Los Angeles Magazine - October 2022

SKID ROW NATION

HOW L.A.’S HOMELESSNESS POLICIES CREATED TENT CITIES ACROSS AMERICA

BY SAM QUINONES

CALL OF BEAUTY

WHERE HOLLYWOOD’S TOP STARS GO TO SAVE THEIR SKIN

WHAT’S UP, WITCHES?

A PHOTO SALUTE TO WEHO’S HALLOWEEN PARADE

MEET THE ZODIAC KILLER

COULD A RIDDLE-LOVING RIGHT-WINGER FROM NAPA REALLY BE ONE OF AMERICA’S MOST-STORIED SERIAL KILLERS? HIS DAUGHTER CERTAINLY THINKS SO

BY AARON GELL

LA MAGAZINE

O C T O B E R 202 2

FRIGHT NIGHT

Pulling strings at WeHo’s 2018 Halloween Carnaval.

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Has the Zodiac Killer Mystery Been Solved?

For more than 50 years, the culprit’s identity has been as maddening a riddle as the ciphers he once sent police.

But now, an L.A. novelistturned-amateur sleuth may have finally cracked the case.

BY AA R O N G E L L 4 L A M AG.C OM

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Skid Row Nation The author of the definitive book on the methamphetamine crisis argues that the drug, along with L.A. policies and lawsuits by homelessness advocates, helped spread tent cities across America.

BY SA M Q U I N O N E S

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Yo Witches, Who Canceled Halloween?

West Hollywood has nixed its annual “Carnaval” for the third year in a row—maybe forever. But don’t get spooked.

You can still gawk at decades of delightful decadence in this issue.

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Paradise Lost Beset by climate change and billionaire carpetbaggers, Napa Valley, California’s legendary wine-making eden, braces for an uncertain future.

BY CO L M A N A N D R E WS

B A R R Y K I N G /A L A M Y L I V E N E W S

Features

O C T O B E R 202 2

Buzz

We’re Going to Need a Bigger Boat

› If UCLA researchers are

correct about the upcoming ARkStorm, most of L.A. could soon become beachfront property.

BY PETER KIEFER PAGE 13

WILD ABOUT H A R RY

America’s reigning prince of pop kicks off a sold-out concert run this month.

The Brief

› A behind-the-scenes

brouhaha at Horses; Nick Cannon’s baby brigade; an X-rated footwear line; Nika Soon-Shiong skips town.

PAGE 16

Shirts Happen

› Five years ago, Scott

Rogowsky was poised to become a global superstar.

So how did he end up selling vintage schmattes in Santa Monica?

BY ANDREW GOLDMAN PAGE 20

Surreal Estate

› Ozzy lists the Osbornes’

Hancock Park mansion for $18 million; hip house paint is a thing; L.A. defies the real estate slump (for now).

BY JESSICA RITZ PAGE 22

Ask Chris

› What does Disneyland do

with all the coins tossed into its fountains? Is the public ever allowed access to the Hollywood Sign?

What’s going to happen to the Farmer John pig mural? Our resident historian anwers all your burning questions.

Incoming!

› How Noah Centineo became Hollywood’s latest superhero; OC’s awesome new art museum; fall’s can’t-miss concerts; a hearth-warming Glassell Park restaurant; how to look like Tom of Finland; the skinny on celebrity skin.

PAG E 2 5 6 L A M AG.C OM

ON THE COVER Illustrated by Robert Carter

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Editor’s Note

BY MAER ROSHAN

W I T H H A L L OW E E N just around the corner, we wanted to dive into the spirit of the holiday by making this issue just a little bit scary. Unfortunately, we may have overdone it.

For starters, there’s Aaron Gell’s extraordinary cover story about an L.A. novelistturned-amateur sleuth who may very well have solved the decades-old mystery of the identity of the Zodiac killer. You remember Zodiac—the serial slayer who terrorized Northern California in the late 1960s and whose taunting notes to police and reporters became the inspirations for scores of smugly superior fictional mass murderers like Hannibal Lecter. After you finish that piece, you’ll be switching on lights all over your house.

But, if for some reason, serial killers don’t frighten you, writer-at-large Peter Kiefer’s piece on the looming ARkStorm—a catastrophic weather event that UCLA scientists predict could happen anytime over the next 10 L A M A G . C O M

“Our piece on the ARkStorm will have you inspecting your weather stripping.

Or buying a boat.

Or moving to Kansas.

It’s that terrifying a read.”

50 years—will definitely have you inspecting your weather stripping. Or maybe buying a boat. Or moving to Kansas. It’s that terrifying a read.

On a less scary but equally disturbing note, there’s award-winning author and addiction expert Sam Quinones’s deep dive into Skid Row, which explores the issue of homelessness in L.A.—and across the rest of the nation—in a way seldom addressed. Turns out the tent cities that first sprang up in Skid Row and have since spread to cities throughout America may not be solely caused by the rising cost of housing, as many advocates believe. New, insidiously addictive forms of drugs, like meth and fentanyl, are also to blame, as are equally insidious court decisions that have hamstrung municipalities.

“Skid Row is the center of what homelessness has become in America, a zone of lawlessness where drugs are, de facto, legalized and people die almost daily,” Quinones writes.

Speaking of hamstrung municipalities—or, in this case, chowderheaded ones—did you know that West Hollywood has called off its annual Halloween parade for the third year in a row? The event annually drew hundreds of thousands to the city—nobody does Halloween like L.A. The WeHo City Council’s excuse is concerns about COVID-19, even though that same council greenlit a Pride parades earlier in the summer, when COVID case numbers were even higher. Now that the parade may be permanently canceled—a story we first broke in August on lamag.com— we decided to pull together a spectacular photo portfolio that should remind anybody who needs reminding just how fabulous WeHo’s Halloween parades have been in decades past.

So lock your doors, turn on your security alarm, and enjoy this month’s issue.

Maer Roshan, Editor-in-Chief PHOTOGR A PH ED BY SH Y ASGH A R N I A

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We’re Going to Need a Bigger Boat IF UCLA RESEARCHERS ARE CORRECT ABOUT THE COMING ARKSTORM, MUCH OF L.A. COULD SOON BECOME BEACHFRONT PROPERTY

BY PETER KIEFER I L L U S T R AT E D B Y N E I L J A M I E S O N

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O O N E K N O WS when it’ll happen—it could positions. They’ ll be the be five months or five decades. No one can say first point of contact for the exactly how bad it will be, although most prerunoff. dictions put it somewhere between a Roland “Look at [the 2018 mudEmmerich disaster movie and a diluvial apocflow in] Montecito,” says alypse. At this point, only one thing is for sure.

Mount. “The ability [of a It’s going to get wet. Very, very wet. storm] to move debris out of HERE’S HOW AN ARKSTORM It’s called the ARkStorm scenario, a catastrophic weather steep mountains, especially WEATHER EVENT COULD event that, according to a terrifying, just-released report if they recently burned, is TURN L.A. INTO THE compiled by scientists at UCLA, could dwarf California’s extraordinary.” droughts, fires, and even earthquakes in overall destruction.

All eyes will then turn to BIGGEST, LEAST-FUN Triggered in part by global warming, the storm will theoretithe L.A. River. Most experts WATER PARK EVER. cally begin brewing off the coastline, where it will form a series agree that it will be only a of “atmospheric rivers,” massive squalls stretching hundreds matter of time before the of miles, that go on for weeks. It’ll dump 100 inches of rain, channel is overwhelmed . an unprecedented deluge, triggering mudslides and washing “It’s not just a backdrop for movies,” says Swain. “The whole debris from mountains across the region. Electrical grids will idea of [the L.A. River] is flood control, and it has worked be darkened. Cell towers will be toppled. Roads and highways really well up to a point. But would it be able to handle this? will be impassable. Millions will be displaced. Entire areas— That’s an open question.” With perhaps too obvious an answer. including large swaths of Los Angeles—will be under water.

The L.A. River wasn’t engineered to deal with debris. A single “This would be worse than anything Southern California shopping cart, let alone the rubble and detritus of a biblicalhas experienced since it became a densely populated urban level storm, could create a jam almost anywhere along its area,” notes the lead author of the UCLA report, Daniel nearly 50-mile course running from the San Fernando Valley Swain, who predicts that the ARkStorm could be four times to Long Beach. as catastrophic as “The Big One,” the giant, long-anticipated If the waters do breach the river’s channel walls, it could lay earthquake that will someday likely erupt along the San waste to the surrounding areas, flooding thousands of homes Andreas Fault. “There’s really no historical analogy for what and wreaking havoc on everything from petrochemical plants we’re talking about here.” to movie studios.

Scared yet? We talked to a bunch of geomorphologists, Mount predicts that the first wave of evacuations will seismologists, historians, and flooding experts for a glimpse occur about a week into the ARkStorm, starting in low-lying of what to expect. You may want to crawl under areas like Long Beach, Compton, Venice, and your blankets for the rest of this.

Marina del Rey, which will rapidly turn into Let’s start with the good news: unlike the case lakes. After week two, the city’s defenses, “This would with earthquakes, residents of L.A. will probMount believes, will be completely overably get ample notice—perhaps a week or even whelmed . “Bad assumptions that were made be worse than more—from when the ARkStorm forms off the in the 1930s are going to come back to bite us anything coast until it ultimately makes landfall. The bad 100 years later,” he says.

California news: Just leaving town won’t be enough. The But wait, it gets even worse. Major highhas sheer size and duration of the storm means it’ll ways that connect Los Angeles to the north stretch across pretty much the whole coastline and east could be shut down for several weeks experienced.” and farther inland. due to landslides, flooding, and debris flows.

Upon reaching the L.A. Basin, the storm Erosion leading to cliff failure could close system will slam into the San Gabriel and Pacific Coast Highway for a month or more, San Bernardino mountains. The steepness and elevation of isolating residents of Malibu, Oxnard, and Ventura. To avoid those ranges will cause the air in the system to rise quickly, being stranded—or worse, seeing their homes slide away— cool, and then reduce pressure, triggering a downpour residents of the Hollywood Hills better hope their engineers unlike anything the region has experienced in modern hisdid the right math. Emergency vehicles would be rendered tory. Because of Southern California’s semiarid climate and obsolete, so fleets of boats and helicopters would be mobilized shallow soil, it won’t take long for the ground to become to aid those stranded in the most severely impacted commusaturated, resulting in unparalleled amounts of runoff. nities, assuming boats and helicopters could operate in such “L.A. is sitting at the base of a mountain range, which is the weather conditions. perfect flood-generating machine,” explains Jeffrey Mount, As the storm wears on, clean and drinkable water would senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California’s Water become scarce as wastewater treatment plants, which, Policy Center, who lays out a frightening sequence of events. deprived of the chemicals they need to operate, would, one Neighborhoods ranging from La Cañada Flintridge to by one, start to shut down. At wastewater treatment faciliRancho Cucamonga, nestled in the alluvial fans around the ties that are flooded, nearby residents could start to see and base of the San Gabriel range, will be in the most precarious smell raw sewage emerge from maintenance holes. Flooded

C R E D I TS T K H E R E A N D H E R E

HOW BAD CAN IT GET?

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La Cañada Flintridge A Mountain Landing in Your Living Room Any of the communities nestled in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains could be severely impacted by flooding and debris flows due to their proximity to alluvial fans.

Debris basins are in place to mitigate that but would likely be overwhelmed.

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Malibu Moonshadows is Toast (Or More Like Mud) After the deadly 2018 Montecito mudslide, the 101 freeway was shut down for 12 days.

A similar scenario, only worse, will likely play out in Malibu during an ARkStorm as Pacific Coast Highway is prone to cliff failure and mudslides.

Venice Marina Those Row Boats on the Canals Will Come in Handy Ballona Creek and the Venice Canals are the kind of sea-level basins that are seriously problematic. Not only will they be receiving enormous amounts of runoff but also winds could drive coast surge, quickly turning them into lakes.

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Glendale A River Runs Through It . . . and All Over It The Los Angeles River cuts right through Glendale, which puts that community and neighboring areas like Atwater Village and Silver Lake at high risk should the river overflow. Which it almost certainly will, thanks to tons of rainswept debris clogging the channels.

manholes, toppled poles, and damaged fiber-optic cables would result in widespread power outages affecting much, if not all, of the county, knocking out telecommunications and internet access for millions.

The supply chain would soon be undermined as well, which would have national implications as hauling goods out of the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro—the busiest seaport in the Western Hemisphere—would be stalled for who knows how long.

Of course, keep in mind that all of the above are just predictions. There is a chance, however slim, that none of the above will ever materialize. The UCLA report estimates the odds of the ARkStorm happening at about the same as the Big

The Key to the City (Disaster Version) [1] FOOD SHORTAGES With highways impassable and the Port of Los Angeles shut down, food supply lines could be interrupted or completely cut off.

[2] MUDSLIDES Wherever people build multimillion-dollar homes on top of hills— whether in Malibu or Hollywood—there will be mudslides.

[3] FULLY SUBMERGED Neighborhoods at or below sea level—like Venice, Marina del Rey, and Long Beach—will likely become lakes.

[4] IMPASSABLE Large sections of the 405, the 10, and the 5 freeways and other major and minor roadways will be undrivable, thanks to flooding and debris.

[5] DOWNED CELL TOWERS Flooding will likely knock down towers all over town, leaving millions without cell or internet service.

[6] POWER OUTAGES Electrical plants will be rendered inoperable due to flooding; power lines will also be snapped as poles are toppled by raging waters carrying tons of debris.

One striking (which, alarmingly, the U.S. Geological Society puts at 70 percent before the year 2030, although the odds are only about 1 percent that the Big One will occur in the next year).

Still, it pays to be prepared. “It’s hard to imagine it because, the more we are afraid of something, the more powerless we feel about stopping it,” offers Dr. Lucy Jones, a seismologist who has been modeling theoretical ARkStorm events since 2010. “But you need to think about it. You have to give people a clear picture that there is something you can do.”

Hopefully, what that something might be—beyond collecting animals two by two—will be the subject of the next UCLA report.

L A M AG . C O M 1 5

The Brief N E W S & N O T E S F R O M A L L OV E R

HOLD YOUR HORSES! IS KEN FRIEDMAN REALLY A PARDNER? THE HOT HOLLYWOOD EATERY CIRCLES THE WAGONS AGAINST A NOTORIOUS RESTAURATEUR

BY BETH LANDMAN

L.A.’S BUZZIEST

eatery, Horses, has been feeling some heat lately, but it’s got nothing to do with the marinated peppers it serves with its butcher’s steak over vine cuttings. Instead, Horses owners, Liz Johnson, Will Aghajanian, and investor Stephen Light have come under fire for collaborating with notorious restaurateur Ken Friedman.

Friedman, as every foodie knows, is the Hollywood-born former music-industry A&R man who corralled some of his pop-star pals—Bono, Jay-Z, Fat Boy Slim—into 1 6 L A M AG . C O M

investing in his prizewinning Manhattan gastropub, the Spotted Pig. Then, in 2020, a year after it won a James Beard restaurateur award, he ended up shuttering the Spotted Pig and paying $240,000 to former staffers who’d accused him of sexual harassment.

Exactly how involved Friedman was with the opening of Horses in 2020 depends on whom you believe. Johnson, Aghajanian, and Light admit that Friedman introduced them to the restaurant’s prime space on Sunset Boulevard—former site of the Pikey. But

they insist that their relationship with him ended soon after. “Ken Friedman has never and will never receive compensation, or benefits of any kind, from any business that we are a part of,” Johnson tells Los Angeles. “He is not a partner, a silent partner, an investor, a consultant, nor someone I would consider a friend.”

Friedman, however, claims he remains a 20 percent owner of the bistro even if the other owners want to keep his involvement on the down-low, given his recent notoriety.

Although he can produce no contract or other documents, text messages from late 2021 unearthed by the website Eater do appear to back him up. “You are a silent partner helping the owner as an ‘expert’,” Light writes in one missive, suggesting that Friedman’s participation would be publicly acknowledged once “your previous baggage falls off ” and promising that he will be “sharing in the profits.”

Says Johnson of the text messages, “Any discussions that you’ve been made privy to are just that—discussions.”

GIVING A WHOLE NEW MEANING TO THE WORD SHOEHORN TA L K A B O U T a foot

fetish. Doc Johnson, the world-famous 46-year-old sex-toy company based

in North Hollywood, has started selling rubber shoes made out of recycled dildos and other melteddown erotic devices. The water-resistant footwear—think Crocs, but kinkier—was developed in collaboration with Rose in Good Faith, the L.A.-based luxury fashion brand, as part of a sustainability and safe-sex initiative.

“We had discussed a few concepts—Rose in Good Faith was thinking of doing something teetering on BDSM—and we took them for a tour of our manufacturing facility,” says Doc Johnson COO Chad Braverman of the genesis of the sex-toy shoe.

B AT T E R I E S NOT I NC LU DE D

Doc Johnson and Rose in Good Faith’s new sex-toy shoes

“I guess the waste component of our production stuck out to them.”

As it turns out, an alarming number of sex toys on Doc Johnson’s manufacturing line are deemed defective and get thrown away—or at least they used to be before the companies started turning

H O R S E S : LU C KY T E N N YS O N ; F R I E D M A N : PAU L Z I M M E R M A N /G E T T Y I M AG E S FO R T U R N E R ; S H O E S : @ R O S E I N G O O D FA I T H

RIDER ON THE STORM

Ken Friedman (inset) claims to be a not-so-silent partner at Horses.

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THE BRIEF THE PERCENTAGE OF CARS PURCHASED IN CALIFORNIA IN 2022 THAT WERE ELECTRIC (COMPARED WITH 5.6 PERCENT NATIONALLY).

THAT’S A GOOD START ON THE ROAD TO 2035, WHEN THE SALE OF NEW INTERNAL CUMBUSTION VEHICLES WILL BE OUTLAWED IN THE STATE.

and reporters. She’s also ruffled feathers on West Hollywood’s Public Safety Commission after pushing through a plan to slash six deputies from WeHo’s Sheriff ’s Station.

But the Times and West Hollywood won’t have

OFF TO OXFORD

Patrick Soon-Shiong’s daughter is leaving L.A.

three congressional bids had been less than spectacular showings. After he won the Times endorsement, the paper’s news desk discovered a trove of his since-deleted tweets including one in which Mejia denounced Joe Biden as a rapist and another defending genocidal Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. But at press time, he remains the front-runner in the race. —JA S O N M CG A H A N

SPIRITS GO GENDER NEUTRAL. YOU LISTENING, GLOBES? THE GRAMMYS DID

websites; a black version has since been introduced.

The retail price starts at $130, but the thrill of wearing dildos on your feet is, of course, priceless.

TIMES TO NIKA: HERE’S YOUR HAT, WHAT’S YOUR HURRY? W H AT ’ S T H AT

enormous sigh of relief you’re hearing inside the Los Angeles Times? It might have something to do with Nika Soon-Shiong’s travel plans. The 29-yearold activist daughter of the paper’s publisher, Patrick Soon-Shiong, has raised eyebrows over the past few years for her role as “special adviser” to the Times, a vague position that apparently involved her posting critical tweets about the paper’s stories 1 8 L A M AG . C O M

Nika to kick around anymore; she’ll be decamping to England in the fall.

“I’m in the third year of a Ph.D. program at Oxford, which I’ve been pursuing remotely during the pandemic,” she explains, adding that she’s writing her thesis on cash transfer systems in India.

“I think there’s a sense that Nika has pushed the paper leftward, even though she doesn’t have an official position,” snipes a veteran editor who isn’t shedding any tears over her departure. Complaints about the heiress reached a fever pitch in April, when the Times editorial board shocked almost everyone by endorsing Nika’s preferred candidate for L.A. city controller, a little-known Green Party activist named Kevin Mejia, whose previous

it in 2012. The MTV awards made the switch in 2017; the Gotham Awards, in 2021. And now, the Independent Spirit Awards are the latest to ditch gender distinctions. From now on, there will be no best actors or best actresses—just best performances.

“We’re thrilled to join the other festivals and award shows that are moving to celebrate great acting without reference to gender,” says Josh Welsh, president of Film Independent.

Of course, the Oscars and Emmys still separate nominees into gender groupings, as do the scandal-plagued Golden Globes. Come to think of it, this may be a golden opportunity for the Globes. Adopting gender-neutral awards could be just the thing to turn their tarnished image around. You listening, HFPA?

Baby Number What?!

Among Nick Cannon’s many, many talents— acting, rapping, joke telling, hosting—the 41-year-old TV personality is amazing at volume parenting. And giving his kids names that definitely won’t result in teasing when they get to middle school. As of this writing, he’s got seven children with four different baby mamas—and two more are on the way (with Brittany Bell and Abby De La Rosa). Here’s a handy crib sheet in case you’re invited to a baby shower: Monroe Cannon 11, with ex-wife Mariah Carey Moroccan Scott Cannon 11, with Carey

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them into shoes by grinding them into cubes of thermoplastic elastomer and molding them into footwear. The first batch, produced only in white, went on sale in July on both Doc Johnson’s and Rose in Good Faith’s

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Golden Cannon 5, with Bell Zillion Heir Cannon almost 2, with De La Rosa Powerful Queen Cannon 1, with Bell Zion Mixolydian Cannon 1, with De La Rosa Legendary Love Cannon three months, with Brie Tiesi

V I D E O : @ N I K A S O O N S H I O N G ; N I C K , M O R O CC A N : F R E S H A I R F U N D/ W I R E I M AG E ; N I C K , G O L D E N : DA N I E L K N I G H TO N /G E T T Y I M AG E S ; Z I L L I O N : @ H I A B BY D E L A R O SA ; P OW E R F U L : @ N I C KC A N N O N

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S E C O N D AC T S TRIVIAL PURSUIT

HQ anchor Scott Rogowsky at his new Santa Monica store

and improvisational ease. Dixon Talent, which managed the careers of Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Jimmy Kimmel, swooped in to sign him, followed by ICM. Rogowsky had his first taste of viral fame in 2016 as the prankster who filmed New York City subway riders’ reactions to the covers of fake books he’d be reading, like Slut Shaming Your Baby and Human Taxidermy: A Beginner’s Guide. Last August, when he posted a TikTok video of himself inside a modest storefront, captioned “Ever wonder what happened to that trivia guy? He’s running a vintage clothing shop,” some commenters wondered if he was joking.

He wasn’t. “This was supposed to be a three-month experiment, and I just extended the lease till the end of the year,” Rogowsky says of his shop, Quiz Daddy’s Closet, at 2525 Main Street in Santa Monica. His thrifting obsession began decades ago, in a Salvation Army store near his high school in Harrison, New York. “I would go down there and pick out these amazing ’80s shirts for one dollar, two dollars,” he says.

Eventually, he also began buying pieces that didn’t fit him.

“For one dollar, I couldn’t just leave them there!”

After graduating from Johns Hopkins University, he chased fame as a comedian in New York but continued thrifting, and his collection swelled. When writers’ room gigs eluded him, he began hosting Running Late, a homemade, live talk show in New York theaters, which attracted stars from “Weird Al” Yankovic to Amy Sedaris. “I thought, if I really hone my craft as a talk show host and if someone’s looking for a host for their next show, well, here I am,” he SCOTT ROGOWSKY USED TO BE A GLOBAL INTERNET says. “The industry had other ideas.” The networks didn’t call, SENSATION. NOW, HE’S SELLING VINTAGE SCHMATTES but a trivia app launched by Rus Yusupov and Colin Kroll, IN SANTA MONICA B Y A N D R E W G O L D M A N the tech bros who’d founded Vine, did. Though they’d sold Vine for about $30 million, Rogowsky’s starting salary was $150 a day. But soon after HQ Trivia took off (and Rogowsky OVID -19 HAS not only had lingering effects on negotiated a raise), the whole thing tanked. Kroll died of a people’s ability to drink more and smell less, but drug overdose in December 2018; HQ shut down two years it has also affected our collective sense of time, later. A subsequent show he hosted in 2018 suffered a similar since it feels like the HQ Trivia craze occurred fate. When Alex Trebek announced his retirement in 2018, 20 years ago, when, in fact, it was barely five.

Rogowsky begged his agent to get him a shot at Jeopardy!

Though the interactive, app-based quiz show made 37-year“I thought I was the perfect fit,” he says. “I didn’t old comedian Scott Rogowsky famous, he now even get a meeting.” sounds weary of discussing the messy implosion Last year, Rogowsky packed his stuff and moved of the start-up. “I don’t need to get into all that,” he “I’m not west to Marina del Rey, to be near a girl and a gig sighs. “There’s a whole documentary coming out closing the at a tech start-up, both of which evaporated within about it next year on CNN.” Like those for the Fyre door on months. And then, crickets. “Every day, I was going Festival, another 2017 phenomenon, HQ Trivia showbiz,” he to the pool, hanging out at the hot tub,” he says. autopsies are becoming a genre unto themselves; a says. “I’m “One day, I decided, I can’t just sit around.” He couple years ago, the Ringer released Boom/Bust, just trying to ditched his agent and his manager. “I just needed a podcast about HQ’s meltdown. re-evaluate.” a psychic break from all that,” he says. In January, HQ was, in the parlance of the day, “yuge.” while biking through Ocean Park, he noticed all Office employees across the country ceased work the stores that had closed during the pandemic to compete together to answer 12 trivia questions and took a lease on the cheapest one—nothing fancy, but and win prizes. Dan Rather reported that three generations spacious enough to display his lifetime collection of vintage of Rathers “hooted and hollered”—and netted about 30 clothing, lunch boxes, and trading cards. The lease, he stresses, bucks—after winning a game one Christmas. The Rock and is short-term. “I’m not closing the door on showbiz, just trying Robert D”e Niro both guested alongside Rogowsky. A game to reevaluate,” he says. Should a talk show suddenly need both once attracted 2.4 million players. Ironically, it was technical a host and a vintage satin Boston Celtics jacket, Rogowsky’s limitations that truly established Rogowsky; the more popular not hard to find. As the sole employee of Quiz Daddy’s Closet, the show became, the more frequently the app was plagued he’s behind the counter five days a week. by breakdowns and outages, saved only by Rogowsky’s charm

Shirts Happen

C

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P H O T O G R A P H E D BY C O R I NA M A R I E

YOUR UNFORGETTABLE MEXICAN RIVIERA VACATION IS CLOSER THAN YOU THINK Starting this fall, the award-winning Celebrity Solstice® sails to the Mexican Riviera out of Los Angeles. Visit stunning destinations, including Puerto Vallarta and Cabo San Lucas. Along the way, you’ll enjoy rooms so luxurious you won’t want to be found, restaurants that awaken every sense, and service so intuitive you’ll wonder if we can read minds.

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Imagery and messaging may not accurately reflect onboard and destination experiences, offerings, features, or itineraries. These may not be available during your voyage, may vary by ship and destination, and may be subject to change without notice. For complete details on our safety protocols on board, visit healthyatsea.com.

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S U R R E A L E S TAT E

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Backdrop’s Caleb Ebel and wife Natalie.

