Events
Madeleine Albright with Larry Wilmore
Wednesday, February 6, 2019
8pm
Madeleine Albright
in conversation with Larry Wilmore
discussing her book,
Fascism: A Warning
Frost Auditorium
4401 Elenda St,
Culver City, CA 90230
PURCHASE TICKETS
$42 General Admission Section Seat + signed book
$25 General Admission Seats
$100 Pre-Reception (6:30-7:30pm) Reserved Section Seat + Signed Book
Madeleine Albright served as America’s sixty-fourth secretary of state from 1997 to 2001, and the first woman to serve in this capacity. She is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Madam Secretary, The Mighty and the Almighty, Memo to the President, and Read My Pins. She was the 64th U.S. secretary of state, serving from 1997 to 2001. Her distinguished career of public service includes positions in the National Security Council, as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and on Capitol Hill.
“Why, as Madeleine Albright asks early in her new book, ‘are we once again talking about fascism?’ Who better to address these questions than Albright, whose life was shaped by fascism and whose contribution to the cultivation of democracy as a stateswoman and private citizen is unparalleled? In Fascism: A Warning Albright (with Bill Woodward) draws on her personal history, government experience and conversations with Georgetown students to assess current dangers and how to deal with them.” (New York Times)
A Fascist, observes Madeleine Albright, “is someone who claims to speak for a whole nation or group, is utterly unconcerned with the rights of others, and is willing to use violence and whatever other means are necessary to achieve the goals he or she might have.”
The twentieth century was defined by the clash between democracy and Fascism, a struggle that created uncertainty about the survival of human freedom and left millions dead. Given the horrors of that experience, one might expect the world to reject the spiritual successors to Hitler and Mussolini should they arise in our era. In Fascism: A Warning, Madeleine Albright draws on her experiences as a child in war-torn Europe and her distinguished career as a diplomat to question that assumption.
Fascism, as she shows, not only endured through the twentieth century but now presents a more virulent threat to peace and justice than at any time since the end of World War II. The momentum toward democracy that swept the world when the Berlin Wall fell has gone into reverse. The United States, which historically championed the free world, is led by a president who exacerbates division and heaps scorn on democratic institutions. In many countries, economic, technological, and cultural factors are weakening the political center and empowering the extremes of right and left. Contemporary leaders such as Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un are employing many of the tactics used by Fascists in the 1920s and 30s.
Fascism: A Warning is a book for our times that is relevant to all times. Written by someone who has not only studied history but helped to shape it, this call to arms teaches us the lessons we must understand and the questions we must answer if we are to save ourselves from repeating the tragic errors of the past.
Emmy Award winner Larry Wilmore has been a television producer, actor, comedian, and writer for more than 25 years. He can currently be heard as host of Larry Wilmore: Black on the Air on The Ringer Podcast Network. The show features Wilmore’s unique mix of humor and wit as he weighs in on the issues of the week and interviews guests in the worlds of politics, entertainment, culture, sports, and beyond.
Wilmore is perhaps best known for his role as host of Comedy Central’s The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, which debuted in January 2015 and ran for nearly two years. Off-screen, Wilmore serves as co-creator and consulting producer on HBO’s Insecure, a half-hour comedy series starring Issa Rae that details the awkward experiences and racy tribulations of a modern-day African-American woman. Wilmore also helped to launch ABC’s Black-ish as an executive producer.
Previously, Wilmore made memorable appearances as the “Senior Black Correspondent” on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and hosted his own Showtime “town hall”-style comedy specials, Larry Wilmore’s Race, Religion & Sex. He has written for In Living Color, The PJ’s (which he co-created), The Office (on which he has appeared as Mr. Brown, the diversity consultant), and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. He also served as creator, writer, and executive
producer of The Bernie Mac Show, which earned him a 2002 Emmy Award for “Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series” and a 2001 Peabody Award.
In April 2016, Wilmore hosted the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in Washington, DC. His first book, I’d Rather We Got Casinos and Other Black Thoughts, in January 2009.
Jason Rezaian with Maz Jobrani
Thursday, January 31, 2019
8pm
Jason Rezaian
in conversation with Maz Jobrani
discussing his book,
Prisoner: My 544 Days in an Iranian Prison—Solitary Confinement, a Sham Trial, High-Stakes Diplomacy, and the Extraordinary Efforts It Took to Get Me Out
Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
3131 Olympic Blvd.,
Santa Monica, CA 90404
This event is part of our Newer Voices Series.
