SoCal Minds

A slice of an LA weekend: from Hapas to Lemony Snicket

From the Japanese American National Museum, LACMA, Pepperdine, the Skirball & UCLA

Never a shortage of smart stuff to take in, in what promises to be a seasonably sunny Southern California weekend: In Little Tokyo, it will be a free Saturday, for example, as two hip and happening folks headline a day highlighting the experiences of Hapa or mixed race Americans; the session with scholar-artist Kip Fulbeck and educator Dr. Maya Soetero-Ng (President Obama's sis) is on a wait-list basis. For those concerned about families, religion and faith, there's a big conference going on in Malibu, though a call will be required to see if the now full sessions can accommodate. Meantime, get those feet and the mind moving with all the day-long events as museums on the Miracle Mile join in for their annual Artwalk, which this year will include World Cup soccer-related activities; there are some fees for the events at the county museum, where there will be displays of art (of course!), music, performance, workshops, activities, food, and more. The participating institutions include LACMA, Peterson Automotive, Page, Craft and Folk. If the feet still gotta move, there is, of course, a weekend festival of avant-garde dance films by Pina Bausch and others, in Westwood by Dance Camera West. And for parents and kids who are fans of Lemony Snicket, author Daniel Handler and his illustrator and wife, Lisa Brown, will be over on the Westside on Sunday for a chat and reading.  

A focus on EthnoLA, Jews on vinyl, Bukowski

From UCLA, the Skirball & the Huntington

While they take on the global research that keeps them at the world-class fore, it's also great to see that institutions in the region also aren't skimping on the attention to materials and topics that are distinctly LA and worth a lot of attention just for that reason. Here's a trio of developments that prove the point:

• In Westwood at 7 tonight, in a free, public screening for which space is limited and reservations are required, the Bruins will keep highlighting the 40th anniversary of their ethnic studies programs by displaying films by students in the Center for EthnoCommuncations. The works delve into the lives of: multi-ethnic skateboarders in Long Beach; bus riders, their union and their elder organizer Granny Kim; and the struggles of South Asian motel owners in South Central and Latino truck drivers at the Port of LA.

Click here for more info, free ticket info on tonight's EthnoLA program

 On the Westside, there will be a curators' talk and the opening of an exhibition that tracked through musty garages, dusty attics and little plumbed archives in search of rare contemporary artifacts that speak in sometimes scratchy but powerful fashion about the lives of Jews in America, circa 1940 to 1980. Trojan scholar Josh Kun and cyber music expert Courtney Holt on Tuesday night will describe how they collected and curated the materials that make up 'Jews on Vinyl,' an exhibit that opens to the public on Wednesday. The exhibit features a 1950s-style living room with listening stations where audience members can take in Jewish recordings, many no longer available in any format, that provide a soundtrack of changing lives and sounds, from sacred music to the pop triumvirate of Neil Diamond, Barbra Streisand and Barry Manilow. And check out the accompanying album art, such as for the 1962 Roulette recording by the Barry Sisters (shown at left). 

A quest to find soundtrack of Jewish life in America, 1940-1980

'Jews on Vinyl' opens on Wednesday 

In San Marino, lots more attention will be paid to it when the exhibit actually goes up. But the mere mention that this fall there will be a big display on author Charles Bukowski already has no doubt stirred the denizens of not just cloistered libraries but also those who frequent dark, noisy bars late into the LA night. His fans will have plenty of time to howl at the moon and otherwise carry on while waiting for this October show of his papers, first editions of his works, archival photographs and memorabilia, as well as copies of magazines and other publications that carried his words. Items to be displayed will be provided by Linda Lee Bukowski as well as the library's collection of Bukowski papers, donated by Mrs. B.

