this week in literature

“IT BEGAN AS A MISTAKE”: ANNUAL CHARLES BUKOWSKI MEMORIAL READING AT THE BITTER END

Who: Penny Arcade, Kat Georges, Peter Carlaftes, Jennifer Blowdryer, Puma Perl, Frank Messina, Michael Puzzo, Danny Shot, Richard Vetere, George Wallace, more
What: Annual tribute to Charles Bukowski
Where: The Bitter End, 147 Bleecker St. between Thompson & La Guardia
When: Friday, August 14, $10, 6:00
Why: “What sort of cultural hangover keeps Charles Bukowski in print and popular more than twenty years after his death?” S. A. Griffin asks in his Three Rooms Press essay “Charles Bukowski: Dean of Another Academy.” “In light of the fact that a good portion of what has been published since his passing in 1994 may not be the man’s best work, along with some heavy editing at times, why does Charles Bukowski remain relevant well into the 21st century?”

The nineteenth annual Charles Bukowski Memorial Reading takes place August 14 at 6:00 at the Bitter End in Greenwich Village in honor of what would have been the 106th birthday of the author of such books as Pulp, Factotum, Post Office, On Cats, and Love Is a Dog from Hell, with tribute readings by performance artist Penny Arcade, musician and storyteller Jennifer Blowdryer, poets Frank Messina, Puma Perl, Danny Shot, and George Wallace, and playwrights Richard Vetere and Michael Puzzo, hosted by Kat Georges and Peter Carlaftes of Three Rooms Press. Bukowski, who died in 1994 at the age of seventy-three, will be celebrated through poetry, oral history, rare videos, and live performances, with a special look at what he might have thought about the world’s first trillionaire, the decline of alcohol consumption, AI, the demise of the US Post Office, and other contemporary issues.

“It began as a mistake,” Bukowski writes at the beginning of his 1971 novel, Post Office. Where it goes from there will have you thinking twice about your mailman.

As a bonus, various prizes, including books and recordings, will be given away at this always welcome literary event.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

MOOMIN AND GROOVIN AT THE NYBG

“Summer of Moomin” continues at New York Botanical Garden through September 13 (photo by Marlon Co. / courtesy the New York Botanical Garden)

SUMMER OF MOOMIN
The New York Botanical Garden
Everett Children’s Adventure Garden
2900 Southern Blvd., Bronx
August 8-9, noon – 5:30, $17 children two to twelve, $35 students and seniors, $39 adults
Exhibit on view through September 13
www.nybg.org

The New York Botanical Garden’s “Summer of Moomin” has a special Moomin’s Day Weekend planned for August 8 and 9, two days of culinary adventures, cooking demonstrations, planting, maker stations, and more in the Edible Academy.

Begun in 1945 by Finnish painter, author, and illustrator Tove Jansson, the Moomin books, comic strips, stage productions, animated television series, and movies share the tales of such beloved characters as Moomintroll, Snufkin, Snorkmaiden, Hemulen, Moominpappa, Moominmamma, and Little My, all of whom you can find along a winding trail through Moominvalley in the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden filled with quotes, toys, plants and flowers, a tent, book excerpts, crafts, a kitchen, interactive elements, a puppet theater, and other fun surprises. There is also a booklet with games and activities and details about the world of Moomin.

“The stories offer a very happy and peaceful way to deal with some very complex issues of life and living and being together in a way that we don’t even notice, but we’re learning,” Tove’s niece Sophia Jansson said at the opening of the exhibit. “But Tove had some very important core values that were all about tolerance, friendship, and respect for nature.”

