Halloween has become one of my favorite holidays since I came to UCLA. There’s no mandatory family dinners, like during Thanksgiving and Easter. Unlike Christmas parties, with me pretending I remember family friends I haven’t seen since I was 2, these parties involve people my age. Read more...

From Maripat Donovan and Vicki Quade’s “Late Night Catechism” to David Gorman’s “Googlewhack!” the challenges of a one-man show ““ namely, attempting to hold the audience’s attention through the duration of the performance ““ can be intimidating. Read more...

To keynote speaker Malcolm Baker, Friday’s UCLA Art History Graduate Student Symposium is exciting. It’s not because in one day, it will feature nine presentations by art history graduate students from across the country. Read more...

At the age of 63, rock “˜n’ roll legend John Cale wants to get funky. The former Velvet Underground creative force has been many things throughout his long career: a child prodigy on classical piano and viola who moved to New York at the age of 21 with the help of composer Aaron Copland; an avant-garde minimalist who collaborated with John Cage; and a violent punk rocker who once cut off a live chicken’s head on stage and threw it into the audience. Read more...

Expansive exhibit paints new portrait of relationship Painters Paul Cezanne and Camille Pissarro have individually had their works exhibited in museums around the country. But the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s new exhibit, “Pioneering Modern Painting: Cezanne and Pissarro 1865-1885,” marks the first time these close friends have had more than 60 of their paintings displayed side by side in an exhibit chronicling each artist’s influence on the other. Read more...

I’ve really got to hand it to Hideki Matsui. For a professional baseball player, he has pretty respectable musical taste. The New York Yankee outfielder’s favorites include The Who, Lenny Kravitz and the Beatles. Read more...

Broken Social Scene “Broken Social Scene” Arts & Crafts In 2003, a Toronto collective called Broken Social Scene released “You Forgot It In People.” The album was a near-perfect effort, merging well-worn pop structures with Radiohead-like experimentalism and a sense of youthful enthusiasm that made it the most exciting rock release in recent memory. Read more...