Ted Sorensen, John F. Kennedy’s special counsel, speechwriter and close advisor, appeared at 92Y on May 6, 2008 to speak with foreign affairs expert Ralph Buultjens about his memoir, Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History and Kennedy’s legacy.You can listen to the full program above.
Related:On Dec 10 at 92Y, Katie Couric will moderate a Special Celebration of the Life of Senator Edward M. Kennedy with Vicki Reggie Kennedy and Ted Kennedy Jr.
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92Y Podcast: From the Poetry Center Archive: A.S. Byatt: “Your Own Poet’s Voice”
A.S. Byatt first appeared at the 92Y Poetry Center in October of 1991, for a reading from Possession, which had won the Booker Prize the year before. This Thursday, some 18 years later, Ms. Byatt returns to the Poetry Center to read from The Children’s Book, a finalist for this year’s Booker. (Hilary Mantel, this year’s winner, was one of the judges who awarded Ms. Byatt the prize in 1990.)
The Sunday Times of London has called The Children’s Book “easily the best thing Byatt has written since her Booker-winning masterpiece Possession...[It] superlatively displays both enormous reach and tremendous grip.” Like Possession, The Children’s Book is a teeming, polyphonic novel.
“I started writing in other voices really when I wrote Possession, partly because I was somehow dissatisfied with the ‘voice’ of realist prose about people’s feelings,” Ms. Byatt said in a recent interview with Bookforum. “That is only one way to write. So I wrote parodies of scholarly analysis, biographical musings, Victorian love letters and poems, and I think this makes the ordinary ‘storytelling’ voice in turn more surprising and problematic. When people ask me why I write, I say it’s because I love the language and what it can do. I think I’m not very interested in self-expression.” Read her interview on Feministing for more insight.
Today’s featured recording is Ms. Byatt’s October 28, 1991 reading from Possession. In this excerpt, which comes from Chapter 8 of the novel, Ms. Byatt conjures the voices of all four of her main characters—two modern-day researchers (Roland and Maud) and two Victorian poets (Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte).
In an ongoing effort to share with our readers some of the great literary moments which the Poetry Center has presented across the decades, this blog has begun to feature regular postings of archival recordings by some of the best writers of our time—many of whom, like Ms. Byatt, are returning this season. To purchase tickets to Ms. Byatt’s reading, please click here. For more information about the rest of the upcoming season, please click here. And for access to other recordings from the Poetry Center archive, please click here.
Unterberg Poetry Center webcasts and access to our archive are made possible in part by the generous support of the Sidney E. Frank Foundation.
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92Y Podcast: William Kanengiser of The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet
On Wednesday, November 11, The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet will present a dramatic retelling of Don Quixote, with comic actor Phil Proctor narrating and playing more than a dozen parts. The LAGQ will accompany him, performing Spanish Renaissance guitar music heard by Cervantes from Renaissance Spain. The program uses a recent translation by Edith Grossman, a 92Y faculty member, and the concert is part of the Art of the Guitar series. In this podcast, LAGQ member William Kanengiser, who arranged the program, talks about its creation.
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Kurt Vonnegut: “Short Sentences and Placebo Profundities”
Upon the release of Kurt Vonnegut’s Look at the Birdie, a collection of previously unpublished stories, the Poetry Center is pleased to share an archival recording of Mr. Vonnegut from May 16, 1983.
“If you are a New Yorker, if you are a writer, it’s part of your civic duty to appear at the Y—at least once,” Mr. Vonnegut says in his opening remarks. As it happens, this was Mr. Vonnegut’s second appearance at the Poetry Center. His first, with poet Muriel Rukeyser, took place some 13 years before, on the evening of May 4, 1970—the day the National Guard opened fire on student protesters at Kent State. That night, he recalls in the recording from 1983, “there were people out in the audience standing up saying, ‘What do we do, what are we supposed to do?’ and nobody had a very bright answer, certainly Muriel and I didn’t.” Mr. Vonnegut ended up reading from a forthcoming novel, Breakfast of Champions, and that recording can be found here.
In the recording from 1983, however, he addresses Kent State much more directly, by reading a speech he delivered at Haverford College shortly after the shootings. He then reads two more speeches—one on our addiction to war preparation and another on nuclear holocaust, which was originally delivered at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
In an ongoing effort to share with our readers some of the great literary moments which the Poetry Center has presented across the decades, this blog has begun to feature regular postings of archival recordings by some of the best writers of our time. Next week, in anticipation of her upcoming appearance, on Thursday, October 29th, we will share a recording of A.S. Byatt reading an excerpt from Possession. To purchase tickets to Ms. Byatt’s reading, please click here. For more information about the rest of the upcoming season, please click here. And for access to other recordings from the Poetry Center archive, please click here.
