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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200326T193000
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SUMMARY:Jordan Kisner and Esmé Weijun Wang at Green Apple Books
DESCRIPTION:Jordan Kisner discusses her new essay collection\, Thin Places: Essays From In Between with Esmé Weijun Wang. \nPraise for Thin Places \n“Jordan Kisner’s essays are like intricate tattoos: etched with a sharp and exacting blade of intellect\, but made of flesh; richly drawn in their details; comprised of equal parts pleasure and pain. Like tattoos\, their natural habitat is that strange borderland where our skin meets the world—where we confront our edges\, or everything we can’t keep out. Always\, and thrillingly\, they look inward and outward with exacting grace.” —Leslie Jamison\, author of The Empathy Exams \n“Jordan Kisner’s essays are a bewitchingly original and highly personal synthesis of incisiveness\, gracefulness\, thoughtfulness\, and selflessness. She is an intellectual empath with the deepest moral instincts and a willingness to consider herself alongside her subjects\, as a person no more or less worthy of attention. Her work gives me the feeling that I’m being told an urgent secret about humanity that is meant to be savored\, then shared.” —Heidi Julavits\, author of The Folded Clock \n“Jordan Kisner is a pilgrim for our times. She ventures into the operating room where a surgeon inserts an electrode into a patient’s brain. She mingles with the debutantes of Laredo\, Texas as they navigate the fraught space between Wasp and Hispanic privilege. Wherever she is\, Kisner probes the ambiguities that we live and dream\, exploring the spaces where\, in her words\, ‘Distinctions between you and not-you\, real and and unworldly\, fall away.’ She is a tender but fierce writer; rigorous and wise.” —Margo Jefferson\, author of Negroland: A Memoir \nAbout Thin Places \nIn this perceptive and provocative essay collection\, an award-winning writer shares her personal and reportorial investigation into America’s search for meaning \nWhen Jordan Kisner was a child\, she was saved by Jesus Christ at summer camp\, much to the confusion of her nonreligious family. She was\, she writes\, “just naturally reverent\,” a fact that didn’t change when she—much to her own confusion—lost her faith as a teenager. Not sure why her religious conviction had come or where it had gone\, she did what anyone would do: “You go about the great American work of assigning yourself to other gods: yoga\, talk radio\, neoatheism\, CrossFit\, cleanses\, football\, the academy\, the American Dream\, Beyoncé.” \nA curiosity about the subtle systems guiding contemporary life pervades Kisner’s work. Her celebrated essay “Thin Places” (Best American Essays 2016)\, about an experimental neurosurgery developed to treat severe obsessive-compulsive disorder\, asks how putting the neural touchpoint of the soul on a pacemaker may collide science and psychology with philosophical questions about illness\, the limits of the self\, and spiritual transformation. How should she understand the appearance of her own obsessive compulsive disorder at the very age she lost her faith? \nIntellectually curious and emotionally engaging\, the essays in Thin Places manage to be both intimate and expansive\, illuminating an unusual facet of American life\, as well as how it reverberates with the author’s past and present.
URL:https://litseen.com/event/jordan-kisner-and-esme-weijun-wang-at-green-apple-books/
LOCATION:Green Apple Books 9th Avenue\, 1231 9th Avenue\, San Francisco\, CA\, 94122\, United States
CATEGORIES:Free,San Francisco
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/9780374274641.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200328T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200328T220000
DTSTAMP:20260426T003902
CREATED:20200216T043021Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200216T043021Z
UID:55911-1585393200-1585432800@litseen.com
SUMMARY:EVES AT THE BEAT: Womxn Reading at The Beat Museum Celebrate Women's History Month
DESCRIPTION:During Women’s History month 2019\, a constellation of events brought together a group of fabulous womxn+ writers. The meeting of these hearts and minds exploded into something powerful and a new monthly reading series concept was born\, “Eves at the Beat”. \nEves at the Beat has been running for a year now\, gaining momentum and new community as it goes. On March 28th 2020 we are having a celebratory marathon reading to uplift the curators and readers who have shared their hearts and poetic spirits at The Beat Museum in San Francisco throughout the past year. \nThis event will showcase approximately fifty womxn identified writers across eleven hours and will go down in history (at least The Beat Museum History) as one of the largest Womxn identified literary readings in San Francisco. Mark your calendars and stay tuned for the reader lineup and schedule of events for the day! \nMore info about “Eves at the Beat”:\nEves at the Beat is a monthly first Thursday reading series at The Beat Museum with occasional readings in Kerouac Alley featuring womxn and non-binary people. Each first Thursday there will be a new curator and MC invited from previous months. This will give many people the opportunity to step into these roles and make the culture of the readings more equitable and circular\, rather than hierarchal. \nContact: Cassandra Rockwood Rice Ganem Cassandra@cca.edu for more information.
URL:https://litseen.com/event/eves-at-the-beat-womxn-reading-at-the-beat-museum-celebrate-womens-history-month/
LOCATION:The Beat Museum\, 540 Broadway\, San Francisco \, CA\, 94133\, United States
CATEGORIES:Free,San Francisco
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/image-60.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200328T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200328T160000
DTSTAMP:20260426T003902
CREATED:20200206T035753Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200206T035753Z
UID:55540-1585411200-1585411200@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Inter•Col•Lab: A Reading and Film Screening with Valerie Witte\, Sarah Rosenthal\, and Ayana Yonesaka
DESCRIPTION:The Bindery hosts a special afternoon of interrelated\, genre-crossing collaborations: a book of sonnets and letters\, an essay collection\, and a film\, all of which investigate postmodern dance. \nIn their book The Grass Is Greener When the Sun Is Yellow\, poets Valerie Witte and Sarah Rosenthal engage with the work of dancer-choreographers Simone Forti and Yvonne Rainer. Through research into these innovative women’s dances\, ideas\, and lives\, Witte and Rosenthal use language from and about the choreographers to create a series of co-written sonnets that are interwoven with letters between the two poets. These letters describe the process of composing the poems and branch into discussions of dance\, poetics\, gender\, transgression\, and the unfolding disaster of the current political scene. Together\, the poems and letters construct an environment of reflection\, intimacy\, and vulnerability\, one that is both challenging and invitational. \nWitte and Rosenthal will read from The Grass Is Greener\, and briefly describe the essay project which their book has spawned. Rosenthal and dancer-choreographer Ayana Yonesaka will then introduce and screen their short film\, We Agree on the Sun\, which draws on one of the essays to explore the intersection of dance and houselessness. A Q&A will follow. The event will feature hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar. \n\nSarah Rosenthal is the author of several books and chapbooks including The Grass Is Greener When the Sun Is Yellow (The Operating System\, 2019; a collaboration with Valerie Witte) Lizard (Chax\, 2016)\, and Manhatten (Spuyten Duyvil\, 2009). She edited A Community Writing Itself: Conversations with Vanguard Poets of the Bay Area (Dalkey Archive\, 2010). She has done grant-supported writing residencies at Vermont Studio Center\, Soul Mountain\, Ragdale\, New York Mills\, Hambidge\, and This Will Take Time\, and has been a Headlands Center Affiliate Artist. She lives in San Francisco where she works as a Life & Professional Coach\, develops curricula for the Center for the Collaborative Classroom\, and serves on the California Book Awards jury. More at sarahrosenthal.net. Author photo by Denise Newman. \nValerie Witte is the author of a game of correspondence (Black Radish Books\, 2015) and The Grass Is Greener When the Sun Is Yellow (The Operating System\, 2019; a collaboration with Sarah Rosenthal)\, as well as two chapbooks. She is a founding member of the Bay Area Correspondence School\, and for eight years\, she helped produce many innovative books by women as a member of Kelsey Street Press. In her daytime hours\, she edits education books in Portland\, OR. Read more at valeriewitte.com. Photo by Andrew Hedges. \nBorn and raised in Sapporo\, Japan\, Ayana Yonesaka moved to San Francisco in 2009 to pursue her career in dance. Since graduating summa cum laude with a BA in Dance from San Francisco State University in 2013\, she has worked in the Bay Area as a dance instructor\, performer\, and choreographer. In addition to teaching at San Francisco Youth Ballet Academy\, RoCo Dance & Fitness\, and ODC\, she also directs ayanadancearts\, a company she founded in 2017. Ayana aims to create highly innovative choreography that is rooted in contemporary dance aesthetics with a strong Japanese cultural narrative. Her work seamlessly navigates her Japanese and American identities\, choreographing through a unique cross-Pacific framework. Photo by jGuerzonPictorials. \n\nPlease note: this event will be held at The Bindery\, 1727 Haight. \nThis is a free\, all-ages event. The bar opens with the store at 2pm; event starts at 4pm. \nRSVP appreciated but not required. \nAs with all of our events\, seating may be limited; you can guarantee a seat by pre-purchasing the book below — when checking out\, just be sure to include a note that you’d like to attend the event. If you cannot attend the event but would like to request a signed copy of The Grass is Greener When the Sun is Yellow\, order below and be sure to put your request in the comments field. \nAccessibility is important to us! If you have special needs please let us know and we’ll do our absolute best to accommodate you: events@booksmith.com.
