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The Brief

The most important stories for you to know today
  • How To LA
    Best Books About LA
    Local booksellers share their recs
    Monica Bushman
    Monica Bushman produces arts and culture coverage for LAist's on-demand team. She’s also part of the Imperfect Paradise podcast team.
    Published February 1, 2024 1:55 PM
    A woman with long braids in a pony tail wearing a light pink sweater with a red & black satchel around her back faces a large black bookcase full of books. Her back is to the camera.
    Octavia's Bookshelf in Pasadena on March 7, 2023.
    (
    Alexis Hunley
    /
    for LAist
    )

    Topline:

    Local booksellers gave us their recommendations of books that help people better understand Los Angeles. Their picks include novels like Ask the Dust by John Fante, There Goes the Neighborhood by Jade Adia, and Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. Non-fiction picks included Ed Ruscha/ Now Then: A Retrospective and Everything Now: Lessons from the City-State of Los Angeles by Rosecrans Baldwin.

    Why it matters: Los Angeles is massive and complex, and there's always something new to learn about it. We turned to local booksellers for their suggestions of books that help readers understand L.A. better.

    Go deeper: Check out our How To LA podcast episodes featuring much more detail from the booksellers themselves:

    Part 1 features Book Soup, Chevalier's Books, Skylight Books and The Iliad Bookshop.

    Part 2 features Reparations Club, Octavia's Bookshelf, Tía Chucha's and Vroman's Bookstore.

    Listen 26:25
    LA Lit: Indie Booksellers Share More Recs On Best Books About The City
    Listen 16:11
    LA's Indie Booksellers On Best Books About The City — Just In Time For The Holidays

    You don’t need to live here long to know that Los Angeles is massive and complex. There is a lot to understand about the city and the greater county, and how it works.

    To help you get a clearer picture of the place, might we suggest a book?

    How to LA spoke to eight local independent booksellers to get a few recommendations of the best books to read about this place.

    Here are their picks:

    Tía Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore, Sylmar

    An interior view of a brightly colored bookstore with dark wood floors, blue and orange walls, and a large indigenous Mexican mural at the center. At the right, two women and three men sit at a table working on their laptops. At left a man with a black sweatshirt and black beanie speaks to a woman behind a counter with dark hair.
    Luis J. Rodriguez, co-owner of Tía Chucha’s, a bookstore and cultural space in Sylmar.
    (
    Monica Bushman / LAist
    )

    Co-owner and author Luis J. Rodriguez (also a former poet laureate of L.A.) says L.A. often doesn’t get the credit it deserves for its literary contributions.

    "I find L.A. to be a great literary town, a great poetry town, that people don't pay attention to,” Rodriguez says. “San Francisco is known for it, New York is known for it, but L.A. shouldn't be forgotten for the great amount of literature and poetry that comes out of these communities."

    Rodriguez’s own books — like his 1993 memoir Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. — often appear on lists of best books about Los Angeles, but he offered these picks from authors who’ve inspired him:

    Ask the Dust by John Fante

    Rodriguez considers it “the seminal L.A. novel.”

    Mercurochrome: New Poems by Wanda Coleman (who Rodriguez calls “the quintessential L.A.writer”):

    “She’s from Watts and she’s very fierce, she’s very strident. But she’s also — of course like any poet— she’s got a sensitivity to things,” Rodriguez says. “When you read her poetry she pulls you into a world that I don’t think this city appreciates.”

    Octavia’s Bookshelf, Pasadena

    A wide photo of the interior of the bookshop. On the left of frame a Black woman wearing a white cardigan, stripped shirt, and jean miniskirt holds a book and reads it. To the left a white woman picks up a book on display in the center book display of the bookstore. On the right of frame an older white woman with a black pants and jean jacket faces a large bookshelf against the wall. At the top of the bookstore wall there's a sign that reads, "Why some people be bad at me sometimes by lucile clifton" "they ask me to remember but they want me to remember their memories and i keep remembering mine."
    Octavia's Bookshelf in Pasadena, CA. March 7, 2023.
    (
    Alexis Hunley
    /
    LAist
    )

    Owner and founder Nikki High offered these two recommendations written by the store’s namesake, author (and Pasadenan) Octavia Butler.

