Alissa Walker

Crazy Hook

​At the center of the city, there is a 100-foot-long ocean liner dry-docked in a parking lot. It would seem out of place in many if not most L.A. neighborhoods. Except here. Landlocked Koreatown is bobbing with nautical-themed restaurants, and you can't walk the length of a plank without stumbling into a pirate reference. Which, on a recent Sunday night, arrrrrr-med with a sailor's tolerance and 10 mateys, was exactly what I aimed to do.

We focused on three ports of call within a one-mile radius: the H.M.S. Bounty, a gloriously divey institution anchored with tall ships; Crazy Hook, a zany, pirate-populated theme restaurant; and Café Jack, the giant ocean liner in the parking lot. There are others: a deli named Café Mermaid; R Bar, which is only abstractly boatlike (but has epic karaoke nights); beer den Hite Kwang-Jang, which has a big anchor and other ocean paraphernalia, plus a sign for Moby Dick beer; and, at Eighth and Western, a brand-new building that looks like a giant steamboat tugging the chicken joint Pollo a la Brasa in its wake. Why the porthole windows and coiled rope decor, 12 miles from the Pacific?

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Ice Cube in the Pacific Standard Time promotional video about the Eameses

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Today was a good day for Ice Cube -- he kicked it in the Eames House.

In a promotional video for Pacific Standard Time released yesterday, Cube discusses the work of husband-and-wife designers Charles and Ray Eames, and after touring their Pacific Palisades home and studio, calls it the work of architects who "were doing mash-ups before mash-ups even existed."

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Courtesy of Los Angeles Modern Auctions

Richard Neutra's VDL House in Silver Lake, photographed by Julius Shulman in 1966. A print of this image, and some of the furniture photographed, are up for auction this weekend. Life in sepia remains unavailable.

​In the material world, the past is never dead if you've got cash to burn.

Heads up, retro enthusiasts. This Sunday, Van Nuys-based Los Angeles Modern Auctions (LAMA) is putting up $1.4 million in quintessential California art and design on the auction block, including more than 200 of the essential domestic and decorative works of the immediate postwar era -- like angular George Nelson desks to clarify your mental clutter, Eames chairs scientifically designed to support the human frame or Natzler plant potters as old as your heirloom tomato seeds.

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L.J. Williamson

'Cause nothing says Christmas like Diet Coke.

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You know that complaints about the commercialization of Christmas are as unfashionable as figgy pudding when "Your Ad Here"-equivalent Christmas ornaments are popular store items.

Companies like Coca-Cola pay big bucks to buy advertising space on billboards and bus stops, but they've cleverly figured out that some folks will actually pay for the privilege of giving away the underutilized advertising space on their Christmas trees. To wit: the Coke and Diet Coke can Christmas ornaments pictured above. The glitter glued to the edge of the cans ensures that no one will make the mistake of lifting one of these to their mouths, and it also saves you the trouble of gluing glitter onto one of your own empty Coke cans and hanging that on the tree.

Here are seven more corporate icons to deck the halls with:

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Wendy Gilmartin

El Bordello Alexandra

​When Tony Wells and Brittany Stevenson bought the apartment at 20 Westminster Ave. in Venice ten years ago, the place was a heroin den with a slumlord owner who never fixed things. The front was covered with decaying wood shingles, grimy linoleum hid the historic tile work in the foyer and low dropped ceilings made the rooms inside feel dark and claustrophobic. "We completely gutted the place, tore off all the finishes and started over again," Brittany says. "There was a rumor it used to be a bordello, so we went in that direction."

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Star Foreman

Queens of the quinceañera

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The Teen Party Expo came to town recently, and the L.A. Convention Center morphed into what the inside of a young girl's brain must look like: Hot. Bright. Crowded. Confusing. Loud. Sort of like hell, only fluorescent pink.

Picture it, the giddy schizophrenia of a candy booth right next to an orthodontics booth. A bakery booth handing out slices of cake next to a booth hawking Ultra Body Cleanse Plus Pack weight-loss pills. The thump-thump-thump-thump-thumping of dance music. Entering the convention hall, it takes, conservatively, five seconds before your retinas are ready to explode from staring at everything glittered and bedazzled and feather boa-ed and sequined to death.

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Courtesy of the John Lautner Foundation

Lautner's Marbrisa house in Acapulco, Mexico

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Our print edition this week features a story about John Lautner, L.A.'s forgotten architectural giant, written by Lautner-obsessed Evelyn McDonnell. LACMA and the John Lautner foundation are celebrating Lautner's 100th birthday with a series of events this month.McDonnell writes:

A wizard of engineering feats, [Lautner] made concrete roofs fly and walls disappear. Homes like the Arango, a colossus of cement and glass encircled by a clear, flowing moat, and the Beyer Residence, where Malibu beach boulders spill into the living room, defy logic and convention, not to mention traditional building codes. When [Bob] Hope first viewed Lautner's model of his Palm Springs home, he quipped, "At least when they come down from Mars, they'll know where to go."

Read the full story here: John Lautner's 100th Birthday Celebration

Tibby Rothman

The Numi in action. You'll never have to lift a toilet seat by hand again.

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Looking for a $6000 toilet? Don't worry, peeps, Kohler has you covered. And if you cased the Dwell on Design show at the Los Angeles Convention Center over the weekend, you would have seen one -- well five of them -- neatly ensconced and beautifully lit in Kohler's booth, an elegantly modern trailer deposited near the back of the West Hall's large space.

Sure, the toilet (sit tight: more details after the jump) wasn't the only conspicuous consumption item at the show -- it was just the most obvious. A ton of outlets hawk lavish items affordable only to Wall Street and Hollywood's greatest plunderers simply to stay solvent.

Not that this deterred us from attending (or writing about it), of course. Here's our top picks and niks from our cruise through the show. If you attended and have a fave, share your own prop in the comment section.

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Redfin

​When we heard Christian Audigier's Hancock Park house was back on the market, our first thought was, Gross. But our second thought was, Oh cool, that means there's pictures.

The listing's 16 photos offer a unique perspective on what the man behind Ed Hardy looks at behind closed doors. Let's take a look at five of the most egregious design choices, shall we?

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At home with the Demon Skin Rug. Sitting on top of a snake cage.

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Remember that Demon Skin Rug (by artist Melita Curphy, a.k.a. Miss Monster)? The one that made the Internet rounds a while back? The freaky rug turned one year old this year.

Style Council: So, where is the Demon Skin Rug now?

Melita Curphy: The rug lives on a huge four foot tall wood and glass snake cage that houses my six foot boa constrictor. The cage has a Victorian curiosity cabinet feel. The rug looks great draped over the top.

SC: If someone falls asleep on the Demon Skin Rug, do they get possessed by the demon?

Curphy: Yes, it's horrible! They tear up my house and drink all the whiskey and I have to call an exorcist. It's so annoying.

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