Steven Barrie-Anthony's stories from the Los Angeles Times

Divine intervention

2006-09-17T06:56:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK REVIEW

Sunday September 17, 2006

Divine intervention
* Believers A Journey Into Evangelical America Jeffery L. Sheler Viking: 324 pp., $24.95

By Steven Barrie-Anthony

EVANGELICAL Christians are responsible for President Bush's presidency, but electing a fellow born-again only made them hungrier. Now these 60 million soul-winners are intent on transforming our democracy into a theocracy under Christ. At least, that's a common conspiracy theory among liberals who, still shell-shocked by the emergence of evangelicals from their cloisters of non-engagement, see them as simple-minded people of unified intent.

But evangelicals are not a monolith, political or otherwise, as Jeffery L. Sheler illustrates in his compelling and important survey of evangelical America. (Evangelical, like fundamentalist and born-again, can be defined in different ways.) Most evangelicals share a few characteristics -- the Bible as God's word; salvation via a personal relationship with Jesus; spreading the "good news" -- yet as Sheler converses with evangelical preachers, academics, televangelists, missionaries, teenagers and cowboys, it becomes increasingly difficult to lump them together.

Sheler successfully taps into the vast complexity and pluralism of evangelical Christianity -- and it is a sizable achievement. Too many nonbeliever journalistic and scholarly authors reduce religion to the sum of its statistically measurable parts, particularly when addressing evangelicalism, which from the outside can appear simplistic and mechanistic. On the flip side, believer accounts are often awash in theological assumptions and fail to take a critical view. The trick is to balance respect for religious experience with an informed analysis, and Sheler walks the line with aplomb.

It undoubtedly helps that he was a longtime religion writer and editor for U.S. News & World Report and a former evangelical himself. The meta-conceit here is Sheler's own spiritual journey -- as a teen he rebelled against his parents' mild religiosity by joining a fundamentalist Baptist church -- and he wonders if this journalistic exploration will rekindle the spiritual fire of his youth.

The evangelical story comes alive, its roots in the Protestant Reformation, the optimism and social benevolence of the early 1800s followed at the end of that century by a darker outlook -- premillennialism and the idea of the Rapture -- and, over the past century, by the seesaw of political and cultural engagement and non-engagement. What results is a book that's valuable for anyone who seeks to grasp the nuances of American evangelicalism.

To begin untangling the knot of evangelicalism in politics, Sheler visits Washington and meets with Richard Cizik, a vice president of the National Assn. of Evangelicals. Cizik is a force for the life-cycle concerns of the 30 million NAE members -- anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, anti-embryonic-stem-cell research -- but he and like-minded colleagues are also steering the evangelical lobby toward a more diverse range of causes. To the list of what they oppose, append some "pros": pro-humanitarian aid to Africa, pro-religious freedom and, perhaps most vociferously in Cizik's case, pro-environment. The "shadowy forces" of the Christian right in Washington are not engaged in an epic battle only against Darwin, it seems, but also against global warming. Protecting God's creation is the broad Biblical rationale, and Cizik is busy forging alliances with fellow evangelicals and with unlikely political allies such as Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.).

Even among leading evangelicals, disagreement about how to define and execute the cause is common and sharp. There remain, first of all, those who believe that religion and politics should not marry, but the large turnout of evangelical voters in the last two presidential elections, combined with substantial anecdotal evidence collected by Sheler, indicate that most evangelicals are not headed down the path of noninvolvement.

So evangelicals are ready to engage on a multiplicity of issues, and some have shrugged off the anti-intellectualism that handicapped the movement for much of the 20th century. The task at hand, then, is defining a political and social agenda that appeals to the wide diversity within evangelicalism but fails to alienate its traditionalist roots. This gets hairy. When Cizik and other NAE leaders published a statement interweaving typical evangelical concerns with environmental and humanistic ones, radio and TV host James Dobson co-signed -- while the vice president for public policy in Dobson's organization, Focus on the Family, opined to a reporter, "The movement to preserve marriage characterizes evangelicalism. The issue of global warming does not."

What is the future of evangelicalism, then? Some of its most prominent stewards are aging, most notably Billy Graham, who at 87 suffers from Parkinson's disease and prostate cancer and is by his own account nearing the end of his life. Who will take Graham's place? The sheer variety of perspectives in Sheler's book suggests a plurality of futures for evangelicalism rather than a singular destiny, and yet there will always be overarching trends.

Sheler channels two opposing visions. On the one side is radio host R. Albert Mohler Jr., who lays into the universalism and inclusivism that he sees sneaking into progressive evangelicalism. Opposite Mohler is Richard J. Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena. Mouw agrees that hard truths are essential to evangelicalism, but he allows for some mystery in the mechanics of how Jesus goes about saving souls, how exactly the spiritual phenomena happen. Perhaps ecumenicalism and evangelicalism need not be mutually exclusive.

No amount of left-brain analysis can unveil the experience of religion, however, and although Sheler weaves in statistics and expert opinion, he's at his best when traveling with missionaries to build a hut in Guatemala or hanging by the campfire with teenagers at the Christian rock festival Creation 2005 or interviewing a middle-aged couple still dripping from their baptismal dunking at a mega-church in Orange County. These voices are often refreshingly disengaged from divisive "join-us-or-be-damned" rhetoric. Agree or disagree with the theology, it's tough not to recognize some of yourself here, in the desire to call on God personally, to invite celestial order -- or, better yet, grace -- into the messiness of life.

And so it is a bit disappointing that Sheler, our shepherd through this complexity, doesn't reveal much about his own spiritual struggle. He embraces evangelicalism as a child, leaves it as an adult, and when, in researching this book, he revisits the church of his youth, he is unmoved. It's fine that there's no dramatic reawakening or rejection of faith, which would probably seem inauthentic anyhow. But didn't his exploration of a vein that spoke so fervently to him at one time evoke some personal journeying? If yes, it would have been valuable to hear about it. If no, well, it doesn't seem right to wish that Sheler had revised his spiritual arc for the book's benefit.

Steven Barrie-Anthony is a research fellow in religious studies at Occidental College in Los Angeles and journalist-in-residence at NewSchools Venture Fund.

Taking more than candy?

2006-07-24T06:55:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Monday July 24, 2006

Taking more than candy?
* Jill Greenberg's photo technique has Internet bloggers up in arms.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

STEAL a toddler's lollipop and he's bound to start bawling, was photographer Jill Greenberg's thinking. So that's just what Greenberg did to illicit tears from the 27 or so 2- and 3-year-olds featured in her latest exhibition, "End Times," recently at the Paul Kopeikin Gallery in Los Angeles. The children's cherubic faces, illuminated against a blue-white studio backdrop, suggest abject betrayal far beyond the loss of a Tootsie Pop; sometimes tears spill onto naked shoulders and bellies.

The work depicts how children would feel if they knew the state of the world they're set to inherit, explained Greenberg, whose own daughter is featured in the show. "Our government is so corrupt, with all the cronyism and corporate lobbyists," she said. "I just feel that our world is being ruined. And the environment -- when I was pregnant, I kept thinking that I'd love to have a tuna fish sandwich, but I couldn't because we've ruined our oceans."

"End Times" debuted in Los Angeles in April (a portion was previously posted to the gallery site, www.PaulKopeikinGallery.com), and soon thereafter an Internet brouhaha broke out that has continued to this day. Bloggers such as Andrew Peterson called Greenberg's lollipop technique abusive and exploitative, while Greenberg, her husband, Robert Green, and gallery owner Paul Kopeikin defended the work, the process and one another. The conversation, cycling between rational and hyperbolic, says as much about Net communication as about the art in question.

"Jill Greenberg is a Sick Woman Who Should Be Arrested and Charged With Child Abuse," Peterson wrote under his pseudonym Thomas Hawk at ThomasHawk.com, a blog that focuses on new media and technology. For Peterson, Greenberg's technique was "evil."

"When the Michael Jackson trial was going on, people kept saying, 'What kind of parents would let their child spend the night alone in a room with Michael Jackson?' " wrote Peterson, an investment advisor from San Francisco. "It seemed absurd. And it seems absurd that any parent who loved their child would purposefully take their children to Greenberg's studio to then be tormented to the point of emotional outrage."

Green responded with an e-mail that Peterson appended to his blog: "I'm married to the artist in question. With that said, some facts: Jill did not 'abuse' the children.... The parents were there monitoring the whole time. This is the exact technique used in ads and movies and TV." Cordial at first, but later, on his own blog, AnotherGreenWorld .blogspot.com, Green wrote of Peterson: "He has no morals, no ethics, nothing that would make me recognize him as a fellow human being."

'Much ado'

THE mixture of debate and invective spilled into the mass media -- the New York Times, the Sydney Morning Herald, Slate -- sidestepping the art world almost entirely. Few photographers or art experts, when questioned, seemed to take umbrage with Greenberg's technique.

"It's much ado about nothing," said CalArts professor of art and photography Jo Ann Callis. "Jill was trying to create a metaphor between a child crying, looking desperate, and the times. It's a perfectly logical thing to do. She should just have lied," Callis said with a laugh, "about how she did it."

But while the art academies slumbered, bloggers worked overtime, debating far and wide across the informal syndicate that is the blogosphere. Internet users without their own sites took up residency in the comments section of Peterson's and Green's blogs, often under the shroud of anonymity; some even found websites that Greenberg and Green had made for their children -- so that family could keep track of the kids' photos -- and wrote nasty comments in the guest books.

The anonymity of their opponents enraged Greenberg and Green. "What this has unleashed, this inchoate rage that's prevalent in the Internet atmosphere," Green said, "has a lot to do with anonymity and power, the ability to express sentiments online that you cannot express to someone's face." So Green did some Internet sleuthing using the "whois" database (accessible at Whois.net) to look up the registrant of the domain Thomas Hawk.com, thus unveiling Peterson as the man behind the pseudonym.

Green promptly posted Peterson's true identity on the relevant blogs, and then he took it further, noting that Peterson was writing blog posts during the workday and calling Peterson's employer to complain. Peterson reported the development on his blog, and super-blog BoingBoing.net picked up the battle cry. "Greenberg and her husband have threatened to sue [Peterson] for libel and called his employer," the post read. Peterson's "response is a good one: He argues that if they disagree with him, they should disagree with him, not attempt to silence him."

The day Boing Boing ran its post, the Kopeikin Gallery website rocketed from its usual 1,000 hits to 14,000. Kopeikin was receiving enough angry e-mail to consider hiring extra security. At one point, Kopeikin posted a comment on Peterson's blog: "I sincerely thank you for the attention you have brought to the exhibition and my gallery," he wrote. "I have made several sales to people who you have introduced to the work and who understand and appreciate it."

In fact, that assertion was false, Kopeikin admits, but then Kopeikin views Peterson as a fount of untruth, from his pseudonym onward. "I was just sending him information to see if he'd print it," Kopeikin said. "Jill and I were like, 'Let's tell him we're thanking him, because we're selling tons of prints.' ... Which wasn't true.... He totally took it."

American Photo magazine dubbed "End Times" the most controversial photo exhibition of the year in its July-August issue, and the two-page spread received a greater response than any other article printed in the last five years, said David Schonauer, editor in chief. Most respondents have been shocked and angry. An online forum on the magazine's website dedicated to discussing Greenberg was shut down because of abusive posts, Schonauer said.

The media coverage has focused almost exclusively on reiterating the he-said, she-said blog battle, and few outside sources have been brought in to comment -- such as Ilene Knebel of Los Angeles, whose 3-year-old daughter, Elise, was among the children Greenberg featured.

"We got a call through Ford Models," Knebel recalled. "I believe the agent said something like, 'The children are going to be crying.' I said, 'She does that all day every day, so whatever.'.... To me, this is the same as if we go to a photographer who says your daughter's going to be in a swimsuit or a ballet outfit. Your daughter's going to be laughing. Your daughter's going to be crying."

Elise stood shirtless on a wooden box, her mom just feet away, Greenberg behind her lens. An assistant handed Elise a lollipop; Knebel took the candy away. The wailing and the shoot lasted 20 or 30 seconds, Knebel said. Elise "sniffled a little" afterward, but then she got multiple lollipops in trade for the stolen one. These days Elise doesn't remember it happening.

Peterson, who has four young children himself, bristles at the notion that parents or Greenberg can predict the long-term effects of the lollipop technique. "These very public photos will get put up in other contexts, will continue to torment these children," he said. "We don't know what kind of an impact it's going to have. You need to err on the side of caution." (Greenberg said that the children who attended the show's opening were delighted to see themselves on the gallery walls.)

Greenberg is primarily a commercial photographer and has done work for magazines, including Time, Rolling Stone and The Times' Sunday magazine, West. Her first exhibit at the Kopeikin Gallery was 2004's "Monkey Portraits," in which monkeys posed similarly to the toddlers in "End Times," only dry-eyed. The controversy hasn't hurt her commercial career, Greenberg says; in fact, at one point Macy's inquired into buying the entire "End Times" series for use in its advertising. The 42-inch-by-50-inch prints, in editions of 10, start at $4,500 apiece.

Career aside, accusations of child abuse deeply offend Greenberg, who lives in Los Angeles. "I have a loving family, I come from a normal family, I've never done anything awful in my life," she said. "Pictures of crying children are upsetting, powerful. There is something instinctual that makes you want to protect them.... But people are taking the pictures literally, as if they are evidence of awful things happening to these kids."

It's true that things are not entirely as they seem; the images were enhanced during postproduction, Greenberg said, to make the children appear more upset than they really were. She used Photoshop to darken furrows in brows, shine tears until they glistened.

In the end, "This is more a story about blogging than about photography," said Stephen White, formerly a gallery owner and currently a private dealer and collector in Studio City. "It's about a generation that's so caught up in itself that everything it says it thinks is significant, even though it's not saying anything at all.

"People in the photography world, anyone who is sophisticated about photography, knows that this is not offensive," he said. "Taking away a lollipop is not child abuse. There's no irreparable harm. I'm just not sure there's any significance to the photographs, either."

Cellphones: Just a leash for children?

2006-06-21T06:53:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Wednesday June 21, 2006

Cellphones: Just a leash for children?

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

Fifteen-year-old Jordan Murphy loves to play hoops, so after school he and his brother Joshua, 13, jump on bikes and troll their neighborhood in Shawnee, Kan., for pickup games. Often they pedal through a hectic blind intersection to get to courts at the civic center, and then toss their bags on the ground and start dribbling. They don't hear their cellphone ring-ring-ringing, don't allay the fears of their single mother who's telling herself that all's fine, probably, but if only they would just answer the phone....

Then in April mom Jacqui Fahrnow bought Jordan and Joshua a cellphone from Sprint Nextel that doubles as a tracking beacon. Now if the kids haven't arrived at the civic center or other designated courts by 3:15 in the afternoon, Fahrnow's phone jingles and up pops a color map of their location, replete with street addresses. If they're at or near the courts or at Aunt Valerie's house or the grocery store, Fahrnow doesn't worry; if they're far afield, she knows where to find them. Peace of mind for just $9.99 a month.

"It's like having another set of eyes," says Fahrnow, who owns an office management business. "This will be even more useful when they get older and start driving. With four wheels under you, a lot of things can happen."

Keeping tabs on the kids

Sprint Family Locator, which debuted in April, is just one of many newly released cellular services that use global positioning satellites -- originally developed for military use -- to allow family members to keep tabs on each other via their phones. Disney Mobile, which opened for business earlier this month, includes child tracking among its basic features. Verizon Wireless' Chaperone service lets parents enclose up to 10 areas in virtual fencing, and to receive a text message if their children breach a boundary.

This technology isn't cutting-edge, exactly; similar location based services have been marketed with limited success over the last few years, notably Nextel's Mobile Locator designed for companies to track employees. But cellular carriers are in a tizzy to fulfill a Federal Communications Commission mandate that 911 operators be able to pin down phone locations -- and it stands to reason that they recoup their investment by offering that same capability to subscribers. Carriers make beaucoup bucks, parents like Fahrnow rest easier; everybody wins.

Everybody except the people being tracked, say teens and privacy advocates who peg this trend to an unhealthy desire for control. "What do we get out of this?" says Hunter Ligon, a 16-year-old from Oklahoma City who has discussed the technology with his mom but as of yet remains untracked. "We go to school every day, we work our butts off, and there are such strict limitations on our life already. We need to expand our boundaries, to become more independent, and yet now we have one more thing to pull us down."

Communication technology has become synonymous with youth, says Hunter, who carries a T-Mobile Sidekick II so that he can text and instant message and occasionally even call his friends. Kids these days rarely galavant around the neighborhood until dinnertime, as their parents did; boogeymen on the evening news have driven them indoors, and community has in large part gone virtual. Which makes it particularly galling that technology would become a turncoat, an informer. "Most parents can barely turn on a computer," Hunter says. "They're always asking us for help."

As is the case with Kansas mom Leila Pellant, who couldn't figure out how to set up Sprint Family Locator -- and asked her son Spencer, 14, to activate it for her. Spencer obliged, and thenceforth the service "keeps Spencer on point all the time, knowing that I can find out where he is," says Pellant, a real estate agent. "As far as privacy goes, my children don't deserve total privacy."

The argument that it's OK to track kids because it'll keep a few of them from being kidnapped or making mischief is specious reasoning, says 17-year-old Katt Hemman, from Hutchinson, Kan. It's the same argument that the Bush administration makes in defending warrantless wiretapping, she says. A marginal increase in safety isn't worth forfeiting our civil rights, and adults who balk at being spied on and then turn around and spy themselves are hypocrites.

Hers is a generation always looking queasily over its shoulder, says Katt, whose parents haven't (yet) signed up for cell tracking but do monitor her Internet activity. "I don't trust as many people as I want to," she says. "I have moments where I don't trust my own family because I feel as if they're reading everything I write on the Internet."

Of course, kids will fight back, much as they do when schools attempt to block access to MySpace and other "noneducational" websites. One teen guesses that encasing his phone in aluminum foil might divert the signal; another especially crafty teen reveals his plan, should mom and dad ever begin phone-surveillance: 1) Tell parents he's going to a friend's house. 2) Go to friend's house. 3) Tie his cellphone to their dog, so it moves around. 4) Leave to live an unobserved existence.

Privacy versus safety

But what if your kid is too lazy or obedient to fight back? Or if you track her without her knowledge -- and catch her in a lie? How do you explain that you've been watching her through a satellite in the sky? (The Sprint Family Locator notifies kids via a text message when they've been located; other companies, such as Disney Mobile, do not.)

"It's an invasion of privacy in a huge way," says Charles Sophy, a psychiatrist and the medical director for the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services. "You're sending them a message that you don't believe in them, don't trust them to make solid decisions."

Already Sophy has encountered a number of sticky situations surrounding cellphone tracking, "especially with these high-end Hollywood people in L.A.," he says. Tracking without permission often leads to painful family meetings, with everyone -- not least of all the parents -- apologizing for their misdeeds. Still, Sophy says that in a world of natural and man-made disasters, tracking can "absolutely" be of benefit if prefaced by honest family conversation. Even teens find the safety net appealing if they ignore the Big Brother (or Big Mother) aspect, and some admit that tracking might coax their most out-of-control friends back from the brink.

Of course if kids and the rest of us continue using technology for ever greater self-revelation, the debate over surveillance may be rendered moot. Soon MySpace will be accessible on cellphones, and experts say that mobile social networking, instant messaging and the rest are poised to merge with tracking technology to provide not just virtual access to all friends at all times, but physical access as well. "It will be hard for science fiction to outpace what's going to happen," says Jonathan Zittrain, professor of Internet governance and regulation at Oxford University. "You'll walk into a cafe in Paris, and ask your cellphone if any of your buddies are in Paris. Or you can ask it if any of the friends of your 10 best buddies are in Paris."

Alan Phillips is an ardent proponent of this revolution. In 2002 he caught his 14-year-old son skateboarding when he was supposed to be at a friend's house, and Phillips promptly founded uLocate Communications, in Massachusetts, to develop location-based services for mobile phones. These days the Phillips family can check each others' locations via a cellphone click (or on the Web) and can even view the rate of speed at which family members are traveling.

"My son plays soccer," Phillips says. "We set up 'geofences' so that when he's coming back from games on the bus, every time his phone comes within five miles of the school, we are alerted. So that we know when to pick him up."

Very convenient; but even Phillips admits that sometimes the ever-present eye is a little much. "I have intentionally turned off my phone to suppress data from my wife," he says. "If I'm leaving late and had told her that I'd meet her somewhere...."

Through hell, high water or Web filters

2006-05-31T06:52:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Wednesday May 31, 2006

Through hell, high water or Web filters
* As Congress mulls action, some schools already limit MySpace access. But it hasn't kept teens off the site.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

Excuse me, Congress? You know that bill you're thinking about passing, the one that would prevent kids from accessing social networking websites like MySpace.com at schools and libraries? Kris Sosa, a junior at West Ottawa High School in Holland, Mich., has something to tell you:

"Anything that youth attaches themselves to, the public gets scared about," he says. "And with this, just like with anything else -- underage drinking, for example -- youth is going to find a way to get what they want. It's inevitable. Even if this law passes, even if it goes into effect, there's going to be a way around it. It's just a matter of time."

Sosa is sure that he'll beat such a prohibition because he and many of his teenage compatriots already have. Like a growing number of schools and libraries nationwide, West Ottawa blocks students from social networking websites. But instead of glumly relinquishing access, Sosa and "a majority of the other kids at my school," he says, use technological workarounds to access whatever they darn well feel like. When administrators block one route, kids find another.

Which suggests that the mess of politicians, teachers, parents and other adults engaged in a feisty debate over the bill recently proposed by Rep. Michael G. Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), the Deleting Online Predators Act, are perhaps asking the wrong question. It's not whether lawmakers should bar kids from accessing social networking websites but whether they can.

"There's no question that kids have become savvier," says Michele Shannon, senior director of product management for San Diego-based WebSense, a maker of Web filtering software. "If anyone's going to figure out a way through, it's them. We try and stay a step ahead."

In this arms race, Team Youth has an important adult ally. Bennett Haselton, a Seattle-based computer programmer who works on contract with the U.S. government to fight Internet censorship in places like China and Saudi Arabia, spends his free time doing the same thing on American turf. Through his website, Peacefire.org, Haselton provides free access to tools that Saudi Arabian citizens and American students alike use to tunnel through their respective barriers. (Authoritarian governments and school districts often employ the very same filtering software.)

"Historically, teenagers have been much closer to adults than children," Haselton says. "It's only in recent decades that the teenage years became classified as an extension of childhood rather than part of adulthood. Just because kids stay in school longer, it doesn't mean that the natural age of human maturity and responsibility has gone up."

The technology behind blocking software, and the software to circumvent it, have remained mostly the same since Haselton began this crusade about 10 years ago, when he was a freshman at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Peacefire was then, as now, a "students rights organization." Its motto: "You'll understand when you're younger." The challenge has been less inventing new technology, Haselton says, than disguising the same technology over and over so that the enemy can't recognize it.

Filtering software generally resides on a school or library's central server computer, a gateway to the unfiltered Internet beyond. All the connected computers direct their Internet traffic through this server so that if a giggling adolescent in a computer lab types in Playboy.com, the server intercepts that request and sends back a blank page instead of a naked woman.

Problem is, the Internet is a vast landscape of billions of sites, expanding by the millisecond. It's obvious that a school would block Playboy, a known entity, but what of the unknown? Despite receiving daily or even hourly updates from filtering-software vendors, it's simply impossible for software programs to censor the Web in its entirety. So Haselton and teenagers everywhere set up and abandon porthole after porthole under cover of anonymity.

Let's say that instead of typing in Playboy.com, that same giggling adolescent typed in Birthdaycakebatter.com. Chances are that the server would grant his request because this new address isn't on the list of blocked sites. Unbeknown to the server, however, Birthdaycakebatter.com is one of a never-ending stream of "circumventor" websites created by Haselton and others, each one located at another random, innocuous-sounding Web address (for instance, Magneticpizza.com and Seahorseolympics.com).

Now all the kid has to do is scroll down on the new page to where it says, "Enter the URL below that you want to access," type in Playboy.com, and voila: His request is rerouted not through the central server but through an outside server willing to retrieve whatever he so desires. Freedom ... for a few hours or, if he's lucky, a few days, until the filtering software bans the portal, called a "proxy server," and it's time for Haselton to think up another silly address, which he e-mails to a cast of thousands and word-of-mouth does the rest.

There's intrigue and subterfuge. "We have Yahoo and Hotmail and other free e-mail accounts that we use to subscribe to [Peacefire's] mailing lists under crazy names, so we can be informed about these proxies," says Drew Yates, a network administrator at South Fulton High School in South Fulton, Tenn. Yates also relies on teachers to identify and report renegade students.

"The right of free speech is alive and well, and that's fine," Yates says. "But in an educational system, Haselton's position on free speech does not exist. It wouldn't bother me a bit if they passed a law that banned stuff like MySpace." (It certainly wouldn't change much at South Fulton High, which already blocks social networking.)

The collateral damage from this arms race, says Benjamin Edelman, a Harvard doctoral student and an expert on Internet filtering, is that as filtering companies fight to hide all forbidden content and students fight to reveal it, the Web gets censored in an increasingly broad, slipshod way. Google's image search, for instance, has long been known as an easy way to access images residing on banned websites; but if it gets blocked, "then when a kid wants a picture of Nelson Mandela, they can't get it," he says.

Or, rather, they can get it -- but they find themselves using forbidden techniques to access allowed material. Cameron Stolz, 17, of Griffin, Ga., recently tried to research the Bay of Pigs, was blocked and employed circumventor software to complete the class assignment. Stolz, by the way, is in favor of moderate filtering: "I'm not an anarchist kid who thinks that we should be able to do whatever we want," he says. "We shouldn't just be able to roam the Internet."

Joel Key, a Spanish and art teacher at New York's Bronx High School for the Visual Arts, is likewise in favor of filtering but says that currently it just doesn't work. Students on an Internet scavenger hunt for collage images found that all basketball photos were blocked, Key says, "but for some reason they can get porn, and they can get Internet television sites, such as Youtube.com. We've tried to get those blocked many times." MySpace and the wildly popular social networking site Sconex.com are blocked, but kids find ways to access them anyway, Key says.

OK, so it's clear that kids don't take Internet censorship sitting down, and a congressional ban might well make them more belligerent. But let's say that a social networking ban does work, on some level, for some kids. What then?

It'll strike a blow to the ne'er-do-wells "who are crawling through the profiles that our children are creating at school while their parents are not around," says Fitzpatrick, the congressman who wrote the bill, which is currently in the Energy and Commerce Committee and has 21 cosponsors.

No, what it will do is create a "participation gap," says Henry Jenkins, co-director of the comparative media studies program at MIT. Kids who are wealthy enough to have a computer and an Internet connection at home will access social networking from there, while whoever must use school and library computers "will be locked out of participating in the defining experiences of this emerging generation."

Everyone just hold on a second, please, asks Brad Novreske, a high school freshman in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. This war is based on a misunderstanding: Social networking isn't evil, he says, "It's just friends. Growing up, you have to have friends and social ties. Otherwise you feel alone."

Until his school district, and Congress, come around to his way of seeing it, Novreske will continue to access social networking illicitly. But he'd rather see kids and adults MySpacing together in peace.

Early `Code' risers

2006-05-20T06:50:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Saturday May 20, 2006

Early `Code' risers
* Does 6 a.m. seem a little extreme for taking in a screening of the `The Da Vinci Code'? Not to this crowd.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

USUALLY, when obsessed fans line up for an early-bird premiere, it's the cape-and-tights and light-saber crowd. But these were book people -- and grown-ups at that -- who showed up at 6 a.m. Friday for the first screening of "The Da Vinci Code" at the Hollywood ArcLight. Fanaticism was not required.

Or was it?

Janan Jem, a 26-year-old advertising student, traveled all the way from London to catch this showing -- yep, you read that right -- and dubbed the big-screen version of the bestselling novel by Dan Brown a raging success. The overseas trip, she said, bobbing her head giddily, was well worthwhile.

Early indications from multiple sources outside Sony, the film's distributor, suggested that midday attendance figures were strong but unlikely to set any records, despite book sales that have surpassed 60 million copies. Steve Elzer, senior vice president of media relations for Sony Pictures Entertainment, said business was "very encouraging," adding that "matinees are strong."

Opening-day tracking also suggested the movie might hold more appeal for younger adults than earlier research indicated.

The ArcLight crowd seemed to bear that out. Consider Corey Jovan, a 26-year-old L.A. video game tester who normally doesn't rise before noon. Period. "I'm lazy," he says. But there would be no waiting until after work to see this film, so Jovan and his fiancee joined some 800 bleary-eyed Angelenos who packed the lobby before sunrise, collecting free T-shirts emblazoned with the movie's motto -- "So dark the con of man" -- and choosing between popcorn and soda or the breakfast foods (juice, pastries) made available at the concession stand.

Lauren Ocean looked quizzically at the offerings. "Orange juice just doesn't seem like legitimate movie fare," said the film producer from Hollywood. "I guess I have to get a soda." Ocean had stayed up late Thursday night, racing through the last few pages of Dan Brown's international bestseller, the basis for the film. The book was a Mother's Day gift, but even so, Ocean left her kids and husband slumbering and arrived solo.

"It was my turn," Ocean said, grinning. "My husband got to see the midnight showing of 'Mission: Impossible III.' "

That critics generally disliked the movie didn't seem to faze a soul.

"I'm my own person," Jovan said. "We've come to see the best movie of the year." Nearby in the lobby, Marlene Picard, a writer from Santa Monica, chimed in: "The critics have had their say, now we're going to have our day."

The ArcLight wasn't alone in betting that Angelenos would trade sleep for an early showing; the AMC in Santa Monica rolled back its curtains at a brazen 5:15 a.m. In Hollywood, at least, the bet was a good one: The ArcLight's Cinerama Dome filled to capacity by the time a Gilbert Gottfried sound-alike asked the audience to refrain from text-messaging during the film, gestured grandly toward the screen, paused for applause, and the lights dimmed.

For such a passionate bunch, the next three hours were surprisingly sedate. Little discernible laughter, hissing, cheering, crying. The applause before the film was far more spirited than after, and few people stuck around to hobnob or catch breakfast, touted as "The Last Breakfast," in the theater's cafe.

"It was pretty good," said Sandarsh Kumar, 26, rushing to his job as a biomedical engineer at USC. "At times, though, they compressed the timeline. When I watched the movie I was left hanging. When I read the book, I was never left hanging."

There was some criticism from the crowd. Donnie White took issue with Tom Hanks' physique. "In the book, his character was in better shape," said White, a personal trainer visiting Southern California from New York. "He's a swimmer, and that's a lot of cardio. His lats would've been very defined."

And then just 15 minutes after credits rolled, the theater and the lobby were empty, save for employees and a few journalists trying belatedly to document the hype.

Take a number, pal

2006-05-10T06:49:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Wednesday May 10, 2006

Take a number, pal
* Web etiquette goes wacky when ranking friends becomes an exercise in lifeboat ethics.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

LET'S begin with an exercise. First, name the eight most important people in your life -- friends, family, rock stars. These are your Top 8. Now rank those people in order of importance. Finally, send a copy of this list to everybody you know, including people who didn't make the cut. Be careful not to hurt the wrong feelings, or you may end up getting bumped from other people's Top 8s.

Go ahead and bite your nails. Realize the magnitude of these decisions.

OK, so, you're either lost in terrifying flashbacks of middle-school cruelty -- or you've already made such a list, already showed it to all your friends, and since you didn't make all their Top 8s, you've already deleted the offenders from your list (and prayed they noticed). In other words, you're already on MySpace.com or one of the many other social networking websites such as Facebook.com or Friendster.com, doing your best to navigate this complex new world of friends-of-friends-of-friends-etc. with as few social casualties as possible.

If the Internet was once ungoverned by etiquette, those days are gone; MySpace and its siblings, by many accounts the future of the Net, are rife with discussions of good manners versus unforgivable faux pas. There isn't an aristocratic class, just yet, but you can see the lines forming in the sand, renegades and bad boys posting bulletins pell-mell, uploading risque pictures, collecting "friends" as if it's all some big popularity contest -- while mannered netizens look on disapprovingly. Screw up and you just might get dumped, online and off.

J.D. Funari is hoping that clarity prevents offense. A week after logging onto MySpace, the 24-year-old TV editor from Studio City posted a disclaimer above his Top 8: "Since this 'preferred' listing of friends can quickly become unnecessarily political, I'd like to briefly explain my sorting technique," he wrote.

"The first spot will always be my brother (for obvious reasons) and the second spot will always be my friend Katie (for reasons obvious to Katie and I). The third and fourth spots are reserved for music and movies of interest. Five and six are wild-cards which may be related to how well I know the person and/or if I'm dating them (opposite sex only) and/or if they've paid me for inclusion. The final two spots are, to be perfectly honest, the two most attractive current female photos from my list of friends."

The posted explanation sent ripples through Funari's 97 interconnected friends. "It's very flattering," says Katie Rose Houck, 23, an actress in Los Angeles who occupies slot No. 8, reserved for attractive females. "We've only known each other for a couple of months, and we have a flirting banter going on between the two of us. This reaffirms that he knows that I'm pretty, that I know that he thinks I'm pretty, and all of his extended friends know that he thinks I'm pretty."

Houck admits laughingly that she has browsed through Funari's other friends to see whom she bested. Then again, she is No. 8 on the list, while No. 7 went to Amy Vo, a 25-year-old receptionist from Maryland, who happens to be wearing a bikini in her MySpace picture. "I have an outfit on, so of course Amy is going to get the first spot," says Houck. "Naked wins over pretty."

Vo has never actually met Funari in person; the two connected through Funari's No. 1 friend, Katie. It went like this: Funari clicked on Katie's picture and was whisked to her profile, where he spied Vo in spot No. 3. He clicked over to Vo's profile and sent her a message. "He said, 'Oh, you're so pretty,' " remembers Vo. "And I said, 'Oh, you're so nice.' " Then Funari requested Vo as a friend, she accepted, and soon she rose to spot No. 7 on his page. (Alas, Funari, you're absent from Vo's Top 8.) These, the newfangled dances we dance.

At first it seems as if Funari's strategy might just work. Play the honesty card, let people know where they stand, watch them celebrate or nurse their wounds and then move on. But life threatens to throw a monkey wrench into his beautiful absolutes. "The first spot will always be my brother," his rules explain. Problem is, Funari has two younger siblings who will soon be logging on themselves. What then? And what if he gets serious with a girl -- will she be happy at sixth place?

"If he was my boyfriend, and he didn't put me in the top 5, I would be a little offended," Houck says. "And if he kept his best girlfriend at No. 2 -- and she's pretty! -- I would be a little offended. Maybe that's why he's still single."

Well, he is single. It says so right on his page: "Status: Single." MySpace profile pages are customizable in many ways; you can add pictures, music, write blogs, list your interests or skip all this entirely. You can allow friends to jot comments directly onto your page, viewable by all, or you can retain absolute control. But try as you might, you can't avoid classifying your relationship status, which isn't always easy to do.

After the Top 8, relationship status causes the most ire in the MySpace world.

