Here’s a review of what promises to be an interesting show, at Art Daily.

and I am Marie of Romania. That said, there’s a whole lot of Dorothy Parker going on this weekend. First, from Gothamist, You Might as Well Live, a one-woman-Parker-channelling show from Karen Mason:

Details: You Might As Well Live plays twice more, on 9/30 at 8pm and 10/2 at 4:30pm. It’s at the 45th Street Theatre, 354 W. 45th St. Tickets are at Theatermania.

It’s part of the much larger Parkerfest, the Dorothy Parker Society’s annual splashy, ginny tonic. I hope to get to at least one of these parties, ’cause they look really fun. I also recommend the Algonquin Walking Tour—Kevin Fitzpatrick knows what he’s talking about and it’s an entertaining, vigorous, and actually educational walk for not just visitors but jaded New Yorkers, who might be surprised how many New Yorker and related landmarks they don’t know. Here’s the whole lineup, for which some tickets are still available, at the door or online.

Friday 5:30-7:30: We’ll be at the Algonquin Hotel in the lobby for cocktails. Meet at the large rectangle table in the lobby on the south end. Open to all; RSVP to Kevin@dorothyparkerNYC.com.

We then walk a few blocks to:

Friday, 8:30 p.m.: You Might As Well Live, 45th Street Theatre, 354 West 45th Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues. Part of the New York Musical Theatre Festival. It stars Broadway veteran Karen Mason (she originated the role of Tanya on Broadway in ABBA’s Mamma Mia!). The show, which takes its title from Parker’s famous poem “Resumé,” will be directed by Guy Stroman and will feature a book by Norman Mathews, who set Parker’s words to his music. Tickets are $15 each.

We then walk one block to:

Friday, 10:30 p.m.: “Dorothy Parker Cabaret Night” at Don’t Tell Mama, 343 West 46th Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues. This is going to be such a fun show in one of Manhattan’s favorite cabarets. Cindy Ball is performing her Helen Kane show (Helen was the basis for Betty Boop); and direct from Sweden, Sara Jangfeldt, performing Enough Rope , a jazz musical based on Dorothy Parker’s work set to music. It has been performed in Stockholm and Moscow; this is the New York debut of the unique show. Tickets: $20 each + 2 drink minimum. Open to all; RSVP to Kevin@dorothyparkerNYC.com.

Saturday, Noon-2 p.m.: The Algonquin Round Table Walking Tour, The Algonquin Hotel. Trace the footsteps of The Vicious Circle through the Theatre District, Times Square, Rockefeller Center and Hell’s Kitchen. Led by Kevin C. Fitzpatrick, DPSNY president and author of the upcoming book “A Journey into Dorothy Parker’s New York.” $15 for the walk. Lunch to follow at the Round Table; cost of lunch separate. Open to all; RSVP to Kevin@dorothyparkerNYC.com.

Weather forecast for Saturday: Sunny and high 75, low 60s.

Saturday, 8-11 p.m.: Dorothy Parker Bathtub Gin Ball & Speakeasy Cruise II, aboard The Diplomat, boarding 7:30 p.m. Come aboard in Twenties attire for a three-hour moonlight cruise around the city aboard a private yacht launched in 1930. Live period music by Bliss Blood and Cantonement, with special guest Cindy Ball. Open bar (all you can drink) and light fare will be served. The three-hour cruise sails from Chelsea and past the Statue of Liberty, Governor’s Island, Ellis Island, South Street Seaport, Brooklyn Bridge and all the landmarks. Board at Pier 63, located at West 23rd Street and the West Side Highway, behind Basketball City (not where we were in 2004). Tickets are $60 each. Open to all; RSVP to Kevin@dorothyparkerNYC.com.

Weather forecast for Saturday night: low 60s.

Saturday, 11 p.m. to ?: Bathtub Gin Ball Official After-Party, Flute Gramercy, 40 East 20th Street (between Broadway and Park Avenue South). Come to the greatest Gramercy Park speakeasy! Flute Gramercy is a fantastic lounge to unwind after our boat cruise. Special offer of $5 Kir Royal cocktails to any guests who come in costume!

Sunday, noon: We have added a very special event at the Algonquin Hotel in the Oak Room. Don’t miss this one. Sara Jangfeldt, an actress-singer from Stockholm, is coming to town and making her Oak Room debut on Sunday, Oct. 2. We are having a “jazz brunch” 12-2 p.m. with Sara’s performance with her jazz trio at 2. She is presenting her show “Enough Rope” (in English & Swedish); which is a dozen Dorothy Parker pieces set to original jazz compositions. Sara has performed the show at Stockholm’s Stadsteater, Gothenburg Opera, Gothenburg Stadsteater, in Moscow and Capri. How appropriate that she is singing it in the Oak Room, where the Round Table was founded? Sara is also singing classics and standards. To attend: $55 includes three-course brunch & show; or to skip the brunch, $30 cover + $15 minimum. To reserve tickets RSVP to Kevin@dorothyparkerNYC.com. Today’s show is sponsored by the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. For more information about Sara: click here.

