Los Angeles magazine August 2020

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AUGUST 2020

T H E K I DS ARE ALRIGHT

Features 90

100

Caught between childhood and the rest of their lives, the class of ’20 has shown resilience not seen in decades PAGE 112

112

Strike a Poseur

The Vanishing

The Graduates

Yogi Bhajan turned an L.A. yoga studio into a worldwide juggernaut worth millions. But he left behind two generations of female followers reeling from his alleged sexual predation

Small shops and restaurants are the soul of the city. But after a season of pandemic and protest, some of L.A.’s most beloved institutions are threatened with extinction

Instead of pomp and circumstance, the class of 2020 has come of age amid unprecedented isolation and uncertainty—but these kids are still bullish about the future

B Y S TAC I E S T U K I N

P H OTO E S S AY B Y E R I C A X E N E

P H OTO E S S AY A N D T E X T

A S TO L D T O C H R I S N I C H O L S

BY SAM COMEN

PRODUCED BY RICHARD VILLANI

10 L A M AG . C O M

P H O T O G R A P H BY SA M C O M E N

Buzz THE BING CYCLE

AUGUST 2020

» Steve Bing was known as a philanthropist, a producer, a political powerhouse, and Elizabeth Hurley’s ex.

But after his suicide, his closest friends realized they didn’t know him at all PETER KIEFER PAGE 19

THE BRIEF

» News and notes fom all over PAGE 22

FEAR FACTOR

» Life got you anxious?

Check out the new products that cater to both the practical and the paranoid STEVEN BLUM PAGE 24 THE FUR FLIES!

Meet May—a silverhaired miniature poodle, and a regular at Blue Pooch Salon.

(She’s fond of the teddy-bear cut.)

For grooming, top pet hotels, and the best spots for pup playdates, see

THE SHOWS MUST GO ON

» The red carpet, with its legion of glam squads, is a multimillion-dollar industry.

So what will happen now that most awards will be doled out remotely?

ALEXANDRA ILYASHOV PAGE 26

PAGE 48

Columns PAST IMPERFECT

» Does building a more just future require us to cancel the ugly parts of our history? When it comes to flawed classics like Gone with the Wind, the answer is . . . complicated

BY STEVE ERICKSON PAGE 96

Ask Chris

Best of L.A.

» Every year we scour the city in search of the superlative— from the most delicious dining and amazing outdoor experiences to the top shops for fashon and home decor.

And the trophies go to . . .

PAG E 3 1

1 2 L A M AG . C O M

» Who are those kids frolicking on the mural along the 101 Freeway in downtown? What’s up with the Pacific Design Center? Our resident historian answers your burning questions

BY CHRIS NICHOLS PAGE 140

COVER ART BY MR. BRAINWASH

P H O T O G R A P H BY A R I SA T H O M A S

Editor’s Note

BY MAER ROSHAN

T H E B I G P I C T U R E : One of these two covers will be reproduced as a mural by street artist Mr. Brainwash. Visit 1255 South La Brea Avenue to find out which one

IT’S BEEN 31 YEARS SINCE

this magazine published its first Best of L.A. issue—our annual compendium of the finest food, shopping, entertainment, and services on offer in this remarkable city. Produced by a sprawling team of critics and reporters, it’s since gone on to become one of our most popular issues.

This year, amidst pandemics and protests, we briefly considered skipping this issue, but decided against it. Even in the worst of times, life goes on—Angelenos are still hungry for things to buy, eat, see, and do. But the establishments featured in this year’s issue reflect the grim new realities of the city’s daily life, so you’ll find fewer fine dining restaurants, bars, and museums, and more outdoor and online activities and places to grab tasty takeout. All were selected with the mission of making our proverbial new (and hopefully temporary) normal as enjoyable as possible.

We’ve devoted our feature pages in this issue to two stunning photo portfolios—one a 14 L A M AG . C O M

In a year marked by protests and pandemics, Mr. Brainwash, the legendary L.A. street artist, seemed like the ideal person to capture the city’s mood.”

tribute to the city’s past, the other a salute to its future. Independent businesses have always been the soul of this city. But already buffeted by the internet and economic turmoil, they are now being mercilessly impacted by current events. Even beloved landmarks like Du-Par’s and Hollywood Toys & Costumes are barely holding on. A Los Angeles stripped of such singular places will be a less interesting, muchdiminished city. So we sent out photographer Eric Axene to record some of the local institutions that are being heroically kept alive by their passionate owners and patrons.

But amidst despair there are signs of hope.

Last June, photographer Sam Comen turned his lens on L.A.’s Class of 2020 to capture an intimate look at the lives of dozens of high school seniors across the city as they graduated into the teeth of a pandemic and a cratering economy.

They were disappointed about missing the pomp and circumstance that usually accompany this milestone, but they are also resilient and thoughtful. The kids, as they say, are alright.

Meanwhile, we’ve decided to do something special with this month’s cover—or covers, as it turns out. For over a decade, Thierry Guetta, who works under the moniker Mr. Brainwash, has been one of L.A.’s most celebrated street artists, pushing the envelope with exuberant, riotously colorful murals that celebrate L.A.’s diversity and decadence. So he seemed like the ideal person to capture the city’s fractured mood. We were so enamored with his sketches, that we decided to run two of them. That’s why you’ll see a pair of covers on newsstands around town: one a stripped-down, punkedout paean to spray-painted street art; the other a maximalist collage that captures all of L.A.’s furious energy and the beating heart of this city that refuses to quit. Guetta is painting a huge mural replicating one of these covers on the wall at 1255 South La Brea Avenue where he usually showcases his work. We invite you, however masked and socially distanced, to come pay it a visit when the mural is complete at the end of July. It will be up through August.

FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER @MAERROSHAN

Maer Roshan, Editor-in-Chief

OPEN FOR

A MOMENT IN THE SUN

THE INTERSECTION OF LIFE

STYLE

@FIGAT7TH DOWNTOWN LA FIGAT7TH.COM

Maer Roshan

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF EXECUTIVE EDITOR

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L A M AG . C O M 17

ISLAND C A L I F O R N I A ’ S

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08.20

The Bing Cycle STEVE BING WAS KNOWN AS A PHILANTHROPIST, A PRODUCER, A POLITICAL POWERHOUSE, AND ELIZABETH HURLEY’S EX. BUT AFTER HIS SUICIDE, HIS CLOSEST FRIENDS REALIZED THEY DIDN’T KNOW HIM AT ALL

BY PETER KIEFER

I L LU S T R AT I O N BY JA S O N R A I S H

L A M AG . C O M 19

BUZZ

POSTSCRIPT

T

HE LAST TIME CARRIE MITCHUM SAW HER DEAR friend

recklessly. He dated a string of starlets.

A few months later, on the afterHe liked to gamble and was famously noon of June 22, Bing, a prominent impulsive. But there was also another film producer, political donor, and version of Bing that was incongruous activist—and scion of a prominent real with the version in the tabloids. estate family whose name graces mul“I loved Steve. I loved the way his tiple buildings across the city—leapt heart and his head were connected,” to his death from that same apartsays architect and sustainability expert ment. He was 55 years old. The LAPD John Picard, who advised Shangri-La and L.A. County Medical ExaminerIndustries, an arm of Bing’s company Coroner’s office, ruled his death a that focused on sustainable developsuicide, but that didn’t stop sordid ment and construction. Among the conspiracy theories that linked Bing’s projects Picard collaborated with Bing death to the late Jeffrey Epstein (the on was Hangar 25 at the Bob Hope convicted pedophile and someone Airport in Burbank, the first aviawho Bing briefly socialized with) from tion hangar to achieve blooming online. optimal mark s for For most of his adult sustainability. Picard life, Bing inhabited the believes the green moveoverlapping worlds of There was ment, which promotes Democratic Party politics, a version of the transition from fosphilanthropy, and enterBing that was sil fuels to solar and tainment. He inherited wind power, wouldn’t be a $600 million fortune incongruous where it is today withat the age of 18, which with the out Bing’s support. “I’ve propelled him into a life version in never met anyone like of filmmaking, activism, Steve, and I don’t think and tabloid headlines the tabloids. there will be another one that trailed him for much like him. He moved the of his life. But what needle because he put quickly comes through in everything into the things he was tryconversations with Bing’s friends and ing to change and that he cared about,” colleagues is that his was a Janus-like says Picard. existence. For those who got their news Bing was first and foremost a film in grocery-store checkout lines, Bing producer. His IMDb page lists a grab was a caricature and a cautionary tale bag of projects: He produced Get Carter, of American privilege. After graduatwhich starred Sylvester Stallone, and ing from the Harvard School for Boys the Warren Beatty film Rules Don’t (now Harvard-Westlake), he attended Apply. He wrote 2003’s Kangaroo Jack, Stanford University before dropping which, though critically panned, went out to pursue his dream of becoming on to gross $89 million on a $60 mila Hollywood player. He palled around lion budget, helping establish Bing’s with Bill Clinton and Mick Jagger. bona fides. Like everyone, he had his He wrote eight-figure checks, almost 20 L A M AG . C O M

fair share of bombs. But the setting and circumstances of Bing’s death felt more Less Than Zero than anything else. The luxe Ten Thousand apartment building where Bing was living made headlines several years ago for its on-site “botox bar.” The penthouse at the Ten Thousand costs $65 thousand a month, and the building has emerged as the go-to spot for L.A.’s deep-pocketed divorcées who congregate for a second (or third) act in life.

It’s a 40-story distillation of all the clichés about L.A. “Honestly, it was surprising that Steve even decided to live there,” says one friend, who like many people interviewed for this article declined to speak on record, citing sensitivities surrounding Bing’s family.

According to this friend, Bing never

C LO C KW I S E F R O M TO P L E F T: DAV E B E N E T T/G E T T Y I M AG E S FO R PAT M CG R AT H L A B S ; B U I L D I N G CO U RT E SY T E N T H O U SA N D SA N TA M O N I C A ; D O N ATO SA R D E L L A / W I R E I M AG E ; DAV E H O G A N /G E T T Y I M AG E S ; M A R I O TA M A /G E T T Y I M AG E S

Steve Bing, he was seated across the table from her at his apartment on the 27th floor of a luxury apartment building in Century City, asking if she believed in God. She remembers the view, an empty refrigerator, and a man searching for meaning.

She told him she did believe in God—at least sometimes—to which he said it didn’t matter either way. “The best way to put it,” says Mitchum, a chef and the granddaughter of actor Robert Mitchum, “is that he was frustrated with the lack of answers.”

M A N OF M YST E RY

Clockwise from left, Steve Bing’s son, Damian Hurley; the luxe Ten Thousand building where Bing killed himself; Bing in 2003; with Elizabeth Hurley in 2008; with Bill Clinton at the Clinton Global Initiative Conference in 2010

once participated in any of the building’s famed social mixers thrown in its sleekly designed common spaces. “He seemed like a gentle soul. For all the privilege he grew up in, he had a good perspective on it,” the friend says.

Gavin Polone, a prominent agent and manager in the entertainment industry, told The Hollywood Reporter that when he and Bing were in seventh grade together in the mid-1970s, Bing was a popular, attentive kid. “He would go home and rewrite the notes he took in class. He got straight As. He not only worked hard, he was smart.

I remember thinking he was going to be a senator,” Polone told the trade magazine.

Polone wasn’t far off. Politics ended up consuming a huge portion of Bing’s life, and his generosity as a donor was

legendary. He poured tens of millions of dollars into various Democratic and progressive causes, including Bill Clinton’s campaigns and Hillary Clinton’s failed bid for the White House in 2016, and he donated more than $10 million to the William J. Clinton Foundation. In 2006, Bing singlehandedly bankrolled the California ballot measure Prop. 87 to the tune of nearly $50 million. That proposition aimed to raise $4 billion in oil-production taxes that would have gone to develop alternative fuels, but it fell short at the polls.

Beyond politics, he contributed to a wide range of causes, including an effort to rebuild the Ninth Ward of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina; and here in Los Angeles he donated generously to the Silverlake Conservatory of

Music, which provides scholarships to underprivileged children.

But Bing wasn’t a great judge of character. When recounting the impact Bing had on his career, Picard—who was speaking from Maui where he had been sheltering in place with his family during the pandemic—started to get teary. Picard remembered having to make a conscious effort to step away from the hangers-on and the girls that often orbited around Bing. “There were a lot of distractions in his life, and he had people pulling him in all these different directions,” says Picard.

“During our meetings, you could sense the stress in his silences—you could feel the energy. There was always someone reaching to grab the money or the power that he could wield.”

As a result, tumult and tragedy seemed to follow him everywhere.

Starting around 2003, he had two very public paternity battles: the first with Elizabeth Hurley, whom he had dated, and the second with media mogul Kirk Kerkorian over the daughter of Kerkorian’s then-wife, tennis player Lisa Bonder. Bing was revealed to be the biological father of both Hurley’s son, Damian, and Bonder’s daughter, Kira.

Last year he clashed with his father, Dr. Peter Bing, who tried to have Bing’s two children removed from a family trust. The younger Bing challenged that move in court and prevailed after a judge dismissed the case. Also last year, Bing’s former girlfriend, 28-year-old actress Allexanne Mitchum, was found dead, reportedly of an accidental drug overdose. According to Carrie Mitchum, Allexanne’s aunt, her death left Bing distraught and wracked with guilt.

“I’m sure some negative stuff about Steve is going to come, whether it’s about women or drugs or something to do with business,” says Mitchum.

“But the focus should be on the good things he did—not just the donations, but the fact that he cared about people and the human condition. To remember someone for something they did 18 years ago is kind of shitty.”

L A M AG . C O M 2 1

N E WS & N OT E S F R O M A L L OV E R

T H E AC C US E D

Grant Robicheaux and Cerissa Riley

THE DOCTOR IS OUT A NEWPORT COUPLE ACCUSED OF RAPE IS BACK IN THE HOT SEAT AGAIN

BY JA S O N M C G A H A N

I N T H E PA S T 40 years, no California judge has rejected a motion by the district attorney to dismiss a major case. But the sensational lawsuit against a Newport Beach plastic surgeon and his girlfriend has never been short on surprises. In an unexpected ruling in June, Superior Court Judge Gregory Jones denied a motion by Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer to dismiss a serialrape case against Grant Robicheaux, 39, and Cerissa Riley, 33, who are accused of drugging and raping several women at the doctor’s Newport home.

Prosecutors allege that the couple used their good looks—and an impressive array of mind-altering pharmaceuticals—to lure several victims into their home. But last February, a few months after he was elected DA, 22 L A M AG . C O M

Spitzer suddenly dropped all charges against the couple, dismissing the evidence as “insufficient,” and questioning the integrity of the two lead investigators and the previous DA who had pursued the case. But first Spitzer had to convince Jones to sign off.

Because the courthouse was shuttered due to COVID-19, the proceedings were conducted via Zoom. Seated in their attorney’s kitchen, Robicheaux and Riley listened intently as Jones ripped into the DA: The judge found no fault with the investigators on the case and defended the credibility of the alleged victims, who never were allowed the opportunity to testify. He also suggested that a political vendetta between Spitzer and the previous DA muddled the prosecution.

As soon as Jones rejected

the motion, Riley began loudly sobbing while Robicheaux sat impassively at her side.

What happens next is anyone’s guess. After the ruling, Matt Murphy, a lawyer who represents four of the alleged victims, was ecstatic.

“These women were treated horribly by the DA,” he said. Robicheaux and Riley’s defense team unsuccessfully pushed Jones to disqualify himself from the case, accusing the judge of bias. On June 16, Spitzer submitted a brief asking Jones to refer the case to California Attorney General Xavier Becerra for further prosecution.

Not long ago, the defendants announced they were leaving Newport.

Looks like they’ll stick around until the next hearing on August 7.

MALIBU GOES VIRAL E V E RY S U M M E R I N

Malibu the world’s wealthiest battle to outbid one another for a coveted slice

of sand along the Pacific Coast Highway. Add a pandemic to the games, however, and suddenly demand—and prices—go through the wood-shingled roof.

“Right after shelter in place, high-end home sales in Malibu froze overnight,” says Compass real estate agent Danny Brown. But two weeks later, fabulously wealthy families from around the globe swooped in, looking to rent a beach house to ride out the virus. “These are people willing to pay $100,000 a month for a very modest home, up to $300,000 for something more spacious,” Brown says.

Malibu real estate agent Chris Cortazzo says that many of the lease seekers are from New York, Aspen, or Chicago. “In 26 years, I’ve never seen this much activity.” Cortazzo’s listings include a five-bedroom contemporary with beach frontage for $150,000 a month. “They think corona might be here for a while, and they want to get ahead of it.”

Real estate agent PA N D E M I C H I D E AWAY

Malibu on $150,000 a month

D O C TO R I S O U T: PAU L B E R S E B AC H / D I G I TA L F I R ST M E D I A /O R A N G E CO U N T Y R E G I ST E R V I A G E T T Y I M AG E S ) ; M A L I B U R E A L E STAT E : S I M O N B E R LY N

The Brief

L A P D H OT W H E E L S : T I F FA N Y R O S E /G E T T Y I M AG E S FO R CO - STA R E N T E RTA I N M E N T; O F F T H E WA L M A RT: CO U RT E SY M AT T J O H N S O N @ H OT P O C K E TS 4 A L L

PERCENTAGE DECREASE IN U.S. BOX OFFICE RECEIPTS FROM SPRING 2019 TO THIS PAST SPRING. MOVIE THEATERS ACROSS THE U.S EARNED $3.49 MILLION IN REVENUE IN THE SECOND QUARTER, A $3.26 BILLION DROP FROM LAST YEAR

Edward Hutchinson says he’s seeing record rental activity in Silicon Beach as well. “There’s been nonstop demand in Venice, Santa Monica, and Marina del Rey,” he says. “A New York trader just paid me a year up front to rent a Venice townhouse.” Hutchinson says the unprecedented demand has kept home prices high. “This is weirdly what will end up keeping this housing market so strong.”

While six-figure rentals have yet to reach Silicon Beach, a threebedroom Venice residence a block from Abbot Kinney is on offer at the Agency for $26,500 a month. That includes a swimming pool, a rooftop deck, and weekly maid service.

The rush of wealthy renters may offset the outflow of locals leaving the pricey Westside as remote work renders commuting obsolete. “If you go on Redfin right now and look at a price range of $700,000 to $1.2 million in places like Agoura, Calabasas, Laguna Niguel, you’d be shocked how many of these places are selling,” says Carl Muhlstein, of the real estate firm JLL. But, he adds, “homebuyers and upscale renters all share one concern: to be within range of same-day Amazon delivery.”

—ALE X AN DRIA AB R AM IAN

LAPD’S HOT WHEELS A LAMBORGHINI,

assorted BMWs, and a Tesla. No, that’s not Jay Leno’s garage; it’s part of the fleet of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Amid national calls to defund the police, photos of a black and white Lamborghini Gallardo have circulated across social media as evidence of the LAPD’s profligate ways. But it turns out the

99.89

OFF THE WALMART

W

hen not making furniture, Matthew Johnson (@HotPockets4All ) scours the web for photos of Trump-administration stars and remakes them into the kind of ’70s-era portraits you used to find at Walmart. Unsurprisingly, his creations have gone viral, drawing millions of views on Twitter and Instagram. We asked him to deconstruct a few of our favorites. — I SA B E L SA M I

“Images of the president and his family are the hardest to pull off,” Johnson says. “It’s really difficult to satirize something that’s a parody to begin with.”

“She has such a state-fair look,” says Johnson of Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway. He designs faux watermarks that are customized for each of his subjects.

“In photos you see of Mitch McConnell, he looks like a fossil,” says Johnson of the senator. “This is one of the few pictures I found where he looks kind of human.”

Johnson thinks it’s the pained expressions of his subjects that make his best works connect.

“That’s the essence of Jared and Ivanka. I just play with the rest.”

“This image of Treasury Secretary Mnuchin was pretty easy to produce,” says Johnson. “The awkwardness was already there.

All I supplied was the hair!”

Johnson has been criticized for mocking the appearance of Sarah Sanders, but he insists he doesn’t alter his subject’s expressions. “That’s all Sarah!” he says.

T H AT ’S THE TICKET

This Tesla is just one of the luxury rides in the LAPD’s fleet

Lambo was loaned to the force by L.A. telecom execs Nathalie and Travis Marg for charity events.

However, the department’s BMWs and Tesla may deserve a closer look.

In 2016, the LAPD signed a $10.2 million contract with BMW to receive 100 electric-powered i3s every year for three years as part of the department’s green initiative. The Teslas were purchased as part of the same program. But four years into the contract, CBS L.A. reports that the vehicles are sitting in the garage, used only occasionally to pick up laundry. It seems not even the cops want to total an $80K car in a 100 mph highway chase.

—MORGAINE MCILHARGEY

L A M AG . C O M 23

Buzz

GEAR

Fear Factor

LIFE GOT YOU ANXIOUS? HERE ARE A SLEW OF NEW PRODUCTS THAT CATER TO BOTH THE PRACTICAL AND THE PARANOID

BY STEVEN BLUM

BIOHAZARD SUIT

A M I D A N O N G O I N G PA N D E M I C and widespread social unrest, you

can’t blame Angelenos for feeling freaked out. If a deadly pathogen is in the air, what else might be lurking unseen? S. Brian Matthews, a private investigator for L.A. Intelligence, says his agency has been deluged with calls from people who think they’re under surveillance. “Suddenly everyone wants their homes swept for bugs.” The general unease transcends politics: on Twitter, the phrase “Time to buy a gun!” has been trending for weeks, with some fearful of killer cops and others of lawless looters, and handgun sales have jumped by 94 percent since last year. Unsurprisingly, a panoply of new products has emerged to temper the terror. We asked some experts for their reviews.

PHONE DISINFECTANT

> Studies have shown that 15 minutes of UVC

exposure kills viruses like SARS by making it impossible for them to replicate. It’s unclear whether UVC waves work as well on COVID-19, but experts are optimistic. Products like Phone Soap ($79.95) harness UV technology in tiny devices. “I’m a fan,” says Dr. Popescu, noting that phones can be dirtier than toilet seats.

“But spray your phone with alcohol first.”

CLUBBING COVERALLS

> For the desperate-to-socialize, one company has designed a hazmat suit for nightclubs. The Micrashell prototype promises to allay infection concerns while allowing partiers to vape, pee, and even have sex. (It goes over only the top half of your body.) Popescu doubts the suit will be popular. “I’d discourage people from spending on one,” she says. “I’d also be surprised if concerts took off anytime soon.”

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POLICE RECORDER

> Nervous about meeting up with the police?

