TALK Michael Alexander, author of Jazz Age and the Jews, will discuss Jewish life in the roaring 20s, including performer Al Jolson, Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter and mobster Arnold Rothstein in the lecture “‘Mammy, Don’t You Know Me?’: Al Jolson and the Jews.” He’ll discuss the 1920s as a heyday of Jewish culture, but why many identified with groups that remained marginalized. Book signing and dessert reception will follow. 7 pm // Davidson Conference......

Tonight’s the next installment of the LA Phil’s Concrete Frequency series, but here are other options we've dug up for your going-out pleasure: DANCE Hollywood Ballet is LA's own modern ballet ensemble. Tonight's show includes premieres of "RQ 21," set to sections of Mozart’s Requiem; "Ghost Frog," set to music by Parisian jazz guitar virtuoso Pascal Vaucel; lyrical/Middle Eastern fusion dance set to the ballet music from Verdi‘s Aid. Dancers from the troupe’s pre-professional group,......

Stuck in the muck of collegiate winter fun (and by fun I mean endless hours of non-comprehension of Middle Eastern languages and religious legal texts, staring and pretending to read as your eyes begin to learn to work under the constant rain of exhaustion), I, in my perpetual procrastination mode, rummaged through my emails to find the title "The Wolf of Wall Street" leap out at me. Needless to say, I was as ecstatic......

The Los Angeles Michelin ratings are out! No three-star restaurants for LA, and many Angeleno foodies are already complaining about the non-starred status of places like Lucques, Grace, and JAR. They couldn't get Ackroyd? Meryl Streep will be playing Julia Child in the upcoming movie adaptation of the book "Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen." The sequel will be based on Carol Cooks Keller, hopefully. The kids over at......

Tonight - Tuesday - May 1, 2007 NCIS/The Unit (CBS, 8-10:00 p.m.) This week the gimmick is a blind photographer - dude, what's your Flickr site?/Parachute malfunction Brando (TCM, 8-??) Biography of Marlon Brando followed by several of his films, starting with A Streetcar Named Desire. Dateline NBC (NBC, 8:00 p.m.) Boys confess to 2004 murder of 12-year-old girl Gilmore Girls/Veronica Mars (the CW, 8-10:00 p.m.) Lorelai eating, drinking, shopping, karaoke/Veronica investigates vandalism of......

Los Angeles-based defense attorney Stefani Schaeffer wins 'Apprentice: Los Angeles'. Isn't that nice, Ivanka has a new intern. - Chicago Sun-Times Modern Middle Eastern Artists from Traditional to Graffiti @ LACMA, Sunday, April 29th. Interesting. - Persian Mirror LA Times, Chicago Tribune will cut a combined 250 employees. - IHT Drew University sues Los Angeles County for $125 Mil for the mishandling of operations at King-Drew Medical Center - CBS2 Basinger 'hires bodyguard for......

On this, the first night of Hanukkah, a holiday that commemorates a successful Jewish revolt against an oppressive king, it seems fitting to honor Judaism's most valiant heroes. Forget all the great thinkers, activists, comedians and football players us Jews have spawned. I'm talking about the leotard-loving, cape-wearing crusaders of the Jewish Hero Corps, a slew of Semitic superheroes with an array of incredibly dorky and uniquely Jew-y super-powers. -- Minyan Man turns into......

"As Home Educators from all over the State pack into the Ontario, California Convention Center, Friday, July 7, Guitar Coach Jean Welles gets ready to make good on her boast that she can teach almost anyone to play the guitar in 7 minutes." - Topix.net "Ten people were arrested Wednesday at the now-defunct South Central Farm as protesters tried to prevent bulldozers from plowing over the 14-acre urban garden". - CBS2 "The combination of......

We don't often talk religion on LAist. Who knows, we may all be happy heathens merrily going about our online lives without a spiritual care in the world. But today, this LAist contributor went to church for the first time in who knows how long. The scene was Shepherd of the Hills in Porter Ranch. There were some interesting things said today but we don't want to talk about the sermon. No, we want......

Most people are familiar with the work of LA performance artist Paul Zaloom through his role as the host of the popular children’s science show “Beakman’s World” in the '90s, but he’s also a widely admired puppeteer/artist and imaginative satirist. His work incorporates techniques such as overhead projection, government document exposé, “picture performance”, and hand, rod, shadow, found object, and dummy puppets. On Wednesday, January 18, 2005, Paul’s latest project, “The Mother of All......

Sure, we talk a lot about The Grove--some of it good, some of it bad. But sometimes we forget the deluxe mall mecca's next-door neighbor: The Farmers Market. And, yes, it's a bit of a tourist trap. But it's also one of those places that if you leave it be for a while, and then give it a revisit, you can find that it has a great deal to offer. For us, the best......

Well, it's another month in magazine publishing, so it's another month's list from the folks at Los Angeles Magazine. This time, like they do every year, they're apprising their readership of their picks for the "Best" in LA. We've noticed over the years that there's no particular method to their madness, just for them to make mention of 101 things that have struck their fancy this year in this city. In looking at their......

As Chowhound.com -- the once relatively obscure über-food lovers' website -- becomes increasingly well-known to the world at-large, it becomes less of a sweet hound and more of a daunting monster. The site’s most active discussion boards, LA included, amounts to a deluge of information and opinions. For the impatient, too much info can be a definitely bad thing. But it is a good thing to have someone who culls through the spirited virtual......

Egads, the weather has been lovely lately, hasn't it? Makes us almost ready to forgive Mother Nature for the torrential rains, winds, and mud. Last weekend was so nice that we thought we ought to get out of the house and into the heart of the city, so we did a little "resident tourist" number and plotted out a hearty walk and photo-taking tour of some spots in downtown LA. We started off the......

Dance the night away in Santa Monica on Saturday, September 11 at the "Eastern Fusion Jam" hosted by Dance Home as part of its weeklyWorld Dance Night sacred music collective series. "Eastern Fusion Jam" is a group of musicians, including Jamie Papish and other top talent, that improvise using Middle Eastern and Indian rhythms & scales creating music that is both tranquil and ecstatic. Check it out Saturday night at 9:30 PM; DJs will......