On Veteran’s Day, November 11 at 8PM: Brooklyn Reading Works at the Old Stone House presents Writing War: Fiction and Memoir by Veterans of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan including Matt Gallagher, author of Kaboom, Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War, Juri Jurjevics, Roy Scranton, Philip Klay and Jacob Siegel.

The reading begins at 8PM and there will be a Q&A following the readings. A $5 suggested donation includes refreshments and wine.

The Old Stone House is located at Fifth Avenue and Third Street in Park Slope, Brooklyn. 718-768-3195.

Click on read more for bios of the authors:

Continue reading November 11 at BRW: Writing War: Fiction by Vets of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan →

There’s a nice double feature  tonight.  It’s early enough (8 to 10 pm) that the fact that it’s a school night should not interfere.  The show consists of Sasha Dobson, long an OTBKB Music fave, and Poundcake, Teddy Thompson‘s early rock ‘n’ roll and rockabilly cover band.  For the details see Now I’ve Heard Everything.

There is also some news about the latest doings of musicians James Maddock, Leslie Mendelson and Emily Zuzik over at Now I’ve Heard Everything.

–Eliot Wagner

Last night at 7PM I knew I had to get myself over to the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) to see Brooklyn Omnibus, which is part of their Next Wave Festival at the Harvey Theater. I didn’t have a ticket, I didn’t have anyone to go with but I felt compelled. It felt necessary.

I didn’t even know that show started at 7:30 PM and it was pure luck that I got there, by Eastern car service, just in the nick of time.

Pure luck, too, that there were still tickets. When I finally sat in my seat the lights dimmed immediately and the show began.

Stew, an attractive and rotund African American composer/musician/performer, was front and center in a kilt (a kilt!) with a bright red electric guitar. He was surrounded by his 12-piece band, The Negro Problem, which includes his co-writer/composer Heidi Rodewald on guitar, vocalist Eisa Davis, who starred in Passing Strange, the composers’ Tony and Obie award winning musical and players on tuba, accordion, sitar, sax, trumpet, drums and keyboards by Joe McGinty, of Loser’s Lounge fame.

I may have been expecting more of a character-driven musical theater piece. Instead, Brookyn Omnibus is a song cycle with a slew of hyperactive, inter-connected short stories on the theme of Brooklyn, from the vantage point of the composers, who are newly settled in the borough. As Stew says on a video on the BAM website, “We’re not experts on Brooklyn, we bring to it who we are.”

And that really is the fascination of the piece. Stew, who is now living in Ft. Greene, and Rodewald, who lives in Park Slope, have been living their lives in Brooklyn and they’re mirroring back what they see and feel about this place. In the process they have become a part of  this place.

The Brooklyn Omnibus is their invented car service (a la Eastern), which takes them around the borough. They’ve even composed telephone hold music called “Five minutes.”

Continue reading Tonight: Last Chance to See Brooklyn Omnibus →

There’s a long list of songs by Seth Kaufman, who has his own song about Brooklyn called “Coney Island Mashup.”

Seth thinks that his song, which has an island groove with some Afro pop thrown in for good measure, holds its own against the likes of Lou Reed and Herb Alpert. His band is called The Fancy Shapes. You be the judge.

When you finish listening to the song, click on read more to see a list of a lotta songs about Coney Island and Brooklyn.

Continue reading The Fancy Shapes Sing Coney Island Mashup →

Issue Project Room(IPR) has a brand new Executive Director, and that’s good news for Brooklyn’s innovative and experimental music and performance space that lost its founding director, Suzanne Fiol, to cancer last October.

This week the board of IPR announced the appointment of Ed Patuto as the new Executive Director for the organization. Patuto, who is moving back to Brooklyn from Los Angeles, will begin his official duties at ISSUE on November 1, 2010.

” I am honored to have the opportunity to advance Suzanne’s vision for experimental arts and help build a new home for ISSUE at 110 Livingston in Brooklyn,” said Patuto in ISSUE’s press release.

IPR is in the midst of an intensive $2.5 million capital campaign that will enable the experimental art space to move into large new quarters at 110 Livingston Street. Currently they are located at the American Can Factory on Third Street and Third Avenue in Park Slope/Gowanus.  The group has already raised  $1.2 million.

