The dog is named Sandor, and he was with Bankman-Friend when he greeted a writer for Puck at his parents’ home near the Stanford campus earlier this month. Bankman-Fried “certainly is a young man in need of both defense and a friend,” Theodore Schleifer wrote. He explained how Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, the parents of the disgraced FTX founder, are paying for 24-hour security around their house and purchased the dog soon after their son was released on a $250 million bond.

Bankman-Fried has become a “public enemy” and has reportedly faced death threats since the collapse of FTX and his arrest in the Bahamas in mid-November. The 30-year-old mop-haired entrepreneur is charged with eight felony counts pertaining to what federal prosecutors have called “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history.”

During his visit to Bankman-Fried’s home, Schleifer said he saw neither Bankman nor Fried, who, up until their son’s notoriety, were popular, longtime professors at Stanford Law School. The couple may have retreated to another part of the house, while Bankman-Fried, wearing a T-shirt, shorts and a GPS monitor strapped to his ankle, escorted the writer into the kitchen.

During the more than two-hour interview at the kitchen table, Bankman-Fried “evinced his loneliness and his isolation, but also a hint of mysterious confidence, as if he could somehow wiggle his way out of his current predicament as he had in the past,” Schleifer said. Bankman-Fried expressed repentance but also seemed incredulous that his $32 billion company had gone bankrupt and that his legal troubles “might bleed his parents dry of cash and ruin the lives of the entire Bankman-Fried family.”

About home confinement, Bankman-Fried said, “It doesn’t feel like being bored during a vacation. It feels simultaneously, very antsy and frustrating and stressful. And a lot of trying to find anything I can do, to the extent there is anything. But what I can do is limited.”

Bankman-Fried spends his days going “stir-crazy,” eating vegan burgers delivered to his home, playing video games, “voraciously consuming Twitter,” and studying up on federal wire-fraud laws ahead of his trial, Schleifer said. Indeed, Bankman-Fried seems more consumed by learning about the law than about the people who lost money on FTX, Schleifer added.

During the interview, Sandor rested near the kitchen table as Bankman-Fried declined to talk about his brother, Gabe, and admitted that he had not spoken to any of his former colleagues at FTX and Alameda Research, his trading firm.

“A lot of the people who I was closest to were my colleagues,” Bankman-Fried said when asked whether he still had any childhood or high school friends living nearby. “Most of the people who I was friends with are not talking to me.”

“For a number of years, I was incredibly lucky and fortunate in terms of a lot of the relationships and support that I had,” Bankman-Fried continued. “Now there’s basically nothing left.”

One of those friends who presumably no longer speaks to Bankman-Fried is Anthony Scaramucci, the former White House spokesperson and founder of SkyBridge Capital. At a crypto panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Monday, Scaramucci said that he, Bankman-Fried and Joseph Bankman were once close, but he said he now views Bankman-Fried as a “fraud,” Insider reported.

FTX reportedly bought 30% of Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital investment firm for $45 million, while SkyBridge Capital bought $10 million of FTX’s cryptocurrency; The token’s value has since fallen 90%, Insider reported.

“I made a mistake being involved with Sam,” Scaramucci said, according to Insider. “I thought Sam was the Mark Zuckerberg of crypto, I did not think he was the Bernie Madoff of crypto. And I got that wrong.”

Bankman-Fried confirmed to Schleifer that the only people he talks to are his attorneys and his parents.

“He is a public enemy, defended by a German Shepherd, a few lawyers he will eventually struggle to afford, a pair of loving parents, and basically no one else,” Schleifer said in the conclusion of their interview. “All he has left to bet on is himself, an instinct that worked in the past. Until, one day, it didn’t.”

For example, it can’t buy Eve Jobs a happy love life, at least not at the moment. The 24-year-old model recently broke up with Drew Taggart, and the Chainsmokers DJ has already started a romance with Selena Gomez, an even more famous celebrity who happens to share his musical interests, Us Weekly reported.

This news about Taggart and Gomez, which came via Us Weekly on Monday, apparently prompted Jobs to deactivate her Instagram account, just a few weeks after she posted a tribute to Taggart in December, celebrating his 33rd birthday, Page Six said. She gushed in a caption,  “Happy birthday lover.”

Jobs, an accomplished equestrian whose mother is Laurene Powell Jobs, and Taggart reportedly started what Us Weekly described as a “casual summer fling” last year. The romance supposedly fizzled by the end of the year, though Us Weekly said the split was “totally amicable.”

Still, it must be disconcerting for Jobs to have her private life caught up in the maw of celebrity news, especially as Taggart and Gomez, 30, started their romance so quickly and are not “trying to hide” it, a source told Us Weekly.

Gomez is “so affectionate” with Taggart and “can hardly keep her hands off him,” the source also said. Still, the two are trying to keep the relationship “very casual and low-key” while they are “having lots of fun together.”

