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• Best Singer-Songwriter

  Active Child

  Pat Grossi's stage name is Active Child, which refers to his precious, youthful tendency to put his ears right up to the speaker to get a better listen. The moniker is a bit cringe-inducing, and indeed the lyrics on the Pasadena resident's 2011 full-length debut album, You Are All I See, aren't for those too cool to attend school. They're… More >>

• Best Latin Alternative Band

  La Santa Cecilia

  If there is one band that represents the multicultural mix of Los Angeles, it's La Santa Cecilia. Since its Latin Grammy nomination last year, the Boyle Heights–bred group has been representing L.A. at major festivals in Texas and New York. (It's exciting, particularly for those who can remember them packing La Cita in their early years.) They're also picking up… More >>

• Best Free Concert Series

  Levitt Pavilions Summer Concert Series

  Each summer the Levitt Pavilions in Pasadena and MacArthur Park put on free shows; the scene is relaxed, the views are nice, and the lineups are absolutely first-rate. Although a good portion of the musicians are from L.A., they come from all over the world, and include Weekly favorite acts like Dam-Funk, Fool's Gold and Buyepongo. (There's a particular emphasis… More >>

• Best Rap Collective

  Black Hippy

  South Los Angeles rap collective Black Hippy was assembled by Anthony "Top Dawg" Tiffith, who, via a handwritten sign hanging in their Carson studio, lets them know that they should strive for charisma, personality, swagger, substance, lyrics, uniqueness and work ethic. In an era of one-off dance club hits, it's the "substance" that the group — rappers Jay Rock, Ab-Soul,… More >>

• Best Concert Venue

  Walt Disney Concert Hall

  Smooth steel curves cut the skyline at unexpected angles and sharp creases, which is partly why no other building in L.A. proclaims "21st century" like Walt Disney Concert Hall. The acoustics and visuals inside are as impressive as the exterior, which makes it easily the best place to hear an orchestra in Southern California. Whether it's symphonic or choral music,… More >>
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  Best Rapper

  Blu

  A rapper's box of tricks is pretty sparse, consisting of little more than his voice and his rhymes. Fortunately Blu, the underrated rapper originally from San Pedro, has been blessed with the best of both. His voice, smoky and sensual, slides effortlessly through complex lyrics that reference everything from Scripture to Shakespeare to Notorious B.I.G. (Not for nothing, he also… More >>

• Best Under-the-Radar Jazz Festival

  Central Avenue Jazz Festival

  Los Angeles used to be a major jazz hub. From the 1920s until the 1950s a small strip of Central Avenue, around Vernon Avenue, played host to every major jazz figure passing through town, including Louis Armstrong, Lester Young, Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker. These days almost every building from that era is gone, save for the Dunbar Hotel, which… More >>

• Best Jazz Club

  Blue Whale

  There are a number of nice jazz rooms in Los Angeles, but none as accessible and forward-thinking as the Blue Whale. Joon Lee's dark, low-key room atop Little Tokyo's Weller Court consistently books some of the most important jazz musicians not just locally but globally — we're talking folks like John Daversa and Dwight Trible. It's an indispensable part of… More >>

• Best Theater for Your Script Reading

  Working Stage Theater

  A few doors north of Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, Working Stage Theater recently was renovated with a Dwell magazine–worthy façade, seating for up to 60, surround sound and soundproofing. It's a bustling, creative environment — the sort of place that people who've never been to Hollywood might imagine exists on every block. For a very reasonable fee, the owners… More >>

• Best Special Effects Class

  Multimedia Effects in the Haunted Mansion

  Are you the geek in the DoomBuggy craning his neck in Disney's Haunted Mansion ride, looking for the hidden projectors and strings that make the ghosts move? Yes? El Camino College's Multimedia Effects in the Haunted Mansion is the workshop for you. Taught each October for $35 by Natural History Museum senior media technician Chris Weisbart, what began as a… More >>

• Best Public Library to Spoil You Rotten

  South Pasadena Library

  Los Angeles has some great public libraries. With the ability to order any book from any branch, all of the libraries can be pretty great. But South Pasadena, that tiny tree-lined enclave, has created the library we all wish we could have. Entirely self-contained, the budget for music and movies seems to be endless. New albums roll in every day,… More >>
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  Best Writing School for Foodies

  Writing Pad

  You want to write prose, poetry or screenplays, but your dreams are also filled with chocolatey ice cream sandwiches and flaky cinnamon walnut pastries. Writing Pad is Marilyn Friedman's answer for the hungry scribe. She has recruited top writing teachers, who provide cozy classes both downtown and in Culver City. Workshops and panels are led by widely published authors, award-winning journalists… More >>

