20 May 2009

Bryant Park Word For Word Announced

It's going to be a busy summer for the organizers of Bryant Park's summer reading series. I've never hit as many of these as I'd like to, because most of them are during the day and you have to work pretty close to the park (or have inattentive management) to take full advantage, but here are a few that jump out at me:

TODAY, May 20: Charlie Todd of Improv Everywhere. The creator of the MP3 experiment has a book? Nifty.
July 1: Readings from HEAVY ROTATION: TWENTY WRITERS ON THE ALBUMS THAT CHANGED THEIR LIVES including Joshua Ferris on Pearl Jam and Stacy D'Erasmo on Kate Bush. Someone even wrote about ABBA for this book. Hmm, which album would I write about...
July 8: "Writers of New York" with Jonathan Ames, Joseph O'Neill, others.
August 5: McSweeney's editors (thus unnamed) on how to write and publish fiction. When I picture this event the audience is full of hipstery celebrities with burning questions about the novels they've stashed in the bottom drawer (John Krasinski) or the experimental epic poem they can't seem to finish (Natalie Portman).

Unrelated to reading: the park also announced its film festival for the summer, and while it has the worst crowds of any such series it may have the nicest lawn.

3 comments:

Wade Garrett said...

John Krasinski is attempting to adapt The Broom of the System into a film. What more does one need to know about him? I wonder how many stories he's submitted to McSweeneys under a pseudonym?

Ellen said...

Upwards of 20, but he probably stopped once he got cast in a movie co-written by Dave Eggers and his wife. I thought it was Brief Interviews With Hideous Men though?

Wade Garrett said...

You're right! It is Brief Interviews. Which seems weird because it is a book of stories. But we'll see - its supposed to have a very good cast.