While at the NYBG, don’t miss the colorful, wide-ranging “Flower Power” exhibition, celebrating peace and love in the 1960s with paintings, photographs, music, drum circles, craft workshops, ornately designed VW buses, psychedelic nature displays, archival news reports, sound baths, and film screenings.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

CREATIVE RESET FOR THE MIND, BODY, AND SPIRIT: NARRATIVE HEALING AT THE COFFEE HOUSE WITH LISA WEINERT

Lisa Weinert brings her Narrative Healing program to the Coffee House on August 5 (photo courtesy Lisa Weinert)

CREATIVE RESET: AN INTERACTIVE LITERARY & CREATIVE GATHERING
Coffee House Club at the Salmagundi CLub
47 Fifth Ave. between Eleventh & Twelfth Sts.
Wednesday, August 5, $75-$150 (includes signed book),6:00
www.thecoffeehouseclub.com
www.lisaweinert.com

“Most writing books, journaling courses, and creative writing programs begin by putting the pen to the page. At Narrative Healing, we begin with the body,” native New Yorker Lisa Weinert explains in the introduction to her 2023 book, Narrative Healing: Awaken the Power of Your Story. “We offer a new paradigm for healing from trauma, tapping into creativity, and sharing our stories in the world. The premise here is simple: as we are able to better know our own stories, we are better able to take in the humanity of those around us. My hope is that if we start to listen to the body when it whispers, we won’t have to wait for it to scream to hear what it has to say. And we will thus have the capacity to listen to others too.”

A licensed social worker, certified yoga teacher, book coach, and public speaker, Weinert founded Narrative Healing in 2016, guided by her belief in storytelling as a form of medicine for the body, mind, and spirit. She has since led writing retreats and workshops in the United States and abroad, welcoming writers from around the world. On August 5, she returns to her hometown for her first Narrative Healing event in New York City in several years: “Creative Reset: An Interactive Literary and Creative Gathering.”

“I’m so honored to bring Narrative Healing to the historic Salmagundi Club for a special evening presented by the Coffee House,” Weinert told twi-ny. “After spending the past few years completing my MSW and exploring the healing power of storytelling through a social work lens, I’m so happy to be returning to New York’s literary community. It feels like such a gift to come together in person and create a space where we can slow down, listen within, write, and connect through our stories. I’m so grateful to [Coffee House executive director] Julian Tepper for presenting the evening and to [Salmagundi interim executive director] Paul Morris for welcoming us into this extraordinary space.”

The event will feature guided writing and reflection prompts, mindfulness and embodied awareness practices, brief paired and group conversations, live piano and atmospheric music, and a quiet space for private writing, sketching, reflection, and listening. Attendees don’t need any prior experience with such disciplines in order to participate, and everyone is encouraged to proceed at their own pace.

“This partnership reflects the Coffee House Club’s commitment to creating spaces where creativity, thoughtful conversation, and artistic community can flourish,” Tepper told twi-ny. “We’re delighted to partner with Lisa Weinert because her vision of creativity as a practice of reflection, connection, and community beautifully aligns with the club’s own literary and artistic tradition.”

The Coffee House’s history dates back to 1915, when Vanity Fair editor Frank Crowninshield helped form the Foes of Finance, a collective of New Yorkers from intellectual, artistic, literary, and theatrical circles whose constitution declared: “No Officers. No Charge Accounts. No Liveries. No Tips. No Set Speeches. NO RULES.” The Salmagundi Club was founded in 1871 by a group of artists and patrons.

Tickets for “Creative Reset” range from $75 (community) to $125 (standard) and $150 (supporter), each including a signed copy of Narrative Healing: Awaken the Power of Your Story.

As I noted in a September 2023 twi-ny talk, “Weinert exudes a natural warmth and charm, building communities of friends and colleagues who mingle and then form bonds and relationships of their own.”

You can expect the same thing to happen August 5 at the Coffee House Club.

[Lisa Weinert also writes the Substack “The Writing Body.” Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; visit his Substack here to find out how you can win a free copy of Narrative Healing.]

A LESS-THAN-GLEEFUL POSTMORTEM: CELEBRITY AUTOBIOGRAPHY ON BROADWAY

Andrea Martin was one of many celebrity guests reading about other celebrities in Celebrity Autobiography (photo by Evan Zimmerman)

CELEBRITY AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Shubert Theatre
225 West Forty-Fourth St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave
Closed June 21, $49-$329
celebrityautobiography.com

The trouble was obvious from the start. Eugene Pack’s Celebrity Autobiography made its Broadway debut at the Shubert on May 18; when I saw it on June 1, the audience was so sparse that they roped off the mezzanine and moved everyone down to the orchestra; still, there were plenty of empty seats. Scheduled to run through August 16, the show closed early, after the June 21 performance.

