A look inside LA's alt-right movement, answering all your burning questions about prop 64, what does the new Attorney General appointment mean for California?
Meet the alt-right of LA
Last August, Donald Trump's presidential bid was floundering. That's when he turned to political provocateur Stephen Bannon to rejuvenate the campaign. Bannon is now slated to become Trump's chief strategist.
Before joining forces with the billionaire, Bannon headed Breitbart News — a site associated with the so-called alt-right movement. Critics say the Breitbart site has regularly disparaged women, people of color, Muslims and LGBT communities.
The alt-right's far-right brand of conservatism has been embraced by several white supremacist groups across the country, including Southern California's "American Freedom Party." Freelance journalist Sanjiv Bhattacharya spent time with the group, writing about his experiences for The Guardian.
"It's a very interesting bunch," Bhattacharya said. "I met the chairman of the party, a guy called William Johnson. He's roughly 60 years old... he's been at it a long time — since the '80s... He's bringing a lot of people into his party now that you would call the alt-right."
The recent influx of young blood, fueled in part by Donald Trump's candidacy, has revitalized the graying organization, Bhattacharya says. David Duke-era white supremacists now meet alongside a snarky, outspoken and digitally savvy generation of white nationalists.
"The alt-right — the younger members that join the American Freedom Party — they use things like memes. They're people of the internet... They're irreverent, they're funny, they're aggressive," Bhattacharya said. "These are things that you're not going to find in establishment white nationalists, but in the alt-right, it's very, very common."
Longtime members took note of the country's changing political climate during the election, welcoming what Bhattacharya calls a new assertion of white identity.
"What they're experiencing at the moment is something I don't think a lot of them expected, which is a degree of legitimacy," he said.
As the election season progressed, there was a tepid optimism among party leadership. Reflecting on several conversations with Johnson, Bhattacharya says, "He was kind of excited, but to some degree in uncharted territory to find himself with such a vital movement... and having a candidate that seemed to meet a lot of their agenda items."
Bhattacharya says Johnson never expected his views to become part of the national discussion, but the new interest is not unwelcome.
"I would say that [those in] the older generation are pleasantly surprised by what's happened," Bhattacharya said.
Press the blue play button above to hear more about L.A.'s alt-right.
How could Jeff Sessions as Attorney General affect California?
On Friday president-elect Donald Trump announced a number of key appointments... including naming Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions as his nominee to be the next US Attorney General.
The former prosecutor was first elected to the Senate in 1996.
Sessions currently serves on the Judiciary Committee and has opposed immigration reform as well as bipartisan proposals to cut mandatory minimum prison sentences.
For more on Jeff Sessions and what this choice could mean going forward, especially for us here in the West, Take Two's Alex Cohen spoke with Adam Winkler. He's a professor of law at UCLA.
The California issues that Jeff Sessions could affect
Immigration
Well Jeff Sessions has been an outspoken opponent of illegal immigration and providing any benefits or welcome to those who are here illegally. He has called for stepped up enforcement of the immigration laws and for deportation of many if not all of our illegal immigrants. This is going to have a big impact on California, of course, because California has so many immigrants and a lot of undocumented immigrants. And if there's a stronger enforcement authority from the federal government, it's likely that many of those families in California in which are undocumented immigrants will likely suffer by seeing someone deported because of different immigration priorities that will lead to more people who are undocumented being deported.
Marijuana legalization
Well that's going to be one of the real interesting questions over the course of the Trump administration is what is the role of the federal government in enforcing the federal drug laws? California voters adopted proposition 64 legalizing marijuana, but marijuana remains illegal under federal law. The Obama administration made enforcement of federal marijuana laws a very low priority, allowing marijuana legalization to progress. Sessions is a staunch opponent of marijuana legalization and his department of justice is likely to take a different approach; one that makes enforcement a high priority meaning more prosecutions of marijuana dispensaries and pot users.
