Your favorite celebrities read "The Night Before Christmas" for Off-Ramp ... "Andy Rooney" doesn't like Christmas ... Marc Haefele pays tribute to author James Salter ... EatLA and Craft Beer ... Judy Chicago treats Frida Kahlo like an artist in her new book ... Life isn't easy as Isaac Haille Selassie ... Black Facts and Wax museum ...
Andy Rooney Doesn't Like Christmas
Andy Rooney tried, but he just doesn't like Christmas.
("Celebrity" voice impersonated.)
Rachel Bloom joins Mantle, Carolla, Poggioli and more in our All Star Night Before Christmas
Rachel Bloom of "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" was in the The Frame studio today, and after she was done, I asked if she'd lend her voice to our annual audio holiday card to listeners, the All Star Night Before Christmas.
"I'd love to!" she said. "Our family reads this every year at Christmas!"
And thirty seconds later, she'd nailed:
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.
And now Rachel joins the ranks of celebs and KPCC hosts who hammed it up for us, including A Martinez, Alex Cohen, Larry Mantle, John Horn, Adam Carolla, Salman Rushdie, Kathleen Turner, NPR's Sylvia Poggioli, Ted ("Isaac" on the Love Boat) Lange, and John ("Q" on Star Trek) de Lancie. Patt Morrison specifically asked to read the reindeer names, so she say Donder, not Donner. (I'm sure she's right.)
The late great Steve Julian corralled many of the voices a few years ago in his local theater work, so of course I couldn't take his velvety voice out of there. And neither could I switch out Huell Howser, who closes out the poem in signature Huell fashion.
But there's no need. After all, it's at Christmas that we remember old and new friends, those with us in the flesh, and those with us in our hearts.
Violet Hopkins' living geology
Violet Hopkins paints uneasy things: surreal underground landscapes with mysterious fleshy forms in the middle, massive volcano eruptions scaled down to the size of an iPod. And despite all that, she's one of the most friendly and approachable artists in the show.
Violet Hopkins is an artist in OCMA's 2010 California. Check out the rest of OCMA's biennial coverage here!
From the OCMA bio: Violet Hopkins was born 1973 in El Paso, Texas; lives and works in Los Angeles. Hopkins is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin (BFA, 1996), and California Institute of the Arts (2002). She has had solo exhibitions at Foxy Production, New York; David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles; and Balice Hertling, Paris. She has been featured in exhibitions at the Galerie Uschi Kolb, Karlsruhe, Germany; the Aspen Art Museum, Aspen; Galería Moriarty, Madrid; the Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina; Peres Projects, Berlin; Deitch Projects, New York; David Zwirner Gallery, New York; and Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo. Her work is in the collections of the Rubell Family Museum, Miami; the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Street art on the move: the Mobile Mural Lab
...or MML for short. Sabiha Khan reports.
It looks like a food truck, but it's not. It's the Mobile Mural Lab, a search and rescue vehicle turned canvas on wheels that seeks to provide space for creative partnerships between artists LA communities. Sabiha Khan recently met up the project's co-creators, David Russell and Roberto del Hoyo to talk about how the project was founded and how it serves the community.
Judy Chicago's New Frida Kahlo Book
Artist Judy Chicago's main point is that in all that's been said, written, and filmed about Frida Kahlo, nobody's looked at her as an artist without reference to her husband Diego Rivera or her accident. "Frida Kahlo - Face to Face," co-written by Chicago and art historian Frances Borzello, aims to change that. Kahlo spoke with Off-Ramp host John Rabe Tuesday, December 14. Here's the long version of their interview. CLICK THROUGH for info about Chicago's appearance at the Skirball Wednesday (12/15).
Isaac Haile Selassie - singer and adopted son of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I
Isaac's story begins in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where he grew up with dozens of other adopted brothers and sisters under the care of Haile Selassie I, who ruled Ethiopia at the time and is regarded as Christ Incarnate in many Rastafari circles. Here, he tells Off-Ramp's Kevin Ferguson about his life growing up under the Emperor's care, how he made it into the USA and how the music he plays now continues to glorify his adopted father.
Marc Haefele's tribute to "writer's writer" James Salter
Marc Haefele, Off-Ramp's lit commentator, says James Salter isn't in the public's pantheon of great writers, but if authors themselves took a vote, Salter would be right up there. He was rcently honored by PEN West with its Life Achievement award.
CLICK THROUGH for an excerpt from Salter's memoir, "Burning the Days."
"Once at a dinner party I was asked by a woman what on earth I had ever seen in military life. I couldn't answer her, of course. I couldn't summon it all, the distant places, the comradeship, the idealism, the youth. I couldn't tell about flying over the islands long ago, seeing them rise in the blue distance wreathed in legend, the ring of white sur around them. Or the cities, Shanghai and Tokyo, Amsterdam and Venice, gunnery camps in North Africa and forgotten colonies of Rome along the shore.
"I couldn't describe that, or what it was like waiting to take off on missions in Korea, armed, nervous, singing songs to yourself, or the electric jolt that went through you when the MIGs came up. I couldn't tell about Mahurin being shot down and not a soul seeing him go, or George Davis, or deArmont, who used to jump up on a table in the club and recite "Gunga Din"--the drunken pilots thought he was making it up.
"I couldn't tell her about brilliant group commanders or flying with men who later became famous, the days and days of boredom and moments of pure ecstasy, of walking out to the parked planes in the early morning or coming in at dusk when the wind had died to make the last landing of the day and the mobile control officer giving two quick clicks of the mike to confirm: grease job. To fly with the thirty-year-old veterans and finally earn the right to lead yourself, flights, squadrons, a few times the entire group. The great days of youth when you are mispronouncing foreign words and trading dreams."
- from Burning the Days: Recollection
EatLA/Off-Ramp Collaboration: Craft Beer Finally Made in LA
You could BUY craft beers in LA before a couple years ago, but they weren't made here. But EatLA's Pat Saperstein says 2010 is the year locally made craft beers came into their own. She joins Off-Ramp host John Rabe for another edition of the EatLA/Off-Ramp Collaboration.
CLICK THROUGH for a link to one of the best local food sites around: EatLA. (The EatLA 2011 Guide was the big hit of our Fall fundraiser.)