• Best Writing Class

  Jim Krusoe at Santa Monica College

  Jim Krusoe at Santa Monica College offers a special brand of "class critique" to inspire people to write that novel or short story they've long had in their heads. Former students have produced more than 30 novels and countless magazine and literary-journal pieces. There are no class assignments. No textbook. Krusoe awards a B to everyone. All you need is… More >>

• Best Nostalgia Library

  Pasadena Public Library, Central Branch

  Designed by the same architects as the Huntington Library, the Pasadena Public Library's Central Branch looks from the outside like an ornate hacienda — there's even a fountain by the entrance — while inside it's like a country gent's retreat. With tapestries above the front desk, a high Valhalla ceiling with elaborate grid beams and UFO-style hanging lamps, you can… More >>

• Best Library to Get Serious Work Done

  West Hollywood Library

  The hype was mighty when the 33,150-square-foot West Hollywood Library opened a year ago, but it certainly has lived up to it. Plugged in to the max and with a location to die for — opposite the blue and green and red whale that is the Pacific Design Center — the library has a 2.5-acre park outside its main entrance.… More >>
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  Best Spiritual Clairvoyant

  Melodie at oohMystyk

  Step into Melodie's reading room at oohMystyk, filled with crystals, gold Egyptian velvet furniture and an air of nervous excitement. In the hour to come, she will figure out your charts based on your birthdate and give you a reading that will blow your mind. She's direct, doesn't sugarcoat and leaves you with a greater sense of clarity and direction.… More >>

• Best Place for Good, Mystical Mojo

  The Green Man Store

  There's an infectiously friendly tug one feels spending time at the Green Man Store. The place is more than a business for owners Jill, Carrie and Joe — who also call themselves the White Wolf Clan. It's a calling and an extension of their lifestyle and beliefs in positive spirituality, herbal remedies, pagan traditions, personal-energy healing, psychic readings and the… More >>

• Best Place to Study Photography

  Getty Museum, Photo Department

  There are plenty of reasons to visit the Getty's shining fortress on the hill: Richard Meier's architecture, Van Gogh's Irises, Robert Irwin's 134,000-square-foot garden, the gorgeous city views, the live music performances, the restaurant. Less well known is its fantastic collection of photography. From architectural photographer Julius Shulman and multimedia artist Ed Ruscha to controversy magnet Robert Mapplethorpe and fashion… More >>

• Best Pocket Cemetery

  Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park

  Everyone knows about L.A.'s two grand cemeteries: Hollywood Forever, with its over-the-top tombstones, and Forest Lawn, a sort of theme park to death so gloriously over the top it inspired no less than Evelyn Waugh. But you won't find Marilyn Monroe in either of these — or Truman Capote, or Natalie Wood. The A-list party, it turns out, is in… More >>

• Best Unscripted Stand-Up Show

  The Set List

  Sometimes celebrities will eat it, hard. Sometimes complete unknowns will blow minds. Yet every single instance of Troy Conrad and Paul Provenza's The Set List allows audiences a rare glimpse into the gear-spinning creative process of professional comedians. The premise: Performers make up material on the spot based on random (and often twisted) phrases they've never seen before. (Fortunately there's… More >>

• Best Stand-Up Comedy Show

  The Meltdown at Nerdist Theater at Meltdown Comics

  Before there was Chris Hardwick's Nerdist Podcast and Nerdist Podcast Network and Nerdist Theater and entire Nerdist mini–media empire, there was merely a haphazard calendar of comedy shows, art installations, panels and classes in the back of a comic book shop. The unequivocal highlight of the hodgepodge was comedian Jonah Ray's original monthly show, which in late 2010 upgraded to… More >>

• Best TV Taping for a Casual Friday Night Out

  Real Time With Bill Maher taping

  If you're reading the L.A. Weekly, you're probably a fan of Bill Maher. The left-leaning, proudly pot-smoking comedian tapes his hourlong HBO show, Real Time With Bill Maher, right here in L.A., at CBS Television City in the Fairfax District. And if you're willing to wait in line and be bossed around by a bunch of pimply-faced wannabe comedians, you… More >>

• Best Highbrow Public Art

  Triple A Murals on the side of François Ghebaly Gallery on La Cienega

  At that frantic intersection just south of the 10 freeway where La Cienega meets Venice, the surrounding buildings are gray, beige or brick. Even the billboards tend to be monotonous, advertising dental offices or dating sites. So when artists' murals started appearing there, on the side of the former muffler shop that now houses François Ghebaly Gallery, they stood out.… More >>

• Best Studio Tour

  Warner Bros.

