SEPTEMBER1. Ah, Labor Day weekend. If you’ve got no tickets to the U.S. Open, or if it’s rainy (or you just hate nice weather), try Uneasy Riders, the Nixon-era movie series at the Museum of the Moving Image. Tonight: Jane Fonda’s shagadelic, Oscar-winning Klute, followed by action-thriller Hickey and Boggs.
2. It’s like the Oscars, minus montages, plus tassel-spinning ecdysiasts: The four-day New York Burlesque Festival wraps up with an awards ceremony.
3. As far as the Parks Department is concerned, this is the last day of summer, so celebrate with a belly flop into one of its 52 public pools (they close after today). Or hop Metro-North to escape to the New York Renaissance Faire in Tuxedo, New York. Dress code: bosomy.
4. Big Love, schmig love: Mormon-teen-heartthrob-turned-British-game-show-host Donnie Osmond croons to loyal fans at B.B. King’s.
5. Fashion Week starts two days early this year to avoid a collision with the High Holidays. (Repentance is the new black?) Meanwhile, cutie-pie Monty Python co-creator Michael Palin chats at the 92nd St. Y.
6. Ian McKellen opens in Shakespeare’s King Lear (and multi-tasker that he is, three nights of Chekhov’s The Seagull, starting September 12.) Too highbrow-brilliant for ya? Larry David kvetches at the 92nd St. Y.
7. At the cineplex, Aussie Russell Crowe and Brit Christian Bale grab six-shooters for a remake of the Western classic 3:10 to Yuma; meanwhile, Apollo mission survivors fess up in the documentary In the Shadow of the Moon. At Aperture, check out works by Lisette Model, first published in Cue magazine and hailed by Steichen as one of the century’s greatest photographers.
8. Cool weather is on the way, which gives you just two more chances to catch Shakespeare in the Park, specifically Tim Blake Nelson and a mightily corseted Martha Plimpton in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. (It’s also the final weekend for Richard Serra at MoMA.)
9. Yee-haw: Farm Aid 2007 brings Willie Nelson, Dave Matthews, and the Allman Brothers Band to Randalls Island. For more city-slicker flavor, Tony Bennett will be crooning at Radio City Music Hall. (Linger at the stage door and compliment the paintings he does under his original name, Benedetto.)
10. Film Forum screens a new documentary about the dancer-actor-choreographer team Carmen De Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder—married for 53 years! Take that, Dr. Phil!—and follows with a live onstage interview.
11. Kanye West’s new album, Graduation, drops. Testify!
12. Let the kids go to lessons at Tony Waag’s American Tap Dance Foundation, while the adults head to MoMA for an exhibit about early film technology at its Panoramas of the Moving Image exhibit.
13. San Gennaro kicks off today: zeppoles, zeppoles, zeppoles! Come on, bikini season is over. Live a little.
14. Molière’s The Misanthrope begins previews at the New York Theatre Workshop tonight, while not-entirely-unmisanthropic punk-rockster Patti Smith lands at the Beacon.
15. A women-kick-ass weekend at the movies, starring Jodie Foster as a revenge-seeking widow in The Brave One and Naomi Watts as a midwife who uncovers an underground prostitution ring in David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises. Dress code: stilettos and a sneer.
16. Edwidge Danticat, George Packer, and Colson Whitehead, among other Brooklyn literati, shuffle, grin, and act shy-but-smart for the Brooklyn Book Festival, while bookish fans swoon.
17. The Jewish Museum presents Camille Pissarro: Impressions of City and Country. While you’re there, check out Isaac Bashevis Singer’s photos chronicling 33 years of Lower East Side life, i.e. Before the Boutiques.
18. Ten motorcycle riders vrrroom in synchronized motion on the 60,000-square-foot wood floor of the Seventh Regiment Armory, under the direction of New York artist Aaron Young. Also on the Upper East Side, Alan Greenspan gets grilled (or lightly steamed) by his wife Andrea Mitchell, who interviews him at the 92nd St. Y.
