Compiled by Bill Marx

In the age of COVID-19, Arts Fuse critics have come up with a guide to film, dance, visual art, theater, and music — mostly available by streaming — for the coming weeks. More offerings will be added as they come in.

Film

BOSTON PALESTINE FILM FESTIVAL
October 16 -25

The BPFF features compelling and thought-provoking Palestine-related cinema including documentaries, features, rare early works, video art pieces, and new films by emerging artists and youth. These works from directors around the world offer refreshingly honest, self-described, and independent views of Palestine and its history, culture, and geographically dispersed society. On October 16 at 6pm, all films become available for streaming and remain for the entire 10 days.  Complete on-line schedule

THE BOSTON ASIAN AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL
October 21 – 25

The Boston Asian American Film Festival is New England’s Largest Asian American Film Festival, empowering Asian Americans and showcasing Asian American experiences. The now completely virtual screenings include  over 50 short films, feature films, documentaries, and panels while supporting your local Asian American Community! Feature Film Schedule  Short Film Programs

THE 32ND ANNUAL BOSTON JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL
November 4 – 15

This always robust festival is now a Streaming Cinematheque and will present film premieres, past Festival favorites, conversations with actors, filmmakers, and surprise guests, unique opportunities for interactive audience participation, and many guest speakers. All Event Schedule     Online Film Schedule Online Film Schedule

KINO NOW HALLOWEEN TREATS
Currently Available

Kino brings you an amazing selection of Euro Horror classics. Among the selections are three masters of the macabre. These horror auteurs each brought a unique approach to the genre that transformed it in new directions. Bava’s colorful, lurid tales of terror have been cited as an influence on everyone from Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola to Quentin Tarantino and Tim Burton. Rollin’s dark, dreamlike fantasies pioneered the erotic vampire genre and Franco’s uncompromising exploitation films had a major impact on slasher movies to follow. Each film is linked separately:

Mario Bava (Kill Baby … Kill /  Black Sunday)
Jean Rollin (Fascination / Iron Rose)
Jess Franco (Female Vampire /   The Awful Dr. Orloff)..

LOCAL THEATER RECOMMENDATIONS

WHITE RIOT
Brattle Theater Virtual Theater

Rubika Shah’s award-winning film charts a vital national protest movement. Rock Against Racism (RAR) was formed in 1976. White Riot blends fresh interviews with queasy archive footage to recreate a hostile environment of anti-immigrant hysteria and National Front marches. As neo-Nazis recruited the nation’s youth, RAR’s multicultural punk and reggae gigs provided rallying points for resistance. Co-founder Red Saunders explains: ‘We peeled away the Union Jack to reveal the swastika’. The campaign grew from fanzine roots to 1978’s huge antifascist carnival in Victoria Park, featuring X-Ray Spex, Steel Pulse and of course The Clash, whose rock star charisma and gale-force conviction took RAR’s message to the masses. Arts Fuse review

HOSPITAL
Coolidge Corner Virtual Theater
Available November 4

As part of “Wiseman Wednesdays” the Coolidge presents Hospital, Frederick Wiseman’s fourth documentary, a riveting 90 minute examination of New York City’s Metropolitan Hospital as a symptom of larger social ills. A local treasure, Wiseman finds unpleasant truths which he looks at unflinchingly, like a young man overdosed on mescaline or interns examining the brains of a deceased patient. Unforgettable. This will be followed by followed by a conversation between Frederick Wiseman and Jesus Camp filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady.

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ONLINE PLATFORMS

VIDEO FILM ESSAYS

RECOMMENDATIONS IN BLACK CINEMA

— Tim Jackson

Martin Eden
Coolidge Corner Virtual Screening Room

I am curious about this film and so was Gerald Peary. Here is his thoughtful review for the magazine. An Italian adaptation of a 1909 novel (semi-biographical) by a very American author, Jack London, the movie “set in a provocatively unspecified moment in Italy’s history.” The publicity would have it that the story serves as the basis for “a passionate and enthralling narrative fresco in the tradition of the great Italian classics. Martin (Luca Marinelli) is a self-taught proletarian with artistic aspirations who hopes that his dreams of becoming a writer will help him rise above his station and marry a wealthy young university student (Jessica Cressy).”

