LECTURES + EVENTS

By Gordon Spencer, Contributing Editor

LECTURES AT FALLINGWATER
Friday, May 1, 2009 through Friday, November 27, 2009
Another well-off family, the Edgar Kaufmanns, no longer inhabits its memorable home, but visitors can still get a sense of how those people lived. In this case, the interest mostly dwells on what architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed in 1935 for the family at what is now a landmark tourist destination. Senior members of Fallingwater’s education staff cherish the idea of conveying, up close and personal, their knowledge and enthusiasm. At the lectures “Fallingwater: A Place for Renewal” on Thursdays and “Fallingwater Faces” on Fridays, you may hear about such topics as how everyone present at the creation came together, even as the project came together with the environment. You can hear discussions about carefully planned ideas for such organic architecture, and learn not only about the residents of the house, but also about other people who had settled in Bear Run, where Fallingwater is located. Advance tickets and reservations are required for the lectures. House tours are separate. Every Thurs. and Fri., 2-3 p.m.
Tickets: $18; with house tour, $8
(The Barn at Fallingwater, Route 381, Mill Run, Fayette County.
Event phone #: 724/329-8501
Event Website: fallingwater.org)

LECTURES AT FALLINGWATER
Thursday, August 6, 2009 through Friday, November 27, 2009
As I wrote in the June “Lectures + Events” column, visitors of Fallingwater can get a sense of how people lived at this architectural landmark as well as learn about other people who settled in nearby Bear Run. Of course, most interest dwells on Fallingwater, the home Frank Lloyd Wright designed in 1935 for the Edgar Kaufmann family. Members of Fallingwater’s education staff are sharing their knowledge and enthusiasm about such topics as how everyone present at the creation came together with each other and with the environment. Advance tickets and reservations are required for the lectures. House tours are separate. (Thurs.-Fri., 2 p.m.)  
Tickets: $18; with house tour, $8
(The Barn at Fallingwater, 1491 Mill Run Road, Mill Run, Fayette County.
Ticket phone #: 724/329-8501
Tickets online: fallingwater.org)

PITTSBURGH SPEAKERS SERIES
Wednesday, September 30, 2009 through Wednesday, April 28, 2010
One of the world’s most prominent Muslim nations, Pakistan, an enduring American ally, recently has been having severe security, economic and social problems. Its one-time president Pervez Musharraf comes here this month to talk about his nation and its role in fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban, as well as about his homeland’s future international role, its chances for progress, moderation and prosperity. In this series, six other famed visitors will discuss issues closest to their lives and to ours. They are: Greg Mortenson, founder of the literacy-education nonprofit Central Asia Institute and Pennies for Peace author; political commentator David Brooks, actress and humanitarian Mia Farrow, former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, former first lady Laura Bush and environmentalist Jean-Michel Cousteau. As with all such events, audience questions will be answered in person. Robert Morris University presents these events by season subscriptions only; should you want to attend any time after this month, you can still buy season tickets if seats remain, but you pay full price. Days and times vary. Musharraf lecture: Wed., Sept. 30, 8 p.m.
Tickets: $285-$420
(Heinz Hall, Sixth Street, downtown.
Ticket phone #: 412/392-4900
Event Website: pittsburghspeakersseries.org)

FRICK ART MUSEUM: “ART AT NOON”
Wednesday, December 2, 2009 at 12:00PM
In 1951 Life magazine photographer Esther Bubley was hired by the Pittsburgh Photographic Library to live at Children’s Hospital and document doctors at work there. During the golden age of photojournalism, Bubley became known for encapsulating ordinary people and for a kind of voyeuristic frankness, tempered by humanity. So impressive were the results that Edward Steichen, director of photography at the Museum of Modern Art from 1945 to 1962, chose her pictures to be displayed a year later in his MoMA exhibition “Diogenes With a Camera.” Bubley’s prints are currently on display at the Frick Art & Historical Center, and Carnegie Museum of Art’s curator of photography, Linda Benedict-Jones, will stop by to bring visitors insights into Bubley’s work and career.
Tickets: Free
(7227 Reynolds St., Point Breeze
Event phone #: 412/371-0600
Event Website: thefrickpittsburgh.org)

