Friday:
• At "Breaking the Band," OC creator Josh Schwartz explains his awesome power to make indie bands non-indie. (Hint: Having a TV show helps.) [Paper]
• The Whitney hosts Matmos, whose past musical experiences include "simulated cranial drilling and rat-cage plucking." Like you haven't seen that a million times before. [flavorpill]
It's Cinco de Mayo, and we all know the best way to celebrate: With Blue States Lose, in which Joey Arak puts down his margarita long enough to dig through the photo galleries at The Cobrasnake, Last Night's Party, Misshapes, and Ambrel so you don't have to. After the jump, Joey ridicules the deserving for the good of society.
Something about Uma Thurman—maybe it's in her shimmering laugh, her translucent eyes, or her ability to karate chop her way out of her own grave—has made her an enduring it-muse the world over. The director of Cannes, for example, dubbed her Knight in the Order of Arts and Letters, an ostentatious pretense that cleverly allowed him to get his film festival-curating paws in the vicinity of her Uma-goodies during the medal ceremony. Now, a Russian rock band who found massive success after naming themselves for the actress are putting word out that they want to meet Thurman on their first US tour:
• It doesn't happen very often that artsy people open their inner circle of elitism and crudites, but when they do, you should hop on board. Tonight, El Museo del Barrio gives informal insights on the works of Felix Gonzalez-Torres. [flavorpill]
• The East Village Opera Company hits Irving Plaza. It's more rock-n-roll than typical opera music, but if you go you can still feel like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. [EVO]
• Rolling Stone continues its charge towards relevancy with the world's most absurd party at the Hammerstein Ballroom. You stand absolutely zero chance of getting in, but we're urging you to storm the door and give it your best shot. Ladies, just say you're Jann's surrogate. [Upcoming]
When Hottest Hollywood Assistants launched its highly amusing, if brief, reign of beauty-rating terror on the industry's call-rolling caste in late March, not everyone was amused to suddenly discover his or her picture up for ranking on the site. (Especially, we imagine, the guy from Michael Bay's office whose prankster-supplied avatar was fucking a tailpipe while wearing lingerie.) Some were even so upset at their identity-jacking that they called attorneys (assistants with lawyers—the end is surely nigh), as illustrated by the conscientiously redacted cease-and-desist letter excerpted above, which seems to make the argument that misrepresenting one's place on the hotness scale or career ambitions are sins as serious as using someone's likeness without permission.
• Tonight's Dave Hill Comedy show features the kids from the late band Luna — they'll be chatting, singing, and making you love them more. If that's not enough, we hear there might be a donkey. [DHO]
•Puracane rhymes with "hurricane," which we find incredibly distracting. They play tonight at Tonic with Dana Kletter and the Looking. [Tonic]
• If you're not so much into sports and/or writing about it, the Varsity Letters Reading Series still has something to offer: Vanity Fair's David Margolick will be reading. Heckle loud and proud. [Varsity Letters]
• Accents galore: Brits Off Broadway brings indie theater from the UK to your living room. Definitely for those who prefer the original version of The Office. [flavorpill]
• What follows a gig as Bill Clinton's Secretary of State? Reading to the proles at Barnes & Noble, of course. Madeleine Albright moonlights at 7; buy the book and end her misery. [Paper]
• The Yeah Yeah Yeahs screech for the mainstream, hitting Roseland to play for the masses. Go and talk loudly about "when they were still cool." [Upcoming]
• Sometimes known as The Microphones (but not today), Mt. Eerie performs his "lo-fi, often acoustic tunes" tonight at Knickerbocker. Lo-fi, acoustic, schizo — it's OK for a Monday. [flavorpill]
• You might only remember Bernadette Peters from The Jerk, but she's actually had a legitimate enough career to land her at Lincoln Center. Catch up on what you missed tonight in Avery Fisher Hall. [Paper]
• James Howard Knustler brings his apocalyptic, environmental premonitions to the most appropriate of audiences: the literary alchies at Half-King. Join the rampant activism at a reading of The Long Emergency. [Half King]
Defamer is committed to bringing together those who've spent their lives honing an impressive repertoire of salutations and organizations looking to make a clean break from their recent, customer-hostile pasts. The Roosevelt Hotel, home of infamously exclusive celebrity glory-holes Tropicana Bar and Teddy's, turns to Craiglist's inexhaustible talent pool to officially end the Amanda Scheer Demme Era:
Friday:
• The Death of Little Ibsen is different from all the other Ibsen commemorative productions in one important way: puppets. Get your Norweigan on at the Sanford Meisner Theater. [flavorpill]
• The Nietszche Circle convenes at the New School for a night of killing God and other fun group activities. Just another Friday night. [Upcoming]
• "Harry Partch created his own 43-note intonation system and then handcrafted and altered instruments to play within it." 1 out of every 50 audience members will know what that means, but it doesn't mean that Dean Drummond's Newband concernt won't be fun. We think. [flavorpill]
• Monkey Town hosts Earl Dax's Fishbowl Cabaret video/performance tonight. If the queerness doesn't do it for you, we hear they have a complete reel of Tom Cruise on Oprah. A psychosis retrospective is never dull. [Monkey Town]
• NYU hosts "My Russian Grandparents and Their American Vaccuum Cleaner," a talk by Israeli author Meir Shalev. "My Canadian Cousin and their Guatamalan Dustpan" was sold-out. [Upcoming]
Patricia Clarkson, A.M. Homes, and some other chick we don't recognize. Not a bad crowd for just another downtown party.
