In 1976, the New York premiere of Philip Glass and Robert Wilson’s “Einstein on the Beach” captivated audiences, polarized critics and put both artists on the map of contemporary performance art. In four-and-a half hours, its famously reductive score, enigmatic text and limpid, tensile choreography (by Lucinda Childs) teases out the meaning of the time/space continuum.

The work’s first New York revival in twenty years opens Friday evening as part of the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival. On Wednesday, Philip Glass talked about the work—and a range of other pieces that have been performed at BAM over the years—with a former protégé, the composer Nico Muhly.

Affectionately coaxed by Muhly, speaking composer-to-composer, Glass reflected on his major operas, his work in collaboration with artists from other cultural traditions, and the evolution of his own musical style, which Muhly pointed out has become more lush, and (clearly jokingly) “decadent.” 

For a man who is indeed an icon, Glass is somewhat bashful about his own place in the musical pantheon, and clearly bemused to be in a position to look back on a work that is entering its 37^th year.   “As composers, we don’t really write for posterity,” he says wryly.  “You’re writing for this year’s repertoire, you’re writing for what you’re doing right now. I think it never occurred to Bob and I that thirty-seven years later we’d still be doing this piece.”

Glass also commented on the ease and confidence with which younger musicians approach his works, because they have grown up on them. “I was the lunatic who was always there,” he notes.

And “Einstein?” This is the first time the piece has received a major revival without any of the original creators performing, so Glass has actually had a chance to watch it, and reflect on intentions of his younger self. “It seems like someone I used to know once.” 

With three new operas and a film in development, this is clearly as elegiac as Glass, at 75, is prepared to get.

Bon Mots

On new music: "There’s a performance practice that goes with a piece of music…for a piece of music to be truly new, there has to be a new way to play it."

On collaborations: "The reason I was doing it to begin with was to understand my own language better; and I found that when I had to embrace somebody else’s language, I had to find a common place where we could work together."

On the change in his own musical style: "It just comes from having written music for a long time.  My brain got re-wired; I don’t have to sound like Philip Glass any more."

Geoffrey Rush is one of Australia’s most celebrated exports, a protean character actor whose roles have ranged from the mentally frail pianist David Helfgott (his Oscar-winning performance in “Shine”) to George VI’s speech therapist Lionel Logue (“The King’s Speech”) to the Marquis de Sade (“Quills”).   

Courtesy of the 92nd Street Y

He most recent film, in which he is pictured above, is “The Eye of the Storm,” directed by Fred Schepisi, and also starring Judy Davis. The film is based on a novel by the Nobel Prize-winning writer Patrick White, about a domineering matriarch and her alienated adult children. Last Wednesday, Rush paid homage to this less well-known Australian genius as part of the 92Y’s long-running film screening and discussion series, “Reel Pieces.”  Rush, director Schepisi, and Schepisi’s daughter Alexandra, who has a featured role in the film, were interviewed before a live audience by Dr. Annette Insdorf, the head of undergraduate film studies at Columbia University.

Bon Mots

Geoffrey Rush on Patrick White:  "Here was somebody writing about the Australian landscape and the Australian psyche with big, bold, fat novels."

Fred Schepisi on White’s characters:  "Patrick White believes that everyone is an actor, that you’re one way with your family, another way with your friends, another way with your work colleagues.  You present all those different faces to the world."

Geoffrey Rush on Australian films of the 1970s:  "There were a lot of pioneering films.  Guys used to have to be on horseback with their shirts off, with picks."

Fred Schepisi on his cast:  "It was a great collaboration, and by the end I really did love them all."

To listen to an excerpt from the “Reel Pieces” talk, click on the player above.

Host and curator Amanda Stern concluded this season’s Happy Ending Music & Reading series at Joe’s Pub on July 11 with an evening themed around “communication.” 

Stern’s themes are almost always designed to resonate ironically and this program was no exception, as the authors Rajesh Parameswaran, Alex Shakar and Nell Freudenberger delivered variations on the idea of wanting what you can’t have, and don't know how to ask for.

Parameswaran read from his collection “I am an Executioner” — a story in which a captive tiger falls in love with his zookeeper and things do not go well. Shakar offered an excerpt from his novel “Luminarium.”  His protagonist Fred is beset by a Job-like pile of woes, and spends an afternoon with a Hollywood wannabe who claims to have achieved enlightenment.  Nell Freudenberger’s novel “The Newlyweds” features a 21^st-century version of the mail-order bride; in the excerpt heard here, she finds her arranged (by her) wedding more light-hearted than she anticipated.

