tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79817841571490554502024-03-05T16:57:31.671-08:00Event ScheduleThe Cultural Calendar of The RaconteurRaconteur Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06704248099274234320noreply@blogger.comBlogger64125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7981784157149055450.post-34894536330750784022012-03-08T09:18:00.010-08:002012-03-08T14:45:45.535-08:00THE LIGHTNING HAS LEFT THE BOTTLE<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIYZUjVScKEeJT29_2l6kH3MjEJ2QCaoqDju8bFTDUqMWbJScayhphwOpV-j3-C5iYEz_d8-U5BdNSbEbZ6GPaodlRS3wgeskyxK_hC4hAghXeQYhsfAYRVBf7M8Kk3CrXQb4k5CdWOyuY/s1600/shop+front.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 234px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIYZUjVScKEeJT29_2l6kH3MjEJ2QCaoqDju8bFTDUqMWbJScayhphwOpV-j3-C5iYEz_d8-U5BdNSbEbZ6GPaodlRS3wgeskyxK_hC4hAghXeQYhsfAYRVBf7M8Kk3CrXQb4k5CdWOyuY/s400/shop+front.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5717580013181112338" /></a><br />The Raconteur bookshop isn't a beast, it's a nest, a cocoon, and as such we haven't died, we've simply molted and taken wing. So don't be too sad when you pass our empty shop front. What you'll see isn't a carcass, but an abandoned hole in the ground; it's the gray, papery ball you see bubbled around a branch; it's the empty cluster of twigs and trash you see wedged in the crotch of a tree. Thanks for all your support over the years, my friends. And watch the skies!<br /><br /><strong>451 @ 431<br />6:30 PM, Sat. Feb 4</strong><br />While the shop will be empty, dark, locked, onto the newly bare white walls an unattended device will project "Fahrenheit 451," Truffaut's Bradbury based film about a future society where reading is outlawed. Feel free to watch from the sidewalk. Your last chance to fire your imagination and Rac your brain at 431 Main.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/29/nyregion/raconteur-books-closing-in-january-in-metuchen-nj.html">Click here to read <em>The </em><em>New York Times</em> article on our closing.</a><br /><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/26/new-jersey-bookstore-the-raconteur-closes-today_n_1233859.html">Click here to read <em>The Huffington Post </em>article on same.</a>Raconteur Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06704248099274234320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7981784157149055450.post-27136258733742032422011-12-27T14:22:00.000-08:002012-01-04T05:17:16.144-08:00DEC 2011/JAN 2012: Alethea Black & David Gates; Groucho Marx Radio; By the Hand of Horace; R.I.P. RAC Bash; R.I.P. RAC Bash #2; American Teacher<span style="font-weight: bold;">8 PM, Thurs. Dec 29<br />ALETHEA BLACK & DAVID GATES<br />Reading/Signing</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">ALETHEA BLACK</span></span> was born in Boston and graduated from Harvard College in 1991. Her father was a mathematician, and for a long time she believed her name, the Greek word for truth, was his way of tipping his cap to the idea of absolutes. Then one day her mother overheard her and said, “No, we got your name from a TV show.”Black's debut collection of short stories, <span style="font-style: italic;">I Knew You'd Be Lovely</span> , was chosen as a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick and was an Oprah.com Book of the Week. Brimming with humor, irony, and insights about the unpredictable nature of life, the unbearable beauty of fate, and the power that one moment, or one decision, can have to transform us, I Knew You'd Be Lovely delivers that rare thing—stories with both an edge and a heart.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />DAVID GATES</span> is the author of two novels, <span style="font-style: italic;">Jernigan</span>, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and <span style="font-style: italic;">Preston Falls</span>, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and a collection of stories, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Wonders of the Invisible World</span>, also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. A staff writer for <span style="font-style: italic;">Newsweek</span>, his stories have appeared in E<span style="font-style: italic;">squire, GQ, Grand Street, Ploughshares, TriQuarterly, The Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories</span> anthology, and elsewhere. His reviews have frequently appeared on the front page of the <span style="font-style: italic;">New York Times Book Review</span>.FREE! Comp wine. Books on sale at event.<br /><br />Raconteur Radio Presents<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">8:00 PM, Fri. Jan 6; 7:30 & 9:00 PM, Sat. Jan 7<br />FLYWHEEL, SHYSTER, & FLYWHEEL: A Staged Radio Play<br />Featuring acclaimed Groucho impersonator Ron MacCloskey (in full costume & makeup) and <span style="font-style: italic;">Welcome Back Kotter</span>'s Bobby Hegyes (Epstein) as Chico Marx!</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel</span> was the Marx Brothers radio debut. It first aired in 1932 and was written by the same writers who wrote some of their funniest film bits. Our production features short comedic skits broken up by several period songs sung live, including the notorious Groucho hit, "Lydia, the Tattooed Lady." Also with Michael Jarmus and Francesca Tedeschi. $10 (payable at the door). Theatrical lighting! Costumes! Sound effects! Raconteur Radio productions are staged performances of famous radio plays for live audiences. To find out how you can book Raconteur Radio at your library, school, or cultural venue, click <a href="http://raconteurradio.blogspot.com/">HERE</a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">8 PM, Fri. Jan 13<br />BY THE HAND OF HORACE<br />Reading/Live Music/Mixed Media</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br />A lonely ten year old boy confronts a violent grandfather as the extravagant hand shadows he casts onto the bare, blonde planks of his bedroom wall come to grotesque and explosive life. W/a live soundtrack by folk guitarist Bruce Donnola and a slide show of haunting b/w woodcut illustrations by artist Janice Fried.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />8 PM, Sat. Jan 14<br />R.I.P. RAC BASH<br /></span><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--><span style="font-weight: normal;font-size:12pt;" ></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Featuring The Roadside Graves</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">, Francesca Tedeschi</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">and Lev Grossman</span><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--><span style="font-weight: normal;font-size:12pt;" >Join us in remembering, celebrating, and memorializing our almost bygone bookstore</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span>as<span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-weight: normal;font-size:12pt;" >Raconteur house band <a href="http://roadsidegraves.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">The Roadside Graves</a> sings alt country folk songs from their Hinton inspired <a href="http://roadsidegraves.bandcamp.com/track/love-me-more" target="_blank">new album</a> (think <em>The Outsiders</em> by way of the Bad Seeds); international fashion model <a href="http://joshuasitron.wordpress.com/music/francesca-tedeschi/" target="_blank">Francesca Tedeschi</a> strums and hums gorgeous originals (think Carla Bruni) and sings heart wrenching covers of Leonard Cohen; and <em>Time Magazine</em> senior writer, </span><a href="http://levgrossman.com/the-magician-king/" target="_blank">Lev Grossman,</a><span style="font-weight: normal;font-size:12pt;" > author of the <em>New York Time</em> bestseller <em>The Magicians</em> (think Harry Potter for adults), reads from its acclaimed sequel, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Magician King </span>(recently featured on <em>The Simpsons</em>). </span> <br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">8 PM, Sat. Jan 21<br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">R.I.P. RAC BASH #2<br />Featuring </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Shayfer James, Honor Amongst Thieves, FenFell, and Laurence Mintz<br /></span><span style="font-weight: normal;font-size:12pt;" >Join us again in remembering, celebrating, and memorializing our almost bygone bookstore</span> as Shay Jay tickles his tusks while logging saws sing; the H.A.T. sideshow eats fire, swallows swords, and escapes from a glass box filled with water; FenFell conducts its junkyard orchestra, and my man Mintz exhibits fifteen factory scapes, a dozen rail yards, and ten nekkid ladies, all done in the deep shadowy shades of Mr. Eddie Hopper.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">AND FINALLY:</span><br /><br />The Raconteur, The Forum Theatre, and The Metuchen Arts Council Presents<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">8 PM, January 28<br /><a href="http://firstrunfeatures.com/americanteacher/">AMERICAN TEACHER</a><br />W/Special Guest: OSCAR WINNER VANESSA ROTH</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">$15; The Forum Theatre, 314 Main Street, Metuchen, NJ</span><br />Oscar winning filmmaker Vanessa Roth screens and discusses her powerful new documentary, American Teacher, a heartbreaking study of what it's like to teach in America today. Co-produced by Dave Eggers and Nínive Calegari and narrated by Matt Damon, American Teacher is, according to the Washington Post, "a film about education that gets it exactly right," raising what Secretary of Education Arne Duncan calls, "important questions about American teachers," and sparking "a much needed conversation."<br /><br />"Every policymaker should be required to see the new film <span style="font-style: italic;">American Teacher</span>. Powerful, compelling!" <span style="font-style: italic;">Washington Post</span>; "As we watch the individuals in <span style="font-style: italic;">American Teacher</span> struggle with the burdens the system places on them, it's hard not to feel like crying, both for them specifically and for our national culture." <span style="font-style: italic;">Los Angeles Times</span>; "This heartbreaking and essential look into the lives of those who put so much into educating other people's children ought to be seen by anyone concerned about the fate of the public school system, and the nation as a whole." <span style="font-style: italic;">New York Daily News</span>; "Terrific, uplifting and heartbreaking study of what it’s like to teach in America today should inspire intense admiration and even more intense anger over what is revealed." <span style="font-style: italic;">Film Journal</span>; "Sobering, Powerful!" <span style="font-style: italic;">The Village Voice</span>. <a href="http://firstrunfeatures.com/trailers_americanteacher.html">Click HERE for trailer</a>.Raconteur Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06704248099274234320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7981784157149055450.post-6481582861159658492011-11-23T10:32:00.000-08:002011-12-14T11:48:55.171-08:00DEC 2011: A Christmas Carol Radio Play; Busy Monsters; Clay Chapman; John Sayles; Brian Ralph; David Gates/Alethea Black; Who is Krampus? X-Mas Bash<span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Fri. & Sat.<br />A CHRISTMAS CAROL: A Staged Radio Play</span><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Featuring Caryle Owens, Mike Jarmus, Laurence Mintz, Gwen Owens, and Alex Dawson</span><br />Adapted from the classic Charles Dickens' novella, the story tells of a misanthropic pinchpenny named Ebenezer Scrooge and his ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visits of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come. To this day, <span style="font-style:italic;">A Christmas Carol </span>remains extraordinarily popular. It has never been out of print and has been adapted to film, opera, and radio (natch). Reservations required! $10 (suggested donation). <span style="font-weight:bold;">Sound Effects! Costumes! Theatrical Lighting! </span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Sat. Dec 10<br />WILLIAM GIRALDI<br />Reading/Signing<br /><a href="http://www.busymonsters.com/BUSY_MONSTERS/Home.html">BUSY MONSTERS</a></span><br />Memoirist of mediocre fame, Charles Homar has a problem: his bride-to-be, Gillian Lee, has nixed their nuptials and fled to the high seas in search of a legendary giant squid, unleashing an unholy heart wreck upon him. In a hell-bent effort to prove his mettle as an American male and win back Gillian's affections, Charlie crisscrosses the nation seeking counsel, confronting creatures both mythic and real—Bigfoot, space aliens, bodybuilders. Echoing a narrative tradition that includes <span style="font-style:italic;">Don Quixote</span> and Kurt Vonnegut's <span style="font-style:italic;">Breakfast of Champions</span>, <span style="font-weight:bold;">Giraldi's</span> debut novel is a love story of linguistic bravado that explores American excess, the diaphanous line between fiction and fact, and what desperate men and women will do to one another. <span style="font-weight:bold;">William Giraldi's</span> work has appeared in the <span style="font-style:italic;">New York Times Book Review, Georgia Review, The Believer, Kenyon Review</span>, and <span style="font-style:italic;">Poets & Writers</span>. A senior editor at <span style="font-style:italic;">AGNI</span>, he teaches in the Writing Program at Boston University. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span> Comp wine. Books on sale at event.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">6 PM, Sun. Dec 11<br /><a href="http://pumpkinpieshow.com/">CLAY MCLEOD CHAPMAN</a> & ALEX DAWSON<br />Reading/Signing</span><br />Now, as we approach the final curtain, I thought it fitting to invite back our very first guest, my good friend, the mesmerizing performer/playwright/author <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://pumpkinpieshow.com/">Clay Mcleod Chapman</a></span>, who's been called "hauntingly poetic" by <span style="font-style:italic;">Time Out New York</span>, compared to Lovecraft and Faulkner by the <span style="font-style:italic;">Times</span> and the <span style="font-style:italic;">Voice</span> respectively, and described as a "demon angel on a skateboard" by acclaimed author Tom Robbins.. Plus: I'll be reading a cheery, holiday piece about a pie-eyed deer hunter who, the day before Christmas, inadvertently kills what he thinks is a unicorn. Not to be missed, folks! <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span> Books on sale at the event. Complimentary wine & Jack Daniel minis.<br /><br />The Raconteur, The Forum Theatre, and The Metuchen Arts Council Present<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Sat. December 17<br />AMIGO<br />W/Writer/Director/Producer <a href="http://www.johnsayles.com/">JOHN SAYLES</a><br />Screening/Reading/On Stage Discussion/Audience Q&A</span><br />Oscar nominee, MacCarthur fellow, and the indisputable "Godfather of Independent Cinema," John Sayles, screens and discusses his 17th feature film, the acclaimed, historic war drama, <span style="font-style:italic;">Amigo</span>, starring Chris Cooper and the legendary Filipino actor Joel Torre, and reads from his new novel, <span style="font-style:italic;">A Moment in the Sun</span>, a spectacular work of fiction compared to both Doctorow and Deadwood.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.forumtheatrearts.org/viewevent.php?serial=124">$15 TIX NOW ON SALE! Click HERE to buy yours before it sells out!</a></span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">PLUS: A special pre-event reception with John Sayles at The Raconteur from 6 - 7 PM. $10 (pay at the door). Have a complimentary cup (or two) of wine and some face time with the man himself!</span><br /><br />Before Kevin Smith maxed out his credit cards, before there was an IFC or a Sundance film festival, and long before "independent film" became a marketing niche, there was John Sayles, making it happen with a combination of talent, shrewdness, and determination. An acclaimed novelist before he ever touched a camera, Sayles burst onto the film scene in 1980, when he wrote and directed the much praised social comedy, <span style="font-style:italic;">Return of the Secaucus 7</span>. Three years later, Sayles received a MacArthur Fellowship, using the money to partially fund his second film, <span style="font-style:italic;">The Brother from Another Planet</span>, a fantasy flick about a black, three-toed slave who arrives from outer space and finds himself at home among the people of Harlem. Since then, Sayles has directed 17 features (<span style="font-style:italic;">Lone Star, Passion Fish, Eight Men Out, The Secret of Roan Inish,</span> and <span style="font-style:italic;">Matewan</span>), funding most of his award winning, oft Oscar nominated productions by penning low budget shockers like Piranha, Alligator, and The Howling. Recently compared to a "left leaning, baby boom John Ford" by the <span style="font-style:italic;">New York Times</span>, John Sayles produces populous pageants, spinning fables of the American character out of the threads of myth, memory and ideology.<br /><br />Click <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/08/19/movies/john-sayless-new-film-amigo-review.html"><span style="font-weight:bold;">HERE</span></a> for the <span style="font-style:italic;">New York Times</span> review. $15.00 NOTE: At The Forum Theatre (314 Main Street) NOT The Raconteur.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">7:30 PM, Weds. Dec 21<br />BRIAN RALPH & JOSH BAYER<br />Discussing & Signing<br />DAYBREAK: A GRAPHIC NOVEL & RAW POWER</span><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Ralph's</span> stunning debut was the wordless graphic novel <span style="font-style:italic;">Cave-In</span>, created while he was one of the founding members of the influential Fort Thunder art collective. Drawing inspiration from zombies, horror movies, television, and first-person shooter video games, his brand new graphic novel, <span style="font-style:italic;">Daybreak</span> departs from zombie genre in both content and format, achieving a living-dead masterwork of literary proportions."Brian Ralph's adventure stories combine the hand-crafted charm of indie comics with the well-thought-out thrills of good pulp." -<span style="font-style:italic;">The Onion</span>, The A.V. Club<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Josh Bayer</span> (<span style="font-style:italic;">Raw Power</span>) was listed among 100 outstanding cartoonists by <span style="font-style:italic;">The Best American Comics Anthology</span> for 2007, 2008, and 2009. His graffiti-influenced drawings were featured in the 2006-2007 HBO series ROME and MTV videos for David Bowie, Metallica and Good Charlotte among many others.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />8 PM, Fri. Dec 23<br />WHO IS KRAMPUS? X-MAS BASH!!</span><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The Raconteur's Seventh Annual (and FINAL) Christmas Party!</span><br />As an alternative to your basic run-of-the-mill mall Santa (and what is The Rac if not an alternative to everything mall), The Raconteur bring you a holiday hybrid of St. Nicholas and the mythical Alpine figure known as <span style="font-weight:bold;">Krampus</span>, played by Michael Jarmus and designed by Tom Savini protege Dan Diana, who did the incredible makeup for our recent Haunted Bookshop and the Raconteur stage production, <span style="font-style:italic;">Nosferatu</span>. According to legend, the ram-horned Krampus accompanies St. Nicholas during the Christmas season. Traditionally young men dress up as Krampus in Austria and southern Bavaria during the first two weeks of December, roaming the streets with chains and bells. $10, includes a supremely weird reading and performance by Krampus, a picture of YOU with Krampus, and a groaning board laden with homemade treats and three different kinds of punch (with and without alcohol). PLUS: from 6 - 8 there will be a special photo session with Krampus for just $5 a pop. Forget the mall this year, put your kid on different knee! All ages!!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />8 PM, Thurs. Dec 29<br />DAVID GATES & ALETHEA BLACK<br />Reading/Signing<br />PRESTON FALLS & I KNEW YOU'D BE LOVELY</span><br />More info soon...Raconteur Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06704248099274234320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7981784157149055450.post-62492581036857922722011-11-04T16:11:00.000-07:002011-11-14T11:09:23.906-08:00NOV/DEC 2011: Gertrude Stein; John Evison; Taylor Mali; Marty Jessen; By the Hand of Horace; John Sayles; Krampus<span style="font-weight: bold;">8:00 PM, Fri; 7:30 & 9:00 PM Sat; Nov 11 & 12<br />GERTRUDE STEIN GERTRUDE STEIN<br />A Staged Radio Drama<br />Featuring Jane Hardy </span><br />The Raconteur cordially invites you to spend an evening with Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, Isadora Duncan, Henri Matisse, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Salvador Dali at 27 Rue de Fleurus. Hosted by Gertrude Stein. A work of theatrical magic that captures the essence of an extraordinary woman, "Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein" is an imaginary monologue set on the eve of Stein's eviction from her famed Paris studio.<br /><br />In the wake of Woody Allen's marvelously romantic Midnight in Paris and Kathy Bates' spot on depiction of Stein, Jane Hardy returns with her one woman portrayal of the dynamic matriarch and the (lost) generation of writers and artists she mentored. Raconteur patrons may remember Hardy from her riveting performance as a panicky invalid in the staged radio play "Sorry, Wrong Number," or the sadistically scientific Dr. Brodsky in the Raconteur/MCC stage production of "A Clockwork Orange." (Not for nothing, but those who have seen both Steins, Hardy and Bates, have preferred Hardy.) To reserve a seat for a particular performance, e-mail us your name, the number in your party, and the evening/time you wish to attend. Sound Effects! Theatrical Lighting! Reservations required! $10 (suggested donation)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">6 PM, Sun. Nov 13<br />TEEN MIC Hosted/Curated by JOHN MELENDEZ<br />w/Special Guest JONATHAN EVISON</span><br />An ongoing series of teen mics hosted by an outstanding high school student who selects four participants and a favorite author who headlines via SKYPE. This time the host and coordinator is <span style="font-weight:bold;">John Melendez</span>, jazz prodigy, rapacious reader, noir writer, and MHS book critic. He's picked <span style="font-weight:bold;">Jonathan Evison</span>, who will beam in from Seattle, Washington. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Evison</span>'s work, often distinguished by its emotional resonance and offbeat humor, has been compared to a variety of authors, most notably J.D. Salinger, Charles Dickens, and John Irving. His debut novel, All About Lulu won critical acclaim, including the Washington State Book Award, and landed on many year-end “Best of” lists. Editor Chuck Adams (Water for Elephants, A Reliable Wife, An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England) has called his second novel, the electrifying epic West of Here, the best novel he's worked on in over four decades of publishing. In his teens, <span style="font-weight:bold;">Evison</span> was the founding member and frontman of the Seattle punk band March of Crimes, which included future members of Pearl Jam and Soundgarden.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">8 PM, Fri. Nov 18<br /><a href="http://www.taylormali.com/">TAYLOR MALI & MARIE-ELIZABETH MALI</a></span><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Reading/Performance</span><br /><a href="http://www.taylormali.com">Taylor Mali</a> is the author of <span style="font-style:italic;">The Last Time as We Are</span> (Write Bloody, 2009) and <span style="font-style:italic;">What Learning Leaves</span> (Hanover, 2002) and has published five CDs and one DVD. He is one of the most well-known poets to have emerged from the poetry slam movement and he travels the world teaching creative writing and performance skills. <a href="http://www.memali.com">Marie-Elizabeth Mali</a> is the author of <span style="font-style:italic;">Steady, My Gaze </span>(Tebot Bach, 2011) and co-editor with Annie Finch of the forthcoming anthology, <span style="font-style:italic;">Villanelles</span> (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets, 2012). She serves as co-curator for "louderARTS: the Reading Series" in New York City. Together they curate the "Page Meets Stage" reading series at the Bowery Poetry Club. They divide their time between NY and Western MA, and spend their days writing poetry, organizing slams, and taking care of their cats.