The Bryan Series®

Awash in Books and Authors: Scouting at the National Book Festival

Draw a quarter-million voracious readers to the National Mall in D.C.  Mix in several dozen of America's best-selling authors.  Offer free admission.  The product is the National Book Festival, presented by the Library of Congress.

It's the season of discernment about future Bryan Series speakers, and I took the opportunity to make my first pilgrimage to the event on Saturday, a cool and rainy fall day.  This was a chance to hear--and perhaps meet--some of your favorite authors and mine.

The lineup of authors was the best since First Lady Laura Bush established the event in 2001.  Included were these rock stars for readers:  John Grisham, David Baldacci, Sue Monk Kidd and Jodi Picoult.

Crowds attending these writers' talks under large tents must have been in the 2,000-2,500 range.  Book signing lines were a quarter mile long.

I listened to Grisham explain that he never intended to be anything but a small-town Mississippi lawyer.  That was before 1988 when he started writing an international best-seller per year.  He talked about the down side of "lawyering" in a small town--that on trips to the grocery store he would often encounter men he helped put behind bars after they were released.

I took a closer look at authors who have been or will be on our future subscriber surveys (look for this in October), including John Meacham (who says without Andrew Jackson there would have been no Lincoln) and Jeannette Walls (whose follow up to The Glass Castle is out this week).  They are great presenters, with substance and humor. 

I met Junot Diaz, an up and coming writer (and professor at MIT), who has already won a Pulitzer. I finally got to hear Azar Nafisi, who has made outstanding presentations in other series.

It's a great event--well worth the five-hour trip to D.C.  Look for it next fall and get there if you can. 

For more information about the NBF, click here.

--Ty Buckner

Insights on Garry Trudeau: "Investigative Cartoonist"

I'm really looking forward to Garry Trudeau's visit in less than two weeks.  Hope you are, too.  We open our fifth subscription season Wednesday, Oct. 7, with a rare treat.

While researching background on Garry I found a Washington Post feature by Gene Weingarten from 2006 that is a treasure trove of information.  Its the only extensive interview with the cartoonist in almost 30 years.  Here are some highlights:

Garry visits injured vets from the Iraq war on a regular basis. Weingarten reports, "It's partly compassionate support for people he has a genuine regard for, and it's part journalism -- the damnedest sort of reporting, for a professional cartoonist."

Weingarten writes that aside from a couple of TV interviews, Garry has had almost no public presence for three decades:  "Considering the extraordinary reach of his comic strip (Doonesbury), and the role it has had over the years in analyzing, reflecting and even helping shape our culture, he may be the most famous unknown American." 

Denounced by presidents and potentates and condemned on the floor of the U.S. Senate, Garry "has also been described as America's greatest living satirist, mentioned in the same breath as Mark Twain and Ambrose Bierce," says Weingarten.

He adds, "Doonesbury has never become complacent, partly because Trudeau is no ordinary creative talent but also because the strip feeds continually off the culture it lampoons.  Trudeau is very much a reporter--what Newsweek's Jonathan Alter once called 'an investigative cartoonist.'"

For another preview of Garry, see his October 2004 interview on "The Charlie Rose Show" here.

--Ty Buckner

Friends of the Library Plan Discussions Before Trudeau, Krugman Events

The Friends of the Guilford College Library plan discussions in Hege Library on the Sundays preceding Bryan Series lectures featuring Garry Trudeau and Paul Krugman.  The events are free and open to the public.

The first discussion is Sunday, Oct. 4, at 3 p.m. in the library Art Gallery.  It will feature Chris Lamb, professor of journalism at the College of Charleston and author of Drawn to Extremes: The Use and Abuse of Editorial Cartoons in the United States.  He will discuss his studies of Garry Trudeau’s work and moderate a wide-ranging discussion of its political and artistic significance.  Professor of Art Roy Nydorf will contribute his views and questions.

The second discussion is Sunday, Nov. 1, at 3 p.m. in the foyer of the Carnegie Room at the library.  It will be coordinated by Ken Gilmore, associate professor of political science, and Deena Burris, assistant professor of business management.  They will draw from Paul Krugman's latest book, Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008, his bestselling book, Conscience of a Liberal, and columns from The New York Times as a basis for a discussion of his views of the political and financial background of the United States and how conditions, actions and a variety of situations culminated in our recent financial crisis.

