This Week: Skipper: She-Wolf of the SS
Tues | JULY 15 An audit by LA Controller Laura Chick reveals that Los Angeles is so poorly prepared for large-scale disaster response that it may already have been destroyed, which, officials added, could have contributed to a record low-voter turnout. “I do not want the public to be [...]

Acres of Books patron Robert Easton says goodbye to heaven, nirvana, Valhalla, whatever

PHOTO by JEFF GOULD
Robert Easton is the sort of person you’d never meet anywhere but Acres of Books: actor, writer, dialect expert and voice coach to the stars (known as “the Henry Higgins of Hollywood”) and a 50-years Acres patron who knew Bertrand [...]

This Week: Feral Tenure

PHOTO by DANIEL DE BOOM

Tues | JULY 8 Mental revenge.
Wed | JULY 9 Jesse Jackson mumbles something about cutting Barack Obama’s nuts off into an open Fox News microphone, resulting in a minor scandal and an automatic offer of an auxiliary anchor position on the Fox affiliate of his choice. Jackson later [...]

PHOTO by DANIEL DE BOOM
Mark your calendars in black ink: Acres of Books–Long Beach’s oldest, most thoroughly-, intriguingly-stocked store of used literature–will begin a discount sale of its stock this Thursday.
And how long will the sale go? “‘Til we run out of stuff to sell,” says Jackie Smith, who owns the store with her husband [...]

Another year, another city budget–this one made perhaps more interesting by what they’re now calling a projected $16.9 structural deficit in the 2009 Fiscal Year.
Otherwise, this afternoon’s Long Beach City Council budget workshop in Council Chambers veered from dry (four words: “Successful Refuse Nexus Study”) to, in Vice Mayor Bonnie Lowenthal’s words, “draconian”

Take Ray Bradbury’s advice on Acres

PHOTO by DANIEL DE BOOM
I was back under the tin roof at Acres of Books that Ray Bradbury especially loves when it rains, and when I went to prowl early for Bradbury books—they don’t come through so often, but I found first-edition Bester instead—someone had Lee Hazlewood playing in that [...]

Noted science fiction author Ray Bradbury plans to visit Acres of Books tomorrow at 1 p.m., his health permitting.
It’s not for sure, cautions publisher Craig Graham,

It’s on: this morning at 10, Second District Councilwoman Suja Lowenthal and a cast of city folks will ceremonially begin the demolition of four vacant businesses near Acres of Books in the so-called Broadway Block, bounded by Third Street, Broadway, Long Beach Boulevard and Elm Avenue.

City officials weigh the look and future of a Bixby Knolls shopping center

THE PROPOSED BUILDING
Many people in Long Beach blame the Redevelopment Agency (RDA) for knocking down one stylish, historic building after another. But for a few minutes during an April 21 RDA board meeting, it seemed like the agency was in the historic preservation [...]

Long Beach author David Mark Dannov talks about writing, and reading at Acres of Books
Most writers are thankful to publish three books in a lifetime. Long Beach-based author David Mark Dannov accomplished that feat in one day, dropping three volumes of poetry via his own imprint, Black Joke Press, then reading selections at Acres of [...]