Maggie Flynn has lived on L.A.’s east side for 5 years. A Michigan native, Maggie moved to L.A. to obtain her MA from USC, and has published articles on diverse topics such as small business, film and book reviews, and shopping in Los Angeles. Her interests include literature, music, yoga, good restaurants and bars, and watching more Vh1 and E! than is probably healthy.
Does anyone in America find politics sexy? Sure, Obama’s a good looking guy, but any chances of me finding him carnally attractive were dashed the day he danced on Ellen’s talk show. And yes, Bill Clinton’s exploits were documented ad nauseam, but cigar play and stained Gap dresses aren’t sexy, just gross.
American politics haven’t been truly sexy since the days of John and Jackie and Marilyn Monroe cooing “Happy Birthday Mr. President,” all of which happened before Generations X and Y existed. For those of us younger than 45, The White House is just about as erotic as oatmeal.
But Stephen Elliott has edited a collection that may change some minds. Sex for America: Politically Inspired Erotica features talented literary names like Anthony Swofford, Jerry Stahl, Rick Moody, and Jonathan Ames contributing stories that explore the intersection of sex and politics. Even if the book doesn’t get you all hot and bothered, it will provide some awesomely subversive laughs and insight.
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Tags: Arts and Lit · Literature · Upcoming events
A friend once told me that on Valentine’s Day at her high school the principle announced over the intercom the names of students who’d had flowers delivered to them. The student could then go to the office and pick up her flowers and bring them back to the classroom to proudly display on her desk.
If you were the type of girl – or guy– who surely would have had your name called, this might sound like a fun diversion. I, however, was not one of those girls, and this to me sounds like something out of a satire about the brutality of teen life. Not even Molly Ringwald’s family forgetting her birthday in Sixteen Candles compares to the humiliation of sitting at a flowerless desk, hoping against hope that maybe at least one of your friends took pity on you and was sending a couple of carnations your way.
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Tags: Lifestyle · Living
In the three years that The Bigfoot Lodge has hosted Rock-N-Roll karaoke on Monday nights, Bartender Carol (featured), as she is known to patrons, has seen and heard a lot. She’s seen well-known performers like Drew Carey and Joe Walsh hit the stage, gotten to know regulars’ favorite songs, and served many, many Kamikaze shots. A consummate karaoke performer herself, every eastsider’s favorite pink-haired, Girl Scout-uniformed bartender sat down with me to share some tips on how to rock the karaoke stage.
Q: What factors make for a good karaoke performance?
Willing to be a complete – I don’t want to say fool – but the people who are overly concerned and take their singing too seriously are not the singers I like. I like the singers who will go up and be funny and dance around and be a performer. We once had 3 guys who sang “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys and they went out and bought the aviator glasses and fake mustaches and they friggin rocked it. That’s what makes karaoke fun.
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Tags: Bars · Food and Drink
There are few characters as synonymous with Los Angeles as hard-boiled detective Philip Marlowe. A creation of novelist Raymond Chandler, Marlowe was brought to life on the silver screen by, among others, Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep, Robert Mitchum in Farewell My Lovely, and Elliott Gould in The Long Goodbye. In each incarnation, Marlowe trolled the environs of Los Angeles, keeping his cool and his morals while surrounded by corruption, protecting and falling in love with the femme fatales who proved themselves his match, and dropping killer quips as often as the matches with which he lit his cigarettes.
As great characters do, Marlowe has often aroused book and movie fans’ curiosity about the man behind the famous trench coat. Tonight at Book Soup, author Judith Freeman will be providing some illumination, as she reads from and signs her recent Chandler biography The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved.
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Tags: Literature · Upcoming events
The only thing I really know about wine is that I like to drink it. I’ve tried to become more educated about wines, tasting at Solvang and Santa Barbara vineyards, nodding my head sagely as the sommelier informed me whether a wine contained hints of fruit, pepper, or chocolate. Yet the only notes that ever went on my complimentary menus were along the lines of “drinkable” or “highly drinkable!”
While much of the informative portion of wine tastings goes over my head, I’m always on the look out for new wines to add to my highly drinkable list, so I was delighted last Sunday to attend an event at Silverlake Wine.
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Tags: Food and Drink · Local Happenings · Local LA · News
The New Yorker magazine has been pretty good to L.A. the last couple of weeks. The January 14th issue featured Dana Goodyear’s story on the Scientology Celebrity Center on Franklin, and this week’s fiction piece is by one of L.A.’s most prominent writers, T.C. Boyle.
During my graduate studies at USC, I took a writing workshop taught by Dr. Boyle. Many of his students, myself included, were mystified by his productivity. He wasn’t one of those “celebrity” teachers who showed up once or twice during the semester and let TAs handle the rest of it. The semester I took the class, Boyle cancelled one session because he was giving a reading in another city; all other weeks he made the two hour commute from his Santa Barbara home. Yet his dedication to teaching does nothing to dampen his output. Boyle has published 11 novels and 8 story collections and seems to complete a new one about every year. After our Friday afternoon class a few students went out for drinks and wondered how he did it. “Does he ever sleep?” we asked. “Does he write, like, ten hours a day?” Perhaps the fact that he wasn’t at the bar could have given us an idea about how to increase our own productivity. But I digress. [Read more →]
Tags: Literature
Next Sunday, a spectacular competition of strategy and sportsmanship will take place. Not between the Patriots and the Giants in Arizona, but right here in Los Angeles. Because besides being Super Bowl Sunday, it will also be the 9th annual Guac Bowl.
On a quiet street in Atwater Village, Guac Bowl creator Adam Pava will host the guacamole competition, which is invite only, but has a web site, guacbowl.com, dedicated to showing viewers how to throw their own Guac Bowl. The web site was inspired by Pava’s quest to eventually have Guac Bowl Day recognized as a national holiday.
“Until it reaches the point when every home in America is participating, I won’t be satisfied,” Pava said at L.A. Bread one recent afternoon with an almost straight face.
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Tags: Interviews · Sports
It used to be said that art was a mirror we held up to our lives, a reflection of our challenges and triumphs. I wonder now if art hasn’t been replaced by celebrities, especially for viewers of Vh1’s “CelebReality” genre. Why would we watch, if we didn’t see something of ourselves in these once-golden, now somewhat tarnished stars’ quests for love, family, reconciliation, and success? Surely we all face the same trials, just not with a camera crew following us around and the occasional joker referring to us as “Charles” or even worse, “Chachi.”
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Tags: TV
I’m a person who has taste in music. Notice I didn’t say good taste, though my holy trinity of rock will always be the critically-approved combo of The Boss, The Band, and Bob Dylan. The majority of Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums” also reside in my vinyl or CD collection. But to me part of being a true music fan is having a handful of crap-tastic albums that you realize are such but love them fiercely just the same. In fact, if one of my beloved shit songs comes on the radio and my turning it up renders a passenger smug, I can usually put together a pretty good argument as to why the song isn’t as bad as they think.
So pop into Redcat tonight to see what some fellow music junkies are defending. “Listen Again: Music You Should Change Your Mind About Right Now” will feature a panel of writers from publications such as LA Weekly and City Beat and professors from USC and UCLA extolling the virtues of their favorite songs. According to the Redcat press release the panelists will have “five minutes each to persuade the audience to reconsider a series of pop tracks — and find in them hitherto undiscovered pleasures.”
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Tags: Local LA · Music
