Archive for September, 2005

Today is the first day of Joss Whedon’s new movie, Serenity.

You remember Whedon, he brought us Buffy and Angel. Then he brought us an awesome tv show on FOX called Firefly, about space cowboys (none named Maurice, though) that got cancelled way too fast due to its crappy time slot. Well somebody wised up and let him make Firefly into a movie. . .thus Serenity. Go see it. Now.

By the way, the role of Simon is played by Sean Maher, who I think might just be Carlos D. (of Interpol) and Crispin Glover’s long lost brother:

Tonight is the last Friday of the month and thus time for Critical Mass. Hundreds of New Yorkers will get on their bikes and go for a ride, as “a monthly celebration of bicycles and other nonpolluting means of transportation, exercising our right to the road. ” If you’d like to join, the starting place tonight is at Union Square Park North at 7pm.

Since the police have decided to crack down on this, I decided I’d share a tactic that a friend of mine used to keep from being arrested_ and it’s simplicity is brilliant. When the cops start blocking off the streets:

Chain up your bike and walk away.

This works best if you get on your phone and start looking confused. You can even ask the cops what’s going on. Maybe even throw on a jacket or hat that was in your backpack so you look different. Technically if your bike is legally chained up, the cops can’t touch it, so it should be ok, you can come back and get it later. I know there’s something to be said for taking a stand and letting the cops take you in, but let’s face it, you don’t always feel like being arrested.

But just in case, write this number on your arm: Legal Hotline (NLG and People’s Law): 212-679-6018

Recently it’s come to my attention that there are a couple of theatres in town that offer cheap tickets to those of us who are out of college, but still not at the point financially where we’re comfortable dropping $85-$100 a seat, and don’t have the time to go wait in line at TKTS, the half price ticket booth.

Roundabout Theatre Company has a program called HipTix. If you are 18-35 you can sign up with them in advance (which really means nothing more than logging onto the website and giving them your name and address) and then you’re eligible for $31.25 tickets. They are not usually in the best locations, but you’re also saving about $50. They also have special ‘HipTix’ parties, one performance during the run of a show with snacks and an open bar in the lounge after the show.

Playwrights Horizon also offers a discount to patrons under 30. You can buy a ‘30 Under Flexpass’ subscription, 4 tickets for $80 or 6 tickets for $120. And you can use them in any combination, for example with the 4 ticket subscribtion: use 2 tickets at one show but go to 2 other shows by yourself, or use all 4 on one show, or go see 4 shows by yourself. . . you get the idea. If you don’t want to commit to a whole season, they also offer HotTix, which are $20 tickets an hour before showtime (subject to availability), you just have to show up with an ID. Both ways you end up saving about $40 a show.

Even the New York City Opera is getting in on it. Their Big Deal memberships are for anyone 21-35, and after an enrollment fee of $50 you can buy one ticket to every opera for $30. It seems to me that if you just wanted to check out an opera once, it would be cheaper to just buy a single seat, but I think it becomes a deal after 4 operas, if you want to go regularly. They also have pre-opera Big Deal receptions and events.

You can join the Theatre Development Fund if you fall into one of the following categories: students, teachers, union members, seniors (62 or over), civil service employees, staff members not-for-profit organizations, performing arts professionals, members of the armed forces or clergy. TDF offers tickets for Broadway and Off-Broadway shows, usually for $32 or less. The availability is constantly changing, and they are on sale up to two weeks in advance.

Of course if none of this works for you, you can always try to get rush or standing room seats. Most theatres only do it for students, but there are some who will sell cheap seats to anyone the day of the show, and since we live here we can afford to be flexible, making it easier to get discounts.

If you’re picky about the location, none of the above may work for you. If you insist on buying full price tickets, at least look for some deals. Joining TheatreMania, Playbill, Hot NYC Deals, Hit Show Club or Best of Broadway: Broadway Bucks gets you access to coupons. And always check Broadway Box, an online collection of the aboves discount codes.

So there ya go, a bunch of different ways to get to see Broadway shows for less. Now if you can just make the plans to actually go. . .

It’s a little late, but I just found out it’s Cupcakes for a Cause Week (until Saturday). What this means is that you have the best reason ever to go out and buy as many cupcakes as you can shove in your mouth. A portion of each sale goes to CancerCare, a non-profit cancer support group. Look for the cupcakes with happy face ‘Bob’ on them at Magnolia, Sugar Sweet Sunshine or your favorite local bakery (check the website for participants).

Last Saturday night I went to see Lewis Black’s Nothing Sacred tour at Carnegie Hall. For those of you who are saying “Who is that?” let me remind you that he is regularly featured on The Daily Show in a segment called “Back in Black”. Remember now? He is one of today’s best political comedians, able to make you laugh about everything from Tax Rebates to Homeland Security to Reaganomics. He notices all the completely irrational things that people do, and won’t hesitate to make fun of anyone’s behavior. He’s also been in many movies, TV shows and as a playwright has had over 40 plays produced all over the country.

