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The Brief

The most important stories for you to know today
  • The latest on the push to preserve the neon hat
    A close-up of a huge red and yellow neon Arby's sign pictured from below. The sign has red and black letters that read "Farewell Hollywood TY For 55 Great Years"
    The historic Arby's Roast Beef Sandwich neon cowboy hat fast food sign stands on Sunset Boulevard outside of a closed Arby's restaurant and drive-thru in Hollywood, California on June 20, 2024.

    Topline:

    Now that the Arby’s in Hollywood has closed after 55 years of serving roast beef sandwiches on Sunset Boulevard, some people are on a mission to save the towering neon ten-gallon hat sign from being scrapped.

    Why it matters: Corrie Siegel, executive director of the Museum of Neon Art in Glendale, told LAist the sign struck a lot of chords with people, partly because it’s such an iconic marker of the area and a symbol of the changing face of Hollywood.

    Why now: Judy Sibelman, one of the four children of Mike and Marilyn Leviton, told LAist the lease expiring at the end of June was the “number one reason that we had to go out of business,” not California’s minimum-wage increase for fast food workers.

    The backstory: The Arby’s, near the intersection of Tamarind Avenue and Sunset Boulevard, had been run by the Leviton family since 1969.

    What's next: “We know the hat is a beloved feature, and our office is committed to supporting the local business owners and stakeholders so the Arby’s hat can remain on Sunset Blvd,” a spokesperson for Council District 13 said in a statement to LAist.

    Go deeper: Read more about the saga to save the sign on Sunset Boulevard.

    Now that the Arby’s in Hollywood has closed after 55 years of serving roast beef sandwiches on Sunset Boulevard, some people are on a mission to save the towering neon 10-gallon hat sign from being scrapped.

    Corrie Siegel, executive director of the Museum of Neon Art in Glendale, told LAist the sign struck a lot of chords with people, partly because it’s such an iconic marker of the area and a symbol of the changing face of Hollywood.

    “I found out about the business closing around the time the rest of the public found out … and jumped into finding ways of connecting to the family, connecting to the property owner and city council, and speaking to local preservationists to figure out what could be done,” Siegel said.

    How we got here

    The Arby’s, near the intersection of Tamarind Avenue and Sunset Boulevard, had been run by the Leviton family since 1969.

    Judy Sibelman, one of the four children of Mike and Marilyn Leviton, told LAist they left everyone they knew in Illinois to move to California and build the restaurant from the ground up.

    “My father liked to say the business had to have three important things — location, location, location,” she said.

    And with a once-clear view of the Hollywood sign and nearby studios packed full of potential customers, the Arby’s certainly had its site on its side.

    But Sibelman said financial troubles started around 2019, when the restaurant was celebrating its 50th anniversary.

    The landlord they’d worked with for decades died, and the family was given the right of first refusal to buy the property outright, but she said “none of us happened to have a spare $5 million lying around.”

    The new landlord came with a more difficult relationship, and the family was able to renegotiate another lease, but only for five years. The landlord didn’t immediately respond to LAist’s request for comment.

    With that lease expiring at the end of June, combined with a decline in business during the COVID pandemic and the Hollywood strikes, it became increasingly clear their days of beef and cheddar were coming to a close.

    A pair of photos combined together in a collage. The image on the left includes three young children wearing chef hats, yellow shirts, black pants, glasses, and checkered scarves around their necks. The kids are posing in front of outdoor tables on a bright day. The image on the right is a recreation of the one of the left, featuring the same children all grown up decades later. They're still standing in front of the outdoor tables, but the window in the building behind them is plastered with a fast-food advertisement.
    Three out of four of the Leviton children, including Ruth, Bob, and Judy, from left to right. The photo on the left was taken on Arby's opening day, when the trio were between 9 and 13 years old. The photo on the right is a re-creation from the restaurant's 50th anniversary party.
    (
    Photo courtesy of Judy Sibelman
    )

    Sibelman said the lease was the “number one reason that we had to go out of business,” not California’s minimum-wage increase for fast food workers.

    “We don't consider ourselves victims of that at all,” she said.

