City Arts & Lectures

This week, two phenomenally smart observers of culture, Jia Tolentino and Jenna Wortham.  Tolentino is a staff writer at The New Yorker and author of the essay collection “Trick Mirror”. Wortham co-hosts the New York Times podcast “Still Processing”. On May 6, 2020, what was to be an on-stage conversation at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco ended up being a far more intimate exchange...

What are some of the insidious designs behind the technology we engage with? How are algorithms designed to convince you to keep scrolling? Tristan Harris, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, is devoted to thinking about the tools built into technology that persuade us to keep returning to it. Harris believes the unmitigated race for our attention has multiple and profound negative con...

Our guests are Camilla Carper and Janelle Abbott, the co-creators of FEMAIL Forever, a project dedicated to sustainability and zero waste.  The two met in design school, and after graduation, returned to their respective homes of Oakland and Seattle. To continue their collaboration, Abbott and Carper mail garments back and forth through the US Postal Service. Each time that work passes from one to...

Miranda July is a multi-disciplinary artist with enormous output who has honed an entirely unique voice, one that provides unconventional perspectives on bizarre nuances of human connection. She is the author of "No One Belongs Here More Than You" and "The First Bad Man", and the writer-director of the movies "The Future", "Me and You and Everyone We Know", and the forthcoming "Kajillionaire". On...

The pioneering writer and neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks, who died in 2015, was beloved for his compassion and creativity. Sacks was deeply invested in the lives and well-being of his patients – people with neurological conditions that included Tourette’s, hallucinations, and autism.  He was a phenomenal storyteller, whose many case studies – he called them ‘neurological novels’ – include “The Man W...

Peggy Orenstein is the author of “Cinderella Ate My Daughter” and other books about the cultural constraints that affect young women.  Orenstein has now turned her attention to boys - conducting comprehensive interviews with young men, psychologists, and academics about consent, vulnerability, hookup culture, and many other issues relating to boys’ emotional lives. These are collected in her new b...

Our guests are Carmen Maria Machado and Namwali Serpell. Carmen Maria Machado’s “In The Dream House,” is a memoir about queer domestic abuse, beautifully and meticulously told through an array of forms, entirely eschewing convention. Machado is also the author of the short story collection “Her Body and Other Parties.” Namwali Serpell is a professor of literature at UC Berkeley. Her debut novel “T...

Our guests are Dolores Huerta and Alice Waters, legendary activists working in different, but complementary areas of our food systems.  Huerta is co-founder of the United Farm Workers Association, and one of the most influential labor activists of our time. Waters is a chef and owner of Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, California. A proponent of organic produce, and farm to table cuisine, Wate...

Our guest is Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, and Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley.  Contrary to what many politicians are saying, Reich believes that the global pandemic is a public health emergency - but not necessarily an economic crisis. And he believes that in order to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, we must halt the...

Our guest is poet Ocean Vuong. His debut novel "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous" takes the form of a letter written to the narrator's mother. The details closely mirror Vuong's own life. Vuong was raised by his mother and grandmother in Hartford, Connecticut. Born in Viet Nam, he was two years old when they left a refugee camp in the Philippines to immigrate to the United States. Ocean Vuong came...

Ottessa Moshfegh is the author of the novels "My Year of Rest and Relaxation", and "Eileen", and the novella "McGlue". Moshfegh is known for writing characters wracked with depression and neurosis - and for the care with which she tends to them. Dark subject matter like grief and alcoholism are tempered by Moshfegh's keen sense of humor. On January 13, 2020, Ottessa Noshfegh came to the Sydney Gol...

Dan Pfeiffer was one of the first people to volunteer on Barack Obama’s campaign for the presidency in 2008. He was one of the last people to leave, in 2015. Over those eight years, Pfeiffer served in the Obama Administration in a number of key roles, including White House Communications Director and Senior Advisor. Today Pfeiffer co-hosts the podcast “Pod Save America” with fellow Obama administr...

Not yet thirty years old, the Irish novelist Sally Rooney has quickly amassed an international following. In “Conversations with Friends” and “Normal People”, Rooney’s nuanced depictions of complex characters confront structures of intimacy, friendship, and class. On February 12, 2020, Sally Rooney and fellow writer Heidi Julavits had a conversation - originally scheduled before an audience at the...

