PERFORMANCE

The Apollo Theater
Amateur Night

"Amateur Night at the Apollo is one of New York’s most popular live entertainment experiences, attracting performers and audiences the world over. The classic competition is known for its notoriously “tough” audience, gleefully deciding who will “be good or be gone” to win the grand prize. Who will be the next Ella Fitzgerald, James Brown or Michael Jackson? At Amateur Night, you decide."

"Amateur Night at the Apollo is hosted by the comedian Capone. Each show begins with a festive pre-party featuring video and music by DJ Jess. And keep a lookout for master impressionist C.P. Lacey, the resident Executioner who sweeps bad talent off the stage."

"A brand new line-up of contestants competes for the chance to perform during the September 18th Semi-Finals and move on to Finals on November 20th. It all leads to the chance of winning the title of Grand Finale Winner and a cash prize ($5,000 in the Child Star category and $20,000 in the Adult category) on November 27th!

Aspiring musicians, singers, dancers, comedians, rappers and spoken word artists try their best to please the audiences that can make them an Apollo legend. Get ready to cheer or jeer as you decide who stays and who gets booted off stage. At Amateur Night, you tell the performers to be good or be gone!

Amateur Night at the Apollo is hosted by the comedian Capone. Each show begins with a festive pre-party featuring video and music by DJ Jess followed by the dynamic vocals of Joe Gray, the “Set it Off Man.” And keep a lookout for C.P. Lacey, the resident Executioner who sweeps bad talent off the stage."

RELAXATION

Bryant Park
The Southwest Porch

Followers of this blog know that we do not show dining or food.  Today, however, we're showing a few hours at Bryant Park.

Waking up 2 days ago.

Waking up this morning.

Walking from our apartment on 32nd Street up 6th Avenue to Bryant Park at 40th.

A sign posted on a pole.

Getting ready for lunch.

Some of the best Pastrami in New York City!

Mid-Lunch Parade.

After-Lunch Demonstration.

Going to Bryant Park's City's Best Restroom.

Attendants for the men's and the women's sides, motorized toilet seat covers, fresh flowers every day, and classical music.

Walking back to Carolyn past the Reading Room, Games, Game Room, and more.

Edith Piaf continually singing for The Carousel.

Once we returned home we found this outside our window.  I have no idea what it was about!

CONCERT

Bryant Park Picnic Series
Accordions Around The World

"Accordions Around the World is a weekly summer series featuring accordionists as well as bandoneon, bayan, concertina, and harmonium-players of different musical genres. Audiences have an opportunity to hear music from all over the world and to experience the wide range of this often overlooked and little-known instrument in an intimate performance setting. Choose to wander the park to explore different musical stylings or set up a picnic and the artists will rotate around the audience.

The finale is Accordion Festival, a five-hour celebration of bands with at least one accordionist. Don’t miss an evening in which “Accordion wizards from around the planet try to impress one another and rock the park” (Time Out New York)."

Toot Sweet is the original cabaret soul project of Mary Spencer Knapp (of Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 Broadway fame) that expertly melds French chanson, funky pop, and psychedelic rock. Echoes of Edith Piaf, Patti Smith, and Talking Heads can be heard in Toot Sweet‘s addictive melodies, gut-chucking rhythms, and offbeat harmonies. Toot Sweet has released three full-length albums and has been a constant in NYC’s DIY scene, making it an unexpected and ever-evolving live experience.

Aces of Rhythm, co-founded by producer and singer Pablo Pereyra and Grammy-winning bass player Pablo Aslán, pays tribute to the music and the style of legendary band leader, Juan D'Arienzo. Known for his very strong rhythmic condition, with noticeable emphasis on the four beat times, in the words of Tango historian, José Gobelo, “D’arienzo gave tango back to the dancers´feet,” capturing the interest of a younger generation. The septet plays D'Arienzo's original arrangements that have been transcribed from his original music. They made their debut at Midsummer Night Swing at Lincoln Center on 2017 and play the last Sunday of the month at the Astoria Tango Club in New York.

Since the early 1990’s, Fedor Chistyakov has been known as the songwriter, front singer, and accordionist for the band Nol’ (Zero), a cult model of Russian rock music. His unique manner of singing and the fact that he played button accordion, an instrument atypical of rock music at the time, made the band stand out, to the extent of being featured as exemplary in Western documentaries on Russian Rock. He is a composer, arranger, multi-instrumentalist musician, whose creative interests embrace rethinking classics and producing experimental instrumental music of many genres and styles.

Annointed by the legendary Flaco Jimenez, Grammy Award winners Los Texmaniacs are the new kings of Tex-Mex. Combine a hefty helping of conjunto, simmer with several parts Texas rock, add a daring dash of well-cured blues and R&B riffs, and you’ve cooked up the tasty Texmaniacs groove. Founded by Max Baca in 1997, Los Texmaniacs combines the traditions of Tejano music with elements of blues, rock, country. They have performed at The Smithsonian Folklife Festival, International Accordion Festival, Kennedy Center and more. They received a Grammy Award for Border Y Bailes in 2010.

MUSEUM

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

"To commemorate the five hundredth anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), The Met presents the artist’s painting Saint Jerome Praying in the Wilderness (begun around 1483), a special loan from the Vatican Museums. The exquisitely rendered work represents Jerome (A.D. 347–420), a major saint and theologian of the Christian Church. The scene is based on the story of his later life, which he spent as a hermit in the desert, according to the thirteenth-century Golden Legend. The unfinished painting provides viewers with an extraordinary glimpse into Leonardo's creative process, and a close examination of the paint surface reveals the presence of his fingerprints. The display of this monumental masterpiece pays homage to one of the most renowned geniuses of all time."

"A single-painting show of one of the most rawly emotional images in the Leonardo canon."—New York Times

This presentation at The Metropolitan Museum of Art has been organized with the generous collaboration of the Vatican Museums.

"Dutch paintings of the seventeenth century—the Golden Age of Rembrandt, Hals, and Vermeer—have been a highlight of The Met collection since the Museum's founding purchase in 1871. This exhibition brings together some of the Museum's greatest paintings to present this remarkable chapter of art history in a new light. Through sixty-seven works of art organized thematically, In Praise of Painting orients visitors to key issues in seventeenth-century Dutch culture—from debates about religion and conspicuous consumption to painters' fascination with the domestic lives of women.

The exhibition provides a fresh perspective on the canon and parameters of the Dutch Golden Age by uniting paintings from Benjamin Altman's bequest, the Robert Lehman Collection, and the Jack and Belle Linsky Collection. Works typically displayed separately in the Museum's galleries—such as Rembrandt's Gerard de Lairesse and Lairesse's own Apollo and Aurora—are presented side by side, producing a visually compelling narrative about the tensions between realism and idealism during this period. The presentation also provides the opportunity to conserve and display rarely exhibited paintings, including Margareta Haverman's A Vase of Flowers—one of only two known paintings by the artist and the only painting by an early modern Dutch woman currently in The Met collection. The exhibition takes its title from one of the period's major works of art theory, Philips Angel's The Praise of Painting (1642), a pioneering defense of realism in art."

"Through more than 250 objects dating from the seventeenth century to the present, The Costume Institute's spring 2019 exhibition explores the origins of camp's exuberant aesthetic. Susan Sontag's 1964 essay "Notes on 'Camp'" provides the framework for the exhibition, which examines how the elements of irony, humor, parody, pastiche, artifice, theatricality, and exaggeration are expressed in fashion."

Men on their way to work?