Photo by ~db~ via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr It's official: Police have identified the Green Skeleton Bandit who was fatally shot earlier this week when he was caught in the act of robbing the AutoZone in NoHo by a US Marshal. He was 24-year-old Lawrence Dean Smith Jr. of Palmdale who used a knife and wore a skeleton-themed sweatsuit in his robberies. Fight for the right to ficus! Local activists in......

Don't be angsty like this lady...go out tonight! / Photo by Plankton 4:20 via LAist's flickr pool. FILM “Animation Nite: From Halifax with Love” is a program at the Echo Park Film Center that features short animated and semi-animated films by women who’ve all lived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, eh. The screening includes work by host Siloën Daley and six others. Music by local band Foot Foot follows. 7:30 // Echo Park Film......

ART TALK With just about a month left in the exhibit, artists Gary Baseman, Tim Biskup, and Simone Legno will be gathering for a discussion about the work of Takashi Murakami at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. The event, called Pervasive Persuasion, is a panel-style talk moderated by Eric Nakamura, publisher and co-editor of Giant Robot, and will include thoughts on "how and why artists in Los Angeles are blurring the lines of media to......

Have a taste for deliciously scary eye candy? Check out Christopher Ulrich's phantasmagorical paintings: Demoneater Series One in Santa Monica! ...

Last week with the Holiday, we said it was slim pickings. This week, classical music in Los Angeles is bountiful and what has piqued our interest is Alternative Opera Theater's three performances this upcoming weekend at the intimate NoHo Arts District space, the Raven Playhouse. The performance will feature two chamber operas, the first being "The Telephone" by Gian Carlo Menotti where a man attempts to propose to the woman she loves. But there's......

Monday Shalom Auslander presents Foreskin's Lament 7pm @ Vroman's Valerie Plame Wilson presents Fair Game 7pm @ Carpenter Performing Arts Center, Long Beach Barbara Firestone presents Autism Heroes 7pm @ Dutton's Slash presents Slash 7pm @ Borders, Torrance Lawrence Wright presents The Looming Tower 7:30pm @ UCLA Tuesday David Plante, with host Mark Danielewski, presents ABC 7pm @ Book Soup Michael Lent presents Christmas Letters from Hell 7pm @ Vroman's Tommy Lasorda & Bill Plaschke......

There's no doubt about it, Pasadena is an arts town. Local "old money" patronize the cultural arts in these parts and it shows. Talk about the season opener for the Pasadena Symphony, you can't go wrong with these three composers. Known as Mexico's most distinctive musical voice of the 1930's, Silvestre Revueltas is a madman of a composer -- colorful, energetic and all over the place. "The Homage to Lorca conflates two seemingly incompatible......

Labor Day Weekend is a great time to be in town because everyone else leaves. The streets are empty. There’s elbow room at your favorite local watering hole. And … there’s plenty of local theater just waiting to be seen. Here are LAist’s five theater picks for this weekend: Calling Aphrodite Keiko and her sister were playing outside their home, when something unimaginable happened. It was Hiroshima in 1945. This play focuses on Keiko’s life......

Cesar & Ruben The poster boy for the environment, Ed Begley Jr., wrote and directed this musical based on the life of poster boy activist César Chávez. NoHo Arts Center. 11136 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood, 818-508-7101. Tickets are $35. Opens Friday at 8 pm. Runs Thursdays to Sundays at 8 pm with a Sunday matinee at 3 pm until Sept. 9 The City That Never Sleeps Who knew that insomnia could be so funny?......

Monday Nathan Englander discusses The Ministry of Special Cases 7pm @ Central Library Nassim Assefi presents Aria 7pm @ Dutton's Bill Bryan presents Keep It Real 7pm @ Book Soup Carolyn See signs There Will Never Be Another You 7pm @ Platt Branch Library Tuesday Antoine Wilson presents The Interloper 7pm @ Dutton's Bruce Dern presents Things I've Said, But Probably Shouldn't Have 7pm @ Book Soup Helena Maria Viramontes & Manuel Munoz discuss......

Sea Wolf, The Bird & the Bee, The Little Ones, Dengue Fever @ The Echo MXPX @ Avalon Ima Robot @ Natural History Museum Ima Fucking Gymnast @ Pehrspace Kinky @ El Rey The Autumns, The Sugarplastic @ Spaceland Elini Mandell @ Malibu Performing Arts Center 8-Bit, Bark Bark Bark, 8-Bit Weapon @ The Scene Agnostic Front, U.S. Roughnecks, Viva Hate, Hold My Own @ Knitting Factory Mother Tongue, Maryandi, The Sixth Chamber, The......

Ice Cube @ House of Blues Art Brut (above) @ The Troubadour Smoosh @ Knitting Factory Rita Coolidge @ Torrance Cultural Arts Center Pitbull, Tego Calderon, Ying Yang Twins, Ilegales @ Honda Center Eek-A-Mouse @ Vault 350 The Barbarellatones @ Boardners The Makers @ Spaceland Colin Hay @ Largo Joshua Radin @ El Rey Lady Sinatra, Warner Drive, Itis @ Viper Room Atomic Punks, SWAA, Myridian @ Paladino's Tennis Club, The Front, Killsonic, The......

So there we were. Granted putting ten pounds into a five pound bag, trying to fit too many things into a Friday night but we were fairly convinced we could do what we always do - outsmart LA traffic and when there are moments where the congestion breaks up, well, gun it. Friday was not one of those nights. Maybe it was because it was Friday the 13th. While it has never served as......

O.J. to Auction Book Rights After a long string of controversies and cancellations, rights to O.J. Simpson’s If I Did It will be auctioned off on April 17, according to Los Angeles authorities. Freeing the slaves - in Los Angeles Tales of modern day slavery, in LA. And none of these people work for Disney. Benefit Concert For the Midnight Mission The Malibu Performing Arts Center (MPAC) was the place to be on March......

