The Brief

Around five years ago, when Micah Mumper relocated from New York to Long Beach where he knew no one besides his wife, he found himself, as he puts it, in a funk.

“Depression would be the emotion,” said Mumper, 33, who moved to the area for a job. “It was kind of a dark place — not a very fun place.”

While he had a brother he saw occasionally nearly 40 miles away in Orange County, he and his wife fell into a rough pattern that would last for several years.

They hardly left the house or interacted with anyone besides each other, he said, and generally lacked motivation to do basic things like clean up after themselves.

“We were just sort of going through the motions,” Mumper said. “It would cause friction between us.”

He desperately needed to find community, he added, but couldn’t quite get himself to take the first step.

It wasn't until last year at his brother’s 40th birthday party in Orange County that he noticed his brother had something he was missing: a large group of friends.

And there was a trend: most of them, it seemed, met by playing pickleball. Sure, it feels like everyone — and their literal mother — has embraced the sport as of late. But as it turns out, pickleball would be the catalyst for Mumper to get out of his funk.

The pickleball prescription

His brother’s friends were all quite welcoming and encouraged him to start playing, Mumper recalled. “I thought, OK, I want what they have, why not.”

He found a local league in Long Beach, and forced himself to show up to a pickup game one Wednesday afternoon. It pretty quickly turned things around.

Plckelball players Ryan Benson and Maile Sterling bump each other in support while playing at the Santa Monica Pickleball Center.

(

Brian Feinzimer

/

LAist

)

“It gets me out of the house, it gets me around other people," he said. “I'm really hitting my stride and pickleball has been a really big part of that.”

At a time when more and more people say they are experiencing feelings of loneliness — particularly in a huge, fast-moving city like Los Angeles — many like Mumper struggle with feelings of isolation and yearn to make meaningful connections with others.

Through the whacking of a ball that sorta resembles a wiffle ball, hundreds of thousands of people have found fulfilling friendships and an overall sense of community through the sport that’s blown up in recent years.

“Basically 90% of my friends are through pickleball,” said Sona Kim Davis, the marketing director at Santa Monica Pickleball Center. “It’s really crazy, like people really do come together for this sport.”

The power of moving in sync

It’s not just pickleball that can pave the way for community building. Group physical movement in general, like sports leagues and dance classes — particularly in adulthood, when there are less natural opportunities to make friends — offer an especially effective route to make strong connections and soothe feelings of loneliness.

“We have pretty good data to suggest that behavioral synchrony can lead to feelings of higher closeness and trust with the people we're in sync with,” said Jamie Krems, an assistant professor of psychology at UCLA who specializes in human friendship. “That’s particularly the case when you’re in sync in larger groups.”

While most group activities boost one’s sense of belonging, studies show that moving in sync can build even stronger social ties and promote a deeper sense of well-being.

To understand why moving in unison with others promotes closeness, Krems said we must look to our evolutionary past. Doing hard work in coordination together, for example, would have been imperative for survival and protection against outside threats, she said. Moving in sync also creates a similarity in how those within the same group perceive and respond to the world, leading to feelings of closeness and rapport.

“That feeling of rhythm and coordination and synchrony might be one of the best ways to engender these feelings of closeness and pro social behavior,” she said.

Part of it has to do with endorphins, which some researchers have called the “neurochemical glue” of human relationships. Scientists have found that moving in sync triggers the endorphin system, which enhances good feelings, more strongly than the effects of the activity itself.

As for Micah Mumper, finding such an activity flipped his entire world upside down, for the better, he said.

“I feel a hundred percent better than I did before I started playing pickleball,” he added. “I feel not as depressed. I feel a whole different view of my abilities to go out and socialize. It's given me this new confidence.”

Patrons play pickleball at the Santa Monica Pickleball Center.

(

Brian Feinzimer

/

LAist

)

Dancing and the 'feel good' hormone

On a recent Thursday night at The Victorian in Santa Monica, dozens of patrons with wristbands filed into an oblong-shaped room with a disco ball hanging from the center of the ceiling, salsa music blasted from the speakers.

Nicole Gil, a dance teacher and founder of Dancer University, walked to the middle of the room, a pop-star microphone strapped around her head.

