Welcome to Welcome Boog City 14

This is the 21st Welcome to Boog City Arts Festival. The fest began in August 2007 at the dearly missed Sidewalk Cafe on Avenue A. 1-14 have happened in the summer or fall, 7.5-13.5 on Presidents Day weekend.

I started the festival as simply a way of curating the kind of event that I would like to go to, not just poetry, but music, poets theater, film, talks, visiting small presses, panels, the makings behind a radio show. Though I love and have curated events that are strictly one discipline, and have attended my share of music only fests from Live Aid to Lollapalooza, my heart lies in a multidisciplinary approach. You like poetry, cool, but here’s a musical act you didn’t know existed yesterday. Can’t afford to go to the theater? Experience the wildly constructed premises behind a Poets Theater play. 

For this first foray into the world of online events, we’re taking baby steps, a little over five hours all in one afternoon, December 20, 2020. It’s a 54th birthday present to myself, three times 18, a holy number in Judaism, the numeric value of the letters that spell out the Hebrew word chai, life, (pronounced xai), the gift continuing to be part of an extended community of artists who have sustained me through all the highs and lows of some 30 Boog years now.

Welcome to Boog City 14.5 will be on Presidents Day Mon., Feb. 15, 2021, and we’ll be continuing our 19-year-old Classic Albums Live series with a live performance, for its 40th anniversary, of The Go-Go’s Beauty and the Beat. There’s still a lot of story to be told. —dak

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As always, thanks for visiting boogcity.com.