Students’ Lectures on Authors Offer Food for Thought

The crowd hung on Scott Werner’s every word.

Transfixed, the 20 mostly older, middle-class women at the Valley Storefront in Van Nuys listened intently as Werner talked not about the next gambling trip to Laughlin or the latest investment scheme.

No, Werner was talking about Stephen Crane, author of “The Red Badge of Courage.”

The lecture was one of seven on high-impact authors offered to the community under the direction of a philanthropic graduate student in English at Cal State Northridge.

“We weren’t sure about how this sort of series would go over,” said Judy Raffel, director of activities at the Storefront. “But we offered it last fall and it was a winner so we are offering it again. We are grateful to Jay Rubin for organizing it all.”

Rubin, 34, of Tarzana, is the student who put together both lecture series. He got into organizing the first sort of by accident. Now, he said, he is really getting into it.

The idea was Raffel’s. “Many of our programs are for fun, like our trips, or about skills or health or financial and quality-of-life issues,” she said. “I wanted to add to that a little food for the mind.”

So last fall she sent news releases to the media asking if anyone in the San Fernando Valley would like to come to lecture to a Storefront audience on William Shakespeare. Rubin called. “I had just had a class in Shakespeare and thought it would be great to speak to an audience about him,” Rubin said.

But he was too late.

Someone beat Rubin to the Bard, but somehow, during his telephone conversation with Raffel, he said he found himself volunteering to put together a lecture series. “I didn’t tell anyone at school about the series in case it was a flop,” said Rubin, laughing. “Somehow I got six other graduate students to go to the Storefront and speak to the group about their favorite authors.

“Once I realized how popular the series was with the people at the Storefront, I told my professors and they helped me set up a program for the speakers at CSUN,” he added.

Now, the six graduate students who volunteered to give one lecture each for the new series will speak at the Storefront on one Tuesday and give the same talk the following Tuesday at CSUN. Rubin said about 35 students showed up for the opening program, Werner’s talk on Stephen Crane.

The new series, according to Rubin, includes talks on Emily and Charlotte Bronte, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Jack Kerouac, Saul Bellow, Ernest Hemingway and contemporary author Louise Erdrich as well as Crane. By presenting a look at the life of the author, Rubin said, speakers include a discussion of the writer’s book within the context of the times.

No one is required to read anything to be a part of the free lecture audience, although many tell Rubin they do read books after their interest is piqued by one of the lectures.

Rubin said none of the speakers is paid for the effort. They do it for the opportunity to present a program to an appreciative audience.

He added that his Storefront audience sometimes picks up on things that might escape a graduate student. “After the last set of lectures, it was pointed out that every single author we studied had a serious drinking problem,” Rubin said. “I guess we were doing a People magazine look at these authors. Everyone wanted all the dirt.”

Def Sam Sings a Song of Harmony

Sam Sarpong, 20, of Woodland Hills, has a part in the Danny DeVito film “Coach,” starring Rhea Perlman, to be released in December.

He also got parts in two independent productions--”Carnival of Wolves,” in which he plays a gangster, and “Limited Engagement,” about an interracial couple living in East Los Angeles--although he is not certain about the release dates.

He is currently in negotiations, he said, with Warner Bros. to produce his rap record and he has signed a contract to wear and promote Reebok athletic equipment.

None of this will come as much of a surprise to his classmates in the 1993 class at El Camino High School who knew him as a three-year varsity basketball player, an anti-gangster rapper and someone who was willing to put in the effort to get what he wants.

“When Sam wants to do something, he gives it his best shot,” said Sue Schaeffer, who has kept a close eye on Sarpong for the past five years. “He came to live with us when he was 15 and his dad moved from Woodland Hills to Pasadena. Sam wanted to continue on at El Camino, so my husband, Richard, and I invited him to stay with us.”

She added: “He and our son, Brian, have been friends since elementary school so we were happy to have him with us. Sam is one of those people who always does the right thing, and people really like him.”

Sarpong--who raps under the name of Def Sam--said his raps are usually about being a good person, staying in school and not doing drugs, alcohol or tobacco as well as promoting racial harmony.

He said that as a black artist, he thinks it is important for young people to listen to the message he tries to send--namely that good people come in all colors and that “you should never let other people tell you what you can’t do. Go ahead and do it.”

Sarpong is a good example of not letting people tell you what you cannot do. Consider his assault on show business: When asked how he got both acting and music agents, Sarpong said he did some research and then started sending out letters and making phone calls.

“After I got the agents, they get me work,” says Sarpong.

How About Getting Mickey to Do It?

Disney CEO Michael Eisner knows money can’t buy happiness. Now he know something else money can’t buy. Muscles.

Eisner is reported to have put some of the $7 million he received last year in company bonuses into building a private gym next to his office on the Burbank lot.

Even with all that money, he can’t delegate the job of pumping iron.

Overheard:

“Where is Noah when you really need him?”

Rain-weary Valley resident waiting for her valet-parked car at the Bistro Garden in Studio City.