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Founded in 2018 by Caleb Ebel and his wife, Natalie, Backdrop manufactures low-VOC, Green Wisecertified paints in colors that conjure the palette of Southern California’s beaches, mountains, and ineffable light, with L.A.-centric names to

match: the slate blue-gray Silver Lake Dad (named after Caleb), Surf Camp, and Disco Nap. Backdrop’s top seller, Supermoon, is “a pure white, and very quintessentially L.A.,” says Caleb.

The company’s latest colors are an homage to an equally quintessential Malibu resident. In August, Backdrop dropped Barbie Dreamhouse Pink, Purple, and Blue, part of its collaboration with Mattel in honor of the Barbie Dreamhouse’s 60th anniversary.

Can Angelyne Pink be far behind?

H A NC OC K PA R K HIGHLIGHTS Turns out Ozzy occasionally

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Celebrate the art of performance at UCLA’s Royce Hall

cap.ucla.edu

2022-23 Fall/Winter Programs Opening this month

OCT 1 & OCT 2 | OCT 22 & OCT 23 FEB 4 & FEB 5 | FEB 11 & FEB 12

600 Highwaymen

A Thousand Ways (Part Three): An Assembly Royce Hall Rehearsal Room Obie Award-winning experimental theater duo 600 HIGHWAYMEN present Part Three of A Thousand Ways: An Assembly, which brings together an audience of 16 strangers to construct a unique experience.

SUN, OCT 16 AT 7PM

Branford Marsalis Quartet

Royce Hall Saxophonist Branford Marsalis is one of the most influential figures in contemporary music. The NEA Jazz Master, Grammy Award winner and Tony Award nominee is equally at home performing with symphony orchestras or sitting in with members of the Grateful Dead, but the core of his musical universe remains the Branford Marsalis Quartet.

THU, NOV 3 AT 8PM

Antonio Sánchez & Bad Hombre with Thana Alexa, BIGYUKI & Lex Sadler Royce Hall Grammy-winning “drummer’s drummer” Antonio Sánchez is internationally celebrated for his score to the Oscar-winning film Birdman.

He returns to Royce Hall with songs from his new album SHIFT (Bad Hombre Vol. 2).

SAT, NOV 12 AT 8PM

Tigran Hamasyan Royce Hall Tigran Hamasyan became one of the most distinctive pianists of his generation by fusing jazz improvisation with the rich music of his native Armenia. On his latest album, StandArt, he brings his chops to deconstructed takes on standards, participating in American musical traditions while at the same time challenging familiar categories.

10.22

O N E T O WAT C H

Plus

› Brace yourself

for Netflix’s Blonde bombshell

PAGE 32

› Rock, country, funk, and R&B—fall concerts hit all the right notes

CO U R T E SY AU G U ST I M AG E

PAGE 34

Noah’s Arc AFTER STARRING IN A WILDLY POPULAR SERIES OF HIGH SCHOOL ROM-COMS, NOAH CENTINEO WAS CATNIP TO MILLIONS OF TEENAGE FANS. NOW HE’S STARRING WITH “THE ROCK” IN ONE OF THE YEAR’S MOST-ANTICIPATED SUPERHERO MOVIES, MAKING A GIANT LEAP TO THE BIG TIME

B Y PA U L S C H R O D T

› Behind L.A.’s Cuban coffee dynasty

PAGE 48

P H O T O G R A P H BY SA R A H K E H O E

L A M AG . C O M 2 5

Incoming

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O N E TO WATC H

SUPERSIZE ME

From left: Noah Centineo as Atom Smasher in this fall’s Black Adam; with Lana Condor in 2018’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.

with his older sister to a talent agency in West Palm Beach and ended up auditioning.

“They said, ‘We think you’d be really good at this,’ ” he remembers. “So I tried.”

Turns out he was good. At 13, in 2009, he landed his first major role, in a family film called The Gold Retrievers. He followed that up with some minor ones, delivering mostly one-liners in episodes of Disney sitcoms like Austin & Ally and Shake It Up. But it was enough to convince his parents to move the family to Los Angeles, where Centineo began pursuing acting more seriously—although with not a whole lot more luck. At least not initially.

N B L AC K A DA M , the Warner Bros. would-be “Months of auditioning two or three times a day, getting franchise-starter opening October 21, Noah zero callbacks,” he says, describing his early days.

Centineo stars opposite Dwayne Johnson Finally, in 2017, just when he was thinking of giving up as a DC Comics character called the Atom acting, he got his big break, landing the role of popular boy Smasher. His unique superpower? He can Peter Kavinsky in To All the Boys and, later, its two sequels. become any size he wants.

Suddenly, he was a hit with teenage girls, with Instagram How appropriate. Because that happens to be precisely numbers to prove it (at one point, he was accumulating a milthe position the 26-year-old model-slash-actor finds himself lion new followers a day). in at the moment. With 16.5 million Instagram It’s not surprising that Warner Bros. would followers—mostly young, adoring women—and want Centineo for Black Adam; the studio was a résumé that includes Calvin Klein underwear “They said, undoubtedly hoping to lure some of his teen girl ads as well as central role in the wildly popular ‘We think fan base to a genre stereotypically reserved for 2018 Netflix high school rom-com To All the Boys you’d be teen boys. But to fit the part, Centineo needed I’ve Loved Before, Centineo is poised to become really good something of a makeover. For starters, he had to as huge as he wants to be. at this.’ bulk up, although, he admits, some of his musAnd what he wants, it seems, is to make cle tone in the film was added with computer the superhuman leap from teen heartthrob to So I tried.” graphics in postproduction. He also logged grown-up, big-screen action hero. hours with Andy Serkis—the motion-capture “Just the size and scope of it!” he marvels at his actor who brought Gollum to life in The Lord of the Rings— part in the $200 million tentpole production, in which, along honing his green-screen chops. with “The Rock,” he costars with Pierce Brosnan, Jennifer Will it be enough? Can Centineo make the treacherous Holland, and Sarah Shahi. “It’s wild!” jump from teen idol to action figure? Even he sounds a bit Centineo is on the phone from his home in Los Angeles, uncertain, if cautiously optimistic. “I think people are going but he grew up in Florida, first in Boca Raton, then Boynton to have to watch the film first,” he says of his chances, “and Beach. He caught the acting bug early on, despite some initial see if they accept me.” reluctance. When he was just eight years old, he tagged along 2 6 L A M AG . C O M

B L AC K A DA M : F R A N K M A S I /CO U R T E SY WA R N E R B R O S . ; TAT B : AW E S O M E N E S S F I L M S /CO U R T E SY N E T F L I X

I

Incoming

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HAPPENINGS

THE TO-DO LIST YOUR OCTOBER CULTURAL AGENDA

T O K I L L A M O C K I NG B I R D

› Nominated for nine Tony Awards, Oscar winner Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of

Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1960 novel has finally made it to L.A. Richard Thomas, a veteran of the stage—he debuted on Broadway at age seven in Sunrise at Campobello—and the big and small screens (The Waltons, Ozark), takes over for Jeff Daniels as attorney Atticus Finch. Directed by Tony Award winner Bartlett Sher (South Pacific), the play focuses on a Black man accused of raping a white girl in the Jim Crow South. The story captured the zeitgeist of the civil rights era, but its themes of racism and inequality are just as pertinent today as more nuanced understandings and a greater awareness of the white lens allow the audience to question whether Finch should be seen as an iconic hero or a white savior.

Pantages Theatre, October 25-November 27

BY JOR DA N R I E F E

Wu-Tang Clan & Nas › Brooklyn meets Staten

Island in Hollywood as Wu-Tang Clan and Nas close out their N.Y. State of Mind tour. The 1990s East Coast hip-hop artists previously teamed up in 1995, when Nas appeared on Wu-Tang’s “Verbal Intercourse.” He returned five years later for The W, W contributing on the track “Let My Niggas Live.” In 2011, he reunited with the band’s Raekwon on “Rich and Black” for the Wu-Tang founding member’s Shaolin vs. Wu-Tang album. Known for his innovative narrative flow, Nas’s style dovetails smoothly with the band’s influential vibe, particularly Raekwon’s 2 8 L A M AG . C O M

foundational gangster vernacular. Hollywood Bowl, October 4

Nina Simone: Four Women › Following the 1963

bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, Nina Simone focused her talents on activism,

composing indelible civil rights anthems, including “Mississippi Goddam,” “To Be Young, Gifted and Black,” and “Go Limp.”

Conjuring up a conversation between Simone and three Black women, playwright Christina Ham (“Westworld”) zeroes in on class status, racism, and stereotypes in this onstage drama infused with traditional hymns and the iconic singersongwriter’s own music.

South Coast Repertory, October 2–23

Ballet Hispánico: Noche de Oro › It’s the night of gold . . .

on point! Ballet Hispánico makes its Wallis debut celebrating its 50th year W U -TA N G C L A N ’ S YO U N G D I R T Y B A STA R D

with a program featuring “Con Brazos Abiertos,”in which Mexican-American choreographer Michelle Manzanales explores a life between two cultures.

“Tiburones” by Annabelle

Lopez Ochoa addresses stereotypes of Latinx culture, and Gustavo Ramírez Sansano’s “18+1” celebrates his playful, rhythmic dance-making.

The Wallis, October 7–8 BALLET H I S PÁ N I CO

T K A M B : J U L I E TA C E RVA N T E S ; Y D B : M I I K K A S K A F FA R I /G E T T Y I M AG E S ; B A L L E T: PAU L A LO B O

RICHARD THOMAS AS AT T I C U S F I N C H

MORONGO HOME TO FABIO VIVIANI

|

HAPPENINGS

at the famed Tamarind Lithography Workshop, where master printers were paired with visiting artists. Norton Simon Museum, October 14– February 13

Photography & Seduction: William Mortensen’s Laguna Beach › Ansel Adams went so

D E S E R T DA Z E

Desert Daze › Don’t fight the heat;

surrender to it with a festival lineup that includes Tame Impala, the Marías, Chicano Batman, Mild High Club, Iggy Pop, and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard. And when you’ve had enough of sweatdancing with a thousand strangers, take a hike and enjoy the wilderness.

Moreno Beach in Lake Perris, September 30– October 2

The Who Hits Back! › This aptly named tour

features a windmilling Pete Townshend and mic-throwing Roger

Daltrey—geriatric rock gods to boomers everywhere—blasting through songs like “Baba O’Riley,” “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” and “Behind Blue Eyes,” not to mention rock operas—a genre they invented—like Tommy and Quadrophenia.

Sure, they’re old.

Every classic is. Honda Center, October 28, and Hollywood Bowl, November 1

Visualizing the Virgin Mary › The Virgin Mary—she’s

a grande dame if there ever was one. And this exhibition shows just how grand she is with illuminated manuscripts from the Middle Ages depicting Mary as intercessor, mother, and divine queen. The Getty Center, October 11– January 8

Ink, Paper, Stone: Six Women Artists and the Language of Lithography › Eleanore Mikus, Ruth

PETE TOW N S H E N D AND ROGER DA LT R E Y

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Asawa, Gego, Louise Nevelson, Irene Siegel, and Hedda Sterne were already established artists by the 1960s, when each visited L.A. to try her hand at printmaking.

Works in this exhibition are the products of their two-month fellowships

far as to call him the “anti-Christ” of photography. It’s his rough subject matter—bestiality, the occult, witchcraft, satanic scenes, and demonology—on display in this show that made William Mortensen one of Laguna Beach’s most colorful characters. Laguna Art Museum, October 1– January 15

Demon Copperhead › The story of Demon

Copperhead—not the Victorian-era Dickens doppelganger, David Copperfield, but bestselling author Barbara Kingsolver’s updated version for Gen Z—follows its protagonist, the son of a single mother in Appalachia, as he braves foster care, child labor, addiction, and loss.

HarperCollins, October 18

for its provocative take on a detective and a murder victim’s wife. MUBI, October 14

Triangle of Sadness

The Palme d’Or winner at Cannes, this hilarious farce follows a celebrity fashion couple on a luxury cruise for the ultrarich when things go terribly wrong. Starring Woody Harrelson and a mostly Swedish cast, this skewering of the privileged class marks the second Palme d’Or for filmmaker Ruben Östlund, whose The Square won in 2017.

Neon, October 7

Frankenstein

In one of the rare instances in which the movie just might be as good as the book, Boris Karloff gives us the definitive likeness of Mary Shelley’s monster in this

1931 masterpiece. For the two-night screening, director James Whale’s macabre vision is audibly enhanced with live accompaniment by the L.A. Opera orchestra.

Theatre at Ace Hotel, October 28–29

Jacaranda: Arkhipov › Set aboard a Soviet

submarine during the Cuban Missile Crisis, this modern chamber opera focuses on Arkhipov, a brave Russian sailor who averted nuclear war. Librettist Stephanie Fleischmann, winner of the 2022 OPERA America Campbell Opera Librettist Prize, teams with California composer Peter Knell for this world premiere. Kirk Douglas Theatre, October 21–22

Decision to Leave › South Korea’s Prince

of Darkness, Park Chanwook directs a film noir that is a natural continuation of an oeuvre that includes subversive classics such as Oldboy and The Handmaiden. This latest tale making its U.S. debut in theaters just received a Palme d’Or nomination and a Best Director win at Cannes

TILL

TILL Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black boy, was mercilessly beaten and lynched because Carolyn Bryant Donham claimed he whistled at her. This biographical drama tells the real-life story of his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, and her poignant pursuit of justice, which continues even after her 2003 death; a recent Mississippi grand jury chose not to indict Donham for Till’s abduction and manslaughter.

Various theaters, October 14

DA Z E : CO U R T E SY D E S E R T DA Z E ; F R A N K E N ST E I N : G E T T Y I M AG E S ; T I L : LY N S E Y W E AT H E R S P O O N /O R I O N P I C T U R E S ; T H E W H O : SA M I R H U S S E I N / W I R E I M AG E ;

Incoming

The new season is almost here at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Share in the power of live music with a wide range of thrilling concerts presented by the LA Phil.

TERENCE BLANCHARD

YUJA WANG

ZIGGY MARLEY

CHAKA KHAN

Tickets On Sale Now!

laphil.com | 323 850 2000 Groups (10+) 323 850 2050

Programs, artists, prices, and dates subject to change.

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7/25/22 7:28 PM

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MIXED MEDIA

The Divine Miss M

NETFLIX’S BLONDE IS ONE OF THIS SEASON’S BUZZIEST NEW MOVIES. BEFORE YOU WATCH, CONSIDER REVISITING SOME OF MARILYN’S MOST UNFORGETTABLE ROLES

BY STEVE ERICKSON

most mythologized outlaw into a languorous high-plains fever dream with the acclaimed Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Aussie filmmaker Andrew Dominik moves on to America’s most mythologized sex symbol in the very buzzy Blonde, based on the novel by Joyce Carol Oates. If somehow you have no idea who Marilyn Monroe was, then before you see Blonde, premiering September 28 on Netflix, let me recommend these movies, all streaming on Prime, Apple, and Criterion, that constitute the Essential Marilyn: Niagara (1953) Following supporting performances in The Asphalt Jungle, Clash by Night, and Monkey Business, Monroe caught the attention of audiences as an unhinged babysitter in 1952’s Don’t Bother to Knock before emerging as a full-fledged femme fatale in this Technicolor noir. The scene where she thrashes in her sleep to the ominous tolling of distant bells unspools like something from the id, and the only thing onscreen that could compete with her was Niagara Falls itself.

blonde in the back kitchen, he answers indignantly, “Wouldn’t you like to know? Maybe it’s Marilyn Monroe!” Standing over a subway grate, white dress billowing up around her, she brought Midtown Manhattan—plus her marriage to baseball legend Joe DiMaggio—to a standstill.

The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) Her most underrated film. Monroe is at her loveliest here, her beauty lyrical and soft. Although none of it shows on-screen, her instabilities were catching up. She drove to distraction leading man and director Laurence Olivier in the same way her showgirl drives to distraction his prince. When Olivier fumed to costar Sybil Thorndike about Monroe’s lack of professionalism, Dame Sybil reportedly shot back to Sir Larry, “Then why is she stealing every scene from you, old boy?”

Some Like It Hot (1959) Monroe’s one indisputably great film and one of the half dozen greatest American comedies. Her comedic talents perfectly coexist with a sadness barely below the surface, which somehow informs her role as a Prohibition-era singer; her rendition of “I’m Thru With Love” Gentlemen Prefer Blondes sounds like it’s from the heart.

(1953) Released within six months Costar Tony Curtis couldn’t stand “I can be smart, but most of Niagara, this film sealed her because, as writer-director men don’t like it” Monroe’s image and stardom. She Billy Wilder later explained, if Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes may have been second-billed, but Curtis’s best take was his second she was the only blonde in sight; and Marilyn’s best take was her this is the one where, as a “dumb” 32nd, a director always had to gold digger in vivid pink, she sings “Diamonds Are a Girl’s choose the Marilyn take—because when she was on-screen, Best Friend.” She also coos a knowing warning to anyone no one looked at anyone else. dumb enough to dismiss her: “I can be smart when it’s important, but most men don’t like it” — a line she wrote herself.

The Misfits (1961) Monroe’s abilities as a dramatic actor are on their best display here. The movie’s power derives as The Seven Year Itch (1955) Middle-aged exec Tom Ewell much from the tragedy of its endeavor as from its story of ships his wife and son off to the country in the depth of sumbroken-down modern-day cowboys (including broken-down mer, only to find Monroe is his new upstairs neighbor with Montgomery Clift and Clark Gable, the latter surviving the a connecting staircase.

Barely a handful of shoot by less than two weeks) and their broken-down women, BLONDE ON years since the first notable glimpse of her as written by Arthur Miller, Monroe’s husband in their broBLON DE Ana de Armas as in All About Eve, the Marilyn Phenomenon ken-down marriage. This was Marilyn’s final finished film.

Monroe in director was now famous enough to be meta: When Sixteen months later, she would be dead from a drug overdose Andrew Dominik’s someone inquires suspiciously if Ewell has a at the age of 36. adaptation.

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NETFLIX © 2022

H

A V I N G T U R N E D the story of America’s

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MUSIC

Legends of the Fall L I V E AC T I O N

FROM LIL NAS X TO HARRY STYLES TO CHAKA KHAN, HERE ARE THE MONTH’S STANDOUT CONCERTS

BY SEAN FITZ-GERALD

P I X I E S ’ PA Z LENCHANTIN

Blues and the Wiltern.

400 Disney Way, No. 337, Anaheim, and 3790 Wilshire Blvd., Koreatown, pixiesmusic.com, October 2–3.

ROCK • For the second leg of her 2022 tour, Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Stevie Nicks brings her greatest hits to the Hollywood Bowl. Not only that—but Vanessa Carlton too. 2301 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood, hollywoodbowl.com, October 3.

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ROCK • It’ll be a rousing underplay show at the Wiltern when Muse comes bearing its Will of the People. Relish the new tunes, as well as pulls from the English titans’ long list of classics. 3790 Wilshire Blvd., Koreatown, muse.mu, October 4.

Gorgeous, Mary J. Blige served vocal virtuosity and self-love. Hear the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul’s latest affirmations at the Forum, where Grammy-winning songstress Ella Mai joins for a night of uplifting goodness. 3900 W. Manchester Blvd., Inglewood, maryjblige.com, October 9.

ALT • Celebrating 25 years, altrock crew Phoenix swings by the YouTube Theater with its seventh record, Alpha Zulu. The project follows a number of personal tragedies for the band—including the loss of collaborator Philippe Zdar—offering thematic and audial succor. 1011 S. Stadium Dr., Inglewood, wearephoenix.com, October 6.

EMO • Touting the mournful reunion single “The Foundations of Decay,” My Chemical Romance holes up for five nights at the Forum. Openers vary by night, but highlights include post-hard-core stalwarts Thursday and indie gems Shannon and the Clams. 3900 W. Manchester Blvd., Inglewood, mychemicalromance.com, October 11–17.

ROCK

• The Black Keys visit the

Kia Forum with their hard-grooving Dropout Boogie—plus special guests Band of Horses and The Velveteers.

3900 W. Manchester Blvd., Inglewood, theblackkeys.com, October 8.

R&B • On her 14th studio effort, Good Morning

COUNTRY

• Maren Morris takes to the Bowl, along with

Ruston Kelly, as part of her

Humble Quest tour. The rising star slings country jams but can cross over seemlessly, as seen most recently on her and Zedd’s dance-pop number “Make You Say.” 2301 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood, hollywoodbowl.com, October 13.

ROCK • With his latest fourtrack, EP3, Ringo Starr is as energized as ever.

Joining the prolific Beatles drummer—and his “Octopus’s Garden,” if you’re lucky—for this trip to the Greek Theatre are longtime collaborators from his All-Starr Band.

2700 N. Vermont Ave., Los Feliz, ringostarr.com, October 16.

COUNTRY • For its lone SoCal show, the Willie Nelson-helmed Outlaw Music Festival

camps out at FivePoint Amphitheatre. On the program: Particle Kid, Larkin Poe, Jamestown Revival, the Avett Brothers, and, of course, Nelson.

14800 Chinon, Irvine, blackbirdpresents.com, October 16.

L E N C H A N T I N : VA L E R I A M AG R I /S O PA I M AG E S / L I G H T R O C K E T V I A G E T T Y I M AG E S ; B L I G E : P R I N C E W I L L I A M S / W I R E I M AG E ; N A S : JA M I E M CC A R T H Y/G E T T Y I M AG E S FO R M T V/ V I ACO M C B S

ALT • With roughly 90 songs and a read-the-room mentality, no two Pixies shows are the same. Test the claim when the dynamic rockers take their oeuvre—including their eighth album, Doggerel— to Anaheim’s House of

M A RY J. BLIGE

POP • Powerhouse Carly Rae Jepsen plays the Greek with singer-songwriter Empress Of. On the menu: earworms from Kiss, Emotion, Dedicated, and Jepsen’s latest, The Loneliest Time, a timely rumination on solitude dropping three days postshow. 2700 N. Vermont Ave., Los Feliz, carlyraemusic.com, October 18.

RAP

• Lil Nas X blesses the

ST Y L E S : K E V I N M A Z U R /G E T T Y I M AG E S

YouTube Theater with a doubleheader of his revolutionary, never-dull Montero fare. Witness the pop-rap provocateur live before he enters his next era of creation. 1011 S. Stadium Dr., Inglewood, longlivemontero.com, October 18–19.

POP • Brendon Urie’s always-catchy Panic! at the Disco belts Viva Las Vengeance from the Forum, with Jake Wesley Rogers and MARINA (aka Marina and the Diamonds) rounding out the night.

3900 W. Manchester Blvd., Inglewood, panicatthedisco.com, October 19.

ALT • Formed 25 years ago, Death Cab for Cutie waxes existential on its dreamy tenth record, Asphalt Meadows. Catch the veteran alternative outfit at the Greek, along with indie faves Yo La Tengo.

2700 N. Vermont Ave., Los Feliz, deathcabforcutie.com, October 21.

PROG • The ever-changing Mars Volta returns with a 14-track self-titled release—its first in a decade. See the band’s latest incarnation, a poppier departure from its late-aughts stylings that shines with sonic and lyrical brilliance, at the Palladium. 6215 W. Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, themarsvoltaofficial.com, October 21–23.

POP

• Harry Styles’s lengthy

stay at Madison Square Garden last month generated headlines for

supreme showmanship, bold fashion, and wild claims of fans peeing in their pants so as not to lose spots close to the stage.

When the former One Directioner’s Love On Tour comes to the Forum for this 15-night run with Ben Harper, please, for the love of God, use the restrooms.

3900 W. Manchester Blvd., Inglewood, hstyles.co.uk, October 23–November 15.

K-POP • An instant sensation upon debuting in 2019, ITZY stops by the YouTube Theater as part of its first stateside tour. Expect material from Checkmate, the five-member girl group’s fifth mini-album, and Crazy in Love. 1011 S. Stadium Dr., Inglewood, ticketmaster.com, October 26.

INDIE • Still at the top of her powers, the inimitable Russian-born musician Regina Spektor makes

her Walt Disney Concert Hall debut. Be ready for Home, Before and After, a sometimes stormy, always inventive exploration of today’s heartbreak and humanity. 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown, reginaspektor.com, October 27.

ELECTRONIC • Escape for a bit with Nosaj Thing and Toro y Moi as the incomparable soundscapers plunge the Greek into worlds all their own. 2700 N. Vermont Ave., Los Feliz, toroymoi.com, October 29.

FUNK • Open your ears to the Queen of Funk. “Tell Me Something Good” singer Chaka Khan kicks off the Rock My Soul Festival, a series of fall concerts celebrating Black women artists through November 12, at Disney Hall. 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown, laphil.com, October 30.

H A R RY ST Y L E S

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ART

Celestial Being

AFTER A DEVASTATING FIRE, MULTIMEDIA ARTIST LITA ALBUQUERQUE AND HER DAUGHTER JASMINE MADE A FILM ABOUT A FUTURE FEMALE ASTRONAUT RISE FROM THE ASHES

BY MICHAEL SLENSKE

T

H E E V E N I N G of November 7,

2018, Lita Albuquerque had plans to see a performance of Philip Glass’s “Satyagraha” at the L.A. Opera with her husband, Carey Peck. He offered to make a night of it with a downtown staycation.

“We never do that,” Albuquerque says. “At first, I said, ‘Oh, no, I’m too busy.’ But then I thought, ‘I’m being a real ass.’ ” Asleep in the hotel room the next morning, the Santa Monica-born, Tunisian-raised multimedia artist received an unexpected 5:45 a.m. call from her son, Christopher Peck, who said there was a fire on the north side of the 101 freeway, near the family compound in Malibu. Albuquerque immediately called her daughter and longtime artistic collaborator Jasmine Albuquerque, a dancer and choreographer who was eight months pregnant and living at the house.

Despite spotty reception due to the fire, Jasmine, the younger of two daughters from Lita’s first marriage (her sister is sculptor Isabelle Albuquerque), remembers the conversation vividly. “Mom said, ‘Grab the hard drives. Grab as much of my writing as you can,’ so I just started scooping stuff,” Jasmine recalls. She loaded her mother’s work, her own journals, and, finally, a 130-pound blind German shepherd named P.J. into her car before driving to safety.

At the compound, Lita had stored more than 1,000 archived works, some of which were destined for the Smithsonian. While a large portion of her oeuvre of photographs, paintings, sculptures, drawings, films, performance documentation, and writings was destroyed in the Woolsey Fire, what remained became one of her most preeminent projects to date.

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ODE TO JOY

Artist Lita Albuquerque (right) and daughter Jasmine, a dancerchoreographer.

The hard drives Jasmine was able to save contained an unedited film, Liquid Light, which the mother-daughter duo had recently shot in Bolivia.

In the film, Jasmine portrays a twentyfifth-century female astronaut, who arrives on Earth looking to share her light and extraterrestrial knowledge as she wanders the spiritually rich South American landscape, from the salt flats of Salar de Uyuni to the open-air markets of La Paz. Like the Incan creation myth of humanity rising from the depths of Lake Titicaca, where part of the movie was shot, this phoenix of an artwork rose from the ashes of Lita’s archive and took on a life of its own this summer; it premiered at the 59th Venice Biennale as a must-see collateral exhibition that runs through October. There, the film is presented as part of an installation, P H O T O G R A P H E D BY M I M I H A D D O N

“It’s a mother-daughter story about femininity, womanhood, and motherhood.”

projected on multiple screens in a brick-vaulted building where gondolas were once constructed.