Environmental protection
I think it's likely that we're going to see a Sessions Department of Justice be less vigourous in enforcing the environmental laws and providing more settlements and negotiations with polluters that aren't necessarilly as protective of the residents of California as what we might have seen under the Obama administration or under a President Hillary Clinton. He is someone who believes Climate change is a hoax so is not likely to push for strong enforcement of our environmental laws.
To hear the full conversation, click the blue player above.
Answers have been edited for clarity.
Where can I buy weed and where can I smoke it in California?
Since Proposition 64 passed, we've been inundated with questions about marijuana in California. So, we decided that every week we're going to take a crack at answering some of them.
If you want one of your questions answered, tweet me @JacobMargolis or send it through our submission form. If you want to catch up on what we've already answered, we've got you.
Nigel Cairns asks: Where can I buy weed?
Right now, the options are limited. You can still buy medical marijuana with a doctor's recommendation. Or, if you've magically grown a plant over the course of one week, you could harvest it yourself. Remember, people can legally grow up to six plants on their premises now.
The reality is that you'll likely have to wait until 2018 to buy recreational pot. That's because it's going to take a while for the state and for cities to develop their licensing systems so that people can grow, distribute and sell marijuana.
Where can I smoke pot?
If you can't smoke cigarettes there, you definitely can't smoke pot there. And there are some places, like in your car, walking down the street or anywhere in public where you cannot smoke weed.
Lorraine Kent asks: How much will the state receive in taxes from marijuana sales?
Before it passed, California's Department of Finance estimated that the state could bring in more than $1 billion in tax revenue. That comes from the 15 percent excise tax on pot-related products. There's also, of course, the standard 9 percent (or so) sales tax. Plus, there's a tax on growers of marijuana based on weight.
That money will go towards different programs highlighted in Proposition 64 (start on page 46).
Sanden Totten looked a few of the science-related highlights this week, but here are some more:
- $10 million will be allocated annually to research and to evaluate the impact of marijuana in the state. That includes the impact on public health, tax revenues and enforcement. That money will be up for grabs by multiple universities.
- $2 million will go to the University of California San Diego Center for Medical Cannabis Research, one of the few places in the country that can actually legally study marijuana. That money's being allocated to study the efficacy, as well as the adverse effects of marijuana consumption.
- $3 million will go to the Department of the California Highway Patrol from 2018-2023 to help them figure out how to tell if someone is driving while stoned, as well as to establish proper protocols to deal with them.
- A portion will be allocated to developing and maintaining drug treatment and prevention programs for minors.
It should be noted that it'll take a while for this funding to get going, because recreational weed likely won't be available in California until 2018, and medical pot sales are going to remained untaxed through 2017. So, California will be missing out on what could've been tax revenue.
@CannabisPhotoLab tweeted at us: What's going to happen to medical marijuana shops? Are they going to stick around through 2017 or are they going to be gotten rid of?
They're not going anywhere for now, and they'll be around through 2017, barring some major changes to the law.
@BrewsByDon wonders: Will the penalties for driving while stoned be adjusted now that pot will be legal and more common?
It's certainly still illegal to drive while stoned — and the penalties remain the same.
Will those who are now serving sentences in California jails for possession of marijuana for personal use have their sentences commuted?
People can petition to have their sentences commuted. There's some evidence that this is happening already. People can also petition to have their old marijuana charges wiped from their records. So, some felonies can be turned into misdemeanors. I wrote about it a few days ago.
Series: High-Q: Your California pot questions answered
This story is part of Take Two's look at the burgeoning, multi-billion dollar marijuana industry in California, with audience Q&As, explorations of personal narratives and an examination of how the industry is changing the world around our audience.
Read more in this series and call or text us your questions at (929) 344-1948 or
A lesson in kindness: Kids write to President-Elect Donald Trump
Tensions have been high since November 8th, and not just for adults.
A lot of kids are worried about the future, and parents are finding innovative ways to put a positive spin on a bitterly fought presidential race.
The day after the election, one Seattle mom used social media to create a teaching moment for her 5-year-old son. She started a Facebook group where parents can post their children’s letters to the President-Elect.
It’s called “Dear President Trump: Letters from Kids About Kindness.”
