Be part of a giant, glow in the dark game happening this Friday night in Prospect Park by signing up for the Mp3 Experiment 12. Photo: Improv Everywhere
Now that it’s amazing outside, we have officially entered the phase where everyone (myself included) just repeats things like “I LOVE this weather” or “This is my favorite time of year,” as if this is some controversial perspective on the New York City weather situation. Who doesn’t prefer a sunny, breezy fall day to sweating through all your clothes or being fused to a parka for four months straight? There is a lot to love about the next several weeks–time to get out and do some great things!
If strong opinions lead to exceptional creative output, the MTA must be one of the best muses out there. Tonight, the New York Transit Museum is hosting an installment of its popular PLATFORM series, which gives members of the public a stage to present their DIY and artistic projects on the subject of the subway in a variety of media. Tickets are $15 and the show starts at 6pm.
Smack in the middle of the Jewish holidays, Shane Bertram Baker, the self-titled king of contemporary Yiddish vaudeville, brings his cheap gags, ukulele, ventriloquism, and magic show to Cloud City on Thursday night. We haven’t seen The Big Bupkis: A Complete Gentile’s Guide to Yiddish Vaudeville, but it sounds like it’s well worth the price of admission (two bits).
On Friday evening, Improv Everywhere and the Prospect Park Alliance are corralling thousands of people into their Mp3 Experiment 12, an interactive event requiring participants to bring a list of supplies and follow directions downloaded in an Mp3 file to their smartphones at an appointed time and location in the park. Although the flash-mob concept might generally feel annoying and a little dated, the promise of being part of a giant glow-in-the-dark display like the one above sounds like a great way to start the weekend.
Craft beer lovers will be heading to Clinton Hill in droves on Saturday for the NYC Brewers Guild’s Blocktoberfest celebration. Sample pours from local producers all over the city, including my personal favorite Other Half Brewery, in an indoor/outdoor beer garden. Tickets are available in different tiers, depending on how much you want to drink, and the celebration starts at 1pm.
It’s back to school time, and this weekend the beloved Brooklyn Book Festival returns to get us all back into a literary groove. For the first time this year, and in honor of the fest’s 10th anniversary, there will be a Children’s Day on Saturday for kids aged 2-11, followed by the main event on Sunday, which boasts appearances by luminaries like Joyce Carol Oates, Jonathan Lethem, Salman Rushdie, and hundreds more. Finally, you can chow down for a great cause on Sunday afternoon at The Amazing Garden on Columbia Street’s 5thAnnual Best Grilled Sandwich in Brooklyn Competition. The $15 admission fee goes to support the garden, and also gives you access to competing sandwiches entered by the chefs at Egg, Jalopy Tavern, and Strong Place. The best part of all is that you can debate the merits of each with everyone’s favorite at-large reporter from NY1, Roger Clark.
That’s a lot to chew on, but we’ve got more! Read on for our roundup of the best ways to spend the next week basking in the glory that is September in NYC.
Feast on homemade cheese, seasonal fruits and vegetables, and creative cocktails at Industry City Distillery’s tasting room on Thursday night. Photo: Cheese Grotto
Thursday, September 17
Long before this week’s announcement that the Brooklyn Flea and Smorgasburg are moving to Industry City for the winter, it’s been clear that the massive Sunset Park industrial complex is in for some pretty big changes. The past few years have seen influx of money earmarked to revitalize the area, new tenants in the form of Brooklyn-based small businesses, Mister Sunday parties, a new park, and the promise of a ferry running to downtown Brooklyn and Manhattan. You can see what all the buzz is about at Industry City Distillery’s onsite tasting room this Thursday night– they are inviting us all over for Homemade Cheese & Cocktails starting at 7:30. Chef and cheese maker Jessica Sennett of the Cheese Grotto will be serving things like house made mozzarella with slow roasted tomatoes and crispy leeks and mascarpone with macerated peaches and thyme alongside cocktails pairings that will be available for purchase for $5. Throw in a stunning sunset and live jazz music, and you’d be hard-pressed to come up with a better plan for a random Thursday night. Tickets are $25 and are available here. –K.H.
Friday, September 18
Is there anyone more brutal than an angsty, self-conscious, miserable teenager? Well, yes, but because we all remember the fraught awkwardness of our own teenage years, we tend to think of the whole demographic as the absolute worst. Teenagers do happen to make excellent roast subjects though, and that’s why a group of comedians is gathering at Annoyance Theatre NY this Friday night to make jokes at the expense of their 15-year-old selves. Host Alise Morales (UCB) has invited eight funny people, including Nate Dern (Last Week Tonight, The Daily Show), Morgan Miller (Above Average), and Anthony Atamanuik (Broad City) to “expose the shitty, horrifying teenager that made them into shitty, horrifying adults,” and it’s a meta-roast you won’t want to miss. Tickets are $5 and the show starts at 9:30pm. –N.R.
