Archive for April, 2010
Good-bye, Dolly!
Harold (Eric Roth), now in his 40s, is aging poorly and self-consciously, and being gay doesn’t help. At his Upper East Side apartment, Michael (Matt McConkey) hosts Harold’s birthday party in Mart Crowley’s 1968 off-Broadway play, The Boys in the Band. (That, of course,…
Banksy Revealed?
He’s painted trompe l’oeil visions on walls in Palestine, reconfigured phone boxes in the U.K., turned live elephants pink in L.A. and created robotic hot dogs for a horrifying, vegan-endorsed “pet store” exhibit in Greenwich Village. But with his new documentary, Exit Throug…
The Power of Negative Thinking
Negativity is underrated. In her most recent book, Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, commie gadfly Barbara Ehrenreich does an admirable job skewering the salesman culture–rooted legerdemain of The Secret</em…
David McDonald at Jancar Gallery
As a sculptor, David McDonald has routinely embraced the small and the modest. The quantities of materials he utilizes — bricks, plaster, cement, wood, paper, cardboard — seldom amount to more than what you might find in a scrap heap, in the bottom of a bucket, or left over on a morta…
Delphine: Bouillabaisse and Vine
Four women sway toward the lobby, tugging at tight, black skirts, stilettos in boozy lockstep. A heel catches on a crack in the floor. A glowing slug of appletini arcs onto the tiles. Not a moment later, an oblivious waiter steps into the puddle. His legs shoot out from under him…
WeHo Where To: Small, Cozy, Italian, French …
Dear Mr. Gold:
My best friend is in town, and I want to take her to some nice places near her hotel in West Hollywood. But not too pricey — and the Sunset Strip looks like a nightmare. Can you recommend a small, cozy place near Sunset and Doheny? Italian, French, etc.!
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West Follywood
By late March 2007, West Hollywood City Councilman John Heilman had come a very long way — some say not for the better. Once a 20-something rabble-rouser, elected in 1984 on a grassroots, renters’-rights slate, Heilman, with dyed-blond hair and a runner’s physique, was now …
Sparks Notes onModern Romance
Easy to dismiss but increasingly difficult to ignore, Nicholas Sparks products have become the standard for modern American romance. With this week’s release of The Last Song, six of Sparks’ 15 novels have been adapted to film within the past 11 years, and two are in the…
A Girl Group of One
Who are the Dum Dum Girls? That’s the question the L.A. underground has been asking since the band’s fuzzed-up retro rock first leaked onto the scene, but the answer keeps shifting.
When the name materialized in early 2009, it was an alias for a woman with yet another ali…
Bon Marche
Ventura Boulevard, as it passes through Studio City and Sherman Oaks, may have the highest concentration of restaurants in L.A., block after block of eateries where you can relax over pasta, baba ghanoush or a $13 hamburger with sautéed mushrooms.
The concentration…