The group began with an invitation to 200 Facebook friends. Now, there are 10,000 members and counting. In addition to posting, she also encourages people to mail the letters to Trump Tower, so he has a better chance of seeing them.
Here’s one from 6th grader Jason Bernstein:
And another from a boy named Tommy:
— Alison McManus (@McManusAlison)
#kidsletterstotrump pic.twitter.com/RF8Pwq1KZ9
— Dr Alison McManus (@McManusAlison) November 13, 2016
Alex Cohen spoke to the mom who started the project, Molly Spence Sahebjami, to find out what the social media group plans to accomplish, both for its participants and the president-elect.
Here are some interview highlights:
How did you come up with this idea?
Sahebjami: On Wednesday morning, when I told my son that Trump had won the election, it was a surprise to a lot of people, including him. And he furrowed his brow and said, 'You mean the mean man won?' And he didn't know about manufacturing jobs and NAFTA . . .but he was aware that this was the man who had said mean things about certain groups including Muslims and we had talked about that. . .Often when somebody's mean to him I say, 'Just talk to them. You're kind, maybe you can help him be kind.' . . .and as I started talking to more moms and more friends from both parties, we found that this was one thing we can agree on about our president-elect Trump and that we just need a higher level of civil discourse in our country and he can help us set the tone for that if he's up for it.
What is this group all about?
Sahebjami: I had heard from a lot of moms whose kids that were older than my [five-year-old] son. . . who were really distressed about [Donald Trump's presidency] and worried about the certain groups of people that were in their family or their friends or even themselves, kids in wheelchairs and things like that. And that was the nugget of the idea here. To start this group so that these kids could have a positive outlet to express their feelings, and a civics lesson. When I was a kid, my teacher had us write to President Reagan. So this is a great American thing, to have children write letters to their president.
What effect do you think this has on the kids?
Sahebjami: I'm a big fan of teaching our kids how to speak articulately. I actually want older kids to participate too. Because where I live, in Seattle, and in a lot of cities, I see a lot of high school kids who are really excited to make signs, but say "F-Trump." And I don't think that's productive discourse. And I don't think that a lot of the language that I hear certain Trump supporters use is productive either. So I think this helps parents teach kids that when you feel a certain way, they can attempt to build bridges and connect and persuade people because that's really powerful.
Mikhail Baryshnikov descends into a dark place in his one-man show
He was often called the greatest male dancer of the 20th century. Vaslav Nijinsky was a Russian ballet star and choreographer of Polish descent, celebrated around the world for his gravity-defying leaps and his ability to dance on pointe.
In 1909, Nijinsky joined the Ballet Russes, a company started by a man named Sergie Diaghilev. For a while, he and Nijinsky were also lovers.
But eventually, Nijinsky married a woman and started a family. His spurned mentor dismissed him from the dance company. Vaslav Nijinsky's career foundered, he fell into despair and was later diagnosed with schizophrenia.
After being committed to an asylum in 1919 he chronicled his descent into madness in a diary. Mikhail Baryshnikov, another Russian dancer regarded as one of the greats of his time, detailed the significance of the diary to Alex Cohen:
"Luckily for us, he had this urgency to put his feelings in writing, which is really very unusual for schizophrenics...and yet in six weeks he wrote this remarkable diary which later on millions of people read with great interest."
Baryshnikov had been approached more than a dozen times to take on the part of Nijisnky and he had always declined...until now.
He's performing in a one-man show directed by Robert Wilson titled "Letter to a Man".
This weekend it comes to town at UCLA's Royce Hall, which is where Mikhail Baryshnikov explained the appeal of this particular portrayal of an artist struggling with madness:
"Bob decided to use certain elements of this diary. His relationship with God of course, his pacifism, it's sort of like manifest of an artist. His relationship with a family, fatherhood, war, death. This means we are trying to in this piece sort of recover his voice, a voice that's definitely troubled. Some of the passages are kind of incoherent and meditative and some of them really evoke great Russian writers; Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy.