— Bill Marx

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Jazz

Chucho Valdés, presented by the Celebrity Series of Boston, streaming from the New World Center in Miami, October 18 at 7 p.m. ET

“Winner of six Grammy and three Latin Grammy Awards, the Cuban pianist, composer and arranger Chucho Valdés is the most influential figure in modern Afro-Cuban jazz. In a rich career spanning sixty years, Chucho has pushed boundaries in pursuit of new expressions in Afro-Cuban music. His influence in the genre is immeasurable, his work establishing the standard by which younger generations set out to create their own. This master of Afro-Cuban jazz plays a solo concert exclusively for Celebrity Series audiences from Miami’s New World Center and includes a post-show talk with jazz writer Fernando González.”

Pianist Kevin Harris & Drummer Steve Langone. This concert will take place on October 25th at an outdoor location in Milton, MA, not far from the Blue Hills Reservation Trailside Museum. Exact location info will be shared upon purchase. All in attendance will be expected to wear face coverings throughout and maintain 6′ distance from those not in their party/household. Purchase tickets here.

“Each of these musicians have busy careers as bandleaders, in-demand sidemen, recording artists and educators, among the busiest players on the Boston jazz scene. For many years, they’ve come together as a stripped down duo to share their deep musical connection and explore new sounds together. The COVID era has been no different, as they’ve found ways to collaborate on some new recordings virtually.”

Notes 4 Votes will be broadcasted on October 25 (8:30 p.m. EST).

Notes 4 Votes “captures the spirit of the creative music community and the urgency of this moment — when voters head to the polls for what will be the most consequential election of our lifetime, with democracy itself is at risk. The concert, broadcast on Facebook, will feature a diverse roster of stars from the jazz community and beyond, and will be emceed by multi-GRAMMY Award winner Arturo O’Farrill, journalist and critic Larry Blumenfeld, and Tracy Hyter-Suffern, Executive Director of The National Jazz Museum of Harlem.”

Trio 3 & Vijay Iyer streamed live from Blue Note New York on October 30, 8 to 9 p.m.

A monster line-up that features saxophonist Oliver Lake, bassist Reggie Workman, drummer Andrew Cyrille, and pianist Vijay Iyer. These are gifted musicians who can move from the conventional to the unconventional with astonishing ease.

Charles Lloyd Ocean Trio featuring Gerald Clayton and Anthony Wilson, streaming from the Lobero Theatre’s website.The viewing window for the show will begin at 8 p.m. PST on October 23. Ticketholders will be able to view the concert using Vimeo anytime within 72 hours after the show. Those who are able to make a donation to support the live music experience at the Lobero Theatre and others venues around the country are welcome to contribute more when they purchase their tickets. Proceeds from the show will go towards supporting the Lobero Theatre and a donation will be made to NIVA, the National Independent Venue Association.

“This not entertainment, but the powerful uncorrupted expression of beauty through music. When music vibrates, the soul vibrates and touches the spirit within. The critical consensus is that at 82 saxophonist Lloyd has never sounded better. As Peter Watrous of The New York Times says, “Lloyd has come up with a strange and beautiful distillation of the American experience, part abandoned and wild, part immensely controlled and sophisticated.”

— Bill Marx

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Theater

Queer Heartache, created and performed by Kit Yan. Directed by Jessi D. Hill. Streaming at Virtually OBERON through November 27.

“Kit Yan is an award-winning, queer, trans, Asian-American poet from Hawaii. Queer Heartache is their solo slam poetry show that explores their identities, asks what queer hearts and families are made of, and interrogates the forces that constantly work to break them apart. The show is a testament to the resilience of queer love in all its forms.”