“We’re gonna make two circles, ladies on the inside, gentlemen on the outside,” she said as those in the crowd, a bit timid, took their places.

Instructor Nicole Gil leads in a salsa class at the The Victorian.

(

Brian Feinzimer

/

LAist

)

Each week on Thursdays at The Victorian — and most other nights at various clubs around L.A. — Gil teaches salsa and bachata classes to groups of mostly beginners.

While she’s passionate about these forms of dance for their artistry, she said what’s most special about it is the community that’s corralled around it.

“Everyone's laughing about it together, feeling silly together, out of place and out of their comfort zone,” said Gil, who also met her fiancé through dance. “I think that is something that really helps you connect with people.”

And researchers agree. Studies show that dancing in sync — more so than just dancing alongside others — boosts the production of endorphins and leads to social closeness and bonding.

Patrick Padilla, a 27-year-old engineer who recently moved from Saint Louis to Lawndale, attends class as a way to meet people in a new city.

“I like the energy,” he said. “Getting to meet a bunch of new people outside of work. It's really a great way to stay active and then also meet new faces.”

As a bonus, he said he gets to channel his “inner child.”

“As a little kid I liked getting onto the dance floor and just doing my stuff,” he said. “When I grew up, I'm like, what if I could put a little bit of form to all that energy?”

Dancers participate in a salsa class at the The Victorian.

(

Brian Feinzimer

/

LAist

)

While the classes are meant for beginners, many come week after week. Each class starts with a lesson, followed by “social dancing,” or freestyle dancing with a partner (which is the standard format for salsa and bachata classes anywhere).

“I've definitely made friends here,” said Joseph Blakey, who lives in Venice and has attended the class several times. “It’s something that requires a partner, so you're always looking for more people to do it with. People want to talk. People want to hang out with you. There's just something about going out dancing with people. And there's something very welcoming about this space.”

Aside from the social engagement, Blakey said learning a new form of dance is sort of like a meditative practice, helping him to stay present.

“You’re engaged in this activity and you’re just enjoying it, the moment,” he said. “It gets me out of my head.”

Gil emphasized that it's not unusual to come solo — many of the attendees did show up alone. In fact, she recommends it.

“You might actually have a better time, so you can focus on your partner and being musical for the duration of the song,” she said.

And for those who feel daunted by the idea of dancing with or in front of others, Gil urges people to just show up — once — even if you have no intention of dancing.

“You might build it up in your head like ‘Oh I’ve got to look for parking, then I’ve got to walk there and it’s cold,” she said. “But once you do it, once you realize that it really wasn’t that bad, I think that helps you get off the couch. And after that you’ll be hooked.”

The magic of a studio

Through a breezeway lined with a melange of palms and desert plants at Hyperion Arts in Silver Lake, a small, eccentric studio tucked in the back of the building is filling up dancers for Intermediate Ballet.

They're in their 20s, in their 60s, in leotards and classic pink tights, or leg warmers and sweatshirts. They are mostly women (one man). Some were once professional ballet dancers, others have only started dancing here.

There’s a whimsical feel about this room, one of the two studios that make up Studio A Dance. It's old — the building was constructed in the 1920s — and quiet, with stained glass windows and string lights lining the ceiling.

In the middle of one of the busiest enclaves of L.A., it’s like you’re entering a place where time stands still.

“Nothing else matters when we’re in there,” said Cat Moore, who is the director of belonging at the University of Southern California and took ballet classes at Studio A for several years. “It’s just you and your body. And by just being there, the other dancers give you this strength and support in just really powerful ways.”

About 10 years ago, in the middle of a “shocking, terrifying” divorce, Moore said she was barely able to eat, sleep or otherwise function in her day to day life, now a single parent to her young son.

She said she was living in survival mode, and felt like her life was slipping through her fingers.

Then, randomly, she stumbled upon a dance studio on a walk home from her local coffee shop and “felt a pull” to sign up for a ballet class: “The last thing I wanted to do was move or exercise, but I sort of knew if I didn’t take a first step, things would get really, really bad,” she added.

