Today’s “Fab 5″/ Selected NYCity Events – THURSDAY, MAR. 26, 2015
“We search the internet everyday looking for the very best of What’s Happening on Manhattan’s WestSide, so that you don’t have to. We make it as easy as 1-2-3.”

Lot’s of good FREE events today!

Dorothy Parker Night    —  SmartStuff/ Conversation   (5:30pm)   [FREE]

Lew Tabackin  —  Jazz    (9pm)   

The Heath Quartet play Beethoven and Janacek  —  
Classical Music  (7:30pm)  [FREE]

Music and Activism: New York’s Folk Music Revival  —  
SmartStuff/ Lecture   (5pm)     [FREE]

Spices and Seasons, Simple, Sustainable Indian Flavors   —
SmartStuff/ Lecture    (6:30pm)      [FREE]

For other useful and curated NYCity event info for Manhattan’s WestSide:

♦ “9 Notable Events-Mar.”, and “Top10 Free” in the header above.
♦ For NYCity trip planning see links in “Resources” and “Smart Stuff” in the header above.
♦ For NYCity Sights, Sounds and Stories visit out our sister site: nyc123blog.wordpress.com
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Dorothy Parker Night
“Toast the woman who was the talk of the town in the Roaring Twenties, Dorothy Parker. “If I were to tell you the plot of the piece, in detail, you would feel that the only honorable thing for you to do would be to marry me,” she wrote, along with, “Miss Dorothy Mackaye’s best moments were those when she was off stage.” When Broadway had 80 theaters and more than 200 shows opened annually, Dorothy Parker was the only female critic. Beginning in 1918 with Vanity Fair when she was 24, Parker dished up devastating and groundbreaking reviews of the Barrymores, George M. Cohan, W.C. Fields, Eugene O’Neill and the Ziegfeld Follies.

Join Kevin C. Fitzpatrick, editor of Dorothy Parker Complete Broadway, 1918-1923, the first full collection of Parker’s theater reviews. He’s president of the Dorothy Parker Society and will host a free talk, reading and speakeasy-style toast to the pioneering critic and writer. Free cocktails supplied by the New York Distilling Company, makers of Dorothy Parker American Gin. See Broadway’s past through the eyes of one of New York’s greatest observers, the inimitable Dorothy Parker.” (ThoughtGallery.org)
Drama Book Shop, 250 W. 40th St. (btw 7/8 ave)
at 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm / FREE
212-944-0595

Lew Tabackin
“A rough-and-ready tenor player thoroughly conversant with the formative styles of the swing-to-bop saxophone masters, Tabackin is also a silken-toned flutist with a virtuosic bent. He celebrates his seventy-fifth birthday on March 26, in the company of special guests, including his wife, Toshiko Akiyoshi, the noteworthy pianist and composer whose admired but sadly dormant big band spotlighted her husband as a featured soloist, and Stefán Ragnar Höskuldsson, principal flutist with the Met Orchestra.” (NewYorker)
Mezzrow, 163 W. 10th St.
Mezzrow Jazz Club is located on the NE corner of West 10th Street and 7th ave in the basement of 163 West 10th street.  We are easy to miss so look carefully!
9pm / $20
mezzrow.com.

The Heath Quartet play Beethoven and Janacek
JANÁČEK: String Quartet No. 2 (“Intimate Letters”)
BEETHOVEN: String Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op. 131
“It was lovely to hear playing that had a genuine intimacy about it…they‘re clearly a group with a big future.”—Gramophone

Presented in collaboration with Lincoln Center’s Great Performers.
David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center, 61 W 62 St.
(btw Columbus/Broadway Ave.)
at 7:30 / FREE Thursdays
get there early, no later than 7PM, if you want to get in what is a small performance space.
212-875-5350 / atrium.lincolncenter.org

Music and Activism: New York’s Folk Music Revival of the 1950s & 60s
Speaker: Dr. Stephen Petrus
Greenwich Village’s folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s was inextricably linked to the civil rights, anti-war, and antinuclear movements. Dr. Petrus will examine the connection between folk music and activism, and the strategies used to advance the causes of the southern freedom struggle and pacifism. It’s the scene that gave us Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Dave Van Ronk, among many others.
Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Ave. at 103rd St
5:00pm / Free with RSVP
212-534-1672

Author @ the Library:
Spices and Seasons, Simple, Sustainable Indian Flavors, with Rinku Bhattacharya, a New York based food writer, cookbook author and cooking teacher.
This illustrated lecture explores the essential Indian spices and their health benefits and explains how to incorporate the Indian flavors in a practical and accessible manner, with an emphasis on seasonal eating and green living.
Mid-Manhattan Library, 5th Ave @ 40th St.
6:30 p.m. / FREE

