Arts & Culture Newsletter: At L.A.’s Hammer Museum, honoring Joan Didion – The San Diego Union-Tribune
Good morning, and welcome to the U-T Arts & Culture Newsletter.
I’m David L. Coddon, and here’s your guide to all things essential in San Diego’s arts and culture this week.
The late, great Joan Didion defined for me and for countless others who desired to follow in her footsteps the concept of New Journalism, a truly literary approach to non-fiction and reportage. It was a technique practiced by Truman Capote, Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese as well, but Didion’s work hit home because she concentrated on California. Her novel “Play It as it Lays,” for example, was based in a Los Angeles far different than the one I discovered when I moved there to go to college. Her protagonist Maria Wyeth navigates an L.A. freeway system in a way that, in Didion’s fine hand, is practically lyrical.
So it seems poetical that a multidisciplinary tribute to Didion’s work and life is now open at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. “Joan Didion: What She Means” was planned even before the writer’s passing last December. Curated by New Yorker contributor and UC Berkeley professor Hilton Als, this exhibition includes works by a number of groundbreaking artists. Among them are sculptor Maren Hassinger, realist painter John Koch and assemblage storyteller Betye Saar.
Writings by Didion and clips from films she wrote screenplays for are also in the show, which runs through February.
Didion’s distinctive writer’s voice was stilled when she passed, but like the waves that perpetually break on California shorelines, her impact is forever.
Classical music
Bach Collegium artistic director Ruben Valenzuela
(Gary Payne)
Seventeenth-century Baroque compositions by Englishmen John Blow and Henry Purcell kick off Bach Collegium San Diego’s 20th season with concerts Friday and Saturday. “Blow By Blow!” with soloists Sherezade Panthaki, Kristen Dubenion-Smith, Jay Carter and John Buffett will be performed Friday at Saints Constantine & Helen Greek Orthodox Church in Cardiff and Saturday at All Souls Episcopal Church in Point Loma.
In intimate venues such as these, these vocals can be truly transformative. Tickets at either concert are $15-$60.
READ MORE: Ruben Valenzuela does double-duty for Bach Collegium San Diego and La Jolla Symphony & Chorus
Rock music
Pink Floyd co-founder Nick Mason is shown at a May 17 concert with his band A Saucerful Of Secrets at in Oslo, Norway.
(Per Ole Hagen / Redferns)
To some degree overlooked by all but diehard Pink Floyd fans are the band’s early works, during and in the immediate years after the departure of co-founder Syd Barrett. Thanks to original Floyd drummer Nick Mason, the band’s pre-“The Dark Side of the Moon” music is getting its due.
Mason brings his “Saucerful of Secrets” (named for Pink Floyd’s second album in 1968) tour to downtown’s Balboa Theatre on Monday. His band features Spandau Ballet guitarist Gary Kemp and bassist Guy Pratt, who toured with the Floyd.
READ MORE: Nick Mason weighs in on his new band, gong-banging and early Pink Floyd: ‘We weren’t very good!’
AND MORE: Pink Floyd co-founder Nick Mason apologizes to my mom, 42 years later, for losing her Tupperware
Film
A line of undead ‘zombies’ walk through a field in the night in a still from the film “Night Of The Living Dead,” directed by George Romero.
(Pictorial Parade / Getty Images)
Decades before “The Walking Dead” ever walked on AMC, zombies terrorized humans in the one, the original “Night of the Living Dead,” directed by George Romero. The 1968 film, low budget and black and white and “starring” no-names, would become a cult classic. It’s still genuinely terrifying. The sequence in which potential victims are holed up in a house with zombies trying to get inside elevates claustrophobia to another level.
As part of Digital Gym Cinema’s monthlong run-up to Halloween, “Night of the Living Dead” will be screened Friday night at 7 and 9:30 p.m. and in 16mm. This is not a so-bad-it’s-good movie, like one of Ed Wood’s projects. Rather, “Night of the Living Dead” is good. Good at scaring the you-know-what out of audiences.
READ MORE ABOUT FILM: San Diego International Film Festival focuses on what you can’t get at home
Theater
Bernardo Mazón Daher is the writer and star of “Taxilandia: San Diego.”
