Global Warming; Den of Cin's Oscar Night; Matthew Feinman; Super Soul at Mercury

Just a friendly reminder that climate change?you can't call it "global warming" because that puts everyone in a hissy fit?is real. At some point, someone good-looking and charismatic is going to have to rise out of Generation Y to do something about it (put a big heat-diffusion shield around the Earth, knock our orbit back a bit, unleash nanotech cooling molecules, etc.), because we're the folks who will have to deal with its unforeseeable and disastrous consequences. (Among these consequences: go to Amsterdam now, because Dutch officials are worried that their capital is going to be underwater by 2100.)

We need someone like Topher Grace of That 70's Show, or maybe Mattie Stepanek, the little muscular dystrophy kid who writes the poems, to take up this cause. We need someone to do for climate change what Ralph Nader did for seat belts and Magic Johnson did for AIDS?to make it a real, nubby wart on the American conscience. We've waited long enough. Fearless leader, show yourself! If you don't, I'll have to take up the mantle myself.

...Another news item that continues to dick with us is last year's phantom actors' strike. The strike, coupled with a much less important writers' strike (Writers! Ha!), was supposed to shut down Hollywood starting June 2001, costing billions of dollars and killing 82,000 jobs. Luckily the actors, many of whom had yet to appear on MTV's Cribs, decided at the last minute to keep making films. Problem is that in anticipation of this strike, a slew of b-grade movies got rush-produced and now they're infesting theaters?there's no other explanation, really, for Queen of the Damned or 40 Days and 40 Nights.

That makes this year's Oscars something to look forward to. Watching a 30-second clip of Lord of the Rings is going to be a damned sight more fun than sitting through John Q., and while any neighborhood bar is a blast on Oscar night (it's the only time you'll see grown men in Devils jerseys screaming, "Yeah, Marcia Gay Harden! You my girl!"), the Den of Cin at Two Boots looks particularly inviting this year.

For those who haven't been, the Den of Cin is a bar under a video store/pizza place, one of those New York updates on the general store that makes perfect sense. Generally it screens offbeat films (last one I saw was Toxic Avenger IV) and showcases stand-up comedy; for Oscar night there is going to be an open beer/wine bar and unlimited free pizza of the spicy, Cajun, Two Boots variety.

All this costs $25, but you'd probably spend almost as much on takeout and beer in your own home. It's good to get out on Oscar night; the ice is already broken and friendships can be forged easily. The party starts at 7 p.m. at the Two Boots Den of Cin (44 Ave. A at E. 3rd St., 254-0800) this Sunday.

...Meanwhile, earlier in the week, a veteran New York artist named Matthew Feinman opens a show in Chelsea. How veteran is Mr. Feinman?

"I'm 77 years old. I've been showing for, I don't know, 50 years. I remember my first show, which was in 1955, in a place called the Burr Gallery, and then there was a gallery in New Haven?I forgot the name of that. At some point it doesn't make much sense to count the shows."

Mr. Feinman is one of those people from his generation who has cozied up to computers, like the Video Professor; his latest art reflects that. To create his new pieces, he painted with pastels, scanned the paintings onto a PC, messed with them in Photoshop, printed them back out, painted over with more pastels and repeated the process. The finished diptychs are swaths of juxtaposed color that resemble Martian landscapes but also resemble, well, what it would look like if a guy messed around with Photoshop on a computer. They're beautiful.

"I found myself absolutely not knowing what I was doing and that made it even more exciting," Mr. Feinman explains. "Virtually everything that happened onscreen was a surprise."

It's nice to see older people accepting computer technology, especially when they are usually the first to get mad at PCs for being "too slow." Mr. Feinman grew up in an electronic world, where flipping a light switch generated an instant response; he didn't grow up in a digital world, where clicking a mouse leads to seconds of waiting. Fortunately, he's adjusted:

"I love that little bar that goes at the bottom! That bar gives me a minute to breathe, and at a certain point you know it's going to appear, and then the curtain is drawn back and...mwah! There it is!"

Matthew Feinman's mixed-media work goes on display this week at the Blue Mountain Gallery (530 W. 25th St., 4th fl., betw. 10th & 11th Aves., 646-486-4343). The reception is Thursday at 5 p.m., where you can expect free white wine.

"There's going to be red, too, don't forget," Mr. Feinman adds. "And it's going to be cheap! Cheap wine!"

...Finally, anyone who's tuned in to the new Power 105.1 radio station and has been just confused by modern r&b (what are these blipping noises?) would do well to get to Mercury Lounge this Saturday. That's when Daptone Records brings down three of its bands?Sugarman Three, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings and the Mighty Imperials?for a Super-Soul Revue. It's going to be a night of funk without the blipping or little men running around with dragons shaved in their hair; it'll also be a chance to spy the odd collection of vinyl geeks, old-time jazz heads and actual working DJs that keep this type of music alive in New York.

Daptone Records, see, sells only funk and Afrobeat 45s (they'll begin putting out LPs inMay). It might seem impossible for a company like that to be anything resembling solvent this day and age, but for DJs and turntable enthusiasts, it's heaven-sent. These people eat up the limited pressings, high-quality vinyl and the fact that all 45s are recorded and mixed in Brooklyn.

One of Daptone Records' flagship bands is the Sugarman Three, who rival Steven Bernstein's Sex Mob for best revivalist group in New York City, period. They play straight-up soul/funk/jazz flavored with Neal Sugarman's sax and Adam Scone's Hammond B-3; when they get onstage, you'll wonder where their songs were when you thought P-Funk was cool.

Also on Saturday's bill are the Mighty Imperials, a Meters-style quartet, and Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. Sharon Jones does a wicked version of "I've Got the Feelin'"; the Dap-Kings are Daptone Records' house band. The Super-Soul Revue hits Mercury Lounge (217 E. Houston St., betw. Ludlow & Essex Sts., 260-4700) this Saturday. Doors open at 8 p.m., tickets are $10, and you'd better get them fast because if they're not sold out already, they will be.