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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 (pop. 8.4 million) had a record 56 million visitors last year and 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
My Fave Special Exhibitions – MUSEUMS / Manhattan’s WestSide
(See the New York Times Arts Section for listings of all museums,
and also to see the expanded reviews of these exhibitions)

Museum of Modern Art:
‘Jean Dubuffet: Soul of the Underground’ (through April 5) “Look at what lies at your feet!” Jean Dubuffet wrote in a 1957 essay. “A crack in the ground, sparkling gravel, a tuft of grass, some crushed debris, offer equally worthy subjects for your applause and admiration.” In MoMA’s stimulating show, drawn entirely from its collection, we can see how Dubuffet’s earthbound gaze nourished his reinvention of the painted surface. On view are several canvases smeared with a mixture of oil, putty, sand and gravel, some of them with incised drawings that seem to equate painting with plowing. 212-708-9400, moma.org. (Rosenberg)

‘The Forever Now: Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World’(through April 5) Despite being predictable and market-oriented in its choice of 17 artists, this museum’s first painting survey in decades is well worth seeing. About half the artists are exceptional and the rest are represented by their best work. Based on the premise that all historical painting styles are equally available today, the exhibition has been smartly installed to juxtapose different approaches: figurative and abstract, digital and handmade, spare and opulent. 212-708-9400, moma.org. (Smith)

‘Modern Photographs from the Thomas Walther Collection, 1909-1949’ (through April 19) Overflowing with prints by Berenice Abbott, Andre Kertesz, Edward Weston and other luminaries from the first half of the 20th century, this exhibition would seem to be a straightforward look at photography’s past. But the show, packaged with a book, a symposium and an engrossing interactive website, is really a bold attempt to visualize the future of photography inside the museum as it reckons with the unwieldy, image-saturated culture outside the galleries. With works by Aleksandr Rodchenko, Ms. Abbott, Alvin Langdon Coburn and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy that explore cities from unusual angles or abstract their infrastructure, the show’s largest section, “Dynamics of the City,” best encapsulates the Walther Collection’s distinctly urban, peripatetic take on Modernism. 212-708-9400, moma.org. (Rosenberg)

Museum of Biblical Art:
‘Sculpture in the Age of Donatello: Renaissance Masterpieces From Florence Cathedral’ (through June 14) This terrific 23-piece show features three major works by the early Renaissance sculptor Donatello (1386-1466), including the life-size statue of a bald prophet known as “lo Zuccone” or “Pumpkin Head,” which is widely considered the sculptor’s greatest work. Along with a half-dozen other works by or attributed to Donatello are sculptures by Nanni di Banco (circa 1386-1421), Donatello’s main competitor, including his monumental representation in marble of St. Luke. With the addition of a series of octagonal marble reliefs by Luca della Robbia and wooden models of the Florence Cathedral’s enormous dome attributed to its designer, Filippo Brunelleschi, the exhibition amounts to a tightly cropped snapshot of the birth of the Renaissance. 1865 Broadway, at 61st Street, 212-408-1500, mobia.org. (Johnson)

New-York Historical Society:
‘Freedom Journey 1965: Photographs of the Selma to Montgomery March by Stephen Somerstein’ (through April 19) Almost 50 years ago, the picture editor of a campus newspaper at City College of New York assigned himself a breaking story: coverage of what promised to be a massive march in Alabama, led by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., to demand free-and-clear voting rights for African-Americans. On short notice the editor, Stephen Somerstein, grabbed his cameras, climbed on a bus, and headed south. The 55 pictures of black leaders and everyday people in this show, installed in a hallway and small gallery, are some that he shot that day. The image of Dr. King’s head seen in monumental silhouette that has become a virtual logo of the film “Selma” is based on a Somerstein original. 170 Central Park West, at 77th Street, 212-873-3400, nyhistory.org. (Cotter)

Rubin Museum of Art:
‘The All-Knowing Buddha: A Secret Guide’ (through April 13) This show presents 54 paintings that illustrate step-by-step instructions for followers of Tibetan Buddhism. Delicately painted on 10-by-10-inch paper sheets, most of the pages depict a monk having fabulous visions in a verdant landscape. Thought to have been commissioned by a Mongolian patron and executed by unidentified artists in a Chinese workshop sometime in the 18th century, it is a fascinating and remarkably thorough manual for seekers of higher consciousness. 150 West 17th Street, Chelsea, 212-620-5000,rubinmuseum.org. (Johnson)

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For other selected Museum and Gallery Special Exhibitions see Recent Posts in right Sidebar dated 03/24 and 03/22.