    While Butler is often described as a science fiction writer, High says the label doesn’t really fully encompass Butler’s work:

    “I think when Octavia Butler started writing these stories they were so different than anything anyone has ever written, no one really knew what to do with her, so they just said ‘Sci-Fi.’”

    High’s recommendations:

    Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

    While the story is technically set in a fictional Southern California city called “Robledo,” High says there are many clues that it’s meant to be Pasadena.

    Kindred by Octavia Butler

    In this 1979 novel, the main character Dana lives in Altadena, right next door to Pasadena.

    Vroman’s Bookstore, Pasadena

    A bookstore shelf with mugs, a hat, glasses, magnets, tea towels and books. There are three rectangular signs along the top of the shelf. Two read "California and the West" and one reads "I LOVE L.A."
    Books on L.A. and California and L.A.-themed gifts on sale at Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena.
    (
    Monica Bushman / LAist
    )

    Bookseller Grant Hoskins echoed the importance of novelist and short story writer John Fante, but wanted to also offer some more recent works.

    His picks were both published in 2023:

    The Lost Cause by Cory Doctorow

    Set in Burbank, 30 years from today, the novel is about the climate emergency and Hoskins says, “in a lot of ways it mirrors the politics of now,” but it ultimately has a hopeful outlook on the future.

    “You could write a book like this to inspire doom and fear,” Hoskins says. “But Doctorow does it in a way that inspires a lot of hope.”

    KAOS Theory: The Afrokosmic Ark of Ben Caldwell by Robeson Taj Frazier with Ben Caldwell

    “A really incredible book” about influential arts educator and independent filmmaker Ben Caldwell that Hoskins says features a lot of great art: “It’s just a treasure.”

    Reparations Club, near West Adams

    A wide photo of the interior of the bookstore. The walls at the far end of the store are wooden and checkered. The floor has a black, yellow and black checkered pattern. In the foreground to the right of frame there are many colorful books on the display. On the left there are more shelves with books. A customer stands at the payment counter. And on the left of frame three Black women chat.
    Customers at Reparations Club. March 11, 2023.
    (
    Alexis Hunley
    /
    LAist
    )

    Jazzi McGilbert, the founder and creative director of Reparations Club (or “Rep Club”) also mentioned Octavia Butler’s “Parable of the Sower,” as well as Paul Beatty’s 2021 novel "The White Boy Shuffle" and “South of Pico: African American Artists in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s” by Kellie Jones, but she wanted to highlight a local first-time author:

    There Goes the Neighborhood by Jade Adia

    This young adult novel is a story about gentrification which McGilbert says is something that she herself grapples with every day at the bookstore.

    It’s about a group of friends with a “half-baked” idea of starting a fake gang to scare off newcomers to the neighborhood, but McGilbert says that at its heart, the story is about “community and coming of age in Los Angeles.”

    Chevalier’s Books, Larchmont Village

    Three books on a bookstore counter. The left features a photo of a single family home, with an aqua blue filter. The center book features a blue sky background, a street sign that read's "She" and a single palm tree. It also reads "Fiction, Michelle Latiolais." The far right book is white with a photo of a man in front of a fruit stand. The title at top in red reads "KOREATOWN DREAMING." At the bottom of the book, the subheading reads "Stories & Portraits of Korean Immigrant Life."
    Bookseller Miles Parnegg's picks for books that help readers better understand Los Angeles. At Chevalier's Books in Larchmont Village.
    (
    Monica Bushman / LAist
    )

    Around the holidays, we headed to Chevalier’s Books which has the claim to fame of being the oldest independent bookstore in Los Angeles.

    Bookseller Miles Parnegg highlighted these books as ones that would help transplants understand L.A. better and also “conceive of the city as a whole”:

    She by Michelle Latiolais

    Written by local author Michelle Latiolais, Parnegg describes “She” as one of his favorite books ever. Classified as neither a novel nor a collection of short stories (instead it’s labeled simply as “fiction”), Parnegg says the story “shows us a way of being in this big, sprawling city in a way that is actually reinforcing care and mutual aid.”

