Rebecca Brown reads from her new collection of essays American Romances, published by City Lights Books
This collection of mordant, poignant and playful essays shows Rebecca Brown at the height of her imaginative and intuitive powers. A wry and incisive social and literary critique is couched in a gonzo mix of pop culture, autobiography, fiction, literary history, misremembered movie plots and fantasy that plays with the notion of what it is to be “American.”
-and-
Rebecca Brown, Kevin Killian, Dodie Bellamy, and Robert Gluck celebrate the release of Life As We Show It: Writing On Film, edited by Brian Pera and Masha Tupitsyn and published by City Lights.
Life As We Show It is a dynamic cross-genre collection that uses short stories, essays, and poetry to explore the cinematic experience. In these innovative writings, the movie-viewer relationship is positioned as protagonist, theme and plot, and most importantly, as a new genre in its own right.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
.jpg "Robin DG Kelley")
Robin DG Kelley discusses Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, published by The Free Press
The first full biography of Thelonious Monk, written by noted historian, Robin Kelley, with full access to the family’s archives and with dozens of interviews. Kelley has been working for years with Monk Institute founder Thelonious Monk Jr., who has granted Kelley access to rare historical documents for his biography. No other scholar has ever had such access and support from the Monk family. This promisses to become a classic reading of Monk to be referenced for years to come.
Robin D.G. Kelley is a professor of history and American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California. From 2003-2006, he was the William B. Ransford Professor of Cultural and Historical Studies at Columbia Univeristy. From 1994-2003, he was a professor of history and Africana Studies at New York University as well the chairman of NYU’s history department from 2002-2003. One of the youngest tenured professors in a full academic discipline–at the age of 32–Kelley has spent most of his career exploring American and African-American history with a particular emphasis on African-American musical culture, including jazz and hip-hop. Kelley is also working on two other books: Speaking in Tongues: Jazz and Modern Africa and A World to Gain: A History of African Americans.
This podcast was recorded at City Lights Bookstore on October 29, 2009.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
February 16th,2010
Music,
Nonfiction |
Comments Off
David Hilliard discusses Huey Newton’s life, the legacy of the Black Panther Party, and Newton’s newly republished book, To Die for the People, published by City Lights Books.
Was Huey Newton a gifted leader of his people or a dangerous outlaw? Were the Black Panthers heroes or terrorists? Whether Newton and the Panthers are remembered in a positive or a negative light, no one questions Newton’s status as one of America’s most important revolutionaries. Long an iconic figure for radicals, Huey Newton is now being discovered by those interested in the history of America’s social movements. This new release of a classic collection of his writings and speeches traces the development of Newton’s personal and political thinking, as well as the radical changes that took place in the formative years of the Black Panther Party.
With a rare and persuasive honesty, To Die for the People records the Party’s internal struggles, rivalries and contradictions, and the result is a fascinating look back at a young revolutionary group determined to find ways to deal with the injustice it saw in American society. And, as a new foreword by Elaine Brown makes eminently clear, Newton’s prescience and foresight make these documents strikingly pertinent today.
David Hilliard is a founding member and Chief of Staff of the Black Panther Party, was involved in every major activity of the best recognized African American organization of the 1960s and 70s. Hillard, a vibrant voice on our recent history, speaks eloquently to the racial divisions in America today. Hilliard is author of the book, This Side of Glory.
This podcast was recorded January 14, 2010 at City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
E
laine Elinson and Stan Yogi dropped by City Lights to talk about their new book, Wherever There’s a Fight: How Runaway Slaves, Suffragists, Immigrants, Strikers, and Poets Shaped Civil Liberties in California from Heyday Books.
Wherever There’s a Fight captures the sweeping story of how freedom and equality have grown in California, from the gold rush right up to the precarious post-9/11 era. The book tells the stories of the brave individuals who have stood up for their rights in the face of social hostility, physical violence, economic hardship, and political stonewalling.
It connects the experiences of early Chinese immigrants subjected to discriminatory laws to those of professionals who challenged McCarthyism and those of people who have fought to gain equal rights in California schools: people of color, people with disabilities, and people standing up for their religious freedom. The authors bring a special focus to the World War II internment of Japanese Americans, focusing on the infamous Korematsu case, which was foreshadowed by a century of civil liberties violations and reverberates in more recent times—regrettably, even today in the Patriot Act. And they follow the ongoing struggles for workers’ rights and same-sex marriage.
State and federal constitutions spell out many liberties and rights, but it is the people who challenge prejudice and discrimination that transform those lofty ideals into practical realities. Wherever There’s a Fight paints vivid portraits of these people and brings to light their often hidden stories.
Elaine Elinson was the communications director of the ACLU of Northern California and editor of the ACLU News for more than two decades. She is a coauthor of Development Debacle: The World Bank in the Philippines, which was banned by the Marcos regime. Her articles have been published in the Los Angeles Daily Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Nation, Poets and Writers, and numerous other periodicals. She is married to journalist Rene CiriaCruz and they have one son.
Stan Yogi has managed development programs for the ACLU of Northern California since 1997. He is the coeditor of two books, Highway 99: A Literary Journey through California’s Great Central Valley and Asian American Literature: An Annotated Bibliography. His work has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, MELUS, Los Angeles Daily Journal, and several anthologies. He is married to nonprofit administrator David Carroll and lives in Oakland.
This podcast was recorded live at City Lights Books on Nov. 11, 2009.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Kevin Killian reads from his new collection of new fiction, Impossible Princess, published by City Lights Books
Impossible Princess is the third collection of gay short fiction by Kevin Killian. An original member of the notorious San Francisco-based “new narrative” circle including Dennis Cooper and Kathy Acker, Killian is a master short story writer, crafting campy yet edgy tales that explore both the humor and darkness of desire. From an examination of an ex-British-boy-band-member’s skeevy skivvies, to a sexual assault inside a copy machine, to a nocturnal tryst in a panther cage, Impossible Princess runs a bizarre gamut of erotic experience, where the appetite of lust is only satisfied by the peculiar unexpected.
