Charles Fracchia speaks on the history of San Francisco
Event held on January 26, 2010
Audience at the Charles Fracchia speaker event
Charles Fracchia with audience members
LITQUAKE panel on:
Consciousness : Where the Mind Meets the Brain
Event held on October 13, 2009
Audience at the LITQUAKE speaker event
Booksigning with author Tamim Ansary,
on September 17, 2009
Afghani cuisine - at Tamim Ansary speaker event
Booksigning at Tamim Ansary speaker event
Authors David Mas Masumoto (Wisdom of the Last Farmer) and Novella
Carpenter (Farm City: the Education of an Urban Farmer)
at speaker event, September 9, 2009
Cuisine served at "two farmers" speaker event
Audience at the "two farmers" speaker event
Author William T. Vollmann, Imperial,
booksigning event on August 6, 2009
Audience at William T. Vollmann speaker event
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at the
Mechanics' Institute
57 Post Street, San Francisco (between
Market and Kearny Streets)
Transporation: Montgomery BART / MUNI station
Events
Program is supported in part by Mark and Lisa Pinto |
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BOX OFFICE INFORMATION ****
For RESERVATIONS BY PHONE: call the 'Events Line' at (415) 393-0100
For RESERVATIONS BY EMAIL: rsvp@milibrary.org
Reservations are held at Box Office. Arrive 15 minutes before event for seat selection. OPEN SEATING
If you are not a Mechanics’ Institute member, JOIN NOW, and attend most of our Author events and CinemaLit Film Series for FREE. Membership application and information.
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AUTHOR & LITERARY EVENTS
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Thursday,
January 14, 6:00 pm
(2nd floor Library)
A New
Literary History
of America
Panel with editor
Greil Marcus and contributing
writers including author Clark Blaise,
Professors Kathleen Moran and
Bharati Mukherjee, and film critic
David Thomson |
This provocative and unique look at
American history tells the story of American culture
and literary life through more than two hundred
essays by scholars and authors. Subjects as varied
as The Wizard of Oz, Melville’s first meeting
with Hawthorne, and Hart Crane’s long evening bull
session with Charlie Chaplin illuminate and bring
to life the inspirations that shaped our culture.
“Our charge to writers,” says editor Greil Marcus,
“was not to produce a review of the literature on
any given topic, or even necessarily to consider
it, but rather to write as if they were the first
to seriously ask what a given figure, book, film,
song, or speech meant in the life of the country."
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Greil Marcus has been a columnist for many
publications, including The New York Times,
Rolling Stone, Salon, and, currently, The
Believer. He is the author of Lipstick
Traces: The Dustbin of History (both by Harvard),
and Mystery Train and The Shape of
Things to Come.
Clark Blaise, author of Time
Lord and I Had a Father
Professor Kathleen Moran, American
Studies, University of California, Berkeley
Professor Bharati Mukherjee, author
of Holder of the World and Jasmine
; English, University of California, Berkeley
David Thomson, author of The
New Biographical Dictionary of Film, The
Whole Equation, and Try to Tell the Story
(Werner Sollers is Henry B. and
Anne M. Cabot Professor of English and Afro-American
Studies at Harvard University) |
Members Free : Public $12 |
Tuesday,
January 19, 6:00 pm
Wheels of Change: From Zero
to 600 M.P.H. - The Amazing Story of California
and the Automobile
Kevin Nelson |
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"This is a
story about cars, California, and perhaps surprisingly,
youth and the passions of the young.” So begins
the introduction to Kevin Nelson’s Wheels of
Change, a history of the automobile in California
from the horseless carriages of the 1890s to the
hot rods of the 1950s and 60s. Wheels of Change
is not just about hardware, but about the people
who loved cars and shaped California car culture,
including race car drivers like Craig Breedlove
and Barney Oldfield, film stars like Steve McQueen,
and James Dean, whose legends became permanently
entwined with cars, and “King of the Customizers”
George Barris, who helped change the look of cars
all over the world.
