Events
Chris Hughes
8pm
Co-founder, Facebook
co-founder of the Economic Security Project
Fair Shot: Rethinking Inequality and How We Earn
Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
Herb Alpert Educational Village
3131 Olympic Blvd.,
Santa Monica, CA
PURCHASE TICKETS
$40 Reserved Section Seat + Book
$20 General Admission Seat
$30 Reserved Section Seat
Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes makes the case that one percenters like him should pay their fortune forward in a radically simple way: a guaranteed income for working people.
Chris Hughes is the co-founder of the Economic Security Project, a network of policymakers, academics, and technologists working to end poverty and rebuild the middle class through a guaranteed income. He co-founded Facebook as a student at Harvard and later led Barack Obama’s digital organizing campaign for President. Hughes was the owner and publisher of The New Republic magazine from 2012 to 2016.
“I admire Chris’s commitment to apply his talent, experience, and wealth to tackle some of our toughest problems.” ―Bill Gates
“America was never a meritocracy, but the belief that it was fueled the American Dream and maintained social peace. Now the gig is up. Massive wealth is in the hands of a small number of people lucky enough to have been at the right places and times to grab it, while most Americans are going nowhere and can’t even rely on a steady income. What’s the answer? In this thoughtful book, Chris Hughes―one of the lucky ones―explains why we need a guaranteed income, and how his life experiences have brought him to this conclusion. He makes a powerful and compelling argument that should be at the center of the national economic debate.” ―Robert Reich, former US Secretary of Labor and author of the national bestseller Saving Capitalism
The first half of Chris Hughes’ life played like a movie reel right out of the “American Dream.” He grew up in a small town in North Carolina. His parents were people of modest means, but he was accepted into an elite boarding school and then Harvard, both on scholarship. There, he met Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz and became one of the co-founders of Facebook.
In telling his story, Hughes demonstrates the powerful role fortune and luck play in today’s economy. Through the rocket ship rise of Facebook, Hughes came to understand how a select few can become ultra-wealthy nearly overnight. He believes the same forces that made Facebook possible have made it harder for everyone else in America to make ends meet.
To help people who are struggling, Hughes proposes a simple, bold solution: a guaranteed income for working people, including unpaid caregivers and students, paid for by the one percent. The way Hughes sees it, a guaranteed income is the most powerful tool we have to combat poverty and stabilize America’s middle class. Money―cold hard cash with no strings attached―gives people freedom, dignity, and the ability to climb the economic ladder.
A guaranteed income for working people is the big idea that’s missing in the national conversation. This book, grounded in Hughes’ personal experience, will start a frank conversation about how we earn in modern America, how we can combat income inequality, and ultimately, how we can give everyone a fair shot.
Mike Epps with John Salley
8pm
Mike Epps
in conversation with John Salley
Unsuccessful Thug: One Comedian’s Journey from Naptown to Tinseltown
Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
Herb Alpert Educational Village
3131 Olympic Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90404
PURCHASE TICKETS
$45 General Admission Seat + a copy of Unsuccessful Thug
$55 Reserved Section Seat + a copy of Unsuccessful Thug
$20 General Admission Seat
From Naptown to Tinseltown—legendary stand-up comedian and actor Mike Epps finally tells all in this outrageous, hilarious, no-holds-barred memoir.
Mike Epps is a stand-up comedian playing clubs, theaters, and arenas worldwide. He is also an actor, film producer, writer, and rapper. He has appeared in the cult hits Next Friday, Friday After Next and All About the Benjamins. Other features include The Hangover franchise, Faster, Hancock, Lottery Ticket, Next Day Air, Roll Bounce, The Fighting Temptations, the Resident Evil franchise, Bait, How High, Dr. Dolittle 2, Talk to Me and Guess Who? He has also starred as the title character in the ABC series Uncle Buck and appeared on the Starz series Survivors Remorse.
Before starring in Def Comedy Jam and Showtime at the Apollo—before the sold-out comedy shows, Uncle Buck, and becoming his hero Richard Pryor in a biopic—there was Indianapolis. And not the good part. Mike Epps is one of America’s favorite and funniest people, but the path to fame was paved with opportunities to mess it up. And mess it up he did.
