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Kerry says Israelis, Palestinians must make tough decisions
Israeli and Palestinian leaders must decide soon on whether to revive long-dormant peace negotiations to end their decades-old conflict, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday.
Industry is best bet for peace, Israeli billionaire says
On a new industrial park in Israel's largest Arab town, a software plant belonging to a multibillion-dollar U.S.-listed firm sits cheek-by-jowl with two small Arab-owned businesses: a metal factory and one producing tools for brain surgery.
Adelsons donate $40 million to Birthright
Casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, donated $40 million to the Birthright Israel Foundation.
- HOLLYWOOD
Billy Crystal to star in Larry Charles’ FX series
Looks like FX is going to be injecting some humor into their lineup. Not a bad idea, we think, after many seasons of the awesome yet dark series “Justified” or…
Civility replaces violence in ‘Last White Night’
In June 1965, during the most violent days of the civil rights movement, 21-year-old Paul Saltzman drove from Toronto to Mississippi to become a freedom fighter with the Student Nonviolent…
Spielberg to produce ‘Halo’ television series, plus other news from the Xbox One announcement
Microsoft Corp gave the world a first look at its new Xbox One on Tuesday, announcing that its first gaming console in eight years will come with exclusive video and…
- LIFE & CULTURE
A talent agent turns yogurt maven
Amy Salko Robertson — producer of such films as “The Oh in Ohio,” “Lab Rats” and “When Do We Eat?” a comedy set at a Passover seder —realized that she…
Maccabi Tel Aviv back on top but coach future uncertain
Champions Maccabi Tel Aviv have reasserted their dominance of Israeli soccer but media reports on Tuesday suggested they might have to continue their revival without coach Oscar Garcia.
Angelina’s breast cancer victory isn’t for celebrities only
Actress Angelina Jolie just announced that she underwent a preventive double mastectomy after learning that she was genetically predisposed to cancer. Her disclosure was a powerful show of solidarity with…
- BLOGS
Propaganda lies in a disguise
Muhammad al-Durrah, the little boy who became the symbol of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, is returning to the headlines after a decade. A photo of him, crying, leaning against a wall…
Male Eating Disorders: A Real Thing
Recently, People Magazine came out with an article about Ashley Hamilton talking openly about his struggles with an eating disorder. I applaud Ashley for coming out about having an eating…
Religion at the End of The Big C
Last night, Showtime’s The Big C aired its final episode. After three seasons of half-hour installments, this comedy returned for a shortened final season consisting of four hour-long episodes. Subtitled…
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Tom Teicholz
Son of ‘Pacific Standard Time’
It’s back! Remember long ago in those dark days of 2011, when “Pacific Standard Time,” the Getty-sponsored initiative, got more than 60 cultural organizations throughout Southern California to shine a light on the impact of Los Angeles’ art scene between 1945 and 1980?
Going home with Gary Baseman
There’s an old saying that goes something like this: We spend the first half of our lives running away from home and the rest trying to get back. Consider Homer, way back in ancient Greece, who defined our notion of a life’s odyssey as a journey that begins and ends at home.
From the ‘Heart’
Sons of famous fathers rarely eclipse their parent. Although there are some notable exceptions (JFK and Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes come to mind), the singularity of purpose, the ruthlessness that lead to lasting renown, as well as the perks and vicissitudes that come with fame, none of these reward excellent parenting nor allow children the same crucible to ignite a flame that might burn brighter than their parent’s. That children of the famous write memoirs is common; that they have insight is less so.
New role for Moses
For Passover this year, Rizzoli has just released “The Bronfman Haggadah,” written by the businessman, philanthropist and Jewish community leader Edgar Bronfman Sr., illustrated by artist Jan Aronson, who is also Bronfman’s wife.
Michael Chabon’s search for authentic expression
A writer walks into a room full of rabbis. This sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it’s not. In the words of Woody Allen’s “Broadway Danny Rose,” “It’s the emes.”