Kevin Nelson is author of Operation
Bullpen: The Inside Story of the Biggest Forgery
Scam in American History, and The Golden
Game: The Story of California Baseball. |
| Members
Free : Public $12
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Tuesday,
January 26, 6:00 pm
When the Water Came
up to Montgomery Street:
San Francisco during the Gold Rush
Charles Fracchia |
| Well
known local historian Charles Fracchia’s latest
book covers the years 1848 to 1859 and vividly brings
to life the roller-coaster lifestyle and landscape
that was San Francisco during the Gold Rush. This
instantaneous city that was constantly exceeding
its infrastructure, its rogues and colorful characters,
its crime and vigilance committees, is brought to
life and enhanced with some 200 illustrations, some
never before published. |
| Charles
Fracchia is a native San Franciscan who
has maintained two parallel careers: one is as
an investment advisor and the other as a teacher
and writer. Fracchia received his B.A. from the
University of San Francisco and did graduate work
at the University of San Francisco Law School,
the University of California at Berkeley, San
Francisco State University, and the Graduate Theological
Union/Berkeley. He is the department chair of
the Library and Learning Resource Centers of City
College of San Francisco and teaches at the Fromm
Institute of the University of San Francisco.
He is the author of Fire and God: The San
Francisco Story and Golden Dreams: California
from Gold Rush to Statehood to name a few.
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Free : Public $12
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Tuesday,
February 2, 6:00 pm
The Library of Alexandria
and Its Revival
Lecture by
Professor Andrew G. Jameson
Presented by Humanities West
& Mechanics’ Institute |
Most
of us have heard of the “Library of Alexandria.”
It was the eighth wonder of the world, and, popular
legend has it, was accidentally destroyed by Julius
Caesar’s troops when he conquered Egypt. But what
is the truth about this lost cultural treasure?
How did it begin? How was it used? And what is
the truth about its fate? Professor Andrew G.
Jameson will discuss these issues – and the revival
of the Bibliotheca Alexandria, whose purpose is
to restate the universal legacy of the ancient
Library in modern terms.This program at MI precedes
the symposium Alexander/Alexandria on
February 5, 6 at Herbst Theatre, SF. More information
available from
Humanities West .
Andrew G. Jameson holds a Ph.D.
in history from Harvard University and a doctorate
in history from the Sorbonne (University of Paris),
a Master of Science degree in library science
from Simmons College in Boston, and a degree in
archival management from Radcliffe College. He
retired after forty-two years of academic teaching
(Byzantine, Near Eastern, African history) and
administration at Harvard, where he was Senior
Tutor, and the University of California, Berkeley,
where he was Assistant Vice Chancellor.
Members of
MI and HW Free : Public $12 |
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Sunday,
February 7, 2:00 pm
Special Performance at the Contemporary Jewish
Museum
736 Mission Street, San Francisco
(between 3rd & 4th Streets)
Schoenberg
on Parnassus:
Schoenberg's Chess, Klee's Jewishness,
Benjamin's Obsession, and other puzzles
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In its American
premiere, London opera star Loré Lixenberg headlines
a performance adaptation of Carl Djerassi’s genre-bending
book
Four Jews on Parnassus - a Conversation,
featuring the imagined posthumous conversations
of Arnold Schoenberg, Walter Benjamin, Gershom Scholem
and Theodor Adorno, as well as songs by Schoenberg,
some rap music, and the art of Paul Klee.
This production, directed by Vienna-based Isabella
Gregor, features Equity actors Gerry Hiken, Kay
Kostopolous, Rush Rehm, Ken Sonkin, and Bill Wolak.
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Co-sponsored by the
Stanford Institute for Creativity in the Arts
and the National Center for New Plays at Stanford.
Marketing partner, the Mechanics’ Institute Library
& Chess Room.
Members of MI & CJM $30.00: Public $35. For
information call (415) 655-7800
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Thursday,
February 11, 6:00 pm (3rd
floor Library)
Malcolm
Margolin
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Unfinished
Victory:
The Fight for Civil Rights
Join this important panel discussion on
civil rights from a national, state, local,
and historical perspective, moderated by
Malcolm Margolin, Publisher
of Heyday Books featuring: |
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| Wherever
There’s a Fight: How Runaway Slaves, Suffragists,
Immigrants, Strikers and Poets Shaped Civil Liberties
in California, Authors
Elaine Elinson and Stan Yogi |
| When Americans hear the term “Civil
Rights,” they generally think of the Black Civil Rights
demonstrators in the south during the ‘50s and ‘60s.
