When Canadians Attack: Forget Saturday afternoon power yoga followed by a three-hour nap: Canadian wunderkinds the Arcade Fire swoop into town, hipster doofus heads explode, and the under-30 population of New York migrates en masse to the band’s latest weird-and-hard-to-get-to venue. (Randall’s Island? In the middle of the afternoon? Really?) Even if you have to shell out $240 on Craigslist, rest assured that this will prove to your unborn children that you used to be cool. (If you have current children, you’re not cool, stop trying to be, and leave your damn kids at home—in fact, stay home with them, it’s an esoteric concept called being a parent.) We’ll be there looking for sensitive, Grolsch-chugging, tortured types who can break our hearts in the future. Back on the island, the New Yorker festival smacks you in the face as editor-in-chief David Remnick interviews both Ian McEwan (fiction!) and Seymour Hersh (nonfiction!) “Usually when I meet writers like Ian McEwan, it’s in my editor’s supplicant role, begging for whatever I can get,” Mr. Remnick said. “He is as good as it gets in fiction.” (Drat, does this mean we actually have to finish Atonement before the movie comes out?) “Sy Hersh … he’s fearless. We’ve been working together for a long time. Sometimes you can lose track of just how much he means to people.” We’re partial to movie critic and rake Anthony Lane ourselves!
[Arcade Fire at Randall’s Island, 3:30 p.m., www.ticketmaster.com; Ian McEwan and Seymour Hersh interviewed by David Remnick, 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., respectively, Directors Guild of America, 110 West 57th Street, for tickets and listings, www.festival.newyorker.com]
