Last Friday the second of the monthly series It Came From Brooklyn showcased Brooklyn’s emerging musical and literary talents at the Guggenheim’s Frank Lloyd Wright Rotunda. Eugene Mirman, who served as MC for the evening, featured materials from his new comedy album God Is a Twelve Year Old Boy With Aspergers (Subpop) throughout the night. Rivka Galchen (Atmospheric Disturbances) read from Jane Eyre and screenwriter Hampton Fancher (Blade Runner, The Minus Man) decided read from Henry Miller.

I’m In You’s gritty post-rock orchestral affair started the event. This promising band has an EP available for download via their official site. The band will be the opening band for Julian Plenti this fall as they make their way to Seattle, Los Angeles and Europe (See tour details below).

Backed by a full band plus strings and horns Julian Plenti (aka Paul Banks of Interpol) played his very first live public performance in celebration of Julian Plenti is…Skyscraper. The string arrangements added an extra dimension and newfound depth to “Madrid Song,” “Only If You Run,” and “Skyscraper.” Most surprising was Julian Plenti’s cover of “Horse With No Name.” In the mix of the all-too-cool crowd last Friday night were Carrie Brownstein (NPR’s Monitor Mix, Sleater-Kinney) and Helena Christensen, who is currently dating Paul Banks.

More photos, videos and Julian Plenti tour date information after the jump. Read more…

I break for vampires and apparently so does everyone else these days. This is a good and bad thing. Good: I am more comfortable admitting that I prefer reading Anne Rice to Ayn Rand. Bad: New wave vampirism is seriously lacking. Solution: Let the Right One In, the book and the movie.

Recommended to me by our Swedish friends, Let the Right On In is in the simplest terms, a love story between two children (one of them is a vampire the other is not) in 1980s Blackeberg, a suburb of Stockholm, Sweden. While the story’s main characters are 12 years old, nothing about the book is juvenile or even PG-13. (I should clarify that nothing pornographic happens between the kiddies.)

Writer John Ajvide Lindqvist’s interpretation of vampire lore is by far the most interesting of contemporary versions (They sparkle in the sunlight? Really? Bullshit.). His writing style is easy to follow and also cryptic, using the power of allusion like a pro, while the storyline remains genuine and intriguing. He is also a really big Morrissey fan, loosely borrowing the book’s title from the song “Let the Right One Slip In.”

While director Tomas Alfredson’s version nearly omitted 2/3rds of the original details, the movie is still incredible, probably the best I’ve seen in recent years. The cinematography is infallible, dialogue is nearly and befittingly nonexistent, and the horrific things they did feature are freakishly subtle which is all the more frightening. I wish I lived in a film still:

You can watch it instantly on Netflix!

I should mention, additionally, that I thought the movie was really special, but I don’t know if I would have been so enamored if I hadn’t have read the book. Therefore, I recommend you first read the book and then watch the movie. But if you’re a really busy person, watch the movie, done, the end. I just might be sad that you missed out on a really good read, but I can forgive you.

Photo: Thomas Mueller

The First Annual Art Awards at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, sponsored by Calvin Klein Collection, is set to take place on October 29th.  Rob Pruitt, the visual artist who skyrocketed to fame in the late 1980’s, conceived the event as a performance-based artwork which follows the format of a Hollywood awards ceremony. The Art Awards celebrates select individuals, exhibitions, and projects that have made a significant impact on the field of contemporary art during the past year. The event will benefit the Guggenheim,  White Columns and Studio in a School.  The categories include:

Artist of the Year
Curator of the Year
Exhibition Outside the United States
Group Show of the Year, Gallery
Group Show of the Year, Museum
New Artist of the Year
The Rob Pruitt Award
Solo Show of the Year, Gallery
Solo Show of the Year, Museum
Writer of the Year

Lifetime Achievement Awards will go to artist Joan Jonas and curator Kasper König.  Who are you rooting for? Full nominees are listed after the jump.

Read more…

It Came From Brooklyn is a new concert series started by The Guggenheim Museum celebrating the museum’s 50th anniversary. The monthly series launched in August and its aim is to showcase emerging and established talents in music and literature. The first series featured music from The Walkmen, High Places and The Brooklyn Steppers Marching Band. The second It Came From Brooklyn concert will take place this Friday. The concert, hosted by comedian Eugene Mirman, will have performances by Julian Plenti (aka Paul Banks of Interpol) and I’m In You and readings by authors Rivka Galchen and Hampton Fancher. The series is co-produced by Sam Brumbaugh and Bronwyn Keenan. The title of the series references Robert Gordon’s book It Came From Memphis, which details the birth of rock-n-roll in the 1950’s.  The last concert had a good mix of Manhattanites and Brooklynites. In an interview with FreeWilliamsburg, Brumbaugh addressed the borough-centric stigma of the Manhattanite and Brooklynite community, ”One of the purposes of this series was to try to loosen up those “I don’t go there” perceptions–on both sides. A museum on the Upper East is not a big leap from three stops in on the L.” Audience members will get a chance to view “Kandinsky,”  a full scale retrospective of the paintings of Vasily Kandinsky.

Tickets are on sale at www.guggenheim.org/brooklyn. Tickets are $45 for non-members, $40 for members. All proceeds support the series and the Guggenheim’s exhibitions and programs.

Mia Kirshner of Exotica and L Word fame can now add author to her name. Ms. Kirshner is currently on a six week book tour promoting I Live Here (Pantheon), a stunning paper documentary based on her journeys through Chechnya, Burma, Mexico and Malawi. She enlisted the help of artists as stories of war, globalization, AIDS and ethnic cleansing are told through images, graphic novellas and journals.

Mia Kirshner

Last Wednesday, she stopped at the Barnes & Noble in Tribecca to talk about the the seven year journey in making of I Live Here. Ms. Kirshner’s passion project, funded entirely by her work on the L Word, brought together artists of mixed media to bring to light stories of displaced people around the four corners of the world. All proceeds of this book will go to Amnesty International. Kirshner would like continue future series of I Live Here. She has started the I Live Here Foundation which hopes to help the communities she visits and to help start a creative writing program.

The I Live Here Book Tour continues through November 17th. Find out more about the book at www.i-live-here.com

10/30 7:00pm. Book Passage, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd Corte Madera, CA
11/01 7:30pm. Bookshop Santa Cruz, 1520 Pacific Ave Santa Cruz, CA
11/06 7:00pm. Vroman’s, 695 E. Colorado Blvd Pasadena, CA
11/14 7:00pm. Harvard Books, 1256 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge, MA
11/16 Miami Book Fair
11/17 7:00pm Book People, 603 N. Lamar Blvd Austin, TX