    Sibelman started thinking about what would happen to the neon sign and reached out to several organizations, including the Valley Relics Museum in Van Nuys and the American Sign Museum in Ohio, until she connected with a “very empathetic” Siegel and the Museum of Neon Art on Brand Boulevard.

    What’s in store for the sign

    For Siegel, the huge 10-gallon hat is more than just a sign. She said it's about community, a family, and the end of an era — because signs don’t exist without people.

    “Neon signs are important because of the people they're connected to,” she said. “And I think it's really important in any preservation context, or any civic context, to recognize that the meaning that's coming from these signs is directly related to the importance of the narratives — the family narratives, the stories of the people that worked in the businesses, and the stories of the communities that grew up around the sign.”

    A black-and-white photo of the exterior of an Arby's fast-food restaurant, including a huge ten-gallon hat sign. At least five classic cars are parked in the lot in front of the restaurant.
    A photo from the early days of the Hollywood Arby's.
    (
    Courtesy Judy Sibelman
    )

    But moving the towering display would be a logistical feat in and of itself, a scenario Siegel said she’s had nightmares about. And since the family didn’t own the property, the push for preservation has been further complicated by a city ordinance that considers the setup an asset to the landlord, Sibelman said.

    However, Siegel noted that actually might be even better, as it’s always within the museum’s best interests to keep the neon signage in the context of which it was created to convey history and act as an aesthetic beacon.

    Some are now lobbying for the sign to be saved as-is on Sunset Boulevard with Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez’s office, whose 13th district includes Hollywood.

    In a letter to Soto-Martínez reviewed by LAist, Sibelman urged the city to designate the sign as a landmark cultural resource in honor of the community of which it has so long been a part.

    “We know the hat is a beloved feature, and our office is committed to supporting the local business owners and stakeholders so the Arby’s hat can remain on Sunset Blvd,” a spokesperson for Council District 13 said in a statement to LAist.

    Siegel said the Arby’s sign saga may bring up a lot of feelings of loss, but she’s encouraging people to continue to support the businesses that they see as integral to their Los Angeles experience.

    “Take a break and go in and meet the people behind the signs, because that's really what I think people miss when this happens,” she said. “They miss the community that they didn't realize was quietly there all along.”

  • Trump admin moves to erase convictions

    Topline:

    In the latest move to rewrite the history of the violent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, the Department of Justice has filed papers seeking to vacate the seditious conspiracy convictions against members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers extremist groups, who previously received commutations rather than full pardons from President Donald Trump.

    Why it matters: About a dozen defendants who received lengthy sentences for their roles in planning and executing the riot were released from prison once Trump returned to office, though the felony convictions remained on their records. If approved by the federal courts, the move would wipe out those convictions and, among other things, restore the defendants' right to own guns.

    The backstory: During the Biden administration, the indictments and subsequent convictions on the rarely used seditious conspiracy charge underscored how law enforcement viewed the Jan. 6 attack: as a historic threat to democracy and the defendants as key orchestrators. Judges and juries largely agreed.

    Read on ... for more on the latest move from the Trump administration.

    In the latest move to rewrite the history of the violent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, the Department of Justice has filed papers seeking to vacate the seditious conspiracy convictions against members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers extremist groups, who previously received commutations rather than full pardons from President Donald Trump.

    About a dozen defendants who received lengthy sentences for their roles in planning and executing the riot were released from prison once Trump returned to office, though the felony convictions remained on their records. If approved by the federal courts, the move would wipe out those convictions and, among other things, restore the defendants' right to own guns.

    On Tuesday, the Trump administration described the decision in court filings as "in the interests of justice."

    Members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys celebrated.

    "I am beyond thrilled right now," wrote Proud Boy Zachary Rehl, who was previously sentenced to 15 years in prison, on the social media site X.

    Ed Martin, who has held multiple roles in the Trump Justice Department and currently serves as the U.S pardon attorney, cast the move as a triumph and called for further action.

    "Hearing from J6rs and families tonight. They feel respected even loved. Proud," Martin wrote on X. "But there is more for you to do. Keep grinding. You were directly wronged by Biden prosecutors and you deserve more."