"It gets highly dramatic," says Danah Boyd, a doctoral student at UC Berkeley who is studying the culture of social networking. "Sometimes one person thinks they're single while the other person thinks they're dating.... You can't have your status be, 'I'm in a relationship that I'm not entirely thrilled with, I'm waiting for something better, come talk to me.' "

What results is an inordinate amount of "swingers," an allowed choice that's sufficiently deviant for teens, ironic for adults (minus actual swingers) and has quickly become socially acceptable within the MySpace mainstream. Still, there remain many conventionalists who choose "single" or "in a relationship," and watch their physical and digital worlds intertwine.

Five months ago, 27-year-old James was "in a relationship," according to his MySpace page. Then James, a New York public relations executive who declined to provide his last name, broke up with his girlfriend and switched to "single."

In the real world and online, James and his ex remained friends, so when James started dating another woman, he didn't want to rub it in his ex's face. He delicately broached the MySpace topic with the new girlfriend, and they agreed not to switch their designation to "in a relationship" just yet. So: single online, together off.

It was four months of limbo before James and his girlfriend decided the time was right. "I was at her Easter family dinner," James remembers, "and that pretty much constitutes a relationship."

They went online, made the change and all's well -- unless things go sour. "There's a tension that never existed before," James says.

In this case, James and his girlfriend were making the safe assumption that their exes engage in "MySpace stalking," the practice of secretly keeping tabs on friends, lovers, co-workers, celebrities or complete strangers by reading their profiles.

If stalking in the real world implies some dangerous psychological imbalance, on MySpace it's essentially the norm, although etiquette suggests that you keep your stalking to yourself. Mention so-and-so's dating status too loudly in the wrong context or without the required I'm-just-kidding jocularity and you risk being judged a stalker in the regular sense.

Where there's stalking, there's reverse stalking. After all, wouldn't you want to know who's watching you? To watch them watch you without them knowing they're being watched? Um, of course you would. At first. And then you realize that if you watch whoever's watching you, then you'll also be unveiled to everybody you're stalking, which puts a real damper on the initial voyeuristic enterprise.

Some social networking sites, such as Friendster, allow users to view who has visited their profiles; MySpace does not. Which simply means that MySpacers are more desperate than ever to unearth a reverse-stalking technique and then hide it from everyone they know.

In February, James hit gold. He came across a website, Whospyme.com, which gave users the ability to watch the watchers. Unlike the dozens of hoaxes circulating throughout MySpace, this one actually worked. "It showed who visited my page and the exact time they visited. One girl, an old friend, checked it almost every hour." James was omniscient for nearly two weeks until MySpace blocked Whospyme, returning him to darkness.

Tom Anderson, president of MySpace and its most beloved member -- he regularly receives marriage proposals among the thousands of comments on his profile -- explains: "We can't allow somebody to create a service like that, which reveals who's looking at your page. That's a violation of privacy." If MySpace were to unveil such a feature, Anderson says, each user would get to make an individual decision about whether to be traceable. Yet another decision fraught with online and offline complications.

There are plenty of other decisions to make in the meantime:

Number of friends: Too many, you're deemed a "MySpace whore," too few, a loser. (Caveat: If you're in a band, or you're a middle-school kid who lied about your age to get on MySpace and are competing with friends to see who's most popular, "too many" is a good thing.)

Profile picture: Posing in your skivvies opens you to scorn, but, depending on your friends, it may also increase the probability that you'll score some Top 8 spots. "I can't stand it when people put pictures up, trying to look all sexy," says Lori Carter, 25, a Salt Lake City office manager. More specifically, Carter can't stand it when her husband accepts such people as his friends.

Grammar: "I am not a grammar Nazi," says Michael Block, 23, an L.A. search engine marketer who uses MySpace and Tagworld.com. "But I do feel terrible for words like 'probably' and 'someone' that are constantly bastardized into 'prolly' and sumone.' " Etiquette here is often divided by age, with teens writing in slang that evokes fury in their twentysomething elders. Block has been unable to decipher this message, for instance, which he received from a 15-year-old stranger from Florida: "y u want people 2 look at u 4. u thinken that u looken sweet 4 da females."

Bulletins: These are messages that users post to virtual bulletin boards. Perhaps the most common social networking pet peeve are posted versions of the chain letters of yore, the "if you don't send this on you'll never fall in love again and then you'll die a horrible death" variety.

If you've steered clear of social networking so far, enjoy that simple existence while you're able. Sooner or later friends will ask -- then demand -- that you migrate toward multidimensionality. There are more than 76 million people on MySpace (about 270,000 join daily), and Anderson wants to expand the MySpace experience until the entire Net rests within it. "Anything you do on the Internet, I want you to be able to do on MySpace," he says. "That's the goal and ambition. Almost all the things you can do online can be enhanced by the social structure of MySpace."

Which suggests that the Top 8 will become only more central to the human experience, more dizzyingly complex.

"It's the Seinfeldian Speed Dial Dilemma of our generation," says Sarah Ciston, 22, a page designer at the Long Beach Press-Telegram. "I love it. But I think you should also get a Bottom 8, or a Bottom 20. A hall of shame of sorts."

Digital memories overwrite real thing

2006-05-09T06:46:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Tuesday May 09, 2006

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK
Digital memories overwrite real thing
* Camera phones let anyone capture the moment -- but they risk missing the experience.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

None of the 250,000 or so protesters who crowded around Los Angeles City Hall on May 1 have license to forget that day. Nor to remember it incorrectly. The Nation of Islam SUV rolled by just after the mariachi band, not the other way around. Don't believe me? Review the tapes, archived on more than a dozen public photo and video sharing websites like Flickr.com and Buzznet.com. Opinion is irrelevant. We've got the facts.

It's tough to find a cellphone these days that doesn't double as a camera, and at the demonstration, cellphones joined countless digital cameras, video cameras and even conventional film cameras to document history in progress.

Truth is, practically anything beautiful or terrible or just slightly unusual calls for the interposition of a lens these days -- stop along PCH to watch the sun set over the Pacific and you're bound to encounter passersby holding up their phones, watching the digital version. At the recent Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, hundreds of people packed into UCLA's Royce Hall to see Arianna Huffington interview Gore Vidal, and I watched a man watch the entire hourlong conversation on his 1-inch-square cellphone screen, snapping pictures along the way.

Photographing the moment is only the beginning. Next stop is dissemination, in which that experience, that memory, is transferred, at the push of a button to other cellphones, to computers, to any of the several dozen media sharing websites, joining more than 122 million photos on Flickr alone and millions of videos on Youtube.com. And then it spreads further still, filtering through some of the 57 million MySpace.com pages and onward through Facebook.com and Friendster.com, and the rest of the social networking universe.

A memory for one is a memory for all; the fallibility of memory is no more. Arriving home, sweaty and satisfied after an exhilarating immigration protest -- or cool and quiet after watching an auburn sunset across the sea -- talking about your day becomes a different exercise than it once was. Remembrances are no longer ambiguous collages of past and present experiences but rather the well-defined digital records sitting in front of us. We don't close our eyes to invoke memory; we open them wide to decipher the proof, the truth. It's clarity of one sort, though maybe blindness of another.

A stranger across the globe who knows me only as my Internet moniker can stare through my camera-eyes and interpret my experience, perhaps more accurately than I can. Perhaps she notices a smaller mariachi band just before the Nation of Islam SUV, at the border of the frame. Perhaps that sunset was more red than auburn. Perhaps Gore Vidal was rising to stand, at the moment of applause, when I remember him lowering himself toward his wheelchair.

Whatever I remember, the image overwrites it. Computers may catch viruses, may be prone to crashing, but they don't have creative imaginations that color their memories.

We perceive images and videos as "ground truth," says Elizabeth Loftus, distinguished professor of psychology at UC Irvine and an expert on memory. Studies have shown that when people are presented with doctored family photographs, they often adjust their memories, even invent false memories, rather than questioning visual evidence.

Didn't Aunt Betty die in '93? Well, I guess not -- here she is at the reunion in '95. I remember now! She played piano with Cousin Lou!

Technology marches giddily forward, and it's a safe bet that cameras and other recording gadgets will proliferate further, that distribution channels will become more immediate and accessible, and that in sum, collective memory will interact with individual memory in ways we cannot yet comprehend. In one sense, this web of interconnection is the awe-inspiring stuff of Buddhist "inter-being"; it conjures a thousand mystics saying in their various tongues, "we are all one." It threatens to disappear the fractious boundaries of place, time, race, sex, self even.

But it also can be seen as rendering the moment something other than the moment, transporting us into the past and the future -- anywhere but the present -- and transferring our experience to everybody except the self.

It's difficult to imagine Robert Frost, say, stopping in the woods on a snowy evening, giving his harness bells a shake with one hand while holding a camera phone with the other, and still taking in enough of the experience to conjure it later in verse. Another poet could write from Frost's photo record, although whose woods those were he might not know.

Enlightenment or alienation. Or something in between.

"The whole idea of personal experience, if it were simply left to the person alone, would be pretty meaningless and superficial," says Ken Gergen, professor of psychology at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and author of "The Saturated Self." "It's only because we're engaged in relationships that it becomes something. We never do see things through our own eyes; we always see them through the eyes of others. In some sense, it was always the others' sunset, the others' City Hall confrontation."

Yes, humans long to share, and we begin to conceptualize memory before the moment ends. We fantasize about future conversations, rehearsing them in the car and the shower until they finally come to pass. Yet the culture of immediate connectivity is something else -- not good, not bad, but with possibilities for both.

"We're a culture in transition," Gergen says. "We thrive on the notion of authenticity, individuality, interiority. At the same time, there's something isolating about that as well. The techno-civilization is moving us into connectivity very rapidly. There is something to be glad about, which has to do with breaking down these isolations, bringing us together. My sense is there's reason to be optimistic. But only if we start thinking, considering, debating about it."

The danger, I guess, is that we'll watch everything change through our viewfinders and then get so carried away with sharing that we forget to reflect.

If Big Brother had a blog, he would be its webmaster

2006-04-18T06:45:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Tuesday April 18, 2006

If Big Brother had a blog, he would be its webmaster

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

Lightning struck near the tiny valley town of Livingston, Mont., the other day, frying a radio tower and, for a few long hours, plunging some of its 7,000 residents into an Internet-less world. "I wasn't above having thoughts of God's wrath," says Walter Kirn, one of those residents, a novelist and critic who lives by himself on 500 acres of hay and roving herds of antelope. The laptop sitting on his kitchen table rendered useless, Kirn tried typing into his cellphone, then drove through town, trolling for anybody with an unbroken connection. A segment of his newest novel was set to be published in a matter of hours, and it wasn't even written.

Kirn, given his pastoral surroundings, might seem an unlikely candidate to be writing an "online novel." But the author of "Thumbsucker" and "Mission to America" is hardly a transcendentalist loner, either -- he's well-connected in New York publishing circles and isn't averse to attention, having written, for instance, an article for GQ about his experimentation with Ritalin. When the editor of the online magazine Slate approached Kirn last December and asked if he'd be willing to write a novel, posting chapters to Slate as he went, Kirn says he warily agreed.

"I was both enthusiastic and doubtful," he says. "The old school part of me was brainwashed into thinking that writing on the Internet was a form of slumming or self-cheapening, kind of like publishing your own book at Kinko's." On the other hand, the editor assigned to the project was Meghan O'Rourke, formerly a fiction editor at the New Yorker and hardly an illiterate Web nerd.

The result is "The Unbinding," a serialized Web novel and a rumination on technology today, its first segment posted at Slate.com in March with postings continuing twice weekly through June. Kirn depicts technology as a looming Orwellian force, spying on the citizenry, turning our insides outward; yet Big Brother is not an ominous other but we, the people: We've internalized the totalitarian apparatus, and thus technology becomes at once our attempt at salvation, connection, love, meaning, and the vehicle of our own oppression. The loss of privacy makes for comedy, at first, and then for a sense of foreboding as trampled boundaries refuse to reappear.

In short: Everybody's spying on everybody (including themselves). At the center of it all is Kent, who works for the omnipresent corporation AidSat, which monitors millions of sensor-transmitters worn by its subscribers. Lost? Having chest pains? Can't remember your brother-in-law's boss' birthday? Press a button on your AidSat enabled bracelet or earring and you'll reach an operator like Kent who tracks you with satellites, monitors your vital signs and provides whatever help or information you so desire. Sometimes, operators track you unbidden.

Meet Sabrina, Kent's comely, single neighbor -- and an AidSat subscriber. Kent's interested, Kent has access and Kent can't resist doing a little background research. But Sabrina notices being noticed and calls upon her own connections with their own computers. We watch Sabrina watch Kent watch Sabrina; we, the readers, are implicated in the watching. The story unfolds through "found documents," such as Kent's blog-like online diary. "I decided this month to write it all down," Kent explains. "Everything, my morning and my nights, and to file it for perpetual safekeeping in the great electronic library of lives. I'm an interesting person, I've come to see. We all are. We don't deserve to disappear."

Kirn watches, also, through the Internet, sitting up nights at the kitchen table at his farm, wearing boxers, an owl hooting in the blackness beyond. He watches the world, watches us. He follows the political furor surrounding the National Security Agency wiretapping controversy, the parental furor arising from teens baring their souls (and other things) on social networking sites and video repositories such as Youtube.com. News of our world filters into the world of "The Unbinding," which filters back into our world -- say, this article -- which filters back into "The Unbinding." The first mainstream media review of this novel-in-progress, in the Boston Globe, appeared as a link in a following chapter. An AidSat operator tracked it down; apparently, their computer systems index multiple worlds.

Want to appear in a Walter Kirn novel? Now's your chance. Quick, do something crazy, and do it publicly. The clock's ticking; "The Unbinding" won't be evolving forever, it's set to be published as a book -- to be bound -- after its run at Slate. Kirn is considering selling the print rights on EBay.

"One of the essential lessons this book has already taught me," Kirn says, "is that the greatest threat to our privacy may not be the intrusions of Big Brother, but our own instinct for self-exploitation. People put out more stuff about themselves on Myspace.com than the government could ever hope to collect about them. The fear that we're being watched, these days, is evoking a kind of exhibitionism that may be as dangerous as being spied on."

Kirn's isn't the first online novel; the Internet boomed with hundreds of amateur "hypertext novels" almost as early as the birth of the medium, filled with links giving way to links, a postmodern pastiche of traces, although most of these read more like code than literature. Stephen King began publishing his online novel, "The Plant," in 2000, about a supernatural vine that infiltrated a paperback publishing house, offering up limitless wealth in exchange for human flesh.

"What made 'The Plant' such a hilarious Internet natural," King wrote in 2001, "was that publishers and media people seemed to see exactly this sort of monster whenever they contemplate the Net in general and e-lit in particular: a troublesome strangler fig that just might have a bit o' the old profit in it. If, that is, it's handled with gloves." King netted $600,000 from readers who paid on the honor system, then ceased publication after six chapters.

Dave Eggers serialized a political novel for the online magazine Salon in 2004. "I wrote that really as a chance to react quicker, in some oblique way, to what was actually going on in the political world," Eggers says. "There were references to things going on in the real Illinois senate campaign, the one Barak Obama won, and references to the Bush family. But most of the time, reality outpaced my ability to create fiction from it. I wish there was a bigger audience for this kind of thing, I think it could be very exciting."

The audience for "The Unbinding" hovers between 3,000 and 9,000, depending on the day, says O'Rourke, the editor. "Even if we had 700 readers," she says, "I was going to be very happy." O'Rourke is pursuing other writers -- well-known writers, although she declines to say names -- to publish their novels online in Slate. "If you're going to write a novel, the deal we're offering is very good," she says. "It's not an insignificant amount of money for just working on the novel. It's a model that writers have had for a long time, since going back to Dickens, being paid to serialize a novel." O'Rourke says that online readers are also likely to buy the physical book.

Of course what separates "The Unbinding" from previous serializations is its intertwining of form and content, its evolving investigation into the membrane between writer and reader, these umbilical cords, these flickering screens. Kirn has little idea where the story will take us, whether Kent and the others will embrace technology until all walls crumble and they find nirvana in the freedom of self-revelation -- or whether they'll turn away, if they're able, seek solace in ye olde flesh-to-flesh.

He receives guidance, constantly, from the nethers of the Net. "It's creating a little bit of a paranoid atmosphere," he says. "Just as my characters in the book are making friends with people who are actually spying on them, just as my characters are spying on people they're pretending to befriend, I get e-mails from readers, and you have no idea who's writing and why. I have lots of uncertain karma," Kirn says, and chuckles -- he's known for publishing harsh literary criticism. "At first, getting e-mail delights you: 'Oh, they're reading, someone's thinking about it!' But every once in a while I look at an e-mail and say, 'Well, here's someone determined to push me off track.' "

So, lightning struck, the Internet died and Kirn went searching for access. He found it, at a coffee shop downtown, plugged in, began to write; as he did, the watchers showed their human faces. "Literally, while I was writing, the town eccentrics were looking over my shoulder, asking about what I was writing, listening to my explanations, offering their two cents," Kirn says. "It had gotten around town pretty quickly that what Walter was doing inside his house could be viewed easily on a computer. I thought, 'This is more interactivity than I can stand!' But it was interesting too."

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Eyeing and spying love

A sample from "The Unbinding," an online novel by Walter Kirn published in installments at Slate.com:

Big news from Sabrina: I have another stalker. His name is Kent Selkirk, he lives across the courtyard, he drives an older black Ford mini-pickup with bumper stickers proclaiming that he's a Democrat, a paintballer, and an organ donor, and on Wednesday I got a weird anonymous note quoting a diary the guy's been writing about some tricky scheme of his to go through my file at AidSat, where he works (you know: "AidSat -- Always at your Side"), and use the info inside it to seduce me.

The funny thing, and the thing that makes me think the letter-writer must know both of us, is that I've been eyeing this Kent since he moved in here. He seems like my type: a fouled-up jock with brains who goes around wearing flip flops and pocket T-shirts and a ridiculous pair of thick dark shades that wrap around his head like plastic bat wings and emphasize the squareness of his huge skull. He reminds me of one of my crushes at U Mass, that guy who supposedly date-raped all the swimmers but wriggled off because of his top tennis ranking, except that he's less obviously psychotic in terms of his walk and posture and general aura. If he passes a dog, he pets it just like I would, and I've seen him hold doors for old ladies in his unit and carry a pregnant Hispanic woman's grocery bags. He also happens to be about half-gorgeous, with one of those partly caved-in boxers' noses sprinkled across the bridge with sandy freckles.

Which all adds up to a favor, little sister. Is there somebody clever in your tech department, some nerd you can maybe bat your lovely lashes at, who can use this guy's name to find out what he's been up to before he spotted yours truly and fell in love? It's pure high school, I realize, and totally unfair. But it might be good for [grins]. Maybe that isn't how computers work, though. I wouldn't know. I'm just a facialist.

A judge of characters

2006-04-05T06:44:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Wednesday April 05, 2006

A judge of characters
* `Who Wants to Be a Superhero' lures those seeking to impress comic book legend Stan Lee and emerge as the next great crime fighter.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

It's a dark and stormy Tuesday morning in Hollywood, just the kind that draws villains -- purse snatchers, hobgoblins -- from their shadowy lairs to terrorize the gentle citizenry of this vast metropolis. Rain splatters the cavernous soundstages at Sunset Gower Studios and streams off the rooftops, turning sidewalks into rivers.

On the street, a green van sputters and turns but won't start. And slowly, quietly, masked and caped men and women arrive. And though they're armed -- the usual stuff: guns, knives, musical instruments, bananas -- it's easy to see from their smiling and handshaking that these are friendly heroes. Angelenos are safe -- for now.

Anonymous crime fighting is so passe. It's high time, these superheroes say, that they got theirs. Fame, that is. Money. Sex appeal. So when comic book god Stan Lee announced last June that he would hold tryouts for his new reality show, "Who Wants to Be a Superhero," set to air in July on the Sci-Fi Channel, word spread almost instantaneously through Internet message boards, comic book conventions and clubs. All told, about 300 superheroes would brave the rain and muck to demonstrate their powers to Lee.

Big Pappa arrives nearly two hours before auditions are set to begin and stands outside, unbothered by the rain. He looks a little like a pimp, with a giant gold "BP" on a chain around his neck, a garish "$$$" ring and a black cape. "My walking stick moves so fast that it can stop bullets," Pappa explains in a gentle voice. "It can also smash steel, and it emits a laser beam from the bottom. My pocket watch freezes everyone in time, but I can only use it once a day. Most important, I have the power to enchant the ladies." By day, Pappa is Bob Carey, 37, and he teaches test prep courses at Kaplan.

"Two years ago, my wife started calling me Big Pappa," he says. "And I started calling her Baby. I constructed all this to irritate her."

Only 11 contestants will be chosen next week to inhabit a secret lair and compete on various missions and shenanigans, with Lee as judge. But the final prize is enough to make any superhero quiver in her tights: an original comic book about the winner, by none other than Lee himself, and a movie version for the Sci-Fi Channel.

"I'll probably be the next Donald Trump," Lee says. "Instead of saying, 'You're fired,' I'll have to come up with another line. Maybe, 'Take off your costume!' I'll be the ultimate judge. It's a great responsibility, and I take it very seriously. It's a great weight on my shoulders and I just hope that I will be up to this test. Because the eyes of the world will be upon us."

Eventually, the team of producers with clipboards takes pity on the masked masses -- rain is not good for costume makeup -- and invite them into a bare soundstage where lights flicker appropriately. When a superhero whose power is craziness screams gibberish and claims that his straitjacket can fly, a shirtless man in a corner changing into spandex tenses and says, "I think somebody let in a villain!" But that's not the case, and all remains good and right.

Dominic Pace, a.k.a. the Server, draws his power from professional ire. In his secret identity, he's a 30-year-old waiter at the Geisha House, see, but by night, "I extort money from the cheap tippers and bad customers," he explains. He carries a bulletproof silver serving tray, which doubles as a shield and a projectile, and he uses a pepper mill -- which he wears at his hip in a holster -- to "spray pepper like shotgun pellets." He carries a calculator in an arm holster so that "when I catch the bad guys, I can tally up how much they owe."

Nearby, Ice Bitch struts her stuff. She's in a skimpy outfit of see-through fishnet stockings, boots, a black bustier and platinum wig. "I've been Ice Bitch for at least 20 years," says the 42-year-old freelance art director. "It's all about the eyes, they freeze the bad guys. I am a defender of the environment. I go after litterers, poachers. I teach those who are teachable, and punish those who are not teachable."

Most of these heroes are giddy about the chance to meet Lee, who arrives at 11:30 a.m. to shake each and every hand. Conventional powers such as flight and invisibility are OK, says Lee, but "we're not going to ask anybody to fly or leap tall buildings with a single bound. We can't test that. But what we can test is this: Every superhero has certain qualities and characteristics on the inside, characteristics like courage, character, honesty, integrity, self-sacrifice, compassion, resourcefulness. We can test that stuff."

However, few superheroes seem interested in showing off their sensitivity and intelligence. One man dressed conventionally in a brown suit and spats uses a motorized pump to blow up a giant balloon and tries to climb into it without the air escaping -- to a resounding "pop!" "Sometimes that happens," Buster Balloon explains afterward. "But the world needs a vaudeville crime fighter."

POW! BAM! A woman in white and a man in black begin a vigorous hula-hoop duel in the middle of the room. An accordion player in whiteface wearing a fedora belts out a ballad at the top of his lungs: "Stan Lee, Stan Lee, he'll make a superhero out of me...." Monkey Woman polishes one of nearly a dozen bananas strapped to her garter belt and fur underwear.

And Man-Fey, probably the oddest of the admittedly odd bunch, turns and dances until the flesh of his behind, barely covered by spandex, shivers. Superheroes gather around to stare and offer queasy congratulations.

"I stand for the freedom to party down when you want to without the man telling you not to," says Damen Evans, a 24-year-old art student from Laguna Beach. "This costume started out as a bad joke," he says. "But now I've been doing this for five years."

The last mystery of Vidal

2006-04-02T06:43:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Sunday April 02, 2006

Style & Culture
THE WRITER'S LIFE
The last mystery of Vidal
* A writer steeped in history and remembrance makes his stand in a city of reinvention.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

YOU hear Gore Vidal long before you see him, the steady tap-swish-tap of foot and cane on an upstairs landing in his sunny Spanish Colonial house in the Hollywood Hills; then there's the slow whir of a mechanical chairlift carrying the novelist-essayist-playwright-screenwriter downward. Vidal is 80, with an artificial knee, and in 2003 he left his Mediterranean aerie in southern Italy overlooking the Amalfi Coast -- not far from where the sirens sang, and Odysseus sailed on -- and returned to his sometime home in Los Angeles to live out the rest of his life.

The 1-kilometer trek from the house in Ravello to the piazza became difficult, Vidal explains once he's settled into a floral print armchair in a drawing room that brims with books yet to be shelved, paintings wrapped in brown paper leaning against naked walls. "I could walk it," he says, "but it takes me half a day. Also, I have diabetes. Also, the Cedars-Sinai years are here."

Vidal pauses and gazes out across the high-ceilinged room to where a tall window reveals sunlit greenery atop an adobe wall. It's a comfortable silence; Vidal is in no hurry to recollect, but he's in no hurry to finish recollecting either. He has been drawing deeply upon his memory in the last few years as he puts the finishing touches on his second memoir, "Point to Point Navigation," due out in November from Doubleday, the sequel to 1995's "Palimpsest."

"I always knew that we were going to need a house for the Cedars-Sinai years," he says. "Which is indeed what happened. But we always rented it out, until the last few years, when Howard got sick. And here I am." Vidal rarely mentions Howard Auster, his companion for half a century, when in the company of the press. It was Auster's cancer, as well as Vidal's bad knee, that spurred the move from Ravello. And then Auster died less than a year after they arrived.

These explanations make sense; but there remains something odd about Vidal's choosing Los Angeles as his final home, his patrician demeanor and deep sense of history clashing with the never-ending reinvention that pop culture requires of this city. Why did he and Auster not return to Rome, say, where for two decades they lived in a grand penthouse atop a palace in the Historic Center, and where the hospitals are just as good as they are here? Vidal adored Rome, he has said and written, but he does not by any means love Los Angeles. A writer lives in his head, he says, and so place is mostly immaterial. But then a writer is also human and hardly oblivious to his context.

In a 1985 essay for Architectural Digest magazine, Vidal contrasted his home in the "unfashionable Hollywood Hills," near Runyon Canyon, with his idyllic Roman penthouse: "In Los Angeles we live in our cars," he wrote, "or en route to houses where a pool is a pool is a pool and there are only three caterers and you shall have no other. A car trip to Chalet Gourmet on the Sunset Strip is a chore not an adventure. But a trip down our street [in Rome] is a trip indeed."

So why not Rome? Or London, where he buys most of his books from Heywood Hill?

"Come to my funeral and ask," Vidal answers, and pauses for a long time. The only sound is the rattling of ice as Vidal sways his tumbler of whiskey. "One hospital could kill you just as easy as another."

Old wounds

VIDAL grips his brown wooden cane, lets it go. His maternal grandfather, the blind senator T.P. Gore, holds a similar cane in a black-and-white studio portrait, published in "Palimpsest." A 10-year-old Vidal stands alongside, his arm over the senator's shoulder, his eyes gentle, his posture reverent, protective. Vidal has called the Washington, D.C., estate that his grandfather built at Rock Creek Park, where he spent the happiest moments of his childhood, his "true home." When at Rock Creek, Vidal's gentle eyes stood in for his blind grandfather's useless ones. Reticent no more, Vidal enthuses -- but slowly, with aristocratic poise -- about reading the Congressional Record aloud to the grandfather he idolized. These are good memories, and warm.

Why not settle in Washington, then? The Malaysian ambassador has moved into the old Rock Creek house, sure, but there are other estates nearby.

"God, no," Vidal says. "Unless you hold office, there's no point in being there." That was the plan, in the beginning. To live in Washington and hold office. Vidal knew this as he wrapped his arm around his grandfather and his grandfather leaned proudly upon his cane and the flashbulbs popped. But now Vidal is a year older than his grandfather ever was, and he's a long way from the capital.

A clue to this mystery of place sits on the brown rattan table, here in the Hollywood Hills. A pile of books, titles like "Extreme Islam," "Did George W. Bush Steal America's 2004 Election?," "Worst Pills, Best Pills." Among them, Vidal's own novel, "The City and the Pillar," the first serious literary work by an American author to deal openly with homosexual themes. It was a death knell for a politician at the time (although Vidal ran for Senate in 1982, coming in second to Jerry Brown in the California primary) and it forced a change of course. Vidal knew the consequences, he says now; it was a calculated decision, the right decision. "It's probably the only worthwhile thing I ever did in public life," he says. "Assuming that publishing is public life. Which is a great leap."

Vidal was just 23 when he published "The City and the Pillar," but it was his third novel and he was already a literary star. He dedicated the book "For the memory of J.T.," initials that remained mysterious for years. Today, Vidal speaks openly of Jimmie Trimble, a fellow pupil at St. Albans School in D.C., and Vidal's first love. "He was an athlete," Vidal says. "Now we think of athletes as just dumb-dumb boys, they're all muscle and no brain. But our athletes, at least of the class we came from, the political class, from Kentucky -- he was from Kentucky -- they were not only body boys, they were brain boys."

Trimble and Vidal were inseparable for a while, sexually and otherwise, and then fate intervened in the guise of Vidal's shrill and beautiful mother, Nina, who, concerned about her son's mediocre grades, transferred Vidal from St. Albans into yet another boarding school, Exeter, near Boston. Vidal saw Trimble one last time, at a dance in 1942, and they fled the hall together briefly, doing what teenagers in love are apt to do, leaving behind Vidal's fiancee, a young woman named Rosalind. Of course, Vidal never married Rosalind. And Trimble joined the Marines at the height of World War II and was killed in the Battle of Iwo Jima.

Vidal has written that he never again felt unity with another sexual partner -- at least, he hasn't yet. "It's not something you look for," he says sharply. "Things happen or they don't." He's been sliding down into the comfort of his armchair during conversation, and now a bit of his midriff peeks between his white button-down and his slacks. He's dallied with plenty of men, and some women, over the years -- more than plenty -- but none, except that first, was of lasting import. His relationship with Auster was platonic; which is exactly why it endured, says Vidal.

"In any country on Earth but the United States, people would understand this," he says. "For grown people, [sex] is something apart from living with somebody; it's just a disturbance." But people in the States "want total fidelity from the other person, and as much sex as they can get on the side. Preferably in a massage parlor. We are not," he says, turning for emphasis, "regarded as brilliant by other people."

It wasn't a marriage with Auster, nor a partnership. Vidal doesn't like to name what they were, just as he hates being pigeonholed as homosexual. No, they were Gore Vidal and Howard Auster, two men who decided to spend their lives together. "He's a private person," Vidal demurs. "There's not much to tell."

He must feel Auster's absence? "It was only 55 years," he says. "I don't know. It's.... Everyone handles it in their own way." He stares into a distance beyond the room. "I'm at the age where I'm asked to dinner parties with numerous widows and widowers, and they're all kind of cheery in a macabre kind of way. One illustrious lady said to me, don't you hate it when people tell you that time will heal all wounds? Of course I hate it. Time just reminds you of what is lost and not coming back again."

The old Hollywood

VIDAL shares the house with his Filipino cook, Norberto Nierras, while his 23-year-old assistant, Daren, lives in an apartment above the garage. He goes out very occasionally -- he enjoys, for instance, the acoustics and architecture of Walt Disney Concert Hall -- but mostly he stays at home. Work remains the constant throughout his days, as it always has been. He reads and writes in an upstairs study, where three windows look out onto swaying palm fronds; beyond, fancy cars speed too quickly around the curves. He prefers a typewriter or pen and paper to the computer, which he calls "that machine," but he respects the Internet and has published several political essays on his friend Robert Scheer's website, Truthdig.org. He rarely writes letters, because "practically everyone I know is dead." What friends remain do come calling fairly often. He abhors the telephone.

Today, when his tumbler runs dry, Vidal glances down at leftover ice. "Where's my Filipino gentleman?" he asks, fiddling with an intercom on the table in front of him. Daren has left on an errand, so for the moment Norberto is doling out the whiskey. The intercom doesn't seem to be working; "Norberto!" Vidal bellows, and back comes an indiscernible guttural shout. "It's an ancient Philippine folk song," Vidal says, half-smiling, and then Norberto arrives, middle-aged and in street clothes, and hands over a fresh tumbler, filled to the brim. Vidal has been drinking like this for years, but there's no noticeable effect on his formidable oratory and wit.

Norberto seems relaxed with Vidal, comfortable. After Auster died, he took the liberty of installing a chair in front of the door leading from Auster's room into Vidal's study; atop the chair he placed a large wooden puppet. "It's something superstitious," says Vidal, smiling. "He's a Filipino, and they have all sorts of meanings. I intend to get rid of it. Maybe it's to ward off the evil eye."

So. About Los Angeles?

"Rosebud," he says, echoing Charles Foster Kane's dying whisper in "Citizen Kane," and the idea that a single object or place can unlock the mystery of a life. He's joking, of course, hinting at the ridiculousness of this vein of inquiry. Vidal is in this city but not of it, he accepts but does not embrace it. "Rosebud" adds another wrinkle, however -- it is born of the movies, which are born of Los Angeles. And Vidal's language, if you listen closely, is run through with references to the product and process of film.

About the way memory works, he says: "When you were 10 years old, which in my case would be 60 or 70 years ago, you broke your leg. Trauma. Duly recorded, somewhere, on the tapes in your head. But if you recall it, the moment when your leg broke at the age of 10, you're not summoning up that movie, it's not as though you can just get the experience going in your head again. What you do, which is much more interesting and strange: You remember the last time you remembered it."

And it begins to make sense, now, to ask Vidal to remember remembering his first days as an adult in Los Angeles, the days when, he says, "the magic of the movies got through to me." Perhaps here lies the anatomy of his choice of home: It was 1945, and Vidal, the 19-year-old first mate of an Army freight-supply ship, was trying to jump from the ship to the dock at Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands. He could not; his knees simply wouldn't spring. He had been drenched with icy water from the Bering Sea more than once, and osteoarthrosis was the result. Many years later it would require an operation, an artificial knee, but at the time it delivered him to a hospital in Anchorage and left him pondering "home."

The Army sent soldiers to convalesce close to their hometowns; for most of them, that was an easily locatable destination. Not so for Vidal. His mother, Nina, was living at the Beverly Hills Hotel after two divorces and the death of her third husband. "I much preferred my father to my mother," Vidal says, "but I much preferred Hollywood, or the notion of it, to either of them. So, 'L.A. is where I come from,' I said." He was delivered to Birmingham General Hospital in Van Nuys. "It was pretty wonderful. Charles Laughton used to come over and read poetry and act plays. But only for the guys who were interested; he didn't want the ones who were just in it for autographs."

Nina's friend Jules Stein, head of MCA, gave Vidal a pass to all of the studios, and he would hitchhike in and watch the movies being made. The first set he breached was that of "Marriage Is a Private Affair," written in part by his dear-friend-to-be Tennessee Williams. Vidal remembers Bette Davis, on the set of "The Corn Is Green," standing in front of a manor house "in a riot of Harris tweed" and struggling to mount a horse. "You don't need an actress," Davis was saying. "You need an acrobat!" Vidal, now in his armchair, chuckles.

