Have Yourself Some Culture: Day-by-Day Good Times

Photo: Joan Marcus (The Winter’s Tale); Courtesy of Summit Entertainment (The Twilight Saga: Eclipse)

June

21 Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1955 masterpiece, Le AmicheSex and the City, Italian style—is at Film Forum. Follow with Chianti and pasta.

22 I Love You, Beth Cooper writer Larry Doyle releases his latest, the sci-fi romp Go, Mutants! George Clooney-produced cop show Memphis Beat debuts on TNT.

23 Adam Gopnik hosts The Moth at Cooper Union, with storytellers Simon Doonan and Jenny Allen contributing true tales of shock and scandal.

24 Relive the eighties with Florent, a documentary about the pioneering meatpacking eatery, at the New York Food Film Festival.

25 Get lost in Monet’s water lilies at Gagosian Gallery. Then head to Lincoln Center for the always-terrific New York Asian Film Festival.

26 Psychedelic popsters the Apples in Stereo and Brooklyn Youth Chorus are at South Street Seaport. Or see powerful war documentary Restrepo.

27 Bang on a Can marathon at the World Financial Center includes David Lang, Michael Gordon, and Julia Wolfe. Also, HBO’s Hung returns—just in time for Gay Pride.

28 Watch Modern Family’s Jesse Tyler Ferguson do his summer job: playing the clown in Michael Greif’s production of The Winter’s Tale at Shakespeare in the Park.

29 Making big splashes: The city’s outdoor pools open; Louis C.K.’s FX sitcom, Louie, debuts; and The-Dream releases his new CD, Love King.

30 A red-letter day for teens in spirit and fact: James Franco returns to ABC’s General Hospital, and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse hits theaters.

Photo: Shannon Brinkman/courtesy of Lincoln Center (Blind Boys of Alabama); Erin Patrice O’Brien (Pistolera)

July

1 Reggie Watts, comedy’s “black Galifianakis,” performs at (Le) Poisson Rouge.

2 Jollyship the Whiz-Bang’s Straight Up Vampire—a puppet musical about the history of vampires, set to the music of Paula Abdul—is at Joe’s Pub.

3 Have your fifteen minutes of fame at First Saturday Dance Party at the Brooklyn Museum, an homage to Warhol’s Factory.

4 Zooey Deschanel and Matt Ward do their She & Him thing on Governors Island.

5 The French Connection screens at Bryant Park—just to remind you how much better you have it now by comparison.

6 Pick up Big Boi’s CD Sir Lucious Left Foot. Or watch luscious Barbara Stanwyck kick Walter Huston’s butt in The Furies at Film Forum.

7 Brion Gysin: Dream Machine opens at New Museum. And Britain’s award-winning reality show The Choir starts on BBC America.

8 Karole Armitage’s booty-shaking ballet “Itutu” is at Celebrate Brooklyn! Or fall in love (again) with Annie Hall at Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Movies With a View.

9 See summer’s hottest indie, The Kids Are All Right, starring Julianne Moore and Annette Bening—married, with children.

10 Peter Stein’s production of Dostoyevsky’s The Demons plays, appropriately, in an eerie warehouse on Governors Island (Lincoln Center Festival).

11 Catch the World Cup Final at your favorite bar, then hit OkayAfrica’s Celebrate Brooklyn! party, including the Roots and Fela! star Sahr Ngaujah.

12 Baritone Nathan Gunn sings at the Metropolitan Opera’s Summer Recital Series, starting tonight in Central Park.

13 Stake your place on the Great Lawn for the first of the Concerts in the Parks, featuring the New York Philharmonic and the Shanghai Symphony.

14 The Blind Boys of Alabama harmonize with Allison Moorer, Ralph Stanley, Ray Benson, and more at the Lincoln Center Festival.

15 The Jewish Museum hosts the Latin klezmer stylings of the Sexteto Rodriguez Cuban- Jewish All Stars.

16 Chris Nolan’s highly anticipated Inception opens. Or catch Bill T. Jones’s Fondly Do We Hope … Fervently Do We Pray at Lincoln Center Festival.

17 The annual Siren Music Festival returns to Coney Island, with Matt & Kim, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, and the Pains of Being Pure at Heart.

18 Last chance to see how A Disappearing Number makes compelling theater from mathematics. Or keep it low brow at 3rd Ward’s free annual Pig Out! Brooklyn.

19 Introduce your child to the wonders of Charlie Chaplin’s The Circus at the Film Forum. You could also head to MoMA for a Matisse-a-thon.

20 Rufus Wainwright plays a benefit at Celebrate Brooklyn! Also: new CDs from Sheryl Crow and Department of Eagles.

21 Beloved sourpuss Lewis Black hosts “The Daily Show and Friends,” with guests Rob Riggle and John Oliver, at SummerStage.

22 Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros play Webster Hall. Or head down to Castle Clinton for a freebie concert of Antibalas’s nouveau Afrobeat.

23 Voxare Quartet celebrates minimalist master composer Terry Riley’s 75th birthday on Bargemusic’s floating mini concert hall.

24 M.I.A. stars, but the superhot Sleigh Bells could be the bigger draw at the Hard NYC music festival on Governors Island.

25 Martinis for everyone: Mad Men is back, with the season premiere on AMC.

26 Didn’t score tickets to see the Flaming Lips at SummerStage? Watch the equally bizarro Monty Python and the Holy Grail at Bryant Park.

