[field notes nyc] things to do in new york: Oct 27 - Nov 2
Beyond Halloweekend: cookbook club, Korean ceramics, and Marathon Day
Multiday Events
🎶 Unsound Festival 10/27 - 11/6: “Unsound focuses on a broad swath of contemporary music — emerging, experimental, and leftfield — whose sweep doesn’t follow typical genre constraints. Influential, it has developed a reputation for identifying innovative scenes and radical sounds.”
📚 PAC Icons of Culture 10/29 - 11/1: “The festival brings together innovators, creators, and game changers for a series of conversations about shaping culture and influencing the way we live, work, and play.” Featuring talks with Es Devlin & Lucy Liu.
Monday, October 27
🎨 the more than human world: Exhibition Preview and Conversation with Del Kathryn Barton
5.30 - 8pm | American Australian Association: 600 Third Avenue, Manhattan |
“The American Australian Association will host a special evening celebrating acclaimed Australian artist and filmmaker Del Kathryn Barton during her upcoming exhibition at albertz benda, in New York. The program will feature an intimate conversation and panel discussion exploring Barton’s artistic journey and cinematic work. Guests will enjoy drinks, light refreshments, and a showcase of projected excerpts from her films and artwork.”
Tuesday, October 28
🎬🎶 Psykho III The Musical: 40th Anniversary Reunion
7pm | MoMA | $14
“Mark Oates’s musical satire of the Alfred Hitchcock classic Psycho premiered onstage at New York City’s legendary Pyramid Club in December 1983. The 24-minute screen adaptation, Psykho III the Musical, made in 1985 by Oates and renowned video artist Tom Rubnitz, preserves a landmark of the influential Lower Manhattan queer theater scene of the period. For this unique celebratory event, featuring unseen outtakes and a slideshow of rare visual material, members of the original cast will join Oates’s wife Anne McInnis and composer Chal Pivik on a panel moderated by writer-performer KESTUTIS NAKAS ”
Wednesday, October 29
🧠 Web4: The Offline Rabbit Hole
7 - 9pm | Secret Riso Club: 122 Central Ave, Brooklyn | Pay what you can, $15 suggested
“Web4 is a monthly speaker series that invites four presenters to showcase thoughts, research, or stories — their own offline rabbit holes — and invites audience members to provide feedback, questions, or paths for continued immersion.”
📚 BOMB’s Fall Issue Launch Party 2025
7.30pm | Powerhouse Arena: 28 Adams St, Brooklyn | $12.51
“Join us for a celebration of our Fall Issue. Embark on an evening of strange delights filled with oracle readings, BOMB’s infamous punch, and a surprise performance from one of our latest contributors that promises to bewitch.”
🕵️♀️ Murder Mystery
7 - 9pm | baba cool: 33 Lafayette ave, Brooklyn | $98
”join us to solve a murder case over seasonal bites + unlimited beer & wine. each guest will be assigned a character leading up to the event - costume suggestions & scripts will be provided.”
Thursday, October 30
🎨 Designed to Control: Authoritarian Branding of the 20th Century
6.30 - 7.30pm | Poster House: 119 W 23 St, Manhattan | $10
“Graphic design, typography, officially sanctioned styles and fashions, symbolism and signs played a huge role in transforming children and teenagers into functioning fascists, indoctrinated in stages according to their age and level of cognitive development. In honor of the exhibition The Future Was Then: The Changing Face of Fascist Italy, prominent design historian Steven Heller will present a survey of this charged topic and address the design methods used to enforce conformity to various regimes’ authoritarian agendas.”
🍽️ COOKBOOK CLUB: Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love by Samin Nosrat
7 - 9pm | Archestratus: 164 Huron St, Brooklyn | Free
“Join us at the shop for a community potluck and party! The Archestratus Cookbook Club has been running for 9 years and counting... IT IS SIMPLE: Cook your way through Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love by Samin Nosrat and drop by with a dish! All are welcome! It’s a potluck party! It’s mad civilized! Potlucks with all of you give us a dose of hope for the universe!”
🪄 Magic: Nicole Cardoza in Revival
7 - 8.30pm | Brooklyn Museum | $50
“Enter the mesmerizing world of magician Nicole Cardoza in her hour-long performance Revival. In this narrative-driven show, Cardoza reflects on her ancestry, highlighting the underacknowledged history of Black and women magicians. Combining creative illusions with storytelling, she brings together the art of stage magic and the work of social justice.”
🎃 The Met Cloisters Late Night: All Hallows’ Eve
6 - 9pm | The Met Cloisters | $50
“Join us for a special after-hours event at The Met Cloisters and discover the mysterious, mystical, and magical world of the Middle Ages. Make art, meet experts, enjoy a performance, view the exhibition Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages, and much more.”
Friday, October 31
🎃 Village Halloween Parade
7pm | 6th Ave between King St and West 15th | Free
NYC’s most iconic Halloween tradition returns for its 52nd year — a wild, surreal procession of puppets, dancers, bands, and thousands of costumed New Yorkers taking over Sixth Avenue. You can either watch from the sidelines or join in (costume required!) as the parade winds from Canal Street to 15th starting at 7pm.
