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June 14 — An Evening with Christopher Buckley
Thursday, June 14, 2012
8pm (Reception 6:30-7:30pm)
An Evening with Christopher Buckley
discussing his latest novel, They Eat Puppies, Don’t They?
in conversation with Scott Timberg
PURCHASE TICKETS
$20, $40 includes book,
$95 includes pre-event reception (6:30-7:30pm)
Track 16 at Bergamot Station
2525 Michigan Avenue, Bldg C-1
Santa Monica, CA
Christopher Buckley was born in New York City in 1952. He was educated at Portsmouth Abbey, worked on a Norwegian tramp freighter and graduated cum laude from Yale. At age 24 he was managing editor of Esquire magazine; at 29, chief speechwriter to the Vice President of the United States, George H.W. Bush. He was the founding editor of Forbes FYI magazine (now ForbesLife), where he is now editor-at-large.
He is the author of fifteen books, which have translated into sixteen languages. They include: Steaming To Bamboola, The White House Mess, Wet Work, God Is My Broker, Little Green Men, No Way To Treat a First Lady, Florence of Arabia, Boomsday, Supreme Courtship, Losing Mum And Pup: A Memoir and Thank You For Smoking, which was made into a movie in 2005. Most have been named New York Times Notable Books of the Year.
He has written for The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Time, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, National Geographic, New York Magazine, The Washington Monthly, Forbes, Esquire, Vogue, Daily Beast and other publications.
He received the Washington Irving Prize for Literary Excellence and the Thurber Prize for American Humor.
Scott Timberg writes about music, books and the arts for Salon, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. He runs the blog TheMisreadCity.com, devoted to West Coast culture, mostly.
May 9 — An Evening with Michael Sandel in conversation with Patt Morrison
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
7:30pm (Reception 6-7:00pm)
An Evening with Michael Sandel
in conversation with Patt Morrison
The Moral Limits of Markets
PURCHASE TICKETS
($20, $40 includes the book, $95 includes book + pre-event reception)
All Saints Church
132 North Euclid Avenue,
Pasadena, CA
Michael Sandel in the news…
– In the Wall Street Journal (April 20), In Economists We Trust
– In The Huffington Post (April 24): Does the Invisible Hand Really Know Best
– In Fortune (April 20): One Nation, Ruled by Money
– In Vanity Fair (May 2012): Market Philosopher
– Newsweek (4/16): What Money Can’t Buy: Michael Sandel on Market Moralism Run Amok
– Huffington Post (4/13): Michael J. Sandel Warns Market Society Risks America’s Soul
– The Atlantic (April 2012): What Isn’t for Sale (book excerpt)
Michael Sandel is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard University. Sandel’s legendary ‘Justice’ course is one of the most popular and influential at Harvard. In 2007, Harvard made Sandel’s course available to alumni around the world through webstreaming and podcasting. Over 5,000 participants signed up, and Harvard Clubs from Mexico to Australia organized local discussion groups in connection with the course. In May 2007, Sandel delivered a series of lectures at major universities in China and he has been a visiting professor at the Sorbonne, Paris. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Council on Foreign Relations. Sandel is the author of many books and has previously written for the Atlantic Monthly, the New Republic and the New York Times. He was the 2009 BBC Reith Lecturer. His most recent book is the New York Times bestseller Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?
Should we pay children to read books or to get good grades? Should we put a price on human life to decide how much pollution to allow? Is it ethical to pay people to test risky new drugs or to donate their organs? What about hiring mercenaries to fight our wars, outsourcing inmates to for- profit prisons, auctioning admission to elite universities, or selling citizenship to immigrants willing to pay?
In What Money Can’t Buy, Michael J. Sandel takes up one of the biggest ethical questions of our time: Isn’t there something wrong with a world in which everything is for sale? If so, how can we prevent market values from reaching into spheres of life where they don’t belong? What are the moral limits of markets?
In recent decades, market values have crowded out nonmarket norms in almost every aspect of life—medicine, education, government, law, art, sports, even family life and personal relations. Without quite realizing it, Sandel argues that we have drifted from having a market economy to being a market society.
In Justice, an international bestseller, Sandel showed himself to be a master at illuminating, with clarity and verve, the hard moral questions we confront in our every- day lives. Now, in What Money Can’t Buy, he provokes a debate that’s been missing in our market-driven age: What is the proper role of markets in a democratic society, and how can we protect the moral and civic goods that markets do not honor and money cannot buy?