General Admission tickets are complimentary, but we encourage you to support these newer authors and purchase their books.
PURCHASE TICKETS/RESERVE
>>> Pre-purchasing the book includes a Two Reserved Seats ($30)
The dramatic memoir of the journalist who was held hostage in a high-security prison in Tehran for eighteen months and whose release—which almost didn’t happen—became a part of the Iran nuclear deal
Jason Rezaian served as Tehran bureau chief for the Washington Post and is now an opinion writer for the paper and contributor to CNN. He was convicted—but never sentenced—of espionage in a closed-door trial in Iran in 2015. He lives in Washington, DC, with his wife.
“A deeply personal account of one journalist’s determination to find and report the truth, his fervent commitment to a free press, and his even more profound love for the family from whom he was separated.” (John F. Kerry, 68th Secretary of State)
“An important story. Harrowing, and suspenseful, yes—but it’s also a deep dive into a complex and egregiously misunderstood country with two very different faces. There is no better time to know more about Iran—and Jason Rezaian has seen both of those faces.” (Anthony Bourdain)
“Reading this book opened my eyes to how unfairly he had been treated by the Iranian government and how love, humor and resilience got him through. This book is a reminder of the people who sacrifice their freedoms and their lives to bring us the truth.” (Maz Jobrani)
In July 2014, Washington Post Tehran bureau chief Jason Rezaian was arrested by Iranian police, accused of spying for America. The charges were absurd. Rezaian’s reporting was a mix of human interest stories and political analysis. He had even served as a guide for Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown. Initially, Rezaian thought the whole thing was a terrible misunderstanding, but soon realized that it was much more dire as it became an eighteen-month prison stint with impossibly high diplomatic stakes.
While in prison, Rezaian had tireless advocates working on his behalf. His brother lobbied political heavyweights including John Kerry and Barack Obama and started a social media campaign—#FreeJason—while Jason’s wife navigated the red tape of the Iranian security apparatus, all while the courts used Rezaian as a bargaining chip in negotiations for the Iran nuclear deal.
In Prisoner, Rezaian writes of his exhausting interrogations and farcical trial. He also reflects on his idyllic childhood in Northern California and his bond with his Iranian father, a rug merchant; how his teacher Christopher Hitchens inspired him to pursue journalism; and his life-changing decision to move to Tehran, where his career took off and he met his wife. Written with wit, humor, and grace, Prisoner brings to life a fascinating, maddening culture in all its complexity.
Maz J0brani’s first original NETFLIX standup special Immigrant was filmed at the Kennedy Center and is currently available for streaming. He has also put out 3 other solo specials on SHOWTIME including: Brown and Friendly, I Come in Peace, and I’m Not a Terrorist, But I’ve Played One on TV. In the Spring of 2016 he performed at the White House where he had the privilege of introducing Michelle Obama. He was a founding member of The Axis of Evil Comedy Tour, which aired on Comedy Central. Maz starred as the title character in the award-winning indie comedy, Jimmy Vestvood Amerikan Hero, a film which he co-wrote and co-produced and is now available on all major outlets online. He has co-starred in many films including Disney’s, Descendants, Sydney Pollack’s The Interpreter and Ice Cube’s Friday After Next. With over 50 guest star appearances, Maz can regularly be seen on television’s most popular shows. Guest stars include Grey’s Anatomy, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Shameless. He is a regular panelist on NPR’s Wait Wait Don’s Tell Me and has given 2 TED Talks. He is the author of I’m Not a Terrorist But I’ve Played One on TV. He was executive producer of Everything Must Change, a documentary about his sister’s battle with breast cancer which is currently available on iTunes.
Marc Freedman with Michael Eisner
Thursday, January 24, 2019
8pm
Marc Freedman
in conversation with Michael Eisner
discussing his book,
How to Live Forever:
The Enduring Power of Connecting the Generations
Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
3131 Olympic Blvd.,
Santa Monica, CA 90404
PURCHASE TICKETS
$53.00 Reserved Section + Book
$43.00 General Admission section + Book
$20.00 General Admission section
The secret to happiness, longevity, and living on is through mentoring the next generation
Marc Freedman is CEO and president of Encore.org, an organization he founded in 1998. Freedman is a member of the Wall Street Journal‘s “Experts” group, a frequent commentator in the national media, and the author of four previous books.