Musical guest Ana Egge helped set the mood with a set of dark rock/folk songs about — well, wanting what you can’t have.

This show was the last at Joe’s Pub.  The series will continue in the autumn. For further information check Stern’s website at http://amandastern.com/happy-ending/

To hear excerpts from the readings, and Egge’s performance, click on the player above.

Bons Mots

A tiger in love.  “Where was my hunger?  Where was all the gloom and trouble of the day?  It was all gone.  Kitch was here.” -- Rajesh Parameswaran, “The Infamous Bengal Ming.”

Unlikely prophet at a Universal theme park.  “’So I heard you attained Nirvana or something,’ Fred mumbled…’what’s that mean?’…’beyond the slum of human reality. It means free, Freddie, just free.’”—Alex Shakar, “Luminarium.”

Wanting it the way she wants it.  “In ‘Desh you make your plans and they usually do not succeed.  But in America you make your plans and then they happen.”— Nell Freudenberger, “The Newlyweds.” 

“If you are going to go through hell, keep going.” This is just one of the many robust adages coined by Sir Winston Churchill during World War II.

A new exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum called “Churchill:  The Power of Words,” which showcased his long, celebrated career as a statesman, writer, and orator, opened on Friday.

Churchill's inspirational speeches and radio broadcasts helped to guide England from its darkest to its finest hour during the long years of fighting and the constant threat of attack and invasion by the Nazi forces.

As noted by the journalist Edward R. Murrow in an introduction to Churchill's collected speeches: "Now the hour had come for him to mobilize the English language, and send it into battle, a spearhead of hope for Britain and the world.”

The exhibition at the Morgan kicked off with a lecture by Churchill’s granddaughter, The Hon. Celia Sandys, who has written extensively about him.

During the talk, Sandys asserted that Churchill’s combination of clarity, command, courage and charisma make him a much-needed model for leadership in our own dark times. Indeed, she pointed out that a renewed interest in Churchill began at the time of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, as world leaders looked for ways to console and inspire their citizens.

The Sandys talk also included a video of iconic Churchillian moments in war and peace, accompanied by examples of some of his most vivid utterances, and the purposeful, magnetic voice that bound a nation together.

The lecture is part of the Winston Churchill Literary Series, a program of The Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, and The Writing Center at Hunter College. Sandys was introduced at the Morgan by the series patron, Tina Santi Flaherty.

Click on the link above to hear the talk. "Churchill: The Power of Words" runs at the Morgan through September 23.

Bons Mots from Sandys

On Churchill’s integrity: “Even today ... you can listen to my grandfather’s words without ever wondering, ‘What on earth did he mean by that?’”

On the fact that Churchill employed no speech writers: “Modern leaders’ speeches often betray their origins in committee.”

On Churchill as inspiration: “It’s been said that Hitler could persuade you that he could do anything, but Churchill could convince you that you could do anything."

Bons Mots from Churchill

On assessing historical events (in light of a military failure): “Of this I am quite sure, that if we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.”

On the need for good intelligence: “Facts are better than dreams.”

On his own reputation as a bon vivant: “I am a man of simple tastes, easily satisfied by the best.”

The PEN America Center’s organizational focus is the effect of world events on the safety and freedom of expression of writers, so the topic of war naturally looms large in its cultural consciousness. As part of the recent PEN World Voices Festival, Polish journalist and author Wojciech Jagielski was interviewed by Joel Whitney, a founding editor of Guernica: A Magazine of Art & Politics. 

Jagielski began his career on assignment in the former Soviet Union and then spent a decade in Afghanistan. He became particularly interested in how countries with trenchant ethnic divisions seem so often to wind up in the midst of seemingly irresolvable conflicts. His most recent book, The Night Wanderers, is on Uganda and the problematic resistance leader Joseph Rao Kony, a now recognizable name thanks to a wildly circulated viral video.

The PEN World Voices event took place at the Brooklyn Public Library on May 2 and was introduced by Meredith Walters, the director of exhibitions at the library. Listen to the talk between Jagielski and Whitney by clicking on the link above.

Bons Mots:

Jagielski on becoming a foreign correspondent: "It was easy choice because in the '80s, when we [Poland] were the colonist country, writing about Poland and politics in Poland, it was not the job for the journalist, it was the job for the politician, the activist."

Jagielski on child soldiers: "The scenario was always the same. At night the guerillas were attacking a village … and they were taking hostages, the children. It was planned action because it was easier for children to be made a soldier. I was even told the best age to be kidnapped … to be made a future guerilla, was eight to 10 years."

