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You are here: Home / Open Threads / For A Good Time In Cambridge: Coco Fusco, Junot Diaz, Ian Condry Edition

For A Good Time In Cambridge: Coco Fusco, Junot Diaz, Ian Condry Edition

by Tom Levenson|  October 22, 20135:57 pm| 24 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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Hey, all — or at least all of you in reasonable range of Cambridge, MA (Our Faire City).  Day after tomorrow, Thursday, October 24, will see writer, performer and curator Coco Fusco talking at MIT, in an evening moderated by my colleagues, novelist Junot Diaz and Cool Japan majordomo Ian Condry.

The event begins at 5 and 7 p.m in MIT’s Media Lab rm 633. Details and map here.

Fusco’s title, “A Performance Approach to Primate Politics” leads to the meat of her talk — which investigates what “Planet of the Apes” (the original) was really talking about.

Apes_in_a_persimmon-tree

Smart people taking on the world at an angle.  Should be fun.

Image: Mori Sosen, Apes in a Persimmon Tree, before 1821

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Reader Interactions

24Comments

  1. 1.

    Elizabelle

    October 22, 2013 at 6:02 pm

    Smart people taking on the world at an angle. Should be fun.

    Sounds like more fun than the recent shutdown.

    Although the schaudenfreude has been a pleasant sensation.

  2. 2.

    aimai

    October 22, 2013 at 6:05 pm

    Sounds really cool. I will try to be there.

  3. 3.

    Violet

    October 22, 2013 at 6:05 pm

    Persimmon tree, huh? I’ve tried a couple of persimmons and they must not have been ripe. They did that thing where immediately it seems like all the moisture in your mouth has been sucked away. The taste was okay, but I couldn’t take the feeling of eating them.

  4. 4.

    MikeJ

    October 22, 2013 at 6:10 pm

    Over before the baseball game starts. Good planning.

  5. 5.

    Yatsuno

    October 22, 2013 at 6:10 pm

    I just wanna say the name Coco Fusco is really nifty.

    Other side of the republic. Unfortunately cannot attend.

  6. 6.

    BGinCHI

    October 22, 2013 at 6:11 pm

    Coco Fusco sounds like a desert or a cocktail. Or both.

    Sounds like a great event, Tom. I’m guessing her thesis involves something to do with Donna Haraway.

  7. 7.

    Trollhattan

    October 22, 2013 at 6:21 pm

    Coco Fusco? I imagined tabletop cold fusion that smelled delicious.

  8. 8.

    Gin & Tonic

    October 22, 2013 at 6:22 pm

    Test.

  9. 9.

    Yatsuno

    October 22, 2013 at 6:24 pm

    @Violet: American persimmons are much more astringent than the Japanese variety. In Asia they are a beloved fruit that don’t need to be as ripe to be enjoyed. If you have an Asian grocery store you might want to check those out, I think they’re in season now.

  10. 10.

    gogol's wife

    October 22, 2013 at 6:30 pm

    @Yatsuno:

    I love her name. I’ve heard her speak (prob. 10 years ago), and she is quite interesting.

  11. 11.

    gogol's wife

    October 22, 2013 at 6:34 pm

    And the MIT Media Lab is a cool building! I was at a conference there in June. I was hoping to run into Tom, but didn’t wear my Tunch sweatshirt to identify myself.

  12. 12.

    aimai

    October 22, 2013 at 6:53 pm

    @Violet: I hate persimmons. They look so gorgeous–the color is one of my favorites, and they seem so exotic and so glamorous. But they are either too chalky/bitter or too sweet and cloying. I’ve never had one that I liked. I think not everyone does like them–I mean, I don’t think its because I’ve never had a good one.

  13. 13.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    October 22, 2013 at 6:57 pm

    @Yatsuno: The wife loves em, me not so much. Yes, when she gets them she gets them from the Korean grocery store.

  14. 14.

    Atticus Dogsbody

    October 22, 2013 at 7:18 pm

    Those are monkeys (macaques) not apes. Someone needs to call up the spirit of Mori Sosen and explain the difference.

  15. 15.

    Fuzzy

    October 22, 2013 at 7:23 pm

    It would be rough making it to Fenway for the World Series afterwords. Might miss the first Inning. No way.

  16. 16.

    Yatsuno

    October 22, 2013 at 7:25 pm

    @Atticus Dogsbody: Could also be a translation issue.

  17. 17.

    Trollhattan

    October 22, 2013 at 7:26 pm

    @Yatsuno:

    The ones commonly grown in California–hachiya and fuyu–seem to both be Asian-derived. The Fuyu is non-astringent and and be eaten less than frog-soft while the astringent.hachiya has to be dead ripe. It’s best for cooking. We have a hachiya tree and most years the squirrels and rats clean it out when the fruit is still green. Don’t know how they can stand the taste.

  18. 18.

    Heliopause

    October 22, 2013 at 7:31 pm

    what “Planet of the Apes” (the original) was really talking about.

    You mean the movie I presume. Do you really need a presentation in an academic setting to answer that question? The social satire/commentary is laid on with a shovel in that one.

  19. 19.

    SiubhanDuinne

    October 22, 2013 at 7:53 pm

    Cambridge, MA (Our Faire City)

    Always happy to meet another “Car Talk” person.

  20. 20.

    handsmile

    October 22, 2013 at 8:04 pm

    Coco Fusco is very smart indeed. I’ve heard her speak on several occasions and have attended a number of her performances and multi-media art installations.

    Tom Levenson: you might wish to ask Ian Condry if he has any thoughts on this story/alleged phenomenon that has been among the “Most Viewed” articles on the Guardian’s website for the past several days: “Why have young people in Japan stopped having sex?”

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/20/young-people-japan-stopped-having-sex

    I trust it has nothing to do with anime (with or without soul) or Japanese hip-hop.

  21. 21.

    Steeplejack

    October 22, 2013 at 8:16 pm

    @Heliopause:

    I think he means the original novel by Pierre Boulle, which is quite a bit more nuanced than any of the movies.

  22. 22.

    Katherine

    October 22, 2013 at 9:20 pm

    @Violet: a persimmon has to be so soft when ripe and ready to eat that you think you might not want to eat it after all / so help me god / heh

  23. 23.

    Beth in VA

    October 22, 2013 at 11:50 pm

    Damn that’s a beautiful painting

  24. 24.

    Matt McIrvin

    October 23, 2013 at 1:29 pm

    I like the fuzzy monkeys.

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