Which is a shame, because it was a lot of fun, with great rotating casts and a ton of laughs. But perhaps its eyes were bigger than its stomach.

Since 1998, Celebrity Autobiography has been a hit in cities around the world, packing them in at clubs from New York and Los Angeles to London and Sydney. For its Broadway run, it announced an enticing list of stars who would participate in the show’s novel structure, which is neither drama nor comedy and nearer to stand-up. A row of celebrities stand at mics, reading excerpts from the memoirs of other celebrities, with their tongues either firmly placed in their cheeks or attacking the often mind-boggling prose with virtuoso gusto.

Perhaps in our celebrity-obsessed, social-media-dependent culture, it was too much, too mean-spirited. Certainly, the top ticket price of $329 was exorbitant wishful thinking, but it was well worth the $49 for the cheap seats.

I caught a lovely group of actors having an infectiously fabulous time onstage, even when the histrionics did get excessive. Ralph Macchio kicked things off with David Hasselhoff’s Don’t Hassel the Hoff, allowing time for the audience to burst out in gleeful guffaws. Robert Sean Leonard cast sly glances about as he read from Ryan Seacrest and Geraldo Rivera. Mario Cantone couldn’t contain himself as he did wicked impressions while sharing passages from Carol Channing’s Just Lucky I Guess and Kathleen Turner’s Send Yourself Roses. Pamela Adlon took on Arnold Schwarzenegger and Oprah. Gina Gershon channeled Celine Dion and Cher. Nia Vardalos brought down the house with her interpretation of Khloe Kardashian.

The most hilarious mashup was the back and forth between Macchio/Justin Bieber and Andrea Martin/Kylie Jenner discussing Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. The sports section was highlighted by Pack reading from Tiger Woods’s How I Play Golf, which sounded more like a sex manual. Dayle Reyfel, who developed the show with Pack in the late 1990s and directed the Broadway edition with him, brings us Dolly Parton’s thoughts.

Adding in the poetry of Matthew McConaughey and Suzanne Somers didn’t fit and in the latter case was particularly cruel. A segment dedicated to Debbie Reynolds, Eddie Fisher, Elizabeth Taylor, and Richard Burton was a dishy delight but couldn’t possibly appeal to younger audiences.

Was that enough to kill off the Broadway run? Not in my opinion, as most of the ninety minutes were filled with a plethora of humor, helping us forget about the horrors occurring outside in the real world, far beyond star culture.

Among the others who got to appear in the show before its shuttering were Brooke Adams, Lewis Black, Matthew Broderick, Danny Burstein, Katie Couric, Christopher Jackson, Eric McCormack, Ray Romano, Phil Rosenthal, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Tony Shalhoub, Keenan Thompson, and Rita Wilson; those waiting in the wings included Jason Alexander, Christie Brinkley, Bob Costas, Griffin Dunne, Susan Lucci, Billy Porter, and Tiler Peck.

In 2009, Celebrity Autobiography won a Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience; it is still a unique theatrical experience, though maybe not unique enough for 2026 audiences.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

TICKET ALERT: LITTLE ISLAND SUMMER SEASON 2026

Concrete tulip pillars welcome visitors to Little Island, which just announced its summer performance season (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

LITTLE ISLAND SUMMER SHOWS
The Amph at Little Island
Pier 55, Hudson River Park at West Thirteenth St.
July 29 – September 6, $15-$25 unless otherwise noted, 8:30
littleisland.org

In 2015, Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg cemented their local legacy by donating $113 million to Little Island, a lovely paradise built on the remnants of a ramshackle pier at West Thirteenth St.

Little Island is a warm and welcoming oasis rising more than 60 feet above the Hudson River; it is shaped like a large leaf, bursting with more than 350 species of flowers, trees, and shrubs, a 687-seat amphitheater for live performances known as the Amph, the Play Ground plaza where you can get food and drink, and stage and lawn space called the Glade. More than 66,000 bulbs and 114 trees were initially planted, taking into account the changing seasons and even the differences in light between morning, afternoon, and night. It all sits upon 132 concrete pillars of varying heights that resemble high heels or slightly warped tulip Champagne glasses.

