William Gibson

Theater to See in L.A. This Week, Including a Jacobean Incest Melodrama

The scandal surrounding a love affair between a brother and his sister forms the centerpiece of John Ford's 17th century play, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore. Archway Theatre's downtown production is this week's pick. See below for all the latest new theater reviews and comprehensive theater listings. Thi ... More >>

Theater to See in L.A. This Week, Including a Riveting Drama About Holocaust-Era Poland

Our critic Deborah Klugman found Tadeusz Slobodzianek's drama, about Polish complicity in the German Nazis' persecution of Polish Jews in the 1940s, and presented by Son of Semele Ensemble at Atwater Village Theatre, to be a model of stagecraft and emotional to watch. For all the lastest new theater ... More >>

Theater to See in L.A. This Week

Adapter-performer Brian T. Finney has adapted Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness in what Paul Birchall describes as "hypnotic." It's this week's pick of the week. Neal Weaver found charm and passion in Actors' Co-op's revival of The Miracle Worker. See below for all the latest new theater reviews. ... More >>

Theater to See in L.A. This Week, Including Garry Marshall Directing a Play About the Making of Double Indemnity

Lost Moon Radio did another bang-up job hosting the 34th annual L.A. Weekly Theater Awards Monday night. (See the full list of L.A. Weekly Theater Award winners here.) Thanks to Lauren Ludwig, Trish Hadley and the LMR troupe for their talent, and thanks for all the kind missives from people who had ... More >>

The Best Concerts in L.A. This Weekend

Friday, January 11 Carolyn Edwards, Adam Marsland TAIX As leader of both Spindle and 3D Picnic and a longtime member of The Negro Problem, Carolyn Edwards is one of the best and brightest musicians in Silver Lake's indie-pop underground, but she reveals the full breadth of her talent through her so ... More >>

Music Picks: John Beasley, Down, and Tift Merritt

Small Demons, a Website of Every Person, Place and Thing Referenced in Your Favorite Books

Outside a Pico Union gas station, Valla Vakili is reading William Gibson's Spook Country: "Close to the tents under the freeway, Mr. Sippee catered to an eclectic clientele of the more functionally homeless, sex workers of varied gender and presentation, pimps, police officers, drug dealers, office ... More >>

Adult Entertainment Virtual Convention: Inside the World of Wank-Craft

The main virtual hall​ Most conventions are pants-mandatory kinds of affairs -- even those of the adult nature. For the world's first virtual porn convention, however, I'm not wearing any (relax...I'm in my PJs). This past weekend, XBiz and Red Light Center hosted the Adult Entertainment Virt ... More >>

Steely Dan Fans Are Assholes

William Gibson called them "the most genuinely subversive" band in late-20th Century pop. Bryan Cranston sneaks winking references to them into Malcolm In The Middle and Breaking Bad episodes. Ice Cube sampled them and The Roots play them on Jimmy Fallon. Who are they? The gold standard in rock and ... More >>

Time's 140 Best Twitter Feeds: Marion Nestle, Michael Pollan, Harry Reid Lord Voldemort

If you only have 140 characters, they should be worth reading, no? Depends on whose Twitter feed you read. Time Magazine has just published a list (of course they did) of the top 140 Twitter feeds around the country. No, sorry, neither Charlie Sheen nor Kim Kardashian made it -- Neil Gaiman is #1, S ... More >>

Stage Raw: Ten to Life

Last week's NEW THEATER REVIEWS are embedded in the current COMPREHENSIVE THEATER LISTINGS; also, see this week's THEATER FEATURE on Kevin King's The Idea ManTEN TO LIFE"Hacienda Heights" (from Ten to Life) Photo by Nic Cha KimNEW REVIEW GO TEN TO LIFE Leave logic at the door  and you'll get ... More >>

J.G. Ballard, 1930-2009

BY MARK DERY The British novelist J.G. Ballard, author of Crash, Empire of the Sun, and Miracles of Life, among other books, died Sunday, April 19, after a protracted battle with prostate cancer. Ballard is gone, wheels-up from the abandoned airstrip of our imaginations, but his coiled brillian ... More >>

