A look at the stock markets, Jake Johnson talks new film 'Digging for Fire,' men take breakups harder than you think, study finds.
The Dow takes a nosedive amid 'Black Monday'
When the Chinese stock market sneezes, the world catches a cold. Stocks everywhere are tumbling Monday morning amid worries that the world's second-largest economy is slowing down.
But this ain't your ordinary markets story.
The selloff has wiped the Shanghai Composite's gains for the year. Chinese papers have dubbed it "Black Monday."
The domino effect
Here at home the markets are feeling the ripple. The Dow took a nosedive Monday morning, and that has a lot of people worried about what that could do to our economy.
Clayton Dube is director of USC's US China Institute. He said China's market woes can have a domino effect on the rest of the world.
"China has been responsible for the bulk of economic growth worldwide for the last several years, so if China is slowing, it doesn't just impact American exports to China, but it also affects what China buys everywhere else in the world. And because we sell to everywhere else in the world, there is that ripple effect," he said.
He adds that the Chinese stock market has dropped nearly 40 percent in the past month.
When bubbles burst
The Chinese government has tried to stop the bleeding by issuing some strict trading policies, but Dube says the moves amount to too little too late.
"The problem really is that the Chinese stock market doesn't really reflect the actual Chinese economy," he explains. "You were spending three-times more to get the same profit."
When investors realized that they were wasting money, they began pulling their money out. This, along with some troubling economic indicators led droves of investors to follow suit, leading to -- ta-da! -- a multi-trillion-dollar disaster.
Local impact
Though gobs of money disappearing literally overnight sounds like a terrifying scenario, Dube says impact on Southern California will be minimal. He says Chinese tourists and businesses will continue to invest in California.
"They're still going to see investing in something tangible in the United States as a better long term investment than what might be available in China right now," he says. "You can expect America will remain a top tourist destination, that especially means Los Angeles."
Albeit, spending may be less robust.
"They may buy fewer things, they may stay fewer days, but the attraction will remain," he said.
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue audio player above
What makes a hero? An explanation from psychology
The president of France awarded three Americans and a Brit with his nation's highest honor on Monday.
The honor comes after the men subdued a heavily armed attacker on a high speed train carrying 500 passengers.
Throughout the world, these four are being revered as heroes - but what exactly makes a hero? David Rand is a professor of psychology, economics and management at Yale University. He is also one of the authors of a recent study of why people take extreme risks to save lives.
Heroes just do it
Rand says what separates a hero from everybody else is the impulse to not think before jumping into action.
"There's a lot of evidence that many people do have an impulse to help others and to be cooperative," he said. "But the issue is that if you're the kind of person that stops and thinks, then even if you have the impulse to help, you'll take a minute and you'll say, 'Well, should I do it?' And you'll say, 'Well, maybe I should go ahead and not do it.'"
Rand said that was the common thread among those in his study who performed heroic acts.
"Almost everyone said something along the lines of, 'I didn't think, I just acted,'" he said. "One of the things that happens when you stop and think and you deliberate, is you start coming up with rationalizations for why it would not be a good idea to act ... Once you stop and think, it's psychologically too late."
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue audio player above
On The Lot: Why Universal Pictures is having the best summer ever
Complete box office domination.
That's the simple reason why Universal Pictures is having the best summer ever. And that's one of the many topics that we're covering in this week's "On The Lot" with Rebecca Keegan. Every Monday she joins us to talk about the latest happenings in the entertainment business.
Universal has spent 13 weeks at the top of the box office with movies like "Minions," "Jurassic World" and now "Straight Outta Compton." This means that they're having a very good summer, especially compared to some of the other studios. Oh, and Universal managed to do it without a super hero, those of which helped Disney these past few months.
Speaking of Disney, with the next Star Wars movie coming out in a few short months, there tends to be some sort of related news each week. This time it's surrounding Star Wars: Episode IX director Colin Trevorrow, who's been embroiled in controversy because of statements that he made related to a lack of female directors on big budget films.
In election news that has nothing to do with Donald Trump, SAG-AFTRA just held a contentious election for their President. A lot of the tension is over how actors should be compensated in the age of the internet.
Finally, The Academy is selecting its Governors Board recipients this week.
To hear the entire conversation click on the audio link embedded above.
Actor Jake Johnson talks new film, 'Digging for Fire'
The new film "Digging for Fire" is about a married couple living in L.A. with a young kid.
The mom, Lee, played by Rosemarie DeWitt, is a yoga teacher. One of her wealthy clients asks her to house sit. While there, her husband Tim, played by Jake Johnson, starts poking around the hills in the backyard and stumbles across a bone and a gun. Lee asks her husband to stop digging, but...he keeps digging, and he stumbles across bones, and a gun. Hijinks ensue.
