Hooman Majd in Conversation with Julian Borger about Minister without Portfolio at Waterstones Gower Street

Nov 20, 6:30 PM ET • London, UK: Waterstones Gower St | 82 Gower St

From the author of The Ayatollah Begs to Differ comes a globe-spanning memoir of identity, exile, and reinvention.

In many ways, Hooman Majd has led a charmed life: the son of a high-ranking diplomat in pre-Revolutionary Iran, he grew up in the upper echelons of Iranian society and in cosmopolitan diplomatic enclaves in San Francisco, London, and Washington, DC. As a young man, after Ayatollah Khomeini’s Revolution in 1979, Majd sold real estate to fellow Iranian exiles in Beverly Hills, tried his hand at writing, and found his way into the orbit of Chris Blackwell, the impresario of Island Records and mastermind behind the careers of Bob Marley & the Wailers, U2, and other global superstars. After rising through the ranks–and sometimes, but not always, the charts–Majd went on to write three influential books about his homeland and served as a consultant and contributor to NBC News on Iran. Yet, for all this authority and access, Majd could never truly call any place “home.”

As he recounts in his open-hearted memoir Minister without Portfolio–named for the tongue-in-cheek title Blackwell bestowed on him–Hooman Majd has always been shadowed by a sense of precarity, even as he bantered with ambassadors’ wives at smoke-filled soirees or traded gossip with Grace Jones and Dennis Hopper at Goldeneye, Blackwell’s Jamaican estate and the former home of Ian Fleming. Majd had seen first-hand the havoc wrought on his family–and so many others–by the Iranian revolution. All his life, he has been questioned, frisked, or even threatened at points of entry. Though he has risked several return trips to Iran, today, officially, he can never go back. How can you build an identity when no place will claim you as its own?

Told with grace, insight, and longing–and filled with riotous, sometimes shocking portraits of larger-than-life personalities and illuminating insights about the entanglements between Iran and the West–Minister without Portfolio is a trenchant memoir of belonging nowhere and everywhere at once.

About the Author

Hooman Majd is an author and writer based in New York, and a contributor at NBC News. He has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, TIME, Newsweek, Financial Times, and Interview, among others. Majd is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Ayatollah Begs to Differ (Doubleday, 2008) and The Ayatollahs’ Democracy (Norton, 2010). His most recent book on Iran, The Ministry of Guidance Invites You to Not Stay, was published by Doubleday in 2013. Majd has appeared on numerous television and radio shows, including Real Time with Bill Maher, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Charlie Rose, NBC News, and many others, and on numerous NPR programs.

About the Interlocuor

Julian Borger is the Guardian's senior international correspondent based in London.
He covered the Balkan wars in the 1990's and served as The Guardian's Middle East correspondent in Jerusalem and in Washington as bureau chief and then  global affairs editor.

Borger was part of the Guardian team that won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for public service journalism, for its coverage of the Snowden files on mass surveillance. He also won the 2016 One World Media press award for “Syria’s Truth Smugglers,” about the investigation of the war crimes of the Assad regime.
Borger has written two books: The Butcher’s Trail (2016) about the manhunt for Balkan war crimes, and
I Seek A Kind Person (2024) about Jewish children saved from the Nazis with the help of newspaper adverts.

About the Venue

https://www.waterstones.com/bookshops/gower-street

Lynn Hershman Leeson with Margot Norton at the Hammer Museum

Nov 18, 7:30 PM PT • Los Angeles, CA: Hammer Museum | 10899 Wilshire Blvd.

Pioneering conceptual artist Lynn Hershman Leeson has spent six decades exploring technology, identity, and surveillance with prophetic vision. Long before digital avatars became commonplace, she created groundbreaking works like interactive touch screen installations and the Roberta Breitmore series, inhabiting a fictional alter ego with IRL credentials. Her prescient art warned of technology’s perils while celebrating transformation. From unconventional venues to acclaimed films starring Tilda Swinton, she carved her path as a visionary who foresaw our hyper-connected world. 

Join Leeson and art historian Margot Norton for an evening of video screenings and insights into a revolutionary career and her new book Private I.

About the Author

Over the last five decades, artist and filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson has been internationally acclaimed for her art and films. Hershman Leeson is widely recognized for her innovative work investigating issues including: the relationship between humans and technology, identity, surveillance, and the use of media as a tool of empowerment against censorship and political repression.

Lynn Hershman Leeson is a recipient of many awards including a Siggraph Lifetime Achievement Award, Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica, and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. And in 2022, she was awarded a special mention from the Jury for her participation in the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. In 2023, Pratt Institute of Art in NY awarded her with an Honorary Doctorate. Creative Capital awarded her with their Distinguished Artist Award in 2023. SFMOMA acquired the museum’s first NFT from Hershman Leeson in 2023.

Her six feature films—Strange Culture, Teknolust, Conceiving Ada, !Women Art Revolution: A Secret History, Tania Libre, and The Electronic Diaries—are in worldwide distribution. Artwork by Lynn Hershman Leeson is featured in many public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, and The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

She is represented by Bridget Donahue, New York, Altman Siegel, San Francisco, Waldburger Wouters, Brussels, and ShanghART, China.

About the Venue

https://hammer.ucla.edu/about-us

For more information on Private I, please reach out to ZE Books at info@zebooks.com

Lynn Hershman Leeson Delivers the Walter Annenberg Lecture at the Whitney Museum

Nov 5, 6:30 PM ET • New York, NY: Whitney Museum | 99 Gansevoort St

Also on View: Sixties Surreal

About the Lecture

Theater and online, via Zoom

Over the last five decades, artist and filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson has made innovative work investigating the relationship between humans and technology, identity, surveillance, and media as a tool of empowerment against censorship and political repression. Her work is currently on view in Sixties Surreal. For this Walter Annenberg Lecture, Hershman Leeson presents a talk about her practice from the 1960s to the present. A conversation between the artist and Scott Rothkopf, Alice Pratt Brown Director, will follow the presentation.

About the Exhibit

Member Previews: Sept 18–22, 2025
Sept 24, 2025–Jan 19, 2026

Sixties Surreal is an ambitious, scholarly reappraisal of American art from 1958 to 1972, encompassing the work of more than 100 artists. This revisionist survey looks beyond now canonical movements to focus instead on the era’s most fundamental, if underrecognized, aesthetic current—an efflorescence of psychosexual, fantastical, and revolutionary tendencies, undergirded by the imprint of historical Surrealism and its broad dissemination.  

Sixties Surreal recontextualizes some of the decade’s best-known figures alongside those only recently rediscovered. The exhibition gathers a range of works by artists including Diane Arbus, Lee Bontecou, Franklin Williams, Nancy Grossman, David Hammons, Linda Lomahaftewa, Mel Casas, Yayoi Kusama, Romare Bearden, and Louise Bourgeois, among others. In the 60s, many of these artists sought new strategies for connecting art back to a lived reality that seemed increasingly unreal due to rapid postwar transformation and the social, political, and technological upheavals of the later part of the decade.

At the Whitney, Sixties Surreal will attend to the ways in which historical Surrealism of the earlier 20th Century laid the groundwork for a kind of vernacular surrealism in the 1960s—particularly in America, as cascading social and political changes affirmed that life, itself, is surreal. The way in which artists working across the country—from New York and Philadelphia, to Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area—beheld and reimagined this reality will be among the exhibition’s central concerns, while also mirroring the sociopolitical extremes in which artists of the present find themselves working. The exhibition's title, Sixties Surreal, states the show's straightforward historic parameters while suggesting a new take on that history.

Sixties Surreal is organized by Dan Nadel, Steven and Ann Ames Curator of Drawings and Prints, Whitney Museum of American Art; Laura Phipps, Associate Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art; Scott Rothkopf, Alice Pratt Brown Director, Whitney Museum of American Art; and Elisabeth Sussman, Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art, with Kelly Long, Senior Curatorial Assistant, and Rowan Diaz-Toth, Curatorial Project Assistant, Whitney Museum of American Art.

About the Author

Over the last five decades, artist and filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson has been internationally acclaimed for her art and films. Hershman Leeson is widely recognized for her innovative work investigating issues including: the relationship between humans and technology, identity, surveillance, and the use of media as a tool of empowerment against censorship and political repression.

Lynn Hershman Leeson is a recipient of many awards including a Siggraph Lifetime Achievement Award, Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica, and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. And in 2022, she was awarded a special mention from the Jury for her participation in the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. In 2023, Pratt Institute of Art in NY awarded her with an Honorary Doctorate. Creative Capital awarded her with their Distinguished Artist Award in 2023. SFMOMA acquired the museum’s first NFT from Hershman Leeson in 2023.

Her six feature films—Strange Culture, Teknolust, Conceiving Ada, !Women Art Revolution: A Secret History, Tania Libre, and The Electronic Diaries—are in worldwide distribution. Artwork by Lynn Hershman Leeson is featured in many public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, and The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

She is represented by Bridget Donahue, New York, Altman Siegel, San Francisco, Waldburger Wouters, Brussels, and ShanghART, China.

About the Venue

https://hammer.ucla.edu/about-us

For more information on Private I, please reach out to ZE Books at info@zebooks.com

Lynn Hershman Leeson New York Book Launch

Nov 3, 6 PM ET • New York, NY: Library 180 | 180 Maiden Lane, floor 26

6:00 PM – 8:00 PM ET

Reading at 6:45 PM

Free and open to the public

Join us for a launch event at Library 180 to celebrate the stunning new memoir by visionary artist Lynn Hershman Leeson: PRIVATE I. Lynn will give a short reading from the book, followed by a signing and reception.

Hosted by ZE Books, Vidoun, and Hoffman Donahue, this special evening honors Hershman Leeson’s extraordinary six-decade career at the forefront of conceptual art, media experimentation, feminist resistance, and technological provocation.

Wine and light refreshments will be served beginning at 6:00 PM. Reading begins at 7:00.

Books will be available for purchase on-site.

Note: This event precedes Hershman Leeson’s Annenberg Lecture at the Whitney Museum on November 5.

RSVP to: LYNNHERSHMANLEESON@VIDOUN.COM

About the Author

Over the last five decades, artist and filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson has been internationally acclaimed for her art and films. Hershman Leeson is widely recognized for her innovative work investigating issues including: the relationship between humans and technology, identity, surveillance, and the use of media as a tool of empowerment against censorship and political repression.

Lynn Hershman Leeson is a recipient of many awards including a Siggraph Lifetime Achievement Award, Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica, and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. And in 2022, she was awarded a special mention from the Jury for her participation in the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. In 2023, Pratt Institute of Art in NY awarded her with an Honorary Doctorate. Creative Capital awarded her with their Distinguished Artist Award in 2023. SFMOMA acquired the museum’s first NFT from Hershman Leeson in 2023.

Her six feature films—Strange Culture, Teknolust, Conceiving Ada, !Women Art Revolution: A Secret History, Tania Libre, and The Electronic Diaries—are in worldwide distribution. Artwork by Lynn Hershman Leeson is featured in many public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, and The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

She is represented by Bridget Donahue, New York, Altman Siegel, San Francisco, Waldburger Wouters, Brussels, and ShanghART, China.