Growing up in “Naptown”—what people who live there really call rough-around-the-edges Indianapolis—Epps found himself forced to hustle from an early age. Despite his mother’s best efforts, and the love of his well-behaved brother, “Chaney,” and his beloved sister, Julie, Epps was drawn to a life of crime, but as he quickly discovered, stealing and dealing didn’t really fit his sweet sensibilities. Not to mention he wasn’t very good at it—take, for example, the day he had to call the cops on himself when a dog wouldn’t let him leave a house he was burgling. After several arrests and more than a few months in jail, Epps finally realized that he was an unsuccessful thug, and instead turned to the next most obvious career path: stand-up comedy.
Heading first to New York, then all over the country, and finally to Hollywood, Mike Epps carved out a unique place in American comedy, combining hysterical tales of his family and friends with a mordant take on life in the Naptowns of America. Comedy saved Mike Epps, and here he reveals exactly how he finally grew up and got out, barely. And when describing how he survived when so many of his friends didn’t, Epps makes clear what he’s thankful for and sorry about. Unsuccessful Thug is about growing up black in America, facing down racism in Hollywood, and ultimately how it feels to fail at thugdom, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, and end up selling out arenas and starring in movies across the country.
John Salley played basketball at Georgia Tech and from there went on to become a 15-year NBA veteran and was the first NBA player to win four championships with three different teams — the Detoit Pistons, Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers. Since retiring from the NBA, he has worked in television, film and radio. Film credits include Bad Boys 1 & 2, Eddieand Confession of a Shopaholic. John has served as host for numerous award shows and was also the host of The John Salley Block Party on 100.3 The Beat Morning Show in Los Angeles. John recently hosted the Reunion Shows of VH-1’s #1 rated show, Basketball Wives. For 7 years he was co-host of The Best Damn Sports Show Period on Fox Sports Net. He was also the host of the sports talk show Ballers on BET and Game On! airing on The Reelz Channel. Visit his website.
Richard Powers with Scott Timberg
8pm
in conversation with Scott Timberg
The Overstory
Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
Herb Alpert Educational Village
3131 Olympic Blvd.,
Santa Monica, CA
PURCHASE TICKETS
$45 Reserved Section Seat + Book
$20 General Admission Seat
$30 Reserved Section Seat
Richard Powers is the author of twelve novels, most recently Orfeo. He is the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” grant and the National Book Award, and he has been a Pulitzer Prize and four-time National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. He lives in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains.
“If Powers were an American writer of the nineteenth century, which writer would he be? He’d probably be the Herman Melville of Moby-Dick. His picture is that big.” —Margaret Atwood
“This book is beyond special. Richard Powers manages to turn trees into vivid and engaging characters, something that indigenous people have done for eons but that modern literature has rarely if ever even attempted. It’s not just a completely absorbing, even overwhelming book; it’s a kind of breakthrough in the ways we think about and understand the world around us, at a moment when that is desperately needed.”—Bill McKibben
An Air Force loadmaster in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan. An artist inherits a hundred years of photographic portraits, all of the same doomed American chestnut. A hard-partying undergraduate in the late 1980s electrocutes herself, dies, and is sent back into life by creatures of air and light. A hearing- and speech-impaired scientist discovers that trees are communicating with one another. These four, and five other strangers―each summoned in different ways by trees―are brought together in a last and violent stand to save the continent’s few remaining acres of virgin forest.
In his twelfth novel, National Book Award winner Richard Powers delivers a sweeping, impassioned novel of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of―and paean to―the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, The Overstory unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond, exploring the essential conflict on this planet: the one taking place between humans and nonhumans. There is a world alongside ours―vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.
The Overstory is a book for all readers who despair of humanity’s self-imposed separation from the rest of creation and who hope for the transformative, regenerating possibility of a homecoming. If the trees of this earth could speak, what would they tell us? “Listen. There’s something you need to hear.”