Trudeau speaks in the series Wednesday, Oct. 7, and Krugman, Tuesday, Nov. 3.  Both programs are at 7:30 p.m. at War Memorial Auditorium.  Tickets are available.

Amanpour's New Global Interview Program Debuts Sept. 21

Christiane Amanpour's new global interview program, "Amanpour," debuts Monday, Sept. 21.  The show will air daily on CNN International, and a "best of the week" program will air each Sunday at 2 p.m. on CNN, beginning Sept. 27.

CNN says each episode of the Amanpour program "will primarily focus on one topic -- newsworthy and often provocative -- and will feature guests who challenge and deconstruct conventional wisdom."

Amanpour is the award-winning chief international correspondent for CNN.  She and her husband, James Rubin, spoke in the Bryan Series in November 2008.

David Gregory Goes 1-on-1 with President Obama on Meet the Press

David Gregory will interview President Obama on Meet the Press Sunday Sept. 20 (9 a.m. locally on WXII-TV).  The preview on the MTP Web site says the host plans to talk with the president about health care reform, the economy, getting people back to work and forging a future in Afghanistan.

In addition, Gregory will speak with House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).  The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson and Politico's Roger Simon will provide insights during the political roundtable.

Gregory is scheduled to speak in the Bryan Series Tuesday, April 13.  Tickets are available at the Greensboro Coliseum Advance Box Office and Ticketmaster.com.

Newsweek Columnist Weighs in on Karen Armstrong's New Book

Newsweek religion editor Lisa Miller writes about Karen Armstrong's 19th book, The Case for God, in her column in the Sept. 21 issue.  The book is to be released Sept. 22.

Armstrong, a best-selling author, journalist and former Catholic nun, opened a set of talks on spirit and spirituality in the Bryan Series in 2005-06.  It was the series' first subscription season at War Memorial Auditorium.

In The Case for God, says Miller, "(Armstrong's) tone is one of high-minded irritation. Her argument is compelling. To oversimplify: 'faith' and 'reason' are not like political parties. You don't join one after having been convinced via argument of its validity. What the Greeks called logos and what they called mythos define two different aspects of the world and our experience in it: the knowable and the unknowable. You can believe in both."

Read more about the book here.

Anna Deavere Smith performs at NC Literary Festival

On Friday, September 11, I had the fortune to attend a performance by Anna Deavere Smith at Memorial Hall in Chapel Hill. This was a combined event with the NC Literary Festival and the 2009-10 Frank Porter Graham Lecture.

The lecture was titled “Finding Grace and Kindness in a Winner-Takes-All Society.” But this event was not an ordinary lecture; it was a thought provoking performance. Anna Deavere Smith portrays people she has interviewed from around the world. Her portrayals are at once their voice and hers. She calls her work ‘documentary theatre.’

After introductions to a full house, Anna Deavere Smith walks on stage wearing billowing black pants and a black blouse. She is barefoot, she says, so she may ‘walk in the shoes of others.’

She begins with the loud gruff voice of Studs Turkle, a Chicago radio announcer who explains the human touch. In her ‘Grace Suite,’ she portrays an expert on black theology, a minister of Memorial Church at Harvard, an opera singer, a Buddhist monk and a Rabbi – moving back and forth between each as they give their definition of grace.

She moves on to a Rwandan refugee who suffered the horrors of genocide and has lost her mother, father and brothers at the age of 6. Then there is the physician at a charity hospital in New Orleans who struggles to answer a patient who asks ‘When will they come and get us?’ after Katrina has left them without power and food and clean water is becoming scarce.

We see and hear the humor of the late Governor of Texas, Ann Richards, who is trying to protect her ‘chi’ while undergoing cancer treatment and the love, kindness and determination of Trudy Howell, director of an orphanage in Africa where all the children have aids.

Anna Deavere Smith ended with advice she was given by a linguist on how to get her interview subjects to open up and tell their story.  She was told to ask these 3 questions.

            Have you ever come close to death?

            Do you know the circumstances of your birth?

            Have you ever been accused of something you did not do?

After she took a few questions from the audience, Anna Deavere Smith left the stage to a standing ovation.