Glass orbs filled with honey from local beekeepers (used because bees pollinate with the rising of certain stars) are scattered around the room and surrounded by sprays of gold leaf, a material Lita has long employed in the concave disks of her beloved Auric Field paintings.

One late morning at the office of Kohn Gallery in Hollywood this past summer, Jasmine, 39, is seated opposite her mother, 76. Lita is wearing a silver jacket and her favorite red-framed glasses. The two are meeting about upcoming activities in L.A. that will center on Lita’s film, which debuted at the gallery to a packed house in June. Following another screening in September, a corresponding exhibition will run this month

and feature Lita’s most recent work, The New Human paintings, a series depicting golden rings emerging from shrouds of “deep-space” black and ultramarine backgrounds.

While Jasmine’s son negotiates some play sand, the two women also share memories of shooting Liquid Light. “It was an amazing experience, but I was really raw,” Jasmine says of processing her then-recent divorce while wearing reflective garb, dancing on the salt flats at a high elevation with a limitless-horizon backdrop, and attempting to offer a golden orb to any passing locals, who, to use her words, received her “like an alien.” “We would just start bursting into tears sometimes,” says Jasmine. “You have a lot of external vibrations going on, on top of creating a film, on top of being a mom and daughter, on top of all the layers of emotions we were experiencing before we even got there. And the landscape contributed to that.”

Lita started her career as a prominent figure in L.A.’s Light and Space movement and, for decades, she has made iconic performative landart works all over the globe, from the Washington Monument to Antarctica. She started working on the astronaut in Liquid Light—the second part of an ongoing trilogy—in 2003, the year she says she first received “a visitation” from the film’s otherworldly being. But her narrative journey into the interstellar axis, which she captured in a work that was later stolen, titled Abhasa: image-bearing light, began when she was pregnant with Jasmine in 1983. “The story really started then, with a cosmic couple in space,” she says of her initial vision, which became her inspiration. “There was a projection of my pregnant belly in the star system and, from there, it just goes on to destruction.”

At the end of the film, Lita herself appears onscreen as a maternal ghost figure to the astronaut embodied by her real-life daughter. She notes that Liquid Light premiered stateside the day after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and believes this uncanny timing adds another dimension to her heroine from the future, an empathetic time traveler who arrives on Earth looking to bring the language of light to a sacred landscape.

“It’s about the need for her,” she says. Her daughter agrees. “It’s a mother-daughter story about femininity, womanhood, and motherhood—all the things that are crumbling as we wage this war on women,” Jasmine says. “At this precarious moment,” Lita adds, channeling her own inner astronaut, “we need to shift and uplift.”

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OPENINGS

HIGH DESIGN

Clockwise, from this page: OCMA’s new building in Costa Mesa was designed by L.A. architect Thomas Mayne to house artworks like Lily Stockman’s Canyon Fire, Alex Anderson’s Lovely Shade Flower, and Fred Eversley’s Untitled (parabolic lens).

Moving On Up

SIXTY YEARS AFTER IT WAS LAUNCHED IN NEWPORT BEACH, THE ORANGE COUNTY MUSEUM OF ART IS CELEBRATING ITS BIRTHDAY WITH A GLEAMING NEW HOME FOR ITS INCREASINGLY WORLD-CLASS COLLECTION

“ T H E V I S I O N for

this institution is ‘looking back to look forward,’ ” proclaims Heidi Zuckerman, director and CEO of the Orange County Museum of Art. But there’s nothing remotely old-fashioned about OCMA’s brand-new digs, which open to the public October 8 at Costa Mesa’s Segerstrom Center for the Arts. Designed by Pritzker Awardwinning architect Thom Mayne of the influential Culver City-based firm, Morphosis, and timed to coincide with OCMA’s 60th birthday, the museum’s long-awaited metamorphosis brings it a giant step closer to its ambition of becoming an A-list art-world player.

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With its gleaming white terraon its ambitious new project, the cotta-tile facade, dramatic curves, museum moved to a temporary site and towering windows, the new in Santa Ana.) addition to the campus reflects the OCMA was founded in 1962 as provocative sculptural forms that a passion project by 13 enterprishave become the archiing women who rented tect’s signature. “Thom a space in Newport made a joke, ‘Why have Beach’s Balboa Pavilion “We’re any vertical or horizontal to exhibit modern and breaking elements if everything contemporary American down can be at a diagonal?’ ” artists. In a salute to its the barriers Zuckerman recalls with pioneering founders, one a laugh. of the museum’s debut to art.”

The museum’s sprawlexhibitions, 13 Women is ing 53,000-square-foot showcasing work new space is double the size of its by rotating groups of groundbreaking old quarters, long located at female artists. It’s among five inauFashion Island in Newport Beach. gural exhibitions at the new quarters (In 2018, after breaking ground that include a retrospective of the

E X T E R I O R : J O S H UA W H I T E /CO U R T E SY O C M A ; STO C K M A N : CO U R T E SY T H E A R T I ST A N D C H A R L E S M O F F E T T, N E W YO R K

BY JOR DA N R I E F E

A N D E R S O N : CO U R T E SY T H E A R T I ST A N D SA R G E N T ’ S DAU G H T E R S ; E V E R S L E Y: P H OTO BY J E F F M C L A N E /CO U R T E SY T H E A R T I ST A N D DAV I D KO R DA N S KY G A L L E RY

Light and Space artist Fred Eversley; an homage to the history of landscape design at the Segerstrom Center; and California Biennial: Pacific Gold, curated by Gilbert Vicario, Essence Harden, and Elizabeth Armstrong and featuring emerging and underrecognized California-based artists.

The new building will also house the museum’s extensive collection of more than 4,500 objects and works with an emphasis on Southern California artists, such as Ed Ruscha, John Baldessari, Catherine Opie, and Robert Irwin, in addition to Pop artists Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol.

While there is nothing basic about the new building, Zuckerman says her vision for the museum is pretty straightforward. “I believe access to art is a basic human right,” she says, proudly noting OCMA’s freeadmission policy. “I’m a cheerleader not just for the institution but why we exist and whom the museum is for—we have a commitment to opening and welcoming the broadest possible audience.”

As the first woman to oversee the creation of two museums from the ground up (before OCMA, she led the construction of the Shigeru Ban-designed Aspen Art Museum, which opened in 2014), Zuckerman is working closely with the local community on partnerships, staffing, and programming. “We’re breaking down the barriers to art,” she says.

Her goal is to create a diverse and exuberant “urban museum” packed with lots of gallery space, ample places to sit, think and eat, and offering hundreds of lectures, performances, and classes.

The museum’s vast outdoor space will go a long way in achieving that goal. Mayne, who also designed downtown L.A.’s Caltrans building, created OCMA as a place to encourage interactivity. “It’s L.A., so there are influences that started with Neutra and Schindler,” he says. “We’re playing with inside and outside. The same material you see on the outside bends in, and there’s a seamless blending of exterior and interior.”

Among other flourishes, the architect designed 10,000 square feet of rooftop terrace and greenery to provide an urban oasis. The eastern flank of the museum includes an amphitheater, which will host OCMA’s fifth opening exhibition: a soaring metallic sculpture by Sanford Biggers, who will be honored at the museum’s October 1 gala. Biggers’s oversize metal sequins sculpture, Of many waters . . ., is a hybridized figure that overlooks Richard Serra’s large-scale sculpture, Connector, in the neighboring plaza. “It symbolizes abundance, and it’s welcoming the public into the building,” says Zuckerman. “It reinforces the idea that everyone is invited.”

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B E AUT Y

recipient. A technician starts with a high-res photo, analyzing skin issues and offering multistep solutions to “recondition” skin quality. This lavish customized care used to be available stateside only in the most exclusive spas, but lucky for Angelenos, the company, known for its diagnostic treatment program and highly concentrated product line, opened its first U.S. flagship—complete with a VIP suite and private entrance, bien sûr—on Melrose Place this summer. biologique-recherche.com

Conscious Coupling

JUST ANOTHER FACE IN THE CROWD? THE LATEST BEAUTY PRODUCTS AND TREATMENTS CAN HELP YOU SHINE LIKE THE STARS

BY MERLE GINSBERG

A

MON G T H E most memo-

rable lines from Ab Fab is one uttered by a slacker beauty editor in a magazine meeting when asked about her ideas for the next issue. “Skin! Um, skin is . . . in?” Skin is in, sure. But here in L.A., it’s always out, exposed, Insta’ed and Zoomed, on screens and off. The good news? There have never been so many products, serums, and procedures to tighten up virtually every pore—from the face to, yes, even the nether regions. With the latest innovations in skin care, it seems that (probably Photoshopped) celeb-worthy epidermis may be within reach.

Treatment that reoxygenates the skin tissue to the sandblasting Peeling aux Acides de Fruits that exfoliates and revitalizes dull or wrinkled derm, each uberluxurious facial from cherished French beauty brand Biologique Recherche is personalized to its

Pamper le Peau

It’s L.A. You’ve had plenty of facials.

But you’ve never had one like this.

From the glow-giving VIP O2 Booster 4 0 L A M AG . C O M

B I O LO G I Q U E RECHERCHE AMBASSADE

C LO C KW I S E F R O M TO P L E F T: M C K E N Z I E T H O M P S O N /G A L L E RY STO C K ; CO U R T E SY T H E A M E T H O D ; CO U R T E SY B I O LO G I Q U E R E C H E R C H E

Celebrity Skin

As it turns out, the recently en vogue practice of layering serums, or “cocktailing” a mix of products, on your face is not as effective as first thought.

Your skin can absorb only so much, and not all serums are created equal. Washington, D.C.-based celebrity dermatologist Dr. Tina Alster’s The A Method skin-care regimen offers two serums designed especially for working à deux. The doctor calls it “Retinol Coupling”: pairing tranexamic acid, an ingredient in the line’s sixacid-blend Skin Perfecting Serum, with all-trans retinol in the company’s hydrating and balancing Pearls of Retinol. Marrying these two—and allowing them to live happily ever after on your skin— increases collagen production and reduces dark spots and uneven texture. Alster promises with consistent use, you’ll see results in six to eight weeks. theamethod.com

PROMOTION

UPCOMING EVENTS & PROMOTIONS SPONSORED BY LOS ANGELES MAGAZINE

OCT

Now Through - January 15, 2023 Mon – Fri, 11 a.m. - 7 p.m.

Sat – Sun, 11 a.m. - 8 p.m.

JAPAN HOUSE Los Angeles

Renowned Japanese bamboo artist Tanabe Chikuunsai IV constructed a 70-foot long immersive installation using 15,000 bamboo strips – the longest work to date. Visitors can engage with the dramatic soaring bamboo art form, viewing it from multiple angles as it twists and winds across the gallery at JAPAN HOUSE Los Angeles. Free admission.

For more information visit JapanHouseLA.com

12

OCT

26 Photo by Tadayuki Minamoto

01

Exhibition “LIFE CYCLES: A Bamboo Exploration with Tanabe Chikuunsai IV”

STARS of Chardonnay Wednesday, October 12, 7 p.m.

Virtual community tasting on Zoom with wine delivered to your address

STARS of wine series is a growing virtual showcase dedicated to exposing you to the absolute best in wine worldwide!

Learn from the experts, the producers, and the legends paired with an interactive audience. We deliver the tasting flight kits or bottle kits to your door. 100% of auction proceeds benefit Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. Top noted producers from Burgundy, Argentina, Australia, and California are participating.

For tickets and more information visit starsofwine.com

23

OCT

OCT Los Angeles magazine’s Whiskey Festival Long Beach Wednesday, October 26, 7 - 9 p.m.

LBX, The Hangar, Long Beach Guests are invited to enjoy a deep dive into the world of whiskey as they meet the distillers, sip the finest selections, learn fresh cocktail recipes, and experience new labels. Brands confirmed to sample at the event include Bardstown Bourbon, Broken Barrel, CALI Distillery, Corbin Cash, Old Hillside Bourbon Company, Sagamore Spirit, Uncle Nearest, Westward Whiskey and more to be announced.

Los Angeles magazine’s The Food Event

This event includes a variety of tasty bites, lively music, and unique experiences to complement the bespoke atmosphere.

Sunday, October 23, 2 to 5 p.m.

Hummingbird Nest Ranch, Simi Valley

For tickets and information visit lamag.com/whiskeyfestival

Celebrate L.A.’s foodie scene at Los Angeles magazine’s annual epicurean extravaganza, The Food Event 2022. Soak in the beauty of Hummingbird Nest Ranch in the Santa Susana mountains while indulging in tastings from a hand-picked collection of L.A.’s best restaurants.

The day will include live cooking demonstrations by renowned chefs presented by Mountain Valley Spring Water, an exciting Silent Disco courtesy of Celebrity Cruises and a host of tastings and special experiences brought to you by such sponsors as Maker’s Mark, The House of Suntory, Santa Teresa 1796, Mezcal 33, Lyre’s, Wyllow, Cannabus and more. Must be age 21+ to attend.

26

OCT

Tickets on sale now: lamag.com/thefoodevent2022

24

OCT

STARS of Merlot Pop-Up Magazine: Love Stories Monday, October 24, 7:30 p.m.

The Theatre at Ace Hotel, Los Angeles

Pop-Up Magazine is the acclaimed live magazine show, featuring original, unforgettable true stories, art, music, and performance from the world’s great and emerging storytellers, accompanied by animation, film, photography, and an original score performed by Magik*Magik Orchestra. Imagine a comedy show, play, concert, podcast, and film—all wrapped into one night.

For tickets and more information visit popupmagazine.com

Wednesday, October 26, 7 p.m.

Virtual community tasting on Zoom with wine delivered to your address STARS of Merlot showcases the finest Merlot based wines in the business!

Taste along with the winemakers, proprietors, and professionals. You are not just watching; you are a participant inside the event! We deliver the tasting flight kits or bottle kits to your door.

100% of auction proceeds benefit Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.

For tickets and more information visit starsofwine.com

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B E AUT Y

No-Line Lips All that L.A. sun and dehydrating desert air is no friend to your kisser.

“Trout pouts” are out, but lip treatments of all kinds should be integrated into regular self-care. Nourishing lip masks, such as Fresh’s Sugar Recovery Lip Mask Advanced Therapy, Laneige Lip Sleeping Mask, and Jason Wu Beauty’s Everyday Lip Mask, may be more effective than regular balm when it comes to keeping pesky lip lines at bay as they are packed with key ingredients, including shea butter, coconut oil, vitamin C, and squalene, a compound in shark liver oil that contains a high concentration of fatty acids. If you’ve got thicker lines— and thinner lips—Beverly Hills dermatologist Dr. Peter Kopelson says, “A judicious amount of Juvéderm’s Volbella can create a more hydrated look to cracked lips plus smooth fine lines above the mouth.” The smaller particle size of hyaluronic acid in this soft-tissue filler won’t make lips too puffy, thankfully—because trouts may be out, but subtler sultry “fish gapes” are here to stay. fresh.com, us.laneige.com, jasonwubeauty.com, kopelsonclinic.com

Threading vs.Needle

It’s an ongoing debate for some, but not for Dr. Mariano Busso, the highly regarded, Argentinian-trained dermatologist known for his novel thread lift technique at his practices in the country’s two sunniest—and vainest—cities, Beverly Hills and Miami. “I now do more thread lifts than filler,” says Busso, who performs the minimally invasive alternative to a surgical face-lift by inserting THREADING PROCEDURE

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tive Body-posi o, zz pop icon Li unfiltered

N O F I LT E R S N E E D E D

From buccal fat pad removal to cutting-edge cellulite treatments, the latest beauty trends promise to make you look as pictureperfect as Chrissy Teigen and Bella Hadid.

temporary sutures into the skin, using two types of threads for lift and volume. “Previous generations of threads were ineffective, but today’s last up to two years—fillers may last four to six months—and unlike fillers, they lift, in addition to volumizing,” says Busso. “Threads are a better investment for a lifted look in jowls, cheeks, eyebrows, and necks that lasts much longer, and they can potentially be placed anywhere in the body.” Just in case anyone’s looking to full-body tackle the effects of gravity from head to toe. drbusso.com

From Cheek to Cheek

Bella Hadid’s sucked-in, hollowedout, sculpted-cheek look has replaced wide-set eyes and contoured jaws as social media’s “resting rich face.”

TikTok and Instagram are virtually plumped with before-and-after videos of cheek reductions, or buccal fat pad removal. Chrissy Teigen admitted to having the surgery to remove a pocket of fat from below the cheekbone for a more defined and contoured face. “If you were teased as a child for having chipmunk cheeks, this is an excellent solution,” says Dr. Kimberly Lee, director of the Beverly Hills Facial Plastic Surgery Center. The 30-minute procedure, which also extracts $3,000 to $8,000 from your bank account, requires approximately three weeks of healing time and benefits the jawline as well, so men are getting it too. If you’re interested, act fast; the surgery is recommended for young, round-faced

candidates because buccal fat diminishes with age. In other words, time heals all chubby-cheeked baby faces. kimberlyleemd.com

The Quest to Cure Cellulite

It’s the last frontier of skin care: smooth those bumpy, lumpy, cottage cheese formations of flesh inside abdomens, thighs, and derrieres.

While this harmless condition affects even Hollywood goddesses—Lizzo, Olivia Munn, Kelly Rowland, and Ashley Graham have all publicly revealed rumpled backsides to prove not everyone can be J.Lo-perfect— infinitely-hashtagged anti-cellulite lotions and potions are still touted online for ironing out unwanted dimples and all-over tightening. “We are hoping for a ‘one-and-done’ solution, but to date, it is not here,” says Dr. Ava Shamban, who practices in Santa Monica and Beverly Hills. “But there are very good tools, which we can layer and tailor, that can synergistically mitigate cellulite.” Doctors are now employing multiple (read: expensive) treatments to target the cellulite-causing strands of collagen that pull the skin down and allow fat to push toward the surface. Qwo, for instance, is an injectable enzyme treatment specifically designed for the booty that can be combined with the latest RF, or radio-frequency, devices along with microneedling, Emsculpt body contouring, and subcision, wherein tiny needles are inserted under the skin. All that—and a chaser of the filler Sculptra for good measure—is what’s getting results. avamd.com, qwo.com

C H R I S SY T E I G E N : @ T H E CO S M E T I C L A N E ; B E L L A H A D I D : G E T T Y I M AG E S ; L I Z ZO : @ L I Z ZO B E E AT I N G ; T H R E A D I N G : G E T T Y I M AG E S / I STO C K P H OTO ; L I P M A S K : U S . L A N E I G E .CO M

Incoming

LIST

PROMOTION

Julian Lage

Julian Lage and The Bad Plus Discovery Cube Los Angeles July 30 Discovery Cube Los Angeles hosted a Carnaval-themed gala on July 30th, which included stilt-walkers, tightrope walkers, and jugglers as guests danced the night away to swing band favorites, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. The gala celebrated Discovery Cube’s work in STEM education and outreach within the local community, and two special individuals were honored - Melanie Coto, President of The Coto Foundation, and Paul Jennings of PCS Energy. The money raised at the event will benefit science education and support exhibits, educational programming, field trips, and more.

Friday, October 14, 8 p.m.

Walt Disney Concert Hall, DTLA These restless innovators tease at the limits of jazz this October at Walt Disney Concert Hall. laphil.com

Discoverycube.org

Pasadena magazine Presents:

The Whiskey Festival Friday, November 18, 7 – 9 p.m.

Santa Anita Park, Arcadia Pasadena magazine celebrates all things whiskey in the San Gabriel Valley with their first annual whiskey tasting celebration featuring Bardstown Bourbon, Broken Barrel, CALI Distillery, Corbin Cash, Sagamore Spirit, Virginia Distillery, Uncle Nearest, Westward Whiskey and more.

GO THE EXTRA MILE FOR KIDS The annual Skechers Pier to Pier Friendship Walk raises funds for public education, national scholarships, and the Friendship Campus where youth with special needs learn life skills.

Register, donate and learn more at skechersfriendshipwalk.com

This event includes a variety of tasty bites, lively music, and unique experiences to complement the bespoke atmosphere.

For tickets and information visit lamag.com/whiskeyfestival

Photo credit: Alysse Gafkjin

Clockwise from top left: (left to right) Joe Adams, Dean Schramm, Pedram Salimpour, MD, Renee Valdes, William Ahmanson, The Honorable Wendy Greuel and Pep Valdes; (left to right) Pedram Salimpour, MD, Paul Jennings, The Honorable Wendy Greuel and Joe Adams; (left to right) Pedram Salimpour, MD, The Honorable Wendy Greuel, Melanie Coto and Joe Adams

Incoming

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H OW I G OT T H I S LO O K

Easy Rider

• N E C K L AC E S

“Brian Harman and Peter Yadusky of Tribal Son put their heart and soul into the sterling silver jewelry they handcraft. I am so proud of the pieces I own.”

DURK DEHNER NEVER SHIFTS GEARS. BIKER STYLE IS JUST PART OF HIS DNA

• SHIRT

BY MERLE GINSBERG

D U R K D E H N E R has

been president of the Tom of Finland Foundation, headquartered in Echo Park, for almost 40 years—ever since he met and interacted with Finnish artist Touko Laaksonen, aka Tom of Finland. Laaksonen was drawing biker dudes even before he saw the iconic 1953 movie The Wild One. But “once he saw Brando in black leather, he stopped drawing brown leather and only drew black,” Dehner says. “He drew that motorcycle cap in black leather—and that became biker style.” Art and style are as much a part of Dehner’s job as they are his look. This year, the foundation collaborated with clothing designers Jonathan Anderson and Glenn Martens, who, he says, “both remind me how much fashion is art.” Before Dehner met Laaksonen, he had already developed an affinity for motorcycle guys. “I bought my first gear in New York, and I’ve been wearing it most of the time ever since,” he says. “Black leather has always been intrinsic to my self-representation. I wear it all year. It’s my second skin.”

•

B O OT S “There is a discipline to putting these thirty-hole Grinders boots by British Boot Company on. It is a process of meditation—the lacing, the pulling, the tugging. But in the end, it’s a feeling of solid comfort.”

4 4 L A M AG . C O M

“A leather man wants to feel put together in the gear he is wearing. Adrian Bernal of Rough Trade Gear engineers confidence into everything he tailors—like this shirt.”

• TIE

“I wear ties all the time, and this leather one from Mister B in Berlin is the perfect way to formalize this look.”

• JAC K E T

“Our friends at Ben Orson Leather in Duarte made this jacket an easy choice for me—classic, heavy, and form-fitting. You tell them what you want, and they design it just for you.”

• G LOV E S

“Tough Gloves makes the thinnest specialty gloves on the market, and they are designed for heavyduty use. Great on the bike!”

• B E LT B U C K L E

“Our foundation has made this Tom of Finland sterling belt buckle for special friends and supporters.”

• PA N T S

“Langlitz Leathers in Portland, Oregon, are the Cadillac of gear for the true fetishist. With a custom fit, there is nothing finer. Tom took the jodhpur from cavalry riders and breeches from motorcycle police and made this trouser iconic.”

P H O T O G R A P H E D BY I RV I N R I V E R A

PHOTO CREDIT: KIERNAN MICHELLE PHOTOGRAPHY AND DEVIN BURKO

PROMOTION

JOIN US AT OUR 16TH ANNUAL CULINARY FESTIVAL FEATURING NOTABLE CHEFS, ICONIC L.A. RESTAURANTS, CRAFT BREWS, BOUTIQUE WINES, AND SPIRITS TASTINGS.

Sunday, October 23 | 2-5 pm Venue and Host Partner

Hummingbird Nest Ranch | 2940 Kuehner Dr, Simi Valley, CA 93063

Tickets on Sale Now LAmag.com/THEFOODEVENT2022

Must be age 21+ to attend. Please don’t drink and drive. Event details subject to change.

Incoming

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W H E R E TO E AT N OW

New & Notable The Hideaway B E V E R LY H I L L S

● Hollywood actors

Ryan Phillippe and Evan Ross invested in this clubby ode-to-1970sBaja California Mexican steak house, where cocktail king Julian Cox makes margaritas to sip alongside snapper ceviche or New York Wagyu steak with chimichurri.

421 N. Rodeo Dr., thehideawaybeverlyhills.com

Slow Burn

Pijja Palace S I LV E R L A K E

“ M Y I N T E R E S T in American

food, historically, ends when you hit the Gilded Age, before machines and mass production,” says chef Brian Dunsmoor. “We don’t use any processed foods because we try to work within the limitations from back then.” This culinary ethos is the driving force behind the chef ’s new namesake Glassell Park restaurant, Dunsmoor, where his devotion to preindustrial “heritage cookery” is on full display and activity centers on a wood-fired hearth.

But walking into Dunsmoor’s restaurant is hardly like entering a time machine. The open-plan design feels fresh and modern while still honoring the Spanish Revival building’s nearly century-old bones. The open hearth and wood-burning oven are built into a wall in front of the chef ’s counter, which serves as a sort of main stage, perpendicular to long communal tables dressed with dripping candelabras.

Dunsmoor, born and raised in Georgia, became known for his Southern-influenced, history-inspired cooking ALL FIRED UP on L.A.’s Westside, first Electricity is so 2022!

At Dunsmoor, food at his touted pop-up, is cooked over a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing preindustrial-style and later at the Hart wood-burning hearth.

4 6 L A M AG . C O M

& the Hunter and Hatchet Hall. With this Eastside endeavor, he is exploring regional American food. The menu begins with small plates, such as albacore crudo, thinly sliced and served with a slightly sweet ginger relish and shallots. A chopped chicken liver with bacon, rosemary, and onion preserves is wholly satisfying. The sour milk cornbread, made with white cheddar and green chilis, is topped with a decadent dollop of salted butter and honey. Larger plates, like the maple-smoked salmon with pickled beet salad and the beef rib eye with smoked bone marrow, are big enough to share.

Despite some anti-gentrification demonstrations early on, since its opening, the restaurant has welcomed a steady flow of patrons, who pack the dining room nightly and make their way into the adjacent bar, where sommelier Taylor Parsons’s wine list dazzles.

“We have massive neighborhood support and so many local regulars,” says Dunsmoor, who has proudly called himself an Eastsider for the last seven years.

“We want to cook for the people we live amongst. This side of town is our home.”

3501 Eagle Rock Blvd., Glassell Park, dunsmoor.la P H O T O G R A P H BY B R I G I T T E N E M A N

restaurateur Avish Naran brings pizza and pasta featuring the flavors of his childhood to a strip mall sports bar. The innovative menu includes Malai rigatoni with tomato-masala sauce, pizza topped with chicken tikka, and cardamom and cookies soft serve.

2711 W. Sunset Blvd., pijjapalace.com

Workshop Kitchen + Bar FA I R FA X D I S T R I C T

● This L.A. outpost of the beloved Palm Springs original offers chefowner Michael Beckman’s seasonal, Frenchinfluenced cooking in a former printing facility remodeled with a striking modern interor, lofty ceilings, and podlike concrete booths.

