Speaking of echoing that yes, here’s a thought: would anyone be interested in a zoom gathering? Just a kind of get-together and check-in during these challenging quarantine times. I myself have historically been VEHEMENTLY opposed to all forms of online video communication and until two weeks ago had never once in my life Skyped or […]
OUR COMMON HOME
NOWHERE TO RUN, NOWHERE TO HIDE
I mean that of course in the best possible way. Yesterday morning I went to Mass at the Church of the Assumption in Pasadena, then stayed for a Lenten mission talk by Fr. Francis Benedict of St. Andrew’s Abbey in Valyermo, CA. That afternoon I got word that my gym had closed “till further notice” […]
VAN NUYS HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ORATORIO TO OUR DYING HOME
Here’s how this week’s arts and culture column begins: “Requiem: This Earth, Our Home” is a new oratorio, written in conjunction with the LA Master Chorale’s Voices Within Oratorio Project. The piece will premiere, for fellow students, the evening of Friday, February 28th at the Van Nuys High School Auditorium. A performance the following day, […]
ICONICITY: ART IN THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA DESERT
Here’s how this week’s arts and culture piece begins: Director/producer Leo Zahn has made documentaries about mid-century architect William F. Cody and Frank Sinatra in Palm Springs. Now he brings us “Iconicity.” The core theme: “Why are artists attracted to the [Southern California] desert? There is something here, call it a mystical energy or what […]
THE STORRIER STEARNS JAPANESE GARDEN
Here’s how this week’s arts and culture column begins: Located at 270 Arlington Drive in Pasadena and comprising two acres, the Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden is a hidden LA treasure. The pond-style stroll garden was created in the 1930s by Japanese immigrant Kinzuchi Fuji for his patrons Charles and Ellamae Storrier Stearns. After their deaths, […]
ST. ANDREW’S ABBEY
ST. ANDREW’S ABBEY IS A BENEDICTINE MONASTERY IN THE HIGH DESERT OUTSIDE OF LA. I HOPE TO BE BURIED THERE.
SUNDAYS LIVE AT ST. JAMES
Here’s how this week’s arts and culture piece begins: For years during the 1990s when I lived in Koreatown, I’d attend the Sunday afternoon Bing Theater classical music concerts at LACMA. After almost a quarter of a century, the concerts have now moved a couple of miles east, to St. James Episcopal Church on Wilshire […]
IN THIS PLACE CHRIST WANTS TO BE BORN
Here’s how this week’s arts and culture piece begins: “Now he comes to be born in the narrowness of our lives, to be incarnate in us, to give his love to the world through us, through our flesh and blood. That is one meaning of the Incarnation. The reason why we are where we are this Christmas, […]
LET EARTH RECEIVE HER KING
Oh the season of Advent has been deep. I find I’m spent. Not from buying presents, eating, or showing off/arguing/sniping on social media. Rather from the deep prayer of the last four weeks… “The people who walk in darkness have seen a great light.” And then the Gospel today, the beginning of John: “The true […]
A GLASS PANEL HOMAGE TO LOCAL FIREFIGHTERS
Here’s this week’s arts and culture piece: Artist Anne-Elizabeth Sobieski’s family lost their Pasadena home to fire when she was 17. “I was frozen. I don’t know how much time went by. We just watched as the roof fell in, and one by one, every room burned.” Ever since, she’s had a special heart for […]
PROJECTS AND PLOWSHARES
I haven’t much checked in as of late. This is in large part because I have many PROJECTS. One: I am making a will! That’s right: getting “my affairs” in order, a task upon which I’ve been procrastinating for probably five years. So the ball is rolling. That feels good. It’s a lot of work. […]
GORDON PARKS: THE FLÁVIO STORY AT THE GETTY
Here’s this week’s arts and culture column: Through Nov. 10 at the Getty is a compelling exhibit based on the work of Gordon Parks, a Renaissance-man film director, writer, and photojournalist perhaps best known for his work for LIFE magazine. President John F. Kennedy’s “Alliance for Progress,” launched in 1961, was an initiative designed to […]
THE ANCIENT BRISTLECONE PINE FOREST
Here’s this week’s arts and culture column: I spent mid-August to mid-September at a writer’s residency offered by the good sisters at the Monastery of St. Gertrude in Cottonwood, Idaho, population 923. It was good to get away. But it also felt really, really good to be heading back to Southern California in my trusty […]