New York stole Vidal for a few years, which is where he met Auster, who had given up a career as a singer and was pursuing work in advertising. "He was having trouble getting a job in a New York advertising agency, despite an NYU degree," Vidal remembers. "The agencies, in general, did not hire Jews. So I said change the 'r' to an 'n.' He did, and was promptly hired by an agency that had turned him down the previous year." (Auster was thus known as Austen, in some circles.)

Then Hollywood wooed Vidal back; he signed a screenwriting contract at MGM and he and Auster lived with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward in Shirley MacLaine's old house in Malibu. He worked on "Ben-Hur," among other movies, but was ultimately dissatisfied with the studio system. It was too rigid; fluid collaboration seemed impossible. Europe beckoned; he answered. Rome. Ravello.

"I was fascinated by the movies," he says. "We all were, my generation." Fascinated, in past tense. "The problem with movies is that they're not for encouraging argument, for the mind," Vidal says. "It's for emotions. And you can excite people to a point.... Well, a medium that has that trouble is in deep trouble. And I think one of the problems of today is that literature has no prestige, while movies have all the prestige. And movies cannot do argument, they cannot do the mind, they cannot do anything -- except get your pulses going a little faster."

Despair and dreams

MOVIES, in other words, cannot do change, or at least cannot do it effectively enough. It was change that Vidal was after through politics, as well; in one way or another, he's always been after changing society, under many auspices, wearing his many hats. He is credited as the first to label the United States an empire, back in the 1970s, and has long been an outspoken critic of what he sees as American stupidity, greed, reliance on archaic moral structures. It's as bad now as it ever was, Vidal says, with Bush and the neoconservative agenda running the White House. "Did you see that story in the New York paper?" he asks. "All the money that Halliburton owes the government, and they're being forgiven this vast debt, because it's Cheney. In a well-run country, that wouldn't happen, a country of law. But we're now lawless."

"I don't see any optimistic signs on the horizon," Vidal says. "It's just, how much money can we wring out of the public, before all the oil has dried up and before soybeans can be properly processed? So we're at a curious point; obviously there are intelligent people who do have solutions, but not one of them will ever get inside the White House, not one of them is going to get to Congress, and God help you if you take on the bench. So all doors are shut at the moment."

Even in liberal Hollywood, after a year in which gay sheepherders fell in love, a preoperative transsexual reunited with her son and CBS reporter Edward R. Murrow took a stand against Sen. Joseph McCarthy, all in front of audiences' eyes, even after this, Vidal sees little reason to rejoice. After all, "Brokeback Mountain" failed to win the Oscar for best picture, exactly as Vidal predicted. "Nobody believed me," he says, relishing his prescience. "I said there's not a chance in the world the older members of the academy, the carpenters, the grips, the this's, the thats, living over in Van Nuys, they're not going to vote for that."

It seems hopeless, really, and yet, at 80 years old, Vidal continues the fight. "I have no choice," he says. "I have no selfish interests. All of my selfish interests are public interests." Under the weight of the world, at the apex of his frustration, Vidal is wont to smile. There is satisfaction in the muck, somewhere. "I'll never forget the joy," he says, and trails off, and pauses, and sips. "The four greatest words on Earth are 'I told you so,' " he says. "I have seen to it that I'm able to say that at period intervals, like a cuckoo clock."

One of the few people Vidal speaks with regularly on the telephone is Barbara Epstein, his longtime friend and editor at the New York Review of Books. "Like many people in Los Angeles, he's in exile," she says of Vidal. "Los Angeles is a place of exile. In a way, I think the one fits in the other very nicely."

Perhaps home, for Vidal, is exactly that -- exile -- a home that is not a home, from which he spies, somewhere in the nowhere of the distance, a better world.

But Vidal is not sentimental. The closest he comes is in his dreams. On good nights, as he sleeps in a second-floor bedroom down the landing from his study, he dreams of his father. "I'm always happy to see him again," Vidal says. "He starts climbing up a hill, and I follow him up, and it gets more and more full of bushes and so on. And then he vanishes." The landscape is not Los Angeles and not Ravello. "It's placeless," he says. "It's just a hill. It's wild country. When you dream of your father after a certain age, you're having a death dream. Any more of these doctors, and it won't be a dream."

Paying homage to a `real woman'

2006-03-06T06:41:00.000-08:00

Monday March 06, 2006

{THE OSCARS}
BEST ACTRESS
Paying homage to a `real woman'

Chewing the fat at the Pig

2006-02-26T06:40:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Sunday February 26, 2006

{THE OSCARS}
THE WORDSMITHS
Chewing the fat at the Pig
* From Oscar nominees to struggling wannabes, these writers have got a hot spot.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

WHAT a bunch of poseurs, thought Josh Olson, when he first stepped foot inside the Bourgeois Pig. The screenwriter was visiting this Hollywood cappuccino bar with a friend, and all around were "punks sitting there with laptops," Olson says. "Pretenders. Jerks."

"But Josh," said his friend, "how can you be so sure that they aren't actually writing something?" OK, Olson admitted. It was curiosity, partly, that brought him back the next morning (with his own laptop), and the next. And soon he was coming not to gauge the poseurs but because days at the Pig were eight- and 10-page days -- good stuff too -- and five years after setting up shop here, Olson received an Oscar nomination for his script, "A History of Violence."

It wasn't until a few weeks ago, after the nomination, that a scruffy-bearded Olson spotted fellow best adapted screenplay nominee Dan Futterman ("Capote") sipping coffee at a nearby table. "Josh came up to me and said, 'I know who you are!' " says Futterman, who takes his reading to the Pig. "We talked, and now, since I have a new house to decorate, I'm going to go check out his girlfriend's artwork."

Futterman won't have to look far. Olson's girlfriend, Annie Kehoe, an actress and artist, often shows her paintings at the Pig. (Olson and Kehoe met here just over a year ago.) But Olson and Futterman aren't the only of this year's best screenwriter nominees interested in Kehoe and her work. Stephen Gaghan, up for best original screenplay for "Syriana," snagged a Kehoe portrait of a newborn baby off the wall at the Pig, and intends to purchase more.

Oscar-nominated patrons aside, there are no red carpets unfurled here across floors of chipped concrete, and Olson worries each day that his favorite perch -- in a corner between the wall and the baked goods -- will be commandeered by some unknown scribe. The Pig sits on a lively, funky block of Franklin Avenue plucked from the East Village, with cafes, a newsstand, a record store, the French bistro La Poubelle; but on either side is urban sprawl that's chromosomally Los Angeles, a shattered apartment windowpane repaired with tape, a man with exhausted eyes pacing the sidewalks hawking popsicles.

"If you come here for a long time, you're here for that grittiness," says Andrew Chadsoy, who has hung out and worked at the Pig since he was 18, and now is 31 and the manager. "It's part of what gives way to creativity. If you didn't have that, the writers wouldn't be here." The Pig is a reminder that while Hollywood and the Oscars appear to be about impossibly out-of-reach starlets and super-refined notions of glamour, in Los Angeles, Hollywood is just part of town.

"Character, life, people, it's what I want to absorb, no matter who they are," says Jeremy Donner, a screenwriter with shaggy red hair who works across the table from Olson every day. "You have to be a patient listener to be a writer." There is a tangible divide here between observers and the observed: Silent writers sprawl across all available table space while noisy regulars gab at the counter or on soft purple couches; at the row of tables outside, young men with beards suck on cigarettes and argue politics.

It's people-watching at its finest, and writing is the perfect excuse for voyeurism. On a recent morning, Michael Abel sits at the counter, doodling devil horns on a picture of Dick Cheney in The Times; next, his pen makes a mockery of Condoleezza Rice.

"More than one person has gone to sit outside because of my politics, I'll admit that," says Abel, a cappuccino caterer and Pig regular for some 11 years. After passing around the augmented newspaper to halfhearted interest, Abel leaves -- but returns later to show off a freshly handmade shirt that reads, "Dick Cheney Hunting Party," replete with birdshot holes and faux blood.

"The problem with this place," says Ed Mattiuzzi, a musician seated nearby, "is that I tend to come in and procrastinate. I got here this morning at 8:30, and I'm supposed to be at work by 9, but now it's what, 10:30?" Zin Chiang nods, smiling. "Most people who get their coffee in here are friends," says the writer for a Taiwanese music magazine. "I had a snowboarding injury once, and [Abel] is really good at deep-tissue massage, and he fixed it for me."

Coincidence, you say?

EXCEPT for the seated observers, this feels like a small-town coffeehouse along the lines of, well, the cafe in Olson's "A History of Violence." And there is a regular named Joey, which is the name of Viggo Mortensen's character in the movie. And the Pig, like the cafe in "Violence," has been robbed at gunpoint.

No, no, no, says Olson. Coincidences, all. (Which makes sense; his screenplay was based on a graphic novel by John Wagner and Vince Locke.) Even so, it's easy to wonder if bits and pieces of this joint are smattered across the silver screen, by osmosis if not by intent.

"The women here are so beautiful," observes Ben Zolno, a twentysomething documentary sound designer, working on his first screenplay. "But [writers] aren't here because we're comfortable. You'll notice that music is playing, and that most people are trying to drown it out with their own headphones. It's like being at a Buddhist temple. We fight through resistance. There is something to being alone with other people."

Being alone with other people at the Pig is more complicated than you might expect; the subculture of writers here has developed its own unspoken code of conduct. It took Donner months of sitting across from Olson, for hours a day, before they acknowledged each other. "After we were both comfortable that the other person wasn't a wanker, we started with head nodding," Donner says. Then saying "hello" and "goodbye," and at long last trading numbers.

Olson usually stakes out the table first, then Donner arrives, followed by the third and newest member of their clan, Mishna Wolff, a comedian. "The most flattering moment at this table was when Josh called me and said, 'People are trying to sit at the table, do you want your seat?' " Wolff says. "That was after I had been sitting here for six months." The trio piles laptop bags, papers and jackets onto the remaining chairs until all appear taken.

Then writing begins, in silence. Earphones in place mean: Leave me alone. One earphone in, one out: I'll listen until you finish your sentence, then zip it. For Wolff, earphones are often just unconnected props.

They buy tea and coffee, sometimes lunch, and leave when enough work's done or whim moves them. The writers are not a cash cow for the Pig, to say the least. And business has been difficult lately, says Chadsoy. He's making changes to bolster the hipster nighttime clientele, many of whom are drawn to a back lounge perfect for making out; he plans to darken the ambience, add red lights, play louder music.

"The computer crowd has inundated the coffeehouse scene," says Jeff Zardus, who works nights at the Pig, open daily until 2 a.m. "People have forgotten that this is an alternative to bars. You feel resistance to it, people asking me to turn the lights up and the music down. I think that coffeehouses have gone soft."

Soft or not, this is just the way Olson likes it. "The day I come in here, and it's sold or closed, I'll have to find a new line of work," he says. "That's terrifying."

"We really should put a plaque on your chair now," says the waitress behind the counter, Amelia B., when Olson goes to order another double Americana. "No!" Olson says. "No, please. Please, just a 'reserved' sign."

Less is more at a Carmel Valley retreat

2006-02-19T06:34:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Sunday February 19, 2006

Western Travel
WEEKEND ESCAPE
Less is more at a Carmel Valley retreat
* Getting back to basics at Tassajara Zen center is made easier by gourmet vegetarian fare and dips in natural pools.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

Tassajara Hot Springs, Calif. -- THE plan was simple enough: Pick up my girlfriend, Katie, rent a vehicle that could withstand an infamously bumpy dirt road, and leave the busy, gritty, noisy cityscape behind. Growing up near Berkeley, I had long heard of Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, a retreat in Carmel Valley's Ventana Wilderness as famous for its vegetarian cuisine as for its salve-for-all-ills hot springs.

Tassajara is one of the oldest Soto Zen training monasteries outside of Asia, but anyone, including non-Buddhists like Katie and me, is welcome to visit from April 28 to Sept. 10 -- if they can get a reservation. Rooms, cabins, yurts and dorms are doled out on a first-come-first-served basis; the most eager will mail in their requests this week, when the center begins accepting them. I sent ours at the first opportunity, and even then we didn't get our first-choice cabin.

But what ends in tranquillity always seems to begin with mayhem. I misplaced my car keys, then my driver's license, then my cellphone. It was already dusk by the time we began inching our rented SUV up Interstate 5 -- and we were both grumpy. The goal was to push through half the 300-mile trek that evening, stopping to dine at some charming roadside cafe. Instead, we grabbed burgers at In-N-Out, then slept in a smoky motel room decorated with a painting of a neon pink flamingo. Morning brought more greasy fare (Denny's) and more driving.

We stopped at a fruit stand and pressed on, spitting cherry pits out the windows. Finally we left the freeway and wound through brown-green hills, past cattle and horse pastures, rusty mailboxes and patches of yellow and purple wildflowers.

Katie is a city-loving sophisticate who appreciates nature -- from a distance. (This long weekend trip in May required more than a little cajoling.) She used the last reaches of cellular service to commiserate with her mother about the indignities to come: no shower or hot water in the cabin and oil lamps instead of electricity. Bring wine, her mother advised, and lots of it.

At a dusty convenience store somewhere on the outskirts of the Ventana Wilderness, we surveyed jugs and boxes and a bottle or two of wine. We chose a few and threw in a bottle of Thunderbird simply because the idea of taking it to Tassajara made us laugh.

The last leg of the drive, on an ill-maintained dirt road, lived up to its reputation as a harrowing experience; a precipice loomed to our right, we knew, but our tires kicked up billows of dust across the windshield, and I found it difficult to discern where land ended and freefall began.

Simple and quiet

I was glad we didn't die, if only for the food -- all cooked by Zen students and priests. But before eating anything we had to cart our luggage from car to cabin in an oversize wheelbarrow. The path led through a wooden gate welcoming us to Tassajara and past several priests dressed in simple black robes.

The property spans about 160 acres, and hiking trails traverse the shaded hills; trek far enough and you'll find waterfalls. Guests are welcome to join residents for chanting and meditation each morning and evening, but many choose instead to lounge on the soft grass outside the meditation hall or stroll through nearby gardens.

Our redwood cabin was an airy room with abundant light, a hardwood floor, twin beds that we pushed together, lanterns on elegant wooden tables and -- to Katie's irritation -- a bathroom shared with an adjoining cabin. (Our friendly but absent-minded neighbors faithfully locked the two bathroom doors but rarely remembered to unlatch the door to our side afterward.)

We crossed a wooden bridge to the dining hall, which overlooks the stream along which the cabins lie. Here we began eating and didn't stop for the next three days. The dining hall was empty except for us, but a passing priest assured us that the flan and fruit and tea were snacks for the taking. We downed three big pieces of flan between us, grabbed some fruit and headed down a dirt path to explore. The only sound was the tinkling of the stream, the mellow chatter of passersby and the click-clack of Katie's high heels.

The nearby swimming pool smelled of sulfur, but we took a dip anyhow in its warm, viscous, salty spring water, then dozed on chaise longues poolside, half watching black-yellow butterflies against the backdrop of green mountains. The butterflies were joined by horseflies whose bites proved surprisingly painful, so we dressed, borrowed a chess board from the communal game room and set it up on a smooth tree-stump table.

Lunch at Tassajara is a choice between a sit-down meal and a do-it-yourself buffet of gourmet salads, vegetables, fruits, beans, grains, fresh baked breads and variations on humus and tapenade. We chose the buffet both days and took our lunch on hikes. On our second day trekking downstream, we found a pool deep enough to leap into from overhanging rocks. The water was clear -- we saw several fish -- and shockingly cold. I managed to lose a sandal downstream, so I hopped the few miles back, reassured by the knowledge that, if I injured my city-soft sole, I could recuperate trailside while Katie kept us fed by spear-fishing with her high heels.

Hot springs bath

DIRTY and tired, we headed for the bathhouse, a Japanese-style enclosure with two wings divided by gender during the daytime, coed at night. On each side, natural hot springs poured into tiled plunges with window views of the stream below; outside, people struck yogic poses on a large wood deck or lounged in an outdoor tub or steam room. Brave folk alternated between hot plunges and the freezing stream.

The bathhouse is clothing-optional, but when I climbed into the steaming water wearing my bathing suit, a naked middle-aged man informed me, "The tradition is that we don't wear suits in here. It introduces a foreign element." ("Nonsense," a regular visitor told me later. "That man needs a good dunking.") In the evening, Katie and I visited the bathhouse together, and I ventured in nude, Katie in her Hawaiian-print bikini. What were the chances that a pal from college and his new girlfriend would show up, both nude? We laughed off the awkwardness but couldn't quite figure out where to put our eyes.

Many of the visitors that weekend belonged to a bird-watching group and spent their days wandering around staring through binoculars, apparently more interested in the far off than the nearby. They weren't much for conversation. But on Saturday evening, over a dinner of North African vegetarian stew, roasted carrots and couscous, and a delicious date almond torte, Katie and I befriended five delightful guys (mostly from Southern California, it turned out) with whom we've kept in touch.

The following afternoon, our new clan gathered on a porch near the stream, and out came nuts and fancy wines and ... the Thunderbird. Sure, there was laughter, but among aged Cabernets, it was exotic.

A tolling bell meant meditation time for the resident monks and nuns, and a monk-in-training invited Katie and me to try it. We followed him into a large room with rows of cushions facing walls or raised wooden panels. A gong rang out in rapid succession. We took off our shoes, Katie discarding her lime-green pumps. (A nun stopped to chide her for the shortness of her mid-thigh smock-dress.) Then we were seated, legs folded beneath us, listening to silence and to natural sounds we hadn't noticed before. Forty minutes of stillness flew by, then a peal of the gong, and we walked out into warm air and mosquitoes underneath an expansive sky.

I can't really speak for Katie, but I could swear she seemed sad to leave. For the fun of it, she hopped in the wheelbarrow alongside our luggage, and I pushed us all uphill to that dusty SUV. It was a long haul home inching along the coast, but neither of us got the least bit grumpy.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Zen and the art of rest

GETTING THERE:

From Los Angeles, it's about 300 miles to Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. The last stretch, a 14-mile dirt road, is bumpy; if you don't have a high-clearance vehicle, you might want to rent one. Or park your car in nearby Jamesburg and board the Stage, a rugged shuttle that ferries travelers that last leg of the journey. It's $35 per person; arrange when making Tassajara reservations.

WHERE TO STAY:

A range of lodgings is available, including large family-size cabins and dormitories suitable for the solo traveler. Stone rooms (Friday-Sunday, $145 per person; single occupancy $265) feature wood stoves and a view of the creek. Redwood yurts (Friday-Sunday, $154 per person; single occupancy $283) include private decks and two single mattresses that double as a king. Rates are less on weekdays. There is no electricity in any of the cabins (kerosene lanterns provide light), and all bathing is done in the communal bathhouse.

WHERE TO EAT:

All meals are included in the cost of lodgings. Tassajara serves gourmet vegetarian cuisine. The kitchen is often willing to accommodate dietary restrictions.

CONTACT:

Tassajara Reservations, 300 Page St., San Francisco, CA 94102; (415) 865-1895 or www.sfzc.org/tassajara. A reservations phone line, (415) 865-1899, opens March 20. Until then reservations are accepted by mail (print out a form from the website).

-- Steven Barrie-Anthony

The halftime coach

2006-02-04T06:33:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Saturday February 04, 2006

Detroit
The halftime coach
* Don Mischer draws the plays as the Stones and the rest of the Super Bowl show team near game day.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

IT'S only a few days before Super Bowl Sunday, and the guy directing and producing the pregame and halftime shows would like to know, please, which songs the Rolling Stones will perform. But the Stones aren't ready to decide yet. And so Don Mischer, who is reprising this role from last year and has also produced opening and closing ceremonies for two Olympics, eight Emmys and the 2004 Democratic National Convention, is sitting in his temporary office in a converted locker room in the bowels of Tiger Stadium, guessing.

It's an elaborate game of pretend. Numbered pieces of paper taped to lockers represent some 20 cameras awaiting Mischer's command at neighboring Ford Field. "Keith and Mick often make great moves away from the band," Mischer tells Gregg Gelfand, the show's associate director. "But I'm assuming that Keith will always start on the left side of the stage." This isn't a blind assumption; Mischer took in four Stones concerts in the last year and has reviewed countless hours of tape. He knows their lyrics, their moves. Everything except their darn set list.

"What if they sing 'Get Off of My Cloud,' " he says, pressing buttons to find the song on a CD. And in an instant he's on his feet, chair flying backward, calling out camera switches in rapid fire to best capture the essence of these imaginary Stones. Gelfand sets cues -- "ready camera five on Mick" -- and Mischer waits, waits, waits: "Take!" he shouts, fists pounding the air. Take, take, take!

Mischer can appreciate secrecy. When Muhammad Ali was chosen to light the torch in the 1996 Olympics, Mischer sent nearly all staff and security packing and practiced with the boxer late at night with a flashlight. But secrecy has a different tilt to it after Janet Jackson bared a breast -- the infamous "wardrobe malfunction" -- in the 2004 halftime show, prompting a flood of viewer complaints and a Federal Communications Commission fine of $550,000 leveled against CBS. This year's halftime show will be on a five-second tape delay for the first time in Super Bowl history; it wasn't deemed necessary for last year's show, perhaps since the more staid Paul McCartney wasn't likely to go off script (he turned in his final set list months before the game).

Even though McCartney was a safe choice, he was an odd fit for an audience fueled by beer and adrenaline, and even Mischer, who directed the show, admits that the stadium didn't reverberate. There must be some middle ground between McCartney and a naked breast, and in late spring 2005, the National Football League began a dialogue with the Stones about "a season-long platform," says Charles Coplin, vice president of programming for the NFL, which has kept a closer watch on the halftime show ever since a breast marred its family-friendly spectacle. "They agreed to play a few songs at our kickoff show, and ABC used one of their songs, 'Rough Justice,' for Monday Night Football, and it will all culminate in those 12 minutes at halftime."

Not only did the Stones agree to participate, they agreed to do the halftime show for Super Bowl XL (40 for you non-Latin speakers) gratis, even paying for some of their own special effects. At a news conference Thursday, Mick Jagger noted that "America has changed since we first came here, it's almost unrecognizable," as has Mick, who's a long way from his bad boy days. But maybe not that far. He ended his comments with his own mini shocker, turning to a bank of TV cameras and saying, "Network television, they're always worried about how many times you're going to say [expletive] on the air." Then, to soothe NFL nerves: "They needn't worry about it. Calm down more and take life as it comes."

Halftime conundrum

The question is, does anyone really care about the halftime show? Millions of people watch the Super Bowl, sure, but at some point they've got to get off the couch to use the loo and burn some more nachos. Commercials used to serve that purpose, but who wants to miss the Bud Bowl? "Of the three parts of the Super Bowl -- the game, advertisements and the halftime show -- the halftime show is the least evolved, the least thought out and the poorest," says Robert Thompson, professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University. "It remains an ancient anachronistic remnant of the Ed Sullivan era." Not so, says Coplin. "People perceive the halftime show as big entertainment and spectacle."

Whether or not the halftime show matters to a worldwide audience, it matters in Detroit. Aretha Franklin, who with Stevie Wonder will appear in the Super Bowl pregame show, made headlines in Michigan when she criticized the NFL for failing to showcase Motown at halftime. "We thought it was a little bit remiss that they came to Detroit and didn't use at least one artist from Detroit," she said at a news conference. (The invitation for her and Wonder to play in the pregame mollified her somewhat.)

Regulars at the Sweet Water Tavern, a few blocks from Ford Field, hear Franklin loud and clear. There's a sense at the tavern, amid smoke and liquored good cheer, that Super Bowl XL is in Detroit but not of Detroit. The Steelers and Seahawks are playing rather than the hometown Lions, and recent cutbacks at General Motors and Ford mean that many Detroiters are more concerned with paying rent than buying Super Bowl tickets.

"What they should've done is have the Motown theme for halftime," says Johnny "Cheese" Petracci, the tavern's manager. "The Stones are 60 years old, man. They're dead." A friend at a nearby table raises his beer in agreement. "People would've liked to see the Temptations or Diana Ross," says Darryl Powell, an assistant manager. "It should've been another act. The NFL is just another elite group of people. Everything has to go their way."

Mike Kunik, a 26-year-old musician wandering by the tavern with a friend, disagrees. "I think Detroiters just need something to [complain] about. Motown is not a current thing. People don't listen to it. And anyway, during the halftime show I'll probably be getting another beer."

Regardless of the halftime snub, locals are pitching in to make halftime happen. About 300 unpaid volunteers spent long hours the week before the Super Bowl learning how to pitch the Stones' massive stage (117 by 100 feet), which on Sunday they must do in a matter of minutes. Meanwhile, Mischer and various ABC producers joined dozens of volunteers on Wednesday before the game to rehearse part of the pregame ceremony honoring MVPs from all the previous Super Bowls.

"We want to thank you guys for doing this," Mischer told the group of mostly twentysomethings assembled at nearby Wayne State University's basketball gym. Cue music, cue announcer, and here come the MVPs. John Elway has lost weight, he's wearing dangling earrings, and -- wait, that isn't Elway. It's Summer LaViolett, a 23-year-old Detroit native, waving to imaginary fans, carrying a picture of Elway before her face.

Mischer, again, is guessing. The real MVPs don't arrive until Saturday, and they'll likely walk and act a little differently than these Detroiter stand-ins. "Do you think we should have them stop in the middle?" he asks Fred Gaudelli, a producer at ABC. "No," Gaudelli says. "Some guy might want to milk the moment because of his ego."

The scene at Wayne State is jovial and lively and feels like summer camp; in contrast, Ford Field, with its layers of security and metal detectors and thousands of workers with badges milling about, seems more like the Pentagon. On game day, Mischer and his team will race between a trailer across the street stuffed with video monitors and controls and a skybox in the stadium. Thursday evening finds Mischer in the trailer watching Stevie Wonder, Joss Stone and John Legend rehearse the pregame show on the field, and practicing cues and cuts.

Mischer is on his feet as Wonder sings, scanning all available camera angles and yelling -- Take! Take! -- until Wonder waves a hand and halts the number. He can't hear Legend, he explains. And "my ears keep popping," he says, fiddling with an earpiece. "These are valuable ears. I need them."

At 9:45 or so, rehearsal ends and the musicians pack up. And Patrick Woodroffe, the Stone's lighting designer, drops by the trailer to say hello to Mischer. The Stones have still not set a playlist, but what's "really interesting," says Woodroffe, is that the NFL will allow the band to sing the word "come" even if it can have another spelling and meaning.

Mischer laughs nervously, but smiles.

"As long as everybody's happy," he says.

'NFL Super Bowl XL'

Where: ABC

When: Pre-game, 11:30 a.m.; Game, 3 p.m. Sunday.

Ratings: Unrated

That Song Sounds Familiar

2006-02-03T06:32:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Friday February 03, 2006

COLUMN ONE
That Song Sounds Familiar
* An online service helps users find new music through a 'genome project' that maps tunes' traits and spits out matches.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

OAKLAND -- In the beginning, there was music. Childhood and young adulthood floated by to a soundtrack of lyrics and rhythms and searing guitar riffs that consumed you, became you, constituted your identity, galvanized your intent, spoke your soul.

But time passes, classrooms fade to cubicles, and a vast landscape of new music turns foreign and unexplored. For Jeff Hersh, 31, the stereo came to double as Proust's madeleine, its purpose to invoke memories rather than create them.

"Finding music was easier when I was younger," says Hersh, a vice president at Smith Barney in New York. "In college I lived in a fraternity house with 70 guys all around me at all times, listening to various kinds of music. But as you get older, you work more, you get isolated."

Then in November, a friend told Hersh about Pandora.com, an inventive "Internet radio" website that generates music streams -- "stations" -- based on one's favorite artists or songs. He started his own private thread of music that was a combination of Neil Young and Pearl Jam, Hersh says, and in an hour he heard more new music he liked than he had in the last decade, much of it from obscure bands that shared musical traits with Young and Pearl Jam.

He fine-tuned the station, giving a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" to certain tracks, and soon he was loving nearly every song it threw at him. He started new stations, jotted down song names -- and barely left his apartment that weekend.

Since the free version of Pandora made its debut in November (you can listen with no ads on the screen for $3 a month), 8 million stations have been created, and record label and radio executives and technologists are aflutter with interest.

Pandora is more than just a fad; its unusual methodology, which marries traditional musical authority with the wisdom of a group of experts, raises philosophical questions about the shape of Net culture.

Customizable Internet radio such as Yahoo's Launchcast.com has been around for years, but Pandora is a twist on the concept: Instead of relying solely on computer software to spit out playlists, Pandora draws on its Music Genome Project, a 6-year-old effort by a group of musicians to identify the hundreds of traits and qualities that form the building blocks of music -- and then to map out each individual song within this framework, or genome. Genre disappears, and every song is at once relatable, however closely or distantly, to every other.

"This raises the bar significantly," says Ted Cohen, senior vice president of digital development for EMI Music. "For the moment, it's the coolest thing out there. The whole idea seems to be to give people just enough interaction so that the listening experience gets better -- and it works. When I plugged in the Raspberries and Todd Rundgren, it came back with Dwight Twilley. That's it! If Eric Carmen and Todd Rundgren had a child, it would be Dwight Twilley."

The operation's hub is in a nondescript building in downtown Oakland, where on a recent afternoon a dozen or so "music analysts" sprawled in front of rows of computer monitors, wearing headphones, tapping out rhythms and humming. They get paid $15 to $17.50 an hour to listen to music, and set their own shifts to accommodate gigs and recording sessions.

"This is an ideal job for musicians," says Rick Higgs, 55, a senior analyst who found the company through a "help wanted" poster in a record store. "They pay me for skills I never thought I'd use in a commercial context."

Analysts begin their shifts by selecting a CD from nearby bins and choosing a song, then they log on to the computer system and, using about 400 scales, identify and define the aural traits that make each song unique. They isolate and analyze each vocal thread and instrument, discern melody from improvisation. How lyrical or angular is the principal melody? Does the drummer tend toward sticks or brushes?

The result is that when a Pandora user seeds a station with Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man," a message pops up informing the listener that the playlist arises from "folk roots, mild rhythmic syncopation, acoustic sonority, major key tonality and melodic songwriting." Song selection will always differ from user to user, but a certain "Mr. Tambourine Man" station began with Dylan's own "Farewell Angelina," Arlo Guthrie's "I'm Going Home" and Doc Watson's "Nashville Blues."

Technical complexity aside, Higgs doesn't care much for computers and says he has tried Pandora only once or twice. But like most of his colleagues, many of whom are struggling musicians, he feels strongly that Pandora will help obscure performers find an audience. After all, a user listening to Pandora is just as likely to hear an unknown garage band as the Rolling Stones.

And any musician, whether signed to a label or not, is welcome to send in a CD to be auditioned for inclusion in the database.

Many do. Pandora headquarters is overflowing with about 40,000 CDs: in crates, on desks, lining dozens of bookshelves around a pool table and a raised stage with a drum set, guitars and keyboards (for when analysts feel like taking a break and jamming). The majority were purchased by Pandora or sent by labels looking to publicize artists, but a steady stream of hand-addressed packages arrive from amateurs.

In the last decade, cheap personal computers and software such as ProTools have turned bedrooms into professional-quality recording studios. But the laissez-faire vision of a million musicians quitting their part-time jobs is thwarted by the reality that labels and commercial radio stations remain the stern gatekeepers to wider audiences and their wallets.

A handful of networking websites such as MySpace.com connect musicians directly with friends and fans.

"Pandora and MySpace are the best things that have happened to music in the last five years," says Adam Leiter, lead singer for Boston alt-rock band Sad Marvin, who recently sent an album to Pandora. "I like being able to stay independent, to market ourselves and manage ourselves. There's an absurd number of bands out there, but now if someone is using Pandora they can put in a band like Pearl Jam and out comes us."

Of course, there is the flip side. A hipster music lover who seeds her Pandora station with indie jewels may end up listening to some mainstream pop; the electroclash band Le Tigre, say, may spawn -- among equally hip fare -- Lindsay Lohan and Ashlee Simpson.

Included in the hundreds of e-mails that Pandora receives each day are complaints that the mainstream infringes on the counterculture, as well as an occasional admission that, umm, I guess maybe I kind of enjoyed it. "I just found out that I apparently like Enrique Iglesias," writes one user. "It was a really good song. Shameful."

One high school teacher is taking advantage of this cross-pollination to teach cliquish teens an appreciation of diversity and difference. "High school students use the style of music they listen to to define themselves," Michael Osborn, an English teacher in Broomfield, Colo., says. "I had been using Pandora, and I noticed that it tested some of my preconceived notions of music I thought I didn't like.

"So I built a lesson around Pandora. I have each student create a station, write an essay about what kinds of music they like and don't like, and then trade. It works, it catches their interest, and it's a great way for them to learn to respect each other, which helps when we move on to more sensitive subjects."

Yet some wonder whether Pandora's basic scheme is reactionary.

James McQuivey, an assistant professor of communications at Boston University, enjoys Pandora but notes that it "runs counter to the democratizing trend of the Internet." Instead of using "collaborative filtering" software pioneered by Amazon.com and Apple's iTunes ("customers who bought this album also bought these albums"), Pandora "puts the power of the recommendation in the hands of an expert system," McQuivey says. "Pandora will succeed only if its centralized system proves superior to the wisdom of the crowd."

Pandora founder Tim Westergren is delighted by users' enthusiasm. After all, five years ago, Pandora was an anonymous and struggling start-up, and now Westergren's workdays are punctuated by about 300 messages from users. He responds to all before falling asleep at 3 or 4 each morning; when his fingers ache from typing, he switches on voice recognition software and dictates into a microphone.

Westergren is 40 and looks 30, though at day's end his eyes are tired and the gray creeping through his brown hair appears more pronounced. But even on a few hours' sleep, he's boyishly enthusiastic about the possibility that Pandora will change the music world. He yearns, he says, for the day when "growing up wanting to be a musician is like wanting to be a teacher or a doctor," instead of the impractical journey it is today.

Pandora was born in part out of Westergren's attempt to eke out a living as a keyboard player in acoustic rock bands and his conclusion that "the music industry is broken."

"There's so much good music out there that ought to be supporting people," he says. "Instead of having 12 artists turn the corner, there should be 12,000."

He gave up touring and spent the late 1990s as a film composer in Los Angeles. The routine was always the same: "A director would say to me: 'Here's a couple of pieces of music that would work for this project. Now write me something new,' " he remembers. He was, essentially, functioning as an unconscious version of the Music Genome Project he went on to devise.

In January 2000, Westergren and two pals found investors, set up in a studio apartment in San Francisco and began listing the 400 or so variables that define their pop genome. (Other genomes would follow: hip-hop, electronica, jazz, world music.)

They hired analysts, but no average musician would do. Every analyst must have the equivalent of a four-year education in music, pass a music theory exam and complete 40 hours of training. Even then, 10% of the music is analyzed a second time by a "senior analyst," and any difference of opinion over a point on each of the hundreds of variables is flagged and reviewed.