Patt Morrison is a longtime reporter and columnist for the Los Angeles Times, where she has won numerous awards, including a share of two Pulitzer Prizes. In addition to the Times, Morrison is host of the Patt Morrison Show on KPCC. She is a regular commentator on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition and has published a best-selling book on the Los Angeles River. She is frequently interviewed about Southern California on the BBC and other television and radio programs, and was a founding host of Life & Times on KCET-TV, for which she won six Emmys and six Golden Mike awards.
Purchase Tickets:
$20 Live Talks Los Angeles with Michael Sandel, 7:30pm (doors open at 7:00pm)
$40 also includes this book, What Money Can’t Buy
$95 includes pre-event reception (6:00-7:00pm), and the book
$32 Purchase book (includes tax and shipping to anywhere in the US)
February 8 — Henry Diltz in conversation with Kristine McKenna
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
8pm (Reception 6:30-7:30pm)
Henry Diltz
in conversation with Kristine McKenna
discussing his work photographing rock musicians for the last 40+ years
PURCHASE TICKETS ($20, general admission, $55 includes coffee table book, $95 includes book + Reception)
Track 16 at Bergamot Station
2525 Michigan Avenue, Bldg C-1
Santa Monica, CA
Henry Diltz is a visual historian of the last four decades of popular music. A founding member of the Modern Folk Quartet, Diltz is as much at home as a musician on tour, as he is a music photographer. The rapport he’s developed with his musician friends enables him to capture the candid shots that convey a rare feeling of trust and intimacy with his subjects.
For Diltz, the pictures began with a $20 second-hand Japanese camera purchased on tour with the Modern Folk Quartet. When MFQ disbanded, he embarked on his photographic career with an album cover for The Lovin’ Spoonful. Despite his lack of formal training, Diltz easily submerged himself in the world of music: the road, the gigs, the humor, the social consciousness, the psychedelia, the up and down times.
For over 40 years, his work has graced hundreds of album covers and has been featured in books, magazines and newspapers. His unique artistic style has produced powerful photographic essays of Woodstock , The Monterey Pop Festival, The Doors, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Jimi Hendrix and scores of other legendary artists. Diltz continues his distinguished career, generating new and vibrant photographs that inspire the rock n’ roll fan in each of us.
His recently published book, Unpainted Faces, showcases a collection of over 150 photos of rock legends and celebrities, along with Henry’s personal insight into each image. Visit his website.
Kristine McKenna is a Los Angeles curator and writer who’s covered the arts for numerous publications. Two volumes of her collected interviews were published by Fantagraphics Books, and she’s edited and written more than a dozens books on various aspects of west coast culture. She last appeared at Live Talks Los Angeles to interview Roger McGuinn of The Byrds. See the video here.
The following are selections from Diltz’s newly published book.
Neil Young & Moose ● 1975 “Sharing his Corona beer with a moose head we discovered in the garage of a house Neil was buying in Malibu.” (© Henry Diltz/Morrison Hotel Gallery)
Michael Jackson ● 1971 “Rolling Stone called one day and asked me to go to the Motown Records office in L.A. to photograph the Jackson 5 answering fan mail. This picture was used on the cover of Rolling Stone.” (© Henry Diltz/Morrison Hotel Gallery)
Keith Richards ● 1979 “I spent three weeks touring with Ron Wood’s group, the New Barbarians, which included Keith Richards. All we saw were airplanes, hotels and concert halls but there was never a boring moment. The band rarely went to bed and always had reggae tapes blasting. Here is Keith just off the plane and waiting by the limo to ride to the next concert.” (© Henry Diltz/Morrison Hotel Gallery)
Keith Richards and Ron Wood ● 1979 “Ron Wood’s New Barbarians record promo tour with Keith in the band was the Rolling Stones without Mick as the leader. I flew in a small plane with these two guys for the last concert in San Diego. They were a captive audience for my camera but I was the captive audience for their amazing energy.” (© Henry Diltz/Morrison Hotel Gallery)
February 1 — An Evening with David Milch
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
8pm (Reception 6:30-7:30pm)
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS EVENT IS BEING RE-SCHEDULED.
NEW DATE TO BE ANNOUNCED SOON.