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">2 PM, Sun. Nov 20<br />MARTY JESSEN<br />Discussion/Signing</span><br />More soon...<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">8 PM, Sat. Nov 26</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">BY THE HAND OF HORACE<br />By Alex Dawson</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Reading/Mixed Media </span><br />A lonely ten year old boy confronts a violent grandfather/retired logjack, and the extravagant hand shadows he casts onto the bare, blonde planks of his bedroom wall come to grotesque and explosive life. W/sound effects! And a slide show of haunting b/w illustrations by artist Janice Fried. <br /><br /><span>The Raconteur & The Forum Present</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />8 PM, Sat. December 17<br />AMIGO<br />W/Writer/Director/Producer <a href="http://www.johnsayles.com/" target="_blank"><span><span>JOHN</span></span> <span><span>SAYLES</span></span></a><br />Screening/Reading/On Stage Discussion/Audience Q&A</span><br />Oscar nominee, MacCarthur fellow, and the indisputable "Godfather of Independent Cinema," <span style="font-weight: bold;">John</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sayles</span>, screens and discusses his 17th feature film, the acclaimed, historic war drama, <i style="font-weight: bold;">Amigo</i>, starring Chris Cooper and <span>the legendary Filipino actor Joel Torre</span>, and reads <span>from</span> his new novel, <i style="font-weight: bold;">A Moment in the Sun</i>, a spectacular work of fiction compared to both Doctorow and <i>Deadwood</i>.<br /><br />Before Kevin Smith maxed out his credit cards, before there was an IFC or a Sundance film festival, and long before "independent film" became a marketing niche, there was <b><span>John</span> <span>Sayles</span></b>, making it happen with a combination of talent, shrewdness, and determination. An acclaimed novelist before he ever touched a camera, <b><span>Sayles</span></b> burst onto the film scene in 1980, when he wrote and directed the much praised social comedy, <i>Return of the Secaucus 7</i>. Three years later, <span>Sayles</span> received a MacArthur Fellowship, using the money to partially fund his second film, <i>The <span>Brother</span> <span>from</span> <span>Another</span> <span>Planet</span></i>, a fantasy flick about a black, three-toed slave who arrives <span>from</span> outer space and finds himself at home among the people of Harlem. <b>Since then, <span>Sayles</span> has directed 17 features (<i>Lone Star</i>, <i>Passion Fish</i>, <i>Eight Men Out</i>, <i>The Secret of Roan Inish</i>, and <i>Matewan</i>), funding most of his award winning, oft Oscar nominated productions by penning low budget shockers like <i>Piranha</i>, <i>Alligator</i>, and <i>The Howling</i>.</b> Recently compared to a "left leaning, baby boom <span>John</span> Ford" by the <i>New York Times</i>, <b><span>John</span> <span>Sayles</span></b> produces populous pageants, spinning fables of the American character out of the threads of myth, memory and ideology.<b><br /><br />Click <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/08/19/movies/john-sayless-new-film-amigo-review.html" target="_blank">HERE</a> for the <i>New York Times</i> review.</b> $15.00 NOTE: At The Forum Theatre (314 Main Street) NOT The Raconteur.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">AND JUST WHO IS KRAMPUS? FIND OUT!</span>Raconteur Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06704248099274234320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7981784157149055450.post-59987333454955291382011-10-03T11:40:00.001-07:002011-10-17T07:26:43.324-07:00OCT 2011: Green Drinks; Tom Davis; War of the Worlds; Hope for agoldensummer; Dirty, Dirty; Stake Land; Halloween; The Haunted Bookshop<span style="font-weight:bold;">7:00 - 9:00 PM, Tues. Oct 4<br />GREEN DRINKS</span><br />It all started in 1989 at a pub called the Slug and Lettuce in Northern London when a handful of eco-conscious mates pulled some tables together and drank some beer. The concept evolved into Green Drinks and now it's global. Each city has an organizer who arranges meetings in bars and restaurants (providing the greenest beer possible, and by green we mean enviro-minded, not colored; in our case, Climax, locally brewed in Roselle Park). Green Drinks meets in fifty countries from Argentina to Zambia. And now, METUCHEN! Come have a beer and get green. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Sat. Oct 8<br />TOM DAVIS<br />Reading/Signing<br />A LEGACY OF MADNESS</span><br />The story of a loving family coming to grips with its own fragility, <span style="font-style:italic;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">A Legacy of Madness</span></span> relays <span style="font-weight:bold;">Tom Davis'</span> journey to uncover, and ultimately understand, the history of mental illness that led generations of his suburban American family to their demise. "By sharing the story of his family history and his own personal journey, Tom Davis provides hope and inspiration to others." Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE.</span> Books on sale at event.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Fri. Oct 14<br />Live Music</span><br />More info soon. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://raconteurradio.blogspot.com/">Raconteur Radio</a> Presents</span><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />7:30 & 9 Sat. Oct 15<br />7 PM, Sun. Oct 16<br />WAR OF THE WORLDS: A Staged Radio Play<br />Featuring Carlyle Owens, Michael Jarmus, Gwen Owens, Laurence Mintz, and Alex Dawson</span><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">RESERVATIONS REQUIRED</span>!<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">War of the Worlds</span> was first performed October 30, 1938 as the Halloween episode of "Mercury Theatre On Air." Narrated by Orson Welles, the episode, set in Grover Mills, NJ, is a loose adaptation of the H. G. Wells' novel, and begins as a dance band broadcast intermittently interrupted by news flashes about strange explosions on Mars and the landing of a cylindrical spacecraft on Earth. Incineration ensues. The simulated "news bulletins" of the original broadcast suggested to many contemporaneous listeners that an actual alien invasion was currently in progress and, as a result, there were instances of panicked evacuation throughout the US. Especially in New Jersey! 35 min. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Theatrical Lighting! Sound Effects! Martian Props! </span>This is our version of a "rent party" and, accordingly, there's a <span style="font-weight:bold;">suggested donation of $10.</span> That said, if you happened to be broke as a joke and still want to see it, you won't be turned away (as long as seats are available).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Tues. Oct 18<br /><a href="http://www.hopeforagoldensummer.com/videos/">HOPE FOR AGOLDENSUMMER</a> & Special Guests<br />Live Music</span><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">T</span><span style="font-style:italic;">imeOut NY</span> describes them as "part junkyard orchestra, part campfire song circle," and the <span style="font-style:italic;">Washington Post</span> calls them “Haunting folksters.” <span style="font-weight:bold;">Hope</span> fronts, the sisters Campbell, hail from Georgia and write songs that play out like Flannery O’Connor stories sound tracked with singing saws, penny whistles, and cookie tin banjos. Barren yet evocative, ethereal and eloquent, this is strange, soulful, and deeply affecting stuff. Think a rural Cocorosie, an ornate Cat Power, or a female Arcade Fire. They've played in Peru, scored a Nick Nolte film, and toured with Man or Astroman. With special guests: fellow folkies Anthony Walker and Ryan Bing (of Glad Hearts). <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span> CDs on sale at event.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Sat. Oct 22<br />MIKE EDISON<br />Reading/Signing<br />Dirty! Dirty! Dirty!: Of Playboys, Pigs, and Penthouse Paupers, An American Tale of Sex and Wonder</span><br />A wild and uncompromising history of four infamous magazines and the outlaws behind them, <span style="font-weight:bold;"><span style="font-style:italic;">Dirty! Dirty! Dirty!</span></span> is the first book to rip the sheet off of the sleazy myth-making machine of Hugh Hefner and Playboy, and reveal the doomed history of Hefner’s arch rival, Penthouse founder Bob Guccione, whose messiah complex and heedless spending (a legendary film flop paid for with bags of cash, a porn magazine for women, and a pie-in-the sky scheme for a portable nuclear reactor) fueled the greatest riches to rags story ever told. Along the way we meet many unexpected heroes—John Lennon, Lenny Bruce, Helen Gurley Brown, and the staff of <span style="font-style:italic;">Mad Magazine</span>—and villains—from Richard Nixon and the Moral Majority to Hugh Hefner himself, whose legacy, we learn, is built on a self-perpetuated lie. "<span style="font-weight:bold;">Mike Edison</span> can go toe to toe with some of the best writers of the (old) New Journalism. This is foul-mouthed popular history at its most entertaining. Plenty smart, too—and also, strange to say, poignant and loving."—Rick Perlstein, author of <span style="font-style:italic;">Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America</span>. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE.</span> Books on sale at event.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Tues. Oct 25<br /><a href="http://www.scareflix.net/stakesite.html">STAKE LAND</a><br />W/Director/Writer Jim Mickle & Star/Writer Nick Damici<br />Screening/Discussion/Q&A</span><br />Compared to both Joss Whedon and Terrence Malick by <span style="font-style:italic;">The Village Voice</span>, and cheered by NPR, <span style="font-style:italic;">The New Yorker</span>, and Salon.com, <span style="font-weight:bold;">Director/Writer Jim Mickle (and Star/Co-writer Nick Damici)</span> <span style="font-weight:bold;">screen and discuss their <span style="font-style:italic;">New York Times</span> Critic's Pick, <span style="font-style:italic;">Stake Land</span>, a smart, pitch perfect horror thriller set in a post-apocalyptic world somewhere between Romero and <span style="font-style:italic;">The Road</span>.</span> Half grind house, half art house, <span style="font-style:italic;">Stake Land</span> is part of a new school of socially conscious horror, what <span style="font-style:italic;">The Voice</span> calls "brains before blood," but rest assured its plenty gruesome, and with its dive bars and muscle cars, biker boots and buck knives, it all sort of plays out like a particularly acute Lynyrd Skynyrd song hopped up on supernatural steroids. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Plus a special on stage conversation between Mickle, Damici, and <span style="font-style:italic;">Fangoria</span> scribe/Fear Mongers host <a href="http://pumpkinpieshow.com/">Clay Mcleod Chapman</a>. </span> <span style="font-weight:bold;">$15.</span> Presented in conjunction with Crystal Plumage Films and The Forum Theatre. NOTE: At The Forum NOT The Raconteur. <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/04/22/movies/in-stake-land-jim-mickle-brings-on-the-vampires-review.html">Click for <span style="font-style:italic;">The New York Times</span> review</a>. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFYLFql-ts4&noredirect=1">Click for the trailer.</a><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />11:30 PM, Fri. Oct 28<br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5unH8gOhydY">HALLOWEEN</a><br />Hosted by New York Times film critic JASON ZINOMAN<br />Screening/Discussion/Q&A/Signing</span><br />Called "the most successful independent motion picture of all time," <span style="font-style:italic;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">Halloween</span></span> is also one of most frightening films ever made. <span style="font-style:italic;">New York Times</span> critic <span style="font-weight:bold;">Jason Zinoman</span>, author of <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/11/books/shock-value-by-jason-zinoman-review.html">Shock Value</a><span style="font-weight:bold;"></span></span>, an account of the gifted and eccentric directors who gave us the golden age of modern horror, will helm a discussion of the film. Copies of his book will be on sale at the event. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/11/books/shock-value-by-jason-zinoman-review.html">Click to read the <span style="font-style:italic;">New York Times</span> review of <span style="font-weight:bold;">Shock Value</span>.</a> Presented in conjunction with Crystal Plumage Films. NOTE: At The Forum (not the Raconteur). <span style="font-weight:bold;">$10.</span> Special reception before the film (10 - 11) at The Raconteur (all you can eat candy and a complimentary can of beer).<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />7 – 11:30 PM, Sat & Sun. Oct 29 & 30<br />THE HAUNTED BOOKSHOP</span><br />After a two year hiatus, the Raconteur's popular <span style="font-weight:bold;">Haunted Bookshop</span> returns. The only "haunted attraction" of its kind in the world! This year features characters from <span style="font-style:italic;">Moby Dick</span>, <span style="font-style:italic;">Titus Adronicus</span>, <span style="font-style:italic;">Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Woman in White, Dante’s Inferno, Metamorphosis, Don’t Look Now, Frankenstein,</span> and <span style="font-style:italic;">Something Wicked This Way Comes.</span> With make-up, prosthetics, and props designed by Tom Savini protege Dan Diana and soundscape by Bruce Donnola(who respectively did the makeup and music for The Raconteur's acclaimed production of <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://nosferatuonstage.blogspot.com/">Nosferatu</a></span>). What goes on after a bookstore closes for the night? See Gregor Samsa turn into a clacking, black bug, see Captain Ahab, harpoon hoisted high, mad with the hunt, see the pulpy, tentacled snout and beating, bat wings of Lovecraft's most horrifying creation, feel the long gnarled fingers and barked bones of Dante's tree suicides, scrabbling your ankles as they struggle to climb up and out of the Seventh Circle, watch Dr. Jekyll's hideous transformation as The Dust Witch cackles in her balloon and a bound behemoth is jolted to lightning induced life! Plus a consumptive Annabelle Lee, a carriage crushed Woman in White, and is it an Italian dwarf killer or the return of a drowned daughter? Find out all this and more, for only<span style="font-weight:bold;">$5.</span> Guaranteed to scare you "lit-less!"Raconteur Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06704248099274234320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7981784157149055450.post-54957144532630229312011-09-01T13:05:00.000-07:002011-09-22T18:42:50.509-07:00SEPT 2011: Green Drinks; ComeDina; Third Man Radio Play; Jeremy Benson; Accoustic Night; Bill Plympton @ The State; Banned Books in NYC; Raconteur 54<span style="font-weight:bold;">7:00 - 9:00 PM, Tues. Sept 6<br />GREEN DRINKS</span><br />It all started in 1989 at a pub called the Slug and Lettuce in Northern London when a handful of eco-conscious mates pulled some tables together and drank some beer. The concept evolved into <span style="font-weight:bold;">Green Drinks</span> and now it's global. Each city has an organizer who arranges meetings in bars and restaurants (providing the greenest beer possible, and by green we mean enviro-minded, not colored; in our case, Climax, locally brewed in Roselle Park). Green Drinks meets in fifty countries from Argentina to Zambia. <span style="font-weight:bold;">And now, METUCHEN!</span> Come have a beer and get green. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">7:30 PM, Thurs. Sept 8<br />THE COMEDINA SHOW! W/Special Guest Andy Pitz</span><br />The Rac's monthly stand up comedy show hosted by Rac volunteer Dina Hashem.Get it? Come<span style="font-style:italic;">DINA</span>? A roster of local jokesters (Gordon Baker-Bone, Max Lorenzi, Justin Flanagan) headlined by Andy Pitz. Pitz has performed on Late Night with Letterman and The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson and is a reg at Comic Strip Live, Stand Up NY, and the Gotham Comedy Club. Only $5!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8:00 PM, Thurs./Fri. Sept 15 & 16<br />THE 3RD MAN<br />A Staged Radio Play<br />Theatrical Lighting! Sound Effects!</span><br />Featuring Carlyle Owens, Laurence Mintz, Michael Jarmus, Alex Dawson, and introducing the new excitement of international fashion model Francesa Teschina as Anna Schmidt.<br /><br />For those of you who couldn't afford the 75.00 prix fixe dinner (delicious, but steep) that accompanied our last presentation of <span style="font-weight:bold;">The 3rd Man</span>, good news! We're doing it again for the much more affordable price of a $10 suggested donation. And while we won't be doling out glasses of Austrian Gruner Veltliner, you can expect the usual comp cup of wine. <br /><br />The atmospheric rubble and melancholy damp of war-smashed Europe is powerfully evoked in this thrilling radio play, based on Sir Carol Reed's 1949 film. Holly Martins is a "scribbler" of hack Westerns who arrives in postwar Vienna to land a job and join his old pal Harry Lime. Instead he finds himself drawn into a murder mystery and a network of deadly black-market racketeers. <br /><br />This is our version of a "rent party" and, accordingly, there's a suggested donation of $10. That said, if you happened to be broke as a joke and still want to see it, you won't be turned away (as long as seats are available).<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />8:00 PM, Sat. Sept 17<br />JEREMY BENSON<br />Live Music</span><br />From his doleful dirges to his sweet, romantic blues, singer/songwriter <span style="font-weight:bold;">Jeremy Benson</span> serves up torchers, scorchers and languid back porchers bursting with woodland wisdom and street corner philosophy. In addition to being a solo performer, <span style="font-weight:bold;">Benson</span> is a member of the Jersey based Roadside Graves and the former front man for The Home Alaskan, The Takers, and DarkSongs. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />7:00 - 9:00 PM, Thurs. Sept 22<br />ACOUSTIC NIGHT w/Sharon Goldman<br />Live Music</span><br />A monthly series spotlighting singer-songwriters, hosted by Metuchen-based singer-songwriter <span style="font-weight:bold;">Sharon Goldman</span>. This month, she invites NYC's <span style="font-weight:bold;">Honor Finnegan</span> and <span style="font-weight:bold;">Paul Sachs</span> to join her round-robin style, with each artist sharing original songs and discussing his/her approach to songwriting. Two sets with a short intermission. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span><br /><br />The Raconteur & The State Theatre Present<span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />8:00 PM, Tues. Sept 27<br />IDIOTS & ANGELS<br />W/Special Guest: Director BILL PLYMPTON<br />Screening/On Stage Conversation/Signing</span><br />Described by <span style="font-style:italic;">The New York Times</span> as "ceaselessly imaginative, relentless and brilliant," and hailed simply as "God" by <span style="font-style:italic;">Simpsons </span>creator Matt Groening, two time Academy Award–nominee <span style="font-weight:bold;">Bill Plympton</span> screens and answers questions about his latest feature film, <span style="font-style:italic;">Idiots and Angels</span>, and reads and signs his new autobiography, <span style="font-style:italic;">Independently Animated</span>. Plus a special onstage conversation hosted by cartoonist & Plympton fan Patrick McDonnell, the creator of <span style="font-style:italic;">MUTTS</span>.“If The Nightmare Before Christmas, Barfly, and Wings of Desire had a menage-a-trois, their surrealist progeny would be this extraordinary film." - <span style="font-style:italic;">Interview Magazine</span>. <span style="font-weight:bold;">For more info, click <a href="http://mim.io/3bb371">HERE</a>. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">7 PM, Weds. Sept 28<br /><a href="http://www.mikeedison.com">MIKE EDISON'S FOURTH ANNUAL BANNED BOOK PARTY!!!</a> FREE SPEECH, FREE SHOW!!!<br />Reading/Live Music<br /><a href="http://www.housingworks.org/locations/detail/bookstore-cafe">Housing Works Bookstore</a>, NYC (Soho)<br /></span>Former <span style="font-style:italic;">High Times</span> editor and author of <span style="font-style:italic;">Dirty, Dirty</span>, <span style="font-weight:bold;">Mike Edison</span>, hosts his Fourth Annual Banned Book Party celebrating the American Library Association's "Banned Book Week" and illuminating America's sordid past of banning and challenging great books. Guests this year include Soft Skull's Richard Nash, <span style="font-style:italic;">The Onion's</span> Todd Hanson, memoirist Rachel Shukert, <span style="font-weight:bold;">Alex Dawson of The Raconteur</span>, and Melissa Petro, the elementary school art teacher who admitted in a Huffington Post article to having worked as a prostitute, all reading from their favorite banned books. With a live soundtrack provided by the INTERSTELLAR RENDEVOUS ALL-STAR BAND. All this plus another round of the legendary "Name That Banned Book" contest - come on down for some state-sponsored fear and fabulous prizes! After Party at Nolita's Botanica Bar. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Sat. Oct 1<br />RACONTEUR 54</span><br />Our monthly DJ dance party. This month's theme: The Eighties. Outdoors. With DJ Circuit Bored and a montage screening of John Hughes classics. In conjunction with People Under the Stereo and Suite Beverly.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />ON DECK: FEAR MONGERS @ THE STATE; "War of the Worlds" Radio Play; Outdoor Screening "The Cabinet of Caligari"; And THE HAUNTED BOOKSHOP is back!</span>Raconteur Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06704248099274234320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7981784157149055450.post-51785422828972511942011-08-04T10:08:00.000-07:002011-08-09T16:03:46.229-07:00AUG 2011: Ted Alexandro; Geek Wisdom; Outdoor Film; Stairwell Art; The Third Man; War of the Worlds; Raiders: The Adaptation<span style="font-weight: bold;">8 PM, Tues. Aug 2
<br />TED ALEXANDRO
<br />Stand Up Comedy</span>
<br />Alexandro has performed on <span style="font-style: italic;">David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, Craig Ferguson, The View</span>, and two half-hour specials on <span style="font-style: italic;">Comedy Central</span>. He has also appeared on the television shows <span style="font-style: italic;">Oz</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Dr. Katz</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Louie</span>, and has performed internationally in countries including Egypt, Kuwait, South Korea, England, Holland, and Israel. With: Gordon Baker-Bone, Matt Jenkins, Jimmie Allinder, Justin Flanagan, Max Lorenzi, Adam Mamawala, and event host, Dina Hashem. Don't like laughter? We've got used books and records! Dead inside? We've got free wine! Wow! There's something for everyone! <span style="font-weight: bold;">FREE!</span>
<br />
<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">8 PM, Fri. Aug 5
<br />Stephen Segal (NOT the martial artist/deputy sheriff)
<br />Reading/Signing
<br />GEEK WISDOM: The Sacred Teachings of Nerd Culture</span>
<br />Computer nerds are our titans of industry; comic-book superheroes are our Hollywood idols; the Internet is our night on the town. Clearly, geeks know something about life in the 21st century that other folks don’t—something we all can learn from. <span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Geek Wisdom</span></span> takes as gospel some 200 of the most powerful and oft-cited quotes from movies, television, literature, games, science, the Internet, and more. Now these beloved pearls of modern-day culture have been painstakingly interpreted by a diverse team of hardcore nerds with their imaginations turned up to 11. Yes, this collection of mini-essays is by, for, and about geeks—but it’s just so surprisingly profound, the rest of us would have to be dorks not to read it. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Stephen H. Segal</span> is the Hugo Award winning senior contributing editor to <a href="http://weirdtalesmagazine.com/">Weird Tales</a>, the world’s oldest fantasy/sci-fi/horror magazine (Ray Bradbury and H.P. Lovecraft were regular contributors), and an editor at <a href="http://www.quirkbooks.com/">Quirk Books</a>. <span style="font-weight: bold;">FREE! </span>Comp wine. Books on sale at event.
