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EVENTS  AND  PROGRAMS
at the Mechanics' Institute

AUTHOR and
LITERARY EVENTS

Funded in part by Mark and Lisa Pinto
CINEMA LIT
FILM SERIES

Funded in part by Ryan Associates
SPECIAL PROGRAMS,
ART EXHIBIT,
MEMBERS' MEETING

**** BOX  OFFICE  INFORMATION ****
For RESERVATIONS BY PHONE: call the 'Events Line' at (415) 393-0100
For RESERVATIONS BY EMAIL: 
rsvp@milibrary.org 
Reservations are held at Box Office.  Arrive 15 minutes before event for seat selection

- OPEN SEATING-
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AUTHOR & LITERARY EVENTS


Thursday, July 10, 6:00 pm
In collaboration with William Stout Publishers & AIA
Saarinen’s Quest: A Memoir

Richard Knight & Pierluigi Serraino
    
    Joining Saarinen’s office as a designer and growing into the role of in-house photographer, Richard Knight captured hundreds of images of the behind-the-scenes process at Eero Saarinen’s office. This unique personal account of the process, culture, and history of Saarinen, is prefaced by a foreword by Cesar Pelli, and a contextual essay by architect Pierluigi Serraino, highlighting the critical role of large-scale model building practiced in Saarinen’s office. A traveling retrospective work will culminate at Yale University in 2010. Serraino is author of NorCalMod : Icons of Northern California Modernism and Modernism Rediscovered, co-authored with Julius Shulman.
Members of MI and AIA Free; Public $10
NOTE:
Additional event Wednesday, June 23, 6:00 pm
RM Schindler: The Gingold Commissions at American Institute of Architects, 130 Sutter Street , SF.



Tuesday, July 15, 6:00 pm - Post Bastille Day Celebration
Paris - Café de la Paix
Paris
À La Carte

Leonard Pitt
 
Paris - Place de l'Opéra
 
Paris - Le Moulin Rouge
    We welcome back our favorite Francophile Leonard Pitt, author of Walks through Lost Paris. Drawing on his collection of vintage Paris postcards, Monsieur Pitt reveals a bygone view of Paris at the turn of the century, as well as the American visitor’s experience of the City of Light . Graphically beautiful and highly collectable, post cards were the “email” of its day, and one of the keys of French economy.
French Cuisine available for purchase in the café
Members Free; Public $10
 
Leonard Pitt



Thursday, July 17, 7:00 pm - (café opens at 6:30 pm)
More Stories by Tobias Wolff
Word for Word Theater Company
 
 
    Word for Word Theater Company previews their upcoming production of More Stories by Tobias Wolff with a dramatic reading of three stories, “Sanity,” “Down to Bone” and “Firelight”. Wolff’s typical exploration of moral ambiguity and life-affirming story-telling is brought from page to stage by this unique ensemble theater.
Suggested donation: Members $5; Public $15



Thursday, July 24
6:00 pm Café opens ; 6:30 pm - PROGRAM

Argentinean Tango:
The Dance in Depth

Luis Castro & Claudia Mendoza
Author program, dance demonstration and mini-milonga
    Two world-class teachers and stars of Forever Tango bring together tango’s cultural history, musical evolution and lore in a unique new book which offers a panoramic view of this dance phenomenon--- from the streets and bordellos of Buenos Aires to its reincarnation on Broadway, to the current passion for tango around the world.

     Luis Castro and Claudia Mendoza have performed with the internationally acclaimed Tango Pasion and Forever Tango, for which they were nominated for best choreography for three prestigious Broadway awards: the Tony, the Drama Desk and the Outer Critics Circle. They teach and perform in Europe, Japan and the United States and currently make their home in Italy.
Members Free, Public $10   Eat, Read & Dance!
Argentine cuisine available in the café throughout the evening.