URL:https://litseen.com/event/inter%e2%80%a2col%e2%80%a2lab-a-reading-and-film-screening-with-valerie-witte-sarah-rosenthal-and-ayana-yonesaka/
LOCATION:The Bindery\, 1727 Haight St\, San Francisco \, 94117\, United States
CATEGORIES:Free,San Francisco
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/image-43.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200329T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200329T160000
DTSTAMP:20260426T003902
CREATED:20200203T205455Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200203T205455Z
UID:55376-1585497600-1585497600@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Silent Book Club SF
DESCRIPTION:Bring a book\, bring a friend\, and join Silent Book Club for an afternoon of reading! At Silent Book Club\, there’s no assigned reading. All books and all ages are welcome. \nWe’ll kick off introvert happy hour at 4pm with some light chatter and informal book recommendations before settling in to read quietly\, but if you’d rather just pull up a chair and read\, by all means do so. No one will be shushed or shamed. The bar will be open for late afternoon libations. \nHappy reading and hope to see you there! \nPlease note: this event will be at The Bindery\, 1727 Haight. \nRSVP appreciated but not required. \nPhoto by Cody Pickens for O Magazine
URL:https://litseen.com/event/silent-book-club-sf-8/
LOCATION:The Bindery\, 1727 Haight St\, San Francisco \, 94117\, United States
CATEGORIES:Free,San Francisco
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/image-2.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200329T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200329T173000
DTSTAMP:20260426T003902
CREATED:20191227T064746Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20191227T064746Z
UID:54593-1585497600-1585503000@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Silent Book Club SF
DESCRIPTION:Bring a book\, bring a friend\, and join Silent Book Club for an afternoon of reading! At Silent Book Club\, there’s no assigned reading. All books and all ages are welcome. \nWe’ll kick off introvert happy hour at 4pm with some light chatter and informal book recommendations before settling in to read quietly\, but if you’d rather just pull up a chair and read\, by all means do so. No one will be shushed or shamed. The bar will be open for late afternoon libations. \nHappy reading and hope to see you there! \nPlease note: this event will be at The Bindery\, 1727 Haight. \nRSVP appreciated but not required. \nPhoto by Cody Pickens for O Magazine
URL:https://litseen.com/event/silent-book-club-sf-7/
LOCATION:The Bindery\, 1727 Haight St\, San Francisco \, 94117\, United States
CATEGORIES:Free,San Francisco
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Silent-Book-Club-at-The-Bindery-in-San-Francisco-by-Cody-Pickens-2.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200329T183000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200329T183000
DTSTAMP:20260426T003902
CREATED:20200312T214828Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200312T214846Z
UID:56381-1585506600-1585506600@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Seen and Heard
DESCRIPTION:
URL:https://litseen.com/event/sean-and-heard/
LOCATION:THE LAUNDRY\, 3359 26th Street\, San Francisco\, 94110
CATEGORIES:Free,San Francisco
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Screen-Shot-2020-03-12-at-2.48.09-PM.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200330T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200330T190000
DTSTAMP:20260426T003902
CREATED:20200203T205813Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200203T205813Z
UID:55380-1585594800-1585594800@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Jon Mooallem / This Is Chance!: The Shaking of an All-American City\, a Voice That Held It Together
DESCRIPTION:Booksmith hosts Jon Mooallem (Wild Ones: A Sometimes Dismaying\, Weirdly Reassuring Story About Looking at People Looking at Animals in America) for his new book This Is Chance!: The Shaking of an All-American City\, a Voice That Held It Together. Please join us! \nIn 1964\, Anchorage\, Alaska\, was a modern-day frontier town yearning to be a metropolis — the largest\, proudest city in a state that was still brand-new. But just before sundown on Good Friday\, the community was jolted by the most powerful earthquake in American history\, a catastrophic 9.2 on the Richter Scale. For four and a half minutes\, the ground lurched and rolled. Streets cracked open and swallowed buildings whole. And once the shaking stopped\, night fell and Anchorage went dark. The city was in disarray and sealed off from the outside world. \nSlowly\, people switched on their transistor radios and heard a woman’s familiar voice explaining what had just happened and what to do next. Genie Chance was a part-time radio reporter and working mother who’d play an unlikely role in the wake of the disaster\, helping to put her fractured community back together. Genie’s tireless broadcasts over the next three days would transform her into a legendary figure in Alaska and bring her fame worldwide — but only briefly\, before her story faded away as quickly as it had surfaced after the quake. That Easter weekend in Anchorage\, Genie and an entire cast of endearingly eccentric characters — from a mountaineering psychologist to the local community theater group staging Our Town — were thrown into a jumbled world they could not recognize. Together\, they would make a home in it again. \nDrawing on thousands of pages of unpublished documents\, interviews with survivors\, and original broadcast recordings\, This Is Chance! is the hopeful\, gorgeously told story of a single catastrophic weekend and proof of our collective strength in a turbulent world. There are moments when reality instantly changes — when the life we assume is stable gets upended by pure happenstance. This Is Chance! is an electrifying and lavishly empathetic portrayal of one community rising above the randomness\, a real-life fable of human connection withstanding chaos. \n\n“Jon Mooallem is one of the most intelligent\, compassionate\, and curious authors writing today. I would go on any adventure that his mind embarks upon\, knowing that I was being led by the ablest of guides. In This is Chance!\, he draws us into the depths of a disaster only to unearth an intimate\, moving story about our capacity to care for one another when things fall apart — and\, just maybe\, on all the ordinary days\, too.”  – Elizabeth Gilbert \n\n“This Is Chance is the riveting story of a town on the brink of its own existence\, broken and held together by an unbelievable natural disaster. With grace and command\, Jon Mooallem illuminates the near-divine existential interchange between wonder and horror\, fate and self-determination. I teared up reading it\, getting to know Genie Chance\, a perfectly-named hero — grateful to brush up against the extraordinary and unforgotten.” – Jia Tolentino\, bestselling author of Trick Mirror \n“Jon Mooallem is one of the most delightful nonfiction writers working today. This is Chance! is funny\, poignant and surprising: It takes an all-too-familiar story of a woman whose work is fundamental but long forgotten and turns it on its head. With his signature wit\, depth\, and gift for storytelling\, Mooallem brings to life a strong\, fascinating character who played a crucial role in the aftermath of a disaster — and whose story shows not just how deeply women’s voices matter\, but how often they have been silenced by history.”  — Rebecca Skloot\, bestselling author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks \n\nJon Mooallem is a longtime writer at large for The New York Times Magazine and a contributor to numerous radio shows and other magazines\, including This American Life and Wired. His first book\, Wild Ones: A Sometimes Dismaying\, Weirdly Reassuring Story About Looking at People Looking at Animals in America was chosen as a notable book of the year by The New York Times Book Review\, The New Yorker\, NPR’s Science Friday\, and Canada’s National Post\, among others. He lives on Bainbridge Island\, outside Seattle\, with his family. Photo by Meghann Riepenhoff. \n\nThis event is free and all ages. \nRSVP appreciated but not required. \nAs with all of our events\, seating may be limited; you can guarantee a seat by pre-purchasing the book below — when checking out\, just be sure to include a note that you’d like to attend the event. If you cannot attend the event but would like to request a signed copy of This Is Chance!\, order below and be sure to put your request in the comments field. \nAccessibility is important to us! If you have special needs please let us know and we’ll do our absolute best to accommodate you: events@booksmith.com.
URL:https://litseen.com/event/jon-mooallem-this-is-chance-the-shaking-of-an-all-american-city-a-voice-that-held-it-together/
LOCATION:The Booksmith\, 1644 Haight St\, San Francisco \, CA\, 94117\, United States
CATEGORIES:Free,San Francisco
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/image-3.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200331T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200331T203000
DTSTAMP:20260426T003902
CREATED:20191227T025355Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20191227T025355Z
UID:54538-1585681200-1585686600@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Archive 48 Release Party: The Earthly Days of Jose Revueltas
DESCRIPTION:Binational publisher Archive 48\, dedicated to Mexican and U.S. literature\, launches its U.S. wing with the first-ever English translation of an important work by  Jose Revueltas. Join us to celebrate its release. \n  \nTranslator Matthew Gleeson and publisher Pedro Jiménez celebrate the publication of Earthly Days by José Revueltas. \n \nMexican author Revueltas was a lifelong militant whose political activities stretched from the 1930s Communist Party to the 1968 student movement—and sent him to prison several times. His important writing career included prize-winning novels that lay bare the underbelly of Mexican society\, as well as screenplays for noir films during Mexican cinema’s Golden Age. But most of his dark and complex work still remains neglected in English. \nEarthly Days\, originally published in 1949\, is a quintessential Revueltas novel that marries Communist struggle\, noir narrative\, and psychological depth exploration. It also turned out to be his most controversial: it was withdrawn from circulation when Mexican Marxist circles attacked it as politically heretical\, and this is its first appearance in English. \nMatthew Gleeson is a writer and translator based in Mexico. With Audrey Harris\, he co-translated The Houseguest and Other Stories by Amparo Dávila (New Directions\, 2018). With Giada Diano\, he co-edited Writing Across the Landscape: Travel Journals 1960-2010 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti (Norton/Liveright\, 2015). \nPedro Jimenez is an editor\, translator and essayist. He has translated Etel Adnan’s Seasons into Spanish—to be published in Mexico by Archive48 in 2019. He has written various articles and art reviews in English and Spanish for digital outlets and print journals. He is the founder of Archive48\, a bilingual publishing project based in San Francisco. \nArchive 48‘s goal is the publication of compelling literary works in affordable editions. Like the face of Janus\, Archivo 48 looks north and south to bring the best of contemporary and modernist literature from Mexico and the United States cross borders. They seek books that have not been fully recognized by the literary status quo of each country\, in an effort to open new conversations.
