David LowAcclaimed author Amy Bloom ’75 has published a new story collection, Where the Love of God Hangs Out (Random House), which has already received several fine reviews. The book contains two sets of four related stories and four unrelated works in which the author explores love, loss, mortality, and other human predicaments with compassion and humor. The first quartet of stories concerns the love affair between middle-aged friends William and Clare who are married to others. The other set of interlocking tales explores the relationship over 30 years between Julia and her stepson Lionel who are introduced in the story…
The 9th annual Independent Music Awards nominations were recently announced and include Brandon Patton ’95, a former music major at Wesleyan. Patton was nominated for Best Story Song of 2009 for “Mixed-Up Modern Family,” a humorous and pithy account of the shocking sex lives of his parents and grandparents. Patton has been busy promoting his new solo album, Underhill Downs (Merlin Pool Music). His song “Ashes and Stains” was chosen for NPR’s song of the day in September 2009. Patton also plays bass for MC Frontalot, with fellow alumni Gaby Alter ’97 and Damian Hess ’96.
Grammy Award nominations were announced on Dec. 2. Tierney Sutton ’86 and her band received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album for their album Desire (Telarc). In a review of the recording on All About Jazz.com, Carl L. Hager wrote, "Singer Tierney Sutton’s Desire is the kind of provocative musical work that could change the way a listener hears music. It is an album that is meant to spiritually provoke. It arrests, alarms, it even terrifies." MGMT's Ben Goldwasser ’05 and Andrew Vanwyngarden ’05 received two Grammy nominations for Best New Artist and Best Pop Performance by…
In Skyscraper: The Politics and Power of Building New York City in the Twentieth Century (University of Pennsyvania Press), Benjamin Flowers ’96 explores the role of culture and ideology in shaping the construction of skyscrapers, as well as the way wealth and power have operated to reshape the urban landscape. He studies closely the creation and reception of three major architectural sites: the Empire State Building, the Seagram Building, and the World Trade Center. Flowers wrote his new book using a broad array of archival sources, such as corporate records, architects' papers, newspaper ads, and political cartoons. He reveals how…
In Impurity of Blood: Defining Race in Spain, 1870–1930 (LSU Press), Joshua Goode ’91 traces the development of racial theories in Spain from 1870 to 1930 and explores the Spanish proposition that racial mixture, rather than racial purity, was the bulwark of national strength. He begins his study with a history of ethnic thought in Spain in the medieval and early modern era, and then details the formation of racial thought in Spain’s nascent human sciences. He examines the political, social and cultural manifestations of racial thought at the dawn of the Franco regime and, finally, discusses its ramifications in…
Jeffrey Richards ’69 continues to bring challenging and entertaining work to Broadway, having been a co-producer recently of the Tony Award-winning shows Spring Awakening, August: Osage County and Hair. This winter, he is one of the producers of Race by David Mamet (Speed-the-Plow, Oleanna), which opened on Broadway on December 6 at the Ethel Barrymore Theater. In this drama, a firm made up of three lawyers, two black and one white, is offered the chance to defend a white man charged with a crime against a young black woman. The cast includes James Spader (Boston Legal), Kerry Washington (Ray), David…
Jenny He ’02 is the co-author, along with Ron Magliozzi, of a new book Tim Burton, published by the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York City to accompany a major career retrospective that is currently on view at the museum. The publication considers Burton's career as an artist and filmmaker, the evolution of his creative practices and the influence of popular culture and Pop Surrealism on his work. The book traces the path of his visual imagination from his earliest childhood drawings through his mature works, which includes his films Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas,…
Joss Whedon ’87 will be honored by the Producers Guild of America with its Vanguard Award, which recognizes achievements in new media and technology. He will receive the award at the 21st Annual PGA Awards ceremony on Jan. 24 at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles. Previous Vanguard Award recipients include George Lucas, James Cameron, John Lasseter, MySpace CEO and co-founder Chris DeWolfe and president and co-founder Tom Anderson, and YouTube founders Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Will Wright. Whedon is a producer, writer, director, and creator for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly and Dollhouse. He…
Brooklyn, N.Y. resident Bridget Palardy ’05 has received the inaugural JT3 Artist Award of Distinction for emerging filmmakers for her short film Middletown B-Boys, a compelling dance-filled documentary that was shot in Middletown, Conn. Palardy and four other innovative young filmmakers from Brooklyn were honored at the first-ever JT3 Artist Awards at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Oct. 22 in a celebration with director Adam Brooks (Definitely, Maybe) and hosted by Tony-award nominated actor Brandon Victor Dixon. A nonprofit foundation created in memory of the dynamic young writer/director/producer Jesse Thompkins III, who died in a tragic traffic accident last year,…
In his third poetry collection, Tourist (NYQ Books, 2009), Sanford Fraser ’54 reveals a mastery of the lyric form and plainspoken language. The collection is divided into three sections: Strangers, Roles and Connections. In the first section, the narrator and/or characters in the poems are strangers isolated from and emotionally detached from others; in the second, they play various roles in the world beyond themselves; and finally in the last section, they experience emotional attachments with others. Frasier shares the following observations about his new book: “The busloads of tourists who ride and walk through the streets of my neighborhood…
Kate Wetherhead ’98 currently stars in the off-Broadway musical Ordinary Days with a score by Adam Gwon and directed by Mark Bruni. The show deals the lives and troubles of four young people living in New York City. In a positive review in The New York Times, Charles Isherwood says the show “captures with stinging clarity that uneasy moment in youth when doubts begin to cloud hopes for a future of unlimited possibility.” Wetherhead plays an unhappy graduate student who has lost her thesis notebook, which is found by an aspiring artist (Jared Gertner), and the two eventually meet at…
In The Calculus of Friendship (Princeton University Press), Cornell University professor Steven Strogatz chronicles the moving story of the friendship he developed with his former high school math teacher, Don Joffray ’50, over 30 years through the exchange of letters between them. For a long time, their friendship revolved almost entirely on a shared love of calculus. Joffray goes from the prime of his career to retirement, competes in whitewater kayaking at the international level, and loses a son. Strogatz matures from high school math whiz to Ivy League professor, has a failed marriage, and experiences the sudden death of…