They licensed technology to Best Buy and AOL, but the resulting recommendation engines -- Like that? Try this! -- didn't seem to harness the project's full capabilities.

In July 2004, newly arrived Chief Executive Joe Kennedy suggested that the company concentrate on delivering music as well as recommending it.

Although iPods are extremely popular, research suggested that users tire of the rigmarole of uploading new music and end up listening to the same playlists ad infinitum. At the same time, a large number of people have flirted with Internet radio (an estimated 45 million in 2004), but Pandora found in its study that few people are satisfied with the experience. The market seemed primed for a solution that walked the line between familiarity and exploration.

In short order, Pandora users created millions of stations -- all without the company spending a dollar on marketing. Instead, employees respond to every comment, insult and inquiry they receive, and watch Pandora propel itself across blogs and podcasts and the physical world. This kind of viral marketing, which Google used to lure millions of users to its e-mail service, takes for granted that a retired janitor who blogs from his sofa might have as much marketing power as a full-page ad in Newsweek.

And then there's ye olde conventional word of mouth. Hersh, the vice president at Smith Barney, says he has "personally turned on at least 50 or 60 people to Pandora. I've even used it as a pickup line with girls."

Despite its popularity, the company has not turned a profit. Licensing fees to play music over the Internet are higher than on terrestrial radio, about a cent and a half per listener per hour, and the ad revenue from the Pandora homepage, combined with commissions from Amazon and iTunes whenever a user clicks to buy an album or a song, isn't enough to cover expenses.

Westergren and Kennedy think profitability will come, and in the meantime they are in talks with cellphone, cable and other companies for the next step: snipping Pandora from the Web and making it portable.

That would be awesome news to Kelsey Schultz, 17, a student near Ann Arbor, Mich. "These days, a lot of people turn on MTV to find out what's popular," she says, "but with Pandora you can really expand your musical library and experience what's out there."

Still, if she finds a really fantastic new band, she might not tell her friends. "I like to keep my own secret music stash without people getting in on it." Then, when it pops up in somebody else's radio station, she can say: "That's my favorite band. I found them first!"

Compatible music

Pandora creates personal "radio stations" by matching users' selected artists or songs with "songs and artists that have musical qualities similar" to their choices. The matching music selections are different each time a user inputs an artist or song, based on the aural characteristics of that particular search. Here are two examples:

Original selection: Radiohead

* "Dollars & Cents" by Radiohead

* "Stay Awake" by Dishwalla

* "Your Skull Is Red" by Team Sleep

* "Lonely Dirges" by Paul Michel

* "Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box" by Radiohead

* "The Last High" by the Dandy Warhols

* "Will You Tell Me Then" by the Faunts

* "Treefingers" by Radiohead

* "God and Mars" by Days Away

* "Station in the Valley" by the Sea and Cake

* "If" by 13 & goD

* "No Surprises" by Radiohead

Original selection: The Beatles

* "Hung Upside Down" by Buffalo Springfield

* "Lady Luck" by Journey

* "I Me Mine" by the Beatles

* "My Destination" by Boston

* "For Pete's Sake" by the Monkees

* "Hot Child in the City" by Nick Gilder

* "Dream Away" by Afterglow

* "Starman" by David Bowie

* "Old Brown Shoe" by the Beatles

* "Caroline" by Jefferson Starship

* "Sleeping With the Television On" by Billy Joel

Source: Pandora.com

Building cachet by association

2006-01-29T06:30:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Sunday January 29, 2006

Architecture
Building cachet by association
* With sleek elevations and drama to spare, out-of-the-box modernism manifests itself on a massive scale. But when a prominent work becomes a backdrop for blouses or set decoration for soda, does commerce dishonor art or can both come out ahead?

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

LONG before Skyy Vodka put the finishing touches on their new ultra-premium elixir, Chad Farmer was jotting notes and planning studies to figure out how exactly to market the stuff. "We look at culture," says Farmer, president and executive director of the Carlsbad-based ad agency, Lambesis. "We look at what's happening in industry, what consumers are doing, we look at the rational and emotional reasons for why people drink vodka." Farmer and his team chose five potential advertising themes -- exotic; aphrodisiac; old world, old stills; clinical; and high design -- and spent months researching, whittling the list to one.

"We decided on high design," Farmer says, "because it's the biggest cultural opportunity right now. The masses are starting to have a higher aesthetic; just look at Philippe Starck at Target. Now that the masses are buying TVs and electronics not because of picture quality but because of high design, our choice becomes very obvious."

Skyy Vodka, meet Walt Disney Concert Hall. Frank Gehry's slopes of polished steel, home to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, play a primary role in the marketing campaign for Skyy 90, to be unfurled in coming months across all variety of media. "We searched around the world for instant classic symbols of modern design," Farmer says. "Disney Hall is one of the most iconic symbols of modernism."

It has also become one of the more prominent images used in advertising, along with other local buildings such as the District 7 headquarters for the California Department of Transportation, the Pacific Design Center, the Los Angeles Convention Center and the Southern California Institute of Architecture. "High-end architecture is getting hotter," says Ron Smothermon, a Newport Beach ad producer. "More and more modernistic, high-end architecture is flowing through the advertising industry." A wide swath of companies has filmed and photographed Disney Hall for ads since the building opened in 2003, including Microsoft, Sony, Supercuts, Macy's, Vidal Sassoon, Nokia, M&M's, Bass Ale, Oral B and many automobile brands.

Architects are generally flattered by the attention, says James S. Russell, editor at large for Architectural Record. "Buildings exist in a public space, and if they get used as the backdrop for ads, if anything, the architects are tickled," he says. But there are those who cringe when they see temples of modern design used to hock cars and toothbrushes, who bemoan the unchecked commercialization of their craft.

Some of the executives and producers behind these ads, such as Skyy 90's Farmer, are scrupulously aware of the architecture they feature; each shot is meant to convey specific social, aesthetic and economic values and to associate them with the brand. In these productions, the architecture is usually clearly recognizable, rising in full form as a backdrop to poured vodka or a gleaming luxury sedan. "High architecture -- like Gothic cathedrals, English accents and classical music -- is shorthand for beauty, sophistication and aspiration, for confidant urbanity," says Bob Garfield, ad critic for Advertising Age magazine. "It can be useful to sell credit cards, insurance and high-ticket items, especially for well-heeled people who imagine themselves worthy."

Other executives and producers are less interested in borrowing architectural prestige than in using blurred shots of walls and ceilings and architectural details to subtly compliment foreground products. In this case, buildings are often barely recognizable. "I loved the lines at Disney Hall," says Deborah White, senior art director at Macy's, who arrived there to shoot a section of the store's fall 2005 catalog. "The lines were just perfect. Our trend of clothing was burnt-out velvets, and beading and so forth. Disney Hall lent itself to the whole look -- sleek and elegant."

The phenomenon goes public

JUST down the hill from Disney Hall, the ultra-modern Caltrans building is another mecca for advertisers, receiving 36 commercial film and photo shoot requests in 2005, more than any other state-owned building in California. Last year it played host to Nintendo, Sony, MasterCard, Clairol, Mitsubishi, Samsung and others. Which didn't surprise its architect in the least.

"We could anticipate that this would take place," says Thom Mayne, who unveiled the massive Space Age project in 2004. "We had film crews in the building before it was even occupied.... I think this reflects society's continued interest in the present, in something contemporary. Architecture tends to be put under forces that are fairly conservative, and advertising has a different set of rules. It's much more open and willing to explore.... This is another way that buildings are absorbed by the public; it's not a problem -- it's not even a good or a bad thing. It just is, and should be."

Gehry tends to agree. "I guess in some way I find it flattering," he wrote in an e-mail. "And I don't really have a problem with Disney Hall being used in advertising if it benefits the [Philharmonic] in some way, which I guess it does." Indeed, site fees collected by Disney Hall and the neighboring Music Center bring in about $150,000 per year.

But other architects and aficionados of the craft find its use in advertising troubling. After all, they say, there's a thin line between appreciation and appropriation. Didn't at least some people cringe when a deceased Fred Astaire danced onto TV screens with a Dirt Devil-brand vacuum cleaner? When Mercedes-Benz played Janis Joplin's soulful treatise on materialism, "Mercedes Benz," as the soundtrack to a commercial? Why should great architecture, when used for commercial purposes, not be included in that same discussion?

"It's pretty obvious that there's a desperate hunt for really strong iconographic imagery that supports whatever's being sold," says Jeffrey Scherer, a Minneapolis-based architect who designed the Rancho Mirage Public Library, unveiled this month. "As buildings get more public currency, if [the advertising] isn't done right, it devalues that currency. Architecture should be understood in a reflective way, but American culture is not about reflection, it's about persuasion, about trying to grab attention in a way that quickly creates value through association."

In France, Scherer notes, it's illegal to photograph architecture for commercial use without first obtaining permission and paying a royalty to the copyright holder. "That sends the signal to people that three-dimensional physical objects that are occupied have as much artistic value as two-dimensional, plain-old art," Scherer says. "It's important to have some way of acknowledging, publicly, through legal means, that this is not throwaway, that it has inherent value." In the U.S., art and music receive broad copyright protection -- while buildings are protected only in that architects cannot duplicate structures or architectural plans without permission. When advertisers decide to use Disney Hall for an ad but don't want to pony up a site fee, they can and often do film from the parking lot across the street.

The Caltrans building draws into broad relief the distinction between art and architecture. The structure itself is Mayne's creation -- but neon strips adorning its facade are actually an installation art piece titled "Motordom" by New York artist Keith Sonnier. Art and architecture intertwine, and advertisers seek out the totality.

"The long, colored neon tubes on the building, they have a lot of energy, kinetic energy," says David Tanimoto, vice president and group creative director for Santa Monica-based ad agency Rubin Postaer and Associates, which handles marketing for Honda. Tanimoto opted to photograph the 2006 Accord in front of the Caltrans building. "We thought that the juxtaposition of that energy, with a static car, expressed speed and excitement and reflects the car's aerodynamics as well," he says.

While Mayne doesn't mind his work appearing in commercials, Sonnier says, "My plumes are up about that. I've gotten tons of calls now, 'I saw your work on television!'.... I have a preference that it not be used at all unless I'm contacted first.... I just want to be paid like everybody else in this country.... The downside is that your work could be used in the wrong context; maybe they'd be using the ad to sell Agent Orange or something."

Appropriateness enters the picture

ADVERTISEMENTS for Agent Orange have yet to be filmed at the Caltrans building -- but technically they could be. Anyone who makes a filming request is allowed on the property, once logistical concerns are worked out, says Gamal Kostandy, the agency's statewide filming coordinator. That's not the case at Disney Hall, where applicants are screened more carefully. "We're definitely concerned about what it is they're going to be shooting," says Chris Christel, the production director at the Music Center who oversees filming there and at Disney Hall. "Frankly, it's only become an issue on very rare occasions. We're hesitant to allow anything that puts the building forward as something that's conducive to skateboarding.... The stainless steel really doesn't like that."

The kids at Diamond Ranch High School in Pomona are certainly interested in architecture -- or at least in advertisements that feature architecture. McDonald's. Nissan. Volkswagen. These companies and others have shot ad footage on the Pomona campus, designed by none other than Mayne; and when the ads debut, the student body and faculty are all aflutter.

"The students love it," says principal Monica Principe. "They think it's very prestigious, they brag about it all the time. They're teenagers, they like the attention." It's good and bad, she says. "We are a high school, and we're in the kid business. Our main focus is education and academics. There are a lot of interruptions, a lot of phone calls, people wanting to walk around [campus] to film it, location scouts coming in, and we're trying to balance that with education. At times, that becomes cumbersome, but we work through it, because we're proud of it."

And then there's the money. All location fees feed into the school district coffer -- which opens up a new dimension to architecture that hasn't been much considered, Mayne says. "It's an interesting side effect, the building actually producing funds that go back to students. I like the politics of that. It lends the building a secondary value that no one thinks about."

BlackBerry outage? Oh, the horror

2006-01-25T06:29:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Wednesday January 25, 2006

BlackBerry outage? Oh, the horror

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

Scott Mitchell Rosenberg will not stay at a certain upscale New York hotel, no matter what you say to persuade him otherwise. He remembers vividly the moment when, traveling on business, he realized that his BlackBerry didn't get service in the hotel. That's OK, thought Rosenberg, chairman of Los Angeles-based Platinum Studios -- he unsheathed a second BlackBerry, with a different cellular carrier, which he keeps on his belt for emergencies like this one.

It didn't work either.

"I walked through the halls holding both of them, looking for [reception] bars," he remembers. "Neither of them worked anywhere in the hotel." Rosenberg, who has charted Los Angeles freeways and byways, restaurants and movie theaters in terms of which BlackBerry works best where, buys the devices for all his employees and says that his organization relies heavily on their e-mail and scheduling functions. If somebody doesn't want a BlackBerry, they're in the wrong company, he says. "When I first give an employee the BlackBerry, some people find it annoying. But then they get addicted."

Now Rosenberg and about 4.3 million others are grappling with the possibility of going through "CrackBerry" withdrawal en masse. Research in Motion, which manufactures BlackBerry devices, is being threatened with an injunction stemming from a patent dispute, and on Monday the U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene. RIM says it has a plan to continue service even if forced to stop using the current technology, but is sketchy on details. And among BlackBerry aficionados and addicts, tension is high.

Elsewhere, BlackBerry foes celebrate. At the technology news website Digg.com, users write: "Shouldn't this read: 'CRACK-Berry Shutdown ordered, Millions of Drivers Rejoice??" and "They make people look self-important and busy" and "Die Blackberry! Die!"

There's a saying: Toss a Tinseltown player, and you'll hit a BlackBerry. Or there should be. And at the Marriott Hotel in Park City, Utah, headquarters for the Sundance Film Festival, news about the possible BlackBerry outage came as a slap. Producer Anastasia King held her BlackBerry in her lap, waiting for a print of her film -- a look at black disenfranchisement in recent elections -- to arrive for its Sundance premiere. Since buying the device nine months ago, "it has really improved my work flow so that I can be mobile," she said. The title of her film is an apt metaphor for the BlackBerry crisis: "American Blackout."

Nearby, Sydney Levine wore her BlackBerry on a dainty silver chain around her neck. She looked stricken at the idea of losing service. "We are a worldwide company," said Levine, president of Filmfinders, a Sundance festival sponsor. "We get hundreds of e-mails a day. If we had to wait for computers to access our e-mail, I don't know how I'd get my work done."

Many BlackBerry users will tell you: This is life or death. In a few cases, they're not kidding. At MedStar Health, a nonprofit that runs seven hospitals in Baltimore and Washington, about 460 executives and managers use BlackBerrys to keep in touch, says Sameer Bade, assistant vice president. "During some recent communication outages, BlackBerrys were the only way we could communicate with critical service employees," Bade says, and warns that uninterrupted communication is vital to hospitals in the nation's capital.

But there was a time before BlackBerrys, wasn't there? And doctors still healed the sick; movies still came out. These were simpler, more human times, say BlackBerry critics, many of them the spouses or children of vehement BlackBerry enthusiasts. Pamela Rosenberg actually cheered when she saw on the news that RIM was in trouble -- to the chagrin of her husband, Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, he of the dual BlackBerrys.

"We can't have a nice dinner or go to a movie without him getting e-mails," says Pamela Rosenberg. "It's constant, all day and all night, in the middle of a conversation." Rosenberg rues the day she made her husband promise to get rid of the laptop he once toted everywhere; that was the day he purchased a BlackBerry. "At least with the laptop he couldn't hide very far. Now I find him hiding out with it in the dressing room closets. I have to take my hand and put it over the BlackBerry if I want to get his attention."

In his own defense ... well, actually, Scott Rosenberg mounts no defense. Guilty as charged. "We were on a family vacation once," he says, "and everybody was having dinner. I excused myself to go to the restroom, but I didn't use the facilities. I just went in there and wrote on my BlackBerry for half an hour. Then I came back to the table and said I had a stomachache. My uncle looked at me and whispered: 'BlackBerry.' "

This "BlackBerry divide" exists between people at the highest levels of government -- and their children. Says Debra Wong Yang, the U.S. attorney for the Central District of California: "My daughter hates my BlackBerry. She thinks it's too intrusive into our life. But I'm too much of an addict to notice. She has taken it upon herself to hide it from me. I've gone on major searches looking for it. It's funny now, but then it wasn't so funny." Most colleagues are too polite to josh her, says Yang, but her 12-year-old just won't quit. "She's gotten more vociferous since she's gotten older, more articulate. Once she asked me, 'Mom, when you die, do you want me to put the BlackBerry in there with you?' I said, 'Only if I can get a signal.' "

Ignored children and spouses, however, ought not celebrate yet, even if they do have a U.S. attorney's daughter on their side. If BlackBerrys go blank, the world will be still for a moment. Traffic will screech to a halt. Songbirds will sing. And then, "I would be in the store immediately, replacing it with some kind of device that would allow me to communicate that way again," says Scott Pansky, BlackBerry addict and general manager of the L.A. publicity firm Allison & Partners. Sorry, kids.

There is a giddy schadenfreude that pervades the rest of the cellphone industry. "Wireless e-mail was ushered in by BlackBerry," says Rip Gerber, chief marketing officer at Intellisync, which bills itself as the second-largest provider of wireless e-mail after BlackBerry. "It was a great first act, but the show goes on. The audience has matured and wants much, much more. Thank you BlackBerry, the market will take it from here." Others who stand to benefit include Palm Inc., whose line of Treo smart phones is a popular alternative to BlackBerry, and new offerings from Nokia and Motorola.

Soap opera intrigue aside, legal experts say RIM simply has too much invested to let service stop; One way or another, they say, BlackBerrys will remain. (Internet gambling site Youwager.com is giving 2-1 odds that BlackBerry will be shut down in the next three months.) But there is something intriguing about the possibility of technology reversing its forward march. We have never held technology in our hands and loved it and hated it and watched it disappear. There should really be some sort of gizmo to help us weather these feelings we're having. RIM? Anyone? Anyone?!

Times staff writer Robin Abcarian contributed to this report from Park City, Utah. Staff writer Martin Miller also contributed.

Hey, what about that drink?

2006-01-18T06:28:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Wednesday January 18, 2006

[THE GOLDEN GLOBES]
GOLDEN MOMENTS
Hey, what about that drink?
* George Clooney and others shimmy through the sea of stars at post-ceremony galas to wax philosophical about movie trends, pose, dance, and -- oh yeah -- grab a glass of something wet.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

If you're George Clooney, it takes almost an hour to make your way from the red carpet to the bar. Wearing his tux unbuttoned at the neck and holding the Golden Globe statuette he picked up earlier in the evening Monday for his performance in "Syriana," Clooney makes his way past the hordes of press and the fans -- but can't seem to get a vodka soda. It's a curse, having this many friends.

"I just need some alcohol," he says, and starts a dash further into the In Style-Warner Bros. party off the lobby at the Beverly Hilton, but Charlize Theron does an intercept and ties him into a hug. Nearby, Clooney's publicist muses, "I know a lot of people. But he knows even more."

There's a theme to conversation this year at the Golden Globes galas, most of them held in the Hilton after the ceremony, and Clooney says it well: "My theory is that if we can raise questions about our movies, we succeed. It's happening in society at the same time that it's happening in movies: People sit around the table, and for the first time since Watergate, they are asking questions about politics." After a ceremony feting movies that challenge the audience socially and politically -- "Brokeback Mountain," "Transamerica," "Good Night, and Good Luck" -- tipsy stars preach to the gathered choir: The message matters.

Chocolate also matters and, as is the norm at these shindigs, there's plenty of it. In Style has arranged a Godiva lounge/museum replete with truffle sculptures, wall coverings and a chocolate martini bar, and Jeff Daniels is one of the first arrivals to choose a truffle from a silver plate. He eats it in a corner, by himself, looking sad. "I live in Michigan," says Daniels, who was nominated for his role in "The Squid and the Whale" but lost to Joaquin Phoenix. "Where I live, it's mostly a 'King Kong' town, people rarely go to see an indie. But they went to see 'Squid' because I was in it, and they came out just rocked. People forget that they can see a movie and it will stick with them for 10 days."

And here comes the ubiquitous Clooney, patting Daniels on the chest and grinning. No drink yet.

Inside the main tent, a cover band blasts a mixture of classic rock, grunge, funk. Backlit blue walls with splotches of red give the space a psychedelic flavor. And Paris Hilton, as much a party mainstay as open bars and massive platters of shrimp, deserves to win some kind of award for her party acrobatics. At one point she is gabbing on her cellphone, typing on a Sidekick, munching a lamb chop and posing for pictures. You figure out the mechanics.

Natalie Portman walks by mumbling "chocolate," reaches in only to discover it's a lamb chop and is sorely disappointed.

Jamie Foxx clearly doesn't trust the paparazzi to do him justice; he totes his own camera -- a credit card-sized digital gizmo, decorated with what looks like diamonds -- and he wants his picture taken with all passersby. Holding court on a low couch, wearing sunglasses, he snaps photos with four women. It takes a beckoning Eva Longoria to raise him to his feet; and then Foxx wants a photo with her.

A few feet away, an ebullient Sandra Oh from "Grey's Anatomy" stares disbelievingly at her Golden Globe. "I started in this business 20 years ago," she says. "My sister is here, my friends are here. Some awards come and go, but this one.... I don't see how you can fathom winning." Kevin Spacey walks by with a posse of men in black tie, all laughing uproariously.

And Jon Voight, ever the party philosopher, takes up where Clooney left off. "Every film says something. Sometimes there's just more to say than at other times. People are making political films. But I'll tell you, just because a film's political doesn't mean I agree with it."

Each year on Golden Globes night, the Beverly Hilton transforms into a castle with a red carpet moat. Outside are the fawning masses; on the periphery, the media. But there are demarcations on the inside as well, as the hotel divides into assorted galas and a ticket to one doesn't mean a ticket to all.

The rooftop soiree held by Universal and Focus Features is second only in buzz and A-list attendees to the In Style-Warner Bros. bash. The decor is moody, with groups of paper lanterns hung in clear boxes like moored balloons. As the Globes end, celebrities pour in.

Keira Knightley and winner Rachel Weisz hunker down on an old sofa. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner embraces "Will & Grace's" Debra Messing. Eric Bana chats with Nathan Lane, and Universal President Ron Meyer swirls around the room with DreamWorks mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg (apparently the soured merger did not scotch their friendship).

Jake Gyllenhaal doesn't show, but his "Brokeback Mountain" co-stars Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams spend the evening cuddling and doing some fancy maneuvering to avoid scuffing her resplendent purple Givenchy frou-frou. Ziyi Zhang is accompanied everywhere by an older woman in a black suit, who carries her yards of lime green Armani organza in crowds; when the "Memoirs of the Geisha" star sits down to eat, her helper arrays the dress around her in swirls. "Match Point's" Emily Mortimer just hoists her black train around her knees as the night goes on to avoid getting tripped up by her clothes.

By 11, "Brokeback" director Ang Lee is tired and ready for sleep. "But it's a high-class problem," he admits. Those statuettes are heavy.

Times staff writer Rachel Abramowitz contributed to this report.

Going to Extreme Measures

2006-01-02T06:17:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Monday January 02, 2006

COLUMN ONE
Going to Extreme Measures
* Even as digital countdowns and televised timers fill our waking hours, does anybody really know what time it is?

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

This story will take you approximately 11 minutes to finish. If you skip every other line, it will only take 5 1/2 .

Once measured by the arc of the sun through the sky, by the changing of the seasons, life these days is measured by an increasingly complex and exacting system of timers.

There it is, on the Caltrans signs dotting Southland freeways: "25 min to downtown LA." Walk signals count down until the light changes. In the digital sphere, time is sectioned into a series of laptop and cellphone battery meters and iPod song timers.

Radio stations alert listeners to time intervals, a la "more Howard Stern in two minutes" or "30 minutes of uninterrupted music." Al Gore's new network, Current TV, displays a progress bar at the bottom of the screen indicating the amount of time left in each segment.

On hold with the credit card company? The automated system informs you of your "estimated wait time." Soon you'll be able to track the specific moment of arrival of buses, trains and ferries, on your cellphone, via satellite.

Time takes on a prescient flavor; it orients the present moment and also reaches out into the future, taking hold of what will be.

The trend will balloon in coming years, experts say.

"It seems kind of obsessive," says Thomas Goetz, deputy editor of Wired magazine. "There has long been a niche of people who want to know how many seconds a song is going to last or how long a file will take to download. But it's interesting now that it's kind of being catapulted into the public sphere, that our governments, even, are now heeding the same kind of restlessness."

Proponents say the development inserts a modicum of sanity into a frazzled society. But critics claim that our focus on time as a commodity is the source of our frenzy rather than its salve, and that it leads to a kind of "time famine" and to all sorts of stress-related maladies.

"This is a public health problem of extraordinary dimensions, similar to smoke in public places," says Peter C. Whybrow, director of UCLA's Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior and author of the book "American Mania: When More Is Not Enough." "We've become the victims of our own technology."

We have an "old brain" inherited over many millenniums, Whybrow says, a brain that is conditioned to "measure time through the seasonal variation and the rituals that were tied to that, to the day-night cycle, all tied to the sun." By binding ourselves to a concept of time not anchored in nature, "we're perturbing the insides of our heads in a way that's quite disturbing and distressing."

The concept of "time famine" is increasingly entering into public and academic discourse. Seattle-based Take Back Your Time, an education and public policy nonprofit, aims to "challenge the epidemic of overwork, over-scheduling and time famine that now threatens our health, our families and our relationships, our communities and our environment."

Timing devices aren't by definition a bad thing, says Take Back Your Time President John de Graaf, author of "Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic." The problem is the extent to which we use them to schedule ourselves into a frenzy. "People are feeling increasingly like they've got to find a way to save every second," De Graaf says. "It used to be that when asked, 'How are you?' People would say, 'Fine.' Now they just say, 'Busy.' "

The result, says De Graaf, is a society that prides itself on massive productivity and a luxurious standard of living without realizing our devil's bargain. "If you want to judge standard of living on who has the most toys or stuff, then we win. But if you look at health, mental illness, strength of families, divorce, general equality or levels of education, we aren't No. 1. We pay a huge price for the phenomenal amount of overwork we do."

Huge price or no, some busy people say that an accelerated pace of life is a foregone conclusion, that we might as well harness timing technology to help us navigate.

"This is just my reality," says Samantha Slaven, a fashion publicist in Los Angeles. "I'm in a fast-paced business; I run my own company; I work in 15-minute increments all day long. I get impatient, and these devices just help you manage your expectations. My favorite is crossing the street in San Francisco, the signs that tell you how many seconds you have left until the light turns red. I'm so busy that the thrill of mystery just throws me off. I would like to know, for instance, approximately when my dog is going to have to go to the bathroom."

Love the timed life or hate it, both sides agree: Timing ourselves is addictive. "The progress bar has become like the crack of Current TV," says David Neuman, the network's president of programming. "It's the single most complimented thing on the whole network. There's a suspense to watching that progress bar move. It's like those freeway signs; in a universe that's characterized by so much chaos and disorder, maybe these little things give us a sense of psychological control."

You Have Approximately 7 Minutes of Reading Time Remaining

Controversy about time is as old as time-keeping itself, and a new furor seems to arise whenever time moves further from its natural moorings. Once time was simply the cycle of the sun and moon through the sky, the passage of seasons, the cropping up of wrinkles on skin. Then humans invented ways to quantify the pace of change, such as sundials and almanacs derived from natural cycles.

Even the earliest mechanical clocks were set according to the sun. But in the U.S. in the early 1800s, time began to move in fits and starts toward the disembodied breed we know today. And controversy bubbled forth.

Take this tale of two clocks in New Haven, Conn., in 1826, recounted by Michael O'Malley in "Keeping Watch: A History of American Time."

The town's dual timepieces were constantly out of sync. One was the Yale College clock; the other, a clock at the town hall. They would display the same time one moment and then fall out of sync with each other, forever engaged in a game of tag that left the townspeople befuddled and choosing sides.

The Yale clock kept "apparent time" -- according to the sun's arc, like a sundial -- whereas the town hall clock offered "mean time," an averaging out of the sun's daily variation. A lively debate sprang up in the Connecticut Journal, the local newspaper, over which clock was right. "It is said that the clock gives mean time. But what is mean time?" wrote one reader in a letter to the editor. "Mean time is not true time, nor is true time mean time. A public clock, which tells the truth four times in a year, is something very much like a public nuisance."

An anonymous reader disagreed, noting that the vast majority of watches and clocks tell mean time, so "surely the public at large ought not to have all their operations deranged, or their timepieces injured, by attempts to follow the variations of apparent time."

The Journal doesn't indicate how this issue was resolved locally, but we know from the thrust of history that mean time roundly trumped apparent time.

And time-keeping continued to evolve. In 1883, standard time was introduced by the railroads, breaking up the country into zones. In 1918, daylight saving was imposed, largely to conserve fuel during World War I -- but was repealed a year later. The people who most objected to daylight saving time, O'Malley notes, were those who lived at the boundaries of time zones, where daylight saving spelled an even greater distance between nature and the clock. (Daylight saving was governed by local jurisdictions until Congress passed the Uniform Time Act in 1966, which standardized daylight saving times.)

While factory hours and train schedules had once been adjusted to fit the light/dark pattern of each season, with daylight saving, time itself became adjustable.

Slowly, a new conception of time as synonymous with the machine integrated itself into the American psyche. Early science-fiction movies halt time by showing a clock with frozen hands, indicating that when the physical clock stops, time stops, while the rest of nature and humanity continue unabated. Time is no longer that mysterious passageway we enter at birth and exit at death; it is a commodity, external to us, that we can control.

You Have Approximately 4 Minutes of Reading Time Remaining

Displaying traffic information on electronic signs along Southern California freeways was a no-brainer, says California Department of Transportation spokeswoman Jeanne Bonfilio. A network of about 15,000 censors was already in place along urban highways, so all it took was some rejiggering of wires and circuits, and in early August, commuting here became significantly less ambiguous.

Each of 14 signs displays the amount of time it will take to reach up to two destinations. Caltrans has plans to expand the program.

"We feel that it's putting traveler information in the hands of the motorist," Bonfilio says. "It will make the freeway systems more efficient."

But as with the two clocks in New Haven, not everybody has embraced the new model. By late October, nearly 300 motorists had evaluated the signs via the Caltrans website: 42% were either "very or somewhat satisfied" -- and 52% were "somewhat or very dissatisfied."

"I was headed to work and was able to estimate that I would be a little late," wrote one person. "I called ahead and informed my co-workers, since we had a meeting that morning. It's nice to have the information right on the spot!"

Others disagreed. "Estimated time does not help because I am already on the road," and "What's the difference between 25 or 45 minutes? Are there any alternatives once you are at that point?" and "Too much information!"

The Caltrans signs and other time-keeping devices are only the most rudimentary of an expanding array of products designed to impose data on the physical world, a snowballing trend that technologists call "augmented reality."

Just like TiVo enables us to time-shift the way we view television, augmented reality devices change the way we interact with physical space. "We get these moments in real life, walking down the sidewalk, going to a movie, where you can actually pull out select data information that otherwise in an analog world wouldn't be available to you," said Goetz of Wired magazine. "You might have a [global positioning system] built into your pair of glasses, say, so it looks like you're just looking through glasses but you're actually getting a data feed. And there will be different levels of filtering that you can select."

Augmented reality "is going to happen hugely," says Saul Griffith, a partner at Squid Labs in Emeryville, Calif. "Especially now that a lot of electronic devices are going mobile, information can follow you around."

Squid Labs is at work on a portable computer screen with a digital video camera on the reverse side. Hold it up to the world and it looks like a transparent pane of glass. But click on certain objects and view digital information transposed onto the world: the architectural plans of a standing building, say, or pipelines underneath the street. Solid surfaces become permeable; rules of physics no longer apply.

As time-keeping meshes with gadgetry that blurs the boundary between the digital and physical worlds, people stand at the edge of a "techno-utopian nightmare," says UCLA professor Whybrow. "Most people don't look at what the world is about anymore. How many people -- even the people who go to the beach -- watch the sunset? The things that make us happy are actually tied to the types of behaviors that we've had for millions of years. Having all sorts of information doesn't make us any happier."

"About 33% of the population say they feel anxious most of the time," Whybrow says. "This is driven by the fact that we've leapt the barriers of time and space. Light and dark don't mean anything anymore."

Squid Lab's Griffith contends that the difference between people who embrace augmented reality and those who abhor it is mostly generational. "Let's just say that for anyone under the age of 30, this isn't even a question to them. When I have children, they won't think it's a problem, and I'll be a grumpy old man saying I can't deal with it."

But what of those moments of utter boredom, sitting around on a sluggish Sunday afternoon, when there are no stimuli except an air conditioner's whir or some distant drip-drip-drip -- and you actually forget about time? Creativity experts suggest that the timelessness of boredom is the font from which inspiration emerges, and various spiritual traditions seek to invoke just this timeless sense of being.

"You like to have some moments where you can just take a breath," Goetz said. "But those kind of dead zones are being chipped away at, which makes me sad."

On a practical level, however, even the folks most concerned about an overly timed life find that, short of dropping off the grid entirely, escape is a difficult thing. O'Malley, who wrote the book on the history of time, remembers a moment in high school: "I had finished an assignment, and I was sitting there for the bell to ring. I was watching the clock, and couldn't go anywhere, and I started thinking: What gives the clock its authority?"

Since then, O'Malley has tried many strategies to extricate himself from time's grasp. "I didn't wear a watch. Then I carried a pocket watch, because it was more irritating to take out. But I find that I just can't live without it."

Faces to watch 2006 - Media

2005-12-25T20:45:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Sunday December 25, 2005

Faces to watch 2006
MEDIA

By Steven Barrie-Anthony

MACARENA HERNANDEZ

Editorial page columnist

You may recall Macarena Hernandez, 31, as the journalist who exposed former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair as a plagiarist. More recently, you may have heard Fox's Bill O'Reilly call for a boycott of the Dallas Morning News after Hernandez -- who this year became the first Latina editorial page columnist for that paper -- suggested that O'Reilly uses illegal immigrants as scapegoats. What you probably don't know is that Hernandez grew up three miles north of the Rio Grande, laboring in the fields with her migrant worker parents, feeling the sting of racial and class division. "My father was a really proud man," she says. "Really handsome. Around his friends he was a towering figure, very generous. But every time I would see him in the fields, next to these farmers, watch him beg for work, I saw him shrink. It broke my heart to see him so humiliated." On her college paper Hernandez began to "tell the stories about people like me who, growing up, I felt were invisible," and that ambition remains. "I hate to label her as a Latina voice," says Charles Whitaker, assistant professor at Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism. "But she's going to be an important voice on issues of race and class, speaking eloquently from a perspective that we don't often hear."

Faces to watch 2006 - Media

2005-12-25T20:44:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Sunday December 25, 2005

Faces to watch 2006
MEDIA

By Steven Barrie-Anthony

ARASH MARKAZI

Sports journalist

Arash Markazi, 25, realized in high school that "at 5-foot-6 or -7, my dream of playing basketball in the NBA was probably not going to happen." Instead, he joined the school newspaper to cover the sports beat and hasn't stopped writing since. In college at USC he won nearly every student journalism award imaginable and since graduation has worn dual hats at Sports Illustrated, reporting for the magazine and penning a weekly column titled "The Hot Read" for SI.com.

