Itinerary: August 17 - 23, 2009

Folklore, Omnivore, Blood + Gore

appetizer at No. 7, Fort Greene, BK

A Week in New York City: Weathering Dust, Doldrums, Delerium, Desideratum

As is to be expected of New York City in the dead of summer, my week really begins on Thursday, after I discard the dust and doldrums of my compartmental office existence along with my crumpled work-appropriate garb. While I find myself not fleeing to the Hamptons or Sands Point, my operative summer retreats around this time of year, the week is shaping up to be nothing short of spectacular from my current vantage. Let me spell it out for you --

Thursday, August 20th

Will I Get Lucky? Looks from the Vena Cava Spring/Summer '09 collection

8:00 am, Barney's Warehouse Sale -- That's right, early to rise. I will join the insanity downtown with my dear friends Anna, of Un Sphinx Incompris, and Kelly, plus a friend of Anna's here on holiday. We will fill ourselves beforehand with a delicious breakfast of fresh berries, granola, tea, and yogurt; and don our armor with the rest of the city's fellow fashionista-masochists, to file relentlessly down endless aisles in search of God and Galliano.

After the deluge, I suggest a stroll to the gallery district to view some more beautiful objets.

I've got my mind made up to see the current exhibition at Cheim & Read, The Female Gaze: Women Look at Women, featuring Marina Abramovic, Vanessa Beecroft, and Alice Neel, among others.

not your average artist's artist: Marina Abramovic's 1975 ART MUST BE BEAUTIFUL, ARTIST MUST BE BEAUTIFUL

8:00 pm, Juana Molina at the Music Hall of Williamsburg -- I will descend to Brooklyn with my good friend and fellow troubadour Idgy Dean to see the brilliant Argentinian soap star cum sylphine singer/songwriter Juana Molina at the Music Hall of Williamsburg -- not, however, before catching our reservation for a light dinner at No. 7, a highly lauded restaurant in the Fort Greene neighborhood. The roast chicken with israeli couscous and hazelnuts sounds out of this world.

Juana Molina

Friday, August 21

6:45 pm, Film Screening of Come and See, Anthology Film Archives -- I join my close friend Anthony Friday night for a screening of the Russian Come and See (IDI I SMOTRI), a "savage and lyrical fever dream of death, rage, and terror" set in WWII-era Russia, and, as my discriminating friend Anthony has told me, perhaps the best film of the 20th century. We might stop for dinner afterward at an exotic restaurant (TBA) that Anthony says has the best terrace in the city. A good way to build the intrigue...

Idi I Smotri

Saturday, August 22

12:00 pm, Neue Galerie exhibition, Oskar Kokoschka -- I'm leaving the rest of the weekend open to what may come, but I would very much like to go uptown to see the Neue Galerie's focus exhibition on Oskar Kokoschka, a Polish-born artist branded by Hitler and the culture-eschewing Nazis as a "degenerate artist" in the years immediately preceding the war.

Oskar Kokoschka, Martha Hirsch (Dreaming Woman), 1909