Around LA Observed

• Eric Estrin and the LA Observed Script Project were featured tonight on the KCAL news at 8 pm and 10 pm and the Channel 2 show at 11. Eric says the fresh script pages to be posted this week break new ground and "push our story toward a satisfying conclusion." LAOSP
• Denise Hamilton remembers the L.A. punk rock scene and Darby Crash, who "lived fast, died young and left a needle-tracked corpse." Native Intelligence
• Bill Boyarsky delves into why eating and shopping at LAX are so disappointing. In L.A., it always comes back to campaign contributions. Boyarsky
• Mark Lacter is enjoying the slightly lower gas prices, but says the oil companies aren't pulling all the strings here: "The economy is way too messy for that. This is not a Frederick Forsyth plotline." LA Biz Observed
• Jenny Burman is discovering just how messy the neighborhood council thing can be. Chicken Corner
• Veronique de Turenne celebrates her second anniversary at Here in Malibu.

The photograph is kind of special. The Leg was shot outside an Olympic Boulevard stocking shop in West L.A. in 1949 by Max Yavno, the subject of Judy Graeme's latest post at Native Intelligence observing notable photographers of Los Angeles. "His black-and-white photographs stand out as some of the best visual records of the urban landscape of post-World War II Los Angeles," she writes. The Leg, and other images by Yavno, are featured in the show now at the Huntington, "This Side of Paradise, Body and Landscape in L.A. Photographs."

Photo: Max Yavno, copyright The Huntington Library, Art Collection and Botanical Gardens