Siri is here to help. Just download a free iOS shortcut called Police, say the phrase “Hey Siri, I’m getting pulled over,” and, voila!— your iPhone camera will start recording your interactions with law enforcement. It will also text or email the video to a predetermined contact and save it to Dropbox so you won’t have to worry about a cop deleting it.

KEYCHAIN DOOR OPENER

> The Keychain Touch Tool by PEEL ($35) is

made of copper—far less hospitable to errant coronaviruses than steel or plastic. It even doubles as a “subtle bottle opener” for your evening IPAs. “Door handles are high-touch surfaces, so this isn’t the worst idea,” says Popescu. But she warns that a keychain shouldn’t replace old-fashioned soap and water: “I still want people to wash their hands.”

> Let’s face it: no one looks good in a polyeth-

ylene hazmat suit, not even Naomi Campbell, who accessorizes hers with a Burberry cape.

Even so, DuPont is struggling to keep up with demand for its disposable Tyvek suits, which sell for $17.50 on Amazon. But to what end?

“The gear is far too complicated to use for a trip to Trader Joe’s,” says Dr. Saskia Popescu, an epidemiologist at George Mason University.

“It’s so easy to cross-contaminate yourself,” she explains. “It’s a really cumbersome process.”

COUNTERSURVEILLANCE WAND

> If you’re convinced the feds are on your tail,

you could sweep your home for hidden audio and video signals with Brickhouse Security’s RF Wireless Signal Detector Wand ($275). For an even more thorough job, hire Matthews’s P.I. company to check for bugs. But “unless you’re running a high-level crime ring, it’s unlikely the authorities are monitoring you,” he says. “They have their hands full these days.”

PHONE PRIVACY POUCH

> Worried that your texts and phone calls

are being monitored by the police? Plop your phone into the Mission Darkness Faraday Bag ($52), a special pouch that blocks all radio communications. According to the Prepper website preppersurvive.com, these bags blocked cell, Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth signals, and were effective at shielding devices from annoying electromagnetic pulses.

I L LU S T R AT I O NS BY B R I A N TAY L O R

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Buzz

COMMERCE

1

The Shows Must Go On

THE RED CARPET, WITH ITS LEGION OF PRO GLAM SQUADS, HAS BECOME A MULTIMILLION-DOLLAR INDUSTRY. SO WHAT WILL HAPPEN NOW THAT MOST TROPHIES WILL BE DOLED OUT REMOTELY? B Y A L E X A N D R A I L YA S H O V

W I T H AWA R D S S E A S O N

looming, thousands of hairdressers, manicurists, makeup artists, and fashion stylists are scrambling to figure out how they’ll make their high-wattage clients shine at unconventional ceremonies during the COVID-19 pandemic. September’s Emmys will be a virtual affair, taped over multiple nights in various locations instead of streaming live from one big event. Other shows are likely to follow suit, while the Oscars have been pushed back from February to April in the hope that a traditional ceremony will be possible by then. Those in the beauty and fashion business are eager to get back to work primping stars to accept trophies. After all, the red-carpet hoopla of awards season brings in $130 million in revenue per year.

But getting glam will be decidedly less glamorous these days. “Celebrities will still get dressed. They will still need to wear a dress and jewelry and all that, so it will happen in some capacity,” says jewelry designer Deborah Pagani, who has lent her gems to Rihanna, Anne Hathaway, and Shailene Woodley.

“There’s just too much at stake and too much money that’s derived from these events.” Hair teams and self-tanning professionals each rake in upward of $10,000 per person, per event. The average day rate for a stylist’s service is $6,000 per client.

While the shows will go on, prepping for them will be vastly different. Nail artist Mazz Hanna, who has worked with Emma Roberts, Julia Roberts, and Greta Gerwig, notes that a staggered schedule—rather than a chaotic allhands-on-deck setup with hair, makeup, and nd nail pros working on a star simultaneously—will eously—will become the new norm.

She he now plans to do a client’s nails the he night before a big event, since ince manis and pedis, unlike a face full of makeup, look the he same even after a night’s sleep. leep. “It’s not what we’re used to,” o,” laments Hanna, “but you sort ort of adapt.”

Alternating schedules will also mean that stylists ave less time to work on have heir clients—a glamour their team eam typically gets two ours, but if everyone is hours, working separately, they’ll have ave to work much faster nd opt for lower-mainteand nance ance looks. “I don’t want o be doing full weaves,” to says ays Kee Taylor, a top hairstylist airstylist whose clients nclude Tiffany Haddish, include Tika Sumpter, Nafessa Williams, and Amber Riley. Instead, Taylor says, ays, she’ll opt for something quick, “something

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T H E C E L E B R I T Y I N DUST R I A L C OM P L E X

1. Beanie Feldstein/Erin Walsh; 2. Mahershala Ali/Simone Frajnd; 3. Emma Roberts/Mazz Hanna; 4. Nafessa Williams/ Kee Taylor; 5. Thandie Newton/Erin Walsh; 6. Julia Roberts/ Mazz Hanna; 7. Natalie Dormer/Adam Breuchaud; 8. Angela Bassett/Deborah Pagani; 9. Brie Larson/Colette Steckel 10. Billy Porter/Simone Frajnd 26 L A M AG . C O M

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like a really good snatched ponytail.”

Virtual awards shows like the Emmys will feature taped segments from stars’ homes, which could be a plus. Beauty experts anticipate that they’ll have more control over how their work looks onscreen. Adam Breuchaud, a makeup artist whose clients include Sarah Paulson, Natalie Dormer, and Winona Ryder, notes that with in-home tapings he’ll be able to wit perform quick touch-ups and make pe sure the lighting is flattering. “On a red carpet, we don’t know what that lighting is gonna be like,” he says. “We kind of just send them out there. So there’s a bit more trial and error involved.”

The more intimate nature of viirtual shows sh virtual may allow more discreet elem elements (nails, earrings) to get more attention than they used to. “This attentio could actually showcase jewelry bet better than before,” says Colette St Steckel, a jewelry designer who has accessorized awards- show h outfits for Brie Larson and ou N Naomi Watts.

5 Cleanliness has always been a priority for beauty pros, but they’re taking it to the next level th n now. Nail artist Hanna says her ag agency, Nailing Hollywood, cr created new safety guidelines in June.

Ju Not only are face shields, m masks, and gloves required, but en entirely new tools will be used for each client. “I’ll start using disposable files and buffers,” she dis says. say “I’ll have a very organized system: if I touch a bottle of polish syst in my m kit with a gloved hand, that will go into a separate pile, and everything will be sanitized, wiped every down with Barbicide before going back into my kit, for that extra level cau of caution. ” Groomer Simone Frajnd, Gr who works with Jordan Peele, Mahershala Ali, Quentin Tarantino, Mahe Billy Porter, began regularly and B disinfecting her already-pristine disinf kit the very day L.A.’s stay-at-home order began. She also created personalized DIY kits for clients to person with her remote guidance, for use, wi virtual events, though she worries that he her male clients may struggle

with applying their own makeup. “With men, I feel like less is more,” Frajnd says. “It’s hard to have a man apply [a product], especially concealer or foundation.”

Beyond the skin deep, the pandemic, along with the Black Lives Matter movement, will have a big effect on what stars wear. Fashion stylist Erin Walsh says she expects to see style statements about the toll of COVID-19 and racial injustice as well as more representation of Black designers and Black-led brands.

“Actors and their publicists, agents, stylists, hair, makeup, the whole team will be looking at ‘How does what I wear really represent what I want to say? How does it bring attention to

“There’s just too much at stake and too much money that’s derived from these events.”

DEBORAH PAGANI

designers who need attention? How does it reflect how I want the world to look?’ ” says Walsh, who counts Thandie Newton, Anne Hathaway, Beanie Feldstein, Alison Brie, and Zoe ListerJones among her clients. “If you’re not paying attention to how what you put on your body is made, you’re contributing to the problem, especially in a public space.” She adds, “During awards season, it’s going to be more important that people are conscious of all the details of what they’re wearing, not just the designer label.”

Walsh says that past preoccupations will now seem trivial as we cope with the pandemic and its economic aftermath.“The expectation that nobody wears the same thing again? The idea that two actors couldn’t represent a designer in two very different ways in the same look? It’s just so silly,” she says.

“I don’t want to put that kind of message out there, especially when I think of how people are going to be shopping after all this craziness is over.”

L A M AG . C O M 27

ral and diversity of co xplore the beauty e th in s imal resident reefs and their an Pacific magined Tropical rei y wl ne Aquarium’s al dive tu vir ing nn stu a rience Gallery and expe arn Le . c Visions Theater in the Honda Pacifi and e, fac ey the threats th about coral reefs, meet d An . em th e to help sav what you can do rtl a tu e, nts, like a green se some new reside y, and ob d red-footed bo flashlight fish, an light. w ne ole ds in a wh see some old frien

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BEST OF

08.20

BEST OF

L.A. ALL THAT GLITTERS GLIT

P H OTO I L LU ST R AT I O N : E R I C H E R N A N D E Z

EVERY YEAR WE SCOUR THE CITY IN SEARCH OF THE SUPERLATIVEâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; SUPE FROM THE MOST DEL DELICIOUS DINING AND AMAZING OUTDOOR T EXPERIENCES TO THE TOP SHOPS FOR FASHION AND HOME HOM DECOR. G TO . . .

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EDITED BY HAILEY EBER, LINDA IMMEDIATO, AND MICHAEL WALKER

P H O T O G R A P H BY M E I KO A R Q U I L L O S

L A M AG . C O M 3 1

P L AY

Day Skiing It’s not just that M T. WAT E R M A N is the closest

ski mountain to the city, nor that it offers the cheapest lift tickets ($60).

No, the reason to hit this 150-acre, three-chair mountain is that it boasts 60 percent expert terrain that is at least as challenging as slopes at bigger, fivestar resorts. And if you’re not an expert, there are rentals, classes, and easier slopes to start on. But until the place gets snowmaking equipment, it’s open only when weather permits. mtwaterman.org.

Hidden Bansky One of the street artist’s least visible L.A. creations resonates as truth in a time of grave deception.

The B A N KSY now hidden ear 9th behind a fence near

and Broadway depicts a young girl on a swing dangling from the vestige of the signage for a parking lot that has since been replaced by yet another sun-blocking building.

West 9th Street and South Broadway, downtown.

Zoom Rave Zoom deserves credit for consistently hosting C LU B Q UA RA N T I N E , a queer virtual rave that draws costumed partiers every night from bedrooms around the planet. The people-watching is the big draw here: many participants sport wild desktop backgrounds and crazy, home-constructed looks.

The teens even treat the club like a real night out, flirting and making hookup plans in private messages. Unsurprisingly, the party has become a celeb magnet—Lady Gaga made an unexpected appearance dressed in a spike-studded mask. @clubquarantine.

EXPERT PICK

Record rd Store Rockaway Records 2395 Glendale Blvd., Silver Lake, rockaway.com

> “One of my favorite little getaway places to find music. It’s not the biggest record store in the city, but there’s a ton of obscure gems I’ve found in there that I’ve used to sample over the years. Plus you’ve got the Red Lion across the street.”

—APL.DE.AP, COFOUNDER, BLACK EYED PEAS

3 2 L A M AG . C O M

Secret Trail Most L.A. hiking trails are too sunny, dusty, and heavily trafficked. D E V I L’ S C A N YO N T RA I L in the Santa Susana Mountains may be the most lush, shady, and underpopulated trail in Southern California. Attenuated by switchbacks, the five-mile loop is narrow and the terrain steep. Those who dig spectacular flora and fauna will be too caught up in the dainty wildflowers and gorgeous, burnt-out tree carcasses to notice the

LADY GAGA ON CLUB QUARANTINE

incline. Wildlife abounds, with acorn woodpeckers, gray squirrels, and myriad reptilian forms scurrying underfoot. On a Sunday afternoon in June, only four other hikers were encountered during a three-mile trek. fs.usda.gov.

Virtual Yoga YO E D D I E yoga is the virtual place to be during the nesting months. A yoga instructor since 1995, Eddie Marashian saw the need for online classes in March and mobilized mindfully.

His twice daily classes— yoga in the morning, guided meditation in the evening—are free, though donations are welcomed. ($1,325 was raised for the NAACP’s Legal Defense & Education Fund from a single Sunday class in June.) Just Zoom in, turn on, and say namaste. yoeddie.com.

Outdoor Stairs Everyone knows about the Santa Monica’s Fourth Street stairs, where stars drop poundage with each pound of the cement. But fewer know about the wood stairs up A D E L A I D E D R I V E a few hundred yards east: 170 soft slats of perfection, surrounded by eucalyptus trees that smell really yummy on marine-layer mornings.

The staircase deposits you onto Entrada Drive; if you’re feeling it, just keep going and you’ll end up at Will Rogers State Beach.

Adelaide Drive and Fourth Street, Santa Monica.

Museum Tour Most virtual tours are poor substitutes for the real thing, but T H E G E T T Y ’s is a rare exception that adds depth and nuance to your understanding of the museum’s I L LU S T R AT I O NS BY K AT I E B E N N

LADY GAGA: SCREENGRAB COURTESY CLUB QUARATINE; EXPERT PICK: MIKE MARSLAND/WIREIMAGE

Best of L.A.

Best of L.A.

P L AY

vibe is somewhere between Godard’s Paris in the ’60s and Chaplin’s Modern Times. (On his off hours, owner Mark Wright spins French pop as DJ Pierrot.)

Cinephiles travel from miles around just to hang out at the counter, talking film noir while loading up on a week’s stash. vidtheque. com; 1020 Mission St., Ste. J, South Pasadena.

View of the Valley

Freeway Experience Those who view freeways as industrial art love the 110 freeway transition to the 1 0 5 OV E R PASS and its vertigo-inducing views.

Make your takeoff from the carpool lane of the 1 1 0 S O U T H as it approaches the 105. For one glorious moment, the concrete spaghetti hoists you to an astonishing view of the South Bay, the Hollywood Hills, Mid City, and downtown. Although just a few seconds long, the experience is the closest thing to 3 4 L A M AG . C O M

an E ticket L.A.’s notoriously uninspiring freeways have to offer. 110 freeway at 105 freeway, South L.A.

Urban Garden The third-floor aerie at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, known as the B LU E R I B B O N G A R D E N , is a public space that’s so divine. Take a stroll and feel the Zen-ness of naked coral trees, Chinese rain balls, and Madagascar trees with heart-shaped leaves. Disney Hall architect Frank Gehry conceived the garden’s Lillian Disney Memorial Fountain as a tribute to the benefactor’s love of roses and Dutch earthenware; the blossom decorating the fountain is comprised of Royal Delft pottery that Gehry ordered from Holland and artfully smashed into thousands of shards. 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown.

Dance Class You’d be hard-pressed to find a virtual workout more exuberant than the free dance party on RYA N H E F F I N GTO N ’s Instagram account. The Grammywinning choreographer known for his work with Sia and Arcade Fire, dances in multicolored shortshorts to New Wave, Italian disco, and trip hop, while shouting instructions like “Slap it!” and “Shake those girls!” Go ahead: turn your bedroom into Akbar. ryanheffington.com.

Movie Rental V I D ÉOT H ÈQ U E is so French New Wave, you’ll feel immediately cooler just sauntering into the joint.

The walls of the hipster South Pasadena rental and sales boutique are papered with posters of Truffaut’s The 400 Blows and all things Buster Keaton. The

Night Hike Going in through the out door at F RA N K L I N C A N YO N PA R K at sunset is uniquely compelling because at dusk you can actually hear the moment when the day creatures go to sleep and the night creatures come out. You might encounter, as devotees have, scorpions, snakes, bats, bobcats, and a barn owl perched on the tip of a tree, framed by the moon, watching you as you watch the owl, acknowledging that we’re all in this together. 2600 Franklin Canyon Dr., Beverly Hills.

MOVIE RENTAL: MARK WRIGHT

collection, allowing you to zoom in on individual brushstrokes with astonishing clarity. Get lost in Van Gogh’s Irises and Renoir’s La Promenade, or check out the scandalous art of 1880’s painter James Ensor. You can even use Google Street View to dawdle around the museum’s halls. getty.edu.

The view from the Charles & Lotte Melhorn Overlook on M U L H O L L A N D D R I V E is the finale of Chinatown, without the sinister waterstealing backstory. Real estate agents refer to the Valley vista as the “poor man’s view,” but that doesn’t account for the overlook’s nighttime soundtrack of hooting owls or that it is the scene of a million first kisses. 13801 Mulholland Dr., Beverly Hills.

S TAT C H AT

Birding Guide > Whether it’s ogling shore birds on Malibu Lagoon or spotting roadrunners at O’Melveny Park, Wild Wings runs L.A.’s essential birding trips. The outings are hosted

by Scott Logan (pictured) a proud bird nerd who can name that call in seconds flat and has an uncanny, encyclopedic knowledge of the species that bless the city. Logan grew up in Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley and has been kicking over rocks since he was a kid to see what might slither out. As an urban naturalist, he’s also beloved for installing barnowl boxes as an alternative to rodenticide. wildwingsla.com.

500

NUMBER OF NATURALLY OCCURING BIRD SPECIES RECORDED IN L.A. COUNTY, INCLUDING . . .

9

SPECIES OF OWLS

11

OF PARROTS

6

OF HUMMINGBIRDS

44

OF WARBLERS PH O T O G R A PH BY I A N S PA N I E R

Best of L.A.

H E A LT H & B E A U T Y

Longest-Lasting Manicure Gel polish can wreak havoc on your nails. Enter the dip mani-pedi, the latest advancement in fingernail adornment, which uses a layering process and pigmented powders. It’s safer for your nails, is chip resistant, and lasts longer. And the top spot in L.A. for this modern beauty marvel is P OW D E R B E AU T Y . The shop has all-organic products and an aesthetician on hand so you can book that much-needed facial. 452 S. La Brea Ave., Mid Wilshire, powderbeautyco.com.

Nontoxic Cosmetics Over the past decade, T H E D E TOX M A R K E T

extensive training to learn the proper products, coloring agents, and personalized cuts to showcase your natural curls. Bonus: they actually teach you how to maintain your bounce, free of charge. 815 Fairview Ave., Ste. 109, South Pasadena, ineedthairapy.com.

Curly-Hair Salon If you’re over getting outdated Brazilian treatments or scorching your mane with flat irons, head to T H A I RA PY in South Pasadena. Co-owners Dusty Schlabach and Karmen Aghazarian went through 36 L A M AG . C O M

Meditation Class In today’s world of constant stimulation, learning how to clear your mind is hard work. The classes at I N S I G H T L A are tailored for anyone who’s

looking to take the stress out of de-stressing. The nonprofit center aims to make mindfulness as inclusive and accessible as possible by offering affordable drop-in classes for LGBTQ groups and sessions for Spanish speakers. And all your oms are going to a good cause— InsightLA partners with other nonprofits across the city to bring meditation to marginalized communities.

Last year the partnership made history by offering the first-ever residential meditation retreat for transgender people.

4300 Melrose Ave., East Hollywood, insightla.org.

Skin-Care Products Beauty gurus have been buzzing about the L.A.based, Black-owned, and all-natural skin-care brand B E N E AT H YO U R M AS K , founded by Dana Jackson in 2016. Jackson wanted to repair the damage that a long and debilitating battle with lupus had done to her skin and hair, but many of the products on the market were packed with harsh chemicals. So she created

COURTESY POWDER BEAUTY/BREE MCCOOL ENTERPRISES

has garnered a devout following for its bright, airy stores and its online selection of curated organic, nontoxic products.

After reading the extensive list of banned ingredients—which includes chemicals that cause reproductive harm, neurotoxicity, cell damage, and cancer—you might take a second look at your drugstore lipstick. 8380 Beverly Blvd., Beverly Grove, thedetoxmarket.com.

her own. Beneath Your Mask stocks a select collection of luxurious vegan products for pampering your body’s largest organ, all micro-batched by hand in Southern California.

We suggest starting with the ultra-popular Heal: Whipped Skin Soufflé. 8327 W. 3rd St., Beverly Grove, beneathyourmask.com.

OLD-SCHOOL BARBER: COURTESY FÁBIO JAHGUN ASSISI; YOGA STUDIO: SARIT ROGERS; CANNABIS SHOP: RICH POLK/GETTY IMAGES FOR MEDMEN

Self-Defense Class I M PAC T founder Lisa Gaeta has been training women, men, teens, and children in self-defense for 30 years. She offers a multifaceted approach to fighting back against sexual assault that includes setting boundaries, learning verbal strategies, and pistol basics. What’s more, all classes are led by female instructors who will make sure your experience is as comfortable and empowering as possible.

Now, that’s what we call badass. 8535 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, impactpersonalsafety.com.

F R O M L A M AG .CO M

Readers’ Picks > We wanted to hear from you, loyal followers, so we held an online poll to find out your top spots to destress. Here’s what you said.

BEST CANNABIS SHOP

B E S T YO G A S T U D I O

735 S. Broadway, downtown; 8208 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood; 8740 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Westchester; 1310 Abbot Kinney Blvd. and 410 Lincoln Blvd., Venice; medmen.com

2150 Colorado Blvd., Eagle Rock; 319 Glendale Blvd., Echo Park; 4343 W. Sunset Blvd., Ste. 205, Silver Lake; onedowndog.com

MedMen

again for many of his other patients. 11740 San Vicente Blvd., Ste. 206, letgoltsmethod.com.

post-treatment perfecting service, if needed. 8755 Colgate Ave., Los Angeles, staycosmetics.co.

Permanent Eye Makeup

Adult Toys

Bylle Stasi of STAY COS M E T I C S offers the newest in permanent and semipermanent eyeliner enhancement, an innovative tattoo technique with better ink and a safer application. Stasi is also an expert in ombre brows and lamination—a process that makes brows look fuller. Prices start at $130 and include a six-week

P L E AS U R E C H E ST has

Since 1980, the

THE LION BARBERSHOP ’S FÁBIO JAHGUN ASSIS

been providing the uninhibited and curious with a bountiful assortment of sex toys. But what makes this spot really shine is its dedication to fostering a judgment-free, queer- and trans-inclusive, sex-positive atmosphere. Check out the free weekly workshops on topics ranging from BDSM 101 to intimate partner

One Dog Down

yoga. 7733 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, thepleasurechest.com.

Herbal Supplements Steeped in the ancient practice of Chinese medicine, T I N B O has been the go-to store for herbal remedies for decades. Its shelves are neatly stocked with both common and more hard-to-find ingredients, but if you’re not certain which supplements are right for you, consult the in-house herbalist for a recommendation. 841 N. Broadway, Chinatown, inboinc.com.

