Reading The Tea

Great art by great people coming up around the city…

Come hear Bronwen’s poetry at a Post-MFA / Pre-Book Reading at Cornelia Street Cafe on Wednesday, January 24th at 6:00pm.

The Cornelia Street Cafe
29 Cornelia Street
$6 cover = free drink
Subway: A/C/E/F to West 4th or 1/9 to Christopher

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Take a look at Michelle’s Kinetiscope at the About Glamour Gallery in Williamsburg. (You might also be tempted to buy a necklace from the store in front, like I was.)

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Adam of Adam’s Books, will be reading his poetry at
a Chelsea art gallery, Zieher Smith on Tuesday, February 6th, 6pm. 

My friend Adam, known to some as “Fair Coz,” has opened a lovely bookstore in Fort Greene/Park Slope. For all you bibliophiles, I highly recommend that you check it out. When you walk in, you’re instantly immersed in books, with loose categorizations and intriguing possibilities — the perfect place for finding books that you desperately need, you just didn’t know it yet. The first time I was there I went home with a lovely full-color Pilobolus Alphabet book. Another time I met an antique how-to book on baseball. Having never developed an understanding of the classic american sport, it almost seduced me, but that time I held strong, and took a couple of novels home with me instead. If you’re ever at a loss, Adam or the lovely Emily are there to guide you through your book-finding adventure. I urge all to go to the Grand Opening Celebration this Sunday. (Though the store has been open since June, this is the celebration.) I’ve heard rumors of refreshments available, and many local authors are giving readings.

Schedule of Readings/Performances

12:00 – 1:00 : Rick Pernod, Andrea Baker, Bronwen Tate

1:00 – 2:00 : Jenn Guitart, Tisa Bryant, Lynn Xu

2:00 – 3:00 : Christopher Myers, Erika Howsare, Jackie Delamatre

3:00 – 4:00 : Will Hubbard, Jess DeCourcy Hinds, Amber West

4:00 – 5:00 : Eve Packer, Holly Tavel, Fred Schmalz

5:00 – 6:00 : Mac Wellman, Erin Courtney, Jonathan Ceniceroz

6:00 – 7:00 : Anika Haynes, Gareth Lee, Brenda Iijima

7:00 – 8:00 : Luisa Guigliano, Jennifer Hayashida, Christopher Stackhouse

8:00 – 9:00 : Bonnie Emerick, Amy King, Adam Tobin

Adam’s Books 718.789.1534

456 Bergen St. 11217 (between 5th Ave. & Flatbush)

One of the things I love about summer in New York is all of the dancing (much of it free!) that takes place outside. Last Friday Dustin and I went to the Midsummer Night Swing Ceili Dance. The last time I went to a Ceili was in early high school, when Bronwen and I went to one in Portland that was in the common room above a police station, so I’d forgotten exactly how much fun it is. It’s also amazing exercize — a woman in our set was wearing a pedometer and a couple of hours in announced that we’d danced four miles.

On Sunday we make it over to the Pier 54 Moondance for swing to the Sultans of Swing (Who Dustin actually danced to at Crystal Ballroom in Portland about six years ago.).

New Yorkers: Do you need a place to spend the New Year?
All of your troubles are solved! Get thee to Galapagos to pull in the new year with music, dancing (on tables optional), and burlesque. At midnight champagne bottles descend from the ceiling, so bring your favorite tall friend along. Festivities start at 8, with a $25 cover, or dance in after 1 for $10. See you there!

It’s so strange to see the wave of nostalgia toys that are hitting the kids’ stores recently. Strolling through the toy section in Target is a journey to childhood. Transformers, Lite-Brites, Care Bears, who would’ve thought that they’d come back? Now the kids who first played with them are having little ones of their own, and what could be better to play with than the stuff that we loved? I had a huge collection of My Little Ponies. They were an aqua-friendly herd — I remember playing with them most in the bathtub and the kiddie pool in the back yard. The fake terf that we had spread over the deck (Ooh, remember that?) was the perfect field for frolicking. My favorites were, of course, the babies. My favorite, that is, until they came out with a teenager-size (bigger than the babies, smaller than the moms) pony who had delicate, iridescant wings. She was truly beautiful. I must not be the only one hit with such a poignant strain of nostalgia — even some of todays most talented artists aren’t immune, including Annie Leibovitz. Opening October 21st, Milk Gallery will be featuring a set of oversized My Little Ponies (How’s that for irony?)decorated by what they bill as “some of today’s leading female artists.” The project seems a little too similar to the cows, and the set of rather bad copycat projects it spawned for my liking. However, will I be there? Oh yes. Who can resist My Little Ponies? My six-year-old self would never forgive me.

BAM is going to be having a lot of Glass going on — first this week, October 4th, Orion, comissioned for the 2004 Summer Olympics. Glass will play keyboards amid a nationally eccletic group of instruments.
If you miss that, then don’t miss the world premiere of Symphony Number 8, on November 2, 4 or 5, also at BAM.
If you want something with guitar, go to the USE show at Knitting Factory on October 7th.

Go see this show!

After wondering along the sidewalk past twilight ball fields we arrived at the crumbling grandiose arches of McCarren Pool. Inside we perched on the empty pool edge while a stream-of-consciousness plot emerged, facilitated largely by plentiful and often bizarre costuming and props. A blonde girl with a flowing split-skirt teetered as she walked across an imaginary tightrope. Soon most of the cast of thirty hopped off the sides of the pool from among the audience and joined in. A group of men in suites marched around the perimeter and up a lifeguard stand in the middle. A man set up a kiddie pool and began filling it with water. Later he and another dancer, fully clothed, flung themselves in repeatedly. A shopping cart with a spinning disco light wheeled around with a group of dancers performing a stylized disco party motif trailing. On closer inspection it looked like a homeless person’s cart, stuffed with odds and ends. Someone rode by on a bicycle, a hunched southern belle shuffled around with a teacup and a huge hat. People with skateboards attached to their backs performed duets. A girl wearing a red formal and clutching two red suitcases dashed across the pool with the train extending across in a red carpet. The suitcases popped open and oranges spilled out. A disco ball came from seemingly no where and hovered while people joined in a rare moment of dancing unity — except for Miss Saturn, a “guest apparition” who hoola hooped on a lifeguard stand. For their many costume changes dancers hopped onto the side of the pool with the audience and switched shirts or grabbed props. A girl with long hair came close and told us about how much better time she was having than us, “floating!” After about an hour, the cast seemed to be wearing middle eastern costumes, and a street market appeared in front of us, complete with carpets and a hookah. One by one audience members hopped down and joined the cast, wandering around the pool. After a while they formed a ring around the outside and took a bow, and we wandered out of the dream, back to the L train.