Sunday, 1:30-4:30 p.m.: Dorothy Parker Scavenger Hunt, The Algonquin Hotel Lobby. A debut! We’ve never tried this before! Bring your team to the hotel, or join others, as you will be sent out across the city to collect items associated with Mrs. Parker. Special prizes for all teams. Return at 5 p.m. for cocktails and hunt results! FREE. Open to the public.

Sunday, 7:30 p.m.: The Talk of the Town in the Oak Room; The Algonquin Hotel. Attend the hit musical based on the legendary Vicious Circle. The New Yorker says, “[The] well-crafted period-style songs are genuinely clever and the classic quips still crackle.” Special discount to show tonight only: $40 with code DPS40 plus 2-drink minimum. Reserve tickets (mention Dorothy Parker Society): 212-419-9331 (sorry, no online tickets).

Complete schedule, get tickets, see photos and stories from the past six years: click here.

Questions? Email Kevin@dorothyparkerNYC.com.

ONLINE TICKETS here. Or pay cash at the door!

Because what you are seeing here is a search page from the New Yorker archive DVD set. And on my laptop, yet, which arrived home last night, bloodied but unbowed, from the costly war against itself. Hallelujah. I’m also happy to report it works slightly better on Macs than on PCs, so far. I remain a loyal Applist, despite my recent suffering.

Along with Eva Salzman and Joy Katz. It’s only eight bucks and what an evening! Here’s all the info and how to get tickets.

Women’s Work: A Poetry Reading

Three riveting and original women poets pool their talents in an unforgettable evening. Katha Pollitt is the author of a book of poems, Antarctic Traveller, and two collections of essays: Reasonable Creatures and Subject to Debate. Eva Salzman, the author of Double Crossing: New & Selected Poems, is currently editing an anthology of poetry titled Women’s Work. Joy Katz’s latest book is The Garden Room. She co-edited the anthology Dark Horses: Poets on Overlooked Poems.

Date & Time: Wednesday, September 7, 7:00 p.m.
Location: Steinhardt Building, 35 West 67th St.
Price: $8.00

Katha Pollitt on W.H. Auden [NYer Festival website, Sept. 24 events. Sold out!]

Edmund Morris, an occasional New Yorker contributor, has held off completing his trilogy of Theodore Roosevelt books to write a biography of Beethoven, out this fall [on October 1]. The Bob Dylan Scrapbook [out September 13] includes pictures, memorabilia and a 60-minute CD. Peter Guralnick’s Dream Boogie [out October 18] should provide the most thorough account yet of singer Sam Cooke.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. Yes, other cities have newspapers.
Another December event at the 92nd St. Y to mark on your calendar now, if you’re so inclined: Morris giving the Newman Lecture (all about Beethoven) on Dec. 13. From the Y site:

The Newman Lecture: Edmund Morris on Beethoven
Edmund Morris, the musically trained, Pulitzer Prize-winning chronicler of presidential power, examines one of the mightiest and most brilliant musicians of all time. Morris’ biographies, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan and Theodore Rex, were national bestsellers. His newest book is a HarperCollins Eminent Lives biography of Beethoven.

Wow, lots of adjectives there! Good work, Y copywriters. I like that Eminent Lives seems to be a sly attempt to trump Penguin Lives as a series title, though especially in this penguin-dreamy moment, a penguin life has come to seem pretty triumphant, too. I reviewed Jane Smiley’s Penguin Life of Charles Dickens some years ago, and enjoyed it. Dickens was a manic so-and-so, as you know, and Smiley evokes the adrenaline blastoff of even his most ordinary days with admirably graceful gusto.
The Unknowable: Ronald Reagan’s amazing, mysterious life [New Yorker; remember this obit? I really liked it. I didn’t read Dutch but read a lot of the babble about it, and was glad to be impressed by Morris’ clear-eyed, touching, and truly three-dimensional piece.]
The Method President: Ronald Reagan and the Movies [New Yorker; Anthony Lane expresses skepticism about Morris’ reportage on Reagan’s sex appeal. I’m gradually forming a theory about Lane’s philosophical quirks—no, it’s not at all personal. Haven’t you noticed I don’t print stuff like that? Any critical insights will be appreciated.]
The Living Hand [Morris in 1995 on Reagan’s letter announcing his Alzheimer’s disease: “The throb of sympathy that ran through the country last November, when Ronald Reagan wrote his farewell letter to the American people, went beyond the ordinary sorrow we all must feel on reading that someone familiar has succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease. Much time and space, not to mention cyberspace, was devoted to the news, and many tears were shed, even by people who despised everything President Reagan had ever stood for. After nine years of studying him with objective coldness, I confess that I, too, cried at that letter, with its crabbed script and enormous margin (so evocative of the blizzard whitening his mind), and, above all, at the mystery of that black and scary erasure, concealing God knows what.”]