    Martin has previously called for former Jan. 6 defendants to receive financial restitution.

    The decision illustrates both the dramatic extent of changes at the Department of Justice in Trump's second term, as well as the stunning reversal of fortunes for the Jan. 6 defendants convicted of some of the most serious crimes that day.

    During the Biden administration, the indictments and subsequent convictions on the rarely used seditious conspiracy charge underscored how law enforcement viewed the Jan. 6 attack: as a historic threat to democracy and the defendants as key orchestrators. Judges and juries largely agreed.

    At the trial of Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, prosecutors had played a recording discussing additional violence after Jan. 6. "We should have brought rifles," Rhodes said. "We could have fixed it right then and there. I'd hang f***in' Pelosi from the lamppost."

    When federal judge Amit Mehta sentenced Rhodes to 18 years in prison, he described him as "an ongoing threat and peril to this country ... and to the very fabric of our democracy."

    Now, under the Trump administration, leaders of the Justice Department say they take orders directly from the president, who has called Jan. 6 a "day of love," described the rioters as "great people" and denied — falsely — that his supporters assaulted police.

    "I pardoned people that were assaulted themselves. They were assaulted by our government," Trump told reporters last year. "They didn't assault. They were assaulted."

    Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, recently touted the mass pardons of Jan. 6 defendants as one of the administration's greatest achievements.

    Greg Rosen, who led the "Capitol Siege" unit that prosecuted more than 1,500 Jan. 6-related cases, castigated the Trump administration for its latest move to vacate the conviction of Rhodes and several others.

    "This is a sad and selfish reminder that constitutional due process — jury verdicts, judicial findings, years of hard-fought litigation and mountains of evidence — doesn't appear to matter once again," said Rosen, who is now with the law firm Rogers Joseph O'Donnell. "This isn't about fairness or justice. It's about overriding the considered will and judgments of judges and juries and rewarding individuals solely because of their political alignments with an administration."

    An estimated 140 police officers were injured in the Jan. 6 attack, including many who testified to lifelong physical and mental trauma from what they endured.

    Meanwhile, since receiving presidential pardons, dozens of former riot defendants have been charged with or convicted of additional crimes. On the same day the Justice Department moved to vacate the seditious conspiracy cases, it also filed documents in the ongoing case against David Daniel, who assaulted police Jan. 6 and was separately accused of child sexual abuse.

    Daniel, prosecutors said, agreed to plead guilty to allegations that he sexually abused two young girls, including one who was under 12 years old at the time of the abuse.
    Copyright 2026 NPR

  • Sponsored message
  • First African artist to enter Hall of Fame


    Topline:

    Fela Kuti, the Afrobeat pioneer and activist who died in 1997, now holds two landmark honors.

    Historic firsts: On Dec. 19, he became the first African musician ever awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, joining an elite group of legends recognized for making "creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording." This week it was announced that he is one of the musicians who will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2026.

    Breaking musical rules: Fela's emphasis on complex polyrhythms and the inclusion of traditional African instruments like the talking drum were revolutionary at the time — a rebellion against the dominance of Western pop and a marked effort to forge a post-colonial African identity. One of his most famous albums, Confusion, was composed of a lone tune broken into two sides, Confusion Pt. I and Confusion Pt. II — the first half entirely instrumental. His 1976 album, Zombie, was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame last year, becoming only the fourth record by an African artist among the 1,165 releases.

    Editor's note: This is an update of the profile published in December of the great African musician Fela Kuti. The original post was published when it was announced that Kuti would become the first African musician ever awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Now this week, he is on the list of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees and again is a historic "first" — the first African musician to be inducted into the hall.

    Fela Kuti, the Afrobeat pioneer and activist who died in 1997, now holds two landmark honors.

    On Dec. 19, he became the first African musician ever awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, joining an elite group of legends like The Beatles, Johnny Cash, Aretha Franklin, Bob Marley and Frank Sinatra — all recognized for making "creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording."