Lovers of the live arts have been waiting impatiently for the announcement of Little Island’s summer schedule, and at last it is here. There are only seven presentations, so it’s not nearly as expansive as previous years, but you better act quickly, because tickets are only $15-$25 (and free for the Summer Legacy Ball). Below is the full schedule.

Wednesday, July 29
Thursday, July 30
Friday, July 31
Justin Vivian Bond: Summer’s Eve, with Justin Vivian Bond, Bernice “Boom Boom” Brooks on drums, Nath Ann Carrera on guitar, Claudia Chopek on violin, Mike Jackson on bass, and Matt Ray on piano

Saturday, August 1
Summer Legacy Ball, hosted by Qween Jean, with honorees Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, Boom Boom Balenciaga, Kiara St. James, and Brenda Continental Milan Soulja, preachers Samora Pinderhughes and Dr. Jehbreal Jackson, MCs Julz Romell and Thunda, performer Haus of Telfar, panelists Luna Luis, Tracey Africa Norman, and Mother Pandora West, ball DJ Blaize, and afterparty DJ DANIRO, free

Wednesday, August 5
through
Sunday, August 9
Anthony Roth Costanzo: Minimalism, with countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo and different formations of Sandbox Percussion, Bryan Wagorn or Vicky Chow on piano, PUBLIQuartet, and mezzo-soprano Rachael Wilson

Wednesday, August 12
through
Sunday, August 16
Cécile McLorin Salvant: Tin Pan Alley, with different lineups including vocalists Lillias White, Cécile McLorin Salvant, and Mikaela Bennett, Billy Stritch on piano, Kyle Poole or Buddy Williams on drums, George Coleman on sax, Sullivan Fortner on piano, and Paul Sikivie on bass

Wednesday, August 19
through
Sunday, August 23
Louis Cato: The Harlem Renaissance, with bandleader Louis Cato on guitar, vocalist Catherine Russell, Louis Fouché on alto sax, Alphonso Horne on trumpet, Philip Kuehn on bass, Jeffrey Miller on trombone, Tivon Pennicott on tenor sax, Mathis Picard on piano, and Evan Sherman on drums, featuring recorded interviews with Ron Carter, Catherine Russell, and others

Saturday, August 29
and
Sunday, August 30
Julio Torres & Martine Gutierrez: Marina, conceived by Julio Torres & Martine Gutierrez, written and directed by Julio Torres, composed by Lia Ouyand Rusli, choreographed by Ryan McNamara, and starring Martine Gutierrez, River L. Ramirez, Spike Einbinder, Brandon Flynn, Scully James, and more, commissioned for the Whitney Biennial

Wednesday, September 2
through
Sunday, September 6
Thomas Bartlett: Allen Ginsberg at 100, with various configurations including curator Thomas Bartlett on piano, consultant Laurie Anderson, poet Anne Waldman, Oren Bloedow on guitar, Jason Burger on drums, vocalists Jennifer Charles and Davóne Tines, Spencer Murphy on bass, and Douglas Wieselman on sax, featuring special guests Rufus Wainwright on September 2, Bill Frisell on September 3, and others to be announced

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

COPLAND & TWAIN, COPELAND & COREA, DUNBAR & HUGHES, AND MORE: CELEBRATING AMERICA’S 250th IN CHELSEA

Pianist Min Kwon reimagines “America the Beautiful” at Chelsea Music Festival

CHELSEA MUSIC FESTIVAL: EVERY STORY COUNTS
St. Paul’s German Church and other venues
June 20-27, $65-$150, season pass $500
chelseamusicfestival.org

“This season, our theme, ‘Every Story Counts,’ draws inspiration from the phrase ‘Every Vote Counts,’ where each person’s vote is dignified and counted in a democracy,” 2026 Chelsea Music Festival artistic directors Melinda Lee Masur and Ken-David Masur said in a statement. “This summer, we celebrate the power of music and storytelling to preserve and elevate the voices of people from all walks of life in America. As we contemplate America’s 250th anniversary, we welcome the voices of composers, musicians, artists, chefs, and creators who contribute to the cultural fabric of this country and strive to elevate our shared humanity. Our hope is to continue providing a stage and safe haven for the exchange of ideas and differences, and a fertile ground for artistic collaborations between the performing, visual, and culinary arts.”

