Celebrate Black History Month during a free Zoom event focused on black artists paying homage to black icons on Thursday, February 25.
Jean-Michel Basquiat, Muhammad Ali, Kobe Bryant, and Nipsey Hustle are just a few of the legendary figures honored in the work of artists TAJ and Tiffanie Anderson. TAJ and Anderson will join moderator Nausicaa, art curator for the Sofitel Los Angeles’ art gallery, #TheCoolHeART, for this Zoom conversation, titled “Art From the Heart.”
The art they’ll discuss can be viewed in the Sofitel hotel’s lobby. A tribute to Los Angeles, the works were inspired by the pandemic and current social movements.
The artists will discuss their stories, their inspirations, BLM, and more. This conversation is open to the public, and you can register here.
“Jazz on a Summer’s Day” (1959, Kino Lorber) I wrote about this exceptional concert film of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival when Kino Lorber Repertory reissued it virtually to theaters in 2020 (which only feels like a million years ago); now Kino has released it on Blu-ray, which features the reissue’s stellar 4K restoration (a joint effort between IndieCollect and the National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress), as well as informative commentary by journalist Natalie Weiner (she knows the ins and outs of the performers) and a feature-length documentary on director Bert Stern, who’s also featured on a short interview featurette. Required viewing for any traditional jazz fan for the sheer quality of players and selections, including Thelonious Monk on “Blue Monk,” Anita O’Day, Louis Armstrong, Sonny Stitt, Big Maybelle, Chuck Berry, Dinah Washington, George Shearing, Chuck Berry and Mahalia Jackson (among many others).
Ellen Reid is a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer whose opera p r i s m was performed here in 2018 at Redcat to great reception. We can now enjoy another of her works, pandemic-style, with SOUNDWALK.
SOUNDWALK is enjoyed via a free app that enables music (performed by the Kronos Quartet) to connect you with your surroundings – in this case, Griffith Park. You pick a trail, which dictates the music you hear on the app; no trip is the same twice. The work opened Thursday; you can go any day from now through 2023 when presumably things will be back to some level of normal and we will remember how important music and surroundings are to our well-being.
“Glamour Ghoul: The Passions and Pain of the Real Vampira, Maila Nurmi” is an absorbing look at the woman behind the enduring character of Vampira. Based on journal entries, letters and oral testimony gathered by Nurmi’s niece, Sandra Neimi, the book reveals a passionate, flamboyant individual who struggled with fierce insecurities, difficult relationships, and the (often) heartless machine that is the movie/TV industry.
Desperate to escape a self-involved father and alcoholic mother, as well as an unglamorous cannery career in Astoria, OR, young Elizabeth Maila Syrjäniemi ran off to L.A. with dreams of becoming a voice actress. Naive and pretty, she was taken advantage of almost the moment she arrived. She unwittingly became Orson Welles’s mistress, ending up pregnant and giving the baby up for adoption. (The story of her mother finding him and telling him off is priceless.)
But she also formed a new family of likeminded oddballs, dubbed the Night Watch, that gathered at Googies near Sunset & Crescent Heights, and shared their dreams and struggles. Among them was James Dean who remained a friend — albeit a flaky one — until his death. They goofed around in cemeteries and sneaked into morgues; they were Goth to the bone before the subculture truly existed. Nurmi may have been a pretty blonde, but she idolized fierce characters like The Dragon Lady from the comic strip, “Terry and The Pirates.”
Proud and hot-blooded, she sometimes burned bridges and lost one major gig with Howard Hughes; she also refused to stick to a practical job and spent most of her life on the very edge of poverty. While the men in her life frequently took advantage of her, she often took advantage of her mother, who supported her by working menial jobs while she ran around town with her friends. Her sometime lover, Marlon Brando, also helped her out financially. Yet she had a kind heart and adored animals; she often helped out friends despite having no money herself. With every relationship, she invested her whole heart and soul.
Mardi Gras World at Kern Studios along the Mississippi River, New Orleans, Louisiana, September 16, 2019. (Photos by Monique A. LeBleu)
Mardi Gras World, located in New Orleans and opened in 1984 to the public, is a 300,000 square foot “working” warehouse where Kern Studios has made floats for the Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans since 1947.