In California, the struggle for civil rights encompassed
not only the issue Black Civil Rights, but a host
of others, including Asian civil rights, the rights
of political and religious dissenters, the rights
of people with disabilities, workers rights, and gay
rights. Authors Elaine Elinson and Stan Yogi weave
together a complex history of civil liberties in California,
touching on subjects that range from California’s
pre-civil war Franchise League, a black organization
that was perhaps the first civil rights group in California,
to the framing of Labor activist Tom Mooney, to the
Korematsu case, to the Red Scare. The result is a
work guaranteed to inspire, outrage, and fascinate. |
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Elaine Elinson,
who served as the communications director of the
ACLU of Northern California and editor of the ACLU
News, is a coauthor of Development Debacle:
The World Bank in the Philippines. Her articles
have been published in the Los Angeles Daily
Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle,
The Nation, Poets and Writers, and numerous
other periodicals. She is married to journalist
Rene CiriaCruz and they have one son. |
| Stan Yogi has managed
development programs for the ACLU of Northern California
since 1997. He is the coeditor of two books, Highway
99: A Literary Journey through California's Great
Central Valley and Asian American Literature:
An Annotated Bibliography. His work has appeared
in the San Francisco Chronicle, MELUS, Los Angeles
Daily Journal, and several anthologies. He is
married to nonprofit administrator David Carroll and
lives in Oakland. |
| Marching
for Freedom: Walk Together, Children, and Don’t You
Grow Weary, Author
Elizabeth Partridge |
This latest book by author Elizabeth
Partridge focuses on the courageous children who marched
alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1965
march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama for the vote.
Through contemporary photographs and the compelling
personal accounts of people who participated, award-winning
author Elizabeth Partridge tells the day-by-day story
of the inspiring, sometimes harrowing march. Marching
for Freedom may be a book aimed at young readers,
but it will grip anyone who cares about either history
or justice.
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Elizabeth
Partridge is the award winning author of
more than a dozen books, from picture books to young
adult non-fiction to photography books. Titles written
by this San Francisco author include Restless
Spirit: The Life and Work of Dorothea Lange;
This Land was Made for You and Me; The Life
and Songs of Woody Guthrie, and the biography
John Lennon: All I want is the Truth, for
which she was awarded the ALA Michael L. Printz
Award. The author has chaired the National Book
Award committee for young people's literature, and
she is a frequent speaker at national conferences
for teachers, librarians, and writers. |
Breakthrough Communities: Sustainability and Justice in the Next American Metropolis,
Edited by M. Paloma Pavel; Foreword by Carl Anthony
This book describes current efforts to create sustainable communities with attention to the "triple bottom line"—economy, environment, and equity—and argues that these three interests are mutually reinforcing.
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SPECIAL GUEST,
CARL ANTHONY is the founder and, for twelve years,
the executive director of the Urban Habitat Program,
one of the oldest environmental justice organizations
in the country. Until recently he was a Ford Foundation
program officer in the Community and Resource Development
unit. He is currently a Visiting Scholar/Ford Foundation
Senior Fellow in the Department of Geography at
the University of California Berkeley.
The mission of Urban Habitat is to promote multicultural
urban environmental leadership for sustainable,
socially just communities in the San Francisco Bay
Area. With a colleague, Luke Cole at the California
Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, he published
and edited the Race, Poverty and Environment Journal,
the only environmental justice periodical in the
country. |
Members Free : Public $12
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Thursday,
February 18, 6:00 pm
Trotsky: Downfall of a Revolutionary
Bertrand
M. Patenaude |
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The dark, and tumultuous
last days of revolutionary Leon Trotsky are examined
in Bertrand M. Patenaude’s compelling biography.
Exiled in the wake of the revolution for which he’d
fought, Trotsky spent the final years of his life
in Mexico hiding out from Stalin’s secret police.
Patenaude’s book focuses on those years, while occasionally
flashing back to Trotsky’s youth, his career as
a Bolshevist leader, and his ultimately fatal estrangement
from Stalin.
Bertrand M. Patenaude is a lecturer
at Stanford University, where he is a research fellow
at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives.
He is the author of The Big Show in Bololand:
The American Relief Expedition to Soviet Russia
in the Famine of 1921, which won the 2003 Marshall
Shulman Book Prize. |
| Members
Free : Public $12
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Tuesday,
February 23, 6:00 pm
Whole Earth Discipline:
An Ecopragmatist Manifesto
Stewart Brand,
in conversation with Nils Gilman,
consultant with Monitor 360 |
| “Greens are no longer strictly the
defenders of the natural systems against the incursions
of civilization; now they’re the defenders of civilization
as well.” Stewart Brand, visionary creator of the
groundbreaking publication, Whole Earth
Catalog and co-founder of the Global
Business Network, grapples with the realities of
accelerating climate change. In his new book, he
“demands a fundamental and at times surprising shift
in the “green” perspective. Urging a more pragmatic
approach to ecology, Brand offers the following
summary: “Ecological balance is too important for
sentiment. It requires science.The health of natural
infrastructure is too compromised for passivity.