Gomez’s love life has been the subject of celebrity gossip for years. The singer has experienced her shares of high and lows when it comes to her love life, particularly her high-profile, on-off romance with Justin Bieber from 2011 to 2018. On one of her breaks from Bieber, she dated The Weeknd for nine months in 2017. She’s also been linked to Niall Horan, Zedd and Charlie Puth.

“I feel like giving myself completely to something is the best way I can love,” Gomez said in an interview in November for Jay Shetty‘s “On Purpose” podcast. “But I never wanted the pain that I endured to put some sort of guard on myself — an armor if you will — and I never let that happen because I still believe and I still hope. … I would rather continue to get my heart broken than to not feel at all.”

Eve Jobs previously dated singer-songwriter Harry Hudson, who’s pals of Kylie Jenner and Jaden Smith.

The chick, part of the Cal Academy’s “species-survival plan” colony of African penguins, was born in November and had its name put up to open online voting earlier this month. Suggestions poured in, among them Waddles, Turtle, Beaky Smalls, the obligatory Penguin McPenguinface, Lolita (whoa, calm down there, guy), Pudge, Gandalf the Grey and Happy Plappy. Four winners have emerged, which will be voted on through tomorrow, Jan. 18:

Greta — “in honor of youth climate-activist Greta Thunberg”Hope — “for the Cape of Good Hope and future of the species”Penny — “for Cape Peninsula, South Africa”Pogo — “because they do little hops!”

The winning name will be announced on Friday, Jan. 20, and henceforth people will be able to watch Pogo or Greta or whoever paddle around on a live penguin cam.

Interested in what the fuzzball is doing right now? The academy provides this recent update:

Hatched right here at the Academy to parents Stanlee and Bernie, the chick is currently behind-the-scenes with our Steinhart Aquarium biologists learning to eat fish fed to her by hand, working hard to grow wing feathers in place of her chick down and, of course, doing lots of snuggling with her penguin stuffie. When her wings stiffen and her swimming feathers come in, she’ll begin testing the waters in a small pool and broadening her gastronomic horizons to whole herring.

Randall Park made a pact with himself some years ago that he wouldn’t attend the Sundance Film Festival if he didn’t have a project there. But the “Fresh Off the Boat” star never imagined that his first time would be as a director and not as an actor.

His adaptation of “Shortcomings,” Adrian Tomine’s graphic novel about three young-ish Asian Americans finding themselves in the Bay Area, is among the films debuting in competition at the festival, which begins Thursday night in Park City, Utah.

“Sundance is the pinnacle to me,” Park said in a recent interview. “I still can’t believe we’re going.”

Park is just one of hundreds of filmmakers putting finishing touches on passion projects and making the sojourn to Park City this week, looking to make a splash at the first in-person edition of the storied independent film festival in two years.

Festivalgoers will see some unexpected turns from stars, like Jonathan Majors as an amateur bodybuilder in “Magazine Dreams,” Emilia Clarke as a futuristic parent in “Pod Generation,” Daisy Ridley as a cubicle worker in “Sometimes I Think About Dying” and Anne Hathaway as a glamourous counselor working at a youth prison in 1960s Massachusetts in “Eileen.”

“Bridgerton” star Phoebe Dynevor also breaks out of her corset leading the contemporary adult thriller “Fair Play” as an ambitious woman working at a high stakes hedge fund with a boyfriend played by Alden Ehrenreich. Sundance will be her first film festival ever and she’s especially excited that it’s with one of the best scripts she’s ever read.

“It’s quite a polarizing one,” Dynevor said. “I can’t wait to see how everyone responds to it.”

The slate of over 100 films premiering around the clock (from 8am to midnight) over 10 days are as diverse as ever. There are three films about Iranian women (“The Persian Version,” “Joonam” and “Shayda”), stories about transgender sex workers (“The Stroll,” “KOKOMO CITY”), indigenous people (“Twice Colonoized,” “Bad Press”), women’s rights and sexuality (“The Disappearance of Shere Hite”) and the war in Ukraine (“20 Days in Mariupol,” a joint project between The Associated Press and PBS “Frontline.”)

And, as always, there are intimate portraits of famous faces, like Michael J. Fox, Little Richard, Stephen Curry, Judy Blume, the Indigo Girls and Brooke Shields.

Lana Wilson (” Miss Americana “) directed the much-anticipated Shields documentary “Pretty Baby,” in which Shields reflects on her experiences from child model to teen superstar and beyond, including her complex relationship with her mother, Andre Agassi and the time Tom Cruise publicly criticized her for taking antidepressants.

“I kept coming back to this idea of agency and of her slowly gaining agency first over her mind, then over her career and then over her identity,” Wilson said.

If the past two years have proved anything, it’s that Sundance doesn’t need its picturesque mountainside location to thrive. After all, it was at a virtual edition that the festival hosted the premiere of ” CODA,” which would become the first Sundance movie to win best picture at the Oscars. “Summer of Soul,” another virtual Sundance premiere, also won best documentary last year, and both are getting encore, in-person screenings this year.

