Today was the day that the first Barbie doll made her debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York in 1959. Make fun of her all you want, but Barbie's an icon whose life has been far more interesting than any reality show, and yes we know if she were real her head wouldn't be supported by her body dimensions or some such thing, but come on. Even Dolly Parton named her......

It it 80 degrees on LAist's thermometer today | Photo by delara-photos via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Shivering puppies can remove their little sweaters: it was warm today, wasn't it? 80 degree weather, when it was cold and rainy a mere 48 hours ago. We're not complaining. Naomi Campbell was hospitalized in Brazil this week...no, not for "exhaustion," but for treatment and removal of a small cyst. Man, that's so uncontroversial!......

Grizzly Bear, via Grizzly-Bear.net Of all the indie bands with some sort of animal in their title, Grizzly Bear might be the top dogs. After all, can Deerhoof, Deerhunter, Caribou, Panda Bear or even Animal Collective claim they are co-headlining a show with the Los Angeles Philharmonic? Nay. It is just the Brooklyn-based quartet who will share a stage at the Walt Disney Concert Hall for a one night only performance with the L.A.......

I've always been intrigued by other "best of" lists, but this year I decided to take it to a whole new level. I e-mailed a handful of bands that I've seen this past year in order to unearth what exactly captivated them in '07. As music listeners, it is our duty to take a keen interest in our favorite musician's influences. After all, they rocked our little world, might as well see what rocked their......

I've always been intrigued by other "best of" lists, but this year I decided to take it to a whole new level. I e-mailed a handful of bands that I've seen this past year in order to unearth what exactly captivated them in '07. As music listeners, it is our duty to take a keen interest in our favorite musician's influences. After all, they rocked our little world, might as well see what rocked their......

Naked Ambition, book of photos of the adult industry by photographer Michael Grecco "Like everything else in this business, this is chaos." This is what Lonn Friend, Naked Ambition writer, told me when I showed up at the Naked Ambition signing at Book Soup in reference to the way the event was going. For an event full of porn stars, it was actually quite tame, and not so much chaotic as lackadaisical. But, I......

Transformers would have been perfect as a 20-minute demo reel for ILM. Instead, it's a long, dull live-action cartoon. And I still don't understand all the fuss about Shia LaBeouf. He's good. Not amazing. Good. No one saw A Mighty Heart at the theater, but it's worth a rental. Angelina Jolie the Actress has been replaced by Angelina the Star, but she doesn't get in the way of a gripping, horrifying story. No one......

Sometimes after work this LAist just wants to go home. He wants to kick off his shoes, have some dinner and turn in early. Sometimes, a friend who works "in the industry" calls near the end of the day and says that the girl who was supposed to go to this party or that premiere has bailed and asks what is this LAist doing tonight? On a night like this, this LAist would've usually said......

Artist: Small Sins Album: Mood Swings Label: Astralwerks Release Date: 09/25/2007 The Small Sins is a group led by former Carnations member, Thomas D'Arcy. Small Sins is his baby and you can tell as every song is almost, but not quite, overwhelmed by his presence. This album starts very solidly, with several outstanding tracks: the anthematic "I Need A Friend", the wonderfully banjo-infused "Morning Face", and potentially my favorite, the Magical Mystery Tour-esque "What Your......

Ten years from now we may look back at 300 as the movie that heralded the final shift away from the star-driven, mega-budget blockbuster paradigm. In an increasingly risk-managed world, why not spend 60 million dollars on a whole movie instead of 25 million on Tom Cruise or one of the Wills? Hot Fuzz signals the definite arrival of Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg that was so strongly hinted at in Shaun of the......

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix blew away not only the competition, but its own previous franchise records this week with a 140 million dollar opening 5 days. Expect Potter mania to reach its full flowering later this week when the 7th and final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, reaches stores. Transformers held steady at number two, dropping only 49% from the previous week (movies typically drop well over 50%......

Monday Lisa See discusses and signs Peony In Love 7pm @ Vroman's Tuesday Get ready for the big Holiday. Or, you know, read a book. Wednesday Celebrate the big Holiday. Read a book in the shade. Thursday Chris Nichols presents The Leisure Architecture of Wayne McAllister 7pm @ Vroman's Zenon Neumark presents Hiding in the Open 7:30pm @ Village Books Friday Recovery from the big Holiday if yesterday wasn't enough. Lay around. Relax. Read......

Snoop Dogg w/ The Snoopadelics, Dolemite @ Music Box (win tickets) Rodrigo and Gabriela @ John Anson The National, The Broken West @ El Rey Audreye Sessions, Day One Symphon @ The Echo Narcissistic Tendencies, Vette, Cirkus @ The Cat Club Trainwreck Riders, Black Diamond Heavies, Tim Seely @ Spaceland Woman's Worth, Barfer, Rose for Bohdan @ The Smell Funeral for a Friend, Alexisonfire, Emanuel, Fightstar @ The Troubadour Purple Gang, Tattooed Millionaires, Pistol......

Sex is something that drives us, empowers us and gets us into really stupid situations with people we have no business seeing naked. Jen Sincero is the bestselling author and sexpert with the carnal knowledge you need. Ask her your questions (all are posted anonymously). Cuz there's no such thing as being too good in bed. Dear Jen, I recently learned that a good friend of mine has a foot fetish and I’d like......

Morrissey @ Riverside Municipal Auditorium Anavan, The Shark That Ate My Friend, Bloody Robots @ The Scene Buddy, Softlightes, Robert Francis @ Silverlake Lounge The Front, Mezzanine Owls, The Dodos, Sunday Drivers @ The Troubadour Oliver Future, Jets Overhead, Distance to Empty, Galaxy Gran Prix @ Viper Room Flash Hawk Parlor Ensemble (with the Decemberists' Jenny Conlee and Chris Funk) @ Safari Sam's The Guesstimates, The Water Sound, No Little Kindness @ Mr. T's......

