BAM!

Yeah, BAM isn't just an Emeril Lagasse catchphrase, it's a really awesome place in Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Academy of Music has all kinds of free music and events on the weekends.

Their website for the BAMcafe Live says "Free live music every Friday and Saturday night, featuring rock, jazz, R&B, world music, pop, and more from Brooklyn and beyond."

This week:

Friday, May 29 - 9pm
Chase the Devil - Gary Lucas and Dean Bowman

Saturday, May 30 - 9pm
Thing-One with The Dustbin Brothers

click here to see the complete schedule and for more events

Cooper Union - Great Hall Politics

Great Evenings in The Great Hall: Electoral Politics
Multimedia event
Tuesday, May 19, 6:30pm
The Great Hall
7 East 7th Street at Third Avenue
Free and open to the general public

For 150 years, thousands have come to Cooper Union's Great Hall to protest or promote political change in New York City and across the nation: from Theodore Roosevelt and Fiorello LaGuardia to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Reliving some of those momentous times in American politics, Great Evenings in The Great Hall presents "Electoral Politics", an exciting multi-media event and rare opportunity for the public to see notable New Yorkers such as author, journalist and political pundit Fred Siegel, CUNY professor Frances Fox Piven, actress Rutanya Alda and other well-known actors and writers reenact portions of these pioneering Great Hall speeches. The program includes the overthrow of Boss Tweed and the notorious Tammany Hall Gang, as well as Rutanya Alda reading the words of Bella Abzug, a pioneering feminist who mobilized women into American politics. The Great Hall has been and continues to be a catalyst for change and can be experienced live in "Electoral Politics." A musical performance and a montage of Great Hall political figures will be integrated throughout the evening's festivities, concluding with footage of President Obama, then a Senator from Illinois, marking his presidential run for the White House with an illuminating speech in the Great Hall.

Great Evenings in The Great Hall is an eight-part series running from April 2009-February 2010. Each of the eight programs in the year-long series will focus on one area of protest, reform, or education to be reenacted by notable New York actors, writers and historians.

Fridays at the Rubin

No, not reuben, but the Rubin Museum of Art's has free admission (with a $7 bar minimum) to their Friday Night Cabaret Cinema movie screenings. This week they're showing Vertigo.

Every Friday night - usually at 9:30, like tonight (but sometimes earlier so check the site)

Rubin Museum of Art · 150 West 17th Street, New York, NY 10011 · 212.620.5000

MAD pay-what-you-wish Thursdays

If you haven't ever been, it's definitely worth checking out The Museum of Arts & Design located just southwest of Central Park at Columbus Circle. On Thursday evenings from 6 - 9 p.m., admission is "Pay-What-You-Wish", which we all know means you could pay 35 cents if you wanted to. Try not to be that cheap, and support our locals museums, as many museums are facing cutbacks and serious turmoil during these economic times.

Currently on display are five stellar shows, including Elegant Armor: The Art of Jewelry, and Totally Rad: Karim Rashid Does Radiators.

Museum of Arts & Design
2 Columbus Circle, New York, NY 10019
212.299.7777

Mother's Day weekend

I've been patiently watching the weather all week, and I have my fingers crossed for sun tomorrow. My little brother is coming to town and I may just die if it rains (ok not die, because we can go to a ton of museums, but I'll be really sad).



It's also Mother's Day this weekend! If you haven't sent anything to your mother figure, sister, wife, gf, or any woman who deserves a "thank you for having a child", then make sure you at least give them a phone call on Sunday (most cell-phone plans are free on the weekends, so you don't have an excuse)... if they have a wicked sense of humor, send them a card from someecards.com - by now it's too late for snail mail.



If your mom's in town, take her to Central Park for a free concert:

Mother's Day Family Concert: Peter and the Wolf

(image - Boris Karloff's narrated Peter and the Wolf)

Sunday, May 10, 2009

1:30 p.m.

• Outlook
• Yahoo! Calendar
• Google Calendar
• iCal

For Mother's Day, we're presenting this free performance of Peter & the Wolf, conducted by George Stelluto and narrated by Isaac Mizrahi. Members of the Vienna Philharmonic will be performing in the orchestra. Bring your instruments and play along!

Location

Central Park

Naumburg Bandshell, Central Park
Manhattan

Cost

Free

happy cinco de mayo!

There's something a little sad, something a little sexy about a rainy dreary Cinco de Mayo here in the city.

This week Zach Feuer Gallery is hosting a performance by Momus in collaboration with the performance artist Aki Sasamoto. Starting today, and running until May 16, you can see the action on Tuesday - Friday (2 - 6 p.m.) and on Saturdays (12 - 6 p.m.). Entitled Love is the End of Art, the piece explores the relationship between love and art, between "art critic and unrequited lover."

Zach Feuer is located at 530 W. 24th Sreet in Chelsea.



If you go see the performance today, hop on over afterwards to Elizabeth restaurant (265 Elizabeth between Prince and Houston). For $0.50 (fifty cents!), you can get a shot of tequila, a taco, or some tequila-flavored sorbet.