Listings

Today and Saturday at 7:30, Beacon Theater, 2124 Broadway, 212.496.7070

SATURDAY

NOVEMBER 29

Film

GEORGE KUCHAR

An irrepressible son of the Bronx returns with The Gates of Gomorrha and three other new tapes. His subjects seem to be onanistic reverie and summer in the city or both: "Scantily clad sun worshipers lounge about the greenery of the saturated soils while the skies await the annual assault of holiday rocketry." HOBERMAN

At 8, Millennium, 66 East 4th Street,

212.673.0090

Music

WINFRED E. EYE

As the headline to Frank Kogan's rave review of their nifty The Dirt Tier on these pages a few months ago put it, "Shifty hick licks help sick beatnik shit-snack shtick click": Young Cali bohos pretend to be old Cali hobos and pull Captain Beefheart's proto-blues-and-jazz songsters-and-saints rock through your Ugly Casanovas and Holy Childhoods to a place where sometimes it even beauties and boogies at the same time. With harmonicas, natch—and what Frank called "wheezy sorrow." With Sam Jayne. EDDY

At 8, Pianos 158 Ludlow Street, 212.420.1466

'LEE KONITZ 76TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION'

One of the great figures of post-war jazz, Konitz has remained a beacon of individuality and determined invention; as ageless and original as Benny Carter, he plays solos that unwind as intrepid explorations. He has a great band this week, with veteran bassist Gary Peacock and two musicians—Bill Frisell and Matt Wilson—whose very presence suggests how innovative-lee, tender-lee, and timeless-lee this master continues to play. GIDDINS

Today and Thursday at 8 and 10, Friday through Sunday at 9 and 10:30, Friday and Saturday also at midnight, Iridium, 1650 Broadway, 212.582.2121

Photo

WOLFGANG TILLMANS

Even when Tillmans seems a little off, as he does in this show, his work exudes a kind of vivacious energy and inventiveness that I find impossible to resist. As usual, the installation—a seemingly spontaneous arrangement of large and small, framed and unframed images—is crucial, and the individual pictures are almost incidental to the prevailing mood, which swings between celebratory and contemplative. At once intensely personal and we-are-the-world universal, Tillmans's photos always hit home. ALETTI

Through December 6, Andrea Rosen Gallery, 525 West 24th Street, 212.627.6000

SUNDAY

NOVEMBER 30

Art

LIZ CRAFT

Referring to vernacular handicraft and the turned-on '60s in a freewheeling debut here, this L.A. artist—who has been chosen for the upcoming Whitney Biennial—peoples the space with bizarre painted bronzes. Her mountainous human blobs, skeletal hippies, turds spiked by flies, and cobwebbed cacti are grotesque and exhilarating. Never mind that a hand that's got legs gives us the finger. Beyond the big-beaded curtain is a morbidly cheery unicorn. LEVIN

Through December 20, Marianne Boesky Gallery, 535 West 22nd Street, 212.680.9889

MONDAY

DECEMBER 1

Books

RICHARD BAUSCH

"Writing a short story involves struggling with a different kind of time [than writing a novel]," explains Bausch in the preface to his collection The Stories of Richard Bausch, "the time you will portray in it . . . how deeply back you may go, or how deeply in, while remaining true to the confines of the form." This precision of thought, the philosophical framework of a true aesthetic, pervades these stories, which most often allude to those moments of fracture, bold or subtle, that come to define a life, sometimes years later. With titles like "Valor," "Riches," and "Self Knowledge," it's clear Bausch inclines toward the big questions, but he discovers them within the realm of the common: A factory worker confronts a greedy world; a respected elementary teacher steadies herself with whiskey. REIDY

At 7:30, Barnes & Noble, 4 Astor Place, 212.420.1322

Theater

'DINNER WITH DEMONS'

And he can cook, too. Jonathan Reynolds, known theatrically for sardonic scripts like Rubbers, Geniuses, and Stonewall Jackson's House, also writes on food for The New York Times Magazine. Now under Peter Askin's direction, he'll spend 90 minutes onstage nightly preparing a holiday feast, salted with the anecdotes each course evokes. Warning: Board of Health regulations mean the audience can't share the bounty. Then again, maybe we should be grateful: The main course is deep-fried turkey. Let's hope the show isn't. FEINGOLD

In previews, opens December 16, Second Stage, 307 West 43rd Street, 212.246.4422

TUESDAY

DECEMBER 2

Art

JERRY SALTZ

The Voice's art critic, who is even more entertaining in person than he is in print, takes on a favorite topic in a slide lecture titled "The Good, the Bad, and the Very Bad: A Year in the Life of an Art Critic." Saltz promises a wide-ranging discussion of "failures, flops, hits, and has-beens" with special attention on "conservative painting that masquerades as modern and modern painting that masquerades as conservative." ALETTI

At 6:30, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue, 212.423.3587

Books

LAWRENCE BLOCK

Last year's Small Town was Block's ambitious stab at a post-9-11 thriller, set in his Gotham stomping grounds. But he's best-known for his addictive series characters: warm-blooded hit man Keller, sleuthing used-book seller Bernie Rhodenbarr, international man of mystery Tanner, and especially Matthew Scudder, ex-cop turned A.A.-attending freelance detective. (Let's not forget the entertaining investigations of apprentice gumshoe Chip Harrison, who wryly observes at a strip bar: "The one thing that both of them made you dramatically aware of is that human beings are mammals.") Learn some of Block's trade secrets as S.J. Rozan interviews him. PARK