Malkmus Watch: Anagrams for Stephen Malkmus: Shaken Plummets, Leaks Then Mumps, Amplest Men Husk
Participate in capitalism, that milky floozy. Go to a party and Xerox your bum or sway in a bowling alley and remember the good old days. Buy stuff. Buy stiff. Be stiff. Happy holidays.
—Joshua David Stein
Cool Man in a Golden Age: Alfred Leslie and Frank O’Hara
Dec. 4, MoMA, 11 W. 53rd St. (betw. 5th & 6th Aves.), 212-708-9400; 8, Free with admission
The main draw of this evening’s screening is The Last Clean Shirt, a 42-minute short collaboration between the amazing painter/filmmaker Alfred Leslie and Frank
O’Hara, the brilliant Lunch Poems poet.
O’Hara did the subtitles for the single-shot film (a car-ride through New York) and Leslie filmed it. There’s also a thinky-talky intro by a professor named Daniel Kane.
Bottom Line:You will never be as cool as Messrs. Leslie or O’Hara but at least you can watch them being cool.
Metro Metro Office Party
Dec. 2, Bar 82, 136 2nd Ave. (betw. St. Marks Pl. & E. 9th St.), 212-505-0767; 7, $10
If you are like many New Yorkers, one thing you’ll miss this December is your office Christmas party because you’re unemployed and poor.
Everything sucks? Not so!
Bar 82, a dive bar, is hosting an office party where you can—thanks to nametags—reclaim your former position (or, really, any job you ever wished to have) for a night of drinking.
Bottom Line: Don’t let unemployment prevent you from workplace debauchery.
La Superette
Dec. 4 & 5, 210 Front St. (betw. Gold & Bridge Sts.), no phone; noon, Free Before you head wholesale to the MoMA store or Century 21 to pick up gifts for the relatives you don’t even like that much, head to this downtown pop-up shop, stocked with the work—experimental but also stuff you can buy—of crafty artists. Part installation, part holiday depot, La Superette is like an artsy Black Friday, except late, not on Friday and two days long.
Bottom Line: Six-fingered stockings and crafty odd dolls make better gifts than a certificate to Best Buy.
The Beatles Complete on Ukulele
Dec. 6, Brooklyn Bowl, 61 Wythe Ave. (betw. N. 11th & N. 12th Sts.), Brooklyn, 718-963-3369; noon, $10
If you like the Beatles but are too 1.0 for Rock Band, head to the all-day Beatles Ukulele Fest, where Roger Greenawalt will perform 185 original tunes on his tiny little instrument. Expect dozens of guest stars and plenty of creepy costumes.
Bottom Line: O, how different the world would have been if J, P, G and R grew up in Hawaii, not Liverpool.
there is no end to more
Dec. 3 through 5, Japan Society, 333 E. 47th St. (betw. 1st & 2nd Aves.), 212-715-1258; 7, $20 Gaijin choreographer Jeremy Wade tackles Japan’s formidable kawaii or cute culture, which, as we all know, is scary as shit. I remember when Wade would just writhe around on the floor at PS 122 and call it dance, but this piece, performed by Jared Gradinger, promises to be much meatier and, one hopes, darker.Bottom Line: Japanese culture scares the hell out of me. But I would like to watch a dance about it.
