The New Year is about to begin – and, with it, the formal opening of Alphabet City. The bookstore will be open and we will be adding new technologies and features each week, with the grand opening of Casellula @ Alphabet City later in the month.
2017 will open on January 5th with the next film in the Sembène Film & Art Festival: Chico & Rita. This animated film moves from Havana in its pre-Fidel days of big spenders to New York in the heyday of jazz and Paris when foreign musicians were hot. Roger Ebert wrote about it: “It’s entertaining to watch, and I enjoyed the way they slipped in such real-life figures as Dizzy Gillespie beside the fictional leads.The music is terrific. Idania Valdes dubs Rita’s sensuous, smoky singing voice, and the film is essentially constructed as a musical.”
Suzanne Rivecca will be a visiting writer-in-residence at City of Asylum in January (yes, we are fast-becoming known as the Miami of the North, with our balmy weather!). On January 10th, she will be reading from her latest work, which she will be finishing during her residency. Suzanne was nominated by Jill Bialosky, poet and editor at W.W. Norton, who is on our Advisory Board. Her “Death is Not an Option” is a highly praised short story collection.
Did you know Pittsburgh’s very own Randy Gilson (of Randyland) is in a film? To celebrate, we are hosting a double screening of Pursuing Happiness – a documentary featuring one of our favorite Northside neighbors – on Saturday, January 14th and then again on Sunday, January 15th.
[ebor_button style=”pomegranate” url=”http://www.alphabetcity.org”] View the Schedule at alphabetcity.org for All January Events [/ebor_button]