Autumn 2011: RECENT and CURRENT AL YOUNG EVENTS
Tuesday, October 11th, 2011
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The 2011 Thomas Wolfe Prize
Š Jade Poteat | The Daily Tar Heel
Al Young, recipient of the 2011 Thomas Wolfe Prize, delivers the annual October Thomas Wolfe Lecture at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Read reporter Grace Harvey’s account
Hear and watch Al Young’s 2011 Thomas Wolfe Lecture at Historic Playmakers Theatre, Chapel Hill, NC
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Wednesday, October 12, 2011
7:30pm
Š Terrence Byrnes
The Fighter & the Writer:
Litquake presents a tribute performance honoring
Ishmael Reed
Musician, poet, publisher, novelist and dramatist Ishmael Reed is one of the most prolific and thought-provoking authors at work in America today. From his first novel, The Free-Lance Pallbearers (1967) to his latest, Juice! (2011), and all his poetry, plays, essays and anthologies in between, the iconoclastic trailblazer has pointedly highlighted our nation’s political and cultural repression. Reed has been instrumental in exposing the work of new authors through his online literary magazine, Konch, and the Ishmael Reed Publishing Company. As a jazz pianist and lyricist he has worked alongside such talented musicians as Taj Mahal, Allen Toussaint, Cassandra Wilson and David Murray. This evening of music, poetry, tributes and drama honoring Reed and his many contributions to the Bay Area literary scene features emcee W. Kamau Bell, music from Broun Fellinis, and live dramatic performances directed by Carla Blank.
(Rumor has it that poet-vocalist Al Young may perform with the band.)
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PS: On Wed Oct 12, 2011, Litquake presented Ishmael Reed with its annual Barbary Coast Award in honor of his long-standing contributions to the Bay Area literary scene. Hosted by W. Kamau Bell, friends/performers included Clark Blaise, Tennessee Reed, Carla Blank, Ianthe Brautigan Swensen, Boadiba, Yuri Kageyama, Alejandro MurguĂa, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Genny Lim; with Seth Corr, Sherry Davis, and Boadiba performing Act II, Scene 6 of Reed’s play, Body Parts. Musical accompaniment by Broun Fellinis.
P.P.S. “Fantastic crowds at all the Wednesday and Thursday events. Reports from producers are still coming in but here are a few highlightsâŚThe Barbary Coast Award tribute to Ishmael Reed rocked the Z Space theater with amazing readings and music, and closed with California poet laureate Al Young singing the classic Billie Holiday/Frank Sinatra tune âWeâll Be Together Again,â accompanied by Ishmael on piano, backed by the Broun Fellinis.”
– More Litquake Wrap-Ups | 2011 Final Call: The Weekend Blast
Al Young reads Ishmael Reed’s poem, “When I Die, I Will Go to Jazz,” sings Carl Fischer and Frankie Laine’s “We’ll Be Together Again” (backed by Ishmael Reed at piano and the Broun Fellinis), then presents Ishmael with the Barbary Coast Award. ||| Watch this and other jubilant segments captured October 12, 2011 as Litquake occupied Z Space.
Z Space
formerly Project Artaud Theatre
450 Florida St.
San Francisco, CA 94110 | map
Tickets @12
Website
415.626.0453
“While Ishmael Reed often gets slapped with the label of satirist, his stand-alone fiction, poetry, essays, articles, plays, songs, op-eds, reviews and drawings speak boldly for themselves. After all, the urge to take on fraudulence, pretension, hypocrisy, arrogance and injustice pulses at the heart of true satire. A tireless, world-class artist, teacher and arts activist of measureless passion and cares only begins to describes Ishmael Reed: a global treasure. When he tells us that ‘writing is fighting,’ he means it. Every syllable. Body and soul. Ishmael shines the laser light of his pen and wit into all manner of dark matter. Little in heaven or hell sails or crawls past him. A friend to the young, the up-and-coming, and the overlooked, he can’t help but inspire. Without his presence, savvy, strength and fierce output, the world wouldn’t work the same.”