  It's easy to get blasé about filmmaking in this city: There's always a shoot happening down the block or a B-list actor on a neighboring bar stool. But it's hard not to feel the thrill of movie magic when you're traipsing around the historic Warner Bros. studio and seeing the soundstage where they filmed Casablanca — or the back lot… More >>

• Best New Museum

  Grammy Museum

  The Grammy Museum opened in 2008 — the 50th anniversary of the Grammy Awards — at L.A. Live downtown. It packs more than two dozen exhibits into 30,000 square feet spread over four floors, celebrating music ranging from rock to country, R&B to classical, Latin to jazz. You'll find artifacts encased in glass (Woody Guthrie's handwritten "This Land Is Your… More >>

• Best Comedy School for Kids

  Studio LOL

  Do you have a budding Belushi in the family? A potential Poehler? Studio LOL is where kids can learn the art of improv comedy through such games as "The BFF Game Show" and "World's Worst Birthday." It's run by husband-and-wife actors Katy and Ryan Chase — a cuter, fresher-faced pair you will not find. They have just the right mix… More >>

• Best Multiplex Movie Theater

  ArcLight Hollywood

  Some nights, you want to go to a movie theater and watch a six-hour Japanese film about schoolgirl samurais, and that's why we have Cinefamily. Other nights, you want to see a pristine print of a classic like Singin' in the Rain or 2001, and that's why we have the Aero and the Egyptian. But some nights you just want… More >>

• Best Movie Music Revue

  For the Record at Rockwell Table & Stage

  Film and music fans can unite for this Los Feliz night out. For the Record at Rockwell Table & Stage is an original movie music revue where contemporary directors (the Coen brothers, Paul Thomas Anderson, John Hughes) are saluted via the best bits of film dialogue and pop music cues from their films. A live band accompanies the talented 40-member… More >>

• Best Ticket to L.A.'s Macabre Underground

  Dearly Departed Tours

  It's called the L.A. tour that locals like to take again and again, and with good reason. Scott Michaels (founder of hugely popular celebrity-death site findadeath.com) and his dedicated and highly knowledgeable guides operate three tours that will give you a different and slightly morbid perspective on the city you drive around in on a daily basis. In comfy vans… More >>

• Best Sexy Private Party Space

  Studio Servitu

  Hidden in the depths of a downtown L.A. manufacturing warehouse, Studio Servitù is an oasis for outrageous art and events helmed by two fierce females, Miss Crash and Jane Jett, beckoning fans of fetishistic fun, the female form and dark delights. These gals know the importance of creating an ominous, sexy atmosphere. (The ladies are fetish models, and Crash is… More >>

• Best Mini Museum

  the L.A. Times building's Globe Lobby

  Step inside the magnificent Globe Lobby in the Los Angeles Times building in downtown L.A. and travel back to 1935, the era of art deco. That year, artist Hugh Ballin painted 10-foot-high murals in the lobby, illustrating the significance of industry and media in the country's preeminent cities. (Ballin's murals, considered some of the city's finest of the era, also… More >>

• Best Hollywood Walking Tour

  Felix in Hollywood

  Felix in Hollywood is the only Hollywood tour company that never covers Hollywood Boulevard, according to Philip "Felix" Mershon, who developed the tour in 2011 on the success of his eponymous blog, felixinhollywood.blogspot.com. From major film and TV companies to radio networks and record labels, nearly all forms of 20th-century entertainment began along a half-mile stretch of Sunset, Mershon says.… More >>

• Best Outdoor Silver Head

  Ace Museum

  Angelenos are used to seeing weird things, but a 20-foot-high chrome metal statue of Lenin's head — complete with a trapeze baby that looks like Chairman Mao dancing on top — certainly slows traffic. The sculpture by the Gao Brothers is located on a corner in front of a long-abandoned car dealership that is now the independent Ace Museum. The… More >>

• Best Cheap Date

  Regency Theaters Valley Plaza 6

  Now you can go see that guilty pleasure of a bad movie you've been secretly obsessed with: At Regency Theaters Valley Plaza 6, Tuesday and Sunday night tickets are available for the 1960s price of $1.50, and every other day it's just $3. One of the best-kept secrets in L.A. sees not only lines of NoHo hipsters but also folks… More >>

• Best Archive of Global Protest Art

  Center for the Study of Political Graphics

  With "L.A. VS. WAR" and "PEACE" painted across its façade, it's easier to find the otherwise low-key offices of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics on Third Street. Here a small but dedicated staff collects, preserves and catalogs a treasure trove of protest graphics from countries and causes around the world, from 1900 to Occupy. Much of the… More >>

