The Arts

How Those Children’s Toys and Games Come Into Being

While most of the book is a hoot – imagine creative adults on the floor happily expressing their inner children as they experimented with toy prototypes – there are some very serious, reflective chapters as well.  In 1976, a mentally unbalanced employee killed two executives at MGA and wounded three other workers before killing himself.  The man had a “hit list” and on it was Breslow, who, to take a phone call, had just stepped out of the meeting room where his two colleagues were slain.  Breslow discusses the impact of that horrific event on his life. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

Stunning Costumes, Sets Embellish ‘The Lion King’

The stand-out actors were Timon and Pumba (played by Tony Freeman and John E Brady), the three hyenas (played by Martina Sykes, Forest VanDyke, and Robbie Swift), and Rafiki the medicine woman baboon (played by Gugwana Dlamini, who also added some powerful African vocals and can be heard on the original movie soundtrack as well).  Judging by the audience’s roars at curtain call, there was consensus on these stand-out performances.  [Sandi Masori]

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Sandi Masori, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

Playwright Myla Lichtman-Fields Scoring in Los Angeles & London

The prolific San Diego County playwright, Myla Lichtman-Fields, will be traveling to Los Angeles next month, and then to London, England in November to see performances of two of her 16 published plays that have gone global through lulu.com. [Eileen Wingard]

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California, Eileen Wingard, International, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

‘Philip Guston Now’ at Boston Museum of Fine Art

During his 50 years as a painter, Canadian American artist Philip Guston created a body of work that stands out as among the most significant and daring of the 20th century. His development as an artist involved several phases, and culminated with images notable for their dark, biting humor, distinct palette, unmistakable lexicon of objects, and concern with themes when taken together seem designed to heighten our uneasiness and have us question everything we thought we knew about painting. [Sam Ben-Meir]

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Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Sam Ben-Meir

What Should We Read and Why?

The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BCE) wrote that humans are better than plants and animals because humans can think. He stressed that a person who does not think is no better than a plant or animal. The Jewish philosopher Maimonides (1138-1204) agreed but took one step further. He added that when the Bible states that God placed the image of God in humans, this image is the ability to think. The main benefit of reading is acquiring information about the world, how it functions, how humans behave, and how we can use this information to improve ourselves and society. [Rabbi Israel Drazin]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Israel Drazin-Rabbi Dr., Jewish Religion, USA

Love Stories Reenacted at the Hive

The staged reading of A Play for Tu B’Av, presented at the Hive at Leichtag Commons, Sunday evening, August 14, proved to be a delightful theatrical journey into six variants of love between two people. Five of the couples were from the San Diego Jewish Community and those of us familiar with the community were able to identify them, even though, in Ali Viterbi’s play, they remained nameless. The story of the sixth couple, whose love story wove seamlessly among the other tales, was based on the Biblical account of Jacob and Rachel.  [Eileen Wingard]

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Eileen Wingard, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

Students Engage With Art to Understand the Holocaust, Discrimination, and Hatred

SAN DIEGO (Press Release) — “The David Labkovski Project creates a bridge from the lessons of the Holocaust to the realities of today’s world. The rise in antisemitism, bigotry, and hatred makes Holocaust education even more crucial,” shares Leora Raikin, Founder & Executive Director of the David Labkovski Project. The David Labkovski Project (DLP) uses

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Holocaust, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education

This Book is Better Than Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer

By Rabbi Israel Drazin BOCA RATON, Florida — Although virtually all readers of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer did not live or think as Tom, they enjoyed and still enjoy his adventures, Mark Twain’s sterling writing, his humor, and insights. The same applies to Levi Welton’s magnificent memoir, Be Like the Moon. Welton’s book does this

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Israel Drazin-Rabbi Dr., Jewish Religion, USA

‘The Mechanicals’ Features Summer Camp Nostalgia

By Eva Trieger CARLSBAD, California — Who doesn’t wax nostalgic for those halcyon days of summer camp? Even if there are snakes in the lake or bug juice or pit toilets, there is nothing that connotes summer vacation like a stint at a summer camp, replete with singalongs, poison ivy, and mosquito bites. New Village

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Eva Trieger, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

80 Years On, Remembering ‘French Suite’ Author and Holocaust Victim Irène Némirovsky

By Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — Johann Sebastian Bach composed six French Suites that began to be performed decades after the death of their author. In 2004, the non-musical French Suite, a novel about World War II, was published by the publishing house Denoel, translated into 38 languages. The book won France’s second most prestigious

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Alex Gordon, Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Holocaust, International, Opinion

Amid World Premiere in San Diego, ‘The Remarkable Mister Holmes’ Looks Broadway-Bound

By Eva Trieger What do you get when you combine the brilliance of actor/director/lyricist/playwright, Omri Schein with the actor/artistic director/heart of North Coast Repertory Theatre, David Ellenstein, with the “incredibly talented and joyously spirited cast” of The Remarkable Mister Holmes? A witty, delightful musical that is most assuredly Broadway-bound following this world premiere. Four years

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Eva Trieger, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast