As I sit here and type away at the keyboard, my mind is racing with all sorts of things I have to do, start to do and accomplish. They all jumble up in an incomprehensible blob of anxiety hovering just above my subconscious. I spent part of the day trying to run away from my anxiety. I ran some random, mindless errands that I needed to finish, which don’t take up much mental real estate. A drive to the library here. A quick stop at a gas station there. Nothing seemed to help. A quick ice cream break at the local store only deluged me with children happily chattering over an impossibly upbeat in-store music. Even outside of my workspace, serenity was elusive.
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Who knew that a simple game could bridge the gap between Chinese and Jewish Americans? According to the Skirball Center’s latest exhibition, Project Mah Jongg, this strangely fascinating game was a hit among Jewish American women in the twenties (when it was first imported from China) and continues to be played with fervor all around the country.
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If you haven’t heard yet, the Re-Animator The Musical is back in town for a limited time only! After rocking Los Angeles’s socks off last year, this B-movie comedy-horror-musical is back on stage at the Hayworth Theatre for a short ten-week run before it heads off to the Big Apple, then to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival after that.
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One hundred years ago this year, Japan gifted the United States with 3,000 cherry trees, which have flourished in Washington D.C. throughout the years. Los Angeles may not have a lot of cherry trees to boast of, but spring is in the air, the flowers are blooming and we’re ready to celebrate. This year, the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center (JACC) is launching its first ever LA Bloom springtime festival starting this Saturday. The nine-day festival was inspired by a painting of a 16th century Japanese fair where the community is bound by simple shared activities such as “Hanami” or flower viewing.
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The Dutch are known for their athleticism, or at least their comfort with two-wheeled contraptions we call bikes. When filmmaker Michael Bauch went Amsterdam, he was fascinated by these “kings of urban cycling.” Back in Los Angeles, with hours of film shot, Bauch had no idea how to end the movie, until he saw a glimmer of hope in the county’s burgeoning bike culture. That was in 2007 and now, only a few years later, LA’s transforming itself into a more transit-oriented, pedestrian-friendly city bit by bit.
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