    This week it was announced that he is one of the musicians who will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2026. He is being honored in the category of "musical influence." The Hall of Fame paid this tribute: "Fela Kuti was a revolutionary voice who spoke out against injustice through his innovative music — provoking political change while infusing jazz, West African and soul music to pioneer the Afrobeat genre."

    He has long been acclaimed by his fellow African artists. "Fela Kuti's music was a fearless voice of Africa — its rhythms carried truth, resistance and freedom, inspiring generations of African musicians to speak boldly through sound," says the legendary Senegalese singer Youssou N' Dour.

    Nicknamed the "Black President" for his role as a political and cultural leader, Fela is one of the rarified artists who's recognized by a single name. He saw huge success as a pioneer of the Afrobeat genre, with its multilayered and shifting syncopation, psychedelic horns and chants. He was never nominated for a Grammy during his lifetime — although his musician sons, Femi and Seun, and grandson Made, have received eight nominations collectively.

    A really big sound

    Fela embraced a massive sound. His band often swelled to more than 30 members (including backup singers and dancers) and featured two bass guitars and two baritone saxophones. He himself played saxophone, keyboards, guitar, drums and trumpet (his first instrument as a child). His emphasis on complex polyrhythms and the inclusion of traditional African instruments like the talking drum were revolutionary at the time — a rebellion against the dominance of Western pop and a marked effort to forge a post-colonial African identity.

    From the start of his career, Fela aimed to reach a larger and Pan-African audience by singing almost exclusively in Nigerian Pidgin English (rather than his mother tongue, Yoruba, which doesn't translate throughout most of the continent).

    He did not play by the rules of the music biz. He expressed disdain for party tunes and love songs. He'd release as many as seven albums in a single year. And he refused to perform songs live once they'd been recorded.

    His music broke new ground with songs that could stretch to 45 minutes. One of his most famous albums, Confusion, was composed of a lone tune broken into two sides, Confusion Pt. I and Confusion Pt. II — the first half entirely instrumental.

    BCUC (Bantu Continua Uhuru Consciousness) from Soweto, South Africa, the incendiary live band and 2023 winner of the WOMEX Artist Award, sent a statement to NPR: "Fela is our spiritual muse and if he didn't pursue music without boundaries of song length and speaking his truth — even when it was putting his life in danger — we wouldn't have had the guts to be ourselves without fear or favor."

    A political awakening — and repercussions

    During a 10-month stay in Los Angeles in 1969, Fela befriended members of the Black Panther Party. Afterward, his music grew political. He became an outspoken opponent of Nigeria's military dictatorship and of South African apartheid.

    The year following his 1976 album Zombie's scathing indictment of the Nigerian government, The New York Times reported that a force comprising 1,000 Nigerian military members burned Fela's Lagos home and recording compound (including all his instruments and master recording tapes). Fela was beaten unconscious, and his mother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, was thrown from an upstairs window and later died from the resulting injuries.

    That album, Zombie, was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame last year, becoming only the fourth record by an African artist among the 1,165 releases.

    In 1979, Fela unsuccessfully ran for president of Nigeria. His political activism added to his high profile — and controversial history. He was arrested many times by Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari's military junta, including at Lagos airport while departing for a U.S. tour. He was sentenced to five years in prison and held for over a year. Amnesty International classified him as a "prisoner of conscience." Fela was freed only after the Buhari regime was overthrown in August 1985.

    Musical life after death

    Fela succumbed to complications from AIDS in 1997. His older brother, Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, a pediatrician and AIDS activist who served as health minister for Nigeria, spread the word that Fela's death was AIDS-related. According to Ransome-Kuti, Fela had believed that "all doctors were fabricating AIDS, including myself."

    Following that news, one of the nation's largest daily papers reported that condom sales surged in Nigeria. Fela's passing marked a turning point in bringing greater consciousness about the epidemic across Africa. It is estimated that over one million people attended his funeral.

    Since his death, his music has carried on. A tribute album, Red Hot + Riot: The Music and Spirit of Fela Kuti, was released in 2002, featuring such artists as Sade, D'Angelo, Nile Rodgers, Questlove and Taj Mahal. Profits went to organizations working to raise AIDS awareness. And in 2009, Jay-Z and Will Smith produced Fela!, a Broadway musical about Fela's life that earned 11 Tony Award nominations.

