Phillip Lopate (and Brother) at Queens College

From the Queens College Evening Readings website:

Date: Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Time: 7 pm
Admission: $15, free with CUNY student ID

Phillip Lopate is the author of many volumes of nonfiction, including Getting Personal: Selected Writings, Bachelorhood, Against Joie de Vivre, Portrait of My Body, Waterfront and most recently, Notes on Sontag. He is also the editor of The Art of the Personal Essay, as well as the author of the novels Confessions of Summer, The Rug Merchant, and most recently, the collection of two novellas Two Marriages. David Shields has said: “In book after book, Phillip Lopate has explained and demonstrated that the basis of the essay is honesty. And yet in [Two Marriages] he shows how corrosive honesty can be, how deluded, how destructive, how rationalizing, even masochistic, particularly in the matter of love. Two Marriages is a surprising, stinging, thrilling performance.” Ann Beattie has said: “Lopate is a fantastic writer—humane, wry, and always astonishingly willing to take on the ineffable, attuned to the complexities of symbolic relationships we only intuited before his dazzling collage was created.” The Dallas Morning News has said: “Phillip Lopate has made himself into one of our best personal essayists…he has…demonstrated his charismatic gift for self-revelation and proven that honesty is the professional essayist’s password.” Sven Birkets has said: “Phillip Lopate is one of our few essential essayists. He registers with accuracy and tact the voice of a man of deep human impulse living in a civilization on the wane. His fearlessness is tonic, his candor is straight gin.”

In addition to reading from his work, Phillip Lopate will be interviewed by his brother, Leonard Lopate.

Queens College, Music Building, 65-30 Kissena Boulevard, Flushing, Queens, New York 11367, phone (718) 997-4647

Sara Takes Over Blog Post

(My entry begins like this:) SCHOOL ENDS IN JUNE, but Sara brought home today her first grade class picture with Miss Jill Lanzilotta (Ain't she pretty?). (Sara pushes me away from the keyboard and insists that she does the typing. So here is the rest of the post.) Sara's class used to have eighteen kids but her classmate Murtaza went to another class so it was seventeen kids but Lana, Justyna, and Anthony of course then there are twenty kids in the class room! Sara is the best reader in class! Sara is in a second grade level and she is now reading chapter books! Miss Lanzillotta said to Sara's mother that she is the only one that is reading chapter books and she is the best reader then any one!!! (Not bad, ha?)

Freebie Leads: Latin Music

In this period of recession, Queens Library deserves credit for continuing to give the public a myriad of free events especially on weekends, a real privilege, if one can find the branch location and get there on time. My pick for this month: Latin music that osmoses easily into the Pinoy bloodstream, guaranteed to melt away the frost in the arteries. (If only they'd let me in with my favorite drink, too!) Expect more events as the weather gets warmer.

Carnegie Hall Neighborhood Concert Series: Harlem Quartet, a Sphinx Ensemble

The Harlem Quartet, an innovative and daring all-Black and Latino string quartet comprised of First-Place Laureates of the Sphinx Competition, will perform classical and jazz music by African- American and Latino composers. This event is part of the Carnegie Hall festival "HONOR!", a celebration of the African-American cultural legacy, curated by Jessye Norman.

Saturday, March 14, 2 pm, Langston Hughes Public Library, 100-01 Northern Boulevard, Corona, Queens, New York 11368, phone (718) 651-1100

Music of Colombia by Folklore Urbano

Folklore Urbano uses traditional instruments to tell the history and culture of Colombia through its music.

Saturday, March 14, 2:30 pm, Jackson Heights Public Library, 35-51 81 Street, Jackson Heights, Queens, New York 11372, phone (718) 899-2500

Saturday, March 21, 1:30 pm, Hollis Public Library, 202-05 Hillside Avenue, Hollis, Queens, New York 11423, phone (718) 465-7355

Mestizo Music of Peru featuring Inkarayku
Traditional music and songs from Peru's northern coast and North Andean highlands, Central and South Andean highlands and valleys of Peru performed with Andean and European instruments. Funded by a Special Legislative Grant.

Saturday, March 21, 2:30 pm, Jackson Heights Public Library, 35-51 81 Street, Jackson Heights, Queens, New York 11372, phone (718) 899-2500

Saturday, March 28, 2:30 pm, Hollis Public Library, 202-05 Hillside Avenue, Hollis, Queens, New York 11423, phone (718) 465-7355

Andean Pipe Music from Peru with Ethereal and Haunting Melodies of Grupo Wayno

Join us for an evening of Andean music from Peru with Grupo Wayno. Formed in 1980 by Luis Vilcherrez, the group's name is taken from a popular style of dance of the native Andean people.

(Note: The Oriental-looking members of the band, I assume, are Japanese-Peruvians. Remember Alberto Fujimori?)

Monday, March 30, 6 pm, 38-23 104 Street, Corona, Queens, New York 11368, phone (718) 426-2844

Cynthia Ozick At Queens College

From the Queens College Evening Readings website:

Date: Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Time: 7 pm
Admission: $15, free with CUNY student ID

Cynthia Ozick is the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of many works of fiction, including The Messiah of Stockholm, The Shawl, The Puttermesser Papers, Heir to the Glimmering World and most recently, Dictation, as well as several volumes of nonfiction, including Quarrel and Quandary, Art and Ardor and The Din in the Head. The New Republic has said: “[Ozick’s] language alone…long ago earned her a position among the very first rank of American writers.” The New York Times has said: “[Ozick] has magical gifts as a storyteller, [as well as] a distinctive and utterly original voice. She possesses an ability to mix up the surreal and the realistic, juxtapose Kafkaesque abstractions with Waugh-like comedy…The result is a fiction that has the power to delight us—and make us think.” The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has said: “Ozick has earned a place in modern literature beside her own heroes: Franz Kafka, Bruno Shulz and Bernard Malamud…[she is] one of the finest and most imaginative writers of our time.”

In addition to reading from her work, Ms. Ozick will be interviewed by Leonard Lopate.

Queens College, Music Building, 65-30 Kissena Boulevard, Flushing, Queens, New York 11367, phone (718) 997-4647