Adults

It seems that my idea of Richard Bruce Cheney as a two dimensional nefarious character was hardly original, but this manifestation of others’ lack of imagination is mind boggling. Exhibit A, the cover for Charlie Savage’s Takeover:

[img_assist|nid=57203|title=Premiere Issues|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=286|height=286]Want to know when a journal’s first issue was published? What that issue # 1 looked like? Need to track down the editor for those impossible to find back issues? Discover what new titles are missing from the collection?

Premiere Issues: An Archive of Magazine Firsts answers these questions and many more that persistently plague serials librarians. The site’s mission “to provide a home for those first issues to live, be read and shared by an international audience,” was begun in 2002 by Danielle Huthart and is a growing collection of 200 or so issues. Included are the often beautiful covers (Huthart’s concentration is art, fashion, design, and culture), launch issue statement by the editor, publisher & creative director contact, frequency and on & on. Although carefully curated, it feels like a collaborative effort with Huthart encouraging submissions, information on new magazines, and comments & feedback. It's fantastic - take a look!

From the dust jacket of Pigeon Feathers A number of summers ago I saw John Updike at the library. He was sitting in the back of the main reading room, leaning over the table, and writing with a small gold pen. I felt as oddly excited and privileged as someone else might feel who, in the course of day-to-day activity, had encountered Johnny Depp or Angeline Jolie. I ached to know what he was writing on that pad, if it was a story for the New Yorker, another episode in the chronicles of Harry Rabbit Angstrom or Henry Bech, or just a tally of his day’s expenses in New York. I didn’t ask. Library professionalism, New York sang-froid, or maybe just temperamental shyness kept me from saying anything at all. When I looked again a short while later, he was gone.

Did you know that jazz musician Jane Ira Bloom...

...prodded by her friend, the actor Brian Dennehy, wrote a letter to NASA to ask what they thought about the future of the arts in space and ended up as the first musician ever commissioned by the NASA space program and with an asteriod (6083janeirabloom) named in her honor?

I hope you have been enjoying the memoir A Piece of Cake by Cupcake Brown. Here are some discussion questions to get you started. Feel free to talk about other parts of the book as well.

Believe it or not, all of these names at one point referred to the same place: the only inhabited island in the Jamaica Bay, now known as Broad Channel. Have you ever been to Broad Channel? If you have, then you know that it looks nothing like the rest of New York City. Having spent half of my youth in Queens and the other half on the east end of Long Island, I can say that the Jamaica Bay area looks far more like the latter than the former. How did this happen?

A special event will be taking place the last day of February. Encore careerists will be discussing how they ended up changing careers in mid-life, and winners of The Purpose Prize will talk about their experiences as social entrepreneurs. Curious about the Encore Career concept? I recommend Marc Freedman's book, Encore: Finding Work that Matters in the Second Half of Life. More information is below from guest blogger, Alexandra Kent, Director of the Purpose Prize initiative of Civic Ventures.

Now that the art economy has collapsed and followed the mortgage derivative finance home boom bust buy now pay later consumption as a way of life whatever whatnot economy into the dumpster of ideas, I’d like to recommend a very sound investment for the young artist class: Get a Library Card and check out Lunar Follies by Gilbert Sorrentino. Or if you need a place to keep warm,  come read it here. & if you’re a contemplative fellow or gal and find yourself mulling over the heroic American Art-Culture Scene of the 50’s & 60’s: read Sorrentino’s Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things.

As my Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC monthly statements used to say: “Be better informed, so you can make better decisions.”

[img_assist|nid=57209|title=John and Bucky Pizzarelli|desc=Photo by Jens Palm|link=none|align=right|width=490|height=350]Please join us for our next Duke Jazz Talk featuring father/son artists Bucky and John Pizzarelli on Wednesday, February 11 at 8:00 p.m. Duke Jazz Talks put the spotlight on four GRAMMY® -nominated and -award winning jazz artists. Bucky and John will discuss their lives and work with Bob Santelli, Executive Director of The GRAMMY MuseumSM; following the dialogue will be a brief performance.

Duke Jazz Talks are part of the two-year Library for the Performing Arts’ project funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to present, document, and preserve jazz, contemporary dance, and theater performances and related oral histories.

These oral histories are offering the chance to be connected to times we can never know - times we can only miss. I encourage you all to be a part of celebrating a generation of musicians whose schooling was backing Billie for a week as she passed through town - whose best education was piling into Coltrane's station wagon and traveling across the country and back. Be a part of appreciating your primary resources. Further, be a part of the movement to document, preserve, and provide access to these rich histories.

The Pizzarellis:

Bucky Pizzarelli has been playing professional jazz music for over sixty years. His extraordinary skill as a rhythm guitar player places him in the company of other jazz greats like Freddie Greene and Barry Galbraith. He has pioneered the great chord solo tradition begun by George Van Eps and Dick McDonough. For many years, Eps and Pizzarelli were considered the only guitarists to play the seven-string guitar exclusively.

[img_assist|nid=57210|title=John and Bucky Pizzarelli on YouTube|desc=|link=url|url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36SODD17-Cs|align=left|width=424|height=344]John Pizzarelli has followed in the footsteps of his father, and has been playing the guitar since he was six years old. He began playing alongside his father at age 20, and has since gone on to have his own prolific career as a jazz guitarist, vocalist and bandleader. Internationally known for classic standards, late-night ballads, and the cool jazz flavor he brings to his performances and recordings, John Pizzarelli also hosts the nationally syndicated radio program “Radio Deluxe with John Pizzarelli.”

There is an admission charge of $10 or $5 for students for Duke Jazz Talks programs. For ticket reservations, please call 212.870.1793, or to charge by phone, call 212-245-5440. We also accept TDF vouchers for this event.

This event will be held in the Bruno Walter Auditorium at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, 111 Amsterdam Avenue @ 65th Street. For more information, please call 212.870.1793 or visit LPA's events calendar. Hope to see you there!

Welcome back to the second edition of the Reader's Den!