The self-examination, the self-doubt, longing, struggles, that's what actually Bob Wilson's forte because he's always trying to engage the audience no matter how to difficult to understand certain things. He puts the responsibility on the audience's shoulders to invest emotionally in themselves into the text and try to find their own interpretation of it and some similarities..."
Baryshnikov has performed the show abroad and in New York and San Francisco but this the first time he's performed in the country post-election. He shared his anxieties over last week's outcome in the presidential election:
"I was born in the late '40s under Joseph Stalin and lived through the whole '50s, '60s, '70s and run away from Leonid Brezhnev and found the most extraordinary place to be and be a part of...the United States. And now, I am kind of descending in that very dark place."
For more information on "Letter to a Man" click here.
To hear the full interview, click the blue play button above.
This LA museum has a crazy cat lady exhibit
Cats rule the Internet, but they also rule the exhibit, "Crazy Cat Ladies," at the new Animal Museum in downtown L.A. through November 27th.
"Cat ladies aren't actually crazy. They have an important, integral role to society," says museum founder Carolyn Merino Mullin.
The exhibit pokes fun at the stereotypes of spinster cat ladies while also trying to break them, as well.
Museum-goers will first walk in on a replica of a cat lady's living room with overflowing shelves and tables of tchotchkes – cat figurines, cat commemorative plates and cat books ("How to Massage Your Cat").
Get past that initial shock, though, and the museum educates people that cat ladies may also take part in animal protection activities like trap-neuter-release programs for feral cats.
"The amount of people who are crazy cat ladies is infinitesimally small," says museum founder Carolyn Merino Mullin. "The majority are very normal people just like you and me who care about cats."
The museum also displays a timeline to some important milestones in cat welfare history – did you know the first U.S. city to ban the declawing of cats was West Hollywood in 2003?
"Crazy Cat Ladies" is the Animal Museum's first exhibition since opening its permanent location in October, and the museum itself is the only one in its kind in the country dedicated to animal protection – from adopting a pet to switching to an animal-free diet.
Future exhibits will include, "Entangled," which puts the spotlight on how litter and trash in oceans are harming marine animals.
The Animal Museum is located at 421 Colyton Street, Los Angeles. It's open Thursday from 2p – 8p, and Friday through Sunday from 12p – 6p.
Meet the alt-right of LA
Last August, Donald Trump's presidential bid was floundering. That's when he turned to political provocateur Stephen Bannon to rejuvenate the campaign. Bannon is now slated to become Trump's chief strategist.
Before joining forces with the billionaire, Bannon headed Breitbart News — a site associated with the so-called alt-right movement. Critics say the Breitbart site has regularly disparaged women, people of color, Muslims and LGBT communities.
The alt-right's far-right brand of conservatism has been embraced by several white supremacist groups across the country, including Southern California's "American Freedom Party." Freelance journalist Sanjiv Bhattacharya spent time with the group, writing about his experiences for The Guardian.
"It's a very interesting bunch," Bhattacharya said. "I met the chairman of the party, a guy called William Johnson. He's roughly 60 years old... he's been at it a long time — since the '80s... He's bringing a lot of people into his party now that you would call the alt-right."
The recent influx of young blood, fueled in part by Donald Trump's candidacy, has revitalized the graying organization, Bhattacharya says. David Duke-era white supremacists now meet alongside a snarky, outspoken and digitally savvy generation of white nationalists.
"The alt-right — the younger members that join the American Freedom Party — they use things like memes. They're people of the internet... They're irreverent, they're funny, they're aggressive," Bhattacharya said. "These are things that you're not going to find in establishment white nationalists, but in the alt-right, it's very, very common."
Longtime members took note of the country's changing political climate during the election, welcoming what Bhattacharya calls a new assertion of white identity.
"What they're experiencing at the moment is something I don't think a lot of them expected, which is a degree of legitimacy," he said.
As the election season progressed, there was a tepid optimism among party leadership. Reflecting on several conversations with Johnson, Bhattacharya says, "He was kind of excited, but to some degree in uncharted territory to find himself with such a vital movement... and having a candidate that seemed to meet a lot of their agenda items."
