Today’s “Fab 5″/ Selected NYCity Events  – MONDAY, AUGUST 4, 2014.

Old Crow Medicine Show
“This act, based in Nashville, Tennessee, blends old-timey bluegrass sounds with the high-energy attitude of punk. The fiddle-touting collective earned a stamp of approval from Bob Dylan when it took “Rock Me Mama,” a half-baked outtake from Dylan’s soundtrack sessions for the 1973 film “Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid” and transformed it into “Wagon Wheel,” in 2004.

Pleased with the rendition, which was a hit (first by Old Crow, and more recently by Darius Rucker, who sent it to the top of the country charts), Dylan asked the band to have a go at another one of his rough cuts from the same period. The band was thrilled, and with some arrangement advice from Dylan himself fashioned “Sweet Amarillo,” the country-radio-friendly lead single from its new album, “Remedy.” (NewYorker)
SummerStage, Central Park, Rumsey Playfield, mid-Park at 69th St.
6:30pm / $40
Proceeds from this concert help make possible the free programs of SummerStage
summerstage.org

The Great War: A Cinematic Legacy (August 4–September 21, 2014)
This exhibition begins on the 100th anniversary of the day World War I began in earnest, at a time when cinema, still in its infancy, offered an especially effective means of recording events. The movies have provided a great wealth of related material over the past century, far more than this series can encompass.

It is difficult to structure this material, but for this series—which comprises some 50 programs—we have tried to break it down into “sub-genres”: prewar activities; espionage; the battlefields in the trenches, in the air, and on and beneath the sea; actualités; and the various homefronts before, during, and after. The August section of the program is predominately drawn from the early years, either during the war or in the succeeding decades. And although many of these films are familiar, there are also some rare gems.

The program in September will concentrate (though not exclusively) on later, more contemporary films. One hopes that this series will supplement the vast array of literature on the subject, and will perhaps help us to better understand why, as Roger Cohen recently wrote in The New York Times, “The war haunts us still.”

Today’s Film (a silent with musical accompaniment):
Hearts of the World
1918. USA. Directed by D. W. Griffith. With Lillian Gish, Robert Harron, Dorothy Gish, George Siegmann. Griffith’s great epic focusing on the brutal treatment of the French following the German invasion—shown here in a newly restored, tinted print—was released in America eight months before the armistice. Approx. 140 min.
7:30 p.m., Theater 1, T1 (Silent with musical accompaniment by Ben Model)
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), 11 West 53 St. (btw Fifth/Sixth avenues)
(212) 708-9400 / moma.org

Bob Log III
“Taking the stage in a shiny jumpsuit and a motorcycle helmet (with a microphone inside), playing fast slide guitar, the Tucson-born bluesman is ready for any obstacle. Whether balancing men and women on his knees as his bouncing feet kick a cymbal and bass drum, or composing songs about people’s rear ends (“For a limited time,” his Web site advertises, “Bob Log III will create a masterpiece for your own personal butt”; it costs $199.99 plus shipping),

Log is a one-man band with dexterity, ingenuity, and a touch of insanity (he’s been known to surf the crowd on an inflatable raft). He’s irreverent, too—his song “Boob Scotch” is an audience-participation ditty during which he invites both males and females from the audience to stir his Scotch with a part of their body that’s not their finger. With Tucson’s party band Pork Torta.” (NewYorker)
McKittrick Hotel, 530 W. 27th St. (btw 10/11 ave)
boblog111.com.

‘MetroStar Talent Challenge’
“For the seventh year running the room has made a July-August point of ferreting out up-and-coming cabaret talent. Sometimes you wonder why anyone would want to make a career doing this. It’s that difficult and often only intermittently rewarding. But still they come, the gifted and the not so gifted, to vie for a chance at a week’s engagement in the venue if they win and some guaranteed performances if they finish in second or third place. There’s a panel of judges who know what’s what or should, and the audience gets to vote, too. So go pick a winner.” (David Finkle, VillageVoice)
Metropolitan Room, 34 W 22nd St. (btw Fifth and Sixth Aves)
subway: F, M, N, R (all transfer from 1-2-3 at Times Sq.) to 23rd St
At 7PM / $20 + 2 drink minimum
212-206-0440 / metropolitanroom.com

Nikki Yanofsky
“After coming on strong as an Ella Fitzgerald-inspired jazz-vocal whiz kid, Nikki Yanofsky has rejiggered her image as a pop singer, with an assist from the producer Quincy Jones. She draws here from her new album, “Little Secret,” with an opening set by another of Mr. Jones’s young charges, the Hungarian guitarist Andreas Varady.” (Chinen-NYT)
Blue Note, 131 West Third Street, Greenwich Village,
212-475-8592, bluenote.net
At 8 and 10:30 p.m. / $25 at tables, $15 at the bar, with a $5 minimum.