An Evening with David Milch
discussing his writing career and new HBO series, Luck
Tickets on sale when new event date is posted ($20, $95 includes pre-event reception)
Track 16 at Bergamot Station
2525 Michigan Avenue, Bldg C-1
Santa Monica, CA
David Milch, Emmy-Award-winning writer and producer, is the creator and Executive Producer of Luck, starring Dustin Hoffman, which debuts on HBO on January 29, 2012. Milch, who won the Tinker Prize for highest achievement in English at Yale University and earned an M.F.A.from the Writer’s Workshop at The University of Iowa; left a teaching career at Yale to write for Hill Street Blues. He subsequently served as Executive Story Editor and then Executive Producer for Hill Street Blues. In 1992, Milch co-created the history-making police drama NYPD Blue. Milch took home Emmys for Best Writing in a Drama for the 1996-1997 and 1997-1998 seasons. Milch created another police drama, Brooklyn South, and co-authored, along with NYPD Blue producer Bill Clark, True Blue: The Real Stories Behind NYPD Blue, and served as creative consultant for Steven Bochco’s Murder One and Total Security. From 2002-2006, Milch produced Deadwood, a dramatic series for HBO, where he served as creator, writer, and executive producer. Milch is currently developing a legal drama for NBC with Steven Bochco, and the feature film Heavy Rain for Warner Bros.
In November of 2011 HBO announced that it had entered into a deal with David Milch’s Redboard Productions to produce films and television series based on the literary works of William Faulkner. The deal would cover all of the 19 novels and 125 short stories in the William Faulkner estate, as well as other works, with the exception of those currently contracted with other parties.
David Milch will be in conversation with Richard Stayton, Editor, Written By magazine
February 12 — Amy Poehler in conversation with Jane Lynch
Sunday, February 12, 2012
7:30 pm (Reception 6:00-7:00pm)
Amy Poehler
in conversation with Jane Lynch
PURCHASE TICKETS ($25-$115)
The Aero Theatre
1328 Montana Avenue (at 14th Street)
Santa Monica, CA
Amy Poehler currently stars on the critically acclaimed NBC comedy series, “Parks and Recreation,” from producers Greg Daniels and Mike Schur (“The Office.”) She plays Leslie Knope, a mid-level bureaucrat in the Parks and Recreation Department of Pawnee, Indiana. The show recently received its first Emmy nomination for “Outstanding Comedy Series” and Poehler received her second consecutive “Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series” nomination. She also serves as producer and host of the online series, “Smart Girls at the Party,” that showcases real girls who are changing the world by being themselves.
Poehler completed her eighth and final season of “Saturday Night Live” (and her fifth as the co-anchor of “Weekend Update”) in 2008. Renowned as “a brilliantly inventive sketch comedian,” (Entertainment Weekly, 11/05), Poehler boasted an impressive arsenal of outrageous characters, from the hyperactive “Caitlin” and one-legged reality show contestant “Amber” to a manic host of “Good Morning Meth.” Poehler also contributed memorable impressions of Hillary Clinton, Kelly Ripa, Avril Lavigne, Sharon Osbourne, Paula Abdul, Sharon Stone and Michael Jackson. That year she received her first Emmy nomination for “Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series” for her work on “Saturday Night Live”.
Poehler’s movie credits include: Baby Mama, Mean Girls, Spring Breakdown, Mr. Woodcock, Southland Tales, Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, The Ex, Wet Hot American Summer, and Envy. She was the voice of “Eleanor” in Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel. She previously lent her voice to the animated films Monsters vs. Aliens and Horton Hears a Who! with Jim Carrey and Steve Carrell and starred in the ice-skating comedy Blades of Glory, alongside Will Ferrell, Will Arnett, and Jon Heder and was “Snow White” in the box office smash hit Shrek the Third.
Poehler joined the SNL cast from the Upright Citizens Brigade, a sketch/improv troupe originally formed in Chicago. Poehler and the U.C.B. relocated to New York where they had a sketch show on Comedy Central for three seasons on which she was both a writer and performer. In addition, they opened a theater currently regarded as the premiere sketch/improv comedy venue in New York City. Poehler and the U.C.B. were featured in “A.S.S.S.S.C.A.T.: Improv” an improvised comedy special on Bravo.
Poehler has made memorable appearances on television ranging from Late Night with Conan O’Brien (as recurring character “Stacey,” Andy Richter’s little sister), Arrested Development, Wonder Showzen and Undeclared. She also was a voice on O’Grady and The Simpsons.
Jane Lynch gained fame in Christopher Guest’s improv mocumentary pictures (Best in Show, A Mighty Wind) and currently stars in the role of Sue Sylvester in Glee for which she has won both an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award, and recurring role in the hit television series Two and a Half Men. She has also had notable roles in numerous mainstream comedies, such as Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Role Models. She hosted the 2011 Emmy Awards.
Her memoir, Happy Accidents, is one part comic-memoir of behind-the-scenes-Hollywood and one part inspirational-narrative about self-acceptance. Though Lynch is one of the hottest actresses in Hollywood today, she is anything but an overnight success. At age 50, she didn’t come into her own until the last decade. Before she landed her role in Glee, she’d battled alcoholism and anxiety, learned to embrace her sexuality, and accepted that life is sometimes a series of opportunities that come after what seem, at the time, like disappointments. She shares her personal story in her funny, poignant and brutally honest memoir.
