The Secret Role of Zelda Fitzgerald: A Deeper Look at the Creative Life of a Jazz Age Legend

Fri, Apr 7 // 7 p.m. at Strand Bookstore

Taught by Charles Riley

Complimentary beer and wine provided by Sixpoint and Maison Cubi.

The flapper roll call from Josephine Baker to Dorothy Parker and Edna St. Vincent Millay is incomplete without Zelda Fitzgerald. Hard-drinking sybarite relentlessly on the move to be wherever the party was, an artist and amateur ballet dancer, a journalist and novelist con brio, the fashion-forward Zelda was a meal ticket for gossip columnists from the time she hit Manhattan.

Biographers batten on her dalliances and feuds (notably, with Ernest Hemingway), even as literary critics call for greater recognition for her novel Save Me the Waltz. Join cultural historian Charles A. Riley II for an insider's look into the creative life of a Jazz Age legend, including the secret role she played in the revision of The Great Gatsby.

A Crucial Critique of the Ruling Order: Art in the Age of Alternative Facts

Sat, Apr 8 // 10 p.m. at Bed Stuy Brownstone

Taught by Ward Regan

This is a live classical music concert and an Olio with complimentary beer.

Assumptions about the nature of scientific theory and truth are being called back into doubt after years of general acceptance—in most instances for political rather than epistemological reasons (climate change, evolution, vaccines, etc.). These doubts are evident in the actions of large segments of the population and exhibited by the present leadership; politicians can say more or less whatever they want to and overwhelming numbers of people either believe, don’t understand, don’t care, or somehow think they can’t be affected by the hegemonic “truth” of the moment.

Art, a form of expression with highly symbolic emotional content, can bypass conscious filters or “reason,” and may actually be the best route inside peoples’ heads—to their understanding of the world. And, for art to be a crucial, visionary contributor to the human project, it must be critical of the ruling order.

Let's talk about the role of art in the age of alternative facts.

Tough Poetry in Dark Times: Shelley, Melville, Brecht, Pope & Yeats

Sun, Apr 9 // 4 p.m. at IDIO Gallery

Taught by Geoff Klock

Olio Brunch: Includes coffee & bagels.

Life sucks. Da Fuk poetry gonna do about it. Maybe nothing, maybe something. Join us for this two hour Olio where we read difficulty poetry that asks some tough goddamn questions: Do we give up and die? Do we retreat into quietude and wait for the storm to pass? Do we surrender to easy pleasures? Do we fight back?

The last question we will take seriously, but we will take the others seriously as well. Poetry: our last bastion.