All Over Albany

Daniel Libeskind at RPI

Daniel Libeskind. / photo: Stefan Ruiz

The RPI School of Architecture's fall lecture series has started up and it includes a talk by famed architect Daniel Libeskind November 12 at EMPAC.

The full lecture series schedule -- which started in September -- is listed below.

Daniel Libeskind's Studio Libeskind has designed notable buildings all around the world, many of them museums, including the Jewish Museum Berlin. Its most famous work might be the master plan for the World Trade Center site in Manhattan. That plan -- and the design of the Freedom Tower skyscraper, which Libeskind did not create -- ended up being a contentious process, prompting protests (and a lawsuit) by the Libeskind about how things played out. In recent years he has apparently come around on the experience and now sees it -- and the results -- more positively.

Liebskind's talk at RPI is titled "Edge of Order," the same name as a new book about his career that's being published in November.

The talk is Monday, November 12 at 6 pm at EMPAC. It's free.

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Talking about artificial intelligence at the Rockefeller Institute next month / Automating Inequality with NYS Writers Institute this week

Artificial intelligence makes for good stories because killer robots and all that. But the reality of its promise -- and potential threat -- is probably more subtle.

It's being able to search your photo library by type of dog. It's transcription services that work like magic. It's your newsfeed slowly adapting to only show you things that confirm your preconceptions. It's getting tagged as being unworthy for a job or service -- or even a threat -- by an inscrutable algorithm.

With that in mind, this looks like it could be an interesting event: The Rockefeller Institute is hosting a forum about artificial intelligence November 28 at its headquarters on State Street in Albany. Blurbage:

Join the Rockefeller Institute of Government and the SUNY Office of Research & Economic Development on November 28 from 2 to 5:30 p.m. for a comprehensive discussion of artificial intelligence's current and future effects on labor, the economy, ethics, and society with leading experts and practitioners in key fields.

The forum will feature senior officials from state government, industry leaders, and researchers. SUNY Chancellor Kristina Johnson will provide opening remarks.

See the info about RSVP'ing.

Automating Inequality
Speaking of this topic... UAlbany professor Virginia Eubanks will be at the University Club in Albany (141 Washington Avenue) this Friday to talk about her much-praised book Automating Inequality. It's part of the NYS Writers Institute visiting writers series.

Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor was released in January, and it's gotten a string of high-profile coverage and strong reviews in outlets ranging from NPR to Wired to Vox to Boing Boing.

There's a reception at 6:30 pm. Talk starts at 7 pm. It's free and open to the public.

film still from 2001: A Space Odyssey via YouTube

NYS Writers Institute visiting writers fall 2018

The fall lineup for the NYS Writers Institute visiting writers series is out. And it is again full of high-profile authors, actors, artists, and other creators talking talking about all sorts of topics.

The visiting writers series is in addition to the Albany Book Festival September 28-29 at UAlbany, which has its own stacked lineup of authors.

Here's a scan of the upcoming visiting writers schedule, which starts off the first week of September...

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Colson Whitehead is the next New York State Author, Alicia Ostriker the next State Poet

Colson Whitehead and Alicia Ostriker

The next New York State Author will be Colson Whitehead, and the next State Poet will be Alicia Ostriker.

Their selection was announced this week -- and they'll be inaugurated at the opening of the Albany Book Festival at UAlbany Friday, September 28 at 7:30 pm. Both writers will be reading at the event, which is free and open to the public.

Colson Whitehead is, of course, a famous novelist whose most recent work -- The Underground Railroad -- won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

Alicia Suskin Ostriker is a poet and poetry critic. Bio blurbage: "Alicia Ostriker, the author of sixteen volumes of poetry, is one of the most acclaimed poets, as well as one of the most influential poetry critics of her generation. Joyce Carol Oates asserts that her 'iconoclastic expression, whether in prose or poetry, is essential to understanding our American selves.' Ostriker's work explores motherhood, womanhood, social justice, Jewish identity and-- in the words of poet Joan Larkin-- 'takes on nothing less than what it feels like to be alive.'"

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The first Albany Book Festival will be at UAlbany this fall and the lineup is stacked with notable authors

The lineup includes Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, food writer/Splendid Table host Francis Lam, and Harvard professor Annette Gordon-Reed who won the Pulitzer Prize (and a bunch of other awards) for The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family.

The New York State Writers Institute has the first Albany Book Festival set for September 29 on the UAlbany campus. And holy moly is the lineup stacked.