Markazi has published intimate and quirky portraits of Wayne Gretzky and Brazilian soccer star Ronaldo, and frequently jets around the country covering the full gambit of college sports (in a particularly entertaining column, Markazi joins USC football greats Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush in a Manhattan nightclub after the presentation of the Heisman Trophy). What you won't know from reading his stories is that Markazi has battled cancer twice, in college and then earlier this year, and that he continued to write columns from his Los Angeles hospital bed while sports games blared from a nearby television set. "It was just like a big relief to know that I could continue to write, to cover sports," he says.

Faces to watch 2006 - Broadcasting

2005-12-25T20:43:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Sunday December 25, 2005

BROADCASTING
Faces to watch 2006

By Steven Barrie-Anthony

YUNJI DE NIES

TV reporter

An education at Yale and the UC Berkeley School of Journalism plus a coveted internship at "Nightline" could hardly prepare Yunji de Nies, 26, for covering Hurricane Katrina. But she was one of only three reporters for WGNO-TV, a local New Orleans station, who opted to remain on the job once the storm hit.

With water levels rising, De Nies and her crew abandoned their homes and camped out in neighboring Baton Rouge, making forays into the devastation. She sweet-talked National Guardsmen into letting her pass, learned the back roads and, cameras rolling, conveyed firsthand the city's chaos, grief and rage. New Orleans is far from healed, and De Nies continues reporting on the reconstruction of levees, of lives.

The WGNO headquarters is in shambles, so she and her colleagues work in double-wide trailers, broadcasting their evening newscast against a revolving backdrop of burnt-out buildings and washed-out streets.

What's killing the messenger

2005-12-18T20:42:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Sunday December 18, 2005

2005: SHAKEN & STIRRED | CULTURE
THE PRESS
What's killing the messenger

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

IT'S a gloomy Christmastime for print journalism. There have always been doomsayers in this business -- we're a curmudgeonly breed -- but after a year of hard knocks and tough realizations, even happy-go-lucky newshounds are questioning their fate.

"The sooner [2005] is over, the better," says Michael Massing, a Columbia Journalism Review contributor. "There have been so many negative developments, it's easy to say, 'Things can only get better.' But that's probably wishful thinking."

In the last year, newspapers have:

Lost readers. Industrywide weekday circulation dropped 2.6% in the six-month period ending in September, and many observers expect a continuing decline. Even more startling is the fact, supported by demographic studies, that few young people read the paper. They'd rather get their news fix from inkless, un-foldable computer screens. What nerve.

Lost advertisers, mostly tied to declining circulation numbers. Classified advertising revenue -- once a cash cow -- has also plummeted, in part because of websites like Craigslist.com offering ad space for free.

Trimmed staffs. Buyouts and layoffs have become common. The Los Angeles Times has cut 85 editorial positions; among other papers, the Boston Globe was planning to cut 35 and the New York Times 45. Hundreds of newspaper jobs outside of newsrooms have also been lost. All of which journalists tend to find abominable, given that most papers remain highly profitable.

Endured the Judy Miller brouhaha. The ex-New York Times reporter spent 85 days in jail for refusing to reveal a White House source -- and then flip-flopped after that source, I. Lewis Libby, sent her a letter. Critics say that Miller's brand of "trust-me journalism," which relies heavily on anonymous sourcing, spawns uncomfortably close relationships between journalists and sources, and that it was this kind of reporting that led Miller and journalism at large to accept the Bush administration's claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

Still, not everybody is resigned to the craft's demise. "Professional news-gathering organizations will survive and prosper in the future," says Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University. "But not without changing a lot -- more than many of them are prepared for."

Taking Wraps Off Good Side of Compton

2005-12-18T20:41:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Sunday December 18, 2005

Taking Wraps Off Good Side of Compton
* A toy giveaway brings cheer to 3,000 kids. Nearby, 220 guns are turned in to deputies.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

Thousands of kids stood in line Saturday morning and afternoon outside Compton City Hall, tugging on their parents and daydreaming of presents.

"I want clothes for winter and summer," said Terrel Hyder, 12. "And I want a job and a drum."

His mother, Valerie Singleton, smiled.

"We don't have any money, nothing," said the in-home caregiver, who recently was laid off. "Without this, my four kids wouldn't get anything."

Like Singleton, many of the parents who gathered at this third annual Winter Wonderland Giveaway, organized by Councilwoman Barbara Calhoun and sponsored by the city, expressed relief that in this time of giving, their kids would feel included.

"I used to buy presents in September," said Renee Siguas, standing alongside two of her four children. "But I was laid off from Vons, and now I have to spend all my money on groceries. My daughter Rosa wants a flying Barbie."

Throughout the day, about 5,000 toys donated by retailers and local businesses were distributed among nearly 3,000 kids, said Councilman Isadore Hall. Only Compton residents ages 16 or younger were eligible for the giveaway.

After waiting in line for an hour or more, each family was welcomed into the foyer of the converted City Council chambers, where a jolly volunteer led them in singing Christmas carols of their choosing.

Few had time to finish their songs, however. Soon they were rushed through a door into the inner sanctum, a room brimming with punching bags, dolls, videogames, bicycles and unopened boxes, and manned by dozens of harried volunteers.

Somebody would yell out a kid's age and gender -- "Boy! 12!" -- and in seconds a volunteer would thrust two age-specific presents into the hands of each wide-eyed child. The exit was clogged by gleeful children, hugging toys to their chests, too stunned by their good fortune to move their feet.

It's this image of community and generosity that should represent Compton, Hall said. Compton, which has the highest homicide rate in Los Angeles County, "gets a bad rap because of all the shootings," he said. "But we're working very hard to try and turn that around."

Indeed, at a shopping center just blocks from City Hall, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department was conducting another sort of giveaway, dubbed "Gifts for Guns." Anyone who showed up with a gun was allowed to trade it in for a $100 gift certificate to Ralphs, Toys-R-Us or Circuit City with no questions asked.

At the end of the day the department had collected more than 220 guns, said Sheriff's Capt. Eric K. Hamilton.

"We did exceptionally well," he said. "We had so many people lining up that we ran out of certificates, so we had to ask City Hall and the Sheriff's Department to provide extra funds. People turned in all sorts of guns: assault weapons, Uzis, shotguns. Each gun taken off the street can mean the difference between life and death."

Back at Winter Wonderland, Juan Caldera, 7, waited in tense anticipation. He was excited about presents, sure, but even more exciting was the prospect of playing in the snow that organizers had spread on a cordoned-off portion of Compton Avenue.

"I've never touched snow before," Juan said, lugging a new football and videogamewhile leading his mother, brother and two sisters in the direction of flying snowballs.

When he finally touched snow, he leapt back for a moment, and ran to the fence to tell his mother, "It's cold!" Then he galloped off to pelt his oldest sister.

A reluctant revisiting of 'Brokeback'

2005-12-09T20:41:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Friday December 09, 2005

Movies
A reluctant revisiting of 'Brokeback'

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

E. Annie Proulx is sipping coffee at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills and talking about literary ghosts.

She has struggled for years to get Ennis and Jack out of her head. These are the two leads who fall in love in Proulx's short story "Brokeback Mountain," male ranch hands whose secrecy and self-denial is bleak and heartbreaking and -- to anyone who has experienced homophobia and its ramifications -- disquietingly familiar.

Proulx, 70, in town recently for the premiere of Ang Lee's film adaptation of "Brokeback Mountain," says that while she was "blown away" by the movie, she doesn't welcome the return of Ennis and Jack to the forefront of her consciousness.

"Put yourself in my place," the author says. "An elderly, white, straight female, trying to write about two 19-year-old gay kids in 1963. What kind of imaginative leap do you think was necessary? Profound, extreme, large. To get into those guys' heads and actions took a lot of 16-hour days, and never thinking about anything else and living a zombie life. That's what I had to do. I really needed an exorcist to get rid of those characters. And they roared back when I saw the film."

The story bubbled forth from "years and years of observation and subliminal taking in of rural homophobia," says Proulx, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "The Shipping News," was also adapted for the screen. She remembers the moment when those years of observed hatred began taking form. It was 1995 and Proulx, who lives in Wyoming, visited a crowded bar near the Montana border. The place was rowdy and packed with attractive women, everyone was drinking, and the energy was high.

"There was the smell of sex in the air," Proulx remembers. "But here was this old shabby-looking guy.... watching the guys playing pool. He had a raw hunger in his eyes that made me wonder if he were country gay. I wondered, 'What would've he been like when he was younger?' Then he disappeared, and in his place appeared Ennis. And then Jack. You can't have Ennis without Jack."

Proulx didn't think her story would ever be published. The material felt too risky; Ennis and Jack express their love with as much physical gusto as any heterosexual couple, and it happens in full view of the reader, without any nervous obfuscation. The backdrop is that wide expansive West that bore forth John Wayne and the Marlboro Man -- but here the edges of the mythos fray, and the world becomes chilly and oppressive.

The story was published in the New Yorker magazine in 1997, and screenwriter Diana Ossana read it one night when she couldn't sleep. "It just floored me," Ossana says, speaking after a screening of "Brokeback Mountain." She ran downstairs to show it to her writing partner, who happens to be Larry McMurtry ("The Last Picture Show," "Lonesome Dove") and suggested they turn it into a screenplay. "I've known [McMurtry] for 20 years," Ossana said, "and this is the first time I've heard him say yes to something I suggested, without an argument."

The following day the screenwriters sent a letter to Proulx, asking to option the story with their own money. Proulx agreed.

"She trusted us more than she should have," McMurtry says. "She trusted us not to make the story unless we could make it right."

Proulx, for her part, found their enthusiasm "interesting" but thought to herself, "this is not going to happen." She had never considered "Brokeback Mountain" to be a cinematic possibility -- it pushes too many buttons, challenges too many norms. "Never, never, never, never, no," she says, at the Four Seasons, shaking her head. "Uh-uh." Then, three months later, Ossana and McMurtry sent her their screenplay, a spare and unfailingly faithful rendition of the story. The divergences grow organically from what's on the page, and the rest is as Proulx wrote it, nearly verbatim.

"I thought it was good," Proulx says. She had a few quibbles, mostly about language -- some of it seemed to her more Texas than Wyoming -- but those were worked out in the next and final draft. It made sense for the screenplay to stick closely to its source, Proulx says with her typical candor. "This was a strong story. It had a very solid framework, it had terse, good language. It would've been hard to change that without maiming everything."

The rest happened slowly, and Proulx had little involvement, retreating into Wyoming and her writing, trying as best she could to banish Ennis and Jack from her mind. Lee initially turned down the project to direct "The Hulk," then signed on again afterward. Casting the two leading roles was particularly difficult, Ossana says.

The movie, like the story, does not pull any punches. The sex is just as graphic, the critique of rural homophobia just as angst-ridden and raw. Proulx doesn't pretend to know how the movie will play with audiences, but she likes that her message will be broadcast through such a popular medium.

"There are a lot of people who see movies who do not read," Proulx says. "It used to be that writing and architecture were the main carriers, permanent carriers, of culture and civilization. Now you have to add film to that list, because film is the vehicle of cultural transmission of our time. It would be insane to say otherwise, to say that the book is still the thing. It isn't."

Perhaps true. But for many of Proulx's most ardent fans, the story is the thing. Take Michael Silverblatt, the radio host of KCRW's "Bookworm" program, who says that this kind of literary genius is "uncapturable" by film. Silverblatt remembers reading "Brokeback Mountain" in the New Yorker and the sensation of being surprised in stages: "Here's a story that was taking place outdoors, which is unusual enough in the New Yorker. And it's a western, another rarity. And creeping up on me is the feeling: These cowboys are falling in love!" (The story was recently posted on the New Yorker website at www.newyorker.com/archive/content/articles/051212fr_archive01.)

Since Proulx was in town for the film's premier, Silverblatt arranged to moderate a question-and-answer session with Proulx after a screening of the film at the ArcLight. "The story let me cry and the movie made me cry," he told the audience. "I feel there is a sadness ladled on in the movie."

Proulx replied: "I think it's good for us to feel the emotion that the film engenders, whatever its source."

"The story began in 1963," said a woman from the audience. "Do you think things are better now, in terms of attitudes?"

"I wish," Proulx said. "But one year after the story was published, Matthew Shepard was killed less than 30 miles from where I live. I was called to be on the jury for one of the killers."

The tough-guy Western mythology undergirding our national identity should be questioned, Proulx says, and she hopes that her story -- and now this movie -- will spur that kind of dialogue.

Which already seems to be happening. Bill Handley, an associate professor of English at USC, was in the audience at ArcLight, and plans to put together a book of essays on the story and the film.

"It's a groundbreaking story, worthy of close attention," he says. "The essays will focus on a whole range of questions on sexuality, landscape, authenticity, and labor in the West. Who knows what the response to this film is going to be, and what that will tell us about the culture."

Kanye West Holds School Crowd Rapt

2005-12-06T10:53:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Tuesday December 06, 2005

Kanye West Holds School Crowd Rapt
* The singer performs at Santa Monica High after the campus won a radio contest.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

Kanye is coming.

You could hear his name ringing through the boisterous lunchtime chatter at Santa Monica High School. You could read it on T-shirts all over the Santa Monica campus: Kanye West. He's coming!

"This is the best thing that's ever happened to us," said Laura Thatcher, 15, kicking back with friends outside the school. "We have 30-minute classes, and then we're seeing a concert."

Thatcher and her classmates more than earned a visit from one of music's hottest acts.

Back in November, DJ Big Boy of KPWR-FM (105.9) announced a contest called "Big Boy's Backstage With Kanye West." All Southern California high schools were eligible to participate, and the rules were simple: Whichever student body voted for their school most frequently on the contest website would win a concert with mega rap star West.

At Santa Monica High, voting fever spread quickly. Students passed notes, whispered in locker rooms and posted bulletins for their friends to read on the social networking website Myspace.com. The gist was: Vote now and vote often. And they did. In the end, Santa Monica High students submitted nearly 1 million votes out of the 5 million cast.

Students voted constantly to get Santa Monica's numbers up. In the end, the school received nearly twice as many votes as Antonio Villaraigosa and James K. Hahn combined in the Los Angeles mayoral election. And then it was Monday, and West was due any moment for a 2 p.m. concert in the school's outdoor amphitheater.

Even the principal, Ilene Straus, was giddy. "I'm so excited!" she said, sitting in the basketball gym where the media had set up camp. She was surrounded by camera crews and reporters scribbling on notepads. "High school education is very serious. The stakes are high. But this, today, is a time to enjoy high school kids, to enjoy the energy."

Energy is an understatement, teachers say. Once students caught wind of the contest, it was "hard to get them to concentrate," said Tania Fischer, an art teacher. "They were always asking me, 'Can I get on the computer?' Some would come in looking haggard and tell me that they stayed up all night, on the computer, voting."

Still, teachers and administrators seemed as excited as the students. "We are a school with huge diversity," said Straus of the campus, which last school year experienced a flare-up of racial tension. "Over 40 cultures are represented in our 3,500-person student body. This event has really brought us all together."

Straus said she hoped that West would encourage students to get a college education, and, indeed, West was using this appearance as a platform to announce a sweepstakes for $150,000 toward college tuition, co-sponsored by music retailer Musicland and the Kanye West Foundation. But there is mild irony here. West didn't finish college -- his first album is titled "The College Dropout" -- and he talks and raps frequently about the benefits of a real-world education.

"Me? I use real life, I learn from real people," West said when he arrived, sitting in a classroom, about to go onstage. "The great thing about school, and the bad thing about it, is that you can just sit there in the back of the room and not pay any attention. In real life, being shy is not going to get you anywhere. I get educated every day."

The concert lasted about an hour, and the crowd noise rivaled any stadium din. Some students grouped together and spelled K-A-N-Y-E W-E-S-T on their sweatshirts with masking tape.

Others wore T-shirts emblazoned with Kanye's controversial post-Hurricane Katrina statement: "Bush doesn't care about black people."

In the middle of a rousing six-song set, West paused to take questions from the crowd.

"What kind of grades did you get in high school?" asked one student.

"I didn't do a lot of homework," West answered, to laughter. "But I got a lot of A's and Bs."

The call of 'D'oh!'

2005-11-30T20:40:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Wednesday November 30, 2005

The call of 'D'oh!'
* Writers become downright animated for 'The Simpsons' guest spots.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

TOM WOLFE is screaming. He screams softly, this Southern gentleman, his trademark white suit unwrinkled, his spats unwavering even as a giant granite boulder hurtles down upon him. It looks to be the end of the pioneering New Journalism author of "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test."

"Aaaaaaaahh! Wait, no, that wasn't good, let me start over."

"How did you scream last time a boulder was hurtling toward you?" asks Carolyn Omine, executive producer of "The Simpsons."

"Why don't you try, 'Aaaaahhhh, my suit!' " suggests a rail-thin, nerdy-looking writer, from the front of the Fox recording studio.

"Ahhhhh, my suit! It's gabardine!" wails Wolfe, toward the microphone. "Well, but cops wear gabardine."

Slowly, Wolfe transforms. Even now, this episode's director, Mark Kirkland, is circling Wolfe, snapping pictures. Soon, a team of animators will render Wolfe bug-eyed and yellow-skinned. A year from now he'll appear on television alongside Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie and the bartender Moe in an episode of "The Simpsons" parodying highfalutin literary culture.

"We started with the idea of Moe as Charles Bukowski," explains Matt Warburton, who wrote the episode. "We brought Lisa in as the person who discovers in scuzzy, barfly Moe something that we've never seen before: a poet." Antics ensue, with Wolfe and fellow guest stars Gore Vidal, Michael Chabon and Jonathan Franzen voicing themselves. All were thrilled to participate.

"This is the only show of any sort that I watch on television," Wolfe says, sitting in the greenroom after recording. The immaculately dressed author is surrounded by a group of scruffy Harvard-educated "Simpsons" writers, hanging on his every word. "My son, Tommy, who's now 20, one of his first words was [Homer's trademark exclamation] 'D'oh!' And now any conversation he has with anybody, he'll reference 'The Simpsons.' "

The writers laugh knowingly. This isn't uncommon. The show is in the "Guinness Book of World Records" for the most guest voices of any animated series, and invitees are often begged to participate by their children or younger friends who see it as akin to nabbing the Nobel Prize. Past guests include actors (Kirk Douglas, Drew Barrymore), musicians (U2, the Who) athletes (Andre Agassi, Magic Johnson), politicians (Tony Blair) and even the most reclusive of writers (Thomas Pynchon lent his voice twice, and faxed in a list of jokes beforehand).

"The fastest 'yes' I ever received was Elizabeth Taylor," says Bonnie Pietila, the producer in charge of casting. "I hung up the phone after leaving a message and she called back five minutes later." Some celebrities are so eager to appear on the show "that they have a representative call us on a monthly basis," Pietila says. "But we only have 22 episodes each season." Al Gore is one of the few to have turned "The Simpsons" down.

On a stiflingly hot Monday afternoon, Franzen and Chabon drive onto the Fox lot together. They convene with producers in the greenroom and sit on couches surrounding a wide swath of sandwich makings, jumbo cookies and fruit that nobody ever seems to touch.

"My kids and my father are very excited," Chabon says. He's not kidding. Reached later by phone, his father, Robert Chabon, said that he always expected Michael to win a Pulitzer (which he did in 2001 for "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay"). "And I still think he's going to win the National Book Award," said the Kansas City, Kan., pediatrician. "But him being on 'The Simpsons' is beyond my wildest dreams. You envision certain successes for your children, but this kind of success -- I never envisioned."

Sometimes the show seems to be instigated by a vast conspiracy of children. "Simpsons" creator Matt Groening strolls into the greenroom and once again tells Chabon that his kids are big Chabon fans. "That's great," Chabon says, grinning. "My kids were very excited when I told them that Matt Groening's kids know who their father is."

The script calls for Chabon and Franzen to brawl during a dispute about their literary influences, and standing next to each other in the recording room, the friends ready themselves for a fight. Franzen complains loudly that he has fewer lines than Chabon -- "Only 38 words!" -- to which Chabon responds, "I see there's a little counting going on in the Franzenian corner."

Dan Castellaneta, the voice of many "Simpsons" characters, including Homer, Barney, Krusty the Clown and Groundskeeper Willie, sits on a swivel chair nearby, wearing sunglasses and smiling at the amateurs. Then Groening arrives, a red light glows and recording begins.

Franzen need not have worried about counting words. The session's Emmy-worthy performances are wordless strings of yelps and grunts. After reading and rereading their lines, the writers take turns making fight noises like "urrrrrg!" and "ugh!" and "ouch!" Chabon throws his whole body into it, lunging at the microphone, while Franzen keeps a dry, acerbic cool. Omine, the producer, reads them their cues, and writers sitting around the room toss out ideas as they occur.

Franzen: "Gaa! Dajjjmit! Ach! Rrrr!"

Writer: "How about, 'Nooo! My prescription-less glasses, the ones I wear to look smart!' "

Franzen: "My trademark glasses!"

Omine: "Let's continue with Jonathan, because you have to whack Michael with a chair. Some more pain sounds, please."

Writer: "How about saying, 'You fight like Anne Rice!' "

Eventually, it's time to encounter that same runaway granite chunk that flattened Tom Wolfe. Franzen's scream has a hint of falsetto; Chabon writhes as he lets out an anguished moan.

It's over in less than an hour; but echoes of those recordings will stick with you, says Amy Tan, author of the 1990 book "The Joy Luck Club," who voiced herself on the show five years ago. "Among a certain group of mostly younger people, I'm like a movie star of cartoons," she says. "People who are not impressed with anything else are very impressed that I was in 'The Simpsons.' I don't know what the equivalent would be. Like I was playing with the Rolling Stones or something. It's as though I actually know Homer and Marge and the kids."

Being on the show doesn't improve a writer's salability, says Sandra Dijkstra, Tan's literary agent. "I don't think it does anything for their careers. My impression is that it's simply fun. 'The Simpsons' is countercultural and subversive and it makes important statements about America today. Good writers want to be subversive, and they want to be on 'The Simpsons.' "

If there were a trophy for hipsterism, it might well be in the shape of Homer's head. The series that Time magazine dubbed "the best show in the history of television" has for 17 years spawned conversations on playgrounds and at cocktail parties. It's the focus of university classes and doctoral theses. And it long ago infiltrated the lingo of today's high school kids, who don't know a Simpson-less world. ("D'oh!" was included in the 2001 Oxford Dictionary.)

But despite its cultural saturation, Gore Vidal hasn't watched the show. "I live in Italy," he says, walking with a cane toward a lone chair in the recording studio. "I don't see much American TV."

Vidal puffs out his chest and begins, imbuing his lines with the solemn dignity of a Shakespearean actor. Each syllable receives its share of attention. Groening watches intently from a couch, smiling. Vidal doesn't sound like a Simpson. He sounds like Gore Vidal.

It's a wrap. Vidal says that he "can't wait" to see the episode and that transforming into a yellow-skinned character is a return of sorts: "After all, I had jaundice as a kid." On the way out, he segues into a favorite topic and tells the producers, "There's a White House plan to destabilize California like they've destabilized Iraq or Iran." Then he leaves the studio. Alive. Vidal is the only one of these authors to escape a cartoon death.

Haggard and Strangers are now just a quick click away

2005-11-12T20:38:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Saturday November 12, 2005

Haggard and Strangers are now just a quick click away

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

Merle Haggard and the Strangers will play today in the front room of the country singer's Northern California home. For 15 bucks, you're invited.

To watch via your computer, that is. "We'll webcast and let the world decide whether or not they like it," said Haggard, who has dubbed the series of six Saturday afternoon shows "Merle Haggard on the Sabbath."

"We're doing something that's never really been done with my kind of music.

"I've always wanted to do this, ever since I was a child and I heard Bob Wills on a noonday broadcast," Haggard said.

With technology now available to stream video over the Web, he said that he will use it to create the same kind of soundscape and relaxed environment he remembers from the radio days of his youth.

"There will be a lot less wham-bang. It's more about circling up in the front room and playing music like folks used to do before it became so commercial," Haggard said. "We're trying to give it to you as raw as we can."

Each show will be a mixture of taped and live sets, interspersed with bits such as a "Martha Stewart-type segment where my wife will get her favorite recipe and show you how it's cooked," Haggard said.

"My band will be my helpers in presenting the show, and we'll each have microphones, and we'll discuss whatever topic comes to mind," he said. "On shows, after the first one, we'll have the capability of going to the phones and e-mail, and taking requests."

The show, at www.merlehaggard.com, will stream at 3 p.m. Saturdays through Dec. 17. If it's successful, Haggard intends to expand the run, perhaps indefinitely, in which case he and his family may even move out of the home and turn it into a full-time Internet stage.

Nomination for Jolie-Pitt pairing

2005-11-11T20:37:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Friday November 11, 2005

QUICK TAKES
Nomination for Jolie-Pitt pairing

By Steven Barrie-Anthony

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are up for a People's Choice award celebrating their on-screen chemistry in "Mr. & Mrs. Smith," CBS announced Thursday. Both actors were also nominated for individual titles: favorite leading man and favorite female movie star.

Winners, decided by popular vote (weigh in at www.pcavote.com) will be announced Jan. 10 at the 32nd annual People's Choice Awards, held at the Shrine Auditorium and broadcast on CBS. The show will be hosted by Craig Ferguson.

Other nominees include Jennifer Garner (favorite female action star), Usher (favorite male performer), "The Simpsons" (favorite TV comedy), and Ellen DeGeneres (favorite funny female star).

Koontz talk brings claims of racism

2005-11-10T20:34:00.000-08:00

Thursday November 10, 2005

BOOKS
Koontz talk brings claims of racism
* Author defends his 'Mr. Teriyaki' anecdote as merely humor.

SEE CORRECTION APPENDED

--- START OF CORRECTION ---

  Koontz debate -- An article in Thursday's Calendar Weekend

section about comments made by author Dean Koontz at an Irvine

convention incorrectly implied that an official group of writers had

voiced concerns about perceived racism in Koontz's remarks. The

writers who have expressed concern are not connected by any group

affiliation with either the Men of Mystery or the Literary Guild of

Orange County, two groups mentioned in the article.

--- END OF CORRECTION ---

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

BESTSELLING thriller writer Dean Koontz had told the anecdote dozens of times before: The author wanted his name removed from a film version of one of his books, so he sent a series of letters to the head of the Japanese company that owned the movie studio, mentioning World War II, the Bataan Death March and Godzilla.

For years, people would laugh at the story.

But after Koontz retold the anecdote on Saturday to a gathering of mystery writers and fans in Irvine -- during which he referred to the studio executive as "Mr. Teriyaki" -- and now the mystery writers group is speaking out against what it perceived as Koontz's blatant racism, and a widespread debate has emerged on Southern California literary blogs about where humor ends and racism begins.

"What if the CEO was black?" wrote author Lee Goldberg, who was present at the event, on his blog. "Would Koontz have addressed his letters to Mr. Fried Chicken and joked about the good old days of slavery and racial discrimination? Or if the CEO was a Jew? Would he have called him Mr. Matzoball and reminded him of the Holocaust? I was astonished that people were laughing when they should have shunned him with silence."

Others disagreed. "My writing peers need to spend more time writing and less time defending the free world from the menace of Dean Koontz," J.A. Konrath wrote in an e-mail to The Times. "Dean didn't blow up a nursing home -- he simply recounted a humorous anecdote."

Koontz blames the brouhaha on "some sort of an agenda," and writers who attended the speech were divided over whether the comments constituted racism.

He was unaware of any concerns, Koontz said, because many in the audience laughed and applauded during his speech. Bloggers started posting opinions on Sunday, and Koontz said that he and his publisher, Bantam Dell, began receiving feedback "from people who weren't even there, people who were calling me names."

Koontz phoned Goldberg and other writers but was dissatisfied with the conversations.

"I was a poor kid with a Jewish grandmother and a great-grandmother who was black," Koontz said. "I grew up in a dirt-poor family. I'm used to the abuse that you take. I don't dish it out, I never have, and this is just appalling to me. I guess I'll be smeared with this for the rest of my life. I'm not outraged, I'm not spooked, it's just -- my sadness is so deep."

"I'll stand by the letters" to the Japanese executive, he said. "They're George Carlin-esque. There's some political incorrectness in it, but nothing mean."

At the event, Koontz began reciting each letter with the now controversial salutation, "Dear Mr. Teriyaki."

"My letter of 10 November has not been answered," one read. "As I am certain you are an honorable and courteous man, I would assume your silence results from the mistaken belief that World War II is still in progress and that the citizens of your country and mine are forbidden to communicate. Enclosed is a copy of the front page of the New York Times from 1945, with the headline, 'Japan Surrenders.' "

Another suggested to the Japanese executive, "We could have a few sake and reminisce about the Bataan Death March."

The line between racism and socially accepted parody is often easier to discern in hindsight, said Brian Lickel, a USC social psychologist.

"We all want to divide the world into good and bad, and I think we struggle with the same thing with racism. The reality is that there's a continuum, a lot of gray. Perhaps what happened is that from his point of view, he's giving a speech and he looks out and people in the crowd are laughing, people aren't storming out. So he has always assumed that this anecdote is all golden, whereas the reality is that before this outcry, plenty of people were likely disturbed by it."

Koontz's publisher stands by the author, as does the organizer of the event.

"It was not racist," said Joan Hansen, founder and chairwoman of the Men of Mystery event that benefits the Literary Guild of Orange County. "He first asked politely that his name be removed from the movie, and never heard back. So he wanted to do something to get their attention. His point was, the war is over, we can be friends."

Amid scandal, Libby's '03 novel is suddenly hot

2005-11-10T20:32:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Thursday November 10, 2005

QUICK
Amid scandal, Libby's '03 novel is suddenly hot

By Steven Barrie-Anthony

Following widespread interest by booksellers and consumers in I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's 2003 novel, "The Apprentice," publisher Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's has decided to reprint 25,000 copies of the paperback. The book will ship to bookstores by Nov. 18, John Karle, St. Martin's associate director of publicity, said Wednesday.

"Originally we had not intended to reprint the book, but there has recently been a lot of interest in the book both from the media and from our accounts," Karle said.

The spike in the book's popularity is tied to the recent indictment of Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, on charges of obstructing justice, making false statements and perjury as related to the Valerie Plame CIA leak investigation. After the indictment, Libby's then out-of-print novel was offered on EBay for a sum of $2,400, according to Publisher's Weekly.

"The Apprentice" takes place in Japan in 1903, when a group of strangers seeks refuge from harsh weather in a remote mountain inn.

Toyota pulls its ads off 'Nip/Tuck' series

2005-11-09T20:32:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Wednesday November 09, 2005

Toyota pulls its ads off 'Nip/Tuck' series
* The move follows a letter-writing campaign by a parents watchdog group decrying the FX drama's raw content.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

Toyota Motor Corp. has pulled all advertising from the FX drama "Nip/Tuck" in part over concerns about the show's content, according to a Nov. 1 letter from the automaker addressed to the television decency advocacy group Parents Television Council.

The move follows a letter-writing campaign by the L.A.-based PTC informing "Nip/Tuck" advertisers of the graphic depictions of sex and violence on the show and asking them to rescind their sponsorships, said Tim Winter, the group's executive director.

"We applaud Toyota for their decision," Winter said. "We understand their need to reach young audiences and their desire for edgy programming.... Protecting children from graphic sex and violence in the media is a shared responsibility. Parents are the front line, but advertisers need to be responsible also."

The PTC has contacted hundreds of "Nip/Tuck" advertisers since the show first aired in 2003, said Winter, "and dozens have responded by no longer sponsoring shows or letting us know that they won't continue their sponsorship in the future."

Having advertisers walk away is nothing new for the surgery-heavy show. Last year, Ben & Jerry's and Gateway Inc. were among firms that pulled ads from the show, although reasons for their decisions were not publicly given. Other advertisers sometimes pulled out of specific episodes, such as one that included underage drinking.

Toyota spokeswoman Nancy Hubbell said the carmaker's decision was based on several factors, including content. She described the move as part of a broader reevaluation of where and how Toyota advertises.

John Solberg, vice president of public relations for FX, declined to comment on Toyota's decision, saying the network does not discuss individual advertisers.

"The show is sold out for the season at one of the highest advertiser rates in all of cable," Solberg said. He said that the show's first seven episodes averaged 2.8 million viewers in the highly valued 18-49 age bracket.

Times staff writer Scott Martelle contributed to this report.

Cruise drops sister as his PR agent

2005-11-08T20:31:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Tuesday November 08, 2005

QUICK TAKES
Cruise drops sister as his PR agent

By Steven Barrie-Anthony

Tom Cruise announced Monday that he had hired veteran Hollywood publicist Paul Bloch of Rogers & Cowan public relations to manage his image. Lee Anne DeVette, Cruise's sister and publicist since 2004, will manage his philanthropic activities.

This last year the once-media shy actor publicly clashed with Brooke Shields over her use of psychiatric medication to treat her postpartum depression and leapt onto Oprah's couch while proclaiming his love for Katie Holmes. Cruise also became more vocal about his religion, Scientology (DeVette is a fellow Scientologist).

On Monday, Bloch said he had "no thoughts" on those events. "I think Tom has handled himself magnificently, and I think Lee Anne has handled it magnificently, and I'm so pleased they brought us on," he said.

Whether or not Bloch will handle any Scientology-related publicity is unclear. "I'm sure we'll have some involvement with them," he said. "But all we have been advised so far is that we are dealing strictly with the entertainment side."

Cruise praised his sister for doing "a wonderful job" as his publicist but added in a prepared statement that she had long expressed an interest in overseeing his philanthropy. "With our current plans to increase those endeavors ... this seemed the appropriate time to make that segue, and to bring Rogers & Cowan on board to handle mine and the company's entertainment related publicity needs."

Finding those deeper connections

2005-11-07T20:30:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Monday November 07, 2005

Finding those deeper connections

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

It was 1972 and David Lynch was encountering in full measure this fickle and disappointing world. The filmmaker who would go on to direct "Blue Velvet" and "Lost Highway" was making $50 a week delivering the Wall Street Journal, with moviemaking as a sideline. He was angry much of the time and didn't know why.

Then he heard the maxim "True happiness doesn't lie out there somewhere. It lies within yourself." He searched for a way to access unadulterated bliss and stumbled upon Transcendental Meditation, a practice based in an ancient Indian tradition that the Beatles and Mia Farrow made famous when they embraced it in the 1960s.

Lynch has meditated every day since, and this weekend, he was at UC Irvine, encouraging students to find strength within themselves and "experience the unity of existence."

But among a rapt audience of nearly 1,000 on Saturday, not everyone was there to learn about meditation. One would-be screenwriter approached the microphone to say, "I just have a yes-or-no question: Can you read my script?" Later, a film student asked Lynch for advice about getting into the business.

"My advice is to stay true to yourself, to let your voice ring out," Lynch said. "And -- not to push for Transcendental Meditation -- but to me, that word 'transcendental' is very important. Start diving within, enliven your bliss consciousness. You'll glow. All your friends will be very happy with you. Everyone will want to sit next to you and give you money."

