One of the great things about writing a ‘snail mail letter’ is it provides a way to continue a conversation with someone. I met Danny last year at a St. James Inn event — a few homes sponsored by the Paulist Church to give patients who are undergoing serious medical treatment at UCLA a place…
When I’m invited to someone’s home — and I suspect they don’t need anything — I always question, “What about chocolate? Surely they like chocolate!” I go to See’s Candy and buy MY favorite — Bridge Mix. The store wraps it all up, black & white, and I have confidently taken it to many a…
Sometimes the world suddenly hands you a surprise. I was in New York for a Rhode Island School of Design Board meeting. I walked in to a party for my fellow Trustees and heard a loud “Erica?” from a willowy young woman with brown wavy hair. ‘”Julia!” she explained. I’d seen her name on…
We had dinner the other night with Kathy Quinn, the widow of the late, great actor Anthony Quinn. She and Anthony’s son Alex are getting an exhibition together to honor what would have been Anthony Quinn’s 100th birthday. Anthony Quinn was a great artist and there’s much interest in his legacy. I had an opportunity…
I’ve been aiming to translate my philanthropic endeavors into a paid position. The night before I was due to make my proposal of what I thought I was worth (for a part-time position), I asked my friend Loren Basch how to approach the “ask”. He’s been a fundraiser in the world of Geffen-Katzenberg-Spielberg, so if anyone…
Excuse the bad camera work — I’m the world’s worst photographer — but you get the idea. These are the hands of my father’s best friend Phil Siegelman, a former professor and one of the most brilliant men I know — showing me a tiny pop-up box he made for his wife Ellen’s birthday. I’ve…
I worked with John Gengl at MPH Entertainment … and we always enjoyed each other. He headed up Post Production and I was VP of Production, so we had lots of interaction — especially when it came time to budgets and deadlines. John is working with veteran producer Arnold Shapiro now and I was delighted…
http://www.lacma.org/art/exhibition/calder-and-abstraction-avant-garde-iconic It was a dazzling week for the arts. I went to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) on Tuesday. I wanted to see the Calder Exhibit and decided “Just go, don’t wait for a friend”. I liked his quote about how circles and spheres influence all of his work and I…
www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMdwJ7fyp00 VOTE FOR LARRY CEDAR in “OFFICE THIEF” ad for Doritos… if it gets a million votes, you’ll get it into the Super Bowl Sunday commercial line-up! **** I was a transfer student who came fresh off the boat from UC Santa Cruz… into the hard-core Communications Studies Department at UCLA, where pre-laws pushed for…
At Thanksgiving, my brother-in-law Gary surprised us. He had set up a camera – on a tripod — and told us to gather in one place, it was time for a family shot. As a group who hates having their picture taken — it wasn’t an easy undertaking. At each ‘click’, Gary had us move…
