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San Francisco’s Mystical Experience – Mystic Hotel Transformed

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SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF.–The Burritt Room, Mystic Hotel’s intimate film noir-inspired bar is named for Burritt Alley, where detective Sam Spade’s partner Miles Archer was gunned down in The Maltese Falcon. The adjoining restaurant, Burritt Tavern, led by Executive Chef Ashley Weaver, will draw its design from that speak-easy vibe. Six curtained booths create dark corners for private conversations with a menu of classics like steaks and chops done right. Foods are primarily locally sourced for maximum freshness.

Recently renovated hotel rooms featuring monochromatic white palette textiles are being “bumped up” a level in luxury featuring day beds for casual reading times and others with pull-out couches for extra accommodations. The new Charlie Palmer restaurant concept will open early April and hotel renovations are scheduled to debut late spring 2012. The hotel will remain open throughout construction with little to no effect on guests.

  • Mystic Hotel: 417 Stockton Street, San Francisco, CA 94108
  • Room Reservations:415.400.0500
  • Proprietor: Charlie Palmer
  • General Manager: Kevin Dimond
  • Capacities: 79 Guest Rooms, Including 16 Junior Suites
  • Dining: Burritt Tavern | Capacity 125 | Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner
  • Executive Chef: Ashley Weaver (formerly of Aureole NY and Charlie Palmer at Bloomingdale’s)
  • Dining Room Manager: Matt Reina (formerly of Aureole NY)
  • Cocktail Bar & Lounge: Burritt Room | Capacity 80 | Mon-Thu, 5pm-12am; Fri-Sat, 5pm-2am

 

White Witch Maja Tour Explores Hollywood’s Spiritual History

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For more than a century, the west coast of America has been a hotbed of esoteric spiritual belief and cultural transformation. Obscura Day 2012 (obscuraday.com) is the time to learn about Maja D’Aoust, The White Witch of L.A. Esotouric bus adventure, “Maja’s Mysteries: Rapture & Release,” is one of hundreds of Obscura Day events happening worldwide on April 28, 2012.

WHEN: Saturday, April 28, 10:30am-3:30pm
COST: $63/person, includes snacks
esotouric.com  Call: 323-223-2767
WHERE: Millennium Biltmore Hotel, 506 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90071

Maja’s guests will gather in the lobby of the Biltmore Hotel (on the exact site of the guru Yogananda’s remarkable 1952 death during a banquet) to take a metaphysical journey into history, faith and salvation, with in-depth visits to some of L.A.’s most compelling and mysterious spiritual sites. At each stop, Maja and her co-host, Esotouric’s Richard Schave, will introduce passengers to members of the faith, lead a tour of worship space, and put the group’s history and beliefs into context
in the histories of religion and L.A.

Stops include:

  • THE AETHERIUS SOCIETY, a center for cosmic consciousness and healing founded in 1955 by UFOcontactee Dr. George King, dedicated to promoting peace on earth and beyond.
  • KROTONA APARTMENTS, a former Theosophical retreat founded in 1914, where guests will have a rare opportunity to visit the beautiful central courtyard pond and view the Rosicrucian window of this now-private residence.
  • SISTER AIMEE SEMPLE MCPHERSON’S PARSONAGE, the beautifully restored private home and museum to the life of the influential and charismatic founder of the Foursquare Church on the edge of Echo Park.
  • THE VEDANTA SOCIETY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, founded in 1930 to bring sacred Hindu philosophy to the West, where guests will be given a presentation on the Society’s history and programming, and browse in its fine gift shop.

LA Esotouric Oddball, Macabre, and Absolutely Compelling Tours

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Esotouric tour in Los Angeles are literary tours with in depth studies of the streets, stops and haunts occupied by some of L.A.’s most written about characters. You don’t just walk the path that a famous or infamous individual may have traveled, but thanks to creative researchers who add doses of facts with hypotheses, you get inside the minds of these famous people. It’s a must-see tour for literary fans, crime buffs and anyone with curiosity and lack of convention.

Upcoming Esotouric bus tour and LAVA special event schedule
Fri March 9 – FREE! San Gabriel Mission Archaeological Excavation Tour
Sat March 10 – Weird West Adams crime bus tour
Sat March 17 – Pasadena Confidential crime bus tour (weekend pass available)
Sun March 18 – East Side Babylon crime bus tour (weekend pass available)
Sat April 7 – Charles Bukowski’s Los Angeles (weekend pass available)
Sun April 8 ­ John Fante’s Dreams from Bunker Hill (weekend pass available)
Sat April 14 – The Real Black Dahlia crime bus tour
Sat April 21 – Crawling Down Cahuenga: Tom Waits’ L.A.
Sun April 22 – FREE! Open House at the historic Stendahl Galleries
Sat April 28 – Maja’s Mysteries: Rapture & Release
Mon April 30- The LAVA Salon at Musso & Frank featuring John Buntin
Sat May 19 – Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles
Sun May 20 ­ Blood & Dumplings crime bus tour
Sun June 3 – Crime lab seminar: The Killer Behind the Camera

Esotouric’s Kim Cooper and Richard Schave are proud members of LAVA – The
Los Angeles Visionaries Association. See lavatransforms.org or booking information at esotouric.com

United States Tennis Association Costa Mesa Pro Classic

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COSTA MESA, CAL–With approximately 90 tournaments hosted annually throughout the country and prize money ranging from $10,000 to $100,000, the USTA Pro Circuit is the pathway for the U.S. Open and tour-level competition for aspiring players and a frequent battleground for established professionals.

Newport Beach native and rising tennis star Carsten Ball is the Number 2 seed at the Costa Mesa Pro Classic. The March 17 tournament at Costa Mesa Tennis Center also features 9th seed Daniel Kosakowski, a Downey resident and former stand-out player at UCLA.  No. 1 seed is Germany’s Andre Begemann, 27, currently ranked 263rd in the world.

Eight players will enter the main draw from singles qualifying–the rest of the main draw will come from USTA exemptions and wild card events. The main draw for singles and doubles begins March 20.

Ball, 24, who played tennis at Corona del Mar High School, peaked at a career-high in the ATP World Tour rankings at No. 108 in July 2010. A prolific doubles player, he and Chris Guccione (who is the No. 4 seed at the Costa Mesa event) reached the doubles quarterfinals of the 2009 U.S. Open and the round of 16 at the 2011 Australian Open. He holds dual American and Australian citizenship, and has competed on Australia’s David Cup team. Ball’s father, and coach, Syd, won eight ATP doubles titles and advanced to the final round of the 1974 Australian doubles finals.

Singles qualifying begins Saturday, March 17 at 9 a.m. The singles main draw begins Tuesday, March 20 at 10 a.m. The event is free and families are encouraged to attend. The Costa Mesa Tennis Center is located at 880 Juniper Dr., Costa Mesa, (714) 557-2011.

 

March 7, 2012 See & Listen To Events in California

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Never to be seen again, March 7th is a day to remember in California. It will welcome hundreds of newborns to the world, see some pass away with tears shed for the loss of a love, and celebrate the gift of living.

Some of the highlights to the day include things you don’t actually have to see, but can use your ears to listen to, such concerts on campuses and performing arts halls throughout the state. Here are few you might enjoy if you happen to be in Berkeley on March 7.

BERKELEY – Garrison Keillor, an Evening with Prairie Home Companion storyteller. Time: 8 p.m. Cost: $20 up. Location: UC Berkeley, 101 Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley, CA. Ticket Office: (510) 642-9988. calperformances.org
BERKELEY – Rhonda Vincent and the Rage, contemporary bluegrass. Location: Freight & Salvage Coffee House 2020 Addison Street Berkeley, CA. Time: 8 p.m. Cost: $30.50/door. Call: (510) 644-2020.

See more events in California

RE:COMPOSITION: Featured in the Getty Center’s Pacific Standard Time

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RE:COMPOSITION: Featured in the Getty Center’s Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945 – 1980 Performance and Public Art Festival at Southern California Institute of Architecture

January 27, 2012, 8 pm
January 28, 2012, 8 pm

To honor California-native John Cage’s centenary, RE:COMPOSITION, a thematic program of performances curated by Julie Lazar, considers how current compositional practices and tools are enabling artists working in a variety of disciplines to re-conceive or reconstitute aspects of their art creation. This project is part of the Getty Foundation’s collaborative initiative, Pacific Standard Time’s Performance and Public Art Festival, and the only one that will travel between Northern and Southern California.

Four performances take place each night:

Still Movement: Homage to Nan Hoover (2011) by Sandro Dukic. A commissioned performance installation inspired by Hoover’s photographic work from 1980. The title describes the occupation of her interests while the event manifests the contours of her core ideas. A video installation by Nan Hoover is also on view in Exchange and Evolution at the Long Beach Museum of Art (ends February 12)..
Bar Hopping (2011) is composed and performed by Joan Jeanrenaud and Paul de Jong. Commissioned music and film that playfully rethinks visual and musical influences in California from the mid-1950s to the present including cello concertos and contemporary experimental composers. This is a remote collaboration between two leading artists residing on both coasts of the U.S.
Evolution (2010-11) by JD Beltran with music by Marc Barrite and technical assistance by Scott Minneman. As an adaptation of AntiMaster, projected digital film is synchronized with live electronic music.. Evolution is inspired by the migration of ideas between San Francisco and Los Angeles from the late 1940s through the 1960s that formed the basis of the Visual Music Movement. Its creative influences include Oskar Fischinger, James and John Whitney, Jordan Belson and Harry Jacobs.
I N T E R R U P T U S (2009-2011) by Joan Retallack and Michael Ives. A procedural lecture for two voices in homage to John Cage’s principle of interpenetraton and non-obstruction. Performed by Michael Ives and Joan Retallack who collaborated on a unique realization of the piece.

STATE-WIDE PERFORMANCES:

SAN FRANCISCO
January 21st and 22nd @ 8 pm Tickets: $15 and $12 (SoEx members, students, seniors)
Southern Exposure, 3030 20th Street, www.soex.org, (415) 863-2141
RE:COMPOSITION.

LOS ANGELES
January 27th and 28th @ 8 pm Tickets: $15 and $12 (students, seniors)
Southern California Institute of Architecture (SciArc) 960 E. 3rd Street (213) 613-2200
Parking lot: 350 Merrick Street between traction and 4th, http://www.sciarc.edu
Complete two-hour program presented each evening.
Further information: http://www.k-pst.org

Shakespear’s The Winter Tale at NOHO Arts Center Jan. 17-22, 2012

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CHAMPS Charter High School of the Arts
Junior Drama Academy
presents
“The Winter’s Tale”
“And the King shall live without an heir, if that which is lost be not found.”

Traverse two fantastical worlds and sixteen years to meet a jealous king and his graceful queen, a maligned brother and devoted counselor, a frail son and a lost babe. The performing arts students at CHAMPS Charter High School of the Arts present William Shakespeare’s magical fantasy, The Winter’s Tale. Department co-chair Dawn Lisell directs the Junior Drama Academy in eight performances at the NOHO Arts Center in North Hollywood, January 17-22.

The story of a king’s irrational jealous rage and its consequences, The Winter’s Tale combines high drama, low comedy and romantic love in a rich theatrical feast that moves from the winter of estrangement and bitter loss to the summer of reconciliation and renewal.

One of Shakespeare’s last plays, The Winter’s Tale was written about 1610, based on a novella by Shakespeare’s enemy and arch rival Robert Greene. It was performed at the Globe Theatre and at court in 1611, and first published in 1623. Shakespeare’s later plays, including The Winter’s Tale, Pericles, Cymbeline, and The Tempest, defy classification. Many scholars now regard these works as the culmination of his brilliance as he combined his mastery over many different genres into single works.

The Drama Academy at CHAMPS Charter High School of the Arts is a professional, conservatory-style training program for students passionate about the craft of acting. CHAMPS was started in 2005 by a group of dedicated parents with the help of Dr. Norm Isaacs, former principal at the Robert A. Millikan Middle School Performing Arts Magnet in Sherman Oaks. The goal was to create a high school in the San Fernando Valley that would offer a quality curriculum for students of the arts, including academies in drama, dance, music and film, while maintaining rigorous and challenging academic standards. CHAMPS students have been accepted to some of the country’s top universities, liberal arts colleges, and conservatory programs including Stanford, UCLA, UC Berkeley, Pomona College, Sarah Lawrence College, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Berklee College of Music, Boston Conservatory, California Institute of the Arts, and USC’s Schools of Film and Theatre.

Trained at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Dawn Lisell spent nine years at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, America’s largest regional rotating repertory theater, where she performed leading roles including Lady Anne in Richard III, Ophelia in Hamlet, Emily in Our Town, and The Wife in Blood Wedding. During her tenure at the OSF, she also adapted, devised and performed American Literature and Shakespeare performance pieces for six educational outreach tours teaching K-12 students across the Pacific Northwest from the San Francisco Bay to Inuit villages in Alaska. She directed two middle school productions for the California Shakespeare Festival’s Young Performer’s Conservatory and has adapted classics for two productions at Portland Community College. Dawn has taught drama at Charter High School of the Arts since 2007.

Assistant director for The Winter’s Tale is CHAMPS Drama Academy co-chair Anthony Cantrell; Original Music and Sound Design are by Frank Becker and the Level 3 and 4 Music Academy students; Costume Design is by Brandy Smith and the Costume Design students; Dance Choreography is by Brandy Smith; Technical Design is by Caroline Law and the Theater Arts’ students; and Media Design is by Vince Campi and the New Media Academy students.

Eight performances of The Winter’s Tale take place January 17-22 on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday @ 7:30 pm and Wednesday @ 3 pm, with additional matinees on Saturday and Sunday @ 2 pm. Tickets range from $10-$25. The NOHO Arts Center is located at 11136 Magnolia Boulevard, North Hollywood, CA 91601. To purchase tickets, call Brown Paper Tickets at (800) 838-3006 or www.brownpapertickets.com.

WHO:
Written by William Shakespeare
Adapted and Directed by Dawn Lisell
Assistant Director Anthony Cantrell
Original Music and Sound Design by Frank Becker and Level 3 and 4 Music Academy students
Costume Design by Brandy Smith and the Costume Design students
Dance Choreography by Brandy Smith
Technical Design by Caroline Law and the Theater Arts’ students
Media Design by Vince Campi and the New Media Academy students

WHEN:
Tuesday, Jan. 17 @ 7:30 pm
Wednesday, Jan. 18 @ 3 pm
Thursday, Jan. 19 @ 7:30 pm
Friday, Jan. 20 @ 7:30 pm
Saturday, Jan. 21 @ 2 pm & 7:30 pm
Sunday, Jan. 22 @ 2 pm & 7:30 pm

WHERE: NOHO Arts Center, 11136 Magnolia Boulevard, North Hollywood, CA 91601
HOW: 800-838-3006 or www.brownpapertickets.com
TICKETS: $10-$25

San Francisco Art Exhibit Fallen Empires Jan. 5 – Feb. 25, 2012

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Shai Kremer’s Fallen Empires at the Robert Koch Gallery is an exhibition of large-scale color photographs of Israeli landscapes marked by historical conflicts and empire building. Moving beyond a one-sided view of Israel’s history, Kremer’s photographs explore the layered traces of historical nation building—shattered houses, remnants of corrugated fencing, and abandoned army barracks—as a process of construction and upheaval.

Kremer’s camera looks at an Israel ignored by media headlines, revealing a land written and re- written by conflict. His beautifully haunting images capture poignant juxtapositions of creation and destruction, man-made and natural, timeless and ephemeral. By visually highlighting Israel’s archeological ruins as reminders of a historical past, Kremer questions how they are used today in discourse around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the future of the country.

Kremer was born in Israel and now divides his time between Tel Aviv and New York. His work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions world wide, including Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera at The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Tate Modern, London in 2010; Looking In, Looking Out: The Window in Art at the Israel Museum in 2010; Reality Check at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York in 2008, the 2007 Guangzhou Photo Biennale in Canton, China; Loaded Landscape at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL in 2007, Engagement-Contemporary Photography at the Israel Art Museum in Jerusalem in 2007, and Disengagement at the Contemporary Art Museum in Tel Aviv, Israel in 2006.

His photographs are held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Israel Art Museum, Jerusalem; and Contemporary Art Museum, Tel Aviv, Israel, among others. See Kochgallery.com

WinterFest 2012 Ensemble Studio Theatre/LA presents

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From January 10-29 WinterFest 2012 Ensemble Studio Theatre/LA presents three weeks of non-stop staged readings: 47 plays in 18 days including new works by playwrights Nicholas Kazan, Tom Jacobson, Richard Martin Hirsch, Jacqueline Wright, Colin Mitchell, Jonas Oppenheim and many more. Admission is free, with donations accepted at the door.

Tues. Jan. 10:
7 pm: Under Milk Weed by Nick Pernice
Wed. Jan 11:
7 pm: The Judge’s Decision by Michael Goldstein
8 pm: Billionaire$ by Michael Sargent
Thurs. Jan 12:
7 pm: Only Say the Word by Colin Mitchell
9 pm: Human Services by Tom Baum
Fri. Jan 13:
7 pm: Asylum by Chuck Rose
9 pm: House & Home by Tony Foster
Sat. Jan 14:
1:30 pm: Carrying by Melissa Jane Osborne
3 pm: Night for Day by Nicholas Kazan
6 pm: House of Stone by Richard Martin Hirsch
8:30 pm: Agnes Under the Big Top by Aditi Brennan Kapil
Sun. Jan 15:
12:30 pm: The Luckiest Girl by Kitty Felde
2 pm: The Contract by James Webb
4 pm: Total Power Exchange by Edith Freni
6:30 pm: Artifice by Anne Flanagan
8:30 pm: Morgenstern in Vienna by Alan Goodson
Tues. Jan 17
7 pm: The Happy Slave by Jonas Oppenheim
8:15 pm: Moments Before Medicine by Brian James Polak
Wed. Jan 18:
8 pm Memorizing Rome by Richard Martin Hirsch
Thurs. Jan 19:
7 pm: The Annual Meeting of the Am. Society of Lone Fisherman Who Have Found Dead Bodies
9 pm: The Devil’s Sonata by Marek Glinski
Fri. Jan 20:
7 pm: Accidentally, Like A Martyr by Grant James Varjas
9 pm: The Suck by Chris Merrill
Sat. Jan 21:
12 pm: Watching OJ by David McMillan
2:30 pm: Deus Ex Machina by Tom Jacobson
5 pm: Match by Jennifer Maisel
7:30 pm: Like A Silica Milkshake by Karen Rizzo
9 pm: Boundaries by Chris diGiovanni
Sun. Jan 22:
1pm: A Scream by Gina Barnett
4pm: Mixquixtal by Jacqueline Wright
6 pm: Live Girls by Tim Cummings
8 pm: The Blood Poems by Garrett M. Brown
Tues. Jan 24:
8 pm: Species Native to California by Dorothy Fortenberry
Wed. Jan 25:
7:30 pm: We Are the Great Granddaughters of Patrick Sarsfield Rail by Carole Real
8 pm: The Fourth Estate by Colin Mitchell
Thurs. Jan 26:
7 pm: Andrea Lane by Steve Serpas
8:30 pm: Shiner by Christian Durso
Fri, Jan 27:
6 pm: Family Planning by Michelle Kholos Brooks
8 pm: Rescuers by Tom Baum
Sat. Jan 28:
1 pm: Idols of the Cave by Keliher Walsh
3:30 pm: Lucy’s Wedding by Randolyn Zinn
5:30 pm: Clytemnestra by Tom Jacobson
8 pm: The Rosy Fingers of Dawn by Tom Jacobson
Sun. Jan 29:
1 pm: The Great 11 by Lea Floden
3:30 pm: Bela Lugosi’s Dead/Late Snow by James Macdonald
5 pm: Apocrypha by Stephen Dierkes
6:30 pm: Ees Story Uff Poor Sea Village Gerl by Mara Lathorp

