Interesting interview with Menotti Go next weekend to UCLA to see the Medium, an opera by Gian Carlo Menotti, who sadly passed away last year. Seating is extremely limited, but you guys are in for a treat because its playing four days in a row, it’s FREE, and it’s in English. You can also join us in our dubious distinction as the oddest group of people ever (see the comments). The opera is structured......

2008 marks the 100 year anniversary of the birth of French composer Olivier Messiaen, best known for his masterpiece Quatuor por la fin du temps ("Quartet for the end of time"). Piano Spheres is commemorating his birth with a concert at Zipper Hall this Tuesday featuring pianists Mark Robson and Joanne Pearce Martin. The program begins with Maurice Ravel's "Gaspard de la Nuit" (which includes the fiendishly difficult Scarbo) followed by short pieces by Satie......

Best line of the day: "If L.A. Unified can't figure out the math on employee paychecks, can it be trusted to teach more than 700,000 students?" It's been 231 days since the whole fiasco began at the LAUSD. Teachers aren't being paid while dead people are being issues paychecks. Autumn officially begins on Sundaysays the Griffith Observatory's Sky Report, which also states Mercury, Jupiter, Mars and Venus can all be seen in the sky......