We here at E-Verse are big fans of Ben Katchor’s bizarre and frankly brilliant brand of graphic art. We highly recommend his books (Amazon links below).

In 2011, Mark Mulcahy with Ken Maiuri and Dave Trenholm performed “Up from the Stacks,” their musical accompaniment to a sequence of Katchor images, at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.

Set in The New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street and in the environs of Times Square circa 1970, Up From the Stacks is the story of Lincoln Cabinée, a college student working part-time as a page, retrieving books for readers from the Library’s collection of 43 million items. This routine evening job inadvertently thrusts young Cabinée into the treacherous crossroads of scholarly obsession and the businesses of amusement and vice that then flourished in the 42nd Street area. The intellectual life of the city and the happiness of a young man hang in the balance. Co-commissioned by the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at The New York Public Library, and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts for Target Free Thursdays at the David Rubenstein Atrium.

Luckily for us all, they filmed some of the performances. Check them out below.