    For today's African musicians and worldwide, he is both a legend and an inspiration.

    Tunde Adebimpe, the Nigerian American actor (Rachel Getting Married, Twisters) and lead singer for Grammy-nominated band TV on the Radio, told NPR: "Fela for me is the chapter heading in my musical education. He is the originator who showed us music as a power move calling out corruption. Music that questions your psyche and health, worries for your ecosystem, gut checks your self-worth and pride, and keeps you lifted. And it moves nyash [ass]."

    Four-time Grammy-nominated Malian singer Salif Keita puts it this way: "Brother Fela was a great influence for my music. I loved him very much. He was a brave man. His legacy is undisputed."

    Ian Brennan is a Grammy-winning music producer (Tinariwen, Parchman Prison Prayer, The Good Ones, West Virginia Snake Handler Revival) who has recorded over 50 records by international artists across five continents. He is the author of 10 books. His latest is Missing Music: Voices From Where the Dirt Roads End.

    Copyright 2026 NPR

  • Disintegrating paintings and nature films
    A view of a museum gallery, with wood floors, white walls, and piles of dirt with boulders on them. A painting of a human-like figure is visible in the far background.
    "Several Eternities in a Day: Form in the Age of Living Materials," installation view, on display at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles through Aug. 23.

    Topline:

    From a daylong festival at the Natural History Museum to an exhibition of art made from living materials at the Hammer Museum, there’s lots to learn about sustainability at L.A. museums this Earth Month.

    The context: The first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and landmark legislation like the Clean Air Act. In the years since, it's expanded to Earth Month, with schools, governments and organizations — including museums — using it as a way to spark conversations about protecting the environment.

    Read on … for our picks of Earth Day-related events and museum exhibitions to check out.

    The first Earth Day, in April 1970, led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and landmark legislation like the Clean Air Act.

    In the years since, it's expanded to Earth Month, with schools, governments and organizations — including museums — using it as a way to spark conversations about protecting the environment.

    Here are some sustainability-focused museums, art exhibitions and events to check out in Los Angeles this Earth Month.

    Living materials centered at new exhibition

    The new Hammer Museum exhibition titled Several Eternities in a Day: Form in the Age of Living Materials includes a collection of works made from organic materials like avocado, cacao, flowers, stone, clay, sand and natural dyes.

    It invites visitors to rethink ideas of permanence and humanity's place in nature, through sculptures, paintings and collages made by 22 artists from across the Americas, including some based here in Los Angeles.

    Two approx 16-foot-tall paintings on a white museum gallery wall. Each are fully painted a shiny brown/black with a human-like figure formed by hand on each of them. The figure on the left is light brown and the one on the right is more red.
    A view of Carmen Argote's "an archetype of stillness" and "an archetype of touch" paintings in the Hammer Museum's "Several Eternities in a Day" exhibition.
    (
    Monica Bushman
    /
    LAist
    )

    L.A.-based Mexican American artist Carmen Argote's paintings — titled "an archetype of stillness" and "an archetype of touch" — are among the works that first catch your attention upon entering the exhibition.

    The pair of 16-foot-tall human-like figures that Argote painted — without brushes — by dipping her hands and feet in a mixture of avocado, cochineal dye and lemon juice, will change color throughout the length of the exhibition as the avocado continues to dry, release oil and eventually disintegrates the paper they were painted on.

    " This piece has taught me so much about letting go," Argote told LAist. "And really accepting the life of a material and life of an artwork."

    Stacks of red, brown and grey bricks in what appear to be random piles on a large plank of wood covered in a black gravel-like substance.
    "Cuerpos terrestres en fluidez" by Jackie Amézquita in "Several Eternities in a Day: Form in the Age of Living Materials" at the Hammer Museum.
    (
    Sarah M Golonka
    /
    smg photography
    )

    Another work, titled "Cuerpos terrestres en fluidez" (or "Terrestrial Bodies in Fluidity") by L.A.-based artist Jackie Amézquita consists of a set of sculptures that Amézquita built using the rammed earth technique (which dates back to the Neolithic period) and then split into fragments.

