twi-ny recommended events

MoCCA ART FESTIVAL: DISAPPEARANCE DIARY

disappearance diary

DISAPPEARANCE DIARY by Hideo Azuma (Fanfare / Ponent Mon, 2008, $22.99)
69th Regiment Armory
68 Lexington Ave. between 25th & 26th Sts.
April 10-11, $10-$12/day, $15-$20/both days
212-254-3511
www.moccany.com
www.ponentmon.com

in preparation for this year’s MoCCA Art Festival, the annual benefit for the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, we will be highlighting some of our favorite books and comics from past festivals. Last year we picked up a copy of Hideo Azuma’s fascinating true-life story, DISAPPEARANCE DIARY, which details the popular manga artist’s self-imposed departure from the world he knew, instead choosing to become homeless, where his alcoholism nearly killed him. In tightly drawn black-and-white panels, Azuma follows his crazy tale over the course of eight days and two “disappearances,” walking out on his wife and his regular job, scavenging through garbage for food and drink, and eventually working for a gas company while still shunning all aspects of his previous life. Throughout, Azuma reveals his wry, self-deprecating sense of humor, which is also evident in the brief interview hidden beneath the trade paperback book’s flaps.

mocca art festival 2010

This year’s MoCCA Art Festival runs April 10-11 at the 69th Regiment Armoy, featuring such participants as Kim Deitch, Emily Flake, Jaime Hernandez. Neil Kleid, Peter Kuper, Hope Larson, Frank Miller, Paul Pope, Dash Shaw, Gahan Wilson, and Klein Award recipient David Mazzucchelli. Single tickets are $10 in advance, $12 day of show, with weekend tickets available for $15 in advance and $20 at the door.

IN THE WORDS OF DURAS

Marguerite Duras, Hall des Roches Noires, Trouville, 1982 (copyright Hélène Bamberger)

Cultural Services of the French Embassy, 972 Fifth Ave.
French Institute Alliance Français, 22 East 60th St.
Baryshnikov Arts Center, 450 West 37th St.
Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Ave.
February 18 – March 18, free – $35
www.fiaf.org
www.frenchculture.org
www.bacnyc.org
www.anthologyfilmarchives.org

Born Marguerite Donnadieu in Indochina in 1914, French writer Marguerite Duras had a long career as a journalist, novelist, playwright, screenwriter, and director. A graduate of the Sorbonne who was raised in extreme poverty, she served in the French Resistance, was expelled from the Communist Party, suffered from alcoholism and hallucinations late in life, and spent her last years with writer Yann Andréa Steiner, who was nearly forty years her junior, before dying of throat cancer in Paris in 1996. Duras’s extraordinary life and work will be celebrated with a month of special events at locations around the city, from documentaries to discussions, avant-garde dance and theater to readings and an intimate photo exhibit. On February 18, the French Institute Alliance Français will host “Meet the Writer…en français,” a discussion with Duras biographer Jean Vallier ($15), followed by “Talk with Jean Vallier: Bringing Duras’s Word to the Stage” in English ($15). On February 26-27, ASTRID BAS DIPTYCH: THE LOVER AND LA MUSICA DEUXIÈME consists of stage productions, with music, of two seminal works by Duras ($35). And on March 6-7, Nicole Ansari, Winsome Brown, Joan Juliet Buck, and Sadie Jemmett star in Irina Brook’s play inspired by Duras’s LA VIE MATÉRIELLE and Virginia Woolf’s A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN ($35).