URL:https://litseen.com/event/archive-48-release-party-the-earthly-days-of-jose-revueltas/
LOCATION:City Lights Bookstore\, 261 Columbus Ave\, San Francisco \, CA\, 94133\, United States
CATEGORIES:Free,San Francisco
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Jose@typewriter.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200331T193000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200331T210000
DTSTAMP:20260426T003902
CREATED:20191227T172633Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20191227T172633Z
UID:54682-1585683000-1585688400@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Alexandra Chang
DESCRIPTION:Alexandra Chang discusses her debut novel\, Days of Distraction. \nPraise for Days of Distraction \n“A startlingly original and deeply moving debut—kaleidoscopic\, funny\, heart-rending\, beautifully observed\, and formally daring.  It struck me as a new variety of novel…. Chang here establishes herself as one of the most important of the new generation of American writers.”— George Saunders \n“A wholly engaging joy to read. Chang writes with wit and sharpness as she curates moments\, observations and histories that together make something of beautiful depth and significance. It takes great bravery to make art of so many of those things we fear and love. An important\, gratifying read.”— Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah\, author of Friday Black \n“Days of Distraction seized my attention like no other novel\, distracting me entirely from my own life. The magic of this book is that its scale seems small\, fixating on the minute details that make up our days: the anxieties\, the obsessions\, the observations made in the office\, the neighborhood\, the coffee shop. And yet inside Alexandra Chang’s brilliant narrator is a grand\, restless consciousness…. This is a book about America\, and also an American love story\, one that will leave you achingly awakened.” — Eleanor Henderson\, author of Ten Thousand Saints \nAbout Days of Distraction \nA wry\, tender portrait of a young woman—finally free to decide her own path\, but unsure if she knows herself well enough to choose wisely—from a captivating new literary voice \nThe plan is to leave. As for how\, when\, to where\, and even why—she doesn’t know yet. So begins a journey for the twenty-four-year-old narrator of Days of Distraction. As a staff writer at a prestigious tech publication\, she reports on the achievements of smug Silicon Valley billionaires and start-up bros while her own request for a raise gets bumped from manager to manager. And when her longtime boyfriend\, J\, decides to move to a quiet upstate New York town for grad school\, she sees an excuse to cut and run. \nMoving is supposed to be a grand gesture of her commitment to J and a way to reshape her sense of self. But in the process\, she finds herself facing misgivings about her role in an interracial relationship. Captivated by the stories of her ancestors and other Asian Americans in history\, she must confront a question at the core of her identity: What does it mean to exist in a society that does not notice or understand you? \nEqual parts tender and humorous\, and told in spare but powerful prose\, Days of Distraction is an offbeat coming-of-adulthood tale\, a touching family story\, and a razor-sharp appraisal of our times.
URL:https://litseen.com/event/alexandra-chang/
LOCATION:Green Apple Books on the Park\, 1231 9th Ave\, San Francisco \, CA\, 94122\, United States
CATEGORIES:Free,San Francisco
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/front-cover-of-Days-of-Distraction.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200331T193000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200331T213000
DTSTAMP:20260426T003902
CREATED:20200207T204558Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200207T204558Z
UID:55636-1585683000-1585690200@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Alexandra Chang at Green Apple Books
DESCRIPTION:Alexandra Chang discusses her debut novel\, Days of Distraction. \nPraise for Days of Distraction \n“A startlingly original and deeply moving debut—kaleidoscopic\, funny\, heart-rending\, beautifully observed\, and formally daring.  It struck me as a new variety of novel…. Chang here establishes herself as one of the most important of the new generation of American writers.”— George Saunders \n“A wholly engaging joy to read. Chang writes with wit and sharpness as she curates moments\, observations and histories that together make something of beautiful depth and significance. It takes great bravery to make art of so many of those things we fear and love. An important\, gratifying read.”— Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah\, author of Friday Black \n“Days of Distraction seized my attention like no other novel\, distracting me entirely from my own life. The magic of this book is that its scale seems small\, fixating on the minute details that make up our days: the anxieties\, the obsessions\, the observations made in the office\, the neighborhood\, the coffee shop. And yet inside Alexandra Chang’s brilliant narrator is a grand\, restless consciousness…. This is a book about America\, and also an American love story\, one that will leave you achingly awakened.” — Eleanor Henderson\, author of Ten Thousand Saints \nAbout Days of Distraction \nA wry\, tender portrait of a young woman—finally free to decide her own path\, but unsure if she knows herself well enough to choose wisely—from a captivating new literary voice \nThe plan is to leave. As for how\, when\, to where\, and even why—she doesn’t know yet. So begins a journey for the twenty-four-year-old narrator of Days of Distraction. As a staff writer at a prestigious tech publication\, she reports on the achievements of smug Silicon Valley billionaires and start-up bros while her own request for a raise gets bumped from manager to manager. And when her longtime boyfriend\, J\, decides to move to a quiet upstate New York town for grad school\, she sees an excuse to cut and run. \nMoving is supposed to be a grand gesture of her commitment to J and a way to reshape her sense of self. But in the process\, she finds herself facing misgivings about her role in an interracial relationship. Captivated by the stories of her ancestors and other Asian Americans in history\, she must confront a question at the core of her identity: What does it mean to exist in a society that does not notice or understand you? \nEqual parts tender and humorous\, and told in spare but powerful prose\, Days of Distraction is an offbeat coming-of-adulthood tale\, a touching family story\, and a razor-sharp appraisal of our times. \n 
URL:https://litseen.com/event/alexandra-chang-at-green-apple-books/
LOCATION:Green Apple Books 9th Avenue\, 1231 9th Avenue\, San Francisco\, CA\, 94122\, United States
CATEGORIES:Free,San Francisco
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/9780062951809.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200401T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200401T203000
DTSTAMP:20260426T003902
CREATED:20191227T025159Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20191227T025159Z
UID:54535-1585767600-1585773000@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Beth Lisick
DESCRIPTION:reads from \nEdie On The Green Screen: A Novel \npublished by 7.13 Books \nCity Lights welcomes back Beth Lisick to celebrate her debut novel from 7.13 Books. \nEdie Wunderlich was the It girl\, on the covers of the city’s alt-weeklies\, repping the freak party scene on the eve of the first dot-com boom. Fast-forward twenty years\, and Edie hasn’t changed\, but San Francisco has. Still a bartender in the Mission\, Edie now serves a seemingly never-ending stream of tech bros while the punk rock parties of the millennium’s end are long gone. When her mother dies\, leaving her Silicon Valley home to Edie\, she finds herself mourning her loss in the heart of the Bay Area’s tech monoculture\, and embarks on a last-ditch quest to hold on to her rebel heart. New York Times bestseller Beth Lisick’s first novel EDIE ON THE GREEN SCREEN chronicles Silicon Valley’s rapidly changing culture with biting observational humor\, an insider’s wisdom\, and disarming pathos\, while asking\, “What comes after It?” \nBeth Lisick is a writer and actor from the San Francisco Bay Area\, currently living in Brooklyn. She is the author of five previous books\, including the New York Times bestseller Everybody Into the Pool\, and co-founder of the Porchlight Storytelling Series. Beth has also worked as a baker\, a promotional banana mascot\, a background extra for TV and film\, and an aide to people with developmental disabilities and dementia. This is her first novel.