CHATHAM UNIVERSITY’S 140TH ANNIVERSARY LECTURE SERIES
Thursday, December 3, 2009 at 07:30PM
The focus is green when environmental historian and author Dr. Linda Lear looks both back and forward in her lecture “Big Thinking for a Big World.” Her 1997 biography, Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature, concerns the life, story and times of the founder of the contemporary environmental movement. This event feels doubly appropriate—it’s on Founder’s Day and Springdale’s Carson was a Chatham graduate back when it was known as Pennsylvania College for Women. More recently Lear, who’s from Bethesda, Md., wrote Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature about the beloved children’s writer, illustrator and naturalist.
Tickets: Free
(Chatham University, Woodland Road, Shadyside
Event phone #: 412/365-1125
Event Website: chatham.edu/news/story.cfm)

GIST STREET READING SERIES:
Friday, December 4, 2009 at 08:00PM
“We believe in these characters and situations even as we’re made a little uncomfortable at how easily we recognize them,” said the Chicago Tribune about Allison Amend’s 2008 debut short-story collection, Things That Pass for Love. And her novel, Stations West, should arrive in bookstores soon. You also could have examined her work in The Atlantic Monthly, Prairie Schooner, Black Warrior Review and elsewhere. Chicago-born New Yorker Amend looks like a writer to watch. Sharing listeners’ attention at this month’s Gist Street Reading Series is Brooklyn’s Mathias Svalina, whose first full-length book, Destruction Myth, emerges this year. He is “an artist at play in the fields of his imagination, at play with language on the page, at play with reader expectations,” says The Chapbook Review. Svalina is the author of four collaboratively written chapbooks—or pocketbooks—as well as poetry co-editor for Octopus Books and Octopus Magazine.Doors open at 7:15 p.m.
Tickets: $5
(James Simon’s Sculpture Studio, 305 Gist St., third floor, uptown.
Event Website: giststreet.org)

DRUE HEINZ LECTURE SERIES
Monday, December 7, 2009 at 07:30PM
Here in Pittsburgh we have ample examples of the culinary concepts of cookbook author and multiple restaurant owner Lidia Bastianich. In addition to dining at her Strip District restaurant, Lidia’s Pittsburgh, we can watch her create dishes on her own PBS show Lidia’s Italy. But we rarely get a chance to encounter the celeb in the flesh. This month get more than sound bites; talk to Bastianich live during a question-and-answer session and even have her sign the latest of her books—the just-published Lidia Cooks From the Heart of Italy. You might want to know that although Bastianich cherishes Mother Earth, she goes deeper. Her own nonprofit, Lidia Matticchio Bastianich Foundation, promotes health, welfare and vocational training for indigent, abandoned, ill and handicapped people. Food for thought.
Tickets: $15 and $25
(Carnegie Music Hall, 4400 Forbes Ave., Oakland
Ticket phone #: 412/622-8866
Event Website: pittsburghlectures.org)

CARNEGIE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY: LUNCH AND LEARN
Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 10:30AM
Whether or not painters try to capture the essence of real life, they inevitably turn to the earth. Minerals have long been used to create colors. Hear and see how when Carnegie Museum of Natural History docent and geology specialist Harlan Clare and artist-educator Constance Merriman lead an exploration called “Colors from the Earth.” They dig in to the history of painting as far back as the Renaissance. Then, after lunch, Carnegie Museum of Art chief conservator Ellen Baxter takes visitors to the museum’s galleries to see results first-hand; plus, in a studio, Merriman shows how minerals transform into paint.  Registration required.
Tickets: $36-$45
(Hillman Hall of Minerals and Gems, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, 4400 Forbes Ave., Oakland
Ticket phone #: 412/622-3288
Event Website: cmoa.org/programs/adulthistory.asp)

