At 1 p.m., Saturday, April 20, Shirley Burman will speak about the history of women in the railroad industry. This event is sponsored and hosted by the SCC Railroad Club and will be held in the Sacramento City College Student Center. Burman is a documentary photographer and historian who received the Fred A. and Jane R. Stindt Photograph Award for her “‘accomplishments as a railroad photographer, especially the documentation of women’s contributions to railroading’” in 2012. In 2013, she received the Hall of Fame Award at Winterail. She is the first woman to receive this award in the organization’s 35 years.  About the award, she said that she hadn’t been thinking about the award becaus

If you thought last year’s National Poetry Month celebrations were hot in Sacramento, you haven’t heard about the happenings this month. Carlos Alcalá kicked the month off at the Sacramento Poetry Center on Monday, April 1, with some light verse. The Book Collector is offering a generous discount on all poetry books until April 30. Did you know that they have the largest collection of chapbooks by local area poets? Stop by and ask Debbie to show you the collection. Look at these highlights for the rest of the month. How many events will you attend? Head to Folsom on Wednesday, April 3, when Verse on the Vine features Indigo Moor. The Sacramento Poetry Center’s Literary Lectures series

The Norman Rockwell exhibit opened at the Crocker Nov. 10 and will close in less than one month. During its run, several special events have taken place. Perhaps you met Rockwell’s models, enjoyed some concerts, watched the film, “Stagecoach,” or participated in several studio art classes. The final special events take place this month and begin this weekend with the world premiere of “Big Dreams, Small Shoulders,” a multi-media performance piece based on Rockwell’s painting, “The Problem We All Live With.” Deborah Pittman composed the music and collaborated with other artists to create this piece. Pittman, a musician and professor of clarinet at California State University, Sacramento w

On Saturday, Jan. 5, Sandy Thomas will teach three separate introductory self-defense workshops for women. In each two-hour workshop, women will learn basic defense techniques that may be used against an unarmed assailant, and each attendee will learn the five weapons every woman possesses and the four offensive target areas on the would-be assailant. Each workshop is appropriate for women of all ages. The workshops are affordable at $25.00 for each session (only one session is required), and Thomas donates 20% of each fee to the Sacramento Poetry Center, which is where the workshops are held. Bring a friend, sister, mother, daughter or co-worker and learn some important defense techniqu

If you're like many people, you may have forgotten one or two gifts, but never fear. With several shopping days left before Christmas, Book Talk can guide your car to some interesting stops. Maybe you'll even find a gift for yourself. Books make wonderful gifts, but you don't have to buy the titles listed on the top ten or bestselling lists, and you really don't have to buy those gift books that weigh more than an old-school laptop. In fact, you don't even have to buy new books. Consider shopping at one of the many used book stores in the Sacramento area. Several are affiliated with various Friends of the Library, including the newest storefront in Rio Linda at 440 Elkhorn Blvd. This sto

On Thursday, Nov. 29, at 6:30 pm.Crocker artist-in-resident and musician Deborarh Pittman will discuss the original performance piece, "Big Dreams, Small Shoulders," based on Norman Rockwell's "The Problem We All Live With." Pittman composed and collaborated with other artists on this project that will have its world premiere at the Crocker Art Museum on January 13, 2013. Thursday's discussion will be an interactive panel discussion where Pittman and the other artists will discuss their creative process and challenges. They will also present scenes from "Big Dreams, Small Shoulders," and they will answer audience questions. Space for this Thursday's 'til 9 event is limited, so arrive ear

The long-awaited exhibit, “American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell,” has opened for a nearly three-month run at the Crocker Art Museum. Four years of planning have resulted in a fabulous exhibit, organized by the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachuset, that includes many familiar pieces, such as “Girl at Mirror” and “Problem We All Live With,” and also many pieces that show Rockwell beyond the familiar role of illustrator. “Murder in Mississippi” is one of those pieces. At the preview event, this writer noticed several moist eyes from attendees who were moved by the painting that depicts three men in a barren, sepia-colored landscape littered with rocks. To the right,

There is almost nothing better than looking over the shelves of books on topics as far-ranging as a memoir about a former doctor who saved a cat by climbing atop a fire truck in the middle of a busy parking lot and nearly getting arrested to books on how to finish your deck, with or without the hot tub, to novels with shirtless guys on the front or those wonderful classic shorts that Murakami never writes. I love bookstores. I love small bookstores and large bookstores and those in-between. I look for bookstores in every city I visit. I’m not alone. There are people, and you know who you are, that plan their vacations around the opening of bookstores. Speaking of new bookstores, there’s

On Saturday night, the 24th Street Theatre sold out the single night performance by the Eric Bibb String Band. Longtime fans, like Abe Sass, who listened to Bibb and Bibb’s father, were there. First-time Bibb concert attendees like Bob and Joyce Stanley were also present. Bibb and his stagemates gave the audience what it came for — and more, as in the case of young Nate and his mother, who travelled from outside Yuba City to the 24th Street Theatre, hoping to secure tickets. Young Nate first saw Bibb in Grass Valley. The last ticket Saturday evening was sold to a person two people ahead of Nate. Audience members who had already been seated might have missed seeing the man in the orange s

On Sunday, Aug. 5, a special screening of two of writer/director Tom Wyrsch’s documentaries at the Crest Theatre offered history, laughter and memories for those who had spent time in the Fun House, sampled enchiladas at the Hot House or had experienced indoor saltwater swimming. Both “Remembering Playland at the Beach” and “Sutro’s: the Palace at Land’s End” were shown. Wyrsch was on hand before and after each film to answer questions from the audience that ranged from whether the Hot House ever reopened to why he shot the film in 4:3 instead of widescreen. He was also asked whether he used film or digital. Digital was used for the shooting of both films, he explained, and he then spoke

