In Lipstick Traces, Greil Marcus dives into the cross-currents, tangles, and whirlpools that make such vastly different movements as dada, lettrism, the Situationist International, the Sex Pistols, and punk part of a single current. To mark the just-published 20th anniversary edition of the book, Marcus will present a one-man play version of the book--a lecture as performance. In addition, there will be a display at the Wiener Music & Arts Library of Greil’s books, books that influenced him, and books, posters, and records courtesy of the ARChive of Contemporary Music.  A book signing will follow the lecture.

This event is co-sponsored by the Friends of the Columbia Libraries, the ARChive of Contemporary Music, and the Arts Initiative at Columbia University.

The ARChive of Contemporary Music is a not-for-profit archive, music library and research center located in New York City. The ARChive collects, preserves and provides information on the popular music of all cultures and races throughout the world from 1950 to the present. In early 2009 ARC forged a partnership with Columbia University in New York City to create innovative academic initiatives and online content to help with the study, understanding and enjoyment of popular music from all over the world. For more information, please visit http://www.arcmusic.org/.

Greil Marcus is the author of Mystery Train (1975, 2008), Dead Elvis (1991), The Old, Weird America:The World of Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes (1997), The Dustbin of History (1995), Like a Rolling Stone (2005), The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy and the American Voice (2006) and other books. With Werner Sollors he is the co-editor of A New Literary History of America, published this fall by Harvard, and the editor of Best Music Writing 2009, published this fall by Da Capo. The first records editor at Rolling Stone, in 1969, in recent years he has taught at Berkeley, Princeton, and Minneosta; this fall he is teaching "Music as Democratic Speech, from the Commonplace Song to Bob Dylan" at the New School. He lives in Berkeley.