But even so, the independent film community — from the newcomers to the veterans — has felt the lack of the real thing. There is, after all, a certain magic about seeing a new film from an unknown in the dead of winter at 7,000 feet elevation wondering, as the lights go down in a cinema overflowing with puffy coats if you might just be among the first to witness the debut of the next Ryan Coogler or Kelly Reichardt.

Erik Feig, the founder and CEO of Picturestart, joked that he’s been going to the festival for “a billion years.” It’s where he saw “Thirteen” and hired Catherine Hardwicke to direct “Twilight,” and, years later, “Whiplash,” beginning a relationship with Damien Chazelle that would lead to “La La Land.” Sundance also is where he saw “Napoleon Dynamite” and “Little Miss Sunshine” for the first time, too, and others that “feel iconic and have been part of the cultural zeitgeist forever. That moment of discovery was at Sundance.”

This year, his company is coming armed with a new comedy that could very well enter that canon of Sundance discoveries: “Theater Camp,” a heartfelt satire of the musical theater world set at a crumbling upstate New York summer camp (AdirondACTS). The film is a collaboration of longtime friends Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman, Ben Platt and Noah Galvin.

“I felt so inspired by so many collectives of people that had come up together like Christopher Guest, The Groundlings, The Lonely Island, who made stuff with their friends,” Gordon, who co-directed and stars, said. “We thought, let’s make something about a world that we know really well and a world that we love. And because we love it, we can make a lot of fun of it.”

Some films offer moody genre escapes, like William Oldroyd’s adaptation of author Otessa Moshfegh’s award-winning “Eileen” starring Thomasin McKenzie and Hathaway.

“It plays into the fantasy that I had as a young woman, like, can I run away and be a different person,” Moshfegh said. “I still kind of have that, especially in cinema because we watch movies in order to run away and be different people.”

Others promise to open minds about the lives of marginalized communities. Vuk Lungulov-Klotz, who is a transgender filmmaker of Chilean and Serbian descent, is hoping to push trans masculine narratives forward with his film “Mutt,” about a trans man who encounters three significant people he hasn’t seen in some time one hectic day in New York City.

“It’s really exciting to see people want to see stories about trans masculine people and also understand that they can see themselves reflected in us and that we’re not very different,” Lungulov-Klotz said.

Veteran indie filmmakers will be there with fresh offerings too like Ira Sachs (“Passages”) and Sebastián Silva (“Rotting in the Sun”). “Once” director John Carney has a new musical with Eve Hewson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (“Flora and Son”), Nicole Holofcener reunites with Julia Louis-Dreyfus in “You Hurt My Feelings” and Susanna Fogel adapts the viral New Yorker story “Cat Person” with Emilia Jones and Nicholas Braun.

With COVID-19 outbreaks still happening, some events and gatherings are requiring tests and proof of vaccination. People like Luis Miranda Jr., coming with a documentary he helped produce, “Going Varsity in Mariachi,” is planning to mask up while celebrating the movie.

“We’re bringing real mariachis to Utah and will have a party with real mariachi music,” Miranda said excitedly.

The festival is embracing a different kind of hybrid approach after the success of previous years. Starting on Jan. 24, five days in, many of the films will be available to watch online for people who bought that now sold-out package.

Some films already have distributors in place but many do not and onlookers are interested to see how those acquisitions play out. After several years of deep pocketed streaming services making big plays, the market may have stabilized. Streamers are more cautious and traditional studios have learned how to compete.

Producer Tommy Oliver, the CEO and founder of Confluential Films, has four movies at the festival up for sale: “Fancy Dance,” “Young. Wild. Free,” “To Live and Die and Live” and “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project.” He knows as well as any that Sundance isn’t just a place for celebration and discovery, but for connections too.

His advice for any first timers is simple: “Talk to everyone. Talk to the people who haven’t made stuff yet. Talk to the people who are hustling,” he said. “And be patient, because you’re going to look up in five, 10 years and they’ll have made ‘Fruitvale Station,’ they’ll have made ‘Beale Street.’”

The Sundance Film Festival runs from Jan. 19 through the 29.

Renner, 52, tweeted Monday night that he watched the Season 2 premiere of his show “Mayor of Kingstown” at home, TMZ reported, instead of in a Reno hospital. Renner was transported to the hospital on New Year’s Day after being run over by his own 14,000-pound snowplow while helping a family member whose car was stuck in the snow near his Lake Tahoe home.

“Outside my brain fog in recovery, I was very excited to watch episode 201 with my family at home,” Renner tweeted.

It’s not clear if “at home” means what Renner calls his “special place,” his property in the mountains between Lake Tahoe and Reno, or if the actor is recovering elsewhere. And even if the Hawkeye actor has been released from the hospital, he still has a long recovery due to the severity of his injuries, according to the Daily Mail.

