Diane Raptosh will discuss how poverty, public policy, uneven police enforcement and a ragged criminal defense system have created the largest prison regime on earth. Along the way she will investigate literature by and about individuals in the American prison system, with a special word about how poetry can light a way forward. An award-winning, nationally recognized poet, Diane Raptosh teaches creative writing and directs the Criminal Justice Studies Program at The College of Idaho. She is serving her second three-year term as member of the Board of the Federal Defender Services of Idaho and is the current Idaho Writer-in-Residence.
Main Library
“We All Know What We Know: Art In Unexpected Places”
The Sun Valley Center for the Arts is pleased to announce a lecture with Aspen Art Museum and Aspen Ski Company—We All Know What We Know: Art In Unexpected Places. The event, which is presented by The Center in partnership with the Ketchum Arts Commission and The Community Library, is free and open to the public.
The Aspen Art Museum and Aspen Ski Company have joined forces to produce Art In Unexpected Places, a venture aimed at bringing contemporary art to the ski experience and to foster connections between the cultures of skiing and art. During the September 16 presentation, Heidi Zuckerman, Nancy and Bob Magoon CEO and Director, Aspen Art Museum and Mike Kaplan, CEO, Aspen Skiing Company will discuss this important collaboration that continues to set apart Aspen as a unique cultural/recreational destination.
For more information visit www.sunvalleycenter.org or call 208.726.9491 or www.comlib.org, 208.726.3493.
A Conversation with Author William T. Vollmann
Join us for an evening with famed American author William T. Vollmann. The format will be a moderated on stage discussion followed by audience Q&A.
“William T. Vollmann is a monster, a monster of talent, ambition and accomplishment.” —Los Angeles Times
Distinctive for his boundless ambition and extraordinary output—over twenty books, to date including the seven-volume, 3,352-page Rising Up and Rising Down series—National Book Award winner William Vollmann fully inhabits two often-polarized literary worlds.
“One of the most unnerving aspects…is his combination of journalistic immediacy with profound moral inquiry” (Chicago Tribune).
In his case, “journalistic immediacy” could be considered a euphemism for suicide missions. There is little he won’t try in the pursuit of authenticity: running with the Afghan guerrilla muhajadin against Soviet invaders; smoking crack with street prostitutes; nearly freezing to death, alone for two weeks in the North Pole; losing two friends while escaping gunfire in a Bosnian war zone—all “with a disregard for personal danger that would shame Hunter S. Thompson, or Jack London, or Errol Flynn” (New York Times Magazine).
Named by the New Yorker as “one of the twenty best writers in America under 40” in 1999, Vollmann has achieved cult-status with legions of readers for embracing taboo subject matter and highly dangerous situations. It would be enough—as it has for many writers—to give us a clear-eyed, inside view of these harrowing, sometimes tawdry, events. But Vollmann’s close and relentless study is driven by a sweeping philosophical and historical agenda, as in trying to find a “simple and practical moral calculus” for violence, in the voluminous Rising Up and Rising Down series, or writing a “symbolic history” of North America in the series Seven Dreams: A Book of North American Landscapes.
Over twenty-five years, Vollmann has slowly built the Seven Dreams series, each novel focusing on a different expedition in North American history, from the arrival of the Vikings in North America in the 9th and 10th centuries, to the exploration of the Northwest Passage in the 1800s and beyond. The newly released, highly anticipated fifth installment, The Dying Grass, focuses on the clash of Native Americans and the White settlers in the new world.
Vollmann’s other books include the 2005 National Book Award winner Europe Central, an examination of fanaticism and totalitarianism; Poor People, a fearless inquiry into the brutality of poverty around the globe; and Last Stories and Other Stories.
His articles have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, Esquire, Spin, Gear, Granta, Grand Sreet and Outside Magazine. Born in Santa Monica, California in 1959, Vollmann attended Deep Springs College at Cornell University (summa cum laude), and did graduate work at the University of California at Berkeley. He lives in Sacramento, California.
Tech Class with Paul: i0S 9
Let’s sit together and understand what changes to expect with the next Apple Mobile OS is released. Coming this fall, this is a great class to attend to feel more prepared for Apple’s next release.
Tech Class with Paul: Windows 10
Windows 10 has been out for several weeks and either you have avoided it, have questions or are totally lost – we can help. Come to this class to learn the basics of getting comfortable with Microsoft’s new OS.
‘Sophisticated Giants: Navigating a World of Change’ by Dr. Joyce Poole
Dr. Joyce Poole will share some of her experiences with elephants from four decades of study. She will describe elephant behavior and communication, and reflect on the tactics elephants are learning to survive threats in a human dominated landscape.
Joyce Poole has studied elephants and worked for their conservation and welfare for 40 years and is a world authority on their reproductive, communicative and cognitive behaviour. She is a graduate of Smith College, holds a Cambridge University PhD and was a Princeton University post-doctoral fellow. She has published numerous popular and scientific articles, written two books, participated in over 80 elephant TV documentaries and is lead author of The Elephant Charter.
