ART: Paul Chan - Waiting For Godot in New Orleans Talk tonight @ MOMA

In November 2007 in New Orleans, artist Paul Chan worked with New York's Classical Theatre of Harlem and the public arts group Creative Time to present five free site-specific performances of Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot in two neighborhoods destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. But the project involved much more than the play. In this program Chan—whose work will be on view in the upcoming reinstallation of MoMA's Contemporary Galleries (June 2010–Summer 2011)—and some of his key collaborators discuss the project and all the different components that made it possible. Participants include Robert Lynn Green, New Orleans resident and "neighborhood ambassador" for the Godot project; Greta Gladney, Executive Director of The Renaissance Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the quality of life in New Orleans; and Christopher McElroen, Co-founder of the Classical Theatre of Harlem. The program is moderated by Kathy Halbreich, Associate Director, MoMA. (source)

Tonight - Wednesday, June 30, 2010, 6:30 p.m.

SCREEN: The Killer Inside Me

First posted about here, The Killer Inside Me is back in NYC and showing @ The IFC Center until July 1.

Adapting pulp master Jim Thompson’s novel, Winterbottom turns his masterful hand to neo-noir with the story of handsome, charming, unassuming West Texas deputy Lou Ford (a stunning Casey Affleck). Lou has a bunch of problems. Woman problems. Law enforcement problems. An ever-growing pile of murder victims—and the secret that he’s a sadist, a psychopath and a killer. Suspicion begins to fall on Lou, and it’s only a matter of time before his alibis start to unravel. But in this savage, bleak, blacker-than-noir universe nothing is ever what it seems. With Kate Hudson, Jessica Alba, Bill Pullman, Elias Koteas and Ned Beatty. (source)

Abita's SOS Beer!

LOVE LOVE LOVE!

From Abita: This Abita brew is a message in a bottle...a distress signal for the troubled waters of our Gulf Coast. For every bottle sold Abita will donate 75¢ to the rescue and restoration of the environment, industry and individuals fighting to survive this disastrous oil spill.

Drink up y'all!

STAGE: Can you Hear Their Voices

From Theatermania: Before the New Deal's Works Progress Administration and the Federal Theatre Project, there was Can You Hear Their Voices? (A Play of Our Time) written by Hallie Flanagan and Margaret Ellen Clifford. The play, based on the true story of a 1931 Arkansas drought, revealed a rural world of hunger and privation that was horribly neglected by government bureaucracy. With today's frequent and casual use of labels like "Communist" and "Socialist," Peculiar Works Project mines this landmark agitprop play to uncover how such words were interpreted in an earlier--yet remarkably similar--era. The news media constantly reminds us how our current economic situation is the worst "since the Great Depression;" Voices shines a spotlight on the root causes for radical political movements then and now.

Closes 6/27

SCREEN: Smokes & Ears tonight @ Water Taxi Beach LIC

Smokes & Ears

SMOKES & EARS from Joe York on Vimeo.

by Joe York. See the story of the Big Apple Inn in Jackson, Mississippi. Known as "Big John's" by its faithful customers, the Big Apple Inn's defining duo of pig ear sandwiches and hot smoked sausage sandwiches (known as "smokes") has kept folks coming back again and again for over 70 years, and counting. The film is made in recognition of 2009 Ruth Fertel Keeper of the Flame Award Winner Geno Lee. (from Southern Foodways Alliance)

Showing tonight at the Food Film Festival @ Water Taxi Beach in LIC (which is, of course, sold out).

Pride! A Deeper Love vs. Mississippi Goddam!

photo: advocate.com

FROM NY DAILY NEWS:

Who needs prom court when you’ve got the gay pride parade?

A lesbian Mississippi teen barred from attending her prom because she is gay and hoped to bring a female date has been named a grand marshal of New York City’s June 27 pride parade, organizers announced.

Constance McMillen, 18, gained national attention after she was barred from attending prom at her Fulton, Miss. high school with her longtime girlfriend.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the school district on her behalf after school officials said she could attend the dance with a male date, or alone.

A federal judge ruled that the school had violated McMillen’s First Amendment rights.

She received a $30,000 scholarship from “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” after the talk show host said she admired McMillen for standing up for herself against her school district’s prom policy.

SONG: James Cotton @ Lincoln Center 6/24

Blues Summit: James Cotton & Friends

Thu, Jun 24, 8:00pm - Rose Theater

Blues are the true facts of life expressed in words and song,” according to the late great blues icon Willie Dixon. Find out for yourself what the blues are all about in this special concert showcasing the greatest living blues harmonica master, James Cotton, and an all-star line-up of contemporary giants including the 96-year-old legend Pinetop Perkins and the always innovative Taj Mahal. In two distinct sets, one electric and the other unplugged, Cotton will be joined by reigning blues diva Shemekia Copeland, guitarist and Howlin’ Wolf alumnus Hubert Sumlin, plus Willie “Big Eyes” Smith, Darrell Nulisch, David Maxwell, and others. (source)

GEORGIA PLACES IN PERIL: Call for Noms!

