Check your local listings for Dana Carvey’s new HBO Comedy Special: “Squatting Monkeys Tell No Lies.” This longtime Carvey fan was at the taping. No “Chopping Broccoli,” I’m afraid but quite a good “Ronald Reagan Oracle” impression which steps back in time to find the Gipper forecasting the future of politics for the Clintons, Bushes, Al Gore and Ross “Ken I finish?” Perot.
Today’s edition of The New York Times lists San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s recent comments at SF State among the most memorable of this year’s Commencement speakers.
Read the article here.
Congratulations to our SF State alumni who received Northern California EMMY Awards at the Palace of Fine Arts earlier this month.
Dennis O’Donnell took home two awards at the ceremony while each of the following alumni also received EMMY Awards for “excellence in all fields of television production” :
Pamela Diaz, Ben Fong Torres, Frances Lee Hall, Jim Haman, Michael Krajac, Scott Lawler, Mark Metzler, Ken Miguel, Amy Miller, Elizabeth Pepin, Katherine Russell, Richard Tomassini and Steve Wheelock.
For more information: www.emmysf.tv/pdf/emmy08winpr.pdf
Mayor Gavin Newsom recently announced the winners of the 2008 Principal of the Year Award. I’m happy to report that all four awards (given to a principal at each of the following: a child development center, an elementary school, a middle school and a high school) went to an San Francisco State grad!
Congratulations to our alumni:
Sandra Osborne, Presidio Child Development Center
Bonnie Coffey-Smith, McKinley Elementary School
You’re invited to the San Francisco launch of the newly released oral history book, “Underground America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives,” edited by Assistant Professor of Creative Writing Peter Orner and published by Voice of Witness and McSweeney’s Books. Series Editors: Dave Eggers and Lola Vollen.
Where: The Women’s Building in the Mission, 3543 18th Street, #18 (at Guerrero). San Francisco
When: Thursday, May 15, at 7 to 8:30 p.m.
Presenters and readers will include: Corinne Goria, Joell Halloway, David William Hill, and Mimi Lok.
Teachers from a school community in East Los Angeles have found a way to honor alumna Carmen Lomas Garza, the gifted artist behind a number of bilingual picture books for children. The Los Angeles Unified School District Board approved the community’s nomination of a name for their new primary school: the Carmen Lomas Garza Primary Center. The ten-classroom school serves approximately 200 pre-kindergarten through second grade students. The majority of the student population is of first- second- and third-generation Mexican Americans.
Congratulations to anthropology undergrad Jamie Lundy, who will represent San Francisco in Ireland’s Rose of Tralee Festival in August. Every year, 30 young women from major ports of Irish immigration are selected to represent their respective communities. One winner is picked out of these finalists, and is crowned the “Rose of Tralee.” Lundy tells me this “is not a beauty pageant, and is based on personality and speaking ability, as the overall winner will serve as a kind of Irish ambassador to the world. The Rose of Tralee is the largest and oldest event Ireland holds each year, steeped in tradition and culture…I am so proud to represent San Francisco’s community of Irish immigrants and hope to make San Francisco proud this August.”
Anita Amirrezvani will be signing copies of her much praised book “The Blood of Flowers,” now out in paperback, today, Thursday, May 8, 3:30 p.m. at The Poetry Center, Humanities 512. The celebration is sponsored by the SFSU Bookstore. For more information: http://sfsubookstore.com/catalog/default.php/cPath/160389
Check out this NY Times article about the successful South Coast Repertory, co-founded by alumni Martin Benson and David Emmes: www.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/theater/06pacific.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
I’m off to pick up a copy of this month’s spirtuality and faith-themed O magazine containing ”The Doubter’s Dilemma,” an essay by alumna Kelly Corrigan, the author of the best-selling memoir, “The Middle Place.”
Clayton Books invites the public to an Evening Tea with Anita Amirrezvani, author of “The Blood of Flowers,” Tuesday, May 6 at 7 p.m. at Englund’s Tea Cottage in Clayton. Reservations are required and admission is free with the purchase of “The Blood of Flowers.” If you’ve yet to read this stunning debut novel by one very talented M.F.A. student, take a peek at an excerpt on amazon.com
Speaking of our talented writers, congratulations to alumna Kelly Corrigan whose memoir, “The Middle Place” (Hyperion, ’08), is currently number 9 on The San Francisco Chronicle’s best-selling nonfiction list.
Looking for a literary outing this weekend? SF State’s Creative Writing Chair, Professor Maxine Chernoff, joins Robert Haas, Brenda Hillman and Bill Berkson in leading a walking poetry tour of the American galleries at 7 p.m. Friday at Koret Auditorium, de Young Museum, 75 Tea Garden Drive, San Francisco. Tickets are $12. For more information, call (866) 912-6326 or visit www.museumtix.com
Read the work of SF State’s 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Philip Schultz, in this week’s New Yorker: www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2008/05/05/080505po_poem_schultz
Congratulations to Philip Schultz (B.A., 1967), the winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. Schultz, who earned his degree in English at SF State, received the award for his collection of poems titled “Failure.”
Meanwhile, Jose Antonio Vargas (B.A., 2004) was a member of the prize-winning team of Washington Post staffers who won the Pulitzer for Breaking News Reporting for their coverage of the mass shooting at Virginia Tech.
Congratulations to both graduates!
