An Evening with Moon Unit Zappa

Join us for an evening with actress, singer, and author Moon Unit Zappa, the fascinating and magnetic daughter of legendary musician Frank Zappa for a screening of one of her favorite films, and a discussion on her new memoir. 

At the age of fourteen, Moon Zappa appeared in Frank Zappa’s career defining music video, “Valley Girl,” which later helped jump-start her own career. Fast Times at Ridgemont High, one of Moon Unit Zappa’s favorite ‘80s coming-of-age comedies, catches something of the popular cultural Zeitgeist as she was growing up. But, as is so hilariously evident in her classic, satirical musical hit “Valley Girl,” her viewpoint was colored by her highly unconventional and problematic perch as the daughter of the iconoclastic musical genius, Frank Zappa.

Film:

With youthful appearances by Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Phoebe Cates, Nicolas Cage, Eric Stoltz at the beginning of their careers, Fast Times at Ridgemont High’s San Fernando Valley characters spend most of their time focusing on their most important subjects: sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. Stacy Hamilton (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is a pretty but inexperienced teen starting to explore the pleasures and pitfalls of dating. Given advice by her uninhibited friend, Linda Barrett (Phoebe Cates), Stacy gets trapped in a love triangle with nice guy Mark Ratner (Brian Backer) and his more assured buddy Mike Damone (Robert Romanus). Meanwhile, Stacy's classmate Jeff Spicoli (Sean Penn), who lives for surfing and being stoned, faces off against Mr. Hand (Ray Walston), a strict teacher who has no time for the slacker's antics. (USA, 1982, 92 mins. | Dir. Amy Heckerling)

Earth to Moon: A Memoir 

Moon Unit Zappa, daughter of the musical visionary Frank Zappa, second wife Gail (and yes, sister of Dweezil, among other siblings), has written a piercingly honest, witty and compulsively readable memoir about “growing up Zappa” in 1970’s Los Angeles, and coming of age in the Hollywood Hills in the 1980s as the “Valley Girl.” It was she who introduced, with mischievous hilarity, that distinctively shallow patois in the mega-hit she recorded at age 14 with the eccentrically famous but commercially unsuccessful, sometimes maddeningly narcissistic father she adored. Earth to Moon – something her mother Gail would call out when trying to get her daughter’s attention – describes what it is like to live in a weird, chaotic hothouse of individuality that on one hand fosters freedom of expression, and on the other tamps down the basic desires of a child for boundaries and affection. Moon achingly traces her journey from being her father’s inadvertent musical collaborator and public sidekick to becoming an MTV VJ, an actress, a podcaster, an artist, a spiritual person, and a wife and mother, calculating ever-changing equations of fame, family, death and ultimately legacy when dealt the shocking news that Gail’s will established an unequal distribution among the remaining, tight-knit Zappas, catalyzing a quest for meaning and redemption. 

Richly and remarkably illustrated with iconic photos as well as intimate ones never seen before, along with letters to her father (often with drawings) from scrawled early childhood to maturity, Earth to Moon is written with love, horror, humor and humility, as Moon describes her uncommon, winding path - one which each of us must make in our own way - from youthful confusion to graceful adult.

Event Produced and Curated by Jud Newborn

Thanks to our Sponsors

Lydia Sabosto, keyboard & vocals

1-800-Flowers

Tickets: $45 Public | $40 Members

Tickets include a copy of her new memoir, film screening, discussion, Q&A, & book signing reception

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