127 S. La Brea Ave., workshopkitchenbar.com

P I JJA PA L AC E : STA N L E E

BRIAN DUNSMOOR’S EPONYMOUS GLASSELL PARK EATERY SERVES UP MODERN AMERICAN CLASSICS WITH AN OLD-WORLD SIZZLE B Y H E A T H E R P L A T T

● Indian American

RO E © F. Gaviña & Sons, Inc.

.

.

IA

C A N L I I F D O E R T D B E S Y N Y A A JO LL N

Scan and enter for a chance to win FREE Coffee for a Year!

Or visit our website at www.donfranciscos.com/pages/camagsweeps to enter.

NO PURCHASE OR PAYMENT OF ANY KIND IS NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN THIS SWEEPSTAKES. For Official Rules visit www.donfranciscos.com/pages/camagsweeps. Sweepstakes begins 8/10/22 at 12:01 a.m. PDT and ends 11/30/22 at 11:59 p.m. PDT. Must be 18 yrs or older, legal U.S. resident, and have Internet access. Void where prohibited.

Incoming

|

L . A . STO R I E S

COFFEE CLAN

Patriarch Francisco Gaviña (center) and family at their Vernon headquarters.

than light-roast, watered-down American coffee, Francisco started peddling bags of espresso beans to Cuban neighbors. He quickly realized that other immigrants—Vietnamese, Armenians, Italians—shared Cubans’ love of dark-roast coffee, and each community had its own blend preference. Francisco was soon supplying custom blends to their shops and cafés across town.

“That pivot was the opportunity that L.A. gave us with that diverse group of coffee drinkers,” says Michael Gaviña, another of “the cousins,” as he and Lopez refer to themselves.

“Had we still been in Cuba? We would be selling two espressos or something like that.”

The Gaviñas credit their ability to stay relevant in today’s saturated market—California is now home to HOW THE FAMILY BEHIND A 150-YEAR-OLD CUBAN COFFEE DYNASTY hundreds of coffee roasters—to that ESCAPED CASTRO AND CAPTURED L.A. B Y R E B E K A H B R A N D E S innovative streak. In 1984, when Americans were buying preground and store closures in prime locacoffee in cans at the grocery store, O N E A S T E R weekend tions like West Hollywood, the the Gaviñas put single-origin whole in 1967, Cuban émigré Gaviña family’s origin story and local beans in paper bags on shelves. And Francisco Gaviña, his focus resonates. they long ago embraced adult children, and some “It was really all about sustainable practices. family friends piled into a rented survival,” Lisette Gaviña “Because we’re immitruck to pick up a used Bob’s Big Lopez, Francisco’s grandgrants, we had to be very Boy coffee roaster and take it back daughter, says of her mindful to not waste as to their newly rented commercial family’s beginnings in L.A. much—that is ingrained space in Vernon to roast and sell Francisco was born on his naturally in us. We’re on gourmet coffee. It would take five family’s estate in Trinidad, our sixth or seventh year years for any member of the famCuba, where it had been of zero waste to landfill,” ily business—F. Gaviña & Sons—to The growing and roasting cofMichael says. They’ve also draw a salary.

Gaviñas fee since 1870, but fled the teamed up with TerraCycle Now, almost six decades later, the sold bags communist revolution on a free program that Bob’s Big Boy coffee roaster has been with his wife and children encourages consumers to retired, but the legacy that Gaviña of beans in 1963, eventually setrecycle their espresso capestablished lives on: nine of his ten when tling in downtown L.A. He sules and coffee pods. grandchildren continue to make cofcoffee worked as a waiter to keep Above all, Michael says, fee their life’s work. Don Francisco’s was still a roof over their heads, the the Gaviñas are commitCoffee, their flagship brand, is sold in youngest of his four chilted to making a great cup more than 12,000 stores nationally, in cans. dren still in high school, but of coffee. and Gaviña supplies the coffee served yearned to return to the “There’s a lot of good at McDonald’s franchises up and business he knew and loved. coffee out there. There’s down the West Coast.

“Coffee had been his entire life,” a lot of bad coffee out there. But At a moment when some are Lopez says. this is a passion for us. Our name is reconsidering coffee behemoths Unable to find anything other on it.” like Starbucks amid labor tensions 4 8 L A M AG . C O M

FA M I LY P H OTO : CO U R T E SY F. G AV I Ñ A & S O N S ; CO F F E E B E A N S : F E N G Y U /S H U T T E R STO C K

The Daily Grind

2022 ISSUE

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savor NEW TO

PRIX FIXE

LUNCHES DINING +

THEATER

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TERRACE BY MIX MIX

| 657.231.6447 | Private Dining/Catering Bites

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south coast plaza VOLUME 41 2022 ISSUE | Lee Healy, Editor

d es

Culinary news adds more sparkle to this year’s 55th

anniversary of South Coast Plaza. Five stellar restaurants have joined our diverse dining collection with another to launch this winter. Each is unique and independently owned.

Find the details on page 7.

Knife Pleat, which opened mid-2019 in the Penthouse, was honored with a Michelin star last fall. Critics throughout Southern California have praised chef Tony Esnault, restaurateur Yassmin Sarmadi and their team for a singleminded focus on becoming OC’s best French restaurant.

Theater and restaurants are natural allies and I can’t recall a more dynamic lineup of performances than the 2022–23 season at Segerstrom Center for the Arts and South Coast Repertory. Check out our favorite pre-theater dining spots on page 22.

The October opening of the Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) at Segerstrom Center for the Arts is a culmination of the Segerstrom family’s long-standing vision of uniting the performing and visual arts on one campus. Designed by Pritzker Prize–winning architect Thom Mayne, the new museum is magnificent. Admission to OCMA is complimentary.

I invite you to visit soon and experience all that South Coast Plaza has to offer. Our matchless synergy of luxury shopping, dining and the arts is worth the trip, any season.

Vaca’s tasty tribute to South Coast Plaza’s 55th anniversary

Debra Gunn Downing

dig in...

7

SIX NEW RESTAURANTS The newest dining experiences at South Coast Plaza

14

PRIX FIXE LUNCHES

22

THE ART OF PRE-THEATER DINING

Five celebrated venues offering three-course midday menus

Executive Director, Marketing, South Coast Plaza

24

THE ARTS

26 27

RESTAURANT AMENITIES

Arts partners and performances

Listing of dining details

MAP AND SERVICES Overview map and South Coast Plaza services

Convenient pre-theater dining options

Cover: Populaire’s kombu cured fluke

southcoastplaza.com 3

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POPULAIRE MODERN BISTRO

| 714.760.4555 | Duck Breast, Pickled Cherries, Red Endive; Duck Confit Spliff

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Wild California Spiny Lobster, Homemade Coleslaw | 949.208.7060 |

WATER GRILL

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SEASONS 52

| 714.437.5252 | Sesame-Grilled Salmon Salad; Avocado Toast

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six new

RESTAURANTS

BY ANNE MARIE PANORINGAN AND JENN TANAKA

South Coast Plaza’s dining collection is advancing to the next level with the recent and pending arrival of six independent restaurants. From crepes to creative cocktails to caviar, get acquainted with our newest stars.

MOULIN

PETROSSIAN AT TIFFANY

Conveniently located on Garden Terrace, MOULIN is

Tucked into the flagship Tiffany & Co., Petrossian at

a welcome oasis for shoppers. Freshly baked baguettes,

Tiffany is an ode to opulence and a natural pairing of

sandwiches, made-to-order crepes and salads are

the iconic jewelry brand with a family equally committed

perfect for al fresco dining. Sweet viennoiseries and

to craftsmanship. Petrossian’s exquisite caviar is showcased

pastries are popular at breakfast or lunch. French

through executive chef Carlos Cabrera’s French-influenced

beverages, beer, wine and champagne are chilled

offerings. The trifecta of champagne, seafood and service

and ready for leisurely imbibing.

commence with fine French bubbly before floating between modern selections featuring the savory roe. southcoastplaza.com 7

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POPULAIRE MODERN BISTRO Michelin-lauded chef Ross Pangilinan follows the success of his first South Coast Plaza restaurant, Terrace by Mix Mix, by collaborating with his longtime pal, chef Nicholas Weber. At Populaire, found in the Saks Fifth Avenue wing, their fine dining background has led to Parisian bistro dishes that come alive with Californian ingredients. The restaurant is comprised of three sections: indoor and outdoor patio seating, and a petite French blue dining room with marbletopped tables and bistro chairs.

Hors d’oeuvres range from escargots enveloped in pillowy ebelskivers — circular-shaped Danish pancakes — served with buttermilk herb sauce to fried chicken lavishly garnished with Royal Ossetra Caviar and creamy yogurt labneh. Entrées include seared duck breast with pickled cherries and brown butter beet purée. The tempting dessert menu features modern twists to French favorites.

MIÀN James Beard Award-nominated chef Tony Xu of Chengdu Taste and his partners have debuted at South Coast Plaza with an OC exclusive. EATER declared MIÀN “one of Los Angeles’s best — and spiciest — noodle restaurants.” The full-service Chinese-inspired space is located steps from Carousel Court.

The famous Chengdu noodles are made with Sichuan mung beans and mixed delicate greens, and then mixed upon arrival at the table. Appetizers include beef in chili sauce and pickled wood ear mushroom with a “tart funkiness of Sichuan pickles,” which the late food critic Jonathan Gold raved about in his Los Angeles Times column. Another dish not to miss is the chili oil chao shou, delicate shrimp wontons coated in sweet chili sauce. Beer, wine and tea drinks complement the spicy cuisine.

8 southcoastplaza.com

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TABLEAU KITCHEN AND BAR Chef John Park and restaurateur Ed Lee opened their new concept, Tableau Kitchen and Bar, last winter in the Macy’s Home Store wing. The popular brunch destination showcases Park’s inventive palate with dishes such as Jasmine milk tea French toast and Greek yogurt parfait with mandarin granita.

The chicken and waffles evoke the flavors of Korean-style soy-glazed fried chicken wings served with crisp taiyaki “waffles” filled with kecap manisinfused custard.

Dinner offerings such as green curry mussels with poblano-spiced chorizo delight. Yet the sweets showcase Park’s grasp of flavors. A strawberry lemon meringue pie is one of the best desserts in Orange County. Another highlight is afternoon tea with confections crafted by chef Park.

CALÓ KITCHEN + TEQUILA Restaurateur Clemente Heredia’s south-of-the-border cuisine in a contemporary setting is on track to debut at SCP this winter. Caló Kitchen + Tequila will seat 200 in a dining space split between the interior and patio with big roll-up doors creating an indoor-outdoor vibe. A separate tequila bar with its own bartender will seat 10. Neutral desert colors, light woods and white flagstone with green and brass accents create a fresh feel.

Caló’s forthcoming menu joins traditional tastes alongside iterations of modern Mexican. Entrées vary from the family recipe for crispy carnitas to Chilean seabass in Veracruz sauce. A world-class selection of tequilas is perfect for sipping solo and serves as the basis of creative margaritas and Mexico-inspired cocktails. Another hallmark is warm, attentive service.

southcoastplaza.com 9

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®

BY GRETCHEN KURZ Some days, the world is a lot. Making a brief retreat is irresistible. Somewhere chill, dusky, low volume. That cushy corner where the frosty martini arrives quickly from a server who reads your mind. The Capital Grille is acclaimed for such spoiling of guests with next-level hospitality and an artfully prepared menu.

Stellar steaks, meticulously dry-aged and butchered on-site, may be an increasingly scarce luxury, but here they’re a house signature. Bold beef flavors and divine texture are perfectly showcased by the popular bone-in dry aged Kona crusted NY strip with shallot butter.

Renowned for exceptional ingredients, feasts here often open with top-grade seafood — say a luscious jumbo shrimp cocktail or velvety lobster bisque. Dishes get masterful support from an acclaimed wine collection of coveted bottles and a polished team who deliver an impeccable experience worth repeating.

THE CAPITAL GRILLE

| 714.432.1140 | Bone–In Kona Crusted Dry Aged NY Strip with Shallot Butter, Wedge with Bleu Cheese and Smoked Bacon, Soy Glazed Brussels Sprouts

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

southcoastplaza.com 11

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CORNER BAKERY

| South Coast Plaza 714.966.2404 | South Coast Plaza Village 714.546.1555 Choose Two: Tuscan Grilled Cheese & Roasted Tomato Basil Soup

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Sichuan-Style Specialty Dishes | 714.265.7997 |

MIÀN

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prix fixe lunches When Chefs Do The Order g Follow the lead of culinary insiders — don’t wait for dinner to indulge in first-class, chef-designed menus when you can treat yourself to a prix fixe lunch. These five celebrated venues offer of-the-moment daytime menus perfect for that special meet-up or solo office escape.

Hamamori Restaurant & Sushi Bar

Populaire

Populaire Modern Bistro

Hamamori Restaurant & Sushi Bar

The table d’hôte menu thoughtfully created by

Acclaimed sushi master James Hamamori crowns the

chef Nick Weber gives choices in the first and second

three-course executive sushi lunch with his signature sushi

course; dessert is often a luscious crème caramel.

gems — each work of art is uniquely sauced and garnished.

Monday–Friday, 11am–3pm

Daily, 11:30am–2pm

14 southcoastplaza.com

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Knife Pleat

Terrace by Mix Mix

Knife Pleat Michelin star chef Tony Esnault showcases a beautiful menu du jour with seasonal touches and generous portions. Pastry chef Germain Biotteau is a master of his craft, as reflected in the fine dessert offering.

Tuesday–Friday, 11:30am–1:45pm

Terrace by Mix Mix Steal away to the tropical terrace and partake of chef Ross Pangilinan’s inventive express lunch, with three varied choices in both the first and main courses. Finish with artisan sorbet or ice cream.

Monday–Friday, 11am–3pm

Vaca Chef de cuisine Edward Pak’s weekly exercise in creativity is composing the three-course express lunch.

Expect the unexpected with bold dishes full of flavor.

Tuesday–Friday, 11am–2:45pm

Vaca

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LÄDERACH CHOCOLATIER SUISSE

| 949.594.2280 | 36-Piece Classic Wooden Box

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Kurobuta Pork Xiao Long Bao, Cucumber Salad | 714.549.3388 |

DIN TAI FUNG

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MARUGAME UDON

| 714.619.5688 | Nikutama Udon with Sweet and Savory Beef, Tempura

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Crispy Fish Taco, Enchilada Entrée, Classic Margarita | 714.549.0565 |

WAHOO'S FISH TACO

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SEE'S CANDIES

| 714.557.5948 | 714.850.1529 | Assorted Chocolates

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Acai Banana Berry Bowl | 949.688.0807 |

NÉKTER JUICE BAR

Water Grill

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the art of

PRE-THEATER DINING

BY BENJAMIN EPSTEIN

Leatherby’s Cafe Rouge

Vaca

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Pre-theater dining foreshadows the excitement of the

Leatherby’s Cafe Rouge opens exclusively for pre-theater

show itself — curtain-raisers for the night, as it were. The best

dining; it’s inside the magnificent Renée and Henry Segerstrom

is on the lighter side in anticipation of the evening that awaits.

Concert Hall and looks out onto the new Orange County

These restaurants are minutes from the theaters; savvy diners

Museum of Art. Composed dishes such as the ahi tartare and

valet park and take a quick stroll to their venue destination.

Liberty Farm duck breast make the evening a celebration.

Showgoers cozy up to the county’s best oyster bar — and to clam chowder and wild Alaskan halibut collar — at gorgeous

Rosé champagne sets the mood for Moulin Rouge! The Musical.

For meat and potatoes grazing, you can enjoy top-notch

seafood destination Water Grill. Any night at the live soft-

handmade empanadas or potato croquettes at Peruvian

shell crab and first-of-season-salmon mecca feels like a special

destination Costa Contemporary Kitchen and still have plenty

occasion; elaborate iced shellfish platters make it even more

of room for the superb seafood ceviche or lomo mar y tierra, a

so. French-press coffee is the preshow reboot.

surf and turf of dramatically flambéed filet mignon and shrimp.

One could order three different tapas at Vaca before each of Segerstrom Hall’s nine Broadway shows

The sangria and the crema volteada flan both earn ovations.

Off to a weekend matinée? Outpost Kitchen, a stylish

and never repeat; celebrity chef Amar Santana’s shareable

update of Aussie beach cafés, specializes in weekend brunch,

small plates are sophisticated, bold and as diverse as

serving exuberant but often simply named dishes such as

albacore tataki, chicken cannelloni and pork spareribs.

real avocado toast and gluten-free blueberry pancakes.

The Vaca Tonic, an icy gimlet, is the perfect prelude to

Salute Hamilton, defender of the Constitution, with a Defender,

Disney’s Frozen.

cold-pressed juices with or without tequila.

southcoastplaza.com 23

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SEGERSTROM CENTER FOR THE ARTS

SCFTA.ORG | 714.556.2787

SEGERSTROM HALL Hamilton September 28–October 16, 2022

Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan October 26, 2022

BODYTRAFFIC November 3, 2022

Moulin Rouge! The Musical Mannheim Steamroller Christmas December 4, 2022

American Ballet Theatre: The Nutcracker

Frozen

December 9–18, 2022

Alton Brown

Mean Girls

December 20, 2022

Chicago

March 7–19, 2023

May 16–21, 2023

Johnny Mathis Christmas

American Ballet Theatre: Like Water for Chocolate

Alonzo King LINES Ballet

To Kill a Mockingbird

March 29–April 2, 2023

Ballet BC

December 27, 2022–January 8, 2023

Yo-Yo Ma, cello & Kathyrn Scott, piano

June 3, 2023

Pink Martini

April 4, 2023

January 12, 2023

SIX

Dorrance Dance

June 13–25, 2023

Frozen

April 8, 2023

February 1–19, 2023

Hairspray

TINA — The Tina Turner Musical

Bluey’s Big Play

April 18–30, 2023

February 23, 2023

The Book of Mormon

LA Dance Project

September 5–10, 2023

December 23, 2022

Deen van Meer

November 9–27, 2022

May 27, 2023

July 11–23, 2023

May 12–14, 2023

RENÉE AND HENRY SEGERSTROM CONCERT HALL Mavis Staples with Kandace Springs

Fran Lebowitz

September 29, 2022

December 9, 2022

February 6, 2023

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

Chita Rivera

Patti LuPone

October 11, 2022

December 11, 2022

February 9, 2023

Duruflé (Requiem) + Hagen (The Notebooks of Leonardo de Vinci)

Holiday Pops with The Manhattan Transfer

Hitting New Heights: Mandy Gonzalez & Javier Muñoz

October 15, 2022

December 16–17, 2022

March 5, 2023

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone™ in Concert

Tis the Season!

Erik Larson

December 18–19, 2022

March 6, 2023

October 29, 2022

Fiesta Navidad

Kristin Chenoweth

Belinda Carlisle

December 23, 2022

March 10–11, 2023

November 2, 2022

Salute to Vienna

Israel Philharmonic Orchestra

December 31, 2022

Concerto Köln with Jeanine De Bique

November 3, 2022

Brian Stokes Mitchell

March 23, 2023

John Williams: A 90th Birthday Celebration

January 6, 2023

Zurich Chamber Orchestra

Leif Ove Andsnes, piano

March 25, 2023

November 4–5, 2022

January 20, 2023

Voctave: The Corner of Broadway and Main Street

Bernadette Peters

Attacca Quartet

Amy Tan January 23, 2023

April 2, 2023

Chicago Symphony Orchestra with Riccardo Muti

George Benson

Farruquito Flamenco

January 24, 2023

Gloria Gaynor — The Queen of Disco

November 9, 2022

Monterey Jazz Festival on Tour

April 14–15, 2023

Aniil Trifonov, piano

January 25, 2023

Dream House Quartet

November 6, 2022

Lila Downs November 8, 2022

November 11, 2022

April 7, 2023

April 28, 2023

o

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RENÉE AND HENRY SEGERSTROM CONCERT HALL CONT. LA Phil with Elim Chan and Leila Josefowicz April 30, 2023

The Music of The Rolling Stones

Haydn (Missa in Angustiis “Nelson Mass”) + Price (Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight — West Coast premiere)

Renée Elise Goldsberry

May 20, 2023

June 24, 2023

June 9–10, 2023

Veronica Swift

May 5–6, 2023

SAMUELI THEATER Samara Joy

Randall Goosby, violin

Camerata RCO

October 1, 2022

December 2, 2022

March 22, 2023

Apollon Musagète & Garrick Ohlsson

Broadway Holiday Songbook

The Cookers

October 9, 2022

December 15–17, 2022

March 25, 2023

Chris Mann

Jane Lynch & Kate Flannery

October 20–22, 2022

January 19–21, 2023

Ann Hampton Callaway & Liz Callaway

Leonardo! A Wonderful Show About a Terrible Monster

Takacs String Quartet

March 30–April 1, 2023

January 27, 2023

Emerson String Quartet

October 29–30, 2022

Jazz at Lincoln Center

April 15, 2023

Calidore String Quartet

February 4, 2023

GRIMMZ Fairy Tales

November 2, 2022

Quartetto di Cremona

April 22–23, 2023

Vijay Iyer Trio

February 22, 2023

Jason Robert Brown

November 5, 2022

Somos Amigos

April 27–29, 2023

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Dispatches

BY COLMAN ANDREWS

BITTE R HARVEST

Firefighters defend a vineyard during the 2020 Glass Fire, one of the relentless blazes that have devastated Napa Valley in recent years. Below: grapes at Trefethen Family Vineyard’s lush Hillspring Vineyard and those of other Napa wineries are under increasing stress from rising temperatures.

Paradise Lost BESET BY CLIMATE CHANGE AND BILLIONAIRE CARPETBAGGERS, NAPA VALLEY, CALIFORNIA’S LEGENDARY WINE-MAKING EDEN, BRACES FOR AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE

mountains—30 miles long and five miles across at its widest point—Napa Valley is a place of uncommon beauty: Wooded knolls and forested mountain slopes contrast with tracts of vines sprawling across the valley floor and flowing up the hillsides. The vineyards glow sun-bright with mustard flowers in springtime, turn lush green in summer, blaze yellow and red in autumn as the leaves turn and the promising perfume of fermentation fills the air. ¶ That perfume is also the scent of international acclaim—of 7 8 L A M AG . C O M

F I R E : K E N T N I S H I M U R A / LO S A N G E L E S T I M E S V I A G E T T Y I M AG E S ; I N S E T: CO U R T E SY T R E F E T H E N V I N E YA R D S

F R A M E D B Y the Vaca and Mayacamas

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business selling purse hooks for women. While she was initially a novice to the supply chain and manufacturing industries, she quickly learned the ropes and found a manufacturer in China. This firsthand experience helps her to understand the complexities and challenges that entrepreneurs and executives face every day and gives her an international perspective that her clients value.

Vivian serves mainly high-net-worth individuals, entrepreneurs, corporate executives and multigenerational families. She has extensive experience in broad array of disciplines, including financial and retirement planning, investment management, charitable gifting, pre- and postliquidity event strategy, concentrated equity risk management, trust and estate planning strategies, customized cash management and lending solutions, and Special Needs planning.

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She began her career in 1997 as an associate in the financial advisory services group at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, where she gained valuable experience analyzing companies in great detail. She also ran a successful small

As a child in Nepal, Yangchen Lama lived 17,000 feet above sea level in the Himalayas with no electricity or running water. At age 12, she came to the United States as an exchange student on her own and ultimately graduated with a sterling academic record from Cornell University where she received a BA in International Relations and a MA in Public Administration with a focus on International Finance. She also earned her Certified Portfolio Manager designation from Columbia University and her Certified Financial Planner designation from the College of Financial Planning.

YANGCHEN D. LAMA, CFP®, CPM® Senior Vice President – Wealth Management Senior Portfolio Management Director Family Wealth Director Investing with Impact Director Alternative Investment Director (310) 285-2693 yangchen.lama@morganstanley.com

Yangchen currently is a Senior Vice President of Wealth Management, Senior Portfolio Management Director, Family Wealth Director, Alternative Investment Director, and Investing with Impact Director at Morgan Stanley. She has extensive experience advising high net worth and ultra-high net worth families and non-profit organizations with their investment management and delivering sophisticated wealth transfer, family/foundation governance, and philanthropic planning strategies. Prior to that, she was responsible for managing multi-billiondollar budgets and financial plans for various governmental agencies and higher education institutions in New York and Los Angeles.

Yangchen has also been recognized as one of Forbes Top Women Advisors 2020-2022, Forbes Best in State Wealth Advisor 2021-2022,

Vivian was born and raised in Ghana. She came to the U.S. in 1992 and earned a B.S. in accounting and economics from California State University, Los Angeles. She is also fluent in Ghana’s native tongue, Twi. Vivian is an avid runner and has medaled in the Malibu Triathlon for three consecutive years on the relay team. She loves to volunteer and is passionate about educating young women from underprivileged communities. She is a volunteer with Junior Achievement and teaches free enterprise to high school seniors. She also mentors at risk teens on career building skills and resume writing as St. Anne’s Bogey Family Transitional Housing building and resumewriting at St. Anne's Bogey Family Transitional Housing and teaching free enterprise to high school seniors at Junior Achievement.

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She also appears as guest speaker at events for universities, non-profit organizations, and Forbes/Shook Research.

Yangchen strongly believes in giving back to her community and the world at large. She continues to champion access to quality education for children here in the States and abroad. For the past twenty years, she has been extensively involved in improving the lives of girls in Nepal through a non-profit organization called Hands In Outreach, which provides young girls with educational sponsorship for their primary and secondary educations. She has also served on several higher education board of trustees in the United States to help make colleges and universities more accessible to families from underrepresented socio-economic levels.

Yangchen currently sits on the Board of Director of Adara Development, international NGO with the focus on reducing infant mortality in Uganda and rural & educational development in Nepal and on the Advisory Council of Cornell University – Cornell Institute for Public Affairs. She also serves on the Morgan Stanley Financial Advisor Advisory Council and on the Morgan Stanley Regional Diversity Council. When not in the office or volunteering, she likes to be out on a golf course with her husband and their nine-year-old daughter.

VA L L E Y H O

legendary status, Olympian prestige.

Wine is made in all 50 states and wine grapes are grown in 49 of California’s 58 counties, but Napa Valley is heraldic, not just a wine region but an icon, one of America’s most valuable and illustrious brands. It’s also a kind of paradise, bucolic but sophisticated, bathed in a golden light both atmospheric and metaphorical.

If Napa Valley is a paradise, though, it’s also a troubled one.

Climate change has been cruel to Napa. (Napa is just one town in the valley, but everybody uses the term

“Napa” as a metonym for the entire area.) Wildfires—once an occasional threat—have ravaged the region in recent years, destroying homes and wineries, and leaving their mark long afterward in the ashtray flavor of wines made from smoke-tainted grapes.

Even when the valley isn’t literally aflame, dramatic heat spikes of late wreak havoc: grapes ripen too fast, yielding wines too high in alcohol, too low in essential acidity. “We used to have one day over 100 degrees every few years,” says L.A. native Rob Sinskey, who runs Robert Sinskey Vineyards.