URL:https://litseen.com/event/beth-lisick/
LOCATION:City Lights Bookstore\, 261 Columbus Ave\, San Francisco \, CA\, 94133\, United States
CATEGORIES:Free,San Francisco
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/front-cover-of-Edie-on-the-Green-Screen.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200401T193000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200401T210000
DTSTAMP:20260426T003902
CREATED:20191231T203025Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20191231T203025Z
UID:54746-1585769400-1585774800@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Hilary Leichter\, Mary South\, Rita Bullwinkel\, & R.O. Kwon
DESCRIPTION:Hilary Leichter and Mary South discuss their new works\, Temporary and You Will Never Be Forgotten\, with Rita Bullwinkel and R.O. Kwon. \nPraise for Temporary \n“A narrative so deliciously allusive and disarmingly literal that this reader kept thinking maximum glee had been attained\, only for the glee to somehow grow even more maximal just a few sentences later.” —Helen Oyeyemi \n“Temporary took me by storm. Each short chapter is a wallop of topsy-turvy wisdom and humor\, and together they build a strange and sparkling universe. The novel is about work and identity and the masks we wear\, but it’s also about our weird little human hearts and what they can bear. I am a Hilary Leichter superfan.”—Ramona Ausubel \n“In Temporary\, the quest for gainful employment is epic; operatic; deliciously\, sunnily\, terrifyingly entertaining. Hilary Leichter is a conjurer of rare talent.” —Kelly Link \nAbout Temporary \nIn Temporary\, a young woman’s workplace is the size of the world. She fills increasingly bizarre placements in search of steadiness\, connection\, and something\, at last\, to call her own. Whether it’s shining an endless closet of shoes\, swabbing the deck of a pirate ship\, assisting an assassin\, or filling in for the Chairman of the Board\, for the mythical Temporary\, “there is nothing more personal than doing your job.” \nThis riveting quest\, at once hilarious and profound\, will resonate with anyone who has ever done their best at work\, even when the work is only temporary. \nPraise for You Will Never Be Forgotten \n“Mary South gets it. With dark humor\, she knocks down like so many lined-up ducks all the consoling pieties that nurture humanist fiction\, and sets up in their place a vision of subjects irremediably mediated\, strung out along networks that far exceed them. Her universe is glitchy\, full of weakly-encrypted memory\, open-source desire\, self-replicating fantasy: the human in hock to the algorithm.” —Tom McCarthy\, author of Satin Island \n“Mary South’s stories are a vital mix of wry humor\, cunning provocation\, disturbing prophecy and deep feeling. A brilliant and brilliantly strange and strangely funny and menacing debut!” —Sam Lipsyte\, author of Hark \n“Mary South’s wickedly\, exquisitely hilarious collection dwells in the intimate aches of modern life\, writ large in strange\, delightful stories that include\, but are not limited to\, clones\, brain surgery\, internet trolls\, and warehouses full of spare men. Dazzlingly imagined and full of wit\, You Will Never Be Forgotten is a gift to readers everywhere\, a ferocious transmission from one of the most audacious\, most original new voices in fiction.” —Alexandra Kleeman\, author of Intimations \nAbout You Will Never Be Forgotten \nIn this provocative\, bitingly funny debut collection\, people attempt to use technology to escape their uncontrollable feelings of grief or rage or despair\, only to reveal their most flawed and human selves \nAn architect draws questionable inspiration from her daughter’s birth defect. A content moderator for “the world’s biggest search engine\,” who spends her days culling videos of beheadings and suicides\, turns from stalking her rapist online to following him in real life. At a camp for recovering internet trolls\, a sensitive misfit goes missing. A wounded mother raises the second incarnation of her child. \nIn You Will Never Be Forgotten\, Mary South explores how technology can both collapse our relationships from within and provide opportunities for genuine connection. Formally inventive\, darkly absurdist\, savagely critical of the increasingly fraught cultural climates we inhabit\, these ten stories also find hope in fleeting interactions and moments of tenderness. They reveal our grotesque selfishness and our intense need for love and acceptance\, and the psychic pain that either shuts us off or allows us to discover our deepest reaches of empathy. This incendiary debut marks the arrival of a perceptive\, idiosyncratic\, instantly recognizable voice in fiction—one that could only belong to Mary South.
URL:https://litseen.com/event/hilary-leichter-mary-south-rita-bullwinkel-r-o-kwon/
LOCATION:Green Apple Books on the Park\, 1231 9th Ave\, San Francisco \, CA\, 94122\, United States
CATEGORIES:Free,San Francisco
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Leichter-South.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200402T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200402T190000
DTSTAMP:20260426T003902
CREATED:20200221T182938Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200312T212031Z
UID:56026-1585854000-1585854000@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Canceled: Cowboy & Other Poems: Alejandro Albarrán Polanco and Rachel Galvin
DESCRIPTION:Mexican poet Alejandro Albarrán Polanco joins poet and translator Rachel Galvin to talk about his chapbook\, Cowboy & Other Poems\, from Ugly Duckling Presse. \nAbout Cowboy & Other Poems\, Maricela Guerrero writes “Prosthesis poems raising questions about the means by which the discourse of terror erodes our conversations. Piles of poems bursting into piles of words\, crashing against the univocal: Albarrán’s work is an ensemble of voices resonating from the most sincere tenderness to the most terrible and terrifying ways in which the contemporary world of crime and horror is narrated. In this book a cowboy gallops on a thousand prairies of senseless sense\, carrying us mounted on the rump\, expectant.” \n\n\nCONTACT:\n\nLeslie-Ann Woofter\nlwoofter@catranslation.org\n415.512.8812\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAUTHOR\nAlejandro Albarrán Polanco\n\n\nAlejandro Albarrán Polanco (b. Mexico City) is the author of Algunas personas no son caballos\, which won the Premio Internacional Manuel Acuña in 2018. He is a founding editor of the press Canón Accidental and co-director of the radio program Radio Rara. He is also a musician and conceptual artist whose performances\, installations\, and artist’s books have been featured in numerous art exhibitions.\n\n\n\n\n\nTRANSLATOR\nRachel Galvin\n\n\nRachel Galvin is an award-winning poet\, translator\, and scholar. Her books include two collections of poetry\, Pulleys & Locomotion and Elevated Threat Level; a work of criticism\, News of War: Civilian Poetry 1936-1945; and Hitting the Streets\, a translation from the French of Raymond Queneau. She is a co-founder of the Outranspo\, an international creative translation collective\, and assistant professor at the University of Chicago.
URL:https://litseen.com/event/cowboy-other-poems-alejandro-albarran-polanco-and-rachel-galvin/
LOCATION:Alley Cat Books\, 3036 24th St\, San Francisco\, CA\, 94110\, United States
CATEGORIES:Free,San Francisco
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/image-83.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200402T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200402T203000
DTSTAMP:20260426T003902
CREATED:20191227T025041Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20191227T025041Z
UID:54532-1585854000-1585859400@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai
DESCRIPTION:reading from \nThe Mountains Sing \nfrom Workman Publishing Company \n“An epic account of Việt Nam’s painful 20th century history\, both vast in scope and intimate in its telling . . . Moving and riveting.” —VIET THANH NGUYEN\, author of The Sympathizer\, winner of the Pulitzer Prize \nWith the epic sweep of Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko or Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing and the lyrical beauty of Vaddey Ratner’s In the Shadow of the Banyan\, The Mountains Sing tells an enveloping\, multigenerational tale of the Trần family\, set against the backdrop of the Việt Nam War. Trần Diệu Lan\, who was born in 1920\, was forced to flee her family farm with her six children during the Land Reform as the Communist government rose in the North. Years later in Hà Nội\, her young granddaughter\, Hương\, comes of age as her parents and uncles head off down the Hồ Chí Minh Trail to fight in a conflict that tore not just her beloved country\, but her family apart. \nVivid\, gripping\, and steeped in the language and traditions of Việt Nam\, The Mountains Sing brings to life the human costs of this conflict from the point of view of the Vietnamese people themselves\, while showing us the true power of kindness and hope. \nThe Mountains Sing is celebrated Vietnamese poet Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai’s first novel in English. \nBorn into the Viet Nam War in 1973\, Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai grew up witnessing the war’s devastation and its aftermath. She worked as a street seller and rice farmer before winning a scholarship to attend university in Australia. She is the author of eight books of poetry\, fiction and non-fiction published in Vietnamese\, and her writing has been translated and published in more than 10 countries\, most recently in Norton’s Inheriting the War anthology. She has been honored with many awards\, including the Poetry of the Year 2010 Award from the Ha Noi Writers Association\, as well as many grants and fellowships. Married to a European diplomat\, Quế Mai is currently living in Jakarta with her two teenage children. \nFor more information about Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai\, visit her at www.nguyenphanquemai.com
URL:https://litseen.com/event/nguyen-phan-que-mai/
LOCATION:City Lights Bookstore\, 261 Columbus Ave\, San Francisco \, CA\, 94133\, United States
CATEGORIES:Free,San Francisco
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/front-cover-of-The-Mountains-Sing.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200402T193000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200402T210000
DTSTAMP:20260426T003902
CREATED:20191231T203056Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20191231T203056Z
UID:54748-1585855800-1585861200@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Monica Sok: A Nail the Evening Hangs On