According to his bio (provided by IPR), Patuto has 20 years experience in fund-raising for artistic institutions, an incredibly important skill in these cash-strapped times. Most recently he was Co-Founder/Director of VOLUME, “a CA-based curatorial catalyst for interdisciplinary new media work concentrating on the nexus of music and visual arts practices ranging from the experimental to popular culture.”

He has also worked as development director for the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles and the Montalvo Arts Center and has a long list of credits at a host of other arts institutions and programs.

This professionally shot video is the first appearance of this Steve Wynn and The Miracle 3 song from their forthcoming album, Northern Aggression.  Unlike the usual rockers from the band, this song is quiet and understated.  Lots of nice studio footage of the recording of this song, which is from an early 70s short indie film.  See it here at Now I’ve Heard Everything.

The CMJ 2010 Music Marathon continues through tomorrow night.  You’ll find picks each day at Now I’ve Heard Everything.  One of Thursday night’s picks, The Madison Square Gardeners, was the best 40 minutes of rock I have seen in a while.

–Eliot Wagner

Romy Scheroder: Art in Brooklyn

Psalms 73-75: Water Over Rocks

ashes, ashes: Brooklynometry

Top 10 jazz albums: Do the Math

Probably not poisonous: The Spiral Staircase

CMJ 2010: Brooklyn Vegan

Priestess: Fresh Poetry Daily

Buskwick culture picks: Bushwick BK

In converstaion with Kim Dan Kuperman: Word

Tonight:  Thursday, October 21 at 8PM Brooklyn Reading Works at The Old Stone House presents:

New Plays by Brooklyn Playwrights (or three playwrights and a composer to be exact) curated by Rosemary Moore.

The Old Stone House is located on Fifth Avenue and Third Street in Park Slope. Suggested donation of $5 includes refreshments and wine. Q&A will follow the readings.

The following playwrights will present unstaged readings of their works:

Barbara  Cassidy   “Anthropology of a Book Club”

Joseph Goodrich  “Mare’s Nest”

Lizzie Olesker 10,000 SPECIES

And a composer/ lyricist

Mary Lloyd-Butler  “Hide and Seek”

We’ve done it before and it’s always a treat to see unstaged readings of new plays by interesting Brooklyn playwrights.

This year’s event, curated by Rosemary Moore, who has her pulse on the best and brightest playwrights around, should be FANTASTIC. Stimulating plays, good actors, playwrights on site to answer questions.

You don’t want to miss. So here are the ‘tails:

On Thursday, October 21 at 8PM Brooklyn Reading Works at The Old Stone House presents:

New Plays by Brooklyn Playwrights (or three playwrights and a composer to be exact) curated by Rosemary Moore.

The Old Stone House is located on Fifth Avenue and Third Street in Park Slope. Suggested donation of $5 includes refreshments and wine. Q&A will follow the readings.

The following playwrights will present unstaged readings of their works:

Barbara  Cassidy   “Anthropology of a Book Club”

Joseph Goodrich  “Mare’s Nest”

Lizzie Olesker 10,000 SPECIES

And a composer/ lyricist

Mary Lloyd-Butler  “Hide and Seek”

Continue reading Tomorrow Don’t Miss: New Plays by Brooklyn Playwrights →

I was startled (okay, and thrilled) to read about my son on a site called The Fmly. It’s quite a review of his music. Click on the previous link to hear the music and see the video:

It’s not a surprise that by the second track of Henry Crawford‘s latest, the kid from local folkpunk badboys Bad Teeth has already released one of my favorite batch of recordings this year. The Brooklyn sweet-talker currently keepin’ it humble in Chicago has several recordings from this past year highlighted on ¿Quien Es? ¿Quien Es?, experimental folk anthems for secret admirers and best friends alike. Honey dipped crooning for the house of mirrors gaze, Henry fries his voice to sizzle through gentle and honest insights, mesmerizing key melodies, and a simple blown out drum machine. Just that kinda sweet listening that keeps you warm inside so that whiskey won’t have to for the night, a fucking gem through and through. Recommended if ya dig the sounds of earlier abrasive Why? recordings, Smog, and the feeling of a sweetheart bearing his soul. We got faith in ya boy, keep doin’ it real.

