Things to Do, March 6-13

File photo
Cornell Bhangra presents Pao Bhangra XIV, March 14 in Barton Hall. The showcase of Indian and Pakistani dance and culture also features visiting Bhangra teams.

Feline Follies (and LOLcats)

Bring your cat to the annual Feline Follies, a free event open to kids, cats and adults, March 7, noon to 3 p.m. at the College of Veterinary Medicine. A “for fun” cat show includes such categories as Most Toes, Longest Tail, Best Costume and Best Trick (email a video of your cat’s trick).

Activities also include educational lectures, an adoption center, professional cat photography, a prize raffle, bake sale and children's carnival games. All proceeds benefit the SPCA of Tompkins County.

Also, for cat and LOLcat lovers, Cornell Cinema hosts the first Internet Cat Video Festival, March 13 at 7 p.m. in Willard Straight Theatre. Admission is $5.  The festival features screenings of such cat celebs as L’il Bub and Grumpy Cat, kitty cat candy, famous kitty cutouts, kitty ears and LOLcats galore, and an introduction by Leah Shafer ’94, M.A. ’99, Ph.D. ’08, a media and society professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges who has written on the topic.

World cinema

Cornell Cinema presents two contemporary world cinema premieres this week, including the winner of the Palme d'Or at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, “Winter Sleep” from Turkey; and “Stray Dogs,” from Taiwan.

Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “Winter Sleep,” screening March 7 at 6:15 p.m. and March 8 at 3:15 p.m., is a drama set in the otherworldly landscape of the Cappadocia region of central Turkey. Co-sponsored with the Department of Near Eastern Studies.

“Stray Dogs,” a visually stunning yet stark portrait of poverty and homelessness on the streets of modern-day Taipei by Taiwanese master Tsai Ming-liang, screens Friday, March 13 at 9:15 p.m. and Sunday, March 15 at 4 p.m. Cosponsored by the East Asia Program.

Reps and ‘Glorious Bastides’

Emeritus Professor of Planning John Reps, M.R.P. ’47, documents towns in southern France founded as market centers in the 13th century in the photography exhibition “Glorious Bastides,” through March 13 in the Bibliowicz Family Gallery, Milstein Hall.

Reps’ photographs, taken in 1966, record some prominent French bastides, where the market square – not the church – occupies the most prominent location in town. Founded after 1229 by kings, dukes and counts (and on several occasions, by their wives), the new towns helped populate the region east and south of Bordeaux, with their founders hoping to attract additional settlers and extend their influence and power.

The gallery is open weekdays, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. A public reception, March 9 at 4:30 p.m. in the gallery, will be followed by a 5:15 lecture by Reps in Milstein Auditorium, “The Missing Monograms Mystery: An Urban Planning Detective Story.”

Reps headed Cornell’s Department of City and Regional Planning from 1951 to 1964. Cited in 1996 by the American Planning Association as “the father of modern American city planning history,” he is the author of “The Making of Urban America,” a groundbreaking book still in print a half century later.

Beware the Ides

Professor of history and classics Barry Strauss discusses “history’s most famous assassination” March 11 at 4:30 p.m. in 107 Olin Library. The Chats in the Stacks Book Talk is free and open to the public.

In “The Death of Caesar,” published this week by Simon & Schuster, Strauss goes deeper in his investigation into the act of murder and betrayal immortalized by Shakespeare in the play “Julius Caesar.” The actual killing of Julius Caesar at Rome’s Teatro di Pompeo on March 15, 44 B.C., was a carefully orchestrated paramilitary operation planned by Caesar’s disaffected officers.

Following his talk, Strauss will answer questions and books will be available for purchase and signing.

Mixed reading

Fiction writer J. Robert Lennon and poet Valzhyna Mort will read from their work, March 12 at 4:30 p.m. in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall. Free and open to the public.

Lennon, an associate professor of English, has published seven novels, including “Mailman,” “Familiar” and “Happyland,” and two story collections including his recent book “See You in Paradise” (2014).

Mort is a visiting assistant professor and the author of two poetry collections, “Factory of Tears” and “Collected Body.” She also edited the anthologies “Something Indecent: European Poetry Recommended by Eastern European Poets” and “Gossip and Metaphysics: Prose and Poetry of Russian Modernist Poets.”

The Richard Cleaveland ’74 Memorial Reading, an annual showcase for English faculty writers, is presented as part of the Creative Writing Program’s Barbara & David Zalaznick Reading Series. 

Pao Bhangra

Cornell Bhangra hosts “Pao Bhangra XlV: The Bhangra Olympics,” Saturday, March 14 at 7 p.m. in Barton Hall. Tickets are $10 in advance, $15 at the door, $20 VIP, plus fees. Advance tickets are available from Cornell Bhangra members, the Willard Straight Hall Ticket Desk and online.

With original choreography, high-energy routines and colorful handmade costumes, Cornell Bhangra and visiting teams perform a 21st-century version of the traditional folk dance and music of northern India and Pakistan.

The event is one of the largest student-run shows on campus and the largest Bhangra exhibition in North America, inviting teams from all over the country. Upwards of 2,600 people attend each year. Attending Pao Bhangra is also No. 56 on the list of 161 things to do at Cornell before graduation.

Cornell Bhangra competed to the quarterfinals on “America’s Got Talent” and performed on NBC’s “Today Show” last year, and has been touring and performing at Cornell sesquicentennial events for alumni. 

Concerts coming

The Cornell Concert Commission (CCC) presents indie rock band Dr. Dog, Sunday, March 15 at 7 p.m. in Bailey Hall. Advance tickets are $10-$15 for Cornell students, $20-$25 for the general public, online sales only. All tickets $5 more day of show.

The CCC and Dan Smalls Presents also co-present shows by OK Go, April 10 at the State Theatre ($10 general admission for Cornell students, limit one per person, at University Tickets) and Modest Mouse, Sunday, April 19 at 7 p.m. in Barton Hall. Advance tickets are $20 for students with valid Cornell ID; $40 for the general public (on sale March 6 at 9 a.m.); at cornellconcerts.com and dansmallspresents.com.

Literary Lunch

Fiction writer and essayist Leslie Daniels is the featured writer at a Literary Lunch, Tuesday, March 17 at 11:30 a.m. at the Cayuga Heights residence of President David Skorton and Professor Robin Davisson. The event is free and open to the first 25 people to RSVP by March 10 to special-events@cornell.edu. A light lunch is included.

Daniels lives in Ithaca and is artistic adviser to Spring Writes, the Finger Lakes Literary Festival. She also is fiction editor of The Louisville Review and teaches writing in the Spalding University MFA program.

Her first novel, “Cleaning Nabokov’s House” (2011), set in a house Vladimir Nabokov occupied while teaching at Cornell, has been published in five languages and has been optioned for a motion picture.

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