Library Foundation of Los Angeles - Calendar

[ALOUD] at Central Library

Wed, Jan 07, 7:00 PM

DENIS DUTTON

The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleaseure, & Human Evolution

In conversation with Michael Shermer, The Skeptic Society

Gregory Peck Reading Series

Thu, Jan 08, 6:00 PM

QUINCY JONES

Host: Veronique Peck

Quincy Jones discussed his autobiography, The Complete Quincy Jones: My Journey & Passions, with Tavis Smiley.

[ALOUD] at Central Library

Wed, Jan 14, 7:00 PM

AZAR NAFISI

Things I’ve Been Silent About: A Memoir in Moments

In conversation with Michael Silverblatt, host, KCRW 89.9 FM's “Bookworm”

[ALOUD] at Central Library

Thu, Jan 15, 7:00 PM

DANNY HOCH & JERRY QUICKLEY

Gentrification, Neo-Feudalism, & the Colonists on Your Block: The Real Costs of a Latte

Sparks fly and words flow when two hiphop theater pioneers invite you into a discussion about the state of the world and the real estate on your block.

Danny Hoch is an actor, playwright and director whose plays Pot Melting, Some People, and Jails, Hospitals, & Hip-Hop have garnered many awards including 2 OBIES, an NEA Solo Theatre Fellowship, Sundance Writers Fellowship, CalArts/Alpert Award In Theatre, and a Tennessee Williams Fellowship. His theatre work has toured to 50 U.S. cities and 15 countries. He is a Senior Fellow at the New School's Vera List Center For Art & Politics and his writings on hip-hop, race and class have appeared in The Village Voice, New York Times, Harper's, The Nation, American Theatre, and various books: Out Of Character, Extreme Exposure, Creating Your Own Monologue and Total Chaos.

Mr. Hoch founded the Hip-Hop Theater Festival in 2000 which has since presented over 100 Hip-Hop Generation plays from around the globe and now appears annually in New York, Chicago, DC and San Francisco/Oakland.

www.DannyHoch.com

Poet Jerry Quickley has performed in venues such the Royal National Theater Company, and received multiple commissions from the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. He contributes to a variety of books and publications, including Spoken Word Revolution: Slam, Hip Hop, and the Voice of a New Generation, and Twilight of Empire: Responses to Occupation. He can be seen in the documentaries A Night of Ferocious Joy, Spit, SlamNation!, Poetic Justice, and the PBS documentary Senior Year. He has toured his work widely and his work has been presented by a wide range of institutions including, Columbia University, Stanford, Dartmouth, the Museums of Contemporary Art in Chicago and Helsinki, and the Warhol Museum, among others. Jerry is also a 2008 Stanford University Visiting IDA Fellow.

www.JerryQuickley.com

[ALOUD] at Central Library

Wed, Jan 21, 7:00 PM

EMBERS: A JAZZ OPERA IN POEMS

Composition by David Ornette Cherry, Libretto by Terry Wolverton, Directed by Rose Marcario

Performed by: D'Lo, Marisol de Jesus, O-Lan Jones, Phil Meyer, Cesili Williams and David Ornette Cherry with Organic Roots: Justo Almario, reeds; Ollie Elder Jr., bass; Don Littleton, drums, percussion.

A female boxer, a madwoman stuck in Purgatory, and an irreverent angel meet across space and time to explore redemption and forgiveness in this concert reading of a work-in-progress adapted from Wolverton's novel-in-poems. Cherry plays keyboards and conducts a jazz quartet to accompany the actors who will bring to life the poetry and song.

David Ornette Cherry, winner of the "2003 ASCAP-Chamber Music America Award for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music," is composer, arranger, and band leader. The ambient music streaming through his childhood was generated by the early collaborations of his dad, Don Cherry, with Ornette Coleman and the musicians who visited his parents' Mariposa Avenue home in Los Angeles. Cherry studied music composition at Bishop College in Dallas and concentrated on world music at California Institute of the Arts. While jazz remains both the root and sustenance of his sound, he often incorporates the sounds of the world in what he calls "multi-kulti" music. His background includes performances with Don Cherry, Ed Blackwell, Charlie Haden, Billy Higgins, Nana Vasconcelos, Olatunji, Hassan Hakmoun, Carlos Ward, Jim Pepper, Collin Walcott, Wadada Leo Smith, and Justo Almario.

www.davidornettecherry.com

Terry Wolverton is the author of six books, including Embers, a novel in poems-- a finalist for the PEN USA Litfest Poetry Award; the memoir Insurgent Muse, named one of the "Best Books of 2002" by the Los Angeles Times, and winner of the 2003 Publisher's Triangle Judy Grahn Award; and the novel Bailey's Beads, finalist in the American Library Association's Gay and Lesbian Book Awards. She has also published three collections of poetry: Black Slip, Mystery Bruise, and Shadow and Praise, and edited numerous literary compilations.

