Jackie Kashian (Last Comic Standing), Rachel Bloom (Adult Swim) and bestselling authors Jillian Lauren (Some Girls: My Life in a Harem) and Gigi Levangie Grazer (The After Wife) will be revealing all and somehow making it hilarious in the process.
Learn more on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/events/502417556447846/?fref=ts
HOT DISH returns, Monday December 3rd, at 826LA’s beautiful space on 1714 W. Sunset Blvd. in Echo Park (behind the Time Travel Mart)
Doors at 8:00. Enforced mingling and eating until around 8:30 or 8:45 or so. Once everyone has had something to eat & drink and is comfortable, we’ll get started. There will, as always, be an intermission.
$5.00 at the door goes to benefit 826LA.
The menu includes Lauren Eggert-Crowe’s Pennsylvania shoo-fly pie, seasonal baked goods from Summer Block Kumar & Julie Gordon, apple cider from Kate Wiswell, J. Ryan Stradal’s persnickety wine selections, and more.
READERS:
LAUREN EGGERT-CROWE’s poetry appears in Maintenant, Interrupture, DIAGRAM, Water-Stone Review, Terrain.org, OccupyWriters, and Eleven Eleven, among others. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks, The Exhibit and In The Songbird Laboratory, both forthcoming this winter. She has written for The Rumpus, Salon, and L.A. Review of Books. She
recently started a blog called Fake-ademia, a Tumblr of sexy titles for academic papers she would write if she weren’t too lazy to do actual research. She wants all of you to submit.
RICO GAGLIANO is a radio reporter, producer and host. Along with Brendan Newman, he’s heard on Marketplace’s bi-monthly “Small Talk” segment, asking the show’s staff and reporters what odd and under-the-radar news stories they’ll be talking about at dinner parties over the weekend. Gagliano also co-created and co-hosts American Public Media’s popular radio show and podcast The Dinner Party Download, for which he’s interviewed guests including Spike Lee, Venus Williams and Sir Richard Branson.
JULIE GORDON won her eighth grade drama class writing contest for her story “Car Wars,” about a family vacation gone awry, but has since spent the majority of her writing career shilling for The Man in the world of advertising. She counts among her accomplishments the successful launch of the Netflix brand (member since 1999), helping name and
launch the iPod, (yes, that iPod), and most recently relaunching the Volkswagen Beetle to men. No, really. She is currently a creative director at The Pitch Agency in Culver City, where she is proud to be one of 3% of female creative directors in advertising worldwide.
JILLIAN LAUREN is the author of the memoir Some Girls: My Life in a Harem and the novel Pretty. Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review Daily, The New York Times, Los Angeles Magazine and Vanity Fair among others. She has performed at spoken word and storytelling events across the country .
WENDY MOLYNEUX is the author of the completely fake self help book Everything Is Wrong With You. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband Jeff Drake and a variety of animals, and writes for the upcoming Fox Television show Bob’s Burgers with her sister Lizzie Molyneux and a variety of animals.
When AMY ROBB is not day dreaming she’s an astronaut, opening a bed and breakfast in Monterey, or throwing stools in a bar fight, Amy’s usually at a park wiping sand out of her kids’ teeth. Find her personal shopping at Anthropologie or on her blog (actualizingamy.blogspot.com) where she’s often sharing recipes she’s mostly sure won’t give you food poisoning, exploiting the cuteness of her kids, and bitching about procrastinating that damn screenplay she hoped to finish last year.
Hosted & Produced by Summer Block Kumar & J. Ryan Stradal. Contact them with any questions or requests.
Hope to see you there.
Learn more on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/events/168423473281722/?fref=ts
The Rumpus Proudly Presents:
“HAPPY BABY IN LOS ANGELES”
A Kickstarter party for Happy Baby, the first feature film from The Rumpus!
December 7th, 7pm at Fix Coffee, 2100 Echo Park Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90026.
To purchase advance tickets just make a $20, or more, donation to the Happy Baby Kickstarter campaign: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/706884381/happy-baby-the-movie
Readings by Aimee Bender, Melissa Chadburn, Jillian Lauren, Adrian Todd Zuniga, and Tera Patrick!
Comedy by Kyle Kinane!
Sword swallower Brett Loudermilk!
James Urbaniak in conversation with Adam Busch!
Joshuah Bearman talks about how is article turned into the movie Argo.
Win great prizes at the Happy Baby silent auction!
Hosted by Zoë Ruiz and Eve Troeh!
Happy Baby is based on the novel of the same name by Stephen Elliott, edited by Dave Eggers and originally published by McSweeney’s.
Learn more on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/events/561798490501719/
Learn more on Kickstarter:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/706884381/happy-baby-the-movie
I’m at the Krakow Airport, after a trip more beautiful and sad and cold than I expected. I’m eating a bagel (they’re all the rage here), staring at an empty tarmac and hoping that my delayed flight will get me to Munich on time to make my connection.