Questlove with Fred Armisen and Joel Stein
Sunday, April 22, 2018
4pm
Questlove
in conversation with Fred Armisen and Joel Stein
discussing his new book,
Creative Quest
Aratani Theatre
Japanese American Cultural & Community Center
244 S. San Pedro Street
Downtown Los Angeles, CA 90012
PURCHASE TICKETS
$80 First 5 Rows + a copy of Creative Quest
$55 Orchestra Section Seat + a copy of Creative Quest
$45 Balcony Section Seat + a copy of Creative Quest
$25 Balcony Section
* Seating is on a first come basis in each section
Drummer, DJ, producer, culinary entrepreneur, New York Times best-selling author, and member of The Roots — Questlove is the unmistakable heartbeat of Philadelphia’s most influential hip-hop group. He is the Musical Director for “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” where his beloved Roots crew serves as house band. Beyond that, this 4-time GRAMMY Award winning musician’s indisputable reputation has landed him musical directing positions with everyone from D’Angelo to Eminem to Jay-Z. Questlove has also released three books including the New York Times bestseller “Mo’ Meta Blues,” “Soul Train: The Music, Dance and Style of a Generation” and most recently the James Beard-nominated “somethingtofoodabout,” and his new book “Creative Quest” will be released in April of 2018. One of his latest endeavors has been becoming a strategic advisor, and the first artist ambassador for Pandora, as well as hosting a new series “Questlove Supreme.” He also co-produced the GRAMMY Award winning Original Broadway Cast Recording of “Hamilton.” Most recently, Questlove and The Roots announced that they are developing an animated children’s series, along with a live action children series, in partnership with Amazon. Questlove is a Celebrity Ambassador for Food Bank For New York City, is on City Harvest’s Food Council, a board member of Edible Schoolyard, and the first Artist-in-Residence at the Made in NY Media Center. Questlove is also a Founding Member of the CAPA Foundation in Philadelphia. Additionally, Questlove and Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter wrote a new original song “It Ain’t Fair” for the critically acclaimed motion picture “Detroit,” directed by Academy Award-winner Kathryn Bigelow. The song is performed by The Roots and Bilal.
In Creative Quest, Questlove synthesizes all the creative philosophies, lessons and stories he’s heard from the many creators and collaborators in his life. He also reflects on his own experience, to advise readers and fans on how to consider creativity and where to find it. Whether discussing his own life or channeling the lessons he’s learned from forefathers such as George Clinton, collaborators like D’Angelo, or like-minded artists including Ava DuVernay, David Byrne, Björk, and others, Questlove speaks with the candor and enthusiasm that fans have come to expect. “Creative Quest” is many things—above all, a wise and wide-ranging conversation around the eternal mystery of creativity.
Fred Armisen is an American actor, voice artist, screenwriter, producer, director, singer, musician, and comedian. Widely known as a cast member on ”Saturday Night Live” from 2002 until 2013, Armisen has portrayed characters in comedy films, including ”EuroTrip”, ”Anchorman”, and ”Cop Out”. With his comedy partner Carrie Brownstein, Armisen is the co-creator and co-star of the IFC sketch comedy series ”Portlandia”. Armisen founded ThunderAnt.com, a website that features the comedy sketches created with Brownstein, and is the bandleader for the ”Late Night with Seth Meyers” house band, The 8G Band. For his work on ”Portlandia”, Armisen was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series in 2012, 2013 and 2014 and for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 2014. He has also won two Peabody Awards, one in 2008 as part of the ”Saturday Night Live” political satire cast and one in 2011 for ”Portlandia”.
Joel Stein is one of the pre-eminent moderators in the country, having moderated more than 1,600 events including the SALT II, Appomattox and the first time his parents had to see each other after their divorce. He was been nominated for two Moddies for Best Moderator In An Entertainment Beef (non-hip hop).
He wrote a sophomoric humor column in Time magazine for 20 years, along with 16 cover stories and many stories far away from the cover. He’s has contributed to The New Yorker, GQ, Esquire, Details, Food & Wine, Travel & Leisure, Businessweek and many magazines that have gone out of business. He has appeared as a talking head on any TV show that asks him, taught a class in humor writing at Princeton, and wrote a weekly column for the back page of Entertainment Weekly and the opinion section of the Los Angeles Times. This is the most he’s ever written in third person.
Nigella Lawson with Russ Parsons
8pm (Reception: 6:30-7:30pm)
Nigella Lawson
in conversation with Russ Parsons
At My Table:
A Celebration of Home Cooking
Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
Herb Alpert Educational Village
3131 Olympic Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90404
PURCHASE TICKETS
$50 Reserved Section Section + Book
$95 Reception (6:30-7:30pm) + Reserved Section Seat + Book
$20 General Admission Seat
$30 Reserved Section Seat
Nigella Lawson, food enthusiast, television personality, and journalist, has written ten bestselling cook books including the classics How to Eat, Feast, and How To Be A Domestic Goddess—the book that inspired a whole new generation of bakers. These books, her host role on ABC-TV’s The Taste, along with her Quick Collection apps, and her successful television series on Food Network, E! Entertainment Television, Style, and the BBC, have made her a household name around the world. Visit her website.
