|
|
|
Archive by Month
November 30, 2003
In his Westword column in the L.A. Times Book Review, Jonathan Kirsch reviews Murder at the Sleepy Lagoon: Zoot Suits, Race, and Riot in Wartime...
Nerve.com's resident guinea pig Grant Stoddard takes on the assignment: get three L.A. women to pose naked for his digital camera. Continuing my assimilation into...
Came across articles today from two past editors of the L.A. Times editorial page. Tom Plate, who also held the job at the Herald Examiner,...
November 27, 2003
Happy Thanksgiving!...
Confession: I don't always read or look at every section of the paper in the morning. Or in the afternoon. I just now noticed Tim...
November 26, 2003
Vince Beiser in the LA Weekly pursues the romaine trail from seed to Cheesecake Factory in Calabasas and finds sleek corporate towers, Third World–style shantytowns,...
Richard Horgan considers the "Sexiest Man Alive" phenomenon at FilmStew.com: Two decades later, the annual title of worldwide male hottie, which was awarded last week...
Tom Mangan is a copy editor at the San Jose Mercury and writes his blog, Prints the Chaff, mainly for other newspaper copy editors. He...
Following on the reporting staff's globally reported three-part series on Wal-Mart, the L.A. Times editorial page doesn't exactly have a position to argue, but it...
Christopher Scheer, the son of regular anti-Bush contributor Robert Scheer, shows up on the L.A. Times op-ed page today arguing that the Administration is "waging...
November 25, 2003
More tales of Buzz and of Los Angeles magazine from a few regimes ago, as told by Nancy Rommelmann. Who apparently, and alas, is still...
The Greater L.A. chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists has announced some awards for journalists of the year: The winners are: Jeff Wald, news...
Four months later, Santa Monica authorities are still trying to decide what -- if anything -- to do with Russell Weller, the elderly driver who...
Verdict: true. Tech companies that do business with L.A. County really have been told to stop referring to "master/slave" computer connections because of the "cultural...
The summer Bar exam given to prospective California lawyers had its lowest pass rate since 1986 -- 49.4%. The 7,788 candidates who took the July...
Freelance writer Rachel Neuwirth has sued rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller of UCLA Hillel, claiming he attacked and injured her as they argued about Middle East politics...
In announcing indictments Monday against 14 developers and subcontractors for illegal campaign donations, DA Steve Cooley said that major residential developer Alan Casden is a...
Growing up as young passionate L.A. Dodgers fans, there were two opposing pitchers me and my buddies feared most: Warren Spahn and Juan Marichal. Baseball...
Two takes on Gov. Schwarzenegger's stand on runaway film production, by Alex Ben Block in Television Week and Matt Welch at Reason magazine's blog Hit...
Overseas correspondents are preparing a letter to editor John Carroll complaining about the survivor benefits being offered the widow of Mark Fineman, the veteran L.A....
November 24, 2003
Los Angeles has quite a few gorgeous old churches, temples and shuls. On Wilshire Boulevard alone are a half-dozen striking landmarks from the 1920s, such...
Eugene Volokh has filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court on behalf of some writerly names, among them Michael Crichton, Elmore Leonard, Scott Turow,...
They gave a meeting to talk about downtown and, surprise, 1,144 people showed up. That might have been because they held it in the new...
Today's second installment (of three) in the L.A. Times front-page series on 'The Wal-Mart Effect" looks at how the world's largest corporation gets suppliers around...
The L.A. Times redid its Sunday comics pages this weekend and moved Peanuts and Doonesbury inside, with the revived Opus by Berkeley Breathed new on...
New York Post gossips aren't impressed with Us Weekly's choice of reporter for the Michael Jackson case. Says Page Six: If you're expecting hard-hitting coverage...
The Hollywood Reporter and Variety report on how it is that free copies of Sony Pictures Classics' Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran are...
Gov. Schwarzenegger has mentioned a couple of times now -- most recently in his inauguration speech -- the chill of Communism he felt as Soviet...
November 23, 2003
Both the L.A. Business Journal and the Daily News are reporting that the District Attorney is asking questions about the awarding of contracts by the...
Disney has been trying to sell the Anaheim Mighty Ducks for four years, and as the L.A. Times reported yesterday, the most interest is coming...
Telemarketer Nina Smith, who makes calls from a West Virgina boiler room, in the New York Times magazine: "East Coast and Southern people are friendly...
