Archive
Friends,
below are some great events coming up at the Book Smith at 1644 Haight St. between Clayton & Cole (863-8688)
Saturday, November 20
7:30 PM
PETER BALAKIAN
Ziggurat
Widely known for his memoir and nonfiction on the Armenian genocide, Peter Balakian is also an accomplished poet, and Ziggurat is his first book of poems in nine years. Exploring history, self, and imagination, as well as his ongoing concerns with catastrophe and trauma, many of Balakian’s new poems wrestle with the aftermath and reverberations of 9/11.
Whether reliving the building of the World Trade Towers in the inventive forty-three section poem that anchors the book, walking the ruins of the Bosnian National Library in Sarajevo, meditating on Andy Warhol’s silk screens, or considering the confluence of music, language, and memory, Balakian continues his meditations on history, as well as the harshness and beauty of contemporary life, that his readers have enjoyed over the years. In a sensual, layered, and sometimes elliptical language, Balakian in Ziggurat explores absence, war, love, and art in a new age of American uncertainty.
Peter Balakian is the Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor in Humanities and professor of English at Colgate University. He is the author of five books of poems and three prose works, including The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response, a New York Times best seller; and Black Dog of Fate, a memoir, winner of the PEN/Albrand Prize.
“Peter Balakian’s new book Ziggurat ingests calamity and dissolves it into an exhilarating rhythm and image, pushing the language until it feels like it’s breaking into something new. This is how idioms change, advance. The harrowing long poem ‘A-Train/Ziggurat/Elegy’ jostles a range of perspectives and narratives. It is a panorama of contemporary witness, but a syncopation of the same. Balakian renders scenes and at the same time enacts the sensibility being breached and affected—9/11 is just short-hand for our new magnitudes of violence and dissociation. The frames of contemporary life, and our recent history, fit together because they have been brought to account in the self of the poet. The work aims to reveal the human capacity to integrate and, after hard passage, transcend.” – Sven Birkerts
“With characteristic originality, Balakian finds his echoing motif in the construction of the first great skyscraper, the Ziggurat at Ur, and this gives his epic poem, ‘A-Train/Ziggurat/ Elegy,’ a historical depth I have found nowhere else in American poetry in recent years. What Balakian has achieved here is a brilliant assimilation of the historical, philosophical, political, and psychological.” – Carolyn Forche
Monday, November 29
7:00 PM
RUMPUS BOOK CLUB IN-PERSON DISCUSSION
First, The Rumpus announced its’ version of a book club – one whose members receive a hand-chosen book, for a thrilling insider’s early (before publication) look at what’s likely to be a very hot book. Club members are then invited to an online discussion with the author and with one another. (Read all about The Rumpus Book Club here.) What could be added to the mix? Why, a get-together to meet and talk with other club members in person!
We’re delighted to host these monthly gatherings this fall. Local book club members, come on in; if you’re a member from outside the Bay Area, but planning to be in our neighborhood, you come on in, too! Curious about The Rumpus and its book club? You, too!
Tonight: a discussion about Rumpus Women: Personal Essays by Women, Volume 1.
Now! New! Never before seen!Friday, December 3
8:00 PM
The Booksmith presents... the first ever...
LITERARY CLOWN FOOLERYWhat happens when clowns and books mix? Come find out at the
Booksmith's first LITERARY CLOWN FOOLERY, hosted in collaboration with
the world-class local San Francisco Circus Center.
Drop in for thrilling talent and adult beverages as we transform our stacks into a living stage for clowning, live music, juggling, and books. Local clown mademoisellePolina Smith will play ringleader to this shiny new crew of local misfits, oddities and outcasts. See original and innovative clowning in an exciting new space -- but buy your tickets early, they'll sell out fast.
$10 at Brown Paper Tickets or 800-838-3006, and in the store
Thursday, December 9
7:30 PM
LIZA BAKEWELL
Madre: Perilous Journeys with a Spanish Noun
While studying in Mexico in the late 80s and 90s, linguistic anthropologist Liza Bakewell became obsessed with Mexicans’ use of the word madre in all its forms --un desmadre, a major disaster; de poca madre, great; vale madre, worthless; dar en la madre, give it in the mother (the weak spot). Her madre list growing by the day, edited and updated during cab rides, weddings, dinner parties, art studio visits, trips for tamales, and in conversation with friends and colleagues, Bakewell began asking: Why can’t a bien educada lady in Mexico say the word madre without raising eyebrows? How could madre mean whore as much as virgin? What happens to the ninety-nine madres when one father enters the room and they become a group of padres? How is it that parto (childbirth) is masculine, not to mention el love, el marriage, el sex, el pregnancy?