Krakow brings to mind the kind of old Europe that reminds me of my great-grandmother. A large part of my family comes from the eastern part of Galicia (the southern part of Poland). The town we’re from is now in the Ukraine, but at one time it was all the same country. The food here smells like my house did during the holidays. The Jewish history of the city is palpable and tragic and you can feel it wherever you go, even in the souvenir markets. The deep Antisemitism that existed in Poland before the war has, in many cases, been replaced by a kind of nostalgia for the decimated culture. There are lots of “Jewish style” restaurants and Kazimierz (the old Jewish quarter) is now the vibrant, trendy area of town, with tons of pubs and galleries. The markets are filled with carved wooden figurines of Jews in traditional garb, like the ones pictured above. I wasn’t sure how to feel about them.
I felt particularly moved by the old temple and the cemetery at Remu, built in 1553. It was ancient and intrepid and quiet. Even the building itself felt like a survivor.
I went to Shabbat services at the bright and modern Galicia Jewish Museum. I happened to be walking by and heard the music and it sounded great, with a Klezmer type of feel, so I went in. There was a large group of tourists there and it was a lively service. It definitely feels that there’s an effort to keep some Jewish soul of the place alive. I asked someone how many local Jews generally attended and he said about twenty. The entire Jewish population of Krakow now is around 500. Before the war it was 60,000.
I surprised myself by attending services, as I don’t usually go at home. A lot was surprising about the trip. It was meant to be a work trip- promotion for the Polish translation of my memoir- not some rootsy back-to-my-origins pilgrimage. Yet after services, I found myself saying to a guy from Hungary, “Something drew my back here.” I don’t know why I put it that way. It’s not as if I had ever been there before.
My trip to Auschwitz is another story and I need a moment to sit with it before I blog about it. It left me feeling like one of those cartoon characters that got an anvil dropped on its head. I’m still half-flattened. It’s going to take me a minute to rearrange myself and figure out how to put words to my experience.
Now Israel is bombing Gaza and my head is spinning with sadness about all of it, all of it. I’m grateful for my trip. And I can’t wait to get home.
Here I am getting ready to be interviewed on the Polish talk show Rosmovy W Toku (Talk is in Progress). I had hoped that they’d give me that dramatic eye makeup I’ve come to associate with Slavic femme fatales, but they did a disappointingly tasteful job.
Once I had the earpiece fitted so I could hear my interpreter, I walked out onto the set and was surprised to find that there was a studio audience. The host, Ewa Drzyzga, the “Polish Oprah,” had a warm, casual manner, dressed in jeans and sitting next to me on a couch. The lag that occurs with translation is interesting. It interrupts the usual rhythm of conversation and you’re forced to just sit there and pause as you try to stay poised and maintain eye contact, in front of four cameras and an unreadable audience. I made it through the interview and the producers seemed happy. It went by fast and almost seemed like some kind of David Lynchian dream. I kept the eye makeup for the rest of the day.
In the picture with me is me with my new buddy Teresa Fortis, a Swiss woman who wrote a book called Lockruf Saudia (originally in German, unfortunately not translated into English yet), about her years living in Saudi Arabia and working for Saudi Airlines in the 80s. Along with the segment producer who brought us over, we wound up having a couple of lovely dinners that lasted late into the evening, as if we’d known each other for years. Fast intimacies are one of my favorite things about international travel. Another favorite thing is, I believe, one of life’s great pleasures- a meal eaten alone in a foreign city.
At a café overlooking Market Square in Krakow, I ate (sorry, mom) the best potato pancakes I’ve ever had in my life, while the other patrons drank vodka and talked passionately- about what I have no idea. Because I don’t understand a word of Polish, the language was just music weaving through the air around me
In these moments, I achieve a deep kind of noticing, a sensation of settling into myself. They almost always happen when I’m traveling alone. I wonder if there’s somehow a way to bring experiences like this home. They don’t take long. They just take a genuine detachment from the to-do list. They take a certain internal silence. I have tried meditating a million different ways and never seem to stick to it, never seem to get the peace I’m looking for. Instead, I achieve it over a perfect potato pancake, looking out over the flower market’s wild splashes of color against the grey day, the people hurrying by in dark coats, leaning into the wind.
How’s this for surreal (Dali’s got nothin’ on me)…
Two weeks ago I was trick-or-treating on our tree-lined street in sunny Los Angeles (dressed like a cave family with a pet triceratops):
Today I was freezing my tush off at the haunting, beautiful memorial at Plac Bohhaterow Getta (Ghetto Heroes Square) in Krakow, the site where the Jews of the Krakow Ghetto were corralled before deportation to the concentration camps during the Second World War.
Krakow architects Piotr Lewicki and Kazimierz Latak created the memorial, comprised of 70 empty bronze chairs, representing the discarded possessions left behind after the liquidation of the ghetto.
