News of screenings near and far

• Cinefest 2012: I've just been on the phone with Joe Yranski of New York City, a vintage film expert and fellow Fordham graduate, who invited me to be an accompanist at the next Cinefest, to be held in March 2012 in Syracuse, N.Y. This is a great honor and I'm really looking forward to joining my colleagues Andrew Simpson and Phil Carli at the keyboard next year.

• Me on Twitter?: My dormant Twitter account is being reactivated as of today, partly to promote silent film but also to get some hands-on experience for a communications course I'm teaching this fall at the University of New Hampshire. Now I'll be able to say for sure just exactly how much of a waste of time it is, or not. We'll see. Anyway, you can follow my every Twitter move at: @jeffrapsis

• Next in rotation: 'The General' (1927). With three separate series running this summer in widely separated markets (Plymouth, N.H.; Ogunquit, Maine; and Brandon, Vt.), I'm running the same programs in each so as not to go crazy. This will also make show prep such as press releases a little easier. So coming up next week be Keaton's 'General,' partly because it's public domain and partly because the folks of Brandon, Vt. are staging their annual "Civil War Days" event on Saturday, June 18. So I'm doing 'General' three times in three states over four days. Check the details on the "upcoming screenings" page.

• Moving to the library: We have a new series of monthly screenings for 2011-12 in Manchester, N.H. to succeed our Palace Theatre series. The 880-seat Palace was a great home for the past three years, but going forward they just don't have room in their schedule. So we're switching to a smaller venue, the 200-seat auditorium of the Carpenter Public Library, 405 Pine St., Manchester, just a few blocks away. I've selected films already but would love to hear suggestions...

• From the subcontinent: Finally, look for our end-of-month screenings at the Wilton Town Hall Theatre in Wilton, N.H. to be augmented by the screening of an unusual silent feature from India, 'Throw of Dice' (1929) on Sunday, July 17 at 4:30 p.m. It's an outgrowth of a local Bollywood tribute held last April, and I'm very much looking forward to doing music for my first Indian flick.