"Digging for Fire" was written in part by Johnson, who collaborated on the screenplay with director Joe Swanberg. Johnson says the film addresses challenges married couples face in their relationships today.
"We wanted to show the characters outside their comfort zones, to show that stepping away from a relationship for a weekend can offer a breathe of fresh air and make you stronger as a couple," Johnson said.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9OgBzdzEsY
The film also takes on the hard transition of becoming a parent, while many of your friends still don't have kids. "You make sacrifices, that if you don't have kids seem to be the biggest sacrifices in the world. But what your friends don't understand is that it's a choice," Johnson said.
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue audio player above.
Ashley Madison hack raises questions about email security
The website Ashley Madison confirmed last month that it had been hacked. The hackers dumped nearly 10 gigabytes of data last week, revealing names and email addresses of 33 million folks who purportedly used the website.
The leaked information was considered especially sensitive, considering Ashley Madison markets itself to married people looking to cheat on their spouses. So imagine your spouse goes online and finds your name there. Oops.
That's exactly what happened to Evan Ratliff, the founder and editor-in-chief of the online publication the Atavist in New York.
While the email address Ratliff's wife found was not his, he says the whole idea can be very unnerving. "Anyone can use your email address for anything they want, and many of these sites don't verify email addresses," he said.
It's also not the first time Ratliff's email has been mixed up. He says he's received other people's emails involving tax returns, T-ball sign ups, and even a women's book club in Georgia.
"I try to remove myself politely, and sometimes they say, 'Oh you're right, that's not really you,' but then they still keep me on there because I'm in some kind of contact list," he said. "Maybe I'm just the central hub in the E. Ratliff community, and I'm supposed to receive these emails," he joked.
The entire hack not only opens up many questions about online privacy, but also how quick society is to judge before getting all the details.
"On one hand its really scary, but then again it raises the question of what it means to find someone's email in this kind of breach, and how we draw conclusions," Ratliff said.
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue audio player above.
5 Every Week: Marsh Park, Bob’s Big Boy and Friday Flights at the Getty
Here are five great things you should do in SoCal this week from the makers of the 5 Every Day app. Get this as a new podcast in iTunes. If you want five hand-picked things to do in Los Angeles every day, download the free 5 Every Day from the App Store.
Art: The Velveteria
Caren Anderson and Carl Baldwin are the proud owners of a 3,000-piece-strong collection of black velvet paintings. And when you own that many velvet paintings, what can you do but start a museum?
And so they did: the Velveteria, a pocket museum on a quiet side street in Chinatown. In volume, anything is fascinating, and velvet paintings are no exception. Anderson and Baldwin have them in all varieties: masterful Tiki renditions, rare Vietnam War-era memorabilia, and an entire room of black light paintings. There are sad clowns, celebrities, landscapes, and plenty of nubile pinups on display — even the bathroom is full of off-color velvet paintings. It’s high kitsch, and it’s fun.
Besides, what’s more L.A. than a velvet painting? It's old-fashioned, transgressive, ironic, populist, sexy, and long overdue for a revival — all words we might use to describe this city.
City: Marsh Park
There are things worth spending money on in this town: cold-pressed juice when you have a hangover or a head cold. The Arclight. And valet when the parking situation sucks. But a gym membership? A gym membership is for suckers. C'mon.
Los Angeles is laced with running trails, outdoor yoga spots, free tennis courts, hikes, and bike paths. We've got an ocean, for crying out loud. It's all there, outside and ours for the flexing. And don't tell us you need your precious elliptical machine, not when you can roll up to Marsh Park, a bright little public space on the L.A. River, to work out on thirteen different kinds of modular exercise equipment built right into the park — chest press machines, leg-lifters, sit-up machines, stair-climbers, and yes, ellipticals.
It's just as good as anything you'd find at 24 Hour Fitness and you'll get some Vitamin D while you're at it, so save your money for the stuff that really matters.
Food: David Lynch and Bob’s Big Boy
If L.A.’s food culture has one unifying principle, it’s the elevation of the low. Here, a strip mall noodle joint can compete with the finest of establishments, and a fast food restaurant built in the 1940s can be treated with all the reverence of a 12th Century European cathedral. Things just...work differently here.
One of our favorite high-low legends is about the Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank. You know, that space-age Googie temple, and the chain’s oldest surviving restaurant. For seven solid years, David Lynch (allegedly) ate his lunch here every day. He drank endless cups of coffee, and scribbled napkin notes that would eventually become Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, and Wild at Heart. For seven years, if you wanted to take a meeting with David Lynch, you met him at Bob’s Big Boy. It’s where he met Laura Dern. It’s where he met John Waters. He would show up precisely at 2:30 p.m., following the lunch rush, in hopes that he might score his daily chocolate milkshake in the brief window of perfect consistency.