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♦ Before making final plans, we suggest you call the venue to confirm ticket availability, dates and times, as schedules are subject to change.

♦ NYCity is a big town with many visitors, where quality shows draw crowds. Try to reserve seats in advance, even if just on day of performance.
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What’s on View:
Special Exhibitions @ 3 Museum Mile / Fifth Ave. Museums:

‘Charles James: Beyond Fashion’ (through Aug. 10)
One of the Costume Institute’s most ravishing exhibitions argues for this American fashion designer as a great modern artist — a sculptor-architect with a keen but discreet appreciation of women and their bodies. Aided by the latest digital wizardry, the insuperably forward-looking garments, especially the ball gowns, do most of the talking. Their innovations in shape, draping, seam placement, texture and color coalesce into breathtakingly gorgeous couture and an important show. 212-535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Smith-NYT)
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‘Out of Character: Decoding Chinese Calligraphy’ (through Aug. 17)
Chinese calligraphy can seem daunting to viewers who are unfamiliar with the characters of this ancient art form. Some, stymied by the language barrier, tend to think about the physical act of the brushwork in the more familiar terms of dance or choreography, or to see the characters as abstract shapes. This smart and accessible show suggests a third option: appreciating calligraphy as a social art, and even an early social network. The emphasis comes partly from the collector Jerry Yang, a co-founder of Yahoo, who, with his wife, Akiko Yamazaki, has lent the works for the exhibition. 212-535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Rosenberg-NYT)
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The Flowering of Edo Period Painting: Japanese Masterworks from the Feinberg Collection’ (through Sept. 7)
‘Garry Winogrand’ (through Sept. 21)
Mr. Winogrand, who died at 56 in 1984, was the photographer laureate of urban and suburban middle-class life in the United States from the late 1950s through the ’70s and beyond. This ample retrospective focuses on his prime years, when he recorded a newly prosperous America while strolling Manhattan’s avenues and then followed it as it waded into increasingly troubled political waters. The result is a remarkable panorama of an era, with some terrific pictures, and some that Winogrand, who left a mountain of unprocessed film behind, never edited or printed. 212-535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Cotter-NYT)
‘Early American Guitars: The Instruments of C.F. Martin’ (through Dec. 7)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 5th Ave, at 82nd St.
(212) 535-7710 / metmuseum.org
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‘Italian Futurism, 1909-1944: Reconstructing the Universe’ (through Sept. 1)
“This epic, beautifully designed exhibition may be one of the more thorough examinations of modernism’s most obnoxious and conflicted art movement that you are likely to see. Awash in the manifestoes that its members regularly fired off, it follows Futurism through to its end with the death of its founder, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, in 1944. It covers the Futurist obsessions with speed, war, machines and, finally, flight and the aerial views it made possible. And the show highlights relatively unknown figures like the delightful Fortunato Depero and Benedetta Cappa, Marinetti’s wife. 1071 Fifth Avenue, at 89th Street, 212-423-3500, guggenheim.org.“ (Smith-NYT)
Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue, at 89th St.
(212) 423-3500 / guggenheim.org.
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‘Degenerate Art: The Attack on Modern Art in Nazi Germany, 1937’ (through Sept. 1)
“This show — one of the first in decades in an American museum to address, on a fairly large scale, the Nazi demonizing of art — tells a complicated story. The basic facts of the narrative, which centers on Hitler’s grand plan to purify German culture of Modernist, Bolshevist and Jewish influence, are well known, and it culminated in the infamous 1937 “Degenerate Art” exhibition in Munich. The Neue Galerie sets examples of art from that show beside Nazi-approved work; addresses the persecutions of artists in Dresden; and touches on the suppression of the Bauhaus. There are gripping paintings and sculptures as well as complex and haunting personalities every step of the way. And in the end the links between aesthetics and disaster are clear.” (Cotter-NYT)
Neue Galerie, 1048 Fifth Avenue, at 86th Street,
212-628-6200, neuegalerie.org.
========================================================== Museum Mile is a section of Fifth Avenue which contains one of the densest displays of culture in the world. Ten museums can be found along this section of Fifth Avenue:

• 110th Street – Museum for African Art

• 105th Street – El Museo del Barrio

• 103rd Street – Museum of the City of New York

• 92nd Street – The Jewish Museum

• 91st Street – Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum

• 89th Street – National Academy Museum

• 88th Street – Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

• 86th Street – Neue Galerie New York

• 83rd Street – Goethe-Institut

Last, but certainly not least, America’s premier museum
• 82nd Street – The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Additionally, though technically not part of the Museum Mile, the Frick Collection on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 70th St. and the The Morgan Library & Museum on Madison Ave and 37th St are also located near Fifth Ave. Now plan your own museum crawl. ==========================================================

For other selected Museum and Gallery Special Exhibitions see Recent Posts in right Sidebar: “NYCity Events: Manhattan’s WestSide” dated 08/02 and 07/31.