• Best Contemporary Art Mall

  Pacific Design Center

  A tragically underappreciated gem of the local art landscape, the second floor of the Blue Building at the Pacific Design Center is one of the city's most populated "gallery districts," and certainly its most densely packed. About 20 contemporary art galleries, including many of the best in town, flocked to PDC's bargain rents in the aftermath of the 2008 financial… More >>

• Best Music at an Art Event

  Downtown Art Walk

  On its website, Downtown Art Walk describes itself as a "public art phenomenon" that "brings together art lovers and community friends." Indeed, it is partly that. But it's also a raucous party full of young people voraciously consuming all manner of food and beverages (particularly beverages) and seeing great music. Just by walking the streets you'll see a wide range… More >>

• Best Celebrity-Studded Gallery Openings

  Prism

  Gorgeousness just drips from every pore of this place. Founded by PC Valmorbida, Prism is the kind of contemporary art gallery where the artists showing there are so high-profile that they count as celebrities when they go other places. Heavy hitters include street artists gone A-list like Barry McGee, publishing phenoms like Eric Kroll, up-and-coming Australian artist Jonathan Zawada, even… More >>

• Best Improv Show

  "Last Day of School"/"Convoy" at Upright Citizens Brigade

  Anonymous once said, "You get what you pay for." In regards to the McDonald's dollar menu, Anonymous was probably right, but he was dead wrong about the doubleheader improv show at the Upright Citizens Brigade: "Last Day of School" and "Convoy." For $5 at 11 p.m. on Thursdays you can see two of the most seasoned and reliably hilarious improv… More >>

• Best Street Art–Friendly Print Shop and Clubhouse

  Modern Multiples

  Richard Duardo's newly expanded operation is one of the best in town for edgy, urban-inflected art lithography — and the location is a veritable gallery unto itself and clubhouse to boot, constantly full of every street artist of note who lives in or even just passes through L.A. Proprietor Duardo is enjoying the fruits of a decades-long career supporting pioneering… More >>
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  Best Telephone-Only Art Gallery

  323 Projects

  Ever had one of those nights where you sincerely planned to make it to a killer art opening in, say, Culver City or Chinatown or Santa Monica's Bergamot Station, but you just couldn't drag your black-clad, chardonnay-swilling self across the room, much less across town? Wouldn't it be lovely if you could just phone it in instead? A professionally curated… More >>

• Best Neighborhood Movie Theater to See a Blockbuster

  Vista Theater

  Perched where Hollywood Boulevard hits Sunset, the Vista Theater has a 90-year history as checkered as the surrounding neighborhood (including a stint in the '70s as a porn house). Owner Lance Alspaugh has plowed $1 million into renovating the theater while keeping its vintage charm, including the Egyptian art deco decor. Its commitment to 35mm (despite a recent upgrade to… More >>

• Best Comedy Show at a Taco Stand

  Best Fish Taco in Ensenada

  Under the outdoor faux cabana of Joseph Cordova's venerable Los Feliz taco hut, Best Fish Taco in Ensenada — a spot that looks like a cross between a Corona Light commercial and Keanu Reeves' man cave — there are yuks aplenty. Normally you'd come here to eat delightfully fried fish and/or shrimp tacos — maybe a soda. But on alternating… More >>

• Best Hip Dinner/Theater Combination

  Atwater Crossing

  Before a performance in May of the avant-garde, Hurricane Katrina–themed opera Crescent City at the Atwater Crossing complex's AT1 space, the experience of eating at communal tables in the open-air courtyard at the adjoining, Mediterranean-tinged Atwater Crossing Kitchen enhanced the experience like few other pre-theater dinners. It was easy to feel at one with your fellow diners — we are… More >>

• Best Aquarium-Slash–History Lesson

  Cabrillo Marine Aquarium

  The Cabrillo Marine Aquarium gets points for its excellent collection of marine life, but this facility also affords visitors a peek into L.A.'s museum past — it has kept most of the strange, old-timey displays of long-dead giant crabs and taxidermied animals since its founding in 1935. View diving seabirds in a 3-D cross-section model of the ocean. Compare various… More >>

• Best Bizarro Drunken Tour Bus Event Thingie

  Mystery Trip

  Bring alcohol, bring a silly hat, bring a DVD you no longer want and be ready for absolutely anything at Mystery Trip. Birthday parties and corporate groups hire guide Mysterious Dave for a full day of drunken revelry, zigzagging across the city in a Technicolor dream bus with no sense of where they're going next (Dodger Stadium? The Bunny Museum?)… More >>