Fannie Lou Hamer: Speak On It! by Cheryl L. West. Directed by Malika Oyetimein. Streaming via the Merrimack Repertory Theater, October 23 through 26.

“This stirring story centers on civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, who dedicated her life to assuring voting was accessible and fair. Through song, speech, and resilience, Fannie’s call to action is as relevant now as it was in her time.”

The Legion Tapes, a new sci-fi theater podcast written by Erin Lerch and directed by Josh Glenn-Kayden.

Makes sense to me, given that our own meltdown has become routine. We need to spice it up with “radio broadcasts from an alien apocalypse.” The podcast features “a cast of 14 actors with Boston ties.” The project launched last week and just dropped episodes 4-6. The dystopian set-up: “Selections from an archive chronicling the world after the end. The alien Legion takes over worlds and absorbs the sentients of those worlds. They’ve assimilated eleven species so far, and humanity is next on their list. But even after the nations of the world fall, and even after being reduced to communicating solely by radio, humanity’s fighting back. ”

Anthem Created and Performed by Justice Ameer and Chrysanthemum Tran. Piano/Keyboard Simon Olsen. Pedal Looping Sweetpea Pumpkin. Vocals Andrine Pierresaint. Special Guests JULISSA EMILE, torrin a. greathouse, mae verano. Streaming via the American Repertory Theater on demand anytime through November 2.

“From praise songs to war cries to bops you can’t help but dance to, anthems have long been the heartbeat of political liberation. Featuring Rhode Island-based poets and performers Justice Ameer and Chrysanthemum Tran, Anthem explores how race and gender politics shape reality for transgender women of color.

The Boston Project Podcast

“The Boston Project is SpeakEasy Stage Company’s new works initiative, which supports the creation of new plays set in the Greater Boston area. In an effort to reach a wider audience and engage with new work even while in quarantine, the company has launched a new wing of this program – the Boston Project Podcast!” A new episode each Friday. We are up to episode 4 (I believe) of MJ Halberstadt’s The Usual Unusual, directed by Megan Sandberg-Zakian.

The action centers on a “scrappy and quaint bookstore where Boston’s LGBTQ+ community has gathered to shop, organize, and flirt since the 70s. When the store’s charismatic founder Penn announces his retirement, neurotic staff-member Charlie persuades him to pass leadership on, rather than close the store. The staff’s efforts to unite a fractured community under one banner – or simply coordinate a weekly reading night — stoke generational disputes about identity, community, and trauma, and lead to fraught and hilarious results.”

ScreenPLAY!  written and performed by The Gottabees, streamed with the support of the Puppet Showplace Theater through November 14. The show is part of group’s Try This at Home series, which aims to engage families during COVID-19 through pre-recorded videos, livestream events, and virtual interactive experiences.

“Calling all families! The intrepid artists of the Gottabees are gathering our community once again for an all-ages at-home adventure series. This super-interactive experience allows you to channel your household’s creativity into an inspiring work of participatory art. Each ScreenPLAY episode is non-stop interactive FUN, where your whole family becomes part of the story. We’ll explore movement, puppetry, theater, and the irresistible power of being ridiculous.”

Apollinaire at Home, a free online play & film script reading gathering (by video meeting), for the coming weeks.

Your chance to become part of the show — from the safety of your couch! An enterprising idea that revolves around an inclusive staged reading: viewers are invited to read the script, choose their favorite parts and, if their names are drawn, to become part of the production. You can just sit and watch if you wish. Note from the company: “No worries if you are not among the technologically gifted. We’re as new to this as you are, and there’s sure to be some glitchiness at first, but with a bit of humor and perseverance we’ll make this work!” Check the website for this week’s readings

Dream Boston Plays, a new series of short audio plays produced by the Huntington Theatre Company: By the Rude Bridge by Melinda Lopez; Overture by Kate Snodgrass; McKim by Brenda Withers: and The 54th in ’22 by Kirsten Greenidge. Seven additional titles have been added to this series of short audio plays, entitled Dream Boston. Four plays were posted in July; the next seven are now being released. They are available on the Huntington’s website, as well as on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Stitcher.

