The New York Times Company

Street Teams Are Bullshit

Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Ask Fan Landers! Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist, and is the author of The Girls' Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to help you ... More >>

Brandon Woodard, Would-Be Rapper From L.A., Murdured In Daylight 'Hit' In NYC

A 31-year-old aspiring rapper from L.A. was fatally shot in broad daylight in a touristy area of Midtown Manhattan yesterday. Accounts indicate it was a professional-style hit. Brandon Woodard, a Loyola Marymount University grad and perennial law school student with a possible arrest record was des ... More >>

Pulp to Headline Coachella Cruise: Here's the Full Lineup

All aboard. Let the Coachella branding begin! Goldenvoice today announced a pair of Coachella boat tours; each will leave in December from Fort Lauderdale. Pulp will headline, with Hot Chip, Yeasayer, Girl Talk and Sleigh Bells among the bigger names.

Nora Ephron, Writer of 'Sleepless in Seattle,' Dead at 71

Hollywood filmmaker Nora Ephron, who wrote When Harry Met Sally and You've Got Mail, died today at the age of 71, the Washington Post and New York Times report. After a day of rumors about her health that included denials from her agent and publisher, the two outlets said late this afternoon that t ... More >>

Coachella: Seven Lesser-Known Acts You'd Be Silly to Miss

The Day The Internet Stopped

See our piece on how Anonymous attacked Hollywood here. Get ready guys. Jan. 18 might become known in the future as the day the Internet went dark. Several websites, including L.A.'s own Boing Boing, are vowing to go offline Wednesday to protest Congress' consideration of the Stop Online Piracy Ac ... More >>

Pete Wells Named New York Times Restaurant Critic

Pete Wells​The New York Times just confirmed that Pete Wells will be that paper's next restaurant critic, ending two months of rampant speculation about who would get that coveted chair at the table. The previous critic, Sam Sifton, stepped down in September after two years at the position. Th ... More >>

Q & A With Ruth Reichl: Gilt Taste, L.A. Food, The Role of The Restaurant Critic, Her Movie The Corrective of Food TV

As you probably know, Ruth Reichl was recently in town for a launch party at Mozza for Gilt Taste, the shopping-as-literature site of which she's the editorial advisor. We caught up with her over coffee at José Andrés' Tres: frilly patisserie, coffee urns, decor like Monty Python meets Versailles ... More >>

FBI Agents Encouraged to Search Your Trash, Public Databases Just to Sniff Around For Crime

Malingering​What the hell happened to America after 9/11? Have we lost sight of our founding principles? The FBI plans to issue new rules for its agents saying, essentially, that they can and should dig through our trash and search databases (Facebook, Twitter?) if people who aren't suspects ... More >>

Cookbook Review: These Paletas Will Get You Through Summer

​We might be the only cookbook reviewers who don't read press releases from the publisher before reading the book. And so when we do actually read a press release (rare), like the one for the compact little new frozen pop book Paletas (yes, of course it's stellar summer timing), we laughed ou ... More >>

Gabriel Ben Meir: Possible Suspect in MTV Murder Is 35-Year-Old Black Man With Wire Glasses, Gold Jewelry, Shotgun

Los Angeles TimesThe young victim​Update: Destiny Young (see below) was charged today with two counts of murder (one of which was allegedly related to Meir's demise) and five counts of second-degree robbery, the D.A.'s office announced. Jabaar Vincent Thomas and Richard Edward Anderson were hi ... More >>

Everyone Loves a Troll: How Christwire Fooled Rachel Maddow, Howard Stern, 3 Million Coachella Heads and Counting

ChristwireThe mega-trollers, in costume as Bryan Blake and Mike Watson​Christwire.org is a joke. IT'S NOT REAL. Not a genuine bone in its blogroll. (Except for when they also fool their Christian freelancers.) Every day, the two dudes who run Christwire read hundreds of your angry comments a ... More >>

L.A. Times Wins Pulitzer For Bell Coverage; LA Weekly's Jonathan Gold is a Finalist

L.A. Times is winning.​The Los Angeles Times won the most-prestigious Pulitzer Prize today -- the public service award -- given to the paper for breaking and investigating the city of Bell's salary scandal. The paper also won the photography award for feature shots on the aftermath of violent ... More >>

Pulitzer Prizes Announced: Jonathan Gold Almost Wins (Again)

No, Jonathan Gold has not won a second Pulitzer, but he's come pretty damn close. As the Weekly's editor Drex Heikes just emailed us all: Jonathan Gold was one of the three finalists this year for the Pulitzer Prize for criticism, Columbia University just announced. The prize went to Boston Globe ... More >>

Porn on L.A. Library Public Terminals Gets Serious Debate in City Hall

merrick_monroeNot an L.A. library branch (but could be).​Ah, L.A. City Hall, always tackling the Big Issue. Like cat declawing and an Arizona business boycott that has no teeth. And now the accidental, over-the-shoulder viewing of internet porn at public libraries is a matter of serious inqu ... More >>

Food News Roundup: Breakfast With Stalin, Safe Sushi Eating Locally (With 100 Miles of Rope)

-- L.A. Winemaker Finds Identity In Graffiti Art. [Neon Tommy] -- Ways you can do more to eat locally. (Our favorite: "Tie one end of a 100-mile rope to your house and the other end to your waist to ensure that you only eat within that radius.") [The Onion] -- 9 Foods to Help You Sleep. [The Da ... More >>

Higher Nuclear Radiation From Japan Detected in California, Other Western Region States

Fukushima.​Don't bite down on that suicide pill just yet, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says radiation levels at West Coast monitors are up slightly. The readings follow last week's arrival of radiation from Japan's ailing Fukushima nuclear reactors, which are in dire straights ... More >>

Late 'Gypsy Rose' Lowrider Creator Jesse Valadez Honored With Procession of Customs (Photos)

Ted SoquiJesse Valadez's iconic 'Gypsy Rose.'​Photos by Ted Soqui Mourners over the weekend paid their last respects to the man who created arguably the most-celebrated lowrider in history, "Gypsy Rose." Jesse Valadez died last month of colon cancer at age 64. The hot-pink 1964 Chevrolet Impa ... More >>

States May Slash Subsidies For Hollywood

Jersey ShoreIn New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie is thinking about paring back film and TV tax credits​The New York Times reports that as states tighten their belts, some governors are thinking about reducing Hollywood subsidies.That's bad for Hollywood, the industry, but maybe not so bad for Hollyw ... More >>

'Adult Services' Section Closed For Good, Craigslist Finally Confirms

Etherase​After replacing its "Adult Services" section with a label titled "Censored" earlier this month, Craigslist finally confirmed that its haven for prostitution was shuttered for good. Sort of. William Clinton Powell, director of law enforcement relations at the website, told a House Jud ... More >>

The Best of FYF Fest: Best Fashions, Surprising Bands to Watch, Biggest Bummers (oh, and Ariel Pink: Still Crazy)

Timothy NorrisThere's a thin line between hipster and furry, wethink​[See also Timothy Norris' slideshow "FYF Fest 2010 with The Rapture, Dead Man's Bones, Panda Bear and More".] Given that I refuse to pair a word as lovely as "summer" near detractors such as cruel "end" or the gentler "fade, ... More >>

Craigslist Pulls Plug On 'Adult Services' Ads

Craigslist​Quietly and somewhat defiantly over the Labor Day weekend California-based Craigslist pulled its controversial Adult Services advertising section, an alleged haven for prostitution and subject of authorities' ire. The move, which saw the website place the word "censored" over the l ... More >>

Steelworkers Union Tries To Organize L.A. Carwash Workers

​Via LA Biz Observed, Steven Greenhouse, labor reporter for The New York Times, writes up the unlikely effort to organize L.A. carwash workers. Many of the estimated 10,000 workers in the business here are illegal immigrants, who are too scared to speak out or give their bosses any excuse to ... More >>

Mayor Villaraigosa Announces A 'Bike Summit' Following His Own Bicycle Crash

YouTube​Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa recently reached out to the bicycle community via YouTube and announced -- more than a week after he broke an elbow in a bike accident on Venice Boulevard -- that he would help organize a summit about the future of pedal power in L.A.. 'We're go ... More >>

Walking Man: Death Of Silver Lake's Marc Abrams Ruled A Suicide

Monkey Fish via Flickr​The death of Silver Lake's "Walking Man," Marc Abrams, was ruled a suicide, county coroner's officials said Monday. "The cause of death was drowning, noted as a suicide," coroner's Lt. Cheryl MacWillie told the Weekly. Abrams was found Wednesday in a hot tub. The lid wa ... More >>