    Seventy-Two and One Half Miles Across Los Angeles by Mark Ruwedel

    A book of photos that Parnegg says “celebrates the complexity and the grittiness of L.A. and also tries to make an argument for getting out of our bubbles — and an argument for walking the city.”

    Koreatown Dreaming: Stories and Portraits of Korean Immigrant Life by Emanuel Hahn

    "For someone who lives in Koreatown and didn’t know much about it before I moved here, this book has been a revelation,” says Parnegg.

    Book Soup, West Hollywood

    An interior view of a bookstore with black bookshelves lining all the walls from floor to ceiling. A shorter bookshelf sits at center with a sign that reads "Book Soup." A ladder on wheels hangs from the bookshelf on the right.
    Book Soup in West Hollywood.
    (
    Russell Gearhart
    /
    Courtesy of Book Soup
    )

    We also got some recommendations for books that help you better understand Los Angeles from Book Soup.

    Store manager Jess Amodeo, who is from L.A. and grew up in the Valley, suggested these books, which both feature some great art and photography, and also have the potential to make good gifts:

    Ed Ruscha/ Now Then: A Retrospective from MoMA Press

    A photo collection of influential artist Ed Ruscha’s works spanning over 65 years that Amodeo says helps you see Los Angeles through Ruscha’s eyes.

    The Cobrasnake: Y2Ks Archive by Mark Hunter

    Amodeo says that Hunter’s photos encapsulate an era of L.A.’s nightlife scene, before smartphones social media, “when there was this convergence of culture and fashion and all these things just starting to take off.”

    Skylight Books, Los Feliz

    A row of paperback books on a shelf with a brick wall in the background. Two small wooden signs hanging above the books read "Los Angeles & California" and "History & Culture."
    The Los Angeles section at Skylight Books in Los Feliz.
    (
    Monica Bushman / LAist
    )

    Skylight Books’ general manager Mary Williams suggested:

    Everything Now: Lessons from the City-State of Los Angeles by Rosecrans Baldwin

    “It synthesizes so many different ideas in pursuit of his thesis that L.A. is a modern city-state,” Williams says. And it features interviews with several writers that are fixtures of L.A.’s literary community.

    “For somebody who’s going for their first book about L.A., I think it’s a great pick because from there you could go down a real rabbit hole of all the different authors that he mentions and people that he interviews.”

    Skylight Books also has a large L.A. regional history and culture section and a local travel guide section. From those sections, Williams highlighted:

    The Library Book by Susan Orlean

    Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology edited by David Ulin

    Dear Los Angeles: The City in Diaries and Letters, 1542 to 2018 edited by David Kipen

    The Iliad Bookshop, North Hollywood

    Lisa Morton, a long-time bookseller at the used bookstore, suggested City of Quartz by Mike Davis, the non-fiction classic about L.A., but because it’s so well known, she also added some of her favorite fiction — leaning toward horror, fantasy and science fiction — about Los Angeles:

    A view down a hallway of a used bookstore. There are rows of bookshelves on the left, a wall of shelves on the right, and stacks of books about 15-20 books high along either side of the hallway.
    The used bookstore The Iliad in North Hollywood.
    (
    Monica Bushman / LAist
    )

    Amnesiascope by Steve Erickson

    “It actually takes place in an L.A. that is so divided that each little different district has its own different time zone.”

    The Dog Park by Dennis Etchison

    A horror genre author whose stories are often set in L.A., Etchison’s short story “The Dog Park” is about two people “who meet taking their dogs into a park up in one of the canyons and soon realize there’s something very wrong in that canyon.” Like with “Amnesiascope,” Morton says, “You read it and you’re like ‘Oh, this is almost too close to reality.’”
  • Transportation & Mobility
    TSA Gold+
    New TSA program looks to increase private security
    By Bill Chappell | NPR
    Published May 21, 2026 9:30 AM
    (
    Scott Olson
    /
    Getty Images
    )

    Topline:

    Under the Transportation Security Administration's new program called TSA Gold+, private companies would play a much larger role in airport security than they have in decades.

    More details: The agency is billing the program as an update to the Screening Partnership Program, or SPP, in which 20 U.S. airports currently use private security screeners rather than federal workers.