I experience these things differently now, as a mother. I stood in the square and kept thinking of the mothers who hid their babies in their backpacks, in their suitcases. The mothers who were separated from their children. The mothers who stayed with their children and died with them. I could go on with the ghastly thoughts that nearly made me lose my borscht, but I won’t. I don’t think I need to- you parents out there are with me, I know you are. I said a prayer for the mothers who stood there before me under circumstances so horrific as to be unimaginable, and for the mothers in the world today still suffering similar atrocities. I went back to the hotel and wrote a letter to T. I do this sometimes, when I have something I really want to tell him that’s not developmentally appropriate. I keep the letters in a folder to give to him when the time seems right.
Tomorrow I’m taping an interview for a talk show called Rozmowy W Toku, talking about the Polish translation of my memoir. How amazing that I get to be here to experience this beautiful city that carries, among many other things, this terrible scar on the face of the world. How remarkable to stand and witness all the healing that’s grown up around it.
Stay tuned for more dispatches from Poland…
HOT DISH returns, Monday December 3rd, at 826LA’s beautiful space on 1714 W. Sunset Blvd. in Echo Park (behind the Time Travel Mart)
Doors at 8:00. Enforced mingling and eating until around 8:30 or 8:45 or so. Once everyone has had something to eat & drink and is comfortable, we’ll get started. There will, as always, be an intermission.
$5.00 at the door goes to benefit 826LA.
The menu includes Lauren Eggert-Crowe’s Pennsylvania shoo-fly pie, seasonal baked goods from Summer Block Kumar & Julie Gordon, apple cider from Kate Wiswell, J. Ryan Stradal’s persnickety wine selections, and more.
READERS:
RICO GAGLIANO is a radio reporter, producer and host. Along with Brendan Newman, he’s heard on Marketplace’s bi-monthly “Small Talk” segment, asking the show’s staff and reporters what odd and under-the-radar news stories they’ll be talking about at dinner parties over the weekend. Gagliano also co-created and co-hosts American Public Media’s popular radio show and podcast The Dinner Party Download, for which he’s interviewed guests including Spike Lee, Venus Williams and Sir Richard Branson.
JULIE GORDON won her eighth grade drama class writing contest for her story “Car Wars,” about a family vacation gone awry, but has since spent the majority of her writing career shilling for The Man in the world of advertising. She counts among her accomplishments the successful launch of the Netflix brand (member since 1999), helping name and
launch the iPod, (yes, that iPod), and most recently relaunching the Volkswagen Beetle to men. No, really. She is currently a creative director at The Pitch Agency in Culver City, where she is proud to be one of 3% of female creative directors in advertising worldwide.
JILLIAN LAUREN is the author of the memoir Some Girls: My Life in a Harem and the novel Pretty. Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review Daily, The New York Times, Los Angeles Magazine and Vanity Fair among others. She has performed at spoken word and storytelling events across the country .
WENDY MOLYNEUX is the author of the completely fake self help book Everything Is Wrong With You. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband Jeff Drake and a variety of animals, and writes for the upcoming Fox Television show Bob’s Burgers with her sister Lizzie Molyneux and a variety of animals.
When AMY ROBB is not day dreaming she’s an astronaut, opening a bed and breakfast in Montery, or throwing stools in a bar fight, Amy’s usually at a park wiping sand out of her kids’ teeth. Find her personal shopping at Anthropologie or on her blog (actualizingamy.blogspot.com) where she’s often sharing recipes she’s mostly sure won’t give you food poisoning, exploiting the cuteness of her kids, and bitching about procrastinating that damn screenplay she hoped to finish last year.
Hosted & Produced by Summer Block Kumar & J. Ryan Stradal. Contact them with any questions or requests.
Hope to see you there.
This reading features LA Times book critic David L. Ulin, James Meetze, Jillian Lauren, Angel Nafis, Sean Carswell, and Joshua Mohr.
The Rattling Wall, Issue 3, features new work by Sean Carswell, Weston Cutter, Trinie Dalton, Ben Epstein, Matthew Fluharty, Panio Gianopoulos, Benj Hewitt, Rhoda Huffey, Mandy Kahn, Sophie Klahr, Jim Krusoe, Joseph Lapin, Jillian Lauren, Suzanne Lummis, S. P. MacIntyre, Bev Magennis, Joseph Mattson, Kyle McCord, James Meetze, Joshua Mohr, Amelia Morris, Angel Nafis, Emily Rapp, Kate Reeves, Rachel Reynolds, Brian Rooney, Marytza K. Rubio, Robert Silva, David L. Ulin, Amy E. Wallen, Kim Young, and an excerpt from the forthcoming novella Daddy Love by Joyce Carol Oates.
The featured artist for The Rattling Wall, Issue 3, is Ben Tegel.
*** The reading will be held in a beautiful Masonic Temple on the second floor of a Masonic building built in 1927.
*** There are no elevators in this historic landmark.
For more information:
Hollywood Forever
http://www.hollywoodforever.com
The Rattling Wall
http://therattlingwall.com
