February

WHOOPI TAKES BROADWAY, HIS AIRNESS AT 40, AND A MANOLO MOMENT IN LONDON

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FRIDAY

SATURDAY

1 First-ever museum "* exhibition devoted to Manolo Blahnik (he works alone, without assistants or apprentices; Diana Vreeland saw the aspiring theater designer's sketches and suggested he design shoes instead), at London's Design Museum.

2 The West Coast's first comprehensive John Singer Sargent exhibition, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is called "Sargent and Italy." (Born to expat American parents in Florence in 1856, Sargent would return to Italy each summer.)

3 One Joe—Joey Bishop, the last remaining member of the Rat Pock—turns 85. Another Joe—Joseph Brodsky, the Nobel-winning poet viewed as the last figure in the St. Petersburg artistic legacy—is remembered at Houston's Museum of Fine Arts.

4 PBS: Nova offers an exclusive look at a Department of Defense weapons competition (Boeing vs. Lockheed Martin, over the Joint Strike Fighter). Weapons manufacturer to heavily decorated armed-forces commander, "You bitch!"

5 Out in paperback from Vintoge: Valerie Martin's The Great Divorce and Andrew Vachss's Getaway Divorce and getaway: a theme emerges.

6 Charles Dutton and Whoopi Goldberg star in a Broadway revival of August Wilson's Mo Rainey's Black Bottom. Twenties Chicago musicians' struggles with The

7 The Los Angeles Opera performs The Barber of Seville at former Oscar roost, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

8 Just two days away: N.Y.C.'s Metropolitan Opera celebrates the 200th birthday of Berlioz with Les Troyens. Deborah Voigt soars, James Levine conducts.

9 Fort Worth's Kimbell Art Museum pays homage to a certain Parisian neighborhood in "Modigliani and the Artists of Montparnasse," featuring onetime kids on the Montpamassian block Brancusi, Picasso, Matisse, and Soutine.

11 Blair Brown stars as Prospera (not Prospero) in Emily Mann's production of The Tempest, at Princeton, New Jersey's McCarter Theater, and David Rensin signs Mailroom: Hollywood History from the Bottom Up at L.A.'s Book Soup.

12 Though more difficult to get to, N.Y.C.'s transplanted Museum of Modern Art (now in Queens) is as thematically accessible as ever: its new show, opening tomorrow, is "Matisse Picasso."

13 The artist who designed the Love icon in the 60s—Robert Indiana—gets a dose of love when C&M Arts in N.Y.C. opens an exhibition of his work

14 The 100th annivers anniversary of the creation of the De Department of Commerce and Champagne, champagne!

15 Tomorrow, two opportunities to be transported: L.A.'s Museum of Contemporary Art puts on a show of Lucian Freud paintings, and Michigan's Public Museum of Grand Rapids exhibits the Dead Sea Scrolls.

16 The Berkshires get a dose of desert: Renoir's trips to Algeria come to life in the Clark Art Institute's "Renoir and ,/ Algeria," in Williamstown, Massachusetts.

17 Michael Jordan— God's living proof that "adorable" and six feet six inches are not mutually exclusive—turns 40.

18 Pianist Mitsuko Uchida plays her specialty—Schubert sonatas—at Carnegie Hall.

19 Gin Pissing Raw Meat Dual Carburetor V8 Son of a Bitch. That's a book being read today at L.A.'s Book Soup by its author, Dan Fante. Be afraid, very afraid. Similarly: N.Y.C.'s Guggenheim exhibits a tribute to Matthew Barney's eerie Cremaster films.

21 How to fit in at the Lyric Opera of Chicago's Wine Auction: become dewy-eyed and pre-orgasmic at the sight of a "buttery" Chardonnay. How to become a defender of free speech: watch Bill Maher's new show on HBO.

22 "Living Inside the Grid," at N.Y.C.'s New Museum: emerging artists use the grid to describe the "myriad challenges of living in a world controlled by institutions, technology, and media." Conspiracy theorists converge.

23 The British equivalent of the Oscars—the baftas—presented at London's Odeon Leicester Square. Gushy showbiz posturing, bad teeth, Harry Potter's Rupert Grint.

24 "Van Gogh: Fields," at the Toledo Museum of Art—we're talking Ohio, not Spain. An exhibition of 20 paintings and a selection of works on paper depicting fields.

25 Polish Joke, a play by David Ives (All in the Timing), concerns a young Pole who sets out to avoid becoming a stereotype. John Rando (Urinefown) directs, at the Manhattan Theater Club.

26 Michael Bolton turns 49. Fan base grows restless, slightly defensive.

27 The annual Vienna Opera Ball commences in the Vienna State Ballroom. Ruffles, mincing.

28 In stores: new editions of Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory (with an introduction by John Updike) and Saul Bellow's Herzog (with an introduction by Philip Roth). The classics anew.