When Lynch giggled, the hall exploded in laughter.

The nationwide tour has drawn huge crowds of college students; on Saturday, organizers opened up two spillover auditoriums where UCI students and others watched Lynch speak on video monitors.

Students are more than simply interested in rubbing shoulders with a famous movie director, says Manuel Gomez, the UC Irvine vice chancellor who invited Lynch to campus. "There has recently been a growing thirst among many young people for a deeper connection to their lives and to the world around them."

The theory of the underlying unity of all things, expressed in different forms in many mystical traditions, has been criticized by some postmodern thinkers as devaluing the vast expanse of human differences; on Saturday, that debate played out before the crowd.

"I find this to be problematic," one student said to Lynch. "The world is diverse, and I don't find that to be a bad thing."

"Oh, but it's beautiful, diversity and unity," Lynch said. "When you raise your consciousness, you experience diversity much more."

"It sounds like you're selfish, like this is more and more about the individual," countered the student.

After the event, Lynch signed autographs, and John Hagelin, a quantum physicist and proponent of TM who also spoke, chatted about science and enlightenment. A group of graduate students debriefed. They were hoping TM could help reduce their stress levels.

"We've got hives on our hives," said Dan Lench, a doctoral student in civil engineering. "After watching this, I still don't know how to do the meditation. I just hope that when I ... visit their website, I'll be able to learn something more specific."

Spielberg's Shoah Foundation Officially Joins USC

2005-10-21T20:29:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Friday October 21, 2005

Spielberg's Shoah Foundation Officially Joins USC
* The director's archive of visual histories of Holocaust survivors becomes a division of the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

Steven Spielberg would be there. That's all USC freshman Jason Zeldez needed to know. He and a fellow cinema major hiked across campus Thursday to wait in line outside Bovard Auditorium.

"I don't really know what this is about," Zeldez said. "The Shoah Foundation? I'm not really sure what that is."

Spielberg started the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation on the set of the 1993 movie "Schindler's List" in order to document the life stories of Holocaust survivors (Shoah is Hebrew for "calamity"), and on Thursday the foundation became a division of the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

Its archive includes 52,000 videotaped life histories, all digitized and searchable by keyword, exhibited in an expanding number of museums and classrooms worldwide.

"Aside from my family," said Spielberg, "it's the biggest thing I've done in my life."

The merger, which came after years of negotiations involving the foundation and a number of universities, is effective in January, with USC promising to preserve and propagate the archive in perpetuity. The annual budget will be about $5 million and will be drawn from USC coffers.

"I've been the lightning rod of this foundation since its inception, and there is a prejudice against figureheads in Hollywood," said Spielberg, a USC trustee. As part of a university, "the Shoah Foundation will be taken much more seriously throughout the world."

The complete archive is viewable on computer systems at universities including USC, Rice, Yale and the University of Michigan, and portions are available to museums, research institutions and schools worldwide.

Access to the archives will expand in coming years, said Douglas Greenberg, chief executive of the Shoah Foundation.

"We intend to expand the focus of what we do, chronologically, geographically and topically. Imagine educational products built around testimonials of Rwandan survivors, Darfurian survivors, even survivors of the Hurricane Katrina. Our larger mission is documenting the experience of the people in the 21st century so that people in subsequent centuries will understand what the world was like."

The ceremony opened with a film depicting images from the Holocaust and other atrocities, and outlining the foundation's methods and mission: "To overcome prejudice, intolerance and bigotry -- and the suffering they cause -- through the educational use of the foundation's visual history testimonies."

After the lights went up, USC President Steven B. Sample and Spielberg met onstage to applause from the nearly 2,000 people in attendance.

"When I visited the memorial in Auschwitz, I could see that it was, appropriately, about those who died," Sample said. "But the Shoah Foundation is about the living."

USC is the ideal venue for this archive, he said, in part because of its long-standing interest in digital library technology.

"People have been wanting to tell me their stories for years, but it usually involves a lawyer and some kind of a deal," Spielberg joked. "I'm immediately suspicious."

But he recalled feeling greatly moved by the Holocaust survivors who recounted their stories for "Schindler's List," the tale of Oskar Schindler, a Czech businessman who exploited cheap Jewish labor during World War II but also saved more than 1,000 lives during the Holocaust.

"They couldn't tell their stories to their grandchildren or their own children, but they could tell them to a stranger who they thought they could trust," Spielberg said. So he "sent a bunch of video cameras around the world," and the Shoah Foundation was born.

The videos have gone through many manifestations over the last decade. First shot on beta film, the footage was transferred to digital stock and then to computer hard drives. The thousands of hours of footage proved unwieldy, so Shoah Foundation employees devised a method of indexing and cataloging using 30,000 keywords.

"I see the Shoah Foundation 10 years from now as the hub of a wheel with many spokes," Spielberg said after the ceremony. "Each spoke is a different visual history about a different cultural event that changed the world."

Using the videos in education is important, he said. "I would like to see tolerance education taught at every school. Public schools are the tough nut to crack. I would love to see tolerance education as a prerequisite for graduating high school."

As Spielberg and his father, Arnold, left the theater, scores of students and others crowded around them, holding out magazines, movies and pictures for the director to autograph. Bill Moss, a 20-year-old student at Cal State Fullerton was first in line. Afterward, Moss wiped tears from his eyes and smiled.

"The Shoah Foundation videotaped my grandfather, Al Moss, in 1995," he said, holding up the tape that Spielberg signed. "My grandfather raised me like a father. He was the only one of 14 family members to leave Auschwitz alive."

Protesters Press Quietly for an End to War

2005-10-09T20:28:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Sunday October 09, 2005

Protesters Press Quietly for an End to War
* Activist Cindy Sheehan joins peace advocate Thich Nhat Hanh as thousands march at L.A.'s MacArthur Park.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

Thousands gathered in MacArthur Park on Saturday morning to advocate for peace -- but left banners and megaphones at home.

Activist mom Cindy Sheehan, whose summer vigil outside President Bush's Texas ranch crystallized antiwar sentiment, sat in silence with the others as Buddhist monk and longtime peace advocate Thich Nhat Hanh explained from an open stage: "We don't think shouting in anger can help. If you make people angry and fearful, then you cannot reduce violence and fear.

"When you speak to people, you should speak to them in a language they can understand. By doing that, we can turn our enemies into our friends."

Hanh, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967 by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., conceived and organized this "silent peace walk" as a "gift to the people of Los Angeles."

Peace must arise from within the self, he said, before it can spread out across the "collective unconscious" and put an end to conflict and war.

"Walk as if you kiss the earth with your feet, really tenderly, with all your love," he told the crowd. "If you know how to touch the present moment, you will touch the ultimate, you will touch God."

And so approximately 3,000 people rose quietly about 11:30 a.m. and followed Hanh through the cordoned-off streets surrounding the park.

Monks and nuns, many from Hanh's Plum Village monastery in France, walked slowly with the rest. Except for whispers and the occasional cellphone chime, it remained quiet for the nearly two-hour stroll, and even the dozen or so counterdemonstrators along the route let their anti-Hanh signs ("Down With Thich Nhat Hanh") do the talking.

Afterward, participants lounged on the grass surrounding the stage and ate lunch -- in silence.

Monks, nuns and others shared their food with those who had none. Hanh offered a blessing and suggested that each person eat as mindfully as they walked; "Chew each bite maybe 30 times, until the food tastes very good," he said.

"I've been to antiwar rallies where we carry picket signs and march, and it's very aggressive," said Michelle Thomas, a former actor from Westminster, sitting on a grassy hill after the stroll. "This wasn't one of those. I was actually able to feel in the present, something I've never been able to feel before. It just makes me feel that good things are possible."

Hanh's philosophy "is more pro-peace than anti-something," said Patrick Netter, an author who demonstrates fitness gear on TV, sitting nearby. "I'm not religious; I'm more interested in spirituality. What he says resonates with me. I think these things make a difference. Like when you drop a rock into a lake: Concentric circles spread out across its surface."

Ana Gonzalez felt more alienated than transformed, however. "I brought the flag of my country, Venezuela," said the sociologist from Van Nuys, "and one of the monks approached me and told me that I was forbidden to bring a sign. I knew you weren't supposed to bring signs, but this isn't a sign. I just want people to know that Venezuela is a nation of peace and love. I was seeking peace, but I was made to feel like an outsider."

Earlier that morning, before the masses arrived, Hanh sat in a small room in the park's community center chatting with his comedian friend Garry Shandling and a few monks and nuns.

"In France, we do peaceful walking, and people within 30 kilometers report that they feel the feeling of peace," he said. A few minutes later, Sheehan walked in and the two met for the first time. They embraced. And then Hanh continued: "I don't think shouting angrily at government can help us end the war. When we are able to change our own thinking, the government will have to change."

A public forum for the voices of dissent

2005-10-07T20:25:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Friday October 07, 2005

STYLE & CULTURE
A public forum for the voices of dissent

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

A man wearing a Mohawk and a skull ring on his finger is sitting in a crowded theater in Little Tokyo, explaining American history to the woman next to him. She hasn't read a word of Howard Zinn, if you can believe it. Her thoughts on American history are still based at least in part on that limited canon they teach in schools.

Better begin at the beginning.

"Columbus' first thought was of acquisition," Mohawk explains, and she leans in to listen: Columbus and a string of celebrated white men to follow were responsible for murder and oppression, and these are the long-distant relatives of the imperialist right-wingers now encamped in our White House. "It's worth reading 'A People's History of the United States,' " says Mohawk, as lights dim. "Those are the voices the media doesn't cover. But mostly, it's a heartbreaking story."

And here comes the book's author; at the sight of Zinn, attendees at the sold-out program at the George and Sakaye Aratani / Japan America Theatre erupt in raucous applause, everybody on their feet.

The 83-year-old historian, his brown khakis reaching a little short of his brown loafers, puts on his glasses and then takes them off, shifts his weight from one leg to the other.

"Thank you," he says, then stops as the cheering begins anew. "My name is Howard Zinn."

Kindhearted guffaws translate as: You need no introduction. By the end of the night, booksellers outside will have sold nearly 200 copies of Zinn and Anthony Arnove's new compilation, "Voices of a People's History of the United States," the just-published companion to the original 1980 bestseller and the script for the evening's reading.

This is a book tour event only in the most superficial sense. More important, says Zinn, it's an opportunity to engage publicly with voices of dissent against the established order.

"Our heroes are not Theodore Roosevelt, but Mark Twain," he tells the audience. "Not Woodrow Wilson, but Helen Keller."

There are other dissenters here too, of course, including actors who will read aloud passages from "Voices," channeling moments of suffering and bravery through oppression.

Viggo Mortensen of "Lord of the Rings" fame gets the biggest ovation -- his T-shirt reads: "Impeach, Remove, Jail" -- followed by Sandra Oh, Marisa Tomei, Josh Brolin and others. When Danny Glover arrives from LAX halfway through the show, the audience pauses at length to cheer his participation.

Mortensen's text is from Bartolome de Las Casas, a contemporary of Columbus who wrote in detail of the conquistadors: The Christian Spaniards, "with their horses and swords and pikes, began to carry out massacres and strange cruelties against [Native Americans.] They attacked the towns and spared neither the children nor the aged nor pregnant women nor women in childbed."

A rhythm sets in, with actors rising and assuming the guise of the outspoken and oppressed. Applause breaks out whenever a word or a phrase has applicability in the partisan debates of today, which is often -- like when Emma Goldman (read by Oh) defines patriotism as "the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers."

In sum, however, the evening moves beyond the mingling of celebrity and political correctness. When not cheering, more than a few audience members reach to wipe their eyes.

This history of the United States is drenched in sweat and blood, in cruelty and genocide, but "I don't go around depressed," Zinn had said earlier.

"I have been involved in enough movements for change to understand that change takes a long time and comes out of persistence. It's a matter of having a long-term perspective, and not expecting that things will change in my lifetime. I have a basic faith in human beings, in a kind of common sense, common decency. When people learn the truth about what is going on, they respond."

On Wednesday evening, the response is deafening.

What began with De Las Casas ended with a rousing speech by Cindy Sheehan, the Vacaville, Calif., woman whose son was killed last year in Baghdad and has since been demanding a meeting with President Bush and an end to the Iraq war.

Sheehan isn't here in the flesh -- her words are read by Tomei. "I do see hope," Tomei reads aloud. "I see hope in this country. Fifty-eight percent of the American public are with us. We're preaching to the choir, but not everybody in the choir is singing."

At the after-party held nearby, actor participants and famous radical Angelenos mingle with Zinn, who looks exhausted but nonetheless stays until midnight.

Between bites of stuffed piquillo peppers and marinated shrimp, they tell him how much they love his work, love him.

"I'd do anything for Howard," says Brolin, wearing a black motorcycle jacket and blue jeans. "He has a truly incredible spirit and incredible intelligence, and that combination is rare."

"It's one of the great pleasures in my life to have met such a great man," says Leslie Silva, who voiced African American unionist Sylvia Woods. "Somebody who has dedicated his life to people less fortunate than he."

By Silva's side is the man with the Mohawk, her boyfriend, a banjo player named Elijah Anarchist.

He loves Zinn too, Anarchist says, but he paints a less exuberant picture.

"The largest part of this crowd consists of people wanting Viggo Mortensen's autograph," he says. "If you had Emma Goldman and the rest of them here tonight, you'd have had half the crowd. The reason this was as packed as it was? Paparazzi autograph hounds."

It's true -- as soon as Mortensen heads out of the theater, through a side exit, somebody spots him and he's immediately surrounded by autograph seekers, some carrying "Lord of the Rings" paraphernalia. But it's also true that nearby, Zinn finds himself sitting at a table where three times as many people await his autograph and his handshake.

A nod from Winfrey lifts author

2005-09-30T11:01:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Friday September 30, 2005

Style & Culture
A nod from Winfrey lifts author
* Sales of a memoir by James Frey receive a jolt after it is included in the TV host's book club.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

Probably the biggest news of his career and James Frey couldn't tell his mother. It was 1:15 on an early September afternoon and Frey was sitting in his tiny home office in Amagansett, N.Y., ear glued to the phone, talking to Oprah Winfrey.

Thirteen years previous, Frey was in an Ohio jail serving time for assault and convalescing from the spiraling addiction to alcohol and crack that nearly killed him. "I wasn't a writer, just a troubled kid," he said in a grainy voice tinged with hard living. But sobriety ushered in a writer's drive and sensibility, and Frey's gritty memoir "A Million Little Pieces" came to life in 2003 as a statement as well as a story.

"It's a gob of spit in the face of victimization culture," Frey said. "I hadn't ever read a book or seen movies or television that got addiction right. A lot of times people try to blame other people for their problems or try to romanticize addiction. I don't believe that most addicts are victims of anything but themselves."

The book was a runaway success, and Frey began receiving about 200 fan letters a day. But there's a bestseller and then there's an Oprah's Book Club bestseller. "Oprah can take a book from being successful to being extremely successful," said Sara Nelson, editor in chief of Publishers Weekly. "A mention from her is every author's dream. She's hugely powerful."

Frey knew this. His mother, Lynn, an Oprah fan for years, kept him up to date with the talk show queen's suggested readings. He also knew that Oprah had suspended her book club in 2002, only to revive it last year for classics only. So when he answered the phone and a woman introduced herself as a producer from the Oprah show, the whole thing smelled of a prank. He went along anyhow, agreeing to make an appearance to discuss addiction. Then Oprah herself picked up the phone and popped the question: Would he be interested in being part of the Oprah's Book Club?

Frey was "shocked and thrilled" and agreed immediately. He told his wife that afternoon but a confidentiality contract banned him from telling anybody else, including his mother, until Oprah made the official announcement. (Lynn Frey "coincidentally" received an invitation to the taping, which aired on Sept. 22, and screamed from the audience, "That's my son!" when Oprah made the reveal.) In the meantime, the book's publisher, Anchor Books, ordered 600,000 additional copies to bolster its reserves. It would need those and more: Within a day of being selected, "A Million Little Pieces" rocketed to No. 1 on Amazon.com, and four days after the announcement, bookstores had sold roughly 85,000 copies.

Although he "gets nervous in front of big crowds" and says that "writers are very solitary people, and I enjoy being alone for hours each day," Frey is fervently enthusiastic about his association with Oprah. He repeats words like "awesome" and "amazing" and considers it "my duty to make Oprah feel proud for having chosen me, to participate happily, willingly and joyfully in everything related to being part of this."

His unabashed enthusiasm contrasts sharply with the string of qualms that Jonathan Franzen let fly in 2001 when Oprah nominated his novel, "The Corrections," for inclusion in the club. Although Franzen later apologized and backpedaled, it was clear that he considered the honor a dubious one. Oprah promptly rescinded his welcome.

That's unlikely to happen with Frey, who is vocally unafraid of any kind of populist stigma. "I'm not part of the literati at this point," he said. "I don't write criticisms, I don't participate in literati activities. I don't care about that stuff, frankly. I just think it's amazing that so many people are going to read my book. I'm happy to have any reader, regardless of their socioeconomic standing, their education or anything else."

The literary and publishing world is positively giddy about Oprah's return to contemporary authors; the club is perhaps the only platform that can transform any book into a smash overnight. M.J. Rose, author of "The Halo Effect," has suggested that the sharp drop-off in fiction book sales after Sept. 11 was related less to the national chaos than to Oprah's hiatus from recommending authors of today.

"And I'm really excited that Oprah picked something that's this edgy and dark," Rose said. "It's not typical at all of the kinds of books she used to pick.... I've talked to three authors in the last 24 hours who all said, 'This means that any of us could be chosen now.' "

Frey is of course busier than ever; he sits in his office at his little desk, shuffling through the thousands of songs on his computer, and typing away. The sequel to his debut, "My Friend Leonard," was published in June and he's at work on a detective show pilot and a screenplay about the founder of the Hell's Angels (both for Fox) and a novel about Los Angeles.

"Los Angeles is just a giant, incredible city unlike any other city in the world," he said. "Its culture is different and its geography is different. But when anybody writes about it, it's always crime or Hollywood. There haven't been any great books about the rest of this giant metropolis."

Then, three or four times each day, Frey puts his 9-month-old daughter in a stroller and walks with her through the neighborhood. She has no idea about the Oprah hubbub, Frey says. She may be the only one.

Getaway, in the city

2005-09-22T11:00:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Thursday September 22, 2005

COVER STORY
Getaway, in the city
* Even in frenetic, frustrating Los Angeles, there are places where people can slow down and relax. You just have to find them.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

There are places on this Earth that promise a peaceful easy feeling, places that suggest a chance at serenity. Hawaii, Yosemite, Martha's Vineyard. Los Angeles, typically, is not on that list.

It's a city of unrivaled opportunity and heart-wrenching disappointment, frenetic energy and inertia, creativity and writer's block. There's all that smog and so much pent-up frustration that a mistake on the freeway might just get you shot. Despite our sunlight and swaying palms, Los Angeles lost its title as the capital of mellow a long time ago. It's too busy or too gritty, too nouveau riche or too superficial. Choose your epithet.

Bertold Brecht wrote that "The angels of Los Angeles / Are tired out with smiling." Truman Capote compared this place to "a jumble of huts in a jungle somewhere." But not every Angeleno flees the area when the need to relax arises; there are places close by or within a relatively easy drive where you can catch your breath. Ask around, and you'll find a surprising number of contemplative niches that begin to contradict the angriest descriptions of the city. Joan Didion even waxed poetic about our gridlock, if you can believe it. "The freeway experience ... is the only secular communion Los Angeles has," she wrote. "Actual participation requires a total surrender, a concentration so intense as to seem a kind of narcosis, a rapture-of-the-freeway. The mind goes clean. The rhythm takes over."

In case you're not ready to experience rush hour as meditation, here are a few less challenging Southland destinations that encourage a feeling of quietude and peace.

Hollywood Forever

Cemeteries are some of the most beautiful and contemplative spots around, Beverly Coop says. Just look, here, at Hollywood Forever. Coop and pal Jenna Moerk are sitting on the steps of the island mausoleum dedicated to William A. Clark Jr., founder of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Ducks preen in the surrounding pond, and headstones and monuments rise from grassy earth in every direction.

"I walk around and wonder at who might've known these people, who grieved for them, who's still grieving for them," says Coop. Moerk adds: "I've been to all the cemeteries around here. It's quiet time. No one bothers you."

Spend an afternoon at Forever and you'll realize two things: that relaxing graveside is far less macabre than it sounds; and that you're not the only one who enjoys it. There are benches throughout the property, but the best vantage points are by the countless shrines and tombs lining the 63-acre sprawl.

Mourning passersby whisper of loved ones lost, but other visitors seek out graves of fallen heroes buried here -- Rudolph Valentino, Jayne Mansfield, Cecil B. DeMille -- or chuckle wistfully about how a stroll through these stones is about all you need to put life into perspective.

Bodhi Tree

Bookstore,

West Hollywood

Seekers of all stripes have long adored the Bodhi Tree Bookstore, and three decades of footsteps have worn pathways into the varnish of its floors. Regulars grab complimentary cups of herbal tea and drag green lawn chairs into favorite corners. Some buy books and others don't, but the staff doesn't seem to care either way.

"This place lends itself to calmness," says longtime visitor Karin Meidel, reclining by a window and paging through a book on a personality profiling system. "People come here looking to improve themselves; people here are a little more evolved."

The selection is heavy on metaphysics and mysticism -- with shelves labeled Astrology; Native American Shamanism; Inner Healing Dreams; UFOs -- but there are also mainstream favorites like the newest "Harry Potter" and plenty of purely rational, scientific fare. Music piped throughout has a soft New Age flavor and complements the scents that emerge from racks of incense, perfumed soaps, candles and essential oils.

Overstimulated? Head next door to the used-book section. The subject matter is the same, but it's so quiet you'll hear your own footfalls, and the only scent in the air is of yellowing pages.

Brand Library,

Glendale

You may think you've come to Brand Library in Glendale for a book, but the surrounding park will beckon. There are soft grassy slopes and sunlight, and if you listen carefully you'll hear the nearby thwack of bats on balls and snippets of laughter on a perpetual breeze. Everywhere you look you'll see another tilted grassy slope, another tree to rest your back against, another city dweller strolling absent-mindedly and not looking the least bit guilty about it.

The library, housed in the 1904 mansion of wealthy Glendale benefactor Leslie C. Brand and resting in the foothills overlooking the city, is renowned for its art and music collections. The pristine white building conjures up an Indian palace with its arches and grand bulbous domes. An art gallery and concert room sit adjacent to the main facilities, and the Brand estate extends on all sides. There's a baseball diamond, a sandy playground for children, and enough grass, open space and hiking trails on the nearly 500 acres out back to exhaust you. Trek far enough and you'll find a waterfall.

Why read at home? Plop down in the library and page through an art book and listen to music. Or close your eyes and forget why you came and let everything go slow.

Ultra-high seats,

Dodger Stadium

It's good that the Dodgers aren't the Yankees. If Dodger Stadium was packed to the brim every game, then there wouldn't be patches of empty seats high in the top deck, and you wouldn't be able to camp out in the worst seats in the park, all by yourself. Average attendance this season is 44,722, which leaves more than 11,000 empty seats on any given evening.

Love baseball or hate it, it doesn't matter. Pack a picnic and head to the game a little late. Buy the cheapest ticket available ($6 for adults, $4 for kids) and climb stairs until your legs ache. Search for wherever people aren't.

Get settled, put your feet up. Down below, throngs of fans cheer and boo and drink and instigate the human wave -- but here at the lip of the giant bowl there's a balance between the fans' tunnel vision bravado and the nearby expanse of sky.

It's not the same with other sports. "You can watch a tight, well-played football game, but it isn't exciting if half the stadium is empty," former baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn once wrote. "But you can go to a ball park on a quiet Tuesday afternoon with only a few thousand people in the place and thoroughly enjoy a one-sided game." Indeed you can, and it doesn't much matter who wins.

James Irvine Garden,

Little Tokyo

The James Irvine Garden in Little Tokyo tells a story that's worth hearing. But first you have to find the space, on a recessed plot at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in Little Tokyo. Take the lobby elevator to the basement and walk through an institutional-looking hallway to the doors that open to the garden. The painstakingly landscaped Japanese-style sanctuary is hidden just enough so that it's often empty.

Cross its perfectly manicured lawn, traverse two wooden bridges and you'll discover the fountainhead. The spring represents "the immigrants coming from Japan," says Robert Hori, director of board and donor relations at the center. Then the stream divides.

"One path is a turbulent, chilly path, and the other moves slowly, contains more placid waters," says Hori. "These are the two sides of the immigration experience: those who saw Japan as their homeland, and those who saw this as their own country." In the end, the two streams merge into a pond that symbolizes the great American melting pot.

Renowned landscape architect Takeo Uesugi designed the space, and during the construction process he was joined by many gardeners, landscape contractors and nurserymen from throughout the Japanese American community who labored free of charge. The garden was finished in 1979 and two years later was given the National Landscape Award from the American Assn. of Nurserymen, presented by Nancy Reagan.

Self-Realization

Fellowship,

Hollywood

It's a non sequitur, to be sure, a sliver of serenity sandwiched between Hollywood's Kaiser Permanente facility and the goliath Scientology headquarters. But resist the urge to flee concrete and traffic and instead pull into the parking lot at 4860 Sunset Blvd. Look for the sign that says "Church of All Religions." Walk under the arched gateway. Follow the marigolds.

Each Self-Realization Fellowship temple has its own character, some sitting on regular-sized city lots and others spanning acres, but the spiritual tradition's late founder Paramahansa Yogananda made sure that each was a mecca of tranquillity. Everyone is welcome, all religions and creeds; bring along your Bible, Koran, favorite Buddhist sutra or Nietzsche book. And don't expect proselytizing.

A lot of people come here from Kaiser, explains Ken Francis, the soft-spoken gardener who tends the property full-time. Some just looking for peace, others awaiting a loved one in surgery. Francis doesn't know all of their stories; he just trims and landscapes and does his best to keep up with the garden's 62-year legacy.

The marigolds merge with impatiens of all colors, leading to a small octagonal gazebo surrounded by greenery, a fish pond and fountains overhung by palm fronds and giant bamboo stalks. Doors stand open at either end, and the gazebo is empty except for marble benches and floor tiles that are cool to the touch despite a scorching sun.

Beyond the gazebo, seek out hidden nooks a la the Secret Garden. A metal chair swathed in bamboo. A clearing through a low trellised gate with just enough space for the stone bench and you.

Beach access, Malibu

When you're feeling hopelessly mired in the complications of city dwelling, it might do you good to toss your day planner and cellphone and crawl toward the coast. Malibu is perfect for sunburn and catharsis, but the crowds can be a problem. Even once-upon-a-time uncrowded beaches such as Point Dume brim with bodies on any moderately sunny day. Where can you find serenity on the sand?

Avoid the beaches with giant reputations. Instead, troll Pacific Coast Highway for obscure stretches accessible from the road via overgrown pathways and rusty metal staircases. Look for the small signs announcing "beach access." Park on the shoulder -- look out for the busy traffic on PCH -- and make your way downward. Be forewarned that some property owners along parts of the Malibu coastline are famously annoyed by beachgoers, and visitors are required by law to stay below the "mean high tide line" (the highest point the tide will likely reach that day). There are no lifeguards posted on these stretches, so don't swim alone, and parents: Watch your children. Despite the hassles, such a journey has much to offer.

There's a gorgeous spot along Escondido beach, just south of Zuma. Another, accessible via the Zonker Harris beach access way, is about 300 yards southeast of the Malibu pier. There are also plenty of access spots along Malibu Colony Road and Broad Beach Road that run parallel to PCH.

Claim your own. But you might want to think twice before telling your friends.

Meher Mount, Ojai

There are plenty of parks and gardens open to the public, but few feel as homey and intimate as your own backyard. It's just this kind of intimacy that distinguishes Meher Mount, the roughly hewn ecumenical meditation center that sits atop Sulphur Mountain overlooking Ojai Valley.

Actually, "meditation center" is a stretch: The place is meditative, certainly, but the only structure on the top plateau is a small house where the caretakers live with their daughter. The space is less formal than it is a friendly backyard that you're welcome to stroll through, sit in and gaze from -- at panoramic views of Mt. Baldy, the Channel Islands, Topa Topa....

The dry and rugged landscape conjures up the retreat's late founder, Agnes Baron, the self-proclaimed "witch of Sulphur Mountain" who spent the last decades of her life fighting an uphill battle to keep Meher Mount open to the public and away from developers. The breezy quietude, broken occasionally by a woodpecker's tapping, recalls Baron's muse, Meher Baba, the Indian spiritual master who kept silence for the last 44 years of his life.

Perhaps the prize spot on the 175-acre property is underneath an old oak tree; ask the caretakers and they'll take you to it. Heavy branches overhang a wooden bench and shade you from the sun, and the atmosphere underneath the leafy umbrella is so peaceful and calm that you may well forget to emerge until the sun's setting.

California Scenario,

Costa Mesa

It might seem impossible to find a contemplative niche across the street from that pulsing hub of consumerism, Costa Mesa's South Coast Plaza. But trust that opposites can coexist, and find yourself standing on the hot asphalt of a parking lot, staring up at a towering black glass office building.

The freeway roars nearby. Walk between that building and the neighboring Jerry's Famous Deli, however, and you'll hear water flowing over rocks. In this interior courtyard a carefully choreographed stream gurgles down the edge of a massive stone triangle and winds its way through the rest of California Scenario, one of two California sculpture gardens designed by artist Isamu Noguchi. The 1.6-acre site, completed in 1982, explores the crossroads of place and identity that so fascinated Noguchi, himself the combination of two lands and cultures -- the child of a Japanese poet father and an American mother.

At first glance this is a landscape of hard surfaces and sharp edges, but a closer look reveals that cut objects combine with others to suggest arcs and curves; that concrete, granite and rock are mitigated by gentle slopes of grass and sand. The garden "combines all the different landscapes of California in one spot: Desert, mountains, plains or central valley," says Amy Lyford, an associate professor of art history at Occidental College. A redwood grove tickles the boundaries of sand and cacti. Shade commingles with sun, wet with dry.

Los Angeles subway

Remember when you were little, sitting in the back seat of the car while mom or dad drove? You'd stare at your hands or out the window and let the engine's droning carry you toward sleep. As an adult, a ride in the back seat might still serve as a soothing lullaby. But how often do you get that opportunity?

A subway ride can come close.

The Los Angeles subway and light rail systems are vastly underused, so in the middle of the day or later in the evening cars are plenty empty for make-believe. Plug in to an iPod if that's your thing, or just listen to the whirring of wheels-on-tracks and stare out at Los Angeles from above and underneath. Let your eyelids droop, and end up wherever you end up. Then grab another train and head home.

Or stay awake and experiment, explore. Chinatown to Union Station on the Gold Line, then on into Hollywood via the Red Line. As daylight wanes, consider taking a break from riding to watch the sun set from the raised platform of your choice.

And beyond

This list is just the beginning; once you start looking, the region begins to seem like a contemplative place after all. Other worthwhile destinations include the Getty Museum complex, the garden behind the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, the sprawling acres of trees and flowers at the nearby Huntington Library and hiking paths in Griffith Park, Angeles National Park and Runyon Canyon. The sandy landscapes of Death Valley and Joshua Tree are must-sees. And of course there are hundreds of oases that you'll stumble upon if you encounter this bustling cityscape in the right frame of mind.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Peaceful places

Hollywood Forever Cemetery

6000 Santa Monica Blvd.

Hollywood, (323) 469-1181

www.hollywoodforever.com

Open 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily

Bodhi Tree Bookstore

8585 Melrose Ave.

West Hollywood, (310) 659-1733

www.bodhitree.com

New bookstore, open 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily. Used bookstore, open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily.

Brand Library

1601 W. Mountain St.

Glendale, (818) 548-2051

library.ci.glendale.ca.us/brand/brand_index.asp

Park hours: daylight until 10 p.m.

Library hours: 1 to 9 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1 to 6 p.m. Wednesdays, 1 to 5 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays

Dodger Stadium

1000 Elysian Park Ave.

Los Angeles, (323) 224-1500

losangeles.dodgers.mlb.comfor game schedule.

James Irvine Garden

244 S. San Pedro St.

Los Angeles (Little Tokyo)

(213) 628-2725

www.jaccc.org/jaccc/irvine_garden.html

Open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily

Hollywood Self-Realization Fellowship

4860 Sunset Blvd.

Hollywood, (323) 661-8006

www.yogananda-srf.org/temples/hollywood/hollywood.htmlOpen 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays

Malibu Beach

access ways

For more information about Malibu beach access ways or for directions, contact the Los Angeles County Department of Beaches and Harbors: beaches.co.la.ca.us/bandh/main.htm or (310) 305-9545.

Gates open at dawn, close at dusk.

There are no lifeguards or other safety features at these beaches; use at your own risk.

Meher Mount

9902 Sulphur Mountain Road

Ojai, (805) 640-0000

members.tripod.com/Ezad/Open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays; noon to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays

The caretakers request that visitors call before arrival.

Los Angeles subway

Schedules at www.mta.net or call 1-800-COMMUTE.

Feeling good about their work

2005-09-20T11:00:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Tuesday September 20, 2005

[THE EMMYS]
Feeling good about their work
* At the parties, TV's stars are positively giddy about their medium.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony and Maria Elena Fernandez, Times Staff Writers

FINALLY, television is king. At least, that's what Patricia Richardson of "The West Wing" was saying. She was standing on the red carpet outside the "Entertainment Tonight"/People magazine post-Emmy soiree and explaining matter-of-factly that "TV is better than movies. Look at shows like 'Six Feet Under' and 'West Wing,' and then look at all the dreck Hollywood is putting out."

That was the consensus at Emmy parties around town Sunday night, where celebrities sick of their status as show biz's second-class citizens (a theme even Emmy host Ellen DeGeneres riffed on during the broadcast) celebrated a blockbuster year for the small screen -- and a lackluster year for the big one.

"More and more people get their information and entertainment from TV," said television icon Don Johnson, who has a new show, "Just Legal," on the WB. "Film has become a boutique business. The time has come when we're going to get all our entertainment in our home."

Inside at the Mondrian Hotel, the dark, musky scent of chocolate all but wiped out perfumes and colognes, leading revelers by their noses to the Godiva room. Truffles were everywhere, hundreds of them, glued to the walls in circles and swirls like something out of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."

An open patio brimmed with bodies surrounding a stage. It was a tide of muted colors -- black is certainly back. It's exciting to be in TV these days, said "The O.C.'s" Peter Gallagher, "to be involved in this time of change. The problem in movies is that the old formulas aren't getting the returns the studios are hoping for. There's a certain danger in defining the audience too narrowly." Not everyone was optimistic that TV will become the dominant form, however. "Everything's cyclical, it comes and goes," said Kelsey Grammer, looking tired.

Earlier in the evening, award winner Felicity Huffman and husband William H. Macy were having a blast at the Governors Ball. "Those housewives can dance like there's no tomorrow," Macy said. Of his wife's award, he gushed, "I'm so proud, I just knew she would win. I don't know how I knew but I did.... That Emmy looks good on her."

