L.A. Expanded: Notes from the West Coast A weekly column by Catherine Wagley “She could have been signed on the basis of her pedigree alone,” said columnist Stephen Metcalf, talking about Whitney Houston on Slate’s culture podcast Tuesday, four days after the singer’s death. “Her godmother was Aretha Franklin. Her mother was an accomplished gospel singer. Her cousins were Deedee and Dionne Warwick. She could[…..]

L.A. Expanded: Notes from the West Coast A weekly column by Catherine Wagley “There are no easy happy endings anymore,” said writer David Levithan when interviewed about The Lover’s Dictionary, a novel told entirely through “definitions” of words like “aberrant” and “quixotic.” But there are no easy sad endings anymore, either–even though the romance the book dissects is doomed from the start, Levithan indulges in[…..]

The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles is known for presenting exciting new works from emerging and mid-career artists through the Hammer Projects program. Currently on view at the museum are new works by Brooklyn-based artist Rob Fischer. Utilizing materials that are deeply embedded with a sense of social history through their once utilitarian function, Fischer recontextualizes the materials to create new meaning and form. For[…..]