Weekly archive
July 26 - August 1, 2009
Saturday, Aug. 1
Today's L.A. Times follows on our Thursday night news about the Festival theater closing and adds a triple whammy of bad news for Westwood: Mann is giving up its leases...
Friday, Jul. 31
My commentary today talks about the murder of 17-year-old Lily Burk and the strong reaction it has evoked in the city. The piece airs at 4:44 p.m., can be heard...
See more from Steve Greenberg in LA Sketchbook...
Nice science column in today's Wall Street Journal by Robert Lee Hotz on the lost art of restoring and conserving masterpieces. It's set at the Getty, which is spearheading a...
News and notes are after the jump. Also see Mark Lacter's morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and follow Mark and Kevin on Twitter....
Thursday, Jul. 30
Hat tip to the New Beverly Theater's Twitter poster for noticing that the Mann Festival has put up a final message to patrons. Known previously as the Egyptian (and as...
The film writer's affiliation with Variety has finally played its last note. She posts there that as of Sunday night, her Thompson on Hollywood brand will be housed at IndieWIRE....
Most nights, it seems, one window remains brightly lit on the west face of the City Hall tower. Lisa Napoli emails that she and her neighbors on Bunker Hill watch...
The Center for Investigative Reporting received more than 600 applications for its new California Watch project. The winner, to be announced soon, is Lance Williams, who has been part of...
The Go-Gos tool around early '80s Los Angeles in a convertible, vamp outside Trashy Lingerie on La Cienega and frolic in the electric fountain at Wilshire & Santa Monica in...
Lamar to sign a four-year deal for $33 million, J.A. Adande reports at ESPN. Broderick Turner at the LAT agrees. Dodgers note: They get lefty reliever George Sherrill for two...
Patt Morrison will be talking to Eric Spillman of KTLA, whose blog post I mentioned here yesterday, and I presume others about Mayor Villaraigosa jetting off to Iceland so soon...
"Forget the exterior," Gehry says in this recent interview at the Aspen Ideas Festival, via Curbed LA. Covering the interior in wood cost an extra $5 million, and was...
It's an unanswerable question probably, but the LA Weekly's Christine Pelisek says police are puzzled by an aspect of the Lily Burk murder. Surveillance video shows the 17-year-old walking with...
Manny Ramirez and his Boston Red Sox teammate David Ortiz were among the 100-plus major league players who tested positive for performance enhancing drugs in 2003, the New York Times...
Cari Beauchamp took her deep personal umbrage at Native Intelligence the other night, and now you can add the LAT's Kenneth Turan to the list of Hollywood and film aficionados...
Ron Kaye's new organ for his activist brand of politics and news, OurLA.org, ran a long piece yesterday claiming to debunk the "meltdown myth" regarding the 1959 nuclear reactor incident...
News and notes are tucked away there after the jump. Also see today's Mark Lacter morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and follow Mark and Kevin on Twitter....
Wednesday, Jul. 29
Another lawsuit has been filed against the city of Burbank by officers (or former officers) in the city's police department. This is the second suit alone by former detective Christopher...
This evening's Which Way, L.A.? on KCRW sets up the discussion this way: "The murder of 17-year-old Lily Burk has received saturation coverage. Does a brutal crime contain any lessons...
Who is the first female Congress member mentioned on The Hill's new list of the 50 Most Beautiful hill people? Why, our own Rep. Maxine Waters, who comes in at...
The Huffington Post is moving ahead with its long-talked-about local pages for Los Angeles. The site has "yet to set a launch date but is actively looking for the right...
The Times and Register have announced a deal in which L.A. Times delivery people will deliver both papers. The Register will thus become the Times' largest commercial delivery client. If...
L.A. Times publisher Eddy Hartenstein has turned to the San Diego Union-Tribune for his newest executive. The post is a hybrid that carries the title of Executive Vice President/Business and...
News and notes are hidden after the jump. Also see today's Mark Lacter morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and follow Mark and Kevin on Twitter....
Tuesday, Jul. 28
Vin Scully told Bill Plaschke tonight that if he feels OK this winter he'll come back to the Dodgers next season — his 61st — but then that's it. Retirement?...
Museum director Michael Govan announced the film program will be closed and rethought — audiences were down, he said. LA Observed contributor Cari Beauchamp, an author and film historian, calls...
The Daily News is looking for an online breaking news reporter to replace Jason Kandel, who is moving to KPCC as online managing editor. Job description is after the jump...
