Monthly Archives: February 2006

Impressions From Last Night’s Event with BHL

At last night’s event, Bernard-Henri Levy calmly walked out of the back room, stood in front of the audience for a few moments, soaking up the applause and advanced to the podium. He used no notes and spoke for over an hour, relating several anecdotes from memory. BHL waves his hands around a lot when he speaks, which makes his words seem more alive. He wore a very elegant black suit, with a white button down, but no cuff-links. At the end of the evening, the marketing director of my store and I were chatting, while got ready to leave. BHL approached to shake her hand, and of course, with his good manners, shook mine. I think my exact words were, “We haven’t met, but good night.” Overall, I found him to be quite a charismatic and energetic speaker.
Due to technical difficulties, it may take me a few days to get the audio of BHL up and running. I might be getting a better audio file from some other folks who were there recording. Regardless, tonight I am off to see Low play conveniently nearby my house, and I am off to Woodstock, NY tomorrow (no, not to be a hippie) for the weekend. I will try to have some reviews for early next week.

Wednesday Tidbits

I’ll be attending tonight’s event with Bernard-Henri Levy at the First Parish Church here in Harvard Square (and hopefully recording it). I’ll at least have a report, if not the entire recorded event. I have to confess that I am only one quarter of the way through the book. Meanwhile, here are some links to keep you busy for the rest of the day:

  • The Morning News has announced its list of books for the 2006 Tournament of Books. It’s an interesting if not predictable list.
  • Ed Champion has made the new Bat Segundo podcast available for your listening pleasure. This time Bat takes on Jay Ryan. I know for a fact that Mr. Segundo has many more illustrious authors in the pipeline.
  • Scott Esposito was lucky enough to attend City Arts & Lectures series a few days ago, where Lawrence Weschler spoke with Ricky Jay. Scott posted a nice recap of the evening.
  • Boldtype #28 ‘The Film Issue‘ went up today.
  • I enjoyed this article from the Guardian, where several people made a list of the must read books for children, including Philip Pullman and JK Rowling.
  • Speaking of controversy (okay, I know I wasn’t, but I couldn’t think of a good segue), I’ve refrained from commenting on the whole James Frey affair, mostly because I thought the book was crap to begin with, but I loved Scott McLemee’s article on it in Inside Higher Ed.
  • Robert Birnbaum spoke with both Bret Easton Ellis and Chip Kidd recently. Apparently Chip Kidd likes ballroom dancing. Who knew?
  • Has everyone gone and checked out the LBC’s website? It’s full of book discussions, podcasts, interviews. Hell, we’ve even got the authors blogging (I am so hoping that Rupert Thomson agrees to blog).