Astrid Bas presents a Duras diptych at FIAF as part of citywide celebration

The Baryshnikov Arts Center will be presenting the U.S. premiere of L’HOMME ASSIS DANS LE COULOIR (THE MAN SITTING IN THE CORRIDOR), a dance created by Razerka Ben Sadia-Lavant based on the 1980 novella by Duras, performed by Sarah Crépin and Alexandre Dutronc (February 19-21, $20). From 1980 to 1994, photojournalist Hélène Bamberger and Duras spent summers together in Trouville; Bamberger’s photos of the author, collected as “Marguerite Duras par Hélène Bamberger,” will be on view February 18 – March 18 at the Cultural Services of the French Embassy. The exhibit opens on February 17 with bilingual readings by Kathleen Chalfant and William Nadylam (free but RSVP required at 212-439-1485, duras@frenchculture.org). On March 2, the Cultural Services of the French Embassy will be screening THE LOVER: FANSTASY OF A MOVIE, a documentary with Claude Berri and others about the film adaptation of THE LOVER, along with a discussion with French professor Sophie Bogaert (free, rsvp@frenchculture.org). One of Duras’s most well known works, HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR, will be presented onstage at BAC March 4-6, directed by Christine Letailleur and featuring Valérie Lang, Hiroshi Ota, and Pier Lamandé ($25). Duras was also a unique and experimental filmmaker; her directorial works will be shown in the series “Marguerite Duras on Film” at Anthology Film Archives March 12-18, including screenings of DESTROY, SHE SAID (DÉTRUIRE DIT-ELLE) (1969), NATHALIE GRANCER (1972), LE NAVIRE NIGHT (1979), INDIA SONG (1975), and THE TRUCK (LE CAMION (1977), which stars Duras with Gérard Depardieu. “The best way to fill time is to waste it,” Duras once famously said. You could do a lot worse than wasting plenty of time at this wide-ranging, exciting festival honoring one of the most intriguing literary figures of the twentieth century.

JENNIFER KOTTER: DETAILS BELOW 14th STREET

Jennifer Kotter examines the details of downtown architecture in photography show

Office of Manhattan Borough President’s Gallery
Municipal Building
One Centre St., nineteenth floor
Monday – Friday through February 26, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Admission: free (photo ID required)
212-669-2728
www.2starthere.com

Born in Santa Monica and based in TriBeCa for many years, Jennifer Kotter is a preeminent city photographer, having captured the little nooks and crannies of the enormous metropolis for decades. Since 2002, she has been compiling “Details Below 14th Street,” a series of black-and-white architectural photos of pre-WWII buildings. She was inspired to do so after 9/11, which saw so much destruction and devastation, choosing to combine architecture and memory in unique ways. Her pictures delve deep into the corners, discovering abstract geometric shapes and patterns, with eerie shadows falling across pillars, balconies, doorways, and other architectural elements, like scenes from a film noir in which a private eye smoking a cigarette would be hovering just out of frame. A former photojournalist for the Village Voice whose “MTA Jewels” can be found in the passageway to the Sixth Ave. L, Kotter is currently displaying more than two dozen photographs from the “Details” series, in three different sizes, in the hallway gallery of the office of the Manhattan borough president, in the landmarked Municipal Building, a serendipitous location for her to show her timeless architectural studies.

TWI-NY TALK: ANDREW GIANGOLA

Mario Batali, Andrew Giangola, and Rachael Ray party it up at Texas Motor Speedway

THE WEEKEND STARTS ON WEDNESDAY: TRUE STORIES OF REMARKABLE NASCAR FANS by Andrew Giangola (Motorbooks International, February 2010, $24.99)
www.theweekendstartsonwednesday.blogspot.com

We’ve known Andrew Giangola since we were kids, playing baseball in the street, sledding down what we thought were enormous hills in the local park, and going to semipro football games. Although New York is far from the center of the auto racing world, we did go to the track once, when a cigar-chomping family friend took us behind the scenes and into the pit. That apparently rubbed off on Giangola, who has been the director of communications for NASCAR since 2003, traveling around the country chaperoning star drivers and meeting the fans. He has turned his adventures into an entertaining book, THE WEEKEND STARTS ON WEDNESDAY, which looks at dozens of NASCAR’s most dedicated fanatics, from movie icons and beauty queens to military heroes and astronauts, from news anchors and celebrity chefs to an acrophobic mountain climber and a dude who wears nothing but a tire.