“Conceived and commissioned by the Huntington artistic department, the company asked Huntington Playwriting Fellow alumni Kirsten Greenidge, Kate Snodgrass, and Brenda Withers, and Huntington Artist-in-Residence Melinda Lopez, to imagine their favorite locations, landmarks, and friends in a future Boston, when people can once again meet and thrive in the city – a vision of a future Boston that is somewhere between dream and reality.”

“This next set of 7 plays includes works by local artists John Oluwole ADEkoje, Miranda ADEkoje, J. Sebastián Alberdi, Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro, Elle Borders, Patrick Gabridge, and John Kuntz. Each play is set at a specific local landmark with 1-3 characters, and is about 6 minutes in length. The local landmarks that serve as settings for this round of audio plays include Franklin Park, Harvard’s Memorial Church, the Harvard Art Museums, the Old State House, the Fenway nightclub Machine, Harrison Avenue, and Malcolm X Boulevard.”

Theater of War Frontline: Queens Hospital, streaming on October 29, 12 to 2 p.m., EDT

This is an excellent series. “Theater of War for Frontline Medical Providers is an innovative project that presents dramatic readings by acclaimed actors of scenes from ancient Greek plays to help nurses, doctors, EMS, first responders, administrators, and other heath care providers engage in healing, constructive discussions about the unique challenges and stressors of the COVID-19 pandemic. This event will use Sophocles’ Philoctetes and Women of Trachis to create a vocabulary for discussing themes such as personal risk, death/dying, grief, deviation from standards of care, abandonment, helplessness, and complex ethical decisions, the project aims to foster connection, community, moral resilience, and positive action.”

Insulted. Belarus(sia) by Andrei Kureichik. Streaming of a staged reading presented by Arlekin Players Theatre and Cherry Orchard Festival. October 18 at 8 p.m. in Russian via ZOOM, October 25 at 8 p.m. in Russian via ZOOM, and November 8 at 8 p.m. in English via ZOOM. Playwright Andrei Kureichik will join the reading from hiding. There will be a post-show discussion with the cast and audience.

With so many of our theaters doing so damned little to respond to the times — endangered democracy, perfidious social media, 8 million unemployed, the mega-rich becoming even richer — these online staged readings should be commended. Kureichik wrote his play right after the debacle of the Belarus election. He is a member of the Coordination Council of Belarus — a group working to lead the transition to a new government and institute free elections. Many in the troupe are now in prison: Kureichik is in hiding. For me, the reading offers Zoom’s usual theatrical drawbacks: a succession of close-ups that invite in-yer-face disconnection and bouts of overacting. I am not sure that the script is successful as multi-directional political drama — good versus evil is a settled matter — but the dramatist’s depiction of dissent’s endurance in the face of brutal tyranny is an affecting piece of witnessing. It was heartening to see it, and to hear from the courageous playwright during the post-reading discussion. It is not often a writer tells you what it is like fighting the good fight in medias res. My Arts Fuse commentary here.

Watertown Historical Moving Plays: The Charles W. Lenox Experience  by Ken Green. Directed by Michael Ofori. Presented by New Rep, through November 8. Productions will be located outside, at sites in Watertown.

New Rep has partnered with the Watertown Free Public Library and the Historical Society of Watertown to bring to you Watertown Historical Moving Plays, an immersive and educational theatrical experience that leads participants on a stroll through historical sites in the city. This one-person show explores the life of Sgt. Charles W. Lenox, a black barber who enlisted as a private in the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment — a military unit immortalized by the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial on Boston Common, and depicted in the Academy Award-winning 1989 film Glory.