Physical Therapist

Old-School Barber

The work that Dr. Allen Letgolts does at his Brentwood clinic, L EG O LTS M E T H O D , yields mind-blowing results for people who suffer from chronic pain. He and his team assess how your job, stress level, and posture have affected your body, and then set about treating those issues, from sciatica to neck pain to sore knees.

Letgolts has gotten athletes back to the playing field and made working possible

You won’t find graying gents in bow ties at T H E LION BARBERSHOP. Owner Fábio Jahgun Assis’s salon is the best place to go for dreadlocks, fades, cuts, and shaves.

Some of his work can take as long as 14 hours, with prices starting at $12 and reaching into the hundreds of dollars. Regulars include players for the Clippers and Lakers and Ziggy Marley. 4325 Degna Blvd., Leimert Park, booksy.com.

L A M AG . C O M 37

Best of L.A.

E AT

offers a similarly elegant takeout omakase for two for $250. 21418 Ventura Blvd., Woodland Hills, thebrotherssushi.com.

Butter Chicken

When you order the $180 “modern omakase” from Mark Okuda, a former Asanebo chef who took over and dramatically remade T H E B R OT H E R S S U S H I

in 2018, you get much more than nigiri. Beyond his expertise at cutting and seasoning pristine raw seafood like toro and live Santa Barbara spot prawns, Okuda excels at seasonal cooking. The seven-to-ten-course meal might start with sashimi and tofu before transitioning to creative hot dishes like Hokkaido scallops with brussels sprouts and truffles, followed by soup, sushi, and dessert. If you’re not up for dining in, Okuda

EXPERT PICK

Date Spot The Malibu Cafe 327 Latigo Canyon Rd., Malibu, themalibucafe.com

> Romantic paddle boats, music, games, and cozy picnic blankets make this a picture-perfect outdoor date spot.

—DAMONA HOFFMAN, HOST OF THE DATES & MATES PODCAST

38 L A M AG . C O M

Lasagna U OVO , a no-frills pasta specialist, serves up seven layers of perfection, easily besting the offerings at fancier Italian joints.

Fresh, bright spinach noodles are flown in on commercial flights from Bologna, where they’re made with special red-yolk eggs not available in the U.S. Just as impressive is the dreamy sauce made from béchamel, 24-month-aged Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, pork, and New Zealand Wagyu beef. The last ingredient, rich but packed with omega-3s, is also what makes the patties at sister restaurant

HiHo Cheeseburger something special. 1320 2nd St., Santa Monica, and 6245 Wilshire Blvd., Mid Wilshire, uovo.la.

Texas-Style BBQ Pitmaster Andrew Muñoz’s beautifully fatty 14-hour brisket ($28/ pound) and eight-hour short ribs ($28/pound), cooked over white oak in offset smokers, are the closest thing to Central Texas barbecue that L.A. has ever encountered. Andrew and his wife, Michelle, did their first pop-up in their East L.A. backyard in 2017, and M O O ’ S C RA F T B A R B EC U E has since become a sensation at brewery pop-ups and Smorgasburg and via takeout, which they regularly offer from Crafted Kitchen in the Arts District.

The couple are also on the hunt for their own

restaurant space. No matter where you get their ’cue, make sure you add some of Andrew’s jalapeñocheddar beef sausages and Michelle’s verde pork sausages to your platter (both $20 for four). mooscraftbarbecue.com.

Tom Yum Soup Justin Pichetrungsi, the second-generation chefowner of A N A JA K , deftly amped up his rendition of Thai hot-and-sour soup this past spring by offering it with a fish head as an upgrade to the usual chicken or shrimp. The heads, which might be Ora King salmon or hiramasa or branzino, are dry-aged to make them especially flavorful and tender; they add a rich umami kick to a soup already sparkling with fresh chiles and herbs. 14704 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, anajakthai.com.

TEXAS-STYLE BBQ: ANDREW MUNOZ; OMEKASE: @MEETJAKOB; EXPERT PICK: COURTESY DAMONA HOFFMAN

Omakase

The creamy curry is a way of life at B A D M AAS H , which serves the preparation in both traditional entrée form ($16) and inside samosas ($4). The yogurtmarinated chicken and its accompanying tomato sauce pop with ginger, garlic, chiles, and spices, but the heat is not overwhelming.

Chef Pawan Mahendro notes that he finishes the sauce with a knob of cold butter to give it a velvety texture and perfectly balanced flavor. Don’t forget to order rice or naan to sop up every last drop. 108 W. 2nd St., downtown, and 418 N. Fairfax Ave., Fairfax District, badmaashla.com.

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E AT

Char Siu When Leo and Lydia Lee opened R I C E B OX downtown in 2018, the tiny Cantonese barbecue spot proved that its modern takes on meaty standards were distinct from what you might find at favorite places in the San Gabriel Valley.

Made with Duroc pork marinated in Leo’s spice blend for 24 hours—and without the usual red dye—the char siu is cooked in a 600-degree oven and repeatedly glazed with honey to produce a tender hunk of meat encased in a crispy, sweet shell. It’s a masterpiece three generations in the making, influenced by Lydia’s family’s recipes and refined by Leo’s training in traditional French cooking techniques.

541 S. Spring St., Ste. 131, downtown, ricebox.net.

Burmese-Mexican Food It wasn’t the most obvious of mash-ups, even for executive chef Saw Naing, a native of Yangon, Myanmar, who has worked at TA L LU L A’ S since it opened in 2017.

Earlier this year, inspired by some cooking he did with his mother when she

visited Southern California, he started toying with ways in which he could combine the flavors of his heritage with Mexican fare. Now a menu flaunting dishes such as tandoori chicken fajitas ($35) and potato masala tacos ($15) makes you marvel that these delightful combinations never existed before—and how you ever lived without them. 118 Entrada Dr., Santa Monica, tallulasrestaurant.com.

Breakfast Sandwich At A L L DAY B A BY , Jonathan Whitener’s sunny new sister restaurant to the lauded Here’s Looking At You, the kitchen slings 1,200 of these morning glories in a typical week.

The gargantuan sandwich owes much of its popularity to pastry director Thessa Diadem’s impossibly buttery and flaky biscuits, but the fluffy scrambled eggs, old-school Kraft white

American cheese, sausage or thick slab of charred Nueske’s bacon, and housemade strawberry jam don’t hurt. It’s the best of both breakfast-food worlds—a savory/sweet stunner that’s equally satisfying when eaten at a table outside the restaurant or taken to go.

3200 W. Sunset Blvd., Silver Lake, alldaybabyla.com.

Jewish Deli Let’s face it: most delis have the exact same menu, but, since 1947, L A N G E R ’ S D E L I C AT E SS E N has distinguished itself with the best pastrami in town, along with a perfectly anachronistic ambience. Steamed to perfection and hand-sliced, the thick strips of peppery, smoky beef almost melt on the tongue. When they’re enjoyed in the famous No. 19 sandwich (from $19.95) with coleslaw, Swiss cheese, and Russian dressing, it’s easy to understand why this is a deli worthy of two James Beard Awards. 704 S. Alvarado St., Westlake, langersdeli.com.

Butcher Tucked in the back of a mom-and-pop grocery, A L E XA N D E R ’ S P R I M E M E ATS A N D C AT E R I N G

is a carnivore’s—and pescatarian’s—paradise. All of the beef is prime grade, and much of it is dryaged on the premises for at least three weeks. The wonderfully varied seafood selections are brought in fresh six days a week, and the customer service is tops. “[Our staff has] 400 years combined meatcutting experience,” says Mike Milazo, who owns the shop with his wife, Denise. In Howie’s Market, 6580 N. San Gabriel Blvd., San Gabriel, alexandersprimemeats.com.

Beach Picnic Poke’s popularity has made for a tidal wave of mediocre spots whose only ambition is to not make you ill. But the two-yearold A L I ’ I F I S H CO M PA N Y swims against the tide.

The unassuming shack, about a mile from the shore, serves up gorgeous, shoyu-glossed cubes of linecut ahi flown in fresh from Hawaii every morning.

Grab a poke bowl ($13)— along with the housemade potato chips and smoked ahi dip ($8)—and pretend you’re headed to Honolulu, not Huntington Beach. 409 E. Grand Ave., El Segundo, aliifishco.com.

F R O M L A M AG .CO M

Readers’ Picks > We asked our website’s readers to name their favorite places, and received more than 67,000 votes. Here are their top picks for restaurants.

40 L A M AG . C O M

BEST PIZZA

B E S T TA C O S

Pizzana

Sonoratown

11712 San Vicente Blvd., Brentwood, and 460 N. Robertson Blvd., West Hollywood, pizzana.com

208 E. 8th St., downtown, sonoratown.com

BEST BURGERS

BEST ICE CREAM

1320 2nd St., Ste. B, Santa Monica, and 6245 Wilshire Blvd., Ste. 102, Mid Wilshire, hiho.la

541 S. Spring St., Ste. 104, downtown, and 8044 W. 3rd St., Fairfax District, gelateriauli.com

HiHo Cheeseburger

Gelateria Uli

CHAR SIU: COURTESY OF RICEBOX; BREAKFAST SANDWICH: COURTESY OF ALL DAY BABY/ORIANA KOREN; BEST PIZZA: COURTESY OF PIZZANA; BEST TACOS: COURTESY OF SONORATOWN; BEST BURGERS: COURTESY OF HIHO; BEST ICE CREAM: COURTESY OF GELATERIA ULI

Best of L.A.

S TAT C H AT

Nashville Hot Chicken > Kim Prince, whose greatgreat uncle originated this style of fried chicken, opened a brick-and-mortar spot here last December, joining a slew of other L.A. places already putting their spin on Prince’s family’s creation. But Hotville stands out from the flock. Prince uses the traditional techniques she learned growing up in Nashville, adding spice at every step and using a secret frying technique to yield uniquely juicy, flavor-packed wings, breasts, and legs that taste like the genuine article—not fast food facsimiles. 4070 Marlton Ave., Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw, hotvillechicken.com

84

YEARS SINCE PRINCE’S FAMILY CREATED THIS STYLE

> “Nashville Hot chicken is not a hipster thing. It’s not this trendy new-food-trend Instagrammable thing,” says Prince. “Trends don’t survive the game that long.”

3

YEARS THAT PRINCE HAD A POP-UP IN CHINATOWN

> “I started off in downtown L.A. back in 2016 and the response was overwhelming,” she says.

4

NUMBER OF SPICE LEVELS AVAILABLE AT HOTVILLE

> They include West Coast Plain, Cali Mild, Music City Medium, and Nashville Hot. “We literally talk people off the ledge,” Prince says. “They think they want it it hot, but then they get a whiff and they start backpedaling.”

PH O T O G R A PH BY M AT T SAY L E S

Best of L.A.

HOME & GARDEN

Mod Design

M A I S O N M I D I carries the largest collection of European barware in town—including Moroccan tea tumblers. Yes, you can serve wine in modern glasses, but Maison Midi carries uniquely shaped stemware etched with details like ’50s-era polka dots and art deco starbursts. And the champagne glasses come in retro shades such as amber or cobalt blue to make every sip more festive. 148 S. La Brea Ave., Hancock Park, maison-midi.com.

EXPERT PICK

Decor r Pop Up Home e popuphome.com m

Folia Collective ve 5117 Eagle Rock Blvd., Eagle Rock, foliacollective.com

> These days I am absolutely loving Pop Up Home. They have a dreamy selection of curated vintage decor and original wall art! And don’t forget the plants!

They help breathe life into spaces. Folia Collective is one of my fave plant stores.

—FAITH BLAKENEY, INTERIOR DESIGNER

42 L A M AG . C O M

Party Supplies Garden party or wedding?

Bar mitzvah or just a casual dinner followed by a little dancing? In the age of COVID-19, you can rent the whole shebang in almost no time. PA R L A N I PA R T Y R E N TA L S in Culver City can make your fete look like it came straight off a movie set by supplying flooring, tables, chairs, china, outdoor heaters, velvet ropes, and dramatic tents—even umbrellas and helium balloons for the requisite rejoicing. 3773 Motor Ave., Culver City. parlanipartyrentals.com.

Thrift Store Furniture It’s one of L.A.’s top interior designers’ best kept secrets. And if they can turn unwanted castaways

SUNBEAM VINTAGE

into chic pieces (with a little paint or upholstery), then so can you. a mecca for seekers of sofas, dining-room tables and chairs, bookshelves, bureaus, and bed frames.

But the huge inventory of merch is so wonderfully eclectic that it’s fun to browse even when you don’t need a thing. 210 N. Ave. 21, Atwater, svdpla.org.

certified organic, it boasts a rotating selection of fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers. The EarthBox Kits are a perfect starter, setting newbies up with the essentials. Organic soil and other plant-powering mixtures round out the inventory. Plus they offer lessons and complimentary guides for those new to green-thumb living. 914 S. Cloverdale Ave., Miracle Mile, twodognursery.com.

Organic Nursery

California Pottery

T H E S O C I E T Y O F ST. V I N C E N T D E PAU L is

T WO D O G N U R S E RY

is dedicated to turning urban homes into garden oases one seedling at a time. With all products TWO DOG NURSERY

A hankering for earthtoned Roseville or colorful Bauer will lead you to the LOS A N G E L E S P OT T E RY S H OW , scheduled for

September 12 and 13. It is 10,000 square feet of collectibles. Nowhere else will you see a giant collection like this, the largest annual art pottery event on the West Coast. Such precious pieces, always climbing in price due to demand, are not things you’ll want to chance shipping. 1401 N. Verdugo Rd., Glendale; for tickets, go to eventbrite.com.

VINTAGE BARWARE: COURTESY MAISON MIDI; MOD DECOR: SUNBEAM VINTAGE; ORGANIC NURSERY: COURTESY TWO DOG NURSERY; EXPERT PICK: MARISA VITALE

Vintage Barware

There’s a reason design guru Emily Henderson says S U N B E A M V I N TAG E is one of her favorite spots in L.A. Chock-full of stylish vintage, modern, and handmade decor, the showroom is a mid-century-modern lover’s dream. Owner Ebee Martinez has described the store’s aesthetic as “Mad Men meets ‘Oh, joy!’”

Anyone with a hankering for funky and affordable finds is sure to appreciate its trove of hidden gems. Not convinced? A quick glance at the store’s gorgeous Instagram feed might do the trick. 106 S. Ave. 58, Highland Park, sunbeamvintage.com.

GATEkeeper Gems of LA is a campaign honoring brilliant women in our community who are at the forefront of social change. LA gem Gina Belafonte shines as bright as the jewels she models for St. Vincent Jewelry Center, LA's premier destination for red carpet and ready-to-wear bling.

As Executive Director of Sankofa.org, Gina works in partnership with artists, thought leaders, and celebrities to educate and activate citizens around issues of mass incarceration, juvenile justice, income disparity, and immigration.

To find out how Gina and Sankofa.org use art to open hearts and minds toward a mission of a more peaceful and just world, visit DTLAglam.com

Gina Belafonte

St. Vincent Jewelry Š 2020

Executive Director, Sankofa.org

Hill Street & 7th DTLA DTLAglam.com

Best of L.A.

FA S H I O N

Loungewear S P L E N D I D is a staple in the Netflix-and-chill category. More affordable than its pricier competitors, this L.A.-based company prioritizes comfort and versatility. Its super-soft collection features pullovers, joggers, and outerwear pieces constructed with plush fabrics. And its tie-dye collection adds a hint of fun to any pajama drawer. The Grove, 189 The Grove Dr., Beverly Grove, splendid.com.

Outlet Mall

EXPERT PICK

Vintage ge e Clothing Golyester

450 S. La Brea Ave., Hancock Park, golyester.com

> Esther [Ginsberg], the owner, has an incredible eye for the unusual, the quirky, the classy, and the vibrant. The store has a relatively small men’s section, but every garment is almost like a museum piece.

—DAVID ARQUETTE, ACTOR

4 4 L A M AG . C O M

a full day of traipsing the sprawling 700,000-squarefoot mall as you bargain hunt. If you get peckish, pop into one of the dozens of on-site restaurants.

100 Citadel Dr., Commerce, citadeloutlets.com.

Secondhand Handbags In 2018, the e-tail site R E B AG opened as a brick-

and-mortar store on Melrose Place, where the floorto-ceiling windows were filled with rare bags from Hermès, Chanel, and Fendi.

Prices can be high (a Hermès Birkin in gold leather is $5,500), but Rebag has choice collectibles by Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Chloe, and Valentino as well as good deals on large totes, “lady” handle bags, and those crazy-popular mini bags for

evening—which will be fabulous when we all finally have someplace to go. Westfield Santa Anita, 400 S. Baldwin Ave., Arcadia, rebag.com.

Gowns for the Whole Bridal Party There are two kinds of wedding and bridesmaid dresses: couture designer gowns and frumpy ones that are, well, just that.

LO H O B R I D E (the acronym stands for “league of her own”) is for the boho wife-to-be and her cool-girl posse. The shop’s wedding gowns, mostly flowy with less boning and fewer corsets than usual, are imported from Spain, France, Greece, Israel, and Australia, and feature details like Grecian pleats and knotted, open backs more in the

style of Meghan Markle than Princess Di. 8282 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood, lohobride.com.

Stress-Free Tuxedo Rental Most dudes don’t own a tux because they have little occasion to wear one—until they do. When they’re suddenly invited to a blacktie affair, panic can set in.

Fear not, gents, T H E B L AC K T UX offers an athome rental delivery service, where everything you need—from bow ties to shoes—is shipped to your door. The styles are modern cuts in a variety of colors and fabrics. Plus a team of professional stylists can help you find the perfect fit. Don’t have time for shipping? The Black Tux has showrooms in the

GOWNS FOR THE WHOLE BRIDAL PARTY: COURTESY LOHO BRIDE; EXPERT PICK: GETTY IMAGES

You can score Levi’s jeans, Armani Exchange suits and dresses, and Coach totes (and more) for up to 70 percent off at the C I TA D E L O U T L E TS .

Located just minutes from downtown, the center has established itself as the premier discount shopping destination. Be prepared for

FA S H I O N

Nordstrom stores at the Grove and the Americana at Brand. For more casual soirees, suits and ties are available. The Grove, 8401 Melrose Pl., Beverly Grove, and the Americana at Brand, 102 Caruso Ave., Glendale, theblacktux.com.

Bucket Hats The bucket hat for women (formerly known as the cloche) and men (popularized by Gilligan’s Island) came back into fashion a few seasons ago, thanks to Maria Grazia Chiuri at

brands and price points— Kangol, Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana, Fendi, and Burberry for both guys and dolls.

There’s even a selection in cheery prints for kids. 9700 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, neimanmarcus.com.

Dior, and it’s still going strong. If you want to get a jump on fall styles, you can find them in leather, velvet, felt, or knits; for summerappropriate prints, try florals, rainbow colors, and solid pastels. N E I M A N

M A R C U S B E V E R LY H I L L S

stocks a wide array of

CHRISTY DAWN

Clothing Rental When stylists, costumers, and production designers need top-level contemporary clothing, they start with the R U BY FAS H I O N L I B RA RY , which has 35,000 square feet of glam getups from all the upmarket brands, including heavenly high heels from the likes of Sergio Rossi and Jimmy Choo, and accessories and jewels galore.

7100 Case Ave., North Hollywood, the-ruby.com.

Summer Dresses and Jumpsuits Every item at this vintage-focused Venice boutique is made using recycled dead stock—unused fabric discarded by other fashion lines. And the company’s namesake founder, C H R I ST Y DAW N , works alongside her small crew in the downtown L.A. factory.

Plus the clothes are, quite simply, stunning. Move over, Reformation—there’s a new ethical-fashion boss in town. 1930 Lincoln Blvd., Venice, christydawn.com.

Men’s Basics Fellas, meet your new go-to clothing store: BUCK MASON. Known for its collection of crisp button46 L A M AG . C O M

downs, soft T-shirts, twill chinos, jeans, and sweats, it carries all the wardrobe essentials you need to take the guesswork out of getting dressed. The neutral color palette makes incorporating pieces into your current wardrobe effortless. 1638 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Venice; 3532 Sunset Blvd., Silver Lake; 107 N. Larchmont Blvd., Larchmont; Westfield, 10250 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 1760, Century City; buckmason.com.

GARRETT LEIGHT

Eyewear Giant. Frameless.

Triangular. Aviator-style.

Eyewear comes in all shapes and sizes, riding the roller coaster of trends. But the chic acetate or metal frames from G A R R E T T L E I G H T (son of Oliver Peoples’s founder Larry Leight) are for the classicist: they’re timeless, flattering, subtle, intellectuallooking, light with a retro touch—like Willem Dafoe in Mississippi Burning or something John Lennon might have worn. Whether they’re untinted glasses or sunnies, these specs are more flattering than faddish, bringing a softness to the face. And in case you find them too refined, you can get frames in bright colors (red, pink, violet) with lenses to match. 165 S. La Brea Ave., Fairfax District, garrettleight.com.

SUMMER DRESSES AND JUMPSUITS: COURTESY CHRISTY DAWN; BUCKET HATS: COURTESY NEIMAN MARCUS; EYEWEAR: COURTESY GARRETT LEIGHT

Best of L.A.

S TAT C H AT

Custom Sneakers > Sneakers are always being reinvented in the fashion industry, but a sleek custom pair from Demarco Footwear is your best bet if you want to make a statement. Co-owner and cobbler Marco Acosta works with customers to create one-of-a-kind shoes that won’t break the bank. Jordans, Yeezys, Vans—they’re all on the table, in any pattern or material imaginable. Based solely online, this father-andson operation will bring your wildest sneaker dreams to life. demarcofootwear.com

24 HOURS

> The average time it takes Acosta to re-create a pair of sneakers, if starting with a base shoe brought in by a customer

$1,500

THE COST OF ELON MUSK’S PERSONALIZED SNEAKERS

> Acosta made custom Tesla Jordans for the entrepreneur out of python skin, hair on cowhide, red Italian lambskin, and black Horween leather

500 PAIRS

> Number of sneakers Acosta has made since launching his business in 2015—the most expensive pair went for $6,000 PH O T O G R A PH BY I RV I N R I V E R A

Best of L.A.

PETS

P U P P Y P L AYG R O U N D S

Paw Patrol Dog Parks for every type of pooch, whether seafaring or landlubbing

Psychic Pet psychics claim to connect with furry loved ones in the afterlife.

MICHAEL R. BURKE, a certified dog trainer, is schooled in Six Sensory Training. Not only can he assist in locating and communicating with lost pets—alive or passed— but Burke can also teach animals new behaviors and intuit their health issues.

Call him “the dog chanter.” michaelrburke.com.

