Termite Parade Book Trailer

5 weeks away from my new book hitting stores and thrilled with its trailer!

The Human Spirit Is Alive.

WRRRROCK ON was insanely rad.

Thanks to the generous support from the coolest indie publishers -- Chin Music, Coffee House, Exterminating Angel, Featherproof, Seven Stories, Small Beer, Tin House, Tyrant Books, Unbridled Books, and Verso -- as well as the amazing support from everyone who showed up and walked through the door, we helped raise $3,750 for Girls Write Now.

We couldn't have done it without the help from Care Bears on Fire and Japanther. Seriously, the two bands are, like, the greatest . . . ever.

And big ups to Joshua Mohr, who flew in from SF to emcee the event (!).

A good, beautiful time, and a grand bear-hug of thanks to everyone involved. Seriously, today was amazing. And I'm so happy.

We have such great video from the event, once I get home I'll be sure to post her on up here.

WRRRROCK ON ! ! ! !

Tonight is Wrrrrock On. We're super-stoked and hope to see you there.

(Japanther + Care Bears on Fire + Joshua Mohr) x Girls Write Now = a blast.

The doors open at 7 and the event will last until 9:30. Directions are below, so you won't get lost.

(Remember, if you can't make it, you can still support Girls Write Now through a number of other venues they have listed on their website.)

By Bus

B61 Bus

Take the B61 to the Sands St stop at Gold and York streets. Head west on York St toward Bridge St. Head about 4 blocks to Adams St and turn right. Go two blocks to Water St and make a left. Two more blocks and you'll find us at the corner of Water and Main St. Visit the [MTA site] for bus routes and schedules.

By Subway

F Train

Take the F to York Street. Coming out of the subway (there is only one exit) turn right and walk down the hill on Jay Street 1 block to Front Street, turn left and walk 4 blocks to Main Street, turn right and we’re on the next corner, at 16 Main Street.

A Train

Take the A train towards the Brooklyn Bridge to HIgh Street (first stop in brooklyn). Coming out of the subway (there is only one exit) cross the street and walk 100 steps through the beautiful little park to Washington Street. Turn left to walk down the hill 4 short blocks to Water Street, turn left and we’re on the next corner, at 16 Main Street.

2/3 Train

Take the 2/3 train to Clark Street. Coming out of the subway, head North on Henry Street, towards Pineapple Street. Walk 6 blocks and turn left at Cadman Plaza West/Old Fulton Street. Walk 2 blocks and turn Right at Front Street. Make a left at Main Street, and we’re on the corner of Main Street and Water Street.

G Train

Take the G Train to Brooklyn/ Smith -9th Street and get off at Hoyt Street- Schermerhorn Street. Connect to the C or the A Train to High Street. (1st stop in Brooklyn). Coming out of the subway (there is only one exit) cross the street and walk 100 steps through the beautiful little park to Washington Street. Turn left to walk down the hill 4 short blocks to Water Street, turn left and we’re on the next corner, at 16 Main Street.

L Train (From North Brooklyn via the City)

Take the L Train into Manhattan, and get off at 6 Avenue. Hop on the F train (6 Ave 14th Street) towards Downtown/Coney Island. Get off at York Street. Coming out of the subway (there is only one exit) turn right and walk down the hill on Jay Street 1 block to Front Street, turn left and walk 4 blocks to Main Street, turn right and we’re on the next corner, at 16 Main Street.

By Car

From Manhattan via the Brooklyn Bridge

Exit right from the Brooklyn Bridge to Cadman Plaza West; bear right at the bottom of exit ramp. Follow Old Fulton Street, curving left, down to Front Street. Make a hard right on Front Street, then a left on Main Street. We are on the corner of Main Street and Water Street.

From Manhattan via the Manhattan Bridge

Take the upper roadway of the Manhattan Bridge. Coming off the bridge, make a right turn onto Tillary Street, then another right turn at the end onto Cadman Plaza West, which becomes Old Fulton Street. Follow Old Fulton Street, curving left, down to Front Street. Make a hard right on Front Street, then a left on Main Street. We are on the corner of Main Street and Water Street.

