Plenty on tap at the bookshop, so cancel all other plans, pray for rainy weather on all March Sunday afternoons so you’re not tempted by the hiking trails, and set your galoshes by the door for the trek down to the book shop… come in like a lamb and we’ll send you out like a lion! Mighty Mighty Culture in Glen Park!

Sunday, March 3rd at 2 p.m. — Linda King:  Loving & Hating Charles Bukowski — Linda King, then a fetching young poet and publisher of the lit rag called “Purr”, spent several feisty years in Buk’s intimate company and carries the torch and the tongs to this day.  She’s a great character herself — a terrific woman, a really wonderful sculptor, a fabulous poet, a notable publisher in the day and a sly and eminently readable memoirist (cf, her new book of this title), and she lives in these parts these days, frequenting the store for jazz and poetry events. You may have encountered her here and may not realize it… Neeli Cherkovski, close Bukowski friend, collaborator on the little mag “Laugh Literary and Man the Humping Guns” and Buk’s biographer, and one of our most important local poets/essayists/novelists, will be on hand to lend a word or two in sage concurrence and playful asides.  Come and you’re insured close contact with the spirit of the gruff and unlovely but oddly lovable old man himself, plus the very enjoyable company of a living treasure or two!

Sunday, March 10th at 2 p.m.  — Carlos Suarez on “Retrofitting Babel” — an informal talk about translations and translators.  How to make a mess and influence literary history without getting caught. The at times amusing troubles poetry translators get into, and how they survive them. The uses of mirrors and echoes to fake a translation, and other tricks of the trade. The dictionary as cemetery and purgatory. And, if there is time — and there will be time — a few translated short poems from South America and Italy.

Five Sunday afternoon “which way west?” concerts
(all shows 4:30 to 6:30 pm, donation of $5 to $10 suggested):

March 3rd – Skin & Bone – a jazz quartet fronted by percussionist Ian Dogole (that would be “skin”) and trombonist Max Perkoff (“bone”) featuring Si Perkoff on piano and Sam Bevan on bass.

March 10th – Betty Wong Ensemble celebrating the Year of the Dragon with music from Asian, South and North American traditions by CMC (Community Music Center) faculty and friends.

March 17th – “Interstellar Space: Concert and Discussion of John Coltrane’s Universal Music and Spirituality” The concert portion will feature Dr. Anthony Brown–multiple percussion; Dr. Leonard Brown–saxophone; with Richard Grieg–bagpipes and poet Genny Lim.
A panel discussion will follow among contributors to the recent book, John Coltrane and Black America’s Quest for Freedom: Spirituality and the Music (Oxford University Press, 2010):  Dr. Anthony Brown–Director, Asian American Orchestra, Smithsonian Associate Scholar; Dr. Leonard Brown–Professor of Music and African American Studies, Northeastern University; Dr. Herman Gray–Professor of Sociology, UC Santa Cruz; Dr. Tommy Lott–Professor of Philosophy and African American Studies, San Jose State University.
For more on this event, click here.

Two concerts of North Indian (Hindustani) classical music
March 24th – Pooja Chaudhury (vocal) and Ferhan Qureshi (tabla)
March 31st – Mallar Bhattacharya (sarode) and Ferhan Qureshi (tabla)
Pooja Chaudhury… (more to come)
Mallar Bhattacharya  is a student of the instumental and vocal music of the Acharya Baba Allauddin Seni gharana of Maihar and Rampur, India. Mallar began his musical training at the age of three, learning both Western and Hindustani violin from his father Dr. Jahar Bhattacharya, a viola student of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. After taking regular lessons from Ustad Aashish Khan in high school, Mallar was inspired to focus on the sarode as he began his undergraduate studies in Boston. Now a medical student in Boston, Mallar has been learning regularly for several years from Dr. George Ruckert, senior disciple of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, and he continues to study with Aashish Khan several times a year. Mallar has also spent two summers of dedicated study at Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, California, learning from Ustad Ali Akbar Khan.
Ferhan Najeeb Qureshi is a senior disciple of the legendary tabla master Ustad Tari Khan. Prior to his ongoing training with Ustad Tari Khan, Ferhan took his initial lessons in Hindustani music theory and practice with Surinder Singh Mann. Ferhan studies the Punjab gharana (school) of classical tabla which both of his teachers represent. In addition to performing tabla lehara (tabla solo), Ferhan Qureshi has also accompanied numerous distinguished classical artists (vocalists, instrumentalists and dancers) both in the United States and in Pakistan.

also, poets!

— Roxanne Beth Johnson, Robin Ekiss, and Xochitl Candelaria
Sunday, March 17th, at 2 pm
Roxanne will have her new book in hand — Black Crow Dress, just published by Alice James Books. It’s her second book; her first won the 2005 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry. Robin was a Stegner Fellow (that’s big) and has won awards and published quite a lot. Her first (and apparently so far only) poetry collection, The Mansion of Happiness won the 2010 Shenandoah/Glasgow Prize for Emerging Writers. Xochitl has a book of poetry called Empire from University of Airzona Press, has published poems in The Nation, New England Review, Gulf Coast, Seneca Review and other magazines, has received fellowships from UC Berkeley, New York University, Vermont Studio Center, Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, Hall Farm Center for the Arts, The National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts, Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, and the LEF Foundation, has one more than a few prizes and teaches at CCSF.  For more detail on this reading, click here.

— H.D. Moe and Carlos Love, followed by an open mic
“Third Thursdays POETS! Series” hosted by Jerry Ferraz,
March 21st, at 7 pm
H.D. Moe is a visionary like none we’ve known, a knowing spewer of filigreed language that creates its own surreality, reflecting the poet’s intention and understanding while revealing unmediated gleanings of something beyond language.  He is also the co-director of Beatitude Press.

— Patrice Vecchione, a reading and poetry workshop
Sunday, March 24th, at 2 pm
Patrice Vecchione writes about what it means to be alive and alert to the world around her. She’s a woman who never left her girlhood jump rope behind, an artist unafraid of glitter, one who’d rather be near than far, an ordinary woman who, through poetry, celebrates the extraordinary in daily life.  Her new book is The Knot Untied.  Stay after the half-hour reading, if you like, for conversation with Patrice about the knots poetry can untie that no other form can and a brief poetry workshop.

— Patrick James Dunagan, Derek Fenner & Christina Fisher
Monday, March 25th, at 7 pm
A really big show!!  Click here to read all about it…

plus, on Sunday March 31st at 2:30 pm:
Walker Talks!  On William Butler Yeats’ A Vision

and last but not least!
jazz in the bookshop
every Friday evening, 5:30 to 8:00 pm
— Seabop, first Fridays
— Jimmy Ryan Quintet, second Fridays
— The Third Quartet, third Fridays
— Chuck Peterson Quintet, fourth Fridays
and, in March, a special fifth Friday jazz session with a group tba…

Your donations at the music events help us with the immediate task of paying the musicians, and your tax-deductible donation by check or cash to the Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project (a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization) helps us when the audience falls short and also with maintaining the enterprise on a year-round, year-after-year basis.  Thanks for all you do!  We love you madly…