Marie Kondo

Saturday, November 16, 2019
3pm

An Afternoon with
Marie Kondo

discussing her book,
Kiki & Jax: The Life-Changing Magic of Friendship


Aratani Theatre

Japanese American Cultural & Community Center
244 S. San Pedro Street
Downtown Los Angeles, CA 90012

PURCHASE TICKETS
$35  Orchestra Section + Book
$20  Balcony Section
$50  Orchestra Section for two — a parent, a child (12 and under) + 1 book

Marie Kondo is a tidying expert, bestselling author, star of Netflix’s hit show Tidying Up with Marie Kondoand founder of KonMari Media, Inc. Enchanted with organizing since her childhood, Marie began her career as a tidying consultant while a 19-year-old university student in Tokyo. Today, Marie is a renowned tidying expert helping people around the world to transform their cluttered homes into spaces of serenity, inspiration, and joy.

In her New York Times bestselling book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying UpMarie took tidying to a whole new level, teaching that if you properly organize your home once, you’ll never have to do it again. Marie has been featured in Time Magazine,t he New York Timesthe Wall Street Journal,the London Timesand Vogueand on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, TheEllen Show,and more than fifty major Japanese television and radio programs. She has also been named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World.  She appeared at Live Talks Los Angles in April 2016 for her book, Spark Joy.

Kiki & Jax: The Life-Changing Magic of Friendship is an endearing picture book for young readers from Marie Kondo together with Salina Yoon, beloved children’s book creator. Inspired by Marie Kondo’s KonMari Method, this delightful and heartwarming tale teaches young ones how to create openings for joy in all parts of life. 

Kiki and Jax are best friends, and they couldn’t be more different. Kiki is a collector, who loves her nuts, pine cones, books, and toys. Jax is a sorter who enjoys finding places for his favorite games, costumes, and sports equipment. The one thing they always agree on is how much fun they have together. But when things start to get in the way, can they make space for what has always sparked joy—each other?

A timeless story about friendship, sharing our strengths, and helping each other, Kiki & Jax will inspire children and families to tidy with kindness and make room for new experiences and joy together.

Joining her at her Live Talks Los Angeles event will be Salina Yoon, a Geisel Honor–winning author/illustrator of a dozen picture books and early readers and nearly 200 innovative novelty books for young readers. Yoon’s Penguin and Bear and Floppy picture book series have been featured in Kohl’s Cares and have sold around the world.

Moderator to be announced.

Mo Rocca with Adam Felber

Wednesday, November 13, 2019
8pm


Mo Rocca
in conversation with Adam Felber

discussing his book,
Mobituaries: Great Lives Worth Reliving


Aratani Theatre

Japanese American Cultural & Community Center
244 S. San Pedro Street
Downtown Los Angeles, CA 90012

PURCHASE TICKETS
$70 Premium Section (1st three rows) + book
$53  Reserved Orchestra Section + book
$43  Orchestra Section + book
$20  General Admission 

Mo Rocca is a correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning, host of The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation, and host and creator of the Cooking Channel’s My Grandmother’s Ravioli, in which he learns to cook from grandmothers and grandfathers across the country. He’s also a frequent panelist on NPR’s hit weekly quiz show Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me! Mo spent four seasons as a correspondent on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and four seasons as a correspondent on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Mo Rocca began his career in TV as a writer and producer for the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning PBS children’s series Wishbone. He went on to write and produce for other kids series, including ABC’s Pepper Ann and Nickelodeon’s The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss. Mo is the author of Mobituaries and All the Presidents’ Pets, a historical novel about White House pets and their role in presidential decision-making.

Adam Felber is a writer, actor, and radio personality, frequently heard as a panelist or guest host on NPR’s “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.” Notable credits include the novel “Schrödinger’s Ball” (Random House, 2006), “Skrull Kill Krew” (Marvel Comics, 2010), PBS’ “Wishbone” (where he first met Mo Rocca!) and – most recently – 11 seasons as a writer on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.” His new podcast, “Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone,” is totally great and should be a regular part of any sensible person’s commute.

Mobituaries: Great Lives Worth Reliving
Mo Rocca has always loved obituaries—reading about the remarkable lives of world leaders, captains of industry, innovators and artists. But not every notable life has gotten the send-off it deserves. With Mobituaries—the book companion to the CBS podcast of the same name—the journalist, humorist, and history buff is righting that wrong, profiling the people who have long fascinated him—from the 20th century’s greatest entertainer…to sitcom characters gone all too soon…to a shamefully forgotten Founding Father. Even if you know the names, you’ve never understood why they matter…until now.

