What to Do in New York - May 31�June 14, 2017 -- New York Magazine

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To Do: May 31�June 14, 2017

Twenty-five things to see, hear, watch, and read.


TV
1. Watch The Leftovers
Scripted emotional catharsis.� �
With the 75-minute “The Book of Nora,” Damon Lindelof closes out three seasons of his series about mourning and regeneration in the aftermath of unspeakable tragedy. Although the episode was withheld from critics at press time, Lindelof has promised a wrap-up that continues the show’s tradition of tantalizing the viewer without providing answers. —Matt Zoller Seitz
HBO, June 4.

Pop
2. Listen to Ti Amo
Très Brooklyn.�
French indie-pop scribes Phoenix are masters of lighthearted melodies and airy grooves, from hits like “Lisztomania” to “Trying to Be Cool.” The new album, Ti Amo, is a trip to their bottomless well of hooks and a perfect complement to a warm late-spring breeze. —Craig Jenkins
Glassnote Records, June 9.

Art
3. See Allison Zuckerman: Act Natural
Go, bask in the onslaught.�
This pint-size gallery with a knack for identifying good artists does it again with a jam-packed, full-on optical assault of figurative paintings. It’s like walking into an orgy of art history mixed with swingers carousing, coming out into space, situated around the gallery like the best bordellos in old New Orleans. —Jerry Saltz
Kravets Wehby, 521 West 21st Street, through June 3.

Movies
4. See The Lubitsch Touch
You’ll know it when you see it.� �
Celebrating director Ernst Lubitsch’s 125th birthday, this series is a great chance to see the classics onscreen (Trouble in Paradise, The Shop Around the Corner), but don’t ignore the silent German rarities like cross-dressing comedy I Don’t Want to Be a Man or The Mountain Cat (introduced by Lubitsch’s only child, Nicola, on June 11).� —David Edelstein
Film Forum, June 2 to 15.

Classical
5. Hear Los Angeles Percussion Quartet
Journey through sound.�
Gather four musicians who hit inanimate objects for a living and the result can be a whole lot of quiet. The LAPQ performs music from its new album, Beyond, which explores percussion as a medium of whispered poetry, as in Anna Thorvaldsdóttir’s Aura, in which elemental forces rumble elegantly out of the landscape. —Justin Davidson
National Sawdust, June 1.

Pop
6. See John Moreland
Catch a rising country star.�
Fans of Sturgill Simpson and Chris Stapleton, take note: Few singer-songwriters make struggle and anguish sound better than John Moreland. For his latest album, Big Bad Luv, he’s added a full band and a sound that’s more rock than folk, which should carry over to this performance.
Bowery Ballroom, June 7.

Movies
7. See The Godfather
A big-screen opportunity you can’t refuse.�
I don’t know what’s so special about a 45th anniversary, but any excuse to see one of the greatest of all-American epics one more time on the big screen — where you can savor the seemingly infinite shades of black in Gordon Willis’s cinematography — is fine by me. Let’s do this every five years, ’kay? —D.E.
In theaters, June 4 and 7.

Books
8. Read The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
Magical realism from India.
Fans of The God of Small Things have been waiting 20 years for Arundhati Roy’s next novel, and it doesn’t disappoint. Its greatest feat is showing the ways in which religious belief, gender identity, and even our safety in the world are not fixed — they have as much fluidity as Roy’s astute plotting.
Knopf, June 6.

Cabaret
9. See Lisa Loeb
Only hear what you want to.�
The queen of the Reality Bites soundtrack and hipster glasses makes her Café Carlyle debut in this intimate, ten-night stint. Come for the ’90s nostalgia — “Stay (I Missed You),” anyone? — and stick around for what will likely be inventive, pop-inflected takes on jazz standards.
Café Carlyle, June 6 to 17.

Opera
10. Hear Angels in America
The other one.�
Not the Wagnerian-length play by Tony Kushner but the slimmed-down operatic adaptation by composer Péter Eötvös and librettist Mari Mezei. More than a dozen years after its world premiere, a work the Guardian called “high-class music theatre” finally arrives in the city, courtesy of New York City Opera. —J.D.
Jazz at Lincoln Center, June 10 to 16.

Pop
11. See The Weeknd
Stadium throwdown.
The Weeknd brings his signature blend of seductive R&B and delicate electronic-music aesthetics to stages all over the world on this summer’s Starboy: Legend of the Fall tour. Come early to watch the hip-hop sensations Rae Sremmurd in peak party mode as well as gifted up-and-coming performers Belly and 6LACK. —C.J.
Barclays Center, June 6 and 7.

Books
12. Read Believe Me
The boundary-pushing Brit tells all.
Written with the same wit and candor that characterizes his stand-up, comedian Eddie Izzard’s memoir tackles his sexuality, his troubled childhood, and the tumultuous early days of his career, even as he recounts his many excellent roles, albums, and tours.
Blue Rider Press, June 13.

Books
13. Read Love and Trouble
Experimental and searing chronicle. �
This new memoir from best-selling author Claire Dederer (Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses) is loosely about the author’s sexual reawakening in mid-life, but it’s also a captivating, hilarious look at the residuals of free-range hippie parenting in the ’70s, growing up female in a culture that preys upon “fast girls,” and an eloquent primer on how to reconnect with a former self.
Knopf, May 9.