Fishponds If you’re thinking of sprucing up your outdoor area with a tranquil fish pond, a visit to S U N L A N D WAT E R G A R D E N S is well worth the trip. For decades the Nagasawa family has 48 L A M AG . C O M

> The grass is always greener at Playa Vista’s Bluff Creek Dog Park. The realisticlooking Astroturf meanders around concrete paths, while a tiny stream provides clean drinking water for your pooch, or a chance to take a cool dip. playavista.com

been providing aquatic plants like water lilies, lotuses, and papyri, as well as catfish, koi, and tilapia, to create your perfect sanctuary. Lights, fountains, and other waterworks are also available. 9948 Sunland Blvd., Sunland, sunlandwatergardens.com.

Groomer The folks at BLUE POOCH provide a service they call “Japanese-style grooming,” which includes breedspecific, detailed, sculpted cuts. After a thorough bath, your dog’s or cat’s fur is towel-dried, straightened (if needed), and fluffed. The staff also offers de-matting, dental and ear cleaning, facials, day care, and “peticures.” 11737 W. Pico Blvd., Sawtelle, bluepooch.com.

> Sure, the Silver Lake Dog Park has a 1930s dust-bowl vibe with its lack of grass or shade, but when it comes to peoplewatching, it’s a bona fide meat market.

Hipsters flock to this spot to exercise their dogs and their pickup lines. laparks.org

Carriers For those who take their pets everywhere, having the right carrier makes all the difference. P E TS M A R T is the veritable Saks Fifth Avenue of chic and utilitarian tote bags, backpacks, slings, car-seat carriers, and airline-approved carriers. They also sell a travel birdcage. 330 S. La Cienega Blvd., Beverly Hills, petsmart.com.

Wild Bird Supplies If you love winged creatures but don’t fancy the idea of keeping them confined, W I L D B I R DS U N L I M I T E D has everything you need—from seed and nectar cylinders to birdbaths—for attracting fine feathered friends.

The company even hosts a podcast called Nature Centered to educate and enlighten. 12433 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica, santamonica.wbu.com.

Pet Hotel More like an Airbnb than a kennel, T H E

H O U N DSTO OT H H OT E L

offers a concierge experience in a 1,300-square-foot house with plush beds, daily brushing, lots of play time, and no less than four walks per day. The hotel also serves healthy canine meals like sweet potatoes, chicken and rice, and other nutritious treats.

And there’s no minimum or maximum length of stay. 1140 N. Formosa Ave., West Hollywood, thehoundstoothhotel.com.

BLUFF CREEK DOG PARK: PHOTOGRAPH BY MARION BRENNER, PARK DESIGNER: OJB LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE; ROSIE’S DOG BEACH: JUSTIN RUDD; SILVER LAKE DOG PARK: SHAYAN ASGHARNIA

> If your fur baby is drawn to water, Rosie’s Dog Beach is the spot. Though it’s not technically a dog park, the four-acre stretch of Long Beach coastline provides plenty of room for dogs to stretch, fetch, roll around, and swim. longbeach.gov

Best of L.A.

KIDS

Surf Camp While there’s no shortage of surf schools that’ll teach your kid to hang ten, AQ UA S U R F stands out for its unique community partnerships and three-toone student to instructor ratio. Its summer camps for children and teens ages five to 17 cover more than just wave-riding skills.

Instructors focus on role modeling and mentorship, as well as eco-responsibility, self-confidence, leadership, and communication skills.

The most enthusiastic ones return year after year to teach the unique methodology. Aqua Surf also offers a highly customizable schedule, allowing you to sign up by the half day, day, or week. A standard full-day week is $539, or bundle multiple weeks to save. The school’s partners include a range of organizations to make surfing more equitable, including the Braille Institute, the Surfrider Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Because

camp costs can be a barrier to entry, Aqua Surf provides full scholarships to three students per week. 2801 Ocean Park Blvd., Ste. 335, Santa Monica, aquasurf.com.

Cooking Classes B LV D K I TC H E N welcomes cooks of all kinds, but the kiddie division is where it really shines.

The culinary academy offers a huge variety of summer camps and classes for children ages six to 17, or grown-ups and youngsters can cook together during the Family Friday sessions. Whether the menu is pizza or monkeybread muffins, each class gives kids a hands-on learning experience with a professional chef, such as the Food Network’s Cutthroat Kitchen–winner Chef Ameera. In-kitchen classes are $65 to $75, depending on age, and Zoom lessons are only 20 bucks a pop. 13545 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, theblvdkitchen.com.

Party Trick What do Angelina Jolie, Sylvester Stallone, and Jack Black all have in common? Bubbles, apparently. For over 30 years, BUBBLEMANIA AND CO M PA N Y has been

delighting both A-listers and regular folks with sudsy fun. Expert “bubbleologists” put on lively, interactive indoor shows that make birthday parties and other special occasions really pop. Children get a

stealth science lesson while watching a dazzling display of bubbles of every kind— rainbow bubbles, square bubbles, triangle bubbles, bubbles within bubbles, and more. The grand finale (spoiler alert!) even gives kids the chance to stand inside a giant bubble. And while some bubbles will be burst, the hourlong shows won’t break the bank: they cost a reasonable $200 to $250, depending on the size of your party. bubblemaniaandco.com.

S T R A I G H T TA L K

From the Mouths of Babes > Local children dish on where they love to go in the city

La Brea Tar Pits L

XLanes L.A.

The Arboretum

5 5801 Wilshire Blvd., M Mid Wilshire, tarpits.org

333 Alameda St., #300, Little Tokyo, xlanesla.com

301 N. Baldwin Ave., Arcadia, arboretum.org

> I like the tar and the animals a dead in it.

I think there’s a dinosaur. d

> They have memes on a screen if you get a strike. Like, there’s a penguin dancing around, and there’s a a weird guy hopping. w

> They have turtles and hummingbirds and peacocks. The peacocks are loud and say “Meee-aw,” and then I get scared and hide behind Nanny.

> They’ve got all kinds of crystals and geodes.

If I could, I’d decorate my whole house with crystals. I like how they give off a glow. w.

—RAMONA, 4, KOREATOWN

—ATTICUS, 8, VENICE

— —FRANK, 4, EAGLE ROCK E

— —HANNAH, 11, C COUNTRY CLUB PARK

50 L A M AG . C O M

Mystic Journey Crystals 1702 Lincoln Blvd., Venice, mysticjourneycrystals.com

AQUA SURF

elaborately housed goats prancing across elevated walkways, to baby animals kids can bottle-feed, to miniature tractors that toddlers can actually drive themselves (not as terrifying as it sounds), to wagon rides and much more. The fall harvest festival is an especially lively time for a visit, but there are good times to be had all year round.

3370 Sunset Valley Rd., Moorpark, underwoodfamilyfarms.com.

SURF CAMP: COURTESY AQUA SURF; MOUTHS OF BABES PORTRAITS COURTESY OF CHILDREN; MOUTHS OF BABES OBJECTS: GETTY IMAGES; PARTY TRICKS: COURTESY BUBBLEMANIA AND COMPANY; EXPERT PICK: COURTESY JANET LANSBURY

Museum While most children’s museums are cloying and loud (the dues you pay for procreation), K I DS PAC E , nestled in the same canyon as the Rose Bowl, is astonishingly pleasant for adults and children alike. The outdoor Arroyo Adventure is an homage in miniature to Pasadena’s Arroyo Seco, and includes a tended mud kitchen and a clay station. The Robert & Mary Galvin Physics Forest, also alfresco, is hands-on educational wonderment, the perfect cure for all those months spent quarantined indoors, attached to a tiny screen. 480 N. Arroyo Blvd., Pasadena, kidspacemuseum.org.

area for hundreds of years and considered the site sacred. It’s easy to see why, with its pastures abutting the jagged, handsome Boney Mountain.

Now rebounding from the 2013 Springs fire, the area offers gentle (and more ambitious) trails through meadows of grasses and wildflowers. The journey begins at a re-created traditional Chumash home and the accompanying Satwiwa Native American Indian Culture Center, which regularly hosts Native American workshops and art shows.

Newbury Park, nps.gov.

Farm to Visit

Tucked in the hills above Point Mugu,

Whether you’re looking to pick stone fruits in the summer, grab a pumpkin and a pony ride in the fall, or pick up a tree and commune with Santa in the winter, it’s hard to beat

RA N C H O S I E R RA V I STA / SAT W I WA offers an

U N D E RWO O D FA M I LY FA R M S . The 54-acre,

opportunity to commune with nature and learn about the Chumash people, who lived in the

25-year-old flagship location in Moorpark packs a lot of attractions, from bountiful orchards, to

Family Hike

Toy Store On a quiet side street in a stable built in 1910, M E R C I M I LO is an easy-to-miss oasis. The thoughtfully organized shop is packed with ethically made wooden figurines, beautifully illustrated books, soft stuffed giraffes, and eco-friendly children’s clothing. From traditional Holztiger horses from Germany, a rosy-cheeked Moulin Roty rag doll from

EXPERT PICK

Bookstore Diesel

225 26th St., Ste. 33, Santa Monica

> They’ve got a great selection and good recommendations. Plus there’s a relaxing vibe— it’s just the right size for kids and adults not to get overwhelmed.”

—JANET LANSBURY, PARENT-EDUCATOR AND AUTHOR OF NO BAD KIDS

France, or buoyant Kitpas bath crayons from Japan, you’ll find them here. For nearly four years, shop owners Caroline and Jason Rodrigues have traveled the world in search of unique, hard-to-find toys.

These are items you can’t just order on Amazon, though if you prefer to shop online, Merci Milo has a great website. 6017 Echo St., Highland Park, shopmercimilo.com.

R E PA I R S

Denim DENIM REVIVAL can remake custom jeans just for you—same with jackets and skirts. Or it can update your ripped ones—or put some new holes in just the right places. 7934 W. 3rd St., Fairfax District, 323-852-0171, denimrevival.us.

Sneaker Cleaner Whether they’re your old Adidas shell tops or your brand-new Nike Air Force Max basketball shoes, no one wants to rock grungy kicks on the court or street.

As a remedy, SNEAKERLAB will restore your favorite footwear. The downtown shop can refresh stinky or smudged sneaks and stained laces with its state-of-the-art enzyme technology. Plus it works with the nonprofit Gold Youth Development Agency, based in South Africa, to help struggling youth. 721 S. Los Angeles St., downtown, sneakerlab.com.

pieces, which customers can mail in or drop off.

Fabrics the shop can dye include cotton, polyester, nylon, and elastics. It also dyes trim such as twill tape, ribbons, and zippers, and, of course, garments like T-shirts, sweaters, jeans, shorts, pants, and jackets—even bathing suits and trench coats.

4238 Union Pacific Ave., East Los Angeles, goldendyehouse.com.

Wood Furniture From antique dressers to new dining sets, Alex Amaya (aka “the Furniture Doctor”), owner of A M AYA M A R K , does it all. Primarily offering house calls for in-home repairs, Amaya ensures highquality service at a fair price. Pickup and delivery are also available for smaller items. Amaya is honest when he diagnoses how extensive a repair might need to be, and he’s able to restore, repair, and polish pieces to tip-top condition in a quick turnaround time. 4169 W. 6th St., downtownamayamark. com.

Lamps

Re-Dyer Catering to some of the world’s leading fashion designers and local garment companies, SOUTH GOLDEN DYE HOUSE

promises to “reknew” garments by re-dyeing faded 5 2 L A M AG . C O M

While George is the namesake of this local shop, ask for Carlos Castillo at the counter to handle your lamp-repair needs. He and his team at

G EO R G E ’ S L I G H T I N G P LU S take care of rewiring

in a cinch and patiently walk customers through solutions for more complicated lighting problems.

GEORGE’S LIGHTING PLUS

They fix antique and modern lamps alike, while offering friendly service and decent rates. A robust catalog of chandeliers, sconces, bulbs, and other lighting fixtures provides another incentive to patronize this storefront.

5034 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, georgelighting. com.

Watches RAFFI JEWELERS is a watch lover’s secret source for the best watch repair in town. Raffi Tokatlian can fix a Timex and a Rolex. Moguls and celebrities both send their precious bling to his West Hollywood shop, but he’s just as careful with the timepieces of mere mortals who come in for cleanings, refurbishments, or overhauls. 8490 Santa Monica Blvd., Ste. 3, West Hollywood, raffijewelers.com.

Guitars Thanks to a staff with over 15 years of combined experience under their belts, N O M A D I C G U I TA R

R E PA I R S A N D L E SS O N S

is a one-stop shop for all things guitar. These folks are able to quickly analyze faults in an instrument, form a clear repair plan, and offer a reasonable quote and timeline to complete the job. Owner Steve Sherak is praised widely for keeping his promise to regularly update his clients on the status of their instruments. 2575 N. San Fernando Rd., Glendale, nomadicguitars.com.

CONTRIBUTORS Steven Blum, Heidi Siegmund Cuda, Hailey Eber, Merle Ginsberg, Sarah Horne Grose, Maureen Harrington, Kennedy Hill, Linda Immediato, Brad Japhe, Jason Kessler, Schuyler Mitchell, Olivia Novato, Heather Platt, Jordan Riefe, Alex Scordelis, Jean Trinh, and Andy Wang.

RE-DYER: COURTESY OF GOLDEN DYE HOUSE; LAMPS: COURTESY OF GEORGE’S LIGHTING PLUS

Best of L.A. B

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TASTE 2020 ISSUE

THE BEST OF THE SEASON Fresh Tastes from Our Chefs

Locals weigh in On Cocktails, Noodles and The Hall Global Eatery

southcoastplaza.com 1

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Water Grill 949.208.7060 2 southcoastplaza.com

Honeymoon Oyster

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TASTE VOLUME 40 2020 ISSUE Editor Lee Healy

It’s good to be back.

We’ve missed the daily rhythm of life—spending time with extended family and friends, going to work, the leisurely pursuits of shopping, dining and entertainment. But most of all, we’ve missed our cherished community.

Throughout the past few months, I was impressed by the resiliency of our restaurants. More than a dozen opened for curbside pickup and delivery, staying positive and providing a much-needed service of their specialty dishes for guests to take home. We’re happy that they have returned to serving us, while respecting all guidelines for safety.

As we enter into a new chapter, South Coast Plaza will be at the forefront of businesses ensuring guests a safe and comfortable shopping experience.

In closing, I’d like to share a quote I have found inspirational: “Everything that is done in the world is done by hope.”

These words were written 500 years ago by German theologian Martin Luther. Here’s to the indomitability of the human spirit.

Contents

8 BOUNTY OF THE SEASON South Coast Plaza’s chefs make memorable dishes with seasonal produce

19 NOODLES: THE WORLD’S MOST COMFORTING FOOD Four Asian restaurants that will satisfy carb cravings

20 PALATE DAZZLING COCKTAILS Fresh, original libations

Debra Gunn Downing Executive Director, Marketing South Coast Plaza

22 IT’S ALL AT THE HALL A day at South Coast Plaza’s newest restaurant

29 THE ARTS Visual and performing arts partners Thank you to Melissa’s World Variety Produce for supplying premium produce for the cover and chefs’ recipes.

30 AT A GLANCE Restaurant amenities, map and South Coast Plaza services southcoastplaza.com 3

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Hamamori 714.850.0880

Discover sushi of the highest order at Hamamori, renowned for elite interpretations of Japanese cuisine and signature sushi gems by master chef James Hamamori. Premium sake and whisky are sourced with connoisseurs in mind.

4 southcoastplaza.com

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Chefâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Omakase by James Hamamori southcoastplaza.com 5

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Boudin | SF 714.689.2253

The Purist Avocado Toast

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Nikutama Udonâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;made-to-order Japanese Sanuki Udon served with Sweet Flavored Beef, Soft Boiled Egg and Kake Sauce

Marugame Udon 714.619.5688 southcoastplaza.com 7

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BOUNTY OF THE

Season

Nothing revs up a chef ’s imagination like a change of seasons. Mother Nature is their muse and she turns on the charm come summer. Here’s how South Coast Plaza’s top chefs embrace the season’s loveliest gifts.

BY G R E TC H EN K U R Z

Knife Pleat’s Tony Esnault creates seasonal poetry on a plate. Diligent sourcing yields treasures like the asparagus he finesses with his knowing, graceful technique that teases out the essence of flavor.

Procedure Clean the asparagus (from top to bottom) with a knife.

Divide into 3 equal bundles

and tie with kitchen twine.

Bring a gallon of water to a boil in a large pot; once boiling, add the coarse salt.

The water should taste like the sea. Place the asparagus K N I F E P L E AT

Chef Tony Esnault

Green Asparagus with Parmesan Shavings - 36 green asparagus - 2 oz coarse salt (for blanching) - 3 tablespoons aged white balsamic* Melange of vegetables prep - ½ cup extra virgin olive oil - 1 shallot - Pinch of pepper and salt - 1 ½ oz Parmigiano-Reggiano - Sea salt - Coarse-ground black pepper - Optional garnish: thinly shaved raw green asparagus

8 southcoastplaza.com

Chef’s table place-setting

Bernardaud Organza Charger, Bloomingdale’s

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bundles in the boiling water to cook. This should take between 3-5 minutes depending on the thickness—the asparagus should remain firm; check while cooking. Once done, stop the cooking process by placing asparagus in a cold ice bath which preserves a beautiful green color. No need to rinse.

Strain and dry on a clean cloth.

Prepare the vinaigrette in a bowl with a pinch of salt and pepper. Finely chop the shallot and add 3 tablespoons of white balsamic vinegar, then the EVOO. Whisk together; taste for seasoning.

Shave the Parmesan with a vegetable peeler or mandoline and season.

For the optional garnish, thinly shave raw green asparagus with either a vegetable peeler or mandoline; set aside.

Reheat the asparagus for a few seconds in boiling water. Strain and dry on a kitchen towel.

Divide the asparagus among six flat plates, add the optional garnish and drizzle with the vinaigrette and Parmesan shavings. Add a light sprinkle of coarse-ground black pepper and finishing salt.

Chef’s Note Tony Esnault prefers the plumper Delta variety of asparagus when available as well as the freshest and organic choices in the local or farmers markets. White asparagus require different cooking techniques.

L’Objet Perlée White Dessert Plate, Bloomingdale’s

*White balsamic vinegar may be found at Sur La Table or Williams Sonoma. It is a milder and slightly less-sweet version of the classic dark balsamic.

Strawberry-Pistachio Tart Critics have described pastry chef Germain Biotteau’s desserts as “stunning,” “formidable” and “spectacular.” His creations are the perfect complement to boss Tony Esnault’s of-the-moment seasonal

cooking. Biotteau tempers high technique with poetic creativity inspired by nature’s calendar.

Here, Biotteau’s strawberrypistachio tart recalls summer flavors. A subtle sugary crust layered with smooth pistachio filling is topped with juicy strawberries and finished with sweet berry glaze.

For the strawberry-pistachio tart recipe, please visit southcoastplaza.com/dining southcoastplaza.com 9

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BOUNTY OF THE SEASON

The intrepid and confident Amar Santana brings his lively touch to The Hall Global Eatery, delighting fans with bold creations like Tasting of Hummus, an imaginative sampler with flavors that surprise.

Classic Hummus To make garlic confit: Place peeled garlic cloves in olive oil so they are completely submerged, then cook on low until garlic is super soft. Strain garlic from oil. Reserve oil for another use.

Place all ingredients, including softened garlic, in a food processor and blend until smooth. Add a small amount of water if too thick. Taste and adjust seasoning, lemon juice and tahini to your preference.

Spicy Hummus Add to classic hummus recipe: - 2 tablespoons piquillo pepper, drained and coarsely chopped - 2 teaspoons sambal oelek

T H E H A L L G L O B A L E AT E R Y

Chef Amar Santana

Procedure Add piquillo pepper and sambal oelek to the classic hummus in a food processor; mix well. Texture must be smooth. Taste for spice level— add more sambal if desired.

For Amar Santana’s three additional recipes for beet, edamame and kimchi hummus, and his instructions for plating, please visit southcoastplaza.com/dining White Square Slate Cheese Board, CB2 Exclusive

Melange of vegetables prep

Classic Hummus - 5 large garlic cloves for garlic confit - 3 tablespoons olive oil - 15 oz. can of chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained and rinsed, or 1 ½ cups cooked chickpeas - ¼ cup fresh lemon juice - ¼ cup tahini - ½ teaspoon salt - ¼ teaspoon ground coriander - ¼ teaspoon ground, toasted cumin

10 southcoastplaza.com

Chef’s table place-setting

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BOUNTY OF THE SEASON

Heirloom Tomato Salad with Burrata - 4–6 ripe heirloom tomatoes, assorted varieties of different sizes (unrefrigerated) - 1 lb. burrata cheese - 10 torn basil leaves - 2 tablespoons saba vinegar* - 3–4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil - Espelette pepper* - Optional garnish: micro basil, borage blossoms

TERRACE BY MIX MIX

Chef Ross Pangilinan Halley White Low Soup Bowl, CB2 Exclusive

Ross Pangilinan, chefproprietor of Terrace by Mix Mix, is acclaimed for his poised, approachable cuisine.

Whether it’s a comfort dish of handmade pasta or a hyper-seasonal heirloom tomato salad, expect to be wowed by his light touch with vivid flavors.

Procedure Cut tomatoes into random bite-size wedges and shapes and spread out into four separate shallow bowls or plates. Place spoonfuls of burrata cheese randomly

on the cut tomatoes, about three-four spoons per serving.

Spread around the hand-torn basil and optional micro basil so that there will be basil in every bite. Drizzle saba vinegar and a good amount of EVOO over the tomatoes and cheese.

Season with sea salt and pepper to taste. *Saba vinegar, also known as “vin cotto,” is a sweet unfermented syrup made from the must of Trebbiano grapes. Balsamic vinegar may be substituted if reduced until slightly syrupy.

*Espelette pepper is made from chiles from the Basque region of France and has a nuanced heat. Optional substitute is a small amount of crushed red pepper. southcoastplaza.com 11

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The Capital Grille 714.432.1140

When occasions call, The Capital Grille delivers, with dry aged steaks cut daily in-house, premium seafood, and distinguished wines. Guests return time and again for the reďŹ ned surroundings and the indulgent, signature service.

12 southcoastplaza.com

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Dry Aged 32 oz. Porterhouse Steak, French Beans with Heirloom Tomatoes, Lobster Mac ’N’ Cheese southcoastplaza.com 13

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Champagne French Bakery Cafe 714.427.0808/714.429.1502 14 southcoastplaza.com

Mixed Berry Chicken Salad, Macarons

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Milk and Dark Chocolate Dipped Strawberries, Small Custom Chocolate Gift Box

Godiva Chocolatier 714.556.9055 southcoastplaza.com 15

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Seasons 52 714.437.5252

Inventive takes on nature’s bounty is the specialty of Seasons 52, where the ingenious menu is matched with explorative wines.