The future as seen at CES in Vegas
When I was a young kid, my dad used to take me to the auto show at the old New York Coliseum, where together we looked, agog, at the cars of the future — experimental vehicles that would never see the light of day. I remember feeling bone-tired after walking the floor and being overwhelmed by all there was to see. I would clutch my dad’s hand ever tighter, afraid of getting lost in the disorienting vortex of people pitching products. These memories came flooding back in early January, as I stood amid the chaos of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
Arnold Schwartzman — master designer behind ‘Voices & Visions’
Arnold Schwartzman, the artistic director of the “Voices & Visions” program and one of the most accomplished designers and documentary directors of our times, is a story unto himself. Recently, I spent a few very companionable hours at Schwartzman’s L.A. home as he shared some of the details of his personal journey and professional career.
Harold Grinspoon: Visualizing Jewish ‘Voices’
Here’s a challenge: Let’s say you had $1.1 million to give away on a program to inspire people working in Jewish organizations as well as the people who find themselves in their public spaces.
The Winding Road to ‘Other Desert Cities’
In Hollywood, the logline for this story would be: A playwright who has outwitted his demons to find balance in his life, has, after a devastating TV experience, returned to the stage with a play whose plot twist is as transformative to its actors, and to the audience’s assumptions about the characters, as writing it was for the playwright. The play is a success off-Broadway and then a bigger success on Broadway. And then, as validation and final vindication, he brings it to Los Angeles.
See the far away before it’s gone away
When we visit sites of early civilization — Athens, Rome, Jerusalem, Angkor Wat, Pompeii, Machu Picchu or Petra — ancient wisdom seems like ancient history, evidence of a culture that no longer exists. It is very easy to believe that we have evolved, that modern society has progressed. But the real loss remains elusive: What might we have learned from these extinct peoples?
The first Jewish president? Lincoln, in the Abrahamic tradition
Abraham Lincoln has been dead for almost 150 years, yet suddenly he’s everywhere. At the Skirball Cultural Center, you can see an original copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, signed by Lincoln, amid an impressive array of founding American documents.
A bed of roses
In person, Larry Miller, president of Sit ’n Sleep, is less “Crazy Eddie” (fast-talking, exuberant salesman) and more “Uncle Larry” (the gregarious, warmhearted, favorite family relative).
Rita, on music and her roots [Q & A]
On Nov. 1, Israel’s most popular and enduring pop icon, Rita Yahan-Farouz, known the world over simply as Rita, will appear at UCLA’s Royce Hall, along with a special band assembled for this tour.
Lessons from Arthur Schnitzler’s Vienna
One of my favorite New Yorker cartoons features two men in conversation walking down a city street. Surrounding them are dollar signs — in every window, on every car, on everything. The caption reads: “Remember when everything was sex, sex, sex?”
What’s so great about Stanley Kubrick?
On Nov. 1, the Los Angeles County of Museum of Art, (LACMA) in partnership with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (those wonderful folks who bring us the Oscars), will present the first U.S. retrospective of filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, a project developed in partnership with the Kubrick estate, a show that originated at the Deutsches Filmmuseum in Frankfurt, Germany, but will be seen here in a more expanded form.
Artist Channa Horwitz likes to break the rules
Part of the pleasure of seeing a survey show of contemporary art, such as the summer show “Made in L.A. 2012,” currently at the Hammer Museum, lies in the joy of discovery. There may be artists whose works you recognize, but the WOW!
Ongoing education at the click of a mouse
It seems like only yesterday that my friend Teri was telling me that if she could do college all over again she would take different courses: literature, poetry and just a greater variety of subjects. Well, I’ve got some good news: turns out that you can now take an amazing variety of courses, many of them offered by universities that most of us couldn’t get into today, such as Harvard, Oxford and Stanford, many of them free. What’s the hitch? Just this: the courses are online.
The truth, beauty and desire
Gustav Klimt is best known for his famous golden paintings, portraits of society women adorned in jewels and cloaked in gold, and for the flat two-dimensionality of his work that led many to declare it superficial and merely decorative. The Getty exhibition “Gustav Klimt: The Magic of Line” puts a lie to that characterization, demonstrating how Klimt’s work conveys complex emotions and even allegorical ideals.
Capturing the music scene
The recent regional extravaganza known as Pacific Standard Time (PST), a six-month, far-ranging agglomeration of Southern California exhibitions, installations and performances, began with a series of shows that made a very convincing argument for the importance of art created in Los Angeles from 1945 to 1980.