Photo: Leia Jospe

Last night the current BAX Artist In Resident luciana achugar won a Bessie Award, for “casting a spell on the audience and taking them into the dark, dark mysteries of the body and all its desires.”

She was awarded for her new work PURO DESEO, which was developed at BAX during the first year of her residency, and premiered at The Kitchen..

And that’s not all.

Former BAX Artist In Resident and Artist Advisor Faye Driscoll received an award “For masterfully invoking a collective past by exploring the raw intensity of childhood; for using text, movement, and song to uncover the falsity of the performance of identity; and for calling forth the true emotions beneath the surface” in her work 837 VENICE BOULEVARD.

Established in 1983 the Bessies acknowledge “outstanding creative work by independent artists in the fields of dance and related performance in New York City.” Annually, over 450 artists, producers, and press join in a ceremony to honor the recipients. They’re named after dance educator and mentor Bessie Schonberg.

Brooklyn OMNIBUS starts mid-week this week at BAM (as part of the Next Wave fesival) and runs through the weekend. I got a postcard about it last week and was, like, hmmmm, what’s this all about?

Well, Stew, the composer who wrote the Tony award winning Passing Strange has been setting his sights on Brooklyn. With Heidi Rodewald he’s written a song cycle about this multi-faceted borough. But it’s not really about Brooklyn if we’re to believe what he told the Wall Street Journal:

“The show isn’t really about Brooklyn…”It’s about two people from L.A. trying to write about Brooklyn. We’re like these observers from Planet California.”

Rodewald lives in Park Slope and Stew lived in Prospect Heights during the Broadway run of Passing Strange.

According to the BAM Blurbage: “Brooklyn OMNIBUS refracts the Kings County experience through a surreal prism of disparate characters, all living in a nomadic place where the neighborhood is a tribe, the self is an ever-changing storefront, and home is an elusive refuge resting somewhere between.”

Count me in.

BAM Harvey Theater
75min, no intermission
Tickets: $25, 45, 65

If you’ve listened to the lyrics in the Beatles‘ Help, you know that the fast, lighthearted music obscures a much darker lyric.  Brooklyn born (although he lives in Manhattan now) Garland Jeffreys, accompanied only by piano and accordion, sings the s0ng like the plea for help it actually was in the music video waiting for you today at Now I’ve Heard Everything.

Tomorrow, the CMJ Music Marathon begins.  From Tuesday to Friday there will be hundreds of bands performing (usually in shorter than usual sets) all over Manhattan and Brooklyn.  Check in with Now I’ve Heard Everything each day during CMJ for recommended shows.

–Eliot Wagner

On Thursday, October 21 at 8PM Brooklyn Reading Works at The Old Stone House presents: New Plays by Brooklyn Playwrights (or three playwrights and a composer to be exact) curated by Rosemary Moore. The Old Stone House is located on Fifth Avenue and Third Street in Park Slope.  Suggested donation of $5 includes refreshments and wine. Q&A will follow the readings.

The following playwrights will present unstaged readings of their works:

Barbara Cassidy   “Anthropology of a Book Club”

Joseph Goodrich  “Mare’s Nest”

Lizzie Olesker 10,000 SPECIES

And a composer/ lyricist:

Mary Lloyd-Butler  “Hide and Seek”

Continue reading Oct 21: New Plays by Brooklyn Playwrights →

Just added to The List:

The Old Stone House’s fantastic annual harvest event with pony rides and a petting zoo, as well as face painting, pumpkin painting and great craft activities, as well as a clothing swap upstairs at OSH from 10 am – 1 pm. Meet your neighbors and enjoy a beautiful day at Washington Park/JJ Byrne Playground.

Today at 2PM: Neighborhood Classics at PS 321 presents a program of tango, featuring cellist Maya Beiser and pianist Pablo Ziegler, who explore the ture sould of Buenos Aires tango. This family-friendly, one-hour concert will be hosted by Simone Dinnerstein. All musicians donate their performances, and all ticket sales benefit programs sponsored by PS 321′s PTA

Architecture and Design Film Festival in Tribeca

October 14-17 at the Tribeca Cinemas, the first US film festival celebrating the creative spirit of architecture and design featuring a wide selection of feature length films, documentaries and shorts. Also: discussions with filmmakers, architects and designers about the design process, architecture in film, and the brilliant designs we see and use every day.