About the Venue

https://www.library180.com/

For more information on Private I, please reach out to ZE Books at info@zebooks.com

Launch Party for Lynn Hershman Leeson's Private I at City Lights

Oct 30, 6:30 PM PT • San Francisco, CA: City Lights | 261 Columbus Ave

Join us for a launch party @ City Lights Bookstore on the evening of Thursday, October 30, to celebrate the stunning new memoir by visionary artist Lynn Hershman Leeson: Private I. Lynn will be in conversation with City Lights’ own Peter Maravelis.

Wine and light bites available starting at 6:30 PM, conversation to begin at 7 PM

In Private I, Lynn Hershman Leeson—one of the most influential conceptual artists of our time—shares her personal journey and the struggle for her visionary work to be recognized as art. In the 1970s, women artists were often dismissed unless linked to more successful male counterparts. Defying this marginalization, Hershman Leeson carved her own path, creating groundbreaking conceptual works such as her Roberta Breitmore series, the Video Diaries, and films starring Tilda Swinton, including Conceiving Ada and Teknolust. Her innovative installations took place in unconventional venues—hotels, department store windows, San Quentin State Prison, and housing projects—while she raised her daughter and endured long periods of poverty.
To support fellow artists, she launched The Floating Museum, bringing site-specific art to reclaimed public spaces. She was also one of the first to document women artists’ lives and work in her acclaimed documentary !W.A.R. (Women, Art, Revolution). Private I traces her lifelong commitment to experimentation—embracing film, video, AI, chatbots, touch screens, even her own DNA—to challenge ideas of identity and warn of the perils of technology and surveillance. At its core, Private I is a moving portrait of resilience, artistic innovation, and personal transformation through friendship, family, and fearless creativity.

Over the last five decades, artist and filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson has been internationally acclaimed for her art and films. Hershman Leeson is widely recognized for her innovative work investigating issues including: the relationship between humans and technology, identity, surveillance, and the use of media as a tool of empowerment against censorship and political repression. Lynn Hershman Leeson is a recipient of many awards including a Siggraph Lifetime Achievement Award, Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica, and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. And in 2022, she was awarded a special mention from the Jury for her participation in the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. In 2023, Pratt Institute of Art in NY awarded her with an Honorary Doctorate. Creative Capital awarded her with their Distinguished Artist Award in 2023. SFMOMA acquired the museum’s first NFT from Hershman Leeson in 2023. Her six feature films—Strange Culture, Teknolust, Conceiving Ada, !Women Art Revolution: A Secret History, Tania Libre, and The Electronic Diaries—are in worldwide distribution. Artwork by Lynn Hershman Leeson is featured in many public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, and The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Praise for Lynn Hershman Leeson
“Lynn Hershman Leeson’s universe is the super-radical and unstoppably empowered kindergarten of all our wildest dreams: where no limit exists to our optimism and curiosity, where even our intellects can bask in glee and play.”
—Tilda Swinton

“I see in Lynn’s work: revolution in action, revolution in a frame, revolution at the speed of light as it tries to capture light. Lynn’s intelligence: lightning in a bottle with the cap almost coming off always because her energy is too great to contain, and no one medium can contain it, let alone one persona. So much to learn, to think about and observe.”
—Hilton Als

“Lynn Hershman Leeson has always been ahead of the pack in her fusion of art and science. As early as the 1960s she foresaw the technology-permeated world of today. She was making computer-based work in the 1970s, and went on to experiment with artificial intelligence and virtual reality as art media. At a time when so much new art feels so old, this work feels like the future, which is now.”
—Holland Cotter, The New York Times

“In our current age of digital avatars, technological surveillance, and turbulent identity politics, few artists seem as relevant—and arguably as oracular—as Lynn Hershman Leeson.”
—Robert Slifkin, The Art Review

“Spanning half a century, the pioneering art of America’s Lynn Hershman Leeson is strange, beautiful and, best of all, funny.” 
—Laura Cumming, The Guardian

“Lynn Hershman Leeson was the originator of our current artistic zeitgeist, and the first to explore many of the groundbreaking ideas that shape our current reality. I’m grateful to Lynn for showing me what it means to subvert the mainstream and create on my own terms. Lynn was there, let the people know!!”
—Martine Syms

“Lynn Hershman Leeson is one of the most influential media artists of our times.”
—Rudolf Frieling, Curator of Media Arts at SFMOMA

“It is fair to make the claim that Hershman Leeson was several decades ahead of her time, for she saw the potential of media to subvert itself.”
—Lisa Long, Artistic Director of the Julia Stoschek Foundation

“As one of the first few practitioners to work creatively with emerging technologies, such as social media, artificial intelligence, and genetic modification, Hershman Leeson has continued to create ambitious thought-provoking work, blurring the boundaries between art, science, and technology. Her practice deals with many urgent issues—issues that remain as relevant today as they did fifty years ago—the biological and superficial manifestations of identity; the evolution of art, technology and its impact on the human body; privacy, surveillance, and censorship; and more recently, biotechnologies and genetic engineering.”
—Olivia O’Hearne

“Hershman Leeson began working with concepts around cyborgs as early as 1962 (we could say planting a fertile seed for Donna Haraway’s 1975 essay ‘A Cyborg Manifesto.’ She coined the term ‘anti-body’ to refer to her research and work on virtual identity in cyberspace. She saw her ‘anti-body’ (or alter-ego) as a viral presence that manifests itself in artificial intelligence fictitious forms, such as the online personas Agent Ruby and DiNA, roaming of the Internet and morphing to survive. As she explains: anti-bodies identify, expose and transform toxins in culture.”
—Clot Magazine

This event made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation

About the Author

Over the last five decades, artist and filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson has been internationally acclaimed for her art and films. Hershman Leeson is widely recognized for her innovative work investigating issues including: the relationship between humans and technology, identity, surveillance, and the use of media as a tool of empowerment against censorship and political repression.

Lynn Hershman Leeson is a recipient of many awards including a Siggraph Lifetime Achievement Award, Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica, and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. And in 2022, she was awarded a special mention from the Jury for her participation in the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. In 2023, Pratt Institute of Art in NY awarded her with an Honorary Doctorate. Creative Capital awarded her with their Distinguished Artist Award in 2023. SFMOMA acquired the museum’s first NFT from Hershman Leeson in 2023.

Her six feature films—Strange Culture, Teknolust, Conceiving Ada, !Women Art Revolution: A Secret History, Tania Libre, and The Electronic Diaries—are in worldwide distribution. Artwork by Lynn Hershman Leeson is featured in many public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, and The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

She is represented by Bridget Donahue, New York, Altman Siegel, San Francisco, Waldburger Wouters, Brussels, and ShanghART, China.

About the Venue

https://citylights.com/

For more information on Private I, please reach out to ZE Books at info@zebooks.com

Hooman Majd in Conversation with Glenn Kenny about Majd’s Memoir Minister without Portfolio

Join us for an engaging evening of conversation and music at PowerHouse Arena in DuMBO, Brooklyn

Oct 10, 7 PM ET • Brooklyn, NY: Powerhouse Arena | 28 Adams St.

About the Book

From the author of The Ayatollah Begs to Differ comes a globe-spanning memoir of identity, exile, and reinvention.

In many ways, Hooman Majd has led a charmed life: the son of a high-ranking diplomat in pre-Revolutionary Iran, he grew up in the upper echelons of Iranian society and in cosmopolitan diplomatic enclaves in San Francisco, London, and Washington, DC. As a young man, after Ayatollah Khomeini’s Revolution in 1979, Majd sold real estate to fellow Iranian exiles in Beverly Hills, tried his hand at writing, and found his way into the orbit of Chris Blackwell, the impresario of Island Records and mastermind behind the careers of Bob Marley & the Wailers, U2, and other global superstars. After rising through the ranks–and sometimes, but not always, the charts–Majd went on to write three influential books about his homeland and served as a consultant and contributor to NBC News on Iran. Yet, for all this authority and access, Majd could never truly call any place “home.”

As he recounts in his open-hearted memoir Minister without Portfolio–named for the tongue-in-cheek title Blackwell bestowed on him–Hooman Majd has always been shadowed by a sense of precarity, even as he bantered with ambassadors’ wives at smoke-filled soirees or traded gossip with Grace Jones and Dennis Hopper at Goldeneye, Blackwell’s Jamaican estate and the former home of Ian Fleming. Majd had seen first-hand the havoc wrought on his family–and so many others–by the Iranian revolution. All his life, he has been questioned, frisked, or even threatened at points of entry. Though he has risked several return trips to Iran, today, officially, he can never go back. How can you build an identity when no place will claim you as its own?

Told with grace, insight, and longing–and filled with riotous, sometimes shocking portraits of larger-than-life personalities and illuminating insights about the entanglements between Iran and the West–Minister without Portfolio is a trenchant memoir of belonging nowhere and everywhere at once.

About the Author

Hooman Majd is an author and writer based in New York, and a contributor at NBC News. He has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, TIME, Newsweek, Financial Times, and Interview, among others. Majd is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Ayatollah Begs to Differ (Doubleday, 2008) and The Ayatollahs’ Democracy (Norton, 2010). His most recent book on Iran, The Ministry of Guidance Invites You to Not Stay, was published by Doubleday in 2013. Majd has appeared on numerous television and radio shows, including Real Time with Bill Maher, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Charlie Rose, NBC News, and many others, and on numerous NPR programs.

About the Interlocutor

Glenn Kenny is a critic and author based in New York. He contributes to The New York Times, RogerEbert.com and other publications. His books include Made Men: The Story of Goodfellas and The World Is Yours: The Story of Scarface.

About the Venue

https://powerhousearena.com/

Lynn Hershman Leeson - Roberta Lookalike Contest

You’re invited to the Roberta Breitmore Look Alike Contest on Saturday, October 4, 2025, hosted in collaboration with di Rosa SF

Roberta Breitmore Look Alike Contest

Saturday, October 4, 2025, 5-7 pm

1150 25th Street, San Francisco, CA 94107

Join us for a special evening with di Rosa SF for the Roberta Look Alike Contest. This event celebrates Lynn Hershman Leeson's iconic Roberta Breitmore project, in which the artist created and performed as a fictional persona from 1972-1978, exploring themes of constructed identity, gender, and the boundaries between reality and fiction.

Visit the link below for event details and more information on Hershman Leeson’s Roberta Breitmore project.

EVENT INFORMATION

Who is Roberta Breitmore?

Roberta Breitmore (1972-1978) was a performance by Lynn Hershman Leeson in which the artist invented and inhabited a constructed persona who lived as a seemingly real person in San Francisco. Beginning in 1972, Roberta Breitmore arrived by bus and checked into the Dante Hotel, then proceeded to live a fully documented life: opening a bank account, obtaining credit cards, renting an apartment, seeing a psychiatrist, and participating in contemporary trends like Weight Watchers. Roberta had her own distinctive clothing, signature makeup, walk, gestures, speech patterns, and handwriting.

Now On View

Lynn Hershman Leeson

About Time

On View Through October 11, 2025

“San Francisco artist Lynn Hershman Leeson has created work at the intersections of visual art, science, technology and feminism for decades. In her latest show, “About Time,” she touches on all these themes with an overarching awareness of the force that none of us can avoid: the forward momentum of the clock and aging.

