MoCA Westport, formerly known as the Westport Arts Center, tonight hosted author and educational guru Marc Brackett. The founder and director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and professor in the Child Study Center at Yale University, talked about his plan to improve the lives of children and adults by understanding emotions and using them wisely so that they help, rather than hinder, success and well-being. His program “Ruler,” reduces stress and burnout, and is currently being implemented in the Westport Public Schools as well as in The Academy @ MoCA Westport. Brackett’s book, “Permission to Feel,” was available for purchase. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Contributed photo

By Susan Granger

If you’re trying to understand today’s amoral political landscape, Matt Tyrnauer’s documentary “Where’s My Roy Cohn?” explains a great deal about that dirty trickster.

In 1973, when brash young real estate mogul Donald Trump met Roy Cohn, one of New York’s most ruthless and powerful power broker, Trump was completing the Grand Hyatt Hotel near Grand Central Terminal.

And when the Justice Department claimed that Trump family apartment buildings discriminated against black applicants, attorney Cohn advised him to countersue the Justice Department for $100 million.

“Donald calls me 15 to 20 times a day,” Cohn bragged. “He’s always asking, ‘What’s the status of this … and that?’”

Broadway legend Stephen Schwartz performed for over 100 people at a private home in Westport today as part of a benefit to support not-for -profit arts organization JIB Productions. JIB brings the Play With Your Food lunchtime play readings series and Short Cuts Film Festival to Fairfield County each year. Multi award-winning composer Schwartz performed several of his hits for sponsor ticket holders and entertained the crowd with stories of how the songs came to be. Guests were also treated to a “moveable feast of theater “ watching short plays throughout the house. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Photo by Jamie Maletz @jamiemaletzmusicals

Broadway lyricist and composer Stephen Schwartz (“Godspell.” “Pippin!,” and “Wicked”) gets together today with JIB Productions team Inge Maki, Diana Muller, and Carole Schweid at a JIB fundraiser at a private Westport home. Artistic Director Schweid worked with Schwartz when she was in the national tour of his “Pippin!” (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Photo by Jamie Maletz @jamiemaletzmusicals

The booth run by the Artists Collective of Westport today attracted many youngsters at Westoberfest with an array of art activities in several media including pastels, markers, rubber stamps, pumpkin art and much more. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Miggs Burroughs for WestportNow.com

Westporter Sybil Steinberg, contributing editor and former book review section editor for Publishers Weekly, today addressed about 100 attendees at the Westport Library’s Trefz Forum, with her semi-annual review of books for autumn/winter reading. Among her list of 29 fiction and 13 nonfiction she said her two favorite fiction books are “The Nickel Boys,” by Colson Whitehead, who previously authored the award-winning “Underground Railroad,” and “The Shadow King,” by Maaza Mengiste which she referred to as “a searing historical novel that takes place during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War and tells the story of a courageous woman who led a band of peasants in a makeshift army.” Among nonfiction recommendations Steinberg identified her favorite as “Our Man,” by George Packer, the story of diplomat Richard Holbrooke’s career and life.” Referring to the book Steinberg said, “stop what you are doing and read this book.”  (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

It was an attentive audience at the Westport Library today as Westporter Sybil Steinberg unveiled her latest popular reading choices. Because of time constraints Steinberg limited her verbal reviews to 15 on her fiction and six on her nonfiction lists. In her opening comments Steinberg critiqued the word, “incredible” which she views as “over used.”  “However,” she added, “there is one book today that I feel the descriptive word ‘incredible’ is property applied and that’s to the nonfiction book, “Bad Blood,” by John Carreyrou, the story of how a brazen woman with no scientific background convinced millionaire investors to financially support a company, Theranos, perpetrating the largest corporate fraud since Enron. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

By Susan Granger

For the past 30 years, director Ang Lee has become renowned for taking risks, especially when it comes to technology. He popularized ‘wuxia’ action in “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and the pushed the limits of 3-D CGI with “The Life of Pi,” while demonstrating his skill for reflective drama with “Sense and Sensibility” and “Brokeback Mountain.”

In his latest innovative sci-fi action-adventure, “Gemini Man,” Lee incorporates an intriguing plot twist. After years of service to his country as the government’s top black-ops sniper, 51-year-old Henry Brogan (Will Smith) is ready to retire in Georgia.

Problem is: after 72 hits, he knows too much, having just discovered that his ‘handler’ Clay Verris (Clive Owen) set him up to kill an innocent man.

When he realizes he’s being trailed by a low-level operative, Danny Zakarweski (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), he convinces her that she, too, has been duped. So they take off together, along with Brogan’s longtime buddy Baron (Benedict Wong) to find the real culprit behind the deception.