— Al Young
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Sunday, October 16, 2011
4pm
Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Hall
1606 Bonita Avenue at Cedar Street

dancer & artist
Patricia Bulitt
Patricia Bulitt
Patricia Bulitt is an interdisciplinary artist/dancer who has served for years as Project Director for âOur Neighbors Dance Their Dance: A Celebration of World Danceâ in association with the cities of Daly City and Berkeley. She received her M.A. from UCLA. Her numerous awards and fellowships include a National Endowment for the Arts Choreography Fellowship, California Arts Council residencies, and the Outstanding Woman Artist Award from the City of Berkeley. Her work with improvisational dance and the making of site specific performances has been in association with Urban Creeks Council. Bulitt is a movement specialist at several schools and has been teaching creative dance/movement for over 20 years in California and throughout Alaska.
Celebration and Benefit honoring dancer & artist
PATRICIA BULITT
for her medical expenses
Sunday, October 16
4pm
Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Hall
1606 Bonita Avenue. (at Cedar Street)
Berkeley, CA 94707 (map)
Poetry, dance and storytelling will include singer & songwriter MELANIE DeMORE ⢠California poet laureate emeritus AL YOUNG ⢠dancer & artist PATRICIA BULITT
Suggested contribution: $25. Any contributions welcome. Checks payable to Patricia Bulitt. For non-profit contributions, make checks payable to Berkeley Partners for Parks (7% deduction applied)
Additional information:
Patricia Bulitt: 510.841.6612, or
Berkeley Fellowship: 510.841.4824
1606 Bonita Avenue. (at Cedar Street)
Berkeley, CA 94707 (map)
Poetry, dance and storytelling will include singer & songwriter MELANIE DeMORE ⢠California poet laureate emeritus AL YOUNG ⢠dancer & artist PATRICIA BULITT
Suggested contribution: $25. Any contributions welcome. Checks payable to Patricia Bulitt. For non-profit contributions, make checks payable to Berkeley Partners for Parks (7% deduction applied)
Berkeley Fellowship: 510.841.4824
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Part 2
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Photo: Al Young
Patricia Bulitt and poet Gary Snyder at Berkeley’s Hillside Club, 2008
4pm
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists
1606 Bonita Avenue (at Cedar Street)
Berkeley, CA 94707,
Very special guests: storyteller GAY DUCEY ⢠storyteller OLGA LOYA ⢠body musician KEITH TERRY ⢠dancer & singer MAHEALANI UCHIYAMA
Suggested contribution: $25. Any contributions welcome. Checks payable to Patricia Bulitt. For non-profit contributions, make checks payable to Berkeley Partners for Parks (7% deduction applied)
Additional information:
Patricia Bulitt: 510.841.6612, or
Berkeley Fellowship: 510.841.4824
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City Lights Books
261 Columbus Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94133 (map)
Wednesday, October 19, 7pm

Join Kathy Sloane and guests to launch
KEYSTONE KORNER: Portrait of a Jazz Club
Š Lance Iversen | San Francisco Chronicle
Read Sam Whiting’s San Francisco Chronicle article
(October 10, 2011)
Text and photographs by Kathy Sloane
Co-edited with Sascha Feinstein
Preface by Al Young
264 pages paperbound
Indiana University Press
Paperback: $40.00
ISBN: 978-0-253-35691-8
(includes an audio CD of Keystone Korner jazz artists)
November 3, 2011 — official date of publication
ADDITIONAL BOOK EVENTS
November 5, 2011, 7-9
Book reading and signing. Books Inc Alameda, 1344 Park Street, Alameda, CA 94501
November 30, 2011, 6-8 pm.
Book reading and signing. University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way, Berkeley, CA 94720
December 3, 2011, 2-4 pm.