From Brooklyn

Take Atlantic Avenue to Boerum Place heading toward Brooklyn Bridge. Boerum Place becomes Adams Street. Stay in the far left lane, and turn left onto Tillary Street. Make a right on Cadman Plaza West, which becomes Old Fulton Street. Follow Old Fulton Street, curving left, down to Front Street. Make a hard right on Front Street, then a left on Main Street. We are on the corner of Main Street and Water Street

From Queens

Heading south on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, take the Cadman Plaza/Brooklyn Bridge exit. Turn right at the exit ramp stop sign onto Old Fulton Street. Make a quick right onto Front Street, then a left on Main Street. We are on the corner of Main Street and Water Street

From Long Island

Head north on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, take the Cadman Plaza West exit. At the bottom of the exit ramp, all traffic turns right onto Old Fulton Street. Make a legal U-turn at the first light. Head back down Old Fulton Street to Front Street. Make a hard right on Front Street, then a left on Main Street. We are on the corner of Main Street and Water Street.

Japanther

Japanther will be performing at WRRRROCK ON, Tuesday, May 25, 7 - 9:30 at Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn.

Tur-Mayht Trailer

The Bourgeois Mind

Nicholas Berdyaev wrote a book called The Bourgeois Mind, a title that is intriguing because it encompasses so much of modernity, from Bovary, to Babbitt, to Thorston Veblen’s notion of conspicuous consumption. But any lab examination of a bourgeois mind preserved in formaldehyde would surely demonstrate that the oppressed populace Frantz Fanon describes in The Wretched of the Earth has no monopoly on dissatisfaction. H. Rap Brown once said that “violence is as American as cherry pie.” So is rebellion. The flappers of the Jazz age gave way to the nice girls who fell for rebels and criminals. The Jean Seberg character in Godard’s Breathless is the prototypical American innocent who falls for the criminal. What was a nice Jewish girl like Hettie Cohen doing with the proto black nationalist who was to change his name from LeRoi Jones to Amiri Baraka? Read her memoir, How I Became Hettie Jones. Today white suburban kids constitute the biggest audience for the violent lyrics of rappers like Snoop Doggy Dog.

In The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, the British novelist Alan Sillitoe distilled England’s class hatred for dissatisfied sixties baby boomers who enjoyed all the advantages of an emerging prosperity. Sillitoe, who died this past Sunday, April 25, created a crucible of class consciousness that fueled the revolutionary aspirations of a whole generation of youthful Americans, whose art house excursions (both Loneliness and Saturday Night were made into classic movies with such cinema greats as Tom Courtenay, Albert Finney, and Rachel Rogers) to theatres like the Paris and the Thalia in Manhattan provided the launching pad for rioting against what they deemed to be the empty values and aspirations of their parents. John Osborne is one of the few “angry young men” whose message seems to survive its periodicity. Osborne’s Look Back in Anger is still occasionally performed, and Jimmy Porter has achieved iconic status in the pantheon of rebels whose cause was basically life. Yet the gritty world out of which Sillitoe came, and from which his writing provided an escape, left an indelible imprint on the sons and daughters of an age of prosperity who were contriving their own escape—in this case from the hard won comforts of the merchant and professional class.

[This was originally posted to The Screaming Pope, Francis Levy's blog of rants and reactions to contemporary politics, art and culture.]

Care Bears on Fire

Care Bears on Fire will be performing at WRRRROCK ON, Tuesday, May 25, 7 - 9:30 at Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn.