L.A. city inspectors insist that the Playboy mansion in Holmby Hills is just a residence -- but Kate Berry in this week's L.A. Business Journal...
November 22, 2003
Longtime USC journalism professor (and former CBS correspondent) Murray Fromson has put up a blog. The Fromson File is doing longer pieces, the current one...
Scott Timberg has a pair of Calendar pieces in the Sunday LAT on German art book publisher Benedikt Taschen, who adopted Los Angeles as home...
USC's engineering school is pondering the creation of a minor in video game development. No jokes please -- it's a serious consideration, says the L.A....
November 21, 2003
The L.A. Times is putting off the launch of Image, a new weekly fashion and personal image section, until well into next year, and some...
Roger Simon got his first batches of Academy screeners today, but he didn't have to sign for them and three films from Lions Gate came...
L.A. Times media critic David Shaw was interviewed this week by JournalismJobs.com and had a few things to say about the paper where he has...
"60 Minutes" on Sunday is doing a double-length segment on the $10-billion pornography business, and apparently the Steve Kroft piece will spend a lot of...
Low Culture finds a certain similarity in the archives of writing about Phil Spector -- who, if you didn't know, was a millionaire before......
Most in the media know the basic Jim Romenesko story -- news guy starts "MediaGossip.com" on his own, moves to Poynter, gets a paycheck, drops...
Manohla Dargis in the L.A. Times and David Poland at Movie City News both stay in Seussian character to make the point that Cat in...
The fight over the Ambassador Hotel just got more complicated, and the momentum may have shifted away from preservation. A community coalition with political connections...
Looks like the Democrats in Sacramento have anointed another L.A. lawmaker to be the next Assembly Speaker. Dan Weintraub says it is Fabian Nunez, the...
They were all together Thursday at Galpin Ford in the Valley, rallying the troops. The KFI team led the charge, but it was Galpin boss...
November 20, 2003
In her media column in today's CityBeat, Cathy Seipp gets a free dinner and visits with her friends at the libertarian Reason magazine, where she...
Michael Caruso, the editor of Los Angeles while the magazine was owned by Disney, is taking over the top spot at Jann Wenner's Men's Journal,...
Though it's not as surprising as his license to fly helicopters, thanks to the Daily News' Dana Bartholomew we know something else about the personal...
The L.A. Times' Matt Lait and Scott Glover report today that investigators have "significant evidence" linking Anthony Pellicano to last year's threat against LAT reporter...
All three major networks led the evening news last night with the Michael Jackson story, says Variety, which surveys the newsmagazine shows being ripped up...
Marc Cooper comes up with the best phonetic rendering I've seen yet for Gov. Schwarzenegger's pronunication, in a piece that says Arnold's push to undo...
November 19, 2003
The former LA Weekly writer and news editor (1983-93) died this week at home in Huntington Beach. Curran wrote about the Community Redevelopment Agency, the...
The media scene, from AP and Gary Delsohn in the Sacramento Bee. It was L.A. Times staffer Jeff Rabin who Schwarzenegger complimented as "this gentleman...
Tim Rutten suggests today that the Nation (158,810) overtaking longtime leader the National Review (157,616) in circulation at the top end of the opinion journal...
L.A. blogger Arthur Silber, who had to shut down when the MTA strike cost him all his work, was helped out financially by a number...
L.A. Times reporter Tim Reiterman, wounded the same day that Jonestown cultists shot and killed congressman Leo Ryan and three journalists -- among them former...
KPFK (90.7 FM) is devoting all day today to a Pacifica-wide marathon airing of audio tapes from the network's half-century of radio archives. It starts...
November 18, 2003
I was wrong back in October about the city's crackdown on lap dancing. Not on the ban itself -- on that I can't get interested...
Slate's Eric Umansky, writing in the New Republic, takes on allegations that the oil wells at Beverly Hills High are causing a high rate of...
PreserveLA.com calls itself "a forum and clearinghouse for the latest news, information, and techniques concerning historic preservation and the history of Los Angeles and Southern...
Sue Smethurst thought her trip to from Australia to L.A. to interview Olivia Newton-John about breast cancer for New Idea magazine, where she is an...
Governor Schwarzenegger's inauguration was mighty big, but it wasn't the only news even though he did manage to swell the state budget deficit by $4...
Tonight at 7 p.m., Leo Braudy will discuss his book, From Chivalry to Terrorism: War and the Changing Nature of Masculinity, with Los Angeles magazine...
