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On this 150th anniversary of Cavafy, there will be seminars, readings and papers written in the poets honor. The University of Michigan will be hosting the event A DATE WITH CAVAFY open to the public, at the Hatcher Library on April 29th Cavafy’s double anniversary. The C.P. CAVAFY FORUM has posted many contemporary papers on the art and life of the poet. A DATE WITH CAVAFY; pdf file and poster “Cavafy had a knack for discovering in old annuals, tombstones and other less heralded detritus, the material out of which poetry grew.” –Avi Sharon (from the introduction to his translation of Cavafy’s Selected Poems.) Cavafy also gave voice to the erotic, especially the suppressed longings of homoerotic desire… His greatest and still underappreciated contribution, however, is in helping us grasp the place of art in life. .. Cavafy’s aesthetic outlook heartened him to disrupt the apparent consistency of life with the inconsistency of literature. Rather than serving as an escape hatch, poetry allowed him to understand the world as a tension between the fictional and the actual. And in this tension he saw the possibility both of social critique and empathic connection with others.” – Cavafy’s Century by Gregory Jusdanis Waiting for the Barbarians What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum? The barbarians are due here today. Why isn’t anything happening in the senate? Because the barbarians are coming today. Why did our emperor get up so early, Because the barbarians are coming today Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today Because the barbarians are coming today Why don’t our distinguished orators come forward as usual Because the barbarians are coming today Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion? Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come. And now, what’s going to happen to us without barbarians? [Translated by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard] “In this cunning, amusing poem, with its punch line that never wears out, the Greek poet Constantine Cavafy penetrates deep into the nature of political life. The atmosphere of civic pride and civic hypocrisy, the mingled air of awe and contempt toward governmental institutions, rings not the bell of cliché but many eerie tintinnabulations: the gongs and chimes of public life, the distinct sounds of what we say, what we know we mean and what we don’t know we mean.” --Robert Pinsky
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| Posted in: Author/artist interviews and lectures, Poetry, world lit | No Comments » |
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Book Beat will host three distinguished authors on Sunday, June 23 at 3pm to discuss the effects of cities in crisis and how best to approach rebuilding them for future sustainability. The authors appearing to sign and discuss their work are: Gordon Young, John Gallagher, and June Manning Thomas. This event is free and open to the public. Books will be available at the event. If you would like to reserve copies of any of the books prior to the event, please call Book Beat (248) 968-1190. San Francisco journalist, author, blogger and Flint native Gordon Young will present his book, Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City, a vibrant tale of the once-thriving Automobile city Flint fighting-despite overwhelming odds-to rise from the ashes.
Visit Gordon Young’s website -full of memories and more; “FLINT EXPATRIATES -a blog for the long lost residents of the Vehicle City” “One can read Teardown and go ‘My, my, my! What a horrid town! Thank God I don’t live there!’ Oh, but you do. Just as the Roger & Me Flint of the 1980s was the precursor to a wave of downsizing that eventually hit every American community, Gordon Young’s Flint of 2013, so profoundly depicted in this book, is your latest warning of what’s in store for you–all of you, no matter where you live–in the next decade. The only difference between your town and Flint is that the Grim Reaper just likes to visit us first. It’s all here in Teardown, a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city.”