Cats and Their Catios, Let The Fur Be Free

Photo courtesy of Catio Showcase​Sometimes I get down about the internet. Like, really down. It's just always on. Always there. Always waiting with its vast quantities of crap information and its constant demand for more crap content. But then I remember the cats. Oh, the cats. Such was the ... More >>

How To Download Everything: Mark Bittman's New iPhone App

​If your tattered, sauce stained copy of Mark Bittman's encyclopedic (by definition) cookbook, How To Cook Everything, is just too big and wont to drop its pages for you to cart around to the grocery store, you're in luck. Now you can just flip through the digital equivalent of Bittman's 5-pou ... More >>

W Is for Brasserie

Delphine, on Hollywood's left bank (sorta)

A Conversation with Baker Jim Lahey His Recipe for No-Knead Bread

Sarah GoodfriendBaker Jim Lahey​Baker Jim Lahey, owner of New York's Sullivan Street Bakery and author of the recently published cookbook My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method, was in town the other day on a brief 2 day leg of his current book tour. He sat down with us to talk a ... More >>

Gourmet Magazine To Close: November Issue To Be Its Last

Gourmet Magazine is closing, according to reports from the New York Times. The Condé Naste magazine will reportedly announce this morning that it will stop publication after its November issue. The magazine, which was first published in 1941, has seen sharply declining ad revenue and there had been ... More >>

New York Times Devotes Ink to Mexican Corridos Badass Chalino Sánchez

In the Travel section of this morning's New York Times, writer Lawrence Downes devotes a nice chunk of ink to Los Angeles' Mexican corridos scene. It's a solid, incredibly informative piece, and deserves a serious read if you're looking for a primer on an aspect of LA music culture a world away from ... More >>

A Tale of Two L.A.s

Two distant critics on two radically different takes on L.A. offered by Hollywood. The comments below are on, respectively, the Kevin Spacey film Shrink and HBO's Entourage series. The truth, no doubt, lies somewhere in between. Somewhere.Jihan Abdalla/Roadside Attractions "Like smog settling o ... More >>

Web 2.0 Expo Parties: #awesome #nom

After watching John Maeda's surprisingly complicated keynote about keeping it simple, and watching the endearing Amanda Koster from Salem Garage spread awareness about the usage of social media for social good, we enjoyed a surprisingly abundant assortment of dried fruit and cheese at the official P ... More >>

Morning Sixpack: A News Roundup

Prop 8 Donors Fear Outing Today's N.Y. Times looks at nervous supporters of the California measure banning same-sex marriage, now that a final report revealing their addresses  is due out.Lost in Space Actor Dies Bob May, the man inside the Robby the Robot suit in the 1960s TV series, Lost in S ... More >>

Gaza Battle Continues -- On Wilshire Boulevard

Today will see two protest actions against Israel's counterattacks on the Hamas-led Palestinian territory in Gaza. At 3 p.m. Jews for Peace will assemble outside the Westwood Federal Building on 11000 Wilshire Blvd. Info: (562) 694-1637.Right: Gaza City ruins(NY Times photo: Abid Katiib/Getty I ... More >>

Deadline Hollywood: Shameful Oscar Overspending

Mo' money, more Hugh, less Jerry

Cliche Watch

Among the hundreds of times the expression "Chickens have come home to roost" appeared in American newspapers this year, the following subject categories, gleaned through a Nexis-Lexis search, caught our attention. Government: 236 timesRepublican Party: 51Bailouts: 34Islam: 6Immigration: 5OJ Simpso ... More >>

A Night with the Glamour Girls

Roger and Me

Scott Foundas responds to Ebert’s critic-bait

Celebs to the Slaughter

Why Arianna’s Blog Blows

Right-Wing Political Correctness

Shut Your Mouth

Thanks for the Weirdness

Dare To Be Square

Dark Angel

Remembering Hubert Selby Jr.

Soldiers of Fortune 500

Fighting Words

Independent voices at the L.A. Times and real independent filmmaking

Michael Masterson

Director of agency relations at an Internet publishing company

Wicked Games

Unsteady War-Footing

Reexamining the U.S. failure to prepare for the battle against terror

Box Scores

Counting the dead in living color