Exhibit set for October on 'Poet on the Edge'

In comic, picture books, glimpses of other worlds

From CSULB & the Skirball

Sometimes it takes a little more than a visualization to really see someone else's point of view. Maybe a picture needs to be drawn. From comics, illustrations, depictions a lot can be learned, as happens with a Long Beach undergrad who won a national essay competition with her scrutiny of superheroes as seen through the eyes of white versus black creators. Heard of the 'Black Panther' or 'Luke Cage,' creations of white comic book artists? Seems these superheroes talk more jive, act more violent and they're focused on serving the white community, observes prize-winning essayist Elise McCutchen. As for 'Icon' and 'Status,' well, these black superheroes created by black comic artists offer a more diverse picture, incorporating African American history, literature and experiences into their existence, even while perpetuating some stereotypes with their bulging bods and angry expressions, she says. Her observations won her $350, a trip to New Orleans and honors from the National Council for Black Studies. Meantime, in Brentwood, just catching up with an eclectic illumination of illustrated texts from the 16th Century to the present, an exhibit of Jewish picture books that rounds up the Haggadot, Art Spiegelman, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Marc Chagall, Maurice Sendak and Lemony Snicket. 

Photo: (left) Lisa Brown, 'The Latke Was Suffering So Much That It Leapt Out of the Hot Pan and Out the Window of the Cottage, and Began to Run Screaming Down The Boulevard,' illustration from Lemony Snicket, 'The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming;' (right) Icon, DC Comics

Even for colorful superheroes, a world of difference in black and white

'Monsters and Miracles,' an exhibit of Jewish picture books

True beliefs: on religion, democracy and food

From Zocalo & Skirball

To fully grasp just how profoundly people are influenced by their beliefs, turn no further than two disparate but intriguing author appearances that will be free and open to the public tonight, with reservations required, of course. In downtown at 7:30, the sophisticated, cosmopolitan and global-thinking Ian Buruma will make his case that democracy cannot work unless at least some of the passions that religion inflames can get tamped down. With his latest work, 'Taming the Gods,' the Dutch native and Asia expert, who previously has explored the public murders in the Netherlands of a prominent conservative politician and a filmmaking provocateur and descendant of painter Vincent Van Gogh, has turned deeper attention to religious fervor and governing on three continents. Meantime, over in Brentwood at 7:30, rock star Moby will speak out on his passion and crusade to get Americans to slash their consumption of beef and to reduce their reliance on industrially processed foods. Its part of his smarter for the environment advocacy that he and more than a dozen other contributors have laid out in 'Gristle.'   

Photos: Buruma, l, Moby

In downtown, an examination of religion, inflamed passions, democracy

In Brentwood, advocacy for the abandoment of excessive eating of meat

Picture this: the Internment's aftermath, the civil rights era path to freedom, the`thrill of victory'

From the Japanese American National Museum, Skirball, Annenberg Space for Photography

Said it before. Worth saying again: Los Angeles is a great visual capital of the planet and there's plenty of proof around with photography of motion, grace and history on exhibit:

In Little Tokyo, there will be a Saturday afternoon reception and signing of a new book that chronicles the war-time work of a major but unsung figure in the chronicling Japanese-American life: photographer Hikaru Carl Iwasaki. He's the lone shooter still alive and was the only Nikkei photographer involved in the peculiar push by the U.S. government to persuade the country to re-accept Japanese-Americans after they were unjustly interned during World War II. He was sent nationwide to document ordinary, even plebian life but managed, as author-scholar Lane Ryo Hirabayshi (he of the Asian American Studies program at UCLA) argues, to elevate that effort and to capture a bittersweet and fleeting glimpse of an ugly part of American history. Iwasaki joined in this post-war public relations push after also documenting the internment, working alongside more acknowledged photographers like Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams. At a time when the posts made them princes of the photo world, he went on to be a bureau chief for the now defunct Life Magazine and then a colleague at Sports Illustrated of shooters like Walter Iooss and Neil Leifer (see below). The reception and book signing is free and open to the public with museum admission.

*He's also a Denverite, the dad of my best friend from childhood onward.  

A visual recollection of the World War II internment's aftermath

In West Los Angeles, two, side-by-side exhibitions recapture the painful and poignant path, the "Road to Freedom," pursued by African Americans to win civil rights in the U.S. from 1956 to 1968. More than 35 photographers contributed the 170 displayed works, some of which never have been shown before and all of which are supplemented with recordings of speeches and music, as well as archival documents and artifacts that aim to put in context what amounted to arguably one of the most important movements of the 20th Century. In a companion display, photographer Eric Etheridge captures 40 key figures from the civil rights movement, documenting how they looked then and in portraits of them as seniors.