Northern Stage is the first member of the League of Resident Theatres to receive approval from AEA, SDC, and USA (the three major theatrical artist unions) to perform a live, in-person production since the start of the pandemic. It’s Fine, I’m Fine by Stephanie Everett will run live on stage at the Barrette Center for the Arts in White River Junction, VT, through October 25 as part of Northern Stage’s Tiny Necessary Theater festival.

This one-woman show, written and performed by Everett, “follows Steph as she comes to grips with a painful “new normal” after four concussions ended her career as a varsity soccer player at Dartmouth. The script advocates for compassion in the face of all of our invisible struggles.”

Sacred Emily by Gertrude Stein. An online staging of the poem the Fort Point Theatre Channel.

Somehow the times seem right for Stein’s playfully sardonic absurdity. “A live streaming production of Gertrude Stein’s poem Sacred Emily, from her 1922 book Geography and Plays, adapted for Zoom meeting by Greg Kowalski and Mitchel K Ahern, artistic directors at FPTC. Featuring 16 performers, the poem will be performed sequentially, with self-actuated lighting effects.”

Sixteen performers isolated from each other, performing live.
Sixteen performers creating their own stage.
Sixteen performers managing their own broadcast technology.
Sixteen performers setting up and operating their own lighting effects.
Sixteen performers performing one of Gertrude Stein’s surrealist poems.

— Bill Marx

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Visual Art

The Museum of Fine Arts’ major show of the fall season, Writing the Future: Basquiat and the Hip Hop Generation, opens to the general public on October 18. The focus of the show is on the brief but extraordinary career of the African-American painter Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988), one of the leading and most influential artists of the late 20th century. But the show also attempts to capture the encompassing New York hip hop scene of the ’80s, perhaps the last time that an American art movement illustrated and helped define the cultural zeitgeist.

Besides Basquiat’s virtuoso canvases, with their almost overwhelming energy, talent, and ability to capture a potent moment in time, the MFA show includes his work in sculpture, drawing, video, music, and fashion and works by his street-smart contemporaries and hip-hop aesthetic friends, including Keith Haring, Lady Pink, Toxic, and Lee Quinones. The show is the “must see” exhibition of the moment.

The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center is featuring another era of American visual culture in its Figuration Never Died: New York Painterly Painting, 1950-1970, which opens October 22. The show includes ten artists, all born in the ’20s, who managed to find a middle ground between the heated, heroic gestures of Abstract Expressionism and the cool, detached surfaces of Pop Art and Color Field Painting. The selection — Robert De Niro, Sr., Lois Dodd, Jane Freilicher, Paul Georges, Grace Hartigen, Wolf Kahn, Alex Katz, Albert Kresch, Paul Resika, and Ann Tabachnick — represent a close-knit group who pursued a figural vision of art that lay just slightly out of the mainstream, a separate path that crossed near but kept apart from the better-known movements in mid-century art.

The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University has reopened to the university community but remains closed to the general public for the time being. The Museum invites on-line visitors to a regular series of virtual visits to its physical galleries. On October 22 at 3:30 pm, Muna Guvenc and Sheila Soleimani will discuss “Left Right Left Right,” a 1995 work by Annette Lemieux, that draws on classic imagery of protest movements that continue today.

All is not good news for the art world in the evolving era of COVID-19. Having just reopened to the public late last month, the Yale University Art Museum and the Yale Center for British Art have again closed their doors “in accordance with Yale University’s revised COVID-19 protocols.” The closures will remain in place “until further notice.”

— Peter Walsh

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Classical Music

While the coronavirus pandemic has caused, essentially, the early wrap-up of classical music’s 2019-20 concert season, numerous ensembles are either streaming live, no-audience performances, or opening their performance archives to the public. Below are links to some of them (local and international).

BSO at Home (new music released daily at 10 a.m. starting March 23)

Pianist Igor Levit presents daily (or nearly so) Hauskonzerte via Twitter

London Symphony Orchestra performance archive (new concerts streamed every Sunday and Thursday)

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra Digital Concert Hall, free access if you register before March 31 (voucher code: BERLINPHIL

A number of new broadcast series and streamed performances have emerged over the past few days and weeks. Below are some of the highlights.