Pop
14. Listen to Gone Now
Spotlight on Bleachers’ creatures.
Somehow, between working with Taylor Swift and Lorde, Jack Antonoff found the time to make a new Bleachers album. (Though he still had some help from Lorde.) Just when you thought he’d crafted all his best ’80s tributes for his girlfriend’s friends, songs like “Don’t Take the Money” are reminders that he’s been keeping some gems for himself.
RCA, June 2.

Pop
15. See Lil Uzi Vert
Mix messages.
Lil Uzi Vert ended 2016 with flair — the Philly rapper delivered a wickedly funny verse on the Zeitgeist hit “Bad and Boujee,” then was arrested in Atlanta following a dirt-bike incident. Propelled by his success with Migos, the 22-year-old is keeping his creative streak alive with a novel and teen-friendly combo of trap beds and Auto-Tuned emo.
The Paramount, June 12 and 14.

TV
16. Watch The Carmichael Show
Lightning in a bottle.�
Actor-writer Jerrod Carmichael’s family sitcom is one of the sharpest, realist sitcoms on TV, and it hasn’t lost any of its bite in season three. The premiere is a lively, complicated debate about consent that kicks off when a friend of Jerrod’s girlfriend, Maxine, posts about her sexual assault on social media. That Carmichael & Co. can make such hot-button topics provocative but never exploitative is a small miracle. —M.Z.S.
NBC, May 31.

Theater
17. See Bella: An American Tall Tale
Rowdy, rustic good fun. �
Playwright Kirsten Childs (The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin, Funked Up Fairy Tales) brings a roaring Western musical to Playwrights Horizons to close out its season.
Playwrights Horizons, through July 2.

Pop
18. See Wheeler Walker Jr.
You might be a redneck if … nah.
Technically, Wheeler Walker Jr. is just the country-­singer alter ego of comedian Ben Hoffman, but if you let yourself fall for the act, you find he’s a capable songwriter and a jokester with a mouth so dirty that the video for his new single “Puss in Boots” actually premiered on Pornhub. Is it country or comedy? Head to Bowery Ballroom to find out. —C.J.
Bowery Ballroom, June 6.

Books
19. Go to BookCon
Like Comic Con, without the cosplay.
After the publishing industry’s annual Book Expo America conference closes up shop, this two-day festival celebrating authors and storytelling begins. Literary heavyweights like Margaret Atwood will appear alongside celeb writers like Mayim Bialik in a weekend of panels, readings, and signings.
Javits Center, June 3 and 4.

Classical
20. Hear the New York Philharmonic
Going out with a bang.�
Conductor Alan Gilbert takes his leave of the orchestra he has led since 2009 with a week of monumental music: three concert performances of Wagner’s opera Das Rheingold, then Mahler’s gigantic Seventh Symphony with ringers invited from other orchestras the world over. —J.D.
David Geffen Hall, June 1 to 10.

Art
21. See Amy Feldman: Nerve Reserve
Take that, critic!�
A lot of the art world laughed at an art-blog-know-nothing attack on the geometric abstract paintings of artist Amy Feldman. Her new show finds her loosening up, happily unaffected by the cynical assertions that she made a windbag critic lose his “will to carry on writing.” —J.S.
James Cohan, 291 Grand Street, through June 4.

Books
22. Hear David Byrne
There’s a party up there all the time.
The eminent Talking Head recently published a new edition of his vital, memoir-theory hybrid How Music Works, featuring an additional chapter studying how listeners find new music. To celebrate, he’ll host this “variety show” event, promising “music, of course, but also magic, theater, dance, science and humor.”
The Town Hall, June 1.

Pop
23. Listen to City of No Reply
Making lemonade.
Amber Coffman’s solo debut was co-produced by her ex and former Dirty Projectors bandmate Dave Longstreth, but there’s no angst apparent on this album. “All to Myself” and “No Coffee” are two songs centered on resilience that signal a singer ready to step out from the shadows and come into her own.
Columbia, June 2.

Theater
24. See Julius Caesar
Friends, Romans, countrymen: Take the C or the 6 uptown.
It’s been 17 years since Shakespeare in the Park took on the Bard’s famous tragedy of politics and corruption; this season, it couldn’t feel more relevant. Corey Stoll plays Brutus, and Elizabeth Marvel is Antony.
Delacorte Theater, in previews now; opens June 12.

Movies
25. See The Films of Sam Elliott
Maybe if you ask nicely, he’ll say “The Duuuuude.”��
Here’s one for the “How cool is this?” file: The newly refurbished Quad Cinema will celebrate “the man, the mustache, the legend” Sam Elliott with four of his more colorful B-movies — and with an appearance by Elliott himself for the 127-minute director’s cut of Peter Bogdanovich’s Mask. Don’t miss the thrillingly terrible Road House, in which the mustache gets between good bouncer Patrick Swayze and bad businessman Ben Gazzara, or the quintessentially ’80s James Glickenhaus buddy-cop thriller Shakedown, co-starring Peter Weller. —D.E.
Quad Cinema, June 7 and 8.