<br />
<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">8:30 PM, Sat. Aug 6
<br />METROPOLIS
<br />W/Live Mixed DJ Soundtrack by CIRCUIT BORED
<br />Outdoor Screening/Live Music</span>
<br />Our terrace screening of <span style="font-style: italic;">Fantastic Planet</span> was such a success we decide to continue our outdoor programming with <span style="font-weight: bold;">Fritz Lang's Metropolis</span>. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Metropolis </span>belongs to legend as much as to cinema. It's a milestone of sci-fi and German expressionism. In the stratified society of the future, the son of a capitalist discovers the atrocious conditions of the factory slaves, falling in love with the charismatic Maria in the bargain, who preaches nonviolence to the workers. But even the benevolent leadership of Maria is a challenge to the privileged class, so they have the mad-scientist Rotwang concoct a robot double to take her place and incite the workers to riot. The story is melodrama, but it's the powerful imagery that is so memorable, with one of the most arresting images being legions of cowed workers filing listlessly into the great maw of the all-consuming machine-god Moloch. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Again, the titled silent film will be screened outdoors on the back terrace of The Raconteur and will be accompanied by a live-mixed soundtrack courtesy of Circuit Bored, a DJ known for his minimal sci-fi inspired electronica.</span> Folding chairs are available, but if you prefer something more comfortable (e.g. lawn lounger), bring it with you. Refreshments. <span style="font-weight: bold;">FREE!</span>
<br />
<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">8 PM, Fri. Aug 12
<br />STAIRWELL ART
<br />Art Exhibition/Live Music
<br /></span><span>As many of you know, one of our shop volunteers, Ben Luckman, recently opened a record store, People Under the Stereo, in our basement. The stairwell down is a cavernous shaft with walls that run 15'x20', so, in keeping with our cultural utilization of nontraditional spaces (e.g. People Under the Stereo), we've decided to turn it into an art gallery</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">.</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Grand opening this Fri!</span> Featuring the work of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Jason Stewart</span>. Plus a range of special musical guests.<span style="font-weight: bold;"> FREE</span>!
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<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">4 PM, Sun. Aug 14</span>
<br /><div><b><span>BLAME
<br />A Staged Reading of a New Screenplay by
<br />QUINN SHEPHARD
<br />Featuring Quinn Shephard, Lily Houghton, Jonathan Wierzbicki, </span>Sherilyn Alyssa Morse, Natasha Thaler, Nicolette Pizzigoni, Laurie Shephard, Daniel Paul, Shelby Day, and Carlyle Owen</b>
<br /><span></span></div><div><div> </div><div>Set in an age of technology and disconnect, <b>BLAME</b> brings us into the lives of five teenage girls whose paths become tangled when envy and suspicion spiral out of control. After word gets out that one of the school's students may or may not be involved in a scandalous affair with her teacher, the line between truth and accusation blurs as the craze for information sweeps the school into a whirlwind of digital hysteria. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Quinn Shephard</span> is a 16-year-old film actress whose credits include <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unaccompanied_Minors" target="_blank">Unaccompanied Minors</a> (w/Lewis Black & Wilmer Valderamma), Harrison's Flowers (w/Andie McDowwell & David Straithairn)', From Other Worlds, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_a_High_School_President" target="_blank">Assassination of a High School President</a> (w/Bruce Willis & Mischa Barton). As a student filmmaker, her work has been showcased in multiple festivals, including the Garden State Film Festival. This is her first feature-length screenplay. <span style="font-weight: bold;">FREE!</span>
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<br />Raconteur Radio & Stage Left Present
<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">6:30 PM, Thurs. Aug 18
<br />THE THIRD MAN
<br />Staged Radio Play/Themed Dinner
<br />Featuring Carlyle Owens, Laurence Mintz, Michael Jarmus, Jackie Nuzzo, and Alex Dawson
<br /></span>The atmospheric rubble and melancholy damp of war-smashed Vienna is powerfully evoked in this thrilling radio play, based on Sir Carol Reed's 1949 film starring Joseph Cotton and Orson Welles. Holly Martins is a "scribbler" of hack Westerns who arrives in postwar Vienna to land a job and join his old pal Harry Lime. Instead he finds himself drawn into a murder mystery and a network of deadly black-market racketeers. The story blurs the lines between what's comic and what's corrupt, melding melodrama and smirking frivolity with razor-blade noir tones and grave ruminations on the seductive nature of money and evil. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Theatrical Lighting! Sound FX!</span> Meet at the Stage Left bar at <span style="font-weight: bold;">6:30 PM</span> to drink Austrian Gruner Veltliner before repairing to one of their private oak-paneled salons for the performance. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Afterward dine on a luxurious dinner with choices appropriate to the time and setting.</span> For more info/reservations, <a href="http://blog.restaurant-guys.com/2011/07/the-third-man.html">CLICK HERE</a>.
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<br />Raconteur Radio & The Metuchen Public Library Present
<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">7:30 PM, Aug 24
<br />THE WAR OF THE WORLDS
<br />Staged Radio Play
<br />Featuring Michael Jarmus, Laurence Mintz, Carlyle Owens, and Alex Dawson
<br /></span> <span style="font-weight: bold;">The War of the Worlds</span> was first performed October 30, 1938 as the Halloween episode of "Mercury Theatre On Air." Directed and narrated by Orson Welles, the episode, set in Grovers Mills, NJ, is a loose adaptation of the H. G. Wells' novel, and begins as a dance band broadcast intermittently interrupted by news flashes about strange explosions on Mars. A cylindrical meteorite lands in a field. A crowd gathers at the site. The meteorite unscrews, revealing itself as a spacecraft, and onlookers catch a glimpse of a tentacled, pulsating creature, its arms throbbing, but immobile, which then springs to life and incinerates the crowd. The simulated "news bulletins" suggested to many listeners that an actual alien invasion by Martians was currently in progress. As a result, there were instances of panic throughout the US, especially in New York and New Jersey. There has been continued speculation that the panic generated by the broadcast inspired government officials to forever cover up subsequent unidentified flying object evidence. <span style="font-weight: bold;">THEATRICAL LIGHTING! SOUND FX! FREE!</span> NOTE: This at the Metuchen Library NOT The Raconteur.
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<br />The Raconteur & The State Theatre Present
<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">8 PM, Fri. Aug 26
<br /><a href="http://www.statetheatrenj.org/raiders_adaptation">RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK: THE ADAPTATION</a>
<br />W/Special Guests: Director Eric Zala & Actor Chris Strompolos
<br />Film Screening/Onstage Conversation/Q&A</span>
<br />It's the 30 year anniversary of <span style="font-style: italic;">Raiders of the Lost Ark</span> and the summer of <span style="font-style: italic;">Super 8</span>, which means it's the perfect time to see the <span style="font-weight: bold;">homemade cult sensation Spielberg himself calls "hugely imaginative!"</span> After seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981, three 12 year old friends, Chris Strompolos, Eric Zala and Jayson Lamb, began filming their own shot-by-shot adaptation in the backyards of their Mississippi homes. Vigilant, resourceful, and a little bit insane, these Mississippi tweens gained access to sacks of gunpowder, gallons of gasoline, a retired WWII battleship and a functioning Navy submarine. They broke bones, got grounded, burned down a garage, and got grounded again. Eric had to be hospitalized twice, once for having his hair set aflame, and once because shards of plaster from an exploding head "effect" had to be surgically removed from his scalp. Seven years later their film was in the can. <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2004/03/raiders200403">Click HERE to read the Vanity Fair article on the boys' amazing movie-making adventure.</a> <span style="font-weight: bold;">THE ONLY WAY TO SEE THIS FILM IS TO CATCH ONE OF THE RARE INTERNATIONAL SCREENINGS HOSTED BY THE FILMMAKERS THEMSELVES.</span> This August, Eric and Chris are flying into New Brunswick to screen and discuss their now legendary remake at the State Theatre! <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.statetheatrenj.org/raiders_adaptation">MORE INFO/BUY TIX!</a>
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<br />ON DECK: Outdoor video game tournament w/DJ Circuit Bored; staged reading of Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein; two time Oscar nominated animator Bill Plympton screening/discussing <span style="font-style: italic;">Idiots and Angels</span> at the State Theatre, 8 PM, Tues. Sept 26.
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<br />Raconteur Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06704248099274234320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7981784157149055450.post-19516251603944720292011-07-11T14:13:00.000-07:002011-08-04T10:08:12.228-07:00JULY/AUG 11: Write Your Own Adventure!; Fantastic Planet; Black Angel Revue; Outdoor Vid Games;Backpockets; Kosha Dillz; Ted Alexandro; Geek WisdomThe Raconteur & The Metuchen Public Library Present<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">7 – 8:30, July 14, 20, 27<br />WRITE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE!<br />Writing Workshop(Ages 10 and up)</span><br />Taking inspiration from both modern and classic YA books and from the lives of the men and women who wrote them, Raconteur proprietor/award winning author Alex Dawson (The Rapscallion Club) provides suggestions that will spark the imaginations of both children and teens, prompting them to pen their own rollicking yarns. Find out how Robert Louis Stevenson found inspiration for Treasure Island in his bowl of porridge, or how J. R. R. Tolkien's amazing fantasy world began with a childhood game of making up words, or how Dawson himself got the idea for his high spirited swashbuckler while visiting his archeologist brother at The South American Explorer's Club in Peru. Whether you have an idea you'd like to draft, have a draft you'd like to revise, or think, as many wrongly do, that your life is too ordinary and you have nothing exciting to say, this workshop is for you. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Unfortunately, the workshop is fully booked, but if you'd like to be put on the waiting list or if you're interested in future workshops, contact raconteurbooks@gmail.com.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Thurs. July 14<br />NEON TROTSKY<br />W/Special Guest Vincent Saulys<br />Live Music</span><br />More soon…<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">9 pm, Fri, July 15<br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgCxCZNkQ9E">FANTASTIC PLANET</a><br />W/Live DJ Soundtrack by CIRCUIT BORED<br />Outdoor Film Screening/Live Music</span><br />René Laloux's mesmerizing psychedelic sci-fi animated feature, <span style="font-weight:bold;">Fantastic Plane</span>t, won the Special Jury Prize at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival and is a landmark of European animation. Based on Stefan Wul's novel <span style="font-style:italic;">Oms en Série</span> (<span style="font-style:italic;">Oms by the Dozen</span>), Laloux's breathtaking vision was released in France as La Planète Sauvage, and immediately drew comparisons to <span style="font-style:italic;">Gulliver's Travels</span> and <span style="font-style:italic;">Planet of the Apes</span>. Today, the film can be seen to prefigure much of the work of Hayao Miyazaki at Studio Ghibli (<span style="font-style:italic;">Princess Mononoke</span>, <span style="font-style:italic;">Spirited Away</span>) due to its palpable political and social concerns, cultivated imagination, and memorable animation techniques. The subtitled film will be screened outdoors on the back terrace of The Raconteur and will be accompanied by a live-mixed soundtrack courtesy of <span style="font-weight:bold;">Circuit Bored</span>, a DJ known for his minimal sci-fi inspired electronica. Folding chairs are available, but if you prefer something more comfortable (e.g. lawn lounger), bring it with you. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">9 PM, Thurs. July 21<br />THE BLACK ANGEL REVUE<br />Novelist Steven Hart & Poet John Marron<br />Reading/Signing<br />WE ALL FALL DOWN & BLIPS</span><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Hart</span>, a Highland Park resident already noted as a historian for his nonfiction book <span style="font-style:italic;">The Last Three Miles: Politics, Murder, and the Construction of America's First Superhighway</span> (2007), will read from his new crime novel <span style="font-weight:bold;">We All Fall Down<span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span>, which has been praised by novelists J.D. Rhoades and Kristy Kiernan as a compelling, twisty tale of murder and conspiracy in a small New Jersey town. Marron, a Highland Park resident, will read haiku, free verse, and unclassifiable poetic japes from his collection <span style="font-style:italic;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">Blips</span></span>. The book has already been hailed by Anne Waldman and a small army of poetic luminaries for its freshness and wit. Both <span style="font-weight:bold;">Blips<span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span> and <span style="font-weight:bold;">We All Fall Down<span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span> are published by the newly minted, small-press imprint <span style="font-weight:bold;">Black Angel Press</span>. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span> Books on sale at event.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8:30 PM, Fri. July 22<br />OUTDOOR VIDEO GAME TOURNAMENT<br />W/Live Mixed Music by Circuit Bored.</span><br />Nintendo 64 projected on a ten foot wall under the stars. Our terrace screening of FANTASTIC PLANET was such a success, we've decided to continue our outdoor programming with a video game tournament similarly accompanied by Circuit Bored, a DJ known for his minimal sci-fi inspired electronica. Bring your lucky controller (we only have two). Bring a chair and any game you wish to play. Event presented in conjunction with People Under the Stereo, vintage clothes & vinyl under The Raconteur. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span> Refreshments.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Mon. July 25<br />THE BACKPOCKETS<br />Live Music</span><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The Back Pockets</span> is three girls, two boys, and one old geezer who looks like a cross between Dusty Hill and the guy with ripped flannel elbows drinking brekkie shots of Ten High who just stole your smokes. They play banjos and bongos, fiddles and flutes. Sometimes they lay electric guitars across their laps and saw on them with a violin bows. The girls dress like flappers, acrobats, or, on occasion, the Daryl Hannah android from <span style="font-style:italic;">Bladerunner</span>. The boys wear Mexican wrestling masks and fencing helmets. They like sidewalks at night, homemade things, and carnies. They frequently rig and engage tightropes and trapezes during their shows, and have played whole songs hanging from their knees. The sound is folk, but the experience is Stomp. They're painters as well as musicians. They hail from Atlanta, GA. <span style="font-weight:bold;">They sometimes describe themselves as Jefferson Airplane meets Blue Man Group.</span> <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span> Complimentary wine. CDs on sale at the event (you remember their CDs, they come in little canvas pockets embroidered with doodles with flaps fastened by Velcro).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Weds. July 27,<br /><a href="www.koshadillzworld.com/">KOSHA DILLZ</a><br />Live Music</span><br />In 2009, <span style="font-weight:bold;">Kosha Dillz </span>won an MC battle at Giants Stadium and released his first solo album, <span style="font-style:italic;">Beverly Dillz</span>. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Dillz</span> has since toured all over the world, most regularly with Flex Mathews and Matisyahu, and is the featured rapper on RZA’s new release <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.2dopeboyz.com/2011/07/06/rza-operator-f-kosha-dillz-kool-g-rap/">Operation</a></span>. <span style="font-weight:bold;">RZA, widely considered one of the most influential and landmark hip-hop producers of all time, calls Kosha “one of the rawest Jewish kids I know.”</span><span style="font-weight:bold;"> FREE!</span> CDs on sale at event.Raconteur Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06704248099274234320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7981784157149055450.post-84546692914583351192011-06-28T16:34:00.001-07:002011-07-11T14:10:49.632-07:00JUNE/JULY 2011: JAILBOX; TRAVIS NICHOLS; PITCHAPALOOZA<span style="font-weight: bold;">8 PM, Tues. June 28<br /><a href="http://jailboxmusic.com/" target="_blank">JAILBOX</a> (w/special guests)<br />Live Music</span><br />Jailbox may rep for Perryville, Missouri, but the quartet stakes a sonic claim to the melodic and sensitive British rock made popular by Coldplay, Doves and Starsailor. While Coldplay took cues from U2 and set its sights on stadium-rock, Jailbox prefers to keep things intimate. The strong, varied album, "One for Each of Us," works well thanks to equal parts restraint and inventiveness. Much of the first half of the disc centers on quiet songs that are pensive but never moody, evocative but not overwrought. The sweet, if oddly named, "Eyes Like a Farmer Tan" floats like an early Kings of Convenience track. "Taking it Slow Is So Dull" comes off as a breezy beach-bum jam, an unexpected bit of whistling, hand-clapping lightness from a record that prefers its hues the color of early summer storms. <span style="font-weight: bold;">FREE!</span> CDs on sale at event.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />8 PM, Weds. June 29<br /><a href="http://ilikeapplejuice.com/about" target="_blank">TRAVIS NICHOLS</a><br />Discussing/Signing<br />THE MONSTER DOODLE BOOK<br />W/Live Music by THE LADY IN THE RADIATOR</span><br />Half-finished doodles of monsters and other creatures, featuring misshapen bodies, oodles of appendages, and all kinds of gross crud. Finish the monster-shaped alphabet, create a flip-book, comic strip, and more. Drawings can be scary, disgusting, cute, or weird. It's up to you. <a href="http://ilikeapplejuice.com/about" target="_blank">Nichols</a> is a writer, artist, cartoonist, and Texan living in Brooklyn, NY. His comics appeared in Nickelodeon Magazine and Herbivore Magazine. He is the author and illustrator of <a href="http://www.punkrocketiquette.com/" target="_blank">Punk Rock Etiquette</a>, which was awarded a Blue Ribbon by the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books and was nominated by YALSA as one of the 2009 Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults. He's played in more than a dozen bands, and he loves meteorites and eating watermelon over the sink. <span style="font-weight: bold;">FREE!</span> Books on sale at event.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">8 PM, Fri. July 8</span><br /><b><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/nyregion/12artsli.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss">PITCHAPALOOZA</a></b><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Authors Wanted!</span><br /><b><a href="http://www.thebookdoctors.com/">The Book Doctors</a></b>, aka, <b>Arielle Eckstut</b> and <b>David Henry Sterry</b>, authors of <i>The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published</i>, want YOU to pitch your book at their acclaimed event, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/nyregion/12artsli.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss"><b>Pitchapalooza</b></a>, which was recently featured in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/nyregion/12artsli.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss"><i>The New York Times</i></a>, and in a mini-documentary for Newsday. Pitchapalooza is like American Idol for books--only without the Simon. Writers get one minute to pitch their book ideas to an all-star panel of publishing experts. The winner receives an introduction to an appropriate agent or publisher for his/her book. Plus, anyone who buys a book gets a free consultation worth $100.<br /><br /><b>Arielle Eckstut</b> has been a literary agent for 18 years. She is also the author of seven books and the co-founder of the iconic brand, LittleMissMatched. <b>David Henry Sterry</b> is the best-selling author of 12 books, on a wide variety of subject including memoir, sports, YA fiction and reference. His last book appeared on the cover of the Sunday New York Times Book Review.<br /><br />Together, they’ve helped dozens and dozens of talented amateur writers become published authors. They’ve appeared everywhere from NPR’s Morning Edition to USA Today, and have taught publishing workshops everywhere from the Miami Book Fair to Stanford University. <span style="font-weight: bold;">FREE!</span> Books on sale at event. Comp wine.Raconteur Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06704248099274234320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7981784157149055450.post-14777445316578185432011-05-31T13:51:00.000-07:002011-06-23T09:14:08.400-07:00JUNE 2011: Teen Fest; Side Show/Roy Chambers/Roadside Graves; Something to Say; Treasure Hunt; Jailbox; Monster Doodle Book w/Lady and the Radiator<span style="font-weight: bold;">7:30 PM, Weds. June 1</span><b><br />1st ANNUAL AWESOMESAUCE TEEN EXTRAVAGANZA<br />Special guest Fantasy YA author SHERWOOD SMITH</b><br />Featuring ten minute readings by John Melendez (15), Kathryn Sweatman (16), Emma Jacques (12), Whitney Xu (13),and Kayla Bashe (16), who organized the event. <b>PLUS: L.A.'s Sherwood Smith</b>, the author of a number of science fiction and fantasy novels, including the "Wren "series for Young Adults, the Exordium novels, the recent "Atlantis Endgame," a novel of the Time Traders series, and the Solar Queen novels, reads excerpts of her writing and answer attendees’ questions via SKYPE. <b>FREE!</b><br /><br /><b>6:30 - 10 PM, Fri. June 10</b><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />BUG OUT!! @ The Rac<br />Featuring HONOR AMONGST THIEVES, ROY CHAMBERS, BEN LUCKMAN, JEREMY BENSON, & THE ROADSIDE GRAVES<br />Sideshow Performance/Sculpture Unveiling/Live Music<br /></span><b>6:30 - 7:30 PM (outside, in front) </b>Sideshow escapists<b> Honor Amongst Thieves</b> swallow mongol sabers, eat Edison light-bulbs, and spit fifteen foot flumes of flame into the blue black sky above Main Street, w/special guest Billy Bullwhip, a whip artist who, from ten feet away, can knock free a raisin from the ginger clench of his partner's teeth.