Stage Raw: Before Kirk Douglas Forgets

PURCHASE TICKETS TO THE 30TH ANNUAL L.A. WEEKLY THEATER AWARDS ON MARCH 30TH AT THE EL REY; HERE ARE THE NOMINEES. BEFORE I FORGETKirk Douglas in Before I Forget. Photo by Craig Schwartz The gift in Kirk Douglas' one-man show, Before I Forget,  that opened over the weekend in the theater name ... More >>

Theater Reviews: Bruising for Besos, Dracula, Burn This

The Threepenny Opera, Laws of Sympathy, and more

Stage Raw: Getting Physical

DRACULADracula is this week's Pick. See review by pressing the Continue Reading tab at the bottom of this section. (All New Reviews are embedded within the Comprehensive Theater Listings.) Photo by Michael Lamont GETTING PHYSICAL Two bills of physical comedy are being performed at Sacred Fool ... More >>

Stage Raw: Bohemian Cowboy

BOHEMIAN COWBOY is this week's Pick of the Week Crossing the Center Line A father heads into the desert, never to return By Steven Leigh MorrisThe original title of Raymond King Shurtz's one-man show was The Gospel of Irony ― which would have been a particularly ironic title, had it stuck, s ... More >>

Stage Raw: Film

FILM is this week's Pick of the Week. Photo by Darrett Sanders Failing Better The Absurdists' convention Local playwright Patrick McGowan's new play, Film, has no right to be as good as it is. The central character is the late theater director Alan Schneider (Bill Robens) -- known for stagi ... More >>

Stage Raw: Candida

CANDIDA Candida at the Colony Theatre is this week's Pick. Photo by Michael Lamont. At your fingertips: The 30th Annual L.A. Weekly Theater Awards NOMINEES.Tickets for nominee's guests and for the general public can now be purchased via  http://tinyurl.com/theaterawardsReviewed this we ... More >>

My Date With Anonymous: A Rare Interview With the Elusive Internet Troublemakers

The new new romantics

Stage Raw: Phil Newby

PHIL NEWBY A memorial service was held at Sacred Fools Theatre on Sunday for that company's young and beloved actor who was found in his apartment last week. More on Phil to come in the print edition one week week from Thursday. At your fingertips: This week's Theater Feature on Jim Leonard' ... More >>

Stage Raw: Monsters and Prodigies

Reviewed this week: Pippin at the Mark Taper Forum; Jack Chandlers' new comedy-mystery, Murder on the Bounding Main, at Sierra Madre Playhouse; a dance-rock fusion, Vibrating Sun, at Unknown Theatre; Los Angeles Theatre Ensemble's staging fof Macbeth; Echo One-Act Festival at Stage 52; Furious Th ... More >>

Stage Raw: Unpronouncable

THEATER AWARDS UPDATE Here is the complete list of NOMINEES for the 30th annual L.A. Weekly Theater Awards, being held Monday, March 30 at the El Rey. Admission for nominees is free; nominee RSVPs are now being accepted at (310) 574-7208. Tickets for guests and members of the public go on sale ... More >>

Daniel Day-Lewis: The Way He Lives Now

As his fourth film in a decade arrives in theaters, the movies’ most enigmatic leading man reveals the method behind his onscreen madness

Movie Reviews: 30 Days of Night, Canvas, Futbaal

Also Golda's Balcony, The Price of Sugar, Things We Lost in the Fire and more

Sonic Youth Rides its Masterpiece

Don't Daydream it's over

Hollywood Satiricon

Bruce Wagner infects his novels with madness, celebrity, name-dropping, drugs and sex. And that's just the realism.

To Succeed, Must We Secede?

Once Upon a Time in the East

Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill (or half of it, anyway)

Fat, the Bastard

The war over oil may be taking place in your head

Playtime

Outer Limits

Twyla Tharp and the Holy Body Tattoo investigate endurance

Worlds Apart

Realities, virtual and otherwise

404, Host Not Found

The end of the Web as we know it

Northern Exposer

Margaret Atwood on women and power, five inventions that will change the world and the Booker Prize

The Short Story

New and old fiction from Francesca Lia Block, Elizabeth Stuckey-French, Ronald Alexander and Theodore Sturgeon

Virtual Fiction

Richard Powers’ Plowing the Dark

Travels in Hyperreality

Vintage Computers

208 machines museum-ready for the new technology center

The Undead

Bruce Sterling resuscitates machines from obsolescence

North by Northwest