For three years, Italian artist Andrea Mastrovito and a dozen assistants have slaved away on NYsferatu: a Symphonie of a Century, a remake of the 1922 vampire classic Nosferatu, but made out of 35,000 hand-drawn pictures. “This movie is my second wife right now,” Mastrovito told us. “We are always together, me and NYsferatu. And even if I love it, I love and hate it. NYsferatu has sucked my blood.”
At last, this Monday, the film will premiere at Pier 63.
Pilot’s main deck (© Kasper van Laarhoven)
Justin Rodriguez, Michael-David Gordon, Danielle Hauser, Breanna Bartenief in “Checks and Balances, or Bottoms Up!” (© Jonathan Slaff)
Tomorrow at 2pm, Theater for the New City premieres this year’s iteration of its annual series of free summer theater. The “boisterous, multi-ethnic, hope-filled, full stage operetta for the street” is called Checks and Balances, or Bottoms Up! and shit’s gonna get political.
Featuring a puppet Pumpkin Head of State with “long orange arms and small hands that push the others around,” a head of the Environmental Protection Agency who applauds the Dakota Access Pipeline and a secretary of education who shuts down public schools, the musical’s critique of the country’s current affairs is not an attempt to be subtle. “We are here to inspire activists and those of us who are not activists, but who agree,” director Crystal Field said, “It’s a West Wing political musical for the family, but in the Bernie Sanders mode.”
Ventiko feeding Dexter yogurt and blueberries in her Bushwick loft. (© Zito)
A photo of a peacock on the subway created a social media frenzy on Friday. People crowed not just about the peacock, but also the fellow passengers who seemed unfazed by the feathery giant. Only in New York City, New York City exclaimed.
We wondered whether the mystery bird was the one and only Dexter the Peacock, so we reached out to his owner, Ventiko. Turns out the subway peacock didn’t belong to the Bushwick-based conceptual photo and performance artist, but Ventiko had a theory: “By the way the human is holding a small stick with the bird perched on it, it must be stuffed.”
Butcher Holler Here We Come at DarkFest, with Adam Belvo on the right
Tonight, The Tank turns off its lights for four days, for its annual DarkFest. The midtown theater has invited five known and emerging acts to do whatever they want, as long as they steer clear of the power grid. In previous years, that has meant anonymous confessions in the pitch black, shows illuminated with nothing but glow tape, and a mining-disaster story lit only with hard-hat headlamps.
Astor Plate on Astor Place © Kasper van Laarhoven
The Mudtruck is gone, but a kiosk that just opened on Astor Place is serving Mud coffee, smoothies, and $2.25 double egg sandwiches all day long.
Cooper Park residents Guillermo Nunez and Maria Albarado enjoying a free meal © Kasper van Laarhoven
A $340,000 “Angelmobile” has started cruising the streets of North Brooklyn, handing out free meals in Williamsburg, Greenpoint and Bushwick. The state-of-the-art food truck– funded in part by Norman Brodsky, the entrepreneur who drew ire from community activists when he held out on selling his valuable waterfront property for parkland— is more than just a mobile soup kitchen. Inside, it has an office space where a rotating array of neighborhood organizations can dole out social services.
“Lumen” at night © Kasper van Laarhoven
If you’ve ever dived into the ocean and looked up at the surface to find jellyfish or seaweed dangling on a background of breaking sunlight, you’ve got a notion of what you’ll see at MoMA PS1 when Warm Up starts this weekend.
Experimental architect Jenny Sabin has graced the museum’s courtyard with a vast network of threads that light up in various enigmatic colors in reaction to the sun. “Lumen” is impressive in both size and beauty. Held up by masts and cables like an expansion bridge, hundreds of digitally knitted cells and tubes dangle like old white dresses on a clothes line.
How did we watch films at home before Netflix and DVD? And before VHS? Denny Daniel will show you at his Museum of Interesting Things. This “speakeasy museum” pops up weekly at various locations in the city to show how our current-day technology is based on earlier inventions, often going all the way back to the late 19th century. From 1960s solar-powered walkie-talkies to carousel animations and parts of the original World War II Enigma machine, Daniel has collected a wide array of antiques and curiosa.
Mayor de Blasio and council member Chin at the well-attended town hall meeting in the Lower East Side © Kasper van Laarhoven
Over 300 residents of the Lower East Side and Chinatown gathered in a Bowery gym for Mayor de Blasio’s 27th town hall Wednesday, and we probably don’t have to tell you what the theme of the evening was. You guessed it: gentrification, particularly with regard to the 60-plus-story towers rising over Two Bridges.
