As many of you know, the last two years I have been deep into researching and writing my new book, which comes out spring of next year: Matching Minds with Sondheim: The Puzzles and Games of the Broadway Legend.
To learn more, read below, or go right to the web site — MatchingMindsWithSondheim.com — or the active Instagram account (or Facebook).
It has been such an honor to work on this book, to conduct over 30 hours of original interviews with more than five dozen people who knew the man (as friends, as collaborators), and unearth games and puzzles he designed over the past seventy years.
As a month from now I plan to turn in the manuscript, I thought this might be a good moment to take a breather and share some recent highlights with you.
The above image is one part of a promotional bookmark I made to spread the word. And no, it’s not a typo. It’s a puzzle, one often used by Sondheim in his treasure hunts. And it takes a second piece to solve. The first 20 people who contact me directly on either the book’s Instagram or Facebook account and ask for it, and send me a SASE, will get one for free. SPOILER: Click here to watch an animation of the solution.
Last month saw the long-awaited arrival of the Sondheim house auction, in which more than half of the nearly 3,000 items were puzzle- or game-related. I’m still processing it all! You can read a great interview with me about it from The Sondheim Hub, watch my video of the closing of the gonzo final lot (after a marathon non-stop 10.5 hours), or my breakdown of the top ten board game lots.
As I write the book, I post tidbits or outtakes on my Insta. What do you get when you combine Stephen Sondheim + Anthony Perkins + Gore Vidal + Sue Mengers + Dyan Cannon? Find out in this recent post in which J.B. Taylor replied: “This might be the best mash-up of people/themes in a story that I’ve ever read.”
Finally, I’ve been blessed with over a dozen readers digging into the chapters, performing heroic line edits, and giving me invaluable critical feedback. My favorite so far, in response to a particularly poignant conclusion to one of the chapters, was: “This chapter cracked my heart open.” That’s me with K., below, one of my reviewers, when we ran into each other at Carnegie Hall (seeing Follies).
And what about my other books?
My three other books are still out there, and available for reading and gifting. Need a beach read?
(And a reminder to those who have already bought any of them – THANK YOU! And please please post a rating and comment on Amazon, as your voice goes a long way towards increasing its visibility).
Seltzertopia
You can find my book Seltzertopia on Amazon or, if you want a signed copy, you can buy one from my museum here. (Wait? Did you say museum? Yup — based on the book, and a real-world old-fashioned seltzer works — Alex Gomberg and I launched the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum. Come visit us!).
I am STILL regularly invited to spread the gospel of seltzer. A little song, a little dance… Most recently I was (remotely) in Pittsfield, MA and, closer to home, presented at my wife’s temple in New Rochelle. You can check out this map of everywhere I have been since 2018. If you’re not on it, reach out to me and let’s change that!
Making Dinosaurs Dance
Making Dinosaurs Dance: A Toolkit for Digital Design in Museums is a great guide for place-based design AND a lovely series of case studies (and original short stories) about what it’s like to work on the bleeding edge of innovation at one of the greatest museums in the known universe.
Pick up a copy today at Amazon.
Here’s what people are saying about it:
“A wonderful guide to the kind of agile, experimental, responsive operational strategies needed in the museum of the future.” —Elizabeth Merritt, founding director, Center for the Future of Museums, American Alliance of Museums
“Personal and engaging, this book reveals the opportunities and surprises of working directly with museum visitors in designing new digital experiences. It offers even the smallest museum insights into how to design things that visitors—even teenagers— will enjoy.” —Seb Chan, director and CEO, Australia Centre for the Moving Image
“Part how-to guide, part seminar workshop, and part magical mystery tour of Barry’s time at the Museum—an essential introduction to how digital technologies can (and can’t!) transform the visitor experience.” —Bella Desai, former director of public programs and exhibition education, American Museum of Natural History
Friday is Tomorrow
Friday is Tomorrow, or The Dayenu Year: Chronicles from the NYC Covid-19 Oral History, Narrative and Memory Archive is not an easy sell. Want to read a book about how I dealt with losing my dad a few weeks into the COVID lock-down? Want to revisit the challenging decisions you had to make when faced with a multiyear pandemic?
If so, Friday is Tomorrow is the book for you! (I self-published it through Amazon).
Seriously, Friday is Tomorrow tells the uplifting story of how I learned to maintain traditions in a time of uncertainty while continuing to reach for my dreams.
That’s it, for now. What comes after my book on Sondheim? You’ll just have to wait for my next newsletter to find out. Until then, I know you are just as excited as I am for next week’s bizarro return of the world’s best science fiction writer, China Miéville, having teamed up with Keanu Reeves to adapt his (yes) comic book, BRZRKR, into the novel “The Book of Elsewhere,” described by the NYTimes as “a pulpy, adrenaline-fueled thriller, [that is] also a moody, experimental novel about mortality, the slippery nature of time and what it means to be human.”
Now you know what I’m bringing to the beach…