'Road to Freedom,' exhibit of top photos of civil rights movement, opens

'Breach of Peace' portrays civil rights leaders then and now

Before there was 24/7 cable TV, HDTV, slow mo, instant replay and the array of modern technologies that dominate the displays of modern athletics, the thrill of sports and the exulation in victory or the grief of defeat all got caught -- or it didn't -- depending on the immaculate skills and talents of a determined cadre of shooters. In particular, the photographers of Sports llustrated raised the act of chronicling popular pasttimes into art, as is shown in the Century City display of the always arresting work of Walter Ioos and Neil Leifer. This display not only captures the breadth, depth and quality of their joyous labors, it also uses technology to transport sports nuts back to the mesmerizing moments that have made fun and competition a cornerstone of contemporary life. The exhibit is available for viewing online, but even the best monitor fails to do justice to these terrific photos.

Photo: Muhammad Ali / Neil Leifer

Sports as art: the work of Walter Iooss, Neil Leifer

It's an LA week: chimps, gorillas, oil, deception

From USC, Cal State Fullerton, Zocalo & the Getty

Chimpanzees. Gorillas. Oil. Deception. No, those aren't the elements for a Marx brothers comedy. They are among topics that will be taken up by smart minds this week:

In Exhibition Park, legendary primatologist Jane Goodall on Tuesday will talk about her half century of work to study, understand and protect endangered species, particularly chimpanzees in Africa. At the afternoon event, she also will sign and sell merchandise and her book, "Hope for Animals and Their World: How Endangered Species Are Being Rescued from the Brink," written with Thayne Maynard and Gail Hudson. Proceeds from the book and merchandise sales benefit Goodall's institute, which builds on her efforts to save threatened species, protect endangered environments and help people around the globe. Her program is free and open to the public but reservations are required.

Protecting primates, people with humanitarian Jane Goodall 

Click here for more information on the Jane Goodall Institute

In Fullerton, Ian Redmond, a tropical field biologist and conservationist, will discuss on Tuesday afternoon, why saving gorillas isn't just about preserving a species but instead protecting the planet. Actions to reduce global warming will benefit mankind and the earth and should be undertaken immediately -- and not just to protect large primates and other animals that need endangered, valuable tropical forest habitats, Redmond and others say, citing the role of gorillas, in particular, to serve as sentinels or indicators of environmental well-being and to rally activists. This lecture is free and open to the public.

Saving gorillas and the planet with biologist Ian Redmond

 In West Los Angeles, author Peter Maas, in a program Wednesday night, will take on all the troubling global consequences of our difficult relationship with oil. He'll talk about the problems that stem from Americans' gas guzzling, as well as the woes that have afflicted oil-rich nations such as Nigeria, Venezuela and Angola. Maas writes for the New York Times Magazine and has just put a new book, "Crude World." This session at the Skirball is free and open to the public but reservations are required.

Understanding the global 'Curse of Oil' with author Peter Maas

In West Los Angeles, famed filmmaker Errol Morris and Ricky Jay, an author, actor, scholar and sleight-of-hand-artist, on Thursday night will tackle the complex issues of reality and illusion, masterpieces and forgeries and art and perception. Morris (whose works include Standard Operating Procedure, The Fog of War and The Thin Blue Line) and Jay have delved into the topic of art and what we really know of ourselves in a New York Times blog. Their discussion is free and open to the public but reservations are required.

Probing reality, illusion, art, perception with filmmaker Errol Morris, author Ricky Jay

Wham! A Crash Look at History of Comic Book Super Heroes

From the Skirball Museum

If Michael Chabon didn't already open eyes about the origins of comic book superheroes in a terrific novel ("The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay"), the Skirball Museum offers the exhibition, "ZAP! POW! BAM! The Superhero: The Golden Age of Comic Books, 1938-1960." It recalls the upheavals of the 1930s and 1940s to "examine the creative processes and influences that drove young Jewish artists to express their talents through the storylines and art of comic books."

Comic Book Super Heroes

Skirball photo of Superman display in exhibit