Arts

The Italian poet Antonio Porchia once wrote, “Following straight lines shortens distances, and also life.”

    What’s so funny about peace, love, and easy listening? Randy Parsons, an East Hampton songwriter and guitarist, has released something different: a CD for adults . . . quiet, thoughtful ones.

    The fourth annual Hamptons Take 2 Documentary Film Festival, which highlights work by local filmmakers, will open on Friday, Nov. 18, with a tribute to the filmmaker Richard Leacock at Guild Hall from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m.

    The evening begins with a cocktail reception, and then features two of Mr. Leacock’s documentaries, “Happy Mother’s Day,” and “Crisis.” D.A. Pennebaker, a fellow filmmaker, will lead a panel discussion on Mr. Leacock’s work afterward along with his children, Victoria Leacock Hoffman and Robert Leacock, also filmmakers, and Pam Wise.

Chase and Ebert Show

    The Halsey Mckay Gallery in East Hampton will show an installation of new work by Louisa Chase and Sally Egbert beginning Saturday. According to the gallery, the exhibit of paintings and works on paper will display “lyrical, bold, and intuitive works that operate more as natural and corporeal extrapolations rather than traditional abstract expressions.”

Two South Fork architectural firms walked away with distinction at the 47th annual American Institute of Architects-Long Island Chapter Archi Awards ceremony on Oct. 19 in Huntington.

The Sixth Annual East End Black Film Festival, organized by the African-American Museum of the East End, will be presented tonight and tomorrow night at the Southampton Cultural Center and at the Parrish Art Musuem on Saturday from 12:30 to 9 p.m.

     There is a feeling of excitement from the Avram Theater to Chancellors Hall at Stony Brook Southampton, the center for Southampton Arts. The burgeoning graduate arts program headed by Robert Reeves has recently added theater to its roster of offerings. There are already M.F.A. degree programs in creative writing and literature. Bringing the theater arts program to Southampton is a natural progression.

As with others who have chosen the East End as an artistic retreat, Rafael Ferrer, 78, who lives in Greenport, made his way here in a circuitous route, one that reflected his own journey in making art.

    Beginning on Saturday, Guild Hall will present “Contrabando,” an exhibit that started out as an abridged version of a much larger show at El Museo del Barrio in New York last year and ended up being something else entirely.

    An autumn day, after hard frost, and an early northeaster. An autumn day of Indian summer equal to that other stunner, that miracle, a languorous June afternoon when all is still. And painful. “The present usually hurts” — Blaise Pascal (“Pensées” No. 47).

Hudson in New York

    The work of Judith Hudson, a part-time Amagansett resident, is now on view at Salomon Contemporary in West Chelsea. The show is called “Judith Hudson: Playboy Advisor” and includes works on paper from “Sex Advice Drawings.” This is a series that takes sex column dialogue and motifs and parodies them for maximum visual effect.

Guild Hall will open three art shows this weekend with a reception on Saturday from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. — exhibits of work by Drew Shiflett and Rafael Ferrer (see related story) and a permanent-collection show.

“The first time I saw the movie, it had a profound effect on me,” said Murphy Davis, the artistic director of the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor. Mr. Davis is directing a stage version of Harper Lee’s classic drama “To Kill a Mockingbird” as part of the theater’s Literature Live series.

    Spoiler alert: At the end of this picaresque romp, “Lucky Bruce,” the author, playwright, and screenwriter Bruce Jay Friedman (author of “Stern” and “The Lonely Guy’s Book of Life” and screenwriter of “Splash”) admits: “And always — no matter how weak the knees and frail the bank account — there has been the pleasure at Customs of filling in the blank for Occupation with the single word that has always felt treasured and benighted: writer.”

“Lucky Bruce”

Bruce Jay Friedman

Biblioasis, $26.95

    Bring two artists together, both sculptural and structural in their approaches, and unleash them on an unusual and open space, giving them few limitations except that their materials must be locally sourced and no more than $40 in cost. It’s an interesting recipe and one that could have resulted in bedlam or, worse, boredom.

    Those who like their ballet and opera over coffee and a muffin will appreciate the live gala reopening of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow presented at 10 a.m. tomorrow at the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton.

    The simulcast will include performances by the ballet troupe as well as some of opera’s finest artists performing for the theater and the world during the historic event.

Focus on Materials

    The Southampton Cultural Center’s fall exhibit, which opens today, will turn a spotlight on materials in the work of several artists, whether they have created those materials or repurposed them for their art.

