Open City Dialogue  (OCD) is a bi-monthly lecture series unraveling on alternating Mondays in the backroom of Pete’s.  Short (35-40 minute) lectures are woven together from the common thread of people’s obsessions, with guests coming from all over Greater New York.  Whether academic or crackpot; celebrated or unsung, our lecturers all have something to tell you…
Lectures are on Mondays at 7:30pm

Jan 9
NOTES FROM JUPITER:
Decoding the Toynbee Tiles
w/Justin Duerr

"TOYNBEE IDEA in Kubrick's 2001. RESURRECT DEAD ON PLANET JUPITER." With these words unfurled an urban mystery whose clues have confounded the most stalwart seekers of its arcane meaning. They are the Toynbee Tiles, strange messages embedded in city streets throughout the United States and South America that have been puzzling passersby since the 1980s. Are they art? The ramblings of a crackpot? An alchemical codex? Join Justin Duerr, who has been investigating these tiles for over two decades, tying together such disparate threads as David Mamet, short-wave radio programming, and the work of historian Arnold Toynbee to try and crack the door ajar on this elusive urban mystery.

Justin Duerr is a painter, musician, and resident of Philadelphia, where the Toynbee Tiles were first discovered. He was also the subject of the recent documentary, Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles.




Jan 23
RUSSIAN TONGUE:
The Photographs of Sasha Rudensky

Can one ever go home again? The unanswered question is the subject of Sasha Rudensky's photographs, which trace the broken lines of family, culture, and identity to portray her former Russian homeland. Since immigrating to the US as a child, Sasha has returned frequently to Russia to document the eroding idols of communism and national identity as they have been displaced by a swelling tide of capitalist individualism. Statues of Lenin, abandoned parks, and intimate portraits of family and friends create a narrative that shows a society in the awkward gestures of shrugging off its past, yet unable to fully relinquish its history. Sasha will be presenting her work and describing its progression from documentary street scenes to staged tableaux that reveal the theatre of the everyday.

Sasha Rudensky is an assistant professor of art at Wesleyan University and graduate of the Yale MFA program. You can see more of her work at www.sasharudensky.com/




Feb 13
ARTISANAL PENCIL SHARPENING
Re-Acquaint yourself with a lost art
w/David Rees

In New York's Hudson River Valley, craftsman David Rees still practices the age-old art of manual pencil sharpening. His artisanal service is perfect for artists, writers, and standardized test takers. For a mere $15, Mr. Rees will hand-sharpen your pencil to the most exacting standards, returning it to you together with the shavings, and a certificate of sharpening. Come learn about this fascinating lost art from one of its only living practitioners, as he prepares for a nationwide pencil-sharpening tour to coincide with the release of his upcoming book HOW TO SHARPEN PENCILS (Melville House).

DAVID REES used to be a political cartoonist, best known for his syndicated strip Get Your War On. His work appeared in Rolling Stone, GQ, The Nation, Harper's, and many other publications. He gave that career up to pursue his dream of getting paid to sharpen pencils.

Feb 27
AMAZONIA DREAM
The Past and Future of the Amahuaca
w/Katherine Needles
Photo credit: KATHERINE NEEDLES 2010

Half a century ago, renowned LIFE photographer Cornell Capa ventured into the Peruvian jungle to document the Amahuaca, an indigenous community then thought to be at the brink of extinction. Published in1961, Capa's images were the last visual references of Amahuaca culture...until now. Fifty years later Katherine Needles has retraced Capa's steps into the heart of the Amazon to recapture Capa's subjects, in the process discovering a thriving—if altered—community. Now, with the Peruvian government contracting with international energy companies to extract crude oil on Amahuaca land, these people's enduring but embattled story enters a new chapter. Documented at a crucial time, Katherine's images are a mirror of Capa's pioneering work, and a window into Amahuaca culture before irreversible damage is done.

American by blood, born and raised in Lisbon, Portugal, Katherine Needles grew up attending international schools and worked as a teacher, before taking her degree in Anthropology at the University of St. Andrews. Her interest in indigenous peoples led her to San Francisco to work with the social and environmental advocacy group Amazon Watch focusing on land rights issues in the Amazon Basin. She has since developed her passion for photography and is primarily focused on marrying these various fields of interest. She lives the dream in Greenpoint, Brooklyn!

 

ABOUT THE CURATOR:

Jamie Hook is a socially omnivorous urban dandy who makes his home in Greenpoint. A filmmaker, theatre director, and sometimes journalist, Mr. Hook lives by his wits and his keen eye for the odd and interesting. After a dozen years in Seattle, where, among other things, he was the founding director of the Northwest Film Forum, he has settled in New York, where he makes films, writes stories, and struggles to pay the rent. The OCD Lecture Series offers him a venue to display all of his marvelous urban finds. You should also know that he likes pickles, hot sauce, and red wine in that order.