Movies

Starts Friday at BAM: You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger directed by Woody Allen.

Also at BAM: The Social Network, The Town and Wall Street Money Never Sleeps

Through October 26 at Film Forum: the stunning Barbara Sukowa stars in Vision, a new film about the 12th century mystic and composer Hildegarde Von Binghen directed by the great Margarethe von Trotta.

Saturday, October 17  at BAMCinematek: demonlover directed by Olivier Assayas (part of the Post-Punk Auteur: Olivier Assayas festival) with Chloe Sevigny and Gina Gershon. “It’s an exasperating, irresistible, must-see mess of a movie about life in the modern world and so very good that even when its story finally crashes and burns the filmmaking remains unscathed.” —Manohla Dargis, Los Angeles Times. 

Art

At Proteus Gowanus (543 Union Street, Brooklyn): Paradiso Contrapasso. “In Dante’s Inferno, Paradiso Contrapasso distinguishes each sinner by making his or her punishment uniquely appropriate to the committed sin, so that every soul inhabits a Hell all its own. Observatory encouraged artists to consider divine comedic retribution in all of its possible representations. The emphasis is on “Divine” and “Comedy”, and on our superstitious fear of getting what we wish for!”

Mad Men Finale Party

Sunday, October 17 at 9PM at The Bell House in Gowanus presents an event for Mad Men junkies: Dress up in your vintage wear and get drunk on whiskey while watching the final episode of Mad Men season four. If you dress up you’ll be automatically entered to win a prize. Important note: seated tickets are sold out – the reduced admission ticket link above is for STANDING ROOM ONLY.

Music

Sunday, October 17 at 7PM at Barbes: New Music Sundays A New Music Series curated by Richard Guérin and Giancarlo Vulcano. Every third sunday of the month, the series will present a composer-portrait focusing on new pieces or under-performed pieces in the composer’s bdy of work.

Sunday, October 17 at 10PM at Barbes: The Django Experiment with French virtuoso Guitarist Stephane Wrembel, who seems to have channeled both the technique and the fire of Django Reinhardt. He studied for years with the manouche (the French Gypsies) but has also gotten deep into American vernacular musical styles. His weekly sets will mix up the traditional Django repertoire along gypsy swing re-interpretations of standards

Up and Coming October 24:

On October 24 Brooklyn Indie Market presents the third annual Steampunk Day at the Dumbo Loft (155 Water Street, Dumbo) from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Steampunk Shopping and Fashion Show at 4 p.m. $20 Victorian/Steampunk portrait sitting with vintage camera by Tsirkus Fotografika $5 entry. Take the F train to York Street Station and travel to a re-envisioned Victorian age that features retrofuturistic fashion, brass and copper clockwork, ray guns, jetpacks, bustles and inventions that go far beyond 19th century technology. Think steam-powered mechanical wonders, brass-fitted computers, dirigibles, goggles, airships, and clockwork inspired accoutrements.

There’s buzz, buzz, buzz about Brooklyn singer/songwriter Sharon Van Etten. She performed her self-described “sad prarie folk music” last week at The Rock Shop in Park Slope and I decided to download, Epic, her new CD. Sure am glad I did.

According to the Ba Da Bing Records, the Brooklyn company that released Epic:

“Sharon Van Etten came to Brooklyn via Jersey via Tennessee via Jersey. Along the way, she sang in choirs, rejected her school’s music program, worked at an all-ages venue, trained as a sommelier, and got a full time job at a record label. She also had some bad experiences in relationships.

OK, more than some.”

There’s also a lot of well-deserved buzzy buzz buzz about Mary Gauthier’s new album, The Foundling, a profoundly moving and artful cycle of folk/country songs about the facts of her own adoption and her  attempts to find her birth parents as a middle-aged woman.

Gauthier explains via her website: “the songs tell the story of a kid abandoned at birth who spent a year in an orphanage and was adopted, who ran way from the adopted home and ended up in show business, who searched for birth parents late in life and found one and was rejected, and who came through the other side of all of this still believing in love.”

Suffice it to say, I am now a fan.

In my dream, Mr. Brownstoner and I were at a party in Paris waiting for a car service. There was a film shoot going on down the block and a guy on a headset kept telling us that a car would be there soon.