–Michael Moore “Young sees Flint’s problems as emblematic of challenges felt across the nation, and has made the point that the city’s struggles with a shrinking population and changing economy hold lessons that apply to people everywhere. ”I think of Flint as kind of a New Orleans in slow motion,” he said, comparing the devastation to his hometown’s economy with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.In both cities, events beyond their control conspired against them, and no one was able, or willing, to help.” –Interview with the author at “I Love Flint” -MLive John Gallagher, author of the award-winning book Reimaging Detroit: Opportunities for Redefining an American City, will be presenting it’s follow-up: Revolution Detroit: Strategies for Urban Reinvention. After decades of suburban sprawl, job loss, and lack of regional government, Detroit has become a symbol of post-industrial distress and also one of the most complex urban environments in the world. In Revolution Detroit: Strategies for Urban Reinvention, John Gallagher argues that Detroit’s experience can offer valuable lessons to other cities that are, or will soon be, dealing with the same broken municipal model. A follow-up to his award-winning 2010 work, Reimagining Detroit, this volume looks at Detroit’s successes and failures in confronting its considerable challenges. It also looks at other ideas for reinvention drawn from the recent history of other cities, including Cleveland, Flint, Richmond, Philadelphia, and Youngstown, as well as overseas cities, including Manchester and Leipzig. “John Gallagher turns what could be a dry academic treatise into a vibrant page turner, a carefully constructed narrative that weaves the colorful stories of politicians, city planners and ordinary people into identifying and solving the great challenges presented by the global move from a manufacturing economy to one that is knowledge-based.“– Randal Charlton, former executive director of TechTown, Detroit “If many of the world’s urban places grow at an uncontrollable pace — megalopolises like Mumbai and Sao Paulo and Shanghai, and, to a lesser degree, places like Phoenix and Los Angeles — many other urban centers the world over are heading in the direction of where Detroit finds itself today, a city so drained of its lifeblood that it can no longer govern itself in the traditional way, can no longer provide jobs for large numbers of its people, and can no longer find productive uses for great swaths of urban landscape slowly returning to nature.” – excerpt from Revolution Detroit, from The Detroit Free Press John Gallagher interview in the Detroit Free Press public Q & A talks publicly on his two books about Detroit urban renewal. John Gallagher is a veteran journalist who writes about urban and economic development for the Detroit Free Press. He joined the newspaper in 1987. John’s other books include Re-imagining Detroit, Great Architecture of Michigan and, as co-author, AIA Detroit: The American Institute of Architects Guide to Detroit Architecture. June Manning Thomas is the author of Redevelopment and Race: Planning a Finer City in Postwar Detroit.
Redevelopment and Race was originally published in 1997 and was given the Paul Davidoff Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning in 1999. Students and teachers of urban planning will be grateful for this re-release. A new postscript offers insights into changes since 1997. “One of the important books in planning history, urban history, African-American history, and urban studies.”–Christopher Silver “Thomas’s narrative is solid and it certainly demonstrates the validity of her themes. She presents the primary ideas, events and people that the story demands, and sorts through a myriad of federal and local redevelopment initiatives and programs; from notions of regional planning after the war, through Community Block Grants and Urban Renewal, to the current federal Empowerment Zones/ Enterprise Communities Act. Thomas deals with controversial issues in an even-handed manner; in particular, this is demonstrated by her treatment of Coleman Young.” — review by Mike Smith, H-Net June Manning Thomas is Centennial Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Michigan. She is also the co-editor of Urban Planning and the African American Community and co-editor of The City after Abandonment.
