Arts & Culture

Eric Lundgren’s debut novel, “The Facades,” has been praised by The New Yorker as “hardboiled existentialism.” Marni Ludwig’s debut collection of poetry, “Pinwheel,” was chosen by Jean Valentine for the 2012 New Issues Poetry Prize. On Thursday, March 6, these two recent alumni will return to campus for a free public reading.

For his Lost Memory collection, photographer Stanley Strembicki documented water-damaged photographs former residents of New Orleans were forced to abandon during Hurricane Katrina.

Schubert borrowed from Beethoven. Public Enemy sampled Isaac Hayes. Ice Cube quoted Kool and the Gang while Brahms let drop with “Variations on a Theme from Haydn.” Hip-hop and classical music: perhaps not as different as you think. Old news to Wilner “Wil-B” Baptiste and Kevin “Kev Marcus” Sylvester, a.k.a. Black Violin.

Charlie Robin, director of Edison Theatre, recommends the dancer-athletes of Diavolo. Diavolo is performing at the Touhill Center this Friday, Feb. 28, and Saturday, March 1.

A great party is no easy feat. In “Chacun à son goût (To each his own),” the decadent young charmer Prince Orlofsky reveals the secrets to choreographing a successful evening. On Feb. 28, soprano Kelly Pappageorge and the Washington University Symphony orchestra will perform Strauss’ famous aria, along with music of Bernstein and Dvořák.

Arny Nader creates large sculptural installations that feel fantastic and whimsical yet grounded in utilitarian purpose. Last fall, Nadler won a $20,000 artist fellowship from the Regional Arts Commission of Greater St. Louis. We sat down to discuss growing up in Chicago, restructuring the undergraduate majors and the malleability of steel.

Finland is renowned for its architecture and design culture. Peter MacKeith has spent much of his career engaging that culture — living in Finland, teaching there, working in design practice and writing about the work of contemporary practitioners. On Feb. 14, MacKeith was presented with the insignia of Knight, First Class, of the Order of the Lion of Finland.

With his round glasses, amused diction and stiff, patrician carriage, Harold Ramis (AB ’66), was the coolest nerd in the room, a deadpan bomb-thrower, an ironist for the ages. You were never sure if he was joking. That was half the joke.

What happens in your brain when you look at this Klimt painting? A lot more than you might ever guess, according to Nobel laureate neuroscientist Eric Kandel, who will explore the connection between art and the mind/brain in his talk, “The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind and Brain from Vienna 1900 to the Present” for the Assembly Series at 5 p.m. Monday, March 3, in Graham Chapel.

Acclaimed poet C.D. Wright, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry, will read from her work Thursday, Feb. 20. Wright is author of 12 collections, most recently “One With Others” (2010), which combines poetry and documentary evidence to portray her native Arkansas during the Civil Rights era.