    The materials she used included decomposed granite from the Mojave Desert, lava rocks, obsidian, rain and ocean water.

    “There's this idea that we have of nature to not be permanent when it's actually older than us,” Amézquita noted.

    The questions that her and other artists’ use of organic materials raise about permanence or impermanence, Amézquita told LAist, “is just an echo to what life is.”

    “That is part of our human condition,” she explained. “We’re always confronted with the idea of life and death.”

    Her artistic practice, Amézquita added, is also about “ reminding us that we are part of the land, that we are soil, that our bodies are made of earth and also earth is made out of us. And so our footprint, or the decisions we make, has a ripple effect.”

    What an exhibition on rice cultivation can teach us about sustainable practices

    At the nearby Fowler Museum (also affiliated with UCLA), is Mountain Spirits: Rice and Indigeneity in the Northern Luzon Highlands, Philippines, a new immersive exhibition centered around the ecological wisdom of the rice cultivation practices of the indigenous Ifugao people in the Philippines.

     ”We focus on rice because rice became this foundation for the Ifugao resistance against Spanish conquest, and they used rice to be able to consolidate their political and economic resources,” says Stephen Acabado, professor of anthropology and director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at UCLA.

    The exhibition is split into three galleries. In one gallery, visitors can see a time-lapsed video of the landscape that places into context the Ifugao mountain spirits and the indigenous belief system. Paired with the videos are wooden carvings of the bulul, or rice guardians, and fabrics that represent Ifugao deities.

    Two carved wooden figures of people sitting with their arms crossed and resting on their knees. They appear to have serious expressions on their faces and are unclothed.
    Wooden carvings of the bulul, or rice guardians, in the Fowler Museum's new "Mountain Spirits" exhibition.
    (
    Fowler Museum
    )

    A second gallery pairs rituals and tools that the Ifugao use for rice cultivation with videos showing them in practice. And the third gallery examines how the higher ranking Ifugao members keep the community alive through sustaining rituals.

     ”What we're seeing now, especially with climate change, looking at how they cared for the land for at least 400 years, [their] sustainable form of agricultural production … will give us at least an idea on how we can adapt their practices for food security and care for the environment,” Acabado says.

    Beyond sustainable practices, Acabado hopes the exhibition can dispel the idea the Philippines is a monolith and also strengthen a sense of identity for Filipinos.

    “Although we’re focusing on the Ifugao,” Acabado says, “the exhibit wants to highlight the diversity of the Philippines.”

    A museum with sustainability at its core

    LACMA’s newly opening Geffen Galleries are getting a lot of attention at the moment, but don’t overlook the nearby Craft Contemporary museum, which is also worth checking out (and a fun fact for The Pitt watchers: It was founded by Noah Wyle’s grandmother).

    A street view of a three-story house-like building painted with white, black and yellow shapes and office buildings on either side of it.
    The Craft Contemporary on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles.
    (
    Craft Contemporary
    )

    Sustainability is a core tenet for the Craft Contemporary, according to its senior curator Frida Cano. The museum was a case study in the Getty’s 2025 Climate Action Report for sustainable exhibition design.

    Its practices include recycling materials from past exhibitions for public workshopping events, having artists sign printed exhibition materials so they become collectibles for guests and utilizing natural dyes in art installations.

    Its upcoming May exhibition, tierra, recycles pulp from a past paper-making workshop for artwork labels and creates paint utilizing cacti from Descanso Gardens.

    For Cano, it’s especially important to focus on the power of craft and sustainability in an increasingly tech-based era.

    “The world is larger than our little micro-universe of craft,” Cano said.  “So we're taking the power of craft to make sure that we contribute to the wellness of humanity, you know, mother Earth at large.”

    More exhibitions and Earth Day events to check out

    Earth Day Festival at the Natural History Museum: Events include exhibitions, art and science activities and free screenings of the museum’s film series “Green Screen: Our Planet on Film.” The event takes place Sunday. (And a tip: go full Earth Day and take the Metro there. The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at USC will mean more traffic in the area.)