Los Lobos, Zen Cruisers (Blondie's Clem Burke, the Cars' Elliot Easton, the Knack's Doug Fieger and Teddy Andreadis) @ Malibu Performing Arts Center Anti-Flag, Alexisonfire @ Wiltern Gary Lucas & Gods & Monsters @ Safari Sam's Kenny Wayne Shepherd @ House of Blues The Chapin Sisters, I See Hawks in L.A. @ Getty Center Irish Rovers @ Cerritos Center Colin Hay @ Largo Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Secret Chiefs 3 @ El Rey Dead on......

Richard Thompson, Eliza Gilkyson @ Malibu Performing Arts Center Koffin Kats, Viva Hate, The Rocketz, Hot Rod Funeral @ Knitting Factory Charlie Wadhams & the Harmony Brothers, Ivy Walls @ Silverlake Lounge Head Automatica, Takota, March @ The Troubadour Muse Collective, Delusions of Grandeur, Full Moon Rising @ The Good Hurt The Starfuckers, Nick Josephs, 1 Enemy 3, Hollywood Trash @ The Cat Club Rob Giles, Rich Price, Adrianne, Brian Chartrand @ The Hotel......

Danzig @ The Wiltern Joanna Newsom @ Malibu Performing Arts Center Sugarcult, The Pink Spiders, Damone @ House of Blues Barenaked Ladies @ Gibson Butch Walker @ The Hotel Cafe DJ AM @ LAX Sally Kellerman @ Genghis Cohen The Handsome Family @ El Cid Slow Signal Fade, The Ivy Walls @ Silverlake Lounge Mike Stinson, Merle Jagger, Rancho Deluxe @ Safari Sam's I Heart Robots, The Maze @ 14 Below 2 Headed Dog,......

Snoop Dogg, Pussycat Dolls, Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley @ Greek No Means No @ The Knitting Factory Hawthorne Heights @ Wiltern Abby Travis @ Amoeba (free) DJ AM @ LAX Foxycock @ Lava Lounge Track Fighter @ King King Victim of Society, Dork @ Roxy Tom Freund, Brett Dennen @ Largo The Kooks, Trainwreck Riders @ Spaceland Twilight Singers, Stars of Track and Field@ House of Blues Cursive, The Thermals, Eastern Youth @ The......

Helen Slater @ Genghis Cohen Wolf Parade @ The Wiltern Circus Diablo @ Key Club Guttermouth @ Malibu Inn Mick Flower @ Il Corral Brian Evans @Tangier The Killers @ Troubadour Scott H. Biram @ El Cid John Mayall & the Bluebreakers @ The Canyon Peter DiStefano @ DiPiazza's Lava Lounge Chris Pierce, Keaton Simons @ Temple Bar Cat Power @ Malibu Performing Arts Center Pu$$ycow, Bang Sugar Bang, Porterville @ Safari Sam's Davy......

While many people have been celebrating this year's Dia de los Muertos since earlier last week, today and tomorrow are the days when Olvera Street calls all spirits, living and dead, for the sights and sounds of this hallowed ritual. And at the end of this spooky first week of Novemeber, one more local happening celebrates Dia de Los Muertos with a free family festival. Here are the details: Día de los Muertos on......

Just exactly what was Algernon, dapper hero of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, doing when he claimed to be off in the country "Bunburying"? According to L.A. playwright Tom Jacobson (The Orange Grove, Ouroboros), he was meeting up with his gay lover Bunbury, a character who never appears in the play. Jacobson has taken this idea and run with it to create an entire play around those less-than-famous offstage characters: Bunbury, Rosaline......

The days are getting shorter, but that's no excuse to stay at home. Have fun without emptying your pockets. Unless otherwise noted, all performances are free. SATURDAY, 9/10 Shakti Foundation presents a program of classical Indian music and dance at the Torrance Cultural Arts Center at 6pm. Call (310) 781-7171. DJs Michael Stock and Benjamin White of Part Time Punks continue their two month residency at MOCA at 6pm. Kinky takes the stage at......

Once again, July 4th is going to make history. We're all familiar with the events that led to Independence Day and our yearly paean to the founding fathers, veterans and ordinary people who made the three-day weekend possible. Most people are not aware that NASA is going to make history again when the Deep Impact probe slams into Tempel 1 to give us our first glimpse at the inside of a comet. Six years......

There's so much to do this weekend...if you can wedge one more thing into your overcrowded calendar, please consider: REMEMBER, DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME STARTS ON SUNDAY, APRIL 3RD SO SPRING YOUR CLOCK AHEAD ONE HOUR ON SAT NIGHT. 1. The Los Angeles Book Arts Center's annual Edible Book Tea Party on Saturday, April 2, 2005. Everyone who’s interested – book artists, book lovers, foodies, children – is invited to participate by cooking up a......

A few years ago, LAist went to check out a buddy's gig at a dive bar on the fringes of North Hollywood. The gig was great, but certainly the most amusing part of the evening was seeing Alison Arngrim, aka Little House on the Prairie's Nellie Oleson (she'll never live it down), who was the host for the evening, and seemed to be somewhat of a fixture at the bar. Well, the bar has since......

Musician Marcel Khalife, an artist sometimes called "the Lebanese equivalent of Bob Dylan," comes to town next week. You can catch a performance on Saturday, November 6 at 8:30 PM at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center, 1935 Manhattan Beach Blvd., Redondo Beach, CA. Khalife is internationally known for mastering the oud (the Arabic lute). He has toured the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and the United States giving solo performances as well as......