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Issue 288 |
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Your cultural event guide
Here's a snapshot of our favorite things to do in Los Angeles this week. |
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Los Angeles
Sep 2-8, 2008
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Sharpen those pencils and trick out your backpack: the "back to school" spirit has leaked out of the classroom and into our cultural calendar. This week's got a full credit load in the Humanities, including Norwegian heavy metal and operas directed by Woody Allen and David Cronenberg. But it's Art Appreciation that'll have you criss-crossing the campus: High-profile exhibitions from Dennis Hopper, Brandon Boyd, and Nancy Kienholz are just the tip of the iceberg; for the full course catalog, check out the clickable calendar and brand-new search bar on our homeroom — er, homepage. And don't play hooky because, in the immortal words of Dan Quayle, "What a waste it is to lose one's mind."
- Shana Nys Dambrot, Managing Editor
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SPECIAL FEATURE
One Night Barcelona
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The two winners of Le Méridien and Flavorpill's Travel Journal contest journeyed to Barcelona to immerse themselves in the culture of the city. We invite you to meet these intrepid explorers and experience the Spanish metropolis through their personal online journals and photos. Up next: One Night Paris. Stay tuned for your chance to win!
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Wild Nights!
Joyce Carol Oates contemplates the task of authors writing at the ends of their lives.
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Flavorpill on Facebook
Explore our page, and show your devotion by becoming a Flavorpill fan.
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ART
Greater LA MFA Exhibition
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Tuesday Sep 2 (noon–5pm)
More times»
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| where: |
University Art Museum, California State University, Long Beach (1250 Bellflower Blvd, 562.985.5761)
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| price: |
FREE
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The spirit of collegiality among the many graduate art programs in the greater Los Angeles area finds its annual apogee in the 2008 GLAMFA exhibition. Hosted once again by the students of CSU Long Beach, the show brings together aspiring Picassos and Kahlos from art departments in Santa Monica, Las Vegas, Northridge, Downtown, Riverside, and MFA programs from Art Center to Otis, giving critics and curators a look into the future of the LA scene. Expect a spectrum of risky experiments and open-ended questions from the artists, plus voracious gallerists on the prowl for the next marquee name.
- Shana Nys Dambrot
Note:
There is an opening reception for this show on Sun, Sep 7 (4-9pm).
[Info Source]
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MUSIC: Rock/Pop
Paul Weller w/ DJ Dred Scott
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Tuesday Sep 2 (8pm)
More times»
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| where: |
The Wiltern (3790 Wilshire Blvd, 213.388.1400)
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| price: |
$24.75 - 45
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Whether playing deity to the mod-obsessed masses or leaving an indelible impression on future members of Oasis, British rocker Paul Weller has always maintained an inimitable sense of personal style. As leader of the Jam, he helped ease punk into the realm of self-aware pop, meshing the genre's self-obsessed aesthetic with hedonistic tropes of Britain's earlier age. With '80s act the Style Council, Weller tumbled even further into the pop abyss, incorporating elements of new wave, R&B, and jazz into a delectably skittish, po-mo pulp. He's averaged out with age: spanning the great divide, 2008 solo album 22 Dreams explores the happy mediums between alt-rock and unremitting pop.
- Andrew Phillips
[Info Source]
What nickname did Paul Weller earn as a result of his influential role in the mod revival of the '70s?
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ART: Photography
Dennis Hopper: Colors and Wendy Burton: Trace Elements III
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Wednesday Sep 3 (10am–5:30pm)
More times»
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| where: |
Craig Krull Gallery (2525 Michigan Ave, 310.828.6410)
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| price: |
FREE
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Craig Krull Gallery pulls out the big guns for its season opener, with concurrent solo exhibitions from two of its most accomplished artists. Wendy Burton's long-standing passion for architectural photographs that document modern American "ruins" is seen in two new bodies of work, one examining the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Dennis Hopper picks up his creative thread as photographer and painter with rich visual dialogs between the smooth colors fields of mid-century abstraction (expressed as blocky anti-graffiti wall patches) and not-so-smooth images of inner-city social turmoil. Both series, while following diverse strategies, get straight to the point: there's beauty everywhere — you just need the patience to look.
- Shana Nys Dambrot
Note:
There is an opening reception for this show on Sat, Sep 6 (4-6pm).
[Info Source]
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PERFORMING ARTS: Theatre
9 to 5: The Musical
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Wednesday Sep 3
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| where: |
Ahmanson Theatre (135 N Grand Ave, 213.628.2772)
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| price: |
$35 - $90
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Based on Collin Higgins' screwball 1980 comedy, 9 to 5: The Musical makes its LA premiere tonight before heading to Broadway in the spring. Directed by Joe Mantello, the production features original music and lyrics by Dolly Parton, including well-worn classic "9 to 5," a lovesick ode to a manager. The Ahmanson is a fitting host, as many of the original movie's scenes — including the famous car-ride episode — were shot streets away in downtown LA. Allison Janney leads the cast of cubicle-dwellers as Violet Newstead (originally played by Lily Tomlin), a working-class mother and employee who rails against the ineptitude of her boss, whom she dubs a "sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot."
