Culture | The New York Observer

cabaret

Cabaret Review: Two Oldies Still Golden, But The Newbie? Not So Much

By Rex Reed | March 22, 2011 | 7:33 pm

What's new on the cabaret circuit? Enough to get you out at night. A rare appearance by cult singer-songwriter and jazz pianist Dave Frishberg, the long-awaited comeback of legendary big-band vocalist Jane Harvey and the American cabaret debut of Douglas Hodge, the British performer who won a Tony award as the outrageous drag queen in La Cage aux Folles on Broadway, are lighting up all three major hotel supper... MORE»

The Wee Hours

Seeing Emerald in the Afternoon

By Nate Freeman | March 22, 2011 | 7:33 pm

“It’s time to play some rebel music!” said the bar owner Barbara Cronin. ... MORE»

Nightlife

Waldorf Apocalypse! The Explorer's Club Dinner

By Nate Freeman | March 22, 2011 | 7:32 pm

One year, nine months and two days before the world will end, the Explorers Club paid homage to our demise with its 107th annual dinner. The theme was “Exploring 2012: The Maya Prophecy.” For some light entertainment, the club ferried in men and women dressed as ancient shamans. In face paint and feather-heavy head garb, they pounced upon the skeptics with Mesoamerican hellfire, whooping and beating on... MORE»

Dance

March Dance: In Like a Lion, Out Like a Graham!

By Robert Gottlieb | March 22, 2011 | 7:27 pm

After a dance week of occasional ups and all too many downs, Mark Morris came to the rescue with a program of three works previously unseen in New York, one a world premiere. The venue was his own elegant and spacious building practically opposite BAM, his habitual stomping ground, and the three new works were scaled to fit the small studio theater up on the fifth floor. There were times when the action grew so dense that I felt I was too close to the dancers, but at other times this proximity was rewarding.... MORE»

theater

Entropy, Algorithms, and Laughs: 'Arcadia' and 'Priscilla Queen of the Desert The Musical'

By Jesse Oxfeld | March 22, 2011 | 7:24 pm

It's not easy to dramatize the almost sexual excitement of intellectual discovery. Aaron Sorkin has failed at it twice: in Broadway's The Farnsworth Invention, which chronicled the birth of television and played as a well-produced book report, and in his Oscar-winning screenplay for The Social Network, which required HTML coding to masquerade as legal procedural. But the brilliant Tom Stoppard nails it in Arcadia.... MORE»

movies

Movie Review: Deneuve Is Divine in Potiche!

By Rex Reed | March 22, 2011 | 7:23 pm

Catherine Deneuve, like Jeanne Moreau, is a French icon who defies age, demographics and changing waistlines. At 68, she may no longer be the ingénue from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, but she is far from the matron Simone Signoret became in her declining years. In her new film, Potiche, which reunites her with youthful director François Ozon, she's juicy as an overripe peach. Maybe it's the... MORE»

Opera

Puppetmaster Robert Lepage Produces an Inhuman 'Ring'

By Zachary Woolfe | March 22, 2011 | 7:18 pm

In Robert Lepage's program notes for his production of an evening of Igor Stravinsky's short musical fables, which opened in Toronto in 2009 and came to the Brooklyn Academy of Music a few weeks ago, the director remarks on how curious it is that, given the high style and complexity of opera in general and Stravinsky's music in particular, the composer focused in these works on telling children's stories. The goal of the production, Mr. Lepage writes, is to blend "the sophistication and grandiose aspects of opera with a vocabulary coming from our... MORE»

Book Review

'Sempre Susan': Sigrid Nunez Studies Sontag While Smooching Her Son

By James Camp | March 22, 2011 | 7:16 pm

In 1978, when People wanted to interview Susan Sontag, the writer wondered aloud how Samuel Beckett might respond given the same opportunity. It was not unusual for her to invoke Beckett in this way. "When she worried she was making too many compromises," Sigrid Nunez recalls in Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag (Atlas, 140 pages, $30), "she would say, 'Beckett wouldn't do it,'" There could be little doubt that Beckett ("Every word is an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness") would have skipped the interview with People.... MORE»

TV

Bob Greenblatt’s Season of Fiats at NBC

By Kat Stoeffel | March 22, 2011 | 7:14 pm

The decline of NBC over the past seven years has been spectacular to behold. Friends ended its glorious run, and The Biggest Loser was born. Its young producer, Ben Silverman, was named co-chairman. He threw extravagant parties as ratings dropped. CEO Jeff Zucker moved The Tonight Show into tomorrow. It was the most embarrassing management gaffe in the short history of... MORE»

Shindigger

Stars Come Out to Dance at GLAAD

By Daniel D'Addario | March 22, 2011 | 7:11 pm

What would Sandra Lee cook if she were catering the GLAAD Media Awards? The gubernatorial girlfriend, best known for her open-up-a-can recipes, didn't hesitate. "I would do a Burrata cheese, heirloom tomato, an amazing olive oil, crispy pancetta ... right next to a big, beautiful Bellini." Ms. Lee was on the blue carpet at Times Square's Marriott Marquis to celebrate this year's GLAAD awards for excellence in portraying gay figures in the media. Who was her favorite gay icon? "There are so many of... MORE»

Hey, sucker! Go to Dylan's Candy Bar for a Bottomless Closet benefit March 28.

The Eight-Day Week

The Eight-Day Week: March 23-March 30

By Daniel D'Addario | March 22, 2011 | 7:07 pm

Wednesday, March 23Protect and Serve... MORE»

Lincoln Lawyers get Lincoln paywall-busts as part of their compensation.

Pencils Down!

You Must Remember This: Driving Past the Paywall Edition

By Daniel D'Addario | March 22, 2011 | 5:36 pm

Plenty happens each day—how to keep up with it all? Time to test your memory! --Which TV show might--not soon enough for some!--be coming back? --Which journalist has a tale to tell about Paris Hilton's late-1990s... MORE»

'Man With a Movie Camera' was the night's entertainment.

Parties

Snob Hobnob: Russian Expats Talk Vertov Downtown

By Daniel D'Addario | March 22, 2011 | 1:35 pm

On Friday night, Snob magazine--the new print organ published by Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov so exclusive it's only available in Russian--hosted a party at the Crosby Hotel. It was a classy affair, as befits a publication owned by a billionaire industrialist. The entertainment: a screening of the Dziga Vertov's silent film Man With a Movie Camera with accompaniment by the Alloy... MORE»

Would you eat this woman's chicken-and-waffles?

Red carpets

Ms. Winslet's Waffles: Mildred Pierce Premiere Hits New York

By Meghan Keneally | March 22, 2011 | 1:04 pm

After lavishing Kate Winslet with praise and noting how adorably "edible" his tiniest cast member is, director Todd Haynes got emotional. "This is a movie... about a mother," Haynes said while introducing his new miniseries, Mildred Pierce (to debut on HBO March 27) at the Ziegfeld Theatre, "and tonight isn't quite the same for me because my mom can't be here... MORE»

What author got started on this device exclusively?

Pencils Down!

You Must Remember This: From the Kindle Store to the Millionaires' Club!

By Daniel D'Addario | March 21, 2011 | 5:01 pm

Plenty happens each day—how to keep up with it all? Time to test your memory! --What route (reported on this week by The Observer) may have just made an enterprising author... MORE»

Picasso’s Post-Breakup Breakthrough

Author, Publish Thyself! New Directions Online for Big Publishing's Rejects and Refugees

'Ching Chong' Shot Heard Around Social Media World