There's a show-biz aphorism that if you act with kids or animals, you're going to get upstaged. The same has to be true of puppets. While they may lack the infectious spontaneity of carbon-based life forms that don't have to worry about death, taxes...
It's ironic that a girl, scolded in grade school for her terrible handwriting, now finds an enriching hobby in typography. "I literally failed cursive in fourth grade," says Eunice Park, the founder of Rosemary Paper Co., "but I turned my failed han...
Those bloviating LA snobs who like to venture forth the supposition there's zero culture south of their city . . . they're just circling the wagons, people who haven't been here in the past decade or simply like to repeat the same old bullshit. Oran...
The change to summer in Southern California isn't all that exciting. We just go from our normally scheduled, nearly perfect weather to being hot as balls every damn day. Hooray! Yet even we cannot escape the cultural mood shift the rest of the count...
Maybe you didn't get the memo, but the word alternative doesn't mean opposite; it means "different," as in a different outcome, choice or path. Say, for instance, the choice between walking or riding your mom to the store. So, if you've been awar...
Let the masses turn to high-octane visuals, episodic weekly dramas and pretty, witty people in precious sitcoms. The cool kids know the theater is where we get the weighty, heady issues that address the fundamental question of what it is to be a ful...
The Orange Circle is already known as an antique destination, but one downtown boutique is spinning its retro merch for the modern customer. Something's New, next to Mr. C's records, is part contemporary clothing and jewelry and part sifting through...
My limited time in jail--several hours in Anaheim and a half-day in Washington, D.C., with federal police--did little to prepare me for the heaviness in my chest as I looked at Jimena Sarno's installation Booking Bench Made from Memory at Grand Cent...
There's something about IV therapy that's fundamentally creepy. IVs are for accidents, chemotherapy and generally dire situations--not for young, healthy people trying to defeat the laws of the universe by defying their hangovers. But welcome to the...
If you're 12 years old or otherwise brain-addled, you may find Peter and the Starcatcher, a prequel to the story of Peter Pan, is the best thing since Uncle Chester's Magic Basement mysteriously went up in flames. Or maybe you have to see it because...
Record stores are either places where the bins are packed so tightly that a pinky finger can't slip between albums, with a know-it-all behind the counter who can't be bothered because you're probably into shit music anyway, or those that welcome you...
POPzilla's Ryan Batcheller and Sam Carter, the nerd-culture mavens responsible for last year's Tim Burton tribute, have followed up that dynamite show with another exhibition at Rothick Art Haus. "TIME after TIME: A Tribute to Time Travel in Pop Cul...
Whether it's juicing, recycling, buying organic or using your own poop for fertilizer (look it up!), a sustainable lifestyle requires extra effort. But thanks to all the yoga-pants-wearing moms, it's not hard to stop creating waste destined for a la...
Every comic-book geek worthy of the term has his or her favorite writer and artist. It's a question as important as favorite superhero or "DC or Marvel?" We may bicker, but there's little argument the best of the best (Kirby, Jimenez, Ditko, Perez, ...
When you walk into CocoRose Boutique, next to the theater/church in the Orange Circle, you'd never guess a 25-year-old owned it. A storefront in the circle is enviable real estate, not to mention expensive, but Courtney Rose was determined to have i...
When asked what percentage of UC Irvine's service workers are Latino, Amanda Novoa thinks for a moment, then says, "Well, just by looking, I'd say 98 percent, but I'm just making that up." She's being facetious, but the intent is clear: A huge po...
Last week, the alternative-health community took a blow so big it's making it look as if it's even more full of horseshit than expected in the eyes of conventional medicine. And the turd is Belle Gibson, an Australian "wellness" blogger and creator ...
On the surface, there's little overtly radical about curator Eric Minh Swenson's "NUDE SURVEY ONE," an eclectic exhibition of sculpture, painting, drawings and photography that celebrates the nude, mostly female, form, tucked away in the Jamie Brook...
There's been a loooot of talk about the drought in recent months. Yet it still doesn't seem official to us regular folks because there haven't been any fines, making it easy to forget how dire our situation is. According to a recent report from ...
The real star of the Monkey Wrench Collective's Slings & Arrows isn't the wholly committed ensemble, the deconstructed concept of William Shakespeare's Hamlet, or the complimentary cheese and grapes during intermission, all of which merit praise. It...