Art. Music and Parties This Weekend

I am--mildly--bummed. Not that I plan to dwell on it or anything: there are other plans to be made, and believe me, I will make them. But I am bummed because, duh, the weather is so crappy and promises to continue in the same vein for the entire weekend. I had planned to go on a hike tomorrow, Saturday, and I had even sold my Ratatat tickets for Saturday night, figuring I would be slightly exhausted after a long day hike and early morning. (See their Myspace page here.) Well... Ratatat's show had been sold out for some time, and I managed to sell my tickets for slightly more than I had paid for them: apparently they have recently exploded. I saw them perhaps two years ago play live at the Guggenheim, and yes, they were fun, but at the time, their audience mostly consisted of high school/young college kids. Also, the Improv Everywhere event I mentioned on my last posting: still happening in the rain! Hmm... should be interesting. And I have to say, I am mighty curious what the synchronized song is that they have everyone to play tomorrow at exactly the same time.

ANYWAY, so I think I may be going to go to the BAM Takeover event this Saturday night instead of Ratatat, featuring the lovely St. Vincent performing, among other featured events of the evening at BAM. Unless... I end up going to Ratatat after all, with my friend who still has extra tickets... NYC life: part complete spontaneity and flexibility, and part meticulous advance planning... the two are currently uncomfortably and excitingly colliding in my life (but aren't they always?).

Apart from this dilemna, I also plan on going out tonight, possibly to this:
For a full description of this event, see the Going.com write-up. And a snippet from their description:
"No Big Deal is new art/music/remix collective project, and of course, party. Whoever you are, it doesn't matter, come for the love of music and art. Dance with your eyes closed. Go crazy, who cares. It's no big deal."
The party is tonight, at alphabeta, located at 70 Greenpoint Ave in Brooklyn.

Also, ongoing this weekend:
The website gives details of this extensive festival, sponsored by Current. From the website:

For the 12th year running, the entire neighborhood of Dumbo, Brooklyn, will become a multi-sensory art arena, FREE and open to all.

Over the FESTIVAL weekend, art will be happening everywhere: streets, sidewalks, storefronts, elevators, lobbies, the water, the waterfront, parks, nooks, crannies, NY Water Taxi, and more. Along with the 65+ new public art projects, over 100 local artists will open their studios to the public and at the new Galapagos Art Space, video_dumbo will feature a non-stop program of cutting edge video art from NYC and around the world.

The FESTIVAL presents art that breaks the white cube: art that is touchable, accessible and interactive. The appeal is universal: for many of the anticipated 150,000 visitors, the FESTIVAL will be their first encounter with art and artists.

DAC, the big impact small non-profit, has been making the annual 3-day event possible since it was founded by local artists in1997. As New York City's creative edge is increasingly threatened by skyrocketing rents, DAC is committed to preserving what is possibly the last urban oasis of its kind: a site where young artists can test their ideas in the public domain, have unprecedented freedom and play. Visual artists have a long tradition of harnessing New York City as their canvas, seeing no boundaries between studio and street. The FESTIVAL allows artists to act upon that impulse by providing them with a place where the unpredictable, the spontaneous and the downright weird can still happen.

I will let these words from the DAC website speak for themselves.