    Why now: The agency says airports that opt into the program would be able to tailor security systems for their facility — and avoid the TSA staffing shortages that became a very public headache at airports during the recent government shutdown over Homeland Security funding.

    Read on... for more on the program.

    Federal officers handle security screening at all but a small fraction of U.S. airports, but the Trump administration is hoping to change that. Under the Transportation Security Administration's new program called TSA Gold+, private companies would play a much larger role in airport security than they have in decades.

    The TSA is set to host officials from airports and security contractors to an "industry day" at its Springfield, Va., headquarters on Thursday, as it looks to develop TSA Gold+, a public-private program that the agency calls "transformative."

    The agency is billing the program as an update to the Screening Partnership Program, or SPP, in which 20 U.S. airports currently use private security screeners rather than federal workers.

    "TSA Gold+ marks a significant evolution in the agency's approach to aviation security," a TSA spokesperson told NPR via an emailed statement.

    The agency says airports that opt into the program would be able to tailor security systems for their facility — and avoid the TSA staffing shortages that became a very public headache at airports during the recent government shutdown over Homeland Security funding.

    It also says the program would bring "the latest technology" such as AI tools to airport screening operations, to increase capacity and cut wait times, although the agency did not specify how those gains would be achieved. From the details shared so far, the equipment would be the contractors' responsibility — a departure from the current SPP system, in which TSA controls the equipment and oversees the security contract. The TSA says it would perform the oversight role it currently does.

    "Industry partners can manage equipment and introduce innovations, while travelers enjoy a smooth, predictable, and bespoke experience," the TSA said as it unveiled TSA Gold+.

    Airports currently using the private Screening Partnership Program range from San Francisco and Kansas City to Sarasota, Fla., and Atlantic City, N.J., along with smaller facilities in Montana, Wyoming and other states.

    Calls for privatizing airport security screening have come from President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress, echoing a recommendation in the conservatives' Project 2025 handbook for a second Trump term. But there are also signs of bipartisan interest in some level of private control over airport security, as seen in Atlanta, where city leaders recently voted to explore joining the Screening Partnership Program.

    Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security, touted that bipartisan interest on Wednesday during a hearing on TSA Modernization. But Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees union, which represents TSA officers, said he opposes further privatization — including the TSA Gold+ program, warning that it would hamper accountability and transparency.

    Under the new program, Kelley said, contract workers would earn less than TSA officers. He added that while many transportation security officers hold security clearances, under the new plan, the government "would be ceding direct operational control of the most sensitive technology in the aviation security enterprise to private vendors."

    The White House budget released last month promises to save some $52 million by privatizing airport screeners and requiring small airports to enroll in the SPP.

    But officials at the hearing urged lawmakers to preserve airports' ability to choose.

    Chris McLaughlin, CEO of Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, noted that the SPP has been in place since aviation security underwent drastic changes following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which led to the creation of the TSA and the SPP system.

    "We've had federalized screening for 25 years, almost," McLaughlin said. "Large airports like San Francisco have had an SPP program for 25 years."

    Both airports' arrangements work well for them, he told Garbarino.

    "The system has been safe for 25 years," he said. "It's important that airports have options."

    The new "Gold+" program echoes the Trump administration's promise to bring a "golden age of travel" to the American public. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy touted those plans earlier this week, as he unveiled $970 million in funding to improve passengers' experiences at airports, from adding family-friendly security screening lanes to improving restrooms and children's play areas.

    The money for those projects comes from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a Biden-era law aiming to update airports' aging infrastructure.
    Copyright 2026 NPR

  • Sponsored message
  • Climate & Environment
    Cloudy coasts
    Highs around mid 80s to low 90s
    Gillian Morán Pérez
    Gillian Morán Pérez writes about your daily weather forecast.
    Published May 21, 2026 8:20 AM
    May gray skies provide a gloomy background over the Los Angeles basin in a view with homes and skyscrapers in the background. Palm trees line some of the streets below.
    May gray skies return this morning for coasts and some valleys.
    (
    Mel Melcon
    /
    Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
    )

    QUICK FACTS

    • Today’s weather: Cloudy beaches sunny elsewhere
    • Beaches: Mid-70s
    • Mountains: Mid-70s to 80s
    • Inland:  83 to 91 degrees
    • Warnings and advisories: None today

    What to expect: A marine layer will cover SoCal coasts today, bringing some cooling to the region. Elsewhere expect mostly sunny skies and highs around the mid 80s.