The eagle-eyed Looker sends advance notice of a 92nd St. Y event that must be attended:

The Art of Online Criticism 

Maud Newton, Sasha Frere-Jones and Terry Teachout / Bryan Keefer, moderator

Cultural critics find themselves in the same predicament as other members of the traditional media who now must play a new game. Hear three influential critics who write both online and for print discuss how the cultural conversation is evolving and what the future holds when everyone’s a critic.

Tickets are $12 in advance; $15 at the door.
Date & Time: Tue, Dec 6, 2005, 7:00pm
Location: Steinhardt Building, 35 West 67th Street
Code: T-MM5LD61-01
Price: $12.00

Teachout has not one but two great Thurber passages up today. Don’t be a booby—go and read them.

From New Jersey’s Independent: August 21 will be a great day in Long Branch; Dorothy Parker Day to honor a reluctant Jersey girl.

You wouldn’t want to miss these readings. If you’re in East Hampton right now, you’re already ahead of the game, so why not feel even more superior by going to see Sean Wilsey, who will not only tickle you with his winsome presence but also tell you about his crazy socialite childhood in San Francisco and the various burnout boardings schools he kind of attended? He lived to tell the tale. Welcome him.

Friday, August 12
East Hampton, NY
with A.M. Homes
Book Hampton
20 Main St.
8:00 p.m.

I bet the one on the 24th will be a major McSweeney’s-sation, so get there early. Have some coffee. It’s a gorgeous bookstore, and I plan to spend a lot of time there in the future.

Wednesday, August 24
New York, NY
with Todd Pruzan and John Hodgman
McNally Robinson Booksellers
50 Prince St.
(212) 274-1160
7:00 p.m.

Categories: Wilsey, Pruzan, Books, Events

Forget Willy Wonka for the moment. The treats are all going to be at these Sean Wilsey readings, starting tonight. And yes, at last, I will be posting my Wilsey interview. It’s a doozy—check back for it soon! There are even photos. In the meantime, go to Housing Works tonight. If you bring your skateboard, I bet he’ll autograph it.

Wednesday, August 3
New York, NY
with Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle
Liberal Arts for Air America Radio
Housing Works Used Book Café
126 Crosby St.
(212) 334-3324
8:00 p.m.

That one’ll be crowded. Get there early!

Thursday, August 4
Brooklyn, NY
with Curtis Sittenfeld, author of Prep
BookCourt
163 Court St.
(718) 875-3677
8:00 p.m.

Friday, August 12
East Hampton, NY
with A.M. Homes
Book Hampton
20 Main St.
8:00 p.m.

Wednesday, August 24
New York, NY
with Todd Pruzan and John Hodgman
McNally Robinson Booksellers
50 Prince St.
(212) 274-1160
7:00 p.m.

Categories: Wilsey, Pruzan, Books, Events

From Broadway World:

The Algonquin Hotel’s Oak Room will celebrate its 25th Anniversary by sponsoring a Young Artist Competition, with the winner awarded a contract for a two-week engagement in its legendary cabaret venue in early 2006.

The competition will be limited to vocal artists under the age of 30 with a background in musical theater, cabaret or jazz, whose work embraces the Great American Songbook, including (but not limited to) the works of Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen, Richard Rodgers and Stephen Sondheim. Sing, you sinners!

Speaking of round tones at the Round Table, here’s Richard Eilers’s witty account in the Observer of flying from London to get spiffed up for the annual Dorothy Parker gala known as Parkerfest. He writes of the festive Bathtub Gin Ball and Speakeasy Cruise:

Our vessel, the Diplomat, was filling up fast at the quay, people chattering excitedly. But my partner Carolyn and I stood nervously apart. I was still frightened by the whole ‘fan’ thing. I collected her first editions, had flown across the Atlantic just to be at the party and, well, tried to buy her dress, but I was not obsessive, obviously. How would I deal with the uber-fan, who knew more about her underwear habits than was strictly healthy? You had to approach these people warily.

This year’s Parkerfest—run by the devoted and admirably well-informed Kevin Fitzpatrick of the Dorothy Parker Society of New York—runs from September 30 till October 2. Here’s more info. I’m planning to be there. I even know how to Balboa.