Perhaps inspired by Paula Abdul's alleged agent-inflicted attack at one of its recent events, the LAT ventures out to floating party Xenii (a mere seven months after the NY Times dropped by, but who's counting?) to see what all the cool kids are up to these days. For those too unfashionable to have heard of Xenii, it's an exclusive, semisecretive, members-only, Entourage-meets-Warhol's-Factory, traveling after-hours gathering where guys pay dues for the privilege of hanging around with beautiful women and celebrities without being stungunned by their bodyguards. Still not getting it? Here's a sample of what a man's $650 to $4,500 monthly membership gets him, courtesy of the Times:
• Nothing says spring like nuclear hell. Voices from Chernobyl, tonight at Housing Works UBC, commemorates the 20th anniversary of the Ukrainian disaster. [flavorpill]
• If you can't sit through the thinky Tribeca fodder, the NYC Downtown Film Festival features 50 films in a number of genres lasting from 5 to 20 minutes. Bring your Adderall and your artsy goggles. [Uncool Kids]
• Hello, I'm Special is a literary variety contest featuring boozed up talents competing for the honor of being the Most Special Person Ever. Brought to you by the special, chosen folks at Jewcy. [Ars Nova]
We'll have to wait and see how Dallas fares at the box office before we can start looking forward to the 80s nighttime soap movie adaptation we really want to see: Dynasty: The Motion Picture, an urban reimagining with Ice Cube and Queen Latifah in the Blake and Krystle roles, and a 72-year-old Joan Collins back as Alexis (thanks to a clause buried in her brilliantly negotiated season three deal). Until then, however, we'll just have to settle for Dynasty Reunion: Catfights and Caviar, one of those clips-and-anecdotes specials coming soon to CBS. USA Today was on hand to record it all—from the catty remarks made behind Collins' back to the arrival of beloved series patriarch John Forsythe, who hasn't been seen in over a decade:
• Chris Wood of Medeski, Martin, and Wood teams up with his brother Oliver at The Living Room. Jam out on patchouli-scented folk rock at 8pm. [flavorpill]
• All the way from Budapest, Specko Jedno brings its "death romance, bigoted tango, and metaphysical children songs" to Kush for a Hungarian-inspired party. Also, the band has brown hair and brown eyes — swear to God, they included that for public information. [Kush]
• Elton John does theater, and the rest of the world goes blind from all the sequins. Lestat, an adaptation of Anne Rice's vampire chronicles, opens tonight. [Paper]
Perhaps the greatest chronological confluence since 4:20 p.m. on 4-20 rang the bong gong for stoners everywhere, June 6, 2006 is quickly approaching, and you know what that means. You don't? Well, what if we write it out this way: 6/6/06. Not ringing any bells? OK, then drop the 0, remove the slashes, and squint a little. That's right: 666. Number of the Beast. And, according to the LAT, a perfect marketing opportunity to unleash unfathomable evils on mankind—everything from yet another sure-to-be-terrible horror movie remake to an Ann Coulter book:
• Remember Nancy Balbirer? She was the woman who told a story about her old roommate Jennifer Aniston, who believed in stuffing one's bra with chicken cutlets. Balbirer's back tonight at Mo Pitkins for SCHWAG!, her comedic performance art showcase featuring Mike Albo, Bob Morris, Cintra Wilson, et al. We don't think Aniston will be in attendance, but it doesn't hurt to hope. [Upcoming]
• A.M. Homes reads from This Book Will Save Your Life — a book that will not, coincidentally, save your life in any way. Find out what the hell she's talking about tonight at Barnes & Noble. [Paper]
• Two Gallants bring their sound of "sweet Americana" to the Bowery Ballroom. We've no clue when New Yorkers started tolerating any sort Americana, but we hear the band's good. [flavorpill]
We've now received probably a half-dozen reports of some of the celebrities spotted at the Scissor Sisters show at Bowery Ballroom last night. There was Karl Lagerfeld, looking characteristically Lagerfeldian. There was Kylie Minogue, who, it seems, "looked adorable with her short hair" and was "waving her hands in the air like she just didn't care." There was Richie Rich. There was Amanda Lapore. There may have been Ingrid Sischy. And there was one more celeb many of you have told us about, standing solo near the back of the dancefloor, looking incognito in a grey college sweatshirt — Arizona State, of all places — and baseball cap, and barely head-bopping to the music: Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Anderson Cooper.