Among the authors who will be there: Doris Kearns Goodwin, Gregory Maguire, Mark Kurlansky, Francis Lam, Michael W. Twitty, Annette Gordon-Reed, Walter Mosley, Laura Lippman, Khizr Khan. (A fuller lineup is below.)

Festival blurbage:

A message from NYS Writers Institute Director Paul Grondahl:

"The Albany Book Festival is a new initiative for us and we ask you to join us in creating something truly amazing that elevates UAlbany and our capital city for years to come." ...

Bookstores, publishers, literary organizations, and vendors of book-related merchandise will fill numerous display tables and close to 100 local authors will also participate, signing and selling copies of their books.

The book festival will be Saturday, September 29 from 10 am to 4 pm in the new section of the UAlbany campus center on the uptown campus. It's free and open to the public.

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"Art & Cosmos" talks at SPAC

Astronaut Nicole Stott. She's standing in front of her artwork, which was inspired by a photo she took of Isla Los Roques, Venezuela from the International Space Station.

This August SPAC is bringing in a handful of speakers for talks about the intersections of art, science, and nature. And it's a solid lineup:

+ Astronaut/artist Nicole Stott

+ Science reporter/author Dava Sobel and essayist/naturalist Diane Ackerman

+ Physicist/cosmologist/musician/author Stephon Alexander

The schedule additional blurbage is below.

The talks will be on the SPAC main stage. The speaker will be at the conductor's podium and the audience will sit in the orchestra chairs. Tickets are $20 each.

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APL Foundation Literary Legends 2018: Alice Green and Frankie Bailey

Alice Green and Frankie Bailey

The Albany Public Library Foundation will be honoring Alice P. Green and Frankie Y. Bailey at its Literary Legends ceremony this fall. But next week -- Thursday, June 7 -- the two authors/scholars will be at an-evening-with-the-authors event at the Albany Public Library to talk about their work. From Literary Legends blurbage:

Alice Green is an Albany giant--a notable activist and community leader. She has never ignored the importance of culture in her tireless work for justice. A champion of literature, she founded the Paden Institute, a residency for writers of color in the Adirondacks. She is also a founder of one of Albany's longest running black newspapers, The South End Scene.

Frankie Bailey is a distinguished scholar and professor of criminal justice at the University at Albany. She is also a mystery writer who has popularized the streets and places of Albany with mystery readers across the country through her Hannah McCabe novels, The Red Queen Dies and What the Fly Saw.

Together, Green and Bailey have written three books. Wicked Albany (2009) and Wicked Danville (2011) are popular nonfiction works that explore crime and justice in the Prohibition era. "Law Never Here": A Social History of African American Responses to Crime and Justice (1999) is a scholarly nonfiction work that traces the evolution of the criminal justice system from slavery through the 20th century.

The June 7 event is at the Albany Public Library Washington Ave Branch from 6-8 pm. Tickets are $25 and available online. There will be a reception with wine and dessert and tea and coffee, and then a conversation with the authors and audience Q&A.

Literary Legends 2018
This year's Literary Legends even is Saturday, October 20. Tickets go on sale May 30.

photos: Alice Green via Center for Law and Justice | Frankie Bailey via author website

NYS Writers Institute: Trolley

Check it out: The NYS Writers Institute has started a new online journal called Trolley. It's a magazine of "of essay, opinion, literature, culture, and politics." Further blurbage:

Trolley began with an idea from author William Kennedy, who envisioned an online literary journal published free of charge in which each issue's words and images related to a single theme. Kennedy shared his idea with Writers Institute Director Paul Grondahl, who decided the inaugural issue theme would converge on the issues of truth, fake news, and journalism. Those themes were central to the Institute's two-day "Telling the Truth in a Post-Truth World" symposium held in October, 2017.

The name Trolley was selected as an homage to Kennedy's 1984 collection of his journalism, Riding the Yellow Trolley Car.

The institute has been making a push in recent years to widen the field of writers and work that it highlights via programs such as the very popular visiting writers series. And it'd be great to see this new project extend that effort as it moves forward.

Also: We're kind of hoping there's eventually an issue where the theme itself is trolleys.

Earlier: Here's how the NYS Writers Institute gets all those great authors to visit

Virginia Eubanks and Automating Inequality at Market Block Books

One of the hottest books of the moment right now about the intersection between tech and government and society is Automating Inequality by Virginia Eubanks, an associate professor of political science at UAlbany and a Troy resident. And Eubanks will be at Market Block Books in downtown Troy March 31 to talk about the book.

Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor was released in January, and it's gotten a string of high-profile coverage and strong reviews in outlets ranging from NPR to Wired to Vox to Boing Boing. Book blurbage:

Since the dawn of the digital age, decision-making in finance, employment, politics, health and human services has undergone revolutionary change. Today, automated systems--rather than humans--control which neighborhoods get policed, which families attain needed resources, and who is investigated for fraud. While we all live under this new regime of data, the most invasive and punitive systems are aimed at the poor.

Automating Inequality systematically investigates the impacts of data mining, policy algorithms, and predictive risk models on poor and working-class people in America. The book is full of heart-wrenching and eye-opening stories, from a woman in Indiana whose benefits are literally cut off as she lays dying to a family in Pennsylvania in daily fear of losing their daughter because they fit a certain statistical profile.

The event at Market Block is Saturday, March 31 at 11 am. It's free.

By the way: You might remember Eubanks from her article in The Nation a year or so back about Troy, the effects of Irene, and the future of flood insurance.

author photo: Sadaf Rassoul Cameron

Tyler Oakley at UAlbany

YouTuber/LGBTQ+ activist Tyler Oakley will be at UAlbany March 27 for a talk. It's free and open to the public, but pre-registration is required.

Oakley's talk is part of the university speaker series that's brought in Octavia Spencer and Sonia Sotomayor during the past year. Talk blurbage:

With more than 7.5 million subscribers on YouTube and 23 million across his social media platforms, Oakley has been established as one of the nation's most influential LGBTQ+ vloggers.

Among his many accomplishments, Oakley has been a consultant for President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama on using digital platforms to connect with youth; raised more than $1 million for The Trevor Project; and has been nominated - and won - numerous awards.

He was also named one of Time Magazine's "30 Most Influential People on the Internet," included in The Hollywood Reporter's "Top 25 Digital Stars" two years in a row and is on the 2017 Forbes "30 Under 30" list.

Here's one of Oakley's recent YouTube videos in which he goes skating with Olympic figure skater Adam Rippon.

The UAlbany talk is Tuesday, March 27 at 7:30 pm in SEFCU Arena. Doors open at 6:30, the printed registration confirmation will be required for entry, and seating will be first come, first sit.

photo: Luke Fontana

Siena Hip-Hop Week 2018: Masta Killa

Siena's annual Hip-Hop Week returns in March. And this year's keynote speaker is Masta Kill from the the Wu-Tang Clan -- he'll be at the Loudonville campus March 12 talking about the group's formation and history, their contributions to hip-hop culture, the music industry, and business.

The members of Wu-Tang Clan are, of course, hip hop royalty. From a Forbes interview last year in which Masta Killa reflects on the legacy of the group:

That's still so humbling to me 25 years later, to still be relevant, because if there's no one listening, there is no Wu-Tang. I'm always humbled to be listened to. I'm humbled and thankful that someone was listening. Someone is still wearing that T-shirt and it feels great man. And it has let me know there is still work to do. There's someone out there still hungry for quality, nourishment. Everything that I'm serving over here is vegan, brother.

The keynote is Monday, March 12 at 7 pm in the Sarazen Student Union. It's free and open to the public -- first come, first sit.

This is fifth year for Siena Hip-Hop Week. The lineup of previous keynote speakers has included Chuck D and MC Sha-Rock.

Alison Bechdel at HVCC

Cartoonist/author Alison Bechdel will be at Hudson Valley Community College March 23 for a talk.

Bechdel is, of course, the author of Fun Home, the award-winning graphic memoir about her childhood. It was later adapted into a Tony-winning stage musical. She's also the creator of the long running comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, from which the Bechdel test emerged. She's also won a McArthur "genius" grant.

The event at HVCC is Friday, March 23 from 11 am-1 pm in the Bulmer Telecommunications Center Auditorium, and will include a talk, Q&A, and book signing. It's free and open to the public.

photo: Elena Seibert

Here's how the NYS Writers Institute gets all those great authors to visit

Many of the walls in the offices of the NYS Writers Institute in the Science Library on UAlbany's uptown campus are covered with posters touting appearances from the history of the visiting writers series. It's a remarkable a list of well-known and notable authors.

Each spring and fall the New York State Writers Institute releases the lineup for its visiting writers series and pretty much without fail we have this thought while looking it over: "Holy moly, how'd they manage to get all these people?"

This is an important moment for the institute. It has a new director -- longtime Times Union journalist Paul Grondahl started last year. The great author William Kennedy, who founded the institute with money from his MacArthur "genius" grant, is celebrating his 90th birthday this month. And the institute is facing competition from other orgs for both events and attention.

