ThinkOlio Presents: Free as Gods: Picasso, Calder and Artists at Home in the Theater
Friday, July 7 at 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm
The Strand Bookstore
828 Broadway (& 12th Street)
New York, NY 10003
More than just stars on the art scene, Picasso and Calder took center stage in the world of theater. In 1917 Picasso fell in love with a ballerina in the Ballets Russes while creating scenery and costumes for his collaboration with Satie on the pathbreaking dance work, Parade. His stage designs changed the course of his painting. Alexander Calder, who has a major show at the Whitney this summer, created his famous Circus as well as the set for Satie’s opera Socrate and many other theater works.
Cultural historian Charles A. Riley II, author of Free as Gods, will share the backstage secrets of Picasso, Calder, Leger, Chagall, Hockney, Kentridge, and many other contemporary artists who have found a home in the theater.
Admission is $20. Reserve your seat online.
Columbus: Koi A Modern Folktale
Tuesday, July 11 at 7:00 pm
Book Culture
450 Columbus Ave
New York, NY 10024
Harper’s Magazine present Koi: A Modern Folktale by Margery Gray Harnick, Matt Harnick, and Sheldon Harnick.
Koi are unusually beautiful creatures. Perhaps because of their unusual beauty, koi have inspired a variety of legends. The recurrent theme in these legends is that koi, because of their endurance and perseverance, have become symbolic of overcoming adversity and fulfilling one’s destiny. In one of the more celebrated versions of this legend, koi are rewarded for their endurance and perseverance by being transformed into dragon fish.
In their book Koi, Margery and Sheldon Harnick have created their own version of this legend in photographs and verses. In their version, koi are rewarded for a reason other than endurance and perseverance. Though the years, the gods have noted how much pleasure men and women have derived simply from observing the prismatic beauty of the koi. For this gift to mankind, the gods decided to transform the most beautiful koi into majestic and powerful dragons.
Admission is free. A copy of Koi: A Modern Folktale is $24.95.
Brian Platzer & Jodi Kantor: Bed-Stuy is Burning
Tuesday, July 11 at 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm
The Strand Bookstore
828 Broadway (& 12th Street)
New York, NY 10003
With “the mordant wit of Franzen, the dazzling smarts of Roth, and the compassion of Tolstoy” (Rafael Yglesias, author of A Happy Marriage), and which Alice McDermott called a millennial Bonfire of the Vanities, author Brian Platzer has penned an intimately relatable tale about a changing neighborhood and its residents.
His book follows Aaron, a rabbi turned banker, his journalist girlfriend, and their newborn live in the diverse and turbulent Bedford-Stuyvesant as it undergoes the process of gentrification. As more members of the upper-class move into the area the tension rises until a cop shoots a boy. Then the riots begin and Aaron is stuck in the middle.
Bed-Stuy Is Burning offers a look into a collection of complex lives and examines the most pressing issues of our time.
Admission is $15. Admission plus a signed copy of Bed-Stuy Is Burning is $26.
Book Launch: Reckless Years: A Diary of Love and Madness by Heather Chaplin
Wednesday Jul 12 at 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm
POWERHOUSE @ the Archway
28 Adams Street (Corner of Adams & Water Street @ the Archway)
Brooklyn , NY 11201
Trapped in a dissatisfying marriage for nearly a decade, New York journalist Heather Chaplin finally summons the courage to leave. On her own, she finds herself intoxicatingly free, pursuing adventure, and juggling romance on two continents in multiple cities. She contemplates the meaning of life; she falls for a handsome Irishman.
But as the adventures progress, Chaplin’s own reckless choices send her spiraling downward—and toward a reckoning she’s avoided all her life. Pulled from Chaplin’s own diaries, Reckless Years is a raw, propulsive debut: unfailingly profound and impossible to put down.
In this page-turning memoir, a woman tries to reinvent her life after divorce and discovers that sometimes finding yourself is not all it’s cracked up to be. About the Book: Trapped in a dissatisfying marriage for nearly a decade, New York journalist Heather Chaplin finally summons the courage to leave. On her own, she finds herself intoxicatingly free, pursuing adventure, and juggling romance on two continents in multiple cities. She contemplates the meaning of life; she falls for a handsome Irishman. But as the adventures progress, Chaplin’s own reckless choices send her spiraling downward—and toward a reckoning she’s avoided all her life. Pulled from Chaplin’s own diaries, Reckless Years is a raw, propulsive debut: unfailingly profound and impossible to put down.
Admission is free. RSVP is appreciated. RSVP here.