July

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1 Kick off the month with South African megastars Angelique Kidjo and Vusi Mahlasela at Prospect Park as part of Celebrate Brooklyn. (And to the Canucks among us: Happy Canada Day! Sorry about the Oilers.)

2 Droog alert: A Clockwork Orange screens at the Museum of the Moving Image.

(Photo: Superstock)

3 Take a drive to Pennsylvania, the nearest place to buy fireworks legally. But don’t buy any. You can’t bring them back to New York. Sorry!

4 Celebrate the birth of our nation by watching fireworks from a special vantage point: the Empire State Building, a Circle Line cruise, or at the Fireworks Festival in Long Island City.

5 Groove along with Finnish jazz guitarist Raoul Björkenheim as part of the Scandinavia House’s totally not oxymoronic Jazz House Summer Nights series featuring Nordic musicians.

6 The Whitney unearths rarely seen screen tests featuring icons such as Susan Sontag and Taylor Mead as shot by Andy Warhol in the sixties.

7 Keanu, Johnny, Orlando, oh, my! Reeves stars in A Scanner Darkly, while Depp and Bloom reunite for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.

8 Egyptian pop superstar Hakim performs sha’bi, the homegrown pop of Egypt’s working class, at Central Park SummerStage.

(Photo: Courtesy of Erin Patrice O'Brien/Comedy Central)

9 What was Dave Chappelle up to before he wigged out? Comedy Central unveils his third (radically abbreviated) season.

10 The Lincoln Center Festival opens with a sextet of plays by the Irish playwright John Millington Synge—including The Playboy of the Western World, which triggered riots in Dublin when it debuted 99 years ago.

11 Two promising albums drop today: the latest from Sufjan Stevens and a solo offering from Radiohead’s Thom Yorke.

12 German spies! Ammo dumps! Explosions! Learn all about it in Chad Millman’s new book, The Detonators: The Secret Plot to Destroy America and an Epic Hunt for Justice.

(Photo: Courtesy of Matthew Salacuse/Matador Records)

13 Enter nerd nirvana with Yo La Tengo as the band plays live at a screening of short documentaries by French filmmaker Jean Painlevé at Celebrate Brooklyn.

14 Join your fellow Americans in marking Bastille Day by watching Owen Wilson as a best man who moves in with his newlywed friends in You, Me and Dupree—or, as it should be titled, The Honeymoon Crasher.

15 Dance to outstanding bands—including the ultra-fabulous Scissor Sisters—at the free Siren Music Festival on Coney Island.

16 Chow down on éclairs and crêpes during belated Bastille Day celebrations on East 60th Street.

17 Pilobolus, the acrobatic dance troupe, brings its latest to the Joyce Theater.

18 Relax while the Washington Square Chamber Ensemble, a string quintet (plus a kazoo), plays Mozart at Washington Square Park.

(Photo: Courtesy of Warner Bros.)

19 Beg, barter, and plead for tickets to Madonna at Madison Square Garden.



20 Bliss out among the flora at one of three evening classical-music concerts at the New York Botanical Garden.

21 Choose between Uma Thurman’s My Super Ex-Girlfriend and M. Night Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water. Uma! M. Night! Uma! M. Night!

22 Catch Alvin Ailey choreographer Ronald K. Brown’s ensemble as it performs three modern dance works at the Prospect Park band shell.

23 Only one week left to see the works of Max Liebermann, the brilliant German who embraced French Impressionism, at the Jewish Museum.

24 Roots-rocker Melissa Etheridge hits the Garden for the first of three shows.

25 Chortle furiously as Amy Poehler and friends mark the tenth anniversary of the Upright Citizens Brigade with a live performance of Asssscat 3000 at Irving Plaza.

26 Alt-crooners Fiona Apple, Damien Rice, and David Garza swarm SummerStage in Central Park.

27 Enjoy soul in the sun with seventies funksters the Spinners, at Metrotech as part of the bam Rhythm & Blues Festival.


28 Guess who’s back? Woody’s back! Auteur Allen fulfills his one-movie-a-year mandate with Scoop.

29 Why should you go see Jon Bon Jovi at the Meadowlands? For starters, he’s seen a million faces. And he’s rocked them all.

(Photo: Courtesy of Biz 3)

30 Run, don’t walk, to Lady Sovereign at SummerStage—the U.K. rapper who looks like Sporty Spice but sounds like the Streets.

Wang GongXin's Kara Oke (2002), from "Projected Realities: Video Art from East Asia."   (Photo: Courtesy of Aroon Poempoonsopon/Project 304)

31 Enjoy Projected Realities: Video Art From East Asia at the Asia Society Museum, featuring works like the toothy treat pictured here.