The Brooklyn Book Festival set up shop in our literary left bank utopia on Sunday, and it was a typical day in Brooklyn: David Cross yelled about Jews, Amy Goodman yelled about war profiteers and then things got a little gay. Video after the jump.
Category: Reading
Nancy Balbirer was wearing flip-flops when she walked by Bergdorf Goodman on a hot summer day in 2003 and happened upon a serene Yoko Ono.
“I never would have imagined my reaction to meeting Yoko Ono would be thus: ‘OH MY GOD YOKO ONO! I LOVE YOU!” the author recounted recently. “And I threw my arms around her.”
Ms. Balbirer, 43, was sitting at a table in the Chelsea Market, discussing her new book, Take Your Shirt Off and Cry: A Memoir of Near-Fame Experiences, published recently by Bloomsbury. The title refers to how David Mamet – once the author’s acting teacher at NYU – categorized the roles in which women are cast in Hollywood.
On Friday night, as the Book Expo kicked off at the Javits Center, the crowd at PowerHouse Arena in Dumbo was kickin’ it with KRS-ONE, the zen master of their new imprint I Am Hip Hop. The first book to drop? The Gospel of Hip Hop.
“First off, there’s no question—in my humble opinion—that the literary center of New York has moved to Brooklyn,” said our oh-so-humble Borough President Marty Markowitz celebrating the Brooklyn Book Festival in the ornate lobby of Borough Hall this past Sunday. “The authors live here, the illustrators live here, and the energy—there’s that energy!—among residents of Brooklyn.” And of course, Marty is the first to throw a party for them.