Painter Wayne Thiebaud is best known for his carefully studied still lifes of ordinary objects such as hot dogs, sweets, and lipsticks. It’s his cherry-topped cakes, lush with frosting, and brightly hued slices of pie that first come to mind for many of his fans. The pleasures of diners and dessert carts, rendered in thick paint, evoke a bygone era. But what could be misinterpreted as saccharine nostalgia is often cut through by a sort of sadness. The blue shadow around a plate … the downward gaze of a pair of swimmers.  Thiebaud’s landscapes, showcasing the steep streets of San Francisco, and the golden hills of California, feature an intensity of light and color, as well as his distinctive brushwork and lush paint. Thiebaud lived in California for most of his long life, settling in Sacramento and teaching at UC Davis. Wayne Thiebaud died on December 25, 2021 at the age of 101. The artist worked until the end of his life — he was 100 years old in August of 2020 when The New Yorker magazine featured one of his iconic ice cream cones as its cover image.  We’re celebrating Thiebaud’s life with a rebroadcast of his 2005 appearance at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco where he spoke to Wendy Lesser, founding editor of the Threepenny Review. He talks about his early career, the artists he most admires, and his approach to teaching.

This week, we present an archival City Arts & Lectures program recorded in 2010 with the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his daughter, the Reverend Mpho Tutu, in conversation with Roy Eisenhardt. Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu dedicated his life to fighting for basic civil and human rights for all. Born a teacher’s son in South Africa, Tutu followed his father’s path and taught for several years before studying theology.  From there, he became the first Black general secretary of the South African Council of Churches, and then the Archbishop of Cape Town.  In 1997, Nelson Mandela asked him to chair the Truth and Reconciliation Commission after the abolition of apartheid.   Archbishop Tutu presided over the ordination of his daughter Mpho Tutu into the Anglican priesthood in 2004.  This program, recorded at Davies Symphony Hall on March 17, 2010, was just after the publication of a book they wrote together, “Made for Goodness, And Why This Makes All the Difference”.   Desmond Tutu died on December 26, 2021, at the age of 90.

This week, we reach into the City Arts & Lectures archives for a conversation with Joan Didion. One of the most influential writers of our time, Didion both chronicled and shaped American culture with a sharp, witty, and distinctively Californian sensibility.   The Sacramento native graduated from the University of California at Berkeley. Her novels include “Play it as it Lays”, “A Book of Common Prayer”, and “The Last Thing He Wanted”.  With her husband John Gregory Dunne, she co-wrote screenplays including “True Confessions”, “Up Close and Personal”, and “The Panic in Needle Park”.  Didion’s nonfiction, beginning with the 1968 “Slouching Towards Bethlehem”, exemplifies the New Journalism movement – a subjective approach to reporting that employs literary techniques. Didion’s inimitable voice was brought even more to the foreground in her memoirs “The Year of Magical Thinking”, and “Blue Nights”, which describe the loss of her husband and daughter and her anxieties about parenting and aging.  Joan Didion died in Manhattan on December 23, 2021, at the age of 87. Joan Didion appeared on City Arts & Lectures six times between 1996 and 2011.  In her last visit, recorded on November 15, 2011, she spoke with novelist Vendela Vida, shortly after the publication of “Blue Nights” at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco.  The program was a benefit for the 826 Valencia College Scholarship program. 

This week, we celebrate the life and work of trailblazing poet, feminist, and cultural critic, bell hooks. bell hooks changed the course of feminism, demanding that the voices of women of color, queer women, and working-class women be included at a time when feminism was seen as a white middle-class movement. Her more than three dozen books, include collections of poetry and essays, and her groundbreaking 1981 book Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism. bell hooks died at her home in Kentucky on Wednesday, December 15, 2021. She was 69 years old.  In this wide-ranging conversation recorded in San Francisco in 1995, bell hooks spoke to Walter Mosley––novelist best known for his historically based crime and mystery fiction including Devil in a Blue Dress, Black Betty, and White Butterfly––about the power of language, about racism and sexism in America, the importance of discourse and more.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Louise Erdrich has written many novels including Love Medicine and The Roundhouse, as well as works of non-fiction, poetry, and children’s books.  She’s written extensively on Native American identity, and is the owner of an independent bookstore in Minneapolis, Birchbark Books, which specializes in Native American writing.  Her new novel, The Sentence, takes place in such a bookstore. It's a ghost story, set against the real-life backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic and the murder of George Floyd. On November 19, 2021, Louise Erdrich spoke to Steven Wynn at the studios of KQED in San Francisco.

This week – Jeff Chang talks to Nikole Hannah-Jones, one of today’s foremost investigative journalists.  Her reporting on civil rights and racial justice, including school segregation, has earned her numerous awards, chief among them a Pulitzer Prize for her work on the 1619 Project.  It’s an ongoing initiative from the New York Times that reframes the way we understand America’s history by examining the modern legacy of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans.  On November 29, 2021, Nikole Hannah-Jones came to San Francisco to celebrate the release of the book version of the 1619 Project.  Joining her was one of the book’s contributors, Barry Jenkins, the Academy-Award-winning director of Moonlight, and most recently, a television adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s “The Underground Railroad”.  But before the two sat down to talk to Jeff Chang, Forrest Hamer read his poem “Race Riot”.  

For this special archive edition of City Arts and Lectures, we present a 2008 interview with the lyricist and composer Stephen Sondheim.  Since his Broadway debut at age 27 as the lyricist for “West Side Story”, Stephen Sondheim has stretched the conventions of musical theater with sophisticated storylines and complex musicality.  Though his work has always been controversial, and met with mixed reviews from critics and audiences, Sondheim’s impact on music theater is undeniable. His landmark shows include “Company”, “Into the Woods”, “A Little Night Music”, “Sunday in the Park with George”, “Assassins”, and “Sweeney Todd”.  Sondheim has won eight Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, a Pulitzer Prize, eight Tony Awards, and received the Kennedy Center Lifetime Achievement Honors and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.   Stephen Sondheim died on Friday, November 26, 2021, the day after enjoying a Thanksgiving dinner with friends.  He was 91 years old.  At the time of his death, he was working on a new musical called “Square One”. In this program, recorded on March 9, 2008, Sondheim was interviewed on the stage of the Herbst Theater in San Francisco by Frank Rich of the New York Times.  Join me now for a 2008 conversation with the late Stephen Sondheim.

Gary Shteyngart’s new book is “Our Country Friends”, which he began writing during the first month of the pandemic.  It’s the story of eight friends who shelter in place at the upstate New York home of a Russian-born American writer.  His previous books include “Super Sad True Love Story” and “Absurdistan”.  On November 8, 2021, Gary Shteyngart joined Andrew Sean Greer, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of “Less”, to talk about finding humor in dystopic times. 

Jelani Cobb is a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine, historian, and professor of journalism at Columbia, and one of today’s most important public intellectuals.  He is the co-editor of  a new anthology, The Matter of Black Lives, which compiles New Yorker essays on race in America through time, by writers including James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Hilton Als, and Zadie Smith. On November 5, 2021, he came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an on-stage conversation with Jeff Chang and a live audience. They spoke about diversity in the newsroom, the controversy surrounding Dave Chappelle, and the findings of a task force created by Lyndon Johnson in the wake of racial riots in the 1960s.

In 1991, Anita Hill testified at the Senate confirmation hearings of Justice Clarence Thomas.  It was an act of enormous bravery, and Hill immediately became a symbolic figure of extraordinary controversy.  Anita Hill’s role in bringing gender-based discrimination to America’s consciousness cannot be understated.  In fact, prior to her testimony, sexual harassment simply wasn’t part of our collective consciousness. Her work for fair treatment in the workplace, and for a society free of harassment and violence, continues to this day. On October 22, 2021, Anita Hill came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to speak with USF law professor Lara Bazelon, about the arc of her remarkable life, and her new book Believing: Our Thirty-Year Journey to End Gender Violence.