Things To Come, Subcategory: "Short-term"

By Robbie on May 17, 2010

This Thursday May 20 I'm taking part in an unusual kind of pageant, and if you live in New York City or are going to be in the area, listen up. John Wesley Harding, that crafty smartypants songwriter and regularwriter, is staging something he calls the Cabinet of Wonders at the chi-chi hotspot Le Poisson Rouge. (It is not to be confused with the equally chi-chi but much smaller hotspot called Le Poisson Rouge in Elkhart, Indiana.) The nice thing about this show is the variety -- there's poetry, singing, and funniness, so you never have to sit there for hours on end thinking, "My God, make this funny man go away." Within seconds, poof, he's gone, and someone is singing right in your face!

On the bill are Janeane Garofalo, Paul Muldoon, Lenny Kaye, and Eugene Mirman, and maybe others for all I know. If you haven't seen or heard Mr. Mirman, you must (that's really why I'm going). Once in a while in the boringly formalized world of stand-up comedy, with its grim we're-all-in-the-same-stinking-mess cosmology, a fresh voice comes forward, someone that, were you to break bread with him off-hours, you feel sure would be funny and delightful, not, like so many other comedians, simply boorish and self-centered and needy and clinically depressed. This is turning into a truly terrible blurb. Anyway, judging by the smartly offbeat and low-key observations that make up his "act," Eugene is funny down in his bones, and a true prodigy with language. See the show if you can.

I'll be accompanied by my frequent collaborator, that heroine of the horsehair, Jenny Scheinman. If you're in the mood to hear me play more than two songs, and want to hear some great fiddling and lady-singing besides, come to Joe's Pub on Wednesday instead (or better yet, besides). Miss Scheinman and I are gingerly striking out beyond the cozy, forgiving realm of Barbes and into the madcap, commercialized, put-up-or-shut-up pressure cooker of lower Manhattan. We would love for you to be there with us at this new stage of our...okay, fasten your safety belts, it looks like this paragraph has no choice but to end with journey. 

And on Saturday we finish off in Cambridge at Passim. Get off your pampered asses, beloved Harvardians, and shake some ancient wisdom out of your skulls; for this fearsomely skilled country-folk duo may not pass your way again.