Stan's Corner Doughnut Shop

If you're ever in UCLA's Westwood Village, check out Stan's Donuts, just named one of the ten best donut shops in the USA by Maxim Magazine.

http://www.stansdoughnuts.com/

For over 40 years, Stan's Corner Doughnut Shop of Westwood, California, has baked the world's most gourmet donuts. Every customer finds something to satisfy their donut desires--from a Cinnamon Chocolate Cheese Danish, to an Apple Fritter, to a Reese's Peanut Butter Pocket with fresh banana. Stan's offers donuts you will find nowhere else in the world. You can take a look at our 75+ varieties on this site, and learn more about how Stan's has grown from a small shop frequented by locals, to a nationally-acclaimed donut heaven recognized for creating the world's finest donuts.

In 1965, Stan Berman, a third generation baker, opened his first bakery, The Corner Shoppe in the heart of Westwood Village, the home of UCLA and adjacent to Beverly Hills, Brentwood, and Bel Air.

The shop thrived as customers appreciated the delicious new varieties Stan would experiment with. With high quality ingredients and a delicious final product, Stan's Donuts became more than just popular. Generation after generation of UCLA students would munch on the delicious treats for breakfast, as an afternoon snack, or to satify their late-night munchies after a movie. These alumni keep coming back to Westwood-to visit their alma mater and to remember how delicious Stan's Donuts are.

Although he experimented with several stores in other locations, Stan eventually decided to stick with his original shop on the corner of Broxton and Weyburn. The name evolved into Stan's Donuts and as many new shops came in and went out of the Village, Stan's remained.

Now, as one of the oldest stores in Los Angeles, Stan relies on the time-honored strategy that has kept his donut shop successful for so long: high quality, fresh ingredients (in a multitude of scrumptious varieties), an amiable attitude toward his customers, and of course the pride and love that go in to baking his donuts every day.

In 2005, Stan and his son, Scott Berman, acquired Master's Donuts in Thousand Oaks, California, and will be transforming the store into a Stan's Donuts producing the same high quality product and service that Stan offers his customers in Westwood Village.

Now you can enjoy Stan's Donuts at 2 locations.

Our original store in Westwood Village, California is located at 10948 Weyburn Avenue. You can reach us by calling (310) 208-8660 or by e-mail at stan@stansdoughnuts.com.

Our newest store is located at 658 N. Moorpark Road in Thousand Oaks, California, in the new Whole Foods shopping center at the corner of Wilbur and Moorpark Road. Contact us by phone at (805) 381-1818 or by e-mail at scott@stansdoughnuts.com.

If you don't live near one of our locations, however, We ship donuts anywhere in the country overnight. Please click Order Donuts to learn more about how you can be eating Stan's gourmet donuts tomorrow!

Ode to Diddy Riese Cookies

http://www.diddyriese.com/

Diddy Riese Cookies first opened it’s doors in 1983 and has been serving high quality cookies, brownies and ice cream—at very reasonable prices—to the Los Angeles community ever since. We’re known about town for our signature custom-made ice cream sandwiches, where you can choose from ten varieties of freshly baked cookies and from twelve flavors of Dreyers premium grand ice cream.

Our mission has always been to sell high quality deserts at very affordable prices. That’s why we’re known for our ability to easily supply bigger orders of cookies and brownies quickly and affordably, ranging anywhere from one dozen to 100 dozen and beyond. Please see our catering menu for more info.

So, stop on by today and try one of our famous ice cream sandwiches, cookies or brownies. And, please think of Diddy Riese when planning your next occasion. We’d be delighted to help make your event a great success!

(Oh, in case you were wondering about the name, Diddy Riese is proudly named in honor of our beloved grandmother.)

We look forward to serving you soon.

Visit the original Diddy Riese Cookies today at our Westwood location!

Our shop is near UCLA, right in the heart of the historic Westwood Village, Bruin movie theaters, restaurants and shopping.

Westwood
926 Broxton Avenue
Westwood, CA 90024
310-208-0448

Hours

mon-thur 10am - 12am
fri 10am - 1am
sat 12noon - 1am
sun 12noon - 12am

Theaters fading to black in Westwood

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-westwood-movies1-2009aug01,0,542882.story

Theaters fading to black in Westwood
The Mann Festival is the latest to close as filmgoers continue migrating to multiplexes. Preservationists brace for the possible loss of the Mann Village and the Mann Bruin.
By Martha Groves
August 1, 2009

Moviegoers in the 1960s and '70s flocked to Westwood Village, where they had their pick of first-run films on nearly 20 screens. With parking scarce, patrons stashed their cars at the Federal Building on Wilshire Boulevard and took shuttles into the village. A-list celebrities turned out for frequent splashy openings.