Culture with a side of popcorn
When the hit comedy “One Man, Two Guvnors” comes to Broadway this spring, I’ll be able to say I saw the London production. I also saw the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of “Don Giovanni” with the Polish tenor Mariusz Kwiecien. As for bragging rights, it’s hard to match having seen David Hallberg’s debut with the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow in “Sleeping Beauty.”All this, without ever leaving Los Angeles.
Jonathan Foer’s ‘New American Haggadah’: Extremely unsurprising and incredibly similar
The haggadah, the user’s manual to the Passover seder, might be the world’s oldest annually practiced ritual, and the story of the Jews’ freedom from slavery in Egypt is, Jonathan Safran Foer said recently, “the best-known greatest continuously read story” in book form.
Opinion: Demjanjuk’s just epitaph
The recent death of John Demjanjuk, 91, in a nursing home in Germany, brings to a close one of the most extensive and most contested Nazi war crimes prosecutions in history, a process that began in the United States in the mid 1970s and was ongoing at the time of his death as Demjanjuk awaited the appeal of his conviction in Germany as an accessory to the more than 28,000 murders of Jewish men, women and children committed during the time he served as a camp guard at the Sobibor extermination camp.
He’s looked at clouds from both sides now…
I listen to music all day, in my car, in my office, at the gym, while walking the dog or taking a hike.
Art and fashion find their nexus in a Los Angeles creative couple
Cubes of color intersected by bands, which the viewer can manipulate into arrangements within a grid framing the work; watercolors of narrow striations, punctuated by colors and shapes, transform abstraction from cool cerebral to emotional landscapes. Clothing made in Los Angeles but destined for the world, an ongoing narrative about fabric and color draped over the human form.
Klezmer Music’s Revival Still Going — 25 Years On
Through a lens, starkly
“Pacific Standard Time,” the sprawling multivenue consideration of Los Angeles art from 1945 to 1980, is, for the most part, a story of artists who thrived here. However, “Naked Hollywood: Weegee in Los Angeles,” which opened Nov. 13 at MOCA Grand Avenue, posits a different narrative, recounting the famed New York photographer’s sojourn in Los Angeles between 1947 and 1952 as a somewhat soured love affair. If Hollywood is indeed a boulevard of broken dreams, then the Weegee show is our tour guide.
Wallace Berman: The aleph male
Art exhibitions take many forms. They can be surveys of a time, place, artist or artistic movement. They may reconsider an artist through a new prism, or appreciate the familiar in a new or different way. All too rare is the exhibition that invites the viewer to share in the joy of discovery, engaging us as confidants in new revelations that suddenly seem self-evident. “Speaking in Tongues: Wallace Berman and Robert Heinecken, 1961-1976,” is just such an exhibition. At the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, the show was co-curated by Claudia Bohn-Spector and Sam Mellon.
Danielewski Serves Up Literary Tricks and Treats
On Halloween this year, instead of being the best sugar pusher in the neighborhood, or following your inappropriately costumed progeny as they amass their candy fortunes, or abandoning your own hard-earned dignity for a night of brew-fueled revelry, let me steer the adults amongst you to REDCAT, the CalArts downtown theater at Walt Disney Concert Hall, where for one night only, Mark Z. Danielewski will conduct a staged reading with shadow puppets and musical accompaniment of his Halloween-set story, “The Fifty Year Sword.” The evening will also raise funds for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) in honor of the son of one of Danielewski’s close friends, who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes on Halloween.
Secret pieces of Wendy’s life found in bio ‘Lost Boys’
When the Pulitzer- and Tony Award-winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein — beloved for her plays “The Heidi Chronicles,” “The Sisters Rosensweig” and “Isn’t it Romantic?” — died in 2006 at age 55, Broadway dimmed its lights in her honor. Five years later, Julie Salamon’s page-turning biography “Wendy and the Lost Boys” (The Penguin Press: $29.95) sheds light on the public and private selves of this author, whose own family dramas were no less gripping than those she wrote for the stage.
Mel the Avenger
Comedy, seriously
Can comedy save a life?
How L.A. grew its own art
For those of us who are not native to Los Angeles yet live here (some for more of our lives than anywhere else), there is a compulsion to define Los Angeles, to get control in some manner of this ever-changing city that is distinguished as much by its sprawl as its particulars, by its air and light as its buildings and institutions, by its self-made individualists as its patchwork of ethnic communities.