Lecture and slide show. Museum of the African Diaspora (MOAD), 685 Mission Street at Third Street, San Francisco, CA 94105-4126 ⢠âPhotographer Kathy Sloane will show images from her extensive jazz archive and read from her new book, Keystone Korner: Portrait of a Jazz Club. Referencing MOADâs new exhibition, Collected, Sloane will talk generally about cultural preservation and specifically about how and why she pursued her passion documenting the African American art form known as jazz.â
December 8, 2011, 7-9 pm.
Book reading and signing at Books Inc., San Francisco Opera Plaza, 601 Van Ness, San Francisco, CA 94102
Feature articles on Keystone Korner: Portrait of a Jazz Club —
San Francisco Chronicle
Jazziz, Fall 2011Â (pp. 72-79)
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Book launch for
A QUEEN’S JOURNEY
An unfinished novel
by James D. Houston
Sunday, October 23, 2011
2:30pm
Cabrillo College Music Recital Hall
6500 Soquel Drive
Aptos, CA 95003 map
There are few more intriguing and captivating characters in the history of Hawaii than its last queen, Liliuokalaniâthe island monarch who could just as easily read Shakespeare as âsit barefooted on a woven mat.â Told with mesmerizing detail by master storyteller James D. Houston, A Queenâs Journey captures the deep ambiguities of Liliuokalaniâs magnetic personality and the tumultuous times in which she lived. Houston (1933-2009) was perhaps the only writer with the literary talent, courage, and deep knowledge of Hawaiian culture and history needed to tell this story, and although he died before finishing the novel that was to be his masterwork, we are lucky to have this first part, which stands alone as a fully realized and moving portrait of the queen and her time.
Short readings by Wallace Baine, Alan Cheuse, Rory Criss, Geoffrey Dunn, Karen Joy Fowler, Stephen Kessler, Maxine Hong Kingston, Forrest Robinson, Karen Tei Yamashita, and Al Young. Remarks by Jeanne Houston and Malcolm Margolin. Music by Braddah Timmy.
Photo courtesy Paul Kitagaki/Sacramento Bee
James D. Houston was born in San Francisco and received his masterâs degree in American literature from Stanford, where he studied under Wallace Stegner, Irving Howe, and Frank O’Connor. Among his many fiction and nonfiction books are Bird of Another Heaven, Snow Mountain Passage, Where the Light Takes Its Color from the Sea, Surfing: A History of the Ancient Hawaiian Sport, Californians: Searching for the Golden State, Hawaiian Son: The Life and Music of Eddie Kamae, and Farewell to Manzanar, the last of which he co-authored with his wife, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston. Over the course of his prolific career, Houston won many awards and honors and taught creative writing at a number of universities and workshops. With Jeanne, he divided his time between Hawai’i and an old Victorian home in Santa Cruz, California. Visit his website at www.jamesdhouston.com.
FREE advance tickets are recommended and are available at Cabrillo Bookstore, below, or online until Oct 22 at 4:00 p.m. There will be a limited number of tickets available at the door, so come early if you donât have a ticket! For more information call 510. 549.3564 — X
316.
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poetry
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Part 2
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Photo: Al Young
Patricia Bulitt and poet Gary Snyder at Berkeley’s Hillside Club, 2008
4pm
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists
1606 Bonita Avenue (at Cedar Street)
Berkeley, CA 94707,
Very special guests: storyteller GAY DUCEY ⢠storyteller OLGA LOYA ⢠body musician KEITH TERRY ⢠dancer & singer MAHEALANI UCHIYAMA
Suggested contribution: $25. Any contributions welcome. Checks payable to Patricia Bulitt. For non-profit contributions, make checks payable to Berkeley Partners for Parks (7% deduction applied)
Additional information:
Patricia Bulitt: 510.841.6612, or
Berkeley Fellowship: 510.841.4824
_______________________________________
City Lights Books
261 Columbus Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94133 (map)
Wednesday, October 19, 7pm

Join Kathy Sloane and guests to launch
KEYSTONE KORNER: Portrait of a Jazz Club
Š Lance Iversen | San Francisco Chronicle
Read Sam Whiting’s San Francisco Chronicle article
(October 10, 2011)
Text and photographs by Kathy Sloane
Co-edited with Sascha Feinstein
Preface by Al Young
264 pages paperbound
Indiana University Press
Paperback: $40.00
ISBN: 978-0-253-35691-8
(includes an audio CD of Keystone Korner jazz artists)
November 3, 2011 — official date of publication
ADDITIONAL BOOK EVENTS
November 5, 2011, 7-9
Book reading and signing. Books Inc Alameda, 1344 Park Street, Alameda, CA 94501
November 30, 2011, 6-8 pm.