Thursday, July 31, 6:00 pm
In collaboration with William Stout Publishers & AIA
Appropriate:
The Houses of Joseph Esherick

Marc Treib
 
    Joseph Esherick was arguably the foremost San Francisco architect from the 1960’s until his death in the late 1990’s, following the wake of William Wurster. Esherick established his own practice in the late 1940’s and the firm produced a continuous stream of laudable buildings, among them houses appropriate to their site and time. Affected less by national and international fashion than by exigencies of local climate, social demands, and suitable technology, Esherick produced a large number of truly classic residences.
    Marc Treib is Professor Emeritus of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, and a practicing designer.
Members of MI and AIA Free; Public $10


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CINEMALlT
F
ILM  SERIES

Michael Fox, Curator


ABOUT CINEMALIT:  Film lovers and aficionados enjoy an ongoing feast of classic American and international films at the Mechanics' Institute. CinemaLit programs, which are presented nine months a year, were created to complement and highlight the Mechanics' Institute Library's vast collection of more than 2500 videos and DVDs including classics, drama, comedy, foreign films and documentaries. The CinemaLit Film Series is open to members and the public.

Each program begins with an introduction of the movie, genre and themes by curator Michael Fox or well-known local film writers and critics such as David Thomson, Eddie Muller, Joe McBride and others. The evening concludes with a salon discussion involving the audience and speakers. Films are shown on large screen in the best available format, DVD or video.

The Mechanics' Institute's charming meeting room/cafe space, which seats up to eighty people, provides an intimate, informal atmosphere for film viewing, lively conversation and congenial socializing. The cafe offers light refreshments and freshly popped popcorn.

Location: Mechanics’ Institute, 57 Post Street (near Market St), San Francisco
Transit:    MUNI/BART- Montgomery Station
Time:   Every Friday. Mechanics’ Café opens at 6:00 pm
            Program begins at 6:30 pm.   A salon style discussion follows the film.
Admission:  Tickets available at the door.  
                  
MIL members: free ; Public suggested donation $10
For more information and reservations: Call (415) 393-0100 or email us
           at rsvp@milibrary.org  / Reservations are required - Limited seating

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    .
SUMMER MOVIES - FLIGHTS OF FANCY
Friday, July 11
My Fair Lady  
(1964) 170 minutes
Directed by George Cukor ; starring Rex Harrison, Audrey Hepburn

A Cockney flower girl, along with George Bernard Shaw's 1913 London, receives a musical makeover.
Friday, July 25
The Smiling Lieutenant  (1931)  88 minutes
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch ; starring Claudette Colbert, Maurice Chevalier, Miriam Hopkins

A randy lieutenant's misplaced wink lands him a repressed royal bride in this Pre-Code, Viennese-set, oh-so-continental romantic comedy.

 
Friday, August 8
The King and I  (1956) 133 minutes
Directed by Walter Lang ; starring Deborah Kerr, Yul Brynner, Rita Moreno

In the 1860s, a British widow hires on as governess to the children of the King of Siam in this adaptation of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Tony Award-winner.
Friday, August 22
The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle 
 (1939)  93 minutes
Directed by H. C. Potter ; starring Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers

This RKO Astaire-Rogers musical depicts the loving relationship between the ground-breaking ballroom dancers of the pre-World War I era.

The Cinemalit Program is funded in part by  Ryan Associates.


CinemaLit Film Series is generously sponsored in part by Ryan Associates.