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| Posted in: Author signings, Author/artist interviews and lectures, Book Signings, Detroit & Michigan, General | No Comments » |
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Like many entrepreneurs, Ryan Blair had no formal business education. But he had great survival instincts, tenacity, and, above all, a “nothing to lose” mindset. His middle-class childhood ended abruptly when his abusive father succumbed to drug addiction and abandoned the family. Blair and his mother moved to a rough neighborhood, and soon he was in and out of juvenile detention, joining a gang just to survive. Then his mother fell in love with a successful entrepreneur who took Ryan under his wing. With his mentor’s guidance, Blair started his first company, 24/7 Tech, at age twenty-one. He has since created and sold several companies for hundreds of millions of dollars. This is an inspirational guide full of powerful stories and lessons and a road map for entrepreneurial success. Watch an interview with author Ryan Blair here. Ryan Blair is a self-made multimillionaire and serial entrepreneur. He established his first company, 24/7 Tech, when he was twenty-one years old and has since created and actively invested in multiple start-ups. As the CEO of ViSalus, Blair turned the company around during the 2009 recession and, in three years , took it from $600,000 in monthly sales to $600 million in annual sales. He lives in Detroit, with his son, Reagan. |
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| Posted in: Author signings, Author/artist interviews and lectures, Book Signings, Detroit & Michigan | 1 Comment » |
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Detroit City Is the Place to Be is one of Publishers Weekly’s Top 10 Best Books of 2012 “Magnificent… A crackling rebuttal to ruin porn, those glossy coffee table books that fetishize Detroit’s decay… A clear-eyed look at promising recent developments, without any saccharine optimism.” Once America’s capitalist dream town, Detroit is our country’s greatest urban failure, having fallen the longest and the farthest. But the city’s worst crisis yet (and that’s saying something) has managed to do the unthinkable: turn the end of days into a laboratory for the future. Urban planners, land speculators, neopastoral agriculturalists, and utopian environmentalists—all have been drawn to Detroit’s baroquely decaying, nothing-left-to-lose frontier. With an eye for both the darkly absurd and the radically new, Detroit-area native Mark Binelli has chronicled this convergence. Throughout the city’s “museum of neglect”—its swaths of abandoned buildings, its miles of urban prairie—he tracks both the blight and the signs of its repurposing, from the school for pregnant teenagers to a beleaguered UAW local; from metal scrappers and gun-toting vigilantes to artists reclaiming abandoned auto factories; from the organic farming on empty lots to GM’s risky wager on the Volt electric car; from firefighters forced by budget cuts to sleep in tents to the mayor’s realignment plan (the most ambitious on record) to move residents of half-empty neighborhoods into a viable, new urban center. Sharp and impassioned, Detroit City Is the Place to Be is alive with the sense of possibility that comes when a city hits rock bottom. Beyond the usual portrait of crime, poverty, and ruin, we glimpse a longshot future Detroit that is smaller, less segregated, greener, economically diverse, and better functioning—what could be the boldest reimagining of a post-industrial city in our new century. Listen to an NPR interview with author Mark Binelli here. “First things first: Binelli can really write…. Binelli chronicles the various experiments happening inside Detroit with a winning combination of humor, skepticism and sincerity [and] also does the far more important work of squaring the repurposing and rebranding of Detroit by artists and enterpreneurs with the more fundamental reality of the place…. He is a cleareyed and soulful narrator of Detroit’s travails.” |
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A reservoir of information about American manufacturing, labor unions, and social movements, McClelland’s book, ironically, stands as a testament to the simple truth that one steel worker told him: “You can’t grow an economy without making things, producing stuff.” – Publishers Weekly “..tells the story of how the country’s industrial heartland grew, boomed, bottomed, and hopes to be reborn. Through a propulsive blend of storytelling and reportage, celebrated writer Edward McClelland delivers the rise, fall, and revival of the Rust Belt and its people.” -Booktopia “The Upper Midwest and Great Lakes region became the “arsenal of democracy”-the greatest manufacturing center in the world-in the years during and after World War II, thanks to natural advantages and a welcoming culture. Decades of unprecedented prosperity followed, memorably punctuated by riots, strikes, burning rivers, and oil embargoes. A vibrant, quintessentially American character bloomed in the region’s cities, suburbs, and backwaters.
But the innovation and industry that defined the Rust Belt also helped to hasten its demise. An air conditioner invented in Upstate New York transformed the South from a sweaty backwoods to a non-unionized industrial competitor. Japan and Germany recovered from their defeat to build fuel-efficient cars in the stagnant 1970s. The tentpole factories that paid workers so well also filled the air with soot, and poisoned waters and soil. The jobs drifted elsewhere, and many of the people soon followed suit.