In these pages, Rocca chronicles the stories of the people who made a difference, but whose lives—for some reason or another—were never truly examined. There’s Thomas Paine, whose Common Sense lit the fuse for the American Revolution—and whose paltry obit summed up his life thusly: “He had lived long, did some good, and much harm.” And then there’s screen icon Audrey Hepburn. She remains a household name, but how much do we know about her wartime upbringing and how it shaped the woman we fell in love with? And what about Billy Carter and history’s unruly presidential brothers? Were they ne’er-do-well liabilities…or secret weapons?

As a correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning and the host of The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation, Rocca is an expert researcher and storyteller. He draws on these skills here. With his rigorous reporting and trademark wit, Rocca brings these men and women splendidly back to life like no one else can. Mobituaries is an insightful and unconventional account of the people who made life worth living for the rest of us, one that asks us to think about who gets remembered, and why.

Yancey Strickler

Wednesday, November 13, 2019
7:45-8:15am   Continental Breakfast
8:15-9:15am   Talk followed by book signing


Morning Live Talks Business Forum with

Yancey Strickler
Co-founder of Kickstarter 

in conversation with
Ted Habte-Gabr,
Founder/Producer of Live Talks Los Angeles

discussing his book,
This Could Be Our Future:
A Manifesto for a More Generous World

Cross Campus–Downtown Los Angeles
800 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90017

PURCHASE TICKETS*
$42 General Admission section (includes book)
$20 General Admission section (on sale Sep 4, 10am)
* All tickets include continental breakfast from 7:45-8:15am)

Yancey Strickler is a writer and the cofounder and former CEO of Kickstarter, the Public Benefit Company that pioneered crowdfunding and has helped artists and creators bring more than 100,000 creative projects to life. (The New York Timeshas called Kickstarter “the people’s NEA.”) He left Kickstarter in 2017, and now travels the globe as an in-demand public speaker focused on recalibrating how individuals and businesses can better understand what’s valuable and in their rational self-interest. He is also a cofounder of the artist resource The Creative Independent, which publishes daily essays by artists and creators on the creative process. He previously worked as a music critic, writing for Pitchfork, The Village Voice, and Spin, among other outlets. He’s been profiled in Wired, Financial Times, The New York Times, New York Magazine, Forbes, and Vox and has given keynotes at SXSW, the Sundance Film Festival, Atlantic Ideas Festival, Techcrunch Disrupt, Web Summit, and more. He was one of Fortune’s 40 Under 40, on Vanity Fair‘s New Establishment list, and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. 

Yancey Strickler will be interviewed by Ted Habte-Gabr, Founder & Producer of Live Talks Los Angeles.

“In this wise, and sometimes bracing, manifesto, he reveals how hidden assumptions about what matters have coarsened our culture and corroded our values. Then shows how to create organizations and institutions built less on maximizing financial gain and more on family, faith, and sustainability. This book is the conversation starter our world needs.”— Daniel H. Pink,  bestselling author of When, Drive, and A Whole New Mind
 
“Yancey Strickler is convinced that our value system is broken. In this lucid book, he lays out a vision for how to fix it that’s both audacious and elevating. It’s a thought-provoking read for anyone who knows there’s more to life than accumulating wealth.” — Adam Grant, bestselling author of Give and Take, Originals, and coauthor of Option B

A vision for building a society that looks beyond money and toward maximizing the values that make life worth living, from the cofounder of Kickstarter.

Western society is trapped by three assumptions: 1) That the point of life is to maximize your self-interest and wealth, 2) That we’re individuals trapped in an adversarial world, and 3) That this is natural and inevitable. These ideas separate us, keep us powerless, and limit our imagination for the future. It’s time we replace them with something new.

This Could Be Our Future is about how we got here, and how we change course. While the pursuit of wealth has produced innovation and prosperity, it also established an implicit belief that the right choice in every decision is whichever option makes the most money. The answer isn’t to get rid of money; it’s to expand our concept of value. By assigning rational value to other values besides money–things like community, purpose, and sustainability–we can refocus our energies to build a society that’s generous, fair, and ready for the future. By recalibrating our definition of value, a world of scarcity can become a world of abundance.

