this week in lectures, signings, panel discussions, workshops, and Q&As

MATT CHARMAN AND JOSIE ROURKE: THE MACHINE

Garry Kasparov takes on Deep Blue in epic chess battle being re-created at the Park Avenue Armory (photo by Helen Maybanks)

Park Avenue Armory, Wade Thompson Drill Hall
643 Park Ave. at 67th St.
September 4-18, $45-$90
212-933-5812
www.armoryonpark.org
www.donmarwarehouse.com

A seminal moment in the history of man vs. machine took place in 1996-97, when Russian grandmaster Garry Kasparov played the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue in a series of highly publicized chess matches that would serve as a critical turning point in the ascendance of artificial intelligence. That epic battle has now been dramatized by England’s Donmar Warehouse, which will be staging the U.S. premiere of The Machine at the Park Avenue Armory September 4-18. Written by Matt Charman (A Night at the Dogs, The Five Wives of Maurice Pinder) and directed by Donmar artistic director Josie Rourke (The Physicists, The Cryptogram), the two-and-a-half-hour multimedia show features Hadley Fraser as Kasparov, Francesca Annis as Clara Gasparyan, Phil Nichol as television commentator Mandy Dinkleman, and Kenneth Lee as Feng-Hsiung Hsu (or Tsu), the computer scientist, known as Crazy Bird, who built Deep Blue. The production, which should look spectacular in the armory’s expansive 55,000-square foot Wade Thompson Drill Hall, is designed by Lucy Osborne, with lighting by Mark Henderson, sound by Ian Dickinson, choreography by Jonathan Watkins, and video projection by Andrzej Goulding. On September 7 there will be an artist talk with Rourke and Charman in the Veterans Room, moderated by armory artistic director Alex Poots ($15, 5:00).

OUR NIXON

Deputy Assistant Dwight Chapin zooms in on the Nixon White House in all-archival documentary (Super 8 film still, Dipper Films)

OUR NIXON (Penny Lane, 2012)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Opens Friday, August 30
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.ournixon.com

Penny Lane’s debut documentary, the all-archival Our Nixon, offers a compelling new inside look at the Nixon White House. The classic cautionary tale about power, corruption, and paranoia, which ultimately brought down the thirty-seventh president of the United States, has been told many times before, on film (All the President’s Men, Oliver Stone’s Nixon), in books (Woodward and Bernstein’s The Final Days, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon), onstage (Frost/Nixon, Checkers), and even as an opera (John Adams’s Nixon in China). When Nixon moved into the White House in January 1969, he brought along three key figures: Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman, Chief Domestic Adviser John Erlichman, and Deputy Assistant Dwight Chapin. And those three men brought along Super 8 cameras, prepared to document not only their daily lives but also how they were going to change the nation. During its investigation of the Watergate scandal, the FBI confiscated more than five hundred reels of footage, totaling more than twenty-six hours, taken by Haldeman, Erlichman, and Chapin, and these home movies, which belong to the Nixon Library and have been digitized specifically for the film, form the basis of Our Nixon. Director-producer Lane combines this deeply personal footage — showing alternate views of the 1969 inauguration, a White House Easter egg hunt, the moon landing, Trisha Nixon’s wedding, Nixon’s trip to China, the Republican National Convention, and other, more mundane events — with carefully chosen audio excerpts from the White House tapes, creating a unique audiovisual experience.

H. R. Haldeman takes home movies at the Great Wall of China in 1974 (Super 8 film still, Dipper Films)

Lane foregoes any political and historical experts in favor of having the protagonists do all the talking, through radio and television interviews (with Mike Wallace, Barbara Walters, and Phil Donahue), oral histories, and the secret White House recordings. In addition, there are supplemental news reports from Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, Daniel Schorr, and others. As interesting as it is to see the home movies, the audiotapes are mesmerizing, revealing some of the behind-the-scenes manipulations that were often not nearly as planned as most people assume. It is actually both frightening and sad to hear Nixon talking to Haldeman about a just-completed short television address he gave to the nation, the president concerned about how he came off and upset that only one colleague called to congratulate him. And just wait till you hear what they have to say about Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Although Our Nixon offers no excuses or apologies for the actions of the Nixon White House, it does humanize, instead of demonize, these central figures, who might not have been quite as overtly evil as many people would like to believe. Of course, that doesn’t mean they come across as a group of cuddly teddy bears either. Our Nixon opens August 30 at the IFC Center, with the filmmakers participating in several Q&As on Friday and Saturday night.

