…Was Born With Roses In Her Eyes’

FREE LIBRARY: Francine Prose is former president of the PEN American Center and author of more than 20 books. Her fictional critique of academia, Blue Angels, was a finalist for the National Book Award, and her nonfiction guide to writing, Reading Like a Writer, was a New York Times bestseller. In her new book, Prose considers Anne Frank’s diary as a work of art—revised many times by the author and meant for publication—and thoroughly investigates the book’s contentious afterlife. A review in the New York Times called it “an impressively far-reaching critical work, an elegant study both edifying and entertaining…full of keen observations and fascinating disputes.” MORE

Francine Prose | Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife  (A)
When: Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at 7:30PM
Where: Central Library
Cost: $14 General Admission, $7 Students
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NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL — In the Aeroplane Over The Sea
The torch has been passed to a new generation, may it serve them well. Originally released in 1998, Neutral Milk Hotel’s trippy-sad paen to Ann Frank — a little girl who hid in the walls from the Nazis that would eventually kill her, who still believed “despite everything, people rally are good at heart” –  has gone on to achieve stone cold classic status. Jeff Mangum’s mewling sunshine Superman melodies are colored by bare, ruined choirs of singing saw, fuzz bass, mariachi horns, bowed banjo, accordion, home organ and Salvation Army marching band brass. These harrowing, heart-tugging tunes follow Mangum’s fractured yelp, soaring on wax wings toward the sun only to land softly on a surrealistic pillow of sound fashioned out of enough obscure instrumentation to give your average ethnomusicologist a Viagra woody – zanzithophone, euphonium, uilleann pipes and a shortwave radio. All these years later it still sounds like nothing less than mercy itself.  Like Amelia Earhart, Magnum and co. were never heard from again, but like Jack with his magic beans, Neutral Milk Hotel proved that with little more than a pocketful of seeds and stems, you could grow a beanstalk to heaven. – JONATHAN VALANIA

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Click here to view the video on YouTube.