So we figured this would be an interesting time to drop by the institute on the UAlbany campus to talk about how they put together those impressive lineups -- and what's in store for the future...

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James Baldwin Celebration at UAlbany

UAlbany has a series of events celebrating the work of author James Baldwin coming up during the next month. "A Celebration of the Life and Legacy of James Baldwin" is a collaboration between the NYS Writers Institute and UAlbany Performing Arts Center. Blurbage:

Writing of the pain and struggle of African Americans and the saving power of brotherhood, Baldwin bore articulate witness to the unhappy consequences of American racial strife and saw his personal mission as a "witness to the truth." The series begins during Black History Month and includes readings, discussions, film screenings, and stage presentations.

Here's an overview of the schedule...

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Opalka Gallery 2018 spring season

The lineup of events includes a screening of, and discussion about, the highly-praised documentary Dawson City: Frozen Time. The doc is about a huge trove of silent films, many thought to be lost, that were literally unearthed in Alaska.

The spring 2018 schedule at the Opalka Gallery on the Sage Albany campus starts up next week with the opening of Practice What You Teach: Sage College Art+Design Faculty Show.

And from there, the gallery has a series of events lined up -- exhibits, talks, screenings, discussions -- each month through May.

Here's a quick look at the schedule...

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Talks from TEDxAlbany 2017

The video from the talks at last month's TEDxAlbany event at Overit are up on Youtube. And here's a playlist of them all in one place.*

The talks range this time around ranged in topic from philanthropy to math to families to bras.

The talk embedded above is by Albany Can Code co-founder Janet Carmosky. A quick clip, in which she talks about being a stakeholder rather than a consumer in the modern world. "I want to feel connected. I want to feel useful. I want to have a life of purpose and narrative and there's no way I can shop myself toward that goal."

* If you have the Youtube app on your phone, you should be able to pull up that playlist in the app and listen to the talks like a podcast or something similar.

NYS Writers Institute visiting writers spring 2018

The spring lineup for the NYS Writers Institute visiting writers series is out. And it is once again jammed with high-profile authors, discussions, and film screenings.

Here's a quick-scan overview of the schedule...

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Azmat Khan at Sanctuary for Independent Media

Award-winning journalist Azmat Khan will be at the Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy this Friday, December 1 for a talk.

Khan has reported for a bunch of different outlines, including Frontline, and she's Future of War fellow at the New America Foundation. She co-authored a cover story for the NYT Magazine this month -- "The Uncounted" -- that concludes the number of civilian casualties from coalition air strikes against ISIS in Iraq have been dramatically undercounted. The piece is heart-wrenching, and a remarkable example of on-the-ground reporting as Khan and Anand Gopal visited, mapped, and reported from air strike sites. A clip:

Some time later, he snapped awake. His shirt was drenched, and there was a strange taste -- blood? -- on his tongue. The air was thick and acrid. He looked up. He was in the bedroom, but the roof was nearly gone. He could see the night sky, the stars over Mosul. Basim reached out and found his legs pressed just inches from his face by what remained of his bed. He began to panic. He turned to his left, and there was a heap of rubble. "Mayada!" he screamed. "Mayada!" It was then that he noticed the silence. "Mayada!" he shouted. "Tuqa!" The bedroom walls were missing, leaving only the bare supports. He could see the dark outlines of treetops. He began to hear the faraway, unmistakable sound of a woman's voice. He cried out, and the voice shouted back, "Where are you?" It was Azza, his sister-in-law, somewhere outside.

"Mayada's gone!" he shouted.

"No, no, I'll find her!"

"No, no, no, she's gone," he cried back. "They're all gone!"

Khan's talk at the Sanctuary for Independent Media is at 7 pm Friday. Tickets are are $10 / $5 for students and low income.

photo via Azmat Khan Facebook

David Brooks at Skidmore

New York Times columnist David Brooks will be at Skidmore Monday, October 30 for a public event at the Zankel Center at 7:30 pm. It's free, but space is limited, so you'll have claim a ticket if you'd like to go.

Brooks will be talking with students in classes during the day. The event at the Zankel Center is "an evening with." (Presumably Brooks will have his acoustic and being playing hits from across his entire catalog.)

As a NYT columnist, NPR and PBS commentator, and author Brooks gets a lot of attention. He also gets plenty of criticism. (Example: Drew Magary's piece about Brooks and "the Bogus Influencer Economy" and "the Fartsniffer Club.")

Proctors
By the way: David Brooks will also be at Proctor January 17. Tickets are $35 and up.

