Past Events

September 4

Steve Aoki with Howie Mandel

Steve Aoki is an Asian-American electronic musician, record producer, DJ, and music executive. He has collaborated with artists such as BTS, Daddy Yankee, Migos, Tiesto, Linkin Park, blink-182, Lil Jon, and Fall Out Boy, and has released several Billboard-charting studio albums, notably Wonderland, which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Dance/Electronica Album in 2013. His most recent album, Neon Future III, which serves as the third chapter of the Neon Future concept albums, featured Louis Tomlinson, Lil Yachty, Bill Nye, Mike Posner, and many more. Blue is his remarkable story―in pictures and words― the superstar DJ/producer who started his career as a vegan straightedge hardcore music kid hellbent on defying his millionaire father, whose unquenchable thirst to entertain―inherited from his dad, Rocky Aoki, founder of Benihana―led him to global success and two Grammy nominations.

June 26

Tom O’Neill with Alex Cohen

A journalist’s twenty-year fascination with the Manson murders leads to shocking new revelations about the FBI’s involvement in this riveting reassessment of an infamous case in American history.Tom O’Neill is an award-winning investigative journalist and entertainment reporter whose work has appeared in national publications such as Us, Premiere, New York, The Village Voice and Details. Twenty years ago, when he was reporting a magazine piece about the murders, he worried there was nothing new to say. Then he unearthed shocking evidence of a cover-up behind the “official” story, including police carelessness, legal misconduct, and potential surveillance by intelligence agents. 

June 25

An Evening with

Guy Kawasaki

Silicon Valley icon and bestselling author Guy Kawasaki shares the unlikely stories of his life and the lessons we can draw from them. Guy Kawasaki has been a fixture in the tech world since he was part of Apple’s original Macintosh team in the 1980s. He’s widely respected as a source of wisdom about entrepreneurship, venture capital, marketing, and business evangelism, which he’s shared in bestselling books such as The Art of the Startand Enchantment.

June 20

Jim Acosta with Larry Wilmore

Jim Acosta is CNN’s chief White House correspondent, currently covering the Trump administration. He previously reported on the Obama administration from the White House and around the world. His new book is a first-hand account of the dangers he faces reporting on the current White House while fighting on the front lines in President Trump’s war on truth. Acosta presents a revealing examination of bureaucratic dysfunction, deception, and the unprecedented threat the rhetoric Mr. Trump is directing has on our democracy.

 

June 19

An Evening with

T Bone Burnett

At the 2019 SXSW conference, T Bone Burnett gave a compelling speech about artists and art in the digital age.  This talk is a conversation about the themes he brought up in the speech. He spoke out against the growing power of Silicon Valley giants like Google and Facebook while affirming the importance of artists’ rights. With 50-years’ experience in music and entertainment, T Bone Burnett has earned an unparalleled reputation as a first-rate innovative artist, songwriter, producer, performer, film and concert producer, record company owner and artists’ advocate. Burnett is an Academy Award winner, a Golden Globe winner, a British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award (BAFTA) winner, and a 13-time Grammy® Award winner. He’s workedand collaborated with musicians across many genres including Elton John, Robert Plant, Alison Krauss, B.B. King, Tony Bennett, k.d. lang, Elvis Costello, The Civil Wars, Taylor Swift, RyanBingham, Steve Earle and Leon Russell. 

June 18

David Epstein with Eric Barker

David Epstein is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance. He has worked as an investigative reporter for ProPublica and a senior writer for Sports Illustrated. In his new book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, he examined the world’s most successful athletes, artists, musicians, inventors, forecasters and scientists. He discovered that in most fields—especially those that are complex and unpredictable—generalists, not specialists, are primed to excel. Generalists often find their path late, and they juggle many interests rather than focusing on one. They’re also more creative, more agile, and able to make connections their more specialized peers can’t see.

June 17

Ed Levine with Nancy Silverton and Kenji López-Alt

Ed Levine is the founder of Serious Eats, as well as creator and host of the Serious Eats podcast, Special Sauce. In 2016, Ed was inducted into the James Beard Foundation’s Who’s Who of Food & Beverage in America. Against all sane advice, he created a blog for $100 and called it…Serious Eats. The site quickly became a home for obsessives who didn’t take themselves too seriously. Intrepid staffers feasted on every dumpling in Chinatown and sampled every item on In-N-Out’s secret menu. Talented recipe developers like The Food Lab’s J. Kenji López-Alt and Stella Parks, aka BraveTart, attracted cult followings. 

June 11

Diane C. McPhail with Jane Smiley

In her sweeping debut, Diane C. McPhail offers a powerful, profoundly emotional novel that explores a little-known aspect of Civil War history—Southern Abolitionists—and the timeless struggle to do right even amidst bitter conflict. Diane C. McPhail is an artist, writer, and minister. Jane Smiley is the author of numerous novels, including A Thousand Acres,which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, and most recently, Golden AgeSome Luckand Early Warning, the volumes of The Last Hundred Years trilogy.

June 10

Eve Ensler with Idina Menzel

From Eve Ensler, author of one of the most influential works of the twentieth century–The Vagina Monologues–and one of Newsweek‘s “150 Women Who Changed the World,” comes a powerful, life-changing examination of abuse and atonement. Ensler is a Tony Award-winning playwright, author, performer, and activist. Her international phenomenon The Vagina Monologues has been published in 48 languages and performed in more than 140 countries. She is the author of the bestseller I Am an Emotional Creature, the highly-praised In the Body of the World, and many more. She is the founder of V-Day, the global activist movement to end violence against women and girls, and One Billion Rising, the largest global mass action to end gender-based violence in over 200 countries. She is one of Newsweek’s “150 Women Who Changed the World” and the Guardian’s “100 Most Influential Women.” 

 

June 5

Celeste Barber with Jameela Jamil

From funny woman, Instagram star, and international comedy sensation, Celeste Barber’s Challenge Accepted! is a raucous, hilarious, and outspoken guide to life, unwanted gas, and how to rock a sexy scar. Part memoir, part comedy routine, part advice manual, Challenge Accepted! is Celeste at her best, revealing her secrets to love, friendship, family, and marriage (oh hai, #hothusband), and how to deal with life’s many challenges—why she checks the bath for sharks, how Nutella quite literally shaped who she is as a woman, and why being famous on Instagram is like being rich in Monopoly. It’s real, like totally, really real. She talks to Jameela Jamil who stars on NBC’s The Good Place.