Shortly after the accident, Renner’s representatives said he suffered blunt chest trauma and orthopedic injuries. Friends said that Renner’s injuries were much worse than feared and that he “nearly bled out” and “almost died” while waiting for help to arrive the morning of Jan. 1, the Daily Mail said, citing a report in RadarOnline.

“The right side of Jeremy’s chest was crushed, and his upper torso had collapsed,” a friend said. “He also had a bad head wound that was bleeding and a leg injury.”

The actor is aware of the extent of his injuries and knows he has a long recovery ahead of him, with friends saying it could take up to two years “before he is back in fighting shape,” the Daily Mail said.

Despite his injuries and the need for multiple surgeries while in the hospital, Renner has posted on social media a few times, last week thanking fans for their “kind words.” He also shared a video of him getting a head massage while in the intensive-care unit. He acknowledged last week on Instagram that he was “too messed up to type. But I send love to you all.”

A “not no great” ICU DAY, turned to amazing spa day with my sis and mama. Thank you sooooo much pic.twitter.com/pvu1aWeEXY

— Jeremy Renner (@JeremyRenner) January 5, 2023

Renner’s family members have been by his side, including his mother Cearley and sister Kym, the Daily Mail said. Last week, his sister Kym told People that the actor is working hard to recover with the help of physical therapy.

“If anyone knows Jeremy, he is a fighter and doesn’t mess around,” Renner’s sister told People. “He is crushing all the progress goals. We couldn’t feel more positive about the road ahead.”

The best-selling modern romance novelist — and former Oakland lawyer — has been praised by everyone from New York Times and Washington Post reviewers to Shondaland and Reese Witherspoon, via her Hello Sunshine book club.

Guillory, a Stanford University law school alum, was several years into her law career when  she realized something was missing in her life.  She decided to try writing and quickly fell in love with what was then simply a new hobby.

“I looked forward to working on my book every night,” she says. “I thought about it all the time.”

In 2015, Guillory submitted the first half of a draft for her first novel, “The Wedding Date,” to NaNoWriMo — the annual National Novel Writing Month project for aspiring authors. With their support in hand, a book deal soon followed. She published that novel and two more while still working full time at her law firm.

Flash forward, and Guillory is now a full-time author who has just published her eighth book, “Drunk on Love,” which offers an intoxicating romance set at a Black-owned Napa Valley winery. Specific locations may vary from book to book, but every Guillory novel has been set in California.

“I grew up here,” she says, “and I feel like so much of the media doesn’t reflect the California that I know and love, and that I’ve been a part of my whole life. We have such diverse communities, full of all different kinds of people. I started thinking about Napa Valley, and it all just clicked. It’s such a beautiful and unique location, but it’s also got this reputation about it. People often about talk it like a haven for rich people and tourists, but I wanted to think about what it would be like for the people who really live there and work there on a day to day basis.”

The novel follows the story of winery owner Margot Noble, who goes out for drinks one night with a friend. She meets a charmer named Luke, and after hitting it off with great conversation, has a fabulous one-night stand with the suitor … or so she thinks. Her world soon gets turned upside down when she goes in to work the next morning and meets the winery’s newest hire. Of course, it’s Luke.

The book offers up a fun and frothy story that poses a serious question: What’s most important, doing what you love or being with the person you love?

The romance genre appealed to Guillory from the start, she says, both because of the mix of stories you can tell and the stories she never saw told.

“Romance novels at their core are really about character, really thinking about who these people are and how they came to find one another,” she says. “Growing up, I didn’t see a lot of Black women represented in those stories. When I was little, most of the books I read about Black women were about the struggle. Obviously, there’s a place for those books, but I what I really love is seeing Black women get their happy ending.”

As she redefines what Black literature can be, she’s branching out, too. Her other projects include a “Southern Belle Insults” short story series with Keke Palmer, a “Black Love Matters” essay anthology, and a collaborative novel, “First Street,” about four recent law school graduates clerking for the Supreme Court.

“Literature in general has really been dominated by whiteness,” she says. “Over the past little while, publishing has started to be more diverse and pay more attention to communities of color, but these communities read all the time, and as those books sell more, publishing is opening its eyes.”

Guillory’s Book Recommendations

“Partners in Crime” by Alisha Rai: This whirlwind romance offers shady characters, sultry settings and a love story with a splash of danger.

“Counterfeit” by Kirstin Chen: Plotting meets Prada in this story of fashion, friendship and crime, centered on a pair of Asian American women who hatch a scheme to make it big selling counterfeit handbags.

“On the Rooftop” by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton: This nostalgic novel tells the hopeful story of a struggling black family living in San Francisco’s Fillmore neighborhood during the 1950s.

“Yerba Buena” by Nina LaCour: This lesbian romance is a beautiful story of two star-crossed women circling in the same orbit, but struggling to truly find one another.