At age 84, Hershman Leeson is aware that her time is now more limited, and the new work grapples with how she uses it. The Altman Siegel gallery show’s title video piece is a perfect place to start, as the artist explains not only the thesis of “About Time” but new advances in antiaging technology. The visual language of science is used throughout (images of laboratory equipment and DNA samples combined with self portraits) while her mixed media collages have a wit to them, with titles like “On the Clock” and “Defying the Clock” offering her usual commentary.”

-Tony Bravo, San Francisco Chronicle

EXPLORE THE PRESENTATION

For additional information please contact inquire@altmansiegel.com or 415-576-9300.

Images: Lynn Hershman Leeson, Roberta’s Construction Chart #1, 1975, Archival, digital print and dye transfer, 35 5/8 x 23 5/8 in, 90.5 x 60 cm;  Installation View, Lynn Hershman Leeson, About Time, 2025, Altman Siegel, San Francisco, CA.

Altman Siegel
1150 25th Street
San Francisco, CA 94107

Tuesday - Friday, 10 am to 6 pm
Saturday, 11 am to 5 pm

T: 415.576.9300

info@altmansiegel.com

www.altmansiegel.com

For sales inquiries: inquire@altmansiegel.com
For press requests: press@altmansiegel.com

About the Author

Over the last five decades, artist and filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson has been internationally acclaimed for her art and films. Hershman Leeson is widely recognized for her innovative work investigating issues including: the relationship between humans and technology, identity, surveillance, and the use of media as a tool of empowerment against censorship and political repression.

Lynn Hershman Leeson is a recipient of many awards including a Siggraph Lifetime Achievement Award, Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica, and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. And in 2022, she was awarded a special mention from the Jury for her participation in the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. In 2023, Pratt Institute of Art in NY awarded her with an Honorary Doctorate. Creative Capital awarded her with their Distinguished Artist Award in 2023. SFMOMA acquired the museum’s first NFT from Hershman Leeson in 2023.

Her six feature films—Strange Culture, Teknolust, Conceiving Ada, !Women Art Revolution: A Secret History, Tania Libre, and The Electronic Diaries—are in worldwide distribution. Artwork by Lynn Hershman Leeson is featured in many public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, and The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

She is represented by Bridget Donahue, New York, Altman Siegel, San Francisco, Waldburger Wouters, Brussels, and ShanghART, China.

About the Venue

https://altmansiegel.com/

For more information on Private I, please reach out to ZE Books at info@zebooks.com

Joe Boyd at Octavia Books in New Orleans

Sep 17, 6 PM ET • New Orleans, LA: Octavia Books | 513 Octavia St

From the legendary producer of Nick Drake, R.E.M., Toots and the Maytals, and Pink Floyd and author of White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s comes a riveting, world-spanning tour de force illuminating the artists, histories, controversies, and collaborations that shaped global music.

Paul Simon told Joe Boyd that when he first heard the accordion flourish that would open his multi-platinum album Graceland, it seemed to proclaim, "You haven't heard this before!" Yet the 1980s "world music" boom that Simon's album helped usher in had roots that extended back through the decades and across continents: tango on the eve of World War I, Latin dance across the '30s, '40s and '50s, reggae in the '70s, pre-War samba and pre-Beatles bossa nova, Eastern European ensembles filling capitalist concert halls during the Cold War, Indian ragas changing rock and roll in the 1960s, the folk music-inspired classical composers of the 19th and 20th centuries.

In this sweeping history compiled from more than a decade of travel, research, interviews, and deep listening, Boyd sets out to explore centuries of fascinating backstories to these sounds. He shows how personalities, events, and politics in places such as Havana, Lagos, Budapest, Kingston, and Rio are as colorful and momentous as anything that took place in New Orleans, Harlem, Laurel Canyon, or Liverpool. And, moreover, how jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock 'n' roll would never have happened if it weren't for the notes and rhythms emanating from over the horizon. The one-of-a-kind result is And the Roots of Rhythm Remain: a glorious, symphonic celebration of the music that shapes our world.

About the Author

Joe Boyd is a record producer and writer, known for his acclaimed memoir, White Bicycles. Artists he has produced include Nick Drake, R.E.M., Toots and the Maytals, Richard Thompson, Pink Floyd, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, and ¡Cubanismo! among many others over the course of a nearly sixty-year career. After graduating from Harvard in 1964, he tour-managed Muddy Waters, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto, and others before serving as production manager for the historic 1965 Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals. In 1979 he launched his own label, Hannibal Records, which was at the forefront of bringing global artists to western audiences. As a film producer, his credits include Amazing Grace, Scandal, and Jimi Hendrix.

About the Venue

https://www.octaviabooks.com/

For more information on And The Roots Of Rhythm Remain, please reach out to Matt Hanks (mhanks@shorefire.com), Chris Taillie (ctaillie@shorefire.com), and Henry Thomas (hthomas@shorefire.com) at Shore Fire Media.

Joe Boyd - And the Roots of Rhythm Remain at Ojai Playhouse

Sep 13, 4 PM PT • Ojai, CA: Ojai Playhouse | 145 E Ojai Ave

Legendary producer, author and gifted raconteur Joe Boyd has created a unique event: a narrated journey through the world's music. Based on his new book, And the Roots of Rhythm Remain, he has assembled rarely-if-ever-seen clips showing Kate Bush with Bulgaria's Trio Bulgarka, Taj Mahal with kora great Toumani Diabaté, Ravi Shankar with George Harrison, Paul Simon with Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Ivo Papasov, Django Reinhardt, Carmen Miranda, Dizzy Gillespie and many more. Boyd shows how personalities, events, and politics in places such as Havana, Lagos, Budapest, Kingston and Rio were as colorful and momentous as anything that took place in New Orleans, Harlem, Laurel Canyon or Liverpool. And moreover, how jazz, rhythm & blues and rock 'n' roll would never have happened if it weren't for the melodies and rhythms emanating from over the horizon. 

POST SCREENING Q&A + AND THE ROOTS OF RHYTHM REMAIN: A JOURNEY THROUGH GLOBAL MUSIC BOOK SIGNING

IN COLLOBORATION WITH RADIO ROMA AND HOTEL EL ROBLAR

If you make a reservation for this event but opt not to attend or need to cancel, please click the ‘go to my tickets’ button in your confirmation email from Eventbrite, then click ‘cancel my order’ so that your tickets are available for someone else. Most free screenings fill up quickly. We would love to fill every seat in the theater. Please help us by cancelling your order if you cannot make it.

We look forward to seeing you at the Ojai Playhouse, please help to support our free screenings by visiting the concession stand and enjoying our delicious organic popcorn, slushies and snacks! Your support is appreciated!

Thank you!

About the Author

Joe Boyd is a record producer and writer, known for his acclaimed memoir, White Bicycles. Artists he has produced include Nick Drake, R.E.M., Toots and the Maytals, Richard Thompson, Pink Floyd, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, and ¡Cubanismo! among many others over the course of a nearly sixty-year career. After graduating from Harvard in 1964, he tour-managed Muddy Waters, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto, and others before serving as production manager for the historic 1965 Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals. In 1979 he launched his own label, Hannibal Records, which was at the forefront of bringing global artists to western audiences. As a film producer, his credits include Amazing Grace, Scandal, and Jimi Hendrix.

About the Venue

https://www.ojaiplayhouse.com/

For more information on And The Roots Of Rhythm Remain, please reach out to Matt Hanks (mhanks@shorefire.com), Chris Taillie (ctaillie@shorefire.com), and Henry Thomas (hthomas@shorefire.com) at Shore Fire Media.

A Journey through Global Music: And the Roots of Rhythm Remain with Joe Boyd

Sep 11, 6 PM PT • San Francisco, CA: Roxie Theater | 3117 16th St

Joe Boyd in person signing copies of his book, courtesy of Book Passage!

Legendary producer, author and gifted raconteur Joe Boyd has created a unique event:
a narrated journey through the world’s music.

Based on his new book, And the Roots of Rhythm Remain, he has assembled rarely-if-ever-seen clips showing Kate Bush with Bulgaria’s Trio Bulgarka, Taj Mahal with kora great Toumani Diabaté, Ravi Shankar with George Harrison, Paul Simon with Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Ivo Papasov, Django Reinhardt, Carmen Miranda, Dizzy Gillespie and many more. 

Boyd shows how personalities, events and politics in places such as Havana, Lagos, Budapest, Kingston and Rio were as colourful and momentous as anything that took place in New Orleans, Harlem, Laurel Canyon or Liverpool. And moreover, how jazz, rhythm & blues and rock’n’roll would never have happened if it weren’t for the melodies and rhythms emanating from over the horizon.

About the Author

Joe Boyd is a record producer and writer, known for his acclaimed memoir, White Bicycles. Artists he has produced include Nick Drake, R.E.M., Toots and the Maytals, Richard Thompson, Pink Floyd, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, and ¡Cubanismo! among many others over the course of a nearly sixty-year career. After graduating from Harvard in 1964, he tour-managed Muddy Waters, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto, and others before serving as production manager for the historic 1965 Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals. In 1979 he launched his own label, Hannibal Records, which was at the forefront of bringing global artists to western audiences. As a film producer, his credits include Amazing Grace, Scandal, and Jimi Hendrix.

About the Venue

https://roxie.com/

For more information on And The Roots Of Rhythm Remain, please reach out to Matt Hanks (mhanks@shorefire.com), Chris Taillie (ctaillie@shorefire.com), and Henry Thomas (hthomas@shorefire.com) at Shore Fire Media.

Joe Boyd at Northwest Film Forum

Sep 10, 6 PM PT • Seattle, WA: Northwest Film Forum | 1515 12th Avenue

Legendary producer, author and gifted raconteur Joe Boyd has created a unique event: a narrated journey through the world’s music. Based on his new book, And the Roots of Rhythm Remain, he has assembled rarely-if-ever-seen clips showing Kate Bush with Bulgaria’s Trio Bulgarka, Taj Mahal with kora great Toumani Diabaté, Ravi Shankar with George Harrison, Paul Simon with Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Ivo Papasov, Django Reinhardt, Carmen Miranda, Dizzy Gillespie and many more. Boyd shows how personalities, events and politics in places such as Havana, Lagos, Budapest, Kingston and Rio were as colourful and momentous as anything that took place in New Orleans, Harlem, Laurel Canyon or Liverpool. And moreover, how jazz, rhythm & blues and rock & roll would never have happened if it weren’t for the melodies and rhythms emanating from over the horizon.

Synopsis courtesy of Joe Boyd

Presented in partnership with Elliott Bay Book Company! 

Purchase Joe’s book here! Copies will also be available for purchase at Northwest Film Forum during this event.

About the Author

Joe Boyd is a record producer and writer, known for his acclaimed memoir, White Bicycles. Artists he has produced include Nick Drake, R.E.M., Toots and the Maytals, Richard Thompson, Pink Floyd, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, and ¡Cubanismo! among many others over the course of a nearly sixty-year career. After graduating from Harvard in 1964, he tour-managed Muddy Waters, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto, and others before serving as production manager for the historic 1965 Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals. In 1979 he launched his own label, Hannibal Records, which was at the forefront of bringing global artists to western audiences. As a film producer, his credits include Amazing Grace, Scandal, and Jimi Hendrix.