We talked about the Brooklyn blogging scene and other stuff, too. The car finally arrived and we got into the car. I awoke.

Mighty Tanaka presents Cimmerian Shade: Art in Brooklyn

Interview with Tim Berne: Do the Math

8th Avenue: Brooklynometry

Beware the swamp: The Spiral Staircase

Psalms 52-54: Water Over Rocks

Prayer is praising God in this world: Old First

Slow Air: Fresh Poetry Daily

Rhys Chatham, Glenn Branca: Brooklyn Vegan

Classic Dylan, for the first time: Self-Absorbed Boomer

The truth and stones: Truth and Rocket Science

Long live Joe Drabyak: The Written Nerd

Architecture and Design Film Festival in Tribeca

October 14-17 at the Tribeca Cinemas, the first US film festival celebrating the creative spirit of architecture and design featuring a wide selection of feature length films, documentaries and shorts. Also: discussions with filmmakers, architects and designers about the design process, architecture in film, and the brilliant designs we see and use every day.

Movies

Starts Friday at BAM: You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger directed by Woody Allen.

Also at BAM: The Social Network, The Town and Wall Street Money Never Sleeps

Through October 26 at Film Forum: the stunning Barbara Sukowa stars in Vision, a new film about the 12th century mystic and composer Hildegarde Von Binghen directed by the great Margarethe von Trotta.

Saturday, October 16 at 2, 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm at BAMCinematek: Clean directed by Olivier Assayas (part of the Post-Punk Auteur: Olivier Assayas festival)”Clean is one of the few fiction films to evoke realistically the grubby texture of existence for second- and third-tier rock celebrities crumbling under a combination of fading renown and drug addiction.” —The New York Times

Art

At Proteus Gowanus (543 Union Street, Brooklyn): Paradiso Contrapasso. “In Dante’s Inferno, Paradiso Contrapasso distinguishes each sinner by making his or her punishment uniquely appropriate to the committed sin, so that every soul inhabits a Hell all its own. Observatory encouraged artists to consider divine comedic retribution in all of its possible representations. The emphasis is on “Divine” and “Comedy”, and on our superstitious fear of getting what we wish for!”

Saturday, October 16 7PM – 11PM at Triomph Fitness (540 President Street, Brooklyn) launch party and art show for Insights Magazine.

Literary

Friday, October 15 at 7PM until 10PM at St. Francis College, Callahan Center (182 Remsen Street) in Brooklyn Heights: Poets & Passion provides a forum for celebrated poets and novelists, emerging New York City writers, spoken-word artists, and the general public to share their creativity, experiences, and insights. The fifth season kicks off with National Book Award nominee Marlon James and Rona Jaffe Award winner Tiphanie Yanique. Suggested donation is $5.

On Saturday, October 16, at 8:00 PM at Kingsborough Performing Arts Center (KPAC) founder of Symphony Space, Isaiah Sheffer, will take the stage with a special Selected Shorts program designed for KPAC with Tony Roberts and Marcia Tucci.

Mad Men Finale Party

Sunday, October 17 at 9PM at The Bell House in Gowanus presents an event for Mad Men junkies: Dress up in your vintage wear and get drunk on whiskey while watching the final episode of Mad Men season four. If you dress up you’ll be automatically entered to win a prize. Important note: seated tickets are sold out – the reduced admission ticket link above is for STANDING ROOM ONLY.

Music

Saturday, October 16 at 9PM The Jewish Music Cafe on 9th Street in Park Slope presents Josef Karduner

Up and Coming October 24:

On October 24 Brooklyn Indie Market presents the third annual Steampunk Day at the Dumbo Loft (155 Water Street, Dumbo) from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Steampunk Shopping and Fashion Show at 4 p.m. $20 Victorian/Steampunk portrait sitting with vintage camera by Tsirkus Fotografika $5 entry. Take the F train to York Street Station and travel to a re-envisioned Victorian age that features retrofuturistic fashion, brass and copper clockwork, ray guns, jetpacks, bustles and inventions that go far beyond 19th century technology. Think steam-powered mechanical wonders, brass-fitted computers, dirigibles, goggles, airships, and clockwork inspired accoutrements.

