Tales of neuroses from Roz Chast
New Yorker magazine cartoonist Roz Chast has a new book. That makes me anxious. It’s not that I’m jealous. I would be totally fine, but I couldn’t sleep last night. I think the waiter at that restaurant was looking at me funny. Then my neighbors were keeping me up … argh! Chast’s new book, Going ...
Not just talkin’ tap, dancing it too @ ALOUD
A wonderful learn-and-have-fun program heading our way after the New Year, as Central Library’s cozy Mark Taper Auditorium will host a special book talk sprung to life. New York Times dance critic Brian Seibert will converse with his Los Angeles cohort, Sasha Anawalt, about his new book, “What the Eye Hears, A History of American ...
Tuesday is Wendy-day
Jun
6
2014
It’s always nice to have a special visitor from New York, in this case our good friend, the longtime editor of “Dance” Magazine, Wendy Perron. Next Tuesday evening, Wendy will join forces with a stellar line up of dance thinkers and dance talkers: the great dancer/dance maker Simone Forti and choreographer/educator Victoria Marks. It all ...
Melissa Hayden hops a train — just as she hopped into the arms of Jacques d’Amboise 2
Apr
26
2011
A characteristic shot of the inimitable New York City Ballet ballerina Melissa Hayden (1923-2006), nee Mildred Herman, a nice Canadian Jewish girl (who knew?) who wanted to be a champion swimmer, or so we learned from Milly’s habitual partner, Jacques d’Amboise, at an ALOUD book talk last week. D’Amboise reveled in stories about the extroverted, ...
Good god! Apollo visits Los Angeles, twice.
The bronze art treasure, Apollo Saettante, Apollo the Archer, is visiting Los Angeles through the summer, far from his home in the Real Museo Borbonico in Naples. The luminous statue arrived on the cliffs of Malibu, California, where he received a tender beauty treatment from Getty Museum conservationist Erik Risser and curator David Saunders, antiquities ...
John Waters celebrates Johnny Mathis
Sixties singer Johnny Mathis‘s name has popped up in surprising ways recently. DJ Josh Kun spun the velvet-voiced crooner’s version of “Kol Nidre” at “Get Down, Moses,” Kun’s Jewish/African-American “listening party.” Then, John Waters, the witty, loquacious, and dapper film director, cited Mathis as one of his key “role models.” It happened at an ALOUD ...
John Waters & Carrie Fisher dish at ALOUD 1
This just in from Louise Steinman, curator-turned-impresario of the Library Foundation’s ALOUD book talk series. Louise has nailed down what promises to be a wild and wonderful evening of conversation Filmmaker John Waters communes with his interlocutor, Carrie Fisher. Two of show business’s sharpest minds (and fastest tongues!) meet to discuss their role models! John ...
Art, books, talk, music & life … @ ALOUD
It’s difficult to separate affection for the Library Foundation’s ALOUD series at Los Angeles Central Library from love of the library itself. The detailing in the original building’s grand rotonda, pictured at left, shows why. It’s gorgeous: where California Mission-style leaves off, art deco kicks in. ALOUD, the program of lectures, book talks, readings and performances ...
Hitler’s emigres & exiles in Southern California 1
Prominently marked in my calendar for February 16 is a book talk at the L.A. Central Library’s ALOUD series by my friend Dorothy Lamb Crawford. Dorothy, a musicologist whom I met at the Ballets Russes centenial celebration in Boston last year, writes about the brilliant gathering of composers, conductors, and other musicians who fled Nazi Germany to ...
Debra Winger asks, “Do you know what a meme is?” 1
editor’s note: this post dating from 2008 is a golden-oldie of the blog and one of the first blog items we published. enjoy ~! I went to see Debra Winger give a book talk (she wrote one) at the Los Angeles Central Library Wednesday night. I’ve always liked Debra Winger’s performances, especially in three films: Shadowlands, The Sheltering ...