BIRD & BECKETT CULTURAL LEGACY PROJECT
What Was Communism? We sure as hell ain’t sure… but they’re contemplating the question big time at Kolkata’s Seagull Books. (That’s Calcutta to you!) Specifically, they’re wondering why it’s so abruptly gone by the boards — and whether that implies the death of the associated ideals. Seven volumes in Seagull’s “What Was Communism” series examine the overall mystery, and the individual circumstances in six countries: the USSR, Yugoslavia, China, Cuba, Indonesia and India. The writers (Tariq Ali, Boris Kagarlitsky, Slavenka Drakulic, Mo Yan, Piero Gleijeses, Max Lane and Mahasweta Devi) wonder if the idea of communism has really been so thoroughly discredited that nothing is to be learned from it — and ponder these specific cases for answers, or at least for deeper questions. Series editor Ali muses, “The Communist system lasted 70 years and failed only once. Capitalism has existed for over half a millennium and failed regularly. Why…
Read MoreBooks and Bookstores = Nostalgia? or the Future of Your Ever-Lovin’ Mind??? A reader of our website wondered if it was doing a disservice to one of the local shops we mightily admire to imply that they were “on the ropes” — by which we meant struggling to keep their balance and survive an economic (and real estate) environment that’s forcing them to find a new storefront on terribly short notice. Point made, and taken! We invite your testimonials on the ways your favorite bookshops are managing to forge ahead, or maybe even finding ways to blaze ahead, despite the challenges of the day… This assumes that you yourself are still throwing your business the way of the bricks and mortar establishments and intend to continue to do so… email us at [email protected]!
Read MoreHrabal Rouser…Bop Stop… Voudoun Verite…a String Thing… 4 events, Thursday to Sunday Maybe you wouldn’t think it to look at his picture here, but it’s Bohumil Hrabal’s birthday at Bird & Beckett… On the third Thursday of each month at 7pm, we read from the works of favorite writers born in the month at hand… and Hrabal, who wrote I Served the King of England, Closely Watched Trains and many another great book is definitely one of our favorites. Join us March 24 at 7 pm! Blanche is coming! Then, Friday evening it’s our regular jazz thing, this week with the Chuck Peterson Quintet… that would be Howie Dudune sharing the reed honors with Chuck, with Glen Deardorff on guitar, Dean Reilly on bass and Tony Johnson on drums, with singer Dorothy Lefkovits doing what she does best! Sweet and swinging and thoroughly boppish. Saturday, we sell books. Mention you…
Read MoreHot off the press, on our shelves for your perusal… Three novels we’d be more than happy to read, if only we had the time… maybe you do? Mention reading about any of them in this post, and we’ll knock 15% off the price. Or click on the image and buy it through our online store…
Read MoreGet Lost Books…Cover to Cover…Modern Times…even Borders! Gone or on the ropes… Stacey’s…Cody’s…Black Oak Books! Just a memory… You don’t miss your water…’til your well runs dry! Can I get a witness!? Send your thoughts to [email protected] and we’ll see if we can use them to make the point in a way that resonates with all those who still think that Amazon’s just the slickest way to get a book!
Read MorePEOPLE POWER! language & voice! BIG EASY PIANISTICS! 3 EVENTS: SUNDAY, MARCH 20th 1:30 pm- A worldwide reading in solidarity with jailed dissident poet Liu Xiaobo, 2010 Nobel Peace Prize recipient. 3 pm- POET! Mary Winegarden reads from “The Translator’s Sister” 3/20 – 4:30 & 5:30 (2 sets) – which way west? concert Macy Blackman and the Mighty Fines Answering a call by the Berlin International Literature Festival for worldwide simultaneous readings, we…
Read MoreB&B at the Balboa-Philip Guston: A Life Lived + Discussed The Balboa Theatre (Balboa at 37th Avenue) has invited Bird & Beckett to collaborate with them from time to time to present book events paired with films! And so, with great anticipation, we offer you as our first event: Monday, March 14 – 7 pm Bill Berkson + Clark Coolidge in dialogue on the artist Philip Guston, with a rare screening of the 1980 documentary “Philip Guston: A Life Lived.” Program introduced by Patrick James Dunagan UC Press has just published Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures and Conversations, edited by Clark Coolidge, noted poet, musician and a collaborator with Guston in 1991 on the book Baffling Means: Writings/Drawings. Bill Berkson, who himself collaborated with the artist on the 1975 book of poems, Guston: Enigma Variations, is a poet, art writer and corresponding editor for Art in America who for many…
Read MorePoet David Gitin reads from“the journey home” Sunday, March 13th 2 pm Gitin came of age in Buffalo, NY — where he came to know such giants in American poetry as Charles Olson, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Creeley, Ed Dorn, John Wieners, Robert Kelly and Diane Wakoski. He traveled out to San Francisco in the late ’60s… co-founded Poets Theater with Jim Wilson at the Straight Theater in the Haight-Ashbury…with broadcasts on KPFA…a few brief months…di Prima, Whalen, Geo. Hitchcock… took the tools at hand to publish Bricoleur, whose first issue came out in late 1969 with poems by Michael McClure, David Meltzer, Janine Pommy Vega, Clark Coolidge, Clifford Burke, Charles Amirkhanian, George Oppen, poems from Biafra, from Nahuatl poets, and others… (hear an audio interview on the occasion of the publication of this first issue at http://www.archive.org/details/C_1969_11_29)
Read MoreThe Buru Quartet read it! Pramoedya Ananta Toer (1925-2006) The sequence of novels comprising This Earth of Mankind, Child of All Nations, Footsteps and House of Glass were composed orally while Pramoedya was imprisoned on the Indonesian island Buru, in the Malay Archipelago, where the Suharto regime held thousands of political prisoners. Denied writing materials, Pramoedya told these stories to his fellow prisoners; only later were they written down, smuggled out and eventually published — and banned by the Indonesian government. They reveal much about the human reality of colonial oppression, and Pramoedya’s life speaks volumes about the nature of authoritarian regimes.