“Now we have them back-to-back.”

Sinskey recently ripped out Pinot Noir vines from one of his vineyards in Carneros, one of Napa’s cooler regions, and replanted with heatfriendly Zinfandel and Primitivo.

Steve Matthiasson of Matthiasson Wines is experimenting with the hotclimate Italian varieties Sagrantino and Aglianico. Some experts question whether even Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa’s emblematic grape, will remain viable in the coming decades.

As elsewhere in California, drought plagues the valley, and even when reservoirs are full and groundwater abundant, there isn’t enough to go around. There are too many wineries competing for it, and, increasingly, too many houses and resort developments.

At the same time, many of those wineries, often founded as small-scale family operations, are being taken over by conglomerates or superrich carpetbaggers from other fields

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From left: Falcon Crest flooded Napa with tourists; Rob Sinskey, founder of Robert Sinskey Vineyards.

Photo credit: Jim Coleman: Mark Morris’ Grand Duo

of endeavor, which some locals feel featuring gorgeous exteriors filmed is robbing the valley of its personality. at Spring Mountain Vineyard and When I first visStags’ Leap Winery. ited Napa almost 50 Unsurprisingly, it years ago, it was a brought a flood of “People talk about very different place. o u r i s t s . Jo s e p h the Hamptonization tPhelps, There were maybe then presiof Napa. That’s 40 wineries, many dent of Napa Valley run by refugees from Vintners, told the not inaccurate.” urban stress who New York Times that just wanted to make the crowds jamming decent wine and live a semirural life.

Napa’s two main roads—Highway Some wineries gave tours, with the 29 and the Silverado Trail—would expectation that you’d buy a few bottles at the end, but nobody charged admittance. Bruce Neyers, onetime general manager of Joseph Phelps Vineyards and now proprietor of his own Neyers World Premiere Vineyards, told me that he used to like meeting friends at Louis M. Martini Mark Morris Winery “because you could stay there Dance Group and taste free wine all day.”

Restaurants were few and mostly The Look of Love pedestrian. The only convenient place An Evening of Dance to stay was a small motel—still in operto the Music of ation and much expanded—with the precociously gender-fluid name of El Burt Bacharach Bonita. “When I moved here in 1979,” October 20–23, 2022 recalls Cindy Pawlcyn, whose Mustards Grill has been an unofficial clubhouse BroadStage Commission for winemakers since opening in 1983, “there were still cattle ranches, dairy farms, walnut groves, prune-plum orchards. All that is gone now.”

Two things changed the game for Napa: a wine tasting in Paris and a hit American TV series.

The tasting, later dubbed the “Judgment of Paris,” was organized in May 1976 by Paris-based British wine merchant Steven Spurrier. Nine French judges tasted 20 wines blind—four French whites and four reds against six of their California counterparts in each category. To everyone’s shock, two Napa Valley wines took first place: Chateau Montelena Chardonnay overcame four famous white Burgundies, and Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon bested such blue-chip competitors as Château Mouton Rothschild and Château Haut-Brion. The effect was electric, catapulting California wine onto the world stage and conferring instant credibility on Napa’s boutique wineries. Warren Winiarski, who made that winning Cabernet, called the event California’s “Copernican revolution.” broadstage.org Five-and-a-half years later, CBS debuted Falcon Crest, a primePresenting Patron Sponsor: Laura Stevenson Maslon time soap opera set in the fictional Tuscany Valley but shot in Napa,

self-regulate. “You sit in traffic like this,” he said, “and you’re not likely to come as often.” If he’d only known.

By 1985, the valley was logging about two million visitors a year; today, it’s almost four million. “It’s become like an adult Disneyland,” says Sinskey.

Sometimes, he says, “I find it almost easier to go to San Francisco than to St. Helena.” (San Francisco is 60 miles away; St. Helena is ten.)

Today, there are about 1,700 wineries in Napa, 500 with tasting rooms,

Following the roaring success of his Beatles tribute Pepperland, Mark Morris teams up again with musical collaborator Ethan Iverson (The Bad Plus) for The Look of Love, a wistful and heartfelt homage to the chart-topping songs of Burt Bacharach.

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Marcy Harriell, lead singer

Burt Bacharach, composer

Nicole Pearce, lighting designer

Hal David, lyricist

Isaac Mizrahi, costume designer

Ethan Iverson, arranger

L A M AG . C O M 8 1

GRAPE NUTS

From left: Francis Ford Coppola and Janet Trefethen were among Napa’s baby boomer vineyard owners in the 1970s.

Trefethen, who started Trefethen Family Vineyards with her husband, John, and sold their first wine in 1973, “and I think that’s probably not inaccurate. Napa Valley has just done too good a job of marketing itself.”

Tourists aren’t the only ones drawn to the valley. The newcomers in the ’70s were often city kids seduced by the magic of wine, willing to drive tractors and haul hoses at somebody else’s winery until they could start their own.

“They thought the wine business was

really sexy,” says Neyers, who was one of those idealistic immigrants, “then found out how sexy it was to stand outside a wholesaler’s office for three hours waiting for them to see you.”

By the 1980s and ’90s, the newcomers were more likely to be retired CEOs, big-bucks entrepreneurs, a few celebrities, inspired by the chimerical notion that they could quickly start producing wines to equal those of Burgundy and Bordeaux, and seeking not a simpler life but a grander one.

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and tours and tastings are no longer free. Louis M. Martini’s “experiences” cost anywhere from $55 (wine only) to $325 (wine and food). At Beaulieu Vineyard, the tariff ranges from $55 to $130; at Heitz Cellar, it’s $125—or $150 if you want cheese and charcuterie with your Cabernet. The newer wineries are often attractions in themselves.

There’s one designed by superstar architect Michael Graves (Clos Pegase), another by the eccentric Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser (Quixote). There’s a Foucault pendulum at Stag’s Leap, a contemporary art collection at Hess Persson Estates, a mock-Venetian piazza at Del Dotto (given the imprimatur of a guest shot on Keeping Up with the Kardashians).

Hotels are ever ywhere now— including a new Four Seasons where rates start at $960 a night—and there are world-class restaurants from one end of the valley to the other, including three with three Michelin stars apiece (one is temporarily closed after having been gutted by, yes, a wildfire).

“People talk about the Hamptonization of the valley,” says Janet

Theirs was a seigneurial fantasy: they’d build themselves a showplace home and winery—the kind Sinskey calls a “Château Ego”—where they could luxuriate grandly in the knowledge that their $150 Cabernet got a 98 from critic Robert Parker and was on the wine list at the French Laundry (scene of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s much-mocked dinner party during the lockdown).

One outsider who proved to be serious about winemaking was Francis Ford Coppola. In 1975, with profits from The Godfather, he bought the nineteenth-century house built by the founder of the historic Inglenook Winery, along with 1,500 acres of adjacent vineyards, and today owns the original winery and Inglenook trademark. (Coppola’s Rubicon is considered one of the valley’s better Bordeaux-style blends.) Race car legend Mario Andretti and the Major League pitching ace Tom Seaver were among the other names lured into the Napa wine business over the years.

Nancy and Paul Pelosi grow grapes here, too—as the nation was reminded when Paul was arrested for a DUI on Highway 29 in May (an event mostly greeted with yawns by locals).

But it’s the absentee billionaires and conglomerates buying their way into prominence that have lately changed the power structure of Napa.

Constellation Brands (Corona beer, Svedka vodka) now owns the venerable Robert Mondavi and Mount Veeder wineries; luxury goods giant LVMH built a sparkling wine facility here in 1973, then bought a stake in Newton Vineyard, and paid a rumored $725 million to acquire Joseph Phelps; Australia’s Treasury Wine Estates has Beringer, Beaulieu, Sterling, and Stags’ Leap, and last year took over Frank Family Vineyards, founded by former Disney Studios president Richard H. Frank. HVAC mogul Gaylon Lawrence purchased Stony Hill, Heitz, and Burgess, three of the valley’s OG wineries, while L.A. Rams and Denver Nuggets owner Stan Kroenke now controls Screaming Eagle, whose Cabernet—the ultimate Napa trophy wine—sells for as much as $15,000 a bottle in older vintages.

The most controversial of Napa’s “lifestyle vintners,” as The Atlantic dubbed them, is Dallas developer Craig Hall, former co-owner of the Cowboys and now proprietor of Hall Wines. Hall

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L A M AG . C O M 8 3

has been locked in a battle with activists for almost 15 years over his plan to clear-cut thousands of trees on his property to plant new vineyards (and, some fear, develop luxury homes).

Hall was in the news in 2019 when he hosted a fundraiser for then-presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, pouring $900-a-bottle Cabernet (according to Nancy Pelosi; Hall denies the price) in a tricked-out cavern illuminated by a chandelier hung with 1,500 Swarovski crystals. The event was surprisingly off-brand for Mayor Pete, prompting rival candidate Elizabeth Warren to grouse that “billionaires in wine caves should not pick the next president of the United States.”

And in a new case being closely watched by locals, the owners of the little-known Green Island Vineyard in southern Napa are applying for permission to rip out their vines and build an industrial park, claiming that the salinity of the soil is killing the grapes anyway. If they succeed, it could have grave implications for the valley.

“What’s happening right now is almost hard to witness,” says Karen

MacNeil, author of the best-selling The Wine Bible. “I moved here in 1994 because I loved the valley, but now I’m afraid that the Napa I fell in love with is changing irrevocably.”

The fires are certainly part of it.

MacNeil has been evacuated three

“The Napa I fell in love with is changing irrevocably.” times in recent years. The local power company, PG&E, now turns off the grid on high-wind days to reduce the chance of sparking power lines. Ray Signorello, whose Signorello Estate winery was largely destroyed by the 2017 Atlas Fire, is rebuilding partly underground and surrounding his property with fire-suppression systems. That may be all that can be done.

Rising temperatures might be less of a problem. Andy Beckstoffer, who owns more than 1,000 acres of Napa vineyards, has faith in technology

to develop grapes more resistant to drought and heat—and also maybe better. “Your grandchildren’s children will be drinking Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon,” he promises, “and it will taste much like it does today.”

As for the shift from family-owned to corporate-run wineries, it’s probably inevitable. In Europe, wineries are often passed down through many generations; here, few last past two.

“That’s worrisome,” says MacNeil, “but you can forgive people who decide to sell out. They’ve seen how tough it is, and they can keep doing it or be rich the rest of their lives.”

Some of Napa’s old collegial feeling has undeniably been lost as the population of wineries—the population, period—grows. Pawlcyn fondly remembers the early days of Mustards, when “winemakers would come in wearing their work boots and bring sample bottles to taste with dinner.

We’d have Phelps, Mondavi—everybody, really.” Now, she laments, “so many of those people have passed away.

The corporate guys do eat here, and it’s great. But it’s not Bob Mondavi.”

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With over 160 retailers including leading brands like Fendi, Gucci, Balenciaga, TOM FORD, and the recently renovated Christian Louboutin and Breitling boutiques, The Forum Shops has become an iconic Las Vegas experience and a must-do shopping and dining destination for visitors. For 30 years, The Forum Shops at Caesars Palace has continually updated and expanded its impressive retail portfolio. Here are some of the most exciting highlights.

BREITLING

They say that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. There is, of course, an exception to every rule and when you find the perfect watch at the Breitling Boutique in The Forum Shops at Caesars, it should definitely go home with you. You will be welcomed into the world of Breitling by experienced associates, who will guide you through their entire watch collection. You can browse their large variety of straps and bracelets and access an authorized after-sales service for your Breitling watch. If you would like to request a particular service or to reserve a visiting time to discover their newest collection, book an appointment by email or call them directly. Breitling’s newly renovated boutique is now open near The Fountain of the Gods.

CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN Since the opening of the first Christian Louboutin boutique in 1991, the brand’s vision has been immortalized with its extravagant reputation and signature red sole, which is now among the most valuable trademarks in the fashion industry.

The revamped Christian Louboutin location at The Forum Shops at Caesars Palace recently reopened its doors by the Fountain of the Gods. The incredibly sleek retailer features a clear display for guests to get a glimpse of the brand’s artfully made shoe selections as well as bolder and richer design touches. Stepping inside, shoppers will experience the wit, glamour, elegance, and technical proficiency drawing on the renowned designer’s craftsmanship.

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TOM FORD

Las Vegas is hailed as one of the great shopping capitals of the world, and the embodiment of an upscale retail experience can be found at The Forum Shops at Caesars Palace.

TOM FORD TOM FORD has built a brand synonymous with sexy, timeless elegance. Opened last year, TOM FORD’S Forum Shops location is a full accessories boutique where discerning shoppers can experience the brand’s ultrachic eyewear fashions in bold styles perfect for poolside lounging Las Vegas style. Finely crafted leather goods add a touch of sophistication with shoes for men and women, along with TOM FORD's signature T Icon belts and a line of exquisite watchbands. Luxury beauty products highlight Private Blend fragrances and cosmetics for face, lips, and eyes, as well as the highest-quality men’s personal care products for beard, body and face.

TOM FORD is located in the Fortuna Terrace.

The Forum Shops at Caesars Palace 3500 Las Vegas Boulevard South (702) 893-4800 | ForumShops.com facebook.com/forumshops twitter.com/theforumshops instagram.com/theforumshops

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by Bekah Wright

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HAS THE Z DIAC KILLER MYSTERY BEEN S LVED? (AGAIN)

FOR MORE THAN 50 YEARS, HIS IDENTITY HAS REMAINED AS MADDENING A RIDDLE AS THE CIPHERS HE ONCE SENT POLICE. BUT NOW AN L.A. NOVELIST-TURNED-AMATEUR SLEUTH MAY HAVE FINALLY CRACKED THE CASE, REVEALING WHO WAS BEHIND SOME OF THE MOST NOTORIOUS SERIAL SLAYINGS IN CALIFORNIA HISTORY

By Aaron Gell Illustrated by Robert Carter

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B

A L D W I T H A sprinkling of gray facial hair, Jarett Kobek, 43, is best known for his acerbic 2016 novel, I Hate the Internet. But he has dabbled in research-heavy crime stories: subjects of his books include 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta, murdered Florida rapper XXXTentacion, and homicidal “club kid” Michael Alig.

Kobek came across Gloria’s father by accident. Initially, the author’s goal was to write about misinformation and conspiracy theories, about how speculation clots into history. But he didn’t want to write about the “plandemic” or crisis actors or, least of all, Donald Trump.

A M YS T E RY W R A P P E D I N A N E N I G M A

Clockwise from top left: One of the ciphers Zodiac sent police and newspapers; a witness sketch of the killer; investigators hunt for clues.

P R E V I O U S S P R E A D : G E T T Y I M AG E S ; T H I S PAG E : C RY P TO G R A M : CO U R T E SY SA N F R A N C I S CO C H R O N I C L E ; D E T E C T I V E S : A P P H OTO/S J V

T

The Hawaiian rain forest where Gloria Doerr has lived since 2017 is a magnet, she says, for people who are running away from something. But even there, in the shadow of an active volcano, sometimes things catch up with you.

For Doerr, 70, it happened this past April. She was spending a tranquil afternoon at home when she learned that her late father, Paul Alfred Doerr, had been linked to one of the most notorious murder sprees of the twentieth century. Her son had stumbled on a podcast interview with Paul’s accuser, Jarett Kobek. A best-selling, if little-known, novelist based in Los Angeles, Kobek had written a whole book, How to Find Zodiac, about how her dad just might have been the maniac who, more than 50 years earlier, had terrorized the Bay Area with a string of cold-blooded and seemingly random killings.

By the time she’d finished listening to the podcast, Gloria, a retired real estate agent, was in shock. If this writer had only bothered to pick up the phone and call her before lodging his accusation, she would happily have told him that her father, while far from perfect—to put it mildly—could be a charming, quirky, and voraciously curious man, a member of Mensa and an early proponent of organic foods.

In the following days, Gloria mentioned the situation to a few close friends, who thought she might have a libel case. She even reached out to an attorney. Though she was reluctant to pay $17.95 for the book, a friend ordered her a copy.

Paul Doerr is hardly the only suspect in the case—far from it. Among the rogues’ gallery of other presumptive Zodiacs are a house painter, a former schoolteacher, a sports car dealer, a theater operator, and Unabomber Ted Kaczynski.

“There are probably 50 or 100 suspects named every year,” sighs Richard Grinell, the former postman who runs the website Zodiac Ciphers and has been following the case for a decade. In October 2021, a self-described “national task force of seasoned investigators” called the Case Breakers pointed to a brand-new Zodiac suspect. Their theory was quickly debunked, but not before Fox News picked up the story, leading to hundreds of credulous media reports.

Gloria’s father, in other words, was in good company.

The killer, who is linked to a series of late-1960s attacks in the Bay Area, employed a shifting MO: often, he shot his victims, but on one especially macabre occasion, clad in an executioner’s hood, he tied them up and used a knife.

Though he mostly attacked young couples around Vallejo, he also murdered a cabdriver in San Francisco. Officially, he is believed to have killed just five and injured two, but his body count has been far outstripped by his well-tended mystique, bolstered by a sinister handle and a practice of firing off letters to the media and other authorities, often including mysterious ciphers and signed with a crosshair logo.

Perhaps his greatest cultural contribution, if one can call it that, is having popularized a tone of smug superiority that attention-hungry outcasts, both fictional and real—from Hannibal Lecter to the aforementioned Kaczynski and a substantial subset of 4Chan dwellers—have sought to emulate ever since. Meanwhile, his cryptic puzzles brought a seductive element of interactivity to crime-solving (a married couple decoded his first cipher over breakfast in 1969) and prefigured the citizen-sleuth movement along with its twisted progeny, 9/11 trutherism and QAnon. That might explain why his modest murder spree managed to inspire so much media coverage, including documentaries, a David Fincher film, a bottomless podcast playlist, an array of websites and forums, and enough paperbacks to stock a small, very grisly library.

And now, a new book has been added to the shelf, and Gloria’s father is the main character.

T H E S I N S O F T H E FAT H E R

L E T T E R : G E T T Y I M AG E S ; DA I LY N E WS : N Y DA I LY N E WS A R C H I V E V I A G E T T Y I M AG E S

Paul Alfred Doerr, the latest—and most compelling—suspect in a long line of Zodiac maybes; a letter the Zodiac mailed to a local paper; one of scores of headlines inspired by his slayings.

Instead, he imagined that, with 50 years of hindsight, a look at the misbegotten hunt for Zodiac—how professional detectives and armchair sleuths alike had fallen victim, time and again, to a kind of mass delusion, settling on one suspect after another based on threadbare coincidences—would help explain just how we got here.

He began by studying the turbulent period in Golden State history during which Zodiac operated, an era in which seemingly random, inexplicable killings were becoming terrifyingly commonplace—stoking the darkest fears of an anxious populace already reeling from an alarming deterioration of the social fabric.

Kobek could relate. In spring 2021, outside the Los Feliz one-bedroom he shared with his cat, Ulysses, infection hung in the air like smog. A trip to the grocery store felt like a baptism in a viral plunge pool. As he strolled along Hollywood Boulevard, past Barnsdall Park and Jumbo’s Clown Room, thinking through the makings of his book, Kobek kept his own running tally of bodies—COVID-19 victims being wheeled out on gurneys as well as unhoused people left to die on the streets.

As he studied Zodiac’s cryptic letters, Kobek brought a writerly attention to bear. He zeroed in on the killer’s habit of quoting forgotten bits of cultural ephemera (the well-known callouts to The Mikado and to the 1924 short story “The Most Dangerous Game,” as well as a telling reference to an obscure 1950s comic book, identified by an anonymous online researcher, Tahoe27, several years back). Running other

apparent quotations through Google Books and the Internet Archive, Kobek formed a picture of the killer as a fan of pulp novels, comics, and other nerdy touchstones. Kobek knew a bit about the early years of the sci-fi and fantasy fandoms, how these nascent communities had begun taking shape around an array of obscure self-published zines. On a hunch, he did a quick web search of “fanzines” and “Vallejo.”

That’s how he happened upon a suspect of his own, one who had somehow escaped attention for five decades.

The second hit for Kobek’s search was a sci-fi zine called Tightbeam. In it, he noticed a letter to the editor by a man named Paul Doerr, who criticized the postal service and suggested citizens fight back by mailing their letters with one-cent stamps. Kobek immediately thought of another piece of correspondence, mailed by the Zodiac to attorney Melvin Belli and postmarked around the same time—a letter sent with six one-cent stamps.

Just a coincidence, nothing to get excited about, he thought.

This was precisely the species of random fluke that got Zodiac researchers into trouble. But the letter bore a return address, a Vallejo P.O. box. Although Kobek might indeed hate the internet, he’s highly attuned to its utility. He searched for “Paul Doerr.” He searched for the address.

Doerr, it immediately became apparent, had left behind an abundant paper trail—copious letters to the editor, a list of items for sale, and articles of his own. Kobek spent the next dozen hours glued to his couch, reading Doerr’s oeuvre. Some of the writing had an oddly familiar ring, but Kobek remained

THERE ARE PROBABLY 50 OR 100 SUSPECTS NAMED EVERY YEAR. L A M AG . C O M 1 0 3

skeptical. “I’m like, ‘This is too crazy,’ ” he says. “ ‘I don’t want to do this. He’s not Zodiac.’ ” When he discovered Doerr had published zines of his own, some of which were held by various libraries, he resolved to track them down.

The first one he came across, Hobbitalia, volume 1, included a detailed discussion of the Tolkien fandom’s use of the author’s fictional runic language, Cirth, for creating “codes and cyphers.” Published in April 1970, just when the killer was posting letters with ciphers of his own, it included an example bearing some resemblance to Zodiac’s handiwork.

And like Zodiac, Doerr had used an arcane spelling of cipher.

Huh. Kobek kept digging. In Hobbitalia, volume 2, Doerr expressed enthusiasm for the Society for Creative Anachronism, a group devoted to medieval cosplay—as good an explanation as anyone had yet offered for the “executioner’s hood” Zodiac wore when he attacked two college-age picnickers at Lake Berryessa on September 27, 1969. It turned out a Renaissance Faire was taking place in the same area on that very day.

Interesting.

Another of Doerr’s zines, Pioneer, focused on survivalism.

One issue contained instructions for making a bomb with ammonium nitrate and fertilizer, known as the ANFO formula—the same formula, Kobek noted, that Zodiac had outlined in one letter.

And perhaps tellingly, both Doerr’s and Zodiac’s instructions contained the same error.

This is where Kobek’s approach to the Zodiac mystery differs from what’s found on most of the fan forums. He knew that rather than simply looking at the suspect, he needed to grasp the historical moment. Today, the sort of arcana contained in Zodiac’s communications is a mere web search away.

notions like uncertainty, historical revisionism, and self-validating leaps of logic, not to lose himself in rabbit holes of his own making. But each new bit of information, rather than excluding Doerr, as Kobek expected, seemed to deepen the connections. A friend, author Jonathan Lethem, remembers Kobek struggling as the implications of his research began to hit home. “When he kind of bumbles into this suspect, he’s really in denial,” Lethem recalls. “Like, ‘This isn’t good.’ It overtook his project.”

Kobek spent nine days reading every scrap about Paul Doerr he could find. In March, he compiled his findings in a sober, 19-page document loaded with caveats. He addressed the dossier to the Major Crimes Division of the San Francisco Police Department and other relevant law enforcement authorities. Then he waited.

It doesn’t surprise him now that the cops never reached out for additional information. More than a year later, Kobek is all too aware that anyone involved with the case is inundated with crackpot tips every day. It’s natural that people would be skeptical. They should be.

S TA R C R O S S E D

From left: Victims Betty Lou Jensen, David Faraday, and Darlene Ferrin.

But in the late ’60s, this was specialized knowledge. “When information is not easily available,” he explains in How to Find Zodiac, “every reference resonates with meaning. The words echo a lifetime of reading and memory.”

In other words, Kobek saw in Zodiac’s particular obsessions and areas of expertise a sort of mental fingerprint that might help identify him.

He next began researching the history of ANFO in a political context. Leftists didn’t adopt the bomb-making technique until 1970, but the Minutemen, a militant rightwing group, had published the formula in a newsletter in the mid-’60s. Investigating further, he noted that the organization had advocated sending threatening letters to supposed Communists—letters that featured a gunsight symbol similar to the Zodiac logo. In a Minutemen FBI file, Kobek found a membership list. Paul Doerr’s name was on it.

WTF. At this point, the man was becoming a troubling distraction. Kobek had set out to write a cultural study that explored 1 0 4 L A M AG . C O M

But the disinterest only fueled Kobek’s obsession. Digging up pictures of a fantasy convention Doerr had written about, Kobek spotted a man resembling him based on his yearbook photo, then compared the images to the police sketches of Zodiac. In one of Doerr’s classified ads, Kobek found a book for sale, The Strange Ways of Man, that included a line about how headhunters believed their victims would become “their slaves in the after-life,” a phrase echoed in multiple Zodiac letters.

Bits of circumstantial evidence abounded, and perhaps more telling, Kobek could find nothing to rule Doerr out.

Many times, he considered calling Gloria, but he ultimately thought better of it. For one thing, he had seen her criminal history (including felony convictions for drug distribution and possession), evidence of a woman, he imagined, who was woefully unprepared for the chaos his phone call could unleash. Besides, he doesn’t think much of witness testimony. He prefers documents, blurry snapshots, scanned PDFs. Though his research was hardly conclusive, as he was

G E T T Y I M AG E S

THERE WERE GUNS EVERYWHERE. I BROUGHT FRIENDS OVER,

the first to admit, the details were at least reliable, grounded in fact. Why water it down with what was almost certain to be an anxious welter of denial, evasion, and filial devotion?

Meanwhile, reluctant to complicate his original book project with speculation about a new suspect, he decided to split the material into two separate volumes, Motor Spirit, about the misbegotten hunt for Zodiac, and How to Find Zodiac, about Paul Doerr.

Both books appeared in February, via his own publishing company, to modest sales and virtually no public notice.

“I

D O N ’ T WA N T T O believe it was him,” she

tells me, sitting on the deck of a Vrbo rental in Vallejo. She is tiny, about 5 feet tall. Her voice is contemplative and whispery; her hair, gray and untamed, befitting a woman who spent her formative years sneaking into smoky San Francisco clubs to catch Janis Joplin sets and swoon over Jim Morrison. She’s lived an eventful life, full of wild adventures and more than her share of bad choices, including “four or five” marriages. “I really hope it wasn’t,” she adds, puffing on an American Spirit and gazing out at Southampton Bay. It’s the evening of July 4, but the holiday spirit is tempered this year by the news of a young man who used the occasion to pick off seven revelers at an Independence Day parade in suburban Chicago. If random murder has by now come to seem like one more all-American tradition, it was Zodiac who helped establish it on the same date back in 1969, when he approached Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau as they sat in a car in Blue Rock Springs Park, not ten minutes from this rental house. Shining a flashlight into their eyes, he raised an automatic pistol and began firing without a word.

