Author Excerpts

Authors-for-Literacy Readings at the United Nations

All contributions taken in at the "Authors-for-Literacy" books-signings benefit literacy projects of the 'UN Staff 1% for Development Fund

December, 2011

Oscar Hijuelos Reading
Reading and presentation of Oscar Hijuelos

Excerpt from The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love
by Oscar Hijuelos

“…Even though the brothers already knew how to speak a polite if rudimentary English that they’d learned while working as busboys and waiters in the Havana chapter of the Explorers Club on old Neptuno Street (“Yes sir, no sir, please don’ call me Pancho, sir) the twisted, hard consonants of the English language never fell on their ears like music. At dinner, the table piled high with steaks and chops, platanos and yucca, Cesar would talk about walking on the street and hearing a constant ruido – a noise—the whirling, garbled English language, spoken in Jewish, Irish, German, Polish, Italian, Spanish accents, complicated and unmelodic to his ear. He had a thick accent, rolled his rrrrrrrr’s, said “jo-jo” instead of “yo-yo”, and “tink” not “think” –just like Ricky Ricardo—but got along well enough to charm the American women he met here and there, and to sit out on the fire escape in the good weather, strumming a guitar, crooning out in English “In the Still of the Night”. And he could walk down the street to the liquor store and say, “One Bacardi dark please…” And then, after a time, with bravado, saying to the proprietor, “How the hell are you, my friend?”..." (p. 2)

Emmanuel Soyer, Head of UN Language Programme,
welcomes audience at Oscar Hijuelos reading

Pulitzer-prize-winning author, Oscar Hijuelos, signing books

Author Oscar Hijuelos and Event team member Pat Duffy

Post-reading reception with Oscar Hijuelos with (from l to r): Jodi Nooyen, Alice Harrison, Marlenys Villamar, Pat Duffy

October, 2008

Paul Auster signing books

Post-reading reception for Paul Auster:
Historic UNCA Club (l to r: Javier Zanon, Paul Auster,
Mary Regan, Francoise Bouffault, Pat Duffy)

Excerpt from Man in the Dark
by Paul Auster

“…The night is still young, and as I lie here in bed looking up into the darkness, a darkness so black that the ceiling is invisible, I begin to remember the story I started last night. That’s what I do when sleep refuses to come. I lie in bed and tell myself stories. They might not add up to much, but as long as I’m inside them, they prevent me from thinking about the things I would refer to forget. Concentration can be a problem, however, and more often than not my mind eventually drifts away from the story I’m telling to the things I don’t want to think about. There’s nothing to be done. I fail again and again, fail more than I succeed, but that doesn’t mean I don’t give my best effort.” (p. 2)

Jona Mekas and Cecelia Vicuna

Filmmaker Jonas Mekas and poet Cecilia Vicuna in UNCA Club, post-reading

Excerpt from Instan
by Cecilia Vicuna

“Being” is a compound of three forms: “to grow”, “to set in motion”
And “yes it may be so.”
To be not an estar, but a way of being.”

Filmmaker Jonas Mekas celebrates the Lithuanian language

International Mother Language Day Reading

February, 2009

Elizabeth Little

Excerpts from Biting the Wax Tadpole: Confessions of a Language Fanatic
by Elizabeth Little

“…I love the patterns of language, the bits of grammatical code that takes a series of sounds and makes sense of them. I love new words, new sounds, new structure. But what I love best is this: each foreign language that I learn is both deeply familiar and entirely new. Every language has the same basic bits and pieces that I use every day. And every language puts those pieces together in a different – and oftentimes dazzling – way. For me, studying language is like having a never-ending supply of mind-blowing Pixies cover songs. I love the theme; I thrill to the variation.” (page 23)

“for me, language isn’t just an opportunity to flex my mental muscles. Whether I’m traveling abroad or sitting at home, language is nothing less than a great adventure. It’s full of culture, history, humor. And yes, sometimes even humiliation. Language is, at its heart, about humanity – and there’s nothing more human than being humbled. But even though I may misconstrue verbs or mispronounce words, the only real mistake I can make is to let the things I might get wrong keep me from finding out what’s right.”
Only a lucky few of us will ever have the opportunity to hop from city to city and country to country, to see all we want to see of what the world has to show. But that doesn’t mean we have to miss out on all the fun. There are nearly seven thousand known living languages in the world, and each one is an odyssey of its own. Don’t let fear keep you from finding out firsthand. Pick up a grammar guide, listen to a language tape, turn on a foreign film. Let go of your doubts, uncertainties, and insecurities and start exploring – there are worlds out there just waiting to be discovered.
And here’s a head start: bon voyage. (p. 186)

New York Opera Society
November 2008

Opera Poster

Event Volunteers

Volunteers for the Opera Society Event

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