Sometimes we remember that we live in a city where these sorts of things happen, and when we do, we pinch ourselves.
Music: Enchantment of the Glass Armonica
The Velaslavasay Panorama is a strange little theater in West Adams dedicated to the "production and presentation of unusual visual experiences,” which is to say: 360-degree panorama paintings. Panorama paintings were once a popular form of entertainment. Much like we go to the movies today, viewers in the 19th century would flock to see vast paintings to immerse themselves in historical events and famous battles.
The Velaslavasay Panorama is keeping the medium alive through its own panorama shows —currently on view is “Effulgence of the North,” an arctic scene complete with Aurora Borealis. Think of it as slow cinema. Very slow cinema. The Panorama also host cerebral and strange events. This Friday and Saturday, it’s an illustrated lecture on the history of the Glass Armonica, a musical instrument that operates on the same principle as playing tones the rims of wet wine glasses. Invented by Benjamin Franklin, by the way. The lecture, led by Professor Allison de Fren of Occidental College, will be followed by a performance on the Glass Armonica by a virtuoso of the instrument. Old times are the best times.
Wildcard: Friday Flights at the Getty
And finally, we’re dusting off the self-promotion trumpet. Because this Friday, we have something really special going on. From 6 to 9 p.m. at the Getty Center — that marble palace of fine art and culture on the hill — we’ll be taking over. Peacefully, that is.
It’s all part of the Getty’s summer series, Friday Flights, for which they invite various artists and culture-makers in Los Angeles to program a “flight” of entertainments at the museum. For our flight, there will be a comedy show in the oak grove — with sets by Kate Berlant and Johnny Pemberton — which, by the way: we’re told these will be the first ever comedy sets at the Getty. There will also be a performance by rapper and new media artist Yung Jake, and an installation and DJ set from Body High Records. Plus more music in the gardens and galleries, and a cash bar.
Did we mention it’s free?
Like what you're reading? Download the free 5 Every Day app from the App Store or visit us at 5everyday.com for more information on this week’s events.
What it looks like when millennials get married
It's August: A month when many couples decide to tie the knot.
There are some wedding customs dating way back, like including "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue."
But it turns out that many young couples are focusing a lot more on the "something new." Culture analyst
, founder of Culture Brain, has been looking at the wedding practices in 2015 and what they tell us about modern love.
Weddings: What's old, and what's new?
Lee says weddings have evolved in the millennial generation, including venue selection. The traditional wedding would happen in a holy place, but then in the 1980s and 1990s, more couples sought to say their I Dos in fancy hotels. Today's brides? Well, they want rustic.
"Young brides want a destination wedding, and they want all their friends to kind of come to almost like a camp-like environment, and have this kind of bucolic setting that they're in, so that's just an interesting observation," she said.
Gone are the days of designing beautiful invitations that turn into keepsakes for the couple.
"Today's younger generation, they don't look at that as the thing that they're attached to," Lee said. "Usually new couples create a website just for the practical stuff, but on top of that, they'll hire a designer to make a fancy animated introduction — a little GIF story of their love. It's really fun, and it's this BuzzFeed generation watching videos and YouTube and Vines, of course they're naturally going to make an animated GIF invitation, and that seems impressive to their peers."
Most interesting to observe, Lee says, are how the vows have changed.
"The vows are not so, kind of, traditional and stuffy. Deviating from all this, 'obey,' 'death do us part,' 'in sickness and in health,'" she said. "What I'm seeing is that the real, honest, authentic expression is coming out a little bit more in the toast, because everyone is just a little bit more relaxed," Lee said.
Lee is hosting an event in downtown Los Angeles titled, "Modern Love: A conversation about human love rituals," on Aug. 27. Click here for more information.
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue audio player above.
Breakups may be harder on men in the long-term, new study finds
People split for all sorts of reasons all the time. But are women really the ones who suffer worst when a couple splits?
Movies and TV shows often show women as the ones who have the hardest time letting go. We drown our sorrows in pints of Haagen Daz, we beg and plead with our loved ones to take us back, we go psycho and stalk our exes. But is this actually the case?
According to a new study, men might actually take breakups much harder than women in the long-term. Craig Morris from Binghamton University in New York is the lead author of the study. He says there are a lot of studies of why men and women get together but not many on what happens when they don't work out.
Morris found that out of the 5,705 people in 96 countries surveyed, women most often spoke about their exes in the past tense, while men would speak of the breakup as if it had just happened, even if it was 30 years ago.
"It's the men who text their ex months later," Morris said. He thinks this could be because there is no cultural support system for men. Men are instead encouraged to hold in their feelings and process their emotions privately.
While everyone has experienced at least one big breakup or has helped someone through a breakup, it's the women who can talk about it and work through it, Morris said.
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue audio player above