Bhattacharya says Johnson never expected his views to become part of the national discussion, but the new interest is not unwelcome.
"I would say that [those in] the older generation are pleasantly surprised by what's happened," Bhattacharya said.
Press the blue play button above to hear more about L.A.'s alt-right.
How could Jeff Sessions as Attorney General affect California?
On Friday president-elect Donald Trump announced a number of key appointments... including naming Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions as his nominee to be the next US Attorney General.
The former prosecutor was first elected to the Senate in 1996.
Sessions currently serves on the Judiciary Committee and has opposed immigration reform as well as bipartisan proposals to cut mandatory minimum prison sentences.
For more on Jeff Sessions and what this choice could mean going forward, especially for us here in the West, Take Two's Alex Cohen spoke with Adam Winkler. He's a professor of law at UCLA.
The California issues that Jeff Sessions could affect
Immigration
Well Jeff Sessions has been an outspoken opponent of illegal immigration and providing any benefits or welcome to those who are here illegally. He has called for stepped up enforcement of the immigration laws and for deportation of many if not all of our illegal immigrants. This is going to have a big impact on California, of course, because California has so many immigrants and a lot of undocumented immigrants. And if there's a stronger enforcement authority from the federal government, it's likely that many of those families in California in which are undocumented immigrants will likely suffer by seeing someone deported because of different immigration priorities that will lead to more people who are undocumented being deported.
Marijuana legalization
Well that's going to be one of the real interesting questions over the course of the Trump administration is what is the role of the federal government in enforcing the federal drug laws? California voters adopted proposition 64 legalizing marijuana, but marijuana remains illegal under federal law. The Obama administration made enforcement of federal marijuana laws a very low priority, allowing marijuana legalization to progress. Sessions is a staunch opponent of marijuana legalization and his department of justice is likely to take a different approach; one that makes enforcement a high priority meaning more prosecutions of marijuana dispensaries and pot users.
Environmental protection
I think it's likely that we're going to see a Sessions Department of Justice be less vigourous in enforcing the environmental laws and providing more settlements and negotiations with polluters that aren't necessarilly as protective of the residents of California as what we might have seen under the Obama administration or under a President Hillary Clinton. He is someone who believes Climate change is a hoax so is not likely to push for strong enforcement of our environmental laws.
To hear the full conversation, click the blue player above.
Answers have been edited for clarity.
Where can I buy weed and where can I smoke it in California?
Since Proposition 64 passed, we've been inundated with questions about marijuana in California. So, we decided that every week we're going to take a crack at answering some of them.
If you want one of your questions answered, tweet me @JacobMargolis or send it through our submission form. If you want to catch up on what we've already answered, we've got you.
Nigel Cairns asks: Where can I buy weed?
Right now, the options are limited. You can still buy medical marijuana with a doctor's recommendation. Or, if you've magically grown a plant over the course of one week, you could harvest it yourself. Remember, people can legally grow up to six plants on their premises now.
The reality is that you'll likely have to wait until 2018 to buy recreational pot. That's because it's going to take a while for the state and for cities to develop their licensing systems so that people can grow, distribute and sell marijuana.
Where can I smoke pot?
If you can't smoke cigarettes there, you definitely can't smoke pot there. And there are some places, like in your car, walking down the street or anywhere in public where you cannot smoke weed.
Lorraine Kent asks: How much will the state receive in taxes from marijuana sales?
Before it passed, California's Department of Finance estimated that the state could bring in more than $1 billion in tax revenue. That comes from the 15 percent excise tax on pot-related products. There's also, of course, the standard 9 percent (or so) sales tax. Plus, there's a tax on growers of marijuana based on weight.
That money will go towards different programs highlighted in Proposition 64 (start on page 46).
Sanden Totten looked a few of the science-related highlights this week, but here are some more:
- $10 million will be allocated annually to research and to evaluate the impact of marijuana in the state. That includes the impact on public health, tax revenues and enforcement. That money will be up for grabs by multiple universities.
- $2 million will go to the University of California San Diego Center for Medical Cannabis Research, one of the few places in the country that can actually legally study marijuana. That money's being allocated to study the efficacy, as well as the adverse effects of marijuana consumption.
