Evan J. Lancaster

In their latest piece for Irvine Weekly, staff writer Evan J. Lancaster reports that $2.8 million in state funding has been set aside for the development of a universal playground at Sweet Shade Neighborhood Park. Presented to the City of Irvine by Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris at a Tuesday, October 25, 2022 meeting, the funds will allow for the first park of its kind to be available in Irvine. According to Lancaster’s report, Sweet Shade Neighborhood Park will be designed with multigenerational play components, along with adaptive access activities to support individuals with disabilities. The playground will also feature a sensory garden, an adaptive swing and will be wheelchair accessible.    

“Ensuring Irvine is an inclusive city that offers all residents access to equitable services and opportunities is a top priority for me and the City Council,” Irvine Mayor Farrah Khan said. “The universal playground will be the first of its kind in Irvine and will support our existing efforts to provide services for individuals with sensory, physical, or cognitive disabilities, and their family members. I am grateful for the support from Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris for this partnership in providing this remarkable resource.”

Read more on Irvine Weekly here. 

In their latest piece for Irvine Weekly, staff writer Evan J. Lancaster reports that hate-related crimes are increasing in Orange County, CA. The Irvine Police Department recently contributed data to the Orange County Human Relations Commission’s 2021 Hate Crimes Report that shows 398 hate-motivated instances reported in 2021.This is a significant increase from the year prior, estimated to be a 5% growth in reporting. 

“This year, the Irvine Police Department has documented a combined total of 22 reported hate crimes and hate incidents,” writes Lancaster. “While the year is still a few months from being over, hate-motivated incidents have sharply decreased from 12 months prior. In 2021, the city of Irvine reported a total of 91 hate-motivated instances.”

Read more on Irvine Weekly here. 

In their latest piece for Irvine Weekly, staff writer Evan J. Lancaster reports that Irvine’s Great Park Community Facilities District (Great Park CFD) and Heritage Fields are set to receive $1.2 billion in funding through 2030. The funding – to be split between the two entities – was approved to move forward at a meeting with the Great Park Board of Directors and Irvine City Council, during a vote on Tuesday, October 11, 2022. The funds will go towards park framework that was also just recently approved this past July, with amenities including a $130 million amphitheater and a 75-acre botanical garden.

“In a 4-1 vote, Irvine leaders opted to break away from the current agreement with FivePoint Holdings, the area’s most prominent developer, which has limited the city’s control over the park’s development for years,” writes Lancaster. “Now, in an effort to gain the necessary funding and developmental control over the Great Park,  the city will reconfigure an existing agreement with Heritage Fields, a 4,700-acre master-planned community built on reused portions of the MASC El Toro, inside the Great Park.”

Read more on Irvine Weekly here.

 

In their latest piece for the Village Voice, writer Elizabeth Zimmer reviews NYC theater scene newcomer: What Kind Of Women. A play by Abbe Tanenbaum, it has been at the top of Zimmer’s must-see list for what she describes as two reasons: “It represented itself as concerned with the subject of abortion as confronted by women before Roe v. Wade, an issue very close to my heart as I was one of them, and it was being performed in a tiny townhouse theater, on West 23rd Street, that I can see from my bedroom window.” The show, directed by Kira Simring, is set in 2013 and features Anne, a young personal organizer and actress, and Nora, a senior citizen who hires Anne to straighten up her tiny Chelsea apartment.

“In development since 2016, Tanenbaum’s carefully crafted play has been workshopped in Ireland, Iceland, and several American cities, as well as in the digital universe,” writes Zimmer. “The 20 heart-rending letters that inspired it, sent to a New York City nonprofit health clinic more than 50 years ago by desperate girls and women from across the country, are on display in the Cell’s upstairs gallery, but in the production itself they are, wisely, merely prompts for an important conversation, made more crucial by last June’s Supreme Court decision upending Roe v. Wade. The letters are projected onto the walls above and alongside the tiny stage, but the action on the floor focuses entirely, and with great success, on the friendship of the two women that grows during the purging process. Subtle, alert, and psychologically astute, What Kind of Woman explores how people, and their minds, grow and change.”

Read more on the Village Voice here. 

In their latest piece for the Village Voice, writer R.C. Baker reports on the upcoming November 2022 elections. As part of an ongoing Voice series – At 250, Who Will America Be? – Baker has been studiously shedding light on threats to American democracy as we approach the nation’s Semiquincentennial, on July 4, 2026.

“As we detailed in a previous article in this series on American democracy, almost the entire Grand Old Party is going all-in on Trump’s election lies, either by touting them as red-meat campaign planks or—in some ways, even worse—by remaining silent as citizens’ faith in the integrity of U.S. elections is eroded,” writes Baker. “So, two weeks out from the Midterm elections, what is there for a patriotic American—who simply wants every eligible voter to have their vote counted—to do? Easy. Take that money you were planning to turn into chips at a Vegas poker tournament or lay down with an electronic bookie and instead send it to organizations and candidates supporting voting rights and small ‘d’ democracy. If your funds are low, many of them will be happy to have a donation of your time.”