- Julian Hooper
[Info Source]
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ART
Katie Grinnan: Polaris
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Thursday Sep 4 (7–9pm)
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| where: |
MAK Center for Art and Architecture (835 N Kings Rd, 323.651.1510)
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| price: |
$7
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Katie Grinnan has made a career out of walking the fine line between the second and third dimensions. Grinnan takes architectural structures — as well as 2-D images of the same — and cuts, bends, shreds, and fuses them into new objects that barely resemble their original forms. Her Frankenstein-like antics result in monstrous structures of exposed steel, concrete, and rebar. Each creation has its own distinct personality; some are diminutive, others overwhelming, but all take the art of multimedia collage to a new level of sophistication. Her exhibition marks the first phase of MAK Center's three-part Locus Remix series, in which artists examine the psychological and physical implications of place.
- Heather Silva
[Info Source]
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MUSIC: Rock/Pop
Why? w/ Rafter and the Dub Lab DJs
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Thursday Sep 4 (7pm)
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Echoplex (1154 Glendale Blvd, 213.413.8200)
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| price: |
$15 / $13 advance
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California's genre-bending art-hop outfit Why? bring their deranged, poetic pop back to LA in support of their latest album, Alopecia. Frontman Yoni Wolf spits wordy diatribes that fall somewhere between the precise verses of his Anticon backpacker brethren and Stephen Malkmus' free-associative drawl. His band follows suit, shifting chameleon-like between hip-hop panoramas and indie-pop jangle. Alopecia is a masterpiece of hybridity, full of complex, upsetting songs — the sort of stuff that gives pigeonhole-happy music journalists nightmares. For the rest of us, it's a dark, bittersweet delight.
- Oliver Spall
[Info Source]
If you were named for an animal, what animal would it be, and why?
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ART
Nancy Reddin Kienholz
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Friday Sep 5 (6–8pm)
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| where: |
LA Louver Gallery (45 N Venice Blvd, 310.822.4955)
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| price: |
FREE
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Nancy Reddin Kienholz may be familiar to some because of her lifelong collaboration with late husband Ed Kienholz, one of the world's most famous assemblage artists. Though her large-scale, mixed-media sculptures at times resemble his in their use of weathered wood, antique furniture, and themes of discarded Americana, this show encompasses a suite of distinctive lenticular prints that reveal hidden elements as the viewer perceives them from different angles. For Kienholz, juxtaposing images (guns and forearms, Santa and Jesus) in this way is a kind of metaphorical assemblage, with a neat optical trick and dash of wit thrown in for good measure.
- Shana Nys Dambrot
[Info Source]
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PERFORMING ARTS: Dance
Baker & Tarpaga Dance Project and Catch Me Bird: Sans Detour
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Friday Sep 5 (8:30pm)
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| where: |
The Ford Theater (2580 E Cahuenga Blvd, 323.461.3673)
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| price: |
$25
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Catch Me Bird's performances are assembled from an array of styles, including the ultra-athletic leaps of Diavolo, the passionately honest movement of David Roussève, the avant-garde musings of Rachel Rosenthal, and the aerial theatrics of De La Guarda. In Silk, performers descend from the Ford's proscenium towers in an exploration of the rift between public spectacle and personal reality. The second half of the bill features Baker & Tarpaga Dance Project remounting its 2007 work Gnama Gnama Mana Mana Kono/Disorder Inside Order, an emotional piece inspired by the story of Norbert Zongo, a Burkinabé journalist whose investigations into the crimes of Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaoré led to Zongo's murder.
- Allen Moon
[Info Source]
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ART
Ultrasonic International III: Elementary, My Dear Watson
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Saturday Sep 6 (5–7pm)
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| where: |
Mark Moore Gallery (2525 Michigan Ave, A-1, 310.453.3031)
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| price: |
FREE
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Elementary, My Dear Watson is the Mark Moore Gallery's third installment of its annual Ultrasonic International series. The group show features 16 local, national, and international emerging artists who use their personal obsessions as artistic inspiration. (For example, Christine Gray's epic fantasy paintings reveal an imagination run wild.) While encouraging an OCD tendency in a group of already eccentric people might not be the best idea, the result hammers home the idea that regardless of where we live, the crazy in all of us is never far away.
- Heather Silva
[Info Source]
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PERFORMING ARTS: Opera
Puccini's Il Trittico
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Saturday Sep 6
More times»
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| where: |
Dorothy Chandler Pavilion (135 N Grand Ave, 213.972.0777)
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| price: |
$20 - 230
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Directors Woody Allen and William Friedkin may not be the most often-mentioned figures in opera circles, but the LA Opera has the prolific pair helming its new production of Il Trittico, a 1918 trilogy by Giacomo Puccini. The production is composed of three one-act tragedies, with Friedkin directing Il Tabarro and Suor Angelica, and Allen making his opera debut with the Dante-inspired Gianni Schicchi. Longtime Allen production designer Santo Loquasto is on board. In leading roles are German soprano Anja Kampe and newbie Laura Tatulescu, who sings one of opera's finest arias, "O Mio Babbino Caro."