About the Venue

https://nwfilmforum.org/

For more information on And The Roots Of Rhythm Remain, please reach out to Matt Hanks (mhanks@shorefire.com), Chris Taillie (ctaillie@shorefire.com), and Henry Thomas (hthomas@shorefire.com) at Shore Fire Media.

An Evening with Joe Boyd, Legendary Music Producer

Sep 2, 7 PM ET • Miami, FL: Books & Books Coral Gables | 265 Aragon Ave

The Books & Books Literary Foundation is proud to present an evening with Joe Boyd discussing And the Roots of Rhythm Remain (ZE #6) (ZE Books, $35). From the legendary producer of Nick Drake, R.E.M., Toots and the Maytals, and Pink Floyd and author of White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s comes a riveting, world-spanning tour de force illuminating the artists, histories, controversies, and collaborations that shaped global music.

Paul Simon told Joe Boyd that when he first heard the accordion flourish that would open his multi-platinum album Graceland, it seemed to proclaim, "You haven't heard this before!" Yet the 1980s "world music" boom that Simon's album helped usher in had roots that extended back through the decades and across continents: tango on the eve of World War I, Latin dance across the '30s, '40s and '50s, reggae in the '70s, pre-War samba and pre-Beatles bossa nova, Eastern European ensembles filling capitalist concert halls during the Cold War, Indian ragas changing rock and roll in the 1960s, the folk music-inspired classical composers of the 19th and 20th centuries.

In this sweeping history compiled from more than a decade of travel, research, interviews, and deep listening, Boyd sets out to explore centuries of fascinating backstories to these sounds. He shows how personalities, events, and politics in places such as Havana, Lagos, Budapest, Kingston, and Rio are as colorful and momentous as anything that took place in New Orleans, Harlem, Laurel Canyon, or Liverpool. And, moreover, how jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock 'n' roll would never have happened if it weren't for the notes and rhythms emanating from over the horizon. The one-of-a-kind result is And the Roots of Rhythm Remain: a glorious, symphonic celebration of the music that shapes our world.

About the Author

Joe Boyd is a record producer and writer, known for his acclaimed memoir, White Bicycles. Artists he has produced include Nick Drake, R.E.M., Toots and the Maytals, Richard Thompson, Pink Floyd, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, and ¡Cubanismo! among many others over the course of a nearly sixty-year career. After graduating from Harvard in 1964, he tour-managed Muddy Waters, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto, and others before serving as production manager for the historic 1965 Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals. In 1979 he launched his own label, Hannibal Records, which was at the forefront of bringing global artists to western audiences. As a film producer, his credits include Amazing Grace, Scandal, and Jimi Hendrix.

About the Venue

http://www.booksandbooks.com/

For more information on And The Roots Of Rhythm Remain, please reach out to Matt Hanks (mhanks@shorefire.com), Chris Taillie (ctaillie@shorefire.com), and Henry Thomas (hthomas@shorefire.com) at Shore Fire Media.

Joe Boyd at The Rivoli

Apr 13, 2 PM ET • Totonro, ON: The Rivoli: 334 Queen St W, Toronto, ON M5V 2A2, Canada

Paul Simon told Joe Boyd that when he first heard the accordion flourish that would open his multi-platinum album Graceland, it seemed to proclaim, "You haven't heard this before!" Yet the 1980s "world music" boom that Simon's album helped usher in had roots that extended back through the decades and across continents: tango on the eve of World War I, Latin dance across the '30s, '40s and '50s, reggae in the '70s, pre-War samba and pre-Beatles bossa nova, Eastern European ensembles filling capitalist concert halls during the Cold War, Indian ragas changing rock and roll in the 1960s, the folk music-inspired classical composers of the 19th and 20th centuries.

In this sweeping history compiled from more than a decade of travel, research, interviews, and deep listening, Boyd sets out to explore centuries of fascinating backstories to these sounds. He shows how personalities, events, and politics in places such as Havana, Lagos, Budapest, Kingston, and Rio are as colorful and momentous as anything that took place in New Orleans, Harlem, Laurel Canyon, or Liverpool. And, moreover, how jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock 'n' roll would never have happened if it weren't for the notes and rhythms emanating from over the horizon. The one-of-a-kind result is And the Roots of Rhythm Remain: a glorious, symphonic celebration of the music that shapes our world.

About the Book

“You haven’t heard this before!" the accordion flourish seemed to proclaim. Paul Simon told Joe Boyd that he immediately knew it would open Graceland, the multi-platinum album that helped usher in the 1980s “world music” boom. Yet that movement had roots extending back through the decades and across continents: tango on the eve of World War I, Latin dance across the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, reggae in the ’70s, pre-War samba and pre-Beatles bossa nova, Eastern European ensembles filling capitalist concert halls during the Cold War, Indian ragas changing rock and roll in the 1960s, the folk music–inspired classical composers of the 19th and 20th centuries.

In this sweeping history compiled from more than a decade of travel, research, interviews, and deep listening, Boyd sets out to explore centuries of fascinating backstories to these sounds. He shows how personalities, events, and politics in places such as Havana, Lagos, Budapest, Kingston, and Rio are as colorful and momentous as anything that took place in New Orleans, Harlem, Laurel Canyon, or Liverpool. And, moreover, how jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock ‘n’ roll would never have happened if it weren’t for the notes and rhythms emanating from over the horizon. The one-of-a-kind result is And the Roots of Rhythm Remain: a glorious, symphonic celebration of the music that shapes our world.

About the Author

Joe Boyd is a record producer and writer, known for his acclaimed memoir, White Bicycles. Artists he has produced include Nick Drake, R.E.M., Toots and the Maytals, Richard Thompson, Pink Floyd, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, and ¡Cubanismo! among many others over the course of a nearly sixty-year career. 

After graduating from Harvard in 1964, he tour-managed Muddy Waters, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto, and others before serving as production manager for the historic 1965 Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals. He then moved to London to open Elektra Records’ office and started the famous UFO club, which became the center of London’s psychedelic revolution. In 1979 he launched his own label, Hannibal Records, which was at the forefront of bringing global artists to western audiences. As a film producer, his credits include Amazing Grace, Scandal,and Jimi Hendrix. A gifted raconteur, he appears frequently on radio, podcasts and documentaries.

About the Venue

https://www.rivolitoronto.com/

For more information on And The Roots Of Rhythm Remain, please reach out to Matt Hanks (mhanks@shorefire.com), Chris Taillie (ctaillie@shorefire.com), and Henry Thomas (hthomas@shorefire.com) at Shore Fire Media.

Paperback Launch for And the Roots of Rhythm Remain

Apr 9, 7 PM ET • Brooklyn, NY: PowerHouse Arena • 28 Adams St, Brooklyn, NY 11201

Paul Simon told Joe Boyd that when he first heard the accordion flourish that would open his multi-platinum album Graceland, it seemed to proclaim, "You haven't heard this before!" Yet the 1980s "world music" boom that Simon's album helped usher in had roots that extended back through the decades and across continents: tango on the eve of World War I, Latin dance across the '30s, '40s and '50s, reggae in the '70s, pre-War samba and pre-Beatles bossa nova, Eastern European ensembles filling capitalist concert halls during the Cold War, Indian ragas changing rock and roll in the 1960s, the folk music-inspired classical composers of the 19th and 20th centuries.

In this sweeping history compiled from more than a decade of travel, research, interviews, and deep listening, Boyd sets out to explore centuries of fascinating backstories to these sounds. He shows how personalities, events, and politics in places such as Havana, Lagos, Budapest, Kingston, and Rio are as colorful and momentous as anything that took place in New Orleans, Harlem, Laurel Canyon, or Liverpool. And, moreover, how jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock 'n' roll would never have happened if it weren't for the notes and rhythms emanating from over the horizon. The one-of-a-kind result is And the Roots of Rhythm Remain: a glorious, symphonic celebration of the music that shapes our world.

About the Book

“You haven’t heard this before!" the accordion flourish seemed to proclaim. Paul Simon told Joe Boyd that he immediately knew it would open Graceland, the multi-platinum album that helped usher in the 1980s “world music” boom. Yet that movement had roots extending back through the decades and across continents: tango on the eve of World War I, Latin dance across the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, reggae in the ’70s, pre-War samba and pre-Beatles bossa nova, Eastern European ensembles filling capitalist concert halls during the Cold War, Indian ragas changing rock and roll in the 1960s, the folk music–inspired classical composers of the 19th and 20th centuries.

In this sweeping history compiled from more than a decade of travel, research, interviews, and deep listening, Boyd sets out to explore centuries of fascinating backstories to these sounds. He shows how personalities, events, and politics in places such as Havana, Lagos, Budapest, Kingston, and Rio are as colorful and momentous as anything that took place in New Orleans, Harlem, Laurel Canyon, or Liverpool. And, moreover, how jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock ‘n’ roll would never have happened if it weren’t for the notes and rhythms emanating from over the horizon. The one-of-a-kind result is And the Roots of Rhythm Remain: a glorious, symphonic celebration of the music that shapes our world.

About the Author

Joe Boyd is a record producer and writer, known for his acclaimed memoir, White Bicycles. Artists he has produced include Nick Drake, R.E.M., Toots and the Maytals, Richard Thompson, Pink Floyd, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, and ¡Cubanismo! among many others over the course of a nearly sixty-year career. 

After graduating from Harvard in 1964, he tour-managed Muddy Waters, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto, and others before serving as production manager for the historic 1965 Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals. He then moved to London to open Elektra Records’ office and started the famous UFO club, which became the center of London’s psychedelic revolution. In 1979 he launched his own label, Hannibal Records, which was at the forefront of bringing global artists to western audiences. As a film producer, his credits include Amazing Grace, Scandal,and Jimi Hendrix. A gifted raconteur, he appears frequently on radio, podcasts and documentaries.

About the Venue

https://powerhousearena.com/about-2/

For more information on And The Roots Of Rhythm Remain, please reach out to Matt Hanks (mhanks@shorefire.com), Chris Taillie (ctaillie@shorefire.com), and Henry Thomas (hthomas@shorefire.com) at Shore Fire Media.

Joe Boyd at Politics & Prose

Apr 6, 3 PM ET • Washington, DC: Politics & Prose Union Market • 5015 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, DC 20008

This event is in partnership with Byrdland Records.

Paul Simon told Joe Boyd that when he first heard the accordion flourish that would open his multi-platinum album Graceland, it seemed to proclaim, "You haven't heard this before!" Yet the 1980s "world music" boom that Simon's album helped usher in had roots that extended back through the decades and across continents: tango on the eve of World War I, Latin dance across the '30s, '40s and '50s, reggae in the '70s, pre-War samba and pre-Beatles bossa nova, Eastern European ensembles filling capitalist concert halls during the Cold War, Indian ragas changing rock and roll in the 1960s, the folk music-inspired classical composers of the 19th and 20th centuries.