The show had two opening acts. The first one was a jazz duet, which was a strange choice and didn’t seem to go over very well. I ended up leaving my seat to go grab a drink and found the lobby packed with like-minded people. We all piled back in when comedian, John Bowman, came on. After performing an interpretive dance (during which I think he honestly hurt himself) he proceeded to contribute to my insanity by getting the hemorrhoids commercial theme song stuck in my head. For days. Which was the whole point, but really . . . it’s still there. Bowman was funny, but the show should’ve just been Black, he didn’t need the openers, and I think it just brought the energy down, at least it did for me.

After a 20 minute intermission, Bowman came on stage to introduce the main act of the evening, Lewis Black. I had seen Black before at a surprise performance at Eating It, a monthly show of local comics at The Zipper Theatre. The venue was small and intimate and Black had the crowd doubled over. His show at Carnegie Hall was large and impersonal, but everyone still went crazy for him. I was waaaay up in the fourth mezzanine, so I wasn’t able to see any of his trademark facial gestures or wild, uncontrollable finger gesturing, but he killed nonetheless. All of his material was new, including his opening, during which he expressed his amazement of being allowed to play Carnegie Hall. After this, he said, the only thing left for him to do is become a drug addict, lose everything, go to rehab and try to work his way back up, so that he can eventually play Carnegie Hall again.

Forty minutes of pacing up and down the stage and yelling ‘FUCK’ over and over again, and the show was over. He had entertained us with stories of the time he performed for Dick Cheney, and how it made him a whore. He told us about all the strange names he’s encountered, including Asshole (pronounced Ash-hol-e) and Abcde (pronounced ab-ca-de) — and how it’s names like these which prove it should be legal for the person filling out the birth certificate to say “Ummm . . .no.” And he encouraged us to vote for Ronald Regan in the next election_because the only way to fight an insane enemy is to be even more insane, and wouldn’t it be great if we propped up a dead president on inauguration day.

The moral of the story is, if you ever get a chance to see Lewis Black in person . . . do it. I think I prefer the smaller venue, because watching this guy is comedy unto itself; but even just hearing him in a big venue like Carnegie is worth it. Keep your eyes peeled, because he sometimes plays the smaller clubs, and you wouldn’t want to miss it.

Ok, I’ve been sick in bed for the past couple of days, so I haven’t had any events to review, but I thought I’d recommend the website where I’ve been killing all my time.

Not Pron is described as the hardest riddle on the internet. I can’t really tell you much without giving anything away, but I can tell you it’s 138 levels and of the 5,242,901 people that have started it, only 56 people have reached the end. You do need to know a little bit about computers to get it, but with the help of the forums, you could probably start with no knowledge and maybe learn something along the way.

I’m on Level 16 now, so if anyone else is playing and wants a hint, feel free to leave me a comment.

DANCE IN THE DEEP END:
Site-specific Artist Reopens Public Space in Brooklyn

photo by Richard Termine

Noemie LaFrance’s new site-specific “Agora,” is an arts festival unto itself, unexpectedly charming and whimsical with brooding moments interspersed. On Tuesday night, a ribbon cutting (of yellow police tape) and performance of “Agora” reopened the 50,000 square-foot McCarren pool in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint/Williamsburg neighborhood for the first time since 1983. LaFrance’s work inaugurates the site as an interim performance venue and laboratory for site-specific artists that will keep the pool open to the public as funds are raised to renovate. It also opens a new debate regarding the pool’s future and the role of local artists in shaping policy surrounding public space.

The McCarren pool, a project of the WPA, was built in 1936 to accommodate 6,800 swimmers, but LaFrance filled the crumbling relic with her moveable art installations, 30 dancers, and guest performers who wailed away on the vast stretch of concrete pool bottom—tracing abstract narrative threads that overlapped and intersected. The shifting scenes evoked antagonism, self-adsorption, exhibitionism, eroticism, playfulness, and celebration—many ghosts from the pool’s past. Throughout the work, these apparitions came to us as conversations with the architecture’s history—but also spoke of a much larger notion of public space and inter-activity and the utter engagement of people with place.

photo by Richard Termine

The team of skillful performers dove in and out of the action in furious flashes of fully-invested movement—from large, recognizable dance that filled the space to more nuanced gestures focused by careful staging. Occasionally, the performers would converge to serve up a hefty helping of expansive unison movement, which proved to be restful to the eye and mind before the action fragmented and scattered once again, leaving us to reconcile and prioritize our perceptions. In all of LaFrance’s choices, the results seemed determined by a response to the demands of the site; and therefore, overly precious experimentalism—all too often privileged in contemporary dance—bowed to the integrity of overall design.

