famed

For its upcoming Los Angeles venue, experiential art firm Meow Wolf will focus on the art of storytelling, with a specific eye toward spoofing our city’s moviemaking magic. To help bring that vision to life, Meow Wolf has entered into a creative partnership with Titmouse, one of L.A.’s most renowned independent animation houses.

The Hollywood-based studio behind popular series such as “Big Mouth” and “Star Trek: Lower Decks” will create animation that will be shown throughout the West L.A. venue, which is on target for a late 2026 opening at the Howard Hughes entertainment complex.

It’s a move that represents a shift for Santa Fe, N.M.-based Meow Wolf. Over the last decade-plus, the art collective has grown beyond its anything-goes, punk-meets-psychedelic roots into an organization with full-scale, maximalist installations in its hometown, Denver, Las Vegas, Houston and the Dallas suburbs. In the past, Meow Wolf kept most of its media in-house.

As part of its larger-than-life participatory art installations, Meow Wolf L.A. will feature a mix of live action and animation, the former filmed by Meow Wolf in its Santa Fe studio. Meow Wolf’s James Stephenson, a senior VP with the company and its creative director of emerging media, said the degree to which the L.A. exhibition will lean into various animation styles necessitated an outside partner. Titmouse’s work, in development by a number of directors with contrasting tones, will be shown on a variety of formats, ranging from cinema screens to full-room projections.

“I really believe in animation as an art form, and I know the Titmouse folks do too,” Stephenson says. “Animation is made by artists. It’s made by artists with their own hands. It’s something that is still very rooted in craft.”

Meow Wolf’s L.A. space is set in a former cinema complex, and will champion its location, taking guests on a journey through a converted movie house and beyond, into a sci-fi-inspired fantasyland with sentient spaceships and a 30-foot-tall mushroom tower. Meow Wolf creatives have spoken of the fantastical movie theater as one that will feature animated, self-aware candy before attendees enter the main exhibition space, making Titmouse’s work some of the first art guests will encounter. Titmouse co-founder Chris Prynoski has said the studio has lined up at least six directors for the exhibit.

An in-progress art installation destined for Meow Wolf L.A. at the art collective’s Santa Fe, N.M., headquarters. The L.A. exhibition will feature animation from Titmouse.

(Gabriela Campos / For The Times)

Titmouse, says Stephenson, is the right partner because “they’re known less for a house style, and more for a house vibe.” Over the years, Titmouse has been behind such diverse shows as “Scavengers Reign,” owning a Jean Giraud influence rooted in French and Spanish surrealism, the lively “Jentry Chau vs. the Underworld,” with an unique color palette that took inspiration from anime and Chinese mythology, the exaggerated comic book feel of Adult Swim’s “Metalocalypse,” and the approachable yet expressive tone of “Star Trek: Lower Decks.”

“Meow Wolf’s vibe is similar to Titmouse’s vibe,” Stephenson says. “It’s artist-first, artist-driven, independent and kinda edgy. They are always trying to find the edge of what’s possible. They try to see how far they can go, and it’s done for fun and in the spirit of taking risks.”

Prynoski says working with Meow Wolf will give Titmouse a sense of artistic freedom it doesn’t always have when delivering content for more traditional Hollywood partners. He says the multi-director approach is a callback to the early days of Warner Bros. Animation, when individual creators put their own stamp on Looney Tunes material.

“I use Bugs Bunny as an example,” Prynoski says. “You’ve got a Friz Freleng Bugs Bunny short. You’ve got a Chuck Jones Bugs Bunny short. You’ve got a Tex Avery Bugs Bunny short. They’re all different versions of Bugs Bunny, and people who are really paying attention can tell which director directed each one. Even though to the layman, these are all Bugs Bunny, but if you lined them up, they are drawing in different styles, sensibilities and techniques.”

Prynoski says that was a centerpiece of his pitch to Meow Wolf, noting that characters will reappear in multiple installations, each handled by a different artist. Meow Wolf L.A., in fact, will be the firm’s most character-driven exhibition, as guests will follow the storylines of three main protagonists throughout the space.

In announcing the partnership, Meow Wolf and Titmouse released an image from an animated work directed by Luca Vitale. It features a key character having a moment with a hummingbird and it’s done in an elegant, slightly anime-influenced style. It’s an image full of movement, reflecting a character in transition with inviting pastels and bold dashes.

“I like that image because I think it captures some of the sense of wonder that we want people to feel,” Stephenson says. “The character is having an encounter with the elusive nature of creativity and reality in a way that makes them have a different perspective of what’s possible.”

Other contributing animation directors to Meow Wolf L.A. include Space Dawg, Felix Colgrave, Alexander Vanderplank and Philémon Martin, and Jun Ioneda.

Titmouse’s partnership with Meow Wolf will extend beyond the L.A. exhibition. The two will be working on the development of Meow Wolf New York, which is slated to open some time after Los Angeles, and are collaborating on a planned animated series, which Prynoski is spearheading.

Meow Wolf exhibits are the result of sometimes hundreds of disparate artists coming together in a shared space. Distilling that into a signature, singular style for a series could be a challenge. Stephenson pinpoints some guiding principles.

“You really need to feel the hand of the artist,” he says. “You need to feel a DIY aesthetic. You need to feel the materiality. Those are very specific to what we are.”

Even on her way out, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) — 86 and retiring — held sway.

Last month, in the final stretch of the race to replace her, Pelosi endorsed Connie Chan, a member of the San Francisco board of supervisors and a candidate who had until then struggled to gain traction. The move clearly had an effect, with Chan advancing out of Tuesday’s primary to the general election in November, according to the Associated Press.