Hopeful but firmly grounded, full of concrete solutions and bursting with creativity, This Could Be Our Future brilliantly dissects the world we live in and shows us a road map to the world we are capable of making.

Booker T. Jones with Scott Timberg

Tuesday, November 5, 2019
8:00pm 
 
Booker T. Jones
in conversation with Scott Timberg
 
discussing his memoir,
Time Is Tight: My Life, Note by Note

The Bootleg Theatre
2220 Beverly Blvd, 
Los Angeles, CA 90057

PURCHASE TICKETS
$45 General Admission seating + Book 
$55 Reserved Section seating + Book
$20 General Admission Seating (on sale Oct 4, 10am)

Booker T. Jones is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, record producer and arranger. Best known as the front man of the band Booker T. & the M.G.’s, He won a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement and along with the band, he was inducted into the Rock and  Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. He continues to record and tour both as a solo artist and as head of the “Booker T’s Stax Revue.

“I think of musicians as a brotherhood with a purpose, and our purpose is being realized right now, so if I have anything to say it’s about that: what music means to people, what we can give people with our work, whether they use it for pleasure or for spiritual events, weddings, or just living day-to-day. It’s about connecting to each other, understanding each other. I think you’re not ever completely alone out here if you’re connecting through music or art.” — Booker T. Jones

From Booker T. Jones’s earliest years in segregated Memphis, music was the driving force in his life. While he worked paper routes and played gigs in local nightclubs to pay for lessons and support his family, Jones, on the side, was also recording sessions in what became the famous Stax Studios-all while still in high school. Not long after, he would form the genre-defining group Booker T. and the MGs, whose recordings went on to sell millions of copies, win a place in Rolling Stone’s list of top 500 songs of all time, and help forge collaborations with some of the era’s most influential artists, including Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, and Sam & Dave. 

Time is Tight is the deeply moving account of how Jones balanced the brutality of the segregationist South with the loving support of his family and community, all while transforming a burgeoning studio into a musical mecca.  He shares about the inner workings of the Stax label, as well as a fascinating portrait of working with many of the era’s most legendary performers-Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, and Tom Jones, among them.

Scott Timberg is a Los Angeles-based arts and culture writer. A former Los Angeles Times and Salon staffer, he writes these days for The Los Angeles Review of Books, Los Angeles magazine, LMU Magazine, and the New York Times. He’s the author, most recently, of Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class (Yale University Press), and runs the accompanying ArtsJournal blog CultureCrash. He’s currently working on a book about the ’60 and folk rock with the musician Richard Thompson. Follow Timberg on Twitter at @TheMisreadCity. 

 

Christopher Kimball with Russ Parsons

Monday, November 4, 2019
8:00pm 
  

Christopher Kimball
in conversation with Russ Parsons

discussing his cookbook,
Milk Street, The New Rules:
Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook


William Turner Gallery
Bergamot Station Arts Center
2525 Michigan Avenue,
Santa Monica, CA 90404 

PURCHASE TICKETS
$50 General Admission Section + Book
$95 Reception (6:30-7:30pm) + Reserved Section Seat + book
$20 General Admission Section (on sale Oct 4, 10am)

Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street is located in downtown Boston–at 177 Milk Street–and is home to a cooking school, a bimonthly magazine, and public television and radio shows. They are the authors of Milk Street: The New Home Cooking, Milk Street: Tuesday Nights, which won both the IACP and James Beard Awards for General Cooking, and Milk Street: The New Rules.

“This clever collection of savory dishes illustrates 75 rules, such as using copious amounts of herbs to amp up flavor or incorporating mashed potatoes into dough for a tender crumb… offers dishes that feel modern and international… [a] generous and accessible volume… loaded with information on ingredients… and countless useful tips. Plenty of I-never-thought-of-that-moments fill this enticing and instructive book.―Publishers Weekly

Transform your cooking with this playbook of new flavors, new recipes, and new techniques: Milk Street’s New Rules, a playbook of 200 game-changing recipes, each driven by a simple but powerful tip, trick, or technique.
 