THE ART OF THE SCORE: FILM WEEK AT THE PHILHARMONIC

There shouldn’t be much sleeping when the scores of films by Alfred Hitchcock (above, with composer Bernard Herrmann) and Stanley Kubrick take center stage at the Philharmonic

Avery Fisher Hall
10 Lincoln Square, Broadway at 64th St.
September 17-21, $45-$125
www.nyphil.org

Perhaps no two directors used music as effectively as Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick, the former employing original compositions to build unwavering suspense, the latter including famous classical pieces to immerse viewers in magical atmospheres. The New York Philharmonic will pay tribute to both men during “The Art of the Score: Film Week at the Philharmonic,” as the orchestra performs the scores while film clips are shown on the big screen at Avery Fisher Hall. Curated by artistic director Alec Baldwin, “The Art of the Score” begins September 17-18 with “Hitchcock!,” comprising music by Lyn Murray (To Catch a Thief), Bernard Herrmann (Vertigo, North by Northwest), Dimitri Tiomkin (Strangers on a Train, Dial M for Murder), and Charles Gounod (“Funeral March of a Marionette,” the theme from Alfred Hitchcock Presents), conducted by Constantine Kitsopoulos; the first night will be hosted by Baldwin, the second by Sam Waterston. The Philharmonic then focuses on Kubrick’s epic 2001: A Space Odyssey on September 20-21, consisting of works by György Ligeti (“Atmosphères,” “Lux aeterna,” “Aventures,” “Kyrie” from Requiem), Richard Strauss (“Also sprach Zarathustra”), and Johann Strauss II (“On the Beautiful Blue Danube”), conducted by Alan Gilbert and featuring the Musica Sacra Chorus, directed by Kent Tritle. The final event, “Mind, Music, and the Moving Image,” being held on September 21 at the Gerald W. Lynch Theatre, in which Baldwin speaks with filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen, their regular composer, Carter Burwell, and neuroscientest Aniruddh D. Patel, has already sold out.

IGNORANCE

Susan Sarandon will discuss “The Path Itself” with the Gyalwang Drukpa as part of Rubin Museum series on “Ignorance”

Rubin Museum of Art
150 West 17th St. at Seventh Ave.
September 25 – December 27, $15 – $45 (Acoustic Cash $85, Cabaret Cinema free with $7 bar purchase)
212-620-5000
www.rmanyc.org

Last fall, the Rubin Museum examined the concept of happiness through specially introduced film screenings, live performances, and a series of talks pairing artists with scientific and philosophical experts. This fall the museum and its mad-genius programmer, Tim McHenry, tackle a different kind of bliss: ignorance. In 1742, British poet Thomas Gray concluded his “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College” thusly: “Since sorrow never comes too late, / And happiness too swiftly flies. / Thought would destroy their paradise. / No more; where ignorance is bliss, / ’Tis folly to be wise.” More than two centuries earlier, Gautama Buddha explained in the Sutta Nipata that “it is ignorance that smothers, and it is carelessness that makes it invisible. The hunger of craving pollutes the world, and the pain of suffering causes the greatest fear.” The Rubin’s “Ignorance” series, which explores the idea that “what you don’t know could hurt you,” begins September 25 with artist Ernesto Pujol and cultural critic Carol Becker discussing “Ignorance and Ritual,” followed September 26 with lama the Gyalwang Drukpa and actress Susan Sarandon delving into “The Path Itself” and September 27 with psychologist Daniel Gilbert and cartoonist Tim Kreider investigating “Delusion.” Among the other highlights are writer Neil Gaiman and multimedia artist Laurie Anderson sitting down for “Fantasy and Fact,” director Mira Nair and anthropologist Christopher Pinney getting into “Allegory and Illusion,” and playwright Neil LaBute and actor Alec Baldwin rapping about “Ignorance in the Information Age.” Live music includes Holly Near on September 27, Rosanne Cash and Cory Chisel on October 18, and Toshi Reagon on November 8. The Friday-night film programs kicks off September 6 with drama critic John Heilpern introducing Kind Hearts and Coronets and continues with such other beauties as actor and photographer Joel Grey introducing Cabaret, comedian Rachel Dratch introducing Lord of the Flies, and multidisciplinary performance artist John Kelly introducing Shadow of a Doubt. Nineteenth-century British preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon wrote, “The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is the knowledge of our own ignorance”; this Rubin series should throw that door wide open.