<b> 7:30 PM (outside, in front) </b>Metal sculptor <b>Roy Chambers </b>unveils his 9' Don Quixote made from found objects and re-purposed metals (on permanent display in front of The Raconteur). Chambers effectively erased any memory of Allen Jones' fetishistic fiber-glass nudes with his steam-punk, milk bar cow-skull in The Raconteur's production of <a href="http://aclockworkorangetheplay.blogspot.com/">A Clockwork Orange</a> (on display in the rear of the shop since the 2009 production).<span style="font-weight: bold;"> 8:00 - 9:00 PM (inside) </span>Singer/songwriters <span style="font-weight: bold;">Jeremy Benson & Ben Lukman. </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">8:30 - 10:00 PM (outdoor stage, in back) </span><span>Rac house band</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> The Roadside Graves</span> <b>(w/special guests)</b> playing songs from their new S.E. Hinton inspired album "OUTSIDE" (stay gold, ponyboy!). <b>All for FREE!</b> Can u believe it? Note: Bug Out!! is our contribution to the town-wide, summer arts festival, Junebug, which occurs every Friday in June.<br /><br /><b>2 PM, Sun. June 12<br />Richard Klin/Lily Prince<br />SOMETHING TO SAY<br />Thoughts on Arts and Politics in America<br />Reading/Discussion/Slide Show</b>,<br />In <b>Something to Say</b>, <b>Klin </b>interviews artists and thinkers as disparate as Pete Seeger, Howard Zinn, punk rock activist Franklin Stein, and Palestinian American stand up comedian Maysoon Zayid. Each interview is accompanied by a striking B/W portrait from <b>Klin's</b> wife, photographer <b>Lily Prince</b>. The fusion of art and politics is axiomatic in much of the world. In America, their relationship is erratic. What is art in the service of social justice? Is an artist obligated to address the political? This book profiles, in words and photos, disparate creative forces who offer thoughts on their point of engagement with the political sphere. <b>FREE!</b> Books on sale at event.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">9:30 AM, Sat. June 18<br />3rd ANNUAL METUCHEN TREASURE HUNT<br />Ages 6 & up!</span><br />The Raconteur, in conjunction with the Metuchen Mt. Zion Masonic Lodge (and What's the Scoop), is again sponsoring a Metuchen based treasure hunt! In keeping with the rollicking spirit of <i>The Man who Would be King</i>, Freemason Rudyard Kipling's fantastic tale of two masonic scoundrels who set off from 19th century British India in search of gold and adventure and end up as kings of Kafiristan, and <i>The National Treasure</i>, in which hoard hunter Benjamin Gates follows a series of cryptic clues to find an ancient cache intertwined with the arcane history of Freemasonry, <span style="font-weight: bold;">young adventurers (boys and girls 1st through 5th grade) work in teams, following clues and unraveling a variety of knotty riddles as they move from one mysterious location to another (various stores and outdoor landmarks) within the town limits of Metuchen proper.</span> Each cracked conundrum will lead players ever closer to the final treasure! Expect anagrams, number puzzles, and a brass plated, cylindrical device known as a Cryptex. Raconteur gift certificates awarded to all participants. <span style="font-weight: bold;">To sign up, click <a href="http://www.mtzion135.org/treasurehunt/index.php/">HERE</a>. Space is limited. The hunt is completely FREE.</span> Any questions, or if you would like to help, please click <a href="http://www.mtzion135.org/treasurehunt/index.php/">HERE</a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />8 PM, Tues. June 28<br /><a href="http://jailboxmusic.com/">JAILBOX</a><br />w/special guests<br />Live Music</span><br />Think Radiohead meets The Police. More soon. <span style="font-weight: bold;">FREE!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />8 PM, Weds. June 29<br /><a href="http://ilikeapplejuice.com/about">TRAVIS NICHOLS</a><br />Discussing/Signing<br />THE MONSTER DOODLE BOOK<br />W/Live Music by THE LADY IN THE RADIATOR</span><br />Half-finished doodles of monsters and other creatures, featuring misshapen bodies, oodles of appendages, and all kinds of gross crud. Finish the monster-shaped alphabet, create a flip-book, comic strip, and more. Drawings can be scary, disgusting, cute, or weird. It's up to you. <a href="http://ilikeapplejuice.com/about">Nichols</a> is a writer, artist, cartoonist, and Texan living in Brooklyn, NY. His comics appeared in Nickelodeon Magazine and Herbivore Magazine. He is the author and illustrator of <a href="http://www.punkrocketiquette.com/">Punk Rock Etiquette</a>, which was awarded a Blue Ribbon by the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books and was nominated by YALSA as one of the 2009 Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults. He's played in more than a dozen bands, and he loves meteorites and eating watermelon over the sink. <span style="font-weight: bold;">FREE!</span> Books on sale at event.Raconteur Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06704248099274234320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7981784157149055450.post-34898248469000611562011-05-02T09:27:00.000-07:002011-05-28T11:45:01.630-07:00MAY 2011: Jazz Guitar; William Lustig; Don't Burn It; Mark Jacobson; Comedy Show; Sloane Crosley; Pitchapalooza<span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;" >8 PM, Thurs. May 5</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;" > JOHN HARRITY</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;" > Jazz Guitar</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;" > Live Music</span><br /><span style=";font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:100%;" ><span>Harrity</span> is the master guitar instructor at the Somerville School of Music. He </span><span style=";font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:100%;" >has studied with Ronald Parker, Harry Leahy and Ted Dunbar for Jazz guitar, with Francis Perry, Thaddeus Robinson and Laura Oltman for classical guitar, and with Wanda Maximilien for classical piano. </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >FREE!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">8 PM, Fri. May 6</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"> ROBUS 1 w/LADY IN THE RADIATOR</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"> CD release Party</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"> Live Music</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><span>More info soon...</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br />6 – 7:30 PM, Sat. May 7</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">WILLIAM LUSTIG</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Pre-MANIAC Reception </span><br />Some serious New York grit is about to get all up in Metuchen when legendary cult director and Blue Underground head honcho, <span style="font-weight: bold;">William Lustig</span> invades the The Forum with a brand new 35 mm print of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Maniac</span>. In 1980, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Lustig</span> found himself at the center of a storm of controversy when he made the grim and gorey slasher sleaze landmark <span style="font-weight: bold;">Maniac</span>, which boasts plenty of hideously gruesome make-up effects by horror genre icon Tom Savini. As the head of Blue Underground, he has overseen the release of some eminent cult horror films including <span style="font-style: italic;">City of the Living Dead, The Crazies</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Bird With the Crystal Plumage</span>. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Lustig </span>has also worked as an actor in his own films as well as in films by Sam Raimi, most notably <span style="font-weight: bold;">Army of Darkness </span>and <span style="font-style: italic;">Darkman</span>. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Join the Raconteur for a Dixie cup of comp wine and some up-close conversation with horror legend Lustig, then trot on down to theater for the 8 PM screening and Q&A.</span> But be warned, this is strictly for fans of the genre. $5 (reception), $15 (screening).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">8 PM, Sat. May 14</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">DON'T BURN IT</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Directed by Dang Nhat Minh</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">W/Special guest DON'T BURN IT actor and Vietnam veteran MICHAEL JARMUS</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Film Screening</span><br />Having won many of the top awards in its home country and honors in Japan’s Fukuoka Film Festival, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Don't Burn It</span> was Vietnam’s submission for <span style="font-weight: bold;">Best Foreign Language Film in the 2010 Academy Awards.</span> The film is the first Vietnamese feature to shoot scenes in the United States. It tells of the intersection of the life of Viet Cong medic Dang Thuy Tram with that of US Army Sergeant Frederic Whitehurst <span style="font-weight: bold;">(Michael Jarmus)</span>. The sergeant recovered Dr. Dang’s diaries shortly after her death in 1970, was greatly moved by them, and managed to return the writings to her family thirty-five years later. A sensation when published in Vietnam, the diaries inspired director Dang Nhat Minh to write the screenplay. The film’s title is taken from what Whitehurst’s Vietnamese translator said after reading part of the diary, as captured documents were being destroyed: “Don’t burn this one...It has fire in it already.” <span style="font-weight: bold;">At this rare US screening, Jarmus will introduce the film and helm a discussion afterward.</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;">FREE!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">8 PM, Weds. May 18</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">PLEASE NOTE: Sloane Crosely's visit is postponed until Thurs, May 26 to accommodate her second appearance on The Late, Late Show w/Craig Ferguson. Sorry!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">8 PM, Sat May 21</span><br /><a href="http://markjacobson.great-works.net/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">MARK JACOBSON</span></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Reading/Signing</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">THE LAMPSHADE: A HOLOCAUST DETECTIVE STORY</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">“A disquieting yet utterly fascinating account, artfully told, studded with characters that would have been impossible to invent.” Jon Krakauer.</span> Few growing up in the aftermath of World War II will ever forget the horrifying reports that Nazi concentration camp doctors had removed the skin of prisoners to make lampshades. In <span style="font-weight: bold;">The Lampshade</span>, bestselling journalist <span style="font-weight: bold;">Mark Jacobson</span> tells the story of how he came into possession of one of these awful objects, and of his search to establish the origin, and larger meaning, of what can only be described as an icon of terror. From Hurricane Katrina–ravaged New Orleans to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem to the Buchenwald concentration camp to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, almost everything <span style="font-weight: bold;">Jacobson </span>uncovers about the lampshade is contradictory, mysterious, shot through with legend and specious information. Through interviews with forensic experts, famous Holocaust scholars (and deniers), Buchenwald survivors and liberators, and New Orleans thieves and cops, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Jacobson</span> gradually comes to see the lampshade as a ghostly illuminator of his own existential status as a Jew, and to understand exactly what that means in the context of human responsibility. One question looms as his search progresses: what to do with the lampshade—this unsettling thing that used to be someone?<span style="font-weight: bold;"> Jacobson is a Contributing Editor at <span style="font-style: italic;">New York Magazine</span> and </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">in 2000 he published a profile of Frank Lucas, "once the city's biggest, baddest heroin kingpin"; this formed the basis for the Ridley Scott film, "American Gangster", starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">FREE! </span>Books on sale at event.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">8 PM, Tues. May 24</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">COMEDY SHOW </span><br />Featuring a range of NJ and NY comics.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">8 PM, Thurs. May 26</span><br /><a href="http://sloanecrosley.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">SLOANE CROSLEY</span></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Reading/Signing</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">HOW DID YOU GET THIS NUMBER</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">David Sedaris calls her “relentlessly funny” Jonathan Ames calls her "Charming, elegant, wise, and outrageous, a 21st century Dorothy Parker,” and Jonthan Lethem calls her “another mordant and mercurial wit from the realm of Sedaris and Vowell.”</span> She is also a weekly columnist for The Independent, a frequent contributor to NPR's "All Things Considered," and editor of The Best American Travel Writing 2011. Her essays, interviews, fiction and criticism have appeared in <span style="font-style: italic;">The New York Times, The Guardian, Black Book Magazine, The New York Observer, The Village Voice, Vice Magazine, Elle , Glamour, Vogue, W, Salon.com, GQ, Spin, Esquire, Playboy Magazine, Self, Maxim Magazine,</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Mirabella.</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;">FREE! </span>Books on sale at event.<br /><br /><b>POSTPONED UNTIL JULY 8! Sorry!<br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/nyregion/12artsli.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss">PITCHAPALOOZA</a></b><br /><b><a href="http://www.thebookdoctors.com/">The Book Doctors</a></b>, aka, <b>Arielle Eckstut</b> and <b>David Henry Sterry</b>, authors of <i>The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published</i>, want YOU to pitch your book at their acclaimed event, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/nyregion/12artsli.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss"><b>Pitchapalooza</b></a>, which was recently featured in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/nyregion/12artsli.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss"><i>The New York Times</i></a>, and in a mini-documentary for Newsday. Pitchapalooza is like American Idol for books--only without the Simon. Writers get one minute to pitch their book ideas to an all-star panel of publishing experts. The winner receives an introduction to an appropriate agent or publisher for his/her book. Plus, anyone who buys a book gets a free consultation worth $100.<br /><br /><b>Arielle Eckstut</b> has been a literary agent for 18 years. She is also the author of seven books and the co-founder of the iconic brand, LittleMissMatched. <b>David Henry Sterry</b> is the best-selling author of 12 books, on a wide variety of subject including memoir, sports, YA fiction and reference. His last book appeared on the cover of the Sunday New York Times Book Review. Together, they’ve helped dozens and dozens of talented amateur writers become published authors. They’ve appeared everywhere from NPR’s Morning Edition to USA Today, and have taught publishing workshops everywhere from the Miami Book Fair to Stanford University.Raconteur Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06704248099274234320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7981784157149055450.post-37629951496580313772011-04-07T14:13:00.000-07:002011-04-25T07:00:12.948-07:00APRIL 2011: Green Hornet Radio; Johnny Porno; D'Meitz/Ilusha; Dan Naturman; Japan Benefit; East Cack/Shay James; Miranda Kennedy; MUTTS, Misha Angrist<i>Tired of the everyday routine?<b> Ever dream of a life of action and adventure?</b> Want to get away from it all? Raconteur Radio’s staged presentations are designed to free you from the four walls of today, for a half hour of thrilling suspense with…</i><b><i>THE GREEN HORNET!</i> </b><br /><b><br />8 PM, Fri. & Sat. April 1 & 2<br />THE GREEN HORNET<br />A Staged Radio Play<br />With Gwen Owens, Laurence Mintz, Mike Harvus, Peter Yao as Kato, and Carlyle Owens as the "Hornet</b>."<br /><b>ALL AGES!</b><br /><b>The Green Hornet</b> is an American radio and comic book masked vigilante created by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker. Distinguished by its use of classical music, not least "Flight of the Bumblebee" for its title theme, it was one of radio's best-known and most distinctive adventure shows. Since his radio debut in the 1930s, the character has appeared in film serials (in the 1940s), a network television program (in the 1960s), multiple comic book series (from the 1940s on), and, just this past January, a feature film starring Seth Rogen. The <b>Hornet</b> is the alter ego of newspaper publisher Britt Reid. He is accompanied by his similarly masked partner, confidant, and chauffeur, Kato, who drives their technologically advanced Studebaker, the "Black Beauty." <b>SOUND FX! COSTUMES! THEATRICAL LIGHTING.</b> <b><br /><br />8 PM, Thurs. April 7<br /><a href="http://www.charliestella.com/" target="_blank">CHARLIE STELLA</a><br />Reading/Signing<br />JOHNNY PORNO </b><br />With seven crime novels under his belt, <b>Stella</b> has received six starred industry reviews, has made two best-of-year-mystery lists (Publisher’s Weekly & Booklist, 2003 for <i>Charlie Opera</i>), and has been compared favorably to Elmore Leonard on sixteen occasions. His novels are hard-boiled, dialogue driven, and linked by recurring members of the Vignieri crime family. He's written countless short stories for such collections as <i>Hard Boiled Brooklyn</i>, <i>Dublin Noir</i>, and <i>Bloodlines: A Horse Racing Anthology</i>. His most recent book, the bluntly titled<b> <a href="http://www.charliestella.com/" target="_blank">Johnny Porno</a></b>, is set in New York circa '73, the same week a criminal court banned the adult film, <i>Deep Throat</i>. His books have been published here, the UK, Italy and Russia. Stella is also a screen writer, sometime jazz drummer, playwright, semi-pro powerlifter, opera buff, and every bit the raconteur. <b>FREE! Comp wine. </b>Books on sale at the event.<br /><br /><b>8 PM, Sat. April 9<br /><a href="http://dmeitz.bandcamp.com/" target="_blank">D'MEITZ & ILUSHA </a><br />Live Music</b><br />Detroit's <b>D'Meitz</b> has won freestyle <span>rap</span> battles in Cleveland, Detroit, New York City, Atlanta, Baltimore, and Washington D.C. He is a regular competitor in GrindTimeNow, the world's largest <span>Rap</span> Battle league. D'Meitz is currently enlisted active duty in the United States <span>Marine </span>Corps and served in Iraq in 2008. While traveling with the Corps he released his first LP record in Japan, "Chivalry,Solemnity, and other bad ideas." He then teamed up with world famous DJ Mick Boogie to release "To Those with Wings," a free mixtape made available for download in November 2009. His just released full length LP, <a href="http://goog_658125145/" target="_blank"> </a><b><a href="http://dmeitz.bandcamp.com/" target="_blank">"Mortal" (April 1, 2011),</a> </b>is a collaboration with the multi-talented Modlovan pianist, <b>Ilusha</b>, who joins D'Meitz on his country-wide tour and performs with him (on our in-shop pub piano) tonight. W/Special guest.<b>FREE! Comp wine</b>. CDs on sale at event.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">8 PM, Tues. April 12<br /><a href="http://www.dannaturman.com/" target="_blank">DAN NATURMAN</a><br />Stand Up Comedy</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Naturman</span> was the favorite of celebrity judges Drew Carey and Brett Butler on <i>Last Comic Standing</i> Season 2 and has performed on <span style="font-style: italic;">Jimmy Kimmel Live!</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Late Show with David Letterman</span>, and both <span style="font-style: italic;">The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Late Nite with Conan O’Brien</span>. He is a regular at both The Comedy Cellar and Comic Strip Live! in New York. <span style="font-weight: bold;">$5.00.</span> Comp wine.<br /><br /><b>8 pm, Sat. April 16<br /><a href="https://www.rescue.org/donate/japan?ms=ws_ircz_jpn_zzzz_ts_1103zz" target="_blank">BENEFIT FOR JAPAN</a><br />DAVID HEINLEIN & <a href="http://www.kyomorishima.com/" target="_blank">KYO MORISHIMA</a><br />Shodo/Photography Exhibit/Reading<br /> Raising Funds for Earthquake Relief through Documentary Photographs and Shodo Calligraphy</b><br /><b>David Heinlein</b> will exhibit fifty of his <b>Shodo works</b> on ancient wood and mulberry paper, and read poetry in Japanese (with subsequent translation) from his book, "<b>Wild Seeds</b>." In 1969, at 22, <b>Heinlein </b>first went to Kyoto on The Amherst-Doshisha Fellowship. He became an Instructor of English at the university and traveled extensively in Japan and throughout Southeast Asia as well as in the Okinawa Islands. His first book, "Wild Seeds," bi-lingual essays and poems in English and Japanese, was written and published in 1984 while Heinlein, after a brief return to the US, was again working in Japan. In 1992 he began teaching Japanese at Middlesex and Union County Colleges. Heinlein is a Black Belt Third Degree in Martial Arts of Japanese Origin and has been doing Japanese calligraphy for more than twenty-five years.<br /><br />“I take hundreds of pictures of quiet, personal, simple moments whenever I return home to Japan," says photographer <b><a href="http://www.kyomorishima.com/" target="_blank">Kyo Morishima</a>.</b> "At a time now when the word 'Japan' evokes a monumental tragedy and disaster, I thought the images of children playing, monks sweeping, people going about their everyday business would be a humanizing counterpoint to the headlines.” <b>Morishima</b> was a college student in the United States when the Kobe earthquake struck in 1995, destroying his parents' house and large swaths of his hometown. <b><br /><br />Morishima will sell framed prints and Heinlein will sell books of Japanese poetry. Both will donate 100% of the proceeds for <a href="http://diy.rescue.org/raconteur_relief" target="_blank">Japanese earthquake victims</a>. Heinlein will also sell his Shodo work and donate a percentage to<a href="https://mail.google.com/mail/goog_1541517769"> </a><a href="http://diy.rescue.org/raconteur_relief" target="_blank">benefit Japan</a>. </b>Comp wine.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">8 PM, Thurs. April 28</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><b style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.eastcackalacky.bandcamp.com/">EAST CACKALACKY </a></b><span class="messageBody"><span style="font-weight: bold;">& <a href="http://www.shayferjames.com/">THE SHAYFER JAMES SIDE SHOW</a><br />East Cack </span>is a touring avant-folk duo from Klamath Falls, Oregon specializing in homemade electrical weirdness & a singing saw. Singer/songwriter/artful pianist <span style="font-weight: bold;">Shayfer James</span> writes songs that are dark, dense, Dickensian, and fingers the 61 keys of his Casio Portable with the dodgy subtlety of a Fagan street thief (also w/singing saw). </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">FREE!</span> Comp wine. CDs on sale at event.