Remarkably, Mageau survived to offer a description. A few weeks later, the killer would dash off the first of his public missives, claiming credit for the Ferrin murder and the killings of two other teenagers the previous winter.

Gloria has now read both of Kobek’s books about the Zodiac

home playing Dungeons & Dragons and swapping firearms with Hells Angels. He openly promoted polygamy (he told Gloria he’d once lectured on the topic at a Mensa meeting) but stuck it out for decades in a loveless marriage. He almost always carried a notebook, compass, penknife, and, sometimes, a large hunting blade, as well as two loaded pistols, one in each pocket.

Paul encouraged his daughter to be well rounded. He tutored her in cryptography by devising a weekly puzzle, the answer to which would lead her to the allowance he’d hidden somewhere in the house. Among her fondest memories are their father-daughter hunting expeditions, during which Gloria, who couldn’t bear to see an animal killed, cried out, “Daddy, don’t!” whenever Paul zeroed in on a buck or rabbit.

Other recollections are less happy. Gloria can’t recall Paul and her mother, Rose, who maintained separate bedrooms, ever touching each other, or her. Given Paul’s work schedule, the pair crossed paths fleetingly, and then, only to disparage one another with spit-flinging volleys of contempt. “She used to call him psychotic, and he’d call her frigid,” Gloria recalls.

“And she’d say, ‘I did my conjugal duty.’ I remember being a little kid wondering what that meant, thinking, ‘Maybe I’m the conjugal duty?’ ” Gloria believes both parents suffered from severe mental illness, in particular, paranoid delusions. “There were guns everywhere,” Gloria recalls. “I brought friends over, and it would be, ‘Do not reach behind that cushion.’ You have to understand, my mother was as crazy as my father in her own way. They covered for each other their whole lives.”

Paul’s behavior may stem, in part, from his service in World War II and, later, the Korean War, experiences that, in his telling, took on the air of adventure fiction. He described breaking the Japanese codes and then crouching for hours, half submerged in a swamp, tapping out false messages to confound the enemy. He told Gloria he’d once been invited to a party where J. Edgar Hoover, clad in a red sequined dress, greeted him with a kiss on the lips and thanked him

AND IT WOULD BE, ‘DON’T REACH BEHIND THE CUSHION.’ case, and while she’s not yet convinced, she’s impressed with the author’s research. Enough so, at least, to stop thinking about suing him. When I had suggested a meeting between them, she was open to the idea, accepting my offer to spring for a visit to her old stomping grounds. Kobek is set to arrive from L.A. tomorrow for the overdue sit-down.

Over the course of several phone interviews with Gloria spanning three months, a highly complex portrait emerges of her father: an eccentric outsider, with a sharp intellect and wide-ranging interests. Though he never graduated high school, he was a lifelong autodidact, spending most of his free time in a reading chair poring over everything from Edgar Rice Burroughs to Rachel Carson to tomes about ancient Egypt and witchcraft.

He was at once a conservationist and a libertarian, a Renaissance Faire regular and a member of a far-right nativist militia. He spent years on Mare Island doing the mind-numbing work of a naval documents clerk, but he wasn’t exactly shy: In his leisure hours, he seemed equally at

for helping the allies win the war. Paul sometimes claimed to have been a member of the OSS, forerunner of the CIA— “One of Buffalo Bill’s boys,” as longtime acquaintance David Frohwein put it. Paul told Frohwein that he’d been in special operations, that he quit the military “because he didn’t particularly like running off into the Vietnamese jungle with no ammunition,” and that he occasionally took on “wet work” (professional contract killings) for extra cash.

He told Gloria he’d once attendeda party at an estate where wealthy elites had assembled to hunt humans, assuring her he’d bailed out at the last minute. (True or not, the story’s echoes of “The Most Dangerous Game” are yet another telltale whorl in that mental fingerprint.)

While such accounts are impossible to verify, they do raise the question of why Paul spent decades working as a lowly functionary, never rising above a GS-4 classification. One explanation, according to Howard Hitt, who briefly worked in the same department, was that these stories were pure fabrications. (Paul’s military records indicate no overseas L A M AG . C O M 1 0 5

deployments.) Hitt remembers his coworker as “a keep-tohimself kind of person,” though he does recall Paul once chatting him up. “He started talking about how all those Jews didn’t die in the Holocaust. And he’s going, ‘Oh, they’re all a bunch of whine babies.’ ” Hitt resolved to keep his distance. “I could see where this was going.”

Though Gloria, in classic hippie style, viewed her father as a “fascist,” she doesn’t recall him expressing anti-Semitic or racist views. As for his war stories, she considered them credible, if only because they helped explain his behavior. “I believe he had PTSD,” she says. “The night sweats, the way he would just snap, become someone else. I mean, I could tell you stories that would make your hair stand up.”

Eventually, she opens up about some of her most traumatic memories, and they are indeed horrific. There was, for instance, the time when he threw her, then a first grader, up the stairs, leaving her unconscious and bloodied. (“I ended up at a dentist’s office having all my baby teeth pulled out.”)

was a tumultuous time for the family—the convergence of her adolescence and the blossoming counterculture seeming to activate Paul’s darkest impulses.

As that summer rolled around, Gloria was 16, a senior and an A student. Eager to earn some spending money for visits to the city, she found work at a local apricot plant.

Undocumented immigrants and underage kids were put on the night shift, so Gloria started popping Benzedrine.

Harder drugs soon followed. She made the acquaintance of a young man who offered her a white powder she assumed was cocaine but was, in fact, heroin. The narcotic haze recalled the numbing disassociation she’d felt during her father’s abuse, and she began using heroin regularly.

Eventually, her supply dried up. By the time the school year rolled around, she was in agony. Paul’s discovery of her drug use prompted yet another of his furious tirades. “His reaction was really violent, but he couldn’t do much because I was so drug-sick,” she remembers.

HE SNAPPED. HIS EYES WERE BLUE, BUT THE EYES THAT WERE LOOKING AT ME WERE DILATED BLACK. THEY WERE BLACK. And the boat trip during which, annoyed at her whining, he tossed her overboard, then dragged her along with a rope as she fought for air. And the time when Gloria came home with a bagful of pears, a gift from a neighbor. After Rose accused her of stealing them, Paul bound her wrists with a rope and suspended her froma tree branch, whipping her savagely with a switch as her feet dangled. Her agonized screams summoned the neighbor, who hurried over and backed up Gloria’s story. “My father never apologized for that,” she says.

K

O B E K I S W E A R I N G mirrored aviators and a leather motorcycle jacket—a little psychic armor, perhaps, for what promises to an awkward encounter—when he knocks on the door of the Vallejo rental the next afternoon. There is a bit of small talk as the writer and the suspect’s only child size each other up.

Kobek admits that over the course of his research, he came to appreciate Paul Doerr’s eccentricities. “I actually really, really started to like him,” he says, noting that in some ways Paul reminded him of his dad.

“My father had a very violent side and a very beautiful side,” Gloria says.

I just sit there, a little stunned, quietly watching them swap notes. A lot of details in the book felt familiar, Gloria admits.

Yes, Paul used to play The Mikado on his record player, the same version—by Groucho Marx—that Zodiac quoted in two letters. And yes, he was in the Minutemen, and hated the postal service, and loved communicating with ciphers. And around the time of the last killing, he had begun using henna in his hair, perhaps explaining an eyewitness account that described the killer’s hair as having a reddish tint.

According to Gloria, 1968, when the Zodiac killings began,

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The episode that sticks with her the most occurred a few months later, as Christmas approached. Gloria returned from a date shortly after curfew, prompting Rose to begin berating her. “It’s one of the few nights he gets to sleep,” Gloria recalls, “and she wakes him up and tells him that I’ve been out with the whole football team or something. I wasn’t even sexually active! So I’m defensive and defiant. Normally, he would just look at me, and I would shut up. But that night, I didn’t.”

We’re on the porch, smoking more than any of us wants to.

The sun is high and hot, and Kobek has removed his leather jacket and sunglasses. Whatever his sentiments about the superiority of documents and data to the uncertainties of human memory, her story has his rapt attention.

“He ended up just beating the living daylights out of me,” Gloria continues. “He snapped. His eyes are blue, but the eyes that were looking at me were dilated, black. They were black.

And at one point, he has me by the throat—and I’m small, right?—my legs aren’t touching the ground. And he’s punching me. And he says, ‘This is how you hit people so there are no bruises.’ ” Gloria flicks her cigarette at the ashtray. “Blood’s coming out my mouth. My mom’s screaming, ‘Stop, stop!’

But, finally, I was able to just say, ‘Daddy, don’t.’ And he just dropped me on the floor and walked away.”

Gloria believes her father could have killed her that night if she hadn’t found the words—precisely the phrase she used as a young girl during their hunting trips—to bring him out of what seemed to her like a psychotic break. Terrified, Gloria called a favorite teacher, who spirited her out of the house.

She moved in with the teacher and never lived at home again, having already won a full scholarship to the state university of her choice (she wound up at San Jose State).

When Gloria recounted the story to me during an earlier interview, neither of us fully grasped its significance. But as Kobek is quick to point out, the timing of the incident seems

CO U R T E SY A A R O N G E L L

important. Gloria was only allowed to date on Friday nights, and she remembered this life-changing moment occurring at the beginning of Christmas break. A quick glance at the 1968 calendar narrows down the date to one possibility: December 20. “You know why that’s interesting?” Kobek asks. It dawns on me slowly, although every halfway decent Zodiac researcher will likely know the answer: Just a few hours later, the killer would claim his first victims.

Indeed, the first three attacks took place at teen hangouts, places that, as Paul well knew, Gloria herself frequented, either on dates, as with the makeout spots at Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs Park, or when cutting school with friends to swim at Lake Berryessa. Moreover, they were all places, Gloria confirms, where drugs could be procured.

Whether or not Paul crossed the line from domestic abuser to murderer later that night, it’s easy enough to imagine him storming out of the house to track her down, a tormented parent, his mind throbbing with rage and remorse, in search of his unruly daughter.

This theory is reinforced by one of the many Paul Doerr letters to the editor Kobek unearthed. It appeared in the November 1, 1974, issue of the neo-pagan journal Green Egg (and was postmarked from Vallejo, no less). In a previous edition, the publication’s founder, Tim Zell, had described the intentional dosing with LSD of his four-year-old daughter while she was in the care of family friends and asked readers

for advice. Paul’s response contained an aside to Zell, personally offering to “suggest . . . various physical procedures you could carry out.” He elaborated, “It might be better if you don’t print this part of my letter. I was in a vaguely similar situation some years ago, and there are fewer people here because of it now.”

Though Paul clearly never intended that part of his message for publication, Green Egg had a stated policy of printing every letter in full. To Kobek, the aside sounded an awful lot like a murder confession, carelessly made in a public forum.

And it seemed to echo, albeit “vaguely,” as Paul put it, the situation Gloria described: a father terrified of losing his child to the sinister undertow of the counterculture.

Maybe Paul Doerr believed he could scare Gloria straight by punishing other young people he assumed were on the same road to ruin. Maybe he thought he was revealing the wages of sin—every gunshot or knife thrust a warning to a wayward generation, and a punishment.

Ah, but what about the taunting letters? The secret codes?

The murdered cabbie?

All an effort, perhaps, to throw the police off his scent.

Confusing the enemy. Just like he’d done, or imagined he’d done, when he helped beat back the Japanese during World War II and saved the free world, earning a fairy-tale kiss on the lips from the nation’s top G-man himself.

(CO N T I N U E D O N PAG E 1 3 0 )

M A D M A N ’S DAU G H T E R ?

Writer Jarett Kobek with Gloria Doerr, who now believes her father was Zodiac. “In my heart of hearts, I wanted to deny it.”

L A M AG . C O M 1 0 7

Skid R LIFE ON THE STREETS

Skid Row sidewalks teem with enterprises like Tony Ray’s “bike shop” (pictured), which trades in stolen bicycle parts.

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d Row Photographed by ERIC AXENE

Nation How L.A.’s response to the homelessness crisis helped create tent cities across America

By SAM QUINONES

Estela Lopez doesn’t leave her office in Skid Row

much these days, but when I drop by to meet her, the first place she wants me to see is what’s known in this besieged and neglected district as a “bike store.”

We leave the order of her office–linoleum tile, fluorescent lights, a security guard at the entrance–and walk out onto Crockett Street, which is covered in tents. Next door is a scorched wall from a tent fire that then spread and gutted a fabric business. Lopez mentions this as we walk. We turn the corner and, there, covering the sidewalk and spilling out onto the asphalt, are piles of bike frames and wheels, inner tubes, and tires, growing and shrinking by the day, and protected, or hidden, by several tents under royal-blue tarps.

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Skid Row Nation The bike store is run by a fellow named Tony Ray, 51. Most of this stuff is stolen, Ray acknowledges, just not by him. “Everyone knows I don’t steal bikes,” he tells me. He says he buys only bikes people bring him, which in due course he dismantles and sells from his tent compound off Crocker Street. He tells me he’s been operating for five years.

Lopez wants to show me this because, to her, Tony Ray’s bike store encapsulates all that has come to afflict Skid Row. Skid Row, she says, has always been grimy, but in the last decade, it has devolved into what it never was before: a zone of libertarian lawlessness where people die almost daily, where drugs are, de facto, legalized, where city sanitation workers require police protection. Skid Row’s streets

are glutted with tents and blue tarps that colonize sidewalks, shroud dope dealing, pimping, addiction, mental illness, death, and disease.

Lopez–69 and, in her words, “5 feet 1 inches of Aztec fury”–is optimistic by nature. Indeed, her job requires it. For most of two decades, she has held the thankless post of business-improvement director for the industrial zone that includes most of the 50 square blocks of Skid Row. Business-improvement districts emerged in the 1980s to give local businesses a voice in city affairs and allow them to sweep up litter. But Lopez’s 40 contract BID workers have become first responders to tent fires and overdoses. BID unarmed security officers wear bulletproof vests. BID workers daily spray away vomit, feces, urine and blood in front

of member warehouses. “We’re not improving anything,” Lopez tells me.

“I’m the person trying to keep the dam from bursting.”

I wanted to meet Lopez because she stands at the intersection of two social issues that I’d been covering.

One is homelessness and the shape of it nationwide, now evolving into permanent encampments of tents.

The other is the spread of methamphetamine, which my reporting had shown had turned many tent cities, intended as a compassionate response, into hives of deranging meth addiction.

Lopez’s mornings begin with Los Angeles Police Department texts: a man on drugs waving a gun in the street. A man dead on a bus bench.

A woman who routinely disrobes in front of Ninth Street Elementary,

N E I G H B O R H O O D WAT C H

Estela Lopez, director of Skid Row’s business improvement district, and Gregory Foster, the BID’s security director.

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habitation, pimping, and assaults. In recent years, Skid Row-style homelessness, marked by meth abuse and tents, has spread across Southern California and many parts of the U.S. By 2018, tent cities had emerged in Mid-Wilshire, Santa Monica, Highland Park, South Central, and along freeways commuters rode to work. A strip of tents on Venice Beach became known to locals as Methlehem.

The loudest narrative on homelessness comes from far-left activists: that homelessness is caused by high housing prices, and thus the only solution to it is affordable permanent housing; until enough of that is built, people should be allowed to occupy sidewalks.

Those with other ideas have been largely cowed into silence.

Virtually alone, Lopez has raised her voice. Activists despise her. Her hearing was damaged when a Los Angeles Community Action Network activist blew an airhorn in her ear at one of the monthly tours of Skid Row Lopez organized years ago. LACAN activists once tried to push her car over while she was in it. (LACAN did not respond to interview requests.)

Homelessness is now top of mind for voters who could ignore it when it was confined to Skid Row. In a oneparty town, where most voters agree on climate change, Donald Trump, legal abortion, and gay marriage, the

B A D M OV E

Harry Tashdjian regrets relocating his upholstery company to Skid Row. He says his insurance premiums are 30 percent to 50 percent higher now than when he was located in Orange County.

one of the three schools in Skid Row. On these streets, people sashay conversing with ghosts; others slouch half-conscious on broken office chairs; a woman bends down to study her feces; another, in a wedding dress, washes stuffed animals.

Disgarded clothes and shoes, meth pipes, and needles clog gutters.

Amid the chaos, mostly unbeknown to Angelenos, hundreds of tiny fabric, toy, and flower shops, along with produce and seafoodstorage warehouses operate in the neighbhorhood. Yet despite the thousands of working-class jobs they provide, these businesses are only faintly heard amid Skid Row’s escalating squalor.

“The folks who lost housing—would their first inclination be to pitch a tent on a urinesoaked sidewalk in Skid Row?” Officer Deon Joseph, Los Angeles Police Department In Lopez’s view, what created today’s Skid Row includes municipal abandonment combined with methamphetamine, the abdication of drug-addiction and mental-illness treatment, misguided charity, and the city’s settlement of court cases that, in practice, now limit enforcement of laws governing drug sales, street

city’s approach to homelessness now divides liberals and the far left.

Irate constituents have given the Los Angeles City Council political cover to take actions it could have taken years ago–including the removal of a large encampment around Echo Park Lake in 2021. Activists, meanwhile, have L A M AG . C O M 1 1 1

for Human Rights, to force the city to regulate public spaces and enforce prohibitions on street camping.

Meanwhile, Skid Row has become a place of ironic outcomes: where you can buy almost any illegal drug but can’t fill a prescription; where owners of 1930s-era buildings are sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act yet tents block sidewalks, forcing those in wheelchairs into the street; where bike stores like Tony Ray’s can do business for years while tax-paying employers trim staff or abandon the area.

“I can’t even be in the same room with the people who lead this city because, to them, this is OK,” Lopez says. “They tell you it’s not, but actions speak louder than words.”

I N T H E M I D -1 9 8 0 S , Los Angeles, L I V I NG W I T H I T

Sergio Moreno (right) at his check-cashing business in Skid Row. “We experience this, smell it, see it, feel it every day,” he says.

picketed the homes of elected officials, screaming obscenities through bullhorns and egging the houses of some. Homelessness activists twice shouted down the City Council over the summer as it prepared to prohibit tent encampments within 500 feet of schools and day-care centers; two were arrested by police in riot helmets for vaulting over barriers at Council President Nury Martinez.

Veteran L.A. politician Gil Cedillo lost his council seat in the June primary to Eunisses Hernandez, a far-left unknown; Mitch O’Farrell’s seat is in jeopardy after he

orchestrated the Echo Park Lake encampment removal, which generated 35 tons of debris, 723 pounds of biological waste, and 300 pounds of needles and other drug paraphernalia; Mike Bonin, of Venice, is leaving the council, facing constituents angry that he has, in their view, protected Venice encampments.

As November’s election approaches, “it’s like it’s the fight for the soul of Los Angeles,” says Elizabeth Mitchell, an attorney who has sued the city on behalf of a group of Skid Row businesses and nonprofits known as L.A. Alliance

The cheap, potent meth flooding Skid Row is “a soul killer. With alcohol or crack, at least people had a will to fight.”

Troy Vaughn, director of the Los Angeles Mission 1 1 2 L A M AG . C O M

looking to redevelop downtown, moved the missions east of San Pedro Street to the industrial district, effectively reestablishing Skid Row’s boundaries. The idea was to contain the homeless and the services they needed within the same area. “The city put the services there and walked away,” Lopez says. In Skid Row, “they concentrated a target-rich population for vendors of substances that were keeping people tied to the pavement.”

Crack moved in. Crips and Bloods found neglected Skid Row a place where they could more freely do business. The homeless population grew, pushing shopping carts of belongings and sleeping mostly in refrigerator boxes, their feet sticking out the ends that lined sidewalks at night.

Then, in 2007, Lopez says, began “the great decline.”

That year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which hears federal appellate cases from nine Western states, was about to rule against the city in a case regarding Section 41.18 of the L.A. Municipal Code, which prohibits sitting, lying, and sleeping on the street. The city decided to settle. Under the settlement’s terms, L.A. could no longer enforce the ordinance if there was not shelter available for people living

Skid Row Nation on the street, and it prohibited police from moving people off the sidewalk between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. Hailed as a landmark, the Jones case, as it’s known, meant that “in Los Angeles, it is no longer a crime to be homeless,” said an ACLU official at the time.

But soon, judges bridled at daytime-camping cases clogging their courts. “So 6 a.m. became 9, became 12 noon, became all day,” Lopez says.

When she complained, “we were told ‘You’re just being reactionary. We’re just allowing people to sleep at night.’

But it had the slippery-slope effect.”

A series of homelessness-related court cases out of Los Angeles arrived at the Ninth Circuit over the next 15 years. These cases, which the city also often settled, determined first that a homeless person’s personal property on the sidewalk could not be seized and disposed of, even if abanonded there. Then bulky items like couches could not be confiscated, a ruling that first applied to Skid Row, then to the rest of the city.

As these cases effectively became law across the West Coast, “cities just gave up,” says the LAHR’s Mitchell.

“They said, ‘We don’t know what we’re allowed to do constitutionally.

We’re going to get sued no matter what we do, so we’re just not going to do anything.’ ” From there, the idea “that you can’t touch anybody’s tent and you cannot go in a tent” took hold, says the Reverend Andy Bales, director of the Union Rescue Mission. “The police backed off.” (Carol Sobel, the Santa Monica attorney who brought several of these suits, did not respond to requests to discuss the cases.)

By 2013, tents, now deemed legal domiciles, were expanding into compounds containing sofas, beds, diesel generators, couches, shelves, and stereos. Everything was draped under the now-ubiquitous blue tarps that protected occupants from the elements—and from the prying eyes of cops looking for probable cause.

Skid Row businesses soon had tents abutting their properties, sometimes for years.

One of those is Veteran Company, which employs 20 manufacturing

fabric for custom car reupholstery. In 2014, Harry Tashdjian and his family moved the business from Orange County to Skid Row, seeing a chance to combine service and storage in one building. In his part of Skid Row back then, Tashdjian says, people still slept on the sidewalk but were gone by daybreak. He quickly regretted the move. Within a couple of years, the tent compounds crowded the sidewalk in front of his building. Tashdjian’s forklift was stolen and later recovered blocks away; he’s counted five fires in tents abutting his business. Tashdjian figures he pays insurance premiums that are 30 percent to 50 percent higher than before he moved to Skid Row. Gangs commuting to Skid Row used the coverage that stationary tents and tarps provided to pimp women and run dope. In one 2017

case, Derrick Turner and Bernard McAdoo, the former an alleged gang member, were convicted of running a Skid Row drug operation from Cerritos. In search warrants connected to their case, police seized $600,000 in one-dollar bills, a reflection of both the size of the Skid Row drug market and the vulnerability of its customers who paid for dope a dollar at a time.

Meanwhile, federal policy pulled back from funding treatment for drug addiction and mental illness with what’s known as Housing First/ Harm Reduction. Homelessness, the policy held, was caused by high housing prices. All anyone on the street needed was a home, especially what became known as “permanent supportive housing.” Not temporary shelters, which were viewed as perpetuating homelessness. Rather,

F L OW E R P OW E R

Lorena Vallin’s Sweety Floral Shop is a bright spot amid Skid Row’s relentlessly downbeat street scene.

L A M AG . C O M 1 1 3

Skid Row Nation housing to which people had leases protected by the federal Fair Housing Act. Into which they were put regardless of their mental condition. There, they could be offered—though not forced to accept—job, addiction, mental health, and child-care services paired with “harm reduction” to limit the addicts’ drug use until they were “ready” for rehab. This included allowing them to use drugs in that housing; otherwise, it was feared they would return to the streets.

Channeling these people into drug or mental health treatment was now viewed as old-school.

In 2013, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development rewrote guidelines for funding.

Money once dedicated to addiction

C I T Y FA B R I C

Ragfinders, run by Brian Schubert (right), nephew of founder Rubin Schubert, has been in the neighborhood since 1976.

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and mental-illness treatment shifted to housing. Los Angeles city and county voters approved $1.2 billion, via propositions HHH and H, for the creation of permanent supportive housing. “Housing, housing, housing,” as the mantra went, was all that was needed to solve homelessness.

To suggest that drug addiction or mental illness play outsized roles was to stigmatize the unhoused. “No one wants to be burned at the stake,” says one drug-treatment provider. So as homelessness expanded, the debate over its causes and what to do about it did not.

Bales remembers meetings during these years to discuss the policy shift. At one, a woman rose to suggest that drug treatment run by Skid

Row missions was archaic. With a Housing First approach, he remembers her saying, we’re going to solve homelessness. “They were full of hubris,” says Bales.

In 2009, traffickers in Mexico changed their meth production to a method that uses a wide variety of toxic industrial chemicals. By 2013, they had mastered the so-called P2P cook, which allowed them to make far more of the drug, and make it more potent. The place it hit first and hardest was Los Angeles, and Skid Row in particular, beginning in about 2013. Across the city, I found in my reporting, an eightball of meth—an eighth of an ounce—that once cost $150 dropped below $40.

On Skid Row, P2P meth was typically sold in tiny amounts priced at a dollar or two that could keep a user high for a day or more. By 2015, it had dethroned crack cocaine from its 30-year reign as Skid Row’s dominant drug.

I was writing a book about, in part, these surging meth supplies when I discovered another thread to its story. P2P meth was not the euphoric, party drug that an earlier manufacturing method had produced. Instead, on P2P meth, users rapidly displayed symptoms of mental illness indistinguishable from schizophrenia. For the unhoused abusing the drug, the resulting paranoia and delusions made tents a welcome refuge. P2P meth arrived on Skid Row just as the tents were taking root, creating or worsening addiction and mental illness as federal dollars for treating both dwindled.

“It’s like a soul killer—it’s making people homeless,” says pastor Troy Vaughn, president of the Los Angeles Mission on Skid Row and himself a recovering crack addict who has been sober since 1992. “With alcohol or crack, at least they had a will to fight. It seems like meth strips them of that.”

Gary Garcia, 48, a longtime meth user now in recovery, spent months in a tent on Skid Row and the San Gabriel Riverbed in Pico Rivera after he was released from prison without

sex-offender registration, eviction.

Once on the street, however, P2P meth masterfully separated users from their grim reality and kept them mired there, mentally out of reach of both reason and offers of help.

Throughout these years, housing prices were indeed skyrocketing to nauseating heights; it was doubtless a factor in many Southern California homelessness stories. But on Skid Row, “this is not about a housing crisis,” says Los Angeles police officer Deon Joseph, driving the district’s streets that he has patrolled for more than two decades. “The folks who want housing—who lost their housing to a rent increase—would their first inclination be to come to a urinesoaked sidewalk on Skid Row and pitch a tent? Absolutely not. For you to be driven to this, there has to be something wrong. Mental illness or drug addiction. If somebody wasn’t mentally ill before using meth, they will become mentally ill once they use it.”

To Lopez, P2P meth sank Skid Row to a new, dispiriting low. Soon, the district was consumed by people running naked and screaming in the streets, wandering lost and bleeding, and fighting off those who offered help. In 2013, as court cases, tents, and meth created increasingly perverse results on Skid Row, Lopez left the BID for a downtown

TA K I N G C A R E O F B U S I N E S S

Navigating the chaos of Skid Row is a daily drama for neighborhood business owners like Tommy Yip, owner of Tom’s Model.

family to take him in. Meth addicts prefer tents to shelters, he says. On the street, “they can smoke wherever they want to smoke, do whatever they want to do–no restrictions,” he says.

