Don't try this at home -- or at the Civic Center Metro Station. / Photo by puck90 via LAist's flickr pool. TRANSIT TALK Metro is studying alternatives for connecting the Gold, Blue and Expo lines through downtown Los Angeles. This study will examine linking the future Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension (near the Little Tokyo/Arts District Station) and the 7th Street/Metro Center Station. Tonight Metro will update the public on the project and allow......

Van Hunt plays the Temple Bar tonight, Feb. 19 and March 6 | Photo via his MySpace page In an e-mail early, early, early this morning, McCabe's announced something unexpected: The Swell Season will be playing tomorrow night in the guitar shop's intimate performance space. You may not recognize the band's name, but you know them as Irish singer Glen Hansard and Czech pianist Marketa Irglova from the movie Once. The gig got booked......

FILM ”Cinema Legacy” – a series in its 7th year by the American Film Institute and the Skirball Cultural Center – brings in filmmakers, actors, writers to discuss the origins of their own artwork. Tonight, director Jason Reitman introduces 1999’s Election – starring Reese Witherspoon-Matthew Broderick – as the film that inspired him to become a director. 7:30 pm // Skirball Cultural Center – Magnin Auditorium // 2701 Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles // $6-$10. ART......

WORDS SCI-Arc’s spring lecture series on design and architecture kicks off tonight with Jeffrey Kipnis, professor of architectural design and theory at Ohio State University. Kipnis will discuss “happy,” “zany” and other important political trends in architecture. So the title of his lecture -- *@$#*!#!! -- does make sense. Kind of. 7 pm // W. M. Keck Lecture Hall SCI-Arc, 960 East 3rd Street, Los Angeles // Free. MORE WORDS David Frum is a former......

MUSIC: Machine Project is back with an evening of experimental folk music mix. The evening features the sounds of Ryan Fuller, Julie Carpenter, Laura Steenberge, Ruthann Friedman, rickyricky, Pilar Diaz, Pawko and Marshweed. 8 pm // Machine Project // 1200 D. N. Alvarado, Downtown // Free. THEATRE: The Anteus Company presents two nights of eight Noel Coward plays. Night Two takes place tonight featuring the plays: Come The Wild - Red Peppers, Fumed Oak,......

Monday Edmund White presents Hotel de Dream: A New York Novel 7pm @ Central Library Patricia Hampl presents The Florist's Daughter 7pm @ Dutton's Red Hen Press poets read their work 8pm @ Boston Court Main Stage, Pasadena Tuesday Oliver Sacks presents Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain 7pm @ Central Library Roger Director presents I Dream in Blue 7:30pm @ Barnes & Noble, The Grove Francisco Goldman presents The Art of Politcal......

There’s something for everyone in LA theatre scene this week: love, families and a little blood sucking...and if you don't like paying for your tickets but want to see what LA theatre is all about, then check out the LA Stage Alliance's Free Night of Theatre 2007. The Last Schwartz In this poignant comedy, the Schwartz siblings have gathered in their childhood family home for the one-year anniversary of their father's death. Ya gotta love......

Monday Porochista Khakpour presents Sons and Other Flammable Objects 7pm @ Dutton's Kenneth Turan presents Never Coming to a Theater Near You 7pm @ Studio City Branch Library Tuesday Susan Faludi presents The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America 7pm @ Central Library Max Brooks presents World War Z 7pm @ Book Soup Walter Mosley presents Blonde Faith 7:30pm @ Skirball Cultural Center President Vicente Fox discusses and signs Revolution of Hope......

Tarfest, the La Brea pits' very own arts fest, launches this year -- its fifth -- next Friday. Created both to celebrate the Miracle Mile and to provide the opportunity for artists and audiences to discover each other, Tarfest is free, unlike certain other Sunset Junctionlike festivals one could name. Find the full schedule here; highlights include: Friday, October 5: Gallery exhibition ( and reception featuring musical performances at the Korean Cultural Center, 5505......

Monday Bjorn Lomborg presents Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming 7pm @ Central Library Terry Pratchett presents Making Money 7pm @ Borders, Torrance Randall Robinson presents An Unbroken Agony 7pm @ EsoWon Books Tuesday Carol Muske-Dukes presents Channeling Mark Twain 7pm @ Vroman's Cathy Malkasian presents Percy Gloom 7pm @ Book Soup Gilbert Hernandez presents Chance in Hell 7pm @ Book Soup Leslie Garis signs House of Happy Endings 7pm @......

Monday Jonathan Lethem discusses You Don’t Love Me Yet 7pm @ Central Library (one!) Susan Diamond signs What Goes Around 7pm @ Dutton’s Tuesday Joe Boyd presents White Bicycles: Making Music in the 60s 7pm @ Book Soup Jonathan Lethem presents You Don’t Love Me Yet 7pm @ Vroman’s (two!) Dani Shapiro signs Black & White 7pm @ Dutton’s Etgar Keret reads The Nimrod Flipout 7:30pm @ Skirball Cultural Center Wednesday Natsuo Kirino presents......

Monday Dave Winfield signs Dropping the Ball 7pm @ Vroman’s Tuesday Michael Collier Over the Mountains 7pm @ Dutton’s Dave Winfield signs Dropping the Ball 7pm @ EsoWon Books Wednesday John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry sign This Moment on Earth 6pm @ Dutton’s Sarah Thyre presents Dark at the Roots 7pm @ Book Soup Rebecca Walker discusses Baby Love 7pm @ Vroman’s Bill McKibben in discussion with Tom Curwen on Deep Economy 7pm......

