Larry speaks with Jacob Tomsky, Jennifer Watts, and Timothy Egan about their new books. Plus, we revisit some of our favorite segments of late: sidewalk vendor bans, high school popularity, and the education revolution are on our Thanksgiving table on today's AirTalk.
New memoir exposes the hospitality industry’s dirty laundry
Have you ever wondered what the hotel concierge says about you behind your back? Does the hotel staff taste your room service food? Now you can find out what goes on behind the scenes of the hospitality industry from a new confessional “Heads in Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality” written by veteran luxury hotel employee Jacob Tomsky.
As a hotel insider, Tomsky was privy to the industry secrets and tricks exploited by bellhops, valet attendants and housekeepers for years and he’s not shy about revealing them to readers. In addition to workplace antics, the author offers advice to travelers about how to navigate the sometimes-intimidating world of industrial luxury hospitality including who, how, and when to tip.
Tomsky explains how working at hotels has impacted his personal life as well as all there is to know about what really goes into profiting from putting heads in beds.
Guest:
Jacob Tomsky, veteran of the hospitality business and author of Heads in Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality (Doubleday)
The man who made American Indians live forever
Edward Curtis, armed only with a camera and a sixth-grade education, managed to make an invaluable contribution to American history and photography. As a child in the late 1800s he built his own camera, and in his teenage years he was already working as an apprentice photographer in
He was so successful at his profession that he earned the respect and attention of President Theodore Roosevelt and J.P. Morgan, who both went on to become his biggest backers artistically and financially. In fact,
But Curtis had bigger plans than being a celebrity photographer, he wanted to document the life and culture of American Indians all across the continent. He spent three decades traveling the country, living with tribes and gaining their trust. As a sign of the artist’s patience and fortitude, he waited for ten years until the Hopi allowed him into their sacred Snake Dance ceremony.
By the end of his efforts, Curtis had compiled over 40,000 photographs, captured 10,000 audio recordings, and earned the credit of creating the world’s first documentary film. Pulitizer Prize-winning writer Timothy Egan tackles this man and his life in “Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis.”
Guest:
Timothy Egan, author of “Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis,” Pulitzer Prize-winning writer for the New York Times and winner of the National Book Award for “The Worst Hard Time”
The American dream captured by Maynard L. Parker
The work of prolific photographer Maynard L. Parker (1900-1976) exemplifies modern photography at its most quintessential. His work can now be enjoyed in a new collection called “Maynard L. Parker: Modern Photography and the American Dream” compiled by curator Jennifer A. Watts. Many of Parker’s photographs focused on domestic life in the new consumer age in a postwar America.
Parker captured American homes, gardens and suburban lifestyles from the 1930s through the 1960s that embodied the American dream at the time. Parker also explored the homes of celebrities including Judy Garland, Clark Gable and Bing Crosby. Watts’ book is the first to define Parker and his influential career and features essays written by leading scholars about the photographer himself as well as the period of American history.
Guests:
Jenny Watts, editor, “Maynard L. Parker: Modern Photography and the American Dream;”curator of photographs at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens; and editor of “Edward Weston: A Legacy.”
Christopher Hawthorne, contributor, “Maynard L. Parker: Modern Photography and the American Dream;”architecture critic for the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles street vendors cooking up a challenge to the sidewalk ban
If you’ve ever stumbled out of a bar on Hollywood Boulevard at closing time, you know the smell: Bacon wrapped hot dogs. They’re very tasty, but are they legal?
Right now, street vendors can be fined up to $1,000 and face jail time for selling food on L.A. sidewalks. The carts are generally operated by immigrant vendors who make a living selling quick late-night snacks to concert, club and bar-goers.
Los Angeles County’s Street Vending Compliance Program does require vendors to pay fees and get public health permits, but they are still not permitted to prepare or sell the food on sidewalks. With the help of City Councilman Jose Huizar, street vendors in Boyle Heights recently came to an agreement with the city to be allowed to sell food at the Boyle Heights Farmers Market once a week.
The East Los Angeles Community Corporation (ELACC) in Boyle Heights is organizing a series of forums and working with community members to try and garner support for the legalization of street vendors.
