Sherman Oaks and South LA made national news yesterday when a Los Angeles native, now based in Oregon, became the latest decried author who penned a fraudulent memoir. Yes, Margaret Seltzer grew up in the Valley, no Margaret B. Jones (her non de plume) did not gangbang in South Central as her book said. Today, the fallout came in the form of experts giving quotes to the media about this reoccurring theme. What first comes......

Get Your Lit On: The Week in Bookish LA includes some outstanding readings this week from some fine, fine writers including Maggie Nelson, Anne Enright, Colm Toibin, Toby Barlow, Amy Hempel, Peter Carey, John Rechy, Martha Grimes and Russell Banks....

Can we now add eating habits to the long list of modern relationship deal-breakers? The New York Times published a pre-Valentine's Day article this morning discussing the difficulties couples face when their diets are dramatically different: Ben Abdalla, 42, a real estate agent in Boca Raton, Fla., said he preferred to date fellow vegetarians because meat eaters smell bad and have low energy. Lisa Romano, 31, a vegan and school psychologist in Belleville, N.Y.,......

UPDATE: Looks like the forces of Truth, Justice and the Irishican Way prevailed everyone - It's not hard in here for a Once after all: "The Academy’s music branch executive committee has met and endorsed the validity of 'Falling Slowly' as a nominated achievement. The committee relied on written assurances and detailed chronologies provided by songwriter of 'Falling Slowly', the writer-director of Once and Fox Searchlight." So there you go - The good guys......

For those of you who might not be familiar with the story, this is a tale of suspicion, revenge, and MySpace gone terribly wrong. In 2006, Lori Drew of Dardenne, Missouri, invented a fake profile on MySpace pretending to be a young boy named "Josh". Her intent was to use "Josh" to romance and keep tabs on her daughter's ex-best-friend, Megan Meier, who Drew believed was harassing her daughter via MySpace. "Josh" also "friended"......

James Jean signing at Gallery Nucleus....

Somehow "The Tonight Show" scored a trifecta of controversy tonight as they were able to book the most punk rock of punk rock bands, the most conservative member of Congress, and the wackiest Scientologist all to appear on its air in the same hour. Tonight the Sex Pistols, Ron Paul, and Tom Cruise will all be in Burbank to tape the late night chat show. Strangely, whatever wire service the LA Daily News used......

Welcome to the all fire, all the time edition of Extra Extra! The weather is not expected to abate until tomorrow, and fire fighters are still days away from containing major blazes. The New York Times is liveblogging the fires; they are reporting that over 500,000 people have been forced to evacuate so far (although other reports are estimating up to one million people have had to flee their homes). The Daily News is......

A few months ago I came home from work to find one of my roommates sitting on the couch with a glass of wine in hand. From the time I first met this friend, one thing was very clear: he loved wine. In fact, he had a very special relationship with one brand in particular, Charles Shaw. Good ole' Two Buck Chuck was a loyal friend to my roommate all through college. Chuck had......

There is so much cool stuff going down tonight, you’d better start chugging that Red Bull!! First, the Hammer Museum will be celebrating the closing night of Eden’s Edge: Fifteen L.A. Artists. Admission to the museum will be free(!), and DJ Tendaji Lathan will spin the soundtrack as you enjoy the cash bar and the works of L.A. artists Ginny Bishton, Sharon Ellis, Matt Greene, and Jason Rhoades (who is sadly no longer with......

Hell, this may be illegal, but if the LA River plan is going to crawl upstream at a snail's pace, screw it -- the time to play is now! Not when we're 75 years of age. We caught this father/son urban adventure duo in Sherman Oaks paddling downstream towards Studio City. "Is this a tradition?" we screamed down. "Nope, it's our first time," the dad yelled back. We asked how he came up with......

Hadrian over at Cinefile in West L.A. just sent us the heads-up for a great event going on at the Silent Movie Theatre this Wednesday, 8/15 at 9pm. Brent Green is an animator from rural Pennsylvania whose unique style has drawn comparisons to Tim Burton and Adam Jones. Hadrian blogs: Brent Green an untrained, completely original animator from rural Pennyslvania, who plays music along with his short films, while narrating them live in freeform,......

With his long awaited sophomore album, Desire racking up favorable reviews from the likes of The Source, Pitchfork, USA Today and The New York Times it's safe to say that Pharoahe Monch is back and better than most would have ever expected. Unlike many in the alternative hip hop scene, the Queens native who made rap fans around the world "Get the fuck up" in 1999 remained relevant despite an eight-year gap in between projects.......

Okay, first on my list are the $42 nine-course tasting menu at Tagine, cheap but tasty Belizean rum, and a cabeza taco at Taqueria Chihuahua: the LA Times shares some of the best dining deals in the city. Jonathan Gold's been on a Korean kick lately over at the LA Weekly: this week he discovers the best fried chicken in K-town, if not the city, and last week he spent time with a former......