Mayor Villaraigosa has been busy online today, sending out Twitter updates (and email) on his new Ask a Mayor feature, replying to this morning's dissing of LAX and, just forty...
A Los Angeles County Superior Court jury today assessed $370 million in damages against Guess? Inc. co-founder Georges Marciano for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress in a case...
Today's front page of the Wall Street Journal talks about Hamilton High senior Kenya Mejia receiving $1,800 to plug the movie "I Love You, Beth Cooper" in her valedictorian address...
Yesterday on Twitter I re-tweeted this affectionate parody of Huell Howser on a road trip of another sort, but forgot to post it here. The creator calls it California's gold...
The L.A. Times does Ted Kennedy no favors with this one: Sen. Kennedy: An article in Sunday's Section A about Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's role in Congress' healthcare debate said...
Steve Greenberg picks up on the lost story of the California budget mess. The crunch and the political fallout of kids being kept out of college in California — and...
An LA Observed reader grabbed this screen shot of the half-digested front page that appeared on the Los Angeles Times website when he clicked print edition this morning. Still no...
Los Angeles International now ranks as the world's sixth busiest airport, just behind Paris' Charles de Gaulle. Of course, on any ranking of airport amenities, transportation, signage or comfort of...
News and notes are hidden after the jump. Also see today's Mark Lacter morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and follow Mark and Kevin on Twitter....
Monday, Jul. 27
It seems the Pacifica radio station just can't keep a GM. Here's Sean Heitkemper's resignation letter to Grace Aaron, Interim Executive Director of the Pacifica Foundation, after just a year:...
Wired magazine's Mark Horowitz has created a Zee Maps-assisted guide to the Los Angeles locations in Thomas Pynchon's novels and real life, based on the presumption that "Pynchon, the paranoid...
Eric Jaye, Gavin Newsom's longtime political strategist, tells the San Francisco Chronicle's Matier and Ross that "there was a fundamental difference in how to run" the mayor's campaign for governor....
The Washington Post has a new TV critic in Stuever, whose job will be "exploring the medium across the many platforms and in the many ways it now traverses our...
Police said today that they took transient Charlie Samuel into custody by 5:30 p.m. Friday on drug charges in Downtown. They now have a pretty horrific chronology of the events...
Gawker just put out the word that the site's new West Coast editor will be Richard Rushfield, currently at LATimes.com. The note from Gawker's editor in chief is below (and,...
When Jack Klunder returned to the Los Angeles Times in 2005 to run circulation, the crowing from Spring Street was that he was a brilliant choice to turn around the...
Isabel Kaplan is 19, got her book deal when she was a high school junior, and now is enjoying "Hancock Park" hold a spot on the L.A. Times bestseller list...
The memo to the sales and marketing staff says it's Steve Gellman. External announcement to come later, tied to a launch (finally?) of the Los Angeles Times magazine website. Remember,...
This week's exploratory subway drilling is scheduled for Monday and Tuesday at San Vicente and Gracie Allen (that's near Cedars-Sinai), Wednesday in UCLA parking lot 36 near Wilshire and Veteran,...
Sunday's New York Times published a letter to that newspaper's public editor from the publisher of L.A. Youth, the paper run here by teenagers, commenting on a column about how...
Police announced that a 50-year-old man named Charlie Samuel has been booked on suspicion of murder in Friday's killing of 17-year-old Lily Burk. A press conference is scheduled for 11...
Some week-starting news and notes for today are after the jump. For a quick look back at the past week at LA Observed, click here. Also see today's Mark Lacter...
Sunday, Jul. 26
Esa-Pekka Salonen's house in upper Brentwood has gone on the market for $4.1 million. It has six bedrooms, 5.5 baths and a chilly Scandinavian demeanor throughout. Check out the sauna...
After the U.S. waived the visa requirement for South Korean tourists, and Seoul loosened controls on foreign investment, Koreatown was expected to take off. Instead, the Los Angeles Business Journal...
City Council President Eric Garcetti grabs Wendy Greuel's old suite on the fourth floor where they keep the elected inmates. Same square footage but more windows, says Rick Orlov at...
The formal title is Chief Content Officer, and the employer is Radio Bilingue. The project takes a little more explanation. A major new public media programming service in Los Angeles...
We've all seen the enormous white thunderheads build up on summer afternoons out beyond the San Gabriel Mountains, over the Mojave Desert. Photographer Gene Blevins chases the storm cells; check...
