this week in literature

ASIA IN AMERICA

LAW & ORDER: SVU’s BD Wong will star in new musical as part of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

Asia Society (unless otherwise noted)
725 Park Ave. at 70th St.
May 21-29, $15-$30
212-517-asia
www.asiasociety.org

The Asia Society’s celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month continues on May 21 as the Balinese music and dance ensemble Gamelan Dharma Swara will present a preview of their fall tour, preceded by a lecture about the engaging art form ($20, 7:00). From May 24 to 26, BD Wong will star as a fortune hunter in the new musical HEADING EAST, with music by Leon Ko and lyrics by Robert Lee ($30, 8:00). On May 26, Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh, author of the new book DELIVERING HAPPINESS: A PATH TO PROFITS, PASSION, AND PURPOSE, will discuss his life and career ($15, 6:30). The inventive dance team of Eiko and Koma will perform “Retrospective Project I: Regeneration” May 27-29 at Danspace Project, with each evening followed by a Q&A with guest speakers ($18, 8:00). And today is the last day to check out the AsiaStore Asian American Designer Series, with special appearances by Rita Chung and Rose Ajmera.

THEATRE FOR ONE

Artistic director Christine Jones welcomes adventurous theatergoers into brand-new Times Square venue (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Duffy Square, 46th St. & Broadway
Through May 23, 1:00 – 3:00, 4:00 – 6:00, 7:00 – 9:00
Admission: free (donations accepted)
www.theatreforone.com
online slide show

Broadway still getting you down with all the crowds and soaring ticket prices? Christine Jones is offering a unique escape from the madness and maelstrom: Through May 23, the Tony-nominated set designer of such hits as AMERICAN IDIOT, EVERYDAY RAPTURE, and SPRING AWAKENING has brought Theatre for One to Duffy Square, a converted rock-and-roll road box that offers free, private performances that hearken back to Times Square’s days as peep show central while also calling to mind a confessional. Designed by Ada Tolla, Giuseppe Lignano, and Baptiste Thevenon of LOT-EK, the box has just enough room for one performer and one visitor, with no barrier between them. Every day from 1:00 to 3:00, 4:00 to 6:00, and 7:00 to 9:00, individuals can watch a private show just for them; performers include poets, puppeteers, singers, actors, dancers, magicians, comedians, and others, putting on a show that lasts between five and ten minutes. You don’t get to choose what you see; while some days might feature one type of performer, it’s usually a random, rotating collection, so be ready for anything. The wait has been reasonable so far, so get on line before everyone else finds out about this extremely creative, intimate experience.

TWI-NY TALK: JOSH WILKER

Josh Wilker has been experiencing breakout success with CARDBOARD GODS (photo by Abby Theuring)

CARDBOARD GODS by Josh Wilker (Seven Footer Press, April 2010, $24.95)
Thursday, May 13, Nike Store, 255 Elizabeth St., with bubblegum-blowing contest, 7:30
Monday, May 17, Book Revue, 313 New York Ave., Huntington, 7:00
Tuesday, May 18, Two Boots, Grand Central Terminal, 7:00
www.cardboardgods.net

Back in the 1990s, we spent many a late night at such dive bars as the International, the Idiot, and Rudy’s discussing life, literature, and sports with Josh Wilker, his older brother, Ian, and their inner circle of trusted friends. Josh has always been the most introspective of the crew, and he has now turned that penchant for self-examination into the compelling, extremely entertaining memoir CARDBOARD GODS: AN ALL-AMERICAN TALE TOLD THROUGH BASEBALL CARDS, adapted and expanded from his popular blog, which has been delighting readers since 2006.

In short chapters that begin with an image of a baseball card from his personal collection, Wilker relates his unusual, fascinating story growing up in Vermont in the 1970s with his brother, his mother, his father, and his mother’s lover, Tom, as well as his current life in Chicago with his wife, Abby. Wilker doesn’t just include such obvious Cardboard Gods as Hall of Famers Johnny Bench, Nolan Ryan, and Rickey Henderson; in fact, it is most often the lesser-known mediocrities, from Rowland Office and Rudy Meoli to Carmen Fanzone and bubblegum-blowing champion Kurt Bevacqua, that bring out the best of his natural talent, finding some aspect of the player’s history or physical appearance to tie in with his life. Wilker gets most excited when talking about his beloved Boston Red Sox, but you don’t have to be a BoSox fan, or even know a thing about baseball, to be amazed by Wilker’s impressive skills as a chronicler of the ups and, mostly, downs of daily existence.

