A bookish extravaganza hits LA this week, as the book industry attends Book Expo America at the Los Angeles Convention Center this Thursday through Sunday. While the expo is for publishers, booksellers, educators, librarians, agents and other industry professionals, (it's not a public event like the LA Times Festival of Books), LA booklovers will benefit from the hundreds of authors that are scheduled to sign their books this week in venues all over town. From......

Today is Day 2 of a 2-day visit for the Green Living Expo, taking up residency in the West Hall of the LA Convention Center. The event includes a plethora of eco-focused vendors and exhibitors on hand to demonstrate their products and pass on information, including "green" body care, groceries, sweet treats, cleaning products, clothes, cars, and many more. There are big names like Ford and Vons, and smaller companies (a couple of which, like......

Human Giant unleashed itself upon an unsuspecting public last year via MTV and the bell just rang for Round 2 - are you ready? There's sketch comedy, there's underground sketch comedy, there's in your face on-the-streets sketch comedy, and then there's Human Giant, a team that presents, in each episode, collections of bits that are more like experimental movies than the sketch comedy we've been seeing for the last 15 years. There's plenty of parody......

It's cars! It's girls! It's flashing lights! It's...the LA Auto Show! Feel the excitement! The Infinity girls sure are feeling the excitement! This year's show is two weeks earlier than last year's and longer than it's ever been - 12 days (two press days and 10 days open to the public). Unfortunately, the lengthy show seems to have taken it's toll on most of the booth staffs, most of the guys and girls given......

The WGA has just announced that they will go on strike beginning first thing Monday morning. The WGA West is currently holding a press conference and its members are in the midst of being notified. Last night, over 3,000 members of the guild crowded into the Los Angeles Convention Center for a standing room only meeting at which they were told that the negotiating committee was unanimously recommending a strike. A council of the......

Hollywood remains in a state of flux as it waits to see whether or not writers will trade in their pens in favor of picket signs. The contract between the WGA and the AMPTP expired at midnight last night with little fanfare other than continued antagonistic rhetoric between the two negotiating parties. Discussions yesterday were again fruitless, and mired in the contentious atmosphere that has been a constant since bargaining commenced. The day began......

This sounds fun... or not: the Apartment Owners Association Convention is this week at the convention center downtown. Here's another fun fact: they will be discussing how they can get the California rent control laws abolished, according to a number of housing advocate groups, including the locally based Coalition for Economic Survival and Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights, in a press release this week: Dozens of seniors, elected officials, mobilehome tenants and tenants’ rights......

Guitar Hero was in full-effect at E-For-All I must admit that after three bleary-eyed, sore-footed days stumbling around the Los Angeles Convention Center like Nicholas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas -- to objectively write about the E For All experience is difficult. On one hand, the inaugural show has been rightfully panned by most mainstream media outlets for a variety of reasons. Many big gaming companies, Sony, Microsoft, Activision, and Square to name a......

Ninitendo Wii demonstration units at the 2007 E for All Expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center Nintendo extended an invitation for a female writer from LAist to meet Perrin Kaplan , VP of Marketing for Nintendo at the E for All Expo. I sent my R.S.V.P. and planned to check out the latest games and technology that Nintendo has to offer. Now I should tell you that I know next to nothing about......

Sure, the inaugural E For All doesn't really hold a candle to the bloated spectacle of old E3, but then again, the new low-key Santa Monica-based E3 doesn't hold a candle to the old E3 either. And sure the big guns (Sony, Microsoft and Capcom) didn't show up, the LA Convention Center's South Hall is only half full with exhibits, crowds have been disappointingly light and the power went out Friday night, ending the......

Brady Westwater at the blog, LA Cowboy, asked some fair questions on his blog yesterday about the former head of the city’s transportation department, who was fired last week: “Why Did The Press TOTALLY Fail Us On The Gloria Jeff Disaster?” After some research, he found that “not a word was ever printed about her past” – if that’s true, Gloria Jeff is in the wrong business. Get this woman to a PR firm......

Wired Nextfest in Los Angeles....

Don't forget to enter our Arcade Fire ticket giveaway contest for their Thursday appearance at the Hollywood Bowl. Lobster Festival in San Pedro continues through tomorrow, as well as WIRED Magazine's NextFest at the convention center. Immigrant experience, community and the "delirious noble dream." LAist Editor-At-Large Carolyn Kellogg reviews 'The Last Chicken in America: A Novel in Stories' by Ellen Litman for the LA Times. Long Beach is the first to begin mandatory water......

Starting today and running through Sunday, WIRED magazine is kicking off NextFest, a four day festival of technology, business, and innovation at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The festival will feature a series of exhibitions and events featuring all things tech. From the website: "WIRED's vision of a new World's Fair, WIRED NextFest is a four-day festival of innovative products and technologies that are transforming our world. This year's NextFest in Los Angeles features......

Best headline, as found at the California Progress Report: "Scientific Study Reveals That Conservatives Lack Brain Power – Unable To Break Bad Habits, Correct Mistakes." Yesterday's tentative ruling on an Echo Park apartment rent control lawsuit has "implications for about 26,000 people who live in rent-controlled buildings and receive federal subsidies." So far, the people are protected. The only major event for the Los Angeles Fire Department was a morning crash between a Gold......

It's a full moon and the earth is shaking. Three small quakes within a hundred miles of Los Angeles in the past hour alone, according to the U.S. Geological Survey Web site. Perhaps unscientific -- though seemingly never "gamed" or exagerrated -- is the USGS "shake map" at right. Within 30 minutes of tonight's 3.2 magnitude shaker centered near Granada Hills, over 700 people went to the site to report shaking intensity. Hover over the......