It requires engineering. What we call natural and
what we call human are inseparable. We live one
life.” |
Stewart Brand |
Nils Gilman |
Stewart
Brand’s legendary Whole Earth Catalog
(1968-1985) won the National Book Award in 1972.
His previous books include The Media Lab, How
Buildings Learn and The Clock of the Long Now.
He is president and co-founder of The Long Now Foundation
and cofounder of Global Business Network. He lives
with his wife Ryan Phelan, on a tugboat near San
Francisco.
Nils Gilman
is a consultant with Monitor 360, with a focus on
national economic development and security. He is
the author of Mandarins of the Future: Modernization
Theory in Cold War America and the forthcoming
Deviant Globalization. |
| Members
Free : Public $12
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CINEMALlT
FILM SERIES |
Michael Fox, Curator |
ABOUT CINEMALIT: Film lovers and aficionados enjoy an ongoing feast of classic
American and international films at the Mechanics' Institute.
CinemaLit programs, which are presented nine months a year,
were created to complement and highlight the Mechanics' Institute
Library's vast collection of more than 2500 videos and DVDs
including classics, drama, comedy, foreign films and documentaries.
The CinemaLit Film Series is open to members and the public.
Each program begins with an introduction of the
movie, genre and themes by curator Michael Fox or well-known
local film writers and critics such as David Thomson, Eddie
Muller, Joe McBride and others. The evening concludes with a
salon discussion involving the audience and speakers. Films
are shown on large screen in the best available format, DVD
or video.
The Mechanics' Institute's charming meeting room/cafe
space, which seats up to eighty people, provides an intimate,
informal atmosphere for film viewing, lively conversation and
congenial socializing. The cafe offers light refreshments and
freshly popped popcorn.
Location: Mechanics’ Institute,
57 Post Street (near Market St), San Francisco
Transit: MUNI/BART- Montgomery Station
Time: Every Friday. As of January, 2010, the
box office and Mechanics’ Café opens at 5:30 pm
Program begins at 6:00 pm.
A salon style discussion follows the film.
Admission: Tickets available at the door.
MIL members: free ; Public suggested donation $10
For more information and reservations: Call
(415) 393-0100 or email us
at rsvp@milibrary.org
/ Reservations are required - Limited seating |
JANUARY:
FRENCH KISSES : NOUVELLE VAGUE
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Friday, January
8
Les Bonnes Femmes (1960) 93 min.
Directed by Claude Chabrol
Starring Bernadette Lafonte, Stephane Audran
Four vibrant Parisian shop-girls harbor secret and not-too-secret
dreams.
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January 15
Paris Vu Par ... (Six in Paris)
(1965) 92 min.
Directed by Jean Rouch, Jean Douchet, Eric
Rohmer, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, and Jean-Daniel
Pollet
Starring Stephane Audran, Jean-Pierre Andreani
An eclectic anthology of short films by leading directors,
each set in a different Paris neighborhood.
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Friday, January
22
Lola
(1962) 90
min.
Special guest: Anita Monga, artistic director of the
Silent Film Festival
Directed by Jacques Demy
Starring Anouk Aimee, Marc Michel
This lovely, lyrical romantic tale, full of homages
to America and American movies, centers on a caberet
dancer in Nantes.
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Friday, January
29
The Bride Wore Black (1968)
107 min.
Directed by Francois Truffaut
Starring Jeanne Moreau, Michel Bouquet
A widow pursues revenge against her husband's murderers
in this Hitchcock homage featuring a scene by Bernard
Herrmann.
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FEBRUARY:
REEL CRIMINALS - THE HEIST
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| Friday,
February 5
The Asphalt Jungle (1950) 112
min.
Directed by John Huston
Starring Sterling Hayden, James Whitmore
From assembling the gang through pulling the job,
this hard-boiled flick laid the foundation for an
entire genre.
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February 12
The Great Train Robbery (1979)
111 min.
Directed by Michael Crichton
Starring Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland
A wily, witty threesome schemes to steal a gold shipment
from a moving train in mid-Victorian England.
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| Friday,
February 19
The Taking
of Pelham One Two Three (1974)
104 min.
Directed by Joseph Sargent
Starring Robert Shaw, Walter Matthau
A ruthless gang hijacks a subway train in gritty '70s
New York, and the tension just keeps building.
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February 26
A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
108 min.