19. For lit lovers, Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk reads at the New York Public Library. Bummer that Pamuk’s going to miss the small-screen version of the addictive Gossip Girl series, premiering on the CW tonight! Maybe he’ll TiVo it.
20. Autumnal equinox. (Okay, it’s in three days.) Indulge yourself with a chunk of Il Buco’s 160-pound pig, roasted on Bond Street at the restaurant’s annual Sagra del Maiale festival.
21. Feed your head with Sean Penn’s Into the Wild, an adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s tale of an Alaskan adventurer, and In the Valley of Elah, about a father who seeks to find his missing Iraq-soldier son.
22. A 40th anniversary of Hair concert at Joe’s Pub! Celebrate the expansion of your mind, your politics, and your sexual vocabulary. (Father, why do these words sound so nasty?)
23. Sensitive-blabbermouth alert: Alan Alda and Roger Rosenblatt are Talking About Talking at the 92nd St. Y.
24. Teeny, kooky Björk warbles at Madison Square Garden. Speaking of people with superpowers in funny costumes, Heroes returns tonight on NBC.
25. Watch Claire Danes learn to be a lady in previews of Pygmalion at the Roundabout.
26. Reconstructive surgery makes an ordinary woman better, stronger, faster, and possibly sassier in NBC’s remake of The Bionic Woman. Classical-music heads opt for the New York Philharmonic’s Tchaikovsky Experience instead.
27. Cristina and Burke are history, but will Meredith and McDreamy call it quits, too? Greasily addictive soap Grey’s Anatomy returns tonight. Go cold (or, we guess, Wild) turkey: ZZ Top hits the Beacon.
28. Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman are brothers journeying through India in Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited, premiering at the New York Film Festival tonight. (Other hot picks: Peter Berg’s Mideast terrorist movie The Kingdom and Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution.)
29. Soulful procrastinator Lucinda Williams howls the blues in the first of two shows at the Fillmore at Irving Plaza. The ideal post-breakup date with your quasi-ex.
30. It’s the complete Beethoven Piano Trio (Kalichstein, Laredo, and Robinson) at the 92nd St. Y. Dress code: wiggy.
OCTOBER 1. Now that weekend crowds have dissipated, check out the new Richard Prince: Spiritual America exhibit at the Guggenheim.
2. Gossip hounds beeline to Barnes & Noble for free-verse provocatrix Rosie O’Donnell’s dishy Celebrity Detox. Or put it this way: Autograph hounds /queue up / dreaming of Trump slams / yearning for justice.
3. It’s Wednesday night out there, but the weekend in your mind, so groove to tracks from the album A Weekend in the City, performed by limey rockers Bloc Party at the WaMu Theater.
4. Nonagenarian cabaret legend Marta Eggerth channels the glamour of Edith Piaf and Lotte Lenya at Café Sabarsky.
5. Hollywood breaks out the big guns: George Clooney plays a conscience-racked corporate fixer in the brainy thriller Michael Clayton, while the Farrelly brothers reunite with Ben Stiller for a raunchy remake of Elaine May’s The Heartbreak Kid.
6. Check out Open House New York, a tour of the city’s best architecture. At night, watch Plácido Domingo conducting Roméo et Juliette at the Met.
7. Deborah Gibson (of the eighties’ Electric Youth and nineties Broadway comeback) brings her brassy best to B.B. King’s.
8. At the Museum of the City of New York, Mary Kent presents her book Salsa Talks!, accompanied by musicians Zon del Barrio.
9. The Khmer Arts Ensemble reimagines The Magic Flute via dance, and set in ancient Angkor, in Pamina Devi at the Joyce.
10. The National Theatre of Greece returns to N.Y. City Center with Electra, the world’s greatest tale of matricide aside from Psycho. Directed by German master Peter Stein.
11. Exhausted by the highbrow? Find out if Mel Brooks can strike gold twice, as Young Frankenstein goes into previews for its November 8 opening.