- $3 million will go to the Department of the California Highway Patrol from 2018-2023 to help them figure out how to tell if someone is driving while stoned, as well as to establish proper protocols to deal with them.
- A portion will be allocated to developing and maintaining drug treatment and prevention programs for minors.
It should be noted that it'll take a while for this funding to get going, because recreational weed likely won't be available in California until 2018, and medical pot sales are going to remained untaxed through 2017. So, California will be missing out on what could've been tax revenue.
@CannabisPhotoLab tweeted at us: What's going to happen to medical marijuana shops? Are they going to stick around through 2017 or are they going to be gotten rid of?
They're not going anywhere for now, and they'll be around through 2017, barring some major changes to the law.
@BrewsByDon wonders: Will the penalties for driving while stoned be adjusted now that pot will be legal and more common?
It's certainly still illegal to drive while stoned — and the penalties remain the same.
Will those who are now serving sentences in California jails for possession of marijuana for personal use have their sentences commuted?
People can petition to have their sentences commuted. There's some evidence that this is happening already. People can also petition to have their old marijuana charges wiped from their records. So, some felonies can be turned into misdemeanors. I wrote about it a few days ago.
Series: High-Q: Your California pot questions answered
This story is part of Take Two's look at the burgeoning, multi-billion dollar marijuana industry in California, with audience Q&As, explorations of personal narratives and an examination of how the industry is changing the world around our audience.
Read more in this series and call or text us your questions at (929) 344-1948 or
A lesson in kindness: Kids write to President-Elect Donald Trump
Tensions have been high since November 8th, and not just for adults.
A lot of kids are worried about the future, and parents are finding innovative ways to put a positive spin on a bitterly fought presidential race.
The day after the election, one Seattle mom used social media to create a teaching moment for her 5-year-old son. She started a Facebook group where parents can post their children’s letters to the President-Elect.
It’s called “Dear President Trump: Letters from Kids About Kindness.”
The group began with an invitation to 200 Facebook friends. Now, there are 10,000 members and counting. In addition to posting, she also encourages people to mail the letters to Trump Tower, so he has a better chance of seeing them.
Here’s one from 6th grader Jason Bernstein:
And another from a boy named Tommy:
— Alison McManus (@McManusAlison)
#kidsletterstotrump pic.twitter.com/RF8Pwq1KZ9
— Dr Alison McManus (@McManusAlison) November 13, 2016
Alex Cohen spoke to the mom who started the project, Molly Spence Sahebjami, to find out what the social media group plans to accomplish, both for its participants and the president-elect.
Here are some interview highlights:
How did you come up with this idea?
Sahebjami: On Wednesday morning, when I told my son that Trump had won the election, it was a surprise to a lot of people, including him. And he furrowed his brow and said, 'You mean the mean man won?' And he didn't know about manufacturing jobs and NAFTA . . .but he was aware that this was the man who had said mean things about certain groups including Muslims and we had talked about that. . .Often when somebody's mean to him I say, 'Just talk to them. You're kind, maybe you can help him be kind.' . . .and as I started talking to more moms and more friends from both parties, we found that this was one thing we can agree on about our president-elect Trump and that we just need a higher level of civil discourse in our country and he can help us set the tone for that if he's up for it.
What is this group all about?
Sahebjami: I had heard from a lot of moms whose kids that were older than my [five-year-old] son. . . who were really distressed about [Donald Trump's presidency] and worried about the certain groups of people that were in their family or their friends or even themselves, kids in wheelchairs and things like that. And that was the nugget of the idea here. To start this group so that these kids could have a positive outlet to express their feelings, and a civics lesson. When I was a kid, my teacher had us write to President Reagan. So this is a great American thing, to have children write letters to their president.
What effect do you think this has on the kids?
