Spread between both the Geffen Contemporary building and the museum’s main Grand Avenue location, the exhibit is not only a comprehensive show-and-tell for Los Angeles’ cultural contributions, but also for MOCA itself.

The tour series — dubbed “Forgotten Los Angeles” — has provided curiosity-seekers with enriching exposés of neighborhoods such as Leimert Park, Boyle Heights and Eagle Rock for the last three summers.

“It’s an experiment in meaning,” Ellen Warkentine said to the crowd before a workshop performance of Act 1 of LOLPERA, her opera based on the LOLcats Internet meme. “It’s about seeking truth in places where no truth can be found.” Then — with nothing but a stripper pole for set design — a group of [...]

Since 2006, the Echo Curio Curiosity Shop and Art Gallery has hosted experimental all-ages shows in its living room-sized storefront on a popular Echo Park strip of Sunset Boulevard. But earlier this month, the privately owned community space known for its support of the freaky, demented and avant-garde side of Eastside culture was unceremoniously shut [...]

Braving potholes, uninformed drivers and all-around inhospitable city streets, Los Angeles cyclists are forced to fend for themselves. And that is exactly what they’ve done. In the last few years, Los Angeles’ urban cycling community has put its DIY ethics in action, propelling the scene forward by creating specialized group rides, opening bike shops and [...]

Living in Los Angeles has its perks come Halloween, especially on the city’s outer edges where some of the entertainment industry’s best makeup and special effects artists live amid eerily disconnected suburban sprawl. Localized haunted attractions have always been a seasonal offering in L.A.’s family-oriented neighborhoods, but the success of specialized theme parks such as [...]

Los Angeles might be well known for sun, surf and celebrities, but its literary history has a reputation for being dark, depressing and — in the case of Charles Bukowski — drunk. Like other 20th century L.A.-based writers such as John Fante, Raymond Chandler and Joan Didion, Bukowski made his career writing tales of the [...]

After serving as the epicenter of California car culture for more than half a century, it’s no wonder Los Angeles residents only take to the streets for Lakers championships and riots. Sunday, however, will hopefully change all that as a seven-and-a-half-mile stretch of Los Angeles asphalt gets closed off to cars and opened up to [...]

Northeast Los Angeles is a community-defining term unknown to many native Angelenos. South Los Angeles, East Los Angeles  and “the Westside” have all become common area identifiers, but Northeast Los Angeles remains an abyss in the minds of many locals even though it encompasses some of the oldest and most culturally flourishing parts of the [...]

The welcome signs posted at entrances to Santa Monica State Beach host a list of rules that must be observed while enjoying Los Angeles’ most beloved sandy stretch: No temporary enclosures, no percussion instruments, no audio devices after 10 p.m., no loitering under the pier. These are just a few of the many laws the [...]