THEATER: Len Jenkin's Kraken imagines the details of an actual 1856 encounter between Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Melville, his Moby-Dick long since met with a critical “meh”, was in the midst of a spiritual journey to Jerusalem – a trip that would, two decades later, yield the back-breaking, 2 Volume, 18,000 line Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land. En route he stopped to visit his old Berkshire homey Hawthorne, now the American consul in Liverpool. In Jenkin’s dramatization, the two literary legends – neither one legendary in their day – spend the evening together confronting their “fears, failures, things of this world and the next”, etc. According to Hawthorne’s diary, ol’ Hermy may have droned on a bit: “Melville, as he always does, began to reason of Providence and futurity, and of everything that lies beyond human ken, and informed me that he had pretty much made up his mind to be annihilated; but still he does not seem to rest in that anticipation; and, I think, will never rest until he gets hold of a definite belief.” Garrett Eisler, who reviewed Kraken for the Voice, writes that the voyage does “dock at a satisfying port.” - John Del Signore
Results tagged “happyendingreadingseries”
Maybe it's been a while since you sat down with some Law & Order Franchise and you've been missing your facetime with your Dr. George Huang, portrayed by the preternaturally calm B.D. Wong. We know we've been missing him lately, so tonight's the night to head over to Symphony Space (95th and Broadway) to check out Wong and Stephen Lang read stories from Roald Dahl and J. Robert Lennon, as part of the Selected Shorts series. Wong's a frequent reader for them, so if you can't make it tonight at 6:30PM, there's always another time.

Amanda Stern, Author
Gothamist Weather loves how New York magazine asked four writers to profile four ordinary New Yorkers go about their day. And check out the James Joyce Center and The Brazen Head, a website about James Joyce.
For information on these events and more things to do in the city, check out Gothamist Events. And the Happy Ending Reading Series was mentioned in the Times earlier this week, as was Lindsayism's monthly Ritalin Reading Series. Rock on.

Whitney Pastorek, Writer/Etc.



