Author Archive

Art + Fashion = Life by Design for L.A. Couple

Artist Moshé Elimelech and his wife, fashion designer Shelli Segal, at their Burbank home and studio. Photos by John Hough
Cubes of color intersected by bands, which the viewer can manipulate into arrangements within a grid framing the work; watercolors of narrow striations, punctuated by colors and shapes, transform abstraction from cool cerebral to emotional landscapes. [...]

Have a Fantastic Klezmatic Hanukkah!

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From left: Frank London, Matt Darriau, Lisa Gutkin, Lorin Sklamberg, Paul Morrissett. Photo by Joshua Kessler

On Dec. 19, as part of their 25th anniversary tour, the Klezmatics will perform at Walt Disney Concert Hall for a Chanukah concert featuring both their well-known and new repertoire. On the program are songs by the [...]

A Danielewski Halloween

On Halloween this year, instead of being the best sugar pusher in the neighborhood, or following your inappropriately costumed progeny as they amass their candy fortunes, or abandoning your own hard-earned dignity for a night of brew-fueled revelry, let me steer the adults amongst you to REDCAT, the CalArts downtown theater [...]

Lost & Found: What Wasserstein Hid, New Bio Reveals

When the Pulitzer- and Tony Award-winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein - beloved for her plays “The Heidi Chronicles,” “The Sisters Rosensweig” and “Isn’t it Romantic?” - died in 2006 at age 55, Broadway dimmed its lights in her honor. Five years later, Julie Salamon’s page-turning biography “Wendy and the Lost Boys” (The Penguin Press: $29.95) sheds [...]

How LA Grew its Art

From left: Edward Kienholz, “Walter Hopps Hopps Hopps,” 1959; photo by Susan Einstein. Wallace Berman, “Untitled (Faceless Faces with Kabala),” 1963-70; photo by Ellen Labenski. Larry Bell, “Untitled,” 1969.

For those of us who are not native to Los Angeles yet live here (some for more of our lives than anywhere [...]

Every Picture Tells a Story

For 30 years, Michael Schwartz has owned and operated Galerie Michael, an art gallery on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, building, in his own words, “museum-quality collections, one work at a time.” Works by Picasso, Dali, Goya and Miró adorn the walls for the current exhibition on Spanish masters.
With a staff of 24, many of [...]

‘Beauty’ is Skin Deep

“Tooker Lips,” New York, 1965, by Melvin Sokolsky, © 2011.

On the afternoon I attended the Annenberg Space for Photography’s latest exhibition, “Beauty Culture,” I was standing in the dark watching a series of fashion images projected in the digital gallery, when I was distracted by a woman who entered the room. I [...]

Future Shock: Albert Brooks’ novel “2030″

“2030: The Real Story of What Happens to America” (St. Martin’s Press) is Albert Brooks’ novel (in all senses of the word) take on our not-so-distant future. Anyone familiar with Brooks’ films, such as “Defending Your Life” or “Modern Romance,” will not be surprised that his debut novel is clever and [...]

Columbo co-creator solves his own mystery

William Link
“Now, Tom, do I look Jewish?”
William Link, 77, was asking the question. Link is one of, if not the most successful producer and writer in television history, having put, with his late partner Richard Levinson, 16 series on the air, including creating “Columbo,” “Murder, She Wrote,” “The Cosby Mysteries” and “Mannix.” They also created [...]

Churchill’s Stand

Who do we have to thank for Hitler’s eventual defeat? What was World War II’s turning point? Who, by his actions during the war, inspired Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s early leaders? The answer, according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s stirring new documentary, “Walking With Destiny,” is Winston Churchill.
Churchill, who [...]