Talk to Me

It’s hard to image anyone could get in serious trouble for appearing on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, but it happened last year to the journalist Maziar Bahari. 

The Poetry Project held a reading on a recent humid Wednesday evening at St. Mark's Church in the East Village featuring the contemporary poets Matvei Yankelevich and Robert Fitterman. Both poets are somewhat topical in their subject matter.  Yankelevich balances idealism with irony in the treatment of his hip themes, while Fitterman favors humor with a hint of self-deprecation.

The room was packed. 

Use the player above to listen to the entire event.

Writers Sharifa Rhodes-Pitt and Alice Albinia both write about their journeys and, appropriately enough, met in India while travelling. A mutual acquaintance suggested that Sharifa contact Alice and one day, despite not being in the habit of contacting strangers, she called Alice. They’ve been friends ever since, and joined together to read from their respective works at True Story: The KGB Bar's Nonfiction Reading Series. 

David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker magazine, engaged in a candid and casual conversation about his new book, "The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama," at Barnes & Noble, Union Square on April 28. After a brief history of why he chose to write a book on Obama, a figure who has been extensively covered, Remnick answered questions from the audience.

Remember that old adage about not judging a book by its cover?  Turns out it’s true.

If you lived in a country in constant conflict, how would that affect you?  The people who live in Kashmir have been shadowed by chaos and uncertainty since 1989.  Justine Hardy wrote about the region in her new book, In the Valley of the Mist. 

We know birds sing in courtship, but Ofer Tchernichovski, a professor of Biology at CUNY, has been researching the way in which songbirds learn their “language” of song, while drawing some comparisons to human culture along the way. 

The Rubin Museum of Art’s Brainwave series pairs neuroscientists with artists and visionaries from multiple disciplines for lively discussions about how our minds work and how we perceive the world.

What does the term, "Asian-American," mean?  The Asia Society  invited a diverse group of panelists who reflect the changing face of Asian-Americans in America to tackle the topic.   The panel included the jazz pianist Vijay Iyer, and New York City Controller John C. Liu.

Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses are routinely pitted against each other--or at least their philosophies are--in conversations regarding street life and car and highway culture in New York City.   Earlier this spring, the Museum of the City of New York hosted a panel discussion on the two big thinkers called "Robert Moses, Jane Jacobs and the Automobile." The auditorium was packed, and the conversation lively, as discussions on these contentious subjects often are.