The delights of modest little Taco Deli, a bright takeout place in a La Canada strip mall, range from warming soups to gut-busting tortilla-based dishes, but the overall emphasis is on light, fresh healthy food from Mexico and Central America that tastes great and is prepared with a smile. I eat here at least once [...]
Award-winning Pasadena artist Leland Myrick has joined forces with author Jim Ottaviani to produce a unique take on one of Pasadena’s most colorful characters: the all-around genius, iconoclast and bon vivant Richard Feynman. An almost-straightforward, chronological narrative of Feynman’s life, the book – now a New York Times bestseller – with six or so full-color [...]
This busy new restaurant in Sierra Madre has a fanatical following to judge from the crowds at dinner (and to a lesser extent, lunch). The space, formerly Lozano, which itself morphed from down-home Mexican to haute Southwestern (with a concomitant change in decor) is lovely and modern, open to the backlit bar, with exposed concrete [...]
I didn’t read this when it came out. The breathless acclaim for this 2005 book, dubbed by many to be the must-read novel about 9/11, made me nervous. Four years after the events of that morning, I still did not want to be reminded of thousands of people dying; my imagination would not handle it. [...]
I’d never heard of Josh Ritter, the soulful singer-songwriter, but I was intrigued by a snippet of his first novel, about a young veteran of World War I whose guardian angel happens to be a horse. The description of the aftermath of an aerial explosion in no man’s land had me riveted. It turns out [...]
Dip’s Grill is the kind of convivial place that attracts lingerers who like to schmooze the night away over dinner. The long room a couple of doors down from Alhambra Bowling Center hums with bright light and activity: a couple courting, two friends catching up, a table full of women watching a vacation slide show [...]
The stunning new show at Art Center’s Williamson Gallery is part of a series of thought-provoking explorations of science and art. For the summer, curator Stephen Nowlin has installed the extraordinary work of twin sisters and Australia natives Margaret and Christine Wertheim. A few years ago, the sisters became alarmed at the rate of coral degradation, a result [...]
A savory little summer read for lovers of dogs and mysteries, Dog On It is the first in a series that features a disgraced K-9 member of the police force (Chet) partnering with his equally misfit human partner (Bernie). A real romp in the arroyo, this Arizona-set mystery is saved from being over-sweet by a [...]
Tinkers, by Paul Harding This quietly beautiful book centers around the deathbed of George Crosby, a remarkable, unremarkable old man. As the life fades from this modern Yankee, his mind opens in cascading fragments of his present and past—and the pasts of his father and grandfather. An examination of family, beauty and ecstasy, this novel [...]
Editor’s note: I’m reposting this piece because the Huntington extended the John Frame show until June 27th, thanks to its tremendous success. I just went to the show myself, and it’s simply extraordinary. You have to go. There are many amazing things about the beautiful, intricate and strange John Frame gallery show, Three Fragments of [...]