Directed by Charles Crichton
Starring John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis
Dishonor among thieves propels this London-set caper
comedy co-starring Kevin Kline and Michael Palin.
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The Cinemalit Program is funded in part by
Ryan
Associates |
CinemaLit
Film Series - Guest Speaker Biographies |
| Michael Fox has written about film for more than 50 regional and national publications since 1987. He created and authored the “Reel World” column in SF Weekly for more than a decade, and hosted the first season of KQED-TV’s short-lived program on independent film, “Independent View.” He has sat on juries for the San Francisco International, Mill Valley, Cinequest and United Nations Association film festivals and the Independent Television Service (ITVS), and contributes notes to the San Francisco, Mill Valley and SFILGBT festival programs. He also teaches courses in documentary film at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State’s downtown campus. |
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Terrance Gelenter is a nationally syndicated film critic, lecturer and interviewer. Among his many interviewees are Billy Wilder, Sidney Lumet, James Ellroy, and Isabel Allende. He is founder of Paris through Expatriate Eyes, a firm specializing in designing and escorting literary and cultural tours of Paris. The CinemaLit title is used with permission of Terrance Gelenter. |
| Matthew Kennedy teaches anthropology at the City College of San Francisco and film history at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He is a film critic for Bright Lights Film Journal online and has written three books on classic Hollywood: Marie Dressler: A Biography, Edmund Goulding's Dark Victory, and Joan Blondell: A Life between Takes. For more information, please visit his website. |
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Eddie Muller is film-noir expert and author of Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir, Dark City Dames, and co-author of Grindhouse: The Forbidden World of Adults Only Cinema. His mystery novels include The Distance and Shadow Boxer. |
| David Thomson’s writing has appeared in Film Comment, Movieline, The New Republic and Vanity Fair. He is a regular contributor to Esquire and The New York Times. He is the author of A Biographical Dictionary of Film, Showman: The Life of David O. Selznick, Rosebud, the award winning biography of Orson Welles, Beneath Mulholland and Nevada. |
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EXHIBITS and SPECIAL PROGRAMS
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Art
Exhibit : Found Languages
Works
on Canvas by Adriana Diaz
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Adriana
Díaz is a Bay Area native with a
long exhibition history. Among her exhibition
venues are: the Mission Cultural Center, the
Bechtel Center at Stanford University, SOMAR
Arts, the Badé Museum, as well as college
and professional galleries in the Bay Area
and abroad. She has been on the faculty of
numerous colleges and universities including
John F. Kennedy University, Holy Names University,
and New College of San Francisco. She is a
long-standing member of the Women’s Caucus
for Art, and Pro Arts.
Adriana is the author of Freeing
the Creative Spirit, Drawing on the Power
of Art to Tap the Wisdom and Power Within
(HarperSan Francisco, 1992); her essays and
poetry have been published in magazines and
anthologies.
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Adriana
Díaz is also a creative force in the community.
For twenty years she’s been on the Community
Advisory Board of the Health Through Art Project,
serving last year as the Coordinator of the
Project. HTA is a non-profit that puts out
a call for art every two years, inviting young
and old to submit images and slogans that
support individual and public health. If you’ve
seen billboards that say “Stop the Violence”,
“Honor Diversity”, or “Who is responsible?”
then you have seen HTA at work. (see latest
brochure and application and
information about past winners.) In
the last year, Adriana has also begun teaching
creativity classes to Transition Age Youth
(ages 17-25, recipients of Behavioral Health
Care Services or Foster Care) for Alameda
County Behavioral Health Care through the
services of the Health and Human Research
Education Center.
Learn about Adriana’s work as a
life and leadership coach. She
is also a member of Prism
Coaching, a consortium of six
multicultural coaches who provide leadership
coaching throughout the Bay Area.
Any bio would be incomplete without mention
of Adriana’s deep passion for Argentine Tango.
In 2000, she and her partner won the U.S.
championship in Argentine Salon Style Tango.
She is a regular traveler to Buenos Aires,
the home of the Tango, and is frequently seen
dancing in the Bay Area.
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Exhibition
hours: Nov 1, 2009 to Jan 31, 2010
Monday to Friday: 10:00 am - 5:00 pm
: 4th floor Meeting Room and Hall
FREE |
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Volunteer
Opportunities:
Volunteers are needed for our Events and CinemaLit Film Series.
Call Laura Sheppard, Director of Events at (415) 393-0114
or Pamela Troy, Events Assistant/CinemaLit Coordinator at (415)
393-0116. |
Revised: January 8, 2010
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