For years, eating dinner in a restaurant has essentially been a three-act play. You knew what you were in for: first course, more substantive second course flanked by vegetable and starch, dessert. Maybe some bread to tide you over and some coffee and petits fours to finish things off. When you ladies tried to get Read More
Here’s an L.A. experiment: Carry a stopwatch, then measure how long it takes for new acquaintances to ask your birth sign. Yes, the old cliché is true! Astrology, not Scientology, is the secret spiritual scourge of the city, entire loop-de-loops of which seem to be permanently lodged in a singles’ bar circa 1978. There is Read More
Though the discount department store Loehmann’s long ago sprawled into chaindom, with 47 stores over 17 states, most New Yorkers still think of it as their quintessential alter kocker bargain mecca, just as blowzy Filene’s Basement belongs to Boston and Sears is the broad-shouldered, slow-witted son of Chicago. But-and it does feel like a betrayal Read More
Remember Remington Steele ? The plush 1980′s NBC detective drama with the Henry Mancini theme was very good for Pierce Brosnan, who played the title role and would go on to become James Bond and marry buxom, beatific Keely Shaye Smith. Nor did it hurt the career of Doris Roberts (office assistant Mildred Krebs), who Read More
Los Angeles author Bruce Wagner’s new novel, Still Holding , the third in a trilogy that began with I’m Losing You and I’ll Let You Go , arrives cosseted in praise from the literary establishment. “A visionary posing as a farceur,” gushes Salman Rushdie on the back jacket. “Writes like a wizard and knows his Read More
LOSANGELES-Davis and Dean Factor are the great-grandsons of cosmetics tycoon Max, and far more crisp and bustling than those ingrate, dissolute heirs and heiresses whining their way through the HBO documentary Born Rich . They own and operate SmashBox Studios, a 40,000-square-foot venue for photography and parties in Culver City, Calif., that last week held Read More
