Bikes and graffiti are on tap for today. / Photo by Lush.i.ous via LAist's flickr pool. GRAFFITI ART Ghettogloss presents the graffiti art of Jersey Joe in Silverlake. The exhibit runs until March 20, but the opening reception is tonight from 7-midnight. 7 pm // Ghettogloss // 2380 Glendale Blvd #C, Los Angeles // Free. RIDE & TALK * RIDE-Arc monthly ride -- themed "Trolly" -- happens tonight. The group rides along for awhile......

PEN USA hosts literary panels tonight. WINE Silver Lake Wine is hosting winemaker Maynard Keenan of Tool (yes, you read that right!), who’ll be pouring his Caduceus wines at the shop. Call for reservations: 323.662.9024. 7 pm // Silver Lake Wine // 2395 Glendale Blvd., Los Angeles // $20. FILM The Pan African Film Festival started yesterday and runs until Feb. 18. Not only does the festival screen films, but it also holds workshops,......

THEATRE Orson's Shadow is an expansion of Austin Pendleton's drama that first ran a few years back at the Black Dahlia Theater and is now at the Pasadena Playhouse. It's a behind the scenes look at life in the theatre and the intermingling lives of some legendary folk, like Orson Welles, Laurence Olivier, Joan Plowright, Vivien Leigh, and drama critic Kenneth Tynan. We're told the set--a theater-within-the-theater--is stunning. 7:00 p.m. // Pasadena Playhouse // 39......

ART: Downtown’s Art Walk happens the second Thursday of each month. The Art walk is a monthly, self-guided tour of the art exhibition venues in Downtown Los Angeles, which includes commercial art galleries, public museums, and nonprofit arts venues. Museum of Contemporary Art on Grand Ave (MOCA), Los Angeles Public Library Grey Goose, LA Artcore Center are just some of the places on the Walk. 12-9 pm // Downtown Art Walk // Downtown Los......

This Thursday and Friday, Los Angeles will see the first return in 30 years of one of its more singular musical forces: Ya Ho Wa 13. Active from 1969-77, the band produced nine LPs – and recorded enough for fifty-six more - of stunningly original psychedelic rock. Hardly anyone ever got to hear them, however, since they were entirely self-released and only available at the Source Restaurant on Sunset and Sweetzer during the last......

For those of you who remember the Masque (and those of you wishing you remembered the Masque), Brendan Mullen, The Echo and Swindle Magazine will be presenting Punk Veteran's Day 2007 Sunday at the Echo. Come celebrate the release of Live at the Masque: Nightmare in Punk Alley, a book of previously unreleased photos, posters and flyers compiled and edited by Brendan Mullen and Roger Gastman. Sunday, November 11, 2007 3pm til ? Echoplex +......

Astro Family Restaurant is a venerable Los Angeles institution located a hop, skip, and a jump from the beautiful shores of Silver Lake. Astro has graced the glamorous corner Glendale Blvd. and Fletcher Dr. since 1974. Silver Lake has been through many changes over the last thirty years. It went from a neighborhood known for being dingy and overrun with gangs to a neighborhood that is trendy and is overrun with hipsters. Through all......

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 based artist Tom Neely has been on my radar for a long time, so I am really looking forward to his first solo show here in L.A opening this weekend! (Stay tuned for my interview with him next week!) A child with many allergies growing up, Neely spent a lot of his youth in bed reading classic comic books. Trained as a painter, the comic book influence is still clear. His art has......

Some may ask why Ghettogloss wants to have some douche walking around in a gorilla suit every Thursday, but we at LAist accept it for what it is: another excuse to be ridiculous in Silver Lake. This Ghettogloss place describes themselves as a "Fine Art Gallery, Art Rentals, Retail Store & More". But we can only assume when they say more, they mean some poor guy sweating it out in a gorilla suit so......

Leave it to the Atwater Village Newbie (at what point are you no longer "new"?) to fill us in on something that we had no clue about. Not only is our favorite neighborhood on Glendale Blvd. hosting their Street Festival this Sunday, but there's also going to be a freakin HOMEMADE COOKIE CONTEST! According to the rules (.pdf), if you think you've got what it takes, and baby we know you do, bring your......

Come out and support local music labels and artists at A Community Record Fair, presented by Dublab and The LA Record this Sunday, May 20 at The Echoplex. Record labels, stores, DJs and independent collectors will offer new and used vinyl, CDs, DVDs, cassettes and collectible rarities. Visual artists, bookstores and clothing designers will also present their creative gems at special prices. For artist olive47, who designed the stuffed creatures above, this will be......

Here's the second entry in our special pre-Valentine's Day series of PDLs (Public Displays of Lovelessness). Once again, I'm not sure if this is viral marketing (after the faux Toronto bridezilla, I trust no one), but this was spotted on Glendale Blvd. in the Silverlake area.......

At the corner of Glendale Blvd. and Branden Street in Echo Park (or is that Silver Lake? Will we ever know?), a brave knight guards the threshold of what appears to be an abandoned storefront. There's lots of random crap behind the building, so something's definitely happening in there. There is no other signage on the building other than the knight on the transom, and the windows are either boarded up or obscured with......

We'd meant to give you a weekly offering of storefront art, but it's been a tough couple of weeks for us. First, we noticed that the bakery on Glendale Blvd. -- who had already painted over their wonderful rendition of the Cream of Wheat man with a plain white wall, only to replace it with a more freeform, swarthy, eerie version even better than the original -- had once again painted over their wonderful......

Los Angeles has many hidden treasures, but nothing in this town is as precious as the Bob Baker Marionette Theater. Located at the edge of Echo Park on Glendale Blvd, the theater has entertained several generations of Southern Californian children. You never forget seeing a Bob Baker Marionette show. Unfortunately, Bob doesn’t sell videotapes of the shows due to issues involving music clearance rights so seeing the show live is your only opportunity to......

We're still waiting for the Dine for America site to launch with the details of their nationwide event to benefit Hurricane Katrina survivors through local restaurants' generous participation. Meanwhile, we've got our eye on a couple of the many local happenings that promise good eats and drink with proceeds going to help this extremely worthy cause. Our friend at Eating L.A. tipped us off to the Silver Lake Wine hurricane benefit, which is this......

Writer Michelle Huneven delves into all aspects of life in Southern California, from the material to the spiritual and everything in between. She is the author of two published works of fiction, Jamesland (2004) and Round Rock (1998), as well as many pieces of non-fiction journalism. She’s also familiar to readers as a former restaurant critic for the LA Weekly. 1. Age and Occupation: 51, Writer 2. How long have you lived in Los......

LAist shed a big fat tear of pity for Los Angeles Times writer Lynell George who was probably forced at gun point to write today's oh-so-lame story, "What is hip?" So, like a dutiful hostage corporate soldier, she interviews both John Leland about his new book Hip: The History and Laren Stover who has recently authored Bohemian Manifesto: A Field Guide to Living on the Edge, which tracks the lifestyle. The story yields nothing......