~Suzanne Sullivan

Behind the Scenes at Meet the Press

Ty Buckner is blogging from Washington, D.C., where he is attending a meeting of lecturer presenters.

It’s a few minutes before 9 a.m. Sept. 13, and one of the guests to be interviewed by David Gregory (Bryan Series, April 13) is not on the Meet the Press set.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is stuck in traffic that is redirected for a triathlon that is being run on a beautiful, fall-like Sunday morning in Washington, D.C.

But a couple minutes before the show begins, Gingrich strides into the studio and takes his seat inches away from former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean.

Gingrich and Dean, two of the brightest minds on two ends of the political spectrum, are firm and gracious in a health care reform discussion.  Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, a tall, distinguished man, offers new Republican talking points in response to President Obama’s speech to Congress last week.

Finding his guests remarkably diplomatic, David continually challenges them and Sen. Dick Durbin who is appearing by satellite from Chicago.  Click here to read about the show and watch video segments.

There is definitely warmth on the set compared to the chill in the TV studio, which is cooled to 60 degrees.  I sit among a small group of onlookers—family of one of the cameramen and a couple other invited guests—in folding chairs a few yards away from the set.

Just before the show is to begin, Shelby Poduch approaches the seating area.  She’s a young Penn State grad who has worked with David for several years.  She says I can spend a couple minutes with David after the show.  True to her word, I get to meet David and exchange pleasantries.  He says he is looking forward to coming to Greensboro next spring. 

Before he scoots off to catch an 11 a.m. shuttle flight to New York City I mention Sidwell Friends School, where the oldest of his three children attend.  He says he really liked Bruce Stewart, the Guilford alumnus who retired as head of school this year.

What you first notice about David, other than that he is taller than most anyone in the room (6’5”), is that he smiles a lot and laughs easily.  He’s chewing gum until a few moments before the show. Everyone on the crew is at ease. He is very confident in his role hosting TV’s longest running show.

David, who just turned 39, is a leader of the new generation of broadcast journalists.  He’ll be a great speaker in our series.

Before I leave, Shelby gives me a quick tour of the NBC building, which the network’s Washington bureau, MSNBC and CNBC share with the local affiliate.  Sadly, this is where Tim Russert died a little over a year ago.

I’m off to a meeting of lecture presenters and Shelby, who arrived at the studio about 5 a.m., is breathing easy as a work week comes to a successful end.

--Ty Buckner

Anna Deavere Smith Shares Public Views on Health Care in NYT Op-ed

Anna Deavere Smith, who speaks in the Bryan Series Feb. 28, shared the views of 11 Americans in a Sept. 8 New York Times op-ed entitled "Obama's Audience Speaks First."

In the op-ed she says, "Over the last few years, in preparation for a new play (Let Me Down Easy), I interviewed doctors, patients and healers about the human body, its resilience and its vulnerability. Although our conversations were not primarily about the health care debate, they do reveal many of the feelings and thoughts of the people in the audience President Obama will address tonight (Sept. 8).

She adds:  "The unruliness that now animates the conversation stems from our passions, hopes and discomforts — about life, death, who should (or should not) take care of us and whom we should take care of. The president’s audience has a million and one perspectives, some of them clumping together like blood platelets under one political roof or another."

 

Smith quotes a retired rodeo cowboy, a medical school dean, doctors and a nurse and a health care rally attendee, among others.

 

Let Me Down Easy opens Sept. 15 at 2econd Stage Theatre in New York City.

Doonesbury Cartoons on Exhibit in Guilford College Art Gallery

Guilford College Art Gallery is featuring the work of Garry Trudeau in an exhibit entitled "Doonesbury in a Time of War" through Oct. 11.  Trudeau, who will open this year's Bryan Series Oct. 7, provided a series of his Doonesbury cartoons for display in the gallery, located in Hege Library on campus.

The exhibit is free and open to the public.  The gallery is open Monday-Friday 9 a.m.-5 p.m. and Sunday 2-5 p.m.  More information about the gallery is available here.

On Sunday, Oct. 4, Chris Lamb, associate professor of communication at the College of Charleston, will speak about Trudeau's work.  The free program will be in the gallery from 3-5 p.m. and includes a reception.  Lamb is the author of Drawn to Extremes: The Use and Abuse of Editorial Cartoons in the United States. The event is sponsored by the Guilford College Friends of the Library.