Every Picture Has a Story
For 30 years, Michael Schwartz has owned and operated Galerie Michael, an art gallery on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, building, in his own words, “museum-quality collections, one work at a time.” Works by Picasso, Dali, Goya and Miró adorn the walls for the current exhibition on Spanish masters.
‘Beauty’ Is skin deep
On the afternoon I attended the Annenberg Space for Photography’s latest exhibition, “Beauty Culture,” I was standing in the dark watching a series of fashion images projected in the digital gallery, when I was distracted by a woman who entered the room. I did a double take, as I recognized her as one of the iconic women featured in the exhibition, a former fashion model.
Happy Birthday, Bob!
That Hibbing, Minn., native who was born Robert Allen Zimmerman but has been known as Bob Dylan since he first started performing in New York’s Greenwich Village some 50 years ago — and who has lived in Los Angeles probably longer than anywhere else — turns 70 on May 24.
Demjanjuk gets 5 years, freed pending appeal
The conviction today of John Demjanjuk, 91, by a German court is significant in many respects, not the least of which is that this may be one of the last Nazi war crimes trials. Demjanjuk was freed pending appeal, having been found guilty of being an accessory to the murder of more than 28,000 Jewish men, women and children at the Sobibor extermination camp, having been trained at the Trawniki camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. He was convicted primarily on the basis of documentary evidence, records of his service at several camps, including his identification card from the Trawniki camp.
Future shock: Albert Brooks predicts ‘2030’ America
“2030: The Real Story of What Happens to America” (St. Martin’s Press) is Albert Brooks’ novel (in all senses of the word) take on our not-so-distant future. Anyone familiar with Brooks’ films, such as “Defending Your Life” or “Modern Romance,” will not be surprised that his debut novel is clever and entertaining. But it is also thoughtful, insightful and inventive about issues as diverse as health care, transportation, aging and politics. And funny — let’s not forget funny.
Remembering Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor, who died Wednesday at age 79, spent much of her life in the public eye – famous for her violet eyes and her jewelry – and she managed over the years to transition from child star, to legendary beauty, to Oscar-winning actress, to tabloid fodder for her passionate affairs, her tumultuous marriages and divorces, to philanthropist being among the first notable Hollywood personality to speak about AIDS and, as co-founder of AMFAR, one of the earliest AIDS research and support organizations – no small achievement.
‘Columbo’ creator solves his own family mystery
William Link, 77, was asking the question. Link is one of, if not the most successful producer and writer in television history, having put, with his late partner Richard Levinson, 16 series on the air, including creating “Columbo,” “Murder, She Wrote,” “The Cosby Mysteries” and “Mannix.” They also created any number of important TV movies, including “The Execution of Private Slovik,” which launched Martin Sheen’s career, “That Certain Summer,” which was the first sympathetic portrayal of gay men on television, and the 1988 “Terrorist on Trial: The United States vs. Salim Ajami,” which was hauntingly prescient.
Wiesenthal doc looks at Churchill’s legacy of defiance
Who do we have to thank for Hitler’s eventual defeat? What was World War II’s turning point? Who, by his actions during the war, inspired Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s early leaders? The answer, according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s stirring new documentary, “Walking With Destiny,” is Winston Churchill.
Debris of war reborn as artwork for Israeli hospital
The Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon in Southern Israel, six miles from Gaza, is a 500-bed facility with an emergency room and a teaching hospital that treats Israelis and Palestinians. Qassam rockets launched from Gaza land so regularly on the building that the top two floors are kept unoccupied as a “safety buffer.”
The man who was Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis was so famous, so iconic an American movie star that I don’t really need to tell you who he was. He was Tony Curtis, and he lived that role with childish delight, relishing where his life had taken him, and the pleasures and opportunities fame had afforded him. By the time he died last week at age 85 at his home in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson, Nev., he was known the world over — for the movies he starred in, such as “Some Like It Hot” and “Sweet Smell of Success,” for the women he loved (Janet Leigh, Marilyn Monroe), for being the father of Jamie Lee Curtis and for being a movie star from a time when being one mattered.
