In This Issue
Community Organizing - Protest Bannon
We'll be phone
banking from the store on Friday, November 18th from 2-6 pm. Stop in to make phone calls to our elected officials protesting the role of a known white supremacist in the government-elect.

We'll have phone numbers, a simple short script, and comforting hot tea. 
11/19 @ 3pm
Mt. Airy author Lori Tharps brings her new book to Big Blue Marble.
Same Family, Different Colors weaves together personal stories, history, and analysis to explore the myriad ways skin-color politics affect family dynamics in the United States.

11/18 Poetry Aloud & Alive 
7pm Poetry Aloud & Alive welcomes Sekai'afua Zankel, followed by an open mic
 
Farewell, Mr. Cohen
For those who were thinking 2016 couldn't get any worse, it did last Wednesday, when Leonard Cohen, beloved poet, songwriter, musician and novelist, died at
 82, less than a month after the release of his new album You Want it Darker.

The Only Poem

This is the only poem
I can read
I am the only one
can write it
I didn't kill myself
when things went wrong
I didn't turn
to drugs or teaching
I tried to sleep
but when I couldn't sleep
I learned to write
I learned to write
what might be read
on nights like this
by one like me

From The Energy of Slaves, 1972

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11/20 On Sundays We Write with Doreen McGettigan 
Novelist and writing teacher Doreen McGettigan presents
"Your Novel is Finished - Now What?"

This workshop will help you explore all the options facing you: traditional, independent, boutique, vanity, assisted self-publishing, and self -publishing. 
 
In the store now 
Following last December's top-selling fully-illustrated Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone comes the illustrated Chamber of Secrets.

Just in case last year's shortages are likely to repeat, we suggest you Order Early. 
 
Oy.

Like all of you, the staff here at Big Blue Marble has been struggling with grief, shock, and fear - fear for Obamacare, which provides health insurance for most of us, fear for our family and friends and community members who are part of targeted groups, fear for all the work to move our country forward that we see unraveling in front of us.

But we also know we have important resources here - books, writers, activists, and space. Workshops and conversations and organizing events are on their way - check your email box for forthcoming announcements.

If your group wants a space to meet and plan, please contact us! We have the third floor community room, which is open all day, and the performance space on the second floor available after hours.


For a place to start, 6 books to help us understand how we got here


       11/17 @ 7pm  Shiva's Hand, God's Breath 

Join us for a very special celebration of 4 new poetry books: Henry Isreali's god's breath hovering across the waters, Leonard Gontarek's Take Your Hand Out of My Pocket, Shiva," Troy Jollimore's, Syllabus of Errors, and Heather Altfeld's The Disappearing Theatre.

So much great poetry in one space on one night - we'll be pushing the boundaries of how much Greatness the store can hold! Best to come out and absorb some of the energy so our walls don't fall down.

In the dark times, will there be singing?
Yes, there will be singing
about the dark times.
Bertolt Brecht
 

    11/18  @ 8 pm   The Great American Songbook  

Big Blue Marble will be selling books at the celebration of Sam Allingham's  first collection of short fiction, THE GREAT AMERICAN SONGBOOK!

The party is at Ruba Club, 416 Green St, 19123, from 8 pm - 2 am

Featuring musical guests: Zach Fay, Jeremy Prouty, Dorie Byrne, Emily Bate, Kevin James Holland, and Larissa Pahomov playing selections featured in the book.

Laughter, tears, and, of course, immoderate drinking. RSVPs highly recommended .
 
And Yet the Books
Czeslaw Milosz

And yet the books will be there on the shelves, separate beings,
That appeared once, still wet
As shining chestnuts under a tree in autumn,
And, touched, coddled, began to live
In spite of fires on the horizon, castles blown up,
Tribes on the march, planets in motion.
"We are," they said, even as their pages
Were being torn out, or a buzzing flame
Licked away their letters. So much more durable
Than we are, whose frail warmth
Cools down with memory, disperses, perishes.
I imagine the earth when I am no more:
Nothing happens, no loss, it's still a strange pageant,
Women's dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley.
Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born,
Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.

6 Books to Help Us Understand How We Got Here 
   
childrenchildren to survive in the new America
Manuel Gonzales
Sitting in the Lexington airport before my flight, I wanted to punch something. I had spent hours running through my mind the things I would say to my children when I saw them next, or when I talked to them on the phone. But I didn't know what to say.

I didn't know what to say to my kids, I didn't know what to say to the people I love, I didn't know what to say to strangers, most of whom, I realized as I sat in the heart of Kentucky, were probably happy with the results of the election. I didn't know what to say to the older, white, besuited assholes across the aisle from me who seemed to be concerned only with whether or not Saturday Night Live would keep Alec Baldwin as a cast member (they'd rather SNL did not) now that Trump was going to be president, and I realized it was them - I wanted to punch them.

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