November 17, 2003
That Anthony Pellicano is no dummy. On the eve of going to federal prison for 33 months, he gives an interview to Chuck Philips in...
Just back from a junket to Israel with assorted city officials, city council president Alex Padilla is scheduled to jet off again -- to Sweden...
San Francisco Chronicle book critic David Kipen is a native of Los Angeles and a fan of the Dodgers. He crossed jurisdictions to pen a...
Orange County blogger Xrlq is taking the point position in defense of Justene Adamec at CalBlog, who has been threatened with legal action over comments...
KCRW plans to carry the Schwarzenegger swearing-in ceremony live at 11 o'clock this morning. Meanwhile, historian and state librarian Kevin Starr in the L.A. Times'...
MPAA chief Jack Valenti has told the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and critics that there will be no changes in the screener ban this year....
Good news for all of those Drama Hour fans who keep adding comments to the KNX post from Nov. 3. Don Barrett's LA Radio.com reports...
November 16, 2003
Back a little early from a weekend in San Diego. Just enough time to read a few things: Christopher Hitchens has known David Horowitz since...
November 15, 2003
Next post when the Schwarzenegger clan gathers in Sacramento....
November 14, 2003
Ben Stein revels in the cushy life where Hollywood meets Fox News Channel. His gig for E! Online website must be the easiest column in...
Jim Evans blogged from his perch as managing editor of California Journal, but he's taking a job covering the business of government for the Sacramento...
At the center of the Bernard Weinraub-Luke Ford episode is a passage about private investigator Anthony Pellicano possibly robbing the grave of Mike Todd, who...
Jack Valenti "most likely will step down" in January as head of the MPAA and probably be replaced by Billy Tauzin, the Republican congressman from...
Jay Rosen, the NYU journalism department chair who writes at Press Think, sounds disappointed and discouraged by L.A. Times managing editor Dean Baquet's remarks this...
November 13, 2003
Yes, apparently. This twist in the Anthony Pellicano-wiretap story gets an airing by Jack Shafer at Slate, and on the ever-more irrepressible LukeFord.net. More background...
From the New York Times: Freak Storm Leaves Los Angeles Under a Foot of Hail...
The spoofy LALATimes, slogan "everything absurd under the sun," is looking for "a bone fide publisher and investors to guide and support it through its...
L.A. Times managing editor Dean Baquet spoke this week at a gathering in his hometown of New Orleans and began to address the fallout over...
Rip Rense says if he ran a newspaper he'd bring back typewriters and paper just to make the environs seem less bizarro. I had a...
Bill Bradley notes in the LA Weekly that the Schwarzenegger administration "is shaping up so far to be less bipartisan than advertised, even though it...
November 12, 2003
Nikki Finke takes the contrarian, ho-hum view of the Pellicano wiretapping stories. The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and Variety et al. would...
The L.A. Times chose syndicated columnist Robert Scheer to review the Rick Bragg book on PFC Jessica Lynch, and he makes of it about what...
While the MTA shutdown and the supermarket strike-lockout linger on, city attorney Rocky Delgadillo, council president Alex Padilla and councilman Jack Weiss are in Israel...
Emmis Communications, owner of Los Angeles magazine, is no longer a player in the bidding to buy New York, Keith J. Kelly reports in the...
L.A. blogger Arthur Silber is shutting down because the lingering MTA strike here has pummeled his finances, despite his predicament getting some attention in the...
I'm late tuning in to the Hollywood wiretap story, but it has caught my interest. The federal investigation of prison-bound private investigator Anthony Pellicano and...
November 11, 2003
Burt Pines used to be the elected Los Angeles city attorney and most recently has been the judicial appointments secretary for Gray Davis, helping the...
Bruce Cook was the books editor of the L.A. Daily News from 1984-90 and had been a senior editor at Newsweek and books editor at...
Odd little "Editorial Observer" piece by Brent Staples in yesterday's New York Times, pegged to Los Angeles and California. A correspondent writes that it was...
A listener upset with KNX 1070's cancellation of the nightly Drama Hour has launched KNX Revolt!, hoping to put pressure on advertisers. Comments continue to...
The book deals on Publishers Lunch this week include a sale by J. D. Lasica, a senior editor at USC's Online Journalism Review who blogs...
Kevin Arnovitz, the Fray editor at Slate, writes a confessional piece admitting that he is a Clippers fan and ponied up $1,700 for a pair...
