Around the campfire at The Hotel Roosevelt in Hollywood, this news whispered round: Kurt Andersen is coming to town. What does that mean for us here in L.A.? Big fun. Big, big fun. Who doesn't want their city explored, studied, observed, savored like a fresh-plucked-berry sorbet and presumably digested by Andersen, oh he of "Studio 360" and "SPY" magazine and the novels, the novels -- "Heyday" and "Turn of the Century"? Fools, only fools, I tell you.
So what's he going to do here? And when?
For a hundred days, from January to April of 2009, Andersen takes position at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. "My title is (mega-embarassingly) 'visionary in residence,'" he wrote a couple of days post-campfire (where he was not).
The backstory to this appointment, in brief, is that Richard Koshalek, president of Art Center -- and uber-magnet for intellectual brilliance -- knows that Andersen possesses a deep, abiding appreciation for good design. Things that work and understanding the history of systems, whether they be social or architectural or political, fascinate Andersen. His almost boyish curiosity (the mark of a true journalist) and willingness to try almost anything (save do-goody-ness for pious, vapid reasons under the guise of ART) make him an ideal teacher. He is a contextualizer, which means he can't help but see things that might and could and should happen. He's got the vision. So, his title is rather apt.
What I want to do right now is refer you to Very Short List, an Andersen production -- or something...he has some connection to it..and I'll get back to you with what. Duty demands that as an arts reporter, you serve yourself and constituency well by checking into VSL regularly. (Play around on it. Find Newseum for a newsie's field day.)
Yesterday, VSL featured this witty, seering, superbly crafted "Food Fight" YouTube video http://youtube.com/watch?v=e-yldqNkGfo It diagrams American involvement in war -- and the fall of the Twin Towers comes as a jolt (as if that could ever still happen to our nervous systems).
What Andersen is capable of in L.A., time will tell. But I am sure he'll find stories the rest of us haven't.
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