    Read on ... to learn more.

    QUICK FACTS

    • Today’s weather: Partly cloudy then sunny
    • Beaches: lower 70s degrees
    • Mountains: Mid-70s to 80s
    • Inland:  83 to 91 degrees
    • Warnings and advisories: None today

    A marine layer will cover mostly the coastal areas today, lowering temperatures a degree or two. Otherwise expect a sunny afternoon elsewhere across SoCal.

    L.A. County beaches will see temperatures in the lower 70s today, whereas Orange County could reach up to 79 degrees along the coast.

    More inland, the valleys will see highs in the mid 80s. The Inland Empire will see highs from 83 to 91 degrees. In Coachella Valley, temperatures are expected to reach up to 100 degrees.

  • Best Things To Do
    Weekend events
    Music festivals, Fleet Week and more
    Laura Hertzfeld
    Laura Hertzfeld
    Published May 21, 2026 5:00 AM
    A light-skinned man with a beard and jean jacket plays electric guitar onstage and sings.
    Kevin Morby plays the Wiltern on Friday.
    (
    Jim Bennett
    /
    Getty Images
    )

    In this edition:

    Fleet Week, Exit the King at A Noise Within, the UCLA JazzReggae Festival, MAINopoly in Santa Monica and more of the best things to do this Memorial Day weekend.

    Highlights:

    • Tour the U.S.S. Iowa and check out the three visiting battleships at San Pedro’s Pacific Battleship Center during L.A.’s annual Memorial Day weekend Fleet Week on the waterfront. Plus, there are exhibits to walk through, food stands to try, and music for the whole family.
    • The name of this Eugène Ionesco classic alone — Exit the King — should give you some sense of where the always-on-point folks at A Noise Within were going when they chose it at this moment. The political satire borders on the absurd, with the L.A. Times likening the vibrant characters to “those in a deck of wild cards designed by Salvador Dalí.”
    • The nouveau bard of Kansas City, Kevin Morby, returns to his once-adopted hometown of Los Angeles on the heels of his newest release, Little Wide Open. Brooklyn-based Liam Kazar opens for him at The Wiltern. 
    • Eat your way down Main Street in Santa Monica at MAINopoly, the annual Monopoly-themed food festival, which will allow drinks while you walk and eat thanks to a new city permit. The popular food-and-bar stretch near the beach is experiencing a little revival with the reopening of dive bar favorite Circle Bar, plus newish hot spots like Triple Beam Pizza and June Shine.

    Happy long weekend! The Late Show with Stephen Colbert plays the funnyman’s swan song tonight, so my calendar is booked to stay up past my bedtime. Closer to home, the Yoko Ono exhibit (which comes to us straight from the Tate Modern in London) opens just in time for Memorial Day weekend, so watch this space for more on that.

    There’s music for lovers of every genre this week, according to our friends at Licorice Pizza. On Friday, Yungblud and special guests Warning rock the Greek, and Dethklok plays the Palladium; jazz trumpeter Chris Botti begins his residency at the Blue Note.

    Saturday, Bright Eyes performs I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning and Digital Ash in a Digital Urn in their entirety at the Hollywood Bowl with openers the Moldy Peaches; American Football is at the Wiltern; Belgium’s Ultra Sunn plays the Belasco; Italy’s Mina is at the Echoplex; DJ KSHMR plays the Palladium; and then, for a different sort of “Kashmir,” Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening takes over the Greek.

    On Sunday, brush your teeth with a bottle of Jack for the millennial dance party of the week at the Forum with Kesha, Chromeo and Sizzy Rocket. There’s also the big Day Trip afternoon concert at L.A. State Historic Park with Joseph Capriati, Toman and Cole Terrazas. For a more mellow Sunday, singer-songwriter Katelyn Tarver is at the Echoplex, R&B singer-songwriter Eric Bellinger plays the Novo, or classic crooner Paul Anka is doing it his way at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts.

