to move up and down
BIRD & BECKETT BOOKS
653 Chenery St in San Francisco (415)586-3733 birdbeckett.com
Home • Events • Shop • Support • Visit • Twitter • Facebook
Jack Hirschman, recent Poet Laureate of San Francisco and impassioned champion of the people, graciously shared the stage with Nicholas James Whittington last night in a poetry reading at Fort Mason. It was a triumphant night for both!
Jack curates the weekly poetry reading (Thursdays at 6:30 pm) at Readers Cafe, which is co-located with the Friends of the Library bookstore. Next up: Dimitri Charalambous and John Norton on 12/1/11. View the incredible schedule at this link.
All that we see or seem
is but a dream within a dream.
—Edgar Allan Poe
Buddhists, Beats & Beyond
A Litquake Event
at Kaleidoscope tonight at 7pm
24th Street at Folsom
Poets Jerry Ferraz, Latif Harris, Neeli Cherkovski, Walker Brents III, Julie Rogers & David Meltzer
Produced by the folks at Bird & Beckett Books!
Litquake & Bird/Beckett
Tonight (10/10) - Litquake at Bird & Beckett
Thursday (10/13) - Bird & Beckett at Litquake
Check our website at http://www.birdbeckett.com for times, etc.
Send your donation to
Peacock Music
2200 15th Street
San Francisco, CA 94114
w/checks made out to George Peacock
and/or ATTEND THE BENEFIT!
“String Thing: Celebrating the
Elegant Universe of George Peacock”
OCTOBER 8th, 6:30 to 9:30 pm
at FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH
(corner of Duboce & Noe, San Francisco)
George needs your help
in his battle against cancer
He has been building and fixing
fine stringed instruments at his shop
in San Francisco’s Duboce Triangle
since 1971!
A respected luthier & a kind human being!
Performances by
SF Opera Orch. violinist Leonid Igudesman
and guitarists Terry Haggerty,
Teja Gerken, Craig Ventresco,
Tom Lander, Mike Wolf and
Gayle Lynn Schmitt!
Silent auction — food — community!
Come to a benefit on October 8th
and help us help
George Peacock
a luthier and a gentleman!
6:30-9:30 pm
First Christian Church
599 Duboce Street
(at the corner of Noe,
opposite Duboce Park)
San Francisco
or send a donation to
George Peacock
Peacock Music
2200 15th Street
San Francisco, CA 94114
participating in the Oct. 8 benefit
will be SF opera orchestra violinist
Leonid Igudesman, plus guitarists
Terry Haggerty (x-Sons of Champlin)
Teja Gerken (ed., Acoustic Guitar Magazine)
Craig Ventresco
Mike Wolf
Gayle Schmitt
Tom Lander
and pianist Michael Parsons,
bassist Tom Drohan
drummer Chris Bjorkbom
Asian American Jazz in San Francisco
Last Sunday we hosted a concert at Bird & Beckett by Anthony Brown, Mark Izu and Masaru Koga. As anyone there will attest, it was one of the best afternoons of music we’ve heard in the shop, I kid you not! And, believe me, there have been plenty of great performances here to measure that one against!
Today (Sat. 9/10/11) at 6 pm at the Japantown Peace Plaza (Post at Buchanan), these three musicians wrap up an all-day outdoor jazz festival, performing as the “Asian American Jazz Trio”. Don’t miss them! Start early, actually: festivities begin at 2 pm with a Taiko group from GenRyu Arts, followed by the Francis Wong Unit at 2:30 and the Bob Kenmotsu Quartet at 4:00. It’s a free festival of the sort that San Francisco — city of artists, poets, musicians, journey agents, eulipians — tosses off so effortlessly! Think of it as our duty-free gift to the traveler…
And it continues: Tomorrow, Sunday, at the Jazz Heritage Center adjacent to Yoshi’s San Francisco, a 2-4pm panel (Dr. Brown moderating and Paul Yamazaki, George Leong, Mark Izu and Francis Wong participating) will review the storied history of the San Francisco Asian American Jazz Festival which was started 30 years ago by Yamazaki & Leong and curated for years in turn by Izu and Wong. Many brilliant and talented folks who have contributed over the decades to this cultural treasure will be in attendance. A reception follows and an accompanying art exhibit provides a thrilling visual rendering of this crucial San Francisco-based arts movement and its achievements.
Capping it all off, at 7 pm Sunday, Anthony Brown’s Asian American Orchestra performs in concert at Yoshi’s, premiering a major new work composed in collaboration by Brown and Izu, “Fire and Shadow: For Fukushima”.
Sunday’s panel, reception, art exhibit and concert comprise the SANJU Project, which also honors 89-year old retired historian, musician, and educator George Yoshida, who played jazz in WWII Japanese American internment camp bands, and who has been a mentor and role model for Brown and Izu. Mr. Yoshida will be a guest performer with the Asian American Orchestra in the evening performance.
And let’s not neglect to applaud Yoshi’s itself! This club, which has its roots in the North Berkeley sushi bar established in 1973 by partners Yoshie Akiba, Kaz Kajimura and Hiroyuki Hori, began presenting music in its historic location on Claremont Avenue in Oakland in 1977. The move to Jack London Square in Oakland took place 20 years later, in 1997, and Yoshi’s San Francisco opened 10 years later, in 2007. Today, Yoshi’s Oakland and San Francisco clubs remain the key jazz establishments in Northern California, bar none!
Support the venues that support the culture! You owe it to yourself and to your children’s children!
trio photo by Bruce Takeo Akizuki
Chaos Manor — W. Eugene Smith’s incredible wealth of photos and recordings made during his eight-year residence (1957-65) in the “jazz loft” at 821 Sixth Avenue in Manhattan’s wholesale flower district will be brought to life in a theatrical event conceived by Invisible Dog Art Center & archivist/biographer Sam Stephenson — 51 Bergen St. (btw Smith & Court) Brooklyn, September 16 & 17 — as part of the Brooklyn Book Festival.
Howard Junker’s An Old Junker, new from IFSF Press, is “a blognovel, a proto-memoir, a novel of ideas, a coming-of-old-age novel, a tech manual….”
The erstwhile “Zyzzyva” founder and long-time editor lavished Lawrence Cohen at Bird & Beckett yesterday with a pop-up reading of a bit from the book — about Kierkegaard the Post-Avant… Watch out! You might be next…
