Maurice Sendak Dies: Which of His Books Is Most Popular at the Library?

Sendak's most famous book, Where the Wild Things Are, rules at Echo Park Branch Library and the Edendale Branch Library.

Maurice Sendak, the renowned illustrator and writer of children’s books, died Tuesday at the age of 83 in Danbury, CT, prompting The New York Times to eulogize how he “wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche.” Regarded as “the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century,” as the Times put it, Sendak was the creator of numerous works, no less than 15 of which are at the Echo Park Branch Library, according to Vinh Luc, one of the librarians there. Langdon Faust of the Edendale Branch Library said there are seven different Sendak-authored works there. As you'd guess, Where the Wild Things Are, Sendak’s…

• Photos (6)

Prominent Spanish-Language Journalist Dies

Jesse Linares, a City Editor at "Hoy," passed away Saturday.

Lea versión en Español Renowned Salvadoran journalist Jesse Linares died last Saturday at the Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Baldwin Park, reported Sunday La Opinión, the L.A. newspaper where Linares worked for many years. Linares studied journalism and political science at Cal State Northridge, and worked at La Opinión as a reporter and editor before leaving to join Hoy as an editor since the start of that publication eight years ago, Latino California reported. "It is with extreme sorrow and sadness that we communicate the passing of our City Editor, colleague and friend Jesse Linares", published Hoy on the home page of its website on Saturday. "Jesse was deeply esteemed and renowned in the journalistic community of Los Angeles." …

• Photos (2)

Obit: Robert Herzog, Silver Lake Historian and Activist

Herzog grew up in Silver Lake and ended his life as Co-Chair of the SLNC's History Collective.

Obit: Bruce Kalberg Published Legendary Punk 'zine

Kalberg's NO MAG was one of the few real-time records of Los Angeles's fertile punk rock period.

On Oct. 9, friends and fans gathered in the garden of Mi Alma Design on Echo Park Avenue to remember Bruce Kalberg. Kahlberg died on Sept. 17 at 62. Bruce Kalberg is best remembered for founding and overseeing the influential punk-rock fanzine NO MAG, published in Echo Park for a time. Click here to see a digitized version of an early issue of NO MAG. Organized by Kalberg's long-time girlfriend Ewa Wojciak, the event attracted luminaries from the local punk rock and cultural scene. Said Wojciak in an email: The folks that came were people whose life he changed. The people that he wrote about. The people that make up the old and new art community. People that believe in free speech and art and soul. Many of these folks got their first …

• Photos (7)

Echo Park Obit: Art Historian and Activist Shifra Goldman

Long-time Morton Avenue resident Shifra Goldman--who worked to preserve the Siqueiros mural on Olvera Street--will be remembered at the American Federation of Musicians Local 47 at 2 p.m. on Saturday.

"I was never in the mainstream, never in all my life. I was born on the margins, lived on the margins, and have always sympathized with the margins.  They make a lot more sense to me than the mainstream." --Shifra M. Goldman, September 1992   Shifra Goldman, a pioneer in the study of Latin American and Chicana/o Art, and a social art historian, died in Los Angeles on Sept. 11 from Alzheimer’s disease.  She was 85. Professor Goldman taught art history in the Los Angeles area for over 20 years. She was a prolific writer and an activist for Chicana/o and Latino Art. In Dimensions of the Americas:  Art and Social Change in Latin America and the United States, one of her award winning publications, she stated that part of her life’s work was to…

• Photos (1)

Steve Jobs Dead at 56: What Did He Mean to You?

Creativity and culture were changed forever by Apple's innovations.

This is not a hyper local story.  But is.  Creative people of all kinds just wouldn’t be quite so creative, without the existence of Apple and its computers, software and phones. So there's at least a few of us, I'm guessing, in  Echo Park and Silver Lake who've been affected by Steve Jobs. Jobs, the man who co-created Apple and took it back from hell in the early 21st century, passed away Wednesday from pancreatic cancer. Read LAist’s obit here. We all knew Jobs was sick. Stevie Wonder, when he credited Jobs recently from the Echoplex stage for making his products accessible to those with disabilities, was thinking about that too. In the few minutes after Jobs’ death was announced, Twitter has been blowing up, with tweets like this, from …

•  2 Comments
• Photos (1)

Car Wash Saturday Will Benefit Family of Echo Park Cancer Victim

Echo Park native Rebecca Zamarippa died at 39 on July 1, leaving behind three children.

What: Friends and family of Rebecca Zamarripa, a lifelong member of the Echo Park community who passed away from cancer last week, will be washing cars and raising money for Rebecca's funeral expenses as well as for her three children. Where: El Centro Del Pueblo, 1157 Lemoyne St, Los Angeles, CA 90026 When: All day Saturday, starting at 8:00 a.m. So stop by, get that dusty car washed and show your support for your Echo Park neighbors. There will also be delicious homemade baked goods for sale! Donate: If you can't make it to the car wash, there are also be donation jars in many Echo Park businesses, including Allston Yacht Club. Any checks can be made out to Ronald C. Tafoya and sent care of El Centro del Pueblo, 1157 Lemoyne St., Los …

•  2 Comments
• Photos (1)

Anthea Raymond

5:13 pm on Saturday, July 9, 2011

Wow!   more ›

Echo Park Reacts to Osama Bin Laden's Death

Locals struggled to make sense of the news as it filtered through the downtown entertainment district of Echo Park Sunday evening. .

Osama Bin Laden is dead and U.S. forces are in possession of his body, president Barack Obama said Sunday night. "Justice has been done," Obama said in a televised announcement Sunday. Normally lively on a Sunday night with diners and drinkers, patrons at Echo Park’s Taix restaurant listened quietly as Obama delivered his remarks. When he finished, most in the room applauded, though one patron loudly joked,  “I guess the war on terrorism is over now.” Jenna Corbin, a waitress at Taix, said she first learned Bin Laden was dead from a patron, who received a e-mail alert with the news. “Just because they lost their leader, doesn’t mean all their hope is lost,” said Corbin, who has a brother-in-law in the Navy.  “There could be an uprising.” “…

• Photos (2)