November 10, 2003
Margita Thompson, the press secretary for Dick Riordan's campaign for governor last year, is going to do the same job for the new Guv. She...
Matt Welch clicks on LA.com, the new city guide beta site from Gannett and Dean Singleton's MediaNews Group, and finds it lacking. The team includes...
Ron White, a staff writer in the L.A. Times business section, was assigned to take a job as a replacement worker in the produce section...
Sue Laris, publisher of the Downtown News, writes in today's issue that city officials have been bullying her and other publishers over newsracks and she...
L.A. cops will no longer get a membership pitch from the NRA along with their new Berettas. Patt Morrison writes in the L.A. Times that...
Ralph Shaffer is professor emeritus of history at Cal Poly Pomona and the historian who put together the website (and book) compiling letters published in...
November 09, 2003
Jon Weisman, who blogs at Dodger Thoughts, points me to a surprising and pleasing L.A. history website: walteromalley.com. Walter O'Malley owned the Brooklyn Dodgers and...
The L.A. Central Library's Aloud program for this week: Wednesday, November 12, 7 p.m. NATHANIEL PHILBRICK "Sea of Glory: America’s Voyage of Discovery, the U.S....
The two-month-old blog low culture catches New York Times film reviewer Elvis Mitchell adoring Zooey Deschanel...and again...and again. Now other NYT fanboys -- er, make...
November 08, 2003
Joseph Mailander at Joyrides Without Maps could do without Virginia Postrel's free market philosophy, but it's her writings on style that really frost him:Ms. Postrel,...
Ex-mayor Richard Riordan has shelved his Los Angeles Examiner project, semi-officially, while he prepares to assume the advisory post of state education secretary. Riordan himself...
Journalists Mark Frauenfelder and Carla Sinclair and their two young daughters have returned to Los Angeles from Rarotonga in the South Pacific. Mark posts at...
Attention L.A. media party hosts -- in making your invite lists for the holidays, think twice about putting Slate's Mickey Kaus and the New York...
November 07, 2003
National Journal's Wiliam Powers surveys the architectural reviews of Disney Hall and awards Herbert Muschamp of The New York Times the prize for "baroque exuberance...
Brett Pulley in a Forbes magazine cover piece examines the Matrix franchise and says it has so far taken in $1.9 billion in gross revenue...
This week's New Yorker includes fiction from T. Coraghessan Boyle and a piece on the Los Angeles Iranian community by Tara Bahrampour, journalist and author...
November 06, 2003
Tim and Nina Zagat respond in the L.A. Times to David Shaw's criticism last month of their restaurant guides. Say the Zagats: Ever since we...
The bookstore has sent email to customers saying it will reopen in Santa Monica today at 5 p.m., in the new location at 1450 2nd...
Eugene Volokh usually teaches law and posts to his blog at UCLA, but this semester he's in a strange and alien place far, far away....
At CalPundit, Kevin Drum and many of his commenters are horrified by an L.A. Times story today on the debate over the handling of evolution...
Cathy Seipp's media column in today's CityBeat visits with the L.A. Innuendo team, out with their second issue of what they call L.A.'s scrappiest satirical...
Reuters' Dan Whitcomb followed up on Tuesday's post about the L.A. Times halting use of the term "resistance fighters" to describe the attackers of U.S....
Joan Kroc, widow of the McDonald's founder, left almost $200 million to National Public Radio. She listened to KPBS in San Diego before she died...
Mickey Kaus, self-described "Ward Connerlyite opponent of racial preferences," picks apart L.A. Times coverage of UC admissions practices and connects on some points. I actually...
Cathy Seipp asks on her blog if the online registration at LATimes.com is the worst on the planet. That's a rhetorical question, because the answer,...
Nikki Finke's LA Weekly column this week is about Rhonda Miller, who says she has yet to get an apology from Arnold Schwarzenegger or his...
Chicago film critics are joining their L.A. counterparts in dropping the handing out of awards unless Jack Valenti allows reviewers to receive screeners, Variety reports....
November 05, 2003
Mark Bowden's October cover story in The Atlantic, "The Dark Art of Interrogation" -- which explored the role of torture and other tactics in interrogation...
Nancy Rommelmann discloses how she and Hillary Johnson became acquainted, hooked up with Buzz magazine and rented a Hollywood office together -- nicknamed the Super...