We caught up with Wilker via e-mail as he set out on his whirlwind book tour, which brings him to New York City and Long Island this week and next and then to Fenway Park for an event with the Spaceman himself, Cardboard God Bill Lee.

twi-ny: On your blog, you have described yourself as “socially anxious” and suffering from “self-mortification.” What’s it been like for you getting out in the world, meeting and greeting strangers and fans who either already know or are about to find out so much about your personal life?

Josh Wilker: I’ve only had one reading so far, and it was pretty low-key. Not exactly the Beatles at Shea Stadium. I did get a chance to talk to a few people who had been reading the blog, and that was fun because we just ended up talking about baseball cards. The anxiety comes during the lead-up to these things. Right now I’m getting ready to go off on a road trip to do several readings, and I’m getting nervous again, just like I was in the lead-up to the first reading. It definitely helps that I have the cards themselves to hide behind. I get nervous about being in any kind of a spotlight, but the spotlight is really on my old cards, not me, and even more importantly there’s really not much of a spotlight anyway. I realized this as I was walking to my first reading with a feeling in my stomach like I was going to be stripped naked in front of a packed stadium. I kept walking by all these people who weren’t going to my reading, who had no idea about my reading. All but a fraction of the population so tiny as to be nonexistent don’t know or care one iota about my book. I find this comforting, and also depressing.

twi-ny: You’ve been doing interviews and writing pieces for dozens of websites, including espn.com, GQ, and the Huffington Post, while also working on your next book, which again will meld childhood with baseball by taking on THE BAD NEWS BEARS. What’s your writing schedule like, since you also have a full-time job?

JW: That next project you mention is actually THE BAD NEWS BEARS IN BREAKING TRAINING, not THE BAD NEWS BEARS. (The difference? More Kelly Leak.) I was supposed to have a manuscript wrapped up by now but I had to get an extension because of the other writing you mention. It’s been hectic, especially with the paying job and the unpaying job of keeping up the chatter on my blog. I get up early every morning and get to it as soon as I can pry myself away from Howard Stern, and I go until I have to run for the train to work. I still find time, heroically, to practice my religion, which is glaze-eyed laziness borne atop sitcom reruns and huge piles of pasta washed down with beer.

twi-ny: You hold nothing back when writing about your family situation in Vermont back in the ’70s as well as today. How has your family reacted to the book’s powerful honesty?

JW: Everyone has given me the thumbs-up in one way or another. They have always been very supportive of me and of attempting to be creative and expressive in general. I think various parts of the book may not be exactly pleasant for one or another family member to relive. I think that they see that they are the heroes of the book. I hope so.

twi-ny: On May 17, you’ll be appearing at the forty-sixth vernal assemblage of the Blohards, a luncheon meeting of the Benevolent and Loyal Order of Honorable Ancient Red Sox Die Hard Sufferers of New York. What goes on behind those secretive closed doors? Is there such a thing in Chicago, where you now live, or do you root for the Sox in lonely obscurity?

JW: Ha! I really don’t know much about the Blohards, but I’m looking forward to finding out. Secret handshakes and planning to make Steve Guttenberg a star (again), hopefully, capped with a keg party and Ping-Pong. As for Chicago, I mostly do my rooting alone, which suits me, but in the 2004 playoffs I did learn of a bar that transplanted Red Sox fans had started gravitating to in droves. It had always been my dream to be in a screaming crowd if the Red Sox ever finally did it, and so I went to that bar and was able to flail around in a packed room with tears in my eyes for the moment of victory. I went back to the bar for a playoff game in 2007 (not the clincher) and it had devolved into a near-empty dump with a couple of decidedly anti–Red Sox grumblers leaning over their drinks.