The studio, which has gone through several iterations since it was established 41 years ago, offers a variety of classes for adults and kids throughout the week, from ballet to hip hop to contemporary dance.

Throughout this time and no matter the type of class, the mission behind Studio A, as established by its owner Bill Brown, has remained the same: to be a safe haven for Angelenos to not just dance, but to find happiness, as Brown states in a mini film about the studio.

Moore recalled walking into her first class never having danced ballet before and immediately feeling at ease. She said it was the welcoming atmosphere, and how the other dancers were eager to help her with the basics like how to stand at the barre and encouraged her to follow their footwork.

But she said there was also something about the teacher, Cati Jean: “It was like she just had magic coming out of her, is the only way I can describe it. She just had this presence that is so full of life.”

Jean, who is originally from France and has lived in Silver Lake for 25 years, said that's intentional.

“When you bring this aliveness, this openness, it has a ripple effect,” she said, “And that’s what dance does anyway. The artistry, the physicality, the emotion. It brings you alive.”

Moore said that during this traumatic time in her life, Jean’s classes helped her build strength — physically, of course, but more so emotionally.

“I can say for sure that it’s one of the main things that kept me alive during that time,” she said. “Getting back into your body is one of the most fundamental ways to reconnect to yourself.”

Since the publication of the New York Times best seller The Body Keeps the Score in 2014, the idea that our bodies store emotions and trauma has become somewhat mainstream. Dance therapy and other forms of physical or “somatic” techniques have been established as effective tools to help unlock, process and release these difficult emotions that are stored in the body.

Yet the power of dance classes to create a sense of community is perhaps the most healing part.

“I had just such a profound experience of feeling connected to this group of women, and we were hyper focused on doing these moves,” Moore said. “It gave me something to focus on during the worst period of my life.”

COVID made the effect of the community aspect particularly apparent, when Jean continued to teach classes over Zoom so her dancers could at least work on their technique at home. But it was missing “la magie,” she said in French. The magic.

“We need to feel each other’s energy, in the same room, focused on the same thing, together,” Jean said. “It’s like a nutrient. We can’t live without it.”

It may be entering a new era, but walking into the Original Pantry Cafe still feels like stepping back in time. The caged cash register is still there, with a worn spot on the floor in front of it, and the wood-board menus listing the day’s specials in chalk.

The iconic diner, which had served downtown L.A. from the corner of Ninth and Figueroa streets for over 100 years, closed in March 2025 amid a labor dispute, after the trust that owned it decided to sell the property. Now, under new ownership, it reopens Thursday, Nov. 19.

Leo Pustilnikov, a developer, bought the building in September 2025, and Hope the Mission, a San Fernando Valley nonprofit, will now run it, with all profits going to shelters for L.A.’s unhoused community.

Longtime staff are returning under a new contract with UNITE HERE Local 11. Rowan Vansleve, president of Hope the Mission, called bringing them back “incredibly emotional.”

What’s back and what’s not

Fans of the Pantry will find familiar names on the menu, including the famous coleslaw and sourdough toast from Frisco Baking Co. And of course, the beloved pancakes make their triumphant return, now made from scratch.

“We’ve got the same sourdough that we were using prior to Hope the Mission coming in,” Vansleve said.

The Pantry’s dining room and long counter keep their classic diner look, with a new bakery case near the front windows.

(

Courtesy The Original Pantry Cafe

)

Other dishes got a 2026 makeover. The Denver omelet now uses poblano peppers, the fried chicken sandwich comes with a spicy chile glaze and pickled radish, and a new bakery case is stocked with cookies, pies, chocolate malt crunch cake and peach cobbler.

“There are a few alterations on the menu,” Vansleve said. “Tastes have changed, and this needs to be successful.”

Two new sandwiches are named after donors who helped fund the reopening. The Betty Burger comes with Cooper sharp cheese, grilled onions, house pickles and Pantry Gold sauce on a sesame bun. Grant’s Sky High Deli piles half a pound of warm corned beef with Gruyère, horseradish slaw and mustard on toasted rye.

“I’m really excited for people to try our burger,” said executive chef Daniel Hur.

A stack of buttermilk pancakes made from scratch costs $16.