<br /><br /><b>8 PM, FRI. APRIL 29<br /><a href="http://www.mirandakennedy.com/">MIRANDA KENNEDY</a><br />Reading/Signing<br /><a href="http://www.mirandakennedy.com/">SIDEWAYS ON A SCOOTER: LIFE & LOVE IN INDIA</a></b><br /><span>In the early aughts,<b> Miranda Kennedy</b>, a young reporter living in New York City, relocated to India, where a British great-aunt had served as a missionary and where her own parents had lived during the early years of their marriage. </span> She stayed for half a decade, becoming a foreign correspondent for American Public Media’s <i>Marketplace</i> and National Public Radio. During her time there, <b>Kennedy</b> is drawn into the lives of several Indian women, including her charismatic friend Geeta—a self-described “modern girl” who attempts to squeeze herself into the traditional role of wife and mother; Radha, a proud Brahmin widow who denies herself simple pleasures in order to live by high-caste Hindu principles; and Parvati, who defiantly chain-smokes and drinks whiskey, yet feels compelled to keep her boyfriend a secret from her family. In her effort to understand the hopes and dreams that motivate her new friends, Kennedy peels back India’s globalized image as a land of call centers and fast-food chains and finds an ancient place where, in many ways, lives have scarcely changed for centuries. <b><i>"If you liked Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love, you have to read this book.” Susan Cheever, </i></b><i>author of Home Before Dark, a memoir about her father, John Cheever</i><br /><br /><a href="http://www.mirandakennedy.com/"><b>Miranda Kennedy</b></a>'s articles have appeared in <i>The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, </i>and <i>The Nation, </i>and on Slate. Before moving to India, Kennedy worked as a magazine editor and a public radio reporter in New York, where she covered, among other things, the September 11 attacks. She recently moved to Washington, D.C., to work as an editor at National Public Radio’s <i>Morning Edition,</i> and returns frequently to India. <b>FREE! </b>Comp wine. Books on sale at event.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">2 PM, Sat. April 30</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://muttscomics.com/">MUTTS Creator PATRICK MCDONNELL</a></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Chalk Talk/Reading/Signing</span><br />In 1994, <span style="font-weight: bold;">McDonnell</span> created the award-winning comic strip <span style="font-weight: bold;">Mutts</span>, which now appears in more than 700 newspapers in 20 countries and has been anthologized in books all over the world. It was <span style="font-weight: bold;">described by Peanuts creator Charles Schulz as "one of the best comic strips of all time."</span> A coffee table book of his life and work, Mutts: The Comic Art of Patrick McDonnell, was published in 2003. In 2005, McDonnell wrote his first children's book, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Gift of Nothing</span>, which was a <span style="font-style: italic;">New York Times</span> best seller. <span style="font-style: italic;">The Guardians of Being</span>, a collaboration with Oprah endorsed spiritual teacher Eckart Tolle, was published in Oct 2009. Join Patrick as he reads from his eighth children's book, <span style="font-weight: bold;">ME...JANE,</span> the story of the young Jane Goodall and her toy chimpanzee Jubilee, and sketches Earl, Mooch, and dozens of other characters on a giant architect's pad, chronicling their creation and answering questions as he draws. Books on sale at the event. <span style="font-weight: bold;">FREE! </span>Books on sale at event.<br /><br /><b>8 PM, Sun, May 1<br />MISHA ANGRIST<br />Reading/Discussing/Signing<br />HERE IS A HUMAN BEING: At the Dawn of Personal Genomics</b><br /><div class="productDescriptionWrapper"> Once considered a fanciful topic confined to speculative fiction, DNA-based science has blossomed in the last decade to encompass a wide range of real world technologies. DNA technology has already changed our health care, the food we eat, and our criminal justice system. Unlocking the secrets of our genomes opens the door not only to helping us understand why we are the way we are and potentially fixing what ails us but also to many other concerns. What exactly will happen to this information? Will it become just another marketing tool? Can it help us understand our ancestry, or will it merely reinforce old ideas of race? Can personal genomics help fix the U.S. health care system? <span style="font-weight: bold;">Angrist, a Duke University genetics professor with the added pedigree of an MFA in writing, is ideally suited for probing and explaining this often-befuddling field in crisp, accessible prose. </span>His chief focus here is on the slice of DNA tinkering known as personal genomics and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Angrist’s</span> own participation in a Harvard-funded project to map the entire genomes of its human subjects. Along with providing a fascinating close-up view of cutting edge science, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Angrist</span> explores the many thorny questions provoked by genome sequencing, such as whether humans really want to know about their future infirmities, and whether everyone’s DNA blueprint should be freely posted on the Internet. <span style="font-weight: bold;">A vitally important and timely study of a society-changing technology.</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;">FREE! </span>Comp wine. Books on sale at the event.<br /></div>Raconteur Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06704248099274234320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7981784157149055450.post-25723520591386336552011-02-28T12:51:00.000-08:002011-04-07T14:19:21.545-07:00MARCH 2011: Coming Out, Coming Home; Melendez Jazz Duo; Edwin Frank & NYRB; Welsey Stace & Jonathan Coe; Schiff, Liss, Bondhus; Mike Bruno & Mattress<span style="font-weight: bold;">8 PM, Thurs. March 3<br />DR. MICHAEL LASALA<br />Reading/Signing<br />COMING OUT, COMING HOME</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">LaSala</span> draws on years of working with families and their gay and lesbian children to write a warm and wonderfully compassionate book. With insight and wisdom, his study examines very real and honest stories of how gay and lesbian people cope with accepting their families and how parents and siblings work to love and protect their offspring. <span style="font-weight: bold;">LaSala</span> is the director of the MSW program and associate professor at the School of Social Work at Rutgers University. He recently completed a Fulbright Fellowship during which he taught family therapy courses at Tallinn University in Estonia and investigated the impacts of stigma on Estonian lesbians and gay men. <span style="font-weight: bold;">LaSala </span>has been a keynote speaker at national and international conferences in Sweden, Estonia, and Italy. <span style="font-weight: bold;">FREE!</span> Comp wine. Books on sale at event.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">8 PM, Sat. March 5<br />THE JOHN MELENDEZ DUO<br />Live Music</span><br />Fourteen year old jazz prodigy <span style="font-weight: bold;">John Melendez</span> is a ninth-grade student from Metuchen. He has been studying piano for six years and jazz for three at the Mason Gross Extension School at Rutgers and the Rutgers Summer Jazz Institute. Currently, John holds a Young Artists Program scholarship at Rutgers. He has studied with Oscar Macchioni, Andy Michalec and Brian Axford. John's influences include Stanley Cowell, Horace Silver, Thelonious Monk and Herbie Hancock. <span style="font-weight: bold;">John</span> will be accompanied by his father, Rob Pallitto, on trumpet.<span style="font-weight: bold;"> FREE!</span> Comp wine.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">8 PM, Thurs. March 10<br />EDWIN FRANK<br />Editorial Director of <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/books/about/">NYRB Classics</a><br />Discussion/Q&A</span><br />The <span style="font-weight: bold;">NYRB Classics</span> series is designedly and determinedly exploratory and eclectic, a mix of fiction and non-fiction from different eras and times and of various sorts (literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of). The series includes new translations of canonical figures such as Euripides, Dante, Balzac, and Chekhov; fiction by modern and contemporary masters such as Mavis Gallant, Daphne du Maurier, Stefan Zweig, and Upamanyu Chatterjee; tales of crime and punishment by George Simenon and Kenneth Fearing; masterpieces of narrative history and literary criticism, poetry, travel writing, biography, cookbooks; and unclassifiable classics on the order of J. R. Ackerley’s <span style="font-style: italic;">My Dog Tulip</span> and Robert Burton’s <span style="font-style: italic;">The Anatomy of Melancholy</span>. Last fall they published their first graphic novel, <span style="font-style: italic;">Poem Strip</span> by Dino Buzzati, translated into English for the first time. Two of their 2010 publishing highlights are William Lindsay Gresham’s noir masterpiece, <span style="font-style: italic;">Nightmare Alley</span>; and <span style="font-style: italic;">The Road</span>, the first English language translation of selected writings by Vasily Grossman. Taken as a whole, <span style="font-weight: bold;">NYRB Classics</span> is a series of books of unrivaled variety and quality for discerning and adventurous readers.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />8 PM, Sat. March 12<br />WESLEY STACE & JONATHAN COE<br />Reading/Signing/Live Music<br />CHARLES JESSOLD, CONSIDERED AS A MURDERER & THE TERRIBLE PRIVACY OF MAXWELL SIM</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Rolling Stone Magazine</span> hailed <span style="font-weight: bold;">John Wesley Harding</span>, the first opening act for Bruce Springsteen in 20 years, as "a literate and ironic neo-folkie with enough bile to win over a younger, hipper audience not attuned to folk music." <span style="font-style: italic;">CREEM</span> said "His eloquence can be gut-wrenching," and <span style="font-style: italic;">The Los Angeles Times</span> dubbed him "one of the great rock artists of the 90s." His best known work includes "I'm Wrong About Everything", which was featured on the High Fidelity soundtrack. Under his real name, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Wesley Stace</span>, he wrote the international best seller <span style="font-style: italic;">Misfortune</span> and 2007's <span style="font-style: italic;">by George</span>, a multigenerational story about a performing British family and their ventriloquist's dummy. His latest book is <span style="font-weight: bold;">Charles Jessold</span>, a twisty tale of music and murder unfolding with Nabokovian precision during Britain’s early twentieth-century folk revival. And, yes, Stace/Harding will have his guitar.<br /><br />A humane satire and modern-day picaresque, <span style="font-weight: bold;">The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim</span> by fellow Brit <span style="font-weight: bold;">Jonathan Coe</span> is a gently comic novel about the paradoxical difficulties of making genuine attachments in a world of advanced communications technology and rampant social networking. A product of the social media boom, the eponymous Sim is, according to Coe, "the sort of person with hundreds of Facebook friends but no one to talk to when his marriage breaks up." <span style="font-weight: bold;">Coe</span> has written biographies of both Bogart and Jimmy Stewart and his novels include <span style="font-style: italic;">The Rotters' Club</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Dwarves of Death</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">What a Carve Up!</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">The Rotters' Club</span> was adapted for television and broadcast on BBC Two; <span style="font-style: italic;">Dwarves of Death</span> was filmed as <span style="font-style: italic;">Five Seconds to Spare</span>. Jeremy Dyson, founder/creator of British cult comic quartet <span style="font-style: italic;">The League of Gentlemen</span>, is adapting <span style="font-style: italic;">What a Carve Up!</span> for Channel 4. <span style="font-weight: bold;">FREE! Comp wine.</span> Books on sale at event.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">8 PM, Fri. March 25<br />SCHIFF, LISS, BONDHUS, NOWLIN<br />Poetry Reading</span><br />A former McGill classmate of Leonard Cohen, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Morty Schiff</span>, now the director of creative arts at CUNY Staten Island, enjoys the illustrious distinction of having Cohen once say of his work, "If I could write a poem like that, I'd never need to write again." <span style="font-weight: bold;">David Liss</span>, the current vice president of the New York Presbyterian Hospital, (not to be confused with David Liss, the Black Panther comic book writer and the author of Whiskey Rebels), when studying in Ireland, was grandly introduced to Samuel Beckett by a friend in a pub as the "American poet, David Liss." <span style="font-weight: bold;">Ryan Nowlin</span>, who has an MA in creative writing and a new chapbook, <span style="font-style: italic;">Banquet Settings</span>, and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Charlie Bondhus</span>, who has an MFA in creative writing and a PhD in literature and whose rumination on violence and complicity, <span style="font-style: italic;">Monsters and Victims</span>, was shortlisted for the prestigious Bram Stoker Award, have not, to my knowledge, had any memorable interactions with famously reclusive Canadian folkies or post modern avant-garde dramatists, but they're reading, too. <span style="font-weight: bold;">FREE.</span> Comp wine.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">8 PM, Thurs. March 31<br />MIKE BRUNO & HIS BLACK MAGIC FAMILY BAND<br />w/Special Guest MATTRESS<br />Live Music</span><br />I might have met <span style="font-weight: bold;">Mike Bruno</span> in a dream. Maybe playing a waterphone atop a black cliff as a wine dark sea crashed white against the rocks and a light-blind moth thudded percussively in the narrowing shade of a left-on bedside lamp. Recently dubbed <span style="font-weight: bold;">"opium den float rock,"</span> by the <span style="font-style: italic;">New York Post</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Bruno's</span> lo-fi late night tale-weaving is influenced by children's stories, weird spiders, glittering coyote eyes, and the krakken, and his rich, wistful croon, brother to a growl, cousin to a yowl, is backed by his <span style="font-weight: bold;">Black Magic Family</span>--April Heliotis, Paris Bierk, Sean Yenchick, Paul Christian, and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Sally Burtnick (Glen "Styx" Burtnick's daughter)</span>, each contributing to a wonderfully strange symphony of sounds that include tin and wood flutes, wine glasses, Tibetan medicine bowls, and the mysterious vibrations of the theramin and, yes, waterphone. W/Special guests <span style="font-weight: bold;">MATTRESS</span>. <span style="font-weight: bold;">FREE.</span> Comp wine. CDs on sale at event. Not to be missed!Raconteur Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06704248099274234320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7981784157149055450.post-60546361110705168892011-02-08T19:37:00.000-08:002011-02-18T07:46:53.249-08:00FEB/MARCH 2011: CATFISH; BOOKCOURT; JESS ROW & EMMA STRAUB; CIVIL WAR BUDDY HOLLIES; ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN; COMING OUT; J. MELENDEZ DUO; WES STACE<span style="font-style:italic;">The Raconteur, The Forum Theatre, and The Metuchen Cultural Arts Commission present</span><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Sat. Feb 12<br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuE98oeL-e0">CATFISH</a><br />W/Special Guest Director Ariel Schulman<br />Film Screening/Q&A</span><br />We meet New York photographer Nev Schulman, brother of director Ariel, as he unwraps a painting of one of his photos by a young Michigan girl named Abby. They become Facebook friends, which eventually leads to Nev’s online romance with Abby’s older sister, Megan. But as he comes closer to meeting Megan in person, Nev uncovers some unsettling information.…I'll respect the studio's wishes by abbreviating the plot description, suffice it to say <span style="font-weight:bold;">Catfish</span> is a mash up of <span style="font-style:italic;">Blair Witch</span> and <span style="font-style:italic;">The Crying Game</span> in the world of Facebook. <span style="font-style:italic;">The Social Network</span> is about origins, but <span style="font-weight:bold;">Catfish</span>, at once narrower and more universal in implication, is about consequences. Mr. Zuckerberg may be the genius who invented Facebook and cashed in on its success, but many of the rest of us live, at least some of the time, in the world he made, and on the evidence of <span style="font-weight:bold;">Catfish</span>, it can be a pretty creepy place. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FOR TRAILER CLICK <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuE98oeL-e0">HERE</a>. TICKETS: $12. TO PURCHASE ONLINE, CLICK <a href="http://www.forumtheatrearts.org/viewevent.php?serial=36">HERE</a>. THE FORUM THEATRE, 314 Main Street, Metuchen, NJ. GET HOOKED!</span><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />8 PM, Tues, Feb 22<br />BookCourt Reading</span><br />Rac prop Alex Dawson reads with acclaimed author Alice Mattison and other Benningtonians at Brooklyn's beloved BookCourt. More info soon. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Thurs, Feb 24<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">JESS ROW & EMMA STRAUB</span><br />Reading/Signing<br />NOBODY GETS LOTS & OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY</span><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Jess Row</span> is the author of <span style="font-weight:bold;">NOBODY GETS LOST </span>(forthcoming from FiveChapters Books) and the acclaimed story collection “The Train to Lo Wu” (Dial Press). Granta named Row one of the 21 best young American novelists. He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Pushcart Prize and an NEA fiction fellowship. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Emma Straub's</span> debut story collection <span style="font-weight:bold;">OTHER PEOPLE WE MARRIED </span>is forthcoming from FiveChapters Books. Her fiction and non-fiction have been published by The Paris Review Daily, Barrelhouse, The Saint Ann’s Review, Cousin Corinne’s Reminder, and many other journals. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span> Comp wine. Books on sale at event.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Sat. Feb 26<br />SAFE TRAVELS & CIVIL WAR BUDDY HOLLIES<br />Live Music</span><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Safe Travels</span> is a Phillie based indie/folk 4 piece (viola,<br />mandolin, guitar, and drums). <span style="font-weight:bold;">Civil War Buddy Hollies</span> is a Central Jersey indie/pop/fun group with a rotating cast of characters, some playing saxophones, flutes,and glockenspiel. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span> Comp wine.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />2 PM, Sun. Feb 27<br />THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN<br />Staged Radio Play<br />W/Carlyle Owens, Laurence Mintz, & Alex Dawson<br />The Metuchen Library </span><br />North of the Main Central Thrust, the highest ranges of the Himalayas rise abruptly into a realm of perpetual snow and ice. It is here, on the frozen slopes of the great mountain, terrified, caught in a blizzard, that our two headstrong heroes and their loyal Sherpa, Nah Song, realize that the hulking bear-like biped they've been doggedly hunting has suddenly...become the hunter! <span style="font-weight:bold;">Theatrical lighting! Costumes! Sound FX! </span> All Raconteur Radio Productions originate at The Raconteur.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Thurs. March 3<br />MICHAEL LASALA<br />Reading/Signing<br />COMING OUT, COMING HOME</span><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">LaSala</span> draws on years of working with families and their gay and lesbian children to write a warm and wonderfully compassionate book. With insight and wisdom, his study examines very real and honest stories of how gay and lesbian people cope with accepting their families and how parents and siblings work to love and protect their offspring. A remarkable look into the human condition of gay and lesbian struggles in the twenty-first century. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span> Comp wine. Books on sale at event.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Fri. March 4<br />THE JOHN MELENDEZ DUO<br />Live Music<span style="font-weight:bold;"></span></span><br />Jazz prodigy <span style="font-weight:bold;">John Melendez</span> is a ninth-grade student from Metuchen. He has been studying piano for six years and jazz for three at the Mason Gross Extension School at Rutgers and the Rutgers Summer Jazz Institute. Currently, John holds a Young Artists Program scholarship at Rutgers. He has studied with Oscar Macchioni, Andy Michalec and Brian Axford. John's influences include Stanley Cowell, Horace Silver, Thelonious Monk and Herbie Hancock. John will be accompanied by his father, Rob Pallitto, on trumpet. <br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Sat. March 12<br />WESLEY STACE & JONATHAN COE<br />Reading/Signing<br />CHARLES JESSOLD, CONSIDERED AS A MURDERER & THE TERRIBLE PRIVACY OF MAXWELL SIM</span><br />More info soon...<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">UPCOMING: Oscar nominated animator Bill Plympton</span>Raconteur Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06704248099274234320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7981784157149055450.post-33730927667645886342010-12-20T08:44:00.000-08:002011-01-20T11:48:30.064-08:00JAN/FEB 2010 William Burroughs: A Man Within; Wuhnderlust; Catfish; Jess Row & Emma Straub<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbU1hJnJIeUmbER6EdOVCipkjExjd8Ht0SI9aAHoLUBZ6RLlEo7db_QQQReMm4oFaOktKOuxL445D8uLm5-eh6jOPcWlrtofXi7-LvCMthtH1RJrLuwzwqsX_8l5jAIkepZrEsfb114BUJ/s1600/william_s_burroughs_a_man_within.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 136px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbU1hJnJIeUmbER6EdOVCipkjExjd8Ht0SI9aAHoLUBZ6RLlEo7db_QQQReMm4oFaOktKOuxL445D8uLm5-eh6jOPcWlrtofXi7-LvCMthtH1RJrLuwzwqsX_8l5jAIkepZrEsfb114BUJ/s200/william_s_burroughs_a_man_within.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5552806653230782802" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">The Raconteur, The Forum Theatre, and The Metuchen Cultural Arts Commission present</span><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Sat. Jan 8<br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYQhh5Cn7fo">WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS: A MAN WITHIN</a><br />W/Special Guest Director YONY LEYSER<br />Film Screening/Q&A</span><br />Hailed as the grandfather of punk and the godfather of the beat generation, <span style="font-weight:bold;">Burroughs</span> was a bartender, a private detective, a factory worker, an exterminator, a heroin addict, and a writer. His novel, <span style="font-style:italic;">Naked Lunch</span>, one of the last books to be banned by the U.S. government, remains one of the most recognized literary works of the 20th century. It celebrates W<span style="font-weight:bold;">illiam S. Burroughs: A Man Within</span> is the first and only posthumous documentary about the legendary "Pope of Dope." Narrated by Peter Weller, who played a Burroughs-like character in David Cronenberg’s film version of Lunch, <span style="font-weight:bold;">Leyser’s</span> portrait of the formidable proto-Beat author is a kind of genealogy of hip that connects Burroughs with many currents of America’s outlaw cultural tradition. He was a close friend and sometime lover of Allen Ginsberg, an idol of the Clash, the Dead Kennedys, Iggy Pop and Sonic Youth. Featuring never before seen footage of Burroughs and exclusive interviews with John Waters (who calls him "a religious figure"), Patti Smith (who recalls having a crush on him), Gus Van Sant, Laurie Anderson, Amiri Baraka, Jello Biafra, and David Cronenberg, with a soundtrack by Patti Smith and Sonic Youth, <span style="font-weight:bold;">Leyser’s </span>intimate documentary delves into the troubled and fascinating world of one of the greatest authors of our time. <span style="font-weight:bold;">TICKETS: $12. TO PURCHASE ONLINE, CLICK <a href="http://www.forumtheatrearts.org/viewevent.php?serial=35">HERE</a>. THE FORUM THEATRE, 314 Main Street, Metuchen, NJ.