City Arts & Lectures

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David Brooks Encore Aug 25, 2024

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This week, our guest is David Brooks. As an Op-Ed contributor to The New York Times, Brooks writes about subjects ranging from politics and foreign affairs, to cultural trends and spirituality. Brooks started as a humorist, penning satires for his college paper, before becoming a film critic and then a reporter at The Wall Street Journal. You can see him regularly on the PBS Newshour. He’s also the author of bestselling books like Bobos in Paradise and The Social Animal. Like several of his more recent books – including The Second Mountain – his newest is more personal in nature. It’s called How To Know A Person, and it’s a guide to fostering deeper relationships, at home, in the workplace, or elsewhere. On November 18th, 2023, David Brooks came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco, to talk to Steven Winn about what it means to really see each other. This program was originally broadcast on December 23, 2023.

Jon M. Chu and Awkwafina Aug 18, 2024

Show notes

Long before he directed Wicked, In The Heights, or the groundbreaking film Crazy Rich Asians, Jon M. Chu was a movie-obsessed first-generation Chinese American helping at his parents’ Chinese restaurant in Silicon Valley and forever facing the cultural identity crisis endemic to children of immigrants. Growing up on the cutting edge of twenty-first-century technology gave Chu the tools he needed to make his mark at USC film school and to be discovered by Steven Spielberg, but he soon found himself struggling to understand who he was. In Viewfinder: A Memoir of Seeing and Being Seen, Chu questions what it means when your dreams collide with your circumstances - and how it’s possible to succeed even when the world changes beyond all recognition.

Writer, actor, comedian, and rapper Nora Lum, aka “Awkwafina,” is best known for her roles in Crazy Rich Asians (directed by Jon M. Chu), The Farewell, for which she was the first Asian American to win a Golden Globe award for best actress in a musical or comedy, and Ocean’s 8. In 2020, Awkwafina wrote and executive produced the Comedy Central series Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens, in which she plays a fictionalized version of herself.

Carvell Wallace Aug 11, 2024

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Journalist and podcaster Carvell Wallace regularly contributes to the New York Times Magazine, and has written cover profiles for Rolling Stone, GQ, and Esquire. His intimate, often heartbreaking essays address everything from the end of Barack Obama’s presidency, to the connections between cowboy poetry and forgotten histories of Black people, to the possibility that his mother would have wanted an abortion. Wallace’s new memoir, Another Word For Love, looks back on his own life, from experiencing homelessness with his mother to raising two teenagers in a disturbingly violent and precarious world. In 2019, Wallace co-wrote The Sixth Man with Andre Iguodala of the Golden State Warriors. On May 16, 2024, Carvell Wallace came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed on stage by artist and visual journalist George McCalman, whose books include Illustrated Black History.

Gabrielle Zevin Aug 04, 2024

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Best known for her 2022 novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin has moved across many genres and topics, writing young adult novels, dystopian speculative fiction, and stories centered around video games, all exploring modern technology, slut-shaming, and the oppression of women. She has written for The New York Times Book Review and NPR, and received an Independent Spirit Award Nomination for Best First Screenplay for the feature film Conversations with Other Women. As Zevin’s career has continued to expand, she has become a stronger voice for the rights of women and the power of fiction, celebrating independent bookstores and young authors. On June 25, 2024, Gabrielle Zevin came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an onstage conversation with writer Rebecca Handler.

Chloe Cooper Jones Jul 28, 2024

Show notes

Our guest is writer and philosopher Chloe Cooper Jones, author of the memoir Easy Beauty. Jones was born with sacral agenesis, a rare congenital condition that affects her gait and her stature. In Easy Beauty, she details how that informs her experience of the world – and delivers a powerful philosophical examination of how society thinks about beauty. Jones is a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine, and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2000 for her profile of Ramsey Orta, the man who filmed the killing of Eric Garner, as well as in 2023 for Easy Beauty. On April 26, 2024, Jones came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an onstage conversation with Catherine Lacey.

Victoria Chang Jul 21, 2024

Show notes

Victoria Chang is the author of 8 books of poetry, including “Obit” and “Barbie Chang”, a work of creative nonfiction, and two children’s books. Her newest collection of poems is called “With My Back to the World.” It’s inspired by the art and writing of Agnes Martin, a painter who was an influential part of the abstract art movement beginning in the 1950s. On May 31, 2024, Chang came to the KQED studios in San Francisco to talk to Steven Winn about her creative process and some of the themes in her new collection, including feminism, mental illness, and creative expression.

Serj Tankian Jul 21, 2024

Show notes

Serj Tankian, lead singer of the heavy metal band “System Of A Down.” Tankian founded the group in 1997, releasing five studio albums, three of which debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200. His solo career also includes work as a painter, composer and filmmaker. The musician’s new book is called Down with the System: A Memoir (of Sorts).On July 21st, 2024, Tankian came to the KQED studios in San Francisco to talk to Zack Ruskin about music and activism – particularly his work in support of Armenia, his ancestral homeland.

Judith Butler Jul 14, 2024

Show notes

Since their foundational philosophical critique of gender and sexuality, Gender Trouble, Judith Butler has been a singularly important contributor to our contemporary understanding of those categories, including what it can mean to be queer. Butler’s revolutionary cultural influence and constant drive towards better understandings of our world guarantee that they will remain a widely read canonical writer for decades to come. In recent years, Butler’s theoretical and activist work on gender performance and nonviolence has placed them in conversations around transgender rights, Black Lives Matter, and the Occupy Movement. Their forthcoming book, Who’s Afraid of Gender?, examines why recent authoritarian governments and transexclusionary feminists have focused so much of their energy and ire on gender.

On June 13, 2024, Judith Butler came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater to be interviewed on stage by Poulomi Saha, the co-Director of the Program in Critical Theory at UC Berkeley.

Kara Walker Jul 07, 2024

Show notes

Artist Kara Walker has investigated race, gender, sexuality, and violence through her installations, paintings, silhouettes, and films. Walker’s art has won awards and is collected by museums around the world. Her work with stereotypes and the history of racial violence has pushed viewers to confront the continuing violence against Black people in America. With beloved writer Jamaica Kincaid, winner of the American Book Award, Walker is publishing An Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Children, a brilliant collection of essays and illustrations revealing the beauty of the natural world and the terrible history of colonialism. In July 2024, SFMOMA is releasing a site-specific installation by Walker, focusing on the global loss due to COVID-19, trauma, and technology.
On June 6, 2024, Kara Walker came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed on stage by New Yorker staff writer Doreen St. Félix.

Miranda July Jun 30, 2024

Show notes

Author and creator Miranda July isn’t bound by medium nor by expectations. From films like Me and You and Everyone We Know and Kajillionaire, to books like No One Belongs Here More Than You and The First Bad Man, to an iPhone app that reroutes text messages to strangers, July’s powers of creativity and observation are wise, surprising, and always delightful. Her second novel, All Fours, is the story of a woman’s artistic cross-country quest that has already won praise from George Saunders, Emma Cline, and Vogue for its intimacy, humor, and boundary defying freedom.

On May 23, 2024, Miranda July came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed on stage by Anna Sale, host of the podcast Death, Sex & Money.

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