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What Jonathan Alter Thinks about Our President
June 18, 2013 Jonathan Alter’s “The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies” (Simon and Schuster), an account of the president’s reelection campaign and the challenges posed by the Republican’s obstructionist politics, has been on the New York Times Best Sellers list for several weeks. We recently spoke to the columnist for Bloomberg View about the president, the 2012 campaign and the future of political journalism. The following is an edited version of our conversation. TOM TEICHOLZ: Three years ago, you… -
The Remarkable Life and Times of George Plimpton
The groundbreaking journalist taught me one of life's most important lessons: You never have to be afraid to be yourself June 17, 2013 Recent months have seen a resurgence in all things George Plimpton (journalist and founding editor of The Paris Review), with the release of a documentary, "Plimpton!" as well as the paperback edition of "George Being George." Why should we care? What makes Plimpton so interesting to us now? For one thing, we have Plimpton to thank for… -
Etgar Keret: The Long and Very Short of Fiction
Posted: 11/04/2013 4:32 pm Etgar Keret, with his collections The Nimrod Flip-Out and the recently published Suddenly, a Knock on the Door, reinvigorated the short story (and the short, short story). The author, whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, Zoetrope and on This American Life, recently spent a day in Los Angles, at UCLA, as a guest of the Israel Studies department, and at a reception in his honor at the home of Sharon Nazarian, president of the… -
Ringo Starr Gets the Museum Treatment: A new exhibition featuring artifacts from the drummer's life and career opens at the Grammy Museum
Saturday, June 15, 2013 “Life is weird,” said Ringo Starr, who will turn 74 this July, at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles for the launch of “Ringo: Peace & Love” — the first major exhibit ever dedicated to a drummer and the first time Ringo has shared memorabilia from his private collection. Calling Ringo, “the most significant drummer in the history of rock and roll,” Grammy Museum executive director Bob Santelli said the exhibit was in keeping with the… -
Don Was' Excellent Adventure: On his new gig as president of Blue Note Records and his old job as Rolling Stones collaborator
Wednesday, June 5, 2013 PURPLECLOVER.com Don Was, the multi-Grammy award-winning producer, a close collaborator of the Rolling Stones whose band Was/Not Was still plays the occasional gig; and who last year became president of legendary Jazz label Blue Note Records, is easy to spot in a crowd, or a police lineup for that matter, because he’s the tall guy with the dreadlocks wearing the hat and shades and the flipflops. I’ve known Don for more than a decade (our wives… -
The Price for Dylan Going Electric
Bob Dylan playing the guitar. Image Courtesy of The Estate of David Gahr/Getty Images The guitar stood on a stand in a small conference room in corporate offices in Beverly Hills. A black Fender Stratocaster with a white body plate, a few nicks to its side, it looked simple, basic, uncomplicated. Yet the story that brings this particular musical instrument to auction at Christies in New York on Dec. 6 has put an estimated value on it of $300,000 to… -
Lou Adler: Low Key, Lucky and Very Cool
From left: Herb Alpert in the studio with Lou Adler in 1970. Photo courtesy of Herb Alpert Presents About a mile north of Duke’s in Malibu, a right turn takes you up to a bluff with its own driveway, which leads to a large parking lot. There, on the day I visited, a tour bus was parked in front of a modest ranch house, alongside several other cars, none of them too fancy. The front door was open, and I… -
Inside the Gossip Industrial Complex
George Rush and Joanna Molloy's "SCANDAL: A Manual, The Inside Story of America's Infamous Gossip Columnists" (Skyhorse/Norton) is the most fun read I've had all year -- possibly in several years. It is a delicious look behind the curtain of New York's gossip media industrial complex, the players and the played, and how rival columns and columnists at the Daily News and The New York Post do battle and have been forced to evolve in an Internet/ Matt… -
The People's Architect (Moshe Safdie)
Moshe Safdie’s new Guerin Pavillion at the Skirball Cultural Center offers a light-filled natural setting for conferences and gatherings. Photo by Timothy Hursley The Skirball Cultural Center, which stands at the crest of Sepulveda and Mulholland just west of the 405 Freeway, was built on a dump. Literally. Who knew? Before the Skirball acquired the land, it was a garbage dump. With its opening in 1996, architect Moshe… -
Lust for Leica
The new Leica store and gallery in West Hollywood. In one version of our lives, childhood is a series of deprivations and desires whereby we want things we can’t have, some of which we grow out of or just forget. In my case, I was seized with heartache when I entered the newly opened 8,000-square-foot Leica store on Beverly Boulevard at Robertson in West Hollywood. Until then, I had forgotten how much I wanted to own a Leica. Leica… -
Hans Richter: The Future is Now! (at LACMA)
The exhibition “Hans Richter: Encounters” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is a curator’s dream: retrospective of a somewhat obscure, multiplatform artist, who is equally adept (and revolutionary) in painting and film; whose life and career intersects with the major artists and artistic movements of the 20th century; and whose work, when organized didactically, continues to appear very of the moment, ready for reappraisal and for greater attention. Although the show’s curator, Timothy O. Benson, had written about… -
Showing off The Israel Conference
The Israel Conference held at the Luxe Hotel on Sunset Boulevard May 30-31 was the largest gathering I’ve ever seen of … Israelis in suits. Beyond that, the two-day event was a persuasive showcase of Israeli innovation and how companies from all over the world — including Procter & Gamble (P&G), IBM and Deutsche Telekom — are opening research and development offices in Israel to bottle some of the magic of the startup nation. Organized around a series of panels…