“After sleeping in their buses, watching races in their homes, spending countless hours on the phone, sitting in the grandstands, and walking campgrounds on the circuit,” Giangola writes in the introduction, “I’m convinced NASCAR’s ‘core’ fans are a special, different breed…. I want to perpetuate a new stereotype of NASCAR fans. They are, at their core, very good people.” Giangola, who lives in New York City with his wife, daughter, and two dogs — and whose last driving ticket was for going zero miles per hour, blocking the box at the Holland Tunnel — took a break from his media blitz to answer a few questions from an old friend.

twi-ny: You grew up on the South Shore of Long Island, not exactly a hotbed of auto racing. You’ve always been a huge sports fan, but tell the truth — what did you think of NASCAR when you first applied for the position, and how do you feel about it now?

AG: Your father took us to a stock car race at the old short track in Freeport, LI, when I was eleven and I loved it. (That track is now a strip mall.) I also watched [Richard] Petty and [David] Pearson and [Cale] Yarborough on WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS when NASCAR snippets were shown between ping-pong and cliff diving. When I was exposed to the sport, I always liked it. But growing up on Long Island in the ’70s, you didn’t see a lot of NASCAR; the sport might as well have been racing on Mars. There was no ESPN or 24/7 sports coverage. I was by no means a fan.

When I got the job offer, after a quick web search it was pretty clear pretty fast that this is a big, powerful brand with a lot of company involvement. My real shock was at the first race; it happened to be Talladega, NASCAR’s biggest and rowdiest track, in the heart of Alabama. I was wearing black slacks and a black shirt. A fan gripping a large beer yells down from the top of his converted school bus, “When are the aliens coming?” It was immediately clear NASCAR fans were familiar with the film MEN IN BLACK and that I’d need to learn the rules of the road, so to speak. Seven years later, I was sleeping with those fans — not in the biblical sense; it was research — and published THE WEEKEND STARTS ON WEDNESDAY about the most amazing fan stories.

You’ve worked in communications for Pepsi and Simon & Schuster, handling different kinds of crises than you encounter at NASCAR. What’s the hardest part of your current job? You’re also a wise-ass who was once championed as the savior of the PR business. How do you get away with your sarcastic sense of humor at such a giant, serious company?

I’m not sure anyone ever championed me as a savior but that’s nice of you to say, and let me introduce you to my boss at an upcoming race. This is such a decentralized, multifaceted industry. You have NASCAR the sanctioning body, teams, tracks, drivers, sponsors, licensees, media partners. In a sense, in my job in PR out of NASCAR’s New York office, I serve them all. It keeps a man busy. I’ve worn out about five BlackBerries. No trackball has proven to be up to my workload. My daughter, Gaby, once said, “If work were crack, you’d sell me for a bag of it.” The toughest challenge is keeping some semblance of family balance while attempting to make every man, woman, child, and dog in the US of A a stock car racing fan.

You’re a die-hard Rangers fan, but you’ve claimed on your blog and in the book that NASCAR fans are the greatest in the world. Is that a diss to the Garden Faithful?

When the Rangers play on Saturday night, do the fans start sleeping in front of the Garden on a Wednesday? That’s what it’s like in NASCAR. But I think Ranger fans and NASCAR fans have a lot in common in their tremendous passion for their sports. (Go to a NASCAR track like Pocono Raceway or Dover and you’ll see a lot of cops and firemen in the infield who are big Ranger fans.) Remember, on any given Sunday in NASCAR there’s one winner and forty-two losers. Ranger fans can relate to that continual, gut-wrenching, seemingly endless heartbreak. All that said, I still tell my wife, Viviane, that the day we were married was almost as good as that warm night in June of 1994 when the Rangers finally won the Stanley Cup.