CinemaLit  Film  Series
Guest Speaker Biographies

Michael Fox has written about film for more than 50 regional and national publications since 1987. He created and authored the “Reel World” column in SF Weekly for more than a decade, and hosted the first season of KQED-TV’s short-lived program on independent film, “Independent View.” He has sat on juries for the San Francisco International, Mill Valley, Cinequest and United Nations Association film festivals and the Independent Television Service (ITVS), and contributes notes to the San Francisco, Mill Valley and SFILGBT festival programs. He also teaches courses in documentary film at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State’s downtown campus.
Terrance Gelenter is a nationally syndicated film critic, lecturer and interviewer.  Among his many interviewees are Billy Wilder, Sidney Lumet, James Ellroy, and Isabel Allende.   He is founder of Paris through Expatriate Eyes, a firm specializing in designing and escorting literary and cultural tours of Paris. The CinemaLit title is used with permission of Terrance Gelenter.  
Matthew Kennedy teaches anthropology at the City College of San Francisco and film history at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He is a film critic for Bright Lights Film Journal online and has written three books on classic Hollywood: Marie Dressler: A Biography, Edmund Goulding's Dark Victory, and Joan Blondell: A Life between Takes. For more information, please visit his website.
Eddie Muller is film-noir expert and author of Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir, Dark City Dames, and co-author of Grindhouse: The Forbidden World of Adults Only Cinema.   His mystery novels include The Distance and Shadow Boxer.
David Thomson’s writing has appeared in Film Comment, Movieline, The New Republic and Vanity Fair.   He is a regular contributor to Esquire and The New York Times.   He is the author of A Biographical Dictionary of Film, Showman: The Life of David O. Selznick, Rosebud, the award winning biography of Orson Welles, Beneath Mulholland and Nevada.

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SALONS AND SPECIAL PROGRAMS



Republic of the Imagination
Play Reading and Discussion Salon
The Greeks : the Duality of Comedy and Tragedy
Mondays, 7:00 - 8:30 pm     July 21 - August 25, 2008


Moderated by Professors Saul Galin and Lois Spatz (on alternate dates)

July 21 Oedipus the King, by Sophocles Galin
July 28 Birds, by Aristophanes
(optional reading: The Knights by Aristophanes)
Spatz
August 4 Medea, by Euripides Galin
August 11 Lysistrata, by Aristophanes
(optional reading: Thesmophoriazousae
(a.k.a. The Poet and the Women) by Aristophanes
Spatz
August 18 Oedipus at Colonus, by Sophocles Galin
August 25 Frogs, by Aristophanes Spatz


Read plays in advance of each session.
For comedies,
read Four Plays by Aristophanes (Meridian)
with translations by William Arrowsmith, Richmond Lattimore, and Douglass Parker. 
For tragedies,
read translations by Robert Fagles.


Fee per session: Members $10 ; Public $15
Six session series:
Members $50 ; Public $75





ART EXHIBITION & The Color of Spring
Paintings by Jucivaldo Tavares

Exhibit Hours:  M-F weekdays 10:00 am - 5:00 pm , 4th floor Meeting Room and Hallway
   Tavares is an emerging artist from Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, whose bold vivacious painting gives expression to work marked by a profound harmony between the composition and the colors.

"My type of Abstractionism comes out of an emotional, realistic movement of life. Through composition and vibrant colors I express all of my sentiments. Everything I see and feel inspires me to create shapes, lines and contrast, a colorful circle that explores art and completes my composition."- J.T.

"Composition yearns for a realism of strong color. Flowers, with diverse lines and form, highlight the beauty of the landscape with a defined contrast. I see colorful brushstrokes of emotion residing in nature; I hope to fill your knowledge with the desire to search for your essence in the painting. Like an endless dream. "- Jucivaldo Tavares


   Jucivaldo Tavares completed his first studies at MAM, Museum of Modern Art, in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, 1996. He later continued with Advanced Studies at MAM in São Paulo, 1999 and received his MA at the University of São Paulo, 1998-2004. Tavares’ art has been seen and exhibited around the world including Canada, Italy, United States, Germany, Austria, Chile, Switzerland, Costa Rica, Portugal, Spain, Finland, Sweden, Great Britain, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Luxembourg, Argentina and Holland.
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Volunteer Opportunities:  
Volunteers are needed for our Events and CinemaLit Film Series. 
Call Laura Sheppard, Director of Events at (415) 393-0114
or Pamela Troy, Events Assistant/CinemaLit Coordinator at (415) 393-0116.



RESERVATIONS: rsvp@milibrary.org      EVENTS OFFICE: events@milibrary.org 

Revised: July 3, 2008