According to an article in today's New York Sun, Boll is being sued by the New York Post Co. for trademark infringement. Whither the scuff up? ...

So Paris has officially been on lockdown for two days now, twenty-one to go. Arriving at the Lynwood detention center she was sentenced to, at 11:15 pm on Sunday night, sources say she was “quiet” as she went through her medical screening that did NOT include the regulatory cavity search. She then changed into her orange jumpsuit and was escorted to her cell where as of now she has no cellmate, but there could be......

- Facing deportation? Try gang tattoos. - Burbank is the only city in the county named for a dentist. How did other neighboring cities get their names? - Daily News comes out of the closet with a 6-day series on porn in the Valley. There's a blog too. - The New York Times visits a new cupcake shop opening up next week in Santa Monica and talks the sweets up with the Eater LA blog......

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......

- Video of a US soldier being held hostage in Iraq - Jawa Report - Mr. KFI KABC hangs up on himself - LA Observed - Maltese Falcon stolen from Frisco Restaurant/Museum - LAT - The delicious tale of two new LA chocolatiers - LA mmmm Times - Most people will spend about $119 on their sweetie today - Daily News - The New York Times interviews several local radio stations about whether it's......

It's always fascinating when old media attacks new media, and today's example takes on yours truly, LAist. In a piece about Best Of lists on websites, the New York Times leads with this oddity: "As any media consumer knows, this is the season of the list." First of all, in this, the era of YouTube and TiVo and 54 million blogs, is there really such a thing as a "media consumer"? Isn't everyone a......

With clothes made in downtown Los Angeles, indie fashion manufacturer American Apparel is about to be sold for $382.5 million to a "little-known" investment firm. The New York Times reports that the company, founded by the always entertaining Dov Charney, will announce its sale tomorrow. The new owners? Endeavor Acquisition Corporation, owned by Jonathan J. Ledecky, who will keep Charney on as CEO. The sale is almost as surprising as the history of American......

Green freeways last week. Green rooftops this week. “I do charity work, but I don’t do charity work for major studios,” says Russell Crowe. The New York Times takes a look at the Museum of the American West. 7 banks have been robbed in downtown Glendale since July while city officials look at downtown area's future. Under Secretary for the Preparedness Directorate, part of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), George W. Forseman......

The New York Times has launched a new Best Seller List for Political books and it's available online only. This move is surely meant to drive more traffic to their site and also the political list being online will hit a smaller number of people - including those who are say savvy to politics, being online, and the New York Times. So just what are the pundits reading these days? Here are this week's......

People probably expected Luchadores at the rally but did they expect Filipinos? The New York Times joins the Clipper Nation. Online Karaoke can't really be the next myspace can it (and would anyone have gotten it if we had made a "Your mom's in my business" reference here?)? Lost returns tonight with new episodes all the way til the finale. There's a whole new Hanso Foundation site and they even issued a press release......

It's good to be a live music fan in Los Angeles. We regularly get the opportunity to see shows that people in other cities (with the exception of New York) don't get to see. Last week we attended three "special" performances. Sun 4/2 - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Silversun Pickups played a benefit show at Spaceland. Silversun Pickups wore their fancy clothes and played sitting down. Usually they put on a sweaty, energetic......

Southern California is so big that it's easy to lose sight of all its treasures, especially living ones. In our myopia, we tend to think that most writers identified with our region all live west of I-15 and south of I-405. Novelist Susan Straight challenges that presumption just as her work challenges so many other notions about race, class and Californian culture. A lifelong resident of Riverside, Susan has authored five novels, including "Highwire......

Betty Friedan, one of the founders of American feminism, died yesterday on her 85th birthday. Her 1963 book The Feminiine Mystique focused on the dissatisfaction of stay-at-home wives and mothers. She called it "the problem that has no name." The New York Times has an excerpt from the book (free registration required); here's a bit: Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate......

Kudos to California-based* EFF for taking Sony BMG to the mat on distributing CDs with spyware and hacker-friendly software. EFF joins Texas in the courts while The LA Times and The New York Times both discuss how Sony is having the worst year ever. In today's The Big Picture, Patrick Goldstein off-handedly throws out that the movie division has had only one hit (Hitch and that seems like it was ages ago) and a......

It's been nearly half a century since the Dodgers left Brooklyn, and some people are still bitter. Murray Chass of The New York Times has a column today where he basically says the Los Angeles Dodgers have no business celebrating the 50th anniversary of their 1955 World Series championship team. This Sunday, the Dodgers will wear Brooklyn uniforms, and will have 12 of the 13 living members of the team participate in a ceremony.......

In the minutes just before dawn this morning the Discovery Space Shuttle landed safely in our backyard; by "our" we mean Los Angeles, and by "backyard" we mean Edwards Air Force Base. Poor weather in Florida caused the landing locale to get shifted, as it often is, to California. Apparently the NASA commander on the ground asked shuttle commander Col. Eileen Collins how she would like a nice breezy California landing; we're guessing that......