Foreign policy wonks and those who closely follow world events (I hope that’s everybody) will have a couple of very interesting options this evening. Highly respected journalist and author Anna Badkhen’s concentration has been on the human cost of war, but she goes far beyond the killing and destruction itself. Badhken considers how culture, food, and livelihood change, react, and remain throughout our endless international conflicts. Badkhen has even covered how Texas and issues along the border differed after 9/11. She’ll be appearing at Wild Detectives in Oak Cliff tonight, to discuss and sign copies of her newest book, The World is a Carpet. Taking place over the course of a year in Oqa, Afghanistan, the book deals with such details as the crippling disparity between what the village’s carpet weavers make versus what their goods sell for overseas, in a country that is permanently at war. The event begins at 7 pm.
Next up is a semi-private screening of the war documentary, Korengal, which is the sequel to the 2010’s widely-acclaimed Restrepo. But whereas the latter followed the explosiveness of the Afghan War, Korengal reveals the painful monotony of the same battlefield. Most of the seats at the Angelika’s 7 pm screening of the film will go to local veterans, however there are some available if you RSVP here. A Q&A session with actual soldiers will follow the screening. Our own Peter Simek conducted a lengthy interview with Korengal filmmaker Sebastian Junger earlier in the summer and you can read that here.
Finally, if you’d rather just mope about the world’s problems rather than confront them directly, goth icon and Bauhaus singer, Peter Murphy, will be at the Granada Theater this evening. I caught Murphy last time he was in town, and he puts on a very enveloping show.
For more things to do, go here.