At the Roosevelt Hotel, the TV Guide/Inside TV bash was in full swing, by far the most attended and anticipated party of the night. Anything at the Roosevelt these days is a sought-out invitation, but it helped that Missy Elliott was rocking the house.

"It was a great performance," said Don Wilson, who is guest starring as an X-ray tech on "Grey's Anatomy" this season. "She had very high energy, had the crowd jumpin' a little bit."

Afterward, the younger set danced inside to hip-hop and oldies near yet another decadent chocolate oasis -- this one sponsored by Dove. The color scheme was chocolate brown and orange with white flourishes to match the renovated hotel's class and glamour.

There were specialty drinks named after the nominated dramas and comedies. "Scrubs" shots were served in test tubes; in honor of "Lost," there were mai tais. For "Will & Grace," there was a Manhattan with a Twist; and in homage to the "Desperate Housewives," a Sour Apple Pucker Martini.

Celebrities partied in the balconies surrounding the pool as well as the pool area and lobby inside. Among the famous faces spotted: Ricardo Antonio Chavira and Mark Moses, both of "Desperate Housewives"; Jeremy Piven and Adrian Grenier of "Entourage"; Mathew St. Patrick of "Six Feet Under" and "Reunion"; John C. McGinley and Neil Flynn, both of "Scrubs"; Gabrielle Union and Eric Benet.

But no actors seemed to be having a better time than the cast of "Lost," who celebrated together by the serpentine bar and went nuts when Ian Somerhalder, whose character, Boone, died on the island, appeared at the party.

There wasn't a chocolate room at the HBO party at the Pacific Design Center, but the Bollywood-themed celebration was by far the night's most elaborately designed. Veteran event designer Billy Butchkavitz flew to India to do research and returned with miniature temples, which he meticulously reproduced as life-size hangout areas spread throughout a palatial blue tent and outside. Waiters strode about dressed in white cotton Indian-style tunics, refreshing plates of samosas and vats of delicious mango and pistachio rice pudding.

"Everybody Loves Raymond" actors held court around their reserved table. "We were all happy to be remembered," said Brad Garrett, who played Robert Barone. "It was awkward when they read our name. I try not to eat during the show, but Ellen DeGeneres gave me a piece of cheese, which I was just about to put in my mouth. Then they read the winner and my wife told me, 'Put the cheese down!' "

Costar Doris Roberts brought along her son and her two young grandsons as party dates. "I 100% thought 'Desperate Housewives' would win," she said, grinning, Harry Winston diamond earrings dangling from her lobes. "But this is wonderful. I did nine fabulous, wonderful years. I was working. I won three Emmys. I can't complain."

As the night waned, Quentin Tarantino shot out of the party, wearing a white shirt festooned with dragons. "I would've loved to have won," he said in his trademark nearly nerdy voice. "But 'Lost' is so good." His theory as to why TV is so popular these days? "All the episodes come out on DVD. That's so cool."

Nearby, Macy Gray hustled toward the valet. "It was a cool party," she said. "I didn't know anybody, but I had a good time."

Times staff writer Merrill Balassone contributed to this report.

L.A. Renoir Paints the Way to Recovery of Stolen Rembrandt

2005-09-17T10:59:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Saturday September 17, 2005

L.A. Renoir Paints the Way to Recovery of Stolen Rembrandt
* Seizure of the French artist's work here leads to Denmark, where the last of three works taken in 2000 is recovered.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

The last of three valuable paintings stolen from a Swedish museum nearly five years ago was recovered Thursday in Copenhagen when an FBI agent posing as a buyer offered to purchase the Rembrandt self-portrait.

The recovery was the latest installment in a saga with all the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster, and on Friday, it turned out to have an L.A. connection.

The crime that set the tale in motion occurred Dec. 22, 2000, when three men with machine guns stormed the Swedish National Museum in Stockholm, grabbed the Rembrandt and two paintings by Renoir, and made an elaborate getaway that included tossing spikes on the road, blowing up parked cars and zipping away on a speedboat with a haul estimated by the FBI to be worth about $45 million.

A multinational investigation followed, and Stockholm police quickly retrieved one of the paintings, Renoir's "Conversation." But then the trail went cold -- until this year, when an FBI unit investigating a Eurasian crime syndicate came across the second Renoir, "Young Parisian," in Los Angeles.

That recovery led the FBI and a host of local, national and international law enforcement agencies to track down the Rembrandt self-portrait and mount a sting operation in a Copenhagen hotel.

The suspects, four Swedish residents who have been arrested and are awaiting indictment, were asking for half a million dollars, according to the FBI, a fraction of the painting's estimated $36-million value.

The Renoir arrived here through Los Angeles International Airport about two years ago, according to J.P. Weis, special agent in charge of the FBI's L.A. office, who spoke alongside representatives of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agencies at a news conference Friday in the Federal Building in Westwood.

Nearby, an easel displayed the recovered Renoir, featuring a small scratch above the subject's ear -- superficial damage to the painting's varnish that authorities said could easily be fixed.

The representatives of the agencies involved declined to address most details of the local recovery, citing an ongoing investigation into an organized crime ring.

It is not unusual for stolen artwork to become caught up in other illegal activities, said Sheriff's Capt. Stephen Johnson.

"It's often used as collateral for various kinds of illegal transactions," he said. Stolen art this famous and expensive is essentially unsalable, said Scott Schaefer, curator of paintings at the J. Paul Getty Museum, who was in charge of authenticating the Renoir and was also at the news conference.

But if the illicit owner is intent on selling, he said, Los Angeles is a good locale in which to make an attempt.

"There are both private and public investors here who are big buyers," Schaeffer said.

Not Bourbon St., but it'll do

2005-09-12T10:57:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Monday September 12, 2005

KATRINA'S AFTERMATH
Not Bourbon St., but it'll do
* Creative types who were forced to flee New Orleans are regrouping and reconnecting in laid-back Lafayette, La.

By Reed Johnson and Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writers

LAFAYETTE, La. -- Like those of so many artists and musicians, Peter Nu's life was scattered to the four winds when Hurricane Katrina ripped up the Gulf Coast two weeks ago. He's still not sure when he'll be able to go home to New Orleans, and what sort of job prospects may greet him once he gets there.

But this last weekend, Nu was back tapping out jangly melodies on his steel drum at an impromptu art fair here in the heart of Cajun country, about two hours northwest of New Orleans. Admittedly, the crowds were a bit smaller and not quite as funky as those in the French Quarter. But Nu seemed relieved just to be making music again.

"Every time I get settled, some cosmic force moves me," Nu said, taking a cigarette break between sessions in front of Chris' Po-Boy, a local sandwich shop. "When they let people back in [to New Orleans], I might go back. But I might stay here."

Since Katrina slammed into this region of soggy landscapes and resolute people, Baton Rouge has become a temporary command center for businesses and planners drawing up blueprints for the area's comeback. Many artists, on the other hand, have passed over the buttoned-down state capital and headed for laid-back Lafayette. It's likely that hundreds, if not thousands, of musicians, artists, photographers, writers, designers and other creative talents have fled New Orleans in Katrina's wake, both the world-famous and the not-so-famous. Some have strayed as far away as Memphis, Nashville, Houston, New York and Los Angeles.

But few places are likely to absorb as many artists, or welcome them as handsomely, as this easygoing, culture-hungry city of roughly 110,000, give or take several thousand evacuees currently lodged in the Cajundome. Whether for reasons of family, history, geography, or just because many people in both places would rather pound rocks than be caught living elsewhere in the state, New Orleans and Lafayette are growing cozier by the day.

"There are an awful lot of people here who have friends and family in New Orleans in general," said Marce Lacouture, a musician who hosts a culture program on Lafayette public radio. "There are a lot of people who know each other from working at the [New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival]. There are an awful lot of musicians and artists who have connections here. I know of several places where there are 10 to 12 people who are all writers, artists or musicians, all staying at a friend's place. We're in the process now of trying to figure out just how many musicians are here."

Settled by refugees of another massive upheaval -- the expulsion of French-speaking immigrants from British-ruled Canada some 250 years ago, known as "Le Grand Derangement" -- Lafayette is the epicenter of Cajun culture. It's an amiable hotpotch of African American and French-Canadian cultural flavors, and the community regards itself as a kind of sister city to Creole-influenced New Orleans, on the other side of a vast swamp.

Barry Ancelet, a folklorist and professor of Francophone Studies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, said that improvisation lies at the heart of the regional culture, whether in food, music, architecture or any other art form. Following both world wars, he said, there were systematic efforts made to get the local Cajuns to abandon their native culture, stop speaking French and assimilate with the rest of the country. But those efforts were resisted, and now it's widely recognized that the region's quirky charms represent a rich and irreplaceable legacy. He believes that Katrina has intensified that local sense of identity. "When something like this happens," he said, "the old stuff comes roaring out."

It sure roared out Saturday night at the Cajun/zydeco benefit concert for the Red Cross held in a downtown park. Dubbed "Banding Together," the event corralled local musicians, displaced artists from New Orleans and nationally known performers such as Michael Doucet of BeauSoleil before a howling, boogeying, red-beans-and-rice-eating crowd estimated at 7,000. Many people here have responded to the Crescent City's suffering the way a protective younger sibling might to an older, more brittle one in distress.

"We've got to do something to help these people," said Nate Williams, 18, the accordion-squeezing front man of Lil' Nathan & the Zydeco Big Timers Band, shaking off the sweat backstage after he and his band wrapped up their set here at the benefit, which was expected to raise several thousand dollars. A Lafayette native, Williams said he was impressed but not surprised that his hometown had turned out in force to support the troubled folks farther downstate. "A piece of our culture has been, not torn away, but damaged," he said. "It's not going to be the same if they can't get it back together."

For their part, some of the displaced artists who've relocated here temporarily say they feel right at home -- at least as "at home" as possible when your house or apartment may be under 6 feet of water, your instruments are missing or destroyed, and your former bandmates could be somewhere halfway across the country. Though Lafayette may not be Bourbon Street, some evacuees say, this city affords a dry place to lay your guitar or fiddle, and a supportive atmosphere.

"We're doing pretty well," said Eddie Bo, a well-known jazz, blues and funk piano player, who's staying with a friend in Church Point, 20 miles northwest of Lafayette. Most of his band is now in the Lafayette area, Bo said, and the members are already trying to line up gigs. "I don't think we're going to have that same ambience anymore that's always been there in New Orleans. We'll have some of it. But everybody's going to be different."

Like other Lafayette residents, Karen Hamilton, who's hosting Bo and his sister, Veronica Randolph, and used to run a New Orleans coffee shop and cafe with them called Check Your Bucket, emphasizes the positive things that have resulted from the uproar of the last two weeks. "God doesn't close a door without opening up a window," she said, "something good has to happen from this."

The decision of so many artists to relocate here is no coincidence. Lafayette has a cultural richness that many much larger urban areas would envy. Saturday night, hundreds of locals and out-of-towners roamed the bars, restaurants and art galleries of the city's restored downtown. Young parents pushing toddlers in strollers passed by Goth rockers lolling against the brick building facades.

Architect Greg Walls, who works in the David Courville Architect firm housed in a stylishly renovated building, said of Lafayette: "It's such a small town, and yet it still has that metropolitan feel."

Maureen Brennan, executive director of the Cite des Arts, an arts and educational center housed in a rambling downtown building, said she is looking for ways to open up the facility as a performance venue for displaced jazz and blues musicians. Cite des Arts already hosts Cajun and zydeco dance classes, live theater performances and French classes, among many other activities. "I'm from Oklahoma, but one of the things that's kept me here is the incredible amount of talent," Brennan said.

At least one other downtown hangout, the 307 Jazz & Blues Club, is assisting musicians to find work, pay their bills and repair or replace their equipment.

While musicians so far are getting the bulk of the media attention, other types of artists have been receiving, and offering, shelter from the storm. John Perret, a painter who lives in Lafayette but displayed his work at Jackson Square in the French Quarter, organized an open-air show for himself and other displaced artists over the weekend. Perret was part of an ad-hoc flotilla of 400 boats from the Lafayette area that helped rescue Katrina survivors. Now he and his wife are hosting several New Orleans artist friends and friends-of-friends at their home.

Scott Jordan, editor of the Independent Weekly, an alternative newspaper, said he has about 17 people staying with him -- adults, a baby and other children, plus two cats. Many are writers or photographers, including the current editor of the New Orleans alternative paper Gambit Weekly. "There's a lot of energy in the house, there's good energy here," Jordan said. "For folks who are here, they need to address things as soon as possible, like health insurance, mortgage, food stamps. There's not a lot of time for moping around. There's lots of activity. The phone rings constantly. We've got four computers running now. Everybody's working, trying to do as much as they can, not only to try and figure out their own personal situations, but to get some answers for why this happened and where we go from here."

Some cultural workers here believe that out of this disaster-induced fusion of Cajun and Creole, New Orleans and Lafayette cultures, striking new hybrid art forms may emerge. "You pull out an accordion in any other part of the country and people run the other way," said Matthew Goldman, a music producer and press and advertising director for the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival who is heading up Project Heal. "I think people in New Orleans are going to pair up with people here and make music here that people have never made before."

Standing backstage under a beautiful crescent moon at the end of Saturday's concert, Lafayette hospice worker Margaret Gray expressed the thoughts of many people here. "We're like the best-kept secret in Louisiana," she said.

But maybe not for long.

Reed Johnson reported from Lafayette and Steven Barrie-Anthony from L.A.

Time Is Running Out for Stranded Pets

2005-09-08T10:54:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Thursday September 08, 2005

Katrina's Aftermath
Time Is Running Out for Stranded Pets
* Thousands of dogs, cats and other animals left behind by hurricane evacuees are slowly dying as rescuers struggle to save them.

By Reed Johnson and Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writers

NEW ORLEANS -- Peter Block was waiting patiently for an emergency bus to Baton Rouge with his two black Great Danes, Venus and Serena, and Jasmine, a border collie mix.

Half his house, near the 17th Street Canal, was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, Block said. The rest was swept away when a levee broke.

In recent months, Block's father and two sisters died of cancer. Now, with $116 in his pocket, Block is hoping to start a new life somewhere else with his dogs.

"It's what I live for," Block said as he nuzzled and petted his three canines. "My girls."

These are tough times in the Crescent City for both man and beast. Though Katrina's floodwaters are slowly receding, the storm and its ruinous aftermath have turned even the simplest tasks -- getting some sleep, scrounging a meal not tainted with E. coli bacteria -- into Herculean labors.

That's as true for the thousands of human survivors who still haven't fled their ravaged city as it is for the hundreds of dogs, cats, birds, reptiles and other pets that have been left behind to fend for themselves. Some are still grimly hanging onto life. They sit forlornly on the rooftops of flooded homes, slowly starving to death as rescuers in boats ignore them, looking for people instead. Some have even tried swimming to boats, only to be rebuffed.

Many other pets didn't make it, and their bodies now lie in pools of scummy water or by the side of highways. Even those lucky animals whose owners refused to part with them, come hell or high water, have been suffering right alongside their masters.

Like so many of the problems in this frazzled city, the scale of the abandoned-animal crisis caught even experienced players off guard.

"It was obviously worse than anyone imagined," Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States, the nation's largest animal-welfare group, said in a phone interview from Washington.

The society has about 250 workers in the storm-hit area "as part of a team that we're controlling," including workers from the Los Angeles Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Oregon Humane Society and other organizations, Pacelle said.

"We were on the ground Tuesday, the day after the hurricane hit, but we were excluded from going in by state and federal authorities for the first several days," Pacelle said. "We've received 2,000 e-mails and phone calls from people who evacuated from New Orleans, who left animals in their homes and are pleading with us to rescue them. That's just in New Orleans. It doesn't count surrounding areas."

Pacelle said there may be 50,000 pets trapped in New Orleans homes. "The clock is really ticking. It's tearing us up knowing that so many animals are in need and [we] can't get to every one on our own."

Earlier during the crisis, rescuers had been ordered to save people but leave their pets. But "that works against the larger imperatives for disaster relief because people will not leave without their pets, and many people will go back in to get their pets," Pacelle said.

Animal rescue workers slog through the water and muck carrying crowbars to pry open or smash their way into houses where pets are believed to be. "I've been bitten, scratched, had [my] head cracked open," said Jane Garrison, a volunteer rescuer from South Carolina. But it's worth it, she said, because after a long Wednesday, Garrison and her four-person team had 18 animals -- dogs, cats, chinchillas and rabbits -- in crates in their truck.

Many animals, cats especially, won't come when called, so Garrison and others spend hours peering into unfamiliar nooks and crannies, cooing and soothing and finally grabbing. If they can't find the escaped animal, they'll put out a bowl of food and water and make note of the location. They've crawled into houses surrounded by fire, and pulled dogs off rooftops that are sagging and about to collapse.

"The suffering is overwhelming," Garrison said. "Sometimes they have food left, but all their water is gone. Every second is critical."

The good news is that so far, most of the animals left indoors seem to be alive.

More aid may be coming. Information is available on the Internet at katrina.petfinder.com. The ASPCA also has a searchable online database to help reunite pets with their owners. Volunteers who want to help can register on the society's website.

Several temporary animal shelters have been set up around southern Louisiana and Mississippi, some next to shelters for human evacuees so people can visit their pets. Louisiana State University is providing shelter for hundreds of dogs and cats in an arena.

One such shelter in Gonzalez, La., is taking photographs of every animal and uploading them to the Internet.

Besides pets, the flooding has damaged some of New Orleans' animal attractions. The electricity failure meant there was no ability to pump oxygen into the water at the New Orleans aquarium, resulting in the deaths of about one-third of the 4,000 fish there. At the zoo, 12 people are trying to take care of about 1,400 animals.

After seeing how Hurricane Andrew nearly leveled Miami's zoo in 1992, leaving wild animals roaming the region, the New Orleans facility upgraded its hurricane preparations, so losses there were minimal.

At the edge of the French Quarter on Wednesday morning, Steve Dey, 39, was hand-painting an impromptu street sign that he hoped might draw some help.

Dey and his wife, Dewanda, 38, have been looking after the pet dogs of two elderly neighbors who fled the city a couple of days ago and are now barred by disaster officials from returning.

Since the hurricane struck, Dey has seen many instances of human beings not at their best. "The people around here, they love their dogs more than they love their fellow man, and rightly so," said Dey, who manages a small grocery store in the French Quarter. "Sad thing is, the animals around here are better behaved than the people. They're trained. They're not violent. You can walk 'em around without leashes."

By late Wednesday morning, a faint hope had arisen as a handful of residents, feeling deserted by authorities, chartered a bus to take them and their pets to Baton Rouge.

As they waited, a detachment of U.S. Army soldiers arrived to say that the federal government would fly people and their pets for free to any destination they chose.

Capt. Jamie Uptgraft said he and his men had spent the last two days rounding up animals and persuading their owners to leave the devastated city. "As long as they're in a cage, we'll take 'em," he said of the pets.

That was welcome news to Chris Buchner, 46, and her husband, Charlie Lilly, 46, who were lugging their two cats, Rose, 18, and Lucy, 5, with them in cages, along with their luggage, as they headed toward the arranged pickup point on the edge of the French Quarter.

The couple said they had spent days hiding in their home, afraid to come out while thugs roamed the streets firing guns.

"We really thought we'd come to the end because it was Armageddon out there," Buchner said.

Johnson reported from New Orleans and Barrie-Anthony from Los Angeles.

Family and Friends Hold Last Blast for Rebel Writer

2005-08-21T10:52:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Sunday August 21, 2005

THE NATION
Family and Friends Hold Last Blast for Rebel Writer
* Hunter S. Thompson wanted his ashes shot from a cannon. In a star-studded tribute at his beloved Colorado farm, he got his wish.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

WOODY CREEK, Colo. -- At dusk Saturday, about 350 friends and relatives of Hunter S. Thompson stood outside and stared into an inky sky, drinking, waiting. In front of them loomed a massive monument in the shape of the late writer's icon -- a dagger topped by a "gonzo" fist -- roughly 2 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty.

Thompson loved explosions. He adored guns, the boom, kickback, the smell of powder and metal; and also the kind of explosions that arose from his typewriter, such as his classic book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," which sent shockwaves through the written world and helped drive a revolutionary brand of participatory journalism.

So it seemed fitting that a monument to Thompson should double as a cannon, spewing forth fireworks and a series of 34 exploding shells containing his ashes, and that the ashes should drift and settle across Owl Farm, Thomson's beloved ranch in Woody Creek. They did, at 8:45 p.m.

The revelry was at Thomson's behest, said Anita Thompson, his widow.

"He said many times he wanted to be shot out of a cannon," she said. "The most important thing to Hunter was that we celebrate his life, get together in a beautiful gathering."

The ceremony came six months to the day after the ailing 67-year-old Thompson shot himself in his kitchen at Owl Farm.

Actor Johnny Depp, who befriended Thompson when he portrayed the writer in the 1998 film based on "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," picked up most of the tab for the party. Other actors and Thompson pals attending the send-off included Bill Murray and Sean Penn.

The night kicked off at 6 p.m. with guests being shuttled up the mountain and run through a dense security checkpoint aimed at keeping out looky-loos and the media, which were distinctly not invited.

"There are a lot of people trying to get in," said chief of security David Meeker from Specialized Protective Services in Aspen. Fifty to 100 guards patrolled the perimeter of Owl Farm, Meeker said. "For this size of event, this is by far the most manpower I've ever used."

At the nearby Woody Creek Tavern, a favorite haunt of Thompson's, many of the uninvited but interested gathered to witness in some way the explosion that would disperse Thompson into the nighttime. As the bursts of red, white and blue sparkles spread upward in the distance, many broke into cheers.

It lasted for about a minute, which disappointed some.

"It's not as impressive as it was built up to be," said Gabe Johnson, 35, a marketer for a technology firm who made the trek from Seattle. "But the trip was still worthwhile. Hunter stood for a lifestyle that's disappearing now because people take themselves too seriously. That's why I came."

Before the fireworks, the guests at Owl Farm were served food and drink in a tented bar area on a platform decked out with the kind of furniture and memorabilia that Thompson preferred.

There were stuffed peacocks, a platinum blond wig hanging from a metal gong, a picnic table, blowup dolls -- "In case anyone feels lonely," said Matt Mosely, spokesman for the Thompson family -- a black refrigerator and plenty of mostly brown-colored, well-broken-in furniture.

"I call it late lounge era," Mosely said. "Comfortable, cozy, nice but not elegant."

Anita Thompson said she included "portraits of Hunter with all his favorite writers, like Mark Twain, William Faulkner and Steinbeck."

Later, those in attendance said eulogies were offered by Anita Thompson, Depp and others including journalist Ed Bradley and Thompson's son, Juan Thompson.

And then, leading the way to the final blastoff, the guests heard music on an outdoor stage by Lyle Lovett and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band with renditions of the Thompson favorites, "My Old Kentucky Home" and "Will The Circle Be Unbroken."

It was ironic that journalists were barred from attending, noted George Tobia, Thompson's lawyer and friend. The writer spent his career leapfrogging over barricades and barriers. "If something were to keep Hunter out, he'd come swooping in over the mountains," Tobia said.

Driven by sympathy for the ticketless, Anita Thompson announced early in the day that she would personally deliver a videotape of the launch to a local tavern later that night. "I feel terrible that we couldn't allow everyone in here," she said.

Mike Runsvold and Brian Harvey of Boise, Idaho, were perhaps the only invitees who had never met Thompson. They found a "golden ticket" -- think "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" -- hidden inside a boxed bottle of Gonzo Imperial Porter. Flying Dog Brewery of Denver produced the beer as a tribute to Thompson, and the ticket allowed entry for two.

"I had been planning on riding my motorcycle over here this summer and meeting Hunter," Harvey said Saturday afternoon, grinning over beers at the Hotel Jerome bar in Aspen. Nearby, longtime Thompson illustrator and gonzo compatriot Ralph Steadman sat drinking and chatting with Murray.

In the days and hours leading up to the service, the Hotel Jerome served as the Aspen hangout for journalists and Thompson pals -- often the same people. Writing about Thompson in his absence called for a certain backward restraint, some journalists noted.

Getting drunk was accepted behavior; acting like an uptight strait-laced journalist was not. As a Thompson friend informed a young reporter who walked into the hotel bar with notepad in hand: "Put the pad away; don't approach people like that. Now's the time to have a drink and hang out."

Depp and Anita Thompson and others began planning the event soon after Thompson's death. The monument was built in a Los Angeles shop and trucked to Woody Creek in pieces, Mosely said. Thompson's ashes were inserted into explosive shells by the Zambelli Fireworks company in New Castle, Pa., and the shells were returned via armored truck.

But Saturday night's celebration was about more than Thompson's legendary excesses, said his son Juan Thompson, who was standing outside the Jerome hours before the memorial.

"Most people know Hunter as a drug fiend and a wild man," he said. "That image obscured things that were more important about him. He's really an idealist. He had faith that things could be changed for the better."

Rapper Clears the Field

2005-08-18T10:51:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Thursday August 18, 2005

The State
COLUMN ONE
Rapper Clears the Field
* Snoop Dogg uses a tricked-out bus and star power to lure kids to his new league. Some say he's made an end run around existing teams.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

The sun is setting a burnished orange, and three groups of children jog across the football field in their pads and helmets to the sideline. It's quitting time on a pleasant summer evening, no school for a while yet, but 10-year-old Xavier Bernal isn't grinning.

For more than four decades, this field at Rowland High School in Rowland Heights has teemed with football players ages 5 to 14, so many jostling Rowland Raiders that each of the program's age divisions overran the next. But last year's nine squads have dwindled to three, and the usually robust cheerleading squad has gone from 80 girls to nine.

To hear Xavier tell it, blame falls squarely on the youth football league's most famous and controversial former coach.

"I'm mad at Coach Snoop," he says. "He was so cool; he told me to play my heart out and to play everything I've got. But now I just want to ask him, why did he take all our players?"

Walking with Xavier toward the parking lot, parents and coaches describe rapper Snoop Dogg as a modern-day Pied Piper luring football players with his song "Drop It Like It's Hot" blasting from a school bus pimped out with enough bass, TV screens and gadgetry to persuade any kid to sell out the old for the new.

Snoop rocked the youth football world two years ago when he volunteered as a Rowland Raiders "daddy coach," and then again last month when he broke from the franchise to start his own conference. The Raiders aren't the only team in the Orange County Junior All-American Football Conference to feel the screws; Long Beach and Compton teams, also in competition with Snoop's new league, report similar hemorrhaging.

And as Snoop talks of expanding the Snoop Youth Football League beyond its initial eight Southern California chapters, parents and coaches in the old conference accuse him and his agents of mounting a campaign of sabotage and misinformation.

Snoop's camp calls the furor sour grapes over its new league, which it says will be more effective and will better serve cash-strapped urban communities.

What's clear is that there's more at stake than football: Both practical goals, such as gang prevention and scholastic achievement, and more amorphous concepts, such as tradition and community, pervade dialogue at either end.

To understand Xavier Bernal's gripe, first enter a world where many families stick with teams for generations and involvement rarely ends with graduation from the program. Xavier's mother spent her girlhood afternoons cheerleading for the Rowland Raiders and later became the cheer coach and league treasurer. His grandfather has been coach, chapter president and now conference commissioner.

For Xavier and others, games are part competition, part family reunion.

Snoop, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, also has deep roots in youth football. He remembers the life lessons he learned while playing for the Long Beach Poly Junior Jackrabbits.

"It taught me how to work with other kids," he says, "how to have a relationship, how to learn. My coach taught me about religion as well as football, about keeping God in everything we did."

So two years ago, with Snoop's two boys old enough to play league ball, he enrolled them in the Rowland Raiders program, signed on as an offensive coordinator and weathered the media hullabaloo that ensued.

League Commissioner Bob Barna received "some e-mails from parents, saying, 'How dare you let somebody like that be with our youth?' " Barna says. "But did he bring anything negative? No. He acted like a dad."

A very cool dad. Coach Snoop was the talk of football fields and playgrounds throughout the Southland. Then, as the season came to a close, some of the league's all-stars received recruitment calls from the rapper, asking them to join the Raiders the next year. The league allows 15% of a team's players to come from outside its immediate area, Barna says, and a team can recruit without limit in cities where no team exists.

Snoop took full advantage, nabbing players like Derrick Marbrough from Long Beach. "I played against him, and then he wanted me on his team, so he called my mom," says Derrick, 11. "I switched teams."

"It was so cool," remembers Duon Rucker, who also came to the Rowland Raiders from Long Beach as a 10-year-old last year. "Everybody at school was all over me, 'Are you about to go with Snoop? Can you get me his autograph?' Everybody wanted to get a picture of me and him together."

And then there was the bus.

"It's a mini-school bus," Derrick says, "and it had TVs in it where we watched our games from last week."

"Yeah," Duon enthuses, "and everywhere we went, you could hear us coming down the street, we had like hydraulics from all the bass! We listened to Snoop's music -- our theme song was 'Drop It Like It's Hot.' "

Last year's Rowland Raiders team of 8- to 10-year-olds, with Snoop as offensive and defensive coordinator and his older son playing quarterback, steamrolled through the season unbeaten. At the team's awards banquet, the coach gave each player a DVD of team games with a special Snoop Dogg tribute to the Raiders bumping in the background.

Then, for the second year in a row, Snoop culled the best players for an all-star team to represent the Rowland Raiders in the youth football postseason. They bused out to play other California all-star teams before heading to Jacksonville, Fla., to compete in the final competition and brainchild of their coach -- the "Snooperbowl" -- a day before Super Bowl XXXIX.

More than 15,000 fans crowded in to watch the Raiders play the Jacksonville Junior All Stars (or perhaps to watch halftime performer Snoop), and the team from Rowland didn't disappoint. On the way home, Raiders all-stars lugged custom trophies donated by Tiffany & Co.

"This is a gentleman who wants it all, who wants the best kids so he can win the championship," says Frank Romero, president of the Raiders. "He didn't go through the chain of command like he was supposed to. He had the say-so of everything. It was a very difficult year."

Nobody accuses Snoop of being a derelict coach; far from it. Most grumblers say that Snoop was overly generous and doted on his team, giving them new jerseys, letterman jackets, trophies and championship rings, even though chapter rules stipulate that if any team gets new equipment, every team does, Romero says.

"After he won his first league championship game, he went out and bought scooters for everybody," Romero says. "He never said anything to the league, never asked permission. I had parents calling me all the time, asking, 'How come Snoop Dogg's team is getting this?' "

Snoop had complaints of his own. The residency requirements for joining teams seemed too strict, especially when they prevented kids from playing alongside friends and family.

"My son lives in Diamond Bar," says Shante Broadus, Snoop's wife, "but his cousin lives in Fontana, so he couldn't come and play. Sometimes boys just want to be together."

The league fees also bothered Snoop; $175 per child for the Rowland Raiders program (other league chapters charge more) precludes poor families from participating, he says, and those families have trouble driving their children to distant fields for away games.

"It's so easy for a kid to join a gang, to do drugs," Snoop says. "We should make it that easy to be involved in football and academics."

About midway through the 2004 season, it hit Snoop.

"I don't have to go against the system," he remembers thinking. "The best thing to do would be to create my own league, as opposed to me being used and them getting a lot of the credit." It would be "mine," he says. "Snoop began it."

After the season, top players in the Orange County conference received phone calls asking them to join the Snoop Youth Football League, which has no pesky residence requirements and cheaper rates -- $100 for the first child in a family, half price for any others, incidentals like cleats and pads included.

Many families and even some coaches hopped aboard, while chapter loyalists wondered aloud if last season's pageantry had been orchestrated to "steal our kids."

"I think what [Snoop] did is just so shallow," says Sandy Gonzales, a sales executive who has two boys on Rowland Raiders football squads and a girl in cheerleading. "He came here just so that he could take away from us what we'd taken many years to establish."

In Compton, chapter President Toni Smith fielded calls from confused parents "asking me why the Compton Titans have folded and are now the Compton Vikings," she says. The Vikings are the local Snoop chapter. The Titans, in fact, are still fielding teams. But Compton's usual 12 teams are down to five -- and Smith's son is among the kids left without a squad.

Even Snoop's alma mater, the Long Beach Poly Junior Jackrabbits, is struggling to stay afloat. "This has affected us in a terrible way," says Sarah L. Morrison, chapter president for 27 years. "I don't know if our program will exist after this season."

The Jackrabbits, part of the Orange County conference, are officially known as the Long Beach Poly Junior Athletic Assn., while the Snoop chapter registered as the Long Beach Poly Youth Athletic Assn.

"Only one word is different," says Morrison, who has written a letter asking that Snoop change his chapter's name. "They advertise in the paper, and who's going to notice that small word?"

The charge that Orange County youth football is too expensive is smoke and mirrors, Morrison says. "Our organization has never turned a kid away who cannot pay," she says. "We try to get donations for over half the kids who come to us. I have paid out of my own pocket for kids to play."

In Rowland Heights, not everyone mourns the loss of Coach Snoop.

"Snoop was more focused on wanting to win than on teaching the kids the game," says Angelena Moore, a Raiders parent. "He focused more on kids he brought in from Los Angeles, Fullerton and Rialto. The rest of the kids got pushed off to the side."

Not true, says Al Brown, Snoop's onetime fellow Rowland Raiders coach and now head of football operations for Snoop's league. "It was equal opportunity for everybody."

Orange County youth football coaches point out that although they welcome any kid, the Snoop Youth Football League holds tryouts to sign up the best players. And making kids compete for spots promotes hurt feelings rather than community and camaraderie, they say.

Brown counters that tryouts are a safety measure to make sure that kids who shouldn't play tackle football don't.

Whether or not he's driven by winning, Raiders teammates who followed Snoop to the new league paint a picture of a loving coach who serves on and off the field as a mentor and pal.

"We would go over to Snoop's house," says Duon Rucker. "We'd play Madden [football video game] tournaments. We'd play hide and seek and [joke] with his wife, and then steal candy from coach when he was recording in his studio. He'd just laugh. But if we ever said something mean to one of our teammates, coach would get mad."

Snoop is a major figure in 11-year-old Travion Hall's life, says his mom, Tracey Wooben.

"All Trey had was me; his dad wasn't around," she said. "But last year, Trey was gone every weekend over at Snoop's house. That gave him the opportunity to see how it was to stay away from home, and he had a ball. These kids are having the experience of a lifetime."

Even so, it wasn't easy to leave the league Trey had played in since he was 6, Wooben says. "When you start your kid off somewhere, you don't want to switch them. But I finally gave in."

As Snoop's league gains a higher profile, celebrities and corporate sponsors jostle for involvement. The rapper will stage a benefit concert Aug. 25 with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Ice Cube at the Greek Theatre, with all proceeds to be donated to the Snoop Youth Football League. ("Snoop is the Phil Jackson of youth football coaches," Ice Cube says. "He ain't going to accept nothing but a winner.")

League sponsors include Amp'd Mobile, a soon-to-debut cellphone provider that's offering cash sponsorship in the mid-six figures and has talked about giving phones to Snoop's players. Snoop's Rowland Raiders team from last year will soon star in its own video game, and Sony is making a movie called "Coach Snoop," starring: Snoop.

