The Happy Ending Music and Reading Series is a semimonthly performing arts series founded and hosted by Amanda Stern at the Happy Ending Bar in Chinatown, NYC on September 3, 2003. Since its inception, the Happy Ending Music and Reading Series has occurred every other Wednesday, bringing together literary and musical talents to share the stage. On January 7, 2009, the series permanently moves from the Happy Ending Bar to Joe's Pub, where it takes place the first Wednesday of every month. The Happy Ending Music and Reading Series has been chosen by New York Magazine, The Village Voice, and NY Press as the best reading series in NYC, and has been singled out by the New York Times Magazine for helping to "Keep downtown, NY alive." The success of the series is based largely on Amanda Stern's no-nonsense and oftentimes awkward sense of humor. Of the musicians appearing in the series, Stern requires at least one cover song with which the musician must attempt to get the audience to sing along. Of the readers, Stern requires one public risk. Past risks have included karate-chopping wooden boards, freak-dancing with a random member of the audience, spinning a basketball, etc...
Famous quotes containing the words happy, music, reading and/or series:
“she in the kitchen
aproned young and lovely wanting my baby
and so happy about me she burns the roast beef
and comes crying to me and I get up from my big papa chair
saying Christmas teeth! Radiant brains! Apple deaf!”
—Gregory Corso (b. 1930)
“And this shall be for music when no one else is near,
The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear!
That only I remember, that only you admire,
Of the broad road that stretches and the roadside fire.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)
“Awareness of having better things to do with their lives is the secret to immunizing our children against false values—whether presented on television or in “real life.” The child who finds fulfillment in music or reading or cooking or swimming or writing or drawing is not as easily convinced that he needs recognition or power or some “high” to feel worthwhile.”
—Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)
“In the order of literature, as in others, there is no act that is not the coronation of an infinite series of causes and the source of an infinite series of effects.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)