Canadian rocker Kathleen Edwards opened Celebrate Brooklyn‘s Canada Day show when she was just starting out in 2002.  I had the opportunity to speak to Kathleen briefly last summer and she told me that she loved playing there and that she would love to play there again.  Since she’s in the studio right now recording her next record, she’ll probably be touring in support of it in 2011.

Even if this subtle hint doesn’t get her back in Prospect Park next summer, here is one of the songs that will almost certainly be on that new album.  It’s called Change The Sheets, and it’s about a breakup.  A great video with excellent sound awaits you here at Now I’ve Heard Everything.

–Eliot Wagner

Hey, all you fans of old Woody Allen movies, Tony Roberts, who was in Annie Hall, Play it Again Sam, Stardust Memories and other Allen masterpieces, will be reading short stories as part of a special Selected Shorts program designed for the Kingsborough Performing Arts Center (KPAC).

I listen to Selected Shorts on WNYC radio on Sunday afternoons but it should be fun to see it live.

On Saturday, October 16, at 8:00 p.m. at KPAC, the founder of Symphony Space, Isaiah Sheffer, will take the stage with a program created especially for KPAC.

According to the press release: “Selected Shorts: Funny Food Fictions will serve up a menu of hilarious short stories about food and love. Stories by award-winning authors T. Corraghessan Boyle, M.F.K. Fisher, and “Yinglish” comic book master Milt Gross will be read by Broadway, film, and television star (and frequent Woody Allen co-star) Tony Roberts, the Tony-nominated stage actress Maria Tucci, and Isaiah Sheffer.”

Anna Becker, KPAC’s brand new Executive Director had this to say about the show: “We are so delighted to have Symphony Space in residence with us this season for three unique programs, starting with the brilliantly entertaining Selected Shorts program…There has been great excitement and anticipation on the part of our audience members as we await a wonderful evening of masterful stories, artfully told.”

A longtime resident of Brooklyn, the acclaimed German actress, Barbara Sukowa, is currently starring in, Vision, a new film about the 12th century mystic and composer Hildegarde Von Binghen  playing at the Film Forum.

The film, the latest collaboration between Sukowa and German director, Margarethe von Trotta, explores the 12th century world of monastic religion. Stephen Holden in his review of Vision in the New York Times says of Sukowa that, “(she) makes Hildegard a likable and charismatic woman who risks a great deal to do good in an environment that leaves women little room for self-expression. Her intelligence and enthusiasm make her a proto-feminist force to be reckoned with.”

Together Sukowa and von Trotta have created a body of work about strong, female characters, including Rosa Luxemberg, the 1986 portrayal of the Polish born Marxist philosopher and activist, and Marianne and Julianne, the true story of a member of a 1970’s German militant group and her sister. 

Sukowa, who lives in Brooklyn with her husband, painter Robert Longo and their children, also starred in many films directed by Rainer Maria Fassbiner, including Berlin Alexanderplatz and Lola.

Friday morning the ribbon will be cut as Barney’s Co-Op opens on Atlantic Avenue (near Court Street), their first new location in five years and their only location in Brooklyn.

The pricey (they call it mid-range) fashionista paradise is obviously optimistic that despite the economic climate (and their parent company’s debt problems) Atlantic Avenue’s mix of middle-Eastern food specialty shops, Urban Outfitters and Trader Joe’s, is right and ready for high end clothing, shoes, accessories, jewelry and cosmetics from established and emerging designers like Marc Jacobs, Alexander Wang, Zero and Cornejo, Thom Browne, Phillip Lim, Crockett and Jones, Rag and Bone, Wendy Reed and the Barney’s house brand, Barney’s NY.

Beer and Bread Fundraiser for The Old Stone House

Thursday, October 14 at 6:30 – 8:30 PM: The Old Stone House presents an evening of bread and beer created using traditional 18th century recipes. Taste a variety of delectable early American staples recreated by historic gastronomist Sarah Lohman and brewmasters Erik Olsen and Chris Prout of Brooklyn’s Brouwerij Lane. The tasting will include five courses of bread — representing recipes from the Colonial era including crisp, nutty waffles, savory rusks, citrusy cookies and spicy sweet breads. Each bread will be matched with a beer brewed by Olsen and Prout that is seasoned with flavors such as spruce, ginger, mustard and molasses.

