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Sir Michael Caine, at Live Talks Oct 28. Interview…
Sir Michael Caine will be at Live Talks on Oct 28 at Zipper Hall at The Colburn School, downtown Los Angeles. He will be discussing his new memoir, The Elephant to Hollywood. The Telegraph in the UK has a nice interview with Caine on his upcoming book. Here’s an excerpt that explains the title of the book:
“The title of his new autobiography is The Elephant to Hollywood, the elephant being The Elephant and Castle in south London, which was pretty much a slum when Maurice Micklewhite, as he then was, grew up there. If success is measured by how far you travel in a lifetime, physically and metaphorically, then his journey from Maurice to Michael, from the Elephant to Hollywood, makes him one of the most successful actors in history.”
Dave Barry asks P.J. O’Rourke about communism, khaki pants
We asked Dave Barry who spoke at Live Talks back in May for a couple questions to ask P. J. O’Rourke who appears this week, October 7 at Track 16. Dave’s questions were on communism and khaki pants. Get your tickets, and join us as we support Reading to Kids.
We like Robert Reich’s sense of humor — skit with Conan O’Brien..
We are half tempted to play this video before our Live Talks event with Robert Reich on Sept 29. He has a great sense of humor….
Robert Reich (at Live Talks on Sept 29) book review and excerpt…
Reich’s book, Aftershock, is reviewed in today’s NYT. Also in today’s NYT are excerpts from the book. Noted from the review:
— Caught between rising aspirations and stagnant wages, Reich says, middle-class Americans have gone through a series of coping mechanisms. First, women joined the workforce, giving families a second income. Then husbands and wives put in longer shifts, creating a species of family called DINS — “double income, no sex.” Finally, families went into debt. In this sense, inequality helped to stoke the credit bubble…..
–Now that the bubble has burst, these coping mechanisms are exhausted. Americans are not going to push their working hours up even more……Nor are Americans going to incur more debts; to the contrary, the credit bust has forced them to pay down their balances. And so, as Reich puts it, Americans will “face a necessity they have managed to avoid for decades: They have to make do with less.”
–Reich concludes with a wish list of reforms that might head off such a confrontation. He wants a more progressive income tax, including negative taxes for anyone earning below $50,000. He wants a top income-tax rate of 55 percent, with the kicker that income from capital gains, now taxed at 15 percent, would face the same rate as income from salaries. He wants wage insurance — temporary compensation for workers who take big pay cuts when they shift jobs — as well as investments that make public transportation and Medicare more available.
Join us on Sept 29 at Zipper Hall at The Colburn School with Robert Reich in conversation with Kai Ryssdal..
Robert Reich video: Good preview to Sept 29 event
Ken Follett: Book excerpt
An excerpt from Ken Follett’s Fall of Giants from the Wall Street Journal. Join us for a special evening with Ken Follett on September 30 at Zipper Hall at The Colburn School. Like all Live Talks events, the ticket proceeds support different causes. The Follett event supports the West Hollywood Library Fund which is building an impressive new facility — Library Park — that will also include a community cultural center. It all opens in late 2011. Check out the project and support the cause, and enjoy an evening with Ken Follett.