Lighting by Thomas Dunn made use of the pool’s original lighting for night swimming, and together with a multi-channel sound score by Brooks Williams and Norm Scott, amplified the palate of movement textures and motley tableaus: a riotous disco; a rolling bed scene, high-impact antics in an inflatable pool, hula-hoopers atop raised islands, a Flamenco pilgrimage, and preening junkies in the deep end. These scenes and more manifested and dissolved, only to be replaced by a multiplicity of others. As women carrying baskets fell into the pool and made their way center to pick up fallen oranges, the piece resolved itself as the scene of a marketplace (or “Agora” in Greek, which has several connotations for the public sphere). Two casually dressed figures from the audience joined in to survey the possibilities, and we were left to ponder whether they were spectators or part of the spectacle.

“Agora” runs through October 1 at 8pm.

For tickets, directions and further information visit sensproduction.org or call 718-302-5024.

by Tom Pearson (September 15, 2005)

I have to admit I did not want to see this movie. Just what Autumn needs, I thought. More shamelessly pretentious Oscar-bait. It had all the hallmarks: French director? Check. Baffling storyline? Check. Matthew Modine? Double check.

Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised. Director Louis Letterier (along with screenwriters Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen) manage to take what could have been a stuffy little tale of an ex-special forces limousine driver combatting a devious plot by international drug cartels involving a bioengineered super-virus and turn it into something fun. I mean, the dude beats people up with a hose. A freakin’ hose!!!! How cool is that??

It took two people to write this movie.

So if you can get past your fear of art-house cinema and the French, I highly recommend this thought-provoking masterpiece. I mean c’mon…a freakin’ HOSE!!! Until next time, the mezzanine is closed!

Truthfully, tonight didn’t look all that promising. I called 169 Bar and they told me the Cloud Cult / Heavenly Stakes show was sold out for door tickets. Well, shit. So no review of their live show, but to sum up Cloud Cult’s recorded material: freakin’ weird but cool beats and stuff. Oh yeah and a song called “The Princess Bride” that is rife with samples from, yes, the movie The Princess Bride. No more indie rock, I mean it! Anybody wanna peanut?

Ahem.

I did however, make it over to Scenic for Insound’s afterparty which featured free PBRs and more importantly, The Constantines.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love to see shows at places like the Bowery Ballroom and Radio City Music Hall where the lights are great, the sound is perfect, and you feel part of a larger presence with the band and the crowd. I’ve seen shows at both venues that can be described with such hoity-toity words like “majestic”. But with a down and dirty, kick-in-the-junk band like the Constantines, a cramped low-ceilinged basement full of like-minded free-beer drunk maniac kids in black t-shirts is more than “majestic”… it’s fuckin’ badass. This show punched me in the head and had me begging for more. The Constantines refuse to be defined or pigeonholed in genres that could only do them harm. One minute you’re foot stomping and hollerin’ like Matthew McConaughey in Dazed and Confused on the last day of school, and the next you’re air picking the harmonics on some post-punk free jazz Chicago steez. The whole time lead singer/guitarist Bry Webb is whispering or screaming things that are simultaneously NASCAR nonsense and first love freeverse. I made three new friends in the crowd instantly, guys my age who were slamming down PBR, punching the ceiling tiles, and goin’ “FUCK YEEAAAHHH” every 60 seconds or so. Our friendship consisted of “DUDE THIS IS SO RAD!” and big smiles like getting your first BMX. After the show, we all high fived, had some smokes, shared a few more PBRs, and left happy.

Thank you lord for rock and/or roll.

The Constantines:

Friday night is looking like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah hoping for a miracle with a near sold out longshot at Mercury Lounge, or The Wilderness in an uber late night hush-hush set at Scenic. Rock on, croutons.

MP3s to listen to while waxing your Camaro and crying about your latest Instant Messenger breakup:
The Constantines - On To You
The Constantines - Nighttime Anytime It’s Allright

I’ve never heard their music before, but I was familiar with the buzz and I have to say that they were awesome. With 8 maybe 9 members in the band (depending on if the french horn was onstage) they played everything from their album Funeral (I was told by my friends that know them). The chick singer sounds like Bjork, and the set was really high energy except for one acoustic song towards the end of the set that lacked melody and was kindof masturbatory and self-indulgent. But they’re upbeat stuff is really entertaining and you can tell they’re classicaly trained cause you can hear how they orchestrate and layer. The show was sold out and hot and packed and the guy from Labrynth came on to sing the last two songs with them. It was crazy, eccentric and magnetic.

PS The guy from Labrynth is DAVID FUCKIN’ BOWIE!!! There is no need to elaborate on how amazing this was.