Elizabeth Herndon

Los Angeles could really use more public parks, don't you think? Some good folks in Silver Lake do, and they're hoping to do something about it. Maybe you'd like to help them. See, there are two really fantastic little bodies of water in the Silver Lake/Los Feliz corner of the city - the Ivanhoe Reservoir and the Silver Lake Reservoir. The problem is, they and their surrounding properties are fenced off from the public....

So, this recent outing of YouTube ingenue LonelyGirl15 as a fake was hardly surprising to many of "her" fans, but between that and the more mean-spirited Craigslist sex ad hoax by Jason Fortuny posing as a submissive female (and then posting the contact info from the respondents), we're a bit disheartened at how suspicious we're becoming of everything. That other YouTube ingenue-in-the-hood Little Loca? Yeah, she's a fake too. As with LG15, it's hardly...

Sometimes we can be a little lazy about performing our civic duties when it comes to attending community meetings, and when we're exhorted to attend a night with the Griffith Park Draft Master Plan Working Group to discuss transportation issues, we're ashamed at our lack of initial enthusiasm. However, our interest is piqued when we notice that there doesn't seem to be much information about tonight's meeting on either the main LA Parks site,...

Get your eyes ready for a busy weekend of visual art and suchlike: 1. Tonight at the Nuart: Bob Rafelson's movie Head featuring the Monkees. See Peter Tork punch an old lady, Frank Zappa insult Davy Jones, Teri Garr wear a prairie girl costume, and Victor Mature destroy a city, and hear the immortal line, "I'd like a glass of cold gravy with a hair in it, please." Yeah, yeah, Jack Nicholson wrote it...

Jack Kerouac gave William Burroughs the pseudonym "Old Bull" in his novel On The Road. Fifty-five years ago yesterday, Old Bull blew his wife Joan's brains out with a pistol during a drinking party. And now we get some information that Old Bull is going to be performing at some carnival/hoedown thing downtown on Saturday. A very dangerous-sounding carnival, featuring "dirty darts, inflatable farm animals, insulting caricatures, drunk duck pond, cactus ring toss, sleazy...

Overheard at the Robert Rauschenberg: Combines exhibition at MOCA, spoken by a rather loud, scruffy, (MFA candidate?) docent leading one man around the galleries: "But you see that parachute there? It's a toy parachute." How do you get a job like that? He was clearly just making stuff up. If you didn't go see the Rauschenberg exhibition downtown, you're too late. The last day was yesterday, and the show is now on its way...

With all the recent local talk here and elsewhere about gentrification bitterness, racial disharmony, and general loathing of entire communities, one might get the idea that Los Angeles is nothing but a disjointed, angry sprawl of warring factions ready for another major meltdown. Well sir, that's simply not true. We shan't pull out Rodney King's once-powerful but now-cliched chestnut, but instead ask you to direct your attention to a stretch of Rowena Avenue in...

While the rest of Hollywood scratches its head at the recent news that Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner's production company has found financial backing from the owner of the Six Flags theme parks, we believe we've found a connection between ol' Maverick and his new sugar daddy Daniel Snyder: Scientology's Super Power program. According to an article in the St. Petersburg Times (found via metafilter), dedicated Scientologists can enhance their perceptions of rhythm, moisture,...

Seriously? (Completely unsubstantiated rumor via G-LOOP as of 12:56 pm - UPDATE: verified by DWP as of 2:36pm) 2nd UPDATE: hundreds of photos here: Hi neighbors. I was just down checking on the set-up for the festival this weekend. It appears that a water main burst through the street at Sunset and Edgecliff. The people in about the last affordable family housing unit in the neighborhood on that corner were being evacuated by LAFD....

So, you're a Silver Lake hipster* who wants to go to the Sunset Junction street fair this weekend without shelling out that $15 no-longer-suggested-donation entrance fee. It's not that you're not into fiscally supporting harmony and diversity in the community blah blah blah, and some old grampa at the Little Joy the other night said that the Cramps alone were well worth that $15, but frankly, you're a little ticked off that you haven't...