In a tent, “it’s like you have no mom and dad. But in a shelter, you can’t do this and can’t do that.”

P2P meth also produces intense impulses for hoarding the kinds of bulky items that the court settlements prohibit police from seizing: chairs, mirrors, pallets, office furniture, sofa cushions, shelves. Bicycle parts seemed to be hoarded more than any other item. Bikes are Skid Row’s preferred mode of transportation and are easy to steal and dismantle to trade or sell for dope. They also grew to become an obsession by those

As L.A. settled lawsuits, the idea “that you can’t touch anybody’s tent and you cannot go in a tent took hold. Police backed off.”

Reverend Andy Bales, director of the Union Rescue Mission trapped in the meth coming up from Mexico. On Skid Row, the first bike stores began to spring up with the tents and P2P meth, run by folks like Tony Ray. Meth entangled the issues of drug addiction, mental illness, and homelessness. People end up unhoused for all kinds of reasons: domestic abuse, aging out of foster care, medical bills,

lobbying job. For the next few years, she watched a few blocks to the east as tent fires grew so common that BID workers began carrying fire extinguishers.

As despair on Skid Row grew more visible, so did donations. Church groups regularly feed hundreds of people. (“You never go hungry on (CO N T I N U E D O N PAG E 1 3 1 )

L A M AG . C O M 1 1 5

S E H C T I W ’ YO

WHO CANCELED WEST HOLLYWOOD HAS NIXED ITS ANNUAL HALLOWEEN “CARNAVAL” FOR THE THIRD YEAR IN A ROW—MAYBE FOREVER. BUT DON’T GET SPOOKED. YOU CAN STILL GAWK AT DECADES’ WORTH OF DECADENCE ON THESE PAGES

SHOCK A N D AW E S O M E L.A.’s own fabulous fop, Prince Poppycock, (center) in full regalia in 2010.

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HALLOWEEN?

P H O T O G R A P H BY J O NAT H A N M O O R E

L A M AG . C O M 1 1 7

E’RE NOT GOING TO HARP on the fact that West Hollywood, for the third year in a row, has canceled its world-famous Halloween “Carnaval,” an event that for more than three decades has brought as many as 500,000 revelers to the restaurants, hotels, bars, and shops along Santa Monica Boulevard between La Cienega and Doheny. We’re not going to pick apart the WeHo City Council’s excuse—alleged concerns over the lingering COVID19 pandemic—by pointing out that the very same council approved the WeHo Pride parade in June, when COVID case numbers were worse. We’re not even going to dwell on the words of council member John D’Amico, who hinted that the parade might be banished permanently (“It sort of doesn’t exist anymore”). Instead, we’re simply going to share with you some colorful photos of Halloween parades from the past. Because these pictures speak louder than words.

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P R E V I O U S S P R E A D : CO U R T E SY C I T Y O F W E ST H O L LYWO O D ; T H I S S P R E A D : T W I N S : J O S H UA B A R A S H /CO U R T E SY C I T Y O F W E ST H O L LYWO O D ; C R OW D : F R A Z E R H A R R I S O N /G E T T Y I M AG E S ; C LOW N : Z H AO H A N R O N G / X I N H UA V I A Z U M A W I R E ; M A L E F I C E N T, E L E V E N : J O N V I S COT T/CO U R T E SY C I T Y O F W E ST H O L LYWO O D ; A L I E N S : DAV I D L I V I N G STO N /G E T T Y I M AG E S ; M I M I S : B R E N DA C H A S E /O N L I N E U SA , I N C ; E L M O S : R O BY N B E C K /A F P V I A G E T T Y I M AG E S ; B A B I E S : G E T T Y I M AG E S

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C R OW D S O U R C I N G Revelers gather for the 2002 West Hollywood Halloween Parade, at which Pink performed.

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T R I C K S A N D T R E ATS Some costumes from pumpkin seasons past, nodding at everything from Elmo to Mars Attacks!

0pposite: Stephen King’s worst nightmare: The twins (or something like them) from The Shining, at the 2011 parade.

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THE GOLDEN GIRLS From the 2007 carnaval.

AN ALIEN ABDUCTION Elliott and E.T. look-alikes at the 2016 carnaval.

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S H E R I F F S , E .T. : JON VISCOTT/COURTESY CITY OF WEST HOLLYWOOD; G O L D E N G I R L S : J O S H UA B A R A S H /COURTESY CITY OF WEST HOLLYWOOD; F R I DA : S P E N C E R W E I N E R / LO S A N G E L E S T I M E S V I A G E T T Y I M AG E S

CO P S A N D ROBBERS A couple of sexy cat burglars get frisky with WeHo sheriffs in 2018.

LIVING ART Picture perfect Frida Kahlo in 2006

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S H R E K , F E AT H E R S , PAC- M A N , N U N : J O S H UA B A R A S H /CO U R T E SY C I T Y O F W E ST H O L LYWO O D ; C R A : R I N G O C H I U /Z U M A W I R E ; D E V I L : F R A Z E R H A R R I S O N /G E T T Y I M AG E S ; STA R T R E K : A M A N DA E DWA R D S /G E T T Y I M AG E S ; E XO R C I ST: LO S A N G E L E S T I M E S V I A G E T T Y I M AG E S ; D E A D M AU 5 : J O N AT H A N M O O R E /C I T Y O F W E ST H O L LYWO O D

> BED BUGGED A send-up of Linda Blair’s character in The Exorcist entertains the crowd in 2000.

GETTING AN EARFUL A couple of topless partygoers in 2012.

0pposite: More revelers from various parades, which ran from 1987 to 2019 . . . and may never return again.

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THE HOT LIST

A CO N S TA N T LY U P DAT ED R O U N D U P O F L . A .’ S M OS T E S S EN T I A L E AT ER I E S

WEST SANTA MONICA

» American $$

James Beard Award–nominated chef Jeremy Fox gets personal with a sunny spot named after his young daughter. The high-low menu is full of playful riffs on comfort food, from mixed summer cucumbers to a matzo ball soup with carrot miso to a next-level relish tray. Don’t miss the jiggly Rose Petal pie for dessert. 2421 Michigan Ave., 310-310-3616, or birdiegsla.com. Full bar.

❂ Broad Street Oyster Co. MALIBU » Seafood $$

If ever there was a car picnic scene, it’s at this open-air spot overlooking Malibu Lagoon State Beach. You can grab a great lobster roll (topped with uni or caviar if you’re feeling extra fancy), towers of raw seafood, great clam chowder, and a burger with Nueske’s bacon that shouldn’t be overlooked. 23359 Pacific Coast Hwy., 424-644-0131, or broadstreetoyster.com. Beer and wine.

❂ Cassia

SANTA MONICA » Southeast Asian $$$ Bryant Ng mines his Chinese Singaporean heritage, honors wife Kim’s Vietnamese background, and works in the wood-grilling technique he honed at Mozza at this grand Southeast Asian brasserie. Hunker down at a table on the patio—or treat yourself to some great takeout—to devour turmeric-marinated ocean trout or chickpea curry with scallion clay-oven bread. Wherever and however you enjoy Ng’s cooking, you won’t be disappointed. 1314 7th St., 310-393-6699, or cassiala.com.

Full bar.

✤❂ Cobi’s

SANTA MONICA » Southeast Asian $$$ Coming here is like visiting a perfectly art-directed beach house where everything— from the colors on the walls to the curries on the plate—just pops. Grab a date, grab your 12 4 L A M A G . C O M

THE BREAKDOWN WEST

EAST

Includes Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Century City, Culver City, Malibu, Marina del Rey, Mar Vista, Palms, Santa Monica, Venice, West L.A., Westwood

Includes Atwater Village, Eagle Rock, East L.A., Echo Park, Glendale, Los Feliz, Pasadena, San Gabriel Valley, Silver Lake

DOWNTOWN Includes Arts District, Bunker Hill, Chinatown, Historic Core, Little Tokyo, South Park

T H E VA L L E Y Includes Agoura Hills, Burbank, Calabasas, Encino, North Hollywood, Sherman Oaks, Studio City, Toluca Lake, Van Nuys

CENTRAL

SOUTH

Includes Beverly Grove, East Hollywood, Fairfax District, Hancock Park, Hollywood, Koreatown, West Hollywood

Includes Bell, Compton, Gardena, Hermosa Beach, Long Beach, Manhattan Beach, Torrance, Watts

✤ 2022 Best New Restaurant Winner ❂ Has Outdoor Seating $ $$ $$$ $$$$

I N E X P E N S I V E (Meals under $10) M O D E R A T E (Mostly under $20) E X P E N S I V E (Mostly under $30) V E R Y E X P E N S I V E ($30 and above)

Price classifications are approximate and based on the cost of a typical main course that serves one.

For restaurants primarily offering multicourse family meals, the cost per person of such a meal is used.

Restaurant hours are changing frequently. Check websites or social media accounts for the most current information.

2022

friends, and get to the party. Don’t miss the beautifully ferocious Devil Chicken curry, amped up by both fresh and dried bird’s eye chiles and accompanied by a saucer of habanero vinegar that magically cuts the heat and enhances it at the same time. 2104 Main St., 424-238-5195, cobis.la, or @cobis.la. Beer and wine.

❂ Colapasta

» Italian $ It’s equally pleasant to grab and go or eat at this quiet, affordable spot that features fresh pastas topped with farmers’ market fare. The colorful, poppy-seed-sprinkled beet ravioli is delicate and delicious, while the gramigna with beef ragù is hearty and satisfying. 1241 5th St., 310-310-8336, or colapasta.com. Beer and wine.

SANTA MONICA

❂ Crudo e Nudo SANTA MONICA » Seafood $$

Brian Bornemann, the 31-year-old former executive chef at Michael’s Santa Monica, has gone his own way. He and his girlfriend, Leena Culhane, have launched a sustainable neighborhood joint that’s, by turns, a coffee shop, a seafood market, and a casual restaurant where you can nibble impeccably prepared crudo, tuna tartare toasts, and vegan Caesar salads on the patio while sipping a thoughtfully selected natural wine.

Though the project began as a pandemic pop-up, it’s now an exciting brick-and-mortar spot from one of the city’s most promising young toques.

2724 Main St., 310-310-2120, crudoenudo.com, or @crudo_e_nudo. Beer and wine.

❂ Dear John’s CULVER CITY » Steak House $$$

There are still good times and great food to be had at this former Sinatra hang stylishly revamped

by Josiah Citrin and Hans Röckenwagner. Steakhouse classics—crab Louie, oysters Rockefeller, thick prime steaks—pay homage to the lounge’s Rat Pack past and can be enjoyed on a sunny new patio or to go. 11208 Culver Blvd., 310-881-9288, or dearjohnsbar.com. Full bar.

HUGE GALDONES

OCT

❂ Birdie G’s

Popcorn Situation at Girl & the Goat

❂ Etta

CULVER CITY

» Italian $$$

With a sprawling patio, concise menu, and various party tricks (the restaurant calls them “moments”), Etta is primed for good times. You can go big and order a $120 short rib “picnic” with various accoutrements for the table or opt to have wine poured into your mouth from a large jug while a server snaps Polaroids. But you can also just pop in for a pizza or excellent pasta at the bar. For dessert, there are shots of tequila and coffee liquor topped with macaroon. 8801 Washington Blvd., 424-570-4444, ettarestaurant.com, or @ettarestaurant. Full bar.

❂ Felix VENICE » Italian $$$

At Evan Funke’s clubby, floral-patterned trattoria, the rigorous dedication to tradition makes for superb focaccia and pastas. The tonnarelli cacio e pepe—strands of pasta adorned only with pecorino Romano cheese and black pepper—nods to Roman shepherds who used the spice to keep warm, while the rigatoni all’Amatriciana with bacon, tomato, and pecorino Romano sings brilliantly alongside Italian country wines. 1023 Abbot Kinney Blvd., 424387-8622, or felixla.com. Full bar.

✤ Matū

» Steak $$$ Prolific restaurateur Jerry Greenberg (Sugarfish, Nozawa Bar, KazuNori, Uovo, HiHo Cheeseburger) and his partners are convinced that they serve the world’s best beef, prepared in the most optimal way. After trying their five-course, $85 Wagyu dinner featuring sustainably raised, 100 percent grass-fed beef from First Light Farms in New Zealand, you might see things their way.

Magnificently marbled steaks are cooked to “warm red,” which is the color of rare and the temperature of medium rare. The result is meat that’s tender, luscious, and strikingly beefy. 239 S. Beverly Dr., 424317-5031, or matusteak.com. Full Bar. BEVERLY HILLS

❂ Ospi VENICE » Italian $$$

Jackson Kalb’s sprawling new Italian joint brings bustle and outdoor tables to a corner on an otherwise quiet stretch. Pastas, including a spicy rigatoni alla vodka and raschiatelli with a pork rib ragù, are sublime, and most travel remarkably well if you’re looking to do takeout, which is the only option for lunch. Roman-style pizzas boast a uniquely crispy, cracker-thin crust; to get the full crunch, have a slice as you drive your takeout home. 2025 Pacific Ave., 424-443-5007, ospivenice.com, or @ospiveni.

Full bar.

❂ Pasjoli

» French $$$$ Dave Beran’s à la carte spot bucks the trends and eschews bistro clichés in favor of old-fashioned thrills—an elaborate pressed duck prepared just as Escoffier would have and served with potatoes au gratin dauphinois—and modern French fare.

The showy duck must be reserved in advance as only a limited number of birds are available each night. But there are plenty of other exciting dishes on the menu, such as the chicken liver in brioche and pan-roasted sea bass with lobster velouté.

2732 Main St., 424-330-0020, or pasjoli.com. Full bar.

SANTA MONICA

DOWNTOWN ❂ Angry Egret Dinette CHINATOWN » Sandwiches $$

Wes Avila has left Guerrilla Tacos and is focusing on torta-esque sandwiches at this heartfelt new venture. Standouts include the Saguaro with tempura-fried squash blossoms, heirloom tomato, market greens, ricotta cheese, and salsa China. It’s hearty and decadent but also wonderfully nuanced. There’s ample outdoor seating, but sandwiches with fried ingredients miraculously

manage to remain crispy and travel well. 970 N. Broadway, Ste. 114, 213-278-0987, aedinette.com, or @angryegretdinette.

Badmaash

HISTORIC CORE » Indian $$ This Indian gastropub concept comes from the father-and-sons team of Pawan, Nakul, and Arjun Mahendro, who are all well versed in the culinary techniques of East and West. The menu features contemporary mash-ups, like a version of poutine smothered in chicken tikka, charred tandoori chicken, and braised lamb. If tradition’s your thing, you’ll be comforted by what they call Good Ol’ Saag Paneer. 108 W. 2nd St., 213-2217466, or badmaashla.com. Beer and wine. Also at 418 N. Fairfax Ave., Fairfax District, 213-281-5185.

✤❂ Caboco

ARTS DISTRICT » Brazilian $$ Rodrigo Oliveira and fellow chef/partner Victor Vasconcellos are here to show Los Angeles that there’s a lot more to Brazilian food than churrascarias, so they’re serving habit-forming fried tapioca cubes and a vegan stew (moqueca de caju) headlined by cashew fruit that’s startlingly complex.

Wash it all down with refreshing caipirinhas— the bar makes no less than five different kinds.

1850 Industrial St., 213-405-1434, cabocola.com, or @caboco.la. Full bar.

✤❂ Caldo Verde ARTS DISTRICT » Portuguese $$$

Suzanne Goin and Caroline Styne have opened a Portuguese cousin to their beloved Spanish-infused A.O.C. The restaurant loads up its namesake seafood stew with a generous amount of local rock crab, grilled linguica, mussels, kale, and potato.

It’s a tremendous example of the rough-andtumble food that Goin loves—dishes in which she deftly balances salt, fat, and bold flavors with California brightness. A starter of Ibérico ham, anchovies, and olives is called “small plate of salty favorites” because Goin understands that you visit restaurants to be jolted and enjoy food that’s a bit more intense than what you typically eat at home. 1100 S. Broadway, 213-806-1023, or properhotel.com/downtown-la. Full bar.

❂ Camphor ARTS DISTRICT

» French/Indian $$$$

“The main plan for this restaurant was to transport people,” says Max Boonthanakit of the new Arts District bistro he opened with Michelinstarred chef Lijo George. “Bistro” may be an understatement, given the restaurant’s stunning minimalist interior and exquisitely prepared dishes, but Camphor is, at its core, a French bistro where plump oysters are served in a bath of amaretto mignonette and the beef tartare comes with a side of tempura-fried herbs. Boonthanakit and George aim to bring something completely new to L.A.—that is, something distinctively not L.A. Camphor’s access to the spices from George’s southern Indian homeland makes it a standout.

923 E. 3rd St., Ste. 109, 213-626-8888, or camphor.la.

Full bar.

❂ Cha Cha Chá ARTS DISTRICT » Mexican $$

The huge, lively, plant-filled rooftop and some mezcal would be enough for a good night out at this Mexico City import, but chef Alejandro Guzmán, an alum of Le Comptoir, has packed his menu with quiet thrills. Carnitas get taken up a level by an orange reduction that comes at the end of the long cooking process. For dessert, the carrot flan is a small revelation, a surprising, exciting riff on carrot cake. The interior bar, La Barra, offers up unique mezcal cocktails. 812 E. 3rd St., 213-548-8487, or chachacha.la. Full bar.

❂ Girl & the Goat ARTS DISTRICT » Eclectic $$$

At long last, Top Chef winner Stephanie Izard has brought her hit Chicago restaurant to a light,

airy space and pretty patio in downtown L.A. with seating for 200. The lengthy menu is full of international intrigue and the unexpected flavor combinations for which Izard is known. Roasted beets mingle with a yuzu-kosho vinaigrette. A salmon poke features chili crunch, avocado, and strawberry. Goat makes an appearance in both a liver mousse starter and a hearty curry main.

555-3 Mateo St., 213-799-4628, girlandthegoat.com, or @girlandthegoatla. Full bar.

❂ Kodō

DOWNTOWN » Japanese $$$ Everything about the look of this new izakaya-style restaurant in the Kensho Rykn hotel is serene.

But don’t be fooled by the restaurant’s visual tranquility. The energy of Kodō, which translates to “heartbeat,” is intentionally boisterous because the chef, Yoya Takahashi, wanted to stay true to what a Kyoto-style izakaya would be—a fun place with an upbeat vibe and traditional Japanese bar fare.

So the food comes out fast and without pretense.

A Caesar salad of Little Gem lettuce is blanketed with bonito flakes. The off-menu toro, served with a tangy cilantro sauce, minced tomato, and cucumber, has the kind of fatty, melt-in-your-mouth quality you can’t forget (and don’t want to). 710 S. Santa Fe Ave., 213-302-8010, or kodo.la. Full bar.

CENTRAL ❂ Alta Adams WEST ADAMS » California Soul Food $$

Riffing on his grandmother’s recipes, Watts native Keith Corbin loads up his gumbo with market veggies and enlivens his collard greens with a smoked oil. Soul food in this city is too often associated with Styrofoam containers, but this verdant patio is a lovely place to linger. Hot sauce splashed onto skillet-fried chicken is pure pleasure, enhanced by a bourbon drink the bar tints with cacao-spiced bitters and Luxardo cherries. Finish the night by taking on a toasted angel food strawberry shortcake.

5359 W. Adams Blvd., 323-571-4999, or altaadams.com.

Full bar.

❂ A.O.C.

BEVERLY GROVE » California $$$ Driven by culinary excellence, A.O.C. is anchored by a courtyard with soft sunlight and laurel trees.

Caroline Styne’s wine list doesn’t shy away from the ecology of vineyards, while Suzanne Goin’s cooking has become indispensable. Carefully constructed salads showcase vegetables at their best, and the roasted chicken with panzanella is both an homage to San Francisco’s Zuni Café and a classic in and of itself. 8700 W. 3rd St., 310-859-9859, or aocwinebar.com. Full bar. Also at 11648 San Vicente Blvd., 310-806-6464, Brentwood.

✤ Bicyclette

» French $$$ Walter and Margarita Manzke’s delightful, delicious follow-up to République brings a bit of Paris to Pico. The menu is stocked with exactingly executed bistro standards: onion soup with oozy cheese, hearty short-rib bourguignon, and a luxurious bouillabaisse. Margarita’s baguettes and beautiful desserts are as great as ever. Resisting Bicyclette’s charms is futile. 9575 W. Pico Blvd., 424500-9575, or bicyclettela.com. Full bar.

PICO-ROBERTSON

Brandoni Pepperoni FAIRFAX DISTRICT » Pizza $$

Six nights a week, Brandon Gray turns out some of L.A.’s most exciting pizzas. Gray, a veteran of Navy kitchens and top local restaurants like Providence, brings boundless imagination to his pies. They’re topped with premium ingredients— Jidori chicken, Sungold tomatoes, smoked pork shoulder—in exciting combinations. A curry-Dijonnaise dressing renders a side salad surprisingly memorable. 7257 Beverly Blvd., 323-306-4968, or brandoni-pepperoni.com. Wine to go.

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HANCOCK PARK

» Italian $$$$

The best Northern Italian steak restaurant in the city, Chi Spacca serves a bistecca alla Fiorentina so tender that it would make a vegan blush. In this meat-eater’s paradise, the cuisine comes courtesy of 2014 James Beard Award-winning chef Nancy Silverton, owner of Osteria Mozza, Pizzeria Mozza, and Mozza2Go. And if red meat’s not your thing, try the chicken or octopus. But if it is, take some of the cured meats home—you’ll thank us. 6610 Melrose Ave., 323-297-1133, chispacca.com. Full bar.

Fanny’s

» French $$$ Even with a glass wall opening onto exhibits, architect Renzo Piano succeeded in creating an eatery at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures that feels quite cinematic. While by day, Fanny’s is a café that serves salads and sandwiches to museumgoers, by night, it’s a glam, modern vision of an old-school Hollywood hangout. Captains in suits push carts of gooey, French, washed-rind cow’s milk cheeses and carve thick, bloody slices of côte de boeuf tableside. But there are also plenty of modern touches. Instead of a live band, Fanny’s has a different DJ spinning records every night. Chef Raphael

MID-WILSHIRE

C H E F FAV O R I T E S

JOSH GIL MÍRAME

Francois (Le Cirque, Tesse) sends out perfect twists on a Caesar salad and plays around with menu items like hamachi crudo on a bed of sweet pickled grapes and jicama with brown butter and cilantro.

6067 Wilshire Blvd., 323-930-3080, fannysla.com.

Full bar.

❂ Gigi’s

HOLLYWOOD MEDIA DISTRICT » French $$$

With its sceney Sycamore Avenue location and gorgeous, illustration-lined interiors, Gigi’s could easily succeed with subpar fare. But chef Matt Bollinger’s bistro classics—like curry mussels, steak tartare, and roasted chicken—are done quite well, if priced rather high. The wine list from beverage director Kristin Olszewski, an Osteria Mozza alum, is surprisingly interesting, with various natural and biodynamic options on offer. 904 N. Sycamore Ave., 323-499-1138, gigis.la, or @gigis_la. Full bar.

Harold & Belle’s JEFFERSON PARK » Southern Creole $$

For Creole-style food—a mélange of French, African, and Native American flavors—Harold & Belle’s is as close to the Dirty Coast as you’ll come on the West Coast. The crawfish étouffée in spicy gravy will have you humming zydeco, while the bourbon bread pudding will leave you with a Sazerac-worthy buzz. 2920 W. Jefferson Blvd., 323-735-9023, or haroldandbelles.com. Full bar.

✤ Horses

HOLLYWOOD » Eclectic $$$ Versatile power-couple chefs Liz Johnson (who earned extensive national acclaim at Freedman’s) and Will Aghajanian (formerly the chef de cuisine at Vespertine) have created a lively California bistro that feels both old school and of the moment.

Located in the red-boothed space that was home to Ye Coach & Horses, the mostly European-inspired menu is rooted in both classic technique and freespirited cooking. A sobrassada panino with white American cheese and a drizzle of honey is thin, crispy, sweet, savory, creamy, and spicy: an extremely pleasing little bite. Lumache pasta with vodka sauce gets an unexpected and delightful kick from ’nduja.

7617 W. Sunset Blvd. or horsesla.com. Full bar.

Hotville Chicken

BALDWIN HILLS/CRENSHAW » Fried chicken $ With her hot chicken joint, Kim Prince is doing her family’s legacy justice—she’s the niece of André Prince Jeffries, owner of Nashville legend Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack, where hot fried chicken is said to have originated. Prince adds spice at every step in the cooking process to produce a complex, layered flavor. Sides, like mac and cheese, are also winners. 4070 Marlton Ave., 323-792-4835, or hotvillechicken.com. No alcohol.

Burrito al pastor TACOS TAMIX

The salsas are on point, and the grilled onions and chiles toreados are great. I mix the three salsas in each bite—a late-night favorite. 1900 S. Hoover St., Pico-Union, instagram.com/ tacostamix.

Lucky Cat omusubi

SUNNY BLUE

Omusubi are Japanese rice balls with different fillings, with or without a nori wrapper.

They’re filled with Japanese pickles, fresh wasabi, and

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bonito: crunchy, savory, sweet, satisfying. Each bite has its nuance.

12608 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, sunnyblueinc.com.

Tomato agedashi SHUNJI

It’s a type of Northern-style tofu made with tomato and kudzu starch, in tempura and topped with fried eggplant and a shishito pepper. Sticky, gooey, crunchy, light, umami delicious.

3003 Ocean Park Blvd., Santa Monica, shunji-ns.com.

— H E AT H E R P L AT T

Lalibela

❂ Ronan

FAIRFAX DISTRICT » Cal-Italian $$ At Daniel and Caitlin Cutler’s chic pizzeria, the pies—especially the How ‘Nduja Want It? with spicy sausage, gorgonzola crema, green onion, and celery—are the clear stars, but it’s a big mistake not to explore the entire menu. It’s filled with delicious delights, from cacio e pepe risotto to a sea bass served with an ever-changing assortment of banchan. 7315 Melrose Ave., 323-917-5100, ronanla.com, or @ronan_la. Full bar.

❂ Son of a Gun BEVERLY GROVE » Seafood $$

Florida-raised chefs Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo deliver a certain brand of sun-drenched seashore nostalgia. Dropping into the nautically themed dining room for chilled peel-and-eat shrimp and a hurricane feels as effortless as dipping your toes in the sand. There are buttery lobster rolls and fried-chicken sandwiches alongside artfully plated crudos. 8370 W. 3rd St., 323-782-9033, or sonofagunrestaurant.com. Full bar.

❂ Soulmate

» Mediterranean $$$ It’s lovely outside, and there’s a stunning new WeHo spot with a patio that can hold 75 attractive people, plus hours that go to midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. Starters include various jamones and spicy paella bites. Further down the menu, there’s a lot of seafood options, from wood-fired octopus with charred romesco to salmon crudo. 631 N. Robertson Blvd., 310-734-7764, soulmateweho.com, or @soulmateweho. Full bar.