In this sweeping history compiled from more than a decade of travel, research, interviews, and deep listening, Boyd sets out to explore centuries of fascinating backstories to these sounds. He shows how personalities, events, and politics in places such as Havana, Lagos, Budapest, Kingston, and Rio are as colorful and momentous as anything that took place in New Orleans, Harlem, Laurel Canyon, or Liverpool. And, moreover, how jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock 'n' roll would never have happened if it weren't for the notes and rhythms emanating from over the horizon. The one-of-a-kind result is And the Roots of Rhythm Remain: a glorious, symphonic celebration of the music that shapes our world.

About the Book

“You haven’t heard this before!" the accordion flourish seemed to proclaim. Paul Simon told Joe Boyd that he immediately knew it would open Graceland, the multi-platinum album that helped usher in the 1980s “world music” boom. Yet that movement had roots extending back through the decades and across continents: tango on the eve of World War I, Latin dance across the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, reggae in the ’70s, pre-War samba and pre-Beatles bossa nova, Eastern European ensembles filling capitalist concert halls during the Cold War, Indian ragas changing rock and roll in the 1960s, the folk music–inspired classical composers of the 19th and 20th centuries.

In this sweeping history compiled from more than a decade of travel, research, interviews, and deep listening, Boyd sets out to explore centuries of fascinating backstories to these sounds. He shows how personalities, events, and politics in places such as Havana, Lagos, Budapest, Kingston, and Rio are as colorful and momentous as anything that took place in New Orleans, Harlem, Laurel Canyon, or Liverpool. And, moreover, how jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock ‘n’ roll would never have happened if it weren’t for the notes and rhythms emanating from over the horizon. The one-of-a-kind result is And the Roots of Rhythm Remain: a glorious, symphonic celebration of the music that shapes our world.

About the Author

Joe Boyd is a record producer and writer, known for his acclaimed memoir, White Bicycles. Artists he has produced include Nick Drake, R.E.M., Toots and the Maytals, Richard Thompson, Pink Floyd, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, and ¡Cubanismo! among many others over the course of a nearly sixty-year career. 

After graduating from Harvard in 1964, he tour-managed Muddy Waters, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto, and others before serving as production manager for the historic 1965 Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals. He then moved to London to open Elektra Records’ office and started the famous UFO club, which became the center of London’s psychedelic revolution. In 1979 he launched his own label, Hannibal Records, which was at the forefront of bringing global artists to western audiences. As a film producer, his credits include Amazing Grace, Scandal,and Jimi Hendrix. A gifted raconteur, he appears frequently on radio, podcasts and documentaries.

About the Venue

https://www.politics-prose.com/our-history

For more information on And The Roots Of Rhythm Remain, please reach out to Matt Hanks (mhanks@shorefire.com), Chris Taillie (ctaillie@shorefire.com), and Henry Thomas (hthomas@shorefire.com) at Shore Fire Media.

Joe Boyd at Design Distillery

Apr 5, 7 PM ET • Baltimore, MD: Design Distillery • 1414 Key Hwy, Baltimore, MD 21230

Doors at 6 PM, event at 7 PM

About the Book

“You haven’t heard this before!" the accordion flourish seemed to proclaim. Paul Simon told Joe Boyd that he immediately knew it would open Graceland, the multi-platinum album that helped usher in the 1980s “world music” boom. Yet that movement had roots extending back through the decades and across continents: tango on the eve of World War I, Latin dance across the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, reggae in the ’70s, pre-War samba and pre-Beatles bossa nova, Eastern European ensembles filling capitalist concert halls during the Cold War, Indian ragas changing rock and roll in the 1960s, the folk music–inspired classical composers of the 19th and 20th centuries.

In this sweeping history compiled from more than a decade of travel, research, interviews, and deep listening, Boyd sets out to explore centuries of fascinating backstories to these sounds. He shows how personalities, events, and politics in places such as Havana, Lagos, Budapest, Kingston, and Rio are as colorful and momentous as anything that took place in New Orleans, Harlem, Laurel Canyon, or Liverpool. And, moreover, how jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock ‘n’ roll would never have happened if it weren’t for the notes and rhythms emanating from over the horizon. The one-of-a-kind result is And the Roots of Rhythm Remain: a glorious, symphonic celebration of the music that shapes our world.

About the Author

Joe Boyd is a record producer and writer, known for his acclaimed memoir, White Bicycles. Artists he has produced include Nick Drake, R.E.M., Toots and the Maytals, Richard Thompson, Pink Floyd, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, and ¡Cubanismo! among many others over the course of a nearly sixty-year career. 

After graduating from Harvard in 1964, he tour-managed Muddy Waters, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto, and others before serving as production manager for the historic 1965 Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals. He then moved to London to open Elektra Records’ office and started the famous UFO club, which became the center of London’s psychedelic revolution. In 1979 he launched his own label, Hannibal Records, which was at the forefront of bringing global artists to western audiences. As a film producer, his credits include Amazing Grace, Scandal,and Jimi Hendrix. A gifted raconteur, he appears frequently on radio, podcasts and documentaries.

About the Venue

https://www.ddistillery.com/

For more information on And The Roots Of Rhythm Remain, please reach out to Matt Hanks (mhanks@shorefire.com), Chris Taillie (ctaillie@shorefire.com), and Henry Thomas (hthomas@shorefire.com) at Shore Fire Media.

Joe Boyd at B&N Philadelphia with Tom Moon

Apr 3, 6 PM ET •  Philadelphia, PA: B&N Philadelphia • 1708 Chestnut St, Philadelphia, PA 19103

Legendary music producer Joe Boyd discusses his new book, And the Roots of Rhythm Remain, with journalist Tom Moon on 4/3 at 6pm!

Please join us in welcoming music producer Joe Boyd into the store on Thursday, April 3rd at 6pm for a discussion and signing of his latest book, And the Roots of Rhythm Remain! He will be joined in conversation by journalist and music critic Tom Moon.

From the legendary producer of Nick Drake, R.E.M., Toots and the Maytals, and Pink Floyd and author of White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s comes a riveting, world-spanning tour de force illuminating the artists, histories, controversies, and collaborations that shaped global music.

We ask that all interested attendees register for a ticket through Eventbrite and purchase their copy of the book at our Center City Philadelphia location.

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For Seated Tickets: Limited quantity is available and will be provided on a first-come, first-served basis. Purchase of a ticket guarantees entrance to the event for the discussion and signing. However, this ticket may not necessarily guarantee a seat at the event, as later arrivals may be placed in a line behind the seated audience.

For Standing Room-Only Tickets: Limited quantity is available and will be provided on a first-come, first-served basis. Purchase of a ticket guarantees entrance to the event for the discussion and signing. Ticket holders will be granted a standing view from behind the seated audience -- some views may be more limited/obstructed than others.

GUIDELINES

• Please arrive on time according to your ticket in order to secure your seat in the event space. Late arrivals may only have access to standing room and may not have the opportunity to enter the event space.

• The exact time at which the event ends will be determined on the day. To avoid disappointment, we strongly advise you to arrive on time for the event.

• All event guidelines are subject to change.

• If you have any additional questions, please can call the store directly at: (267) 234-9790.

• Barnes & Noble may cancel this event at any time with or without notice to the ticket holders.

Please note that Eventbrite is the only authorized dealer for this event.

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About Joe Boyd

Joe Boyd is a record producer and writer, known for his acclaimed memoir, White Bicycles. Artists he has produced include Nick Drake, R.E.M., Toots and the Maytals, Richard Thompson, Pink Floyd, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, and ¡Cubanismo! among many others over the course of a nearly sixty-year career. 

After graduating from Harvard in 1964, he tour-managed Muddy Waters, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto, and others before serving as production manager for the historic 1965 Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals. He then moved to London to open Elektra Records’ office and started the famous UFO club, which became the center of London’s psychedelic revolution. In 1979 he launched his own label, Hannibal Records, which was at the forefront of bringing global artists to western audiences. As a film producer, his credits include Amazing Grace, Scandal, and Jimi Hendrix. A gifted raconteur, he appears frequently on radio, podcasts and documentaries.

About And the Roots of Rhythm Remain

Paul Simon told Joe Boyd that when he first heard the accordion flourish that would open his multi-platinum album Graceland, it seemed to proclaim, “You haven’t heard this before!” Yet the 1980s “world music” boom that Simon’s album helped usher in had roots that extended back through the decades and across continents: tango on the eve of World War I, Latin dance across the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, reggae in the ’70s, pre-War samba and pre-Beatles bossa nova, Eastern European ensembles filling capitalist concert halls during the Cold War, Indian ragas changing rock and roll in the 1960s, the folk music–inspired classical composers of the 19th and 20th centuries.

In this sweeping history compiled from more than a decade of travel, research, interviews, and deep listening, Boyd sets out to explore centuries of fascinating backstories to these sounds. He shows how personalities, events, and politics in places such as Havana, Lagos, Budapest, Kingston, and Rio are as colorful and momentous as anything that took place in New Orleans, Harlem, Laurel Canyon, or Liverpool. And, moreover, how jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock ‘n’ roll would never have happened if it weren’t for the notes and rhythms emanating from over the horizon. The one-of-a-kind result is And the Roots of Rhythm Remain: a glorious, symphonic celebration of the music that shapes our world.

About Tom Moon

Tom Moon has been writing about rock, pop, jazz, blues, soul, R&B, hip-hop and the music of the world since 1983. A trained musician, he is the author of the New York Times bestseller 1000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die (Workman Publishing), and a contributor to several other books including The New Rolling Stone Album Guide and The Final Four of Everything.

Moon served as music critic at the Philadelphia Inquirer from 1988-2004, and has been a regular contributor to National Public Radio’s All Things Considered since 1995. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone, GQ, Esquire, The New York Times, Musician, Jazz Times, NPR Music, Blender, Spin, Vibe, Harp and other publications, and has been recognized with several national awards including two ASCAP-Deems Taylor Music Journalism awards. He has interviewed hundreds of artists across a wide range of genres – among them Frank Zappa, Prince, Miles Davis, U2, Chick Corea, Paul Simon, the Rolling Stones and Sonny Rollins.

About the Venue

https://stores.barnesandnoble.com/store/3434

For more information on And The Roots Of Rhythm Remain, please reach out to Matt Hanks (mhanks@shorefire.com), Chris Taillie (ctaillie@shorefire.com), and Henry Thomas (hthomas@shorefire.com) at Shore Fire Media.

Mar 31: Joe Boyd with Dust-to-Digital's Lance Ledbetter

Mar 31, 7 PM ET • Atlanta, GA: Manuel’s Tavern • 602 North Highland Avenue NE, Atlanta, Georgia 30307

From the legendary producer of Nick Drake, R.E.M., Toots and the Maytals, and Pink Floyd and author of "White Bicycles: Making Music" in the 1960s comes a riveting, world-spanning tour de force illuminating the artists, histories, controversies, and collaborations that shaped global music.

A Cappella Books is delighted to welcome legendary music producer and author Joe Boyd to celebrate his book, “And the Roots of Rhythm Remain: A Journey Through Global Music.” The author will appear in conversation with Lance Ledbetter, founder of Dust-to-Digital, an Atlanta-based record label dedicated to preserving rare and historically significant recordings.

