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INSIDER, CONT.
Presidential visit
Celebrating the book The Arkansas Literary Festival is in its 10th year.
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s usual, the Arkansas Literary Festival has packed dozens of compelling authors and panels into its four-day event. If your tastes are at all broad, you’ll have tough choices to make. Below, we suggest our favorites. See the full line-up and more biographical information about the featured authors at arkansasliteraryfestival.org. All events are free unless otherwise noted.
nell Laboratory of Ornithology’s “Living Bird” magazine, was one of the main players who brought Cornell to the Big Woods of Arkansas in 2004 to search for the ivory-billed woodpecker. His latest woodpecker book, “Imperial Dreams: Tracking the Imperial Woodpecker through the Wild Sierra Madre,” documents his search for a bird last seen in 1956. Mike Armstrong moderates.
FRIDAY, APRIL 19
10 A.M. “SUPERHERO PSYCHOLOGY & LAW” (Arkansas Studies Institute, Room 124). If you’ve ever found yourself thinking that the real reason Batman and Spiderman wear masks is because they’d get sued into the poorhouse otherwise, this might just be the panel for you. On hand to discuss the psychology and theoretical legal wrinkles in all that spandex will be Travis Langley, author of “Batman and Psychology,” and James Daily, author of “The Law of Superheroes.” Joel DiPippa, professor at UALR’s William H. Bowen School of Law, moderates.
6:30 P.M. “GREY ME UP, BABY” (Main Library, Darragh Center). Things get started off with a bang with this panel discussion for people who like reading or writing about people who like it rough. Panelist Lori Perkins runs a literary agency that’s worked on books like Jenna Jameson’s “How to Make Love Like a Porn Star” and “50 Writers on 50 Shades of Grey,” which Perkins edited. She’s joined by Sylvia Day, a bestselling romance author who was one of the 50 writers featured in Perkins’ collection. Bre Von Buxxxom of the Little Rock burlesque troupe the Diamond Dames moderates. 8 P.M. “AUTHOR! AUTHOR!” (Main Library, 5th floor) Mix and mingle with festival authors. Tickets are $25 in advance at arkansasliteraryfestival. org or at any Central Arkansas Library System branch, or $40 at the door, and include hors d’oeuvres and libations.
SATURDAY, APRIL 20 10 A.M. “CHASING WOODPECKERS” (Witt Stephens Jr. Central Arkansas Nature Center). Tim Gallagher, editor of Cor-
10 A.M. “OBSESSIVE READING DISORDER” (Main Library, Darragh Center). Wry, working-man’s humorist Joe Queenan will be on hand to talk about his memoir “One for the Books,” which discusses “the culture of reading,” his lifelong obsession with books, his 100- to 200-per-year habit, and why book club arguments should always be so passionate they end in knife fights. With moderator Jay Jennings. 11:30 A.M. “SECEDE ALREADY” (Main Library, Darragh Center). Chuck Thompson discusses his book “Better Off Without ‘Em: A Northern Manifesto on Southern Secession,” which deals with
what’s bound to be a touchy subject in Arkansas. The book’s a humorous look at whether the states of the old Confederacy have finally devolved intellectually, rhetorically, politically and socially to the point that the rest of the United States should just grant neo-secessionists the divorce they’ve been dreaming of since 1860. The book includes a chapter on race-related dysfunction in Little Rock public schools. CALS director Bobby Roberts moderates. 11:30 A.M. “A POET’S HOMECOMING” (Arkansas Studies Institute, room 124). Arkansas native C.D. Wright, professor of poetry at Brown University and winner of fellowships from the MacArthur and the Guggenheim foundations among other awards, is a narrative poet whose most recent work, “One With Others,” is an elegy for “V,” a white woman whose support for the march against racism led by Sweet Willie Wine in 1969 led to her ostracization. Arkansas poet Hope Coulter moderates. 11:30 A.M. “SAVORY & DELICIOUS” (Historic Arkansas Museum, Ottenheimer Theatre). Jessica Harris, the author of 12 cookbooks, including “High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America,” will talk about historic foodways of African Americans. 11:30 A.M. “SURREAL SOCIETY REBUILDING” (Cox Creative Center, 3rd floor). Ben Katchor, the first cartoonist to win the MacArthur “genius grant,” talks about his celebrated new book “HandDrying in America: And Other Stories.” NPR.org raves, “Katchor gently interroCONTINUED ON PAGE 20
Former President Bill Clinton made a long flight from Dubai last Saturday to speak at the memorial service for Rudy Moore Jr. of Fayetteville, a lawyer and district judge, who died earlier in the week of cancer. Moore was one of the infamous “bearded troika” of Clinton’s fateful first term as governor, which ended with an electoral defeat in 1980. Moore, his chief of staff, and top aides Steve Smith and John Danner pursued an aggressively progressive agenda that didn’t sit well with the dinosaurs of the legislature. Clinton recalled those days in paying fond tribute to Moore, though he didn’t repeat a small detail that long rankled Moore. He sent Moore to fire Danner and his wife, rather than doing the job himself.
Former Times writer dies Our friend, colleague and mentor Robert S. McCord, 84, died Saturday after a long period of declining health. McCord’s career in journalism was long and distinguished. It included ownership of The Times of North Little Rock and a stint as editor of the Arkansas Democrat. He originated the op-ed page at the Arkansas Gazette, where he was senior editor when the newspaper closed in 1991. McCord wrote a weekly column for the Arkansas Times from its inception as a weekly newspaper in May 1992 until May 2006. A University of Arkansas graduate, he was president of the national Society of Professional Journalists in 1975-76. He earned a place in Arkansas history with his advocacy for the state’s Freedom of Information Act, still a powerful tool for the public. As editor and publisher of the North Little Rock newspaper, he was the named plaintiff in the first successful test of the law, Laman v. McCord, over failure of the North Little Rock City Council to meet in public. His final column for the Times was typical of a gentle and self-effacing man. He closed with a number of ideas for ways that the city and state he loved could be improved, getting around to his retirement only in the final paragraph. “I’ve seen a lot in Pulaski County. Because most men were away at World War II, I got hired to take pictures and write police stories for newspapers when I was 15 years old. I used to own the North Little Rock Times, I worked long years at the Democrat and the Arkansas Gazette and have been with the Arkansas Times since it started. Because most 77-year-old men do more reading than writing, I thought it was time for me to quit. However, the editor said I should write an occasional piece, and I might.” www.arktimes.com
APRIL 18, 2013
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