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  • The Cuban Drumbeat, by Piero Gleijesis - $15.00
    In waging a long war against oppression and misery in the third world, Castro's Cuba sent more troops into battle on foreign soil in defense of besieged populations than all but the U.S., Russia and a few Western European countries. Gleijeses wonders what's next for a post-Castro Cuba. […]
  • Two Underdogs and a Cat, by Slavenka Drakulic - $17.00
    Drakulic, well known to readers of The Nation, the New York Times and the New York Review of Books, ponders the fate of the communist idea through three stories: "An Interview with The Oldest Dog in Bucharest," "A Guided Tour of the Museum of Communism" and "A Cat Keeper in Warsaw" […]
  • The Idea of Communism, by Tariq Ali - $15.00
    "What Was Communism" series editor Ali ponders the over-arching question, and argues for a new form of socialism and global planning. […]
  1. Upcoming events

    February 14, 2012 by Eric

    girlchild

    Join debut novelist Tupelo Hassman
    for a book launch party, with live music

    Saturday
    Feb. 18th
    7 pm to 9 pm

     

    Read the New York Times review here!

    The author: Tupelo Hassman
    The book: Girlchild (Farrar Strauss Giroux, 2012)
    The band: Buckeye Knoll

    “Life is a crazy risk, a foolish venture, a journey hardly worth attempting by poor daughters raised by poor daughters who have no maps or guidebooks (and no teeth, either), who receive no justice that doesn’t hurt about the same as the injustice it means to remedy.  This story is your worst white nightmare. Tupelo Hassman’s GIRLCHILD is a triumph and a philosophical treatise on survival.”

    –Bonnie Jo Campbell, author of National Book Critics Circle and National Book Award Finalist American Salvage

     

     

    Author Alan Kaufman in conversation with publisher & writer Brenda Knight on his new memoir, Drunken AngelSunday, February 19th – 2:00 pm

    Alan Kaufman is a renowned writing coach here in the Bay Area, teaching countless writers the art of the memoir.  He is also a skilled novelist (Matches), memoirist (Jew Boy)  and anthologist (The Outlaw Book of American Poetry, editor, and The Outlaw Book of American Literature, co-editor with Barney Rosset).  Alan’s new book, Drunken Angel, is “the story of a rebel poet’s climb from drunken hell to reclaim the gift he betrayed and to find the daughter he abandoned.”

    Brenda Knight, author of Women of the Beat Generation and publisher of Viva Editions and Cleis Press, has done much as a writer to deepen our understanding of the Bay Area literary heritage and as a publisher to expand on that mission by bringing important new voices into print.

    View a YouTube piece on Alan and Brenda discussing Alan’s work at this link.

     

    This Sunday… Feb. 19, 4:30-6:30 pm:  The San Francisco Bluegrass and Old-Time Festival co-presents, with our which way west? series:

    Dark Hollow

     

    Dark Hollow performs traditional favorites and slam-bang originals with equal gusto. The group’s virtuoso musicianship, love of tunes, melodies, harmonies and drivingbluegrass rhythms blends together to make a traditional sound spiced up with a bit of home-grown joie de vivre, powered by the vocals of leader John Kornhauser.

     

    Info on the entire Blues & Old-Time Festival line-up can be found at this link.  The Festival runs from Feb. 10 to 19th at venues all over town.

     

     

     

    Les Gottesman/Bill Crossman – poetry/pianoplus open mic — Monday, February 20th, 7 p.m.

    Les Gottesman‘s first published poems were in Ted Berrigan’s C magazine in 1965. More recently, his poems have appeared in Juked, Beatitude, Harper’s,Antioch Review, and Columbia Review. Les has been a teacher and political activist in San Francisco for over 30 years. He received his MFA in Writing from California College of the Arts in 2011. Website: lesgottesman.com

    Bill Crossman is a poet, jazz pianist/composer, human rights activist, professor, and author. “John Brown’s Truth,” a musical theater piece he created which includes his poetry, will be performed in 2012 in the Bay Area. Bill frequently performs with violinist India Cooke (India Cooke-Bill Crossman Duo) and with the Troublemakers Union band. At Bird & Beckett, Bill will be reading new poems from his Sound Ground: Poems for the Years Since 9/11.