“Bomb Shelter” by Mary Laura Philpott: Philpott’s powerful memoir recounts the experiences of a woman who lost her teenage son.

“The holiday shopping, dining and self-care season is a critical time for the viability of small businesses. It was wonderful to work with (former) Mayor Schaaf and the Oakland Police Department in receiving a grant to fund the full-time, on-street safety ambassadors,” Swafford said. “The hope is that the public saw the broad effort to make commercial districts, and in this case the Montclair Village shopping area, places we can come to with a sense of safety.”

Safety ambassadors during the 30-day trial period that ended Saturday were on the streets eight hours a day, seven days a week except for Christmas and New Year’s days. Direct mobile phone numbers were made available to the public for requesting assistance, and flyers explaining safety ambassador services were delivered to merchants. Kevin Gilmore, of Oakland, served as one of the ambassadors. In an interview Jan. 13, the second-to-last-day of the program, he reflected on the experience.

“I come from the inner city, so coming up here was entering a different walk of life,” Gilmore said. “At first, it was touch-and-go if I was going to do it. But once I was up here and felt welcome, it made me want to do it and to live up to their expectations.”

Gilmore downplays his skills when asked what he brought to the position, mentioning only that he has experience in security work.

“To be honest, it was just me being me. It’s not one set skill; I just take my job seriously,” he said. “I know not to judge but to observe and not act on impulse. Like with certain style cars, a person can be judgmental. But coming from the inner-city, I can feel a person out, and 95% of the time, I can use instinct.”

Gilmore’s interactions ran a gamut, from escorting people to vehicles and reminding shoppers to place purchases in trunks instead of on car seats to providing directions to parking locations to reporting suspicious or actual criminal action to Swafford, who then communicated the information to Oakland police.

“I approached one circumstance in a way so the police could get there,” he said. “I can’t say the specifics, but let’s just say security isn’t about putting your hands on people. If you talk to people, if you tell them you don’t have to do this or that, once you make them feel you’re not judging them, it makes a situation way better. There’s no violence.”

Asked if he will participate if the program receives more funding and continues, Gilmore responded in the affirmative.

“Yes, hands down. Why? Because not only from the good business perspective but in the way the community and Dan have welcomed me, I feel comfortable. People in the community say they see a difference. Merchants thank me, and there are even people who come check on me and bring me coffee when I’m working. Just making a little difference along the line, we might make a bigger difference to keep people from hitting on the elderly or other people or doing crimes.”

Swafford said Gilmore was an ideal candidate for a position that required people who are outgoing, able to communicate effectively and quick to establish and reliably maintain relationships with local merchants.

“We leaned on Bay Alarm Company supervisors who knew the people best suited for these posts. We had to move quickly, and so we relied on their partnerships for referrals.”

Montclair Village regularly engages with Bay Alarm for safety patrols in the district. Limor Margalit, Bay Alarm’s director of sales and security agent services, said that in setting up safety ambassador service for Montclair, one of three districts covered by the company, his role centered on working closely with merchants. By addressing their concerns with the on-street presence of a uniformed ambassador during the holiday season, Gilmore said residents and visitors also benefited.

“Long-term merchants told us having a guard trained to help in different situations was important,” Gilmore said. “For people shopping, the guards made them feel safe by walking with them. Escorting someone to a car is just one example of something they did that the police cannot do.”

Swafford walked the shopping district;s streets during the holidays, introducing the ambassadors to owners and staff at key businesses. He held briefings and relied on digital reporting from the ambassadors to receive updates and provide feedback.

“There was an auto burglary and we advised (that) they connect with a neighboring business and relay that to me so I could get any camera images to pull and relay that to OPD,” Swafford said. “That happened on multiple occasions, unfortunately. We also saw shoplifting and theft that spills beyond store security.

“In one case our ambassador provided information that led to an arrest. Proactively, we consulted on casing the neighborhood. Kevin just being present on the street led to deterring crimes and also he reminded people to put items in secure places out of sight.”

Swafford hopes the program will continue.

“I’d love to take the feedback and report what the ambassadors were able to do to the mayor,” he said. “We had boots on the ground, investment in crime reduction and a good partnership with OPD that allowed them to be more efficient. These are the obvious gains. We don’t have the budget for it, so we’ll look to funding from the city of Oakland and put whatever resources we have in the (Montclair) Village toward continuing it.

“Merchants in the area are still struggling, and, to be honest, some might not make it, so we don’t want to see people taking their money out of the area because they don’t feel safe. An investment in this type of program in Oakland’s General Fund will pay for itself with increased economic activity throughout the city. If given the opportunity, that’s how I will present it to city officials.”

Lou Fancher is a freelance writer. Contact her at lou@johnsonandfancher.com.

It’s been a season of discovery for the great American mezzo-soprano, and she says that’s just how she likes it.