Many are aware of Damien Goodmon's inspirational transit project, Get LA Moving. Now, with the advent of the Google 'My Maps' Feature, anybody can dream up their Los Angeles transit plan. And that's what Chris Gerstle has done by creating the Dodger Blue Line:My conceptual subway line: "The Traffic Dodger; Dodger Blue Line.". Features access to many popular attractions, notably: Dodger Stadium, Sunset Strip, West Hollywood, Hollywood, L.A. Live, Staples Center, Convention Center, Union......

Thousands of video game addicts, cosplayers and booth babe fans shed tears last year when the Entertainment Software Association announced that it would be scaling back the size and focus of future E3 Expos. The game industry and fan bacchanalia had previously attracted a record attendance of over 60,000 visitors and 400 companies in 2006. Instead of being held at LA's own Convention Center, the "more intimate" show will take place this year in......

Attention all gamers: Guess what, there’s a new video game expo in town. No, I’m not talking about the enormously underwhelming downsized version of E3, but an aptly titled “E for All” convention. Amidst the drug-infused connotations of the show's title, E for All will be a more consumer-based spectacle geared directly towards nerdy and sexy gamers alike. From the E for All website: “Entertainment for All™ Expo (E for All) is the event......

Written and photographed for LAist by Cecil Castellucci, author of The Plain Janes and Beige. More pics available here. Yesterday, I went to go check out the action at the LA Convention Center, which is playing host to Star Wars Celebration IV. It was the preview Fan Day for the Official Star Wars Fan Club members. I'm member number one bagazillion. I'm not going to lie. I have a love hate relationship with Star Wars.......

Although it's probably not true, and if it were, hard to believe, 30 years ago LAist was around 10 years old. And let's pretend that when we were around 10 a movie came that summer out that the newspapers claimed to be "The New Western". Let's also pretend that when you're 10 years old you don't wanna go to any lousy New Western no matter what the tv commercials are showing you - for......

The third iteration of BarCamp LA is in full effect with a record number of attendee/participants. BarCamp is an ad-hoc un-conference produced, attended and presented by enterprising media/tech/Internet junkies, worker-monkeys, and inquiring civilians as an alternative to the overly-corporate, overpriced mega-conferences that commonly occur at the Convention Center, Loews Hotel, or somewhere-in-the-Bay Area. Still don't get it? Just come on down, BarCamp is free (thanks to sponsors) and its fun. Day one is winding down......

He's probably best known for his "Hi How Are You" tshirt that Kurt Cobain often wore, but if you don't know Daniel Johnston's music you're really missing out and you should definitely pick up the award-winning DVD, "The Devil and Daniel Johnston". Equally amateurish and darkly genius, Johnston's tunes lie somewhere between Brian Wilson and Wesley Willis while being heavily influenced by the Beatles. He took to the stage yesterday at the Convention Center......

Wanna know why LAist has four writers at SXSW all of whom paid their own way? Because LA loves music and LAist is obsessed with good tunes. Below are just some of the killer acts playing today here in Austin. Yes be jealous, but better, come here next year and party with us. LA Bands: 4pm: Ozomatli @ Austin Convention Center 8pm: The Chairs of Perception (formerly Urinals) @ Soho Lounge 10pm: Dengue Fever......

Even though the blogosphere has over 75 million blogs, Hugh MacLeod is easily one of a kind that stands out. His cranky cartoons on his blog Gaping Void are so loved that when Hugh figured out a java script solution to get them syndicated on blogs everywhere, they were picked up by thousands of fans. Known for bashing ad firms ("If you talked to people the way advertising talked to people, they'd punch you......

Gentlemen (and real estate robber barons), start your engines! Today’s LA Times reports the city plans to sell 9 million square feet of unused air rights above the LA Convention Center to developers, and at the bargain basement price of $20 per square foot. For the unacquainted, air rights are what developers like Donald Trump usually have to quietly buy up in order to build a ginormous new tower. Turns out the land around......

Yesterday we showed you an interview from upstairs of the Austin Convention Center at SXSW where companies are answering questions about their Internet- and film-related products. Today, thanks to the Houston Chronicle, who took this footage above, we can show you a small glimpse of what's happening on the bottom floor of the Convention Center, in the video game area -- where things are getting mighty interactive. There you will see the new Nintendo......

Have you ever wanted to immerse yourself in Soccer Shangri-La? Can't afford a quarter of a billion dollars to play with a European icon? Not even a lengthy vacation in Brazil? OK, we've got a freebie that will kick your weekend into high gear. Time for all you soccer moms to gas up the team bus -- errrr, SUV -- and head to the Soccer Nation Expo this Saturday at the LA Convention Center. Over......

OMG we'd be so pissed! After willing $1 to each of his five siblings, Theodore DiFiore, who at 79 years old, passed away in late 1990, donated the rest of his fortune -- $442,173.77 -- to the city of Los Angeles! And nobody knows why! We looked to see if perchance Mr. DiFiore misspelled LAist or LAUSD or the LACAAW, but after close examination it does appear that the man gifted free money to......

This third and final part of our 3 day photo coverage of the 2006 LA Auto Show features pictures from the import tuner floor. Our first part covered new designs and concepts, our second part covered the exotic car room. You can still make it out to the show of course up until December 10 at the LA Convention Center, admission is $10. More photos after the jump.......