DESCRIPTION:Monica Sok discusses her debut poetry collection\, A Nail the Evening Hangs On\, with Barbara Jane Reyes. \nPraise for A Nail the Evening Hangs On \n“Sok’s reflective debut teases out how the trauma of the Khmer Rouge is remembered and retained in the fabric of the country and within her own family… Weaving the threads of her family’s stories\, history\, place\, and identity\, these poems glimmer with strength and presence.” —Publishers Weekly  \n“An unsettling\, powerful\, important debut.” —Booklist \n“The poet is able to offer quiet wisdom without sentimentality. Ultimately this poet refuses to surrender to victimhood. The chapbook ends optimistically in the borough of Brooklyn\, where the young speaker lives happily\, sometimes seen in the neighborhood eating bagels with friends and writing new poems. She has found her way to ‘the healing fields.’” ―Marilyn Chin \nAbout A Nail the Evening Hangs On \nIn this staggering poetry debut\, Monica Sok illuminates the experiences of Cambodian diaspora and reflects on America’s role in escalating the genocide in Cambodia. A Nail the Evening Hangs On travels from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap\, where Tuol Sleng and other war museums reshape the imagination of a child of refugees; to New York City and Lancaster\, where the dailiness of intergenerational trauma persists on the subway or among the cornfields of a small hometown. Embracing collective memory\, both real and imagined\, these poems move across time to break familial silence. Sok pieces together voices and fragments—using persona\, myth\, and imagination—in a transformative work that builds towards wholeness. \n 
URL:https://litseen.com/event/monica-sok-a-nail-the-evening-hangs-on/
LOCATION:Green Apple Books on the Park\, 1231 9th Ave\, San Francisco \, CA\, 94122\, United States
CATEGORIES:Free,San Francisco
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Sok.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200403T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200403T210000
DTSTAMP:20260426T003902
CREATED:20200221T222213Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200221T222213Z
UID:56097-1585940400-1585947600@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Poetry with Jeanne Heuving\, Eleni Stecopoulos and Susan Gevirtz
DESCRIPTION:Jeanne Heuving’s latest book is Mood Indigo\, selva oscura press (2019) and she is the co-editor\, along with Tyrone Williams\, of Inciting Poetics: Thinking and Writing Poetry (Recencies Series\, University of New Mexico Press\, 2019. \nEleni Stecopoulos is the author of Visceral Poetics (ON Contemporary Practice\, 2016)\, Armies of Compassion (Palm Press\, 2010)\, and Daphnephoria (Compline\, 2012) \nSusan Gevirtz is the author of seven books of poetry\, including Aerodrome Orion & Starry Messenger\, Thrall\, and Hourglass Transcripts. Her critical works include Narrative Journey: The Fiction and Film Writing of Dorothy Richardson and Coming Events (Collected Writings)
URL:https://litseen.com/event/poetry-with-jeanne-heuving-eleni-stecopoulos-and-susan-gevirtz/
LOCATION:The Green Arcade\, 1680 Market St\, San Francisco \, CA\, 94102\, United States
CATEGORIES:San Francisco
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Mood-Indigo.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200403T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200403T230000
DTSTAMP:20260426T003902
CREATED:20200309T201454Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200309T201454Z
UID:56287-1585944000-1585954800@litseen.com
SUMMARY:About Last Night: A One Night Stand Storytelling Series April
DESCRIPTION:About Last Night – Join us for an evening of laughter\, sex positivity and of course hilariously true one night stand stories. 7 brave souls will once again climb on our stage to share true tales of their most intimate and embarrassing one night stands. \nAbout Last Night is a monthly San Francisco one night stand / poor life choice storytelling series. This event features real people sharing hilarious (way too personal) stories about horrifying one night stands\, awkward hookups\, and embarrassing sexual adventures. Come join us for a night of complete and utter hysteria\, and unlike most of your one night stands\, we can promise you that you won’t regret it! \nHave a story you’d like to tell? Visit our website: www.aboutlastnightstorytelling.com
URL:https://litseen.com/event/about-last-night-a-one-night-stand-storytelling-series-april/
LOCATION:Make-Out Room\, 3225 22nd St\, San Francisco\, CA\, 94110\, United States
CATEGORIES:San Francisco
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/image.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200404T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200404T190000
DTSTAMP:20260426T003902
CREATED:20200215T022410Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200215T022410Z
UID:55794-1586026800-1586026800@litseen.com
SUMMARY:BINDERY: Kate Radford / Drought
DESCRIPTION:The Bindery hosts a special evening with Kate Radford\, a sonic poetry performance and book release. Drought is fusing contemporary poetry\, cinematic landscapes and electronic harmonic compositions. This is the premiere performance in San Francisco – please join us! \n \nPlease note: This is a ticketed event\, with tickets on a sliding scale from $0-15. Advance tickets are highly recommended\, as door tickets are not guaranteed. Unless otherwise noted here\, tickets will be available at the door. \n\nDrought is a compositional performance piece using cinematic landscapes\, contemporary poetry and sound to create and explore art space as part ritual and place of transformation\, using language\, mythology and folklore to transmute collective pain inflicted on women throughout fiction and non-fiction\, the real world and our cultural subconscious\, with a focus on the orchestra of language in a fine art performance context. \n“It is challenging. But above all\, it is redemptive. It is a love song. Through pain\, beyond heartache\, and into the sun itself. The bright can burn\, but it also – illuminates….” – Kate Radford \nExploring characters hidden deep within Ovid’s metamorphoses\, transformed into original poetry\, fusing mythological narratives\, part-autobiography\, part compositional ritual. \nWritten and Performed by Kate Radford\nOriginal Compositions by Kate Radford\nLandscape Imagery by Bryony Good \n\nKate Radford is a multi-award winning poet and artist working internationally to transform women’s stories and embed cultural narratives with a legacy of possibility and transformation. \n\nREVIEWS \n★ ★ ★ ★ ‘Hauntingly beautiful!’ (Ask The Ushers) ‘A visually impressive feminist cry’ – Broadway World \n‘Radford re-tells using lyrical writing\, her own extraordinary voice and digital projections’ – Lyne Gardner\, Stagedoor \n‘A mesmerising punch in the gut’ – Voila! Festival \n“Kate is a storyteller\, a songstress\, a performance artist and a poet. The amazing thing is I think she really had no idea how brilliant she is\, she simply is THIS. She is what the best of artists are—a person bringing art—her art—to the world with no artifice.” – Grace Jasmine\, Hollywood Fringe \n“Kate will take you on a spiritual journey\, using mythological narrative to examine violence women have suffered and will suffer at the hands of man. It is not an attack but a look at old truths rooted in ancient and modern-day storytelling. Kate’s use of her foot to control the electronic music became its own form of poetry as her voice soared and roared through the dark space\, as footage of old ruins swelled the tiny theatre\, Drought became a new religion.” – Constance Hall\, LA Female Playwrights Initiative. \n“Drought begins quite disarmingly with mythic riffs on the historic ocean of female oppression. Then Kate Radford opened her mouth to sing and became that ocean. Vast and deep\, powerful and personal\, her loops lured me in and pulled me under until I surrendered. Then she returned me to the surface and laid me breathless on the shore. I almost died. I wanna do it again.” – Jonathan Liptake\, Hollywood Fringe \n\nPlease note: this event will be held at The Bindery\, 1727 Haight. \nThis is an all-ages event. The bar opens at 7pm; event starts at 7:30pm. \nFacebook RSVP appreciated but not required. \nAccessibility is important to us! If you have special needs please let us know and we’ll do our absolute best to accommodate you: events@booksmith.com.
URL:https://litseen.com/event/bindery-kate-radford-drought/
LOCATION:The Bindery\, 1727 Haight St\, San Francisco \, 94117\, United States
CATEGORIES:San Francisco
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/image-48.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200405T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200405T160000
DTSTAMP:20260426T003903
CREATED:20200203T210434Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200203T210434Z
UID:55383-1586102400-1586102400@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor of Welcome to Night Vale / The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home
DESCRIPTION:The Bindery hosts a special afternoon event with Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor of Welcome to Night Vale for their new novel\, The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home. Join us! \nPlease note: This event is ticketed\, with each ticket including a book\, and will take place at The Bindery\, 1727 Haight St. Tickets are available in advance here. Unless otherwise noted here\, general admission tickets will be available at the door. \nIn the town of Night Vale\, there’s a faceless old woman who secretly lives in everyone’s home\, but no one knows how she got there or where she came from…until now. Told in a series of eerie flashbacks\, the story of The Faceless Old Woman goes back centuries to reveal an initially blissful and then tragic childhood on a Mediterranean Estate in the early nineteenth century\, her rise in the criminal underworld of Europe\, a nautical adventure with a mysterious organization of smugglers\, her plot for revenge on the ones who betrayed her\, and ultimately her death and its aftermath\, as her spirit travels the world for decades until settling in modern-day Night Vale. \nInterspersed throughout is a present-day story in Night Vale\, as The Faceless Old Woman guides\, haunts\, and sabotages a man named Craig. In the end\, her current day dealings with Craig and her swashbuckling history in nineteenth century Europe will come together in the most unexpected and horrifying way. \nPart The Haunting of Hill House\, part The Count of Monte Cristo\, and 100% about a faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home. \n\nJoseph Fink created the Welcome to Night Vale and Alice Isn’t Dead podcasts. He lives with his wife in the Hudson River Valley and Los Angeles. He is the author of the novel Alice Isn’t Dead.  Jeffrey Cranor co-writes the Welcome to Night Vale and Within the Wires podcasts. He also co-creates theater and dance pieces with choreographer/wife Jillian Sweeney. They live in New York. Together\, they are the authors of the New York Times best-selling novels Welcome to Night Vale\, It Devours!\, and four Welcome to Night Vale episode script books: Mostly Void\, Partially Stars\, The Great Glowing Coils of the Universe\, The Buying of Lot 37\, and Who’s a Good Boy? In 2016\, Fink and Cranor announced their podcast network “Night Vale Presents” which has produced 14 original fiction and non-fiction podcasts. For more on Welcome to Night Vale\, upcoming events\, and the books\, visit: www.welcometonightvale.com. \n\nPlease note: this event will be held at The Bindery\, 1727 Haight. \nThis is a free\, all-ages event. The bar opens with the store at 2pm; event starts at 4pm. \nFacebook RSVP appreciated but not required. \nAccessibility is important to us! If you have special needs please let us know and we’ll do our absolute best to accommodate you: events@booksmith.com.
