Bruce McBarnette Organizing Event at Kennedy Center in DC

Bruce McBarnette is organizing a class trip to the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage in Washington, DC to see the jazz group called Project Natale on Dec. 27, 2011 at 6 pm. The performance is free and after it is over the group will go to the Kennedy Center Cafe for refreshments. The group will meet at the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage at 5:45 pm. Feel free to bring friends. If you plan to come, RSVP to Bruce at bruce@mcbarnette.com.

Eve Beglarian to Hold 3 RiverProject Concerts in NYC in January

Eve Beglarian has several updates on her ongoing RiverProject, which began with her kayak and bike journey down the Mississippi River in 2009.

On January 21, 27 and 28, she will be performing at the Henry Street Settlement's Abrons Arts Center on Grand Street in New York. Each of the three evenings will feature BRIM, her duo with Mary Rowell, along with different guest artists on each of the three evenings, including Newspeak, loadbang, and Guidonian Hand, among others. There will be repertoire unique to each show, along with some pieces that will be performed in wildly different arrangements each night. According to the Henry Street website,

The three concerts comprise a mini-festival of music from the RiverProject, with some overlapping repertoire in varied arrangements each night, and some repertoire unique to each concert. Everywhere there are echoes of the folk, blues, jazz, and funk that have grown up in the regions touched by the river. The music also reflects a range of texts and influences that arose from meeting and talking with an array of individuals along the river, which make a unique statement about modern day America.

Along with these performances, BRIM has released the first of what will be a series of recordings of River Project music. A limited edition of 250 signed CDs, it's a four-song EP that can be purchased on Eve's website, here, only while supplies last.

Greg Mankiw Thinks About Students Who Walked Out on His Econ Class at Harvard

Professor Greg Mankiw considers and discusses his views on the students who walked out on his Economics 10 class at Harvard recently, one of those Occupy Wall Street things. In a piece in the Sunday New York Times, he writes,

My first reaction was nostalgia. I went to college in the late 1970s, when the memory of the Vietnam War was still fresh and student activism was more common. Today’s college students tend to be more focused on polishing their résumés than on campaigning for social reform. I applaud the protesters for thinking beyond their own parochial concerns and trying to make society a better place for everyone.

But my second reaction was sadness at how poorly informed the Harvard protesters seemed to be. As with much of the Occupy movement across the country, their complaints seemed to me to be a grab bag of anti-establishment platitudes without much hard-headed analysis or clear policy prescriptions. Ironically, the topic of the lecture that the protesters chose to boycott was economic inequality, including a discussion of recent trends and their causes.