12. Elizabeth: The Golden Age, the sequel to Blanchett’s Oscar nod as the Virgin Queen, opens, with Clive Owen—as Sir Walter Raleigh!—sexing things up. Meanwhile, in Lars and the Real Girl, Ryan Gosling moons over an inflatable doll, under the sympathetic gaze of Emily “Avian-Bone Syndrome” Mortimer and Patricia Clarkson.
13. Hail to the King: Cyrus Chestnut Trio plays the Elvis Presley Songbook at the Miller Theatre.
14. H. H. the Dalai Lama at Radio City Music Hall, where he’ll discuss “Peace and Prosperity” for a mere $25. Dress code: serene.
15. Monday-night boozers pour into the meatpacking district for Rum Fest New York City, an orgy of cane-based rhums, rums, and cachaças, at Valbella restaurant. BYO Coke.
16. Uncategorizable Russian-born chanteuse Regina Spektor brings her anti-folk piano rock to Hammerstein Ballroom.
17. The Emperor’s Children author Claire Messud discusses her hit 2006 novel—and indie crush Hope Davis reads an excerpt!—at Symphony Space.
18. Major Klimt exhibition opening at the Neue Galerie.
19. Ben Affleck directs Gone Baby Gone, a Boston crime novel by Dennis “Mystic River” Lehane. (Manly catharsis alert!) Or catch Sydney Lumet’s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke as brothers.
20. Take the B/D to the Bronx, where the New York Botanical Garden’s lush kikus (Japanese chrysanthemums) are in bloom.
21. Quasi-rehabilitated former horsey girls flock to MSG to see the World Famous Lipizzaner Stallions—like Cirque du Soleil, but muskier.
22. For 40 years, Leon Fleisher was the world’s master of works for the left hand. (Heh-heh. Sorry.) Now that Botox injections have restored the use of his right, he’ll bring his two-handed repertoire to Carnegie Hall for a master class.
23. The American Ballet Theatre celebrates a decade at New York City Center with a zippy season of performances ranging from Twyla Tharp to George Balanchine to Agnes de Mille to Lar Lubovitch.
24. First day of the World Series. Program DVR and snacks accordingly. Dress code: Oscar Madison.
25.To satisfy that cool-weather yearning for actual literature, pick up a copy of Due Considerations, John Updike’s musings on Orhan Pamuk, Muriel Spark, and the sinking of the Lusitania. Add hot cider, cozy window seat.
26. Danish director Susanne Bier—of last year’s sleeper hit After the Wedding—directs the very pretty love triangle formed by Halle Berry, Benicio Del Toro, and David Duchovny in Things We Lost in the Fire. Plus: Drive-By Truckers at the Bowery Ballroom.
27. Don’t you need more Brit-hip-hop-cum-funk, double-Dutch chants, and exclamation points in your life?! Yes?!? Then follow The Go! Team to Bowery Ballroom.
28. MoMA opens Georges Seurat: The Drawings. Bone up and prepare for January, when Sunday in the Park With George goes into previews.
29. Tom Stoppard’s Rock ’n’ Roll smashed box-office records in the West End last year. The original stars—the sublime Brian Cox, Sinéad Cusack, and Rufus Sewall—arrive at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, and it’s the last week for you to catch it in previews. Beg, borrow, or steal tickets.
30. The new Backstreet Boys release their new album. Must. Repair. Time. Machine.
31. Halloween. From 4 to 7 p.m., the Museum of Natural History offers a kid-friendly alternative to Village decadence. At 7:30, leave kids with the babysitter and attend a party dressed in assless chaps.
NOVEMBER1. Newt Gingrich fights for the environment at the New York Public Library (copycat!); Cirque du Soleil’s Wintuk debuts at Madison Square Garden.
2. American Gangster, featuring Russell Crowe, Denzel Washington, drugs, and Vietnam. Or pay respects to The Clash by watching the documentary on Joe Strummer with Bono, Johnny Depp, and Jim Jarmusch.