DiDonato, who earned international acclaim in opera roles such as Rosina in Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville” — a role she has sung many times, around the world, to perfection — has just finished singing the role of Virginia Woolf in “The Hours.” The new opera by composer Kevin Puts, which also featured singers Renee Fleming and Kelli O’Hara, made its staged world premiere to rave reviews in November at the Metropolitan Opera.

Now DiDonato’s returning to the Bay Area with a new program, “Eden,” a semi-staged concert focusing on climate, the natural world, and our place in it. Directed by Marie Lambert-Le Bihan and conducted by Zefira Valova, it features DiDonato and the Baroque ensemble Il Pomo d’Oro in a program spanning early music to a new work by English composer Rachel Portman. Performances are scheduled at Stanford University and UC Berkeley.

In a recent phone conversation, it was easy to hear DiDonato’s excitement about the project, which she said is both a reflection on the beauties of the natural world and a call to action to preserve them.

“We launched this work in the spring, in Brussels, and we did a handful of festival performances at the end of the summer,” she said. “It’s been the most special project of my career. It feels so timely to be talking about our connection to each other, and to the world around us.”

DiDonato says the project was inspired in part by an earlier program, “In War and Peace: Harmony through Music,” which she performed with Il Pomo d’Oro at Stanford in 2016.

This program is “an extension, if not quite a sequel” to “War and Peace,” she said. “But it’s certainly connected. There was a quote by Jonathan Larson that said ‘the opposite of war is not peace, it’s creation.’ I don’t think it was conscious, when I came up with the title ‘Eden.’ But it’s directly related — that this is about creation, about asking ‘What are we participating in, in the creation from day to day life that we’re living now?’”

The music for the program opens with Ives’s “The Unanswered Question” and closes with Mahler’s autumnal “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen.” In between are works by Cavalli, Handel, Copland and others — along with Portman’s newly composed “Eden.” DiDonato said she’s thrilled with the results.

“When we were setting up the repertoire for this concert, we all wanted to get outside of the Baroque world and go in whatever direction we felt the music would take us,” she said. “I don’t think anyone thought it would take us to Ives, but there we are.”

Portman’s new work, created specifically for this project, exceeded expectations, DiDonato added. “It’s been a joy to work with her,” she said.

“I wanted to commission a piece primarily because the idea of Eden is really all about creation, coming back to creative power in the natural world. And I really wanted to tap into the feminine power — again, Eden being very much about the garden, about Mother Nature, about that idea of nourishment and bringing new life into the world.”

“Rachel created this beautiful soundscape of something that is emerging,” DiDonato added. “We knew that we wanted it to follow the Ives, and she had that composition in mind as well. So we end up with this beautiful seamless start to the concert that really lets people know we’re going to take them on a kind of narrative journey. Every time the music starts, I get so excited, because I know the audience is going to be hearing something so nurturing and beautiful.”

As part of “Eden”’s development, DiDonato has been leading workshops with students — seeking to re-build connections to “nature in its extraordinary balance.”

“You know, I had intended to be a teacher, before I got sidetracked in opera,” she said. “So to have this opportunity to merge that idea of working with kids, elevating them in their lives, has been extraordinary. And to bring this project, which I think in terms of repertoire really shows where I am after twenty-some years in my career, spanning four centuries and loving all the nooks and crannies of this repertoire I’ve been able to do over my career, just feels like such a full-circle moment in every element of what I love about the possibilities of singing.”

Contact Georgia Rowe at growe@pacbell.net.

‘EDEN’

Featuring mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato

When & where: 7:30 p.m. Jan. 20 at Bing Concert Hall, Stanford University (presented by Stanford Live); $15-$48; livestanford.edu; 8 p.m. Jan. 21at  Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley (presented by Cal Performances); $18-$86; calperformances.org.

That opportunity arrives Jan. 20-Jan. 29 at the Sundance Film Festival, which returns to live screenings after two virtual versions and offers a robust showcase for some of the best features the world has to offer.

Numerous world premieres and buzzy titles will attract movie lovers, ear-muffed celebrities, journalists, publicists, studio reps and onlookers to Park City, Utah.

But if you can’t make it there, know that some of the titles will be available to stream beginning Jan. 24. More information on these and more films is available at festival.sundance.org.

Here are 15 to look out for, a number of which have Bay Area associations.

“Stephen Curry: Underrated”: Award-winning Oakland documentary-maker Peter Nicks (“Homeroom,” “The Waiting Room,” “The Force”) bring his ever-observant eye to the life and career of one of our most popular and respected NBA players — Golden State Warriors icon Stephen Curry. Filmmaker and Oakland native Ryan Coogler is one of the producers of this Apple TV+ documentary, which relates the inspirational story of Curry and how the four-time NBA champ defied naysayers and became a phenomenon. Sadly, it’s not available online, and there’s no word yet on when Apple TV+ will release it.