The Dodgers were swept. I was also yelled at by 3 traffic cops on my way to the stadium. Juan Pierre missed the sign for the squeeze. I had to look at Barry Bonds. Nomar represented the tying run with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th and he struck out to end the game on his own bobblehead night. I don't really want to talk about it right now. So instead I offer......

It's a website, it's a blog, being able to write is unnecessary, and browsing is rewarded. Tastespotting is the most simple concept that's more rooted (we're told) in porn than foodblogging, but and it totally works. The people who brought you the beautifully-done web 2.0 lovin NOTCOT (LA designers Jean Aw and Daniel Frysinger) joined forces with Friend-of-LAist Sarah of Delicious Life to create a blog that allows the user to sign up, find......

City Year is coming to Los Angeles this fall and is hosting their first annual "Alumni and Friends Fundraiser" Tuesday night in the Foundation Room at the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip. So what exactly is City Year? Founded in 1988, City Year's signature program, the City Year youth corps, unites young adults ages 17 to 24 in a year of full-time rigorous service during which they work in diverse teams to......

The LA Times has nominated five books in each of nine different categories for the 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. In the weeks leading up to the Festival of Books where the winners will be announced, LAist will take a quick look at each category and will wax poetic on a few favorites (or least favorites) along the way. The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher by Debby Applegate......

Friend: What did you do today? LAist: Well, we started the day off at the LA River Center in Cypress Park. Then headed to the Valley over to the Sepulveda Basin, where the river is at its wildest. Next was the verdant Glendale Narrows across from Griffith Park to see the new mini-parks. After lunch, we headed to the Arroyo Seco confluence where trash was everywhere, yet is near where LA was founded. Then......

This might be a good week to give your piggybank the ol' smasheroo and excavate your couch cushions for awol monies. The CD player NEEDS your donations. Don't delay. Rush out now in a buying frenzy. Here's a glanceable list of new noteables and rightous reissues being handed down today. Ten octzillion more after the jump... Arbouretum - Rites Of Uncovering (Thrill Jockey) The Bird & The Bee - Bird And The Bee (Blue......

Lee Ving @ Cafe 322 I Miss Lucy @ The Mint Kwanza Jones @ Temple Bar Cut Chemist, DJ Big @ Safari Sam's Winston Jarrett, Wadi Gad @ The Echo Instinct of Aggression, Ruin, Hate x 9, Grinefield @ Key Club Christian Xian, Bootleg, Army of Angels @ Mr. T's Bowl Pin-Up Girls, Malo Culo, Nitrate, Axiomatic Workshop, The Petes @ Roxy Sam Markus, Patrick Park, Priscilla Ahn, Willoughby, Angie Stevens @ The Hotel......

- Last night's strong wings caused a minivan to crash into a bus, killing two near Barstow - NYT - After 16 years of courting, the LA Times press operators join the Teamsters - 10News - Speaking of 16... 16 Google employees will owe the State of California about $380 million in taxes, which is enough to cover the salaries of more than 3,000 state workers - AP - Crime rate in LA went......

The Colour @ Spaceland Unwritten Law, As Fast As @ House of Blues The Spazmatics @ The Canyon High Places, Yachts @ Il Corral The Studiofix, Icy Core of Jupiter @ The Smell Wallpaper Airplanes, Tracing Amber @ Lava Lounge Suicide Holiday, Kilter Grey, Tom Korbee, My So Called Friend @ Viper Room John West, Chris Pierce (no relation), Kandace Lindsay @ The Hotel Cafe Kissing Tigers, Die Rockers Die, The Henry Clay People,......

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 came out a few months ago. The night I told my friend Pam about my sexuality we'd been flirting all evening, and she made a half-joking remark along the lines of: "is this your way of......

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, My best friend's fiancé flirts with me all the time. I hang out with them a lot, but every time she's not around, he crosses the line. He'll do things like tell me how pretty I look,......

“Is this chicken, what I have, or is this fish? I know it's tuna, but it says 'Chicken by the Sea.'” “On my first day of Jr. High I was in Geography class, and the teacher asked us if anybody knew the names of the continents. And I was sooo excited. I was like, Damnit! It's my first day of 7th grade, I'm in jr high and I know this answer. So I raised......

"Furtado recently admitted the LP is mostly about sex." - Life Style Extra "In a widely publicized salary dispute, Sirico and Van Zandt, who play Paulie Walnuts and Silvio Dante, respectively, for months refused to budge from their $200,000 per-episode asking price." - Hollywood Reporter "Even the sight of a naked man cartwheeling across the Centre Court grass did not distract Maria Sharapova during her Wimbledon quarter-final yesterday, with the Russian teenager keeping her......

Well, we can't promise that the star of Herbie: Fully Loaded will be at either of James Frey's readings in town this weekend but if she's going to make an appearance in New York, why not in her home base? Frey's new memoir, My Friend Leonard, takes up where A Million Little Pieces left off and covers a kind of father-son relationship that formed between him and another drug addict. Why Lohan connects with......

Friend of LAist (you didn't know we knew such cool people did you? Well, we do, even if only virtually), Christopher Rice will be reading and signing his new novel, Light Before Day, at the Border's Books and Music on La Cienega in LA tonight at 7:30 PM(and as an aside, how much does google local integration with google maps rock right now?). Are we allowed to say that we like Christopher's writing more......