    Clay LA at the Craft Contemporary: A weeklong event that features air-clay activities and a market where artisans will sell their ceramic creations. This event runs from April 24-26.

    Material Prophecies: Craft as Divination at the Armory Center for the Arts: A group exhibition (which also features a work by Jackie Amézquita) that reflects on time through artists’ works made from fiber, wood, bronze, terracotta and earth. The exhibition is ongoing until Aug. 1.

  • Adopt fruit trees, eat chocolate and more
    A light-skinned man in a t-shirt holds a sign that says "No Island Save the Pier" while two men in black suits stand behind him.
    'Save the Pier' is a free play that happens nightly on the Santa Monica Pier.

    In this edition:

    Adopt fruit trees, learn about cookies and other sweets, head to the Great Altadena Poppy Festival and more of the best things to do this weekend.

    Highlights:

    • Friends of Elysian Park hosts this screening of the Ed Ruscha short film, Elysian Park and the Stone Quarry Hills, which local favorite Ruscha made in 2023 with narration by none other than actor Benicio del Toro.
    • Check out the blooming poppies while supporting local Altadena businesses at the Great Altadena Poppy Festival. The Pasadena Jaycees will be handing out passports so you can keep track of where you’ve been, take photos at the flower wall, and drive through the scenic poppies.
    • Ummmm, can you say yum? Fat & Flour’s Nicole Rucker will chat with Edd Kimber about his new book, Chocolate Baking: The Ultimate Guide to Cakes, Cookies, Desserts, and Pastries. Of course, there will be treats to go with the book signing. 
    • Part art collective, part food waste activist group, part community farm, the Fallen Fruit folks are always up to something cool. In the spirit of Earth Month, head to the L.A. State Historic Park to adopt a fruit tree and help grow the city’s Endless Orchard — a project to plant and map publicly accessible fruit trees all over the city.

    Calling all readers: It’s the annual L.A. Times Festival of Books this weekend, so bring your favorite tote down to USC, buy all your favorite books and hear from your favorite authors, publishing houses, chefs and more. We’ll be there, too. Come say hi.

    Licorice Pizza has your music picks, from Coachella weekend and beyond. There’s a lot of skull-crushing rock, punk and industrial this weekend, starting Friday, with Avatar, Fleshgod Apocalypse and Frozen Soul at the Novo, and Blood for Blood at the Belasco. On Saturday, Gwar, with Soulfly as support, will spill their guts, literally, at the Belasco; My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult are at the Teragram … or, for something completely different, there is a literally hair-raising show by furry saxophonist Saxsquatch, with opener Olivver the Kid, at the Roxy.

    Elsewhere on LAist, you can find out how the LAX people mover is coming along (spoiler alert: slowly), learn how to protect yourself from a stingray sting as warmer waters have increased attacks and read up on the history of Sunset Strip’s famous Marlboro Man billboard.

    Events

    Artist talk with Ruben Ochoa

    Saturday, April 18, 2 p.m. 
    Breakdown/Breakthrough: Art and Infrastructure
    UC Irvine Langston Orange County Museum of Art 
    18881 Von Karman Ave., Irvine
    COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

    A medium-light-skinned man with glasses smiles at the camera.
    (
    Allison V Smith
    /
    UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art
    )

    The exhibit Breakdown/Breakthrough: Art and Infrastructure is on in Irvine through May 16, but this weekend you can catch an artist talk with Ruben Ochoa and a special pop-up activation at the Irvine Barclay Theatre Plaza (4242 Campus Drive, Irvine). Ochoa’s work, which spans photography, large-scale installations, AR and more, examines “how Southern California’s built environment shapes daily life … from our movement and visibility to our sense of belonging.” On Saturday, Ochoa will discuss his practice with curator Dr. Michaëla Mohrmann.


