Pitchfork

Billed as "a weekend celebration of arts and ideas," the lineup for the latest New Yorker Festival delivers what it promises: over the weekend of October 5-7, the venerable literary and cultural institution will host a truly impressive roster of artists participating in unique, intimate performances and discussion forums at many venues across the city.

Friday night's New Yorker dance party should prove more exciting than that name would suggest, hosted as it is by critic of note Sasha Frere-Jones and so funkdafied by Diplo. Saturday has S/FJ chatting it up with Fiona Apple and giving a talk called "What Isn't Hip Hop?" (Alan Jackson, dude). Saturday also finds Sigur Rós-- as is so often their way-- doing a lot of stuff at once: performing acoustically, conversing with New Yorker staffer John Seabrook, and holding the first showing of their film, Heima. Renaissance man David Byrne hosts a multimedia event called "How New Yorkers Ride Bikes" featuring music, discussion, film, readings, and Calvin Trillin. Perhaps he'll read one of his delightfully droll poems about the Bush administration! "There once was a man on a Segway..."

Saturday also finds Jersey lifers Yo La Tengo giving a talk "with music," while a "Guitar Gods" performance with Dick Dale, ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons, Living Colour's Vernon Reid, and the Mars Volta's Omar Rodriguez-Lopez goes on in another borough. First daughter of country music Roseanne Cash will perform and chat. The full roster hasn't been announced yet, but at this point, Sunday seems to have been turned over entirely to 20th century classical music. WOO PHILIP GLASS

The complete schedule of events will be posted online September 10, and will appear in the September 17 issue of the magazine.