Canio's Cultural Cafe

We began the year with several community events:  local folks reading the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. On a cold winter’s night, mid-January the words of our contemporary Prophet rang loud and clear once again. We watched some video clips of King’s stirring last speech before his assassination. A young singer led us in a verse or two of We Shall Overcome, and we felt re-inspired to carry on the legacy, one community event at a time.  In February, we had two Cafe’ celebrations: A reading of works by African American writers like W.E.B. DuBois,  Zora Neal Hurston, Langston Hughes and James Baldwin  showed us an intriguing sample of the breadth and depth of this great body of literature.  On the 27th of the month, we celebrated John Steinbeck’s birthday.  A selection of his works about Sag Harbor were read by bookshop founder Canio Pavone, and current co-oweners Kathryn and Maryann among others. We heard excerpts from Winter of Our Discontent, written while Steinbeck lived on Bluff Point, and from Travels with Charley which begins in a hurricane on the Sag Harbor Cove. It was all great fun and we got to brag about our most famous literary resident who lived just around the block at bit from the bookshop.  More great Cafe’ events to come!