    Elsewhere on LAist, you can check out four new food halls, wander around a favorite new Sundays-only bookstore, and yes, I’ll remind you again — make your upcoming Election Day picks with the help of our Voter Game Plan.

    Events

    L.A. Fleet Week

    Through Monday, May 25
    Pacific Battleship Center
    250 S. Harbor Blvd., San Pedro 
    COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

    A group of sailors in white uniforms, with four in tan uniforms, stand in formation on the 6th Street Bridge.
    (
    Courtesy L.A. Fleet Week
    )

    Tour the U.S.S. Iowa and check out the three visiting battleships at San Pedro’s Pacific Battleship Center during L.A.’s annual Memorial Day weekend Fleet Week on the waterfront. Plus, there are exhibits to walk through, food stands to try and music for the whole family. Not to mention those cute sailors in their whites.

    Topanga Days

    Saturday to Monday, May 23 to 25, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
    1440 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga
    COST: ADULTS $31.80; MORE INFO

    A group of people pose for a picture in front of a stage under a sign that reads "Topanga Days."
    (
    Fadeout Media
    /
    Topanga Days
    )

    Topanga Days is the easiest way to time-travel back to a simpler time when folk musicians roamed the hills, winning a yodeling contest was the biggest bragging right and you spent all year coming up with your parade costume. Those days are here once a year at Topanga Days, headlined on Saturday by New Orleans icon Cyril Neville and peppered with cherry-seed-spitting and bubble-gum-blowing contests, tons of other music, food, and, of course, the parade.

    Exit the King

    Through Sunday, May 31
    A Noise Within
    3352 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena
    COST: FROM $49.75; MORE INFO 

    A man dressed in clown makeup holds a scepter while two woman stand behind him onstage.
    (
    Craig Schwartz
    /
    Lucy PR
    )

    The name of this Eugène Ionesco classic alone — Exit the King — should give you some sense of where the always-on-point folks at A Noise Within were going when they chose it at this moment. The political satire borders on the absurd, with the L.A. Times likening the vibrant characters to “those in a deck of wild cards designed by Salvador Dalí.”

    K-Expo

    Saturday and Sunday, May 23 to 24
    L.A. Live 
    1005 Chick Hearn Court, Downtown L.A.
    COST: FREE; MORE INFO

    A black, pink and blue poster that reads "2026 K-Expo USA at L.A. Live All About K-style."
    (
    Courtesy BLND PR
    )

    K-Pop fans will flock to the K-Expo at L.A. Live, where you can see free exhibitions and events featuring 100 Korean brands and companies across content, beauty, food and technology all weekend long. Stick around Saturday night and grab a ticket (from $47) to the mega K-Pop concert at the Peacock Theater, featuring Jay Park and P1Harmony.

    MAINopoly 

    Sunday, May 24, 1 p.m. 
    Main Street, Santa Monica 
    COST: FROM $28.01; MORE INFO

    Five women hold drinks outdoors while standing near an oversized Monopoly jail square.
    (
    Courtesy MAINopoly Santa Monica
    )

    Eat your way down Main Street in Santa Monica at the annual Monopoly-themed food festival, which this year will allow drinks while you walk and eat thanks to a new city permit. The popular food-and-bar stretch near the beach is experiencing a little revival with the reopening of dive bar favorite Circle Bar, plus newish hot spots like Triple Beam Pizza and June Shine. I also heard a rumor that something new is finally coming into the old World Cafe space (!!).

    Arroyo Secodelic Festival

    Friday to Monday, May 22 to 25
    Various locations, Highland Park
    COST: VARIES; MORE INFO

    A trippy, multicolored poster for the Arroyo Secodelic Music Festival.
    (
    Courtesy Arroyo Secodelic
    )

    As LAist's Robert Garrova reports, a new four-day music festival takes over Figueroa Street in Highland Park this weekend. The Arroyo Secodelic Festival will feature 65 bands, with acts hailing from Los Angeles, Mexico and as far as France and Holland. Highlights include Flamin' Groovies, Fear and Adolescents.

