Rena Kosnett

When I contemplate the possibility of a nuclear strike on Los Angeles, which I find myself doing more and more these days — thank you, Ahmadinejad — I think about (1) possible escape routes and (2) the animals I would be willing to eat if I were forced into some......

10. “Krispy Kreme?” 9. “Forest Lawn .?.?. ’nuf said. Does it have to be in the city? ’Cause Neverland Ranch comes to mind as well.” 8. “Hugh Hefner’s bomb shelter.” 7. “On Santa Monica Boulevard. They’ll probably be having some really cool party that I don’t even know about.” 6......

Nighttime high-altitude views of Los Angeles County have always been my secret aphrodisiac. I crave them, seek them out, drive at all hours during insomniac hazes to find one, and I am almost always lifted to a euphoric state once I reach my destination. I feel grateful, satisfied, happy to......

Enchanter, shaman, guru, sage — these are all words that have been used to describe singer-songwriter Devendra Banhart. And it’s not that I disagree — Devendra certainly is special. The talented young man with the voice he himself describes as a “possum getting a Pap smear” always has been someone......

Todd Taylor loves to write about punk rock, but don’t box him in. Even though his globally distributed and admired music magazine Razorcake solidified its foundation with interviews and articles on roots punk, garage punk and pagan-core-crust punk, the L.A. music scene’s ubiquitous four-letter word is more than just the......

“Join us, salsa dancing, roller skating, and merry making on east Pico.” It was already 10 p.m. when the text message came in. Still recovering from Friday night’s bender, we nonetheless dragged ourselves downtown — and it was deep downtown, where they don’t have street lamps anymore, where the city......

I’d been waiting for an hour outside the California Institute of Abnormal Arts in North Hollywood when the elephant man finally showed up. After an additional hour, Samantha X, the ringleader of 999 Eyes, “the last traveling freak show in the United States,” appeared on the scene with the midget......

Upon our arrival on July 12, Nurit Gross, a friend of my mother’s from preschool and an active member of the Israeli human-rights organization Women Against Occupation, greeted my mother and me at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport. My mother and Nurit had seen each other only once in......