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Fri & Sat. Jan 28 & 29<br />THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN<br />Radio Play/Rent Party<br />Ages 8 & up!<br />Featuring Carlyle Owens, Jeff Maschi, and Laurence Mintz</span><br />More bad news is on the way for winter-weary New Jersey residents. Accuweather expects up to six inches to fall tonight and into Friday morning. This only days after Tuesday's ice storm and only a week after nearly a foot of snow was dumped on parts of the state. It goes without saying that this recent onslaught of "weather" has been horrible for business. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Our staged presentation of the chilling radio play, "The Abominable Snowman," is an attempt to offset such wintry assaults and the woefully slow retail days they produce.</span> North of the Main Central Thrust, the highest ranges of the Himalayas rise abruptly into a realm of perpetual snow and ice. It is here, on the frozen slopes of the great mountain, terrified, caught in a blizzard, that our two heroes and their loyal Sherpa, Nah Song, realize that the hulking bear-like biped they've been doggedly hunting has suddenly...become the hunter! Theatrical lighting! Sound FX! Complimentary wine (and juice). <span style="font-weight:bold;">As noted above, this is essentially a "rent party," with a suggested donation of $10.00 </span>(but no one will be turned away). <span style="font-weight:bold;">Please note: our radio plays are among our most popular events and reservations are strongly suggested. </span>To reserve a seat for either Fri or Sat, reply to this e-mail with your name, the number in your party, and the evening you wish to attend.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">7:00 - 9:30 PM, Tues., Feb 1 - March 1 (no class 2/22)<br />THE RACONTEUR WRITING WORKSHOP<br />Register Now! Sessions fill quickly.</span><br />In <span style="font-style:italic;">The Spooky Art</span>, Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Norman Mailer talked about crisp words "clamping down…sticking." In an interview shortly before his death, noir author Raymond Chandler spoke of perfectly pitched sentences "walking off the page." Despite using opposing metaphors, they are obviously describing the same thing. Good writing. A key focus of the class is this acoustical quality. The profound difference between how a sentence sounds and its mute presence on the page. Participants should come prepared to revise/resolve a prior project or to draft a pre-existing idea. The workshop does not assign exercises, but rather use the students' own projects to instruct. <span style="font-weight:bold;">The cost of the workshop is $200.00 payable at the beginning of the first class ($150.00 w/student ID). Returning participants may sign up for single workshops at a reduced rate of $25 per class. </span>Individual instruction can also be arranged. Complimentary wine is served. For further information or to register, e-mail raconteurbooks@gmail.com with INFO or ENROLL as the subject.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Feb 3<br />WAHNDER LUST<br />LA Funk Band<br />Live Music</span><br />From Pultizer Prize winning poet Paul Muldoon to Peaches on Flavor of Love. I've always wanted to say that. And now I can. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Wahnder Lust</span> features <span style="font-weight:bold;">Kim Manning</span> (a.k.a. Peaches) and <span style="font-weight:bold;">Lantz Lazwell</span>. Manning has performed a decade as a featured vocalist for George Clinton and the P-Funk Allstars and on the Grammy Awards, the David Letterman Show, Jay Leno, and, of course, VH1's Flavor of Love. She can be heard on albums alongside Snoop Dogg, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and recently Sly Stone. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Lantz Lazwell</span> has drawn comparisons to Jimi Hendrix, Jack Johnson, and Stevie Wonder. He took home the LA Music Award for Best Rock Vocalist in 2007, and joined the all-star lineup of Trulio Disgracias which included members of Fishbone, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and his future Wahnder Lust partner, <span style="font-weight:bold;">Kim Manning</span>. Fresh from performances at the House of Blues, San Francisco's Great American Music Hall, and SXSW, <span style="font-weight:bold;">Wahnder Lust </span>now plays your favorite bookstore. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE! Comp wine.</span>CDs on sale at event.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieYDPu45spxXShTKMno72ChZ5EkRMMJLaFS4Hchd44EDX2M4IUVeQTRPyf8ych8Q7QbILsBvx9rnIFTC-6ejcFNOBnc8Qsj2SXnc9g182P0GlqdpSmlDA-YXhOaxCHqso3ZY67oZ2R812C/s1600/catfish.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieYDPu45spxXShTKMno72ChZ5EkRMMJLaFS4Hchd44EDX2M4IUVeQTRPyf8ych8Q7QbILsBvx9rnIFTC-6ejcFNOBnc8Qsj2SXnc9g182P0GlqdpSmlDA-YXhOaxCHqso3ZY67oZ2R812C/s200/catfish.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5552806853897037778" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">The Raconteur, The Forum Theatre, and The Metuchen Cultural Arts Commission present</span><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Sat. Feb 12<br /><a href="http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuE98oeL-e0">CATFISH</a><br />W/Special Guest Director Ariel Schulman<br />Film Screening/Q&A</span><br />We meet New York photographer Nev Schulman, brother of director Ariel, as he unwraps a painting of one of his photos by a young Michigan girl named Abby. They become Facebook friends, which eventually leads to Nev’s online romance with Abby’s older sister, Megan. But as he comes closer to meeting Megan in person, Nev uncovers some unsettling information.…I'll respect the studio's wishes by abbreviating the plot description, suffice it to say <span style="font-weight:bold;">Catfish</span> is a mash up of <span style="font-style:italic;">Blair Witch</span> and <span style="font-style:italic;">The Crying Game</span> in the world of Facebook. <span style="font-style:italic;">The Social Network</span> is about origins, but <span style="font-weight:bold;">Catfish</span>, at once narrower and more universal in implication, is about consequences. Mr. Zuckerberg may be the genius who invented Facebook and cashed in on its success, but many of the rest of us live, at least some of the time, in the world he made, and on the evidence of <span style="font-weight:bold;">Catfish</span>, it can be a pretty creepy place. But the story <span style="font-weight:bold;">Catfish</span> has to tell, at least in part, is older than the Internet, and certainly not limited to the latest technology. You may have read <span style="font-style:italic;">The Confidence Man</span>, by Herman Melville, or followed the strange literary career of J.T. Leroy, or you may cherish the lore of your own favorite frauds and hoaxsters and impostors, from Jay Gatsby to Don Draper. America is the land of spurious, seat-of-the-pants self-invention, and Mr. Joost and <span style="font-weight:bold;">Mr. Schulman</span>, a couple of young men with cameras and college degrees, find themselves in a real-life variation on a venerable American theme. <span style="font-weight:bold;">TICKETS: $12. TO PURCHASE ONLINE, CLICK <a href="http://www.forumtheatrearts.org/viewevent.php?serial=36">HERE</a>. THE FORUM THEATRE, 314 Main Street, Metuchen, NJ</span><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />Upcoming: JESS ROW, EMMA STRAUB,</span> <span style="font-weight:bold;">WESLEY STACE, JONATHAN ROE, and <span style="font-weight:bold;">BILL PLYMPTON</span></span>Raconteur Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06704248099274234320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7981784157149055450.post-55507638760824052102010-12-03T15:48:00.001-08:002010-12-20T08:44:17.487-08:00DEC 2010: Rac/Benn @ NYC's KGB Bar; Penny Dreadful; Holiday Hootenanny<span style="font-weight:bold;">7 PM, Mon. Dec 13.<br />GET LIT!<br />The Raconteur presents BENNINGTON in MANHATTAN<br />The KGB Bar<br />85 East Fourth Street, NYC <br />(btwn Bowery and 2nd Ave),</span><br />Students/graduates of the <span style="font-weight:bold;">Bennington College MFA Writing Seminars </span>(ranked as one of the <span style="font-weight:bold;">top three programs of its kind by <span style="font-style:italic;">Poets & Writers Magazine</span></span>) read from recent work. W<span style="font-weight:bold;">illa Carroll, Megan Mayhew Bergman, Liz Arnold, Jeremy Oldfield, Robert Hansmann, Lisa Alexander, Hannah Tennant-Moore, Jennifer Acker, Alex Dawson,</span> and the acclaimed poet/Bennington professor <span style="font-weight:bold;">Timothy Liu</span>. The work of student participants has appeared or is forthcoming in <span style="font-style:italic;">The New York Times, The New Republic, The Guardian, Tin House, n+1, The Sun, Mississippi Review, Gulf Coast, Tricycle, Cimarron Review, Surface, The Best Buddhist Writing, Mary Magazine, Tuesday Journal, Ploughshares, One Story, The Kenyon Review, Shenandoah, Oxford American, <span style="font-style:italic;">and the</span> 2010 anthology New Stories From the South</span>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Timothy Liu </span>is the author of For Dust Thou Art; Of Thee I Sing, selected by Publishers Weekly as a 2004 Book-of-the-Year; Hard Evidence; Say Goodnight; Burnt Offerings; and Vox Angelica, which won the Poetry Society of America's Norma Farber First Book Award. Liu edited Word of Mouth: An Anthology of Gay American Poetry and his poems have appeared in American Letters & Commentary, Bomb, Grand Street, Kenyon Review, The Nation, New American Writing, Paris Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, and Virginia Quarterly Review.<br /><br />Labeled <span style="font-weight:bold;">"Best Literary Venue" </span>in Manhattan by New York Magazine and The Village Voice, the <span style="font-weight:bold;">iconic KGB Bar</span>, once the expat meeting house of Ukrainian socialists, has grown over the last decade into one of the choicest venues for literary talent. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Ricky Moody, Susan Orlean, Michael Cunningham, Robert Bly, Jimmy Breslin, Budd Schulberg, Joyce Carol Oates, Luc Sante, Jonathan Franzen, David Foster Wallace, Jerry Stahl, and Jonathan Lethem</span> have all appeared on its hallowed stage. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Thurs. Dec 16<br /><a href="http://pentlylsentirate.blogspot.com/">2,5 PENTYLSENTIRATE: THE PLAY</a><br />A Staged Reading/World Premiere <br />A New Steampunk Penny Dreadful by KAYLA BASHE<br />W/Carlyle Owens, Gwen Owens, Laurence Mintz, and Kristy Lauricella</span><br />The plucky young scientist, Ms. Anna Cartridge, and her bubbly best friend, the mildly famous actress Poppy Valdene, travel to a deceptively charming cliff side resort to save Dr. William Boyle, her fiancé and the ingenious inventor of 2,5-pentlyl sentirate, from the contemptible clutches of long-time rival and nefarious hypnotist, Charles Rawlingson, a would-be scientific mastermind. Running time: 45 min. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Kayla Bashe</span> is one of my writing students. Witty, precocious, and sixteen, she self-published her first novel at thirteen, and was a recent runner-up in a poetry contest hosted by the Young Adult Review Network. <a href="http://pentlylsentirate.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-weight:bold;">Pentylsentirate</span></a> is Kayla's first full-length play.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Sat. Dec 18<br />HOLIDAY HOOTENANNY<br />Steve Kaplan/Guitar & Paul Caluori/Violin<br />Live Music/Party</span><br />400 years of music: from Gustav Holst's "In a Bleak Midwinter" to Coltrane's groovy "Greensleaves" to classic Zep (Led, that is), with detours into Celtic folk and Victorian dance hall. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Steve Kaplan</span> and <span style="font-weight:bold;">Paul Caluori</span> bring their love of traditional folk, classical music and acoustic jazz into sharp focus by using truly acoustic instruments to perform, exploring sonic possibilities without the "clutter" of other instrumentation. Their approach to the music is deceptively simple: wring out as much emotion as possible without losing the essential structure of the pieces they're playing. Expect a variety of spiked nogs, puissant punches, and a withering concoction called Yukon Cornelius, along with a range of baked, roasted and boiled dishes (capon anyone?), marinated tench, and an edible lifelike scene sculpted in colored marzipan. Plus Cream Wafers, Date Drops, Honey-Filled Biscuits, Cinnamon Stars, Zucker Hutchen, Fattigmands Bakkels, Drumkake, and Buttery Nut Rounds. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span>Raconteur Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06704248099274234320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7981784157149055450.post-55110230359240608832010-11-08T08:06:00.000-08:002010-11-17T14:15:45.561-08:00The Loom; The Hermaphrodite; Impossibly Funky; Erotic Open Mic<span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Thurs. Nov 11<br />THE LOOM<br />Live Music</span><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The New York Times</span> just labeled them "The Next Big Thing," <span style="font-style:italic;">The New Yorker</span> regularly refers to them as a "beloved Brooklyn sextet" and nyctaper calls them "a revelation." Working heavily in gothic watercolors, <span style="font-weight:bold;">The Loom</span> kick out glow-in-the-dark folk wailers that flirt with the anthemic, but never abandon the quiet spaces they were born in. The Loom's rich amalgam of folk and americana-influenced indie rock features male and female vocals, acoustic and electric guitars, French horn, trumpet, piano, pedal steel, bass, drums, ukulele, accordion, and banjo. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span> <span style="font-weight:bold;">W/Ben + Vesper and Child of Dawn. </span>CDs on sale at event.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Tues, Nov 16<br />DANIEL GRANDBOIS<br />Reading/Signing<br />THE HERMAPHRODITE: A Hallucinated Memoir</span><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Daniel Grandbois'</span> writing has been described as "avant-garde stand-up," "Dr. Seuss for adults," and "between Brautigan's and Basho's." Alfredo Benavidez Bedoya's surreal and satirical woodcuts are collected by major museums all over the world. Together, they have created a happening as much as a book, one that notorious <span style="font-weight:bold;">Beat poet/Fugs founder Ed Sanders simply calls, "A work of art."</span> This is a book to be carried in the pocket, taken on journeys, opened to any page and consulted for its nutty brand of wisdom. Grandbois' other book, Unlucky Lucky Days, a collection of nonsense and absurdist tales <span style="font-weight:bold;">praised by Lydia Davis as “funny, bizarre, moving,” </span><span style="font-weight:bold;">was picked by Book Sense as an "Indie Next Notable Book.</span>" Grandbois' writing has appeared in Conjunctions, Fiction, Boulevard, Sentence, Del Sol Review, and the anthologies Freak Lightning and Online Writing: The Best of the First Ten Years, among others. Also a musician, Daniel has played in three of the pioneering bands of "The Denver Sound:" Slim Cessna's Auto Club, Tarantella, and Munly.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />8 PM, Thurs, Nov 18<br />MIKE WHITE<br />Read/Signing<br />IMPOSSIBLY FUNKY<br />w/a special screening of COCKFIGHTER</span><br />Harangue for Hollywood! From the urban blight of Detroit came enfant terrible <span style="font-weight:bold;">Mike White</span> and his mutant publication, <span style="font-style:italic;">Cashiers du Cinemart</span>. For fifteen years the writers of <span style="font-style:italic;">Cashiers du Cinemart</span> provided a treasure trove of passionate, often prickly writing on film and popular culture. This book collects the best articles from the magazine with sections dedicated to Quentin Tarantino, <span style="font-style:italic;">Star Wars, Black Shampoo</span>, Charles Willeford, and much more. "Mike White and his Cashiers approach film writing from a point of the compass I never knew existed. It’s wild navigating out there in the film world and Impossibly Funky makes it a brisk and exhilarating trip while keeping one cool hand on the tiller!" – Guy Maddin, <span style="font-style:italic;">The Saddest Music in the World</span>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Followed by a rare screening of</span> <span style="font-weight:bold;"><span style="font-style:italic;">Cockfighter</span></span>, an art film for an exploitation audience set in the gaming pits of the Deep South (White has written extensively about the oft banned Monte Hellman flick and its author, Charles Willeford, and Mike White’s <span style="font-style:italic;">Who Do You Think You're Fooling?</span>, a full-motion montage highlighting the too-close-for-comfort similarities between Quentin Tarantino’s 1992 film, <span style="font-style:italic;">Reservoir Dogs</span>, and Ringo Lam’s 1989 Hong Kong movie, <span style="font-style:italic;">City on Fire</span> (White achieved notoriety in the early nineties for being the first to expose Tarantino's "homage.") Check out Mike’s T<span style="font-style:italic;">ale of the Tape</span> for more on this saga. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span> Comp wine. Books on sale at event.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">9 PM, Fri. Nov 19<br />PIECE OF TALE<br />Erotic Open Mic</span><br />Poetry, prose, songs, comedy, etc. All work must emphasize fornication or heavy petting. Reply to this e-mail to reserve a 5 min. performance slot. Every month. The bluer the better. How blue are you? <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">UPCOMING:</span> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Oscar </span>Nominated Animator <span style="font-weight:bold;">Bill Plympton</span>, best known for his Academy Award nominated Your Face, hosts a special Raconteur screening of <span style="font-weight:bold;">Idiots & Angels</span>, his brand new animated comedy featuring the music of Tom Waits. Don't miss the NJ premiere of the movie the <span style="font-style:italic;">New York Times</span> is calling <span style="font-weight:bold;">"relentless and brilliant."</span> <span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Sat. DEC 10.</span> More info soon.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">RAC in NYC</span>, The KGB Bar (labeled <span style="font-weight:bold;">"The Best Literary Venue in Manhattan"</span> by <span style="font-style:italic;">New York Magazine</span> and <span style="font-style:italic;">The Village Voice</span>, <span style="font-weight:bold;">7 PM, Mon. DEC 13</span>. <span style="font-weight:bold;">People Under the Stereo</span>, The Raconteur's vintage vinyle & clothing shop, <span style="font-weight:bold;">opens DEC 15!</span> <span style="font-weight:bold;">The Raconteur Holiday Hootenanny</span> featuring Steve Kaplan on guitar & Paul Caluori on violin <span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Sat. Dec 18.</span>Raconteur Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06704248099274234320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7981784157149055450.post-78982537052217460512010-10-15T05:56:00.000-07:002010-10-15T05:59:25.457-07:00On Stage! NOSFERATU: THE FIRST VAMPYRE Oct 21 - 30 @ MCC; 7 SHOWS ONLY!<span style="font-weight:bold;">Middlesex County College & The Raconteur present<br /><a href="http://nosferatuonstage.blogspot.com">NOSFERATU: THE VAMPYRE</a><br />8 PM, Thurs - Sat, OCT 21 - 30 <br />(special midnight show on Mischief Night)</span><br />Based on the 1923 German Expressionist film by F. W. Murnau (in turn, based on Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula), Alex Dawson's stage adaptation additionally draws on Chinese shadow-play, Shakespeare, and explorer/orientalist Richard Burton's translation of Hindu vampire fables to tell the story of the moon-headed, rat-fanged Count Orlock looking for love even as he brings a boatload of Black Death to a German village. From the team that brought you last year's unsettling hit <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://aclockworkorangetheplay.blogspot.com/">A CLOCKWORK ORANGE</a></span>, with makeup by <a href="http://www.savini.com/">Tom Savini</a> alumnus Dan Diana, the production, which opens with the terrifying image of the eponymous Nos suspended fifteen feet above the audience, will make even the swooniest <span style="font-style:italic;">Twilight</span> fan forget RobPat and his teen beat vamps. <span style="font-weight:bold;">The Studio Theater @ MCC 2600 Woodbridge Ave., Edison, NJ 08818. All tickets $10. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Click <a href="http://nosferatuonstage.blogspot.com">HERE</a> for more info and to purchase online.</span></span>Raconteur Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06704248099274234320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7981784157149055450.post-91583584441682911852010-10-01T12:01:00.001-07:002010-10-08T13:10:49.099-07:00CROPSEY: the scariest film you'll see this year! & NOSFERATU: THE VAMPYRE On Stage!<span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Sat. Oct 2<br />CROPSEY<br />W/Director Barbara Brancaccio <br />Film Screening/On Stage Conversation/Q&A<br />First Presbyterian Social Hall</span><br />A real-life multiple-murder tale that could have been called "A Guide to Recognizing Your Boogeyman," Cropsey is the scariest movie you'll see this year.<br /><br />Growing up on Staten Island, filmmakers Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio had often heard the legend of ‘Cropsey.’ For the kids in their neighborhood, Cropsey was an escaped mental patient who lived in the old abandoned Willowbrook Mental Institution. He would come out late at night and snatch children off the streets. Sometimes Cropsey had a hook for a hand, other times he wielded a bloody axe or a gleaming machete, but whatever the implement, Cropsey was always out there, lurking in the shadows, waiting to get them.<br /><br />Later as teenagers, the filmmakers assumed Cropsey was just an urban legend: a cautionary tale used to keep them out of those abandoned buildings and stop them from doing all those things that teenagers like to do. That all changed in the summer of 1987 when a 12-year-old girl with Down syndrome, named Jennifer Schweiger, disappeared from their community. That was the summer all the kids from Staten Island discovered that their urban legend was real.<br /><br />Now as adults Joshua and Barbara have returned to Staten Island to create <span style="font-weight:bold;">CROPSEY</span>, a feature documentary that delves into the mystery behind Jennifer and four additional missing children. The film also investigates Andre Rand, a former Willowbrook janitor/real-life bogeyman who lived in the tunnels under the school and was ultimately linked to the disappearances.<br /><br />Embarking on a mysterious journey into the underbelly of their forgotten borough, the filmmakers uncover a reality more terrifying than any urban legend. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Tickets on sale NOW. $10 & $15. Click <a href="http://cropsyscreening.eventbrite.com/">HERE</a> to purchase online. Click <a href="http://cropseylegend.com/">HERE</a> for more info about CROPSEY.</span> NOTE: This event is at the Social Hall of the First Presbyterian Church, 270 Woodbridge Ave (adjacent to the cemetery),Metuchen, NJ 08840.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Middlesex County College & The Raconteur present<br /><a href="http://nosferatuonstage.blogspot.com">NOSFERATU: THE VAMPYRE</a><br />8 PM, Thurs - Sat, OCT 21 - 30 <br />(special midnight show on Mischief Night)</span><br />Based on the 1923 German Expressionist film by F. W. Murnau (in turn, based on Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula), Alex Dawson's stage adaptation additionally draws on Chinese shadow-play, Shakespeare, and explorer/orientalist Richard Burton's translation of Hindu vampire fables to tell the story of the moon-headed, rat-fanged Count Orlock looking for love even as he brings a boatload of Black Death to a German village. From the team that brought you last year's unsettling hit <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://aclockworkorangetheplay.blogspot.com/">A CLOCKWORK ORANGE</a></span>, with makeup by <a href="http://www.savini.com/">Tom Savini</a> alumnus Dan Diana, the production, which opens with the terrifying image of the eponymous Nos suspended fifteen feet above the audience, will make even the swooniest Twilight fan forget RobPat and his teen beat vamps. <span style="font-weight:bold;">The Studio Theater @ MCC 2600 Woodbridge Ave., Edison, NJ 08818. All tickets $10. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Click <a href="http://nosferatuonstage.blogspot.com">HERE</a> for more info and to purchase online.</span></span>Raconteur Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06704248099274234320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7981784157149055450.post-55265208932060534652010-08-31T14:19:00.000-07:002010-10-01T12:01:08.061-07:00Jazz Punk from Rome; Erotic Open Mic; Kevin Baker & Dreamland; Mike Edison & Banned Books; Horror Doc Cropsey<span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Tues. Sept 7<br />NEO & TRIBRACO (w/special guests The Lady & the Furnace)<br />Live Music</span><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Neo</span> & <span style="font-weight:bold;">Tribaco</span> are two jazz punk bands from the Italian avant-garde scene based in Rome. Seriously. During their fifty day stateside tour, Tribraco will introduce their new album, and Neo will record their next one with renowned Pixies/Nirvana/PJ Harvey producer Steve Albini. And they'll play here. For <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">9 PM, Thurs. Sept 16<br />PIECE OF TALE<br />Erotic Open Mic</span><br />Poetry, prose, songs, comedy, etc. All work must emphasize <span style="font-weight:bold;">fornication or heavy petting</span>. Reply to this e-mail to reserve a 5 min. performance slot. Third Thurs of every month. The bluer the better. How blue are you? <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Thurs. Sept 23<br />KEVIN BAKER<br />Reading/Signing<br />DREAMLAND</span><br />A "Dickensian epic" (Entertainment Weekly), "a wild ride" (The New York Times), "a populist masterpiece" (Publisher's Weekly), a "virtuoso performance" (Esquire), <span style="font-weight:bold;">this vast, sprawling carnival of a book, set in turn of the century Coney Island,</span> features prostitutes, dogfights, Bowery bars, opium dens, and characters with names like Trick the Dwarf, Gyp the Blood and Kid Twist. Plus Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Topsy, the elephant electrocuted by Edison. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Dreamland</span> opens with an act of misplaced--and very stupid--compassion. Eastern European immigrant and expelled member of the Jewish mob Kid Twist intervenes when villainous gangster Gyp the Blood is on the verge of murdering a young newsboy for sport. But surprise: that's no street urchin--that's Trick the Dwarf, self-proclaimed Mayor of Little City and a Coney Island tout, who dresses up as a boy, he says, as "a way I had of leaving myself behind." Trick hides Twist in the hind parts of the Tin Elephant Hotel, a place literally shaped like the great gray beast, and what follows is a remarkable, extravagantly plotted patchwork of bizarre stories and superbly drawn characters. All of it elegantly written and compassionate to the core. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE! </span>Complimentary wine. Books on sale at event.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />8 PM, Tues, Sept 28<br />Former HIGH TIMES editor/blues keyboardist MIKE EDISON<br />Reading/Soundtracking<br />His Favorite BANNED Books<br />w/special help from BOSS HOG's Hollis Queens on drums</span><br />The American Library Association's <span style="font-weight:bold;">Banned Book Week (BBW)</span>is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. More than a thousand books have been challenged since 1982, with targets ranging from Harry Potter to Huckleberry Finn. Click here to see a map of book bans and challenges in the US from 2007 to 2009.<br /><br />My first experience with a banned book was in tenth grade. I grew up on a horse ranch in Alabama and went to a private school forty minutes away called Macon Academy. My father, a writer who, divorced from my mother, lived in New Jersey, had sent me the Cabernet colored paperback of Catcher in The Ryefor Christmas (along with a Swatch that had a lime green band and a skeleton face of exposed gears). I was discovered reading it one day by my English Teacher, a bullied looking man named Mr. Edwards. He declared, with a sort of wooden vivacity, that if I persisted in doing a report on "the offensive book," I would get a an F. I consulted my Mom--a woman who, it should be noted, had recently backed my lobe with a wine cork and pierced my ear with a stove-flame sterilized sewing needle (to a rumpus of Academy demerits and suspension, natch). "Take the F," she said, "Once you read it, you'll understand." I did. And did.<br /><br />Between 1985 and 1988,<span style="font-weight:bold;"> Mike Edison </span>wrote 28 pornographic novels, reported on German whorehouses and Spanish coke dealers for Hustler, and published a series of erotic “confessions” for the legendary Penthouse Letters. In 1998 Edison became publisher/editor of marijuana counterculture magazine High Times. Following HT, he was named the editorial director for Jewish culture magazine HEEB, for whom he went undercover and exposed Jews for Jesus as a Baptist organization. He is the long-time drummer for New York cult-garage band the Raunch Hands and a frequent collaborator of infamous punk rocker GG Allin with whom he wrote a number of songs and recorded two albums. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span> Refreshments served.Raconteur Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06704248099274234320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7981784157149055450.post-79713439683387341822010-08-04T15:24:00.000-07:002010-08-22T20:23:41.690-07:00Web Cam Jam; Green Drinks; Jennifer Egan; Jaret Middleton; Sugarbabies; Roadside Graves; Schayfer James & Honor Among Thieves<span style="font-weight:bold;">1 PM, Sun. Aug 2<br />TRANSATLANTIC WEB CAM JAM SESSION<br />Live Music<br /></span>The first Sun of each month The Raconteur hosts a transatlantic jam session. The shop's session is concurrent with a very similar session occurring in Reading, England at a pub called <a href="http://www.retreatpub.co.uk/">The Retreat</a>. Participants alternate, collaborate, and symphonize via a Google web cam. Raconteur musicians drink coffee and play in the rear of the shop. Retreat musicians quaff pints (morning here, Happy Hour there) and are projected onto a movie screen behind local performers. Web Cam Jam is more about the performers than the performance, but that doesn't mean you can't come and watch. NOTE: If you watched the Oscars last year, you heard Best Actress winner Kate Winslet mention this very same pub and the pickling contest her mother recently won there. Indeed, last April's Web Cam Jam, Kate's mom, Sally Winslet (now known as the Queen of Shallots), was in the foreground eating bangers and in January's Mr. Winslet sang the old broadside “Darlin’ Old Stick.” <span style="font-weight:bold;">MUSICIANS WANTED! FREE! Comp cornbread (fresh from the oven)!</span><br /><br />The only bookstore with a house band (the Roadside Graves), The Rac has hosted such music luminaries as Fugazi front man Ian MacKaye, Bouncing Souls front man Greg Attonito, poet/new wave punk Jim Caroll, 80s college radio darlings The Cucumbers, former High Times editor/GG Allin collaborator Mike Edison and his punk blues band Edison Rocket Train (featuring Boss Hog drummer Hollis Queens), and folk noir gangster John Wesley Harding, the first opening act for Bruce Springsteen in twenty years. Plus a slew of local bands: Like Trains and Taxis, Risk Relay, Glad Hearts, etc. <span style="font-weight:bold;">YOU TOO CAN PLAY THE RAC! Your participation in the Web Cam Jam is your audition.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">7 - 9 PM, Tues, Aug 3<br />GREEN DRINKS</span><br />It all started in 1989 at a pub called the Slug and Lettuce in Northern London, in which a handful of eco-conscious mates pulled some tables together and drank some beer. The concept evolved into <a href="http://www.greendrinks.org/">GREEN DRINKS</a> and now it's global. Each city has an organizer who arranges meetings in bars and restaurants (providing the greenest beer possible, and by green we mean enviro-minded, not colored; in our case, Climax, locally brewed in Roselle Park). Green Drinks meets in fifty countries from Argentina to Zambia. <span style="font-weight:bold;">And now, METUCHEN!</span> Jorge Szymanski, a Permaculture Design Consultant, will be on hand to moderate a round-table discussion on Permaculture and how you can use this design philosophy to plan, plant, and prosper with next year's garden. He will discuss the importance of composting, irrigation, micro-climates, and space planning to maximize garden yields while reducing chemical fertilizer use. Come have a beer and get green. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Fri. Aug 6<br />JENNIFER EGAN<br />Reading/Signing<br />A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD</span><br />Expect to inhale <span style="font-weight:bold;">Jennifer Egan’s A Visit From the Goon Squad.</span> Then expect it to lodge in your cranium and your breastbone a good long while. I expect this brilliant, inventive novel to become enshrined. Such rash speculation is foolish, I know—we live amid a plague of bloated praise. But <span style="font-weight:bold;">A Visit From the Goon Squad<span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span> is emboldening. It cracks the world open afresh. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Would that Marcel Proust could receive <span style="font-style:italic;">A Visit From the Goon Squad</span>. It would blow his considerable mind.</span> “Pitch perfect. Shape shifting. Is there anything Egan can’t do?" <span style="font-style:italic;">The New York Times.</span> "A profound and glorious exploration of the fullness and complexity of the human condition. An extraordinary new work of fiction.” <span style="font-style:italic;">The New York Press. </span>"A triumph of technical bravado and tender sympathy“<span style="font-style:italic;"> The Washington Post.</span> "Clever. Edgy. Groundbreaking." <span style="font-style:italic;">The Chicago Tribune</span>. “It may be the smartest book you can get your hands on this summer.” <span style="font-style:italic;">The Los Angeles Times</span>. Read the recent front page <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/books/21book.html?_r=1">NY Times</a></span> rave for <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/books/21book.html?_r=1"><span style="font-style:italic;">Goon Squad</span> HERE</a></span>. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE. Comp wine. </span><span style="font-style:italic;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">The Keep</span></span> (her Escherian last book and one of my favorite modern novels) and <span style="font-weight:bold;">A Visit from the Goon Squad</span> on sale at event. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Sat. Aug 14<br />Who is An Danotomine Eerly??<br />JARRET MIDDLETON<br />Reading/Signing<br />AN DANTOMINE EERLY</span><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">With special guests Jonathan Andrew & Rev. P.A.S.</span><br />As the Irish-American poet Dallin lay dying he recalls the surreal geography and traumatic events that lead to his end. A wind-beaten house, a still-looming tragedy, a ghostly barroom, and the campus of a condemned university. The ailed poet and his beautiful, haunting wife Aìsling flee an obscure political persecution that culminates in her planned murder. The impact of her death afflicts Dallin in ways he cannot comprehend. All this ends in his meeting An Dantomine Eerly. As Dallin confronts his moment of death, the book assembles itself as a collage of the affinities, falsehoods, and absurdities of memory and reality. Think pre-fame Palahnuik and early David Foster Wallace. Books on sale at event.<br /><br />W/live music by <span style="font-weight:bold;">Jonathan Andrew</span>, formerly of The Angry Monsters, currently in Mike Ferraro & the Young Republicans. Comparisons run from Pixie lead Frank Black to XTC.<br /><br />Plus spoken word artist/old school punk <span style="font-weight:bold;">Rev. Pedro Angel Serrano</span>, just your average Puerto Rican gay skinhead. Rev P.A.S. is the subject of the quirky doc Driving Jersey and the host of Old Man Pedro on WRSU.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Sat. Aug 21<br />SNOWBABIES<br />Live Music</span><br />Subterranean indie stars <span style="font-weight:bold;">Snowbabies</span> have been packing New Brunfus basements for the past year. The Raconteur (along with their upcoming Maxwell's gig) marks their move to above ground venues. Their sound is elusive, hinting at everything from alt art-rock to old-school country to the two finger frets of Django Reinhardt. But perhaps the biggest influence on the band is the city around them—listen closely, amidst the whirling guitars and vocal harmonies, the xylophones and singing saws, you just might hear a Robert Wood ambulance or a George Street jackhammer. Special guest: O Lucky Man. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span> Comp wine. CDs on sale at event.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8:30 Thurs. Aug 26<br />ROADSIDE GRAVES<br />After Party (Following their MCAC performance in the Sr Ctzn parking lot)<br />Live Music/Special Guests</span><br />Their sweet-tempered country-rock is far more slippery than it might first appear and often conjures images of a roadhouse Bad Seeds. “I've drank enough to know that I've drank enough," announces front man Gleason on the world-weary “Live Slow,” the one song that comes closest to encapsulating the enduring spirit of the Graves. Performed with an uncommonly deft touch and subtle grace, their songs concern themselves primarily with the pause for breath that comes after reaching original destinations, and the long, careful glance at the atlas that comes before deciding where to go next. FREE! CDs on sale at event.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />8 PM, Fri. Aug 27<br />SCHAYFER JAMES & HONOR AMONG THIEVES<br />Live Music/Escapism/Sword Swallowing</span><br />Singer/songwriter/artful pianist <span style="font-weight:bold;">Shayfer James</span> just shot a video on the greasy outdoor pianos that studded Manhattan street corners this past month. His songs are dark, dense, and Dickensian, and his fingers tickle the keys with the dodgy subtlety of a Fagan pickpocket. He's performing here with <span style="font-weight:bold;">Honor Among Thieves</span>, a group of sideshow escapists known for lightbulb eating and power tool insertion. No fooling. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span> Comp wine. CDs on sale at event.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Sat. Aug 28<br />BRYAN HANSEN & Co.<br />Live Music</span><br />I saw Hansen sing when he was still a senior at Edison High. He was in their production of Cabaret. He played the asexual emcee opposite my girlfriend's cousin (the reason we were there) who played Sally Bowles. I'm pretty unforgiving when it comes to community theater, let alone high school theater, but this production of Caberet, specifically this kid's idiosyncratic performance as the emcee, absolutely blew me away. Anyway. Fast forward one year and I run into him at one of those strip mall Halloween superstores where I'm getting some last minute cobweb fluff for The Raconteur's haunted bookshop. I find out he has a band. I book that band. They play. Fast forward one more year. They return.<span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">6:30 PM, Sun. DATE TBA<br />DICTIONARY TOSS<br />Field Event</span><br />Summer's here, which means it's once again time for The Raconteur's annual Dictionary Put. $5 for three throws. Participants hurl a hefty 15 lb OED bound in duct tape. Farthest throw wins a $25 gift certificate to the Raconteur and gets their name written on the fore-edge of the dictionary, which remains in the shop. This event is more similar to Open Stone Put of the Highland Games than the Shot Put of the Olympic Games. The toss allows a run up to the toeboard or "trig" to deliver the dictionary, and the thrower is allowed to use any style of release. Most athletes in the toss use either the "glide" or the "spin" techniques. Oakland Park ball field (just off Grove). <span style="font-weight:bold;">To register YOU MUST E-MAIL raconteurbooks@gmail.com</span>. Entry fee payable at event. Followed by pints at the pub in our cleats and piped baseball pants.Raconteur Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06704248099274234320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7981784157149055450.post-79975071739967427852010-07-03T13:06:00.001-07:002010-08-05T10:41:14.473-07:00JULY 2010: Roy Chambers; Green Drinks; Revolutionary Readings; Trains & Taxis/Jordan & Sphinx; Dictionary Toss; Sam St. Thom; Jennifer Egan<span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Sat. July 3<br />ROY CHAMBERS<br />Metalwork/Found Object Sculptor<br />Art Exhibition</span><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Chambers </span>effectively erased any memory of Allen Jones' fetishistic fiber-glass nudes with his milk bar cow skull in The Raconteur's production of <a href="http://aclockworkorangetheplay.blogspot.com/">A Clockwork Orange</a>. He'll be exhibiting said skull along with forty other found object sculptures, including the <span style="font-weight:bold;">horrifying orthodontic headgear</span> for <span style="font-weight:bold;">JAW</span>, a five minute play by Alex Dawson, featuring Jeff Maschi as a retired-boxer-cum-side-show-freak who can remove the eponymous body part (think <span style="font-style:italic;">Rocky</span> meets <span style="font-style:italic;">The Elephant Man</span>), fully staged during <span style="font-weight:bold;">the art show.<span style="font-weight:bold;"> FREE!</span> Comp wine. Art on sale at event.<br /><br />8 PM, Tues, July 6<br />GREEN DRINKS</span><br />It all started in 1989 at a pub called the Slug and Lettuce in Northern London, in which a handful of eco-conscious mates pulled some tables together and drank some beer. The concept evolved into <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.greendrinks.org/">GREEN DRINKS</a></span> and now it's global. Each city has an organizer who arranges meetings in bars and restaurants (providing the greenest beer possible, and by green we mean enviro-minded, not colored; in our case, Climax, locally brewed in Roselle Park). The featured talk is by Joe Schaffer, engineer and co-founder of Green Environmental Associates. He'll give a brief (10 minute) technology review of gray water recycling, rainwater down-cycling, and composting toilets with a regulatory and practical overview of their use in New Jersey/New York. Green Drinks meets in fifty countries from Argentina to Zambia. And now, METUCHEN! Come have a beer and get green. FREE!<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />8 PM, Thurs. July 8<br />REVOLUTIONARY READINGS</span><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.revolutionaryreadings.com/">Revolutionary Readings</a></span> is a project conceived, directed, and performed by an ensemble of young theatre artists. The event comprises readings from Revolutionary Voices: A Multicultural Queer Youth Anthology, which collects poetry, essays, and theatrical sketches by LGBTQ high school students. Edited by Amy Sonnie, the book won the 2001 School Library Journal's Adult Books for High School Students award, but has just been banned in several New Jersey school districts having been deemed "pornographic" by a faction of Glenn Beck's 9-12 Project. <span style="font-weight:bold;">RR's</span> mission is to raise awareness of this book and to generate social and political pressure to combat its regressive banning. <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />7:30 PM, Fri. July 9<br />LIKE TRAINS & TAXIS<br />w/special guests JORDAN & THE SPHINX</span><br />One part pop, one part soul, one part jazz, <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://liketrainsandtaxis.com/">LIKE TRAINS & TAXIS</a></span> is one of the most appealing bands I've seen in a long time. As many of you know, I once tended bar and booked music at a sweaty little jughouse in NB. Every Weds through Sat. we slid over the slate pool table to make room for bands like 3 Piece & Biscuit, a lusty quartet that played some of the best original soul I'd ever heard. Until now. Upon the recommendation of Raconteur volunteer Mallory (you know her, she's the one with the Gilda Gray haircut and the tattoo owl that looks like a pineapple), I went to see LT&T play a gig at George Street Playhouse last year (Mal was playing accordion in a different band on the same bill). Backed by bassist <span style="font-weight:bold;">Owen Susmen</span> and drummer <span style="font-weight:bold;">Mike Del Priore</span>, <span style="font-weight:bold;">Chris Harris </span>(who styles himself as a modern-day urban love prophet in the tradition of Marvin Gaye) sat at his keys, porkpie askance, dancing in his seat like Little Stevie and crooning jazz pop grooves reminiscent of Maze's brightest days.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.myspace.com/jordanandthesphinx">JORDAN and the SPHINX:</a> </span>this indie folk foursome from Arkansas almost called themselves Gary & Stupid, and occasionally play under the name Hairy Truman. They like glockenspiels and ukes, jaw harps, and shakes. They wear white framed sunglasses that they stole, along with a squeeze bottle of Coppertone, from a sorority emblazoned blanket in Fort Lauderdale. They have big, bushy beards that remind their fans of lion manes and <span style="font-style:italic;">Back in Black </span>had the first licks they ever locked themselves in their room to learn. Their live performances include antics that stop just short of crotch-smashing eggs between Paco's scissoring legs. They will NEVER defecate on stage and set it ablaze. They describe their energetic sound as <span style="font-weight:bold;">Southern opera freak out</span> and cite a guy named Bob as their biggest influence. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Sat. July 31<br />SAMUEL SAINT THOMAS<br />Reading/Live Music</span><br />Preacher-cum-blues singer Sam St. Thom reads from his memoir of Pentecostal Pennsy, Frying Spam, and growls out a handful of corresponding steel town songs. A child fascinated by speaking in tongues, the butchery of a Quaker goat, the exorcism of a gay demon, and the impending doom of the Rapture, Thomas fetches the fowl and explores a boyhood driven by a curiosity for all the things they said would land him in the lake of fire. FREE! Comp wine.Raconteur Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06704248099274234320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7981784157149055450.post-38236504674422609952010-05-20T15:11:00.000-07:002010-07-03T13:26:50.990-07:00JUNE/JULY 2010: Web Cam Jam; Treasure Hunt; Welles Week; What's Your Exit?; Toenes Craig & His Dubious Repertoire<span style="font-weight:bold;">1 PM, Sun. June 6<br />TRANSATLANTIC WEB CAM JAM SESSION<br />Live Music<br /></span>The first Sun of each month The Raconteur hosts a transatlantic jam session. The shop's session is concurrent with a very similar session occurring in Reading, England at a pub called <a href="http://www.retreatpub.co.uk/">The Retreat</a>. Participants alternate, collaborate, and symphonize via a Google web cam. Raconteur musicians drink coffee and play in the rear of the shop. Retreat musicians quaff pints (morning here, Happy Hour there) and are projected onto a movie screen behind local performers. Web Cam Jam is more about the performers than the performance, but that doesn't mean you can't come and watch. NOTE: If you watched the Oscars last year, you heard Best Actress winner Kate Winslet mention this very same pub and the pickling contest her mother recently won there. Indeed, last April's Web Cam Jam, Kate's mom, Sally Winslet (now known as the Queen of Shallots), was in the foreground eating bangers and in January's Mr. Winslet sang the old broadside “Darlin’ Old Stick.” <span style="font-weight:bold;">MUSICIANS WANTED! FREE! Comp cornbread (fresh from the oven)!</span><br /><br />The only bookstore with a house band (the Roadside Graves), The Rac has hosted such music luminaries as Fugazi front man Ian MacKaye, Bouncing Souls front man Greg Attonito, poet/new wave punk Jim Caroll, 80s college radio darlings The Cucumbers, former High Times editor/GG Allin collaborator Mike Edison and his punk blues band Edison Rocket Train (featuring Boss Hog drummer Hollis Queens), and folk noir gangster John Wesley Harding, the first opening act for Bruce Springsteen in twenty years. Plus a slew of local bands: Like Trains and Taxis, Risk Relay, Glad Hearts, etc. <span style="font-weight:bold;">YOU TOO CAN PLAY THE RAC! Your participation in the Web Cam Jam is your audition.</span><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />9:30 AM, Sat. June 12<br />2nd ANNUAL METUCHEN TREASURE HUNT<br />Ages 6 & up!</span><br />The Raconteur, in conjunction with the Metuchen Masonic Lodge (and What's the Scoop), is again sponsoring a Metuchen based treasure hunt! In keeping with the rollicking spirit of The Man who Would be King, Freemason Rudyard Kipling's fantastic tale of two masonic scoundrels who set off from 19th century British India in search of gold and adventure and end up as kings of Kafiristan, and The National Treasure, in which hoard hunter Benjamin Gates follows a series of cryptic clues to find an ancient cache intertwined with the arcane history of Freemasonry, <span style="font-weight:bold;">young adventurers (boys and girls 1st through 5th grade) work in teams, following clues and unraveling a variety of knotty riddles as they move from one mysterious location to another (various stores and outdoor landmarks) within the town limits of Metuchen proper.</span> Each cracked conundrum will lead players ever closer to the final treasure! Expect anagrams, number puzzles, and a brass plated, cylindrical device known as a Cryptex. Raconteur gift certificates awarded to all participants. <span style="font-weight:bold;">To sign up, click <a href="http://www.mtzion135.org/treasurehunt/index.php/">HERE</a>. Space is limited. The hunt is completely FREE.</span> On the same morning, the Mt. Zion Masonic Lodge is also sponsoring a <span style="font-weight:bold;">Pancake Breakfast</span> starting at 8am. Bring an empty belly! Start your adventure on a full stomach! Any questions, or if you would like to help, please click <a href="http://www.mtzion135.org/treasurehunt/index.php/">HERE</a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Fri, June 25<br />ROBERT KAPLOW<br />Introducing/Screening<br />ME & ORSON WELLES</span><br />NPR alum <span style="font-weight:bold;">Robert Kaplow’s</span> novel <span style="font-style:italic;">Me and Orson Welles</span>, a beautifully rendered and hilarious valentine to the burly thespian, was recently turned into a movie by indie filmmaker Richard Linklater (Dazed & Confused, School of Rock). <span style="font-weight:bold;">Click <a href="http://www.meandorsonwellesthemovie.com/us/">HERE </a>for film site.</span> Set in 1937 New York, Kaplow's novel tells of a teenager hired to star in Welles' production of Julius Caesar. The film starred Zac Efron, Claire Danes, and Christian Mckay as Welles. <span style="font-style:italic;">The New York Times</span> described McKay's performance as one of "seductive power and full bore charm," <span style="font-weight:bold;">Roger Ebert called the picture, "one of the best movies about theater I've ever seen,"</span> the<span style="font-style:italic;"> New Yorker</span>'s David Denby included it in his "Top Ten Films of the Year," and <span style="font-style:italic;">The San Francisco Chronicle</span>, said: "Christian McKay, as Orson Welles in <span style="font-style:italic;">Me and Orson Welles</span>, gives what I believe is the most exact and uncanny screen portrayal of a historical figure, EVER." <span style="font-weight:bold;">Kaplow will introduce the film with a short reading from his book and follow the screening with an onstage conversation with <span style="font-style:italic;">The Star-Ledger</span>'s Peter Filichia.</span> Find out how a cantankerous bouncer at a local New Brunswick band bar discovered the unagented actor playing Welles (seriously) and what exactly the "O" stands for in Robert O. Kaplow. Books on sale at The Raconteur and The Forum. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Tickets $15. On sale online and at The Rac June 8.</span> <span style="font-weight:bold;">Presented in conjunction with The Forum Theatre.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Please Note:</span> the event is at The Forum Theater, 314 Main Street, Metuchen, NOT The Raconteur. <span style="font-weight:bold;">WELLES WEEK kicks of Tues with double feature screenings of beautifully restored 35mm prints of <span style="font-style:italic;">Touch of Evil</span>, <span style="font-style:italic;">The Stranger</span>, and <span style="font-style:italic;">The Third Man</span>! Click <a href="http://www.forumtheatreartscenter.com/">HERE</a> for schedule (show times TBA).</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Sat. June 26<br />WHAT'S YOUR EXIT?<br />A Literary Detour through New Jersey<br />Reading/Signing</span><br />We're called The Garden State because our soil is so rich that no matter how much we pave it or waste it, the land still calls to us. This recent anthology, edited by Alicia A. Beale and Joe Vallese, features new and previously published work from over 40 writers who get in tune with those echoes. Among the book’s contributors are <span style="font-weight:bold;">Joyce Carol Oates, Tom Perrotta, Robert Pinsky, Jason Biggs, Alicia Ostriker, Paul Lisicky, and Sung J. Woo</span>. Released by indie publisher Word Riot. <span style="font-weight:bold;">I make no promises, but I'm told guest readers may include any or all of the emboldened names.</span> <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE! Complimentary wine.</span> Books on sale at event.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Thurs. July 1<br />TOENES CRAIG<br />Reading/Signing<br />HIS DUBIOUS REPERTOIRE</span><br />If you've seen those toxic green/neon pink chapbooks in the shop, you may be familiar with Toenes' work. He's a poet with an affinity for hot colors and dubious prose.<span style="font-weight:bold;"> FREE! Complimentary wine.</span> Books on sale at event. Please note: this is a rental and, accordingly, The Raconteur makes no claims regarding caliber.Raconteur Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06704248099274234320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7981784157149055450.post-58523239323959489552010-04-24T09:11:00.001-07:002010-05-17T07:05:18.431-07:00MAY 2010: OSCAR winner Pam Boll; Creep Cycle; Chris Grabenstein; Calouri/Kaplan; 2010 Oscar Winner Roger Ross Williams & Prudence; The Backpockets<span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Sat. May 8<br />Academy Award Winning Filmmaker<br />PAMELA BOLL<br />Introducing & Screening<br />WHO DOES SHE THINK SHE IS?</span><br />Georgia O'Keefe. Edith Wharton. Janis Joplin. Emily Dickinson. Amelia Earhart. None of these women had children. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Who Does She Think She Is?</span>, the new documentary by <span style="font-weight:bold;">Oscar winning filmmaker Pamela Boll (Born into Brothels)</span>, explores the competing demands of muse and mothering and the struggle to make art while nurturing life. The film, which follows five fierce women who refuse to choose, is a call to arms (rise up ladies! with your chisels and brushes and pens!) and ultimately demonstrates that creativity and care-giving are not mutually exclusive, but deeply connected. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Followed by an on stage interview btwn Ms. Boll and Emmy Award winning cultural arts journalist John Bathke (News 12's "On the Scene")</span>.<span style="font-weight:bold;">For trailer, click <a href="http://www.whodoesshethinksheis.net/">HERE</a>. </span>Bring your Mom! What better way to spend Mother's Day weekend? <span style="font-weight:bold;">6:30 - 7:30 PM Raconteur Cocktail Reception w/Ms. Boll</span>. Join Oscar winner Pam Boll @ The Raconteur (431 Main Street, Metuchen, NJ) for some complimentary vino and up-close conversation before the movie.The reception is FREE! for Raconteur Society Members. $10 suggested donation for non-members. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">7:30 PM, Thurs. May 13<br />JOHN HAMMEL'S SERIOUS FUN<br />The Creep Song Cycle</span><br />John Hammel (vocals/harmonica/percussion), Anthony LaMort (keyboards), Michael Cohen (bass. Classic rock and soul strung together in a thematic song cycle Opening set of poetry and free form improvisation by Hammel/LaMort/Cohen. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE</span> Will Donation. Please Note: this is a rental (budding bands, authors, and filmmakers regularly rent our space).<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />8 PM, Tues. May 18<br />CHRIS GRABENSTEIN<br />Reading/Signing<br />ROLLING THUNDER: A John Ceepak Mystery</span><br />Trojan Man <span style="font-weight:bold;">Grabenstein</span> continues his chronicle of the NJ beach dick, rounding out his Ceepak six pack with a can of whup ass called <span style="font-weight:bold;">ROLLING THUNDER</span>. A prominent citizen dies on a brand new roller coaster's first trip around the tracks. Was it a heart attack or did it just look like one? And why is Ceepak's skeevy father back in Sea Haven? Hang on for the read of your life! <br /><br />A former improvisational comedian (he and Bruce Willis were in the same Greenwich Village comedy troupe in the early 1980s), <span style="font-weight:bold;">Grabenstein </span>spent almost twenty years writing commercials. He was, perhaps most famously, the copy writer who created Trojan Man. His writing talent was first discovered by James Patterson, the Creative Director at J. Walter Thompson Advertising. He won the Anthony Award for "Best First Mystery" for his debut TILT A WHIRL, the first in a series of John Ceepak stories to be set "Down The Shore" in a New Jersey tourist town called Sea Haven. The second book, MAD MOUSE, was called one of the "Ten Best Mysteries of 2006" by <span style="font-style:italic;">Kirkus</span>. The <span style="font-style:italic;">New York Daily News</span> called the fourth Ceepak book, HELL HOLE, a "must-read." <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE! Complimentary wine. Books on sale at event.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Fri. May 21<br />CALOURI(violin)/KAPLAN(guitar)<br />Live Music</span><br />400 years of music: from Gustav Holst to classic Zep (Led, that is), with detours into Celtic folk and Victorian dance hall. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Steve Kaplan</span> and <span style="font-weight:bold;">Paul Calouri</span> bring their love of traditional folk, classical music and acoustic jazz into sharp focus by using truly acoustic instruments to perform, exploring sonic possibilities without the "clutter" of other instrumentation. Their approach to the music is deceptively simple: wring out as much emotion as possible without losing the essential structure of the pieces they're playing. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span> Complimentary wine.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Sat. May 22<br />2010 OSCAR Winning Director<br />ROGER ROSS WILLIAMS<br />Introducing/Screening MUSIC BY PRUDENCE<br />Followed by a Q&A with Williams and a concert by PRUDENCE!</span><br />Roger Ross Williams, the first African American filmmaker to win the Academy Award, introduces and screens the film for which he won the Oscar. "Music by Prudence" follows Prudence Mahena, a severely disabled Zimbabwean woman born into extreme poverty and believed to be the product of witchcraft, who transcends hatred and superstition to form an Afro-fusion band called Liyan, in which all eight members are disabled. <span style="font-weight:bold;">The screening will be followed by an onstage interview/conversation between News 12's John Bathke and Williams, an audience Q&A, and a concert by Prudence herself! </span>who's in from Zimbabwe for a slew of interviews with Williams (O Magazine, CNN, NPR, Gail King Show, and pending appearances on The View and Oprah) and the HBO premiere of the film. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Admission: $20. To buy a ticket online, click <a href="http://musicbyprudence.eventbrite.com/">HERE</a>. To see the trailer, click <a href="http://www.musicbyprudence.com/trailer/">HERE</a>.THE REFECTORY (adjacent to the First Presbyterian Church), 270 Woodbridge Ave, Metuchen, NJ 08840</span><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />COCKTAIL RECEPTION FOLLOWING THE EVENT</span><br />Join 2010 Oscar winner <span style="font-weight:bold;">Roger Ross Williams</span> and <span style="font-weight:bold;">Prudence Mahena</span> for complimentary wine, up close conversation, and an exclusive a cappella concert <span style="font-weight:bold;">AFTER</span> the event. Attendance limited to 65! Cash menu and bar. Novitas Lounge, 25 Pearl Street, Metuchen, NJ. <span style="font-weight:bold;">10:00 PM - 11:00 PM. Admission: $15.00. To buy a reception ticket online, click <a href="http://musicbyprudence.eventbrite.com/">HERE</a>.</span> Reception tickets available at The Raconteur starting Sat 5/15.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Tues. May 25<br />THE BACKPOCKETS<br />Live Music</span><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The Back Pockets</span> is three girls, two boys, and one old geezer who looks like a cross between Dusty Hill and the guy with ripped flannel elbows drinking brekkie shots of Ten High who just stole your smokes. They play banjos and bongos, fiddles and flutes. Sometimes they lay electric guitars across their laps and saw on them with a violin bows. The girls dress like flappers, acrobats, or, on occasion, the Daryl Hannah android from Bladerunner. The boys wear Mexican wrestling masks and fencing helmets. They like sidewalks at night, homemade things, and carnies. They frequently rig and engage tightropes and trapezes during their shows, and have played whole songs hanging from their knees. The sound is folk, but the experience is Stomp. They're painters as well as musicians. They hail from Atlanta, GA. They sometimes describe themselves as Jefferson Airplane meets Blue Man Group. <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE!</span> <span style="font-weight:bold;">Complimentary wine.</span> CDs on sale at the event (you remember their CDs, they come in little canvas pockets embroidered with doodles fastened with Velcro).Raconteur Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06704248099274234320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7981784157149055450.post-8422527186221434132010-04-02T16:09:00.000-07:002010-04-14T12:29:17.743-07:00APRIL/MAY 2010: Noah Baumbach; Qtet; D&D Tournament; John Ciardi; It Ends in a G; Lenny Bruce; Oscar Winner Pam Boll; Myra Ciardi<span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Fri. April 2<br />KICKING & SCREAMING<br />Directed by Noah Baumbach<br />Film Screening</span><br />The heavy anxiety that takes center stage in <span style="font-weight:bold;">Noah Baumbach's</span> just released <span style="font-style:italic;">Greenberg</span> and his Oscar nominated <span style="font-style:italic;">Squid and the Whale </span>is already waiting in the wings in his stingingly funny first feature. One of the highlights of the nineties indie film scene, <span style="font-weight:bold;">Kicking and Screaming</span> mines J. D. Salinger territory (to cite a writer often linked to screenplaymate Wes Anderson--they co-wrote Mr. Fox--as well as to Baumbach), speaking directly to a generation of would-be adults unable to reconcile their hermetic educational experience with workaday responsibility, and posing the eternal question: where do we go from here? <span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE! Comp wine.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Fri. April 9<br />QTET<br />Live Music</span><br />The music the Qtet plays is jazz-based but reflects the wide diversity of its co-leaders, Ware & Kaplan. Vibraphonist Bill Ware toured with Steely Dan on their live comeback tour in the mid 90s and was a founding member of the ground-breaking acid jazz group the Groove Collective, and the jazz/theater group the Jazz Passengers, which often featured ex-Blondie singer Debbie Harry. Saxophonist Mike Kaplan currently leads his 9 piece horn-proud jazz unit the Mike Kaplan Nonet, and has performed with the Joneses, the Glenn Miller Orchestra, and the Chico Mendoza Latin Jazz Dream Band. Kaplan has had original arrangements and compositions performed and/or recorded by the Composers Big Band, Juan Oliva y sus Progressiva, and Orquesta Royal. Also with bassist Saadi Zain and drummer Lou Petto.<span style="font-weight:bold;">FREE. Comp wine.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">12 (noon) - 10 PM, Sat. April 10<br />DUNGEONS & DRAGONS ROLEPLAYING MARATHON<br />Hosted by Peter & Ian Fairclough (his 13 year old son)<br />Beginners Welcome! (Ages 10 & up)</span><br />Before ergonomic gaming consoles and wireless controllers utilizing Bluetooth technology, there was twenty-sided dice and octagonal graph paper. Before Xbox 360, there was D&D. When I was ten, my mother and stepfather moved my brother and I from suburban NJ to a seven hundred acre ranch in Alabama. Apparently feeling we should be further isolated, they took us, every summer, cross country to Nebraska, where we camped and lived in a hybrid house/horse trailer so they could train gundogs on prairie grouse. It was here my brother and I discovered D&D, playing it the trailer's drop table, trying to kill those long flat days while our parents fieldworked and trialed the dogs. Though our D&D backgrounds differ (us, ten and twelve, on the plains of Nebraska; him, British, early twenties, throwing extravagant "D&D Fancy Dress Parties" in Eastern England), when Fairclough expressed interest in organizing an open-door D&D marathon, I immediately offered the shop as a venue. And with its museumized charms and medieval clutter (pig-faced helmets, basket-hilted swords), what better venue for the dice based fantasy game?<span style="font-weight:bold;"> FREE to participate (natch)</span>. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Sat. April 17<br />FIVE BANDS hosted by IT ENDS w/a G<br />Live Music</span><br />Can't say much except the front man for the organizing band has an Abe Lincoln beard and thick black glasses and sort of looks like a Civil War Buddy Holly, and one of our shop volunteers, a twenty-something muppety hipster I call O' Lucky Man after the Lindsay Anderson film (his last name is Lukman), is playing a short set, and it will likely be loud, and crowded with those kids you usually see boarding (skate, not water) in the Pearl Street parking lot.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">7 PM, Weds, April 21<br />LENNY'S BACK! (& Boy is He Pissed)<br />A One Man Show Starring <span style="font-style:italic;">General Hospital's</span> RONNIE MARMO</span><br />I know, groan, General Hospital. But c'mon, it's <span style="font-weight:bold;">LENNY BRUCE!</span> And maybe this dude's no Dustin, but he looks just like Lenny. Immortalized on the cover of <span style="font-style:italic;">Sgt. Pepper</span> and in songs by Simon & Garfunkel, Nico, Frank Zappa, and Bob Dylan ("he was bad, he was the brother you never had"), Lenny Bruce fancied himself an oral jazzman and worshiped the gods of Spontaneity, Candor and Free Association. His tongue would often outrun his mind and he would say things he didn't plan to say, things that surprised him, delighted him, cracked him up. His provocative stand-up paved the way for such comic greats as Richard Pryor, George Carlin and Robin William, all of whom cite Mr. Bruce as their primary influence. Recently performed in Hollywood to rave reviews <span style="font-weight:bold;">("The performance is flawless," Teller (of Penn & Teller); </span>"Thoughtfully funny...poignant," L.A. Times; "Perfectly paced," LA Weekly, LENNY'S BACK moves to NJ for a three day run at Edison Valley Playhouse (where Ronnie got his stage start fifteen years ago). Why? Who knows. Something to do with a soap opera convention at the Meadowlands Hilton. <span style="font-weight:bold;">But Ronnie is doing a TEASER of the show for FREE at The Raconteur before the EVP opening on April 22.</span> <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8 PM, Sat. May 8<br />Academy Award Winning Filmmaker<br />PAMELA BOLL<br />Introducing & Screening<br />WHO DOES SHE THINK SHE IS?</span><br />Georgia O'Keefe. Edith Wharton. Janis Joplin. Emily Dickinson. Amelia Erhardt. None of these women had children. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Who Does She Think She Is?</span>, the new documentary by <span style="font-weight:bold;">Oscar winning filmmaker Pamela Boll (Born into Brothels)</span>, explores the competing demands of muse and mothering and the struggle to make art while nuturing life. The film, which follows five fierce women who refuse to choose, is a call to arms (rise up ladies! with your chisels and brushes and pens!) and ultimately demonstrates that creativity and caregiving are not mutually exclusive, but deeply connected. Followed by a Q&A with Ms. Boll and video updates of the five mother/artists in the film. For trailer, click <a href="http://www.whodoesshethinksheis.net/">HERE</a>. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Bring your Mom! What better way to spend Mother's Day weekend? Cooler than a pot of poppies!</span> General Admission: $15 (tickets on sale soon). Note: Screening is at The Forum NOT The Raconteur.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Date TBA<br />Myra Ciardi<br />The late John Ciardi's daughter discusses her famous father. More info soon</span>Raconteur Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06704248099274234320noreply@blogger.com