Tony Curtis, movie star and philanthropist to Hungarian Jewish life, dies.
Ten years after
It’s been 10 years since my mother died on Sept. 22 — nine since I stood by her graveside at the unveiling. Since then, I have visited her grave in New Jersey on many occasions and have diligently observed days of mourning and lit memorial candles.
What We Say When We Talk About Mel Gibson
The recent news that Mel Gibson is no longer a client of William Morris Endeavor should come as no surprise. Many news and entertainment programs, including NBC’s “Today Show,” pegged the delisting to Gibson’s recent domestic assault allegations and tabloid leak of surreptitious tapes of racist rants he allegedly made, all arising from his custody dispute with his baby-mama Oksana Grigorieva.
Bell Brings Artistry, Ancestry to Performances
Recently I sat down with violinist Joshua Bell to talk about being a classical music performer in the 21st century and a star in the age of iPods and auto-tuned performances. Bell, who will perform July 15 at the Hollywood Bowl, talked about how technology can enhance the concert experience, what makes for a great performer and his deepening connection to Israel.
‘Sons of Tucson’ a Cult Hit in the Making
“Sons of Tucson” is a clever and subversive new sitcom about three sons who’ve fled to Tucson, Ariz., because their father was imprisoned for financial fraud. They then go on to recruit a ne’er-do-well, played by Taylor Labine (of “Reaper” fame), to pose as their father for school and other official purposes. The show is generating some drama of its own.
Arshile Gorky: A kindred spirit, just not Jewish
Not long ago, someone brought up the painter Arshile Gorky (1904-1948) and I realized I’d always assumed he was Jewish. I was wrong; he was an Armenian Christian. But my mistake piqued my curiosity: Why did I think so? What element of his life and work spoke to me so deeply that I felt such a kinship?
Bagels, Bongos and Josh Kun
If USC professor Josh Kun had his way, the Jewish people might not be known as “the People of the Book” but rather “the People of the Record.”
Q&A With Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks is on a hot streak: He was just a Kennedy Center Honoree (along with Dave Brubeck, Robert De Niro, Grace Bumbry and Bruce Springsteen); 20th Century Fox just released “The Mel Brooks Collection” in Blu-ray — a nine-DVD set that includes “Blazing Saddles,” “Young Frankenstein” and “Spaceballs,” among other classics; and Shout! Factory has released “The 2000 Year Old Man: The Complete History,” a three-CD, one-DVD set that collects the various incarnations in which Carl Reiner, the world’s greatest straight man, interviews a visitor who’s survived since ancient times and who speaks in a thick Jewish accent to hilarious effect.
J.D. Salinger, novelist of modern anomie, dead at 91
Rethinking Kasztner
“Killing Kasztner: The Jew Who Dealt With Nazis,” a new documentary, portrays filmmaker Gaylen Ross’ attempt to understand why Reszo (Rudolf) Kasztner, a Hungarian Jewish leader who saved more than 1,600 people in war-time Budapest — more than Oskar Schindler — on the so-called Kasztner train, remains so controversial to this day.
Silver Judaica Still Shines
As a tough year ended and a new decade began, it seemed a fair question. While The New York Times has looked to bowling alley attendance as a gauge of our nation’s condition, I turned to Jonathan Greenstein and his recent auction of silver Jewish ritual art, or Judaica, to determine the health, wealth and current condition of the Jewish community.
DISNEY ON ICE — A GREAT TIME HAD BY ALL
German prosecutors looking into whether Demjanjuk ran over a Jewish man in 1947
Los Angeles man says his father was alleged Demjanjuk victim
Saul Liskin, who was 6 when his father was killed in a DP camp in Germany — had a shock of recognition when he heard that Demjanjuk was being investigated for possibly running over a man with a truck in a DP camp in German — he realized it was his father.
Disney on Ice comes to the Southland
A few thoughts on the first week of the Demjanjuk trial in Munich
Demjanjuk trial: first week summary
Lessons From the Not-So-Distant Past
History often seems to take place on a stage distant from our own experience — yet the exhibition “Road to Freedom: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement, 1956-1968,” which opened at the Skirball on Nov. 19, reminds us that even our recent past can deliver a strong message for our times.