Nothin’ but Blue Skies tells the story of how the country’s industrial heartland grew, boomed, bottomed, and hopes to be reborn. Through a propulsive blend of storytelling and reportage, celebrated writer Edward McClelland delivers the rise, fall, and revival of the Rust Belt and its people.” – publisher description
“Edward McClelland, who knows the territory, has produced a dazzling and heart-breaking piece of front-line reporting on the glory days and collapse of the industrial heartland, and on the pain and resilience of the people left in its wreckage. From Syracuse and Buffalo to Flint and Chicago, we meet the workers who wonder what has happened to their lives. Raw and vibrant, Nothin’ But Blue Skies sings the Rust Belt blues.”—Richard C. Longworth, author of Caught in the Middle: America’s Heartland in the Age of Globalism Edward McClelland is the author of Young Mr. Obama: Chicago and the Making of a Black President, The Third Coast: Sailors, Strippers, Fisherman, Folksingers, Long-Haired Ojibway Painters, and God-Save-the-Queen Monarchists of the Great Lakes, and Horseplayers: Life at the Track. He has contributed to the New York Times, Playboy, Slate, the Nation, and many other publications. He lives in Chicago. |
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“..for a true collector the whole background of an item adds up to a magic encyclopedia whose quintessence is the fate of his object.”~ Walter Benjamin, Unpacking My Library
April 20th was Record Store Day, an international day created in 2007, by a group of independent record store owners to promote vinyl recordings. Early that morning across the country, people lined up in front of small independent record stores to purchase and celebrate the survival and unique qualities of vinyl recordings. Limited edition albums from Van Dyke Parks, The Band, Half Japanese and over 200 other artists were released that day – with similar hard-to-find recordings released once each year on Recordstore day. [photo above: lines forming early at Underground Sounds in Ann Arbor, photo by David Brenner, annarbor.com] Excitement and buzz surrounds these small edition recordings, all simultaneously issued on the third Saturday of April. People discuss the selections and blog about them months ahead. Old blockbuster LPs, never released, unusual oddities and dozens of limited edition 7″ recordings come out for eager waiting fans. Forget about Christmas, this is the busiest day of the year for many indie record stores, who begin stashing rare goodies for months in advance all adding to feed the record store mania. “Steve Jobs was a pioneer of digital music. His legacy is tremendous,” Young said. “But when he went home, he listened to vinyl (albums).” -Neil Young [ source: Christian Science Monitor]
Perhaps bookstores could take a page from the playbook of record stores. Could publishers and bookstores combine a strategy to create a parallel day of international book mania ? What would a bookstore day look like? The prospect of early morning line ups for limited book releases, readings, signings, artist designed book bags, food, art and events — would be an inspring sight. The last time people lined up early for books was during the Harry Potter releases, which were spontaneous grass-roots events. Imagine a day that could create “book fever” on a grand scale – how fun and positive that would be. In some ways, indie bookstores seem even better poised and organized to bring off a day of book celebration, than record stores selling esoteric vinyl. They both have survived similar experiences, especially in their handeling of the digital gulch. Nobody seems to be talking about the huge piracy issues involved with music or books much anymore. Like the pirating of music and video in torrents, entire hi-jacked libraries of 2500 pdf- e-books are now offered for free and take only a couple hours to download. Music and bookstores both deal with a huge variety of selections, taste and styles -they act as gathering posts for discussion, learning and disseminating culture. Bookstores have regional groups, newsletters, the ABA and other support systems at their disposal, great resources that they could rally together on a day for books. Perhaps vinyl music collectors are a more passionate and dedicated breed of collector than book readers and maybe the pressure from online retailers and piracy issues forced record stores into become more agile and better retailers. Record store Day has helped bring attention to the stores and the products they offer.
Giving away books (a highly personal item, not unlike records) randomly to people on the street without regard to their reading habits or personal preferences, is like spinning a roulette wheel. The giver is familiar with the book and can try and give the recipient an idea about its content – but in most cases that’s an unlikely scenerio. Sometimes a random act of kindness is given without much thought or concern for its outcome. People will pick up almost any free sample handed to them on the street – but the process of choosing a book or record (especially when you are using your own money) is a highly personal one, needing thought and effort put into it. Can you imagine if people gave out top 40 records on the streets as charity to “non-music lovers” or “light listeners”- what would the effect be? I believe most of those recordings would end up in the garbage or un-listened to.
