When I went home to San Diego a few weekends ago, the sky literally seemed to be falling. Fires raged just a few miles from my house, and looking up revealed only a fog of smoke, a glowing red ball that used to be the sun and a steady stream of falling ash. Read more...

In the strange world of David Rees, becoming as cool as the invincible master Karate Snoopy is the ultimate goal for all karate disciples. Besides practicing with each other, these martial arts students also fight Bruce Lee style against their imaginary selves, their circulatory systems and, occasionally, their own fingerprints. Read more...

The soft tick of a 70-year-old projector comes from upstairs in the New Beverly Theater. Up in the projector room, reel after reel of film lie in stacks: everything from “Things to do in Denver “¦” to “X-Men.” The room is cluttered with canisters, oversized red letters for the marquee and 30-year-old copies of Playboy magazine. Read more...

I’m pretty sure it was Aristotle who first wrote that every story must have a beginning, a middle and an end. It’s a seemingly simple concept, to be sure, but also a frequently forgotten one. Read more...

Sunday afternoon, a series of on-campus events paying tribute to the Maquiladores murders of Juarez came to a close with a lecture introducing artist Veronica Castillo’s altarpiece “Lamento por las Mujeres de Juarez (Elegy for the Women of Juarez).” More than 300 women in Mexico have been murdered over the past 10 years in what remains an unsolved mystery. Read more...

Sometime around the age of 13, when a combination of societal expectation and hormonal fluctuation so decrees, trick-or-treating on Halloween ends. Disapproving neighbors accuse you of being “too old” to beg for candy. Read more...

Driven to the ground. That is how Frank Manis, tour guide on the Haunted Hollywood Ghost Walk Tour, described the demise of the Haunted Hearse tour that preceded his current business. Read more...