PechaKucha is back at Opalka Gallery this week

The Opalka Gallery on the Sage Albany campus is hosting another PechaKucha night this Friday. The announced lineup:

+ Doug Bartow, designer, "Craft x Beer x Design"

+ Caroline Barrett

+ John Chaplin, dog-lover, "To Breed or Not to Breed"

+ Frida Foberg, architect, "Why are we eating together?"

+ Andrea Hersh, artist, "Get Out of the Studio"

+ Kristen Holler

+ Rob O'Neil, photographer, The College of St. Rose, "The Sublime Highway Rest Stop"

+ James Preller, children's book author, "The Red Thread"

+Alana Sparrow

+ Joe Ullman, can't fight, "Big Ring Advice"

+ Jennifer Wilkerson, designer, "The Best Design Job Ever"

PechaKucha? It's a format in which the speaker talk along with 20 slides, each slide only on display for 20 seconds. (Each talk is just short of 7 minutes total.) So, it moves quickly and it forces people to get right to the point.

The event starts Friday, October 27 at 6:30 with snacks and drinks. Talks start at 7 pm. It's free to attend.

The lineup of speakers for this year's TEDxAlbany is out, and tickets are now available

The lineup of speakers is out for this year's TEDxAlbany, which is December 7 at Overit in Albany.

This topics for this year's talks range from math to philanthropy to health to... urine. The lineup of speakers posted is below.

TEDxAlbany is the locally-organized version of the popular TED talks series. Overit hosts the event at a studio in its converted church building on New Scotland Ave.

Tickets are also now available. They're $75 and include breakfast and lunch. There's a limited number, and the event has filled up in past years.

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TEDxAlbany is back in December, and the call for speakers is out

TEDxAlbany -- the local, independently-organized version of the TED talks series -- will return to Overit in Albany December 7. And the call for speakers is now out. Blurbage:

Interested speakers are encouraged to apply early to ensure consideration. What are we looking for in a great TEDxAlbany talk? We're looking for interesting, thought-provoking talks that:

Tell us something new
Evoke contagious emotions
Are focused
Think globally

When solidifying your idea, ask yourself: What's a controversy in your field that a general audience would understand? What's a common misconception you'd love to clear up? Why is this idea important, and to whom? Who would disagree with you, and why? How did you carry out this idea in your own work?

That second link above includes details on how to submit an idea. Here are the talks -- with video -- from last year.

Tickets for the event will be available later this fall.

Opalka Gallery 2017 fall season

The schedule includes a talk by Carl Sprague, a concept illustrator on Wes Anderson's Grand Budapest Hotel and art director for other Anderson films.

The scheduled for the fall season of events at Opalka Gallery on the Sage Albany campus is out. It includes artist talks, films, and a handful of interactive activities.

Here's a quick look at the schedule...

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"Telling the Truth in a Post-truth World" series at UAlbany

HuffPost editor in chief (and former TU reporter) Lydia Polgreen is one of the panelists for the symposium. / photo via Lydia Polgreen Facebook

Tucked into the new schedule of fall events for the New York State Writers Institute is mention of a series of events -- including a big gathering at UAlbany's downtown campus October 13-14 -- called "Telling the Truth in a Post-truth World." Blurbage:

What is truth in an era that has been called post-truth?

What does it mean that Oxford Dictionaries declared "post-truth" its international word of the year in 2016? Or that Time magazine recently asked on its cover: "Is Truth Dead?"

The New York State Writers Institute presents a series of events, culminating in a two-day conference featuring acclaimed journalists, authors, historians, and First Amendment scholars, who will share their views on issues including "fake news;" Constitutional protections for a free press; information overload; the shifting roles of social media; hacking and cybersecurity; and more.

The October 13-14 symposium slate includes a bunch of discussions featuring high-profile journalists, media thinkers, and academics. Among them: Lydia Polgreen, Bob Schieffer, Bill Keller, Amy Goodman, Tim Wu, Harry Rosenfeld, Maria Hinojosa, Jeff Jarvis, and Gilbert King.

And October 12, author/journalist/radio host Kurt Andersen will be on the uptown campus for a conversation. Admission for that talk is $30 and includes a copy of Andersen's new book, Fantasyland.

Here's the panel lineup for the symposium...

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NYS Writers Institute visiting writers fall 2017

Rapper, comedian, actress -- and UAlbany alum -- Awkwafina opens the new season August 31.

The fall lineup for the NYS Writers Institute visiting writers series is out. And holy moly, is it packed with events featuring high-profile authors, writers, filmmakers, and journalists.

Here's a quick overview of the schedule...

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