(

Courtesy

/

Courtesy The Original Pantry Cafe

)

Buttermilk pancakes are $16, and the classic breakfast platter — eggs, meat, Pantry potatoes and toast — is $21.

“We did a lot of research to make sure that we’re just under pretty much everyone else in the local area,” Vansleve said. “We’re not gonna gouge you.”

The Pantry no longer runs around the clock, and it now takes cards.

But Vansleve hopes the shortened hours will be temporary. “The Pantry’s not truly back until it’s 24 hours,” he acknowledged, adding that hours will expand as demand allows. He also hopes to reopen Riordan’s Tavern, the adjoining bar, “in some renewed format sometime late next year.”

Not everyone is sold

As soon as the new menu was posted online, commenters flooded the restaurant’s Instagram page and Reddit, pleading for nothing to change.

Hur, who grew up in Culver City, said he understands. “I love Tito’s Tacos. It’s been around since the ’50s. If someone came in there and changed the Tito’s Taco, I’d be like, ‘Why?’” he said. “So I get it.”

The specials board greets Angelenos ahead of the Nov. 19 reopening.

(

Courtesy The Original Pantry Cafe

)

Hur said he’s had to weigh purists against diners looking for something new, aiming to welcome back regulars while drawing in a new crowd. He’s open to feedback. “I know even if I’m not open to it, I’m gonna get it,” he said. “So I might as well be open to it.”

Vansleve’s pitch is simpler: “Give it a go, come in.”

Every meal helps, he said. “100% of the profits is gonna go back to the charity.” Hope the Mission runs 35 shelters housing about 3,500 people on any given night, according to Vansleve

To reach its 24-hour goal, he said, “We need to see those lines around the corner like they used to be.”

One of Broadway’s most popular shows in years, Oh, Mary! is now at the Ahmanson Theatre through Dec. 6. It stars drag performer extraordinaire Alaska Thunderf*ck 5000, known mononymously as Alaska.

Alaska caught up with LAist host Julia Paskin to talk about taking the Tony Award-winning dark comedy on the road, how competing on RuPaul's Drag Race has changed over the years, and where to see a great drag show in Los Angeles.

A role she was made for

The list of actors who have played the titular role of Mary ranges from seasoned comedians, like show creator Cole Escola, to Jane Krakowski and Bowen Yang, the latter of whom is currently on an extended Broadway run.

Jane Krakowski during her broadway run in "Oh, Mary!"

(

Emilio Madrid

/

Center Theater Group

)

“It's going on my tombstone,” Alaska said. “Like, it's the biggest deal ever.”

The role not only has big proverbial shoes to fill, but also requires donning a large, heavy hoopskirt for a costume. That was not a problem.

“If you ever just wanna, like, change your entire personality, just put on a hoopskirt,” she said. “It really changes the way you move and the way you kinda act and the way you stand. That's drag, I guess, because drag is sort of transforming based on what you're putting on your body, and it really does change everything.”

The higher cost to compete on Drag Race 

Speaking of drag, Alaska initially rose to fame appearing on Season 5 of RuPaul’s Drag Race in 2013 and the second season of the All Stars spinoff in 2016, which she won. Longtime fans of the reality show can confirm a lot has changed over the years with the competition becoming more expensive and queens investing in pricey, commissioned costume pieces and drag accessories.

Alaska said she’s grateful she competed when she did.

“I got in under the wire,” Alaska said. “I got onto that show back when you could show up with a bag of dirty laundry and you could do pretty well. When I went on that show the first time, I was borrowing stuff from other girls. I really just went to the thrift store and got some stuff. I had my friends make some stuff with me as well.”

She says the pressure is also more intense with the audience expecting a high production quality.

“The viewership is so knowledgeable about fabrics, and designers, and fashion, and polish and wig lines,” Alaska added. “That's good. I mean, I think that it's a pendulum, and it swings back and forth. Yes, we love to see exquisite, fabulous costumery on Drag Race. But, we also like to see some, stupid, silly drag as well.”

Where to catch great drag in LA 

Alaska recommends Meatball’s Phat Slut show at Precinct in downtown L.A., and added "anything happening at Precinct is going to be unique, fierce, fun, and just like an excellent vibe.”