The occasional premiere still brings red carpets and klieg lights, but the neighborhood near UCLA is no longer the movie hub it once was. Nearby multiplexes have lured away most of the crowds, who favor comfortable stadium seating, state-of-the-art sound systems and other modern amenities.

The closing Thursday night of the Mann Festival Theatre on Lindbrook Drive -- on top of last year's demolition of the Mann National Theatre and previous losses of the Mann Westwood 4 and Mann Plaza, among others -- is further indication that Westwood's movie culture appears in danger of fading to black.

Preservationists are also bracing for the potential loss of the village's two most architecturally distinctive theaters: the Village and Bruin, which date from the 1930s. Encino-based Mann Theatres has given notice that it intends not to renew its leases on the Broxton Avenue theaters -- one Spanish Mission style with the famed neon-lighted Fox tower, the other Art Moderne with a distinctive wraparound marquee. Both are city historic-cultural monuments.

The building owners say they are seeking new operators. Whether they will find them, given the tough economy and the challenges facing single-screen theaters, is far from certain.

"We've lost a staggering number of important theaters," said Ross Melnick, co-founder of the Cinema Treasures website. "The idea of the Village closing and being lost is nearly unfathomable."

Of all the theaters, many of them virtual museum pieces from another era, the Village, with its Fox tower, might loom the largest. Melnick described the spire as "an international signpost of Los Angeles and movies."

Katy MacQuoid, waiting in a long line near the Bruin for a fresh ice cream sandwich at Diddy Riese, had her first and last experience at the Mann Festival on Thursday night, when she and co-workers attended a private screening of "Funny People."

"In general, I prefer smaller neighborhood theaters to cineplexes, but the cineplexes are so much more convenient," conceded MacQuoid, 30, of Hermosa Beach.

Jolé Nguyen, 25, a freelance movie production assistant from Studio City, said she prefers multiplexes. "Even when I had friends at UCLA, we'd always go somewhere else that had bigger theaters, like the Grove or the iMax theaters at Universal or the Promenade," she said.

Oddly, that suggests that Westwood, envisioned as a village for students and residents, has been outdone by faux villages such as the Grove and Universal CityWalk, with their megaplexes and see-and-be-seen ambience.

Such patterns, particularly among younger theatergoers, explain why venues such as the Festival have become expendable. They also reflect the general economic malaise that has afflicted the village for years. Storefronts along Westwood Boulevard and side streets are filled with vacancy signs.

"[The Festival] was red ink on the Mann chain's books," said Marc Wanamaker, a historian who is writing a book about Westwood. "We're living right now in a catastrophe for theaters."

The Mann Festival was located in a former Ralphs grocery store -- listed on the National Register of Historic Places -- that opened in 1929 as one of the village's first six buildings. The theater had had many identities, including UA, UA Egyptian and Odeon Cinema. Opened in 1970, it featured a simplistic but comfortable auditorium -- not flashy enough for today's crowd.

Paul Colichman, a publisher and self-avowed theater geek who as a boy worked behind a movie theater candy counter, said ideally an investor would design a modern complex around the Village and Bruin, much like the Arclight Hollywood at the Cinerama Dome. At one point, he noted, Mann Theatres thought of putting a multiplex in a parking lot behind the Bruin.

Meanwhile, preservationists fret over the outlook for neighborhood theaters. Robert Bucksbaum, owner of the Majestic Crest on Westwood Boulevard, is struggling to keep the theater alive and has put it up for sale.

"It is very worrisome," Wanamaker said, "this slippery slope of one little one closing and finally people start looking at the Village and the Bruin, the holy grail ones. I don't know what the solution is."

martha.groves@latimes.com

Freyda Miller's "Fertile Dreams"

lynn@greengalactic.com
January 22, 2009
Freyda Miller's "Fertile Dreams" 2/7/09 at Art Dimensions in Westwood

Hello, Art Lovers-

Please allow me to resend to you, my client's press release that hit your In Boxes a week ago...

"Freyda Miller's "Fertile Dreams" exhibit opens at Art Dimensions in Westwood on Sat. Feb. 7th and we'd love for you to join us at the opening night reception from 5:00 - 8:00pm."

I mistakenly inserted the word "first" to describe this solo exhibit, which was highly inaccurate given Miller's very active career over the past three decades.

Besides numerous exhibits - both solo and group shows – nationally, Miller’s work is in the permanent collections of the St. Louis Museum of Art, The New Orleans Museum of Art, UCLA Library, Dept. of Special Collections, and museums in Amsterdam and Tokyo.

Her photography has also been seen on various TV shows including Will & Grace, ER, Miss/Match, Becker, nip/tuck, Hidden Hills, CSI, Three Sisters, Gilmore Girls, and more.