THE WEEKEND STARTS ON WEDNESDAY, which features a foreword by Tony Stewart and an afterword by Kyle Busch, is available now at online sites and bookstores everywhere. Giangola will be meeting and greeting fans at racing’s biggest event, the Daytona 500, this weekend, with eight fans from the book joining him for a special launch event and signing at the Sprint Experience on Saturday.

NYC RESTAURANT WEEK EXTENDED

restaurantweek2

Extended through February 28
Lunch: $24.07; dinner: $35
www.nycgo.com/restaurantweek

Begun in 1992, Restaurant Week has become a New York City institution, as eateries across the five boroughs offer special prix-fixe menus, including some of the hottest, most expensive places, giving everyone the opportunity to sample their wares. Winter Restaurant Week has been extended through February and features nearly two hundred city dining establishments offering three-course lunches for $24.07 and dinners for $35 (Saturdays excluded, Sundays optional). Among the many participating restaurants are the ‘21’ Club, Aquavit, Asia de Cuba, B. Smith, Butter, Estiatorio Milos, Gotham Bar & Grill, I Trulli, Le Cirque, Megu, Nice Matin, Nobu, Patroon, Petrossian, the River Café, Rosa Mexicano, Shun Lee Palace, Tamarind, Tocqueville, and the Water Club. The above Web site includes many of the special menus so you’ll know exactly what you’re in for before making that coveted reservation.

FEBRUARY RESIDENCY: BLUEBRAIN

Bluebrain will play Monday-night residency at Pianos this month

Pianos
158 Ludlow St.
Monday nights at 10:00 through February 22
Admission: free
212-505-3733
www.pianosnyc.com
www.myspace.com/bluebrainbluebrain

Last June, Bluebrain — brainchild of brothers Hays and Ryan Holladay, formerly of the Brooklyn-based band the Epochs — played their first show ever, in their hometown of Washington, DC. In 2009 they also released a five-track EP, CULT FOLLOWING, which will be followed on February 9 by their debut full-length, SOFT POWER (both on Lujo Records). In celebration of the new disc, the brothers will be playing three free shows this month, in residency Monday nights at Pianos on the Lower East Side. Onstage, the Holladays each stand behind their own podium, as if they are holding a press conference or a debate, pumping out their dynamic, mellifluous electronic dance music while strange images are broadcast behind them, sort of the Yes Men meet the Butthole Surfers meet 1980s dreamy synth pop, or something like that. In “Ten by Ten,” which features a sweeping, swirling riff that will take over your whole body, the brothers repeat, “I can never make it alone”; in that vein, Bluebrain will be joined on February 8 by Riffle Recoil and on February 22 by Spiderfang and George Positive.

OUTDOOR ART

Red Grooms’s latest monumental sculptures line Midtown walkway (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Marlborough New York
Walkway between Fifth & Sixth Aves. and West 56th & 57th Sts.
Admission: free
212-541-4900
www.marlboroughgallery.com
flickr slideshow

Nearly all Midtown galleries are closed Sundays and Mondays, but there’s a small outdoor venue that never closes and is always worth passing through. In the walkway between Fifth & Sixth Aves. and West 56th & 57th Sts., the Marlborough Gallery (40 West 57th St.) regularly displays sculptures from its collection. Right now is the best mix they’ve had in years, having recently added three colorful nine-foot-tall enamel-on-aluminum sculptures from Red Grooms’s late 2009 “Dancing” show in the gallery. Grooms’s whimsical nature is more than evident in “Swan Lake,” “Tango Dancers,” and “Charleston,” his monumental works adding color to the otherwise gray alley that also includes Nobu 57. The playfulness continues with Tom Otterness’s “Large Cocqui,” a cute oversized frog staring right at the viewer. Several years ago, Manolo Verdes’s queen series took over Bryant Park; “Reina Mariana” has made the trek uptown, holding court in the alley. And Fernando Botero’s “Rape of Europa” features the Phoenician princess lying atop Zeus the bull. In addition, vertical pieces by Beverly Pepper and Arnald Pomodoro stand tall.