Local Culture
14. Attend Uptown Bounce: Summer Nights @ 104th and Fifth
Get out, get down.
Musical performances, gallery talks, art-making workshops, break-dancing demos, renowned DJs, local food. And sangria.
104th Street and Fifth Avenue, August 13, 6 to 9 p.m.
More Local Culture
15. And Then Attend Boogie on the Boulevard
Ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is bustling.
Another August celebration of street life and culture, this one held on the closed-to-traffic Grand Concourse, reaches its final weekend: music by Nelson “Chief 69” Seda, DJ Luxxe, and the local storyteller Bobby Gonzalez, plus an array of food and other fun.
Grand Concourse between 165th and 167th Streets, August 17, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Theater
16. See Revolution in the Elbow of Ragnar Agnarsson Furniture Painter
Yes, that is the title.
Sometimes a show is worth catching just for the names involved. In this case, the names include Ívar Páll Jónsson, Gunnlaugur Jónsson, Bergur Þór Ingólfsson, and Stefán Örn Gunnlaugsson. (Also, more prosaically, Kate Shindle and Cady Huffman.) You may be wondering: How did an Icelandic “sonic journey” about the effects of capitalism in the crook of a craftsman’s arm land a commercial run in New York? I don’t know, but what’s the Icelandic for “vanity production”? —Jesse Green
Minetta Lane Theatre, through September 27.
Pop Music
17. Hear Gaslight Anthem’s Get Hurt
Everybody hurts sometimes.
The Jersey rockers have had a good formula going—muscular guitars, front man Brian Fallon’s gritty, quavering voice, poignant lyrics mining small-town heartbreak—which gets them labeled heirs to Springsteen. That sound, and Fallon’s gift for narrative, are intact, but more varied and evolved than in the past. Start with the beautiful, sad title track, which Fallon describes as “similar to the feeling of a wreck you see coming, but long past the point you can avoid it.”
Island Records.
Movies
18.–20. Stay Home for To Be Takei, Life After Beth, and The Congress
While they’re in theaters, or even before.
If you can see a movie at a theater, do, but if you can’t, there are lots of fascinating films available on demand—at least three of which are viewable before, or concurrently with, their theatrical releases. One is To Be Takei, a lively profile of everyone’s favorite gay starship officer, a saga that ranges from a childhood in an internment camp for Japanese-Americans to (even worse) enduring William Shatner’s ego to life as an out celebrity. Aubrey Plaza returns as a zombie in Life After Beth, which begins as a tender, mildly satirical comedy-drama about a young man who can’t get over his girlfriend’s death before segueing into a full-bore bloodbath. And the Israeli director Ari Folman, who made the modern classic animated epic Waltz With Bashir, returns with The Congress, a bizarre one about an actress (Robin Wright) who licenses her digitized likeness, which, years later, becomes a superstar. —D.E.
All available via on demand.
TV
21. Watch Outlander
Sorry, no dragons.
Consider this historico-time-travel romance for your Game of Thrones off-season fix. For one thing, it has Tobias Menzies—who played Edmure Tully, the groom from the Red Wedding—in a dual role as the heroine’s husband in the future and his rapey ancestor in 1743. The real-life castle used as GoT’s Winterfell even doubles as the Scottish keep where Claire gets her shades-of-Greyjoy experience as both a “guest” and a prisoner.
Starz, Saturdays at 9 p.m.
Classical Music
22. Hear Two Premieres by Anna Thorvaldsdóttir
Musical cool, from Iceland.
The “mostly” in Mostly Mozart leaves a lot of wiggle room, and the festival’s organizers have discerned his spirit in the quietly volcanic music of the Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdóttir. The program, performed by the new-music ensemble ICE, includes the local premieres of “Shades of Silence” and “In the Light of Air,” titles that hint at her gossamer textures and flickering depths. —J.D.
Park Avenue Armory, August 19.
Classical Music
23. Make the Trip to Hear Schubert and His World at Bard SummerScape
Worth an hour on the train.
Every summer, aficionados, scholars, musicians, and more casual pleasure seekers converge on the Bard College campus for a full immersion into the work of one composer. This year, it’s Schubert, and it’s worth a journey up the Hudson for the festival’s second weekend, which focuses on the inconceivably rich last two years of his life—what would have been the launching point of a mature career if he hadn’t died at 31. —J.D.
Fisher Center, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York; August 15 through 17.
Books
24. Read Powers of Two: Finding the Essence of Innovation
One plus one equals more than two.
Don’t worry if you’ve read other books about the collaborations of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, or Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (there are a thousand, anyway). But this one (from Joshua Wolf Shenk, the author of Lincoln’s Melancholy) runs laps around all of them, a series of case studies doubling as a metameditation on the nature of creativity and how hard it is for anyone to ever do anything alone. Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
TV
25. Revisit My So-Called Life
You know you ❤ Jared Leto.
It premiered on August 25, 1994, 20 years ago, which is reason enough to gaze soulfully off into the distance, contemplating whoever was your dreamy Jordan Catalano.
On Netflix DVD, Hulu Plus, and Amazon Prime.