Hope to see you soon~

:L)

To view the full corrected press release again:

http://robalini.blogspot.com/2009/01/fertile-dreams.html

25 'Thriller' facts

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/music/la-et-web-thrillertrivia12feb12,1,4770613.story

25 'Thriller' facts
Sony BMG
By Patrick Day and Todd Martens, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
February 12, 2008

"Thriller," the biggest-selling album ever, wasn't the only Michael Jackson work released in November 1982. A few weeks before it was set to hit stores, MCA Records released an album of Jackson reading the story of "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial" and performing the original song "Someone in the Dark." The album promotion, which featured posters of Jackson and E.T. looking very friendly, angered CBS Records, which felt it was stealing the thunder from "Thriller." Lawsuits ensued. Both albums ended up winning Grammys the following year.

"Thriller's" phenomenal success led to a breaking down of traditional racial barriers on FM radio at the time. New York's WPLJ, a "white" station, played Jackson's "Beat It" because of Eddie Van Halen's appearance on it. The song caused a wave of protests from some listeners who didn't want "black" music on their station. MTV also had a reputation for favoring white performers at the time, and its heavy rotation of Jackson videos helped alleviate the criticism.

The music video of "Thriller" played in a Westwood theater for one week in 1983 to qualify for an Oscar nomination. It opened for Disney's "Fantasia," much to the dismay of unsuspecting parents.

After the success of the "Thriller" video, a Hollywood production company began serious work on turning "Billie Jean" into a feature film. (In 1985, Helen Slater starred in the teenage drama "The Legend of Billie Jean," although there is no connection.)

In 1984, the National Coalition on Television Violence classified more than half of 200 MTV videos surveyed as too violent, including the videos for Jackson's "Thriller" and "Say, Say, Say." Dr. Thomas Radecki, chairman of the coalition, was quoted as saying, "It's not hard to imagine young viewers after seeing 'Thriller' saying, 'Gee, if Michael Jackson can terrorize his girlfriend, why can't I do it too?' "

Brooke Shields was Jackson's date to the 1984 Grammys, when he won eight awards.

"Thriller" video makeup artist Rick Baker already had an Oscar on his resume. He won the award for best makeup in 1981 -- the first time the award was handed out -- for his work on "An American Werewolf in London."

Baker actually appears in the video: He's the zombie seen stumbling out of the mausoleum.

Dance choreographer Michael Peters also had a role as a zombie in "Thriller," and shared a Tony Award with Michael Bennett for his choreography work on Broadway's "Dreamgirls." Before his death in 1994, he was an advocate of adding a choreography category to the Academy Awards.

Jackson's girlfriend in the video, Ola Ray, was Playboy magazine's Miss June in 1980, telling the publication that her favorite entertainers were "Michael Jackson, Donna Summer, Ben Vereen, Emry Thomas." She also listed her turn-ons as "music, men, dancing and romancing, health and nature" and turnoffs as "waiting for something that never comes."

Just as Van Halen's guitar solo begins in "Beat It," there's a noise that sounds like someone knocking on a door. According to rock 'n' roll myth, the knock is someone walking into Van Halen's studio. Another story claims it's simply the sound of Van Halen knocking on his own guitar.

"Thriller's" opening cut, "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'," is also the longest track on the album, clocking in at over six minutes. The radio version, however, is about two minutes shorter.

The movie theater seen in the beginning of the video was also seen in director John Landis' "The Kentucky Fried Movie." The posters seen in the theater are for the movie "Schlock," also directed by Landis.

Jackson's disclaimer at the beginning of the video, in which he discounts any belief in the occult, was prompted by his status as a Jehovah's Witness at the time.

The 1988 movie "Return of the Living Dead Part II" features a zombie dressed as Michael Jackson.

Forrest J. Ackerman, creator of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, can be seen sitting behind Jackson in the theater at the beginning of the video.

The video that popularized Jackson's "Moonwalk," 1983's "Billie Jean," was directed by Steve Barron, but it may not be the clip he's best known for. That would be the live-action comic book treatment he gave to A-ha's "Take on Me."

The song "Thriller" was originally titled "Starlight."

Producer Quincy Jones wanted "Billie Jean" to be titled "Not My Lover," so people wouldn't think the song was about Billie Jean King.

During the "Thriller" era, Jackson's plastic surgery became noticeable. His face changed from the time the photo was taken for the album cover to the filming of the "Thriller" video.

Real gang members were brought it to be extras in the "Beat It" video.

Although "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' " was one of the biggest singles off "Thriller," no video was ever made for the song.

The man who wrote the song "Thriller," Rod Temperton, also wrote songs for Boyz II Men, Herbie Hancock, Karen Carpenter and Michael McDonald.

The "Thriller" album has sold more than 104 million copies.

At the height of the song's popularity, MTV would run the 14-minute "Thriller" video twice an hour.