• Best New Mexican Heritage Museum

  LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes

  On a 2.2-acre campus downtown, inside two of the city's oldest buildings, Los Angeles' rich and noteworthy Mexican-American heritage spectacularly unfolds. Spanning from the city's founding in 1781 to the present day, LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes features a captivating interactive experience of Mexican-American life in 1920s Los Angeles, an illuminating short-film series about Mexican-American history and an excellent… More >>

• Best New Theater

  A Noise Within

  Los Angeles is teeming with theatrical talent that periodically coalesces into feats of artistic wonder but rarely matures into important cultural phenomena. Classical repertory theater company A Noise Within is that rare exception whose tenacity and virtuosity have earned it a major place in the arts landscape. Nearly two decades after beginning with forced simplicity in a make-do space in… More >>

• Best New Blue-Chip WeHo Gallery

  Matthew Marks Gallery

  Blue-chip dealer Matthew Marks is known as a class act in New York, where Marks made his name, so it was a big deal when he decided to open shop on the Left Coast. He did it his own way, choosing a funky, off-the-beaten path location next to an Orthodox Jewish mortuary in West Hollywood and commissioning artist Ellsworth Kelly… More >>

• Best Argument That Chinatown Is Still a Vital Art Neighborhood

  Human Resources

  This cavernous space, located in a former kung fu theater in Chinatown, might just be the city's most dynamic arts venue, with its unpredictable mix of art exhibitions, performance events, film screenings, concerts and readings. During the recent Olympic Games, Human Resources hosted a late-night live-streaming of TV coverage accompanied by improvised musical soundtracks and Foley effects provided by local… More >>

• Best Video Art Exhibit

  Tree of Testimony at L.A. Museum of the Holocaust

  The Holocaust can feel like an abstract concept, something that happened to people from a distant land in an alternative universe. No museum or exhibit brings home the banality of evil and the overpowering enormity of what the Nazis wrought like the L.A. Museum of the Holocaust's engrossing video art piece, Tree of Testimony. Visitors toggle among the 70 screens… More >>

• Best Odd Sports–Watching Outing

  Los Angeles Velodrome Racing Association

  Less expensive than a trip to Staples Center, more environmentally friendly than NASCAR is the Los Angeles Velodrome Racing Association. Head to the south side of the Home Depot Center complex and find where LAVRA calls home: a 250-meter indoor wood bicycle racing track that's part of the Velo Sports Center. LAVRA, a nonprofit, volunteer organization established in 2006, hosts… More >>

• Best Backyard Art Gallery

  Summercamp's ProjectProject

  Summercamp's ProjectProject is such a likable idea — a group of crazy kids, living in a big-ass house in El Sereno, using their work-light summer months to put together shows right in their own backyard (literally). And what a backyard it is! Some of the most memorable works have made epic use of the enormous, sloping hill. Mercedes Teixido's hilarious… More >>

• Best Comedy Show Below Sea Level

  Venice Underground Comedy Show at The Townhouse

  While the gritty, funky Venice Boardwalk is just yards away and the scruffy aura of counter-culture icons from Jim Morrison to Perry Farrell to a thousand skateboarding, bongo-playing, poetry-reciting characters surrounds the place, downstairs in the Townhouse is surprisingly nice — in the loungey, lush, golden-hued manner of classic Hollywood. No rustic, nautical touches; no laid-back surfy roadhouse feel or… More >>
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  Best Alternative to the Moth

  Public School

  If you're a fan of the popular Moth storytelling shows every month but want to widen your storytelling circle, Public School offers an alternative. Unlike the Moth, where names are drawn out of a hat, this show has a predetermined lineup of writers and storytellers who range in scope and style. You may recognize some from radio shows such as… More >>
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  Best Theater Company

  Rogue Machine

  If theater is given any thought by most visitors to our lights-camera-action city, it's an afterthought. That's a shame, because, pssst — those television and movie workhorse actors aren't always filming, and when they aren't, they tend to return to their first love, the stage. Rogue Machine regularly scoops up some of those venerable performers, usually with stunning results. With… More >>

• Best Film Series in Landmark Movie Palaces

  L.A. Conservancy's Last Remaining Seats

  At the annual film series Last Remaining Seats, what's on the screen isn't necessarily as fascinating as what's around the screen. That's not to say that the movies presented by the L.A. Conservancy aren't great; the 2012 summer's season included classics like Paper Moon, Tootsie, The Big Sleep and The Wizard of Oz. But what makes the series so special… More >>

• Best Fourth of July Fireworks

  Brentwood Country Club

  Brentwood Country Club? Just how are you supposed to get in? You can't, but you can bring the kids and some folding chairs and blankets to South Burlingame Avenue on Santa Monica's border and watch the magnificent display up close. Park your car on the street just north or south of the gated, private entrance, and enjoy the show. Folks… More >>