URL:https://litseen.com/event/joseph-fink-and-jeffrey-cranor-of-welcome-to-night-vale-the-faceless-old-woman-who-secretly-lives-in-your-home/
LOCATION:The Bindery\, 1727 Haight St\, San Francisco \, 94117\, United States
CATEGORIES:San Francisco
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/image-4.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200406T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200406T190000
DTSTAMP:20260426T003903
CREATED:20200203T211427Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200203T211427Z
UID:55386-1586199600-1586199600@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Rebecca Dinerstein Knight / Hex
DESCRIPTION:The Bindery hosts Rebecca Dinerstein Knight (The Sunlit Night) for her new novel Hex. Please join us! \nNell Barber\, an expelled PhD candidate in biological science\, is exploring the fine line between poison and antidote\, working alone to set a speed record for the detoxification of poisonous plants. Her mentor\, Dr. Joan Kallas\, is the hero of Nell’s heart. Nell frequently finds herself standing in the doorway to Joan’s office despite herself\, mesmerized by Joan’s elegance\, success\, and spiritual force. \nSurrounded by Nell’s ex\, her best friend\, her best friend’s boyfriend\, and Joan’s buffoonish husband\, the two scientists are tangled together at the center of a web of illicit relationships\, grudges\, and obsessions. All six are burdened by desire and ambition\, and as they collide on the university campus\, their attractions set in motion a domino effect of affairs and heartbreak. \nMeanwhile\, Nell slowly fills her empty apartment with poisonous plants to study\, and she begins to keep a series of notebooks\, all dedicated to Joan. She logs her research and how she spends her days\, but the notebooks ultimately become a painstaking map of love. In a dazzling and unforgettable voice\, Rebecca Dinerstein Knight has written a spellbinding novel of emotional and intellectual intensity. \n\n“In her brilliant second novel\, Rebecca Dinerstein Knight cannily explores both the poisons and the antidotes of love\, ambition\, mentorship\, and yearning\, and she does it all in prose so lively that I often found myself laughing with pleasure. Hex is some dark and joyous witchery.” – Lauren Groff\, author of Florida \n“Rebecca has written a book that examines our natural and absolutely astounding reactions to each other. The language of this novel is so finely tailored\, so elegant yet organic\, so absorbing that it takes the reader a moment to realize that this is not just a deliciously engaging tale of what it is like to be social and sexual\, but that this writing is an actual incantation in itself. It is a beautiful\, spooky spell that divides and processes our innate potential for poison or pleasure.” – Jenny Slate\, actress and author of Little Weirds \n“Hex reads like a botanist’s cross-breeding of The Secret History and Department of Speculation\, full of brilliant and bodily obsession. Rebecca Dinerstein Knight is both a scientist and a magician\, and she conjures this beautiful spell of a novel with total control.” – Emma Straub\, author of Modern Lovers \n\nRebecca Dinerstein Knight is the author of the novel and screenplay The Sunlit Night\, and a collection of poems\, Lofoten. Her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times and The New Yorker online\, among others. Born and raised in New York City\, she lives in New Hampshire. Photo by Nina Subin. \n  \n\nPlease note: this event will be held at The Bindery\, 1727 Haight. \nThis is a free\, all-ages event. The bar opens at 6:30pm; event starts at 7pm. \nRSVP appreciated but not required. \nAs with all of our events\, seating may be limited; you can guarantee a seat by pre-purchasing the book below — when checking out\, just be sure to include a note that you’d like to attend the event. If you cannot attend the event but would like to request a signed copy of Hex\, order below and be sure to put your request in the comments field. \nAccessibility is important to us! If you have special needs please let us know and we’ll do our absolute best to accommodate you: events@booksmith.com.
URL:https://litseen.com/event/rebecca-dinerstein-knight-hex/
LOCATION:The Bindery\, 1727 Haight St\, San Francisco \, 94117\, United States
CATEGORIES:Free,San Francisco
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/image-5.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200407T183000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200407T220000
DTSTAMP:20260426T003903
CREATED:20200216T054524Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200216T054545Z
UID:55928-1586284200-1586296800@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Odd Salon SF: System
DESCRIPTION:Early bird tickets go on sale on March 3 through Friday March 13 only. \n~ Salon details and speakers to be announced ~ \nTuesday\, April 7 at Public Works\, San Francisco \nDoors open for pre-salon cocktail hour at 6:30\, Talks begin at 7:30 \nReserved Seats available. General Admission seats are first come\, first served. \nOdd Salon Members always enjoy discounted Join our growing membership for ticket discounts and Members-only opportunities.
URL:https://litseen.com/event/odd-salon-sf-system/
LOCATION:Public Works\, 161 Erie Street\, San Francisco \, CA\, 94103\, United States
CATEGORIES:San Francisco
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200407T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200407T210000
DTSTAMP:20260426T003903
CREATED:20200221T222543Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200221T222543Z
UID:56100-1586286000-1586293200@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Chris Carlsson Book Launch at The Green Arcade
DESCRIPTION:Hidden San Francisco is a guidebook like no other. Chris Carlsson (of Shaping San Francisco and Foundsf fame) peels back the layers of San Francisco’s history to reveal a storied past: behind old walls and gleaming glass facades lurk former industries\, secret music and poetry venues\, forgotten terrorist bombings\, and much more. Carlsson delves into the Bay Area’s long prehistory\, examining the region’s geography and the lives of its inhabitants before the 1849 Gold Rush changed everything\, setting in motion the clash between capital and labor that shaped the modern city. Including maps\, walking guides and bike routes\, this vibrant guide brings to life the streets and hills of today’s San Francisco\, from the perspective of the students and secretaries\, longshoremen and waitresses who shaped its radical past. \nThe history of San Francisco I’ve been waiting for. It not only reorients our conceptions of the past\, it gives us walking tour itineraries so we can viscerally experience how we are participants in the region’s remaking.’ Sean Burns\, author of Archie Green: The Making of a Working Class Hero.
URL:https://litseen.com/event/chris-carlsson-book-launch-at-the-green-arcade/
LOCATION:The Green Arcade\, 1680 Market St\, San Francisco \, CA\, 94102\, United States
CATEGORIES:San Francisco
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Hidden-San-Francisco.jpg
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200407T193000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200407T210000
DTSTAMP:20260426T003903
CREATED:20191231T203144Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20191231T203144Z
UID:54750-1586287800-1586293200@litseen.com
SUMMARY:C Pam Zhang: How Much of These Hills is Gold
DESCRIPTION:C Pam Zhang discusses her debut novel How Much of These Hills is Gold. \nPraise for How Much of These Hills is Gold \n“C Pam Zhang’s debut is ferocious\, dark and gleaming\, a book erupting out of the interstices between myth and dream\, between longing and belonging. How Much of These Hills Is Gold tells us that stories–like people\, like the rough and stunning landscape of California itself–are constantly in the process of being made\, broken\, and finally remade into something tender and new.” —Lauren Groff\, New York Times-bestselling author of Fates and Furies\n \n“A haunting\, riveting and truly remarkable debut. Zhang writes with the clear-eyed lucidity of ancient myth-makers whose eyes are attuned to the vicissitudes of nature and humanity.”—Chigozie Obioma\, author of Booker Prize finalist An Orchestra of Minorities \n“This exhilarating novel unweaves the myths of the American West and offers in their place a gorgeous\, broken\, soulful\, feral song of family and yearning\, origin and earth. C Pam Zhang is a brilliant\, fearless writer. This book is a wonder.” —Garth Greenwell\, author of What Belongs to You \nAbout How Much of These Hills is Gold \nAn electric debut novel set against the twilight of the American gold rush\, two siblings are on the run in an unforgiving landscape—trying not just to survive but to find a home. \nBa dies in the night; Ma is already gone. Newly orphaned children of immigrants\, Lucy and Sam are suddenly alone in a land that refutes their existence. Fleeing the threats of their western mining town\, they set off to bury their father in the only way that will set them free from their past. Along the way\, they encounter giant buffalo bones\, tiger paw prints\, and the specters of a ravaged landscape as well as family secrets\, sibling rivalry\, and glimpses of a different kind of future. \nBoth epic and intimate\, blending Chinese symbolism and re-imagined history with fiercely original language and storytelling\, How Much of These Hills Is Gold is a haunting adventure story\, an unforgettable sibling story\, and the announcement of a stunning new voice in literature. On a broad level\, it explores race in an expanding country and the question of where immigrants are allowed to belong. But page by page\, it’s about the memories that bind and divide families\, and the yearning for home. \n 
URL:https://litseen.com/event/c-pam-zhang-how-much-of-these-hills-is-gold/
LOCATION:Green Apple Books on the Park\, 1231 9th Ave\, San Francisco \, CA\, 94122\, United States
CATEGORIES:Free,San Francisco
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Zhang.jpg
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200408T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200408T190000
DTSTAMP:20260426T003903
CREATED:20200203T211923Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200203T211923Z
UID:55389-1586372400-1586372400@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Cody Simpson / Prince Neptune
DESCRIPTION:Booksmith hosts Cody Simpson for his first book\, Prince Neptune. Join us! \nPlease note: This is a ticketed event\, to be held at Booksmith (1644 Haight St.). The price of admission is equal to the cost of Prince Neptune\, which is included with each ticket. Advance tickets are highly encouraged — tickets are not guaranteed to be available at the door. \n \n\n  \nConjuring vivid imagery and drawing from the four elements: earth\, air\, fire\, and water\, Prince Neptune presents poems and prose on themes of life\, love\, fame\, escapism\, environmentalism\, with an overarching narrative of nature as a nod to the author’s passion for the earth and the environment. Simpsons poetry combines themes of freedom and the ocean with the wisdom of an old soul. \n\nCody Simpson is an LA-based Australian whose meteoric rise to fame is matched only by his incredible artistic talent. Simpson has progressed as a writer\, musician\, and celebrity at an astounding pace; from uploading videos on YouTube from his home in Australia to selling out tours around the world\, Cody is one of the most marketable artists of his generation. When he’s not touring or surfing\, he’s honing his craft on the typewriter creating new pieces of poetry. \nSimpson is an artist who brings an authentic and organic writing style well beyond his years. Still a massive force to be reckoned with in the world of music\, Cody is now ready to take on the world of writing as Prince Neptune. \n\n** Please note ** \n– This is an all-ages event. \n– The duration of this event is up to the author. \n– Tickets are non-refundable and non-transferable. \n– 1 ticket = 1 book\, no exceptions. The book must be purchased from Booksmith. If you already have a copy of Prince Neptune\, remember that books make great gifts! If you’ve already gifted Prince Neptune to all of your friends\, it’s ok to buy a different book from Booksmith instead — in that case\, please write events AT booksmith DOT com. \n– Signing\, photo\, and Q&A details to come. \n– If you can’t attend the event but would like to request a signed copy of Prince Neptune\, place an order below and be sure to include your request in the special field.
