Here's a headline that should warm the heart of every New Yorker:

Wal-Mart Chief Writes Off New York

Saturday:

Genesis, no! - another experimental performance at PS 122 - is a parody of museum culture.

Weekend roundup

Thursday: We went to see the Aquila Theatre Company's production of Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus at the Classic Stage Company, with David Oyelowo.

Friday: With several inches of snow on the ground, and ice pelting us from the sky, we ventured to New York City Center to see the Paul Taylor Dance Company.

Saturday: Onward to Chelsea to see Justine Kurland's photographs of mothers and children in majestic natural settings, at Mitchell-Innes & Nash; then Nan Goldin at Matthew Marks; and finally the Lebanese-born artist Walid Raad at Paula Cooper.

Sunday: Irish Modern Dance Theater's "anarchic and quirky" RrrrrrrKILLKILLKILL . . . to infinity (MAKE IT LOOK REAL) at Performance Space 122. Then, dinner at Café Mogador.

Breaking and entering

Sunday at the Whitney Museum: Gordon Matta Clark and one of my favorites from a decade ago, Lorna Simpson (above).

Amazingly bad idea department

France Bans 'Citizen Journalists' From Reporting on Violence
The French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites publishing the images, one French civil liberties group warned.
Via mediabistro.

In other news, France has agreed to allow Abu Dhabi to attach the Louvre’s name to a new museum for $520 million. "For France the agreement signals a new willingness to exploit its culture for political and economic ends." From the New York Times.

Tonight, dinner at Kefi, which has clearly benefited from this favorable review, and then Merkin Concert Hall, where a visibly nervous teenage pianist charmed the audience (program below).

Camerata NY & the Leschetizky Association
Rossini - Barber of Seville Overture
Chopin - Piano Concerto No. 1
Mendelssohn - Symphony No. 3 "Scotch"

(Piano soloist Graciela Arguedas was the winner of the Leschetizky Foundation Youth Players Competition.)

Beethoven in Astoria

The impressive Cuban pianist Orlando Alonso played Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 with the Astoria Symphony.

The rest of the program:

Debussy Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun
Schubert Symphony No. 8 (“Unfinished”)
Soluri Pas de Trois: Ballet Sketches
Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5 (“Emperor”)

Sunday, March 4, 2007 at 5:00 p.m.
St. Joseph's Catholic Church, 43-19 30th Avenue at 43rd St., Astoria

Abbas Kiarostami

Abbas Kiarostami is a contemporary Iranian filmmaker I had never heard of until I saw his photographs on my most recent trip to P.S.1. He is now the subject of an exhibition and retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art.

Department of 'familiar metatheatrical gambits'

I had high hopes for "A Spanish Play," by Yasmina Reza, who did "Art," which I really liked. (I didn't see "Art" on Broadway, though; believe it or not, I saw it at the Weston Playhouse in Weston, Vermont.) But the monologues go almost nowhere, and the gimmick of filming the actors with a handheld camcorder and simultaneously projecting the footage against the back wall is weird and disruptive.

Drinks at Thalia, to toast a former colleague's move to Hong Kong, and then the parody Altar Boyz.