DCW "Bar Full of Poets" on Thursday, April 17th

Drunken! Careening! Writers! 

"Bar Full of Poets"

Featuring:

Guillermo Filice Castro 

Ron Drummond 

Carol Rosenfeld
with your hostess, Kathleen Warnock

Guillermo Filice Castro is a recipient of the 2013 "Emerge-Surface-Be" fellowship from the Poetry Project. His work appears in journals such as Assaracus, Barrow Street, The Bellevue Literary Review, The Brooklyn Rail, Court Green, Fogged Clarity, Hinchas de Poesia, LaFovea.org, Quarterly West, among others, as well as the anthologies Rabbit Ears, Flicker and Spark, Divining Divas, Saints of Hysteria, and more. His translations of Olga Orozco, in collaboration with Ron Drummond, are featured in Guernica, Terra Incognita, U.S. Latino Review, and Visions. In 2012 he was a finalist for the Andrés Montoya prize.

Ron Drummond's first collection of poems is the prize-winning Why I Kick at Night. His poetry also appears in the Penguin textbook Literature as Meaning, and in the anthologies Poetry Nation, Poetry After 9/11, This New Breed, and Saints of Hysteria. His translations, in collaboration with the talented and muy guapo Guillermo Filice Castro, have appeared in U.S. Latino Review, Terra Incognita and Guernica. He has been awarded fellowships from Ragdale, VCCA, and Blue Mountain Center, and is a member of the Macondo Writers Workshop. Ron received honorable mention for the latest Pushcart Prize and has poems forthcoming in DUCTS and Ocean State Review.

Carol Rosenfeld is excited and proud that the fabulous team at Bywater Books will publish her novel, The One that Got Away, in spring/summer 2015. “Not too shabby for a 60-year old New York City-based writer and poet. Now when people annoy me I (silently) think, ‘F—k you, I’m having a novel published.’ It helps! I blog occasionally at http://crosenyc.wordpress.com./”

Drunken! Careening! Writers! is a reading series based on the proposition that all readings should be by: 1) Good Writers; 2) Who read their work well; 3) Something in it makes people laugh (nervous laughter counts).

...and 15 minutes tops.

Careening since 2004!

For more info: careeningwriters@aol.com

KGB Bar

85 E. 4th Street

Thursday, April 17th

7:00-8:30 PM

Reading - Michael Nava, Tim Seibles and Janlori Goldman

I'm a huge fan of Michael Nava's Henry Rios mysteries, and can't wait for the opportunity to hear him read from his new novel, City of Palaces.  I am not familiar with poets Tim Seibles or Janlori Goldman, but look forward to hearing their work.

More info at Bloomreadings.org.

For more info on the authors, visit Michael Nava's Amazon page, Tim Seibles' Amazon page and Janlori Goldman's YouTube channel.

John Wyndham's "The Midwich Cuckoos"

While I was familiar with the screen versions of "Village of the Damned" (I haven't seen the original in its entirety, but I did see the fairly awful John Carpenter version from the mid-'90s), I didn't realize they were based on a John Wyndham book "The Midwich Cuckoos."

I read the book this week, and frankly thought it was not very good.  The concept of the story was interesting - an entire English village goes unconscious for a day, and anyone who tries to enter the village passes out as well.  Photos taken from above the village show some sort of UFO... or I suppose a UO, since it isn't actually flying, just sitting on the ground.  When the UO disappears (presumably becoming a UFO at that point), the town wakes up.  A few weeks later, all the women of childbearing age find out they are pregnant.

What spins out is a pretty standard invasion story (though not, I suppose, for the time in which it was written, the late '50s).  The children begin to show signs of being parts of a greater alien entity, they look all look alike, they have powers of mind control, etc.  When hurt, they lash out with extreme violence toward the people who hurt them, and eventually hold the village hostage.

It is discovered that this happened in a number of places around the world, and that each society acted against the children in a different way.

The book deals with the philosophical questions behind dealing with the unknown and alien, and whether a modern, democratic society can adequately combat a genuine threat like an alien invasion.

And that's the downfall of the book for me.  It is basically set up as a memoir, with one character Richard Gayford writing his reminiscences of the Midwich affair.  This leads to a fairly dry narrative in which events are described by the narrator, rather than experienced by the reader.  And the philosophical discussions, while interesting, brought what little action was in the book to a screeching halt.

I did like the idea of an alien made up of individuals with a group mind, and the children who were born through xenogenesis (with the biological mother really being little more than a host, and not sharing any genetic link with the offspring).  But overall, the book didn't really do much for me.


The Midwich Cuckoos (RosettaBooks into Film)

John Leguizamo's "Pimps, Hos, Playa Hatas, and All the Rest of My Hollywood Friends: My Life"

Today's purchase.  Currently on sale at Amazon for $1.99 (Kindle edition).

I've seen a couple of Leguizamo's shows on Broadway and really enjoyed them.  His stories are hilarious, and he is such a manic performer.  It's incredible to see how much energy he puts into his performances.  I'm looking forward to seeing if his humor works as well in book form.