This revelatory new book from James Beard Award-winning author Christopher Kimball defines 75 new rules of cooking that will dramatically simplify your time in the kitchen and improve your results. These powerful principles appear in more than 200 recipes that teach you how to make your food more delicious and interesting, like:
  • Charred Broccoli with Japanese-Style Toasted Sesame Sauce (Rule No. 9: Beat Bitterness by Charring)
  • Lentils with Swiss Chard and Pomegranate Molasses (Rule No. 18: Don’t Let Neutral Ingredients Stand Alone)
  • Bucatini Pasta with Cherry Tomatoes and Fresh Sage (Rule No. 23: Get Bigger Flavor from Supermarket Tomatoes)
  • Soft-Cooked Eggs with Coconut, Tomatoes, and Spinach (Rule No. 39: Steam, Don’t Boil, Your Eggs)
  • Pan-Seared Salmon with Red Chili-Walnut Sauce (Rule No. 44: Stick with Single-Sided Searing)
  • Curry-Coconut Pot Roast (Rule No. 67: Use Less Liquid for More Flavor)

You’ll also learn how to:

  • Tenderize tough greens quickly
  • Create creamy textures without using dairy
  • Incorporate yogurt into baked goods
  • Trade time-consuming marinades for quick, bright finishing sauces, and more
The New Rules are simpler techniques, fresher flavors, and trustworthy recipes that just work–a book full of lessons that will make you a better cook.

Russ Parsons was the food editor and columnist of the Los Angeles Times for more than 25 years. He has been writing about food for more than 30 years and is the author of the cookbooks How to Read a French Fry, and How to Pick a Peach.  He is a member of the James Beard Foundation’s Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in America, the hall of fame of the food world. In addition, he has won every major American food journalism award, including those from the International Association of Culinary Professionals the Association of Food Journalists, and the James Beard Foundation. How to Read a French Fry was a finalist for two Julia Child cookbook awards. How to Pick a Peach was named one of the best 100 books of the year by both Publisher’s Weekly and Amazon.

 
 

John Hodgman with Aimee Mann

Thursday, October 24, 2019
8pm


John Hodgman
in conversation with Aimee Mann

discussing his book,
Medallion Status:
True Stories from Secret Rooms

Aratani Theatre
Japanese American Cultural & Community Center
244 S. San Pedro Street
Downtown Los Angeles, CA 90012

PURCHASE TICKETS
$50.00
 Reserved Section  (includes book)*
$40.00 General Admission Section  (includes book)*
$20.00 General Admission Section (on sale Sept 24, 10am)

John Hodgman is a writer, comedian, and actor. He is the author of The Areas of My Expertise, More Information Than You Require, That Is All, and Vacationland. He is the host of the popular Judge John Hodgman podcast and also contributes a weekly column under the same name for The New York Times Magazine.

“I love everything about this hilarious book except the font size. . . . Can a fella get a 16-point Helvetica up in this thing?”—Jon Stewart

After spending most of his twenties pursuing a career as a literary agent, John Hodgman decided to try his own hand at writing. Following an appearance to promote one of his books on The Daily Show, he was invited to return as a contributor. This led to an unexpected and, frankly, implausible career in front of the camera that has lasted to this very day, or at least until 2016.

In these pages, Hodgman explores the strangeness of his career, speaking plainly of fame, especially at the weird, marginal level he enjoyed it. Through these stories you will learn many things that only John Hodgman knows, such as how to prepare for a nude scene with an oboe, or what it feels like to go to a Hollywood party and realize that you are not nearly as famous as the Property Brothers, or, for that matter, those two famous corgis from Instagram. And there are stories about how, when your television gig is canceled, you can console yourself with the fact that all of that travel that made your young son so sad at least left you with a prize: platinum medallion status with your airline.

Both unflinchingly funny and deeply heartfelt, Medallion Status is a thoughtful examination of status, fame, and identity–and about the way we all deal with those moments when we realize we aren’t platinum status anymore and will have to get comfortable in that middle seat again.

Aimee Mann’s solo career has spanned several decades with several Grammy nominations, two Grammy award and the release of nine critically acclaimed solo albums, including the profoundly popular soundtrack for the film Magnolia, which garnered an Academy Award and Golden Globe nomination for Best Song in 2000.  Time magazine has said, “Mann has the same skill that great tunesmiths like McCartney and Neil Young have: the knack for writing simple, beautiful, instantly engaging songs, ” while NPR voted her one of the “TOP 10 Best Living Songwriters” along with Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen. Her latest release is called “Mental Illness” which won her a Grammy for Best Folk Album. 

Earlier in her musical life, Mann fronted the band “Til Tuesday”, releasing three albums. She has also made numerous memorable cameo appearances in films such as The Big Lebowski and TV shows like Portlandia and The Daily Show. Visit her website.