Extraordinary Oddities
Ladies and Gentlemen, are you seeking a spectacle that will amaze, entertain and educate you? An evening in which you will encounter some of the most remarkable figures from the history of entertainment, such as Cinquevalli, “The King of the Jugglers,” or George Anderson, "The Living Skeleton," or perhaps a learned goose, a sapient pig or a singing mouse? A night in which the choice will be yours: to spend time with the famous Siamese twins Chang and Eng, or perhaps the less well known but equally well connected Millie-Christine? Then better hurry, hurry to order tickets because for 10 nights only (Dec. 29, 2009-Jan. 10, 2010), Ricky Jay is bringing his new show to the Geffen Playhouse, a show titled “A Rogue’s Gallery: An Evening of Conversation and Performance.”
Demjanjuk trial opens in Munich
Shadows of the Sun
When the German forces surrendered to the Allies in May 1945, World War II in Europe ended. However, for the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, the trauma of what they endured wasn’t over. For many, the effects lingered on in ways large and small, noticeable and not, often in ways their families came to know.
The Kraft of Movie Music
“If there’s music in a movie,” said Robert Kraft, president of Fox Music, “whether on screen, or underscore, or someone is playing guitar in a scene, I’m involved.”
What Survives From the Sixties
The summer of 1969 was host to a pair of historic events — the moon landing and the Woodstock festival — that seemed to define the ’60s. As we revisit those events this summer, it is fair to ask: What did they mean, what did they accomplish and what parts of the ’60s have meaning today?
Vidiots
If you believe all the tech pundits, the future of home movie watching will be moving to “the cloud.” We’re already well on the way to where Netflix DVDs will no longer arrive in the mail and sit, unwatched, on an entryway table. Soon all films and many reruns of TV shows will be downloaded and sit on your hard drive — indeed, this option is already available in many cases.
Spies, Celebs, Classics and More — Good Reads
Budapest Designer Melded Classical With Cutting Edge
Can a piece of furniture convey the story of Hungarian Jewry or reveal the genius of a little-known master? The story of a career undercut by anti-Semitism and cut short by death?
JEWBALL
Who knew that basketball has a storied Jewish past, or that a non-sports guy like me would ever read, no less enjoy, a book about baseball umpires, Bruce Weber’s “As They See ‘Em” (Scribner, 2009)? Maybe it’s because Passover is a time of miracles — or is that Chanukah? Or Purim? Or the entire sweep of Jewish history? No matter. We’re here to talk sports, a subject I now know a little more about.
Appeals court issues stay of Demjanjuk’s deportation
Demjanjuk taken from home by US agents to be deported
City of Images Gets Its Own Photography Scene
Los Angeles has long held a fascination with the visual; beholden to looks, surfaces and images, it is a city where even the buildings seem to strike a pose. So it might seem surprising that until now, there’s never been an institution here devoted to photography. But that all changes this week with the opening of the stunning new Annenberg Space for Photography in Century City.
Laud the Life of Grauman, Hollywood’s Gold Standard
Ever wonder how the movie industry went from five-cent nickelodeons in New York to the glamour of Hollywood with red carpet premieres and the highest of artistic aspirations? Or why a certain pagoda-like Hollywood movie theater in whose courtyard rest footprints of actors is one of the most beloved and frequented tourist sites on the planet?
Thane Rosenbaum’s thoughts on Holocaust Narrative
Thane Rosenbaum to speak at LMU Thursday March 5
Caryl Churchill’s “Seven Jewish Children: a play for Gaza”
Holocaust Movies: Winners and Losers
Are Holocaust movies good for the Jews? Or even, for that matter, for society at large?
‘Zap! Pow! Bam!’
Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s two Jewish kids from Cleveland!
Tom Is ...
Tommywood is ... Tom is ... on Facebook. Aren’t you? If you read this column online and are not on Facebook, you will soon be.
Add Zsa Zsa to list of Madoff’s victim’s
President Obama: “The new era of responsibility”
What I read on my vacation
Lazy me, taking off until Jan 5, 2009
The ‘Maus’ that roared
Art Spiegelman attended Harpur College in Binghamton, N.Y. It was the '60s! Sex, LSD and combinations of both blew his mind, while trips to San Francisco, the East Village and a Vermont commune put flowers in his hair, or at least in some of his drawings.