• Best Sunday Night Improv

  Shitty Jobs at Upright Citizens Brigade

  You can't do much better than paying five bucks for a hilarious, celebrity-packed live show in a 92-seat theater. Shitty Jobs is the highlight of UCB's weekly slate, featuring a rambunctious crew of elastic comedians, most of whom have been making each other laugh on- and offstage since they were undergrads at NYU. The boys interview an audience member about… More >>

• Best Spooky Art Emporium

  Hyaena Gallery

  Tucked away in the shadow of Burbank's sea of entertainment studios is the L.A.-area haven for dark, alternative culture. Hyaena Gallery is more than an art gallery — it's an emporium filled with the most intriguing finds from the underground. Amidst the almost overwhelming collection of art, you'll find a healthy amount of work by locals who reference horror classics,… More >>

• Best Storytelling Series for Embarrassing Yourself

  Don't Tell My Mother

  One of L.A.'s leading tell-all storytelling shows, Don't Tell My Mother is packed with wall-to-wall stories of a consistently high quality. The performances usually are great, too. Not surprisingly, mothers themselves make frequent, usually unapologetic appearances in tales involving sex, sperm, prison, drugs, pregnancy and cheese (though usually not all in the same story), and the stories almost always live… More >>

• Best Off-the-Beaten-Path Stand-Up Comedy Party

  The Super Serious Show at Cafe Club Fais Do-Do

  Take one artsy warehouse, add a DJ and food truck, and finish off the equation with free food and wine. What more could in-the-know audiences possibly need from a consistently engaging comedy show? Ah, yes: top-notch stand-up, sketch, music and videos, all culminating in an evening (every third Thursday of the month) that's much more hip, creative mixer than two-drink-minimum… More >>

• Best Reason to Visit the Natural History Museum

  Dinosaur Hall

  Before their relocation last year, the dinosaurs of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles dwelt in a chorus line–like arrangement in a narrow, windowless room. The lighting was grim, and the dusty placards were written in a Merv Griffin–era typeface that screamed neglect. Today the dinos finally have digs more suitable for their star status: Dinosaur Hall, a bright,… More >>

• Best Experimental Puppet Theater

  Automata

  It may be the only experimental puppet theater in Los Angeles, and that fact alone makes Automata worthwhile. Multidisciplinary performance artists Janie Geiser and Susan Simpson founded the nonprofit organization in 2004, hoping to combine creative forces while spotlighting the burgeoning experimental-puppetry scene in L.A. They've made one episodic art piece together, called Frankenstein (Mortal Toys), a multimedia presentation with… More >>

• Best Drive-In for Remembering L.A.'s Car-Culture Heyday

  Mission Tiki Drive In

  Drive-in movie theaters may be dead on the Westside, but travel a little farther east and you'll find the Mission Tiki, alive and well. Built in 1956 and recently updated so that you're treated to double features on four Technalight screens and a high-tech sound system that transmits through your FM radio, the Mission Tiki is fun and kitschy enough… More >>

• Best Once-a-Year Walk

  The Great Los Angeles Walk

  In November 2006, Franklin Avenue blogger (and current TV Guide L.A. bureau chief) Mike Schneider led 15 friends all the way from downtown to the ocean on a daylong, 15.8-mile trek along Wilshire, which he calls "the spine of Los Angeles." By last year, the annual Great Los Angeles Walk, which traverses a different boulevard each year, had ballooned to… More >>
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  Best Tabloid-Style L.A. Tour

  TMZ Hollywood Tour — Secrets and Celebrity Hot spots

  When TMZ kingpin Harvey Levin developed his TMZ Hollywood Tour, he turned the idea of celebrity spotting on its head. Patrons who enter the small but flashy red open-air bus decked out with TMZ's logo become a momentary part of the bus's very own celebrity: The tour is so known for its goal to find celebs while the bus is… More >>

• Best Revamped Japanese Garden

  Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens

  Today the Huntington is a private nonprofit organization, but back in the early 1900s, it was a railroad magnate's humble home. Before he died in 1927, Henry E. Huntington amassed a collection of rare manuscripts and valuable paintings, planting the seeds of a legacy that includes the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens. These days, one of the Huntington's… More >>

• Best Place to Tell Your First Story in Public

  The Happy Hour Story Experiment at Hollywood Studio Bar and Grill

  The Happy Hour Story Experiment is as warm and fuzzy as a Valentine's teddy bear. In fact, prospective storytellers' names are literally picked democratically from a fuzzy Valentine's bear basket. The pro-am talent onstage includes veteran performers like Maria Bamford, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Drew Droege, Jillian Lauren and Anna David trying out new material but is often dominated by newbies… More >>