The personal choice of one’s reading material is something done more effectively inside a bookstore or library in private. The act of browsing is a physical, visual and intellectual art, one that needs to be experienced and practiced. Art galleries, museums, libraries, music and bookstores all offer that experience at little or no cost. Browsing is now regarded as an online activity between a persons digital browser and his cell phone or computer. In his essay The Painter and Modern Life, poet Charles Baudelaire put forth the idea of the flâneur as someone strolling down the street, wasting time but still engaged with life, actively looking. The strolling person can wander freely and linger on his way, aware and in contact with their physical surroundings, engaged in thinking, an endangered act these days. Browsing slows life down and gives the mind breathing room. It allows chance encounters and discoveries to happen, and you begin to find out who you are as a person.
[photo above: crowded book browsers and book stalls in Barcelona on April 23rd] San Jordi day was created by a bookseller that wanted to inspire passion into book giving. He chose April 23rd because it was the death anniversary of both Shakespeare and Cervantes in 1616, and the feast day of Saint George. In the Detroit area, Núria (a native of Barcelona) and Elie, are both wine merchants and committed art advocates who have started “The Society of Saint Jordi” several years ago through which they produce The Day of Books and Roses festival held at the Ferndale Public Library. They bring together books, authors, musicians, food and wine as a continuation of this wonderful tradition. World Book Night has taken the booksellers holiday (April 23rd) and practically removed the bookseller from it. WBN selects the books from a panel of librarians and booksellers and is able to give them away because they are donated by publishers and the authors forego any royalties on WBN books. The system uses bookstores as drop off points and distribution centers for the thousands of hand-to-hand givers. WBN hopes these book giveaways will change lives and create new readers, giving non-book buyers and “light readers” a taste of contemporary classics. I’m hopeful that many life-changing events can occur and applaud any charity directed at the poor and needy, especially among those unable to afford or get in touch with books. If the intention of WBN is to create lifetime readers, then why not aim their resources and efforts at very young, or impoverished children — they are really the ones on the front lines of literacy and picture books would be much easier, lighter and practical to print and distribute. Putting books in the hands of children will help them create their own libraries and may help improve the future of the book. World Book Day is an international celebration sponsored by UNESCO but seems most heavily organized in the British Isles. On that day, children are given tokens or vouchers for pre-selected free titles available at any bookstore, or the child can use the tokens to get a discount off any new book at a bookstore. This is one of the largest book and reading stimulus programs in the world, and offers “big celebrations of reading with millions and millions of vouchers for free books going out to kids.”– while bringing children into bookstores, the vouchers also allow for freedom of selection, an important element in supporting and creating readers for life. International Children’s Book Day is April 2nd (the birthday of Hans Christian Anderson) and also celebrates books and reading for children. Their Children in Crisis program, “provides support for children whose lives have been disrupted through war, civil disorder or natural disaster.” This group is based in Switzerland and seems to be running on limited resources. I’d love to support any program that empowers children (or adults) by allowing them to choose their own books -and to find them inside of bookstores. If a token works in the UK, why not adopt that here? Perhaps Bookstore Day – or the promise of a global San Jordi day will come to pass when booksellers feel it imperative to make it happen. Authors and publishers could create special works that celebrate the book – and we’d have a one day party to announce and spread this conspiracy of book mania. Working in a bookstore is a liminal position, an uneasy balancing act. Attacks happen from all directions. Publisher’s can seem both supportive and threatening -while the looming specter of a paperless, book free world appears both possible and dismal. We remain here to try and postpone the book-replacing e-readers in our Fahrenheit 451 world as long as possible. By keeping book culture alive and prosperous inside bookstores, we can all take part in slowing down their advance. Just as the premature death of vinyl records was called too soon and reversed by Recordstore day, so might a similar reversal and appreciation of book culture be accomplished by a united bookstore day celebration. |
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