Clark Hosts Virtual Book Talk with Filmmaker Oct. 12

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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — On Wednesday, Oct. 12 at 12 p.m., the Clark Art Institute presents a virtual book talk with author and filmmaker Alan Govenar.

Govenar joins Olivier Meslay, Hardymon Director of the Clark, in a conversation about his novel, Boccaccio in the Berkshires.The event takes place via Zoom.

Govenar’s novel provides a take on human interactions in the time of COVID. Where Boccaccio’s short stories told tales of ten people sheltering in a villa outside Florence to escape the Black Death (a bubonic plague pandemic in the 1300s), Govenar chronicles the contemporary story of ten asymptomatic pandemic survivors who shelter together in an Italianate mansion in the Berkshires. They form unexpected bonds as they tell each other stories to cope with the bizarre conditions of the modern world. 

Govenar is an award-winning writer, poet, playwright, photographer, and filmmaker. He is the founder and president of Documentary Arts, a non-profit organization that advances essential perspectives on historical issues and diverse cultures.

Govenar is a Guggenheim Fellow and the author of more than thirty books, including Paradise in the Smallest Thing, Stoney Knows How: Life as a Tattoo Artist, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Untold Glory, Texas Blues, Stompin’ at the Savoy, Everyday Music, Texas in Paris, Osceola: Memories of a Sharecropper’s Daughter, and A Pillow on the Ocean of Time.

The event is free and open to the public. Advance registration for the Zoom transmission is required. Registrants will receive an email with a private Zoom link prior to the event.

For more information and to register, visit clarkart.edu/events. Copies of Boccaccio in the Berkshires are available through the Clark’s Museum Store.

 


Tags: Clark Art,   film,   

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Coach John T. Allen Remembered for More than Just Wins

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — John Agostini says his high school football coach was the most important influence in his life except for Agostini's own parents.
 
And, like a good parent, John T. Allen knew how to push the right buttons.
 
For Agostini, that moment came not long after Allen made the Mount Greylock Regional School eighth-grader feel special by inviting him to be the only member of his class to play on the varsity team.
 
"After football season had ended, I encountered a different John Allen, an angry John Allen," Agostini recalled on Wednesday morning. "I was in the very small weight room we had at Greylock at that time. I vividly remember John Allen entered the weight room. He had fire in his eyes. And, worse yet, he had rolled up papers in his hands.
 
"The papers were a list of people who were on the honor roll. While waving those papers at me as if they were a tomahawk, he informed me that my sister's name was on that list. My name was not. Coach then proceeded to go up one side of me and down the other without giving me a chance to respond. He then stopped and, in a much calmer voice, he said something that hurt me more than anything else. He told me he was, 'disappointed,' in me. Coach Allen was not somebody I wanted to disappoint.
 
"At that moment, John Allen absolutely ruined my day. But looking back after all these years, I understand something: He may have ruined my day, but, in a very real sense, he gave me my life."
 
Agostini, a 1971 Mount Greylock graduate who served more than 20 years as a Superior Court judge, delivered the eulogy for Allen, who coached football at Mount Greylock for 39 years.
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