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February 2010's Post-Apocalyptic Book Discussion: Blindness

A recent piece by Scott Timberg on io9 raises interesting questions about the post-apocalyptic sub-genre. He poses that the scenarios depicted in these novels can be broken down into "hard" and "soft" (i.e. the world of The Road is clearly a bleak, unyielding environment, whereas Neil Gaiman's American Gods suggests softer, more habitable future landscape).

For this month's discussion we will see if Saramago's Blindness passes the litmus test. Sounds soft to me, but is it even a post-apocalyptic novel? Or just dystopic?

A city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" which spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations and assaulting women. There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides seven strangers--among them a boy with no mother, a girl with dark glasses, a dog of tears--through the barren streets, and the procession becomes as uncanny as the surroundings are harrowing. A parable of loss and disorientation and a vivid evocation of the horrors of the twentieth century, Blindness is a powerful portrayal of man's worst appetites and weaknesses--and man's ultimately exhilarating spirit.

Meeting Thursday, February 25, 2010, at 7:30 pm



Sunday, April 25, 6 pm--Special event at Jalopy Theatre (315 Columbia Street)

Music performance and book discussion with David Hajdu and Karen Oberlin

In conjunction with the release of his new collection of essays, Heroes and Villains, David Hajdu dishes about the music biz and performs with his wife, jazz-pop vocalist Karen Oberlin. James Marcus joins them on electric guitar and lap-steel guitar, along with Seth Fahey on stand-up bass and clarinet.

David Hajdu is the music critic for The New Republic and a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is also the author of Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn (1996), Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña and Richard Fariña (2001), and The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America (2008). Heroes and Villains: Essays on Music, Movies, Comics, and Culture was recently published by Da Capo Press.

Karen Oberlin is an acclaimed vocalist with a deep background in classical music, jazz, cabaret, theater and musical theater who has performed at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Town Hall, Iridium Jazz Club, Feinstein's, Merkin Hall and The Metropolitan Room. The recipient of the Bistro and MAC awards, her albums include "My Standards" (Miranda Music), “Secret Love: The Music of Doris Day” (Miranda Music), and the forthcoming "A Wish" (Miranda Music).


Saturday, May 8, 2-6 pm

BBQ and Book drive for Books Through Bars

“Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won't fatten the dog.”
--Mark Twain

Over the past month we have readied our basement for the grassroots organization, Books Through Bars, a non-profit which donates books to prisoners across the country. Now that they have made the move from Boerum Hill, they are in need of filling up their more spacious new digs downstairs. There are lots of shelves that need to be restocked. Please help us out.

So in the spirit of spring cleaning (you know those walls are closing in on you) and Mark Twain, whose passing 100 years ago we also note, we will make our backyard a book drop and party space for the occasion. BBQ and beer will be on hand, not to mention Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer T-shirts special for the occasion (from our friends at Novel-T). All Freebird’s proceeds from the sale of the t-shirts will go to Books Through Bars.

Books donated to BTB are tax deductible. Books Through Bars is especially looking for books in the following categories -- and preferably in paperback, to cut down on postage costs:
  • African-American history, especially 20th century
  • Native American history
  • Latin American history
  • Radical politics
  • Social sciences and psychology
  • Dictionaries, thesauruses, and Spanish-English dictionaries
  • Learning world languages
  • How-to (drawing, chess, sign language...)
  • Mayan and Aztec history
  • Memoirs and fiction by people of color
  • Mythology
  • Poetry anthologies
That said, we don’t want to turn away any generous offers and what BTB can’t use will either make its way into Freebird’s general population or off to another charitable organization.

Past Freebird Readers, Performers, etc... in no particular order.


Watch David Hajdu and Lou Masur (past speakers at Freebird) discuss their books on Titlepage.tv

Brian Francis Slattery, author of Liberation (November 20, 2008)--hear the podcast
Gregory Pardlo and Priscilla Becker (November 16, 2008)
John Joseph Adams, editor of Wastelands (October 23, 2008)
Matthew Sharpe, author of Jamestown (September 25, 2008)--hear the podcast
Moustafa Bayoumi, author of How Does It Feel To Be a Problem? (September 18, 2008)--hear the podcast
Jonathan Miles, author of Dear American Airlines (July 30, 2008)--hear the podcast
Pat Willard, author of America Eats! (July 27, 2008)
Nuar Alsadir and Nick Flynn (July 6, 2008)
Jess Winfield, author of My Name Is Will (July 19, 2008)--watch the video
Lara Vapnyar, author of Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love (June 26, 2008)
Mike Edison, author of I Have Fun Everywhere I Go (June 12, 2008)--watch the video
Joshua Furst and Jim Shepard (June 8, 2008)--hear the podcast
Sarah Goodyear and Fiona Maazel (May 18, 2008)--hear the podcast
David Hajdu, author of The Ten-Cent Plague (May 8, 2008)--hear the podcast
Thomas Pynchon birthday fax (May 4, 2008)--see the press
Anya Ulinich, author of Petropolis (April 24, 2008)
Gregory Gibson, author of Hubert's Freaks (April 3, 2008)--hear the podcast
Ken Wohlrob, Brian Cogan, Tim Hall, and Mike Faloon (March 22, 2008)--watch the video:

Louis Masur, author of The Soiling of Old Glory (March 20, 2008)--hear the podcast
Richard Zoglin, author of Comedy at the Edge (February 28, 2008)--hear the podcast
Ian Toll and Jordan Zinovich (February 24, 2008)
Matvei Yankelevich (February 21, 2008)--hear the podcast
The Indypendent's Arun Gupta, Nick Powers, and Steven Wishnia (February 7, 2008)--hear the podcast
Thomas Kerr (March 2, 2006)
Lee Klein
Samantha Hunt
Amanda Gersh
Alex Dezen
Howard Fishman
Gillian McCain
Aracelis Girmay
Julian Velard
Gary Gattullo
Thomas Sayers Ellis
David Gates
James Mason
Arthur Bradford
Priscilla Becker
Colum McCann
Gindy Bladen
Michael DeCapite
Jim O'Brien
Gregory Pardlow
Douglas Goetsch
Travis Caine
Kythe Heller
Laure-Anne Bosselaar
Anne Landsman
Brian Blanchfield
Robert Lopez
Beth Zasloff
Maxine Swann
David Hollander
Dennis Diclaudio
Tim Mcloughlin
Tara Bray Smith
Thisbe Nissen
Luciano Guerrero
Justin Jamail
Jonathan Dixon
Christian Hawkey
Starlee Kine
J Milligan
Martin Dockery
Meghan Hatch
Eric B. Martin
Johanna Wagner
Dayne Sherman
Amanda Fillipacchi
Rene Steinke
Amy Blair
Christopher Sorrentino
D. Gaitling Price
Joseph Salvatore
Patrick Phillips
David Roth
Jane Greenway Carr
Jonathan Ames
Amanda Stern
Lisa Selin Davis
Jeremy Mercer
Kirstin Allio
Leslie Campisi
Tom Lombardi
Nikki Westfall
D. Foy O'Brien
Karen de Weille
Kara Kramer
Mike Albo
Heather Cox
Robert Sullivan
Phillip Lopate
Kathryn Harrison
Alex Lemon
John Haskell
Brian Cogan,
Ken Wohlrob
Mike Faloon
Gina Zucker
Davidson Garett
Yojimbo