🎬🎶 Blade: Halloween Film Screening
7.30pm | Lincoln Center: David Rubenstein Auditorium, 1887 Broadway, Manhattan | Free
“A full-length screening of Blade (1998), the pioneering, classic Marvel film that introduced Wesley Snipes to the world as a half-vampire hybrid fighting to save the human race, but with the added twist of a live original soundtrack by DJ 2-Tone Jones! Put on your best Halloween costume and join us for a bloody good episode of Beats, Rhymes & Sights, Lincoln Center’s celebration of the artistry, spirit, and history of Hip-Hop! The night’s entertainment is co-curated by cultural influencer Xavier “X” Jernigan and mixtape masters Gerald Watson and DJ 2-Tone Jones, co-founders of Shaolin Jazz, the lifestyle brand that explores the intersections of Hip-Hop, jazz, and martial arts culture.”
Saturday, November 1
🌿 Roots of Remembrance with Yabisi
3 - 4pm | WSA: 161 Water St, Manhattan | $10 suggested donation
“In this workshop, we’ll explore how herbs serve as portals to ancestral memory and guidance within Caribbean and African diasporic traditions. Together we’ll learn the spiritual and healing properties of select plants, then engage in a guided meditation to connect with their wisdom. The session will close with a simple collective ritual, offering herbs, water, and prayer to honor the ancestors who walk with us. This gathering blends teaching, practice, and remembrance—an opportunity to root into the medicine of the plants while opening space for connection with lineage.”
🎨 Soft Sculpture Workshop: Appliqué
9 - 11am | MoMA | Free with RSVP
“As part of Creativity Lab: Tender Commons artist Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya will lead monthly, hands-on soft-sculpture workshops based on embellishment techniques such as embroidery, beading, appliqué, etc. Following the end of each workshop, participants will contribute their soft sculpture to become a part of the growing Tender Commons tapestry. Each workshop includes a collective reading of a key text, an introduction to soft-sculpture making with embellishment techniques, intention setting and affirmations, and a facilitated closing ritual.”
🐦⬛ HALLOWEEN EDITION: Astoria Park, Queens bird walk with that quirky bird girl
3 - 4.30pm | Astoria Park: Queens
“This walk isn’t just about spotting birds (though trust me, we’ll find plenty). It’s about creating space for connection — with nature, with each other, and with ourselves. Expect a mix of fun bird facts, goofy impressions, and stellar learning opportunities.”
🎨 Copy/Paste/ Print/Repeat Grand Finale
12 - 3.30pm | Poster House: 119 W 23 St, Manhattan | Free with RSVP
“In honor of its final weekend, it’s time for the grand finale of Copy/Paste/Print/Repeat: Mike King & The Art of the Gig Poster! Here’s your chance to join Mike King in creating a poster in the classic cut-and-paste punk style of yesteryear. Rev up the Xerox machine and ready your scissors and glue sticks, because it’s time to see if you have the chops to dethrone America’s punk poster champion.”
📷📚 ICP x The Messy Truth—Between Two Worlds: Photography’s Unfixed Future
11 - 6pm | ICP: 84 Ludlow Street, Manhattan | $5+
“This one-day salon will explore what contemporary photography is today and what we want it to be. Alongside host Gem Fletcher, guest speakers, including Abdul Kircher, Farah Al Qasimi, Charlie Engman, Sinna Nasseri, Gideon Jacobs and more, will discuss where we stand and propose ideas about what comes next. The day will conclude with a conversation with Kathy Ryan, artist, curator, educator and former Director of Photography for The New York Times Magazine.”
Sunday, November 2
Arguably one of the most joyful days in NYC! Even if you don’t know anyone running, One of my favorite writers, Haley Nahman, captures the magic of Marathon Day in this essay:
There’s something so moving about the runners’ bare display of humanity—their willingness to suffer together in search of meaning—and the spectators’ naked, unspecific support. All of it seems to suggest humans aren’t actually geared toward ease, comfort, and caring about ourselves; that defining us that way is, at the very least, incomprehensive. The whole thing is life-affirming in a way few modern spectacles are.
🎨🍷 Clay & Cultivar: Korean Ceramics + Natural Wine Night in Brooklyn
4.30 - 7.30pm | Dirtbag ArtHaus: | $150
“Clay holds more than form—it holds memory, story, and sometimes, really good wine.
Join Dirtbag ArtHaus, Haewon Jung, and Anju Wines for Clay & Cultivar, a one-night experience blending Korean ceramic tradition, natural wine, and hands-on creativity in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Sip terroir-driven wines grown in clay soil, shape your own bonchon (anju) dish using the sanggam inlay technique, and snack on thoughtful Korean-inspired bites in between. It’s a slow, sensory reset for anyone who likes their art (and their wine) unfiltered.”
Please make sure to confirm details with event organizers.
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