Read more on the Village Voice here.

The Village Voice honors Peter Schjeldahl, a former Voice critic who recently passed away. In addition to publishing one of their favorite pieces of his, the current editor for the paper memorializes him fondly.

Village Voice Editor’s note: Though I was a big fan, I never met Peter Schjehldahl in person. We only crossed paths on the pages of the Voice, in the 1990s, with him writing the lead, full-page art review most weeks while I was turning out the occasional Jockbeat article. Some years ago, though, after he’d been the New Yorker’s art critic for decades, we connected through our mutual admiration for, and writings about, the photographer Mark Morrisroe, who died of AIDS in 1989.

Then, in 2018, Schjeldahl wrote an essay about one of the Voice’s periodic deaths, and I pointed out to him that the New Yorker’s vaunted fact-checkers had made an error about the location of the Voice’s offices. His reply, characteristically witty and channeling a bit of William Blake, instantly went into my wish-I’d-written-that folder: “The NYer checkers are as superhumanly anal as ever—on the print side, as very much opposed to the crazy berserk online mill.”

Read more on the Village Voice here.

In their latest piece for LA Weekly, arts editor Shana Nys Dambrot writes about the prolific artist Gary Baseman. A Halloween hero without having to say as much, Baseman is known for his artwork depicting ghosts, witches, black cats, ghoulies, ghost girls, fantasy beings, masked and costumed characters, and folk spirits. He is best known, however, for his muse Blackie the Cat and the art from which the feline derived.

“Nine Lives at Beijing’s Wrong Gallery is a multimedia exhibition and installation gathering the adventures and existential lessons of Blackie the Cat, whose long and regal lives were a profound inspiration not only for Baseman but to thousands of fans and followers around the globe,” writes Dambrot. “Nine Lives explores how former stray Blackie the Cat reinvented himself over and over during his 18 years of life, transforming himself into the guide of pop culture icons, spiritual leaders, family and friends, a movie star in his own right, and Baseman’s own alter ego.”

Read more on LA Weekly here.

The Nine Lives of Gary Baseman

In their latest piece for LA Weekly, music editor Brett Callwood reports on an upcoming event on Thursday, Nov. 2, at the Intercrew restaurant in Los Angeles in conjunction with the Pacific Bridge Arts Foundation. Called “A Night to Remember: A Celebration of Asian Americans in Music,” this private event will honor students set to receive the night’s scholarships, as well as Asian American artists on the whole.

“Kevin Nishimura is a cofounder of the Pacific Bridge Arts Foundation, which provides ‘a platform to support and celebrate Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders in arts and culture’ (according to their website). He’s also a member of the pioneering electronic/hip-hop outfit, the Far East Movement,” explains Callwood. “That group no longer performs, having switched to the business side of the industry, but they’ll be hosting this event.”

Read more on LA Weekly here.

Bridging the Gap– Pacific Bridge Arts Looks to Offer Asian Musicians a Leg Up

In their latest piece for LA Weekly, food editor Michele Stueven reviews Avant Garden Bistro, a restaurant dedicated solely to products that come out of the ground: plants. While this plant-based eatery has only been open a few months, Stueven asserts that it already feels like a West Hollywood mainstay. Particularly pleasing is the establishment’s outdoor garden, a romantic and whimsical setting that takes dining to a delightful level.

“The outdoor garden resembles a romantic enchanted forest  and was designed by Andrew Nowling, a 25-year veteran of exterior set design for film and television including Euphoria, Carnival, Ballers and The Family Man,” describes Stueven. “Indoors, the moody and plush dining room was designed by DeRossi, who is also the co-founder of the Death & Co. bar brand.”

Read more on LA Weekly here.

Avant Garden Bistro Is The Place To Eat, Drink And Start A Revolution

 

In their latest piece for LA Weekly, writer Chad Byrnes reviews Ticket To Paradise, the new film starring Julia Roberts and George Clooney. Despite it’s A-List star power, actor/producer/director Clooney and Oscar winner Roberts, Byrnes writes that the plot is “borderline absurd.” The film may be intended as a comedy, but does it leave viewers laughing?

“Director Ol Parker clearly delineated the outline of this simple story; he just forgot to color in between the lines. The best decision the filmmakers made was casting Clooney and Roberts, megastars who ruled the romcom roost back in the day,” asserts Byrnes. “Known for imbuing their characters with fierce intelligence and sublime sexuality, Clooney and Roberts still have that sparkly glint in their grins. If only this movie featured more grinning and less grumbling.”

Read more on LA Weekly here.

Ticket to Paradise Takes a Flight to Nowhere