Don’t miss the city’s only piano bar, a spirited choice for lounging over cocktails with a live soundtrack every night.

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Filet Mignon and Maine Lobster Tail, Ahi Tuna Tartare

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Din Tai Fung 714.549.3388 18 southcoastplaza.com

Vegetable & Mushroom Dumplings

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Bloggers' Picks : Food & Drink

Noodles: The World’s Most

BENJAMIN EPSTEIN @benjamin.epstein

Noodles—something wondrous happens when soft and firm ideally intersect. Chewy, supple, resilient; is there anything more satisfying?

Thick or thin, round or flat, but always long, the staple has been refined by Asian cultures for thousands of years—and marvelous examples abound at South Coast Plaza.

Comforting Food

Slurpy Kurobuta pork fried noodles—handmade, liberally, lusciously coated in greenonion oil and a house-made soy sauce—are topped with napa cabbage, spinach and crisped succulent strips of pork at renowned Taiwanese dumpling destination Din Tai Fung.

root and Japanese pumpkin for dipping.

The nabeyaki udon with chicken at elegant sushi haven Hamamori Restaurant & Sushi Bar is a refined study in contrasts: large yielding noodles, crisped rectangles of tofu, colorful half-moon fish cakes—and delicate tempura, including lotus

Hefty wheat noodles are kneaded and rolled as you watch at Marugame Udon.

Toss its mentai kamatama udon—slightly poached egg, cod roe, dried seaweed and a special dashi-shoyu sauce— for a briny, sumptuous, carbonara-like experience.

An’s Famous Garlic Noodles has long been a signature at seductive AnQi by House of AN. Pairing the sticky, golden, decidedly garlicky and addictive noodles with exquisite roasted Maine lobster is a millennia matchup.

Noodle dishes (left to right): Mentai kamatama udon at Marugame Udon.

Kurobuta pork fried noodles at Din Tai Fung. Whole pan-roasted Maine lobster with An’s Famous Garlic Noodles at AnQi by House of AN. Nabeyaki udon at Hamamori Restaurant & Sushi Bar. southcoastplaza.com 19

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Accessorize your shopping with these cocktails

palate-dazzling

GREG NAGEL @ocbeerblog

The Jeanne Paquin, created by beverage director Victor Moreno at Knife Pleat, evokes a certain je ne sais quoi with its complexity. The French Armagnac sour-based cocktail, served in a long-stemmed coupe glass, is topped with a velvety meringue-like cap and a swirl of bitters.

Mme. Paquin, the drink’s namesake, was France’s first significant female couturier and a pioneer of the modern fashion business. It’s balanced by a slight sweetness from Floc de Gascogne, a liqueur with floral notes of jasmine, roses and honey.

Settle in at The Hall’s spacious bar and it’s tough to choose from beverage director Michael Rooney’s inventive cocktail list. Yu Rebel is akin to a soft pink lei of hibiscus flowers draped around notes of cherry and apple blossom—the result of blending Japanese Roku

20 southcoastplaza.com

gin and French Calvados. Its fresh mint and pinch of black lava sea salt finish conjures up tropical vacation memories.

Is there a more recognizable cocktail than the Cosmo?

Its simplicity of ingredients and the bright rouge color are synonymous with “Sex and the City” and fashion week.

Seasons 52’s Hawaiian Pineapple Cosmopolitan is crafted with pineapple vodka, giving the drink a fresh Islands spin.

Over at the popular Water Grill Piccadilly Circus is based on the Wimbledon classic, Pimm’s Cup, but goes a step further. Equal parts Pimm’s No.1 is blended with Italy’s Aperol, making for a perfectly brunchable drink that also pairs well with the extensive raw bar and sushi menu. It’s served tall and thin, with a spa-like cucumber garnish.

The Capital Grille takes a grand approach to the classic Old Fashioned with its In Fashion. A jigger of Grand Mariner lends an orchard of citrus aromatics on top of Russell’s Reserve Single Barrel Bourbon with its telltale caramel and vanilla notes. Black walnut bitters are stirred in the mix, adding a luscious nutty-cola vibe.

Seabirds Kitchen’s comfortvegan cuisine met its match when noted cocktail consultant Emily Delicce, aka “Shrub Queen,” created a bar menu to match the fresh, seasonal bites. Bird’s the Word applies organic raspberry that’s been preserved into a shrub and is layered with lower ABV vodka and bittersweet, complex Cocci Rosa. The frothy vegan-friendly foam is stenciled with the restaurant’s whimsical bird logo.

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Knife Pleat: Jeanne Paquin

Seabirds Kitchen: Birdâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the Word

The Hall: Yu Rebel

Water Grill: Piccadilly Circus

The Capital Grille: In Fashion

southcoastplaza.com 21 Seasons 52: Hawaiian Pineapple Cosmopolitan

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It’s All at

The Hall

D AV I D C H I E M @davidthefoodie

The Hall is spacious, inviting and tastefully decorated with warm wood tones, modern lighting and an understated Moroccan vibe from accent pieces.

Photo: Sarah King

The food options in Orange County never cease to amaze me. Everyone who follows the local restaurant scene was excited about the opening of chef Amar Santana and business partner Ahmed Labatte’s latest project, The Hall Global Eatery.

It finally debuted earlier this year at South Coast Plaza, and I couldn’t wait to see it for myself.

The quick-service Patisserie is a great way to start the day.

Fresh pressed juices, wellness shots and a complete coffee bar are complemented by freshly baked pastries and cookies.

22 southcoastplaza.com

I had some time to relax and took my oat milk latte out to The Hall’s patio, enjoying the breeze under the olive trees.

One bite into Amar’s pineapple-coconut cake and I was hooked.

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I ordered the shawarma chicken combo platter on saffron rice, liberally drizzled with Santana’s proprietary (and fiery) sauces, with sides of tabbouleh and Greek salad. So good.

The food was served to order, quick and full of flavor.

For a fast-casual lunch, don’t miss the Mediterranean Grill. My sight immediately fixated on the vertical spits of slow-turning roasted meat—chicken, beef and lamb.

Thin slices of meat are artfully carved for platters or sandwiches.

Cocktail king Michael Rooney is held in high regard for his creative libations.

He did not disappoint. I took a seat at the spacious bar and sampled some outstanding drinks, with False King and Winter Rose being particularly memorable.

Photo: Sarah King

Crudo offers all sorts of pristine seafood beautifully displayed. The star dish was the Peruvian scallops. I could not get enough of the delicious coconut-lime sauce that perfectly drenched the scallops.

Outdoor seating offers a private escape for those who are seeking a moment to unwind and enjoy a bite and libation al fresco. southcoastplaza.com 23

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OPEN FOR SUMMER There’s no better time to be cooking.

Prepare your kitchen for the freshest, ripest, most colorful produce available all year with a few new tools and tips that set you up for delicious dining all summer long.

M A K E M O R E GATH ER O F TEN ™ V I S I T U S AT S O U T H C OA S T P L A Z A 3 3 3 3 B E A R S T R E E T, C O S TA M E S A , C A 7 1 4 . 24 1 . 0 1 1 8

southcoastplaza.com 25

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Wahooâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Fish Taco 714.549.0565 26 southcoastplaza.com

Protein Bowl with Shrimp and Chicken, Guavarita

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Choose Two: Power Greens & Grains Salad and Shrimp Scampi Linguine. availability subject to change

Corner Bakery 714.966.2404/714.546.1555 southcoastplaza.com 27

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Terrace by Mix Mix 657.231.6447

Weekend Brunchâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Duck and French Toast, Bottomless Mimosas

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THE ARTS performance dates

VISUAL ARTS

Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall

Garden, 2020 Kyungmi Shin

scfta.org or 714.556.2787

ORANGE COUNTY MUSEUM OF ART OCMA.NET OR 949.759.1122 Current Exhibitions

PERFORMING ARTS The 2020–2021 scheduled performing arts season is robust with Broadway, original plays, ballet, symphonies and jazz, but many engagements have been rescheduled. Please check the websites of South Coast Plaza’s performing arts partners for the latest updates as well as online and virtual activities offered.

SCR.ORG PACIFICSYMPHONY.ORG PHILHARMONICSOCIETY.ORG

Orange County Museum of Art’s new season opens July 16 at OCMAExpand, its interim space at South Coast Plaza Village. Three new exhibitions from Pacific Rim artists focus on identity and cultural legacy though language and narratives, both personal and legendary. The works of Marsia Alexander-Clarke, Maryrose Cobarrubias Mendoza and Kyungmi Shin represent the cultural diversity of Chile, the Philippines and South Korea. An exhibition from OCMA’s permanent collection, “An Earth Song, A Body Song: Figures with Landscape” is also on view.

LAGUNA ART MUSEUM LAGUNAARTMUSEUM.ORG 949.494.8971 Wayne Thiebaud: Clowns

Our Ocean’s Edge

October 11, 2020– January 10, 2021

October 11, 2020– January 10, 2021

BOWERS MUSEUM BOWERS.ORG OR 714.567.3600 Inside the Walt Disney Archives Through August 30, 2020

Treasures in Gold & Jade November 14, 2020– April 25, 2021

southcoastplaza.com 29

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AT A GLANCE legend KEY

Q Reservations Accepted Q Full Bar Q Outdoor Dining Q Private Dining Room Q Open Mornings Q Off-Site Catering

1. AnQi by House of AN

17. The Hall Global Eatery

33. Seabirds Kitchen

714.557.5679

714.515.5544

Q Q Q

Q Q Q Q Q

34. Seasons 52

Q Q Q Q 2. Antonello Espresso Café

714.557.5232

Q 3. Antonello Ristorante

714.751.7153

Q Q Q Q 4. Boudin|SF

714.689.2253

Q Q Q

18. Hamamori Restaurant & Sushi Bar

714.850.0880

Q Q Q Q

Q Q Q

35. See’s Candies

19. Knife Pleat

714.266.3388

Q Q Q Q 20. Lawry’s Carvery

714.434.7788

5. The Capital Grille

Q Q Q

714.432.1140

21. Leatherby’s Cafe Rouge

Q Q Q

714.437.5252

714.429.7640

714.850.1529

Q 36. See’s Candies Macy’s Home Store Wing

714.557.5948

Q 37. Starbucks Coffee

(in Macy’s Men’s Store) 714.556.0611 ext. 3105

6. Casa Barilla

Q Q Q Q

657.205.1025

22. Maggiano’s Little Italy

Q

38. Starbucks Reserve Coffee

714.546.9550

714.545.8306

7. Champagne French Bakery Cafe

Q Q Q Q Q

Q

23. Marugame Udon

39. Starbucks Reserve Coffee Macy’s Home Store Wing

714.429.1502

Q Q Q 8. Champagne French Bakery Cafe Garden Terrace

714.427.0808

Q Q Q 9. Claim Jumper

714.434.8479

Q Q Q Q 10. Corner Bakery

714.966.2404

949.863.9035 24. Mezzet Mediterranean Cuisine

714.540.3365

Q Q Q Q Q 25. Morton’s The Steakhouse

714.444.4834

Q Q Q Q 26. Nékter Juice Bar

949.340.2700

Q

949.244.2082

Q 40. Stonewall Kitchen Café & Cooking School

(in Macy’s Home Store) 714.513.3940

Q Q 41. Sugarfina

714.472.9529

Q Q Q

Q Q

11. Corner Bakery South Coast Plaza Village

27. Outpost Kitchen

714.546.1555

28. Philz Coffee

Q Q Q

657.231.6447

714.486.2731

43. Vaca

12. COSTA

Q Q

714.463.6060

714.852.3299

Q Q Q 13. Darya Fine Persian Cuisine

714.557.6600

Q Q Q Q Q 14. Din Tai Fung

714.549.3388

Q Q

Q Q Q Q Q

Q 42. TERRACE by Mix Mix

Q Q Q Q

29. Quattro Caffé

Q Q Q Q Q

714.754.0300

44. Wahoo’s Fish Taco

Q Q Q Q Q 30. Royal Khyber Fine Indian Cuisine

714.436.1010

Q Q Q 31. Ruby’s Diner

714.662.7829

714.549.0565

Q 45. Water Grill

949.208.7060

Q Q Q 46. Wolfgang Puck Kitchen

Opening Soon

Q Q Q

(in Macy’s) 714.545.5439

Q

32. Ruscello-Nordstrom South Coast Plaza

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YOGI BHAJAN TURNED AN L.A. YOGA STUDIO INTO A WORLDWIDE JUGGERNAUT WORTH MILLIONS. HE ALSO LEFT BEHIND TWO GENERATIONS OF FEMALE FOLLOWERS REELING FROM HIS ALLEGED SEXUAL PREDATION

9 0 L A M AG . C O M

S U M M E R S O L ST I C E A N D P O RT R A I TS : CO U RT E SY PA M E L A DYS O N ; B OA R D I N G S C H O O L : CO U RT E SY N A D I N E ST E L L AVATO B R OW N

I

N 1 9 6 8 , Pamela Saharah Dyson, 25 and newly divorced, moved into a Beachwood Drive duplex.

She sped through Hollywood in her black MG convertible to Burbank, where she worked as a secretary at Warner Bros. Records. In her free time she practiced hatha yoga, because the meditative states offered solace from her angst.

But she wanted a guru—someone who could give her a deeper understanding of Eastern philosophy. They say when the student is ready, the teacher appears. Later that year Dyson met Yogi Bhajan and began a journey that would transform her life. She wasn’t alone; in a very short time, the charismatic yogi gained a devoted following of mostly Bhajan claimed to be married yet celibate and had three white middle-class seekers who gave up their birth names children with his wife, Bibi Inderjit Kaur Khalsa. But rumors and embarked with him on a prescriptive lifestyle that of his sexual misconduct circulated for years, especially liaicombined Sikhism, Kundalini yoga, and new age philososons with his female staff, a kind of harem who dressed in phies. He called himself a Saturn teacher, characterized by all white and in turbans. The women traveled with him, his disciplinarian style. attended to his personal and professional needs, and lived Dyson became Premka Kaur Khalsa, and she would devote like nuns with no families of their own. her life to her guru for 16 years. She was part Philip Deslippe, a yoga historian who has of his inner circle, earned the title of secretary written extensively about Yogi Bhajan, and general, and helped him build the organization “He will be is a doctoral candidate in the Department from a couple hundred hippies taking classes of Religious Studies at the University of from him in an antique store on the corner of remembered California, Santa Barbara, wonders if Bhajan’s Melrose and Robertson into an international like a Harvey reputation can survive the onslaught. “I think behemoth with businesses, ashrams, and yoga Weinstein of the scandals that are coming out will leave his studios all over the world. yoga. I believe name and his legacy as toxic,” says Deslippe, Earlier this year, Dyson self-published who taught Kundalini yoga for a decade before Premka: White Bird in a Golden Cage: My Life his teachings with Yogi Bhajan, in which she revealed that will be tainted.” he began scrutinizing Bhajan through an academic lens. “He will be remembered like a her guru-student relationship had a dark side.

PHILIP DESLIPPE, Harvey Weinstein or a Jerry Sandusky of yoga, Her tale of love, betrayal, and sexual misconYOGA HISTORIAN and I believe his teachings will be tainted in a duct has the considered perspective of a woman way that will make it very hard to rebrand or who is now 77. She worked on the memoir for salvage them.”

12 years but has processed the trauma that After Bhajan died in 2004 at the age of 75—by then he led her to write it for more than 30, well before the #MeToo was striken with heart disease, was diabetic, and confined movement. What was acceptable behavior decades ago, let to a wheelchair—he left behind a sprawling empire under alone a year, a month, or even a day ago, has changed so the banner of the 3HO Foundation, which stands for healthy, rapidly that Dyson could not have anticipated the reckoning happy, and holy. His New York Times obituary called him the her story has wrought for a spiritual community that relies “boss of worlds spiritual and capitalistic.” Over the years he on the reverence of Yogi Bhajan as a pillar of its existence.

YO G I U N B E A R A B L E

From left: Yogi Bhajan and followers celebrate the 1970 summer solstice. The former customs inspector moved to Los Angeles from New Delhi in 1968 and taught yoga classes where he allegedly indoctrinated female students into a cult of sexual servitude; children born to his followers pose with Bhajan at a boarding school in India after their parents were pressured into sending them abroad; Pamela Dyson, as a young Bhajan devotee and today. Her recent memoir about the yogi’s alleged sexual misconduct emboldened other women to come forward

met with Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, John Paul II, and the Dalai Lama, and gained political capital in Espanola, New Mexico, where many of his businesses were headquartered. He became friendly with the state’s politicians, including Governor Bill Richardson, who, upon Bhajan’s death, ordered that flags be flown at half-staff. Bhajan liked gems, and amassed a maharaja-worthy collection of jewelry, a fleet of luxury cars (he was partial to Rolls-Royce and Mercedes), a 20-plus-acre ranch in Espanola, and an additional 120 acres nearby in the high desert. When he was at his Los Angeles headquarters, he liked to shop in Beverly Hills and dine at La Scala, which wasn’t far from the 3HO headquarters, comprised of several buildings in addition to his modest home on Preuss Road. He split his time between New Mexico and Los Angeles, visiting India often. But Bhajan’s brand of yoga traveled all over the world, and today there are teachers and ashrams in South America, Europe, and Russia.

His businesses flourished, too. In addition to the Kundalini yoga enterprise—teacher trainings and events geared toward the 500,000 students the 3HO Foundation claims practice his brand of yoga—there was the Yogi Tea brand and Akal Security, which over the years has been awarded $1 billion in federal contracts to guard courthouses, embassies, and military bases. Like many 3HO businesses, Akal Security was started by a community member who turned it over to the organization. It wasn’t as big a stretch as it might seem for a yogi like Bhajan to run a security business, as South Asian Sikhs have traditionally served in military and police

forces. Not to mention, according to Dyson, that Bhajan’s business philosophy was “OPI and OPM,” or Other People’s Intelligence and Money. But the way most people know Bhajan in Los Angeles is through Kundalini yoga taught at studios like Yoga West and the RA MA Institute. Yoga is big business, too: tuition for a teacher training can cost as much as $3,500, not to mention the revenues generated by 3H0-related companies that produce new-age music favored by yoga enthusiasts and instructors.

It was against this backstory of spiritual piety and roaring capitalism that Dyson published her memoir earlier this year. At first the book was an outlier and might have stayed so had it not triggered an unexpected outpouring of testimony from other women revealing stories of abuse at the hands of their guru that had been festering for decades.

The revelations stood in stark contrast to the inner-circle members of 3HO, who still abide by Bhajan’s prescriptive lifestyle, use the spiritual names he gave them, wear white, tuck their uncut hair into turbans, and start the day with an ice-cold shower and a session of Kundalini yoga, often in rooms adorned with portraits of their guru. Bhajan had arranged their marriages, and now some of their grown children, meant to pass his teachings on to a new generation, are claiming that they endured relentless sexual, emotional, and physical abuse at 3HO-sponsored schools in India and New Mexico. At the end of June, one of them filed a civil lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court alleging Bhajan engaged in child sexual abuse and intentional infliction of emotional L A M AG . C O M 91

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distress, and that members of 3HO not only knew of Bhajan’s predilections, but enabled and witnessed them on multiple occasions.

The Siri Singh Sahib Corp., a body that incorporates 3HO, deemed the allegations credible and hired An Olive Branch, a Philadelphia-based consultancy guided by Buddhist principles that helps spiritual communities navigate ethical misconduct. Its C A NC E L K A R M A Once the flagship of Bhajan’s empire, Yoga West on Robertson report was scheduled for Boulevard has removed his portraits and sayings from its walls public release in late July.

Shanti Kaur Khalsa, a that, back then, 3HO was a culture of public-affairs specialist and a member denial. In March, he posted a public of the team established to oversee apology on social media, expressed the inquiry, says, “Just because the contrition to the students in his complaints are credible doesn’t mean teacher-training course, and promthey’re true. It’s a very complex situised to be an advocate for transparency ation. Honestly, in the 40 years I was and for the An Olive Branch investiaround [Bhajan], I never had any gation. “I believe the people that are indication that this was happening. telling their stories,” he says. “Does So that’s hard to believe. I’m a very that mean I believe that Yogi Bhajan smart person, I’m intuitive, I’m a yogi, was a horrible person? Absolutely not. and I honestly didn’t see it. But that Does that mean I believe Yogi Bhajan doesn’t mean we don’t do the right had flaws? Absolutely yes, as do we all. thing.” Khalsa confirmed that An And sometimes in some people those Olive Branch received upwards of 16 flaws are very big.” (Other Los Angeles– reports from individuals who claimed based senior Kundalini yoga teachers harm at the hands of Yogi Bhajan, declined to comment for this story.) and it interviewed more than 300 Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa, who members who either corroborated teaches classes online through Alo the accusations or defended Bhajan. yoga clothing, and whose prenatal Hard-line 3HO members seek to classes have attracted celebrity cliendiscredit Dyson’s allegations and claim tele including Cindy Crawford, Demi the investigation is a farce. They have Moore, and Miranda Kerr, posted requested that a 3HO representative a statement on Facebook that said, be allowed to advocate for Bhajan by “Between the flu and the allegations, obtaining access to all the allegation from the center of my being I choose details—including the identities of the Joy. This is sincerely all that I can do. I accusers. “Yogi Bhajan had a couple of stand for Joy. My platform is Joy. Joy is sayings that really have now come into the opposite of fear. Fear breeds more view for us. One was ‘Don’t love me, fear. Joy breeds more Joy. In my choice love the teaching’,” Khalsa says.

I choose to teach Kundalini Yoga At Yoga West on Robertson throughout the world, God willing, Boulevard, the flagship Kundalini yoga until my last breath.” studio where Bhajan often lectured, his portraits and sayings have been O O O O removed from the walls. Guru Singh Khalsa, a first-generation senior teacher, THE CUSTOMS INSPECTOR joined 3HO when Bhajan still taught Harbhajan Singh Puri, a former classes at the antiques store, which is customs inspector at the New Delhi now a John Varvatos outlet owned by airport, came to Los Angeles and Bhajan student James Buccieri. Singh started teaching yoga under the name Khalsa describes his relationship with Yogi Bhajan in 1968. It was a year after Bhajan as being akin to a father and the Summer of Love, and revolution son, and while he is aware of Dyson’s was in the air. Martin Luther King Jr. claims of sexual misconduct, he says

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was assassinated in Memphis; Robert Kennedy Jr. was shot at the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard. The Vietnam War protests peaked as loveins convened in places like Elysian Park.