URL:https://litseen.com/event/cody-simpson-prince-neptune/
LOCATION:The Booksmith\, 1644 Haight St\, San Francisco \, CA\, 94117\, United States
CATEGORIES:San Francisco
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200408T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200408T190000
DTSTAMP:20260426T003903
CREATED:20200203T212207Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200203T212207Z
UID:55392-1586372400-1586372400@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Mari Coates with Peg Alford Pursell / Launch for The Pelton Papers
DESCRIPTION:The Bindery hosts the launch party for Mari Coates and her new novel The Pelton Papers. She’ll be in conversation with Peg Alford Pursell (A Girl Goes into the Forest). Join us! \nA richly imagined novel based on the life of artist Agnes Pelton\, whose life tracks the early days of modernism in America. Born into a family ruined by scandal\, Agnes becomes part of the lively New York art scene\, finding early success in the famous Armory Show of 1913. Fame seems inevitable\, but Agnes is burdened by shyness and instead retreats to a contemplative life\, first to a Long Island windmill\, and then to the California desert. Undefeated by her history—family ruination in the Beecher-Tilton scandal\, a shrouded Brooklyn childhood\, and a passionate attachment to another woman—she follows her muse to create more than a hundred luminous and deeply spiritual abstract paintings. \n\nMari Coates lives in San Francisco\, where\, before joining University of California Press as a senior editor\, she was an arts writer and theater critic. Her regular column appeared in the SF Weekly with additional profiles and features appearing in the San Francisco Chronicle\, East Bay Monthly\, Advocate\, and other news outlets. Her stories have been published in the literary journals HLLQ and Eclipse\, and she is grateful for residencies at I-Park\, Ragdale\, and Hypatia-in-the-Woods\, which allowed her to develop and complete The Pelton Papers. She holds degrees from Connecticut College and the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. Find her online at maricoates.com. Author photo by Lynn Shepodd. \n \nPeg Alford Pursell is the author of A Girl Goes into the Forest and of Show Her a Flower\, A Bird\, A Shadow\, the 2017 Indies Book of the Year for Literary Fiction. Her work has appeared in Permafrost\, the Los Angeles Review\, Joyland Magazine\, and other journals and anthologies. She is the founder and director of the national reading series Why There Are Words and of WTAW Press. \n  \n\nPlease note: this event will be held at The Bindery\, 1727 Haight. \nThis is a free\, all-ages event. The bar opens at 6:30pm; event starts at 7pm. \nRSVP appreciated but not required. \nAs with all of our events\, seating may be limited; you can guarantee a seat by pre-purchasing the book below — when checking out\, just be sure to include a note that you’d like to attend the event. If you cannot attend the event but would like to request a signed copy of The Pelton Papers\, order below and be sure to put your request in the comments field. \nAccessibility is important to us! If you have special needs please let us know and we’ll do our absolute best to accommodate you: events@booksmith.com.
URL:https://litseen.com/event/mari-coates-with-peg-alford-pursell-launch-for-the-pelton-papers/
LOCATION:The Bindery\, 1727 Haight St\, San Francisco \, 94117\, United States
CATEGORIES:Free,San Francisco
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200408T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200408T200000
DTSTAMP:20260426T003903
CREATED:20200207T195346Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200207T195346Z
UID:55603-1586372400-1586376000@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Robert Williams at City Lights Books
DESCRIPTION:Robert Williams: The Father of Exponential Imagination \npublished by Fantagraphics \nRobert Williams: The Father of Exponential Imagination is a comprehensive\, career-spanning collection of the iconic painter’s fine art\, including over 300 oil paintings as well as drawings\, sculptures\, and more. Simply put\, this is the definitive volume that Williams has been working towards his entire career. \nIn the late 20th and early 21st century\, diverse forms of commonplace and popular art appeared to be coalescing into a formidable faction of new painted realism. The new school of imagery was a product of art that didn’t fit comfortably into the accepted definition of fine art. It embraced some of the figurative graphics that formal art academia tended to reject: comic books\, movie posters\, trading cards\, surfer art\, and hot rod illustration\, to mention a few. \nThis alternative art movement found its most apt participant in one of America’s most controversial underground artists\, the painter\, Robert Williams. It was this artist who brought the term “lowbrow” into the fine arts lexicon\, with his groundbreaking 1979 book\, The Lowbrow Art of Robt. Williams. Williams pursued a career as a fine artist years before joining the art studio of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth in the mid-1960s. From this position he moved into the rebellious\, anti-war circles of early underground comix\, as one of the celebrated ZAP cartoonists. \nFeaturing an introductory essay by Coagula Art Journal founder Mat Gleason along with a new foreword and annotations by Williams himself\, as well as rare photos\, artifacts\, and ephemera. \n\n\n\n\n 
URL:https://litseen.com/event/robert-williams-at-city-lights-books/
LOCATION:City Lights Bookstore\, 261 Columbus Ave\, San Francisco \, CA\, 94133\, United States
CATEGORIES:Free,San Francisco
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/robert_williams.jpg
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200408T193000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200408T210000
DTSTAMP:20260426T003903
CREATED:20200219T013429Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200219T013429Z
UID:55828-1586374200-1586379600@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Kathy Valentine: All I Ever Wanted
DESCRIPTION:Kathy Valentine\, bassist for The Go-Go’s\, discusses her new memoir All I Ever Wanted. \nAbout All I Ever Wanted \nGo-Go’s bassist Kathy Valentine’s story is a roller coaster of sex\, drugs\, and of course\, music; it’s also a story of what it takes to find success and find yourself\, even when it all comes crashing down. \nAt twenty-one\, Kathy Valentine was at the Whisky in Los Angeles when she met a guitarist from a fledgling band called the Go-Go’s—and the band needed a bassist. The Go-Go’s became the first multi-platinum-selling\, all-female band to play instruments themselves\, write their own songs\, and have a number one album. Their debut\, Beauty and the Beat\, spent six weeks at the top of the Billboard 200 and featured the hit songs “We Got the Beat” and “Our Lips Are Sealed.” The record’s success brought the pressures of a relentless workload and schedule culminating in a wild\, hazy\, substance-fueled tour that took the band from the club circuit to arenas\, where fans\, promoters\, and crew were more than ready to keep the party going. For Valentine\, the band’s success was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream—but it’s only part of her story. All I Ever Wanted traces the path that took her from her childhood in Texas—where she all but raised herself—to the height of rock n’ roll stardom\, devastation after the collapse of the band that had come to define her\, and the quest to regain her sense of self after its end. Valentine also speaks candidly about the lasting effects of parental betrayal\, abortion\, rape\, and her struggles with drugs and alcohol—and the music that saved her every step of the way. Populated with vivid portraits of Valentine’s interac-tions during the 1980s with musicians and actors from the Police and Rod Stewart to John Belushi and Rob Lowe\, All I Ever Wanted is a deeply personal reflection on a life spent in music. \nAbout the Author \nKathy Valentine is a working musician and songwriter known for being part of the all-female band the Go-Go’s. She wrote or cowrote many of the band’s most renowned songs\, including “Vacation” and “Head Over Heels.” In addition to playing music and writing songs\, Valentine has worked as an actor\, public speaker and spokesperson\, and producer. In 2017 she created “She Factory\,” an event series to raise money for women-centered nonprofits. She currently lives in her hometown of Austin with her daughter\, where she plays in a band and is completing her first college degree. \n 
URL:https://litseen.com/event/kathy-valentine-all-i-ever-wanted/
LOCATION:Green Apple Books on the Park\, 1231 9th Ave\, San Francisco \, CA\, 94122\, United States
CATEGORIES:Free,San Francisco
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Valentine.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200409T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200409T203000
DTSTAMP:20260426T003903
CREATED:20191227T024906Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20191227T024906Z
UID:54528-1586458800-1586464200@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Melville House @ City Lights