Unterberg Poetry Center webcasts and access to our archive are made possible in part by the generous support of the Sidney E. Frank Foundation.
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92Y Podcast: From the Poetry Center Archive: Chinua Achebe: “Against Blindness”
Next Monday, the Unterberg Poetry Center is privileged to welcome back Chinua Achebe, who recently published his first book in more than twenty years—The Education of a British-Protected Child, a collection of autobiographical essays. Mr. Achebe will be in conversation with K. Anthony Appiah, the philosopher and president of the PEN American Center. “For so many readers,” Mr. Appiah once wrote, “it is Chinua Achebe who opened up the magic casements of African fiction.”
In an ongoing effort to share with our readers some of the great literary moments which the Poetry Center has presented across the decades, this blog has begun to feature regular postings of archival recordings by some of the best writers of our time—many of whom, like Mr. Achebe, are returning in the months ahead. To purchase tickets to Monday’s event with Mr. Achebe, please click here. For more information about the rest of the upcoming season, please click here. And for access to other recordings from the Poetry Center archive, please click here.
The year 2008 marked the 50th anniversary of Things Fall Apart. Mr. Achebe’s first appearance at the Poetry Center took place in January of 1994—on Martin Luther King Day. This recording features Mr. Achebe reading an Igbo dirge in King’s honor, as well as excerpts from the novel Anthills of the Savannah and the poem “We Laughed at Him.”
Unterberg Poetry Center webcasts and access to our archive are made possible in part by the generous support of the Sidney E. Frank Foundation.
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The New York Timesreports today: "Bruce Wasserstein, the Wall Street investment banker who helped pioneer the hostile takeover in the 1980s and reshaped the mergers and acquisitions business into a high art, died Wednesday." In addition to being Chairman & CEO of Lazard, a globally distinguished financial advisory and asset management firm, he was also the owner of New York magazine.
On September 20, 2007, Wasserstein sat down with Businessweek editor-in-chief Stephen J. Adler for 92Y's Captains of Industry series. In this candid audio clip he discusses perceptions of his character by the press, identifying skills in people and historical trends in the economy. The full conversation is available on Audible.com.
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In the video above, Columbia Professor Jeremy Dauber presents a short introduction for his series on Jewish Comedians which focuses on Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce and Mel Brooks. Tickets can be purchased here.
And below, you can listen to a podcast featuring a brief Q&A we did with Jeremy as he talks about the history of Jewish comedy, comics who were important to its evolution and what it looks like today
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92Y Podcast: From the Poetry Center Archive: Adrienne Rich: What Kind of Times Are These?
Next Monday, the Unterberg Poetry Center will open its 71st-anniversary season with a reading by Adrienne Rich. Now 80, Ms. Rich first appeared at the 92nd Street Y in 1958. Starting today, in an effort to share with our readers some of the great literary moments which the Poetry Center has presented across the decades, this blog will begin to feature regular postings of archival recordings by some of the best writers of our time—many of whom, like Ms. Rich, will be returning to the Center in the months ahead. To purchase tickets to Ms. Rich's upcoming reading, please click here. And for more information about the rest of the upcoming season, please click here.
"I cannot give you a poetry of passions resolved, or of pure observation, or of self-enclosed self-exploration," Ms. Rich said, by way of introducing her reading at the Poetry Center in October of 1991, in the audio excerpt above. She went on to say: "I believe that poetry is one of our great human resources, and often a strangely wasted resource, like so many others in the United States. At a time when extremely sophisticated tactics are being employed to disinform and demoralize us as a people, I believe that poetry speaks not from a separate sphere but in a different voice."
Here, then, is an excerpt from that 1991 reading. This section includes Ms. Rich reading What Kind of Times Are These, which was inspired by a line of Brecht.
Unterberg Poetry Center webcasts and access to our archive are made possible in part by the generous support of the Sidney E. Frank Foundation.
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92Y Podcast: Michelle Goldberg and Deborah Lauter on The Rise of Christian Nationalism in America
In October 2006, journalist/author Michelle Goldberg (New York Times bestseller Kingdom Coming and The Means of Reproduction) and Deborah Lauter of the Anti-Defamation League discussed "The Rise of Christian Nationalism in America." You can listen to the full program above.
92Y Podcast: Matthew Broderick, Nathan Lane and Joe Mantello on Neil Simon
In October 2005, Matthew Broderick, Nathan Lane and Joe Mantello sat down with Patrick Pacheco at 92Y to talk about their Broadway revival of The Odd Couple. In this audio excerpt, they reflect on what it means to work on a Neil Simon production and the mystique of the great playwright.