Dyson learned about Yogi Bhajan when a friend prattled on about the sexy six-foot-two yogi with the coralcolored turban, long black beard, and velvet loafers. Bhajan taught at the East West Cultural Center on 9th Street, which was run by a Sanskrit scholar named Judith Tyberg. It was a serious place, with a library and lectures about Eastern spiritual traditions.

“We were turning away from our parental indoctrination and looking towards the East,” recalls Dyson.

She read Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, and lectures by Jiddu Krishnamurti, who lived in Ojai. “Yogi Bhajan prophetically spoke in front of us and told us that he would die and we would carry on. He presented himself like an Eastern Jesus who was uplifting humanity. He spoke to a desire to make our dreams come true and to guide humanity toward the god consciousness.” Though Dyson claims that Bhajan put his hand on her breast during her first yoga class, she continued to be his student. His charisma, his claim that he could read auras, kept her and other early devotees rapt. He encouraged them to quit smoking cigarettes and marijuana, to stop drinking alcohol and taking drugs, to stop eating meat, and to use food as medicine.

According to a 1977 Time magazine article that characterized Bhajan as a “womanizer,” within a few months of his arrival at the East West Cultural 94 L A M AG . C O M

Center, Tyberg fired Bhajan for reasons she refused to reveal. Nevertheless his boisterous hippie following rapidly grew; he taught acolytes how to get “high on their breath” and sent them across the country to open ashrams and teach yoga. Students were mesmerized by his brand of yoga, which he characterized as a secret ancient technology that he was sharing for the first time, thus making followers part of a “golden chain” of teacher-to-student transmission.

In many ways, Yogi Bhajan’s Kundalini yoga isn’t different from other modern yoga traditions with dubious ancient origins, and the story Bhajan told about Kundalini’s roots turned out to be more fiction than fact. Deslippe authored an academic paper that questions the legitimacy and origin of Bhajan’s style of yoga and concludes that it’s neither ancient nor secret; rather, it’s derived from a verifiable hatha yoga lineage that Bhajan interpreted and reconstructed into his own version of asana (yoga poses) and lifestyle. During his lifetime, Bhajan was a controversial figure among South Asian Sikhs, who noted that he picked up some aspects of their faith while abandoning others.

For one, Sikhs aren’t vegetarian, their religion does not include yoga, they do not revere living gurus. And they don’t wear white.

O O O O

THE SECOND GENERATION “Pamela [Dyson] and the first generation made the choice to be Sikhs. We didn’t have that choice,” says Nadine Stellavato Brown, 48, who was born to Bhajan followers and sent away to

school in India at the age of eight. For Stellavato Brown, her parents’ decision had grave emotional consequences. “As grateful as I am that Pam came out with the book, which finally gave us permission to tell our stories, the irony is that she and the whole first generation were perpetrators of this abuse. She helped build the system that abused us.”

In a series of Zoom calls in April and May with the Khalsa Council, a body of ministers within 3HO, more than 200 first-generation members listened as their children and their friends’ children recalled physical and sexual abuse, some from Yogi Bhajan himself.

The second generation expressed the emotional toll of the social experiments they endured—child swapping, an emphasis on parental detachment that encouraged mothers to suppress their nurture instincts, and being sent to boarding schools in New Mexico and India where a cruel survivalist mentality prevailed, which they compared to Lord of the Flies. “When Pamela’s book came out, the focus was on all that grown-up stuff—the salacious sex stuff that’s so typical of cults. Instead of feeling like we were heard, once again we were getting talked over. I had to bring it back to our stories, which are not footnotes,” says Narangkar Glover, a Portlandbased artist who attended the schools in India from eight to 16.

“We grew up in these boarding schools. We were whipped with sticks until we had big welts on our bodies.

Some of us were tortured,” Glover adds.

“The crux of our experience was first and foremost abject neglect, abject filth. There was head lice, diarrhea, dysentery, hepatitis. We didn’t have

F R O M L E F T: CO U RT E SY S U N N Y K H A L SA ; PAT R I C K M C M U L L A N V I A G E T T Y I M AG E S ; CO U RT E SY N A R A N G KA R G LOV E R ; KAT H Y C A D I G A N ; CO U RT E SY: N A D I N E ST E L L AVATO B R OW N ( 2 )

From left: Sunny Khalsa, in a passport photo at age 13 and today, alleges Bhajan groomed her for sex; Narangkar Glover, with her sister in 1984, says students were tortured at Bhajan’s schools; Nadine Stellavato Brown alleges sexual misconduct by Bhajan after being born into his cult

running water for days; there was feces on the floor, the walls; the electricity would go out. We’d see stray dogs getting killed right in front of us.” When the children tried to tell their parents about the conditions, “they would say it wasn’t easy for [them] either,” Glover adds. “But I say, ‘You had food; you had hot water, a comfortable bed; you drove around; you got to go to the movies and float around Los Angeles with celebrities, looking beautiful and radiant in your white perfection.’”

Shanti Kaur Khalsa says a team has been established to address the second generation’s allegations, and has offered $1,200 of therapy for anyone who asks for it. She declined to speak about her own son’s experience at a boarding school in India, but did say, “I know these kids. I’ve heard their stories, but they have always told it in a lighthearted way, couched in humor.

Now it’s been exposed for what it really was. It was trauma, and I appreciate them and their courage.”

“At Bhajan schools in India “we were whipped until we had welts on our bodies. Some of us were tortured.”

NARANGKAR GLOVER

Another parent who listened in on the Zoom calls wept when he heard the accounts. “I felt like I was run over by a truck,” says Tej Steiner, who left 3HO in 1988. Steiner and his former wife from a Bhajan-arranged marriage sent their children to school in India. “Yogi Bhajan set up schools for our children and staffed them with sadistic, masochistic teachers,” he posted to a Facebook group. “They were profit centers for his business empire. He also knew that separating children from their parents would increase his control over both.”

The narrative that no one knew bad things happened in the schools angers second-generation members like Sunny Khalsa, who tried telling grown-ups and her peers that Bhajan was sexually inappropriate with her, but says

they wouldn’t listen. “They said, ‘He’s just testing you.’ There was always an excuse for complete blindness. Or they’d react with rage because I was slandering our god,” Khalsa says. “We were raised to believe he was a god, that he was my spiritual father, that he could see my soul, but people refused to see him as the cruel, manipulative, divisive, scary man that he was.”

In a lawsuit filed in June, Khalsa, now 46, names as plaintiffs 3HO and 100 unnamed defendents, and charges that she was groomed from the age of eight to become one of Bhajan’s secretaries, and that he repeatedly groped, grabbed, and sexually harassed her.

Bhajan and his associates, the suit alleges, used 3HO’s businesses as a cover for a “thinly veiled, covert second purpose” to “operate a cult to lure people in to take all of their money as well as place Bhajan in a place where he had unfettered access to women that he could abuse verbally, emotionally, spiritually, and sexually.” Bhajan, the suit alleges, “cultivated other people in his organization who assisted him in breaking down people to turn them into devotees. . . .”

When Khalsa was eight and living on the 3HO-operated Hacienda de Guru Ram Das Ranch outside Espanola with her mother, the suit alleges, she was summoned to Bhajan’s quarters. While his associates watched, he grabbed her vagina and verbally abused her, demanding to know if she wanted to be a prostitute. The suit also alleges that when Khalsa was ten, Shanti Kaur Khala, 3HO’s current spokesperson, took her on a $1,000 shopping spree in an attempt to endear her to Bhajan. In 1990, when she was 16 and had returned from school in India, she planned to earn her GED and attend college; instead, she was given some white Chanel dresses and sent to L.A. Khalsa moved into one of the Preuss Road compounds. During the day she worked at the 3HO offices and at night prepared juices for Bhajan, who ordered her, in front of others, to massage his feet while he watched graphic pornograpahy. “I was told I was going to have to start sleeping with him. That was my duty,” she says. As a precursor, she alleges, “he would grab my ass or my breasts, ask me about sex, and tell me he was going to fuck me.”

Khalsa finally ran away in 1992, after, she alleges, (CONTINUED ON PAGE 135)

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L A M AG . C O M 95

Mixed Media

STEVE ERICKSON

Past Imperfect DOES BUILDING A MORE JUST FUTURE REQUIRE US TO CANCEL THE UGLY PARTS OF OUR HISTORY? WHEN IT COMES TO FLAWED CLASSICS LIKE GONE WITH THE WIND THE ANSWER IS . . . COMPLICATED

T WO P I E C E S O F F O O TAG E — each just a few minutes or less—that, juxtaposed, become a metaphor: The first is from 1939’s Gone with the Wind. Scarlett O’Hara, one of American movies’ most irritating heroines, steps over the body of a wounded Confederate soldier, and as she continues making her way, the camera pulls back in an ever-widening crane shot that reveals what is tens, then hundreds of wounded men, before finally framing a battered Confederate flag flapping in an ill wind.

The second piece of footage is longer, but not by much: A man’s hand is in his pocket as he kneels on another man’s neck.

The hand in the pocket is as crucial to this image as the other man gasping for breath and crying for his mother because it 9 6 L A M AG . C O M

answers the question of why this particular footage has triggered such a reaction after a quarter century of such footage, going back at least as far as a phalanx of L.A. cops wailing on another grounded Black man named Rodney King. The hand in the pocket gilds in blood the act of George Floyd’s murder with a gesture of contempt, a gesture of the police officer in question having done something like this countless times before (if not as lethally). For this officer, a nine-minute curbside execution is as routine as going to Starbucks.

This is what finally became too much. Of course it should have been too much long ago. Later there will be questions of whether Derek Chauvin’s hand really was in his pocket, but there won’t be any question about the attitude that recalls a hunter casually posing with a still-thrashing animal he’s just I L LU S T R AT I O N BY M A X - O - M AT I C

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FA D E T O B L AC K

Lupita Nyong’o in 12 Years a Slave.

John Ridley, the film’s Oscar-winning screenwriter, argues that Hollywood’s whitewashed depictions of the era should be pushed aside.

to no longer honor that history.

But pull back on a bigger picture, like that crane shot in Gone with the Wind, and you’re bound to see things that are more complicated, such as, say, HBO’s decision a month or two ago to stop screening Gone with the Wind. This was followed by a reversal: the movie would screen after all, but accompanied by academics advising us how to think about it.

The case for removing Gone with the Wind from public view was made

most eloquently by the screenwriter John Ridley, who deservedly won an Oscar for 12 Years a Slave, and it was most stupidly protested by the Stepford Barbie who serves as spokesperson for a white supremacist president. So you can imagine which side of this debate I wanted to be on. Not only is Gone with the Wind incontestably racist—beginning with its opening scroll lamenting the passage of a bygone fairy-tale era of knights and ladies, of masters and slaves—but I’ve never thought it was a good movie. Lumbering and episodic, gracelessly directed and poorly paced—with a wildly overrated performance by Vivien Leigh as a character no balanced person would want to spend four minutes with, let alone four hours—Gone with the Wind isn’t one of my top 1,000 American movies let alone one of the top ten, as the American Film Institute would have it. Its limited virtues are Clark Gable, who brought a sense of humor to an enterprise he didn’t want to be part of, and, well, that crane shot.

FOX S E A R C H L I G H T P I C T U R E S / P H OTO F E ST

shot. It’s this attitude that will make the tape of George Floyd’s murder one of our history’s indelible images, like the Zapruder film or the towers falling. It’s footage that renders the crane shot in Gone with the Wind irrelevant if not obsolete, but which also renders the ramifications of Floyd’s murder more complicated.

A national moment like this one fuels hundreds of debates about imagery, art, iconography, and all their meanings. Some are easy enough to resolve. Flags flying over a courthouse or statues overlooking a town square speak for a collective sentiment. And if the collective no longer accepts why that flag flies or what that statue stands for, then that flag and statue become less expressions of “history” and more impositions of false history.

This is especially true when you consider that a lot of the statues honoring Confederate heroes went up not after the Civil War but after World War II, as a hostile rebuttal to the growing civil rights movement. Tearing down statues and lowering those flags aren’t about “erasing” history so much as choosing

Obviously Ridley has a moral authority on this matter that a privileged white magazine columnist hasn’t—which doesn’t change the fact that he’s wrong. Gone with the Wind isn’t a statue speaking for public sentiment in a town square; it’s a work of art, however clumsy and racist, and by withdrawing it, however briefly, HBO ran the danger of setting a lousy precedent. The General, from 1926, in which Buster Keaton plays a Confederate, is one of the greatest movies ever made, and in Casablanca, a movie I do love, there’s an appalling moment when Ingrid Bergman refers to the 56-yearold Dooley Wilson as a “boy.” Since this comes just a few minutes before Humphrey Bogart remarks on how he doesn’t buy and sell human beings, it’s a good example of how mixed up

Gone with the Wind isn’t a statue in a public town square, it’s a work of art, however clumsy or racist.

Hollywood can be, with dashes of enlightenment slamming up against intractable attitudes. But preceding all these films with talking professorial heads adding “context” is a rabbit’s hole, even if you think it’s a good idea.

The wages of freedom and justice are messy, and nobody, least of all Ridley, needs me to tell him that.

We’re living through the most perilous months American democracy has seen in modern times, rivaled only by the final days of the Nixon presidency when it seemed like American society was coming apart. The difference is that in 2020, the American Idea is coming apart. On an episode of Showtime’s The Circus some months back, a woman stood up at a raucous town hall and said, “Never in my life did I think I would like to see a dictator, but if there’s gonna be one, I want it to be Trump,” and while some in the 1960s and early ’70s might have thought that, nobody said it, because it was accepted that democracy is good and dictatorship

is bad. Now, amid the greatest pandemic in a century and the greatest economic collapse in 90 years, when police kill Black people with impunity, a wannabe Mussolini teargases peaceful protesters so he can walk to a local church and hold up a Bible whose only value to him is as a public relations tool.

All of this is still part of the bloody asterisk next to the American Promise that ripped the country apart a century and a half ago and that took the blood

of a civil war to wash away. God knows most of us will forget not being able to watch Gone with the Wind more easily than we’ll forget the footage of George Floyd’s murder. Nonetheless I feel certain we can overcome racism while still retaining the right to decide for ourselves whether to bypass Gone with the Wind in favor of 12 Years a Slave or Selma or Get Out or Spike Lee’s bravura Da 5 Bloods on Netflix. Or better yet, in favor of creating our own footage of the national atonement at hand.

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SMALL SHOPS AND RESTAU R ANTS ARE THE SOUL OF THE CIT Y. BUT AFTER A SEASON OF PANDEMIC AND PROTEST, SOME OF L . A .â&#x20AC;&#x2122;S MOST BELOVED INSTITUTIONS ARE THREATENED WITH EXTINCTION

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µ BOB BAKER MARIONET TE THEATER E ST. 1 9 63

A L E X E VA N S , E X E C U T I V E D I R E C TO R AND HEAD PUPPETEER

• WE’RE THE OLDEST MARIONETTE

theater in the country. It started as a hub for Bob Baker’s film and TV projects, and then the live theater took over. Kids love it when the puppets come sit in their laps.

The curtain opens and they’re swept away to a farm or a circus. It’s magical. Bob was a man driven by stardust and rainbows.

He passed away in a quagmire of debt, and nobody wanted to touch it. I started as a 20-year-old intern and was naive enough not to be scared. We’d transitioned to a nonprofit—we nonprofit we have donors, donors a grant from the Jim Henson Company—and things were in the black. In March, we had to pivot to digital birthdays and film production.

We have lighting and grips, and can make costumes and sets with high production values. This place transcends generations.

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N AT H A L I E YV E S G AU LT H I E R , C E O - FO U N D E R

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• WE WERE ON THE VERGE OF

becoming the next Cirque du Soleil, but with child prodigies. We had shows scheduled all over the world, and now we can’t perform anywhere. We started in 2000 as the first kids’ circus school in California.

We have skateboard kids, contortionists, and a foot-archery army.

Now we have to reinvent ourselves.

We’re offering drive-by entertainment with circus wagons for graduations and birthday parties. The only birthday party we’d ever done was a private show when the Dalai Lama turned 80. We’re looking for someone like a dance school to move in and share the space; otherwise there’s a very high chance I’ll lose the studio. But I refuse to give up.

I will never give up.

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G R E G JA M E S , OW N E R

• I WAS AT SUNSET STRIP TAT TOO

for 29 years. In the ’80s, it was pretty rockin‘—people were making money and partying. I tattooed all the Mötley Crüe guys and even went on tour with them. Back in ’85 we had the HIV epidemic, and we took it pretty seriously. That was a little bump, but I’ve never seen anything like this. Having to be closed for three or four months and still having to pay rent is unbearable. We’re all self-employed, so we don’t get unemployment; and most of us in this business don’t get loans very easily. Financially, this has been fucked. If I can find some artists to fill the chairs, I’m gonna survive.

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DU-PAR’S E ST. 1 93 8

F R A N C E S TA R I O, OW N E R

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• W H E N I WA S A K I D M Y FA M I LY L O V E D E AT I N G O U T. O U R FAVO R I T E S W E R E T I N Y

Naylor’s, Clifton’s, and Du-Par’s on Wilshire. People come in and tell me their great grandmother used to work here or that their grandfather always ordered the lemon meringue pie and now that’s their tradition. I started as a manager here in 2006 and always treated the place like it was mine. I never imagined being the owner—it just happened out of the blue, overnight, in 2018.

We had to close our Pasadena location due to the pandemic. We had 98 employees and one day the total sales were $4.95, so I had to let everyone go. I never want to say the Farmers Market is in danger, and even if it was, I have to be positive. The coffee shop will survive if you nurture it and keep the legend going.

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M I LTO N W I L L I A M S , OW N E R

• A N O L D G U Y I N T H E N E I G H B O R H O O D WA S S H I N I N G

shoes, and I joined him when I was 14, in 1968. I finished high school and worked as an offset printer. Then an epidemic came through Watts called crack cocaine. I lost my kids and I lost my house. My sister got me into rehab, and after a year and two months I went to school to be a home health aide. I also went back to work shining shoes and bought the business in 1991.

I’m a master at what I do. I'm a Ph.D. I can tell you everything a shoe needs. It might need dye, it might need stripping. I’ll replace your heels if they’re wearing out. I make enough to take care of my daily needs and save a few bucks for something special. When corona hit, I had to stay home, and that was stressful. I’m kinda tired now. One day it looks like the business might be coming back, and the next day, nothing.

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HOLLY WOOD TOYS & COSTUMES E ST. 1 9 5 0

R E Z VA N M OA ZZ E Z , OW N E R

• MY NEIGHBOR CALLED ME AND

said, “If you open, we’ll open.” They look to me because I’m a bigger store, and if I open, the whole block will reopen. We’re going to come back soon.

We are 70 years here in Hollywood.

Three generations of customers come in together, and they give me energy.

It’s not like Costco, where you buy it and go home. This store has a history.

We feed all the TV shows and movies: Ellen DeGeneres, Jimmy Kimmel, even the Johnny Carson show used to buy wigs and props here. One of our employees put up the GoFundMe. I said, “Leave it. Maybe one of them will donate $100,000.” Sometimes they do that. We put it up just in case. I was hoping. I love Hollywood.

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DURK DEHNER, PRESIDENT A N D CO FO U N D E R

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• W E ’ R E A N O N P R O F I T E D U C AT I O NA L F O U N DAT I O N W I T H A

mission to preserve and promote the erotic arts. Tom’s work is really the main vehicle. Tom of Finland, the artist, has definitely contributed to the whole acceptance that gay love is good. He moved to California in 1980, and we became partners. He’s been gone for 29 years, but he has stayed vibrant and very much alive in my heart and in the hearts of fans all over the world. The Tom House is a very magical place.

I feel like we’re in this amazing amusement park, and it’s all shut down. We have a huge permanent art collection of several thousand artists, we do a yearly art fair, and we have an artist-in-residence program. Because of restrictions, we can’t have our volunteers here cataloging material. We can’t provide tours because people live here, and we’re trying to protect their health.

We’re used to having to tighten our cinches, but we’re going to have to start laying people off and reducing our programming and go down to a more spartan level.

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THE SATELLITE E ST. 1 9 6 8

J E F F WO L F R A M , OW N E R

• M US I C C LU B S W E R E T H E F I R S T O N E S

to close and the last ones to reopen. Do we want to go back to this, or become something different and hopefully survive? We’re trying to reinvent ourselves as a restaurant, so we’re not doing live music anymore. My dad started here with a German restaurant in 1968. Later it was a discotheque, and then a Top 40 club.

There was a big gay population here, so

he tried some gay nights, but it didn’t work. When we were Spaceland, we had some amazing acts come through. I remember the Foo Fighters, Silversun Pickups, and Lady Gaga, who was out of control. It was a big success. I’ve been in the live-music business for 25 years, but I’ve hired a chef and we’re trying to figure out where we’re going next. At this point, we’re winging it.

L A M AG . C O M 10 9

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LU KE WALKER’S BARBER & BEAUT Y CARE E ST. 1 975

LU K E WA L K E R , OW N E R

• M Y DA D WA S A BA R B E R I N T H E NAV Y A N D

showed me how to cut hair when I was a kid in the ’40s. Me and my five brothers worked our way through college cutting hair. I came out here for the entertainment field. I’ve done several commercials as a barber. Back in the Depression, barbershops, liquor stores, and funeral homes stayed open. As a barber, you can always work, but I had to shut down. I live next door to the mayor of Pasadena. I saw him out in the yard, and he said, “I’m sorry I had to shut you down.” Some barbers went underground, but there’s no way I’m cutting at home. My daughter set up a GoFundMe, and the church has kept me eating. The barbershop is called “the Black man’s country club,” and I don’t think I’ll retire. When customers look in the mirror and smile, that’s music to a barber’s ears.

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L ARRY EDMUNDS BOOKSHOP E ST. 1 93 8

J E F F R E Y M A N TO R , OW N E R

• WHEN I PUT OUT THE

cry for help, my Turner Classic Movies family were the first ones to rally around me. They come out here for the film festival.

That’s the Super Bowl for me, emotionally as well as financially. When people think of this store, they have good childhood memories of movies. That’s one connection we all have.

One woman bought books for her little six-year-old who’s really into Laurel and Hardy, and they came back a year later to buy more.

Quentin Tarantino told me he started shopping here when he was 15. Renny Harlin said he used to buy books on how to direct from our mail-order catalog when he lived in Finland. For some people it’s scholarly; others just like the posters. Bookstores and record shops make people happy. They lead to great discoveries in your life, and that’s something worth fighting for.

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H

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INSTEAD OF POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE, THE CLASS OF 2020 HAS COME OF AGE AMID ISOLATION AND UNCERTAINTYâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;BUT

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THESE KIDS ARE STILL BULLISH ABOUT THE FUTURE. AN INTIMATE LOOK AT SENIORS RECENTLY GRADUATED FROM FIVE HIGH SCHOOLS ACROSS L.A.

TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHS

BY SAM COMEN

A

CENTENNIAL H IG H SC HO OL, COMPTON P R E V I O U S PAG E , F R O M L E F T: KAY L A A N D E R S O N , B I A N C A G O N Z A L E Z , M A R G A R I TA A L FA R O, A L E X I S J O R Q U E Z , A N D L AY L A N I P E E VY-W H I T E -----------------------O Bianca Gonzalez, the drum major of Centennial’s awardwinning marching band, was looking forward to leading the group in a final performance at graduation. But the quarantine shut down her plans. Even so, she remains grateful for her high school experience. “The band has impacted my whole life. Ever since I was in middle school, when I would see the drum major, I'd always think, ‘Oh, I want to be like him.’ And, you know, I’m female—it’s rare to see females take this role of leadership. It’s been an honor.”

Laylani Peevy-White, one of the band’s drummers, was planning to study criminology in college, and dreamed of becoming a police officer. But George Floyd’s murder caused her to change her mind. “I wanted to be a homicide detective, but now I don’t want to be a police officer, because they’re killing people. I’ll keep my major, but not become an officer.”

Despite the distraction of the pandemic and the protests, Clarinet player Margarita Alfaro is still hopeful about the future.

“For us to have another killing, it’s frustrating,” she says. “But we’re making change, and that’s all that matters. I know it’ll get better eventually, because this new generation? Our energy is just so uplifting.”

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PA L O S V E R D E S HIGH SCHOOL F R O N T R OW, F R O M L E F T: O L I V I A YA N G , G R E TA W E N D O R F F, H I N A N O N E G I S H I , A N D G A B R I E L L A R U DY; B AC K R OW, F R O M L E F T: JA K E T R UJ I L LO, J U L I A N A L E SS I , J U ST I N B O OT H , A N D M AT T H E W J O H A N TG E N

Student-government advisor Jama Maxfield safely gathered some of the school’s graduating senior leaders together for one last photograph after two months of online classes. It was shot on the same bluffs, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, where graduates take their prom pictures every year. Maxfield says the quarantine caused her students to lose “a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

But I keep telling them, ‘If this is the worst thing that ever happens in your life, you’re gonna have a pretty good life.’ ”

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L A M AG . C O M 1 15

H A M I LT O N H IG H SC HO OL, PA L M S LESLIE RAMIREZ ------------------------

Leslie Ramirez had been looking forward to a big party when she graduated from Hamilton High School’s humanities program. Instead, she and her family held an intimate celebration at their home in South L.A. “I’m first generation,” Ramirez says.

“My parents and grandparents came from Guatemala for us to have a better future. Graduating high school and being the first in my family to be college-bound is a big deal. My parents want to have that experience of helping me move in, and I look forward to that, too. But the possibility of fall semester being canceled or going online kind of takes away that happiness.”

O

PA L O S V E R D E S HIGH SCHOOL T Y L E R I M B AC H ------------------------

“All these guys, they were my best friends for at least the last four years, so not playing baseball with them ever again is really, really hard,” says Tyler Imbach, who’s been on baseball teams since he was six years old.

Though he lost a competitive senior year behind home plate, he will play for the University of San Francisco in the fall. Still, he missed all of the spring season with the teammates to whom he’s grown close. “I used to wake up and look forward to practice, but now I don’t have that anymore. So it’s a weird feeling—a sadness—knowing that I’m not gonna get up and have that routine of going to baseball with my friends every day.”

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H O OV E R H IG H SC HO OL, G L E N DA L E KAT R I N A M A N O R ------------------------

Katrina Manor would have sung the national anthem to her entire graduating class in the Hoover High School stadium if COVID-19 had not abruptly ended her senior year. “Regret is a big one,” she says. “Being unfulfilled is heavy. It’s a feeling of incompleteness—that’s what it is. And I’m a big believer in closure, so not being able to close out this chapter, you know, it messed with my head a little bit.

“I feel like it’s unfair, but I do understand that there are people getting severely sick and going through traumatic experiences and passing away. So sometimes I feel like ‘Who am I to complain?’ Can you imagine George Floyd on the floor with the cop’s knee on his neck?

And a Black man’s perspective: ‘I don't want to be a hashtag for people to share’ because they only share it when you're dead? Can you imagine ending up as a hashtag?

“This whole situation has made me realize that I’ve matured a lot during this quarantine. I’ve learned to put my values first.”

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L A M AG . C O M 1 17

H A M I LT O N H I G H S C H O O L , PA L M S A I YA N A DA ’B R I E L -----------------------O Aiyana Da’briel performs her thesis choreography in her family’s garage instead of onstage with an ensemble of dancers. At Hamilton High School’s performing arts magnet school, Da’briel also served as president of the Black Student Union. “Having met with Karen Bass, Shirley Weber, and Holly Mitchell, I know that great Black women are changing the system for the better for everyone. You know, political participation does work. There are ways to make change within the system—ways to make your voice heard. My days consist of waking up, spreading information, going on calls, signing petitions, emailing officials and government leaders. I made a list with one of my friends of 75 petitions to sign, and we signed them all. We started a page giving out information. We’ve been searching for Black-owned businesses to support. There’s a national waking up going on: it’s like I’ve just washed my face with cold water and now I’m wide awake. I feel like if you know better, government can be more responsible for the people that it governs.”

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PA L O S V E R D E S HIGH SCHOOL B R A D N O L A N A N D H A N N A H PA D D O C K -------------------------

In the absence of a chance to perform in their final high school musical, drama students Hannah Paddock and Brad Nolan brought Crazy For You to the Nolan family home. The fact that they are a couple in real life helped them avoid social-distancing regulations. “The senior show was always something special,” Nolan says. “There’s a speech before the show where each senior thanks the department and just has their chance to convey appreciation. It’s kind of felt like we were robbed of the last bow.” Paddock agrees. “It’s like your last bow is your goodbye to highschool,” she says. “But probably ten years down the road, I’ll look back and have a bigger perspective.”

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S E Q U OYA H S C H O O L, PA S A D E NA JAY M A RT I N ------------------------

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Jay Martin had already bought a prom dress when the lockdown went into effect. Since then, the teenager has been feeling isolated and lonely, especially after being forced to leave a job at a local supermarket that threatened to infect Martin’s vulnerable sister. “I feel a lot of sympathy for people who have to work. I know that most of them are probably dreading going in every day,” Martin says. “They’re washing their hands and hoping they’re not sick, but they don’t have a choice because they have to support themselves. Maybe we’ll now realize that essential workers deserve more money, deserve more compassion, deserve better practices.”

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Welcome to Freedom

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NOURISH YOUR MIND, BODY, AND SOUL LOS ANGELES MAGAZINE’S 3RD ANNUAL FIT LA WILL FEATURE A BODYWEIGHT WORKOUT FOLLOWED BY A WELLNESS RECEPTION WITH LIGHT BITES, PRODUCT SAMPLING FROM BEAUTY AND NUTRITION BRANDS, MINI SPA TREATMENTS, AND MORE.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 29 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.

850 South Pacific Coast Highway, El Segundo

For more information visit

lamag.com/fitla

Event details subject to change.

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

LOOKING FOR THE BEST IN DENTAL CARE? Check out the following pages featuring dental professionals named to Los Angeles magazineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s annual list of L.A.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Top Dentists.*

*Top Dentists are determined via peer voting and a rigorous verification process conducted

by Professional Research Services (PRS), an industry leader in determining the best medical, legal and real estate professionals within a specific geographic area. PRS' listings are featured in top city magazines nationwide.

L A M AG . C O M 1 29

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Face Center LA Richard L. Jacobson, DMD, MS

Orthodontics and Dento-Facial Orthopedics

Dr. Jacobson practices orthodontics for children and adults H[ OPZ 7HJPร J 7HSPZHKLZ WYHJ[PJL (M[LY LHYUPUN OPZ 4 : PU VYHS IPVSVN` +Y 1HJVIZVU YLJLP]LK HK]HUJLK WVZ[ KVJ[VYHS [YHPUPUN PU [LTWVYVTHUKPI\SHY QVPU[ K`ZM\UJ[PVU OLHKHJOL HUK MHJPHS WHPU HUK OPZ ZWLJPHS[` JLY[Pร JH[PVU PU VY[OVKVU[PJZ HUK KLU[VMHJPHS VY[OVWLKPJZ MYVT <*3( +Y 1HJVIZVU PZ VUL VM [OL TVZ[ L_WLYPLUJLK VY[OVKVU[PZ[Z PU [OL ^VYSK /L OHZ WLYZVUHSS` HUHS`aLK HUK [YLH[LK TVYL [OHU WH[PLU[Z MYVT HSS ^HSRZ VM SPML PUJS\KPUN (JHKLT` H^HYK ^PUULYZ HUK T\S[PWSL 4PZZ (TLYPJHZ 4PZZ >VYSKZ HUK 4PZZ <UP]LYZL WHNLHU[ ^PUULYZ /PZ Vั JL PZ HSZV VUL VM [OL ILZ[ LX\PWWLK PU [OL <:( +Y 1HJVIZVU LUQV`Z OLSWPUN HSS WLVWSL /L LZWLJPHSS` SV]LZ ILPUN H ZTHSS I\[ PU[LNYHS WHY[ VM [OL SP]LZ VM [OL THU` JOPSKYLU OL [YLH[Z HUK MLLSZ WYP]PSLNLK [V ^H[JO [OLT NYV^ \W W\YZ\PUN [OLPY KYLHTZ

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Orthodontic Center LA (STH 9LHS +YP]L :\P[L 7HJPร J 7HSPZHKLZ *( c 6Y[OVKVU[PJ*LU[LY 3(

130 L A M AG . C O M

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

David W. Dorfman, MD, DDS

Oral and Maxillofacial, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery

C. Philip Amoils, MD, FACS

Ears, Nose, Throat and Sinus Specialist

Dr. Dorfman is Chief of Surgery at Jaw Center LA and Face Center LA. He is one of the elite few surgeons in the USA dual [YHPULK HUK IVHYK JLY[PÃ&#x201E;LK PU IV[O 6YHS HUK 4H_PSSV MHJPHS :\YNLY` HUK IVHYK JLY[PÃ&#x201E;LK PU 7SHZ[PJ :\YNLY` ^P[O HK]HUJLK JLY[PÃ&#x201E;JH[PVU PU *YHUPV MHJPHS Z\YNLY` MYVT :[HUMVYK <UP]LYZP[` 4LKPJHS *LU[LY

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Face Center LA (STH 9LHS +YP]L :\P[L 7HJPÃ&#x201E;J 7HSPZHKLZ *( c -HJL*LU[LY 3( Jaw Center LA (STH 9LHS +YP]L :\P[L 7HJPÃ&#x201E;J 7HSPZHKLZ *( c 1H^*LU[LY 3(

Sinus Center LA (STH 9LHS +YP]L :\P[L 7HJPÃ&#x201E;J 7HSPZHKLZ *( c :PU\Z*LU[LY 3( L A M AG . C O M 13 1

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Richard S. Silvera, DDS General, Cosmetic, and Implant Dentistry

During a time of global uncertainty, you can count on Richard Silvera, DDS HUK OPZ OPNOS` X\HSPĂ&#x201E;LK dental team to continue providing safe, worldclass, patient-centered care.

Dr. Silveraâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s fabulous team of assistants and an in-house dental aesthetics laboratory with awardwinning master ceramist Ryan Lim, can create lifelike aesthetics with veneers, implant crowns, and full-mouth rehabilitations. The same attention is WHPK [V ZPTWSL Ă&#x201E;SSPUNZ JSLHUPUNZ HUK JVUZJPLU[PV\Z detailed examinations. Dr. Silvera also loves the results that can be obtained with well-managed InvisalignÂŽ cases.

In response to COVID-19, the Silvera team began looking at solutions as early as late February, implementing a thoughtful combination of UV SPNO[ HPY W\YPĂ&#x201E;LYZ HUK PU JLPSPUN OPNO ]VS\TL exhaust fans. The team is fully garbed in personal protective equipment (think: getting ready to take a moonwalk). >OLU YLTVKLSPUN [OL VŃ?JL +Y :PS]LYH HUK OPZ team have rethought the traditional dental care standards to ensure your time spent in the dental chair is not only safe and sound, but also in a comfortable environment where you can get the care you need. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I am passionate about dentistry and our patientsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; comfort and enduring good health. Proper oral health and treatment can and does promote this. ( MHI\SV\Z OLHS[O` ZTPSL JHU WYVTV[L JVUĂ&#x201E;KLUJL and brighten a world that needs more smiles.â&#x20AC;?

Our Response to COVID-19 A thoughtful solution for dental care: Â&#x2039; OPNO WV^LYLK HPY W\YPĂ&#x201E;LYZ ^P[O <= SPNO[ /,7( HUK JHYIVU Ă&#x201E;S[LYZ [V RPSS HUK [YHW ]PY\ZLZ HUK IHJ[LYPH HUK JPYJ\SH[L JSLHU W\YPĂ&#x201E;LK HPY [OYV\NOV\[ [OL VŃ?JL and treatment rooms. Â&#x2039; OPNO WV^LYLK JLPSPUN L_OH\Z[ MHUZ KPZ[YPI\[LK [V HSS [YLH[TLU[ YVVTZ HUK [OYV\NOV\[ [OL VŃ?JL [V YHPZL HPY [\YUV]LY [V V]LY [PTLZ WLY OV\Y MYVT HIV\[ two times per hour initially.

Richard S. Silvera, DDS Century City Medical Plaza *LU[\Y` 7HYR ,HZ[ :\P[L 3VZ (UNLSLZ *(

drsilvera.com 13 2 L A M AG . C O M

Â&#x2039; .SHZZ KVVYZ MVY HSS [YLH[TLU[ YVVTZ [V JVU[HPU HUK LUOHUJL HPY [\YUV]LY ZHML[` and patient privacy. Â&#x2039; 7LYZVUHS WYV[LJ[P]L LX\PWTLU[ MVY [OL ^OVSL KLU[HS [LHT +VJ[VY HUK KLU[HS team monitored and tested for COVID-19. Â&#x2039; =PKLV LU[Y` H[ KVVY [V SPTP[ LU[Y` [V WH[PLU[Z ^P[O HWWVPU[TLU[Z [V JVU[YVS patient appointment times. Â&#x2039; =PKLV LU[Y` HSZV KPYLJ[Z KLSP]LY` L[J [V [OL YLHY LU[YHUJL

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Frank Pita, DDS, MSD Orthodontics

Dr. Pita PZ H JLY[PĂ&#x201E;LK VY[OVKVU[PJ ZWLJPHSPZ[ /L H[[LUKLK KLU[HS school at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Dentistry, graduating in 1986. Upon completion of his general practice residency in general and hospital dentistry from Foster McGaw/Loyola University of Chicago School of Dentistry in 1988, Dr. Pita attended Temple Universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s School of Dentistry Graduate Orthodontic Residency 7YVNYHT PU 7OPSHKLSWOPH /L Z\JJLZZM\SS` JVTWSL[LK OPZ VY[OVKVU[PJ residency at Temple University in 1991 and received a post-doctoral 4HZ[LY VM :JPLUJL PU +LU[PZ[Y` 4:+ KLNYLL HUK *LY[PĂ&#x201E;JH[L PU 6Y[OVKVU[PJZ 0U +Y 7P[H YLJLP]LK JLY[PĂ&#x201E;JH[PVU MYVT [OL (TLYPJHU Board of Orthodontics. Dr. Pita continued his education by attending the Roth-Williams Orthodontic Fellowship at the University of Detroit 4LYJ` :JOVVS VM +LU[PZ[Y` MYVT [V HUK YLJLP]LK JLY[PĂ&#x201E;JH[PVU in advanced education in orthodontics, TMJ, functional occlusion, and Z\YNPJHS VY[OVKVU[PJZ /PZ WYVMLZZPVUHS HŃ?SPH[PVUZ PUJS\KL [OL (TLYPJHU (ZZVJPH[PVU VM 6Y[OVKVU[PZ[Z 7HJPĂ&#x201E;J *VHZ[ :VJPL[` VM 6Y[OVKVU[PZ[Z and the Academy of Orthodontic Excellence Study Club. Modern technology, regular training, and an eye on current developments in VY[OVKVU[PJ YLZLHYJO +Y 7P[H HUK Z[HŃ&#x153; KV L]LY`[OPUN MYVT [YHKP[PVUHS to Invisalign orthodontic treatment, to ensure your teeth receive expert JHYL ;OL VŃ?JL [LHT H[ 7P[H 6Y[OVKVU[PJZ PZ WYV\K [V WYV]PKL `V\ ^P[O expert consultation and specialist treatment.

1

PITA rthodontics Dr. Frank Pita DDS, MSD

Frank Pita, DDS, MSD 500 East Olive Avenue, Suite 630 Burbank, CA 91501 (818) 848-0100 | pitaorthodontics.com

2020 TOP DENTISTS Endodontics David Abdelmalak Glendale Endodontics and Microsurgery 818-242-8955 Paul Anstey Paul Anstey DDS 310-777-8382 Rohit Batheja Lakewood Dental Arts 562-866-1735 Samir Batniji Samir Batniji, D.D.S. & Associates 909-396-9944 Andy H. Chang +Y (UK` / *OHUN ++: 626-844-3636

Andrea Holstein ,KKPL /HYV\UP ++: 0UJ 310-209-5050 Val Kanter Integrative Endodontics 424-341-3028 1LÉ&#x2C6;YL` 4 2V[Z\IV 1LŃ&#x153;YL` 4 2V[Z\IV DDS, Inc. 310-458-6677 -YLK 4VULTWV\Y Fred Monempour, D.D.S 310-278-5993 Ramin Noghreian South Bay Endodontics 310-375-1200

Hiri Etessami Advanced & Surgical Endodontics 310-550-0506

1HTLZ 7HWWHZ Pappas & Pappas Family Dentistry & Endodontics 626-441-2975

Pedro L. Gonzalez Downtown Endodontics 213-481-1155

Stefan I. Zweig Stefan I. Zweig, DDS 626-799-4115

General Dentistry Bobby Afrooz Bright Now Dental Burbank 818-841-1634 Efma Almario Efma Almario DDS 323-644-2676 Navid Bahrami Dr. Bahrami Dental Care 310-398-9800 Irubiel A. Barbosa Dr. Irubiel A. Barbosa, DDS 323-478-1515 Ryan Candelora Ryan Candelora, DDS & *OHYSLZ 2PT ++: 818-240-7040 Kenneth Chan /LHS[O` :TPSL -HTPS` Dentistry 626-799-8068 Richard Chung Richard Chung, DDS 562-430-5259

+H]PK +H]VVKWV\Y David Davoodpour, D.D.S. 310-477-4214 4PJOLS / ,S`ZVU Smiles LA 323-263-2125 Daniel T. Estacio Dr. Daniel T. Estacio, D.D.S. 818-247-3387 Dave Famili Dave Famili, DDS, MAGD 310-477-7744 Robert E. Gandin Albert R. Silvera DDS 310-274-0505 Nairi Haroian Comprehensive *VTT\UP[` /LHS[O Centers 818-265-2264 Brandon Ho 2LUUL[O /V ++: 0UJ )YHUKVU /V ++: 818-790-3923

Charles Huang River Dentistry 213-486-0006 Kouichi Itoh /VUKH 7SHaH +LU[HS *SPUPJ 213-687-3895 Harry Kawilarang /HYY` ;HPSVYPUN ++: 0UJ 323-582-8008 Yoko Kobayakawa +Y @VRV 2VIH`HRH^H D.D.S. 626-458-0005 Farhad Lalezarzadeh +Y -HYOHK 3HSLaHYaHKLO 323-923-3710 Jaeyong Lee J-Dental 213-382-0022

Abraham Nobel Nobel Dental 213-769-4750 4PU /LL 6O Avenue Dental 213-419-5500 Adelaida T. Quingco Dr. Adelaida T. Quingco, DMD 213-250-3998 Irina Rayfeld Commerce Dental 323-722-8700 4`SH 9VKYPN\La Santiago 4`SH 9VKYPN\La :HU[PHNV DDS 323-662-8354

3PNPH 3VWLa +Y 3PNPH 3VWLa ++: 323-663-3400

Abdi Sameni WLA Dental Center 310-312-0882

5LPS 4J3LVK Dr. Neil McLeod, DDS 310-275-5379

Peter A. Shimizu 7L[LY ( :OPTPa\ ++: 213-381-3738 L A M AG . C O M 133

2020 TOP DENTISTS

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

1LɈYL` /HTTV\KLO 7HJPÄJ *VHZ[ 6YHS Maxillofacial Surgery 818-241-4217 (SHU / 2H`L Alan H. Kaye, DDS 310-275-1134

90*/(9+ : :03=,9( DDS .LULYHS HUK *VZTL[PJ +LU[PZ[Y`

*LU[\Y` *P[` 4LKPJHS Plaza 2080 Century Park ,HZ[ :\P[L 3VZ (UNLSLZ *( 90067 310.553.2828 KYZPS]LYH JVT

Paul B. Tran Debby Tran D.D.S. Paul Tran D.D.S. 310-540-0017 Alma Vilkas-Stockus Alma Vilkas-Stockus, DDS 818-248-5593 Perry Wong Perry Wong, DDS 310-474-6802

Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery Yervant G. Aslanian Advanced Implant & Oral Surgery 818-247-3317 Michael C. Borenstein Michael C. Borenstein, D.D.S. 310-289-6999 Rennie Cheung Southern California Oral & Maxillofacial Surgical Arts 310-670-0220 Nam Cho 7HJPÄJ *VHZ[ 6YHS Maxillofacial Surgery 626-446-0728 1LɈYL` 3 +VUSL]` Donlevy, Estess & Lohiya: Oral Surgery Group 310-337-0007 Fariborz Farnad Beverly Hills Center for Orthognathic & Maxillofacial Surgery 310-276-5300 Earl G. Freymiller Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center 310-825-0834 Stephen Goei South Pasadena Oral Surgery 626-799-2999 13 4 L A M AG . C O M

2L]PU , 3L^

Kevin E. Lew, DDS, MD, Inc. 323-465-6451

*OHUKSLY . /V Hudson and Ho Orthodontics 818-244-2121

Alexander Waldman Waldman Orthodontics 310-652-1515

.LYHSK 0 +Y\Y` Gerald I. Drury, M.S., D.D.S., F.A.C.D. 310-376-9884

0YLUL ;HT Upland Dental Group and Implant Center 909-985-1966

:[\HY[ 1 /VɈTHU Calabasas Orthodontics 818-222-0900

7LKPH[YPJ +LU[PZ[Y`

Jean-Jacques Elbaz The Beverly Hills Center for Advanced Dental Implants & Periodontology 310-846-9482