3. Water, water, everywhere, at the Museum of Natural History’s H20: Water=Life exhibition.
4. Runners, runners, everywhere, as marathoners swarm the city.
5. Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin leads a BAM dialogue before his Batsheva dance company performs next week.
6. Go see the Frick’s exhibit on the eighteenth-century work of Gabriel de Saint-Aubin before it heads off to the Louvre. Dress code: Fronch.
7. Sarah Silverman practices her subversive potty mouth all the way to Carnegie Hall, as part of the New York Comedy Festival. Bill Maher and Janeane Garafolo show up later in the week.
8. Mark Twain’s nearly-lost-and-never-performed play Is He Dead? finally makes it to Broadway, in previews at the Lyceum.
9. For the 50th anniversary of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, the New York Public Library exhibits his manuscripts, snapshots, and personal items. Dress code: khakis.
9. The director of Wedding Crashers brings us Fred Claus, featuring Vince Vaughn typecast as Santa’s bitter older brother.
10. Mmm, delicious unrequited love! The New York City Opera stages a revival of Samuel Barber’s Vanessa, the first American grand opera. With roundtable beforehand at 11:30.
11. The last day of the U.S.’s longest-running documentary film festival, The Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival, at the Museum of Natural History. Hydrate.
12. Catch a lecture about Carl Linnaeus, the father of the modern scientific-classification system, at the Scandinavia House.
13. Go see From The New Yorker to Shrek: The Art of William Steig at the Jewish Museum. Bring thought bubbles.
14. John Lithgow reads from W. Somerset Maugham’s Tellers of Tales at Symphony Space.
15. Renée Fleming in La Traviata at the Met.
16. Shambling Brooklyn angst- artiste Noah “The Squid and the Whale” Baumbach directs his wife Jennifer Jason Leigh in Margot at the Wedding.
17. Six years ago, the Vox Vocal Ensemble resurrected the work of Tudor liturgical composer Robert Parsons. Now they’re recording an album and performing at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in midtown.
18. The Latvian Skride sisters—Baiba on violin and Lauma on piano—fill the Frick Collection with chamber music. Testify!
19. Dazzling Barbara “Marian the Librarian” Cook turns 80, and the New York Philharmonic throws a concert in her honor.
20. Isn’t it about time that patchouli-scented, leather-vest-wearing Lenny Kravitz actually released a new album? He drops his latest groovefest today.
21. Girl-crack! Disney’s Enchanted stars luminous, cute-nosed Amy Adams and Susan Sarandon, with Julie Andrews narrating. Or opt for the Dylan alterna-biopic I’m Not There, directed by Todd Haynes and starring six great actors in Zimmerman drag.
22. Eat turkey. (Or tofurkey, possibly.) Ride that tryptophan (or soy) high.
23. Visit the Met’s Christmas tree or the origami tree at the Museum of Natural History. Dress code: threaded popcorn.
24. At the New Victory Theater, Guinness-certified James Devine, the world’s fastest tap dancer, goes Celtic-punk. That’s 38 taps per second, slowpoke.
25. Ute Lemper croons a French-cabaret repertoire, Angels Over Berlin and Paris, at Joe’s Pub.
26.Go see the Broadway revival of Harold Pinter’s 1967 The Homecoming, starring Tony-deprived Raul Espanza.
27. Louis Langrée conducts Susan Graham and Plácido Domingo in Iphigénia en Tauride.
28. Skip the GOP’s YouTube debate. Instead, slip out to City Center, where Alvin Ailey premieres works by Camille A. Brown and Frederick Earl Mosley.
29. Enfant terrible—and object of intense conductor envy—Gustavo Dudamel makes his N.Y. Phil premiere.
30. Jazz legends Wynton Marsalis and Paquito D’Rivera share a stage to present Beyond the Spanish Tinge at Lincoln Center. No dress code.