Short Takes
June 16, 2011
Manu Chao is coming: Get your tickets now!
Manu Chao is coming to America, and if you want to know why you should care, just watch the start of this video, making sure your eyes and ears are wide open at the 2:15 mark, when Chao and the band go into hyperdrive and the audience becomes a bouncing, screaming mob.Who is this guy? You could know him as the producer of Amadou & Mariam’s great CD, Dimanche a Bamako, or of their son’s new release, SMOD. And then there’s his solo career — cheat sheet and video here. Tickets on sale now. And then, in September, he’ll be playing Boston, Philadelphia, New York [We are going to see him in NYC on Monday, September 5], Charlotte, Miami, Atlanta and Chicago. You have all summer to get in shape for this. Use your time well.June 13, 2011
Meet Jeffrey Rubin, Be Instantly Cured Of All Ills
No. Not true. But if you’re interested in East/West spiritual/psychological integration, you can chat up the author of The Art of Flourishing: A New East-West Approach to Staying Sane and Finding Love in an Insane World at a book launch/signing at Tibet House, 22 West 15 Street, this Thursday (6/16), 7-9 PM.June 4, 2011
The PS 22 Chorus: Baby, She’s a Firework
The soloist amazes me. Bet she’ll bring tears to your eyes too.
May 29, 2011
A Head Butler selection wins a prestigious award
Kudos to those of you who picked up on Steve Lerner’s Sacrifice Zones: The Front Lines of Toxic Chemical Exposure in the United States when I reviewed it last fall. It has just won the Lillian Smith Book Award, the South’s oldest and best-known book award. (Previous winners include James Farmer, John Lewis, and Alice Walker.) “Sacrifice Zones” is an exhaustive chronicle of toxic chemical exposure in our country — if you want to get angry over something more substantial than the daily scrum on cable TV, here’s your book.
