Category Archives: Videos

Friends at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

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We at the Library Foundation are getting excited about the upcoming Los Angeles Times Festival of Books! The Festival gives us a chance to hear from beloved authors, learn about new trends in publishing, listen to live music, sample a cooking demonstration or two, and catch up with old friends. Many past participants of the Foundation’s programs are on the roster, and as we look ahead at the Festival schedule, we’re reminded of some great conversations that have taken place at the Library. Here’s a sampling of a few favorite podcasts and videos from our archive to tide you over till the Festival hits later this month.

Recently, Joyce Carol Oates spoke about her love for libraries at The Council Literary Series to help raise funds for the Los Angeles Public Library. A few years back she also visited ALOUD for an eye-opening conversation with Michael Silverblatt (pictured above). Listen to the podcast here.

Two years ago Jamaica Kincaid paid a unique visit to ALOUD for a discussion on a work-in-progress about a family’s life in a small Vermont town. That novel, See, Now, Then, was just released, and she’ll be reading from the book at the Festival. Listen to her ALOUD podcast here.

Chef Ludo Lefebvre dished with Chef Roy Choi at ALOUD last fall about ephemeral L.A. dining. You can catch Ludo Lefebvre at the Festival, and Roy Choi will return to the Central Library this summer for the upcoming edition of This is Your Library.

Ludo Lefebvre and Roy Choi: Taking the Kitchen to the Street: Experiments in Flavor and Form from ALOUDla on Vimeo.

World-renowned journalist and memoirist Pico Iyer has stopped by ALOUD several times in recent years. Listen here to his 2008 ALOUD conversation about his three decades of encounters with the Dalai Lama. He’ll continue to explore expansive issues when he stops by the Festival for the “Culture of Culture” panel.

We hope to see you as well at the Festival. Stop by our Library Store on Wheels and say hello, or become a member of the Young Literati and join us at the Festival’s “go-to” after-party, the Book Drop BASH! at the Central Library.

Photo by Gary Leonard.

Stay Up With This Is Your Library

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On Saturday, March 2, the doors of the downtown Central Library will stay open later than usual for the seventh installment of “This is Your Library,” the Library Foundation’s series of live late-night-style talk shows. The upcoming episode will feature punk legend Exene Cervenka; actor, writer and producer Mike White of HBO’s Enlightened; author and Los Angeles Times journalist Héctor Tobar; and City Librarian John Szabo, all in conversation with host Justin Veach, the Foundation’s Director of New Initiatives. What might they be discussing? Here’s a quick rundown of some of the guests’ work to get you ready for your library after-hours. Purchase tickets for the event, which will also include music by dublab djs, food by Mas Malo, a post-show concert featuring the psychedelic sounds of Feeding People, and more.

Exene Cervenka is an American singer, songwriter, artist, and activist. Together with John Doe and guitarist Billy Zoom, they formed the seminal Los Angeles punk band X. Exene has covered a lot of artistic territory over the years: publishing poetry, prose, and art books; exhibiting her collages in museums and galleries; recording and touring with her other bands. Watch a performance below.



Mike White is an award-winning writer, director, actor and producer. His writing credits range from the indie black comedies Chuck and Buck, The Good Girl, and Year of the Dog to main-stream comedy hits School of Rock and Nacho Libre. His TV credits include the short-lived but critically praised Freaks and Geeks and Pasadena. He also twice competed in the Emmy-winning television show The Amazing Race with his father, Mel. The second season of White’s Golden Globe-winning HBO television series Enlightened premiered this January, starring Laura Dern and White (also the series co-creator). Listen to White talk to Terry Gross on Fresh Air about Enlightened here and flashback to the hilarious trailer of Chuck and Buck below.

Héctor Tobar has worked as a journalist for the Los Angeles Times for nearly twenty years. He shared a Pulitzer Prize for the paper’s coverage of the 1992 riots, and then served as the national Latino Affairs correspondent, the Buenos Aires bureau chief, and the Mexico City bureau chief. Héctor currently serves as a book critic for the paper, is the author of three books, including most recently, The Barbarian Nurseries. Listen to his interview with Michael Silverblatt of Bookworm here and his interview with Karen Grigsby Bates of NPR’s Morning Edition here. And of course, get lost in the history of Los Angeles as you browse his many columns for the Los Angeles Times.

John F. Szabo is the City Librarian of the Los Angeles Public Library, which serves over four million people—the largest population of any library in the United States—through its Central Library, 72 neighborhood branches, and website at www.lapl.org. Szabo has more than 20 years of leadership experience in public libraries and is a champion for innovative library services that address critical community needs in areas including health disparities, workforce development, adult literacy, school readiness and emergent literacy for preschoolers.  Read the Los Angeles Times’ take on John Szabo’s appointment to City Librarian.