EXPO 1: NEW YORK

“ProBio” looks at the future with “dark optimism” at MoMA PS 1 (photo by Matthew Septimus)

MoMA PS1
22-25 Jackson Ave. at 46th Ave.
Thursday – Monday through September 2, suggested admission $10 (free with paid MoMA ticket within fourteen days), 12 noon – 6:00
718-784-2084
www.momaps1.org

The presentation of MoMA PS1’s summer exhibition, “Expo 1: New York,” smartly echoes how climate change, technology, and evolution have impacted the progression and devastation of the natural world in the twenty-first century. The show began in May with a series of modules in various locations, with some of those individual parts, including “Rain Room” at MoMA, Olafur Eliasson’s Icelandic glacier installation “Your waste of time” at PS1, Adrián Villar Rojas’s “La inocencia de los animales (The innocence of animals)” PS 1 lecture hall, and the VW Dome on Rockaway Beach, now having gone extinct, disappearing like the melting ice caps. But the show, which promotes Triple Canopy’s concept of a “dark optimism” for the future of humanity and the planet, still has several worthwhile displays at its primary hub at PS 1, examining its mission statement that “we live in a time that is marked by both the seeming end of the world and its beginning, being on the brink of apocalypse but also at the onset of unprecedented technological transformation.” Curators Klaus Biesenbach and Hans Ulrich Obrist reach back fifteen years for Meg Webster’s “Pool,” which PS 1 founder Alanna Heiss originally commissioned in 1998, a swampy water environment that could not exist without the coming together of natural materials and man-made electronic elements. Downstairs in the basement, the Cinema is offering up recent film, video games, and online content from the YouTube generation; the upcoming schedule includes the video games “Journey” and “Proteus,” Sterling Ruby’s Transient Trilogy, Althea Thauberger’s Northern, and Khavn de la Cruz’s Kalakala and Mondomanila or: How I Fixed My Hair After a Rather Long Journey, with the director on hand to discuss his work (and provide live piano accompaniment for the former). Organized by Josh Kline, “ProBio” takes a futuristic look at the intersection of technology and the human body, with intriguing cutting-edge works by such artists as Alisa Baremboym, Antoine Catala, Carissa Rodriguez, and Georgia Sagri; watch out for those Roomba-like robots scouring the floor. One offsite project still remains, Marie Lorenz’s “The Tide and Current Taxi,” which visitors can hail in New York harbor. As always at MoMA PS 1, the many rooms hold little surprises, so be sure to explore so you can also catch pieces by Charles Ray, Matthew Barney, Zoe Leonard, Steve McQueen, Mark Dion, Chris Burden, Pierre Huyghe, Agnes Denes, Ugo Rondinone, and others. And for the final week of “Expo 1,” a77’s communal courtyard installation “Colony” is taken over by Glenn O’Brien, who will be hosting “TV Party Goes to Camp.”

READING OF THE DAY: TURN AROUND BRIGHT EYES BY ROB SHEFFIELD

Rolling Stone contributing editor Rob Sheffield has been entertaining us for years with his sly, hysterical, and unique take on pop culture, from his merry meanderings through movies and television to music and more. The Brooklyn-based Sheffield has just released his third book, Turn Around Bright Eyes: The Rituals of Love & Karaoke (Harper, August 6, $25.99), the follow-up to 2007’s Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time and 2011’s Talking to Girls About Duran Duran: One Young Man’s Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut. The new tome, which features such song-related chapter titles as “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” “Livin’ on a Prayer,” “99 Luftballons,” “Hot Legs,” “Debaser,” and “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” reveals Sheffield and his wife’s addiction to karaoke, something we can’t say we share but makes for some very funny reading. There should be some very funny reading and discussion on August 23, when Sheffield presents the book at the Barnes & Noble at 2289 Broadway at 82nd St. at 7:00. “Once upon a time I was falling apart. Now I’m always falling in love,” the book begins. “This spiritual quest, like so many spiritual quests, involves Bonnie Tyler,” Sheffield adds. That’s more than enough for us; count us in.

TCM CLASSIC FILM TOUR

Meet near Broadway at 51st St.
Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, August 22 – January 9, children $27, adults $43, 11:30 am
212-913-9780
www.onlocationtours.com

Throughout Hollywood’s fabled history, many of its greatest films were made right here in New York City. Turner Classic Movies and On Location Tours have now teamed up to present the TCM Classic Film Tour, a three-hour exploration through some of the Big Apple’s most iconic cinema sites. Among the dozens of stops the bus will make are at the Empire State Building (King Kong, An Affair to Remember), Grand Central Terminal (North by Northwest, Superman), Central Park (Ghostbusters, The Fisher King), the Dakota (Rosemary’s Baby, Hannah and Her Sisters), the Plaza Hotel (Plaza Suite, Barefoot in the Park), Rockefeller Center (Elf, On the Town), Tiffany’s (Breakfast at Tiffany’s), FAO Schwarz (Big, Baby Boom), and Zabar’s (You’ve Got Mail). There will also be trivia quizzes and movie clips along the way. We’re a little disturbed that the On Location website promises a “fantastic view of the Manhattan Bridge you’ll recognized [sic] from Woody Allen’s Manhattan,” since it’s actually the Queensboro Bridge that appears in the iconic scene (as displayed in the tour logo), but we’ll catch them a break this time and hope that the tour itself isn’t laden with additional mistakes.