Adam Mansbach is a screenwriter and cultural critic whose books include “Angry Black White Boy,” and “The End of the Jews.” But he achieved his greatest commercial success with his first adult parody of children’s books, “Go the Fuck to Sleep”. He’s joined by political comedian Kamau Bell, host and executive producer of the CNN docu-series United Shades of America . On January 6, 2020,  Mansbach a...

This week our guest is Raphael Bob-Waksberg, creator of the darkly funny animated series “BoJack Horseman,” now in its final season on Netflix.  The show has received wide acclaim for its concurrent hilarity and exploration of more serious themes like depression, failure, and alcoholism.  His new book, *Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory, *is a collection of short stories about lo...

Our guest is poet, podcaster, and novelist Melissa Broder. Broder’s sardonic humor and genuine vulnerability have garnered a loyal following through her twitter persona @sosadtoday - as well as her novel “The Pisces”, a story of a woman fleeing heartbreak and a failed dissertation, finding comfort and passion in a love affair with a merman.  On December 11, 2019, Melissa Broder came to the Sydney...

Our guest is historian Ibram X. Kendi, the author of “Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America.” Kendi’s newest book, “How to be an Antiracist”, tasks readers with identifying their own racism, and working to challenge racist policies that underlie society. On December 12, 2019, Ibram Kendi came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Jelani...

Ben Lerner and Maggie Nelson are two of the foremost writers working at the intersections of poetry, nonfiction, and memoir. They talk about Lerner's book "The Topeka School", a semi-autobiographical work that examines language, masculinity, and today's political and cultural crises. This program was recorded at the Sydney Goldstein Theater on November 21, 2019.

Mo Rocca, humorist, history buff, and a regular panelist on NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me!, is fascinated by obituaries. He coined the term "Mobituaries" as a second remembrance for people or things that didn't get a proper one the first time around - from obscure presidents to lawn darts to disco. On November 18, 2019, Mo Rocca came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Ad...

Our guest is writer, activist, and feminist organizer Gloria Steinem.  In 1971, when Steinem founded the groundbreaking “Ms.” women’s magazines focused on finding a husband, or the right lipstick. But Ms. carried articles on de-sexing the English language, abortion, and the real challenges women were facing. The feminist icon continues to fight for equality across race and gender. And at eighty-fi...

Our guest is Chris Hughes. In May of 2019, Hughes published an Op-Ed in the *New York Times, *entitled “It’s Time to Break Up Facebook.” Hughes called for government regulation of the platform, and reflected on the troubling directions he believes Facebook has moved in since he co-founded the company. On November seventh, 2019, Chris Hughes came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to...

In 1993, Liz Phair flipped the indie rock landscape with frank lyrics about sexuality and anxiety on her debut album “Exile in Guyville.” In her memoir “Horror Stories,” Phair recounts the most transformative moments in her life as an unabashed musician and mother. On October 21, 2019, Liz Phair came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to sit down with photographer Tabitha Soren for a...

Our guests are writers Andre Aciman and Andrew Sean Greer. Aciman is a memoirist, essayist, and scholar of seventeenth-century literature. His best-known novel, “Call Me By Your Name”, was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film. He’s just published a sequel to the book, “Find Me.” Andrew Sean Greer is the author of “The Confessions of Max Tivoli” and “Less,”  a comedy about a man fleeing the h...

Our guest is actor, artist, and now - published poet John Lithgow, known for his television and film roles including “Third Rock From the Sun,” “The Crown,” and “The World According to Garp” - and numerous stage credits, most recently playing Bill Clinton in “Hillary and Clinton.” Lithgow plays Roger Ailes in the 2019 film “Bombshell” and he’s just published “Dumpty: The Age of Trump in Verse”. Th...

Zadie Smith is known for her emotionally rich stories and unique perspective on contemporary culture. Smith wrote her widely acclaimed debut novel “White Teeth” as an undergraduate. She soon cemented her reputation as one of the most important voices of her generation with books like “Swing Time,” “The Autograph Man,” and "On Beauty.” On October 16, 2019, Zadie Smith came to the Sydney Goldstein T...