Architecture and Design Film Festival in Tribeca

October 14-17 at the Tribeca Cinemas, the first US film festival celebrating the creative spirit of architecture and design featuring a wide selection of feature length films, documentaries and shorts. Also: discussions with filmmakers, architects and designers about the design process, architecture in film, and the brilliant designs we see and use every day.

Movies

Starts Friday at BAM: You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger directed by Woody Allen.

Also at BAM: The Social Network, The Town and Wall Street Money Never Sleeps

Through October 26 at Film Forum: the stunning Barbara Sukowa stars in Vision, a new film about the 12th century mystic and composer Hildegarde Von Binghen directed by the great Margarethe von Trotta. 

Saturday, October 16 at 2, 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm at BAMCinematek: Clean directed by Olivier Assayas (part of the Post-Punk Auteur: Olivier Assayas festival)”Clean is one of the few fiction films to evoke realistically the grubby texture of existence for second- and third-tier rock celebrities crumbling under a combination of fading renown and drug addiction.” —The New York Times

Art

Opening Thursday, October 14th, 8:00 PM at Proteus Gowanus (543 Union Street, Brooklyn): Paradiso Contrapasso. “In Dante’s Inferno, Paradiso Contrapasso distinguishes each sinner by making his or her punishment uniquely appropriate to the committed sin, so that every soul inhabits a Hell all its own. Observatory encouraged artists to consider divine comedic retribution in all of its possible representations. The emphasis is on “Divine” and “Comedy”, and on our superstitious fear of getting what we wish for!”

Saturday, October 16 7PM – 11PM at Triomph Fitness (540 President Street, Brooklyn) launch party and art show for Insights Magazine.

Literary

Friday, October 15 at 7PM until 10PM at St. Francis College, Callahan Center (182 Remsen Street) in Brooklyn Heights: Poets & Passion provides a forum for celebrated poets and novelists, emerging New York City writers, spoken-word artists, and the general public to share their creativity, experiences, and insights. The fifth season kicks off with National Book Award nominee Marlon James and Rona Jaffe Award winner Tiphanie Yanique. Suggested donation is $5.

On Saturday, October 16, at 8:00 PM at Kingsborough Performing Arts Center (KPAC) founder of Symphony Space, Isaiah Sheffer, will take the stage with a special Selected Shorts program designed for KPAC with Tony Roberts and Marcia Tucci.

Mad Men Finale Party

Sunday, October 17 at 9PM at The Bell House in Gowanus presents an event for Mad Men junkies: Dress up in your vintage wear and get drunk on whiskey while watching the final episode of Mad Men season four. If you dress up you’ll be automatically entered to win a prize. Important note: seated tickets are sold out – the reduced admission ticket link above is for STANDING ROOM ONLY.

Music

Thursday, October 14 at 8PM The Rock Shop on Fourth Avenue in Park Slope presents Circle of Buzzards, Tiny Animals, Basket Full of Kittens.

Thursday, October 14 at 8PM Sycamore on Cortelyou Road in Ditmas Park presents NoHow On and Madeline Adams. “As far as indie cred goes, it’s full of nods to Neutral Milk Hotel, from its curiosity-shop assortment of instruments (banjos, squeezeboxes, shakers, harmonicas, whistles) to its warm lo-fi imperfection, and it wears enough heartbreaking earnestness on its sleeve to recall the Mountain Goats. For just-plain-good-music cred, the trio, having now changed their name to a Samuel Beckett fragment, stands as a testament to the power of melody, something that seems to flow so effortlessly from them that it’s not even fair.” -Mike Conklin for The L Magazine

Saturday, October 16 at 9PM The Jewish Music Cafe on 9th Street in Park Slope presents Josef Karduner

Up and Coming October 24:

On October 24 Brooklyn Indie Market presents the third annual Steampunk Day at the Dumbo Loft (155 Water Street, Dumbo) from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Steampunk Shopping and Fashion Show at 4 p.m. $20 Victorian/Steampunk portrait sitting with vintage camera by Tsirkus Fotografika $5 entry. Take the F train to York Street Station and travel to a re-envisioned Victorian age that features retrofuturistic fashion, brass and copper clockwork, ray guns, jetpacks, bustles and inventions that go far beyond 19th century technology. Think steam-powered mechanical wonders, brass-fitted computers, dirigibles, goggles, airships, and clockwork inspired accoutrements.