Where’s Geffen?
A beautiful tale of Tzedaka (even if they don’t mention the word)
Being Bernie: A theory
Add Alexandra Penney, former Self Magazine editor and self help author to the list of Madoff victims
L.A.‘s new Grammy Museum: A museum as muse
New downtown Grammy Museum reflects on music's importance, even during a time of industry uncertainty
Wild about Diamond
David Wild wants you to know that he is an unabashed Neil Diamond fan. So much so that he has written a book titled, "He Is ... I Say: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Neil Diamond"
Kaniuk’s writerly riffs probe Israeli psyche
" . . . I'm talking to Shlomo Shva about my daughters, trying to dredge up a little sympathy. He knows about that. The harshest criticism of Israel and the Jews has always come from us. The biggest anti-Semites of all are educated Israelis, and my daughters are as fanatical as they are, but sweeter than most . . . "
Showtime is just this cantor’s day job
Levine was in the middle of a Showtime meeting when his assistant interrupted saying "Dustin Hoffman's on the line." Hoffman was not calling to pitch Showtime; instead, he was standing on a soundstage and needed Levine to intone the Kaddish for a movie he was mixing
Steven Spielberg dreams anew
What does it mean that Spielberg's other founding partners, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg, are no longer with the company?
Defender of Faith:
Rabbi David Wolpe explains why faith matters
As we get older, we no longer ask so many questions aloud. Our questions become more private: Why? Why are we on this earth? Events occur, and we ask: Why me? Or, why not me?
Premier theater complex blossoms on West Side
"Without people like the Broads,we wouldn't have commissioned work of Mozart and Bach and Beethoven and so many of the great painters. How they use their capital is commendable." -- Dustin Hoffman
Herb Gold, elder statesman of the Beat Generation, writes on
It was at college that he first met Allen Ginsberg. "He was 17. He was a bit crazy, and he was more eccentric than I was," Gold said.
Waxing (Philip) Roth
I decided to watch every film adapted from Philip Roth's work. My mission started simply enough: a search on imdb.com turned up eight works on film and TV, stretching back to the 1950s. Some had never been released on video, some are only in VHS, some were available at the local video store, some had to be tracked down in specialty shops or in university or museum archives. My quest led me across Los Angeles and afforded me the pleasure of visiting some of the city's most beautiful libraries and research facilities, as well as some of its best-stocked video stores.
The heart and the drive
He was famous for being the first man in Hungary to own a car, and my grandmother kept a clipping from the Royal Hungarian Automobile Society with a picture of him seated at the controls of his Benz with a little girl on the rear rumble seat. Beneath the photo was the caption in Hungarian, German and French, proclaiming "Hatsek Bela le premier automobiliste Hongrois sur son voiture Benz en 1895."
Sandler and the Zohan
As to whether "Zohan" will advance the cause of peace in the Middle East and increase regard for Israel and Israelis in the world at large, even as Israel itself celebrates its 60th anniversary, that's hard to say
Trolling between the lines: Collecting titles at Publishers’ BookExpo
The last time BookExpo was in Los Angeles, the convention floor was constantly, overwhelmingly crowded, with so many booths that the author autographing section had to be relegated to a basement hall
Jazz: Made in New Orleans
Preservation Hall's formula was simple and is followed to this day: No reservations, no food, just music in a small room. Shows began at 8 p.m. Each set lasted around 35 minutes, and tickets were priced low (they're now $10 a show, Wednesday through Sunday)
Post-Zionism in a diaspora world
What does it mean to be a Jew in a Post-Zionist world?
Set a place for Shatner at the seder
William Shatner is God. And Pharaoh. And Moses, too.
Just in time for Passover, the Jewish Music Group (a division of Shout Factory) has released "Exodus: An Oratorio in Three Parts," performed by the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. It is conducted by David Itkin, who created and composed the Oratorio, sung by baritone Paul Rowe and includes dramatic readings from the Bible and from the haggadah, spoken by none other than Shatner.
Tommywood: Where is a book-loving soul to go now?
Dutton's Brentwood Books, among the best-known and best-loved of Los Angeles' independent bookstores, will close on April 30.
It is hard not to take this as a sign of the times.