    Angel City Chorale Spring Concert 

    Sunday, May 24, 4 p.m.
    Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center 
    1935 Manhattan Beach Blvd., Redondo Beach 
    COST: FROM $17; MORE INFO 

    Several dozen children in blue shirts and red scarves hold their hands in the air while singing on a stage.
    (
    Mel Stave Photography
    /
    Angel City Chorale
    )

    Enjoy the healing sounds of Angel City Chorale as they perform a new show with the theme "The Red Thread" as “a tribute to the beloved age-old parable and celebration of the invisible threads that connect as humans, our hopes, joys, resilience in the face of adversity, connection to nature and a shared planet Earth.”

    Kevin Morby

    Friday, May 22, 8 p.m.
    The Wiltern
    3790 Wilshire Blvd., Koreatown
    COST: $50-$60; MORE INFO 

    A light-skinned man with a beard and jean jacket plays electric guitar onstage and sings.
    Kevin Morby plays the Wiltern on Friday.
    (
    Jim Bennett
    /
    Getty Images
    )

    The nouveau bard of Kansas City returns to his once-adopted hometown of Los Angeles on the heels of his newest release, Little Wide Open. Morby's latest effort might be his most realized, fully embracing the Technicolor sweep of his indie-Americana sound — striking the sonic equivalent between a Terrence Malick film and Robert Frank's roadside photographs, seen through a passenger car window of a cross-country train. This time, Morby tapped Aaron Dessner of The National to serve as producer — who has most recently done the same for Taylor Swift, Gracie Abrams and Sharon Van Etten — alongside a constellation of collaborators, including Justin Vernon, Lucinda Williams, Katie Gavin, Mat Davidson and Meg Duffy. Brooklyn-based Liam Kazar opens. –Gab Chabrán

    UCLA JazzReggae Festival

    Monday, May 25, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
    UCLA Wilson Plaza
    COST: $26.14; MORE INFO 

    Three little birds told me to get down to the UCLA JazzReggae Festival on Memorial Day. The yearly music fest draws students and neighbors alike for a full day of sunshine, food, music and jammin’. The fest is fully organized and run by student volunteers, and has been since its founding 40 years ago.

    Forest Lawn Memorial Day remembrances

    Monday, May 25 
    Various locations 
    COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

    An overhead shot of a welcome center at a cemetery with a glowing cross above it.
    Forest Lawn in Glendale is one of several locations hosting Memorial Day events.
    (
    David McNew
    /
    Getty Images
    )

    Honor veterans across Los Angeles as Forest Lawn hosts Memorial Day remembrances at each of its six Southern California locations: Cathedral City, Covina Hills, Cypress, Glendale, Hollywood Hills and Long Beach. The parkwide events will celebrate the lives of those who served, with patriotic music, wreath layings, presentations and retirings of the flag, keynote addresses, presidential proclamations, invocations, giveaways, coffee and sweet treats. All events will include American Sign Language interpreters.
  • Arts & Entertainment
    'Terminator 2' at 35
    See its groundbreaking vfx on the big screen
    Monica Bushman
    Monica Bushman produces arts and culture coverage for LAist's on-demand team. She’s also part of the Imperfect Paradise podcast team.
    Published May 21, 2026 5:00 AM
    A young boy and a man wearing sunglasses and a leather jacket sit on a motorcycle, turned sideways in a flood-control channel. The man is pointing a rifle at something behind them while the boy looks at the man's face.
    Edward Furlong and Arnold Schwarzenegger in a scene from the 1991 film 'Terminator 2: Judgment Day.'
    (
    via film-grab.com
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    Topline:

    Terminator 2: Judgment Day is back in select theaters this weekend, in celebration of the movie’s 35th anniversary. Considered one of the best action films and best sequels of all time, it’s also celebrated among film experts for its groundbreaking use of CGI visual effects — most notably for the T-1000 character, a liquid metal cyborg masquerading as an LAPD officer.

    Where to see the film in LA: American Cinematheque, The Academy Museum and The Vista are hosting screenings of Terminator 2: Judgment Day starting on May 22, but they’re already selling out. Additional screenings are on May 29 at Los Feliz 3, May 30 at Aero Theatre in Santa Monica and June 6 and 7 at The Vista in Los Feliz.

    Read on ... for behind-the-scenes details from the film's Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor.

    You could call it a fulfillment of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s famous promise from the first Terminator movie in 1984: “I’ll be back.”

    Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), the bigger budget, multi-award winning follow-up to that first film is coming back to theaters in Los Angeles starting this weekend, in celebration of the film’s 35th anniversary.

    Considered one of the best action films and best sequels of all time, it’s also celebrated among film experts for its groundbreaking use of CGI visual effects — most notably for the T-1000 character, a liquid metal cyborg masquerading as an LAPD officer, played by Robert Patrick.

    Where to watch ‘T2’ on the big screen

    While the American Cinematheque’s first two 35th anniversary screenings of Terminator 2 are already sold out, as of this article’s publishing time, tickets to screenings on May 29 (at Los Feliz 3) and May 30 (at Aero Theatre in Santa Monica) are still available.

    Tickets for screenings on May 22 at The Ojai Playhouse and June 6 and 7 at The Vista in Los Feliz are also still available, and Rialto Pictures also lists screenings on July 2-5 at The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana.

    And while the screening at The Academy Museum on May 27 (with the film’s Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor Dennis Muren in person) is sold out, we have you covered with some highlights from Muren’s interview with LAist below.

    Making the impossible possible with CGI

    Terminator 2, director James Cameron’s follow up to his surprise 1984 hit, The Terminator, was the first (and still only) movie in what would become the six-film Terminator franchise to earn an Oscar win or nomination.

    Ultimately, the film took home four Oscars — for visual effects (for Dennis Muren, Stan Winston, Gene Warren, Jr. and Robert Skotak), makeup, sound, and sound effects editing — and also earned nominations for cinematography and film editing.

    The visual effects studio responsible for the T-1000 character’s CGI effects was Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), founded in 1975 by Star Wars creator George Lucas. Dennis Muren headed up their Terminator 2 team, which consisted of about 35 artists.

    Muren remembers first being taken with visual effects at the age of 6 or 7, watching The War of the Worlds (1953) in Los Angeles. He made his first film — a “creature feature” called Equinox — the summer between his freshman and sophomore years at Pasadena City College, and would go on to work for ILM on visual effects for movies like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, and (fittingly) the 2005 version of War of the Worlds.

    A police officer with a mustache is in the bottom left, scratching his nose with his finger. Behind him is a hallway with black and white checkered linoleum tile floors. In the middle of the floor a metallic figure of a man rises up, only visible from the waist up.
    A scene from 'Terminator 2' (1991).
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    via film-grab.com
    )

    ILM and Muren began development on the CGI techniques that would be needed to pull off Terminator 2’s T-1000 character in movies like 1985’s Young Sherlock Holmes and 1989’s The Abyss, which was also directed by James Cameron.

    “ILM has been so good at being able to really do the impossible,” Muren said. “And we kind of joke about that, but we've got many different ways of doing things.”

    When the opportunity for Terminator 2 came up, Muren had also just returned from a year-long sabbatical he spent studying computer graphics, and said he was confident ILM had the tools needed to make the T-1000 character a reality.

    “We were ready to input the film digitally,” Muren explained. “[To] do all the manipulation in a computer instead of with optical film running through printers and going to labs for processing.”

    And when ILM got that digital system for “compositing” — combining live-action images, practical and CGI effects — working seamlessly, Muren says, “That was an incredible tool.”

    But that didn’t mean that pulling off a shiny, shape-shifting, liquid metal character successfully would be easy.

    “It's just complicated,” Muren explained. “You've just got this reflective material [and] how are we supposed to be able to see depth or shape when it's deforming?” But at the same time, Muren said, “that's what was exciting about it.”

    Muren says the trickiest scene for the team to figure out is when the T-1000 walks through a cell door made of metal bars. While it happens in a matter of seconds on screen, it amounted to 14 to 16 weeks of work for the visual effects team.

    “I always said that shot, even as we were doing it, and we got close to finishing, I said, ‘This is an absolutely impossible shot,’” Muren explained. So when they got it right, he said, “It was like a new world.”

    Today, while he says Jurassic Park (1993) is the film he’s now asked about most often, he always reminds people: “T2 was really the breakthrough film.”