Jagielski on Idi Amin: "The stereotype was created in Western media. The real Idi Amin was not the same person that we have from the movies, from the books."

The 2012 PEN World Voices Festival ended with a talk about censorship at the Cooper Union by novelist Salman Rushdie (Midnight's Children, The Satanic Verses).

After the speech, the PEN festival founder had a conversation with writer Gary Shteyngart (The Russian Debutante's Handbook, Super Sad True Love Story).

Peter Godwin, the president of PEN American Center, and Laszlo Jakab Orsos, PEN World Voices Director, introduced Rushdie before he gave the Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture that traditionally wraps up the festival.   Listen to and download Rushdie's 17-minute talk by clicking the audio link above.

Bon Mots:

Rushdie on censorship: "If writing is Thing, then censorship is No-Thing. And as King Lear told Cordelia, 'Nothing will come of nothing.' Think again. Censorship changes the subject. It introduces a more tedious subject and creates a more boring world."

Rushdie on liberty: "Liberty is the air we breathe...in a part of the world where, imperfect as the supply is, it is, nevertheless, freely available—at least to those of us who are not black youngsters wearing hoodies in Miami, and broadly breathable—unless, of course, we’re women in red states trying to make free choices about our own bodies."

Rushdie on originality: "Great art, or, let’s just say, more modestly, original art is never created in the safe middle ground, but always at the edge ... Originality is dangerous. It challenges, questions, overturns assumptions, unsettles moral codes, disrespects sacred cows or other such entities. It can be shocking, or ugly, or, to use that catch-all term so beloved of the tabloid press, controversial."

Watch a video of Rushdie speaking at the talk.

Comparisons are invidious, but Hugo Hamilton is clearly a successor to the late Frank McCourt, author of the celebrated “Angela’s Ashes,” in the tradition of Irish memoir. 

Hamilton read from his book, “The Speckled People,” as part of the PEN World Voices Festival on May 3. The event was held at Ireland House, a handsome mews building off Washington Square Park that is home to NYU’s Irish studies department. Hamilton was introduced by John Waters, head of the university’s Irish literature program.

In the competitive world of memoir writing, a bizarre childhood is almost de rigueur. But Hamilton’s was even more bizarre than most. His father was an ardent Irish nationalist, married to a German woman. In protest against what he viewed as the British “occupation” of his country, he refused to allow any English to be spoken in his home.  As a result, Hamilton grew up as a virtual émigré in his own country, speaking primarily Celtic and German.

The two languages also came to delineate the very different temperaments of his parents — an angry, pessimistic father and a nurturing mother with a sense of humor. To further complicate matters, Hamilton and his siblings still had to go to the local school in his English-speaking community, so that life was “a daily form of emigration.”

As if to emphasize the polyglot nature of the PEN festival, the evening at Ireland House included a discussion between Hamilton and the Basque philosopher Fernando Savater, who spoke through a translator.

Click on the link above to hear Hugo Hamilton comment on and read from “The Speckled People.” 

Bon Mots

Hamilton on not speaking English at home: "The feeling we had was that we weren’t in the right country somehow."

Hamilton on writing memoirs: "As a child, you collect very strong memories. As an adult, you go back and reclaim your own story."

Hamilton, recalling what his mother said about baking and life: "If you bake a cake in anger, it will taste of nothing."

Earlier in May, Jacob Weisberg, editor-in-chief for the Slate group, and author Jennifer Egan discussed Egan’s Pulitzer Prize-winning, genre-busting novel A Visit from the Goon Squad, and her writing process at The New School. Their conversation was part of the annual PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature.

Bon Mots

Weisberg on the incredible likability of A Visit from the Goon Squad: “The thing about this book is I don’t know anybody who disliked it. You can get an argument going at any dinner party if you just say ‘Jonathan Franzen’ and at least somebody will take the contrary position. But I have yet to find somebody who read this and wasn’t impressed by it."

Egan on the mysterious P.M., to whom she dedicated A Visit from the Goon Squad: “You’re killing me with these questions! I feel as though I really should have had a warning. I am going to come out and answer that … It is my long-time therapist.”

Egan on developing her characters: “I’m really bad at trying to use people I know. I wish I could use them. But I’m sure most people I know are [so] happy that I can’t!”

Download the audio of the talk above or watch a video of the talk:

One of the highlights of this year's PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature was a talk between writers E.L. Doctorow, Margaret Atwood and Martin Amis. New York Times chief film critic A.O. Scott asked the authors about America and its role in the global political culture at The Times Center.

