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Lingua Britannica

Steven Mikulan
John Dos Passos opened his U.S.A. trilogy of novels with a freewheeling inventory of what made up the United States ("a publiclibrary full of old newspapers and dogeared historybooks with protests scrawled on the margins, a lot of men buried in their uniforms in Arlington Cemetery") and what it meant......
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Sweet Heart

Tom Provenzano
With Elton John’s music in Disney’s The Lion King, followed by Barry Manilow’s musical, Harmony, and Paul Simon’s score to the upcoming Cape Man, a renewed fusion of pop and show tunes is breathing life into both forms — hearkening back to half a century ago, when there was hardly......
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An Open Stance

Sasha Anawalt
Mikhail Baryshnikov, father of four. Baryshnikov, who has lived 10 years with the same woman, Lisa Rinehart. How is it that the paparazzi (even the dance-magazine paparazzi — benign, persuasive) have not leaped upon him through the bushes of his home overlooking the Hudson River and stolen snaps of him......

Rights Reversal

Alex Katz
The federal civil rights challenge to oil giant UNOCAL, first hailed as a landmark case that could influence the conduct of business throughout the world, foundered in federal court this week. U.S. District Judge Richard Paez declined on Monday to issue an injunction barring further investment by UNOCAL in Burma,......

Limited Access

Mark Cromer
It’s a blustery day in December, and it feels good to enter the shadowy calm of Union Station, heralded by urban planners in 1939 as America’s "last great train station," and later revamped as the hub of mass transit in Los Angeles. But it’s a matter of minutes before we......

Family Values

Howard Blume
A quiet milestone was achieved last month when L.A. school board member Jeff Horton won election to the executive committee of the California School Boards Association, putting him in line to be the group’s first openly gay president. If past practice holds, Horton will become president-elect next year, and the......
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Wages Won

Queena Sook Kim
On Saturday, 350 former employees of the Western Jean Co., a defunct garment shop, gathered in the lobby of a midtown branch of Hanmi Bank to collect checks from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) for unpaid wages. The unusual event was the literal payoff of a garment-industry investigation that......
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Built for Speed

Gina Arnold
The Fastbacks may well be the last, best unsigned band in America. Nineteen years after its formation, the Seattle-based quartet that no less a sage than Greil Marcus has called "the best punk rock band in America" is again shopping for a deal. So much for the idea that punk......
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Sealed

Rip Rense
Given the singularity and popularity of the late Frank Zappa, it’s surprising how little has been done to keep his music alive since his passing in 1994. There have been several post humous Zappa albums released by Rykodisc, a couple of all-Zappa tribute CDs by European chamber-music groups, a few......

Days for Night

Manohla Dargis
Before: Although most of the Sundance Film Festival takes place in the small resort town of Park City, Utah, festival films are shown in the state capital, Salt Lake City, throughout the week, including the opening-night selection, Sliding Doors. Written and directed by first-timer Peter Howitt, the Miramax release stars......