This event is free and open to the public. Copies of “And the Roots of Rhythm Remain” will be available for purchase.

About the Book

“You haven’t heard this before!” the accordion flourish seemed to proclaim. Paul Simon told Joe Boyd that he immediately knew it would open “Graceland,” the multi-platinum album that helped usher in the 1980s “world music” boom. Yet that movement had roots extending back through the decades and across continents: tango on the eve of World War I, Latin dance across the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, reggae in the ’70s, pre-War samba and pre-Beatles bossa nova, Eastern European ensembles filling capitalist concert halls during the Cold War, Indian ragas changing rock and roll in the 1960s, the folk music–inspired classical composers of the 19th and 20th centuries.

In this sweeping history compiled from more than a decade of travel, research, interviews, and deep listening, Boyd explores centuries of fascinating backstories to these sounds. He shows how personalities, events, and politics in places such as Havana, Lagos, Budapest, Kingston, and Rio are as colorful and momentous as anything that took place in New Orleans, Harlem, Laurel Canyon, or Liverpool. Moreover, he reveals how jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock ‘n’ roll would never have happened if it weren’t for the notes and rhythms emanating from over the horizon.

“The Roots of Rhythm Remain” is a glorious, symphonic celebration of the music that shapes our world.

About the Author

Joe Boyd is a legendary music producer, writer, and global music historian. As the founder of Witchseason Productions, he was instrumental in launching the careers of iconic artists such as Nick Drake, Fairport Convention, The Incredible String Band, and Vashti Bunyan. He produced the first-ever U.S. tour of Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and later worked with artists such as R.E.M., Toots and the Maytals, and Pink Floyd.

Boyd’s memoir, “White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s,” is widely regarded as one of the greatest books about the music industry ever written. His passion for uncovering the interconnected roots of global music has led him to decades of research, interviews, and production work around the world. “And the Roots of Rhythm Remain” is his most ambitious and sweeping work yet, offering a deeply researched and vividly told exploration of the cultural intersections that have shaped modern music.

About the Conversation Partner

Lance Ledbetter is the founder of Dust-to-Digital, an acclaimed Atlanta-based record label dedicated to preserving and celebrating rare and historically significant music from around the world. Since launching the label in 2003, Ledbetter has spearheaded a number of Grammy-winning archival releases, including the groundbreaking “Goodbye, Babylon,” a six-CD box set of gospel music that earned widespread acclaim.

Through Dust-to-Digital, Ledbetter has played a key role in reviving forgotten and overlooked recordings, ensuring that influential but underappreciated artists receive the recognition they deserve. His expertise in historical recordings and global music makes him an ideal conversation partner for Joe Boyd, as they explore the intersections of history, culture, and sound.

About the Venue

https://www.acappellabooks.com/

For more information on And The Roots Of Rhythm Remain, please reach out to Matt Hanks (mhanks@shorefire.com), Chris Taillie (ctaillie@shorefire.com), and Henry Thomas (hthomas@shorefire.com) at Shore Fire Media.

Joe Boyd at The Cedar Cultural Center

Mar 24, 7:30 PM CT • Minneapolis, MN: Cedar Cultural Center • 416 Cedar Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55454

The Cedar Presents

An Evening with JOE BOYD ~And the Roots of Rhythm Remain~

Monday, March 24, 2025 / Doors: 7:00 PM / Show: 7:30 PM

All Ages

Seated

$20 Advance, $25 Day of Show

This is a seated show with general admission, first-come-first-served seating. The Cedar is happy to reserve seats for patrons who require special seating accommodations. To request access accommodations, please go to our Access page.

For Cedar presented shows, online ticket sales typically end one hour before the door time, and then, based on availability, tickets will be available at the door.

LISTEN: And the Roots of Rhythm Remain~ Interview on PBS News- Video courtesy of Joe Boyd.

ABOUT THIS SHOW

Legendary producer (Nick Drake, Pink Floyd, REM, Fairport Convention, etc) and author of acclaimed memoir, White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s, JOE BOYD presents words and music from his remarkable new book, And the Roots of Rhythm Remain.

"What an amazing book! Joe Boyd has distilled decades of experience and observation of how musical ideas interbreed, and how culture is formed, into a tumultuous, gripping and dramatic story. I doubt I'll ever read a better account of the history and sociology of popular music than this one. It has me saying ‘Wow' on every page.” - Brian Eno

“Profound… and beyond.” —Robert Plant

Joe Boyd is a record producer and writer, known for his memoir, White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s. Artists he has produced include Nick Drake, Pink Floyd, R.E.M., Taj Mahal, Fairport Convention, Richard and Linda Thompson, Maria Muldaur, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, and 10,000 Maniacs among many over the course of a nearly sixty-year career. As a film producer, his credits include Amazing Grace, Scandal, and Jimi Hendrix.

About the Author

After graduating from Harvard in 1964, he tour-managed Muddy Waters, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto among others, then served as production manager for the 1965 Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals. After Newport, he moved to London to open Elektra Records’ office there, then started the legendary UFO club, original home to Pink Floyd and Soft Machine and center of London’s psychedelic revolution. Through his work with the Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention, Nick Drake, John and Beverley Martyn, and Sandy Denny, his production company, Witchseason, set a new course for folk and folk-rock music in Britain.

Boyd moved to Los Angeles in 1971 to become Director of Music Services for Warner Brothers Films, where he supervised scores for Deliverance and A Clockwork Orange and co-created the documentary Jimi Hendrix. In the mid-to-late ’70s, he produced records by Maria Muldaur (“Midnight at the Oasis”), Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Toots and the Maytals, and James Booker.

After spending 1979 in charge of Lorne Michaels’s start-up film production company, Broadway Pictures, he launched his own label, Hannibal Records, which he ran for twenty years. Hannibal released albums by a diverse mix of Anglo-American artists ranging from Defunkt and John Cale to Richard Thompson and Robert Wyatt. Joe and Hannibal were also at the forefront of independent labels bringing global artists to Western audiences, including ¡Cubanismo! and Alfredo Rodriguez, Toumani Diabaté and Ali Farka Touré, Virginia Rodrigues and Moreno Veloso, Trio Bulgarka and Ivo Papasov, Muzsikás and Márta Sebestyén, Ketama and Songhai.He left Hannibal in 2001 and wrote White Bicycles. Since its publication, he has traveled widely, lecturing, reading, and performing in a double-act with singer Robyn Hitchcock.

Boyd’s new book, And the Roots of Rhythm Remain A Journey through Global Music, was published by Ze Books in September 2024 to high critical acclaim. A sweeping history, the book celebrates the impact of the world’s musical traditions on Western popular culture and vice versa and shows how personalities, events, and politics in places such as Havana, Lagos, Budapest, Kingston, and Rio are as colorful and momentous as anything that took place in New Orleans, Harlem, Laurel Canyon, or Liverpool.

During the years spent writing And the Roots of Rhythm Remain, he has co-produced records with his wife, Andrea Goertler, by Albanian group Saz’iso and Bosnian sevdah artist Damir Imamović. His popular podcast, Joe Boyd’s A-Z, takes listeners on musical adventures from around the world. In 2019, he completed unfinished business from his time at Warner Brothers Films by serving as Executive Producer on Amazing Grace, Alan Elliott’s acclaimed film of Aretha Franklin’s 1972 recording session which had lain unseen in the vaults for forty-seven years. A gifted raconteur, he appears frequently on the BBC and other global radio and television outlets.

We’ve spent the past couple of months completely immersed in and utterly captivated by the nearly 1000 pages of his extraordinary new book, And the Roots of Rhythm Remain: A Journey Through Global Music. We’re thrilled to welcome Joe Boyd to The Cedar Cultural Center where he will talk about his book as well as present a multimedia presentation about his work.

To learn more about Joe Boyd:

Visit his website here

About the Venue

https://www.thecedar.org/mission-history

For more information on And The Roots Of Rhythm Remain, please reach out to Matt Hanks (mhanks@shorefire.com), Chris Taillie (ctaillie@shorefire.com), and Henry Thomas (hthomas@shorefire.com) at Shore Fire Media.

Joe Boyd at Old Town School of Folk Music

Mar 20, 7:30 PM CT • Chicago, IL: The Myron R. Szold Music & Dance Hall • 4545 N Lincoln Ave, Chicago, IL 60625

$15 General Public

$13 Members

$55 Ticket and Book Bundle

Legendary producer (Nick Drake, Pink Floyd, REM, Fairport Convention, etc) and author of acclaimed memoir, White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s, presents words and music from his remarkable new book, And the Roots of Rhythm Remain, and answers questions from the audience.

"What an amazing book! Joe Boyd has distilled decades of experience and observation of how musical ideas interbreed, and how culture is formed, into a tumultuous, gripping and dramatic story. I doubt I'll ever read a better account of the history and sociology of popular music than this one. It has me saying ‘Wow' on every page.” - Brian Eno

https://www.joeboyd.co.uk/

About the Author

Joe Boyd is a record producer and writer, known for his acclaimed memoir, White Bicycles. Artists he has produced include Nick Drake, R.E.M., Toots and the Maytals, Richard Thompson, Pink Floyd, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, and ¡Cubanismo! among many others over the course of a nearly sixty-year career. 

After graduating from Harvard in 1964, he tour-managed Muddy Waters, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto, and others before serving as production manager for the historic 1965 Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals. He then moved to London to open Elektra Records’ office and started the famous UFO club, which became the center of London’s psychedelic revolution. In 1979 he launched his own label, Hannibal Records, which was at the forefront of bringing global artists to western audiences. As a film producer, his credits include Amazing Grace, Scandal,and Jimi Hendrix. A gifted raconteur, he appears frequently on radio, podcasts and documentaries.

About the Venue

https://www.oldtownschool.org/aboutus/

For more information on And The Roots Of Rhythm Remain, please reach out to Matt Hanks (mhanks@shorefire.com), Chris Taillie (ctaillie@shorefire.com), and Henry Thomas (hthomas@shorefire.com) at Shore Fire Media.

Joe Boyd at The Local Center

Mar 18, 7 PM • Saugerties, NY: The Local Center for Arts and Culture • 16 John St, Saugerties, NY 12477

Brian Eno wrote “What an amazing book! I doubt I’ll ever read a better account of the history and sociology of popular music than this one. It has me saying ‘Wow’ on every page.”

“Joe Boyd has an acute ear for music and an astute eye for talent. Here he reveals the searching intellect, the generous spirit, and the deep heart beneath his extraordinary life’s work.” - T Bone Burnett

“One only hopes this can be taught in schools.” - Ry Cooder

“Profound . . . and beyond.” - Robert Plant

“Love this book. Joe gives us the wider and deeper contexts that shaped music. And, in many cases, he was there. It's big, but it's a page turner!” - David Byrne

From the legendary producer of Pink Floyd, Nick Drake, REM, and Taj Mahal and author of White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s comes a riveting new book And the Roots of Rhythm Remain: A Journey Through Global Music, a world-spanning tour of the artists, histories, controversies, and collaborations that shaped global music.

Having produced Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton, Fairport Convention, Nick Drake etc, Boyd had turned his attention to music from over the horizon, derived from the rites and roots of those who make it. The culmination of Boyd’s lifelong journey in pursuit of such music is this vast book and every paragraph is packed with information and inspiration – but written with a refreshingly light touch.