Originator of the encore career idea linking second acts to the greater good, Freedman cofounded Experience Corps to mobilize people over fifty to improve the school performance and prospects of low-income elementary school students in twenty-two US cities. He also spearheaded the creation of the Encore Fellowships program, a one-year fellowship helping individuals translate their midlife skills into second acts focused on social impact, and the Purpose Prize, an annual $100,000 prize for social entrepreneurs in the second half of life. (AARP now runs both Experience Corps and the Purpose Prize.)
Freedman was named Social Entrepreneur of the Year by the World Economic Forum and the Schwab Foundation, was recognized as one of the nation’s leading social entrepreneurs by Fast Company magazine three years in a row, and has been honored with the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. He has been a visiting fellow at Stanford University, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and King’s College, University of London. Freedman serves or has served on the boards and advisory councils of numerous groups, including the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, the Stanford University Distinguished Careers Institute, the Milken Institute’s Center for the Future of Aging, and the EnCorps STEM Teachers Program.
A high honors graduate of Swarthmore College, with an MBA from the Yale School of Management, Freedman lives in the San Francisco Bay area with his wife, Leslie Gray, and their three sons.
For four decades, Michael Eisner has been a leader in the American entertainment industry. He began his career at ABC and became president of Paramount Pictures in 1976. In 1984, Michael assumed the position of Chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company and transformed it from a film and theme park company into a global media empire. In 2005, Michael founded The Tornante Company, a privately held media & entertainment holding company. Today Tornante owns Topps, Inc., Portsmouth Football Club in England, and has a large and growing television division, including ownership of BoJack Horseman. He and his wife, Jane, founded The Eisner Foundation in 1996, which supports intergenerational programming in Los Angeles County. The Eisner Foundation has been a longtime supporter of Marc Freedman and Encore.org, and in 2018 awarded him and his organization the Eisner Prize for Intergenerational Excellence.
In How to Live Forever, Freedman tells the story of his thirty-year quest to answer some of contemporary life’s most urgent questions: With so many living so much longer, what is the meaning of the increasing years beyond 50? How can a society with more older people than younger ones thrive? How do we find happiness when we know life is long and time is short?
In a poignant book that defies categorization, Freedman finds insights by exploring purpose and generativity, digging into the drive for longevity and the perils of age segregation, and talking to social innovators across the globe bringing the generations together for mutual benefit. He finds wisdom in stories from young and old, featuring ordinary people and icons like jazz great Clark Terry and basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
But the answers also come from stories of Freedman’s own mentors-a sawmill worker turned surrogate grandparent, a university administrator who served as Einstein’s driver, a cabinet secretary who won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the gym teacher who was Freedman’s father.
How to Live Forever is a deeply personal call to find fulfillment and happiness in our longer lives by connecting with the next generation and forging a legacy of love that lives beyond us.
Steven Pinker with Terrence McNally
Wednesday, January 16, 2019
8pm
Steven Pinker
in conversation with Terrence McNally
discussing his book,
Enlightenment Now:
The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
Aratani Theatre
Japanese American Cultural & Community Center
244 S. San Pedro Street
Downtown Los Angeles, CA 90012
PURCHASE TICKETS
$65 first four rows (includes book)
$45 orchestra section (includes book)
$35 balcony section (includes book)
Steven Pinker is an experimental cognitive scientist and one of the world’s foremost writers on language, mind, and human nature. He is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. His earlier books include The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Better Angels of Our Nature, and The Sense of Style. He is Chair of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, and often writes for The New York Times, Time, and other publications. He is an elected Member of the National Academy of Sciences, and has been named Humanist of the Year, Prospect magazine’s “The World’s Top 100 Public Intellectuals,” Foreign Policy’s “100 Global Thinkers,” and Time magazine’s “The 100 Most Influential People in the World Today.”
“The world is getting better, even if it doesn’t always feel that way. I’m glad we have brilliant thinkers like Steven Pinker to help us see the big picture. Enlightenment Now is not only the best book Pinker’s ever written. It’s my new favorite book of all time.”—Bill Gates
If you think the world is coming to an end, think again: people are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, the solutions lie in the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science.
Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing.
Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature–tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking–which demagogues are all too willing to exploit. Many commentators, committed to political, religious, or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation.
With intellectual depth and literary flair, Enlightenment Now makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress.
Terrence McNally is a communications consultant who helps organizations tell better stories. You may recognize him as the longtime host of Free Forum on KPFK. He now hosts a weekly interview show on the Progressive Voices Network on TuneIn and a monthly podcast for a science institute at Harvard. All his podcasts can be found at iTunes and TerrenceMcNally.net
Sally Field
An Evening with
Sally Field
In Pieces
Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
Herb Alpert Educational Village
3131 Olympic Blvd.,
Santa Monica, CA 90404
This event is sold out.
Video will be posted a week after the event.
Sally Field is a two-time Academy Award and three-time Emmy Award winning actor who has portrayed dozens of iconic roles on both the large and small screens. In 2012, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2015 she was honored by President Obama with the National Medal of Arts. She has served on the Board of Directors of Vital Voices since 2002 and also served on the Board of The Sundance Institute from 1994 to 2010.
Chip Conley with Lisa Napoli
Chip Conley
in conversation with Lisa Napoli
Wisdom @ Work: The Making of a Modern Elder
Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
Herb Alpert Educational Village
3131 Olympic Blvd.,
Santa Monica, CA 90404
PURCHASE TICKETS
$95 Reception + Book + Reserved Seat
$55 Reserved Section Seat + Book
$45 General Admission Seat + Book
$20 General Admission Section Seat
Experience is making a comeback. Learn how to repurpose your wisdom.
Bestselling author and hospitality entrepreneur Chip Conley is Strategic Advisor at Airbnb. At age 26, he founded Joie de Vivre Hospitality and turned it into the second largest boutique hotel brand in the world. After selling his company in 2010, he joined Airbnb, and as head of Global Hospitality and Strategy, helped turn it into the world’s largest hospitality brand. Conley has received hospitality’s highest honor, the Pioneer Award. He serves on the boards of the Burning Man Project and the Esalen Institute and is the author of Peak and the New York Times bestseller Emotional Equations. He holds a BA and MBA from Stanford University.
“Chip Conley embodies the generosity, insight and spirit of an elder. He understands that it’s not an age, it’s a state of mind, and he shares his wisdom here with all of us. Precisely the sort of long-game thinking we need today.” -Seth Godin, Co-author, Business Rules of Thumb
At age 52, after selling the company he founded and ran as CEO for 24 years, rebel boutique hotelier Chip Conley was looking at an open horizon in midlife. Then he received a call from the young founders of Airbnb, asking him to help grow their disruptive start-up into a global hospitality giant. He had the industry experience, but Conley was lacking in the digital fluency of his 20-something colleagues. He didn’t write code, or have an Uber or Lyft app on his phone, was twice the age of the average Airbnb employee, and would be reporting to a CEO young enough to be his son. Conley quickly discovered that while he’d been hired as a teacher and mentor, he was also in many ways a student and intern. What emerged is the secret to thriving as a mid-life worker: learning to marry wisdom and experience with curiosity, a beginner’s mind, and a willingness to evolve, all hallmarks of the “Modern Elder.”
In a world that venerates the new, bright, and shiny, many of us are left feeling invisible, undervalued, and threatened by the “digital natives” nipping at our heels. But Conley argues that experience is on the brink of a comeback. Because at a time when power is shifting younger, companies are finally waking up to the value of the humility, emotional intelligence, and wisdom that come with age. And while digital skills might have only the shelf life of the latest fad or gadget, the human skills that mid-career workers possess–like good judgment, specialized knowledge, and the ability to collaborate and coach – never expire.
Part manifesto and part playbook, Wisdom@Work ignites an urgent conversation about ageism in the workplace, calling on us to treat age as we would other type of diversity. In the process, Conley liberates the term “elder” from the stigma of “elderly,” and inspires us to embrace wisdom as a path to growing whole, not old. Whether you’ve been forced to make a mid-career change, are choosing to work past retirement age, or are struggling to keep up with the millennials rising up the ranks, Wisdom@Work will help you write your next chapter.
Lisa Napoli is the creator and host of the podcast, Gracefully: Your field guide to growing old. A career journalist who has worked for the New York Times, MSNBC, and public radio’s Marketplace, she’s also the author of two books, Ray & Joan and Radio Shangri-la.