A founder and former director of Small Press Traffic, Kevin Killian has long been a hidden favorite of gay literary San Francisco. Killian has published numerous books, including two previous story collections, the Pen award-winning Little Men (1996) and I Cry Like a Baby (2001). His latest novel, Spreadeagle (2010), is published by Alyson Books. With his wife Dodie Bellamy, he edits the long-running poetry zine, Mirage/Periodical. His work has been widely anthologized and has appeared in, among others, Best American Poetry 1988 (ed. John Ashbery), and Discontents (ed. Dennis Cooper).
Recorded Thursday, December 3 at City Lights Books in San Francisco
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
John Freeman, editor of Granta Magazine and the award winning former president of the National Book Critics Circle traces a short history of our need for correspondence and examines the astonishing growth of email–and how it is changing our lives, not always for the better.
The Tyranny of Email draws on extensively on the research of linguistics, behavioral sciences, cultural critics, and philosophers to take a fascinating look at the unrelenting nature of correspondence through the ages, and explores how that nature has manifested itself in email. As the toll of email mounts, reducing our time for leisure and contemplation, and separating us from each other in an unending and lonely battle with the overfull inbox. Freeman enters a plea for communication that is more selective and nuanced, and, above all, more sociable.
John Freeman is an award-winning writer and book critic who’s written for a variety of publications including The New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times, People, and The Wall Street Journal. Freeman won the 2007 James Patterson page-turner award, and was recently named American editor of Granta. He lives in New York City.
Recorded Wednesday, October 28, 2009.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
December 11th,2009
Critical Studies,
Nonfiction |
Comments Off
In this episode, poet Sesshu Foster reads from his eclectic World Ball Notebook, recorded at City Lights on April 29, 2009.
The first team sport in human history was played with a ball made of stone, on courts that have been found from the Mayan ruins of Central America to Arizona. Thus we find a soccer dad walking the sidelines of a scuffed LA field, its goal lines swirling, nets strung loosely between daylight and the spirit world — Foster’s inimitably fierce and powerfully evocative mix of the fantastic and the mundane.
For more, visit Sesshu Foster’s blog, East Los Angeles Dirigible Air Transport Lines.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
November 23rd,2009
Literature,
Poetry |
Comments Off
Yippie co-founder. merry prankster and satirical provocateur Paul Krassner reads from Who’s to Say What’s Obscene?: Politics, Culture and Comedy in America Today, published by City Lights Books, July 15, 2009.
Fans of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Onion will appreciate this timely collection of satirical essays by counterculture icon Paul Krassner. With irreverence and an often X-rated wit, Krassner explores contemporary comedy, and obscenity in politics and culture from “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” banners to scenes cut out of recent movies, including Borat.
In his essay “Don Imus Meets Michael Richards” Krassner examines racism in comedy from Lenny Bruce to Dave Chapelle, on The Sarah Silverman Show and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and in controversial comic strips like The Boondocks.
“These are times of repression,” says Krassner, “and the more repression there is, the more need there is for irreverence toward those in authority.”
Praise for Paul Krassner:
“He is an expert at ferreting out hypocrisy and absurdism from the more solemn crannies of American culture.” — New York Times
“To classify Krassner as a social rebel is far too cute. He’s a nut, a raving, unconfined nut.” — Federal Bureau of Investigation
“The FBI was right. This man is dangerous—and funny; and necessary.” — George Carlin
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Lew Welch, advertising copy-writer, taxi cab driver, and one of the principal poets of the Beat Generation in San Francisco, reads from his poetry at a raucous evening at San Francisco’s Glide Memorial Church on June 8, 1968.
.
This podcast was made possible by the generous folks at the Pacifica Radio Archives.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
September 3rd,2009
Beat Generation,
Poetry,
San Francisco |
Comments Off
Former San Francisco Poet Laureate Jack Hirschman and poet Neeli Cherkovski remember life with the inimitable Charles Bukowski. The event took place at City Lights on the occasion of our publishing Portions From a Wine-Stained Notebook, a collection of unpublished essays and stories from the drunken bard, edited by David Calonne.
Charles Bukowski (1920-1994), one of the most outrageous and controversial figures of 20th-century American literature, was so prolific that many important pieces were never collected during his lifetime. Portions is a substantial selection of these wide-ranging works, most of which have been unavailable since their original appearance in underground newspapers, literary journals, even porno mags. Among the highlights are his first published short story, “Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip”; his last short story, “The Other”; his first and last essays; and the first installment of his famous “Notes of a Dirty Old Man” column. The book contains meditations on his familiar themes (drinking, horse-racing, etc.) as well as singular discussions of such figures as Artaud, Pound, and the Rolling Stones. Other significant works include the experimental title piece; a fictionalized account of meeting his hero, John Fante (“I Meet the Master”); an unflinching review of Hemingway (“An Old Drunk Who Ran Out of Luck”); the intense, autobiographical “Dirty Old Man Confesses”; and several discussions of his aesthetics (“A Rambling Essay on Poetics and the Bleeding Life Written While Drinking a Six-Pack (Tall),” “In Defense of a Certain Type of Poetry, a Certain Type of Life, a Certain Type of Blood-Filled Creature Who Will Someday Die,” and “Upon the Mathematics of the Breath and the Way”, revealing an unexpectedly learned mind behind his seemingly offhand productions.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
July 7th,2009
Beat Generation,
Literature,
Poetry |
Comments Off