With early roots in experimental feminist theater, from 1977 to 1989 she created numerous individual and collaborative works of performance art. She has also collaborated as a writer with choreographer Heidi Duckler and Collage Dance Theater. Terry is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, most recently, a CAC Fellowship for Poetry and a COLA Fellowship from the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.

terrywolverton.xbuild.com

[ALOUD] at Central Library

Thu, Jan 22, 7:00 PM

THINKING ABOUT EARTHQUAKES:

A Panel Discussion

Moderated by Judith Lewis, editor, The L.A. Earthquake Sourcebook

It's been 15 years since the 1994 quake. Is L.A. more prepared for the next one? Are WE? A panel of experts air their views: Mariana Amatullo, director, The L.A. Earthquake: Get Ready project at Art Center College of Design; Michael Dear, Professor of Geography and Urban Planning at USC; Lucy Jones, Caltech and USGS seismologist; Dennis Mileti, Director of the University of Colorado Natural Hazards Center; David Ulin, author, The Myth of Solid Ground: Earthquakes, Prediction and the Fault Line Between Reason and Faith.

Judith Lewis is a senior editor at the LA Weekly, where her writing on technology, the arts, natural resource issues, public health and the environment has appeared since 1991. Her work also appears in High Country News, WIRED, Salon, Sierra Magazine and the Los Angeles Times. She won a first-place Los Angeles Press Club award for her technology column, "Close to the Machine" and an Association of Alternative Newsweeklies award for her reporting on nuclear power and global warming. She is a member of the Society for Environmental Journalists, and is currently at work on a lay person's guide to nuclear energy.

Mariana Amatullo, co-founder and director of the College-wide initiative Designmatters, is the Vice President of the International Initiatives Department of Art Center College of Design, based in Pasadena, California. Through her leadership, Art Center is the first design institution to be formally affiliated with the United Nations as a non-governmental organization (NGO) and has become recognized with numerous public and private agencies as an exemplary effort uniting humanitarian, social and educational objectives. Mariana acted as the Director of The Los Angeles Earthquake: Get Ready Project.

Dr. Lucy M. Jones has been a seismologist with the US Geological Survey and a Visiting Research Associate at the Seismological Laboratory of Caltech since 1983. She is currently serving as the Chief Scientist for the Multi Hazards Initiative in Southern California, developing a new program to integrate hazards science in urban areas with economic analysis and emergency response to increase community resiliency to natural disasters. She is also a Commissioner of the California Seismic Safety Commission, which advises the governor and legislature on seismic safety and she serves on the California Earthquake Prediction Evaluation Council. Dr. Jones has authored over 80 papers on research seismology with primary interest in the physics of earthquakes, foreshocks and earthquake hazard assessment, especially in southern California. Dr. Jones is the recipient of numerous awards for her work.

Michael Dear is Professor of Geography and Urban Planning at the University of Southern California, and Honorary Professor in the Bartlett School of Planning at University College, London. He has been a Guggenheim Fellowship holder as well as Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford and the Rockefeller Center in Bellagio, Italy. His book The Postmodern Urban Condition was selected by Choice magazine as an "Outstanding Academic Title." His work has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, La Opinion, the Times Literary Supplement, and National Geographic.

David L. Ulin is book editor of the Los Angeles Times. He is the author of The Myth of Solid Ground: Earthquakes, Prediction, and the Fault Line Between Reason and Faith, and the editor of Another City: Writing from Los Angeles and Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology, which won a California Book Award. He has written for The Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, The New York Times Book Review, LA Weekly, Los Angeles, and National Public Radio's All Things Considered.

Dr. Dennis S. Mileti is Professor Emeritus at the University of Colorado at Boulder where he served as Chair of the Department of Sociology and as Director of the Natural Hazards Center—the United States' clearinghouse for social and behavioral science research on hazards and disasters. He is author of over 100 publications, primarily discussing the societal aspects of hazards and disasters. He was the founder and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the all-hazards, all-disciplines journal the Natural Hazards Review.

He has served on a variety of advisory boards including the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Expert Advisory Panel for the study of evacuation of the World Trade Center towers on September 11, and the American Society of Civil Engineers Expert Panel overseeing the Army Corps of Engineers assessment of the New Orleans levee failures and consequences--he was given the Outstanding Civilian Service Medal in 2007 for that work by the Department of the Army.