On Friday, Aug. 3, Big Kenny from the country music duo Big & Rich spoke to an intimate gathering at the Woodland Polytechnic campus, a year-old charter school that focuses on "rigorous academic and career-oriented classes in a safe, small-class-size environment," encompassed in the five academies of agriculture and science, arts and media, business and trades, public service, and sports and health. Woodland Polytechnic Academy founder and executive director Steve Marks Jr. spoke briefly about the school, thanking board members, teachers and “most important, the more than fifty volunteers who care so much about our children.” About the school, he said, “We have to be different,” and said

On Sunday, Aug. 5, the Crest Theatre will present “Remembering Playland at the Beach” (2010) and “Sutro’s: The Palace at Land’s End,” (2011) at 1 p.m., featuring a special Q-and-A with director Tom Wyrsch. Tickets are $8-10. If you ever visited Playland at the Beach, which was closed in 1972, then you’re likely to remember Laffing Sal, the funhouse, the roller coaster and much more. If you never visited, then you’ll be exposed to what has been called one of San Francisco’s “lost treasures,” a 10-acre seaside amusement park that was torn down and replaced with condominiums. Sutro’s privately owned swimming, ice skating and museum complex was built in the late 1800s, and “Sutro’s: The Pala

A standing-room-only audience attended a workshop on trademarks, hosted by the California Lawyers for the Arts (CLA), Tuesday, July 31, at the Sacramento Business Journal office. The workshop was presented by Mark R. Leonard of the law firm Davis & Leonard. He specializes in trademarks, trade secrets, copyrights and intellectual property. Leonard defined trademarks and said that they can include words, phrases, symbols and even colors. He pointed to the use of pink in Owens Corning insulation. Additionally, the shape of a product or even sounds can be a trademark. Trademarks differ from copyrights but can overlap with copyrights, as some logos may be protected by both. Trademarks, however

The deadline for submissions to the 2012 Open Reel competition is Aug. 4, so it’s time to get working on your short films. The Center for Contemporary Art, Sacramento is sponsoring the second annual three-minute film competition in conjunction with the seventh annual Capital Artists’ Studio Tour (CAST). Selected films will be shown during CAST. Films are limited to three minutes, and must have been completed within 30 days. If you want to know what can be accomplished in three minutes, ask some of last year’s participants, who created films about place and time, films that were funny and sad, and films that were abstract and filled with color. Full submission details may be found at the

On Sunday afternoon, several dozen people came to Sacramento’s The Avid Reader to hear Anthony Barcellos read from his novel, “Land of Milk and Money” (Tagus 2012). Barcellos, dressed in white shirt, black tie, black pants and black-and-white tennis shoes, presented a professional yet casual appearance, that of an approachable author. He welcomed people and said, “It is bad luck to go into a bookstore and leave without buying a book.” He opened by talking about how the novel came to exist, how at family gatherings someone would say, “Hey, tell the story about … ,” and how he was a storyteller and said that anything can be true in fiction. Barcellos proved his mettle as an oral storytell

For the third time in as many weeks, prominent U.S. poets have visited Sacramento. Philip Levine, U.S. Poet Laureate emeritus, read at SummerWords, the first annual American River Colloquium. Next came Dana Gioia. The poet and former National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) director, who developed the Poetry Out Loud recitation competition, read at the Northminster Presbyterian Church. This past Friday evening Kazim Ali, Robert Hass and Sharon Olds read their poetry to a near-capacity crowd in the Crocker Art Museum’s Setzer Auditorium. Claudia Rankine and C.D. Wright, also scheduled to read Friday, were unable to attend the event, but Ali and Hass recognized both poets with short biographie

Saturday evening is the last opportunity to view “Shelf Life: Paintings and Objects,” the current exhibit at the Sacramento Poetry Center  featuring the work of poet laureate emeritus Julia Connor. The closing reception, free and open to the public, begins at 7 p.m. and will feature the music of Barkin’ Dog Bluegrass, a California-based band that plays traditional and progressive bluegrass, and a poetry reading by the artist Julia Connor. “I think of this exhibition as a gathering, a way of sharing where I have been by sharing with you what remains,” Connor wrote in her statement about “Shelf Life.”  

Poets and musicians gathered Friday night at the Guild Theatre to raise funds for C.O.R.E., Chicano Organizing and Research in Education, and their Que Llueva Café scholarship fund. C.O.R.E. is a non-partisan, research, and advocacy organization with the purpose of improving the education environment of all Chicano/Latino students. C.O.R.E.’s membership, including its board members, come from various backgrounds and fields and support the organization’s many efforts, which include a variety of scholarships, such as the Que Llueva Café. The Que Llueva Café scholarship was founded in response to “what is an unfair immigration system that continues to deprive aspiring new scholars from cont

Put a poem in your pocket or tuck one into someone else’s pocket this Thursday because April is National Poetry Month and April 26 is Poem in Your Pocket Day. This annual event was started by the Academy of American Poets who “encourage folks to stuff their pockets with their favorite poems and spend the day sharing them with others,” says Richard Hansen, proprietor of The Book Collector in Midtown. Hansen is no stranger to small poems, as his own project, Poems-For-All, is about the creation and scattering of poems. “It is about building tiny books of poetry to be scattered like seeds,” he said. “These little books fit perfectly into pockets.” Hansen creates these books for special ev

April 1 kicked off National Poetry Month, an event “inaugurated by the Academy of American Poets in 1996 . . . when publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools and poets around the country band together to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through readings, festivals, book displays, workshops, and other events.” Although National Poetry Month is held every April, and Sacramento and its neighbors are celebrating in various ways, Sacramento is certainly no stranger to poetry and the banding together of poets. About poetry, bookseller Richard Hansen, aka The Book Collector (24th a