Books That Changed My Life: Melissa Manchester & The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas

This time on books that changed my life. So many people mentioned in this book. Pablo Picasso, Duchamp, Pizarro and Matisse.

Yeah. Gertrude Stein was in Paris in a moment where everybody who was about to create modern art was unknown. Their painted art, their sculpted art helped her see language differently. I mean, it just makes your brain smoke.

The three geniuses of whom I wish to speak are Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, Alfred Whitehead.

Yes.

She's calling herself a genius. Absolutely.

With no hesitation. People come together that are so exquisitely talented and it's as if it's in the air for all of them to try things and stay in touch with what their neighbor is working on.

And inspiring each other.

And inspiring each other, yes. Capturing something in time which in that moment may be something that people absolutely walk past. And then something happens. Years and decades later, it grows into the moment. That is the mystery of art.

Big question. How did this change your life?

Welcome to the Syndicate X library where we love books, especially books that have changed lives. Today we're joined by none other than Melissa Manchester. She's an actress, a Grammy Award winning singer, songwriter, and she's taught at the USC's Thornton School of Music. She's going to be talking about the book that changed her life, the Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein.

What do you think of the library?

Spectacular.

Fun, right?

Just fantastic. So do people donate their collections or do you purchase?

There have been a few collections donated, yes.

But for the most part it's my. My interest in curation.

When Annie retired from the hammer last year, she gave us her books. We have Matt Damon's books from when he moved from here to the East Coast. There's a couple more, but it's a hard one because we're out of room. We just bought a building down the street and that's full.

So amazing, just amazing. I have to get this copy. I just saw this because you can't find the autobiography in most bookstores anymore, but you can find that edition online somewhere.

So it's beautiful. It is very well designed.

Yes. Mine is from a long time ago.

My, My significant other's name is Melissa, but she goes by Missy.

Yes, so do I.

You do?

Yes.

You can tell if it's a friend or not by who says Missy versus Melissa.

It's. It's a childhood nickname.

So did your mom say Melissa?

Only if it was in that tone. Yeah.

It's funny. My mother in law does Melissa middle name like da da da da da. She's in that mode. So tell me about the CD.

This is my 25th album called Review. It is the re recording of several of my charted hits. It's a thank you to the fans who have walked this over 50 year journey with me. And.

There are harmonic tweaks that I've introduced in these well known songs. There are no fades. Everything ends because fades are thing of the past. Well, there's no such thing as a fade in nature. Songs end. And you know, having been a performer for so long, I just wanted to let that be part of each performance. And yeah, I'm proud of it.

You have some guests on here.

I do. I re recorded Midnight Blue with the incredible Dolly Parton.

And re recorded the song I wrote with Kenny Loggins, Whenever I Call youl Friend. I finally got a chance to record it with him and this is my own interpretation. And yeah, he was great and I did videos on all of the songs and yeah, but the thing was, it had been released a while ago, but I was on a national tour with the musical Funny Girl and so this was released but I couldn't do anything to support it. So now here I am thinking of it.

You're supporting it and promoting it. What did you order to drink?

Water.

Water, yes. Well, you're hardcore.

Yeah. I watched you speak with EA Hanks and you having your martinis and I thought, well, that's a lot.

She had no problem.

She had no problem.

She was great.

She was. It was a wonderful.

I can't drink martinis like that.

No, no. It was a wonderful conversation.

So smart.

I found her so fascinating. And I read Cloud Atlas right away after watching that and it was fascinating.

So the book we're here to talk about today, the book that changed your life.

Yes.

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein.

Have you read it?

Yeah, we've gone through it pretty deep. You'll see our. I have some points that we'll. We'll talk about. Great. Kind of walk me through how this came into your life. So you were 17?

I was 17. I was introduced to the book by a friend and he had introduced me to a lot of writers that I hold near and dear to my heart. He was a very thoughtful guy. I read this and I could not fathom what I was reading. Not just because of the language, but because of the moment in time that she was writing about. And of course, the device is so nuts that I had to just keep wrapping my head around the fact that this is not an autobiography at all, but a device to.