Boston Baroque Radio: a collection of recorded performances from the ensemble’s extensive discography

BMOP Radio: showcases the exceptional and wide-ranging discography of Boston’s flagship new-music orchestra

Terezin Music Foundation: the TMF releases Yom HaShoah Concert & Memorial Film, featuring performances from Yo-Yo Ma, Andris Nelsons, Simone Dinnerstein and others. Available free on YouTube from April 19 at 12 p.m.

Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center: presents an archive of past performances as well as a livestream series

Lake George Music Festival Quarantine Concerts: live concerts on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, 7 p.m.

— Jonathan Blumhofer

Three British musicians have posted daily Tweets that invariably make my day cheerier.

Two friends, the fabulous cellist @StevenIsserlis and opera singer Matthew Rose (@roseandfriends), began a daily tweet exchange, talking (briefly) about the pieces they had chosen for us to enjoy, and then supplying us with YouTube info. This has been a delight every morning.

Jamie W. Hall, a British baritone, #JWHallBaritone, has endeared himself to me and many others with his daily #bathroberecitals, in which he accompanies himself (beautifully) on the piano. Yes, in his bathrobe. Lots of charm here and great, unexpectedly lovely songs.

The Metropolitan Opera has been presenting daily operas, a huge joy. Who knows how long this will continue, but the first three weeks have been a huge pleasure. You can log on in the early evening, before the 7:30 starting time, and finish listening to the opera the next day.

— Susan Miron

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Roots and World Music

If you want to hear some distanced outdoor live music you’re just about out of time before winter sets in, but there are a number of last-minute options. Many of the below events will also be webcast via the venue or artist’s social media feeds.

The Reggae Takeova is presenting the Bob Marley songbook performed by the Duppy Conquerors in Dorchester on October 25. Also keep checking their page for info on a dinner-concert event with JahRiffie on November 1.

Pre-Covid, the Duppys were Monday night favorites at Sally O’Brien’s in Union Square. Sally’s is open for food and drink, but a neighboring venue, Bull McCabe’s, has announced it won’t be reopening. A series of backyard benefit concerts with Bull McCabe’s usual roster of bands is just about sold out, but a tiny number of seats remain for an October 24 double header of Jen Kearney and The Dub Down Crew (The Naya Rockers featuring members of Krush Faktory).

Reggae singer/songwriter and philosopher king Greg Roy will be hosting his final backyard party in Medfield on October 24.

And if you’re not quite ready for local reggae in person, you can tune into “New England Roots Reggae” every Monday night from 9 to 11 p.m. on the nascent hyper-local internet radio station Oh Hello Boston. Host Rider McCoy, a longtime top-shelf keyboardist, is digging deep to feature cuts from New England reggae bands past and present.

The Zeiterion Theater in New Bedford is offering another batch of drive-in concerts this month. October 25’s presentation will feature the salsa and bachata of Grupo Salzon.

Global Arts Live has a mix of live and streaming concerts planned for the next few months. A very small handful of in-person tickets will be released the night of the following shows: Central Square appearances by Ezekiel’s Wheels Klezmer Band on Oct. 18 and Newpoli on Oct. 25. If you don’t want to take your chances waiting in line for tix to those shows, they will also be webcast. On October 28, the Starlight Square venue will showcase a gathering of Cambridge musicians curated by the BAMS Festival — that will also be a waitlist-only affair as far as in-person seating goes.

After a summer of successful webcasts, the Narrows Center for the Arts in Fall River is allowing in-person audiences for shows by the Garcia Project on October 30 and, later in the fall, Tom Rush and Jorma Kaukonen. They’re also continuing streaming-only performances with the likes of be-bop hero Greg Abate (November 6). Abate has an in-person date at Chan’s in Woonsocket, RI on October 24 with tickets still available.