GIST STREET READING SERIES
Friday, January 8, 2010 at 08:00PM
Poet Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno’s first book, Slamming Open the Door, lets you into her feelings, moved by the murder of her daughter. Her deeply personal focus has stirred many readers. The New York Times’ David Kirby said, “Readers will have to step outside of a familiar, comforting tradition of poetic grief while reading this book.” Bonanno is now an advocate for victims’ rights and a member of the Montgomery County Parents of Murdered Children. Also reading at this month’s Gist Street Reading Series is Boston’s Scottish-born Margot Livesey. Her sixth novel, The House on Fortune Street, drew rave reviews and turned up on many critics’ 2009 lists of best novels, and won the 2009 L. L. Winship/PEN New England Award. “Her prose beautifully evokes the thwarted passion and thrilling intrigue found in the works of Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë and [John] Keats,” according to the Chicago Tribune. Livesey’s work has appeared in The New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly as well as in numerous literary magazines. Doors open at 7:15 p.m.; readings at 8 p.m.
Tickets: $5
(James Simon’s Sculpture Studio, third floor, 305 Gist St., uptown
Event Website: giststreet.org)

MYSTERY LOVERS BOOKSHOP: COFFEE & CRIME BREAKFAST
Saturday, January 23, 2010 at 10:00AM
Alan Gordon evokes the much-older past—the early 13th century—in eight Fools’ Guild Mysteries novels. The latest, The Parisian Prodigal, is just seeing the light of day this month. And Feste, the fool from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, a.k.a. Theophilus, is the star of the series and once more probes murder with wit and wisdom. Gordon has written tales and ruminations for many publications: Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, The Medieval Academy Newsletter, Wolfsbane and Mistletoe, Queens Noir, Crime a la Carte and Once Upon A Crime II. FYI: Gordon has also written the lyrics and libretti for off Broadway musicals. Here he’ll talk and sign books. Reservations required.
Tickets: $5
(Mystery Lovers Bookshop, 514 Allegheny River Blvd., Oakmont
Event phone #: 412/828-4877
Tickets online: mysterylovers.com)

ANDY WARHOL MUSEUM’S “OFF THE WALL” SERIES
Saturday, January 23, 2010 at 08:00PM
The work of director/choreographer Jeremy Wade takes center stage at this “Off the Wall” event. His visual art juxtaposes animation, still images, movement and sound, and explores global pop culture in “There Is No End to More.” It premiered in New York City last month. His project, he claims, digs into consumption, delusion, aberration and other social ills.
Tickets: $10-$20
(New Hazlett Theater, 6 Allegheny Square East, North Side
Ticket phone #: 412/ 237-8300
Tickets online: warhol.org)

BLACK, WHITE & READ ALL OVER
Sunday, January 24, 2010 at 10:30AM
Jeff Kinney sure has made a name for himself and for the character Greg Heffley, who keeps turning in new pages in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, a bunch of New York Times bestsellers. A movie version is even due this year. October 2009 saw the publication of the fourth Diary book, Dog Days, in which, as always, Greg messes up. Since May 2004, the Web version of the first book in the Diary series has been viewed by 20 million readers. Kinney draws the illustrating cartoons and has a kid-friendly Web site, Poptropica, and comes up with online games at Funbrain.com, a Web site for people of all ages. This event is for people of all ages, too, with a question-and-answer exchange after the reading and a meet-the-author gathering and book signing.
Tickets: $8-$10
(Carnegie Library Lecture Hall, 4400 Forbes Ave., Oakland
Event phone #: 412/622-8866
Event Website: pittsburghlectures.org)

M.F.A. PROGRAM CREATIVE WRITING SERIES AT CHATHAM UNIVERSITY
Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at 08:00PM
Poet Philip Terman’s 2007 book, Rabbis of the Air, “manages to combine the melancholy and the sensuous…and augment his old-world faith with gentle paganism,” said Leslie Ullman in Poetry magazine. Terman, an English professor at Clarion University, fosters artists and audiences to celebrate their ideas at the Bridge House Coffee House and Performance Space in Franklin, Venango County. He lives near Grove City and co-directs the Chautauqua Writers’ Festival. He’s already published Greatest Hits, Book of the Unbroken Days and The House of Sage, and his words have sung out in The Georgia Review, Poetry magazine, The Kenyon Review, The New England Review, The Gettysburg Review and Tikkun 
Tickets: Free
(Mellon Living Room, Chatham University, Woodland Road, Shadyside
Event phone #: 412/365-1190
Event Website: chatham.edu)