Willie McGinest, linebacker for the New England Patriots -- who played with Snoop on the Junior Jackrabbits -- has donated money and coaching time to Snoop's Long Beach chapter.

"This is a chance for us to save our community and to get our kids back," he says. Youth football was "my base, my starting point, my foundation. It's a big part of who I am today."

Daylon McCutcheon of the Cleveland Browns played for the Rowland Raiders and has "mixed emotions" about the turn taken by the Southern California youth football world. On the one hand, he supports Snoop's efforts to expand access; on the other, he says, "I have a son who's 2 1/2 , and I've dreamt about seeing him in a Rowland Raiders uniform."

Snoop's youngest son, 8-year-old Cordell Broadus, is slated to be the rapper's star quarterback this year, and in his first interview, Cordell let out a shocker.

"Football?" he said. "Well, I like basketball, really. I'm not going to the NFL. I'm going to the NBA."

It might be understandable if at that moment Southland youth basketball commissioners felt their hearts skip a beat.

Following the deleter

2005-08-07T10:50:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Sunday August 07, 2005

STYLE & CULTURE
Following the deleter
* Software can cover up that stuff, awkward or illegal, you have saved in the computer. That doesn't mean the law can't find it.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

DELETE isn't enough anymore. Consider the case of Robert M. Johnson, the former Newsday publisher who, prosecutors allege, used a software program called Evidence Eliminator to rid his computers of child porn. As anyone who watches shows like "CSI" can attest, pressing "delete" makes files invisible, perhaps, but it doesn't make them gone.

Making files gone has become a booming industry unto itself. Sales of Evidence Eliminator ($149.95) run in the millions of dollars each year, says Andrew Churchill, managing director of England-based Robin Hood Software -- and it's just one of over a dozen "file shredder" or "anti-forensic" products on the market. Eraser, a similar tool available free over the Internet, is downloaded roughly 2.5 million times per year, according to its distributor, Ireland's Heidi Computers.

Many of these software vendors claim that their programs "use wipe methods that exceed the standards set by the U.S. Department of Defense" (CyberCide, $29.95) -- while others boast the capability to "erase to both the U.S. Department of Defense and German Military/Government standards" (DataEraser, $29.95). Their websites urge protection against overly curious bosses, family members, corporate competitors and all variants of law enforcement. "You are at very high risk of investigation!" warns the Evidence Eliminator website. "There is no need for you to play Russian roulette with your job, family, car, property.... Act now!"

The government is responding with forensic techniques and claims of its own, and the high-tech arms race increasingly emerges in courtrooms, with judges and juries asked to meditate on that very basic human desire: to hide things. These indictments are often two-pronged, as is the case with Johnson, who was accused in June of downloading and possessing child pornography -- and with trying to make incriminating files disappear. For your average consumer, "the biggest concern is wanting to get rid of things they're afraid a spouse will find on the computer," says Brendan I. Koerner, a Wired magazine contributing editor.

But spouses aren't the only ones encountering sanitized hard drives. Law enforcement agencies such as the FBI say that in the last year an increasing number of suspects chose to use such computer programs and that they expect the trend will continue. "It is not surprising to us that this technology is out there," says FBI spokesman Paul Bresson. "And tomorrow, six months from now, we'll see it even more."

Making files reappear is a booming business also. Computers are evidentiary treasure troves, and law enforcement isn't willing to roll over without a fight. "Five years ago, there were 1,000 law enforcement and government workers out there attacking this problem," says John Colbert, chief executive of Pasadena-based Guidance Software, which makes the forensic software most used by law enforcement. "Now there are about 20,000." Even so, some FBI computer labs are overburdened with the glut of hard drives they're asked to analyze, says Eugene Spafford, professor of computer sciences at Purdue University. And stories abound in the forensic community of huge backlogs of hard drives coming out of intelligence investigations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Private-sector forensics is growing alongside law enforcement. Chicago-based Navigant Consulting, a litigation support firm, has doubled its computer-forensics business over the last six months, says managing director James E. Gordon; Deloitte & Touche's Forensics Investigation Services division had 79% growth in the last year, senior manager Bill Farwell says. Of course, the upswing isn't linked solely to the new popularity of anti-forensic software -- there are plenty of regularly deleted files to chase after -- but also to the central role that computers are playing these days in most if not every civil, criminal and corporate conflict.

The truth is in between

WHO'S winning?

"We do have methods which allow us to produce the evidence needed for investigation," says Jim Plitt, director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Cyber Crimes Center, the bastion of classified high-tech in charge of analyzing Johnson's hard drives.

"They've got their classified information and we've got ours," counters Evidence Eliminator's Churchill. "There will never be any way to defeat Evidence Eliminator."

The truth lies somewhere between these claims, according to Matthew Geiger, a graduate student at Carnegie-Mellon University who recently put six anti-forensic products through a rigorous testing regimen. "The use of counter-forensic tools does indeed pose a challenge to digital investigators," he says. "These tools have the ability to get rid of incriminating evidence and private information. The question is, will they get rid of all of it? Whether they get rid of all the bits and pieces that turn out to be important is a matter of chance. In some cases, they're not very good at it."

All these myriad bits and pieces reside on the computer's hard drive, the storage device that houses all your data: music, photos, Word documents, spreadsheets, e-mail, instant-messenger conversations. The device itself looks roughly like a record player stacked with mini records, and each of these layers is a magnetic disk capable of spinning several hundred times per minute. Stylus-like tips extend over the surface of the disks and "read" and "write" information, which is converted into the recognizable words and images displayed on your monitor.

When you press "delete" to get rid of, say, that awful picture of you and cousin Harry from the family reunion, the computer's operating system (Windows, MacOS, Linux) simply "unlinks" the photo, and the data remains intact on that spinning magnetic disk. Which means that, although you can't see it anymore, if your Aunt Selma is any good with computer forensics, she can likely recover your ugly mug and use it as the family newsletter centerpiece.

Anti-forensic software takes deletion a step further: Generally speaking, it writes random data over the part of the disk where that photo resides. Some programs overwrite once; some, such as Eraser, overwrite 35 times or more. Don't gloat. You might be rid of that version of the file, but one of the many programs on your computer could have stored other versions, or thumbnails, or information about the photo, and all these clues are floating around on those spinning magnetic disks, waiting to be found by Selma. Or the FBI.

Forensic investigators gleefully report that of the people savvy enough to use Evidence Eliminator-type software, few are savvy enough to wipe their tracks completely. If by chance someone does zap every single incriminating tidbit, then "for all intents and purposes," says Deloitte & Touche's Farwell, "we're not going to be able to get them back."

Unless.... There is that certain breed of forensic superhero able to dissect hard drives with gloved hands and use electronic fields and electron microscopes to peer at pictures long gone, documents 35 times overwritten. They're whispered about in the corners of tech conferences and around forensic firm water coolers.

Super-secret government agents, perhaps? "Exactly true," says Wired magazine's Koerner. "If they ship your hard drive to (the FBI lab at) Quantico (Va.) and look at it with an electron microscope, I don't think Evidence Eliminator can prevent that." Not so, says Simson Garfinkel, a computer forensics expert at MIT. "Nobody has ever demonstrated recovering overwritten data from a hard drive, ever."

Leaving a trail

WHETHER or not overwritten data is ultimately recoverable, in courtrooms the use of anti-forensic software is often enough to imply guilt or invite steep sanctions. Even if the software works as planned, each program leaves a unique footprint that is easily identified by investigators. "The courts are pretty harsh when software like this is used on data that should have been preserved," says Dave Schultz, manager of legal technologies consulting for forensic firm Kroll Ontrack. "You can expect fines, adverse inferences -- like the judge telling the jury to presume that useful information was deleted -- all the way to default judgments."

Which was the case in April, when the magistrate in a Sacramento civil trial involving the misappropriation of trade secrets ruled that defendant Matthew Hewitt's use of Evidence Eliminator was "a stark affront to the judicial process." The data was "gone forever," wrote the magistrate. Hewitt contended that he used the program only to cover up evidence of an affair and other embarrassments, but he was nonetheless ordered to pay his former employer, Washington-based market research firm Communications Center Inc., $145,000 in costs and fees -- and the court recommended that a default judgment be entered for most of the causes of action.

Last year, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a similar ruling. Former Cisco Systems Vice President Robert Gordon had been convicted of embezzling and was required to pony up restitution, including what it cost Cisco to dredge his Evidence Eliminated computer. The appellate court concurred with that ruling; Gordon, they wrote, "purposefully covered his tracks as he concealed his numerous acts of wrongdoing from [his employer] over a period of years. As the victim, [the employer] cannot be faulted for making a concerted effort to pick up his trail and identify all the assets he took amid everything he worked on."

There is greater precedent for these kinds of legal sanctions in civil rather than criminal court, but a look at the June indictment against Johnson will give anybody in the gaze of law enforcement pause. Johnson, who maintains he is not guilty, could face up to 30 years in prison if convicted of downloading and possessing child pornography -- and an additional 20 years if convicted of destroying evidence with Evidence Eliminator.

Although not sympathetic to criminals, some anti-forensic software makers and privacy advocates express concern about the use of such software being introduced as evidence of wrongdoing. It seems awfully Orwellian to be punished for deleting personal information, they say.

And at least one federal judge is rethinking the whole hornet's nest of electronic evidence. "Evidence-gathering is becoming very heavily directed toward cyber materials," says James M. Rosenbaum, chief district judge of the district of Minnesota. "But is what we're getting worth anything?"

In 2000, Rosenbaum published an article titled "In Defense of the Delete Key" in which he recommends a cyber statute of limitations: "This limitation recognizes that even the best humans may have a somewhat less than heavenly aspect," he writes. "It acknowledges that anyone is entitled to make a mistake and to think a less than perfect thought."

The courts should allow for the existence of "cyber trash," he writes: "This is what the delete button was meant for, and why pencils still have erasers." Pieces of the article quickly spread from the obscure law journal to Web pages, dissertations and textbooks. Which was his intent, says Rosenbaum -- to get this conversation started. "Let's engage in the fiction that maybe human beings just make mistakes once in a while," Rosenbaum says. "That your first draft is just a first draft, not a fraud. Maybe it shouldn't be discoverable any more than when you used to throw the first draft of a letter into a wastebasket."

Landscape of constant change

2005-07-07T10:48:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Thursday July 07, 2005

HISTORY
Landscape of constant change
* Southern California's residential dwellings make up the region's defining architectural icons. The art of craftsmanship rules even amid an ever-transforming backdrop of traditional and modern styles.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

The architectural history of the Southern California home is far too rich, innovative and colorful a narrative to fit neatly onto one newspaper page, but the following timeline gathers a variety of important milestones -- beginning with the establishment of the pueblo of Los Angeles in 1781 and continuing through the current-day designs of Frank Gehry and Thom Mayne -- into a quick retelling of a fascinating tale.

1781: Pueblo of Los Angeles is established.

1840-60s: Latinos and whites discard the popular one- and two-story adobe style and turn to wood construction, masonry, and to styles from the East Coast and Midwest such as Classical Revival and the Shingle, Queen Anne and Colonial Revival styles.

1880s: L.A. experiences a population boom fueled by land availability, cheap transportation by newly arrived railroads, and extensive promotion. People arrive in droves from the East Coast and Midwest, bringing their architectural styles with them.

1880s: Mission style, a symbolic attack on California's materialism rooted in Spanish architecture, dominates.

1891: Mission Revival or Mission style becomes symbolic of the region. The first great ode to the Mission is the California Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, but the style quickly spreads across California. A.B. Benton and others design the Mission Inn in Riverside. Residential architects Lester S. Moore and Sumner Hunt are key.

1894: Charles Lummis and other celebrants of Spanish-Mexican culture establish the California Landmarks Club to preserve and restore Catholic mission churches.

1900-15: Rise of the American Craftsman movement in Southern California (alongside Berkeley and Oak Park). Popular in the Arroyo Seco at Pasadena, where it was championed by the intellectual and artistic elite. Even when Charles and Henry Greene and others elevate the Craftsman style to a high art (Gamble House in Pasadena, 1908), it remains a conscious appreciation of the carpenter. The movement emphasizes honesty of materials, hand craftsmanship, and the relationship between house and garden (Blacker House, 1907).

1900-36: Peak years of Irving Gill, an architect associated with the Spanish and Craftsman styles and considered by many to be an early homegrown Modernist. Gill often utilizes the indoor-outdoor space of the pergola. His Dodge House (1916), considered by many to be the first truly modern home in L.A., is demolished in 1970. The Horatio West Court in Santa Monica (1921), four units arranged as a group, still stands.

1905, into the 1920s: Rise of the bungalow and bungalow court, a one- or one-and-a-half-story, single-family home set in a garden. The original idea was to have all activity on first floor, but Southland architects cheated and added kids' space upstairs. In 1911, architect Sylvanus Marston unveils California's first bungalow court in Pasadena, and Lewis B. Easton becomes well known for his bungalow designs.

1907 and on: Beaux Arts movement. East Coast designers such as Stiles Clements, trained in the Parisian-derived Beaux Arts model, are drawn to the Southland's architectural landscape and population boom.

1909: L.A. is first in the U.S. to adopt a comprehensive zoning ordinance.

1909: Frank Lloyd Wright begins his California work by designing George C. Stewart's Montecito house. Wright becomes part of the pre-Columbian Revival (1920s) that happens alongside the Pueblo Revival.

1917-22: Wright's Barnsdall House (Hollyhock House). A variation on his earlier Prairie style into which he inserted Mayan and Zapotec detail, patios and pergolas -- Wright's attempt to forge a whole new style known as "California Romanza."

1920: Planning Commission established for the L.A. area. Some outlying communities create architectural and landscape architectural reviewing agencies; Palos Verdes, for instance, becomes a domain of Spanish Colonial Revivalism. Other popular styles of the decade: Norman French Provincial, English Tudor, Colonial Revival, and later: Monterey Revival, Art Deco and Streamline Moderne.

1920s: Spanish Colonial Revival (more broadly: Mediterranean Revival) reflected romance of California, offered a respite from the horrors of war and the accelerated pace of modern life. Morgan, Walls and Clements was one of several firms to introduce Spanish, Mexican, Churrigueresque and Plateresque forms. Architects most associated with Spanish Colonial Revivalism: George Washington Smith of Montecito, Wallace Neff and Roland Coate.

1920s: Frank Lloyd Wright's ideas draw R.M. Schindler and Richard J. Neutra to L.A. Both work for Wright before beginning their own projects.

1922: Schindler's house built on Kings Road in West Hollywood. The orientation of his complex spaces to nature indicates his effort to create architecture that is uniquely Southern Californian.

1922-26: Schindler builds Lovell Beach House in Newport Beach, one of the celebrated relics of 20th century modern architecture.

1923-24: Wright continued using pre-Columbian stylings in his concrete block houses, ranging from the Millard House ('23) in Pasadena to the Ennis House ('24).

1926: Sowden House by Lloyd Wright (son of Frank). Lloyd begins as a landscape designer before expanding into architecture.

1920s: Population boom imbues L.A. with fashionable architectural and artistic styles. Next to New York, L.A. to this day exhibits more Art Deco than other parts of the U.S.

1920s-70: Neutra is perhaps the most influential modern architect in L.A. See his steel-framed Lovell House in the Hollywood Hills (1929). Perkins House in Pasadena (1955) brings the garden indoors.

1930s: Depression. Architecture curtailed; notable exception: Classical (PWA) Moderne buildings -- mostly government buildings and theaters, and some houses along Los Angeles' Miracle Mile. After the initial shock, the well-to-do resume building houses now emphasizing the Colonial and the Regency over Spanish and Mediterranean Revival modes. Architects Wallace Neff, Paul Williams, Roland E. Coate, John Byers, Edla Muir and H. Roy Kelly develop open interior spaces, then garb them in forms conjuring the past. Hollywood directors and stars continue to favor the Modernists. Neutra builds the Von Sternberg house in Northridge (1936; demolished in 1971) and a house for Anna Sten in the Santa Monica canyon (1934).

End of the 1930s: Cliff May and others develop the California Ranch house, a combination of traditionalist and Modernist modes that would dominate not only Southern California but America after World War II.

1930s: Modernism flourishes. Schindler, Neutra and Lloyd Wright lead the charge, joined by the European expatriates Kem Weber, J.R. Davidson, and Paul Laszlo. By the mid-'30s, a younger contingent emerges: Harwell H. Harris, Gregory Ain, Raphael S. Soriano, Whitney R. Smith, Wayne Williams, A. Quincy Jones, Richard Lind and John Lautner.

1939-45: By end of '42, L.A. has 12 public housing projects, uniquely low-density, in styles ranging from California Ranch house to the International Style Modern. See Neutra's Channel Heights Project (1942).

1941: Wallace Neff continues to work on issues of low-cost housing, designing his igloo-shaped, reinforced concrete Bubble House.

1945-on: Postwar economy and influx of returning veterans stimulates a building boom, mostly of tract housing, in the San Fernando Valley and east toward San Bernardino.

1945-60, on: Smith, Williams, Harris and Jones steer the International Style Modern in a mellow, woodsy direction, sometimes referred to as "soft" or "organic" Modernism.

1945-60: John Entenza and his magazine California Arts and Architecture bring the Modernist aesthetic to the masses. Is the general population interested in the glass-and-steel designs a la Neutra, Soriano, Ain, Davidson, Craig Ellwood, Pierre Koenig and Charles and Ray Eames (who used more prefab materials)? The first six Case Study houses receive 368,554 visitors.

1950s-60s: Crushed by taxes and disinterest, important works by prominent architects are bought by developers, the houses destroyed and the land subdivided, including the Cord estate by Williams and the Otto English estate by Carleton Winslow.

1960s and on: Large developers build "residential communities" on vast, open land holdings utilizing revivalist motifs grafted onto the modest California Ranch house.

1960: Esther McCoy's "Five California Architects" puts Southern California architecture on the map. Profiles: Bernard Maybeck, Gill, Greene and Greene, and Schindler.

1962-today: Frank O. Gehry uses commonplace materials such as exposed wood studs. See his Santa Monica home with its corrugated steel frame and storied use of chain-link fencing on the second floor.

1965: First edition of David Gebhard and Robert Winter's "A Guide to Architecture in Los Angeles and Southern California." Becomes bible of Southland architecture.

1970: Paige Rense takes over as editor-in-chief of L.A.-based Architectural Digest. The magazine grows from a supermarket giveaway (circulation 50,000) to the leading interior design and architecture magazine (circulation 820,000).

1970s: Architect Charles Moore expands consideration of the stucco box traditions in Los Angeles through his projects and teachings at UCLA.

1972: Southern California Institute of Architecture (Sci-Arc) founded by Ray Kappe along with a small number of students, including Michael Rotondi and Thom Mayne.

Mid-1970s: Booming population, traffic, smog and water shortages inspire a surge in city planning. Historic preservation of everything from Victorian architecture of the late 19th century to '30s Streamline Moderne becomes a cause celebre.

1978: Los Angeles Conservancy born from attempts to save the Los Angeles Central Library. Today, it's the largest membership-based historic preservation group in the country.

1970s, on: California Ranch style begins to revert to its Spanish-Mexican roots. Acres of single-story, slant-roofed tract houses spread across the Valley and are joined by similar apartments, condominiums and row houses.

1970s: Before Cesar Pelli leaves L.A. for Yale at the end of the '70s, he produced a variety of buildings that encouraged a specific L.A. brand of high-tech imagery, International Post Modernism and-or deconstructionism.

1970s-90s: A new generation of architects addresses both Modernist and post-Modernist issues in residential projects, including Frederick Fisher (Caplin House, 1978), Mayne, Eric Owen Moss (708 House, 1982), Hodgetts + Fung, and Frank Israel (Goldberg/Bean House 1991).

2004, on: Interplay of Hollywood and L.A. architecture continues: Brad Pitt completes an informal internship with friend and mentor Gehry and signs on to participate in upcoming Gehry projects. In 2005, actor Hayden Christensen tells Britain's Sun newspaper, "I don't find Hollywood interesting, so I'm thinking about studying architecture instead."

2005: Mayne awarded the Pritzker Prize for lifetime achievement in architecture. He is the second L.A. architect to win the highest honor awarded to a living architect (after Gehry in 1989).

Sources: Sam Watters, instructor in the USC School of Architecture who is writing a book on Los Angeles houses for Acanthus Press.. Robert Winter, coauthor of "Los Angeles: An Architectural Guide." Thomas Hines, professor of cultural, urban and architectural history in the UCLA department of Architecture and Urban Design. The Los Angeles Conservancy.

From Web to real world

2005-06-23T10:47:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Thursday June 23, 2005

MIXED MEDIA
From Web to real world

By Steven Barrie-Anthony

AOL Home

www.aol.com

AOL keyword: Home

Too stubborn to hire a decorator? AOL members can try out the Internet portal's self-help home design tool, part of the premium content available only to subscribers using the AOL keyword: Home. The Web-based program doesn't work miracles, but it does help transform two-dimensional fantasies into real-world remodels.

Click to view rooms from different angles, read practical design techniques and participate in message boards. "Home calculators" take the guesswork out of how much paint you'll need for a room, how many yards of carpet for the den or how many shingles to redo the roof. AOL's shopping guide also lists retailers.

Those playgrounds in the sky

2005-06-16T10:45:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Thursday June 16, 2005

HOME: URBAN OUTDOORS
MODERN LIFE
Those playgrounds in the sky
* In the burgeoning new downtown of lofts and condos, these private aeries offer a place to party, relax or work out -- with great city views. Not everyone is thrilled with the development.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

You can't see Christopher Ulrich, but he can see you. Scan the twilight streets of downtown Los Angeles and you won't spot him. He is at the one place you don't think to look: up. Peering down over the brim of his rooftop.

Downtown has become a hip place to live, no doubt about it. Loft prices have skyrocketed, and most Angelenos know at least one transplant who talks nonstop about the merits of this gritty frontier. Drop by the renaissance after work, however, and you'll be lucky to spot a dozen of the estimated 24,000 residents downtown.

"The streets are bustling with activity all day," says Ulrich, a 32-year-old artist who lives in a Santee Court apartment. "Then all of a sudden, around 5 or 6, everyone's gone."

For many downtowners, rooftops have become the new ground floor. When the streets are empty, "rooftops come alive," says Adam Martin, an events designer who lives in a penthouse in the historic core. "It's almost like 'Mary Poppins,' where you see the chimney sweeps on the roofs. All of the sudden you see Dick Van Dykes dancing across rooftops, all over downtown."

Residents say that sunny days and balmy evenings entice them upward, that even the most industrial-looking rooftop -- crowded by pipes and air-conditioning modules, covered with asphalt -- hosts sunbathing, stargazing, birthday parties and barbecues. Invitations are usually posted in elevators: party, tonight, come.

On "drive-in movie nights," Martin and neighbors watch films projected onto the elevator box protruding from their 4,000-square-foot rooftop. They organize casual concerts. Members of the L.A. Philharmonic once drew a crowd of 100.

They've even staged a rooftop wedding for one of their own: Martin decorated his penthouse with dozens of candles and set out food stations, seating and heat lamps on the rooftop beyond. Neighbors served as bridesmaids and ushers. Financial district skyscrapers glowed in the background.

Developers have been quick to capitalize on the skyward trend, and many of downtown's newly renovated buildings boast a surprising variety of amenities. When Santee Court resident Ulrich needs a breather after painting late into the night, he often grabs a basketball and shoots some hoops on the rooftop court. A bridge leads to another part of the complex, a rooftop with a modest putting green, barbecue area and binoculars that spy the cityscape below. The pool and spa are on yet another rooftop. Still to come: an exercise area, running track and citrus grove.

"This is new for L.A.," says Brad Gwinn, vice president of MJW Investments, which developed the Santee apartment-condo project. "But it's also classic in that this is what people in L.A. are used to: eating outdoors, hanging out with friends."

Though rooftops are most often associated with New York, Gwinn did his research by scouring Portland, Denver and Dallas. Gwinn's latest renovation is Boyle Heights' historic Sears building, which has a rooftop that spans nearly four acres. "Dream away," he says. "We'd like to use all of it."

Residents of downtown's Toy Factory Lofts choose between barbecuing on a rooftop garden filled with colorful flora and soft grass, or luxuriating poolside on the uppermost rooftop. On cool evenings, residents warm themselves around a gas fireplace by the pool and take in the panoramic view.

Designers and developers say that the tops of downtown buildings are becoming as malleable as their interiors.

"Now that people have seen a few of these rooftops, there's a tremendous amount of support for imaginative processes like these, for the kinds of things which might originally have been delegated to the Frank Gehrys of the world," says Mia Lehrer, a landscape architect who crafted the rooftops for Santee Court and the Pegasus building.

Successful designs "don't pretend that this is something other than a roof," says developer Gwinn. Pipes and other industrial-looking oddities snake unapologetically among even the fanciest amenities. "They remind you that you're not in a resort, that this is a special 'found place,' that it's something that you've stumbled upon."

Long a prime illustration of a stagnated city center, downtown L.A. "is now becoming an example to other cities which grew quickly and with such disregard for public spaces," Lehrer says. These rooftops "create community in the way that parks create community. A lot of young people here won't be able to have backyards. This is going to be their playground."

Not everybody is thrilled. These rooftops are "private heavens," says Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, chairwoman of the urban planning department at UCLA. "What concerns me is the increasing tendency to take activities which were for hundreds of years part of the public realm, and privatize them. Then we'll have parks only being used by low-income and minority people, and affluent people will use private parks.

"This is not only a moral issue; it is also a practical one. The cost is the vibrancy of the city. The more we segregate cities, the more fear there is that we'll never become a community of citizens, that everybody will follow their own individualistic interests."

Landscape architect Ed Gripp sees the rooftop he's designing for the Pacific Electric Lofts -- slated to include a pool, hot tub, fire pits, cabana areas, gardens, sundecks and a dog run -- as "a way to escape." The lavish space was a major draw for Candice Pascal, 28, who will move downtown from Hollywood when Pacific Electric opens later this month.

"I am very reluctant to walk around here at night, and in some parts, even during the day," Pascal says. She plans on holding monthly rooftop gatherings.

Josh Gray-Emmers, who lives in the Spring Street Towers, grew up in Northridge and thought of downtown as "just some really nice backdrop that Warner Bros. or Paramount use as a set. I didn't know people actually live here." Then four years ago he ventured onto a rooftop party at the Towers, gazed out across the city from above, and felt "absolute awe."

Now the 27-year-old events planner organizes his own rooftop shindigs: 300 friends crowded onto 2,000 square feet last Halloween. It's a simple space -- just Astroturf, tables and chairs, an herb garden, tomatoes in the summer. But, Gray-Emmers says, "It's ours. It's our rooftop community.

"You wouldn't believe how many times I've brought people up here who've spent their whole lives in big mansions in Beverly Hills. You bring them up to the rooftop when the sun's setting, and they're in love."

Downtown is one of the few places in L.A. where this kind of rooftop living is possible, says John Chase, urban designer for West Hollywood. Modernist architecture typical throughout L.A. is ideal for rooftop development, but in Santa Monica or West Hollywood such projects often encounter resistance, Chase says.

Residents worry about noise, neighbors worry about privacy. For the moment, at least, a good majority of Angelenos remain tucked inside their houses instead of frolicking on top of them.

As for downtown, there's no indication of downward motion. Residents and designers fantasize aloud about sky-high bridges that would make rooftops accessible to everyone. References to the Jetsons and the futuristic film "Blade Runner" often follow.

On Saturdays, Hal Bastian stokes the flames. The vice president of the Downtown Center Business Improvement District begins his bimonthly housing tours on the ground, but they inevitably drift upward.

On the rooftops, "mouths are agape," Bastian says. "Even the most dyed-in-the-wool suburbanites say, 'Oh, I can do this.' "

A bridge to tranquillity

2005-06-02T10:44:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Thursday June 02, 2005

BREATHING ROOM
A bridge to tranquillity

By Steven Barrie-Anthony

Haggard and achy at day's end and still not home. Talk radio blares about another highway shooting, and you think: no wonder. Staring through the windshield, you imagine trading in the car for a helicopter or hovercraft or hot air balloon, anything to avoid the freeways. Anything to float above this. Anywhere but here.

But here you remain. Traffic's not going anywhere. So give in, exit the freeway and park near the Colorado Street Bridge, the graceful concrete arc that traverses the Arroyo Seco at the west end of Old Town Pasadena. Ensconce yourself in one of the span's roomy benches. It's strange to find peace on a bridge, with cars. But there's a Zen tranquillity, a breeze that wafts gently through the columns behind you and smells faintly of honeysuckle.

There's greenery beneath you and on all sides, and mountains to the north, but more eye-catching is the traffic snaking nearby along the 134. It's actually beautiful. And if you lie down on the cool concrete bench, vibrations from passing cars feel like a massage. You might even catch yourself napping.

A life thrown out of balance

2005-05-16T10:43:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Monday May 16, 2005

FIRST PERSON
A life thrown out of balance
* When vertigo struck, he wanted a precise diagnosis. What he got was frustration.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

At first I dismissed the slight dizziness, nausea and a stuffy feeling in my right ear as an oncoming cold. But walking to my car later that afternoon, the world looked off-kilter: People sped past in a blur, and the sidewalk surprised me by how quickly it rose to meet my feet. I stumbled and hugged a nearby traffic signal pole, intent on finding my bearings. Driving home, the horizon wobbled and everything began to spin.

"You look fine to me," my internist said that evening, as he stared into my ear canal. "Must be an inner ear infection. Take an antihistamine."

But the antihistamine didn't help, and two days later an ear-nose-and-throat specialist ordered some lab tests. A hearing test confirmed what I had already begun to notice -- a slight hearing loss in my right ear. An MRI ruled out the scariest diagnoses, such as a brain tumor and multiple sclerosis.

Finished with the diagnostic rigmarole, I sat waiting for the doctor to explain why exactly his face was swaying back-and-forth and making me feel seasick. When I'm ill, I yearn for a precise scientific explanation for what ails me. What I got instead was an answer steeped in ambiguity: I had Meniere's disease, my doctor said, a relatively rare inner ear disorder whose diagnosis can be confirmed only by an autopsy.

Meniere's, estimated to affect fewer than eight people per 1,000, is not life-threatening -- although incessant vertigo and nausea can make you wish for that autopsy. To anybody unfamiliar with vertigo: Hold a heavy book in outstretched arms, spin quickly for a few minutes, and stop suddenly. Now imagine that sensation coming on without warning and lasting indefinitely.

I prodded the doctor for medical certainties."So I have Meniere's?"

"I can't be sure you have Meniere's."

"Why do you think I have Meniere's?"

"Your symptoms match, and we've ruled out some other diagnoses."

"But you said earlier that Meniere's patients have ringing in their ears. I don't have that."

"Some have tinnitus, some don't."

Most doctors believe that Meniere's disease is closely related to a condition known as hydrops, an excessive buildup of fluid in the inner ear that causes the membranes to inflate like a balloon and damages delicate hearing and balance systems. It is not known what causes hydrops, but hypotheses include allergies, genetic flaws and autoimmune disease.

There is no single diagnostic test for the illness -- a diagnosis is given when doctors rule out diseases with similar symptoms such as Parkinson's or cardiovascular disease -- so many people go through a labyrinth of misdiagnoses before learning about Meniere's. And even when the diagnosis is given, there's little solace in its predictive power: Some people will experience only one episode of Meniere's while others will have occasional episodes, much like migraines. Or it may become the permanent lens through which you experience life. Meniere's sometimes remains confined to one ear, sometimes affects both. It may lead to deafness in the affected ear or ears, or hearing may fluctuate, or it may return to normal.

As I hobbled away from the doctor's office, my symptoms were my only certainty: nausea that seemed to turn my stomach inside-out and a frightening dizziness and lethargy. It's as if a curtain has descended between you and the world. That you're sick and scared isn't nearly the sum of it -- you're also severely and immediately alone.

I wouldn't have wanted to be on the freeway with me, but I made it home somehow, stopping at a drugstore to fill a prescription for the diuretic the doctor had suggested. A diuretic, or "water pill," combined with a drastically low-sodium diet, is the most common treatment for Meniere's -- a combination intended to lesson fluid buildup in the inner ear. Research suggests that a drug and diet regimen provides some relief in up to 80% of Meniere's patients. A variety of surgeries have shown some promise in terms of lessening vertigo, but an uneven rate of success and potential side effects such as deafness keep many patients off the operating table.

Eating a low-sodium diet is far more difficult than simply chucking the salt shaker. Dining out is especially tricky, because restaurants tend to salt pretty much everything. If you're preparing meals at home -- a difficult undertaking while having dizzy spells -- forget most anything that's processed, prepared or canned. No pouring a drink to calm your nerves: Most doctors advise Meniere's patients to avoid alcohol. No caffeine or tobacco, either. And amid all this, you're advised to try to alleviate stress, which is thought to be a trigger for Meniere's attacks.

By the second week, I was pretty much chained to the couch. Too nauseated and dizzy to read, watch TV or listen to music, I stared at the ceiling for much of the day. When the stucco danced and swayed, I covered my eyes with a blanket, but couldn't for the life of me fall asleep. The second week turned into the third and the fourth.

My answering machine was full -- bosses from work and friends wondering what was wrong. All were unfailingly supportive, but I never knew quite what to tell them. "I have Meniere's," I'd say. That's the easy part, but then they inevitably ask "what's that?" How do I explain something that I myself don't understand?

After a month of waiting passively for things to improve, I decided, like many Meniere's patients do, to seek treatments outside of conventional Western medicine. A friend suggested an osteopath, and I found myself lying on a table in his office, letting his fingers gently work their way around my head and neck. The problem, as the osteopath saw it, was that a bone surrounding the inner ear "isn't moving in alignment with the rest of the bones in your skull."

I spent hours on the phone with a renowned homeopath in Berkeley, talking as much about my physical symptoms as about the complex web of emotions surrounding them. I tracked down a tai chi teacher and met her in a parking lot in Chinatown -- and was pleased to find that my symptoms somehow allowed me to follow along and learn the form. (Exercise is often recommended for Meniere's patients.)

An acupuncturist with a wonderfully optimistic bedside manner informed me that "the ear symptoms are secondary to your feelings of exhaustion." He listened to my pulse, told me that my kidneys were weak. I didn't mind the needles.

I can't pinpoint exactly what helped, but somewhere amid all those treatments I began to feel a bit of energy rising up. And it's entirely possible, of course, that my symptoms just eased with time. A trip downstairs to get the mail no longer felt as if I'd run a marathon. Faces stopped wobbling, and I found I could drive again. Two months after the first symptoms emerged, I returned to work.

I'm not completely better. I still feel dizzy occasionally, and my right ear feels congested. But I went on a 5-mile hike the other day, even stopping to leap from a waterfall into chilly water beneath. I climbed out shivering and ready for disaster, but the world didn't go tilt. I grinned all the way back home.

Wise people have said that illness and suffering bear forth wisdom. Perhaps Meniere's has made me wiser, but I can't tell you how exactly, and maybe that's just it: I've become more comfortable with ambiguity. The likelihood that I'll never know for certain what's going on with my body doesn't terrify me as fully as it once did.