Satan and Adam: Word on the Street: Harlem Recordings, 1989 (Modern Blues Harmonica)

Adam Gussow and Sterling “Mr. Satan” Magee were a fixture in New York City in the late '80s and early '90s: a young, white, Princeton-educated harmonica player and a black, experienced Mississippi-born blues/soul veteran who sang while simultaneously playing electric guitar and percussion. They eventually got club gigs, but they started out playing on the streets of Harlem, where Magee had been playing regularly and Gussow sat in one day in 1986 and, after a good response from the crowd (the tip bucket got filled), they became a team.

R.E.M.: Murmur Deluxe Edition (Universal)

When I first heard the news, my heart jumped ever so slightly. I was so excited that Universal were releasing one of their famed Deluxe Edition versions of an album I loved, R.E.M.’s 1983 full-length debut, Murmur. "What cool gems had they unearthed?" I wondered. Sure, there had been many before, enough that I had been able to compile my own nine-track compilation of B-sides and extras, but I didn’t have access to their vaults. My mind reeled with possibilities.

Nobby Clark's London Blues is a melancholy tune, captured in 101 black and white photographs taken over 40 years of walking the city with a camera in his pocket. Clark's pictures don't show the London that visitors come to see. His is the London of grim working class neighborhoods, pubs, National Front marches, and gnarled old people. It's a place of diffidence and neglect and, occasionally, dignity.

And this major exhibit at Tribeca Arches has an unexpected kicker: on the upper floor of the gallery are a further 120 never-before-shown photos of the Rolling Stones, taken by Clark during the StarF*cker tour of 1976, at Earls Court. After the seeping grayness of the London pictures, the vibrant color of the Stones in action brings to mind - in a burst of pure energy -- the other London of the day.

The extremely miscast revival of David Mamet’s American Buffalo at the Belasco Theatre is one more depressing instance of confusing the screen actor with the stage actor. They possess different skills. We don’t expect hockey stars to play NFL football, so why, again and again, do we see untrained screen or television actors taking lead roles on Broadway? Is this just one more case of the dumbing-down of America? The producers fear that audiences won’t come without big names that they recognize.

Kafka
By R. Crumb & Dave Zane Mairowitz (Kitchen Sink Press)

Franz Kafka was the master of the transformation, the dive into darkness, the unpeeling, the alchemical combination of right and wrong, up and down, matter of fact and out of your mind. Which is why, were he with us in the flesh, I'm sure he would approve of the Kismet that brought his story (and his stories) together with artist R. Crumb. It is an artistic marriage made in heaven -- well, to be precise, in hell.

The primary and election season seemed to go on forever. But at last we have a newly chosen president, which makes me wonder just how relevant the satirical drama Farragut North will prove. Beau Willimon’s quite humorous yet dark new play opened November 12 in an Atlantic Theatre Company production, directed by Doug Hughes. It takes place during several crucial days in a presidential primary campaign, the year being 2008, as the two leading Democratic candidates at the Iowa caucuses are battling for victory. A former political operative himself, Willimon is fascinated with the behind-the-scenes battles, strategies, and betrayals of those who run the campaign: not the candidates (whom we never see on stage) but the professional spin-masters. Their commitment to the process -- the game -- is like pit bulls at a dog fight. It’s an adrenalin rush.

It is a privilege to view the exhibit of Liza Lou’s beaded sculptures at L&M Arts. Lou has not had a solo show in New York since 2002, so this is not to be missed.

The gallery is housed in two floors of an ornate townhouse on the Upper East Side. One has to ring the bell to be personally let in, adding to the ambiance. Upon entering the lobby one encounters two minimal sculptures, “Tower” and “Continuous Mile,” (image left, detail) as well as the wall piece “Condition of Capture 1” and a small lithograph.

Watchmen: Hardcover Edition
By Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons (DC Comics)

Whenever a new comic book-inspired movie is a big hit, comic book stores report that sales of that hero’s books often spike. Which is why, this past summer, books by Batman, Iron Man, and The Hulk did brisk business. But so too did another comic, one that won’t be seen on the big screen until March of next year, but got a bump nonetheless when its trailer appeared both online and at the San Diego Comic Con: Watchmen, the groundbreaking 1986/86 graphic novel by writer Alan Moore (From Hell, V for Vendetta) and artist Dave Gibbons (Give Me Liberty, Captain America). Though this book has often been called “unfilmable,” and not just by Moore, the rather impressive trailer got enough fans so excited that the book started flying off store shelves.

The Other Israel Film Festival

Just as the vision of the Statue of Liberty once sent electrical shocks of joy through immigrants eying the emerald lady for the very first time, Zabar’s now exhilarates lox lovers on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

This unrivaled, landmark deli, with its hypnotic selection of cheeses, bagels, imported coffees, caviar, olive oil, blenders, and potholders, not unexpectedly has a queen. And as queens are wont to do, this feisty czarina of the rugelach has projects of her own that reside outside of her expected realm.

The critics were not kind to the new Broadway musical version of the Charles Dickens classic A Tale of Two Cities. Reviews ranged from mixed (critics referring to the novel’s famous first lines in saying the musical wasn’t the best of shows, but wasn’t the worst either) to harsh. While Tale certainly recalls shows such as Les Miserables and does not break any new ground, for me, at least, it tells a great story in a compelling, atmospheric, and dramatic fashion. Some critics feel that the era of epic musicals is past. But if the audience is given a good production of a strong story, I don’t see any problem with that.

Like a deck of demented cards, Zombie Joe reveals his latest creation at The Players Theatre, masterfully tainting old MacDougal Street with all sorts of blood, guts, and gore. Whatever your secret nightmares may be, Zombie Joe’s Underground has something to unleash for your vicious fantasies.

Presented as a night of horrific scenes and personified fears, Urban Death was the perfect way to usher in the ghosts and demons of All Hallow’s Eve and remains relevant for the horror that the upcoming holiday season can bring.

Virtuosity comes with its own perils. Compound that with prodigy, and you're in some tricky waters. Too often flash substitutes for feeling, spectacle for connection, hoopla for art. Twenty-six-year-old Hungarian pianist Adam Gyorgy flirted with all of the above at his recent Carnegie Hall recital, but, happily, the marks of a true artist won out.

His chops are amazing, and we got fireworks galore, barn burners such as Liszt's Rhapsody No. 2 delivered with articulate aplomb.

Modernist thinking reaches new levels in the recent paintings of Ron Gorchov. Working within a time-tested format of the concave and rounded, saddle-shaped canvas, Gorchov paints and over paints until his uneven colors and curious shapes echo forward and back. In viewing these works, you may think you see a positive form, then the space around that object or thing moves forward and that original thought recedes like a mirage - it's a mental play between perception and pre-thought. And it is also about the structure behind the surface, where angled, curved stretchers pull the taut, frontally stapled linen tight like a drum -- a surface for the artist to work his colors, often to a very thin, drippy consistency.

Some movies unfurl slowly. The characters draw you in and then gradually reveal themselves, allowing the audience to see, feel, and breathe their world through their point of view, regardless of how ugly or boring it may be. The indie movie Eden (Liberation Entertainment) is one such movie.

Irish director Declan Recks expertly adapts writer Eugene O'Brien's award-winning play about a marriage teetering on the brink of extinction while exposing the tedium and underlying staleness that many couples experience after growing too comfortable with each other.