Public Spectacle: Our New Name for L.A. Weekly's Arts & Culture Blog

L.A. photographers The Imps of Marge and Fletch

Named for the British '80s band, Style Council, this blog began in 2005 with a focus on fashion and eventually branched into other areas, such as theater and pop culture, including popular reports from Comic-Con and other conventions.

In the last several months, we have expanded the blog to cover a broad array of L.A.'s arts and culture scene, including visual art, architecture, design, books, poetry, comedy, film and television.

We wanted a new name to fit this new approach, but how to find one that encompasses all that? Our master list included some of the more cringe-worthy L.A. puns ever conceived (I'm looking at you, Los Blogelous). At one point we wanted to give up and call it Randy's Donuts.

But we decided on Public Spectacle, a name that we believe embodies L.A.'s particular collection of art and culture, from street art to billboards to Hollywood to Pacific Standard Time's performance art festival.

We're excited to cover more areas while keeping our reputation for bringing you offbeat people, events, trends and opinions. This week, for instance, we're featuring:

• Catherine Wagley on why art fairs make people uncomfortable, and her weekly recommendations for which art shows to see


• Alissa Walker on how Southern California's first "parklet" changes our view of public space


• Our film critic Karina Longworth's experimental coverage from Sundance


• A report on the Laugh Factory trying to draw the alt-comedy crowd from comedy expert Julie Seabaugh


• Our comprehensive theater coverage, in critic Steven Leigh Morris' Stage Raw column, including a Chekhov play set in the Mexican drug wars.


• Liz Ohanesian on cult comedy stars Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key's new Comedy Central sketch series as part of her Cult Stars column, which covers fandom, conventions and pop culture


• Our continuing coverage of Pacific Standard Time, which this week featured a plane flying into a wall

Please follow us on Twitter at @LAWeeklyArts and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/LAWeeklyArts, where we welcome your feedback, or feel free to email us at arts@laweekly.com.

Thanks for reading!