Jewish prince of Hollywood 1
Jan
15
2009
What can I, a mere mortal, possibly add to the legend of Irving Thalberg, Hollywood’s “boy wonder” producer who helped transform American movie making from a haphazard endeavor into a real industry; indeed a mass-market, fantasy production line. Starting as a secretary to “Uncle” Carl Laemmle at the tender age of 20, Thalberg earned stripes at Universal by bossing ...
Hungarian goulash in Los Angeles 1
We enjoyed an impromptu Hungarian arts festival in Los Angeles over the past month. First was a Disney Hall recital by Hungarian pianist Andras Schiff known for his Bach interpretation, but lately he is performing all the 32 Beethoven piano sonatas. Schiff is a sublime artist — except when he is glowering at the audience for coughing or rustling programs, ...
The incomparable Lou Reed at RedCat
Oct
3
2008
Last night Benoit and I sat in the small theater in the basement of the Disney Concert Hall as Lou Reed and his art-school buddies bombarded our ears with a wall of electronic sound. Lou Reed is a very tough minded and uncompromising artist.The music (two extended pieces lasting 1.5 hours) invaded our senses, sounding ...
My date with Julius Shulman 6
with julius shulman The morning of the opening reception of her superb textile design exhibit at Design Within Reach, my ModCom friend Alexandra Becket called with a problem. No one was available to pick up architectural photographer Julius Shulman, she said. Julius, of course had famously photographed her grandfather Welton Becket‘s architecture. He dearly wanted to attend ...
Jimi Hendrix hung out in Los Feliz 1
Urban legend has it that after a druggy night at a hippie crash pad in Los Feliz, Jimi Hendrix composed “Purple Haze.” According to the story, Hendrix was inspired by a psychedelicly painted bathroom. The erstwhile hippie house — now a designer’s emporium and yet another L.A. real estate event — sits atop a hill overlooking my apartment building. That means that ...
Quatorze juillet – California edition 1
Jul
15
2008
We passed the la fete nationale, Bastille Day, as follows: We attended a great LACMA double-bill featuring the suave, yet underrated, French film actor, Charles Boyer. C’etait vendredi, that was Friday. We then flew to San Francisco on Sunday and enjoyed a cafe creme and pain au chocolat at Cafe de la Presse. Vive la France.
Girl Power 2
The home-run event of the summer was Howard Hawks’s comic masterpiece, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), projected on the humongous screen of the vintage Los Angeles Theater (1931) on Broadway in downtown L.A. Viewed as oversized fleshy Amazons whose umpteen parts miraculously move together, MM and Jane Russell cruise through this nutty film, singing, dancing, and ...
Jewish geography
Jun
29
2008
I immensely enjoyed Jewish Geography, the festival of ideas — and shmoozing — held on the UCLA campus Sunday. The festival posed difficult questions that trouble diaspora Jews, especially we Americans who survived the genocide of Europe and who evade the current mess in Israel. I most enjoyed the panel “Things Past: Memory & Space,” confronting such profound questions as: How do ...
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 ...
I met Yves St. Laurent 2
Jun
17
2008
The death of fashion designer Yves St. Laurent June 1 reminded me of the time I met him in Beijing. The year was 1985. I was working for the French bank, Banque Paribas, based in Hong Kong. During one of my business trips to Beijing, the French cultural commission staged a retrospective of Yves St. Laurent’s haute ...