The Baggage We All Carry

Let’s talk about why Faisal Shahzad got on Air Emirates when he was supposed to be on the no-fly list. Actually, there isn’t much to talk about. Most seasoned fliers can probably provide the answers to the questions that international security services, from the CIA to the Mossad, will be asking in the days ahead, though the answers are likely to be more anecdotal than statistical. Ask how many parents of toddlers who have ordered the chicken nuggets happy meal on the flight to Frankfurt have received instead a series of kosher or vegetarian selections, including the none too happy-making hummus and baba ganoush platter. Or, let’s discuss communications regarding another star-crossed flight, the Northwest Airlines plane carrying passengers to Detroit on Christmas Day. And what about the earlier blunder allowing Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to get on a KLM flight in Lagos in the first place? By the way, Faisal’s and Umar’s fathers could join the same support group in that they are both prominent citizens, one a banker and one a former high ranking Air Force officer, in their respective countries. They would inevitably have something to offer in a discussion about how lives of privilege lead to Taliban membership. Come to think of it, it would make a great Oprah. But we are digressing. Any investigation that deals with why people who shouldn’t are getting on planes must go back to asking the question of why certain pieces of luggage are not getting on planes when they should. Why have so many of us found that our luggage has inadvertently made it onto an unintentional no-fly list? Let’s talk about checking a bag from Kennedy to Nice with a stopover in Paris. Let’s talk about the valiant Alitalia baggage personnel in Florence who located said bag as it was refused entrance to yet another country. “The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in the stars,” but in the baggage we carry. Discover all the lost bags that never made it on planes and you’ll find the explanation for all the terrorists who did. And what about the baggage we all carry around even when we’re not flying?

[This was originally posted to The Screaming Pope, Francis Levy's blog of rants and reactions to contemporary politics, art and culture.]

Do You Feel the Storm? Is It Coming For You?

Stand Up and Be Counted!

How many times have you picked up a book or gone to a movie and read about or watched a character and said, “That is me,” or better yet gone to a museum and looked at a portrait or a sculpture, say Michelangelo’s David or Rembrandt’s portrait of his son Titus, and said, “Yup, that’s me”? Are you Sinclair Lewis’s Babbit, are you Alyosha Karamazov, are you David Copperfield? Are you Sherman McCoy from Bonfire, are you Jamie from Bright Lights, Big City, are you Gatsby, or Dick Diver from Tender is the Night? Are you Yourcenar’s Hadrian, are you Bardamu from Celine’s Journey to the End of the Night, or better yet are you Robin Vote in Djuna Barnes’s Nightwood? OK, let’s get to the point, are you Jake Barnes or Brett Ashley from The Sun Also Rises, or a little of both? Are you Casaubon or Humbert Humbert, Ulrich from The Man Without Qualities, or Franz Biberkopf from Berlin Alexanderplatz? Are you Hans Castorp from Zauberberg or Leverkuhn from Doctor Faustus? Alas, are you Swann? Are you Vronsky or Levin from Anna Karenina? Come on, tell the truth. Are you Pierre or Andrei from War and Peace? Eventually you’re going to have to make a choice. Are you Molly, Leopold or Stephan from Ulysses, or Gabriel Conroy—yes everybody, man, woman or beast, has a little bit of Gabriel Conroy in them. Isn’t that Joyce’s achievement? Just like there is a little bit of Odysseus returning home unrecognized by all except his faithful Argos in all of us who have ever left and returned. Have you ever dreamt you were Kirk Douglas’s Spartacus, Antoine Doinel from The Four Hundred Blows, John Osborne’s Jimmy Porter, Natalie Wood in Splendor in the Grass, Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot, Jill Clayburgh in An Unmarried Woman, or James Dean’s Cal in East of Eden (and even Health Ledger’s Joker if we’re being totally honest)? There’s a little bit of Clint Eastwood’s Harry Callahan in all of us (who hasn’t given some thought to holding a .357 magnum?), a touch of Meryl Streep’s Silkwood, and naturally we all want to stand up and be counted like Marlon Brandon in On the Waterfront. Or maybe you just want to accept the benign indifference of the universe like Estragon, who inaugurates Waiting for Godot with his famed pronunciamento, “Nothing to be done.”

[This was originally posted to The Screaming Pope, Francis Levy's blog of rants and reactions to contemporary politics, art and culture.]