Fall Preview 2005

Enrich. Enlight. Entertain. Repeat.

November

(Photo: Wireimage)

1 Gather your girlfriends, your gay friends, and your Kristin Davis–fetishizing straight male friends: Sex and the City: The Complete Series Collector’s Edition comes out on DVD today. After gorging, go vamp it up yourself; say, preconcert cocktails before Gwen Stefani at MSG.

2 Philip Glass comes full circle—now will he repeat the cycle again and again and again?—with a return to pure instrumental music with his Symphony No. 8, premiering alongside the Allen Ginsberg–inspired, text-driven Symphony No. 6 (Plutonian Ode) at BAM.

3 High kicks and higher culture: The Radio City Christmas Spectacular rolls out the Rockettes, and Salman Rushdie reads at the 92nd Street Y from his lovely Shalimar the Clown.

4 Mario Cantone’s squawk-box comedy takes over Town Hall, just one of 100 yukfests in the New York Comedy Festival. It’s also the week before Election Day: Coincidence?

5 Ancient culture: Check out the Asia Society’s “Celebrate Iran,” featuring arts and crafts, Persian music, and a reading from the Shahnameh, Iran’s 1,000-year-old national epic. Not-so-ancient culture: Jersey Boys, the jukebox musical about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, plays its final preview before tomorrow night’s opening.

6 The healthy and flush-faced folk spend the morning running the New York City Marathon; come nightfall, the pale and bloodless flock to hear Anne Rice at the 92nd Street Y.

7 Mars is in opposition to the sun—a dandy excuse to visit the Rose Center planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History.

8 Election Day. Pick up Maureen Dowd’s Are Men Necessary? to read while you’re waiting on line at the polls.

9 How do you say “bust a cap” in Gaelic? Jim Sheridan—known for the all-Irish-all-the-time My Left Foot, In the Name of the Father, and, most recently, In America—directs the 50 Cent movie Get Rich or Die Tryin’.

10 Divas with strings: Catch Don Giovanni, as performed by the Salzburg Marionette Theater, at the Metropolitan Museum.

11Carnegie Hall marks Veterans Day with music from World War II, including Blitzstein’s Airborne Symphony.

12 The immense Triple Pier Antiques Show winds up its two-weekend run at the West Side’s Passenger Ship Terminal. Bring a decorator friend and try to wangle to-the-trade prices.

13 “The Chocolate Show” at the Metropolitan Pavilion—need we say more? (Actually, yes: Get there well before the doors open at 10 A.M., because the line out front is ridiculous.)

14 The Met launches its new production of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette. No need to bring the libretto; broadcaster and opera critic Bridget Paolucci’s discussion beforehand will clue you in.

15 Kabbalah queen, wholesome mom, and master equestrienne Madonna reminds you that, yes, once upon a time she was a singer, with her first album in two and a half years, Confessions on a Dancefloor.

16 Swing by the Museum of Television and Radio, simply because its exhibit on the future of advertising has the season’s best title: “Hold My Skateboard While I Kiss Your Girlfriend.”

17 The 2005 Beaujolais Nouveau arrives in Stateside wine shops; it won’t keep, so buy one bottle for tonight and one bottle for later tonight.

18 Watch Harry Potter and friends battle maturity in the The Goblet of Fire, the first film in the series to get a PG-13 rating.

19 Get thee to a nunnery: You always say you’re going up to visit the Cloisters one of these days, but you never do, and the leaves in Fort Tryon Park are turning.

20 Last chance to be enchanted by The Little Prince at New York City Opera.

21Deconstruct architect Santiago Calatrava at the Metropolitan Museum’s retrospective, focusing both on his work and its inspirations.

22 It’s Christmas in November! The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s tree and crèche come out of storage, dovetailing nicely with the Fra Angelico show. And Balanchine’s Nutcracker once again shimmers across the stage at the New York City Ballet.

23 Priced–out–of– the–East Village expats cry in their Yuenglings about the good old days, as the film of Rent arrives, starring almost all of the original Broadway cast.

24 Yeah, the parade’s a Thanksgiving tradition—which is why you should instead book a prix fixe meal at The Sea Grill, overlooking the skating rink at Rockefeller Center. Or, if you prefer your stuffing without quite so many tourists, head downtown for Balthazar’s $40 turkey dinner.

25 Black Friday: Gird your credit card for a world of hurt.

26 Folk legend Arlo Guthrie—who spends every November sittin’ on the Group W bench, revisiting “Alice’s Restaurant”—lightens things up at Stern Auditorium.

27 Play catch-up: Three exhibitions at the International Center of Photography wind up today, so be sure to view the luminous André Kertész retrospective before it’s gone.

28 The peerless Lorraine Hunt Lieberson sings the premiere of “Neruda Songs,” a series of sonnets set to music by her husband, composer Peter Lieberson, at Carnegie Hall. She’ll be joined by stellar soprano Dorothea Röschmann and accompanied by the Boston Symphony, conducted by James Levine.

29 The upside of Oscar campaigns: Syriana, an oil-sand-and-CIA thriller starring George Clooney, Matt Damon, and Chris Cooper. Just one of a whopping number of films set for the awards-season homestretch.

30 NBC continues its quest to stretch the Rockefeller Center tree lighting—once a five-minute event—into a televised party that takes approximately seventeen hours.