From the Editor
My New Year’s resolutions, like most people’s, have been hampered by a persistent lack of resolve. This year I had a great workout on January 1, complete with a weight-lifting circuit and enough time on the bike to wake up my quads. I felt like I always do after I exercise: exhilarated, alive. I made a grand plan to work out every day this year. The next morning I was off and running. The morning after that I was hitting the snooze button… Read
Features:
Bike + Run LA
Want to catch a few rays, meet people, and sveltify? Just pick your speed. Whether it’s mountain biking or road cycling, morning jogs or weekend marathons, we’ve got the guide that will get your heart pitter-pattering PLUS: Tips on commuting, staying limber, and gearing up
WEB EXTRA: Watch a slide show of photographs from Steven Rea’s soon-to-be-released coffee table book, Hollywood Rides a Bike
Never Stop Fighting
By Ben Ehrenreich
Decades after Carlos Montes made it into FBI files for his role in L.A.’s Chicano movement, he could be facing prison time for his continued activism
WEB EXTRA: Read a Q&A with Ben Ehrenreich about his profile of Carlos Montes
Treasure Seekers
By Ann Herold
There’s no shame in busting the budget for an antique carving or a high-end lamp. Not when you see what they can do for apartment living
Under the Desert Sun
As told to Matthew Segal
Almost a week after a prominent real estate broker went missing in the desert, everyone assumed he was dead. They were wrong
WEB EXTRA: Photo editor Amy Feitelberg on her decision to illustrate “Under the Desert Sun” with an old hat–and why it could only be shot here in L.A.
(Buzz)
CityThink
A play about Proposition 8; the steps to gaining cityhood
L.A. Archetype
The loud life of a rock DJ
Ask Chris
Chris Nichols lights up the streetlamps
L.A. Story
Community’s Alison Brie on playing the clown
The Seen
All the parties fit to crash
How L.A. Works
The Metro Rapid bus, by the numbers
(Shop)
Spring Fashion
The hottest trends and how to wear them in real life: denim brights, uninhibited fabrics, statement jewelry, and toned-down beauty
Geometric Shifts
Fashion echoes the Jazz Age with graphic patterns and shimmying fringe
WEB EXTRA: Go behind-the-scenes of our March fashion feature photo shoot
(Eat)
Main Course
What’s frothy in lattes, wicked in cookies, and green all over? Matcha!
New Restaurants
Freddy Smalls delivers big-time flavor plus: Bäcos and more from Josef Centeno, prix fixe French where you’d least expect it, and house-made everything in Culver City
Small Bites
Neighborhood grocers make shopping local easier, Joel Stein shuns the uni craze, a sweet recipe for Nowruz, Wolvesmouth’s Dim Sum Pup bares his fangs, and a crash course on wine snobbery
The Dine Review
Patric Kuh considers the casual vibe at Milo and Olive
(Do)
The Culture Files
Tim and Eric go to the movies, PaleyFest gathers around the boob tube, and American Idiot channels teen spirit
Best of LA
Workshops that will captivate the kids
Weekender
Sipping some grape and nibbling queso in Mexico’s up-and-coming wine country
Nightlife
Hitting the bars for Saint Paddy’s Day
The Guide
More than 30 great things to do this month, from catching up with Bernadette Peters to falling for the gods of love
(Columns)
Open City
By Anne Taylor Fleming
Going out to a movie used to be an excuse to gather and gab. Now film viewers just want to be left alone
Film
By Steve Erickson
Don’t stop with The Artist or Hugo. The ultimate guide to the silent movies that inspired them
Music
By RJ Smith
An alt favorite, the Negro Problem traded L.A. for New York to find what they’d always wanted: mass appeal
PLUS: 4 Things We’re Not Supposed To Tell You About This Issue
121 round-trips
→ Times that our bikers went up and down the Cheeseboro Canyon Trail north of Agoura during photographer Dustin Snipes’s six-hour cover shoot. “My quads were burning just looking at them,” says photo editor Amy Feitelberg.
52 minutes
→ Length of a typical episode of Ryan Murphy’s much-talked-about series American Horror Story, which is being celebrated at PaleyFest (“Fan Base,” page 76). The show isn’t for everyone. Our arts critic, Steve Erickson, considered reviewing it, but after one episode he bailed. “If I watched another ten soul-killing hours,” he told his editors, “I would come back in the next life as a mosquito.”
Line 720
→ Number of the most popular route of the Metro Rapid bus line, which travels Wilshire Boulevard. The bus’s banner reads DOWNTOWN LA, a detail we included in our illustration (“How L.A. Works,” page 42). How did we confirm that? By looking out the window (the magazine calls Wilshire home). “The laziest fact-checking ever,”says editor-in-chief Mary Melton.
10 pounds
→ General consensus among magazine staffers when asked to estimate the weight of the beaded Gucci dress featured in this month’s fashion spread (“Geometric Shifts,” page 54). Despite having the opportunity to hold the frock, they were way off: The garment is only five pounds, four ounces. We don’t think the model weighed much more.
