David Cotner

Sleight of hand meets sleight of mouth as author Geoff Dyer and prestidigitator Ricky Jay converse about their mutual interests in the extremes of the human experience. Dyer’s 2011 essay collection, Otherwise Known as the Human Condition, meshes well with Jay’s 2011 volume, Celebrations of Curious Characters. They’ll probably also......

That an author would return to a character left behind for more than 25 years and continue writing his story wouldn’t be half as tantalizing if that character weren’t the vampire Lestat. Anne Rice appears in conversation with son, Christopher, discussing the writing life and her new novel, Prince Lestat:......

Producer Hannah Kyle Crichton’s new comedy salon, Triple Header, is that rare and rarefied manifestation of comedy at its most immediate: three comedians doing long sets with no host. While “long” is a fairly malleable concept in the vast scheme of time, it can seem like forever when there’s 25......

Rare is it that reality television substantively changes lives, but one reason you’re going to experience An Evening With Alan Cumming is that Cumming recently appeared on the British genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are?. Talk about plot twists: Thanks to the show, the acclaimed Cabaret actor learned......

Tired of being bummed-out by the homeless guys at the end of your favorite off-ramp? Captivated by phrases such as "moral hazard" and "return on investment" as you enter into deeper middle age? Two-time Pulitzer-winning New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has the answers as he presents A Path Appears:......

For those who have worried that the sub-mental and the hyperliterate can never be reconciled, your deliverance this week comes as Stephin Merritt discusses and signs 101 Two-Letter Words/. The book is the Magnetic Fields' singer's new collaboration with New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast — basically, it's her hip granny......

Comedian Aziz Ansari seems perpetually caught between that moment of surprise at doing a thing and the subsequent moment of meaning to do that thing all along. It's hard to believe that it's only been since 2007 that he burst on the scene with Human Giant alongside Rob Huebel, Paul......

These days in California, we'd be up shit creek if only there was water in it. And falling squarely in the "no shit" category of contemporary issues is the title of a speech by Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California: Water Is Serious Business......

Most people talk about death as if it's a friend they kind of know but have heard some bad things about — in hushed tones, as though giving voice to those transgressions means that death would rub off on them in some weird way. And it does! To wit: Local......