Our friends from Variety Shac are celebrating the release of their new DVD with a special performance at the Knitting Factory this Friday night. Big party = you don’t just get entertained by the lovely and talented Shonali, Heather, Andrea and Chelsea, you also get superstar guests like shey.net fave artist Cory ARRRRcangel, SNL’s Fred ARRRRmisen, the awesome Zach Galifianakis, and Eugene Mirman (Flight of the Conchords, Super Deluxe). Apparently you can buy tickets by texting SHAC to 467467 but I’m afraid to try it myself — just click on the poster below.
We’ll be there — hope to see all ye at the show. Yar.
Stopped by the MoMA today, figuring it would be a good day to see the Richard Serra sculptures outside (although it’s the three titanic pieces inside that turned out to be truly mindblowing). Among the happy surprises there (including the automatic update show with a piece by our friend Cory) was a huge installation of drawings, “WHAT HAPPENED TO US?” by Romanian artist Dan Perjovschi, covering one side of the four story atrium.
The drawings, wry commentary on contemporary society and current events, are a version of something Perjovschi’s done in museums, newspapers and journals all over Europe since the 90s, and must have been a blast to watch him draw. While we were there, there were dozens of people doing the same thing we were doing, looking up and reading the wall and laughing and pointing out drawing after drawing to their companions. A free accompanying newspaper you can pick up at the show features pen and ink versions of many of the drawings (like the ones above this paragraph) in a tabloid format (PDF download).
[Nick Douglas mentioned in the comments that this is “like a more obvious version of ‘Indexed,’” which was definitely a site I was thinking about at the show.]
I’ve always expected to live in New York City for as long as I remember; it’s where both of my parents are from, where I stole away as often as possible as a music-obsessed kid on Long Island, and the place I always came back to recharge for the twelve years I lived in DC. But now that Rachel and I live here, as much as I love it, I’m astonished every day by how fast it’s changing, and the place I knew is slipping away. So many things I thought could never change are changing, and often the city feels overrun, overpriced, and sometimes just over.
I’m sure this is something people have always felt in New York — the only thing that’s probably constant here is change, and the feeling that the city you imagined is somewhere else — but sometimes something just hits you in the gut. Like reading a few minutes ago that Pasticceria Bruno has closed down, or earlier this week that the Chelsea Hotel is getting Schragerized. A couple weeks before Christmas last year, I was walking down Bleecker Street and happened to pass by Bruno, and looking at the cookies in the window, felt my entire childhood coming back to me. On the way out to visit my parents for dinner for the holidays, I made a point to stop and pick up a couple of pounds of cookies and struffoli, honey balls like my great-Grandma Anna used to make. I knew my mom would get tears in her eyes when she saw them, and she did. I couldn’t believe my good fortune, that I lived in a city where I could still get something like this, something I remembered from almost thirty years ago, whenever I wanted. I figured I’d be going to Bruno’s, like the people double-parked that evening outside the bakery in cars and SUVs from every surrounding borough and state, to buy holiday cookies for the next thirty years, for sure.
I just realized I’m going to miss this. My old friends Cory and Lizzi are both headlining, and I’m literally stuck in San Francisco (flight cancelled). Don’t you miss it — go.