    Elysian Park and the Stone Quarry Hills film screening

    Saturday, April 18, 11:30 a.m.
    Edendale Library 
    2011 Sunset Blvd., Silver Lake
    COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

    Friends of Elysian Park hosts this screening of the Ed Ruscha short film, Elysian Park and the Stone Quarry Hills, which local favorite Ruscha made in 2023 with narration by none other than actor Benicio del Toro. The film takes a view of the history of the urban park, which includes its indigenous origins and later iterations as a quarry, a brick-making factory, a hospital and, of course, a baseball stadium.


    Great Altadena Poppy Festival

    Saturday, April 18, 10 a.m.
    2270 Lake Ave., Altadena
    COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

    A poster with orange poppy flowers and a circular logo that reads "Great Altadena Poppy Festival."
    (
    Courtesy Pasadena Jaycees
    )

    Check out the blooming poppies while supporting local Altadena businesses at the Great Altadena Poppy Festival. The Pasadena Jaycees will be handing out passports so you can keep track of where you’ve been, take photos at the flower wall and drive through the scenic poppies. There’s also a fun run at 8 a.m. if you really want to get moving early! 


    The films of Gordon Matta-Clark 

    Sunday, April 19, 1 p.m.
    LA Film Forum at 2220 Arts 
    2220 Arts
    2220 Beverly Blvd., Historic Filipinotown
    COST: $15; MORE INFO

    A closeup of a bulldozer's tracks running over junk in a scrapyard.
    (
    Gordon Matta-Clark
    /
    Electronic Arts Intermix
    )

    Six films from groundbreaking artist Gordon Matta-Clark have been stitched together for this screening, giving a broad sense of his “building cuts,” which “expose the thinness of the boundaries that divide people, mediums, spaces and ideas.” Curators Jessamyn Fiore, who's the director of the Gordon Matta-Clark estate, and Dylan Adamson, a critic and programmer, will be in attendance.


    Save the Pier play

    Through Sunday, April 19, 8 p.m. nightly 
    403 Santa Monica Pier (West end of the pier), Santa Monica
    COST: FREE; MORE INFO

    A group of 13 people gathered together on a pier looking at the camera.
    (
    Santa Monica Pier Corporation
    /
    Eventbrite
    )

    Did you know that the Santa Monica Pier almost didn’t make it? In the 1970s, plans were in place to demolish the iconic end of Route 66 until a noble group of local citizens fought to keep it alive. And now we can play Skee-Ball any time — thank you, elders! The story is immortalized in a new play being performed — where else — on the pier, for free, through Sunday.


    Beverly Hills

    Through Saturday, April 18 
    Kirk Douglas Theatre
    9820 Washington Blvd., Culver City
    COST: FROM $34; MORE INFO

    An illustrated '80s-style soap opera image with a blonde woman, a man in his underwear, and a man in a suit with an eyepatch.
    (
    Courtesy Center Theatre Group
    )

    Long before he was an entertainment writer for the likes of EW and his own site, TV Line, Michael Ausiello wrote a soap opera called Beverly Hills. He was 13. His long-held dream comes to life on stage at the Kirk Douglas with a rotating cast of bold-faced names, including Nathan Fillion, Michael Urie, Edi Patterson and more.


    Edd Kimber

    Friday, April 17, 6:30 p.m.  
    Fat & Flour 
    11739 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City
    COST: $15; MORE INFO

    Ummmm, can you say yum? Fat & Flour’s Nicole Rucker will chat with Edd Kimber about his new book, Chocolate Baking: The Ultimate Guide to Cakes, Cookies, Desserts, and Pastries. Of course, there will be treats to go with a book signing.


    Public Fruit Tree Adoption 

    Saturday, April 18, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. 
    L.A. State Historic Park 
    1245 N Spring St., Downtown L.A. 
    COST: FREE; MORE INFO

    Part art collective, part food waste activist group, part community farm, the Fallen Fruit folks are always up to something cool. In the spirit of Earth Month, head to the L.A. State Historic Park to adopt a fruit tree and help grow the city’s Endless Orchard — a project to plant and map publicly accessible fruit trees all over the city. You'll also have the chance to be painted into the Community Portrait celebrating the Power of Pollinators.