[ALOUD] at Central Library

Tue, Jan 27, 7:00 PM

HENRY ALFORD

HOW TO LIVE: A Search for Wisdom from Old People (While They Are Still on This Earth)

In conversation with author Sandra Tsing Loh

[ALOUD] at Central Library

Wed, Jan 28, 7:00 PM

Co-Presented with Heyday Books

WALLACE STEGNER & THE SHAPING OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE WEST

A Panel Discussion

With Tom Curwen, William Deverell, Jenny Price, & Page Stegner. Moderated by David L. Ulin, Book Editor, L.A. Times

A distinguished panel explores the legacy of one of the West's most influential writers, who fought for protection of the region's delicate environment as well as recognition of a Western regional base and influenced generations of environmental writers.

Page Stegner was born in Salt Lake City in 1937. He attended Stanford University, where he received his B.A. in history and his Ph.D. in American literature. From 1967 to 1995 he was a professor of American literature and director of the creative writing program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A prolific author and editor, he recently published The Collected Letters of Wallace Stegner.

Tom Curwen is staff writer and editor at the Los Angeles Times. He was editor of the Outdoors section, a writer for the features section and deputy editor of the Book Review. He has been honored by the American Association of Sunday and Features Editors for three pieces he did for Outdoors on caving with nature writer Barbara Hurd, on Alaskan bush pilots and the annual migration of sand hill cranes to the Bosque del Apache. He has a master's degree in Creative Writing from USC and was a recipient of a 1991 Academy of American Poets prize. In 2002, he received a Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for mental health journalism.

David L. Ulin is book editor of the Los Angeles Times. He is the author of The Myth of Solid Ground: Earthquakes, Prediction, and the Fault Line Between Reason and Faith, and the editor of Another City: Writing from Los Angeles and Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology, which won a California Book Award. He has written for The Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, The New York Times Book Review, LA Weekly, Los Angeles, and National Public Radio's All Things Considered

Jenny Price is a writer whose work focuses on L.A. environment. Author of Flight Maps: Adventures with Nature in Modern America, she has published in the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, L.A. Weekly, Audubon, Believer, and Good, and is a regular contributor to the "Native Intelligence" column on LA Observed. She has written often about the Los Angeles River and gives frequent tours. She has a Ph.D. in history from Yale University, and has been a Research Scholar at the UCLA Center for the Study of Women since 1999. She is currently working on a new book, Thirteen Ways of Seeing Nature in L.A.

William Deverell is a professor of history at USC, where he specializes in the history of California and the American West and directs a scholarly institute that collaborates with the Huntington Library in Pasadena. He is the author of Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of Its Mexican Past and Railroad Crossing: Californians and the Railroad, 1850-1910. With Greg Hise, he is co-author of Eden by Design: The 1930 Olmsted-Bartholomew Plan for the Los Angeles Region. Bill is a fellow of the Los Angeles Institute for Humanities at USC.

http://college.usc.edu/huntington

[ALOUD] at Central Library

Thu, Jan 29, 7:30 AM

Wachovia

SIR KEN ROBINSON

The Element: A New View of Human Capacity

In conversation with Rick Wartzman, dean, Drucker School of Management

The author of Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative overcame polio to become one of the world’s leaders in the development of creativity in business, education and human resources. Hear him hold forth on the potential and capacity of truly “human” resources.

Sir Ken Robinson, Ph.D., is one of the world’s leading thinkers on creativity and innovation and a leader in the development of human potential. Especially lauded for his work developing innovation and creativity in business, education and human resources, he has worked with governments in Europe and Asia, international agencies, Fortune 500 companies, national and state education systems, and some of the world’s leading nonprofit and cultural organizations. He led the British government’s 1998 advisory committee on creative and cultural education, a massive inquiry into the significance of creativity in the educational system and the economy, and was knighted in 2003 for his achievements. A talk he gave at the TED conference in 2006 —downloaded over a million times—made an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity. His most recent book is, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything.

Rick Wartzman is director of the Drucker Institute at Claremont Graduate University, an Irvine senior fellow at the New America Foundation and a columnist for BusinessWeek magazine. Previously, he spent two decades as a reporter and editor at the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. He is the co-author, with Mark Arax, of The King of California: J. G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire. A bestseller, it won, among other honors, a California Book Award and the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing.

[ALOUD] at Central Library

Thu, Jan 29, 7:00 PM

YOUNG LITERATI

Rare Books Event