Results tagged “genewilder”

Issue Ten, Dead Engine Kids, The Hills, Neverwonder, SATORI, Idle Hands @ Viper Room

Monday Paul Cummins signs Two Americas, Two Educations 7pm @ Dutton’s Tuesday Daniel Alarcon presents Lost City Radio 7:30 pm @ Skylight Books Jane Hirshfield reads poetry from After 7pm @ Hammer Museum Catherine Allgor presents A Perfect Union 7pm @ Vroman’s Brian Doherty Radicals for Capitalism 7pm @ Book Soup Tara Ison presents The List 7pm @ Borders Century City Wednesday Dinaw Mengestu signs The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears 7pm @ Dutton’s...

There is a Pixies song that came out a while ago called "Allison". Some say that it was written about, or inspired by Mr. Mose Allison. Video after the jump.

Peter Boyle (favorite role: Chief Orman in the Nic Cage/SJP masterpiece Honeymoon in Vegas) died last night in New York after suffering from heart disease and a bone marrow cancer called multiple myeloma.

When it comes right down to it, UCLA professor, Pulitzer prizewinner, evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond is all that. Guns, Germs and Steel is about how societies evolved; Collapse is about how they disappeared. Tonight he'll be speaking about one, or the other, or perhaps what happens in-between at the Skirball Cultural Center. Tickets are still available; they're not cheap, but $20 is still less than you'd pay to register at UCLA.

Up until today, his website's claim that he was the "Funny survivor who ain't dead yet, MF'er!" was true. No longer. He died this morning of a heart attack in the San Fernando Valley. We won't go through Richard Pryor's long career or explain his history. You know it. We'll just say that we think his skit with Chevy Chase on Saturday Night Live is probably the finest and most defining sketch of the series and that while his movie career is probably most defined by his Gene Wilder buddy flicks, we won't apologize for loving The Toy and Brewster's Millions.

There are hundreds of sketch comedy shows in LA, but this one is definitely not to be missed. Laist was lucky enough to catch a preview of at the ACME Comedy Theatre on La Brea this Sunday. ACME is famously known as the stage where comedians such as Adam Carolla, Wayne Brady, Alex Borstein, Sean Hayes and others perfected their comedic chops. It's refreshing to see that the comedians in its Bravo Company are still coming up with original material.

Last night we were among the fortunate attendees at the sold-out Writers Block event featuring Leonard Nimoy interviewing Gene Wilder, a strange but wonderful wrinkle in the pop culture universe. Nimoy, who directed Wilder in 1990's Funny About Love, got Wilder to tell some great stories, a few of which are in his new memoir Kiss Me Like a Stranger. Our favorite: Gene Wilder got the script for Willy Wonka and told the director he'd do the film, but only if they made some changes to his entering scene. What Wilder wanted: to come out using a cane, hobbling, bringing a terrible hush over the crowd. Then you would hear the murmur of "a cripple!" and then, the cane catches and he topples — but somersaults! He leaps up! He's not lame at all! The director asked if that was the only thing he needed to say yes, and Wilder said it was, so it was in. Why, the director wanted to know. "So after that they would never know when I was lying," Wilder said, creating a fabulous unreliable hero for kids desperate for a Disney antidote. But Wilder himself was sweet rather than sly, and we imagine that in real life he is a music maker. He is a dreamer of dreams.

• 12:30 pm : Carrie Karasyov and Jill Kargman