I have said it before and I'll say it again, the best designers on Project Runway this season are from Los Angeles. In my holiday wish, I see Rami Kashou, Sweet P, and Kit Pistol in the final three and visions of their collections on the runway in the finale. Christina Scarbo A.K.A. Kit Pistol created her alias during her time studying and working in Italy. You can find her designs at Jack Henry Couture......

Lisa Glatt, professor of creative writing at Cal State Long Beach, is on her way to the big time - and we couldn't be happier for her. Glatt's novel, A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That, has been optioned by Andrew Wagner. We're a big fan of Lisa's because whenever we see her at a local reading, she commands the room with her intense stories and mordant wit. It doesn't matter who she reads with,......

The very popular (and rightly so) Museum of Tolerance is pissing off its neighbhors. Since the museum opened 14 years ago, it has steadily gained worldwide mentions. Yet, all the visitors that arrive because of those those international mentions have the residents who live near the museum in a tizzy, claiming their West LA neighborhood has become a nightmare of big bus traffic, blocked streets and stolen parking spaces. All of this, they say, they......

That's an average of 90.1 mph for the 2,794 miles between Classic Car Club in Manhattan and the Santa Monica Pier in California. Get this, and no traffic stops, no tickets (that would cost a detrimental 15-minutes). Feel bad now about getting pulled over recently? Meet Alexander Roy and his 2000 BMW M5 and welcome to the "subculture of illegal endurance racing" and the efforts to break transcontinental records, as the New York Times......

If Heath Biter failed to give you a rotten feeling about the Kings' chances this year, how does a 5-1 drubbing to a division rival treat you? To make matters worse, the points weren't taken by, say, the San Jose Sharks or Anaheim Ducks - two Pacific Division sides boasting some of the best odds of winning the Cup. Instead, the LA players had their asses handed to them by the Dallas Stars, a......

Manny Pacquiao vs. Marco Antonio Barrera in Las Vegas....

Mayor Tony V. signed an ordinance Monday allowing the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery to have free admission. The Department of Cultural Affairs hopes the freebie will encourage more Angelenos to visit the gallery, which has been serving the community since 1951. Located at Barnsdall Park in Hollywood, the museum has been a venue for Southern California artists for decades. “The arts should not be a luxury available only to those who can afford......

Los Angeles is cleaning up after a wet weekend that drenched the southland and knocked out power to thousands. Want asthma? LAUSD is building seven new schools near freeways, despite scientific studies saying such construction could damage the children's lungs. Huell Howser is here. That's amazing! The city's neighborhood councils could be in for some major changes. Maybe now, you'll actually understand what they are. A Los Angeles man suspected of shooting his pregnant girlfriend......

So, you remember when the City had an issue knowing who the mayor of LA was back in November? Well, it appears there are still remnants of the Jim Hahn term of office on the LA City Website. As if the other issues affecting the Mayor's office aren't enough, now Villariagosa has a website that still has images of his predecessor (literally) floating around. As you can see in this screenshot, behind the "ONE" is......

Thousands of innocent Angelenos are expected to perish today when a highly advanced robot civilization descends on Westwood. However, the carnage is not expected to ensue until 8:15 p.m. so you'll have most of the day to get your affairs in order. That's right, the LA Film Festival is celebrating the glory of independent film with a mult-theater premiere of the multi-million dollar budgeted Transformers. Indie favorite Michael Bay directs. If such esoteric fare......

Free to Be… You and Me is a cult classic for many kids of the 1970's. Gwyneth Paltrow even credits this film as one of her inspirations to become an actor. Hey man, whatever floats your boat. First released in November 1972, and later in 1974 as a television special, "Free to Be...You and Me" featured songs and stories to illustrate and define core values such as individuality, tolerance, and happiness with one's identity.......

You know that beautiful corridor between Westwood and Brentwood on Wilshire - all that grass, and lack of skyscrapers, and what's the word: open space? It belongs to the Veterans. It's called the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs campus. George Bush and the feds want it, they want to be able to build on it, and lease or sell it to Big Business. And when it looked like the $120 billion Iraq War spending bill......

Here at LAist we faced a tough decision last year - to cover the Raiders or not cover the Raiders. With no football team, LA is in a rough situation. We pretend like it doesn't bother us and perhaps it doesn't bother some of us, but you know what, if it doesn't bother you then there's something wrong with you. So we were either going to cover the Oakland Raiders or the Chicago Bears......

The editor and publisher of the Pasadena Now website has decided that writers don't need to be in the city that they're writing about. Especially if they can be exploited for a fraction of the cost that Americans would ask. James Macpherson logged on to the Indian version of Craigslist and was able to hire two Indians to write on his site about Pasadena for less than $20k a year for the pair, by......

Former Senator Bill Bradley is currently on a book tour promoting his book, The New American Story, and LAist had the opportunity to hear him speak at UCLA through the School of Public Affairs on Friday before his appearance on HBO's The Bill Maher Show. About 35 students, political activists and fans came to hear Bradley speak. An esteemed resume, Bradley is a former senator and presidential candidate, basketball champion, Rhodes Scholar and Olympian.......