DUE MONDAY 6/28:

Georgia’s Places in Peril 2011
Do you know of a special irreplaceable historic building or site that is highly threatened by demolition, neglect, inappropriate development or other threats? If so, this is your opportunity to help save it. The Georgia Trust’s Places in Peril program seeks to identify and preserve historic sites threatened by demolition, neglect, lack of maintenance, inappropriate development or other threats. The 2011 Places in Peril list will be announced in October 2010.

Visit: Georgia Trust

STAGE: Sister Myotis's Bible Camp

Now thru July 4:

DOROTHY STRELSIN THEATRE

Sister Myotis’s Bible Camp

Being the head deaconess of an 80,000 member mega-church is not without its challenges. The faithful flocks need tending and the faithless… well, let's just say there's hope. Sister Myotis, Ima Lone, and Velma Needlemeyer will be in attendance to host the annual Women's Church Retreat in hopes of giving backsliders, whoremongers, and the “chronically mediocre” a second chance at salvation. (source)

SCENE: A glimpse of Florence

I recently spent a weekend in the Shoals (AL) to celebrate the life of civil rights photographer Charles Moore, who passed away a few months ago, and also to partake in fashion designer Billy Reid's Shindig #2. Until I get my own post together, here's a glimpse from fashion blog Pennyweight:

Florence, Alabama from Pennyweight on Vimeo.

BOOK: Mattaponi Queen tonight (6/21) @ BN Tribeca

Belle Boggs will read from her debut collection of stories Mattaponi Queen at Barnes and Noble in Tribeca on Monday, June 21 at 7:00 PM. The event is free and open to the public.

Location: Barnes and Noble Tribeca (97 Warren St., New York, NY) Contact: 212-587-5389 REVIEW FROM KIRKUS: Boggs's sure-footed debut collection, winner of the Bakeless Prize for Fiction, is set on and around the Mattaponi Indian reservation in Virginia. The Mattaponi is formed by the confluence of four small rivers, and the author employs it deftly as a metaphorical merging of working-class folks of every race and ethnicity. She braids the stories together with recurrent characters and locales, but the stories nimbly evade the first-collection pitfall of too much sameness. The recurrent figures include Loretta, the caretaker for a cranky white octogenarian named Cutie. Loretta is biding her time and planning her retirement, which she'll spend on the small, old-fashioned boat that gives the collection its title, a boat being lovingly rehabbed by a solitary guy named Mitchell, who gave it to his ex-wife as an extravagant present and for whom the boat is now both an emblem of lovelessness and the only thing he has to lavish love on. There's the school principal, also lonesome, who gets cajoled into holding a Career Day, then is flummoxed because she "had honestly thought their county could produce more careers than four," by far the most lucrative of these being the ownership of a McDonald's. Her search for broader horizons leads her first to seek out a musician ex-boyfriend who tours the country's amusement parks with Patti LaBelle, then back home to a sweet-tempered, travel-loving policeman who becomes her beau. The stories are not heavily plotted, and Boggs doesn't always find satisfying exits, but even in those that seem to tread closest to cliche, for instance the one about the aging husband who announces that he wants a sex-change operation ("Jonas"), she writes with subtlety, empathy and command, so that every page features small surprises: jolts of recognition, pungent dialogue, keen observations. Unfussy, understated and richly varied stories-a promising debut. (source)

PHOTO: The Yellow Flower

(Warning: Shameless Self-Promotion): I'm excited to share that my photo, The Yellow Flower, has won 2nd Place (out of nearly 3000 entries) in the 2009 Army Digital Photo Contest! See more here.

SYMPOSIUM: Albert Murray @ Lincoln Center 6/17

A SYMPOSIUM
June 17, 2010 - 7 to 9 p.m.
Jazz at Lincoln Center - Agnes Varis and Karl Leichtman Studio at Frederick P. Rose Hall

Panel Discussion to Celebrate Publication of Albert Murray and the Aesthetic Imagination of a Nation

