The air was heavy with smoke. Orange light sifted through the trees on a chilly October night. With Halloween just around the corner, the atmosphere was a perfect setting for the Tiger Lillies and Kronos Quartet to present their collaboration in honor of writer and illustrator Edward Gorey. Read more...

An open letter. To those whom it concerns: Living in a nation where people are already starting to think about Christmas, I’m no longer surprised when people set up for holiday celebrations long before they should. Read more...

Jacqueline Warwick is just one example of a pioneering musicologist from UCLA. She obtained her Ph.D. in 2002 after writing a dissertation on the connection between popular music in the 1960s and the female identity. Read more...

Recent landscape architecture graduate Claire Touze-Shawaf has visions of a children’s park near LAX without any metal monkey bars or slides. Her model involves a miniature Stonehenge that helps kids spot certain stars, and grass mazes just tall enough for small children to completely submerge. Read more...

Imagine a piercing falsetto, bordering on the edge of freakish, singing about naughty children being blown to bloody bits while accompanied by carnival-like accordions, toy drum solos and even screeching cats. Read more...

In the mid-1980s, the BBC ran a clever, nuanced, six-part mini-series written by Dennis Potter called “The Singing Detective.” The landmark series followed the experiences of Dan Dark, a novelist stricken with a debilitating skin disorder, who hallucinates that he is a 1950’s noir-style private eye with a side gig as a singer in a band. Read more...

I think I may be the only person over the age of, say, 7 to be excited for the release of “Brother Bear,” the newest animated film from Disney. Read more...