Clifford V. Johnson

Friday, November 17 at 6 pm

Cellar Door is excited to welcome physicist Clifford V. Johnson, author of The Dialogues: Conversations About the Nature of the Universe, for a reading and signing! 

In The Dialogues, Johnson invites us to eavesdrop on a series of nine conversations in graphic form - written and drawn by Johnson - about "the nature of the universe." They take place all over the world: in museums, on trains, in restaurants, and in what may or may not be Freud's favorite coffeehouse; the conversationalists are men, women, children, experts, and amateur science buffs; and the topics range from the science of cooking to the multiverse and string theory. After reading these conversations, get ready to start your own. 

Johnson is a Professor of Physics at the University of Southern California, and his work in science ranges from teaching and research to public outreach, where he strives to put science back into the general culture. He helps artists, writers, and filmmakers incorporate science into their work; he has been science adviser for many TV shows and movies, including Nat Geo's Genius, Marvel's Agent Carter, Agents of Shield, Thor: Ragnarok, and more. He was also science adviser for Blake Crouch's bestselling novel Dark Matter. Johnson's research concerns the origin and evolution of the universe and its fundamental constituents.

Thursday, November 30 at 6:30 pm

Please join us in welcoming local author and poet Gayle Brandeis for a reading and signing of her new book, The Art of Misdiagnosis: Surviving My Mother's Suicide. 

In Brandeis's wrenching memoir of her complicated family history and her mother's suicide, she describes the dissonance between being a new mother and a grieving daughter trying to piece together what happened, who her mother was, and all she had and hadn't understood about her. Around the time of her suicide, Gayle's mother had been working on a documentary about the rare illness she thought ravaged her family: porphyria and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. This memoir takes its title from her mother's documentary, braiding together the charged weeks surrounding the suicide, transcripts of the documentary, research into delusional and factitious disorders, and Gayle's own experience with misdiagnosis and illness. The Art of Misdiagnosis delves into the tangled mysteries of disease, mental illness, and suicide and comes out the other side with grace.

Brandeis is the author of  The Book of Dead Birds, Self Storage, and Delta Girls, among others. Her poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies including Salon, The Rumpus, and The Nation. Brandeis currently teaches at Antioch University in Los Angeles and Sierra Nevada College. She served as Inlandia Literary Laureate from 2012-2014, acting as literary ambassador for the Inland Empire, and edited the anthology Orangelandia: The Literature of Inland Citrus.