Photo by Mac(3) via Flickr I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by the fact that there really just isn’t any new information about Bob Dylan out there. No groundbreaking insight into his cryptic lyrics, no new facts uncovered about his lineage, no crystallized understanding of his place in history. And yet the knowledge that no such nuggets are likely available doesn’t stop me from hoping, from dreaming, that the next Bob Dylan exhibit out......

Future designs aren't always this scary. (This is a robot arm that spins vinyl.) / Photo by Lush.i.ous via LAist's flickr pool. TALK SCI-Arc’s lecture series continues tonight with “Embrace Your One-Trick Pony.” On the dais is Robert Hodgin, founding partner of the Barbarian Group, an award winning creative marketing and design production agency. Hodgin now specializes in code processing and audio-visual experimentation in his designs. 7 pm // SCI-Arc // 960 East 3rd......

Barbarella plays at the Arclight tonight. / Photo by atomicshakespeares via LAist's flickr pool. SPOKEN WORD The NYC-based nonprofit organization The Moth brings its StorySLAM to LA every first Tuesday of the month. If you’re good a spinning yarns, then StorySLAM is for you. They provide the theme and the mic – you put your name in the hat and if you’re picked, you have 5-minutes to tell your story – no papers allowed.......

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......

So many events, so little time. Concete Frequency's latest installment is tonight and there's always Disney on Ice (skaters, not Walt), but here's a sampling of the other good stuff to be done in LA tonight. PHOTOGRAPHY Photo LA started today and runs through the weekend. It's the largest show dedicated to the art of the camera. More than 74 galleries will showcase thousands of photographs. There are numerous seminars on collecting and an Artist......

ART PARTY Gallery W13's Rebirth of Green/Pre-New Year’s Eve Art Party "will be a celebration of healthy living with nature and a tribute to the resurgence of all things organic. The focus of the evening will be all things creative -- art, film, furniture, music and food -- presented with organic and green flair." The night includes a film screening of Black Gold, a live Latin Jazz/World Beat DJ, and featured artists include Nurha De......

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,......

Sneaking into my seat in the Skirball Center’s small auditorium, I look around to notice that I may be the youngest person in the audience by about thirty years, with the exception of a painfully bored looking teen two rows back. “The truth,” the emcee is saying in a rich British accent as he introduces the show, “can be inconvenient.” Applause breaks through from the crowd at his tie-in to pop culture. He’s introducing The......

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......

If you see a litter and pack of puppies and dogs walking around Pershing Square tonight, it's a Downtown Dog Walk. Maybe you're downtown right now with your dog... Go, go, go! Speaking of non-humans, the state is considering a special path for animals on the Skirball Center Drive bridge. Environmentalists cheer, residents complain it's a waste of transportation funds. On that note of big spending, California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez is still not......

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 @......

Considering his films are rarely screened at theaters in the United States, most people haven't heard of the great Portuguese auteur and digital video innovator, Pedro Costa. Happily, a remedy for that is arriving tomorrow when the first comprehensive retrospective in North America of his work unspools at REDCAT. His documentary-style films often center on life in the slums of Lisbon and have received wide international acclaim. Screening schedule and extensive film info after......

Monday Diane Lefer discusses and signs California Transit 7pm @ Vroman's Chuck Barris presents The Big Question 7pm @ Book Soup Chris Abani & Al Young read their work 7:30pm @ Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater Tuesday Jonathan Cohn discusses Sick: The Untold Story of America's Healthcare Crisis 5pm @ Center for Healthy Communities, Yosemite Hall Reyna Grande presents Across a Hundred Mountains 7pm @ Book Soup Nicole Mones signs The Last Chinese Chef 7pm......

It's been a FleetBank tradition since 1998, as mentioned by our sister site Bostonist, but Bank of America has brought its annual "Museums on Us" promotion to Cali for the first time. Throughout the month of May, you'll be able to get into many Southland museums for free by showing your B of A ATM, check, or credit card, or MBNA credit card. So for once, the card that typically drains your bank account......

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......

Bonjour Tristesse As part of its ongoing Saul Bass mini-tribute, the Skirball Center will screen Bonjour Tristesse, a drama directed by Otto Preminger that stars David Niven as a suave playboy-turned-father and Jean Seberg as his pixie-ish daughter. Their dissolute existence of tromping across Europe from nightclub to cocktail party to casino is upended when Niven falls for the hopelessly upright Deborah Kerr. I also highly recommend the mildly smutty book by Françoise Sagan on......

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......

On Mulholland between Skirball Center Drive and North Casiano Rd. at the side of the road in the dirt, sits The Aranitas family taco truck. Yes, that's right, Bel Air has a taco truck too. Among the Skirball and Getty museums, it feels unlikely to find a taco truck parked here at this thoroughfare between the Valley and the Basin. But with nearly 4,000 taco trucks in LA County*, it's all about location. And......

"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......

AFI @ Bren Events Center Chris Elliott & Alan Zweibel @ Skirball James Ellroy @ Barnes & Noble, Santa Monica The Black Keys @ Amoeba The Nightwatchman, Aztlan Underground @ Roxy Army Navy, Ima Robot @ Safari Sam's The Like Young, The Good Listeners @ Silverlake Lounge Nitzer Ebb, Babyland @ The Avalon Silver Jews @ Henry Fonda False Witness, Kings of Spain @ Whisky White Whale, Laura Viers, Karl Blau @ Spaceland photo......

Zach Brooke @ Hotel Cafe Josie Cotton, The Leadership Crew @ Knitting Factory Brutus Gets the Girl @ Fais Do-Do Batlord @ Malibu Inn Don Caballero, Zombi @ Spaceland Oh No Oh My @ The Echo Skye, Joe Purdy @ Troubadour Mamadou Diabate @ Skirball The Watkins Family Hour @ Largo Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys @ Amoeba The Pets, Disalto, Hypnogaja, Rkyves @ Whisky The Magazines, XRAYOK @ Lava Lounge The Pretty......

"Lopez and producing partner Simon Fields have teamed with the [FX] cable network on the half-hour project 'Echo Park,' a comedic look at the world of yuppie, Latino and hipster cultures within Los Angeles' Echo Park neighborhood." ~ Variety After Automobile Club of Southern California & USAA dropped zip code-based auto insurance rates, State Farm, the largest auto insurance carrier in California, will cut premiums too. Lots of Police-Related News: LAPD's Crime Offensive on......

All the world's creatures... It's too late for the $1 tickets, but $12 ones are still available for tonight's powerhouse performance of Beethoven's 9th at the Hollywood Bowl with the LA Phil under the baton of Leonard Slatkin. If you haven't heard this from start to finish, you're really missing out. He is Alive! Skirball +AFI = Oliver Stone screening the 1969 political thriller, Z. The movie was not directed by Stone, but there......