Inasmuch as music is an expression of the human world – our aspirations, tribulations and celebrations – this is a history of that world, told through music. And although music may derive from heritage, it is by definition “sans frontières”, and the book explores “how rhythms, scales, and melodies flowed across the globe, constantly altering what the world danced and listened to”. Especially across the Atlantic Middle Passage: a binding thread explains how much great music was created in defiance of the brutal horrors of colonialism and slavery. Counterculture icon Joe Boyd's new book covers everything from fifth-century Roma music to Miriam Makeba.

Part of The Local's Consider This, a series of thought provoking conversations on a variety of topics.

“The producer’s epic account of global music’s cross-pollination is an inspiring tale of seduction, expression and freedom from oppression.” The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/aug/19/and-the-roots-of-rhythm-remain-a-journey-through-global-music-by-joe-boyd-review-the-proust-of-music

Signed books will be on sale by Inquiring Minds Bookstore

FREE OR PURCHASE A RESERVED SEAT, DONATIONS WELCOME

More about Joe:

Joe Boyd is a record producer and writer known for his memoir, White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s. Artists he has produced include Nick Drake, Pink Floyd, REM, Taj Mahal, Fairport Convention, Richard & Linda Thompson, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Toots and the Maytals, Sandy Denny, 10,000 Maniacs, and many others across a nearly sixty-year career.

After graduating from Harvard in 1964, Boyd tour-managed Muddy Waters, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz and others, then served as production manager for the historic 1965 Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals. He moved to London to open the UK office of Elektra Records and started the famous UFO Club, original home to Pink Floyd and Soft Machine. His production company, Witchseason, set the course for folk and folk-rock music in Britain.

Boyd moved to Los Angeles in 1971 to work for Warner Brothers Films. In 1979 he launched Hannibal Records, which led the way for bringing global artists to Western audiences, including Cuban, Malian, Brazilian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, and Spanish artists. A gifted raconteur, he appears frequently on the BBC and other radio outlets. His music podcast, Joe Boyd’s A-Z has received over a quarter of a million visits.

About the Venue

https://www.thelocalsaugerties.com/about-page

For more information on And The Roots Of Rhythm Remain, please reach out to Matt Hanks (mhanks@shorefire.com), Chris Taillie (ctaillie@shorefire.com), and Henry Thomas (hthomas@shorefire.com) at Shore Fire Media.

Adele Bertei in conversation with Evelyn McDonnell about Twist: Tales from a Queer Girlhood & Sinead O'Connor's Universal Mother

Feb 26, 7 PM • Los Angeles, CA: Book Soup • 8818 W Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069

Adele Bertei discusses & signs her memoir Twist: Tales from a Queer Girlhood & Sinead O’Connor’s Universal Mother (33 ⅓), in conversation with Evelyn McDonnell

Twist: Tales of a Queer Girlhood is iconic rock-and-roll musician Adele Bertei's harrowing and electric memoir of transforming trauma through art, pluck, and imagination, as told through the inimitable voice of her young alter ego, Maddie Twist.

From iconoclastic writer and musician Adele Bertei comes "a powerful look at survival and redemption despite extremely challenging obstacles" (Kirkus Reviews, Best Nonfiction of 2023). Set in a 1960s and '70s American neighborhood rife with poverty and violence, fatherless Irish mothers and Italian mobsters, women crucified into madness by misogyny, and an unforgettable supporting cast of characters, Bertei speaks through her electrically alive avatar Maddie Twist to flip the victim script. Through her unshakable belief in imagination, poetry, music, and community, she transforms trauma into survival.

A compelling personal history of queer culture from a working-class view, Twist is good medicine: for readers who've experienced similar traumas, for teens caught in the foster care system, for the formerly incarcerated looking for hope, for writers grappling with how to tell their own stories. Most of all, it's for everyone seeking transportive experiences in art and on the page.

With Universal Mother, Sinead O'Connor explores childhood trauma and her experiences as a woman, mother, target of scorn, and ultimate phoenix.

Released in the winter of 1994, Universal Mother was the first recorded work from O'Connor since her duo of protests in 1992 ( Saturday Night Live, Madison Square Garden). The sadistic blowback she faced for publicly outing the child abuse of the Catholic Church and its cover-up would have destroyed most. Where Sinead might go next, or if she'd ever record again, was the question. It's a testament to her integrity and extraordinary courage that she was able to resurrect with this extraordinary album.

The album takes us on a deeply personal, yet universal journey of womanhood, from the archetypal bad mother to the good and the kind. A feminist statement from Germaine Greer sets the tone, followed by O'Connor letting loose a storm of rage against her abusive mother in "Fire on Bablyon"-a salvo so explosive, it need not be repeated. Other than a song called "Red Football" and a call-out of the truth behind the Irish potato famine, O'Connor is not interested in rage or revenge. With Universal Mother, she offers us a tender, evocative collection of grief and empathy in song. Her miraculous voice is the vessel-the broken, sacred voice of Mother Ireland.

The Benton Museum of Art celebrates exuberant collaboration with noted author and Pomona College professor Jonathan Lethem

Feb 15, 4–7 PM PT • Claremont, CA: Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College • 330 North College Way, Claremont, CA 91711 

Claremont, CA—The Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College is thrilled to celebrate the creative collaboration between the Benton and novelist and Pomona professor Jonathan Lethem with two landmark events: the exhibition Jonathan Lethem’s Parallel Play: Contemporary Art and Art Writing, on view from February 13 to June 29, 2025, and Lethem’s generous gift of 18 works from his collection to the museum. Lethem is well known for such novels as Motherless Brooklyn (1999), The Fortress of Solitude (2003), and Brooklyn Crime Novel (2023); he is also a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, among other literary recognitions. His first volume of collected art writing, Cellophane Bricks: A Life in Visual Culture, forms the foundation of Jonathan Lethem’s Parallel Play, an exhibition that features artwork from or related to his personal collection, often acquired in a fluid system of exchange with artists and galleries. Punchy wit, verve, humor, history, creative fluidity—all are on display in both visual and literary form this spring at the Benton. 

The opening event for the exhibition, featuring Lethem and a panel of artists, will be Saturday, February 15 from 4 to 7 pm. 

Jonathan Lethem’s Parallel Play presents more than 60 works from Lethem’s personal collection. The works are presented with excerpts from Lethem’s original words about the works, revisited in the present by Lethem, the exhibition’s co-curator Solomon Salim Moore, or the artists themselves. As a result, the exhibition is not solely about the works on view but the process of creative exchanges across mediums, genres, and time. It is a call-and-response—between artists, between writing and the visual arts, between ideas and material forms. Lethem’s generous practice offers a model for thinking broadly about contemporary art and also about how the act of writing is intimately intertwined with the process of making physical objects. 

Opening Celebration 

Saturday, February 15 

4 to 7 pm

Co-curators Jonathan Lethem and Solomon Salim Moore host artists Julia Jacquette and Mark Johnson in a lively conversation about creative practice and collaboration. A reception follows. 

Look, Shift, Return 

Saturday, March 1 

1 to 7 pm 

Co-curators Jonathan Lethem and Solomon Salim Moore host a day of writing out loud at the Benton. 

Old-school manual typewriters will be available for a communal writing experience led by Lethem and Moore, and inspired by the Benton’s Parallel Play exhibition, which features artworks emphasizing appropriation, fan-art, cartooning, and the junction of language and image. 

Jonathan Lethem’s Parallel Play: Contemporary Art and Art Writing is curated by Solomon Salim Moore, assistant curator of collections, and Jonathan Lethem, with curatorial interns Ava Monheit PZ ’27 and Serena Li PO ’26. Programs related to the exhibition have been supported by the Pomona College English Department. 

About the Author

Jonathan Lethem is the author of Brooklyn Crime Novel and twelve other novels. His stories and essays have been collected in five volumes, and his work translated into over thirty languages. He has been recipient of The National Book Critics Circle Award, The World Fantasy Award, The Berlin Prize, and a MacArthur Fellowship.

About the Venue:

The Benton Museum of Art makes the visual arts an essential part of the experience of all Pomona College students as well as members of its resident communities. The Museum utilizes carefully designed, lively, and innovative exhibitions and programs to link the creative energy of making art and experiencing art. It envisions its collections as a teaching resource, emphasizing first-hand conversation with art objects as a tool for increasing visual literacy and investigating the diversity of human experience. 

All exhibitions and programs are free of charge and open to the public. 

Media Contact: 

Erin Hogan

benton.communications@pomona.edu

(909) 607-2291

Jonathan Lethem Discusses Cellophane Bricks & Brooklyn Crime Novel, with Dan Fox

Oct 29, 7 PM ET • Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Public Library, Dweck Center • 10 Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, NY 11238

Many know Jonathan Lethem as one of our most celebrated and eclectic writers, whose iconic novels—Motherless Brooklyn, The Fortress of Solitude, Chronic City, among many others—play with genres and storytelling modes like a DJ mixing music. But Lethem grew up in his father’s studio, went to art school, and, in his own words, “made hundreds if not thousands of drawings, collages, paintings, hand-drawn comics, and even two animated shorts” before diverting, at nineteen, to prose. The surreal and form-defying panoply of his stories, essays, and novels celebrates—and mourns—this forsaken world of the visual and plastic arts. That leap, between the cellophane ephemerality of language and the brick-like tangibility of visual art, which operates as a sublimated wellspring for Lethem’s writing, is the subject of this book. 

Cellophane Bricks mortars together Lethem’s fictions in response to (and in exchange for) artworks by his friends with dozens of original essays. Here we tour his meditations on comics and graffiti art; his collaborations with artists and interventions into visual culture; and his portrait of the museum that was and continues to be his home, untethered from geography. Unique in Lethem’s kaleidoscopic oeuvre, Cellophane Bricks comprises a kind of stealth memoir of his parallel life in visual culture. Gorgeously designed, with stunning, full-color images from the author’s own collection and elsewhere, Cellophane Bricks is a ravishing assemblage for story lovers of all kinds. Lethem also discusses Brooklyn Crime Novel, out now in paperback.

About the Author

Jonathan Lethem is the author of Brooklyn Crime Novel and twelve other novels. His stories and essays have been collected in five volumes, and his work translated into over thirty languages. He has been recipient of The National Book Critics Circle Award, The World Fantasy Award, The Berlin Prize, and a MacArthur Fellowship.

About the Interlocutor:

Dan Fox is a writer, musician and filmmaker. A former editor at Frieze magazine, he is the author of the books Limbo (2018) and Pretentiousness: Why It Matters (2016), and co-director of the BBC documentary Other, Like Me: The Oral History of COUM Transmissions and Throbbing Gristle. He is a senior editor for The Yale Review and lives in Brooklyn, New York. Photo credit Matthew Porter

About the Venue:

Conveniently located at BPL's Central Library on Grand Army Plaza, the fully accessible, 189-seat Dweck auditorium provides a comfortable space in which to enjoy the library's rich and wide-ranging schedule of free public programs. The Dweck features literary series, author talks, public affairs and humanities programs, film screenings, chamber music concerts, pop and jazz music, as well as programs for children. Acoustically well balanced and with unobstructed sightlines, this intimate auditorium has been attracting ever-larger audiences since it opened in the fall of 2007.

