He who learns must suffer
And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget
Falls drop by drop upon the heart,
And in our own despite, against our will,
Comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.

Robert F. Kennedy recited his version of this Aeschylus poem April 4, 1968 at his announcement of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that evening at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. King was in Memphis to generate empowerment and involvement among poor people of all races, and to demand of the US government a transfer from military spending to human services for the poor. The Poor People’s Campaign was his most controversial to date, and after his assassination, support poured in from around the country. The action commenced this day in 1968 with his organizers in the “King-Abernathy” suite at the Lorraine Motel where King was slain, and in Washington DC.

Five years earlier on May 2, 1963, African American children marched independently in Birmingham, Alabama to protest segregation. Some were as young as six. They were set upon by white police officers and adult citizens with fire hoses, dogs, and batons. They returned each day to march. Their movement became known as The Children’s Crusade. King was jailed in the city less than a month prior, during which time he had written his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” He referred to these protesters as “the disinherited children of God.”

You can visit the Lorraine Motel in Memphis — it is now called the National Civil Rights Museum. A full renovation and strengthening of the museum will be unveiled in summer 2014.

May day, mayday.

INTERVIEW : DITA VON TEESE

International burlesque guru Dita Von Teese debuted a fully articulated 3D-printed gown designed by Michael Schmidt — and Ace friend and creator of wardrobes for luminaries like Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Deborah Harry and Madonna — in collaboration with Francis Bitonti and Shapeways at our F/W Fashion Week celebrations in New York City this spring. We caught up with the femme fatale to end all femme fatales to talk body modification, the bionic future and her influencers.

You’ve starred in an episode of CSI and done a turn as a judge RuPaul’s Drag Race, as did Beth Ditto. What does it feel like to come from an ‘underground’ background into the mainstream?

Well, it wasn’t an overnight thing. I have a career that spans twenty years. I spent plenty of time in the underground. I feel glad to have the kind of recognition I have now and to have the opportunity to take what I do to different levels and reach a broader audience, but at the same time retain the integrity of what I first set out to do — which was to become the greatest living striptease artist since Gypsy Rose Lee — and to do it my way and not have to commercialize it or sanitize it or do what other people told me I should do to make it.

You recently did a photo shoot at the United Artists Theater — a place very near and dear to the hearts of the Ace family as we’re inhabiting and rehabbing the theater as part of our new hotel in Downtown LA.

Oh god, I’m so excited. Yeah, I did that shoot with one of my favorite photographers, Ruven Afanador, and when I walked into that room… I’ve performed in a lot of the old theaters in downtown LA and I had never seen that one, it was just magical. I’m so excited about that place being opened up to the public because a lot of the old theaters there are only opened up for special events and you only get to see the lavish decor of these beautiful theaters once in a while for special occasions. The idea that people can drop in to Ace Hotel and see the beauty of that place is really exciting to me.

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Los Angeles’ Various Small Fires is currently host to Home Office, a solo exhibition by Anna Sew Hoy. Anna taught a workshop and lectured at Snow in the Desert, our gathering for women in the arts at Ace Hotel & Swim Club in Palm Springs last summer. The show is up through the 18th of May. See David Pagel’s review in the LA Times and see more about Anna’s vision.

Our Swim Club San Jacintos Tank pays homage to our sunward-jutting neighbors just to the East of Ace Hotel & Swim Club — the fair San Jacintos — and to our brightest shining star. Seattle-based Jungmaven makes these from a natural white material composed of 55% hemp and 45% organic cotton. Hemp is an environmentally friendly, sustainable crop that produces more fiber per acre than trees, has naturally anti-microbial properties and goes from seed to harvest in only four months. It’s hard to smoke though — we tried. Recommended use: wearing.

Post-Ace collage sent by a friend.

…there exist these opulent gardens

With flowers as large as trees, wilting, of course,

Very quickly, if they are not watered with very expensive water. And fruit markets

With great leaps of fruit, which nonetheless

Possess neither scent nor taste. And endless trains of autos,

Lighter than their own shadows, swifter than

Foolish thoughts, shimmering vehicles, in which

Rosy people, coming from nowhere, go nowhere.

Excerpted from Bertolt Brecht’s Contemplating Hell, featured on Literary LA.

INTERVIEW : IRA GLASS : PART III

Do you recommend to “beginners” that they be fearless about putting work out there to be judged, as long as they know it’s going to be a learning experience?

Yes. It was interesting to me this last two years watching Mike Birbiglia turn himself into a movie maker and at every stage he both had the arrogance of believing that he could do it and the humility to know that he wasn’t any good yet. He had a rough script, and it was okay, I guess, not quite there and he got into the Sundance Screenwriting Lab and they paired him with Mike White who’s an amazing screenwriter who gave him notes, but then he also went out to talk at length to Miguel Arteta and Noah Baumbach and other filmmakers, and he showed the script around to lots of people. David Wayne is another filmmaker. He showed it to Lena Dunham. He really just got input from a lot of people and got them to explain to him: “Okay, here’s how to handle this or that.” I just had incredible respect for it, and when we started to put the film together, he hired this amazing cinematographer who could teach him that world, and we had this amazing editor.

He knew what he didn’t know and then he used other people’s expertise to pull him forward. I feel like that’s how you get there. I think so many of us are too shy to. We don’t want to be a bother to other people. We don’t know how to approach other people, and I think that’s a huge advantage that he had just in terms of his personality — he wasn’t self-conscious about that somehow. He knew he needed the help and he was secure enough to just ask. In a way that, for most of my life, I haven’t been so able to do. He was much bolder than I ever would be.

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Seattle’s King Street Station reopened to the public this week after a decade-long renovation of this 105-year-old beauty. Here, the clock tower and handful of King Street’s broken teeth.