“Shortcomings”: Sacramento-born graphic novelist Adrian Tomine has drawn deserved comparisons to America’s most daring cartoonists. If you haven’t read any of the UC Berkeley alum’s rich works — and you really should — this edgy adaptation from director Randall Park (yes, the cute actor from “Fresh off the Boat”) will likely make you a fan. It follows three Berkeley chums fumbling about with love, desire, heritage and expectations. It’s available online.

“Fremont”: For his fourth feature film, Iranian filmmaker Babak Jalali comes up with a novel and timely concept.  A former Afghan translator (newcomer Anaita Wali Zada) finds herself saddled with an empty life in the titular East Bay city, but things change when she assigned to write Chinese fortune cookie messages at the factory where she works. “The Bear’s” Jeremy Allen White costars. Shot in B&W, Jalali’s feature will be available online.

“Earth Mama”: Some films get snapped up by studios and distributors even before they get their world premiere at Sundance. Such is the case with 29-year-old Savanah Leaf’s debut feature set in the Bay Area. A24 swooped in to grab the former Olympic volleyball player’s coming-of-age drama about Gia (Oakland newcomer Tia Nomore), a pregnant single mom with two other children in foster care. The film is not available online, and there’s no release date from A24 yet.

“Fairyland”: Debut filmmaker Andrew Durham wrote and directed this adaptation of Alysia Abbott’s memoir about growing up in the ‘70s with a free-spirited father (Scoot McNairy) following the sudden death of her mother. Alysia is often left to her own devices as her father begins to date men once they relocate to San Francisco. Geena Davis, rock singer Adam Lambert and Maria Bakalova costar. The film is not available online.

“Fancy Dance”: Sundance loves coming-of-age stories. This exciting release from first-timer Erica Tremblay attests to that. The world premiere drama is about two girls from an Oklahoma reservation — the resourceful Jax (Lily Gladstone) and her niece Roki (Isabel Deroy-Olson) — taking a road trip to find Roki’s missing mother. It’s available online.

“Cassandro”: Gael Garcia Bernal lands a juicy, high-profile role as the real-life gay luchador (professional wrestler) Saúl Armendáriz, who, with the assistance of his trainer, breaks barriers by assuming the identity of an alter ego — the out and proud Cassandro. This is documentary filmmaker Roger Ross Williams’ feature debut, and it looks like a winner. Bad Bunny and Raúl Castillo costar. It’s not available online.

“Infinity Pool”: His horror freakout (“Possessor”) rattled Sundance a few years ago, now director Brandon Cronenberg (David Cronenberg’s son) follows it up with what looks to be another unabashedly bizarre and brazen horror shocker. Mia Goth and Alexander Skarsgård lend their magnetic star power to this dark look at the festering underbelly of tourism. It might even make you think twice about booking that next trip to a tropical paradise. It’s not available online, but will arrive in theaters to disturb Jan. 27.

“Mamacruz”: Dramas about sexual awakenings (or re-awakenings), in general,  tend to focus on characters under the age of 50. Director/co-writer Patricia Ortega makes an exception here with a story about a buttoned-up, religious grandmother who dares to dip into porn and talk more freely about sex — to the chagrin of some, and the acceptance of others. Kiti Manver will be a Sundance standout. It’s available online.

“You Hurt My Feelings”: Nicole Holofcener writes and directs what sounds like another one of her refreshingly unique dramedies. It’s her fourth film at Sundance and follows novelist Beth (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and how she reconsiders her relationship with her therapist hubby Don (Tobias Menzies) when she overhears him dissing her new novel. Oops. It’s not available online.

“Rye Lane”: Director Raine Allen-Miller’s feature debut is a romantic dramedy wherein a teary-eyed Dom (David Jonsson) gains more pep in his step courtesy of a wild day spent in South London with Yas (Vivian Oparah). It looks to be a charming and telling look at two 20-something people of color who might be ready to fall in love. It’s not available online.

“Twice Colonized”: What often distinguishes the Sundance is its dedication to illuminating various perspectives, cultures and ideas. Such is the case with this topical and engrossing documentary from director Lin Alluna on Greenlandic Inuit lawyer and activist Aaju Peter. It’s a fascinating character portrayal that takes the time to reflect on the Inuit experience and on colonialism. It’s available online.

“Magazine Dreams”: Expect Jonathan Majors’ career to soar higher than ever after the world premiere of director/writer Elijah Bynum’s character study of a fiercely devoted bodybuilder. Majors, so great in “The Last Black Man in San Francisco,” physically inhabits the part in what promises to be a gritty, explosive and complex look at the world of bodybuilding. It has the potential to be one of the biggest talkers at Sundance, and it’s available online as well.

“Cat Person”: Ready to get a bit uncomfortable? The perils of dating will likely come into all-too-sharp focus in this drama by director Susanna Fogel (a co-writer on “Booksmart”) about a 20-year-old student (Emilia Jones) learning that the alleged “cat person” (Nicholas Braun) she’s dating isn’t exactly who he pretends to be. Screenwriter Michelle Ashford adapts the New Yorker short story that was a viral sensation. It’s also available online.

