Damon Young’s “That’s How They Get You” (Paperback Release)
Monday, June 8 @ 7:00 PM
Long-time friend, neighbor, and City of Asylum Board Member Damon Young shares the paperback release of his anthology, That’s How They Get You, at Alphabet City. In a combination reading and inside scoop full of insights into his process, Damon runs the show to get as personal as possible with City of Asylum audiences and discuss the very subject that drove this hilarious and unique amalgam of Black voices: humor.
City of Asylum Writer-in-Residence Oleksandr Frazé-Frazénko and his wife, vocalist Mari Frazé-Frazénko, reimagine traditional Eastern European songs through a cinematic lens—part ritual, part rebellion. This stripped-down live performance, filled out by band members Lesya Verba, Hellcat Sneer, and Hugo Cruz, weaves together ghostly vocals, atmospheric guitar, and analog electronics, evoking a sound that is both ancient and eerily contemporary.
Ed Simon’s “American Elegy: Reflections on 250 Years of the Dis-United States” (Book Launch)
Sunday, June 14 @ 3:00 PM
With his finger on the pulse, Ed Simon has assembled 50 powerful tinctures of masterful insight and cultural criticism in his latest work, American Elegy: Reflections on 250 Years of the Dis-United States. The work strives to remind us that before there was the United States, there was America, and that everything we view as “American” has been a 250-year series of inventions and adaptations.