  2. Don Prell’s SeaBop Ensemble

    October 5, 2011 by Eric

    jazz in the bookshop
    every Friday since 2002!

    Friday, October 7th, 5:30 to 8:00 pm

    Don Prell’s
    Seabop Ensemble

    The first Friday of each month, bassist Don Prell puts together a combo and puts them through their paces, chasing down the bebop changes that continue to intrigue and delight us.

    This week, reed & flute player Jerry Logas, plus Michael Parsons, piano, and Chris Bjorkbom, drums.

    Don got his start in LA in the 50s, touring nationally and internationally for several years as the bassist for famed sax player Bud Shank’s quartet.  He’s truly mad about the music, and his enthusiasm is infectious.


     

     

    Friday, October 14th, 5:30 to 8:00 pm

    The Jimmy Ryan Quintet

    jazz in the bookshop

    Since late 2002, Bird & Beckett has hosted regular weekly jazz sessions by some of the finest seasoned players in the city and some of the best of the young lions coming up — it’s a neighborhood, after-work, kick-off-the-weekend tradition, and its a lab for the eternal youth of the music we know as bebop.

    The second Friday of each month, the vitality of the music is demonstrated by drummer Jimmy Ryan’s ensemble.  Jimmy learned his chops in the late ’50s and early ’60s, first in L.A. and then in San Francisco where he was a regular at Bop City and other legendary clubs.  Now, at Bird & Beckett, he features a quintet with guitarist Scott Foster and bassist Bishu Chatterjee, with a front line of trumpeter Henry Hung and trombonist Danny Grewen.  Youth and experience combine for a sizzling and joyous outing every time!  Bring five or ten bucks to help us pay the band!

  3. Vaganova Today + Allan Jacobs

    October 4, 2011 by Eric

    Two Book Events This Weekend

    Sunday, October 9th, 1:00 pm

    Vaganova Today:
    The Preservation of a
    Pedagogical Tradition

    Agrippina Vaganova (1879-1951) is revered as the visionary who first codified the Russian system of classical ballet training. The Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet, founded on impeccable technique and centuries of tradition, has a reputation for elite standards, and its graduates include Mikhail Baryshnikov, Rudolf Nureyev, Natalia Makarova, and Diana Vishneva. Yet the “Vaganova method” has come under criticism in recent years.

    In Vaganova Today, Catherine Pawlick traces Vaganova’s story from her early years as a ballet student in tsarist Russia to her career as a dancer with the Mariinsky (Kirov) Ballet to her work as a pedagogue and choreographer. Pawlick then goes beyond biography to address Vaganova’s legacy today, offering the first-ever English translations of primary source materials and intriguing interviews with pedagogues and dancers from the Academy and the Mariinsky Ballet, including some who studied with Vaganova herself.

    Author Catherine E. Pawlick danced with ballet companies in the United States before moving to St. Petersburg, Russia, where she lived for six years, observing classes at the Vaganova Academy and rehearsals and performances at the Mariinsky Theatre. Fluent in French and Russian, she has written on dance for the San Francisco Chronicle, Ballet Review, and Dance Europe.

    Sunday, October 9, 2:30 pm

    Allan Jacobs – The Good City
    Reflections & Imaginations

    For decades, Jacobs has been one of the world’s greatest philosophers of urban design; mostly retired now, he remains thoughtfully engaged in the field which he did much to lead in a continuing quest to enhance the livability of densely built cities.  Jacobs was director of planning for San Francisco during the building boom of the late 60s and early 70s, taught at U.C. Berkeley for years, and conceived and executed major projects in such diverse locales as Cleveland, Pittsburgh during its “renaissance” years, and Calcutta, India. He has also consulted and worked in Curitiba, Brazil, Rome, Japan, Shanghai, Abu Dhabi, Vancouver, and many US cities.  With his wife, Elizabeth McDonald, he re-designed San Francisco’s Octavia Boulevard in the wake of the 1989 earthquake and the subsequent removal of the “Central Freeway” spur that had dominated Hayes Valley.

    Jacobs will read various essays from his recent book, which ranges widely according the author’s whims and preoccupations, yielding a glimpse into Jacobs’ broad and humanistic outlook on our complexly interwoven lives.