Francine Prose, Garrison Keillor (photo: Andrew Harrer Bloomberg News Landov) and Ruth Reichl
The inaugural Berkshire WordFest, a celebration of the words and ideas of contemporary writers, kicks off this weekend at The Mount, Edith Wharton’s historic home and gardens in Lenox.
Sorry to disappoint you, but no, when Mickey Leigh rolls into the Bearsville Theater in Woodstock on Saturday night to present “I Slept With Joey Ramone,” it won’t be some outrageous punk-rock sex scandal expose.
Mickey Leigh is actually Mickey Lee Hyman, the brother of Jeffry Ross Hyman, who is better known to all of us as Joey Ramone.
Leigh has written “I Slept With Joey Ramone: A Family Memoir,” and he’ll be reading from his book at the theater beginning at 8:30pm Saturday. There will also be a Q&A discussion and book-signing session.
Pat LaBarbera and Robert Pinsky
What happens when the New York State Summer Writers Institute collides with the Skidmore Jazz Institute?
That’s the question that was answered on Monday night as both Skidmore College-based institutes launched their 2010 seasons with a a joint program in the Gannett Auditorium on campus.
The answer? Magic.
Francine Prose (photo by Emma Dodge Hanson)
All readings are scheduled to begin at 8pm in Davis Auditorium of Palamountain Hall, except where noted. Admission to all events is free. Here’s the rest of the line-up for the Writers Institute events:
The Sanctuary for Independent Media wraps up it 2009-2010 season on Wednesday night with the Earth First! Journal Roadshow.
Activists from the radical environmental group Earth First! present a multi-media extravaganza celebrating 30 years of doing battle on the front lines, as they try to save our planet from ecological destruction.
Joining the Roadshow at 7pm on Wednesday will be Rik Scare (Skidmore College professor and author of the controversial book, “Eco-Warriors”) as well as the “intense folk” duo the Pleasants (featuring Amanda Rogers and Mike Matta) in support of their new CD, “Forests and Fields.”
Wednesday evening almost marks the chance that you’ll have to see the sprawling exhibition of artwork from World War III Illustrated, America’s longest-running political comic book.
Admission for Wednesday’s presentation and performance is by donation ($10 suggested, $5 student/low income).
“Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:
–Introibo ad altare Dei.
Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely:
–Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!
Keith Carter: By Twilight
Carter’s current area exhibition, “By Twilight,” is a haunting and intensely intimate series of photographs of the photographer’s mother as she descends into Alzheimer’s disease. The exhibit is currently on view at Galerie BMG in Woodstock, and Carter will be on hand for a reception at the gallery from 7-8pm Friday. The exhibition will remain on view through Monday, June 28.
I celebrate myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease … observing a spear of summer grass.
Houses and rooms are full of perfumes … the shelves are crowded with perfumes,
I breathe the fragrance myself, and know it and like it,
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.
The atmosphere is not a perfume … it has no taste of the distillation … it is odorless,
It is for my mouth forever … I am in love with it,
I will go to the bank, by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.
The smoke of my own breath,
Echoes, ripples, and buzzed whispers … loveroot, silkthread, crotch and vine,
My respiration and inspiration … the beating of my heart … the passing of blood and air through my lungs,
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and dark-colored sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,
The sound of the belched words of my voice … words loosed to the eddies of the wind,
A few light kisses … a few embraces … a reaching around of arms,
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag, The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hillsides,
The feeling of health … the full-noon trill … the song of me rising from bed and meeting the sun.
Have you reckoned a thousand acres much? Have you reckoned the earth much?
Have you practiced so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?
Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun … there are millions of suns left,
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand … nor look through the eyes of the dead … nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them for yourself.
- from “Song of Myself” from “Leaves of Grass” by Walt Whitman
Celebrate the birthday of Walt Whitman at the Robert Burns statue in Albany’s Washington Park at 6pm today. Local poets and other citizens will gather at the statue to read (and listen to) Whitman’s “Song of Myself.” Rain or shine. Free admission. Bring chairs or blankets to sit on.
Bob Girouard (far right) pictured with (from left) Max Weinberg, Modern Drummer Associate Editor Billy Amendola and Dino Danelli
OK, it’s not everyday that you have an interview with Paul McCartney.
But Capital Region writer Bob Girouard had that rare opportunity recently when he was writing the cover story for the current issue of Classic Drummer magazine, which features Denny Seiwell, the drummer for Wings.
Girouard is a longtime drummer (Aged in the Hills, City Lights, more) on the local music scene, as well as an entrepreneur (he helped launch the Alive at Five concert series when he worked for the City of Albany’s Special Events Office). But lately, he’s been concentrating on writing for such magazines as Classic Drummer and Modern Drummer, delivering in-depth, detailed interviews with such influential percussionists as the Band’s Levon Helm, the Rascals’ Dino Danelli, Mountain’s Corky Laing and Little Feat’s Richie Hayward.
Here’s Girouard’s recollections of his interview with McCartney:
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