• Best Free Comedy Night at a Bar

  Josh and Josh Show at Bar Lubitsch

  So these two New York City comics, Josh Haness and Josh Weinstein, move to Los Angeles and, in 2008, decide to put together a show. They want to introduce the inhabitants of their new home to all their cool friends who write for shows like Conan and Family Guy. Some of those friends have names like Demetri Martin and Sarah… More >>

• Best Art Gallery for Math and Science Geeks

  Institute for Figuring

  It's hard to be truly unique in a town that boasts many unique art endeavors, but wonder twins Margaret Wertheim, a noted science writer, and Christine Wertheim, a poet and faculty member at CalArts' MFA Writing Program, have done just that. Their organization, the Institute for Figuring, blends equal portions of science, art and poetry to engage new audiences in… More >>

• Best Gallery Receptions That Feel Like House Parties

  Elephant Art Space

  Elephant Art Space's casual Sunday afternoon receptions are a whirl of dogs running in the backyard, kids crawling around, Christmas lights, exhibitions of stellar local and national up-and-coming artists and Tecate beer in cans with sizzling hot links on the grill (as opposed to wine in little plastic cups). Devoted to curatorial experiments and a collaborative vibe, the space is… More >>

• Best Performing Footwear

  Sock Puppet Sitcom Theater

  Who needs a television show starring overpaid actors when you can watch sock puppets doing comedy? Mark Hayward and Charley Knapp's Sock Puppet Sitcom Theater brings to life your favorite sitcoms of yesteryear using nothing but socks, cloth, buttons and pipe cleaners. In March, the theater company and its eight puppeteers — almost all of whom are working actors, some… More >>

• Best Opera With Alcohol

  Opera On Tap at Room 5 Lounge

  If the only way you're getting through Mozart or Puccini is with a whole lot of booze, get thee to Opera on Tap. The event is essentially a bunch of professional and student opera singers who sing opera once a month, in a bar, Room 5 Lounge on La Brea. Shows are organized around a central theme: "dueling divas," or… More >>

• Best Artwork at LAX

  See Change at Tom Bradley International Terminal

  Most people are in a rush to catch a flight at LAX, but taking your time could prove useful: a new video art installation, See Change, has taken flight at the Tom Bradley International Terminal. The installation takes place over a four-hour loop of video pieces, some lasting a few minutes, playing on either a 25-screen media wall or a… More >>

• Best New Performance Art Space

  Various Small Fires

  Although it just launched in January, Venice-based Various Small Fires has already made a big splash in the local art community. In March, a controversial live painting and auction event by New York artists Debo Eilers and Kerstin Brätsch had art followers buzzing when a well-known collector's attempt to buy a large quantity of works, ostensibly for the purpose of… More >>

• Best Skid Row Comedy Show

  Towne Hall

  Typically, culture making in raw industrial spaces consists of music, theater and performance art, so an underground-loft comedy show is highly welcomed. Towne Hall — in its broken-windowed wedding cake of a garment factory — is a gutsy pioneer. Since launching in the past year, it's offered stand-up and sketch comedy featuring the polished skills of Upright Citizen Brigade vets… More >>

• Best Oddball Carousel

  Tom Mankiewicz Conservation Carousel at L.A. Zoo

  If you grew up in SoCal and remember the era of urban kiddie lands and miniature amusement parks, you may sometimes get the feeling that there just aren't enough rides in L.A. anymore. You can trek hither and yon to ride vintage carousels and tiny trains, but there's something a little more unusual to enjoy now, right here at our… More >>

• Best One-Woman Museum

  Roslin Art Gallery

  For the last 30 years, artist Seeroon Yeretzian has dedicated her life to showcasing the long-lost art of medieval-era Armenian illuminated manuscripts. Out of Roslin Art Gallery in Glendale, named after 13th-century illuminated manuscript master Toros Roslin, Yeretzian studied through a watchmaker's magnifier, immersing herself in the world of the miniature medieval art form. With oil, gouache and gold leaf… More >>

• Best Police Encounter

  Los Angeles Police Museum

  We often think it preferable to keep a polite distance from those who protect and serve, but this former police station in Highland Park is worth a trek. A nonprofit that's much beloved by Black Dahlia author James Ellroy, the Los Angeles Police Museum opened in 2001 with lots of noir style inside: The first name printed on every page… More >>

