received an email this morning inviting me to “Unleash The Transformative Power of ‘Chief Excitement Officers!’” hmmmn. that would be a hard no.

LA peeps! thrilled to announce that i’ll be one of ten speakers on stage tonight as part of “speak.easy” story hour. if you’re down in southern LA county — long beach, man — come by! you’re in for a treat. donations raised tonight benefit House Of Haven. longbeachcommunitytheater.com/speakeasy/

if only more angelenos loved #eurovision as much as the euro ex-pats do. it has ALL the things. one can dream. nytimes.com/2023/05/12/art…

respect to gloria. lots of firsts. and additional respect to the quilters in her group. theguardian.com/us-news/2023/m…

happy to see fragoza's “Eat the Mouth That Feeds You” on here. most excellent. Read Your Way Around Los Angeles nytimes.com/2023/05/17/boo…

TONI ERDMANN is such a wonderful film, with heart-warming performances from its performers. theguardian.com/film/2023/may/…

no, siri, it’s “we’re jammin’” NOT “we’re german.”

such a hero. such a fucking hero. irishtimes.com/culture/music/…

when you hear a song that's new to you for the very first time and it's magic and tragic all at once. nowhere man and a whiskey girl - hat tip to Courtney Marie Andrews for sharing this on The Guardian: youtube.com/watch?v=c7B97f…

tonight, i’m doing a bit of spoken word in long beach, california. part of “speak.easy.” still cutting my teeth, learning how to do this live, but if you’re in the area, hit me up for details. longbeachcommunitytheater.com/speakeasy/

yesterday word arrived from NYC that a colleague took his own life. he was alone in that moment. he has no idea how many people are affected by his death and were directly impacted by his life. i wish for his 3 children and for those who loved him that he’d have chosen otherwise.

The epitome of doom scrolling is checking to see which of my favorite reporters lost their jobs today. We take local news for granted. It’s disappearing before our eyes. Really sad, disturbing day for all of Los Angeles.

i only subscribed to Los Angeles Times because of @cmonstah and always looked forward to the weekly "Essential Arts" - essential reading indeed. selfishly, i'm so sorry to see you go. best of luck writing about the chile of your childhood (and today). see you at buttondown.email/cmonstah

A real illness I have is I still think "if I just make sure people have the right information then they will change their mind."

a whole lot of Seymour Chwast happening in this animation by arthur sevestre for l'Imperatrice! love the many crowd shots - and the story too. youtube.com/watch?v=YC0ErO…

you can find me where the skies are blue - with the same handle you’ve known me for during all of these years. ciao for now. svanes.