Aldous Huxley’s Brave New L.A.
FIFTY YEARS AGO, on November 22nd, 1963, in his home at the top of Mulholland Highway beneath the first “O” in the Hollywood sign, the British author, psychedelic pioneer and visionary thinker Aldous Huxley lost his three-year battle with cancer. Per his written request, Huxley’s second wife, Laura, injected him with a dose of liquid... More
Now Reopening: Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum
While the decade-long renovation of Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum left some grumbling about delays and costs, the weekend’s grand reopening, counted down on a huge digital clock on the neo-Gothic building’s facade, couldn’t have come at a more fitting moment. In just a few weeks, the Netherlands’ Queen Beatrix will turn the throne over to her son... More
Highland Fling
With its elegant, Commune-designed interiors and fresh, market-driven cuisine, the restaurant Ammo has been luring art world power players and tastemakers to a semi-desolate stretch of Highland Avenue near Santa Monica Boulevard for more than a decade. The eclectic interior design studio Blackman Cruz, down the street, boasts a similar following. Still, until recently one... More
On The Verge: Golshifteh Farahani
Destiny, for some actors, might mean meeting a certain director or earning a coveted industry award. For Golshifteh Farahani, destiny arrived five years ago in the form of detainment at the airport in Teheran, when she was prevented from boarding her flight. Farahani became an icon thanks to the 2006 film M for Mother, about... More
Wonder Wall
Morning, noon and night, the halls of the Armory are abuzz with creativity as locals of all ages take advantage of the Center’s extraordinary art class offerings – from studio photography to Photoshop, collage making to animation, letterpress printing to drawing, painting and ceramics. These classes are in fact so synonymous with the institution that... More
Citizen Jane
As a child in London, Jane Goodall carried a torch for Tarzan and dreamed of becoming a female Dr. Doolittle, so it’s fitting that another children’s adventure story – Dr. Seuss’ Oh, The Places You’ll Go! – will provide the theme for this year’s Rose Parade, starring Dr. Goodall as Grand Marshal. The world’s most... More
Coming Clean
It might be tempting to dismiss detoxing as just the latest health fad or a California cliché that’s easy to poke fun at, but the truth is, in this age when the air we breathe and the water we drink are contaminated with dangerous chemicals – to say nothing of the processed foods we eat... More
L.A. Woman
In Eve Babitz’s third book, Sex and Rage, the main character Jacaranda Leven comes upon a black-and-white photograph hanging in a grand Hollywood penthouse apartment, next to “a David Hockney swimming pool, and a huge pornographic watercolor by John Altoon.” Shot by Julian Wasser in 1963, the image shows Marcel Duchamp playing chess in an... More
Everyone Into the Pool
Wednesday night, beneath an inverted five-pointed star hanging from the ceiling of the Masonic Lodge at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, the artists Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe presented “Shadow Pool: A Natural History of the San San International” to a crowd of 350 that included Gus Van Sant and Jeffrey Deitch, who... More
A Safer World
Mathew Gerson was already familiar with the ways conscience and commerce intersect when he had a “eureka” moment. Gerson–who in 2005 founded online retailer Econscious Market, which sells eco-friendly products and donates up to 10 percent of the retail price of each sale to charity–was reading a book about Dr. Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners... More
Ann Roth: Craft Queen
Some call her the doyenne of costume design, but Ann Roth herself prefers the term “broad.” Turning 80 next month, Roth may be the oldest working costumer in the business, but she’s flaunting blue toenails — not hair — and dancing to Tom Waits in the morning for inspiration. And if an Emmy for her... More
The Untrained Eye
In 1951, Charles Brittin, a mailman and amateur photographer, moved to Venice, Calif., and began to photograph his surroundings: the desolate streets and misty midways, the oil derricks erected by the beach and the vibrant Beat community, with the artist Wallace Berman at its core, that gathered regularly at Brittin’s apartment for impromptu parties. He... More