Another top recommendation is “The Golden Girls Live” from drag queens Jackie Beat and Sherry Vine.

“It happens in a very small room,” Alaska said. “So you're literally sitting onstage with the Golden Girls. There's really nothing like it.”

You can see Alaska in Oh, Mary! at the Ahmanson Theatre and when her Revolution Tour stops in at Pacific Electric May 8, 2027.

Rhea Borja and her husband, Eric Wee, bought their home in Altadena in 2022. After the January 2025 Eaton Fire, it still stood, in a pocket of other homes that also survived.

At first, that was a relief. As many fire survivors have found, though, remediating smoke damage has been nearly as daunting as rebuilding a home that burned.

That has been true for Borja and Wee too. They’ve been living in Northern California since the fire, while they work to get their home cleared of the toxic remnants of the smoke.

The Eaton Fire destroyed 9,414 structures, including homes and businesses. For the thousands of structures were left standing, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed laws in September setting new rules for smoke damage cleanup.

What has that looked like in practice? Three Eaton Fire survivors spoke with LAist recently about the challenges they’ve faced.

Remediation challenges

Rhea Borja stands in her driveway just a month or so before the January 2025 fire. All of the houses behind her across the street burned down, including all the trees and greenery.

(

Rhea Borja

)

On the blocks around Borja’s home, the frames of homes being rebuilt are taking shape. But her home has stood empty for 22 months.

“It has been an enormous test of patience,” she said.

Her home has gone through four remediations. The lead test results after the most recent remediation cleared EPA standards. Since then, Borja has had a new HVAC system installed.

Next up, re-insulating the attic.

She’s hoping to be back in Altadena early next year but recognizes there’s still a lot to do, including remediating the front and back yards. She’ll have to pay for those projects out of pocket.

“I miss Altadena. I miss Los Angeles. I miss being by the San Gabriel Mountains,” Borja said. “So I just feel kind of removed from the area, and sometimes it almost just seems like a dream.”

A hallway in Rhea Borja’s home after it was remediated for a third time in June 2026.

(

Rhea Borja

)

Rhea Borja removed the remediator’s tape and plastic covering over a living room window of her Altadena home in mid October.

(

Courtesy of Rhea Borja

)

Simon Perry and his partner have two properties in Altadena that still require remediation.

One is their home right outside of the fire zone, and the other is a rental property right in the middle of it.

At Perry’s home of 15 years, the contamination was off the charts.

“To give you an indication of how badly contaminated it is, the attic crawl space tested at 3,391 units of lead,” Perry said. “So there's 50 times the safe level of lead in the crawl space of the attic.”

Perry had intended to retire the week of the Eaton Fire. He postponed that while he dealt with the fire’s aftermath — spending hours itemizing personal items, then throwing them away.

By the end of September, he and his partner moved for the fourth time since the fire.

Before that move, their temporary home was “full of cardboard boxes and boxes full of stuff, you know, because everything is in transition and has been in transition for 20 months,” he said.

A return home

After 19 months of being displaced, Susan Mohini Kane, husband Bernard Kane and their cat returned to Altadena.

Being displaced was unsettling, but Kane said she learned a lot.

Susan Mohini Kane shared this photo with LAist from March 2026 after most of her home’s contents were removed. The walls were cut up for rewiring.

(

Susan Mohini Kane

)

Susan Mohini Kane and her husband Bernard Kane began moving in over the summer. A friend gifted her hand-sewn quilt to replace one they lost to smoke damage.

(

Susan Mohini Kane

)

“More things happened every day that I didn't expect,” Kane said. “They ended up, basically, having to tear our house down.”

The walls of the Kane home were removed and then replaced. They filled and hauled bags of fire-damaged goods out of their home.

Now that she’s back, Kane is excited to return to her work as a voice teacher, singer and songwriter.

Susan Mohini Kane and her husband Bernard Kane are happy to be back in their home after 19 months of remediation and repairs after the Eaton Fire.

(

David Rodriguez/LAist

)

She wants people who didn’t experience the wildfire to know what people are still going through nearly two years later.

“We're still here. We're still suffering. We're still needing so much help,” she said.