Monday P.J. O’Rourke signs On the Wealth of Nations 7pm @ Book Soup Adam Gopnick reads Through the Children's Gate 7:30pm @ Skirball Cultural Center Tuesday David Mamet signs Bambi vs. Godzilla 7pm @ Book Soup Edward Humes signs Monkey Girl 7pm @ Vroman’s Norman Mailer discusses Castle in the Forest with David Ulin 7:30pm @ Writers Guild Theater Daveed Gartenstein-Ross presents My Year in Radical Islam 7:30pm @ Barnes & Noble Santa Monica......

Brrrrrrrrr... did you enjoy cuddling under your blankets last night during that blast of cold weather? Don't forget that it snowed in Los Angeles less than a year ago (and will SCV be so lucky?). Maybe this is Los Angeles' way of saying hello to Beckham with a little frosty cold treat. We're enjoying it. After all, some of us are transplants. Besides the top stories that you probably already know by now, A.M.......

"They're giving it away free? It must be good!" Put on your best pair of ripped jeans and a collared shirt (floss it, of course). It’s time for all the broke posers of LA to pretend they’re cultured! You can’t miss with the second annual "Museums Free-For-All" day on Sunday, October 1. Of course, those broke non-posers will probably realize that most of the 20 participating museums are normally completely free (Getty Center, California......

Last night I had a dream I was walking on an empty freeway with a martini in one hand and a beedog in the other. Bathrobe clad with a cigarette dangling from my mouth like Valley of the Dolls meets The Color of Money, I flag down Mr. T, who is speeding by on a tractor while singing “Private Eyes,” by Hall and Oates. We exchange knock-knock jokes and arrive at an oceanfront condo......

Marshall Astor loves San Pedro something fierce. He is a working artist who not only manages programs at Angels Gate Cultural Center but also operates the Walled City art gallery in his spare time. He's organized a group show at the Brewery Project called "Contemplating Apocalypse" that will debut on September 9, 2006 with a reception starting at 7 PM. Custom brewed malt liquor will be on hand and patrons will be encouraged to......

Two Months. Two Comedies. One Hillside Location. We are excited for Say The Word and Says You! to come to the Skirball Cultural Center: Lachrymose Laughter Comedy is a true art form too and Say The Word makes sure of that. Those writers who make us laugh at their sit-coms and books still have more to say. But this time, it is their first-person and non-fiction stories - commercial free. Grab a table, buy......

When it comes right down to it, UCLA professor, Pulitzer prizewinner, evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond is all that. Guns, Germs and Steel is about how societies evolved; Collapse is about how they disappeared. Tonight he'll be speaking about one, or the other, or perhaps what happens in-between at the Skirball Cultural Center. Tickets are still available; they're not cheap, but $20 is still less than you'd pay to register at UCLA. The nonprofit organization......

L to R: Janet Dulin Jones and her dog Warren, Charles Dickens, and Paul Lazarus. Writer Janet Dulin Jones has been working on a screenplay, now a play, about the life of Charles Dickens since 1990. Director and co-writer Paul Lazarus has worked with her for the past 3 years. Now they've collaborated with the Antaeus Company, Los Angeles's classical theatre ensemble (Pera Palas, Mother Courage, Chekhov x 4) to bring Dickens to the......

Photo by Ibarionex Perello Bookblogger Laila Lalami of MoorishGirl will be reading from her new book, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, tonight at 7:30 pm at Beyond Baroque in Venice. Lalami, although currently a SoCal expat, lived in Los Angeles for many years. She wrote this on her blog about coming back for a Duttons' reading yesterday: "I hadn't been back in Los Angeles more than an hour when a Land Rover honked at......

Grab a jacket, some friends and get out of the house. There are plenty of free gigs to keep you occupied. SATURDAY, 10/8 Catch Hot Club Quartette at Cafe Z in the Skirball Cultural Center followed by a free screening of Algeria in a Smile. The show starts at noon. Call (310) 440-4500. DJs Michael Stock and Benjamin White of Part Time Punks continue their residency at MOCA. The show starts at 6pm. It's......

Tonight, we could've been going to see Liz Phair at the Troub but we'll be bar crawling in Santa Monica and Venice instead. We thought we were too old for the crawl but someone else's birthday wishes suggest we're not. Tomorrow is the Project Surf vs. Skate art exhibit at the Project: Studio in on Venice in LA featuring a ton of artists and a few photographers. The show runs til September 3rd but......

Writers Bloc presents prolific author Joyce Carol Oates in conversation with David Ulin at the Skirball Cultural Center tonight, June 21st, at 7:30 PM. Tickets are $20. Reservations suggested. You can call Writers Bloc at (310) 335-0917.......

We sure hope the folks at World of Wonder transcribe and post the presentation of Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey (WOW's principals) when they discuss Paul Verhoeven's STARSHIP TROOPERS on Thursday, April 21 at the Skirball Cultural Center. Wouldn't it be great if they then added a video copy of the presentation to the inevitable "Starship Troopers Special Edition"? That would another DVD release of the same film special indeed. The fun starts at......

Local political junkies are slowly turning their attention from last week’s election to the upcoming City Hall races. The Mayor’s race is attracting the most attention due to the high-profile challengers to Mayor Jim Hahn, though both of Hahn’s fellow City-wide elected officials—City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo and City Controller Laura Chick—are up for re-election. The seven eight odd-numbered Council districts will also hold elections, with six seven incumbents seeking re-election and Councilmember Cindy Miscikowski......