Feeding People, a band of teenagers making some of the heaviest psychedelic around, have just released their latest album Island Universe from Innovative Leisure. Watch their newest music video below.

Feeding People will be presented in collaboration with Spaceland Productions.

We hope you’ll stay up with us for This is Your Library!

From the Archives: Daniel Mendelsohn and Jonathan Lethem

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As we gear up for what’s sure to be a memorable conversation next week at ALOUD between writers George Saunders and Bernard Cooper, we’re still ruminating on a conversation between another dynamic pairing last fall. On Thursday, November 8, 2012, Daniel Mendelsohn (Waiting for the Barbarians) and Jonathan Lethem (The Ecstasy of Influence) met for the first time to commiserate over the blessings and curses of the contemporary essay form. If you missed this fascinating conversation on craft, you can watch the video below. Stay up-to-date on all the latest videos by signing-up to follow ALOUD’s Vimeo channel.

Catch other recently added videos of ALOUD favorites like Anne Lamott, and Jeff Bridges and Bernie Glassman on the ALOUDla Vimeo channel.

 

Amy Wilentz’s Cultural Guide to Haiti

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Commemorating the third anniversary of the devastating earthquake that struck the nation of Haiti on January 12, 2010, veteran journalist and longtime observer of Haiti Amy Wilentz comes to ALOUD to discuss her new book, Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter from Haiti. For the last three years, the world has been captivated by stories of heartbreak as well as the resilience of Haitians to overcome tragedy. But beyond Wyclef Jean and Voodoo priests, what do you really know about this culture? As a primer for her ALOUD appearance, we asked Wilentz to share some of her favorite Haitian artists to help us learn more about this profoundly creative place like nowhere else in the world. Here are her recommendations below:

Music:



Movies:

Also, check out this video excerpt from Alexandria Harmond’s Children of Haiti, a documentary about the impact of the Hopital Sacre Coeur in Milot, the second largest hospital in the country.

Books (all of which are available at the Los Angeles Public Library):

Artists:

Vodou Flag Artists:

Free reservations are still available for Amy Wilentz at ALOUD on Tuesday, January 15.

Also, Angelenos, be sure to check out a special exhibit at the Fowler Museum through January 20, In Extremis: Death and Life in 21st‐Century Haitian Art, which features several of the artists Wilentz mentioned above.

Bettye LaVette Serenades ALOUD with her Musical Story

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Next Wednesday, October 10, legendary R&B singer Bettye LaVette comes to ALOUD to discuss her new memoir, A Woman Like Me, co-written with David Ritz.

LaVette made her first record at 16, when she found instant stardom at Motown, but her fame wavered intermittently until 2005 with the release of her album, I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise. With an amazing career revival in her sixties including her singing at President Obama’s pre-inaugural concert at the Lincoln Memorial, LaVette’s new memoir follows this roller-coaster ride through the world of music. Hear the voice that inspired “A Woman Like Me” in these clips, and catch her live performance at the Troubadour on October 11th as LaVette celebrates her 50th anniversary in the music business this year.

In Memory of a Master: Carlos Fuentes

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Earlier this week one of Mexico’s greatest writers, and one of the world’s most admired champions of ideas and letters, died in Mexico City. An ardent supporter of libraries, Carlos was honored in 2001 with a Los Angeles Public Library Literary Award for his lifelong commitment to literature. The magnitude of his influence was felt when he returned to the Central Library last year for ALOUD, speaking to a truly diverse Angeleno audience that spanned generations, from children to grandparents who grew up with his work. “If the library disappears, we too will disappear. We will become ghosts,” he said when asked about the future of libraries. He saw a void in the world without libraries, and this week the world feels a void with his passing.

         Carlos Fuentes with Sergio Muñoz-Bata. All photos by Gary Leonard.

Carlos will be greatly missed by our entire community for his fierce intellectual spirit and imagination, and for providing an immensely beautiful voice for humanity everywhere. Watch the video of Carlos’ conversation with journalist Sergio Muñoz-Bata:

Consider becoming a member of the Library Foundation to help strengthen the mission of the Los Angeles Public Library.  As a thank you, we have a limited number of signed copies of Fuentes’ novel Destiny and Desire that you can select as part of the ALOUD bookshelf benefit when joining the Foundation at an ALOUD program at the Supporter level or higher.

You can find a range of Carlos’ work at the Los Angeles Public Library. Browse the library’s collection here.