LOCATION: EST/LA @ Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90039
ADMISSION: FREE – donations accepted at the door
PARKING: FREE on-site
MORE INFO: 323-644-1929 or atwatervillagetheatre.com

65th Anniversary Edition of Esotouric’s Real Black Dahlia Crime Bus Tour

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Bus Tour Rolls On the 65rd Anniversary of the Black Dahlia’s Disappearance on Saturday January 7, 12pm-4pm
WHERE: Departing from The Millennium Biltmore Hotel, 5th & Olive, L.A.
COST: $58/person. Call: 323-223-2767. esotouric.com

It was January 9, 1947 when Beth Short left the Biltmore Hotel for a nearby bar and vanished, only to be found cut in two in a vacant Crenshaw District lot six days later. Since January 1947, this one iconic murder mystery has lingered unsolved at the forefront of the American imagination, with dozens of books and films dedicated to solving the slaying of the Massachusetts girl who came to Hollywood hoping to make it.

Suspects in the Black Dahlia murder have included L.A. Times publisher Norman Chandler and Orson Welles, crazed lesbians, twisted drifters and more than one writer’s father, but still the mystery abides.

The Real Black Dahlia tour dedicates itself to revealing who victim Elizabeth Short really was by exploring her life in Los Angeles from mid 1946 to her January 1947 murder through examination of the police investigation and news coverage. The tour begins at the Biltmore Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles, where Beth Short went after checking her bags at the Greyhound Terminal. Passengers will tour the beautifully restored hotel before heading south, to the low rent Olive Street bar where she met her murderer. The Downtown portion of the tour includes the Examiner newspaper offices, where the crime became
myth as pioneering female City Editor Aggie Underwood spun the case for weeks, and the Figueroa Hotel, where Short stayed in happier times.

The bus then heads west towards Leimert Park and the formerly vacant lot where Short’s bisected body was discovered on January 15, 1947. The tour includes a cop-approved snack stop for coffee and donuts near
the body dump site. The tour concludes at the Biltmore, where passengers may choose to linger over a late afternoon tea to remember Beth Short.

Also featured: a special presentation from cosmetics historian Joan Renner exploring Beth Short’s unusual proto-goth make up, so different from the popular girl next store look of 1947, and a key to understanding her psychology.

Upcoming Esotouric bus tour and special event schedule
Sat Jan 7 – The Real Black Dahlia crime bus tour
Sat Jan 21 – Charles Bukowski’s Los Angeles
Sat Jan 28 – The Birth of Noir: James M. Cain’s Southern California
Nightmare
Mon Jan 23 – The LAVA Salon at Musso & Frank featuring Dan Fante (info at
lavatransforms.org)
Sat Feb 4 – Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles: Route 66
Sat Feb 25 – Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles: The Lowdown on Downtown
Sat March 3 – Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice crime bus tour
Sat March 10 – Weird West Adams crime bus tour
Sat March 17 – Pasadena Confidential crime bus tour (weekend pass available)
Sun March 18 – East Side Babylon crime bus tour (weekend pass available)

Esotouric’s Richard Schave, Kim Cooper and Joan Renner are proud members of
LAVA – The Los Angeles Visionaries Association.