Susan Hwang

I’ll be joining fellow songwriters for Bushwick Book Club: Charlie Nieland, spiritchild, Patricia Santos and Thomas Teller in Indianapolis (not my first time!) 9/25-10/1 for an anti-censorship experiment at the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library. We’ll be living in the museum and writing songs all week in response to banned literature and performing the songs live at the end of the week. We talked with Chris LaFave of KVML in this interview that we’ve released as Episode 13 of The Bushwick Book Club Podcast. Take a listen! (It’s on iTunes too if you want.)

The next Bushwick Book Club show is for the work of Dame Darcy with an emphasis on Meat Cake Bible perhaps, but really it’s a celebration of all things Darcy, because she is a celebration of what it means to be all you are, whatever you want to be at the same time, when and how you like it. In her case, it means being an artist, musician, performer, animator, filmmaker, illustrator, painter, doll maker, world maker, storyteller, witch, mermaid, pirate.

December 15th, we’ll have our event with 15 different musicians, songwriters, comedians and one chef who will respond to Darcy’s work. Darcy herself will be there and performing with us. It’s the final BBC show of 2021 and also our first fundraiser. We just achieved 501(c)(3) status this year. It’s happening at one of my favorite places that happens to have the best Ukrainian food in the East Village – The Ukrainian National Home at 140 East 2nd Ave. between 9th St. and St. Marks.

Here’s the flyer designed by the stupendous Scott MX Turner. And I’ll also include a video that Darcy made of my performance of “Cutting” written in response to Meat Cake Bible from a few years ago. I’ll be performing the song again live on the 15th. Lusterlit released it on vinyl not too long ago. The single had “Cutting” on one side and Charlie’s rocking “Waxwolf” on the other. I think you can still order the ’45! But also listen to it digitally on Bandcamp.

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Related show

• Artist: Bushwick Book Club
• Date: 12/15/21
• Time: 7:00pm
• Venue: Ukrainian National Home
• City: NEW YORK , NY
• Address: 140 2nd Ave.
• Venue phone: 19177477502
• Country: United States
• Admission: by donation
• Age restrictions: No Minors
• More information
• Notes: It’s the end. It’s the beginning. Perhaps they’re joined at the hip à la Hindrance and Perfidia. Join us December 15th at the historic (and delicious) Ukrainian National Home (New Order played there!) for our final show of 2021 and our first BBC fundraiser. The featured literary work is by the multi-talented, multi-dimensional illustrator, animator, performer, banjo player, mermaid, witch, pirate, author Dame Darcy. She will of course perform, along with songs and performances from: Beth Bliss Charming Disaster Sea Griffin Susan Hwang Serena Jost Sung Uni Lee Dan Machlin Risa Mickenberg Charlie Nieland Henry Tenney Jason Trachtenburg *Short film by Lisa Barnstone* Bring your Dame Darcy books and parafernalia, and get them autographed at the show! Dame Darcy original tarot and books will be on sale to meet your holiday gifting needs. Glad you like book-inspired times. Hope you like vareniki.

I do a lot of nothing too. Just swaths, gobs of nothing. And sometimes, even if I am doing something, whatever it is, it is surely not the right thing or enough.

Here is some documentation of things I have done the past few months. I should document the nothing too I suppose. Why not? Oh, I get it now… What I’m presenting here now is the documentation of nothing. Here’s the nothing I’ve been doing.

Interview on Sub Rosa Sound Radio

Host, Ariel Wang, and I had a lot of fun talking about music and songwriting, Bushwick Book Club, creativity, what to wear for zoom meetings…

Fermented Black Garlic

Fermentation is a journey. Here’s the path of Black Garlic timed to the Full Moon in Pisces.

The start

The finish

A clip from a Lusterlit set in Seward Park. Music in front of actual people without a computer!!!

Speaking of PINCLOUDS, here’s a video I put together of Claudi from that afternoon set to music I recorded of theirs in Tompkins Square Park earlier in the month:

Accordion Babes’ Accordion Fridays

Also, here’s my latest live stream from Accordion Babe’s Accordion Fridays performance series. Oh, the joy of accordioning accompanied by the wonderful Marlon Cherry on percussion, backing vocals and kazoo.

Related show

• Artist: Susan Hwang w/ Marlon Cherry for Accordion Babes Accordion Fridays
• Date: 09/11/20
• Time: 4:00pm
• Venue: Facebook.com/susanhwanglalala
• City: New York
• Country: United States
• Age restrictions: No Minors
• Notes: Playing a live streamed set of songs on accordion accompanied by percussionist, Marlon Cherry. Join us at facebook.com/susanhwanglalala or the Accordion Babes FB page! This is part of whole afternoon of performances from Accordion Babes’ international accordion community!

• Artist: Bushwick Book Club
• Date: 09/24/20
• Time: 7:00pm
• Venue: Facebook.com/bushwickbookclub
• City: Brooklyn , NY
• Address: facebook.com/bushwickbookclub
• Country: United States
• Admission: by donation
• Age restrictions: No Minors
• More information
• Notes: DANCERS ON THE SHORE by William Melvin Kelley. This is the first of three live streamed shows in response to “Lost Giant of American Literature” and godfather of “woke” William Melvin Kelley’s book of short stories, DANCERS ON THE SHORE. Kelley’s daughter, artist Jesi Kelley, will be giving a reading and presenting her own art inspired by the book along with performances from 12 artists and musicians from NY, LA, London and Las Vegas. This kick-off event for DANCERS ON THE SHORE will feature performances by BBC Founder, Susan Hwang, spiritchild, Prince Akeem, Charlie Nieland (Lusterlit), Ray Brown, Troy Ogilvie w/ Sean Gannet, Teresa Toro, Sung Uni Lee, Stacy Rock (LA), Timothy Dark (Las Vegas), Amanda Thorpe (London) and Grace Solero (London). Future shows for DANCERS ON THE SHORE will also be live streamed by Bushwick Book Club London and Bushwick Book Club Los Angeles later in the year. Proceeds from the live stream show will be shared with arts education and revolutionary community building organization Urban Art Beat. Founded in Brooklyn in 2009, the Bushwick Book Club meets every month and employs the talents of local songwriters and artists who plumb the depths of a chosen literary gem to create that rare and beautiful thing–a new song (or visual art, dance, film or snack). All songs are then performed at a live show. The Bushwick Book Club now has several branches all over the world, including Malmö (Sweden), London, LA, Seattle, Maplewood (NJ), Greenville (SC) and New Orleans. Listen to The Bushwick Book Club Podcast on iTunes and SoundCloud. About DANCERS ON THE SHORE The first and only short story collection by William Melvin Kelley, author of A Different Drummer, and the source from which he drew inspiration for his subsequent novels. Originally published in 1964, this collection of sixteen stories includes three linked sets of stories about the Carey, Bedlow, and Dunford families. They represent the earliest work of William Melvin Kelley and provided a rich source of stories and characters who were to fill out his later novels. Spanning generations from the Deep South during Reconstruction to New York City in the 1960s, these insightful stories depict African American families—their struggles, their heartbreak, and their love. About the author: William Melvin Kelley was born in New York City in 1937 and attended the Fieldston School and Harvard. The author of four novels and a short story collection, he was a writer in residence at the State University of New York at Geneseo and taught at The New School and Sarah Lawrence College. He was awarded the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for lifetime achievement and the Dana Reed Prize for creative writing. He died in 2017. In 2014, Kelley was officially credited by the Oxford English Dictionary with coining the political term “woke” in a 1962 New York Times article entitled “If You’re Woke You Dig It.”