Carolyn Kellogg

This is what the papparazzi look like (bored, packing up) when you walk down the red carpet after the big celeb of the evening. In this case that was Diane Keaton, and the event was Thursday night's Ambassador Wake at The Bounty. Michael from Franklin Avenue doesn't take nearly enough credit for making it happen, with the LA Conservancy, and he has a great writeup of the evening. Mack does too. A pile of...

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

Leonardo DaVinci lived in all of the following except: Milan Amsterdam Rome France You have 7 seconds. (no googling) That was the first question of the 2006 LAUSD academic decathlon superquiz. It's being broadcast now on KCLS and will be rebroadcast on LA36. The theme? The Renaissance. Today there are local competitions; state finals run from March 16-19. LA's own El Camino Real High School was last year's national champs, but Taft ruled at...

Surviving while homeless isn't easy. And now the agency that oversees the care of the homeless in Los Angeles is in trouble. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority improperly used $1.7 million in federal funds, according to a report in yesterday's Daily News. Oh no, you're probably thinking, the people running things blew all the money on golf trips to Scotland and well-endowed hookers. Well, no. The money was used for homeless services. LAHSA's...

LAist recently got an e-mail from an organizer of 15 visitors en route from France, age 35-55. It reads, in part: I thought you might be able to give me advices: I'd like to find a place where we could have dinner or a drink, where there are no tourists. In fact, I'm looking for the last place where to go out in LA, just to do as the LA people do (when in...

In a California Supreme Court ruling yesterday, a judge has made it harder for a divorced, non-custodial parent to block their ex from moving away with the kids. These are now called "move-away" parents, which sounds like something an 8-year-old might have come up with. Will "custodial" be traded for "sleep-over" next? Yesterday port traffic slowed down as security guards walked out to protest a mass firing, the Long Beach Press Telegram reports. The...

If of Montreal were from Los Angeles, they'd either live in Silverlake or Venice Beach; their new CD Sunlandic Twins falls, in spirit, somewhere in between. It's part hipster part hippie; part electroclash part '60s pop. Lead man Kevin Barnes calls it "21st century A.D.D. electro cinematic avant-disco." The CD is irrepressably upbeat, with melodic choruses, delicioulsy cheesy disco flourishes, a flash of mariachi here, strings there and hooks all around. "Forecast fascist future"...

Could somebody be perched up at the Griffith Observatory, rebroadcasting Howard Stern's Sirius show over the broadcast airwaves? Today the LA Times reports that Howard Stern fans have been spreading Stern's word illegally, recording the show and redistributing it over the internet. As soon as the lawyers shut down one site, another pops up. It poses a problem for Stern, who sympathizes with the rebellious spirit but also wants the company that pays him...

Sean over at Blogging.la has called for the Los Angeles Police Department and Los Angeles Sheriff's Department to start blogging, a la the LAFD. We agree with Sean: a little openness goes a long way, and the fire department's is an ideal model. Blogs all around! It would do both organizations good to start communicating online. Part of the problem may be organizational: at the LAPD, it looks like the Media Relations team focuses...

When it opened in 1949 as the General Petroluem headquarters, the building at 612 South Flower in downtown was the tallest in Los Angeles. Architect Welton Becket, who did the round Capitol Records building, the Cineramadome and other icons of mid-century design, probably never thought it would be turned into apartments. But that's just what happened in 2003, as The Pegasus, taking the name from the oil company's logo. There is much to love:...