On September 30, Broderick returns to 92Y with his childhood friend, playwright/screenwriter Kenneth Lonergan, to discuss their parallel careers and first stage collaboration, this fall's The Starry Messenger.
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The podcast above, from May 2, 1993, features Dominick Dunne at the 92nd Street Y talking about his book A Season in Purgatory. The book of fiction was inspired by the 1975 murder of Martha Moxley, which Dunne became interested in while writing about the trial of William Kennedy Smith for Vanity Fair. Of course, you will recall that Michael Skakel, the nephew of Ethel Skakel Kennedy, was eventually charged and convicted of the crime in the Moxley case.
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92Y Podcast: The Psalms with Robert Alter and Marilynne Robinson
Previously, we posted a video excerpt from "The Psalms: Reading and Conversation" with biblical scholar and Hebrew Studies professor Robert Alter and Marilynne Robinson, author of the Pulitzer Prize winner Gilead, which took place at 92Y on December 17, 2007. For your summer listening pleasure, we present the full audio program.
Charlie Rose interviewed Lou Dobbs at the 92nd Street Y on November 19, 2006. In the audio clip above, Dobbs explains why he switched his opinion on NAFTA and free trade, as well as his thoughts on immigration.
Rose returns to 92Y on September 22 for a conversation with Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman. Also recommended: How To Change The World series with Howard Gardner featuring Jane Goodall and Jeffrey Sachs.
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Yet he was always a creature of New York. Close to the founding members of the so-called New York Schools of Music, Painting and Poetry, Mr. Cunningham himself, along with Jerome Robbins and the younger Paul Taylor, led the way to founding what can retrospectively be called the New York School of Dance.
These choreographers both combined and rejected the rival influences of modern dance and ballet, notably the senior choreographers Martha Graham and George Balanchine. They absorbed aspects of ordinary pedestrian movement, the natural world and city life. They tested connections between private subject matter and theatrical expression. And they re-examined the relationship between dance and its sound accompaniment.
With Graham and Balanchine, they made New York the world capital of choreography; and the New York School influenced the world in showing how pure dance could be major theater. Many of the dancers who passed through Mr. Cunningham’s company — notably Mr. Taylor and Karole Armitage — went on to be prestigious choreographers themselves. Many other choreographers, notably Twyla Tharp and Mark Morris, paid tribute to his influence.
Like many of his generation, Merce performed at 92Y early in his career with Martha Graham's Dance Company (on 3 separate occasions in the mid-1940s) and then later in a few of his own works. The audio clip above is an excerpt from his appearance with dance critic Deborah Jowitt on March 21, 1994 for the "Breaking Ground" lecture series, established that season and has included such guests as Erick Hawkins, Judith Jamison, Twyla Tharp, Mark Morris, Bill T. Jones, and Jerome Robbins. You can read more on Celebrating 75 Years Of Dance at the 92nd Street Y.
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Frank McCourt, a New York City school teacher for almost three decades, is best remembered as author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, Angela’s Ashes. His knack for storytelling might have been exceeded only by his passion for teaching. From an extensive obituary in today's New York Times:
Francis McCourt was born Aug. 19, 1930, on Classon Avenue on the edge of the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, where his Irish immigrant parents had hoped to make a better life. It was not to be, largely because his father, Malachy, usually spent his scant laborer’s earnings at the local bar. Beaten, the family returned to Limerick when Frank was 4, and the pattern repeated itself.
Three of Mr. McCourt’s six siblings died in early childhood. The family’s circumstances were so dire, he later told a student audience, that he often dreamed of becoming a prison inmate so that he would be guaranteed three meals a day and a warm bed.
...In 1949, Mr. McCourt, at 19, gathered his savings and boarded a ship for New York and a new life, which began unpromisingly.
Despite his lack of formal schooling, Mr. McCourt won admission to New York University, where he earned a degree in English education in 1957. A year later he began teaching at McKee Vocational High School on Staten Island, an eye-opening experience that he recalled, in often hilarious detail, in his third volume of memoirs, “Teacher Man.”
In his first week, an unruly student threw a homemade sandwich on the floor, an act that astonished Mr. McCourt not so much for its brazenness as for the waste of good food. After appraising the sandwich with a connoisseur’s eye, he picked it up and ate it.
Of course, you can read more on McCourt's life in the New York Times, Newsweek, Time Magazine, NPR, and elsewhere. Listen above to Frank McCourt reading from Teacher Man at the 92nd Street Y on December 15, 2005. He is introduced by his brothers, Alphie and Malachy.
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