On another jazz note, Boston pianist Brian Friedland has been hosting a series of outdoor distanced shows outside the Eliot School in Jamaica Plain. Tickets are free, though donation for the school are suggested. He’ll wrap it up playing duets with fiddle wiz Rob Flax on October 25 — as of this writing there are three tickets left.

— Noah Schaffer

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Author Readings

Pamela Sneed
Funeral Diva
October 20 at 8 p.m.
Tickets are free, $20 with copy of book

“In this collection of personal essays and poetry, acclaimed poet and performer Pamela Sneed details her coming of age in Boston and New York City during the late 1980s. Funeral Diva captures the impact of AIDS on Black Queer life, and highlights the enduring bonds between the living, the dying, and the dead. Sneed’s poems not only converse with lovers past and present, but also with her literary forebears–like James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde–whose aesthetic and thematic investments she renews for a contemporary American landscape.”

Durkhanai Ayubi
Parwana: Recipes and Stories from an Afghan Kitchen
October 21 8 p.m.
Tickets are free

“Author Durkhanai Ayubi’s parents, Zelmai and Farida Ayubi, fled Afghanistan with their young family in 1987, at the height of the Cold War. When their family-run restaurant Parwana opened its doors in Adelaide, Australia in 2009, their vision was to share an authentic piece of the Afghanistan the family had left behind, a country rich in culture, family memories infused with Afghanistan’s traditions of generosity and hospitality.

These recipes have been in the family for generations and include rice dishes, curries, meats, dumplings, Afghan pastas, sweets, drinks, chutneys and pickles, soups and breads. Some are celebratory special dishes while most are day to day dishes. Each has a story to tell.”

The Stonewall Generation:
LGBTQ Elders on Sex, Activism, and Aging
October 22 at 7 p.m.

“In The Stonewall Generation: LGBTQ Elders on Sex, Activism, and Aging, sexuality researcher Jane Fleishman shares the stories of fearless elders in the LGBTQ community who came of age around the time of the Stonewall Riots of 1969. In candid interviews, they lay bare their struggles, strengths, activism, and sexual liberation in the context of the political movements of the 1960s and 1970s and today. Each of these inspiring figures has spent a lifetime fighting for the right to live, love, and be free, facing challenges arising from their sexual orientation, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, politics, disabilities, kinkiness, non-monogamy, and other identities. These are the stories of those whose lives were changed forever by Stonewall and who in turn became agents of change themselves.”

Neil Gaiman & Marlon James
The Neil Gaiman Reader
October 26 at 4 p.m.
Tickets are $40 including a copy of the book

“Porter Square Books is pleased to bring you an opportunity to chat with Neil himself virtually, hosted in partnership with William Morrow, to celebrate the release of The Neil Gaiman Reader! Join us on Monday, 10/26 at 4pm ET to watch a prerecorded talk with Neil Gaiman and Marlon James. Neil will join the event to answer attendee questions in a live chat following the discussion broadcast. This event is ticketed, and your ticket comes with a copy of the book, which can be shipped or picked up. This event is hosted on On24 by HarperCollins, and an event code will be emailed to attendees on the day of the event.”

Roxane Gay, Tracy Lynne Oliver, Rebecca Kirby
The Sacrifice of Darkness
November 2 at 8:30 p.m.
Tickets are free with suggested donation of $5

“Roxane Gay, Tracy Lynne Oliver ,and Rebecca Kirby adapt Gay’s New York Times bestselling short story “We Are the Sacrifice of Darkness” as a full-length graphic novel, expanding an unforgettable world where a tragic event forever bathes the world in darkness. Follow one woman’s powerful journey through this new landscape as she discovers love, family, and the true light in a world seemingly robbed of any. As she challenges notions of identity, guilt, and survival she’ll find that no matter the darkness, there remains sources of hope that can pierce the veil.”

— Matt Hanson