Contact Randy Myers at soitsrandy@gmail.com

The host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” has produced two bits since last week that make fun of Harry’s discussion about how he suffered a frostbitten penis while participating in a trek to the North Pole with other military veterans in 2011. The segment from Monday night also zeros in on Harry’s need in his book to regularly connect events, including his frostbite woes, to his late mother, Princess Diana, as if to emphasize how much of a presence she remains in his life.

Indeed, Kimmel has Harry invoke the name of Sigmund Freud — the author of the Oedipus complex psychoanalytic theory — in the bit that has the duke thinking about his mother while seeking relief from his frostbite. For the segment, Kimmel introduces “a new children’s book” that he said was inspired by the blockbuster success of Harry’s book and particularly the popularity of his frostbite story.

“It’s a twist on “The Princess and the Pea,” Kimmel joked. “It’s called ‘The Prince and the Penis.’ The kids will love this. It’s time to gather them around because I have the honor of sharing the first read of the new book.”

Prince Harry’s book is so popular, they made a version for kids! #ThePrinceAndThePenis pic.twitter.com/mV0Sfy4REL

— Jimmy Kimmel Live (@JimmyKimmelLive) January 17, 2023

Thereupon, Kimmel produced a faux children’s book, with brightly colored illustrations and a rhyming, “The Night Before Christmas”-style tale about “a silly young codger” who suffers frostbite on a trip to the North Pole.

“Oh Mummy, oh Mummy, he cried with a scream and from then up on high, she appeared with some cream,” Kimmel read from the faux book, with an illustration of Diana up in a cloud, wearing her famous black “Revenge Dress.”

Kimmel clearly believes that Harry has opened himself up for such lambasting, given what the duke writes in “Spare” about seeking relief from his frostbite by using a cream by Elizabeth Arden — a brand he notes that his late mother used.

In “Spare,” Harry (or his ghostwriter, J.R. Moehringer) describes how the frostbite left him “oscillating between extremely sensitive and borderline traumatized.” To Harry’s credit, his tone is somewhat humorous. “The last place I wanted to be was Frostnipistan,” Harry also said, explaining how a female friend suggested he try the Elizabeth Arden cream.

“My mum used that on her lips,” Harry said, expressing discomfort at the idea of applying it “down there.” Harry said his friend  replied, “It works, Harry. Trust me.”

Harry said he acquired a tube and opened it. He also writes, “The smell transported me through time. I felt as if my mother was right there in the room.” He said he applied a “smidge” and acknowledged, “‘Weird’ doesn’t really do the feeling justice.”

In Kimmel’s version of Harry’s “story,” the Harry figure similarly expresses discomfort with the idea of using his mother’s favorite cream. “But Mummy, did you not put this on your lip. … But Mummy, have you not hear about Sir Sigmund Freud?” That line is a reference to Freud’s theory about a young male’s attachment to the parent of the opposite sex.

Kimmel’s children’s book shows an illustration of Diana coming down from her cloud and applying the cream on her son, leaving “everyone living happily ever after.”

Last week, Kimmel mined comedy and audience laughs from actually playing the audiobook version of “Spare,” with Harry reading from the passage about his use of the Elizabeth Arden cream and how it evoked “weird” thoughts about his mother.

Prince Harry truly TELLS ALL! pic.twitter.com/MCWUchCAYE

— Jimmy Kimmel Live (@JimmyKimmelLive) January 13, 2023

Kimmel’s children’s book bit provoked a mix of reactions. Many people left tweets with laughing emojis and praised Kimmel for offering an example of how Harry plays “the Mummy card” — aligning himself with the legacy of his popular mother in interviews and in his book. Others shared GIFs that showed they enjoyed the bit but also recognized that Kimmel was getting to the edge of what’s considered politically correct.

Oh my pic.twitter.com/h2oDtSDrgB

— Sabirah Lohn (43% Whatever I decide) (@SabirahLohn) January 17, 2023

Others, though, scoffed at Kimmel’s “amateurish” humor. One person suggested he was jealous because his late-night rival, Stephen Colbert, got an interview with Harry last week on his show. Others took offense with how they thought Kimmel disparaged the memory of Diana, who died in 1997 in a car accident in Paris.

Other comedians also have had fun with Harry’s North Pole story, including Chelsea Handler. However, she used her opening monologue at the Critics Choice Awards Sunday night to suggest that the public is both scintillated by also weary from Harry’s oversharing about his frostbite, which left him uncomfortable while attending the royal wedding of his brother, Prince William, to Kate Middleton.

At the awards show, Handler said, “Niecy Nash-Betts is nominated for ‘Dahmer.’ ‘Dahmer’ became the third highest viewed show on Netflix, which a combined watch time of 1 billion hours.”

She continued: “Which, apparently, is the same amount of time we’re going to have to listen to Prince Harry talk about his frostbitten penis. Enough already.”