    “Material Matters” brings together the sculpture of artists such as James DeMartis, Don Saco, Eric Ernst, Margaret Kerr, James Gemake, and Robert Skinner. Arnold Hoffmann Jr., who is known more for his printmaking, is represented here with two balsa wood constructions he made in the 1960s.

    It’s unusual that a photograph can make a painting come alive more than the painting itself, but that is often the case with the images in “Roy Lichtenstein in His Studio,” a book of photographs by Laurie Lambrecht of the artist’s studio in Southampton and him at work in it. Monacelli Press, an imprint of Random House, will publish the book on Tuesday.

    Matthew Broderick and even his interviewer, Alec Baldwin, revealed much about themselves and their careers in a freewheeling discussion on Saturday at Guild Hall that included some surprises and surprisingly candid insights on hits, flops, directors, and Marlon Brando. The talk was part of the Hamptons International Film Festival Conversations series.

    It’s common knowledge that Andy Warhol was an enigma. David Bailey’s 1973 documentary mediation on him for the BBC, shown on Friday at the Hamptons International Film Festival, does not change that perception and yet it does manage to further our understanding of his world and reveals some glimpses of his humanity.

    John Pomianowski does not pose as a painter. In talking about his work on Saturday at the Out East Gallery in Montauk, his speech was as refreshingly free of opaque jargon as his paintings are free of schooled artifice.

A visitor to the gallery attempted to lure him into a discussion of the light the East End was famous for among plein-air painters past and, presumably, present. The oils and watercolors large and small, mostly seascapes, now hanging at the gallery are full of light. The oils were done in the late 1990s.  

Design Awards in Southampton

    The American Institute of Architects’ Peconic Chapter will present an exhibit of architecture and an architectural design awards program at the Southampton Cultural Center on Saturday.

    The presentation of the Daniel Rowen F.A.I.A. Memorial Design Awards will be followed by a symposium led by the jurors and a discussion of the projects with the audience. The jury for the awards consists of John Belle, Mark Simon, and Carl Stein, all fellows of the institute

    “American Portraits,” the latest in a series of shows from the Parrish Art Museum’s permanent collection, will open to the public on Sunday.

    The exhibit will spotlight tradition and innovation in  about 75 portraits, dating from as early as 1833, with a William Sidney Mount painting of Mrs. Manice, an American dignitary. Mount was based in Setauket and was part of the Hudson River School.

Carter Burwell chalks up his career to a series of fortunate accidents. Formally trained as a computer scientist, he studied animation and electronic music at Harvard, then wended his way to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was the chief computer scientist for a few years. He has gone on — somewhat to his own surprise — to score more than 80 motion pictures, ranging from box-office biggies (“Twilight,” “Rob Roy,” “True Grit,” “Fargo”) to cult classics (“The Big Lebowski,” “Being John Malkovich,” “Gods and Monsters”) to darker works (“Howl,” “No Country For Old Men”).

    The Hamptons International Film Festival always provides a lively time for attendees and an intense creative atmosphere for filmmakers. With lots of chatter and endless parties to attend, it is surprising more filmmakers don’t fall in love.

The Irish director and screenwriter Terry George, known for powerful films like “Hotel Rwanda” and “In the Name of the Father,” co-written with and directed by Jim Sheridan, has been a recurring presence at the Hamptons International Film Festival since his directorial debut, “Some Mother’s Son,” opened the festival in 1996. This year, Mr. George, who has a house in Noyac, is back with his first short film, “The Shore.”

 The Bird Is the Word

   The seventh annual Artists Birdhouse Auction to benefit the Coalition for Women’s Cancer at Southampton Hospital will be held on Saturday from 5:30 to 8 p.m. at 4 North Main Gallery in Southampton.

    More than 60 artists have designed birdhouses to be auctioned to raise money for the coalition’s cancer-patient support programs. The honorary chairwomen this year are Renee Zellweger, Betsey Johnson, and Karyn Mannix. Some of the birdhouses will be auctioned silently, others will be in a live auction.

Members of the metropolitan area media donned hard hats last Thursday to catch up with the progress of the new Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill.

On the morning of the 16th, a mentally unstable student named Seung-Hui Cho strode through the campus armed with a handgun and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

   The Playhouse Project, a program that provides master classes for high school music students on the South Fork and a chance for award winners to play with  professionals, is offering an open jazz workshop tomorrow and Saturday, and an "all star" concert on Saturday evening.