Listings

At 8, Beacon Theater, 2124 Broadway, 212.496.7070

JC CHASEZ

The second-most-successful ex-*NSyncer's new single "Some Girls" goes, "Some girls take my money/Some girls take my clothes/Some girls get the shirt off my back/And leave me with a lethal dose." Oops, got him mixed up with the Rolling Stones for a second! Really, he says some girls dance with women. Then Ol' Dirty Bastard shows up. Good song. JC also had Justin-worthies on the latest Basement Jaxx CD and Drum Line soundtrack, if you're keeping score. EDDY

At 8, Irving Plaza, 17 Irving Place, 212.777.6800

THE MIGHTY SPARROW+CALYPSO ROSE+DAVID RUDDER+SHADOW

Four calypso-soca vets kick off our Carnival season in Jersey. The Sparrow's taken several Soca Monarch trophies at the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival with a canon spanning carnal wit and Blackman anthems rivaling any Rasta's, while Rudder is a past master of musical social consciousness. But it's Rose's ribald hilarity and Shadow's utterly unsentimental emotionalism that will persuade those not yet convinced of win' & jump up's appeal.

OUMANO

At 8, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Prudential Hall, 1 Center Street, Newark, New Jersey, 973.353.8051

Theater

'DOÑA ROSITA THE SPINSTER'

Federico García Lorca divided this 1935 poetic study of a frustrated passion into "gardens" rather than scenes, saturating its text with floral imagery. The last of his plays to be produced in his lifetime, it's being revived by the Jean Cocteau Rep in a new adaptation by Gwynne Edwards; Ernest Jones directs. FEINGOLD

Previews begin today, Bouwerie Lane Theater, 330 Bowery, 212.677.0060

SATURDAY

DECEMBER 20

Music

ESG+TV ON THE RADIO+TRACY & THE PLASTICS

ESG's early '80s minimalist art-funk was a pipeline connecting post-punk, house, and hip-hop, but unlike most legends, the Scroggins sisters continue to groove as hard as ever, turning any venue into the Hacienda or Paradise Garage. Young bands should be honored to open for ESG—tonight, dramatic, slow-burning locals TVOTR and electro-pop art project Tracy & the Plastics are the lucky ones. With Mommy and Daddy. PHILLIPS

At 8, the Hook, 18 Commerce Street, Brooklyn, 718.797.3007

Photo

ASHKAN SAHIHI

For a weirdly compelling portrait series titled "Cum Shots," Sahihi asked his male and female sitters to bring along a male partner to ejaculate on their face just before the photo was taken. Because the subjects are seated fully clothed before a neutral studio backdrop, the results buzz with the tension between formality and abandon. Confronting the camera with semen splattered across their cheeks, each of these people has an odd post-coital glow—a flush of ebbing excitement that leaves them emotionally, totally naked. ALETTI

Through December 31, Axel Raben Gallery, 526 West 26th Street, 212.647.9064

SUNDAY

DECEMBER 21

Music

KIKI & HERB

"Ladiesngennamen," as Kiki is fond of drunkenly pointing out, "people die." Magnificent jokes, however, don't—it wouldn't be the season without checking in with family, and if the world's greatest indie-rock drag-queen-as-over-the-hill-chanteuse cabaret act isn't family to downtown New York, ladiesngennamen, I don't know what is. Highlight of one previous yule show: "Frosty the Snowman" recast as Patti Smith's "Horses." WOLK

At 9, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street, 212.533.2111

MONDAY

DECEMBER 22

Film

'HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOSEPH CORNELL'

MOMA celebrates the Cornell centenary with the premiere of Flushing Meadows, a recently discovered, newly preserved Cornell film from 1965; it's showing with two ancient trick films from a movie evening organized by Cornell in 1949 and with one of his favorite features, the Jennifer Jones vehicle Portrait of Jennie. HOBERMAN

At 8, MOMA at the Gramercy, 127 East 23rd Street, 212.777.4900

TUESDAY

DECEMBER 23

Art

JAMES TURRELL

With all the pomp and ceremony of professional attendants, white slippers, and a grand staircase to what appears—until someone steps through it—to be an intensely blue rectangle, the genius of the ever unfinished Rodan Crater and one-trick creator of glowing supernal voids presents Ganzfeld Piece. It's a room (watch out, the floor's slippery) saturated with blue light. The second piece is a pitch-black space in which dim, changing colored light slowly reveals itself. LEVIN

Through January 10, PaceWildenstein, 534 West 25th Street, 212.421.3292