LA named one of the Best Places for Artists in America "... one of the reasons Los Angeles leads the list is because it has 56 artistic establishments for every 100,000 people, a diversity index of 84.2, and an arts and culture index of 100 (on a scale of 1 to 100)." (Business Week) City's Cultural Affairs Department gets new Head "I am thrilled to put forth such a visionary and inspiring leader as......

by Kathleen Bishop It’s easy to get sucked into Jonathan Green’s novel An Abundance of Katherines for selfish reasons: Protagonist Colin Singleton develops a mathematical formula to predict the outcome of any relationship. We'll be honest: LAist hoped it would work. Yeah, it’s a sad state of affairs when adults find themselves referencing young adult fiction for advice about their love lives, but Green’s story and characters are honest and clever enough that you probably......

Last night, Zócalo L.A. hosted a panel discussion at the Central Library to explore the question, “Who Really Runs L.A.?” The discussion, moderated by Mariel Garza of the Los Angeles Daily News, featured panelists Kerman Maddox, who works for public affairs consulting firm Dakota Communications; L.A. Weekly city hall reporter David Zahniser; political scientist and Director of Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at Cal State L.A. Jaime Regalado; and Los Angeles Magazine writer......

Grindhouse The Girl from Starship Venus (AKA The Sexplorer) is a space nudie starring Monika Ringwald as an astronaut from Venus who lands in London's swinging Soho district circa 1975. Her mission? To research sex customs on the planet Earth. This is paired with The Legend of the Wolf Woman, a 1976 horror film from Italy whose title pretty much says it all. A beautiful woman seeks men out, has sex with them then turns......

LAist has a pair of tickets for the April 18th complete showing of the opera, Tristan & Isolde at the Walt Disney Concert Hall featuring the LA Phil, Peter Sellers and video artist Bill Viola. This is no regular opera, this something else: "Tristan und Isolde is a tale of a love so overwhelming and intense it transcends mortal bounds. This project represents an exciting opportunity to collaborate with fellow artists Peter Sellars and......

Says the nerd... Maybe 5 questions were too much to start with? Maybe they were too hard. Sadly, with only one serious response and only one correct answer out of those five - it's a sad state of affairs for LA City Nerdisms. Let's help correct that by at least adding 5 new tidbits of LA City Nerdism into the vernacular: 1. Before the 2005 opening of LAPD's Mission Division in the San Fernando Valley,......

Recommended 13 Tzameti - French movie with an Eastern European sensibility about a young handyman who decides to follow instructions intended for the owner of the house he's repairing. He ends up in a remote house, where he is forced to take part in a brutal game of Russian Roulette in which only one of the 13 participants will survive. Bicycle Thieves - Criterion has released a DVD of Vittorio De Sica's 1947 classic......

A Word or 51: So last night it was either Klaus Kinski or American Idol - they're both abject and base pornography but Kinski won. Get home early today to check out the Winter X Games; other than some The Office reruns the CW seems to have the most new programming but that's not saying much. Tonight - Thursday - January 25th, 2007 The Caddy (TCM, 5:00 p.m.) Classic Jerry Lewis & Dean Martin......

Every week in Living in Sin, Jen Sincero provides advice to LA's sexually confounded. Sign up for her newsletter and have it sent to you every week. Ask Jen your questions: all are posted anonymously. Dear Jen, I've been dating a married man for a year and a half now. The reason he hasn't divorced is because his wife has Multiple Sclerosis and he feels responsible for her both financially and as a caretaker.......

Earlier this year USC Daily Trojan editor in chief Zach Fox's re-election got cockblocked by the SC VP of Student Affairs. USC, like many colleges has a process of choosing their EICs by having a staff vote followed by a conformation vote by a group consisting of students, staff, and faculty. Because Fox had the audacity this fall to request the financial paperwork in regards to the Daily Trojan from USC, the VP of......

While cruising the City of Los Angeles website, we learned something new: James K Hahn is still mayor! Oh wait, the Information Technology Administration, who is in charge of the website, forgot to take this down. And this is not the first time this exact incident has happened. Cultural Affairs had to 4 month learning curve to who the mayor was last year until we called the Mayor's office and heard a gasp over......

Bad News - Campus Muslims and Jews are sensing a bit of tension, which the Jewish Collegiate News says stems from the Muslims: “I hate that things like this happen,” [UCI Chancellor Michael] Drake responded, acknowledging that there has been speech on campus promoted by the Muslim Student Union (MSU) that is largely hateful. Drake called hate-speech “vile,” “awful,” and “stupid,” and said it is “weak” human beings who engage in such speech. The......

Oh man, Mom's in town and already she's all wah wah wah about how she wants to visit a museum. A real museum. Last time she was here she declared the Museum of Online Museums "not a real museum," and she got so confused in a bad way by the Museum of Jurassic Technology that she forgot to pick up the bill at dinner that night. Damn. You're not gonna let that happen again.......

by Evan Storey As the five-year anniversary approaches, instead of allowing the networks to saturate your mind with visuals of the twin towers tumbling yet again, do yourself a favor: think about it. Whether or not that Tuesday morning affected you directly, the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon undeniably changed...something. The Economist purports (subscription required) that September 11th was a turning point: It stands to reason that 19 men cannot change history.......

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has made an unlikely pal in rapper Snoop Dogg -- and the pair spent Monday night chatting at the glitzy Hollywood nightspot Skybar. - SFGate Celebrity rich girl Paris Hilton has demonstrated her grasp of world affairs by asking: "Who's Tony Blair?" - Sun Online "At its core, this show goes beyond just finding a new Pussycat Doll; it's about female empowerment, self-discovery and personal transformation," said Dawn Ostroff,......