Writers With Drinks w/ John Shirley and Lorna Dee Cervantes September 12, 2009
San Francisco Bay Area, California 94110
Writers With Drinks, the city's most alternative reading series according to American Airlines' inflight magazine, is back!
When: Saturday, September 12, 2009, 7:30 to 9:30 PM
Who: John Shirley, Jeremy Adam Smith, Lorna Dee Cervantes and Christy Chan
Where: The Make Out Room, 3225 22nd. St. between Mission and Valencia, San Francisco
How much: $3 to $5 sliding scale, all proceeds benefit the CSC.
About the readers/performers:
John Shirley's most recent books include Bleak History, the lost cyberpunk classic Black Glass, and the story collection Living Shadows. He's also the author of Demons, Crawlers, Spider Moon, Transmaniacon, City Come-Walkin', Eclipse, Eclipse Penumbra, and Eclipse Corona, The Brigade, A Splendid Chaos, Three-Ring Psychus, Dracula in Love, Cellars, In Darkness Waiting, Wetbones and Silicon Embrace. He's written lyrics for the Blue Öyster Cult and episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, VR5 and Poltergeist.
Jeremy Adam Smith is the author of The Daddy Shift, and co-editor of the forthcoming books The Compassionate Instinct and Are We Born Racist?. He's senior editor of Greater Good magazine, published by the U.C. Berkeley Greater Good Science Center, and founder of Daddy Dialectic, a group blog that explores the experiences of twenty-first-century dads. His essays, short stories, and articles on parenting, popular culture, urban life, and politics have appeared in The Nation, BusinessWeek.com, Mothering, San Francisco Bay Guardian, San Francisco Chronicle, Utne Reader, Wired, and numerous other periodicals and books.
Lorna Dee Cervantes' poetry collection From the Cables of Genocide: Poems on Love and Hunger was awarded the Patterson Poetry Prize, the poetry prize of the Institute of Latin American Writers, and the Latino Literature Award. She founded a literary journal and a small press, both called Mango. Her poetry has appeared in hundreds of literary journals, plus the anthologies Daughters of the Fifth Sun, ¡Floricanto Sí! A Collection of Latina Poetry, Unsettling America: An Anthology of Contemporary Multicultural Poetry, and No More Masks!
Christy Chan is a Virginia-born filmmaker and writer whose film Wash 'n' Fold has appeared in many film festivals. She's also done storytelling at the Porchlight Reading Series and elsewhere. She's an affiliate artist at Sausalito's Headland Center For The Arts.
About Writers With Drinks:
Writers With Drinks has won "Best Literary Night" from the SF Bay Guardian readers' poll five years in a row and was named "Best Literary Drinking" by the SF Weekly. The spoken word "variety show" mixes genres to raise money for local worthy causes. The award-winning show includes poetry, stand-up comedy, science fiction, fantasy, romance, mystery, literary fiction, erotica, memoir, zines and blogs in a freewheeling format.
Hostess Charlie Jane Anders blogs about science fiction and futurism at io9.com. She's the author of the Lambda Award-winning Choir Boy (2005 Soft Skull Press) and the co-editor, with Annalee Newitz, of She's Such A Geek (Seal Press 2007). She also publishes other magazine.
Official Website: http://www.writerswithdrinks.com
Added by charlieanders on September 9, 2009
Comments
JJPasadena
*contains spoilers*
Definitely worth seeing this exhibit if it ever comes through your town as pt. III or as pt. IV. While I was fascinated at every turn of the exhibit, there were times where I would just stop and remind myself that you are looking at a real human body. From time-to-time it would bother me, not in a 'I want to stop the viewing' way, but I didn't spend ten years in med-school and a body isn't just a body to me. I am such a science nerd though, I loved the show. After leaving and allowing my mind to soak it all up, I have a few issues with the people who "own" the exhibit and the amount of money that they are making compared to whatever they paid their "future stars". I'm not suggesting body snatching like some people are. I don't know how to really express what or how it exactly bothered me...it's probably just because of how I was raised within our society and how the human body is supposed to mean more than say that camle that is on display at Body Worlds III. I don't know, I know I'm rambling at this point, but like I said...I can't really put a finger on what it is. But GO SEE IT and make up your own mind versus letting your church, friend, family member or right-wing AM radio talk show host tell you how you're supposed to feel about it.
Oh and one little sidenote which I found odd and quite ridiculous, at one point in the exhibit you are able to view human fetuses but not w/out a warning. They wanted to let you know that: a) the fetuses were "naturally" obtained, in otherwords NOT via abortion, and b) just in case you were too squeamish, even though you just got done with most of th tour and you had just lay witness to dozens upon dozens of human remains already. This is just my little issue with my fellow citizens, get with reality and join the rest of the nation in regards to making sense with your f**king idiotic "value system"! In other words, okay I can understand letting people know that none of the fetuses were aborted because of what that would mean and what kind of ruckus (to put it lightly) that would cause the tour. But why in the hell would it be harder to view tiny fetuses, most of which were much smaller than a kidney bean, than adult men and women who had spent an entire life (literally) with loved ones and friends!? And not to get all detailed, but a fetus is so small and most of the organs are so underdeveloped (NO I am not implying anything so lay off), I found it much more intense to view a 6ft tall and 200lb dead human body! Just my take.
bradwindecker
If you have never seen this exhibit, you must now. It changed my life forever, when I saw what we look like on the inside. You might have seen pictures or digital scans or virtual reality, but nothing comes close to what you will see at this exhibit.
Not for the faint of heart though. Many people have difficulty viewing human remains, whether plastified with their skin flayed out, or not.