(Courtesy of ebofcourse)
What an eye-opening ride I took through the South Bay in La Jolla Playhouse’s Without Walls experience “Taxilandia: San Diego.” A 90-minute trip in a “taxi” with two other passengers and Sal at the wheel takes you through the streets of National City, Chula Vista and San Ysidro. Along the way are discoveries you will make about the cultural fabric, societal struggles and hard-won triumphs of those who work in and inhabit the neighborhoods of these cities.
It’s a mostly scripted performance from Sal that has the genuine feel of spontaneous human inter-connection. But the most significant connections are those you will make with people you’ve never met. By the end of the ride, your identity and theirs will be one — at least for a day.
Note: The run (through Nov. 6) of “Taxilandia” San Diego” is sold out, but you can sign up on the website for tickets should they become available.
READ MORE ABOUT THEATER: Theater Notebook: Herbert Siguenza’s ‘Grand Master Funk’ finds a new home in Cygnet’s ‘Finish Line’ series
More theater
Villa Montezuma
(Nancee E. Lewis)
PoeFest, Write Out Loud’s annual celebration of Edgar Allan Poe, is under way at the Villa Montezuma Museum on K Street with performances continuing Friday through Oct. 30. Actors well-known to San Diego theatergoers dramatize works of the macabre in a program that runs about 80 minutes.
The Villa Montezuma is an ideal setting for this experience, one that Poe himself likely would appreciate. Keep in mind that if you go you’ll be standing, not sitting. The better to turn tail and run, something else Poe likely would appreciate.
Music
Music producer, DJ and assistant music professor King Britt
(Eduardo Contreras/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
The worlds of DJs, academia, hip-hop, Miles Davis, Dua Lipa, electronic music, Sun Ra, cassette mix tapes and digital technology are all happy equals for King Britt, who in barely four years at the University of California San Diego has become one of its most popular faculty members.
More music
This Sept. 6, 2019, photo shows singer Adam Lambert posing for a portrait in New York to promote “Velvet: Side A,” one-half of his first studio album in four years.
(Scott Gries/Invision/AP)
Adam Lambert is coming full circle in three very different ways. Together, they tie his past, present and future together with a flair perfectly suited for this charismatic “American Idol” alum and lead singer in Queen.
Lambert is now at work on his first musical. It will follow a concept album, featuring songs from the musical, targeted for a late 2023 or early 2024 release.
In turn, the musical and album have been preceded by last Friday’s release of his version of “Mad About the Boy,” which is being used as the theme song for the 2023 film documentary “Mad About The Boy — The Noël Coward Story.”
UCTV
University of California Television invites you to enjoy this special selection of programs from throughout the University of California. Descriptions courtesy of and text written by UCTV staff:
“E-Cigarettes as a Public Health Problem”: E-cigarettes were first sold in the United States in 2007. These battery-operated devices heat a liquid made of flavorings and other chemicals, including some with high levels of nicotine, to make an aerosol that users inhale into their lungs. Recent studies show there has been a dramatic increase in their usage — data from 2017 found 1 million American youth aged 14 to 17 years old became new daily tobacco users within the past two years. By 2019, more than three quarters of these youth were vaping e-cigarettes daily. Learn more about the latest research into the personal and public health impacts of e-cigarettes.
“Conversation with Mariachi Arcoiris de Los Angeles”: Mariachi Arcoiris de Los Angeles prides itself on being the world’s first LGBTQ mariachi band. Their tight, energetic and intricate sound has been honed by the work they’ve had to do to navigate the typically hypermasculine and heteronormative world of mariachi as gay and trans musicians. They’ve performed at numerous gay and transgender pride events as well as in the #SchoolsNotPrisons tour for the California Endowment. Enjoy this conversation with the original members of the band as they talk about their unique musical journey.
“The Med School Project”: This documentary follows five medical students in their first and last year attending UCLA’s School of Medicine, culminating in Match Day, when they discover where they will be doing their residency. The students reflect on their experiences and hopes for their future as doctors. The David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA is a groundbreaking community of problem solvers, caregivers, innovators, and life-long learners with a noble mission: to heal humankind by delivering leading-edge research, education, patient care and community engagement.
And finally: Best weekend events
Alyssa Anne Austin stars in “Always a Banana, Never the Bride: An Ode to Broadway’s ‘Lesser Ladies’” at the OB Playhouse.
(Courtesy of Leah Huebner, Huebner Headshots)
The best things to do in San Diego for the weekend of Oct. 20 to Oct. 23
Coddon is a freelance writer.