WEST HOLLYWOOD

EAST ✤❂ Agnes Restaurant & Cheesery PASADENA » Eclectic $$

This low-key charmer—the work of two alums of acclaimed San Francisco Italian joint Flour + Water—deftly mixes midwestern hospitality and European technique. The casual lunch is all about cheese and charcuterie boards and sandwiches. At dinner, excellent pastas, smartly prepared proteins, thoughtfully selected wines, and great cocktails join the party on the spacious patio. 40 W. Green St., 626-389-3839, agnesla.com, or @agnes_pasadena. Full bar.

❂ All Day Baby SILVER LAKE » Eclectic $$

Jonathan Whitener’s Here’s Looking At You is, sadly, closed, but his thrilling cooking continues on a bustling Eastside corner. Whether you opt for smoked spare ribs, a hoki fish sandwich, or a breakfast sandwich on pastry chef Thessa Diadem’s sublime biscuits, it’s all great. 3200 W. Sunset Blvd., 323-741-0082, alldaybabyla.com, or @alldaybabyla.

» Ethiopian $-$$ The strip of Fairfax known as Little Ethiopia has long been dominated by the same handful of restaurants. Chef-owner Tenagne Belachew worked in a few of them before opening her own sophisticated haven, which invites with the swirling aromas of berbere and burning sage. Stretchy disks of injera—the sour, teff-flour pancake that doubles as a utensil for scooping up food by hand—arrive piled with uniquely pungent delights. There are wots, or stews, made with chicken or spiced legumes or lamb sautéed in a creamy sauce. 1025 S. Fairfax Ave., 323-965-1025, or lalibelala.com. Beer and wine.

SILVER LAKE » Eclectic $$ This stylish, cozy wine bar brings warm hospitality to the strip-mall space formerly occupied by Trois Familia. Chef Spencer Bezaire’s menu deftly brings in flavors from around the globe without feeling overly contrived. Chicken wings are accompanied by salsa macha. Don’t miss the big fries. 3510 W. Sunset Blvd., 323-522-6323, or eszettla.com. Beer and wine.

Luv2Eat Thai Bistro HOLLYWOOD » Thai $$

❂ Found Oyster EAST HOLLYWOOD » Seafood $$$

FAIRFAX DISTRICT

Vibrant flavors and spices abound at this strip-mall favorite from two Phuket natives. The crab curry, with a whole crustacean swimming in a creamy pool of deliciousness, is not to be missed (it travels surprisingly well), but the expansive menu is full of winners, from the massaman curry to the Thai fried chicken with sticky rice and sweet pepper sauce.

6660 W. Sunset Blvd., 323-498-5835, luv2eatthai.com, or @luv2eat.thaibistro.

❂ Eszett

This tiny oyster bar was a pre-pandemic favorite, and chef Ari Kolender’s seafood dishes still thrill when taken to go or enjoyed on the restaurant’s “boat deck.” The scallop tostada with yuzu kosho and basil is a must-order, and a bisque sauce takes the basic lobster roll to new heights. Interesting, affordable wines add to the fun. 4880 Fountain Ave., 323-486-7920, foundoyster.com, or @foundoyster. Beer and wine.

COURTESY JOSH GIL /MÍR AME

Chi Spacca

❂ Hippo

HIGHLAND PARK

» Cal-Italian $$

Hidden in a wood-trussed dining room behind Triple Beam Pizza, this Cal-Ital restaurant from Mozza vet Matt Molina balances casual and refined. Snappy wax beans are sluiced with vinaigrette for a picnic-worthy salad.

Great pastas and juicy grilled chicken thighs deliver the unfussy pleasure found at the best neighborhood spots. Eclectic regular specials like haute corn dogs add to the fun. 5916 ½ N. Figueroa St., 323-545-3536, or hipporestaurant.com.

Full bar.

❂ Jin Cook GLENDALE » Korean $

K-Town has the highest concentration of Korean food in the U.S., but it doesn’t get all the hits. Jin Cook works wonders with “authentic Korean soul food” in Glendale. This homey restaurant brings sparkle to dishes like spicy pork. Thinly sliced meat arrives sizzling in a stone bowl and then gets crusty and caramelized and reaches hyperdrive when showered with shredded mozzarella, which magically melds with the spicy meat and enables cheese pulls galore. 310 N. Brand Blvd., 818637-7822, or jincooks.com. Beer.

✤ KinKan

VIRGIL VILLAGE

» Japanese-Thai $$$$

Nan Yimcharoen became an underground sensation during the pandemic, selling jewel box–like chirashi sushi over Instagram. Now she’s got a brick-and-mortar spot serving a Japanese-Thai tasting menu with exquisite courses like slices of bluefin tuna larb gorgeously assembled in the shape of a rose, and a resplendent crab curry with blue butterfly-pea-flower noodles and a sauce powered by innards and roe.

771 N. Virgil Ave. 949-793-0194, or @kinkan_la. Sake.

✤❂ Moo’s Craft Barbecue LINCOLN HEIGHTS » Barbecue $

Some of the best Texas barbecue is actually in L.A. Andrew and Michelle Muñoz’s brisket and beef ribs are meaty bliss that would be taken seriously in Austin. But Moo’s is very much a vital L.A. spot; the Muñozes weave in their Mexican-Angeleno roots with dishes like a cheese-and-poblano-filled beef and pork verde sausage. 2118 N. Broadway, 323-686-4133, mooscraftbarbecue.com, or @mooscraftbarbecue.

Beer and wine.

Northern Thai Food Club EAST HOLLYWOOD » Thai $

Offering specialty dishes unique to northern Thailand, this family-run favorite doesn’t skimp on flavor, spice, or authenticity. Tasty takeout meals include the khao soi gai (curry egg noodle with chicken), laab moo kua (minced pork), tam kha noon ( jackfruit salad), and pla salid tod (fried gourami fish). For those unfamiliar with the region’s distinct cuisine, the illustrious sticky rice is still a reliable bet.

Need incentive? Everything on the menu is less than $10. 5301 W. Sunset Blvd., 323-474-7212, or amphainorthernthaifood.com.

❂ Playita

SILVER LAKE

» Mexican $

The team behind the beloved local chainlet Guisados has taken over an old seafood taco stand on a busy Eastside stretch. The results, as you might expect, are delicious and delightful. Playita has a fresh, beachy blue-and-white aesthetic and a tight menu of well-done ceviches, seafood cocktails, and fish tacos. 3143 W. Sunset Blvd., 323-928-2028, playitamariscos.com, or @playitamariscos.

✤❂ Saso

PASADENA » Spanish $$$ The arrival of this splashy new spot suggests that the good times might soon be here again.

It shares a charming, sprawling courtyard with

the Pasadena Playhouse, and the seafoodheavy menu from chef Dominique Crisp, who previously worked at L&E Oyster Bar, begs for reuniting with friends on nice summer nights.

Orange zest enlivens jamón ibérico crudités, while miso butter takes grilled oysters to new heights. 37 S. El Molino Ave., 626-808-4976, sasobistro.com, or @sasobistro. Full bar.

❂ Sōgo Roll Bar LOS FELIZ » Sushi $$

NATALE E T H A I

C U I S I N E

Sōgo is hardly the only concept in town devoted to rolls, but it has mastered the form. Rice is cooked with the same careful consideration and seasoning that sushi master Kiminobu Saito uses at the high-end Sushi Note, and it manages to maintain a great temperature and texture, even when being delivered. Fish is not just fresh but also flavorful, each type thoughtfully paired with ideal accompaniments, from a tangy yuzu-pepper sauce that makes salmon sing to brandy-soaked albacore with garlic-ginger ponzu and crispy onions. 4634 Hollywood Blvd., 323-741-0088, sogorollbar.com, or @sogorollbar.

Beer and sake.

❂ Spoon & Pork SILVER LAKE » Filipino $$

The go-to for Filipino comfort food offers a variety of dishes, all featuring one shared ingredient: deliciousness. Spoon & Pork puts an innovative spin on some Filipino favorites—just try its adobo pork belly, pork belly banh mi, or lechon kawali. The dishes, which can be ordered at the counter to enjoy on the patio or for takeout and delivery, mix decadence with some authentic soul. 3131 W. Sunset Blvd., 323-922-6061, spoonandpork.com, or @spoonandporkla. Beer and wine.

❂ Sunset Sushi SILVER LAKE » Japanese $$$

With omakase boxes priced from $30 to $85, this new sushi place in the old Ma’am Sir space strikes the sweet spot between affordable and indulgent and is another exciting addition to the Eastside’s growing number of quality sushi options. It’s a sister spot to Highland Park’s Ichijiku but with a more luxe vibe and a larger menu, tailor-made for takeout. 4330 W. Sunset Blvd., 323-741-8371, sunsetsushila.com, or @sunsetsushi. Beer and sake to go.

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❂ U Street Pizza PASADENA » Pizza $$

There was a moment when U Street’s vodka pepperoni pie was a shining star of Instagram, and rightfully so. The why-haven’t-I-had-this-before combination of pepperoni and creamy vodka sauce is an easy win. Vegetable dishes, notably a Japanese eggplant with Calabrian chili agrodolce, are more than afterthoughts. Note that while the vodka pepperoni pie travels well, the clam pie is best enjoyed in-house. 33 E. Union St., 626-605-0430, ustreetpizza.com, or @ustreetpizza.

THE VALLEY ❂ Black Market Liquor Bar STUDIO CITY » New American $$

Some nights it seems as if half the Valley is here, enjoying the colorful patio. Top Chef graduate Antonia Lofaso’s Italian chops are visible in the buxom ricotta gnudi with brown butter and pistachios. The deep-fried fluffernutter sandwich is a reminder that food, like life, should not be taken too seriously. 11915 Ventura Blvd., 818-4462533, or blackmarketliquorbar.com. Full bar.

❂ The Brothers Sushi WOODLAND HILLS » Sushi $$$

This hidden gem, reinvigorated when chef Mark Okuda took the helm in 2018, is worth traveling for. The excellent omakase is available

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in the restaurant on the patio or to go. You can also order à la carte or get non-sushi items like soy-glazed grilled chicken. 21418 Ventura Blvd., 818-456-4509, thebrotherssushi.com, or @thebrotherssushila. Beer, sake, and wine.

Hank’s

» Bagels $ The L.A. bagel revolution continues at this stylish spot in the Valley that serves up carefully constructed sandwiches. Tomato, aioli, and maple-glazed bacon elevate a simple bacon, egg, and cheese, while a classic salmon-and-lox construction has thoughtful touches like salted cucumbers and pickled onions. Grab a tub of Hank’s “angry” spread—a spicy, slightly sweet concoction—to have in your fridge. 4315 W. Riverside Dr., 818-588-3693, hanksbagels.com, or @hanksbagels. Also at 13545 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, 818-588-3693.

BURBANK

Tel Aviv Authentic Kitchen ENCINO » Middle Eastern $

Deeply comforting Israeli skewers, kabobs, and merguez come with a colorful and tasty array of salads showcasing produce like red cabbage, cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplant, and pumpkin.

The spicy sauces on the side work well with any- and everything. 17630 Ventura Blvd., 818-7749400, or telavivkoshergrill.com.

SOUTH ❂ Ali’i Fish Company EL SEGUNDO » Seafood $$

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This small, unassuming spot shames all the glossy poke purveyors popping up around town to serve mediocre versions of the Hawaiian dish.

Glistening cubes of tuna, flown in fresh from the islands daily, remind you how great poke can be.

The smoked-ahi dip with house-made potato chips is not to be missed. 409 E. Grand Ave., 310616-3484, or aliifishco.com.

The most dangerous animals in the forest don’t live there.

❂ Fishing With Dynamite MANHATTAN BEACH » Seafood $$$

A premium raw bar near the beach shouldn’t be unusual, but it is. The same goes for velvety clam chowder. Here, it achieves smoky richness—you can thank the Nueske’s bacon for that—without any of the floury glop. 1148 Manhattan Ave., 310893-6299, or eatfwd.com. Full bar.

❂ Little Coyote LONG BEACH » Pizza $

That most amazing slice of pizza you had that one very drunken, late night in your early twenties in New York lives on . . . in Long Beach.

The crust, made with dough cold-fermented for 48 to 72 hours, is carby perfection: tangy, crispy, thin but with a healthy puff. The concise menu doesn’t offer any revelations about what should be atop pizza but, instead, perfects the usual suspects. 2118 E. 4th St., 562-434-2009, littlecoyotelbc.com, or @littlecoyotelbc.

Also at 3500 Los Coyotes Diagonal, 562-352-1555.

❂ Tamales Elena Y Antojitos BELL GARDENS » Afro-Mexican $

ONLY YOU CAN PR E VE N T W I L D FIRE S. w w w. s m o k e y b e a r. c o m

This small spot, with counter service, a drivethrough window, and a patio, purports to be the area's only Afro-Mexican restaurant.

It focuses on a distinct cuisine from a part of Guerrero to which former slaves fled.

Pozoles are rich and slightly thick, and the memorable pork tamales with red sauce are wrapped in fire-tinged banana leaves that impart a hint of smoke. 8101 Garfield Ave., 562-674-3043, ordertamaleselenayantojitos.com, or @tamaleselenayantojitos.

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12 8 L A M A G . C O M

Discover the unsearchable Discover the forest

Find a trail near you at DiscoverTheForest.org

Zodiac Killer CO N T I N U E D F R O M PAG E 1 07

A

MONG THE ITEMS Paul

Doerr, then 80, left behind when he died of a heart attack in 2007 was a collection of firearms, which he had bequeathed to Gloria in his final days. She didn’t have the heart to tell him she was legally forbidden to keep them, having been convicted of cocaine possession just weeks before.

Instead, she brought them to the nearby home of one of Paul’s closest friends, a woman who worked with him in the documents division at Mare Island and is still heartbroken about his death.

A sixtysomething government clerk, devoted cat lady, self-described “precognitive,” and prize-winning crochet enthusiast, she agrees to speak to me only if she’s identified by the name of her Renaissance Faire character, the widow Mistress Goodheart.

Unfortunately, laying hands on the firearms proves more difficult than Gloria had anticipated. Mistress Goodheart has long had what she calls “a bit of a hoarding problem,” and it seems to have gotten worse in recent years. The arsenal, which just might contain a Zodiac murder weapon, may be in her garage in Fairfield. Then again, it may not.

In any case, Mistress Goodheart is certain that the man she knew was incapable of murder, “unless it was someone who deserved it.”

She offers a number of points meant to exonerate him, some more persuasive than others. For instance, if Paul were going to kill a woman, why didn’t he kill Rose, “the one that was causing him so much grief and aggravation?” She suspects that given Paul’s military training, he would never have chosen the .22 caliber pistol, meant for small game, Zodiac used at Lake Herman Road.

Rather, she thinks it would have been more his style to use his bow and arrow, for “the challenge.” Finally, she insists,

1 3 0 L A M AG . C O M

“If Paul had done something like this, on his deathbed, he would have admitted it.”

Some of her memories, however, only implicate Paul further. For instance, she remembers how his survivalist zines sometimes displayed an undue focus on violence. “He would explain how to make a shoe in one paragraph, and then use three pages to explain how to kill somebody,” she says, laughing. “I told him he was doing it backwards! We needed more shoes.”

As for locating Paul’s old firearms, Mistress Goodheart figures they’re long gone—stolen, she guesses, by a woman who crashed with her years ago after falling on hard times.

Mistress Goodheart isn’t the only one who’s skeptical about Paul being Zodiac.

Tom Voigt, arguably the most prominent citizen researcher of the case, having founded his website, zodiackiller.com in 1998, admits he’s favored a succession of suspects over the past quarter century but now believes a journalist named Richard Gaikowski committed the killings.

“I’m not really interested in Doerr,” Voigt tells me, with the easy certainty of a Marvel superfan policing the canon.

“He’s just one of those weirdos.” Of the book, he says, “I didn’t see anything of substance. The bar is pretty high, as far as compelling Zodiac suspects. You have someone like Ted Kaczynski, who is kind of the champion of the handwriting similarities. And then you have the guy with all the coincidences and the incriminating statements, that was Arthur Leigh Allen.”

In particular, Voigt is unimpressed

by Doerr’s resemblance to the Zodiac police sketches, which Kobek enhanced by removing the glasses from an illustration and adding a mustache. “You can Photoshop dark-rimmed glasses on Shaquille O’Neal and post it on Reddit, and there’ll be people that give me the shocked emoji, like ‘Oh my god!’ ” he says.

Book critic Laura Miller expressed similar reservations, writing in Slate that Kobek “digs up some old photographs . . . [and] pinpoints a man he judges to be Doerr because he’s carrying a camera and has a prominent chin.”

She goes on, “He erases the glasses from the Zodiac police sketch, draws on a mustache and voilà!—yeah, it looks kind of like the guy in the . . . photos.

What are the odds?”

Of course, neither Miller nor Voigt yet knew what I subsequently discovered: As Gloria confirmed, the images Kobek found were, in fact, her father.

Moreover, he did wear glasses on occasion, and he alternately sported a mustache and went clean-shaven throughout his life.

Richard Grinell of zodiacciphers.com gives Kobek’s effort considerably more credit. “I’ve never seen anything more in depth than this book, and he does bring up some good points,” he says. “If he had released this book 20 years ago, it would have got a lot more attention.

The problem you’ve got now is, every week there’s a new suspect, and people just sort of groan, ‘Here we go again.’ ” At some point during the visit, as Gloria and Kobek examine a map her father gave her, noting the similarities with Zodiac’s scribbles, she takes a seat on the bed and lets out a long sigh. A moment passes. “I think you’re right,” she finally tells him, her voice barely audible. “Unfortunately. I hate to say that. In my heart of hearts, I wanted to deny it. But I want the truth, whatever it is.”

There is, as it happens, one other simple way to determine once and for all whether Paul Doerr committed those murders. When Zodiac killed his last victim, taxi driver Paul Stine, he left behind several bloody fingerprints (which, it should be noted, have never been linked to any of the other suspects). Although the San Francisco police did not respond to numerous requests for comment for this story, it should be a simple matter for someone to pull Doerr’s own prints from the Military Service Records Center and do a comparison.

For the thousands of armchair gumshoes who have become so deeply invested in the case over the years, steeping in Zodiac’s chilling lore, perhaps no solution can finally be as satisfying as the mystery itself.

For Gloria, though, the certainty would come as a relief even if the evidence points to her father. “In a strange way, it validates me,” she admits. “You know, when people ask you what your life was like, and you just don’t know where to start? This validates it.

Because I can’t deny the truth in it. I love my father unconditionally. But . . . ,” she pauses, gazing off for a moment and gathering her thoughts, “I do know what he’s capable of.”

Skid Row Nation CO N T I N U E D F R O M PAG E 1 1 5

Skid Row,” says Garcia.) Piles of soup cups and plastic utensils litter the street for days after, until BID workers pick them up. This firehose of donations peaks around Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter; BID workers are put on overtime as the bags of refuse they collect double.

These charities “feel like they’re helping, but in reality, they’re not,” James Blackwell, the BID’s maintenance supervisor, tells me, as we drove Skid Row early one morning. His 19 crew members collect the tons of trash that accumulates daily. “At least,” he says, “you got to be able to clean up [what you donate].”

By 2017, Skid Row had never looked more desperate. Yet four years away from a job that had fulfilled her even as it devoured her also seemed to Lopez too long a time, and she returned as BID director. “We could all see these were going to be very troubling times . . . [but] they’re not giving up,” Lopez tells me. “Our security officers have been spit on, yet they come back every day.”

It did not surprise her when, to the extent that the lawsuits allowing people to live on the streets were taken as settled precedent, they influenced policy far beyond Skid Row. Around the country, “municipalities are getting advice from lawyers about what is legal” in their attempts to deal with homelessness, says Mitchell. “They’d be told, ‘We don’t have word on that, but here’s some “persuasive authority” in another circuit.’ So there’s a ripple effect. Then you have the narrative issue: This is criminalizing homelessness, criminalizing poverty; it’s the wrong thing to do. You enable a permissive atmosphere. It’s drug users and drug dealers as victims.

A lot of that comes from the Ninth Circuit opinions.”

Thus were Skid Row-style tent encampments tolerated in other parts of the West and farther East: from Seattle and Portland to Boston and Austin, and to rural hamlets and Rust Belt towns. Boston’s housing prices had been rising for years, but the city had no tent encampments until Mexican P2P meth arrived in 2019.

Before that, “most of the homeless people were in shelters at night and outside during the day,” says Michael Barillot, a longtime Boston heroin addict now in recovery whom I spoke to late last year. “But you can’t be inside a homeless shelter and be comfortable, given the places that meth will take you to, mentally. So now, it’s just tents. That never happened until the meth was a real thing up here.”

A public health crisis born of close quarters and poor sanitation rocked Skid Row when typhus, which dates to the eleventh century, broke out in October 2018. Public health officials said the disease was spread by fleainfested rats that fed on the district’s tons of daily trash and human waste.

Then COVID-19 hit, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued guidelines that kept tent encampments in place out of fear that expelling the residents would spread the coronavirus. Since then, fentanyl out of Mexico has flooded the drug stream, mixed into almost every street drug, especially, on Skid Row, meth. Homeless overdose deaths in 2021 almost doubled over 2020.

O N E O F T H E ironies of Skid Row is that the lawsuits in the name of compassion and decriminalizing homelessness had the effect of surrounding the homeless in criminality and predation, not to mention fires, filth, disease, and fentanyl and meth.

Vaughn, the Los Angeles Mission director, says Housing First was a philosophy “created in an environment that preceded meth, where you had drugs on a massive scale that you could recover from.”

Housing First advocates point out the city hasn’t created the thousands of housing units necessary to solve homelessness. Indeed, “less than 1,200 units have been produced in five years, and estimated costs for several projects exceed $700,000

per unit,” wrote City Controller Ron Galperin, in a review this year of the use of HHH funds. Nor have the funds been used, Galperin wrote, to build much transitional housing aimed at stabilizing people coming off the street, detoxing them, and providing addiction and mentalhealth treatment.

Voters, confronted with pop-up Skid Rows near where they work or live, seem fed up that their concerns are dismissed as evidence of their lack of compassion. “Not a day goes by,” read an online comment in the Los Angeles Times, “where my kids and I don’t see drug use, sex acts, a penis, someone taking a dump, lewd cat calls, or someone taking a swing at us. City council is woefully unaware of what constituents experience daily just trying to live and work in L.A.” Says Lopez: “Other neighborhoods never saw that this was going to be their reality. But you can’t give somebody constitutional rights on one side of the street and have that right taken away on the other side.”

The City Council is now regulating street camping in a way it could have before council members began to feel constituents’ ire about the tents.

Echo Park Lake is again a quiet place where working-class families cooped up in small apartments can walk and exercise on a sunny afternoon. This summer, Los Angeles settled a lawsuit brought by Mitchell on behalf of LAHR. Under the settlement, the city promises to regulate public spaces and expand shelter beds; lawyers for activist groups are suing to block the settlement.

Perhaps the final irony of Skid Row is that just as conversations about homelessness, drug addiction, and mental illness have grown more frank and the City Council is taking action it once shied away from, Lopez, after years of trying to nudge L.A.’s homelessness policies toward the center, is exhausted. “More people are aware of the gravity,” she says, but “we’re a long way from knowing what to do and how to get there.”

She feels some vindication for her years of vocal opposition to what Skid Row was becoming as its unique malaise spread across the country.

But ultimately, “we waited too long,” she laments. “People died, a community died.”

L A M AG . C O M 1 3 1

Q

EMAIL YOUR BURNING QUESTIONS ABOUT L.A. TO ASKCHRIS@LAMAG.COM

What does Disneyland do with all the coins tossed into its fountains?

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POSITIVE CHANGE

● For the past

A:

The bottoms of Disneyland’s many pools are covered in loose change that’s periodically scooped out and sent to charities. (The Florida resorts collect up to $30,000 a year.) These days, the coins are primarily used to grant wishes with the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Most recipients ask for park outings, studio tours, and visits with animators. Kids also love to meet stars—John Cena is the most-requested celebrity wishgranter, having spent time with more than 650 children. Walt himself brought the idea to Disneyland in 1961 by creating the Snow White Wishing Well on behalf of Variety, a charity created as an orphans’ fund by theater owners in the Steamboat Willie era.

Q: Does the Hollywood Sign ever permit access to the public?

A: We’re lucky they light the thing up every 20 years.

(They did it for the 1978 rebuilding, the 1999 millennium, and the 2022 BET Awards.) But official excursions to the cloistered landmark are next to none.

Concerns over flora, fauna, fire, and unhappy neighbors 1 3 2 L A M AG . C O M

keep it locked up tight. To capture a panoramic view of the city, the Hollywood Sign Trust recommends hiking to the back of the sign from the Griffith Observatory trailhead—Mount Hollywood Drive to Dirt Mulholland to Mount Lee Drive.

Be sure to wear comfortable shoes for the three-mile round-trip trek. Oh, and stay hydrated!

Q: What’s going to happen with that Farmer John pig mural?

A: The Clougherty family ran a slaughterhouse from 1931 to 2004 and wanted to gussy up its 30,000-squarefoot plant at 37th and Soto streets with a depiction of frolicking pigs, first created in 1957 by movie scene painter Leslie Grimes and featured in

the horror flick Carrie. The nearly century-old meatprocessing facility will be shuttered this coming February by Hong Kong-based WH Group, whose Smithfield Foods acquired the tenacre parcel in 2017.

“I’m encouraging the development of data centers and cold storage,” says Vernon city administrator Carlos Fandino, “and less warehouses that bring heavy trucking.”

My guess is that any new development is not going to be adorned with an epic panorama of a greased-pig contest.

D I S N E Y L A N D : L E N YO KOYA M A

The Snow White Wishing Well makes dreams come true.

25 years, Gary Baseman has been haunting flea markets, searching for Halloween photos taken in the midtwentieth century.

He was hooked after finding an image of a little girl in a 1930s Mickey Mouse mask made of starched linen.

The artist, who grew up in L.A., has recontextualized the snaps of juvenile ghosts, witches, and black cats in a new book, Nightmares of Halloween Past.

The book’s found photographs were captured by parents before kids ran off trick-or-treating in costumes cobbled together from cardboard and bedsheets.

“They’re just normal snapshots, but they’re not normal,” says Baseman. “They’re haunting, they’re dark, they’re playful, and they’re silly.” Available at garybaseman.com.

VOLUME 67, NUMBER 10. LOS ANGELES (ISSN 1522-9149) is published monthly by Los Angeles Magazine, LLC. Principal office: 10100 Venice Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232. Periodicals postage paid at Los Angeles, CA, and additional mailing offices. The one-year domestic subscription price is $14.95. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to LOS ANGELES, 1965 E. Avis Dr., Madison Heights, MI 48071. Not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts or other materials, which must be accompanied by return postage. SUBSCRIBERS: If the Postal Service alerts us that your magazine is undeliverable, we have no further obligation unless we receive a corrected address within one year.

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