“We’re taking a different approach and want to make sure at the front end, that residents are engaged in the policy development versus of having it be behind closed doors and then bringing them to react to it,” said Isela Gracian, associate director of ELACC. “Those town halls are really so see where the residents are at, what they would want to see in legalizing it.”
However, the downside to street vendors preparing food and doing business on the streets are the issues of lack of health inspection, property tax payments, a lack of bathroom facilities, and sometimes the improper disposal of waste.
Leron Gubler, the president and CEO of Hollywood chamber of commerce, spoke to some of these concerns.
“Number one, there are no health inspectors out that late at night. There is no supervision and review to be sure that they comply with health requirements,” said Gubler. “Then secondly and perhaps even more importance [sic], is the competition they provide. They don’t pay any business license fee, they’re not registered. They just show up and they may be right out in front of businesses that are open.”
Bob from central Los Angeles called into the show to add that he knows that the, “model for the country is New York,” referring to street vending being so widely successful in Manhattan. But Bob points out that Los Angeles does not have a concentrated mass and, unfortunately, this has lead to L.A.’s inability to adequately facilitate the street-eating culture in terms of restrooms and trash.
Gracian points out that she has been made aware of local complaints regarding sanitation issues and payment of licensing fees for street vendors. ELACC is trying to work with vendors and residents so the vendors are accountable for their equipment in addition to the surrounding area of their cart and that each vendor is paying a licensing fee.
“We have seen where there have been street vendors that are outside of shops that have already done a kind of informal agreement that actually supports each others business,” said Gracian. For example, the street vendor will sell pupusas only in front of a liquor store, which, according to Gracian, can help boost foot traffic for both businesses.
Summing up the issue of street vending at its fundamental core is former L.A. City Councilman Mike Woo. He introduced ordinance to legalize street vendors in the 80s and now thinks that ,“It should be tried. If the city regulates it, let’s give it a go.”
Weigh In
:
Is this a form of discrimination toward Latino immigrants? Do these vendors hurt other local storefront shops? Do they help these establishments?
Guest:
Isela Gracian, associate director of the East Los Angeles Community Corporation
Leron Gubler, president and CEO, Hollywood chamber of commerce
Khaled Hassan, owner, Zena Grand Commissary
Popularity in high school pays off later in life
Move over Breakfast Club kids, the “in crowd” still rules the world. This, according to new research that finds that popular high school students earn more than their freaks and geeks counterparts decades after graduation. Researchers crunched data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, a survey of over 10,000 men and women who graduated from Wisconsin high school in 1957.
Back in 1957, the students were asked to list three people they considered to be their best friends. Those students, whose names were written down the most, were deemed the most popular. Decades later, the researchers have followed up with them to see what they could learn about the impact of popularity then and now. Turns out, those popular kids were more likely to have come from “warm family environments,” to have been smarter than their peers and to have been somewhat more affluent.
Today, those same people are earning two percent more than their peers. Does this mean that our dearly-held Revenge of the Nerds fantasies are just that – fantasies? Is there anything the rest of us can do to buck this trend?
Guests:
Sarah Kliff, reporter, Washington Post
Salman Khan’s education revolution
In 2004, Sal Khan was a successful hedge fund manager in Boston who had started remotely tutoring his young cousin in New Orleans when the “aha” moment occurred. What started with his young protégé’s need for a little help with her math homework has exploded into called the Khan Academy, now the world’s most popular online learning website with five million unique visitors a month, a million page views a day and over 650 million exercises completed.
Khan’s approach to education is based on the idea that the existing model we use to teach humans is hopelessly archaic, and may never have been effective in the first place. In his new book, “The One World Schoolhouse,” Khan does far more than criticize the existing education paradigm; he offers specific and radical ideas to push the way we teach, and the way we learn into the 21st century.
A cornerstone of Khan’s approach is the use of technology to humanize the learning process and provide free access to education through the use of online videos and software. Khan also believes that this new approach can address existing problems in education like low teacher pay and job satisfaction and the lack of access to quality education for children and adults alike.
With American high school students ranking 23rd in the world in science and math proficiency, how can a new approach change things for the better? What can technology bring to education on a national or global scale?
Guest:
Salman Khan, founder and executive director of The Khan Academy, the world’s largest online learning website; author of “The One World Schoolhouse”