Terry Tempest Williams: A Meditation on Mothers

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I am enthralled by the beauty of the this book, its textured jacket cover, the letterpress  on the hard cover, and my favorite- the silhouettes of little black birds silently waiting on the margins of each page for you to turn them so that their wings might flap.   And then there are the words.  This is a memoir of possibility and creation when a daughter, writer, and lover of the natural world finds all of her mother’s journals after her death.  Every single one of them is blank.  The mystery of this discovery is told  in author Terry Tempest William’s  ”When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice.”  From the moment I picked it up I heard myself through her words, the meditations she voiced about mom.  In many ways, her words were speaking my voice, articulating the beauty and subtleties of my own upbringing- a close relationship with my mother and a deep love of my natural world- the sea and sand of my backyard.

“I was born on the edge of the Pacific.  California was paradise.  My mother took me to the beach daily near Capistrano, home to the returning swallows.  It is here I must have imprinted on the rhythmic sound of waves, the cry of gulls, the calm of my own mother’s heart.”

And she continues, “It is here, on this edge of sand and surf, where I must have developed my need to see the horizon, to look outward as far and wide as possible. My hunger for vistas has never left me.”  

My wings have always been stretched wide.  The intrepid spirit of an only child, anxious to forge her own path, curious to discover what lie beyond.  The horizons met me each and every morning we drove along Pacific Coast Highway to school.  Sometimes I’d see dolphins dancing in the placid water of the early morning, pelicans deftly gliding over the crest of unbroken waves.  This is where my independence was born, the flight of the bird over a vast and infinite big blue.  My sea of possibilities, and blessings from a family who let my spirit run free.

“The invisible world can speak to us. In this vast, undulating ocean, we are cradled.  The waves carry us like the rise and fall of the melody of mothers.”

Terry’s prose soars like the birds she has nurtured all her life, the ones she seeks, listens to, observes in silence. The birds of her dreams.  I’ve taken flight with this memoir, a moving work on the beauty of our mothers, the womb of this natural world.  I am grateful for my beautiful mother, whose blank journals are being filled by the silent melodies she sings to me.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Terry at ALOUD

-Posted by Maureen Moore

Slavoj Žižek Questions the Questions at ALOUD

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In a packed house on Tuesday at the Central Library, international rock star philosopher Slavoj Žižek stopped by ALOUD for a conversation with Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies Jack Miles. Casually dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, Žižek was in his comfort zone: on a stage pontificating on topics from Christianity, to sex and smoking, to what would be a better ending to the Oscar-winning film La vita è bella. Over the course of the night, he transformed some of the biggest existential questions into hilarious anecdotes. However, he was adamant that he does not joke to undermine the gravity of an issue, but as a point of human access.

Photo by Gary Leonard

Combining great intellect and a penchant for storytelling, Žižek charmed the audience (many of whom were perhaps already enamored followers). Almost like casting a spell, Miles pointed out how Žižek answers questions only partially, but then seamlessly diverges to other topics. Miles was also amazed by Žižek’s ability to undermine opposing ideologies by over-agreeing with them. To this point, Žižek really agreed. He tried to illustrate his strategy by recalling some of Ayn Rand’s extreme ideologies, but he quickly conceded, “No, I can’t agree with Rand.”

Photo by Gary Leonard

He went on to discuss other literary figures by dismissing Joyce’s forced intellectualism in favor of Beckett. “I love his minimal move to radicalism,” Žižek said referring to Beckett as his hero. The night spun by with flashes of illumination after long-winded reflections on the invention of canned laughter (“the greatest cultural invention by Americans”) and why he admires the gospels (“for the texture of the text”) as Žižek turned idea after idea on its head. When the Q&A opened up, audience hands eagerly waved, asking questions on Catholicism, and atheism, and everything in between.

Both Miles and Žižek were thoroughly thought provoking, and the evening concluded with Žižek giving an impassioned appeal for the sanctity of open forums for free thinking, fierce debate, and free education like ALOUD at the Central Library. “We need places to question the questions,” he said. And although he may have expressed many controversial ideas throughout the night, this was one belief that everyone could stand behind. Watch now:

–Posted by Bridgette Bates

Kicking Off National Poetry Month

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T.S. Eliot dubbed April the “cruelest month,” but for poetry enthusiasts today, we consider April the happiest month—an entire month to celebrate poetry and its vital place in our culture. How do you plan to celebrate?

First off, stop by your neighborhood library to check out some poetry books. Secondly, join us at ALOUD on Thursday, April 12, for Concrete Rivers: The Emotional Topography of LA, to hear from local poets Wanda Coleman and Lewis MacAdams on how Los Angeles has shaped their poetry and activism.

Want more poetry? Watch this conversation on poetry and politics with Edgar Arceneaux and Douglas Kearney. Or read our recent interview with U.S. Poet Laureate Philip Levine. Here’s a link to The Waste Land to read why Eliot blacklisted the month of April, and check out the Academy of American Poets website for other ideas on celebrating National Poetry Month, including requesting a free copy of this poster: