Nikolay Gogol, The Government Inspector (1863) p213-306
I am not a big fan of comedy, and certainly not of farce. Humor is too often no more than a coquette compulsion to please, it is by definition a social function, even if we might have evolved to laugh uncontrollably. Yet, watching the adaptation by Jeffrey Hatcher, I found myself to laugh without self awareness. The book however, is especially clever in the first part, but toward the end it slowly evens out into a cleverly written play without depth or wit.
The Government Inspector
Adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher
From The Government Inspector by Nikolay Gogol
The Duke Theater
a New 42nd Street project
229 West 42nd Street (between 7th & 8th)​
Gate/Beckett, 
I had underestimated the appeal of a free show with free Bass beer from eight to nine, fixated as I was to see Parts and Labor again since their Asterisk house party two years ago. The line in front of the Knitting Factory told it all, I immediately canceled my friends, don’t come, don’t bother, only the first two hundred get in, and I think I am number two hundred and two. Luckily, I felt lucky, and I got in before the show started. 
But, as Parts and Labor, P&L set themselves and the room breathes a space of normality, where ordering a paid beer costs no bothersome effort, I get excited again. P&L is definitely one of my (many) favorite New York bands, they give a good show full of spirit, they have a sense for aesthetics, they think of themselves as icons. I know their songs, so when they started playing, I understand the sound, the atmosphere and the spirit of the moment without hesitation. 
In 2007 Rauch painted a serie of works especially for the mezzanine of the modern art wing at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. This special solo exhibition in the Metropolitan Museum was called “Para.” Rauch explains that he enjoys the associations the word “para” evokes and that his works at “Para” don’t have a particular intention, but that they could signify anything to anyone. His works were painted with the low ceiling and windowless space of the mezzanine in mind, Rauch explains, but this is hard to discover in his works, and the association might be purely existing in Rauch’s own experience. 
There’s about six billion people on the world, so no surprise that there’s a lot a of damn good music being performed in the Mecca of the art scene New York. But then again, there’s good, there’s damn good, but also much mediocre music, even mediocre with great ideas. But it is still rare to see the fabulous before they became fabulous, or perhaps to see the fabulous before they split up before they became fabulous. And also, it is a long way from Tennessee, but mark it, because the Evil Army were in New York! And better it got, for I was there to see this victorious parade down the lane of anonimity that all fabulous once walked, before they truely became fabulous. Yet, this is no slow march, but pure blitz: Evil Army is trash punk for the 21st century, and the only question between the Evil Army and underground fame is: are the people ready for them and will the Evil Army be there when they are?
If anyone someone working at an advertising agency should know how to sell themselves. So what do you do when you work at an advertising agency and you are obviously bored? That’s right you document your work and advertise it. This is the impression that Peter Piller’s exhibit Archive Peter Piller at Andrew Kreps Gallery in New York from January 11 to February 10 left on me. But even this impression was so vague that I wasn’t even sure what there was to be admire, except perhaps the diligent nature by which Peter Piller committed himself to boringly accumulate a collection of tens of thousands of average regional newspaper images. 
In El Centro Espanol-La Nacional in New York, you can get a taste and feeling of Spain at the heart of downtown Manhattan. El Centro not only has a small original Spanish restaurant in the basement, a cafe with Spanish and Hispanic soccer games, but the main hall has some of the best Flamenco performances in town every Friday and Saturday evening. On January 19, Nelida Tirado danced to the singing of El Pola de Sevilla, accompanied by guitarist Pedro Cortes and percussionist Peter Basil.