Robert Tagorda at Priorities and Frivolities recycles this quote from former Reagan speech writer Peggy Noonan. Did she have certain bloggers in mind? Beware the...
November 04, 2003
After five days of testimony in the Scott Peterson prelim, lawyer blogs on the left (Talk Left) and the right (SoCalLawBlog) agree: so far they...
Courthouse News, the Pasadena-based legal website, has a blog by journalist Matthew Heller. His latest item is about a lawsuit against L.A. Focus magazine by...
The L.A. Times will no longer refer to the attackers in Iraq as "resistance fighters." The word came down last night from assistant managing editor...
Catherine Hamm, the L.A. Times deputy travel editor since 1999, ascends to replace Leslie Ward effective immediately. Freelancers and travel industry flacks should revise their...
Don Barrett at LA Radio.com says the response he's hearing to KNX dropping the Drama Hour "has been swift and mostly negative." He calls it...
Blogger Lonewacko's tour across the country stops in Gallatin, TN, hometown of his idol Huell Howser. Some knew The Enthusiastic One, most didn't. Lonewacko says...
The Downtown News' Jason Mandell has a feature this week on the designs for Disney Hall that were rejected -- as well as a look...
Nice interview at mediabistro with Nick Gillespie, editor of Reason. The libertarian magazine is nominally based in Los Angeles, but he is near Cincinnati. We're...
I hate to see anyone lose their jobs, but the decision by E! News Live to cut back to half an hour was overdue. Living...
Favorite L.A. blurb from this week's Publishers Lunch round-up of fiction sales, but try not to picture it: Lynn Isenberg's MY LIFE UNCOVERED, likened to...
November 03, 2003
A couple of liberal politics blogs, Joshua Marshall's Talking Points Memo and Atrios, are publicly pondering the pros, cons and blog ethics of taking candidate...
Laura Chick -- she's the city controller in Los Angeles -- has hired veteran City Hall hand Miriam Jaffe for the new post of director...
KNX 1070 has been airing nightly dramas for three decades, but the run ended Friday night with "War of the Worlds," LA Radio.com reports. The...
Bill Rosendahl, a familiar figure in local politics who has hosted public affairs shows on Adelphia for 16 years, plans to step down this month...
Back in August I observed on journalist (and former LATimesman) Phil Garlington's self-exile to the remote desert. Sunday he made the S.F. Chronicle and today...
Michael at Franklin Avenue compares and contrasts the fire coverage at KPCC, which has invested in a local news operation, with KCRW, which has gone...
He talks about Negro President: Jefferson and the Slave Power at LAPL's "Aloud at Central Library" program Tuesday night at 7 p.m. On Wednesday, Simon...
This is Arnold York's week in the L.A. Business Journal. The owner-publisher of the Malibu Times (with his wife Karen) is in the front page...
Dan Weintraub's California Insider reported Sunday night that Richard Riordan will be appointed Gov. Schwarzenegger's secretary for child development and education, probably today. Given the...
November 02, 2003
Rochelle Krich slips onto the L.A. Times Book Review bestseller list at #11 with Dream House, her novel of an "Orthodox Jewish true crime reporter...
The Seattle-based City Comforts blog -- "cities, architecture, the 'new urbanism,' real estate, historic preservation, urban design, land use law, landscape, transport etc etc from...
David Shaw and Andrew Sullivan both find Shattered Glass close enough to the truth -- uncomfortably so for Sullivan, a former editor of the depicted...
November 01, 2003
The Midnight Special bookstore won't reopen at its new location on 2nd Street in Santa Monica -- off the Promenade, its home until last spring...
Tim Rutten interviews disenchanted former Fox News producer Charlie Reina for today's Media Matters column in the L.A. Times. "Roger is such a high-profile and...
© 2003-2015 • About LA Observed • Email the editor
| The funeral for Mark Lacter will be held Sunday, Nov. 24 at 12 noon at Hillside Memorial Park, 6001 W. Centinela Avenue, Los Angeles 90045. Reception to follow.
Before I lived in Echo Park, there was a tiny 1920s bungalow-cottage-standalone house on N. Occidental in Silver Lake. I...
Get RSS Feeds
of LA Observed
of LA Observed
LA Observed publishes several Real Simple Syndication feeds for easy scanning of headlines. If you wish to subscribe to a feed, most popular RSS readers will do it for you. You can also enter the web address from the XML button below or click on a specific feed. For more help with RSS, try here or here.
