One of my favorite art fairs starts Thursday:

The NY Art Book Fair

It’s free except for the benefit preview!

FAIR HOURS
Friday/Saturday, September 28/29, 2007, 11am – 7pm
Sunday, September 30, 2007, 11am – 5pm

BENEFIT PREVIEW
Thursday, September 27, 2007, benefiting Printed Matter, Inc.
6 – 7 pm, early admission to preview
7 – 9 pm, general admission to preview

BENEFIT PREVIEW TICKETS
· Price on Request (early admission to preview plus
Ed Ruscha edition Little Mexican Church on a Windowsill & David Shrigley ticket edition)
· $150 (general admission to preview plus
Josephine Meckseper edition Untitled (%) Shelf [Detail] & David Shrigley ticket edition)
· $150 (general admission to preview plus
Josephine Meckseper edition Untitled (March…) & David Shrigley ticket edition)
· $20 (general admission plus David Shrigley ticket edition Fucking Ace)

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Pool Art Fair at the Hotel Chelsea, Friday and Saturday 12-8PM, with a benefit preview Thursday 6PM-?

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FREE SHOW, a series of interactive works taking place in the corner windows of an apartment building at 304 West 10th Street (near the water, corner of Weehawken) kicks off Saturday with a performance by our friend Nancy Hwang on Saturday, 1-6PM.

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I’m sure there is more going on, but I’m running out to a tech seminar. Here’s an inside tip: Soon you will be able to check the new ArtCal Zine for special events like these. Look for it next week.

Here’s a post for my geek readers. ArtCal now uses Amazon S3 for all of the exhibition images. That means we don’t have to worry about storage space as we continue to add shows, and that images should load more quickly.

Quite of the few of the ads are served that way too. We just DNS magic to make it appear that they’re coming from hosts with names like adimages.tristanmedia.com and static.artcat.com.

This my favorite photo from m.river’s images of MTAA’s Super Slow 5K.

Cute Swiss firemen from Geneva, rapping in French:

“118, au cas ou tu flippes/ 118, inscrit-le dans ton slip” (118, in case you freak out/118, write it in your undies)

A group of young Geneva firefighters decided to film the clip to end public confusion between their number, 118, and new directory assistance hotlines. Here is the story on BBC News.

• blogchelsea: Chelsea Barnes & Noble to Close
  the Chelsea location of Barnes and Noble will not be renewing their lease in May
  tags: chelsea books
• ‘They made me a pasta I couldn’t refuse’ – Telegraph
  Diners are flocking to what could perhaps be termed the most exclusive restaurant in Italy – one located inside a top security prison
  tags: volterra italy tuscany restaurant prison

in front of Whole Foods at 24th and Seventh

event info

See more photos on flickr here.

• An Iraqi "Eliot Ness" Out in the Cold
  The Bush administration is abandoning the forced-out Iraqi anticorruption chief, as he prepares to testify that the Iraqi government is so corrupt it should be abolished.
  tags: iraq war bush corruption
• SLAVA MOGUTIN
  slava has a slick new website
  tags: artist queer photography slavamogutin superm
• Euro Reaches All-Time High Against Dollar [we’re screwed]
  Investors around the world dumped the dollar today, pushing it to an all-time low of $1.40 against the euro and to parity with the Canadian dollar for the first time in three decades
  tags: currency dollar euro canada usa
• TIME’S UP! :: NYC Direct Action Environmental Organization – 2007 Park(ing) Day
  (today 9/21) parking spots at 7th Avenue and Charles Street in the West Village are transformed into a park
  tags: environment activism timesup publicspace nyc westvillage manhattan

When I took yesterday’s photo, many people on 23rd Street were waiting to be allowed to go east while the police had the area around 23rd and Seventh blocked off for a bomb scare. It’s the second time this has happened in 23rd Street this month. The last one was west of Eighth Avenue. I love this comment on a blogchelsea post about yesterday:

We live in an age of paranoia. Suspicious package? We used to call that “garbage.”

photo by Ruth Waltz for the International Herald Tribune

The IHT has a review of the premiere of Hanz Werner Henze’s new opera, “Phaedra” at the Berlin Staatsoper. In New York, the opera world thinks an opera by freakin’ Richard Danielpour is some kind of breakthrough, but Berlin gets a premiere by one of the greatest composers of the 20th Century, with designs by Olafur Eliasson no less!

They’re also doing a new production of Medeamaterial by Pascal Dusapin (based on the Heiner Müller play) directed and choreographed by Sasha Waltz! I can’t stand it!

It’s time to interest some of those hedge fund billionaires in some contemporary music methinks.