••• From E.: “I thought you would like to know: I heard (from someone working outside) that Trader Joe’s on Spring Street is opening in two weeks.”

••• I finally got around to watching Faces Places, the documentary by film director Agnès Varda and JR, the artist whose murals of orphans and a dancer graced the wall at Sixth Ave. and Franklin. The movie is such a treat! Sly, gentle, and altogether winning. The photos of regular people used in the paste-ups struck me as much more powerful that what we’ve seen around here. (I don’t know where you can stream it. We got the DVD from Netflix, and before you laugh, you might want to investigate how much better Netflix’s DVD selection is than the onslaught of dreck online.)

••• Opening May 1 at Ortuzar Projects: “Peter Roehr: 1963–1965, an exhibition featuring photomontage, film and text works. Despite his untimely death at the age of 24, Peter Roehr (1944–1968) produced over 600 works throughout the course of his career. Bridging Minimalism and Pop Art, and prefiguring the appropriation strategies that would emerge more broadly in the 1980s, Roehr used reproduction and repetition as a response to the consumer culture of Germany’s post-war ‘economic miracle.’ Peter Roehr: 1963–1965 centers on photomontage, for which the artist is best known. Between 1964 and 1966, Roehr made 127 of these works, each consisting of unedited images from advertisements that he cropped and arranged in identical gridded rows.”

••• I’ve always wondered what this thing on Duane Street is, so when two guys were working on it, I asked them. “It has to do with the gas regulator,” I was told.

••• From the calendar of summer events released by the Battery Park City Authority: “BPC Golden Jubilee – Thursday, May 31, 5:30 p.m., Rockefeller Park. On May 31, 1968, Governor Rockefeller signed the Battery Park City Authority Act. Bring a picnic dinner and celebrate on the lawns of Rockefeller Park with neighbors and special guests. Enjoy music by Bang on a Can’s Asphalt Orchestra and the funky reggae beats of Brown Rice Family. The first 150 to register at registration@bpcparks.org will receive a free commemorative 50th Anniversary picnic blanket.”