Book reading and signing. University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way, Berkeley, CA 94720
December 3, 2011, 2-4 pm.
Lecture and slide show. Museum of the African Diaspora (MOAD), 685 Mission Street at Third Street, San Francisco, CA 94105-4126 ⢠âPhotographer Kathy Sloane will show images from her extensive jazz archive and read from her new book, Keystone Korner: Portrait of a Jazz Club. Referencing MOADâs new exhibition, Collected, Sloane will talk generally about cultural preservation and specifically about how and why she pursued her passion documenting the African American art form known as jazz.â
December 8, 2011, 7-9 pm.
Book reading and signing at Books Inc., San Francisco Opera Plaza, 601 Van Ness, San Francisco, CA 94102
Feature articles on Keystone Korner: Portrait of a Jazz Club —
San Francisco Chronicle
Jazziz, Fall 2011Â (pp. 72-79)
________________________________________________
Book launch for
A QUEEN’S JOURNEY
An unfinished novel
by James D. Houston
Sunday, October 23, 2011
2:30pm
Cabrillo College Music Recital Hall
6500 Soquel Drive
Aptos, CA 95003 map
There are few more intriguing and captivating characters in the history of Hawaii than its last queen, Liliuokalaniâthe island monarch who could just as easily read Shakespeare as âsit barefooted on a woven mat.â Told with mesmerizing detail by master storyteller James D. Houston, A Queenâs Journey captures the deep ambiguities of Liliuokalaniâs magnetic personality and the tumultuous times in which she lived. Houston (1933-2009) was perhaps the only writer with the literary talent, courage, and deep knowledge of Hawaiian culture and history needed to tell this story, and although he died before finishing the novel that was to be his masterwork, we are lucky to have this first part, which stands alone as a fully realized and moving portrait of the queen and her time.
Short readings by Wallace Baine, Alan Cheuse, Rory Criss, Geoffrey Dunn, Karen Joy Fowler, Stephen Kessler, Maxine Hong Kingston, Forrest Robinson, Karen Tei Yamashita, and Al Young. Remarks by Jeanne Houston and Malcolm Margolin. Music by Braddah Timmy.
Photo courtesy Paul Kitagaki/Sacramento Bee
James D. Houston was born in San Francisco and received his masterâs degree in American literature from Stanford, where he studied under Wallace Stegner, Irving Howe, and Frank O’Connor. Among his many fiction and nonfiction books are Bird of Another Heaven, Snow Mountain Passage, Where the Light Takes Its Color from the Sea, Surfing: A History of the Ancient Hawaiian Sport, Californians: Searching for the Golden State, Hawaiian Son: The Life and Music of Eddie Kamae, and Farewell to Manzanar, the last of which he co-authored with his wife, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston. Over the course of his prolific career, Houston won many awards and honors and taught creative writing at a number of universities and workshops. With Jeanne, he divided his time between Hawai’i and an old Victorian home in Santa Cruz, California. Visit his website at www.jamesdhouston.com.
FREE advance tickets are recommended and are available at Cabrillo Bookstore, below, or online until Oct 22 at 4:00 p.m. There will be a limited number of tickets available at the door, so come early if you donât have a ticket! For more information call 510. 549.3564 — X
316.
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poetry
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
7-9pm
Nancy Keane’s 3300 Club
3300 Mission Street
SF
GERI DIGIORNO
AL YOUNG

Keane’s 3300 Club
3300 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415.826.6886
info@3300club.com
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