Adrienne Crew

We've been enjoying the display of lights all over the Windsor Square neighborhood. But special note goes to the folks on Arden who decorated their palm tree to give a special SoCal twist to the scene. Any holiday light displays that have caught your eye this season? Send a picture to labrainterrain@hotmail.com and we'll post it....

LAObserved.com reminds us that the December 12, 2004 issue of The Los Angeles Times Magazine profiles KCRW's Frances Anderton. Ms. Anderton hosts the weekly radio program, "DnA: Design and Architecture," which focuses on LA designers and architects. The article also lists some LA landmarks that Anderton claims enrich her soul. Her list includes these gems: Theme Building, Los Angeles International Airport, Pereira & Luckman, Welton Becket & Associates, Paul Williams, 1961. My first love....

The Food Section.com has published a report on a book signing by Thomas Keller at LACMA by their chef-correspondent Kristin Franklin, a recent Los Angeles transplant. On Friday, November 12, 2004, Los Angeles Times food writer and author Russ Parsons interviewed superchef Thomas Keller, owner of The French Laundry and Bouchon restaurants, as a supplement at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's latest art exhibit "From Renoir to Matisse: The Eye of Duncan...

LAist read the Los Angeles Time's rather perfunctory 12/10/04 article on about Americans moving to Canada in the wake of this year's election results. Favorite quotation so far: Sitting near the back of the room, the Griggs family of Oxnard -- brother Bill, sister Kelly and their 72-year old mother, Joan, listened intently. Joan Griggs said she's tired of being surrounded by immigrants and wants to leave. "We'll go somewhere where we're the immigrants,"...

Still looking for that perfect gift? Check out some mall-ternatives happening this weekend: Sembradores de Aztlan presents "Tianguis de la Communidad" The Tianguis supports community-based vendors as an alternative to mainstream commercial holiday shopping. Your purchase also helps raise funds for Los Angeles youth to attend the 2005 Chicana/o Indigenous Youth Leadership Institute. Date: Saturday, December 11, 2004, from 11am-5pm. Location: Tierra de la Culebra 240 S. Avenue 57 Highland Park, CA 90042 -Cultural...

We just noticed a branch of the KaBloom chain of flowershops in the mini-mall at Wilshire and San Vincente (8326A Wilshire Blvd). The store's name is especially apt given its proximity to an LA intersection notorious for spectacular auto crashes and irate tempers....

On Saturday, December 11th, Santa Monica Museum of Art will exhibit "Black Belt," a group show of artwork, curated by the Studio Museum of Harlem, exploring the intersection between African American and Asian American cultures from the 1970s and 1980s. The forty five works in different mediums by nineteen contemporary American artists interpret political and philosophical connections among people of color, pop culture, and urban life. When the show opened in New York last...

The Westmar Sun reports that Mar Vista neighbors lost the latest round in their fight to oppose the redesign of a Taco Bell franchise at the intersection of Inglewood and Venice Blvds when the City Council's Planning and Land-Use Management Committee gave a quick green light to the plan on Oct. 27. The Los Angeles City Council also approved the new Taco Bell, 13-0, on Nov. 9. The Mar Vista district's Council Member Cindy...

The Malibu Surfside News reports that "a man that Federal Bureau of Investigation personnel have dubbed the "Knieval Bandit" because he wears a motorcycle helmet to disguise his face, robbed the Point Dume branch of Bank of America on Wednesday, Nov. 17." The robber, suspected of committing a similar robbery last May, wears a silver motorcycle helmet and silver aviator sunglasses. He coordinates his headgear with a rakish ensemble composed of a black jacket...

It won't count as a sighting on Defamer.com, but the stars of stage and screen will be accessible to the faithful at various screenings and tributes about town this month. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3 The American Cinematheque presents a double feature of Reese Witherspoon in "Vanity Fair" (2004) and Alexander Payne's "Election" (1999). A discussion with Ms. Witherspoon will take place between films. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4 The American Cinematheque pays home to American starlet Janet...