August 7–13: What the Review’s Staff is Doing Next Week

Perseid Meteor Shower. Licensed under CCO 2.0.

This week, the Review‘s staff and friends are enjoying a drop in temperatures in New York City and the beginning of the August slowdown. Here’s what we’re looking forward to around town:

“Not Tacos” at Yellow Rose, August (6 and) 7: The downtown restaurant Yellow Rose is known for, primarily, tacos. (And really good frozen drinks.) But friend of the Review and meat purveyor Tim Ring recommends their upcoming collaboration with the Vietnamese food pop-up Ha’s Đặc Biệt that will explicitly not be tacos. Or will it? Their event poster features the words “Esto no es un taco” in Magritte-like font below what might or might not be a taco, depending on your definition.

Mark Morris Dance Group at the Joyce Theater, August 1–12: August is normally a quiet month for dance in New York City—for professional dance, at least. (We like to imagine that many people are dancing on their own.) But with the American Ballet Theatre and the New York City Ballet on hiatus, our engagement editor, Cami Jacobson, recommends seeing the Mark Morris Dance Group at the Joyce. This series will include some of Morris’s lesser-known pieces and be set to live music, in what Jacobson describes as an “unusually small, intimate theater” for seeing dance.  

An overnight trip to the Irish Pub in Atlantic City, anytime: The Review’s Pulitzer Prize–winning contributor, friend, and Atlantic City expert Joshua Cohen writes in: “The Irish Pub, in Atlantic City, is the best bar I’ve ever slept at. But really, you can use their rooms for anything. At fifty dollars a night, the only thing cheaper is the beach, which is down the block.” 

Lee Krasner: Portrait in Green at the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in East Hampton, August 3–October 29: The only canvas that Lee Krasner painted in 1969 will be on view at the Pollock-Krasner House for nearly three months. Like many of Krasner’s best works, it is large-scale, gestural, and moving in the depths of its color. The exhibition also includes a series of stunning, rarely seen photographs of Krasner at work, and some works on paper. Visiting requires a train trip from the city, but even the house itself is worth it if you’ve never been, says our web editor, Sophie Haigney. Make sure to book a reservation in advance.

The Nuyorican Poets Café’s “Love Songs” poetry night at the International Center of Photography, August 10: This night of readings and performances by a group of poets affiliated with the Nuyorican Poets Café comes recommended by our associate editor, Amanda Gersten, but the title speaks for itself. After all, it will be centered around everyone’s favorite topic: love. The evening is happening in conjunction with an ICP exhibition of contemporary photographs that also explore intimacy and romance. Who could resist?

The annual clam-eating contest at Peter’s Clam Bar in Island Park, August 13: Much is made of the Coney Island hot-dog-eating contest; in fact, it is very fun to watch on the local news (if watching people eat hot dogs really quickly is your kind of thing). Sophie would like to make the case for an alternative option: the annual clam-eating contest at an Island Park clam shack, which is billed as “the most intense eating contest on Long Island.” One reason it’s better is that if you go to spectate, you get to eat clams, which are superior to hot dogs!

This year’s Perseid meteor shower, August 12 or 13: Our intern Owen Park recently alerted the Review’s staff to a very important ongoing event: a massive downpour of shooting stars, perhaps even as many as fifty to seventy-five per hour. (This, according to the American Meteor Society.) The meteor shower actually began in late July but will peak on August 12 or 13, weekend evenings prime for shooting-star-watching. Park notes that this is a “bona fide cosmic event that has no prerequisites, in terms of money or onlineness,” and that, unlike a movie or a show, “it cannot be rewatched.” We’re getting lucky this year, as a low-lit moon means that visibility will be especially high, according to space.com.

Also recommended by editors and friends of the Review for this week: Daniel Lind-Ramos’s El Viejo Griot—Una historia de todos nosotros at MoMA PS1, through September 4 (Alejandra Quintana Arocho, intern); We Buy Gold: SEVEN. at Nicola Vassell Gallery through August 11 (Na Kim, art director); Maureen Dougherty: Borrowed Time at Cheim & Read through September 16 (Na Kim, art director); New York Liberty vs. Chicago Sky at Barclays Center on August 11 (Oriana Ullman, assistant editor); “Back to School with Kirsten Dunst” at Metrograph, beginning with Bring It On on August 4 and ending with The Virgin Suicides on August 18 (Olivia Kan-Sperling, assistant editor).