S1: It's time for Midday Edition on Kpbs. For today's arts and culture show will tell you about San Diego's Theater Week and much more. I'm Jade Hindman. Here's to conversations that keep you informed , inspired , and make you think. Romance novelist Tia Williams shares the inspiration behind her latest book.
S2: Okay , so there's a haunted piano , there's a florist's , there's the Harlem Renaissance , there's a pianist , there's an enchanted brownstone. Put it all together and make a story.
S1: Plus , the creative work behind the film anatomy of a fall and the art exhibits and performances you won't want to miss in your weekend preview. That's ahead on Midday Edition. Past and present collide in a new romance book set in one of New York's most storied neighborhoods. In a love song for Ricky Wilde , the titular Ricky leaves her family and wealth behind to open up her own flower shop in Harlem. There she meets Ezra Walker , a mysterious jazz pianist , and finds out their lives are intertwined in some pretty mystical ways. It's a sweeping , epic love story that jumps between the Harlem Renaissance and the Harlem of today. This is author Tia Williams sixth book. She's also written other romances like The Perfect Find and Seven Days in June , which is currently being adapted into a TV series on Amazon Prime. She joins me now to talk more about her novel. Tia , welcome.
S2: Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
S1: So glad to have you here.
S2: I got these , like , disparate ideas in my dropped into my head. It was like , okay , so there's a haunted piano , there's a florist , there's the Harlem Renaissance , there's a pianist , there's an enchanted brownstone. Put it all together and make a story. Yeah.
S1: I mean , in a fascinating one.
S2: You know , black culture was the center of the universe at that time. Um , the art , the literature , the fashion , the socialites , the philosophies that were born during that time. I've always been really inspired by it , especially the writing of , like , Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. And I've always wanted to figure out a way to get it in a novel. But I'm not a straight up historical fiction , you know , romance novelist. So I came up with this kind of scandal and a little bit of a voodoo curse that goes down , um , during the Harlem Renaissance era. That has implications for Rickey and Ezra's love in the present.
S1: Very interesting. See , now , you pulled the voodoo stuff out of New Orleans somewhere , didn't you ? Yeah.
S3:
S2: So , um , the voodoo comes from Louisiana. So my mother's family is actually Louisiana French Creole. And so I'm always inspired by , you know , that culture and voodoo and hoodoo is a huge part of that culture. Um , and the funny thing is , there was a lot of voodoo of the Harlem Renaissance because of the Great Migration. There were so many people moving up from , you know , southern cities , southern towns , um , in search of a better future for themselves. And with it , they brought a lot of their practices from the South. So you find voodoo in all sorts of like , 1920s jazz and literature and , and paintings. So it's pretty interesting. Yeah.
S4: Yeah.
S1: I mean , and you mentioned jazz , you know , we'd be just not even talking about the jazz era and the Renaissance if we didn't mention the greats like Duke Ellington , James Johnson , Bessie Smith , Ma Rainey. I mean , are there any songs that really helped you sort of get immersed in the era while writing ? Yeah.
S2: Um. Carolina Charlotte by James P Johnson is is one that I listened to quite a bit. And it is also basically a character in the novel. James P Johnson wrote the Charleston. He was a huge pianist musician at the time , and this was a battle song where pianists would come from all over the country , um , to these speakeasies and cabarets , and they would be challenged with playing this song. And if they could play it , then , you know , they were deemed good. And if they if they couldn't , you know , it was almost like the rap battles of , of the 20s. Um , and it was a really tough song to master. And when I listen to it , it takes me back to that time. Wow.
S4: Wow.
S1: And the neighborhood really comes to life in your writing. There are so many details that make it feel lived in and real , whether we're in the past or present.
S2: Um , I read a fantastic novel called Not Novel is a historical biography called Zora and Langston , which is just about their relationship. Um , I found a map of 1930s Harlem nightlife with all of the addresses of the coolest cabarets and speakeasy. Is in restaurants and where the famous people lived. And I went to Harlem and I walked around and found these addresses. And what really struck me was that so many of these places are gone , you know , it's like a night spot where all of the most glamorous luminaries of the era would meet is now like a Walgreens or an office building. And I just got it just interested me , this idea that , you know , all of this magic is sort of buried right underneath the surface , and that helped inspired the story , which really involves the past intermingling with the present. Mhm.
S1: You mentioned a map , and it mirrors one scene where Ricky actually goes on a tour of the city using a vintage map , and it's also her first time seeing how those old Harlem staples have been lost in lost to gentrification and time.
S2: And , you know , so often there's nothing there. And so she starts making these really beautiful floral arrangements and leaving them , you know , at these addresses as sort of a tribute to what the space once was. And she posts each building on Instagram with her flower bouquet and explains what the building used to be. And , um , her Harlem musings go viral and it helps put her flower shop on the map. And I think that it's also just , you know , a testament to really living your city and understanding where you are and not just sort of infiltrating , but , um , understanding. You know , when you move to a place like Harlem that you should give reverence to a storied past. Mhm.
S4: Mhm.
S1: And I want to talk more about our main leads. In a lot of ways , Ricky and Ezra feel like outsiders , as you just mentioned in in their own world , though , it's part of what draws them to one another or at least makes them feel like kindred spirits.
S2: There was never any choice for them but to follow their passions. And in Ezra's case , it's piano , it's music , and in Ricky's case , it's floral design. It's all that each of them ever cared about. And it's just it makes their heart beat. And for both of them , growing up in the environments that they did , those career options were not options for them. They had to leave to go find , you know , to go seek their destiny. And they both ended up coming to Harlem to make their dreams come true , just like the scores of people throughout time have when they come to Manhattan. And , uh , there are stories really , without giving away too many spoilers , their stories really do parallel them each other. As you know , black artists refusing to be sort of put in a box or defined by anyone else's ideas of black excellence but their own.
S1: Well , yeah , tell me more about that.
S2: But the the flip side of that is that , you know , the idea of black excellence can be very limiting. It can be rigid and narrow and. I think it's important , when we're talking about this excellence , to understand that what our ancestors really fighting for was freedom. You know , freedom of choice , freedom of lifestyle , freedom of being defined by someone else's idea of of what we are. And , you know , in Ricky's case , she's from a family that has actual black generational wealth through funeral home business. And they are very serious and very conservative. And everyone goes into the business , everyone goes to Ivy leagues , everyone gets straight A's , everyone marries the right kind of man and has 2.5 children , the whole nine. And she just does not fit that mold. And instead of forcing herself into it , she runs in the other direction and defines black excellence for herself. And in Ezra's case , he was instrumental in defining a sound. He is the conductor of excellence by his own definition and the world. Again , without giving away too many spoilers. Right.
S1: Right. And and I want to shift gears to some of the other themes in your work , like beauty , self-care , and mental health. I mean , with Rickie , we see it in her sense of style and in her struggles with social anxiety.
S2: And I was , um , I was a beauty writer , a beauty journalist for ever like that. That's my day job until last year. So I kind of came up in the industry writing , you know , reporting on beauty , hair , makeup , skincare , trends for magazines and then crossing over to doing beauty ad copy. So I'm always seeing the world through a beauty and fashion lens. You know , when I'm writing characters , I have to imagine what they're wearing and not just what they're wearing. Like , it drives me crazy when you're reading a book and it's like she had on a purple skirt. It's like , okay , but where is it , Zara ? Like , is it thrifted ? Did she make it like it was a her mom's like , eye it to me. Like , those choices say so much about who a character is.
S1:
S2: When I was growing up , I knew that I wanted to do two things. I was obsessed with fashion magazines , so I had to be an editor , and I was obsessed with romance novels. So I had to be a novelist. And after I graduated from college in 97 , I moved right to Brooklyn and started working at YM , which is a now defunct teen magazine , as a beauty assistant. And , you know , I made I kind of climbed up the ladder from YM to Elle to Glamour , lucky magazine , essence. I worked everywhere but 2 or 3 years into my career , I guess I was about 25. I wrote my first novel , The Accidental Diva , and ever since then I always had two careers. So it was never a , you know , leaving one to do the other.
S1:
S5:
S2: There were just so few of them. You know , I grew up in the 80s , and I'm reading Jackie Collins and Judith Krantz and Jude Devereaux and Danielle Steel , and , you know , these big , dramatic , fabulous stories about white women falling in , in love and having exciting careers and living these international , exciting lives. And I would have to recast the characters in my head as black people. And that's no one should have to do that. And so I write books starring us that are big , dramatic , fabulous , high stakes , exciting , glamorous stories starring us so that , you know , because we're not the black versions of a character. We are ourselves and we are all things. And it's important for us to see ourselves in media. You know , any jinx or any black jinx or knows , you know , watching TV while black in the 80s or watching movies while black in the 80s is like extremely , um , you had to put your , your own needs aside to enjoy anything because we weren't really represented. And if we were , they sometimes weren't the best representations of us or honest portrayals of us.
S4: So what's.
S1: Next ? I heard you have a young adult novel in the works.
S2: I do , um , so my protagonist in Seven Days in June , her name is. You have a mercy. She had a daughter in that book who was 12 , and my new young adult novel is about Audrey , um , at 16. So four years later and she was a fan favorite in seven days in June , so I wasn't ready to leave her world yet. So yeah , that'll be coming out next year.
S1: I've been speaking with Tia Williams , author of A Love Song for Ricky Wilde. She'll be celebrating the release of her book at Meat Cute Romance Bookshop on March 5th. The event starts at 7 p.m.. Tia , thank you so much and congratulations on your book.
S5: Thank you for having me.
S2: It was so fun.
S1: Coming up , Lauren Senecal receives an Oscar nomination for editing last year's tense thriller anatomy of a fall.
S6: Sometimes the audience has to be has to work. It's it's really good when they have some work , but not too much. And this is like a dance with the audience. But we don't know each other at. That's the beautiful thing about it.
S7: We will speak to the.
S1: Academy Award nominee about the challenges of editing a film in which the audience is left wondering who's telling the truth. You're listening to Kpbs Midday Edition. Welcome back. You're listening to Kpbs Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman. It's not very often that the Academy Awards recognize foreign language films in its craft categories , but this year it could not ignore the perfect collaboration of Laurent's initials. Editing in anatomy of a fall , the film , directed by Justine Triet , involves a couple who have a fight , and then the husband turns up dead , apparently from an accidental fall. But the police suspect the wife of foul play and her blind son is the sole witness. Kpbs Cinema Junkie Beth Accomando speaks with the Oscar nominated film editor about the challenges of building tension , while never revealing who's telling the whole truth.
S8: For achievement in film editing , the nominees are. Anatomy of a fall.
S9: It's not very often that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognizes foreign language films in its craft categories , but this year it could not ignore the perfect calibration of Lawrence Nichols editing in anatomy of a fall.
S10: So , as you can see , an accidental fall is going to be hard to defend given the height of the windowsill. So that's why there's an investigation for more suspect. Uh , and your your your most suspicious death. Yeah. And your sister. Because you were the only person there. Okay. And of course , you , his wife. Um , now looking for a stranger. Walks in , kills him while you were sleeping right above. And Daniel was up for work. His shitty strategy. Samuel had no enemies that stop.
S11: I did not kill him.
S10: That's not the point.
S9: One of the things that's really impressive about the film is it feels like , really well calibrated. Like every note , every , like , moment. Just seems like really carefully planned.
S6: And because we , we , we really pay attention to this. And it's months and months of work with Justine trying to refine and refine things. But we are starting from the material with Justine. It's always the acting , the performances of the actors that are the main door or the first door or the starting point for her. And then we are trying to , yeah , to maintain some tension , as you said , but just never wants to push ideas and push judgments on her characters. So we had to let the audience to let the viewer make his own trip on that.
S12: I'm sorry to interrupt. I'm sorry , but. I don't know you. You you come here , okay ? With your maybe your opinion and you tell me who Samuel was and what we were going through. But what you say is just , uh , it is just a little part of the whole situation , you know ? I mean , sometimes sometimes a couple. Is kind of a chaos and everybody is lost. No. And sometimes we fight together and sometimes we fight alone. And sometimes we we fight against each other. That happens. And I think it's possible that somewhere needed to see things the way you describe them. But if I'd been seeing a therapist , he could stand here too , and say very ugly things about someone else.
S6: It's a very long scene , and our goal was to to trust the audience that they are. They were going to stay with us in this very intense and like , boxing , uh , dialogues , you know , uh , scene.
S9: Well , you mentioned you talk about trusting the audience , but what the film does that I love is that it doesn't condescend to us either in the sense of telling us what we're supposed to think or telling us what we're supposed to feel. We're piecing things together , which is much more engaging and also much more exciting to watch.
S6: You you are in front of a character and you are free to , uh , make your own opinion about her. Your reasonable doubts are , uh , always , uh , working. Here we are in front of a trial , and we are like a member of the jury , you know ? And , uh , this this was the idea. So we have we had to really design the fact that we some some scenes were , um , building Sandra as a very manipulative character. And then after we could not see her having those , uh , really nice , uh , feelings around the the our boy when she's talking about the handicap , it's for me. It's a great moment when she's saying , I never saw , uh , my son as handicapped. She's , uh , he's a great woman. But this woman was killed by a previous scene where she was in this very high lightness and alcohol thing and seduction with her lawyer at night. You know , it's just before and. Well , we had to cut so many great things because some writer gave us so many options. She's an amazing actress. We have a golden garbage , you know , because we had to get so many great things to have this possibility for the audience not to fall into one or the other version. You know , that was really , really nice. Complexity is in the center of all we were doing and building. And even the boy is becoming like his mother , and it's becoming complex. We don't really exactly know what are , um , his feelings. And even if he if he's inventing things or not. Yeah , this was the program , but it was hard to do.
S9: And I don't think most people really understand what an editor does. People tend to just say like , oh , that movie was too long. Why didn't they cut it shorter ? Like , that's the only time they seem to , you know , mention editing. So can you give a little insight to people as to what your process is like in particularly with Justine ? Yeah.
S13:
S6: You're right. It's it's an invisible , uh , job. It's very important job for , for , uh , for movies , you know that. But and it's very hard to explain what it is exactly that we are doing in the dark. So I think that previously , just before talking about this way , to reshape things , to tell the story to the audience , we pay really an extreme attention to what the audience is supposed to feel. But we are betting things we we don't know exactly. So for me , editing is like when you are telling your story to your children , when before they are going to sleep , you know , you have to be good , you have to have a good story. And , uh , we , we have to refine and and always like , invite the audience to be with us. And sometimes the audience has to be has to work. It's it's really good when they have some work but not too much. And this is like a dance with the audience , but we don't know each other. And that's the beautiful thing about it.
S9: Well , I always liked editing because you can try so many things without a hundred people waiting for you to make a decision , and. Can make a mistake and then just walk away from it and just go like , well , okay , I'll just put that back together. Back the way it was.
S13: That's true.
S6: That's completely true. But. And it's a place where truth , if it exists , is there. We are editors. I think we are really humble. And because we know that it's it's hard and it's it's not with the actors , you know , in the set , you have to play something with directors and even with producers really often in an editing room , everyone is like with no masks , you know , we are like in front of what are we going to do ? And this is a great this is a great job for this. And also when you are at the end of an editing process for a long feature film , you , you , you cannot really see as a fresh eyes is the movie. But you are like remembering all the screenings that you had and you are like trying to be , um , digging in your own memories of all those screenings and tries. You know , it's it's a funny.
S5: And do you.
S9: See the film ? I mean , one of the things is I actually put this film on my ten best list for , oh , women helmed horror films , because I feel that not in a traditional sense is this a horror film , but it has all like the beats of a horror film like you. That sense of tension and kind of stress and anxiety you get when you're kind of uncertain about what's going on.
S6: So , um , our idea was to assume that we had this really manipulative operation at the at the beginning. You will never know what happened. This is the big thing we are doing. But after our our decision was to accompany the character , as in , um , John Cassavetes movie , you know , it's we want it to be like , with a this , uh , intimate climate around this family , this woman and this boy , even if doubts are still burning somewhere in the head of the audience. So I think that we knew that we were playing this game with tension and maybe scary things , and but we were using this in a candid way. We wanted to be , like , sensitive about all this and to maybe do this , but in a European or maybe French way , you know , not not with dialogues and with , uh , and with no score movies , we , we no score , um , music on the movie we wanted it to be , uh , really like an an in between , a balanced thing. A around , uh , an author movie , uh , an author , a European movie and , uh , gender movie. More broad , you know , more well-spent movie. You know , we were you were trying to to balance it.
S9: And one last thing. And you don't have to tell me exactly the answer , but I am curious.
S6: For me as an editor , I never even ask myself that question , that answer to cop , because I knew that , yeah , the all the movie was around , uh , not answering that. And , uh , and , and maybe it's an ode to complexity in life and , uh , what is great is that it's not very intellectual and clever things for smart people. It's with a feelings , really direct feelings at the end when the they are reconnecting the mother and the boy.
S14: I just want you to know one thing.
S12: I'm not a. Monster.
S14: Monster.
S15: It's really complex what they are.
S6: Living , and we can feel it really organically with the , the silence and the the looks they have. We are like living with them. What was this strange moment ? And even when the dog is coming , the dog is like , um , exactly like a human being there. We have these feelings that are really , um , uh , nice and simple and directed feelings. But complexity is what the way Justin is , uh , looking at our life and and of course , maybe she I think she , she said that the first question she had before having this idea of , of the anatomy was to my ten year old daughter , know me or do I know her ? And you can ask you for yourself , and everyone can be in front of what you think you know. But you don't know your intimates , your relatives , you know , you never you. You cannot know everything about what's wrong , what's wrong here. And , uh , it was a play around that , you know.
S9: Well , I want to thank you very much for talking and thank you for this wonderful film.
S6: Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I can feel that you enjoyed it. And it's really great.
S2: Um , yes.
S6: It was really pleasant to to have this chat with you.
S1: That was Beth Accomando speaking with Oscar nominated film editor Lauren Cynical. You can listen to their full interview on the Cinema Junkie podcast , then find out if he takes home the gold on March 10th at the 96th Academy Awards. Coming up. There's so much going on in your weekend preview. We'll tell you about San Diego Theater Month.
S16:
S1: Welcome back to Kpbs Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman for our weekend preview. We have cheap theater tickets , classical music for kids , and plenty more arts and culture around town. Joining me with all the details is Kpbs arts producer and editor Julia Dixon Evans. Julia , welcome.
S17: Hey , Jane. Thanks for having me.
S1: Always good to have you here. So let's start with the cheap theater tickets. We've heard of San Diego Museum Month , but now we have San Diego Theater Month , which kicks off this weekend. Tell us about that. Right.
S17: Right. So this started in 2016. And then it was just over a week. And a few years ago became a full month , the month of March. And it's actually even longer. There are a few shows that kind of spill into April. They have a website and a bunch of theaters and performing arts organizations. So not just theater , also comedy and dance. These groups have have offered up particular shows for discount tickets , and it uses a simple discount code that you plug in when you get your tickets from that particular theater. And you can get free tickets to a couple of shows or other shows are $15 , $30 , or $45 categories. Wow.
S1: Wow.
S17: That one closes next weekend , so there's only two weekends with the theater month discount. That's a play by Lynn Nottage. It's about a diner that employs former convicts , and I've heard great things about it. Another exciting one is happening in April. It's called Natasha , Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812. That's at Cygnet Theater. It's an electro pop opera version of this section of Tolstoy's War and Peace. And there's also City Ballet and a couple of comedy theaters in there , too. And this was started by the San Diego Performing Arts League , and I spoke to their board president , Jay Hensley , and he told me that at this point in the performing arts world , how to get audiences back is the big question on everyone's minds.
S1: Let's take a listen to that conversation.
S17: So San Diego Theater Month is now a full month , but when this project started in 2016 , it was just one week. Can you talk about how the program started , but also how it's grown ? Absolutely.
S16: Yeah. So this is going to be our ninth consecutive year of San Diego Theater Month. And nine years ago , we started it as San Diego Theater Week as a ten day celebration of the arts. And you know , a fun fact is that more San Diego has sent more shows to Broadway than any other city in America. And , you know , nine years ago , we looked at this robust theater scene that San Diego has and , you know , thought , okay , how can we get more people to discover what's in their backyard ? And so we started San Diego Theater Week. It really is a way to to highlight that and also to create accessibility because , you know , we don't want the price of theater to be a hindrance for people to , to experience , you know , that that magic of live performance. And so , you know , Theater Week was born as a way to to highlight what we have here , but also create more accessibility for the performing arts. You know , over the years , it's just continued to grow. And we realized a couple of years ago that we needed to offer more opportunity. And that's why we we expanded it to an entire month.
S17: So this has been a pretty strange few years for performing arts. Can you talk about some of the specific challenges that theaters and theater companies are still facing ? Yeah.
S16: You know , you say that it's been an interesting year. It's definitely been an interesting time for the theater and the performing arts community in San Diego. The pandemic obviously presented a lot of challenges , and the biggest challenge has really been bringing audience members back into the theater. And , you know , I think if you look at the different arts organizations , they're all handling it differently. Um , some have shortened their seasons , you know , where , as they may have done 5 or 6 shows in a season. Now maybe they're doing three. And , you know , I think programs like Theater Month are so vital for our community right now because it's a way to really not only highlight what's going on , but that accessibility to the arts that it's creating so that , you know , you can go see a show for as little as $15. So during theater month , why not see maybe 2 or 3 shows ? Because $15 a show , you could see three shows for the price that you might pay to typically see one. So I think , you know , we're doing this to really help highlight what's going on in San Diego , but also help the arts organizations bring people back.
S17:
S16: There's a lot that's been really talked about over the past year , and some of it is , uh , just the , the , the amount of entertainment options that we have now , you know , streaming , uh , why not just stay home and watch Netflix ? But there's something about the magic of live performance , you know , going to the theater and seeing the curtain rise and , you know , watching a performance , you can't replicate that sitting at home on your couch. And , you know , I think there's that hurdle of bringing people back. Sometimes price is an option , you know , especially with inflation , what it is right now , maybe the luxury of going to see a show , you know , isn't part of somebody's budget. But I think again , you know , that's why I feel like a program like theater is so important to our community because it helps remove some of those barriers and that hurdle that might be preventing somebody from going to see a show.
S17: So let's talk a little bit about how Theater Month works. A theater will designate a show and decide whether tickets will be 15 or 30 or $45. And then people will go to the San Diego Theater Month website and get the discount code.
S16: So , you know , we want to make it as easy as possible. And that's why we we have three main price points 15 , 30 and $45. And all of the shows that are a part of San Diego Theater Month are listed on our website , which is San Diego theater.com. And we really made it just kind of a one stop shop where you can browse by price , you can browse by location or , you know , genre if you want to see comedy , if you want to see drama , you can see all of that on our website and simply go there , use the promo code and get your tickets. So we really try to make it a one stop shop.
S17: Let's talk about a couple of the shows in this year's program.
S16: I'm really excited to see as many as I can this month. Um , and , you know , I think one of the other things that's kind of exciting is that there's there's shows in Oceanside and Escondido and all the way down to the Silver Strand and in between. So no matter where you are , there's something great going on. You know , for me , there's a couple that , um , that stand out. One is an American in Paris that's being performed by City Ballet of San Diego. Um , I'm a big fan of City Ballet and their performances , and I'm excited to see that. Um , there's also kind of a hidden gem that I'm excited to see , and it's called Chicken and Biscuits , and it's being performed by Oceanside Theatre Company. But again , those are just two that I'm really excited to see. But there's so much out there that's going on this month.
S1: Very interesting. And that was Jay Hensley of the San Diego Performing Arts League. San Diego Theatre Month runs March 1st through the 30th , with a few shows extending into April. You can find details and the discount code online at our website or at San Diego theatre.com. I'm Jade Hindman here with Kpbs Arts producer and editor Julia Dixon Evans. We're talking about what's going on in arts and culture this weekend. We've got a couple of visual art options , including Daniel Hicks at Thumbprint Gallery.
S17: He is a self-taught artist and designer , and I love his work. It's really sparse and kind of architectural. These are mostly wall hung works , but they're still super sculptural , like these assemblages of materials that kind of look like flat lays on a workroom floor. There's light wood frames , a lot of white and and thin lines of red and yellow for a little pop of color. It's very geometric and sharp , but there's also kind of a softness in some of the works. There's there's a gradient of grayscale. It kind of softens it up and gives it gives it a grainy blur. This is a thumbprint gallery in La Jolla , and it'll be on view the whole month. But it opens with a reception on Friday from 4 to 9:00.
S1: All right. And one more visual art. This one is at the UC San Diego Mandeville Art Gallery. Tell us about Lauren Leigh McCarthy's work.
S17: Okay , so this one is performance art , mostly including some video and installation work. And the whole exhibition is called Bodily Autonomy. And one of the work's a video is this filmed version of a kind of performance piece where she's imagining the idea of a remote controlled surrogate mother , and she's holding interviews with potential families , and her work is visually shocking. There's there's a birthing tub involved , but I think that the underlying message , it's about biosurveillance and algorithms and data privacy. I think that stuff's really fascinating. And the other installation , brace yourself , this one is called a saliva bar. Okay.
S4: Okay.
S1: Make it make.
S4: Sense what is.
S1: Happening here. Right.
S17: Right. So this is also about data privacy and some of the complicated things that are at play when we're talking about genetic data protection. There's race and class and all of these things that you don't necessarily think about it. And it's also we're so programmed to be protective of our DNA and our bodily fluids in general , but at the same time we get swabbed all the time for health reasons or what have you. So one of the things that McCarthy's asking with this exhibit is , can we take this stuff back into our own hands ? So it's part demystification but as with a lot of performance art , it's the shock and the way that it makes you think that gets to the heart of it. And yes , there'll be an actual saliva bar exchange with a bunch of health and safety protocols in place. They have a whole FAQ about that. But the event is Saturday from 2 to 6 at UC San Diego's new Mandeville Art Gallery.
S1:
S17: And you can , like , sidle up to the bar and and discuss the specimens or check one out. And they have all of these protocols in place. But it's very it'll be very fascinating to watch , if nothing else.
S1: Well that's cool.
S17:
S1: But it is just it's art and it's something that makes you think. Right ? I'll admit , I always kind of have that thought in my mind. What's happening to my body parts ? Like when I have surgery , where are they taking that tissue , what's going on ? And so this sounds like a really interesting exhibit.
S17: Check out who's in control. Yes.
S4: Yes. Okay.
S1: Okay. We have a free concert in Poway with some classical music geared up for kids. Tell me about that.
S17: Yeah , it's Sunday afternoon at three and it's by greater San. Music coterie at Saint Bart's Episcopal Church in Poway , and they'll perform some family friendly favorites. This is classical music that was written with children in mind. I can't promise that this translates to modern children , but this music's really quintessential. They're doing Ravel's Mother Goose Suite and also Brahms Lullaby , which , you know , even if you don't think you do.
S1: Well , there it is. And sticking with music.
S17: Arlo Parks tonight at the Observatory in North Park. I love her sound and her new album just came out last summer. This one's called weightless from that album she. And Sunday , there's a show at Soda Bar with the Max poncho and the Wizard and local band Cardboard Boxer. This is Cardboard Boxers latest single , Tunnel Vision , and it just came out last summer. It's catchy and it's energetic , and hopefully this means that they have an album on the way in the future.
UU: It just feels like you keep on losing.
S17: And finally , let's end with a little flamenco. That all female quartet , Las Vegas. They'll perform at Epstein Family Amphitheater on Saturday night. That's at UC San Diego. There's also a dance element to their performances , and they have such an incredible stage presence. This is from their latest album. It's the opening track. Elsewhere. Dana moreno.
S1: You can find details on these and more concerts and arts events , or sign up for Julia's weekly newsletter at pbs.org. Smart's. I've been speaking with Kpbs Arts producer and editor Julia Dixon Evans. Julia. Thank you.
S17: Thank you. Jade. Yeah.
S1: That's our show for today. I want to give a big thanks to the Midday Edition team producers Giuliana Domingo , Andrew Brack and Brooke Ruth and the newest member of our team , Ashley Rush. Arts segment contributors Beth Accomando and Julia Dixon Evans. Technical producers Brandon Truffaut , Ben Read , Lorsque and Rebecca Chacon. Don't forget to watch Evening Edition tonight at five for in-depth reporting on San Diego issues. The roundtable is here tomorrow at noon , and if you ever miss a show , you can find the Midday Edition podcast on all platforms. I'm Jade Hindman. Thanks for listening and have a great rest of your week.