Edmond M. Tash Edmond M. Tash DDS PC 323-939-9944

>PSSPHT /`THU Hyman Orthodontics 323-726-8300

:LYNL 3VRV[ West Valley Oral Surgery Group 818-788-4424 1HTLZ 7 4J(UKYL^Z Dr. James P. McAndrews, DDS 562-923-7257 7L[LY 2 4V` West Coast Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery Center 310-820-6691 +H]PK :HSLOHUP David Salehani, D.D.S., M.D. 310-275-3635 Jonathan Shadi Wilshire Oral Surgery and Implant Center 310-954-9449 W. Frederick Stephens ;OL 7HJPÄJ *VHZ[ *LU[LY for Oral, Facial and Cosmetic Surgery 626-440-0099 Richard Ting Santa Monica Center for Oral Surgery & Dental Implants 310-315-1034

-(*, *,5;,9 3( Richard Jacobson, DMD, MS +H]PK > +VYMTHU, MD, DDS C Philip Amoils, MD, FACS 881 Alma Real Drive, Suite 204 7HJPÄJ 7HSPZHKLZ CA 90272 310.857.2088 FaceCenter.LA

.HY` 2 2L]VYRPHU DesignerSmiles Orthodontics 818-244-8663 Sid Molayem Beverly Hills Braces 310-278-3280 (SVU 6ÄY 6ÄY 6Y[OVKVU[PJZ 562-396-9820

Rita Y. Chuang Breeze Orthodontics 310-540-5911 1LɈYL` 4 *VOLU 1LќYL` 4 *VOLU +4+ 310-247-8880 Vacharee B. Fell Culver City Orthodontics 310-837-5900

3LJPH /HYTLY Rumark & Harmer Pediatric Dentistry 818-943-8228 Peter Joe Little Crown Pediatric Dentistry 626-403-1800 :VUPH 3PT La Petite Kids Dentist 626-796-7600 Natalie Mansour Natalie Mansour DMD 818-500-7330 Zinnia C. Regala Zinnia C. Regala, DDS 818-846-8564

-9(52 70;( DDS, MSD 6Y[OVKVU[PJZ ,HZ[ 6SP]L Avenue, Suite 630 Burbank, CA 91501 818.848.0100 WP[HVY[OVKVU[PJZ JVT

Alice R. F. Shen Alice R.F. Shen, D.D.S., M.S. 626-792-8788

;`SLY /LUKY` Glendale Periodontics 818-423-5370 +LUUPZ 9 /\U[ Premier Care Dental Group 626-747-7855 +H]PK / 0ZHHJZ Woodman Dental Care 818-981-4508 9VUHSK 1 3HZJVL Burbank Periodontics 818-842-6162 6YP 3L]` River Lakes Dental Group and Orthodontics 661-829-2700

+LLWH :YLLUP]HZHU Westchester Pediatric Dentistry 310-216-5754

(IKVSSHO 4VZOYLÄ Bixby Knolls Dental Group 562-485-9917

*OYPZ[VWOLY 3 (JVUL Smiles Periodontics & Implant Dentistry 424-263-4919 +H]PK (UZVU Aesthetic Dental Implants & Periodontics 310-657-0999 Oded Bahat Oded Bahat BDS, MSD, FACD 310-859-8123 (SSHU / *OHYSLZ Pasadena Periodontal Associates 626-796-5361

Prosthodontics Nadim Z. Baba Nadim Z. Baba, DMD 818-240-0240

Tracy G. Golden Tracy G. Golden, DMD 310-209-7572

William Matoska Perio Implant Health Professionals 213-481-0664

Periodontics

1LɈYL` + >H[LYTHU 1LќYL` + >H[LYTHU ++: 310-441-1141

Farinoush Gaminchi Bright Smiles Dental Studio 818-528-8896

Joseph P. Sciarra Joseph P. Sciarra DDS 818-224-2970

Walden Yu Dr. Walden Yu, DDS 310-397-1806

Orthodontics

Gary M. Baum Baum Orthodontics 310-208-5678

Joseph F. Fiktarz Dr. Joseph F. Fiktarz, DDS 562-923-4543 Mark Goldenberg Beverly Hills Pediatric Dentistry 310-271-5231

Benjamin W. Walline Los Angeles Center for Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery, Dental Implants & Wisdom Teeth 310-842-4811

Rozheh Babaan The Orthodontic Studio 818-542-9800

Toni Chen Toni Chen DDS, Inc. 626-656-8680

-YHURSPU + 5P]LY Encino Periodontics & Dental Implants 818-788-6600 .VYKVU 3 7H[[PZVU LA Periodontics & Implant Specialists 310-473-3800 Victor Pineschi Victor Pineschi, DDS 310-826-8911 Ari Rosenblatt Periodontal & Implant Specialists of Beverly Hills 310-273-1900 :HOHY :OHÄ Santa Monica Bay Dental 310-453-8606 Ziv Simon Periodontal & Implant Specialists of Beverly Hills 310-273-1900

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Cults

S TA C I E S T U K I N

Strike a Poseur

YOGI BHAJAN TURNED AN L.A. YOGA STUDIO INTO A WORLDWIDE JUGGERNAUT WORTH MILLIONS. HE ALSO LEFT BEHIND TWO GENERATIONS OF FEMALE FOLLOWERS REELING FROM HIS ALLEGED SEXUAL PREDATION

YO G I U N B E A R A B L E

From left: Yogi Bhajan and followers celebrate the 1970 summer solstice. The former customs inspector moved to Los Angeles from New Delhi in 1968 and taught yoga classes where he allegedly indoctrinated female students into a cult of sexual servitude; children born to his followers pose with Bhajan at a boarding school in India after their parents were pressured into sending them abroad; Pamela Dyson, as a young Bhajan devotee and today. Her recent memoir about the yogi’s alleged sexual misconduct emboldened other women to come forward

N 1 9 6 8 , Pamela Saharah Dyson, 25 and newly divorced, moved into a Beachwood Drive duplex.

She sped through Hollywood in her black MG convertible to Burbank, where she worked as a secretary at Warner Bros. Records. In her free time she practiced hatha yoga, because the meditative states offered solace from her angst.

But she wanted a guru—someone who could give her a deeper understanding of Eastern philosophy. They say when the student is ready, the teacher appears. Later that year Dyson met Yogi Bhajan and began a journey that would transform her life. She wasn’t alone; in a very short time, the charismatic yogi gained a devoted following of mostly Bhajan claimed to be married yet celibate and had three white middle-class seekers who gave up their birth names children ldren with his wife, Bibi Inderjit Kaur Khalsa. But rumors and embarked with him on a prescriptive lifestyle that of his sexual misconduct circulated for years, especially liaicombined Sikhism, Kundalini yoga, and new age philososons ns with his female staff, a kind of harem who dressed in phies. He called himself a Saturn teacher, characterized by all white and in turbans. The women traveled with him, his disciplinarian style. attended ended to his personal and professional needs, and lived Dyson became Premka Kaur Khalsa, and she would devote like nuns with no families of their own. her life to her guru for 16 years. She was part Philip Deslippe, a yoga historian who has of his inner circle, earned the title of secretary written extensively about Yogi Bhajan, and general, and helped him build the organization is a doctoral candidate in the Department from a couple hundred hippies taking classes “He will be of Religious Studies at the University of from him in an antique store on the corner of remembered red California, Santa Barbara, wonders if Bhajan’s Melrose and Robertson into an international like a Harvey vey reputation can survive the onslaught. “I think behemoth with businesses, ashrams, and yoga n of Weinstein the scandals that are coming out will leave his studios all over the world. yoga. I believe ieve name and his legacy as toxic,” says Deslippe, Earlier this year, Dyson self-published who taught Kundalini yoga for a decade before Premka: White Bird in a Golden Cage: My Life his teachings ngs with Yogi Bhajan, in which she revealed that ted.” he began scrutinizing Bhajan through an will be tainted.” academic lens. “He will be remembered like a her guru-student relationship had a dark side.

PHILIP DESLIPPE, PE, Harvey Weinstein or a Jerry Sandusky of yoga, Her tale of love, betrayal, and sexual misconAN YOGA HISTORIAN and I believe his teachings will be tainted in a duct has the considered perspective of a woman way that will make it very hard to rebrand or who is now 77. She worked on the memoir for salvage them.”

12 years but has processed the trauma that After Bhajan died in 2004 at the age of 75—by then he led her to write it for more than 30, well before the #MeToo wass striken with heart disease, was diabetic, and confined movement. What was acceptable behavior decades ago, let to a wheelchair—he left behind a sprawling empire under alone a year, a month, or even a day ago, has changed so thee banner of the 3HO Foundation, which stands for healthy, rapidly that Dyson could not have anticipated the reckoning ppy, and holy. His New York Times obituary called him the happy, her story has wrought for a spiritual community that relies oss of worlds spiritual and capitalistic.” Over the years he “boss on the reverence of Yogi Bhajan as a pillar of its existence.

S U M M E R S O L ST I C E A N D P O RT R RA A I TS : CO U RT E SY PA M E L A DYS O N ; B OA R D I N G S C H O O L : CO U RT E SY N A D I N E ST E L L AVATO B R OW N

I

met with Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, John Paul II, and the Dalai Lama, and gained political capital in Espanola, New Mexico, where many of his businesses were headquartered. He became friendly with the state’s politicians, including Governor Bill Richardson, who, upon Bhajan’s death, ordered that flags be flown at half-staff. Bhajan liked gems, and amassed a maharaja-worthy collection of jewelry, a fleet of luxury cars (he was partial to Rolls-Royce and Mercedes), a 20-plus-acre ranch in Espanola, and an additional 120 acres nearby in the high desert. When he was at his Los Angeles headquarters, he liked to shop in Beverly Hills and dine at La Scala, which wasn’t far from the 3HO headquarters, comprised of several buildings in addition to his modest home on Preuss Road. He split his time between New Mexico and Los Angeles, visiting India often. But Bhajan’ Bhajan’s brand of yoga traveled all over the world, and today there ar are teachers and ashrams in South America, Europe, and Russia Russia.

His businesses flourished, too. In addition to the Kundalini Kundalin yoga enterprise—teacher trainings and events geared towar toward the 500,000 students the 3HO Foundation claims practic practice his brand of yoga—there was the Yogi Tea brand and Ak Akal Security, which over the years has been awarded $1 billion billio in federal contracts to guard courthouses, embassies, and an military bases. Like many 3HO businesses, Akal Secur Security was started by a community member who turned it over to the organization. It wasn’t as big a stretch as it might see seem for a yogi like Bhajan to run a security business, as South Sou Asian Sikhs have traditionally served in military and pol police

9 0 L A M AG . C O M

forces. Not to mention, according to Dyson, that Bhajan’s business philosophy was “OPI and OPM,” or Other People’s Intelligence and Money. But the way most people know Bhajan in Los Angeles is through Kundalini yoga taught at studios like Yoga West and the RA MA Institute. Yoga is big business, too: tuition for a teacher training can cost as much as $3,500, not to mention the revenues generated by 3H0-related companies that produce new-age music favored by yoga enthusiasts and instructors.

It was against this backstory of spiritual piety and roaring capitalism that Dyson published her memoir earlier this year. At first the book was an outlier and might have stayed so had it not triggered an unexpected outpouring of testimony from other women revealing stories of abuse at the hands of their guru that had been festering for decades.

The revelations stood in stark contrast to the inner-circle members of 3HO, who still abide by Bhajan’s prescriptive lifestyle, use the spiritual names he gave them, wear white, tuck their uncut hair into turbans, and start the day with an ice-cold shower and a session of Kundalini yoga, often in rooms adorned with portraits of their guru. Bhajan had arranged their marriages, and now some of their grown children, meant to pass his teachings on to a new generation, are claiming that they endured relentless sexual, emotional, and physical abuse at 3HO-sponsored schools in India and New Mexico. At the end of June, one of them filed a civil lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court alleging Bhajan engaged in child sexual abuse and intentional infliction of emotional L A M AG . C O M 91

Strike a Poseur C O N T I N U E D F R O M PAG E 9 5

Bhajan called her into a meeting where all the secretaries sat quietly in a circle around her. He proclaimed she was in love with him and told her that “she needed to be fucked,” the suit charges. “He told her that he had the world’s biggest cock and he would fuck her with it.” She agreed to sleep with him to end the coercive meeting, but instead of going to a party he promised to host to celebrate her acquiescence, she went to the bus station and bought a ticket to New York. “It was like a suicide for me,” she says. “They excommunicated me and I disappeared into the world.” Later she discovered everyone in 3HO was told she was a drug-taking prostitute living on the streets. (A spokesperson for 3HO said in an email that because the organization had yet to read the lawsuit, it could not comment.)

Meanwhile Bhajan’s popularity remained largely undiminished. “Over the years friends have come to me, excited to share that they’ve found Kundalini yoga,” says Khalsa. “They tell me he’s a saint. That’s like sticking a dagger in my heart. He was a lecherous,

manipulative, creepy man, and he’s responsible for so much trauma and abuse. No one should be doing his yoga.”

Deslippe attributes Bhajan’s enduring appeal to 3HO’s Sikhism. “Sikh values align very easily with the conservative mainstream. They believe in family, in hard work. They run their own businesses. They do yoga. They don’t take drugs, so none of it sticks,” he explains.

“All these things keep 3HO off the radar.”

While Bhajan was allegedly indulging in unfettered sexual abuse, some of his far-flung enterprises were attracting attention from authorities. In 1988, the DEA raided the home of a member of Bhajan’s inner circle in Great Falls, Virginia. Gurujot Singh Khalsa was apprehended as part of an undercover sting operation and convicted for participating in an international drug smuggling conspiracy that transported thousands of pounds of marijuana into the United States.

Ten years later, Hari Jiwan Khalsa, who holds the position of chief of protocol at 3HO and is another close associate of Bhajan, paid a $4 million judgment to settle FTC charges related to a company he owned that telemarketed gemstones and fraudulently represented that the purchases would reap huge profits. (Bhajan had claimed that there was no karma over the telephone, which emboldened other telemarketing businesses within 3HO.) Another Harijiwan Khalsa associated with 3HO spent nearly two years in prison for a Los Angeles-based “toner bandit” operation that invoiced medical offices for copy-machine toner never delivered. (The latter Harijiwan is now an L.A.-based Kundalini yoga teacher and a member of the band White Sun, which won Best New Wave Album at the 59th Grammy Awards in 2015.)

O O O O

CO U RT E SY: T E J ST E I N E R

REASSESSING A LEGACY

C OM PA N Y H E K E P T

Tej Steiner, right, parted with Bhajan over the yogi’s sexual relationship with a 3HO executive

In 1986, Dyson filed a civil lawsuit against 3HO and Bhajan. Another former Bhajan follower, Katherine Felt, alleged in a separate suit that he repeatedly raped her. Dyson’s complaint described sexual and psychological abuse, assault and battery, malnutrition due to forced fasting, and sleep deprivation. The suit stated that “Bhajan has no good faith belief that he is serving God or guru, but rather is devoted to serving himself

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by obtaining his followers’ money, talents, and sexual services.” The suit sought $25 million in damages but was settled out of court for much less.

(Bhajan repeatedly claimed medical exemptions and was never deposed.)

“He was quite demeaning to women,” Dyson recalls. “They say he exalts women and the divine feminine, but then he teaches that men have the right to beat and rape their wives. It was all about power.” His lectures have been meticulously transcribed and are accessible on a 3HO website called the Library of Teachings. “Rape is always invited . . . a person who is raped is always providing subconsciously the environments and the arrangements,” Bhajan stated in a lecture in 1978. “If you do not provide the circumstances and arrangements, it is impossible.”

As for battering, he said in 1989, “But the funny part of it is there are some women who get stimulated by being beaten . . . 20 percent [of] women get abused and it stimulates them and 30 percent [of ] women are those who provoke violence and like to enjoy it.”

Awtar Kaur Khalsa, director of the San Francisco Kundalini Yoga Center, thinks it’s time to take a critical look at Bhajan. She’s a lead teacher trainer whose been involved with 3HO since 1972. While she never personally witnessed sexual misconduct, in February she posted to Facebook a

“I’m so grateful for the practice, but as a woman and feminist, I will never quote him or mention his name again.”

LIBBY LYDECKER, KUNDALINI YOGA INSTRUCTOR

statement she’d written and revised for nearly five years. It began, “Over the decades reports of sexual abuse by my spiritual teacher, Yogi Bhajan, have spurred various responses. Some

find the accusations unthinkable and traitorous. I have been one of them.

Others minimize, ignore or compartmentalize the allegations. I have done this, too. But I can’t do it anymore.”

Speaking for herself and other women in thrall to Bhajan, she adds, “We always knew he was the master manipulator, but we assumed he was doing it for the greater good.” That Bhajan engaged in sexual relationships with his staff when he preached monogamy and claimed to be celibate seemed an especially corrosive betrayal to her. “At the time I assumed it was marginally consensual, so I rationalized it. I’m embarrassed to say it, I’m a very smart person in many parts of my life, but when it came to this stuff, I was willing to be uncritical. And, of course, nowadays we understand these power dynamics and it is not consent.”

Awtar has not taken off her turban, but she has stepped back from teaching to study cults and mind control. “My whole career I fought the label of cult—I rejected it,” she says. “It didn’t seem to fit the cult markers. But as I

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U N D E D 192

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learn more about that combination of terror and love, I do feel like it’s a cult.

I’m willing to be quoted as saying that.

And with certain people, my social capital just went to zero.”

In Los Angeles and across the world, Yogi Bhajan’s most lasting legacy may be Kundalini yoga. This isn’t a discipline that requires acrobatic stunts or contortionist flexibility. Rather, it’s a remnant of yoga’s early hippie days when achieving an altered consciousness offered a counter-narrative to the pervasive drug culture: arm-waving, breathing that veers on hyperventilation called “breath of fire,” chanting mantras, meditation, and gong sound baths. Every class still ends with a blessing song, “May the Long Time Sun Shine Upon You.” Teachers and students tout the practice’s healing properties and its ability to shift consciousness in a way that other yoga does not. But studios that offer Kundalini yoga may now have to reevaluate whether they can separate the teacher from the teachings, and whether their students are willing to do the same.

Libby Lydecker has practiced Kundalini yoga for more than 20 years and became a certified teacher in 2007.

When she first met Bhajan in 1998, he slapped her across the face and said, “You are too blessed to be unhappy.” At the time she thought that act prophetic and felt fortunate to receive his tough love; now she views it as a cover for misogyny. When she teaches, Lydecker uses the spiritual name Dya Kaur, but she doesn’t wear a turban and didn’t adopt 3HO Sikhism. “I’m so grateful for the practice. It’s been a beautiful experience that has helped me and my students immensely. But as a woman and a feminist, I will never quote him or mention his name again.”

Harijiwan Khalsa, the Grammywinning toner bandit who went to jail on felony fraud charges, posted a video called The Futile Flow of Fate, with images of Bhajan surrounded by angelic women in white. In the video, he defends Bhajan and accuses Dyson of writing her memoir solely for financial gain. His mentee, Guru Jagat, whose students include Alicia Keyes, Kate Hudson, and Moon Juice’s Amanda Chantal Bacon, and who presents herself as an advocate for women, shared Khalsa’s video. When comments critical of the video were

posted, they were deleted and the comment section was closed. (Khalsa and Guru Jagat did not respond to interview requests.)

Until Dyson published her book, she lived a quiet life in Hawaii and didn’t realize how popular Kundalini yoga had become. Nor did she imagine the explosion her book would ignite.

Several times she considered abandoning the project because she didn’t want to cause harm. She finally decided she would withdraw the book, went to

sleep, and woke feeling relieved. Then, she says, a light appeared, and in its center was an image of Yogi Bhajan.

The energy emanating from the light was warm and grateful—a source of wonder. She recognized that Bhajan was trapped in what the Buddhists call the hell realm. She then understood that he would not be free until his followers were. “Take him down off the altar,” she says. “He’s not a master.

He’s far from being a saint. Just take him off.”

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Q

Who are those kids frolicking on the walls of the Hollywood Freeway downtown?

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The Other Science Guy THE CITY AN AUTHOR ADORED LOVES HIM RIGHT BACK

OF F T H E WA L L

L E F T: R O B I N D U N I TZ ; B E LOW: G E T T Y I M AG E S

Artist Glenna Avila’s Olympic mural

A: The seven running, jumping tots depicted in Glenna Avila’s masterpiece are among the last remnants of a mural program commissioned to welcome the 1984 Olympics to L.A. The artist borrowed the kids from her family and friends. Her nephew Joseph is now a musician, cousin Jana is an aerospace engineer, and nephew Greg is starting a hemp farm in Kern County. Yuriko is a special-ed teacher; Kevin, a TV producer; Misty, a teacher in Pasadena; and the toddler, Gabriel, now a burly contractor in Glendale, still smaller than his 18-foot image.

Q: Where do TV doctor shows get the scary organs displayed on surgery monitors?

Whose colonoscopy am I watching?

A: Due to healthcare privacy laws, set designers often 140 L A M AG . C O M

have to fake surgeries digitally or use old-fashioned movie magic like plastic tubing and red food coloring. Some shows prefer pig organs from medical research companies since they most re-

semble human ones.

As far as colons go, almost everyone has taken a peek at Dorian Weber’s. The enterprising Austrian photographer begged his doctor for footage of an old procedure. He now earns a small fortune selling the gory images to TV and movie productions at $4,300 a pop. But don’t get any moneymaking ideas.

Q: Pacific Design Center. Why? What was there before that?

A: An endless parade of ailing street-

cars and buses once rolled through West Hollywood’s Sherman Yard, which served as a municipal repair and maintenance facility from 1896 to 1974. Eager to upscale those 19 prime acres, developers came up with the idea for 1.6 million square feet of interior-design showrooms offering fancy wallpaper, home elevators, and chairs ranging from Chippendale to Hepplewhite. Today the site of the old repair shop is the premiere design showplace on the West Coast.

During the 1960s, famed sci-fi writer Ray Bradbury moonlighted as a contributor to Los Angeles, making passionate pleas for a monorail down Wilshire Boulevard and electing Walt Disney as mayor.

This month would have marked the late author’s 100th birthday, and fans of The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451 are celebrating with virtual read-a-thons, podcasts, and online screenings of his adapted works. A centennial documentary on the Smithsonian Channel premieres on August 22. The Venice branch of the Los Angeles Public Library, too, is hosting an online screening of his classic Twilight Zone episode “I Sing the Body Electric” on that same day in August. Enjoy the summer, pour yourself a glass of dandelion wine, and tune in at 2 p.m.

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