THE DAY EAZY-E DIED

National Black Theater
2031 Fifth Ave. between 125th St. & 126th Sts.
Tuesday, May 11, $10, 7:00
www.facebook.com/pages/The-Day-Eazy-E-Died
www.imagenation.us

In 1995, Compton rapper Eazy-E, born Eric Lynn Wright in 1963, died of AIDS at the age of thirty-one. The profound effect the influential performer, producer, and member of N.W.A had is central to James Earl Hardy’s book THE DAY EAZY-E DIED, now being turned into a film, about a young Harlem man whose life is turned inside out when Eazy-E’s illness goes public. On Tuesday, May 11, Hardy, writer-director Kirk Shannon-Butts, producer Trevite Willis, and musical genius Daniel Bernard Roumain will come together for a special multimedia screenplay reading at the National Black Theater, followed by a Q&A and reception. The evening is hosted by ImageNation, an organization that “fosters media equity, media literacy, solidarity, cross-cultural exchange and highlights the humanity of Pan-African people worldwide.”

MORE OR LESS I AM

Multiple locations
Through May 14
www.colombari.org

“I celebrate myself, and sing myself / And what I assume you shall assume, / For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” So begins Walt Whitman’s epic poem “Song of Myself,” from 1855’s revolutionary LEAVES OF GRASS. New York–based Compagnia de’ Colombari is currently traveling across the city performing their brand-new musical theater adaptation of the master work, in a production conceived and directed by Karin Coonrod and featuring an original score by violinist Colin Jacobsen and cellist Eric Jacobsen of Brooklyn Rider and guitarist Kyle Sanna and flutist Alex Sopp. Leading the cast is Obie winner Michael Potts (LENNON), Jorge Rubio, Michael Rogers, Elliot Villar, and Sarah Heltzel. The company will be at the World Financial Center on May 7, Whitman’s Long Island birthplace in West Hills on May 8, the Wadleigh School in Harlem on May 10, the Old Stone House in Brooklyn on May 11, Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem on May 12, and Grant’s Tomb on May 13 before culminating with a special ticketed show ($15) at Joe’s Pub to round out the tour.

TWI-NY TALK: CHUCK PALAHNIUK

Chuck Palahniuk will be celebrating the release of TELL-ALL at the Great Hall at the Cooper Union on May 6 (photo by Shawn Grant)

CHUCK PALAHNIUK: TELL-ALL (Doubleday, May 4, 2010, $24.95)
The Great Hall at the Cooper Union
7 East Seventh St. at Third Ave.
Thursday, May 6, $30, 6:00
www.chuckpalahniuk.net
www.strandbooks.com
www.randomhouse.com

There’s a critical moment in every Chuck Palahniuk book when readers have to decide whether to forge ahead or return it disgustedly to the shelf, perhaps never to be opened again. In such bestselling novels as FIGHT CLUB, CHOKE, HAUNTED, RANT, and PYGMY, Palahniuk describes, in great detail, gut-twisting (literally) scenes of intense, brutal sex and/or violence, often told in a complex narrative style that takes some getting used to. Stick with it and you’re rewarded with some of the most intelligent, darkest satirical writing of the last fifteen years that’s as fun as it is challenging.

His latest work, TELL-ALL, is told from the point of view of Hazie Coogan, the longtime caretaker and protector of former Hollywood starlet Katherine Kenton. It’s a wry mash-up of SUNSET BOULEVARD and THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL, with Palahniuk bold-facing a vast array of celebrity characters centered around Lillian Hellman, from George Cukor and Adolph Zukor to Christian Dior and Coco Chanel, from Rita Hayworth and Lucille Ball to Peter Lorre and Clifton Webb, and, perhaps most appropriately, famous gossip columnists Walter Winchell, Hedda Hopper, and Louella Parsons.

Palahniuk, a journalism major and former movie projectionist who splits his time between his home state of Washington and Oregon, will be making his sole New York City appearance in support of TELL-ALL on May 6 at the Great Hall at the Cooper Union, a much-anticipated event that will include Julie Halson performing selections from the book as Katherine Kenton and Hazie Coogan; tickets are $30, and all attendees get a poster and a signed hardcover. Palahniuk took a break from his schedule, which will also take him to Portsmouth, Boston, Asheville, Chicago, and other cities, to answer a few questions we had for him over e-mail.

twi-ny: Your rabid fan base, known as the Cult, has a habit of coming to your readings and signings dressed up as characters from your books, tying Christmas trees to the tops of their cars, and mimicking other elements from you stories. What do you think it is about you and your books that attract this kind of worship? When we attend readings by the likes of Paul Auster, Haruki Murakami, and Tom Robbins, things tend to be a bit more subdued, which in no way are we implying is preferable, of course.

