DON’T MISS!: IN THE CARDS
At one time, women had their own baseball league (made famous by the 1992 movie with Madonna). But did you know women used to have their own trading cards? Some 100 of the cards, from the late 1880s through 1914, are on display in “A Sport for Every Girl,” a splendid exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
For the cards, conceived as advertising material for tobacco companies, curator Freyda Spira says, “Models were used to portray the various sporting girls — what was of utmost importance was their beauty, grace and fashion rather than a real sense of being actively participating in a sport.” Risqué for the times, the images were often hung in shop windows and, says Spira, “attracted very rowdy male crowds.”
Apparently some things never change. “With their appeal to a male audience, and their use of provocatively costumed beauties whose connection to real sports is tenuous at best,” Spira says, “these cards are most similar to Sports Illustrated’s famed swimsuit issues.” Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street; 212-535-7710, metmuseum.org.
— Billy Heller
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WATCH IT!: NO TALKING
Want to introduce your kids to silent films? Try Buster Keaton’s masterpiece “Sherlock Jr.” (1924) in which the comic genius plays a projectionist who falls asleep and dreams he’s up on the movie screen — a conceit borrowed decades later by Woody Allen’s “The Purple Rose of Cairo.” Pianist Steve Sterner provides accompaniment for an hourlong program that also includes the 1928 Max Fleischer animated short “Koko’s Earth Control.” It’s showing Sunday at 11 a.m. as part of Film Forum’s new Film Forum Jr. series, appropriate for kids 5 and up; admission is $7 for everybody. Houston and Varick streets. Info: filmforum.org.
— Lou Lumenick
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LISTEN UP!: JAZZ-TASTIC
With 70-plus artists playing at six Village venues within about six blocks, the ninth annual NYC Winter Jazzfest tonight and tomorrow is not just one of the best jazz experiences around, but also the densest. “This one weekend everybody gets together in downtown to play from evening till the early morning,” says 25-year-old guitarist Rafiq Bhatia, whose own cutting-edge band goes on tomorrow night at 12:30 at the Bitter End.
But it’s not just big and packed, it’s diverse. With solo baritone-sax monster and Arcade Fire collaborator Colin Stetson right across the street from the South Indian-jazz fusion of the band Rudresh Mahanthappa’s Gamak, Bhatia says, “you might be surprised to find these artists performing as part of the same festival.” So whether you plan out your schedule or just wander in blind, you are bound to find something your ears.
One-day pass $35, weekend pass $45; winterjazzfest.com.
— Charlie Heller
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SEE THIS!: HAZE & RAZE
Pavel Zustiak comes from a country that no longer exists. Born in the Slovak part of what was once Czechoslovakia, his “Amidst” is filled with ghostly images and nostalgia for a past you can’t return to.
The haunting hourlong “live performance installation” will unfold in the theater at Performance Space 122, turned into a haze-filled room with no seats. Zustiak likes that uncertainty. “When you enter the space you don’t know what the rules are,” he says.
It takes time to figure them out. Three performers, including Zustiak, emerge out of the mist to clump together or slide along walls beside shadowy photo projections. Appropriately for a work about not being able to go home again, after the show closes the building will be gutted and completely remodeled.
Tomorrow, 5 p.m.; Sunday, 3 p.m.; and Monday, 8 p.m. $20 at 150 First Ave.; 212-352-3101, ps122.org/coil.
— Leigh Witchel
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CHECK IT OUT!: GOOD GOLLY, MISS MOLLY
You know her best as the fresh-faced star of “Pretty in Pink” and “Sixteen Candles.” Now Molly Ringwald, with 44 candles under her belt, is making her New York cabaret debut. And although she has an album of tunes from the Great American Songbook due in April, she made her recording debut at age 6, joining her jazz pianist father, Bob Ringwald, and his group, the Fulton Street Jazz Band. “I’ve been singing longer than I’ve been acting,” she boasts. For her shows Tuesday and Wednesday at 54 Below, she’ll sing such standards as “I Get Along Without You Very Well” and “The Very Thought of You” — and “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” from “The Breakfast Club” soundtrack, retooled as a jazz ballad.
“It doesn’t sound like the Simple Minds version,” Ringwald says, “but it totally works.” 254 W. 54th St.; 646-476-3551.
— Frank Scheck
