Junot Diaz at the Hammer Museum/Osmany Rodriguez for LAist The thing about author Junot Diaz is, one minute he’s on the phone with you, rapping about meringue, Malcolm X, comic books, and how shit never gets done on time in the Dominican Republic – and the next minute, he’s winning the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. He describes himself as just another ordinary, poor immigrant......

As noted earlier in a brief, the LA Times, having eaten more crow than a Lance Armstrong-Eric Clapton Constructicon, have fully retracted their most recent annual Tupac Article. Among other things, the March 17 article and related Times publications reported that newly discovered information supported Shakur's claims that associates of music executive Sean "Diddy" Combs orchestrated an attack in which Shakur was injured at the Quad Recording Studios in New York on Nov. 30, 1994.......

Photo by specialklikethecereal via Flickr And so it ends... for now. Pulitzer Prize winner Chuck Philips' Tupac Shakur story from March 17 has been officially retracted and with a lengthy explanation. It begins... The article, titled "An Attack on Tupac Shakur Launched a Hip-Hop War" and written by Times staff writer Chuck Philips, purported to relate "new" information about a 1994 assault on rap star Tupac Shakur, including a description of events contained in......

A million people can't be wrong, right? Metro has released six well-produced television spots featuring a man harassing interviewing Metro riders on why they Go Metro. MetroRiderLA says he might be a little "douchey," yet the spots will most likely and hopefully be effective. We think it will too, especially for those who like to have more time to play Soduku. One of the photos taken early last week amidst the wildfires was one......

I made my way to the yellow covered tents at the far end of the WeHo Book Fair fifteen minutes early, for the panel that had made me cream when I read about it. Moderated by Hilary Carlip, “Cracking Up: Women on the Verge of Laughter” was a discussion with five female writers whose work ostensibly falls under the heading “comedy”: Beth Lapides, Cathryn Michon, Meghan Daum, and Erika Schickel. I’ll be frank –......

The West Hollywood Book Fair, now in it's sixth year, will take over West Hollywood Park this Sunday from 10am - 6pm. We like to think of the WeHo book fair as the calmer, cooler cousin to the LA Times Festival of Books - great authors, excellent panels, live readings and good food - but much easier to navigate. As with any festival, planning the who/what/when is key...especially when trying to pack it all into......

According to Berkeley Breathed's official website, this morning's and next Sunday's "Opus" comic strip will be pulled from a "large number" of newspapers around the nation including The Washington Post. The famed Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist of "Bloom County" returned to the funny pages in 2003 after an 8-year hiatus, and it appears that he is back where he belongs, getting under the skin of the conservative and easily-offended. Metafilter has an interesting thread about......

Last night's free Zocalo program at the Central Library featured L.A. Weekly food writer Jonathan Gold in conversation with Variety's Monica Corcoran. Her first question: Did winning the Pulitzer Prize (for criticism, this year) blow your cover as an anonymous food critic? And if so, this evening won't help, will it? Gold sheepishly admitted that he can no longer be quite so anonymous. He went on to talk about topics ranging from the opening......

Be glad not to see this play during holiday season "because the disappointments of our families last all year long... This ain't no X-mas story," as the slogan goes. The Los Angeles premiere of The Long Christmas Ride Home by Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel (How I Learned to Drive) is an intense and visually beautiful production that combines Thornton Wilder story telling, with bunraku puppet theater and noh dance. Puppetry, when done well,......

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Halberstam died yesterday in a car crash in Menlo Park, CA. He was 73. Halberstam’s work as a journalist ranges wide and delves deep. He covered the Korean War, the Vietnam War and civil rights but he was also fascinated with the humanity and spectacle of sports. He did not simply document the history he lived through – he explained complex societal constructs and cultural shifts in a way that anyone......

LA named one of the Best Places for Artists in America "... one of the reasons Los Angeles leads the list is because it has 56 artistic establishments for every 100,000 people, a diversity index of 84.2, and an arts and culture index of 100 (on a scale of 1 to 100)." (Business Week) City's Cultural Affairs Department gets new Head "I am thrilled to put forth such a visionary and inspiring leader as......