Sahebjami: I'm a big fan of teaching our kids how to speak articulately. I actually want older kids to participate too. Because where I live, in Seattle, and in a lot of cities, I see a lot of high school kids who are really excited to make signs, but say "F-Trump." And I don't think that's productive discourse. And I don't think that a lot of the language that I hear certain Trump supporters use is productive either. So I think this helps parents teach kids that when you feel a certain way, they can attempt to build bridges and connect and persuade people because that's really powerful.
Mikhail Baryshnikov descends into a dark place in his one-man show
He was often called the greatest male dancer of the 20th century. Vaslav Nijinsky was a Russian ballet star and choreographer of Polish descent, celebrated around the world for his gravity-defying leaps and his ability to dance on pointe.
In 1909, Nijinsky joined the Ballet Russes, a company started by a man named Sergie Diaghilev. For a while, he and Nijinsky were also lovers.
But eventually, Nijinsky married a woman and started a family. His spurned mentor dismissed him from the dance company. Vaslav Nijinsky's career foundered, he fell into despair and was later diagnosed with schizophrenia.
After being committed to an asylum in 1919 he chronicled his descent into madness in a diary. Mikhail Baryshnikov, another Russian dancer regarded as one of the greats of his time, detailed the significance of the diary to Alex Cohen:
"Luckily for us, he had this urgency to put his feelings in writing, which is really very unusual for schizophrenics...and yet in six weeks he wrote this remarkable diary which later on millions of people read with great interest."
Baryshnikov had been approached more than a dozen times to take on the part of Nijisnky and he had always declined...until now.
He's performing in a one-man show directed by Robert Wilson titled "Letter to a Man".
This weekend it comes to town at UCLA's Royce Hall, which is where Mikhail Baryshnikov explained the appeal of this particular portrayal of an artist struggling with madness:
"Bob decided to use certain elements of this diary. His relationship with God of course, his pacifism, it's sort of like manifest of an artist. His relationship with a family, fatherhood, war, death. This means we are trying to in this piece sort of recover his voice, a voice that's definitely troubled. Some of the passages are kind of incoherent and meditative and some of them really evoke great Russian writers; Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy.
The self-examination, the self-doubt, longing, struggles, that's what actually Bob Wilson's forte because he's always trying to engage the audience no matter how to difficult to understand certain things. He puts the responsibility on the audience's shoulders to invest emotionally in themselves into the text and try to find their own interpretation of it and some similarities..."
Baryshnikov has performed the show abroad and in New York and San Francisco but this the first time he's performed in the country post-election. He shared his anxieties over last week's outcome in the presidential election:
"I was born in the late '40s under Joseph Stalin and lived through the whole '50s, '60s, '70s and run away from Leonid Brezhnev and found the most extraordinary place to be and be a part of...the United States. And now, I am kind of descending in that very dark place."
For more information on "Letter to a Man" click here.
To hear the full interview, click the blue play button above.
This LA museum has a crazy cat lady exhibit
Cats rule the Internet, but they also rule the exhibit, "Crazy Cat Ladies," at the new Animal Museum in downtown L.A. through November 27th.
"Cat ladies aren't actually crazy. They have an important, integral role to society," says museum founder Carolyn Merino Mullin.
The exhibit pokes fun at the stereotypes of spinster cat ladies while also trying to break them, as well.
Museum-goers will first walk in on a replica of a cat lady's living room with overflowing shelves and tables of tchotchkes – cat figurines, cat commemorative plates and cat books ("How to Massage Your Cat").
Get past that initial shock, though, and the museum educates people that cat ladies may also take part in animal protection activities like trap-neuter-release programs for feral cats.
"The amount of people who are crazy cat ladies is infinitesimally small," says museum founder Carolyn Merino Mullin. "The majority are very normal people just like you and me who care about cats."
The museum also displays a timeline to some important milestones in cat welfare history – did you know the first U.S. city to ban the declawing of cats was West Hollywood in 2003?
"Crazy Cat Ladies" is the Animal Museum's first exhibition since opening its permanent location in October, and the museum itself is the only one in its kind in the country dedicated to animal protection – from adopting a pet to switching to an animal-free diet.
Future exhibits will include, "Entangled," which puts the spotlight on how litter and trash in oceans are harming marine animals.