Shoga Speaks

My grandmother on my mother's side was the only grandma I had—my other grandma died the year I was born. She was in my life for my first 35 years, so she had an impact. Initially, she was accompanied by my grandfather, Meyer, who was a joy to be around. (Jeanette, not so much.) When Meyer died, Jeanette continued her life in Chicago. She'd come out to California to visit—for lo

When does a house become a home? How does a house become a home? In the recent L.A. fires, around 10,000 houses were destroyed. When a house is also a home, much more goes up in flames than the structure and its contents. The house itself has a dialectical relationship with its inhabitants, expressed through furniture, decor, and a greater or lesser life force that infuses a buildi

From 1934 to 1951, Canada Lee was the most famous and revered Black actor of his day, associated -- and frequently starring -- with every landmark African American Broadway production. He broke barriers again and again by being cast in non-Black productions. Unlike Paul Robeson and Ethel Waters, African American actors who also had huge midcentury careers, Canada Lee is virtually u

But have you heard of any Jewish boxers? Did you know that almost 30% of professional boxers in the 20s and 30s were Jewish? As for Jewish athletes, you may have heard of Sandy Koufax and Hank Greenberg, but why not Barney Ross, one of the few boxers ever to clinch a championship in three weight classes (lightweight, junior welterweight, and welterweight)? After retiring from a box

"I was an American again, had been for the decade since we had returned from our sojourn in France. Nothing, it seemed, had stuck from my wonder years in the City of Light except for something of the language I had learned to speak by the end of our time there." How does an eleven-year old, knowing only the suburban life of Pasadena, experience Paris as his new home? Terror? Baffle

Sam and Daniel are in Israel, circa 1969. They are on a kibbutz, learning Hebrew in the morning and working for their room and board in the afternoon. Sam follows Daniel in his effort to deepen his Jewish identity. They go to Mount Tabor, site of a battle between the Israelites and the Canaanites, spend a weekend at a Chassidic yeshiva where Daniel is ardently proselytized by a rec

America 1968. Everything was up for grabs. All passion and creativity seemed to gush from the counterculture. "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive/But to be young was very heaven." I was young, 18, and enrolled as an undergraduate in the fourth year of the great experimental campus of the University of California at Santa Cruz. The spirit of the 60s was everywhere, in our music a

What's in a bedtime story? More than you might imagine. As we were growing up, my father introduced his version of imaginary creatures, the goops, into our household and family life. Created as negative role models to teach manners to Victorian children, the goops first saw life in books of moralistic doggerel published in 1900 and after. "But it was their bad behavior that led my

Dr. Philipson interviews playwright and lesbian activist Jewelle Gomez about the life of the famous blues singer, Alberta Hunter, and the play Jewelle wrote based on that life. Website: www.shogafilms.com; Instagram: shoga_films; Facebook: facebook.com/shogafilms; Twitter: twitter.com/shogafilms

"I have concluded from the melancholy nature of my subsequent development that the artifacts hung up on a child's wall can have a permanent effect on his life." So begins the essay on the role the Art played in my formation, an evolution spanning Southern California, France, the groovy Sixties, Africa. "Still Life" will reveal the malefic influence of "the original Joe Vogel," plum