LA Observed

Rainy Day History

After a week of tornado damage, power outages, evacuations, hail and snarled traffic, it's time to pronounce all this rain…a welcome success. Southern California has so far escaped the disastrous mudslides and debris flows that many feared after the big Station Fire. And we've gotten a nice reminder of how much our lives are tied to the Pacific and the jet stream...

Jay, Conan and the Rest

Well here we are at the end of the second week of the great American late night talk show crisis, and I still don't know how I feel about who gets to read jokes off cue cards on NBC at 11:35 p.m...

Saying Goodbye to LA

Here at the start of a new year, when the tone of the city is usually to look ahead, the local news has been full of some notable goodbyes. The first to catch my eye was the rather pointed exit from Los Angeles of the LA Philharmonic Orchestra's principal flutist -- or if you prefer, flautist...

Historic Trees of LA

2009 Standing Ovations

Closure, 2009

Now that 2009 is coming to a close, I suspect we can all agree it's been a pretty rough year. The recession became more harsh and personal for many in Southern California, and the best thing to be said about it is there are the first signs of better days ahead next year...

An LA Style Election

In a corner of the San Fernando Valley section of LA, the voters in one city council district this week put another election to bed. It wasn't exactly an all-consuming event – only about 15 percent of the eligible voters bothered to cast a ballot. Except for a few excited activist bloggers, the media mostly passed on the race, declining to offer much in the way of in-depth reporting...

Spector Shows Up Uninvited

An occupational hazard of following the news obsessively is that you're rarely surprised -– truly surprised -– by anything that happens. It doesn't mean that you know ahead of time what's going to happen. It just means that when news comes across your screen -- like say, the Tiger Woods story, or that couple sidling into the White House dinner uninvited -- you are seldom shocked. More often, there's a part of you that thinks, hmm, should have seen that coming. But I must admit, while scrolling through my Twitter feed the other day, I was completely floored by one news nugget...

Tales of Gavin Newsom

This past week I managed to break free of the Los Angeles gravity for a few days and travel among our fellow Californians who live north of the Tehachapi Mountains. Writers through the years have already described very well how we southern Californians stand out from the northerners. And vice-versa. No need to go there again...

Eyes on L.A.

We didn't plan it this way, but earlier this week on the LA Observed website we had two posts back to back about photographers from out of town casting their eyes on Los Angeles. Both artists are resolute in their pursuit of L.A. as subject, yet completely different in what they bring to the task. As you'll see...

Betting on Beck

The William Bratton era is officially over at the Los Angeles Police Department. And any day now, the Charlie Beck era will begin...

The Mayor's Day

Every evening, Mayor Villaraigosa's office sends out his public schedule for the following day. It goes by email to journalists and assignment desks at the TV stations, and gets posted on the wire at City News Service...

Defending Harvey Levin

Remember back about three years ago when Mel Gibson, the actor, was arrested in Malibu for driving under the influence? There's a new controversy swirling around the aftermath of his arrest. And it's one that actually matters more than the gossipy details of another actor getting busted...

The McCourt's Messy Divide

Ordinarily, the breakup of a marriage isn't the stuff of public conversation. Usually, it's none of our business. But every so often there's a marriage either so public or so infused into the culture that when it falls apart it becomes fair fodder for discussion...

New Yorker and Nikki Finke

As if we needed any more proof, this week brought fresh evidence of the ways that the media picture is changing, in L.A. and in the geography-free, wild wild world of the web...