DESCRIPTION:Melville House Publishers is celebrated by City Lights! \nThree authors with recently released books join us for an evening of spirited discussion \nMalcolm Harris in conversation with Curtis White\, moderated by Jenny Odell \nMalcolm Harris celebrates the release of SHIT IS FUCKED UP AND BULLSHIT: History Since the End of History  \nCurtis White celebrates the release of Living in a World that Can’t Be Fixed: Reimagining Counterculture Today \nJenny Odell is the author of How to Do Nothing \n—————– \nabout Shit Is Fucked Up and Bullshit: History Since The End Of History \n\nFrom the writer hailed for giving voice to a generation in Kids These Days comes a bold rejection of a society in which inequality\, student debt\, and exploitation have come to define our lives. \n\n\nOur economic situation\, political discourse\, and future prospects have gotten much worse since a guy brought a sign that said “Shit is Fucked Up and Bullshit” to the Occupy Wall Street protests. We all knew what he meant then . . . but where are we now? And how has so much happened since the so-called end of history? \nMalcolm Harris\, one of our sharpest and most versatile critics\, tackles these questions in over 30 new and selected pieces\, examining everything from the lowering of wages to the rise of fascism–and the maddening cultural landscape in between. Along the way\, he cops to being the guy who tricked protestors into thinking Radiohead was playing Occupy Wall Street; investigates why the robots that will replace us so often look like sex objects; and\, most comfortingly\, assures us that Marx saw the necessity of a crisis moment just like the one we’re in. \nRarely does a writer come along who can turn our world so thoroughly upside-down that we can finally understand it for what it really is\, but Harris’s wry and biting essays do just that\, and help us laugh at what we see. \n——————– \nabout Living In A World That Can’t Be Fixed \n\n“This is a book about counterculture\, and that’s a problem . . . “ \n\n\nSo begins Curtis White’s thrilling call for the revitalization of counterculture today. \nThe problem\, White argues\, is twofold: first\, most of us think of counterculture as a phenomenon stuck in the 1960s\, and\, second\, what passes as counterculture today … simply isn’t. Nevertheless\, a reimagined counterculture is our best hope to save the planet\, bypass social antagonisms\, and create the world we actually want to live in. Now. \nWhite—”the most inspiringly wicked social critic of the moment” (Will Blythe\, Elle)—shows how the products of our so-called resistance\, from Ken Burns to Black Panther\, rarely offer a meaningful challenge to power\, and how our loyalty to the “American Lifestyle” is self-defeating and keeps us from making any real social change. \nThe result is an inspiring case for practicing civil disobedience as a way of life\, and a clear vision for a better world—full of play\, caring\, and human connection. \n——————— \n\n\nabout How To Do Nothing \n\n\nA galvanizing critique of the forces vying for our attention—and our personal information—that redefines what we think of as productivity\, reconnects us with the environment\, and reveals all that we’ve been too distracted to see about ourselves and our world \n\n\nNothing is harder to do these days than nothing. But in a world where our value is determined by our 24/7 data productivity . . . doing nothing may be our most important form of resistance. \nSo argues artist and critic Jenny Odell in this field guide to doing nothing (at least as capitalism defines it). Odell sees our attention as the most precious—and overdrawn—resource we have. Once we can start paying a new kind of attention\, she writes\, we can undertake bolder forms of political action\, reimagine humankind’s role in the environment\, and arrive at more meaningful understandings of happiness and progress. \nFar from the simple anti-technology screed\, or the back-to-nature meditation we read so often\, How to do Nothing is an action plan for thinking outside of capitalist narratives of efficiency and techno-determinism. Provocative\, timely\, and utterly persuasive\, this book is a four-course meal in the age of Soylent. \n———————– \n\n\n\nMalcolm Harris is a freelance writer and an editor at The New Inquiry. His work has appeared in the New Republic\, Bookforum\, the Village Voice\, n+1\, and the New York Times Magazine. His first book was Kids These Days: The Making of Millennials. He lives in Philadelphia. \nJenny Odell is an artist and writer who teaches at Stanford\, has been an artist-in-residence at places like the San Francisco dump\, Facebook\, the Internet Archive\, and the San Francisco Planning Department\, and has exhibited her art all over the world. She lives in Oakland. \nCurtis White is a novelist and social critic whose works include Memories of My Father Watching TV\, The Middle Mind\, and\, most recently\, The Science Delusion\, We\, Robots\, and Lacking Character. He is the founder (with Ronald Sukenick) of FC2\, a publisher of innovative fiction run collectively by its authors. He lives in Port Townsend\, WA. \nMelville House is an independent publisher located in Brooklyn\, New York. It was founded in 2001 by sculptor Valerie Merians and fiction writer/journalist Dennis Johnson\, in order to publish Poetry After 9/11\, a book of material culled from Johnson’s groundbreaking MobyLives book blog. The material consisted of things sent in to the blog by writers and poets in response to the 9/11 attacks\, and Johnson and Merians felt it better represented the spirit of New York than the call to war of the Bush administration. Melville House is also well-known for its fiction\, with two Nobel Prize winners on its list: Imre Kertesz and Heinrich Boll. In particular\, the company has developed a world-wide reputation for its rediscovery of forgotten international writers — its translation of a forgotten work by Hans Fallada\, Every Man Dies Alone\, launched a world-wide phenomenon. The company also takes pride in its discovery of many first-time writers — such as Lars Iyer (Spurious)\, Tao Lin (Shoplifting from American Apparel)\, Jeremy Bushnell (The Weirdness) and Christopher Boucher (How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive) — all of whom have gone on to greater success.
URL:https://litseen.com/event/melville-house-city-lights/
LOCATION:City Lights Bookstore\, 261 Columbus Ave\, San Francisco \, CA\, 94133\, United States
CATEGORIES:Free,San Francisco
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/malcolm_harris.jpg
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200409T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200409T210000
DTSTAMP:20260426T003903
CREATED:20200312T200907Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200312T200907Z
UID:56332-1586458800-1586466000@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Poetry Center Book Award Reading: Ashley Toliver and Jason Bayani\, reading and in conversation
DESCRIPTION:Join us for this reading by Poetry Center Book Award winner Ashley Toliver\, for her work Spectra (Coffee House Press\, 2018). She’ll be joined by award judge Jason Bayani\, reading and in conversation. Supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts\, this event is free and open to the public. \n\nAshley Toliver’s Spectra is an immensely moving work. Its three-act structure entrenches within the violent friction between nature and manmade forms and between nature and the human body. Under Toliver’s carefully measured pen\, this movement through violence brought to mind for me\, persistence: the persistence to withstand the structures of domesticity (and all those structures domesticity is nestled under); the persistence to withstand an attack from within the body as that same body is bearing a new life. It is Toliver’s persistence that tempers and\, at times\, wields the flame of this violence\, it is this persistence that seeks to create from absence\, and from the first page to the last it absolutely mesmerizes me. In the poem “Standing Outside Your House with a Match and a Gallon of Gasoline”\, Toliver writes “I still don’t know what kind of woman/ I am. But as the flame nears the fingers/ that trust the match\, as close as the skin/ can stand it to singe\, I call this the nerve/ to find out—”. As taken as I am by the journey within the book\, I am also moved by the vision the book creates\, a vision of a woman holding both the fire of life and death in her hands\, that searches within it all with a keen strength and wonder. And how gorgeous and powerful of a vision Ashley Toliver makes\, what this vision\, when we acknowledge it from a Black woman’s lens\, means within the context of this time; what it pulls back from erasure; what it invokes and empowers. I am deeply in awe of this book— this book that is constantly seeking\, that seeks to reclaim and repossess\, that knows this is worthy of our persistence\, at least until death\, which\, as Toliver writes\, is “the last road to awe I know.”—Jason Bayani\n\nAshley Toliver is the author of Spectra (Coffee House Press\, 2018)\, which in addition to being awarded The Poetry Center Book Award\, was a finalist for the 2018 Believer Book Award\, 2020 Kate Tufts Discovery Award\, and the Oregon Book Award. She teaches poetry at the The Attic Institute in southeast Portland and serves as poetry editor at Moss. A Journal of the Pacific Northwest. Her work has been supported by fellowships from the Cave Canem Foundation\, Oregon Literary Arts\, and the Academy of American Poets. She received her MFA from Brown University in 2013. \nJason Bayani is the author of Locus (Omnidawn Publishing\, 2019) and Amulet (Write Bloody Publishing\, 2013). He’s an MFA graduate from Saint Mary’s College\, a Kundiman fellow\, and works as the artistic director for Kearny Street Workshop\, the oldest multi-disciplinary Asian Pacific American arts organization in the country. His publishing credits include World Literature Today\, Muzzle Magazine\, Lantern Review\, and other publications. Jason performs regularly around the country and debuted his solo theater show “Locus of Control” in 2016 with theatrical runs in San Francisco\, New York\, and Austin.
URL:https://litseen.com/event/poetry-center-book-award-reading-ashley-toliver-and-jason-bayani-reading-and-in-conversation/
LOCATION:The Poetry Center\, San Francisco State University\, 1600 Holloway Ave\, San Francisco \, CA\, 94132\, United States
CATEGORIES:Free,San Francisco
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/image-4.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200409T193000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200409T210000
DTSTAMP:20260426T003903
CREATED:20191220T063337Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20191220T063337Z
UID:54423-1586460600-1586466000@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Namwali Serpell & Carmen Maria Machado
DESCRIPTION:TICKETSTo purchase over the phone: 415-392-4400 \nThis event appears in the series\nSocial Studies \n\n\nNamwali Serpell is a Zambian writer who teaches at the University of California\, Berkeley. She won the 2015 Caine Prize for African Writing\, and her work has appeared in The New Yorker\, The New York Times\, The New York Review of Books\, and The Best American Short Stories. Her first novel\, The Old Drift\, which Salman Rushdie calls a “dazzling debut\,” tells the stories of three Zambian families across three generations\, from the precolonial past into the near future. It was listed as one of The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2019. \nIn 2018\, the New York Times named Carmen Maria Machado’s  Her Body and Other Parties one of “15 remarkable books by women that are shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st century.” Machado’s most recent publication\, the memoir of trauma and abuse\, In The Dreamhouse\, has garnered further acclaim. “Machado has already dazzled us with her brilliant fiction writing and she exceeds all expectations as she breaks new ground in what memoir can do.” — Roxanne Gay. \n  \nPhotograph credit: Peg Skorpinski (left) & Art Streiber (right)
URL:https://litseen.com/event/namwali-serpell-carmen-maria-machado/
LOCATION:Sydney Goldstein Theater\, 275 Hayes St\, San Francisco\, CA\, 94102\, United States
CATEGORIES:San Francisco
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