Jazz at Lincoln Center will be hosting a symposium on Albert Murray, the subject of the upcoming book Albert Murray and the Aesthetic Imagination of a Nation. This is the first book of scholarly and personal essays on the work of a writer who was instrumental in the founding of Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Born in Nokomis, Alabama, in 1916, and raised in Mobile, Albert Murray graduated from Tuskegee Institute (now University) in 1939. He later taught there and at many other colleges. He retired as a Major from the U.S. Air Force in 1962 and moved to New York City, where he resides with his wife, Mozelle, and his daughter, Michele. He is the author of many critically acclaimed books, including The Omni-Americans (essay collection, 1970), South to a Very Old Place (memoir, 1971), The Hero and the Blues (comparative critical essay, 1973), Train Whistle Guitar (highly acclaimed novel, 1974), Good Morning Blues: The Autobiography of Count Basie as told to Albert Murray (1986), and Trading Twelves: The Selected Letters of Albert Murray and Ralph Ellison (2000), among others. Murray is also the author of the hugely influential Stomping the Blues (1976), a history and aesthetics of jazz. Murray has served on the board of Jazz at Lincoln Center for many years. Albert Murray and the Aesthetic Imagination of a Nation is the first book of scholarly and personal essays on his work. (source)

The week that was...

Bummed that I missed the Big Apple BBQ while flying back to NY from Alabama last weekend. The air surrounding Madison Park was still dripping of smokey pulled pig and tangy sauce well past midnight as I passed by en route to my apartment building upon landing. Happily, GQ recounted the Billy Reid part of the experience on its blog:

This past Saturday, GQ's 2010 New Men's Designer of the Year and grandmaster of tailored Southern cool Billy Reid made a trip north of the Mason-Dixon to throw a down-home porch party at his eponymous label's NY outpost. In support of their participation in the annual Big Apple Bar-b-q Block Party, the Alabama-based designer brought in Birmingham favorite Jim N Nick's Bar-B-Q to roast a whole pig right outside the storefront steps. Deep-South pit meisters and downtown style hounds brushed elbows around neverending trays of ungodly delicious pork tacos and a keg of Jim N Nick's own house brew (suitably named Reverand Mudbone)—all the while trying not to get cole slaw on the shop's impeccable vintage-feel ties and oxfords. It was the perfect salve for a balmy evening—as relaxed and effortlessly charming as you'd expect from a southern gent like Mr. Reid.

— Graham Cumberbatch

The Whites...in your home??

"Coming into this world is nothing, going out is nothing... but at least the world knows who the fuck we are." Mamie White

I came home to NYC from my 3 month residency in lower Alabama to find that the Wild And Wonderful Whites of West Virginia is still available on-demand! For some reason, it's the only Tribeca selection NOT available on-demand in Alabama. Hmmm....

Re-cap from my post a year ago: Synopsis: Shoot-outs, robberies, gas-huffing , drug dealing, pill popping, murders, and tap dancing --- what do these all have in common? These are just a few of the parts of being a member of the Wild and Wonderful White Family.

SCREEN: Winter's Bone

Although set in Missouri, Winter's Bone is herald as "southern gothic" at its best. Playing now at the Angelika on Houston.



Synopsis: Seventeen-year-old Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) sets out to track down her father, who put their house up for his bail bond and then disappeared. If she fails, Ree and her family will be turned out into the Ozark woods. Challenging her outlaw kin's code of silence and risking her life, Ree hacks through the lies, evasions and threats offered up by her relatives and begins to piece together the truth. (source)

STAGE: On The Levee

Set on a levee in Greenville, Mississippi, On the Levee is a play with music that revisits the flood of 1927, the worst in U.S. history. At the heart of the story are two fathers (a white cotton farmer and an African-American bootblack) and their sons. Based on a true story, On the Levee reaffirms the enduring spirit of hope in a time of great poverty and devastation. (source)

Now thru 7/10 @ The Duke on 42nd Street

RIP Jimmy Dean

FROM CNN: Country music artist and sausage entrepreneur Jimmy Dean died at his home in Varina, Virginia, Sunday evening, police said. He was 81.

Dean, a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, was with his wife, Donna, at the time of his death, which appears to be from natural causes, said R.J. Clark of the Henrico County Police department.

Musically, Dean is best known for his song "Big Bad John," which made it to No. 1 on both the country and pop charts in 1961 and was honored with a Grammy. His narrative style of song also produced hits like "Little Black Book" and "P.T. 109" -- a song about John F. Kennedy's command in the South Pacific during World War II.

Alabamalama: Gordo Mule Day/Chickenfest 2010

From Alabamalama: Gordo Mule Day/Chickenfest 2010

The Gordo artists will be on hand for Muleday/Chickenfest on June 4 & 5. Studio 121 featuring Glenn House and Kathy Fetters Art Gallery will be open for viewing. Barbara Lee Black's Studio 134 Art Galley will be open. Studio 117 will have demo printing and paper making. The Crossroads Arts Alliance will feature Tent Sculptures. For more information call Glenn House at 205-393-0149.

And there is plenty of good food to be had including gator on a stick and the amazing and delicious fried blooming onions.

The complete schedule of events follows. You can also download the schedule as a PDF here.