Author Archives: Piers

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Come see LAUGH TRACK, an hilarious new play

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The very funny Sarah Esocoff ’15 writes:

Ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes of your favorite TV show?

LAUGH TRACK follows the taping of one episode of “He’s a Dad!,” a beloved multi-camera sitcom in its 9th season. Watch as five television stars, a show runner, and a cue card guy fall in and out of character, lust, love, and alcohol-induced debauchery.

Written & Directed by Keelin Ryan ’14 & the aforementioned Sarah Esocoff.

Performances on Friday, May 9 at 8 p.m. and on Saturday, May 10 at 2 p.m. & 8 p.m.

Location: ’92 Theater
 Factbook: link.
Cost: $0

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Writing Prize Winners read at Russell House

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Come see your peers speak from the same podium from which Mary Gaitskill, Ben Lerner, Yusef Komunyakaa, and many other greats once declaimed their works! Tomorrow, Wednesday May 7th, selected winners of writing prizes will read at Russell House at 8 p.m.

The speakers are:

Nell Schwed ’14, winner of the Boylan Award for nonfiction

Sarah Gerton ’15, winner of the Connelly Prize for nonfiction

Hanna Bahedry ’14, winner of the Horgan Prize for fiction

Gabrielle Bruney ’14, winner of the Wesleyan Fiction Award

Kayla Stoler ’14, winner of the Sarah Hannah Poetry Prize

Katherine Gibbel ’15, winner of the Sophie Reed Prize for poetry

Date: Wednesday, May 7
Time: 8 p.m.
Location: Russell House, 350 High St.
Cost: $0

FEATURED
Waiting for Cam’ron

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“It’s a scam! We all got WeScammed! WeScammed by Cam’ron!”

I arrived at Beckham Hall last night at 10 p.m., the scheduled start time of the Cam’ron concert, and found a line that wrapped around the building and traveled west up Wyllys to the edge of the parking lot across from Admissions. The line ended in a noisy scrum around Beckham’s Andrus-side entrance. No one entered the venue for the next 90 minutes but the line pressed forward into this increasingly dense crowd so that we often had the impression of moving.

What follow are notes and quotes from the scene:

Continue reading →

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Writer Elif Batuman speaks at Downey House

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I am tripping over myself with excitement because this Friday, May 2nd, the writer Elif Batuman will be on campus for a Writing Programs-sponsored reading. Batuman is the author of The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them, as well as numerous journalistic and critical essays for Harper’s, The New Yorker, n+1, The London Review of Books, and many other periodicals of renown.

At 4:30 p.m. in Downey House room 113, Batuman will read from her work and offer a brief Q&A. Do not miss the event many have already begun referring to as “the literarary event of the semester” and “likely to be very good.”

You might enjoy this New Yorker piece in which Batuman describes training with three-time Muay Thai boxing world champion and autodidact Bunkerd Faphimai, and writes the sentence, “It was astounding to see these enormous men, in protective helmets and mouth guards and shin guards, flying to all corners like discarded robots while Bunkerd stood in the middle of the ring, cheerfully wiping blood from his nose and displaying no sign of fatigue or ill humor.”

Date: Friday, May 2
Time: 4:30 p.m.
Location: Downey House, room 113
Cost: $0

More selections of Batuman’s writing follow:

Continue reading →

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Among the Trees: a tree-planting celebration

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From Manon Lefèvre ’14:

Come celebrate the planting of a mulberry tree in the CFA Courtyard, a collaboration among students, the CFA, and Physical Plant!

There will be singing, dancing, drumming, snacks, tea, and ceremony.

Bring a mug for tea and bring your dancing feet!

There will also be a discussion on how to keep Wesleyan trees healthy and happy.

Collaborators include WILD Wes, Wesleyan Center for the Arts, Green Fund, Feet to the Fire, Physical Plant, and Nicole Stanton’s Perspectives on Dance as Culture class

Date: Thursday, May 1st
Time: 5-6 p.m.
Where: CFA Courtyard
RAIN OR SHINE

BREAKING: WILD WES TOOLS STOLEN

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From Manon Lefèvre ’14:

It was discovered this weekend that one of WILD Wes’ locked storage structures has been vandalized and some tools stolen. Members of WILD Wes are very concerned and upset at this vandalism and ask that whoever stole the tools please return them from the place they were taken (with amnesty), as they are desperately needed. If you have any information on the whereabouts of the missing tools, please contact Manon Lefèvre at mlefevre[at]wesleyan[dot]edu.

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Engl. Dept. Millet Fellow MARY GAITSKILL speaks at Russell House

Stop the presses: MARY GAITSKILL is returning to campus. If, like me, you missed her at the Narrative Conference back in November, this is our chance to right our grievous wrong. Kim-Frank Fellow Sarah Chrystler ’13/GRAD writes in with the specifics:

Celebrated author Mary Gaitskill will read from her upcoming work on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2014 at 8:00 p.m. in Wesleyan University’s, Russell House, 350 High Street, Middletown, CT. Earlier that day, at 4:15 p.m., Mary Gaitskill will hold a Q&A session in Allbritton 311.

Mary Gaitskill is the author of the novel Veronica, a finalist for the 2005 National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and Los Angeles Times Book Award. Her other books include Two Girls, Fat and Thin and the story collections Bad Behavior, Because They Wanted To, and Don’t Cry. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, and The Best American Short Stories, and she has received a Guggenheim Fellowship from the Cullman Center at the New York Public Library.

For more information, please call 860.685.3448 or click here. For program information contact Anne Greene at agreene[at]wesleyan[dot]edu or 860.685.3604.

Date: Wednesday, April 23
Time of Q&A: 4:15 p.m.
Location of Q&A: Allbritton 311
Time of reading: 8:00 p.m.
Location of reading: Russell House, 350 High St.
Cost: $0

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The Garden Party (420) ft. Natural Child, Salvia Plath, and Dead Babe

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Tim Tim ‘420 has finished turning around his sentences, and has produced this Easter Egg:

hey buds,

listen up. the first annual garden party, hosted by sound coop’s
intern tim tim is happening on 4/20 in the westCo Courtyard.

NATURAL CHILD.

SALVIA PLATH

DEAD BABE

fun starts when you wake up but the music gets going once i finish
eating brunch. that might be around 2. roll up and spliff that riff
pal! happy easter or whatever.

-tim tim

Date: 4/20/14
Time: 2:00-4:20 p.m.
Location: WestCo Courtyard
Cost: Free fee
Faceb420k: here.

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Come see Nat Baldwin in the WestCo Café on Friday

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Double bassist Nat Baldwin will perform in the WestCo Café on Friday. Come hear songs from his new record In the Hollows before its release on April 29. You may also know him the bassist for the Dirty Projectors, or as a contributor to albums by Grizzly Bear, Vampire Weekend, and Department of Eagles. He is a brilliant musician, and, incidentally, learned some of his chops from Anthony Braxton, with whom he studied while living in Middletown. Check out his luminous new music video for “In the Hollows.”

Opening will be HAP, whose music has been variously described as “lend[ing] itself well to dancing” and sounding “like Dirty Projectors played out of a gameboy,” and who will perform in the company of The Admiral, an antique radio, their other-than-human fifth bandmate. Check out their phenomenal album Corners here.

Also opening will be producer Clement Gelly, premiering his sample-ample new album Salvatore’s Paradise, available here. Check out this song cowritten with Jack Ladd ’15, and see also “Wake Up,” a rap track.

Date: Friday, April 18
Time: 7-10 p.m.
Location: The WestCo Café
FB: here
Cost: $0