The Sunday before the talk, Doctorow (Homer & Langley, Ragtime), Atwood (The Blind Assassin, Alias Grace) and Amis (Time's Arrow, The Rachel Papers) had written essays for The Sunday Review section of The Times on the subject.

Doctorow's was called, "a-primer.html">Unexceptionalism: A Primer"; Atwood's was titled, "martians-this-is-america.html">Hello, Martians. Let Moby Dick Explain"; and Amis's, "and-nick-jr-go-to-america.html?ref=sunday">Marty and Nick Jr. Go to America."

Roughly 100 writers from 25 countries were in New York City from April 30 to May 6 for this year's PEN festival.

Bon Mots:

Doctorow on why America is becoming increasingly unexceptional, "in terms of our secret warrant-less searches of people's homes and businesses and records, and our data-mining, and all the subversions of what we think of as life in the United States." 

Atwood on what America should be: "I think with a lot of countries, you don't ask the question, 'What should it be?' But America has always had that question, 'What should it be?' because it did start as a utopian community. So it is always examining, 'What should it be?' as opposed to 'What it is.'"

Amis on Trayvon Martin and American law: "Is it possible to confess to the pursuit and murder of an unarmed white 17-year-old, white 17-year-old, and be released that evening without charge? And I wanted to be told, 'Yes.' But in fact, as we all know -- it's one of the public secrets of America -- is that this happens all the time."

Atwood on Herman Melville's Moby Dick: "I think that Melville designed it very carefully to represent a number of different segments of American society. It wasn't for nothing that he named the ship after an extinct native tribe and put three harpooners in there from different parts of the empire and made the owners two hypocritical Quakers."

Doctorow on Edgar Allan Poe: "Did I ever tell you I was named after him? [Atwood: No.] I think it was my father's idea. He was philosophically inclined but he was busy supporting us during the Depression and couldn't give vent to his literary and philosophical being but he named his child after a writer he admired ... A few years before my mother died, I finally asked a question, I said, 'Do you realize you and Dad named me after an alcoholic, drug-addicted, delusional paranoid with strong necrophiliac tendencies?'"

Atwood on being a smart, but not necessarily an intellectual, politician: "What you probably want is somebody who's got some political smarts or somebody who's at least smart enough to avoid sinking the entire fortune of a country in some really ill-advised, unnecessary war."

Amis, responding to Atwood's point: "And anti-intellectualism exists in many English-speaking countries, but the American variant is worship of stupidity."

Atwood: "And that's a different thing."

Amis: "It is an entirely different thing."

Click the link above to hear the full PEN festival talk, which took place on May 2 and opened with remarks from Carol Day. Or watch a video of the talk below.

Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her 86th birthday on April 21, and the entire Commonwealth is preparing to honor her on the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee on June 5.

So a look at the future of the British monarchy is timely, and one take on this rich topic was offered at Bonham’s New York auction house on April 30 by a very privileged observer: former Royal Naval Officer Patrick Jephson, who served for eight years as private secretary and chief of staff to the late Princess of Wales.

Jephson said that his family’s history of service to the crown goes back to the 13th century, and his talk managed to combine respect and affection with a shrewd assessment of the Windsor “brand,” and what those who will succeed the Queen need to do to succeed in the coming years as a relevant part of British life and a resonant symbol of a vital monarchy in an increasingly diverse and globalized society.

The glimpse Jephson gives us of the royal family, particularly those two very private-in-public women, HRH Queen Elizabeth, and Diana, Princess of Wales, reveals a perhaps surprising earthiness, and in the case of the Princess of Wales — that bird in a gilded cage — enormous humility.  For example, her response to being named “International Humanitarian of the Year” in 1994 was to say that, “she didn’t deserve the award, but she was working on it.”

By contrast, Jephson deplores the rise of royal spin doctors and cautions that what the monarchy needs to survive and thrive for another 60 years and beyond is to gain and keep the belief of the people in their authenticity and sense of duty. Trust, he says, is Queen Elizabeth II’s greatest legacy.

Photo of and by former Royal Naval Officer Patrick Jephson. He served for eight years as private secretary and chief of staff to the late Princess of Wales.

Listen to Jephson’s talk at Bonham’s by clicking the link above. He is introduced by the historian and journalist, Sir Harold Evans, former editor of The Times of London.

Bon Mots

Former Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin on monarchy: “The throne is bigger than the man.”

Patrick Jephson on the family business: “If you’re in the dynasty business, your job is to survive, and to keep the business in the family.”

Patrick Jephon on core values: “Because the British monarchy is a very human institution, it’s always going to have flaws, but the flaws will always be forgiven if the virtues of modesty, integrity, and duty are always associated with it in the public mind.”