Elise Thompson

According to her friends Phillipe Marcade, Bebe Buell, and Legs McNeil, Sable Starr passed away in her sleep last Friday of cancer. She was 51 years old. Her death has not yet been confirmed by official sources, but those closest to her have been posting tributes to her since yesterday on the internet. Most people learned the sad news in a posting on Legs McNeil's Facebook, which was in response to an email sent...

Post by Greg Thompson. Special to LAist Every year, Wente Vineyards presents a summer concert series on their 2,000 acre estate in Livermore Valley. Wente embraces what the Hollywood Bowl taught us years ago -- great wine makes beautiful music. Karl Wente’s "Discover the Wine, Discover the Music" program is promoting music in wine terms and vice versa, pairing wines with songs like one might do with foods. Karl compares wine tannins and weight with...

We all remember Mousetrap. It was a hard game to set up, but if you got it just right there was nothing like it. less advanced players may want to imagine dominoes instead. Whatever the game, we love chain reactions. And things rolling, breaking and burning. This is an entry from Cadbury's "Creme that Egg!" contest. It is mesmerizing....

Photo by MuzikSpy at New York's Beacon Theater via flickr Leonard Cohen owns the stage at the Nokia Theater. Cohen is dapper in his grey suit, fedora and bolo tie, a look few men can pull off without it being obvious they are trying too hard. Cohen does not fit the suit. The suit fits him. He looks like he would be equally at home in either a smoky bookie joint or at the...

Jane and Michael Stern coined the phrase "Roadfood" over 30 years ago to describe ”...great regional meals along highways, in small towns, and in city neighborhoods. It is non-franchised, sleeves-up food...", or as they put it so succinctly at a recent roundtable, Roadfood is food “that is true to itself and true to its location.” With three James Beard journalism awards for their monthly Gourmet magazine atricles, a series of successful books under their...

Most people don't even have to look at the menu when they sit down at Versailles, the popular local Cuban restaurant with a handful of locations around town. Ironbeer, chicken/pork combo, and you're good to go. Maybe check out the specials board for the delicious braised oxtails or leg of lamb on a weekend. But two weeks ago Versailles added a little extra pizzaz. Although they served limited appetizers before, they now offer stuffed...

Cartoonist B. Kliban once advised, "Never eat anything bigger than your head." But what did he know? He also thought cats should play banjos. The Hat has been serving up deliciously greasy pastrami sandwiches since 1951. They are so old-school, they only recently started accepting credit cards. Although pastrami dips are the main attraction, locals know to go there for the chili fries. The massive mound of junk food is a sight to behold,...

Is Barbara Bush Aleister Crowley's daughter? Is Arnold Schwarzenegger a nazi? Set to Non-Phixion's song, "God is an Athiest", Los Angeles-based film-maker Claude Zachary's atheist anthem posted on YouTube last August doesn't pull any punches. (Warning: not for the faint of heart). Zachary tells LAist, "I made it by google-image searching for 'evil (fill religion name in here).' I guess I tried to show the connection between Satanism, Western religions and the US government. I...

You've got to wonder if the other serial killers get jealous sometimes. Convicted killer Charles Manson made the news twice last week, once just by having his picture taken. The photograph released by California Corrections officials March 19, showing an aging Manson at 74, quickly spread throughout the media. More obscure, and far more interesting, is the theory posited by the British Daily Mail March 20, that the unsolved 1969 murder of Joel Pugh...

Photo by Elise Thompson for LAist. Yes, you can buy Thin Mints by the case. Don't judge me. It used to be impossible to diet during Girl Scout Cookie season. They were everywhere. Then slowly the munchkins stopped going door to door, and the cookie stands at shopping centers have limited hours. Nowadays unless you have a coworker taping an order form up in the lunchroom, hunting Girl Scouts can be a major undertaking....