Read Morelorin benedict scat vocal scott r. looney piano bishu chatterjee bass bryan bowman drums an afternoon of spontaneous music interrupting the expected sun., mar. 6 4:30/5:30 which way west? a weekly concert series at Bird & Beckett
Read More3 poets – 1 reading Sunday Mar. 6, 2pm Rebecca Foust – Dean Rader – Melissa Stein fresh voices, award winners all, speaking with assurance & grace…
Read MoreYou can help us beat Amazon to kindling! Our sales were 22% lower this February than last… and this, despite a supposedly recovering economy. Thank goodness for the strong community that’s grown up around the bookshop; we’ve got a lot of faith that that’s what will pull us through. Ultimately, nothing will beat the power of individuals pulling together as a group when they recognize their role in keeping their neighborhoods vital. Bird & Beckett is proud to be a community hub in San Francisco, and one that’s particularly keen on giving writers, musicians and others a venue through which to reach the rest of us. But we’re also a bookstore; we need to sell books to stay viable. And, in fact, we’re very keen on helping to keep the physical book itself viable and central to the culture. For some purposes, e-readers have their place, we don’t doubt. And…
Read MorePreviously perused & priced right ALL USED BOOKS 20% OFF THROUGH SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 27th AT BIRD & BECKETT! It may soon be a bookworld without borders, but let’s do keep it a bookworld, shall we? Throw your kindle on the fire and pull up a comfy chair… adjust your reading light just so… pour a cup of tea. You can paddle up the Amazon another day… Through the end of the month, sneak off to Bird & Beckett to shop for a real live used book and we’ll knock 20% off the tab… Join us Friday evening for jazz in the bookshop with Chuck Peterson’s 230 Jones Street Local 6 Literary Jazz Band… Sunday afternoon, come for Walker’s retelling of Dostoevski’s “The Idiot”… and later that day, hear Pakistani vocalist Riffat Sultana with Ferhan Qureshi on tabla and Shiraz Ali Khan on guitar. Ah bliss!
Read MoreDon’t let the old-time pass you by! Alex Caton & Pete Winne fly in from Virginia to play Bird & Beckett Sunday, Feb. 20, at 4:30 pm on the final day of this year’s Bluegrass & Old-Time Festival. Fiddle, banjo, guitar & sublime Appalachian vocal harmonies bring old-time and sacred tunes to life. From Bird & Beckett, hop BART to Freight & Salvage in Berkeley to catch the Festival’s closing show: SF’s own, sublimely wonderful Crooked Jades, backed by Portland’s Water Tower Bucket Boys, following Central Valley young’un & old soul Frank Fairfield . Here at Bird & Beckett, we hosted Seattle-based Cahalen Morrison & Eli West last weekend, and it was a smash success. Cahalen’s an amazing songwriter and their vocal & instrumental blend is heartstoppingly gorgeous. And Monday, we caught San Francisco’s own Emily Bonn & the Vivants at Amnesia, and were floored by their classic country spunk.
Read MoreThinking about North Africa Naguib Mahfouz, Egyptian author of dozens of important and compulsively readable books and Nobel prize winner in 1988, is known for his masterwork, the three-volume Cairo Trilogy, completed in the 1950s; however, after a hiatus of several years, numerous books followed until his death in 2006. Bird & Beckett patrons are invited to email us at [email protected] (using the subject line “books, ideas, insights”) with your assessment of any of his books and the insights they provide into modern Egyptian life, economics and politics. We’d also like your feedback on the work of other writers, so that we can all broaden our view — fiction, history, economics, politics; it’s all important.
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