Strayed Gets House (Calls)-bound

Movie lovers might only know Cheryl Strayed from the film version of her bestselling memoir Wild, which starred Reese Witherspoon in the adaptation of the book that offered alternating harrowing and hilarious stories from Strayed’s solo 1,100-mile trek on the Pacific Crest Trail as well as the personal journey that led her there. But the writer has had successes and influence well beyond the silver screen. In her popular and decidedly unorthodox advice column “Dear Sugar” on The Rumpus, she encourages her audience to live large, love hard, and be brave enough to break their own hearts, radically empathetic advice she echoes as co-host of the WBUR spinoff podcast Dear Sugar Radio. 

Author of the bestselling books Tiny Beautiful Things, Brave Enough, and the novel Torch, Strayed is also host of The New York Times podcast Sugar Calling, featuring her conversations with renowned writers. On Thursday, UCSB Arts & Lectures turns the tables on Strayed, as she’ll be the one getting the focus as part of the Conversation with Pico Iyer segment of the House Calls series. The virtual video event, which costs $10, takes place at 5 pm. 

UCSB’s Race to Justice series is back in action on Tuesday, December 8, as Nikole Hannah-Jones, who was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for “reshaping national conversations around education reform,” takes to the virtual format. Hannah-Jones is the creator of The New York Times Magazine’s far-reaching “The 1619 Project,” which is about the history and lasting legacy of American slavery; Hannah-Jones’ powerful introductory essay for the project was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. In recent years, she’s also won a Peabody, two George Polk Awards and three National Magazine Awards. In her day job, Hannah-Jones covers racial injustice for The Times, where she has spent years chronicling the way official policy has created and maintains racial segregation in housing and schools. Her deeply personal reports on the Black experience in America offer a compelling case for greater equity. Hannah-Jones’s 5 pm presentation will be followed by a Q&A with the audience. 

House Calls closes out its 2020 events with the virtual version of a favorite December tradition, as Thomas Lauderdale and China Forbes present a Pink Martini Cabaret. The founder-arranger-pianist and the lead singer of the rollicking around-the-world musical adventure adored for its retro arrangements of timeless classics and rarely heard gems, crossing genres of classical, jazz, and old-fashioned pop will strip its musical oeuvre down to its spare essence. “If the United Nations had a house band in 1962, hopefully we’d be that band,” says Lauderdale.

In this cabaret performance, singer Forbes’s vocals will “swoosh past like fabulous gowns in a vintage fashion parade” (or so says The Telegraph) while pianist Thomas Lauderdale “pulls out numbers from around the world like trinkets from his jacket lining” (according to the JazzTimes). The lively performance on December 10 will, like all House Calls events, be followed by a Q&A session. Visit artsandlectures.ucsb.edu.