The art is not all on the walls. At the Yale Center for British Art alone, there’s the opening of a usually off-limits room on Tuesday, a lunchtime classical concert on Wednesday and a discussion with eminent political cartoonist Pat Oliphant on Sunday. There’s an opening reception at the Fred.Giampietro gallery for a show that features works on paper by the great wall muralist Sol Lewitt. And overwhelming all of this is the second of three weekends compromising the 2014 City-Wide Open Studio visual arts bonanza.
Monday, Oct. 13
Pointed Commentary
Get to the Point!, the defiantly non-pretentious literary and spoken-word gathering hosted by the guy who compiles these very listings, Chris Arnott, emerges from a three-month hiatus with an overstuffed evening of talk, music, writing, and more talk. Guests include Elizabeth Walker, discussing her role in The World of Henry Orient (directed by George Roy Hill and co-starring Peter Sellers); Brian Wolfe (aka Ebin Parker) using words and music to describe his admiration of the late British singer-songwriter Nick Drake; Brian Robinson, managing director of the Yale Symphony Orchestra and classical-grunge leader of the band Tet Offensive; Derek Holcomb of legendary local band The Furors; Ina Chadwick & Duncan Christy, with stories and songs and parodies; photographer/philosopher Phil Rosenthal; Michael “Live Mike” Cooper; humorist Ken Carlson and returning regulars Sara Russell, Craig Gilbert and Saul Fussiner. 8 p.m. Cafe Nine (250 State St.; 203 – 789-8281). No cover charge.
Tuesday, Oct. 14
Found(er) Objects
The Yale Center for British Art has many rooms. One which is not ordinarily open to the public, The Founders Room, can be visited today in honor of a campus-wide observation of the 313th anniversary of the founding of Yale University. The Founder’s Room is dedicated to the “life, interests and beneficence” (as a press release puts it) of the museum’s main benefactor, Paul Mellon, who graduated from Yale in 1929 and died in 1999. The room will be open today from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. 1080 Chapel St.; 203 – 432-2800.
Wednesday, Oct. 15
Gallery Gig
The Haven String Quartet ain’t the only classical ensemble that soundtracks the paintings on the walls of a downtown art gallery. Yale School of Music students are similarly moved to perform in austere museums. Several of them will play a lunchtime chamber concert 12:30 p.m. at the Yale Center for British Art (1080 Chapel St.; 203 – 432-2800).
Blood from a Stone
Filmmaker and Yale grad Oliver Stone is back on campus to screen and discuss the third episode of his 2012 Showtime TV series The Untold History of the United States. Joining Stone is Peter Kuznick, history professor at American University. The episode is called “The Bomb,” and concerns the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan in 1945. 7 p.m. at the Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall St., New Haven. Free.
Thursday, Oct. 16
Classical Rush
Have a classical gas in downtown New Haven tonight. At 5:30 p.m. in its offices at 117 Whalley Ave., Music Haven does another of its 40-minute after-work wind-down “Rush Hour Concerts.” Sip wine and listen to the Haven String Quartet (and special guests) play works by Kodaly and Piazzolla.
Stinging Strings
The New Haven Symphony Orchestra opens its 2014 – 15 season with a long-overdue return to the Shubert theater.The concert is titled American Rhapsody, which means everything from Shaker hymns to George Gershwin to B. Bumble & The Stingers’ pop hit “Bumble Boogie,” a jazz-keyboard rewrite of Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee.” The guest pianist is Emily Bear, who turned 13 years old on Aug. 30. 7:30 p.m. 247 College St. (203) 562‑5666.
Friday, Oct. 17
To Lewitt
Opening reception tonight from 6 to 8 p.m. for mixed-media works by contemporary artist Becca Lowey and works on paper by Oriane Stender and the late, great Sol Lewitt. Fred.Giampietro gallery, 315 Peck St. (203) 777‑7760.
Tofflemire’s Cavaliere’s Cabaret
Anne Tofflemire is hosting another of her Cavaliere’s Cabaret events 7:30 p.m. at Lyric Hall (827 Whalley Ave.; 203 – 389-8885). Tofflemire herself is a seasoned cabaret singer and entertainer, who teaches that esteemed artform in special classes at Neighborhood Music School. She entices some very talented folks to tread the comfy Lyric Hall stage, and also allows an open mic from 9 – 10 p.m.
Old New Found
There’s a whole generation out there who are nostalgic for New Found Glory. The Florida-rooted band was dismissed by older punks in the late ‘90s as part of the reviled “second wave” of American punk that also included Green Day and Blink-182. It was a subgenre that, to the bemusement of many, gained traction in the national pop-rock charts and on mainstream radio. If this was the music of your teenage years, however, it must have been a different story: loud fast human rock & roll assailing the mechanized dance beats you heard everywhere else in those days. New Found Glory’s “Glamour Kills” Tour comes to Toad’s Place (300 York St.; 203 – 624-TOAD). You’ll find old fans and new ones there. The band has endured for 17 years, ten albums and only one significant line-up change. Still, they’re on a different label now (Hopeless Records) and, while not pushing the “nostalgia” or “comeback” buttons, the new album is called Resurrection.
Saturday, Oct. 18
Open for Art, Week Two
The second weekend of City-Wide Open Studios is the one which resembles what most cities’ Open Studios events are like. From noon to 6 p.m. today and tomorrow, you can roam around town and visit artists in the places where they actually create their artworks. You can talk to them. You can see what they’re working on. You can eat their wine and cheese. The event’s organizer, Artspace, has handy maps (on paper and online). You can even take guided tours, including ones on bicycles. CWOS gives you the whole picture about how artists live and operate in this area: last weekend was the “Alternative Space,” for artists who don’t have studios they can open to the public. Next weekend is “Erector Square Weekend,” honoring the largest single grouping of studio spaces in the city. This weekend is being dubbed “Transported Weekend,” due to the overarching title of this year’s CWOS festivities: “Transported/Illuminated.”
Film Fun
Home Movie Day is reeling again. It’s a divinely DIY event, in which actual home movies — from your home or elsewhere — can be brought to the New Haven Museum (114 Whitney Ave.) from noon to 2 p.m., then are publicly screened in the museum’s lecture hall from 2 to 4 p.m. We’re talking old-school movies here: 16mm, 8mm and Super 8. You can also get tips on how to preserve these old cinematic treasures. Part of an international movement, this is the third time New Haven’s held a Home Movie Day. New Haven Museum, with its devotion to New Haven neighborhoods and culture, is the ideal screening site. Molly Wheeler is the organizer; you can contact her at [email protected] for details.
Comedy Decoders
Southern Connecticut State University knows how to do homecoming up right — with lots of jokes. Nicole Byer of MTV’s Girl Code, Pete Davidson of (you guessed it) MTV’s Guy Code and Streeter Seidell of MTV’s (wait for it) Pranked will help students forget that it’s only a few weeks until midterms. 8 p.m. Lyman Center (on the SCSU campus, 501 Crescent St.; 203 – 392-6154).
Sunday, Oct. 19
An Oliphant Never Forgets
The Pulitzer-winning political cartoonist Pat Oliphant (who has also won seven Editorial Cartoon Awards from the National Cartoonists Society, three of them in consecutive years 1989 – 1991) talks politics with David McCullough, the Pulitzer-winning biographer. Will Punk, the pithy penguin who hangs out in the corners of all Oliphant’s cartoons, be there to deliver the punchlines? The discussion, titled “Patrick Oliphant’s Interpretation of United States Presidents from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama,” is this year’s edition of the Andrew Carnduff Ritchie Lecture series at Yale, and is held 3 p.m. in the Yale Center for British Art (1080 Chapel St.; 203 – 432-2800). Free.