27 Roy Lichtenstein’s still-life paintings at Gagosian are almost gone. Or hit the beach with Gary Shteyngart’s new novel, Super Sad True Love Story.

28 See how hard a string quartet can rock when Ethel plays with Adam Schlesinger, Tom Verlaine, and others at Lincoln Center Out of Doors.

29 Al Pacino is Shylock in Shakespeare in the Park’s Merchant of Venice. Imagine the histrionics! And Jersey Shore is back on MTV. Imagine the histrionics!

30 Head to Williamsburg for Animation Block’s off-the-wall shorts program. Or keep it inside with Get Low, starring Bill Murray and Sissy Spacek.

31 The fierce ladies of Pistolera play their accordion-driven Latin alt-folklorico at the Queens Theatre in the Park. They do a mean version of Bob Marley’s “War.”

Photo: François Duhamel/courtesy of Columbia Pictures (Eat, Pray, Love); Ken Friedman/courtesy of the Mark Morris Group (L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato); Courtesy of Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. (Muppets Take Manhattan, 1984)

August

1 The MoMA Sculpture Garden hosts formidable jazzmen Jason Moran, Don Byron, and Billy Hart. And AMC debuts its buzzy new show, Rubicon.

2 You think you’ve got creepy neighbors? Catch Rosemary’s Baby at Bryant Park. Or grab Mary Roach’s nonfiction page-turner, Packing for Mars.

3 Spend the day with Picasso: Start at MoMA, move to the Met. Or dig into David Mitchell’s new novel, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.

4 Britain’s electro-pop band Hot Chip plays SummerStage, and Arcade Fire checks off another career milestone: a gig at Madison Square Garden.

5 Mark Morris Dance Group celebrates its 30th anniversary with a landmark work set to the Handel oratorio, L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato.

6 Christian Marclay’s multimedia Whitney installation includes concerts and visitors (you!) creating a collective score on chalkboards.

7 Shimmy to Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings at Prospect Park. Or try a less soulful form of female chutzpa: the Gotham Girls Roller Derby at Hunter College.

8 Have you seen the awesome “Bespoke: the Handbuilt Bicycle” show at the Museum of Art and Design yet? It closes in one week.

9 Duck into Step Up 3-D at a local theater. You know you want to see it (and we won’t tell anyone).

10 Film Forum hosts Paul Robeson in Eugene O’Neill’s trippy The Emperor Jones, plus a short with blues legend Bessie Smith (her only appearance on film).

11 “Lush Life”— a “murder investigation” inspired by the Richard Price novel—is translated into art at nine Lower East Side galleries.

12 Grizzly Bear, the Walkmen, and Gang Gang Dance rock Governors Island.

13 FringeNYC (a.k.a. theater-geek nirvana) is 200 international com-panies performing in twenty venues for sixteen days, starting now.

14 A movie for everyone today: Julia Roberts in Eat Pray Love, Guy Pearce in Animal Kingdom, or Michael Cera in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

15 Celebrate the twentieth anniversary of Fear of a Black Planet with Public Enemy at SummerStage.

16 Central Park hosts a concert of Paul Simon’s short-lived 1998 musical, The Capeman. Or catch lovely Laura Linney in her new Showtime series, The Big C.

17 MGMT bring their spazzy intellectualism to Radio City Music Hall. Plus Brian Wilson releases his Gershwin album.

18 Take a stroll along the

21 Hop a bus to Bard College for the end of SummerScape’s celebration of composer Alban Berg; stay late for cabaret at the Spiegeltent.

22 British ska pioneers the Specials bring their rock-steady beat to SummerStage.

23 Isn’t it time you finally picked up Rick Moody’s The Four Fingers of Death, his first full-length novel in three years?

24 Ted Hearne’s “Katrina Ballads,” a song cycle based on the week following the hurricane, is paired with a Bill Morrison film at (Le) Poisson Rouge.

25 “Hipsters, Hustlers and Handball Players” were the 1950–1980 subjects of photographer Leon Levinstein, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

26 Old 97s troubadour Rhett Miller and tiny soul songstress Zee Avi are at the City Winery.

27 Almost gone: the Kandinsky and Malevich show at the Guggenheim.

28 Rock the Bells hits New York, with the rapturous Lauryn Hill.

29 Charlie Parker Jazz Fest at Tompkins Square Park includes pianist Vijay Iyer, sax-improv king James Moody, and vocalist Jimmy Scott.

30 The U.S. Open tennis tournament swings into action at Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

31 Justin Bieber is at Madison Square Garden (tween shrieking equals earplugs). Or spend the day silently, reading Jonathan Franzen’s latest, Freedom.

September

1 “Drink-n-Draw” is at 3rd Ward in Williamsburg. You bring the pen and pencils, they supply the models and beer.

2 Last gasp of summer reading: Try Paul Muldoon’s latest book of poetry,Maggot, or Scarlett Thomas’s Our Tragic Universe.

3 Broadway’s fall season kicks off with previews of the superb Cherry Jones in Mrs. Warren’s Profession.

4 See Robert Rodriguez’s Machete, if only for the oddball cast: Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Lindsay Lohan, Steven Seagal, and Don Johnson.

5 Visit New Museum’s mid-career survey of Brazilian conceptualist Rivane Neuenschwander (she’s only 43!).

6 Toast the end of summer with a drink on the roof of the Met and check on the progress of Doug and Mike Starn’s evolving bamboo nest.

Have Yourself Some Culture: Day-by-Day Good Times