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TITLE: When Mississippi Ran Backwards: Empire, Intrigue, Murder and the New Madrid Earthquakes
SPEAKER: Jay Feldman
EVENT DATE: 08/04/2005
RUNNING TIME: 49 minutes
DESCRIPTION:
Between December 16, 1811, and late April 1812, a catastrophic series of earthquakes shook the Mississippi Valley. Towns were destroyed, an 18-mile-long lake was created and even the Mississippi River temporarily ran backwards. In his book, journalist Jay Feldman examines the quakes' remarkable physical power and the resulting social, political and military upheavals.
Speaker Biography: Jay Feldman was born in Brooklyn, NY, and grew up rooting for the Brooklyn Dodgers. He moved to California in 1963 to do graduate work at UC Berkeley, where he was arrested in the Free Speech Movement in Fall 1964. He got his master's degree in Dramatic Art from UCB in 1965 and completed two more years of work on a doctorate before leaving Berkeley. He lived on a rural commune in Northern California from 1969-1974. In 1975, he moved to Santa Fe, N.M., where he made his living as a working musician and also owned and operated Music of the Spheres, a music store specializing in vintage stringed instruments. He returned to California in 1980 to concentrate on writing. He is a widely published writer. His work has appeared in Smithsonian, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, The New York Times, Gourmet, Whole Earth Review and a broad variety of other national, regional and local publications. A number of his pieces have been anthologized. He has also written for television--the highly acclaimed but short-lived CBS series Brooklyn Bridge--and the stage--A Loud Noise in a Public Place. He is also the author of "Hitting: An Official Major League Baseball Book."
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SERIES: Books & Beyond