Pre Covid-19 we searched the internet everyday looking for the very best of What’s Happening, primarily on Manhattan’s WestSide, so that you didn’t have to.”
We made it as easy as 1-2-3.

Covid-19 has required some changes for the time being.
Stay Safe.

Earlier today we covered NYC Corona Culture and Lower Manhattan sights. Now, how about some more useful information.

New York magazine is biweekly these days and every issue has a wonderful section, “The Culture Pages,” which includes a “To Do” list – 25 things to see, hear, watch, and read. Here are my favorites from the current issue (Oct.28-Nov.11).

Opera
The Ghosts of Versailles
Featuring a young Renée Fleming.
In 1991, the Metropolitan Opera made its long-awaited return to contemporary opera after 25 years of wallowing in the past. It did so with a work that wallowed in the past. Long gestating, theatrically dazzling, sumptuously cast, wildly expensive, and ambivalently reviewed, John Corigliano’s romp through 18th-century styles made a splash, popped up again a few years later, and then vanished from the company’s repertoire. Fortunately, the broadcast, first televised in 1992, is still around to stream. —Justin Davidson
metopera.org, October 31.

Dance
State of Darkness
Seven solos.
It’s been more than 30 years since dancer and choreographer Molissa Fenley first performed her fiercely concentrated State of Darkness, set to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Now she’s spent the summer coaching (from a distance) seven dancers, all from different companies with different styles, each of whom gives the work a distinctive stamp. The series, streamed from the Joyce Theater, concludes with successive turns by Lloyd Knight, Cassandra Trenary, and Sara Mearns. —Justin Davidson
joyce.org, through November 1.

Opera
Threepenny Opera
In two parts.
Weill and Brecht’s grit-crusted “play with music” was built to fit just about any stage or even no stage at all. The start-up company City Lyric Opera has found a way to adapt it to technology and separation, without stinting on theatrical effect, for a two-week run. —J.D.
citylyricopera.org, October 29 to November 15.

Art
Leilah Babirye
Powerful sculptures.
Leilah Babirye is one of the strongest artists to have emerged in the past five years. Her ceramic, wood, metal, and found-object sculptures and assemblages pack optical punches and deliver dollops of passion, power, material intelligence, spiritual wisdom, off-the-wall humor, and almost revolutionary ancestral identity politics. She’s taking back whole swaths of art history, deploying stolen tropes, remaking visual history, and remembering the past in medium-size objects that all possess talismanic dignity and tenderness. —J.S.
Gordon Robichaux, 41 Union Square West, through November 22.

Theater
Complete Works: Table Top Shakespeare
All the men and women merely silverware.
In 2018, British experimental troupe Forced Entertainment visited New York with its sweetly brilliant object-theater series Table Top Shakespeare: In each episode, an actor retells a condensed version of one of Shakespeare’s plays, “casting” the parts with various bits and bobs like teapots or pepper grinders. I caught the ensemble’s Antony and Cleopatra — the Egyptian queen was a gilded bit of crockery — and it absolutely knocked my saltcellar off. Now, with kitchen tables among the few sanctioned performance spaces, the company has begun streaming a domestic version of the series, making every miniature play available for free. A new one appears online each night; all told, there are 36. Collect ’em all. —Helen Shaw   (Sept.17 – Nov.15)

*This article appears in the October 26, 2020, issue of New York Magazine. Subscribe Now!

=============================================================

WFUV-FM 90.7 is my fave local radio station. Noncommercial, member-supported with a format of adult album alternative music, WFUV is doing it’s best to keep us connected to our music with a comprehensive, updated list of live music online.

10/29 – The Mountain Goats Jordan Lake Sessions 10/29 – Okkervil River, Rarities and Requests from City Winery 10/29 – Every Vote Counts with Alicia Keys, Coldplay, Lin-Manuel Miranda 10/30 – “A Rufus-Retro-Wainwright-Spective” series 10/31 – The Cure – Teenage Cancer Trust benefit 10/31 – Christine and the Queens, Romy, Purity Ring & others, Pabllo Vittar’s Halloween Club Night 11/1 –  50th Anniversary Celebration of the Grateful Dead‘s American Beauty with Amy Helm, Jorma Kaukonen, Railroad Earth and more 11/2 – We The People – performances and commentary from The Public Theater 11/3 – I Voted Festival: Jim James, Billie Eilish, Trey Anastasio, Colin Meloy, Chris Thile, Julien Baker and more 11/4 – Toshi Reagon‘s Post Election Concert – with special guests, on Joe’s Pub’s Youtube Channel

Online concert calendar and links at wfuv.org/livestreams

=============================================================

In the age of Covid-19 this info from City Guide is one of the best sources of info on What’s Happening, even if some are only available in your home, and not in your favorite venue.

CityGuideNY

NYC RESOURCES

The Metropolitan Opera is streaming operas FREE nightly.

The New York Public Library provides access to more than 300,000 FREE e-books and e-audio books.

NYC Health information page for COVID-19.

NYC restaurant world information.

Stream hundreds of Broadway shows (by subscription).

15 Broadway shows you can watch from home.

Broadway performances live—from stars’ living rooms.

The New York City Ballet presents a spring digital season.

Virtual programming will keep you connected to the York Theatre Company.

One World Observatory has made One World Explorer, the attraction’s Digital Skyline Guide, available for remote watching. Virtual helicopter tours of the city’s most iconic sites are available now.

51 New York TV shows and movies.

5 eras of New York to enjoy in books and movies.

2,500 museums and galleries you can visit virtually.

The New York Botanical Garden in bloom from home.

Exploring Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Times Square.

The Top of the Rock launches a brief virtual tour on YouTube.

Livestreamed fitness classes.

Fun at-home activities for kids.

6 podcast series to help you understand New York.Discover the best of New York, from hidden gems to iconic landmarks, through The New York Landmarks Conservancy’s “Tourist in your own Town” Video Series.

VIRTUAL MUSEUMS

Explore the world of design with Cooper Hewitt.

Experience the Intrepid Museum anywhere.

New-York Historical Society from home.

A portal to the map collection of the Brooklyn Historical Society.

The Brooklyn Museum remotely.

Guggenheim Museum from home.

The Morgan’s exhibitions.

Virtually visit the Louis Armstrong House Museum.

The Merchant’s House Museum from home.

You can take a virtual tour of the Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room at the Rubin Museum of Art. (You can find two hours of meditative chanting as well, if you’re searching out some respite.) The Rubin has also, for the first time, launched a digital assemblage of more than 300 items from the museum’s collection.

VIRTUAL TALKS, LECTURES, AND EVENTS

Thought Gallery has hundreds of livestream talks, lectures, performances, and more. Check out sessions with celebs, live concerts, and opportunities to learn the latest on everything from science to philosophy to social justice

=========================================================

STAY HOME FOR A BIT LONGER – MASK UP AND STAY SAFE.