The enormous warehouse rests alongside the Mississippi River where guests can view various vintage floats, float characters, and unique pieces that are on display year-round.
A most special feature of a tour of Mardi Gras World is the studios’ adjacent boardwalk which affords not only an up-close and personal view of the river but also the cantilever Crescent City Connection bridge that straddles it. Continue reading →
Here’s a great film to make you feel good about where we are all going as a race, the human race. “Woman In Motion: Nichelle Nichols, Star Trek, and The Remaking of NASA,” released yesterday, is a close look at the role that Nichelle “Uhura” Nichols played in humanity’s quest for space, and America’s unfinished quest for racial equality, a quest that is more important now than ever. If you’re a fan of “Star Trek”, whether you call yourself a “Trekker” or a “Trekkie,” you know we all believe in a future where everyone on our planet has put racial injustices behind them, a future that holds promise for everyone.
“Star Trek,” which ran on NBC for three seasons starting in 1966, was science fiction to most, but if you look closely, it’s really more science fact than fiction. It predicted so many things we take for granted in our day-to-day life.Do you remember Captain Kirk and his crew on a planet that suspiciously looked like a backlot, flipping open his communicator, instructing Scotty to “beam me up”?We’ve already lived that, it was the flip-phone.Scenes where they fed small plastic squares into the computer?Three-and-a-half inch floppy discs.The little thing that Dr. McCoy waved near a patient to get vital signs?Infrared thermometers, which sadly are a common sight today.The universal translator, a device a crewmember spoke into, which translated what they were saying into a language that could be understood by an alien who didn’t speak English? Google Speak.
Yes, everything is canceled, but you can still enjoy Mardi Gras in Los Angeles. Here are our recommendations so you can get your Ya Yas out!
THE ORIGINAL FARMER’S MARKET
Unfortunately, like everything else, the annual Mardi Gras event at Original Farmer’s Market is canceled this year. But the outdoor market is fairly safe, and luckily, The Gumbo Pot is once again up and running. The Cajun take-out stand will be offering the “Le Grande Mardi Gras Family Feast” and “Le Petite Mardi Gras Family Feast” — available to serve 4-6 ($65) or 2-4 ($40), featuring classics like jambalaya, seafood gumbo, cornbread and more.
Bar 326 will be offering New Orleans’ craft brews like Abita Amber and Purple Haze for $5 each, or as a four-pack for $18.
You can pick up a traditional King Cake at Michelina Artisan Boulanger. This French bakery will also be stocked with traditional King Galettes, a French take on a classic NOLA holiday treat. The almond-filled cakes are also available for home delivery on Mercato for $49 for a 10-inch cake or $9 by the slice.
“Southland Tales” (2006, Arrow Video) The fate of a post-apocalyptic United States – or its ultimate demise, as narrator Justin Timberlake occasionally and obliquely infers – rests in the hands of amnesic action star Dwayne Johnson, who has penned a screenplay that predicts the end of the world (I think). Adult film stars, flying trucks, and the nuclear destruction of El Paso, Texas also figure into Richard (“Donnie Darko”) Kelly‘s much-discussed epic; I won’t pretend that it’s a secret masterpiece, nor will I say it’s the total disaster that many have labeled it to be. There are some inspired moments, mostly involving Seann William Scott’s hapless cop (and his twin) and megalomaniacal Wallace Shawn, and you have to admire the audacity of making such an impenetrable film, and then doubling down with a director’s cut that obfuscates things further. I’ll say it’s unique, and requires heavy lifting on your part, and you may enjoy the exercise or not; the Arrow Blu-ray offers both the 145-minute theatrical cut and the 160-minute (!) Cannes cut, as well as commentary by Kelly and two making-of featurettes.
Lunar New Year celebrations in L.A.’s Chinatown usually last for three days, but the Lunar New Year this year runs from today, February 12, 2021 to February 26, 2021. Chinese New Year, Spring Festival or the Lunar New Year, celebrates the new year on the lunisolar calendar, the beginning of Spring, and the end of Winter.
As we all know, the parades and festivals have been cancelled this year, but here are a few ways you can still usher in the Year of the Ox:
Here’s a great film to make you feel good about where we are all going as a race, the human race. “
