to the movement, he is ordered to assassinate one of his former professors, the radical Luca Quadri (Enzo Tarascio), who is living in France. He falls for Quadri’s much younger wife, Anna (Dominique Sanda), who takes an intriguing liking to Clerici’s wife, Giulia (Stefania Sandrelli), while Manganiello (Gastone Moschin) keeps a close watch on him, making sure he will carry out his assignment. THE CONFORMIST, made just after THE SPIDER’S STRATAGEM and followed by LAST TANGO IN PARIS, captures one man’s desperate need to belong, to become a part of Mussolini’s fascist society and feel normal at the expense of his real inner feelings and beliefs. An atheist, he goes to church to confess because Giulia demands it. A bureaucrat, he is not a cold-blooded killer, but he will murder a part of his past in order to be accepted by the fascists (as well as Bertolucci’s own past, as he makes a sly reference to his former mentor, Jean-Luc Godard, by using the French auteur’s phone number and address for Quadri’s). Production designer Ferdinando Scarfiotti and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro bathe the film in lush Art Deco colors as Bertolucci moves the story, told in flashbacks, through a series of set pieces that include an erotic dance by Anna and Giulia, a Kafkaesque visit to a government ministry, and a stunning use of black and white and light and shadow as Marcello and Giulia discuss their impending marriage. THE CONFORMIST is a multilayered psychological examination of a complex figure living in complex times, as much about the 1930s as the 1970s, as the youth of the Western world sought personal, political, and sexual freedom. In addition to this one-week presentation of a new 35mm print of THE CONFORMIST at Film Forum, MoMA has just begun a complete retrospective of Bertolucci’s career that runs through January 12, with such upcoming screenings as BEFORE THE REVOLUTION (December 17 and January 10), THE SPIDER’S STRATAGEM (December 17, introduced by Bertolucci, and January 2), 1900 (December 18 and January 8), TRAGEDY OF A RIDICULOUS MAN (December 18 and January 10), and THE LAST EMPEROR (December 19 and January 5).

UNSILENT NIGHT NEW YORK

Phil Kline and friends will fill the streets of New York City with unique Christmas sounds on Saturday night (photo by Tom Jarmusch)

Washington Square Park to Tompkins Square Park
Saturday, December 18, free, 7:00
www.unsilentnight.com

Since 1992, composer Phil Kline has been leading Unsilent Night, a parade of holiday celebrants carrying boomboxes playing specially designed music for the occasion. The nineteenth edition will take place this Saturday, as participants are encouraged to bring their own devices to play one of four randomly chosen mp3s that can be downloaded from the above website. Kline will be on hand to give out a handful of boomboxes, since he prefers people use cassettes or CDs because of the different kind of sound they emit, but iPods and the like are welcome to contribute to the cacophony. The event now occurs around the country as well as in Australia, Canada, and England. Born in Akron, Kline has played in experimental bands, composed music for the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Ethel, choreographer Wally Cardona, and photographer Nan Goldin, among many others, and is currently co-curating a free special program for the New York Festival of Song scheduled for May 3 at the Baryshnikov Arts Center.

AYALA GAZIT: WAS IT A DREAM

In “Was It a Dream,” photographer Ayala Gazit goes to Australia to find out about her half-brother, who committed suicide in 1996 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

SVA Gallery
209 East 23rd St. between Second & Third Aves.
Through December 18
Admission: free
212-592-2010
www.schoolofvisualarts.edu
www.ayalagazit.com

Born in Haifa in 1984, Ayala Gazit was twelve years old when her father told her that she had a half-brother named James in Australia from a brief relationship he had with an Englishwoman named Linda in London. Gazit wrote James a letter introducing herself, but they never met, as he committed suicide later that year. After being awarded the Tierney Grant in Photography as a senior at SVA, Gazit used the prize, which gives promising graduating photography students one year to create an exhibition, to go to Australia and find out about the half-brother she never knew. She met with James’s mother and siblings, went through the family album, and scouted out the neighborhood where James lived. What she discovered, in words and pictures, is on view through the weekend in the somber yet powerful “Was It a Dream,” at the SVA Gallery on East 23rd St. Gazit, who was an intelligence photographer in the Israeli military for two years, groups together portraits of members of both families along with haunting individual shots of landscapes where James lived and played. To further the idea of home, one corner includes two chairs and a table on which sits an ashtray with a partially smoked cigarette in it, as if something has been left unfinished. There are few smiles in Gazit’s photographs, mostly serious looks contemplating a life cut short and what might have been. The pictures are supplemented with Linda’s letter to Ayala’s father telling him about the suicide, Ayala’s letter to James, and a slideshow of older family photographs.