This week in New York Colm Tólbín brings Henry James to us, Furnace Press Decomposes, Jonathan Franzen returns home, Sex workers share their family tales, Myla Goldberg gets crafty, Classic cocktails, classic film, Comic and Graphics Fest goes to church, poetry touches on wartime, and Free in ART.
Monday 29th: Praised Henry James researcher and writer, Colm Tólbín discusses his new essaycollection about James, All a Novelist Needs, with critic Edmund White. The Tenement Museum Shop. 6:30PM. Free.
Tuesday 30th: Furnace’s Press celebrate the publication of the first three books in their Decomposition Series. Each book (Gran elebators in Buffalo, roaming Staten Island, and an old hotel in the Catskills) focuses on a particular abandoned site in New York Site. 7PM. 3rd Ward, Brooklyn (196 Morgan Ave). Free.
Wednesday 1st: He’s back! Jonathan Franzen reads from his beautifully poetic novel, not to mention New York Times Bestseller, Freedom. Pack into BookCourt and see what Franzen has to say post-Oprah. 7PM. BookCourt, 163 Court Street, Brooklyn, NY. Free.
Thursday 2nd: This month’s Red Umbrella Diaries will feature sex workers telling stories about their families. Featured workers include Lily Burana, the author of I Love a Man in Uniform: A Memoir of Love, War, and Other Battles and founder of Bombshell Burlesque, Tré Xavier, a predominantly gay bisexual porn performer, and Sydney Seifert will relate what it was like to grow up the daughter of a single mom who put food on their table by doing sex work. Happy Ending. 8PM-10PM. Free.
The Center for Fiction’s ongoing series, Craftwork, invites acclaimed authors to give readers and emerging writers insight into how to create great fiction. Hear Myla Goldberg, bestselling author of Bee Season, made into a movie starring Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche, talk about her own journey as a writer. The Center for Fiction (17 E 47th). 7PM. $8 or a book donation.
Friday 3rd: Classic cocktails, classic film. In this whirlwind cinematic tour, The Astor Center will sample a series of club-inspired drinks as they roll clips from silver screen classics showcasing some of our city’s most storied bars and nightclubs, featuring Cary Grant at the Oak Bar in North by Northwest and Bette Davis at the Cub Room in All About Eve. Take a trip to the Copacabana, “the hottest club north of Havana.” The Astor Center, The Study. 6:30PM-8:30PM. $45.
Saturday 4th: Make going to church a point today at the Comics and Graphics Fest. Graphic arts are praised in a Williamsburg church with artists Lunda Barry, Mark Alan Stamaty, and Brian Chippendale. Click here for a whole pile of events, namely “The Art of Editing” at 2PM with Francoise Mouly (Art Editor of The New Yorker). From noon on. Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church. Free.
Sunday 5th: Poets Brian Turner and Bruce Weigl, who respectively served in the Iraq and
Vietnam Wars, will read selected works and join a discussion moderated by pianist Sarah Rothenberg. Musical selections from composer George Flynn’s Songs of Destruction will be performed by soprano Elizabeth Farnum and pianist Alan Feinberg. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. 7:30PM. $10-$30.
ART: “Free”, an exhibition including twenty-three artists working across mediums—including video, installation, sculpture, photography, the internet, and sound—that reflects artistic strategies that have emerged in a radically democratized cultural terrain redefined by the impact of the web. The New Museum. Through 1/23/11.
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