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Up Above the World

Phillip Ramey
This story, originally published in 1997 in L.A. Weekly, was reposted here upon Bowles' death on November 18, 1999. Paul Bowles is the author of novels (The Sheltering Sky) and many short stories, the translator of Sartre's No Exit and several Moroccan works, and a composer of note. Now 87,......
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The Refugee

Brendan Bernhard
This story, originally published in the September 18, 1997, issue of L.A. Weekly, was reposted when R.B. Kitaj passed away October 21, 2007. Photo by Slobodan DimitrovThere are certain phrases that, once you've spent a few afternoons in the company of the painter R.B. Kitaj, rapidly become familiar. "I overstayed......
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Coming to America

Brendan Bernhard
This excerpt was originally published in L.A. Weekly on February 21, 1997, and reposted here on July 3, 2008. Early on the morning of September 30, 1973, in his home in Santa Monica Canyon, the 69-year-old English novelist Christopher Isherwood received a phone call from the Reuters news service informing......

They Walk Among Us

Dave Gardetta
If they have their druthers, the Total Overcomers will leave earth after being picked up by a spacecraft from the tip of the Santa Monica Pier. They will be taken to the Kingdom of Heaven, will lose their "vehicles" and be fitted with new bodies molded to the needs of......

Going Up in L.A.

Ruben Martinez
It has only been a few hours, but the stain on the old couch that sits in the empty lot has already turned brown. Around it now are gathered about a dozen teenagers who stare at the dark flower spread out upon the grimy fabric.  Although it's a school day......
Toro! Toro! (Sony Pictures Classics)

Sweet Bird of Youth

Helen Knode
(Originally published July 1, 1988) It must’ve begun with the Romantics, our culture’s frantic overvaluation of youth. For living fast and dying pretty, musicians of the 20th century have nothing on the poets of the early 19th. Even the old stodge Wordsworth wrote his best stuff early in his career......
The Secret of My Success

Imitations of Life

John Powers
Had Pedro Almodóvar shot this scene, he would have taken us into the neighbor’s apartment, where we would have heard Fox and Slater moaning, their bedpost banging against the double doors. And this wouldn’t mean they weren’t nice kids; it would mean they were having a great time — just......