Gang of Actors reaches a new stage
The Actors' Gang, now in residence at the historic Ivy Substation in Culver City, is celebrating its 25th anniversary. The substation, constructed in 1907 by the Los Angeles Pacific Railroad, looks more like a Spanish mission than an electric power facility, strangely appropriate for The Actors' Gang, which is both a theater troupe with a strong sense of mission and a longtime source of power plays and electric performances (and that's as far as I'm willing to stretch this metaphor).
At the crossroads with Elvis
So who is Steve Binder, and why was the "Singer Presents Elvis" special from 1968 so special that 40 years later, people still regard it as one of the greatest TV musical performances ever?
Bernstein’s Great Wall
Every so often, I read a book that is extraordinary, a book that is so good, so well written, so moving, so memorable that you just want to holler out: Read this! Such a book is "The Invisible Wall" by Harry Bernstein.
The genesis of early Dylan—at the Skirball
When it comes to Bob Dylan, I think it's fair to say that I'm a fan of long standing -- my wife still teases me about the time, shortly after we'd moved to Los Angeles, when in her car, radio on, she was surprised to hear me as a call-in contestant to KSCA's "Lyrically Speaking" correctly identify the author of the verse in question as, "My man, Bob Dylan."
So you might think that I would be excited to see "Bob Dylan's American Journey, 1956-66," opening at the Skirball on Feb. 8. But I was somewhat skeptical.
KCRW gives us ‘The Business’
In an underground office on the campus of Santa Monica College, Claude Brodesser-Akner is working with his producer, Matt Holzman, and associate producer, Darby Maloney, to describe the current status of the Oscar broadcast -- and work in a pun.
LACMA gets contemporary
In February, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art will unveil the first phase of its renovation and expansion, including the opening of a new building devoted to contemporary art -- the Broad Contemporary Art Museum (that's Broad as in Eli and Edythe Broad, our local Medicis) or, as the acronymists at LACMA have dubbed it, BCAM.
The Deep Blue G
Let me state, for the record, that I know nothing about sports.
I don't watch them; I don't follow them. My parents didn't. I never did as a kid. I don't now with my family. Occasionally in the finals of a season, a few names flutter into my consciousness and then, just as quickly, disappear. I'm not proud of this. I watch, rather wistfully, as sports informs the conversations of a wide range of folks, as I watch families and friends gather in living rooms or in bars to scream and shout and be together.
The photographer who defined urban L.A.
An appreciation of Julius Shulman, the still much-in-demand architectural photographer famous for his photos of Modernist homes, who turned 97 a few weeks ago.
Adventures of Tom & Chabon
Interview with novelist Michael Chabon.
Producer/musician’s journey brings him home
Producer, songwriter and musician Larry Klein is having a good year. In a way, one could say his current success is the culmination of a process of recontextualizing his background, his experience, his talents and his interests.
Let us travel to Iran
Why Iran? Why now, you may ask.
In part, it is incredible that such an old and established Jewish community is unknown to most of us, and that the life they led is, for the most part, no more.
Summer and the start of school
With slight trepidation, the new year stands before us, calling us to dive in and embrace the fall.
Zsa Zsa Gabor: Last of the Hungarian Mohicans
Lately, I have been thinking about Zsa Zsa, and it makes me sad. A few years ago, she crashed her car on Sunset, and she has been wheelchair-bound since. She had been a recluse for some time before that, depressed, not wanting to leave the house. She, who for so long relied on her looks, no longer wants to be seen in public.
Big fun under the big top
When I heard that the circus was coming to town, I couldn't wait to take my daughter. I'm talking about the Greatest Show on Earth, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, appearing in Orange County until Aug. 5.
Jonathan Gold: Mining L.A.‘s eclectic eateries
"The plov is great." Jonathan Gold, the LA Weekly's restaurant critic and the 2007 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, e-mailed me the above about Uzbekistan (the restaurant on La Brea, not the country), where we were planning to meet.
The salonistas of L.A.—talking about writing
Today in Los Angeles, the three Jewish women profiled below - Andrea Grossman, Louise Steinman, and Julie Robinson - have created their own 21st century versions of the salon. Whereas once the salon was a private, exclusive gathering, today it has become far more democratic.
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May 24-30, 2013
Praying for change: Women of the Wall forces a historic decision on Israel
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