Live Talks Los Angeles featured her on Oct 2, 2011 in conversation with Adam Scott (Parks and Recreation). The video from that event can be seen here.
$25 Live Talks Los Angeles with Amy Poehler in conversation with Jane Lynch, 7:30 pm (doors open at 7:00pm)
$45 also includes Pawnee: The Greatest Town in America, by Leslie Knope (Poehler’s character on Parks and Recreation)
$115 includes pre-event reception (6:00-7:00pm), plus Pawnee and Lynch’s memoir, Happy Accidents
$25 Purchase signed copy of Pawnee (tax and shipping included to anywhere in the US)
Proceeds from this event support the Adopt the Arts Foundation who’s mission is to bring together well-known artists, public figures, business, and the general public to save the arts in America’s public schools. Adopt the Arts is raising money to keep arts education in public schools in Los Angeles. Adopt the Arts has chosen Rosewood Avenue Elementary as it’s pilot school. Adopt the Arts works directly with the principal, the booster club, and the arts education branch of LAUSD to ensure that all students are exposed to all the arts disciplines, i.e, music, dance, theater, and visual arts. Adopt the Arts Foundation is dedicated to improving the academic performance of every child through the gift of making art and music. To learn more, visit their website.
June 7 — An Evening with Oscar Hijuelos in conversation with Mandalit del Barco
Thursday, June 7, 2012
8pm (Reception 6:30-7:30pm)
An Evening with Oscar Hijuelos
in conversation with Mandalit Del Barco
discussing his memoir, Thoughts Without Cigarettes
PURCHASE TICKETS
$20, $35 includes the book,
$95 includes pre-event reception + book
Track 16 at Bergamot Station
2525 Michigan Avenue, Bldg C-1
Santa Monica, CA
Oscar Hijuelos is the international bestselling author of eight novels, including The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, for which he became the first Latino to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. He has also received the Rome Prize and prestigious grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. He lives in New York City.
In his memoir, Thoughts Without Cigarettes, Hijuelos turns his pen to the real people and places that have influenced his life and, in turn, his literature. He has enchanted readers with vibrant characters who hunger for success, love, and self-acceptance. In his first work of nonfiction, Hijuelos writes from the heart about the people and places that inspired his international bestselling novels.
Born in Manhattan’s Morningside Heights to Cuban immigrants in 1951, Hijuelos introduces readers to the colorful circumstances of his upbringing. The son of a Cuban hotel worker and exuberant poetry- writing mother, his story, played out against the backdrop of an often prejudiced working-class neighborhood, takes on an even richer dimension when his relationship to his family and culture changes forever. During a sojourn in pre-Castro Cuba with his mother, he catches a disease that sends him into a Dickensian home for terminally ill children. The yearlong stay estranges him from the very language and people he had so loved.With a cast of characters whose stories are both funny and tragic, Thoughts Without Cigarettes follows Hijuelos’s subsequent quest for his true identity into adulthood, through college and beyond-a mystery whose resolution he eventually discovers hidden away in the trappings of his fiction, and which finds its most glorious expression in his best-known book, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. Illuminating the most dazzling scenes from his novels, Thoughts Without Cigarettes reveals the true stories and indelible memories that shaped a literary genius.
Hijuelos has long been associated with the music of his Hispanic heritage, thanks to his 1989 novel The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. The story, about two brothers who try to make it big as mambo musicians in 1950s America, heavily examines what it means to reconcile the worlds of both Cuba and America.
Among the revelations found in the book: He didn’t always love the Latin musical genres that later helped make him famous. Our partner, Bio.com recently did an interview with Hijuelos about his experiences with music, and how it inspires him in his daily life.
BIO: Music plays a large role in both your personal life as well as your writing. How did you become interested in music?
Oscar: I started playing guitar at about the age of 12, loved fiddling with other instruments, from violin (badly) to piano (by ear) and have always loved both classical music and jazz, as well as certain styles of rock ‘n’ roll. Of course, I grew up hearing Latin music but, to be honest, aside from my personal circumstances, like most kids I wanted to rebel against what I considered to be such old fashioned fare.
Read the full interview here.
Mandalit del Barco is a general assignment and Arts correspondent for NPR News, where she covers everything from street gangs to Hollywood, police, marijuana, immigration, natural disasters, and urban street culture. Her stories can be heard on All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Weekend Edition, alt.latino and npr.org.