Pimps, Hos, Playa Hatas, and All the Rest of My Hollywood Friends: My Life

Here are his Broadway shows I've seen.  I hope he decides to bring another show to Broadway soon.

Spic-O-Rama : A Dysfunctional Comedy

Medieval cooking - British Museum Cookbook, The Forme of Cury, and mujadara

On a recent trip home, my mother gave me a cookbook to bring back to New York with me.  It was one I bought for her in the late '80s during a trip to London, the British Museum Cookbook.  It's full of modern recreations of recipes from various points in human history.



This got me searching online for a variety of other cool cookbooks and recipes from ancient history.  Tonight I'm making a traditional Middle Eastern lentil and rice stew called mujadara.  The recipe is courtesy of the New York Times.  According to tradition, this is the stew that Esau sold his birthright to his brother Jacob for.  We'll see if it's that good.

While cruising the cooking sites, I found a great one that has modern versions of The Forme of Cury, a cookbook from late 14th century England.  I'm looking forward to trying some of these recipes in the future.

Here is the mujadara.  It is amazing!

The Singer, The Song and The Finale - Three Books by Calvin Miller

When I was in high school, I was very active in my church.  Choir, bell choir, high school fellowship group, etc.  Choir tours in the U.S. and Europe.  Bell choir competitions.  Lock-ins and youth suppers at church.  Great memories.

One year our choir director Tom decided to adapt Calvin Miller's The Singer, a poetic allegory based on the life of Jesus, into a musical.  I remember the show being good (but then, I remember all of our shows being good, so…).  But I was so impressed by The Singer (the book), that I bought the two companion books, The Song (based on Acts) and The Finale (based on the Book of Revelation).

I loved the books, and while I imagine I would roll my eyes today at some of the purple prose, I held onto them for 30-some-odd years.  Now that I have to downsize, I'm sending them off to Goodwill.

I suppose that should the desire to read them ever hit again, I can buy them on Kindle, but I really like the feel of these books.  First, the books measure 4" x 8.5".  Most paperbacks, at least the mass-market ones, are more like 4.25" x 7", so this one is taller and narrower.  Looks good on a shelf.

Then there was the artwork by the late Joe DeVelasco.  There is something about his drawings that just screams 1970s, and I don't mean that pejoratively.  They have a look that was so popular back then, especially in the fantasy book market (and D&D circles), and they inspire a feeling of fond nostalgia.

Here are the covers of the books.

The Singer

The Song

The Finale

De Velasco's drawings are inside each book, as well.

My memories of these books are, of course, tightly bound to the musical.  Remembering my friends playing the various roles (Joel as The Singer, Pete as The World-Hater, and Carrie as The Friendship Seller are the ones that I remember), the songs we sang (I don't think any of the songs were written specifically for the show… in fact, I'm fairly certain we used Magic to Do from Pippin, and several worship songs written by our choir director), and putting the show together.  Since I wasn't active in theatre at school (I was a band geek), these church performances really fostered my love of theatre.

This was some of my first exposure to real choreography (a choreographer named Carolyn volunteered with us and came up with some pretty cool dance numbers… I remember learning the term Fosse Hands from her, without having any clue who Fosse was).

It was great fun, and I really do miss those times quite a bit.  I'm happy to have reconnected with many of my friends from those days thanks to Facebook.  Truly hard to believe that it has been 30 years.

Well, if you are so inclined, here is a link to the latest edition of The Singer, The Song and The Finale, all now included in one volume, and as near as I can tell, without De Velasco's artwork.

More new books - John Lithgow and Agatha Christie

Even as I get rid of books, I can't help but buy more.  But all my purchases recently have been for my Kindle.  Here are the latest ones.

First up is Drama: An Actor's Education by John Lithgow.  I've been meaning to read this for a while.  I'm a huge fan of Lithgow, mostly through his film and television work (though I did get to see him in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels on Broadway), and have heard wonderful things about this book.



Next up is a bunch of Agatha Christie novels (Cards on the Table, Death on the Nile, The Man in the Brown Suit, The Body in the Library, and 4:50 From Paddington).  It's surprising that as much as I love mysteries, I've never actually read any of Agatha Christie's works.  I've seen movies and TV versions (I love the Poirot mysteries with David Suchet.  He was an excellent Poirot.  Peter Ustinov… not so much.).  Anyway, I look forward to reading these.











One more Agatha Christie-related note.  My friend Rob Hartmann (along with Liv Cummins) wrote a wonderful musical called Vanishing Point that dealt with the disappearances of Agatha Christie, evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, and pilot Amelia Earhart.  You can hear some of the songs here.

Speaking of purchasing things for my Kindle, I ordered a new Paperwhite Kindle recently.  I'm going to give my old one to my mom because I'm a good son.  The new one should be here this week, and I've already loaded it with a bunch of new books (the ones above, for instance) and all my magazine subscriptions.

Can't wait to get it.