Archive
Friends,
below are some great events coming up at the Book Smith at 1644 Haight St. between Clayton & Cole (863-8688)
A TANGO LESSON IN THE BOOKSTORE? Yes! Monday, March 22 7:30 PM MARIA FINN
Hold Me Tight & Tango Me Home
Tango, in essence, is a way of being: it lures you from the job that’s too staid; it beckons on a night when you’re feeling lonely; it promises escape from the grind of daily life. Tango is a journey for those who want their lives to change course; and for others, like me, who believe that their lives have ended, it’s an attempt to start living again. - Maria Finn
Like anyone would, Maria Finn felt anger when she learned of her husband’s infidelity, then despair over losing him and their plans for a life together. But she refused to become one of those women who sob into their divorce lawyer’s answering machine late at night.
In Hold Me Tight & Tango Me Home, Maria relates how she turned to Argentine tango to cope with her pain, learn to trust again, and rediscover herself. Her exhilarating adventure takes us from New York to Buenos Aires and back, exploring the fascinating culture, history, music, moves, and beauty of this sexy, sometimes heartbreaking, yet ultimately life-affirming dance.
For Maria, learning tango means dealing with rejection, criticism, and unpredictable partners -- some rude, others clumsy, and one who earned the moniker “Ear Licker”. But it’s all made worthwhile by those transcendent moments in which Maria joins with a dance partner and the union transforms into what she refers to as “bliss” -- a marriage of leading and following that seamlessly explores intrigue, melancholy, flirtation, and passion.
With each new step—the embrace, the hook, the sweep, the throw—Maria begins to connect with people in a new way. Gradually, she finds the confidence to try romance again and discovers the strength needed to pursue a new life.
Maria Finn has written for Audubon, Saveur, Metropolis, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times, among many other publications. The editor of two anthologies, Cuba in Mind and Mexico in Mind, she received an MFA in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College and her essays have been anthologized in Best Food Writing and The Best Women’s Travel Writing. Visit Maria – and watch these videos!
Celebrate with music and dancing this evening!
Tuesday, March 23 7:00 PM Found in Translation Book Group Meeting
COMEDY NIGHT AT THE BOOKSMITH (about economics?)
Wednesday, March 27 7:30 PM YORAM BAUMAN
The Cartoon Introduction to Economics (Volume 1: Microeconomics)
If 2009 taught us anything, it’s that economics matters to everybody.. But how many American voters have a thorough understanding of how economies really work?
Now, thanks to Yoram Bauman and Grady Klein, you don’t need a Ph.D. in economics to get a grasp on the news. Bauman, the world’s first and only stand-up economist, has teamed up with Klein, the cartoonist behind the Lost Colony graphic novels, to take the dismal out of the dismal science. From the optimizing individual to game theory to price theory, The Cartoon Introduction to Economics: Volume 1: Microeconomics lays out the fundamentals of microeconomics in brightly imagined words and pictures, making the notoriously daunting subject accessible, digestible, and—against all odds—something many thought it never could be: fun.
There is no one better suited to explain economics through comics than Yoram Bauman. An environmental economist at the University of Washington, Bauman is also an entertainer who has explained the economy at comedy clubs and universities across the country (his “Principles of Economics, Translated” is a YouTube cult classic). As an educator at both the university and high school levels, Bauman knows how to make economics relevant to today’s students.
Check out these videos: “Standup Economist at Caroline’s”, “Principles of Economics, Translated”, and “Standup Economist on the Financial Crisis”!
“Had Art Spiegelman and John Maynard Keynes collaborated on a comic book on economics, they could only have dreamed of coming up with something this good.” -- Jonathan A. Shayne, a.k.a. Merle Hazard, country singer and founder of Shayne & Co., LLC
Thursday, March 25 7:30 PM ALEX LEMON
Happy: A Memoir
Alex Lemon is a thirty-year-old professor, critically acclaimed and award-winning poet, and recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He’s also an ex-college baseball star, ex-rampant partier, and a survivor of multiple strokes and seizures due to a vascular malformation in his brain stem and an extremely dangerous surgery designed to correct it. He tells his incredible story in HAPPY.
As a freshman in college, Lemon was the hard-partying dude everyone called “Happy.” Then he had his first stroke. For two years, he coped with his deteriorating health by drowning himself in alcohol and drugs, his charming and carefree exterior masking his self-destructive behavior as he endured two more brain bleeds and overwhelming sadness. After he miraculously survived the tremendously risky surgery, Lemon’s free-spirited mother nursed him back to health, once again teaching him to stand on his own..
HAPPY is an electric, hypnotic self portrait of a young man confronting mortality and the limits of his own body; it is also the deeply moving story of a mother’s redemptive and healing powers. Like Mary Karr, Mark Doty, and Nick Flynn, Lemon is a much lauded poet who can successfully shift between writing poetry and memoir; and his training as a poet lends his writing a rare precision and vividness. He is a brave and exhilarating writer whose Technicolor sentences make the world he describes pop and sing. In intimate, unflinching prose he writes about survival -- of the body and of the human spirit.
Alex Lemon was born in Iowa. He is the author of three collections of poetry, Mosquito and Hallelujah Blackout; and the forthcoming Fancy Beasts. His poems have been selected for the Best American Poetry series and have appeared in numerous magazines, including AGNI, BOMB, Kenyon Review, New England Review, Open City, Pleiades and Tin House. His awards include a 2005 Literature Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts and a 2006 Minnesota Arts Board Grant. Lemon lives in Ft. Worth, Texas and teaches English at Texas Christian University.
Check out the New York Times’ Stray Questions for Alex.
Tuesday, March 30 7:30 PM ARTHUR PHILLIPS
The Song is You
Each song on Julian’s iPod, “that greatest of all human inventions,” is a touchstone. There are songs for the girls from when he was single, there’s the one for the day he met his wife-to-be, there’s one for the day his son was born. But when Julian’s family falls apart, even music loses its hold on him.
Until one snowy night in Brooklyn, when his life’s soundtrack -- and life itself -- start to play again. Julian stumbles into a bar and sees Cait O’Dwyer, a flame-haired Irish rock singer, performing with her band, and a strange and unlikely love affair is ignited. Over the next few months, Julian and Cait’s passion plays out, though they never meet. What follows is a heartbreaking dark comedy, the tenderest of love stories, and a perfectly observed tale of the way we live now.
Arthur Phillips is the internationally bestselling author of Angelica, The Egyptologist, and Prague, which was a New York Times Notable Book and winner of the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. He lives in New York with his wife and two sons.
“Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think, and for those of us who try to think and feel, The Song Is You captures the flip sides of life at middle age pretty much perfectly. Arthur Phillips is that rare thing among fiction writers, a wise guy who’s also wise.” -- Kurt Andersen
“Impossible to put down.” -- New York Times Book Review
Read Phillips on music in The Believer. Check out Phillips’ playlist for the New York Times Living with Music.
A Dear friend, James Redo, is participating in a group art show this May 1 through May 22. Hope everyone can come to the artists' reception on Thursday, May 6 (5-9pm). All the artists are from North Beach and include, Mery Bernard, Agneta Falk and George Long. Thank you and Love & Blessings, Marliese
North Beach Fine Art ExhibitJames Redo, Mery Bernard, George Long, Agneta Falk
The Fine Art Painters of North Beach
May 1-22, 2010
Location: 850 Greenwich Street, San Francisco, CA
Time: Thursday, 06 May 2010 17:00
Facebook Event Page
Maya Vision by James Redo
