morbid

"Books Beneath the Bridge" series 2014 schedule; Morbid Anatomy Museum open in Brooklyn

from the Morbid Anatomy Museum’s collection…
Morbid

Brooklyn Bridge Park’s “Books Beneath the Bridge” series is back for a third year, offering literary readings on Mondays from July 7 – August 11 at Pier 1’s Granite Prospect, with each event curated by a different NYC independent bookstore. (You may have gone last year to hear Patti Smith read.) This is the 2014 lineup:

July 7: Freebird Bookstore
Liberty’s Torch: The Great Adventure to Build the Statue of Liberty by Elizabeth Mitchell

July 14: Greenlight Bookstore
Poetry Salon hosted by Angel Nafis featuring Shira Erlichman, Aracelis Girmay Saeed Jones, and Patricia Smith

July 21: Powerhouse Arena
My Salinger Year by Joanna Rakoff
The Vacationers by Emma Straub

July 28: Community Bookstore Park Slope
A Night with the Morbid Anatomy Museum: Readings from the Morbid Anatomy Anthology featuring Michelle Legro, Colin Dickey, and Evan Michelson.

August 4: WORD Brooklyn
Retelling Tales with Kate Bernheimer and Genevieve Valentine

August 11: Bookcourt
Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop: Marie-Helene Bertino, Scott Cheshire, Robin Elizabeth Black, Courtney Elizabeth Mauk, Julia Fierro

Of particular interest to us is the July 28 reading which is a “Night with the Morbid Anatomy Museum.” The museum just opened in Gowanus and offers “a collection of books and catalogs, photographs, fine art, taxidermy, ephemera, and artifacts relating to medical museums, anatomical art, collectors and collecting, cabinets of curiosity, the history of medicine, death and society, natural history, arcane media, and curiosity and curiosities broadly considered.” The first exhibit at MAM will be “The Art of Mourning” which runs June 28 – December 4, 2014:

Featuring never before exhibited pieces from the astounding private collections of Stanley B. Burns MD (author of Sleeping Beauty), Evan Michelson and Mike Zohn (of Obscura Antiques and TV’s Oddities), Karen Bachmann, Jennifer Butkevich, Tracy Hurley Martin and more, this exhibition will showcase decorative arts relating to mourning culture from the 18th to the 20th century. Pieces will include post-mortem photography; hair art shadowboxes and jewelry; coffin plates; memorial cards; mourning paraphernalia; death masks; and spirit photography.

The opening party for The Art of Mourning” happens June 27 with curators Joanna Ebenstein and Evan Michelson and many collectors on hand to answer questions. Drinks and hors d’oeuvres and drinks will be served (if you can eat), and “thematic music will be played.” Tickets are on sale now. There are lots more events happening, too, for the curious.