Political observers were quick to note that Pelosi’s famed political influence was alive and well, as made clear as of Wednesday morning by Chan’s bounding past the third-place finisher, tech millionaire and Democratic political operative Saikat Chakrabarti, who self-funded his campaign to the tune of nearly $10 million.

But cast another way, the race’s early results also showed the limits of Pelosi’s influence — in the form of state Sen. Scott Wiener, who as of Wednesday morning was clearly the race’s front-runner, holding a double-digit lead over both Chan and Chakrabarti.

Wiener — an ambitious and prolific state lawmaker with a strong base in San Francisco, particularly in the liberal bastion’s LGBTQ+ community — has long eyed the seat but held off from running for years in deference to Pelosi, a trailblazing politician and one of the most powerful of her generation. She was the first woman ever elected House Speaker in 2007 and oversaw both of President Trump’s first-term impeachments.

However, that changed in late October, when Wiener, 56, announced he couldn’t wait any longer and would be running this year. His announcement came before Pelosi had announced her own plans, amid broader party backlash against gerontocracy and elderly incumbents holding on within the aging Democratic establishment, and it appeared to irk her.

In early November, shortly after California voters passed Proposition 50 to allow Democrats to redraw the state’s congressional districts to better favor Democrats — an initiative she helped spearhead — the still influential Pelosi announced she would retire.

In that announcement, Pelosi thanked San Francisco voters for giving her wide latitude to be a fearless voice in Washington. She hadn’t faced a serious election challenge since the Reagan administration. In her last race, in 2024, she won reelection with 81% of the vote.

Pelosi then waited until last month to endorse Chan as her chosen successor.

Chan, 47, who was born in Hong Kong and immigrated to San Francisco with her family at age 13, was first elected to the board of supervisors in 2020, and has been chair of its budget committee since February 2023. Before winning office, she was a Chinese interpreter and then an aide for nearly 15 years to several different Democratic politicians from the Bay Area, including then-San Francisco Dist. Atty. Kamala Harris.

Other establishment figures, such as Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, endorsed Chan as well.

Last week, Pelosi said she’d decided to weigh in and back Chan in part because, after spending years boosting women into positions of power, she’d realized there weren’t enough around anymore.

“It’s not about women being better than men; it’s that we have to have women at the table,” she told NBC News.

At her election night party, Chan told the SF Standard that Pelosi’s endorsement “absolutely changed the tide” in the race, delivering a “fatal punch” on behalf of her campaign.

But that punch, if devastating to Chakrabarti’s campaign, had clearly not knocked out Wiener — who was ready Tuesday night with a few punches of his own in a speech to his supporters.

“Tonight, San Franciscans sent a very clear message,” he said, according to shared remarks. “San Franciscans are ready for bold leadership, real results, and a new generation of leaders that isn’t afraid to take on the toughest fights facing our country.”

Wiener, who served in the San Francisco board of supervisors himself before winning election to the state Senate in 2016, said in this political moment, “we can’t afford politics that simply preserve the status quo.”

He said, “I’m not going to Washington to sit quietly, protect the status quo, or wait my turn.”

“I’m going to fight relentlessly for Medicare for all, to build millions of homes, to make public transit more expansive and reliable, for affordable clean energy, for working families, for civil rights, and for democracy itself,” he said. “I’m going to fight to protect our immigrant neighbors, LGBTQ people, reproductive freedom, and the rule of law — and to protect them from Donald Trump and MAGA extremism.”

Others, including many in the LGBTQ+ community, also cheered the strong showing from Wiener, who is gay and has long championed LGBTQ+ rights. Kelley Robinson, president of the LGBTQ+ rights organization Human Rights Campaign, said her organization was “thrilled.”

“We need more voices like Wiener in Washington. Not only would he expand the number of openly LGBTQ+ members of Congress, he has a record of impact and delivering for his constituents,” Robinson said. “We are excited to support him on to victory in November.”

With Tuesday’s primary settled, a new head-to-head race for Pelosi’s seat begins — one that, given her endorsement of Chan and Wiener’s intentional focus on pulling San Francisco in a new direction, will be an even clearer referendum on her influence.

Maj. Gen. George S. Patton, a career Army officer who served in the Korean and Vietnam wars and was the son of the legendary World War II general of the same name, has died. He was 80.

Patton suffered from a form of Parkinson’s disease and died Sunday in Hamilton, Mass., said his wife, Joanne.

In a four-decade military career, Patton twice earned the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation’s second-highest medal for bravery in combat. He also earned a Purple Heart for wounds received during one of his three tours of duty in Vietnam.

Born George Smith Patton IV in Boston, he legally changed his name by dropping the Roman numeral. Patton graduated from West Point and later earned a master’s degree in international affairs at George Washington University.

His father, also a West Point graduate, led U.S. troops in North Africa and Europe during World War II.

Father and son both commanded the Army’s 2nd Armored Division, the younger taking command at Ft. Hood, Texas, in 1975. The senior Patton commanded the 2nd Armored in North Africa during World War II. He was fatally injured in a traffic accident in Europe in 1945.

The younger Patton retired in 1980 and lived in Hamilton, northeast of Boston, where he established a farm that sold blueberries, strawberries and other produce. He named the fields after soldiers who died under his command in Vietnam.

“Although he was very proud of his father, he was also very, very sensitive to comparisons and always asked that any reference to his lineage be dropped from any reports written about him,” said his son, Robert, of Darien, Conn.

But as his father did, Patton once said he believed in reincarnation.

During a training mission in Germany, he found himself at a spot where a Napoleonic battle had been fought. He was overcome with a feeling, like the ones experienced by his father during World War II, that he had once been in combat there.

Besides his wife and son Robert, he is survived by two other sons; two daughters; six grandchildren; and a great-grandson. He will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.