April 13, 2011
For Limited Viewing: Barry reading draft of Egg Cream/ Candy Shop section
The following is an Egg Cream Reading excerpt, at the In-Between Club on Long Island April 2011.
This will remain available only through April. Enjoy and please leave comments (not here but on the Give Me Seltzer's Facebook page.
Posted by Barry Joseph, The Effervescent Jew (bjoseph) at 03:16 PM | Comments (0)
For Limited Viewing: Barry reading draft of Egg Cream/ Candy Shop section
The following is an Egg Cream Reading excerpt, at the In-Between Club on Long Island April 2011.
This will remain available only through April. Enjoy and please leave comments (not here but on the Give Me Seltzer's Facebook page.)
Posted by Barry Joseph, The Effervescent Jew (bjoseph) at 03:16 PM | Comments (0)
October 13, 2010
Live Online Reading from the upcoming book, Give Me Seltzer
At 10 p.m. EST this evening, if the fates allow, I will be reading the draft of the opening section from my book project, Give Me Seltzer.
More information on the event, and a link to the text, here.
Below will be the live video of my reading, followed by a space to chat with others during the reading.
The video will remain posted, in archive, for one week, and will then be removed.
And if you want to watch it while participating in a live chat with other listeners, go here.
Posted by Barry Joseph, The Effervescent Jew (bjoseph) at 10:10 PM | Comments (2)
October 12, 2010
Come to my Online Book Reading from Give Me Seltzer
I recently finished a draft of the opening to my book, Give Me Seltzer, and I am excited to be sharing it, for the first time, this Thursday, at an online book reading. I will leave up the video of the reading, and the full text, for one week.
If you would like to attend, and get more information, please RSVP here. I hope you can join us and offer me your feedback.
Until then, let me tease you with the opening lines:
I think most who meet him would be inclined to agree: Eli is a myth-making machine. He greets one client, "Hi Sweetheart. How ya doing?" before explaining my presence: "This is the Daily Forward. He's doing a story about me, about my clients." He speaks with a crisp Brooklyn accent, with each word highly articulated, as if performing a radio show. "He's gonna ask you questions about me. Ya tell him I'm a living legend." To which the husband responds, with a smile, "At least in his own mind." But after 50 years delivering seltzer, door-to-door, Eli Miller has well earned the right to tell it like he sees it. He's one of perhaps a dozen active seltzer men (and a few women) in the country. In fact, at 77 years, and with two heart stints, he's most likely also the oldest. Eli still has over a hundred and fifty clients to whom he regularly delivers seventy pounds of siphon-filled wooden cases, across Brooklyn and occasionally into Manhattan. I had the good fortune of being present at the first delivery for a new client, a young mother in a fashionable sundress with white wedge heels. "I've been wanting it for a long, long time," she tells me. "I love seltzer." Eli interrupts her from behind me, maneuvering his hand-truck. "I'm the product. It's not the seltzer," he jokes. "It's all about Eli." It was her first day, but she'd already learned the routine. "It's all about Eli," she repeats, "Sorry." But then, to me, in all sincerity, "The man is renowned in Brooklyn. When I met him, I felt like an angel came." The day I met Eli was during his slow season, what he described as "the tail end of August." When Eli spins stories about his life as a seltzer man, he's speaking on behalf of an entire industry approaching its own tail end. He speaks to the work of bottlers who carbonate the water, the desires of housewives and other clients that cause it to flow, and the back-breaking labor of delivery men like himself who weave invisible webs connecting them all. When Eli talks himself up he's claiming a space in our collective consciousness for a dying profession. When he quips, "I'm an anachronism, what can I tell ya?" it feels like he's almost pleading, "Remember us, for soon we'll be gone."
Posted by Barry Joseph, The Effervescent Jew (bjoseph) at 09:23 PM | Comments (0)
August 25, 2010
Video excerpts from my recent seltzer talk
I recently spoke before a wonderful congregation in Great Barrington, Ma. Here are two excerpts from the talk.
The following is an excerpt from Give Me Seltzer at a reading I did in August of 2010 in Great Barrington, MA. It's called The Blizzard of 2010. It was the first time I read it to an audience, to see how they'd respond.
The following is from the start of a talk on seltzer I gave on August of 2010 in Great Barrington, MA. It's from an old children's book and, of course, about seltzer.
Posted by Barry Joseph, The Effervescent Jew (bjoseph) at 08:36 AM | Comments (0)
August 04, 2010
It can be announced: Seltzer Works to be Shown at my Berkshire's Talk!
So what was my recent surprise news? At my upcoming seltzer talk in the Berkshires, I am so excited to be premiering Jessica Edwards' excellent short film Seltzer Works, which is now listed on her web site's screening's page.
Not only am I honored for her to let me include it in my presentation, but she will be there in person as well and available for me to ask a few questions before the audience. A night not to miss.
Posted by Barry Joseph, The Effervescent Jew (bjoseph) at 08:58 PM | Comments (0)
