Provided

Midori performs Nov. 5 in Bailey Hall.

Painfully loyal

The Department of Performing and Media Arts presents Rajiv Joseph’s “Gruesome Playground Injuries,” Nov. 1 at 4:30 p.m. and Nov. 2-3 at 7:30 p.m. in the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts’ Black Box Theatre.

The play stars Lili Aguirre ’14 and Enoch Newkirk ’14 as Kayleen and Doug, two friends who come in and out of each other’s lives from ages 8 to 38.

 “Doug and Kayleen keep missing each other,” says guest director Sarah K. Chalmers, who taught acting at Cornell as a Resident Professional Teaching Associate. “They connect around their injuries and illnesses as they struggle to alleviate each other’s pain. It’s gruesome but it’s not without humor and heart. These two truly love each other.”

Chalmers is a Cornell Public Service Center Civic Leader Fellow, director of civic engagement for Civic Ensemble in Ithaca and a visiting lecturer in Binghamton University’s Theatre Department.

Tickets are $5, available at the box office, 430 College Ave.; by calling 607-254-2787 or online at www.SchwartzTickets.com

Folk concerts

Cornell Folk Song Society (CFSS) presents two concerts in November. Vermont dance band Elixir, Sunday, Nov. 3, 4:30 p.m. in 303 Appel Commons, performs a high-energy fusion of traditional Celtic and French Canadian music, Dixieland jazz, swing, reggae and rock. There will be seating and room for dancing.

Former Ithacans John Roberts and Tony Barrand perform Nov. 9, 8 p.m. in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall. The pair of expatriate Britons met in 1968 as Cornell graduate students in psychology, sharing an interest in Anglo-American folk music, from shanties to bawdy pub and music hall songs. They began singing together the following year, and ran the Cornell Folk Song Club.

Tickets for each concert are $15 advance, $17 at the door, children free; $5 for CFSS student members (free membership for Cornell students). Rebates available. Advance tickets at Ithaca Guitar Works, Autumn Leaves Books, GreenStar Cooperative Market and www.cornellfolksong.org/. Information: 607-351-1845.

The society and Cornell Contra Dance Club also co-sponsor square and contra dances with Elixir, Nov. 2 at 4 and 8 p.m. in the Willard Straight Hall Memorial Room. Free beginning contra workshop at 7:30 p.m.

Veterans Day observances

Cornell’s ROTC Detachment will march in the Tompkins County Veterans Day Parade, Sunday, Nov. 3 beginning at 2 p.m. in Ithaca. The parade route is along South Cayuga Street from Titus Avenue to West State Street, ending at Corn Street.

The ROTC Detachment also sponsors an open house on Veterans Day, Nov. 11, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Wortham Museum in Barton Hall. The Cornell Veterans Colleague Network Group hosts a reception 11 a.m.-1 p.m. at the museum, and there will be a speaker and benediction beginning at 12:15 p.m.

Tompkins County’s Veterans Day Ceremony will be held Nov. 11, 11 a.m. to noon at DeWitt Park in Ithaca.

Information: www.veteransdayparadetompkins.org

Physics of origami

Physicist and origami artist Robert Lang will give a talk on the intersection of physics, mathematics and the ancient Japanese art of paper-folding at the Department of Physics Colloquium, Nov. 4, 4 p.m. in Schwartz Auditorium, Rockefeller Hall. Refreshments served at 3:30 p.m.

The last decade has seen a revolution in the development of new mathematical techniques and their application to origami, and along the way, enabling origami designs of “mind-blowing complexity and realism” and solving practical engineering problems.

In his talk, “From Flapping Birds to Space Telescopes: The Mathematics of Origami,” Lang will discuss how geometric concepts led to the solution of a broad class of origami folding problems – specifically, the problem of efficiently folding a shape with an arbitrary number and arrangement of flaps.

Information: http://www.physics.cornell.edu/events-2/

Covering politics

The Program on Freedom and Free Societies sponsors a talk by political reporter Robert Costa, “Tweeting from the Cloakroom: Covering Politics for a New Generation,” Nov. 4 at 5:30 p.m. in 103 Rockefeller Hall. Free and open to the public.

Costa is Washington editor of the National Review and a CNBC political analyst. He manages the National Review’s Capitol Hill bureau and reports on the White House, Congress and campaigns. He has been cited by Politico and Washingtonian magazine as one of the capital’s best reporters.

Midori in recital

Cornell Concert Series’ 110th season presents violinist Midori in performance Nov. 5 at 8 p.m. in Bailey Hall. She will be joined by chamber pianist Özgür Aydin in a duo recital featuring Mozart’s Sonata in F Major, Fauré’s Sonata in A Major, Schubert’s “Rondo Brilliant” and works by Bloch and Hindemuth.

Tickets are $17-$35, $15 for Cornell students, available at www.baileytickets.com Information: www.cornellconcertseries.com

Midori marks the 31st year of her professional career in 2013 by playing nearly 100 concerts all over the world and releasing two new recordings: one with Aydin, and a rare recording of the Hindemith violin concerto with the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Dana Gioia reading

Acclaimed poet and critic Dana Gioia will read from his work Nov. 7 at 4:30 p.m. in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall. Free and open to the public.

Gioia is the Judge Widney Professor of Poetry and Public Culture at the University of Southern California and a former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. He recently published his fourth volume of poems, “Pity the Beautiful.” Gioia’s 2001 poetry collection “Interrogations at Noon” won the American Book Award, and his 1991 volume of essays “Can Poetry Matter?” was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle award.

The biennial Robert Chasen Memorial Poetry Reading is presented by the Department of English and Creative Writing Program’s Barbara & David Zalaznick Reading Series. Information: creativewriting@cornell.edu or http://english.arts.cornell.edu/creative/readings/

Canal challenges

Jorge de la Guardia, M.Eng. ’74, will give a public talk on the economic and political challenges of expanding the Panama Canal, Nov. 7 at 4:45 p.m. in 233 Plant Science.

As executive manager of the Panama Canal Authority Locks Project, de la Guardia is overseeing the $3.3 billion expansion of the canal locks, one of the largest infrastructure projects in the world. He has been associated with the canal authority for more than 40 years, participating in the planning, design and construction of hydroelectric projects in Panama for the former Hydraulic Resources and Power Institute, which he served as director general.

His visit is sponsored by the Cornell Institute for Public Affairs and the Cornell Program in Infrastructure Policy.