In thematically organized chapters titled Love, Mixed Messages, Food Fight, Lost in Los, Sounding it Out, Explaining What Happened, and Looking Back, Bakewell merges memoir with linguistics as she chronicles the evolving meanings of the word madre -- heavily influenced by the Church’s often fraught relationship with the Mexican State, she argues. In wildly lively prose rich in wordplay and attitude, Bakewell celebrates language and the role of the creative female in a sexist culture. (It’s one swell holiday gift for the language enthusiast!)
Liza Bakewell is a linguistic anthropologist at Brown University. Her writing has appeared in Words without Borders, Humanistic Quarterly, Frontiers, American Anthropologist, the Encyclopedia of Mexico, www.mesolore.net and other publications.Wednesday, January 12
7:30 PM
GREIL MARCUS
BOB DYLAN
Writings 1968 – 2010
His foremost interpreter revisits more than forty years of listening to Dylan—weaving individual moods and moments into a brilliant history of their changing times
The book begins in Berkeley in 1968, and ends with a piece on Dylan's show at the University of Minnesota—his very first appearance at his alma mater—on election night 2008. In between are moments of euphoric discovery: From Marcus's liner notes for the 1967 Basement Tapes (pop music's most famous bootlegged archives) to his exploration of Dylan's reimagining of the American experience in the 1997Time Out of Mind. And rejection; Marcus's Rolling Stone piece on Dylan's album Self Portrait—often called the most famous record review ever written—began with "What is this shit?" and led to his departure from the magazine for five years. Marcus follows not only recordings but performances, books, movies, and all manner of highways and byways in which Bob Dylan has made himself felt in our culture.
Together the dozens of pieces collected here comprise a portrait of how, throughout his career, Bob Dylan has drawn upon and reinvented the landscape of traditional American song, its myths and choruses, heroes and villains. They are the result of a more than forty-year engagement between an unparalleled singer and a uniquely acute listener.Greil Marcus is the author of When That Rough God Goes Riding and Like a Rolling Stone, The Old Weird America, The Shape of Things to Come, Mystery Train, Dead Elvis, In the Fascist Bathroom, and other books; a twentieth anniversary edition of his Lipstick Traces was published in 2009. With Werner Sollors he is the editor of A New Literary History of America. Since 2000 he has taught at Princeton, Berkeley, Minnesota, and the New School in New York; his column "Real Life Rock Top 10" appears regularly in The Believer.
Friday, January 14
8:00 PM
LITERARY CLOWN FOOLERY
We had so much fun with clowns in the bookstore in December that we’re bringing them back!
Drop in for thrilling talent and adult beverages as we transform our stacks into a living stage for clowning, live music, juggling, and books. Local clown mademoiselle Polina Smith will play ringleader to this shiny crew of local misfits, oddities and outcasts – all graduates of the world-class San Francisco Circus Center. See original and innovative clowning in an unexpected space -- but buy your tickets early, they'll sell out fast.
$10 at Brown Paper Tickets or 800-838-3006, and in the store
Sunday, January 16
4:00 PM
PETER BRUCE
breasts are beautiful
Come join acclaimed photographer, Peter Bruce, as he discusses his b for a cureproject benefiting breast cancer charities, and the inaugural edition of its coffee table book featuring black and white photographs of over 300 nude-breasted volunteers:breasts are beautiful.
Peter will explain how he embarked on this philanthropic project at the beginning of 2010 and quickly found himself traveling the country to interact with everyday women concerned about the enormous reach of this unprejudiced disease. A portion of his volunteers are healthy, some proactively battled cancer, many lost loved ones – but most importantly, all were awe-inspiring in their commitment to help this cause. He’ll share stories from the production of the book, discuss technical aspects and difficulties encountered while capturing hundreds of models across six shoot locations, as well as the fortuitous participation of actress Jenny McCarthy, and DreamWorks artist, Devin Crane, and the complications of benevolence and how an overly skeptical society criticizes first, and researches later. From threatening phone calls and dunning emails, to charities unwilling to accept his donations, Peter will relate how hard it is to do good in modern America.
Peter Bruce was born in Australia and spent much of his life traveling the globe. He is a seasoned professional, experienced in many styles of photography. During his career, Peter has worked with a variety of clients, including Playboy, the Melbourne Opera, as well as shooting for major movie studios in Hollywood. However, he states that some of his most rewarding work has been with various charities over the years, including the F.I.R.E. and Dulaan projects (providing clothing for homeless children) and the Smile Train.