California Sun Podcast

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Thomas Walsh and Karen Maness on the lost art of the Hollywood backdrop Mar 31, 2022

Show notes

Thomas Walsh and Karen Maness are the co-curators of "Art of the Hollywood Backdrop: Cinema's Creative Legacy," an exhibit opening at Boca Raton Museum of Art on April 20. It showcases a collection of monumental scenic backdrop paintings that were an essential part of the filmmaking era that included movies such as "North by Northwest," "The Sound of Music," and "Singing in the Rain."

Vanessa Hua is a triple threat Mar 24, 2022

Show notes

Vanessa Hua, a Bay Area native and graduate of Stanford and U.C. Riverside, has focused her extensive writing on issues of immigration, identity, diversity, and parenting. Moving seamlessly between short stories, novels, journalism, and her San Francisco Chronicle column, she offers important insights into the Asian American experience. The author of the forthcoming novel "Forbidden City" shared some of her own history.

Susan Sorrells and her own desert town of Shoshone Mar 17, 2022

Show notes

Susan Sorrells has been called the "Queen of the Desert" and among a "shortlist of the most interesting people in California." The Smith College graduate spent time in Liberia with the Peace Corps, worked for California Sen. Thomas Kuchel in Washington, D.C., and lived for four months in the Soviet Union during the Cold War while considering a career as a diplomat. She ultimately returned to California to claim her birthright, the entire town of Shoshone — a small, once-bustling mining town, whose cluster of historic buildings flanks two sides of a highway that slices through the Mojave on the way to Death Valley. Sorrells shared the story of her journey and how she is using the town to advance a new kind of ecotourism.

Libby Schaaf's love affair with Oakland Mar 10, 2022

Show notes

Libby Schaaf is about to complete her second and final term as mayor of Oakland. Unlike a lot of other political jobs, as Willie Brown once said, mayors are judged by results. When Schaaf took office in 2014, Barack Obama was still president. Today, she presides over a very different city. Homelessness, a new baseball stadium, the creation of a whole new neighborhood, police reform, and the potential for gentrification were not as front and center then as they are today. In this week's podcast, she talks about the changes and how she thinks she's fared.

Frances Dinkelspiel on the power of local reporting Mar 03, 2022

Show notes

Frances Dinkelspiel is working hard to counter the decline of local reporting. The co-founder of Berkeleyside, Oaklandside, and their parent organization Cityside believes it is more important for us to know what's going on in our neighborhoods than what's happening 6,000 miles away. The longtime Bay Area author and journalist shares her journey and what's at stake for our communities.

Peter Hartlaub and the S.F. Chronicle are one Feb 24, 2022

Show notes

Peter Hartlaub and the San Francisco Chronicle are inseparable. Peter delivered the Chronicle as a paperboy in the 1980s, went to work there as a journalist in 2000, and 22 years later, continues to put his imprimatur on the paper and the institution. Currently the culture critic, Hartlaub has helped bring the Chronicle into the multimedia age, has unearthed its voluminous archives, co-hosts its Total SF podcast, and has the paper's ink in his blood.

Sebastian Mallaby on the real power in Silicon Valley Feb 17, 2022

Show notes

The work of Sebastian Mallaby, a financial journalist and author of the new book "The Power Law," shines a light on how Silicon Valley really operates. The names you know — Zuckerberg, Jobs, Dorsey, Brin & Page — are not really the gatekeepers of the future, he argues. The future of technology rests in the hands of people you've probably never heard of, such as Arthur Rock, Alan Patricof, John Dore, Don Valentine, and Marc Andreessen. They control what companies get to start up, what technology gets to market, and what your future will be like. Like so much else, it's about following the money.

Erich Schwartzel on how China may deal Hollywood a fatal blow Feb 10, 2022

Show notes

Erich Schwartzel has covered Hollywood for the Wall Street Journal for almost a decade. This week, the author of "Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy" joins the California Sun Podcast to talk about how two big stories — Hollywood and the Oscars, and our eyes on China — may have more in common than we thought. The economic decline of Hollywood and the rise of China's film history are directly related and certainly will impact the California economy.

Alice Waters delicious conversation Feb 03, 2022

Show notes

Alice Waters is among the most influential restaurateurs of the last half-century. Her legendary Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse gave birth to farm-to-table cuisine and gave California a global culinary presence. She has nurtured talent that has spread to restaurants around the world. Chez Panisse is now preparing to reopen post-pandemic, and Waters has just touched down in Los Angeles with a new restaurant in the Hammer Museum. She shares with us a remarkable food journey that began back in 1964.

Mark Fainaru-Wada wrote the book on Barry Bonds Jan 27, 2022

Show notes

Mark Fainaru-Wada was a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle when he co-authored "Game of Shadows," the definitive book about Barry Bonds, BALCO, and baseball's steroid scandal. An award-winning ESPN reporter since 2007, Fainaru-Wada talks about the ongoing debate over Bonds' rightful place in Cooperstown and in baseball history.

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