For all press inquiries please contact Alexander Galan, ag@vidoun.com or Thora Siemsen, tds@vidoun.com

Cellophane Bricks: Jonathan Lethem with Rita Bullwinkel

Oct 21, 7 PM PT • San Francisco, CA: City Lights • 261 Columbus Avenue San Francisco, CA 94133

Co-presented with City Lights Booksellers & Publishers

With his new book Cellophane Bricks: A Life in Visual Culture, Jonathan Lethem showcases his talents as one of modern literature’s most eclectic critical minds. This rapturous, ravenous celebration of visual art and storytelling gathers a lifetime of Lethem's art-writing, along with stunning, full-color images from the author's own collection and elsewhere. Here we tour Lethem's fictions in response to (and in exchange for) artworks by his friends; his meditations on comics and graffiti art; his collaborations with artists and interventions into visual culture, and his portrait of the museum that was and continues to be his home, untethered from geography. This new book also coincides with the anniversary re-release of Lethem’s award-winning detective novel Motherless Brooklyn. Join the author in conversation with Litquake veteran Rita Bullwinkel, author most recently of Booker Prize–longlisted Headshot!

About the Author

Jonathan Lethem is the author of Brooklyn Crime Novel and twelve other novels. His stories and essays have been collected in five volumes, and his work translated into over thirty languages. He has been recipient of The National Book Critics Circle Award, The World Fantasy Award, The Berlin Prize, and a MacArthur Fellowship.

About the Interlocutor

Rita Bullwinkel is the author of Headshot and Belly Up, a story collection that won the Believer Book Award. She is a 2022 recipient of a Whiting Award, the editor of McSweeney's Quarterly, a contributing editor at NOON, the creator of Oral Florist, and a Picador Guest Professor of Literature at Leipzig University in Germany, where she teaches courses on creative writing, zines, and the uses of invented and foreign languages as tools for world building.

About the Venue

Litquake, San Francisco's Literary Festival: Litquake’s diverse live programs are created with the aim of inspiring critical engagement with the key issues of the day, bringing people together around the common humanity encapsulated in literature, and perpetuating a sense of literary community, as well as a vibrant forum for Bay Area writing. We believe in literature as a public good, so we work to produce events that are accessible to all.

For all press inquiries please contact Alexander Galan, ag@vidoun.com or Thora Siemsen, tds@vidoun.com

Jonathan Lethem Speaks with Claire L. Evans at Artbook @ Hauser & Wirth 

Oct 12, 3 PM PT • Los Angeles, CA: Artbook @ Hauser & Wirth • 917 East 3rd Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013

Many know Jonathan Lethem as one of our most celebrated and eclectic writers, whose iconic novels—Motherless Brooklyn, The Fortress of Solitude, Chronic City, among many others—play with genres and storytelling modes like a DJ mixing music. But Lethem grew up in his father’s studio, went to art school, and, in his own words, “made hundreds if not thousands of drawings, collages, paintings, hand-drawn comics, and even two animated shorts” before diverting, at nineteen, to prose. The surreal and form-defying panoply of his stories, essays, and novels celebrates—and mourns—this forsaken world of the visual and plastic arts. That leap, between the cellophane ephemerality of language and the brick-like tangibility of visual art, which operates as a sublimated wellspring for Lethem’s writing, is the subject of this book. 

Cellophane Bricks mortars together Lethem’s fictions in response to (and in exchange for) artworks by his friends with dozens of original essays. Here we tour his meditations on comics and graffiti art; his collaborations with artists and interventions into visual culture; and his portrait of the museum that was and continues to be his home, untethered from geography. Unique in Lethem’s kaleidoscopic oeuvre, Cellophane Bricks comprises a kind of stealth memoir of his parallel life in visual culture. Gorgeously designed, with stunning, full-color images from the author’s own collection and elsewhere, Cellophane Bricks is a ravishing assemblage for story lovers of all kinds. Lethem also discusses Brooklyn Crime Novel, out now in paperback.

About the Author

Jonathan Lethem is the author of Brooklyn Crime Novel and twelve other novels. His stories and essays have been collected in five volumes, and his work translated into over thirty languages. He has been recipient of The National Book Critics Circle Award, The World Fantasy Award, The Berlin Prize, and a MacArthur Fellowship.

About the Author

Claire L. Evans is a writer and musician exploring biology, technology, and culture. She is the singer of the Grammy-nominated pop group YACHT, co-founder of VICE’s imprint for speculative fiction, Terraform,, and co-editor, with Brian Merchant, of the accompanying anthology Terraform: Watch Worlds Burn (MCD Books, 2022). Her 2018 history of women in computing, Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet, published by Penguin Random House, has been translated into six languages and was named one of the Top 10 Best Nonfiction Tech Books of All Time in 2023. She lives in Los Angeles, where she is an advisor to students in the Media Design Practices program at Art Center College of Design.

About the Venue:

Artbook is an arts and culture bookstore within Hauser & Wirth's Los Angeles location in a converted historic flour mill. Bringing an experimental dynamic to book selling, Artbook devotes a large portion of its retail space to spotlight selections that change every several months, focusing in great depth upon different movements and themes in contemporary and 20th-century art. Complementing current exhibitions as well as new developments in art practices and writing, these rotating thematic displays include new releases in addition to important backlist books, indie press titles, imported catalogues and out-of-print selections.

For all press inquiries please contact Alexander Galan, ag@vidoun.com or Thora Siemsen, tds@vidoun.com

Joe Boyd at Waterloo Records

Oct 8, 7 PM CT • Austin: Waterloo Records • 600 N Lamar Blvd, Austin, TX 78703

From the legendary producer of Nick Drake, R.E.M., Toots and the Maytals, and Pink Floyd and author of White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s comes a riveting, world-spanning tour de force illuminating the artists, histories, controversies, and collaborations that shaped global music.

Paul Simon told Joe Boyd that when he first heard the accordion flourish that would open his multi-platinum album Graceland, it seemed to proclaim, "You haven't heard this before!" Yet the 1980s "world music" boom that Simon's album helped usher in had roots that extended back through the decades and across continents: tango on the eve of World War I, Latin dance across the '30s, '40s and '50s, reggae in the '70s, pre-War samba and pre-Beatles bossa nova, Eastern European ensembles filling capitalist concert halls during the Cold War, Indian ragas changing rock and roll in the 1960s, the folk music-inspired classical composers of the 19th and 20th centuries.

In this sweeping history compiled from more than a decade of travel, research, interviews, and deep listening, Boyd sets out to explore centuries of fascinating backstories to these sounds. He shows how personalities, events, and politics in places such as Havana, Lagos, Budapest, Kingston, and Rio are as colorful and momentous as anything that took place in New Orleans, Harlem, Laurel Canyon, or Liverpool. And, moreover, how jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock 'n' roll would never have happened if it weren't for the notes and rhythms emanating from over the horizon. The one-of-a-kind result is And the Roots of Rhythm Remain: a glorious, symphonic celebration of the music that shapes our world.

About the Book

“You haven’t heard this before!" the accordion flourish seemed to proclaim. Paul Simon told Joe Boyd that he immediately knew it would open Graceland, the multi-platinum album that helped usher in the 1980s “world music” boom. Yet that movement had roots extending back through the decades and across continents: tango on the eve of World War I, Latin dance across the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, reggae in the ’70s, pre-War samba and pre-Beatles bossa nova, Eastern European ensembles filling capitalist concert halls during the Cold War, Indian ragas changing rock and roll in the 1960s, the folk music–inspired classical composers of the 19th and 20th centuries.

In this sweeping history compiled from more than a decade of travel, research, interviews, and deep listening, Boyd sets out to explore centuries of fascinating backstories to these sounds. He shows how personalities, events, and politics in places such as Havana, Lagos, Budapest, Kingston, and Rio are as colorful and momentous as anything that took place in New Orleans, Harlem, Laurel Canyon, or Liverpool. And, moreover, how jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock ‘n’ roll would never have happened if it weren’t for the notes and rhythms emanating from over the horizon. The one-of-a-kind result is And the Roots of Rhythm Remain: a glorious, symphonic celebration of the music that shapes our world.

About the Author

Joe Boyd is a record producer and writer, known for his acclaimed memoir, White Bicycles. Artists he has produced include Nick Drake, R.E.M., Toots and the Maytals, Richard Thompson, Pink Floyd, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, and ¡Cubanismo! among many others over the course of a nearly sixty-year career. 

After graduating from Harvard in 1964, he tour-managed Muddy Waters, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto, and others before serving as production manager for the historic 1965 Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals. He then moved to London to open Elektra Records’ office and started the famous UFO club, which became the center of London’s psychedelic revolution. In 1979 he launched his own label, Hannibal Records, which was at the forefront of bringing global artists to western audiences. As a film producer, his credits include Amazing Grace, Scandal,and Jimi Hendrix. A gifted raconteur, he appears frequently on radio, podcasts and documentaries.

About the Venue

When Waterloo Records opened its doors on April 1, 1982, Austin was not quite the same town that it is today. The computer industries had arrived in the mid-seventies, but had yet to begin drawing the number of people into town that they would start to bring by the turn of the decade. Nor had Austin's reputation as a premier arts town – especially in both music and film – swelled its ranks of the creatively inclined. The boom years of the eighties had yet to fully take hold of the sleepy town. Simply put, Austin was a lot smaller.

But while a good deal more modest, Austin's music scene was well established. Texas music had always seemed to be vital and important, not only at home but far beyond the confines of our own barbed wire fences. From The 13th Floor Elevators to Willie Nelson, Texas artists were known internationally and their music respected around the world. Austin, however, had yet to become recognized on a national, let alone international, level as a live music mecca. The birth of South by Southwest still lay 5 years into the future and the Austin Record Convention, now one of the largest in the country, was no more than a suckling itself, having only come into being during the Spring of the previous year. Even Stevie Ray Vaughan wouldn't release his first album with Double Trouble, Texas Flood, until 1983, igniting a blaze of guitar still burning its way down the strip on Sixth Street. The Austin scene was vibrant and alive, but it was different.

Some things about Waterloo were different too. A building a mere 1,200 square feet housed the store at a location 2/3 of a mile further South on Lamar. Compared to the relatively roomy dimension of 6,400 square feet that Waterloo's main store enjoys today it's hard to imagine how cramped that original store must have seemed. Size, however, certainly didn't seem to matter to our customers, voting us best record store in the Austin Chronicle readers poll that first year, an honor they have granted us every year since.
   
Back then, what Waterloo really had going for it wasn't all that radical. It came more out of understanding the customer's viewpoint than planning a marketing strategy. It rose from the kindred soul of merchant and customer. Instead of catering to the music consumer, Waterloo catered to the music lover, if only because we were music lovers too. It was true then, it certainly still is today.

For more information on And The Roots Of Rhythm Remain, please reachout to Matt Hanks (mhanks@shorefire.com), Chris Taillie (ctaillie@shorefire.com), and Henry Thomas (hthomas@shorefire.com) at Shore Fire Media.