- Julian Hooper
[Info Source]
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PERFORMING ARTS: Acrobatics
The Peking Acrobats
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Sunday Sep 7 (7:30–9:30pm)
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| where: |
Hollywood Bowl (2301 N Highland Ave, 323.850.2000)
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| price: |
$10 - 114
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If the post-Olympics void of Chinese theatricality has got you down, then the awe-inspiring feats of the Peking Acrobats might be the cure for your blues. First appearing at the Bowl in 2003, the troupe's integration of Chinese acrobatic arts with a soundtrack from a Western music ensemble left quite an impression on audiences, leading to collaborations with major orchestras from around the country. The group's return promises a grand display of wire walking, trick cycling, and precision tumbling; traditional Chinese instruments are played alongside the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra's strings, brass, and winds to complete a spectacular pageant of circus delights.
- Allen Moon
[Info Source]
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MUSIC: Rock/Pop
Death Vessel
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Sunday Sep 7 (8:30pm)
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| where: |
Spaceland (1717 Silver Lake Blvd, 323.661.4380)
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| price: |
$10 / $8 advance
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Joel Thibodeau's stratospherically high voice and bright delivery don't sound particularly funereal, but he carries his Death Vessel moniker with unflinching pride. His 2005 release Stay Close was a tautly composed folk record with a delightful sense of mordant wit and old-fashioned poignancy. The album received acclaim in the right indie-critical circles, and Death Vessel scored tours in various band configurations with Iron and Wine, the Books, and José González. Nothing Is Precious Enough for Us, out this month on Sub Pop, expands the quirk-folk sound with more lush orchestrations and trenchant melodies.
- Nicholas Nauman
[Info Source]
According to the US Navy, what is the traditional officer's call that begins the ceremonial procedure for a burial at sea?
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ART
Brandon Boyd: Ectoplasm
| when: |
Monday Sep 8 (11am–6pm)
More times»
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| where: |
Mr. Musichead Gallery (7511 W Sunset Blvd, 888.242.ROCK)
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| price: |
FREE
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If the name Brandon Boyd sounds familiar, it might be for precarious reasons: he's the lead singer of Incubus. Of course, his art is something else entirely. Boyd's a talented painter with a colorful imagination and penchant for the fantastic; his taste for romantic and gothic imagery (skulls, rosebuds) is enlivened by his quirky style and instinct for dramatic, poetic narrative. Meanwhile, the forceful goddesses and otherworldly spirits inhabiting Boyd's fantasy gardens seem preoccupied with their own dark business.
- Shana Nys Dambrot
[Info Source]
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MUSIC: Rock/Pop
Bigbang w/ Pawnshop Kings and Seneca Hawk
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Monday Sep 8 (8pm)
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| where: |
The Troubadour (9081 Santa Monica Blvd, 310.276.6168)
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| price: |
$5
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Norway's retro-rock trio Bigbang are currently taking up residence in Los Angeles, gearing up for a fall tour in support of their Big Star-esque 2008 release, From Acid to Zen. While the tour includes an appearance at Santa Barbara's West Beach music fest, the band first brings its guitar-heavy power-pop glory to the Troubadour. Bigbang are joined by folk-rock brothers the Pawnshop Kings, whose harmony-laden, Southern-flavored crooning is complemented nicely by Seneca Hawk's rousing rebellion rock.
- Jorge Barriere
[Info Source]
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ART
Aspects of Mel's Hole: Artists Respond to a Paranormal Land Event Occurring in Radiospace
| when: |
Saturday Sep 6 (11am–4pm)
More times»
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| where: |
CSUF Grand Central Art Center, Santa Ana (125 N Broadway St, 714.567.7233)
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| price: |
FREE
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Beloved radio host Art Bell is a cross between Jean Shepherd and Fox Mulder, and a man whose paranormality-themed broadcasts were among the most misunderstood and beloved of the last century. A recurring topic on his show is Mel, a man who claimed to have discovered a bottomless hole in his backyard, and whose exploits soon became the stuff of sci-fi legend. LA-based critic, artist, and curator Doug Harvey organizes an exhibition showcasing the Mel-inspired work of open-minded weirdos such as the Rev. Ethan Acres, Georganne Deen, Marnie Weber, Jim Shaw, Jeffrey Vallance, and Mark Dutcher, all of whom make liberal use of mythologies, mysteries, and anomalies in their visual narratives.
- Shana Nys Dambrot
[Info Source]
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About Us |
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Cultural Partner
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Editors
MANAGING EDITOR
Shana Nys Dambrot
DEPUTY EDITOR
Jessica Jardine
PRODUCTION EDITOR
Nick Earhart
SENIOR EDITORS
Jake Lancaster
Doug Levy
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Allen Moon
Jorge Barriere
Julian Hooper
Steve Nalepa
Andrew Phillips
Lisa Rosman
Ashley Tibbits
Phil Kropoth
IMAGE EDITORS
Adda Birnir
Tom Starkweather
PUBLISHERS
Sascha Lewis
Mark Mangan
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