• Best Hidden Museum

  Hancock Memorial Museum at USC

  Four public rooms from the original 1909 Hancock Mansion at Wilshire and Vermont were installed in an anonymous-looking building on the USC campus in the 1930s to create the secret Hancock Memorial Museum at USC, which is like a life-size bell jar, featuring Edwardian architecture, marble, stained glass and ornate tchotchkes. First you have to make an appointment to see… More >>

• Best Dance Series If You Had to Pick Just One

  Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at the Music Center

  Dance at the Music Center's 10th-anniversary season is its most ambitious yet, a tasting menu of styles that tantalizes with unique projects from high-caliber companies. There's the long-overdue return of National Ballet of Canada in the U.S. premiere of Christopher Wheeldon's full-length story ballet Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Oct. 19-21). Next up, the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago brings back its… More >>

• Best Architectural Car Wash

  Slauson Car Wash

  Long before flossin' and Slauson were famously rhymed in hip-hop, the car wash at Slauson Avenue and West Boulevard stood as a monument to L.A.'s long love affair with cars. Slauson Car Wash opened in 1950, when the future was bright, rolled on four wheels and was covered with chrome. Like other car washes in L.A., its architectural style borrowed… More >>

• Best Indie Movie Theater

  Aero Theatre

  Montana Avenue doesn't need a theater showing classic films. It's got enough stuff to keep people occupied, and the parents pushing strollers on their way to baby boutiques and frozen yogurt shops don't seem like cinephiles. But that just helps give you an extra jolt of surprise every time you walk by the marquee for the Aero Theatre. You can't… More >>

• Best Outdoor History Museum

  Heritage Square

  Los Angeles — the city hopelessly out of touch with its past. Or is it? Heritage Square reminds visitors that our history as a fledgling city isn't forgotten. The museum isn't a collection of glass-encased artifacts but a cluster of Victorian-era buildings: eight homes plus a church, carriage barn and train station. (A drugstore is on the way.) The structures,… More >>

• Best Punk Museum

  The Punk Museum at KGB Gallery

  Like punk rock itself, Taquila Mockingbird is full of contradictions. The African-American amazon is an operatic vocalist and an unrepentant Anglophile with a deep and abiding love for the poetry of John Keats, but she also worships the scabrous poetry of Johnny Rotten and John Lydon. Mockingbird, a former curator at the Zero One gallery and booker of the New… More >>

• Best Sketch-Comedy/Improv Mash-Up Show

  Delicious Moments at Second City Theater

  There are awkward moments, there are telling moments, and then there are delicious ones. Delicious Moments with Ithamar Enriquez and Brian Shortall is a sometimes sketch, sometimes improv show that is smart, fast-paced and, self-described as "weird." Playing off one another's sharp wit and observational humor, Enriquez and Shortall go way back — the pair met at Second City's touring… More >>

• Best Afternoon House Party

  Jazz at the A Frame

  Distinguished older gentlemen sit in neat rows beside ladies with fans dressed in their Sunday best — if it weren't for the posters of Duke Ellington, Wycliffe Gordon and John Coltrane adorning the walls, it would be easy to mistake the A Frame for church. It's not, but on Sundays once a month, the living room of Betty Hoover's Hollywood… More >>

• Best Venice Backyard

  L&M Arts

  The first works L&M Arts installed in its carefully landscaped triangular backyard were Paul McCarthy's gigantic, garish, gray sculptures of a larger-than-life boy and girl perched on tree limbs. Each had two heads, hazy features and limbs that looked half-deformed. Since L&M's yard is fully visible from the street — a fairly demure, residential stretch of Venice — it was… More >>

• Best Place to See Antique Maps

  Los Angeles Central Library

  In the far right corner in the Los Angeles Central Library’s History & Genealogy section are dozens of gray filing cabinets with slim drawers; they contain the 100,000 maps in the library’s collection, some of which date back to the 16th century. It’s hard to comprehend how important these maps were, but many of L.A.’s long-forgotten street names and places… More >>

• Best Upstart Theater Festival

  Hollywood Fringe

  The best thing about being an underdog is that no one expects anything of you. So when the Hollywood Fringe Festival was organized a couple of years ago, we paid attention, sure, but figured it might be a flash in the pan. It wasn’t until this summer, its third year, that we realized this little engine that could was not… More >>

• Best Punk Band

  Fidlar

  Some young music enthusiasts will argue that Fidlar are not punk. But those kids really need to shut up and find gainful employment. Sure, the noisy riffs and shouted lyrics contained within their short, sonic assaults aren’t the world’s most atonal — many of them even have, brace yourself, melody — but their punk bona fides can’t be questioned. Take… More >>