Will someone please start putting some cameras in the LA Times building? It wouldn't be much different than The Real World meets Survivor, with people having to live with each other even though they don't want to, and either quitting or getting fired in very bizarre power plays. Today episode involves the Times Ed Page editor Andrés Martinez, who resigned today out of protest when the paper announced that it would not run the special......

We would never say our excitment or coverage of the yearlong 365 Days/365 Plays festival is exhaustive (after all, we have been to 17 of the 18 weeks so far, that equals too 119 plays seen, experienced, enjoyed, enthralled upon, etc). 1. It's Free, duh. 2. You are taking part in an international festival (plays are concurrently happening all over the states, including a few across the seas). 3. Playwright, recipient of the MacArthur......

By day, Terence McFarland is known throughout the LA theatre community as the Executive Director of the LA Stage Alliance, a reputable non-profit service organization dedicated to building awareness, appreciation, and support for the performing arts in Greater LA. After leaving the fashion industry in New York City to attend CalArts for a master's degree, he quickly found his role as a leader helping solve problems within the experimental art school's bureacracy of BS. It......

Columnist Art Buchwald passed away peacefully on Thursday at the age of 81. He was best known as a political satirist who helped keep the Washington establishment in check. Though, as he observed, "If you attack the establishment long enough and hard enough, they will make you a member of it." Buchwald left his mark locally, too. He was a USC alumni and made the school proud when he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1982.......

On 13 November, 2002, I had this silly idea that I would write a play every day for a year. It would be about being present and being committed to the artistic process every single day, regardless of the ‘weather.’ It became a daily meditation, a daily prayer celebrating the rich and strange process of a writing life ~ Suzan-Lori Parks Hey, LAist writes everyday too. How strange that we share this habit with......

La America Tropical, the once-controversial, then painted over mural is coming back to Olvera Street thanks to the city and The Getty: The mural, one of three done during Siquieros' six-month stay in Los Angeles, depicts an Indian being crucified on a double cross topped by an American eagle. The piece, depicting the struggle against imperialism, was considered so controversial at the time that it was painted over shortly after it was finished. Here......

Taking a stance against Valentine's Day can only be best suited by seeing the EAR Unit tonight at REDCAT. The L.A. based new music group will perform tonight with some holiday treats and surprises by the artist collective - Empire of Teeth. Tonight's feature is the world premiere of Ellen Taaffe Zwilich's LUVN BLM. Zwilich was the first woman composer to win the Pulitzer Prize. The EAR Unit has always been at the top......

Big news — that conservative cartoonist Michael Ramirez was hired by Investor's Business Daily after losing his gig with the LA Times — was reported last week, by LAObserved and others. But the other shoe, which is probably more financial than anything else, dropped this week, when the Copley News Service syndication outlet confirmed that it would continue to distribute Ramirez's right-leaning cartoons to newspapers around the country. Now, it's true that Ramirez won......

It looks like the Los Angeles Times is changing hands. The New York Times reported today that LA Times' publisher John P. Puerner will step down on May 31, citing the need to take "a self-imposed career break." Jeffrey M. Johnson, current executive vice president and general manager, has been named to succeed Puerner. The Chicago Tribune reports that editor John Carroll will remain with the paper. Despite five Pulitzer Prize wins last year,......

• Tonight at UCLA Live, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet will be speaking at 8 PM. Tickets range from $25-35, or $15 for UCLA students. • At 7 PM, the Hammer Museum, author Marilynne Robinson will be reading. Her novel Gilead was one of the top 10 books of 2004 according to the New York Times. • MOCA Pacific Design Center hosts Royal Art Lodge artist Jonathan Pylypchuk for a free art talk at......

It would be well worth your time—despite the rain and Nile-during-flood-season conditions—to get to the Troubadour tonight and see the Drive By Truckers (also known as the warrior poets of rock 'n' roll) performing with Centro-matic and Runner & The Thermodynamics. Doors open at 8:00 PM and tickets are $15.00. At 7:00 PM tonight, head for UCLA's Hammer Museum for a reading by award-winning poet J.D. McClatchy, whose most recent book—Hazmat—was a finalist for......