Planting L.A. Seeds in Phoenix
Whichever Way I’m Driving on I-10, I’m Heading Home
by Fernando Pérez
My aunt Marta asks, When are you coming back home?
She means Los Angeles: Long Beach, Lynwood, Lakewood, Norwalk, Azusa. L.A. County. She even means Orange County. “Nuestra Señora La Reina de Los Ángeles” is as widespread as my family, just as populated too.
My great-grandmother arrived in the city’s center as a teenager, dragging a suit trunk and memories of her dead parents from the old country. She ... READ MORE
Is Phoenix the Next L.A., God Forbid?
Envisioning the Future of the Valley of the Sun
“Are we in danger—or perhaps it’s not really a danger at all—of becoming Los Angeles?”
Former CNN anchor Aaron Brown posed the question to a panel of Phoenicians to discuss before an overflow crowd at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art’s lounge, at an event co-presented by Arizona State University, where Brown is Walter Cronkite professor of journalism.
“What we’re trying to figure out tonight in some respects is who we ...
features
NEXUS
My Golden Ride in The Idiot Box
by Rafael Alvarez
In 2006, I served a long year in the psych ward/nursery school that was the writers’ room for the quickly cancelled NBC drama The Black Donnellys.
The show held great promise, as much as any of the half-dozen or so I worked on before Hollywood’s writers went on strike in ’07-’08 and the Internet changed ...
SIX-POINT INSPECTION
Debt, Grief, and Disappointment
Borrow: The American Way of Debt by Louis Hyman
The nutshell: Cornell University economic historian Louis Hyman traces American debt from the invention of the Ford Model-T—which everyone paid for in cash—to the rise of credit card debt in the 1990s and the mortgage crisis that triggered the current downturn. He argues ...
THE TAKEAWAY
Go Ahead: Love Television Today
How much should we love what’s on TV? A panel of critics, producers, and television writers agreed that a lot of shows today are excellent and that viewers have more choices than ever. But they didn’t reach consensus on much else. Instead, in front of a crowd at the Grand Avenue MOCA, at an event co-presented with Occidental College, they cheerfully locked horns. ...
POEMS
The Nests in Winter
by Jeff Oaks
Of course the point is to be hidden, isn’t it?
To seem like nothing, to be forgettable,
to hold still. Lonely little things now,
the size of my fist and with a lid of snow.
It surprises me there were so many:
woven sticks, shuttled stalks of weed and grass,
the occasional scrap of blue or clear plastic,
proof of birds ...
Beating Back the Ego
It's not always easy being a mentor. Enough Project founder John Prendergast and an audience member swap stories about difficult mentees and getting their little brothers to open up by putting ego aside.
READ MORE
About Zócalo Public Square
Zócalo Public Square, a project of the Center for Social Cohesion, is a living magazine, an innovative blend of on-the-ground events and on-line journalism, that connects people to ideas and to each other in an open, accessible, non-partisan and broad-minded spirit. Through our web publication, lectures, panels, screenings, and conferences, Zócalo explores ideas that enhance our understanding of citizenship and community—the forces that strengthen or undermine human connectedness and social cohesion.
We believe that over specialization and narrowcasting undermine the public square and are committed to welcoming a new, young and diverse generation to the conversation.
Established in Los Angeles in 2003, Zócalo roams across L.A. and Phoenix, and has traveled to Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco, and as far as Shanghai, Berlin and Guadalajara. In our eight years, we have featured over 800 compelling thinkers and doers from a wide range of fields—politics, governance, humanities, health, economics, education, technology, foreign policy, arts, science and beyond—who explore how we see and relate to one another, be it locally, regionally, nationally, or globally.
Upcoming |
Wednesday, February 1, 2012,
Can Childhood Trauma Make You Sick?
Suffering through a traumatic childhood doesn’t just leave emotional marks. It also leads to physical ailments, even among those whose adult lives are relatively free of turmoil. That, at least, is the finding of epidemiologists who have been researching the long-term effects of childhood ...
Monday, February 6, 2012,
Is California’s Solar Gold Rush Destined to Fail?
California history is a tale of crazed grabs: for gold, for oil, for fame, for making weapons and planes. Today, the state is in the midst of a solar energy frenzy. Solar panels materialize on rooftops, on coastal mountains, and in massive arrays in the state’s deserts. The state and ...
Books
Zócalo Public Square Book Prize
Announcing Zócalo's Second Annual Book Prize, sponsored by the Southern California Gas Company.
The Wandering Gene and the Indian Princess: Race, Religion, and DNA
by Jeff Wheelwright
The nutshell: History, science writing, and investigative journalism merge to tell a story of genes, disease, and religion that moves from the mountains of the American Southwest to the labs of Manhattan.
The Invention of Brownstone Brooklyn: Gentrification and the Search for Authenticity in Postwar New
by Suleiman Osman
Osman’s history of “Brownstone Brooklyn” chronicles the transformation of blighted industrial neighborhoods into middle-class bastions of a mid-20th-century American Dream. He argues that the gentrification movement was one of the most important developments in modern urban history—changing cities on the ground and in our collective imagination.
The Shot