Chuck Palahniuk: After twenty years as part of the Cacophony Society, I see that people love events which allow them to act out and participate in consensual ways. No one wants to be the lone fool, but if everyone is dressed as Santa Claus it’s safe and communal and still fun. As the person onstage I’m especially aware of being a lonely idiot so I stage book events to include games and costumes and prizes and activities, each linked to either the book I’m pimping or to the piece I’ve written specifically to read at that event. Yes, this extra effort takes me all winter to orchestrate — even at this moment, my props and prizes are already shipped to each venue, including the Cooper Union — but this structure and preparation also allows me to relax and have a good time. Once I’m traveling and bone-tired and starving I still have the assurance of my structured insanity to keep me sane.

twi-ny: Your new book, TELL-ALL, deals with Hollywood celebrity. Who are some of your favorite old-timers? Bette Davis or Joan Crawford? Clara Bow or Theda Bara? Marilyn, Mamie, or Mansfield?

CP: No one will ever be as bitter and lovely as Geraldine Fitzgerald — I’ll sit through all of WUTHERING HEIGHTS just to hear her say, “Ïf Cathy dies . . . perhaps then I might live.” That’s a guesstimate of the quote. However, I burn a perpetual candle beside a shrine to Gloria Grahame; nobody played more or better floozies and bitches. You know she was polishing Jim Stewart’s apple in IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE or why else would he give her all that money?

twi-ny: Your only New York City appearance will be on May 6 at the Great Hall of the Cooper Union, where presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln gave one of his most memorable speeches, 150 years ago this past February. How do you think Lincoln would do if he were to run in 2012? How do you think he might respond to TELL-ALL and Julie Halston?

CP: Now you’ve lost me — you’re SUCH a name-dropper! I have no idea who Julie Halston is. Or Abraham Lincoln, I can’t even find him on IMDB. Are you referring to the character on the old MOD SQUAD? Wasn’t Peggy Lipton cool . . . sigh.

twi-ny: In your introduction to David Mack’s KABUKI: THE ALCHEMY, you write, “Art is the lie that tells the truth better than the truth. . . . [David Mack builds] a metaphor that allows people to see and explore their own experience.” The same can be said for your writing, which is also very visual and cinematic. Do you have any interest in perhaps collaborating with an artist such as David Mack, or writing a graphic novel or comic book? Your website features Kissgzs’s adaptations of INVISIBLE MONSTERS and LULLABY; might there be more of those in the future?

CP: Frankly, I won’t rule out anything except suicide.

EVENING LECTURES AT THE JEWISH MUSEUM

David Goldblatt, detail, “The farmer’s son with his nursemaid, on the farm in Heimweeberg, near Nietverdiend in the Marico Bushveld. Transvaal (North-West Province),” silver gelatin print, 1964


IN CONVERSATION: DAVID GOLDBLATT AND JOSEPH LELYVELD
GIDEON SHIMONI: THE JEWISH EXPERIENCE IN APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA
Jewish Museum
1109 Fifth Ave. at 92nd St.
May 4 & 13, $15 each, 6:30
212-423-3337
www.thejewishmuseum.org

For decades, South African native David Goldblatt has been documenting the people of his home county; more than 150 of his black-and-white images are currently on view at the Jewish Museum in the exhibition “South African Photographs: David Goldblatt,” which runs through September 19. In conjunction with the show, Goldblatt will be participating in a special program on May 4, in conversation with New York Times executive editor and South Africa correspondent Joseph Lelyveld. The South African theme continues on May 13 when author Gideon Shimoni presents the lecture “The Jewish Experience in Apartheid South Africa.” And on May 17, Richard Turnbull’s Daytime Lecture Series will look at “David Goldblatt and the South African Condition,” part of the series “Conscience and the Camera: The Rise of Social Documentary Photography.” (Also through September 19, the museum is screening four films by William Kentridge in “South Africa Projections.”)