Nigella Lawson has long been a champion of the home cook, creating recipes that are approachable and achievable. Her new book, At My Table: A Celebration of Home Cooking includes over a hundred new recipes that she has shared with friends and family at her table, and are offered here for her readers to enjoy.
“This book, like all the books I’ve written and all the cookery books I’ve read, is not just a manual, but a collection of stories and a container of memories.” — Nigella Lawson
It is abundant with recipes that are warming, comforting, and inspirational, from new riffs on classic favorites – Chicken Fricassee; Maple Roast Plums – to adventures in a host of new dishes and ingredients: Eggplant Fatteh; White Miso Hummus; and Garlicky Roast Potatoes with Oregano and Feta. The recipes in At My Table include anecdotes and advice from Nigella that are as entertaining as they are nourishing. Here are dishes to inspire all cooks and eaters, from Hake with Bacon, Peas and Cider to Apple Pork Chops with Sauerkraut Slaw; Rump Steaks with Anchovy Cream Sauce to a Chicken and Pea Traybake; plus a host of colorful vegetable dishes, such as Eastern Mediterranean Chopped Salad, and Carrots and Fennel with Harissa.
At My Table also includes cakes and desserts, with a number of recipes set to become repertoire regulars: Victoria Sponge with Cardamom, Marmalade and Crème Fraîche; Emergency Brownies; White Chocolate Cheesecake; and a beautiful Rose and Pepper Pavlova being just a few contenders.
Daniel Pink with Daniel Levitin
8pm (Reception: 6:30-7:30pm)
Daniel H. Pink
in conversation with Daniel J. Levitin
discussing his book,
When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing
Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
Herb Alpert Educational Village
3131 Olympic Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90404
PURCHASE TICKETS
$45 General Admission Seat + a copy of When
$55 Reserved Section Seat + a copy of When
$20 General Admission Seat
$95 Reception + Reserved Section + a copy When
Daniel H. Pink is the author of six provocative books — including his newest, When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing. His other books include the New York Times bestsellers A Whole New Mind, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, To Sell is Human and Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working for Yourself. His books have won multiple awards and have been translated into 35 languages.
Everyone knows that timing is everything. But we don’t know much about timing itself. Our lives are a never-ending stream of “when” decisions: when to start a business, schedule a class, get serious about a person. Yet we make those decisions based on intuition and guesswork.
Timing, it’s often assumed, is an art. In When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, Pink shows that timing is really a science. Drawing on a rich trove of research from psychology, biology, and economics, Pink reveals how best to live, work, and succeed. How can we use the hidden patterns of the day to build the ideal schedule? Why do certain breaks dramatically improve student test scores? How can we turn a stumbling beginning into a fresh start? Why should we avoid going to the hospital in the afternoon? Why is singing in time with other people as good for you as exercise? And what is the ideal time to quit a job, switch careers, or get married?
In When, Pink distills cutting-edge research and data on timing and synthesizes them into a fascinating, readable narrative packed with irresistible stories and practical takeaways that give readers compelling insights into how we can live richer, more engaged lives.
Daniel J. Levitin is a neuroscientist, musician, and best-selling author. He is the Founding Dean of Arts & Humanities at the Minerva Schools at the Keck Graduate Institute, San Francisco, California, a Distinguished Faculty Fellow at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley, and James McGill Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Music at McGill University.
Levitin has published more than 100 scientific articles, in journals including Science, Nature, PNAS, and Neuron; and over 300 popular articles about music, music technology, and cognitive science. His research has been featured in The New York Times, The London Times, Scientific American, and Rolling Stone. He has appeared on Good Morning America, The Today Show, CBS This Morning and CNN; and is a frequent guest on NPR and CBC Radio.
He is the author of four New York Times bestselling books: This Is Your Brain On Music, The World in Six Songs, The Organized Mind, and A Field Guide to Lies. His books have been translated into 22 languages. A TED talk based on just four pages of The Organized Mind reached one million views in its first week of release and as of 2018 has more than 16 million views. He has been a visiting professor at Stanford, Dartmouth, Harvard, and UC Berkeley.