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Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Herb Gold, elder statesman of the Beat Generation, writes on

By Tom Teicholz

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.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Waxing (Philip) Roth

By Tom Teicholz

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.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

The heart and the drive

By Tom Teicholz

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."

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Sandler and the Zohan

By Tom Teicholz

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

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Trolling between the lines: Collecting titles at Publishers’ BookExpo

By Tom Teicholz

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

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Jazz: Made in New Orleans

By Tom Teicholz

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)

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Post-Zionism in a diaspora world

By Tom Teicholz

What does it mean to be a Jew in a Post-Zionist world?

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Set a place for Shatner at the seder

By Tom Teicholz

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.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Tommywood: Where is a book-loving soul to go now?

By Tom Teicholz

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.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

At the crossroads with Elvis

By Tom Teicholz

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?

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Bernstein’s Great Wall

By Tom Teicholz

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.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

The genesis of early Dylan—at the Skirball

By Tom Teicholz

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.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

KCRW gives us ‘The Business’

By Tom Teicholz

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.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

LACMA gets contemporary

By Tom Teicholz

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.

Thursday, December 6, 2007

The Deep Blue G

By Tom Teicholz

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.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

The photographer who defined urban L.A.

By Tom Teicholz

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.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Adventures of Tom & Chabon

By Tom Teicholz

Interview with novelist Michael Chabon.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Producer/musician’s journey brings him home

By Tom Teicholz

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.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Let us travel to Iran

By Tom Teicholz

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.

Saturday, September 8, 2007

Summer and the start of school

By Tom Teicholz

With slight trepidation, the new year stands before us, calling us to dive in and embrace the fall.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Zsa Zsa Gabor: Last of the Hungarian Mohicans

By Tom Teicholz

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.

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Big fun under the big top

By Tom Teicholz

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.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Jonathan Gold: Mining L.A.’s eclectic eateries

By Tom Teicholz

"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.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

The salonistas of L.A.—talking about writing

By Tom Teicholz

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.