Surf boards for sale in the snowy city (Photo by Kavitha Surana)
If you were bummed when the Parks Department declared no surfing during the blizzard, you’re probably familiar with Lost Weekend, the Lower East Side’s haven for surfheads and poseurs alike. Stocked with boards, fins, and various riptide-esque films, books and magazines, it provides a year-round taste of summer (not to mention, coffee). Now, after four and a half years on Orchard Street, the shop’s days are numbered.
(Image courtesy of Lisa Levy / Christopher Stout Gallery)
For the second time since his eponymous Bushwick gallery opened, Christopher Stout logged onto Facebook to find that his account had been frozen. The gallerist, whose interest lies in “subversive art,” had posted an image of Lisa Levy, who plans to sit naked on top of a toilet for two straight days in order to call out “the bullshit trendy art dialogue” that she says is plaguing the art world. The image shows the long-haired artist sitting sideways, naked. “You can see her top, but you can’t see her bottom,” Stout said. “It’s just such a crazy, conservative kind of standard.”
Ramzi Fawaz + Phil Jimenez
Thursday, January 28 at 7:00 p.m. at The Strand, 828 Broadway
“Dissecting comic book history through the lens of queer theory” is probably not a sentence ever uttered before Ramzi Fawaz published The New Mutants: Superheroes and the Radical Imagination of American Comics. His new book explores comic book case studies and their relationship with radical politics, starting in the 1960s. Acclaimed comic book artist Phil Jimenez (Infinite Crisis, The Invisibles, Wonder Woman) will join for discussion.
You better believe “The Craft” is a part of this lineup. (Film still via BAM)
It’s no wonder February is shaping up to be the perfect time to binge on witchy happenings– the start of the month is marked by an important pagan festival, Imbolc, a time of “weather divination” (Groundhog Day!) and looking out for the first indications of spring and omens. No better way to help you seek out those good omens than an esoterica art show, curated by Pat Grossman of Phantasmaphile, a blog chronicling the fantastical. But to avoid the rather hellish indications that winter will continue from here until eternity (guys, that snow is going absolutely nowhere until July) we suggest you hole up at BAM, which will play host to another Phantasmaphile effort, “Witches’ Brew“– a series spotlighting the major cinematic witch tropes throughout film history.
We never thought the Original Dirty Rapper would meet the Old Gray Lady, but there it is: a proper Times obituary for Clarence Reid, the singer-songwriter better known as Blowfly. Reid, of course, is the other musical genius we lost to liver cancer this month. His puerile parodies of soul, disco, punk, and rap songs may not have been as universally loved and lauded as Bowie’s tunes, but it’s safe to say the masked musician’s stage get-up was just as out there as Ziggy’s. Hell, some of Blowfly’s caped costumes made Sun Ra look normcore.
Blowfly’s breakthrough early-’70s album, The Weird World of Blowfly, consisted of covers such as “Shitting On The Dock Of The Bay,” in which he crooned about “watching my great big turds float away.” Basically, what Weird Al is to food, Blowfly was to sex and bodily functions. Which is why we weren’t surprised to learn, from the Times, the title of his forthcoming album.
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B Boys and who? (Photo via Baby’s All Right/ Photoshop trix by Nicole Disser)
Secret Show
Wednesday, Jan. 27, 10 pm at Baby’s All Right: $15 at the door
We’re not really all that into surprises. The chances of looking your birthday best after busting open your apartment door to find a surprise party are pretty low, especially considering it’s the one day each year that you leave your pants unbuttoned all the way from the dollar slice place back home. And let’s be real, those grab-bag things are usually filled with plastic dinosaurs, expired condoms, and airplane bottles, anyway– things only a child could love. But when Baby’s All Right threw another one of these secret shows back in December, they gifted us Blood Orange. And even though it would be kind of a not-surprise surprise, we’d be totally cool with another Blood Orange show.
(Photo: @stribs on Instagram)
The powder has settled and it’s time to step outside and search for scour social media for the stars of winter storm Jonas. Still no sign of the fabled Chinatown snowman, but we found plenty of other impressive specimens out there chillin’.
(photo courtesy of apexart-nyc)
What exactly is an expedition, who goes on them, and why? That’s what curators Shona Kitchen, Aly Ogasian, and Jennifer Dalton Vincent set out to explore in Setting Out, their exhibition of expeditions (say that five times fast) large and small, real and imagined.
(Photo: Nicole Disser)
The past half-year has been a busy one at Alt Space, the gallery/boutique presence of Alt Citizen, the online/print culture mag devoted especially to music. They’ve hosted all kind of exhibitions, from sassy net-art shows to pop-up shops featuring their own lineup of hip, small-run clothing and goods curated specially by artists like photographer Anna Bloda (whose work is starting to look like it was shot by a Millennial Richard Kern). From this angle, Alt Space always looked packed with fresh, accessible art and covetable wares (they even went live with the stuff), but turns out their current space at 41 Montrose Avenue is no longer ideal.
Here’s a question for the ages– is The Bedford Stop still The Bedford Stop if the girls go to South Florida for the holidays? The title of the newest episode from Williamsburg’s most lovable residents, “Holidays Without Hollandaise,” implies that the girls are gonna be roughin’ it while holed up in America’s dangler. Whatever will they do without Cafe Colette? If you can stand to imagine an episode without brunch, then venture forth. Although given that Dubai is making moves to stage a junta of Williamsburg’s title for Most Depraved Brunch, we maybe would have preferred a special “City of Gold”-edition of America’s favorite reality show. Somebody get these girls a Fulbright grant.