The seventeenth annual event, running June 20–27, consists of nine special presentations, with seventeen New York premieres and two world premieres; tickets for some are near capacity or already sold out, so you better hurry if you want to be part of this year’s fest.

Invitation to Love — Opening Night with Clara Osowski
St. Paul’s German Church
315 West Twenty-Second St.
Saturday, June 20, $85, 7:00
chelseamusicfestival.org

Mezzo-soprano Clara Osowski and pianists Dimitri Dover and Melinda Lee Masur lead a six-piece ensemble in an evening of works that explore the American immigrant experience and the poetry of Langston Hughes and Paul Laurence Dunbar, comprising Mark Carlson’s Stars — The Dream Keeper, Aaron Copland’s Three Old American Songs, Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Three Songs, Libby Larsen’s This Unbearable Stillness: Songs from the Balcony, Reinaldo Moya’s DREAM Songs, Frederick Piket’s The Dream Keeper, Damien Sneed’s All Night, All Day and I Dream A World, and Steven Ward’s Invitation to Love.

Mark Twain–inspired Southern Sunday Brunch
City Winery Bistro
25 Eleventh Ave.
Sunday, June 21, $100, 12:30
chelseamusicfestival.org

Food and drink aren’t the only things on the menu at this City Winery brunch with Melinda Lee Masur and Ken-David Masur, joined by director, writer, and producer Bill Barclay for a talk about the making of Copland & Twain (see below), along with music by violinists Yuyu Ikeda and Carlos Rafael Martinez Arroyo. Oh, yes, there is food and drink as well; the menu features buttermilk biscuits, buttermilk fried chicken and waffle, farm egg scramble, Saratoga potatoes, heirloom tomato, and warm apple pie.

America/Beautiful
St. Paul’s German Church
315 West Twenty-Second St.
Monday, June 22, $65, 7:00
chelseamusicfestival.org

During the pandemic, pianist Min Kwon initiated her America/Beautiful project, in which she asked more than seventy composers around the country, “What is America — is it beautiful, was it ever, or will it ever be?” Some of the results will be heard when she teams up with pianists Timo Andres, Chaihun Kim, and Jorges Tabarés and violinist Claire Bourg to perform America-themed works by Stewart Copeland, Vijay Iyer, Nico Muhly, and others, accompanied by landscape photography by Park Joon.

Verona Quartet at Poets House
Poets House
10 River Terr.
Tuesday, June 23, pay-what-you-wish, 7:00
chelseamusicfestival.org

The Verona Quartet — Jonathan Ong and Dorothy Ro on violin, Abigail Rojansky on viola, and Jonathan Dormand on cello — perform Philip Glass’s String Quartet No. 2 “Company,” George Walker’s Lyric for String Quartet, Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate’s MoonStrike, and arranger Peter Myers’s Twenties Tunes Jazz Suite, with narration by Byron Singleton and poetry from Wayne Koestenbaum, followed by a wine reception.

American Street Food Stories with Chef Hinnerk von Bargen
St. Paul’s German Church
315 West Twenty-Second St.
Wednesday, June 24, $75, 7:00
chelseamusicfestival.org

CIA professor and Street Foods author Hinnerk von Bargen hosts an evening of culinary delights from street food stalls, including sloopy bun, curry wurst, cold Sichuan-style sesame noodles, and fruit sandos.

Aaron Copland and Mark Twain join forces in unique theatrical concert

Copland & Twain — A Theatrical Concert
Open Jar Studios
1601 Broadway, floor 11
Thursday, June 25, $150, 7:00
chelseamusicfestival.org

One of the highlights of the festival is Bill Barclay’s Copland & Twain — A Theatrical Concert, a genius pairing of Brooklyn-born composer Aaron Copland and Missouri-born humorist Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain. Their lives barely overlapped — Copland was nine when Twain died in 1910 at the age of seventy-four — but writer-director Barclay and Concert Theatre Works have produced an evening that brings together Copland’s Music for the Movies and Music for the Theater and Twain’s Diaries of Adam and Eve, performed by the Festival Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Ken-David Masur, and actors Caleb Mayo, Chloe McFarlane, Maurice Emanuel Parent, Robert Walsh, and Carson Elrod, in costumes by Arthur Oliver.

“This program began by imagining how to publicly go about celebrating America’s 250th anniversary. How could this event serve such a polarized time in our history? I have always been moved by some of the traditional American tunes and hymns, but the state of our country called for something else, something I couldn’t quite identify at first,” Barclay explains. “I now realize that for some reason or other, I wanted to laugh. I wanted to release energy, not summon it. I wanted the community of joy, not the burden of politics. And it seemed that avoiding politics entirely was ignoring the elephant in the room. A symphony audience today may be one of the last public spaces of American life that is truly politically heterogeneous. Classical music plays to Republicans, Democrats, and Independents alike. This prompts a follow-up question: Is there a way we can laugh about ourselves without excluding people?”

Shelters in the Desert — An Evening with Vu, León, Susman, Smirnóv, Hernández
St. Paul’s German Church
315 West Twenty-Second St.
Friday, June 26, $85, 7:00
chelseamusicfestival.org

Water, memory, and transformation are the underlying themes of Shelters in the Desert, in which the Festival Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Ken-David Masur, plays Ania Vu’s Water Realms, Tania León’s Esencia — I. Agua de Florida for strings, Grigóry Smirnóv’s Impromptu, J. E. Hernández’s Desert Shelter, and William Susman’s Clouds and Flames, the last piece inspired by Philippe Petit’s 1974 tightrope walk between the Twin Towers; a reception follows.

Family Event: Every Storybook Counts
St. Paul’s German Church
315 West Twenty-Second St.
Saturday, June 27, free with RSVP, 10:30 am
chelseamusicfestival.org

American composers are celebrated in this interactive family-friendly morning with Paul Collins, the creator of the Unbannable Library.

Jazz Finale: Warren Wolf plays Chick Corea
St. Paul’s German Church
315 West Twenty-Second St.
Saturday, June 27, $85, 7:00
chelseamusicfestival.org

The 2026 Chelsea Music Festival concludes with a jazz finale celebrating the life and career of multi-instrumentalist legend Chick Corea, who died in 2021 at the age of seventy-nine. Vibraphonist Warren Wolf and pianist Alex Brown, joined by the Ivalas Quartet (violinists Tiani Butts and Reuben Kebede, violist Marcus Stevenson, cellist Pedro Sanchez), will perform Brown’s The Old Line and the New York premiere of Corea’s Lyric Suite for Sextet, with a reception to follow.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

AN APPETIZING TALK & LUNCH: RUSS & DAUGHTERS AT THE COFFEE HOUSE CLUB

Who: Niki Russ Federman, Josh Russ Tupper, Joshua David Stein, Reggie Nadelson
What: Russ & Daughters: 100 Years of Appetizing, a Conversation
Where: The Coffee House Club at the National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South
When: Friday, May 8, $85, 11:30 am
Why: In 1904, Polish Jewish immigrant Joel Russ started selling herring from a pushcart on the Lower East Side. Ten years later, he opened an appetizing shop on Orchard St., moved to Houston St. in 1920, and renamed it Russ & Daughters in 1933, after his children Hattie, Ida, and Anne. Today it is a thriving business with multiple locations, run by fourth-generation owners and cousins Niki Russ Federman and Josh Russ Tupper. In September 2025, they published Russ & Daughters: 100 Years of Appetizing (Flatiron, $39.99), featuring recipes for such delicacies as smoked whitefish chowder, hot borscht, herring sauces, chopped liver, the Super Heebster bagel sandwich (my favorite), noodle kugel, egg creams, and many more delights.

On May 8, Federman and Tupper will be joined by Brooklyn-based author and journalist Joshua David Stein and author and filmmaker Reggie Nadelson for “Russ & Daughters: 100 Years of Appetizing, a Conversation,” a book talk, signing, Q&A, and three-course prix-fixe lunch hosted by the Coffee House Club at the National Arts Club. Tickets are $85; the intimate event for a limited number of guests is scheduled to conclude at 2:00.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]