Composer James Blachly will be conducting the Experiential Orchestra as they play a Rite of Spring dance party on Saturday night. Photo: James Blachly
Saturday, September 19
If you read and were intrigued by our story this past winter about Groupmuse and its mission to bring cheap, live classical music to a new generation, we’ve got a can’t-miss event for you this Saturday. Starting at 8pm, the Brooklyn Masonic Temple is hosting a massive, 200-person dance party to the soundtrack of Stravinsky’s revolutionary Rite of Spring, performed by a badass, 85-seat orchestra. Lose your shoes at the door, buy a beer, and get moving on the dance floor– the first audience to hear the masterwork live couldn’t stay in their seats and neither should you! Tickets are just $20, and proceeds go to Musicambia, an awesome nonprofit that runs music education programs in prisons like Sing Sing. –K.H.
Explore Indo-Chinese dishes like this one at the Tangra Endless Summer feast at 61 Local on Sunday. Photo: Tangra Endless Summer
Sunday, September 20
Expand your culinary horizons this Sunday night at 61 Local, where chefs Chitra Agrawal (the Brooklyn Delhi) and Diana Kuan (Appetiteforchina.com) will be serving up a family-style, vegetarian, Indo-Chinese feast featuring seasonal, late summer ingredients. This isn’t the first time the duo has teamed up to do a pop-up dinner inspired by Tangra, a Calcutta neighborhood that has been populated by Hakka Chinese for generations and has the delicious cuisine to prove it. In addition to seven courses of innovative food prepared with fresh, local produce, Tangra Endless Summer includes cider, craft beer, and non alcoholic drinks. A seat at the table costs $75, but BB readers get 10% off the ticket price by using the promo code SPICY. –K.H.
Brooklyn’s own Margaret Eby will be reading from her new book, South Toward Home, at Franklin Park’s Reading Series fall kickoff on Monday. Photo: Margaret Eby
Monday, September 21
The official start of fall may be a week away, but the folks at Crown Heights’ Franklin Park are all ready for the seasonal change, kicking off the autumnal edition of their popular Monthly Reading Series this Monday evening. Starting at 8pm, the outsized bar will be offering up $4 drafts, raffling off books, and hosting readings by a diverse lineup of novelists, including Valeria Luiselli (Faces In The Crowd), Helen Phillips (The Beautiful Bureaucrat), T. Geronimo Johnson (Hold It ’Til It Hurts), Karl Taro Greenfeld (GQ,The Atlantic), and Aatish Taseer (Stranger To History). Plus, check out Brooklyn’s own Margaret Eby, the author of South Towards Home, a fascinating travelogue on the lives of classic Southern literary figures. Admission is free. –N.R.
Catch the inimitable Ingrid Bergman in June Night, her last Swedish film, this Tuesday at BAM, which is running a retrospective series in the actress’ honor. Photo: Kino International
Tuesday, September 22
In honor of what would have been her 100th birthday, BAM has launched a 17-day retrospective of the work of Ingrid Bergman, the famed Swedish actress best known for her roles in Casablanca and Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious. But if you’re interested in seeing the screen legend in her early years—long before the three Oscars she would go on to win—then head to BAM next Tuesday to see Bergman in June Night, her last Swedish film before she became an international star. The 1940 film follows a young women trying to start life over after a scandalous affair—Bergman would weather a similar scandal ten years later—and is considered to be one of the actresses’ best early films. Tickets are $7 for members; $10 for students, seniors, and veterans; and $14 for general admission with screenings scheduled for 4:30pm; 7:15pm; 9:15pm. –N.R.
Prove your Potter preeminence at a special trivia event at Henri on Fifth on Wednesday. Photo: Warner Bros.
Wednesday, September 23
Fancy yourself an expert on Mudbloods, Quidditch, and Slytherins? Show off your skill (not to mention the years of dedication you put in lining up for the release of every book and movie about J.K. Rowling’s boy wizard and his friends) at a special trivia event focused exclusively on the Hogwarts gang and goings-on. Potterheads will gather on Wednesday night at Park Slope’s Henri on Fifth for Harry Potter trivia starting at 8pm and, just for extra incentive, it’s totally free! –K.H.
Tips by Nikita Richardson and Kate Hooker.
